AAR - Q1 2025

Transcript

Sean Gillen (CFO)

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to AAR's Fiscal 2025 First Quarter Earnings Call. We're joined today by John Holmes, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, and Sean Gillen, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that the comments made during the call may include forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. Accordingly, these statements are no guarantee of future performance. These risks and uncertainties are discussed in the company's earnings release and the risk factors section of the company's annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended May 31st, 2024. In providing the forward-looking statement, the company assumes no obligation to provide updates to reflect future circumstances or anticipated or unanticipated events.

Certain non-GAAP financial information will be discussed in the call today. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measures is set forth in the company's earnings release. A replay of this conference call will be available for on-demand listening shortly after the completion of the call on AAR's website. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to AAR's Chairman, President, and CEO, John Holmes.

John Holmes (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Great, thank you. And thank you to everyone for joining us this afternoon to discuss our most recent quarter's results. We are very proud of the performance we delivered during our first quarter of fiscal 2025. This was a very solid start to the year, and I'm grateful to our team for continuing to deliver. AAR advanced strategic initiatives and continued to execute well across the company. We are benefiting from structural tailwinds, elevated levels of air travel, and an aging fleet, which drives demand for our aftermarket services. Our company is more focused than ever within our three main operating segments: Parts Supply, Repair & Engineering, and Integrated Solutions. We are making investments in each of these three segments to drive growth, improve our efficiency, and deliver higher margins.

You saw that this quarter, and we expect the benefit from these investments to continue throughout our fiscal 2025. With that, I will turn to our first quarter results. We delivered quarterly sales of $662 million, up 20% year-over-year, driven by growth in each of our segments. Additionally, we had growth in both our commercial and government businesses, with each growing at 20%. Our distribution and hangar activities had particularly strong performance, and our recent acquisitions of Trax and Product Support were also meaningful contributors this quarter. Regarding profitability, I am pleased that once again, we demonstrated significant operating margin expansion. Our adjusted operating margins increased by 180 basis points year-over-year from 7.3%- 9.1%.

This was the result of the continued organic margin expansion, as well as contribution from the Trax and Product Support acquisitions. I'm now going to go into these results in a little more detail for each of our three main segments. Parts Supply is our largest and most profitable segment, and where we have very significant opportunity for organic growth. This segment contains two activities: new parts distribution and Used Serviceable Material, or USM. Distribution represents nearly 60% of Parts Supply and 22% of consolidated sales. USM represents approximately 40% of Parts Supply and 15% of consolidated sales. In new parts distribution, sales grew 26% organically, driven by continued market share gains. We benefited from both continued commercial demand strength and recovery in our government volumes.

We're the largest independent distributor of OEM parts, and our independent status is a key strategic advantage, which eliminates conflicts and allows our OEM partners to serve all aircraft types. This is a key driver behind our consistent market share gains, and we believe we have a long runway ahead of us as we have a strong pipeline of opportunities. For USM activity within Parts Supply, we saw a decline in year-over-year sales, driven entirely by the lack of whole assets, predominantly engines, available in the market. The decrease in whole assets sales is a result of the current dynamics in the aviation aftermarket. The continued delay of new aircraft deliveries, ongoing challenges with new engine platforms, have resulted in a greater use of the existing fleet, which has resulted in lower retirements.

While overall, this is good for AAR, in USM specifically, it means that there's less supply available. We do anticipate more aircraft retirements over time, which will increase the supply of USM to service that demand. Turning to Repair & Engineering, sales growth was 58% in the quarter. Excluding the Product Support acquisition, sales growth was 6%, as we continue to see strong underlying demand for our MRO services. Even though our hangars are largely at capacity, we continue to grow inside of our existing footprint with both increased efficiency and improved throughput. That said, our hangar capacity expansions in Miami and Oklahoma City remain on track for operation beginning in the second half of calendar 2025. As a reminder, these expansions will add approximately $60 million of annual sales.

Regarding the Triumph Product Support acquisition, the business has exceeded our initial expectations in the first two quarters, and we are in the early stages of unlocking significant additional value. In terms of cost synergy, we are on track to achieve the previously announced target of $10 million and are confident we will exceed this number once we complete the consolidation of our existing Long Island facility into the facilities in Grand Prairie, Texas, and Wellington, Kansas. Additionally, we continue to make progress on insourcing repair work in support of our commercial programs and USM activities. Turning to Integrated Solutions, in the quarter, we drove growth across both our commercial and government offerings, which resulted in total sales growth of 8% for this segment. Trax had a particularly strong quarter with some significant new business wins and customer implementations.

Customer interest in Trax's offering remains strong, and we are excited about the potential to continue to win market share with new customers and expand our services with existing customers. Our government program activities and Integrated Solutions had a strong quarter as well. Subsequent to the quarter, we had two significant business wins in government programs. We were awarded a five-year firm fixed price IDIQ contract with the Navy to perform airframe maintenance on their P-8 fleet. This award is a continuation of existing work. We also won a new contract to support the engine maintenance for the Navy on the same P-8 aircraft fleet. These wins demonstrate the significant value proposition that AAR brings to its government customers. Overall, I'm incredibly proud of the quarter that we just delivered, and with that, I'll turn it over to Sean.

Sean Gillen (CFO)

Thanks, John. Total sales in the quarter grew 20% to $662 million. Excluding the impact from the recently acquired Product Support business, organic sales growth for the quarter was 6%. Commercial sales increased 20%, with growth in all three of our core segments. Our commercial distribution sales were a particular standout as we continued to drive sales growth on existing product lines and expanded newly won product lines as well. Government sales also increased 20%, an improvement from the 15% growth we experienced in the fourth quarter. The sales increase was driven by an ongoing recovery across our government program activities and increased order volume for our new parts and distribution activities. Adjusted operating profit margin improved 180 basis points from 7.3%-9.1%.

Adjusted EBITDA margin increased 180 basis points from 9.5%-11.3%. We have a clear roadmap for continued margin improvements over the medium term as our mix shifts towards our higher margin segments, and we realize synergies in the recently acquired Product Support business. We continue to roll out our airframe maintenance efficiency improvement initiatives and expect further margin improvement as capacity expansion projects come online. Net interest expense for the quarter was $18.3 million, reflecting the financing of the Product Support acquisition, and we expect Q2 interest expense to be approximately the same as Q1. Average diluted share count in the quarter was 35.6 million shares. For FY 2025, we continue to expect our effective tax rate to be approximately 28%.

Adjusted diluted EPS increased from $0.78-$0.85, reflecting the benefit of our growth and margin expansion. The Product Support acquisition was accretive to earnings for the quarter, which we expect to continue through FY 2025. With that, I'll turn to the detailed results by segment. Parts Supply sales grew 5% to $250 million, driven by 26% growth in distribution and a 22% decline in USM. We once again drove double-digit growth in distribution as we continued to gain market share. Growth in the quarter was positively impacted by the expansion of both existing product lines and the ramp-up of new business wins, as well as greater purchases by both the U.S. and foreign governments. Our USM activities were down due to lack of availability of whole assets.

Parts Supply adjusted operating margins increased by 110 basis points to 12.1% in the quarter, driven by distribution, which benefited from scale and mix. The improvement of distribution sales to government customers also contributed to the increase in margins. Repair & Engineering sales increased 58% to $218 million. On an organic basis, sales increased 6%. Demand remains strong for our heavy maintenance and component repair capabilities, and we look to continue to drive growth in these activities. Repair & Engineering adjusted operating margins increased by 460 basis points to 11.2% in the quarter, driven by the inorganic impact of Product Support and continued efficiency gains in the hangars.

Going forward, we expect to drive further margin expansion in this segment from the realization of Product Support synergies, rollout of our paperless hangar initiatives, and the capacity expansions once they come online in FY 2026. Integrated Solutions sales increased 8% to $169 million, driven by growth in commercial, Power-by-the-Hour activities, certain government programs, and some Trax. Integrated Solutions adjusted operating margin decreased by 40 basis points to 6.2% in the quarter, based on the mix within government programs. In Expeditionary Services, our government customer has decided to revert to the current generation pallets, and as a result, terminated our contract to provide next generation pallets. We are the incumbent on the current generation pallets and will continue to support the government's demand for these products as we await a potential new RFP for the next generation pallet.

We do not expect any material change in the outlook for Expeditionary Services due to the government's decision. However, related to the termination, in the quarter, we recognized revenue of $9.5 million and a net loss of $3.2 million, which are excluded from our adjusted results. Turning to consolidated cash, cash flow used in operating activities was $19 million in the quarter as we made investments in the business, particularly in inventory to support the growth in distribution. Despite this cash use, we maintained net leverage of 3.3x net debt to adjusted pro forma EBITDA. For the balance of the fiscal year, we expect to reduce net leverage through both growth and EBITDA, as well as reduction in net debt. Our balance sheet and capital structure afford us sufficient flexibility to manage our business and make decisions that maximize shareholder value.

With that, I will turn the call back over to John.

John Holmes (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Great. Thank you, Sean. I'm very pleased with the results that we delivered in Q1 and the strong start to our fiscal year. Demand for our services remains exceptionally strong, and the current dynamics in the aviation supply chain overall are in our favor. Looking to Q2 of fiscal 2025, specifically, we expect sales growth of 18%-22% and adjusted operating margin similar to Q1, which was 9.1%. We continue to make tremendous progress towards executing our long-term objectives. We continue to gain market share and distribution, are on track with capacity expansions in Repair & Engineering, are growing the Trax software offering, and driving higher margins through investments in efficiency and differentiated capabilities. We're exceptionally well positioned to capitalize on the strength that we are seeing in our markets and are very excited about our future.

With that, I'll turn it over to the operator for questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and then wait to hear your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Scott Mikus with Melius Research. Your line is open.

Scott Mikus (VP of Equity Research)

Hi, John, Sean. Good evening.

John Holmes (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Hey, how are you?

Scott Mikus (VP of Equity Research)

John, I wanted to ask on the Triumph Product Support asset. So it came with 6,000 proprietary DER repairs. So I'm just wondering, how should we think about the growth in the number of DER repairs that you can do? You gonna add to that? So should I be thinking an annual growth rate on that, or just a simple number of repairs you want to add per annum?

John Holmes (Chairman, President, and CEO)

A great question and an important asset that came with the acquisition. What I would say there is, rather than trying to quantify the types of repairs, I would say that the majority of the 6,000 DER repairs that Triumph has are focused on structures and we are focused on broadening that DER repair capability to the accessories and components that are repaired in the other areas of Triumph, TPS and so again, rather than trying to quantify, you know, a growth rate or number of repairs, I would say that from a product type, we would look to capture the opportunity beyond what they've done in the structures world.

Scott Mikus (VP of Equity Research)

Okay, got it. And then I also want to stick with Repair & Engineering and just thinking about the MRO hangar. So you have the capacity expansions in Oklahoma City and Miami that'll be ready for the fall of 2025. But I'm just wondering, do you have the pipeline of workers to fill those hangars on day one? Or is it gonna take time to train, hire, and ramp up those new employees to generate sales and profits?

John Holmes (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Yeah, a great question. You know, we're very excited about that capacity coming online. We're also excited that it's sold. And we went into markets where we knew we would have a long-term baseload customer, and we knew, to your point, that we would be able to hire up. So both Miami and Oklahoma City are favorable labor markets for us. We've had a long time presence in each place. We've got relationships with local providers and schools, et cetera. And so we feel really good about our ability to recruit talent in both locations. There will be a ramp-up in each facility. There always is.

There's just a bit of an operational curve, though, but we feel very confident in a relatively short ramp-up and our ability to hire the labor to support that new business.

Scott Mikus (VP of Equity Research)

All right. Thanks for taking the questions.

John Holmes (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Please stand by for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Michael Ciarmoli with Truist Securities. Your line is open.

Michael Ciarmoli (Managing Director of Aerospace and Defense Equity Research)

Hey, good evening, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. Nice results.

John Holmes (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Sure.

Michael Ciarmoli (Managing Director of Aerospace and Defense Equity Research)

Hey, John, just on the USM and kind of the challenges there, I mean, how are you guys thinking about, or how are you potentially forecasting whole asset sales for the year? I've got to imagine that's a challenge. And does that market, I mean, just given what's going on with the Boeing strike, I mean, obviously hard to tell how long it lasts, but presumably airlines aren't getting planes they needed. Does that market potentially get even tighter for you?

John Holmes (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Yeah. So, great question. You know, first of all, I would say that, despite the decline that we saw in the USM business, we are really happy that the rest of the company performed really, really well, and we were able to deliver, 20% growth in the quarter. And, that's one of the reasons we called out. You know, USM is 15% of our business. And, to your point, yes, anything that, you know, puts more pressure on the existing fleet, like the Boeing strike, is gonna extend the tightness in the USM market, but more importantly, it's gonna extend the robust demand that we see for the other, you know, 80%+ of the company. So we, you know, it is a difficult thing to forecast.

We do expect that, you know, at some point, as these aircraft are retired and disassembled, it will result in more asset availability, and that will occur while there is still strong demand for these assets, and we're in the right position to capture that, but you know, right now, the overall tailwinds and dynamics that you described or that we're seeing in the market are benefiting the overall company as a whole.

Michael Ciarmoli (Managing Director of Aerospace and Defense Equity Research)

Got it. Is there any way to parse out maybe the piece part or component sales of USM versus, you know, the headwind that kinda

John Holmes (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Yeah.

Michael Ciarmoli (Managing Director of Aerospace and Defense Equity Research)

Or maybe the underlying growth that was masked by the whole asset sales?

John Holmes (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Yeah. Yeah, what I would say is that the fourth quarter for individual piece parts sales was the highest quarter we've ever had in individual parts sales in USM. The quarter we just ended was the second highest we've ever seen.

Michael Ciarmoli (Managing Director of Aerospace and Defense Equity Research)

Okay.

John Holmes (Chairman, President, and CEO)

So the individual parts sales there are very strong, and we are able to locate that material. It's the whole assets right now that are constrained. The only other thing I would add there is, you know, that market is very situational, right? I mean, you can see you know, like what we saw a couple of years ago with American Airlines deciding to exit a certain fleet. You can see things break loose. And our job is to make sure that we are in the right place at the right time to be able to move quickly and capture assets when they become available, even if there's not an overall change in the market. And that's what we're focused on doing.

Michael Ciarmoli (Managing Director of Aerospace and Defense Equity Research)

Got it. It just, as we're talking here, I mean, what's the environment like? Are there just very limited assets, or are you seeing maybe, you know, airline operators actually looking to buy equipment, not to make an ROI on it, but just because they need to service their planes? I mean, are you seeing a high level of-

John Holmes (Chairman, President, and CEO)

It, it-

Michael Ciarmoli (Managing Director of Aerospace and Defense Equity Research)

Yeah, go ahead.

John Holmes (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Yeah, no, it's predominantly the latter. You know-

Michael Ciarmoli (Managing Director of Aerospace and Defense Equity Research)

Okay.

John Holmes (Chairman, President, and CEO)

You are seeing airlines, you know, they just need the lift. And so as assets come available, you know, the airlines themselves or lessors are going right after those assets because lease rates are extremely favorable right now, because there's this tremendous demand, because the airlines just need the lift.

Michael Ciarmoli (Managing Director of Aerospace and Defense Equity Research)

Got it. Got it. Last one here-

John Holmes (Chairman, President, and CEO)

But the other point to mention there is, as those engines are in operation, you're burning off a lot of green time at once, which means that, you know, once these do go in for maintenance, they're going to require a lot of parts, and that, again, is a favorable dynamic demand environment for us.

Michael Ciarmoli (Managing Director of Aerospace and Defense Equity Research)

Got it. Of course, sure. Last one, Sean, just on the adjustments in the quarter, any detail on the investigation costs that were $0.14 and the contract termination costs of $0.09? Any color you can provide there?

Sean Gillen (CFO)

Nothing further on the investigation. It's been the same investigation line item for the past number of quarters. And then the contract termination is the next generation pallets contract that I talked about in the opening remarks.

Michael Ciarmoli (Managing Director of Aerospace and Defense Equity Research)

Yep. Okay.

Sean Gillen (CFO)

So those are the items.

Michael Ciarmoli (Managing Director of Aerospace and Defense Equity Research)

Got it. Perfect. Thanks, guys. I'll jump back in the queue.

John Holmes (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Please stand by for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Ken Herbert with RBC. Your line is open.

Ken Herbert (Managing Director)

Yeah, hey, good afternoon, John and Sean. Hey, maybe John, I wanted to first start on the P-8. It sounds like the airframe IDIQ is sort of a continuation of work you've been doing, but I just wanted to clarify that there isn't maybe a step up there in terms of the revenue opportunity. But then second, and maybe more importantly, on the engine side, can you talk about how much of that could be incremental from a revenue standpoint this year, how that phases in? And what exactly are you doing on the engine side? Is it more sort of parts support or maybe a little more color there, please?

John Holmes (Chairman, President, and CEO)

No, yeah. Great, appreciate you asking about those two awards. So yes, for the first one, the airframe award, that is a continuation of work that we have today. The volumes of heavy maintenance for that fleet do change over time, and there is a chance that we do see more volume out of that contract in this next phase than we saw in the previous phase. We got to wait to secure the award and get the schedule from the Navy, but you know, based on what the proposal that we submitted, you know, said, it's possible you could see a step up in volume there.

As it relates to the engine award, that is entirely new business for AAR, and what we will be doing is helping to manage the supply chain and provide parts. We have a partner that will actually be doing the wrench turning. That'll come out, you know, once the government releases more information, but we will be working that partner to manage the overall engine flow and then supply parts to that partner in support of the engine overhauls.

Ken Herbert (Managing Director)

Can you quantify yet maybe how much growth the engine, the Parts Supply part of that contract could provide this year?

John Holmes (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Once we get full clarity from the government on our position on the contract, we'll be able to give more data on that. But we do feel it'll be a nice contributor in terms of revenue and income. You know, in terms of when it starts, obviously, you know, we got to see if there's a protest, et cetera. You know, we do feel like it will be a meaningful contributor.

Ken Herbert (Managing Director)

Okay, great. And as we look at the Parts Supply business, you know, nice margins this quarter, how do we think about the progression there? I mean, is a more meaningful step up really held back until you can see a maybe more pronounced whole asset opportunity within USM? Or is there an opportunity through mix and through efficiencies to continue to sort of drive incrementally higher margins on Parts Supply as we think about the cadence of this year and into, and even into fiscal 2026?

John Holmes (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Sure. For USM, again, it's somewhat situational and dependent on the availability of material and the price at which we are able to acquire and sell that material. And so that moves with the market. What we do see is just continued strength out of our new parts distribution business. The margins there, because of our exclusive distribution model, are better than what you would normally see in a parts distribution business. And with each new win, we're able to continue to leverage our fixed cost base.

So I would say over time, we see the improvement of margin and Parts Supply on a steady basis coming from the growth and distribution, and then on a, I would say, a more situational basis, you know, based on the opportunities we see in USM.

Ken Herbert (Managing Director)

Okay, helpful. And just finally, you know, coming out of your fiscal fourth quarter, there was some incremental concern around capacity growth and some spending by, more specifically, some of the low-cost airlines, and it sounds like that was predominantly sort of idiosyncratic to a few specific airlines and situations. But can you just comment more from a macro standpoint on what you're seeing in terms of your airline customers and spending into sort of the back half here of calendar 2024, and then, I guess, any changes in your schedules, backlogs, demand as you think about spending into the first part of sort of calendar 2025?

John Holmes (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Sure, sure, and again, great question. I'd say, you know, for certain customers, certain lower cost carriers, to your point, that yes, they have, you know, seen some softness. However, they are not major customers of AAR. The larger carriers, the long-haul carriers, those are the ones that are continuing to do very well, and those are the ones that are the largest customers of AAR. So from our major customers, we see continued very strong demand signals, and they recognize our value proposition. We have definitely been in a position where, you know, they have favored our maintenance solutions, our parts solutions over that of our competitors, even if there's a decline in their own volumes.

But, you know, I would say just broadly, our largest customers are continuing to express strong demand throughout the rest of this fiscal year.

Ken Herbert (Managing Director)

Great. Thanks, Sean.

John Holmes (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Thanks, Ken.

Operator (participant)

Please stand by for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Louie DiPalma with William Blair. Your line is open.

Louie DiPalma (Industrials Research Analyst)

John and Sean, good afternoon.

John Holmes (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Hey, Louie, how you doing?

Louie DiPalma (Industrials Research Analyst)

Great. Can you talk about the business development and pipeline activity with Trax? And when do you expect that Trax can become a viable sales channel for your parts business?

John Holmes (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Yeah, thanks for asking about Trax. It was a good quarter for Trax. They made a nice, contribution to the results, in a couple of ways. One, they upgraded certain of their existing customers, and they actually were able to capture some new customers. Not all of these things we're able to announce customer by customer, but, they're making really nice progress in the market. One of the main reasons we felt that we should acquire Trax and could bring value to their business, was our ability to open doors for them, big doors for them, in the market with larger airlines that may not have been comfortable, turning their ERP system over to a smaller company like Trax. We are seeing that play out.

We're very encouraged by the pipeline of activity with Trax, particularly with some very large airlines, and we're hopeful that, you know, in the coming quarters, we'll be able to secure that business, which will validate that important element of the acquisition thesis, so we feel good about that, and then to the second part of your question about, you know, Trax as a pipeline for our, our, our parts sales, that is still something we feel very, very strongly about. In the early, you know, year, the first year of the Trax acquisition, our priority has been to improve the operations of Trax so that they could scale to ultimately support larger customers, and we made a great deal of progress in that regard.

Once we feel good about what we've done, then we'll turn our attention to the integration between AAR and Trax around selling parts. But we're still a little bit away from being able to get that done.

Louie DiPalma (Industrials Research Analyst)

Great. And a few quarters ago, still on Trax, I think you mentioned Singapore Airlines and Archer Aviation as new customers.

John Holmes (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Yeah, right.

Louie DiPalma (Industrials Research Analyst)

How are those implementations coming?

John Holmes (Chairman, President, and CEO)

They're complete. And those customers are up and running and live. There's another significant customer that we hadn't announced publicly, that in that same period of time is up and running and live. We upgraded another existing customer to the latest and greatest suite of offerings from Trax. That implementation went well and is live. Again, going back to your prior question, one of the main area of focus for us is to be able to handle multiple implementations and upgrades at the same time. That's something that was difficult for Trax to do when they were on their own. We've made a lot of progress in being able to take on many things at the same time.

Louie DiPalma (Industrials Research Analyst)

Great. And following up on Ken's question for the Navy, the pair of the Navy P-8 contracts. For the engine services contract, did you take that contract away from an incumbent, and is that why you think there's an increased likelihood of a protest?

John Holmes (Chairman, President, and CEO)

I can't say about the incumbent, but we and I don't know if there will be a protest or not. We don't.

Louie DiPalma (Industrials Research Analyst)

Okay.

John Holmes (Chairman, President, and CEO)

But to the extent that there were multiple bidders, rather than whether it was an incumbent, that's, you know, that's why we always have our eye open to a, you know, potential protest. But as you know, in the government world, that's just very common.

Louie DiPalma (Industrials Research Analyst)

Yes, definitely. And are there many other types of these engine contracts out there for the different, the Navy or Air Force platforms that you could either take away from, the incumbents or just new work in general?

John Holmes (Chairman, President, and CEO)

I would just answer it broadly and say that, you know, we feel very strongly that our commercial offerings should play very well for all commercial derivative military aircraft, and so whether it's airframe maintenance or accessory repair, or component repair or engine support, we think that we're in a position to take what we do really well in the commercial markets and port it to the government markets.

Louie DiPalma (Industrials Research Analyst)

... Sounds good. And one final question, perhaps this is, yeah, for both of you, John and Sean. As it relates to Triumph, can you talk about the progress or the plans to, like, insource the repair work for USM? Are we still in the early innings of integrating Triumph, such that you can, you know, take some of the Triumph repair capabilities and support your USM business?

John Holmes (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Yeah, we have a couple different vectors there. One, in terms of the transfer of work from our existing facility in New York to the facilities in Wellington, Kansas and Dallas, we're on track there. There's two buckets of work: there's commercial work and there's government work. The commercial work is right on track, and the majority has been transferred. The government work takes longer because we have to build capability, get it audited and approved by the government. Once that happens, we can cut the work over. Both of those areas are absolutely on track. As it relates to insourcing, really two main buckets of work there. One is to support the USM business, as you just mentioned.

That is largely done where, you know, we're insourcing all that we can, today for the USM business. The longer term element of that is the work supporting our commercial programs business, and there, I would say that generally, we actually see more opportunity to insource work with a modest amount of investment in Triumph than we did, when we agreed to do the deal, so we're very encouraged by the opportunity there. It will take longer because it's not just work that we control, it's ultimately work that we're doing in support of a third-party customer that's got to approve everything, but the headline there is we see more opportunity to insource commercial programs work than we previously thought.

Louie DiPalma (Industrials Research Analyst)

Fantastic! Thanks, John and Sean.

John Holmes (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Thanks, Louie.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Please stand by for our next question. We have a follow-up question from the line of Scott Mikus with Melius Research. Your line is open.

Scott Mikus (VP of Equity Research)

Yes, I just have a quick one for Sean. Sean, do you have the growth rates for defense and commercial within just the new parts distribution business?

Sean Gillen (CFO)

Not at my fingertips. Yeah, just for this quarter, or you mean over the past several quarters?

Scott Mikus (VP of Equity Research)

I mean, just for this quarter, if you have it. If not, we can follow up offline.

Sean Gillen (CFO)

Yeah, I'll follow up, and then the 10-Q will be filed later, which will have some of that information, so we can follow up after that.

Scott Mikus (VP of Equity Research)

Okay, perfect. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Please stand by for our next question. We have a follow-up question from the line of Ken Herbert with RBC. Your line is open.

Ken Herbert (Managing Director)

Yeah, hey, thanks. Hey, maybe, Sean, just another quick follow-up. Last year, you, you know, had a similar sort of cash burn in the first quarter, but then you were nicely positive in terms of cash from operations and free cash through the rest of the year. Do you expect a similar sort of cadence now, starting in the second quarter of this fiscal year in terms of cash generation? And I guess, bigger picture, how should we think about full year free cash generation, maybe just sort of relative to EBITDA, or maybe how much of an improvement should we expect relative to fiscal 2024?

Sean Gillen (CFO)

Yeah, so I would expect a similar cadence from Q1 for the balance of the year in terms of cash flow generation, just some seasonality with Q1 and timing of cash flows. And then as it relates to the balance of the fiscal year, I would expect that inventory will be a net user of capital, of cash, as we continue to grow the Parts Supply businesses specifically. In terms of AR, I think from a DSO standpoint, we keep that pretty consistent, and you can use that on your sales growth assumptions. CapEx run rate for this quarter is probably a good number to use, and then interest expense, yeah, we mentioned on the call or in my opening remarks, that interest expense would be similar to Q1.

And then when you think about the back half of the year, that should come down, both with a little bit of rate relief on the revolver, as well as reduction in net debt on the average borrowings.

Ken Herbert (Managing Director)

Okay, so full year free cash up over last year, but maybe similar to sort of the growth. It sounds like working capital is gonna continue to be a tail or a headwind in terms of free cash generation this year as well.

Sean Gillen (CFO)

Yeah, up over last year, with net working capital still being a net consumer of cash, but overall cash flow higher than last year.

Ken Herbert (Managing Director)

Perfect. Thanks, Sean.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, I would like to turn the call back over to management for closing remarks.

John Holmes (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Great, thank you very much. We really appreciate all the time and the interest and support, and we look forward to being back here in January to talk about Q2. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.