Safran SA (SAF) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to the Safran Third Quarter 2025 revenue. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to your host, Olivier Andries, Safran's CEO; and Pascal Bantegnie, Group CFO. Mr. Andries, please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for Safran's Third Quarter 2025 call. I'm here with Pascal. Let us start with the key highlights of the quarter. Safran delivered another strong performance in Q3 with high teens growth driven by increased volume and services. Adjusted sales reached EUR 7.9 billion. Civil aftermarket remained robust, reflecting continued demand from airlines. Spare parts for civil engines were up 16%, largely thanks to CFM56, while services grew by 24%, supported by LEAP rate per flight hour contract. Regarding LEAP engine deliveries, output has improved quarter after quarter this year. After a slow start, we have been able to catch up on delays. And in Q3, we reached a new record with over 500 LEAP engines delivered, up 40% year-on-year and 25% from the previous quarter. Over the first 9 months of the year, we have delivered a total of 1,240 LEAP engines, a 21% increase compared to last year. These strong results also reflect continued improvements across our supply chain. In addition to the strong operational results, we are excited about our recent acquisition of the actuation and flight control activities from Collins finalized at the end of July. The strategic move has already contributed to our Q3 performance. Integration is off to a great start and our teams are fully engaged and focused on unlocking cost synergies and new commercial opportunities. We are confident that this acquisition will be a strong driver for Safran's future performance. Looking at the year-to-date picture, adjusted revenue for the first 9 months amounted to EUR 22.6 billion, up 15% organically, confirming a strong growth trajectory across all divisions. Based on this performance, we are upgrading our full year 2025 outlook on all metrics. Turning to Slide 4. Let me highlight some of our key business achievements this quarter. Last week in Morocco, we broke ground on the new LEAP MRO facility and announced the launch of a new LEAP-1A assembly line in Casablanca. This expansion strengthens our global industrial footprint and will support the sustained ramp-up of the LEAP engine deliveries in the years ahead with a capacity to assemble up to 350 engines per year. In Defense, Safran and Rheinmetall signed a framework agreement to jointly develop advanced Defense solutions, combining our expertise in electronics, navigation system environment, and atomic clocks, time servers with Rheinmetall's land defense capabilities. At the 2025 Defense Security Equipment International Show in London, Safran unveiled its next-generation infrared binoculars, setting new standards for technical observation and situation awareness. Lastly, in Poland, Safran and PGZ entered in a strategic defense partnership to foster local industrial cooperation and innovation. The agreement covers industrial cooperation on the HAMMER Precision Munition and the local production of GEONYX Navigation System with PGZ. Let me now hand over to Pascal for more details on Q3 sales.

Thank you, Olivier. Good morning all. A few words to start with on FX as usual. After a sharp rise in the first part of the year, the euro-dollar stabilized around $1.15 to $1.17 since early July. Our hedging portfolio has remained fully protected so far with no deactivations to date. The team is continuing to hedge our 2029 exposure at very good rates. Our 2025 hedge rate is confirmed at $1.12 per euro, and the hedge book now totals $54 billion as of end September, unchanged from the end of June. Overall, our approach to FX risk has kept us well protected, ensuring attractive hedge rates and supporting Safran's competitiveness in a challenging market environment. Turning to Slide 7. Q3 revenue reached EUR 7.9 billion, up 18% year-over-year. The currency impact was a negative EUR 300 million, mainly reflecting the euro appreciation against the U.S. dollar with an average spot rate of $1.17 in Q3 compared to $1.10 last year. Scope largely offset the negative currency impact, contributing EUR 300 million, primarily driven by 2 months consolidation of the actuation and flight control activities acquired from Collins. In total, the group generated over EUR 1.2 billion in additional organic revenue versus last year, fueled by growth in every division with Propulsion leading the way. And on Slide 8, let me now provide a few details per activity. Propulsion revenue reached EUR 4 billion, up 26%. Civil OE grew strongly. Q3 was a record quarter with 511 LEAP engines delivered, up 40% year-over-year and up 25% sequentially. Civil aftermarket remained very dynamic with spare parts up 16%, mainly driven by CFM56 and high-thrust engines, both of them benefiting from sustained volumes and higher work scope. CFM56 gross prices were up mid- to high single-digits in August. LEAP also contributed positively over the period. In the first 9 months, spare part sales were up 19.5% at the top end of our guidance. Services were up 24%, mainly driven by LEAP RPFH contracts, but also high-thrust engines service contracts. Over 9 months, services increased by 22.2% beyond our guidance. But as you know, it has no additional EBIT impact given our profit recognition methodology. Military engine revenue declined year-over-year, notably due to a softer level of aftermarket activity and slightly fewer M88 deliveries to end customers. Equipment & Defense revenue increased by 12% to EUR 3 billion with both OE and aftermarket growing at a similar pace. Higher OE sales were fueled by aircraft ramp-up, driving increased demand for landing gear, electrical and power system, nacelles and avionics. Defense also continued to benefit from strong momentum, especially in the guided-bond HAMMER, missile seekers, navigation and timing systems. Services continued to perform well, supported by strong air traffic levels, which resulted into ongoing demand, in particular for landing system, electrical system and nacelles. Aircraft Interiors posted revenue of EUR 800 million, up 10%. OE sales increased by 12%, supported by steady growth in the Cabin business, benefiting from aircraft ramp-up. Business class seat deliveries, however, faced headwinds from certification, which remains a key challenge in the sector. Services were up 7%, driven by Cabin activities with very good momentum in Middle East and Asia. A few additional points on Slide 9. First, on the share buyback program. As of October 17, we hold approximately 5.1 million treasury shares designated for cancellation, and we are currently finalizing the ongoing EUR 500 million tranche, which will be completed by December 5. All these shares representing a total of EUR 1.4 billion will be canceled by the end of 2025. Some update on the tariff environment. Now that bilateral agreements have been negotiated, we are better positioned to assess and manage the risk associated with tariff. The agreement between the U.S. and the EU as well as the eligibility of our products under the USMCA regime have significantly reduced the amount at stake. In this fluid environment, Safran remains agile and actively continues to implement mitigation measures and commercial actions. Nonetheless, a residual impact remains primarily related to flows between China and the U.S., what we call Section 232 on aluminum, steel, copper, or products which are not eligible under bilateral agreements. So the net impact on the recurring operating income, which is now included in the full year 2025 outlook, is expected to be a negative EUR 100 million to EUR 150 million in 2025. Olivier, back to you.

Thank you, Pascal. So based on the strong performance over the first 9 months, we are upgrading our full year 2025 outlook on all metrics. Revenue should increase by 11% to 13%. Recurring operating income guidance is improved by EUR 100 million at midpoint and now includes the expected net tariff impact, as Pascal just commented. Free cash flow guidance is improved by EUR 100 million at midpoint, reflecting the improved business performance. Two of our main assumptions are updated. LEAP engine deliveries are now expected to increase by more than 20% versus 2024. And with increased activity in LEAP, maintenance services are now expected to grow by low to mid-20s with no additional EBIT associated due to our specific profit recognition methodology. In addition to this outlook, the Collins flight control and actuation activity should contribute at around EUR 650 million of revenue with a mid-single-digit recurring operating margin before separation and integration costs. Overall, Safran remains on track to deliver another year of profitable growth and robust cash generation supported by healthy demand, solid execution and the resilience of our portfolio. Thank you. We will now answer your questions.

[Operator Instructions] We will now take our first question. This is from Christophe Menard from Deutsche Bank.

I had 2 actually. The first one is on the guidance upgrade on the EBIT. Now that you include the tariffs, it means we have the equivalent of a EUR 200 million incremental improvement. Where is this coming from? Is it essentially spares? Can you elaborate? The second one is on Morocco. You're talking about an increase in production capacity. Is it enough for you to reach rate 75 in 2027? Or do you need further investment?

Christophe, I'll take the first one. Indeed, we raised our guidance by EUR 100 million. But as it takes now into account the EUR 100 million to EUR 150 million impact from tariffs, the underlying performance is a raise of EUR 200 million to EUR 250 million. It's coming primarily from the spare sales. You can see that at the end of the first 9 months, we are at the high end of our guidance, which is mid- to high 20s for spare part sales at 19.5%. To be frank, we could have been more positive at the end of July. But at that time, we didn't have such clarity on tariff. So now that the dust has settled, it's easier for us to mitigate the impact and quantify the impact. So this is the 2 reasons why we can raise today the guidance.

Christophe, for your second question relating to Morocco, this investment is allowing us to meet the high rates requested by our Airframer customers relating to the assembly of the engines. So we have to look at it holistically between the assembly capacity, let's say, from our partner, GE, and our own assembly capacity. But indeed, this new investment allows us to meet, let's say, the rate increase -- the high rate increase for the assembly. But the assembly is just the tip of the iceberg, because in order to meet rates whatever, 75 or so, if you speak about Airbus, but Boeing has also high rates increase as well and also COMAC is willing to increase. So we have to look at the global picture, which is encompassing forging, casting, machining, special processes. So once again, the assembly is just the tip of the iceberg.

We'll now take the next question. And this is from Benjamin Heelan, Bank of America.

The first question is on aftermarket. And clearly, very strong trends through the year. And your partner, GE, gave some building blocks for 2026 on their call earlier this week. I was just wondering, are there any building blocks that you can provide that the mix is obviously very similar, but there's also some differences how we can think about aftermarket growth and any building blocks you can provide at this point into next year? My second question is free cash flow. You've obviously had guidance upgrades pretty much all through the year. They have been quite material. And I think when I look at what you've done in '24, I look at what you've done in '25, it's clearly extremely difficult for you to be as low as what you guided at your Capital Markets Day for your 2024 to 2028 sort of cumulative free cash flow. So how are you thinking about the medium-term guidance here. You're clearly running well ahead of it. And when can we expect an update there? And then my final question is, obviously, you've owned Collins for a couple of months now. Just any comments in terms of how it's performing, what you see? And now that Collins is done, where is next from an M&A perspective? Or are you broadly happy with the portfolio as it is today?

Okay. So I guess your first 2 questions relate to either the 2026 outlook or the 2028 ambition. At this point in time, now our midterm plan is ready. What we need to do is to compile our midterm plan with the Collins contribution. We acquired this company late July. August, as you know, is not a busy month at least here in France. So we need some more time to compile all this data. So we'll come back in Feb, obviously, with the '25 results with the guidance for 2026, notably on aftermarket. And we'll discuss our first EBIT target for 2028 and our accumulated free cash flow. I would again agree with the comments you made that we are clearly on the upside, notably on aftermarket. And I guess we can now say that we share a similar view with GE on the CFM spare parts momentum -- CFM56 spare parts momentum that they disclosed mid of July. But we need to quantify the impact at Safran level and come back to you next Feb.

Ben, on Collins, I can tell you that the teams are enthusiastic. The ex-Collins teams, now Safran, in the U.K., in France and Italy are enthusiastic to join Safran. They are on board our strategy. They are very pleased to see that we have a strategy going forward with respect to flight controls and the preparation for the next single aisle. Our integration team is fully engaged to get in the time line that we've committed to, the cost synergies that we can draw from the various activities. And we have engaged in that. Typically, our team from the nacelles business have started to connect with our new actuation and flight control teams, same for our landing system teams, same for our aero system teams. So basically, we are fully engaged. What is next? As we have always said, M&A is opportunistic. But to be very clear on the equipment side, I think we have made most of our moves. We have quietened our spectrum of activities in safety critical equipment. So I don't expect that there is going to be a significant further move on the equipment side. As we said, we stay ready for, let's say, some bolt-on acquisitions, especially in defense, which is a strong area of growth.

Next question is from Chloe Lemarie from Jefferies.

I have the first one on the LEAP assembly line in Morocco. I was wondering how quickly it would ramp because I was under the impression it would start operation in 2028. So wondering how long it would take to reach the 350 engine per year mentioned in the press release. Also with this announcement, does that mean that you have finalized discussions with Airbus on the ramp-up to rate 75. My second question was actually on Seats. We've obviously seen challenges in certification for a while in the industry now. So I was wondering if it affected in any way what you see as the potential margin for the business? And in turn, if it affected your view of how core this business is for Safran?

Chloe, on the LEAP assembly line, we've said that the first assembled engine would be beginning of 2028, if I remember well. So it's 2028, and we will ramp up, let's say, we are not going to reach 350 in a matter of months for sure. But I expect that the 350 can be reached by 2030 or so. So this is for Morocco. Typically, here, our assembly line in Villaroche in France will account for about 65% of our, let's say, global assembly capacity. And Morocco, plus we have a tiny small assembly capacity in Mexico as well to deliver engines to Mobile, Alabama. So Morocco plus Mexico would account for 35%, roughly. At 75, we have, let's say, an aligned view with Airbus on basically 2026 and 2027. We have engaged in discussion for the rate 75. And so the discussions are ongoing at the moment. On Seats, this is an area where we had many, many challenges. We have tackled the development challenges. So now the development process is really under control. We have addressed the supply chain issues. Here as well, it has improved significantly. This is an area where we probably were a little bit too shy, if I may say, on extracting the value of our seat business. And so we've significantly improved our price on the, let's say, most recent wins that we have obtained. This will materialize in the EBIT in 2 years from now. But the pricing is obviously a key element of the, let's say, financial recovery of the seat business. And we are still facing some certification challenges, which is an industry-wide challenge on certification. That's where we are.

Chloe, part of your question, is it still a core business? It is. We have not changed our mind compared to the view we shared at the Capital Market Day in 2021. We said that 30% of the former Zodiac activities were noncore. We have already divested some of them. We may divest more in the future, but Seats is not part of our divestment process.

Next question is from Ross Law, Morgan Stanley.

Just to come back on LEAP rates. You just mentioned that you're aligned with Airbus for rates for 2026 and '27, but still in discussions for rate 75. Does that mean that rate 75 could only be achieved beyond 2027 from a Safran perspective? Second one on LEAP again, just in terms of the engine catch-up, you previously said you aim to fully catch up by the end of October, so a few days' time. Given this obviously strong delivery numbers in the third quarter, is that still on track? And then last one, if I may, just on tariffs. So you've quantified the number or the impact for 2025 at EUR 100 million to EUR 150 million. But this, of course, only applies to a portion of the year. So should we extrapolate this run rate into 2026 until the trade deal is finalized?

Ross, on your first question, what can I say? Rate 75 is under discussion. But it's not -- I have not -- to my knowledge, I mean, Airbus has not said that rate 75 would be fully reached full year in 2027, to be very clear. So there should be no misunderstanding here. So yes, we have, let's say, a joint vision on the number of engines we need for 2026, 2027, and we are discussing now 2028 and going forward. Are we going to catch up this year? I'm confident we will. We had a very strong Q3. I don't see any reason why Q4 should be different than Q3. This is why we have raised our guidance of deliveries of LEAP for the full year. And so if we continue on this rate of weekly deliveries to Airbus, we will catch up by end of October, beginning of November, as we said. So I am confident in that respect. I will let Pascal answer on the tariff.

Ross, as you said in 2025, the tariff story was a bit strange, because we had no tariff paid in Q1. Then starting from April, we had different rates between EU and U.S., China and U.S., Mexico, Canada and U.S. So before we have the bilateral agreements being announced and now signed, we were lacking clarity. So to answer your question, going forward for '26 up to 2030, if I may, I would expect, given what we know today, because this may change, this is still a fluid environment, the net impact to be no more than EUR 100 million per year on EBIT, okay? So I would say, again, EUR 80 million, EUR 100 million could be the right range to think of.

Next question is from Ken Herbert from RBCCM.

Yes, I wanted to first ask on the CFM56. Can you comment on, across the network, how much improvement you've seen this year in turnaround times for that engine and specifically on the aftermarket? And specifically, when you think you might get back to 2018, 2019 pre-pandemic levels in terms of turnaround time? And then my second question is for the spare parts guidance this year, can you just remind us how much of that is price versus volume versus work scope for the guide on the parts?

Ken, most of the shops today are dealing with CFM56 and LEAP. What is mainly driving the turnaround time are the 2 following elements. One is the overall maintenance capacity. And in fact, on a worldwide basis, especially in the CFM network, we were short of capacity. So this is why we are on a significant ramp-up of our maintenance capacity and the same for our partner, GE. So this is one. And the second key element is basically the availability of parts. So those are the key drivers of the turnaround time. So because the pressure is very high, both on the maintenance capacity and on spare parts -- on parts globally, because we have to feed the OE side as well as the aftermarket side, the turnaround time is not the same as the one we enjoyed pre-COVID. So on the CFM56, talking about Safran at least, our current turnaround time is around 100 days, which is above, let's say, the typical turnaround time we had before COVID, which was more closer to 70 days. So that's where we are today on CFM56. On LEAP, the turnaround time is higher, but as always, this is the beginning of the journey on the LEAP. But we are on a strong trajectory to decrease the turnaround time on LEAP globally this year compared to last year, and we'll make more progress even next year. Today, the turnaround time on LEAP is, let's say, our target is 130 days. And basically, we are on trajectory to go down to 100 days in the next 1 or 2 years.

Okay. On your second question on the spare parts momentum. You know there are 3 components within our spare parts index, high-thrust engines, LEAP engine and CFM56. The largest positive surprise we had so far this year is coming from the high-thrust engines. You know that we have a minority stake on all GE engines. And we do benefit from strong volume and heavier work scope that we initially anticipated. So that was the first good news so far this year. On LEAP, I would say, slightly better than we had expected, but not far from our initial expectation. And then on CFM56, if I break down volume, it's mid-single-digit growth, as we've said since early this year. On pricing, we both benefit from the price increase we had in August 2024 in the high single-digit range. And we also benefit now from the mid- to high single-digit range price increase that we had in August 2025. And the good news is coming as well from the work scope, which is higher than what we had expected. So altogether, this is why we have consistently and continuously increased our assumption for spare parts starting the year with high single-digit plus. Now the guidance is mid- to high teens. And as I said, we are at the end of the first 9 months at 19.5%.

We'll now take our next question. This is from Sam Burgess, Goldman Sachs.

Clearly, very strong growth in services over the quarter. I know you can't quantify this exactly, but can you just give us a sense of the overall proportion of LEAP RPFH within the services revenue mix? And broadly, how should we think about margin there across services relative to spare parts? Is lower but improving the right way to frame it? And a second question, if I may, is there anything we should be aware of that may put pressure on the implied exit rate margin going into 2026?

On your first question, LEAP RPFH is the vast majority of our services revenues. Growth is coming from -- as we recognize revenues as per the cost, it means that we have more cost on these contracts, which is no good news. In fact, the reason behind that is that we have a different mix within our LEAP RPFH contracts today. We were performing a lot of what we call quick turns. So low-value shop visits. And now there are more shop visits in the mix, so performance restoration shop visits in the mix than quick turns compared to what we had anticipated, meaning more cost, meaning more revenue. So this is why we upped our assumption to low to mid-20s. But by construction, it has no EBIT benefit, because we know from the beginning of the year, the value of EBIT we will recognize under our LEAP RPFH contracts, because as we have disclosed and discussed at the Capital Markets Day, we have a profit recognition methodology, which is fixed, whatever the revenue level is. So no EBIT contribution from this upgrade in our assumption. And what was, sorry, your second question, again?

Yes, sorry, the second question was, just going into 2026, is there anything we should be aware of that may put pressure on the implied exit rate margin given your new EBIT guide?

Sorry, I'm not sure I got your question, Sam.

Is there anything we should be aware of for...

Is your question on FX or not?

No, on margin, whether there's anything that could put pressure on margin going into '26 that we should be aware of?

Okay. You mean globally or on Propulsion?

No, in terms of group.

Well, we will guide in Feb for 2026. But our view is that if I take businesses by businesses, starting maybe with Aircraft Interiors, our intent is to improve the operating margin by more or less 200 basis points each and every year if we want to be at 10% by 2028, which was what we discussed at the Capital Markets Day. Then in Equipment & Defense, I would say before Collins, because we have still to evaluate the Collins impact. As you know, it will be dilutive in the first year. But before the Collins contribution, our target is to be at 15% in 2028. And we were last year at 12.2%. This year, we expect to improve by at least 50 basis points our margin in Equipment & Defense, and we should continue to grow next year. And in Propulsion, we posted a very strong H1 at, I guess, was north of 23%. I remember that we said that the margin should improve by more or less 250 basis points this year. I would maybe revise slightly down this expectation given that we have higher services. As you see, we are up our assumption, and it comes with no EBIT, as I just said. And we will also increase LEAP deliveries, meaning more revenues, but all that is coming at a loss. So in Propulsion, I would say, 200 to 250 basis points, but maybe on the low side of that range. So going forward, the key point will be on Propulsion, and we will discuss that in 2026. It's a bit early to tell.

We'll now take the next question. And this is from Olivier Brochet from Rothschild.

I would ask 2 questions, please. In the newspapers a few weeks ago, there were discussions about potential disposals that you could be doing in Interiors. I don't know if you can comment about that. But if you're doing these disposals, what will you be doing with the cash, please? And the second question is on the tariff impact on free cash flow. If you could give us a sense of how this would play out in 2025, 2026 compared to the impact that you give for operating income, please?

Olivier, we will not comment specifically on basically those articles and those disposals. I will only reiterate what we've said back in 2021 and again at our Capital Markets Day in 2024, we intend to sell and dispose about 30% of the Zodiac -- ex-Zodiac portfolio. The majority of this perimeter is going to relate to Interiors, the majority. Now we've also said that we wish, we want to recover, let's say, the performance, the operational and financial performance of those activities before starting the process of disposal. And we are on that path.

Olivier, on your question, it's a good question on the free cash associated with tariffs. On the EBIT side, so as I said, there's a net impact of negative EUR 100 million to EUR 150 million in '25. The cash impact is higher than that for 2 very simple reasons. First, we have put in place what we call a duty drawback mechanism, by which if you apply, you can get your cash back in some circumstances, but it will take time from the CBP to reimburse you. So part of what we see in EBIT in '25 will be cash back only in '26 and so on. And then as you know, we are -- part of the mitigation actions is to take commercial actions with customers, meaning invoicing customers for the tariff surplus. And here, again, there is a cycle for cash collection from our customers. So you would assume that the cash impact in 2025 is higher than the EBIT impact that we have disclosed.

That's helpful. If I can go back on the disposals. My point was not so much whether you will do them or not. It was more on the use of the cash. Is this something that shareholders should think of as reinvested in the business, reinvested in external growth, or effectively as shareholder distribution?

Well, it depends on the size of the disposal. If we are talking of a few hundred million euros, or if we are talking of more than EUR 1 billion, depending of what we can achieve or not. At this point in time, I guess we have a friendly approach to shareholders in terms of dividend and share buyback. So we need to execute on that. Now on M&A, as Olivier said before, it is always opportunistic because we don't know what kind of companies will come for sale. So we'll see with time. So we will consider what will be the cash use once we have finalized the divestments.

We have one more question. This is from Ian Douglas-Pennant from UBS.

Ian at UBS. Firstly, just a quick one on currency. Could you just remind us of the translational impact here? So your guidance assumes 110 and we're obviously a little off that point today. So just -- I know you hedge, but what's the translation impact, please? And then secondly, could you help us understand, are you still expecting a kind of fade in the market environment that you're seeing in Q4, which results in weaker revenue growth and weaker profit growth in Q4 as implied in your guidance. Can you just help us understand what the kind of offsets are there, please?

On your first question, to provide clarity on the translation effect. First, in terms of sensitivity, $0.01 of FX change has more or less EUR 150 million of impact on revenues either way. We built our initial guidance at $1.10. What matters is the average spot rate over the full year. Year-to-date, despite the fact that we went up to $1.17, even $1.18 at some point in time, on average, year-to-date, it's $1.12. If we assume that Q4 will remain at $1.16 for the full quarter, then you would assume that the full year average spot rate will be more or less at $1.13, okay? So $0.03 difference from our initial expectation, which means no more than EUR 0.5 billion of a negative impact on the full year sales, okay? Then on your Q4 question, yes, lower growth than what we had in the first 9 months, but it's simply because of the comparison base, which was quite high last year. I don't see anything specific other than that.

We have no further questions. So I would hand back to the speakers for any closing comments.

Okay. Thank you for your attention.

And have a good day.

Have a good day. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.