Magna International Inc. (NYSE:MGA) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Adam Jonas: Thanks. Pat and swami. So, a question on your actions. What are you doing specifically, what’s the plan to improve these very disappointing results, Swamy? I mean I see you call out cutting discretionary costs and securing more inflation recoveries, which may or may not be in your control, but let’s assume — I think the market’s going to assume not fully in your control. You addressed a plant in Europe. But is it time — from my history covering Magna, there’s never really been — it’s been a long time since you’ve done like a more sweeping restructuring because you always have the Magna way and is continuously happening. But is there — is this a chance when your margins are falling and your CapEx is rising into this environment where you need to do something a little more significant on the restructuring side. If you could be specific with how we should think of that, that would be great. Thanks.

Swamy Kotagiri: Good morning, Adam. Fair point. Very good question. I think if you think back from 2018-time frame, we did actually restructure and talked about the cost base. And unfortunately, with the COVID and everything, we didn’t see the impact that we thought we would but we did see it and we got to offset by a lot of stuff. So that’s one. Discretionary spending and past recoveries are just a couple of elements that we’re talking about. But I think like I said, one of the key factors is looking at production volatility is given. Hopefully, it gets better, but it’s been that long enough. We are looking at how the discussions we had and how do we address it. So, we can have a little bit of a more stable run rate and look at cost optimization across, whether it is to offset the labor inflation side of things, or some of the other cost inputs that are coming.

That’s going to be important for us. So that, I would say, is the more broad sweeping initiative across the company. In terms of restructuring, I think that is an annual process that we go through to see reconsolidation divestitures. If you look back in the last three years, we’ve done that and we continue to do so. But I think the key is going to be looking at how do we get the cost base and new cost base, given the volumes that we’re seeing over the near term and the midterm, which is not really recovering to the 2019 levels. I would say that is going to be the fundamental focus and priority for us, to get the class basis to where we need to given the volumes. And I think the volatility is something we have to take into account will be there, and we have to address it.

Patrick McCann : And if I can just add, Swamy. Sorry, Adam, when you think about that infrastructure, we — Swamy mentioned, we have done significant restructuring. We’ve looked at the product portfolio and taken out — whether it’s significant groups. But the outlook we do provide on a, I would say on adjusted basis. So we do have significant restructuring even in our 2020 to 2022 period, we recorded significant charges in Q4, and we’re going to continue to restructure our footprint for a couple of reasons one is a vice transition to BB we’re going to have transition has to happen there. But we’re also transitioning our footprint from higher-cost regions into best-cost countries, and that’s going to continue. So when you look historically, where we have those cost, those are going to continue in the future as we move forward. And some of the margin improvement we’re anticipating on the earlier question is driven by these restructuring actions.

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