Magna International Inc Q3 FY2025 Earnings Call

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for being here. I’m Kelvin, and I'll be your conference operator today. I want to welcome you to the Magna International Third Quarter 2025 Results Webcast. Now, I’ll hand the call over to Louis Tonelli, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please proceed.

Thanks, operator. Hello, everyone, and welcome to our conference call covering our third quarter 2025 results. Joining me today are Swamy Kotagiri and Phil Fracassa, our CFO. Yesterday, our Board of Directors met and approved our financial results for the third quarter of 2025 and our updated outlook. We issued a press release this morning outlining our results. You'll find the press release, today's conference call webcast, the slide presentation to go along with the call and our updated quarterly financial review all in the Investor Relations section of our website at magna.com. Before we get started, just as a reminder, the discussion today may contain forward-looking information or forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities legislation. Such statements involve certain risks, assumptions and uncertainties, which may cause the company's actual or future results and performance to be materially different from those expressed or implied in these statements. Please refer to today's press release for a complete description of our safe harbor disclaimer. Please also refer to the reminder slides included in our presentation that relate to our commentary today. With that, I'll pass it over to Swamy.

Thank you, Louis. Good morning, everyone. I appreciate you joining our call today. Let's get started. I'm pleased to share a few key highlights from our strong third quarter. Our financial performance reflects continued solid execution across the business and meaningful progress on our performance improvement initiatives. Quarterly results exceeded expectations and showed year-over-year improvements. Sales grew 2%. Adjusted EBIT increased 3%, adjusted EBIT margin expanded by 10 basis points despite a 35 basis point headwind from unrecovered tariffs. Adjusted diluted EPS rose 4% driven by stronger earnings and a lower share count. Free cash flow improved by nearly $400 million. Looking ahead, we are raising our full year outlook, including higher sales supported by improved light vehicle production and continued launch execution. An increase in the low end and midpoint of our adjusted EBIT margin range reflecting strong pull-through on higher sales and benefits from cost savings initiatives. Higher adjusted net income, primarily driven by increased adjusted EBIT and a lower effective tax rate. We remain focused on generating robust free cash flow and maintaining a disciplined approach to capital allocation. You can see this in our reduced capital spending outlook, now approximately $1.5 billion or 3.6% of sales, below our prior range and well below our initial outlook of $1.8 billion. With higher earnings and lower capital spend, we have increased our full year free cash flow outlook by $200 million. This positions us to reduce our leverage ratio to below 1.7 by year-end. We also continue working with customers to mitigate tariff impacts. During the quarter, we reached agreements with additional OEMs for recovery of 2025 net tariff exposures. Negotiations with remaining customers are ongoing, and we expect to substantially complete this by year-end. Our outlook assumes less than a 10 basis point impact to 2025 adjusted EBIT margin from tariffs. Overall, these results reinforce our confidence in the strategy and our ability to deliver sustainable value for shareholders. I would like to take a moment to highlight some recent business awards and technology program launches. First, we were awarded complete vehicle assembly business with a Chinese-based OEM, XPENG. This is a significant milestone, marking the first time a Chinese automaker has chosen Magna's complete vehicle operations in Austria to serve the European market. Serial production began this past quarter on two electric vehicle models for this customer. In addition, we launched production in the third quarter on a vehicle program for a second China-based OEM with another program for that customer scheduled to start next year. These wins reinforce Magna's strong position in vehicle manufacturing and demonstrate the value of our flexible state-of-the-art production process, which enables fast-to-market high-quality vehicles for the European market. As we have for decades, we continue to launch innovative technologies that support our customers. This past quarter, we began launching a dedicated hybrid drive with a leading China-based OEM. Our 800-volt solution delivers a winning combination of efficiency, versatility and comfort for consumers. Our driveline portfolio spans all powertrain configurations from ICE and mild hybrids to high-voltage hybrids and full battery electric vehicles. This success underscores the strength of our building block strategy in powertrain. And in advanced safety, our mirror integrated driver and occupant monitoring system is meeting growing global demand for DMS technologies. As you may recall, this product earned a 2024 Automotive News PACE Award for its innovation and safety impact. We are launching this system with multiple customers worldwide and volumes are expected to reach several million units annually. Next, let me cover our improved outlook. While the current environment makes forecasting more challenging than usual, we remain focused on what we can control and continue to adapt to evolving conditions. Compared to our previous outlook, we have increased our North American production forecast to 15 million units, up about 300,000 units. Roughly two-thirds of this increase reflects expected outperformance in the second half with the remainder tied to adjustments to first half estimates. We are holding Europe production relatively unchanged. For China, we have raised our estimate to 31.5 million units. About half of this increase reflects second half outperformance and the other half relates to adjustments to first half estimates. We have also updated our foreign exchange assumptions to reflect recent rates, now expecting a slightly stronger euro, Canadian dollar and Chinese RMB for 2025 compared to our prior outlook. We have increased our sales estimate range largely as a result of the expected higher light vehicle production, particularly in North America. We also raised the low end and midpoint of our adjusted EBIT margin range and now expect margins between 5.4% and 5.6%, reflecting our solid Q3 results supported by continued execution in the fourth quarter. Looking sequentially, we expect fourth quarter margins to improve from the third quarter, driven primarily by commercial and net tariff recoveries from customers. And as of today, we are on track to achieve those. We updated our interest outlook due to some expense booked in the third quarter related to a discrete prior year tax settlement. We lowered our assumptions for taxes to approximately 24% from 25%, mainly due to better utilization of tax attributes and a favorable change in equity income. Factoring all that in, we increased adjusted net income to a range of $1.45 billion to $1.55 billion, largely reflecting increases in adjusted EBIT and the lower effective tax rate. We are reducing our capital spending outlook to approximately $1.5 billion, reflecting our continued efforts to optimize investment without compromising growth. As a result of higher earnings and lower capital spending, we have raised our free cash flow range by about $200 million to $1.0 billion to $1.2 billion representing more than 70% of adjusted net income at the midpoint. To summarize, we remain confident in our fourth quarter outlook supported by strong year-to-date execution and ongoing operational discipline despite industry challenges. We are on track to deliver the full year outlook we shared in February, a testament to the resilience of our business and the capability of our global team. Before I turn the call over, I would like to welcome Phil Fracassa, who joined Magna as our new CFO in September. He brings extensive public company CFO, automotive and industrial sector experience as well as a proven track record of driving profitable growth and shareholder value creation through disciplined capital allocation. Phil succeeds Pat McCann, who stepped down from the CFO role and is serving in an advisory capacity until his retirement in February 2026. I would like to thank Pat for his many contributions to Magna over his distinguished 26-year career. With that, I'll pass the call over to Phil.

Thanks, Swamy, and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to be with you today. Magna is a company that I've admired for a long time for its history of innovation, unmatched capabilities and deep relationships with customers. In my initial time here, I've seen our guiding principles in action and I'm energized by the ownership mentality that our entire team brings to all that we do. We operate in a sector of the economy where the only constant these days has changed, but this creates opportunities and Magna is well positioned to capitalize on them. So I'm excited to partner with Swamy and the team as we work to drive durable shareholder value. Now on to our results. As Swamy indicated, we delivered a strong third quarter, up year-over-year and ahead of our expectations almost across the board. Comparing our third quarter to the same period last year, consolidated sales were $10.5 billion, up 2%. This compares to a 3% increase in global light vehicle production. Adjusted EBIT was up 3% to $613 million. Our margin was 5.9%, up 10 basis points from last year, and that's despite the continued headwind from tariffs. Adjusted EPS came in at $1.33, up 4% and free cash flow in the quarter was $572 million, up $398 million from last year and well ahead of our expectations. Now I'll take you through some of the details. Let's start with sales. Looking at the market, North American, European and Chinese light vehicle production were all higher in the quarter, and overall global production increased 3% compared to the third quarter of last year. On a sales-weighted basis for Magna, light vehicle production increased an estimated 5%. Our third quarter sales were up 2% from last year. Excluding currency, organic sales were up modestly, but lagged the market in the quarter as we had expected. The increase in our total sales largely reflects the launch of new programs, including VW, Skoda Elroq, the Ford Expedition, Lincoln Navigator and Cadillac Vistiq, the favorable impact of foreign currency translation and higher global light vehicle production. These were partially offset by lower production on certain programs, including end of production on the Chevy Malibu. The expected decline in complete vehicle assembly volumes including the end of production on the Jaguar E and I-PACE in Austria and normal customer price concessions. Moving next to EBIT. Third quarter adjusted EBIT was $613 million, which was up $19 million or 3% from last year. Adjusted EBIT margin was 5.9%, up 10 basis points. In the quarter, our EBIT margin was positively impacted by 65 basis points from net operational performance improvements. This reflects strong execution on our operational excellence and other cost savings initiatives, partially offset by higher labor and other input costs as well as new facility costs and 30 basis points related to higher equity income as several of our equity method JVs, including China JVs delivered strong performance in the quarter with higher sales and favorable mix, net favorable commercial items and other productivity and cost improvements. These were partially offset by negative 50 basis points from discrete items. This is comprised mainly of lower net favorable commercial items compared to last year and 35 basis points for tariff costs incurred but not yet recovered. This is mainly timing as we continue to pursue recovery from our customers, and we remain on track for tariffs to be only a modest headwind to margins for the full year, less than 10 basis points, as we said before. Note that volume and other items were essentially flat in the quarter as earnings on higher sales and foreign currency gains were substantially offset by the impact of higher compensation expense. Looking below the EBIT line, interest was $11 million higher than last year due mainly to some discrete interest expense in the quarter for the settlement of a prior year tax audit. Our third quarter adjusted tax rate was 26.5%, lower than last year, primarily due to the favorable year-over-year impact of currency adjustments recognized for U.S. GAAP. This was partially offset by an unfavorable change in our jurisdictional mix of earnings, increases in our reserves for uncertain tax positions and a slight decrease in tax benefits related to R&D. Net income was $375 million, $6 million or about 2% higher than last year, mainly reflecting the higher EBIT, partially offset by the higher interest expense. And third quarter adjusted earnings per share was $1.33, up 4% from last year, reflecting the higher net income as well as 2% fewer diluted shares outstanding resulting from share buybacks over the past 12 months. Let's take a brief look at our segment performance for the quarter, which you can see summarized on this slide. Three of our four operating segments posted increased sales year-over-year with a notable 10% increase in seating. Exception was complete vehicles, which was down 6%. This was largely expected and reflects the end of production of the Jaguar E and I-PACE at the end of 2024. But as Swamy mentioned earlier, we're excited about our recent new business wins with China-based OEMs, which is a new growth market for our complete vehicle business. In three of our four segments also posted improved adjusted EBIT margin year-over-year with notable margin expansion and strong incremental margins in body exteriors and structures. The exception was Power & Vision, where margins were down on a tough comp last year. In the quarter, P&V was impacted by lower sales on a local currency basis. Lower net favorable commercial items and higher tariff costs as P&V has relatively more exposure to tariffs than other Magna segments. These were partially offset by continued productivity and efficiency improvements, higher equity income and lower launch costs. Despite being down year-on-year, P&V margins were slightly ahead of our expectations for the quarter, and we have held the low end of our EBIT margin range and our updated outlook for P&V. Our Power & Vision segment has differentiated technologies and a strong market position, and we're confident in the long-term margin outlook for this segment. Turning to a review of our cash flow. In the third quarter, we generated $787 million in cash from operations, for changes in working capital, along with $125 million from favorable working capital movements. Investment activities in the quarter included $267 million for fixed assets and a $100 million increase in investments, other assets and intangibles. Overall, we generated free cash flow of $572 million in the third quarter, higher than we were forecasting and $398 million better than the same period a year ago. The increase was driven mainly by lower capital spending and favorable working capital performance, and we continue to return capital to shareholders, paying dividends of $136 million in the quarter. Our balance sheet and capital structure remained strong with low single A investment-grade ratings from the major credit rating agencies. At the end of September, we had $4.7 billion in total liquidity, including $1.3 billion of cash on hand, which provides ongoing financial flexibility. During the quarter, we repaid $650 million of near-term maturing senior notes. Our refinancing is now complete, and we have no senior note maturities until 2027. Currently, our adjusted debt-to-EBITDA ratio is at 1.88x, a little better than we anticipated coming into the quarter. We have been executing well on delevering throughout 2025. And as Swamy said earlier, we expect to end the year below 1.7x. Lastly, subject to the approval by the Toronto Stock Exchange, our Board yesterday approved a new normal course issuer bid, or NCIB, authorizing the company to repurchase up to 10% of our public flow or around 25 million shares. We expect the NCIB to be effective in early November and remain in effect for a period of one year. Since the initiation of the NCIB approved last year, Magna has repurchased 5.8 million shares or roughly 2% of shares outstanding. This allowed us to return $253 million in cash to shareholders while still reducing leverage and navigating a challenging environment. Our new NCIB reinforces our commitment to share buybacks as a key component of our disciplined capital allocation strategy as we look ahead to 2026. So in summary, we delivered strong financial performance in the third quarter, which exceeded our expectations and showed both top and bottom line improvements versus last year despite the unfavorable impact of tariffs and commercial items in the quarter. We're benefiting from operational excellence initiatives across the company, and we expect these efforts to drive further margin upside over time. We've also increased our outlook to reflect our third quarter performance and expectations for a solid finish to the year. We're planning for higher sales, supported by an increased and expected light vehicle production, particularly in North America, and that's net of the expected fourth quarter impact of potential supply chain disruption. We've raised the low end and midpoint of our adjusted EBIT margin range, and we increased our outlook for adjusted net income, largely due to the higher expected EBIT. We'll continue to focus on free cash flow generation and capital discipline as evidenced by a further reduction in our capital spending outlook. As a result of this and expected higher earnings, we have raised our 2025 free cash flow outlook by about $200 million. Lastly, we continue to mitigate the impact of tariffs. We settled with additional OEMs in the third quarter and we're on track to complete substantially all remaining customer negotiations by year-end. Let me close where I started and reiterate how thrilled I am to be part of the talented and dedicated Magna team. This past quarter was a testament to the resilience of our business and the effectiveness of our strategy, and we're excited about the opportunities that lie ahead. With that, we'd be happy to take your questions.

Your first question comes from Etienne Ricard of BMO Capital Markets.

Thank you, and good morning. As we think about 2026, can you remind us what improvements to operating margins we should see from efficiency gains and across which segments do you still have lots of potential to expand margins?

Good morning, Etienne. I think the best way to look at this is a little bit going back into the previous calls, where we talked about margin improvement from '23, '24 we said we were going to do about 115 basis points, which was done. We talked about an additional 75 basis points split between '25 and '26. I can say the '25 we are well on our way and on track. And we have good visibility for the 35 to 40 basis points going into '26. So if you look at the 5.5%, which is the midpoint of the range we are talking about finishing '25 and add the operational improvements of the 35 to 40 basis points it should give you a good foundation of how we are going into '26. On top of that, there are some programs which we have talked about, which are coming in like launching now into '26 with new economics, compared to what we had from the inflation impacted timeframe of '23 to '25. So take all of that in, if you assume volumes to be flattish going from '25 to '26. We see the margins building on top of the exit of the 5.5% in '25. The second part of the question, I think it's a little bit difficult to talk segment by segment. But I can tell you the operational activities are across the company, and that's what is giving us traction, and we are very optimistic about it.

Okay. I appreciate the details. And I also want to cover the lower pace of capital expenditures. So this is good for free cash flow over the near term. But could you please remind us why this is not expected to materially affect growth prospects in future years?

So Etienne, we have always indicated that our long-term average ratio of capital expenditures to sales is typically in the low to mid 4s. If you look at our capital expenditure over the past few years, especially in 2022, 2023, and 2024, we experienced a higher spending cycle, largely influenced by the cycle of OEMs releasing programs. We also saw a significant cycle of electric vehicle launches during that time. Now that we have made those investments, we continue to focus on enhancing our operations by seeking efficiencies, consolidating, closing facilities, and optimizing our footprint. All of these efforts have provided us the chance to optimize. However, I want to emphasize that our team is dedicated to maintaining capital expenditures in a way that supports growth. We are keenly focused on organic growth while ensuring we maintain appropriate profitability.

Your next question comes from the line of Dan Levy of Barclays.

First, maybe you could just talk through what you've embedded in your guidance and what you're seeing as it relates to some of these production disruptions out in the market between Ford, Novelis, JLR, and Nexperia, just what's the impact to you? And what's embedded in the guidance and how you're planning around those.

Dan, I think the Novelis and the Nexperia situation are still a little bit fluid, but we have taken into account based on the releases that we have and there is visibility. Obviously, there is more color as we have conversations with the customers. We have taken all of that in the Q4. But there is a little bit of indirect impact too, right, because this situation is impacting OEMs and other suppliers. So if that has an impact on the overall production, obviously, that could have an indirect impact. But we have taken to the best of our knowledge, the information that's been provided already in the outlook that we have given.

Yes. Dan, if I could maybe just add, this is Phil. So the 15 million unit assumption that we have in for the full year for North America would reflect our estimate of lost production. So if you compare that number to maybe some of the external forecasts, it is a little bit lower, and that's where we would have embedded our assumption.

Okay. Nexperia, I understand there are many potential outcomes, but we're a month in and you have a significant electronics business. Is there any range of outcomes you're considering based on the results?

Yes, I think it impacts largely the electronics group, but it's not only for the electronics group, Dan; you can imagine there are associated systems in powertrain and other parts of Magna. We have a task force activity that's obviously very active in looking at the supply chain analysis, the runout dates. We have identified and released alternative parts, obviously in conversation with the customers. We're tracking the EMS suppliers. Wherever possible, purchase through brokers. So there's a very constant communication with customers and suppliers. I don't know if we can get into every segment by segment, but I can say we have taken the impact to the extent we have seen, again, just not from the outside forecasters, but also program-by-program customer discussions.

Okay. Got it. And then maybe as a follow-up, if you could just walk through the large implied step-up into margins in the fourth quarter that are within your guide. I mean, pretty much all of the segments have a large step-up in margins. Perhaps you could just talk to the underlying strength in those?

So a couple of points, Dan. I think as we look through, obviously, one is the traction of the operational activities that we've been talking about. The second part is we have mentioned the second half of the year being heavy in tariff and commercial recoveries. And obviously, it's heavy-ended into the fourth quarter. But we have substantially negotiated with the customers. There are some ongoing discussions, but we feel pretty good with the frameworks that are in place, and we believe the roughly 10 basis points impact due to tariffs for the year. I think we feel comfortable at this point in time. I would say those are the key points. And if you remember last time, we talked about, I don't know, 35 basis points of the full-year EBIT coming in fourth quarter. That was very relevant, and we are trying to give cadence going from Q3 to Q4. It's been a little bit of a stronger Q3. Now if you look at the math of the midpoint of the sales and the midpoint of the EBIT. I would still say we are in the low 30s as a percent of EBIT for the full year. So all in all, it's on track and looking good.

Your next question comes from the line of James Picariello of BNP Paribas.

I wanted to first ask about the latest Ford recalls that happened over the last few months, regarding a rear-facing camera, which I believe is Magna's. And correct me on the number, but it's well north of 1 million vehicles, I think. I'm just curious how that maybe translates or not to future warranty spend for you guys? Yes. That's my first question.

James, yes. We'll disclose the warranty expenses in our quarterly and annual reports, as you know. We are working constructively with our customers to reach resolution. For the more recent announcement, James, I would say the information is still coming through, need a little bit better understanding of the scope of the issue. As you can imagine, there are complexities in the system with various interfaces. We have to assess the overall. It's a little bit early from that standpoint. And as we gain more information, we will definitely be in a better position to come back and give you more granularity.

Got it. Understood. And then my follow-up, just can you speak to the new nameplates that are at Magna Steyr and what that could translate to in terms of future volumes, run rate production? And then just latest thoughts on capital allocation with respect to share buybacks?

Yes, James, once again. A key point is the flexibility we have at our Magna Steyr facility, allowing us to work with multiple propulsion systems and models on the same production line. Therefore, we don't anticipate a significant increase in capital due to those programs at Steyr. Regarding the projects, as I mentioned, we are performing SKD for two models with XPENG, and we are collaborating with another Chinese OEM that is set to launch a third model there. Overall, we are enthusiastic about this development. Our capacity is approximately 150,000 units, but over a long period, we typically perform well with about 100,000 to 120,000 units, which has been our average. We are actively working on launching these programs and are also engaged in additional discussions to further enhance the facility's efficiency.

Yes. And maybe to the point on share buybacks. So obviously, share buybacks remain an essential part of our capital allocation strategy at the company. As you know, we've kind of paused this year just given all of the uncertainty that's been out there. We've shifted and focused instead on delevering, and that's gone very well. It's absolutely trending ahead of schedule. And we did announce, as you saw the new NCIB, which would allow the company to purchase up to 10% of our shares over the next 12 months. So I think that the leverage coming down quicker than we anticipated, the strong free cash flow, which we expect to continue, I think, sets us up really well to lean into buybacks as we're looking ahead to 2026. And I think that it will continue to factor in.

Your next question comes from the line of Joe Spak of UBS.

Just was wondering if you could help me a little bit here. Like if I track the impact all year long on tariffs and in your comment of less than 10 basis points impact for the year. It seems like you're counting on, I don't know, at least $40 million, maybe a little bit more recoveries in the fourth quarter. Is that math right? I know you said that was one of the drivers of the margin inflection in the fourth quarter. I just want to make sure we're properly calibrated there. And then I know you said you're making progress on negotiations, but is there any risk, do you think, to receiving them given some of the distractions at the customers?

Joe, I think if you look at the overall in our last calls, we mentioned roughly an annualized impact of about $200 million. But, as you know, the tariff situation started, Louis, I would say in April, March, April timeframe. So you can take the $200 million annualized and get the number for the year. I think in the fourth quarter, there's more than $40 million, I would say. But there are frameworks in place, Joe, which gives me the comfort to say we are working through. The framework is there, discussions have been collaborative, which gives me comfort. Is there a risk? Obviously, there could be just as you know, in this industry. But looking at the past history, looking at the status of where we are today, I feel comfortable. And as we talk about 10 basis points, right, which is roughly in the $30 million range that we believe would be the tariff impact for 2025 that's unrecovered or unmitigated.

That's helpful. I know you are somewhat limited today in discussing next year. However, if we consider what we've seen, it appears that while there might be some positive outcomes in the fourth quarter, the overall sentiment for the year seems neutral. For 2026, are recoveries and challenges expected to be better aligned? This should lead to less margin fluctuation from quarter to quarter, avoiding the significant variations we experienced in 2025. Is this a reasonable assumption for next year, suggesting a more balanced situation?

I think that will be the focus, Joe. But tariffs was a new thing this year, as you know, and we had to come up with the framework. I would say there is good groundwork and framework in place. This being the first year and as we are coming towards the end, that should help going into 2026, if you have to deal with it. I think there is still going to be some amount of cadence topics going from one quarter to the other, just based on continuous improvements, the programs finishing and the new programs coming and so on and so forth. But we are in the process of the business planning now. I think by the time we come to February, we'll get a much better picture to at least give you somewhat of a sense of is there more lumpiness or it's getting back to normalcy.

Your next question comes from the line of Tom Narayan of RBC Capital Markets.

Best wishes to Pat. My first question is about the Seating margins that were guided for Q4. I know many segments are experiencing this, but it seems even more pronounced in Seating. This segment faced some challenges in the past due to specific programs. I'm curious if you could clarify how much of the sequential improvement is due to tariff and commercial recoveries, and how much is a result of underlying business improvements. I also noted that you mentioned a decrease in engineering costs. I'm unsure if that will affect Q4 as well. I would like to hear your thoughts on Seating in Q4 and how we should consider that moving forward.

Yes. Maybe I'll start Tom. So on Seating, obviously, a really strong third quarter with revenue up and good margin performance. But to your question, the margin improvement Q3 to Q4, the big contributors would be recoveries for tariffs because Seating does have pretty large tariff exposure. So there are the recoveries we've got to get. But there's also continued operational excellence initiatives there too. But if we had to point to the primary drivers of the margin because we do expect the implied guidance would say volumes would be down a little bit year-on-year and even down a little bit sequentially. So we've got the volume headwind in there, too, but overcoming it with the recoveries, commercial tariffs, and also continued focus on operational excellence.

And there's a little bit of engineering that's coming down. It should be a bit of a tailwind for us.

And that's for the fourth quarter in general. I think, Tom, just maybe stepping back, I want to say Seating is a good business. In the past couple of years, there was pressure on margins due to program-specific issues like the end of production of Ford Edge, the cancellation of BV Explorer, and the move of Chevy Equinox from Ontario. As you mentioned, I've been discussing a European OEM program in North America that had issues, but that's going to be behind us. The new version with the right financial metrics launches in 2026 into 2027, and you'll see that additional impact going forward in 2027. So I would say structurally, it's a really good business with a strong position in China with China-based OEMs. Overall, the Seating team has done a great job reducing costs as part of operational excellence, and I think we'll continue to see margin improvements going forward.

Great. And my follow-up has to do with the Steyr and the Chinese OEM wins. Does this create like a flywheel to sell other Magna products from other segments? And then just curious if there were any kind of frictions from your European OEM customers, legacy ones, given the encroachment of Chinese OEMs into Europe is a very hot topic. And I know some of the OEMs are kind of concerned about it.

I think we need to evaluate each business on its own merits. While there may be synergies with other parts of Magna, we will not make one business reliant on another. We will assess opportunities as they arise, but so far, we have not engaged in any discussions with other OEMs. This is an established part of Magna's business, and we have collaborated with various OEMs in the past. We are adhering to the same business model and principles, and as of now, we have not encountered any issues. We maintain close relationships with our customers.

Your next question comes from the line of Emmanuel Rosner of Wolfe Research.

So I appreciate your early thoughts on some of the operational performance that could continue into 2026. Another angle I was hoping to get an update on is you've in the past pointed to a large amount of new business that would launch and ramp up into 2026, boosting revenue pretty materially and obviously coming with some operating leverage and helping margins further into next year. So can you maybe talk to us about how those launches are progressing, whether the magnitude of the revenue uptake into next year from those is still broadly similar to what you mentioned in the past? And any other consideration on that launches and revenue uptake, please?

Emmanuel, I think for 2025 going into '26, when we talked about launches, we talked about it in the context of new economics, right? The terms of setting labor back, labor rates and labor discussions at the start of production, not when we won the program as an example, and so on. We have specifically always talked about winning programs based on returns. If you just look at all of those, that was the step up, I would say, or inflection in the profitability going with these new programs. As far as the launches and the cadence goes, looking at our team, they're doing very good. We look at it very periodically, right, at a high amount of detail. I can say there is nothing that stands out today; all the launches are moving pretty good.

Yes. We got to look at what the volumes are going to be on all the programs. It's something we're going to go through as part of our business planning process, what are the revised volume expectations for all the key programs. What does that do to our sales growth, et cetera. So that's still part of our plan process that's coming.

Yes. I think we can say we're doing a good job of controlling the controllables in our hand, but the externalities of volumes and so on, we still are going to go through and understand better in the business plan process.

Yes, so more to come in February on that.

Yes. Looking ahead, I have a quick follow-up on this topic and would also like to inquire about the drivers for the fourth quarter. Regarding the top line, are we still expecting significant launches? I understand that the volume will vary, but are there any cancellations or major delays we should be aware of?

I wouldn't say, Emmanuel, anything of significance. We already talked in the past about the big EV programs that everybody knows about. Other than that, we haven't seen anything substantial beyond.

Okay. My second question is about the significant increase in margin between the first half and the second half that you mentioned earlier this year. You're reaffirming that today. This includes commercial recoveries, engineering recoveries, and some tariff recovery, all of which seem to be on track. Additionally, I believe part of the increase was expected to be related to warranty costs. Is that still on track and contributing to the fourth quarter?

Yes. In terms of reflecting on my previous comments to where we currently stand, you are correct that we must maintain our focus on executing operationally. You mentioned commercial and tariffs; that is still ongoing as I noted in my remarks. I don’t have any specific updates regarding warranty, but if you’re referring to the topic on Seating from the first quarter, I would say we are in a good position concerning that. There are no surprises in that area.

Yes, I agree. Regarding the fourth quarter, we are maintaining our focus on operational excellence initiatives, recoveries, and commercial tariffs. There is nothing significant related to warranty included in the fourth quarter. Primarily, we are seeing steady volumes, executing well, and continuing to prioritize cost controls.

And just maybe year-over-year, the warranty in '25 has been higher. So the outlook that we are talking about in performance is despite that increase in warranty.

Your next question comes from the line of Colin Langan of Wells Fargo.

Early, you mentioned sort of you have the 5.5% base for 2025, you have about 35 to 40 basis points of continued sort of performance help that gets you to like 5.9%. And then I think you mentioned some of the launches are coming in at more profits and maybe you could go a bit higher. I believe the last update, I think from Q4 was 6.5 to 7.2, it seems still like a big jump for you kind of walking. Is that just kind of sale at this point? Or should we still think of that as a relevant target as we think about '26?

Colin, let's complete the business plan process first. One major factor will be market volumes. When I mention the 35 to 40 basis points, I'm referring to our control over operations and execution. We're optimistic about that, although it will depend on the volumes. We've worked hard to establish the right cost structure, and we view this as an ongoing journey. We're committed to maintaining our disciplined approach to capital management. We're confident about our path leading into 2026, and as volumes increase, you should notice a significant improvement in our bottom line.

Yes. And to Swamy's point, if you look at where we said we thought North American volumes would be in February for '26, it was like 15.4%. If you look at where it sits today, it's 14.7%. So maybe by the time we get there, it's higher than that. But I mean, that delta has to be is going to have an impact.

Got it. And then any update on how the ADAS business is performing? Because if I look at Power & Vision sales seem actually fairly flat. I thought there was supposed to be some ADAS growth driving there. Is that still up? And if it is, what is offsetting some of that weakness in there?

As we go through there, that segment has a lot of dynamic factors. As you can imagine, powertrain, EVs and hybrids and ICE mix and program changes. From an ADAS perspective, Colin, I would say there is some, again, industry dynamics there. The OEMs are continuing to still evaluate the architecture. Some decisions have been pushed out from a China strategy in terms of looking at chips and their own perception strategy. And the Western OEMs continue to take a path. So we've been a little bit cautious. I would say the growth that we would have assumed maybe 3 or 4 years ago to what we are looking is a little bit dampened. And the only reason is that we want to be cautious of how many platforms we want to work, right? We have to be focused on picking a platform so that we can engineer once and deploy multiple times. So there is a little bit of more work to do on the ADAS side, again, based on the industry and OEMs and architectures and trends.

Your next question comes from the line of Mark Delaney of Goldman Sachs.

I'd like to thank Pat for all his help and wish him the best going forward. And Phil, looking forward to working with you going forward. I had a question on the complete vehicles business. And Swamy, you mentioned earlier in the call that 100,000 to 120,000 is a more comfortable level to be operating. I do want to clarify with the award and momentum you've been seeing in that business with some of the Chinese-based OEM programs, do you already have line of sight into volumes getting the complete vehicle business to that kind of level in Austria? Or do you need to win additional business to get there? And the second part of the question, if you get to those sorts of volumes, what should we think about in terms of more normalized EBIT margin within the complete vehicle business? Because you think of time in the past, it was kind of 3%, 4% and I'm wondering if it can get back to at least those sort of levels, if not maybe even higher as you ramp some of this new business.

Mark, I think a couple of points to mention. The 100,000 to 120,000 I mentioned was more a context of what the business has run typically in the past, right? We've been talking over the last 1.5 years where we restructured or the team has done a great job restructuring to the current volumes and the current visibility. So even with the lower volumes running there, they've been able to maintain the margin. So that's one thing to note. The second one, as you know, this business or this segment runs on a different business model. It's a little bit on capacity utilization. So the risk exposure is a little different or lower. And when you talk about margins, as you know, besides complete vehicle assembly, in that segment, we also have engineering revenue, right? Which has a little bit of ups and downs depending upon the seasonality. So that changes the EBIT percentage, depending on how much of what mix, right? We feel pretty comfortable that we have the right cost structure or we have optimized. We are not keeping the cost structure hoping new business will come. We'll continue to look for the right opportunities there. And the engineering continues, it's a good strength of ours, and we'll look at it. So I feel to expect somewhere in the mid-2s to 3% range would be normal.

Okay. That's helpful on the margin. I guess just in terms of the volumes, maybe it's not quite at those sorts of volumes as it was historically, but the business has operated to be profitable at lower levels. Is that the right understanding?

Exactly.

Okay. I also wanted to inquire about the complete vehicle business and the AV upfitting work that Magna is involved in. Is that categorized under complete vehicles or another segment of the company? I understand that the volume of AVs is still limited, but I believe there may be potential for engineering collaboration. I'm curious about the significance of the AV announcements related to Magna's AV upfitting and how substantial that might be for your business currently.

Yes, Mark, you're right. The operation of fully autonomous vehicles falls within this segment. It's an interesting area to explore, and we will continue to analyze the business model and collaborate with our partners. We are definitely involved, and our presence gives us an advantage. Additionally, we are assessing the value we can offer, especially from an engineering standpoint and our expertise in vehicle integration. There is a potential opportunity here, but it's still too early to determine its scope.

The next question comes from the line of Jonathan Goldman of Scotiabank.

Maybe we can circle back to 2026, and I respect you're still in the planning stages. But Swamy, you alluded to maybe flat next year in terms of volumes and rather than put a fine point on any number, what's your expectation in terms of production being aligned with sales?

Good question, Jonathan. I think you're asking me to look ahead a bit. Our approach has always been to analyze what we receive from our customers, the releases, and the information from Magna, then compare that with external forecasts. If tariffs and pricing trends continue as they are without being passed on to consumers, there could be pressure on sales; we will have to see. Personally, I think it might remain relatively stable. However, as Louis mentioned earlier, in the coming months, we should gain more clarity on that.

Inventory levels in North America are currently quite healthy. There is no reason to think that they will not work through the inventory. Whether they choose to produce more than they sell is really up to the OEMs; we cannot determine that.

Okay. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.