Autoliv, Inc. (NYSE:ALV) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Mikael Bratt: Yes, I mean, we don’t put out the specific price target here in all of these. But what we’re saying here is that we are working with our customers full compensation one way or another. And of course, we are in parallel to that also working with our own cost base, especially now when we’re talking about the other inflationary costs outside the raw material bucket, so to speak. So that is what Fredrik had talked about here, the gradually, compensation here for throughout the year. And I mean, of course, as raw material potentially here is gradually coming down. And as you have seen on the index side here, it is coming down. But in our case here, we have many products that is not really correlating with the indices, so we don’t see the same reduction.

But on a conceptual note, of course, when we see raw material starting to come back eventually, there is a mechanism here and discussion with our customers to give back on that. But at the same time, we are going to get compensation from our supplier base. So, it’s throughout the whole value chain. Of course, that needs to be regulated as the way it was on the way up, it will be on the way down eventually there.

Agnieszka Vilela: Perfect. Thank you.

Operator: We’re now going to proceed with our next question. And the questions come from the line of Itay Michaeli from Citi. Please ask your question.

Itay Michaeli: Great. Thanks, everybody. Just wanted to, as you pursue the commercial recoveries for the labor and other inflation, hope you could give us a bit of insight as to how the initial conversations are going? Is it pretty consistent across regions and various automakers? And just kind of how to think about when you think you’ll be kind of largely complete or have real good line of sight into the targets that you provided today on those negotiations?

Mikael Bratt: I think first of all, we have now been spending a better part of the last 12 to 15 months here in discussions with our customer around the increased cost base, starting out with the raw material as we have said here. This is a new territory for our customers. It’s a new territory for the supply base. So, of course, it has been a lot of discussion. It’s very detailed discussion. And we have made good progress here as we can report here. And of course, well, we now move into a territory where it’s outside the raw material that at least has been, to some extent, in the scope historically because this is more challenging. But I think we all recognizing here as an industry that we need to find a way to work in a potentially higher inflationary environment, and that calls for more regular discussion around price adjustments.

So, that is ongoing. It is constructive dialogues with our customers here. But the nature, of course, have a timeline, because we are not discussing price adjustment anything else than what has been already impacted us. So, the discussion is around already agreed agreements that needs to be updated. So, therefore, it’s on a product and plant level going through the cost impact from these different cost drivers as we have mentioned here. So, it’s far from one size fits all in the discussions here. It is on the product and plant level. So, it’s a lot of work and therefore some time delays in it.

Itay Michaeli: That’s very helpful color. Thank you.