Earnings Sentiment

Sentiment Analysis of the earnings transcript to help figure out if there are any bullish or bearish sentiments that could be gathered from it. We're doing ML and AI based analysis on the earnings call to get some more insights.

Please consider a small donation if you think this website provides you with relevant information  

    

Sentiment Distribution

   

Earnings Call Transcript Word Cloud

     

Bullish Statements during Earnings call

Statement
I think Borg is very good at taking great technologies and commercializing them and globalizing them
If the products are weaker, then our revenue isn't going to grow as quickly, but our margin is likely going to be stronger, and that's what happened in the second half of 2023
And finally, we delivered strong free cash flow performance to finish out the year
Our margin performance was strong, coming at the high end of our guide
So I think we feel good about the fact that we're managing the profitability of that business in light of some of the near-term volatility
I alluded to in my prepared remarks on how much we've given back to our shareholders and the spin-off of PHINIA, which I think was a great success
Second, our margin performance was at the high end of our guidance, driven by strong conversion on higher revenue
First, revenue was at the midpoint of our guidance, supported by stronger-than-expected industry production in the quarter
We continue to see a strong sourcing pool for our products based on the strength of our portfolio globally
I am confident Craig has the right skills, the deep knowledge of BorgWarner and our industry to execute our next chapter of profitable growth
With Eldor, we purchased strong engineering capabilities that we believe more clearly puts us on the path to achieving product leadership in an addressable market that we expect will approach $30 billion by 2030
We're excited to supply XPeng with our proven stator on rotor as we believe it continues to position us for long-term success in China, where NEV penetration is already more than 35% of the market
We believe this margin performance is a reflection of the underlying earnings power of the Company with the ability to manage costs and drive conversion even in the face of volatile beds and hybrid markets
Our product portfolio is built for resiliency such that a longer combustion tail will help margin and cash generation
The near-term volatility is a long-term opportunity for the companies with the final strength, earnings resiliency, and the great product leadership focus, that BorgWarner processes
Overall, we delivered a solid 2023 result despite volatility in EV markets and our associated product revenue
We secured new business awards that are supportive of our long-term revenue objectives in all types of electrification, powertrain architectures
We delivered solid margins and strong free cash flow which is a sign of the product resiliency that we built
I'm proud that I can leave the Company in a moment, but I truly believe it's positioned to be a winner in the world of electrification across a variety of eProducts, which is probably not the case when I joined in 2019
With a resilient portfolio, I believe the Company is poised for long-term success no matter how the progression toward electrification plays out in the coming years
As importantly, with this leading market positions and strong margin profile, we believe our foundational business provides near-term earnings resiliency during times of BEV and hybrid market volatility just as we highlighted at our Investor Day back in June
We believe that BorgWarner clearly positioning itself to be among the leaders in terms of eProduct business awards and to do so profitably
But over time, as we start to have some success in that business looking to the next few years out, it will start to be a positive for us, but that's still several years away
We continue to believe that despite near-term volatility, the mid- to long-term trends towards electrification, BEV and hybrids remain strong
And so, I'm very optimistic about the drive that we can generate and profitable growth that we can generate from the engineering base that we acquired with Eldor
We expect this capacity expansion to help drive a $250 million to $350 million increase in battery systems sales in 2024, which equates to 55% to 75% year-over-year growth with more to come
It's been a fun ride, and I've enjoyed the relationships I've had the chance to build with many of you over the years
We're working together to accelerate the product efficiency and growth in the Chinese CV market with the largest CV powertrain supplier in China
However, the real evidence of our earnings resilience is in our adjusted operating margin performance
As a company, we are executing our Charging Forward 2027, which we expect will deliver value to our shareholders here and now and long into the future
       

Bearish Statements during earnings call

Statement
You'll see that overall sales came in modestly below the midpoint of that guidance
The reason why our growth wasn't stronger is that we were negatively impacted in the quarter by customer launch and ramp up the BEVs key eProduct programs in China, lower customer volumes on a North American EV program and lost sales due to the UAW strike in North America
However, that business has very little revenue today, which means we'll be generating operating losses for the next few years
It's important to note that this guidance includes a negative operating income impact due to the Eldor acquisition
And as you know, at our Investor Day, we talked about our expectation that overtime, we're going to see revenue in the foundational portfolio is coming under some pressure
Our challenging forward progress continues on multiple fronts
If we had simply let contribution margin flow through on that lower revenue, we probably would have had a bigger loss than $16 million in the quarter
Our adjusted EPS from continuing operations was down $0.04 compared to a year ago as higher adjusted operating income was offset by a higher effective tax rate
That was the guidance as we started out the year last year, and that was truly premised on our ability to successfully convert on the incremental revenue and we were disappointed that we had to pull back on that when we saw some of the volatility in the eMarkets and how that was impacting our revenue
The revenue is down a little bit
If you look at the underlying markets that those products support being the combustion and hybrid markets, those are down anywhere from 3% to 6% on a year-over-year basis
We expect to have operating losses in that business for the next couple of years as we were support the R&D necessary to support our capitalizing on that business
In Europe, we expect our blended market to be down 2% to 4% year-over-year
You can see that the weakening U.S
The midpoint of this outlook is slightly lower than the $565 million we generated in 2023 due to a modest build in working capital that supports our revenue growth
Year-over-year, somewhere in our guidance implicitly around $60 million to $260 million, which means we're down about 0.5 point to 2 points in that portfolio year-over-year
And you can expect that the foundational based R&D will probably come down a little bit on a year-over-year basis as it's been doing the last few years
And in China, we expect the overall market to be down 1% to up 1%
And our challenge is to make sure we're managing the cost structure of that business I should even say the overall P&L of that business, whether that's on the price side or the cost side to make sure we're delivering and sustaining our margin profile, we fully expect that to be the case as we go through 2024 and well beyond that
We've had years where we've dipped below, and we've been in the 4.5% to 5% range
   

Please consider a small donation if you think this website provides you with relevant information