Cooper-Standard Holdings Inc. (CPS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Great. We're going to get going with the next presentation now. I think the webcast has begun. Once again, I'm Ryan Brinkman, U.S. automotive equity research analyst at JPMorgan. Very happy to have with us here today, Cooper Standard, including at the end, Jeffrey Edwards, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and next to me, Jonathan Banas, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Jeffrey, why don't I turn over to you for any introductory remarks, and we'll engage in a chat.

Thanks, Ryan, and I appreciate you having SRO tickets available for today. That's great. Welcome, everyone. Thank you for joining us. And I thought I'd start just with a brief summary of the company, assuming that most of you have read this in advance, but I'll go through it quickly, and then we'll get right into the Q&A because I know that's the part that everybody wants to do anyway. So as we look at our company like most in the automotive supply space that you've probably talked to this week, I mean, it's been a challenging period of probably 4 or 5 years, I guess, for all of us. We're so happy though, to be here today to be talking about what the next 4 or 5 years represent. And for us, it's not a projection anymore because we're actually doing it. And so I'll try to articulate what that means to the folks that come to work for Cooper Standard every day. And this is just our way of talking about how long we've been in this business. So 60-plus years as an automotive supplier. We get what is like to be laser-focused on return on invested capital and why that's important. It doesn't come without world-class plants, and we execute well every day. We have 30-some plants this year that operate with zero recordable incidents from a safety point of view of the 60-plus plants that we have. So we've operated at a world-class benchmark there for really the last decade. Value-add innovation. So while our customers like us, that's not enough. We think that bringing innovation to our product line has really kept us alive, frankly. And it's why our customers continue to give us a great business as we move forward. And then we've been at it real hard from a profit margin expansion. If you heard our most recent earnings call, you can see that we've made progress there, and we continue to project and guide to further margin expansion as we work our way through 2024. So for those of you that don't know, it's a pretty easy company to keep track of. We have sealing systems, then we have fluid handling systems. This vehicle shows you where our parts show up. The good news is that these are large global markets represented over $8 billion of revenue in each one of these spaces. We're the leading sealing company in the world today and #2 globally in fluid handling. So our customers respect us. We're in 21 countries. We have 21,000 employees that show up to work every day. We've also provided you a list across the bottom of some key competitors in each one of these product groups. But this past year, we went to a global P&L by sealing and by fluid handling. So it's a really easy company to take a look at and understand what our revenue is and where our cost base is and how we go to market. These are just some examples of that revenue split as we looked at 2023 projecting to be somewhere between $2.7 billion and $2.8 billion. You can see that a little over half of that is in North America. So the rest is around the world. customer base across the bottom, all names that you all would recognize Ford, General Motors, Stellantis, the 3 largest customers that we have today. So when we look at the strategic imperatives for us, there's only 4. There's not 10, there's not 2, there's 4. Everybody that shows up understands that the financial strength of the company is required if we want to be the best place to work. It's difficult to show up and be proud of where you work. If you don't have the financial strength. We are now moving towards double-digit EBITDA margins as we work our way into 2025. It's been a long track back to it. For those of you that have followed us in the past, you recognize that used to be a spot that we were pretty consistent performers over a lot of years and a lot of quarters. So we know how to do it. We're almost back there now. Next year, we'll return to double-digit EBITDA and double-digit ROIC is what we're projecting. World-class execution, this is really why the customers continue to come to us because they can trust us. We bring great innovation, but also the day-to-day isn't a challenge. We deliver our products and we have great quality, and our customers trust us. Profitable growth driven by innovation. I'll talk about that as we move forward on the slide. And then the final piece from a corporate responsibility point of view, whether you work inside the company or whether you pay attention to those that talk about how companies behave and being good corporate citizens, we're pretty proud of our track record there. We've published a corporate responsibility report for the last 7 years, I think. So that's available on our website. If you want to take a look at really describes who we are. I'm talking this morning more about what we do, but who we are is important to us. As we look at commitment to excellence, these are just some examples. You can see from a safety point of view, really, over the past 10, 12 years, this has been laser focused. It's kind of a condition of employment, especially if you remove the word, it's just how we think about our businesses and how we think about our plants. If people can't come to work and be physically and emotionally safe, then we're doing something wrong, and we're really proud of our record here and our employees are proud of it. And I always give a shout out to our plant managers around the world because 85% to 90% of the employees, we have 21,000 of them, 85% to 90% of those folks work for our plant managers. And so they show up 24/7 to make sure that all this stuff on this page happens. And I can't tell you how much we appreciate everything they do. And same with our engineering folks, the quality and the launch excellence starts with great product designs, working with our customers to ensure seamless execution. Those are the reasons why we're able to sit here today and talk about improving margins, improving pricing and having a bright future. Again, I mentioned being a good corporate citizen, a responsible company. We've been fortunate to garner a lot of recognition in the space. I can assure you when you are hiring today's employees, this is important. And so when you talk about the why behind it, it's because the best and the brightest typically want to work for companies that are recognized in this area, and we don't shy away from that. We run towards it, and we're pretty proud of the track record here. And again, this aligns with how we run the company. It aligns with what we measure inside the company. This isn't just a chart that hangs on the wall. It's really in the hearts and minds of all of our employees. These are just some examples within our sealing business. As you think about the evolution from ICE to hybrid to electric vehicles and whatever that powertrain journey is going to look like. It really provides Cooper Standard an opportunity in both of our product areas to push the envelope as it relates to styling, especially in enhanced performance and then improve sustainability. And so these are just 3 examples that we've given you today. And it's, again, the reason why our customers continue to come back to us. It's the reason they continue to allow us to negotiate price when we need it. And we've continued to invest in R&D. Obviously, we've never been more competitive from an overall cost point of view. But we don't believe in cost reducing ourselves to prosperity at the expense of eliminating what is really the lifeline of the company, which is the engineering and the R&D that supports what we're able to do in the marketplace. Next is, again, our fluid business. This, again, represents basically half the company or will going forward. We continue to do extremely well here because of the technology and because of the quality and the performance of our products. It helps take cost out of our customers' assembly plants. It helps improve the integrity of the fuel lines and the water lines that all of us as consumers have come to expect in the marketplace. But in addition, especially with hybrid and EV expansion, it's provided us an opportunity to really drive content per vehicle. And if you think about it with a hybrid vehicle, clearly, it requires a heating and cooling of 2 different systems. So naturally, that would be double the content for Cooper Standard. And then on the EV side, there's an opportunity for us to provide pumps and switches and coolant modules and how we route the tubing that allows our customers to trust us and to trust our folks to help them manage the overall fluid architecture of these vehicles. So within that scope, we continue to drive content up. We continue to improve market share in the overall profitability in this business and the ROIC in this business is actually better than our sealing business. It stands the reason. There's less capital requirement. It's more assembly, it's more about technology and it's more about the engineering of the overall system in the architecture. So great business for us, and we're really excited about this over the next several years as being a real growth engine and a profitable growth engine for our company. I mentioned quickly, this gives you some understanding. So we're telling you that if you just look at an ICE vehicle today, and then you replace that with a hybrid, our content per vehicle goes up 80% just with that powertrain shift. If you're talking about all the way to an electric vehicle, it still goes up 20% over what you have today with ICE. And because of the technology, our customers want us on more and more vehicles. So not only do you get the benefit of the content increase because of the technology, the customers are giving us more business. And this is the case, whether we're talking about China, Europe, North America, everywhere in the world. And most recently, we're doing a lot more business with the Chinese domestic automakers because they obviously want high-quality product. They want highly engineered product because of their propensity to start exporting these vehicles to North America, to Europe and to other regions. So that is a benefit for Cooper Standard. So it used to be a lot of joint venture Western business in China, more and more we're booking it with the Chinese domestics. And we think that's another indication of how much customers are loving our technology and how we deliver it. We've done a pretty good job of managing our way through things the last few years, if I may say that. These are just some examples for you here in terms of how we've driven cost savings and really showing up on the bottom line. We recently announced this particular reorganization that allowed us to go from really a global organization structure across all of our businesses to creating 2 P&Ls. So today, when we show up for work, we have a ceiling P&L, and we have a fluid P&L. And majority of our folks are assigned to one of those businesses or the other. And so down the left-hand side of the org chart, there's very few people inside those 2 businesses, house virtually all the folks within the organization. When we did that here in January, we knew that it would generate some opportunities to view the business differently, and it has. So we announced a restructuring program at the end of the first quarter, and that's expected to save an additional $20 million to $25 million all at the end of this year, another $40 million to $45 million of savings year-over-year for next year. And so when we look at that, it's just an example of how we continue to challenge ourselves in the type of environment that we're in to continue to do things differently, take advantage of the fact that we have terrific plants and terrific employees, and we need to make sure that we continue to support them with the best cost footprint that we can, and we're pretty excited about this. The run rate impact year-over-year is that $40 million to $45 million expected in '25. And at the end of the day, liquidity, liquidity, liquidity. In this space, everybody is talking about this and is challenged by it. We're fortunate as we've managed through this 4- or 5-year cycle here that our liquidity remains sufficient to support ongoing operations. And at the same time, we're starting to generate a lot more cash flow that's going to help us address this going forward. In the first quarter of '25, we also have an opportunity to refinance some of the interest that you see on this chart that we had to bring on to support operations during a very challenging time in terms of interest rates. And so we're hopeful we can refinance that here in the first quarter and maybe get those payments down and generate even more significant cash flow as a result. So with that, I will turn it back over to you, Ryan, and we can get into the Q&A.

I'll start with a couple of industry-related questions. First one is on the paging expectation. So for years, it seemed like we couldn't keep pace with the adoption curve. It was always growing more quickly than we thought. But now there's been a reversal with S&P Global Mobility predicting at the start of 2024 that global bev production will be up 32% this year, but currently only expecting 10% growth. What, in your view, accounts for this significant reset of expectations? And has the slower near-term growth caused you to think any differently about the medium or long-term trajectory? And what are the implications for Cooper Standard?

Well, as we sit here and as the presentation pointed out, whether it's ICE, hybrid or EV for us, it's still a compelling business model. In fact, I would argue that if hybrid becomes at least a much more important part of this journey from a powertrain point of view that we're now on versus what was discussed the last several years, that is a significant content per vehicle increase for Cooper Standard. I tend to not get out ahead of my blockers and talk about what's going on with my customers' portfolio choices, but several of them have announced recently that we will be hearing soon what their hybrid solutions are going to be for '26, '27 and beyond. So I think the numbers that you talked about are probably what is going to take place. In other words, a significant reset on the EV vehicles that are going to be produced and sold, a lot more hybrids than anyone thought are going to be sold and probably more ice than anyone has predicted, let's just call it, the last 3 or 4 years. So we are prepared to manage all of that. I mentioned that our company is supporting the Chinese automakers today that are primarily EV. We're producing parts, both fluid and sealing for virtually every EV that's every EV manufacturer that's out there. We're producing for every ICE manufacturer that's out there. So what I look forward to is getting back to an industry level of 100 million units or more, I really don't care what they are because for Cooper Standard, that additional volume across all 3 powertrains will equate to a really, really positive profitable growth story.

Second question relates to another big theme in the industry these days, which is the strong rise of domestic Chinese automakers. They were quick to embrace electrification, their quality and design, significantly improved. And because many of them are introducing models at twice the rate of global peers, their portfolios increasingly incorporate the latest innovations. 5 years ago, BYD was the 13th largest automaker in China. Now they're the biggest. I think together, they all accounted for about 35% of the market pre-COVID. Now they're 55%, maybe even 60% by the end of the year, I'd say. Still small outside China, but with big ambitions. How do you see this trend evolving inside and outside China. What is your exposure currently to Chinese OEMs? And can you describe any actions you might be taking to position the company to benefit from their growth?

You mentioned BYD. I'll mention Chevy. There are 2 customers that are leading growth customers. So we're doing a lot of business with them today in China because of their interest in our technology, both on the fluid as well as the ceiling side. They do have desire to manufacture or export outside of China. So they are telling us that as a global supplier, as a supplier that leads with technology and has great quality reputation, that's why we're booking business with them. So for us, going forward, there's no doubt that the Chinese domestic manufacturers are of a great interest to us. We're booking business with the 2 that I just mentioned, and I would expect that as they compete globally, that's just going to be even better news for Cooper Standard. And I'm really proud of the fact that we were competitive cost company in China. But the reason that they are coming to us is because of the quality and the technology that we continue to produce. And that's what they want in their vehicles that they plan on taking outside of China in the future. So I think it's good for the industry. I think it's good for the supply base. It's certainly good for us because we're very excited about all the growth and about the profitable growth, at least with those 2 companies that I mentioned.

And next question relates to the outlook for suppliers from the expected interplay of new vehicle prices and quantity demanded. We saw during the pandemic that automakers can do just find even great in a low volume, high price environment because while they're hurt by lower volumes, they're also helped by the higher price. Suppliers though, levered lower volume, not levered to the higher price. Vehicle sales in the U.S. remain 8% lower than before the pandemic hurt by prices that have outpaced CPI by 9 points. Automakers say they're going to remain disciplined, intend to hold on to those relative pricing gains. Others think that maybe they'll revert to previous habits of discounting and inventory build, et cetera. Maybe we're approaching a crossroad now with inventory reaching the pre-chip shortage levels? What do you think happens next with regard to price and then the implication for production for production as help suppliers? And if prices are structurally higher, does that mean that demand and production now structurally lower?

Yes. I think going forward, clearly, volumes are going to begin to tick up. I think obviously, we started this year thinking 16.1 million units was going to be the number here in North America, closer to 80 million units globally. Clearly, that has not happened. I suppose that's probably more EV related. I think right now, the forecast is for 15.8% in '24. But if you look at '25, '26 and '27, those volume projections are out there and they continue to tick up through the mid-16 million units for North America. I think that's just because typically, the people that predict those things never predict it until after it happens. It's kind of a good business to be in. And so I think that when you look at the age of the fleet, when you look at the overall health of the economy, you look at interest rates, hopefully, swinging back in the favor of those that needed to buy vehicles. I think those are all positive signs. I hope that next year, we get a significant bump over where we are today. One of the things we look at, to answer your question, is the incentives that are out there driving sales, and we track that because we believe that's a leading indicator for volume in all suppliers, I'm sure, printing T-shirts give us more volume. But at the end of the day, there are certain dynamics that are in play here for whatever reason that are holding it back. But I think all of the indicators to us suggest that volume is coming probably faster than what the folks that get paid to predict that are saying. And that's kind of my belief. I think it's pent up. I think there's a lot of reasons. The age of the fleet is a big one. The overall economic environment that we're in globally may be shifting to help us, hopefully, the geopolitical environment begins to improve. We all know what that is. And I think we're a lot closer to coming out of it than we were a year or 2 ago, is my opinion.

You recently announced you changed the management structure of the company from a regional basis to a product line basis. What drove that change? Are you seeing the expected results? And just before making the change in 2023, all 4 of your regions were profitable. If you were still reporting geographically would that be the case today?

I'll answer the last part first. Yes, we are profitable in all regions. That's taken 2 years of a lot of work in recovering costs and launching a new product that has margins that today you see are propelling us back towards the financial stability that we need and our customers need from us. So I'm really proud of that. That will continue. It's like anything else in business. I think you typically take a look at how you're running the company and how people think and how they view sightlines within the business, and we all look at that each year, and we reach a level where we think it should be a little bit different and people should be viewing things differently. And so I've just always believed that the best way to get at that is change the organization every couple of years or 3. And so that's what we did. And fortunately, we have the talent because it's usually one of the reasons that the companies don't do it as often, maybe as they used to because the talent shortage within businesses. But within Cooper Standard, our talent has never been stronger, has never been deeper and it allowed us to go to a P&L that really puts all the responsibility on those 2 presidents that run those businesses. So they have the ability to go in and negotiate deals with their customers, with their suppliers. They're running their engineering, they're running their manufacturing, they're completely in charge of everything associated with our P&L. And as a company, we were ready for that because we invested in all of the core functions, the previous 10 years of the business. So we build up an IT infrastructure. We have the way we're going to engineer the way we're going to manufacture those cook books, if you will, are all developed. And so it was time to just go run the business and run it the best way that those 2 folks could. And as a result, we came up with another $45 million of cost that we didn't need as an example. And when you look at the new business that we're launching this year, next year and the following year, the profitability improvement alone in how we're running the business and the price of the new product that's showing up gives us a level of confidence to sit here today and tell you we're going to be double-digit return on invested capital, and we're going to be double-digit EBITDA as we march our way through the next 6 to 12 months. This isn't a guess. This is what we know because our business is producing at those levels as we sit here.

It sounds like you're really trying to affect some operating performance improvements as a result of the reorganization there. Sometimes we do see our companies do this in order to aid in the severability of a certain product line. I was just wanted to ask if that factored into the thinking at all and the degree to which your different product lines might be manufactured in the same or different facilities?

Yes, it's a great question. Certainly, because we have the sealing business, we have the fluid business, and then we have our Industrial and Specialty Product Group. We basically have 3 businesses within the company, even though ISG is a much smaller P&L. We run those 3. For the most part, they are separate from a manufacturing plant, which was your other question. So the flexibility we have to grow it and to flow it is really positive, and that's what allowed us to go to the organization structure we have. As it relates to draconian measures or harvesting of businesses that aren't core, that is not what we're talking about here. We're very confident that the business model that we have, the cash flow we're going to start to generate as the volumes come back, will allow us to get the debt under control will allow us to get a deal when we refinance the debt here at the first quarter of '25, hopefully, that those things are going to continue to generate more cash for the company. I will say this, Ryan, that we do still have some noncore businesses embedded within each of those that we have the ability to harvest if we want, and we have a philosophy that if you have noncore business, the best time to harvest them is when you can. And so we're always keeping track of that and paying attention to it. But they aren't real large pieces of revenue within in the company, but they exist. And so this gives us the best line of sight, the best flexibility, the best ownership in terms of driving P&L across our company, and we're seeing it. Return on invested capital is climbing, EBITDA as a percentage of sales is climbing, margins are climbing, significant basis point improvement in margins as expected over the course of next year as we launch this new business. So it's a pretty positive time. And just shout out to our customers. They have been extremely supportive of allowing us to get paid, frankly, for the product that we're supplying. And we went through a very challenging time where we had to go back and have conversations related to the inflation impact on our business, and they've been very supportive, and that's driven because we execute and we deliver technology and innovation that helps them reduce their overall cost. So that's why they're allowing us to continue to get paid for the product that we produce for them because it's helping them in turn, be successful.

You mentioned refinancing. Maybe there's some cat and dog dispositions here and there, nothing major maybe, but what does the step down in leverage ratio look like over time as you generate cash? Is the small disposition is the only thing that you would look to augment that process or how do you see that evolving?

Yes. So what we're doing as a company is focusing on the business. So we want to take the business that we have, the business that we've just talked to you about today, and we want to make that as pristine as we can. We want to take the cost to a point that we don't have waste, but we need enough cost to drive the type of business that we need and our customers' need from us. So sort of the sweet spot from a cost point of view, we think we're about there. Pricing, we've repriced everything. We think we're there. All of the business that is coming through launch repriced, we think we're there. So getting the business generating cash and profitability across all segments, all geographies, all customers were there. Next step is let's get some volume. So if you can tell all your friends and family to go buy vehicles, that's going to help us and a lot of people. But as soon as the volume comes back, it's going to be terrific. Let me give you a couple of numbers. So last year, when we sat here, we were thinking 16.1 million units. That's what the folks that get paid to tell you what the volumes are going to be each year. They were saying, as we went into our guidance for '24, we talked about the conservative nature in which we took that number down. As I sit here today, that number is now $100 million of revenue below that conservative number. So our company is sitting here today with guidance that's still extremely strong for the rest of the year. And a $200 million revenue reduction versus what we thought as we sat here last year. How did we do that? That's because the way we're running the business is what we just talked about, how we're taking costs down, how we continue to manage with our customers, the recovery, a fair recovery of the inflation costs within the business. And now that sustainable pricing model is attached to Cooper Standard, and that's really good. That's how we're able to sit here today and still be at our guidance that was given in January with a couple of hundred million dollars less in revenue. So that gives us a level of confidence that should give you a level of confidence that we know what we're talking about and that we're able to point to the core business as the reason why we're doing this. We're really proud of that fact. And again, I can't tell you how much I appreciate the customers support the last couple of years. It's been a big deal.

Maybe a couple of technology questions, including we had the management of Martin Raya in here earlier today, referenced to you as a competitor in the fluid systems, fluid handling business. And they talked about a partnership they had with the company that they now own 23% of called Nano Explorer, which apparently is 40% of the graphene manufacturing capacity in the world. And I believe that this is a game changer for brake lines, it makes it 30x more resistant to corrosion. I don't know if this is a niche within Brake lines is this revolutionizing, and does the fact that they have an equity stake, you can't get an offtake agreement from that particular company? Can you get it from other companies? Don't you need to be 30x more crores? What do you think?

So I think all of us have technology related to fuel lines, brake lines, and I think that it continues to evolve. Your question is a good one. How big does the gold metal need to be and how much are people willing to pay for just a bigger gold metal when a smaller one probably gets it done. I don't know the answer to that. But when we come to market with new technology, we tend to think about it in terms of how can we save our customers' money because then they're going to have opportunity to pay us more. So we look at the whole system, fuel line is a fuel line, a brake line is a brake line. It's important technology that how we are coming to market and how we're growing our content, the way we are is we're looking at the entire system. And then we're figuring out ways to reengineer that and to reduce the complexity and improve the overall efficiency of the fluid management that goes into that vehicle. That's what our customers are asking us to do. Through that, we have our own pumps and fuel lines and connectors and all those things that you just mentioned that many competitors have as well that create a level of integrity with the connections. So you don't want vehicles sitting in your driveway, they're leaking. So that's the most important thing. The second most important thing is that the overall system that the OEMs are designing under the hood, how can we make that more efficient for them. And so those are the overall system solutions that we're providing and watching our content growth. It's why we're booking more business in China than ever before. It's why we're booking more business with hybrid and EVs than ever before. It's really a terrific environment and one that really is clamoring for innovation. So I'm not surprised that our competitors are innovating. We're innovating as well. They're a good company. I'm sure they respect us as well.

Just given your global manufacturing footprint, I just wondered given some of the concerns from a macro standpoint in the last month, especially about labor. And can you give us your update on how your labor workforce dynamics are? It's now easy to hire people who retire, it's still challenging. Inflation is abating dramatically in terms of wage inflation. Any kind of update or where there might be some bottlenecks given your global footprint? That would be helpful.

Sure. I guess I would tell you for us, that's a normal way to do business. I think that we've all learned over the course of the last probably 10 years that it continues to be big challenge and no matter where you go in the world, you tend to see resistance, at least that exist. So what we focus on is what I said before. We try to have pristine plants from a health and safety point of view. We're the type of company that gives back to our community. We have a foundation that supports people that they are a little bit less advantaged than what we are. And we find that creating that type of a culture within Cooper Standard in all 21 countries, really serves us very well. And our brand has never been healthier. And when you come through some of the challenges, I guess, that we have in the last or 6 years, I guess, it tends to build credibility, and it tends to build character. And so when you have that, especially within your plant manager group, it will attract the best and the brightest. That's what we find. Where we have performance issues that probably go away from that, we see it immediately. So it really says to us that leadership is paramount. The brand is paramount. Clearly, we have to pay more than we did 4 years ago. And yet we continue to deliver the best products in the world. And I think that's probably one of the reasons our customers are telling us don't go anywhere because some people don't run their businesses like that. But so far, we've been fortunate. Years ago, we used to talk about how quality was a differentiator. Nobody says that anymore. It's just a given. I think if you can't manage labor going forward, it's going to be looked upon like that. So you better figure it out.

I'll take the last question on technology. Maybe talk about the Fortrex technology as it relates to nonautomotive applications, almost like a material that you developed internally. And I think at one point, it's seen broad commercial applicability in maybe a sooner path to monetization. But you did announce something with Nike going 10 years exclusivity agreement, but you didn't disclose the financial terms on that. How are you thinking about the potential for that technology over time?

So we do have that relationship. We announced with Nike. There's now 3 shoes in the react. If you want to Google that, you can see how Fortrex, we call it, midsole. John is a runner, I'm not. That's a shocker to you, I'm sure. But anyway, the reality of that relationship is growing. They're excited to be in their third shoe. If you listen to the earnings calls that their CEO does. This is a really big deal. It's part of their green strategy going forward. And so we expect it to continue to grow. It's another example of how technology will find its place. And we're really excited about it. The royalties that are going to be generated going forward have to become more significant in order for me to sit up here and give you a chart on it. But everything has to start somewhere. So it's really positive, and we think it will continue to grow and some day be more significant than it is today.

And with that, we are out of time. So everyone, please join me in thanking Jeff and Jonathan.

Thank you, guys. Appreciate it.