StandardAero - Earnings Call - Q3 2025

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good afternoon and welcome to StandardAero's third quarter 2025 earnings conference call. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. I'd now like to turn the call over to Rama Bondada, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please proceed.

Rama Bondada (VP of Investor Relations)

Thank you and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to StandardAero's third quarter 2025 earnings call. I'm joined today by Russell Ford, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Dan Satterfield, our Chief Financial Officer, and Alex Trapp, our Chief Strategy Officer. Alongside today's call, you can find our earnings release as well as the accompanying presentation on our website at irstandardaero.com. An audio replay of this call will also be made available, which you can access on our website or by phone. The phone number for the audio replay is included in the press release announcing this call. Before we begin, as always, I would like to remind everyone that statements made during this call include forward-looking statements under federal securities laws. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations and projections.

Such risks and uncertainties include the factors set forth in the earnings release and in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including in the risk factors section of our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2024. We assume no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by law. Additionally, during today's call, we will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures such as adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA margin, free cash flow, net debt to adjusted EBITDA leverage ratio, and organic revenue growth. A definition and reconciliation of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures can be found in our earnings release and in the appendix to the earnings slide presentation on our website.

Non-GAAP financial measures should be considered in addition to and not as a substitute for GAAP measures. With that out of the way, I'd like to now turn the call over to our Chairman and CEO, Russell Ford. Russ, over to you.

Russell Ford (Chairman and CEO)

Thank you, Rama, and thanks to everyone for joining our earnings call today. Before we begin, I'd like to take a moment to wish an early Happy Veterans Day to all of those who have served and those currently serving in the armed forces. I'm proud to say that at StandardAero, nearly 20% of our domestic workforce are veterans, and we are immensely grateful for the sacrifices they and their families have made through their service. Now let's turn to our results, beginning on slide three. The third quarter was another strong performance by StandardAero. We delivered revenue of $1.5 billion, growing 20% year over year, and adjusted EBITDA of $196 million, up 16% year over year growth. This marks another quarter of double-digit top line and earnings growth driven by demand strength across our end markets and continued operational discipline throughout our business.

Within a complex operating environment, our diversified business model across end markets, OEMs, and more than 40 platforms we serve continues to provide us with growth opportunities and resilience, enabling us to perform well through industry cycles. Now turning to our end market performance in the quarter, our commercial aerospace revenue grew 18% year over year, led by a near doubling of LEAP revenues from last quarter and strong contributions from the CF-34, CFM56, and Turboprop engine platforms. Our backlog of MRO work remains strong, and the MRO supply-demand environment remains tight globally. We expect this favorable dynamic to continue for the foreseeable future. Business aviation revenue was up 28% year over year, driven by growth across mid and super-mid-sized aircraft. We saw strong growth in our HTF 7000 program, which should continue, supported by the successful expansion of our Augusta facility.

Our military and helicopter revenue grew 21% year over year, fueled by AE 1107 engine volumes after the V-22 grounding last year, ongoing strength of our C-130 transport aircraft programs, and the J-85 engine, which powers the T-38 trainer, as well as the contribution from our Aeroturbine acquisition. From an earnings perspective, we continue to generate strong, high-quality growth. Adjusted EBITDA rose 16% year over year, driven by volume growth, pricing, and mix, particularly within component repair services, where we delivered another record margin quarter. Even as we invest heavily in ramping our newest programs, we've continued to demonstrate double-digit earnings growth and margin resiliency.

Our adjusted EBITDA margin was 13.1%, inclusive of some lower margin work scopes and the expected short-term impact of the ramps of our LEAP program and the new CFM56 DFW facility, both of which are expanding at a rapid pace while we come down the learning curve as planned. This result underscores the strength of our overall portfolio design. We anticipate these ramping programs will turn profitable in early 2026 and continue to accrete from there. Starting on the right side of page four, I'll give some updates on the status of our strategic priorities, which we expect to drive long-term compounding value for our shareholders. We continue to be pleased with the progress of our LEAP industrialization and the outlook for this program. LEAP revenues continue to scale rapidly and are a key driver of our commercial growth.

Through the end of the third quarter, we've inducted nearly 50 LEAP engines and expect to complete more than 60 LEAP engine inductions this year. LEAP sales in the third quarter nearly doubled sequentially from Q2. Importantly, the long-term demand outlook for LEAP is getting even more robust, with multiple wins this quarter and a large number of sizable opportunities in the pipeline. With our recent wins, our planned 2026 slots are rapidly filling up, and we continue to gain even more confidence that our LEAP revenues alone will reach a billion dollars annually in the next few years. Moving to our other growth platform investments, the CFM56 expansion at our DFW facility is also progressing well with strong bookings momentum, including a significant three-year award from a major North American carrier during the quarter. Last quarter, we talked about the expansion of our business aviation facility in Augusta, Georgia.

That expansion is now operational, with the added capacity helping drive significant growth on our HTF 7000 program, where we are seeing strong demand for mid and super-mid-sized business jets and are positioned as the worldwide exclusive independent heavy overhaul provider on this engine platform. We are also pleased to announce today the planned expansion of our MRO facility in Winnipeg, Canada. This facility is home to our CF-34 program, where we expanded our license relationship with GE last year. We continue to see outsized demand and share gains on this platform and are adding approximately 70,000 sq ft to the facility to capture that growth. This expansion will increase our Winnipeg footprint for both the CF-34 and CFM56 programs by more than 40%, as well as significantly increase our CRS insourcing opportunities.

We broke ground on the expansion in September and expect to complete it in the second half of 2026. The investment is supported by contributions from the government of Manitoba, with whom we've been working closely in planning this project, resulting in a total net investment for StandardAero in the high single-digit millions. We view this as an attractive and high-return investment opportunity given the long-term contracts we already have in place to fill a large portion of this capacity. Our component repair business continues to execute, delivering record margins this quarter and driving 32% adjusted EBITDA growth year over year. The team is performing well on synergy capture from the ATI acquisition, and we've expanded our portfolio of OEM-authorized LEAP repairs to more than 450.

Additionally, we're now the first non-OEM provider of source-controlled LEAP 1A and 1B fan blade repairs, including structural edge and coating repairs, and have stood up our dedicated LEAP fan blade repair cell at our CRS facility in Cincinnati. Furthermore, our CRS segment was awarded new OEM authorizations on two critical source-substantiated fan blade repairs on the CF-34-8 engine. We are continuing to expand our portfolio of over 20,000 licensed component repairs, which we expect to drive third-party sales growth and strengthen the synergies between our CRS and engine services business. As a result of our continuing strong performance and execution on our strategic priorities, we are raising our four-year 2025 guidance across all key metrics: revenue, earnings, and free cash flow, reflecting our confidence in the fourth quarter and continued strength across both segments. Dan will detail this guidance shortly.

In addition, our balance sheet remains a source of strategic flexibility and gives us ample liquidity for both organic investments and accretive M&A. As we move forward, our priorities are clear. First, continue to ramp our growth platforms efficiently. Second, drive productivity and cash conversion across the enterprise. Third, continue expanding our CRS repair capabilities. Finally, continue investing organically and through acquisition in programs and capabilities that capitalize on our long-term growth opportunities. With that, I'll turn the call over to Dan to discuss our financial performance and outlook with additional detail. Dan.

Dan Satterfield (CFO)

Thank you, Russ. I will begin on slide five with some highlights from our third quarter results. For the third quarter ended September 30, 2025, we generated revenue of $1.5 billion, up 20.4% year over year, including 19% organic growth. Adjusted EBITDA increased to $196 million for the third quarter, representing 16.1% growth, with adjusted EBITDA margins of 13.1% compared to 13.5% year over year, driven by some lower margin work scope mix and the ramp of LEAP and CFM56 DFW programs as those come down the learning curve, partially offset by record CRS margins. The prior period, Q3 2024, included the one-time impact of a liability extinguishment that added $9.3 million to revenue and adjusted EBITDA and boosted margins by 60 basis points. Net income was $68 million, an increase of $52 million versus the prior year period, reflecting higher operating income, reduced interest expense, and lower non-recurring costs.

Free cash flow was a $4 million use this quarter, a meaningful sequential improvement, but still reflective of a challenging supply chain across various platforms that continues to drive record levels of contract assets in our shops due to specific constrained parts. Importantly, this is mainly a timing issue, and we expect a surge in shipping of completed engines in the fourth quarter, which will unwind a substantial portion of the increase in working capital experienced in the first nine months of 2025. As such, we are confident in raising our free cash flow guidance for 2025. I'll dive a little deeper into cash flow shortly. Now moving into our two segments, starting with engine services on slide six. Engine services revenue increased 21% to $1.32 billion in Q3, driven by the LEAP, CFM56, CF-34, Turboprop platforms, and the HTF 7000 business aviation platform.

Engine services adjusted EBITDA increased 12% year over year, with margins of 12.5%, consistent with expectations given some lower margin work scope mix in the quarter and a substantial growth on the LEAP and CFM56 DFW platforms. Keep in mind that in the quarter last year, Q3 2024, we had a liability extinguishment that added $9.3 million to revenue and EBITDA and boosted margins by 70 basis points. Without that one-time gain, Q3 2024 margins would have been 12.8%. Excluding the currently dilutive effect of our growth platforms, we would have had significant year-over-year margin improvement this quarter. As Russ mentioned, we continue to expect both of these programs to become margin positive in early 2026 as we move down the learning curve. On to slide seven, CRS. Component repair services revenue increased 14% to $154 million in Q3.

Notable drivers included select military platforms, continued robust demand in our land and marine business for aero-derivative engines, which is benefiting from growth in applications like data centers, and strong performance from our ATI acquisition. This was partly offset by the timing of some commercial volumes that moved to the right. CRS segment adjusted EBITDA grew 32% year over year, reaching $54 million. Margins continued to see strong improvement and once again marked a record quarter. We did see some favorable mix in Q3 that we expect to normalize in the fourth quarter, which is reflected in our guidance, and more on this shortly. Now moving to slide eight. Free cash flow for the quarter was a $4 million use, continuing to reflect the impact of increased working capital, which was up $108 million in the quarter, tied to key constrained part delays that persist.

A significant amount of this working capital increase is purely timing-related, driven by parts availability on a number of our platforms, which has been particularly challenging year to date. As a result, we had many engines largely completed and awaiting specific parts before shipment to the customer and invoicing, and thus cash collection. This situation is reflected in our contract assets balance sheet line item, which has increased $300 million over the last 12 months, with a vast majority tied to certain commercial programs. However, the good news is this is purely a matter of timing. The situation is improving, and we expect a significant unwind in Q4.

As such, we expect cash flow in Q4 to be exceptionally strong, and we are raising our full-year free cash flow outlook by $15 million at the midpoint from our prior guidance, as we are now expecting free cash flow for the full year 2025 to be in the range of $170-$190 million. Along these lines, we also have some additional positive developments to share that will fundamentally improve the quality and sustainability of our margins and cash flow going forward. Over the past year, we have continued to execute on our goal of negotiating structural changes to several long-term customer contracts within our engine services segment. Historically, many of these contracts included a substantial amount of zero or low-margin material pass-through revenue. Material that sits in inventory and contract assets consumes significant cash and obscures our true operating performance.

We have now made meaningful progress renegotiating several contracts that achieved structural changes to reduce or eliminate this pass-through activity, and we expect to see a clear positive impact in 2026. As a result of these contract amendments, we now expect approximately $300-$400 million of material pass-through revenue to be eliminated next year. While it will appear to reduce our nominal top-line growth rate at the outset, it will have minimal impact on EBITDA or earnings growth, resulting in higher reported margins that better reflect the true operating performance of these programs. Importantly, these changes will improve our working capital efficiency and free cash flow conversion over time as they take effect through 2026. We'll provide full quantitative 2026 guidance incorporating these impacts when we report fourth-quarter results early next year.

Turning to slide nine, our leverage at the end of the quarter improved to 2.9 times net debt to EBITDA and is now 2.4 turns from our leverage at the end of Q3 last year. We expect to continue to deleverage through organic earnings and cash flow growth, with our long-term net leverage target unchanged at between two and three times. At the current level, we have ample balance sheet capacity to conduct organic investments and accretive and strategic M&A. Now to our guidance on slide 10. As Russ mentioned earlier, we are increasing our outlook ranges across all three of our main metrics from our August earnings call to reflect our continued operational outperformance. When we provided initial guidance for 2025 back in March, we expected 12% year-over-year revenue growth and 13% year-over-year adjusted EBITDA growth at the midpoints.

Our new guidance calls for 14.5% revenue growth and 16.5% adjusted EBITDA growth at the midpoint. Expressed differently, we have increased our full-year guidance relative to our initial outlook by 350 basis points for adjusted EBITDA growth. This has come about despite the challenging 2025 supply chain environment we have referenced several times on this and prior calls. We now expect 2025 engine services revenue of $5.27 billion-$5.31 billion, which at the midpoint implies a 14% full-year growth rate. For our component repair services segment, we now expect 2025 revenue of $700 million-$720 million, which at the midpoint translates to a 20% growth rate. On EBITDA, we have adjusted our 2025 engine services segment adjusted EBITDA margin guidance to 13.2%, and are raising our 2025 component repair segment adjusted EBITDA margin from about 28.3% to 29%.

This drives an increase to our total company 2025 revenue guidance to a range of $5.97 billion-$6.03 billion. Our 2025 adjusted EBITDA guidance increases to a range of $795 million-$815 million. As I mentioned before, we are also raising our free cash flow guidance for the year to $170 million-$190 million, as we are confident in our Q4 cash generation as earnings continue to grow and working capital unwinds. With that, I'll now turn it back over to Russ to wrap things up.

Russell Ford (Chairman and CEO)

Thank you, Dan. This call marks an important milestone for us as we recently completed our first full year as a publicly traded company last month. We continue to be pleased with the performance of the business, which is well ahead of the targets we set in advance of the IPO. We are optimistic about the prospects for StandardAero through this year and into the future, with a positive market backdrop and the continued relentless focus on execution that has been a hallmark of our business since it was founded 114 years ago. That concludes our remarks for Q3. With that, Operator, we are now ready to move to the Q&A session.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We'll now be conducting a question-and-answer session. 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 question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. So that we may address questions from as many participants as possible, we ask that you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you have additional questions, you may re-queue, and time permitting, those questions will be addressed. One moment, please, while we pull for questions. Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Michael Ceromie with Truist Securities. Please proceed.

Michael Ceromie (Analyst)

Hey, good evening, guys. Nice results.

Russell Ford (Chairman and CEO)

Thanks, Mike.

Michael Ceromie (Analyst)

I'm not sure, Russ or Dan. I think I heard this. LEAP, are we now targeting a billion in revenues next couple of years? I think the previous target was 2030.

Russell Ford (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, in the next few years, meaning towards the end of the late 2029, 2030 timeframe.

Michael Ceromie (Analyst)

Okay, so still there, no change.

Russell Ford (Chairman and CEO)

No, no change.

As we approach 2026, 2029 starts getting a lot closer.

Michael Ceromie (Analyst)

Got it. Yep, makes sense. Just the confidence level on the cash flow. I mean, you mentioned the contract assets with receivables and inventory up $185 million sequentially. What are the parts that are causing the choke points there? Do you already have them in stock? I mean, raising the free cash flow guidance, I guess you've got good line of sight and confidence there.

Russell Ford (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, we do. Listen, first of all, Q3 would have been at sort of my expectation level if it were not for about a dozen engines that just slipped into Q4 in terms of shipment. All of that is really due to the constrained parts. Specific constrained parts, primarily around forgings and castings. As a result, we have a line of sight on the engines that will ship in Q4 and result in that outcome. We're seeing the depth of delay on some of these constrained parts get better. Matter of fact, that's been the core issue all year, is even though on-time delivery might be improving for the OEs, on certain constrained parts, for me, the depth of delay got worse. As that begins to improve, it's just a few parts on several hundred engines that result in the cash flow improvement quarter over quarter.

Michael Ceromie (Analyst)

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

Russell Ford (Chairman and CEO)

Sounds good. Thanks, Mike.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from Ken Herbert with RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed.

Ken Herbert (Managing Director, Senior Aerospace, and Defense Analyst)

Yeah, hey, good afternoon. Nice results. Maybe Dan or Russ, the adjustments you've made to some of your long-term contracts, which obviously I think you called out $300 million-$400 million of revenues eliminated next year at zero margin, do you see all of that benefit in 2026, or how much of that maybe then bleeds into 2027 as well?

Russell Ford (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, most of it happens in 2026. So it starts to feather in. First of all, the contracts change. I've also got to burn down existing inventory. But we believe over these contracts, the 300 to 400 million accrues as a reduction of revenue year over year in 2026.

Ken Herbert (Managing Director, Senior Aerospace, and Defense Analyst)

Okay, that's great. And can you remind us, what's the backlog on your LEAP business? I know you've called that out in the more recent quarters, and is there a reason maybe you're not giving an hour? Can you give us an update on that?

Russell Ford (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, during the quarter, Ken, I think we reported last time that we were a little over a billion dollars in backlog, and we're seeing about a 5% growth this quarter.

Ken Herbert (Managing Director, Senior Aerospace, and Defense Analyst)

Great. Thanks, Russ. I'll pass it back there.

Russell Ford (Chairman and CEO)

Thanks, Ken.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Gavin Parsons with UBS. Please proceed.

Gavin Parsons (Director, Equity Research of Aerospace and Defense)

Thanks. Good evening.

Russell Ford (Chairman and CEO)

Hey, Gavin.

Gavin Parsons (Director, Equity Research of Aerospace and Defense)

I just want to go back to supply chain for a second. What unlocked there? Is your sense that that's sustainable, or was that just kind of a surge or a reallocation of parts maybe amongst customers?

Russell Ford (Chairman and CEO)

I don't think it's going to be a surge of parts. During the year, I had this depth of delay on the constrained parts. That really got bad over the summer. We're seeing these constrained parts, and they really are the smallest part of our supply chain that's holding up these very large dollar values of, in particular, contract assets. You will see that the contract assets unwind as these come in. It's forgings and castings. It's the same characters. It is true that the supply chain overall is getting somewhat better. If it doesn't get better on my constrained parts for StandardAero engines sitting in the shop, those engines don't ship. We are seeing that occurring now. Matter of fact, there's a discrete list of engines with ship dates on them that makes us pretty confident that all of this will unwind.

This is an important part of our measurement system because people tend to focus on the measurement of on-time delivery. But on-time delivery only tells part of the story. You really do have to look at a second-order measure, which is what we call depth of delay. A lot of other companies use that same terminology. And the reason for that is because if you are two days late versus two months late, that's a big difference. But in the on-time delivery measure, they both count the same. So your on-time delivery may not be changing or may move one point. So you have to look to the next, the second order, which is your depth of delay. And if you see the delays that were 30 days now becoming 7 days and 5 days, then that gives you confidence.

You know that the supply chain, in fact, is getting closer to supporting the actual line flow that we need that we use for our forecasting. So that's what gives us confidence. We saw the depth of delay actually increase over the summer, and then it started drawing back. So we feel comfortable that the supply chain is, in fact, improving. Even though we've not seen all of those parts flush completely through to us, we have good line of sight.

Gavin Parsons (Director, Equity Research of Aerospace and Defense)

Great. I appreciate the detail. I guess speaking of days, when you think about long-term cash flow conversion, do you guys have a target DSO, and how much cash is one day?

Russell Ford (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, I mean, we're going to, we've said before, we're going to be an 80 to 90 percent pre-cash flow conversion company on net income. And that hasn't changed. Listen, DSO, if that's what you're referring to, is not the driver. We get paid on time. DSOs are great. Our terms are typically what you'd expect in this industry. That's not the issue. It really is related to the supply chain on a ton of demand, but on supply chain as it relates to some specific constrained parts. That's what the, as that gets better over time, that'll be the trigger for sustainable cash flows at the levels I'm talking about.

Gavin Parsons (Director, Equity Research of Aerospace and Defense)

Thank you.

Russell Ford (Chairman and CEO)

Thanks, Gavin.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Myles Walton with Wolf Research. Please proceed.

Myles Walton (Managing Director of Aerospace and Defense)

Hey, good evening. I was wondering,

Russell Ford (Chairman and CEO)

Hey, Myles.

Myles Walton (Managing Director of Aerospace and Defense)

if you could start with CRS. And the revenue outlook was trimmed at the top end. Was that an internalization of the sales? Is that any deterioration in the core outlook?

Russell Ford (Chairman and CEO)

I didn't understand the first part. There's not a deterioration in the core outlook. If you're asking about insourcing.

Myles Walton (Managing Director of Aerospace and Defense)

The 700 to 720?

Russell Ford (Chairman and CEO)

Oh, right. No, I mean, listen, it's a lumpy business. We're really excited about a lot of the growth we're getting, in particular from the ATI acquisition. Land and Marine had a fantastic quarter. So did the GTF. LEAP revenues were up really strong as a lot of that work is getting insourced. And the military platforms are great. On the accessory side and the commercial side, it's lumpy. And it's kind of the same issue that we have on the MRO side of our house. Remember, my third-party customers for CRS business are MRO operators themselves. And when they see constrained parts issues, that bleeds into their demand for component repair services as well. So a lot of the dynamics that my MRO customers are having with supply chain issues are the same issues that flow through to CRS. But no, we're very bullish about the business.

It grows strongly. Insourcing activities up. Like I said, a lot of this business has 20,000 authorized repairs. And to Russ's point, that's growing rapidly. No concerns here over the medium term.

Myles Walton (Managing Director of Aerospace and Defense)

Okay. The $300 million-$400 million reduction in sales from not having to pass through, can you translate that to a benefit explicit on cash that you do not have to hold or maintain? Is there a direct working capital liquidation that you would have in 2026 as a result?

Russell Ford (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah. It does have a pre-cash flow benefit. And by the way, personally, I'm super excited that we're making progress on this. We've been talking about this for a long time. The material pass-through overhang depressing our margins. And now we're beginning to show the true underlying margins of the ES segment. How does it benefit cash flow? It'll feather into 2026 as the existing inventory winds down. And then the real benefit we'll see, the significant benefit we'll see is in 2027. There was a fair amount of discussion about this during the run-up to the IPO, Miles. And we view this as we talked about this. And in my opinion, this is promises made, promises kept. We said we were going to do this. And in fact, we've made very good progress.

And like Dan said, moving this kind of revenue away from the balance sheet, it helps to illuminate the true financial and operational performance of the underlying business. And that's exactly why we've done it.

Myles Walton (Managing Director of Aerospace and Defense)

Yeah. No, I completely concur. It makes a ton of sense. Is there platforms or customers specifically who are more interested in this than not?

Russell Ford (Chairman and CEO)

I wouldn't say that. It's been a theme in a lot of the contracts that have been put in place over the last 15 years. And so really, there's application for this as these contracts come up for renegotiation and renewal. And we're viewing this as something that we can pursue across all of our various customers. It's not just limited to one or two.

Myles Walton (Managing Director of Aerospace and Defense)

Okay. All right. Thanks so much.

Russell Ford (Chairman and CEO)

Thanks, Myles.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Kristine Liwag with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed.

Kristine Liwag (Executive Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, good afternoon, everyone. I just wanted to follow up on your discussion on the supply constrained parts. Regarding your visibility, how much visibility do you have that you're going to get these parts available to you this year? Also, next year when we look at the industry, demand from the OEs continues to go up. Aftermarket's also very strong. Are you looking at your procurement process a little differently to make sure that you can have access to these parts?

Russell Ford (Chairman and CEO)

First of all, visibility is strong for Q4. Otherwise, I wouldn't be raising guidance on cash flow. So we feel really good about those engines shipping. What will we do differently in the future? Yeah, you should. We are making some supply chain changes as it relates to constrained parts, ordering those differently. However, I'll tell you, Christine, these constrained parts can change quarter to quarter. If you've looked into these forgings and casting suppliers, it can change quarter to quarter what exactly the constraint is. But I'm confident that we'll have our Q4 cash flow improvement, and we will have strong cash flow next year.

Kristine Liwag (Executive Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thank you very much. And following up on the LEAP engine, you've now done quite a few of these engines going through your shop. Can you provide some qualitative or any sort of quantitative information regarding what you've learned so far, how the process is versus what you had planned? And when you think about the potential cost reduction you can have over time in servicing these engines, are there areas that have stood out to you so far?

Russell Ford (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah. Thanks. Good question, Kristine. Still, we're still in low-rate initial production. We're kind of in our first year of full production. So we're coming down a learning curve very quickly. We are learning lots of things. At the front end of the business, the backlog is really strong. The RFP environment is very busy. We're getting more than our fair share of wins here. And what we're beginning to see is more PRSV, full performance shop visits versus the early on, it was very heavily biased towards CTIM, hospital visits, lower work scope visits. So the fuller work scopes are now beginning to come through. That's important because it's really those engines that advance us down the learning curve and give us the full cycles of learning.

Early on, we said that our experience with a new platform like this, typically we start reaching an equilibrium state after about three years. And we are one year into it, and we are coming down the learning curve exactly as anticipated. And that's why the second year, which will be next year, you'll see these things become margin positive. And then in the third year, you'll see these things start approaching accretive levels at the enterprise or the company level. So we're happy with the progress that we're making. As we come down the learning curve, the other impact that has is it creates more capacity for us. We don't have to spend as many hours on a set work scope, and that gives us essentially free capacity. So no surprises. We're actually quite happy with how this program is progressing.

Kristine Liwag (Executive Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Sounds good. Thank you very much.

Russell Ford (Chairman and CEO)

Thanks, Kristine.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Seth Seifman with JP Morgan. Please proceed.

Seth Seifman (VP and Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, thanks very much, and good afternoon.

Russell Ford (Chairman and CEO)

Good, Seth.

Seth Seifman (VP and Equity Research Analyst)

I wanted to check in on the engine services. If there's anything you could say with regard to the mix in Q4, it looks like we'll see the margin rate step kind of back up above 13%. A fairly big revenue quarter. Based on your comments on LEAP, it seems like LEAP is growing pretty quickly. Just in terms of the ability to kind of see that uptick in the sequential margin, is there any kind of mix element to that you'd point out?

Russell Ford (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Seth. First of all, great quarter for engine services. If you look at excluding that prior period item and excluding the effect of the ramp, margins at ES actually accreted 70 basis points year over year in the quarter. Fantastic. In Q4, we're going to see better mix out of some of our platforms, primarily on the BizApp side and some of the military programs. LEAP is LEAP, and CFM56, both of those programs, as they grow, they're growing at 0% margins. That'll be the case until early 2026. We feel really good about those turning into positive margins in 2026 and then marching their way up the learning curve. Super excited about that. Quarter over quarter, we're going to see benefit in, like I said, some of the mix on some of our platforms in military and BizApp.

Seth Seifman (VP and Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Okay. Great. And then really just more of a clarification on the last part. I think you'd said earlier that you expect to see just about all of the $300-$400 impact of changes in contract terms in 2026, but also that they would feather in as inventory on those particular contracts and as your work on the existing contract winds down. Does that mean there's a stub that's left to affect 2027 revenue and margin?

Russell Ford (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah. Right. What happens is the cash impact does not come as fast as the revenue impact because I have got different turns on each of these engine platforms. They all turn differently. That is one. Two, I have got to burn down my current inventory on hand. You will see the cash impact begin in 2026 and get really strong in 2027.

Seth Seifman (VP and Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. But no more revenue and margin impact beyond 2026?

Russell Ford (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah. It's a great question. No, thanks for clearing that up. It is a one-time impact. You reset the level with these particular contracts to lower material pass-through, and then you're done. You go forward on a normalized run rate. You don't recreate that in your forward contract.

Seth Seifman (VP and Equity Research Analyst)

Right.

Russell Ford (Chairman and CEO)

The margin, of course, the margin benefit is ongoing.

Seth Seifman (VP and Equity Research Analyst)

Right. Yeah.

Russell Ford (Chairman and CEO)

Reset.

Seth Seifman (VP and Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Great. Thank you very much.

Russell Ford (Chairman and CEO)

Thanks, Seth.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Sheila Kahyaoglu with Jefferies. Please proceed.

Sheila Kahyaoglu (Managing Director in Equity Research)

Good afternoon, guys, and thank you for the time. Maybe if we could talk about business aviation. It just drove some of the guidance revenue increase across end markets. How do we think about what surprised to the upside? How much of the HTF 7000 capacity is now at full run rate? And how do you think about the growth of that business going forward in 2026?

Russell Ford (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah. Thanks, Sheila. We're actually quite excited about that particular end market. If you look at flight hours for BizAv, they continue to increase. If you look at the concentration of where those flying hours are, they're in the larger aircraft, which is where we're at on many of the engines that we work on, in particular the HTF 7000, where we've got the best possible position as being the worldwide independent holder of that license along with Honeywell. We're seeing those aircraft platforms are just as fast as they can be built, and the flying hours are continuing to go up. That's why we saw that coming. We've experienced that over the last couple of years as the embedded base for the HTF 7000 continues to grow.

That is why we made the investment development program with the state of Georgia and the Economic Development Council to expand the facility there in Augusta, where our HTF 7000 engine shop is at, primary one. We opened that new facility just a couple of months ago, and it is pretty much full already. It has allowed us to take on more aircraft and bigger aircraft, which generally have bigger work scopes, as well as more of those HTF 7000 engines. This engine is going to be the predominant BizAdd engine that you are going to see in the market for the next 20 or 30 years. We are excited that we are on the front end of this thing. We have moved quickly. We have a really strong, unique, exclusive position on this program. Overall, our business aviation group is out in front of this.

The relationships we have with our customers are excellent. We're able to bring in new customers on the larger aircraft, like Gulfstream-class aircraft, that we really just had limited access to before because of the facilities. Now that we've opened up that additional capacity, it gives us access to the fastest-growing portion of that end market. Just to clarify, we were just down in the Augusta facility a couple of weeks ago. The airframe shop is full, right? It's full of these super mid-sized jets. The engine shop is ramping, right? That's what's going to provide the strong revenue growth in 2026 and beyond, is the engine shop ramping up. There's a lot of pent-up demand there that we're now going to be able to fully take advantage of.

Sheila Kahyaoglu (Managing Director in Equity Research)

Can I just ask one more follow-up on the cash flow? Is that possible? Just to better understand the contract adjustment. Why would an airline engine OEM agree to this change? How does that pass-through change work, I guess, and impact the free cash flow?

Russell Ford (Chairman and CEO)

Sure. It is really no difference, if not some advantage to the operator, right? The operator today purchases the material from the OE through StandardAero with a small handling fee. We talked about that before, right? Low single-digit margins on this. That will go away, that incremental profit that I am getting. They will work directly with the OE, which really for the end customer is no change to a positive impact for them. It has not been, it is a long negotiation, but it is value accretive to the end customer, for sure.

Got it. Thank you.

Thanks, Sheila.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jordan Lyonnais with Bank of America. Please proceed.

Jordan J. Lyonnais (Research Analyst)

Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question. I wanted to just touch on the M&A pipeline. I know you guys have said it's robust. Where are you looking to supplement the portfolio now, and what are you seeing for valuations?

Alex Trapp (Chief Strategy Officer)

Yeah. This is Alex, by the way. Same as in past quarters where there's a lot out there, and we're evaluating everything we see and just waiting for the right one to jump on. No change, really. There continues to be quite a few things out there. It's just a very fragmented industry with a lot of different opportunities, and not everyone is a perfect fit.

Jordan J. Lyonnais (Research Analyst)

Got it. Thank you.

Alex Trapp (Chief Strategy Officer)

Thanks, Jordan.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'd like to pass the call back over to Russell for any closing remarks.

Russell Ford (Chairman and CEO)

Thanks, Alicia. I appreciate everybody's continued support. We're real happy with the progress. Looking forward to a strong full year here and real happy to be part of your public market coverage. StandardAero will continue to deliver as promised. Thanks, everyone. Appreciate your continued support. That is all.

Operator (participant)

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