Earnings Call Transcript - GEV Q1 2025

Operator, Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to GE Vernova's First Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. My name is Liz, and I will be your conference coordinator today. If you experience issues with the webcast slides refreshing or there appear delays in the slide advancement, please hit F5 on your keyboard to refresh. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the program over to your host for today's conference, Michael Lapides, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please proceed.

Michael Lapides, Vice President of Investor Relations

Thank you. Welcome to GE Vernova's First Quarter 2025 earnings call. I'm joined today by our CEO, Scott Strazik, and CFO, Ken Parks. Our conference call remarks will include both GAAP and non-GAAP financial results. Reconciliations between GAAP and non-GAAP measures can be found in today's Form 10-Q, press release, and presentation slides, all of which are available on our website. Please note that year-over-year commentary or variances on orders, revenue, adjusted and segment EBITDA, and margin, discussed during our prepared remarks are on an organic basis unless otherwise specified. We will make forward-looking statements about our performance. These statements are based on how we see things today. While we may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, we do not undertake any obligation to do so. As described in our SEC filings, actual results may differ materially due to risks and uncertainties. And with that, I'll hand the call over to Scott.

Scott Strazik, CEO

Thanks, Michael. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our first quarter earnings call. Our fifth as a standalone public company. To start, I have to share with you that I am as confident and optimistic today as any day since our spin that we are creating a stronger company at GE Vernova, one that will drive substantial value ahead. We start with the markets. We continue to see very strong end markets and power electrification. Put simply, the world is entering an era of accelerated electrification. Driven by manufacturing growth, industrial electrification, electric vehicles, emerging data center needs, which is driving an unprecedented need for investment in reliable base load power, grid infrastructure, and decarbonization solutions. As supply chains become more decoupled, with more redundancy built into the global system to manage trade complexities, this manufacturing build-out creates incremental demand for additional electrons. To put today's investment super cycle into perspective, the scale of load growth we're seeing in North America is the most significant since the post-World War II industrial build-out. But unlike then, the growth is global. The most populous country in the world, India, nearly 1.5 billion people, drives 80% of its electricity from coal. Saudi Arabia, which relies on heavy oil for nearly half of its power, has committed to a 50/50 mix of gas and renewables by 2030. These are just a few examples of the opportunities ahead as we help customers deliver more reliable and affordable power to the markets they serve. So all of this demand is driving growth, not only for new equipment but also for services as increased utilization of our installed base creates opportunities for additional service revenues, including upgrades. Services represent over 60% of our backlog, at strong margins, and provide significant revenue and cash flow visibility for years to come. While our end markets remain strong, we are not immune to the complexity at play given the current outline of tariffs and resulting inflation. We do expect our cost to go up $300 to $400 million in 2025. We are moving at pace to mitigate these pressures with pricing actions, including the use of existing contractual provisions and the acceleration of our G&A cost structure transformation. We continue to invest in our supply chain to strengthen the durability and resiliency of our operations. For example, in January, we announced our plans to invest $600 million and add 1,500 new jobs in US manufacturing as part of our $9 billion global commitment to R&D and CapEx cumulatively through 2028. We remain confident in our financial trajectory from here and are reaffirming our 2025 financial guidance inclusive of the $300 to $400 million of tariffs and resulting inflation that we estimate as of today, net of our mitigating actions. In this dynamic environment, we will continue to act with urgency on further mitigation steps. This is an opportunity for GE Vernova to differentiate itself as a great industrial company. Overall, we have a solid balance sheet with an $8 billion cash balance, growing free cash flow, and expanding backlog, which positions us to invest both in our business and in shareholder accretive actions. For example, in the first quarter, we sold an incremental 2% in our China XD investment and completed our acquisition of Woodward's gas turbine parts business to further vertically integrate our gas power supply chain. As we begin our second year as a public company, we are well positioned to meet the growing demand with disciplined execution. Turning to the next slide on our first quarter results. We continue to build a stronger backlog supporting a long-term growth potential in our businesses. On a sequential basis, our equipment backlog grew $2.4 billion in Q1, and our services backlog grew $2 billion. We now maintain a total backlog of $123 billion. Specifically, in gas power, we grew equipment orders over 30% by booking 7 gigawatts of gas turbine orders. Additionally, we secured 7 gigawatts of new slot reservation agreements. In total, our gas turbine backlog has increased to 29 gigawatts, and we also have 21 gigawatts of slot reservation agreements that are expected to convert to orders and are not yet in backlog. All of these numbers in gigawatts align with McCoy reporting, which may differ from how our customers often announce projects as they cite the total combined cycle output of the plant, including the power from steam turbines. Considering the focus on gas power demand, I wanted to provide some incremental context on where we are seeing the orders trend for the year. We currently have 50 gigawatts of gas turbines under contract or with a slot reservation. We expect to ship over 10 gigawatts of equipment in the remainder of the year and add contracts for more than two times that amount to end the year with over 60 gigawatts between backlog and reservation agreements. The second half of the year should see a heavier mix of combined cycle orders after a first half with more simple cycle or peaking applications, driving the dollar value of orders in the second half of the year to be substantially higher than the first half. Sitting here today, 2026 and 2027 are largely sold out. We are approaching filling out 2028 and starting to sign agreements for later years. To give that context, I continue to see this market normalize to a higher for longer gas market. The world needs more dispatchable power generation to support economic growth and national security. Gas power will provide a significant amount of the incremental dispatchable power while also being the force multiplier for more renewables where wind and solar resources make sense. With this strength, commercial activity is accelerating for 2029 and 2030 deliveries. We remain focused on our fulfillment strategy of reaching 20 gigawatts of annualized deliveries in the second half of 2026 and sustaining 20 gigawatts per year starting in 2027. We are getting momentum in nuclear as well. Our customer in Ontario Power Generation received the license to construct the first SMR in North America earlier this month. We are also seeing increased interest in the US about expansions at existing nuclear sites as well as the development of SMRs with productive discussions with utilities, hyperscalers, and the administration on what it takes to commission our first SMR in the US by late 2030. And the growth is not restricted to power. We continue to grow our equipment backlog in electrification systems with $2 billion of sequential backlog growth, up 10% versus year-end levels, on the strength of demand for transformers and switchgear. Electrification remains our fastest-growing business, and orders remain strong, particularly in North America and Asia, which were our strongest growth regions this quarter. I mentioned services earlier, and I'll go into more detail here on what we saw this quarter. Customers continue to invest more in the installed base, driving orders in high-margin services. Services orders grew 16% as customers aim to get more capacity and better performance out of their plants. Gas power and onshore wind drove double-digit services order strength, and steam services orders were up nearly 60% this quarter as our customers are increasingly investing in equipment upgrades, including at existing nuclear sites, to extend the life of their plants and get more capacity. To provide a bit more context on wind in the quarter, we were pleased with delivering our fifth straight profitable quarter in onshore wind. We are also pleased with our progress with our utilization of robotic crawlers to inspect the inside of our blades both at the factory and at the site before we commission the turbine. We are investing over $100 million more year over year in 2025 to improve the performance of our installed base and remain confident these investments will yield a substantial improvement in fleet availability and services profitability in 2026. In offshore, we continue to make progress executing our existing backlog in the first quarter, commissioning another 17 units across Dogger Bank and Vineyard Wind. We still expect to be materially complete with Vineyard Wind in 2025 and to be mostly complete with Dogger Bank in 2026. We also agreed to a termination of the last remaining offshore wind supply agreement associated with the 18-megawatt product we are no longer developing. Our only remaining contractual commitments are the two projects currently in execution. Our losses in offshore wind have improved sequentially, and absent this one-time charge, we are better year over year as well. From a margin perspective, Power expanded margin 70 basis points, while electrification expanded margin almost 700 basis points. Wind expanded margin 190 basis points while continuing to control what they can control, given this is the one end market we continue to see real softness in today. We continue to expect margin expansion across all three segments in 2025. Lean remains core to how we operate as we maintain an intense focus on improving safety, quality, delivery, and cost, a focus we are embedding throughout GE Vernova that will benefit all stakeholders. In mid-February, we held our CEO Kaizen week, with over 120 Kaizens across 13 countries, across the segment and corporate functions. Overall, we identified over 500 safety improvements in total during Kaizen week. We also identified enhancements to either capacity or delivery times that will create roughly $150 million in incremental revenues. Kaizens like these drive tangible, sustainable improvements across SQDC while also benefiting both our customers, employees, and our financial performance. In Q1, we generated $1 billion in free cash flow after spending over $400 million between R&D and CapEx combined, an improvement of $1.6 billion year over year given working capital benefits and higher EBITDA as we continue to run our businesses better. We are also creating value for our shareholders. In the quarter, we returned $1.3 billion of capital to shareholders and continued in April for a total of $1.5 billion of capital returned so far this year. Overall, we repurchased approximately 5 million shares at an average share price of $299. We shared our investor update in December that we would be opportunistic with our share buyback program. And today, we see a more valuable company with even greater prospects ahead. Taking into account the dynamic supply chain environment, matched with the strength in our businesses as I discussed on the previous page, we are reaffirming our 2025 expectations to continue to grow backlog, expand margins, and deliver positive free cash flow throughout the year. With that, I'm gonna hand it over to Ken to provide details on Q1 results.

Ken Parks, CFO

Turning to slide five, we delivered a strong start to 2025 with continued orders and revenue growth and adjusted EBITDA margin expansion. Importantly, we improved free cash flow by $1.6 billion year over year, reflecting strong down payments and working capital management, including further improvement in linearity. Demand remained robust in the first quarter as we booked $10.2 billion of orders, an increase of 8% year over year and approximately 1.3 times revenue. Services orders grew double digits with growth in each segment. Equipment orders grew low single digits, primarily driven by strength in power, partially offset by lower orders in onshore wind, as expected, and a tough comparison in electrification due to a large HVDC order recorded in the first quarter of last year. As a result of the strong orders, our backlog reached $123 billion, with equipment and services reaching $123 billion. Equipment margin and backlog remain healthy, reflecting higher price, as well as our focus on disciplined profitable growth. Revenue increased 15% with higher equipment and services revenues in all three segments. Equipment revenue grew 22% with double-digit growth in onshore wind, power, and electrification, while services revenue increased 8%. In addition, price was positive in each segment. Adjusted EBITDA increased nearly 70% to $1.7 billion, and adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 170 basis points. Margin improved in all three segments, driven by more volume, price, and productivity, which more than offset investments as well as inflationary impacts. We generated positive free cash flow in the first quarter of approximately $1 billion, a significant first-quarter milestone for GE Vernova. Free cash flow improved $1.6 billion year over year, reflecting higher down payments from rising orders and slot reservation agreements at Power, along with ongoing actions we're taking to improve linearity. Working capital in the quarter was a $1 billion cash benefit, which more than offset CapEx investments to support capacity expansion along with higher cash taxes on growing EBITDA. We're using Lean to drive better cash management and linearity. For example, the power team continues to focus on accelerating the cash conversion cycle. By implementing stronger daily management and new standard work, the team improved the timely payment of invoices. These actions decreased the power past dues balance by nearly 30% and reduced days sales outstanding by three days, resulting in approximately $150 million of additional free cash flow in the quarter. We continue to leverage our lean culture across GE Vernova to deliver consistently better financial results. In 1Q 2025, we generated approximately $100 million of incremental pretax proceeds by selling an additional partial ownership stake in our China XD grid business. The proceeds are classified outside of free cash flow, and the gain was removed from adjusted EBITDA. We continue to own just over 10% of China XD. Our strengthened free cash flow profile enabled us to repurchase $1.2 billion of stock and pay our inaugural dividend in the quarter. We ended 1Q 2025 with a healthy cash balance of $8.1 billion, which gives us confidence in navigating this dynamic environment. As Scott mentioned, we have continued share repurchases this month, completing approximately $300 million in April. Importantly, we remain committed to maintaining a solid investment-grade balance sheet. In March, Fitch revised its GE Vernova ratings outlook to positive from stable and affirmed our investment-grade credit rating of BBB. Our growing backlog with expanding backlog margin provides an excellent foundation for further improvements in our financial performance moving forward. Turning to Power on Slide six, the segment delivered another strong quarter with continued robust orders growth, increased revenue, and further EBITDA margin expansion. Power orders grew 28%, led by equipment at gas power and services strength. In Gas Power, equipment orders increased more than 30% as we booked 29 heavy-duty gas turbines, including eight units. This was almost double the number of heavy-duty units booked in 1Q of 2024. Power services orders were strong, increasing 18%, primarily driven by gas and steam. Revenue increased 16%, led by gas power. Equipment revenue growth was driven by increased deliveries. Services increased mainly from higher volume as well as price. EBITDA margins expanded 70 basis points to 11.5% as productivity, price, and volume more than offset the impact of inflation and additional expenses to support R&D and capacity investments at nuclear and gas power, respectively. Looking at the second quarter of 2025 at Power, we expect continued year-over-year growth in gas equipment orders. We also anticipate mid-single-digit organic revenue growth given expected equipment strength, as well as continued services growth. On a reported basis, we expect a low single-digit increase reflecting the impact of the divestiture of a portion of the steam business in the second quarter of 2024. We expect EBITDA margin of approximately 14% to 16% as productivity and price should more than offset inflation as well as additional expenses to support R&D and capacity investments at nuclear and gas power. Based on the current outline of tariffs and resulting inflation, we do not expect a material impact to our second-quarter financials at power or electrification. Turning to wind on slide seven. EBITDA margin improved even as we are investing more to enhance onshore fleet performance. Wind orders decreased 43%, driven by lower onshore wind equipment as a result of ongoing US policy uncertainty and permitting delays. In offshore, we remain focused on executing our existing challenged backlog. Wind revenue increased 15% in the quarter on higher onshore equipment deliveries and price, partially offset by lower offshore revenue as we executed on the updated delivery schedule. EBITDA losses improved 7%, driven by more profitable onshore equipment volume. Services costs increased in 1Q as we're deploying more crews and cranes to accelerate improvement in the onshore installed fleet performance. At offshore, EBITDA losses included a one-time termination of a supply agreement of approximately $70 million. As we've discussed, we remain cautious on the timing of an onshore order in North America as customers continue to navigate growing interconnection queues, policy uncertainty, and higher interest rates. We expect the wind segment to grow revenue high single digits in 2Q 2025, driven by higher onshore equipment deliveries. EBITDA losses should remain relatively consistent with 1Q 2025 as the impact of higher year-over-year onshore volume is offset by higher services costs to further improve the operating performance of the installed onshore fleet and the estimated impact of tariffs primarily at offshore. Turning to electrification on slide eight. We had another quarter of robust demand, significant revenue growth, and EBITDA margin expansion. Orders remain strong at approximately $3.4 billion, roughly 1.8 times revenue, driven by the growing need for grid equipment. While we saw substantial orders growth for switchgear and transformers in North America and Asia, total orders decreased low single digits year over year due to a large HVDC order recorded in the first quarter of 2024. Equipment orders outpaced revenue, further expanding the equipment backlog to approximately $22 billion, up more than $7 billion compared to the first quarter of 2024. Revenue increased 18%, driven by higher volume and price, particularly at grid solutions where we saw meaningful growth in switchgear and transformer equipment volumes. The segment delivered another quarter of double-digit EBITDA margins with 680 basis points of margin expansion on more profitable volume, increased productivity, and favorable pricing. In the second quarter of 2025, we anticipate continued solid equipment orders at healthy margins. Electrification revenue growth should be in line with our full-year guidance, driven by higher volume and favorable pricing, primarily at grid solutions, as we expect modest EBITDA margin expansion sequentially. I'll now turn to slide nine to discuss GE Vernova guidance further. For the second quarter, based on our expectations for the segment, which I've already outlined, we expect continued year-over-year revenue growth and adjusted EBITDA margin expansion in the quarter. While we expect to generate positive free cash flow in the second quarter, driven by our continuing focus on better cash linearity and increased EBITDA, we do anticipate lower free cash flow year over year due to the approximately $300 million nonrecurring arbitration refund received in the second quarter of 2024. We continue to expect to deliver positive free cash flow in all four quarters this year. For the full year, we're reaffirming the 2025 guidance, which includes the impact of tariffs as currently outlined and resulting inflation, which is estimated to be approximately $300 to $400 million net of mitigating actions. As Scott mentioned, we're actively navigating the dynamic environment and taking action. Some of our G&A cost-out acceleration and supply chain actions will occur in 2025, but we expect benefits beyond this year. We continue to expect full-year 2025 revenue to be in the $36 billion to $37 billion range, a mid-single-digit year-over-year increase, with growth in both services and equipment. We also expect continued expansion in adjusted EBITDA margin to high single digits as we deliver our growing backlog at better pricing and with better execution. We anticipate free cash flow to be between $2 billion and $2.5 billion. By segment, we continue to expect mid-single-digit organic revenue growth in Power, driven by higher gas services and equipment, and with power EBITDA margins between 13% and 14%. In wind, we expect revenue to be down mid-single digits and the benefit of the one-time settlement from an offshore contract termination in 2024. We expect 2025 wind EBITDA losses to be between $300 million and $400 million, improving year over year, driven by onshore margin expansion within the high single-digit range, and slightly lower losses at offshore. In electrification, we anticipate continued strong demand and favorable price to drive mid to high teens organic revenue growth with 11% to 13% EBITDA margins as we deliver a more profitable backlog. We continue to expect 2025 adjusted EBITDA to be more second-half weighted, similar to last year. We anticipate typical gas services seasonality with the highest outage volume in the fourth quarter. In addition, wind EBITDA should improve in the second half compared to the first, largely due to the timing of onshore turbine deliveries already in backlog and improved services profitability. We also expect electrification earnings to grow sequentially through the year. Finally, at corporate, EBITDA can be uneven across quarters, like 2024, as it includes the portfolio activity at our financial services business. We also expect the timing of cost savings to be more back-end loaded as we drive additional G&A cost transformation. Overall, we drove strong results in 1Q 2025 with continued growth, significant margin expansion, and increasing free cash flow generation.

Scott Strazik, CEO

We are very encouraged by the rising demand and consistently stronger performance we're seeing at power and electrification, as well as the improvements we're making at wind, enabled by our lean culture. With that, I'll turn it back to Michael.

Michael Lapides, Vice President of Investor Relations

Before we wrap up, let me hand it back to Scott for closing comments.

Scott Strazik, CEO

Michael, I appreciate it. At the wrap, I know we're short on time. I just would reinforce solid quarter, more importantly, great prospects from here. And as we wrap with a lot of humility and with a lot of appreciation, I just wanna continue to thank our customers for their trust. For our employees that are here every day to serve our customers and our owners. For all of you. And your interest in investment in GE Vernova, we're excited. This is our fifth earnings call. We've just passed a year, and we really feel like we're just getting started and the best is yet to come. Thanks, everyone.

Operator, Operator

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today's conference. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.