Again, Doug Carson here and Alex Perry. We're really grateful to have BorgWarner with us. With us from the firm, we have Craig Aaron, Executive Vice President and CFO, and Patrick Nolan, Vice President, Investor Relations. BorgWarner's been with us through thick and thin in the Auto Summit for the last 17 years. They've devoted a lot of time to both the equity and credit investors. I think you'll see they're a leader in clean, efficient technology solutions, combustion, hybrid, electric vehicles. They really do it all. Excellent design, technology. With that, we're gonna kind a just dive into a fireside chat. We're gonna try to have it interactive. We'd love some questions, you know, from the audience, throughout.
Maybe I'll just kind of open it up with how are you guys seeing the market right now, for global production? We have this, obviously, this oil shock, but you know, for many of our panelists before, they said that unless it's gonna be a 3-4-month prolonged event, we don't really think it'll be you know, a major mishap in the auto industry and affordability has been a concern in people's minds.
Sure. Well, first of all, thanks for having us.
Bank of America is an important relationship for us, so we're really happy to be here. as we sit here today, our initial guidance from an industry production perspective was flat to down 3%, and midpoint of that is. Of course , down about 1.5%, and I think S&P right now is right around there.
1 now.
Right around 1%. The schedules right now are hanging in there, but we'll see how the year plays out. I think our biggest concern is, with higher vehicle prices already in North America and with this oil shock happening, you know, does consumer demand dry up at some point? Obviously, the longer this goes on, the higher the risk. As we sit here today, you know, we're seeing demand hang in there. let's see how it plays out. Early days.
Perfect. I wanted to get a little bit more into sort of mix hybrid versus BEV versus ICE and how that plays into things. I think the BEVs are growing at a lower rate than previously expected. Hybrids have taken off. Can you just tell us how mix, and more hybrids, and ICE sort of impact your business? What are the positives? W hat are the negatives as you think about sort of the evolution of the mix?
When you think about our business, we're able to provide each of the markets, which we're seeing move differently with our portfolio. Our portfolio is very broad. We can supply and provide solutions for our customers, whether it's foundational products, combustion products, hybrids or electrics. How we measure success for those businesses is pretty simple. For our foundational businesses, which is DMS and TTT, we measure their success based on the foundational market plus the hybrid market. Their goal is to outgrow industry production.
Right.
For our e-product businesses, it's the hybrid market plus the battery electric vehicle market. That's how we measure success for them. Their goal is to outgrow those end markets and increment in the mid-teens on an all-in basis. That's how we measure success. What I'm seeing across all of our businesses that's maybe changed over the last couple years is really regionalization.
Each region is adopting hybrid products and battery electric vehicle products at a different pace. I think our operating model and our portfolio is playing out really nicely. In this market, we don't see battery electric vehicles penetrating significantly over the next handful of years. That's okay. We'll sell foundational products, and that provides us a nice cash tailwind because we have capacity in this marketplace, and we're not having to put in new capital. We can utilize what we have. In China, it's probably the opposite, right? Battery electric vehicles, hybrid vehicles are a significant portion of that market, and we're having a lot of success with local Chinese OEMs, and we're winning in that market. Europe's probably somewhere in the middle.
I think it's our portfolio diversification, our customer diversification, our operating model, where we're making decisions at the lowest level of the organization, which is at the plant level, that's really playing out well for us. You can see it in our metrics from a win percentage, where we had record wins last year, but also from an operating perspective, where we've increased margin 60 basis points. We had record free cash flow last year. We grew EPS 14% year-over-year. That's our operating model in action and being able to adapt to these different dynamics.
Maybe I'll double-click on China for a moment. We were just talking earlier that you're winning in the local Chinese manufacturers, and we've seen over the last day or two, many panels who kind of shown that the Chinese market is continuing to evolve. Of course, EV has been very strong, but also the domestic manufacturers are gaining a lot of share relative to the rest.
What's giving you the wins in the Chinese market? What are you doing maybe differently than some competitors?
If you look at the breakdown of our China business, it's about 20% of our overall sales.
Of that, about 75% of that sales base is with the local Chinese OEMs. If you double-click within that 75%, about three-quarters of that is with about the top 6 Chinese OEMs by market share. We tend to do better with the larger Chinese OEMs. Well, well why is that? Well, those Chinese OEMs prioritize speed to market. They prioritize technology leadership, both from a standpoint of their domestic market strategies, and electrification.
Right.
Eventually, I mean, we're now at almost 7 million units exported from China. Those larger OEMs are the ones that ultimately have aspirations to go global.
When they go global, they wanna have that technology leadership, but they also wanna get the speed to end market very quickly.
You guys are able to get them to the market faster than.
That's what we hear. When we hear from our customers, when Joe, our CEO, is meeting with his principals over in China, what he hears is three things. They really like our overall technology portfolio. He likes the fact that we've been in China for quite a long time and have those deeply ingrained relationships with those OEMs. Probably most importantly, we can run shoulder to shoulder with them.
Right.
In the Western world, typically it's three years from award to going to production. In China, you're knocking at least a year off of that.
Like a 2 -year window.
If not less.
We've taken products from PowerPoint to production in 12-18 months. I mean, that's how fast we can go.
Interesting. I wanted to double-click a little bit on the competitive environment. Think maybe you're alluding to some competitive advantages in China that you have. Just give us an overview of the competitive landscape for both the foundational products and EV products. Have you seen any change? Do you expect consolidation in the space? You know, do you see any risk from Chinese suppliers in China locally and I guess more globally?
On a global basis, there's typically between 5 and 7 true competitors in most of the products that we do. There is a handful of Chinese competitors and different products that we do compete on, so they have gotten to that point where they do have a good, strong global presence. I think when you look at the two different sides of the business from a dynamics of where are we stronger, on the foundational side, we're typically at 1 or 2 in terms of market share, in terms of those product categories. We do see some natural consolidation, and the way I mean that is the larger suppliers are generally winning some conquest business.
You see it in our awards on a quarterly basis, as ultimately the OEMs wanna lean a little bit more on the supply base there as we go forward. On the e-product side, we see a path towards being a top three in most of the products that we play in today, and we are starting to see share consolidation there, where there was a lot of players in some areas, and now you're seeing more of that consolidation play out.
Maybe we'll kinda switch gears a little bit to the regulatory regime. Yeah, how are some of the regulatory changes, whether it's EPA, CAFE, CARB, IRA, impacted your strategies, your growth initiatives? I've been covering the company for-
Mm-hmm
Almost close to 30 years. I know that some of the regulatory, you know, changes have actually been in favor as things needed to get cleaner. It impacted your ability to, you know, put turbochargers in to kinda lower, you know, your gasoline content. If you could just give us a little color on how you're looking at the regulatory environment.
That's what I think is beautiful about our portfolio. We can adapt.
Right.
In this market, obviously regulatory changes moved in one direction, and that's fine. We're meeting with our customers to solve their problems, and we're not trying to push one technology or another. In this market, it's probably gonna be more foundational products, and that's okay. We're number one or number two in everything we do, and again, it's gonna provide a nice cash tailwind for us. In other regions in the world, it's probably gonna be a little bit more e-products. We're meeting with our customers, we're understanding the issue they're trying to solve. We're providing solutions on both sides of the portfolio that helps them. If we're doing that, BorgWarner's gonna be successful. And that's what I see.
I think the evidence point is the 30+ awards that we announced last year across the entire portfolio. I think that's a great evidence point. I see us being able to adapt nicely, win new business, and ultimately, as we win new business, we'll increment that extra revenue in the mid-teens on an all-in basis and create a lot of value for our shareholders.
Just going, as a part of that, let's talk about the battery business a little bit. I think you called out a lack of North America incentives and softer Europe sort of driving headwind in the battery business, at least for 2026. Can you detail sort of the policy and the demand drivers there and what actions you've sort of taken to minimize the losses in the battery business?
Sure. Y ou go back a couple years ago, we acquired AKASOL AG, and we saw tremendous growth in that business in Europe, and we ended up adding capacity in North America to support that growth. Then the world changed on us a little bit, and demand dried up in North America and to a lesser extent in Europe. It was important that we rightsize that business for the demand dynamics that have been happening at this time. The team did a fantastic job of rightsizing that business. We restructured that business and took other actions, and I think the evidence point you can look at is our fourth quarter. Revenue's down, income's up.
We feel really good with the cost structure, and we are confident that as that business grows, we can increment in the mid-teens from this point forward. Overall, we're still pretty bullish on that business, although revenue's gonna be down about $200 million this year, and that's causing about 150 basis point challenge to our growth this year.
Mm-hmm.
From a long-term perspective, we're still bullish. Energy storage is a trend that is gonna occur for many years to come, and there's a need for energy storage, whether it's in automotive or outside of automotive. Our product can solve that global challenge. For us, it's about winning new business, whether it's in auto or outside of automotive. As that business grows, we'll increment in the mid-teens. Again, we're bullish. We got our cost structure right, and we think we can capitalize on that growth when it materializes.
I mean, do you think that business is gonna require more CapEx and R&D, or do you feel like you've got a good foothold on it right now?
We have a good foothold on it. We have the right level of CapEx in that business. We've restructured appropriately. Now it's about winning new business and incrementing in the mid-teens as it grows.
I guess we'll kind of circle back to the different markets you're in. Maybe you help us like a window into. We have a pretty good sense as we're talking, a lot of us are, you know, North America-focused 'cause it's where we work.
If you could look at China, the EV mandate is still super strong there. If you look at like IHS or S&P Global Mobility, their projections in China, they keep on increasing the penetration rate into EV. North America has come way down and Europe is kind of somewhere in the middle. What do you think is driving the EV focus in China? It's still trying to stay alive in Europe and in the US, it's kind of on pause almost.
In China, clearly the mandates are still there.
That electrification is happening in that market. It's continuing to grow in that market at a relatively rapid pace. The one thing I would add, though, is we talked about the Chinese exports. They're gonna export whatever vehicles they think they can sell.
We've actually seen some awards on the foundational side of the business in China for export purposes. I think clearly the opportunity set is gonna skew towards electrification in that market, but I think there will be pockets on the foundational side for opportunities for growth.
In Europe, from what we see, we're still going down the path of electrification. I think the timing may shift a little bit based on some of the changes in regulations, but it's still happening. You're still seeing launches happen.
North America, as you said, I think electrification here is delayed for quite some time. It's likely gonna be a predominantly foundational business unit, or region, excuse me, with hybrids coming a couple of years from now. When I say hybrids, I'm talking more advanced hybrids.
Right.
I think it's really what this speaks to is there's two benefits that BorgWarner can use to capitalize on this. It's the portfolio that we talked about. We're happy to sell foundational products, we're happy to sell BEV products, and of course, hybrids, we're happy to sell both. The other thing that's gonna. We're a very decentralized company, and this is gonna be much more of a regional growth business than it has been in the past, and I think that'll play to our strength.
I just have a capacity utilization question I'll turn over to you. One presenter showed us the capacity utilization in China was only 53%, which left us worried that there'll either be some stranded, you know, assets in China over time, or they'll be hyper-focused on utilizing that capacity, or there'll be, you know, some markets that kind of shrink.
We think we have 100 manufacturers in China.
I think about it a little bit differently, and it's less of a China question 'cause we're winning in China and we're seeing them use the equipment that's in place. One of our focuses last year was, okay, we have a lot of capacity that we put in place in the e-product side of our portfolio. We've put that in over the last few years, and some of those programs didn't launch at all.
Right
or launched at much lower volumes. A big focus of our PowerDrive Systems business unit was we need to move that capital from one region to another. If it's not gonna be used in North America, move it to Europe or move it to China, as an example. It's one of the reasons that our CapEx last year was only 3% of sales. We're usually in that 4.5%-5% range. They did a fantastic job. It was a part of the reason why our cash flow was $1.2 billion last year. On top of that, we always meet with our customers when, we have a program that didn't meet expectations, and it's because of a constraint on their end.
We're gonna go back to them and ask for recovery.
Right.
We saw some of that in the Q4 of last year. We're using both of those items to, you know, mitigate risk from a capital perspective. I don't see it as a China issue. I see it more of a North American issue, and it's important that that plant manager doesn't get the nice new equipment.
Right.
They get the equipment that's in place, and they can modify it and use it, and I think we did a really nice job.
Optimizing CapEx kind of in a global pattern and you were getting some reimbursement.
Yes
when needed.
Exactly.
Let's talk about data centers.
I was waiting for this.
Yeah. I didn't think.
Thank you, Brad, for the auto note.
Yeah, I didn't think we'd be able to talk about data centers at the auto summit, but thanks for the opportunity. In February, you signed a master supply agreement with TurboCell, focused on, you know, data center power solutions. I think targeting $300 million in sales in 2027, which will be the first year. I guess, what's your longer term vision in the data center end market? How should we think about capacity and sort of the overall mix as power generation continues to grow?
If you look at the market for power generation, it's supposed to grow mid-teens% for the next 10 years. Obviously, the market itself is very appealing. When you think about, you know, hyperscalers and others, what are they trying to solve for right now? It's really two issues, it's water and it's power, and we're coming up with a solution that solves the power equation, clearly. You know, from our perspective, what we've shared is we feel like we have a great product that answers those needs and has BorgWarner all over it. You know, it has our thermal competency, our power electronics competencies, our turbocharger technology in it. We're utilizing the core competencies of BorgWarner to come up with a unique
Turbine generator that meets that end user demand, which is really exciting for us. What we announced publicly is $300 million of revenue in the first year of production, and we expect that to be immediately EPS accretive. We expect to convert in the mid-teens, and we really like the return on invested capital profile. We're in the launch phase here, so we're quickly doing B samples and C samples, and really focused on launch at this point. But the team is really energized. We were just down there a couple weeks ago.
Mm-hmm.
Excited to see the product maturing, and excited to see it in our P&L in 2027.
Could you just talk a little bit about sort of the installed capacity?
Sure.
for the data center solution and how you sort of plan on scaling that?
Yeah. We communicated we're putting in 2 gigawatts of capacity in North Carolina, that will be installed at the end of the year. The $300 million in revenue is not correlated to the 2 gigawatt hours.
It's our first year of production. We haven't provided that math yet, but we, you know, we'll give more insight as we get closer to launch. Frankly, our decision at some point this year is, do we expand capacity? That decision will be made, call it second half of the year. Where do we put in capacity? Is it in North America? Is it in Europe? Is it in Asia? T hose are. That's the type of decisions that we're focused on making over the next six months.
Sorry, I think you may have given this, but how should we just think about margins in that business and o ver time, how should they evolve?
All we've shown to this point is you should expect next year mid-teens% incremental conversion on that $300 million in revenue. You should expect EPS accretion immediately, and you should expect from an ROI-ROIC perspective, we like it, which means it's at least meeting our 15% ROIC threshold.
Maybe I'll ask a question on e-products. I think about 5 years ago, you presented the Charging Forward initiative. I think a lot of investors know, your business. If you could maybe just give a little bit of color on, how the product differentiates itself from your more traditional, your ICE business, and what are some of the key wins that you've had to have such, you know, amazing growth in that segment?
When you think about our two different businesses, I would think about you have our T3 business, our DMS business. Those are our foundational businesses.
We have PDS and our battery business. PDS has had a lot of success. You talked about the bookings and the progress that they have there. Those products include everything from your inverters, your motors, your combination products, and they've been really successful, particularly in China, but also in Europe and to a lesser extent, North America. What's really interesting beyond just the product itself, you're starting to get to the point where you actually start to see the award activity in China is driving wins in the Western world. We've heard in multiple of our wins that we achieved this year, our Western customer saying to us, "Well, you're winning in China.
[Crosstalk]
We're trying to crack that nut in terms of affordability. Clearly there's something there, so let's go down this road." I think that is actually starting.
Interesting
to feed into the business.
because it goes back to what we talked about earlier, right? It's that technology, that customer intimacy, that speed to market. I think PDS really leverages all three of those.
That's really interesting.
I guess just switching to fundamentals. I think fundamentals expect to be a little softer in 2026 with more programs starting in 2027. Can you just maybe walk us through the award pipeline and incremental margins of these programs?
Just keep in mind on the foundational business, while we do expect the sales to be down this year.
That's mainly a function of their market. The overall market, we're expecting to be flat to down 3%. That means the foundational market's gonna be down a bit more than that.
Okay.
We expect our foundational business sales to be down this year, but it's gonna outperform that market.
Gotcha.
As you look out to 2027 and 2028, and I think it applies both to the foundational businesses and the e-products businesses, the award activity acceleration that you start to see in 2024 and further acceleration in 2025 on a three-year lead time, that means you start to see that flowing through in 2027 and 2028. I think it's a function of two things. I think from an external environment, there was a kind of an unlock, particularly in North America, in terms of OEMs awarding business.
Also as our current CEO, then COO in 2024, really changed the way we think about growth. In 2022, 2023, the world was going through electrification at a rapid pace. That's really what we were focused on in terms of award activities. Joe came in and said, "Well, our e-products business had gotten to the point where now they're the size of a small automotive supplier.
They can stand on their own. I want all our business units to go find their areas of growth. You foundational business units, book foundational awards, maybe conquest business, maybe develop a new product like turbine generator and e-products. Go capitalize on that secular growth opportunity.
Really independently allowing those businesses to kind of operate.
The objectives are the same now versus 3 years ago it was, well, you as a foundational business unit, your job is margin, cash, help support your brother that's growing into this e-products business. The e-products business has matured to the point where now our objectives are the same across the business units. It's outgrow your markets, increment in the mid-teens%.
We want to engage the full business to grow, you know, not just a portion of the business.
Right.
People wanna work for businesses that have aspirations to grow. It's not as fun just to generate cash and give it to your brother or sister.
We're seeing that change in thought process, that change in maybe motivation, has really unlocked.
The whole company, and that's why we saw 30+ awards that we announced publicly, and there were obviously more record new business wins. Moving into a new, data center space with a new product, all of that doesn't happen without that change in tone. We're really happy with the progress that we've had to date.
I guess on that, you announced data centers as sort of, a foray outside of the traditional automotive value chain. Where else could we see BorgWarner going to? I mean, what other sort of end markets, applications, as you think, more broadly and longer term, do you think your current you could position?
Maybe I'll start, and Beck can certainly add on here. Obviously, power generation is the one that we've spoke about and we see $300 million of revenue next year. We also have a lot of core competencies that we think can play outside of auto. Inverters is a good example of that, power conversion. That's an area of focus for us. Then we spoke about the battery business, and having stored power is important too. We think those are the areas that we can play, power generation, power conversion, power storage are all areas that we can leverage our core competencies outside of auto. Again, it goes back to find your growth opportunities, whether that's inside or outside.
Our goal is to grow our top line, convert to the mid-teens, and at the end of the day, how I measure success, you know, as the CFO is we're growing the earnings power of BorgWarner. That's our job day in and day out. That's what I wake up and think about, and we have multiple avenues to do that, whether it's top-line growth, whether it's cost controls, whether it's having a smart capital allocation approach that rewards shareholders through share repurchases. We need to use every lever at our disposal to grow the earnings profile of the company, and that's gonna be good for our employees, and it's gonna be good for our shareholders. That's how we think about it.
Nothing else to add?
Maybe we'll just double-click on the turbocharger business. Been leaders in that forever. We're just kind of curious on the hybrid powertrains. You've had some big wins in that. As we think about, oil at 100, I'm sure it's not gonna stay there, but let's say if it does for a longer period of time, does that influence the turbocharger business at all, in a positive way, perhaps?
I think there's a couple of growth opportunities for the T3 business unit. Obviously, they're developing new products like turbine generator. I think the turbo business themselves, they think they have opportunities for penetration still in North America. North America, we're in the 50s% in terms of turbocharger penetration. Much below Europe, still now much below China. I think there's a penetration opportunity there. In addition, you brought up hybrids. Hybrids, you're gonna see penetration of turbos onto hybrids as well. You also have potentially more efficient turbos coming, more, variable geometry turbocharging. I think that's coming as well. The last thing, as I kind you couldn'ta talked about earlier, I think this idea that the larger players have more conquest opportunities going forward, I think that starts to play out too.
I think that's also Joe, again, challenging the organization. I think there was a mindset of, "Well, we're already number one or two. Can we really go out and gain share?" You ask yourself the question of why couldn't you gain share. Why couldn't you conquer business? I think that's an opportunity too.
We saw those wins last year.
A few conquests.
Especially if they're profitable.
Absolutely.
I mean, I guess you as you look at maybe a more mature business like your turbocharger business, and you speak about, you know, large conquest wins, what's driving that? Is it, you know, better technology? Is it better pricing? Like, can you just walk us through, you know, how you're sort of driving that growth in a more mature business?
I can start, maybe. All of the above, I would say. A s those smaller suppliers struggle, you still have to invest in the technology. There's. The market is still looking for advanced turbos.
We have scale that others don't have. The market should consolidate, and we're using that to our advantage, and that's exactly why we saw some of those conquest wins. I think it's all of the above. It's pricing, it's customer relationships, it's technology. You have to bring all of that to the table to win these awards. I think our turbo business and our T&T business is really good in all of those regards. I think that's what's leading to the wins.
Perfect. I wanna take a moment, scan the audience, see if we have anything out there for the BorgWarner team.
Question in the back.
The opportunity in the turbines business is very interesting. Can you talk about how you compete against the likes of GEV, Cat? Is that your true competitor, or are you complementing their existing products? Maybe just a little bit about the auction process and how you win awards versus those names.
Sure. Just to make sure that everybody understands the business model as it's currently set up. We started a joint development agreement with a company called Endeavour about three and a half years ago, and the purpose of that joint development agreement was make sure that we were able to bring a product to market that met certain specs that we agreed to with Endeavour. Over the last three years, we've developed that product, and it's running, and we've tested it. We feel really good about the product. When you compare that against other competitors, we don't see a clear competitor, but when you look at items like efficiency or total cost of ownership, we're really competitive with those alternatives. What we like better about our product is its flexibility.
As an example, some of the competitors that you talked about can provide power, can provide primary power or backup power. Ours can provide both. It's flexible. We have modular flexibility, meaning, you know, we can provide 1 megawatt or we can provide a whole data farm. Some of those alternatives are huge turbines. Ours can be put on a truck and moved from one data center to another data center, where those larger turbines, once they're in place, they're in place. Ours provides fuel flexibility. We think as we get out the curve, those things are gonna be really important. As we look at the next handful of years, there's just such a need for power generation. I don't know that those discussions really are really important right now.
Right now is we need to get to market as quickly as possible, make sure that we launch appropriately. We have a great product that works in the field, and if we do that, then I think it's gonna be our ability to supply, not the demand in the short term.
The one thing I'd add is that I think the one benefit that we're really excited about bringing to this market is bringing the automotive scale, automotive technology, and automotive cost base to this market. We think that's gonna be a real competitive advantage for us. When you look at the supply base for that product, 80% of the suppliers for the turbine generator are from the automotive space. Just think about what that means in terms of scale, pricing, continuous technology innovation. We think all the attributes that Craig talked about, the product itself are 100% right. I think from a competitive dynamic, bringing that automotive competitiveness is gonna be a real strong differentiator.
Good point. Perfect.
It'll help margins a little bit.
We've got inflation in certain areas in the world, with oil up. Just if you could talk a little about supply chain, any issues that you might double-click on or your raw material impact and margin's been very strong, you know, historically, if you could just fold that into the margin look.
This is just the latest conversation, but if you look across the last three or four years, it's always something in automotive. I t's a supplier, a semiconductor shortage.
It's inflation.
Iran.
It goes on and on and on. Our teams are really agile. I think from a sales function perspective, I think we have a world-class sales function. We know how to navigate these discussions with our customer, and if we see excessive inflation, obviously we're gonna push on our supply base and do the best we can manage it. We also have to have those discussions with our customers because, the pricing power is gonna probably go to the end consumer.
Right.
We're very good at those discussions, so that's how I see it playing out. Again, it's just every year it seems to be something that we have to navigate and we're really good at navigating those types of issues. I don't see it as a major concern at this point.
It is a complex industry.
It is. It makes it fun.
It does.
Just aftermarket. Can you just remind us your exposure to the aftermarket business, and how large and profitable that business is?
It's about 3% of revenue today. It's mostly on our foundational sides of our business. Margins are similar to our OEM business.
Yep. Perfect. We'll do one more scan out there before we get in.
Quick, we have Brian Moynihan.
I'm just gonna circle back to Endeavour and this JV. I could not find much information on Endeavour. I was shocked about how little there is on the founder and the whole, you know, side of it. So what did you guys see in them three years ago to partner with? And what are they bringing to the table? Sorry if some of this is a bit repetitive. I know you did talk on this when you announced it, but obviously the opportunity is really big, but Endeavour's it. I don't know. Like, I'm trying to understand how they're gonna help get you to market quicker and all that. Maybe you can just touch on that quickly. Thanks.
You wanna start?
Just to give you a bit of history. Endeavour approached us about three and a half years ago with this idea of bringing this product to market. We've gone through this development stage, and now we've reached the phase of where we have a manufacturing supply agreement with the company, which we're really excited about. What we think Endeavour brings to us is I think we're bringing a lot of the manufacturing know-how that I just talked about in the last question, but they bring that level of customer intimacy that we need to enter this new market. One great example that I often cite is we've had multiple hyperscalers come through our R&D facility to see the product running.
If we didn't have a customer that was already a known entity in that market, I know they're a private company, so you're not gonna see as much data on their website like you would like a public company like us, but they are well known within that space. We wouldn't have had those hyperscalers coming through our facility to see it. If we were an automotive company that just announced that this year, well, maybe they would come through, maybe they wouldn't. We've learned that in some of the other markets we've tried to enter, that just 'cause you have the best mousetrap doesn't necessarily mean you're gonna be successful. You need that customer intimacy. You need someone that can speak the language of their customers, and that's what Endeavour brings. We think they're a really exciting customer for us, and we're really happy about it.
Just to clarify one point. It's not a joint venture, it's a supply agreement. Just to make sure that's clear.
Just to be clear on your competitors, who are you bumping up against? Is it Caterpillar? I'm just trying to understand. I know this was asked before, but what particular competition? 'Cause there's a lot of different things. You got, you know, aircraft maintenance companies now.
Taking jet engines, right, and turning them into, you know, supply, power supply. Like just trying to understand who specifically are you kind of bumping up against when you do have an RFP?
I don't wanna talk about competitors' names or talk about products, and you can kinda figure out who the competitors are. There's two different sides of what this product will be aimed for. You have the primary power side, of which you're competing against when the grid finally catches it up. But today you're competing against large industrial turbines are the primary source of, for primary power for these sites. And then on backup generation, they're typically diesel gensets. This product can compete on both sides of that market. I think if you had asked us the question three years ago, we would've said the business is gonna skew more towards backup. Today, we actually see more of a pull on the primary power side.
Thank you.
Perfect. Any others? Go ahead, and I think we have one here.
Can I ask about hybrids? In the past 1-2 years, we've seen range extender hybrids coming into vogue. Typically, those vehicles only drive the wheels through the battery. Those vehicles also may or may not have turbocharger technology. Can you talk a little bit about the difference in content per vehicle on those particular kind of hybrids, what the margin is on those products, and how you see that market taking shape over the next couple of years?
Yeah. I'd say, first of all, we love hybrids. It pulls from both sides of our portfolio, our foundational portfolio, plus our e-product portfolio. When you look at content per vehicle, hybrids have the biggest opportunity for us.
$2,300 per vehicle.
Twenty-three
versus 570 on the foundational side.
2,300?
Yes.
2,300.
It's a big opportunity for us. Hybridization obviously is taking shape across the globe, but we're seeing it obviously in a big way in China and Europe as well as starting to form in this market. We've announced a lot of hybrid wins last year. From a margin perspective, same margin outlook. Increment in the mid-teens on that extra growth. ROIC from a business case needs to be 15% or higher, and that's how we measure success, whether it's a foundational product, an e product, a hybrid application, battery electric vehicle application, or a combustion application. Everything is the same.
Sorry, regardless of the type of hybrids?
We don't really do low-end hybrids. It's advanced hybrids that you see our technology on.
Just the one thing I'd point out to you is, Bob, it's in vogue. I would just point out the fact that if you look at our e-products business today on the light vehicle side in China, 30%-45% of it is on your advanced hybrids. I know it's become the thing that comes up a lot in North America, but efficient hybrids, plug-ins, REEVs have been a portion of the Chinese NEV growth for quite some time.
Perfect.
You could sneak one in on-
Yeah. Could we sneak one capital allocation question in? I know we're at time. You stepped up share repurchases over the past, you know, two years. How are you thinking about sort of future M&A? How do these take priority over dividend growth, share buybacks? What areas would, you know, you prefer to acquire a company rather than, you know, sort of grow organically? Can you just talk to us a little bit about capital allocation?
You've had a great balance sheet and a very good rating, and we've got a lot of credit investors here, so we wanna kinda dovetail that in to our-
Okay
balance sheet.
maybe I'll touch on the balance sheet. You know, what's my first priority and this goes into my capital allocation philosophy.
Right.
First priority, healthy balance sheet. We love our investment grade rating. We think it's a competitive advantage. In fact, we know it's a competitive advantage for the company. When I look at liquidity, my goal is 20% of sales or higher, meaning our revolver, which is $2 billion plus cash on hand. From a leverage perspective on a gross basis, my target's 2x. When I look at the balance sheet at the end of this year, 12/31/2025, I'd put a check mark.
Yeah
Next to each of those. Our focus as a company is let's create value with our cash. That's really important, and we can do that in multiple ways. We can increase our dividend, which our board agreed to do in July of last year. We can repurchase shares, and we can acquire great companies that increase the earnings power of BorgWarner. We're gonna use all of those avenues to do that over an extended period of time, call it a five-year horizon. We wanna have balance across each of those areas. As we worked our way through last year, we have a very healthy M&A pipeline, and we're talking to a number of potential targets. You need a buyer and a seller to agree.
In the short term, if we don't see a transaction occurring, we're gonna return that cash to shareholders. That's exactly what you saw last year. We returned $630 million of cash to shareholders through share repurchases and dividends. As we work our way through this year, we'll follow a similar methodology. We already announced a $100 million share repurchase in Q1 of this year, and we'll continue to do that assessment quarter by quarter, looking at, you know, transactions that may occur, and if that doesn't happen, then you should expect us to return that cash.
Perfect.
Great. A good end.
I wanna thank Craig and Eddie for a great conversation.
Fast.
We really appreciate it.
Thank you guys.
again.
Thank you.