Magna International Inc. (MG) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Very delighted to have representing Magna International, Pat McCann, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and to his left, Louis Tonelli, Vice President, Investor Relations. Gentlemen, thank you for being here.

Thank you.

You're welcome. You don't need a sports coat, no jacket required.

I planned ahead.

Okay. Here you go. So I just want to give you an opportunity at the top to share any key messages with investors, you want to emphasize how -- including any updates if you choose to provide any on how the quarter is going. Because some have used the conference as an opportunity to kind of manage expectations or say what's going better or worse than otherwise. But the floor is yours. Pat, thanks for being here.

I'll start and Louis can jump in. I think from my point of view, I think I'm excited. We're tracking where we expect it to be, Adam. I know from consensus, people are -- we were missing in Q1 and Q2, but versus our internal plan, we are where we expect it to be. I think we come into H2, we're seeing the growth, we're going to execute. We know what we need to do. As far as to your question about how we're trending, we've only seen one month at this point. It's been pretty consistent. We haven't really had big shocks to the system, I would say. So comfortable in that respect. I think moving out into '26, what I'm excited about is what we can do is within our control. We took the big reduction in '26, I would say, with what we had seen ahead of us, and we stepped up, took the reduction. And at this point, it's executing what's ahead of us, whether it's operational plans, capital reductions and engineering. We're going to get there. It's going to drive margin and free cash flow. And once we delever, we're going to be consistent with getting back into returning cash to shareholders. That's what really makes me excited.

Yes. I mean -- look, I mean, the stock, it's not just you, other suppliers as well have been kind of really beaten up. I think we published something where if you were in the S&P 500, which you're not, but if you were, you rank somewhere in the bottom 1% or 2% of that. And that's not something I know you guys are excited about, but I didn't -- to the extent you can address things within your control and this industry is what it is, it's difficult. What is it about either the execution or the strategy, or maybe both, that needs to get better, that you can own and have accountability on?

I think...

The questions get easier after that.

Yes, I know exactly. Listen, I think it's a great question. A lot of the questions we're getting today is the capacity. There's a lot of overcapacity in the market. So as a supply base or as a supplier, how can we help 3 customers? Why have them install capacity for 3 lines? How can we come in and provide flexibility? Is there a solution on an architecture? We do a lot of parts, Adam, that consumers don't appreciate, body-in-white underpinnings. Can we commoditize, be more efficient, bring efficiency to it, reduce capital? I know the amount of capital that goes into the industry is incredible through the supply chain. So can we provide -- and we are doing this. How do we come up with a core solution that we can sell across? And then you're working at OEM X. We make it to your specifications. Well, we had OEM Y. We specify it. I think that's where we can really make a difference.

Yes. I think if you look at our expectations for margin expansion over the next couple of years and free cash flow generation, that's not being reflected in the stock right now. And we got to execute, as you said, execution is critical, what we can control. Let's make sure we execute on that and things will take care of themselves.

Yes. I mean, just look, I mean, you're -- historically, you would have traded in double-digit PE multiple or sometimes even higher than mid-teens. You're at 7 handle now or something-ish. Usually, when that happens, the market -- that's the market's way of saying your numbers are too high. So why is the market wrong?

I guess they're saying that about everybody, right? I think it's a reflection. There's a lot of fear -- my point of view, I think there's a lot of fear about overcapacity. Our exposure to the D3, exposure to EVs, we're going through a super cycle of change probably that we haven't seen in 100 years. You think we're going to actually change how we propel a vehicle from -- last time this happened was from horse to an engine and now we're going from ICE into an EV. And I think people may have got ahead of themselves to where that was going to be. And people on the sidelines a little bit as investors, waiting for a little bit more certainty of where it's going to come out on the other side. That's my view. Back to Louis' point, we have a short-term action plan. Our volumes aren't huge. We're basically seeing the flat production environment for the next 3 years. So I think we're -- we have relatively balanced assumptions, I would say, in our expectations. And to Louis' point, it's executing against those.

Okay. All right. I want to -- we're going to talk about capital allocation later, but maybe, well, why don't you get started with a few other topics? So I think you brought up 2026, obviously, you put out the new targets at earnings. We can all look at the numbers compare versus the last targets. But I guess is there anything that's a little bit more strategic that's hidden in there that investors should know about between now and 2026 and changes that you're making?

No. The short answer is no. I think the way we do a business plan is we -- it bottoms up, and we're working with 300 divisions. It's -- we're not making portfolio changes in that piece. I think the biggest change that's strategic in it is footprint reduction. So we do reflect -- we talked about additional restructuring actions. A significant portion is in our CBA business just because of the lost business, it was significant relative to its size. But it's really more of that structural piece. Now all that being said, are we looking at our portfolio? Absolutely. We do it on an annual basis. We report 4 segments. We probably have 60 products. And each of the groups come in, they present to them and they review and they say, "Should we be in product X?" If you can't be in a big market that can make money and we're not a top 3 with a position of power, we look to exit. That's basically our logic. They do it at that level. We bring it up to ours and look more strategically at the 6 to 7 main product groups that we have.

Anything on restructuring? I mean maybe just elaborate on those efforts, anywhere that's concentrated region-wise, product line-wise?

It's Europe. It really is a Europe issue. We've been restructuring consistently. And we don't -- at Magna, we run a very lean operation. We don't have like -- you read some of these restructurings that are happening in Europe, 5,000 people. We have to close plants. We don't have an overhead structure outside of our facilities in that range. Our corporate office above the groups, there's about 600, 700 people. So we run a lean operation. So what we're doing in Europe primarily is either it's -- if we're selling where you can't make money if you go back to that logic, can we make money, yes or no. And the other part of it is, are we shifting our footprint into the east a little bit. And again, that really varies based on the type of product that you have.

All right. Look, capital allocation, let me just kind of go to it now, I guess. It seems like if you look at the last 5 or 10 years, even kind of before COVID, profitability has been -- margins have not expanded. Maybe -- depending on your starting point, they might be flat, they might be down a little bit at the end or start of full year. Your CapEx has gone up. So certainly, your CapEx is -- capital putting into the business has grown faster than your margins. And that, again, is consistent with this narrative of this once in a century type change. But it seems like maybe we had an inflection now where you already have -- your CapEx might be peaking. It's gone up a lot. It might stay there for a bit, but it probably has a higher chance of going lower before going higher. And your margins have just been -- they're pretty low by your own historic standards and competitive standards. So one might -- and then you'd add that your stock is on its -- and one might ask, okay, I mean I almost hesitate to ask you that whether you think the stocks had good value, I suspect the answer would be yes. So then why aren't you buying it? Is that -- is the fact that you're not perhaps acquiring on stock as others would be? Is that a message that you just don't think it's good enough value relative to other things you're putting into the back end of the business? Like why is your stock still not good enough value for you to make a market for it? Or is there just a window of uncertainty that you're trying to pass through right now to get to a point where you have a little more confidence in the cash flow coming in?

I don't think it's -- let me take a step back. If we think about...

Sure. I know you and the Board discussed that. I just asked I mean you do, right?

We do. The reality is once we became a widely held company, we had to look at our capital allocation strategy. And you look at your capital allocation strategy and your #1 underpinning is if you think about the whole industry, everyone's on the sidelines, it's very cyclical. Our #1 starting point is we want a highly liquid balance sheet. And in our world, that means we're at an A minus rating, and that's very powerful. When you go through 2-year customers going to bankrupt, COVID, so we have that security. So that's our starting point. Currently, where we are with our liquidity is we're well in excess of that. And the credit ratings agencies may say, 1 to 1.5 for A-, 1.5 to 2 for BBB+ over to BBB. We're in BBB territory. So we've been pretty consistent that -- when we did do acquisitions or with the additional capital spend, we pierced up above it, and we have a buydown plan. Our plan was to get back into that range in 2025. That is still our plan. It's a combination of margins and lower CapEx. And then once we're back in that range, our view is our obligation, I would say, is to return capital to shareholders. And historically, if you look back over 10 years, we returned $13.5 billion of capital either via dividends or share buybacks. And our expectation is that shouldn't change. That's kind of our cadence. I think, Adam, if you look at some of the competitors, the starting point would be where are they within their targeted leverage range in the first place?

And you're not where you want to be?

Yes. And I would just reiterate that if I go back, I've been doing this for a long time. This isn't anything new. We've been talking about this for 10 years. So we've been pretty consistent about what our leverage ratios are, how our capital is allocated...

You've gone through periods where you've been under, and then you've done a lot of buybacks. Is that correct?

Yes.

And I think getting into a buyback situation is very powerful when you can deliver it year after year after year.

Yes. You know I just want to start something you can't see through right now.

Correct. And as an investor, you can say, I'm going to get my dividend return and I'm going to get this [indiscernible]. And I think that's real, the power in it.

What about portfolio changes? I mean, again, you guys do so many things in your products and your customer base is diversified as any supplier in the world. But has the world changed enough where -- that you can reassess some of the businesses that you do where you don't think you can be #1, 2 or 3 in that business on the typical Magna way. You don't want to be in a market where you're 4 or 5, where maybe you're or maybe you dispose of some things. And another way of asking the question is from an M&A and portfolio perspective, are you an incremental buyer or an incremental seller?

Is there somewhere in between? I think...

Answer any way you want.

I think we're balanced. I like our portfolio. Like I said, we do go -- there's probably pruning going on.

I mean there's something in between as a play. I asked Sergio Marchionne once. I said, are you a buyer or a seller? And Sergio said, rest his soul, he goes, "Adam, I'm not saying I'm a buyer. I'm not saying I'm a seller. I'm just saying I'm a player." Oh, are you player?

He's a good Canadian.

I mean that shirt, you look like a player with that shirt.

Exactly. We try as Canadians. We're always going to prune. We just sold our metal forming business in India, but they're not going to be game changers. I've been at Magna 25 years, 27 years, we've done 2 acquisitions over $500 million in that time. We're still trying to absorb a very big one. And maybe we're too granular in the weeds, but we like to do things right, and we're going to absorb it. I look at our portfolio, it works. We are in those top 3 positions. Where we're not, it's pruning.

Maybe on complete vehicles, I think in the past, you said you're rightsizing operations. Maybe like what is rightsizing? I mean how do you kind of think about the long-term value of the complete vehicle business?

Take the first, or do you want me to do it?

Yes.

Yes, sure. So if I think about our CBA business, it's about 150,000 units of production, and that's really the paint line is the capacity piece of it. And we've been running the G wagon, the BMW 5 Series that ended production, BMW Z4, Toyota Supra. Two programs, i.e., E-PACE for JLR. And we had expected Fisker. We talked about this last year, Adam. We know how this ended up and it's unfortunate, but that pulled out an expectation of 30,000 to 50,000 units of production. Also included in our '26 outlook was we -- the INEOS-Fusilier program was supposed to come in. That was canceled. So now we're in a much lower position. So what's really good about that Steyr business, and part of the reason it exists, is we flex up or down based on capacity. So we have flexed that business down significantly in the short term, primarily related to that short-term pain. Are we stopped? No. So you go back and say, what other programs can you get in here? We're selling flexibility. We're selling speed to market and we're selling high quality. So if you think about those pieces, there's different selling pitches to traditional customers, which is the quality and maybe you can retool your facility, but we're looking under 50,000 units. With all the geopolitical issues, with Chinese coming in, we're talking to Chinese OEMs. Can we get them into the European market quicker? Can we build a quality program -- product for them? Can we help them homologate a car for the European market quickly? Those are the different pieces and that we're going to continue. That being said, you're probably talking a 2-year period that you have to do until you restructure down.

All right.

Anything to add or...

Fisker. How much -- you're a numbers guy. How much did that cost Magna, overall, round number?

It's probably our impairment.

An impairment.

[ 330 ].

But then there was -- that's it? Just the impairment?

But if you think -- we're also a very conservative company. So if you think about how you work with a new entrant is very different than a traditional cash in advance. Don't have the bill of materials going through your books. So with Mercedes when we buy a G wagon, we're buying a battery tray. We buy it, put it in our books, and we sell it to Mercedes. In the case of Fisker, Fisker can deal directly with the battery. So we derisk the bill of materials. What was left with the impairment was the -- what wasn't -- the impairment included about $70 million of working cap and the rest was long-term assets.

Do you think that the media and investor, let's say, fawning over Chinese EV players is overhyped? Or is it deserving of the hype given what you know about the automobile?

I think they do a lot of things very, very well. And it's -- we hosted some investors in one of our facilities in China in May. And I think it really -- they're quick in the way they can develop a vehicle. I think the concept having a China for China solution is very powerful and the way they can develop really quickly. So if you think about an ADAS package in a traditional company's point of view, they're probably 3-year engineering builds. They're doing it in half the time. So there's a lot of things you can learn. But what they're doing is they're focusing on the China market. They're not trying to make it for a product for North America and for, whatever, 30 countries in Europe. So it's a different business model. I think all that being said, you also have to think about where they're trying to compete. Is Mercedes trying to compete at a $10,000, $20,000 vehicle level? Probably not.

You think Western firms can beat the Chinese on cost?

On a like-for-like basis, it shouldn't be much different in the long term.

Meaning like-for-like, meaning like -- landed?

All the specs. If you come in -- I was in the metal business, right? And so -- and my world is I'm looking at a cradle talking to an investor and one was a COEM cradle and the other one was a G3 cradle. And the level of technology that just goes into that spec drives a lot of cost. So if we would sell that cradle in Magna, whether it was to a G3 or COEM, that cradle cost the same. So it really depends on the spec of the vehicle itself that are you competing.

Have you driven many of the Chinese cars yourself?

Not myself.

Louis?

No.

Okay. Well, then I can't ask the question I was going to ask.

Thank god I said no.

For another time, maybe we should do that. Do you think that there's a path for -- you said you can help the Chinese OEMs come to Europe. Can you help them come to the U.S., too, even if it's -- I mean you don't have the manufacturing capacity here, but like is there -- let me ask it a different way. Do you think there's a path for the Chinese to enter the U.S. market and transplant here with the help of suppliers and even OEM partners? Is that -- do you think that's something that...

Subject to political issues. I think where we would help in the Chinese case, in our view, would be they tend to be more vertically integrated in China. So if they come into -- if we talk North America, they're talking Mexico.

[indiscernible] makes their own airbags. They'll probably have inflators but they make them.

But it's a different operating model, it's a lot about employment. If you come into Mexico, I think where Magna but other suppliers can help is the speed again to market installed capacity. I don't think -- even if COEMs come in, I don't think there's going to be -- we're running at 16 million units. It's not going to go to 16.2 million or 16.3 million. It's going to be a take. So there's going to be install capacity that can help the situation.

If you look at our business in China right now, which is about $5-plus billion, add another couple of billion dollars for unconsolidated sales, $7 billion. About half of that is with the domestic -- Chinese domestic OEMs. It used to be 85% with the international, and now it's roughly 50-50 between them. So we've already established relationships with the bigger names, the ones that are likely to move forward. And so as they move into new regions, it may make more sense for them to look at capacity that's already in the ground. I mean we're already the biggest supplier in North America. We're like top 3 or 4 in Europe as well. So that's something that we see as an opportunity as they move forward.

But to be clear, we're not looking to put in an assembly operation in North America. That's not...

I mean maybe I think the thing that is so interesting about Magna, you have so many different views in so many different regions and you're in so many different product lines. And so you get this unique perspective on global auto. I guess as you think out 2030, I mean, what excites you or doesn't excite you? And where do you think the industry is going that you think maybe is a little bit more underappreciated?

2030 is really quick. We're quoting...

2035.

Yes, 2035. Like we're literally quoting products on high architecture products for '28, '29, '30 already for SOPs. I think my personal belief is EVs are coming. I really believe that there's a point where it's either going to be legislated, but it's going to drive consumer demand. Did everybody get ahead of themselves? Probably. I think in -- we're still seeing high penetration rates in China, Europe, and I think our U.S. is going to follow. And I think once that happens, we're going to see it. We're positioned from our point of view that we sell seats. I think it becomes an efficiency thing. I know, Adam, you talk a lot about efficiencies. Why are we building a different type of seat for an EV versus a seat for an ICE? Why don't we build those -- maybe make a couple of small structural changes. So maybe it gives the OEMs a chance to reset and looking at parts of the vehicle that, the ugly bits we would call them at Magna, that people don't care about and standardize them and bring efficiencies. So I think that's what's going to happen. The flip side to that argument is going to be we're seeing more fragmentation in platforms. So more platforms and lower units per platform.

So GM announced MOU with Hyundai to work together on, I mean, literally everything and along, like I don't know what they're not working on everything, it seems. Is that -- what's your reaction to that? Surprised? I think we'll see more of that. And are you aware -- and what's your opinion of cooperations between OEMs?

It's happened forever, right? Wasn't one time.

Are they successful?

I think so.

Name a couple of successful ones?

Engine building. Stuff you don't see, right?

Stuff you don't see.

Engine building, transmissions. There's an example where we are where you build a transmission and you -- we have a standard transmission and you modify it...

People mention the Ford GM transmission thing.

Or Ford and...

[indiscernible] back in the day. All right. Let's go here. Thank you.

A quick question on the European tariffs and Chinese EVs coming in. There has been some back and forth, but do you have a perspective on where this will end? And a follow-up to that. You've mentioned you can help them sort of enter the, I guess some of the others, enter European market. What are some -- can you give us some examples of how you can help them?

I think on the tariffs, it's still in flux. I think I saw another update this morning or yesterday. So I think it's going to continue to move. The interesting part is a lot of the G3s actually are pushing against them. Right? So it's an odd situation. When I think about where we can help, whether it's a COEM or any other nonregional player, what you can do is you can -- we have a facility where we assemble complete vehicles. So that's one example where you could come in, we have capacity, super high quality, you can quickly get their product out on the street. I think the other area Louis and I would talk about is Louis was mentioning, we have over $3.5 billion of business in China with COEMs. As they transplant into Europe, firstly, and Hungary is the first one to go, how do we support them with an installed capacity base? So can we leverage our relationship there and bring it into Europe? I think the third piece where we have a benefit is our engineering expertise and being able to homologate a vehicle into the European market. So you take a base vehicle and how do you bring it up to the European requirements, for example.

And this is a quick one. On the major, I guess, OEMs that are exporting into Europe, right? SAIC, BYD...

Geely. Yes.

Yes. And then, Nio and Xpeng, they're also trying to enter. Like do you have views on sort of -- what, I mean, I guess I'm really asking is, what do you think of them? If you -- maybe one liners. And some of the strategies that they have used to sell cars in China, right, it's a different consumer case. What do you think they will struggle with in Europe? Or what do you think they will succeed with?

Well, we're not going to comment on how we feel about this customer or that customer. That's...

You love doing that.

We're certainly not going do it in a public stage.

At the bar.

Okay. No. No. I think we just focus on the main players in China and that's who we have business with. It's picking the right ones. It's -- I can't comment.

Any other questions from the audience? That was a good one, though.

Anywhere you think you're underpenetrated? You talked about China, Korea, Japan, any sort of strategic opportunity?

We're #1 in -- we're #3 globally. We're #1 in North America. We're top 1 in Europe. I think in Asia has been the area where we have been relatively small historically. But as I said earlier, we've been growing fastest in Asia for a long time and we're -- I mean we're good-sized public company in China now between consolidated and unconsolidated. And that's a market that we continue to see as opportunity in terms of growing. We continue to grow faster than the market in China. Beyond that, I mean, nothing really -- nothing that we're really pushing. Japan, I don't think -- they've never been really a high priority for us, lower volumes, et cetera.

Swamy likes to do deals. You don't need to say anything to that. But he does. He likes to do deals. Veoneer Active Safety. How do shareholders benefit from that now? Kind of -- how long has it been now since you've bought that?

14 months?

How is it going? Because when we talk to people in the ADAS world, they say a lot of stuff is changing. Now a lot of things with the approach of how these vehicles learn, how they take photons from the environment, and some of them are even putting billions of dollars into data centers powered by nat gas peakers and nukes to train them. So I'm just kind of wondering, first, do you corroborate that statement that in the 14 months since you bought Veoneer, and presumably longer when you start sizing it up, that the world has changed significantly on that side of the market. And if so, what impacts they have on your business and your capital investments in Veoneer.

So I think -- I'll start. And I think a couple of points in there. I think the Veoneer integration is on track. We had targeted synergies, we're executing against those. I think what's changed from whatever it was, say, 2 years ago when we started looking at this, or more, is the China market has changed, for sure. So that's number one. Again, coming back to a China for China type solution, that's changed. So it's more of an inward-looking market in China. Second piece where we've seen change in sales decline is with everything that's happening with EVs and all the architecture changes coming from the OEMs, a lot of sourcing, think about CARIAD, Cruise, all these, we're going to be everything to everybody internal. There's been a big pullback. That pullback has pushed -- remember is going to be all dumb sensor, a central compute, one computer. Now we're seeing a change. So it's been pushing sourcing decisions out further. And the penetration rates tend to be a little bit...

It's pushing, so it's like creating some hesitation or delaying these sourcing decisions.

Correct. I think the OEMs, from my point of view, are retreating a bit, rethinking about their architectures. You think about VW making an investment in Rivian. What's the E/E-architecture of that vehicle in the future? It takes time to make those decisions. We're on the outside. So what we're seeing is some extensions of existing programs. But also some of these new ones that were coming in are being pushed out 1, 2 years. That to me is the 2 biggest changes, I would say.

Yes. I think the trajectory has changed, but I think there's still growth, fair bit of growth, and I think that's something that with our technologies, with the resources that we have, however the customers want us to support them, whether it be on components or on systems or some portion thereof, we're available to support them.

Where would it differentiate? Where does the integrated Veoneer-Magna solution? Where does it really differentiate in the minds of your OEM customers?

That's like asking how is our fascia facility different from PO's fascia facility? They're a good competitor.

[indiscernible] cost and quality and...

No. But I think they're there already. Like I think the market's gotten smarter in the supply base that there has been a shakeout, and we're dealing -- I would say, if I built a time machine, went back 15 years, the supply base was much more weak. And now when we came out of the restructuring of that time, we have a lot of really strong players. Some of them took big hits to get where they are today. But I think where they are today, I think if I look across our portfolio, we have good competitors in seats. We have good competitors in fascias.

Do you think ADAS is a commodity, it gets commoditized?

No, I don't think so. I still think the complexity in it continues to exist. We're up -- we're playing up in Level 2 or Level 3. We're not in 4 or 5. That's a different world. That's where the real dollars are.

Okay. Well, panelists, we're running out of time here. I appreciate you covering a wide range of topics. Thanks for being a good sport as well and always for supporting the conference...

Thanks for picking on the Canadians. It's always nice.

There we go. Thank you.

Thank you, Adam.

Thanks, guys. We're good.