Park Aerospace - Earnings Call - Q3 2025

Executive Summary

• Q3 FY2025 net sales were $14.41M, up 23.8% year-over-year but down 13.7% sequentially; diluted EPS was $0.08, up from $0.06 YoY but down from $0.10 QoQ.
• Gross margin compressed to 26.6% (vs 28.5% in Q2) as production shortfalls (SVP $13.2M vs sales $14.4M) and new factory ramp costs weighed on profitability; adjusted EBITDA was $2.42M, below prior internal guidance of $3.0–$3.3M despite sales slightly above the range—an explicit EBITDA miss driven by mix and efficiency headwinds.
• Management lowered FY2025 EBITDA outlook from $13–$15M (Q2 call) to $11.5–$12.2M, citing delayed high-margin C2B ablative materials shipments due to an OEM recall and targeted early ramp for the “Juggernaut” aerospace demand; Q4 guidance calls for $15.5–$16.3M sales and $3.3–$3.9M EBITDA.
• Balance sheet remains strong with $70.0M cash and no long-term debt; the company repurchased ~180K shares for $2.36M during Q3 and declared a $0.125 dividend payable Feb 4, 2025—ongoing capital return supports the stock while investors watch March requalification milestones and Q4 margin recovery catalysts.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

• What Went Well

  • Sales of $14.41M exceeded the top of the internal range ($13.5–$14.2M) and rose 23.8% YoY; management reiterated strong GE program exposure and highlighted A320neo backlog and LEAP-1A share as long-term tailwinds.
  • Continued progress on major programs: GE9X fan case containment wrap received a ~$6.5M PO, and MRAS LTA includes ~6.5% weighted average price increase effective Jan 1, 2025.
  • Capital return and liquidity: ~$70M cash, no long-term debt, plus buybacks (~180K shares; $2.36M) and regular dividend ($0.125), reinforcing investor confidence and flexibility.
  • Quote: “We better be ready for the coming Juggernaut… ramping up a little too early… will cost our P&L in the short term… But the bottom line is we better be ready”.

• What Went Wrong

  • EBITDA miss versus internal guidance due to production shortfalls (SVP $13.2M vs sales $14.4M; ~$300K EBITDA impact), reduced productivity from new hires (headcount 134 vs 124 Q2; ~$150K P&L drag), and early ramp costs in the new factory.
  • C2B fabric recall at an OEM halted high-margin ablative material shipments in Q3; Park sold ~$0.4M of fabric at low margins instead, losing expected >$0.3M contribution—requalification targeted for March.
  • FY2025 EBITDA lowered to $11.5–$12.2M from $13–$15M due to delayed high-margin materials and temporary inefficiencies; management acknowledged the miss and withheld Q3 bonuses to maintain accountability.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good afternoon. My name is Alicia, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Park Aerospace Corp's Third Quarter, Fiscal Year 2025 Earnings Release Conference Call and Investor Presentation. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After these speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press Star, then number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press Star two. Thank you. At this time, I'd like to turn today's call over to Mr. Brian Shore, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Shore, you may begin your conference.

Brian Shore (Chairman and CEO)

Thank you, Alicia. This is Brian. Welcome all to Park's third quarter investor conference call. I have with me Mark Esquivel, our President and COO. Right after the close, we published our third quarter earnings press release. You want to get a hold of that because in that news release, there are instructions as to how to access the presentation that we're about to go through. Without access to the presentation, this call will be less meaningful, and the presentation is on our, you can link to it via webcast. That's how you say it. It's also on our website, and as the operator already said, after we're done, we're going through the presentation. Mark and I will have questions. Just want to give you a warning. The presentation, I'm not sure, will probably take 45 minutes or so to go through.

So having said that, why don't we just go ahead and get started? I want to go to slide two, our forward-looking disclaimer info. If you have any questions about it, please let us know. Slide three, this is our table of contents. First item is our Q3 investor presentation. And we also have supplementary financial information in appendix one at the back. We don't go over that normally during our investor calls, but if you have any questions about the supplementary financial info, please let us know. In the photo here, we have the missing link.

Thank you, James Webb Space Telescope. So I'm not sure I understand it very well, but I'll do the best I can. This little box on the left, there's a kind of an enlargement of that little box kind of in the middle of the image here.

That's, I guess, apparently a really, really old galaxy, only about one billion years after the universe began, which is, I think, about 13.8 billion years ago. The problem for all our scientists is that this is way too hot and too bright for a galaxy that old, and nobody understands it. Once again, James Webb is challenging all the wisdom and knowledge that we supposedly had and saying, "No, sorry, you're wrong." I mean, we don't really care what James Webb is speaking. We don't really care what your opinion is, what your beliefs are.

These are the facts of dealing with them. It's really quite exciting, as I think some of you know. Our proprietary Sigma Struts are using the structure of the James Webb. They're important parts of the James Webb Space Telescope structure. This is supposedly the missing link.

I don't know what that means between primordial galaxies and modern galaxies. I think you got to put modern in quotes because modern is not like 10 years old or something like that, but we'll see. Interesting, and it's really so exciting and thrilling for us to be part of it. I would say this is probably like one of the top five things that Park has done since we started. Not as old as some of the even modern galaxies, but 1954. Okay. Why don't we go down to Earth or come back down to Earth and go to slide four and talk about our quarterly results? If you look at the right-hand column here, sorry, sales of 14,408, gross margin 26.6%. And if you know us, you know that we're, that is kind of a miserable gross margin.

We don't really like gross margins above 30%, so obviously, we're not very thrilled with that one. Adjusted EBITDA $2,114,000. So what did we say about our Q3 during our Q2 investor call on October 15? What did we forecast, let's say? Sales estimate $13.5-$14, a quarter. So it looks like we came a little bit above the range for sales, but adjusted EBITDA $3 million-$3.3 million. We're way below that number. So something isn't right. Something doesn't make any sense. Let's talk about that. Let's go on to slide five. The top of slide five, Q3 considerations. So why is Q3 EBITDA considerably below the forecast range when the Q3 sales exceeded the top of the range? In other words, normally, you would say, "Yeah, Q3, the sales were top of the range.

The EBITDA should be top of the range as well," so let's get into that, and unfortunately, it takes several slides to give you a proper understanding, so let's get into it. Okay. First check item, fiscal 2025 Q3 sales were $14.4 million, as we just said, which exceeded the forecast range by about $150,000. But, and it's a big, big, big but, our Q3 sales value of production, we call it SVP, was only $13.2 million or $1.2 million less than Q3 sales. Normally, we don't talk about SVP unless it's something significant, and I just want you to understand, SVP is not inventory value. That's the value of the product when it's sold, and it's good to think that way because when you're trying to compare production to sales, then you have apples to apples.

That's why we use SVP rather than just the inventory value of the inventory that's produced when we do production. At Park, SVP has a significant positive impact on the bottom line. As a result, its production or SVP shortfall has a significant negative impact on Q3 or Q3 EBITDA. And probably by about $300,000, actually, in terms of EBITDA, production absorbs a significant amount of cost into their produced inventory. So what happened? Why did production SVP shortfall in Q3? So there's several things to consider here. So one, bringing up the new manufacturing lines and new factories. So we're going through the anticipated challenging process of optimizing new lines as we operate them and ramp them up in a production environment. It's a lot different. Running something in a production environment is good. That's where you really learn.

That's where you optimize and get the bugs out as compared to doing trials or even qualifications where you can take your time, whatever you want to do, you do it. Production's a very different world. Going to slide six. Ultimately, we expect the new lines, and this is important, to run 25%-50% or maybe even more faster than existing lines. That depends on the product type. Also, it depends on whether you're talking film or tape. But think about it conceptually. It's a lot faster. But we must go through the expected learning curves in order to achieve those results. But ultimately, that will deliver a lot of oomph to the bottom line to be able to run a product so much faster. The new lines are designed with better controls also. This is another factor.

Better controls than the existing lines, capable of producing tighter tolerance, meaning better quality product. We actually do not need to run, okay, this is a key thing, need to run new lines at all to support current production levels by ramping up to prepare for the coming juggernaut. We talk about the juggernaut a lot. That's kind of toward the end of the presentation. On slide 26, when we get to that, you'll see very clearly why we don't need to be running the new lines to support the production levels. That's not the point. Ramping up a little too early, though, will cost our P&L in the short term, and it's hard to say. You're always doing the best you can to judge when to ramp, when to ramp, and try to make the little minor adjustments.

But ramping up too late and not being prepared to support the major programs as they ramp up, that juggernaut, well, we all know how that would end. It's not a pretty picture, not a pretty thing to contemplate. You get behind, and you're kind of screwed. So you want to err on the side of being early rather than being late. And you just continue to make the adjustments as you need to. But the bottom line is, including the impact on the bottom line, the bottom line is we better be ready for the coming juggernaut. That's the most important thing for us. Slide seven. Ramping up the new lines now is part of our plan to be ready.

But for the time being, the new lines run less efficiently until we get on the other side of learning curves with the new lines, and then business ramps up. This does not ramp up. Like I said, we don't even need to use the new lines. So obviously, a lot of extra cost doing that. Next item, although Park is very fortunate to have a special and dedicated workforce, great people, many of our production people are relatively new to Park and are still at the front end and steep ends of the learning curve.

So this is another factor. As new people are being trained and going through the learning process, our productivity, that's measured as production units or dollars per work hour, is temporarily reduced. Okay? So that's going to affect our, let's see, the temporary reduction of productivity negatively impacts profitability.

It's just increased our input cost per unit of production. You understand? Okay. Takes more time to produce a unit. So that's going to affect our bottom line. And in addition to that, this reduced productivity also negatively impacted our Q3 production levels, which contributed to the shortfall that we talked about, which had a big impact on our bottom line. How much are we talking about in terms of the productivity or lessened or reduced productivity impact on our profitability? We're not really saying, but it's meaningful. Okay?

Our current, keep going, bottom of slide seven. People count 134 compared to 124. Ooh, at the end of Q2, what's going on there? Let's go on to slide eight. Obviously, the increase in people count, at least temporarily, places additional pressure on our profitability. We don't need the extra people. We're ramping up for the juggernaut.

Actually, since employee turnover is way down, we've been able to, and this is something we didn't see coming, we've been able to ramp up our workforce more quickly than anticipated. That's a two-edged sword. But our people, Sadie, Nancy, others are doing a really good job of hiring the right people. That's a key thing. We've always been able to hire people, always, for the last couple of years. But it's finding the right people. Park's a pretty unusual, quirky company. And I would say nine out of 10 human beings are not really suitable for Park. So we got to find that one out of 10 human being. And that's also fairly significant. Those 10 extra people probably cost our P&L $150,000 in just that quarter, just approximately. So that's another big part of the equation. And that was not something we expected to happen.

Because we've been talking for quarter after quarter, we're trying to ramp up, trying to ramp up, and it feels like it's frustrating. You make a little progress, and then you lose the progress. Let's keep going. Complex and this is a tough one. We've been kind of holding us back. We haven't wanted to talk about it because it's a really sensitive situation. But my feeling, our feeling is that you're investing your hard-earned dollars or your clients' hard-earned dollars, and you have a right to know some of this stuff. So we have to use some judgment. But we're electing this point to tell you something that's pretty important. Sensitive situation regarding ArianeGroup's RAYCARB of C2B NG fabric.

Remember that Park entered into a business partner arrangement with ArianeGroup in January 2022, three years ago, under which ArianeGroup appointed Park as its exclusive North American distributor of its proprietary C2B fabric. This fabric is used by Park to produce ablative materials for missiles and rockets. One of Park's key customers that produces the rockets and missiles of the ablative materials—this is the ablative materials key customer—which we produce with the C2B fabric is going through a recall of the fabric, not Park material of the fabric. We will not discuss why that is. Like I said, all things very sensitive. But this customer and other customers continue to buy and stockpile significant amounts of C2B fabric of Park.

Our C2B fabric, not material sales, are expected to be approximately almost $6.9 million in fiscal 2025, $2.5 million next year or more, and actually $3.9 million just in our Q4. So these OEMs, they're obviously committed because it's at their risk. I mean, this is their inventory. They keep buying and buying and buying, stockpiling this product. But meanwhile, one of the key OEMs is saying, "Well, we're requalifying the C2B fabric." And here's the thing. Let's go to the top of slide nine. However, until this recall is complete, Park's not able to produce the ablative materials using C2B fabric for this customer.

Now, it's going to have to happen. First of all, the program is so critical, and it has to happen. But secondly, they're buying millions and millions of dollars of this fabric. So it's got to have to—it has to happen.

But until they get done with the recall, we can't produce the materials for them. As a result, Park had no sales to this customer of ablative materials produced with C2B fabric during Q3. Remember that we sell C2B fabric. So just be clear. We're saying we didn't sell any materials that were produced with the fabric. We still sell the fabric. Two very different things. Remember that Park sells the C2B fabric to our customers for a small markup. So we sell the fabric to our customers, just stockpiling all the fabric, small margins. But the margins for producing and selling ablative materials using C2B fabric are significant. Let me just tell you what we're talking about here. We expect it. We didn't know it was going to happen. It's beyond our control. We have no control over the requalification.

We're the good guy in between trying to help be helpful, but we can't control how quickly this recall is done. But just to give you perspective, in Q3, we expected to sell $400,000 of materials made with C2B fabric. Now, $400,000, not that big a deal. Really? Over $300,000 would have dropped to the bottom line. Okay? So now you get a perspective on how this works. When we sell the fabric, the margins are very little because we get a little markup. We use that fabric to make materials. Now, it's a customer who owns the fabric for the customer. The margins are, let's use the term huge, I would say. Okay? So that's to give you a perspective.

Until the recall is complete, we'll have to live with this P&L double whammy, selling the fabric with a small markup, but not being able to sell a very high margin of ablative materials produced with fabric. Okay? So at this point, the recall is expected to be complete in March, but we put recall and expected in quotes because it's not something we have control over. Now, there is motivation because there's pent-up demand for producing these rocket and missile systems. And they can't do that with fabric. They need the material from us. So let me just see if I have a note here.

Just want to know. It's okay. So if that does occur, that the recall is done in March, we expect sales to this customer, this customer alone of ablative materials, materials using the fabric to be about $2.5 million or more in 2026.

The contribution from those sales, well, I just explained what that would be. There's a pent-up demand, so as soon as the recall is complete, we'll be off to the races, and the limit will not be the market. The limit will be how much product, how many systems the customer is able to produce. Let's go on to slide 10. We've been holding back talking about that because it's very sensitive, but we felt you should really know what's going on here because, like I said, you're investing your hard-earned dollars or your clients' hard-earned dollars.

You're entitled to know these things, I think, at least to some extent, the extent we can share them with you. Slide 10, so here's a question. Why didn't we expect these things to happen in Q3? Why didn't we take these things into consideration in our Q3 EBITDA forecast we gave you?

We actually did expect to produce and ship that $400,000 of ablative materials. That's not really on us. That's just because the recall didn't happen. I think we reasonably expected that to happen in Q3. It didn't happen. We got the P&L double whammy. We sold $400,000 of C2B fabric in Q3, and that doesn't help us very much at all bottom line-wise. Also, as we stated, we ramped up our headcount more quickly than expected just because our history has been difficulty struggling to ramp up our headcount. Our people do a much better job of hiring the, sorry, finding the right people, the right people for Park, which is like a little bit of a needle in a haystack, I think, where most people are not cut out for Park. It's just how it is.

But as far as the production shortfall we talked about and reduced productivity we talked about, that's on us. We should have expected those things when we gave you the forecast, and we just missed the mark. Of course, we did our best. We missed the mark. We did not hit our production and productivity targets. That's on us. We're accountable for it. As a result, our Park people will not receive a bonus for Q3. It's just to understand, it's not like we're punishing anybody. But at Park, we have this attitude. We're all in this together. Well, we're all in this together. So if we're not making our numbers, we don't get bonuses. That's just how it is. Now, before you feel too badly for our people, let's go to the top of slide 11.

However, there's a sense of optimism at Park about the coming year and the future, and our Park family members will receive goodwill bonuses for the new year. This is not for the quarter. This is goodwill bonuses, but you will not pay for them. So let's go on to the next item. There were significant ongoing expenses in Q3 related to operating our new factory, including expenses for depreciation in the footnote below.

That's an annual amount of about $1,000, sorry, $1,260,000 goes into gross profit, gross margin, not EBITDA, of course. The rest is EBITDA: facilities, maintenance, utilities, insurance, overhead expenses, people expenses. But those things were taken into account when we gave you our forecast for Q3, but where you knew about them. So that's that story. Missed shipments in Q3, actually a little bit better. The production shortfall was significant.

But if you have been with us recently, the last few quarters, I think it's been like $500,000-$600,000 of missed shipments. I don't know if it's a trend, but we'll take it a little bit better. Less shipments, international shipment issues, supply chain issues, customers on hold issues. That means customers aren't paying their bills. Sorry, you're not going to get shipped. Other miscellaneous issues. Yeah, we kind of have a funny attitude about getting paid for what we do. Slide 12. This is something we do every quarter for you. I don't know if it's probably fun because it's always the same group of five top customers. Just quickly, the C909, that is now what the ARJ21 regional jet is now called 909, rather. That's the MRAS. That relates to MRAS. Over here, the Gulfstream G280.

That's Aerosphere, which is a distributor for Israeli - not aircraft - Israel Aerospace Industries now, which makes the G280 business jet under contract with Gulfstream. Then bottom left, we talk about this a lot, the PAC-3 Patriot missile. That's Aerojet. And then Kratos, of course. Kratos is Kratos. We all know about Kratos. One of our very special customers in the Valkyrie there. And the 737-800, that relates to NORDAM. That's the WeatherMaster radome that's used on the 737 line, including, I think, the MAX as well. Okay, let's keep going. Let's not get too hung up here. Slide 13.

Our pie charts. I don't know about you. I really always like the pie charts. And if you look at them, you can see 2022, 2023, and 2024, and 2025 are pretty similar in terms of the breakdown. 2021, very different. That was a pandemic year.

And commercial aircraft was a mess then, of course. Remember, airplanes were being flown with two people on them or mostly not being flown at all. Okay, why don't we keep going? Slide 14. So Park's loss, niche military aerospace programs. So these are all missile programs. And this is a land project. And when we just focus on missiles this quarter. And the interesting thing is there are a lot of other programs that we didn't select. I mean, there are a lot of missile programs that we're active on.

But these are some really nice ones that she selected. I won't go through each one of them, except I'll point out the bottom left SpaceX. Really, I love that company. I'm just talking personally. So really thrilled to be on that program. And the bottom right, little history thing there, Lockheed Sunnyvale.

In 1962, we produced what was called multi-layer circuit boards. We developed multi-layer circuit boards. We were the first in the world, I believe. In 1962, for Lockheed Sunnyvale, they said they wanted to reduce weight on the circuit boards. These are for ICBMs back in the old days. And what we did was develop what's called a multi-layer circuit board. So we go way back with Lockheed Sunnyvale. A lot of history there. Let's go on to slide 15. Okay, you're used to this slide. So we won't spend a lot of time on the GE Aerospace Jet Engine programs. We got the firm pricing LTA in 2023 with Middle River, a sub of ST Engineering. And so the obvious question is, who are they? What is this about? Because all these programs are GE Aerospace programs.

As most of you know by now, when we got on these programs, Middle River was sub of GE Aerospace and GE Aerospace sold Middle River to ST Engineering about five years ago. But we were already on those programs. Redundant factory. We told MRS and GE at the time that, "Okay, once we sign this LTA, which is our sole source on these programs, we'll build a redundant factory for you."

And we did, $20 million factory. And the reason is we're sole source in these programs. So GE wanted to have the security of a redundant factory because they all have all the eggs in our basket. So we did that. And the factory has been in production for a couple of years. We already talked about that. I won't go through all these programs, but these are really all wonderful programs.

We just love being on these programs. So great to be in these programs. Any questions, let us know. Let's go on to slide 16. Let's skip to the second item. The fan case, containment wrap, or the GEnx. Sorry, not GEnx. GE9X engines for the 777X aircraft. GEnx is like on the 787 and also the 747. GE9X for the 777X produced with our AFP and other composite materials. And as I think you know from last time, we recently received a PO of $6.5 million for this program.

So that means the program is really starting to try to get born and go into production, having their difficulties. We'll get back to that later. Next item. We have the LTA provided for a 6.5% weighted average price increase, effective January 1. So we're benefiting from that just the last couple of weeks.

The MRAS LTA was amended, I guess, I don't know, about a year or so ago to include film adhesive products that we developed under our joint development project with GE. And those products are all undergoing qualification now. Life of program, we talked about that last couple of quarters. Still working on it. We had another meeting, another negotiation session. The ball's in our court, actually, because right now we're waiting for some of our suppliers to give us pricing. So I mean, sorry, suppliers' court, I guess.

Before we're able to recommence our discussions, we need our pricing from our suppliers so we can provide the proper pricing to MRAS and ST for the Life of Program Agreement. Slide 17. Let's talk about updates on the jet engine programs. We always start with the big kahuna, the A320neo aircraft family with all these variants.

Airbus has a huge backlog of 7,221 airplanes. That's just a lot of airplanes for any kind of commercial aircraft program, any program. Airbus, as you know, is targeting a delivery rate of 75 airplanes per month by 2027. And then let's go to 18. A little more information. Let's see how they're doing. Go through 18 through 24. How many? This is all A320neo family aircraft deliveries. How many delivering per year, per month? 24. Airbus finished with a bang there, 602, an average of 50 per month. Quite impressive and really impressive. 92 airplanes delivered in December.

And that doesn't mean they're at the rate of 92 because these airplane companies have this kind of thing where they kind of make their year in the last couple of months. But anyway, that's a real big number. Clearly, based on this backlog, they'd already been producing 75 per month.

It's not why or not because supply chain constraints changed. Aren't we kind of tired of listening and hearing about supply chain constraints? I am anyway. Slide 19. So will Airbus achieve that goal of 75 airplanes per month? You ask us, you ask me, yep, I think they will. Will they achieve it in 2027? Well, after a very strong finish in 2024, which we just explained at a January 9, 2025 briefing, just what, a week or so ago? Airbus's commercial aircraft CEO emphatically reiterated Airbus's plan to achieve that 75 per month production goal in 2027. So here, a little bit of maybe comic relief. Are we waiting for Godot? You know, waiting for Godot, it's a play by Samuel Beckett, some Irish existentialist guy. I saw the play, hated it. It's terrible.

Sorry, Sam, but I think he's not alive anymore, so you're probably not going to get too mad at me for saying that. But the concept is Godot. I think it's supposed to be God. I'm not so good at this stuff, but I get you take it from him, talk to somebody smarter than me. But I think the concept is Godot was God, and the people are just sitting in the play waiting around for God. God never shows up. So I think that's the theme of it. Like I said, if you want to really get it, talk to somebody smarter than me. But I think that's the idea. Are we waiting for Godot? I mean, waiting for all these things to ramp up and sitting on our rear end doing nothing? We better not be.

We better be ready for the juggernaut, the 75 per month juggernaut. That's what we're doing. It's a funny thing in aerospace. You get on the programs we're so thrilled about, and in some of these defense programs, the missile programs, so thrilled about sole source. And it's kind of a two-edged sword. Once you get on the program, sole source, you can't do anything except wait for the OEM to ramp up. We can't tell Airbus to make more airplanes, Boeing make more airplanes, Comac make more airplanes, some of these defense contractors. So that's a two-edged sword. But the thing for us is we talked earlier about we can't judge it exactly. So we just need to make sure we're ready. If we're not ready, we're screwed.

If we're ready a little earlier, okay, it hurts our P&L temporarily, but not be ready, that's not something even worthy of discussion. Let's go to slide 20. We know all about this, the approved engines for the A320 aircraft family. We've got two of them. One is a CFM LEAP-1A. The other one was a Pratt engine. And just a little, I don't know what this is maybe out of sequence, but recently, December 6, 2024, GE announced that the FAA and the EASA, that's the European version of FAA, have certified CFM's new, that's high-pressure turbine durability kit for the LEAP-1A engine.

That's a really big deal because durability has been the issue for both these engines, the Pratt engine and the CFM. The Pratt is having like, I don't want to be unfair, but really big problems with durability, serious problems.

And it's a real problem for airlines. Airlines don't want airplanes that have to sit on the ground because of durability issues. That doesn't work for airlines. So this is really a great thing because I think Pratt's trying to get there, but GE is making some really nice progress on durability, kind of maybe putting some distance between them and their competitor. But we supply only into the CFM Leap 1A part of the A320 program. We don't supply anything into the A320 program using the Pratt engines.

According to the AeroEngine News, the CFM Leap 1A market share of firm orders for the A320neo family of aircraft was 63.9% as of November 30. Leap has had the biggest market share for a long, long, long time. We track it every month. It kind of goes between 60%-65%. That's a nice market share.

At that delivery rate of 75 airplanes per month, that market share of 63.9% translates into 1,150 LEAP engines per year. What's that worth to Park? That's worth a lot of, that's a lot of clams or whatever you call it to Park. Slide 21. Let's continue same theme here. As of November 30, okay, the AeroEngine News stuff, there were 8,148 firm LEAP-1A engine orders. It's hard to, if you're not familiar, you don't know, but that's just unheard of. That's so many engine orders. But what are those firm engine orders worth to Park? Well, a hell of a lot. If you look at slide 37, we'll do that later on, it gives you a feel for what our revenue is per unit. And it's just a lot. And obviously, it's just a huge amount.

Obviously, Airbus wants to sell more airplanes and CFM wants to sell more engines. This is how many firm orders they have now. They're not done yet. Let's go on to the next item, the A321XLR. This is still talking A320 family. It's a new variant. We're just beginning right now. First delivery was in October, very nice. First commercial flight, November of last year. First commercial transatlantic flight, November 14. Then according to Airbus, it is over 550 firm orders. This is a really exciting program for Park to be on. Remember the whole thing, theory about this airplane, it's a single aisle, but it has really good range and much better payload, more people, more baggage. So it could compete with the twin aisle, the wide bodies. At least that's a theory anyway. Pretty exciting program, I would think.

Boeing has not, at this point, they haven't announced that they're going to do anything to compete against that XLR. So the XLR has that space to itself for as long as I guess they'll be there on their own. Slide 22. Are we doing time? Not doing too well. The C919. So let's talk about Comac. Been involved with the A320. This has a different kind of LEAP engine, a LEAP-1C engine. Chinese company planned to deliver 54 C919s, 25, 84, and 26, 110, and 27, 126, and 28. So they're planning to ramp up. They plan to achieve a rate of 150 airplanes. These are not engines, these are airplanes by 28. They report to have over 1,000 orders for these airplanes. This is a very important program for Park, but we stop and emphasize it.

The C919 is now flying with three different Chinese airlines. It's really flying in China mostly at this point. A lot of people thought, "Oh, it's going to be a China-only aircraft." Well, don't tell Comac that. They reportedly have delivered 16. So they're starting, but they're getting there. And here's a big one. They're aiming, they say, to have EASA certification. That's European certification, 2025. What happened to the, "Well, it's a China-only airplane"? Don't tell Comac that because they're not thinking that.

So this could be a, I think, a very exciting program for parts. I wonder about that way. We're aiming for Southeast Asia flight to 2026 outside of just China. Let's go on to slide 23. 777X with the GE9X engines. So you know this, in August, the FAA temporarily grounded the 777X after they had some engine attachment defects were discovered.

September 6, 2024, one of the 777X test flight aircraft reportedly returned to the skies. And I've seen several articles about that, but it's funny, I haven't seen much confirmation of it. So if you hear anything about it, please let me know because I'm still trying to, we're still trying to figure out what's going on there. The Boeing's current certification and first delivery target for the 777X is 26. And as of 24, they have a little over 5, September 24, a little over 500 orders.

This is a real important program for parts. That's why we highlight it. And we haven't talked about this very much, but we'll just quickly say the Global 7500, 8000 with the Passport 20 GE engines. They just announced their 200th delivery of that airplane. Going on to slide 24. Again, something you're familiar with. So what do we do here?

This is GE Aerospace Jet Engine Program sales history and forecast estimates. Let's just go down to the bottom right. A lot of time with the history, which is running out of time here. So first of all, Q3, we should talk about that, $6.9 million of sales on GE programs. And we have a forecast for Q4, only $5 million-$5.5 million. That's a little bit of a weak quarter. Q1 was $5 million, but remember that was because of the storm damage. Q2 and Q3, about $7 million. So looking for not a great quarter in Q4. And it's pretty much booked, so we pretty much know what's going to happen. We think for the year 2024, fiscal 2025, $24 million-$24.5 million. That compares to about $21 million for 2024 and what, $22.3 million in 2023. So moving the right direction.

We're even giving you a forecast for fiscal 2026. That's approximately $30 million, $28 million-$32 million. It's a preliminary forecast. But I want you to know that this is based on an input from our customer. And these are the low numbers. We get a low, a middle, and a high. Those are the low numbers we're getting from our customer. We'll see what happens. We'll keep you posted. Let's go on to 2025. Okay, we've got to slow down here a little bit. So parts financial performance history and forecast estimates. Now, this we're talking about all parts. So you already know fiscal 2025 Q3 is where we talked about that. Q4 forecast, $15.5 million-$16.3 million sales, $3.3 million-$3.9 million EBITDA. And if you just do the math, we had the first three quarters.

Fiscal 2025 for the year, about $60.5 million-$61.5 million, $11.5 million-$12.2 million for the year. We'll talk about the year in the next slide. The EBITDA numbers for Q4 looking fairly good. What's going on there? Remember that $400,000 of C2B, ablative materials, materials that we're looking at selling Q3. Now we have that schedule for Q4. Let's knock on wood about that one. Remember how much contribution? It's significant. Production plan. Remember we underproduced. We had a production shortfall in Q3. So we actually, and we burned down inventory. That's how we got our sales. This is, sorry, I should say finished goods inventory. Finished goods at the end of Q2, $1.7 million. At the end of Q3, about $700,000. So we burned down about $700,000 finished goods inventory. In Q4, we're looking to build back that inventory and then some.

And because remember, production is really good for our P&L, our bottom line. And I think we'll do better this quarter in terms of hitting our production target because I think we're trying to get ahead on production. We put it that way. And I think we're doing pretty well. I think we'll be okay with production. That'll help our P&L run. Heard it. Just so you know, yes, but inventory, inventory went up a lot in Q3 as compared to Q2. But that was because of in-transit C2B inventory, a lot of it that ended up being part of our balance sheet at the end of Q3. But the finished goods inventory actually went down quite a bit.

And I also want to tell you something just because, okay, as you hear it, we have planned for Q4. It says right here, 3.9, in footnote 3, $3.9 million sales of C2B fabric, which is a lot. But a little over a million, about 1.1 million of that is at risk because it requires French government approval. And that has a significant impact on our bottom line. That's actually a higher margin than most of our C2B fabric sales. So that may not happen.

And here's another example where we're just a good guy trying to help out, but it's a French government and some big OEM. They're trying to make this happen. They say it's going to happen and the French government approval in Q4. Doesn't. It doesn't, we won't get the sale. That sale will slip into Q1. I just want you to be aware of that.

Okay, so let's go on to slide 26. Sorry, we're taking so long here, but it seems like there's always a lot to cover. Slide 26 is also one we have to slow down on a little bit. Because let's look at the annual numbers. I think there's interesting perspective here. Let's look at the important themes. So supply chain limitations affecting the aerospace industry. If you look at the top line, you can see that. We got $60 million in fiscal 2020 before the pandemic. Then we're $46 million. And you can see next 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024. They're really struggling to get reborn after the pandemic. So the aerospace industry is ramping up costs for the juggernaut. So that's really more of a bottom line factor when you look at fiscal 2025 that we already talked about.

Also, fiscal 25 includes $6.9 million of C2B fabric sales, which of course are lower margins. So that's going to explain to some extent why the margin numbers aren't what the EBITDA numbers aren't what you expect. I mean, if you look at comparing to fiscal 20, the top line is going to be about the same in 25 as 20, maybe a little higher, but the bottom line is lower. Well, if you consider the $6.9 million of C2B fabric sales that we had almost none of those in 20, that itself would explain the shortfall. And let's see. One other thing I want to bring to your attention. So yeah, when we, I think in Q1, we gave you a forecast for the year. I think it was $60-$65 million top line, which we plan to make more or less.

We also said 13-15 bottom line, EBITDA, and we're not going to make that. Now, at that point, when we announced Q1 and gave you the forecast for the year, we expected lots of sales of C2B materials, and that's been a real disappointment, and that's kind of why, partly why we wanted to tell you about what's going on with the re-qual. It's all about that re-qual, and their stockpiling, like I said, a lot of the OEM stockpiling lots and lots of the C2B fabric. But until the re-qual is done, we're not able to produce it, and that really held back our bottom line in the current fiscal year. We didn't see this coming when we gave you that forecast in, I guess, when we announced Q1 in July.

So that explains you say, "Well, we should have known that our ramping up costs for the juggernaut, we did, but we didn't know that we're going to miss the mark so much with the C2B materials." And we want to take the responsibility for everything we can take responsibility for, but that's not on us. I mean, that's not on us. That didn't happen. We're the good guy trying to help out, but those are two big behemoths that have to figure out how they do get this retool done. And they'll get it done. They have to get it done. There's a lot of motivation. But until it happens, we're not able to produce those materials. And I already gave you a feel for what the margins are in those materials.

That alone would explain the shortfall in terms of what we forecasted at $13 million-$15 million when we gave you the forecast for the fiscal year when we announced Q1 back in July. Sorry to slow down, but lots to cover there. General Park updates, slide 27. Most of the stuff, just updates that we talked about last time. And to some extent, we include this because the updates, because if we don't, people say, "What happened? Does that mean that that's no longer an active thing?" So we want to try to avoid that. Solution Treater Project, still a front-burner-go project. Next one, that major OEM supplier has parked a part with them on the purchase of an additional manufacturing line. That's a $5 million investment, $5 million each. Well, we're going to tell you now that OEM is ArianeGroup.

So we thought you should know that. And I'll also tell you that we're expecting $75 million of sales through 2034 under the contract that we're negotiating with these people. So those are the updates. Let's go on to slide 28. So we talked about this last time. Essential, large, high-profile, large, and emphasized missile defense program update. We're sole source qualified in this high-profile program. And we talked about being sole source qualified and what that means. Additional revenues expected this year and ramp up from there.

What's the program? Have you heard of the Next Generation Iron Dome? Let's go on to the next item. Park recently entered into a license agreement with an OEM to license the technology for hypersonic missiles. Not much of an update. We're just in phase two of the manufacturing trial so far. So far, the results are good.

Let's keep going with the updates on slide 29. That agreement with GE Aerospace, this is not the MRAS agreement we're talking about. This is GE Aerospace. We talked about it last time. Now, the only update is the agreement is complete, executed. When we talked last time, we were still in the works. We can skip over the next item. Not really much of an update, and the last item, the supplier scorecard for MRAS, 100, 100, 100.

And what does that mean? It's hard, I think, for most people to appreciate what that really means, how significant it is, because it's just not heard of, at least from what people tell me. So let's not dwell on that too much. We're running out of time here. Let's go on to slide 30. New emphasis. This is an important thing. We have to slow down on this one too.

Park's new emphasis on military defense markets. Why this new emphasis? Well, how many new commercial aircraft programs are under work? You got the 777X, fortunately, in that program. Comac C929, we can't talk about it, but for reasons that we're pretty sure we'll never get in that program. What else? Don't know of anything else. Maybe Boeing will come up with another airplane, but that's still uncertain. But there are significant opportunities which have materialized for us in the military defense markets, particularly related to new major missile programs, which are focused on ablative materials and also materials for hypersonics.

Currently engaged in several high-profile and essential missile programs, ablatives and hypersonics. Some of these programs are quite large. Let's go on to slide 31. Unfortunately, these programs are highly sensitive and confidential programs, which we're not able to provide specific information at this time.

I feel very sorry about that, but these are, like I said, quite sensitive programs. We'll provide more information when we're able to. For now, let's just say there are several high-profile programs on which Park is engaged, including three missile and hypersonic programs on which Park's material is undergoing serious, I should underline serious evaluation. Each of these programs has the potential to generate 10 million or more annual revenues for Park. So this is not just casual stuff, I wouldn't think.

Remember also, Park is a true blue American company, and I'm saying that because we're talking about military defense. Let's go on to slide 32. Recent questions from investors. An investor, well, what about that fan case containment wrap for the 9X engines? We used to talk about the redesign risk where the fan case could be designed out. Why are we not talking about that anymore?

We could be wrong, but we believe that ship has sailed and the program will proceed with the current fan case design, utilizing the containment wrap. We also had a question, by the way, about our strategy. And I don't know what to do about that, because we want to go over it with you. But the problem is we're running really late, and it probably takes at least five minutes to do even a very snapshot presentation of our strategy.

So I'm not sure how to handle that. We'll try to figure it out later. Slide 33. Our buyback, really not too much of an update here. We haven't bought any stock since we did the Q3 investor call. And why is that? Because after the Q sorry, Q2 investor call. This is the Q3 investor call. Q2 investor call, which was in October.

The stock seemed to recover, seemed to get to better levels, and we wanted to back off a little bit and let somebody else buy stock, not just us. I'm kind of only half joking about that, but one thing you should know is that during Q3, we did actually buy, what is it, approximately 180,000 shares during Q3 at a total cost of $2,363,000. That pretty much would explain the change in cash from Q2 to Q3.

There are obviously a lot of other factors up and down, but that will explain the change in cash on its own. Like I said, no additional shares have been purchased under the authorization since October 10, which I think is more or less when we announced Q2. We'll see what happens. Are we going to buy more? We really don't want to because we use our cash.

But if the stock goes down to those stupid levels, and it's been testing those stupid levels in the last few days, we'll feel like we may feel we don't have a choice. Slide 34, incredible cash dividend history. We can skip over this just to save time. Let's go to the last one. When the regular cash dividend declared on December 9, last hour item, is paid on February 4, 2025, and we'll pay it, then we'll have paid $601.1 million in cash dividends since fiscal 2005. So we'll be over $600 million at that point. Like I always say, that's a hell of a lot of money for a small company like Park. Going to slide 35, our balance sheet in cash. So we got no long-term debt, $70 million in cash at the end of Q3.

And remember, we got to pay $5.1 million, one more payment of the transition taxes to all the payments in June. So we do a little math here. How do we think about our cash? We start with the, when we look at these three numbers, $5.1 million, that's for sure. Solution Treater, too, probably very likely. Contribution to OEM partnership, probably very likely. And there are other things that we're probably going to spend money on, other projects and opportunities, but these are highly likely. So we take that $17.6 million, we take our numbers, $70 million, and we say, "Yeah, we probably are looking at $52.4 million that we really have." And that's why I was saying we really don't want to buy more stock because we want to keep that money for opportunities.

But if the stock goes down to stupid levels, we may feel, I should say, may feel compelled to go in and buy some more stock. 36, we can go through this really quickly. These are the same slides that we've shared with you for the last two quarters. Why are we doing it? Because if we don't, somebody's going to say, "What happened here? Are you no longer on board with this juggernaut, the financial outlook?" And we are. So 36, you're familiar with slide 36. 37, the only change on slide 37 is this, as I said, the ARJ21, the COMAC regional jet, now called the C909. And then on slide 38, I just want to highlight on slide 38 and 39, there's some questions about the $15 million number estimated non-GE programs incremental sales.

We think that number is conservative, especially considering the opportunities that we're seeing on these missile and defense programs right now. And the only thing we're highlighting on slide, sorry, the footnotes on slide 39, is just that, that $15 million number is conservative. So again, I apologize for taking so long to go through the presentation. But operator, we'd be happy to take questions at this time, if there are any.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We'll now conduct a question-and-answer session. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your questions. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys.

One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Nick Ripostella with NR Management. Please proceed with your question.

Nick Ripostella (VP and Equity Analyst)

Good afternoon, Brian. And I just want to say thanks again for the transparency on the issues in the quarter. It's appreciated. And as always, I'm very happy with the way you treat share repurchase. And the language about buying it when it gets stupid is right on the mark. I think the shareholder base is sufficiently patient now and understands what the upside is. So we may not get to those prices anytime soon. But just a quick question, and I may have asked you this before. There were slides in past conference calls where there was Park content on SpaceX product. And obviously, there's Blue Origin. Is that something that Park can still have content in?

I'm just interested in that. And the second question is, and I may have asked this before as well, do you think in any way COMAC product and what you supply could be affected by hostilities between China, etc.? I mean, or are they pretty much they need your stuff? And so that's it. Thank you so much.

Brian Shore (Chairman and CEO)

Thank you, Nick. Happy New Year, by the way. Yeah, in the slide, it talks about the We Love Niche Military Programs. I think we do refer to a SpaceX program. To me, I really love that company. The other one was Blue Origin. Was that the other one you were asking about? Sorry. Yes. The other, yeah. Mark, do you want to chime in on Blue Origin? I think we have some involvement, but maybe not that much.

Mark Esquivel (President and COO)

Yeah, we've done some work with them, Brian.

We do a little bit of structure for them in our parts operation. It's really niche. It's a lot of volume. We built some minor structure for them, and we did a project many years ago. We were looking at strut technology with composites, but they went ahead and went with a metal strut instead. Metal, yeah. Yeah, we did do design and build a couple of struts, but we were not downselected on the program. So we have connections there, and we continue to talk with them and still looking for other opportunities.

Brian Shore (Chairman and CEO)

Okay, thanks. To me, I love SpaceX. I just love that company. They're very different than typical aerospace company. I looked at Kratos in that category as well, in a positive way, a different and positive way.

So the more we can do with those people in particular, the happier, I think, at least I will be. Comac, it's an obvious question and a good one. We'll have to see what happens. I would be quite shocked if anything happened quickly because the C919 is a real prestige program for the Chinese. And I'm not an expert in their culture, but that's really important to them, the prestige, making sure that they're respected and lose face. And for them to change gears with materials for the C919 program would be so risky and could put the program back years. So we'll have to see what happens.

I don't know, but I'd be skeptical about anything that happens soon. The Chinese, as you know, they talk about developing their own engine. And I'm not so sure that's really an issue with trade tensions.

That might be more of an issue with CFM. In my opinion, CFM better make sure they get enough engines to the Chinese because if they don't, they're just going to give the Chinese more motivation to develop an engine more quickly. So that's just my opinion. I could be wrong, but that's my perspective. We're always nervous and concerned, but I wouldn't say that would be, at least for me, my top 10 concerns that we lose the Comac business because of trade tensions between the U.S. and China. We'll have to see how that works.

A lot of it could go different ways than people are thinking also. We'll have to see how that works. But I don't know what else to say about it, except I guess maybe for perspective, not one of my top 10 concerns right now anyway.

Any other questions, Nick, or is that going to help you out a little bit?

Nick Ripostella (VP and Equity Analyst)

No. Okay. Thank you so much.

Brian Shore (Chairman and CEO)

Okay. Thank you, Nick.

Operator (participant)

All right. I'm seeing no other questions. I'd like to turn the floor back over to Brian for any closing remarks.

Thank you very much, operator. And thank you all for listening and having the patience to hang in there for a whole hour. And I'd like to take this opportunity from everybody at Park, all the Park people, to wish you the very best in 2025, a very happy New Year to you and your families. Thank you and goodbye.

This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your.