Good morning. My name is Lauren, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to Welcome everyone to the ATI Q4 2022 Earnings Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. A supplemental slide presentation to accompany the prepared remarks can be found on the company's website. After the speaker's remarks, there'll be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star two. Thank you. At this time, I would like to turn over the call to Tom Wright, the Vice President, Investor Relations and FP&A. Tom, you may begin your conference.
Thank you. Good morning, welcome to ATI's 4th quarter 2022 earnings call. Today's discussion is being broadcast on our website. Participating in today's call are Bob Wetherbee, Board Chair, President, and CEO, and Don Newman, Executive Vice President and CFO. Bob and Don will focus on our 4th quarter and full year highlights and key messages. Before starting our prepared remarks, I want to draw your attention to the supplemental presentation that accompanies this call. Those slides provide additional color and details on our results and outlook and can be found on our website at atimaterials.com. After our prepared remarks, we'll open the line for questions. As a reminder, all forward-looking statements are subject to various assumptions and caveats. These are noted in the earnings release and in the slide presentation. Now I'll turn the call over to Bob.
Thanks, Tom. Good morning, and thanks for joining us. We ended the year strong. ATI's quarterly revenue once again topped $1 billion. That's the 2nd quarter in a row we achieved this milestone. We ended the full year at a run rate of $4 billion in revenue, 37% higher than 2021. We're executing expertly against robust markets. We're meeting our commitments and getting better every day. Today, I've summarized our performance in four key headlines. Headline one, we're achieving what we set out to do. In the 4th quarter, we delivered adjusted EBITDA of $140 million. This was driven by continued strength in our core aerospace and defense markets. Adjusted EPS of $0.53 surpassed the midpoint of our November guidance. The team is laser-focused on execution, and it shows in our results.
On a full year basis, ATI adjusted EBITDA was $549 million or 14% of sales, an almost 400 basis point increase over 2021. Adjusted earnings per share was $1.99. We generated $148 million in free cash flow. Don will dive deeper into the financials in a few minutes. Headline two, our deliberate actions and transformation are delivering the results we projected. It comes down to our team, our capabilities, and optimizing our business with discipline. Let me add a little color here, starting with our team. As 2022 began, we were on the front lines of the war for talent, hiring nearly 1,000 new team members during the year. Now, with our workforce largely in place, we're focused on accelerating.
Our team is quickly moving up the learning curve, now cross-qualifying from one job to multiple jobs to gain flexibility. Their productivity and proficiency grow every day. To those 1,000 new employees, I say, you made a great decision to join ATI. We look forward to performing together. To our entire team, thank you for your hard work and focused efforts. You are driving ATI's success. Next up, our capabilities. We're optimizing our existing footprint to increase opportunity. When it comes to titanium and nickel melt, we're focused on two things. First, operational efficiency to increase output, and 2nd, increasing inventory velocity. Some more color on titanium, specifically. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has structurally disrupted the global titanium supply chain. An outcome of this tragic situation is the most significant titanium opportunity in years.
Titanium product lead times have grown from eight weeks just a few quarters ago to 60-70 weeks today. We're operating with a disciplined, controlled order entry process that leads to optimal use of our capacity. Last quarter, we shared our plans to increase near-term titanium melt capacity for aerospace and defense applications by 25% using our existing assets. Now, we're revising this plan upward. Based on overwhelming customer commitments, hear in that the word contracts, we're increasing near-term capacity, not just by 25%. We'll increase by 35%. That's over the 2022 baseline. It requires only nominal CapEx, less than $10 million, which is included in our CapEx guidance. Clearly, demand is growing and the team is responding, and we're responding quickly. It's been a busy 90 days. We restarted a melt shop in Oregon, melting the 1st ingot a few weeks ago.
I was actually out there last week, put my hand safely on it. Feels great to see the output. We expect production to ramp through the 1st half of 2023. We'll start to see benefits from that capacity in the 2nd half of this year. On top of that, our previously announced brownfield investment to further increase long-term titanium melt capacity is on track to produce 1st ingots by the end of 2024. Customers are committing to this capacity as well. This brownfield investment is within the scope of previously provided capital estimates. It's crucial to ATI's ability to meet the significant long-term titanium demand. Those of you listening to this call likely aren't the people placing orders for titanium these days, but you probably know some people that are. If you're speaking to anyone about it, my advice is to get those remaining contracts signed up soon.
There's very little capacity in 2023 that's unspoken for. That's increasingly true for 2024 and beyond. Some of our product lines actually have started customer commitments and bookings in early 2025. It's a tight market. The specialty rolled products business transformation and footprint consolidation is nearly complete. We're on track to produce 1st coils at the new Bright Anneal Furnace in Vandergrift, Pennsylvania in the next 90 days. Full qualification and production will come soon after. This Bright Anneal Furnace provides our customers with state-of-the-art sheet finishing capabilities and optimizes our operating footprint to significantly streamline production flow paths. My 3rd headline today, we're performing in growing markets, especially our aerospace and defense core. Our repositioning to an aerospace and defense leader is well on its way.
In the 4th quarter, our overall product mix attributed to aerospace and defense increased to 53% of total sales, up 12 points over the same period last year. In reality and for clarity, I think we have a good shot to see our A&D product mix go north of 60% by the back half of 2023. The progress we've made is really great and continues, and we're well on our way to the 65% goal we've discussed with you guys earlier. Why is this important? These markets offer premium growth rates and higher margins compared to commoditized products and markets. Those factors provide great opportunity for ATI to generate cash and create shareholder value. It's worth noting that quarter-over-quarter, jet engine and airframe sales were flat versus Q3. We attribute this primarily to efforts across the supply chain to control year-end inventory.
This was accentuated by planned shutdowns and intentional order recalibrations in the near term to increase the industry's supply chain reliability for the longer term. We expect a strong growth trend to resume in the 1st quarter. The momentum in our core markets is driving profitable growth across the enterprise. In our HPMC segment, Q4 sales of commercial aerospace products increased by 85% compared to the prior year. Total aerospace and defense sales comprised 83% of HPMC revenue in the 4th quarter. Year-over-year, total HPMC segment sales climbed by over 40%. EBITDA margins expanded over 400 basis points. This strong operating margin growth reflects higher sales of next-gen jet engine products as well as higher operating levels. In the AANS segment, commercial aero sales grew by 113% versus the prior year. Total A&D sales were over 30% of that segment's Q4 revenue.
This mix improvement, along with the ongoing efficiency benefits of our transformation, drove a 30% increase in full-year total AANS sales. EBITDA margins improved by over 300 basis points versus 2021. A clear indication to me, and hopefully to you, that our transformation is paying off. Headline number four. The modest headwinds we're experiencing impact only a minor portion of our business, and that portion continues to get smaller. We see some recessionary softness in construction, mining, and general industrial end markets. The good news? Due to our transformation, a little more than 15% of our AANS segment is exposed to those headwinds. That's a much smaller portion than in the past. We continue to face near-term softness in our Asian precision rolled strip business. There's a lot of uncertainty there.
While we see some positive signals, we're forecasting this business to remain at current levels or even modestly contract until we see a clear upward trend. What I can say for sure, we'll be ready when Asian demand picks up. Now let's go do a quick review of our markets and what we see heading into 2023. These can be found on slide four in the accompanying slides on our website. In commercial aerospace, as I mentioned earlier, we're in the most significant production ramp this industry has seen in several decades. ATI's 2022 jet engine sales doubled from the prior year. An astounding ramp rate. 2022 airframe sales grew 79% versus 2021. Recovery of the airframe market for ATI has lagged jet engine throughout 2022.
Looking ahead, that's changing. We've been watching for two signals to indicate the commercial aerospace market is at a critical positive inflection point, what some analysts would call growth catalysts. I'm pleased to report we've seen both in recent weeks. On the narrow-body side, we've been awaiting increased clarity on future 737 MAX demand. December's mega order from India is a big step toward reducing inventory. Add to that the Chinese aviation authorities' declaration in January that the MAX is approved to return to service. Just this week, Boeing announced a 4th 737 MAX assembly line in Everett, Washington. These are growth catalyst number one. The 2nd signal we've been watching for, the resurgence of 787 production on the wide-body side.
United Airlines order of 100 Boeing 787s was clearly good news on this front and reinforces exactly what we've been anticipating, even a little earlier than we expected. Positive growth catalyst number two. We expect ATI airframe product shipments to accelerate throughout 2023. In our other core market, defense, growth in global spending continues to create significant opportunities for ATI. In the near term, we're seeing a record level of demand for products like titanium armor going into new military vehicles. In Q4 of 2022, ATI defense sales grew 18% versus Q4 of 2021. The sequential increase was driven largely by accelerated support for the Navy's carrier and submarine fleets and increased shipments for military rotorcraft applications. We expect 2023 defense sales to be strong in these subsectors, as well as ground vehicle armor and military aircraft.
I think most of us saw the news of the allied nations sending tanks to support Ukraine. I think it's just one more reminder of how quickly things have escalated in terms of demand for defense materials. We expect that demand to be sustained for multiple years based on all the signals that we're getting from the federal government. In addition to our core A&D markets, we leverage our expertise to critical adjacent applications with aero-like characteristics. This includes specialty energy, medical, and electronics. We're seeing growth in these markets too. A little more color about these is on slide 4 of the accompanying presentation on our website. I'll now turn the call over to Don to walk through financials and guidance. I'll be back after that to conclude and take us into Q&A.
Thanks, Bob. Today, I'll share details on three areas of ATI's performance. One, our 2022 Q4 and full year results. Two, the 2023 outlook. Three, updates on the 2025 targets shared during our investor conference. Let's start with highlights of our Q4 performance. As Bob noted, Q4 marked our 2nd consecutive quarter with over $1 billion in revenue. Not only are sales up, we're on track with our strategy of shifting product mix to value add. Aerospace and defense sales were 53% of total revenue in Q4. That's up from 51% in Q3 and up 1,200 basis points from Q4 2021. Q4 2022 EBITDA margins were 13.9% compared to 12.4% in Q4 2021. Value add sales mix, increased production levels, and diligent cost management all contributed to the margin percentage expansion.
Fourth quarter EPS was $0.53, $0.01 higher than the midpoint of our guidance range. As we dig further into our performance, I'll highlight a few of the key takeaways as we see them. First, as you can clearly see in our numbers, sales are growing in the differentiated markets where we are valued the most. Secondly, we're improving profitability. Our significantly higher adjusted EBITDA reflects the benefits of our business transformation. Full year 2022 adjusted EBITDA was $549 million, an increase of $258 million and 89% from 2021. Compared to full year 2019, EBITDA increased 25% on revenue that is nearly $300 million below 2019 levels. Full year 2022 adjusted EBITDA margins were 14.3%.
That's nearly 400 basis points better than 2021 and 360 basis points higher than 2019. These significant improvements reflect the impact of our transformation, structural cost reductions, and continued focus on mix and price improvement. What else contributed to the year-over-year gains? Volume growth, increased metal prices, $34 million in COVID incentives, and $10 million in tariff refunds. Those COVID incentives, by the way, helped offset operating inefficiencies as we hired and trained nearly 1,000 new workers. Pass-through revenues due to metal volatility dampened margin percentage performance since they typically generate little or even zero profits. Otherwise, we would have delivered even better margin percentages in 2022. 2022 adjusted EPS was $1.99, up from $0.13 per share in 2021. We recognize that cash generation is key to value creation.
In 2022, we generated $148 million of free cash flow compared to our guidance of greater than $90 million. It is also significantly higher than our 2021 free cash flow of $6 million. Third, I want to share progress on two contributors to value creation, working capital and CapEx. We ended the year with managed working capital at 30% of revenue. Last quarter, I shared that we were targeting working capital to be in the low 30s by the end of 2022 and expected to hit our 30% target in 2023. The operating teams continue to amaze, outperforming expectations and hitting the 30% working capital target sooner than planned. It benefited 2022 cash generation and liquidity and positions us for additional future improvements. One more note on working capital.
In Q4, customers made advance payments to lock in their 2023 production slots. This is another signal of strong titanium and nickel demand. This served to pull forward approximately $30 million of 2023 cash flow into Q4. When it comes to CapEx, we continue to maintain strict discipline. Capital expenditures totaled approximately $130 million in 2022. We also accrued $38 million for capital items at year-end. This was due to supply chain equipment delays and resulting timing of payments. The accrued capital items will roll into 2023 CapEx. Even so, we expect to keep 2023 CapEx within the $250 million target we set in our last February's investor conference. More on that in a minute. The 4th key takeaway to highlight, our strong balance sheet, which provides a stable foundation for value creation.
We closed out 2022 with more than $1.1 billion of liquidity. That includes $584 million in cash and $538 million available under the ABL facility. The net debt ratio was 2.2x at the close of 2022, down from 4 x at the beginning of the year. Great headway on our goal to de-lever the balance sheet. When it comes to pension, we are now 88% funded on a GAAP basis. Our net pension liability at the end of 2022 was $219 million, down from $396 million at the end of 2021. What accounts for the drop in net liability? Increases in discount rates and company contributions offset by negative asset returns.
The 20% negative asset returns in 2022 reflect pullback in the broader financial markets. Asset returns and discount rates can change from period to period. I want to be clear, we remain focused on executing the pension glide path. Our strategy remains the same and we are advancing. We are near completion of our current stock buyback program. In 2022, we repurchased 5.2 million shares for a cash cost of $140 million at an average price of roughly $26.92 per share. We have $10 million remaining on the current board-approved program. Let's talk about full year 2023 outlook. You'll see our targets captured on slide nine of the accompanying presentation on our website. Bob painted a clear picture of our markets.
Bottom line for 2023, it will be another year of robust, meaningful growth driven by strong and growing markets. The demand is there. While inflation and supply chain challenged us, we successfully offset the impact in 2022 through pricing actions, passthroughs, and capturing offsetting efficiencies. While inflation seems to be slowing and the supply chain is normalizing, a degree of uncertainty is still expected in 2023. With the team well-practiced and taking quick and deliberate action, we believe we can achieve similar success in offsetting negative factors. Post-retirement benefit costs, which include pension and OPEB expense, will increase to net $36 million in 2023. That's within the estimated $30 million-$40 million range shared in our last earnings call. The expense increase is largely due to changes in actuarial discount rates and negative asset returns in 2022.
The additional expense will not impact 2023 contributions to the plan. As a matter of fact, we made our 2023 voluntary contribution of $50 million earlier this week. Plan on another $50 million contribution in 2024 as planned. We have made tremendous progress on the pension in recent years. Since 2013, total plan participants have declined more than 62%, and there are now fewer than 900 active participants. We have also worked down net liabilities, executed numerous annuitization transactions, and made voluntary contributions to the plan. We have a clear objective, execute the glide path strategy to eliminate pension impacts. What are EPS expectations for 2023? We expect 2023 adjusted EPS to be in the range of $2.00-$2.30 per share.
That includes a $0.24 impact from the post-retirement expense increase. Nonrecurring items in 2022 and the increased post-retirement expense in 2023 can impair visibility of our underlying EPS growth year-over-year. Remove from the equation impacts of COVID incentives, tariff refunds, and the incremental post-retirement expense. The result, underlying EPS is increasing roughly 40% year-over-year at the midpoint of our 2023 guidance. That's the bottom line about earnings. How are we thinking about cash generation? We expect full year 2023 free cash flow to be between $125 million and $175 million. As I shared, we generated $148 million of free cash in 2022. Adjust for the $30 million of cash pulled forward by customers pre-paying for production slots.
That brings our 2022 free cash flow to roughly $120 million, closer to where we previously guided. Now, think about the impact to 2023. Our 2023 free cash flow would have been $30 million higher than the present guidance. Again, let's remove the noise to understand the underlying growth. 2023 free cash flow at the midpoint of the range is essentially 50% higher than 2022 once you consider the impact of customer prepayments in Q4. We made solid progress improving working capital efficiencies in 2022, hitting our 30% target during a dynamic growth period. In 2023, we expect to make incremental improvement on our 30% working capital level. Overall, we expect managed working capital to be a $100 million use of cash in 2023, give or take.
That magnitude is similar to the overall cash impact we saw from managed working capital in 2022. We anticipate 2023 capital expenditures will be in the range of $200 million-$240 million, including the $38 million carried over from 2022 into 2023. The high end of our range is still below the $250 million CapEx placeholder we shared at our investor conference. We are carefully managing our maintenance capital spend to ensure assets are in ramp-ready condition. Our 2023 CapEx includes capital for the titanium melt brownfield expansion project and 35% production increase from existing assets. I do want to reinforce that this incremental capacity is largely committed under existing contracts. As a reminder, we target returns of 30% or greater on growth projects. Let's talk about Q1.
For the 1st quarter, we see continued strength in our core markets and continued softness in industrial and consumer demand. Our Asian precision rolled strip business will likely continue to be impacted by COVID-related challenges. Those conditions could exist for the Asian business into Q2 as well. It is important to remember that the additional post-retirement expense I mentioned earlier will create roughly $0.06 of incremental expense each quarter in 2023 relative to 2022 levels. We expect Q1 EPS to be in the range of $0.45-$0.51 per share. Excluding the incremental post-retirement benefit expense, the EPS range is modestly better than Q4 2022. Performance is obviously expected to ramp as the year unfolds, reflecting continued sales growth, added capacity, and recovery in our Asian precision rolled strip business in the 2nd half.
Before I go into the extended outlook, let me give you some context related to metal price passthroughs to customers. Metal prices generally increased in 2022 from 2021 levels. We estimate full year 2022 passthrough revenues represented $300 million-$350 million over 2021 levels. Remember, passthrough revenues typically generate minimal profits and are generally dilutive to overall margin percentages. I thought that might be helpful as we now jump into our 2025 outlook. In our investor conference, we shared that we expected to see revenue grow at a compound annual rate of between 9% and 11% from 2021- 2025. That would bring our 2025 revenue to $4.25 billion at the top end of the range.
Last quarter, I shared that we expected to be at the top end of that CAGR range. We see many positive indicators in our business, including continued strength in our key end markets, pricing opportunities, and added capacity. While we're not going to update our targets, I will share that we foresee potential upside to a 12% CAGR for the 2021-2025 period. Note that this growth assumes moderated metal prices, not the elevated levels that we've seen lately. I can save you the math on that additional growth potential. A 12% CAGR from the 2021 levels will result in 2025 revenue of roughly $4.4 billion. Our 2025 margin percentage targets remain at 18%-20%. The aerospace ramp, with its improved sales mix and higher volumes, should expand margin percentages from current levels.
Benefits of our ongoing transformation, as well as growth in defense, energy, and our advanced alloys and ultra-performance materials, are expected to be accretive as well. These forces should drive growth well beyond 2025. We'll save that discussion for another day. Given our growth trajectory coupled with disciplined capital allocation, we see significant opportunity to create value for our shareholders. With that, I will turn the call back over to Bob.
Thanks, Don. I completely agree with you on the significant opportunity that's in front of ATI, as well as the fact that we're well-positioned to go get it. 2022 was a year of growth and preparation for us. Our strategic efforts put us in a strong position across ATI. The markets, ready. Orders, in. Capabilities and equipment, running faster every day with capacity increasing. The team already hard at work. Now we're building on our momentum. We're accelerating to meet and exceed our 2025 targets. We're proud of our 2022 results. More specifically, I'm extremely proud of the team that produced them. We're looking forward to even more to come. We are proven to perform. Operator, we're ready for the 1st question.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure that your phone is unmuted locally. We will pause for a moment to allow questions to be registered. Our 1st question comes from Richard Safran from Seaport Global. Richard, please go ahead.
Bob, Don, Tom, good morning. How are you?
Good morning, Richard.
Bob, I wanted to follow up on your opening titanium remarks. Don, this may also be for you as well. I'm trying to get a sense as to how titanium's gonna affect your mix and margins as we look going forward. I'm wondering if titanium and alloy sales are gonna be accretive to margins. From what I'm gathering, based on what you said, and correct me if I'm wrong, it looks like the impact is gonna be in sometime in 2024, if not 2025. Is that right?
Yeah. This is Don. I'll give you the short answer. Yes, as titanium increases in our mix, we would expect that to be accretive to our margins. As far as timing goes, we're actually seeing it unfold now, and it will continue to build momentum through 2024 and 2025.
Second here. On your comments about defense, I wanted to know if you could take a little bit longer view on defense growth, how you're thinking about that, and how you think that's gonna reshape the portfolio and impact your mix. Since you're selling materials, where you own the IP, I'm just wondering how defense margins might compare with commercial margins.
Yeah. A couple of questions in there. I'll take the last one 1st. I think over time, defense margins will approach commercial aero margins for the same basic metal units. Commercial aerospace tends to have more differentiation in some of the more exotic titanium grades and nickel grades, but over time, for the common specifications, I think they'll be about the same, 'cause that's how we're gonna manage our capacity. In terms of the opportunities, you know, we are excited about what's going on in defense. Other than the tragedy in Ukraine that's driving ground vehicle sales, we feel well-positioned, with the, you know, naval carriers, submarine fleets. You know, we're benefiting, and we expect to see the benefits of the AUKUS program, and those are huge long-term programs. We're excited about that.
We've gotten some awards from the next generation military vehicles, the Mobile Protected Firepower activity that's out there. We see those vehicles coming. Certainly, the Abrams tank is a heavy titanium user, for lightweight reasons, and that's exciting. You know, all kinds of things, including more space. You know, we put kinda defense kinda crosses over between with what we see in commercial versus defense, but the commercial space and defense space is really picking up, and we see opportunities a little bit longer term, but in our lifetime in hypersonics, right? You put all those things together, you know, it's a double-digit, you know, mid-teens kinda growth, for the long term, and again, based on differentiated materials, you know, that really bring value to the end product. Feel well-positioned, and bottom line, lots of mission-critical platforms for the U.S. and its allies. Does that help you, Richard?
Of course it does. Thank you, good sir. Appreciate it.
Yep. Yep.
Thank you. Our next question is from Phil Gibbs from KeyBanc Capital Markets. Phil, please go ahead.
Hey, good morning.
Morning, Phil.
This titanium debottlenecking, the 35% from 25% you had mentioned a couple months ago, does that involve re-scoping the brownfield? I remember the brownfield was 35%. Is this staying at 60% or is this moving to 70%?
It's additive to the total mix, so it does not change what we expect to get out of the brownfield investment. You're right, our total capacity is actually going up to closer to 70%.
You did the math right. Now we're excited about it, you know, the long lead time items that are on the books ordered-wise, it's gonna be really big. We're happy actually that the demand has been so strong and the customer commitments have really been strong, which is why we raised the short term demand or capacity number from the 25% to the 35%. Well, we were out there last week putting our hands on them, it's pretty exciting to see the ramp is underway.
You feel all this added capacity is supported by customer commitments?
We do. It's moving from the talk about it to the commit to it phase. A lot of those commitments have been made based on what we're seeing in the market. You know, I think, probably the last 90 days, the reality of the demand in 2023 is coming to the market and we're seeing lots of interest, and our lead times are stretching out to show it. The simple answer is yes, we feel the customers are committing and have committed in many cases to the capacity.
Do those involve some of these prepayments that you'd mentioned? It sounded like it was a $30 million tailwind to cash in the 4th quarter. Is that, does that $30 million become a $30 million headwind as you ship against those commitments, you know, next year?
[crosstalk]
Do you have to give it back?
Well, the way I would look at it, Phil, is number one, the indicator as to how strong the demand is in the market that customers are willing to make those prepayments in order to reserve their slots. The reality is, what's happened is that's cash flow that we would've expected to hit in 2023 that has been accelerated into Q4. We don't look at that as necessarily creating a divot for us in 2023. You know, clearly when you look at our cash flow guidance for 2023, we didn't take that down by, you know, by respect of $30 million. We set the midpoint at $150 million. That's the way to look at it.
I think that again, the strongest takeaway that you can make on that, those advanced payments are the demand, which we keep saying demand. We said it 50x already in the call. Demand is truly, you know, strong and this is not a blip. Our customers are seeing a sustained need for our materials. It's going to increase from here.
Thank you. Go, go.
Thank you. Our next question is from Seth Seifman from J.P. Morgan. Seth, please go ahead.
Hey, thanks very much and, good morning everyone.
Good morning, Seth.
I wanted to start off asking Morning. start off asking about the profitability in HPMC and, you know, how we should think about the drop through in 2023. You know, some quarters were stronger than others in 2022. This last quarter looked a little bit lighter than we expected, and kind of moving from the, you know, the 18% this year to the, you know, low to mid-20s out in 2025. You know, how to think about that progression, whether it's kind of back-end weighted or, you know, more, even across the years.
Yeah. I think, you know, the easiest way to think about it is we've talked about incremental margins going forward north of 30%, I think is what I've shared. We still expect that is intact. You know, we did note that with the additional $36 million of post-retirement expense in 2023, that's gonna create some earnings headwinds. It'll also be a bit dilutive to the overall margins for the business. This is not HPMC specific, but for the overall margins. The good news is we're gonna more than make up for that roughly 80 basis point- 90 basis point headwinds due to the post-retirement. Now, when you think about HPMC, you know, there's strong growth that we're seeing in that business.
The mix is changing, as we get more and more of the next-gen products that are being sold. You know, I think you should expect to see continued expansion, you know, into the kind of range that we talked about in our investor conference, which I believe we said, you know, expect for HPMC margins in the 20 kind of low to mid-20s. We still see ourselves on track to accomplish that in that timeframe.
Okay. Okay. Excellent. Then on the titanium, we think about the incremental titanium growth coming in 2023. On the airframe side, I guess, you know, should we think about most of that coming in A&D? Then you talked a little bit about the growth catalysts for 787 and, you know, we are at a place now where you think Boeing, you know, should be moving toward a higher rate. I guess, is that the main driver of the increased demand that you're seeing, or is it much more broad-based? To the extent it's more broad-based, can you touch on the other drivers?
A couple questions in there, Seth. I think the question, the 1st one was around near term titanium impact. You know, we're gonna be ramping up here in the 1st half, and it takes a little while to go from melt to final product in the back half. You know, from a top line perspective, you know, we'd expect $50 million-$60 million of top line revenue from this additional melt in 2023, is probably a good estimate that Don would let me get out there for you. In the 2nd half, yeah, clearly in the 2nd half. You asked about AANS and HPMC. I think it could probably be 50/50 between the two. You know, it's titanium six-four for the most part, so it can go a lot of different ways.
If you're at modeling it, I'd feel comfortable 50/50 between the two segments. I think that was the 1st set of questions. The 2nd part was around 787 demand, and is that the principal issue? I would say we're not done with the titanium share reapportionment from the prior sources. You know, people still have material flowing, you know, from Russia, and they're working hard to get their supply chain reshored or re-refirmed up for what they want. You remember the VSMPO guys are a very integrated business, and the alternative is not so integrated, so there's still a lot of work to be done, I think, in that supply chain. We're seeing part of that still continuing.
I can't speak for our customers, we obviously exited our joint venture with the Russians and we did what was right for our customers. It just took us a little while to exit from that, so it's not unusual that they would do that. The wide bodies in general, you know, we've repositioned our mix that we're more and more agnostic as to which OEM we're supplying. Certainly the wide body phenomenon in the short term has been in the U.S. as in terms of its shortfall. You know, Europe's been good, Airbus has been good on the wide body, and we're benefiting from our relationship with them there. I think the catalyst that I would say is, yep, 87 demand, wide body in general, realignment of supply chains.
I think we're on the verge of, you know, starting to see some of that early 777 stuff. You know, I know it's a ways before it enters into service, but I think that catalyst is coming very, very quickly, probably in the 2024 timeframe, given the long lead times that we see. You know, we're pretty excited across the board on wide-body in general. You know, our long-term guidance when we did our 2025 guides about 100 narrow-bodies, 20 wide-bodies by 2025, you know, those estimates are looking a little more conservative than we thought. We're pretty excited about all the catalysts coming together.
Great. Thank you very much, Bob.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Grattan Connor from TD Cowen. Grattan, please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning, guys.
Morning, Grattan.
Wanted to ask you about lead times right now. How far out are you guys quoting on your various aerospace products, so airframe, jet engine, and how has that changed over the last six months?
Yeah, the last six months, good question, Grattan. Good morning. One thing that has kind of gone on for us during the COVID pandemic was a shift from distributors as a key part. They're still important, distributors are a key part, but the team's done an excellent job of aligning more closely with OEM demand. We are getting, you know, a few more direct signals than as a percentage of our mix in aerospace and defense. That's been positive. I would say today, depending on the part and the flow path, customers are willing to commit orders and some products into Q1 of 2025, believe it or not. We do have a fairly controlled order entry program against those commitments. They have that kind of visibility, and they want to make sure they get their pipeline.
I would say more of the mill products type things, plate, you could probably still get some titanium in Q4 of 2023. Those slots are going fast, I wouldn't wait around. And then the general more specialized alloy mill products that come out of our North Carolina melting, probably, you know, into 2024, early 2024, if not Q2 of 2024. Where were we six months ago? I know where we were eight quarters ago. Eight quarters ago, you could place an order in the quarter and get it, right? That was eight, 6-8 weeks.
Right.
That was obviously in 2020, 2021, and those days are gone. Yeah, it's really I would say the average lead time is 50, 60, 70 weeks, depending on the product.
Wow. Okay. Do you guys have any long-term contracts coming up for renewal over the next year? I'm just curious, like how pricing... It sounds like this is a good environment for pricing to move higher even on LTAs as they come for you know, renewals. Is that meaningful in any way?
Yeah. We don't have.
Opportunity
I don't believe we have any major ones in 2023. You know, they are kind of layered in, so, you know, 2024, 2025. Probably 2025 will be the 1st major transition year to other contracts. Most of the big OEMs are out. You know, we have quite a few that go to 2030, 2035, those kinds of numbers. Most of those have, you know, inflationary or pricing pass-throughs. I would say, you know, for people who don't have contractual commitments or don't have long-term relationships, you know, spot pricing is up significantly in the market and, you know, it's the market price, so we're taking advantage of the opportunity. I think there are pricing opportunities, both on the raw material pass-through as well as just fundamental demand.
Yep. Okay. Last one just on the VSMPO opportunity. Has Boeing moved a little more urgently? Have you heard from other OEMs besides Airbus, who want to.
Yep
Go ahead up and lock up supply with you guys?
Yeah. I'll, I was in Seattle earlier this week enjoying a great celebration of final 747 being delivered. It was a great moment in history and proud to have been part of that. I do think all the OEMs are moving with urgency. I think the wide body recovery across the board is driving that. I think it's a complex issue. It's not as simple as just redirecting, "Oh, yeah, we'll buy this stuff over here, and everything's gonna be fine." You know, it's a complex supply chain, complex and very important specifications. I do think, over the last 6 months, I think they have started. There's a lot of urgency, everywhere I go. Anytime I get a phone call from a customer, you know, there's a reason for it.
We're in a great position to be able to take advantage of it. I've been talking to more customers along with our Chief Operating Officer, Tim Fields. We talk a lot about the customers on a regular basis, and it's really trying to get clarity of demand, and they're working on it with urgency.
Got it. Thank Thank you very much.
Hey, thanks, Gautam.
Thank you. Our next question is from David Strauss from Barclays. David, please go ahead.
Thanks. Good morning, everyone.
Good morning, David.
On, is there any capital deployment assumed in your guidance for 2023?
David, when you say capital deployment, could you be more specific?
Yeah. I guess returning cash to, you know, or debt pay down or share buyback. Anything assumed in the guidance you gave?
Yeah. What I would say is, there's a couple elements that I would highlight. One, of course, when we think about capital deployment, we kinda have three legs to that stool. One is investing for growth. That's for us, primarily focused on the CapEx, and we've talked about our CapEx guide at $200-$240 in 2023. Then the 2nd leg on that, on that stool is about delevering. To us, there's two things that come to mind. One is the pension. First and foremost, we're making voluntary contributions to the pension plan. This year we have a $50 million contribution. We actually made that contribution earlier this week, so that is out of the way for 2023.
We have another $50 million contribution that we have planned for 2024. And then, you know, in terms of other debt actions, you know, we really don't have any imminent debt maturities that we're gonna have to deal with. There's no repayments that are required when it comes to bank debt or anything of that sort. Nothing is planned. I don't plan to, you know, take out any of our ABL, you know, term loans or anything like that. The 3rd leg, of course, is return to capital shareholders. That's extraordinarily important to us. In 2020, or excuse me, 2022, we repurchased about $140 million of shares. We've got $10 million left on that $150 million program.
We'll finish that share repurchase program up in early 2022. You know, of course, we're expecting that we're gonna generate a healthy amount of cash flow as the aero ramp unfolds. Our expectation is that we're going to put that money to work, and returning capital to shareholders continues to be a very, very important thing to us, and so it'll continue to be a feature. At this point, the board has not approved additional share repurchases beyond the remainder of the existing program, but I wouldn't read anything into that fact, because the timing of an approval would be after we finish up the existing program. I hope that helps.
Yeah, sure. Then a question on longer term free cash flow conversion. You know, it looks like in 2023, you're targeting somewhere around 50% free cash flow conversion on net income, you know, closer to, you know, probably 25% or so, 20% on EBITDA. You know, I think before you talked about 90% free cash flow conversion as the target. You know, out into 2025 where it looks like, you know, you're targeting somewhere around $800 million or so, $750 million-$800 million EBITDA. You know, what, you know, maybe the building blocks for free cash flow out there?
Yeah. I'm happy to touch on that. Your math is right, by the way. If you take the EPS guidance, and you back into cash and cash conversion, we're in that 50% range right now. We've made a significant improvement, by the way, in that metric over the last couple of years. You know, our stake in the ground is 2025 cash conversion of greater than 90%. What's gonna happen is, of course, everything on cash generation starts with profitability.
Our profitability has increased and is expected to increase significantly. That's gonna play a key part. We're unlocking the efficiency in our managed working capital, so a huge step in that already in 2022 when we hit our target at 30%. We're going to continue to make progress and improve on that working capital efficiency. Another important part of it is gonna be CapEx, capital spending. This year our capital spending range has a midpoint of about $220 million. What I shared previously still holds. As you look at between now and 2025, what I expect is our CapEx spend is going to edge down, and by the time we get to 2025, I would expect our capital spending to be close to our depreciation rate.
Our depreciation rate at that point will be, you know, somewhere between probably $150 million-$170 million. That's helpful as well. All those are some of the building blocks to improving this cash conversion metric. I also expect, by the way, that when we're out in the 2025 timeframe, I still expect to be a limited cash taxpayer, which is gonna be helpful in, at least in that period when it comes to cash conversion.
Okay. Thanks very much, Tom.
You bet.
Thank you. Our final question is from Timna Tanis from Wolfe Research. Timna, please go ahead.
Yeah. Good morning, everyone.
Good morning, Timna.
I have is just really. Good morning. We talked a lot about aerospace and defense, so I just thought we should probe some of the other end markets. I know they're de-emphasized. On the positive side, you sound more constructive on specialty energy. Just wondering for a little more color on that and if you've quantified any of the IRA benefit and timing. On the more cautious side, you know, your industrial headwinds contrast with what we're hearing from others. I'd love to get a little more color on that and why you're confident in the H2 timing for China demand recovering. Why not earlier? Why H2? That would be really helpful.
All right. There's a lot in that one. You wanna take the 1st one, Don, on the China issue, you want me to do that one?
Sure. No, I'm happy to do. As far as the China headwinds, you know, the restrictions, of course, have fallen off significantly. You know, the downside is there's more COVID. What we're seeing, you know, in our business and, you know, on a more broad, in a more broad circumstance, we're seeing those actual COVID cases that are creating the headwinds in China. You know, we saw that in the kinda latter Q4. I think we've seen a bit of a step-down in early Q1.
While we'd like to see that, headwind go away, we're just, you know, based upon the current pace of things, our expectations is that it's going to, you know, be with us in the 1st half. It, it could be that the COVID cases recover much quicker than we're planning and, you know, our business is ready to roll, I can tell you that. You know, in an abundance of caution for how we view the business and the trajectory, our sense is it's gonna take us the 1st half. That's right. I think, the thing is we wanna see it before we forecast it. That's the bottom line. Let's see it materialize because there's been a lot of ups and downs in that market over the last couple years. I think your other question, Timna, was around oil and gas and energy in particular. I think.
The specialty.
... strength. Specialty, specialty energy. Yeah. Well, we definitely see the oil and gas side with the subsea, you know, the offshore and the subsea systems, you know, nickel clad, various things, specialty alloy things for the deep water or subsea systems. That's growing and continues to come back strong. You know, we continue to see in the specialty side, lots of activity in, you know, next generation technologies. Civilian nuclear is actually coming back. We feel pretty optimistic about those applications. I would say, you know, we've had a long history with flue- gas desulfurization of coal plants in Asia and, although that market kinda goes up and down a little bit with the nickel price, in terms of how they wanna purchase. Bottom line is, we feel pretty good about those markets with continued growth, I would say high single digits, low double-digit kinda growth, through 2023. You asked about, Inflation Reduction Act impact and timing.
Mm-hmm.
To be candid, we haven't factored that in. That would be an upside if it came. Not sure it will come to the markets we're serving. A lot of the opportunities we see f or Special Energy actually are outside the United States, so probably not such a big impact for us.
Okay, thanks. If I could sneak one more in. You mentioned a couple of times in the outlook slides the ongoing or benefits from reshoring trends and material sourcing. I just wonder if you can explain a little more what that means. Along those same lines, I know in the past you've talked about moly prices, molybdenum has exploded. Does that even matter anymore for you? Thanks again.
All right. Let's see. There's a couple in there, Timna. You're getting, like, six today. That's pretty good. Six today. On molybdenum, we always care about molybdenum, I think, you know, with the material passthrough, you know, we work hard to pass it through and not take that risk. I think the team's done a good job of that. It's always an issue in terms of how fast or, and what kind of pattern it goes up. That's kinda number one. I think your 2nd question was around reshoring. You know, the 1st and obvious one is in commercial aerospace. Second and less obvious one is in the medical space. Over the last few years, we had seen material purchases that were more common purchases, I wouldn't say commodity, were more standard moving to places like Russia, China, various other sources. I think that particular supply chain is interested in reshoring.
We're also seeing some activity in the electronic space. Obviously, there's a huge activity. If you're, if you've been to Phoenix lately, you'll see a lot of building of chip manufacturing, and we actually provide some specific materials that go into the precursors that go into chip manufacturing. That's been positive for us. Yeah, I think it's the surety of the supply chain, the surety of the quality. So between electronics and medical, I think those are probably two other good examples. Then, you know, we do a lot of work that has historically brought materials out of China. I think the growing sensitivity to near-term supply chains of input materials. You know, everything we make is alloyed in one shape, form, or another, and those alloying ingredients come from all over the world.
We've been able to really focus on how do you nearshore or reshore some of those kind of things. Hopefully that's a couple of good examples to give you some color on where else that's going on.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. That is now the end of the Q&A session, and I will now hand back over to Tom Wright for the closing remarks.
Thank you for joining us today. A replay of this call will be available on our website. This concludes the ATI 4th quarter earnings call.