Superior Industries International, Inc. (NYSE:SUP) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

If you don’t want to use content per wheel, use growth over market, you look at versus what this company was in ’21, we’re up 20%. You look at the whole year, even though we had a fantastic growth year in ’21, this year just alone, excluding the 20% growth in ’21, we’re still growth above market company. So, the unit is cloudy and the growth over market narrative for our company is not very clear on a quarterly basis. It needs more than a quarterly.

Mike Ward: Yes. Now, in the — I assume the content — the value-added content per wheel on the aftermarket side is lower than OE.

Majdi Abulaban: Slightly.

Mike Ward: Okay. And just one last question. When you look, Tim, on your charts with — you had the bridge on the EBITDA, there were two things you mentioned. You mentioned the lower customer recoveries. Is there a way — I assume that like on the fourth quarter, the $7 million metal timing where the volume/price/mix is $8 million, are the recoveries netted out against that? And so, when you say that recoveries will be lower in 2023, what is — can you put any numbers around that?

Tim Trenary: So, the recoveries, just so you know, Mike, (ph) in the performance category, okay, the customer recovery.

Mike Ward: Okay.

Tim Trenary: And let me give you some (ph) and color here on this. For commercial and other reasons, not the least of which is that the negotiations that we have with our customers with respect to the costs that we believe are subject to recovery and the time period for which we are seeking those recoveries is not specific in the negotiation. The way the negotiations ended up is they evolve into an amount and there isn’t any specificity really with respect to which cost they pertain to and, frankly, which time period. So, some of the recoveries that we experienced in 2022 actually relate to costs that were incurred in 2021. Now, that’s not a lot, the (ph) is 2022. But for sure, our performance in this year, in ’22, was boosted somewhat because of this mismatch in cost versus recoveries in the period in which they occur.

Now to your point about 2023, we have — (ph) mentioned, we have now pivoted in our discussions with the customers to instead of one-off recoveries of cost efficient, incorporating into the pricing in the wheels an appropriate amount, an amount that reflects the inherent increased costs in our cost structure, labor, material, energy, especially with respect to Europe, and frankly, the fact that they’re building 15% to 20% fewer vehicles. So, that dialogue — those dialogues are ongoing with respect to both the energy and the wheel price, that’s for the rest of the cost inflation. And I would suggest to you that the best way to sort of get a handle on where we think all of that will end up is to use our guidance as a barometer on measurement.

So, at $755 million to $815 million of value-added sales, assuming that we continue to be success with respect to our commercial activities, we would expect a margin of between, let’s say, 23% and 25%. Now, having said that, I do expect that we’re going to see some lumpiness from quarter-to-quarter as these negotiations are completed. So, we’ll have some variation, I expect, from quarter-to-quarter.

Mike Ward: Okay. Thank you. That’s very helpful. Really appreciate that, Tim. Thank you very much.

Majdi Abulaban: Thanks, Mike.

Operator: Thank you. We will take the next question from the line Gary Prestopino from Barrington Research. The line is open now. Please go ahead.

Gary Prestopino: Hey, good morning, everyone.

Majdi Abulaban: Good morning, Gary.

Gary Prestopino: Can you give us some idea with the new facility? What your annualized interest expense is going to (ph)?