General Electric Company (GE) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us. My name is Peter Arment. I'm the senior aerospace defense analyst here at Baird. We are delighted to kick off the very Global Industrial Conference with GE Aerospace. With us from GE Aerospace, we have Rahul Ghai, who's been a long-time executive in the aerospace and multi-industrial universe for a long time. He joined GE Aerospace or GE back in 2023 before the spin-off in 2024. GE operates really through 2 main segments: Commercial Engines and Services and Defense Propulsion Technologies. And clearly, we're going to go through a Q&A, but first Rahul is going to make a couple of opening statements, and then we'll jump into questions. So Rahul, welcome. Thank you.

Thank you, Peter. We're glad to be here. This is the first time at Baird, so we're excited. It's a great lineup we have today, and glad to kick this thing off, right, and early. So well, as you introduce GE Aerospace, I mean, it's a fantastic franchise. It's a leader in propulsion systems and services. So -- and what makes GE different, GE Aerospace different, Peter, in my mind, is our 78,000-engine installed base, which is the largest in the industry by far. And through the installed base, we power 3 out of every 4 commercial aircraft and 2 out of 3 U.S. combat and rotary craft aircraft. So -- in this installed base, given our R&D investments of more than $3 billion, given our flight hour experience of more than 2.3 billion flight hours, there is -- we continue to reinvest in the business, applying both our learnings and financial capital to improve durability, performance, time on wing, which is helping us win in the market. So -- and this installed base is -- continues to grow. We're expecting low to mid-single-digit growth in this installed base depending on the platform. And this installed base is what drives the business, both our current revenue and future revenue. So in 2025, about 70% of our revenue will be from the services business, which is generated thanks to this installed base. And services also makes up majority of the $175 billion backlog that we have currently, which obviously powers growth over the next several years. And '25 is shaping up to be a good year for us. If you look at our year-to-date performance, really strong results. And in October, we increased our guidance across the board on revenue, profit and cash. And that was driven by both segments, commercial and DPT, as you said earlier. On the commercial side, what is really helping us this year is the services orders growth. Our orders growth year-to-date on the commercial services side have been up more than 30%, and that has driven about a 25% growth year-to-date on the commercial services side. And we increased our full year outlook on commercial services to between low to mid-20s from high teens previously. And that's about an incremental $1 billion of services revenue, which you know drops through at a pretty healthy clip to the bottom line. And on DPT, we increased our revenue expectations to high single digits from mid-single digits and tightened the profit range to the high end of the range that we had previously. So -- and both segments are doing better, and we increased expectations for both the segments. And what's really helping us achieve these results is FLIGHT DECK, which is our proprietary lean operating model. And FLIGHT DECK is not only helping us improve our own operations, but also its driving improvements across the suppliers, which improved our material flow in the third quarter, material flow was up more than 30% year-over-year and up high single digits sequentially, which is what we really need because the demand has been very strong, and we've been kind of behind on meeting that demand and fulfilling all the customer orders. So increase in material flow is really helping thanks to FLIGHT DECK. So as we look back at the year, we're going to have high teens revenue growth, $1.5 billion of profit growth, more than $1 billion of cash -- free cash flow growth over 2024. So it will be a solid year. And we see this momentum kind of continuing into 2026 as well. Commercial air traffic is holding up. We have the backlog that we need. On the OE side, we expect our LEAP engine deliveries to grow next year. We'll increase our volumes on the 9X platform. And on DPT, we have $19 billion of backlog that drives good growth. So should be a good '26 as well as we sit here today. So with that, I'll open it up and go where you want to go.

Well, I think I'll probably start right where you left off, which is '26. You've had such a great '25 year-to-date performance. Just maybe how you're thinking about the framework for '26 for those who maybe don't -- you haven't followed it as closely?

Yes. Also on '26, Peter, as we sit here today, first, the air traffic environment feels better, right, from back in July. In July, we were thinking that '26 is going to be a slight step down over 2025. Second half is shaping up for '25 to be better than what we thought a couple of months ago. And then we expect '26 to look very similar to 2025 in terms of air traffic growth, which is good news. But the bigger thing for us is that if you look at the total number of shop visits, which is basically an engine overhaul for all the engines that have flown, which they need to come in for -- to get overhauled, the total number of shop visits globally, not just at GE Aerospace, but globally on our platforms is lower in 2025 than they were back in 2019. So despite all the air traffic growth, first, airlines were conserving cash, then we had all the supply chain challenges. So put all that together, it's been -- there's a lot of pent-up demand here. So what we see in '26 is that the engines that will need overhaul will be up double digits over 2025. So that's a good underpinning of the growth. The second thing that's going to help us is that our LEAP external shop visits are growing. So this year, our LEAP external shop visits will -- will be up about 30% year-over-year total and about 40% externally. So the LEAP external shop visits are growing, and that will drive the spare parts growth rate on the LEAP platform. And then on the wide-body side, the work scopes are increasing for our GE90 and GEnx platform. 90 is coming for the second shop visit. NX is coming for the first shop visit relative to a quick turn earlier. So that is going to drive. So if you look at the overall services growth rate, well, we don't expect low to mid-20s growth again next year because those are really strong numbers. But we've guided to a double-digit growth rate over the medium term between '24 and '28. So we think that it's -- as you think about '26, it's normalizing towards that double-digit growth rate between what we're delivering this year and what we're delivering -- what we've guided to for the long-term guidance. And then on the commercial engine side, we -- on the equipment piece, we expect LEAP to be up. This year, we grew probably in the 17 -- [ 1,750 ] range. We expect another 15% to 20% growth rate next year. So that puts us in the 2,000-engine range that we've guided to. 9X engines for the 777X platform will continue to grow as well. And we expect a little bit of normalization on the spare engine ratio for OE. So -- and then 9X, given the -- even the cost per engine is going to come down, this increase in volumes, that will more than double our losses on the 9X platform that we're experiencing this year. So that's a headwind as we think about '26. And on DPT, I think we expect kind of mid-single-digit growth rate, good margin expansion. And then FLIGHT DECK is expecting -- we're driving productivity in the market, which is helping us cover inflation. So you put all that together, we expect services margins to be flattish given the LEAP growth and overall margins will be flattish as well as we think about 2026. But still, we expect a really good year. It will be a step along the way through our guidance for '28 and then about $1 billion or so of profit growth between '25 and '26.

Terrific. You mentioned kind of thinking about the algorithm of departures and comparing to that on services. How do you think about that? And has there been a little bit of either a decoupling? Or how are you thinking about kind of that connection?

Yes, it's a great question, Peter. There has been a decoupling. There has been. If you look at the overall services orders growth has trended above the departure growth for '25, and we're expecting the same for '26. I think there are a couple of reasons for that. One is that just -- as I mentioned earlier, the pent-up demand that has been there. So there's a lot of -- again, if you just compare to shop visits in '25 being lower than 2019. So there's a lot of pent-up demand that needs to get fulfilled now over the next couple of years. The other thing that's happening is the work scopes are increasing. So if you take a wide-body engine, the shop visit for -- the second shop visit for a wide-body is 50% more intensive than the first shop visit. So if you look at GE90, about 70% of the engines have not gone through the second shop visit. So that is a huge driver of our growth here over the next few years. And then obviously, pricing helps as well. So there's a little bit of -- and then our installed base is growing. So there has been a little bit of decoupling, and we expect that to kind of stay this way for the next couple of years. And that's where we feel that our algorithm around that services can be a double-digit growth business holds given a little bit of work scope increases, departure -- fundamental departure growth, installed base growth, whichever way you want to take it, and then pricing, that's what gets us to a double-digit growth algorithm on the services business.

Great. Terrific. You mentioned LEAP earlier in your kind of overview. Let's talk a little bit about it. How are you thinking about just kind of the output? I think you mentioned you're tracking well towards that kind of goal. And then a lot of things that came up recently, you talked about durability and kind of how things are improving there. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Yes. No, it's -- LEAP has been a great story over the last couple of years. I think there are a few things that we've gotten right here. Let's start with kind of the product performance. To me, what has been key here is that LEAP now for Airbus, which is a LEAP-1A engine, has now similar levels of performance for everything new that we are shipping out of our factories as the CFM56. So we expect to have stay on time on wing for the blade -- the new blade and the durability kit to stay on wing for as long as the CFM56 does. And we're also retrofitting all the LEAP-1A engines with the same durability kit when they come in for the shop visit. So it doesn't drive incremental shop visits. But as and when they come in for the regularly scheduled shop visit, we put that. So the product performance is really getting back to where we really needed it to be. And on the OE side, obviously, you've seen our deliveries this year will be up more than 20%. Next year, we're going to hit that 2,000-engine mark. So the OE side is getting better. And our overall spare engine ratio on LEAP is kind of in the low double-digit range, like of program. So we're not too high. We do expect slight moderation, as I said earlier, as we get in '26. So that will normalize, settle around at the 10%, 11% mark that we expect. So that will happen. And on the services side, we achieved breakeven last year in '24, and we expect a real improvement in services profitability as we get into '26, '27 time frame. And a few drivers of that. First is just an increase in volume, right, with more volume through the same fact -- our MRO shops or overhaul shops, that drives productivity, which helps with profit. Second, we're working hard on repairs. If you can repair a part, that costs like 50% lower than a new part. So on LEAP, we have -- if you look at our GE90 platform, we have like 3,000 repairs. And on LEAP, we did 200 repairs last year. So we've got a long way to go, and we're investing a lot of time and effort into developing these repairs for LEAP. So that's going to be the second piece. Third is that our external shop visits have now started to grow. So last year, we were at 10% external shop visits. As we get into 2030, we expect that number to be 30%. So overall LEAP shop visits are growing. And within that, these external shop visits are growing. So that obviously unlocks the spare parts revenue stream. So that is going to be a huge help as well. And then pricing has improved as well over the launch pricing that we did earlier. So that is where you put all that together, we expect LEAP to have a really good trajectory on profit over the next few years. And as we look back towards the end of the decade, call it, by 2030, we expect LEAP profit dollars to be similar to what CFM56 is generating. So it's been a smooth transition. Obviously, CFM56 is hanging in there as well. So it's ending up being a very smooth transition between the 2 platforms.

Do you see -- where do you see CFM56 kind of leveling off?

Well, what we -- in July, we updated our expectations. So now what we are expecting is that the shop visits kind of plateau at that '25, '26 level through '27, '28, and then that's kind of the peak of the shop visits and then revenue peaks by the 2030 time frame, which is even this year, the retirements have been really low. I mean the retirements on CFM56 are lower this year, year-to-date than they were last year. So we do expect retirements to pick up. It can't stay at this level forever. So next year, embedded in this guidance on shop visits that I just gave, we expect retirements to be in the 2% to 3% range for next year and then go to 3% to 4% by the time we get to '27, '28. So even with that, we expect shop visits to kind of level and stay at this level through at least through '27.

It's hard to retire an engine with that kind of reliability record. So -- yes, so maybe just back on the durability. So how are you thinking that tracks as we kind of move forward comparing to kind of when we think about CFM56?

Right. So as I said, 1A is now at the CFM56 levels. 1B, we expect certification in the first quarter of next year, so early 2026. we'll get 1B there. Again, now 1B has flown fewer cycles than 1A. So there's a little bit of time. So 1B, we introduced the durability kit in early part of '26. So 1B gets there as well. And then we continue to make improvements. I mean we -- again, we introduced a new blade middle of last year. We are working -- we've made some changes to that. So the producibility gets better. We're now starting to work on the software so that we achieve better trust out of the engine. So we'll keep -- we're making these enhancements to the engine. And hopefully, it gets better from this point on, but we are glad where it is for now.

Terrific. You mentioned FLIGHT DECK. Can you talk a little bit about that, how that's impacting your kind of operations?

Yes. No, it's been a game changer. Obviously, when Larry took the CEO job at GE Aerospace, he thought hard about it. And -- and the question was, obviously, we've been -- he'd been pushing lean since we took the GE job, right? So he's been working on it and business has made a lot of traction, but he thought that maybe we needed a catalyst here. And that do we need to brand this kind of make it our own, think about it slightly differently. And so that's where we came up with FLIGHT DECK early last year. And the key tenets of FLIGHT DECK in his mind are safety, quality, delivery and cost, right? Obviously, at any given point, even as we sit here right now, there are about 1 million passengers that are flying on a GE-powered aircraft at this point in the sky. So you think about the safety and quality, absolutely has to be paramount. So that's what FLIGHT DECK starts with. And then you get into improving delivery, which we just spoke about because it really helped unlock performance here in the last 6, 9 months and then productivity and inventory improvement comes second. But Peter, what this really means to me is that we are now running GE Aerospace as one company. If you visited our factories 2 years ago, you would have said like every factory felt different, had kind of their own metrics, what they were tracking, felt what was relevant to them, and you couldn't really connect the dots, right? We felt like, okay, we're tracking shop visit output as one number of days to complete a repair in some other place. So it was really hard to connect the dots. And okay, how does this improvement translate into overall performance. Now if you go to our factories, you see similar metrics across every single site. And similar dashboards, and they all go SQDC, safety, quality and delivery costs. Everywhere is the same thing. How we run the factories is the same. Every morning, at the beginning of every shift, there is a daily standup, right? What do you need to do for the day? What happened last -- yesterday, what went right, what went wrong, what problems do we need to fix and how we're going to run the business for today. So it's bringing in a daily disposition versus a quarterly target or an annual target. But the other big unlock is the culture, which you cannot underestimate because no matter -- and some of you, obviously, in the audience have seen a lot of our factories. When you come to our factories, if it was a good day, you'll see green. If it was a bad day on any of these 4 metrics, you'll see a red. And that's what happens when you come, when I go, when Larry goes, there's nothing to hide. It's not -- we're not putting on a dog or pony show. We're not talking about just things that are going right. So it's fundamentally changing the culture of the company to be more transparent, more visible where -- and there's no presentation. There's no PowerPoint. You go to the factory, you watch the metrics, and you leave a few hours later and you talk about everything, all the discussions with everybody who is running the shops is happening on the shop floor, not in a conference room. So I think it just drives the visibility. And you've seen the results even as you go through like we've had several union negotiations this year. And I fundamentally do believe that the reason we've achieved the results that we've achieved is because if you're working on the floor, you see the investment that the company is making. You see the culture that Larry is trying to drive in the organization, and you have a management that listens to you and is interested in your well-being. And I think that's a huge unlock for the organization.

Yes. Transparency, huge. So you mentioned unlock. Can we talk about unlock of the supply chain and kind of how you think about the sustainability of that because that's been a big focus.

Yes. No, and it needs to be sustainable, Peter, because the demand is really strong as you look out. So it's been great. But I think transparency to me, Peter, is the key here. And the unlocking the supply chain, transparency is the key. So if you go back to last year, '23 was a good year for us. We were driving output all that. First quarter last year was good as well. And then we just hit a roadblock. And we got blinded a little bit by -- we were -- our suppliers had -- we were -- we thought we had communicated to our suppliers. They had hurt us. But we had not -- it was very clear that we not communicated clearly enough, right? So people were looking at different signals coming from different parts of the industry, what's happened, what are the airframers saying, what are other aftermarket providers saying. So nobody really believed in the signal we were giving. And we were not standing behind that signal as well because we were making rapid changes. So there was lack of transparency and there was lack of consistency in our behavior. So we spent a lot of time understanding what was -- what did we do wrong? And we started this really deep journey to understand how can we make what are the problems our suppliers are having, where do we need to insert ourselves. So we have 550, 600 engineers at our supplier sites at any given point in time. So we work hard with them on problem solving in -- if you're having a problem in a process, if you're having a problem in a machine, we'll help you solve it because these suppliers go from some of the suppliers you own, you have in your portfolio, others you've never heard of. So these are -- and all these suppliers are having different types of problems. So that was key. And then the second thing is we really stood behind the demand signal that we were giving. We share a lot more about this is what's coming from different parts of the market. So driving that consistency in our behavior, giving suppliers visibility into the demand algorithm, I think it's a combination of the problem-solving approach that we've taken and the visibility and the conversations we're having with the suppliers, that's the reason for the unlock. And we need this to continue because if you look at the ramp rates from this point on, I won't go through the mates. I mean, you know what you guys follow these companies that give us the demand signal. And the new engine demand for the narrow-body and the wide-body is immense. You look at what Airbus is trying to do, you look at what Boeing is trying to do. Both airframers are trying to really increase their output. And then on the aftermarket side, our LEAP shop visits are going to -- like are going to be up 25% a year from now to 2030. And you combine that with the work scope. So we have a really strong demand outlook. So we need this to keep getting better. And I'm sure as you go into '26, '27, we'll find other things that are -- we thought are working will not work, right, because everybody needs to grow at the same rate, as you know. So there's a lot of work to be done. We'll be talking about supply chain for a long time to come. But I think the actions we are taking are definitely helping us here.

Yes. The pressure on the output is big. But there was one area where there was a delay. So we've seen a delay with the 777X entry into service to '27. How are you thinking about that, how that impacts you?

Well, I think Jay is going to be here, right? I think he's here tomorrow, so I'll let him kind of talk to it, what Boeing is saying. But as far as we are concerned, we are continuing to ship. We started shipping engines on the 777X platform last year, and these are production engines that we've been shipping. We'll ship more this year, including fourth quarter is a big quarter for us for the 9X shipments. 9X is the engine on the 777X. So we -- that's a big quarter for us. And then we go from this point on into '26 and then '27. So we'll continue to ship engines to Boeing, I think, as we sit here today, and we'll take the lead. So that is where we expect 9X losses, we expect a couple of hundred million dollars this year. In our financials, we expect to more than double the losses next year.

Got it. Appreciate that. Let's move over to DPT. Can you talk about how you're thinking about the growth, the opportunities there as we move into '26?

Yes. Now this has been a really good year for DPT, Peter. I would say, again, as I said earlier, we increased our revenue expectations to high single digits. Margins up 100 basis points in that segment for the year. So it's shaping up to be a really good year on DPT. I would -- and again, in the third quarter, our defense engine shipments were up 80% year-over-year for second quarter in a row. So a huge unlock, up 50% year-to-date. So it's been a really good year. And then even on the propulsion and additive side, which is the second part of our DPT segment, which -- and we have 4 businesses in that segment, and each for all the 4 businesses had more than 20% growth in the third quarter. So really good broad-based results in that segment. Now as we think about the future, to me, the growth in that business is going to come from 3 places. One, we have a $19 billion backlog, right? So that backlog is going to drive substantial growth. And that backlog includes our orders that we have on Black Hawk, Apaches, the F-16s, F-15s, the spare engines, spare parts that go through that and also some of the international platforms. So we've got the India and the Turkish fighter jets. We've got the trainers for Turkey and Korea. So we've got all these international platforms that will continue to drive growth between the U.S. demand and the international demand, which is growing. On -- in Europe, we have a business called Avio Aero, which is our European defense business. And that has engines on the Eurofighter and also has a 1/3 share of the GCAP platform, which is the sixth-gen fighter that Europe is trying to develop. So Avio is experiencing really strong growth as well. And the third pillar of growth is going to be what we call Edison Works, which is a classified business. And within Edison Works, obviously, you -- we guys have been tracking everything that's happening on the sixth-gen fighter in the U.S. that we are encouraged by the progress that is happening. We appreciate the continued investments. We appreciate the move forward on the F-47, hoping the Navy award is announced soon as well, and that program moves forward as well. So we'll keep our fingers crossed there. Then we've made a couple of different investments to grow that business. One, we have a JV with Kratos to develop engines on the lower trust side of the CCAs. So as you think about the CCA side, we're working on the CCAs, we're working on 3 different angles. The low thrust engine, which is less than 15 pounds -- 1,500 pounds of thrust, that's with Kratos. On the higher end, above, say, 5,000, we can take our commercial engines, and we can put them. So if you take the Eurodrone, which is the Airbus platform that has our engine on our turboprop that is on that platform. And then we are working in the middle range, we're developing our own engine that goes from like 1,500 to 5,000 pound thrust. So the CCA is -- again, that's not a market that we are in today. We are keen to kind of invest on our own, which is what Secretary Hegseth said last week is that is hope that the industry is investing. So that's what we are doing is we are ensuring that we have off-the-shelf products, depending on whichever way both U.S. military or international armed forces want to go, we have an engine on that. And then obviously, the investment in -- with data to develop hybrid electric technology for the military aircraft. And then you saw the announcement last week with Shield AI to power their vertical lift aircraft. So that is another third leg of our growth. So it's existing platforms, it's the European growth and then the classified side. So we are encouraged about that. And as we think forward, international growth will be faster than U.S. But overall, we expect kind of mid-single-digit growth in that platform. And that...

So a lot of opportunities for DPT. So let's wrap up in the last minute here or 2. So poised for finish a strong '25, optimistic about '26. Does it change your kind of '28 outlook that you kind of talked about in July?

Well, we -- it's always better to be closer to the finish line and further away. So obviously, when we gave guidance $11.5 billion, we were expecting $8.2 billion, $8.3 billion of profit in '25. Now we are at $8.7 billion, $8.8 billion. So we are closer to the $11.5 billion. But listen, the business is on a good trajectory. '26 will be a step along the way towards those targets. And -- but I think the algorithm that we spoke on DPT just now and commercial services earlier and then obviously, the OE demand is really strong through 2030. So it's a good environment. We just need to continue to execute. And I'm sure we'll talk more about '28 as we get closer there.

Terrific. Well, why don't we end there? I appreciate it. Rahul, thanks for kicking us off. We appreciate it.

Thank you. Yes, of course. Yes, thank you.

Thank you.