Phinia Inc. (PHIN) Q3 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Good morning. My name is Audra. I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the FANIA third quarter 2025 earnings call. Today's conference is being recorded. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press the star key, followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Kellen Farris, Vice President of Investor Relations.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us. Our conference call materials were issued this morning and are available on Phineas Investor Relations website, including a slide deck that we'll be referencing in our remarks. We're also broadcasting this call via webcast. Joining us today are Brady Erickson, CEO, and Chris Groth, CFO. During this call, we will make forward-looking statements which are based on management's current expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from these statements due to a variety of factors, including those described in our SEC filings. We caution listeners not to place undue reliance upon any such forward-looking statements.

And with that, is my pleasure to turn the call over to brady thank you kellen and thank you everyone for joining us this morning i'll start with some overall comments on the third quarter then provide some thoughts on the remainder of the year and beyond chris will then provide additional details on our third quarter financials and discuss our updated 2025 guidance we will then open the call for questions the highlights of the third quarter include the closing of our acquisition of Swedish electromagnet, Envest, or SEM, our first acquisition as a public company, delivering our second quarter in a row of year-over-year net sales growth with Q3 being over 8% higher than prior year. This led to a record quarter for adjusted sales and adjusted EBITDA dollars as a public company. For the first time, our results are mostly being compared like for life against the prior year quarter, as we had substantially exited all TSAs and contract manufacturing from our former parent in the third quarter of 2024, and nearly all of our corporate structure and costs were fully in place. And finally, with our strong adjusted free cash flow, we were able to acquire SEM and return $41 million to shareholders via dividends and share repurchases while maintaining ample liquidity and our net leverage of 1.4 times EBITDA. Let's start with SEM. In June, we announced plans to acquire the company, and we were able to quickly close the transaction in August. SEM is a 100-year-old leading provider of advanced natural gas, hydrogen, and other alternative fuel ignition systems, injector stators, and linear position sensors to the commercial vehicle and off-highway sectors. With SEM, we have expanded our ignition and electronic control capabilities, broadening our system offerings. By combining FINIA's expertise in engine management systems with SEM's deep knowledge of advanced ignition technologies, we are creating a powerful platform for innovation and efficiency. We're excited to welcome SEM to the FINIA family and look forward to growing with them. Moving to our results, our third quarter performance reflects steady progress in executing our strategic priorities and our ongoing commitment to returning value to shareholders in the form of dividends and share buybacks. We are executing several structural initiatives to enhance efficiency and data visibility. We are consolidating four ERP systems into a single global SAP S4 HANA platform, which that we will phase in across the globe over the next several years. Additionally, the integration of SEM and our ongoing cost savings initiatives are landing groundwork for a more agile, efficient organization. Although the macroeconomic and industry outlook remain uncertain, we are focused on what we can control through operational and cost efficiency initiatives, providing value to our customers and driving sustainable performance across all our markets. Net sales in the quarter were a record $908 million, up 8.2% from the same period of the prior year as we benefited from the SEM contribution, favorable FX, customer pricing related to tariff recoveries, and increased volume in Asia and the Americas. Excluding SEM and FX, revenue increased 5%. This is the second consecutive quarter where both segments reported higher year-over-year sales. We reported adjusted EBITDA of $133 million with a margin of 14.6%, a 30 basis point year-over-year expansion. The margin expansion was primarily due to lower R&D expenses and strong performance from our fuel system segment. This was partially offset by unfavorable product mix and increased employee costs. $133 million of EBITDA was also a quarterly record as a standalone company. Fuel systems delivered a strong quarter with adjusted operating income up 33% and the margin expanding 190 basis points, which is partially diluted from the SEM acquisition. AOI was driven by research and development savings, overhead cost control measures, and efficiencies. Those are partially offset by unfavorable product mix. Aftermarket margin was down 80 basis points. The decrease was primarily due to unfavorable product mix. Our combined fuel systems and aftermarket segment, adjusted operating margin was 14%, an 80 basis point increase when compared with the third quarter of 2024, and a new record for a quarter as a standalone company. Adjusted earnings per share, excluding non-operating items as detailed in the appendix of our presentation was $1.59, up from $1.17 in the same period of the prior year. Finally, as we disclosed in an 8K last week, we reached an agreement with our former parent company to equitably resolve our litigation and move forward in a positive manner. We expect that a substantial portion of the settlement payments will be offset by a collection of pre-spend VAT refunds, tax credits, and various other tax recoveries. As a result, we do not believe that the settlement will have a material impact to our capital allocation strategies, liquidity, or our net leverage ratio. This quarter marks an important milestone to Finia. It's our first quarter of fully comparable year-over-year results since the spend, with all transitional service agreements and contract manufacturing now complete, and nearly all corporate costs were in place. The third quarter reflects the true underlying performance of our business. As a general overview, and inconsistent with recent quarters, our results in the third quarter highlight the strength and resiliency of our business in the face of a challenging and unpredictable environment. This is consistent with the benefits of having a truly diversified industrial business with diversity in customers, markets, industries, and regions in which we support. our innovation strategy remained at the center of our growth story we continue to invest heavily in r d roughly 200 million annually for about six percent of sales and our customers reimburse us for about half of that through software and calibration services demonstrating our position as a true development partner in turn we are making important investments in our business they're advancing our competitive position in the key markets and allowing us to capture incremental growth opportunities and support our customers. Our brand is strong in the market and customer preferences for our products remain high. Our excellent service is supporting our growth with both new and existing customers. Let me highlight a few of the new business wins on pages six and seven. The new next generation canister technology with leak detection devices for a leading North American OEM on two hybrid light commercial vehicle programs. A brushless alternator for industrial applications to a leading off-highway OEM in Asia for mining haul trucks. A Conquest Gasoline Direct Injection, or GDI, fuel rail assembly, and controller for a light passenger vehicle applications, securing our first win and new business with a major Chinese OEM. Moving next to our aftermarket business, as shown on slide 7, we're winning both new business and expanding relationships with existing customers. Importantly, these wins are across diverse geographies. Expanding our market-leading product coverage and grew share wallet with a major Middle Eastern customer, signed an agreement with a new large customer in the United Kingdom for braking and suspension components, new starter and alternator business with additional distributors in North America. Our value proposition is differentiated and continues to attract new customers as well as deepen relationships with existing customers. As shown on slide eight, our business is diverse by end markets and geographies. Most recently, we've expanded into the aerospace and defense industries. As I've mentioned on prior calls, this is an emerging and exciting adjacency for us. We're launching multiple programs with the key aerospace customer that leverages our existing engineers and manufacturing infrastructure. We have started initial shipments on our first aerospace business award and expect our second program to launch in early 2026. These wins validate our strategy to extend core combustion and control technologies into adjacent markets. Now moving on to slide nine for a discussion of capital allocation we have taken a disciplined approach to capital allocation while remaining opportunistic about m a we will continue to evaluate selective m a opportunities that enhance our product offerings in precision machine components and assemblies electronics and controls as well as increasing our presence in key markets and industries such as aerospace space, commercial vehicles, a highway, industrial, and the aftermarket. Our approach remains opportunistic and disciplined. Consisting with our capital allocation priorities to invest in our business for long-term profitable growth, we invested $26 million in capital expenditures during the third quarter, with funds expended primarily on new tooling and equipment. Also, on the capital allocation front, during the quarter, we returned $41 million to our shareholders including 11 million in quarterly dividends and 30 million in share repurchases we have 194 million remaining under our current repurchase authorization and we expect to continue to evaluate the best use of capital on a quarterly basis since the spinoff in july of 23 we repurchased approximately 20 percent of our outstanding shares even with the acquisition of scm capital investment in our operations in capital return to shareholders our balance sheet remains solid with cash and cash equivalents of 349 million total liquidity of approximately 900 million and our net leverage ratio remaining at 1.4 times which is under our target of approximately 1.5 times this was possible due to our strong adjusted free cash flow of 104 million in the third quarter As we look to the remainder of the year, we see some market and tariff risks as CV tariffs are coming into effect on November 1st. Importantly, we will continue to work with our customers on recovery, and similar to the auto tariffs, we expect to substantially recoup the costs from our customers because CV OEMs are also qualifying for the same 3.5% rebate as are the auto OEMs. We have adjusted our 2025 outlook to account for the SEM acquisition and some external factors. On the revenue front, the midpoint of our outlook is up $40 million from our prior guide, driven by approximately $15 million from SEM and the remainder from favorable FX, volumes, and pricing. The midpoint of our adjusted EBITDA guidance is up slightly as it continues to be constrained by tariff-related revenue that carries zero margin. Adjusted free cash flow has been a good story for us and we're raising the midpoint of our 2025 outlook by 10 million. To wrap up, we've continued to build momentum across our diversified end markets while maintaining discipline, cost, and cash management. Our teams are executing our long-term strategy that is focused on product leadership, stable growth, financial discipline, and total shareholder returns. With that, I'll hand it over to Chris, who will walk us through our Q3 results and discuss our outlook for this year. Chris.

Thanks, Brady, and thank you all for joining us this morning. As a reminder, reconciliations of all non-GAAP financial measures that I will discuss can be found in today's press release and in the presentation, both of which are on our website. Beginning on slide 11, our financial results in the quarter were solid and include the contribution from SEM, which closed in August, as Brady mentioned. The external environment has not changed dramatically from the prior quarters. However, we continue to see strength in our OE sales across the globe, enhanced by strength in aftermarket sales in select markets. We are pleased that the teams have responded appropriately and delivered strong revenue and EBITDA in the quarter. Specifically, we generated $908 million in net sales, an increase of 8.2% versus a year ago. Our top line benefited from favorable foreign exchange tailwinds of $19 million and an $8 million contribution from SEM. excluding these impacts net sales increased five percent a result of better pricing tariff recovery and increased volumes in asia and the americas let me now bridge our adjusted revenue and adjusted ebitda for the third quarter which you can find on pages 11 through 13 in the presentation fuel system segment sales were up 13.4 percent including prior year contract manufacturing sales, or 13.7%, excluding the effect of contract manufacturing, which ended in Q3 of 2024. The increase in fuel systems revenue was also attributable to foreign exchange, customer tariff recoveries, and the contribution from SEM of $8 million. Segment margin was 13.3%, up 190 basis points year-over-year, primarily due to supply chain savings productivity improvements and reduced engineering costs our aftermarket segment sales were up slightly year over year on positive european results combined with a small amount of tariff recovery this revenue was partially offset by lower volumes in north america and asia with respect to profitability the aftermarket segment margin of 15 was down 80 basis points from the prior year and impacted by unfavorable product mix on a consolidated basis our q3 segment adjusted operating margin and adjusted operating income were healthy at 14 percent were up 80 basis points and 11.1 percent are up 70 basis points year over year respectively our teams worked hard to cut costs and improve productivity despite some volatile market conditions. Our adjusted net earnings for diluted share in the third quarter were $1.59, an increase of 42 cents per share for the quarter. These amounts exclude non-operating items, which are described in the appendix of our presentation, and influenced by lower share count as we continued share repurchases. On August 1st, our team was excited to welcome new colleagues to the Finneas family with the close of the SEM acquisition. Total paid was $47 million comprised of 15 million cash proceeds the seller and 32 million used to extinguish debt assumed through the acquisition while we expect fbm to contribute sales annually of approximately 50 million and adjusted operating income of 10 million we anticipate the first year sales and resulting returns may face some initial headwinds given some reliance on a challenged cv market and potential distractions from ongoing integration efforts in addition to sem we settled a claim regarding the tax matters agreement with our former parent following the close of the quarter our full year 2025 guidance which we will discuss has incorporated the impacts of this settlement appropriately we expect that a substantial portion of the settlement payments will be funded through refund payments we receive from various tax authorities related to certain indirect tax payments made prior to the spinoff, with the remaining portion funded with available liquidity. As described in last week's 8K, the settlement with our former parent also provides clarification on the company's ability to obtain and use the benefit of certain tax attributes. This has the potential of providing us with additional flexibility as we continue to optimize our tax structure. Intense focus by our teams delivered a strong balance sheet providing substantial current liquidity, despite all the extra activities in the quarter. Cash and cash equivalents were $349 million, while available capacity under our credit facility remained at approximately half a billion dollars for a resulting liquidity of approximately $900 million. Cash flow from operations was $119 million in the quarter, and adjusted free cash flow was $104 million, a significant increase from $60 million in the same period of the prior year. We continue to remain confident in our ability to generate free cash flow to support our capital allocation priorities. As such, we paid $11 million in dividends and repurchase $30 million in our stock in Q3, bringing our year-to-date returns to shareholders to $202 million. This balance consists of $32 million in dividends and $170 million in share repurchases. Now, moving to slide 14 for a discussion of our refined full-year 2025 outlook. As Brady indicated, we have adjusted our outlook slightly to account for the acquisition of SEM, minor tariff changes, and other macroeconomic factors. We are adjusting our 2025 sales guide, increasing the high end of the guide to 3.45 billion, and bringing up the low end of guide to 3.39 billion for an increased midpoint of 3.42 billion. We are narrowing our adjusted EBITDA range with a high end of 480 million and low end of 465 million for a slightly higher midpoint of $473 million. In addition, we are taking the midpoint of our adjusted free cash flow up by $10 million to $190 million and improving our tax rate for the second quarter in a row. Our expected adjusted tax rate is now projected to be in an improved 33% to 37% range from the prior projection of 36% to 40%. as ongoing tax structuring projects gain traction and progress. We do not expect this change to have a material impact on cash taxes in 2025. Overall, we continue to be confident in delivery of solid returns as we deal with zero or low margin tariff recoveries, choppy markets, and foreign exchange movements. As Brady mentioned, as we look forward, we are also disclosing implementation of a strategic effort to align our legacy structure to more effectively match the business as it develops globally. As such, we anticipate a step up in restructuring charges, approximating $35 million in infrastructure right-sizing, professional fees, and other costs to yield an estimated $25 million in annual savings, a less than two-year payback once all projects are fully implemented. This is complementary to our normal, ongoing work to ensure our operations and corporate functions are agile and meet the future needs of our invested constituencies. We are operating from a strong financial foundation and executing unclear strategic priorities. In closing, we remain firmly committed to building sustainable value for all our stakeholders. Thank you all for your attention today, and we will now move to the Q&A portion of our Operator, please open the lines for questions.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you have dialed in and would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press star 1 again.

We'll take our first question from Bobby Brooks at Northland Capital Market. it hey good morning guys thank you for taking my question so excluding the acquisition and currency impact sales were up 5.1 percent year over year a really really healthy number i was just curious if we could dive a little bit deeper into that 5.1 percent like how much of that was pricing and tariff recoveries versus increased volumes or even plus or even just new products being shipped out yeah it's a balance between kind of all three of them i mean uh pricing and tariffs is going to be you know about the same as volume is the same as a little bit of fx kind of headwind so not not a lot of difference between the three it's kind of equally balanced got it got it and then just with the pricing is that pricing like you said pricing and then tariff recovery so it seems like those are two separate silos on the pricing is is it reasonable to think that that's going to be sticky moving forward, or how should we think about that?

Yeah. I mean, obviously, they're linked directly, because as we have tariffs, we're passing on price, and so that's the bulk of it. And that's going to be sticky, because unless the tariffs are going away, you know, it's going to stay there. And again, that's one of the reasons why our EBITDA is not going up as much is because those are basically at break-even EBITDA or margin, and a little bit of headwind in that, but we don't see it going away. We think it's going to be there, and we just got to continue to drive productivity and other efficiency improvements to get our margin back to where we expected.

Well, Bobby, on the tariffs, some of the things that we have been doing is, in lieu of tariff pass-through, we've actually gotten concessions on some other areas. So, I mean, we've gotten pricing, obviously, on aftermarket. It is more of a price increase game, but it's not huge. It's not material. It's just a couple of million dollars when you look at the pricing and strip out just the tariff going through, just trying to make sure we get recovery on all of those.

Got it. That's very helpful, Collin. And then last one for me is, it's great to hear you begin shipping components for your first aerospace program. That's really exciting news. Do you think achieving this milestone will sort of serve as a cowbell to alert other aerospace companies? You're a legit and certified potential supplier. And maybe ask a different way. Do you feel there are potential customers waiting in the wings to see you successfully deliver those components for the first couple of projects before stepping in and placing an order? Thanks.

Yeah, absolutely. true i think ever since we've announced them and then at the paris air show as at in in june uh the level of interest the rfis and rfqs coming to us has gone up substantially and as i mentioned i think in the last call we fully expect to get you know additional uh awards uh here in the coming coming quarters that will continue to support that expansion and so we're we're having conversation with pretty much every every the major engine manufacturers out there uh and see some good opportunities for us to continue to grow in that space really appreciate that color radio good community congrats on the great core i'll return to the queue great thank you we'll move next to

joseph back at ubs thanks good morning everyone um wanted uh had a couple questions i guess one um maybe just on the implied guidance um in the fourth quarter um you know maybe a little bit softer than expectations. I was wondering if you could give us a little bit more detailed commentary on the organic end market. And then related to the guidance, but also just want to understand the business going forward, it implies the guidance about 7 million in the fourth quarter from SEM, which is, I guess, a million below the third quarter, despite it being a full quarter in the fourth quarter. So is there some seasonality to that, or is that some of that that sort of softer demand you you talked about and and um you know for that first year of owning the business and if so is you know seven eight million a good sort of run rate to start to think about for 26 sure on on q4 i think we're we always talk about seasonality in general we haven't had a normal season for a while but i think this is looking to be more a normal seasonality where q1 and Q4 are lighter.

I think our Q1 this year was probably lighter than normal. I think Q4 typically is anywhere from 5% or so lighter than Q2 and Q3. And so I think we're kind of getting back to that normal seasonality. Obviously, still a little bit of noise here in Q4 on volumes on what people are going to do around shutdowns. So, you know, we're kind of taking that into uh into account as well and and making sure that uh we're in a good position on on q4 in general uh scm we're still kind of learning their seasonality we are you know we we are finding that their uh second half of the year is a lot lighter than their first half of the year along with a little cv softness um they tend to you know they shut down in the summer and don't come back until later in august and and the expectation they're probably going to shut down earlier in december um so their windows in the in the second half tends to be a little bit lighter we'll still we're still confident that they're gonna you know as as we mentioned earlier around that 50 million we're confident they're going to kind of get back there when the market recovers a bit um and and see them you know delivering uh on our expectations we just have the the initial uh kind of hit right now we've got a number of folks kind of going in there we can get in to get in their systems and processes up to speed, and probably adding more cost to their cost structure in the beginning to kind of ramp them up to what our expectations are. So not a lot of material difference to the overall company, but we do see them coming back stronger next year as the market recovers, and we'll provide more insight in our investor day meeting next year uh as we give guide for 2026 and we'll get that uh that additional clarity on scm as well and joe i'll add a little bit to it because i think i think that with so much going on in the markets our units are just being very very cautious on what they're putting out there because you know you've named the issues there i mean we are not hitting being hit materially by any, like, the JLR issues, that's not a big issue for us.

But it makes sense to be it. CB tariffs coming in. The Tensperia, the, you know, there's a lot of things out there. None of them hit us materially, but our units get a little cautious, and so we're just trying to be a little conservative in Q4.

And the other one is the aluminum supply issue for Ford.

Very fair, fair enough. I guess just in the quarter, Chris, you sort of talked about some of the factors driving the results. Specifically in fuel systems, I just want to understand, you had plus 37 million volume mix, only a million flowed through to EBIT. And I know you sort of talked about negative mix, but it feels like there has to be something more than that in there. Is there anything else we should be thinking about that sort of really weighed on the flow through there?

No, a lot of it, Joe, has to do with, if you see, we actually specifically call out ECU because as a part of the separation from Ward Warner, we sell ECU from them, and that literally has no margin on it. Now, those contracts are coming up in the next couple of years or those restrictions come out, and we're relooking at that. But at the end of the day, ECUs, those components are very expensive and they just, you know, if we're going to pass them through or we're looking for other ways of do they sell directly. So that's part of it. But if you also look, yeah, the contribution margin is low, but the unit, the contribution is based on standard. If you look at the other two lines where you see really good productivity and other costs, those are coming in much better, which means my standard is going to get better next year. So it'll shift as long as my units are covering it, whether if my contribution margin is low and they're covering it with productivity and other cost reductions, I'm okay with that because it just means that I'm getting better. My products are getting cheaper because the units are doing what they should be doing.

That's helpful, Collar, I need to see you. If I could sneak one more in just on on slide eight, I noticed you put in, you know, power generation and maybe that's been in there all along, but there's definitely been a little bit more focus on, you know, turbo chargers into power generators and, you know, almost all modern turbos of direct injection. Is there has there been any increased inquiries into into that business or is that a growing opportunity and pipeline for you?

Yeah, I mean, we throw that in the industrial side as well, whether that's the power generation, the linear generator that we were working on for hydrogen to gensets, both small and even large, plug-in or range-extending EV power generation units. That's an area we're starting to pick up more business, and again, I think we'll, as we may have highlighted, we're probably going to split out our CV and other OE next year as well because that's starting to become, you know, a meaningful portion of our revenue, so we'll probably add some more disclosure on that as we head into next year.

Thank you.

And as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one at this We'll go next to Jake Scholl at BNP.

Congrats on a strong quarter. I just wanted to circle back to the Ford fuel pump recall from a few months ago. Now that you guys have had a chance to work through that, can you talk about what impacts you're seeing on the business, especially on the cash side?

No cash impacts. No update. Still no concerns on our side. We haven't adjusted our warranty accruals and no cash impact at this point.

All right. Thank you. And then, can you just provide some color on the timing of the instructional program you announced? When do you expect that to come out?

And then, when do you expect to fully realize the $25 million savings thank you yeah i mean we see that it's starting to roll out now uh they're starting to get i think there's the initial initial go live i think it's starting in 2026 it's going to take us a few years there's a number of different sites that are at different stages of of uh i guess their their system capabilities that will be kind of rolling out i think it's fully think chris and fully completed by 2028 uh over that time period so um we see it's going to be multi-year it was just a it was a bigger number than normal and so we we thought it was prudent to go ahead and kind of call it out given the the multi-year nature of it and the benefits that we expect to see and this is also just the i would say the the next stage of us just continue to drive efficiency and right sizing you know the number of data centers the number of complexity we have in software and systems and uh and really just consolidating that consolidating them into uh you know one instance one uh reducing the number of redundant software systems that we have and licenses uh and really driving a lot of you know efficiency in our operations and in the system that we're using so uh when we got spun out obviously it was you know old dunco remi old Delphi Automotive, parts of BorgWarner, and now SEM, they're all kind of different. And so we're going to establish a kind of a core standard that then is going to be the standard template that will roll out for future acquisitions and future locations as well and make it a lot simpler for us.

Thank you.

And that concludes our Q&A session. I will now turn the conference back over to Brady for closing remarks.

Great. Thanks, everybody, for joining. And just, again, a shout out to all of our Finia employees, a really great quarter. As we mentioned, you know, with record sales, some great cash flow, first acquisition, continuing to give cash back to our shareholders through dividends and repurchases and still maintaining a very robust balance sheet. And actually, I think our cash balances are up from the prior quarter after the acquisition and the share repurchases and the dividends. So really proud of the team. looking forward to closing out the year in a very positive manner and continuing the momentum that we have. So thank you very much for joining.

And this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.