Curtiss Wright Corp Q1 FY2025 Earnings Call

Welcome to the Curtiss-Wright First Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode and the floor will be open to your questions following the presentation. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Jim Ryan, Vice President of Investor Relations.

Thank you, Chelsea, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Curtiss-Wright's First Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. Joining me on the call today are Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Lynn Bamford; and Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Chris Farkas. A copy of today's financial presentation and the press release are available for download through the Investor Relations section of our website at curtiswright.com. A replay of this webcast will be available on the website. Our discussion today includes certain projections and forward-looking statements that are based on management's current expectations and are not guarantees of future performance. We detail those risks and uncertainties associated with our forward-looking statements, including the impacts of tariffs in our public filings with the SEC. As a reminder, the company's results and guidance include an adjusted non-GAAP view that excludes certain costs in order to provide greater transparency into our ongoing operating and financial performance. GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliations are available in the earnings release and on our website. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Lynn to get things started.

Thank you, Jim, and good morning, everyone. We are off to a great start in 2025 that exceeded our expectations. Before getting into the details, I would like to say a few words about the momentum that continues to build with respect to our Pivot to Growth strategy and how that translates into value for all of our stakeholders. First and foremost, I commend the team for embracing our strategy and their drive and execution, which has yielded better-than-expected results in both growth and efficiency. As we discussed at our May 2024 Investor Day, we continue to enhance customer engagement while leveraging our strong domain expertise as a highly valued supplier of mission-critical technologies to help solve our customers' most challenging problems. In addition, we are implementing the core principles of our operational growth platform, remaining focused on both commercial and operational excellence to expand margins and free up funding opportunities for investments that will accelerate profitable growth across the portfolio. Regarding our improved 2025 outlook, we take pride in meeting our commitments and being the company that investors can rely on to deliver strong results, even in the face of macroeconomic uncertainty, whether it was the quick return to providing guidance during the pandemic with minimal margin dilution or the rapid response of our team to the electronic supply chain challenges in 2022. In all cases, our team has responded quickly to adapt as needed and to deliver superior results. This is a testament not only to our strategy but also to our leadership positions in our end markets, as well as the people, the systems, and the processes that we continuously invest in to ensure that Curtiss-Wright is built for long-term success. As a result, and in the face of a number of macro-level uncertainties, we are confidently raising our overall full-year 2025 guidance. With that, I'll turn to today's presentation. Starting with our first quarter 2025 highlights. Sales of $806 million represented an increase of 13% year-over-year, or 11% on an organic basis, driven by stronger-than-expected growth in our Aerospace and Defense markets. Operating income increased 34% year-over-year once again, exceeding our sales growth and resulted in 260 basis points of overall operating margin expansion. This performance reflected the strong growth in sales, the benefits of our corporate-wide restructuring actions initiated last year to support future growth and efficiency, and our ongoing commercial and operational excellence programs. Diluted earnings per share increased 42% year-over-year, which also exceeded our expectations and was primarily driven by our higher A&D sales. Free cash flow, while typically a first quarter outflow, reflected a year-over-year increase of 5%, while we continue to support investments across all three segments. New orders increased 13% year-over-year to a record of more than $1 billion and resulted in an overall book-to-bill of 1.26 times. Within our A&D markets, we experienced strong demand for naval nuclear propulsion equipment supporting the US Navy's current and next-generation submarine programs. Orders within our commercial Aerospace markets were mainly driven by higher demand for avionics equipment within our Defense Electronics segment. Within our commercial markets, we continue to benefit from increasing demand for commercial nuclear aftermarket products supporting the upcoming spring outage season, advanced small modular reactors, and the contribution from Ultra Energy. Overall, we reached a new record backlog in excess of $3.6 billion, which provides us with great visibility and confidence in our long-term growth outlook. Regarding our full-year guidance, we have raised our overall outlook for sales, operating margins, and earnings per share and are on track to deliver strong top and bottom line growth this year. We now expect overall sales to increase 8% to 9%, reflecting an improved outlook in the majority of our A&D markets and the strength of our order book. In addition, the organization's continuous strive for commercial and operational efforts is fueling some tremendous margin expansion this year. We now anticipate an increase of 80 to 100 basis points in pursuit of a record operating margin of 18.3% to 18.5%, and we expect to generate these strong returns while maintaining incremental investments in research and development. In addition, we expect to overcome the impact of tariff-related headwinds, which Chris will cover in more detail in a few minutes. Diluted EPS is now expected to grow 14% to 17%. In addition, we raised our free cash flow guidance to reflect higher confidence in the full-year outlook and continue to expect strong free cash flow conversion. In summary, Curtiss-Wright remains well positioned to deliver another exceptional performance in 2025. Now I would like to turn the call over to Chris to provide a more in-depth review of our financials.

Thank you, Lynn. I'll begin on Slide 4 by reviewing the key drivers of our first quarter 2025 performance by segment. Starting in Aerospace & Industrial, overall sales increased 4%, which was slightly ahead of our expectations. Beginning with the segment's defense markets, we experienced solid increases in actuation equipment sales, most notably within our aerospace defense markets supporting F-35 and F-18 programs, and also in Ground Defense for the enduring Shield platform. Within the segment's commercial aerospace market, our results reflected solid OEM sales growth supporting increased production on both narrow-body and wide-body platforms. In the general industrial market, our results reflected a modest increase in sales for our industrial automation equipment, which was essentially offset by reduced sales of industrial vehicle products. And turning to the segment's first quarter profitability, operating income and margin were ahead of expectations, growing 15% and 140 basis points, respectively, driven by favorable absorption on higher sales and restructuring savings, as well as a tailwind from foreign exchange. Next in the Defense Electronics segment, sales growth of 16% reflected increases in embedded computing equipment sales supporting a variety of C5ISR programs as we continue to benefit from increases in global demand. Within the segment's aerospace defense market, we experienced higher revenues supporting various helicopter platforms, most notably on the Blackhawk, in addition to higher sales on the Triton UAV program. While in Ground Defense, our results mainly reflected higher revenues supporting US Army vehicle modernization and replenishment. Regarding the segment's operating performance, we delivered a record first quarter operating margin of 27.5%, mainly reflecting favorable absorption on higher revenues, as well as a shift in mix towards higher-margin C5ISR programs. In addition, we continue to improve the efficiency of our operations to support this business' future growth and further bolster our position as a leading supplier of defense electronics. First quarter profitability also reflected the benefits of our prior year restructuring program to expand our manufacturing capacity, as well as our ongoing operational and commercial excellence initiatives, which are now expected to promote further margin expansion in 2025. Turning to the Naval & Power segment, sales growth of 18% exceeded our expectations, principally driven by higher revenue across several key platforms in Naval Defense. Within this market, our results reflected strong performance and execution on the submarine programs, as well as the timing and acceleration in material receipts from suppliers. In the Power and Process market, our results mainly reflected the contribution from acquisitions driving strong growth in both our commercial nuclear and Process markets. On an organic basis, we experienced high single-digit revenue growth in commercial nuclear supporting the maintenance of operating reactors as well as the ramp-up in development across several SMR designs, including the X-energy and TerraPower advanced reactors. Elsewhere within the Process market, higher domestic maintenance, repair, and operations valve sales were essentially offset by the timing of large capital projects. Regarding the segment's operating performance, favorable absorption on higher organic revenues was partially offset by unfavorable mix, as well as increased investment in customer-funded development programs supporting future growth in our Naval Defense and commercial nuclear businesses. As a reminder, last year's results included an unfavorable naval contract adjustment that did not recur in 2025. The sum of Curtiss-Wright’s first quarter results, overall, we generated a strong operating margin of 16.6%, driving 260 basis points in operating margin expansion on the stronger-than-expected top line performance. Turning to our full-year 2025 guidance, I'll begin on Slide 5 with our end-market sales outlook, where we now expect total sales to grow 8% to 9%, reflecting 5% to 7% organic growth, mainly driven by continued demand broadly across our A&D markets. Starting in Aerospace Defense, our outlook for 6% to 8% sales growth remains unchanged, mainly reflecting our strong order book for embedded computing equipment on various C5ISR programs. Within Ground Defense, we now expect full-year sales growth of 6% to 8%, driven by increased throughput for our Tactical Communications equipment resulting from our recent restructuring actions. In Naval Defense, we now expect full-year sales growth of 5% to 7%, based on expectations for higher production revenue on submarine programs following the strong Q1 results, as well as higher aftermarket revenue supporting overhauls and retrofits on prior generation carriers. Elsewhere within our Defense Electronics business, we continue to anticipate strong growth in embedded computing revenues supporting various domestic and international programs. Looking more broadly across all three defense markets, we now expect high-teens growth in direct foreign military sales in 2025, driven by the alignment of our technologies such as C5ISR and resting systems equipment to support increased global defense spending priorities. Turning to Commercial Aerospace, we now expect full-year sales to increase 13% to 15%, with the increased outlook fully driven by an exciting new avenue for growth in avionics equipment within our Defense Electronics, building upon our legacy flight data recorder technology used in both Defense and Commercial applications. We're bringing improved cockpit voice recorder solutions to the commercial aerospace market to meet new safety mandates for longer recording capability. Then we'll provide additional color on these efforts and our opportunities for growth later in our prepared remarks. Wrapping up our aerospace and defense outlook, we now expect total sales in these markets to increase 7% to 9% in 2025. Moving to our Commercial Markets and Power and Process, our outlook for 16% to 18% sales growth remains unchanged and continues to reflect a combination of mid-to-high single-digit organic revenue growth, as well as the contribution from Ultra Energy. Within our Commercial Nuclear market, we continue to expect increased aftermarket sales supporting the maintenance of U.S., U.K., and bulk area reactors as well as a ramp-up in development revenues across several SMR and advanced reactor designs. Next, within the Process market, we continue to expect solid organic growth, mainly reflecting increased development on subsea pumps. And lastly, in general industrial, we continue to take a cautious approach and anticipated sales to be flat in 2025, where modest growth in Industrial Automation and Surface Treatment services will be offset by reduced sales of Industrial Vehicle products. Of note, the order book for our vehicle products has remained stable over the past five quarters, in spite of ongoing industry headwinds. Wrapping up our total commercial markets, we continue to target full-year sales growth of 9% to 11%. Moving on to our full-year 2025 outlook by segment on Slide 6, and I am going to begin by discussing the tariff impact on our operations. Of note, approximately 20% of our businesses are currently subject to tariffs. For those areas where we have exposure at the gross level, we estimate approximately $30 million in impacts for the remainder of 2025, most of which is related to imports from China. As we instituted in 2018 and 2019, we have tariff mitigation strategies in place, including various pricing and operational actions to improve our competitive positioning and to protect our operating margin. As a result, we expect the 2025 net impact of tariffs to be approximately $10 million, which is above two-thirds within our Aerospace & Industrial segment and one-third in Naval & Power. We're also updating our expectations for the corporate-wide restructuring program that we initially launched in 2024, where we had originally anticipated $15 million in total costs to yield $10 million in annualized savings through operating income by the end of 2025. Due to additional actions being implemented this year, we now anticipate total costs of approximately $20 million, with the increase mainly impacting the Aerospace & Industrial segment, driven by additional facility consolidations. As a result, we now expect approximately $12 million in total annualized savings, the majority of which will be recognized in 2025. Regarding the update to our outlook by segment, I'll begin in Aerospace & Industrial, where we continue to expect to grow 3% to 5%, reflecting strong growth in our A&D markets and flat sales in general industrial. Regarding the segment's profitability, we reduced the low end of the guidance range for operating income and margins slightly to reflect our net exposure to tariffs. In the event that the latest tariffs are lessened or lifted, we still see a path to the high end of our original segment guide, driven by our expectation for higher sales and the savings generated by our restructuring actions. We now project operating income to increase 3% to 8% and operating margin to be flat to up 60 basis points in the range from 17% to 17.6%. Next, in Defense Electronics, we now expect sales to grow 9% to 11%, following the strong first quarter performance and the strength of this business' record 2024 order book, which is driving solid growth across all A&D markets. Regarding the segment's profitability, we now expect operating income growth of 15% to 18% and operating margin expansion of 140 to 160 basis points to a new all-time high range of 26.3% to 26.5%. The dramatic improvement in our outlook results from the combination of the higher top line guide, the acceleration of our commercial and operational excellence initiatives, and better-than-anticipated savings resulting from our prior year restructuring efforts. And in Naval & Power, we now expect sales to grow 10% to 12%, reflecting increased confidence following the strong first quarter performance in Naval Defense and overall solid growth across the segments, defense and commercial markets. Regarding segment profitability, we now expect operating income growth of 14% to 17% on the higher sales and, of note, we're holding our margin guidance despite a tariff impact in this segment, which we plan to mitigate through higher sales, pricing, and commercial excellence initiatives. As a reminder, our outlook also reflects the contribution from Ultra Energy, which will initially be dilutive to operating margin in its first year with Curtiss-Wright, as well as approximately $4 million in incremental investments to support internally funded R&D programs. So to summarize our 2025 outlook, overall, we now expect total Curtiss-Wright operating income to grow 13% to 16% and operating margin to range from 18.3% to 18.5%, with an increase of 80 to 100 basis points. Next, to aid in your quarterly modeling of sales and operating margin, we expect second-quarter 2025 sales to grow by high-single digits relative to the second quarter of 2024, reflecting increases in all three segments and most notably driven by the timing of higher Naval Defense and commercial nuclear revenues in the Naval and Power segment. Within the A&I segment, we expect operating margin to be up slightly compared with our second quarter 2024 results, along with strong year-over-year growth and profitability within both our Defense Electronics and Naval & Power segments. In summary, at the overall Curtiss-Wright level, we’re expecting high teens second quarter operating margin on strong sales growth. Continuing with our financial outlook on Slide 7 and starting with our EPS guidance. Building upon our strong first quarter performance, we now expect full-year 2025 diluted EPS to range from $12.45 to $12.80, up 14% to 17%, mainly reflecting improved sales and profitability within Defense Electronics. Aiding our quarterly EPS modeling, we expect second-quarter 2025 EPS to reflect low double-digit growth sequentially relative to our strong first quarter results. We then expect modest sequential EPS growth over the remainder of 2025 based on the timing of strong first half revenues with the fourth quarter EPS being our strongest. And lastly, turning to free cash flow. In Q1, while we experienced our typical outflow, we delivered a solid year-over-year improvement of 5%, driven by the strong growth in earnings. Overall, we had a good start to the year, and that provides us with confidence to raise our full-year free cash flow projections to a new range of $495 million to $515 million, up 27% over 2024. And as a reminder, our outlook includes an increase in capital expenditures of nearly $20 million year-over-year relative to the midpoint of our guide, as we continue to invest in support of our future growth. Of note, we also remain on track to deliver a healthy free cash flow conversion rate in excess of 105% again this year, which remains in line with our long-term targets. Now, I'd like to turn the call back over to Lynn.

Thank you, Chris. And turning to Slide 8, as we have discussed today, our strategy continues to build momentum, while we remain cautious in light of the uncertain geopolitical and macroeconomic environment. Curtiss-Wright remains well positioned to deliver strong, profitable growth again in 2025. Our execution during the first quarter is a perfect illustration of how we are focused on managing Curtiss-Wright's consolidated portfolio, which in turn supports our revised outlook targeting record financial performance across all major metrics this year. I'm particularly excited about the team's ability to target robust operating margin expansion of 80 to 100 basis points to nearly 18.5% and to generate at least $500 million in free cash flow this year. Overall, the team continues to deliver at a high level in support of our three-year objectives provided at last May's Investor Day. Next, regarding our capital allocation. Curtiss-Wright maintains a very healthy balance sheet, supporting our disciplined and strategic approach to capital deployment. While we continue to foster significant financial flexibility to pursue acquisitions and continued share repurchase, we're also driving steady investments in our systems and infrastructure, which support the team's efforts to capture positions on both current and next-generation platforms across our A&D and commercial businesses. Finally, as I look across our operations, we remain very well positioned to capture the medium and long-term secular growth trends across our end markets. I'll highlight a few examples, starting with defense. We believe the fundamentals of our industry remain strong, and Curtiss-Wright is poised to grow in all facets of our defense end markets. The passage of the FY '25 budget, even when considering the full-year continuing resolution, helps remove some uncertainty while still allowing for critical new program starts. Further, we are encouraged by the release of the initial FY '26 budget, which includes the benefit of budget reconciliation to drive total defense spending of more than $1 trillion, which would reflect strong year-over-year growth of more than 13%. Given our alignment across many of the platforms and priorities in those bills, including shipbuilding, missile defense, and air superiority, we expect our defense businesses to be well positioned entering into 2026. Turning to our world-class defense electronics portfolio, which remains a growing and very profitable business for Curtiss-Wright, we take pride in being an industry-leading supplier of commercial off-the-shelf embedded computing technology. We continuously invest in research and development to maintain our technological leadership, stay ahead of our customers' needs, and speed the delivery of next-generation technology to the battlefield. This includes our alignment to rugged modular open systems approach or MOSA-based solutions to accelerate the development of leading-edge computing technologies into multi-platform solutions. In addition, through our Fabric 100 product line, this ecosystem of very high-performance processors, network switches, and processing units such as GPU and FPGA modules, bring state-of-the-art expertise to enable faster data communication capabilities for sensor and mission processing applications. Through our recent alignment with NVIDIA, their OEM partner program, Curtiss-Wright is integrated with NVIDIA's cutting-edge AI technology into rugged deployable systems that bring commercial innovation to the tactical edge. Today, with the markets we serve, we are the only company to hold the distinction of covering the three major competencies: embedded computing, networking, and AI, reinforcing Curtiss-Wright's ability to meet the growing demand for higher performance and advanced processing solutions across our customer base. Next, in commercial aerospace, and as Chris alluded to earlier, we have traditionally served the aerospace and defense markets with our fortress ruggedized cockpit voice and data recorder solutions, essentially the black box used in aviation. More recently, we've built upon our commercial successes and were awarded a contract to support the DoD T-6 Texan primary training fleet. We have also aligned with Honeywell to develop critical technology supporting the 25-hour safety mandate for longer recording capability in commercial aviation, which well exceeds the current standards for only two hours of recorded audio. Our jointly developed flight recorder innovation complies with both the FAA and the European Aviation Safety Agency mandate and allows us to support our OEM customers, including Boeing and others still in pursuit as well as the airlines as they prepare to implement this critical upgrade. In addition, the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024 applies to both new OEM installations as well as retrofit applications in the U.S., providing Curtiss-Wright with an opportunity to serve thousands of registered aircraft. Further, order activity supporting these efforts has been accelerating since late 2024 and has begun to translate into meaningful revenues for defense electronics this year. Lastly, in commercial nuclear, we have steadily communicated our vast opportunities for growth in this market and are well positioned to provide continued value to our shareholders over the near, medium, and long term. Curtiss-Wright's dedication and expertise in safeguarding existing operating reactors provides us with strong immediate opportunities for growth. Beyond the aftermarket, we remain well positioned with Westinghouse and their pursuit to construct new AP1000 power plants globally as they move closer to production orders from Poland and Bulgaria. At the same time, we continue to grow our presence with the leading designers of advanced and small modular reactors as current design and development will begin to translate into prototype and eventually into production units. Overall, Curtiss-Wright's technologies remain well aligned globally to support the entire commercial nuclear life cycle from the new build to the aftermarket for decades to come. These are some of the many exciting pursuits that we expect to support our Pivot to Growth strategy. In summary, I remain confident in Curtiss-Wright's ability to demonstrate strong profitable growth this year. Our agility as an organization and drive for operational and commercial excellence runs deep, providing confidence in our proven ability to mitigate the impact of economic uncertainty on our financials while leveraging our record order book and growing backlog to position us to drive strong returns for our shareholders. Thank you. And at this time, I would like to open up today's conference call for questions.

The floor is now open for questions. Thank you. And our first question will come from Pete Skibitski with Alembic Global. Please go ahead. Pete, your line is open.

I’m sorry. Good morning, Lynn and Chris and Jim. Very nice quarter.

Good morning.

Thank you.

I wonder if we could start just a little more specificity on the tariff impact. It sounds like you can mitigate it pretty well. But could you give us some details just in terms of the products impacted and how China plays into it? And the cost side sounds pretty well mitigated. But just on the sourcing, any concerns about sourcing in this tariff environment?

Yes, it is. Thank you for that question, Pete. It is indeed a dynamic situation, but we have been very thoughtful in our approach as a company. Several months ago, we formed a cross-functional team to ensure we understood our contracts and the options available to mitigate the tariffs. I am pleased with the figures Chris shared, indicating that we have managed to reduce the potential impact by over $20 million, which is quite impressive and a testament to the team's efforts. A lot of hard work went into achieving that mitigation through various means. It involves a mix of operational outcomes and our methods of sourcing and supplying products to customers. We gained valuable insights back in 2018 and incorporated flexibility into our operations at that time to prepare for similar situations, so we didn’t have to start from scratch. That preparation proved critical. Pricing also plays a role in this, and we have purposefully communicated with our customers and been transparent with them. They are generally willing to collaborate with us as we implement targeted price increases in response to the tariffs. The team's hard work has enabled us to accomplish what we outlined in our prepared remarks. Now, I will turn it over to Chris for further details on some aspects of your question.

Sure. So, you heard in the prepared remarks that roughly 20% of our product portfolio is subject to tariff risks. And we kind of break that down as you look across our defense markets, it represents 50% of our business today. Most of that is domestic sourcing. But where it's not, there are tariff exclusions for military products that allow us to avoid tariffs that are not applied to service revenue today. That's roughly 15% of our total business. And then when we look across our non-U.S. sites and non-U.S. customers, today, that's roughly 10% to 15% of our business. So, within that 20%, the greatest pressure is certainly within the Aerospace and Industrial segment, mainly with industrial products like you saw back in the 2018, 2019 timeframe, but then also there's some process product exposure within Naval and Power segment. Stepping back and looking at what we're being tariffed on, really not a big impact from Canada and Mexico. The majority of those products are covered by USMCA, nothing material from the retaliatory tariffs, and then steel tariff imports are low volume and our largest consumers are really sourced domestically. So, we feel good about the position and our guidance for the full year.

Okay. Very helpful. Thanks guys. And just one follow-up. You raised the Commercial Aerospace guide quite a bit for the year. And I'm just wondering, was the Boeing kind of return to production and accelerated production post-strike part of that? Or was it all kind of the FAA safety mandate in terms of the corner sales there? And I'm just wondering how long should we expect safety mandate-related sales to drive revenue for you?

Well, maybe I'll start off with the guide and then just in terms of the longevity, and I'll turn that back over to Lynn. But I want to be clear, the guidance increase that we made here on the call is entirely on what the new cockpit voice recorders. We do still have some conservatism. There's obviously a lot happening in commercial aerospace right now relative to the supply chain. So, we're trying to approach that situation cautiously. But we feel good about being able to increase our guide in this environment, and it's mainly the cockpit voice recorders.

And building on what Chris just commented on, this is a sustainable revenue source for Curtiss-Wright. The FAA mandate gives airlines through the end of this decade to do the retrofit. And so we are really at the very beginning of that, and its mandates are for new production aircraft. And so this is an area that we are continuing to grow and we have a very solid position with Boeing on having received the various certifications for new and retrofit airlines back in the end of 2023, but it takes a while for these things to kick in. We're working very hard to receive certification across the Airbus A320 fleet, and there's a lot of work going on to receive certification across a lot of the regional jets that are also subject to the mandate. So, this is a very exciting portion of our business that has been building really even in 2024, but it doesn't get talked about a lot, and that's why we really wanted to bring it to the forefront as it really begins to see some dynamic growth.

Thank you. Our next question will come from Kristine Liwag with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good morning, everyone.

Hi, Kristine. Nice to hear your voice.

Thanks. I'm back. Happy to sense the pictures which you guys want, seven months and just blowing raspberries all day long.

All right.

So maybe starting on commercial nuclear with the Trump administration and their approach to energy, has their approach on nuclear been more supportive to the degree you were expecting? Or has there been a change? And so I just want to understand the outlook for US nuclear. And then also the second piece is once we get out to the international orders, Poland and Bulgaria. How has this geopolitical environment and uncertainty with tariffs affected their plans to build new nuclear power plants?

We were cautiously optimistic before the new administration took office regarding continued support for nuclear energy, primarily because many cabinet members were strong advocates for nuclear. This optimism has unfolded even more favorably than we expected. For instance, Secretary Wright played a key role in a recent announcement in Poland, where the engineering contract was extended until the end of the year, marking a critical step before construction contracts can be awarded. Additionally, he was instrumental in Bulgaria, where they declared the site for their first AP1000 plant, aiming to be the first AP1000 facility in Europe, outpacing Poland. This competition is beneficial for us. Furthermore, every executive order related to energy dominance issued in the US has included positive references to nuclear energy. We feel assured about the support from this administration, and initiatives linked to deregulation and enhancing the efficiency of the NRC will substantively facilitate the nuclear build-out. Overall, the outlook appears very positive based on our current observations.

Thank you for that. And shifting gears to shipbuilding. There's a clear shipbuilding emphasis from this administration, but starting out new programs takes time and building ships takes time. How do you think this plays out? And how does that flow get to you? And when would you start expecting to see significant orders to come through? You are generally in the earlier side of those projects?

Yeah. It's a fair point. These industries don't turn on a dime. I do think it's interesting to see that obviously, there's great support for shipbuilding, and what we see in both the reconciliation bill and the skinny budgets, so to speak, a lot of money for the industrial base. I think one point that's noteworthy is we commented in our Investor Day back in May of 2024 that we had received $15 million over the prior few years for industrial-based funding. That's up to $21 million as of to date, and we have a lot of money in pursuit. So that's maybe the more immediate here and now, but we also are seeing opportunities to take more share as there's a real push to get the existing fleet more operational, opening up some new opportunities for ourselves as well as the ongoing work that we have across Virginia, Columbia, the aircraft carriers, and one study that was in the reconciliation bill was putting a second Virginia class back in 2027. So that's just a good thing. So it will build over time, but we're very conscious of things we can do in the near term to try and win business as we build our long-term positions.

Thank you. Our next question will come from Myles Walton with Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Wondering if you could comment on the Defense Electronics margin performance or maybe the absolute EBIT dollar performance. I think the rest of the year is implied to be below the run rate of the first quarter, which would be pretty unusual given your historical tenancy in that segment. Is there anything that was accelerated in the first quarter? Or is this more conservatism for the rest of the year?

Thank you for your question, Myles. I want to take a moment to discuss the corporation as a whole because it's crucial to understand our guidance and the adjustment we've made. At the beginning of the year, we approached our initial guidance with a level of caution due to various factors, including potential tariffs, concerns surrounding the ongoing resolution, and fears of a recession, among other internal business matters, particularly in defense electronics related to our restructuring and progress in ERP implementation. Hence, we adopted a conservative stance. However, we have raised our guidance because we now have a clearer understanding of certain aspects, even though we acknowledge there are still areas where caution exists. Chris pointed out one of those, and it's related to the commercial aerospace sector and the general industrial landscape, especially regarding the impact of tariffs on defense electronics. We are managing several significant projects in Naval and Power. Fortunately, there haven't been any major issues, but we strive to present figures that we are confident we can achieve, which is central to our management philosophy. Consequently, there is a general cautiousness in our outlook, but we are also seeing positive results from our initiatives in commercial and operational excellence. Regarding defense electronics specifically, there's a combination of factors at play. I will ask Chris to elaborate on some of the elements influencing our margins, and then I would like to revisit the topic of pricing.

Yes. So absolutely, we're trying to approach this cautiously as we move through the rest of the year. But Myles, specifically, as you look at the Q1 margin and we talked a little bit about the mix that's going on, we're certainly seeing some expansion from commercial and operational excellence. Also in Q1, we had some foreign exchange benefits. So we saw the US dollar strengthen against key currencies, and using our five bank forecast, we're looking out across the remainder of the year. We're expecting some of that FX benefit to go away as the dollar weakens against some of those currencies. We expect research and development to ramp as we progress through the rest of the year. And then it's important to note, we've talked about this in past calls. The sequential ramp in defense electronics, this team has really been working hard to try to balance that out and do not have it be such a fourth quarter spike. So as you look at defense electronics over the remainder of the year, it will be very modest sequential growth for that segment. So it's really the combination of very modest sequential growth with those other things that I just talked about.

Yes. And the last element is meaningful, but I want to be very purposeful in how I speak to it is our ability to drive pricing across the products that we provide to our customers in this segment. And we're very focused on delivering fantastic value to our customers and being a rock-solid supplier that is there for them in all aspects of how they take advantage of our products and work them into their systems and overall solutions. And with that, we launched the operational growth platform back at the beginning of my tenure, commercial excellence was a big part of that, and that's really understanding the value you're bringing to customers and pricing appropriately and keeping in mind competition and a win-win with your customer and all those things. So it's not just all about margin, but it's about charging for the value you bring in. I think the team has done a great job evolving over the past few years and understanding the value they're bringing and pricing appropriately. And that's also part of the margins that we're receiving in that team.

All right. Thanks for the color. And then one follow-up, if I could. The book-to-bill for the company was 1.26. Was there much to be differentiated by segment or can you provide book-to-bill by segment?

Sure. Yes. Within the Aerospace and Industrial segment, it was approximately 1.1 times book-to-bill for the quarter. We had great commercial aerospace orders for the quarter. Within Defense Electronics, it was about a one-time book-to-bill on 16% sales growth, not anything really unusual here. We obviously started off the first quarter with a continuing resolution that kind of created some slowness in terms of the order patterns. But then if you look back at Q1 of 2024, there were some pretty big lumpy orders that had come on at that point in time for multiyear orders that had come in for potential electronics. So pipeline still looks great as we look ahead. The Naval & Power segment had a 1.6 times book-to-bill, which reflects a very strong naval order quarter. You know that can be somewhat lumpy. But I think when you start to take it into context of what we did last year with naval orders, what we're seeing this year, it's really helping to drive our expectations for these very strong first-half revenues. A lot of material timing in there, but very strong first-half revenues for Naval and Power this year.

Thank you. Our next question will come from Jason Gursky with Citi. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everybody.

Hi, Jason.

Hey. Good morning. I've been asking everybody this quarter a similar question around the changes put in Washington, particularly around acquisition reform and the proposal to rewrite bar and DFAs. I'm just kind of curious if you can maybe step in and provide some context from your perspective on what you think is in front of us on that front and the implications both for the industry and for Curtis-Wright in particular. Is it going to end up being positive, negative, or kind of neutral? I'm just kind of curious how you're thinking about the prospects of what seems to be pretty significant efforts to reform the way the government is going to buy goods and services going forward. Thanks.

Thank you for the question. There has been considerable activity in this area, with many executive orders that align well. Generally speaking, before discussing acquisitions related to shipbuilding and energy production, I believe these will be strong drivers for Curtiss-Wright's growth in the future. I think it's an exciting opportunity, and I feel confident it will positively impact Curtiss-Wright. There are several pathways to consider. Much of the focus has been on large cost-plus contracts that continue to expand. Curtiss-Wright predominantly operates as a firm-fixed price contractor in our defense work, where there is a significant push towards this model as mentioned in the executive orders. We're comfortable engaging in this manner and believe we deliver exceptional value. It's important to emphasize that we provide great value to the government through the contracts we secure, and I believe this is key to our success. Another significant trend from the executive orders is the shift towards more commercial practices and procurement methods. Our Defense Electronics segment is familiar with commercial markets, and we know how to engage effectively with the government in this area. It's promising to see an inclination towards these buying practices, and we'll seek opportunities within our portfolio to leverage commercial pricing and expand our business accordingly. This approach will benefit our customers, the Defense Department, and Curtiss-Wright alike. Additionally, the executive orders include a concept known as Other Transaction Authority (OTA). While Curtiss-Wright doesn't have extensive experience with this, we have been preparing to engage in OTA funding through partnerships. We are also ensuring that we have the necessary relationships to take advantage of these funding opportunities as they arise. I take pride in the value we provide to the Department of Defense, and as they look to enhance efficiency and value in their spending, I believe Curtiss-Wright will be well-positioned to succeed.

That’s helpful. Appreciate it. Thanks. I’ll leave it there.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jason.

Our next question will come from Louie DiPalma with William Blair. Please go ahead.

I was wondering if you could discuss your exposure to different drone platforms.

Yes, sorry, we're not able to hear you. Would you mind repeating that?

You're just kind of coming through mumbled. I am not sure what's going on with the line. So sorry about that, Louie.

Okay. We'll move on next to Nathan Jones with Stifel. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone.

Hey, Nathan.

Good morning. I have a couple of follow-up questions. You mentioned that the increase in commercial aerospace guidance is primarily due to the additional business from voice recorders that you're acquiring, which I believe amounts to around $12 million for 2025. However, you also indicated that this is just the beginning and that it will extend at least through the end of this decade. Can you provide more insight into what you perceive the market potential could be over the next few years? It seems to be growing quite rapidly since you are just starting out.

Yes, we are definitely on track, which was clearly part of our forecast at the beginning of the year. As Chris mentioned, this is why we raised our commercial aerospace outlook. We are gaining more clarity through our partnership with Honeywell, and the ramp-up is starting to become apparent. There are still some uncertainties, but we believe it will continue to grow for many years to come. We are also working on getting certification across the Airbus platforms, which we expect to happen around 2026. This is still a future development, along with some regional jets. At this stage, it's a bit challenging to accurately estimate the opportunity and identify all the areas where we will succeed in order to assign a specific dollar figure. However, I agree, we are at the very beginning of what we anticipate will be a long, steady ramp for that product family.

Fair enough. I'll ask you again in a couple of quarters' time. Defense Electronics margins, I know you got asked about the progression through the year. It's obviously significantly higher than where you started. And then based on all of the things you talked about, it doesn't sound like any of those are onetime in nature for 2025, your commercial excellence restructuring is driving higher levels of volume. It doesn't look like that's going away either. I would expect there's no reason why we think there's any step down next year or something like that in the Defense Electronics margin. This is kind of a new higher baseline that we're starting from now? And then maybe you could just comment on what kind of incremental margins we should expect in that business? Thanks.

I will ask Chris to provide additional insights on the Defense Electronics margins. However, we are not making any predictions for 2026 at this moment. I understand your interest in this information, but we prefer to focus on one year at a time with our current guidance. We feel confident about our updated outlook. While I agree that there isn't a one-time occurrence affecting our product portfolio, we want to maintain the flexibility to invest where we anticipate a strong return for the company moving forward. Therefore, we recommend caution in trying to predict or signal future margin fluctuations.

Yes. And I would just say in terms of incremental margins for that segment, R&D investments or other things that we're doing, you're going to see that in that 30% to 35% range. I mean that is the growth grow your top line and free up that funding for investment beneath, right? So the team is doing a great job and all those things you talked about are absolutely things that we're excited about and see as we look out into the future.

Thanks very much for taking my questions.

Thank you, Nathan.

Thank you. Our next question will come from Louie DiPalma with William Blair. Please go ahead.

I was wondering how the SMR content partnerships are progressing.

So thank you. And yes, you're coming through loud and clear. So glad we could get your question. So they're definitely progressing. I think you made reference to the ramping development dollars across TerraPower and X- energy for some of the projects we're working on there. And that's just indicative of we're becoming more clear where we're going to bring products to market with them or work with Rolls-Royce from the Ultra Energy acquisition. We talked about that being critical to helping us even extend our partnership with them, and that is going very well. So it's all steady as she goes, and we're beginning to be able to more clearly see the design to take form and have line of sight that we will be moving to prototyping here in the next 12 to 24 months and working with them to get their first plants online. So it's exciting.

Thanks a lot. That’s it for me. Thanks, Lynn.

Thank you, Louie.

Thanks for the follow-up. Lynn, you mentioned Westinghouse's press releases in the last week or two regarding Poland and Bulgaria. One of the debates that Westinghouse referred to was the engineering procurement and construction agreement by the end of 2025. If that timeline stuck, would you expect to have a construction contract of your own by the end of 2025 or early 2026?

Yes, I am pleased to share that we previously anticipated this happening in three to five years and have refined that estimate. We expect an order in 2026, possibly by the end of the year, but it could also come mid-year. I feel we are getting closer to that timeframe, but I wouldn't expect it by the end of this year.

That’s was it. Thanks so much.

Thank you.

Thank you. And there are no further questions. I'd like to turn the floor back over to Lynn Bamford, Chair and Chief Executive Officer, for additional or closing remarks.

Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. We look forward to speaking with you again on the road or at our next quarter results call. Thank you. Have a great day.

Thank you.

Thank you. This concludes today's Curtiss-Wright earnings conference call. Please disconnect your line at this time, and have a wonderful day.