Greetings. Welcome to the AerSale Corporation Fourth Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are on a listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Jackie Carlon. You may begin.
Good afternoon. I'd like to welcome everyone to AerSale's fourth quarter and full year 2022 earnings call. Conducting the call today are Nick Finazzo, Chief Executive Officer, and Martin Garmendia, Chief Financial Officer. Before we discuss this quarter's results, we want to remind you that all statements made on this call that do not relate to matters of historical fact should be considered forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws, including statements regarding our current expectations for the business and our financial performance. These statements are neither promises nor guarantees, but involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors that may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results.
Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from forward-looking statements are discussed in the Risk Factors section of the company's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December thirty-first, 2022, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, on March seventh, 2023, and its other filings with the SEC. These filings identify and address other important risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events and results to differ materially from those indicated by the forward-looking statements on this call. We'll also refer to non-GAAP measures that we view as important in assessing the performance of our business. A reconciliation of those non-GAAP metrics to the nearest GAAP metric can be found in the earnings presentation materials made available on the Investors section of the AerSale website at ir.aersale.com. With that, I'll turn the call over to Nick Finazzo.
Thank you, Jackie. Good afternoon, thank you for joining our call today. I'll begin with a brief overview of the quarter and year and provide operational updates before turning the call over to Martin to review the numbers in greater detail. By nearly every measure, 2022 was an excellent year for AerSale. We reported record company revenue and made significant progress in the FAA certification of our Enhanced Flight Vision System, AerAware, its subsequent commercialization. Strong operating results were driven by broad market success and strategic execution on our 757 passenger to freighter, which you'll hear me refer to as P2F conversion program, which was well-timed with elevated demand for freighter aircraft.
Our solid financial performance was only achievable due to our unique end-to-end solution, which enabled us to secure the necessary aircraft and perform the conversions in a timely manner to have these aircraft customer ready. The year was also supported by a strengthening commercial recovery, which kept our on-airport MRO facilities at capacity all year and drove demand for our used serviceable material, which you'll hear me refer to as USM parts sales business. Taken together, these factors led to a year-over-year increase in full year revenue of 20% to $408.5 million. GAAP earnings per diluted share was $0.83 with adjusted EBITDA of $87.4 million compared to the prior year GAAP earnings per diluted share of $0.76 with adjusted EBITDA of $89.3 million.
Higher margins in the prior year were almost entirely attributable to CARES Act proceeds of $14.8 million, which were not excluded from our adjusted EBITDA numbers. As such, our underlying business performed at a similar margin level relative to revenue when considering CARES Act funding. As we do every quarter, we believe it's important to remind investors that our financial results are typically uneven quarter-to-quarter, and we advise investors to analyze our performance over a full year based on the patterns of expected feedstock availability and whole asset sales. The pacing of our revenue in 2022 is no exception to this, as the timing of flight equipment sales created a record first half, followed by a lower third quarter. In the fourth quarter, our results included significant flight equipment sales, but to a lesser degree than the prior year period.
Our fourth quarter revenue in 2022 was $95.1 million, including $51.4 million of whole asset sales, compared to $116.8 million in the prior year period, which included $73.1 million of whole asset sales. Fourth quarter earnings per diluted share was $0.17, with adjusted EBITDA of $17.7 million, compared to the prior year period earnings per diluted share of $0.21 with adjusted EBITDA of $28.6 million. Turning to segment performance and beginning with our Asset Management segment. In the fourth quarter, sales were $67.9 million, compared to $93.6 million in the same period in the prior year as a result of lower whole asset sales during the period.
A reduction in aircraft and engine leasing in the quarter also contributed to the decline, partially offset by higher sales of USM material during the period. In the fourth quarter of 2022, we sold six engines and three aircraft, which included one 757 P2F converted aircraft. This compares to the prior year period in which we sold three aircraft and four engines, which included two 757 P2F converted aircraft. The decrease in revenues is due to the decrease in 757 P2F aircraft sales, which command a higher sales price. Looking to the year ahead, we expect another busy year for our 757 P2F conversion program. As Martin will detail in our guidance, we have subcontracted for an additional 12 conversions from multiple providers, of which nine are expected to be completed in 2023 and three in 2024.
Due to contractual delays by one of our conversion providers, the delivery of these aircraft will be more heavily skewed toward the second half of the year. In our USM Parts business, airframe and engine part sales were both up compared to the prior year period, mostly as a result of an improving commercial backdrop. As we look out beyond the next couple of quarters, we expect to continue on this growth trajectory as feedstock availability improves. Overall, in our leasing portfolio, revenue was down compared to the prior year period, mostly as a result of fewer aircraft on lease during the period. Lower aircraft leases were from aircraft that came off lease during the year that we were able to either resell or part out at more attractive economics, which again speaks to our ability to maximize asset return on investment regardless of the discrete sales channel conditions.
These moves focused our leasing activity to short-term engine leasing, where we're able to continue to achieve more attractive high margins. In our TechOps segment, sales increased by 20.8%, driven by greater on-airport MRO availability as we were able to free up capacity by subcontracting 757 P2F conversions to third-party providers. This allowed us to benefit from increased demand for on-airport MRO services. Our landing gear and component MROs improved as a result of increased demand from passenger airlines. Turning to an update on AerAware, I'm pleased to report that we began FAA certification flight testing in February, and so far have successfully completed 2 of 5 stages of flight testing. The third and fourth set of flight tests are scheduled in March, with a final set scheduled in April, subject to FAA staffing and weather.
That notwithstanding, we're now in the red zone with the FAA on achieving our Supplemental Type Certificate, which you'll hear me refer to as STC, which will allow us to begin commercialization of this STC product. I'd like to touch on capital allocation and our plans in 2023 and beyond. We ended the year in an excellent financial position with more than $147 million in cash on our balance sheet and an undrawn $150 million revolving credit facility. We intend to deploy this capital to the highest risk-adjusted returns available to our shareholders, which in our case generally falls within 2 categories: aircraft feedstock acquisitions and capability enhancements. 2022 was a challenging year regarding the availability of properly priced aircraft feedstock.
This was not a result of an absence of deals as we bid on over $1 billion of flight equipment during the year. We won over $50 million of properly priced flight equipment in 2022, despite our disciplined approach to asset acquisition requiring a strong risk-adjusted ROI. When we announced our initial 2022 guidance, we had expected to win over $200 million in properly priced deals, which would have made a positive contribution to our second half of 2022 financial results and would have carried into 2023. That notwithstanding, I'm pleased to report a substantial improvement at the start of 2023, and through February, we have already been awarded $107 million, more than double the feedstock deals we were able to close during all of 2022.
This success has been across all the narrow and wide-body aircraft and engines we typically invest in. The improving backdrop of properly priced asset availability sets us up well into the second half of 2023 and into 2024, could represent a significant upside to our current financial outlook if we're able to maintain this level of buying throughout the balance of the year. As I noted earlier, our facilities are busy and near capacity across the AerSale system. We have an opportunity to expand our total capacity, footprints, and capabilities through MRO facility expansion to drive further growth.
While it is too early to detail all the specifics, I can share that we have added a third on-airport MRO facility in Millington, Tennessee, to increase capacity on narrow-body aircraft, which is expected to come fully online by the first quarter of 2024. This 100,000 sq ft hangar in Millington is just 20 miles from our expanded USM distribution hub in Memphis. We're also adding pneumatic capabilities at our Miami-based accessories MRO, which we expect to be online in the second half of 2023. We look forward to sharing the outcome of these additional efforts, as well as new opportunities in the coming quarters. In summary, I'm extremely pleased with our financial performance in 2022 despite the challenging market for feedstock acquisition.
We delivered multiple company records throughout the year, executed strategically well on our 757 P2F conversion program, crossed meaningful milestones in obtaining our STC for AerAware. We hit the upper range of our adjusted EBITDA guidance despite diminished feedstock acquisitions and no AerAware sales. We look to the year ahead, and as Martin will detail in our guidance, we expect 2023 to demonstrate another year of growth for AerSale, driven by continued progress on our 757 P2F conversion program and a supportive commercial aerospace recovery. The second half and into 2024, we're positioned to benefit from increased feedstock availability, the commercialization of AerAware, and facility expansion opportunities. I would like to thank all of our employees for their dedication to AerSale and for their commitment to our stakeholders. We look forward to providing incremental updates throughout the year.
With that, I'll turn the call over to Martin for a closer look at the numbers. Martin?
Thanks, Nick. I will start with an overview of our fourth quarter financial performance and end with our guidance for 2023. Our fourth quarter revenue was $95.1 million, which included $51.4 million of flight equipment sales. Revenue in the fourth quarter of 2021 was $116.8 million and included $73.1 million of flight equipment sales. If we exclude flight equipment sales, revenue would have been $43.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2022 and 2021. In addition, as we mentioned on our last earnings call, the delivery of one 757 P2F converted aircraft, which was initially anticipated to close during the third quarter of 2022, was delivered at the beginning of the fourth quarter.
As we have noted on multiple earnings calls and press releases, our business may and often does fluctuate from quarter to quarter based on the timing of flight equipment sales. We believe that investors and analysts should monitor our progress based on asset purchases and sales over the long term. Fourth quarter Asset Management revenue decreased 27.4% to $67.9 million, largely due to lower flight equipment sales. Leasing revenue for the fourth quarter declined as a result of the planned reduction in the number of aircraft in our leasing portfolio as we determined market conditions would not support our historical return on investment for these assets. Fourth quarter USM parts sales were similar to levels seen in the fourth quarter of 2021.
Technical Operations, or TechOps, revenue was $27.2 million in the fourth quarter, which was an improvement of 17.2% compared to the fourth quarter of 2021. TechOps benefited from better performance from landing gear activities and Goodyear on-airport MRO services. Revenue growth from our Goodyear facility within TechOps was offset by lower revenue at our Roswell facility due to fewer customer aircraft in storage as compared to prior periods. Fourth quarter of 2022 gross margin was 36% compared to 37.8% in the fourth quarter of 2021, mainly on account of the sales mix. Flight equipment sales, which generally have higher margins, were lower in the fourth quarter of 2022. Fourth quarter selling, general and administrative expenses were $25.1 million, with higher payroll expenses including $4.5 million of non-cash equity-based compensation.
Selling, general and administrative expenses were $24.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2021, of which $3.8 million were non-cash equity-based compensation expenses. Income from operations was $9.1 million in the fourth quarter compared to $19.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2021. Income tax expense was $4.1 million in the fourth quarter versus $2.9 million in the fourth quarter of 2021. Fourth quarter net income was $9.2 million compared to $11.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2021. Adjusted for non-cash equity-based compensation, inventory write-down, mark-to-market adjustment to the private warrant liability, gain on an aircraft insurance claim, and secondary offering and facility relocation costs, fourth quarter adjusted net income was $12.3 million versus $22.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2021.
Fourth quarter diluted earnings per share was $0.17 and $0.21 in the fourth quarter of 2021. Adjusted for non-cash equity-based compensation, inventory write-downs, mark-to-market adjustment to the private warrant liability, gain on an aircraft insurance claim, and secondary offering and facility relocation costs, fourth quarter adjusted diluted earnings per share was $0.23 versus $0.41 for the fourth quarter of 2021. Fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA was $17.7 million and $28.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2021. Adjusted EBITDA and related margins were adversely impacted by lower flight equipment sales, which generally have higher margins. AerSale did not receive any Payroll Support Program proceeds during the fourth quarter of 2021 or 2022.
Cash used in operating activities was $0.1 million, primarily due to the application of $18 million in customer deposits associated with the sale of a 747 freighter aircraft that closed during the year, for which the sale proceeds are reflected under investment activities. In addition, we continue to invest in advanced vendor payments of $13.3 million, primarily associated with the 757 P2F conversion program. We also invested an additional $37.6 million to increase inventory available for sale. AerSale ended the year with $147.2 million of cash as well as an undrawn $150 million credit facility. Moving to our guidance for 2023 and summary. We expect to generate revenue of $460 million-$490 million and adjusted EBITDA of $70 million-$80 million in 2023.
Revenue growth for the year is driven by improvements in USM, Engineered Solutions and component MRO as the company benefits from an increasing demand for passenger air travel. Margin levels are expected to see some pressure in 2023, primarily as a result of Boeing 757 deliveries generating lower margins, combined with higher SG&A costs related to an increase in payroll, which includes higher executive compensation amounts as a result of the CARES Act limitations expiring on April 1, 2023. The company is investing $2 million in research and development costs in order to continue to create innovative products that will impact future years. This guidance reflects AerSale's expected whole asset sales during the year and anticipated volume in our ongoing operations.
As noted earlier, due to delays in the 757 P2F conversion program and lower feedstock acquisitions in 2022, we expect revenue and adjusted EBITDA to be weaker in the first half of the year and increasing during the second half as the company benefits from increased feedstock and 757 P2F deliveries. Our guidance for 2023 does not include any potential sales of AerAware as the product is in its final stages of FAA approval. We will provide an update once the STC is issued and we have initial orders. Further, we have not assumed the rate of feedstock acquisitions will continue as we have seen during the first 2 months of 2023. If it does, it could represent upside to our 2023 guidance.
In summary, aside from the variability in the timing of flight equipment sales, our business has continued to gain strong traction and the underlying momentum remains on a robust growth trajectory. With a strong balance sheet and liquidity, we are well positioned to capitalize on increasing feedstock availability as well as other internal and external opportunities in order to continue generating high returns for our stakeholders going forward. With that, operator, we are ready to take questions.
Thank you. At this time, we will be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment please while we poll for questions. Our first question comes from the line of Bert Subin with Stifel. Please proceed with your question.
Hey, good afternoon, and thank you for the time.
Hey, good afternoon, Bert.
I just had maybe a question on 4Q to start. You know, on your last earnings call, which was on November, you were anticipating sales. If I look at the guidance about $30 million higher at the midpoint for the quarter. Can you just sort of walk us through, you know, maybe what drove that discrepancy, just because it seems pretty large and maybe how you were still able to outpace the midpoint of EBITDA guidance, you know, despite those contemplated sales?
Yeah, I'm a little confused when you say we had projected for the quarter to have another $30 million in sales. What specifically are you referring to?
You had $420 million-$450 million for your guidance, right?
Correct.
Came in below that. I'm just sort of wondering what, you know, what drove that discrepancy. Were you expecting higher flight equipment sales and things slipped into 23, or you know, was there something unexpected that happened?
Yeah, I mean, I would say we were trajecting. We were hopeful to have more whole asset sales happening in the overall fourth quarter. Fortunately for us, we were able to generate strong margins off the equipment we were able to sell.
Right.
That's what we offset that overall revenue shortfall.
Okay. Maybe just on the AerAware side of things, based on sort of the commentary you had on the call and in the release, it sounds like, you know, if everything went as sort of as well as it could based on the scheduling right now, you could in theory have, you know, an STC granted in May. You know, if that were to happen, if that schedule were to play out, I mean, do you think it's conceivable, you know, by July or sometime in that timeframe, you could be earning sales again if that were to play out as, you know, in that sort of best case scenario?
Well, I think it's possible, but it's really impossible to predict. It's possible because we have kits in stock, but it's impossible to predict when we would get our first... You know, until we get this STC approved and we have a first order, you know, we're not gonna speculate on when we might have sales. We did not put any sales in our guidance. Not that we don't think that that's possible. We think that is possible, but we think it's
Maybe a little irresponsible to be projecting sales of AerAware, before we even had the STC or an initial order.
Yep, that makes sense. Just a final question, Nick, maybe this is more just like a high-level question on the industry. You know, if we look at aviation aftermarket demand, you know, it's been pretty robust, and it looks like it's, that strength is not really slowing. You know, could you give us maybe just some thoughts around what inning you think we are, you know, with regards to this cycle, you know, having seen a lot of these cycles play out, and sort of how you're thinking about, you know, positioning the company to capitalize on that demand? Sounds like USM is maybe easing a little bit, but still expected just to remain a challenge. You know, what's the best way, you know, for AerSale to capitalize on the sort of way the market is today?
Well, I don't think there's ever enough good USM to supply the market with the USM requirements. Now, that was certainly an exception during the peak of COVID because you had so many airplanes parked and not flying, and there was almost no demand for USM. Now, as the narrow body market has substantially recovered, and we're well underway for a same recovery on the wide body side, the demand for USM is picking up. Again, what we're starting to see is there's just not enough good USM to service the requirements because aircraft are flying, consuming USM. Engines that had been. You know, airlines have cannibalized engines that are on parked aircraft to keep the airplanes flying.
Those engines now have been depleted or, you know, quite a few engines have been depleted of their useful life, of, well, of their overhaul time. They need to be repaired, puts those engines in the shop. The shops are backed up, there's just not enough good engine USM to supply the requirements for the amount of engine shop visits that are going in. That doesn't seem to matter whether it's narrow body or wide body. Wide body hasn't suffered as much due to the substantially wide body market is the freighter side. We didn't see, you know, much decline in the demand for wide body engines or wide body engine parts. We see the requirement for USM continuing to stay extremely strong.
What's affecting USM, there's two sides to that story. With the delay in delivery of new aircraft, which we're definitely experiencing, both with Boeing's issues with the FAA and with Airbus' narrow-body issues, with the multiple amount of engine problems they've had with the A320neo, those aircraft are not displacing the older flight equipment that is staying out there. The result is it's a diminished amount of used aircraft that are coming into our market, which would bolster our availability of USM material. That's the negative side. The positive side is because those aircraft keep flying, there's more demand for USM material. That's the basis that I make the statement that there's never...
Certainly at this point in the market, there is not enough good, used, serviceable material to feed the narrow body engine market, for both the A320 and the 737. The first 2 months of this year, we had a very, very high level of USM of all feedstock acquisition across everything we typically deal in. You know, double what we did in all of last year in the first 2 months of this year. You know, we're trying to figure out, well, what is causing that?
You know, one could be cost of funds have gone up for investors who invest in this space, and for those that can't find ways to extract, you know, substantial value out of, you know, all feedstock at all levels, that's the cost of funds is impinging on their margin and maybe sending some of those people away. There's a number of investors that have been overpaying since 2018 that probably have lost their funding sources and no longer have the ability to buy assets in the market.
you know, those are two reasons why we can think of that we've had such success in the first two months of the year, coupled with a substantial improvement in, again, on the demand side, a substantial improvement in demand. It's the availability that was surprising. We were very surprised to see that level of feedstock acquisition in the first two months of the year. We're very optimistic about the balance of the year. If things continue at this rate, we continue to buy at the rate that we've been buying, it is probable we'll increase guidance for the balance of the year.
You know, all in all, I'd say if you can get the right feedstock at the right price and you can extract the greatest value out of it, and I think that's the AerSale machine does that, I think the opportunity for substantial feedstock growth here this year and in the coming years is significant, and we look forward to it.
Really good color. Thanks so much, Nick.
You're welcome.
Our next question comes from the line of Ken Herbert with RBC. Please proceed with your .
Hi, Nick. Hi, Martin. Good afternoon.
Good afternoon.
Hi, Ken.
Hey, Nick. Maybe just to start off, could you update us on the 12 Boeing 757s? It sounds like there's been some delay. With the P2F process, does the guidance assume 9 of the 12 are moved, sold, or put into your lease pool this year? How should we think about the completes on some of these conversions and where you stand in the process?
I think we have 3 or 4 aircraft in conversion now. 1 of them started, I believe, in December. The first 1 started in December. It was supposed to start in October. You know, we relied on 1 of our STC provider to have contracted for those slots, and that got delayed. They ended up not being able to contract with 1 of their providers. Initially, we thought we would have 3, and now we have 2. Between us and the STC provider for the Boeing 757, we've now got all 12 slots booked. Some of those actually we took as cargo kits, and then we contracted with a provider to do the installations. AerSale itself will not be doing any of these conversions.
That pushed back the second and third aircraft that were supposed to go in in October and December into, you know, pushed it back several months. I don't know the exact dates off the top of my head.
They're supposed to be delivered in those periods.
The October one would be delivered in the first quarter. Deliveries that we expected to happen in the first quarter, I don't even know if we may get one in the first quarter. We, as you previously asked and we mentioned, when we thought we would get all 12 in the year, we thought those would be fairly evenly spaced throughout the year. With the exception of maybe one in the first quarter, I don't even know if it's possible to get maybe two, the balance will come in the rest of the year, and we've got a pretty full line at this point on a go-forward basis.
That whole thing shifts back a couple of months. Aircraft that we expected to have delivered in the last quarter, three of those will push into the early first quarter and will be available in the first quarter of 2024.
Okay, that's helpful. Are you finding with the delays that the cost for the conversions has significantly changed? It sounds like you're doing more maybe of the kit purchasing relative to outsourcing that. How should we think about your costs associated with the conversions here on these next 12 aircraft? It sounds like there's been a number of changes in your strategy around that.
The actual cost of doing the conversions is actually better for us. You know, By us buying the kits and having the vendor, our own vendor do the installation, it actually lowers our cost over having the STC provider do the conversions for us. That, that shift where we had to buy kits and get them converted ourselves actually is a benefit to the conversion cost itself. Where we are seeing-
Okay. Yeah, Ken. Where we are seeing increases in the 757 conversion program is on the overall cost of engines, in that we had the advantage or the benefit in the first 2 years of a pretty robust spare engine inventory balance. The engines that we have require more engine work, so that's increasing the cost. Even for a few of those assets, we might have to go into the market to secure those overall assets. We reflected that in our guidance, which is why we're projecting a lower margin profile for this year compared to the last.
Okay. Thanks, Martin. Just finally, on the flight test associated with AerAware, you commented you've completed two of the five that are outlined. Can you provide any indications of how those first two sort of flight test packages went? Was there anything you learned that either positively or negatively that was, you know, significantly incremental to expectations and how have those gone?
I mean, they've gone great. I think that when the FAA got on board and started flying the airplane, they were. This is not a new comment because I've made this comment before. These are different FAA people than had previously been on the airplane. They're impressed. They like it. They see how the system works. I would say overall, we did as well as we could expect. There were no negatives that came out. The only negative part of this whole thing is I think we've probably only flown in the first two phases of flight tests, you know, less than 10 hours. Again, the disappointing part for us, and I'm sure for anybody that's invested in the company, is that the flight testing is spread out over a longer period of time.
Even though in the last couple of months, you know, all through February, we only flew 7 hours. That's the disappointing part, that it's just that the elapsed time between flight sets are, you know, are relatively long. Understanding it's the FAA, there's multiple parties from the FAA involved. It's multiple, you know, areas. In our fifth set of flights, there will be a lot of pilots on the airplane, both commercial pilots that will get on the airplane and fly it. We'll be demonstrating to the FAA how a brand-new pilot gets trained on the system. Multiple FAA pilots and human factors individuals from the FAA will be assessing how those pilots perform who have never flown the airplane with that system on it.
It's all good. Again, it's frustrating that it's so long. I mean, we're getting a level of scrutiny from the FAA that we've never experienced, that all the people we're dealing with have never seen this before when we're really, you know, we're not making modifications to the flight characteristics or, physical part of the aircraft. We're just giving it enhanced vision. That's, that's, maybe that's a result of the increased scrutiny that they got over the MAX. The good part about that is when we're done with this system, it will have gotten all the scrutiny of the FAA, that they're fully behind it. They're very supportive, very cooperative. I have nothing but really positive things to say about the FAA's attitude on getting this certified.
You know, I think they see what we have, which is, you know, advanced technology, something that doesn't exist today. I think that they're going to do their job. They're going to be thorough. At the end of the day, we're going to have a rock solid, safe system that has the full support of the FAA, and we'll get an STC.
If I could add, this is the first primary flight control system that's being certified by the FAA after the 737 MAX issue.
Primary Flight Display.
Primary Flight Display. Again, we're kind of in new territory. This is novel technology. The FAA is providing more screening, which is rightfully so.
Great. Thanks, Martin. Thanks, Nick.
Okay, you're welcome.
Our next question comes from the line of Michael Ciarmoli with Truist Securities.
Hey, good evening, guys. Thanks for taking the questions.
Yeah.
Nick, maybe just to stay on AerAware, can you tell us how many kits you've got in inventory? Are you still building up finished kits? Do you know what the launch customer's potential, you know, volume requirement will be once this does get certified? Maybe even presumably, you know, customers behind the launch customer.
I won't tell you exactly how many kits we have, but I will tell you that I have mandated our people to build a minimum of 100 kits by the end of the year, and we're well underway of doing that. I think we'll exceed that. What was the other question regarding?
Launch customer.
You know, regarding launch customer, again, it's premature to talk about who the launch customer will be, but I will tell you this. The customer, potential customer that has flown with us on multiple occasions all throughout the past, you know, 200 some hours we've flown our airplane, they have a fleet of over 500 737 NGs and MAXes. That would be a big one. How long would it take to get up to 500 sets of flight equipment? Just figure if we did 100 this year, I've set a target of minimum 250 for next year and another 250 a year after that, and then adding in 2025, 250 A320 kits.
You know, it would take several years to build up to a 500 airplane fleet for one customer, one airplane, one airplane type.
Got it. Yeah, on that customer, I realize the 500 plus 737s, but do you have an idea of what their initial take rate might be? You know, you get the STC, are they going to take 5 right out of the gate? Do they take 10? I guess I'm asking what kind of cadence, you know, you see from them.
Again, you know, we don't know what they would want.
Okay.
What we have been told is that the airline won't start using the system until they get at least 50% of their fleet installed. I would expect that they would want them installed as fast as they could get them because they couldn't. You know, if it takes a year or more to get to 250 kits, they're not going to be able to use this system for that period of time. They would want it as fast as we could deliver it. That's kind of.
Okay.
You know, that's why we've been working on production of kits in advance of their requirement, because it's just going to take time for us to build the kits, put the kits in, and it's going to take time for Elbit Systems to manufacture the kits and gear up their, you know, their manufacturing capacity for this level of requirement.
Got it. Helpful. Then you talked about kind of, you know, potential revenue, you know, accelerating second half 2023 into 2024. You know, obviously, AerAware, you talked if obviously the feedstock purchase conversions continue and then some of your capability expansion. I'm not going to ask you for specific revenue numbers, but if we were to look, you know, second half this year, even into next year, you know, can you maybe size or kind of rank order what you think would be the bigger growth driver? And I guess AerAware into next year would be a big one, kind of based on what you just said. But any color as you kind of think about maybe the contribution from those growth drivers.
You know, it would be too speculative at this point for me to answer that question.
Okay. Okay. No, that's fair. What about last one on kind of the feedstock. I mean, are you guys you kind of hinted at it, you know, do you know how many, you know, kind of entities you're competing against for purchases? Are you seeing less competition out there? I guess with sort of all the airlines running all of their assets, burning all of the green time, do you think that's potentially driving, you know, the need for more USM?
Of course. Of course, the, you know, the increase in utilization of the flight equipment is driving the need for more USM. Our issue with USM is getting the USM out of the shop. We were, you know, force-feeding USM into the shop even when there wasn't the demand. I'm glad we did that because now we're seeing very strong demand. That's, you know, why we feel optimistic about, you know, increasing our USM sales continuing to increase because now we have more product. As long as we get the stuff out of the shop, it doesn't seem like we're having any trouble selling it to somebody who needs it.
That's having a lot of material that we put into work is helping our, you know, our availability of ready USM to sell. Demand continues to rise, so I don't see that changing. Again, it's the availability of feedstock that is the issue. Now, with regard to competitors that we bid against, look, we bid on over $1,000,000,004 in deals last year. I could have won hundreds of millions of dollars if we chose to push our numbers up and really push our margins down. We're just not gonna do that. We've never done that. Not, certainly not intentionally. You know, we're disciplined.
I'd rather pass on hundreds of millions of dollars of the crappy deals than, you know, than to win $50 million worth of terrible deals, because $50 million worth of terrible deals can wipe out hundreds of millions of dollars worth of good deals. We remain very disciplined. When I say we won $50 million of deals last year, we won them. Those were properly priced deals. The rest, they're deals we could have won if we chose to raise our bid price, and we didn't. The people who bought those assets, I can assure you, they cannot extract more value out of them than we can.
Why they bought those assets at the pricing that they did, there is a growing list of companies that have competed against us in our space that were financed by companies that don't understand the market, by people who have no personal investment in those acquisitions, who are starting to litter the roads with carcasses of companies and people that have overspent and died with product. Okay. We've been doing this a long time. We don't overspend. We'll pass on those poor deals. I'm not gonna be apologetic that we didn't win more than $50 million worth of deals last year because there were $50 million of deals that were properly priced, and in our opinion, the rest wasn't.
Whoever bought those either has no cost of fund, you know, no cost of fund requirement, no threshold. They'll take a super low margin, which on a risk-adjusted basis, I don't know how they can justify making acquisitions. I mean, when we get outbid by more than we think we can collect in total from an asset, I just think that and we've seen it, that somebody way overpaid. Competition has been diminished. I think that we're at about 50% of the amount of competitors that used to bid are now bidding. Our success rate is going up because those companies that have been bidding that have been somewhat successful now are tempering their bids based on their experience. The ones who survived. The other ones have gone away.
So if we had two dozen-
Yeah
... bidders that we would bid against previously, maybe we're down to a dozen. It doesn't mean those dozen don't have money. They still have plenty of money. It doesn't mean those dozen won't take a much lower margin than we would. On a risk-adjusted basis, whether that's a good investment, time will tell.
Got it.
A temporary cost. Those single-dimensional players have a uphill battle with those lower margins.
Yeah, absolutely. That's great color. Thanks, guys. Love that disciplined commentary. I'll jump back in the queue.
Okay. Welcome. Good talking to you.
Our next question comes from the line of Gautam Khanna with Cowen. Please proceed with your question.
Hey, guys. This is actually Jack on for Gautam today. Thanks for the question. Just back to AerAware and I know you guys provided really good detail about one specific customer, you know, kind of talking about some interest here. Just wanted to kinda hear your perspective on incremental customers, just other than this one that you're highlighting. I know you talked about the 100 kits potentially getting up to 250. Just, you know, what do you have to see in regards to their orders to actually, like, pick up production and start to monetize this further? Thanks.
Okay. Hi, Jack. You got too many questions. Let's go back to the first question.
overall.
I'm sorry.
Beyond our launch customer. Other customer.
Okay. Okay. Other customers beyond our launch customer. We are talking to a number of airlines that are very interested in the system, and their fleet sizes would range from, let's say, 20. We have some that could be even smaller, a couple to, you know, 20, to hundreds. Not necessarily 500, but hundreds. As far as our ability to deliver kits to all of those companies at the same time, if we're fortunate enough to get an offer, you know, that would be challenging. Our ability to increase our production of kits I think is not problematic for us.
We are, you know, we're staffing up our own production of kits, our kits consist of a number of subcomponents, modifying the radome, manufacturing an installation bracket for the camera, an eight-segment wire harness that has eight separate packages. We can subcontract out to other companies to, you know, remanufacture the radomes to accommodate the camera, to make the brackets, to pick any piece of those, of that eight-piece wire harness and have other people do a piece of the eight pieces or all of the eight pieces at third parties, or use multiple third parties to increase our manufacturing capability, not necessarily internally, but externally.
Getting up to speed to be able to do a minimum of 100, what it's teaching us is the most expeditious and cost-effective way to build these kits so that if we get the demand and we need to go to 500 kits a year, let's, you know, let's say 500 kits a year. We either build up the internal capacity to more space to do more ourselves, or once we understand the right most efficient way to do it, we then contract that out to several vendors that make the kits, and then we review the on a quality basis the kits, that third parties have made.
Matter of fact, the first 10 kits that we did were manufactured by another party, we had to do a lot of rework on those ourselves because they didn't really understand how to build the kits, the wiring harness kits. We've learned a lot along the way, and we're in good stead to build the, you know, do the 100 minimum kits this year. Again, if we get an order for something significantly more than that, we'll subcontract that out if we can't build a capacity fast enough ourselves to do it. Now, the flip side of that is that's the installation kits. Manufacturing the Elbit hardware is a little different story.
I don't know that their supply chain can spool up as quickly to manufacture hundreds of kits, you know, within a short period of time. I think that that's, that typically takes longer. Airlines ultimately, for the large order, are gonna have to wait until Elbit can produce their side of the kits.
Okay. That's very good color there. Just one last quick one. Just going back to your comments on feedstock and USM, how it's pretty strong in January and February. If you could just, you know, provide some context where you're seeing the greatest strength. I think you alluded to more on the engine side, you know, given the issues there, at the OEM level. Just would love to hear your perspective on some of the green shoots there. Thanks.
Now that engines are going into the shop and being repaired and demanding material. Good USM. If you part out an engine and you have, you know, 500 parts from an engine, you're not gonna consume 500 parts because a lot of those parts, when an engine goes in the shop, can be reworked. The good USM on the engine side that I refer to is the material that either is life-limited parts or hot section parts. These are parts that wear out due to heat and fatigue, and you end up throwing them away once they get to a certain point.
You can never get enough of the hot section parts or the life-limited parts on an engine that's in service and consuming, you know, and having a lot of shop visits. When I refer to good USM, that's what I'm referring to on the engine side. There's never enough of that. As the, as the shops are picking up, there's not enough USM to supply all that. Customers are forced to buy PMA parts or they're forced to buy, you know, brand-new parts from the OEMs. Okay, I guess that's part of your question. What was the other part?
Yeah. Just kinda where you're seeing the most strength. you know, it seems like it's broad based, but specifically just whether, like, wheels and brakes, landing gear, just any other broad color would be helpful. Thanks.
I think it's everything. It's component.
Okay.
You know, it's accessories, you know, it's wheels and brakes, you know, avionics pieces, structural pieces, components, landing gear. Of course, that's not USM, it's more on the overhaul side of the business. Airframe parts that we work on, structural parts that need to be replaced, rotable components, again, accessories. It's across the board.
Okay. Thank you. I'll pass it on.
Okay. Thanks, Jack.
We have reached the end of the question and answer session. I'll now turn the call over to Nicolas Finazzo for closing remarks.
All righty. Bert, Ken, Michael, and Jack, thanks for the insightful questions, which I think they're all helpful for our audience to better understand, you know, AerSale's unique, fully integrated, multi-dimensional business model. Again, thanks, guys. For our listeners today, thank you for your interest. AerSale was purpose-built for these market dynamics. We're a strong and resilient company that can fly through any turbulence along the way as we continue to our final destination. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride. Have a great evening, everyone.
This concludes today's conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.