TPI Composites - Earnings Call - Q4 2019
February 27, 2020
Transcript
Speaker 0
Good afternoon and welcome to TPI Composites Fourth Quarter and Full Year twenty nineteen Earnings Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded and we have allocated one hour for prepared remarks and Q and A. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Christian Eden, Investor Relations for TPI Composites. Thank you. You may begin.
Speaker 1
Thank you, operator. I'd like to welcome everyone to TPI Composites fourth quarter and full year twenty nineteen earnings call. We will be making forward looking statements during this call based on current expectations and assumptions, which are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from our forward looking statements if any of our key assumptions are incorrect because of other factors discussed in today's earnings news release and the comments made during this conference call or in our annual report on Form 10 ks that we will file with the Securities and Exchange Commission or in our latest reports and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, each of which can be found on our website, www.tpicomposites.com. We do not undertake any duty to update any forward looking statements.
Today's presentation also includes references to non GAAP financial measures. You should refer to the information contained in the slides accompanying today's presentation for definitional information and reconciliations of historical non GAAP measures to comparable GAAP financial measures. With that, let me turn the
Speaker 2
call over to Steve Lockhart, DCI Composites' CEO. Thanks, Christian. Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining our call. In addition to Christian, I'm joined today by Bill Siwic, our President and Brian Shoemaker, our CFO.
On this call, Bill and I will provide a summary of the year and comment on our path forward. Brian will then review our financial results in detail, and then we'll open up the call for Q and A. Please turn to Slide five. We delivered very good results in the fourth quarter with adjusted EBITDA of $31,800,000 a 226% increase over 2018 and net sales of $422,000,000 a 46% increase over 2018. For the full year, we delivered adjusted EBITDA of $81,900,000 a 20% increase over 2018 and net sales of $1,400,000,000 a 40% increase over 2018.
We ended the year with cash of $70,000,000 and net debt of $72,000,000 and total liquidity of $167,000,000 including the additional debt capacity added yesterday with the exercise of the accordion feature under our senior credit facility. We have 52 Windblade lines currently under contract in world class locations around the world, representing 15 gigawatts of dedicated capacity and will have total capacity under route for 18 gigawatts with the completion of our new Chennai, India facility during 2020. With anticipated blade model transitions along with startups over the next several years, we are planning to run at an 80% annual utilization rate to produce about 15 gigawatts of blades per achieve our long term target of $2,000,000,000 of annual wind revenue and double digit adjusted EBITDA. With an estimated average of 75 gigawatts of on and offshore wind installed each year through 2028, we expect to have about 20% global market share in the coming years. Our pipeline remains strong with the potential to add onshore lines as well as offshore lines once the offshore volumes reach levels to provide critical mass for efficient outsourcing.
During 2019, we grew our global market share to approximately 18%. We stabilized our operations globally including our new plants in Matamoros, Mexico and Yangzhou, China. Our new plants in Chennai, India began operations earlier this year and we fully expect that all the additional effort put into the startup planning and team building during 2019 will result in one of our best startups ever. We are pleased to be serving Vestas from each of these new TBI locations and growing our business with them. We executed a joint development agreement with GE to cooperatively develop advanced blade technology for future wind turbines.
We signed an agreement with Nordex to transition multiple lines in Turkey to longer blades and extended our contract with them through 2022. We acquired the former Euros team based in Berlin that's focused on blade design, tooling, materials and process technology development, strengthening our technical capabilities in support of our global operations and growth. We executed our transitions very well with ramp times better than planned and overall cost less than budget. We executed an agreement with Workhorse to develop and produce a prototype chassis and cap structure for a purpose built electric delivery vehicle and continue to gain ground on our target of $500,000,000 of annual diversified market revenue over time. We added key members to our senior leadership team to add depth and breadth in both wind and diversified markets as well as to spearhead our global service and recycling initiatives.
And we continue to evolve our Board of Directors, adding global automotive experience, independence and diversity. We plan to continue this process in 2020. We continue to remain focused on building long term sustainable value by capitalizing on two major macros decarbonizing the electric sector and electrifying the vehicle fleet, trends driven more and more by economics, what customers want to buy, what investors want to invest in and the need to positively affect climate change. Now I'll turn the call over to Bill to provide a more detailed business and market update. Bill?
Thanks, Steve. I'd like to first
Speaker 3
give a brief update on the global and U. S. Wind markets. Please turn to Slide six. We continue to be pleased with the growth of wind energy as a cost effective and reliable source of clean electricity as we and the industry continue to drive down levelized cost of energy while consumers and corporate customers increase the demand for renewable energy.
We see the future of low electricity growth as a strong combination of cost effective and reliable wind, solar, storage and transmission. The U. S. Wind market remains strong and we believe it will continue through the decade driven by consumer and industrial demand and decarbonization goals set by state, cities and utilities. The additional year added to the PTC will also likely be a net positive for the wind market over the next four to five years.
I'd now like to update the comments I made at our Investor Day regarding the coronavirus or COVID-nineteen. Although we cannot predict the full impact of COVID-nineteen on other businesses or global economies, we have a better picture today than we did three weeks ago of how this may impact our plants and our results in 2020. Our plants in China have now all reopened and we are in the process of ramping up production to normal speed as our associates return and complete quarantine requirements. Our supply chain gets back to full production and logistics challenges get resolved. Clearly, our Q1 results in China will be impacted negatively, but we do have plans in place to recover most if not all the volume we expect to lose in Q1 from the temporary shutdowns.
We also can increase production at our non China facilities to fill some of the gap, another example of why our global footprint is such a differentiator. Our initial estimates of the impact based on what we know today is that the first quarter revenue will be down by approximately $45,000,000 and adjusted EBITDA will be impacted by approximately $15,000,000 For the full year, we expect to make up most, if not all the revenue. And although the ultimate impact on adjusted EBITDA could be as much as $10,000,000 we're working with our customers and suppliers to mitigate this as much as possible. Therefore, we are not adjusting our 2020 guidance. Brian will share more details on the financial impact in a bit.
The overall wind market demand and the impact of COVID-nineteen on the global wind market supply chain will continue to create some challenges for us during 2020. However, our global supply team continues to do an excellent job of securing critical raw materials through alternative suppliers and or locations and the execution of our strategy of regional localization and long term supply agreements to ensure a consistent supply of key raw materials. With respect to the supply chain in China, most of our key suppliers are backed up in producing and logistics challenges have begun to abate. So as of today, we don't anticipate any material issues in China or other locations as a result of COVID-nineteen. Moving on to Q4 performance.
We completed the initial startup of lines in our facility in Yangzhou, China in 2019 and we believe that we are well positioned entering 2020 to execute operationally, drive improved profitability and fill out the rest of the facility's capacity with new lines. We will have two lines in startup during the first half of the year to meet the increased demand from one of our customers and notwithstanding the impact of COVID-nineteen based on what we know today, we believe we will make up most if not all of the volume we lost during the first quarter while our plants were temporarily shut down. We also worked through our startup challenges including a two week strike in Matamoros, Mexico during 2019 and we entered 2020 with a more stable labor situation and we recently finalized the 2020 wage negotiations with our union five weeks early without any disruption to our operations or work stoppages. Although we will have a few transitions in this facility during 2020, we believe we are well positioned to significantly improve the overall operating results for this location in 2020 while meeting or exceeding the delayed demands of our customer. Construction of our new facility near Chennai, India is nearly complete and it is on time and under budget.
The initial mold is in place and we are in the startup phase as we speak. We've built a very strong management team and team of associates more than 25 of whom have previous blade manufacturing experience with the balance having strong automotive and industrial experience. We are confident that this will be one of our best executed startups and we're looking forward to adding additional lines to this facility soon. With the addition of our Yangzhou, Matamoros and Chennai plants, we have added nearly 2,400,000 square feet and nine gigawatts of manufacturing capacity over the last eighteen months. Turning to Slide seven, we now have a total potential contract value of up to approximately $5,200,000,000 through 2023 and the minimum guaranteed volume under our supply agreements is $2,800,000,000 The potential and minimum contract values do not include the two lines in China that will be operating under a short term contract in 2020 nor does it include the impact from most of the anticipated new larger blade models that we will produce after the 2020 transitions.
Moving on to Slide eight, as our global capacity is nearing our targeted levels of 18 gigawatts, our primary focus is now turned to operational excellence to drive safety, quality, throughput and cost reductions to accelerate margin expansion and free cash flow. Our operating imperatives include turning speed into a competitive advantage, cutting transition times in half and significantly reducing startup times, advancing our composite technology to enable operational improvement and over time better recyclability of blades, partnering even more deeply with our customers on tooling, blade design, design for manufacturability and service, reaching a better balance with our customers on transition economics, which will provide the incentive to make transitions more efficient and cost effective for us and our customers, continuing to leverage our global and regional scale to drive down raw material costs, expand material capacity and in turn maximize our opportunity for continuity of supply of critical raw materials continuing to build, develop and retain our team to enable world class execution, and finally continuing to drive our ESG vision because it's not only the right thing to do, but it will drive business performance. So we are excited to be publishing our first ESG report this March and you will see for the first time that we are a long way down the ESG path and have operationalized most of what you will see some time ago, but just haven't reported it publicly until now.
We remain confident and committed to our overall business model and strategy. The fundamentals of our business remain strong, wind markets around the globe continue to grow at an attractive pace, the trend of wind blade outsourcing is continuing and our customers and potential customers are demanding increasing quantities of blades to serve many fast growing emerging markets in a very strong U. S. Market. Along with our customers, we will continue to invest in existing line transitions and new line start ups.
Our mature operations continue to perform at or above our expectations, which gives us confidence in our ability to generate the profit levels we expect. With that, let me turn the call over to Brian.
Speaker 4
Thanks, Bill. Please refer to Slides 10 through 12. Net sales for the three months ended December 3139 increased by $132,000,000 or 45.5% to $422,100,000 compared to $290,100,000 in the same period in 2018. Net sales of wind blades increased by 54.3% to 397,800,000 for the three months ended December 3139 as compared to $257,800,000 in the same period in 2018. The increase was primarily driven by a 41% increase in the number of wind blades produced year over year, largely as a result of increased production at our new plants in Mexico, China, along with the increased production in Turkey.
The impact of the currency movement on the consolidated net sales for the quarter was a net decrease of 0.8% as compared to 2018. Gross profit for the quarter totaled $30,800,000 an increase of $18,200,000 over the same period of 2018, and our gross profit margin increased to 7.3%. Our general and administrative expenses for the quarter were $12,100,000 or 2.9% of net sales as compared to $11,600,000 in the
Speaker 2
same period of 2018
Speaker 4
or 4% of net sales. Before share based compensation, G and A as a percentage of net sales was two point six percent and three point seven percent in 2019 and 2018 respectively. Our provision for income taxes for the quarter was $8,400,000 as compared to a provision of $3,300,000 for the same period in 2018. The change was primarily due to GILTI associated with the jurisdictional earnings mix in the quarter as compared to the same period in 2018. The net loss for the quarter was $900,000 as compared to net loss of $8,800,000 in the same period in 2018.
This decrease was primarily due to the operating results discussed above. Diluted loss per share was $02 for the quarter compared to a loss per share of $0.26 in the same period in 2018. Adjusted EBITDA increased to 31,800,000 compared to $9,800,000 during the same period in 2018. Our adjusted EBITDA margin for the quarter was 7.5%, up from 3.4% in the 2018. The increase in margin percentage of four ten basis points was primarily driven by the decrease of start and transition activities.
For the full year of 2019, net sales for the year increased by $406,900,000 or 39.5% to $1,440,000,000
Speaker 2
compared to $1,030,000,000 in 2018.
Speaker 4
Net sales of wind blades increased by 42.4% to $1,300,000,000 in 2019 from $900,000,000 in 2018. The increase was primarily driven by 31% more wind blades produced in 2019 as compared to 2018 and an increase in average selling prices due to the mix of wind blade models produced during 2019 compared to 2018. Gross profit for the year totaled $77,800,000 up from $72,800,000 in the same period of 2018 and our gross profit margin decreased to 5.4% from 7.1%. The decrease in the gross margin percentage was primarily driven by the extended challenges at our Newton, Iowa transportation facility, significant underutilization of labor in Matamoros, Mexico due to the strike, partially offset by a decrease in start up and transition costs. General and administrative expense for 2019 totaled $39,900,000 or 2.8% of net sales compared to $43,500,000 or 4.2% of net sales for 2018.
The decrease as a percentage of net sales was primarily driven by lower incentive compensation and a reduction in the performance assumptions related to certain of our share based compensation plans. Our provision for income taxes was 23,100,000 for for the year ended December 3139 as compared to a benefit of $3,000,000 for the same period in 2018. The increase in taxes was primarily due to changes in valuation allowances and to extent the impact of GILTI based on the earnings mix by jurisdiction in the year ended December 3139 as compared to the same period in 2018. Net
Speaker 3
loss for
Speaker 4
the year was $15,700,000 as compared to net income of $5,300,000 in the same period in 2018. The above decrease was primarily due to the reasons set forth above. The net loss per share was $0.45 for 2019 compared to diluted income per share of $0.15 for 2018. Adjusted EBITDA increased to $81,900,000 or a margin of 5.7% in 2019 from $68,200,000 and a margin of 6.6% in 2018. The decrease of 90 basis points was primarily driven by our $13,000,000 increase in investment in transportation business in 2019 as compared to 2018 and the underutilization in Matamoros, Mexico noted above.
Moving to Slide 12. We ended the year with $70,300,000 of cash and cash equivalents, total debt outstanding of $142,100,000 and net debt of $71,800,000 compared to net debt of $51,300,000 at September 3039. For the quarter, we had a net use of cash from operating activities of $5,700,000 while spending $15,300,000 on CapEx resulting in negative free cash flow for the quarter of $21,000,000 For the year, we had negative free cash flow of $17,300,000 after spending $74,400,000 on CapEx. Our balance sheet remains strong and we continue to demonstrate the ability to fund our growth primarily with cash generated from our operations and the availability we have under our line of credit facility. The announcement that we have exercised the accordion feature on our revolver gives us the optionality for working capital and future CapEx.
Please turn to Slide 14. As Bill noted earlier, we continue to monitor the impact of COVID-nineteen on our operations. Based on what we know today, COVID-nineteen will negatively impact Q1 revenue by approximately $45,000,000 and adjusted EBITDA by approximately $15,000,000 For the year, we expect to recover approximately 95% of the revenue and adjusted EBITDA could be impacted by up to 10,000,000 Due to the impact of the COVID-nineteen, we believe Q1 adjusted EBITDA will be slightly negative. For the full year of 2020, we are maintaining our previously provided guidance. We expect 2020 net sales of between $1,550,000,000 and $1,650,000,000 adjusted EBITDA of between $100,000,000 and $125,000,000 utilization of between 80% to 85% wind blade set capacity of 4,380 average sales price per blade of between $140,000 and $145,000 non blade sales of between $75,000,000 and 100,000,000 capital expenditures to be between $80,000,000 and $90,000,000 approximately 50% of the CapEx purchases will be incurred in Q1 start up costs of between $17,000,000 and 20,000,000 Due to the impact of the COVID-nineteen and the cash outflow associated with CapEx, we expect negative free cash flow of $30,000,000 in Q1.
For the year, we still expect to be free cash flow positive.
Speaker 2
With that, I will turn it back over to Steve to wrap up and then we will take your questions. Steve? Thanks, Brian. Our overall mission remains unchanged, establishing 18 gigawatts of global wind blade capacity over the next few years to drive $2,000,000,000 of annual wind revenue along with $500,000,000 of annual transportation revenue and achieve double digit adjusted EBITDA levels. With an estimated 75 gigawatt global combined onshore and offshore wind market, we expect to have approximately 20% digit global market share.
We plan to continue to drive for more speed during transitions, leverage our global scale for operating and buying efficiencies to continue to drive down cost, all while maintaining a strong and conservative balance sheet. I want to thank all of our dedicated TPI associates for their commitment to our mission to decarbonize and electrify. We remain very confident in our multiyear game plan and we'll stay that course. Thank you again for your time today. And with that, operator, please open the line for questions.
Speaker 0
Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. Our first question comes from Eric Stine with Craig Hallum. Please go ahead.
Speaker 3
Hi, everyone. Eric.
Speaker 1
Hey, just wondering if you
Speaker 5
can talk a little bit about the confidence you have in making up the revenue and EBITDA that you've called out for COVID-nineteen. I'm just curious, it sounds like in part it's because your operations are slowly getting back up and running, but curious how it kind of breaks down between that and your confidence in other locations being able to make up for those lost volumes?
Speaker 3
Yes, Eric. This is Bill and then I'll turn it over to Brian. So the answer to your question is our plants are all open again. We're in the process of ramping them up. We're a little ahead of schedule, which is good.
Obviously, taking utmost care of our associates to make sure that they're protected and we're following the proper health, recommended health procedures and what have you. But with all that said, supply chain is opening back up as well. Most of them, if not all, are back in production. Like us, they're ramping up through as we're bringing employees back from their hometowns and getting them through the quarantine. So yes, we're ramping back up and we're not only confident in the balance of the year, I'll let Brian comment on the rev and the EBITDA, but we do have the opportunity as I mentioned with our other plants to overdrive a bit of capacity there to make up any shortfall we may ultimately have.
Brian, do you want to comment on that?
Speaker 4
Yes. As we work closely with the teams, we feel good as they work with the customers to utilize all of our other plants and the current platform that we have on the revenue side. So we feel confident we'll make that up. And then on the net income and adjusted EBITDA side, we see basically we're able to utilize and find upside in other sites or other areas as we talked about before with our cost out initiatives in other directions. That's why we're able to keep our guidance the same.
Speaker 5
Okay. And maybe just a good segue, I know thinking back to early twenty nineteen in Mexico and the disruption there and hoping to make that up and there were certain raw materials that got in the way of that. Maybe just talk a little bit about some of the initiatives and success you're having in the bill of materials, localizing supply and those sorts of things.
Speaker 3
Yes. So we're continuing to work not only on the localization, but just on making sure, number one, we are better coordinated with our customers and what their needs and demands are for the full year and then going out and securing that capacity. So there's a number of different initiatives on the supply chain that we've taken. Our supply chain team has done a great job of securing the volume of capacity we need for 2020 as well as working with our customers on that collaboration. So there are still some challenges.
Core remains to be a bit of challenge from a supply standpoint. But we feel confident that we've got our what we need for 2020. I don't really see any other major issues. Again, it's just to be clear on the COVID-nineteen stuff, I mean, we are very confident in where we are at today given what we know in China and our plants around the globe. As the virus potentially spreads, the impact that may have on shipping or borders being closed in other locations, we can't predict what that may or may not do.
Again, we're pretty confident in the supply chain and what we've got in place for 2020 and beyond.
Speaker 5
Yes. Okay. Maybe just last thing for me just to clarify. Did you say Q1 to expect negative adjusted EBITDA?
Speaker 4
Yes. That's correct.
Speaker 5
Okay. Thanks a lot.
Speaker 3
Thanks, Eric. Thanks, Eric.
Speaker 0
Our next question comes from Paul Coster with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Speaker 6
Yes. Thanks for taking my questions, Steve and Bill and team. So you've talked about supply and your own workforce. Can you talk a little bit about your OEMs and what the nature of the dialogue is with them and to what extent you think they've got a handle around COVID-nineteen? Because obviously, would be a factor outside of your control that might weigh on 2Q and beyond.
Speaker 2
Yes. Paul, it's it's Steve. Thanks. Paul, we can't really comment on specifics around our customers. I think in general and what you know is there's a lot of demand in calendar twenty twenty in the North American market and in other markets.
So there's going to be a lot of scrambling industry wide to serve as much of that demand as we all can. Beyond that in terms of their specifics, we're not really in a position to speak for them. But as Bill said, we're comfortable with what we control in our pieces of this, and that's what we can affect.
Speaker 6
Okay. And then in terms of the catch up that presumably happens almost immediately in the second quarter, can you just talk us through what that actually means? Are you going to be sort of working 20 fourseven for a period? Or how are you going get more from your available capacity?
Speaker 3
Yes, Paul, we work 20 fourseven all the time. So it's not quite as simple as that. But with that said, it's different schedules on scheduled holidays, those change. So we've worked the production plan to try to meet the needs of our customers. So and some of it quite frankly is in conjunction with our customers.
We might push out some of these changes that we were anticipating later in the year, push them into 2021 so we can maximize the volume for them in 2020. So it's a combination of different things. Unfortunately, it won't happen just in Q2 just because of the nature of our manufacturing process. It will happen throughout the year. But see we the opportunity to make up most, if not all, of the volume that we were talking about.
And in some of our sites, we'll go beyond what our original expectations were. So that's why we're confident in making up the volume.
Speaker 2
And Paul, just to add real quick, if I could. You've seen us continue to drive cycle times down even though blades are getting larger. We're continuing to do that. So whenever we do that, we create additional capacity kind of quarter by quarter as we go through the year. So as Bill used the word overdrive, and that's part of the way for you all to think about it that we're creating more capacity and we're probably going to be using more of that capacity through reductions in cycle time to help with the makeup throughout the year.
Speaker 6
Got it. And my last question really is on the sort of expedited costs here. I imagine that everyone's going to want to play catch up really fast and that means more trucks, more storage area for a period. Can you just comment upon those variables and whether or not you see any gating factors there?
Speaker 3
Yes. I think from our supplier standpoint, there will be some expediting costs. Again, as you guys know, we have shared cost agreements with our customers. So some of that will pass on others, maybe not as much. But as far as from our customers' standpoint, I think that's more of a discussion for them as it relates to transportation of the blades, etcetera, from our plants to their locations.
Speaker 6
Got it. Thank you.
Speaker 2
Thanks, Paul. Thanks, Paul.
Speaker 0
Our next question comes from Pavel Molchanov with Raymond James. Please go ahead.
Speaker 7
Yes. Thanks for taking the question. Just one more on the Q1 guidance. A year ago, we had the Sendion and the Matamoros disruption. Now it's the virus.
Do you expect revenue to be up or down compared to 2019?
Speaker 4
Yes. This is Brian. Yes, we still expect revenue to be up from 2019 based on the other plants in Matamoros and Yongeo all performing better this year. So that's
Speaker 7
Understood. Okay. And is the can you tell me what the mix of blade versus non blade was in Q4? And whether any of the 2020 guidance is still going to be the same in terms of the mix from what you talked about at the Analyst Day?
Speaker 4
Yes. As far as the split, we don't disclose that on a quarterly basis. Will have the revenue split on our financial when we release our K. It will be available on Monday. As far as the change in guidance on revenue and basically blade and non blade revenue, that has not changed since we provided guidance.
Speaker 7
Okay. Thank you very
Speaker 2
much. Thanks Pavel.
Speaker 0
Our next question comes from Jeff Osborne with Cowen and Company. Please go ahead.
Speaker 8
Yes. Good afternoon, guys. A couple of questions on my end. I think you mentioned that the pipeline was strong, but I didn't hear the figure of the number of lines in the pipeline. Is that something you could share with us?
Speaker 3
Yes, Jeff. As we talked about last year, we're transitioning from number of lines to gigawatts of what the pipeline is. So the pipeline remains strong. It hasn't changed significantly as far as numbers from what we've talked about in the past. But we're moving away from the line discussion and talking more about gigawatts of capacity, gigawatts under contract and utilization.
But it does remain strong and we're still actively working a number of pretty interesting opportunities.
Speaker 2
And Jeff, it's Steve. To add If to you think about big picture here, and I know we've repeated these numbers a few times, but we are basically finishing out Chennai. We'll have 18 gigawatts of floor space under roof. We have four more lines in China, four more lines in India yet to sell in order to turn that into 18 gigawatts under contract, call it. So 15 under contract, 18 under rooftop, if you will, eight more lines there to fill.
And then as we've said, we do expect over the next couple of years to slow the top line growth on a percentage basis to really it's time to harvest, right, and turn that into free cash flow. But there's more than adequate pipeline, to Bill's point, to fill out the eight lines and then just be really smart about how and where and when those additions get made. You can see with tariffs in China from last year and now with COVID-nineteen, you can imagine there's a bit of a delay around exactly how quickly some of the line conversions in China might be made. And as we've said before, there are both onshore and offshore lines in the pipeline. So moving to the gigawatt utilization is a big picture move.
It doesn't change just as Bill said, it doesn't change the overall demand profile for us to accomplish what we've told you.
Speaker 8
That's helpful. And maybe just a follow-up on the offshore discussion. I was always under the impression that you would maybe elect to put the offshore in Matamoros, but it sounds like is that facility fully occupied? Or is there any potential to have offshore there relative to China where you have the four lines?
Speaker 2
Yes. The current Matamoros facility is fully occupied. You could imagine and I think we've shared before that for us to think about the best sites for offshore blade production are likely to be locations where we already exist or nearby, where we've got immediate water access, where we can ship blades all over the world. So low cost hubs could be Mexico, could be India, certainly could be Yangzhou, China. We have existing space on the water in Yangzhou.
We would have to build space in the other locations in order to be world class and cost competitive. And as we said in our prepared remarks, the real issue on offshore, there's a lot of interest in offshore, there's a lot of growth opportunity, there's a lot in the press. But getting that market to a point where it's big enough to really pull on a dedicated model like ours, that's what we're still working on. We've got to get the critical mass volumes up a little bit. And then to your point operate off one of our world class hubs one or more of our world class hubs to serve that market.
Speaker 8
Got it. That's helpful. I just had two other quick lines of questioning. So one, the coronavirus, you mentioned the 45% and the 15% of EBITDA. If I heard you right, you thought you could get 95% of the revenue back, but potentially only 5% of the EBITDA.
You said you could still lose 10%. Just trying to understand the decremental margins or the lack of the shared pain gain approach with that process? Or maybe I misheard the statistics you were trying to give?
Speaker 2
No, you heard it correct.
Speaker 4
I mean, we gave the guidance, the impact on Q1 would be $15,000,000 adjusted EBITDA and then for the year up to $10,000,000 Again, we're working closely with our customers. Some of that has to do with additional costs that we've incurred in Q1 to keep the labor force going and then some other costs for PP and E and other things that you move throughout the year just because of the safety of our associates at these facilities.
Speaker 8
Got it. That's helpful, Brian. And then the last one I had is just, is there I know it's early, but you highlight both at the Analyst Day and in today's deck that you want to use speed to your advantage. Is there any early indications either through the Senvion R and D team or other initiatives that increased cycle time is actually playing out and you're able to drive down that cost?
Speaker 3
Yes. So we've got some transitions going on right now in the first quarter. And as Adrian and Ramesh laid out at the Investor Day with the different phases of a transition, we're already tracking well ahead of what our baselines have been. So I think we're well on the way to the goal of 50% reduction this year, if not better. So the answer is early indications are that the planning we put in place and the new kind of approach to the transition is going to bear fruit.
Speaker 8
It's good to hear, Bill. Thank you.
Speaker 2
You bet. Thanks, Jeff. Thanks, Jeff.
Speaker 0
Our next question comes from Ethan Ellison with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Speaker 3
Hey guys. Two quick ones from me. If I'm not mistaken, I think there are nine manufacturing lines with GE with contracts that are expiring in 2020. Could you just talk or walk through the process of extending these contracts or backfilling them somehow?
Speaker 2
Yes, Ethan thanks. It's Steve. We do need to extend those contracts and that's obviously an important objective for this year. As you know, I think out of Iowa and Mexico those lines are serving primarily The U. S.
Market. Mexico serves perhaps 10% of the volume goes to Mexico, vast majority comes to The U. S. The U. S.
Market is strong. The competitiveness of particularly of Mexico serving extremely strong. So we're quite confident in being able to get that done. But you're right, it's an important objective for us in this timeframe.
Speaker 3
Okay, perfect. And then maybe just a follow-up on the transition activity and the ramp times that were trending better than you had expected or planned for. In the past, you've talked about this taking about six months. So just to clarify if we're seeing 50% improvement, are we expecting to see transitions take about three months by the end of the year? Yes.
So by the end of the year maybe. Again, a process. And like I said, results are looking very good.
Speaker 2
But yes, it depends on
Speaker 3
the nature of the transition Ethan. So can be three months, it can be six months, but I would expect both of those the low end and the high end to come back down a bit from that. So the answer is yes, we expect to see good results by the end of the year and throughout the year.
Speaker 5
Great. Thanks all.
Speaker 2
Thank you. Thanks Ethan.
Speaker 0
You. Would now like to turn the floor over to management for closing comments.
Speaker 2
Yes. So thanks all for joining our call today and for your continued interest We look forward to continuing to update you as we make progress. Thanks so much.
Speaker 0
This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and thank you for your participation.