Good morning, everyone. My name is Joelle, and I will be your conference operator today. I would like to welcome everyone to the FTG Q1 2025 Analyst Call. All lines have been placed on mute. There will be a question-and-answer session following the call. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star two. Please note that this call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Brad Bourne, President and Chief Executive Officer of FTG. Mr. Bourne, you may proceed.
Thank you. Good morning. I'm Brad Bourne, President and CEO of FTG for Firan Technology Group Corporation. Also on the call today is Jamie Crichton, our Chief Financial Officer. Before we go any further, I must caution you that this call may contain forward-looking statements. Such statements are based on the current expectations of management of the company and inherently involve numerous risks and uncertainties, known and unknown, including economic factors and the company's industry generally. The preceding list is not exhaustive of all possible factors. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, and actual events and results could differ materially from those expressed or implied by forward-looking statements made by the company. The listener is cautioned to consider these and other factors carefully when making decisions with respect to the company and not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.
The company does not undertake and has no specific intention to update any forward-looking statements, written or oral, that may be made from time to time by or on its behalf, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. We are off to a great start in 2025. These are by far our best Q1 results ever. To start the year, we closed the acquisition of FLYHT, adding another growth lever to FTG overall. I would like to welcome the people from FLYHT to FTG and thank everyone at FTG for their hard work and their contributions to our continued success. In the first quarter of 2025, FTG accomplished many financial goals, including total bookings reached CAD 51.5 million in the quarter, marking a 37% increase over Q1 2024. The quarter-end backlog stood at CAD 142.5 million, a 43% rise from the previous year.
Revenue was CAD 42.9 million in the quarter, a 22.6% increase over Q1 2024. Adjusted EBITDA was CAD 8.4 million, up from CAD 4.6 million in Q1 last year. Adjusted net earnings rose by over 200% to CAD 3.3 million. We maintained a strong balance sheet with net debt of CAD 8.3 million after the acquisition of FLYHT, where we paid CAD 4.3 million in cash and assumed CAD 9.4 million in debt. In the quarter, we also paid the earn-out from our Circus Minotaur acquisition of CAD 1.5 million. We invested in CapEx and deferred development. We paid off our DFU plan. We paid out 2024 bonuses and profit sharing, and PSUs earned. We generated operating cash flow less lease payments of CAD 9.3 million in Q1 2025. Other accomplishments in our quarter included the closing of our acquisition of FLYHT based in Calgary.
Flight is an important addition to FTG, increasing our penetration of the aftermarket, which typically has higher margins, and increasing our penetration of Airbus, who is clearly outperforming Boeing in the air transport market. We also see production insourcing opportunities that could benefit other FTG sites, as Flight historically outsourced all their manufacturing. We also announced in the quarter a new contract from De Havilland Canada, where we will provide updated cockpit control assemblies for the new De Havilland Canadair 515 aerial firefighting aircraft. This is also strategic, as it is a contract that will increase our activity outside of the U.S. and therefore not be impacted by any potential U.S. tariffs. FTG announced plans to open an aerospace facility in Hyderabad, India, to support strategic growth and expand our market presence there.
FTG completed a new two-year banking agreement with BMO Corporate Finance, providing improved flexibility and reduced costs to support growth and corporate development objectives. We strengthened our leadership team with the addition of Bill Sezate as Executive Vice President of FTG Circuits. Bill comes to FTG with extensive experience in all aspects of the circuit board industry, including experience in senior management roles at St. Mina Summit and Hughes Circuits. Bill will be responsible for all six of FTG Circuits' businesses or sites. In addition, Marko Viinikka is joining FTG in a newly created role as Executive Vice President of FTG Aerospace. Marko comes to FTG with extensive experience in all aspects of the aerospace industry, and most recently, Marko was responsible for new aircraft development at De Havilland Canada.
Marko will be responsible for FTG's four aerospace sites, as well as the sites under construction in India. Jamie will provide more details on our Q1 results shortly. Let me turn to some external items. Our end market demand remains strong. Airbus delivered 766 aircraft last year, but more importantly, they're looking to ramp to over 1,000 aircraft annually in the next few years. Airbus has a backlog of over 8,000 orders, which is over a decade's worth of production at current production rates. For 2025, they're projecting growth of 7% over last year. In the first quarter of this year, shipments were, however, down 7% due to supply chain issues, primarily related to engines. At Boeing, they shipped just under 350 planes last year, down from their 500 in 2023.
The drop was due in part to the safety incident on the Alaska Air 737, as well as the machine strike later last year. Looking forward, Boeing has plans to ramp their production to almost 700 planes annually in the next two years. Boeing's backlog is almost 6,000 planes, so also over a decade's worth of orders at their current production rate. In Q1 this year, Boeing shipped 130 aircraft, which is up significantly from last year. Boeing too is constrained by supply chain issues on some models, including seat delays for their Boeing 787. While 2024 might have been a low point for Boeing, it has also become clear that Airbus is outperforming Boeing in the air transport market, with a two-to-one advantage in aircraft shipped last year and a 60% market share based on order backlog. This has implications for FTG's plans going forward.
In the business jet market, Bombardier reported a mid-single-digit shipment increase last year, even in light of a short work stoppage they had during the year. They are not providing guidance for 2025 due to the uncertainty around U.S. tariffs, which are okay for them for now, but are still somewhat slowing. In the helicopter market, Bell Helicopter reported flat deliveries in 2024 compared to 2023, but with an overall 5% revenue growth this year. Bell also has some key military helicopter wins in the past few years that will drive significant growth going forward. All of this bodes well for us as we look to future demand in the coming years. I've also looked at the results from some key defense contractors. For instance, Lockheed Martin reported a 5% revenue growth last year compared to the prior year and gave guidance of 4%-5% growth this year.
Also related to defense, Boeing was recently selected to develop and produce the next-generation Air Dominance fighter in the U.S. This is good news for them. Based on the supply chain approach on the previous air superiority fighter in the U.S., the F-22, I would expect the sourcing for this program will be for U.S.-only suppliers. We did have content on the F-22 when it was in production through our task force facility. We are better positioned now to increase our content on U.S.-only procurement with five U.S.-based sites. Looking at the longer term, Boeing's most recent 20-year forecast shows long-term industry growth, and it continues to show 20% of all new aircraft deliveries going to China and close to 40% to Asia, as has been the case in their recent forecast. The business jet market is already seeing traffic recover.
A recent business jet forecast from Honeywell similarly predicts growth in this market in the coming years, with near-term double-digit growth rates for the sector. The simulator market mirrors the end market application, but as we always remind everyone about this market, it is lumpy, so we see large year-to-year variations. As we have said for many years, FTG's goal is to participate in all segments of the aerospace and defense markets, as each moves through their independent business cycles. It is not often that all segments are growing, as seems to be the case now. Beyond all this, let me give you a quick update on some key metrics for FTG for our first quarter of 2025. First, as already noted, the leading indicator of business is our bookings or new orders.
Our bookings were CAD 51.5 million in the quarter, and we had a backlog due to the FLYHT acquisition. This resulted in a record backlog of CAD 142 million at the end of Q1. Our first quarter sales were CAD 42.9 million, which is CAD 7.9 million, or 23% above Q1 last year. The growth is approximately 50% from organic activity and 50% from the acquisition of FLYHT. In our aerospace business, sales were up CAD 5.2 million, or 53% from Q1 last year. The strike at the aerospace final facility last year negatively impacted those results, and the acquisition of FLYHT this year boosted Q1 2025. On the circuit side of our business, our sales in the first quarter were up CAD 2.8 million, or 11% over Q1 last year. All of this is organic growth.
Of note, growth at Circuits Minnetonka was about 10% in the quarter, and at Circuits Haverhill, it was about 50%. Overall, at FTG, our top five customers accounted for 52.1% of the total revenue in our first quarter. This compares to 66.5% last year. It is great to see the drop in customer concentration as we add sites and expand our customer base. Also, interesting to note, of our top 10 customers, seven are customers shared between circuits and aerospace. We like to see the shared customers, as it means we're maximizing our penetration of these customers by selling both cockpit products and circuit boards. Given the actions of the new U.S. administration in the U.S. of implementing tariffs, it is also good to see that one of our top 10 customers is outside the U.S. and is, in fact, in China.
Another seven of our top 10 have some operations outside the U.S. While on this topic, 72.2% of FTG sales are to U.S.-based customers. This includes sales by U.S. sites, as well as sales from FTG sites in Canada or China. This compares to 82% in Q1 last year. While sales grew by 8% into the U.S. in Q1, sales grew by 49% in Canada, 83% in Asia, and 130% into Europe, as we benefit from previous efforts to expand globally, including things like our content on the COMAC C919 aircraft in China and acquiring FLYHT with sales globally. In 2025, first quarter, 34.6% of total revenues came from our aerospace business, compared to 27.7% last year. The aerospace business share increased due to strong growth at aerospace final and the acquisition of FLYHT.
I'd now like to turn the call over to Jamie, who will summarize some of our financial results for Q1 2025, and afterwards, I will talk about some key priorities we are working on. Jamie?
Thanks, Brad. Good morning, everyone. I would like to provide some additional detail on our financial performance for Q1. FTG achieved a gross margin of CAD 13.3 million, or 31%, in Q1 2025, compared to CAD 8.9 million, or 25.5%, in Q1 2024. The gross margin rate is up 5.6 percentage points as a result of the following: organic sales growth and improved operating performance in the circuit segment, resulting in higher leverage over fixed costs; increased sales in the aerospace segment from the FLYHT acquisition; and the fact that Q1 2024 had a - CAD 3 million impact from the six-week strike at the Aeroturino site, both of which boosted our gross margin rate.
Foreign exchange rates were also favorable, with the Canadian dollar trading at CAD 1.43 versus CAD 1.35 to the US dollar, which is favorable by approximately 6%. Lastly, during Q1 2025, FTG settled its portfolio of gold forward contracts, which resulted in a reduction of cost of sales of approximately CAD 600,000. This was done in connection with our changing banks. In terms of productivity, annualized revenue per employee was CAD 234,000 in Q1 2025, approximately 9% better than Q1 2024. SGA expense was CAD 6.7 million in Q1 2025, up from CAD 4.8 million in Q1 2024. As a percentage of sales, it increased to 15.7% from 13.7%. This increase includes CAD 1 million from the Flight acquisition, acquisition-related professional fees of CAD 100,000, Hyderabad startup costs of just under CAD 100,000, and higher performance composition.
There are increases in some of the other operating expense line items, which, in the case of R&D expense, amortization of intangibles, notional interest expense, and accretion on lease liabilities that are principally the result of the Flight acquisition. The corporation also had a foreign exchange gain of CAD 900,000 in Q1 2025, as compared to FX losses of CAD 200,000 in Q1 2024. These gains and losses are primarily related to the revaluation of US dollar-denominated assets and liabilities at the balance sheet date. Adjusted EBITDA was CAD 8.4 million, or 19.5% of sales for Q1 2025, as compared to CAD 4.6 million in Q1 2024. Adjustments for the current quarter included acquisition and Hyderabad startup costs and stock-based comp expense, adjusted for both the current year and prior year. On a trailing 12-month basis, revenue was CAD 170 million, and adjusted EBITDA was CAD 29.6 million, or 17.4% of sales.
Our net debt position as of Q1 2025 was CAD 8.3 million, as compared to CAD 0.7 million as of Q4 2024, which equates to 0.28 times adjusted EBITDA. During Q1 2025, cash from operation less lease liability payments was CAD 9.3 million. Items included in the change in net debt for the quarter included CAD 4.3 million of cash used for the FLYHT acquisition, as well as assumption of debt at FLYHT of CAD 9.4 million, capital expenditures and deferred development costs of CAD 1.1 million, final settlement of the Holiday Circuits earnout of CAD 1.5 million, net repayment of bank debt of CAD 8.7 million, payment of year-end performance comp of CAD 1.8 million, settlement of the DSU liability for CAD 0.8 million, and the purchase of FTG shares on the market for CAD 600,000 to settle the PSU obligation.
During Q1 2025, FTG completed a new bank deal with BMO Corporate Finance, which provides CAD 20 million US of committed financing lines and an uncommitted CAD 15 million accordion facility for acquisitions. There are also facilities for FX forwards, precious metal forwards, and credit cards. As of the close of Q1 2025, FTG's use of the credit facility was CAD 3.5 million U.S. FTG has a total backlog of CAD 142 million as of Q1 2025, with 89% of that backlog scheduled for the next four quarters. Our focus will be delivering quality products to our customers on time and improving the efficiency of our operations. Our complete set of filings are now available on sedarplus.com. Back to Brad.
Thanks, Jamie. Let me delve into some important items for future FTG, starting with a negative item. Tariffs or threat of tariffs are the new normal, and uncertainty surrounds tariffs each and every day.
This makes it challenging to plan and react, but we are focused on this all day, every day, as it evolves. We have two sites in which are now subject to high U.S. tariffs. For aerospace Tianjin, this should have minimal impact, as the site ships completed product to Canadian and Chinese customers. They ship some components and sub-assemblies to our Toronto site, who then makes the final product for shipment to U.S. customers. None of the work from aerospace Tianjin should attract U.S. tariffs. For our circuit board joint venture, a small amount of work ships directly to the U.S. and will be subject to the high tariff. Over the past five years, they have already been subject to a 25% tariff on their exports to the U.S. They also have work from Canada and Europe that will not be subject to any U.S. tariffs.
Our growth plan for this business is to focus on customers in China, Europe, and Canada, and we're making good progress on all of these plans. As of yesterday, our U.S. sites ship almost exclusively to U.S. customers, so there will not be any tariffs on shipments to customers. As of yesterday, they would have seen tariffs on input costs or raw materials they buy, but as of this morning, those tariffs have been paused for 90 days. The U.S. site at this moment looks like they are not subject to input cost tariffs or tariffs in shipping to customers. In Canada, it's the same situation. The FTG sites are well positioned. They are not subject to any tariffs on input costs, and at this moment, they're not subject to any tariffs on shipments to U.S. customers. As all of FTG products are USMCA compliant.
Every day is a new day, so all this can change at any point in time. As a reminder, we estimate that about CAD 55 million of sales to customers located in the U.S. originate at FTG sites in Canada or China. While we are not exposed to tariffs between Canada and the U.S. at this moment, if they did happen, we do not believe the impact would be immediate. It will take time for the aerospace and defense supply chain to react to tariffs and find alternate sources of supply. We are concerned, and we are taking action to mitigate any impact to FTG. First, our recent acquisitions in the US have reduced our exposure as they are inside the wall and would not be subject to tariffs or unsales.
Going along with this, our long-term strategy to be a global player has resulted in sales inside of North America of over CAD 26 million last year and was almost CAD 12 million in Q1 this year. We are taking additional steps. In 2024, we made a conscious decision to find ways to increase our exposure to Airbus, not because of tariffs, but because they are the stronger performer in the air transport market. Whatever we do in this regard can also help mitigate U.S. tariffs. More recently, we have made a conscious decision to pivot away from the U.S. market for our sites based in Canada and China. Obviously, the focus on Airbus is part of this. Subsequent to year-end, in our first quarter, we announced a significant new contract with De Havilland on their Canadair 515 water bomber aircraft.
This is a Canadian program that we will support from our Toronto facility. We are also looking to become more locally focused by aligning US customers with US manufacturing sites and non-US customers with non-US manufacturing sites. We have identified CAD 4 million-CAD 5 million of revenue for non-US customers being manufactured in the US. We have begun the process of moving this work out of our US sites and thereby potentially freeing up some capacity to move work in the other direction. The acquisition of FLYHT will also help mitigate our exposure to tariffs. FLYHT's largest customer is in Canada, and they sell globally. As we look to insource the manufacturing of FLYHT products, we will do so in a manner to minimize our exposure to tariffs. While on the topic of FLYHT, we acquired it for a couple of key strategic reasons.
First, we have expressed our desire to increase our activity in the high-margin aftermarket segment of our business for a number of years, and the acquisition of Flight does this. Also, as noted, we are looking for ways to increase our activity with Airbus, and Flight has a FATCOM radio that is installed as an option on new Airbus aircraft. They are sold by our licensing agreement, with the average annual volume being 200 units-300 units. Finally, we think the timing on this acquisition could be superb. Flight has spent significant time and money investing in updating products and developing new products, and the bulk of these investments are done. We think we can leverage these investments to generate strong results for the company going forward. Now that we own Flight, we have three key actions. First, we need to reduce costs.
Flight took a significant cost in September of last year, and another CAD 1 million dropped out due to the elimination of their public company costs when we closed our deal. We will manage their costs going forward. Second, we need to sell the new products. This is really the key action now, so let me delve a little deeper into this. There are three products that matter. There's a FATCOM radio that is sold into the aftermarket and licensed for delivery to Airbus as a factory option. For the aftermarket, the product is established and sales are well established and ongoing. This product can be used as a safety backup voice system or can be used to transmit data useful for the airline over the Iridium satellite system. When it is used for airline data over Iridium, Flight gets a recurring revenue stream reselling Iridium data services.
The licensing agreement for Airbus has been in a hiatus for a few years due to a multi-year delivery in 2022, but this is expected to kick back in starting in 2026 and result in a multi-million dollar uptick in revenues when it does. The second product is a Water Vapor Sensing System or WVSS-II. Its purpose is to collect humidity inside of the aircraft as applied and provide this data to weather agencies such as NOAA in the U.S. and UKMET in England and find it useful in weather forecasting. This product was modernized and updated last year. It was in qualification testing when we acquired Flight. We've had a challenge with the accuracy of the unit in tests and have been working with Boeing at their lab and at Flight to resolve this anomaly. The good news is that as of March, it has been resolved.
This has delayed sales in Q1 this year, but there are firm orders from both NOAA and UKMET. These can ship now as we complete FTCs for the relevant aircraft, expected to be ERJs and Boeing 737. Once in service, there's also a data revenue stream associated with this product. The third product is brand new. It's a 5G wireless quick access recorder or WQAR. This product collects data from the aircraft in flight and downloads it to the airline's operations while at the gate using a wireless or cell phone connection. The Flight product is the first 5G WQAR on the market. This product is qualified. The key now is to get approvals to install it on various aircraft types. The aircraft testing required for a Boeing 737 in Canada has been completed, and we expect the Canadian FTC in Q2.
This will then be expanded to Europe and China, which are expected to be the largest markets for this product. Aircraft testing for the A320 family of aircraft is expected to be done in April in Europe. Once complete in Europe, the priority will be to expand this approval to include China. To go along with this, we have the Flight sales team focused on aggressively selling these products as they become available. Finally, our third priority at Flight is to insource the manufacturing to capture this margin within FTG. We are quoting the FATCOM radio product from both our Chatsworth and Toronto sites as we speak. These actions should enable Flight to become a positive addition to FTG and further mitigate the risks from US tariffs. In Q1, Flight did generate a small positive EBITDA in our results.
Also, as announced after our year-end, we are implementing plans to open an aerospace facility in Hyderabad, India. While it was just recently announced, we've been working on these plans throughout 2024. First, our decision to expand geographically was partly us looking for an insurance policy against anything negative happening to our China operations, but it was also partly to expand into a new region with growth potential. As we analyzed options, we concluded India is a very cost-effective place for manufacturing, and with Prime Minister Modi's make in India policy coupled with significant defense spending, it would be an ideal place to operate. We selected Hyderabad as it is an aerospace hub primarily focused on manufacturing, unlike Bangalore, which is more engineering and software focused. Our legal entity in India is established, bank accounts are set up, our first employees are hired.
We have selected to have a facility built to suit due to the favorable location and the option to expand if or when necessary. This decision does mean we'll have to wait for most of 2025 to get our facility completed. In the meantime, we will be sourcing the necessary equipment to be ready to go. Our estimated total investment is approximately CAD 2 million. While not the original intent, we believe this initiative will also help mitigate any negative impacts on U.S. tariffs. Finally, we are developing plans to add sales resources in Canada, Europe, and even Asia to support our pivot away from the U.S. market. This would be for both legacy FTG sites as well as FLYHT. The integration of the sites we acquired in 2023 is substantially complete. We will continue to drive growth and operating performance, but we do this at all our sites.
As noted earlier, the sites are growing on a year-over-year basis. We see opportunities to continue to grow going forward, with our constraint being more how fast we can ramp production rather than finding growth opportunities. As we enter Q2 2025, we see continued strong demand across most sites. Of our CAD 142 million backlog, over CAD 60 million is due in Q2. We are expecting to grow in 2025. The easiest aspect of our growth will be having Flight, the Flight acquisition as part of FTG for over 11 months in the year, but there will be organic growth too. We still expect to see further benefits from the high-value assembly orders first booked in 2023 and more booked in 2024 for our aerospace business. These assemblies go on both Boeing and Airbus aircraft, and we will see the benefit of the COMAC C919 program in China moving into production.
We shipped our first production orders last year, and production will increase through 2025. The geopolitical situation in China remains complex, but in 2024, both our operations in China had another record year. We've repatriated cash back to Canada during 2022, 2023, and 2024, and in total, we've now brought back CAD 3.6 million in cash. By doing this, we don't have surplus cash stranded in China and it reduces our exposure if things ever deteriorated between China and the West. On a more positive note in China, the COMAC C919 program is now in production, and this will benefit our Tianjin operations going forward and make us less susceptible to geopolitical uncertainties. We continue to assess possible corporate development opportunities that could fit with either of our businesses, but our near-term priority is to integrate our recent acquisitions.
With a focus on operational excellence in all parts of FTG, our strong financial performance last year and in Q1 this year, our recent acquisitions, and our key sales win, we are confident we are on a strong long-term growth trajectory. One final note, many people have noticed that we are recruiting for a new CFO. This might be Jamie's last analyst call. It is his decision to retire. We are disappointed to see it, but after just over five years of service at FTG, he's done amazing things for the company. He's helped us get through a cyber attack. He helped us get through the COVID pandemic. He's helped us with financing, both with banks and with government agencies. He's helped us complete three acquisitions, and he's really being a key player in transforming FTG into what it is today.
For sure, I thank him so much for his service. We will miss him, but he's not allowed to go anywhere until we do announce a new CFO. This concludes our presentation. I thank you all for your attention. I'd now like to open the phones for your questions. Joelle.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press star followed by the one on your touch-tone phone. You will hear a prompt that your hands have been raised. Should you wish to decline from the polling process, please press star followed by the two. If you are using a speakerphone, please put the hands up before pressing any keys. One moment, please, for your first question. Your first question comes from Steve Hansen with Raymond James. Your line is now open.
Yeah, good morning, guys.
Thanks for the time. Brad, question for you on the U.S. I understand the tariff shifting that you're undertaking. Are there also opportunities that the tariffs present for your U.S. facilities if other sites might be importing product into the U.S.? That might be a challenge now. Is there opportunities to go after there domestically?
Yeah. Again, every day is a new day, but depending on where the competitors are, what country they're in outside the U.S., tariff rates are different. For sure, it can create opportunities for the U.S. sites, but as of this morning, tariffs are paused, so that benefit has gone away for the moment. If it comes back, I would say generally the U.S. sites would benefit against competitors in any area or country with one of the higher tariff rates.
Understood.
The opportunity that you described with De Havilland, the more recent one, is interesting. It sounds like they've also had a new avionics suite that they're looking to upgrade in the Dash 8. Is that something that could also be an opportunity? I'm thinking of other opportunities domestically here in Canada.
Yes, definitely. De Havilland is an evolving company. I think they have some pretty aggressive growth objectives. We've been doing business with them or parts that have rolled into De Havilland over the last number of years. I think we have a pretty good relationship with them. I think any time they are looking at new programs, new upgrades, it creates an opportunity for us. It's not a guarantee, but it creates an opportunity.
Sure.
On the aerospace side specifically, not to get too much into the weeds, you described you had an incremental tailwind from the [StrikeComp] last year, and you also had some new incremental business from Flight. Was there something that also got missed out? Because it looks like, or it's something that slipped away, it looks like organic growth there might have been lower if I just take the additions of the CAD 3 million on the [StrikeComp]. I'm trying to understand if there's something underneath there that also slipped away.
Yeah, organic management has slipped away, but I would say there's definitely some, I guess, never-ending timing challenges within that business, primarily around our supply chain components and that. We're also in the midst of, we have a significant program where we're doing eight different box assemblies for cockpits that go on Boeing and Airbus aircraft.
It's been a challenging program due to our customer or their customer. Of the eight assemblies, one of them has moved to production. The other seven have been delayed. For sure, those things have also impacted the aerospace business on a short-term basis. One day we will get through that, and you'll see the benefits.
Understood. That's helpful. I'll turn back in the queue. Thanks.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from Russell Stanley with Beacon. Your line is now open.
Hello, good morning, and congrats on the quarter. Maybe first, if I could ask around China and the COMAC C919 program. It sounds like COMAC wants to really accelerate the ramp here. I'm just wondering if you can talk to how the ramp-up of production and sales compares to your expectations. Are you tracking ahead or in line? Any color on that would be helpful. Thanks.
Yeah.
I mean, the ramp from the customer from COMAC is strong, is really strong. Last year, we shipped, I don't know, 15 or so ship sets. They want us to ship 70-80 ship sets this year. It's a big number. It's a huge ramp. It's a challenge for us. In the midst of that, we're trying to move our production from Toronto to Tianjin, which is where it will stay long-term. Yeah, the demand from the customer has been huge. The ramp is fast, and they want to go beyond that. Our struggle is going to be how to keep up with their demand.
Thanks on that. Maybe understanding the near-term priority is still integration of FLYHT and looking ahead and the resumption of M&A. Just wondering your latest thoughts around Europe.
Seeing some really encouraging news there as far as potential for defense spending and more aggressive activity. I'm wondering what your latest thoughts are on that market as potentially being a target.
Yeah, it's definitely a target for M&A at some point. It's on the list. For either business, either on the circuit side of things or on the software product side of things. It's twofold. One reason we're interested in Europe and a footprint in Europe is to increase our activity with Airbus, so it's on the commercial aerospace side. The other reason is what you just said. If you look at Europe as an entity, the European defense market is definitely the second largest defense market in the world, and they are definitely looking to ramp their spending. It's an opportunity. It's attractive to us.
We would love to find the right deal to pull the trigger and go. Nothing's on the table at this point, but it's definitely something we are trying to find a way to move forward with.
Okay. Maybe one last question for me. Just around margins, the growth for EBITDA was an excellent quarter. I think well ahead of what we had. Just wondering if there's anything in the quarter you would call out as being unsustainable, looking ahead to the rest of 2025.
Yeah. I think Jamie talked to one item, which was we had, in our transition of banks, we had to basically cancel out or close the gold hedges we had, and that gave us about CAD 500,000 pickup in the quarter. Other than that, I think it was pretty clean. I don't know. Jamie, do you have other items?
Russell, I guess I'd also point to the FX game. Those FX gains and losses come and go based on exchange rates. Nothing has happened yet in terms of a real change in rates, but a repeat of that would not be likely.
Got it. That's helpful. Congrats again. I'll get back in the queue.
Thanks, bud.
Your next question comes from Nick Corcoran with Acumen. Your line is now open.
Good morning, guys. Congrats on the great quarter.
Thanks.
Just a couple of questions for me. The first is the backlog saw a pretty strong uptick in the quarter. Any details on what drove that and maybe more specifically how much was in the De Havilland contract?
Yeah. I guess what drove the growth in the backlog? Two things come to mind. First one is the acquisition of FLYHT.
Flight did come with a backlog, and I'd say that was something on the order of CAD 8 million or in that range. That got added in the backlog. Definitely, the De Havilland contract also was significant. Got added in the backlog. It was on the order of about CAD 6 million. Other than that, it's just strong demand in all our markets was still just everywhere. That also just drives the backlog up.
Great. I think you mentioned that CAD 60 million is deliverable in the second quarter. Any indication of what constraints might be to achieving that full number?
Yeah. Lots of constraints. We deal with every day. That's what we do. Some of the stuff I talked about a moment ago.
We still need to get through some customer approvals on some of the cockpit box assemblies we are trying to get out the door. There are customer approvals needed on that. Supply chain challenges. We have our challenges that other people in the industry have. You need 100% of all your components to be able to ship product. Even if you get to 99%, it does not matter. There are the supply chain challenges. It is just ramping. Generally, to ramp, we need to add people. Adding people is doable, but adding people and getting them to the point where they are contributing and adding to the throughput does not happen instantaneously. The day someone new walks in the door is not the day they start to contribute.
There is a multi-month process to bring people up to speed, get them trained, and add in value. That is also a constraint in our ability to ramp to support the backlog.
That's helpful. Maybe one last question for me, just on tariffs. Right now, it looks like 10% tariffs across the board is kind of the status quo in the U.S. How much of that can you pass through?
Stand by. I don't know. It depends on how it works, right? When we're shipping, the customer is paying the tariff directly, and those are automatic. If the tariff is on input costs, we are definitely absorbing that cost. How much of that we can pass through, I don't know yet because we haven't had to pass any on as of this moment.
Our goal is definitely to pass those costs on dollar for dollar wherever we can.
That's great, Callaway. Thanks for taking my question.
Thanks, Nick.
Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, should you have a question, please press star one. Your next question comes from Steve Hanson with Raymond James. Your line is now open.
Yeah. Thanks, Nick. Just to follow up on cadence of deliveries for your customers. Boeing had some really strong deliveries last month, I believe, just 40 aircraft or so. How much of an inventory would they carry in advance? In other words, if they announced a production rate increase next month, is that something they would have already accounted for and pulled forward, or would that sort of step change your orders in tandem? How much of a lead lag is there around those deliveries versus your own production?
There is a lag, and it's a relatively significant lag between them shipping more aircraft and when they hit the supply chain. The supply chain typically is going to see that increase a lot sooner than Boeing in terms of their deliveries. There are two things going on there as well. It's a really weird situation at Boeing right now that they have a number of aircraft in inventory, and in some cases, they're missing a component or two. They have the same challenges we have. There are scenarios where you can see an uptick in their month-to-month deliveries that's not really impacting positively or negatively on the supply chain like us. Generally speaking, I would say we would see an increase at least six months before Boeing would report an increase in deliveries to their customer. At least six months.
That makes sense.
Appreciate it, [caller]. Thanks.
Thanks, Nick.
There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call over to Brad for closing remarks.
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