Embraer S.A. (NYSE:ERJ) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Victor Mizusaki: Hi, I have two questions here. The first one, apparently some guys from Mahindra were visiting in Brazil. So I don’t know if you can give us some updates on the negotiations. And second, when we take a look on the press release, there’s a comment about provisions for bad debt in Service & Support. So maybe you can comment a little bit if it’s a kind of specific situation or there’s something more to come that’s looking forward. Thank you.

Francisco Gomes Neto: All right. Victor, I’ll start with the question one and then Antonio will help us with the question two. Yes, we did have a very exciting visit last week to our facilities in Brazil of the Mahindra CEO and three other members of his team, where we had opportunity to better know each other and talk about the next steps on this MP process in Egypt to sell from 40 to — up to 80 C-390 to the India Air Force. So we believe we have a good partnership with them and we do our best to convince the customer that our products is the best one for the India Air Force. Antonio, you can help us with the second.

Antonio Carlos Garcia: Yes. Good morning, Victor. So very simple here. We just built up $3 million which you want for the bad debt provisions. Just Q1 was a little a bit higher concentration overdue payments. And it’s not one specific customer is a bunch of customers who just apply the accounting methodology. I do not see it being trained for the future, but probably half of it is going to be revert next quarter [indiscernible] right now.

Operator: The next question comes from Marcelo Motta with J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Marcelo Motta: Hi everyone, thanks for getting the question, is regarding the defense. I mean, do you guys have any updates regarding the conversion of the orders from Netherlands, Austria, Czech Republic? I mean, you guys also mentioned on the deliveries and backlog report from the first quarter, that there are ongoing orders from EMEA, Asia-Pacific that are not incorporated to backlog yet. Could you please give us more color on maybe the size, potential size of this orders and/or maybe expectations for the sense backlog for the coming quarters or year-end. Thank you very much.

Francisco Gomes Neto: Hi Marcelo, thanks for the question. Yes, we do have a high expectation to sign important contracts in defense this year. You know already that we have been selected in the past two years. We expect to sign during this year and in parallel, we are working in the — in all the new campaigns either for the A-29 Super Tucanos and the C-390. We also expect 2024 to be a good year in terms of sales, not only in commercial, but in these games as well. And taking the opportunity as Executive Aviation, we keep a very good momentum in sales as well. So again this year, we are very optimistic in terms of sales in all of our business.

Operator: The next question comes from Stephen Trent. Please go ahead. Mr. Trent, your microphone seems to be muted.

Stephen Trent: Hello, I’m sorry. Can you hear me?

Francisco Gomes Neto: Yes. Yes, we can hear.

Stephen Trent: Hi, good morning, everybody. I’m sorry about that, and thank you for taking my question. I also had a sort of a follow-up on the defense side. I know that Brazil’s Air Force and Sweden have a solid relationship with the Gripen fighter and other cooperation. And I was wondering if you might just give us some high level color about how Embraer might be working with Gripen and what opportunities you could see from the new technology. Thank you.

Francisco Gomes Neto: Thank you, Stephen, for the question. Well, we do have a partnership with Saab to help them to sell Gripen not only Brazil, but outside Brazil, and then they do help us to sell the C-390. So we have been working together. And Sweden is one of our potential markets that we have been working on. So — but we don’t have any other information than that. In regard to sales of Gripen, this is better you ask Saab directly.

Stephen Trent: Great. Appreciate that. And just a quick follow-up. Any high level of color, how you guys are feeling about your supply of engineers in terms of hiring and retaining those people. Thank you.

Francisco Gomes Neto: Thank you again, Steve. Again, we have been working very hard on those topics. That is the talent retention is one of the main focus of Embraer, not only engineering, but in the entire company. And again, we have a lot of new programs for engineers working on in the future. We have improved our communication process. We have a lot of things to help us to retain our talents within the company. I don’t know, Andreza, our VP, HR would like to add some other information on that because we have been personally involved in this topic.

Andreza de Souza Alberto: Hello, everybody. Good morning. Thanks, Francisco. As I said, we’re working very hard on that. We have a lot of initiatives, especially internally by means of culture, the future of work, things that make our engineers, and not only engineers, our employees consider to keep an Embraer. And we also have been granted as a great place to work. And this also helps to retain our employees. Thanks for the question, Steve.

Operator: Thank you. The next question comes from Lucas Barbosa with Santander. Please go ahead.

Lucas Barbosa: Good morning, Francisco, Antonio. Thanks for taking my questions and congratulations to the results. So my question is looking a little bit longer-term at the Commercial Aviation division, Embraer has deliveries to be done with better pricing conditions in the future, a higher mix of E1s given the AA, American Airlines order, and a cost structure that is leaner than in several past years. So my question is, with all of those positive drivers, where can Commercial Aviation margins stabilize that in the future? Thank you very much.

Guilherme Paiva: Lucas, good morning, and thanks for the question. This is Guilherme. So, look, the points you mentioned are all correct. We don’t provide official guidance for individual divisions of the company. But if you look in the past, Commercial Aviation was able to sustain margins in the double-digit territory in the mid-teens. Helpfully, very sorry from where we are now, but we feel confident that in the next few years we should see margins continue to improve towards that direction.

Operator: The next question comes from Kristine Liwag with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Ms. Liwag, your microphone seems to be on mute.

Kristine Liwag: Hello, can you hear me?

Operator: Yes.

Francisco Gomes Neto: Yes, Kristine. Yes, Kristine.