Adient plc (NYSE:ADNT) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Mark Oswald: Yes. I’ll start and then Jerome could jump in, but you’re absolutely right. Certain of that metals business that we are planning on rolling off in ’25, ’26 as our customers have expanded certain of their ICE programs. Clearly, they want us to continue to run those. And so we have to evaluate how long they want to run this. Obviously, there’ll be some commercial discussions with them, et cetera, and that’s what Jerome was talking about earlier. We have to go through the strategic plan now and understand what those levers are and what we want to do with that. And you’re absolutely right. There are certain parts of that business because we’ve been very strategic and very targeted over the past, call it, two or three years in terms of which business we wanted to win in metals and which ones added no value, right?

As we’ve gone through that process, we are now left with, what I’d call, a good chunk of that metals business that is very favorable for us to do things like the modularity that Jerome was talking about. Jerome?

Jerome Dorlack: Yes. Just building off of what Mark said, there is portion of that business in particular certain assembly sequences, if you can imagine on the cushion pan where to really drive modular assembly solutions that we’re putting into production this year, that real estate is proving to be extremely precious. And just based on how you have to route certain wire harnesses, occupant detection sensors and calibration sequences and fan routing and things like that, in order to really drive this modular assembly sequence and concept, you need that real estate and that real estate is proving to be very precious. What we’ve seen with certain customers, we have design authority and sourcing authority, we are really able to drive this concept and quickly accelerate it.

And it’s proven to be extremely beneficial to them and we’re seeing a rapid acceleration on that front. It is with those customers, our metals business is proving to be an asset and a real accelerator. That said, yes, there are going to be certain metals programs that we were anticipating to roll off, that are now lingering, that we need to again go back and revisit in either commercial agreements or certain of our footprints and really look at what impact does that have on our strategic plan.

Colin Langan: Got it. And then, just going back to the puts and takes within guidance. Just to be clear, are there any recoveries in guidance? It feels like most suppliers have been sort of expecting some level of recoveries. Is that driving some of the performance? And any update on commodities? I thought the initial guidance had $10 million of help or something like that? I think this quarter had almost $10 million of headwinds.

Mark Oswald: Yes. Absolutely, we are expecting recoveries included in the business performance is recoveries, commercial recoveries as we go through there. Now again, as I indicated during the prepared remarks, Colin, those are lumpy as we go through the different quarters. They tend to smooth out over the course of the year, but going from Q1, for example, into Q2 will be lumpy. You’ll get a little bit smoother as I go from H1 into H2. But there is just that element in there. From a commodities aspect, you’re right. There was about a $10 million benefit that we saw as we went into the fiscal year. As I looked at Q1 results, though, clearly timing of those recoveries versus the overall price, the gross price coming down. So again, I look at that as more timing related than anything else at this point.

Operator: Our next question comes from Joseph Spak with UBS.

Joseph Spak: Maybe just picking up there because, obviously, in North America, the results in the quarter, the margin it was really strong, even stronger ex strike closer to 6%. But it does seem like the timing of those recoveries did help a little bit. So, like, I guess, how much of that was sort of out of period or sort of unusual with the sort of lumpiness and what should we expect sort of that sequential maybe decline to occur? And then just more broadly, it sounds like there’s a bunch of moving parts in North America with the peso and the Kuiper JV benefit. I think previously you sort of hinted that the North American margin for the year, ex strike could show some expansion, but given the performance to date. Is that — could we even see expansion with the strike or is there really going to be some puts and takes that sort of knock that back down over the course of the year?

Mark Oswald: Clearly, there’s going to be timing with the commercial recoveries, right? So I wouldn’t take my Q1 and just kind of lay that out in terms of expectations for commercial recoveries, they could be lower in Q2, et cetera, as I indicated. We do expect margin expansion as we go through the year, year-on-year, even ex strike, Joe. And so, I do expect that is consistent with what our prior comments were around the margins.

Jerome Dorlack: Yes. And just a couple of comments on the Americas. And just the Americas business in general and really why, it’s a good example of — this business is really, I’d say difficult to run on a quarter-to-quarter basis. It’s one reason why we don’t really provide kind of quarter-to-quarter guidance anymore just because of that reason. Yes, we don’t want to drive kind of quarter-to-quarter behavior and there was a lot of lumpiness in that first quarter in the Americas, especially associated timing of some of the commercial recoveries that were out there. But really what’s key for us is when we look at the Americas or any one of our segments, we expect the Americas even with the strike impact to be expanding operating margins year-over-year driven by business performance within that segment and that’s what we expect to see there.