Magna International Inc. (NYSE:MGA) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Swamy Kotagiri: Hi, good morning Chris, or good afternoon, as Pat said. I think we talked about the mix issue that issue that they have had in seating, right, that was disproportionately impacting us, and as the volumes are coming back and the mix is becoming more normalized than lopsided, we are starting to see those effects come through. But I also have to give a lot of credit to the seating team on how they’re being part of this overall initiative that we are looking at and starting to see the impact of that, whether it’s some of the digitization efforts, some of just block and tackle type things that we’re going through. We also talked about some of the wins in the truck segment in North America and some actual discussions on existing non-performing programs. It’s a combination of all of this that we are seeing the effect, just not today but I think we are very optimistic about what we could see in the coming years in seating.

Chris McNally: Okay, great. I’ll hold back on the ADAS and the radar questions. Look forward to the event in September. Thanks so much.

Swamy Kotagiri: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Mark Delaney with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your question.

Mark Delaney: Good morning. Thank you very much for taking my questions. I believe last year, Magna’s mega trend revenue was about a billion, and I think you guided it to approximately double this year and then to reach about $4 billion in 2025, excluding Veoneer Active Safety. Given some of the volatility that’s been happening with some of the EV plans from certain OEMs, I’m curious if you could give us an update about how you’re tracking in those mega trend areas relative to the prior targets.

Swamy Kotagiri: Good morning Mark. I would say to answer your question, looking at what we know today obviously in terms of take rates and so on and so forth, we are tracking to what we had talked about. You mentioned the numbers – it’s roughly about $4 billion in 2025, right, but as you said, it’s very early days of electrification. I think we all know that it’s a secular trend for sure, and it’s here to stay, but the real trick is in predicting the trajectory. That’s something that we all have to wait and see. We’re taking all the tools in the tool box to look at how can we have that flexibility and how can we pivot, how can we look at different programs and so on and so forth. But overall, whether it’s electrification or ADAS, I think we are tracking to the numbers that we talked about.

Mark Delaney: That’s helpful. Then in terms of the margin improvement opportunities, you talked a little bit around commercial negotiations already. Slide 9, though, mentions re-pricing underperforming programs as one of the margin opportunities, so I just wanted to understand that dynamic specifically if possible and to have a better sense of how broad-based these underperforming programs are. Is it isolated to a few or is that a wider initiative, and any color you can share on your progress and how likely you think it is that you’ll be able to restructure some of those programs? Thanks.

Swamy Kotagiri: Mark, I wouldn’t call it wider. It’s actually very, call it a granular look, which is a normal process. It’s very targeted, very granular, very deliberate. We are looking at programs as they come towards the end of a program, right, end of production cycle. There are some where there is replacement coming through, there are some line extensions that come through. We look at all of these opportunities, and sometimes it changes scope on the project. We are looking at everything out there to see how do we effectively re-price, get the economics to where they really need to, which meets our financial hurdles, and I can definitely say we have had success in some of these cases and some are still an ongoing discussion.

Mark Delaney: Thank you, I’ll turn it over.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Tom Narayan with RBC. Please proceed with your question.

Tom Narayan: Hi guys, thanks for taking the questions. First one is could you remind us what your D3 U.S. exposure is? Just asking, it may help us understand maybe how we should think about potential strike locations.

Louis Tonelli: I think I’m going to say, we’re probably 75%–in North America, we’re about 75% of our business in that area. We’ve disclosed that – I haven’t got that handy, but it’s in that range.

Tom Narayan: Okay, and any [indiscernible]–

Swamy Kotagiri: [Indiscernible] North American business.

Louis Tonelli: The North American business.