Lear Corporation (NYSE:LEA) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Page 4 of 10

Operator: Our next question comes from John Murphy from Bank of America. Please go ahead with your question.

John Murphy: One real quick on the balance sheet first on slide 17, I mean you’re showing you have tons of liquidity and room to work with. I’m just curious what you think of as sort of your leverage targets, and how much room you might have to either buyback shares or get more aggressive on accretive acquisitions over time. It just seems like you have a lot of room.

Jason Cardew: Yes. I would agree with that, especially as earnings continue to recover over time. Our target leverage ratio of 1.5 times EBITDA, I think is — will give us some additional room to lever up if we saw — found necessary to do so. I would say in the near-term, John, our focus is really on free cash flow generation, returning excess cash to shareholders through share repurchases and the dividend. There isn’t anything big on the near-term horizon that we see as necessary or really attractive. And so if we’re going to do anything on the M&A side. I think it’s going to be more along the lines of what you’ve seen us do over the last couple of years more tightened…

Ray Scott: I think just the tuck-in acquisitions that we have done historically and more recently and they produce great results. I think when we think about the Industry 4.0 and the acquisitions we made there to really turn our business around and the operational efficiency in really driving our costs within our facilities exceeded our expectations. The Kongsberg acquisition, it’s amazing with our customers, the type of momentum we’re getting it within the thermal comfort management system. So the IGP, which is still, we still have to close that one out. It’s going to only continue to help our position as the leader in vertically-integrated components within seats, but more importantly around the technology of the seat as we move forward.

And the new contracts, we’ve been awarded, do give us the sourcing control, so we can organically what we’re investing in is the ability to create those modular systems that integrate the components, a bag and a blower that just blows cold and hot air into trim cover and foam that’s very unique to Lear Corporation. And so those type of investments are paying dividends. And the investment within connection systems like we saw with Intercell Connect Board, the electronic components that we’re vertically integrating with M&N having that bus par capability is very unique and the over molding capabilities in our connection systems is really making the difference on how we can continue to drive down costs in our own product, but also the improvements within manufacturing.

So, we like the position we’re in, we like what we’ve been doing, its been very successful and there really isn’t anything on the horizon that I would say is a major acquisition, I think of two smaller tuck-in acquisitions to continue to drive our strategy forward and position Lear for the success that we’ve seen. And I’d say and I think through the investment that we’re making with this very unique, I think first ever in the market, changeover on the seat business that we’re awarded late last year into this year, there’s a lot more opportunities we’re seeing in front of us. And so we see investment. We’re only going to invest in products that get us good returns and so we’re not buying business. This is a very unique program in seating that we’re awarded.

Page 4 of 10