Senior plc (SNR) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning. Welcome to Senior plc's 2023 Interim Results Presentation. Thanks for making the effort to get here to London Stock Exchange and a warm welcome for those of you joining remotely. In terms of our agenda this morning, I will briefly cover the highlights. Bindi will run through and comment on the results. And then I will give an update on markets, strategy and outlook. So Senior is on a strong trajectory with good growth across our two divisions and adjusted profits doubling year-on-year. This year-on-year increase reflected the strong momentum in our core markets and our positioning on key growth platforms across both, Flexonics and Aerospace. Our book-to-bill was a healthy 1.2. Financially, we continue to trend positively with big improvements in return on capital and earnings per share and a healthy balance sheet. Bindi will cover the details of this in a few moments. Our Spencer acquisition is going well with good progress on integration and sales almost 50% up year-on-year. The Board's expectations of strong growth for the year are unchanged, which provides the confidence to prove an interim dividend of 0.6p per share, which is double last year's interim dividend. And before I talk about markets, technology and outlook, I'll hand over to Bindi to take us through the financial results.

Thank you, David. Good morning. I want to start by shaping the first half performance. We delivered a strong trading performance with adjusted PBT doubling year-on-year. Revenue grew 16% on a constant currency basis. Margins increased to 4.7%, and adjusted operating profit increased by 71%. Adjusted profit before tax doubled to GBP 17.6 million, and adjusted earnings per share significantly increased to 3.53p. As demand grows, investment in working capital increases and the group recorded free cash outflow of GBP 11.8 million. Net debt, excluding capitalized leases, was GBP 119.4 million, and our balance sheet remains healthy with net debt EBITDA of 1.6x. With improved profitability, return on capital employed increased by 400 basis points to 6.3%. I will now summarize the key elements of the group's trading performance in the first half of 2023. We are operating in an inflationary environment and have provided bridges to show how we have successfully mitigated inflationary pressures with the benefits from one-off cost recoveries and recurring price increases. While we've been successful in more than fully covering inflationary costs in the markets in which we operate, it is not typical to be able to apply margin to cost pass-through auto surcharges. So the chart at the top bridges the GBP 80 million increase in revenue to GBP 482 million in first half 2023. With a stronger U.S. dollar compared to half 1 '22, the group recorded favorable exchange rate translation of GBP 13.5 million. We had pricing benefits of GBP 21.6 million and volume growth of GBP 45 million, reflecting the strong momentum in our core markets and positioning on key growth platforms across both, Flexonics and Aerospace divisions. The chart at the bottom bridges the increase in adjusted operating profit from GBP 12.6 million in first half '22 to GBP 22.9 million in the first half of 2023. Price increases of GBP 21.6 million offset inflationary cost increases of GBP 18.7 million. The improved profitability also reflected volume-related operating leverage, particularly across our Flexonics businesses. As is well documented, volatility in the Aerospace supply chain continues, and inefficiencies caused by these challenges are temporarily dampening volume-related drop-through benefits in some of our Aerospace businesses. Overall, increased volumes delivered underlying profit increase of GBP 6.9 million. Inflation and continued investment in information security resilience were the main factors increasing central costs by GBP 0.8 million. Looking at divisional performance on a constant currency basis, in Flexonics, revenue grew by 25%. Revenue from land vehicle markets increased 33%, driven by increased market and customer demand and market share gains for both, commercial and passenger vehicles. Senior sales to North American truck and off-highway market increased 16%. Sales to other truck and off-highway regions, primarily Europe and India went up 48%. And sales to passenger vehicle markets grew 64%. Our sales -- our strong sales in land vehicles were aided by the production increases on recently won contracts. Increasing demand for upstream oil and gas activity was a primary driver for our revenue from power and energy markets going up 16%. We also benefited from growth in sales to medical and steel industry customers. Aerospace revenue increased by 11%. Civil Aerospace sales had the strongest growth, up 21%, reflecting higher aircraft production rates. Defense revenue grew 2% as our sales to the F-35 program increased. A number of our Aerospace businesses supply product to broader industrial markets. Revenue from these markets decreased by GBP 6.4 million because of the expected decrease in demand from the semiconductor equipment market. The growth in revenue in both divisions led to growth in profit and margins. In Flexonics, adjusted operating profit increased by 70% to GBP 20.2 million, and the adjusted operating margin increased by 290 basis points to 11.3%. This significant improvement in profitability reflected the volume-related operating leverage across our Flexonics businesses as well as the benefits from recurring price increases and one-off cost recoveries, which offset inflationary cost increases. In Aerospace, adjusted operating profit increased by 15% to GBP 11.6 million, and the adjusted operating margin increased by 10 basis points to 3.8%. Price increases helped offset the impact of inflationary cost increases. However, the inefficiencies largely caused by the enduring supply chain challenges are significantly but temporarily dampening volume-related drop-through benefits. Whilst we are starting to see the first green shoots of improvement, we continue to believe that it will be well into 2024 before we see normalization in the supply chain. Therefore, as the supply chain issues ease into next year, we should see some margin improvements in Aerospace in 2024, and as supply chains normalize, operating leverage improves, leading to further margin improvements in 2025 and beyond. This shows the reconciliation of adjusted profit to statutory reported profit for the period. It also highlights our interest and tax charges. Net borrowing costs increased by GBP 1.6 million to GBP 4.8 million due to higher interest rates on variable debt and higher levels of indebtedness compared to last year. IFRS 16 interest charge on lease liabilities increased to GBP 1.5 million, and net finance income from pension plans increased to GBP 1 million. A tax charge of GBP 3 million was recognized on the group's adjusted profit before tax, an effective tax rate of 17%. The impact of some R&D tax incentives, R&D in the U.S. and CapEx in the U.K. as well as some prior year adjustments have had a positive impact on 2023's effective tax rate. Looking ahead to the full year 2023, we currently expect the group's effective tax rate on adjusted profit before tax to remain around 17% before returning to a more normal level of around 21% to 23% thereafter. In terms of reconciling items, we recognized net P&L restructuring costs of GBP 0.9 million. And the GBP 0.1 million pension settlement charge relates to settlement and annuity purchase for one of our U.S. defined benefit plans. The other items excluded from the adjusted profit measures relate primarily to the acquisition of Spencer Aerospace. GBP 2 million under corporate undertakings includes unwinding of discount on deferred and contingent consideration and GBP 1.1 million for the amortization of intangible assets from acquisitions. As demand increased, the group recorded free cash outflow of GBP 11.8 million. Working capital cash outflows were GBP 38.5 million, of which GBP 14 million related to inventory and GBP 25.6 million was an increase in receivables. The receivables were higher as a result of revenue growth. And the increase in inventory reflected planned investment to enable us to meet the strong increase in demand and to protect against supply chain disruption. Inventory days on hand have remained broadly stable. Capital expenditure of GBP 13.6 million was 0.7x pre-IFRS 16 depreciation. For the full year 2023, CapEx is expected to be in line with pre-IFRS 16 depreciation. We are prioritizing new investment in growth projects where contracts have been secured in sustainability-related items and important replacement equipment for current production. Net payments for interest and tax totaled GBP 8.4 million. Below the free cash flow, the most significant cash outflows were GBP 4.1 million for dividends and the employee benefit trust purchased GBP 0.9 million of shares to satisfy anticipated future share awards. Cash outflows for the U.S. pension settlement and annuity purchase were GBP 0.8 million. Overall, the group had net cash outflow of GBP 18.1 million in the first half of 2023. I'm not going to spend much time on this next slide. The key points are: Senior has a healthy balance sheet with strong liquidity and stable finance arrangements. There are no financing maturities until 2025. So in summary, Senior delivered a strong set of results with adjusted PBT doubling year-on-year. This is reflected in the group's ROCE increasing by 400 basis points since June '22 to 6.3%. The group is mitigating inflationary pressures, and supply chain challenges are being actively managed. With a healthy balance sheet, we can invest in working capital to support the strong growth trajectory. We are on track to deliver our medium-term minimum ROCE target of 13.5%. And the doubling of the interim dividend reflects confidence in the group's improved performance and future prospects. Thank you. And I will now hand back to David to cover markets, strategy and outlook.

Thank you, Bindi. So let's turn our attention to markets. In the first half of 2023, Aerospace represented 63% of the group's revenues, and Flexonics was 37%, with strong growth across our core markets. The highest growth in absolute terms was in Civil Aerospace, and there is plenty more to come as production continues to increase to meet the very strong demand for new aircraft. Our Land Vehicles, Power & Energy businesses grew strongly, reflecting increased demand for heavy-duty truck, off-highway, passenger vehicle and upstream and downstream oil and gas products. Defense has also grown in absolute terms but reduced as a proportion of overall group sales due to the stronger growth in other sectors. As anticipated, our Other Aerospace markets declined overall due to the cyclical reduction in semiconductor equipment sales, which most people expect to trough this year. On the Civil Aerospace side, we have excellent positions on both, single-aisle and wide-body platforms, both of which will continue to grow strongly as long-haul travel and short-haul demand levels have recovered well. Looking in more detail at markets, we'll start with Flexonics and firstly look at Land Vehicles, which covers truck, off-highway and passenger vehicles. And for this market, we sell a range of proprietary products to major OEMs, in particular, our exhaust gas recirculation coolers, or EGR coolers as they are commonly known, which protect the environment by reducing emissions. And we have tremendous opportunities for our thermal management products such as battery cooling and inverter heat sinks for electric vehicles. Demand has been strong with significant increases in sales across all vehicle categories in North America, Europe and India. And we're outperforming end markets due to production increasing on recent contract wins. While there is some speculation that demand may soften in the second half of this year for North American heavy-duty trucks, so far, we are seeing orders holding up very well from our customers. We're also seeing strong demand from our off-highway and passenger vehicle customers. Similarly, while as you can see from the chart, ACT are forecasting a drop in market production in 2024, I would not be surprised to see that forecast changing for the positive just as it has this year. Really, it will depend on the broader macroeconomic backdrop in North America and Europe. Our EGR cooler expertise means that we are well positioned for other applications which need innovative thermal management and fluid conveyance solutions, notably battery and electronics cooling for electric vehicles. And the level of bid and product development activity in this area is continuously increasing, and we are securing our first production contracts, which augurs well for medium and long-term success in these markets. Our other most important Flexonics market is Power & Energy, where we supply into upstream and downstream oil and gas customers, and they're keenly involved in the transition to clean energy. Markets continued to grow in the first half of this year. And we've had good order intake from both, upstream and downstream customers, including repair, overhaul and replacement work for Senior's pathway business. In the medium term, we are well positioned to grow our non-fossil fuel business, building on our existing renewables and nuclear energy customer base, including the nascent small modular reactor or SMR sector, where we are involved in active bids for our North American customers. Moving on to Aerospace. This chart shows the percentage of our Aerospace sales for H1 2023 by platform and helps to set the scene for our aerospace and defense markets. And remember, this includes all sales to all customers that end up on a particular platform. So for example, sales to Safran on the LEAP-1A engine would show up on the A320 segment. As can be seen, the Airbus single-aisle program continues to represent the largest percentage of sales by platform. It's great to see the growth in the 737 MAX as Boeing increased production rates, and there is significant further growth anticipated in the years ahead. The wide-body platforms, including the Boeing 787 and the Airbus A350 and A330 have grown and will continue to do so based on our customers' planned build rate increases over the next few years. The F-35 and C-130 aircraft remain our largest defense platforms, and they're performing well with the lower percentages due to the higher civil growth rates. I've shown this chart a few times now, so most of you will be familiar with a high proportion of sales not attributable to any specific platform at 1% or higher, and that 39% of our Aerospace division revenue, this is an important part of our business and will include sales on space platforms, aftermarket and also sales which emanate from our Aerospace businesses, but are for other industrial markets. Now a good example would be sales for semiconductor equipment and medical applications. So the chart on the left-hand side of this slide shows that air travel has recovered very strongly from the pandemic tip. In fact, IATA reported at the end of May, the domestic passenger numbers now exceed 2019 levels and international travel is already at more than 90% of 2019 levels and continuing to grow quickly. IATA expects demand for air travel to double by 2040, with passenger numbers expected to increase by GBP 3.9 billion. Asia Pacific will contribute more than half of the forecast growth supported by favorable demographics and growth in household incomes. And as demand continues to increase, airlines want new aircraft and demand is further supported by the replacement cycle driven by the retirement of older, less efficient aircraft. Given the climate challenge and high fuel costs, the imperative for efficiency has never been greater. With our diversified product portfolio and especially the attractive positions we hold across the newest generation of single-aisle and wide-body aircraft platforms, we are well positioned to benefit from this market growth. The two charts on the right show our expectation of average monthly production rates for all aircraft types combined based on what our customers have announced supplemented by our own estimates. For Airbus, that includes A220, A320, A330 and 350. And for Boeing, it includes the B737 MAX, B767, B777 and the B787. So let's just remind ourselves what the aircraft OEMs have said. On single aisle, Airbus said at the recent results call that for the A320 family, they intend to ramp up to a monthly production rate of 75 per month sometime in 2026. On A220, Airbus have said they plan to increase to rate 14 by the middle of the decade. On wide-body, for the A350, Airbus confirmed their target of rate 9 per month at the end of 2025. And similarly, they reported that on A330, the rate would increase to 4 per month in 2024. Boeing stated on their recent results call that the 737 program is now stepping to 38 per month and intend to ramp production to around 50 per month in the 2025-'26 timeframe. And Boeing continued to plan for the 787 production rate to be up 5 per month by the end of this year and 10 per month in the '25-'26 timeframe. We expect the production of the 767 will continue at a rate of 3 per month, and the first delivery of the 777X is still expected in 2025 with production of the past year and freighter versions of the 777 continuing at current levels. As is well documented, volatility in the Aerospace supply chain continues. Whilst we're starting to see the first signs of improvement, we continue to believe it will be well into '24 before we see normalization in the supply chain. Meanwhile, our operating businesses continue to focus on doing everything possible to actively manage the supply chain issues and maintain service levels for customers. We work closely with our suppliers and customers to minimize any potential disruptions, including from the fire of one of our key suppliers in Thailand. We've made good progress to mitigate the impact of the fire, establishing alternative sources where possible. And our supplier has made good headway with the factory rebuild, but it will be well into 2024 before they have completed their efforts to reestablish full capacity and have production lines requalified. As I said at the full year results, while it's easy to become preoccupied with the supply chain pressures, it's worth remembering that the real story here is a strong recovery in air traffic and the subsequent big increases in build rates, and this is great news for the whole industry. Overall, our focus for Defense remains very much on the U.S. market where Defense spending is almost as high as the next 10 countries combined, and Senior's production volumes reach meaningful levels for sustained periods, which in due course, will also generate good aftermarket sales for our fully convinced products. Long-established programs such as C-130 and P8 remain important revenue drivers for Senior. But of course, F-35 is the largest Defense program that we are on. And we've seen several operating businesses supplying into various customers on this program. So we're encouraged to see Lockheed Martin confirming high levels of production over coming years. And then there are newer growth programs that will become important for us. For example, our high-pressure ducting products are in the Boeing-Saab T-7A Red Hawk platform, which is the new Air Force trainer jet. And the U.S. Air Force has now completed its first flight of that aircraft, and it's now in the intensive flight test phase, after which we'll ramp up production over the coming years. We would expect this platform to be successful internationally in addition to the U.S. volumes. Sales of the types of products we make in our Aerospace operating businesses into end markets outside of the Civil Aerospace and Defense markets are classified under aerospace -- Other Aerospace. It includes sales into the space, semiconductor equipment and medical markets. And 8% of group sales, it's a meaningful part of our business. Sales have dropped in this segment due to the cyclical downturn in semiconductor markets, which affect our sales to semiconductor equipment customers, but we would expect that market to pick up again as the cycle improves post trough. And space has become an increasingly attractive market with the exponential growth in low orbit satellites as a consequence of programs like SpaceX and Starlink and Amazon Kuiper. And with all the satellite requirements, naturally, there's a huge increase in requirements for launch of vehicles, too. Our sales are growing in this sector, where we provide, for example, structural parts and cryogenic valves. Moving on to Strategy and Technology. I wanted to first talk about Senior's company purpose. Back in February, I introduced you to our refreshed company purpose, and it seems to have been very well received by customers, investors and employees. As a reminder, our renewed purpose is we help engineer the transition to a sustainable world for the benefit of all of our stakeholders. And we do this by using our technology expertise in fluid conveyance and thermal management to provide safe and innovative products for demanding applications in some of the most hostile environments. By enabling our customers who operate in the Hardest to Decarbonise sectors to transition to low carbon and clean energy solutions and by staying at the forefront of climate disclosure and action by ensuring our own operations achieve our net 0 commitments. As I said, so far, the reaction from our stakeholders has been great. This is really something we believe in as an organization and will drive our strategy, business model and investment case. As you will see, sustainability is a central theme of our purpose, our strategy and indeed our technology roadmap. Importantly, therefore, we are making great progress as an organization in terms of our own sustainability actions. With regard to our actions on climate change, we are on track to deliver our near-term scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas emission reduction targets approved and verified through the science-based targets initiative. We've also submitted our long-term net 0 targets to SBTi for verification and approval, targeting 2040 as a year we will achieve net 0 emissions. And we expect the submission will conclude -- complete the multi-stage SBTi approval process soon. That will keep us in the vanguard of companies taking real and decisive action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions within our own operations and through our supply chain. We remain the only company in our sector to currently hold the prestigious A-rating from CDP for our climate disclosure and actions as well as the CDPA-rating for the work we are doing with suppliers on climate. Our performance on the social and governance aspects of ESG continue to excel with the Board and executive, keeping these front and center in our decision-making. On this slide, you can see some of the highly engineered fluid conveys and thermal management products that we supply into a range of diverse and attractive end markets, including medical, semiconductor equipment, defense, industrial and of course, commercial aerospace. It's these sorts of applications where we concentrate our product development activities. And this model of providing innovative products using proprietary technology, serving diverse and attractive end markets is a fundamental element of Senior's go-forward strategy. And this core capability continues to be highly relevant as we transition towards a low-carbon economy. Continued investment in new technology and product design and development in the areas of fluid conveyance, thermal management and additive manufacturing is vital in support of our key markets in Aerospace, Land Vehicles and Power & Energy as they transition towards a low-carbon economy. In aerospace, our traditional fluid conveyance products are compatible with sustainable aviation fuels currently under evaluation by our customers. Our additive manufacturing capabilities are enabling advances in complex product design for improved performance and weight reduction for the benefit of our customers. And our world-class capability in thermal management and fluid conveyance opens up opportunities to support electric and hybrid air vehicle applications. And we're leveraging and building upon our long experience of providing hydrogen fluid handling and distribution products for industrial markets to support development of both, on-aircraft and off-aircraft hydrogen technologies as this alternative propulsion system evolves. In line vehicles, our current exhaust gas recirculation and waste heat recovery products continue to support evolving land vehicle powertrain systems as they become more efficient and lower their impact on the environment. To focus on product offerings for the transition to a low-carbon economy, we are engaged with our customers' new product development teams by providing design and engineering support for cooling and fluid handling solutions for batteries and electronics on the growing number of electric and hybrid vehicles. And we're supporting the development of commercial vehicle hydrogen fuel cell cooling and conveyance by capitalizing on years of experience of producing hydrogen fuel cell products in the energy sector. In Power & Energy, we continue to develop and establish a wide range of fluid conveyance and thermal management products, many of which, such as our expansion joints, use our world-leading [ Belles ] technology. Our products are ideally suited for harsh environments for green energy generation, including solar farms, wind power plants, hydroelectric, geothermal, fuel cell and nuclear power applications. So hopefully, as you can see, our capabilities and technology will remain highly relevant as we transition over coming years and decades to a net 0 environment. We're looking forward to bringing this to life at our technology teach-in on Wednesday, the 25th of October, and Gulshen will be in touch with further details on this event soon. Active portfolio management is something our Board continuously focuses on. We have some excellent Aerostructures businesses, and it's great to see them starting to perform, again, as production rates in the Commercial Aerospace sector continued to increase. However, we don't necessarily fit with our fluid conveyance and thermal management strategic focus. And therefore, as indicated at our full year results in February 2023, we continue to consider the best time to relaunch the potential Aerostructures divestment to ensure we optimize value for shareholders, taking into account financing markets and end market conditions. The integration of Spencer Aerospace, which we acquired in November 2022, has been progressing well during the first half of this year. Sales were up almost 50% in H1 2023 compared to H1 2022, and we're pursuing multiple new business opportunities, both in Spencer's traditional North American home markets and in Europe, where they are working collaboratively with our French aerospace business, Ermeto. So let me finish by talking about the outlook for Senior. We are on a strong trajectory with good growth across our two divisions. And overall, the Board's expectations of strong growth for the group in 2023 are unchanged. We expect to see year-on-year growth in the Flexonics division in H2, though we are mindful of the commentary around some potential softening of markets in the second half of 2023. In Aerospace, planned aircraft build rate increases should lead to higher sales in H2, with supply chain challenges enduring but anticipated to be less severe towards the end of the year. And looking ahead, we can expect Aerospace performance to continue to improve in 2024 and beyond as supply chain charges dissipate and production rates increase. We remain on track to drive the group ROCE to a minimum of 13.5%, in line with our previously stated ambition. And our strategy in positioning an attractive and structurally resilient core markets, combined with our sector-leading sustainability credentials and highly relevant technical capabilities, provides confidence of continuing performance improvements across our Aerospace and Flexonics divisions and enhanced value for our stakeholders. With that, we'll open the floor to any questions, which Bindi and I will be delighted to answer.

I think Andy Douglas at the front was in there first.

Andrew Douglas from Jefferies. I've got a few, so I'll give you three, and then I'll come back at the other ones aren't going to. Could you just talk briefly about Flexonics margins? Clearly, very good year-over-year and in absolute terms. Can you just give us a feel for how much more you think that Flexonics margin has got in it? Because it feels like we're not at the end of the journey there. Yes, you've made good progress, but there's more to come. Do it one by one or -- let's do it for one by one. Flexonics margin?

Okay. So I mean Flexonics margins are strong right now with a good underlying growth volume trend in the business. We did also include some of the one-off cost recoveries in there as well as gaining pricing to offset inflation. What we are -- this is what -- double digit is what we are pushing our operating business to maintain. However, if there is a recession scenario with accompanying volume reductions and that would naturally be harder to maintain at that level.

But over the medium term, there's no reason why we can't get Flexonics margins higher than currently are at 11.3%, notwithstanding the one-off.

We will always keep driving our operating business to be at least double digit. Yes.

Okay, cool. And one more for Flexonics, just the softening comment. That's more of a kind of a -- just mind your comment as opposed to anything that you're seeing or is it...

Not anything specific for Senior or our customers. It's more of a broader macroeconomic comment. I'm sure like everybody else, you read the FT and other [indiscernible]. I think somebody said we got 10 [indiscernible], you've got 12 different opinions. Might be new, Andy. So -- and I think that's true. So I think there's a wide range of views on what might happen in North America and European economy, which are our two most important economies in the second half of the year and beyond. What I can see is at the moment, we are really not seeing a softening demand from a customer. So we're not seeing any signs of that potential soft landing or a mild recession that some people are talking about. Quite reverse, we're actually seeing demand holding up very well and only it continued. But it was just a nod really to what the economists have been talking about.

And then my third question, I guess, is a slightly multi-question -- multiple questions in one question, but I'll let you answer it. The Aerospace margin, you talked about the challenges that you're seeing now moving into '24, yet you're seeing some green shoots. So can you just give us a flavor for the kind of the shape of that we are giving us the numbers, clearly, the shape of that margin? Do we expect '25 to be a big jump? Or are we going to start seeing the annualized impact in the second half of '24, which then just lead on '25? Or are we...

So I think the big issue is supply chain. And I think I said in February and March that I expected supply chain issues to last 12 to 18 months from that point. I still haven't changed view on that. I think we talked about the first green shoots of recovery. So what do I mean by that? Just put some color around it. Stainless steel strip stock was impossible to hold off a few months ago, and that goes in all of our [ Bells ] manufacturing. It's okay now. ATI [indiscernible] for 13 weeks, a couple of years ago that was long-lasting. Inconel, however, is on 70 weeks lead time. Some of the third-party components we buy couples are massively overdue to us and other people. So that means there's quite a lot of inefficiencies in some of our businesses. Some of our businesses are ineffective now, but in some of our Aerospace business, particularly where they're buying in components, there's a lot of stop-start, also weekend working, lots of overtime. And then we have to go out to the market and buy similar components at many times the normal price rebate. So that's the things we talked about temporarily dampening of Aerospace margins. That's what we're trying to. Now that won't last. By the end of this year, we'll see some improvements in supply chain. And I think this time next year, we'll be at a fairly normal level. So that would suggest that we'll try and get a little bit better margin in the second half of the year, but certainly, we'll have better margin '24. And then by the time we get to '25, we should see pretty normal margins here. So we'll see a nice trajectory moving forward over the next couple of years.

It's exactly as David said, as we see the supply chain pressures easing into 2024, we'll see some margin improvement. We also talked about the Thailand supplier fire as well. They don't get their factory fully up and running until sometime into 2024. So as those things -- and then our supply chain normalizes into 2025 or later in 2024, we'll then get further margin improvement. Operating leverage obviously improves, therefore in that timeframe.

And then there's one additional benefit if you think about our margin bridge. So we've already agreed price increases for 2025, '26 with some customers. So some long-term contracts come to then naturally into '24. And we'll get significant price increases that are already agreed thereafter. So we know that's going to help further.