TransDigm Group Incorporated (NYSE:TDG) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Kevin Stein: Well, we don’t like to speculate on that. We have studied what it would look like to acquire something outside of M&A — of A&D, but we think it’s best to stay focused on aerospace. There are still so many great opportunities and a number of them coming up. Like I said, in the next 6 months that keep us very focused on the pure-play aerospace and defense. For intellectual reasons and also because we may have to do one day in the distant future, we do look at other areas, but none of them have appeared interesting enough to overshadow our desire to keep growing in aerospace and defense.

Scott Deuschle: Great. That’s really helpful. And then for Mike, you showed some really good leverage on SG&A this quarter. I think your sales were up 17%, but SG&A was actually down. So curious if you could outline a bit what the cost mitigation efforts are that you’re running there and then how SG&A might trend as we move throughout the year?

Michael Lisman: Yes. We really look at the EBITDA line historically. We’ve not gone back and looked and commented specifically on gross profit versus SG&A trends just because of the accounting puts and takes there. And as we think about forecasting for the year, we really look at EBITDA as defined ratio and feel good about hitting the 50.5% or maybe slightly better than we gave the guidance for today. And it’s hard to comment specifically where SG&A could go for the balance of the year on a quarterly basis.

Jorge Valladares: Yes. I would just add, I think, in general, as we’ve had and we’ve performed in past downturns in the uptick. We did a lot of heavy lifting with restructuring as a result of the COVID pandemic and the teams have done a nice job managing to the lower cost structure and supporting the additional demand. And I think we’ll continue to do so throughout the year.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of David Strauss of Barclays.

Unidentified Analyst: This is Josh Corn on for David. Working capital was fairly neutral in Q1. Do you still see the $150 million drag for the year?

Michael Lisman: We do. I mean, as we come back to pre-COVID levels, that’s going to go in over the course of the year. It’s kind of lumpy in how it happens and the progression and forecasting is tough, but we do expect that amount to go back in.

Unidentified Analyst: And it looks like overall aftermarket revenues were back pretty much to pre-pandemic levels. Can you give us a sense of where volumes are?

Kevin Stein: I think we’re still 20% to maybe 30% off in volumes. There is still a lot of regions, as Jorge reviewed, that have not fully come back.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Peter Arment of Baird.

Peter Arment: Nice results, and I’m sorry if you missed your opening remarks, but just on China, just kind of assumptions around what you expect there just as we get the reopening traffic picking up pretty materially, hopefully, wide-body activity comes back. Just remind us kind of the mix that we should be thinking about with China and just how you kind of incorporated that in your forecast?

Jorge Valladares: Sure. I’ll take that one. From our perspective, we’re still in the early innings of China opening up, obviously, this past month. Our teams, as they always do, do a bottoms-up analysis and planning process as we enter any fiscal year. And there was some recovery expected baked into our forecast and our plan. We’ll see how it plays out. Generally, we don’t have and we don’t track specific regions. We think we’re fleet weighted. And obviously, it’s a big market. So hopefully, that will be helpful as we progress throughout the year.