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 touch-tone 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 Schuchman, 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, those discussed in our forms 10-Q and 10-K, as well as other filings with the SEC. We encourage you to review our GAAP financial statements in addition to today's presentation. Most of the information that we will discuss during today's call will relate to non-GAAP financial measures. Our GAAP and non-GAAP 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 and fall year 2024. 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 31st, 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 fourth quarter of 2023. a decrease of about 8%. 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 30th 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 18.5% 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 in-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 Zetter Friedrichshafen 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 powertrains 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 and an average growth rate of 7% per year, improved plant-level operational efficiencies, and grew operating margins. Our responsibilities also included oversight of the Asia-Pacific region and global procurement operations. 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, Sensada 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, Sensada 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 HVR 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 all 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 flat with 2024. Longer term, it will be my priority to deliver top-line growth, and I'm confident that Sensata is well-positioned with the right product portfolio to do so. For example, our industrials business recently launched its A2L 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 powertrains within auto and HVOR 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, while above our portfolio average. In the near term, the focus 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 Aguascalientes in Mexico. I was impressed by how 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 Sensata team has made in this past year, as they improved quality and customer scorecards, achieved quarterly 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 that 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. Insiders 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 8, I want to highlight our cash deployment efforts for the fourth 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-month EBITDA as of December 31st, 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 improvement in our return on invested capital, which increased to 10.2% for 2024, as compared to 9.7% 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 18.4% 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, Stephon 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 Giordano with TD Cowan. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Hey, Joe. Hey, I want to touch on the outperformance in auto, right? That was 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? It's like I know you've made a lot of strides on US TV and that stuff's largely been pushed out. So like what should we how should we think about the driver of outperformance versus production for the portfolio for like the near term? Sure, absolutely.

As we think about 24, Obviously, first half of the year benefited a little bit from stronger ice, especially in the European market, as we've talked about. You know, as we've gone through the full year, if anything, it should give confidence that our ice portfolio is very strong. And so kind of regardless of how ice and EV penetration continue to take shape, that we can do well in both. China is obviously still the more challenging market for us in that the, you know, from a local versus multinational perspective, and 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. But for the full year 2025, I think our expectations are that you would see us somewhere, you know, kind of in our normal range, maybe a little bit on the lower end given where IHS is. But, you know, we should see some modest outgrowth in the full year.

And then just to follow on, if I think about Europe specifically, right, that was a market where you have great customer relationships historically, but we're not on, like, 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 kind of get your fair share of that EV business in Europe?

Yeah, no, good news there is, you know, many of those wins, we've been designed into that next generation set of wins. And so, you know, really we're awaiting those launches. And, you know, I think, you know, 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, you know, we're looking forward to those launches. Thanks, guys.

And 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 in 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, you know, I call it 19 to slightly better than that. So think, you know, 19 to 19.3 kind of a range. You know, obviously the volume is important for us. But, you know, we think we've taken an appropriate, I'd say, kind of level of balance around the plan such that, you know, with ebbs and flows of revenue, we're able to continue to generate operational productivity. And as, you know, Stefan pointed out, you know, certainly we believe there's different opportunities for improvement as we continue throughout 25, which hopefully benefit the second half of this year as well as start to, you know, tee up 2026.

Got it. And then, you know, Brian, you folks had very impressive pre-cash flow conversion in the December quarter specifically, certainly the fall year, 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 pre-cash flow conversion in Canada 25 at a high level? Thank you.

You bet. So, you know, a lot of credit to the team, especially the operational team here, because they drove a lot of improvements within 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 24 compared to where we were probably in 22 and 23 to write those those balances you know again a lot of this is really just i'd say kind of 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 you know, 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%. All right.

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

Yes, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. Stefan, congratulations on the new role. You mentioned, Stefan, 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, you know, everything around growth that I also mentioned is, of course, organically at this point of 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, ZF, 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 the winners of the future. And they will always need to be somewhat cautious. And what I've developed around that with my team at that time at ZS is kind of an intelligence to define which customers will be growing. I'd like to transfer this knowledge and try to implement it here at Sensata 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 recognize 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, you know, the China tariffs that President Trump has announced, you know, we don't view those to date to have any form of material impact. On the business, you know, 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, of 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 sales 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 candidly, I'm sure we, 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 Oppenheimer. 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 those efficiencies progressing?

Coming from the automotive tier one world, everything revolves around operation. At least a 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 an excellent team, a very strong team down there, I met a a team that has a lot of ideas around operational excellence. But where I see opportunities, if you scale that up, and if you concentrate more on cost, especially around cost, especially around improving quality numbers, delivery performance, lowering inventories, and developing that in a more systematic way, over every single plant around Sensata. So I used Aguas Calientes as an example, but doing that in a very strong 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 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. Take, for example, the region in Europe. What we see at this point of time, especially with more conservative governments being elected, that most probably we would see a lift of the combustion engine band, 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.

Chris, obviously we saw some of that here at 24, right? I mean, with the stronger ice business and just the amount of new opportunities coming through have been substantial and the team's done a great job of taking advantage of that.

That's great. Thanks, Brian.

question will come from luke young with baird please go ahead uh good afternoon thanks for taking the question um to start with stephan uh great to uh yeah i have this call to you um 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 since I've been very active in China, I've 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, one 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 technologies around hybrids or 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 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 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, and also wanting to grow in Europe. So there's a lot of effort to grow there as well. So when selecting 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 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, you know, stabilized revenue, they start to grow there at back of HVAC. That allows some growth in the sensing solution gross margins. Performance sensing is probably going to be somewhere where it is, you know, right in that same range, and just have to adjust for the pricing.

Understood. Thank you. Again, if you have a question, please press star, then 1. 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 the question. Of course I can. So again, these are just like early impressions that I have. within the two areas. So two areas of focus around thermal management and electrical protection, especially in industrial solutions, certain opportunities. Take, 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 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 industrials area 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.

Thank you. And just to follow up for Brian. Obviously, congrats on the excellent performance and free cash flow. And obviously, you gave encouraging guidance for this year. But is there any reason why eventually Sensata couldn't be 100% free cash flow conversion company, similar to public peers?

I'd rather walk before I run, I guess, to say. You know, there are some limitations. I mean, one of the strengths, as I mentioned earlier, is that we have redundant manufacturing in multiple areas of the world. 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, kind of 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 this to get us to that 80% mark.

And our next question comes from Samik Chatterjee with JP Morgan.

Please go ahead. hi um thanks for taking my question and stefan congrats on the role i just want to understand uh from you i know it's early days but rate up to the outperformance um rate of automotive production do you have any thoughts yet in terms of what is sort of the optimal level that sense data should target uh and particularly how would you think about balancing um relative to growth versus margins and pursuing to that target including like, have you taken another look at the portfolio rationalization or the lifecycle management that 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're on the FATF 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, Samik. 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 Maquila structure. So the majority of what is imported in the U.S. 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 of things around outgrowth. you know, margin profile portfolio. And again, it's early days for Stefan. Let him jump in here. But, you know, I do think this business historically, and there's really no reason to think it's different, has, you know, driven outgrowth, you know, somewhere in that average of, you know, call it, you know, three to six percentage points per year. Very, you know, 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, I think that's 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 lot of confidence that in Q2 we will see that snap 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. So those are the big drivers, and again, I think as Stephane 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 Sensata. 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 Sensata, I would say From low to mid single digits, I would say it's the right off course 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 Waljast. We're on for Joe's back today. So thanks for the question. Appreciate the color around the margin seasonality. But when we think about the second half of the year, how should we think about the driver's margin expansion coming from one you know, the volume leverage and two of those natural cost stats as the company resets for the lower, like, sales base. And can we expect mega trend spend to also, like, kind of be rebased? And then if I could just follow up with this second quick question is, you know, with free cash flow conversion improving, you know, what are kind of early thoughts around, like, capital allocation for the year, whether it's, you know, in buybacks or M&A potentially?

Thank you. So let me start with capital allocation. You know, I think... Our 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, you know, doing those things here in the near term. Around margin, Zach, if I heard your question right, sorry, I came through a little bit kind of garbled. But, you know, in the second half of the year, certainly, you know, 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, you know, certainly our expectations are in the productivity improvements which compound over time. that we continue to see the margin lift in both Q3 and Q4. You know, 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, you know, 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. Certainly appreciate all of your questions and your continued interest in SENSATA. 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