Curtiss Wright Corp Q3 FY2025 Earnings Call

Thank you, Erica, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Curtiss-Wright's Third 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 curtisswright.com. A replay of this webcast will also 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 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 Curtiss-Wright's 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. As you saw in last night's results, we continue to deliver on our Pivot to Growth strategy. Our top line is accelerating. We continue to drive operational and commercial excellence initiatives throughout the organization while making focused investments and remaining measured in our approach to capital allocation. Looking ahead, I am encouraged by the positioning of our technologies across the A&D and commercial markets we serve and see meaningful growth opportunities for Curtiss-Wright well into the next decade. Later in our prepared remarks, I'll spend some more time discussing Curtiss-Wright's opportunities for growth within those markets and we'll provide some high-level commentary on our outlook for 2026. The momentum continues to build, and the team and I are excited about the long runway ahead. With that, I'll turn to the highlights of our third quarter 2025 results. We delivered another strong operational performance with revenue and growth in operating income across all 3 segments. Overall, sales of $869 million represented an increase of 9% year-over-year, in line with our expectations and highlighted by 6% organic growth. Operating income increased 14% year-over-year, exceeding our sales growth and driving 90 basis points of overall operating margin expansion to 19.6%. This translated into a 14% year-over-year increase in diluted earnings per share. This result slightly exceeded our expectations based on improved operational performance and fewer shares outstanding. Free cash flow was $176 million, up 8% year-over-year, reflecting nearly 140% conversion due to higher cash earnings and lower tax payments while increasing growth investments in capital spending. Regarding our order book, new orders increased 8% and resulted in an overall book-to-bill, providing continued confidence in future top line growth. Starting with our A&D markets, we continue to experience strong demand for commercial aerospace products, signaling a low risk of destocking as production ramps across the major OEM platforms. In naval defense, we saw higher orders for nuclear propulsion equipment, supporting the U.S. Navy's current and next-generation submarine programs. Those increases in demand were partially offset by the timing of orders within our aerospace defense and ground defense markets where despite some delays due to the extended continuing resolution. Within our commercial markets, we experienced tremendous growth in commercial nuclear orders, including 2 new DOE-funded multiyear contracts in support of Idaho National Laboratory and other government sites. This is a small but growing opportunity, which leverages Curtiss-Wright's nuclear pedigree and broad portfolio of products and services in support of increased government focus towards commercial nuclear. We continue to experience solid demand for aftermarket equipment supporting planned outages and restarts in addition to new development contracts supporting SMRs. Overall, the continued growth in orders builds on Curtiss-Wright's already strong backlog, which is now up 14% year-to-date, reaching a new record in excess of $3.9 billion. Regarding our updated full year 2025 guidance, our strong year-to-date performance and growing backlog have provided confidence to once again raise our overall outlook for sales, operating income and earnings per share. We now expect sales to increase 10% to 11%, reflecting the strength within our A&D markets. This, in turn, supports a new range of 16% to 19% growth in operating income. We continue to expect more than 100 basis points in margin expansion and remain on track to deliver record operating margin in excess of 18.5%. Diluted EPS is now expected to grow 19% to 21%, which also includes the benefits of our increased 2025 share repurchase activity. And lastly, we maintained our free cash flow guidance while accelerating overall capital expenditures to support future growth initiatives, and we continue to expect strong free cash flow conversion exceeding 105%. In summary, Curtiss-Wright's strong year-to-date execution and demonstrated success under our Pivot to Growth strategy ensures that we remain well positioned to deliver exceptional results for the full year. Now I would like to turn the call over to Chris to provide a more in-depth review of our financials.

Thank you, Lynn. Turning to Slide 4. I'll begin by reviewing the key drivers of our third quarter 2025 performance. I'll start with the Aerospace & Industrial segment where overall sales increased 8%. In the segment's commercial aerospace market, growth was driven by continued strong demand supporting increased production on both narrow-body and wide-body platforms. In aerospace defense, we experienced modest growth for sensors and surface treatment services supporting both domestic and international fighter jet programs. Within the segment's ground defense market, our results reflected increased EM actuation sales supporting ground-based mobile launcher systems for the U.S. Army's IFPC program. In the general industrial market, sales were flat overall despite the ongoing macro challenges affecting global industrial vehicle markets. And turning to the segment's third quarter profitability, operating income grew 17%, while operating margin expanded 140 basis points to 18.6%. These strong results were driven by favorable absorption on higher A&D sales, restructuring savings, and a more favorable mix of business. Next, in the Defense Electronics segment, sales growth of 4% exceeded our expectations, mainly due to the timing of tactical communications equipment revenues within ground defense as some revenues and deliveries accelerated into the third quarter. Within the segment's aerospace defense market, growth for embedded computing equipment supporting European fighter jets and domestic UAV programs was partially offset by the timing of revenue on helicopter programs. Growth in the segment's naval defense market was driven by higher embedded computing equipment revenues supporting both domestic and foreign military customers. In the segment's commercial aerospace market, we once again experienced solid sales growth mainly for our flight data reports supporting the FAA's 25-hour safety mandate. Regarding the segment's operating performance, we delivered a strong operating margin of 29.2%, up 270 basis points and ahead of our expectations, reflecting favorable absorption on higher revenues, the benefits of our ongoing operational excellence initiatives and a more favorable mix of higher-margin business. Of note, this favorable mix is mainly due to the timing between the third and fourth quarters, and we expect this to normalize across the remainder of the year. Turning to the Naval & Power segment, where overall sales increased 12%. In the naval defense market, we once again experienced strong revenue growth driven by the acceleration of production on both the Columbia-class and Virginia-class submarine programs. Those gains were partially offset by lower sales within the segment's aerospace defense market based on the timing of arresting systems revenues. And as a result, as we look ahead to the fourth quarter, we now expect a strong sequential increase in revenues for arresting systems products, principally supporting international customers. In the power and process market, our results reflected yet another solid contribution from our I&C Solutions acquisition, formerly known as Ultra Energy, driving higher sales to both our commercial nuclear and process markets. On an organic basis, commercial nuclear sales grew more than 10%, reflecting the ramp-up in development across several SMR designs as well as higher government nuclear revenues. Sales in the process market were down slightly overall but reflected modest growth in subsea pump development revenues. Regarding the segment's operating performance, operating income grew 14%, while operating margin expanded 20 basis points to 16.6%, mainly reflecting favorable absorption on higher sales, which was partially offset by higher research and development supporting next-generation SMR designs. To sum up Curtiss-Wright's third quarter results, the strong top line performance resulted in an overall operating margin of 19.6%, driving 90 basis points in operating margin expansion. Turning to our full year 2025 guidance. I'll begin on Slide 5 with our end market sales outlook, where total sales are now expected to grow 10% to 11%, driven by improved expectations for organic growth across our A&D markets. Starting in aerospace defense, our outlook of 7% to 9% sales growth remains unchanged and continues to reflect strong growth in defense electronics as well as higher sales of aircraft arresting systems equipment. Within ground defense, full year sales are now expected to grow 7% to 9% based upon increased EM actuation sales as well as higher tactical communications equipment revenues. In naval defense, while we expect a sequential decline in revenues in the fourth quarter based upon the timing of material receipts, the strong year-to-date performance on submarine platforms provides us with confidence to raise our full year sales guidance to a new range of 9% to 11%. Looking more broadly across all 3 defense markets and based upon our strong backlog supporting key platforms globally, we're well positioned for continued solid growth in these markets in 2026. Turning to commercial aerospace, our outlook for 13% to 15% sales growth is unchanged, and we remain on track to deliver strong growth based upon both the ramp-up in OEM production as well as increased sales of flight data recorders within our Defense Electronics segment. Additionally, our order book in commercial aerospace continues to demonstrate tremendous growth, providing increased confidence in our 2025 outlook and our ability to once again deliver strong growth in this market in 2026. Wrapping up our Aerospace and Defense outlook, we now project total sales in these markets to increase 10% to 11%. Moving to our commercial markets. In power and process, despite some timing between the third and fourth quarters, our outlook for 16% to 18% sales growth remains unchanged. Of note, the continued strength of our commercial nuclear order book now provides us with increased confidence to be closer to the high end of our full year guidance range in this market. Overall, our outlook continues to reflect a combination of strong organic revenue growth as well as the contribution from I&C Solutions. And lastly, in the general industrial market, while we continue to expect flat sales in 2025, our team has done a great job positioning Curtiss-Wright to overcome the ongoing global macro challenges facing industrial vehicle markets. Wrapping up our total commercial markets, we continue to target strong full year sales growth of 9% to 11%. Moving on to our full year 2025 outlook by segment on Slide 6. I'll begin in Aerospace & Industrial, where we raised the floor of both our revenue and operating income guidance based upon the strong year-to-date performance in our A&D markets. Overall, we continue to project sales growth of 4% to 5%. Regarding the segment's profitability, we continue to project operating income growth of 6% to 9% and operating margin expansion of 30 to 60 basis points, ranging from 17.3% to 17.6%. Next, in Defense Electronics, we increased our revenue guidance to a new range of 10% to 11%, reflecting solid growth projections across all A&D markets and improved confidence as we close out the year. Regarding the segment's profitability, we now expect operating income growth of 19% to 22% and operating margin expansion of 220 to 240 basis points to a new all-time high range of 27.1% to 27.3%, reflecting more favorable absorption, the benefits of our commercial and operational excellence and mix on higher sales. At Naval & Power, we now expect sales to grow 13% to 15%, including 7% to 8% organic growth, reflecting our increased naval defense market outlook and our overall strong backlog, which provides solid long-term visibility. Regarding the segment's profitability, we raised our operating income guidance to a new range of 17% to 20% based on the higher revenue growth. However, we maintained our prior margin outlook of 16.3% to 16.5%, reflecting the increasing mix towards naval revenues. To summarize our 2025 outlook, overall, we now anticipate total Curtiss-Wright operating income to grow 16% to 19%, and we continue to expect operating margin to range from 18.5% to 18.7%, up 100 to 120 basis points. And as a reminder, we are delivering these strong results while continuing to grow our total research and development across the portfolio, positioning us for future organic growth. Continuing with our financial outlook on Slide 7. Building upon our year-to-date performance and expectations for continued strong growth in earnings, we have increased our full year adjusted diluted EPS guidance to a new range of $12.95 to $13.20 or up 19% to 21%. Note that our guidance now includes a reduction in other income due to lower year-over-year interest income resulting from the accelerated share repurchase activity, which also supports a lower share count. We also reduced the bottom end of our tax rate, which now reflects a range of 21.75% to 22% as we continue to pursue and demonstrate success in our tax optimization strategies. Overall, we remain well ahead of the EPS growth targets that we set at our May 2024 Investor Day as we continue to compound earnings at a mid-teens pace over time. And lastly, we're maintaining our free cash flow outlook and expecting to deliver record free cash flow of $520 million to $535 million, up 8% to 11%. Of note, based on the strength in earnings, we increased the low end of our expectations for operational cash flow by $10 million. That increase was equally offset by a $10 million acceleration in anticipated capital expenditures. As a result, our outlook for $85 million in capital expenditures now reflects an increase of approximately 40% year-over-year and is reflective of our ongoing investments to support near- and medium-term growth. And despite these increased investments, we continue to expect cash flow in excess of earnings and a free cash flow conversion rate of approximately 108%. Now I'd like to turn the call back over to Lynn.

Thank you, Chris. And turning to Slide 8, where I will wrap up today's prepared remarks. As we demonstrated today, we continue to build momentum and deliver consistently strong financial performance through our relentless focus on execution. As a result, we are positioned for a strong finish in 2025 with expectations to generate record full year financial results across all major metrics. As mentioned in my opening remarks, as I look to the future of Curtiss-Wright, I am excited about the positioning of our technologies across the A&D and commercial markets we serve. This position is driven by thoughtful and targeted investment to ensure that our businesses remain deeply aligned to the major near, medium and long-term growth vectors within our end markets. I would like to spend just a few of the next minutes highlighting several of those critical market dynamics that have and will continue to provide compelling upside for Curtiss-Wright well into the future. Starting in defense, we are well positioned to capitalize on the continued acceleration in global defense spending based on the accelerated pace of growth in NATO and allied funding and our strong alignment to U.S. priorities. For example, in shipbuilding, which ranks near the top of the priority list of the combined FY '26 budget and reconciliation bill, we have significant content on Columbia-class and Virginia-class submarines and the Ford Class aircraft carrier program and also continue to receive significant development funding on the next-generation SSN(X) submarine. Additionally, Curtiss-Wright's position as a mission-critical partner to the U.S. Navy has led to a meaningful increase in maritime industrial base funding, now up to $40 million and nearly double our pace entering the year for investments in capital equipment and capacity expansion to support our near- and long-term growth, and we continue to believe there's still more funding expected to come our way. Beyond the strong support for shipbuilding, I would also like to highlight our confidence in defense electronics, where we continue to maintain a leading position with the broadest and most differentiated portfolio of products and with our alignment to open standards like SOSA, MOSA and CMOSS. We are investing in and developing a broad range of technologies to support the battlefield of the future focused on the highest processing capacity, interconnect speeds and secure communications, which in turn will allow us to secure positions on a wide range of applications at the tactical edge. We also have a great opportunity to support Golden Dome. Curtiss-Wright has the potential to provide numerous solutions across our Defense Electronics segments, including embedded computing, tactical communications, tactical data links, and EM actuation equipment. Elsewhere, we remain aligned with Rheinmetall to support increases in ground vehicle production throughout Europe with our Turret Drive stabilization systems, and we were pleased to recently announce Curtiss-Wright's collaboration on the prototype phase of the U.S. Army's new XM30 combat vehicle program. In commercial aerospace, we have a strong foundation with established content on every Boeing and Airbus platform and remain well positioned to support the anticipated production rate increases going forward. Beyond our existing content, we continue to address our customers' future needs through the development of sensor technology in the hottest sections of the engine, EM actuation equipment, and specialized coatings, all of which are yielding new opportunities for growth. And as Chris noted earlier, we are delivering improved cockpit voice recorder solutions to the market to meet FAA and EASA safety mandates for longer recording capacity. While we have yet to define the full opportunity set, this has begun to translate into meaningful revenues this year and is forecasted to accelerate over the next several years to support both retrofit and new build opportunities. Turning to our commercial markets and starting with general industrial. Despite the ongoing global macro challenges affecting the industrial vehicle market, our order book has remained generally stable over the past 12 months and actually inflected slightly higher in the third quarter, which is an encouraging sign heading into 2026. Our team has done a great job navigating the impact of tariffs, driving pricing initiatives and building upon its leadership positions to generate market share gains, which is enabling us to remain essentially flat despite the declining industry growth rates in this market. In the process market, we continue to drive innovation and diversification of our critical valve technologies to position the business to support future growth segments, such as the LNG market, which is expected to experience a significant surge in production by the end of this decade. In addition, we are developing applications to drive enormous value and savings to customers that operate deep-sea drilling and offshore production facilities. Our first subsea pump was delivered to Shell in the third quarter, while our development testing and support activities with Petrobras and others continue to progress. Through the advancement of this new technology, we have an opportunity to win significant new business by the end of this decade. Lastly, turning to commercial nuclear, which continues to play an important role in meeting future energy demand. Curtiss-Wright is very well positioned to support the strong growth anticipated to drive this market over the next 25-plus years. Our technologies are aligned to support the entire life cycle, both in new build from AP1000 reactors to small modular reactors and in our growing global support in the aftermarket. Our opportunity to reach our Investor Day objectives has been reinforced by the administration's focus on nuclear as a matter of national security. In addition, it is encouraging to see more and more technology companies address their base node power needs and support future data centers through nuclear power. Adding to that, while we have been seeing continued progress from Poland and Bulgaria and other European countries to build new 1 gigawatt plants, private enterprises such as Fermi in Texas have raised the possibility of beginning construction on new AP1000 plants within the next 12 to 18 months. As a result, we see the potential for significant orders supporting AP1000 reactors likely as soon as 2026. This, in turn, provides us with increased confidence in our ability to meet our 2028 target to double our 2023 revenue base in this market and then generate more than $1.5 billion in annual commercial nuclear revenues by the middle of the next decade. The momentum and pace of activity continue to grow. Overall, looking across all our end markets, these are just a few of the many examples highlighting the alignment of our technology to strong positive market growth vectors that are driving confidence in our outlook for 2026 and beyond. Next, I wanted to share a few comments on the topic of capital allocation and highlight our third quarter announcements regarding the acceleration and timing of our share repurchase activity. In May, the Board approved a $400 million increase in our share repurchase authorization, reflecting their confidence in the company's strong free cash flow generation and the momentum we are building in the Pivot to Growth strategy. Subsequently, in August and then again in September, the Board approved our request for 2 separate $200 million expansions of our 2025 share buyback program. As a result, we now anticipate a record of more than $450 million in share repurchases this year. We continue to see the value in our stock price relative to the strong growth and earnings potential in front of Curtiss-Wright. Aside from share repurchases, our record free cash flow generation and efficient balance sheet continue to provide flexibility to enable future growth under our strategy, including ongoing investments in R&D, talent and systems as well as acquisitions, which remains our top priority beyond fueling the core. Lastly, to conclude our prepared remarks, overall, we remain on track to exceed the 3-year objectives provided at last year's Investor Day. Note that these targets exclude an AP1000 order, which, as we mentioned earlier, is anticipated in 2026. As we look ahead to next year and beyond, the strength of our order book, expanding positions across our end markets and the contributions from our capital allocation strategy ensure that we are well positioned for continued profitable growth well into the future. In 2026, we are targeting solid top line growth in each of our 3 segments and continued operating margin expansion while increasing investments in research and development. In summary, we are executing on our Pivot to Growth strategy by compounding earnings at a mid-teens pace and delivering consistent financial performance across all major metrics. Momentum continues to build at Curtiss-Wright, and we remain committed to driving our business to new heights and delivering exceptional results for our shareholders. Thank you. And at this time, I would like to open up today's conference call for questions.

Lynn, I was wondering if you could pick up where you left off on the AP1000 and maybe speak to the shipset content that you have currently on that reactor. I've classically thought about it as $30 million for reactor coolant pumps. But is the complement of your work scope improving there, increasing? Maybe just to level set us.

Thank you. It's a timely question as we've been really looking into this and making sure we're appreciating the full range of content we have. And you start out with the RCP, the last time they were sold was just over $28 million per RCP. So you're in line with what you're thinking there. I'm really pleased, we've made some rough comments on this in the past, we've historically said our content on top of the RCPs is $10 million to $20 million of content. And the team is doing a really good job of increasing that incremental content. I think 2, 3x from what we had prior is what today is in play for Curtiss-Wright. These are ongoing pursuits. So nothing is assured yet. But I do think we are going to really add meaningful business on top of the RCPs to the content we have for the AP1000 plant.

Okay. Great. And then just a follow-up, if I could, on the bookings. Could you provide that by segment? And Defense Electronics, in particular, did that bounce back? And is there any concern on the government shutdown?

I will start by providing an overview of our bookings, and then Chris can go into more detail afterward. Overall, we had a good quarter with a book-to-bill ratio of 1.1. However, the government shutdown and continuing resolution are impacting certain areas of our business. Fortunately, the naval defense sector, which is our largest market, has not experienced much disruption. Our results year-to-date, particularly in submarine programs, are strong. We operate under large multiyear contracts, so this part of our business remains largely unaffected. The most significant impact we've seen is in our Defense Electronics segment, where we've identified over $50 million in orders that have been delayed out of Q3 due to the continuing resolution. We are monitoring this situation closely and are confident that this business hasn’t disappeared. Our team is in touch with customers, and it’s largely a matter of processing these orders. The pipeline for defense electronics is healthy and expanding. I want to briefly highlight a few efforts that explain our ability to grow the business pipeline. We believe we have the most robust MOSA, SOSA, and CMOSS aligned offerings in the market, and this year we've launched over 20 new products in this category, which is a remarkable accomplishment from our team. We also discussed our partnership with NVIDIA, from which we recently showcased NVIDIA-based products at the GTC show, notably being the only company to demonstrate a CMOSS-based Blackwell processor. Additionally, our Fabric100 interconnect, the fastest available, differentiates us in the marketplace, allowing us to deliver unique solutions at the tactical edge. Furthermore, we continuously evaluate new capabilities to expand our application space, including recently achieving Microsoft Azure validation for several of our small form factor products. This inclusion in the Microsoft Azure catalog significantly broadens our customer reach. These developments ensure that our pipeline remains robust and continues to grow, despite the Q3 order pushouts. Chris, would you like to provide additional insights on the segments?

Sure. Yes. Let me try to jump into some of the numbers here, Myles. And I think it's important to note, I think, as you look at the overall orders and what's been happening for Curtiss-Wright, that we had a very strong first half in naval bookings. The first thing is if you just remove that off the table, we have seen sequential growth in our orders since Q1, and that includes Defense Electronics. So important to kind of pull that out. The Q3 book-to-bill was about 1.1x, and that was on 9% sales growth. We had a 1x book-to-bill in aerospace and defense, and we had a 1.2x in commercial. So the orders were up 8% year-over-year, and the backlog was up 14%. We're at a record backlog right now at $3.9 billion. Diving into the segments and just the book-to-bill for the quarter, we were about 1.04 on Aerospace & Industrial, and we were about 1.14 in Naval & Power. We talked about the strength of the commercial aerospace orders and the nuclear orders on the call. But to dive into Defense Electronics, maybe just a little bit more on that topic. The order book did improve sequentially here in the third quarter. As Lynn had mentioned, the pushouts had affected that. It was a 1x book-to-bill. Had we not had the pushouts, we're confident that it would have been 1.1x book-to-bill. The backlog in that segment is up 3%. Strong revenue growth of 10%. It's above the prior year September backlog number. But the book-to-bill has been holding steady at 1x. So as we look ahead, I mean, right now, we're assuming that the shutdown is going to get resolved here in mid-November. We believe that once that gets resolved, it's a 30- to 45-day turnaround time before orders begin to resume a more normal flow. But fortunately, for us, the businesses that are most impacted are generally short cycle in nature, and we would expect to recover very quickly. So I think it's important to note that there's nothing that's affecting our 2025 guidance. Lynn mentioned the pipeline is strong. We have good confidence levels in 2026 and strong alignment to the customers' priorities. Next year's defense spending between the budget and the reconciliation bill are up 13%. So we see positivity as we look out into the future. We just need these guys to come to an agreement in the meantime.

That's great. And Lynn, I'm sorry, just to clarify on your prior AP1000 comment, is the $10 million to $20 million of incremental content on AP1000, is that a historical benchmark of which I should think about it's grown 2 or 3x? Or is that the current benchmark?

No, that's the historical benchmark, Myles, that we had back in the mid-teens.

I want to follow up on Myles' question regarding the AP1000 pricing to ensure clarity. In the past, each cooling tower was approximately $250 million, so a build with twin towers would be about $500 million. For the project in Poland, they are constructing triplets, which would amount to $750 million. Are the incremental figures you're referring to—2x, 3x—based on that specific cost, or are they related to the initial U.S. order from 2007, which was a significantly lower amount?

To clarify, if you refer to our Investor Day presentation from last year, we conceptualize our operations in terms of plants, each having four revenue capturing points (RCPs). When we mention revenue per plant, that’s the framework we use, which currently stands at over $110 million. Poland plans to construct six plants, Bulgaria aims for two, and Fermi is looking at four. It’s important to maintain this terminology to avoid confusion between RCPs and plants. Historically, each RCP has generated $10 million to $20 million in content per plant. We have been actively exploring additional ways to supply to Westinghouse, engaging with them on various projects. Currently, we are aiming to increase that additional content, potentially doubling or tripling the $10 million to $20 million range, although this is still developing as they refine their supply chain. Our goal is to support their success, and we’re excited about the possibility of raising that content per plant into the mid-100 millions.

Got you. That makes sense. And maybe digging more into this on AP1000, I mean, it looks since your Investor Day last year, and we've seen a lot more support for U.S. large nuclear power plant builds. And so we've seen the support of executive orders from the White House. But then also last week, we saw Cameco and Brookfield established a transformational partnership with the U.S. government to accelerate deployment of Westinghouse nuclear reactors. I was wondering, can you give us more color regarding the potential of the U.S. market and the timing? And also following up on the expected order that you have for 2026, are you expecting a Poland order and the U.S. order? Or is that just Poland and Bulgaria?

Yes. We are closely collaborating with Westinghouse, and it’s exciting to see the recent announcements as they are crucial for getting our projects underway. We are particularly enthusiastic about the partnership announcement and the funding from Japan for nuclear development in the U.S. There were two positive developments in October regarding this. The public information includes funding for ten plants, but there isn’t a clear understanding of how Japan's investment fits into that. We have some insights from Westinghouse, but our focus remains on those ten plants. Our team believes that the first order will likely come from the opportunity in Poland, with Bulgaria being in close competition, and it seems these will precede any U.S. orders. However, the timeline for the billion dollars aimed at long lead material expenditures is still uncertain, particularly whether it will materialize in 2026. We hold a positive outlook for receiving our first order in 2026, and the team is actively preparing and planning for various scenarios based on the increased activity in the U.S. Furthermore, our work on Small Modular Reactor opportunities is progressing towards prototyping, keeping the team busy.

Yes. I mean it seems like when it rains, it pours. And so can you just remind us, Lynn, what your capacity is to build an AP1000, especially because, right, the U.S. Navy content is also increasing. So just trying to understand what could you produce in a given year? And you had called out elevated CapEx this year or next year. What is that supporting? Is this in anticipation of commercial nuclear power or the opportunities in the other segments that you had highlighted?

We believe our capacity is between 12 to 16 reactors annually. However, this needs to align closely with the naval work. Our team is committed to meeting our Investor Day targets of 105% free cash flow conversion. We've increased our capital expenditures by 30% each year, both last year and this year, primarily to prepare for expansion in this area. The $10 million mentioned by Chris in his remarks is allocated for expanding our capabilities related to nuclear. We are actively discussing with Westinghouse to ensure we are prepared to support them, and that $10 million is part of our proactive efforts in this regard.

Nice results. Chris, maybe just to stay on the theme of AP1000. If you get an order in 2026, maybe could you just give us a high level how quickly you begin to recognize revenues on that? I remember back with the China direct order, how that all works back in the day, but maybe just to level set us on how quickly that begins to flow through on the financials? And then I have a follow-up.

Yes, sure. I think we've had a lot of discussion on the call today regarding reactor coolant pumps and then other content, and I'll focus on the reactor coolant pumps to begin with. When we get that first order, I think a lot of it is going to depend upon the timing of receipts and long lead materials and how quickly we can get that in the door. Lynn has talked about the fact that we're in active discussions with our customer regarding capacity and how to accelerate potentially some of those flows. So as you look at the receipt of the order, it's going to be under POC accounting. And typically, in the past, it was maybe a 5-year bell curve. I think the China contract went out 7 years because their schedule was delayed. But with this flood of activity that we're seeing here, I could see that be accelerated into a tighter window than a 5-year period of recognition. So again, a lot is going to depend upon the timing of the material receipts and then the labor that kind of follows that. But there would be some revenue recognition upfront to 2026, but then it would quickly accelerate in 2027. When we talk about this extra or the other product that kind of can go into the AP1000 power plants, a lot of that won't be long lead material type items. You've got to get some of that bigger stuff into the plant first. So I would expect that to be recognized a little bit further towards the back end of the bell curve, but certainly an opportunity for us as well.

I appreciate that color. And then just, Lynn, on the, I guess, near term more when you think about your targets that you put out there for a doubling of the business by 2028, did you contemplate a lot of these restarts that we're seeing, whether it's Palisades or Three Mile Island or some of the others when you were thinking about that planning just because it seems like that is, again, an incremental tailwind to all things nuclear.

Yes, there may have been discussions about it, but it wasn’t something we considered when setting our targets. Since we established those targets 15 to 18 months ago, the industry has really gained momentum. There have been significant developments in Europe, like the GBN announcement with Rolls-Royce. Many positive changes are taking place, and you’re correct, this is a new factor.

Yes. This whole AI wave has been something that's been new for us as well. That's a lot of positive momentum. And I would just remind the listeners that as you go back and look at what we provided at Investor Day, we said we would be doing $1.5 billion in annual commercial nuclear revenue by the middle of this next decade, that really only contemplated the European opportunity at that point in time. So I know we're still several years away from that in the middle of this next decade, but we feel much stronger and more confident in the art of the possible as it was labeled at that point than we did back in May.

Lynn, are you seeing meaningful retrofit demand for the 25-hour flight data recorder yet? Or is it primarily only OEM demand at this point? And then how should we think about the retrofit gross margins on that product relative to the OE gross margins?

It is a combination, but much of the retrofit involves staging materials to prepare for the retrofit more than the actual retrofits, as we understand from our discussions with Honeywell. This is just one aspect to consider as this market is expected to continue growing through the latter half of the year. Additionally, we are collaborating with Honeywell to develop a suitable product offering for regional jets with more than 30 seats that are included in this mandate. These are significant numbers. Our partnership with Airbus is progressing positively, and we anticipate receiving certification in the first half of 2026. Following that, we will assess how our production scales up. We haven't yet provided a long-term revenue outlook for this program because many aspects are still evolving, and the specifics of this retrofit remain somewhat unclear. Furthermore, we haven't offered much detail regarding shipset content or margins for the OEM or production. However, it is part of our Defense Electronics segment, and we believe in the products we create to enhance the margins within that segment. Yes, we are clear that this is our top priority, and our team is actively engaged. We are in discussions regarding a couple of properties that I prefer to work on with someone in a more proprietary way rather than through an auction. I know some have observed that we appeared more enthusiastic earlier but haven't announced anything in the first part of 2026. It's important to remember that we only closed on Ultra, I&C at the end of last year, and we changed terminology then as well. That is progressing well. We are considering some properties that would strategically enhance our portfolio, and we are still highly focused on this. However, we will ensure a strategic and financial fit without overpaying for a property. Some opportunities we believed were a strategic fit came with price tags that would not create value for our shareholders, and we will not proceed if it won’t.

I guess I'll ask you a non-nuclear question. You talked about a stabilization in industrial vehicles and maybe a little bit of a positive inflection in orders during the quarter. So maybe just a little bit more color on regions, geographies or end markets that might be driving that improvement or any color you've got for us there?

Yes. I’ll begin by saying that the industrial vehicle markets have faced significant challenges overall. However, our team has managed to maintain stability this year. As we look ahead, we acknowledge that the North American on-highway markets will remain tough, but we believe there are opportunities in certain areas in Europe as we aim to expand our customer base and market presence. We're seeing positive indicators in our order book, with a year-over-year improvement of approximately 4% in the third quarter. I understand that these figures are fresh and may fluctuate, but we experienced a particularly strong October, which stands out over the past few years. Based on our discussions with customers, we are optimistic about a robust fourth quarter. While we anticipate challenges for this market in '26, we expect a rebound in '27. The team is excelling and continues to work hard to increase our market share.

Could you provide some insight on the potential impact of a government shutdown? Historically, these disruptions have led to a more weighted Defense Electronics business in the second half, once resolved. Chris mentioned that some delays are more short-cycle. Can you share any expectations for the cadence in 2026 compared to historical patterns based on what you've observed and what you currently know?

Yes. So we have been very focused over the past few years of trying to make the fourth quarter less dramatic. And I think as you look at what's happening here in the fourth quarter, we've got very strong backlog. We raised the bottom end of our guidance here to show a little bit of increased confidence as we go to close out the year in 2025. But to the extent that the government shutdown continues and we have delays in the receipt of those orders, yes, it will take a little bit of time to kind of pick back up. So I'm assuming that there will be a little bit more pressure on Q1 at this point in time than there would be historically and that, that will force us to be a little bit more back half weighted. But we are confident in the orders that are out there and coming our way, and we'll cautiously balance that against things like advanced buys and other positions in inventory that will help us to kind of recover and deliver those revenues to our customers as fast as possible because I know that they want the orders, they want the part, they're equally disappointed with what's happening here right now. So I would expect to see a little bit of pressure on Q1, but then we will recover over the course of the year, and we'll continue to try to keep the fourth quarter from being a dramatic data point.

Nice quarter. I wanted to ask about the Switzerland business and defense electronics, particularly the Turret Drive stabilization business. It seems that some of your key customers, like Rheinmetall, are receiving a significant number of new orders for ground vehicles. Could you provide insight into the visibility in that business? The growth outlook seems like it could potentially exceed the rest of that segment. I'd appreciate it if you could discuss this further with us.

This is to highlight the team's longstanding association with Curtiss-Wright over several decades. The business has seen strong periods in the past. We previously discussed the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia program nearly ten years ago when it was experiencing growth. Before the Ukraine conflict, it had been a slow-growing aspect of our business. We anticipated a pickup once Europe recognized the potential of their militarized vehicles. Although the growth has been slower than expected, it is encouraging to see signs of improvement with orders expected to deliver soon. Our collaboration with Rheinmetall, their strategic partner for turret drive stabilization, remains strong. I mentioned earlier the significant milestone with the XM30, marking their first venture outside the European market. Germany is leading efforts in enhancing their vehicles, and we are keen to participate in that initiative. But I don't think it's appropriate really to talk about the pricing at this point. They're not subject to the far, obviously. And the product does have applicability into some commercial markets outside of defense. We sell it into tilting trains and a couple of other end markets. So there is a commercial capability, but I'll just leave it at that.

Congratulations, Lynn, Chris, and Jim, on the impressive results and your effective management. I see a broader perspective here with your four businesses that have strong growth prospects ahead, supported by various long-term trends. You mentioned M&A opportunities. Could you provide a high-level overview of how you plan to prioritize these four significant opportunities?

So I think we've been pretty transparent that our CapEx allocation and acquisition focuses over the recent past have been around our aerospace and defense and commercial nuclear markets. And those are priorities for the company in places where we see really strong growth, really differentiated technologies. But I think one of the things we always remind people of you take just, for example, pick one thing randomly, the electromechanical actuation capability that goes into industrial markets. It also is the same capability, engineering teams, manufacturing floors that builds this for the aerospace and defense market. So even though our business lays on paper as if it has these different buckets and there's isolated pieces, from an engineering capability, manufacturing standpoint, our businesses are intertwined across those end markets. And it's something we're proud of and pursue that we've always believed that investing in a technology once and taking it to different end markets is part of how Curtiss-Wright has achieved the margin expansion we've achieved over the past years.

This is Alexandra Mandery on for Michael Ciarmoli with Truist Securities. How are you guys thinking about 2026 in terms of growth trajectory for end markets and margin expansion?

I discussed 2026 briefly in my prepared remarks, and we are optimistic about growth across all three segments, which is very encouraging. In my closing remarks, I mentioned the current market dynamics and our supporting technologies. Key industry factors, such as the growth rates in commercial aerospace highlighted by Boeing and Airbus and the defense spending related to nuclear initiatives, are foremost in everyone's minds and will drive growth into 2026. We are confident we will exceed our 2024 Investor Day targets in the long run. We are dedicated to expanding our operating margins faster than cash, and we will provide more specific guidance for 2026 when we wrap up the year and conduct our Q1 call.

So I would just say, I hope we were able to project some of that confidence in the script today. We're excited for what's happening now and as we look forward to the future.

Thank you, everybody, for joining us today, and we look forward to speaking with you possibly on the road or with our Q4 results out in the beginning of 2026. So have a good day.

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