Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Martinrea International First Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Mr. Rob Wildeboer. Please go ahead.
Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining today. We always look forward to talking to our shareholders, updating you on our business, answering your questions. We also note that we have other stakeholders, including many of our employees on the call, and our remarks will be addressed to them as well as we disseminate our results and commentary to our network. With me this evening are Pat D'Eramo, Martinrea's CEO, our President, Fred Di Tosto, and our CFO, Peter Cirulis. Today, we will be discussing Martinrea's results for the first quarter ending March 31, 2026. I refer you to our usual disclaimer in our press release and our filed documents. On this call, Pat will discuss operations and outline some key highlights for the quarter. Fred will provide an overview of our operating segments and highlights of new business wins and growth opportunities.
Peter will discuss financials and 2026 outlook, and I will conclude with some comments on trade, geopolitics, and capital allocation. To kick things off, here's Pat.
Thanks, Rob. Good evening, everyone. Before I comment on the quarter, I wanna take a moment and highlight what makes our company unique. Simply put, we're great operators. Many of our plants are some of the best plants I've ever seen in my time in the auto industry. This is demonstrated in our results with our margin profile at the upper end of our peer group. We have industry-leading safety record, and our employee survey results demonstrate that our employees believe that this is a great place to work. Our customers view us as trusted partners with a great reputation for delivery and quality, as evidenced by many supplier awards that we have won, including the GM Supplier of the Year award. These outcomes reflect disciplined execution across the organization, not one-time benefits. Innovation at Martinrea is practical and execution-driven.
Many initiatives originate on the plant floor and are scaled across the network. Our advanced manufacturing team continues to deploy machine learning solutions such as adaptive welding, press health monitoring, and vision systems, with PolyML providing the core intelligence behind these solutions. We're scaling these solutions across multiple facilities and making good progress. These initiatives are contributing to improved operating efficiency and our margin profile. We are also applying advanced manufacturing selectively to core product categories. We recently won an award at an additive manufacturing trade show called RAPID + TCT, which took place in Boston earlier this month, for a product that we designed in partnership with Equispheres. It's essentially a heat exchanger that is 3D printed into an electric motor housing. This is a great example of innovation taking place in Martinrea Innovation Development that is strategic to our core business with direct applications to existing products.
Another example is a new business we call TruNorth Kaizen , which we kicked off at the beginning of this year. 11 years ago, lean manufacturing was introduced as one of our key strategies to improve our operations and ultimately the bottom line. Recall that prior to the pandemic, this initiative was key in driving our adjusted operating income margin from 4% to just under 8%. I remember I was asked on one of my early earnings calls, "How long will this lean thing take to implement?" I replied, "About 10 years to become embedded in our culture." Part of the process was to bring expertise from my days at Toyota. Recall, I was VP of manufacturing at Toyota's largest plant before I moved to the supplier side.
I worked with many colleagues at Toyota that had been at the company for 20, 30 years and that I developed a great appreciation for the Toyota Production System. We brought this skill set over to Martinrea in 2015, as well as very strong subject matter experts. For the last 11 years, lean has become the standard operating procedure across the organization. We're well advanced on our lean journey. We call it MOS, the Martinrea Operating System. It is so well integrated into our plants that I can say with confidence that our operations are as good as or better than any supplier in our space. So what's the so what?
About a year ago, a supplier came to us and asked if we would be willing to share our expertise because they were struggling to keep up with their customer, which was also a customer of ours, albeit a smaller one at the time. Long story short, after creating a roadmap and with the customer's blessing, the supplier asked us if we would acquire the operation and fix it as opposed to helping them fix it. That operation was Lyseon North America, now known as Martinrea Tulsa. In a matter of months, we have gone from a seven-day operation on four shifts to a five-day operation on three shifts. We improved throughput by 32% in this timeframe. While we were at it, we consolidated the footprint and have made 50% of the plant available for future business. Further improvements are continuing.
We recognize we're pretty good at this, and we no longer rely on past Toyota employees to teach the masses. The masses have developed the internal capability to continuously perpetuate lean at Martinrea. The maturation of this process has allowed us to establish a lean consultancy for customers outside of Martinrea. We call it Tru North Kaizen. Almost immediately, we won our first contract with Vaupell, a U.S.-based supplier of complex high-performance components, primarily for the aerospace industry. More recently, we were able to land a significant job with a large aerospace defense company in the U.S. focused on increasing throughput of a key product. The good news here is that the new business will add to our bottom line in the first year. We are also confident that our success in this area could ultimately give us the inside track to manufacture aerospace or defense-related products in North America.
I'm truly excited about the prospects of this business, and I believe that with our strong track record of execution, we will be able to create significant value for our shareholders over the long haul. Now on to the quarter. We're pleased with our performance in Q1, both operationally and financially. Adjusted operating income margin was up year-over-year despite lower production sales as we continue to drive operating improvements throughout the organization. Our first quarter results were a nice improvement over Q4, with adjusted operating income margin almost a 1 percentage point higher. We spoke on the last call about some commercial settlements that we are expecting to fall in the first half of this year. Discussions with our customer are advanced, and we expect to close these in Q2. We continue to successfully navigate through the impact of tariffs on our business.
As we said before, the vast majority of our parts that we export from Canada or Mexico into the United States are complying with the terms of the USMCA and therefore are not subject to tariffs. We do have some exposure as it relates to Section 232 tariffs on the derivative steel and aluminum products that affect some of our raw material inputs. The adverse impact is modest and absorbed by our customers or otherwise mitigated. As such, we do not expect any impact on our financial results from recent tariff changes. Overall, we've had a great start to the year, and we remain on track to meet our 2026 outlook. Peter will elaborate on our outlook later in the call. With that, I'd like to end by thanking the Martinrea team for all their hard work and ongoing commitment to make this business better every day.
Now, here's Fred.
Thanks, Pat. Good evening, everyone. As Pat noted, we continue to execute operationally and financially in the face of ongoing industry dynamics pertaining to trade, tariffs, electric vehicle volumes, and the Iran conflict. Again, we are doing very well managing what's in our control and mitigating what isn't in our control through a focus on continuous improvement, overhead cost reduction, leveraging investments in automation and machine learning, and recovery of costs related to tariffs and volume shortfalls and EV programs through commercial settlements with our customers. We have full confidence in our team, and I would like to thank our people for their dedication, hard work in delivering these results. Turning to our segments, starting with North America, Q1 adjusted operating income margin came in at 7.5%, up 50 basis points year-over-year on production sales that were 5% lower.
This demonstrates our success in offsetting lower vehicle production volumes through exceptional operational performance, including efficiency improvements and cost reduction and favorable commercial settlements. We continue to deliver stellar margins in North America, the main growth engine of our business. Europe recorded a CAD 2 million operating loss in the quarter, which was better than Q4 operating results on lower quarter-over-quarter sales. We expect further improvements in the region over time, subject to market volumes. At the current time, as we talked about on the last earnings call, Europe is running at around breakeven, with quarter-to-quarter variability driven primarily by industry volumes, reflecting a volume environment that remains below expectations. At normalized volumes, with the improvements we have made across our European operations, we would be positive in the region.
Historically, we generated adjusted operating income margins in the mid-single-digit range in Europe on average, when production volumes were much higher than they are today. We believe we can get back to those historical margin levels in an improved volume environment, particularly given the operating improvements and restructuring actions we have taken. Our strategy in Europe remains disciplined. We are not pursuing growth for the sake of growth, and we are focused on managing costs, capital, and risk. While the return to historical margin levels and improved industry volumes will take some time, we remain comfortable with our footprint in the region.
It's also important to understand that for us, it is key to have a presence in Europe, especially in Germany, as it is a center of excellence for design and engineering, which supports our ability to win business with our German OEM customers, including for our North American operations. You may have noticed that we have won a considerable amount of new work for BMW recently, some of which is for our North American operations. This type of result is difficult to achieve without a presence or capabilities in Germany. Our Rest of World segment posted positive operating income in the first quarter, lower year-over-year on lower sales and reflecting a lower level of favorable commercial settlements. As I have stated before, this segment is small, representing less than 3% of our consolidated sales, and results can vary quarter-to-quarter.
Our strategy in this region is to maintain only the footprint required to support our global business. Moving on, I'm very pleased to announce that we have been awarded new business worth CAD 90 million in annualized sales and mature volumes, consisting of various structural components in our Lightweight Structures commercial group with General Motors and BMW. New business awards during the last 12 months totaled CAD 370 million. As noted on previous calls, we are quoting a lot of business at the moment. We feel like we have some good momentum in this area. We have also recently won a lot of work on program extensions with various customers with a value exceeding well over CAD 1 billion in annualized sales and mature volumes.
Extensions are good for our business, generally requiring less capital for the same amount of volume compared to new programs, supporting our sales margin and free cash flow outlook. Of the CAD 370 million in new business we have won over the last year, approximately CAD 150 million reflects takeover work we have secured from financially troubled or underperforming suppliers, largely in our Lightweight Structures commercial group. This reflects the confidence our customers place in us based on our track record for quality, on-time delivery, and innovation, as well as our strong financial position and balance sheet. Based on this momentum, we expect a strong 2026 in new business awards, which will largely start launching in 2027 and 2028. OEMs localizing or onshoring production to North America is a meaningful opportunity for us that we are already benefiting from.
In one example, we've been awarded additional volumes on a vehicle destined for sale in the U.S. market that was being produced in both the U.S. and abroad. The customer decided to localize a portion of the volume to the U.S., which has enabled us to fully utilize our assets dedicated to that program. We're having discussions with other customers on potential onshoring of production, including with Asian-based OEMs, and we will be there to service them if and when as needed. On that note, I would like to highlight that our customer exposure has become increasingly diversified in recent years. In 2018, the Detroit Three OEMs accounted for just over 70% of our sales, whereas today, that number is just under 60%. We did this by increasing our book of business with non-North American OEMs, particularly with Mercedes-Benz.
We have also grown rapidly with Asian-based OEMs, including Toyota, where we see opportunities to further increase our penetration. Thank you for your time. I will now turn it over to Peter to discuss our financial results and outlook in more detail.
Thanks, Fred. I'll start with a quick scorecard. In quarter one, free cash flow was negative CAD 35.2 million due to seasonal working capital flows. We repurchased CAD 11 million worth of stock, equal to approximately 1.5% of the company's outstanding shares, and net debt to EBITDA ended the quarter at 1.6%. Importantly, we are reaffirming our 2026 free cash flow outlook of CAD 125 million-CAD 175 million and our overall 2026 guidance. We generated a record level of free cash flow in 2025 at just under CAD 200 million, and we delivered a consistently high level of free cash flow in the CAD 150 million-CAD 200 million range in each of the last three years.
Our track record as a solid cash-generating business is well established at this point, and we expect that to continue. Let me walk you through the puts and takes for the quarter. Operationally, quarter one reflected solid margin performance on lower production sales. This shows continued execution progress consistent with our full-year objectives. Quarter one adjusted operating income was CAD 61.6 million, consistent with quarter one of last year on production sales that were down roughly 4%. This largely reflected the end of the Ford Escape program, partially offset by sales from the Lyseon acquisition, now Martinrea Tulsa. Adjusted operating income margin came in at 5.5%, up 20 basis points year-over-year, driven by higher margins in North America, reflecting continued operating improvements. Quarter-over-quarter, adjusted operating income margin improved by 90 basis points.
We overcame the sales headwind through operating efficiencies, lower depreciation from the quarter four impairment, lower equity-based compensation expense, and some favorable mix. Adjusted net earnings per share were CAD 0.45, up from CAD 0.41 in quarter one 2025. This reflects the sales and margin drivers discussed, plus lower finance expense from lower debt and interest rates, a lower net foreign exchange loss, and a modestly lower effective tax rate. The drivers are straightforward. Execution is holding margins, working capital unwinds through the year, and we're maintaining capital discipline while funding launches. Turning to our outlook, introduced on the last call, 2026 continues to be about strong operational execution in a relatively flat market.
We are reaffirming our full year 2026 guidance, sales of CAD 4.5 billion-CAD 4.9 billion, adjusted operating income margin of 5.5%-6% and free cash flow of CAD 125 million-CAD 175 million. Our outlook assumes a modest decline in sales compared to 2025, reflecting the end of the Ford Escape program and lower tooling sales. It does not incorporate possible downsides from a protected Iran conflict. Our focus remains consistent execution and free cash flow generation through cycles based upon the elements of the business that are within our control. At the midpoint, adjusted operating income margin is higher than 2025. The flow-through impact of lower production sales is offset by continued operating improvements, including investments in automation and machine learning and ongoing commercial recoveries for EV volume shortfalls in North America and Europe.
Free cash flow remains strong and assumes CapEx of about CAD 300 million, higher than last year, given substantial new business awards and certain capital items that shifted from quarter four 2025 into 2026. Looking at the quarter, our quarter one margin performance was solid in a tepid volume environment. In quarter two, we are seeing softer EV volumes and a temporary margin headwind from higher aluminum costs related to the Iran conflict. Our aluminum contracts include pricing passthrough with an approximately 90-day lag, so the margin impact is timing related and resets as the passthrough catches up. Overall, we are well-positioned to deliver on our 2026 outlook, and we are reaffirming our guidance. Looking beyond this year, we see meaningful organic growth opportunities consistent with our 2028 outlook.
We plan to further diversify our customer base with European and Asian customers in North America and increase penetration in commercial vehicles. On the path to 6.5%- 7% margin, expansion is driven by increased sales, scaled use of AI on the shop floor, MOS, and vertical integration projects. With that, I turn you now back over to Rob.
Thanks, Peter. On the last call, I spent some time on share price and company performance. I expressed optimism for both, especially as we finalize trade discussions with the U.S. I noted that we are in a good position. Tariff impacts will be very limited. We had very little exposure in terms of parts shipments to Canadian assembly plants. Less than 3% of our shipments in our auto business go there. Indeed, as we sit here today, our stock price is up considerably from where it was a year ago when tariff concerns were at their highest. I also talked about the Iran conflict, which is affecting energy prices and could affect vehicle sales, but we have not seen any meaningful impact on volumes. People still need vehicles and parts for them. Now let's talk about longer-term performance.
This chart shows how we stack up today on some key metrics versus where we were in 2014, prior to embarking on our Martinrea 2.0 journey. The 2020s has been a tumultuous time for our industry, including COVID, chip and other supply shortages, inflation, the EV volume flop, and so on. Our company, with Pat leading us and our team working very hard, has performed well on virtually every financial metric. Since 2014, sales are up more than CAD 1.2 billion, or about 30%. That growth in sales alone would put a supplier in the top 100 in North America. Adjusted operating income is up more than 80%. Adjusted operating income margin was up significantly pre the pandemic, and today is much higher than it was then. Adjusted EBITDA is up considerably.
As Peter has mentioned, we have become a consistent free cash flow generator. Our balance sheet has strengthened considerably on a Net Debt to EBITDA basis. We've repurchased over 16% of our company's shares, rewarding our shareholders with a higher percentage of ownership in our company without writing a check. Our book value per share has more than tripled. All positive numbers and trends. I believe all this positivity will be reflected in a higher valuation and share price eventually. Financial performance means something, all driven by the excellent work of our employees. As this chart shows, it's clear there is significant embedded value in the stock. At 4x enterprise value at EBITDA, this company would be a CAD 20-plus stock. On a discounted cash flow analysis, the value is higher.
I do believe we will work through the USMCA renewal. Our continued improving performance heading into our 2028 guidance will reward shareholders, which include all the executives and many employees of our company. Now let's turn to capital allocation. Our framework is shown on this slide. We've consistently followed it over the years, as I will show you on the next slide. First, to be profitable and sustainable for long term, you have to invest in your business. Over the past decade, we have grown organically with some tuck-in acquisition activity. Some of our recent growth includes takeover work, as Fred noted. As a result, we are extremely well perceived as a supplier in our industry. As Pat noted, we are better operators today than we were in the early days.
We have not made any large acquisitions, have invested in our footprint and frankly, brought up to high standard a number of the plants we acquired over the years. As our history shows, we've been very good at buying distressed assets and fixing them up. We have also invested in R&D and made some strategic investments. We are not a venture capitalist. We invest in relationships that make us more competitive and that bring us something, graphene being one example. Additive manufacturing using Equispheres powder being another. We bring them something too, maybe a customer relationship, expertise in scaling up, or customer access. Remember, we were a startup at one time and still have a highly entrepreneurial culture.
Our focus on improving operations and the use of leading-edge technology in our business has brought us opportunities through consulting, as Pat mentioned, as well as a software business in MiNDCAN that was originally focused on developing internal software solutions and is now marketing these solutions to external parties. These investments have led to better operational performance and are paying off. Second, we maintain a strong balance sheet. This is paramount and something we will never compromise on. It's important to our customers and enables us to win takeover business from other suppliers and take advantage of opportunities when they come along. This is a business that fluctuates, and you want to be able to be nimble as we are. We have seen many competitors lose the value of their equity over the years by being over-leveraged. Third, we return capital to shareholders.
As noted above, we bought back over 16% of our company in the past decade or so and 1.5% this year to date. We have paid a consistent dividend for years. This chart is interesting as it shows how we deployed our free cash flow over the past three years and illustrates what has been a consistent and prudent approach. As Peter noted, we are now a consistent free cash flow producer. We generated close to CAD 600 million in free cash flow in the last three years. We have reduced Net Debt by over CAD 200 million in that timeframe, strengthening our balance sheet in some trying times, as you know. We have repurchased approximately CAD 100 million of our shares, representing 12% of the company's outstanding shares. We have paid CAD 45 million in dividends. That is a balanced approach.
Our shareholders vary in their views on how to spend the cash, as I am sure you can appreciate, but we talk to them and listen to them. There are a variety of views. Where are we today? We are investing in the business. Peter talked about capital expenditures, and you have our outlook for this year into 2028. We're a growth story. We have to invest to grow in a prudent and profitable manner. We intend to maintain leverage within our target of 1.5x Net Debt to EBITDA, and we will be buying back shares. As noted, we bought back 1.5% of our equity last month. We intend to be active on our Normal Course Issuer Bid next week.
We will renew our Normal Course Issuer Bid to buy 10% of our float over the next year, and we intend to be quite active on it, given what I just said about value and the tariff discussions. On the latter point, recall we are a major U.S. supplier of parts, and in that country, the administration is trying to help us. In terms of capital allocation, we are involved in some asset dispositions that will generate some cash to fund our business and other capital priorities. For example, we are in the process of selling a majority stake in our fluids plant in China to a partner that will bring in some cash, allowing us to reduce our spending there.
We see some other opportunities that I will not talk about just now, but we will of course do so when appropriate, which will bring in cash, which we will deploy appropriately. My last slide is on trade and tariffs. I won't say much, but we're open to questions. As I have said consistently, things are working out pretty well for us as a supplier. No tariffs on parts which make little sense in North America. We will work on removing tariffs on North American assembled vehicles, which makes sense to us. North American rules of origin requirements are good for us. Tariffs on vehicles assembled outside North America encourages more assembly in North America, which is good for us. I think it's important to restrict Chinese vehicles and parts. The U.S. wants to preserve and enhance its automotive assembly and parts industries. That is a good thing.
I will end with this. We are heavily involved in the discussions, not just in Canada, but in Mexico and the U.S. We are in the room, so to speak, with the negotiators, and I think our industry is getting aligned to our way of thinking. Now it's time for questions. We have shareholders, analysts, employees, even some competitors on the phone. Welcome. We may need to be a little bit careful with our comments, but we will answer what we can. Thank you all for calling in.
All right, thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star followed by the number two. One moment please for your first question. Your first question comes from the line of Ty Collin with CIBC. Please go ahead.
Hey, good evening, everyone. Thanks for taking the question.
Good evening.
Hey, good evening. Maybe just to start off, I want to circle back around to the discussion around the Iran war and impacts there. You know, I appreciate the comments, but you haven't seen any impact to volumes at this point, and there's a bit of an impact on aluminum. Are there any other areas of cost pressure that you're seeing at this point, whether that's energy cost, resins, any other sort of petroleum derivative products? If you aren't seeing those today, how should we think about the risks if the conflict continues to drag on and how that can evolve?
Sure. Thanks, Ty. It's Peter. To answer your first part of your question, we don't see the impacts at the moment in Q1, but we would start to see them as the conflict is protracted or would be protracted. You could think about it in a way that it's mostly energy costs from Europe, right. Our big products of aluminum are produced there primarily. Those vary in energy intensive. For natural gas, and for electricity, we would see that we would imagine those to go up
As they did several years ago during the Ukraine war as well. As you probably know, we have most of those energy inputs hedged roughly around 70% or so. Depending on volumes, how they, let's say, matriculate the rest of the year, you may see a tail-end effect if the conflict is protracted through the next, let's say, several quarters. For the most part, we're hedged. Again, there will be a tail effect depending on how volume moves. Primarily Europe-based. Not North America, we would maybe see if, again, if it goes up, would be we probably seeing some diesel price going up on trucking costs, but it's an indirect impact to us.
Okay.
Let's say another way to think, maybe another one more item just to tell you about. You know, we did talk about aluminum in our comments. Right now, we don't see that much of an impact in it. As you know, as I mentioned, we've got a lag effect, so if the prices go up, we'll see that temporarily until the price resets, anywhere from one month to three months, depending on the type of contract we have with the customer. Corollary to that, if the price goes down dramatically, then we would see a benefit in the short term, and then it would normalize to price meets the cost.
Okay, that's helpful. To the extent that you do end up having to absorb some higher energy costs in Europe, for example, what's your level of confidence that you'd be able to pass those along to your customers or otherwise mitigate them?
Yeah, I think we would. We've had cooperative situation, like I said, during the Ukraine conflict. We had different types of arrangements with the customers. They don't do it immediately. The conflict would have to be well protracted for us to get into those types of commercial discussions. I would use, you know, history as a guide, and we were successful at that time, and I would imagine that would be the same.
Okay, great. If I could just sneak one more in. Yeah, Peter, I appreciate the, you know, some of the details and puts and takes you gave on Q2 margins. I'm just wondering if you could help us think about how we should think about Q2 margin on a year-over-year basis, and how should we think about the impact of the commercial settlement that you're expecting to close in the quarter. I don't know that I heard you mention that as one of the moving pieces there.
Yeah. Pat mentioned the near closure of that commercial event. I won't mention it specifically as it's still not completely closed, and we wouldn't disclose our negotiation to that level of granularity. What I can help you with is how to shape it up in terms of the movements here going forward. Roughly in the year for a full year guidance, the first half is more or less the same as the second half in the terms of the profile. You'd probably see a, what I would call it, like a mountain effect. It starts off a little bit lower in the first quarter and builds up in the second and third, and then comes back down seasonally in the fourth.
I know that we haven't seen that type of pattern in a while, but that's the way it looks currently, minus, let's say, any protracted effect from the Iran conflict. I would expect similar to, not a number that's similar, but, let's say directionally, a good quarter in the second quarter.
Okay. That's really helpful.
I would say similar to last year, Tamy Chen. If you recall, last year, quarter two was quite good for us.
Okay, great. That's helpful. Thanks. I'll pass the line. Thanks.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Michael Glen with Raymond James. Please go ahead.
Hey, maybe, Rob, you touched on the trade dynamic. What do you think about any sort of risk that auto parts lose their exemption from the cross-border trade situation?
I don't think that's gonna happen. I was in the White House a few days after the original announcement, February 8th. I was there with Kevin Hassett, I said, "You realize that if you put tariffs on auto parts, you shut down the industry within a week, don't you?" He says, "No." Why would that be? I said, "Because what happens is the tier two and three guys don't ship, and that's the way it is, and that's the view in auto." When I was in Washington in April, I met with Scott Bessent. He's a very smart guy.
We went over the context of USMCA, and he said to a room full of Canadian CEOs, "We have come to the conclusion that tariffs on auto parts is a really bad idea." I agree with him because it is a really bad idea. I don't think we're gonna see tariffs on parts.
Okay. Then circling in, on the commentary surrounding the Chinese OEMs, are you at all have you looked at or have you looked to align with any of the JVs or partnerships that have maybe been suggested with respect to Chinese OEMs entering different parts of North America?
Now, a few comments. First thing is, we have some very good relationships with different Chinese entities. We talk about the sale of Anting. We're actually taking a minority position with someone that will be the majority partner, someone that we've worked with in the past. That, that process is going through an escrow release and all that type of stuff. It's amazing. It's amazing how a sales process works in China. Anyway, we're working on it. And we have Chinese OEM customers and so forth. With respect to the setup of Chinese companies in North America, I'd refer you to some of the stuff that's happening in the U.S., in the Congress and in a number of presentations that are made just in the last week.
Congress just sent a letter to USTR essentially saying that the U.S. position should be to keep OEMs and suppliers out of the United States. That discussion has turned into one that in the context of the USMCA discussions, Mexico and Canada should align with the American perspective with the United States. That's the background there. I think it's a fluid situation. And I think it unlikely we're gonna, for example, see a Chinese OEM set up in Canada. At the same time, we do talk with people from time to time and if something makes sense, we'll do it. Those discussions and so forth are of course confidential and if as and when we get stuff like winning contracts, we announce them every quarter.
Okay. Just on the European outlook, in terms of production coming back to a normalized level, I'm just trying to. As you're much closer to what's happening in the European auto market than I am, like, with the level of Chinese competition being faced there, do you think that that is? Is that an aggressive assumption that some of the, like, the legacy OEMs will get themselves back to those, call it normal production levels?
From my perspective, I don't think that's an unreasonable view, just given our customer base and, and mix. I think you gotta kinda look at the current situation here. Most of the volume headwinds we're dealing with is on the EV front, right? It's call it more maybe of a mix issue than anything. As that kinda gets rectified and we get into next generation platforms, what we're seeing now is a lot of our German OEMs, one in particular, is moving down to adopting a more flexible approach to their lines. They're building the next platform where they can adapt to the market and build ICE plugins or BEVs off the same lines, which is a smart way to approach it. All right?
As that kinda gets rectified, we do see a scenario where some of our core customers can see a bit of an increase in volumes. Not necessarily a gain in market share per se, but, you know, addressing some of the EV headwinds we're dealing with today.
Michael Glen, to add, this is Peter , to add, another positive aspect to the outlook, let's say in Europe, is somewhat similar to what was happening in the U.S. with some carbon credit and other CO2, let's say, regulations being loosened up for ICE engine vehicles. You know, in the research that we've done in talking to customers, the European Commission, you know, is thinking about overturning what they had planned to, you know, ban combustion engines starting 2035. That, that may be favorable as well, as we've also seen some resurgence in interest for engine block production, not only in North America, but also for some of the smaller hybrid engine blocks, in Europe.
I guess the other thing to add is, you know, to build off the Chinese OEM conversation. You may see a higher probability that they may end up setting up shop in Europe. We're open to doing business with them as well. I mean, we can act as suppliers and participate in that if and when it happens.
We're actually quoted.
Yeah. We do have some activities in Chinese OEMs, and you know, we do have a presence in China, so we have some business there with some of the local OEMs. The reason that is, you know, starting points to engage in conversations in other parts of the world, namely in Europe.
Okay. Just my last question is, can you help me understand exactly that the cash adjustment on the balance sheet for the year-end cash balance? Does that adjustment fall into other parts of the balance sheet? I'm just trying to understand some of the accounting that underlies that.
Yeah, sure. It's an amendment to the IFRS 7 and 9 accounting regulations. What it technically does is it regulates recognition and derecognition of your assets and liabilities. In our case, what that means is when there is a deposit in transit, it was, in the past, counted as cash on, let's say, a day 1. Now that's refined wording is prohibited. Instead of realizing the cash when the button is pressed, you have to realize it when it's settled in your bank. It affects all electronic transfers. That's mostly on the, I call it the receivable side for us when we receive money for payment of product from the customer. It also applies to payments.
When we press the button to pay our suppliers, that wouldn't be considered a payment or a let's say a release of cash. We would keep that on our balance sheet as well. The up and the down of that is roughly CAD 44 million beginning cash balance for 2026. It primarily is there in the beginning cash balance. The other effect, albeit modest, is also on our adjusted net debt calculation. It takes the factor to a 1.6, which is what we show. Without that IFRS 9 accounting adjustment, that would have been more close to 1.53. About 7 basis points is what you would expect.
This accounting refinement has always been out there, shown actually on our page 6 of financial statements. It was announced back in 2024, effective for everyone under IFRS accounting standards to take effect January 1 of this year. We're not exempt or we're not special when regarding that accounting change. We're in the same boat as everybody else.
That's a fascinating analysis.
Thank you, Rob.
Thanks.
Very detailed.
Wow.
Good job.
Wanted to understand it.
It's true.
I got this.
Now I understand.
All right. I will leave it there.
Any other questions there? Okay.
All right. Thanks.
Thanks, Michael.
Thank you. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from the line of Brian Morrison with TD Cowen. Please go ahead.
Good evening. My question maybe for Rob.
Hey, Brian.
Hey, guys. The shift back to ICE and hybrid that's taking place right now, I assume that has some benefits for you. Are you seeing a resurgence in things like engine demand? Are you one of the few suppliers that can accommodate that? When it comes to heightened RFPs, are you seeing this because you have spare capacity to accommodate or because of your lightweight capabilities or both?
I appreciate the question and a good question. There's quite a bit of quoting activity. I think a lot of it, you know. Let me back up. Some of it is takeover in nature, there are some troubled suppliers out there, suppliers that are maybe underperforming. Maybe there's some commercial stress in the system as well. Creating a number of opportunities for us. We do have some capacity just given some of the EV volumes and so forth. We're aligned nicely there to take advantage of some of those opportunities. You're right. I mean, a lot of the work we're winning is on the structure side of the business, our lightweighting strategy fits in really nicely there.
With that said, though, we are, as you know, seeing a bit of resurgence on the engine block front. With the EV transition not evolving as expected, a lot of our core customers are, you know, turning towards their engine programs and either extending them or even going on path of designing some new engines and so forth, just to kind of adapt to the market. You know, we've been open for business on that front over the years. We continue to invest in it. We see it as a very good business. We're really good at it. We're one of the few companies that can help in these situations with our customers.
We're actually engaged in a lot of fronts there. You know, we're seeing a lot of opportunities there. We'll see how that kind of plays out. We're aligned nicely to take advantage of this change, I guess, this shift to ICE vehicles.
You think three years back, there were almost no new engine programs anywhere in the world, and a number of OEMs had actually said they're not going to be in engines any longer after X year. That has all completely changed. Almost every OEM has a new engine program someplace in their portfolio.
That's what I thought, Pat. That's why I asked that. Thank you. I guess you do mention you have spare capacity. I'm curious with the decline in the, or pardon me, the discontinuation of the Escape, is the Kentucky facility, is that what you would call capacity for operations, or would that be surplus capacity for sale?
We're not gonna get into a lot of detail there, so there's a lot of discussions going on about that. You know, there's always different options to address that situation. Right now, that plant is sitting idle. We got a little bit of business in there, and we're just kinda weighing our options in terms of what to do as next steps.
Yeah.
Okay.
If you wanna take a look at when you think about open capacity, you know, company-wide or throughout the industry, a lot of it's really driven from EV capital that's underutilized. A lot of that capital, certainly in our case, you can convert to ICE or hybrid. I think you have a number of companies that have that capability, including us.
Right. I guess where I'm going with this is Rob's out there touting your valuation discount, and I'm curious what you think the value of your own real estate is.
Yeah, we did some assessments of that. What was it? CAD 400 million or so?
Yeah, hundreds of millions of dollars.
Hundred.
A lot higher than our book values, put it that way.
Yeah.
CAD 300 million-CAD 400 million.
About half of our real estate is owned now. We also have very good bank facility that is unsecured. One of the reasons it's unsecured, and your bank's one of the banks, is because they know we have assets, including real estate. It makes for a very flexible credit facility. Yes, there is value in our real estate, in our assets. I think it's the one chart that we put out there showed our book values increased a fair bit as well.
Okay, last question, and I apologize if I didn't see it. I think last quarter you.
Yeah, no problem.
I think last question, you mentioned some 2028 guidance. I think you said a large percentage of it was booked. I assume that nothing's changed on that front with respect to your targets.
No, nothing's changed since the last we spoke, Brian.
Peter
We are quoting heavily.
Booked?
Sorry. Oh, sorry.
No, nothing's changed. No, Brian.
Yeah, I mean, there's still some work to be done to book some of the sales, but you know, we see more than enough opportunity to be able to do that. Just given timing, you know, we're in 26, and as you know, the lead times are two, three years out. You know, a lot of the times, you know, some of the work we're quoting will hit 28 at some point, but a lot of it's probably gonna end up kicking in more so in 29 at this point. Still a little bit of work to be done, but we feel pretty good about the guidance for 28.
Yeah. The other flow there could be about if Brian, if one of the customers delays one of their programs that we've already booked, you know, that would play into the movement that Fred talked about.
I guess because there's distressed opportunities out there, such as the Lyseon, it could potentially come through tuck-in acquisitions as well, correct?
Yes.
Yeah. Those are some of the most attractive ones, frankly. That and you can take over the business with your capacity that was made available through the EV issues. Some of the takeover work we've had, we're actually putting in our current facilities. In fact, the majority of it.
Yeah. Thank you very much.
Great.
Thank you.
I'm showing no further questions at this time. I would like to turn it back to Mr. Rob Wildeboer for closing remarks.
Well, thank you all for spending some time with us. We look forward to the questions, excellent questions, this evening. If you have any more questions, the contact information is in the press release. Any of us, and Neil Forster are available to have discussions with you on anything. Have a great evening.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this now concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.