Garrett Motion - Earnings Call - Q2 2025

Executive Summary

• Q2 2025 delivered resilient top-line and solid profitability: Net sales $0.913B (+3% reported, flat constant currency), diluted EPS $0.42, Adjusted EBITDA margin 16.9%, Adjusted EBIT $124M (13.6%).
• Results beat Wall Street on revenue and EPS; revenue modestly above consensus ($909.9M*) and EPS materially above ($0.36–0.36*), while Adjusted EBITDA was near flat YoY and slightly below EBITDA consensus due to mix and tariffs; FY25 guidance raised across revenue, EPS, EBIT/EBITDA, FCF.
• Mix headwinds (diesel and aftermarket softness) offset by gasoline strength, FX tailwinds, and tariff recoveries; tariffs diluted margin by ~30 bps and were largely recovered ($14M in Q2).
• Capital returns continued: $22M buybacks, $0.06 dividend declared ($13M), liquidity of $862M; Russell 2000® inclusion adds index demand and visibility.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Strong execution and cash generation: Adjusted free cash flow of $121M; net cash from operations $158M; liquidity $862M; share repurchases of $22M, second quarterly dividend of $13M.
• Gasoline turbo strength and program wins: gasoline reported sales +6% (constant currency +4%); >$1B in light-vehicle turbo program extensions, plus wins in commercial vehicles and industrial power generation.
• Management tone and confidence: “Garrett delivered another strong quarter... Adjusted EBIT margin of 13.6%... $121 million of Adjusted free cash flow” — Olivier Rabiller, CEO.

What Went Wrong

• Mix and margin pressure: Gross margin 19.8% (down 100 bps YoY) from unfavorable mix (diesel/aftermarket softness) and pricing net of inflation pass-through; tariff impact diluted margins by ~30 bps.
• Diesel and aftermarket softness: diesel reported sales −1% (−5% constant currency); aftermarket reported −8% (−10% constant) as North America remained soft and channels worked through inventory.
• YoY gross profit decline despite FX tailwind: gross profit fell to $181M (from $185M) even with FX (+$9M) and productivity gains (+$9M), reflecting mix and pricing headwinds.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Hello. My name is Megan, and I will be your operator this morning. I would like to welcome everyone to the Garrett Motion Second Quarter twenty twenty five Financial Results Conference Call. This call is being recorded and a replay will be made available later today. After the company's presentation, there will be a Q and A session.

I would now like to hand the conference call over to Cyril Grandian, Garrett's Vice President, Investor Relations and Treasurer.

Cyril Grandjean (VP - IR & Treasurer)

Thank you, Megan. Good day and welcome everyone. Thank you for attending the Garrett Motion second quarter twenty twenty five financial results conference call. Before we begin, I would like to mention that today's presentation and earnings press release are available on the IR section of Garrett Motion's website at investors.garrettmotion.com. There, you will also find links to our SEC filings along with other important information about the company.

We note that this presentation contains forward looking statements within the meaning of The U. S. Federal securities laws. These statements, which can be identified by words such as anticipate, intend, plan, believe, expect, may, should or similar expressions, represent management's current expectations and are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from such expectations. These risks and uncertainties include the factors identified in our annual report on Form 10 ks and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and include risks related to the automotive industry, competitive landscape and macroeconomic and geopolitical conditions, among others.

Please review the disclaimers on Slide two of our presentation as the content of our call will be governed by this language. Today's presentation also includes certain non GAAP measures, which we use to help describe how we manage and operate our business. We reconcile each of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measure in the appendix of our presentation and related press release. Finally, in today's presentation and comments, we may refer to light vehicle diesel and light vehicle gasoline products by using the terms diesel and gasoline only. With us today are Olivier Rabiller, Garrett's President and Chief Executive Officer and Sean Dizon, Garrett's Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. I will now hand the call over to Olivier.

Olivier Rabiller (CEO, President & Director)

Thank you, Cyrille, and thank you all for joining today's call. I am pleased to report that Garrett delivered another set of very solid financial results in the second quarter, thanks to strong sales performance in a soft environment. Net sales for the first quarter were $913,000,000 which is flat at constant currency, representing outperformance of the industry in light vehicle turbo sales for both gasoline and diesel applications. In fact, gasoline turbo sales grew by 4% in the quarter, outperforming industry. Thanks to the team's effort, we've achieved another quarter of solid operating performance.

Adjusted EBIT was $124,000,000 and our adjusted EBIT margin was 13.6%, including 30 basis points of margin rate dilution from tariffs. We also delivered strong adjusted free cash flow of $121,000,000 for the quarter, placing our first half twenty twenty five conversion at 62% of adjusted EBIT above our stated targets. We are also raising our outlook for 2025 to reflect the euro dollar exchange rate. We will indeed remain alert and ready to take measures to adapt to slowing demand should it become necessary. In addition, we continue to allocate capital in line with our stated framework and our commitment to delivering value to shareholders.

During the second quarter, we repurchased $22,000,000 of common stock and paid a $12,000,000 quarterly dividend. Additionally, our Board of Directors has just declared the third quarter dividend payable on the September 16. Finally, Garrett was included in the Russell 2,000 in the June indexed reconstitution, reflecting the positive impact of our capital structure transformation and disciplined approach to capital allocation. Let me now move to Slide four to share more about Garrett's continued success across our differentiated technologies. I am very happy to share that we were awarded over $1,000,000,000 of light vehicle program extensions in Q2, some of which will last until 02/1934.

This achievement increases visibility on future turbo sales and is a testament to the strong demand we continue to see for our differentiated turbo technologies. Moreover, we continue to see growing interest in the development of turbocharger for range extended electric vehicles. We secured three additional wins to serve this technology in China this quarter. We were also awarded another major eTurbo program in Europe, which highlights our leadership in electric boosting. In addition, we won five awards for on highway commercial vehicles and two for off highway tractors with global OEMs.

Lastly, the recent field test of our Garrett MEG Turbo demonstrated superior performance against the existing turbo solutions for gensets. As a reminder, the MEG Turbo line is the new line of products we launched at the 2023 to address the needs of big engines for genset and marine application. These products represent the largest turbo we have ever engineered at Garrett, and they serve an industry that is seeing significant growth, mostly driven by data centers backed up power. This quarter, we continued to make significant progress across our differentiated zero emission products. For our high speed e powertrain business, we secured an additional proof of concept award with a major European passenger vehicle OEM.

In addition, we have seen growing interest from commercial vehicle OEMs for our offering since announcing our award with Hyundai Axle earlier this year. On the e cooling side, we are happy with the traction we get for industrial non automotive cooling. We have demonstrated our ability to outperform existing compressor technology and exceed targets shared by existing players in that field. This is very promising for this venture outside of the automotive space. Additionally, we secured one of our largest award to date for our fuel cell compressor from a leading Asian OEM, which again demonstrates the significant value of our product and our industry leading portfolio in this area.

Given the momentum we are seeing across our zero emission technologies, we have also integrated a new state of the art R and D center in Wuhan, China, reinforcing our presence in this fast moving region. I will now hand it over to Sean to provide more details on our financial results and outlook.

Sean Deason (SVP & CFO)

Thanks Olivier, and good morning everyone. I will begin my remarks on slide five. As Olivier highlighted, we delivered solid second quarter financial performance. Our net sales were $913,000,000 driven by favorable foreign currency impacts, tariff recoveries and new gasoline launches and ramp ups in Europe and North America, partially offset by continued weakness in diesel and aftermarket. We delivered $124,000,000 of adjusted EBIT in the quarter, which equates to a 13.6% margin, a sequential decline resulting from continued unfavorable sales mix, tariff dilution which was partially offset by favorable foreign currency impacts.

Finally, adjusted free cash flow of $121,000,000 representing a marked increase over the prior quarter as we converted earnings into cash and released working capital resulting in a free cash flow conversion of 98% for the quarter and 62% for the first half. Moving now to slide six, we show our Q2 net sales bridge by product category as compared with the same period last year. In the quarter, net sales increased by $23,000,000 versus the prior year or 3% on a reported basis and flat on a constant currency basis reflecting favorable foreign currency impacts. We continue to experience strong gasoline growth outperformed the industry and is driven by continued share of demand gains and new launches. This is partially offset by diesel softness resulting from lower industry production in Europe as well as lower demand for aftermarket applications primarily in North America.

Additionally, we recovered $14,000,000 of tariffs within the quarter. Turning to slide seven, we show our Q2 adjusted EBIT bridge as compared with the same period last year. Within the quarter, we delivered 124,000,000 of adjusted EBIT representing a $1,000,000 increase over the same period last year and a margin rate of 13.6%, a 20 basis point decline. Though softness in demand for aftermarket and diesel applications drive unfavorable product mix, we continue to benefit from the impact of sustained fixed cost action and variable cost productivity. In the quarter, the impact of newly implemented tariffs drove 30 basis points of margin rate dilution.

Additionally, we benefited from $11,000,000 or 80 basis points of contribution from favorable foreign exchange impacts year over year. Turning now to slide eight, I'll walk you through the adjusted EBIT to adjusted free cash flow bridge for the quarter. We delivered strong adjusted free cash flow of $121,000,000 This performance was due to higher sequential sales and the conversion of earnings into cash complemented by the release of working capital. Cash taxes, capital expenditures, depreciation and cash interest were all in line with our expectations. And this strong Q2 result equates to a free cash flow conversion of 62% for the first half of twenty twenty five.

Moving now to slide nine. We ended the quarter with a liquidity position of $862,000,000 comprised of $630,000,000 of undrawn revolving credit facility capacity and $232,000,000 of unrestricted cash. In the second quarter, our strong cash generation enabled us to pay our second $12,000,000 quarterly dividend and repurchase $22,000,000 of common stock in Q2 for a total of $52,000,000 in the first half under our $250,000,000 share repurchase program. It's important to note that since Q1 of twenty twenty three, we have reduced total outstanding shares by 39% through our share repurchase programs demonstrating our commitment to return capital to shareholders. In line with our capital allocation policy, we continue to target a distribution of at least 75% of our adjusted free cash flow to shareholders over time through dividends and share repurchases.

As Olivier mentioned earlier today, our Board of Directors has also declared a third quarter cash dividend payable in September 2025. I will now transition to slide 10 to discuss our 2025 outlook. We are raising our twenty twenty five outlook to reflect the impact of a stronger euro U. S. Dollar exchange rate reaffirming our commitment to deliver operating performance consistent with our prior outlook.

This outlook maintains our prior industry view and reflects the impact of newly implemented tariffs on sales and adjusted EBIT margin net of recovery. This implies the following midpoints net sales of $3,500,000,000 net sales growth at constant currency of minus 1% net income of $256,000,000 adjusted EBIT of $500,000,000 net cash provided by operating activities of $410,000,000 and finally adjusted free cash flow of $370,000,000 Turning now to slide 11. This bridge illustrates our updated midpoint outlook of adjusted EBIT compared to the prior outlook. We anticipate continued gasoline strength and incremental operating performance will offset unfavorable product mix slightly improving our margin rate before foreign exchange and tariffs. Foreign exchange is expected to drive 70 basis points of rate improvement and the impact of full tariff recovery is expected to drive 20 basis points of margin dilution for the year.

I will now turn the call back to Olivier for his closing remarks.

Olivier Rabiller (CEO, President & Director)

Thanks, Sean. Turning now to slide 12. Our strategic priorities remain clear and consistent. We aim to identify and deliver customer needs by leveraging our capabilities to develop differentiated high speed and highly efficient technologies. In doing so, we generate robust returns for our shareholders.

Let me wrap this up on our final slide, which is next slide. First, we delivered very solid results with an adjusted EBIT of $124,000,000 and adjusted free cash flow of $121,000,000 with gasoline sales outperforming the industry due to shelf demand gains and new product launches. Second, we continued to return capital to our shareholders. This quarter, we paid our second quarterly dividend and completed $52,000,000 in share repurchases in the first half. Overall, we have reduced our share count by 39% in Q1 twenty twenty three through our repurchase program.

This quarter, we also secured significant business wins, including awards for over $1,000,000,000 in light vehicle turbo program extensions. These wins reinforce our position and provide strong revenue visibility moving forward. In term of innovation, we are making steady progress on zero emission technologies. This includes a new proof of concept partnership on an e powertrain, strong test result for our oil free e cooling solutions and a significant fuel cell program award. Finally, we increased our 2025 outlook to reflect a stronger eurodollar exchange rate.

I am proud to highlight these achievements and the promising start we've had this year. With these strong first half results, it's positioning us very well for the rest of 2025 and beyond. Thank you for your time. And operator, we are now ready for Q and A.

Operator (participant)

We will now begin the question and answer session. Our first question comes from Hamed Khorsand with BWS Financial. Please go ahead.

Hamed Khorsand (Principal)

Hi. So my first question was, could you just talk a little bit about this unfavorable sales mix and how you're adjusting the business for such an environment?

Olivier Rabiller (CEO, President & Director)

That's a very good question, Amit. What we call unfavorable sales mix is basically driven by two things. On the one hand, there is a very positive thing that's happening to us, which is we are growing very fast on the gasoline side. And we are growing very fast on the gasoline side all over the world, whether it's in Asia, Europe and to a certain extent in North America. So we are very pleased with that.

But as you know, the margin rate on gasoline turbochargers is a bit lower than what we have on the rest of the business. But this unfavorable mix is a good thing to us. Where we are seeing on the other hand a little bit of softness that is impacting us that's the second aspect of that mix is more on aftermarket off highway and that's basically more in North America, where we have not seen the traction yet on the aftermarket that would reflect demand recovering, because usually the demand is recovering first on aftermarket before it gets into OE. And I think our customers are probably still suffering from the fact that their sales channels have been having a lot of inventory in or have built up a lot of inventory for the past few years. So these are the things.

Adjusting the business for us, do we adjust the business with the same recipe as we usually have? We have a high variable cost structure. And therefore for us, it's working on the fixed cost like we do every year. But more than that, it's adjusting on the variable cost side and this is something we know how to do very well in the company.

Hamed Khorsand (Principal)

Okay. And my other question was you ended the quarter with significantly more cash. Any reason why you didn't buy back more stock?

Sean Deason (SVP & CFO)

Hi, Hamed. This is Sean. Our buyback is not linear. But as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, we're committed to returning 75% or more of cash over time to shareholders. We believe the buyback is a very important tool to return value to our shareholder base and we'll continue to do so. But it's not linear.

Hamed Khorsand (Principal)

Okay. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Jake Scholl with BNP. Please go ahead.

Jake Scholl (Equity Research Associate)

Hey guys, congrats on a great quarter. I just want to ask if you could help us understand some of the drivers of your stronger operating performance in the second half, especially with volume assumptions roughly unchanged?

Sean Deason (SVP & CFO)

Sure. We will continue to benefit from cost control. And I would say the other point I wanted to make is that right now we've maintained our view our prior view. I think the latest S and P estimate might be showing a bit more favorability. So depending upon how the second half works out more importantly is that could give us an opportunity to trend toward the upper end of our range if we start to see volumes stabilize.

But at the moment, we felt it prudent to be a bit more conservative in our guide from a volume and revenue standpoint as the impact of tariffs starts to work its way through the system.

Jake Scholl (Equity Research Associate)

Got it. Thank you. And then just a smaller one, if you could provide an update on the tariff recovery situation. Do you guys still expect to be able to fully recover your tariff costs this year?

Olivier Rabiller (CEO, President & Director)

Absolutely. Absolutely. We expect that. Not only do we expect, but this is what we've achieved. And obviously, the situation changing will add up to the changing tariff.

We have the tools in place. And since we've been recovering everything since the beginning, there should not be a change moving forward.

Jake Scholl (Equity Research Associate)

Thanks, guys.

Operator (participant)

Our last question comes from Eric Greig with Four Tree Island Advisory. Please go ahead.

Eric Gregg (Founder and Principal)

Thank you. And to the Garrett team, just excellent results. Great to see all this communication multiple levels. Two questions. In terms of these large turbos for backup, data center, AI and whatnot, is that can you give us a sense of when you think that business or if you think that business will ever get to as much as 10% of revenues?

Or I don't want to limit you there, but how big do you think that business can grow? And how substantial do you think it can be for Garrett?

Olivier Rabiller (CEO, President & Director)

It's a very substantial business. It's a big business for us because it's coming when you get into very large turbo, I'm not talking only about the genset one, but more widely all the applications. There are a lot of genset and there are some marine. A significant part of the revenue once you've established your position is coming from aftermarket. And we love that.

We love aftermarket. We have a very strong brand in aftermarket. We have a very strong network of distributors on aftermarket. And that's an additional activity that we would develop with them. Before we get there, obviously, we need to establish our installed base.

I'm not saying that it should reach 10% of the activity just on the genset backup power because today that would be a big number. We would talk about $400,000,000 a year. And I'm not sure that there is any player out there that's doing $400,000,000 a year on the turbo business. I don't even think that the industry is that big to allow that. But it will be in the hundreds of millions of dollars anyway and that should come within the next three to five years.

Eric Gregg (Founder and Principal)

Great. And then the second question is really digging a little bit further on the linearity comments on stock repurchase. It was a you probably did almost twice as much free cash flow this quarter. You had some of your sponsors who were more active on the sales front. Your valuation is incredibly low.

Just and you did almost 30% less stock repurchase this quarter. So can you give us a better kind of just sense of how it's non linear, but why you didn't dig in further this quarter? And do you think you'll be more aggressive throughout the rest of the year?

Sean Deason (SVP & CFO)

Like I said, it's not linear. And we had a very busy quarter. But what I would say is we also recognize that we have some dry powder for block trades as well if they happen to come up. But again, I would just reiterate the company's commitment and the Board's commitment to deliver to our capital allocation framework, is 75% or more of free cash flow to our shareholder base.

Eric Gregg (Founder and Principal)

Well, quarter. Thanks everyone.

Cyril Grandjean (VP - IR & Treasurer)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

This concludes our question and answer session.

Cyril Grandjean (VP - IR & Treasurer)

And this concludes our call.

Operator (participant)

Conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.