Hexcel Corporation reported its fourth-quarter 2024 earnings, showcasing a strong performance with an adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $0.52, surpassing the forecasted $0.50. The company's revenue, however, came in slightly below expectations at $473.8 million compared to the anticipated $481.2 million. Despite the revenue miss, Hexcel's stock saw a positive reaction, rising by 0.5% in after-hours trading.
Key Takeaways
- Hexcel's Q4 adjusted EPS of $0.52 exceeded expectations.
- Revenue slightly missed forecasts at $473.8 million.
- Stock price increased by 0.5% after earnings release.
- Strong growth in commercial aerospace, representing 59% of sales.
- 2025 guidance anticipates further revenue and EPS growth.
Company Performance
Hexcel's Q4 performance highlights a 4% year-over-year increase in sales, reaching $474 million. The company's focus on advanced composite materials for aerospace and defense sectors continues to drive its growth. Despite production levels being only 68% of 2018 levels, Hexcel benefits from strong demand in commercial aerospace and defense markets.
Financial Highlights
- Revenue: $474 million, up 4% year-over-year
- Adjusted EPS: $0.52, up 21% from Q4 2023
- Gross margin: 25%, an improvement from 22.5% in the prior year
- Free cash flow: $203 million for the full year 2024
Earnings vs. Forecast
Hexcel's adjusted EPS of $0.52 beat the forecast of $0.50, marking a 4% positive surprise. The revenue fell short of expectations by approximately 1.5%, coming in at $473.8 million against the forecasted $481.2 million. This EPS beat represents a continuation of the company's positive earnings trend, with a significant 21% increase from the previous year.
Market Reaction
Following the earnings announcement, Hexcel's stock price rose by 0.5%, closing at $68.81. This movement reflects investor confidence in the company's performance and future outlook. The stock remains comfortably between its 52-week high of $77.09 and low of $57.50, suggesting stability and growth potential.
Outlook & Guidance
For 2025, Hexcel projects sales between $1.95 billion and $2.05 billion, with adjusted EPS guidance of $2.05 to $2.25. The company expects continued growth in commercial aerospace sales and improved supply chain stability. Free cash flow is anticipated to exceed $220 million, reflecting strong operational efficiency.
Executive Commentary
CEO Tom Gentile expressed confidence in Hexcel's long-term growth, stating, "As Hexcel enters 2025, I am confident in our long-term growth and the value we will provide to our customers and shareholders." He emphasized the importance of operating leverage and build rates in driving revenue, highlighting the company's preparedness to meet customer demands across all programs in 2025.
Q&A
During the earnings call, analysts inquired about Hexcel's conservative build rate assumptions, currency hedging strategies, and margin recovery expectations. The management detailed plans for potential mergers and acquisitions in advanced materials, indicating strategic growth initiatives.
Risks and Challenges
- Supply chain disruptions could impact production and delivery schedules.
- Inflationary pressures may affect input costs and margins.
- Dependence on aerospace and defense sectors exposes Hexcel to industry-specific risks.
- Currency fluctuations could impact financial performance.
- Geopolitical tensions may affect global market conditions and demand.
Full transcript - Hexcel Corp (NYSE:HXL) Q4 2024:
Conference Operator: Hello, and welcome to the HEXO (NASDAQ:HEXO) 4th Quarter and Full Year 2024 Earnings Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session. I would now like to turn the conference over to Patrick Winterlich, Chief Financial Officer. You may begin.
Patrick Winterlich, Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation: Thanks, Sarah. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Hexcel Corporation's 4th quarter and full year 2020 4 earnings conference call. Before beginning, let me cover the formalities. I want to remind everyone about the Safe Harbor provisions related to any forward looking statements we may make during the course of this call.
Certain statements contained in this call may constitute forward looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. They involve estimates, assumptions, judgments and uncertainties caused by a variety of factors that could cause future actual results or outcomes to differ materially from our forward looking statements today. Such factors are detailed in the company's SEC filings and earnings release. A replay of this call will be available on the Investor Relations page of our website. Lastly, this call is being recorded by Hexcel Corporation and is copyrighted material.
It cannot be recorded or rebroadcast without our expressed permission. Your participation on this call constitutes your consent to that request. With me today are Tom Gentile, our Chairman, CEO and President and Kirk Goddard, our Vice President of Investor Relations. The purpose of the call is to review our Q4 and full year 2024 results detailed in our news release issued yesterday. Now let me turn the call over to Tom.
Tom Gentile, Chairman, CEO and President, Hexcel Corporation: Thanks, Patrick. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today as we share our 2024 Q4 and full year results. XL is a company well positioned for growth with a very talented team, a world leading portfolio of products and a strong operational and safety focus. I am confident in this team's ability to deliver on current commitments and drive advanced composite material innovation for a future with lighter, more sustainable aircraft and capture new growth opportunities. Our 2024 Q4 and full year results underscore the robust operational performance Hexcel has demonstrated throughout what was another challenging year for the aerospace industry.
2024 was again a year of disruption for the commercial aviation industry as supply chain and labor challenges persisted for the OEMs and suppliers. While OEM production rates are increasing, recent history has clearly shown that ramping up aircraft build rates continues to be a challenging process. Indeed, production levels in 2024 were only 68% of 2018 levels. On the other hand, demand for air travel now exceeds pre pandemic levels and aircraft backlogs at both Boeing (NYSE:BA) and Airbus are near record levels. The underlying demand for HEXO Advanced Composite Materials remains very strong.
Despite all the disruptions in 2024, we
Patrick Winterlich, Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation: had a solid close to
Tom Gentile, Chairman, CEO and President, Hexcel Corporation: the year and generally met or marginally exceeded all of our Final Garden's guidance targets, with sales of $1,930,000,000 a 6.4% increase over 2023, adjusted EPS of $2.03 and free cash flow of $203,000,000 Hexcel's 4th quarter sales were $474,000,000 a 4% increase year over year in constant currency. Solid performance in Commercial Aerospace and Space and Defense drove higher sales volumes, partially offset by weaker industrial sales. Adjusted EPS for the quarter was $0.52 a nearly 21% increase over Q4 2023. Commercial Aerospace sales in the Q4 of 2024 increased 4.6% year over year on a constant currency basis, and full year sales increased 11.9%. 2024 sales growth was consistent with our guidance.
787, A350 and A320neo all increased in 2024, whereas the 7 37 MAX decreased as Boeing worked through a number of issues. The other commercial aerospace category increased 6.7% on strength in regional jets. 4th quarter space and defense sales increased 7.6% and the full year increased 4.6%, consistent with our 2024 guidance. For the year, F-thirty five, CH-fifty three ks and classified programs drove the growth. The V-twenty two was the top 5 program in 2023, but as the program winds down, B22 sales has not even reached the top 10 in 2024 for HEXO, declining as we expected.
The industrial market remains a challenge. In the Q4, industrial sales decreased 14.8% and weakness in all of the submarkets except for recreation. For the year, industrial sales decreased 21.1%. Given the soft industrial performance, during 2024, we announced that we will be divesting our Neumark, Austria site, which is focused on wind and industrial applications for glass fiber. Going forward, we will still pursue industrial business opportunities, but we'll focus more on niche value add applications, which use our existing aerospace production plant and equipment.
Connected to the Neumark divestiture, we have taken onetime noncash charges in this quarter's results, which Patrick will describe in more detail shortly. As we continue to review our operations and optimize our footprint, we also recently signed a deal to divest our Hartford, Connecticut 3 d printing business. Industry adoption of 3 d printing has been slower than we anticipated, and there are better operators for this business. We expect the deal will close in Q1 twenty twenty five. We also announced that we have formally initiated a project to review our Welkinrat Belgium plant, which supplies engineered core.
This review is expected to be concluded sometime in the first half of twenty twenty five. Patrick will provide more details on all of our finances in a few minutes. Looking out over the next decade, we see 3 broad phases that will define Hexcel's growth. The near term focus is to drive growth by executing and delivering on existing programs and our current contracts and supporting our customers as they increase production rates. Hexcel has the capacity to support the OEM announced peak rates even as some of these peak rates exceed pre pandemic levels.
We expect to generate strong free cash flow during this period as we grow into our existing capacity and capital expenditure remains at a lower level. I am confident in our team's ability to execute on this ramp up. Since I joined Hexcel, I visited about 3 quarters of the company's sites, meeting with hundreds of Hexcel colleagues. The Hexcel workforce is continuing to drive efficiency and quality, positioning our factories for the future and continually prioritizing worker safety. With the capital in place and the strong team recruited and trained, we are ready to meet whatever production schedules our OEM customers adopt across all the programs we support.
In the medium term, we see opportunities to drive both organic and inorganic growth. For example, our Space and Defense business is well positioned to grow given textile's unique position as the only vertically integrated U. S. Domestic corporation providing advanced lightweight composite materials. Composite technology is critical in current and future military programs, and we look forward to engaging defense clients more directly as well as pursuing R and T funding opportunities with U.
S. Government research labs to support HEXO's value proposition. We have additional organic growth potential across regional and business jets, emerging eVTOL market and with new aircraft that will soon enter production such as the Boeing 777X and the Falcon NX from Dassault. As we consider future capital allocation from our growing cash generation, we will be stepping up our disciplined evaluation of potential M and A opportunities that leverage our advanced material science expertise and meet our return threshold. Our core expertise revolves around carbon fiber and resin systems, Honeycomb and then the engineering of Honeycomb into highly advanced shaped and difficult to engineer specialty aircraft parts.
These advanced materials, along with other adjacent material science technologies, are the type of inorganic growth that we will be evaluating. Longer term growth for Hexcel will come from the launch of next generation commercial and defense aircraft as well as the development of new propulsion systems. The decisions on identifying what material systems these platforms will utilize are taking place right now and will continue over the next several years with the airframe and engine OEM, even though entry into service will likely be after 2,030. Our current innovation efforts are focused on developing materials for these future platforms. Just as important, our innovation is focused on how we can continue to refine the production process for carbon fiber composites to support the high rate production requirements of next generation aircraft, including the next single aisle.
These production techniques will include improvements in layup rates, period time and nondestructive inspection. We're also driving what we call our future factory initiatives, which will be a constant throughout these three phases of growth. Near term, the focus of Future Factory is on continuing to drive efficiencies with our operational excellence initiative. Longer term, it will involve more creative approaches to revolutionize production and lower manufacturing costs by rethinking production processes and machinery, leveraging AI and selectively adding further automation to repetitive tasks. Looking forward, we issued 2025 guidance in our earnings release issued last night.
We are forecasting 2025 sales between $1,950,000,000 $2,050,000,000 adjusted earnings per share between $2.05 $2.25 and free cash flow greater than $220,000,000 When we provide guidance, our objective is to provide realistic estimates that align with our understanding of the market. Remember that we provide chipset information for all of our top programs, which enables anyone interested to undertake their own sensitivity analysis of our guidance based on their own assumption of OEM build rate. Because of the continued start, stop, start production environment, uncertainty remains in relation to the outlook for our 2025 performance. Sales growth may be impacted by potential delays to the recovery in production rates. As we enter 2025, our operations headcount is marginally elevated since production was softer in Q4 than expected.
However, we expect to grow into that headcount during the first half of the year in 2025. Our R and T spend will also be elevated in 2025 as we work on developing and qualifying new materials for next generation aircraft and propulsion programs. These cost headwinds will dampen margins to some extent until we achieve further sales recovery to drive the considerable operating leverage opportunity that is in front of us. Since I started in this role in May, I continue to be impressed by the team here at Hexcel. As compelling as our technology is, it is our people who truly make a difference for Hexcel and for our customers.
Although the industry faces another challenging year in 2025, Hexcel is positioned for growth and cash generation as we leverage our exceptional team, our intellectual property and our operational capabilities. Now let me turn it over to Patrick to provide more details on the numbers. Patrick? Thank you, Tom. As a
Patrick Winterlich, Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation: reminder, regarding foreign exchange exposure, Hexcel benefits from a strong dollar. We continue to hedge foreign exchange exposure over a 10 quarter time horizon. The year over year sales comparisons I will provide are in constant currency, which thereby removes the foreign exchange impact of sales. The commercial aerospace market represented approximately 59% of total 4th quarter sales of $473,800,000 4th quarter commercial aerospace sales of $278,300,000 increased 4.6% compared to the Q4 of 2023. Various industry issues, including OEM supply chain challenges and labor strikes at customers, muted Hexcel sales growth.
The Boeing 787 and Airbus A320neo grew modestly year over year, while Boeing 737 MAX sales were down, with 4th quarter sales being primarily for the LEAP-1B and nacelles. Sales for other commercial aerospace in the 4th quarter increased 9.5% year over year led by regional jets. To share some further perspective on our commercial aerospace business for the full year, wide body sales comprised just under 40% of 2024 Commercial Aerospace sales. Narrow body sales were just over 30% and legacy Commercial Aircraft were 10%. And finally, other Commercial Aerospace, including business and regional aircraft, was 20%.
Business jet comprised the largest submarket within this category. While business jet sales are higher than pre pandemic levels, 2024 business jet sales were flat compared to 2023. Base and Defense represented approximately 34% of 4th quarter sales and totaled $163,300,000 increasing 7.6% from the same period in 2023. In the Q4 of 2024, growth was led by the F-thirty five and CH-fifty three ks. For fiscal year 2024, approximately 35% Space and Defense sales were outside of the U.
S. This included customers in a number of Western European countries as well as sales to customers in other Western aligned markets, including Brazil, India, South Korea and Turkey. Industrial comprised any 7% of Q4 2024 sales and totaled $32,200,000 decreasing 14.8% compared to the Q4 of 2023. We experienced softness across all the submarkets except for recreation. For the full year, industrial sales were down 21.1%, declining more than forecasted.
Higher financing costs and growing competition from Chinese automakers negatively impacted the performance automotive category of industrial to a much greater degree than we had expected, particularly the Western European Auto Companies. Wind continued its multiyear decline, decreasing 37% year over year, whereas we were forecasting flattish off an already low base. Other submarkets also decreased. Gross margin of 25% in the Q4 of 2024 favorably compared to the prior year period gross margin of 22.5% as higher sales drove operating leverage combined with strong operational execution. As a percentage of sales, selling, general and administrative expenses and R and D expenses were 13% in the Q4 of 2024 compared to 11.8% in the comparable prior year period.
Higher R and T expenses to support innovation for future programs partially account for the increase. Other operating expenses in the Q4 of 2024 consisted of noncash impairment and restructuring charges, primarily related to the pending divestment of the Neumark Austria glass fiber pre preg industrial operations as previously disclosed. Adjusted operating income in the 4th quarter was $57,100,000 or 12.1 percent of sales compared to $49,100,000 or 10.7 percent of sales in the comparable prior year period. The year over year impact of exchange rates in the Q4 to operating income was favorable by approximately 16 basis points. Now turning to our 2 segments.
The Composite Materials segment represented 79% of total 4th quarter sales and adjusting for non recurring charges generated an adjusted operating margin of 15.3 percent. This compares to an adjusted operating margin of 14.7 percent in the prior year period. The Engineered Products segment, which is comprised of our Structured and Engineered Core businesses, represented 21% of total sales and generated an adjusted operating margin of 10.7%. This compares to an adjusted operating margin of 9.6% in the prior year period. Net cash provided by operating activities in 2020 4 was $289,900,000 compared to $257,100,000 in 2023.
Working capital was a cash use of $800,000 in 2024 compared to a use of $27,400,000 in 2023. Capital expenditures on an accrual basis were $81,100,000 in 2024 compared to $121,600,000 in the comparable prior year period. Recall that in 2023, we purchased the land and building for our Amesbury Massachusetts operation for approximately $38,000,000 Free cash flow in 2024 was $202,900,000 which compares to $148,900,000 in 2023. Increased volume, robust working capital management and tightly managed capital expenditures supported the higher level of cash generation. Adjusted EBITDA totaled $382,300,000 in 2024 compared to $362,400,000 in 2023.
We operate long lived assets, which explains why our depreciation expense has been well above our capital expenditures for a number of years. We did not repurchase any stock during the Q4. In total, for fiscal year 2024, we used $252,200,000 to repurchase stock. The remaining authorization under the share repurchase program as of December 31, 2024, was $234,900,000 The Board of Directors declared a $0.17 quarterly dividend yesterday, which is an increase of $0.02 or 13 percent from the prior level. The dividend is payable to stockholders of record as of February 7 with a payment date of February 14.
Expanding on Tom's comments regarding our 2025 sales and adjusted EPS guidance, we are forecasting 5% sales growth at the midpoint and 6% adjusted EPS growth at the midpoint. XL has the operational capacity to support much higher demand from our customers. So considering the various current industry supply chain issues and rate ramp challenges faced by our customers, we are forecasting somewhat muted sales growth in 2025. Note also that our guidance excludes approximately $40,000,000 of annual sales from the Neumark Austria facility, which we are planning to divest. In terms of our markets, we expect 2025 Commercial Aerospace sales to increase high single digits.
As a result of the planned sale of industrial focused Austria facility, we will change our reporting by market. Beginning with the Q1 of 2025, we will report results for commercial aerospace and a second market titled defense, space and other. This market will include the remaining industrial business, which will consist primarily of performance orientated automotive sales. In 2025, we are expecting this Defense Space and other markets to be flattish as low single digit defense and space growth is expected to be offset by continued softness in Industrial. Tom pointed out some pressure on our margins, including growing into our existing head count and higher R and D costs as we continue to develop and innovate materials for the next generation of aircraft and propulsion platforms.
Additionally, we are focused on productivity and driving operational efficiency to offset recent inflationary pressures, including labor inflation. Top line growth and higher capacity utilization will ultimately be critical to driving improved overhead leverage and stronger margin performance. As Tom referenced last quarter, we are upgrading our ERP system. As this new ERP system will be powered based, accounting rules require it to be expensed rather than capitalized, facing some further short term pressure on margins. Rounding out the guidance discussion, we expect a tax rate of 21%.
Tom Gentile, Chairman, CEO and President, Hexcel Corporation: Interest
Patrick Winterlich, Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation: expense will likely increase as during the year we expect to refinance our 4.7% note, which is due in August 2025 and rates are expected to be higher for the new bond. We forecast capital expenditures to remain subdued as we grow Brac into existing capacity. So for 2025 and likely for the next 2 or 3 years, accrued capital expenditures are forecast to be below $100,000,000 This level of capital expenditure should support a cash strong cash conversion ratio of 100% or higher
Ken Herbert, Analyst, RBC Capital Markets: for a
Patrick Winterlich, Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation: period of time. With that, let me turn the call back to Tom.
Tom Gentile, Chairman, CEO and President, Hexcel Corporation: Thanks, Patrick. As Hexcel enters 2025, I am confident in our long term growth and the value we will provide to our customers and shareholders. Hexcel's lightweight material technology is vital for the design and production of modern aircraft that are lighter and structurally stronger, have greater range, consume less fuel and emit less carbon dioxide. I am proud to be part of this exceptional team. With that, we're ready to take some questions.
Thank
Conference Operator: you. Your first question comes from the line of Ken Herbert with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.
Ken Herbert, Analyst, RBC Capital Markets: Yes. Hi, good morning, Tom and Patrick and Kurt.
Tom Gentile, Chairman, CEO and President, Hexcel Corporation: Good morning, Ken.
Ken Herbert, Analyst, RBC Capital Markets: Hey, maybe Tom or Patrick, as you think about the commercial aerospace guide for this year up high single digits to 10%, can you talk about maybe some of the moving pieces there and maybe explicitly where you are today on some of the higher volume or higher revenue programs like the A350 and to what extent we should expect acceleration on that program in 2025 or what's embedded in the guide?
Tom Gentile, Chairman, CEO and President, Hexcel Corporation: Right. Well, Ken, let me take that and just walk through some of the different programs and give you a sense of what we use as the underlying assumptions for production rates for our 2025 guide. So starting with Boeing, on the 737, we were pulling at mid-30s in terms of aircraft per month for really Q1 last year. And in Q2, it dropped into the kind of 30 range. And then in Q4, we were still pulling a 23 in that range.
For the 25 outlook, we built in low 30s as an average ATM aircraft per month for the full year. And the reason for that is, Boeing has said publicly they want to get back up to 38. They've got some aircraft that they're going to deliver that are out of inventory, so the production rates may be lower. We are taking into account there could be some destocking with all the inventory that's in the system. But we feel like a low-30s number as an average is a good number for us.
If it's higher, we certainly have the capacity in place, we've got the people in place and we can meet the demand. But that's what we built. We took a fairly conservative number in terms of building our plan for 2025 on the 37. On the 87, we were pulling at about 7 aircraft per month for the whole year, including Q4. And so we expect 2025 to be at about that same level, delivering somewhere in the mid-80s, in terms of total number of units.
And if it again, if it goes higher, we can support higher rates. But that's where we are for 2025 is kind of in the 6% to 7% range in mid-80s with the ability to flex. And on the 777, we're expecting 3 to 4 aircraft per month for 25. Shifting to Airbus. On the 320, we were pulling at mid-50s for most of last year and right about 50 in Q4.
So it did drop a little bit in Q4. Airbus delivered 602 units last year, which was an increase. And for 2025, we're really expecting probably low-60s in terms of aircraft per month, so kind of low 700 units in terms of total deliveries. On the 350, we're obviously, we have a very big ship set value, kind of $4,500,000 to $5,000,000 per ship set. We were pulling at $6,500,000 to $7,000,000 for Q1 to Q3.
Q4 was a little bit less. But if we look at the outlook for 25, again, we're thinking 6 to 7 and mid-80s in terms of total units, that range. And then on the 220, where we also have content in the 200,000 to 500,000 range, We were pulling it kind of 9 for most of the year. It dropped a little bit in Q4. And the outlook for 2025 is we expect to be pulling it about 10 to 11 units per month.
So that's how we built our plan with those underlying assumptions. A bit conservative, but we have the ability to flex if the rates are higher because we have the capital in place, we have people in place that are trained. And so as I mentioned in my remarks and Patrick reiterated, we are fully prepared to deliver whatever our customers require from us across all of our programs in 2025.
Ken Herbert, Analyst, RBC Capital Markets: Perfect. Thanks, Tom. Appreciate all the color. I'll pass it back there.
Tom Gentile, Chairman, CEO and President, Hexcel Corporation: All right. Thanks, Ken.
Conference Operator: The next question comes from Matt Akers with Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC). Your line is open.
Matt Akers, Analyst, Wells Fargo: Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for the question. Can you give us any help with kind of modeling the quarters for 2025, just how we should think about maybe a slower start to the year ramp up in the second half, if there's any way to kind of think about that split?
Patrick Winterlich, Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation: So Matt, I would take it as normal. We're on an upward ramp, frustratingly slow, as we all know, but we're moving upwards. We're climbing. And so as Tom said, on the wide bodies, we're kind of moving from 6% to 7% in 2024, kind of pushing towards 7% and hopefully above it. And we should see that trend as we move through 2025.
The 350% sorry, the 320%, as Tom said, sort of in the 50% s in 2024 and hopefully pushing through 60% to the mid-60% in 2025 and growing as the year goes. The hardest call is the MAX coming out of the strike. Boeing are in the 20s probably right now, and it's really going to be down to how well they can grow that. As Tom said, we're fully ready to support and hope that they push through the 30s and into the high 30s in the back end of the year. So our expectation, yes, is for some growth as the year progresses.
And then, obviously, that would position ourselves for strength as we go into 2026 when, hopefully, more of the supply chain and the OEM rates continue to go up.
Jack Ayers, Analyst, TD Cowen: Okay. And then I guess within the industrial sales, I
Matt Akers, Analyst, Wells Fargo: think you said it's down in 2025. What's the biggest driver there?
Patrick Winterlich, Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation: Well, obviously, pulling out Austria, which is not included in our guidance, is worth roughly $40,000,000 And then we're also seeing a bit of a decline. It's not massive, but a bit of a decline in Automotive, which is the largest subsegment within Industrial year over year.
Tom Gentile, Chairman, CEO and President, Hexcel Corporation: Got it. Thank you.
Conference Operator: The next question is from Sheila Kahyaoglu with Jefferies. Your line is open.
Sheila Kahyaoglu, Analyst, Jefferies: Thank you so much and good morning.
Tom Gentile, Chairman, CEO and President, Hexcel Corporation: Good morning, Sheila.
Sheila Kahyaoglu, Analyst, Jefferies: Maybe I just wanted to ask about profitability, if we could talk about it for a minute. Two part question. First, the guidance implies 20% incremental to high 12% adjusted EBITDA margins. Tom, I don't know if you're comfortable talking about this, but how do we think about the return to high teens margins over the medium term? And just given some of the rate changes in 2025 and 2026 you just mentioned, how do we think about what you're capacitized in terms of hiring?
Tom Gentile, Chairman, CEO and President, Hexcel Corporation: Right. Well, if you go back to 2018, 2019, that's where Hexcel was, was in the high teens in terms of margin. And it was because we were utilizing a lot of the capacity. We're getting great operating leverage. After the pandemic, when we saw the decline in production, we've lost a little bit of that operating leverage and we're still recovering it.
So last year, the production was only about 68% of what it was in 2018. So we're still in the middle of the recovery. And as we start to get more production and more revenue, that will drive a lot of operating leverage and it will help us get our margins back up to those high teens. Now at the same time, over the last 3 or 4 years, we've seen a massive amount of inflation in labor, in utilities and materials, and we have to offset that. So I mean, we always have to run fast to stand still in this industry, but I think these inflationary pressures over the last few years have been particularly daunting.
Now we've got a lot of work to do to drive our productivity programs, That future factory that I talked about to drive productivity and efficiency will help us offset the inflationary pressures to get back to the high teens in terms of margin. So we still got a couple of years, though, before we're going to fully get back to those production rates. But in that time, we'll be driving productivity initiatives so that we can offset the inflationary pressures and get back to higher marks.
Sheila Kahyaoglu, Analyst, Jefferies: Great. Thank you.
Conference Operator: The next question comes from Pete Skibitski with Alembic Global Advisors. Your line is open.
Pete Skibitski, Analyst, Alembic Global Advisors: Yes, good morning guys. Just want to clarify a little bit more the revenue guide. So Austria is out of guidance, but you haven't sold it yet. So will you actually report that revenue in the Q1 even though it's not in guidance? And then maybe you can talk about I'm sorry, maybe you can talk about the impact of the Hartford sale as well because it sounds like that is a done deal.
Patrick Winterlich, Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation: Yes. So we will report any sales that we achieve out of Austria because you're quite right, the sale is not closed yet. We will call out what those sales are. So those would be, I guess, small increments to the guidance that we have provided. That's the best way to manage that, I think, through the year.
We expect it to go at some point. Clearly, the timing is uncertain. In relation to Hartford, really de minimis level of sales. It was really a development program. We had a very small low single digit millions of sales, but negligible in the total company.
So more of a research development sort of program that we're as we said, there are better operators of that business, and we've agreed a good deal on that.
Pete Skibitski, Analyst, Alembic Global Advisors: Okay. That's helpful. If I could just have one follow-up. Are you guys expecting net pricing improvements in 2025? And then is there any way to quantify I don't know how big it is, but you're talking about margin headwind from this ERP implementation.
I was wondering if you could quantify that?
Tom Gentile, Chairman, CEO and President, Hexcel Corporation: Yes. So we are always looking for opportunities for price when our contracts come due. And we have several long term contracts, which is great, but we also have a fair number of contracts that are coming due on a regular basis, maybe 20% a year. And so we did get some good price increases last year to reflect a lot of the inflationary pressures, and we expect that, that will continue into 2025 as well. Now your second question was regarding what?
Pete Skibitski, Analyst, Alembic Global Advisors: The ERP implementation, if you can quantify that.
Tom Gentile, Chairman, CEO and President, Hexcel Corporation: It's in that kind of $5,000,000 to $7,000,000 range. It's normal cost for implementing an ERP. It's just it's hitting this year, as Patrick said, as an expense and that's creating some headwind. But on the flip side, it should drive a lot of productivity because at the same time we're implementing the ERP, we're also implementing an MES system, a manufacturing efficiency system, which will drive a lot of productivity in the plant. So it will pay back.
It's just it's a bit of a headwind this year.
Pete Skibitski, Analyst, Alembic Global Advisors: Got it. Thanks, guys.
Conference Operator: The next question comes from the line of Michael Ciarmoli with Truist Securities. Your line is open. Michael, perhaps your line is on mute. Okay, we'll move on. Perfect.
The next question comes from John McNulty with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is open.
Patrick Winterlich, Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation: Yes. Good morning. Thanks for
Matt Akers, Analyst, Wells Fargo: taking my question. So when you look at the inflation that you saw in SG and A in 2024, which I guess is high single digits, call it 8%, how much of that was putting people in the seats versus wage inflation? And I guess how are you thinking about how that line grows in 2025? It sounds like you've got all the feet you need in the seats, but not necessarily. It's harder to figure out how to think about the wage inflation side of things going forward.
Patrick Winterlich, Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation: Yes. Hi, John. I mean, SG and A is a combination of things and it isn't just people. So the ERP system and implementation, some of those charges as we talked about run through there. I think we called out previously, obviously, with the NICSOM succession, we had some specific onetime costs this year.
Those ran through SG and A. As well as, yes, I mean, we're gradually adding some heads and then you've got the merit that the labor cost increases coming through the inflation, if you like. So it's a combination of things that are really driving that year on year, put that infrastructure in place to support the growth that we expect ahead. So we're managing it tightly. We're controlling it on an ongoing basis.
We have some time to time certain one time costs like the CEO, which clearly was unique to 2024. The ERP was in 2024 and that will recur to some extent in 2025 as well as the underlying general inflation, if you like, merit cost increases that we normally see.
Matt Akers, Analyst, Wells Fargo: Got it. Okay. And then it sounds like you've got a bit of a ramp in R and T coming up. I guess, can you help us to think about how big that could be? I guess it was you're up about $5,000,000 year over year in 2024, but it sounds like it may be a little bit more meaningful going forward.
Can you help us to think about that and what that's going towards?
Tom Gentile, Chairman, CEO and President, Hexcel Corporation: Yes. Maybe one way to look at it is, it's about 3% of revenue right now, which is a little bit up from where it's been historically. But that's a number that we think is a good number that will allow us to make sure we're driving innovation on not only our fibers and our resin systems and our production techniques, but to really make sure that we're developing the material systems for the next generation. So maybe the easiest way to think about it is we're going to be in the 3% range for R and T in order to fund the level of development that's required for the next generation.
Matt Akers, Analyst, Wells Fargo: Got it. Thanks very much for the color.
Patrick Winterlich, Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation: Thank you.
Conference Operator: The next question comes from Myles Walton with Wolfe Research. Your line is open.
Ken Herbert, Analyst, RBC Capital Markets: Thanks. Good morning. First, maybe a follow-up question to Pete's question on the implied growth within Commercial Aerospace for 2025. In that 10%, is it is the volume growth maybe something closer to 5% to 7% and the rest is gross pricing?
Patrick Winterlich, Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation: The majority is volume miles, which is then topped up by some pricing, yes.
Ken Herbert, Analyst, RBC Capital Markets: Okay. All right. Tom, on the capital deployment strategy you have and as it evolves, there's no stock repurchase in the quarter. Curious if that signals to us how you're thinking about the availability of this inorganic growth you put into the press release for the first time. And if I could just clarify as it relates to what's in scope and not in scope on your M and A strategy, is it fair to think that structures and composite manufacturer of structures is not within your scope?
Tom Gentile, Chairman, CEO and President, Hexcel Corporation: That's correct. We're really not looking at structures. We're really focused on Advanced Materials Science. In terms of capital deployment, let me just go backwards in terms of your question. You asked about Q4.
Really, I mean, Q4 wasn't signaling anything other than we had done $250,000,000 or so of share repurchases during 2024. And so that was obviously higher than our cash flow for the year. So we didn't do any further in Q4, but we do have $235,000,000 still left on our authorization, and we do intend to do some this year as we go through the year. We put M and A in as a topic just because as we think of capital allocation, we're going to, of course, fund all of our productivity initiatives and our R and D and our innovation initiatives. And at the same time, the organic growth initiatives like we talked about with Space and Defense or on Commercial and Regional Jets and EV Small.
At the same time, we do want to start to look at things that would leverage our material science expertise inorganically, things that are aligned strategically to the direction that we want to go and that also meet our return thresholds. And if something comes up, we will look at it very, very closely. Absent that, absent an inorganic opportunity, we will continue with our share repurchases, and you saw that we did increase our dividend again this year from $0.15 to $0.70 So that's how we think of the capital allocation strategy overall. But again, to reiterate, we're not interested in structures. We're more interested in advanced material science for things that we consider for inorganic growth.
Okay.
Matt Akers, Analyst, Wells Fargo: Thank you. Thanks.
Conference Operator: The next question is from Gavin Parsons (NYSE:PSN) with UBS. Your line is open.
Matt Akers, Analyst, Wells Fargo: Thanks. Good morning, guys.
Gavin Parsons, Analyst, UBS: Good morning, Gavin. Really appreciate all the build rate color. That's really helpful. You mentioned having some buffer for MAX destock in there. Is there any consideration for that in some of the other programs?
Or maybe is that already in those build rates?
Tom Gentile, Chairman, CEO and President, Hexcel Corporation: Well, MAX is the one where we think it's the most relevant just because the build rates have been all over, Boeing is going up. There's still a lot of inventory in the system. So that was the one we really probably were more conscious about. The others, our rates have been more or less ticking along with the rates of the OEMs. So it wasn't much of a factor.
But MAX is still a bit of a special situation. Got it. Okay.
Gavin Parsons, Analyst, UBS: That's helpful. And it sounds like maybe the due to some of those metrics you talked about, margins are a little more second half weighted. But when do you expect to get back to maybe a more normal incremental margin drop through on revenue growth?
Tom Gentile, Chairman, CEO and President, Hexcel Corporation: Right. Well, I mean, I would say that the situation really requires the operating leverage that will come through from revenue. So when production rates get back to where they were in the 2018 level and our revenues are up at that level, that's when we can start to see some more normalized margin. And as I said, that's probably 26%, perhaps even into 27%. It gives us time to work on our productivity initiatives, our future factory initiatives to drive productivity to offset some of the inflation that we see.
Conference Operator: The next question comes from the line of Michael Ciarmoli with Truist Securities. Your line is open.
Matt Akers, Analyst, Wells Fargo: Hey, good morning guys.
Tom Gentile, Chairman, CEO and President, Hexcel Corporation: Can you hear me now? Apologies for Hey
Ken Herbert, Analyst, RBC Capital Markets: Michael. Great.
Matt Akers, Analyst, Wells Fargo: Good. Hey Patrick, just on exchange rates. I mean it seems like the Trump administration powers that be might want a weaker dollar. Just given where we are now, does it make sense to change the hedging philosophy to extend that to a more longer term to kind of lock in these current rates where we're basically at parity with the euro?
Patrick Winterlich, Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation: Yes. I mean, it's an interesting question, Mike. I think it's a little bit premature for us to do anything in terms of changing our policy right now. We will obviously be vigilant. We always are.
I mean, we have a 10 quarter horizon hedging policy, which is quite a long horizon already, and that's quite a substantial amount of hedging in terms of the total dollars involved. So to extend out further would be a lot. But I understand your point. A strong dollar is good for Hexcel. That's the way our cost base in Europe rolls up.
So good question. We will stay vigilant. No plans imminently to change anything.
Matt Akers, Analyst, Wells Fargo: Got it. Got it. And just if I may, Tom, I think you said you might engage defense primes more directly. What would be different in the strategy there going forward versus what you've historically done? Thanks.
Tom Gentile, Chairman, CEO and President, Hexcel Corporation: Right. Well, I think historically, we've sometimes operated through intermediaries or partners as opposed to dealing directly with the defense primes. Obviously, as we go forward, we want to be tighter with the defense primes in understanding what their requirements are and how our material systems could impact them. So that's something that we are seeking to do is we've always had good relationships with the defense crimes. What we'd like to do is strengthen those and move further upstream and get more involved in their innovation and development, particularly as it relates to material systems, so that we can feed, if you will, a hexcel material throughout the program.
So that's what we meant by it. Got it. Helpful. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.
Conference Operator: The next question is from Scott Duschl with Deutsche Bank (ETR:DBKGn). Your line is open.
Scott Duschl, Analyst, Deutsche Bank: Hey, good morning. Tom, just to clarify, has Boeing restarted issuing purchase orders for products where they had previously halted purchase orders during the strike?
Tom Gentile, Chairman, CEO and President, Hexcel Corporation: The answer, yes. We're shipping again from all of our plants that supply volumes. As I said, even in Q4 on the 7.37, we're still pulling in the low 20s. So it was mainly engine focus, right.
Scott Duschl, Analyst, Deutsche Bank: Okay. For products that go on airframes, is that broadly restarted though?
Tom Gentile, Chairman, CEO and President, Hexcel Corporation: Yes. At the low level, yes.
Patrick Winterlich, Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation0: Okay.
Scott Duschl, Analyst, Deutsche Bank: Thank you. And then Tom, it looks like your A350 build rate assumptions are a bit higher than what Airbus itself is signaling to the street and what consensus is expecting there. Just curious if you could talk a bit about why you're comfortable tending to ship to and guide to this healthier rate?
Tom Gentile, Chairman, CEO and President, Hexcel Corporation: Well, of course, we will be guided by what Airbus finally puts out. It's just these are the assumptions that we put in for the year. As I said, between 6 and 7 pushing up to 7 as the year goes on. And that's generally in line with what Airbus has been indicating. They will, of course, clarify when they present in February.
But the one thing they have reiterated is they're still on track for 12 aircraft per month by 2028. So it's just a question of what's the ramp curve. And we've tried to be conservative and realistic, but we will obviously adjust to what Airbus indicates when they And Scott, you always have
Patrick Winterlich, Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation: to remember, we're about 4 to 6 months ahead of Airbus' assembly. So we're always going to be a little bit higher in terms of the amount of material we ship relative to the planes that they sell.
Scott Duschl, Analyst, Deutsche Bank: Understood. Thank you.
Conference Operator: The next question comes from David Strauss with Barclays (LON:BARC). Your line is open.
Patrick Winterlich, Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation1: Thanks. A follow-up question on currency. You called out that it was a 40 bps tailwind to margins in 2024. What kind of tailwind is it further tailwind is it in 20252026 based on where your hedge rates are?
Patrick Winterlich, Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation: Well, I can't answer that until I know what the actual rates are. So I mean, we're well positioned and hedged coming into the year. But obviously, the hedge and the benefit we have will depend on the actual rate because we're not 100% hedged. So I've got to bring in the actual FX rate combined then with where we're hedged, and then that will be the comparison to 2024. So we're in a good position, I will say, that much.
We've obviously locked in some of those stronger rates. But until we have the actual rates each quarter, we can't predict ahead. All I would say is we're well positioned.
Patrick Winterlich, Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation1: Can you maybe give us what was your average rate in 2024 on the euro?
Patrick Winterlich, Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation: No. We will come back to you. I don't want to make up a number. I don't want to make up a number, David.
Tom Gentile, Chairman, CEO and President, Hexcel Corporation: Okay. And Patrick, I think in
Patrick Winterlich, Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation1: terms of your cash progression through the year, typically Q1 is a usage of cash. Should we expect the same thing this year?
Patrick Winterlich, Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation: Yes. I mean the profile of cash usage will be more or less the same. We had a fantastic Q4 the way we closed out the year. I mean compliments to the team, great income and really good working capital management. That tends to reverse in the Q1.
And then after the Q1, we're then trying to drive ourselves back to a positive situation.
Patrick Winterlich, Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation1: Thanks very much.
Conference Operator: The next question comes from Richard Safran (EPA:SAF) of Seaport Research Partners. Your line is open.
Patrick Winterlich, Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation2: Tom, Patrick, Kirk, good morning. I dropped off for a bit. So if you answered this, I'll move on. On you're coming off some fairly high level of growth in 2024 for business and regional jets. I thought you might talk a little bit more about business and regional jets growth trends in 2025.
And I'm assuming that you're going to see more of a contribution from Dassault in 2025. Is that correct?
Tom Gentile, Chairman, CEO and President, Hexcel Corporation: Yes. We are we have great packages on the distill 1000 10x in particular. And so as that program gets into low rate production and then full rate production, it will be a good generator of revenue for us. Okay. And then
Patrick Winterlich, Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation2: just second question. So you guys have been pretty clear in the release and in your commentary about the ongoing challenges in the OEM supply chain. So as an industry observer and speaking generally, I want to know if you could comment on how you think about progress being made to eliminate supply chain issues. And if you have an expectation that we're going to exit 2025 with most, if not all, of the supply chain issues behind us?
Tom Gentile, Chairman, CEO and President, Hexcel Corporation: It's been evolutionary. And certainly, it's taken longer than everybody expected for the recovery. Part of it is that production rates have remained low, and that put pressure on the supply chain in terms of cash conversion. Obviously, inflation was a bigger problem in the 'twenty two, 'twenty three time period. Labor shortages have kind of persisted, but I think those are getting under control.
People have now hired the people. They've trained them. So the answer is I do expect that 25% is going to be better than 24%, not completely fully stable. The recovery is not going to completely happen in 25%. And so in 'twenty six, you'll get even more stability.
So yes, it's improving. Inflation has tapered a bit, but we still are at a higher level of cost. The labor shortages have mitigated. People are in place and they're getting trained and some of the attrition is going down. So we're certainly seeing that.
So I expect we'll definitely be in a better place by the end of 2025. And sorry,
Matt Akers, Analyst, Wells Fargo: if I can just
Patrick Winterlich, Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation: jump in on the call there. To answer David's question, it was 1.08, dollars 1.08 to the euro was our average rate. So David's still on the line. There you go.
Conference Operator: The next question comes from Scott Micas of Melius Research. Your line is open.
Patrick Winterlich, Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation0: Tom, I think most would agree that without changes in scope clauses, regional jets are probably going to be less relevant going forward. So Embraer may need to launch a clean sheet aircraft to challenge Boeing and Airbus. So I'm just wondering if you had any preliminary discussions with Embraer Air about a potential clean sheet and air body aircraft that could enter service in the 2030s?
Tom Gentile, Chairman, CEO and President, Hexcel Corporation: Right. Well, we have a very good relationship with Embraer. I don't want to get into confidential discussions that we would have with them on new programs. But we've always had a good relationship with Embraer, and we're going to continue that. Certainly, I have read about the thoughts that they could introduce a new narrow body.
There's certainly plenty of demand for that sort of thing. And so we'll continue the discussions with Embraer. But I don't have anything more to say about the specific discussions that we have with them right now.
Patrick Winterlich, Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation0: Okay. And then given potential concerns about tariffs, could that impact your ability or cost to acquire some of the precursor chemicals that you need? And are you actively accelerating purchase orders to suppliers to preempt any tariffs?
Tom Gentile, Chairman, CEO and President, Hexcel Corporation: No. I mean, so on this point, we've obviously been watching this very closely. XL buys about 95% of its material, direct material and sourcing activity from the U. S, Europe and Japan. And by the way, only 1.2% or so from Canada, Mexico and China.
So we have very limited exposure to the countries that have been targeted for higher tariffs. And with regard to acrylonitrile, which is the basis for our PAN, all of the acrylonitrile we use in the U. S. Comes from U. S.
Sources. All the acrylonitrile we use in Europe comes from European sources. So there is no cross border trade in that major raw material for us.
Patrick Winterlich, Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation0: Okay. And then one quick question for Patrick. I think you have a union negotiation coming up in September. Just wondering, is that factored into the guidance and part of the conservatism on the incremental margin?
Patrick Winterlich, Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation: We haven't put anything specific out of the ordinary into the plan. We obviously are well versed on what to do and where we're going to prepare well for that negotiation as we do periodically as those come around. We don't have anything specific. And we believe we're going to find a mutual agreement and successful outcome.
Patrick Winterlich, Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation0: Okay. Thanks for taking the questions.
Conference Operator: The next question comes from Jack Ayers of TD Cowen. Your line is open.
Jack Ayers, Analyst, TD Cowen: Hey, guys. Good morning.
Tom Gentile, Chairman, CEO and President, Hexcel Corporation: Good morning.
Jack Ayers, Analyst, TD Cowen: Yes. Really appreciate all the color here from both of you guys. Just more high level, and I know you're not giving long term guidance, Tom. I think you guys kind of backed away from that last quarter. But just at like a very high level, Hexcel did $3.50 in earnings in 2019, guiding to almost $4 in earnings for 20.20 before COVID, with much higher build rates to all our points here.
I just wanted to like back up and see like is there anything changing like structurally like maybe wind is structurally down, but like any moving pieces to that $350,000,000 in earnings as we get out there and production rates go higher just so we can kind of
Patrick Winterlich, Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation: get a
Jack Ayers, Analyst, TD Cowen: sense for normalized earnings power? Thanks so much.
Tom Gentile, Chairman, CEO and President, Hexcel Corporation: Well, I think the key is operating leverage and it has to do with build rates that drive revenue, and it allows us to essentially absorb more of the fixed costs in terms of production. So again, as we get back to those 2018, 2019 levels of production, that will create the operating leverage that will drive the margin and the earnings. And that will be the biggest driver. I mean, we'll continue to drive all of our efficiency initiatives, our future factory initiatives, but the biggest thing is going to be the recovery in the production rates. In 2024, production was only 68% of what it was in 2018.
As that recovers back up to 100%, that's when we will get back to our full margin and earnings potential.
Patrick Winterlich, Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation: Just to clarify, I think the 68% is the industry production level that Tom is alluding to. Hexcel is closer to about 80% as compared to 2019 levels. And just on the structural change, I mean fundamentally, we're still at carbon fiber, resin, honeycomb, Engineered core business. And so fundamentally, it hasn't shifted. And taking out the glass pre preg wind business, if anything, will be a very marginal small benefit to us.
Jack Ayers, Analyst, TD Cowen: Okay. Thanks. Appreciate it, guys.
Conference Operator: We have time for one last question. It will come from Ron Epstein of Bank of America. Your line is open.
Patrick Winterlich, Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation3: Hey, good morning guys.
Tom Gentile, Chairman, CEO and President, Hexcel Corporation: Good morning, Ron.
Patrick Winterlich, Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation3: Just a quick one. With the expansion of the 787 facility down in South Carolina, what kind of opportunity does that bring along for you guys?
Tom Gentile, Chairman, CEO and President, Hexcel Corporation: Well, the 787 is a good program for us. Our ship set value is between $1,000,000 $2,000,000 on it. The expansion, as I understand it, will allow them to go from kind of a historic rate of 7 aircraft per month to IS-twelve. And that obviously would be great for the industry, it'd be great for Hexcel because it's a good shift at value. So I think that was very encouraging to see that they're making that investment and that they are going to be increasing the capacity because the 787 is a very popular aircraft, and it's a very good program for Hexcel and for many others in the industry.
Patrick Winterlich, Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation3: Great. Thank you.
Tom Gentile, Chairman, CEO and President, Hexcel Corporation: Thanks, Ryan.
Conference Operator: Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. We thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.
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