MTU Aero Engines AG (ETR:MTX)
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Earnings Call: Q2 2020

Aug 3, 2020

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to today's MTU Aero Engines first half results 2020. For your information, the management presentation, including the Q&A session, will be audio-taped and streamed live or made available on demand on the internet. By attending in the conference call. You grant permission for audio recordings intended for publications on the internet to be taken. The speakers of today's conference call are Mr. Reiner Winkler, Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Peter Kameritsch, Chief Financial Officer. Firstly, I will hand over to Mr. Thomas Franz, Vice President, Investor Relations, for some introductory words. Please go ahead, sir.

Thomas Franz
VP of Investor Relations, MTU Aero Engines

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our conference call for the H1 2020 results. We will start with a business review of the second quarter and the financial highlights presented by Reiner. Peter will give you a more detailed view on our OEM and MRO segment. Following that, Reiner will give some information about our view on the current situation and lead you through our revised guidance. After that, we will open the call for questions. Let me now hand over to Reiner for the review.

Reiner Winkler
CEO, MTU Aero Engines

Yeah, thank you so much, and welcome also from my side. Let me start with the market environment. The latest IATA forecast shows a 55% decline in passenger traffic for 2020. After the absolute low in April, we see first signs of recovery. The worldwide domestic market shows improvements, whereas international flights are still down close to 100%. As a result, we now see the contraction in demand for our new engine and aftermarket business. Peter will give you some more details in a few minutes. In our MRO segment, we used available capacity to accelerate the GTF retrofit work. The cost reduction measures, which we announced after Q1, are implemented and start delivering results. However, these have not taken full effect yet. Currently, we use the instrument of short-time work across all German sites. This helped us to achieve a steep reduction in capacity in April and May.

In June, we increased the capacity according to the actual demand. In addition to that, we announced the reduction of our total personal capacity by 10%-15% until year-end 2021. To reach this target, we will make use of partial and early retirement schemes and also individual arrangements. Further actions are a hiring freeze, a waiver to fill vacant positions, and reduction of working hours. However, we already had to lay off several employees at some locations. Restructuring charges are not yet accounted for. This will happen in the second half of the year. In the second quarter, we increased our liquidity headroom significantly. We issued a EUR 100 million promissory note and increased our revolving credit facility to EUR 700 million. Further, we successfully placed a EUR 500 million bond, which boosts our total accessible liquidity to currently around EUR 1.5 billion.

Finally, we recently published our new outlook for 2020, and I will give some more details after Peter's presentation. Let's have a look at the financials for the first half of 2020. Our revenues decreased by 9% to EUR 2 billion. Organically, group revenues would be down by 11%. The group EBIT Adjusted declined by 39% to EUR 224 million, resulting in a margin of 10.9%. Respectively, net income is also down at EUR 161 million, and the free cash flow decreased by 47% to EUR 125 million in the first half of 2020. Let me now hand over to Peter for a more detailed look into the business segments.

Peter Kameritsch
CFO, MTU Aero Engines

Yes, thank you, Reiner. And good morning, everyone. Let me start with our OEM segment. Total OEM revenues were down 18% to EUR 840 million. Military revenues decreased 15% to EUR 183 million, mainly due to reduced working hours from the three-week shutdown in April and the subsequent short-term working scheme in our Munich facility. However, we expect a full recovery by year-end, implying a strong H2 in the military segment. Commercial business declined 18% to EUR 631 million, and within that, organic OE sales were down high single digits versus the six months 2019. Q2 2020 in OE was down in the mid-20s versus Q2 2019. The main reasons were obviously lower aircraft deliveries and aircraft production rate cuts at Airbus and Boeing. Organic spare part sales declined in the mid-20s versus six months 2019, and in the quarterly comparison, they were down roughly 15%.

The business mix and a lower fixed cost coverage led to a reduced EBIT Adjusted of EUR 128 million, resulting in a margin of roughly 16%. Let's switch to the MRO segment. Reported MRO revenues remained almost stable at EUR 1.3 billion. Organically, in U.S. dollar, they would have been down 3%. Our core MRO business was down in the mid-teens, compensated by higher workload for GTF retrofits. In the quarterly comparison, MRO was down in the mid-20s versus Q2 2019. EBIT Adjusted decreased 21% to EUR 96 million, resulting in a margin of 7.6%. The lower EBIT margin results mainly from a higher share of GTF voluntary work and some bad debt provisions we booked in Q2. At this point, I hand back to Reiner for some more color on our guidance.

Reiner Winkler
CEO, MTU Aero Engines

Yeah, thank you, Peter. You see, we are still navigating through a lot of uncertainty. Our look to the market and the basis for our assumption follows the IATA's latest published scenario from July. After the standstill of the majority of aircraft around the globe, the recovery started in domestic markets. A restart in international travel has not yet taken place. Today's knowledge led us to a broad range of scenarios and possible developments in the current years. All assumptions are subject to reservations, but from today's perspective, we have enough confidence to give a new outlook for the current year. Our military business remains to be largely unaffected. The commercial OE and aftermarket business will see a significant demand reduction from the grounding of the majority of the fleet. This results in strongly reduced demand in the second and third quarter, improving from the end of Q3 onwards.

The MRO segment expects a significant reduction in demand from passenger airlines, and this will be partly compensated by higher volume from freight operators and higher share of PW1100 work. The benefits from the implemented measures will have its effect as planned until the end of 2020, and activities to control our working capital are implemented, and we will use a lot of energy to achieve our targets there. This frame sets the basis for our new outlook for 2020. As mentioned before, our outlook is based on our current knowledge and assumptions and is still subject to considerable uncertainties. Military revenues will be slightly up. Commercial OE will be down by mid- to high 20s, driven by overall lower GTF and GEnx output. Commercial spares are expected to be down high 20s. Aftermarket remains to be hit harder by the market weakness.

MRO revenues will be down by low- to mid-single digits. Stronger reduction in core MRO business will be partially compensated by higher GTF work. Here, the GTF revenue contribution is highly dependent on the exact work scope and is therefore even more volatile. And as you know, this work does not add EBIT to the bottom line. All in all, these different developments lead us to an estimated revenue between EUR 4 billion and EUR 4.4 billion for the group, based on an average euro/dollar rate of 1.15. The EBIT adjusted suffers from the reduced volume and worsening mix, and is expected to be in the range between 9% and 10%. Net income adjusted is expected to develop broadly in line with the EBIT number. And finally, as already indicated at our Q1 call, our clear target is to achieve a positive free cash flow for the full year.

This ends the presentation, and we are now open for your questions.

Operator

Okay, ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. And as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone, and wait for your name to be announced. Okay, we will now take our first question, and it comes from the line of George Zhao from Bernstein. Please go ahead.

George Zhao
VP of Research Analyst, Bernstein

Hi, good morning, everyone. Could you share the organic spares growth in Q2 for the V2500, CF6, and PW2000? And I guess, how much of the spares activity in Q2 would you say was related to work that had already been contracted before the start of the quarter? And my second question is related to freight. I mean, clearly, freight has been more resilient than commercial in this environment, but it seems like the freight spares have seemed to significantly outperform the freight traffic as well. So I was wondering, do you think there has been any pull forward in the freight maintenance activity as the operators have taken advantage of the availability of the MRO capacity? Thanks .

Peter Kameritsch
CFO, MTU Aero Engines

I mean, the V2500 was down like 50%-60% in Q2, whereas PW2000 and CF6-80 are more or less stable, stable environment. And I mean, in case of the PW2000, you should not forget that a large part of the fleet is in military operations, so that is the power plant for the C-17 freighter, and that was quite strong. I mean, the commercial part of the PW2000 also fell in the, I mean, also Pratt gave the numbers with their calls. It was down like 80% or so, but more than compensated by demand for the military business. But typically, you don't have orders like three or four months in advance, so that is really the orders for spare parts, they come in on a monthly basis. As long as you don't have, you are not holder of the flight hour contract.

I think for the full year, we expect that trend to continue more or less. So more demand from freighter operators as value capacity is really short because international flights are not very active, and they're going to send more shop visits as planned initially. So was it the answer to your question? If yes, then we can take the next question.

Operator

Okay, sir. We will now take our next question, and it comes from the line of Milene Kerner from Barclays. Your line is now open.

Milene Kerner
Senior Equity Research Analyst, Barclays

Yes, hello. Thank you for taking my question. I have three quick questions. First, on this impairment charge, the EUR 3 million you had at MRO, I mean, can you give us a bit more color about this charge? My second question, I know that Reiner, you said that the GTF retrofit work can be very volatile, but I mean, you used to expect a EUR 400 million increase for this year compared to last year. I mean, what kind of revenue contribution we should now assume in the restated guidance? And then lastly, the profit that came from the companies that you account under the equity method was much higher than what I was expecting in Q2. I was wondering if you can, I mean, how do you expect this to track in the second half of this year? Thank you.

Peter Kameritsch
CFO, MTU Aero Engines

We left the small charge in MRO. You can have a call with Thomas, so we don't have the answer here right now. Regarding the equity, I mean, Zhuhai is quite stable. So we saw, I mean, we saw demand in Zhuhai not falling as in other MRO locations in China. I mean, you know the Chinese pattern is a bit different compared to the European one. So we had the sharp drop in air traffic in February or mid-March, and so volumes are increasing right now. So Zhuhai was more or less, regarding the equity results, more or less stable. So that is the reason why you see that. And I didn't get the revenue question, so the EUR 400 million. What was your question? Could you repeat that, please?

Milene Kerner
Senior Equity Research Analyst, Barclays

I mean, how much increase do you expect in revenue related to the GTF retrofit work?

Peter Kameritsch
CFO, MTU Aero Engines

Do you mean from on a quarterly basis or on a yearly basis?

Milene Kerner
Senior Equity Research Analyst, Barclays

No, sorry, on a yearly basis. I mean, pre-COVID, you used to expect about EUR 400 million increase this year versus last year related to the GTF retrofit work. And I was wondering if you can share maybe a range because I understand that, I mean, it can be volatile, but a range of revenue increase that you're expecting this year related to the GTF retrofit?

Peter Kameritsch
CFO, MTU Aero Engines

It will be a bit more than that, actually, so maybe EUR 500 million or so, but it's EUR 500 million-EUR 600 million, but that really heavily depends on the work scope, and especially on the material content, and in a shop visit, you have maybe 70%-80% of the revenue is really building in new spare parts, especially in case of these retrofit shop visits, and that can fluctuate a lot, so that number is really volatile, but that is today's perspective, at least.

Milene Kerner
Senior Equity Research Analyst, Barclays

Okay, very clear. Thank you so much.

Operator

Okay, sir, we will now take our next question. It comes from the line of Chloé Lemarié from Exane BNP Paribas. Your line is open.

Chloé Lemarié
Equity Research Analyst, Exane BNP Paribas

Yes, good morning, gentlemen. Thank you for taking my question. I had a couple, if I may. The first one is on comments made to the press earlier this morning regarding expectation of EUR 800 million of cash or slightly less by the end of the year. So taking into account the EUR 400 million bond that was issued in July, this would imply zero free cash flow in H2. Is that correct, or am I missing other debts and below free cash flow movement in H2? And the second, I'm trying to understand the assumptions on margin behind the guidance. I mean, if we take the midpoint of sales and EBIT, you seem to expect better performance in spare parts, military, and MRO in H2 than you did in Q2. And yet, the drop-through margin is actually quite high in H2, almost 100% compared to 40% in Q2.

So are there any elements of one-offs or anything we need to consider for H2 to explain the steep margin, or is it just driven by fixed cost under absorption and the dilution from the GTF? Thank you.

Peter Kameritsch
CFO, MTU Aero Engines

I mean, the EUR 800 million was a rough number I stated in the press call. I mean, we have obviously, if you look into our numbers now, a liquidity of EUR 300 million. And in the EUR 300 million liquidity, the bond is not included as the bond closed at the 1st of July. So if you add to the EUR 300 million, the EUR 500 million inflow from the new bond, then you come up with EUR 800 million. And I mean, if the free cash flow number doesn't change a lot compared to the EUR 125 million we had in H1, maybe it goes down a little bit in H2.

I mean, there the volatility is also very high because, I mean, regarding cash collection from customers, you have not the full transparency, but also not inventory flow into the factory and inventory outflow in direction of the airframers.

There are a lot of volatile elements in that cash flow. That's why we didn't give an exact number or an exact cash conversion rate, but stated that the target is to remain in the positive territory for the cash flow. And yes, I mean, below the free cash flow line, you have also some you know the payment for the IAE upshare, which is paid to Rolls-Royce. We have still two quarters to pay, but obviously also on a lower basis because the flight hours are lower. I mean, for the margin trajectory, I mean, we expect definitely a second half of the year, which is stronger in the military business.

I mean, if you look on the guidance we gave, then we expect a number close to EUR 500 million, and we had a little bit short of EUR 200 million for the first half year. So we're going to generate something like EUR 300 million of military revenues. That is definitely a tailwind to the margin. We don't have the interruption of production here in our German side. So I mean, we shut the facilities here for three weeks in Germany, Munich, Hannover, and Berlin, and we were at short-time work, beginning more or less 100%. Then we had a period where we were two days at home and three days working, and now we are rather one day at home and four days working.

And so we expect more or less for the German side, a mix which is for the rest of the year, four times work and one day at home. So that fixed cost absorption should be higher in the Q3 and Q4 compared to Q2. And obviously, we expect, I mean, when you listen to Reiner, that we expect also a slight acceleration of spare parts demand from end of Q3 on. But obviously, we don't have full transparency when that exactly will happen. And all that means that we expect a margin for the year between 9% and 10%. I hope that answers your questions.

Chloé Lemarié
Equity Research Analyst, Exane BNP Paribas

Yes, it does. Thank you.

Operator

Okay, we will now take our next question. It comes from the line of Andrew Humphrey from Morgan Stanley. You're line is now open.

Andrew Humphrey
Senior Research Analyst, Morgan Stanley

Hello. Thanks very much. Just a couple of questions from me, if I may. One of them following up on the question that was just asked around the second half versus first half. I wonder if you could tell us by the business lines that you disclose what the implied organic growth rate is for commercial spares and commercial OE and MRO in particular in the second half, and how that compares to Q2. And for the MRO component of that, I'd be grateful if you could tell us what the underlying number is. So say ex-GTF retrofit, just in terms of what would be baked in, say, at the midpoint of guidance. And the second question is on margins, kind of looking ahead.

I mean, clearly in 2021, you should be through most of the retrofit work on GTF, but clearly the industry will be some way below previous levels in terms of activities. I wonder if you could share with us what assumptions you might make for 2021 in terms of the headwind from fixed cost absorption and therefore any margin improvement we may start to see there?

Reiner Winkler
CEO, MTU Aero Engines

Maybe I start with the second question. I mean, we definitely cannot give today any indication for 2021 to see how volatile the business actually is. Every four weeks, we have a new forecast from the IATA, which have different impacts. So I think it's definitely too early. I think the only thing what everybody expects is that 2021 will be also a difficult year and that we see, let's say, 2022, 2023 recovering to achieve level of 2019 in business travel and in the business. And that's more or less for the narrow body market and for the wide body market will be delayed by another year. But today, it's definitely too early to give, let's say, margin expectations or cost absorption, fixed cost absorption for 2021.

Peter Kameritsch
CFO, MTU Aero Engines

Regarding our expectation for the second half year, I mean, that is pure math. I mean, if you go through our business lines, I mean, in the military business, we were down slightly in H1. And obviously, we expect for the full year, military revenues to be slightly up. So we should have, as I said, a strong second half in the military business. I think the implied growth rate is something between 5% and 10% for the second half year. And that is not so much due to the fact that we expect more orders. I mean, we have all these orders in our order book. But so generating revenues, obviously, we have to do the work.

The three weeks of interruption here in Munich and the following subsequent short-time working scheme hindered us to really do a lot of work and book then revenues to the customers. We're going to see a pickup effect in the military space in the second half year. In MRO, for the half year, we were down 3% organically for the half year. In the first quarter, we were organically up 19%. In the second quarter, we were down 25%. We expect for the rest of the year something in that range, I would say, down 5% organically, so overall. As a result, we have for the full year, commercial MRO down low- to mid-single-digit. That's going to be the result, but with a higher share of GTF retrofits. That's definitely the case, which is margin dilutive.

I mean, in the spare parts, I just mentioned that the spare parts business in Q1 was more or less stable in U.S. dollar terms. Q2, Q2 2020, was something like 50% down. H1 was something like 25% down. For the second half of the year, we expect something in the range of, let's say, 30% down. Overall, for the full year, down high 20s%. That is the base case for our guidance.

Andrew Humphrey
Senior Research Analyst, Morgan Stanley

That's very helpful. Thank you.

Operator

Okay. Our next question comes from the line of Ben Heelan from Bank of America. You're line is now open .

Ben Heelan
Managing Director, Bank of America

Yes. Morning, gentlemen. Peter, I was wondering if I could just come back on that answer that you gave, Andrew. Going from down 50% in commercial spares in Q2 and seeing an improvement to down 30% in the second half of the year seems quite a material improvement. Do you mind kind of giving a little bit of color about what kind of reinforces your belief that you do have visibility on that? Is it freight? Is it V2500? And then secondly, back on a question that you asked earlier, I just wanted to clarify. So you see potential for cash flow in the second half of the year to be neutral, but there's obviously some volatility that could be around that. Thank you.

Peter Kameritsch
CFO, MTU Aero Engines

Yeah. I mean, I gave some elements on that before. I mean, in Q2, we think we saw that the trust in spare parts demand, especially for the V2500, I mean, the V2500 was down something like 60%. And going forward, we think, I mean, everybody, I mean, one impact, the one is obviously the global V2500 fleet flies less. But the other element is obviously that worldwide MRO shops have provided at the end of 2019 and also in Q1 2019, they expected obviously a higher level of shop visits. And so had spare parts in their stock for a higher number of shop visits. And now, obviously, expectations have gone down. And the order flow for new spare parts is muted because all MRO shops have a lot of spare parts in stock.

And once you, I mean, shop visits are happening, and once these high levels of spare parts are consumed via shop visits, then you're going to see an acceleration of spare parts demand. And when that exactly will happen, nobody really knows. We think somewhere at the end of Q3. So we expect an acceleration here on the V2500 and on the PW2000. And on the CF6, we expect a stable business, more or less as in also in Q2. But the main effect is really higher demand for the V2500 fleet. And yes, I mean, we think that.

Ben Heelan
Managing Director, Bank of America

[audio distortion]

Peter Kameritsch
CFO, MTU Aero Engines

We think that H2 on a cash flow can be broadly neutral, but it could also be slightly down or up. Really, the volatility is really, really high due to, I mean, payment behavior from airline customers and obviously also how quick can we really bring our supply chain down to the new expected demand of 40 A320s and 787s. So really adjusted to the new delivery schedules. So we have some homework to do there, and the ambition is to stay in positive territory, at least for the free cash flow.

Ben Heelan
Managing Director, Bank of America

Thanks for that, Peter, and just on the airline customers, receivables were not that much of a headwind in the second quarter of the year. Do you think the risk is that receivables could be a bigger headwind as we move into Q3 and Q4?

Peter Kameritsch
CFO, MTU Aero Engines

I mean, we are in between negotiations also on the MRO side with customers, so maybe longer payment terms and so on, that could happen, but on the other side, obviously, through lower business volumes overall, that is also a driver for lower receivables, lower payables, lower working capital overall.

Ben Heelan
Managing Director, Bank of America

Okay. Great. Thank you.

Operator

Okay. Our next question comes from the line of Alexander Hauenstein from DZ BANK. You're line is now open .

Alexander Hauenstein
Equity Research Analyst, DZ BANK

Yes. Hello, Alexander from DZ BANK. Thanks for taking my questions. I've got three questions. First of all, coming back to the GTF retrofits, you mentioned obviously that there's no margin on these retrofits. But is it really a no margin thing to fix them, or is it even a negative margin attached to it? That would be the first one. And the second question is coming back to your guidance. I was a bit surprised to see you coming out with a concrete guidance. I appreciate it. But compared to Airbus, I mean, what gave you more confidence and more visibility apart from what you have been speaking about already in this call? But what makes you more confident here compared to the OEMs and especially, or put it differently, in which cases there could be any risk to the guidance and the short-term outlook here?

The last question, a bit more generally, I was wondering what is your view about some further overcapacities building up in aircraft engines over the next one or two years coming from small and mid-sized airlines potentially going bust, maybe in East Asia, maybe in Latin America or elsewhere? Would that in some cases put any pressure on the used engines, yeah, prices and also on your margins on the spare side, etc., etc.? Maybe you could share some of your views here on this part of the market. Thank you.

Peter Kameritsch
CFO, MTU Aero Engines

The GTF margins, no, no, they are zero to slightly positive. But obviously, you have fixed cost coverage attached to that. So they are slightly zero to slightly positive based on a full cost basis, so to say. So it's not as good as a typical airline shop visit, but it's not a negative margin.

Reiner Winkler
CEO, MTU Aero Engines

Regarding the guidance, what makes us more comfortable? I mean, it's difficult for us to say why Airbus did not give guidance. We think we have enough information to provide the market with the guidance. But as we indicated, there's much more uncertainty in that guidance compared to previous guidance we gave. The environment in the market, how it is, and we thought that the market would appreciate to receive a guidance. Some also gave a guidance, so some do, some don't. It's difficult to judge on other companies. Yes, there is potentially pressure from airlines going into bankruptcy or Chapter 11 or whatever. But I think that is the basis for the market forecast already. I mean, if we look into the market environment, what the IATA expects on passenger traffic, and you see then what capacity is available, I think that is already considered.

But of course, we could get more pressure or less. That's depending really on customer by customer or airline by airline. I mean, some of them will be restructured and come back in the market. Some will disappear. But it's really, as I said, a lot of uncertainty, actually.

Alexander Hauenstein
Equity Research Analyst, DZ BANK

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Okay. Our next question comes from the line of Zafar Khan, Société Générale. You're line is now open .

Zafar Khan
Managing Director of Equity Research, Société Générale

Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. I have three questions, please. The first one is just on the GTF warranty work. Clearly, in answering Milene's question, you were suggesting that it could be EUR 500 million-EUR 600 million this year, and the previous guidance was EUR 400 million. So I just wonder whether there will be any spillover of this work in 2021, or do you think the warranty work will have been completed by the end of this year? That's the first question. The second one is just on the H2 restructuring costs. I just wondered if you were able to quantify that and just give us the phasing of the expenditure of that restructuring cost.

And the third one is just on dividend. Now, you suspended the 2019 dividend when you issued the statement back in March. I know the AGM is in a couple of days' time. Is that going to be on the agenda? Is there a chance that you may pay a dividend for 2019? What will the management team be recommending to the board on that?

Reiner Winkler
CEO, MTU Aero Engines

Okay. Starting with the dividend, the AGM is Wednesday this week, and the proposal is to just pay a legally required minimum dividend of, I think, EUR 0.04 per share. That's a legal requirement in Germany. But we definitely decided that in these times, it's more important for the company to have enough liquidity, so cash savings or liquidity. And therefore, we decided just to go for that minimum dividend. I think the question before was.

Peter Kameritsch
CFO, MTU Aero Engines

Restructuring cost.

Reiner Winkler
CEO, MTU Aero Engines

Restructuring cost. I think we are still, let's say, evaluating that number, but a rough estimation would be, I would guess, around EUR 30 million, something like that, EUR 25 million-EUR 30 million. So it's not such a significant number, but in that range.

Zafar Khan
Managing Director of Equity Research, Société Générale

Just on that, I understand that with the furlough scheme in Germany, this can be extended to perhaps three years. So is that why you don't need to do a huge restructuring because you can furlough for quite a long time?

Reiner Winkler
CEO, MTU Aero Engines

I would say it's for two years, something like that.

Peter Kameritsch
CFO, MTU Aero Engines

I mean, now it's for 12 months, and we expect in September that the German government decides to prolong it to 24 months, but I mean, the reason why we did the 10%-50% is that we also expect at the end of 2021, after we have made so the furlough scheme is more or less at the end. We expect that we have lower demand at that point of time. But I mean, it's a soft reduction, so early retirement contract and something, so in that range, so we don't close like sites or so.

Zafar Khan
Managing Director of Equity Research, Société Générale

Just the one on the GTF?

Peter Kameritsch
CFO, MTU Aero Engines

So in the GTF, warranty work will also continue in 2021. But I can't give you a number though, no.

Zafar Khan
Managing Director of Equity Research, Société Générale

Okay. But I imagine that the MRO 2021 versus 2020, in that case, will report sales probably down a little bit on the 2020 number.

Peter Kameritsch
CFO, MTU Aero Engines

I mean, now we don't give a guidance for 2021 so far.

Zafar Khan
Managing Director of Equity Research, Société Générale

Okay. I'm sorry. That was a cheeky follow-on. I apologize.

Peter Kameritsch
CFO, MTU Aero Engines

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Then next question.

Zafar Khan
Managing Director of Equity Research, Société Générale

Thank you.

Operator

Okay. Thank you, sir. Our next question comes from the line of Christophe Ménard from Kepler . You're ready. So welcome.

Christophe Ménard
Equity Research Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux

Yes. Good morning. I had three quick questions. The first one is more a general question. Can you comment on the dynamic of the recovery in aftermarket and spare parts demand? Do you think it will precede or come after the OE demand or recovery? Second question is on the CapEx. You had a pretty steep CapEx reduction in Q2, which can be easily understood. How are you looking at CapEx in the full year? And even though you're not giving any guidance for next year, do you think it will be further down next year? And the last question is on the German defense programs. Are you confident in those programs coming to fruition? I'm thinking about your fighter. And can you remind me if you're getting any prepayment on those, or if not, basically?

Reiner Winkler
CEO, MTU Aero Engines

Maybe I'll start with the last question. Yes, we are confident that these orders will be placed in the second half of this year, mainly, but especially the replacement of the Tranche 1 of the Eurofighters, maybe in the fourth quarter. That's the timeline, actually. So we are confident in that. But there will be no significant prepayments for that order.

Peter Kameritsch
CFO, MTU Aero Engines

I mean, the question is, what is the basis for your recovery? I mean, if, let's say, Q2 is the trough for OE and for spare parts or MRO activities, then my clear view is that aftermarket will recover earlier compared to OE. I mean, you see the signals from Airbus and Boeing. So I mean, the 787 production is at five per month, going down at rate 40 on the A320neo. And I don't think that in the next months or so, we're going to see higher production rates. But we think that aftermarket activity will increase from the end of Q3 on. So that's, I would say, the answer to that question. There's no clear guidance on the CapEx time.

I mean, as a reaction on COVID, we have, I mean, put several CapEx projects on hold, and we're going to review that in September based also on what we see from the customers, cash collection from the customers, and capacity needs for the next years. Where do we really need to invest and where also not? But definitely, we're going to see a significantly lower PPE CapEx number in 2020 versus 2019. But what 2021 will be like, that is really too early to say, Christophe.

Christophe Ménard
Equity Research Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux

Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Operator

Okay. Our next question comes from the line of Joachim Kotze from Morningstar. You're ready. So welcome.

Joachim Kotze
Equity Research Analyst, Morningstar

Hi. Good morning, gentlemen. Thank you for taking my questions. Two questions, if I may. The first one relates to your customers, and specifically the aftermarket customers. Are you seeing any difference in behaviors of aftermarket customers relating to time and material and rate per flight hour customers? And then just how that translates into a longer-term recovery. Specifically, are you seeing the outlook for accelerated growth in rate per flight hour contracts, or are you seeing a bit more reluctance for the customers there? And then the second question relates to the competitive environment for the MRO business. You're obviously sitting with a bit of spare capacity in the short to medium term. Do you think you're seeing any opportunities to fill that capacity from work performed by weaker players in the market?

Peter Kameritsch
CFO, MTU Aero Engines

Yeah. I mean, it depends, obviously, how deep and long the crisis will be, but I mean, following the last financial crisis, a lot of smaller and weaker players in the MRO field left the market, and that could also happen now, so I mean, I mean, 10 years ago, I would say we had a market share in the MRO of like 6-7%. And in the last 10 years, we were able to increase that to 10-11% or so, and I mean, long term, I think we are optimistic to gain a higher market share in the worldwide engine MRO market, but that is nothing which will happen in the next one or two quarters. Time and Material flight hour customers, there's not really a big difference in behavior, so I mean, every airline is now currently in cash conservation mode.

So everybody's looking to postpone payments, delaying shop visits, and so on. That is the general behavior of airlines.

Joachim Kotze
Equity Research Analyst, Morningstar

I was just wondering if there is any difference because, I mean, the cash payments for rate per flight hour customers are essentially different to time and material customers. So they've already paid advance payments. Are you seeing some of those customers perhaps using this opportunity of the grounded fleet to bring their fleet in for service, seeing that they have already?

Peter Kameritsch
CFO, MTU Aero Engines

That happens, obviously. I mean, a customer which has paid 90% or 95% of the cost for a shop visit in the last, let's say, years, this customer will send the engines, sure. I mean, they are happy to send an engine while the fleet is grounded. I mean, the same is also true for, let's say, the PW 1100 warranty work. I mean, that would have been much harder for us to conduct that warranty program when the fleet would have been in the air completely. So that is obviously when airlines don't want to have interruptions because you pull the engine and so on. So that helps also in the warranty program for the PW 1100.

Joachim Kotze
Equity Research Analyst, Morningstar

Thanks, and I mean, do you think that the coronavirus or COVID has accelerated the appetite for entering into these rate of flight hour contracts? Are you expecting to sign more of these contracts going forward than you did previously?

Peter Kameritsch
CFO, MTU Aero Engines

No, I don't think so. I mean, together with the new engine platform, the contract style of choice for all airlines is the flight-hour contract. And there were some we always say 80% is flight-hour because 20% is undecided. So typically, these are the leasing companies which then let the final operator of the engine decide on the aftermarket contract. But I think the new engine generation will be more or less completely covered by flight-hour agreements.

Joachim Kotze
Equity Research Analyst, Morningstar

Thank you very much.

Operator

Okay. Our next question comes from the line of Harry Breach from MainFirst. You're ready. So welcome.

Peter Kameritsch
CFO, MTU Aero Engines

Harry, can you hear me?

Harry Breach
Senior Equity Research Analyst, MainFirst

Yes. Now I can. Sorry for the delay, guys. It was silent. Thank you for taking my question, guys, and thanks as well for trying to put together some guidance for us all in a really challenging environment. My questions are just hopefully fairly simple ones. Firstly, guys, when we're thinking about commercial MRO and we're thinking about non-retrofit shop visits, so just the normal course of performance restoration shop visits over the second half of this year and into next year, guys, have you seen that sort of stabilize? I'm sure over the last four months, there's been a lot of deferral of booked shop visits. Is that sort of situation stabilizing? So you now think that you've got better visibility on commercial MRO, especially looking into the fourth quarter and early next year, then second question, guys, and this one might show my ignorance a bit.

Can you help me understand? The second quarter was clearly very disrupted relative to normal manufacturing operations with facility shutdowns and changing workflows, sanitation activities. And what I was trying to understand, guys, was in terms of what cost gets absorbed into inventory versus just expense during the period, did you sort of take excess costs over the direct, sorry, the direct cost of production and the allocated overhead normally? Did you take sort of the coronavirus excess above that and just expense it during the period? Has some of that been absorbed into inventory? And we'll see it affect margins as we go through later quarters this year and into next year.

Then finally, and this one's maybe for Reiner and the crystal ball, I'm wondering, guys. Can you give us any feeling, clearly with lower production volumes on the GTF looking forward, given the rate changes from Airbus, can you give us any sort of sense about roughly when you think GTF sort of gross profit break even might be now? Or how many years it might have moved? Any feeling you can give us, right, Reiner?

Peter Kameritsch
CFO, MTU Aero Engines

I mean, Harry, I mean, nobody really knows where the production rates will be in 2025 or so. I mean, that is completely I mean, even Airbus cannot say that. I mean, it's not a big surprise. I mean, a lot of I mean, the GTF production is highly optimized. You know our blisk facility here in Munich. So at least compared to the V2500, a larger part of production cost is depreciation of facilities. And obviously, when you have lower volumes, I mean, that is an impact to the margin. So that's more or less the answer. We don't know when that will happen.

Reiner Winkler
CEO, MTU Aero Engines

Some years to go.

Peter Kameritsch
CFO, MTU Aero Engines

Some years to go. Definitely. On the working capital, I wouldn't say that. I mean, looking in our inventories line and the working capital, that is more or less stable compared to the end of 2019. But I mean, at year-end, we expect it to be lower than today. I mean, in the first quarter and also in the second quarter, we still got deliveries, raw materials, finished parts, and so on, based on a higher production rate. I mean, based on a rate 60 of Airbus. And so it will take some time that we can bring inventories down to adjust our inventory to production rate of 40 in the A320 or five on the 757. But there's no abnormal cost allocation to inventories or so in the first half year. What was your third question? You had a third question.

Harry Breach
Senior Equity Research Analyst, MainFirst

Yeah, guys, it's just about when we think about commercial MRO and we think about the normal business.

Peter Kameritsch
CFO, MTU Aero Engines

Okay.

Harry Breach
Senior Equity Research Analyst, MainFirst

So performance restoration shop visits and so on, are you getting sort of clarity and more stability in the bookings for engine inductions in the sort of third, fourth quarter and beyond?

Peter Kameritsch
CFO, MTU Aero Engines

Yeah. I mean, a large part, I mean, we typically don't have a lot of spot business in the MRO, so we have a long I mean, typically rather long-term contracts with our customers, be it flight-hour agreements, but also long-term service agreements with the customers spanning over 10 years. So the thing is rather that we have to discuss with our customers when they send the engine, and yes, I mean, compared to the end of April, so compared to Q1, we have better visibility, which sets us also in a position to give a guidance on the MRO, but do we have 100% visibility? No. I mean, there is still volatility, also depending on how exactly the recovery in air traffic will be.

I mean, once, let's say, 80% or 90% of the narrowbody fleet is back in the air again, I mean, airlines have less opportunities to swap aircraft. So using aircraft where shop visits are far in the future. So once they have a larger part of the fleet in the air, then you're going to see also MRO activities increase heavily. But how that curve or that pattern will look like in H2, there's still some uncertainty. So we don't have the glass ball.

Harry Breach
Senior Equity Research Analyst, MainFirst

Thank you. Thank you both.

Peter Kameritsch
CFO, MTU Aero Engines

Okay.

Operator

Okay. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star and one.

Okay. Our next question comes from the line of Richard Schramm. You're ready. So welcome.

Richard Schramm
Equity Analyst, HSBC

Yes. Good morning, gentlemen. Just a few clarifications from my side, please. Concerning the restructuring charges you mentioned, it's about EUR 30 million. As you have given a relatively wide range of capacity cuts here in percent with 10%-15%, is this already kind of worst case, or should we expect that there is a risk that some additional costs might occur next year also in this respect? Or is it already trying to cover the full maximum you expect from this side?

Reiner Winkler
CEO, MTU Aero Engines

I mean, we stated that it is a first rough estimation. We are still evaluating. From today's perspective, it should be in that range. Can I exclude anything for next year? No. But I think more or less with that provision, it should be done. But it depends also, let's say, how the market recovers. Is there another capacity cut necessary from today's perspective? No. That's what we think is necessary. But as we said, volatile times, and nobody knows what really will happen. But based on the model we have in place, when will the market recover? How will it recover? That's, let's say, the actual case we are following.

Richard Schramm
Equity Analyst, HSBC

Okay. Thank you. Second, yeah, I have to come back to this GTF issue because I'm a bit puzzled. As you mentioned in the Q1 call, that the volume would be about EUR 400 million or so for the current year. Now we are at EUR 500 million-EUR 600 million. And I wonder where this additional volume comes from, and especially as you mentioned that there might be still some work spilling over to 2021. I thought that you mentioned in the Q1 call that it would be more or less done already with the current year and that 2021 would see no further burn from this side. So what has changed here that the volume obviously is much bigger than expected? And when will this definitely be out of the way?

Reiner Winkler
CEO, MTU Aero Engines

I mean, it's quite easy. I mean, when we came in the number of EUR 400 million and now it's EUR 500 million-600 million, something like that, the main reason for that is capacity is available. It was always a bottleneck. Is there enough capacity in the network to do all these retrofits? These retrofits at that time were planned for 2020 and also in the next years. Now some of them could be forwarded into this year because capacity is available in the network. So that's the reason. Will it be 100% done until year-end? Not 100%. Some will also flip into 2021. I think Pratt mentioned it also in their call. The majority of the retrofits will be done this year or started this year, but there will be also some for the next year.

Richard Schramm
Equity Analyst, HSBC

But this should be then definitely a minor amount, obviously.

Reiner Winkler
CEO, MTU Aero Engines

I don't know the exact number now.

Richard Schramm
Equity Analyst, HSBC

Okay. And last point concerning your order book, could you please split it up between OEM and MRO? And concerning the value of the contracts, I mean, especially in MRO, I wonder if the contract volumes you have agreed with customers can be still valid because of the massive change of the environment also for the longer term here. Isn't there the risk that contract volumes might turn out at the end of the day clearly lower than they are currently in your books here?

Peter Kameritsch
CFO, MTU Aero Engines

Roughly two-thirds of the order book is MRO and one-third is the OEM business. So you mean that's clear because, I mean, the new engine business under IFRS 15 is a follow-up because a lot of things are booked against revenue. So that's clear that OEM order book is lower compared to MRO. In the MRO order book, we have typically, as I've just mentioned before, so five-year contracts, up to 10-year contracts, and the order book is the expected revenue contribution from these long-term contracts. And we assess these contracts on a quarterly basis. And also, we add new contracts to the order book. So there is every time some volatility. And so yes, maybe you have to one or the other contract where one shop visit due to less flight activity in 2020 or 2021. So one shop visit falls out of the MRO contract.

But is that a huge impact? So long-term, no. So once the assumption is that at the end of 2022 or 2023, so the narrowbody fleet is more or less fully active as in 2019.

Richard Schramm
Equity Analyst, HSBC

Okay. Thank you very much.

Operator

Okay. Our next question comes from the line of David Perry from J.P. Morgan. Your line is now open.

David Perry
Equity Analyst, J.P. Morgan

Hi, everyone. Just two questions. First one, it's very simple. What is your FX assumption for the year, please?

Peter Kameritsch
CFO, MTU Aero Engines

1.15.

David Perry
Equity Analyst, J.P. Morgan

FX assumption, please.

Peter Kameritsch
CFO, MTU Aero Engines

Yes, 1.15, David.

David Perry
Equity Analyst, J.P. Morgan

1.15. Thank you.

Peter Kameritsch
CFO, MTU Aero Engines

Average. Look, as a spot trade, yearly average is 1.15. The 1.15 average is the basis for our revenue number.

David Perry
Equity Analyst, J.P. Morgan

Okay. And the second one is a bit more complicated. Maybe I'm being a bit slow here, but I just don't understand how you're thinking about H2 margins in OEM. I think it's not too hard to figure out MRO. But you had a 4% margin in Q2, just under. And it looks like you're looking for a much stronger margin, certainly double-digit, maybe getting to mid-teens in OEM in H2 on a similar revenue drop. Can you just sort of talk me through the positives and negatives driving EBIT in H2, please? That would be really helpful.

Peter Kameritsch
CFO, MTU Aero Engines

I mean, I think I mentioned that before. So the one thing is that we had a very low military volume in Q1 and more so in Q2, and we expect a far higher military volume in the second half year. Point number three, we had three weeks closed here, our facility for three weeks. So you had more or less three weeks of all the salaries and so on, but without, obviously, working and generating revenues and profits. Then that three-week closure of the facilities, we were followed by the short-time working scheme. So one week with more or less 100% short-time working, then two or three weeks with three days working, two days at home. And now we are at four-one. So four days here in the facility working and one day at home. So that is obviously a lot of fixed costs, which hits your P&L.

That is point number two. So we won't see that in Q3 and Q4. And then our expectation is also that spare parts business in Q2 was the trough. So we expect throughout H2 a recovery of spare parts demand. So these are, I would say, the three major elements for a better OEM margin in H2.

Reiner Winkler
CEO, MTU Aero Engines

Yeah. I mean, the only thing is the sales. I mean, military fine, but the commercial sales are going to be down the same in H2 as they were in Q2 based on your guidance or very similar. So it doesn't really matter whether the factory is closed or short-time or not. The sales are the sales. That's what I'm struggling with. Maybe you could talk a bit about the restructuring, the payback on the restructuring, just to help us kind of think it through. I think R&D also helps in H2.

Peter Kameritsch
CFO, MTU Aero Engines

Yeah. I mean, the payback will be then after 2021, and it depends how exactly the split will be. So the short-time working scheme means that they are, for example, they remain one year in the company working, and then one year they are at home with a lower salary, but they are still on the payroll. And after the two years, they go for the normal state pension. But it can also be that some of the guys do it like six months working, six months at home, and then directly into the state pension. So how the exact mix will be between the people who go for the early retirement scheme, we don't know that yet. So we are just at the beginning talking with the employees which are eligible for that scheme. So we really don't know it yet.

David Perry
Equity Analyst, J.P. Morgan

All right. I'll have a think about it. Thanks a lot, Peter.

Peter Kameritsch
CFO, MTU Aero Engines

Stay well.

Operator

Okay. Our next question comes from the line of Richard Schramm. Your line is now open.

Richard Schramm
Equity Analyst, HSBC

Yes. Sorry, a quick thing. I forgot this restructuring cost. This is included in your margin guidance, or is this excluded, by the way?

Reiner Winkler
CEO, MTU Aero Engines

Typically, we adjust the restructuring cost. I think this is one of the very few elements we would adjust in the EBIT number.

Richard Schramm
Equity Analyst, HSBC

Okay, so then it's excluded. Okay. Thanks a lot.

Peter Kameritsch
CFO, MTU Aero Engines

Okay. I think we're at the end. Thank you, everybody, for joining us, and yeah, have a good day.

Reiner Winkler
CEO, MTU Aero Engines

Thank you. Bye-bye.

Peter Kameritsch
CFO, MTU Aero Engines

Bye.

Operator

Okay. We want to thank Mr. Reiner Winkler and Mr. Peter Kameritsch and all the participants of this conference. Goodbye.

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