Linamar Corp

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Linnemore Q1 2025 earnings call conference call. At this time, all lines are in listen only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on Wednesday, May 7th, 2025. I would like to turn the conference over to Linda Hassan-Fretz, Executive Chair. Please go ahead.

Thanks so much. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our first quarter conference call. Before I begin, I'll draw your attention to the disclaimer currently being broadcast. Joining me this afternoon, as usual, are Jim Jarrell, our President and CEO, and Dale Schneider, our CFO, both of whom will be addressing the call formally. Also available for questions are Mark Stoddard and Kevin Hallahan and other members of our corporate IRR marketing, finance, and legal team. Okay, I'll start off with some highlights of this quarter. I think a good place to start is a quick reminder of the key value drivers that make Linamar such a great investment and how they played out this quarter. First, Linamar has a long track record of consistent, sustainable results driving out of our diverse business. Q1 was certainly another good example with earnings and margin growth both delivered in a time frame when most companies are not achieving that. The second key point is our flexibility to mitigate risk. Never more important than in an uncertain time such as we're experiencing. Our equipment is programmable, flexible equipment. It can be used on a large variety of types of products. We're able to take equipment out of existing lines And, again, especially important in this time frame of market volumes being down, and we allocate them into launching business to help keep our capex spending lower without impacting our ability to grow. And you saw that, again, this quarter with capex spending below normal levels that we would normally have. We can also use that flexible equipment to our advantage at the moment to help us win takeover business. Third, we have always run a prudent, conservative balance sheet. We target keeping net debt to EBITDA under 1.5 times. Q1, again, saw net debt to EBITDA right around that 1.04 mark, an excellent level to be at, given great opportunities in the market today. Lastly, we're trading faster shareholders as a key factor. value creation driver at Linnemar as well. You saw that also play out this quarter, both with continued repurchase of shares as well as an increase announced to our dividend. Okay, turning to highlights for the quarter, I would identify these as our most relevant accomplishments. First, we saw normalized earnings growth overall and in both segments despite down markets in both segments. That earnings growth is driving out of excellent cost reductions and improved operational efficiencies driven by our global teams, but in fact took our normalized operating earnings margin to our target level of 10% in the quarter. That earnings growth also drives out of market share growth in both segments, which is critical in times of market declines to provide some offset to those traditional volumes declining. Finally, we saw continued positive free cash flow, unusual in the first quarter of the year, which is helping to keep that balance sheet strong, liquidity high, and keeping us well positioned for action in an opportunistic landscape. Turning to some of the numbers, we saw sales hit $2.5 billion. That's down 7% over last year in markets that were down significantly more, as Jim is going to outline for you in a moment. Sales were down 15% in our industrial business, largely on lower skyjack sales in a market that was dramatically down. Sales were down more modestly in the mobility segment at 5% down with launching business really helping to offset very soft markets. North America was down 6% and Europe down 7%, both important markets for us in our mobility segment. Normalized net earnings, on the other hand, were up 5% on strong operational performance, reaching $167.2 million, or 6.6% of sales. Normalized EPS was $2.76, up 6.6% over Q1 last year. It's great to see this earnings growth and margin improvement in a challenging environment. I would summarize our results this quarter as being most impacted by First, those operational improvements and cost reductions in both segments already mentioned. Launching business in our mobility segment. Some effects tailwind, more so on the industrial side. Steady sales and earnings have backed on in a test market, offset by those steep declines in the mobility market volumes, as noted in Europe and North America, and steep declines in the access market volumes as well. Cash flow was positive at 76.4 million. We continue to actively reallocate capital from programs with less volume where software launches and trimming our capital bill as a result. We expect to continue to generate significant free cash flow in 2025 for another strongly positive result for the year. Finally, let's have a look at an update on the Terra side. Despite the myriad of tariffs put in place over the last couple of months, Lindemar continues to have minimal bottom line impact. We have some impact in a few areas, but not at a material level, as you can see here detailed by each type of tariff that's active at the moment. In general, our products are a USMCA compliant for virtually everything we ship into the US. meaning no tariffs for us on our industrial products where we're the importer of records, or for our customers on the mobility side where they are the importer of records. I do worry, however, about the growing impact of tariffs on our automaker customers. However, as they continue to build up, whether they be metal tariffs, vehicle tariffs, parts tariffs, for the offshore purchases, it is all starting to build up. The costs for our customers are in the billions. And I do worry about concern to impact the vehicle pricing and therefore demand. Now, on the positive side, we are seeing customers looking at on-shoring parts and systems that they are currently buying offshore from Asia or from Europe. We're building up a significant list of new business opportunities that are in the quotation process for our North American plants. The U.S. is still respecting the USMCA agreement, meaning these parts can be supplied from the U.S., from Canada, or Mexico, tariff-free at the moment, as long as they stay USMCA-compliant. Where the job goes will depend on where we have capacity, experience, and teams available to take on the work, as well, of course, as such were prevalent. We believe that our governments in North America will prioritize a USMCA 2.0 renegotiation to cement in place what I think of as Fortress North America in terms of tariff-free trade, with some amendments, of course, and I believe that will be positive for our business in North America. With that, I'm going to turn it over to our CEO, Jim Gerald, to review industry and operations updates in a little more detail. Please, Jim.

Thanks, Linda, and good afternoon, everyone. As I said last quarter, and what you see on the screen remains a key theme that is keeping our team here at Linnemar grounded in 2025. despite a lot of noise in the external market. So no matter what is happening outside our walls, we must find ways to grow the revenue, grow profit, and grow our team. We've been using these three filters for everything that comes across our desk. And if an issue does not meet one of these, at least we ask ourselves, why do we do it? And just before I begin my segment in market by market commentary, I wanted to highlight a few keys to how we approach continuous improvement in Linamar and how we are driving earnings, particularly in this past quarter. As Linda highlighted, Q1 sales were down due to tough markets, yet Linamar's normalized net earnings per share was up 6.6 margins, while at the consolidated level, improved nearly 75 basis points. We achieved this in what was otherwise a tough quarter due to a few things. One, the stepping stool of success philosophy. The Linnemar stepping stool is our performance management system, balanced scorecard, and assessed the KPI that drives leadership. Cat or cost attack teams is our process for continuous and relentless pursuit of identifying and eliminating waste across the company globally. Three, launch performance is an issue that can make or break a new program during a ramp-up. I would say that LIDLMAR has an industry-leading launch system and launch track record. Even so, earlier this year, we deep-dived lessons learned on a number of launches and continue to hone our global process. The early results from our update are yielding incremental improvement. Every manufacturing company has issues, period. It's how you ensure you can navigate and stay on time, on budget, with excellent quality. And that's another point. Fanatical discipline, world-class quality and delivery to our customers. And number five, lastly, our flexible CNC manufacturing strategy enables us to pivot when market volumes don't live up to the planned program expectations. Lumpy EV market adoption had a refocus of multi-energy solutions by our customers. capacities in our line to new required demand levels. Again, flexibility is a Linamar advantage. Linda already mentioned the dynamics around trade and tariffs we are dealing with. I'll hold off commenting until the Q&A after Dale has walked through our in-depth results. But what I will say is that Linamar team is hard at work to mitigate any increased costs wherever we can, and that we are finding ways to deploy our entrepreneurial culture to create opportunities with the realignment of the supply chains. Now moving on to look at the access or AWP market. Globally, the overall industry was down 34% in the first quarter of 2025 compared to last year. Market declines were felt in both North America and Asia Pacific, with Europe being flat. U.S. non-residential construction is up roughly 4% through the first two months of the year. The Dodge Momentum Index is also up. So there are positive trends to the underlying demand, but AWP volumes have been challenged. Recent industry consolidation in the rental company sector, tariffs, and overall economic headwinds are hampering current AWP demand. We're speaking with our customers to see how much of that demand was just a slower start to the year and who was just simply pushed out to a future quarter. Q2 and Q3 are typically the strong seasonal quarters in the business. Our backlog and booking rates have trended up in the past few weeks, and so we're seeing more positive signals from our customers. Bottom line, again, for Q1, we think it's great to see Skydeck outperform the market and fare better than the overall industry. In AWP, from a new product introduction standpoint, there's exciting news to share here in both scissors and in booms. First, our 19-foot micro scissor launched last year has received an international award for power access due in part to our new e-drive system and for its overall efficiency. Next, our boom line will soon add a hybrid-powered option The rental market is calling for a more quiet, clean, and sustainable access equipment. Our new hybrid rooms deliver with facility of conventional ice power, but now made it to a zero-emissions battery electric mode. The new hybrid rooms join our recently launched fully electric boom lineup, offering rental houses and contractors more options to suit the specific needs of any given job site. As always at Skydeck, we remain committed to delivering world-class products focused around user safety through new and innovative products that provide our customers the best total cost of ownership and certainly a compelling ROI. Next, we'll turn to the agriculture industry volumes. As we mentioned on our last earnings call, our core North American large ag market was in a multi-year down cycle. We noted that commodity prices needed to stabilize and inventory flow-through are required ahead of the next industry upcycle. And that's how 2025 is playing out today. In our primary North American market, industry volumes are down again and double-jizzed for a second year. Through the first three months of 2025, combine retails were, in fact, down 46%. High horsepower tractors were down 19%. Again, by driving market share growth, Linnemar's three core agriculture equipment brands, Macton, Salford, and Borgo, were able to outtake the market. Unit sales through the first three months of the year are down only 8% in aggregate against a weak industry backdrop, some fantastic results by our Linnemar Agricultural Group. As we look ahead for the full year expectation, industry large ag is expected to finish 21%. 2025 down roughly 30% in North America, 5% in Europe, and down 12% globally overall. As we enter 2025, there was a broad expectation that it was going to be the trough in a typical ag market multi-year down cycle, but we'll be watching carefully as farm income remains low and new equipment demand is impacted by a wait-and-see approach by farmers. Many mainline OEMs are focused on moving inventory through the distribution channels this year, and there's some indication that there could be government support coming via incentives for U.S. farmers. There are positive signs for the future as the sector prepares for the next market upcycle, but we'll continue to monitor these trends very closely. Moving on to the mobility segment, the first quarter saw industry vehicle production volumes fall by 5.6 in North America, 6.7 in Europe, with Asia specifically actually gaining over 7%. Industry experts have built in the negative impacts from tariffs into their annual forecast for both 2025 and 2026. We're hopeful those forecasts will now improve slightly. following the transitionary period guidelines laid out by the U.S. administration just late last week. Of course, the devil is in the details, and there's a level of speculation and base assumptions made on tariff impact overall. But for now, the view is full year 25 is expecting an industry decline of 9.3% in North America, a further 3.1% drop in Europe, with Asia mostly flat. Looking specifically at Q1 for Linnemar Mobility, we improved content for VSL North America to 300 and Asia to $11.76. Europe, however, saw a reduction mainly due to lower production volumes, really around EV platforms that the company has content on. All told, global CPV for the first quarter was 84.25, down slightly from the same quarter last year, although right in line where we tracked through overall 2024. So although we can't control macro environment where the volume trade or EV adoption, we can control how we perform for our customers. And I'm excited to share that Linamar has once again received General Motors Supplier of the Year Award. I recently attended the GM ceremony to accept this award that marked the ninth, yes, it's underlined right in my page, the ninth year in a row that Linamar has won this honor. The Linamar team strives to achieve deep customer connections, and we truly value the relationships that we've built over time based on a reputation, a partnership, and executing on those commitments. It's that industry reputation that opens the door to new opportunities during challenging times. I'll highlight a few of the most recent successes in terms of takeover work we've added to new business wins. On our last call, I mentioned we had booked nearly 180 million of new work in the form of takeover contracts from struggling or distressed suppliers. That number has continued to grow with now close to 200 million in annualized sales that we were adding to our launch book. Here you can see a few examples of new programs we've picked up in the last six to eight months, including traditional engine, transmission, mobility work, but also propulsion, agnostic, structural, and chassis content as well. Linnemar's flexible manufacturing strategy, balanced sheet strength, and capacity to invest make us a trusted partner for OEMs when they're experiencing underperformance and see the risk within their current supply base. The Linnemar team has built reputation for executing a timely and welcome solution for the OEMs. With that, I'm going to turn it over to our CFO, Dale, for a more in-depth financial review.

Thank you, Jim, and good afternoon, everyone. Linda has already covered at a high level the solid normalized financial performance in the quarter, so I'll just jump right into the business segment review starting with industrial. Industrial sales decreased by 13.1% for $95.2 million to $633.4 million in 2001. This decline was primarily due to the lower access equipment in agricultural sales, despite the noble market share growth in certain products. However, the negative impact was partially offset by increased sales from our acquisition of Borgo, as well as the favorable changes in FX rates. Normalized industrial operating earnings in Q1 increased by 6.4 million, or 5.3%, over last year to 126.6 million. This growth is primarily driven by agricultural improvements resulting from cost reductions in operational efficiency, favorable changes in foreign exchange rates, and improved earnings related to the acquisition of Borgo. However, these positive factors were partially offset by reduced access volumes due to the lower demand. Turning to mobility, sales decreased by 94.6 million or 4.7% over Q1 last year to 1.9 billion. This decline was primarily due to the safety of downturns in the European and North American markets, reduced production for certain programs that are ending, and lower volumes on EV programs where the company has significant business. Q1 normalized operating earnings for mobility were up 1.5% over last year to $125.4 million. This improvement was driven by cost reductions, operational efficiencies, reduced launch costs, and customer cost recoveries. Additionally, there was a modest favorable FX impact from the changes in rates. However, these positive factors were partially offset by the contribution impact due to the significant downturn in the automotive market, the lower production on certain ending programs, and reduced volumes on certain mature programs where we have significant business. Starting with our overall cash position, we came in at $909.2 million On March 31st, a decrease of $145.4 million appeared in December. The first quarter generated $164.3 million in cash from operating activities being used primarily to fund Q1 CapEx and debt repayments. During the leverage, net debt to EBITDA was 1.04 times in the quarter, down from the high of 1.24 times after the acquisition of Borgo in Q1 2024. If you normalize EBITDA, The net debt EBITDA further reduces from the leverage of $1.01 to $0.81 due to the goodwill impairments in Q4 last year. The amount of available credit on our credit facilities was $913.4 million at the end of the quarter. Our available liquidity at the end of Q1 remained strong at $1.8 billion. As a result, we currently believe we have sufficient liquidity to satisfy our financial obligations. obligations during 2025. It would be appropriate to give a quick update on the status of our NCID program that was launched and announced in Q3 of 2024. In the 12-month period, the program allowed Lennarmar to purchase and cancel up to 4 million shares. We've been very active on the NCID program since we started purchasing. In Q1, we have purchased 1 million shares. And programmed to date, we're nearly at 1.8 million shares, which equates to nearly $100 million being spent on the program. This is aligned with our capital allocation strategy to optimize the balance sheet, especially in these turbulent times, focusing on the growth of the business and returning cash, excess cash to the shareholders. I'll start off by saying the current outlook does not yet factor in any direct impacts of the U.S. tariffs. Linda has already discussed the tariffs, so I'll move on to the outlook. Looking towards the next quarter, the mobility segment will see sales remain flat and double-digit growth in OE compared to Q2 2024. The sales remain stable despite the expected market declines in Europe and North 10% respectively. The OE will continue to improve on cost reductions, operational improvements, and from added contribution on our launching programs. The industrial segment will see double-digit sales and OE declines when compared to Q2 2024. Sales are declining on down markets expected in both ag and access equipment. OE is down because of the decremental impact on the changes in sales, in addition to a product mix which is currently expected to be unfavorable. As a result, the expectation on the consolidated results for Q2 is to have a decline in sales and a modest decline in EPS. Even with the reductions in the markets, free cash flow generation will be strong in the second quarter. During the full year 2025 for mobility, industry forecasters are predicting continuing market softness in 2025. Notwithstanding the market softness, our sales will grow over 2024 levels and OE will grow at an accelerated double-digit rate. We still see launching programs maintaining our previous outlook and adding between 500 and 700 million in sales that will help mitigate the market decline. As a result, We are still expecting to see margin expansion, which will push mobility back into its normal range of 7% to 10%. Industrial will see double-digit market declines in ag and single-digit declines in access, which will result in an overall net decline in sales. The sales decline and the expected product mix of the sales will result in a double-digit decline in OE for 2024. Despite the OE levels, margins will still be in our normal range of 14% to 18% for the segment. Overall, for 2025, sales will be flat. EPS will grow. Free cash flow will remain strong, which will ensure our balance sheet is also strong. In 2026, the mobility segment is expected to continue its sales growth and to achieve double-digit operating earnings. The automotive markets are projected to grow by 1.1% over 2025, which will aid mobility's expansion. Additionally, new launches are anticipated to contribute an additional $500 to $700 million in sales. The OE will outpace the sales growth due to the increased volumes, the ongoing improvements in operational efficiency, and cost reductions. As a result, the OE margins are expected to expand further into our normal range of 7% to 10% of sales. The industrial segment is also forecasted to experience growth in both sales and earnings. The access market is expected to grow by 2.3% over 2025, driving sales growth to sky-jack. Furthermore, the agricultural markets are anticipated to start to rebound in 2026, contributing to sales growth in the ag businesses. Consequently, the OE is expected to grow in 2026 due to the volume increases in both access and ag. From a consolidated perspective, the segments will drive overall sales growth in 2026 and will result in double-digit earnings per share growth, thereby expanding net margins. The balance sheet is expected to remain strong with solid leverage and strong free cash flow generation. Thank you, and I'd like to open it up for questions.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. You will hear a prompt that your hand has been reached. Did you wish to cancel your request? Please press the star button followed by the number two. And if you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. One moment please for your first question. Your first question comes from Tommy Chan from Bienbo Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for the question. I wanted to start with the tariff topic here. I know it's still been pretty recent with the recent clarifications from the US administration on the tariffs, but I'm just wondering at this point, Are customers starting to respond and make some decisions? Linda, I think you mentioned that they are starting to think about onshoring parts. If you could talk a little bit more about that and going forward, what sort of actions, at least I guess for the rest of this year, if we assume the terrace stay as is, do you think are most likely that your customers will think about doing?

Yeah, I think that the great news is that the U.S. is still respecting the USMCA agreement, which means that the product that we're shipping into the U.S. from Canada and Mexico, as long as it's USMCA compliant, which it is, continues to travel in tariff-free. which is great news, right? I mean, to me, it's really important that we respect that sort of fortress North America and continue to work within this highly integrated supply chain. So what happened last week was that that was clarified, for one thing. And secondly, auto parts tariffs of 25% were imposed on on products that are being bought offshore, so outside of North America. And a system put in place whereby rebates are available to help offset the cost to those tariffs this year and next year, giving the automakers time to onshore some of those parts. So to me, that is going to be the clear priority, is to look at What is being bought offshore, whether it be from Asia or from Europe, for instance? And how do they bring that back into North America? And I would say we're definitely seeing action and questions in that regard from our customers, which we see as a huge opportunity for our facilities. I mean, our U.S. facilities, but also our Canadian and Mexico facilities, again, as we continue to respect the USMCA agreement.

Yeah, I think just to maybe add a little bit to that as well, the customers are not asking us to relocate components at this point in time or set up things that we're doing in Canada and Mexico into the US. So I think, as Linda stated, USMCA compliancy is sort of the rule of thumb now that we're all following And more interesting is the opportunities that are being started because of the tariffs that are imposed in Europe and in Asia, particularly, that are, you know, costing, you know, a lot of dollars, as you can see, with the OEMs that have released, you know, some of the speculative numbers that they'll be hit with. So those are creating opportunities for USMC compliancy. And as Linda said, we can offer Mexico, U.S., Canada, where it makes the most sense as well. One thing that we do with customers right now, one of the key things that we're really seeing a lot of questions around is rare minerals, specifically coming out of Asia. And that, to me, seems like to be really one of the bigger concerns because of the tariffs and the actual ability to get rare minerals out of there. So those are pretty critical things customers are worried about here. I mean, long-term, I mean, how the big concern for us is volumes. How does this really impact volumes for us long-term?

Okay, got it. And I wanted to confirm, so the direct... a headwind on you from the current tariff regime where you're the importer of record. I think you said earlier for both of your segments it's very minimal, so I assume that's not really material. Can you confirm that? And if there is some sizable amount, do you expect to be able to get recoveries on this from your customers?

Yes, you're correct. not a material amount it's not zero but it is not a material level so like things like metal tariffs for instance on the mobility side we have normal metal market captures to customers that's just normal course operations so there would be no impact on the mobility side for metal on the industrial side we import very little steel and aluminum for our our operations On the supply side, the majority of steel and aluminum going into supplier products are purchased in the U.S. that are coming from U.S. suppliers, so not a lot of impact there either. So, you know, there's a little bit of impact here and there, maybe for some auto parts, you know, maybe cap and forgings assembled parts that we might be shipping into the U.S., coming from offshore, but again, it's not a material level. So it's not zero, but it is not a significant impact to us.

You asked a question about recoveries too. Of course, a lot of customers direct sources. So in those situations, obviously, we do get the ability to recover that. And then the other side, we're working with suppliers to potentially have to change locations with their tier two, tier three. Certainly HS code learning, we've all learned a lot more about HS codes than we ever want to know in our lives. And a lot of HS code thinking, engineering, in regards to how you do that, and then transfer prices, right, if you need to work those. So I think we've got a really good mitigation strategy. We meet weekly on this as a topic. Elliot, who's here, our general counsel, is sort of leading that, and that just cascades through the whole organization. So we know to mitigate, go after customers, talk to suppliers, and really get a, have a good handle on this.

Okay, and my last question is, So in this backdrop, it sort of sounds like from a capital allocation share buyback perspective, you still got capacity on your current NCIB. So should investors interpret that as you will continue to remain active? I ask because we have seen other of your peers pause their buybacks given this current uncertain situation. Thanks.

Yeah, I mean, we've been very active on the buyback since we initiated it in November. I mean, we think it is a good use of capital, especially with the very depressed share prices that we've experienced in the last few months, thanks to all the pressure from these tariff unknowns. But I will say that as we outlined in our capital allocation strategy that we outlined last year, our top priority is always innovation and growth. And we are seeing a lot of growth opportunities out there right now. So, you know, although we are not putting the buyback on gold, we definitely are going to balance it with these growth opportunities. So, you know, that's something that we will look to actively be doing in the back half of the year.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you so much for that question. And our next question comes from Brian Morrison from TD Collins. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thanks very much. First, I do want to commend you on your Canadian commitment to solid quarter and remaining active with your NCIB. And I want to follow along with Tammy on the tariffs here. So it sounds like the impact is limited. It will flow through to the OEM. What do you mean by no tariffs are factored into guidance? Is this referring to production volumes and what light vehicle production volumes are factored in for North America?

Yeah, I mean, in terms of what factored in, as noted, we have minimal impact, so there's nothing, not much to factor in. OK, so when we say not factoring in, that would be other things that we don't know that might be coming down the pipe. So as you know, things change pretty regularly in this area. So, you know, we're conscious of the fact that if something changes, it's obviously not going to be reflected.

Yeah, I would also say, Brian, some examples, like there is exposure, but if we believe we're working with our customer to get recovery, I mean, that's what we're assuming in our forecasting right now. So we know that going into this, right? And so there's those, as Linda said, these things are changing you know, day by day, and so we sort of understand where we are at right now today.

Yeah, no, I understand that. I just wondered what is the volume of light vehicle production you have factored in for North America in your guidance?

Yeah, the North American is factoring in based on IHS is the exposure on the tariffs. That's what we have as the latest in the IHS.

Yeah. Brian, we do utilize IHS or Best in Team Mobility for our forecast. They have been pretty on top of their forecast in terms of adjusting to the tariff regimes as they've come through. I think now that they have kind of their baseline set and that forecast was published I believe on April 15th. So that's really what we are walking through with our latest estimates that they'll show. The announcements that were made subsequently last week, as we led up to the May 3rd deadline, maybe softened a little bit in terms of their harshness. So maybe a little bit of upside there, but again, as Jim said, we'll wait and watch.

Yeah, and I think Linda mentioned it and we mentioned it. I think the biggest fear for all of us is the volumes, what happens with all the additional tariffs and costs. And then there was a lot of releases pulled forward in Q1. to avoid it? Where do the inventory sit? So, you know, again, that's a watch and see, right?

That's fair, Jim. I want to turn to Dale. I want to go through the industrial margin of 20%. So industrial sales in the quarter are down 100 million. As well, often said your decrements are about 30%, yet your contribution is up 7 million. So you should be down 30, yet you're up to 7. So walk me through the impact of those three buckets you mentioned, cost efficiencies, SX, And what is this FX exposure? Is it transactional USD on Canadian costs? What is that?

Yeah, the FX we're referring to is the impact on sales and purchases from buying or selling foreign goods. So it's inherited our income statement balance sheet as we do our transactions. So it's not the gain or loss on them.

Yeah, no, I understand that, but I'm asking what it is, and what is the impact on your margin in the quarter? Or each of the .

Brian, we don't provide that level of detail in terms of what the impact of each thing is, but I'll say a few things. The margin in the industrial segment is very mix-dependent because our agricultural businesses, some even more so than others, tend to run at a little bit higher margins than others. So, you know, if you've got stronger performance in, you know, one of those businesses, then it's going to skew the margins. So mix was definitely a big part of it. And secondly, the improvements that we talked about, operational efficiencies, a year ago we were still struggling with some of the supplier issues that made us quite inefficient in how we ran things on the line. So that was certainly a big factor as well. Forgo, it was just one less month last year. If you recall, we started, we acquired Forgo as of February 1st, so it was really just one month's worth of additional earnings from Forgo.

That's fair. I want to respect your competitive disclosure here, but when you have such a big movement with respect to the contribution, perhaps you could rank You know, what drove that? Is it the cost efficiencies? Is it FX? Or is it the mix?

I would say mix would be our biggest driver of that.

Yes. Mix, then efficiencies, and then something from FX.

Yes. Okay. Thanks very much. Yes.

you so much for that question as well and third one we have here is michael glenn from raymond james please go ahead hey um thanks for taking the question so just to start circling back to the q4 report there were some indications that you were working to move some product across the border in anticipation of tariffs and I'm just trying to get a sense, how much of Q1 was influenced by cross-border movement? Were customers in either segment buying ahead of any, like just trying to potentially avoid tariffs, just trying to get a sense of that?

It's a really good question, Michael, on the buy ahead. We don't know exactly what they... bought ahead, but what we do know is what we took across the border. We took about three, four months of industrial product across the border. I think the customers in the mobility side pulled in Q1 higher levels because they were trying to avoid tariffs as well. We haven't seen any pullback on the mobility side as of yet, but that's what we had done with our industrial products has pulled forward. Mike, I would

bit as what Jim said and we you know saw some moderate increases in mobility schedules but I think you know they were anticipating and what we saw right is pretty heavy sales in in February and March you know and obviously significant reduction in inventories but you know it wasn't extreme Right now, the run rate is kind of at the normal level, a little higher.

Yeah, and I would just add in as well that the fact that we had three or four months across the border of our industrial group product was a bit of an insurance policy in case tariffs were enacted. But as noted, our product, because they are USMCA compliant, are continuing to ship tariff-free into the U.S. So it's sort of irrelevant. The fact that we have the inventory over there is irrelevant.

Okay. And just looking at – Linda, you made the comment about looking at what customers might be looking to reshore. I'm just trying to – Does this potentially mean you're looking at M&A in new segments? I'm just trying to understand what might be made overseas, what Linamar makes. Could we be looking at you branching into a new type of manufacturing line?

Yeah, I mean, when I was talking about reshoring opportunity, it was about us taking on contracts for parts or subcontracts sub-assemblies that our customers might be buying offshore right now. So that won't require us to acquire anything. It won't require us to add new product lines. I mean, it's the same kind of stuff that we're making today that maybe they're buying offshore and they want to buy here in North America, whether it be casting, forging, machine parts, sub-assemblies. there's a good opportunity as they look to reshore stuff that they might be buying outside of North America.

I think there's a couple things going on with this. If you take a look at the North American OEMs and what they would traditionally consider low-cost sourcing, which could be Asia and then also European sourcing, they're looking because they have a a couple years of timeline to get things reshored here. So that's an opportunity. And then also the second side is the customers that are in Europe that are sending parts over and Asia sending parts over. Those are hit today on tariffs. They're looking for onshoring. So they're looking for suppliers that have a USMCA compliance flag in the U.S., Canada and Mexico to use that as a gateway into the U.S.

Okay. And are you able to give some thoughts about where your dealer inventory levels are across your agriculture product lines?

Do you have a sense of that, Ken, what those would be? I mean, they're still a little higher, like, at this point.

Yeah, I guess, Michael, the bigger thing for the dealer network is the amount of inventory that they have overall. Not necessarily car inventory, not necessarily the brands of MacDonald, Sultry, and Orgo. It's the inventory that they have overall across all of the lines that they carry. And typically when they have that inventory, they have to pay interest, right, because it's on a floor plan loan payment system. So they have to endure the interest expense with that. That interest expense kind of reached the inventory levels, kind of reached the peak, I would say kind of Q2 to Q3 of last year. And so from that standpoint, that's kind of where the dealers need to stop kind of taking in new product from the OEMs. And so they've been doing that. That number is coming down, but it is still a little bit high.

Okay. And then finally, Linda, with With the border becoming a tool of policy increasingly, do you believe that it is necessary for Linnemar to look at putting more capacity in the U.S. surrounding your core products, whether those are industrial or automotive related?

I mean, Michael, we already have facilities in the U.S. We have 10 plants in the U.S., So we're obviously going to be looking for opportunities for those facilities. We also, of course, have our facilities in Canada and Mexico, which have lots of capability across a wide range of products as well. So, you know, when we're looking to decide on what plant we're going to put a product in, it's really about some of those fundamentals. Is there capacity somewhere? Where's the capability? Where's the teams who know how to run this type of product? Where's the customer plant? And what's the closest proximity, which sometimes is our Southern Ontario plant? So it's really going to be on a plant-by-plant or part-by-part, program-by-program basis where we end up putting that work. So, you know, obviously we're going to try and get all of our plants, you know, fully full of new work. And I think there's plenty of opportunity to be able to do that. That's our US plant, but also our Canadian and Mexican plants. So I do not feel the need to shift anything. As Jim has said, nobody's asked us to do that. and I think there's great opportunity, in fact, to grow our business in all three countries.

I mean, each one of these regions, Mexico, Canada, the U.S., we have open capacity to take on new work. So we have that ability to offer that multi-country approach that's sort of North America strong.

Okay, that's it for me. Thank you.

Thank you so much also for that question. And for our next question comes from Jonathan Goldman from Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Hi, good evening, team. Thanks for taking my questions. Most of them have already been asked, and I do actually appreciate the color you gave on the industrial margins, so that's very helpful. Just one for me on the mobility segment. The outlook for 2025 now calls for revenue growth. Previously, it was flat year on year. It looks like industry conditions have gotten incrementally worse. You know, we're seeing production cuts. It seems to be reflected in the market assumptions you published. What gives you confidence you can see growth this year and how much of the growth you assume will come from favorable effects?

Yeah, I mean, we are seeing a little bit stronger sales forecast on the mobility side this quarter than we did last quarter. And it's the change from flat to seeing some growth. Part of it is, frankly, a stronger Q1 than we had been forecasting. But part of it is also, you know, stronger sales. stronger forecasts in subsequent quarters as well. Certainly, I think part of it is this little bit stronger pull that we saw in Q1 than we had been expecting, which as both Jim and Mark have said, is actually continuing on into the second quarter or so. I mean, for the programs that we're on, we're seeing our customers pulling the volume.

Yeah, I think that's what we see today, right? And the other thing that could be playing out here is, you know, there could be higher volumes coming from, you know, mixed with us having more customers that we deal with having higher volumes and then we would have a higher outlook.

China has also been another area that we've been seeing some good growth in regards to sales, especially with our customer base.

Interesting. That's good color. I'll get back to you. Thanks.

Thank you so much for that question as well. And since there are no further questions at this time, please continue, Ms. Linda.

Okay, thank you so much. Well, before I move to my concluding comments, I want to highlight that we are hosting an Investor Tech Day next week for capital markets and institutional shareholders. It's an in-person event. It's being held Thursday, May 15th. It's going to start at 9 a.m., here at the, in Guelph, at the Mark Hasseltraub Center for Excellence. In addition to executive management presentations, we're also going to be showcasing the very latest technologies we offer across mobility, access, and A. And we encourage you to pre-register, and we can talk about technologies and exciting things, and not just tear-outs, which is just one little piece of what's going on in the business. Okay, so to wrap up, I'd like to leave you with our key message for the quarter. Overall, I think we delivered a solid quarter with earnings growth and a challenging environment. With both segments growing earnings, driving overall earnings growth despite softer sales, I think our performance has been excellent. Secondly, we're very proud of our global teams and their excellent efforts around cost reductions, and operational streamlining that is helping to drive our OE margins back up to the 10% level that we target. Third, market care growth in all our businesses is a key element in managing stock markets. It's critical. We're doing it, and it's helping to offset what's happening on the market side. And finally, another quarter of positive free cash flow means our balance sheet is strong. We've got solid liquidity to position ourselves for further growth opportunities. So thanks very much, everybody, and have a great evening.

Thank you so much for that, Ms. Linda. And this concludes today's call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.