Motorcar Parts of America, Inc.

Thank you for standing by and welcome to the Motor Car Parts of America Inc. Fiscal 2026 Fourth Quarter and Year End Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw your question again, press star one. Thank you. I'd now like to turn the call over to Gary Mayer, Vice President, Corporate Communications and Investor Relations. You may begin.

Thanks, Rob. Thanks, everyone, for joining us today for our fiscal fourth quarter and year-end conference call. Before we begin, I turn it over to Selin Jaffe, Chairman, President, Chief Executive Officer, and David Lee, our Chief Financial Officer. I'd like to remind everyone of the Safe Harbor Statement included in today's press release. The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides a safe harbor for certain forward-looking statements, including statements made during today's conference call. Such forward-looking statements are based on the company's current expectations and beliefs concerning future developments and their potential effects on the company. There can be no assurance that future developments affecting the company will be those anticipated by Motor Car Parts of America. Actual results may differ from those projected in the forward-looking statements, These forward-looking statements involve significant risks and uncertainties, some of which are beyond the control of the company and are subject to change based upon various factors. In particular, expectations about anticipated future growth and opportunities with customers may not be achieved. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly revise or update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. For a more detailed discussion of some of the ongoing risks and uncertainties of the company's business, I refer you to the company's various filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. With that said, I'd like to begin the call, turn it over to Selvin.

Thank you, Gary. I appreciate everyone joining us today. As stated in our earnings release issued this morning, the end of the year was a strong fourth quarter and numerous new business commitments. phasing in throughout fiscal 2027, as well as exciting new additional pending business opportunities. Let me start by highlighting our meaningful financial accomplishments for the fourth quarter and year. Net sales increased 9.9% for the quarter and 4.3% for the year. Gross profit increased 30.9% for the quarter and 3.9% for the year. Gross margin increased to 23.7% for the quarter and was 20.2% for the year. Operating income increased 29.4% for the quarter and 64.9% for the year. Net income for the quarter was 9.7 million compared with the net loss of 722,000 a year ago. And net income for the year was 12.4 million compared with the net loss of 19.5 million a year ago. We used cash from operating activities of 4.5 million in the quarter. This was primarily due to an increase in accounts receivable of 32.5 million, reflecting strong sales towards the end of March. For the year, we generated cash from operating activities of 19.2 million. We generated cash of $57 million before working capital reuse of $37.8 million. Working capital was impacted by an inventory ramp-up for new business in the upcoming fiscal year and a large increase in accounts receivable at fiscal year-end because of significantly strong sales late in the fourth quarter. We reduced net bank debt to $80 million despite repurchasing shares of $11.4 million for the year. David will discuss these metrics in more detail shortly. In short, we are encouraged by our achievements, particularly in the fourth quarter. Our strategy remains focused on increasing profitability, growing share, and neutralizing working capital. We believe accelerating gains in our break-related business will continue to support our overall margin goals, support about further efficiencies, and increased utilization of our facility. We have a number of initiatives that we were exploring, including utilizing AI tools to help neutralize working capital. We expect to continue to generate positive cash flow on an annual basis. Over the last three years, we have generated more than $100 million of cash from operating activities, which supports further debt reduction and share repurchases, while leveraging our strength to take advantage of additional opportunities in both the retail and traditional markets. We remain focused on gaining share across all product categories by leveraging our leadership position, our financial strength, and reputation. I might add that our quality-built brand products continue to gain name recognition and market share across the traditional distribution and repair market. Equally important, this growing brand name recognition within the professional aftermarket presents exciting opportunities for us to expand awareness and enhance loyalty among customers and consumers, both near and long term. In short, we offer our retail and traditional customers great products, industry-leading SKU coverage and order fill rates, supported by value-added merchandising and marketing support. I should mention that we continue to seek opportunities to support our customers, leveraging our low-cost footprint. As I've highlighted before, the average age of U.S. light vehicles continues to rise. Most recent industry data shows that the average age has risen to 12.8 years from 12.5 years in 2024. In addition, the number of vehicles on the road climbed to 295.9 million from 291.1 million a year ago. We expect increased replacement opportunities for the life of vehicles. particularly with consumers holding onto their vehicle longer. In short, we're all committed and focused on our customers, offering quality products and services with rational pricing. With regard to our heavy-duty business, we continue to leverage our reputation and industry position in this market, focused on opportunities to further enhance operating efficiencies and margins. Our vision is to leverage the reputation of our quality-built brand name, We anticipate this will build momentum and enhance our market position, particularly with regard to supplying alternators and starters to our channel partners who are leaders in the heavy-duty aftermarket segment and the overall heavy-duty rotating electrical market. I should note that we commenced the relocation of our heavy-duty operation to Mexico from Canada in the latter part of fiscal 2026. as part of our ongoing commitment to continuous improvement. And we look forward to further opportunities to enhance operating efficiencies as we complete the transition. In addition, we continue to experience increased demand for our aftermarket parts in Mexico, which complements our existing strategic operational and distribution footprint there. As our US-based retailers and warehouse distributor customers expand throughout Latin and South America, we are well positioned to benefit while supporting their growth. Regarding our diagnostic business, our JBT1 benchtop tester leads the industry, and the installed base is continuing to grow. We also expect more opportunities outside North America as the business evolves, including potential new applications that complement and leverage our technology. We believe the outlook is bright for non-discretionary aftermarket parts for the internal combustion engine market. And we are focused on leveraging our capability and capacity to offer a broad range of SKUs for all markets, all makes, and models with newer or older vehicles. As I've previously mentioned, deferment is not really a long-term option for our non-discretionary products. If your car doesn't start or stop, you're not driving. We believe we have meaningful opportunities for further growth and profitability as the competitive landscape continues to change. I'd now like to turn the call over to David.

Thank you, Selwyn, and good morning, everyone. Let me begin by outlining several topics I want to discuss. We will go over analytics for the fiscal fourth quarter, sales momentum and opportunities, gross margin and operating income, cash flow, balance sheet liquidity, and debt leverage, share repurchases, potential strategic alternatives for our EEB emulated business, and guidance for the new fiscal year ending March 31, 2027. Let's start with analytics for the fiscal fourth quarter. Fiscal fourth quarter ended March 31, 2026. Net sales, gross profit, gross margin, and profitability increased compared with a year ago. As we start the new fiscal year, we believe this momentum will continue for fiscal 2027. From a sales perspective, as sales momentum increases, combined with new business commitments that someone referenced earlier, as well as other meaningful opportunities, we believe the company will benefit in several ways near term, including favorable impact to gross margin, continued annual cash flow generation, net bank debt reduction, and opportunities to increase shareholder value. In short, the fundamentals of our business are strong. Regarding gross margin, let me first discuss the fourth quarter in more detail. Gross margin was 23.7%, compared with 19.9% a year earlier, enhanced by an ongoing focus on cost reduction opportunities. Gross margin was impacted by non-cash expenses of 1.8%, and one-time items of 0.3%, as detailed in Exhibit 3 of this morning's earnings press release. Excluding these non-cash and certain one-time cash items, gross margin increased to 25.8%. Fiscal 2027 gross margin is expected to continue to be favorably impacted by increased sales, overhead absorption, and overall cost reductions and efficiencies impacted by product mix. Overall, regarding gross margin, we remain focused on overall gross margin accretion supported by strong momentum and greater utilization of break-related capacity. We are also focused on positive impacts to overall margin from further improvements in operating efficiency supported by benefiting from our tariff mitigation initiatives, better pricing for scrap sales as we gain more market share for our products, additional opportunities to relocate certain operations to our low cost facilities globally, including Mexico, and further strategic cost reduction. These initiatives are expected to positively impact overall gross margin. Operating income for fiscal year 2026 was 65.8 million. Operating income was 76.6 million before the impact of non-cash expenses of 11.6 million. and the benefit of one-time cash items of $791,000, as detailed in Exhibit 6 of this morning's earnings press release. Regarding our cash flow balance sheet and liquidity, the 12-month period cash generated from operating activities was $19.2 million. As someone previously indicated, we generated cash of $57 million before working capital use of $37.8 million. Working capital was impacted by an inventory ramp up for a new business in the current new fiscal year and a large increase in accounts receivable of 32.5 million for the fourth quarter because of significantly strong sales late in the fourth quarter. After share repurchases of 11.4 million for fiscal year 2026, the company's revolver loan of 94.7 million, less cash of 14.7 million, at March 31st, 2026 resulted in net bank debt of 80 million. The company has 22.1 million remaining to repurchase shares under its current authorized share repurchase program. For the three years ended March 31st, 2026, the company generated cash from operating activities of approximately 103.8 million as someone previously highlighted. Our liquidity remains strong with total cash and availability of approximately 133.7 million as of March 31st, 2026. We remain focused on increasing operating profit and gross margin and generating positive cash flow supported by growth and operating efficiencies from our global footprint. In addition to our goal of generating increased operating profits, including benefits from our gross margin expansion initiative previously explained, we expect further opportunities to neutralize working capital. supported by customer product demand planning, enhanced inventory management, and extending our vendor payment terms, including growing our supply chain finance program offered to our vendors. Regarding our debt leverage, based on information in our filing today, EBITDA for the 12 months ended March 31, 2026, was $76.4 million. EBITDA before the impact of non-cash and one-time cash expenses was $86.1 million, for the same period. To recap, our net bank debt was $80 million at March 31, 2026, compared with EBITDA before the impact of non-cash and one-time cash expenses, mentioned above of $86.1 million for the 12 months ended March 31, 2026, resulting in a net bank debt to EBITDA ratio of 0.93. We also committed to further opportunities to increase share repurchases. For the 12-month period, the company repurchased 955,608 shares for $11.4 million at an average share price of $11.88. With regard to our EV emulator business, which is a non-core asset, we are continuing to explore strategic alternatives to capitalize on its proprietary industry-leading technology, including a state-of-the-art next-generation emulator. While we continue to explore strategic alternatives, we have secured prestigious new OE customer commitments for our emulated business. Regarding guidance, Motor Car Parts of America expects net sales for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2027, to increase between 7.5% to 10.2% year-over-year growth, reflecting the exclusion of certain non-recurring items, including tariff pass-throughs due to the reduction of import tariffs, and non-recurring core revenue representing net sales of between 780 million to 800 million. Current guidance includes new business commitments that are expected to ramp up in the second half of the fiscal year. The timing of the ramp up is due to customers taking advantage of liquidated inventory purchased from a previous supplier. In addition, the company expects to add more than 100 million of additional annualized net sales by the end of fiscal 2027, which is not included in the guidance due to the uncertainty of the timing. In summary, the company expects annualized net sales to be more than 900 million by the end of fiscal 2027. Operating income is expected to be between 86 million and 91 million, representing between 12.3% and 18.8% year-over-year growth And these estimates reflect the expected impact of tariffs enacted as of June 8, 2026, and do not include certain non-cash items and one-time expenses. The company estimates depreciation and amortization will be approximately $9 million. Based on the above, the company expects EBITDA to be between $95 million and $100 million. For details on the results, refer to the earnings press release issued this morning. I would now like to open the line for questions.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 in your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press star 1 again. Your first question comes from the line of Brian Nagel from Oppenheimer. Your line is open.

All right. This is Andrew Chasnow. I'm on for Brian Nagel. Thanks for taking our question. Really nice order here. Thank you. yeah so i guess just two questions um you know you referenced the competitor bankruptcy as a key driver for new business so i guess the question is around the you know 100 million incremental opportunity how much of that is directly tied to this dislocation and how would you describe the stickiness of that longer term and then i got a follow-up yeah i i i think uh a good proportion portion of that is but we've also got

some other good organic growth coming that's unrelated to that. So we're benefiting on both fronts. That's helpful.

And then this is my follow-up. You discussed the larger customer ordering disruption that weighed on Q3 that clearly seems to have normalized. So is the relationship now fully back to baseline, or is there still some recovery volume that we should be thinking about?

Well, I think that, again, you know, without getting into the specifics of the customer, I mean, that revenue came back. The customer did shut down about 15% of their stores. So our estimate is that, you know, a baseline is now 85% of previous revenues, although the customers reported, you know, strong financial results in between our last calls. So we're optimistic, you know, overall for all of our customers. We think I go back to the fundamentals and the statistics, is that the car population continues to grow. The average age of vehicles continues to grow up. The car prices, new car prices are up significantly. And as a result, used car sales are going up. Their prices are also going up. So we see the fundamentals, though, of people maintaining their vehicles, keeping them on the road, and we focused on non-discretionary items. So we're bullish organically from the business as well as that we believe that there is some challenge in the supply chain with over-leveraged companies. So we think there's opportunity.

That's really helpful. Thank you.

And again, if you'd like to ask a question, press star one in your telephone keypad. Your next question comes from a line of Derek Soderberg from Cantor Fitzgerald. Your line is open.

Hey guys, thanks for taking the questions. Just a quick, just, hey guys, just a quick clarification on gross margin for the quarter. I'm actually getting 23.3%. I was wondering if you can clarify that. Just looking at exhibit three. It looks like the cash and non-cash impacts largely cancel each other out. It looks like you've got an impact that's negative, but it shows positive on the 30 base point improvement. I just wonder if you can clarify that quick.

Sure. So if you look at Exhibit 3 of this morning's earnings press release, a reported gross margin was 23.7%. The non-cash items had a 1.8% impact. So if you add that 1.8%, and also the cash items had a 0.3%. So if you add the 1.8% and the 0.3 to the 23.7, that gets you to 25.8%. Does that make sense?

Yeah, I'm seeing the cash impact as a negative 4 million or negative 3.976.

Right. So that's a good point. If you look at the letter A, the negative 6.8 $5 million had a impact of negative 0.9%. And we indicate that's the impact when you take into consideration both the sales and cost of goods sold impact. So the combined impact of sales and cost of goods sold on gross profit was a negative 0.9%. So the total cash impact was 0.3%. unsavorable for the quarter that if you add to the non-cash 1.8% and add that to the 23.7% gets you to 25.8%.

Got it. Okay. Okay. And so I'll just, I just changed that quick in the model. And so it looks like for the change year on year, sort of flattish on adjusting gross margin. I was wondering if you could maybe briefly review kind of the puts and takes on that. I know you guys have you know, breaking business that's becoming very accretive to gross margin. But I know there are some, you know, tariff impacts in the year. I was just wondering if you can briefly kind of summarize the puts and takes on adjusted margin this year and then what maybe we should expect looking into fiscal 27 for gross margin.

That's a good question. We continue to be focused on margin accretion. So this past quarter we experienced not only cost reductions, But efficiencies, we're very focused on efficiencies. So all the product lines were focused on becoming higher in gross margins. So we do expect the new fiscal year, all those initiatives that we're undertaking, including continuing with cost reduction, becoming more efficient, all those be positively contributing to gross margin.

And then on the revenue side, we've got significant new business commitments as well as as significant amount pending that we're optimistic about. But the timing of all of that, Derek, with the change in the supply chain is making it difficult for us to estimate. So we're trying to sort of give a baseline guidance and then sort of look at the year-end run rate as significantly up.

Got it. That's helpful. And then just one last quick one. Is the inventory that some of your customers are working through, is that related to the first brand's issue? And so there was kind of a bankruptcy and there were maybe some cheap components out there that need to be worked through. Is that how you think about it?

Yeah. So if you think about it, the customers who were already getting product from first brand's As soon as they heard a problem, started buying in more and more inventory so that the transition from the new supplier would give them more time at the transition from the new supplier. We're ready to go, but our customers are reducing that inventory. They're all firm commitments that we have, and we are shipping all those customers, but smaller quantities today. And as we get through the year, you'll see significant ramp up in those volumes. So that relates to that liquidation, yes.

Awesome. Well, really appreciate it, guys.

Thank you very much, Derek. We appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you.

Your next question comes from a line of Brian Nagel from Oppenheimer. Your line is open.

Hey, I thought I would just squeeze one more quick follow-up, if that's all right. Yeah. And I guess really just wanted to get your thoughts on, you know, bigger picture of the macro and and what is being contemplated within your guidance? On one hand, you have maybe weighting tax benefits from the end consumer. You have higher gas prices. On one hand, maintaining vehicles, potentially less miles driven on the road. What macro factors are you considering as you're thinking about the next year ahead?

Yeah, I think to the extent that we're capable, I mean, sort of the status quo, is what we're incorporating. I mean, we see higher fuel prices affecting miles driven. But again, the point I was trying to make is we're nondiscretionary. There is some deferral of nondiscretionary, but not nearly to the extent of discretionary items. We have seen some milder weather. that affect sales. And again, we've seen other public reports come out talking about milder weather and affecting sales. So we've taken all that into account. Again, the delay, I think from a macro perspective, I think the industry is probably in agreement with what I'm saying is that the fundamental tailwinds are strong. you know, I'm not sure, you know, we don't, refunds, we don't know what's going to happen there. So we're not, we're somewhat agnostic in our guidance to the refunds. To the extent that we have windfall refunds, you know, we'll have to see how that, you know, affects us, hopefully positively. But we're looking at a relatively modest Outlook, you know, in lieu in light of all the geopolitical situation and. You know, but but with some optimism because of the amount of momentum we have in, particularly in our break lines. The break opportunity for us. We think is is unfolding and in a bigger. In a bigger way than even we anticipated. Coming into this year. I think, Derek, you've been a big, Derek at Kenta, and particularly you guys as well, but have called out the breakpad opportunity. And we certainly believe from the momentum we're seeing in our break business that the breakpad opportunity, which is a massive, massive market, could be unfolding positively for us. Very helpful. Best of luck. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.

As there are no further questions, I will now turn the call back over to Selwyn Jaffe for closing remarks.

Great. In summary, again, we are bullish about our outlook, notwithstanding the headwinds we experienced during fiscal 26. We remain laser focused on further efficiencies and fully benefiting from a not easily duplicated global platform to meet demand and grow market share for our non-discretionary products, as well as for our diagnostic testing business. Our liquidity is strong. Our leverage is low, and we have the resources, capacity, and capability to further enhance shareholder value. In closing, we appreciate the contributions of all of our team members who are continuously focused on providing the highest level of service. We are all committed to being the industry leader for parts and solutions that move our world today and tomorrow. We also appreciate the continued support of our shareholders And thank everyone again for joining us for the call. Look forward to speaking with you when we host our fiscal 27 first quarter call in August and at the various investor conferences and meetings in the interim. Thanks once again.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.