L3Harris Technologies, Inc. (LHX) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, everyone. Pleased to have L3Harris and Ken Bedingfield. Thanks for making the trip across the pond, Ken and Dan. Ken is the Chief Financial Officer -- wears 2 hats: Chief Financial Officer, and also President of Aerojet Rocketdyne, which is one of the 4 business segments. So with that, I'll turn it over to Ken, I think, forward-looking statements, safe harbor.

Sure. Yes. I'll just start by saying the statements and comments made today may include forward-looking statements, and forward-looking statements do involve risks and uncertainties. And for more information on those risks, please refer to our SEC filings.

Perfect. So for the benefit of everyone in the room, I think you've got a pretty unique background given your last couple of stops. Could you just kind of run through where you've been over the course of the last 10 or, I guess, post your accounting days, where you've made stops over the last couple of years? And I think given your experience kind of on the private sponsor side, it's -- you bring a bit of an interesting perspective.

Sure. Yes. Thanks for the opportunity to talk a little bit about my background. So as you referenced, I am a trained GAAP accountant. But after those days, I did spend a fair amount of time at Northrop Grumman, spent some time in the business. So I was the CFO of one of their operating segments, and then was the CFO there for a period of time, largely under Wes Bush when he was the CEO. I did leave Northrop and spent some time actually in the defense technology world. So I was with one of the defense technology startups and we were doing a system in defense electronics, essentially directed energy weapons and largely high-power microwave for counter swarm. So I spent about 3 years working on the venture capital, largely defense VC, technology community. So I've worked with and alongside a number of folks, whether it's the Andurils of the world, Palantirs, Shield AI, and then certainly some of the tech investors as well. So look, as we at L3Harris are really trying to be, I would say, we understand the mission of the customer like a traditional prime, but we aim to be agile and a bit more nimble like a defense technology startup, I like to think that my background experience and, certainly, some of those relationships are helpful for us, as we think about how do we create value through partnerships and a different mindset around how we deliver capability to the customer.

Great. We'll touch on that aspect in some of the questions I want to run through.

So to start, big picture, we have to talk about the budget. And I've been doing this for a while and it's all -- most years, it's convoluted, I would say this year, it's even more convoluted than normal. So if I've got it right, we've got a full year CR for 2025 -- fiscal '25. We just got a kind of a top line for '26, but that included a fair amount from the reconciliation bill that hasn't even passed, is still kind of early stages. So your perspective on kind of where we are on the budget and what it means for the company.

So I think there's a couple of important things to think about in terms of where we are in the process. Certainly, we're excited to have a '25 budget. So I think a full year continuing resolution and a little bit of a nontraditional continuing resolution in terms of how the money is able to be spent and some of the flexibility in reprogramming, that sort of thing. So it's great to have a '25 budget, and then a '26 President's budget request, and maybe as importantly, a real indication of what the priorities are within the administration. And so there's still a process to work through for FY '26. Obviously, the request from the administration is in. And now it's up to the Hill to pass a budget. What that will include in terms of reconciliation and how that will all work remains to be seen. But I think the important takeaway is that defense is clearly a priority. And within those priorities, I think we have a sense of -- or within that overall priority in defense, strong support of defense, we know that there are some priorities that the administration has outlined. And we believe that our capabilities and our investments, and even the work we're doing today, aligns very well with those priorities. I might highlight, as an example, Golden Dome, where we look at it and say we've got significant capabilities where we've invested in space to become a prime in the world of missile warning, missile tracking, and we've got significant capability in that regard. And then if you think about, obviously, the investment we made in Aerojet Rocketdyne and the capability we have in interceptors, as an example, ground-based interceptors, and then if you think about a future world where there would be an architecture to include interceptors from space, we certainly think we've got capability and, ultimately, technology in that regard as well. So I think there are some important takeaways. I mean that's kind of the way we're looking at it. Again, strong support for defense and strong alignment between our company's capabilities. And maybe more importantly, the investments that we've been making, so we've been modernizing our facilities for space manufacturing, as an example. We've been making investments at Aerojet Rocketdyne to drive capacity increases in that business, not just in tactical solid rocket motors, but also in advanced interceptors, we've been very successful in winning some positions on important interceptor programs, that I think position us well for the future that would include Golden Dome.

So on Golden Dome, can you talk about where we are in terms of requests that have been made from the administration, kind of where we are in that? I mean we hear about this, we hear about the billions that could be spent on. But where are we actually in that process?

So clearly, it's been identified as a priority. And I think if I remember correctly, within the President's budget request, there was a line allocated for Golden Dome. I think it might have been $25 billion or so identified. So clearly identified as a priority for FY '26 spending. And again, as that gets finalized between the administration and the Hill and as that budget moves forward, we think we've got strong alignment to, certainly, the near-term aspects of the Golden Dome. I think as Chris mentioned on the Q1 earnings call, we've got capability for hypersonic missile warning, tracking, detection, and we could accelerate that. We've got a demonstration system that exists and is providing capability today, and we could accelerate that and provide some broad coverage and capability while this administration is still in office. So near term, I think some opportunity for that budget to have near-term capability increase. Certainly, we'll be evaluating if we could accelerate work on development of next-generation interceptors and things like that. Even we've talked about we do some targets for the Missile Defense Agency, and with a new system and a new set of capabilities, testing that system against targets, I would think, would be important. So we're standing ready to be able to provide more capacity for target capability, and really look forward to working with our customers to figure out what their needs are and how we best help them to address it.

High level, talk about the size of your portfolio in terms of U.S. versus international and how you foresee the growth rates, the growth rate for domestic versus international, both this year and maybe thinking beyond over the next couple of years.

Yes. So I would file this under kind of a good problem to have, I suppose, where both the U.S. business and the international business have significant opportunities for growth. And you can think high level of our business as roughly being kind of 80-20, 80% of our revenue from U.S. customers and about 20% from international, whether that's direct or foreign military sales. In the first quarter, I think we were maybe 23% international. But because we are a relatively quick-turn business and oftentimes, as an example, at our Communication Systems business, we can book and ship orders and product in the same quarter. So we were able to respond to some international requirements, quick-turn needs and get some product out the door. But we're roughly 80-20. And I expect that as we look at opportunities for growth in the U.S. as well as international, kind of the question becomes, which one moves first, faster? Obviously, in the first quarter, we saw some international opportunities. And I think big kudos to our team to be able to respond that quickly and drive product through the factory and out the door to support our customers. But I think both will be growing. It's possible that international grows a little beyond the 20% of our total sales. But we're excited about how the portfolio is positioned to support both the U.S. and its allies.

In terms of international, you're most exposed on the comp side, obviously, but where else do you have exposure on the international side?

So from the international perspective, CS and, in particular, our software-defined radios, both the radios themselves as well as waveforms and software products, we've got opportunity there. We do have some international businesses that drive international sales. So we've got businesses in the U.K., where we are today, that support the U.K. MOD, as an example. We've got a business in Italy that supports some of our European allies. And then we have an important business at IMS, in what we call WESCAM, very high-end electro-optic infrared capabilities, turrets or IR balls. And they provide a lot of customers around the world with capability in that regard. So that's been a strong international sales contributor for us as well. And then one thing that we don't account for as international sales, but Aerojet Rocketdyne, obviously, a lot of the solid rocket motors, in particular, the tactical solid rocket motors, provided to our customers, whether it's U.S. DoD customers or to the defense primes, ultimately are provided to our allies either through direct commercial sales or foreign military sales. We account for the sales of all of those motors as U.S. because we don't actually track, once they leave our hands, what's going to a U.S. customer versus a foreign customer. But good, solid demand around the globe clearly for that capability. And it's a good model for us. And I think our customers recognize the value we bring in their international business. And we're able to realize some opportunity for that.

In terms of the contracting environment, you along with, I think, all the -- all your prime peers had a book-to-bill of below 1 in the first quarter. So normally, with a new administration, we think we see things kind of slow down. But how do you view the contracting environment? Do you think it's just kind of a quarterly thing, seasonal thing that we saw a slowdown in Q1? And what are the big -- obviously, beyond just Golden Dome, what are the maybe some of the big competitions you're -- or potential booking opportunities that you're tracking for this year?

Yes. I would say, from my perspective, first thing is there is no reason for concern in terms of our ability to grow the business based on a single quarter or the first quarter's book-to-bill being below 1. We had a few large things that kind of slipped into April, into early second quarter. And then, was there a little bit of a slowdown with a continuing resolution that hadn't been yet passed into a full year budget? Sure, there's a little bit of that. But we're very confident in our ability to grow the business, both in '25 as well as into the financial framework that we've been talking about now for a couple of years for the 2026 sales growth as well. If you look kind of post-Q1, we did have a couple of big awards in April, so we had a large restricted award that we talked about on the earnings call that was several hundred million dollars. There was an international customer that gave us an award for some aircraft modernization that was a couple of hundred million dollars. And then there's a few other -- I think there's some international Communication Systems awards that will be rolling in. Now some of those are announced network modernizations that will kind of come in smaller chunks and how we actually account and book the awards. But I think Q2 is off to a solid start. And we are projecting that we'll have a book-to-bill for 2025 in excess of 1. And again, we're very confident in our growth profile for '25 and into '26. And I know people often ask a question about, hey, what's the growth rate into '26? And if you're at the midpoint of '25, then that leaves you with a higher growth rate in '26. So maybe I'll just address that a little bit upfront now. First of all, we obviously incentivize the team to continue to drive growth, and we're not waiting for '26. So we'll be trying to drive upside to revenue forecast for '25 to certainly provide some derisking to the '26 growth. And then we had mentioned for a few quarters now, there were a few things that were impacting '25 that would kind of start to contribute again in '26. So space programs had a little bit of a lull in budget, but we expect the space programs to return to growth in '26. Great example is SDA Tranche 3. It is expected to be awarded, I believe, now in late '25, and that would contribute certainly to top line growth in '26. I'd mentioned for a while that we had F-35, development of TR-3 kind of ramping down at the end of '24. So a little bit of a low point in 2025 on F-35 program. That will start to grow again in '26. And then as we've invested in capacity increases at Aerojet Rocketdyne, that will certainly be a grower into '26 and beyond. So those are sort of 3 kind of temporal things that we've known were existing. And then the competitive win on the international, aircraft modernization that I mentioned in April, the restricted award in April and then some of the continued success on the international opportunities for Communication Systems, again, continue to give us confidence in '25 and that growth into '26. So look, we put the '26 framework out of $23 billion of revenue in 2023, but I will tell you, David, I have more confidence today and I expect I'll have more confidence tomorrow and a quarter from now in what that 2026 revenue number is going to be, of at least $23 billion.

In terms of thinking about the path to get there, how much is in the book or you have really good visibility and how much do you still think is out there you've got to go out and win to bridge that gap between, call it, $21.5 billion to $23 billion in 2026?

From my perspective, I think a lot of the backlog is in the books today or should be awarded here shortly. Thinking about what's still competitive to be awarded between now and then, probably the biggest one that would jump out to me would be Space Development Agency Tranche 3. Would sound like the third tranche, it's actually the fourth tranche because they started with Tranche 0. And we've been successful on all 3 of Tranche 0, 1 and 2, and we're confident in our -- the capabilities we're putting forward for Tranche 3, so we would expect to be successful on that one as well. That's probably the biggest one that jumps out to me as still to be competitively awarded. We're still working through negotiations with primes on certain advanced aircraft that we support from an advanced electronics perspective. And so we've got to work through some of those dynamics. But again, I feel confident between what's in the backlog today and what I see hitting the book-to-bill between now and the end of the year and getting to that $23 billion number.

And on F-35, talk about where you are today, why it's kind of leveled off or slowed down, and why it specifically accelerates into 2026.

Yes. So from an F-35 perspective, and from an overall program perspective, I would suggest that you talk to, obviously, the prime, Lockheed Martin, about it. But from our role on the program, we've obviously got some of the key advanced electronics within the aircraft, from the mission processor to other electronic components and assemblies. We were working with the customer, both the DoD and the Joint Program Office, as well as Lockheed Martin, around the continued investment in and development of Tech Refresh 3 for advanced electronics and advanced capabilities on the F-35 program. That was on a development contract. And we have largely delivered the capability that we had been asked to deliver under that set of capability development. Therefore, that aspect of the program, the engineering and development side, has ramped down, kind of ended in late '24, and now we're off and kind of delivering components. And as the lots that are delivering TR-2 components change over to lots that are delivering TR-3 components, we're just seeing a little bit of a lag in that kind of manufacturing acceleration or delivery acceleration that will drive that revenue growth. But as we look forward, I see that growing in '26, a bit further growth in '27, and that will more than offset that decline that we've seen, again, as it's just the timing of the development on TR-3 is now behind us.

You touched on a little bit on the space side with SDA and your wins there. So it seems like you've done really well on the space side, you've won a lot of business. But you've had some pressure from a margin perspective in terms of fixed price development program. So talk about kind of the contrast there with the growth you're seeing, the wins you're seeing, but at the same time, some margin pressure at SAS, and where exactly you are in terms of retiring the risk on these fixed-price development programs.

Yes. Look, growth is not without its challenges. And in particular, when you're growing into a new market or a new business, there's going to be some challenges. And we do some very hard things. We've got a great team in space within the SAS segment. I think they're doing great work to support their customers, whether that's other primes or ultimately the DoD or Intel community. And we've taken on some challenging work. Some of that challenging work was signed up a number of years ago. Some of it even premerger under fixed-price contracts. But we are accepting, obviously, the work that we've signed up to do, and we're delivering the capability. And we expect to deliver that capability or at least we expect to have our cost baselines or our EACs, ETCs largely understood roughly by the end of the year. And we think we've got the risk pretty well provisioned. So there's some schedule risk as we continue to manage those programs, but we think it's in a breadbasket, as I think how I've referred to it. So we've done our best to manage that risk in our full year guidance and forecast. But I think the fact of the matter is we have moved from a capable high-end payload provider in space to a very capable prime in space. And we see that as a business that can generate billions of dollars of opportunity for us as we look forward. And as we better understand what it means to be a prime and what of these capabilities and systems are moving forward and moving forward at better volume from our customer perspective and where we're better able to drive value from our capability perspective, we see it as a business that can kind of build on itself and become even more profitable as we look forward and as we get some of these growth challenges behind us. So great work by our space team. A great strategy to invest to become a prime. We've put several hundred millions of dollars into facilities for spacecraft integration in Palm Bay, Florida, for very high-end optics, as an example, hypersonic detection and tracking in Fort Wayne, Indiana. And we're really excited about how those investments that we have made align to the Golden Dome opportunity going forward. People often ask us, they're like, are you going to invest for Golden Dome? The great news is we've already invested and we're ready to deliver that capability based on the timely investments that the team has been making.

So your other job is President of Aerojet Rocketdyne. Talk about where that business is in terms of the capacity additions coming online, what that will mean for production going forward. And I think back at your Investor Day at the end of 2023, you had just started, Aerojet is kind of a $2.5 billion, close to $3 billion business, but have been projected growing to like $4 billion by 2028, if that's still possible.

Yes. Investor Day '23 was my first day with the company, so certainly will be a day I'll remember. And yes, look, we're really excited about Aerojet Rocketdyne and all things going on in the worlds of both solid rocket motor capacity acceleration as well as space propulsion. And so maybe I'll talk a little bit about missile solutions and solid rocket motor. Clearly, I think the customer recognized the importance of investing in the supply chain and the need to invest in the capacity for delivery of this type of capability, to restock product that had been depleted through a number of conflicts and/or test fires of various sorts. So we received an award from the Department of Defense to invest in capacity increases for 3 programs: GMLRS, Stinger and Javelin. And we've been executing on that. We're also investing in capacity increases, both facilities as well as production lines for other capacity increases for solid rocket motors, whether it's Patriot, Standard Missile, other programs that certainly have a lot of demand for multiple years. So we see significant capacity demand for tactical solid rocket motors, and we are investing to drive our ability to produce to that demand, and we see that probably for a decade or so. Following on that, we've been successful in large solid rocket motor competitions. And so we're on the Sentinel program. We were successful on next-gen interceptor, where we're not just the propulsion but also divert and attitude control. We're on glide phase interceptor, Zeus, as well as some classified programs. And so from a large solid rocket motor perspective, we're investing not only in capacity, engineering, technology, but certainly what I see as multiple decades of opportunity to deliver growth in large solid rocket motors. And some of these are exceedingly large. I mean we're talking -- some of these motors are the size of a small school bus. So there is clearly some barriers to entry in terms of competition in that regard. So really excited about Aerojet Rocketdyne. I think the investment case when we bought the business is certainly is certainly playing out as expected or better than expected. And to your question about 2028 and where Aerojet Rocketdyne can go, obviously, we haven't given guidance on '28 yet, but we'll think about the kind of the next financial framework. And I do expect that Aerojet Rocketdyne will be a big component of our next growth story.

Margin side, your margins are certainly higher than your prime peers. So maybe talk about what makes your business model different, the various cost savings initiatives you've been running, NeXt, LHX NeXt, how that's benefited the company. And the trajectory for margins from here.

Yes. Look, there is no reward without risk, right? And so in some respects, we are risk takers at L3Harris, and that's a part of the trusted disruptor strategy, is you've got lean forward, you've got to invest. And we do follow as much as practical and as much as possible a commercial business model where we invest in the R&D, we develop the new product, and we bring that product to the market as a commercial item. And we receive commercial item determination from the customer. We price at fixed price, when we bear the risk of yielding the benefits of that investment, whether it's in R&D, capital and making sure that the product is supportive of the customers' needs and delivers the capabilities required. So we're willing to take those risks. I think we understand the customer, we understand the needs, we understand the missions. And historically, we've been able to effectively deliver that capability to make sure that we're answering the mail. So we're very comfortable with the commercial model. We would love to continue to see our customers, including the U.S. DoD, try to procure more in a commercial model. And through an executive order, I can't remember exactly what it was called, but there's a focus on using more commerciality, rethinking federal acquisition regulation. And we're excited about the opportunity to work with our customer in rethinking how they acquire, what they acquire, and how they can acquire more in a commercial model. And what I think is important from a commercial perspective is you can move faster and you can get capability in the hands of the war fighter faster. That's the biggest benefit. And we stand ready to support our customer to figure out how we can continue to drive capability and product into their hands faster.

And so your margins, they are kind of in the mid-15% range. I think you forecasted a gain to 16% plus in 2026. What gets us there from where we are today?

Yes. So mid-15s today, we, I think in '23, we were -- if I remember correctly, maybe we closed at high 14s in '23. We talked about a little over a 100 basis point increase to 16 -- approximately 16% in '26. We have subsequently updated to at least 16% margins in 2026. Clearly, we've been investing in ourselves. We like to say we DOGEd ourselves before DOGE was a thing with the customer. So we've been investing in L3Harris and working to cut costs and be as lean, as efficient as we can be. But at the same time, providing new tools and data-driven decision-making to our employees to drive annual run rate savings out of the business that will help us yield the 16-plus percent margins in '26. And then the additional opportunity in the commercial business model and additional opportunity from international should help us all contribute to driving at least the 16% margins.

And about 20% of your business today is on commercial-based terms, is that a...

That's about right. Yes.

So in the last couple of minutes, I wanted to touch on cash flow and capital deployment. So last year, $2.3 billion, this year, $2.4 billion, $2.5 billion, then the $2.8 billion in 2026 on free cash flow. Help bridge as to how we get to $2.8 billion?

Yes. So when we laid out the financial framework, I'll just remind you that we had a baseline of $2 billion in free cash flow in '23. So getting to our $2.8 billion in '26 will be a 40% growth in free cash flow. And we get there through a combination of growing the business, right, as we grow the top line, expand our margins to greater than 16% from in the 14% range. And then effectively managing our working capital. And then we are investing in the business from a CapEx perspective, but we're keeping that pretty consistent at about 2% of sales. And that gives us a lot of confidence in our free cash flow growth. We over-delivered in '24. I think we had guided $2.2 billion, we ended up at $2.3 billion. We've got a range of $2.4 billion to $2.5 billion for '25. And we got off to a good start in the first quarter. We were negative on free cash flow, but Q1 is historically our low point. And we did better Q1 of this year than Q1 of last year. So it gives us confidence in that momentum and trajectory towards the full year '25. And then at the end of the day, in '26, again, it's just driving that revenue growth, the continued margin expansion to 16% margins, effective working capital management. And that should, I think, safely get us to our $2.8 billion. And then what are we doing with all that cash? I'll just say that we are looking to be effective allocators of capital. So I mentioned about 2% going to CapEx for capacity expansion, investing in our team and our factories. We've increased our dividend every year for 24 years. So that continues to be an important part. We target 35% to 40% of free cash flow as dividends. And then we've largely deleveraged, as we had talked about, kind of post the acquisitions, and we are returning cash to shareholders through share repurchase. We did about $500 million last year. We talked about $1 billion in '25. And then we kind of updated to at least $1 billion in 2025. And you may have seen we did about $560 million and change just in the first quarter alone. So we're off and, I would say, delivering on our commitments from a shareholder value creation perspective when it comes to capital deployment.

And I think you've talked about high level, double-digit free cash flow per share growth is kind of your -- what you're targeting?

Yes. I think if you look at the model with the free cash flow growth that we're targeting and then with capital deployment and share count reductions that we see coming out of that, we expect that could get us to kind of a mid-double-digit growth on free cash flow per share, which we're pretty excited about from a value creation perspective.

All right. Terrific. We're out of time, Ken. Appreciate the time. Thank you.

All right. Fantastic. Thanks for having us. Really appreciate it.

Thanks.