Cummins Inc.

Greetings and welcome to the Cummins Inc. 3rd Quarter 2023 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. You may press star 1 at any time to enter the question queue. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star 0 on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Chris Clulow. Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you, Chris. You may begin.

Great. Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our teleconference today to discuss Cummins results for the third quarter of 2023. Participating with me today are Jennifer Rumsey, our Chair and Chief Executive Officer, and Mark Smith, our Chief Financial Officer. We will all be available to answer questions at the end of the teleconference. Before we start, please note that some of the information that you will hear or be given today will consist of forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934. Such statements express our forecasts, expectations, hopes, beliefs, and intentions on strategies regarding the future. Our actual future results could differ materially from those projected in such forward-looking statements because of a number of risks and uncertainties. More information regarding such risks and uncertainty is available in the forward-looking disclosure statement in the slide deck and our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, particularly the risk factors section of our most recently filed annual report on Form 10-K and any subsequently filed quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. During the course of this call, we will be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures and we will refer you to our website for the reconciliation of these measures to GAAP financial measures. Our press release with a copy of the financial statements and a copy of today's webcast presentation are available on our website within the investor relations section at Cummins.com. With that out of the way, I'll turn you over to our chair and CEO, Jennifer Rumsey, to kick us off.

Thank you, Chris, and good morning, everyone. I'll start with a summary of our third quarter financial results. Then I will discuss our sales and end market trends by region. I will finish with a discussion of our outlook for 2023. Mark will then take you through more details of both our third quarter financial performance and our forecast for the year. Before getting into the details of our performance, I'm excited to first highlight a few major events from the third quarter that demonstrate the continued execution of our strategy. On September 6th, Accelera by Cummins, Daimler Trucks and Bus, and PACCAR, along with EV Energy, joined forces to accelerate and localize battery cell production and the battery cell supply chain in the United States. The planned joint venture will manufacture battery cells for electric commercial vehicles and industrial applications, creating highly desirable manufacturing jobs in the United States in the growing clean technology sector. Total investment by the partners is expected to be in the range of $2 to $3 billion for the 21 gigawatt hour factory, with production expected to begin in 2027. We see this partnership as an opportunity to share investment with two long-standing partners while advancing a key technology solution for our customers and industry, and collectively to accelerate the energy transition in the United States. In October, Cummins completed its acquisition of two Farisha commercial vehicle manufacturing plants and their related activities, one in Columbus, Indiana, and one in Roermond, Netherlands. This acquisition is a natural addition to the Cummins Emissions Solutions business and will help ensure we meet current and future demand for low-emission products. Lastly, Cummins announced several collaborations with our natural gas X15 engine that further enable our customers to achieve their decarbonization goals. Freightliner announced they are working with Cummins to offer the new X15N natural gas engine and its heavy-duty Freightliner Cascadia trucks. Also, Cummins and Knight Transportation Inc. announced that the industry's largest full truckload company has successfully tested Cummins' new X15N engine in Southern California, using renewable natural gas to realize reductions in nitrous oxides and greenhouse gas without compromising performance. The X15N, which will launch in North America in 2024, is the first natural gas engine to be designed specifically for the heavy-duty on-highway truck application. Now I will comment on the overall company performance for the third quarter of 2023 and cover some of our key markets starting with North America before moving on to our largest international markets. Demand for our products continued to be strong across many of our key markets and regions. Revenues for the quarter were $8.4 billion, an increase of 15% compared to the third quarter of 2022, driven by the addition of Meritor and strong demand across most global markets. As a reminder, the third quarter of 2022 included two months of consolidated operations for Meritor following the completion of the acquisition on August 3rd of 2022. EBITDA was $1.2 billion or 14.6% compared to $884 million or 12.1% a year ago. Third quarter 2023 results include $26 million of costs related to the separation of the filtration business. This compares to third quarter 2022 results, which included $77 million of costs related to the acquisition, integration, and inventory valuation adjustments of Meritor, and $16 million of costs related to the separation of the filtration business. Excluding those items, EBITDA percentage of 14.9% in the third quarter of 2023 represented an improvement from 13.3% we delivered in 2022, as the benefits of higher volume and pricing exceeded increased selling administrative research and development expenses and inflation costs. Third quarter of 2022 also included a one-time employee recognition bonus of $56 million. Research and development expense increased in the third quarter as we continue to invest in the products and technologies that will create advantages for us in the future, particularly in the engine, components, and Accelero segments. In addition, operating cash flow for the third quarter of 2023 was a record inflow of $1.5 billion compared to the $382 million in the third quarter of 2022 as we continue to focus on our working capital management within the business. I am proud of our leaders and employees for their efforts in driving down costs and operational focus to achieve this record result for the quarter, and we will continue to focus on strong cash generation moving forward. Our third quarter revenues in North America grew 16% to $5.2 billion compared to last year, driven by the addition of Meritor and strong demand in our core markets. Industry production of heavy duty trucks in the third quarter was 74,000 units, up 1% from 2022 levels, while our heavy duty unit sales were 29,000, up 18% from last year, reflecting strong demand for our products. Industry production of medium duty trucks was 37,000 units in the third quarter of 2023, an increase of 7% from 2022 levels, while our unit sales were 32,000, up 19% from 2022. We shipped 41,000 engines to Stellantis for use in their RAM pickups in the third quarter of 2023, flat with 2022 levels. Engine sales to construction customers in North America decreased by 8%, driven primarily by high inventory in the channel. Revenues in North America power generation increased by 15%, as industrial and data center demand improved and supply constraints eased modestly. Our international revenues increased by 13% in the third quarter of 2023 compared to a year ago, with the addition of Meritor and strong demand across most markets. Third quarter revenues in China, including joint ventures, were $1.6 billion, an increase of 24% as markets continued to recover compared to a very weak third quarter of 2022. Industry demand for medium and heavy-duty trucks in China was 243,000 units, an increase of 48% from last year. Our sales in units, including joint ventures, were 41,000, an increase of 36%. In light-duty markets in China, we saw increase of 14% from 2022 levels at 442,000 units, while our units sold, including joint ventures, were 26,000, an increase of 12%. Industry demand for excavators in the third quarter was 40,000 units, a decrease of 30% from 2022 levels. The decrease in market size is due to weaker activity in construction. Our units sold were 7,000 units, flat with 2022 levels, as increased penetration at new and existing customers offset the declining market. Sales of power generation equipment in China increased 5% in the third quarter, primarily driven by slight improvement in non-data center markets. Third quarter revenues in India, including joint ventures, were $730 million, an increase of 13% from the third quarter a year ago. Industry truck production increased by 17%, while our shipments increased 23%. Power generation revenues decreased by 16% due to the second quarter pre-buy ahead of emissions regulation changes. Now let me provide our outlook for 2023, including some comments on individual regions and end markets. Based on our current forecast, we are raising full-year 2023 revenue guidance to be up 18 to 21% versus last year. We are also narrowing our EBITDA guidance range to be 15.2 to 15.4%. We now expect higher full-year revenues in our component segment and higher profitability in our power system segment, offset by decreased profitability in our engine business as a result of softening aftermarket and off-highway markets. We are raising our forecast for heavy-duty trucks in North America to be 280,000 to 300,000 units in 2023 after a strong third quarter. Our current guidance forecasts lower industry truck production in the fourth quarter. While orders remain relatively strong, inventory management, truck component shortages, limiting our OEM production rates, and fewer working days are all contributing to our view for the quarter. In North America medium duty truck market, we are maintaining full year 2023 market size guidance of 135,000 to 150,000 units, up 5% to 15% from 2022. While we continue to work to increase our production through rebalancing across our global plants and improving the supply base, industry production continues to be limited due to other supply chain constraints. Consistent with our prior guidance, our engine shipments for pickup trucks in North America are expected to be 140,000 to 150,000 units in 2023, volume levels in line with 2022. Additionally, we maintain our guidance for North America construction to be down 10% to flat, driven by high channel inventory and softening market conditions. In China, we project total revenue, including joint ventures, to increase approximately 15% in 2023, driven by share growth, better volumes, and content increase. We project a 15% to 25% improvement in heavy and medium-duty truck demand and 10% to 20% improvement in light-duty truck market coming off the low market levels in 2022, and that's consistent with the prior guidance. Despite the slow pace of recovery in the China truck market, we are continuing to see strong performance for the 15 liter natural gas engine, which we launched in 2021. Due to the expanding fuel cost differential, approximately 20% of the heavy duty market is expected to be natural gas powered by the end of 2023. In the short time since launching our new natural gas product in China, our share has been ramping up with strong customer reception in the heavy duty market. and we expect momentum to continue into the fourth quarter. We look forward to launching the 15-liter natural gas engine in North America in 2024. We expect China construction volume to be flat to down 10% in line with prior guidance, consistent with a tepid economy and weaker overall activity. In India, we project total revenue, including joint ventures, to be up approximately 6% in 2023, consistent with our prior forecast. We expect industry demand for trucks to be flat to up 5% for the year. We project our major global high horsepower markets to remain strong in 2023. Sales of mining engines are expected to be flat to up 10%, consistent with our prior guide. Revenues in the global power generation markets are expected to increase 15% to 20%, consistent with our prior guide, with a strong performance driven primarily by improvement in the data center and mission-critical markets. For Acceler, we expect full-year sales to be $350 to $400 million, and also maintain our EBITDA guidance of the expected loss of $420 to $440 million for 2023. Within components, Cummins expects revenues contributed by the Meritor business for 2023 to be $4.7 billion to $4.9 billion, and EBITDA is expected to be in the range of 10.5 to 11%. In summary, we are raising our guidance on sales of up 18 to 21% and narrowing our EBITDA guidance range from 15.2 to 15.4%. Our guidance for the full year implies weaker revenue in the fourth quarter. While demand remains strong in several markets, softening in the aftermarket demand, a continued weak outlook in China, continued industry supply constraints impacting North America truck production, And inventory management efforts across many markets are some of the factors driving the lower fourth quarter run rate. In view of the lower forecasted revenues, we have initiated actions to reduce costs in our business, particularly in selling and administrative costs. In order to lower costs as we move into next year, we are offering voluntary retirement and a voluntary separation program in select regions and parts of our business for eligible exempt employees. We will continue to monitor our end markets closely and assess the need for further action while continuing to invest for our future. During the quarter, we returned $238 million to shareholders in the form of dividends. Our long-term strategic goal is to return approximately 50% of operating cash flow to shareholders. The strong execution from the second quarter of 2023 continued into the third quarter, driving record operating cash flow despite the ongoing challenges in our operating environment. As we look forward to the opportunities ahead, we have a strong, capable leadership team who will help us successfully navigate an exciting and changing future. Today, I was also pleased to announce several promotions on my leadership team, which will be effective January 1st of next year. First, Srikanth Padmataban, currently vice president and president of the engine business, will take on a newly created role of executive vice president and president of operations. In this role, Srikanth will lead important work that will define and drive improvements in how we operate as a company through the energy transition and ensure our success of our operational priorities. Throughout his more than 30 years at Cummins, Srikanth has worked across many of Cummins' businesses and regions, and consistently push the boundaries of customer-focused innovation to position Cummins as the leading powertrain supplier of choice in the transition to a net-zero future. Srikanth is a results and people-driven leader and is the perfect choice to lead this work. Second, Brett Merritt, currently vice president of on-highway engine business and strategic customer relations, will assume the role of vice president and president of the engine business, replacing Srikanth when he takes his new role. Brett has spent more than 25 years in the automotive and commercial vehicle industry and more than 14 at Cummins. The past 11 spent leading and growing the on-highway business from 800,000 engines in 2012 to 1.2 million engines last year. Brett is an experienced business leader and a trusted partner to many of our key customers, and I'm excited for Brett to lead this segment. Bonnie Fetch, currently vice president of global supply chain, will assume the role of vice president and president of our distribution business, replacing Tony Satterthwaite, who has been acting as interim head of DBU. Bonnie, who previously led supply chain for DBU, has led the Cummins global supply chain manufacturing organization, including Cummins new and recon parts business since early 2022. where she led her team in navigating the many complex supply chain challenges as well as improved operational and functional performance. Her more than 30 years of experience, including 20 years at Caterpillar before coming to Cummins, includes general management, HR, and supply chain leadership, and makes her uniquely qualified for this role. I'm excited for her to leverage her broad experience to run this segment. This is a period of change for our company, and it's also an exciting one. I want to end by thanking our Cummins employees who continue to work tirelessly to meet our customer needs and respond to the strong demand levels by ensuring quality products, strengthening our customer relationships, and navigating continued supply chain challenges. Our results reflect our focus on delivering strong operating performance, investing in future growth, and bringing sustainable solutions to decarbonize our industry while returning cash to shareholders. Now let me turn it over to Mark.