American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:AXL) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

James Picariello: Just as a follow-on to the last question, just taking a step back and looking at by segment, thinking about most of nearly all of the R&D investments taking place in the Driveline segment, what is really €“ what are the driving forces that challenges in the metal forming segment? And does this fourth quarter represent the bottom, right? I mean because we’ve seen some pretty notable sequential refines from an EBITDA perspective. Does the fourth quarter mark the bottom for metal forming? And if not, just time line on that? And when does this get better? When does this get better for this segment?

David Dauch: Yes, James, this is David. Yes, we do expect the fourth quarter this past year to be the bottom. Clearly, the big issue we’re battling is labor availability in our metal forming area. We’re working hard to stabilize that and also bring automation into those factories. But clearly, it’s a heavy fixed cost business. We need volume running across it. We clearly run a lot better when we have the incremental volume going across that. At the same time with scheduled volatility, you can’t lay off people. So therefore, there’s an incremental cost, the same 10 new people that we’re bringing in don’t have that experience level and we’re incurring some incremental overtime and scrap that we historically haven’t endured. But we do think the fourth quarter was the bottom of the metal form performance. We’ll start seeing some improvement to that quarter-to-quarter going forward.

Christopher May: And James, this is Chris. One other point I would add. You mentioned that regretfully, so that the R&D is disproportionate on the Driveline segment of our business. What I would tell you, at least from an inflation standpoint perspective, utilities, costs and metal market impacts are overweight to the metal forming side of the business. So you see some of that on their margin pressure, and you saw that sort of play out through the course of 2022, as those cost elements moved around, and you saw inflation for utility, in particular in Europe, which is where they have a large concentration of businesses.

James Picariello: Got it. Understood. That’s helpful. And then just one on interest expense. What’s driving the higher interest expense? Is it €“ was it the refi that took place in the fourth quarter just carrying a higher interest rate? Or should we assume you’re carrying some more short-term related debt on the balance sheet?

David Dauch: Yes. I would tell you, it’s a composition of three elements. First, we actually are €“ although it’s hard to see, receiving some benefits from our continued debt pay down. But the two elements driving the net cost up would be, one, when we refinanced our Term Loan B, the spread on that was up 125 basis points versus the Term Loan B that was originally put back in place in 2017. And secondly, as you know, this is a variable rate debt instrument. So it’s effectively sulfur plus the spread and sulfur is now, what, 3x or 4x what it was a year ago. So that’s really driving a piece of that. A good chunk of this we have hedged, but holistically, the rates are up on the variable debt instrument.

James Picariello: Understood. Thank you.

Operator: And ladies and gentlemen, our final question today will come from Ryan Brinkman from JPMorgan. Please go ahead with your question.

Ryan Brinkman: Hi. Thanks for taking my question.

David Dauch: Good morning, Ryan.