Woodward Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
July 31, 2023

There are 14 speakers on the call.

Operator

Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Woodward, Inc. Third Quarter Fiscal Year 2023 Earnings Call. At this time, I would like to inform you that this call is Following the presentation, you are invited to participate in a question and answer session. Joining us today from the company are Chip Blankenship, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Bill Lacy, Chief Financial Officer and Dan Provasnik, Director of Investor Relations.

Operator

I would now like to turn the call over to Dan Provasnik. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thank you, operator. We'd like to welcome all of you to Woodward's Q3 fiscal year 2023 earnings call. In today's call, Chip will comment on our strategies and related markets. Bill will then discuss our financial results as outlined in our earnings release. At the end of the presentation, we will take questions.

Speaker 1

For those who have not seen today's earnings release, you can find it on our website at woodward.com. We have again included some presentation materials to go along with today's call that are also accessible on our website. An audio replay of this call will be available by phone or on our website through August 14, 2023. The phone number for the audio replay is on the press release announcing this call as well as on our website and will be repeated by the operator at the end of the call. I would like to refer to and highlight our cautionary statement as shown on Slide 3.

Speaker 1

As always, elements of this presentation are forward looking, Including our guidance and are based on our current outlook and assumptions for the global economy and our businesses more specifically. Those elements can and do frequently change. Our forward looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties surrounding those elements, including the risks we identify in our filings. In addition, Woodward is providing certain non U. S.

Speaker 1

GAAP financial measures. We direct your attention to the reconciliations of non U. S. GAAP financial measures, which are included in today's slide presentation and our earnings release and related schedules. We believe this additional financial information will help in understanding our results.

Speaker 1

Now, I will turn the call over to Chip to comment further on our results, strategies and markets.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Dan, and good afternoon, everyone. We delivered strong sales growth in the 3rd quarter, driven by robust demand and our improved ability to deliver products to our customers. We expanded margins through productivity improvements and price realization, partially offset by increased material and labor costs. We continue to make progress on our strategic initiatives focused on enhancing the customer experience, Simplifying operations and increasing profitability through improved execution. Output is increasing, pricing actions are yielding results and we are seeing efficiency gains as our new members come up the learning curve And become more proficient in their jobs.

Speaker 2

We've seen improvement in our supply base performance. However, the environment remains challenging And we continue to actively manage and problem solve with our suppliers. Our team has done a great job responding to the fluctuating delivery risk landscape. We remain focused on this work stream with significant resource allocation and a goal of identifying risks further upstream And launching countermeasures earlier in the process. Moving to our markets.

Speaker 2

In Aerospace, Commercial airline utilization rates continue to rise with U. S, Europe and China domestic passenger traffic now surpassing 2019 levels. In addition, international travel continues to improve nearing 2019 levels. In defense, Due to geopolitical developments and government spending proposals, we expect R and D and procurement to increase, Which bodes well for Woodward's future opportunities. In Industrial, demand for power generation remains strong, Driven by growth in Asia, increases in aftermarket activity and continued demand for backup power.

Speaker 2

In transportation, the global marine market remains healthy with increased ship build rates and higher utilization driving current And future aftermarket activity. Marine customers continue to launch more projects that incorporate alternative fuel capability in their specification. This should drive expanded OEM and aftermarket opportunities as multi fuel engines contain greater Woodward content. In addition, Chinese heavy duty truck output increased significantly in February, as did the portion that is natural gas powered. The natural gas powered production rate has been relatively stable since February, but future demand remains uncertain.

Speaker 2

In oil and gas, global investment in LNG infrastructure development continues. Rig counts increased globally, So U. S. Activity declined year over year. In summary, the market signals we are receiving Indicate continued strong demand.

Speaker 2

We remain focused on operational excellence, developing talent and innovating for the future, Which we believe will drive long term sustainable growth and deliver enhanced value for shareholders. Before we move on to our financial results, I'd like to introduce Bill Lacey, who took the helm as CFO in May. Bill has a distinguished track record in financial operations and business leadership. With 3 months in role, Bill is well integrated into Woodward and he is already contributing to the team. Bill, welcome to your first Woodward earnings call.

Speaker 2

I'll now turn it over to you to share our financial results.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Chip. It's great to be here. Net sales for the Q3 of fiscal 2023 were $801,000,000 an increase of 30 Aerospace segment sales for the Q3 of fiscal 2023 were $481,000,000 compared to $402,000,000 an increase of 20%. Commercial OEM and aftermarket sales were up 41% 28 respectively, driven by higher OEM production rates, continued recovery in both domestic and international passenger traffic, Increasing aircraft utilization and price realization. Defense OEM sales were down 12% in the quarter, primarily due to lower sales of Guided Weapons.

Speaker 3

Defense aftermarket sales were up 17%. Aerospace segment Earnings for the Q3 of 2023 were $83,000,000 or 17.3 percent of segment sales Compared to $57,000,000 or 14.1 percent of segment sales. The increase in segment earnings was primarily a result of Price realization and higher commercial OEM and aftermarket volume, partially offset by higher annual incentive compensation. Turning to Industrial. Industrial segment sales for the Q3 of fiscal 2023 were 3 $320,000,000 compared to $213,000,000 an increase of 51%.

Speaker 3

The increase was driven by higher volumes across all markets as well as price realization. Industrial segment earnings for the Q3 of 20 Or 9.9 percent of segment sales. Industrial segment earnings increased due to higher sales volume, Price realization and favorable product mix, partially offset by higher annual incentive compensation. Industrial sales and earnings benefited from significantly increased on highway natural gas truck production in China, Although future demand beyond the Q4 remains uncertain. Non segment expenses were $24,000,000 for the 3rd quarter of 2023 compared to $19,000,000 At the Woodward level, R and D for the Q3 of 2023 was $35,000,000 or 4.4 percent of sales compared to $32,000,000 or 5.2 percent of sales.

Speaker 3

SG and A for the Q3 of 2023 was $65,000,000 compared to $46,000,000 primarily due to higher annual incentive compensation. The effective tax rate was 20% for the Q3 of The 1st 9 months of fiscal 2023 was $156,000,000 compared to $86,000,000 Capital expenditures were $57,000,000 for the 1st 9 months of 2023 compared to $37,000,000 Free cash flow was $98,000,000 for the 1st 9 months of fiscal 2023 compared to $49,000,000 Adjusted free cash flow was $103,000,000 for the 1st 9 months of fiscal 2023 compared to $52,000,000 The increase in free cash flow and adjusted free cash flow was primarily due to increased earnings, partially offset by higher capital expenditures. Leverage was 1.7 times EBITDA at the end of the third quarter compared to 2 times EBITDA. During the 1st 9 months of fiscal 2023, dollars 64,000,000 was returned to stockholders in the form of $38,000,000 of dividends And $26,000,000 of repurchased shares under a board authorized share repurchase program. Lastly, turning to our fiscal 2023 outlook.

Speaker 3

We continue to expect year over year improvements in the Q4 of fiscal 2023. Due to the continued strong end market demand and our improved ability to deliver for our customers, we are raising certain aspects of our full year guidance. Total net sales for fiscal 2023 are now expected to be $2,850,000,000 $2,900,000,000 Aerospace sales growth is now expected to be between 16% 18%. Industrial sales growth is now expected to be between 28% 30%. We now expect the full year price realization to be approximately 7% of prior year sales.

Speaker 3

Aerospace segment earnings as a percent of segment net sales Are still expected to increase approximately 150 basis points to 200 basis points. Industrial segment earnings as a percent of segment net sales Are now expected to increase approximately 340 basis points to 440 basis points. The adjusted Effective tax rate is now expected to be approximately 18%. We still expect adjusted free cash flow to be between 200 And $250,000,000 in capital expenditures to be approximately $80,000,000 Adjusted earnings per share is now expected to be between $4.05 $4.25 based on approximately 61,000,000 fully diluted weighted average shares outstanding. This concludes our comments on the business and results for the Q3 of 2023.

Speaker 3

Operator, we are now ready to open the call to questions.

Operator

Thank you. The question and answer session will begin at this time. Our first question comes from the line of Robert Spingarn of Melius Research. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Hey, everybody. Welcome, Bill.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Robert.

Speaker 2

Good afternoon, Rob.

Speaker 4

Chip, these first of all, very good numbers, clearly. I wanted to focus in on the industrial side, Some of these numbers are really higher than what we've seen before on a quarterly basis. And just to understand, is this a new normal? Was there some pent up inventory that got sent out? Just if you could run us Through maybe through the major business lines within industrial and talk a little bit about where you are in terms of a new normal Or maybe it's benchmarked against the recovery versus 2019.

Speaker 4

I'm not sure what the right way to do it is. But especially because A quarter like this almost implies the Q4 in industrial would or for the company would be even flat to down. I just want to understand if you're being conservative Really how to framework this entire thing?

Speaker 2

Sure, Rob. So the I mean we don't really give out Detailed numbers at the subunit product line levels, but I would like to say that the Industrial performance has a very high mix of China on highway shipments in it. And as far as a new normal, we do not forecast this as a new normal, but we are enjoying quite a high demand from our customers In China for products that we had a significant amount of inventory for and we're able to respond quickly last quarter And our supply chain and plants there in China performed very well serving the customer this quarter. It's a line of business that we've talked about in the past. It's very hard to forecast.

Speaker 2

We have limited forward site to orders. When the orders come in, Our strategy has been to try and be in a very good inventory position with a flexible supply chain to respond and that's the approach we're continuing to take. We do have some limited visibility through the Q4, which gave us confidence to raise our guidance for the Q4. As far as China on highway volume, we don't have enough visibility beyond that to make any statements about it. As far as the other lines of business, we did see sequential and year over year improvements in efficiency And amount of product delivered sales for the other product lines, our plants here in Fort Collins As well as the L'Orange facilities in Germany have all been improving with our Focus on the elements of lean manufacturing and the transformations we're trying to Foster put in place and lead.

Speaker 2

So good results by all parts of the industrial portfolio. However, I would not forecast this sort of margin level as a sustainable type of Benchmark.

Speaker 4

Okay. And then if I could just follow-up on that, 2 quick things. 1, is there a way to think about 320,000,000 In Industrials and to allocate that across the businesses or to rank order what's the biggest, what's the smallest? And then Bill for you, Just curious, it sounds like there's some moving pieces and maybe a little bit of conservatism, but why no increase in the cash flow guide? Thank you.

Speaker 3

Yes. So first on the on giving a little more detail, as Chip said, we typically do not give Sub level sales below the segment. On cash, we continue to See good improvement there overall. And we are holding our guide. We will see Good delivery from earnings and we are we will see our inventory Continue to improve from an efficiency standpoint.

Speaker 3

And so we believe that the investment that's required for us to deal with the higher volumes Are also baked in there, but we think we will deliver a good strong cash number.

Speaker 4

Okay. Thank you both.

Speaker 1

Welcome.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Sheila Kehaya Glue of Jefferies. Please state your question.

Speaker 5

Thank you. And welcome Bill and hi Chad. Great quarter. On this industrial business, just obviously we're non industrial analysts. So what's your visibility?

Speaker 5

It looks like your backlog China business, I think it used to be $100,000,000 run rate. Are you guys on an annualized basis higher than that?

Speaker 2

So like Bill and I said, Sheila, we're really not breaking out the business to those level of details underneath the Industrial segment. But I think it's fair to say that we enjoyed a strong quarter and we don't have much visibility to China Oh volumes post Q4 of this fiscal year. We sit back and we look at some pretty Lagging indicators to tell us how that overall market is behaving. And we saw An uptick in February, both in terms of the number of heavy duty trucks being manufactured in China, As well as the fraction of them that are natural gas powered versus diesel. And we can surmise a number of factors that might go into Why that's happening post COVID and with natural gas availability, but really we're just speculating a little bit on that.

Speaker 2

And We have that backward looking explanation, but we don't have much forward visibility for China Oh.

Speaker 5

Okay. And then maybe if I could ask one on price. I think you raised your price assumption for total company from 5% prior to 7%. What drove that across the segments and where are you sort of in the cycle of pricing increases flowing through?

Speaker 2

So on the price realization, we did raise that forecast for the total year. We had good performance of the escalation indices that drive most of our OEM contracts and we work through the spare parts pricing catalogs and our general catalogs for those not on long term Contracts and we've been able to achieve those pricing targets that we laid down in the marketplace and that result of That price realization is delivering the 7% versus the 5%.

Speaker 5

So mostly aerospace then?

Speaker 2

I think they're both kind of in line with that top level number.

Speaker 5

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Christopher Glynn of Oppenheimer. Please state your question.

Speaker 6

Thanks. Good afternoon.

Speaker 2

Good afternoon,

Speaker 6

Chris. Chip, I think Yes, maybe another crack at industrial. I think the press release kind of isolated the upside to the NG Business. I was wondering versus your internal plan, did the natural gas China account for Really all or the preponderance of the upside?

Speaker 2

While it was a large Portion of the upside, like I was saying earlier with Sheila that all of our other product lines be it the liquid fuel diesel products From Woodward L'Orange in Europe to the natural gas and actuation types of business units here in Fort Collins, All of our plants had increased output and we've improved efficiencies based on our Supply chain performing better and having parts to the line on time as well as our people just getting more proficient at their roles. We're also Practicing continuous improvement processes that are delivering additional benefit in terms of both capacity and efficiency. So it's really across the board. It's not the case of one segment performing really well and masking Malay is our poor performance in others. It's just that it's a little bit of an outsized performance from the China Oh, but all Product lines improved this quarter.

Speaker 1

Okay. And

Speaker 6

last quarter, you commented that The industrial sort of turnaround, so to speak, you weren't out of the woods and it's impressive kind of Top to bottom, look at all the operations and processes in industrial. So I appreciate that. What's the status update data in terms of in the woods, out of the woods?

Speaker 2

So I like the fact, and I've congratulated the team that we've turned The shift in the right direction in all the product lines and we've made progress on the product rationalization that I talked about earlier. We continue to Make progress on that. I'd say that our next areas for improvement are really driving The inventory down to serve the demand and then and as well as meet the customer demand. Right now, we are Improving our capacity and we're planning to our capacity, but the customer demand is even higher. So in order to say we're really out of the woods on the turnaround, I would have to see us meet the customer demand, which the team is working really hard on as well as get our inventory Levels down even further and then I'd say I think we're out of the woods and in great shape.

Speaker 6

Great. Appreciate that update. And last one for me. You talked about you had a comment about defense We're expecting R and D and procurement to increase in the macro sense boding well for Woodward. So I'm curious if you could Elaborate on that.

Speaker 6

What kind of ramp curve do you envision? What sort of contours are you Seeing reasonably take shape.

Speaker 2

Well, as you know in most cases in defense related Processes, the ramp is relatively modest. And what we've been spending our time doing is Investigate and responding to opportunities which both the there are more opportunities lately And the urgency with which these opportunities are being handled is greater. So that's why the words, One of the reasons that I think there's some confidence that opportunities will continue to evolve, but these are not near term Opportunities that will make an impact to sales anytime soon.

Speaker 6

Okay. Thanks for that. Appreciate it.

Speaker 2

You bet.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Matt Acker of Wells Fargo. Please state your question.

Speaker 7

Yes. Hey, good afternoon, guys. Thanks for the question. I wanted to kind of take a step back kind of on just earnings visibility broadly, right. I mean, so this quarter Relative to consensus, your big positive surprise, I think last quarter was also a big positive surprise.

Speaker 7

Q1 was kind of a negative surprise. I guess, You guys have been managing through supply chain uncertainty and uncertainty around China. So I guess as we go forward, is there a point as we get into Maybe it's next fiscal year that sort of settles down and we get a little bit visibility more visibility or just sort of how you think about the outlook there?

Speaker 2

So I think the outlook I would say on that is we're just getting much better about our Visibility upstream to supply chain kinds of issues and we're able to take these issues on with more mitigation to avoid Having a line down stoppage or impacting a customer shipment. So I think our ability to forecast around Our delivery models is improving and will continue to improve as the supply base continues to perform better. And our factories also continue to perform better. But as far as on the customer side for something like China Oh where we have very limited visibility, I wouldn't predict that to get better. We just don't have the tools or visibility in our toolbox To help with that.

Speaker 2

But as far as the supply chain avenue, our visibility has improved quite a bit there.

Speaker 7

Yes. Okay. Thanks. And I guess, just latest thoughts on the share repurchase. I think the plan at one point was to complete that Authorization by January, is that still how you're thinking about it?

Speaker 2

We still have an open plan and we are evaluating Opportunities for capital deployment with our Board and we'll continue to go forward and do what's prudent.

Speaker 7

Okay. Thank you.

Speaker 2

You bet.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Pete Skibitski of Alembic Global. Please state your question.

Speaker 8

Yes, Chip, pretty impressive quarter, say the least. Thanks, Pete. Was wondering if you could kind of update us, a little bit of a follow-up to Chris' Questions, I think. But maybe you could update us on where you're at with your various initiatives. I'm thinking in sourcing is the in sourcing push over now, Training the new employees, has that been completed?

Speaker 8

And you mentioned customer experience in your opening remarks, I think. I'm not sure what's going on with that. And then this whole, you had some thoughts about shoe rationalization as well. Just wondering what

Speaker 9

the status of that was? Thanks.

Speaker 2

Great. So you have to remind me about 1 or 2 of them there that you rattled off, but I'll hit What I can. As far as in sourcing, we're continuing to do quite a few part transfers both Between suppliers as well as is in sourcing to make sure we've got enough flexibility to And sourcing options to serve the customers. So right now we have like we did last quarter, they're not the same parts. Some of them are different parts.

Speaker 2

We have Over a 1,000 parts in part transition either between suppliers or in sourcing. We've made 16,000 parts through the Rapid response machining centers that we have set up. We've got all the equipment on the floor right now at those locations. So that's very active and that will continue Probably for multiple years as we try to simplify our supply chain and also make it resilient by having multiple sources where required But having fewer sources in total, keeping with that Thought process on SKU rationalization, we've continued to make progress getting rightsizing our Product offering to what customers are really demanding as well as Allowing us to serve them efficiently. So we have taken thousands of more offerings off the books this quarter.

Speaker 2

We intend to reduce neighborhood of 10000 to 15000 SKUs this fiscal year. We'll continue to evaluate that and become more efficient next year as well. That initiative will continue. Labor productivity, we continue to get better at this. Our drive to hire new employees and direct employees for manufacturing has reduced, But we still have levels of attrition at some locations that require on boarding training And a little bit of support from experienced machinists and assembly technicians that I would say we're not completely out of the woods of that and maybe the new normal is that we have a little bit higher attrition than we're used to in the past.

Speaker 2

So we need to stay capable on that front. But I see continued labor productivity going forward. The last one was customer experience. So part of the industrial reorganization And the Aerospace reorganization was focused on serving these 2 segments with like 1 Aerospace approach and 1 Industrial approach, Mostly centered around how we serve customers. We had multiple teams calling on some of the same OEMs and service providers and we've Worked hard to streamline that customer experience.

Speaker 2

But maybe mostly from a customer experience standpoint Is delivering the right amount of orders on time with the right quality at the right price. So that's something we're focused on as well.

Speaker 8

That's great. Very helpful. And then just I had to ask on the macro. I know sometimes visibility is tough there, but you're in a lot of different industrial niches. Any sign that Any of those niches are peaking or customer pull is kind of slowing down a little bit, cycles changing?

Speaker 2

So the one that I mentioned a little bit was that the global oil rig count is up, but U. S. Activity Including fracking is not keeping pace even declining. And so we're watching that, but it hasn't resulted in any order intake For us slowing down yet, but we've got to kind of looking around the corner watch on that. That's the only one that really comes to mind that's a little bit Has some soft indications in the macro that we haven't seen in terms of what orders we're getting.

Speaker 2

Everything else is up into the right. I mean, as far as revenue passenger miles, Build rates at OEM, air framers, shop visit rates for engines coming in for overhaul, everything that we see On that is up into the right in the current forecast.

Speaker 8

Okay. Appreciate the color.

Speaker 10

Yes.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Gautam Khanna of TD Cowen. Please state your question.

Speaker 11

Yes, thanks. Good afternoon, guys.

Speaker 2

Good afternoon. Good afternoon.

Speaker 11

I had a couple of questions. First, on the industrial side, I remember last quarter, the backlog did not go down, right? There was not a supply chain Catch up that drove a big recovery in shipments. Did that occur in this quarter just reported The June quarter?

Speaker 2

So just to be clear, when you say backlog, it was our past dues didn't go down. Fast, please. Yes. But again, that was the same thing this quarter. We were not we are not capacitized at a level right this minute To both satisfy current customer demand and burn down past due, so industrial past due stayed largely the same.

Speaker 11

Okay. And to an earlier question on the mix impact from The natural gas business in China, it sounded like it was broad based strength within industrial. Is there any way for us to isolate What piece of that might be non recurring if it is CNG and if it is only here for a quarter or 2? Is there any color you can give us on that to where margins would have been but for CNG?

Speaker 3

Yes, not much more than what we've already have provided.

Speaker 11

Okay. Have you guys provided anything on that or did I miss it? It wasn't clear to me.

Speaker 2

No, we just don't break out our product lines at levels below the segment, Galpin.

Speaker 11

Okay. But is CNG particularly rich mix?

Speaker 2

It's a very healthy business for us. It's just it's healthy When it's high volume and it's not healthy when it's low volume and that's why we keep using the word volatility because It has some really good marginal delivery on high volumes. At low volumes, it doesn't look quite as good.

Speaker 11

Okay. And in terms of the SKU rationalization, how far along are you In that journey and how much of that was influential in the actual June quarter numbers?

Speaker 2

I don't think we haven't really seen the SKU rationalization hit the bottom line yet in terms of just Like moving the needle. What we think we'll see first is improvements in efficiencies in both the supply base as well as Our plant operations and that's mostly in Fort Collins. So it will show up Alongside just general productivity that's where it's going to help us in terms of realizing flow through the Factory and more standardization. We did some of the easy part really this so far, this first 10000 to 15000 is a little bit easier than the next ones where we have to work a lot more closely with customers to Move them to the latest configuration of some product family member in order to eliminate an offering. Hope that makes sense.

Speaker 11

Yes. Now it does. And then last one, perhaps I missed it, but the commercial aero aftermarket On a sequential basis looked up minimally. I didn't know was there any A, is that right? I think that's about right.

Speaker 11

But Is that right? And any reason for the pause because we're seeing pretty strong sequential aftermarket Prints from some of the other companies in the space. Any way you can discern what trend is going on there?

Speaker 2

Yes, we're not showing up sequential, but we are showing healthy double digits year over year.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Michael Ciarmoli of Truist Securities. Please state your question.

Speaker 9

Hey, good evening, guys. Real nice results. Thanks for taking the questions. Maybe, Chip, I know we A lot of guys are trying here, but I guess if the visibility isn't great in the China on highway, I mean, How are you guys actually planning for this? I mean, what do you have typical lead times?

Speaker 9

What are your turnaround times? I mean, I'm just Trying to get a better understanding of how you're actually trying to run your facilities given kind of the lack of total visibility here.

Speaker 2

Yes. Right now, I mean our strategy is to, like I said earlier, have enough inventory to be responsive to the customer If we have short lead time orders which we have had, but also not carry too much inventory so that it's Big rock around our cash flow. So we're trying to get that optimized. We're doing things like looking at what the Rates have been over a longer period of time and try to plan for a low level that we can respond to, If it goes up, so it's more like the protect the ability to get upside if we get orders This is kind of how we're thinking about it right now. I mean, Bill and I are both relatively new to this market And we're relatively new to this business line.

Speaker 2

So we're trying to make sure we don't miss the opportunity right now and get good Cash flow and earnings for shareholders and figure out if there's a better way to understand and plan for it.

Speaker 9

Got it. And Nick, I mean, you're not going to give us 24 guidance here, but I mean, trying to model this segment now and looking at The volatility just on the margins last quarter, 13.4% over 18%. I guess the 4th quarter is back down to 13% or so, how should we think about this? I mean, I think The Street has you for 11% in 24%. Is this More of a 13 to 14 business right now and then the on highway depending on volumes would drive Those upside pops that we're seeing like in this quarter?

Speaker 2

Yes, I'm sorry. We're just not ready to talk about 2024. I know why you want to know the answers to all those And we're working through all of our plans right now trying to make sure we close out 2023 strong and we have A really solid, 2024 plan that will be compelling for investors and that we are sure we can achieve.

Speaker 9

Got it. Just last one, aero, OEM looked like it was up 17% sequentially. Any material change or orders or just specific platforms, rates That you've broken higher to any color on that?

Speaker 2

Well, we just no real Change to rates and nothing really out of the ordinary except for specific customers wanting more Arch to support both OEM as well as the Inventories positions that they want to be in based on what they see in the

Speaker 12

future. Okay,

Speaker 2

Great.

Speaker 8

Thanks, guys.

Speaker 2

You bet.

Operator

Thank And if you want to remove yourself from queue, simply press star 1 again. Your next question comes from the line of Louis Raffetto of Wolfe Research. Please state your question.

Speaker 10

Yes. Hi. Thank you. I just want to go back to the cash flow

Speaker 3

because I think you kind

Speaker 10

of talked about wanting to bring inventory Down, but it looks like this is your best inventory turn quarter in years. Inventory is now sort of well below where it was 2019, so just are we going to go lower? Is it going to go up in the 4th quarter? And how is that translating to the impact on cash flow? You've raised net income 20% plus last couple of quarters and still no increase?

Speaker 2

Yes. So we still feel like we're carrying a substantial amount of inventory to support the sales level and that World class performance would have us at higher turns overall. And so that's what our lean folks, our operational leaders, our Planners, everyone striving to figure out how to do better than we are right now. So it is our desire to improve that.

Speaker 10

Okay. And then maybe try to tackle this another different way. I think 4th quarter Industrial margin guidance is somewhere between 13%, 13.5% to like 16%, which I assume that's kind of bounding Some variability around China natural gas, is that right?

Speaker 2

That's a good way to think about it. I mean, that's We don't give quarterly guidance, but we're in this tight and we changed guidance this quarter. So the math is self evident.

Speaker 10

Okay. And so I guess is the at the low end of that, it's kind of back is that where the normalized margin rate is, If we're excluding Nochon Natural Gas 13%, 13.5% margins is kind of rummory ish?

Speaker 2

I think it's still early for us to give guidance on what our industrial go forward margin rate is going to be. We're very happy with the improvement that we've had in the base business And we're going to continue to work on that. And I think when we're ready to give FY 'twenty four guidance that we'll be able to Put a nice bracket around that as well as give even more forward look to the At the Investor Day in December.

Speaker 12

So maybe just one more

Speaker 10

way to ask it. Last quarter, the back half guidance for industrial was 9% to 10% And Matt, like I guess what changed to give you 300 basis points to 400 basis points more in 4Q than what the implied guidance was before?

Speaker 2

2 things changed. 1 was we are turning the corner in the performance of our Factories, our people, our material flow, our suppliers, our operational improvement in the base business It's improving. We were our plan was to improve it. And now that we've started to deliver on those plans and show progress and milestones And achieving the targets. So that was the one thing that changed and the other thing was the sheer volume of the China On highway natural gas business and visibility for orders through the end of 4th quarter.

Speaker 8

All right.

Speaker 10

That's great. Thank you, Chip.

Speaker 2

You bet.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Noah Poponak of Goldman Sachs, please state your question.

Speaker 8

Hi, everyone.

Speaker 4

Good afternoon, Noah.

Speaker 2

Good afternoon, Noah.

Speaker 12

Can you quantify how much China on highway revenue you have in the quarter?

Speaker 2

No. Sorry, Noah.

Speaker 12

Okay. Did you have significantly more in this quarter than last quarter?

Speaker 3

Sequentially, we did see an uptick in our China and highway business.

Speaker 12

Okay. And fundamentally, what is it that makes that volatile? What is it that makes it not have Visibility, just in terms of what the customer is doing and thinking fundamentally when they're buying that product from

Speaker 2

Well, I think I try to stay out of trouble on this one, but I think in one of our conference calls I did say that It doesn't behave like other markets I'm used to and some of our business team is used to working through And garnering forecasts around, it appears to be government policy at play and Other factors that we don't have a full handle on, so that makes it really difficult To forecast from where we sit, but we do as soon as we get orders, we kind of have a good level of confidence that That's how much the customer wants for that month. So that's been our mode for a while.

Speaker 12

Okay. And when you have revenue that comes out of existing inventory into China Oh, Is the margin nearly entirely is it nearly 100% incremental margin drop Drew, like it becomes a multiple of the segment or is the segment margin or is it something where it's more like several 100 basis points better than the segment

Speaker 2

Well, I guess the way I'll answer that Noah is that we are we carry full cost of our inventory and it's largely Our business is largely in China for China. So that hardware and those systems that are We ship to our customer are largely coming from China and staying in China and we carry that at cost and When we get our order, if we get pretty high volume, then the margin rates can be fairly high. If we have low volume, Then we've got a lot we've got fixed cost to spread across that operation just like normal. The reason I'm saying all that is I'm just trying to tell you it's a normal Normally functioning business where there's quite a lot of productivity for volume.

Speaker 12

That makes sense. Lastly for me on the Aerospace side, are you able to tell Now, where your aftermarket units stand versus pre pandemic? And what kind of pricing are you seeing in aerospace aftermarket relative to that enterprise wide number that you gave us?

Speaker 2

I got the first part of the question, but I didn't get the last part. But as far as Woodward units cycling through repair, we're closing in on 2019 volumes that from both the shop visit and Woodward LRU standpoint, we're not quite there yet.

Speaker 12

And the second part of that was pricing. How does the aerospace aftermarket annualized Pricing you're seeing right now compared to the enterprise wide level?

Speaker 3

Yes. We do not go down pricing at that segment level at that level below the segment. As we talked about, Both segments are contributing to that 7% guide that we gave to total year price realization.

Speaker 12

Okay. Thanks for taking my question.

Speaker 2

Welcome. Your

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of David Strauss of Barclays. Please state your question.

Speaker 13

Great. Thanks for taking my question. Aerospace, it looks like from a revenue standpoint that you should be back to Kind of 2019 pre pandemic levels next year or even higher. And back when you were at those revenue levels Aerospace did close to 21% margins. I know you don't want to give 24 Guidance, but how should we think about the puts and takes on aero margin in the next year relative to where you were at a similar revenue level a couple of years ago?

Speaker 2

Well, like you said, we're not prepared to give, 24 guidance at this time. But it is our Intent to continuously improve our performance from an efficiency standpoint and ability to serve customers. So We intend to improve from where we are today and the fact that we were able to achieve Better numbers before with good volume, bodes well for us able to do it in the future.

Speaker 13

Is the I would think the revenue mix then is more favorable than what you saw in 2019. It looks like you're going to have more aftermarket revenue, Maybe a little less Aerospace OE and maybe less defense, I would assume that revenue mix is positive.

Speaker 2

I'm not sure I'd make that assumption just yet. We're still working through our plans and looking this is why we're not talking about FY 2024, but Right now in the early planning stages, we're looking at what rates the airframers are planning to achieve and what sort of inventory levels They'd want before they do rate breaks and that propagates to engine manufacturers and then to us. So there may be Quite a good amount of OE demand in 2024, which is not necessarily a bad thing at all because that's creating the installed base for the future. So It's good news, good news, I think, but it's too soon for us to say what we think the mix will be.

Speaker 9

Okay. And Chip, where is

Speaker 13

your Aerospace headcount today relative to what it was prior back in 2019?

Speaker 2

That's a question that I don't have the answer to in front of me.

Operator

Okay.

Speaker 2

It's Yes, we I don't have it in front of me.

Speaker 13

Okay. I can follow-up with Dan on that. Thanks.

Speaker 2

Great. Yes, you bet.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Robert Spingarn of Melius Research. Please state your question.

Speaker 4

Thanks. Chip, I just want to come back on Aerospace and just ask you briefly, with regard to the leap in the TF and some of the durability and time on wing issues, to what extent is that factoring or impacting your aftermarket? Are you shipping more because of these cycles being shorter? And then as a follow-up to that, how might we think about this latest issue at RTX with the GTF and how that might impact with all the inspections, maybe Taking shop time and so forth, how might that impact Woodward as that plays out over the next year or so?

Speaker 2

Yes, I think it's early to say on how that inspection and potential replacement program for the GTF would affect us. There's a number of like you were referring to earlier shop visits, hospital shop visits, Quick turn kind of activities to support infant issues with the fleet. Most of these have little effect on Woodward because our LRUs can stay on the engine typically. Now we might get some check and repair kinds of work out of those, but for us, it doesn't have that big of an effect. The one thing that it might the effect that it might have is The spare engine count that's required to support the overall fleet, but it just it would show up in our regular OE versus service numbers, and that will normalize itself over time.

Speaker 2

So I think as far as we're concerned, It's minimal impact for us. From a control standpoint, we do have some other hardware that There are some design changes on that we are supporting our customers on those parts. Okay. Thank you. Yes.

Operator

Mr. Blankenship, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference back to you.

Speaker 2

All right. Well, thank you very much, operator, and thanks for all the folks on the line and all your questions today.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our conference call today. If you would like to listen to a rebroadcast of this conference call, it would be available today at 7:30 P. M. Eastern Time by dialing 1-eight hundred-seven seventy-two thousand and thirty for U. S.

Operator

Call or 1-six forty seven 3629,199 for a non U. S. Call and by entering the access code 4,278,216. A rebroadcast will also be available at the company's website, www.woodward.com for 14 days. We thank you for your participation in today's conference call and we ask that you please disconnect your

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Earnings Conference Call
Woodward Q3 2023
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