Good day. Welcome to the Hexcel Corporation 2017 first quarter earnings conference call. Today's conference is being recorded. Hosting today's conference are Mr. Wayne Pensky, Chief Financial Officer, and Mr. Nick Stanage, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and President. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Pensky. Please go ahead, sir.
Great. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Hexcel Corporation's first quarter 2017 earnings conference call on April 20th. Before beginning, let me cover the formalities. First, I want to remind everyone about the safe harbor provisions related to any forward-looking statements we may make during the course of this call. Certain statements contained in this call may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. They involve estimates, assumptions, judgments, and uncertainties caused by a variety of factors that could cause future actual results or outcomes to differ materially from our forward-looking statements today. Such factors are detailed in the company's SEC filings and last night's press release. Lastly, this call is being recorded by Hexcel Corporation and is copyrighted material. It cannot be recorded or rebroadcast without our express permission. Your participation on this call constitutes your consent to that request.
With me today are Nick Stanage, our Chairman, CEO, and President, and Michael Bacal, our investor relations manager. The purpose of the call is to review our first quarter 2017 results, detailed in our press release issued yesterday. Let me turn the call over to Nick.
Thanks, Wayne. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. As you have seen in last night's release, our first quarter sales were $479 million, 2.6% below the first quarter 2016 sales in constant currency. Our key growth programs remain on track and performed as expected. While sales were below our original expectations, thanks to strong operational execution and cost control, we delivered first quarter operating income of $79 million, with an operating income margin of 16.4%. Our adjusted diluted EPS of $0.60 provides a good start to 2017 and is higher than last year. Free cash flow was about $44 million better in the first quarter of 2017 than the first quarter last year, due to lower working capital usage. Let me turn immediately to our outlook for full sales for the year.
You'll remember that in December, as we were releasing our 2017 guidance, Boeing announced an accelerated reduction in the 777 build rates we now estimate as having an $18 million impact on our 2017 sales. There have also been supply chain adjustments for other wide-body aircraft as they transition to previously announced lower build rates. Together, the changes for these aircraft account for the majority of the reduction in our outlook for 2017. We believe the lion's share of the reduction for 2017 has taken place in the first quarter, and the remainder of the year will be closer to our previous quarterly expectations. The other factor that continues to affect our sales number is foreign exchange rates, which we estimate will further reduce sales approximately $20 million below our initial guidance.
We are realigning our sales guidance for 2017 to the range of $2 billion-$2.08 billion, a reduction in the midpoint of $60 million. Build rates for the A350 and the narrow-body aircraft continue to meet expectations and give us confidence in our revised outlook for the year. Despite lowering our sales guidance for the year, we are holding our guidance for both earnings per share and free cash flow for 2017. To remind you, that is EPS in the range of $2.64-$2.76, and free cash flow of more than $100 million. We remain committed to delivering our earnings and cash forecast for 2017, and as demonstrated in the first quarter, our focus on cost control, productivity, and continuous improvement gives us confidence this will be achieved. Let me briefly provide more detail on our markets. As usual, I'll discuss year-over-year comparisons in constant currency.
As you are aware, currency movements influence our reported results, and some of the impact is not intuitive. The bottom line is that when the dollar strengthens against the euro and the British pound, our sales translate lower while our income increases, our margin percentages improve. Commercial aerospace now accounts for 73% of our total sales, and for the quarter, these sales were basically flat versus 2016. Sales growth from the A350, A320neo, and 737 MAX were in line with our expectations. As mentioned, this growth was largely offset by declines in the wide-bodies, the A380, 777, and 747. All these mature programs had production rates reductions announced last year, and we have been experiencing some supply chain adjustments in connection with these programs as they transition to the newer, lower rates.
We experienced supply chain adjustments in the 787, as rates have now leveled off for nearly a year and as the supply chain transitions from growth to steady state. We believe we are past the majority of these adjustments, except for the full-year impact of the 777 rate reduction. We expect demand to align closer to our initial guidance over the last three quarters of the year. Sales to other commercial aerospace, which includes regional and business aircraft, were just above last year's fourth quarter and slightly lower than last year's first quarter. Space and defense sales for the quarter were about $77 million, down 1.7% as compared to the first quarter of last year. Demand has stabilized and continue to stabilize, we are cautiously optimistic about the prospects for this market for the rest of 2017 and beyond.
Rotorcraft now accounts for just more than 50% of space and defense sales, with about 90% coming from military, as commercial rotorcraft sales have significantly declined in recent years, due primarily to the downturn in offshore oil and gas industries. As a reminder, we have a diverse and broad range of products on more than 100 programs in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, including rotorcraft, transport, fixed wing, and satellite programs. In industrial markets, sales for the first quarter were almost $55 million, 16% lower than the first quarter of 2016, due primarily to lower wind energy sales. Sales in the first quarter of 2017 were roughly in line with the revenues we saw in the back half of 2016.
We believe 2017's industrial sales will be more level loaded, and our year-over-year comparisons get easier as sales for the second half of 2016 were nearly 20% lower than the first half. Wind energy sales were down more than 25% as compared to a particularly strong first quarter in 2016. We expect wind sales to be challenged for the year. However, we forecast wind energy sales in 2018 to exceed 2016 levels, as various legacy programs with lower composite content transition to longer, higher efficiency blades with higher composite content. Finally, in the rest of industrial business, we did see good continued growth in the automotive market. Now, let me turn the call over to Wayne to discuss some of the quarter's financial details.
Thanks, Nick. For the quarter, gross margin was a solid 28% as compared to 28.7% in the first quarter of 2016. Strong cost control and productivity performances across our plants went a long way to offsetting the training and startup costs at our new France and Moroccan facilities, which remain on track and will start to contribute in 2018. Also, depreciation and amortization for the first quarter was about $2.7 million higher than the first quarter of 2016 on a constant currency basis. For the quarter, selling general administrative expenses were $4.5 million lower than in 2016. This was about a 7% reduction in constant currency and represents strong cost control across all support functions. Research and technology expenses were about 11% higher in constant currency than last year's first quarter, as we continue to invest in innovation to support new technologies, products, and process development.
For the quarter, operating income was $79 million, or 16.4% of sales, as compared to $84 million or 16.9% of sales in 2016. For the quarter, exchange rates contributed about 40 basis points to 2017's operating income percentage as compared to 2016. Our Engineered Products segment, comprised of our structures and engineered core businesses, delivered 14.2% operating income margin for the quarter as compared to the 12.1% margin in 2016. To remind you, although margins across the businesses in this segment are lower than those for composite materials, the Engineered Products segment employs a much lower level of capital, and therefore, the return on invested capital for this segment continues to be very attractive. The tax provision was $8.6 million for the quarter, including a non-recurring discrete benefit of $9.1 million from the release of a valuation allowance in a foreign jurisdiction.
Excluding this discrete benefit, the effective tax rate for the first quarter was 24.4%, compared to the 29% rate in the first quarter of 2016. Both periods benefit from deductions associated with share-based compensation payments. This activity is typically highest in the first quarter of the year. This provided a $0.04 tax benefit in the first quarter compared to a $0.01 of benefit in the first quarter of 2016. Excluding these discrete benefits, Hexcel's first quarter effective tax rate was 30%, in line with our full year expectations. Free cash flow for the first quarter was the use of $31 million as compared to a use of $75 million in the first quarter of 2016.
Seasonal effects drive this first quarter use of cash for working capital. It should be noted the first quarter of 2017 was significantly better than the same period in 2016, with a $40 million working capital usage as compared to a $91 million usage in the first quarter of 2016. Cash payments for capital expenditures were essentially the same year-on-year at $86 million. The midpoint of our CapEx guidance for the year is $280 million, and we do expect it to be loaded towards the first half of the year, as we will start up a number of carbon fiber lines this year, including one at our Greenfield site in France. As previously announced, we still expect 2016 to be our peak year in the current program of capital investment. 2017 will see lower expenditures, followed by much lower spending in the next two years.
During the quarter, the company used $64 million to repurchase shares of its common stock and now has $329 million remaining under the authorized share repurchase program. Let me turn it over to Nick for some final thoughts before we take your questions.
Thanks, Wayne. By staying aligned with customer demand while keeping costs under control and operational excellence at the forefront, we delivered a solid start to 2017. Faced with a softer 2017 sales outlook, we responded quickly, took actions to reduce our costs appropriately. We're committed to achieving our earnings plan for the year and remain bullish on the long term. Our spending this quarter demonstrated our strategic commitment to ongoing investments in research and technology, as well as for CapEx required for future growth. We have very high confidence in our ability to deliver on our commitments, and we maintain our guidance for 2017 adjusted diluted EPS with a range of $2.64-$2.76 based on reduced sales in the range of $2 billion-$2.08 billion. We're also projecting free cash flow for 2017 of more than $100 million.
Accrual CapEx are still expected to be between $270 million and $290 million. Thank you. Tracy, we'd be happy to take questions now. Hello, Tracy, are you there?
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Again, press star one to ask a question. We'll go first to Myles Walton with Deutsche Bank.
Hey, I was hoping to start on the inventory, adjustments or supply chain adjustments you mentioned, and in particular, how quickly you saw them in the quarter and why you're confident that it's a one quarter phenomenon, and then specifically if you can address which were bigger contributors of A380 or 787.
Yeah, Myles. Again, as you remember or hopefully remember, when we were announcing, or communicating our guidance back in December, I think it was on the same day or right about the same time Boeing announced the accelerated, reduced rate on the 777. We had that built into our plan and long-term plan. We did not have the timing. That we had insight at the end of the year.
Sure.
As we got into the year, we certainly saw a little bit of softness, as we wrapped up January and then through the rest of the quarter. 747 was obviously one of the big impacts. The other was, the A380, where we have $3 million per ship set. Surprisingly to us was the 787, which was pretty much the same type of impact as the A380. Again, being at a steady state of 12 on a build rate at Boeing, we view that as supply chain efficiency and optimization. Certainly, some of that will continue to spill into Q2, but we view the majority of that behind us.
Okay. Nothing on the 350 in terms of, I mean, you said in the release the 350 grew from year-on-year. Just curious, did it grow in line with your expectations?
It did. It grew in line with our expectations, as did both the Neo and the MAX.
Okay. Then one other one with respect to the industrial end market. I think you had initially in the guidance implied something closer to flat year-on-year as a whole, industrial, excluding FX. It looks like it'll be tough to get there, but it didn't sound like industrial was part of the mix in bringing down the sales range. Maybe give us the puts and takes there.
Well, if you look at our initial guidance and what we see, we do see wind being a little softer than we first anticipated. In total, you're right. We probably expect today industrial to come in slightly down and not flat. On the other hand, we're optimistic on space and defense and it delivering more than flat. If we look at these two segments together, we're pretty confident they're going to balance out and they're going to be stable.
Okay, got it. I'll stick to two. Thanks.
Great. You're welcome.
We'll go next to Gautam Khanna with Cowen and Company.
Yeah, thanks. Good morning, guys.
Good morning.
I just want to make sure I first understand the sales reduction at the midpoint, $60 million, $18 million from the 777, $20 million from FX. That just means $22 million on the other platforms. Is that right?
That's right.
Okay.
It's about 1% FX, 1%, just short of 1% on the 777, and 1% on the combination of the other supply chain adjustments.
Okay. Was it fairly broad based across the intermediaries you sell to on those platforms, or was it specific to any one?
You're referring to the inventory right-sizing?
Yes.
Yeah. It was primarily the A380, the 747, 787, and then, the legacy 777.
Okay. You're pretty sure this is inventory adjustment and not some sort of reduced content for shipsets as yield is improved or anything else that could explain it?
Well, during our strap process, we go through and we do an evaluation on ship set content. If you recall, in December, we adjusted a couple of those, tweaked a couple down, a couple up. We do that every year. There's always improvements in the supply chain, improvements with our customers, new solutions where more efficient composites and/or processing can be developed. There are slight movements here and there, but the majority of what we're talking about here is clearly supply chain adjustments.
Okay. Just one last one on this. How fungible is the product you're selling on those programs that are being destocked? How fungible is that product across other platforms? Can they redirect the material for three, seven, et cetera? Just is this stuff that is isolated to those programs, or could there be a spillover?
Yeah. Again, when you look at the advanced materials and the composite carbon fiber, that is very fungible. We'll take that, put it into our capacity model, and tweak and adjust our CapEx going forward. With respect to parts, engineered products, that does tend to be a little more product specific and program specific. Again, those resources can put together other parts. It's not a huge issue for us going forward.
How much of the 60 is that composite materials versus engineered products?
Wayne, do you know?
Yeah. With respect to the inventory reduction, I'd say that's probably mostly composite materials. With respect to the 777 rate reduction, then I'd be honest, I don't know off the top of my head how much of that is engineered products, but that would be part of it.
There's a portion.
There's a portion, that would be prorated for that.
Okay. Thank you very much, guys.
Thank you, Gautam.
We'll go next to Howard Rubel with Jefferies.
Thanks very much. Nick, you continue to spend a lot on research and technology. Also a little bit, you spent some more money on Oxford. Could you first address whether you've made some breakthroughs at Oxford, so that is part of the reason for the incremental investment? Then second, how soon do you expect some of this R&T to turn into incremental sales?
Okay. I'll start with Oxford. Howard, you're referring to the second tranche of investment first quarter, which was about $10 million. That takes our ownership in Oxford Performance Materials to about 17%. For those that may not remember, OPM is an additive manufacturing firm, cutting edge, using carbon fiber filler and PEKK thermoplastic resin systems to make 3D parts. We remain very bullish with that, Howard. We're on the board. We participate with them. We're working with customers on qualifications, and we're very bullish on the opportunity for 3D printing, and the opportunity to include our carbon fiber and provide products that enhance the performance versus, not only existing higher weight materials, but providing a stronger solution. We're really excited with the direction and the progress we've made with them.
With respect to our internal investment, I think Wayne went through, we continue to invest internally, with a plan to invest more than 10% this year than we have in the past. That's a combination. There's no one program. I would say in summary, we're working on advanced composite solutions for the next generation wing, for the next generation fuselage, for new engines and nacelles that obviously will be derivatives, as we've seen for the history of commercial aircraft. We're also working on secondary structures, advances in technologies and processing, as well as interiors. Switching over on industrial, wind energy, both glass and carbon fiber composite solutions for the longer blades. We're very excited with the opportunities we're working with Vestas and others.
In the automotive, you may have seen we had a release in the last couple of weeks where we signed an agreement with Mubea for a new contract for a high performance automobile. We're not allowed to name the automotive supplier yet. It's a great entree into a one-piece composite chassis for a high performance vehicle. We're really focused on quick cure, high performance systems, where we can increase the laydown rate, we can increase the cure rate, and we can drive further penetration on composites, both in aerospace and industrial applications.
That's very helpful. Then I'm going to just go back to gross margins for a moment. It's pretty interesting that you are able to expand profitability at structures or Engineered Products rather, whereas, Composites, which is obviously the larger business, saw a little bit of deterioration. How or what was the focus there that got the engineered numbers up, and is that sustainable?
Let me start by taking the Composites. I just want to remind everyone, if we look at our plan, we believe we're doing exceptionally well. We have hired over 100 people and are training them as we speak for our new plants in Roussillon, France and Morocco, Casablanca, to support the growth in the future. That is impacting us to the tune of about $2.5 million a quarter. That was in the plan. We're on track, that was as expected. That obviously has hit our margins in that segment. With respect to the Engineered Products, as we said all along, we have programs coming in, going out. We have mature programs that are fully learned and some new ones coming in. As you've seen, the sales have come down slightly.
We always continue to push productivity to drive those margins as high as we can. Again, we're very happy that they're at 14%, we've said for the past couple of years that anywhere in the 12%-16% range, we're happy, but we're always pushing for more.
Thanks, Nick.
Thank you, Howard.
We'll go next to Michael Sison with KeyBank.
Hey, guys. When you think about the cadence for commercial aerospace from 2Q to 4Q, you essentially suggested you'd be back to the mid-single digits type of growth. Is it going to be fairly even, or is it a little bit less in 2Q and maybe ramps up and gets stronger as the year unfolds?
Well, Mike, we don't really want to get into quarterly guidance, but we see commercial aero being a couple % positive for the year based on our updated forecast.
Okay. Then when you take a look at the orders and maybe the backlogs from the wide-bodies, the A380, 747, and 787, do you think that the delivery expectations that you've been given from Boeing and Airbus kind of make sense and kind of support the outlook that you see for the rest of the year?
Well, we do have line of sight to their build rates, and we believe that's what they're building at. I think the surprise was the timing and how quickly the supply chain contracted and adjusted for those rate reductions. You have to keep in mind, if you look on a percentage basis what the A380 and 747 went down, the percentage basis is huge. When you're talking about six and 12 per year, the supply chain just took some of that inventory out and tried to right size for what is the new reflected rate. We feel comfortable where we are. Again, we certainly expect to see some spill into Q2, but we really believe the majority of it hit us in Q1.
Great. Thank you.
Thanks, Mike.
We'll go next to Robert Stallard with Vertical Research.
Thanks very much. Good morning.
Good morning, Robert.
I'd just like to follow up on this de-stocking issue. The thing that's given you confidence, is this coming from the actual customer? Are their schedules giving you this clarity and assurance that we're, to some extent, done with this, there's some in 2Q, but then it's over? Or is it your assessment of just how much buffer inventory has come out already?
Well, I'd say it is mainly driven by our sales team and their communication with our customers on a regular basis on what they are seeing, what their inventory levels are, and what their order patterns are. That, in combination with what has come out and what build rates are planned, gives us confidence that we do have confidence at the range that we have updated our guidance to, and very confident on our midpoint.
Okay, on the narrow bodies, specifically the A320neo, there has also been some issues getting the engines onto the new aircraft. Have you had any indication from Airbus that they would like you to slow down some of your shipments on that program?
If you look at our numbers, A320neo pretty much came in where we expected. If you look at the rate Airbus is building, they are climbing as we speak, over 50. I think the question is the mix, and they have committed and communicated that whatever they cannot deliver in Neo engines, they will backfill with the legacy airplane. We are pretty much on track and pretty much aligned with what we had forecasted and what we had included in our initial guidance.
Okay, just finally from me, I was wondering if you could comment on what the pipeline might be for potential acquisitions or other investments going forward.
Well, we mentioned the incremental investment in OPM. We're very excited about the Formax integration, and I would note that Formax played a big part in a couple of our new automotive contracts. We're very happy with Carbon Conversions and the recycling efforts we're doing, and we continue to work with them and drive new opportunities. We've already talked about OPM and then Luminati. We're focused on technology and lightweighting fabric. Our pipeline is active. We are looking at things. Again, they are technologies and opportunities that would enhance our ability to position our advanced materials even better with our existing customers, or even possibly with new customers in the aerospace and defense or industrial space. I can't get ahead of ourselves and announce anything that we're not ready to close on, but I can tell you we're actively working that channel.
That's great. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
We'll go next to Ken Herbert with Canaccord.
Hi. Good morning.
Good morning, Ken.
Hey, Nick. I just wanted to first start off on your Space and Defense market. Again, I'm not looking for quarterly guidance, but as you look at where you are now to sort of stable for the full year, are there any particular programs you'd highlight considering the down first quarter numbers as particularly important to hitting or getting to the stable numbers for the full year? Or any things you'd highlight as maybe inflection points as we look at the cadence from here through the end of the year?
Yeah. I think we continue to get more optimistic on Space and Defense. You've seen everything in the press on spending and budgets, obviously that'll take time to trickle down through the supply chain. The encouraging things here are that our big programs, i.e., the F-35, the A400M, the V-22, the Black Hawk, those are at or above what we had forecasted initially. We feel real good there. The one area that we pointed out that is still weak is civil rotorcraft. I think first quarter is the lowest we've seen. We do believe that it's in the trough and are optimistic that maybe it'll start picking up. Even saying that, we expect 2017 civil rotorcraft sales to be below last year. I think there's momentum. The big programs that are driving our growth look good. We're optimistic on the F-35, especially.
Okay. All right. No, that's helpful. I guess if you were to parse out the civil, which sounds like it was weaker, civil helicopter weaker than expected, it's fair to say that the other parts of the business were performing as expected in the quarter?
As expected or better.
Or better. Okay. That's helpful. If I could, on your two new facilities in Morocco and France, when do you expect them to be at full rate production, and when do you expect to maybe start to see some of the margin benefit as you anniversary the, obviously the startup or the incremental cost you're incurring now?
Well, just as a reminder, we will wrap up the investment this year and begin our qualification process. We expect those sites to become productive next year. Now, as you know, the volume doesn't get up to 100% immediately, so it'll take some time for us to ramp up through next year to provide the demand. Wayne, do you have any more to add on contribution?
Not really. The lines in France will start up fairly quickly and it'll take a few months to commission. We'll go through the qualification process. By the first quarter of 2018, hopefully they're starting to contribute.
Okay, neither facility is shipping product yet or generating revenues yet. Both should be by first quarter of 2018. Okay.
Yeah. We're hiring and training people. As Nick said, we're literally nearly 100 people that are being trained to operate the lines. They're at other sites right now doing that, learning how.
Okay. That's helpful. Great. Thank you very much.
We'll take our next question from Robert Spingarn with Credit Suisse.
Hi. Good morning.
Morning, Robert.
A lot of this has been covered, but I just want to go back to the 870 stocking, a little bit. Just given how sudden it was, is it really right-sizing the inventory, or does this have to do with the production rate perhaps not going to 14, or is this too soon for that?
Again, I'm not going to speak for Boeing, but I suspect there were. As a reminder, these supply chains are very long, very complex, and there's a lot of players when you go down the tier 1s, 2s, and beyond. There's probably no doubt in my mind that some of the supply base probably were still on a growth trajectory. Probably were still holding inventory and safety stock because of sole source positions to be able to deliver at a rate 14. Maybe there's a little bit of an adjustment for that. Maybe there's a little bit of an adjustment from a supply chain steady state, and just the ability to take waste out. It really, if you look at this and look at how long Boeing has been at the 12 per month rate, I guess it shouldn't be so surprising.
That's what I was thinking. Separately, where are you with regard to any upcoming programs? Middle of market, MAX 10, in terms of discussions. How do we think about just what's the latest update on your CapEx wind down? How should we think about CapEx trending over the next, I don't know, eight quarters or so?
I guess, I'll answer it this way. You can assume for sure that we're working on any and all new programs with respect to new platforms or derivatives or new wings. I really don't want to get ahead of our customers. As you know, nothing has been announced officially. We're working alternate technologies, new technologies to provide even better solutions going forward. Now, on the CapEx, we really do not see a change from what we guided to, and that is this year we're going to be in the $270 million-$290 million range. If you recall, we said that the cumulative CapEx in 2018 and 2019 would be $320 million.
We're still pretty much on that. I'd also point out, remember, our CapEx spend that we're spending this year is for volume required and demand required in 2018 and beyond.
What's a good maintenance level?
I'd say it's in the $60 million range. Put $10 million on either side of that, $50 million-$70 million.
You don't get there until after 2019. I mean, it's unrealistic to think you're going to be at $60 million in 2019.
Well, it'll be disappointing, meaning that if we go to that level, that we haven't identified new growth. We would not get there until beyond 2019 if growth completely stopped.
Okay. All right. Thank you.
You're welcome.
We'll go next to David Strauss with UBS.
Thanks. Good morning.
Good morning, David.
I think, back in January, you had talked about a $15 million-$18 million revenue headwind on 777. Are you talking about an incremental $20 on top of that, or is this still kind of in line with what you had talked about before?
No, it's the same number.
Okay.
I think we, in January, we said $16 million-$18 million because we're still working through the math, but it's the same number. It's about $18 million impact this year.
Okay. Relative to January, really what we're talking about here is currency and then inventory reductions on other programs.
Exactly.
Correct.
Okay.
1% on FX and roughly 1% on supply chain optimization here.
Okay. That $20 million FX headwind from a sales perspective, how much does that help the EBIT line?
Dave, we're fairly heavily hedged for 2017, it's probably in the range of maybe $0.01 is all of it.
Okay.
It's a benefit, just to be clear, but a benefit. Small benefit.
Okay. The start-up cost. It's fair to think about that in your guidance for this year, you have $10 million of EBIT headwind, related to these start-up costs for the full year?
Yeah, it's in the range. I think in the fourth quarter, if I remember correctly, they'll start generating some revenue, and that number will go down a little bit. It's in that range.
Okay. Wayne, cash taxes, did you have a fairly significant cash tax payment in the first quarter?
The answer is no. We did not have not in the first quarter.
All right. Last one for me. Any help you want to provide in terms of EPS cadence? I mean, typically Q2's pretty strong and Q3 is a little bit weaker on Europe shutdowns. Is that going to look a bit different this year? It would seem that it's going to.
We'd like to stick to the process of not providing quarterly guidance, just to be clear. If you look back typically, you're right, second quarter's a little strong. Third quarter is always a little bit lighter just because of the summer holidays. I think what we'll have to see for this year is the fourth quarter's maybe stronger than normal. You got Christmas holidays at the end of the year. As the growth looks a little bit stronger going into 2018, you'd probably expect a little bit better fourth quarter than maybe we might normally do.
All right. Thanks, guys.
Thanks, David.
We'll go next to Hunter Keay with Wolfe Research.
Hey, guys. Good morning. Thank you.
Morning.
The cost savings you guys disclosed today, is that sort of a one-time thing that you kind of had in your back pocket in case of this slower sales dynamic developing, or is it sort of the start of a bunch of opportunities or initiatives that we should expect to continue to ramp as time passes?
Certainly, we're always pushing productivity and continuous improvement, and I expect cost reductions always. The fact that sales dropped below what our initial expectations were, it gives us an opportunity to take a step back and focus and double down on productivity and cost takeout. It also allows us an opportunity to take a breath as we've been ramping up and optimize some of our supply chain, some of our processes, and some of our organization structure. Again, we're still growing. This hasn't changed. This is an adjustment. We're still very bullish. Our 2020 vision has not been impacted based on this inventory reduction as they were already built in. We're going to hire the required people. We continue to hire in R&T.
We're going to hire the right people to drive the productivity enhancements and the operational excellence, but they will have payback justification, and we'll continue to drive those opportunities going forward.
Okay. Yeah, thanks, Nick. I guess what I was looking for is it sort of like a cost theme that might sort of repeat itself in time to come, it sounds like not necessarily yet more of an ongoing thing, is what you're saying?
Right.
Right. Okay. On biz jet, sort of believe in the past you've said that you've seen some little resiliency out of the Gulfstream programs relevant to, say, Bombardier. Is that still the case there? Maybe you want to give us a little bit of color on how that market is behaving in general, and at a specific level by customer. Thank you.
In total, the sales levels are down just a little bit from the prior year. If you look, Gulfstream remains the largest customer, and the G650, I think, remains the largest individual program. We got a little bit of ups and downs throughout, but it's still about Gulfstream, Bombardier, and Embraer. Even the C-Series we include in that, and you start to see a little bit of that come up, but in absolute $, it's still not that big yet.
I think sequentially, it was pretty level, which gives us some hope that'll hold.
Right.
Great. Thank you very much.
We'll take our last question from Ron Epstein with Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Good morning, guys. It's Kristine Liwag calling in for Ron. Nick, you mentioned several technological advancements for next generation aircraft. Specifically, you mentioned additive manufacturing and also quick cure technologies. With this in mind, I have a three-part question just to warn you. First, conceptually, how would these advancements change the aerostructure manufacturing process? Second, how mature are these technologies today? Third, how are your areas of investments different from other players in the industry?
Well, you weren't kidding. That was a loaded question. Let me try to take them, and if I don't address all of them, come back at me. With respect to the technologies we're looking at, there are multiple technologies for the same application. We're providing our customers with a diverse set of technologies, processing enhancements that we can work with them to optimize the mechanical performance as well as the productivity performance. Things such as, if you think of narrow bodies running at rates in the 50s or higher and coming up with technologies that allow us to double the laydown rate or reduce the cure rate by half. The throughput, the investment savings from our customer base on capital, and the timing, it's a significant cost reduction in the whole process. That gives you a flavor for things that we're looking at and providing.
They can be fabrics, they can be unidirectional, they can have multiple resin systems. The nice thing is we have our own fiber, we have high strength, intermediate modulus, high modulus. We can mix and match, and we're in a position to offer solutions that we believe no one else can offer. That answers the one part. How mature are these technologies? It varies. Some of them could be ready within one year. Some of them are probably three, four, five years away. The question is, when will they be needed? We continue to work with our customers, and that's part of why we provide options. Depending on the launch, we want to have the right solution at the right time. There was one other part you asked. Remind me what it was.
How different is your investments from other players in the industry today? Part of that is we're hearing that as early as, in the next few years, we might see an A322 type neo aircraft with cold-curing composite wings. That's just industry chatter, nothing confirmed, but just trying to see where your technology is versus other players out there.
Well, again, I'll reiterate the point that we have our own fiber. We have various grades of fiber. We're continuing to push the technology and advancing the fiber performance. We have our own fabrics. We have non-crimp fabrics. The breadth of what we can offer, we don't believe anybody can compare with. When you look at the parts, the engineered core, the Acousti-Cap, the positions we have not only on the airplane structure and secondary structure, but on engines and na cells and fan blades. We are poised to position ourselves for growth going forward as new derivatives are launched, as new wings are launched, which inevitably they will be.
For the piece that you mentioned on cost reduction and being able to reduce cure rate by half and things like that. When you are able to reduce costs, how much of that will you be able to keep versus how much of those cost savings would you have to pass through to the customer?
That is to be determined. We basically provide solutions, advanced solutions, we certainly know what margin levels we need, we value price, we value work with our customers on providing them a solution that meets their ultimate needs. I don't worry about margin erosion, if that's what you're saying. I'm very proud of the job our team does in looking at ways at cannibalizing our technology to have a leg up on the next technology. The last thing I want is to be surprised on a technology shift. We push it ourselves. I'm comfortable in maintaining and quite honestly, in expanding our margins, which we fully intend to do through the balance of this year, and into next year.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you. Tracy, as we wrap up, I just would say that nothing has really changed from our perspective on the markets we serve, on how those markets are doing with respect to end demand. Backlogs are still high. Passenger travel is high. Airplane build rates, both Boeing and Airbus are increasing this year. The mix and the transition is going through for a total refresh, and that's kind of the bump we addressed in Q1, maybe a little bit in Q2. I have to say, I'm excited, I'm proud of the job our team did in reacting real time to our customer needs. I'm excited that we continue to focus on our future, continue to invest in our future, and it's never been brighter. Thanks for the time today. Have a good week.
Great.
This does conclude today's conference. We thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.