Earnings Call Transcript - TRS Q4 2024

Sherry Lauderback, Investor Relations

Welcome to TriMas Corporation's fourth quarter and full year 2024 earnings call. Participating on the call today are Thomas Amato, TriMas' President and CEO, and Scott Miller, Chief Financial Officer. We will provide prepared remarks on our fourth quarter and full year results and 2025 outlook, then we will open up the call for questions. In order to assist with the review of our results, we have included today's press release and presentation on our company website at trimas.com under the Investors section. In addition, a replay of this call will be available later today by calling 877-660-6853 with a meeting ID of 13744326. Today may contain forward-looking statements that are inherently subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. Please refer to our most recent Form 10-K to be filed later today for a list of factors that could cause our results to differ from those in any forward-looking statements. Also, we undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements except as required by law. We would also direct your attention to our website where considerably more information may be found. In addition, we would like to refer you to the appendix in our press release or our presentation for the reconciliations between GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures used during this call. Today, the discussion on the call regarding our financial results will be on an adjusted basis, excluding the impact of special items. With that, I'll turn the call over to Thomas Amato. Tom?

Thomas Amato, President and CEO

Thank you, Sherry. Good morning, and welcome to TriMas' quarterly earnings call. Let's turn to slide three. As we reflect on the final quarter of 2024, which was a better comparison quarter to the prior year than the first three quarters, we experienced several positive trends in both financial and non-financial key performance indicators across all of our business lines. Furthermore, we believe these trends provide a solid foundation for 2025 and position us well for the future. In each of our businesses and in different ways, given the variability we often experience with our diverse set of end markets, we have taken meaningful actions aimed at improving customer engagement and conversion rates, enabling us to capitalize on growth and new opportunities going forward. Within TriMas Packaging, our largest segment representing 55% of total sales, we achieved organic growth of nearly 10% compared to the prior year quarter. This growth was driven by our dispensing product lines, particularly for products used in the beauty and personal care end markets. Due to the snapback in demand compared to 2023 levels, we have had to make investments in assembly lines and injection molding machines throughout the year and tooling refurbishments more specifically in the fourth quarter, all to accommodate increasing volumes. As a result, in locations where we have had practical capacity constraints in prior quarters, we are now starting to see improvements in overall equipment effectiveness, or OEE, which in our experience is a leading indicator to improved financial performance as we move forward. And in fact, we're off to a nice start in 2025 within our packaging group, as well as in all of our business platforms. Within the TriMas Aerospace Group, which represents 32% of total sales, we have made investments and have taken numerous actions to improve upon OEE on key production lines at several locations. These manufacturing excellence initiatives coupled with concluded commercial actions are allowing TriMas to benefit from a recovering aerospace and defense market. We have been seeing this throughout the year but it is worth highlighting the significant improvement in the segment EBITDA rates compared to the prior year period. Importantly, we are entering 2025 with a strong order book and expect momentum in this segment to continue throughout the year. Regarding our Specialty Products segment, which represents 13% of total sales, we have successfully closed on the sale of our aero engine business as announced at the end of January. So for simplicity, I will limit my comments today to North Cylinder only for this segment. As we anticipated, we believe North Cylinder is now at the bottom of the significant destocking demand trough that we experienced throughout 2024. North Cylinder sales for the quarter were slightly lower than the prior year quarter, down about 6.5%. Importantly, given the dynamics in the cylinder market, we have taken additional cost restructuring actions to operate with improved performance at lower annualized sales rates as we move into 2025. Scott will discuss this in more detail as we believe North Cylinder will now begin to contribute more to TriMas' absolute earnings in 2025. It is important to note that as related to North Cylinder in the fourth quarter, the drag on operating income compared to the prior year quarter was just over $2.2 million. And given our scale, this would translate to approximately $0.04 per share in the fourth quarter as the anticipated recovery in customer capital expenditures which drive cylinder demand was deferred to 2025. While this was the largest specific driver impacting the fourth quarter, it also importantly highlights the prospective benefit to TriMas as North Cylinder begins its recovery even on a modest sales base in 2025. Let's turn to slide four, and I will cover some forward planning items. Before reviewing the items on this slide, it's important to note that TriMas enters 2025 with a strong balance sheet and low leverage. This characteristic enables TriMas to continue to invest in growth and factory floor improvements in our businesses, return capital to shareholders through share buybacks and dividends, and augment organic growth through bolt-on size acquisitions. As announced previously and noted on this slide, we completed the acquisition of GMT Aerospace, a Germany-based manufacturer of Tyron used in a wide range of structural aerospace applications. Annualized sales are approximately €22 million with sales to Airbus representing nearly 50% of its revenue. Importantly, this acquisition adds the first manufacturing location in Europe to our TriMas Aerospace Group. A critical strategic step to leverage and grow our full product range of fasteners and other engineered products within the euro aerospace market. We are excited to complete this acquisition and welcome the GMT Aerospace team to the TriMas family of businesses. Also as announced, we have completed the sale of our aero engine business. This action facilitates TriMas' exit of direct sales to the oil and gas end market, which has been a priority for some time. The proceeds from the aero engine sale of about $22 million will be used along with drawing on our credit line to pay for GMT Aerospace, which had a purchase price of about $35 million. Importantly, these two corporate development actions provide a portfolio shift in sales and earnings, reducing the impact of the Specialty Products Group on TriMas. And finally, as we continue to take actions to increase the intrinsic value of all of TriMas' businesses, and specifically, in this example, our TriMas Aerospace business, we are pleased to announce that we have gained meaningful wallet share of future fastener sales to Airbus under a new multiyear contract that will begin to ramp up in 2026. The aerospace team has been working on this project for the better part of the year and we are excited to expand our trading relationship with Airbus, which we believe will provide an opportunity for growth above normal market demand levels for the coming years. Turning to slide five, I will now briefly highlight key financial data from Q4 compared to the prior year quarter. As noted previously, the fourth quarter was in many cases a better comparison quarter certainly as compared to prior quarters in 2024. With that said, consolidated sales were up 8.8% driven by solid organic growth within our Packaging and Aerospace segment. Segment EBITDA was up $1 million in the quarter at $42.2 million or 18.5% of sales. However, when accounting for enterprise-wide IT costs that were reallocated to our segments in 2024, Segment EBITDA was up by nearly $3 million for the quarter despite Specialty Products being lower in EBITDA by $3.3 million. As noted previously, we finished the year with a strong balance sheet despite cash used to return capital to shareholders through share buybacks and dividends and with net leverage slightly reduced from the prior quarter. Net income was also up in the quarter and EPS was higher compared to the prior year quarter by 13.2% at $0.43 per share. I would also like to highlight that while our fourth quarter is typically a reduced profit quarter compared to the third quarter, we are reporting today a comparable EPS level in Q4 as compared to Q3 which we believe is an important sequential performance indicator as we move into 2025. Let's turn to slide six. Before turning the call over to Scott, who will take us through specific segment performance and outlook, slide six highlights full year results. As discussed throughout the year, given the significant destocking we experienced within our North Cylinder business, the normalized EBITDA gains we have made within our TriMas Packaging and Aerospace segments were more than offset by the significant earnings decline within our Specialty Products segment in 2024 as compared to 2023. With that said, we continue to believe that it's important to highlight the higher quality of earnings in our segment level EBITDA mix driven by our largest business platforms, Packaging and Aerospace. I will now turn the call over to Scott.

Scott Miller, Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Tom. Let's turn to slide seven, and I will begin my review of our segment results starting with TriMas Packaging. For the fourth quarter, net sales were $123 million as compared to $114 million for the prior year quarter, an increase of 8.4%. Organic sales increased almost 10% during the quarter while the unfavorable impact of foreign currency translation reduced sales by $1.7 million. This meaningful year-over-year sales improvement was led primarily by increased demand for our products serving the beauty and personal care and home care end markets, with both experiencing more than 25% year-over-year organic sales growth. We also continue to experience strong sales growth for our products serving the industrial end market, with close to 11% organic growth for the quarter and 16% organic sales growth for the full year. Adjusted operating profit for the quarter was $15.7 million or 12.8% of sales, which is 150 basis points lower than the previous year period. This year-over-year decline is primarily attributable to the allocation of $1.4 million of information technology costs which did not occur in Q4 of 2023, higher depreciation expense, and the impact of foreign currency exchange. When adjusting for these specific items, operating margin would have been flat year-over-year at approximately 14.3%, which is reflective of the actions we've taken throughout 2024 to address capacity constraints related to higher demand for certain of our dispensing products. Adjusted EBITDA was $25 million or 20.3% of net sales. Looking forward now for TriMas Packaging, in 2025, we expect year-over-year sales growth to return closer to a GDP plus rate which historically has been between 2% and 4%. This reversion from the strongest sales growth we experienced in 2024 is primarily driven by the completion of rebalancing of inventory levels with certain key customers during 2024, along with an expectation of more moderated levels of consumer spending growth in 2025. We do expect TriMas Packaging to deliver year-over-year margin enhancement on account of the moderately higher sales rates along with improved manufacturing efficiencies, given the capital investments made in 2024 to address capacity pinch points, which Tom mentioned earlier in the call. Given our global footprint and multinational customer base, we, like many other packaging manufacturers, do have exposure to increases in US tariff rates, particularly those from China, which reverted to a higher rate in the second half of 2024 and again to an even higher rate this year with the new administration. While we have captured changes in tariffs that have already been implemented in our outlook for 2025, we are not forecasting any changes in rates with other countries. But there's no certainty at this point as to the timing or size of tariff increases, if any. We are actively working on near- and long-term contingency planning to help mitigate any potential impact to earnings in 2025 and beyond. Turning to slide eight, I will now provide an update on our TriMas Aerospace segment. Net sales for the quarter increased by more than $14 million or 22% when compared to the same period a year ago, driven primarily by continuing growth in commercial aircraft production rates, strategic commercial actions, and improved production yields. In addition, we ended the year with a record-breaking backlog within TriMas Aerospace at more than $350 million. Operating profit for the quarter was $10.9 million or 14% of net sales, which represents a 450 basis point improvement when compared to the previous year period. So, while we are very pleased with conversion rates during the quarter, we do believe there is incremental margin opportunity within TriMas Aerospace as we continue to invest in manufacturing capacity and factory floor enhancements, and see further improvements in supply chain and labor force continuity. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $15.4 million or 19.7% of net sales. For 2025, we expect TriMas Aerospace to continue to experience strong sales growth, with low double-digit organic sales growth which will be further augmented by sales from our recent aerospace acquisition GMT Aerospace. And as I mentioned earlier in my comments, we also expect year-over-year margin enhancement within TriMas Aerospace as we continue to improve our production yield and benefit from previously completed commercial actions. Now on slide nine, let's review our Specialty Products segment. Net sales were $26.6 million as compared to $32 million for the prior year quarter as the industrial cylinders market continues to work down overstocked inventory positions, and to a lesser extent, lower sales of compressors serving the oil and gas industry. Please note that our results for the quarter do include our recently divested aero engine business which contributed approximately $3.6 million of sales for the quarter, and $19 million for the full year. Operating profit in the quarter was $0.8 million or 2.9% of net sales, while adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $1.7 million or 6.5% of net sales. The primary driver is the lower year-over-year margin, lower fixed cost absorption, and $0.5 million of allocated IT costs, which did not occur in 2023. I will also note that our North Cylinders business did complete meaningful structural cost reductions during the second half of 2024, which will provide for improved conversion rates once we see even marginal improvements in demand. Looking forward now for North Cylinder only, we anticipate flat to slightly increasing sales within the North Cylinder during the first half of 2025 as customers continue to work through inventories, followed by demand improvements as the year progresses, which we believe will translate to mid-single-digit sales growth for the full year. And as I mentioned earlier in the call, we are starting to see some positive indicators here in early 2025, including quoting activity and customer inquiries, which lead us to believe that we are now emerging from the cyclical demand trough which North has been navigating for the better part of fifteen months. Finally, we do expect to see some margin enhancement for North in 2025 given the previously completed cost reduction actions, bringing production rates into better balance with demand, and then with the operating leverage gains from expected incremental volume towards the second half of the year. Turning now to slide ten, I will provide a bit of color on our full year sales and EPS outlook. We expect total consolidated sales growth of 4% to 6% for the full year which includes the impact of our recently completed acquisition within TriMas Aerospace. Please note that our sales comparison includes a full year of aero engine in 2024 and only one month of aero engine in 2025. Our adjusted earnings per share outlook is $1.70 to $1.85 which at the midpoint would represent an increase of about 7% as compared to the prior year. Consistent with our adjusted EPS outlook, we also anticipate adjusted EBITDA to be up approximately 7% year over year, in the $150 million to $165 million range, as the second half recovery within North Cylinder and the impact of the GMT Aerospace acquisition are anticipated to more than offset the earnings impact with divestiture of AeroEngine. At this point, I'd like to turn the call back over to Tom to provide some closing remarks.

Thomas Amato, President and CEO

Thank you, Scott. Before moving to Q&A, I will conclude our prepared remarks by refreshing the nearest term value-creating opportunity set for TriMas. First, we remain excited about the outlook for our two largest business platforms, TriMas Packaging and TriMas Aerospace, which are both participating in recovering markets after challenges in previous years. We are off to a good start in 2025 and anticipate that the high-quality business lines will carry throughout the year and well beyond. Next, we continue to take proactive steps to assess opportunities to focus our portfolio of businesses and unlock value. Our actions with the divestiture of AeroEngine and the acquisition of GMT Aerospace are just a few examples of driving a portfolio shift. We also continue to place a priority on building out our TriMas Packaging platform through M&A with a focus on the beauty and personal care, food and beverage, and life sciences end markets. And finally, while the North Cylinder business experienced significant challenges in 2024, we have already completed many actions that we expect will benefit us as demand recovers throughout 2025. As Scott noted, even a modest demand recovery should result in much improved conversion rates given the cost restructuring completed in the second half of 2024 for this business. I would like to again thank our investors for their continued interest and support. We'll now turn the call back to Sherry.

Sherry Lauderback, Investor Relations

Thanks, Tom. At this point, we would like to open up the call for questions from our analysts.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press the star key. Our first question is from Ken Newman with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please proceed.

Ken Newman, Analyst (KeyBanc Capital Markets)

Hey, good morning, guys. Maybe for my first question, can we go into the margin enhancement comments across the various businesses? I'm trying to see if there's a way to think about or quantify the implied incremental margins in each of those businesses in 2025. And, Scott, I'm sorry if I missed it. I know you gave a little bit of help on the revenue numbers, apples to apples for the North only business. But could you help us understand what those were for margins in 2024 and how to think about that apples to apples in 2025?

Thomas Amato, President and CEO

Good morning, Ken.

Scott Miller, Chief Financial Officer

So starting with Packaging, given the incremental sales volume we are seeing, there will be margin uplift. We expect roughly 100 to 150 basis points of improvement. Obviously, there is some macroeconomic activity that will impact packaging related to tariffs. We believe we've captured what we know today, but tariff expectations are changing frequently, so we are actively assessing the outlook. For Aerospace, I think the margin enhancement will be a bit better than Packaging given the backlog and strategic pricing actions we've taken over the last 18 months. I expect Aerospace to be roughly 150 to 200 basis points better. And then North Cylinder, on a stand-alone basis comparing 2024 versus 2025, most of the improvement is expected in the second half of 2025 based on order patterns. We've taken meaningful structural cost reductions there, so if sales levels come in where we expect, another 100 to 150 basis points of improvement is reasonable.

Ken Newman, Analyst (KeyBanc Capital Markets)

Got it. That's very helpful. Maybe one more clarification on the margin side for Packaging. You mentioned being able to execute and mitigate around some tariffs this year. Was there a margin price-cost impact from tariffs and how quickly can you move if there are further changes?

Scott Miller, Chief Financial Officer

That's a good question. One of the challenges with tariffs is the uncertainty. When we see a tariff enacted and believe it is permanent versus a temporal negotiating tactic, we have the ability to move relatively quickly on the commercial front to seek recovery. It may not be 100% across all product lines, but we've been fairly successful over the past year capturing recovery. The longer-term impact relates to where we manufacture our products. TriMas Packaging has a strong position because our manufacturing locations are situated around the world. In the U.S. specifically, we have available manufacturing floor space and can relocate productive assets from one part of the world to another if needed, but that typically takes 12 to 18 months or longer and is disruptive. Near-term mitigation will come from commercial actions; long-term mitigation comes from adjusting manufacturing footprint.

Ken Newman, Analyst (KeyBanc Capital Markets)

Understood. That's helpful. Maybe if I could just ask one more for my follow-up here. We've seen a lot of news here in the last quarter around management and board transitions. Tom, I know you're going to be stepping down at the end of next quarter. Any update on how the replacement search is going? In addition to that, given the company's focus on the forward portfolio, does the board have a preference for which segments to address first?

Thomas Amato, President and CEO

Let me take that in reverse order. First, as we presented last quarter and again this quarter, we have two business platforms that in my opinion are extremely valuable. The intrinsic value of those platforms is strong relative to our market capitalization, and the board is well aware of that. The board, with advisers they have engaged, is assessing the best way to unlock the highest value for shareholders. I won't comment further on that process, except to say from a management perspective, we have the ability to affect the intrinsic value of our businesses, and we believe they are in excellent positions. Regarding North Cylinder, although it faced challenges in 2024, that was market-driven rather than company-specific. North Cylinder is the only type one steel manufacturer in the U.S., and with considerations around imports and protection of U.S. manufacturers, North should improve over time. It may take a few more quarters because cylinders are not consumable items; if customers overbuy, they must use the inventory, which can take time. But long term, North is a strong business and is well positioned for improved conversion rates as demand recovers. With respect to my transition, the board is actively working on the search and process; we have no update to provide at this time. The board is continuing its work.

Scott Miller, Chief Financial Officer

The board has engaged Spencer Stuart and is working diligently to find the right leader. In the meantime, the company remains in good hands with Tom and the current management team.

Ken Newman, Analyst (KeyBanc Capital Markets)

Understood. Thanks.

Operator, Operator

Our next question is from Hamed Khorsand with BWS Financial. Please proceed.

Hamed Khorsand, Analyst (BWS Financial)

Hi. Mainly on the Packaging side, could you talk about what happened in 2024? You said the business was doing well with a lot of demand, but it also sounds like there was a lot of pull-in demand in 2024. It doesn't seem to add up to what the business should have been doing versus 2023 or 2022. I'm trying to understand the execution and what you're looking at for 2025.

Thomas Amato, President and CEO

I'll let Scott bridge Packaging as that will provide clarity. I want to point out there was not pull-in demand in 2024. If anything, the reverse occurred. There was under-ordering in 2023 and a snapback, sometimes referred to as channel fill, in 2024 in certain discrete product lines where we had capacity constraints. Some consumer demand trends have changed over the past few years and we're seeing strong, sustained growth in a higher-displacement dispensing product line—four cc versus three cc. We have added capacity in 2024 and will add a bit more in 2025. The trajectory of that growth is not temporal; we expect it to continue. Over time, we will improve conversion rates in that dispensing line. Scott will provide additional bridging detail.

Scott Miller, Chief Financial Officer

Starting with the sales growth, Packaging delivered about 10.5% for the year, which is top quartile if market-tested, so the demand is there from our customer base. The question may be why conversion wasn't better. We referenced the IT allocation, which if carved out is about 100 basis points of EBITDA year-over-year. Additionally, we had about 150 basis points of margin erosion related to plant performance that was dealing with very high snapback demand for our four cc and related dispensing products. That 150 basis points reflects expedited freight to meet customer demand, labor inefficiencies, higher material costs, and the fact that we simply could not keep up with demand in the early part of the year. Those headwinds abated significantly in Q4, and the packaging team's efforts are starting to provide dividends.

Hamed Khorsand, Analyst (BWS Financial)

That's helpful. My other question: regarding the assembly line improvements and equipment refurbishments in Packaging, do those inherently help margins in 2025? If so, why wouldn't the margin improvement be larger given the cost actions?

Thomas Amato, President and CEO

Short answer: yes. Those investments help margin and also allow us to secure additional growth. We continue to see some cost pressure from inflation that we offset where possible with manufacturing improvements and continuous improvement initiatives. Net-net, the operating leverage gains Scott cited—about 100 to 150 basis points year-over-year—are a reasonable estimate at this point.

Scott Miller, Chief Financial Officer

A hundred to 150 basis points of margin enhancement for Packaging in 2025 would be top quartile relative to peers. There are multiple headwinds out there, and delivering that range in light of those challenges would constitute a very strong year for the Packaging business.

Hamed Khorsand, Analyst (BWS Financial)

Great. Thank you.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. With no further questions in the queue, I would like to turn the conference back over to Tom for closing remarks.

Thomas Amato, President and CEO

Okay. Thank you again for joining us on our earnings call, and we look forward to updating you again next quarter. Thank you.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. This will conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and thank you for your participation.