Visteon Corp Q4 FY2023 Earnings Call

Good morning. I'm Ryan Wentling, Vice President of Investor Relations and Treasurer. Welcome to our earnings call for the Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023. Please note this call is being recorded and all lines have been placed on listen-only mode to prevent background noise. Before we begin this morning's call, I'd like to remind you, this presentation contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future results and conditions, but rather are subject to various factors, risks, and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed in these statements. Please refer to the page entitled Forward-Looking Information for additional details. Presentation materials for today's call were posted on the Investors section of Visteon's website this morning. Please visit investors.visteon.com to download the material if you have not already done so. Joining us today are Sachin Lawande, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Jerome Rouquet, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. We have scheduled the call for one hour and we'll open the lines for your questions after Sachin and Jerome's remarks. Please limit your questions to one question and one follow-up. Thank you for joining us. Now, I will turn the call over to Sachin.

Thank you, Ryan, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our fourth quarter and full year 2023 earnings call. I would like to start with a summary of our full year performance as outlined on Page 2. In 2023, our team demonstrated our commitment to excellence across customers, operations, and financials. We delivered a record performance across many of our metrics and further strengthened our foundation for long-term growth. We increased our base sales by about $400 million, or 12%, when removing the impact of supply chain recoveries. Our full year sales reached $3.95 billion. The demand for our products is strong as carmakers respond to the trends of digitalization and electrification, and the company delivered another year of strong product sales growth with digital clusters up more than 30%, smart core up by more than 20%, and BMS more than doubling compared to the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA was $434 million at a margin of 11% of sales. We improved our margin by 170 basis points over the prior year, driven by strong growth as well as our excellent operational performance. Our adjusted EBITDA came in about the mid-point of our guidance issued last year. Adjusted free cash flow was $150 million in 2023. Our focus on cash flow conversion has yielded great results with a 35% conversion of adjusted EBITDA to adjusted free cash flow for the year. We also performed very well in strengthening our foundation for future growth. We launched a high number of products on vehicle models in 2023, which will drive our sales growth in the coming quarters. We also won over $7 billion of new business, a record performance for the company, which will help sustain our growth in the mid-term as these programs get into production. We expanded both our product and customer portfolio in 2023 with the win of battery junction box business and the addition of three customer logos for digital corporate products. We repurchased $106 million of shares during the year, delivering on our balanced capital allocation strategy. I will provide more details on our strong 2023 performance as well as our outlook for sales for 2024 and 2026 on the subsequent pages before handing it over to Jerome to discuss the financials. Turning to Page 3. This slide shows our base sales growth since the recovery of the industry from the lows of COVID-19 and the subsequent semiconductor supply shortages. The company has done a great job of executing its strategic plan and growing its base sales by about $1 billion over the two years of 2022 and 2023, reflecting the high demand for our digital cockpit and electrification products. In 2023, we continued our focus on executing the strategic objectives and delivered another year of strong base sales growth of 12% year-over-year. Our sales growth would have been higher without a couple of one-timers in Q4 that combined with the negative customer mix in China cost us a few points of growth. We were impacted by the timing of the roll-off of some older programs and the slower ramp-up of follow-on and new programs that created a temporary air pocket in our quarterly sales growth and the UAW strike at our Detroit customers impacted our quarterly sales by about $20 million. We also experienced a more negative customer mix in China in Q4 than the rest of the year. I would also like to highlight some of our key accomplishments for 2023 that sets the stage for continued outperformance in 2024 and beyond. Our additional cockpit products, including digital clusters, SmartCore, and infotainment performed very well in 2023 as the trend of digitalization continues to gain momentum in the industry. Sales of digital clusters were strong as recently launched products ramped up in production, and we solidified our position as the global market share leader in this product category. Just over half of our total cluster shipments were digital clusters compared to about a third for the industry. We strengthened our position in cockpit domain controllers by launching our SmartCore system with two new customers, Harley-Davidson in the U.S. and JMC-Ford in China. This brings the current number of SmartCore customers to eight OEMs, which is probably the most for any Tier 1 supplier in this category, considering how challenging it is to launch these complex systems. Sales of SmartCore had another year of robust growth, and the new launches will help this product line to continue to grow in the coming quarters. We moved up in the value chain in our digital cockpit products with new vision and cloud software solutions that are unique amongst our peers. Our latest infotainment and SmartCore systems offer advanced camera-based driver monitoring and surround view features that are fully implemented in software, which avoids the need for separate and dedicated ECUs, as is the case today. This in-house developed software demonstrates the growing capabilities at Visteon in terms of developing automotive-specific applications. Last month at CES, we displayed the first cockpit domain controller with integrated level one and level two ADAS features including driver monitoring, which is the next level of cockpit electronics integration that we believe will be a competitive advantage in the future. We followed up on our first AllGo App Store win from the third quarter with two additional connected services wins in the fourth quarter, one with the global OEM and the other on a two-wheeler. Our app store technology continues to mature, and we added several popular apps including Spotify, Amazon Music, and Reliance Jio that make it a compelling solution for connected cockpits. We launched our BMS product on multiple electric vehicle models with GM in 2023 and made good progress with two other OEMs that will go into production in 2024. We also won our first power electronics business for a smart battery junction box, extending our electrification product line beyond BMS. This is a very important milestone for Visteon, and we believe electrification offers us the potential to expand our product portfolio and consolidate battery electronics similar to what we have done in the cockpit. Lastly, as I mentioned already, we added three new customers in 2023, demonstrating the success of our go-to-market strategy. Over the past three years alone, we have added 18 customer logos. This is a testament to the work that the team has put in developing relationships with prospective customers and winning business with them. Turning to Page 4. We had a successful year of product launches in 2023 with 129 products launched on vehicle models across 24 different passenger, commercial, and two-wheeler OEMs around the world. About 45% of the launches were for digital clusters, highlighting the continued growth of the largest product line at Visteon. With global market penetration at about 35%, there is still plenty of runway for growth for digital clusters. Our other digital cockpit products such as SmartCore, infotainment, and displays accounted for another 35% and the remainder were BMS and other products. From a regional perspective, about half of our launches were with customers in Asia, which saw higher new model launch activity in 2023 than other regions. About a third were in Europe, and the rest were in North America. Our digital cockpit products are powertrain agnostic, and digital clusters infotainment, SmartCore, and displays are well-suited for both ICE and electric vehicles. During 2023, approximately 15% of our launches were on electric vehicles, including multiple vehicle models with our BMS system with GM. These launches are the main driver of our BMS sales growth in 2024. Now, I would like to highlight several of our key fourth quarter launches. In China, we launched a SmartCore cockpit domain controller and a 12-inch display with JMC-Ford for the Ranger, our first with this customer. There are additional vehicle models planned for launch with this product in the coming quarters, and we expect this customer to represent a significant source of future growth. We also launched a SmartCore system and a dual 10-inch digital cluster and display system on the Mahindra XUV400, which is the first electric SUV launched by that OEM for the Indian market. This launch builds on the strong relationship we have with Mahindra and the continued inroads we have made with OEMs in the fast-growing Indian market. Lastly, we launched a 12-inch digital cluster on the Nissan Rogue for the North American market. This represents content on one of the bestselling SUVs in the market and reinforces our ability to deliver value as a key supplier to Japanese OEMs, which continue to be amongst the top-selling brands in North America. Turning to Page 5. Our product and technology portfolio is one of the best in the industry when it comes to addressing the trends of digitalization and electrification and is the key driver of our new business win performance. We won $1.4 billion in new business in the fourth quarter, bringing our total wins for the year to $7.2 billion, a record new business win total for the company. The product mix in our full year new business wins was well diversified across our product portfolio and powertrains. We had substantial new business wins for ICE, EV, and cross powertrain platforms, as well as several extensions of current ICE platforms. SmartCore and infotainment made up almost 40% of the total, including a significant conquest win with a European luxury OEM and several platform wins with global OEMs. Our electrification wins were primarily extensions of BMS business with current customers, including the addition of new models and extension of production until 2030. It also includes the strategic win of our first power electronics product for a battery junction box with the European OEM. We further built on our leadership position in digital clusters with a high number of new business wins and one displaced business across several OEMs. And importantly, we have added three significant new OEM logos for our digital cockpit business in 2023 with significant potential to grow our business with them in the future. On the right side of the page, we highlight a few key wins for the fourth quarter. We had two significant wins during the fourth quarter for our upgraded Android-based infotainment system. While cockpit domain controllers like SmartCore that use high-performance silicon are great for the mid and upper end of the market, mass market, high volume vehicles need more cost-effective solutions that also offer highly valued features such as camera-based rear and surround view systems, natural language voice assistant, smartphone projection with CarPlay and Android Auto, and with a choice of connected apps and over-the-air software updates. Our upgraded Android-based infotainment products offer a very attractive value proposition to carmakers, especially in the mass market segment of the industry. Since it's developed as a platform solution with a high degree of reuse, we can develop and launch this infotainment system with multiple customers faster than our peers. The first win is for this segment compact SUV platform with a global OEM that will launch on four SUV models in multiple Asian markets starting in early 2025. The second win is with an Indian OEM and will feature on multiple vehicle models that launch at the beginning of next year. Both these systems come with a 10-inch display that's also supplied by Visteon. The third win I would like to highlight is for a 12-inch digital cluster and a 13-inch center display on a luxury SUV platform with a German luxury OEM. This is a follow-on win for the electric version of a platform that we won the ICE version last year. Turning to Page 6. On this page, I would like to share our outlook for 2024 for the industry and Visteon. We are anticipating another year of strong sales growth for the company in 2024 with a double-digit market outperformance. We are expecting 2024 global vehicle production to be largely in line with S&P Global's January forecast of down slightly compared to 2023. Our customers’ vehicle production is expected to be slightly more negative at about 1% down year-over-year. From a regional perspective, customer vehicle production is expected to be slightly higher in North America, largely due to non-recurrence of the UAW strike, while it's expected to modestly decline in Europe and China. Forecasting electric vehicle production has become much more challenging over the past year. In addition to the EV vehicles already launched with our BMS products with GM, we have several additional launches this year with GM, as well as new launches with two other OEMs that should drive higher sales for BMS in 2024. Nevertheless, our outlook considers a more conservative EV vehicle production than customer forecasts and is more in line with S&P Global. Turning to the supply chain, we expect a much improved environment for semiconductors this year. As a result, we forecast a lower need for open market purchases and resulting recoveries from our customers. Our growth over market expectations is based on the ramp up of the products we launched throughout 2023 and the additional launches planned in 2024. As these launches ramp up in production, we expect a modest rebound in Q1 from the lower growth over market in Q4 of last year and expect it to accelerate throughout 2024. For the full year, we are anticipating a growth over market of low-double-digits in the 10% to 12% range. Turning to Page 7. Looking beyond 2024, we expect our market outperformance to continue as we execute our strategic growth plan. We have an attractive multi-year growth profile that is supported by an industry-leading product portfolio targeting two fast-growing domains of automotive electronics, the cockpit and the electric powertrain. Visteon's growing capabilities in automotive electronics and software is very well suited to take advantage of the opportunities created by the megatrends of digitalization and electrification, that's changing the industry in a fundamental manner. And our proven operational and commercial excellence means that this growth comes with strong returns and cash flow generation. We are targeting $5 billion in sales in 2026. That's an increase of over $1.2 billion when removing the impact of supply chain recoveries and representing low-double-digit growth over market annually over the three-year period. The fundamentals of the business remain strong and have not changed substantially from early 2023 when we gave our mid-term outlook on our Investor Day. The main drivers of growth through 2026 remain our digital cockpit and BMS products. What has changed are some market dynamics that we have been highlighting for the past few quarters. As you can see on the bottom right of the page, there are three primary factors driving the reduction of sales compared to our original $5.5 billion target. First, the 2026 vehicle production forecast for our customers has been reduced by about 4% compared to the forecast from early 2023. Second, lower EV demand throughout the forecasting period has affected both our BMS and digital cockpit product sales on EV platforms. Lastly, the growth of domestic Chinese OEM share of the China market at the expense of international brands, where we have stronger relationships is lowering our expectations in that region. Overall, we have a strong foundation for growth and are confident in achieving our product targets, and we do not expect our growth to stop in 2026. The new business wins that we secured in 2023 are largely expected to launch in 2026 and beyond. This is our formula for consistent long-term growth. Turning to Page 8. In summary, the company performed very well and had a very successful 2023. We delivered strong base sales growth of 12%, driven by growth over market and higher industry production. The team continued to execute on our commercial and operational plans which resulted in a strong adjusted EBITDA margin of 11%. We continue to build momentum for future growth by launching 129 new products and winning $7.2 billion in new business. Finally, we executed on our commitment to return capital to shareholders with $106 million of share repurchases. Now, I will turn the presentation over to Jerome.

Thank you, Sachin, and good morning, everyone. Visteon posted a solid set of results in the fourth quarter, demonstrating another quarter of robust commercial and operational execution. Q4 sales were $990 million. When excluding the impact of supply chain recoveries, base sales grew 1% against a difficult prior comparable. Our base sales performance was supported by the strong customer demand we continue to see for digital clusters, cockpit domain controllers, displays, and the ongoing ramp of our BMS program. Several factors impacted our fourth quarter sales. We experienced approximately $20 million in lost sales from the UAW strike. We were also impacted by the timing of roll-offs and the slower ramp-up of new roll-ons as mentioned by Sachin earlier on. We expect these headwinds to be largely transitory. Consistent with the first three quarters of the year, we continue to experience customer mix headwinds in China. We expect these to ease in 2024 as we continue to increase our exposure to domestic OEMs. The semiconductor supply situation has improved significantly compared to the fourth quarter of last year. Supply chain recoveries declined by roughly $85 million year-over-year. This has mostly been the result of our reduced reliance on open market purchases and related recoveries. Open market purchases were minimal in the second half of 2023, and we expect this trend to continue in 2024. As a reminder, recoveries, although bucketed as pricing are pass-through in nature, increasing sales neutral for adjusted EBITDA but diluting margin percentages. Adjusted EBITDA was $117 million for the quarter, an improvement of $14 million versus the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA benefited from operational improvements and manufacturing efficiencies as well as lower engineering spending partially offset by a headwind from foreign exchange. Lower engineering in the quarter was mostly the result of good cost controls, the timing of project spending and customer recoveries combined with a non-recurrence of a one-time program expense from the prior year. Our adjusted EBITDA margin was 11.8%, but adjusting for a more normalized engineering spend and excluding the effect of foreign exchange, our run rate was roughly 11%. Adjusted free cash flow was $57 million in the quarter. Our strong adjusted free cash flow performance was the result of a higher adjusted EBITDA and neutral trade and other working capital. We ended the fourth quarter with a net cash position of $182 million and total cash of $518 million. Share repurchases were $30 million in the quarter and $106 million for the full year. Turning to Page 11. I am proud of what the Visteon team was able to achieve in 2023. We delivered on our operational initiatives notably strong sales growth, meaningful margin expansion, and impressive cash flow generation. Sales were a record $3.95 billion base sales, which excludes customer recoveries were $3.66 million, an increase of 12% or $400 million compared to prior year. The increase in base sales was driven by strong growth of the market from robust product launches during the year and higher industry production. Customer recoveries, which are illustrated in the dotted boxes, totaled approximately $300 million. The roughly $200 million year-over-year decline in recoveries reflects the significant improvement in the semiconductor supply chain and the reduction in associated recoveries. Adjusted EBITDA was $434 million for the year, an increase of $86 million or 25% year-over-year. The increase in adjusted EBITDA primarily reflects the impact of higher sales while leveraging an efficient cost base with modest increases in engineering and SG&A. Net engineering increased $14 million year-over-year as we continue to invest in technology to support future growth. As a percentage of sales, net engineering remained flat at 5.3%. Adjusted SG&A increased $17 million year-over-year and as a percentage of sales increased slightly to 4.5%. Adjusted EBITDA margin improved to 11% in 2023, a 170 basis point improvement year-over-year. While not on the slide, I wanted to highlight our return on invested capital. Our ROIC, as calculated by tax effective adjusted EBIT over equity debt and leases was 16% in 2023. The improvement in our return in past years has largely been driven by substantial improvement in adjusted EBITDA and modest increases in our invested capital base. This metric supports our view that Visteon is an increasingly compelling investment opportunity. Turning to Page 12. Starting with a balance sheet, we ended the year with a total cash position of $518 million and a net cash position of $182 million. We have no material near-term debt maturities and an attractive current interest rate of approximately 3.5%. We repaid approximately $13 million in 2023 as a result of our quarterly amortization payments. In conjunction with our March 2023 Investor Day, we announced a $300 million share repurchase authorization. In the fourth quarter, we repurchased shares for $30 million at an average price of $126.85 per share. This brought our full year repurchases to $106 million. We will continue to be opportunistic in our share repurchases in order to return capital to shareholders. Turning now to cash flow, we generated $150 million of adjusted free cash flow in 2023. This is a $49 million improvement compared to the prior year, primarily due to the higher adjusted EBITDA and lower working capital build, partially offset by higher cash taxes and higher capital expenditures. The outflow related to trade and other working capital declined year-over-year, primarily as a result of the stabilization of our supply chain and improvement in our inventory balances. Cash taxes were higher than the prior year due to cash payments related to increasing profitability in some jurisdictions, both in the current year and in the prior year. Related to taxes, I would like to explain briefly the significant tax item in the fourth quarter that impacted our net income and EPS. Primarily as a result of our improved profitability in the U.S., we had a non-cash benefit of $313 million related to a reduction in the valuation allowance against U.S. deferred tax assets. This change in our valuation allowance had no impact on cash, but increased our net income and earnings per share for the period. While a positive sign of the health of our business, we do not expect any change to our go-forward cash tax profile as a result of this valuation allowance reduction. Interest payments remained low and were offset by higher interest income from increased rates. CapEx was $125 million or 3.2% of sales, reflecting our ongoing investments in manufacturing and electrification. We have steadily increased our free cash flow generation in recent years. Our conversion ratio was 35% in 2023 and is in line with our medium-term target. Our improved cash performance has been largely due to the increase in adjusted EBITDA and diligent management of other cash items like trade working capital, cash taxes, interest, and CapEx. We have structural elements that support consistent cash flow generation, including limited capital intensity across both CapEx and working capital, a debt-like capital structure and substantial tax attributes. In just a few years, our team has successfully transformed Visteon into a robust cash flow generator and we expect this to continue for the years to come as our business grows. Turning to Page 13. For 2024, our guidance range for sales is $4 billion to $4.2 billion, which at the mid-point represents an 8% increase in base sales. Focusing on the mid-point, we have assumed this on customer production declines by approximately 1%, while growth of a market is anticipated to be in the range of 10% to 12%. On the pricing side, we're assuming a year-over-year headwind from lower customer recoveries in addition to some level of standard customer price downs. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be between $470 million and $500 million, representing adjusted EBITDA margin of 11.8% at the mid-point. The year-over-year increase in adjusted EBITDA is primarily the result of higher base sales, continued strong commercial performance, and further operating efficiencies partially offset by an increase in net engineering spend. As a percentage of 2024 sales, we anticipate net engineering to be in the mid 5% range and SG&A to be in the mid 4% range as we continue to invest in technology and in our teams to support future growth. Adjusted free cash flow is expected to be between $155 million to $185 million, which at the mid-point is a conversion of 35% of adjusted EBITDA into adjusted free cash flow. We expect working capital will be a modest outflow for the year as a result of our continued growth. CapEx is forecasted to be approximately $145 million as we invest for future growth. Despite these investments, we expect CapEx as a percentage of sales to remain in the mid 3% range. And finally, even though we are not providing quarterly guidance, we expect the first quarter to be lower sequentially and represent our low point of 2024, followed by a progressive ramp-up of our sales and EBITDA over the course of the year, similar to what we saw in 2023. Turning to Page 14. Looking at the long-term, as Sachin noted earlier, our sales targets for 2026 is $5 billion. This is an increase of over $1.2 billion in base sales between 2023 and 2026, with low-double-digit growth of market on an annual basis. Overall, this is an attractive growth profile and reflects our current expectations for our business and the market dynamics that Sachin outlined earlier. Our adjusted EBITDA margin target is 13.5%, a 250 basis points increase from 2023. This increase in margin is expected to be driven by the growth of the business as well as the ongoing leveraging of our fixed cost across manufacturing, engineering, and SG&A. In dollar terms, this represents approximately $675 million of adjusted EBITDA in 2026, which is a 16% CAGR over the period. We expect to convert 35% to 40% of adjusted EBITDA to adjusted free cash flow in 2026. I'm very proud of what the team has been able to accomplish over the past few years. We have increased our sales by $1 billion compared to 2019. We have grown profitably. Compared to 2019, our adjusted EBITDA has nearly doubled, and we have been generating substantial cash flow in the same period. We're strengthening our foundation for future growth through record new business wins, high level of product launches, and continued investment in our people. When I look at the next few years, I'm excited to deliver on our plan for significant growth in sales, EBITDA, and free cash flow. Turning to Page 15. Visteon remains a compelling long-term investment opportunity. We have positioned the company for top-line growth, margin expansion, and free cash flow generation. We have an exciting growth profile and have demonstrated a strong focus on operational and commercial discipline to deliver this growth profitably. Thank you for your time today. I would like now to open the call for your questions.

Thank you. We will take our first question from Joe Spak with UBS. Your line is open.

Thanks. Good morning, everyone.

Good morning.

Maybe just to start a couple on the revised 2026, I think the prior commentary from you guys was that you weren't necessarily taking management's targets for some of the EV programs. You were sort of making your own assessment. Now, obviously, sort of the world has drastically changed even since those comments, but maybe you could provide a little bit more color as to sort of what type of planning went into the revised 2026 top-line targets.

I will address that as well. First, it's important to note that the reduction is not solely due to BMS or EV production. There are three main factors at play. The first factor is the overall decrease in vehicle production outlook from our customers, which accounts for about half of the reduction. The second factor is the decrease in EV production, which impacts both our digital cockpit products and BMS. Lastly, the customer mix in China has been a significant influence throughout 2023, especially in the fourth quarter of 2023. We anticipate some moderation in this mix, but it will continue to pose challenges as we move into 2026. Specifically regarding BMS-related revenues, the volume projections for 2026 have not significantly changed from our earlier expectations in 2023. However, we are adopting a more cautious approach than what our customers have communicated. Our current expectations align more closely with vehicle models and production outlooks from sources like S&P Global. In summary, the three factors include the overall reduction in vehicle production, decreased EV production affecting our sales, particularly for digital cockpit and BMS, and the customer mix in China. Nevertheless, we expect all our product lines to grow, and our updated target suggests that our base sales will grow at a low double-digit rate each year compared to 2023 sales.

Thank you, Sachin, for that information. To build on your point, regarding the low-double-digit growth compared to the market, it seems that you are anticipating a relatively stable environment along with some negative impacts from customer mix, as you've indicated. Despite these challenges, we're observing consistent growth across our supply base, which is outside of our control. While it's evident that negative mix impacts and potential share loss with some customers could still occur, would you say that, based on your current insights and the content you've secured, this suggests a high-single-digit to low-double-digit organic growth rate? It's important to note that if certain customers or sectors fail to grow at a faster pace, your growth relative to the market may appear less favorable, even though your organic growth could remain relatively stable.

The first thing I would say, Joe, is that we have already factored in, like you would expect, that some of the customers with whom we don't have, not customers, but OEMs that we don't have business with especially on EVs are going to grow faster in this time period than our customers as far as EVs are concerned. So our EV vehicle production assumptions are certainly already taking into account this dynamic that you talked about. Now, obviously, the market overall can grow even faster because we don't control that and we don't have necessarily full exposure to that, but we've been looking more specifically at our customers. Like for us, 2026 is not that far away in terms of being able to understand what vehicles we are on and what those production volumes are likely going to be at. With the year that has passed since last year, when we gave our 2026 guidance, what I can say is that a year in it has largely transpired the way we would have expected it to, except that the BMS sales have been more suppressed. So the ramp up has been slower in 2023 than we expected. It's almost like a year delayed. And so we are expecting 2024 to look more like what we thought 2023 would look like in terms of BMS is, in other words. Now 2025 and 2026, there is a certain level of ramp up of production that we have in our assumption, and that has to come to pass for us to be able to get to where we have set our targets. But I believe that those are reasonable assumptions in terms of what our customers would and should be able to accomplish.

I guess maybe just to slightly rephrase the question. I appreciate those comments, but when you say negative mix or faster growing with customers, you don't have exposure for that that also factored into your expectation for the volume for the programs you are on. So like that, some of your customers may lose share.

I believe those are reasonable assumptions regarding what our customers can achieve.

Okay. Thank you.

Absolutely, absolutely.

Yes. Thank you.

And we will take our next question from Itay Michaeli with Citi. Your line is open.

Great. Thanks. This is Justin for Itay. So maybe a quick one on Slide 14. You're providing the high-level overview, I guess, of the base and kind of giving the recovery bucket that's in there. Can you maybe let us know what the implied recoveries are for 2024 and then maybe what you're assuming in that 2026 guide as well?

Yes. Good morning. It's Jerome. I'll address that. Let me start by discussing recoveries. We've noticed a decline in recoveries over the past few quarters of 2023, primarily due to a decrease in our open market purchases, which has led to lower associated recoveries. As you may remember, we managed to recover nearly $500 million in 2022. For 2023, we anticipate recovering about $300 million. This marks a significant decline, largely driven by the reduction in open market purchases. On a more positive note, as we head into 2024, we expect some benefits from surcharges. Certain programs that are less burdensome will replace those that have had a heavier impact, leading to a more favorable mix entering 2024. This results in our plan for 2024 projecting recoveries to be slightly under $200 million. Additionally, we foresee a continued downward trend, influenced by cost reductions from suppliers extending to 2026. Our estimates for 2026 remain consistent with those from March 2023, set at $100 million. This depicts a gradual decline from the elevated figures observed in 2022 down to $1 million by 2026.

Perfect. That’s very helpful. Regarding 2026, do you have the percentage of the sales target that has already been booked?

Yes. We can talk a little about it. So, typically, when we look at the targets of sales that need to be booked, we have a range between 75% to 80% of the sales three years out. And I would say that we are within that for 2026. And as you know, we had a pretty good robust level of new business wins in 2023 that exceeded our initial expectations, which is also helping and we also believe, on account of some of the changes that have happened with EVs, that we would see some program extensions which are going to be helpful in the near-term, as some of these ICE and hybrid vehicles will need to be extended by our customers as they rethink their EV model portfolio and go-to-market.

And we will take our next question from Dan Levy with Barclays. Your line is open.

Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking the question. First, wanted to ask a question about the margin. So, fourth quarter you did 11.8%. That was weighed down by the strike. You're guiding to an 11.8% mid-point for 2024. Perhaps you could give us basically a bridge. I recognize we shouldn't extrapolate too much from one quarter, but a bridge from the Q4 run rate to 2024. What are maybe some of the offsets that make the 11.8% that you did in the fourth quarter not necessarily representative of the true run rate, which I think you said was closer to 11%.

Thank you, Dan. We always aim to normalize our EBITDA margin in our earnings reports, and I've been doing this for the past few quarters due to various anomalies that can positively or negatively affect EBITDA. For the fourth quarter, we reported 11.8%. This was primarily influenced by lower engineering spending, which is somewhat typical for us. We were pleasantly surprised by the level of recoveries we managed to book in Q4, which positively impacted our EBITDA. When factoring out those recoveries and some negative impacts we experienced, our normalized EBITDA is closer to 11%, possibly a bit higher, with sales slightly below $1 billion. Looking ahead to next year, we anticipate an improvement of 8 basis points, mainly driven by increased sales in 2024. We're experiencing growth around 8% based on actual numbers and around 10% when excluding recoveries, marking a substantial improvement for our EBITDA. We've also been maintaining good operational efficiencies, a trend we've seen over several quarters. Additionally, we have some offsets from engineering and general and administrative expenses, which remain steady as a percentage but are rising in dollar terms. This serves as a partial offset for our EBITDA as we enter 2024. Overall, we've performed well and outpaced our initial guidance for 2023. As you may recall, we projected a 10.5% EBITDA midpoint guidance, and we concluded the year closer to 11%. This sets us up well for next year, and we are comfortable with our 10.8% target.

I'll just follow up on that. Could you comment on the net EBITDA impact of the decline in recoveries? Is it neutral, with reduced recoveries offset by reduced costs? Also, can you discuss the environment for product uptake, excluding BMS? We've heard about some automakers extending their ICE platforms and delaying EVs. We know that EVs are generally adopting more premium content. How does your 2026 outlook address any potential extensions of the platform? Additionally, how are other products like digital clusters or domain controllers holding up despite the slower EV uptake? Thank you.

Thanks. I will take the first question and give the second to Sachin. So in terms of recovery, that's a very good point. In fact, we are seeing a reduction in recoveries in 2024 as well, all the way to 2026. Generally, we are not assuming any negative P&L impact, largely because the two reasons for the decrease in 2024 are the fact that we're going to buy less open market purchases, and therefore, we're going to recover less, so it's neutral. And the second reason I gave earlier on is the fact that we have this positive mix, in some cases impacting us in a favorable way, and therefore, the associated recoveries are matching as well the reduction in cost. So there is virtually no P&L impact on that side as we go into 2024. We have assumed a normal level of pricing like we normally give to our customers. That has obviously an impact on P&L, but not the reduction in recoveries per se.

Thank you, Jerome. Regarding the topic of content in internal combustion engine vehicles and potentially hybrid vehicles, which are expected to grow in the short term as the growth of full electric vehicles may slow, we are very well-positioned to take advantage of this situation. We have a strong digital cockpit portfolio that is already engineered and launched in many of the programs that will benefit from new model introductions or extensions. The increase in content we are seeing is not limited to electric vehicles; there is a general rise in cockpit content even in internal combustion engine vehicles. Over the past couple of years, this has been the major driver of our growth over the market. We have experienced 18 consecutive quarters of outpacing market growth, primarily due to the increase in cockpit content, especially in internal combustion and hybrid vehicles, where we have significant representation with our customers. For example, in 2023, about half of our digital cluster shipments were fully digital, compared to approximately 30% to 35% across the industry. There is substantial growth potential for digital content ahead. In terms of our 2026 guidance, we have incorporated a few programs where we know extensions are occurring, but there is additional potential that we have not yet included, as we need formal confirmations from customers about these extensions. If electric vehicles experience a slight downturn, it is actually beneficial for us since most of our revenue currently comes from internal combustion engines and the content that is expected to grow to keep these vehicles competitive.

And we will take our next question from Luke Junk with Baird. Your line is open.

Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. To start, I'm hoping you could just disaggregate the 2024 growth of our market drivers you highlighted in Slide 6 specifically. Within that, just want to better understand your approach to forecasting EV volumes this year, both in terms of electronic launches as well as BMS incrementally this year. And then, within that, maybe if you could touch on China mix exiting 2023 and the view to moderating impacts in 2024 here. Thank you.

Yes. Sure, Luke. And so what I would like to say again is to reiterate our expectations for 2024 from a vehicle production viewpoint, as we have said on Slide 6, we expect discounted customers to continue to face some headwind, and we will see a negative customer mix also in 2024, but it will moderate as compared to what we saw in 2023 and largely we expect that moderation to occur in China, as I said, still negative, but less so. And as you look at the slide on the right, we have identified the major drivers of growth of our market, of which the number one driver continues to be the high number of new products that we launched in 2023, as well as continuing into 2024. And as they start to ramp up in production, that's the first major driver of our growth of our market. The non-recurrence of the one-timers, that's contributing to about 1% to 2% of growth over market. And then the third one, which is this BMS sales, which I mentioned were sort of delayed in terms of their ramp-up all through 2023. Towards the end of 2023, we started to see them grow. We expect that growth to continue into 2024. We have launched on, I would say, about seven vehicles with GM so far already, and more are planned also in 2024. In addition to that, we are diversifying our BMS business with two additional OEMs with whom we will be having our first launches this year. So BMS is going to be a strong growth driver for us, even though it is lower than our expectations earlier in the beginning of 2023 still a strong growth. And I would say there's 10% to 12% GOM. If you think about 1% to 2% for the non-recurrence of the one-timers, the rest is split between the other two factors. There's new model launches and the growth of BMS, although BMS also includes new model launches.

Got it. That was helpful, Sachin. And then for my follow-up, hoping you could just comment on the award environment as we go into the beginning of the year here, obviously, OEMs grappling with evolving dynamics around EV. Thinking about some of the things you mentioned in terms of maybe extensions to existing ICE and hybrid platforms. Just hoping you could put a finer point on what that means, good, bad or otherwise for the number of awards. And should we still be gearing to kind of a $6 billion plus number this year as a good starting point?

Yes, Luke, absolutely. And if you go back to what I've said earlier, if you think about our product portfolio and with the additions we have made to it, we have continuously expanded the market that is available to us. And so in terms of the digital cockpit product line itself, the pipeline of new business opportunities that we see is pretty robust, similar, I would say, to what we had for 2023, and I would expect us to perform well there as well. One of the things that we are seeing is that infotainment in particular is going through a lot of changes from a technology viewpoint with Android and connected services and vision services that are all coming together not just at the upper end of the market but now going more into the mass market vehicles. So a very strong pipeline of opportunities there. Now, when it comes to electrification beyond BMS, as we discussed, we have expanded our product line into power electronics, and we hope that we have a repeat this year as well with an extension of the win that we had last year and other customers as well. So I would say that we would feel pretty comfortable saying that we would have a similar year from a new business win performance this year as last year.

And we will take our next question from John Babcock with Bank of America. Your line is open.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking my questions. To start, regarding the content you provide and discussions with OEMs, I am curious about the demand you are seeing for mass-market vehicles. How much of this technology is expected to be integrated into those vehicles and how quickly might that occur over time? I have a follow-up after that.

Yes, that's a great question. Looking at cockpit content, particularly digital clusters and infotainment, we are seeing a significant number of our wins now coming from mass market vehicles. The higher end of the market already has these products, and any opportunities we see there are typically follow-ons. The growth in market content is primarily happening in the mass market segments, specifically in segment B and C vehicles, which were not traditionally the targets. The main driver of this shift is the trend towards digitalization. We're seeing larger displays and infotainment content that includes downloadable apps, enhanced connected services, and over-the-air updates, all of which necessitate more advanced electronics. We anticipate this trend to persist regardless of the powertrain type — whether it’s a small electric vehicle, an internal combustion engine, or a hybrid. This movement will continue to create business opportunities for us moving forward.

Okay. Thanks for that. And then just a quick follow-up here is there a way to frame how much cost ultimately needs to come down for that to be carried into the mass market segment?

I think, as we have demonstrated, in fact, with the two wins that we talked about on this call, those are two infotainment wins. Both are for mass market segments. So the good work that Visteon has done is in working with the semiconductor supply base as well as the display supply base to drive the cost of the systems to where it is now very affordable for that segment of the market, okay? And so we believe as a result of that, we have a good set of software technologies, hardware platforms, and the manufacturing integration, the vertical integration that we have done, especially for displays is putting us in a position to offer products at price points that are very competitive and affordable. So we do not see that as a hurdle for the industry taking more of it as we go forward.

And we'll take our next question from Colin Langan with Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

Great. Thanks for taking my question. Sorry, just to recap, I just want to make sure I get the puts and takes in the year. So sales is going to be up $150 million, but thinking of it more like $300 million if we exclude the impact of the lower semi recoveries. Is that right? And then that would imply about $50 million increase in EBIT about a 17% conversion on that EBIT. Any other puts and takes we should be thinking on that conversion. I know there was the recall impact is R&D and SG&A up. It looks like those ratios look about flat. And then you also mentioned in Q4 there was some normalization help is that a headwind as we go into next year, or is that sort of still a continuing help?

Yes, hi Colin, it's Jerome. You're correct in noting that our sales increased by 4% year-over-year at face value. However, if we exclude the effect of recoveries, which are declining, we see an additional sales figure just below $300 million. This clearly contributes to EBITDA. Looking at other factors, we have engineering costs rising year-over-year. We ended the year with engineering costs slightly lower than our initial expectations, recording 5.3% of sales. For 2024, we are forecasting it to be in the mid-5% range. So, while there is a slight increase in percentage, it’ll also reflect positively in dollar terms due to the sales increase, which is a downside heading into next year. Nonetheless, we continue to invest in engineering as we have in recent years. SG&A should remain fairly consistent in percentage, but there will be a slight uptick in dollar amounts. There are also some minor negative effects we've considered, along with our usual customer pricing. All this is balanced out by the operational efficiencies we've achieved and will continue to implement into 2024. Overall, when considering base sales, we're looking at incremental growth in the high-double-digits for the upcoming year. This trend aligns with our progress over the past few years and reflects the kind of incremental growth we anticipate through to 2026.

So you mentioned negative effects. What are you referring to there, the negative effects?

Yes. We are experiencing some negative effects on sales and EBITDA for 2024 due to the currency assumptions we have made.

Just a quick question. You mentioned tax wasn't changed. I mean, I got to make your tax rates all over the place a bit. What should we be thinking? Kind of backing into like 23%, 24%, is that the right range and why doesn't it change; if you're releasing it to per tax asset, usually that's when you start paying higher.

Yes. No, it's a good question. So we've had a large one-timer in Q4 with our valuation allowance release in the U.S. to the tune of $313 million. So that's really a non-cash tax item. I think the key takeaway is that, from a cash tax standpoint, our profile will look very similar as we go into 2024 than what we've seen in prior years. And generally our ETR is in the mid-20s. It varies, obviously, some variability, as you said. But I think if you can count on a mid-20 as a good proxy for ETR generally as well, our cash taxes converge over time towards our income tax expense. So I think that's a good proxy if you need to evaluate what cash taxes are going to be for 2024.

We will take our next question from Mark Delaney with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Yes. Good morning. Thank you very much for taking my questions. The company expects customer mix to remain somewhat of a headwind. Can you comment more on how Visteon is positioned with the Chinese domestic auto OEMs? And do you see an opportunity to improve your exposure with the Chinese domestic OEMs?

Yes, that's a great question, Mark. In China, there has been a competitive environment among OEMs vying for market share. It's crucial for us to avoid getting entangled with potentially unsuitable customers. We believe that the current number of OEMs and market dynamics are not sustainable long-term, and we anticipate consolidation. Additionally, there's been a significant shift in the mix between domestic and joint venture OEMs, which we've previously discussed. In 2023, this shift has become more evident, leaning heavily towards domestic OEMs at about 60:40, whereas not long ago it was the opposite. We are proactively increasing our business with domestic OEMs, particularly those with a long-term vision like Geely and others. We're enthusiastic about our partnership with JMC-Ford and have concrete plans for vehicle launches. We are strategically growing our involvement with domestic OEMs while cautiously navigating potential challenges. So far, our approach has been successful. In the short term, we might experience some negative mix effects, which will persist and be better than what we faced in Q4. However, we feel confident in our ability to manage these challenges and achieve the growth and profitability we aim for.

Thanks, Sachin. My next question is about the new 2026 forecast. What percentage of your digital electronics revenue is generated from EV programs? Can you provide some insight on how flexible you might be? Also, if your OEM customers choose to produce ICE or hybrid vehicles rather than EVs, do you think you'd be able to sell a similar amount of digital electronics revenue for those ICE and hybrids, assuming your customers transition away from EVs faster than you expect?

Yes. As I had mentioned earlier already, we have been growing our sales on EVs with our customers in line with the market. And in 2023, just over 10% of our total sales came from EVs, right? And only a small portion of that low-single-digits was BMS. So we are today well-positioned with respect to the exposure to EVs outside China. As I mentioned, the channel is somewhat different in that regard. But outside of China, we are very well-positioned, and we expect to grow with the market outside of China as our customers launch new EV models. Now, added to that, our BMS revenues are going to see a faster acceleration, that's net incremental revenue to us. And in addition to the ramp up of production of models with GM and the new launches that we will see with them this year, I mentioned also that we are launching with two other OEMs this year, which will further diversify and grow our BMS business. So, 2026, what we have assumed is largely a similar sort of exposure to EVs outside of BMS that we have with customers in Europe and Americas. And then the BMS growth that will follow on account of the launches, which is one of the faster-growing parts of our business.

This concludes our earnings call for the fourth quarter and full year 2023 results. Thank you, everyone, for participating in today's call and your ongoing interest in Visteon. Thank you.

And ladies and gentlemen, this concludes Visteon's fourth quarter and full year 2023 results earnings call. You may now disconnect.