Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us, and welcome to Bluebird's Fiscal 2026 Second Quarter Earnings Call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. I will now hand the conference over to Mark Benfield, Bluebird's Head of Investor Relations. Mark, please go ahead.
Thank you. and welcome to Bluebird's fiscal 2026 second quarter earnings conference call. The audio for our call is webcast live on blue-bird.com under the investor relations tab. You can access the supporting slides on our website by clicking on the presentations box on the IR landing page. Our comments today include forward-looking statements that are subject to risks that could cause actual results to be materially different. Those risks include, among others, matters we have noted on the following two slides in our filings with the SEC. Bluebird disclaims any obligation to update the information in this call. This afternoon, you will hear from Bluebird's President and CEO, John Weisgill, and CFO, Razvan Rajulescu. Then we'll take some questions. Let's get started. John?
Thanks, Mark. And good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. It's an exciting day today, and we're going to share our strong fiscal 2026 second quarter financial results and the significant progress we've made with our long-term strategy. Results for Q2 were once again very strong, and the Bluebird team delivered outstanding sales and adjusted EBITDA, feeding guidance for the 14th consecutive quarter. Rosvan will take you through the details of our financial results shortly, but let's turn to slide six where i will talk to some of the key takeaways for the quarter first bluebird beat guidance on all metrics for the quarter again we continue to manage the volatility associated with the administration's policy on tariffs well backlog for the quarter ended at just under 3600 units and operationally all metrics are pointing in the right direction and the team has been able to execute on a day-to-day basis while simultaneously developing detailed manufacturing plans for the future, which I will talk more to later in this call. In terms of pricing, we remain extremely disciplined. Bus prices remain higher than the previous year and the previous quarter. As I've communicated prior, this process is just how we manage the business. In the alt power segment, our dominance continues. Our EV backlog is over 900 units extending into 2027 we remain exclusive in propane which has the lowest total cost of operation and our gas variant continues to be a leader again alt power is the segment we created more than 15 years ago and we continue to maintain our lead position our manufacturing strategy is coming into focus and i will talk more to that later in this presentation it's focused on building our new plant automating where we can get good financial returns and ensuring production contingency all of which builds a safe path for ongoing cost improvement through industry 3.0 and 4.0 opportunities and finally we continue to manage the impact of the administration's executive orders and tariff volatility we are fortunate to be well positioned to navigate this situation to a margin neutral outcome. As I've said on every earnings call, it is our objective to position this business to be a strong long-term investment. Let's turn the page and take a closer look at the financial and key business highlights for the quarter on slide 7. We sold 2,148 buses in Q2 and recorded revenue of $353 million, slightly below last year. On the EV side, we sold 201 electric vehicles, just under 10% of unit volume, and our long-term outlook for EVs remains optimistic. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter came in at $51 million, $2 million stronger than last year, and free cash flow came in at an outstanding $40 million. dollars. Razvan will talk more about this and our outlook later in this call. Turning to the right side of the page I will touch on a few points. As discussed earlier our backlog finished at a solid 3,600 units so we remain close to the sweet spot. As you know backlog is a function of orders and production and if you look at the first half of the year order intake was up seven percent from the same period last year versus the market which was down almost 4%. So overall, we're feeling good about our performance in the market. And I continue to reiterate, the overall market fundamentals are still strong. The fleet is aging, we're coming into a heavy replacement cycle. And there's been industry supply issues the last few years leaving pent up demand. The horizon ahead continues to look very good for school bus volumes. Year over year selling price for buses was up almost $6,400. But of course, this also includes tariff recovery as part of our margin-neutral tariff strategy. With tariffs excluded, pricing was still up year-over-year, and part sales totaled $28 million for the quarter. All powered buses represented a strong 41% of mix of unit sales for the quarter. Our powertrain strategy is a differentiator in the market and allows us to maintain stronger margins. For the quarter, we had 201 EVs booked and 912 EVs in our order backlog, pushing into 2027. Again, we remain optimistic on EVs in the school bus sector. EVs are a perfect fit for school buses when you look at the duty cycle, available charging intervals, range, and the proven health benefits for our children. Rounds 2 and 3 of the EPA Clean School Bus Program remains intact with funds flowing to our end customers. And the EPA has invited comments for 26 funding, solidifying rounds four and five of the program, consistent with what we've been communicating. We should understand very soon how and when the EPA will administer these funds. Overall, when you look at state funding and the fleet EV mandates, we believe this market will remain relevant but finally i have two very exciting items to report for the quarter first the 80 million dollar mass contract with the doe has been officially reconfirmed for funding solidifying our manufacturing strategy and new plans and second we announced the acquisition of our micro bird 50 50 jv similarly this transaction is another key component of our profitable growth strategy. So let's turn to slide 8. MicroBird has a rich history with three main segments, type A school bus, commercial shuttle bus, and integrated EV powertrains. The acquisition was a safe and accretive play that brings with it two plants, 950 people, and best-in-class quality products. For Bluebird, the transaction focused on a strategic value proposition for growth technology and efficiency first the transaction will allow us to consolidate sales and critical growth outside of the school bus segment by accessing the buy america commercial shuttle bus segment expanding our total addressable market second it brings critical integrated ev technology through echo tune expanding our product offering bringing vertical integration opportunities and ensuring supply stability. And lastly, this transaction brings efficiencies through critical integration, which has already begun both organizationally and in business processes. Overall, this is an excellent transaction for the company and it brings a tremendous opportunity for growth, technology, and efficiency. It has certainly been a busy quarter with strong results and some exciting announcements. So I would like to now hand it over to Razvan to walk through our fiscal 26 second quarter financial results, as well as our full year updated guidance in more detail. Razvan?
Thanks, John, and good afternoon. It's my pleasure to share with you the financial highlights from Bluebird's fiscal 2026 second quarter and year-to-date record results. The quarter end is based on a close date of March 28, 2026, whereas the prior year was based on a close date of March 29, 2025. We will file the 10Q today, May 6, after market close. Our 10Q includes additional material and disclosures regarding our business and financial performance. We encourage you to read the 10Q and the important disclosures that it contains. The appendix attached to today's presentation includes reconciliations of differences between gap and non-gap measures mentioned on this call, as well as other important disclaimers. Slide 10 is a summary of the fiscal 26 second quarter and first half record financial results. It was a seasonally strong operating quarter for Bluebird and a great continuation for the first half of the fiscal year, and we beat our guidance provided in the last earnings call on all metrics. In fact, we delivered the best Q2 profit ever for Bluebird with $51 million in adjusted EBITDA. The team pushed hard and continued doing a fantastic job and generated 2,148 unit sales volume, which was just below prior year level, driven by a lower number of production days in this fiscal quarter due to the way holidays fell in the year. As a result, Q2 consolidated net revenue of $353 million was $6 million lower than prior Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was a Q2 record of $51 million, driven by high margins, partially offset by increased year-over-year healthcare costs. The adjusted free cash flow was also a record Q2 of $40 million and $21 million higher than the prior year second quarter. This result was due to continued strong profitability across all bus and powertrain types. Our liquidity position at the end of this quarter was a record $418 million. The first half results are equally impressive. While units sold of 4,283 buses were just slightly below prior year by 142 units, the revenue grew to $686 million with adjusted EBITDA of $101 million, both record first-half results. Free cash flow was also very strong at $71 million or $30 million above prior year's level. Moving on to slide 11, as mentioned before by John, our backlog increased versus Q1 and continues to be solid at approximately 3,600 units, including over 900 EVs, a record 25% EV backlog mix. Some of them are already scheduled to be billed and delivered in fiscal 27 Q1. Breaking down the Q2, $353 million in revenue into our two business segments, the bus net revenue was $325 million, down $8 million versus prior years, due to slightly lower volumes. However, our average bus revenue per unit increased by $6,000 from $145,000 to $151,000, or 4.3%. EV sales in Q2 were 201 units, or 64 units lower than last year as planned. Parts revenue for the quarter was up at a strong $28 million. This great performance was in part due to increased demand for our parts as the fleet is aging, as well as supply chain-driven pricing actions and throughput improvements. Growth margin for the quarter was a seasonal record 20%, or 30 basis points higher than last year, due to pricing actions, manufacturing efficiencies, and quality improvement. Adjusted EBITDA of 51 million, or 14.4%, was higher compared with prior year by 1.6 million and 70 basis points. In fiscal 26 Q2, adjusted net income was a record Q2 at $32.5 million, or $1 million higher than last year. Adjusted diluted earnings per share of $1 was up $0.04 versus the prior year. Slide 12 shows the walk from fiscal 25 Q2 adjusted EBITDA to the fiscal 26 Q2 result. Starting on the left at $49.2 million, the impact of the bus segment gross profit in total was $1.7 million. Split between volume and pricing defects, net of material cost increases of $4.3 million, and year-over-year healthcare cost increases and lower overhead absorption of $2.6 million. The part segment gross profit was flat, and our fixed costs and other income expenses were also almost flat. The sum total of all the above-mentioned developments drives our record Fiscal 26 Q2 reported adjusted EBITDA result of 50.8 million or 14.4 percent. Moving on to slide 13, we have extremely positive developments year over year also on the balance sheet. We added a quarter with a record 276 million in cash and reduced our debt by 5 million over the last year. Our liquidity is very strong at a record $418 million at the end of Fiscal 26 Q2, a $144 million increase compared to a year ago. Additionally, we have executed another $5 million tranche of shares buyback during Fiscal 26 Q2, part of our new $100 million program with $19 million left to go. The operating cash flow was very strong for Q2 at $48 million, driven by great operational execution and margins and with almost flat working capital on slide 14 we want to share with you our updated fiscal 26 forecast prior to the microboard acquisition and consolidation looking at q2 actuals we have beaten again in every metric our guidance this past quarter and we had a very strong start for the first half of the fiscal year We continue to forecast a strong second half at 15 to 16 percent adjusted EBITDA margin. We are increasing our EV to 900 for the fiscal year and our pre-deal forecasted revenue to a range of 1.515 to 1.565 billion. And given also our beating Q2, we are raising our forecasted adjusted EBITDA to 230 million or 15 percent with a range of 220 to 240 million these numbers are prior to the microboard acquisition and second half consolidation on slide 15 we want to share with you our updated fiscal 26 guidance post close on april 1st of our acquisition of the remaining 50 percent of the microboard joint venture as you can see on this slide the first half of the year remains reported as unconsolidated JV. However, in the second half, we are now going to consolidate 100% of the revenue and the remaining 50% of the adjusted EBITDA for microbirth. Building on the updated forecast for the year from the prior page, in Q3 and Q4, we are guiding to increase consolidated total revenue of 500 and 560 million, respectively, driving the total year to 1.725 to 1.775 billion in revenue. For adjusted EBITDA, the Q3 midpoint is increased by 5 million and Q4 midpoint is increased by 10 million for a total year guidance of 245 million with a range of 235 to 255 million. Due to consolidation of 100% of the microbore revenue for the second half and only 50% of the adjusted EBITDA, the adjusted EBITDA margin percentage is being updated to approximately 14% for the year. Moving to slide 16, in summary, we are forecasting an improvement year-over-year to a new record with revenue up to approximately $1.75 billion, adjusted EBITDA in the range of $235 to $255 million, or approximately 14%, and adjusted free cash flow of $100 to $125 million, in line with our typical target of 50% of adjusted EBITDA. And after accounting for the extraordinary capex of $25 million, with our 50% fiscal 26 portion of the new plant investment funded by a reconfirm DOE MASC grant, which is currently proceeding with the permitting phase. Moving on to slide 17, we wanted to remind you of our medium and long-term outlook prior to the microboard acquisition. Medium-term outlook was a $240 million adjusted EBITDA, which included $25 million for our 50% portion of microboard results. Our long-term target was to generate EBITDA of $280 to $320 million, which included microboard with $30 to $35 million. Moving on to slide 18, we want to remind you of the growth potential we see for microboard, especially in the commercial shuttle bus segment in the U.S. with Buy America certification. We are driving towards $450 million in revenue midterm with $60 million in adjusted EBITDA. The long-term outlook is for $500 to $550 million in revenue and $75 to $90 million in adjusted EBITDA. Moving on to slide 19, you can see our updated medium and long-term outlook post-microbord acquisition. What used to be our long-term target of $2 billion in revenue moved to mid-term, with approximately $275 million in adjusted EBITDA. The long-term outlook is raised now to $2.5 billion in revenue and $325 to $375 plus million in adjusted EBITDA, or 14 to 15 percent plus. Now, this is what we call profitable growth. We continue to be incredibly excited about Bluebird's future, and now I will turn it back over to John.
Thank you, Razvan. Let's move to slide 21. I want to take this opportunity to remind everyone of our long-term strategy, which consists of four key elements and positions a company for the future. First, as an almost 100-year-old company, business continuity and long-term stability is a core element. This includes investing and updating our manufacturing facilities and products. A great example is our new assembly plant, which I will talk to further in a couple of minutes. Infrastructure and competitive products are an essential part of our plan. The next element is a theme that has been consistent in the last few years, profitable growth. Of course, the school bus market is projected to grow over the next few years and our new plant will allow us to capitalize on that. But for Blueberry, it also means expanding our total addressable market by entering new adjacencies. The Bluebird commercial chassis and the Microbird Buy America shuttle bus are great examples. Margin expansion is the next element. This area focuses on advancing competitiveness and cost reduction. For Bluebird, this means continuing our Industry 3.0 automation initiative. But as well, the new plant will allow for further factory-of-the-future opportunities, including Industry 4.0 initiatives. And the last area is putting the balance sheet to work. The MicroBird acquisition was a great example of this. And even after this transaction, Bluebird continues to have a pristine balance sheet, strong liquidity, and solid cash flows. This will allow us to continue to be strategically opportunistic. We continue to have the ability to grow through acquisition or exploit vertical integration. Overall, we have a balanced strategy that positions the company for the future and delivers value to our shareholders. Let's turn to slide 22. Earlier in the presentation, I spoke about the DOE MESS grant, and now that it's been reconfirmed, I think it's a good time to provide some more details about our manufacturing strategy and our new plant first the new plant will be just under 1 million square feet and an overall total of investment of over 300 million dollars replacing our current 75 year old plant the 80 million dollar mess grant will contribute towards this and we are scheduled to start production in q4 calendar year 2028. we thank the doe for the consideration and confirmation of this project. This increased investment was a result of shifting our manufacturing strategy to build Type C buses in the new plant at a capacity of 9,000 buses per year on one shift. The original scope over a year ago was to build Type D. The shift to Type C is critical, as Type C is 90% of the market, 80% of our sales, and 70% of our people. This allows us to align our investment and improvements with the biggest, most competitive segment of the market. Our successful Type-D bus will remain in the current facility, and critically, we have identified a number of automation use cases with strong returns that will be incorporated into the new plant at the start of production. But we will also maintain Type-C capacity in the current plant to protect volume as a startup contingency. This will allow us to ramp up production at the new plant while production winds down at the old plant during an overlap period. This new plant will also enable further industry 3.0 and 4.0 opportunities, providing a roadmap to continue our long-term cost competitiveness. This investment in critical infrastructure is part of the business continuity and long-term stability component of our strategy. We're very excited about the new plant and what it will bring to us in decades to come lastly i want to finish up with the strong outlook we have for the business on slide 23 as we've shown before the fundamentals of the school bus segment remains strong as shown on the left side of the page we are moving into the replacement cycle for the high volume period between 2017 and 19. we know there is pent-up demand remaining from the covet period and there There are still over 180,000 buses over 10 years old. And funding remains stable for this market. All of this contributes to a strong ACT outlook of approximately 6% CAGR over the next several But with the addition of MicroBird, we now get the consolidation benefit of Type A School Bus and the growth associated with entering the Buy America commercial shuttle bus market, as shown on the right side of the page. Combined, this move increases our total addressable market by 78%. And when you add other contributors for growth, like the commercial strip chassis, the outlook will get even stronger. Profitable growth is a key component of our strategy. I will wrap it up on slide 24. This great company, an iconic brand, is almost 100 years old. It has stood the test of time. we delivered outstanding results again in the second quarter of 2026 and we continue to demonstrate credibility by delivering on our targets we are excited about the microbird acquisition and the new plant that we discussed today both are key components of our very important long-term strategy and looking ahead our strategy discipline and demonstrated execution will set this great company up for the future and deliver value to our shareholders. As always, I want to thank our employees, our dealer network, our supply partners, and of course, our investors. All are critical to our success. I remain excited about Bluebird, and we've had a great start to the first half of 2026. This company is a great American story with such a rich history and exciting future ahead. Thank you. So that concludes our formal presentation for today, and I'd now like to hand it back to our moderator for the Q&A session.
Operator
We will now begin the question and answer session. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Eric Stein with Craig Hallam. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
So maybe just wanted to start with MicroBird, timely since recently closed. So I know that the Plattsburgh plant, that that is a big deal. And, you know, I know a big part of this and why now is the fact that in addition to type A, you can go after this by American fleet market. Just curious. I mean, is that are you already going after that market? Is that an initiative that, you know, we need to see a few steps before that plays out? Or how should we think about when that starts to contribute?
Eric, yeah, I'll start for sure. So there's three main segments. There's FTA, FAA, that's one segment. Then there's large fleets, and then there's retail. So the retail side has already started. We've been working through that with dealers. And then on the FAA and FTA, which is the biggest segment, we've been working there to get on contracts. These are cooperative contracts as well as state contracts. So activity's begun. uh we have won some contracts and we're starting to work through that process and that puts us on a list uh for uh like a bit essentially a list for purchase orders to be materialized so the process is on its way you got it i mean is that since you are on that list is that something that it's fairly you know i mean it is a near-term event it would have to ramp but it is a near-term event yeah it will do just what you said it'll ramp um and keep in mind not every state is open as well in terms of contracts so there's like a phase in period like some contracts are you know
in their second year of five available so all of this process will take some time to ramp up but it's coming maybe just to complement that eric if you look at our long-term growth chart for microbirth on slide 18 you see kind of the ramp up between the current forecast mid-term and long term and the majority the vast majority of that growth comes from the shuttle bus segment so you can also correlate that got it um okay that's helpful and then i guess for my follow-up just just on epa funding i mean i know it's kind of in that comment period in a lot of you know discussions and certainly get questions from investors on it.
I mean, how do you see that playing out, you know, in line with the administration? Is it potentially more skewed to propane? You know, does it stay kind of as is or any thoughts there would be helpful?
Yeah, I'll start and then Roz Vaughn or Mark may want to chime in. I think a couple things. I don't know what will happen but certainly propane would be a great opportunity especially since we're the only company that builds propane school buses so I think that's that's a possibility and then EV who knows what they do with funding right now they fund essentially the entire price of a bus maybe they reduce that and if they do then it would be applicable to a larger number of buses spreading it across more units which would be advantageous as well okay thank you very much thanks Eric our next question comes from the line of mike schlisky with da davidson your line is open please
go ahead good afternoon thanks for taking my questions here um i was curious you didn't change your margin outlook all that much despite 90 of the buses going to this new facility which i assume would be state-of-the-art with some substantial margin opportunities so i'm just kind of curious why you didn't do that. And just as part of this whole process, do you do any CapEx in the old plant to accommodate those larger type Ds? Is this all one big package of CapEx or your comments strictly about the brand new building?
Yeah, so I'll start and then Roz Vaughn will probably provide a little more color. So we look at the automation. And first of all, we have a number of use cases that will go into startup on this plant. And we look at the automation as the plus side of our longer-term outlook. So you'll see the plus side, and that's really what it's referring to. That's one of our opportunities. And then probably the big one as well, Mike, is I spoke earlier about the contingency that we put in here, and I want to just highlight that for a moment because this has been an area where competitors have stumbled because they didn't have the ability to have contingency on startup with a more mechanized or automated factory. So we've got that in place as well, which is a protect. So we see upside, and then we see, with our contingency, probably an ability to protect any downside.
Yeah, maybe in terms of the capex for the old building, it does not require any additional capex, because essentially it's already tooled up to produce today both type C and type D. Once the type C moves to the old plant, the type D will remain there, And then it will also make room for more capacity in terms of strip chassis that we could ramp up at that point in time. So the capex we talk about is for the new plant in this club.
Okay, great. Maybe a quick broad question about market share. Do you believe that Bluebird may have gained market share so far this year from what has been delivered? and the orders you've taken in the last couple of months, do you think you may have gained market share of the next few quarters?
Yeah, I'll start, and the guys can chime in. I mean, our order intake has been positive. I mean, the market was down, we were up, and then I think from that aspect it was positive. But I wouldn't try to read into that much deeper. We know that it's only a half a year. so from my perspective I would probably limit to that and it's something we don't chase we don't chase market share that's been always our philosophy yeah and also we operate now almost at max capacity on one shift so the production I think is more of a gating factor at this point in time okay great I'll pass it along thank you thanks Mike our next question comes from the line of Chris Pierce with Needham.
Operator
Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hey, good afternoon. Sort of following along the lines of that last question. If you look at the alt power mix, it's kind of come down a little bit over the past couple of years.
Is that you guys are able to, at the plant, deliver what the market wants and those sort of alt power sort of out of favor right now to an extent versus prior years, but you guys can sort, or should we think of it as short-term share fluctuations that is kind of you guys are delivering more diesel buses yeah i'll start probably a more short-term share fluctuation um diesel is also probably a little bit heavier now in terms of market share maybe because of the new legislation coming in and that could have an impact with some pre-buy so i think there's a little bit of consideration that has to be given to that and fortunately uh we're strong in diesel too like if you look at our numbers we're up so it's proving we're competitive in this segment.
Okay, and then just if I look at the absolute bus backlog, like this second quarter versus second quarter 25, second quarter 24, I know that in the past you described the elevated backlog as unhealthy. Can you sort of remind us where a healthy backlog should be and what, you know, what's expected in backlog, you know, as you came out of sort of that large, you know, aggressive ordering period and what things look like going forward?
Yeah, I think a couple of things. So we always look at $3,000 to $4,000 as a sweet spot. Too shallow, and it's hard to schedule. And then if it's too deep, then you're vulnerable to the cost side for inflation, tariffs, et cetera. And I think the industry had, if you look at the post-COVID period, had very unusually high backlogs, and they were problematic. Where we are now is probably more normalized. And I think COVID may have helped in regards to how the backlog is structured. I think some of that seasonality has been flattened out, which helps the industry. I think it's good for quality, it's good for production, it's good for people, all those things. So in that regards, it may have helped the industry a bit.
Chris, I'll add, you know, for us, one to two quarters of production visibility is really the way to think about that sweet spot in backlog.
Okay. And if I could ask one more, can you just touch on Section 232 tariffs and like raw materials and things like that, hedging you guys have in place or just able to pass through pricing? Like how do those pieces sort of fit together? And then I'll pass it along. Thank you.
Yeah, Chris, thanks. This is Razva. So definitely we are dealing with a myriad of tariffs in the last year-plus, and Section 232 is one of them. We are managing that very well. We are targeting a margin-neutral outcome, as you can see from our results, and we are working on one hand with the dealers and customers on the pricing side to price some of those tariffs, and at the same time, we are working hard with our suppliers to mitigate or resource to minimize other type of Paris.
Operator
There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to John Wieskell for closing remarks.
Thank you, Paige, and thanks to each of you for joining us on the call today. Bluebird has delivered a great start to the first half of 2026 with strong results, meeting expectations, and raising our guidance. And this is despite a challenging environment. With the fundamentals of the industry and the key elements of our strategy, I remain very enthusiastic for Bluebird and its future. And we look forward to updating you on our progress next quarter. Should you have any follow-up questions, please don't hesitate to contact our Head of Investor Relations, Mark Benfield. And Bluebird continues to be stronger than ever and has an amazing future ahead as we approach our 100-year anniversary. Thanks again from all of us at Bluebird and have a great evening.
Operator
This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. you may now disconnect.
