Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings, Inc.

Thanks and welcome to the Aerojet Rocketdyne third quarter 2022 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Kelly Anderson, VP of Controller and Investor Relations. Thank you, Kelly. You may begin.

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to the Aerojet Rocketdyne third quarter 2022 earnings results conference call. Leading our discussion today are Eileen Drake, Chief Executive Officer and President, and Dan Bailey, Chief Financial Officer. Following their prepared remarks, we will open the line for your questions. Before we begin the call, I'd like to remind you that our remarks this morning may contain forward-looking statements that relate to the future performance of the company, and these statements are intended to qualify for the safe harbor protection from liability established by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. Any such statements are not guarantees of future performance and factors that could influence our results are highlighted in today's press release and others are contained in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Such statements are based upon information available to the company as of the date hereof and are subject to change for future developments. Except as required by law, the company does not undertake any obligation to update such statements. Our remarks this morning and in today's press release also contain non-GAAP financial measures within the meaning of Regulation G promulgated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Included in such release is the reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to the comparable financial measures calculated in accordance with GAAP. Finally, we have posted supplemental slides regarding our quarter that are available on Aerojet Rocketdyne's investor relations site for download, which we encourage you to review. With that, I'd like to turn the conference call over to Eileen Drake, Chief Executive Officer and President of Aerojet Rocketdyne. Eileen, please go ahead.

Thanks, Kelly, and good morning, everyone, and welcome to AirJet Rocket9's third quarter 2022 earnings call. Today, I'll discuss our results for the quarter at a high level and touch on our longer-term objectives for the business. I'll then turn it over to Dan for a review of our financial results, macro trends, and outlook. I'm pleased to share that AirJet Rocket9 demonstrated strong operating profit and improved cash flow for the quarter. Adjusted EBITDA was nearly 14% in Q3, and free cash flow was $22 million, keeping us on track for positive cash generation in the back half of the year as expected. Sales for the quarter were also up, both sequentially and year-over-year. Book-to-bill is 0.9 on a year-to-date basis, and backlog remains healthy at $6.7 billion. underscoring AirJet Rocket9 as a preferred supplier for our nation's defense and space systems. Our focus in Q3 remained on supporting our defense development programs, which continue to perform well as they mature. This includes a next-generation interceptor, GBSD, now called Sentinel, and hypersonics programs, all of which were solid performers. At the same time, we're enhancing our competitive position through strategic investment, operational efficiencies, and cost controls. This will support sustained profitable growth across our programs. We did continue to experience some headwinds to sales related to supply chain delays, most notably on the RS-25 program. However, the program is meeting its material receipt plan in October, and we continue to believe that timing delays are short-term in nature. RS-25 sales were up from 13% of sales in the second quarter to 15% of sales in the third quarter, and this trend is expected to continue through the fourth quarter. It's important to note that Aerojet RocketEye's RS-25 engines are not impacting NASA's Artemis launch schedule in any way. The RS-25 engines for the first two Artemis launches have already been delivered to NASA and engines for the third and fourth launches are complete and nearly complete, respectively. As you will recall from last quarter, we took a significant charge on a portion of the standard missile program, resulting from supply chain issues, combined with an outlook from the U.S. government and customers that they would like to increase annual production rates. As an update on that contract, I'm pleased to tell you that we're on target with our plan to substantially increase annual production capacity, which included opening a second production facility earlier this month. We feel confident that this proactive investment will not only allow us to complete our current contract within the period of performance, but also puts a capacity in place to address anticipated quantity increases starting in 2024. We remain confident in our ability to hit our revenue and adjusted EBITDA targets, excluding EAC adjustments for the year. And Dan will expand on this in his comments shortly. Turning now to our long-term objectives, we are intently focused on investing in line with our nation's defense and space priorities and driving improvements to our competitive edge to position AirJet Rocket9 for enhanced shareholder value creation. I'll start with the work we're doing to provide reliable and innovative products for America's national security and support a diversified mix of defense and space programs, several of which we've outlined in our supplemental slide deck. On the defense side, we're continuing our work on Sentinel the nation's next ground-based strategic deterrent, including advancing the development of both the third stage large solid rocket motor and the post-boost propulsion system. Among other milestones, we announced that we successfully conducted the post-boost propulsion system critical design review for Sentinel, passing a major review gate on the path to flight readiness and paving the way for fabrication, demonstration and testing of propulsion components prior to production. We are also pleased to announce that Aerojet Rocket Line was selected to power the Navy's Compact Rapid Attack Weapon, or CRA, as part of the Raytheon Missile and Defense Team's development of this next-generation torpedo. Our company will provide the afterbody, propulsion system, and tail for the new torpedo. The new torpedo will use innovative stored chemical energy propulsion systems, or SCEPs, which will significantly improve its capabilities. This work will build on the successful testing of our SCEPs lithium boiler earlier this year, which we developed through our R&D investment at our Coleman Aerospace Facility. In addition to the use of SCEPs for compact, rapid attack weapons torpedoes were also under contract to the U.S. Navy to develop skeps for the Navy's largest Mark 54 Mod 2 torpedo. Against the backdrop of these program wins, we're also advancing important work in hypersonic and counter-hypersonic tests and development. As we've talked about previously, AirJet Rocketdyne is an industry leader in hypersonic propulsion technology which will be increasingly important to us as we look to the future. Turning now to space, we're looking forward to NASA's Artemis I launch in just a few weeks. The company has provided critical elements to the Artemis I mission with propulsion on both the SLS rocket and the uncrewed Orion spacecraft. Artemis I is the first in a series of missions to return American astronauts including the first woman and the first person of color to the moon. This launch will come on the heels of NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, in which a spacecraft impacted a near-Earth asteroid propelled by 12 irritant rocket iron thrusters. The goal of this mission was to demonstrate a method of asteroid deflection by deliberately striking an asteroid at high speed to change the asteroid's motion in space. As the spacecraft closed in on the asteroid, our flight-proven propulsion systems conducted last-minute cost corrections to ensure its accurate impact. In addition to providing the chemical propulsion system for the spacecraft, AirJet RocketEye's NASA evolutionary xenon thruster commercial, or NEXT-C system, was also tested during the mission to assess the thrusters potential application for future deep space missions. NEXT-C is a next generation solar electric propulsion system designed and built by Irrigate Rocket Iron based on mission proven technology developed at NASA's Glenn Research Center. This quarter, Irrigate Rocket Iron also provided all of the thrust needed to power the successful launch of a United Launch Alliance Delta IV heavy rocket carrying a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office. ULA used our reliable and flight-proven RS-68 and RL-10 propulsion systems, which have delivered 100% mission success since the Delta IV program's inception. Two remaining Delta IV heavy launches are slated for the first quarters of 2023 and 2024. In addition to our strong alignment with national defense and space priorities, we're also taking actions to increase efficiency, manage our costs, and position the company for a strong and successful future. Today, I want to highlight our investment in a few of our facilities to make us more competitive. This quarter, we opened a new 51,000 square foot building in Camden, Arkansas, which consolidates multiple manufacturing activities under one roof, with the ability to eventually support large-scale solid rocket motors to power next-generation missiles. The new facility integrates solid rocket motor manufacturing activities, improving operational efficiency, increasing production capacity, reducing costs, and providing for even safer operations. The facility results in reduction of the need to transport motors across our Camden site during manufacturing by more than 90%. The first program to begin production in the new manufacturing facility is a propulsion system for the Pac-3 missile segment enhancement. We're also leasing a new facility to expand our presence in Huntsville, Alabama by nearly 380,000 square feet. This will provide additional job opportunities and builds on a 700% increase over the last five years in the number of employees we have working at our facilities in Huntsville. This facility solidifies Huntsville as our manufacturing center of excellence, and the expansion allows us to increase defense manufacturing capacity once it becomes operational in 2023. In addition, we're delivering results from prior long-term investments in our Huntsville and Camden facilities. We previously transferred production of large solid rocket motors to these sites as part of our competitive improvement program. Our teams at those facilities are incorporating innovative materials and applying efficient manufacturing processes to design and produce the advanced technology systems needed to power defense across multiple domains. For example, this quarter with the Air Force Research Laboratory at Edwards Air Force Base, California, we successfully tested a next generation large solid rocket motor called ESR-19, which was designed and fabricated in Huntsville and cast and cured in Camden. This advanced solid rocket motor improves cost and performance by incorporating a graphite composite case, an affordable advanced nozzle, and a high-energy, long-life solid propellant. A demonstration of this new capability is directly applicable to legacy large solid rocket motor applications and is a building block for multiple systems under development today. Before handing the call over to Dan, I want to reiterate that we continue to execute on our goals, and are making strong progress to position the company for the future. We're investing in new capabilities which directly support our nation's defense and space priorities, as well as increasing our capacity to meet growing demands for our products. With that, I'll turn the call over to Dan and join you later to answer questions.

Thank you, Eileen, and thank you all for joining us on today's earnings call. Today, I'll discuss year-over-year results for our key metrics and update you on some of the actions we have taken to mitigate the ongoing supply chain and hiring challenges we discussed last quarter. As a reminder, we will not provide formal guidance today, but that is something we will intend to do beginning early next year. Our third quarter sales were approximately $550 million, up 1% from the prior year and up 4% from the prior quarter. The increase over the prior year is driven by higher volume on NGI and standard missile, partially offset by GMLRS and RL10. On a year-to-date basis, sales were approximately 1.6 billion, which is comparable to the prior year. Sales continue to reflect supply chain delays, and on a year-to-date basis, the impact from the reversal of revenue on a portion of the standard missile program that we discussed last quarter. On the supply chain front, the most significant driver continues to be the RS-25 program, as our suppliers experience longer lead times than previously expected and we continue working through first article certification testing as we restart this program. We continue working closely with our customers and suppliers, and we are meeting our material receipts plan for October. As Eileen mentioned, our RS-25 sales increased sequentially in Q3, and we expect that trend to continue through the end of the year. While the remainder of our portfolio programs in both defense and space aren't seeing individually significant impacts from supply chain delays, there are pockets of delays that have slowed our sales growth in the quarter. Last quarter, we also discussed the hiring challenges to support anticipated second half sales. We are seeing improvement on this front, having reduced the number of open positions from 400 to about 250. We continue to accelerate our hiring efforts to support anticipated fourth quarter sales. Both the prolonged impacts from supply chain delays and workforce challenges have led to slower than anticipated sales growth in the current quarter and are anticipated to continue into the fourth quarter. We still expect our current year revenue growth to be in line with our long-term target of low to mid-single digits. Switching now to backlog, our book-to-bill ratio was 0.9 in the first nine months of the year, bringing total backlog to $6.7 billion, which is equal to approximately three times our annual sales. The strong backlog position reflects the contract wins that Eileen discussed. Also, as a reminder, backlog includes the RL10 contract signed with ULA in the second quarter, for Amazon's Project Kuiper satellite broadband system, as well as a number of key multi-year contracts such as RS-25, RL-10, Standard Missile, PAC-3, and THAAD, which were signed over the past several years. This backlog does not yet include orders for Stinger and Javelin associated with the ongoing war in Ukraine. However, we anticipate that we will see growth in demand for these products over the near to mid-term and are investing in the modernization of our facilities to increase capacity and efficiency in anticipation of this demand. In addition to this strong backlog, the durability of our many long life cycle franchise programs and the potential we see from our development programs give us confidence that we will continue to experience tremendous demand for our products through the rest of the decade and beyond. Moving on to profitability, our adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter of $75.7 million was an increase of 82% from the prior quarter and a decrease of 8% from the prior year. The year-to-date adjusted EBITDAFT of $186.5 million was an 18% decrease from the prior year, driven by the unfavorable cumulative contract adjustment in the second quarter related to the portion of the standard missile program. In addition, the third quarter of last year included a significant favorable contract adjustment on the RL-10 program, which provided a headwind for the current quarter and year-to-date period comparisons. The underlying profit margin rent rate is continuing to improve across our program portfolio. with adjusted EBITDAP margin for the third quarter at a very strong 13.8%, bringing the year-to-date margin rate to 11.7%. These are below the prior year margin rates of 15.1% and 14.2% for the three and nine-month periods, respectively, due to the prior year favorable contract adjustments in RL10 and RL68, and the current year unfavorable contract adjustments from a portion of the Standard Missile Program. Excluding EAC adjustments from sales and adjustment EBITDAP for all periods, The underlying adjusted EBITDA margin increased year-over-year from 13.4% to 13.7% in the third quarter and from 12.5% to 13.6% in the nine-month period, respectively. Ongoing program and operational performance improvements across the portfolio and stringent overhead cost management have contributed to steady margin growth for the quarter and year-to-date. For the year-to-date, the primary drivers of increase in adjusted EBITDA, excluding EAC adjustments, were increased profitability on THAAD and the remaining portions of standard missile, as well as lower stock compensation expense. With our diverse portfolio of new development contracts and legacy production contracts, which are performing very well, we continue to believe we can achieve a long-term adjusted EBITDA margin rate of 14%. Lastly, our free cash flow for the third quarter was a positive $22.3 million, as we worked diligently to decrease our working capital. This compared to an inflow of $70.2 million in the same period of the prior year. For the nine months year to date, we have had an outflow of $98 million as compared to an inflow of $78.1 million in the same period of the prior year. As I mentioned last quarter, the current year to date negative free cash flow is largely impacted by working capital growth on large multi-year fixed price contracts in the Defense Business Unit. We enjoyed strong cash flows over the past three years from these multi-year contracts, but that makes 2022 and 2023 more challenging until we begin the upward cycle again with new multi-year contracts beginning in 2024. In addition to these programmatic drivers, year-to-date free cash flow also reflects higher cash taxes than the prior year, given the change in treatment for research and development expenditures, which is an item affecting everyone in the industry. We've also incurred $46.5 million in unusual expenditures related to the proxy contest and related litigation, other legal matters, and costs related to the terminated Lockheed Martin merger agreement. We expect to have strong cash flow in the fourth quarter. In terms of broader balance sheet management, on September 19th, we completed the cash redemption of all outstanding convertible notes. We paid $242 million in cash to settle the approximately $146 million in principal plus premium and accrued interest. In connection with this transaction, we recognized a one-time non-cash charge of $22.6 million related to the change in value of a derivative that was created when the redemption notice was issued. As previously mentioned, the redemption of these notes will be $0.03 accretive to our diluted EPS for the year, and $0.10 accretive on a full-year basis going forward. However, the non-cash charge related to the derivative had a negative impact of $0.07 on the third quarter and year-to-date diluted EPS. We ended the quarter with total cash and short-term investments of $346.7 million and continued our long-standing unlevered balance sheet position with net cash of $39.1 million. We continue our focus on managing our working capital to generate predictable, free cash results over the long term. As a closing thought, we remain enormously confident in the business based on the strong demand for our innovative products and the execution of our team. Looking ahead, as Eileen discussed, we are investing in line with the nation's top defense and space priorities, driving improvements to enhance our competitive edge, and positioning the business to increase value for our shareholders. That operator, please open the line for questions.

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you'd like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment please while we poll for questions. Thank you. Our first question is from Scott Forbes with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, Elaine and Dan. Dan, you've talked about slightly positive free cash flow for the year, and you pointed to an expected strong Q4. How do you think about some of the main drivers into that implied Q4 inflection, and how are you thinking about the broader moving pieces into 2023? Sure.

Thanks, Scott. Good morning. We do expect a strong fourth quarter. We generally do have a stronger fourth quarter in cash. Most of that will be driven by collection on receivables. So it's mostly just a working capital burndown and delivery on products towards the year end. Going into next year, as I did mention, a couple of years of challenge to get to our goal of 100% of net income. So we will do better next year as we continue to work down working capital, the long-term working capital on those multi-year contracts. So we'll come up that scale a little bit next year, but we won't get back to 100% until the following year.

Thank you. And then, Eileen, maybe just to take a step back. You're emerging from a proxy battle. There have been some press reports out there about the future of the company. I mean, broadly, as you think about the future, how are you thinking about the value drivers and the roadmap to drive equity value going forward?

Thanks for the question. As I've said before, the fundamentals of our business, both on space and defense, remain very strong. You don't often see where you're on an upward wave of both space and defense, and we are. We believe we're focused on the right areas by investing in line with the nation's space and defense priorities that we've talked about. Also, while we're driving competitive improvements, this team has a track record. are very successfully doing over the last seven years and taking a billion dollars of cost out of the business. We have a very strong backlog, nearly $7 billion. This indicates a very strong customer demand for our products. We're also making investments in the business. We have a very talented and dedicated workforce and super excited about the future.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question is from Steph with JP Morgan. Please proceed with your question.

Thanks very much, and good morning, everyone. Eileen, I read something in Inside Defense last week about DOD potentially looking for a third solid rocket motor source in order to be able to produce the hypersonic propulsion that they think is going to be required in the future. What's your thought process around that? Where do you feel like things stand right now in terms of the overall solid rocket motor base and what DOD is looking for from you and how that might evolve?

If it's the same article I read, I think they were saying a second source to a current But nonetheless, you know, as we – and you mentioned hypersonics. So when we think of, you know, kind of the hypersonics world, it really covers a range of, you know, national security capabilities, everything from, you know, deterrent missiles, tactical missiles, aircraft and missile defense technologies. And, you know, the great part of that is that Air Jet Rocketine is participating in all of those areas and very, you know, very – well positioned for wins because of our leadership, really, in developing hypersonic propulsion technologies that's really built on decades of our experience. You know, over the long run, hypersonics, as I mentioned before, is expected to contribute to 5% to 10% of our total sales. And, you know, DOD has identified hypersonics as a national priority. And the great thing is we're in a strong position to win significant roles in these, you know, programs going forward. And so we, you know, we believe hypersonics is going to be a generational program for us, like many of our other franchise programs. And we're very well situated to get a big piece of that business in the future. Okay.

Okay. Great. I guess digging in a little bit more on the quarter and the programs, I think the, you know, the release mentioned the, a year-on-year decline in GMLRS. Obviously, that's a place where we'll probably see some growth over time, I would think. What drove the decline in the quarter and how do you see that revenue from that program evolving?

Sure. Thanks, Seth. I'll take that one. Some of that is just timing with GMLRS, but as I mentioned, You know, we talk about RS-25 being the largest contract impacted by supply chain, and then we did have a supply chain impact that, you know, in effect drove the standard missile charge last quarter. But there are other pockets throughout the company that are having, you know, minor supply chain issues. So I'd say some of that downturn is, you know, Gimler's supply chain slowdown as well, which affected some of our timing of our deliveries. So... I'd say that's the driver. And to your point, though, that is a program where we see opportunity going forward for growth. We do share the production of that with Northrop Grumman. So as much as we can get share there, we'll continue to grow.

Just maybe to tag team on that one. You know, I think everybody has seen that, you know, Ukraine's, you know, fight against Russian invasion has really increased the demand for our programs to include Gimlers, Javelin, and Stingers. So we've had a number of inquiries about several of our tactical programs to include these three from both the Department of Defense and the Missile Prime customers. So we're really proud to be a part of these franchise programs and continuation of these programs is really part of the growth rate we previously discussed. So given the increased interest in Gimler's, Javelin, and Stinger, we've mentioned before, there is a potential to add volume to our outlook as these systems are replenished over the 23-25 timeframe, and we're actively involved in discussions that could lead to contracts for these replenishment efforts.

Okay, excellent. And then with regard to Gimlers, I guess when we think about, you know, some of the execution challenges there now, and then, you know, we think about kind of what happened on Standard Missile last quarter, I guess how, you know, how confident do you feel about the fact that, you know, you have your arms around issues on Gimlers and will be able to stay, you know, close enough to the delivery targets and eventually catch up? in order to maintain profitability on the program?

Yep, so I feel very positive about it. You know, as we've mentioned, we have increased production on a couple of our lines to include the standard missile. We opened up a brand new facility in Camden, Arkansas just, gosh, just a couple of weeks ago to help on production and put a second shift on there. We're working with our supply chain. We also look at You know, any bottlenecks in the supply chain where we need to dual source, so we have quite a lot of activity in our supply chain to make sure that any suppliers that are very key and that could be a single source failure, that we're dual sourcing them to make sure that, you know, we're not impacted like we have been in the past when perhaps a supplier has a major issue like a fire or something else that we, you experience. So we feel good about that. And maybe a soundbite too, the last quarter I mentioned, you know, really having some issues with hiring. I'm pleased to say that last quarter I mentioned we needed about 400 people. That number is down at 250. And we've also seen our attrition rate come down, which is nice. And we've been doing that a lot through Really expanding our apprentices programs, attracting talent. Sometimes you have to go outside of A&D to look at like industrial manufacturing, the chemical industry, car manufacturing, companies that have a huge focus on quality and delivery like we do. So I feel like we've made a nice improvement quarter over quarter on both opening up a couple new facilities in Camden, Arkansas, Our hiring efforts have seen a nice improvement and also the attrition rates coming down. We also recently announced that we leased a pretty large building in Huntsville, Alabama where we're going to transfer some of the inert work from Camden, Arkansas to Huntsville, Alabama. That will really help with some of the bottlenecks that we've seen recently. This team is all over the operational improvements. A lot of that is why you've seen the nice uptick in the profitability in Q3.

Great. That's very good, Collar. Thanks. And then maybe just the last one. Dan, if we look at 2020 and 2021, I think RS25 was a fairly consistent, you know, $375 million or so sales and just kind of, you know, always kind of thought of that as kind of a steady program going forward. to the extent that there winds up being a shortfall there in 2022, is that something that, you know, becomes a catch-up? And so, you know, 2023 becomes the baseline sales plus whatever did not show up in 2022, or is that not the right way to think about it and just kind of, you know, 375 going forward?

No, I think that is a good way to think about it. You know, The driver, as we've mentioned, is largely supply chain driven, so receipts of materials, and so that should push into next year, and you should see an uptick. But again, this is a long-term program, and we recognize revenue based on cost to cost, so it will kind of normalize and flatten out, but you will get some lumpiness when we do receive those materials over time. But yes, I to your general point, I think you can set your 2022 and expect it's going to go up.

Okay, thanks. I'll pass along and get back in the queue. Thanks.

Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Our next question is from Michael Carmoli with Truist Securities. Please proceed with your question.

Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. Maybe just to stay on the supply chain, just for clarification, I mean, Raytheon continues to call out the rocket motor supply chain. They talked about technical problems, and they're not seeing a recovery until first half 24. Is this you guys or is, and they've been talking about this for several quarters now, but can you just give any color there if these are related to some of your programs or anything you can provide there?

Yeah, so I guess I'll start. Good morning. So as we mentioned, we took a significant EAC adjustment in Q2, and that was a portion of Standard missile and that you know that is supplied to our customer Raytheon so that is our piece of that as I mentioned You know that was a new manufacturing facility I mentioned that we just opened up in October to help with that and that's what we did have a supplier issue we had a fire at a supplier we dual sauce that and now have a second sauce so we're up and running and we opened up the new facility so we could do a catch-up with a second shift because it's tough to make up that production when you're down due to a major supplier issue. And also, you know, the big fact why we took the EAC adjustment and spent the money to facilitate a new building and bring new employees in is because not only did we want to make sure that we caught up on that contract, but we have opportunity actually to end the contract So I feel like we've recovered, we have some catch-up, but that's our piece of the Raytheon supply chain issue, and I'm not sure of the other issues that they might be having.

Yeah, I'll just... Got it. That's under your comment. Sorry, Michael, about the timing, right? As Eileen said, that particular piece of that program we're working on, we're going to get it ahead of schedule, but... That schedule is intended to end about early 2025. So, you know, that kind of correlates with the timeframe that they're talking about. But as a star piece, Raytheon, I'm sure, has, I'm not going to speak for them, but probably other issues on that program of their own. Got it.

No, that's helpful. And just to be clear, from a modeling standpoint, I think last quarter you guys said, you know, mid single digit revenue growth for this year. But I think you said it's now more kind of low to mid single, because if you were going to get that that mid, it would imply a pretty steep sequential ramp here into the fourth quarter. But just given some of the supply chain tightness, it seems like we should be calibrated towards more of a low, low single digit growth rate for the year for 22.

Yes, for 2022, you're correct. But we do see a significant ramp.

Okay, got it. And then just maybe, Dan, one last one. Just the kind of general inflationary environment, how are you guys managing through this on some of your fixed price contracts? I mean, are you able to pass some of these costs through? Are you having to wait for, you know, the next sort of, you know, task order or any color just on as to how you guys are managing through the inflationary environment?

Yeah, you continue to ask this question. I posted the businesses on this question and we're still not seeing anything significant on an increase from inflation. And largely that's because the majority of our large Fixed price contracts are on multi-year contracts right now. So we have multi-year fixed price POs with our suppliers. And so we're not feeling that increase in prices. We're on fixed prices with them. So again, we will see as we come through the cycle of the negotiations of the next multi-years, which will start kind of at the end of 24 and end of 25, we might see increases in their prices at that time that we would flow upward through our contracts as well. So if inflation continues through that period, but we're not seeing any near-term impacts from it.

Got it. Got it. And you know what? Maybe just doesn't think near one last one, just on the backlog. You know, down a little bit sequentially, but can you just maybe characterize what you're seeing in terms of the demand environment on sort of the shorter cycle, call it off-tempo tactical systems in the portfolio? You know, you mentioned Ukraine, that's going on. There's presumably going to be some significant replenishment here. Do you think you're seeing the demand signals or should we expect, you know, an uptick in, you know, whether it's Javelin, Stinger, tow, anything else that might drive bookings in the coming periods here?

Michael, we do see signals there, but we are, you know, those are, those will come through the primes to us, and so in the very near term, we don't have any, I think we have one firm order on Stinger, but haven't seen firm orders yet for Javelin, and in the increases in GMLRS, so We do expect them to come, and there's lots of rhetoric around the money that's being put aside for the replenishment, but we don't have firm orders yet, but probably into the next couple of years. Got it. Perfect.

Thanks, guys. I'll jump back in the queue here.

Thanks, guys. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question is from Seth Sleafman with J.P. Morgan.

Hey, thanks very much for the additional question. I couldn't let you off the call without asking. I imagine I will get asked as well. You know, net cash balance at the end of Q3 based on the Q4 projection, probably a higher net cash balance at the end of the year. You know, post the convert, how do you think about capital deployment headed into 2023?

As you also may have noticed, we've extended our senior credit facility. The termination of that was going to be September of next year. The maturity, we've pushed that out a couple of years to give Eileen and our board continued time to work out the strategic capital deployment objectives of the company. That is something we're still taking a very close look at. The board has now met twice, and we continue to have those conversations and looking at all the different opportunities that are available to us, whether that be organic growth, inorganic growth. We do have visibility into, you spoke about the large solid rocket motor opportunities we have going forward. there are some capital expenditures we do need to make to do that. So we have some internal capital deployment to make, but then we're looking at other strategies and what have you. And, you know, again, extending that credit facility that we have right now gave us time to kind of think about what that structure is going forward.

Great. Thanks very much.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the floor back over to Eileen Drake for any closing comments.

Great, thank you. And just a few words to wrap up. You know, you can see that we're focused on the right areas to position Erich at Rocket9 for continued profitable growth by investing, as I mentioned, in line with our nation's priorities and driving the improvements to our operations. I'm incredibly proud of this team and the work we've accomplished this quarter. And collectively, we appreciate the trust of our customers, and we remain laser-focused on delivering value for our shareholders. And with that, thank you, everyone, for your time today, and enjoy your day. Thank you.

This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.