Firan Technology Group Corporation

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the FTG Fourth Quarter 2024 Analyst 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, February 19th of 2025. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Bradbourne. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm Bradbourne, President and CEO of Foreign Technology Group Corporation, or FTG. Also on the call today is Jamie Crichton, our Chief Financial Officer. Before we go any further, I must caution you that this call may contain forward-looking statements. Such statements are based on the current expectations and management of the company and inherently involve numerous risks and uncertainty, known and unknown, including economic factors and the company's industry generally. The preceding list is not exhaustive of all possible factors. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, and actual events and results could differ materially from those expressed or implied by forward-looking statements made by the company. The listener is cautioned to consider these and other factors carefully when making decisions with respect to the company and not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The company does not undertake and has no specific intention to update any forward-looking statements, written or oral, that may be made from time to time by or on its behalf, whether a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. 2024 was another record year for FTG, and our fourth quarter was another record quarter. Revenues increased each quarter throughout the year, with Q4 revenues totaling $45 million and full-year sales exceeding $162 million. It was a great year for FTG, and it was achieved by the great team of people at our company. I'd like to thank everyone at FTG for their hard work and their contributions to our success. Through 2024, FTG accomplished many financial goals, including total bookings reached 184.5 million, marking a 25% increase over 2023. The year-end backlog stood at $122.4 million, a 26% rise from the previous year. Full-year revenues increased by 20% to $162.1 million. Adjusted EBITDA was $25.8 million, up from $19.4 million in 2023. Adjusted net earnings increased by 47% to $10.3 million. And we maintained a strong balance sheet ending the year with net debt of just $0.7 million, after investing over $14.7 million during the year. Other accomplishments in 2024 included the continued successful integration of our 2023 acquisitions with improvements in throughput pricing and cost savings at Circuits Minnetonka and Circuits Haverhill. We secured a $17 million contract to supply cockpit interface assemblies for COMAX C919 aircraft, with production spanning from late 2024 through 2026. And we had a number of announcements subsequent to our year end that I will discuss later. Amy will provide more details on the full year as well as our Q4 results. Let me turn to some external items. Our end market demand remains strong. Airbus delivered 766 aircraft in 2024. More importantly, they're looking to ramp their production to almost 1,000 aircraft annually in the next few years. Airbus has a backlog of over 8,000 orders, which is over a decade worth of production at current production rates. At Boeing, they shipped just under 350 planes in 2024, down from about 500 in 2023. The drop was due in part to the safety incident on the Alaska Air 737, as well as the machinist strike they had later in the year. But looking forward, Boeing has plans to ramp their production to almost 700 planes annually in the next few years. Boeing's backlog is almost 6,000 planes, though also over a decade's worth of orders at current production rates. While 2024 might be a low point for Boeing, it has become clear that Airbus is outperforming Boeing in the air transport market with a two-to-one advantage in aircraft ships in the last year and a 60% market share based on the order backlog. This has implications for FTG's plans going forward. In the business jet market, Bombardier reported a mid-single-digit shipment increase for 2024, even in light of a short work stoppage they had during the year. In the helicopter market, Bell Helicopter reported flat deliveries in 2024 compared to 2023, but with a 5% overall revenue growth through the year. Bell also had some key military helicopter wins in the past two years that will drive significant growth for them going forward. All of this bodes well for us as we look to future demand in the coming years. I've also looked at results from some key defense contractors. For instance, Lockheed Martin reported a 5% revenue growth in 2024 compared to 2023 and gave guidance for 4% to 5% growth in 2025. Looking at the longer term, Boeing's most recent 20-year forecast shows long-term industry growth, and it continued to show 20% of all new aircraft deliveries going to China and close to 40% to Asia. This has been the case in their recent forecasts. The business jet market also has seen traffic recover. A recent business jet market forecast from Honeywell similarly predicts growth in this market in the coming years with near-term double-digit growth rates for the sector. The simulator market mirrors the end market application, but as we remind everyone about this market, it is lumpy for us, so large year-to-year variations do occur. So as we have said for many years, FTG's goal is is to participate in all segments of the aerospace and fence markets as each moves through their independent business cycles. It is not often all segments are growing at the same time. That seems to be the case right now. Beyond this, let me give you a quick update on some key metrics for FDG for 2024. First, as already noted, the leading indicator of business is our bookings or new orders. Our bookings were $184.5 million in the year. This resulted in a backlog of $122 million at year end. In 2024, sales were $162 million, which is $27 million above 2023 sales. The growth is partly due to owning the two acquisitions from 2023 for the full 12 months, as compared to only seven months in 2023, and partly due to organic growth. The growth was also achieved even though our aerospace funnel facility, had a six-week work stoppage early in the year. Late in the year, the Aerospace Toronto facility obtained TSO approval for new cockpit assemblies and began shipping to a Tier 1 avionics supplier that will ultimately ship on and be installed on Airbus aircraft. They also started shipping high-value cockpit assemblies for the C919 aircraft in China. For the acquisitions, revenue growth was approximately 16% for Circuits Minnetonka in 2024 compared to last year, and was about 4% for Circuits Haverhill. In particular, at Circuits Minnetonka, the run rate in Q4 was over $30 million, U.S. dollars. This is getting close to where they were in 2019 when they were at their peak. We continue to make progress towards getting them to revenue levels where they will materially contribute to FPG sales and profitability. In our aerospace business, sales were up 3% or $1.6 million in 2024 compared to last year. Again, the strike at the Aerospace Toronto Facility early in the year negatively impacted results, but this was offset by strong performance later in the year. On the circuit side of our business, sales were up 26 million or 28% on a year-over-year basis. Some of the growth came from the two acquisitions and the balance from organic growth. Overall at FTG, our top five customers accounted for 58.4% of total revenue in 2024. This compares to 56.1% last year. Also interesting to note, the top 10 customers, seven are customers shared between circuits and aerospace. We particularly like to see the shared customers as it means we are maximizing our penetration of these customers by selling both cockpit products and circuit boards. Given the anticipated actions of the new administration in the U.S. of implementing tariffs, it's also good to see that three of our top 10 customers are primarily outside of the U.S., and another four have some operations outside the U.S. Well, on this topic, 78.3% of FTG sales are to U.S.-based customers. This includes sales by U.S. sites, as well as sales from FTG sites in Canada or China. In 2024, 30% of our total revenue came from our aerospace business, compared to 34.5% last year. The aerospace business share decreased due to the impact from the 2023 acquisitions. I would now like to turn the call over to Jamie, who will summarize our financial results for last year, and afterwards, I will talk about some key priorities we are working on. Jamie?

Thanks, Brad, and good afternoon, everyone. I'd like to provide some additional detail on our financial performance for 2024 and Q4. On sales of 162.1 million, FGG achieved a gross margin of 44.2 million or 27.3% in 2024 compared to 39.3 million or 29.1% of sales of 135.2 million in 2023. Excluding 3.2 million in government subsidies in the U.S. operations in 2023, Gross margin in 2024 was up 60 basis points. The increase in gross margin dollars and the gross margin rate is a result of higher sales volumes, operational improvements, and favorable foreign exchange rates. Revenue per employee was $240K in 2024 as compared to $225K in 2023, which is a 7% increase. In Q4 2024 on sales of 45.2 million, FTG achieved a gross margin of 12.8 million or 28.3% compared to 10.7 million or 26.9% on sales of 40 million in Q4 2023. The increase in gross margin dollars for 2024 as compared to Q4 2023 is the result of increased sales volumes in both the circuits and aerospace segments operational improvements, and favorable foreign exchange rates. From a geographical standpoint, FGG sales growth was concentrated in the U.S. and Asia market segments. Growth in the U.S. market was driven by the full-year impact of the acquisitions completed in 2023, and growth in Asia was driven by robust markets for commercial aerospace. 78% of sales were derived from customers in the U.S., which is in 2024, which is the same as 2023. SG&A expense was 20.4 million or 12.6% of sales in 2024 as compared to 17 million or 12.5% of sales in the prior period. The increase of 3.4 million during fiscal 2024 includes the acquisition timing impact of 1.2 million as Minnetonka and Averill were included for the full 12 months. and increased headcount targeted at operational leadership. Corporate development-related expenses were $0.4 million for 2024 and $0.6 million in 2023. In Q4 2024, SG&A was 12.7% of sales, which is up from 11.9% in Q4 2023, with all of the 2024 corporate development expenses being incurred in Q4 2024. R&D costs for 2024 were $7 million, or 4.3% of sales, as compared to $6.6 million, or 4.9% of sales for 2023. R&D efforts include product and process developments at the circuit segment and efforts to develop and qualify products for future aerospace programs. FGG is exposed to currency risk through transactions, assets, and liabilities in foreign currencies, primarily U.S. dollars. The average exchange rate experienced in 2024 was $1.36 as compared to $1.35 in 2023, which equates to a weakening of the Canadian dollar less than 1%. We estimate that for each 1% of weakening of the Canadian dollar, FGG would experience an increase in pre-tax earnings of $0.5 million. Adjusted EBITDA, as detailed in the press release, was 25.8 million for 2024, or 15.9% of sales, compared to 19.4 million, or 14.3% of sales for 2023. Adjusted EBITDA is up 33% over 2023 as a result of growing the top line organically and through acquisitions, operational improvements, and managing expenses. Adjusted EBITDA 2024 excludes expenses incurred for the flight acquisition of 300K and startup costs in India of 100K. We also adjusted EBITDA with a 0.8 million reduction in contingent consideration related to the Minnetonka acquisition, which was booked as a profit adjustment in Q4, 2024. The Minnetonka acquisition had an earn-out provision as part of the purchase price and 1 million US was paid to the former shareholders in December, 2024. Adjusted EBITDA for Q4, 2024 was 7.6 million or 16.7% of sales as compared to 6 million or 15.0% of sales in Q4, 2023. For 2024, FGG recorded net earnings of 10.8 million as compared to 11.6 million in 2023. Adjusted net earnings for 2024 was $10.3 million, or $0.43 per diluted share, as compared to $7.0 million, or $0.29 per diluted share in 2023, which is an increase of 47%. In 2023, adjusted earnings excluded $3.8 million in government subsidies for our U.S. sites and a deferred tax recovery of $1.5 million related to the two acquisitions completed by FGG in 2023 in the U.S. The 2024 effective tax rate was approximately 27% as compared to 16% in 2023 with 23 benefiting from that deferred tax recovery. I'd like to remind everyone that FGG continues to have substantial U.S. tax losses available to offset future income and the accounting benefit of those losses has not been recognized in our statements. Our net debt possession as of Q4 2024 was 0.7 million as compared to a net debt of 3.6 million as of Q4 2023. Cash flow from operating activities in 2024 was 14.1 million as compared to 11.3 million in 2023. Excluding that 3.8 million of government subsidies received in 2023, the full year cash flow from operating activities increased by 6.6 million this year. Cash used for lease liability payments was $3.7 million in 2024 as compared to $2.9 million in 2023. Capital expenditures were $7.2 million as compared to $6.5 million in 2023. Capital expenditures in Q4 included approximately $1 million for infrastructure upgrades at the Circuits Toronto facility. Going forward, I expect CapEx to be closer to FGG's long-term target of 3% to 4% of revenue. As at the 2024 year end, the corporation's primary sources of liquidity totaled $80 million, consisting of cash, AR, contract assets, and inventory. In December 2024, we completed a new three-year credit facility with BMO Corporate Finance, which includes committed facilities for operating loans of $10 million U.S., and term credits of 10 million U.S. The agreement also includes an accordion facility of 15 million U.S. in support of acquisitions. Working capital at November 30, 2024 was 49.9 million. Accounts receivable days were 68, up from 64 in the prior year. Inventory days were 96 at the 2024 year end, down from 113 in 2023. And accounts payable days outstanding were 68 at the 2024 year end compared to 78 in 2023. We enter Q1 2025 with a record level backlog of 122.4 million, of which approximately 89% is expected to be converted to revenue in 2025. Our focus will be to complete the integration of the flight acquisition managing cash flow, and improving operational efficiency. A complete set of filings are on cdrbus.com. And with that, I will turn the call back to Brad.

Thanks, Jamie. Let me delve into some important items for the future of FTG, starting with a negative item. The new U.S. administration appears committed to implementing tariffs on imports into the U.S., This could negatively impact FTG, as we estimate about 55 million of sales to customers located in the U.S. originate at FTG sites in Canada or China. While this would be negative to FTG, we do not believe the impact would be immediate. It will take time for the aerospace and defense supply chain to react to tariffs and find alternate sources of supply. But we are concerned, and we are taking actions to mitigate any impact to FTG. First, our recent acquisitions in the U.S. in 2023 have reduced our exposure as they are inside the wall and would not be subject to tariffs. Going along with this, a long-term strategy to be a global player has resulted in sales outside of North America of over 26 million in 2024, and this is expected to grow in the coming years. We are taking additional steps. In 2024, we made a conscious decision to find ways to increase our exposure to Airbus, Not because of tariffs, but because they are the stronger performer in the air transport market. But whatever we do in this regard can also help mitigate U.S. tariffs. And more recently, we have made a conscious decision to pivot away from the U.S. market for our sites based in Canada. Obviously, a focus on Airbus is part of this. Subsequently, we announced a significant new contract with the Havilland on their Canadair 515 water bomber aircraft. This is a Canadian program that we will support from our Toronto facility. We are also looking to become more locally focused by aligning our U.S. customers with U.S. manufacturing sites and non-U.S. customers with non-U.S. manufacturing sites. We have identified $4 to $5 million of revenue for non-U.S. customers being manufactured in the U.S. We have begun the process of moving this work out of our U.S. sites and thereby potentially freeing up some capacity to move work in the other direction. The acquisition of flight will also help mitigate our exposure to tariffs. Flight's largest customers in Canada, and they sell globally. As we look to insource the manufacturing of flight products, we will do so in a manner to minimize our exposure to tariffs. While on the topic of flight, which we acquired on December 20 last year, subsequent to our year-end, We acquired it for a couple of key strategic reasons. First, we've expressed our desire to increase our activity in the high-margin aftermarket segment of our business for a number of years, and the acquisition of Flight helps do this. Also, as noted earlier, we are looking for ways to increase our activity with Airbus, and Flight has a SATCOM radio that is installed as an opt-in on new Airbus aircraft. They are sold via a licensing agreement with an average annual volume being two to 300 units. Finally, we think the timing on this acquisition could be superb. Flight has spent significant time and money investing in updating products and developing new products, and the bulk of these investments are done. We think we can leverage these investments to generate strong results for the company going forward. Now that we own Flight, our key actions are threefold. First, reduce costs. Flight took out significant costs in September last year, and another million will drop out due to the elimination of their public company costs. Second, we need to sell the new products. We need the sales team at flight to aggressively sell the products developed. In parallel with this, we need our internal team to continue to add approvals to enable us to sell the products onto a wider range of aircraft in more geographic jurisdictions. And third, we need to insource manufacturing to capture this margin within FTG. These actions should enable flights to become a positive addition to FTG and further mitigate the risk from U.S. tariffs. Also, as announced after our year-end, we are implementing plans to open an aerospace facility in Hyderabad, India. But as just recently announced, we have been working on these plans throughout 2024. First, our decision to expand geographically was partly us looking for an insurance policy against anything negative happening to our China operations, but it was also partly to expand into a new region with growth potential. As we analyzed options, we concluded India was a very cost-effective place for manufacturing, and with Prime Minister Modi's Make in India policy, coupled with significant defense spending, it would be an ideal place to operate. We selected Hyderabad specifically as it has an aerospace hub primarily focused on manufacturing, unlike Bangalore, which is more engineering and software focused. Our legal entity in India is established, bank accounts are set up, and our first two employees are hired. We have selected to have a facility built to suit due to the favorable location and the option to expand if or when necessary. This decision doesn't mean we'll have to wait for most of 2025 to get our facility completed. In the meantime, we will be sourcing the necessary equipment to be ready to go. Our estimated total investment is forecast to be approximately $2 million. While not the original intent, we believe this initiative will also help mitigate any negative impact from U.S. tariffs. And finally, we're developing plans to add sales resources in Canada, Europe, and even Asia to support our pivot away from the U.S. market. This would be both for the legacy FGG sites, as well as flights. The integration of the sites we acquired in 2023 is substantially complete. We will continue to drive growth and operating performance, but we do this at all our sites. For Circuits Haverhill, we acquired them to grow our presence in the RF circuit board market for aerospace and defense applications. While they are small, with a historic run rate of about four to five million, we like their capabilities. Our focus is to engage our sales team with them to find new customers and grow the business. This is definitely not an overnight process, but one where we can generate incremental margins and profitability for the benefits of FTG. Going along with this will be some focused CapEx to address a few production constraints to enable future growth and some capability expansion into additional RF technologies. FTG Circuits Minnetonka was a larger acquisition. Their sales were over $30 million before the pandemic. They were hurt by the pandemic like we were. We see the long-term positioning of Minnetonka to be a source of high-technology circuit boards, similar to our Toronto facility, but with a U.S. footprint. This U.S. footprint is critical as we will look to grow our share of the U.S.-only advanced circuit boards in the defense market. In the short term, we have three priorities for the site. First, we need to ramp the throughput in sales. And we did make great progress on this in 24, ending the year at a $30 million run rate. To grow sales, one key priority is to expand their customer base, again, in the U.S. defense market. We successfully added a couple of such customers in 2024, which is great to see. As a process to add the aerospace and defense customers, it's always a long, complex one. In Minnetonka, the second priority is to reduce material costs. It will take some time to fully achieve the savings, as in some cases it requires customers' approval and internal engineering efforts. But when complete, we still expect to achieve savings on the order of $1 million annually. And our third priority is to improve pricing. We believe Minnetonka had not been sufficiently proactive in adjusting prices as costs went up. We've had some successes on this already, and we will continue to address this. The good news is that with the FTG standard ERP system implemented at that site, we now have a much better handle on costing for all parts in production. As we enter 2025, we see continued strong demand across most sites. Of our $122 million backlog, over $50 million is due in Q1. While not a great metric, we ended the year with about $16 million in past due orders. down from 18 million at its peak, but up from the latest quarter, even though our shipments in Q4 were record high. Our goal is to work hard to reduce our past year orders substantially in 2025. We are expecting to grow in 2025. The easiest aspect of our growth will be having the flight acquisition part of FTG for over 11 months in the year. We expect there will be organic growth too. Based on the last year, We expect organic growth to be in the mid to high single digits. We still expect to see further benefit from the higher value assembly orders first booked in 2023 and more in 2024 for aerospace businesses. These assemblies go on Boeing and Airbus aircraft. And we will see the benefit of the C919 program in China ramping in production. We shipped our first production orders last year and we expect to see production rate increases in 2025 and beyond. With the more complex geopolitical situation in China, I'm sure there are still questions and concerns about our activities there. In 2024, both our operations in China had another record year. We also repatriated cash back to Canada during the last three years. In total, we have now brought back 3.6 million in cash. By doing this, we don't have surplus cash stranded in China, and it reduces our exposure if things did deteriorate between China and the West. On a more positive note, the C919 program is now in production, and this will benefit our China operations going forward and make them less susceptible to geopolitical uncertainties. We continue to assess possible corporate development opportunities that could fit with either of our businesses, but our near-term priority is to integrate flights. With a focus on operational excellence in all parts of FTG, our strong financial performance in 2024, our recent acquisition, our key sales win, we are confident we are on a long-term growth trajectory. This concludes our presentation. I thank you for your attention. I would now like to open the phone for your questions. Chloe.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star and then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Again, please press star then the number one to ask the question and you'll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Nick Corcon from Acumen Capital. Your line is open.

the record quarter thank you um a few questions for me the first is you posted uh sales of 45 million in the quarter can you maybe talk about how close you were to capacity across your sites um sure yeah i guess couple comments on that and there's different ways to measure capacity um the

The biggest capacity number is if we look at it from a plant and equipment perspective, if the plant and equipment was fully utilized 24 hours a day, seven days a week, we actually have significant capacity available still. And the reason I say that, if you look at any of our sites, we have one site that's really running three shifts. That's our Circus Toronto facility. But even within that, we're running a full shift in the day and two-thirds of a shift in the afternoon, a third of the shift at night. So there is still room to grow the capacity. So, you know, I don't actually have a hard number, but in terms of plants and the capacity, we have a fair amount of, and plants and equipment, we have a fair amount of capacity still available. The other constraint around capacity is staffing. As I described, we're not fully staffed, but at the current staffing level, we're running pretty efficiently these days, so there's not a lot of room to grow our revenue without adding people, but we're more than happy to do that. That's a cost that has great contribution margin. If we can add some staff and ramp our capacity, that's good for our financials. It's a bit of a complex answer, but I'd say we still have significant capacity available to grow our business given the infrastructure, the plant equipment we have available.

That's helpful. Maybe ask me a different way. What is the headcount at the end of the third quarter compared to the end of the fourth quarter? Wow.

No idea. I know at the end of the year, we were just under 700 people I think 697 thereabouts. I honestly do not remember what we were at the end of the third quarter. And I guess just to further complicate your question, one of the other ways we can short-term ramp our capacity or our equivalent headcount is with overtime. And for sure in Q4, we were busy and we were working a significant amount of overtime kind of across the company to hit the record numbers that we hit.

That's fair. Any indication of how the sales pace has been in the first quarter?

Sales pace in terms of bookings or... In terms of production. In terms of production. Yeah, I guess, no, that's a good question. And maybe I should have touched on this. And it's really a reminder for everyone. Our first quarter... is challenged compared to our fourth quarter every year. And that's because our Q1 includes the months of December, January, February. For sure, every year, kind of that period between Christmas and New Year's hurts us. We lose production days. And so we lose 8% to 10% of our production time. availability just due to staff holidays and the Christmas period. So for sure our Q1, just given that, would be expected to come down from where we were in Q4. But hopefully Q1 in 2025 would be above where we were in Q1 2024. So it's always a challenging start for us each year.

That's fair. Maybe moving on to the flight acquisition. Any indication how long it'll take to fully integrate that?

Yeah, I call it integration, and that might not be a great term. We're going to run it as is, where it is. This is actually our first acquisition where I am not pushing hard to switch their ERP system. They run something different from what FTG runs, but the business is pretty different. It's not a manufacturing business. Um, so, you know, our integration is not so much integration. It's, um, just getting everyone focused on these three priorities that I talked about. So, you know, the cost saving one essentially is done. Uh, flight did a lot of it before we acquired them. You know, the public company costs came out kind of by default when we acquired them. So that's done. So on the cost saving side, we're in good shape. Um, In terms of selling the products we have, we're working hard on that. And there's really the internal and external aspect of it. You need to get approvals for each product for different aircraft and in different geographic regions. And so the internal part is getting those approvals. The external part with the sales guys is go sell product. and we're working hard on both of those with the team just to really accelerate that as much as we can. But it's early days. We've owned them just since December 20th, but for sure we all know what we're working on and what we're focused on. And then the last piece of it, as I say, it's in-source to manufacturing. We're working through that process right now. We're trying to get the – not trying. We have the drawings and the – statement of work from Flight in terms of what they'd been buying outside. We're giving that to FTG sites as we speak to quote it and find a way to bring it into FTG in a way that's good for the FTG site and good for Flight as well. So that's underway. That's probably still a few months away from converting anything to internal manufacturing, but it's in process. Again, not really integration, but those are the things we are focused on and where we're at at this moment.

That's helpful. Maybe one last question for me. What opportunities do you see for either sales synergies or cross-selling?

Less so at this point. Longer term, there might be something, but at this moment, and I didn't really touch on this either, but You know, there is an FTG sales team. There is a flight sales team. We are not putting these two teams together. We are running them pretty independently or totally independently. And it's because we really are selling into different channels. The FTG sales team sells into the original equipment manufacturers. It sells into the tier one avionics guys and the airframe manufacturers. Flight sales teams. into primarily the airlines. So very different sales channel. So not a lot of cross-selling opportunities, but that's one of the reasons we bought Flight is we wanted to have more access into the aftermarket, which is where you are selling into airlines. So yeah, not a whole lot of what you asked.

Thanks, Mr. Keller. I'll pass along.

Our next question comes from the line of Steve Hansen from Raymond James. Your line is open.

Yeah, I got everything, guys. Thanks for the time. Brad, curious on the India announcement. Congrats. I think you described roughly $2 million in capital to be spent there, which seems pretty modest. Given that you've been working on the opportunity for some time, just curious on what type of specific opportunities you see in that domestic landscape there to fill the facility and ultimately when you expect to start generating some revenue. Thanks. Yeah, sure.

I guess a couple comments on that. So first of all, and we're really, in my mind, following the model that we used when we went into China. When we went into China, the plan was to sell to existing customers in the West. We didn't actually have plans to sell into the Chinese aerospace market, but once we got there, we realized we should, and we are. As we go into India, for sure our initial plans are to sell to existing customers in the West. And that, I think, we can get going pretty quickly. But definitely this time, we know there's a market in India. As I said, Modi has a specific strategy in India called Make in India, where they want to domesticate as much of the aerospace and defense activities as makes sense for them. So they're pushing that. There's definitely opportunities there. That realistically will take some time to really get the benefits from. But interestingly enough, we announced last week that we're going to India. That's because we were at an air show in India or aerospace conference in India, which was pretty big. But the interest we garnered just from a few days at this conference was amazing from Indian customers. So there is definitely, you know, a great market there. Timing to penetrate it, TBD at this moment. And then, you know, just things you're asking, you know, our timing to actually start generating revenue in our facility. Realistically, it's next year. I think this year we'll be waiting for our facility to be built out, getting equipment installed and operating and be ready to go next year.

Okay, that's great color. Thanks. And just on the Minnetonka site, I think you described a couple of opportunities, ramping up sales, the pricing or repricing opportunity as well. You know, how do you think about that site specifically for this year? I think you described a roughly a 30 million run rate at this point, but is it a combination? Can you get the bulk of the pricing initiatives done this year, do you think, as the contract roll? And or how do you feel about staffing in terms of ramping capabilities there? Thanks.

Yeah. Yes. In terms of pricing, I think we will be done whatever makes sense and whatever we can achieve this year. Again, one of the key things for me has been the implementation of the FTG standard ERP system. With that, I just have so much better visibility on the cost of product we're making. And with that, I can quickly... Not me, but the guys there can quickly determine, you know, is this a winner or a loser? And if it's a loser, what do we do about it? So pricing should be really complete this year. And then in terms of ramping, you know, we cannot keep up with demand there for sure right now. And so we are adding staff and we are working to grow this year, but you know, how much can you realistically grow at a manufacturing site in a year? You know, it's not real, you know, it's not realistic to do a 30% growth or something like that. But I think, you know, as I said, overall, we're trying to grow kind of mid to high single digits, something like that's achievable, maybe a little bit more if everything goes really well.

Okay, that's great. And I know you've got a lot of balls already in the air and the organic growth pipeline looks pretty rich. Just curious on how you feel about additional M&A at this point, or is it just still too early?

Yeah, it's early. You know, for sure our focus right now and any spare minutes we have is on flight and doing the things I talked about with flight. You know, there's opportunities floating around out there, but I am internally focused for the next number of months for sure.

Very good. Appreciate the time. Thanks. Thanks, Steve.

Our next question comes from the line of Russell Stanley from Beacon. Your line is open.

Good afternoon and congrats on the quarter. Just a question around margins. Obviously a strong quarter. At the segment level, it looks like circuits performed exceptionally well. Maybe aerospace saw a bit of margin compression. Just wondering if there's anything behind that, if that's just a function of product mix in a quarter given, I think, revenue for the segment actually increased a little bit quarter to quarter.

Well, I will congratulate you, Russ, on spending more than me looking at the segment data, the overall numbers. But I'm just finding what happened in aerospace in the quarter, definitely we had some strong sales. I think, as I said, part of what we were doing, we finally got some approvals on some higher-value assemblies that we've been working on for the last couple years. We got some good revenue out the door, but it was definitely – a messy process to get that done. And it happened really right at the end of the year. We had to get Transport Canada approval on the product. We were messing around. Customer changed some requirements. I'd say that whole messiness of getting that stuff going and into production probably impacted our costs and therefore our margins in the aerospace business in Q4.

Got it. Thanks on that, and thanks for your earlier color around the levers you have in respect to tariffs, you know, that's helpful color. I'm just wondering what any notable customers are saying to you at this point on this subject. What are their comments so far?

It's actually been relatively, it's actually been very quiet on the whole topic of tariffs in terms of anything, any discussion with customers. For sure, they're looking at it, we're looking at it, but no one's reacting yet. The aerospace industry does not turn on a dime. There's just so many approvals and qualifications that need to happen for work to move around. Whatever does happen is definitely going to take time. You've heard me say it takes forever to get qualified as a new customer. It takes forever to... you know, approve a new site. So, you know, that is to our benefit should tariffs happen.

Got it. Maybe just the last question for me. I think Honeywell formally announced plans to split the company up further. You know, I think there was a lot of speculation that this might happen, but I'm just wondering, does this impact your business with them at all, you know, either way?

No, I don't, I don't think so. You know, we, we deal exclusively with Honeywell on the aerospace side of their business. Um, we've never engaged. I could not even really tell you what the other segments are of Honeywell. So the fact that the aerospace business spins off, I think will have, I would expect zero impact on, on our relationship and activity with them.

That's great color. Uh, thanks for the, uh, thanks for the help and, uh, congrats again on the quarter.

Thanks, Russ.

Again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from the line of Mark Berger from MKB. Your line is open.

Yes. Hi, Brad. Congratulations. As a follower of flight and the shareholder of flight, it's refreshing to actually see positive earnings for a change. So my question is, Flight has considerable amount of planes, about 2,000 planes in the air, that are carrying their product, which is for the SATCOM system. And they do not have the flight turn on. So question is, are you going to try to get those customers can also add the full product. And as Flight is redoing that product right now, which isn't that profitable for them, does this give you the opportunity to renegotiate that contract and you and your company get a better return for Flight and for FTJ?

Yeah, this is a Really good call for me today. I'm learning a lot of things. I did not know there's 2,000 aircraft flying flight product. With regard to your questions around SATCOM system, honest answer at this point, I'm not sure what my opportunities are. I guess in terms of the flight licensing agreement on the SATCOM, I actually think it's a good agreement right now. You know, you're saying is there an opportunity to renegotiate it? Maybe. I truly have not looked at that, but it's not on my list of near-term things that would help flight. As I said earlier, I'm more focused on, you know, can we generate some sales, continue to generate sales on SATCOM, but at the same time generate some sales on their edge products, generate some sales on their redesigned WVSS2 product. really get those converted into some revenue going forward. I think short term, that's my bigger upside, or at least where I'm putting my focus at this moment.

Also, Flight has a huge presence in China, and they're also on that 919. Does the fact that you are a much larger company and carry a little more heft uh, allow flight to be able to generate more business from more carriers in China, or you get additional more business in China due to flights positioned in there.

Right. Um, I don't know. We're working on that. Definitely. You know, we brought all the sales guys in and sat with them, um, you know, back in January, including their sales guy from China, um, And, you know, separately, we actually had a meeting in China with their sales guy and our sales guy. And we looked at all of these opportunities, again, pretty early on to know what the upside potential is. But, you know, as I said, just generally for the two companies, so flights selling into the airlines, we're selling into the OEM market. Both of those exist in China. And so, yeah. Is there opportunities to grow, to sell their product into the OEM or to sell some of our stuff into the aftermarket? We'll see, but that's definitely on the list. And again, if I go back to what I said a second ago, for their Edge product, they believe, and I've seen the data, that there is significant upside opportunities to sell edge into China. It's one of the priority markets, one of the markets with the most number of aircraft that could use this product. So, you know, we're looking at all these things, but I am hoping and expecting we can grow our market share in China between what FTG did and what flight does. If we can put it all together, yeah, there's definitely some upside we need to take advantage of.

Okay. Thank you. That's all from me. Okay. Thank you.

There are no further questions at this time. Mr. Bourne, please continue.

Okay. Thank you. As noted in our press release, a replay of the call will be available until Tuesday, March 18, 2025. The numbers are available on our press release. The replay will also be available on our website in a few days. Thank you all for your interest and participation. Thank you.

This concludes today's conference. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.