Sensata Technologies

Good afternoon and welcome to the Sensata Technologies fourth quarter and full year 2024 earnings call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded and I would like now to turn the conference over to Mr. James Entwistle, senior director of investor relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you Wyatt and good afternoon everyone. I'm James Entwistle, senior director of investor relations for Sensata and I would like to welcome you to Sensata's fourth quarter and full year 2024 earnings conference call. Joining me on today's call are Stefan von Schupman, Sensata's chief executive officer and Brian Roberts, Sensata's chief financial officer. In addition to the financial results press release we issued earlier today, we will be referencing a slide presentation during today's conference call. The PDF of this presentation can be downloaded from Sensata's investor relations website. This conference call is being recorded and we will post a replay on our investor relations website shortly after the conclusion of today's call. As we begin, I would like to reference Sensata's safe harbor statement on slide two. During this conference call, we will be making forward-looking statements regarding future events or the financial performance of the company that can involve certain risks and uncertainties. The company's actual results may differ materially from the projections described in such statements. Factors that might cause such differences include but are not limited to both discussed in our forms 10Q and 10K as well as other filings with the SEC. We encourage you to review our gap financial statements in addition to today's presentation. Most of the information that we will discuss during today's call will relate to non-gap financial measures. Our gap and non-gap financials including reconciliations are included in our earnings release and in the appendices of our presentation materials. Brian will begin today by covering our detailed results for the fourth quarter in full year 2024. Next, Stefan will comment on his perspectives from his first 30 days and key priorities moving forward. Stefan will then turn the call back over to Brian to discuss our financial guidance for the first quarter of 2025 and our high level 2025 outlook. We will then take your questions. Now I would like to turn the call over to Sensata's Chief Financial Officer, Brian Roberts.

Thank you, James. Good afternoon, everyone. First, let me welcome Stefan to the team and thank Martha Sullivan for her leadership over the last several months as she stepped back into the CEO role on an interim basis. For clarity, unless noted, all amounts are denominated in U.S. dollars. Let me start on slide six. We finished 2024 with a strong fourth quarter as revenue of $908 million exceeded the top end of our $870 to $900 million guidance range. Adjusted operating margins increased sequentially for a fourth consecutive quarter and we improved full year free cash flow conversion by 27 percentage points to 76% of adjusted net income as compared to 49% in 2023. With our improved free cash flow generation totaling $393 million for the year, we reduced net leverage to under three times as of December 31, 2024 for the first time in three years. Our renewed focus on our core portfolio of highly differentiated sensing and electrical protection products is driving value and improving operational efficiency. Over the last two quarters, we exited through a combination of divestitures and last time buys approximately $370 million of annual revenue, including both the Insights business and the low margin, low growth product pruning efforts we described last year. In connection with these portfolio optimization measures, we implemented restructuring activities to streamline process, reduce overhead expense, and consolidate facilities. These actions to strengthen our operational foundation will prove critical as we enter 2025. As I noted, revenue was $908 million for the fourth quarter of 2024 as compared to $992 million in the first quarter of 2024. We exceeded our guide as our top line benefited from higher than expected auto production in both North America and China. For the full year, revenue was $3.93 billion, representing approximately a 3% decrease from revenue of $4.05 billion in 2023. Adjusting for the sale of Insights on September 30 and other products exited in the second half of the year, revenue would have decreased approximately 1% from 2023. Adjusted operating income for the quarter was $175 million, representing a margin of 19.3%, an increase of 80 basis points from .5% in the fourth quarter of 2023. For the full year, adjusted operating income was $749 million, or 19%. Adjusted earnings per share in the fourth quarter of 2024 was at the high end of our guidance range at 76 cents as compared to adjusted earnings per share of 81 cents in the prior year period. For the full year, we reported adjusted earnings per share of $3.44 as compared to $3.61 in 2023. Now let's turn to slide seven to discuss our segments. Performance sensing, which includes our auto and heavy vehicle off-road units, reported revenue of $2.74 billion in 2024, roughly flat year over year. This represents approximately 350 basis points of outgrowth against automotive and heavy vehicle end markets, which both contracted over the same time period. Our strong incumbency and recent share gains on ICE platforms enabled us to drive outgrowth, despite the slowdown seen in EV adoption in both North America and Europe. Performance sensing adjusted operating margin for full year 2024 was 24.6%, representing an 80 basis point decrease year over year due primarily to regional revenue mix and the impact of foreign currency. For 2024, sensing solutions, which is comprised primarily of our industrial and aerospace businesses, reported revenue of $1.06 billion, which was a decrease of 8% year over year. While we have not yet seen a turn in industrial end market demand, we are encouraged that the business appears to have stabilized as fourth quarter revenues were down just a couple percentage points as compared to the fourth quarter of 2023. Sensing solutions operating margins for 2024 were 29.5%, representing a 30 basis point increase from 2023. Adjusted operating expenses of $264 million included within our corporate and other segment were roughly flat year over year. This includes approximately $62 million of expense related to programs previously referred to as megatrend spend. Beginning in the first quarter of 2025, we will reallocate these expenses to the business units with a great majority to be included within our performance sensing segment. With that, let me turn the call over to Stefan for his initial thoughts on the business.

Thank you, Brian, and good afternoon, everyone. I'm excited to be here as the CEO of Sensata. Let me take a moment to thank the global Sensata team, our entire board, as well as Martha Sullivan, who continues to be a valuable advisor to me. I come to Sensata with over 20 years of global automotive, heavy vehicle, and industrial experience, most recently with Tete Fritik-Hafen as a member of the management board and as a leader of the electric mobility division with more than 12 billion euro in revenue. The global electric mobility division included all power trains to ensure that the growing electrification needs of its OEMs customers were met, but also to remain a strong market leader on ice and hybrid platforms. During my tenure, the division increased revenue by more than 2 billion euros at an average growth rate of 7% per year, improved plant level operational efficiencies, and grew operating margins. Our responsibilities also included oversight of the Our prior employer and Sensata have a long history of collaborating in both automotive and heavy vehicle markets. With a reputation of being the partner of choice to meet complex sensing needs, Sensata has developed an attractive position of market leadership, underpinned by its long-lasting and deep customer relationships. At a time when in-markets are undergoing unprecedented transition and uncertainty, Sensata is well positioned across our business segments with a diverse set of high-value products and differentiated margins. This includes a robust ice portfolio, an opportunity-rich electrification offering for our auto and HPR customers, and a high-value sensing and electrical protection business serving customers in industrials and aerospace. With our strong product suite across end markets, our global footprint allowing us to serve customers in rural regions, and our deep embedded relationships, I am confident that there is a significant opportunity to create shareholder value at Sensata. To unlock this value opportunity, I'm focusing my efforts on three key pillars which will be critical to our long-term success. First, returning Sensata to growth. Second, improving our operational performance. And third, optimizing capital allocation. While I am only a month into my tenure, let me take a minute to discuss my initial thoughts around each of these three key priorities. Over the last few years, Sensata has struggled to deliver organic growth against the backdrop of weekend markets. Like many peers, the company responded appropriately by cutting costs. The opportunity for growth, however, is not completely dependent on the market. It is also achieved through innovation and by winning with the right customers on the right platforms. This was paramount to the growth I helped deliver at my previous employer, and I will bring similar perspectives to Sensata. Returning to growth will take some time, as this is a long cycle business, and our key end markets are expected to remain weak over the next several quarters. As such, our revenue expectation for 2025 is to be organically fled with 2024. Longer term, it will be my priority to deliver top line growth, and I am confident that Sensata is well positioned with the right product portfolio to do so. For example, our industrial business recently launched its A2R leak protection sensor for HVAC units, and we have established a market leadership position. As production of new generation HVAC systems increases, we expect this product to be a meaningful growth driver for our industrial business. Additionally, we have a strong value proposition across power trains within auto and HVRL, as we demonstrated in 2024 with approximately 350 basis points of outgrowth across these end markets. Our ICE business is strong, as demonstrated by recent significant wins, including exhaust pressure sensing with Toyota, new emission sensing applications in North America, and additional sockets across various platforms in Europe. We also continue to win in electrification, where we are focused on growing with leading EV players in North America and Europe, and expanding share with local players in China. Finally, our aerospace business continues to see modest growth at operating margins well above our portfolio average. In the near term, we are focused on operational excellence and continuous improvement as a growth enabler. I want to be clear on this point. Operational excellence is not just about cost productivity and margin percentage. It means delivering a high quality product to our customers on time at the lowest possible cost while we efficiently manage production capacity and optimize inventory levels. Being operationally excellent means doing all that well, and that ensures we remain the supplier of choice for our customers, affording us the opportunity to win business and gain share. Recently, I visited our plant in Agas Calientes in Mexico. I was impressed by our many product lines across our business units and the highly capable team at that site. That said, it was also clear that we have opportunities to advance towards operational excellence. Continuing our lean manufacturing efforts, accelerating our work to identify incremental design-driven cost reductions, and demanding more of our supply chain are all areas where we expect to deliver meaningful improvements. Overall, I'm encouraged by the progress the Sonsata team has made in this past year as they improve quality and customer scorecards, achieve quarterly or operating margin targets, and refine the product portfolio. In the coming months, I will travel to many of our locations, including Bulgaria, Malaysia, and China, to meet our customer-facing teams and review our operational performance. Ahead of these visits, I've challenged our teams to accelerate their operational excellence initiatives, and I look forward to seeing their progress with an emphasis on value creation. Finally, let me speak to cash flow generation and capital allocation. I'm pleased with the team's accomplishments in growing free cash flow in 2024. Incremental free cash flow is key to unlocking significant shareholder value as we find efficient ways to generate and deploy cash. Sonsata's board and I will continue to prioritize reducing net leverage, repurchasing shares opportunistically, and maintaining our dividend. While there are currently no plans for greater portfolio management beyond what was achieved in 2024, product lifecycle management is good business practice, and I expect to continually ensure that each of our products and businesses earns their place within our portfolio. With that, let me turn the call back over to Brian. Thank you.

Thank you, Stefan. On slide eight, I want to highlight our cash deployment efforts for the quarter and full year 2024. As mentioned earlier, we are pleased with our improvement in free cash flow conversion as a percent of adjusted net income. We exceeded our target of 67% conversion, ending the year at 76%. We generated 393 million of free cash flow, which was a year over year increase of 44%. As you can see from the chart, we've returned to pre-COVID levels of conversion as we improved working capital by reducing inventory levels and controlling capital expenditures. Turning to slide nine, we also delivered on our commitment to reduce net leverage to below three times trailing 12 months EBITDA as of December 31, 2024. We retired 700 million of bonds a year early through a combination of 200 million in corporate cash and proceeds from a $500 million bond offering, maturing in 2032. With these actions, we have improved the maturity profile of our debt stack with the next tranche not due until 2029. Additionally, we returned 72 million of capital to shareholders through our dividend and we repurchased nearly 2 million shares in 2024 using approximately 69 million of cash. These capital deployment actions yielded an increase in our return on investing capital, which increased to .2% for 2024 as compared to .7% in the prior year. Finally, we announced last month our Q1 2025 quarterly dividend of 12 cents per share, payable on February 26th to shareholders of record as of February 12th. Let me now turn to slide 10, where I'll discuss our guidance for the first quarter of 2025 and provide some thoughts for the full year. Revenue is expected to be in the range of 870 to 890 million with a decrease from the fourth quarter primarily due to a return of normal seasonality as well as foreign currency headwinds. For the full year, we are expecting the business to be organically flat year over year at approximately 3.6 billion of revenue. As a reminder, approximately 300 million of 2024 revenue will not repeat in 2025. This amount is comprised of the sale of insights, divested products, and more meaningful currency headwinds. As we've discussed over the last couple of quarters, adjusted operating margins will decrease sequentially in Q1 to a more historical pattern of margins related to the timing of pricing and productivity. Currently, we expect adjusted operating margins of 18.2 to .4% for the first quarter, representing a sequential decrease of about a percentage point from Q4 2024. In comparison, the average Q4 to Q1 sequential drop in the pre-COVID period of 2015 to 2019 was 200 basis points. Our better performance compared to historical norms is a testament to the operational initiatives undertaken over the last six months to optimize our portfolio. Importantly, and consistent with historical patterns, we expect adjusted operating margins to return to 19% or better in the second quarter, driven by ramping productivity and a seasonally stronger top line. We then expect to deliver incremental adjusted operating margin improvement in the second half of 2025. For the full year 2025, adjusted operating margins are expected to be equivalent or slightly better than 2024. Our Q1 2025 guidance and full year 2025 outlook excludes any potential impacts from recently announced tariffs on imports into the United States. With that, I'd like to turn the call back over to James.

Thank you, Stefan and Brian. We will now move on to Q&A. To allow all of those who wish to ask a question the opportunity to do so, we will limit each participant to one question at a time. Wyatt, please introduce the first question.

Thank you. The first question will come from Joe and Jordana with TD Cowan. Please go ahead.

Hey, everybody. Mike on the line. Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Hey, Joe. Hey, I wanted to touch on the outperformance and auto. That was interesting to see, 300 basis points. Can you talk about what drove that and how we should think about that in the future? I know you've made a lot of strides on US EV and that stuff's largely been pushed out. How should we think about the driver of outperformance versus production for the portfolio for the near term?

Absolutely. As we think about 2024, obviously, first half of the year benefited a little bit from stronger ice, especially in the European market, as we've talked about. As we've gone through the full year, if anything, it should give confidence that our ice portfolio is very strong. Regardless of how ice and EV penetration continue to take shape, that we can do well in both. China's obviously still the more challenging market for us in that from a local versus multinational perspective. We've talked about last quarter that once we get into the second half of the year in 2025, we would expect to see more normal outgrowth patterns return in China as we would lap those comps. For the full year 25, I think our expectations are that you would see us somewhere in our normal range, maybe a little bit on the lower end, given where IHS is. We should see some modest upgrowth in the full year.

Then just to follow on, if I think about Europe specifically, that was a market where you have great customer relationships historically, but we're not on this generation of EVs because you didn't have the portfolio to do so back when they were being bid. Now that you've had the contactor portfolio for several years, when should we expect you guys to get your fair share of that EV business in Europe?

Good news there is many of those wins, we've been designed into that next generation set of wins. Really, we're awaiting those launches. I think we all understand that the timing of those launches and then the volume of those launches may be mitigated a little bit to what initially was thought. But we're well positioned for those and that ultimately will drive our content per value to a more equivalent range between ICE and EVs in Europe. We'd expect that it's probably more of a 26, 27 thing than a 25 thing, but we're looking forward to those launches. Thanks guys.

The next question will come from Amit Daryanani with Evercore. Please go ahead. Good afternoon

everyone. I have two as well. I guess maybe just to start with, as I think about the operating margin expansion ramping from like 18.3 and Q1 to 19 plus in the back half of the year, can you just talk about how much of that is operational improvements driven versus expected revenue leverage? I'm just trying to understand how much of this expansion you think is controllable versus perhaps a bit more revenue driven over here?

Sure. Thanks for the question. I think obviously we're going to be organically flat is kind of the thinking for 2025 and we're obviously on a little bit of a lower revenue base than where we were in 2024. So that's what's driving the margin expectation for the full year to be, I call it 19 to slightly better than that. So think 19 to 19.3 kind of a range. Obviously the volume's important for us, but we think we've taken an appropriate kind of level of balance around the plan such that with ebbs and flows of revenue, we're able to continue to generate operational productivity. And as Stefan pointed out, certainly we believe there's different opportunities for improvement as we continue throughout 2025, which hopefully benefit the second half of this year as well as to tee up 2026.

Got it. And then, you know, Brian, you folks had very impressive free cash flow conversion in the December quarter, specifically the fully, but December quarter really stood out. Can you touch on what enables outside conversion in the December quarter? And then how do we think about free cash flow conversion in Canada 2025 at a high level? Thank you.

So, you know, a lot of credit to the team, especially the operational team here, because they drove a lot of improvements with an inventory. When you have a chance to start looking at the balance sheet, you'll see that our inventory balance is down about 100 million year over year. We still think there's more to do and continue to kind of push in our days on hand. But we made a significant amount of progress in 2024 compared to where we were probably in 2022 and 2023 to right size those balances. You know, again, a lot of this is really just, I'd say, as we've talked about all year, a refocus on the balance sheet, a refocus on conversion, making sure we're collecting our receivables on time, doing all of that blocking and tackling that's needed to be able to generate conversion. You know, I think for 25, we're looking for conversion levels to be, you know, again, at least where we are here and hopefully, you know, getting into the high 70s towards 80%.

Okay. And the next question will come from Mark Delaney with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Yes. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. Stephon, congratulations on the new role. You mentioned, Stephon, that growth and capital allocation are two of your key priorities. As you think about those two areas, do you have any early thoughts about whether the growth that you're expecting and looking to drive will be more organic, driven by R&D, and better focusing on customers, as you mentioned, or do you think M&A is going to be an important component of that growth?

So thanks for your question. First of all, everything around growth that I also mentioned is, of course, organically at this point in time. It's been 30 plus days, so it's still early, but if I look at the opportunities that I see at this point of time, especially around, you know, the experience that I've gained as my prior employer as a deaf, I would see opportunities in Asia Pacific, and especially around China. If I go a little bit deeper into that, what I've done in the past is I've always looked at individual OEMs, and I've tried to understand which of these OEMs will be winners of the future, and they always need to be somewhat cautious. What I've developed around my team at that time as a deaf is kind of an intelligence to define which customers will be growing, and I'd like to transfer this knowledge and try to implement it here at Sunsata and find opportunities to grow within that region.

Very helpful. One other one for me, just as you think about the company's exposure to tariffs, you're recognizing the guidance doesn't incorporate tariffs going into effect, but as you think about your footprint in Mexico and other regions, can you help us understand exposure and what that may look like if tariffs do go into effect on Mexico and Canada and any steps you might be able to take to mitigate that if it does happen? Thank you.

Sure, Mark. Happy to try to help here. So today, the China tariffs that President Trump has announced, we don't view those to date to have any form of material impact on the business. It's probably roughly about a million bucks worth of exposure per quarter, so relatively small. When we think about Mexico specifically, it's probably important to note that roughly 70%, give or take a point or two either way, our manufacturing for North America is done in Mexico. So that would be kind of the overall scope of the exposure there. Keep in mind that the tariff itself would be more on the cost side of what we produce as compared to the sale side of what we produce. And obviously, we're watching that pretty closely. We're, as you know, a global company. We have redundant manufacturing throughout the world. It's one of our strengths of how we can be region for region for our customers. And certainly, if tariffs came into play, then we would certainly do our best to be able to leverage our global footprint to minimize the exposure as much as possible. And, you know, candidly, I'm sure we, we as long as, as well as every other supplier out there will be working with our customers. And, you know, unfortunately, most of that cost likely winds up being passed on to a consumer.

Thank you.

Next question will come from Christopher Glenn with Offenheimer. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks. And good to hear you, Stefan. On the pitch on the Operating Excellence Initiative, you highlighted, I think, meaningful improvement for supply chain is targeted. I'm just wondering what you see there in a little bit more depth. Is there sort of low-hanging fruit or how you see that, those efficiencies progressing?

So, you know, I'm coming from the automotive tier one world. You know, everything revolves around operation, at least the portion of performance revolves around operating excellence. I think part of my comment was based on my visit in Mexico, in Argos Calientes, where I was roughly two weeks ago. And when I met, when I met an excellent team, a very strong team down there, I met a team that has a lot of ideas around operation, operational excellence. But where I see opportunities, if you scale that up, and if you, you know, concentrate more on cost, especially around cost, especially around quality, improving quality numbers, delivery performance, lowering inventories, and developing that in a more systematic way over every single plant around Zanzibar. So I used Argos Calientes as an example, but doing that in a very strong system, systematic, stringent way, so that you have a continuous year over year productivity improvement. That's what I see at this point of time. Of course, it's still early days, but this is one of the areas I'll be focusing on.

Okay, great. And then just on the ice share game that's been a part of the story in 24, is that something that you've kind of, you know, hit on and you've gotten that lever pulled, or is that an ongoing thing?

I would say that is an ongoing thing. I would explain it like this, you know, take for example, the region in Europe, what we see at this point of time, especially with, you know, more conservative governments being elected, that most probably we would see a lift of the combustion engine ban, specifically around Europe. So what does that mean? That would mean that in the end, there'll be a stronger, let's call it a refocus on ice and also predominantly on hybrid systems. And the idea around that is to, you know, focus or refocus more on these technologies and try to gain opportunities around

them. Great. Thank you. I was just saying, you know, Chris, obviously we saw some of that here at 24. I mean,

with the stronger

ice business and just the amount of new opportunities coming through have been, you know, have been substantial and the team's done a great job of taking advantage of that.

Sounds great. Thanks, Brian.

Next question will come from Luke Ianc with Baird. Please go ahead. Good afternoon.

Thanks for taking the question. To start with, Stefan, great to have this call with you. Just given your history at the China market and your time at your previous employer, I'd be just interested in your first impressions of Sensata's automotive business in China, maybe just some high level strengths and weakness in areas that you can lean into in the near term beyond what you've already mentioned in terms of focus on the top growing customers and platforms there. Thank you.

So I think from what I've seen so far, and again, I would just like to say it's early days, 30 plus days, but I think, you know, Sensata has been very active in China's, you know, undergone extensive activities to win new business within China. If I look at it from the experience that I bring with in the past, China, especially China plus Asia Pacific, needs to look at the complete region, is somewhat a different animal. So I think it's important that you're very selective within the market and the OEMs that you want to win within that market. I think that is one key aspect that one needs to consider. So that's the one side of it. So you would have Chinese OEMs that are, for example, very successful in technology around hybrid, so around range extended, but they've launched EV models and you would expect them to be successful as well, but they haven't been. And that's just one example that you need to be very, very selective. And that's something that I would, you know, try and bring into Sensata to understand or to let the team understand which OEMs to win with. That's basically for the region itself. And there's another aspect that I'd like to add to that. So it's not just Chinese OEMs winning within China. There's also obviously a lot of Chinese OEMs that are hungry for growth outside of China. So they want to expand into, especially into Southeast Asia. So we're speaking about Malaysia, Thailand, and all the countries around there, but also wanting to grow in Europe. So there's a lot of efforts to grow there as well. So when selecting these these platforms that we would like to win with, one also needs to consider that because it gives you tremendous growth opportunity beyond just the Chinese market if these OEMs should are to be successful in European and Southeast Asian markets.

Got it. Thank you for that. And then for my fellow Brian, maybe just any segment level margin comments at a high level would be helpful, especially relative to your comment that you're going to be allocating the former Megatrend to the segments. Sounds like that's going to impact performance sensing more than anything. Is that right?

Yeah, I mean, a lot of the Megatrend spending or what had been called Megatrend spending was really engineering expense at this point that was working on new business initiatives within the performance sensing business unit. So I would expect the great majority of it, probably 90% plus or minus or so of that expense will wind up in performance sensing. On an overall basis, I think we will, our expectation is that we probably continue to see strength in the sensing solutions margin, potentially see that number continuing to increase a little bit as hopefully we see that bottoming out of industrials such that stabilized revenue, they start to grow there at back of HVAC. That allows some growth in the sensing solution gross margins. Performance sensing was probably going to be somewhere where it is, right in that same range with the, and just have to adjust for the pricing.

Understood. Thank you. Again, if you have a question, please press star then one. Our next question will come from Guy Hardwick with Freedom Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Hi, good evening. Stefan, I wonder if you could give us your impressions on the industrial and aero businesses and potential opportunities there given that historically they've been higher margin than the auto businesses.

Yes, I can. Hi, Guy. Thanks for your question. Of course I can. So again, these are just like early impressions that I have within areas. So two areas of focus around thermal management and electrical protection, especially in the industrial solutions, certain opportunities, like for example, opportunities around the heat pump. We have developing markets within that area. My home market where I come from, Germany for example, very bullish on heat pumps and I think that is one area of opportunity that we would have. And everything around leak detection, for example. So we're launching the HL product and this product is going to show quite some growth in the upcoming months and years. So those are like two opportunities that I would see. I'm sure there are a lot more that I haven't seen yet and I'll dive into the industrial areas step by step and get to know it a lot better. One area maybe that has been touched, but where we don't have any significant business as of today is for example, everything around data centers. That's something I'm getting my head around. I want to understand somewhat deeper and that could also be a future opportunity looking forward to.

Thank you. And just to follow up for Brian, congrats on the excellent performance and free cash flow. You gave encouraging guidance for this year. Is there any reason why eventually since either couldn't be a hundred percent free cash flow conversion company similar to public peers?

I'd rather walk before I run, I guess to say. There are some limitations. One of the strengths as I mentioned earlier is we have redundant manufacturing in multiple areas of the world. And so that's certainly a benefit when we think about how to best use our footprint to be able to effectively meet customer needs. The downside of that is it allows you to not necessarily use inventory as efficiently as you could if you were manufacturing it all in one location. So we'll have to continue to see and evaluate that. If you look historically in this business, it's really been around an 80% little bit better kind of a cap on cash flow conversion. But as many of you know, cash flow is near and dear to my heart and we will continue to do everything we can to drive that number higher. But for now in 25, I'm certainly going to try to push to get us to that 80% mark.

And our next question comes from Samick Chatterjee with the JP Morgan.

Please go

ahead.

Hi, thanks for taking my question and Stefan, congrats on the role. I just want to understand from you, I know it's early days, but relative to the outperformance, relative to automotive production, do you have any thoughts yet in terms of what is sort of the optimal level that SANSATA should target? And particularly, how would you think about balancing relative to growth versus margins in pursuing to that target, including like, have you taken another look at the portfolio rationalization or the life cycle management the team has previously done? And do you see other opportunities on that front as well to sort of have a more focused portfolio around outgrowth to automotive production? And a quick follow up just for Brian. Brian, I know you on the tariff question, you mentioned 70% of the North America production being in Mexico. Does all of that get carried over the border to the customer or does some of that get sort of overall shipped to the customer in Mexico itself? Just wanted to clarify that. But thank you for taking my question.

Sure. There was a lot there, Samick. So let me start on a couple pieces and then let Stefan kind of jump in with his thoughts in his first 30 days or so here. So around the tariff question to start, we do use and leverage a Makila structure. So the majority of what is imported in the US is us effectively carrying it over the border and then effectively then dispersing it to customers. There is some that we do within Mexico and there's a potential that we could do more if we had to, depending on exactly what happens with all these potential for tariffs. And so it's one of the things that we will certainly look at with customers to see if there's a more efficient way for us to be able to deliver goods to them. I think there's a lot there. I would comment a couple things around outgrowth, margin profile, portfolio, and again, it's early days for Stefan to let him jump in here. But I do think this business historically, and there's really no reason to think it's different, has driven outgrowth somewhere in that average of, call it, three to six percentage points per year kind of tried and true. I would think that there's no reason to think that's different, regardless of the power trains and if anything, with ice being, showing good strength in ice, kind of reaffirms that range. On the operating margin front, I would say that we're still taking this in chunks and we certainly want to be better in 25 than where we were in 24. Again, I have a back to the margins that we want to be at and the drop in margin really is just the Q1 effect. And then we will recover pretty quickly on that. And so those are the big drivers. And again, I think as Stefan mentioned on portfolio, just your early days to determine if any other changes will happen over time.

I think I could add somewhat, but I think you've answered the question, Brian, but you're asking me what is the right level of market outgrowth for Sunsada. It's maybe a bit early for me to give any number there, but from my experience, and I look at the technological mix of Sunsada, I would say from low to mid single digits, I would say it's the right outgrowth that we should focus on.

Great. Thank you. Thanks for taking the questions.

And the next question will come from Joseph Zach with UBS. Please go ahead.

Hi, it's actually Zach Waljastra. I'm for Joseph Zach today. So thanks for the question. Appreciate the color around the margin seasonality, but we think about the second half of the year, how should we think about the drivers and margin expansion coming from, one, the volume leverage, two, the natural cost stats as a company resets for the lower sales base. Can we expect mega-trend spend to also be rebased? And then I guess the second quick question is, with free cash flow conversion improving, what are your thoughts around capital allocation for the year, whether it's buybacks or M&A eventually? Thank you.

So let me start with capital allocation. I think your view has obviously been to kind of look at both net leverage, continuing to reduce leverage, and opportunistic share repurchases, kind of 1A and 1B, and you can continue to kind of alternate the order of those. I think that's probably the approach at the present time for us to be able to deploy cash. It's obviously a conversation that happens with the board every quarter. We do have our dividend as well, which we think is at an appropriate level. So I think you'll continue to see us doing those things here in the near term. Around margin, Zach, if I heard your question right, sorry, I came through a little bit garbled. But in the second half of the year, certainly based off of just incremental revenue that we would typically see as we go through the year, getting kind of the full effect of all of the cost initiative work that we did, certainly our expectations are in the productivity improvements, which compound over that we continue to see the margin lift in both Q3 and Q4. If I had to hazard a guess, it's probably similar levels of increase as you saw here in 2024 in the back half. But obviously we're trying to make sure we're as aggressive as we can there so that we can ensure that we will be at or up for the full year 25 as compared to 24.

Great. Thank you so much.

Again, if you have a question, please press star then one. We'll wait momentarily in case anyone queues up. With no further questions, this concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Brian Roberts for any closing remarks.

So everybody, thank you for joining today. I certainly appreciate all of your questions and your continued interest in SADDHA. We look forward to speaking with you again next quarter. And operator, you can disconnect the line. That concludes the call.

Thank you. The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's