Reflective end-of-year mode here is, and I think it's especially relevant for you guys, given sort of you were a newer public company standalone, right? Just reflect on the past year. It's obviously was a very challenging market, in terms of some customers, some schedule choppiness, some, you know, geopolitical elements as well, but how would you guys assess, you know, your performance over the past year? What went really well? What still has sort of areas for you to, you know, work on as a company going forward?
Sure. I mean, again, we spun in July of last year, so it's what, year and five months?
Yeah.
And I think in that.
Well, that's why I felt it was especially relevant for you to reflect on that.
Yeah. It's been a great journey so far. I think the team's done a really nice job, you know, executing. I think what we communicated to folks in our Capital Markets Day back in June of last year has really kinda played out. I don't think they believed us back then, because I think our communication was that, you know, combustion's gonna be around for a long time, and we've got a very good plan in order to continue to capitalize on combustion being around. I think we've started to convince folks that, you know, we're not just a light vehicle OE company. It's less than half of our business. We still see a strong growth opportunity in commercial vehicle that's not gonna be affected by electrification.
I think after this last quarter, people are realizing that having, you know, an aftermarket business that's over, you know, roughly a third of our business is really beneficial when the OE markets are soft. And so I think you saw some good performance, continued strong cash flow from our business. And I think, you know, in June of last year, we finally got rid of all the Transitional Services Agreement. This last quarter, we finalized all the contract manufacturing that we had to do for a former parent. And I think we're really on a good, strong position right now, and people see, you know, how we're performing, how we're applying capital, and how we're being, you know, very prudent in that respect.
Now that you're, you know, if you think about it, you as a new company, you sort of, you know, at the crawl and walk, and now maybe, you know, hopefully you're running. But where, what are your priorities for the company going forward now that you've sort of gotten past all the, the spin-out and transitional services?
I think as Chris likes to highlight, it's just one quarter at a time.
Yep.
We just wanna continue to be consistent and boring.
Mm-hmm.
I think with our aftermarket, with the diversity of our customer base, with the diversity of the markets that we're serving in, we're gonna be a lot more muted, and, and not swing like many others maybe because we have some offsetting markets that we have. And so we wanna continue to execute and perform very much like an industrial company.
Mm-hmm.
A GDP, GDP plus type grower, strong cash flow generation, and a good capital allocation policies.
Great. Going quarter by quarter, and so we're here in December, and you sort of, you know, gave your guidance here a couple of, I guess, a couple months ago or a month or so ago now, a month plus. We've obviously seen, you know, reports of some production ebbs and flows as happens every quarter, right? Some pluses, some minuses, but net overall, and I know I don't wanna, I do wanna get back to sort of the other side of your business, but let's focus on the light vehicle side here for now.
Yep.
How would you sort of say production is sort of coming in schedules relative to your expectations?
It's coming in line with expectations.
Yeah.
So we think things are continuing to perform. We've got, you know, good, strong customers that, you know, that we work closely with that get their expectation, and that was considered when we updated our guide last quarter.
Mm-hmm.
And so we're, you know, in general seeing some ups and downs, but all in all, kinda in line with expectations.
Okay.
It's actually been a little bit less choppy than we were seeing in Q3.
Okay.
China has come back a little bit stronger. We're a little bit wary of that 'cause we're worried about how much they're pulling out of Q1 of next year.
Mm-hmm.
But it's been a little bit now, the one thing I will say is with the strong dollar, we do have some headwinds on FX, but that's gonna be, I think, for everybody.
Right.
An issue.
Yeah.
It's not material, but it's out there.
Translation or transaction, transaction?
Translation.
Yeah. Okay.
Cause again, I've got 60% of our business is outside North America.
Right. Right. Fair enough. So now, now let's sort of, you know, talk about, I guess, the business and sort of the outlook maybe a little bit more in, in terms of sort of how you wanna talk about it as sort of a collection of different assets. So you have light vehicle, but also a commercial vehicle, also aftermarket. You know, as you are thinking about 2025 and beyond and you're sort of planning, you're doing your internal budgeting and planning for the year ahead, again, not recognizing you're not gonna sort of give, you know, official guidance here yet, but from an end market perspective, how are you sort of planning for the environment to be so you can execute your business within it by, by those markets?
Yeah. I think it's gonna be a tale of two halves for 2024 and 2025. I think in 2024, we saw, you know, a pretty good Q1 and Q2, and it really kinda softened in Q3 and Q4. We think that will continue into 2025, soft Q1, soft Q2, and start to pick up, you know, the second half.
That's a light vehicle conversation?
Both on light vehicle and I think on commercial vehicle from our perspective. I think, with that on a light vehicle side, we also see some more of our conquest wins starting to kinda come on board and start to ramp up, whether it's the 500 bar fuel injection systems that we have in China, some of our starters and alternators new business wins, hydrogen applications, aerospace applications, E100 applications.
Mm-hmm.
I think we're gonna start seeing those to have a little bit of an impact, you know, mid- to second half of next year as well.
Okay. And on the aftermarket, I mean, we sort of think of that as a GDP plus or minus grower. Is that sort of how you sort of look at it?
Yeah. I mean, I'll kinda highlight I mean, our overall strategy for light vehicle is that we're gonna continue to gain market share to keep it around $1.5-$1.7 billion of our revenue throughout the decade, and we've got good visibility on that. We'll see some ups and downs. Depends on the flow, but I think in general, that remains intact.
That's in a relatively flat-ish LVP with some assumption of ICE?
Of EV, yeah. EV penetration continues to go up. We know that's gonna continue to be a headwind, but we've got market share gains to offset it.
Mm-hmm.
On the CV side, we're on a down cycle right now. It'll come up. We see with EPA 2027 coming, with Euro 7 coming, we see content improvements. The market continues to grow. They don't have EV penetration rates that are material, and so we see that continuing to grow for us in that 2%-4% range. Then our aftermarket, to your question, is, you know, we see that a 3%-6% grower.
Mm-hmm.
And so it's not just the GDP or GDP plus. We're getting 1%-2% in pricing, and then we're also continuing to expand our portfolio and product offering, bringing all of our product lines to all regions, and we've seen a consistent growth of our aftermarket group in that range. And you blend all those things together, and that's where we see kind of a long-term growth rate of 2%-4%.
Yeah. I know we were discussing earlier some of the dynamics of your aftermarket business and the stickiness of that product and.
Mm-hmm.
Especially on the injection side and some of the calibration, so you know, look, the bottom line is eventually injectors need replacement, and they've gotta come to you, so that's great.
Yep.
That definitely supports your ability to take price, I guess. Why only one point a year? I mean, it seems like there's no other options.
Again, we've got a broad portfolio in our aftermarket. We do need to remain competitive in that space. We do have good margins already. Again, we've got maybe 40% of our aftermarket is commercial vehicle, 40% is light vehicle combustion related, and then we've got 20, a little bit more than 20% now that are steering, suspension, braking, you know, non-combustion related. So we've got a broad portfolio that we continue to grow that is a competitive market. We also need to remember that about 20% of our overall aftermarket is going through the OEs.
Yeah.
So about 20% of it is OES. That tends to be tied to the OE pricing. And so those are kinda longer-term contracts.
That's what I was gonna ask. I guess I would've imagined actually this would be greater on the commercial vehicle side, maybe versus the light vehicle, but it sounds like it's on both. But it sounds like, you know, seeing some of what the aftermarket pricing is, is a consideration for selecting you for the OE. Is that fair or no?
Oh, yeah. Absolutely.
Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, going back to sort of that, that was sort of a helpful backdrop or on the algorithm you sort of see for the three businesses. You know, one of the things we sort of discussed on there was sort of flattish light vehicle, some sort of, you know, continued penetration of EVs. I know at your Analyst Day, you know, a year and a half ago or so, right, you did sort of lay that out. Look, nothing is official yet, right? But we're obviously sort of seeing some breadcrumbs of policy that could make EVs even, at least in the U.S., sort of have a slower pace of adoption. I would argue even irrespective of the election or policy, like, just consumer demand has sort of been slower.
So, that seems like it's a positive development for you. Now, I guess, you know, as you sort of talk to your customers, what are they, what has sort of the tone and tenor of those conversations be in terms of how they're thinking about their portfolio specifically for the U.S. market, right, as with the realities of demand but also potential policy change?
Yeah. I mean, I think you've probably heard a lot of folks saying, "Hey, we're gonna bring back some plug-in hybrids and some hybrids." I think you see a lot of new of those releases coming out. You know, that's, you know, good for us because that means the combustion engine's gonna be around longer.
Mm-hmm.
To be fair, we've been seeing a lot of the demand increases in RFQs coming to us a couple years ago.
Mm-hmm.
So we kinda saw it coming. I think the one thing that we don't know is we're not sure if EV penetration rates are gonna get to 40, 30, or 20.
Mm-hmm.
In the U.S. market, but at the end of the day, we'll be ready to support those customers.
Mm-hmm.
We continue to develop the technology that's needed, whether it's 500 bar or other alternative fuel technologies that they need, and so I think we'll be well-positioned to be their partner of choice for decades to come on the light vehicle side. So.
Outside of the U.S. market, it's the interesting thing because everybody thinks China is going so fast toward EV, and they are going faster than everybody else. They are still developing a lot of range-extending vehicles and hybrids, and that's been the push or the pull that we've gotten from them, the customers, the domestic Chinese OEs, of "We need that in our portfolio because that's what our consumers are demanding.
Yeah. We were talking earlier, and she showed me an article that says, you know, "China's going all EV. They're growing like in EV and gas.
Gasoline is dead.
You know, gasoline's dead, and it's kinda like we need to get a sign behind it that says, "EV does not equal battery electric vehicle.
Right.
Equals battery electric vehicle plus plug-in hybrid plus range extender, and those last two have combustion engines in them.
Yes.
Yeah.
As long as it has a combustion engine in it, we're happy.
Right.
So what we've seen in China to now, they're over 52% or 54% EV.
Mm-hmm.
Guess what? Only 20%-25% is battery electric, and all the growth has been plug-in hybrid and range-extending hybrid. And again, you know, the largest battery vehicle manufacturer in China is now launching a bunch of new combustion applications.
Right.
It kinda tells you something.
So, it's a great point, and I think, you know, I think the view when there was sort of this view to sort of move to more plug-in hybrids, range extenders, you know, that's, you're right. That still has a combustion engine, and I think to the extent that the view before is I would sort of be pure BEV, right? It sort of changes that penetration rate that you sort of, you know, talked about earlier. But, potentially even more optimistic would be, right, because I still think, like, if you were just sort of comparing an EREV versus or a plug-in versus a full ICE, that is still a lower opportunity for you, right?
No, a plug-in hybrid, a full hybrid is the same opportunity.
Yeah.
Because if you think about it from a whether it's a hybrid or a plug-in hybrid.
Mm-hmm.
Say, a plug-in hybrid. I've got one, love it. I get my 30-40 miles of range, but then I run out of battery, and I'm all on engine.
Mm-hmm.
So that engine still has to have the performance even without the battery in place.
Okay.
Consumers still want that full performance, which means they still want turbocharging or they still want direct injection.
Yeah.
They want a high-performing engine, for their vehicle.
Mm-hmm.
When the battery runs out.
Right.
Plug-in hybrid, maybe a little bit less content because that engine is designed purely just to charge a battery, so they can design that differently to operate as efficiently as possible at one data point.
Right. Right.
And they don't need that full range.
I guess the reason I'm bringing it up is, you know, we had Paul Jacobson from GM earlier, and, you know, he they are one of the companies that in the past has sort of said, "We're gonna look towards, you know, a plug-in or a range extender type vehicle." And, you know, like, they're not making any decisions right now 'cause I think there's still sort of a lot of uncertainty. But one of the things he brought up was that, look, if the regulations really change, right, and, you know, EPA gets pushed out or sort of California gets interchanged, you know, changed. The reason we were looking at plug-ins and EREVs was almost as insurance policy for BEVs.
But if there's no need for that to be compliant, we can still continue to sell more regular ICE for longer.
Yeah.
I mean, I guess, you know, either way you sort of slice it, it seems like it's an incremental positive versus what you had planned for your long-range planning versus, you know, a year and a half ago.
But the odd thing about that is everybody leaves the consumer out of that entire discussion. Everybody talks about what the government wants. Everybody talks about, yeah.
Right.
But what does the consumer want? And I think all of us wouldn't mind driving a car, any SUV, whatever, that has better fuel economy.
Mm-hmm.
You know, better for the, you know.
Yeah.
And if it can do that in a hybrid.
Mm-hmm.
Then I think a lot of us would do that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I guess stay tuned, and I guess you're happy to the conversations you're having with your customers.
Yeah. I mean, again, our strategy is not changing. We're still gonna continue to focus and grow our commercial vehicle industrial and our aftermarket as our primary growth engine.
Mm-hmm.
Whether the light vehicle OE rather than being 1.5-1.7 is 1.6-1.8, we can kinda handle that. And again, that's given our market share. If it grows up to 20% and rather than 40% EV, it's 30% EV, that might add $100 million or $200 million of revenue in 2034.
Mm-hmm.
On $5 billion target, that's a little bit noisy this far out. We can't forecast that accuracy next year, let alone 2030. So yeah, it may give us a tailwind. We'll continue to monitor it. Once we see, you know, it becomes more realistic, we'll update our guidance.
Yeah, turning to the other, you know, election topic du jour and trade, and I know we spoke a little bit about this as well, but you know, this is, I think, somewhat of a tricky topic 'cause we don't have all the details, right? And it's also unclear whether, you know, a tariff on Mexico into the U.S. would actually take hold because for the industry at large, it would be quite disruptive. But let's just for the benefit of people and investors, sort of can we go through your footprint, your sort of exposure? I know we were sort of talking about some of the ins and outs of your maquiladora structure as well.
Yes.
In terms of sort of how you would dimension, you know, what could potentially be at risk to a tariff either paid by yourself or by your customer.
Yeah. I think in general, we'll start kinda globally first, and our strategy has always been to design, develop, source, produce, and sell within the region, and so in general, we produce in Asia for Asia. We produce in Europe for Europe, Americas for Americas.
Mm-hmm.
Over 80% of our purchasing and our sales are gonna be within the region. We've tried to minimize those shipments, and try to optimize, you know, component supply, and common components across those regions. So in general, we're pretty good in that respect, and pretty protected. I think from a Mexico to U.S. standpoint, obviously a little bit more risk. We have pretty much all of our OE plants, or OE product is being produced in Mexico. We've been down there for 30-plus years. R&D center's down there, well-established. But again, depending on what the structure is, the way that maquiladora works, the material has to come through the U.S. first, whether that's from U.S. suppliers or Mexico suppliers or European suppliers.
It's gotta come into the U.S. first, goes into maquiladora, you know, the value add that we have there, whether it's 20%-30% or so, that then comes back out of Mexico. And that's my assumption is that's what the tariff would be then.
Mm-hmm.
Based on that value add that we have in that country. In many cases, once we ship it back out to Laredo, Texas, it comes back into Mexico to the engine plants from our customers and their vehicle plants before then being shipped back to the U.S. And so there's just this massive web that's gonna be really, really complex, and so I think the maquiladora structure has been in place for decades now that I think it's gonna be really difficult to blow that up without having a big negative effect on the U.S. economy and inflation.
Yeah. But the vast majority of your footprint for North America is in Mexico, correct?
For North America, it's all in Mexico except for some remanufacturing that we have in the U.S.
Okay, and is, to the extent it was put in place, and again, I'm recognizing the challenges that would bring to the industry, and maybe it sounds like even sort of, you know, tracking it. Would it be most impactful for the light vehicle business 'cause it seems like the aftermarket would be easier to sort of push price through, maybe even with some of your commercial vehicle customers?
I think in general, it's gonna end up with the consumer.
Yeah.
You know, I don't think we or our customers can just absorb it, and not pass it through 'cause it's an industry-wide situation. So it's not as if it's only us or only one of our customers.
Mm-hmm.
And so all of the customers are gonna have, you know, in extra costs. We're gonna have extra costs that's gonna end up going to the consumer.
Mm-hmm. Going back to sort of your longer-term outlook, you know, you sort of mentioned, I think at an industry level or I'm sorry, at a PHINIA total level, not thinking about any sort of specific one of the three markets, you know, that you could be more like an industrial GDP plus type company.
Mm-hmm.
I think you know initially sort of also targeted you know 14%-15% margins.
Mm-hmm.
You're there, right? So I mean, is there something that if you are able to grow low single digits, that would per se structurally prevent them from moving above that 15% range?
Yeah. I think our current guide for this year, our midpoint puts us right at 14.1%, so we're just kinda getting into it on the low end. I would like to see us be there a little bit more consistently. I think the increasing aftermarket as a % of our sales is gonna be a creative force. We do expect as we continue to grow to convert incremental sales at about 20%, so that'll kinda help us go from there. So we'll kinda keep an eye on it over time to see whether we can continue to expand from there, as our mix changes, as we launch more, you know, industrial off-highway and aerospace opportunities and increase aftermarket as a percentage of our sales.
Mm-hmm.
Because the one thing to also remind folks is that our aftermarket, probably half of their revenues in our aftermarket comes from our production plants in the fuel system side.
Mm-hmm.
So we're actually selling the product to our aftermarket. The aftermarket then marks it up again and then sells it to their aftermarket. So it's a good business for us 'cause we wanna give some profit to the plants.
Mm-hmm.
To encourage them to make the product. If they're not making margin on it, they're not gonna wanna support the aftermarket.
Yeah.
And so because it does have a lot of complexity, they're smaller runs, the volumes are lower, so they gotta change over the equipment. So we've gotta make sure they're getting compensated because that's what their bonus is also based on, the performance of their location.
You mentioned, you know, aerospace. Is that a potential adjacency, or is there already some business done on there from the fuel injection side?
We've actually announced our first award or first or second award.
We announced the first one this month.
First one, and so that'll launch in Q4 of next year.
Okay.
We've been working with those customers for, you know, five, six years now.
Mm-hmm.
We've been supplying them, you know, the first couple rounds of, you know, prototypes and production, and their response was, you know, we've never had a supplier that actually came in ahead of schedule.
Right.
And so they were impressed with that, and then we got a, you know, another, you know, dozen RFQs.
Yeah.
Because of that. And they see our manufacturing capabilities. They see our quality systems that are in place. They see how we manage programs, and they were very, very impressed, which is why they continue to give us more opportunities.
As I'm less familiar with the market, I mean, what's the competitive set like more on the aerospace side on the?
Again, these are gonna be components and injectors for the larger engines. And so a lot of the challenges they're having is similar to some of the automotive where you have these small, medium enterprises that maybe have been over-leveraged. They don't have the necessary resources to invest, and that's why they're having a lot of supply challenges on the aerospace side, both commercial and military. And so they see us coming on in with good solid balance sheet, great quality systems, committed to that space, wanting to grow, and they're saying, "Hey, we really wanna develop you." And so, we've got a great opportunity. We're going through our aerospace quality certifications. We put the equipment necessary in place to meet it. We should be certified Q1, Q2 of next year in preparation for SOP in Q4.
But, I guess, right, it's not the sort of traditional vehicle fuel injector players that you've seen that also are?
Correct. It's again, we think our core competency is our precision machining, our coatings, dealing with alternative fuels. So they're using a lot of sustainable aviation fuel, our knowledge around ethanol and hydrogen and the effects on embrittlement on the components, on sealing, fluid management, precision fluid management, and controls. Those are all the core competencies that we continue to leverage.
Maybe we could turn our attention to China. You know, Chris, you mentioned, you know, early on that, you know, there's a little bit of concern and maybe there be maybe some sort of pull ahead, there. So that's obviously something to monitor. But, you know, bigger picture, you've done, I think, pretty well in, in, in China, all things considered, especially with the with the shift, within China to, you know, NEVs, right, versus, versus, versus traditionali ICE. Now, again, as you sort of alluded to, maybe the plug-in hybrids and EREVs are, are sort of a, a, a part of that. But I think you've also I think one of the unique things about PHINIA is, you know, especially relative to some of, of the other light vehicle suppliers, you've I think you mentioned about 80% of your light vehicle China sales are with domestic players.
Mm-hmm.
So, that's a mix we don't really see a lot today. So maybe you could talk a little bit about, how you got into that position, what the competitive landscape is like, and, you know, why some of these domestic players are choosing PHINIA relative to maybe some domestic competition.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, it's a story that's longer than Brady and I have been employed because it goes back into the Delphi days and at the time when they actually got into the business, and they did do some business with the JVs and that were both that had some of the bigger players involved, but that business has sort of slid away, and really our niche has gone into the local players.
Mm-hmm.
Our teams in China are locals, so they're developing relationship with those local suppliers, so we've had a lot of them come in in the last year, some of the Li Auto, BYD, some of those players and names. We supplied Great Wall, so all of them, it's just been a development over time, and we've become a trusted player with them, and working with them. Our engineers design. We have a R&D center in Shanghai that they can come to and work on, and we have a giant fleet of cars sitting in Shanghai of testing equipment, sitting there to work with.
Yeah. And I think as Chris pointed, the reason why we have all those vehicles is they, they outsource a lot of the calibration and software work to us.
Mm-hmm.
We provide a lot of what we call non-recurring engineering costs. We charge our customers and get incentives close to $90 million a year for those services globally.
Mm-hmm.
And so in China, they give us their vehicles. We do a lot of that calibration work for them. I think the other thing to kinda build off Chris' point is that one of the reasons why we're winning is because we've continued to develop next-generation technology for GDI.
Mm-hmm.
So we're launching our 500-bar technology in China, and it's actually a cost savings for them from a vehicle standpoint because they'll, although the fuel injection system is more expensive, they're able to decontent some of the aftertreatment. And so for them, it's a cost savings. And so that first one got launched with Changan, and they're all kinda jumping over each other to bring that on board as well. And so, you know, we've got a local team there that's empowered to make decisions and support their customers locally, and we think that's a big advantage for us.
There's no local competitors. I mean, this is not an easy business to get into. I mean, you can buy the equipment. Anybody can buy the equipment, and you can assemble things. The knowledge and the know-how of understanding the fluids and the metals and how all of this works, it is not something you can just pluck out of the street. It is something that's, you know, learned long and hard.
Yeah. Cause once you go to the port fuel injection side, it's a lot easier. That's been around for decades now, a lot of different competitors. But once you go from port fuel injection to a direct injection, you're now assembling these things in a clean room environment, you know, a lot of unique, processes that will develop internally as well. So there's some intellectual property on the manufacturing side.
Mm-hmm.
And so there's really just, you know, a couple main global competitors on the direct injection side.
You know, you mentioned BYD and some others, and you know, we've heard to varying degrees that they can sometimes be more onerous in terms of some of the terms of the contract. Have you found that at all, or is the area of the world you're operating in a little bit different because of some of that complexity to sort of compete against?
Yeah. I mean, it's, we're in a product line that you can't just swap people in and out. You can't necessarily dual source on the same application because each individual injector is calibrated differently.
Mm-hmm.
And the fact that we're doing the pump, the rail, the injector, and the ECUs gives us a little bit more, I guess, strength in our negotiating positions. But at the same token, I mean, we still allow the team there to adapt to local requirements.
Mm-hmm.
But we still have a, what we call, we do via DCF and Economic Value Added analysis. And so they have to ensure if they're gonna give better terms here, they're gonna give longer payment terms, they're gonna give more flexibility on volume. They've gotta make it up in price to make sure that we have a profitable program that's gonna return at least 15% returns.
Right. Let's turn the page to commercial vehicles, and a couple things here. One of the things you alluded to earlier, when I sort of asked for your high-level 25 market allocation, was even in CV, a softer first half, maybe stronger back half. Is that just to be clear, is that sort of it because of your expectations of sort of how potential pre-buy might flow through?
Yeah. I think there are a lot of the fleet customers have kinda taken a pause on some of their purchases. I think they got through, I guess, the COVID constraint, of 2022 and 2023 where they couldn't get maybe as many trucks as they wanted.
Mm-hmm.
I think they finally got most of those through 2024. I think they're now seeing interest rates are kinda higher, and so a lot of them are financing, you know, their trucks, and so they're expecting interest rates to kinda come down, and so they're probably delaying a little bit.
Mm-hmm.
But the expectation is that, you know, the EPA 2027 regulations coming in, Euro 7 coming in in 2028, the expectation is, and our customer's expectation is that, we'll start to see the pre-buy effect coming kinda mid-2025 and into 2026 for North America.
Mm-hmm.
And probably 2026 and 2027 for Europe.
I don't know how you wanna sort of answer this question or and talk about it in whatever terms, whether it's like North American Class A vans or whatever. But, like, what are you capacitated for in terms of being able to supply? Because, excuse me, you know, for the pre-buy, like, you might temporarily spike over that annualized rate from a capacity perspective. And I think you mentioned in one of the calls that some of your customers were helping to add some capacity to facilitate that. So can you just explain the dynamics there?
Yeah. I mean, through 2022 and 2023, we were really kinda running six and a half days a week to keep up. And so it was running kinda full tilt for that CV applications to meet demand. Things have softened a little bit, but they're expecting demand for CV to surge well above that 2023 level.
Mm-hmm.
And because it's a one- to two-year surge, we kinda had to ask them to, you know, I can't price it high enough, piece price high enough to cover the capital load that's required.
Mm-hmm.
And so we've come to an arrangement with the customer that they're funding that capital, and they get access, and they get allocated that capacity, you know, if it's needed type of thing. And so, we've got deals with them that give them the capacity they need and protects us financially.
What happens beyond that pre-buy is that capital can or can those lines be used to support a European market?
They can, yes. I think they can. Again, we allocate them the capacity. If they don't pull the capacity, can we use that for other applications or other markets? Yes, we can.
Yeah. Okay. I guess, you know, one of the things you alluded to that might be a little bit underappreciated here is some of the stability but also the stickiness in the aftermarket. So again, maybe just for the benefit of the audience, what do you think is sort of misunderstood about your aftermarket business?
Just the size of it. One, I think you know, it's a third of our business, and it's a consistent cash-generating, good margin business. So I think a lot of folks aren't giving us credit for having that big of a business. I think maybe a little bit we're starting to get a little bit of credit now, after Q3 when they saw that when everyone else's revenues were down substantially, we were kinda in line or kinda flattish, and it's because of that strong aftermarket. Europe light vehicle OE continues to be soft, but man, our aftermarket continues to crank away because people don't wanna give up their light vehicle diesels. They're keeping around. The average age is increasing, and guess what? That gives us a lot of great aftermarket opportunity.
Mm-hmm.
So I think they're starting to realize the benefits of having a large aftermarket and why that causes us to look very much like an industrial. So we're not. We don't see the big swings that you see from a light vehicle OE.
Mm-hmm.
Or a pure CV manufacturer. You'll see ours is relatively muted. And, you know, again, from our perspective, since we've spun, we've been flat to down CV, flat to down light vehicle, and the only thing that's been continuing to.
Right.
Continue to grow for us is aftermarket, and so when OE starts coming back and growing and CV comes back and growing and aftermarket continues to grow, you know, I think we've got some, some great, great times ahead of us.
Sorry. I think you mentioned sort of what percentage of the aftermarket goes back through the original equipment channel?
About 20% goes back to the OEs and 80% to the independent.
To the independent and what about, is there a China aftermarket yet or?
We do.
Will that develop?
It's still relatively small, for a couple reasons. One, the average age of the vehicles there are not nearly as high as they are in the rest of the world. A lot of the GDI technology is still relatively new there, and so a lot of the aftermarket is still the port fuel injection, and there's a lot more competitors out there. I think the consumers there as well, they're in many ways it's kinda clean up the vehicle a little bit and kinda get it running. So it's a lot more repair than replacement. So it's just a very different market. I think in a lot of cases, you still have, you know, scrappage programs that occasionally come out, and so some of those older vehicles will get scrapped out, and they'll replace a new one. So it's just a different dynamic.
Yeah.
I think we do have good opportunities, you know, outside of China for our aftermarket too, so.
Yeah.
But also, I mean, Brady sort of alluded to it, but just to be very clear, the majority of the aftermarket we're doing is non-discretionary. If your fuel injectors have come to the end of life or you've used bad fuel and they're gone, you can't wait to replace them because your car's not gonna go anywhere. So it is a replacement you have to do at some point.
Yeah.
In the car or the truck.
Yeah. You've, you've already shamed me on using a lower octane.
Use the right fuel.
Or, or not. And then you can say, "Well, we'll sell you a six-pack of injectors to go with it.
Right. Okay. There we go. And I appreciate the surprise.
We'll give you a surprise.
Yeah. I guess just to close here in the final minutes, if we could just sort of go over, you know, balance sheet, liquidity, cash flow, uses of cash, you know, just remind us again sort of how much, you know, liquidity and leverage targets you want to run the business with. And you know, you did a refinancing in the third quarter, and it looks like you used it to sort of buy back some stock with that, but it still looks like the cash balance is maybe a little bit higher than what you had. So how do we think about the cash uses going forward, not just in the very near term, but let's say over a three- to five-year period, how you think about capital allocation?
Yeah. I think the first question you had was on, you know, the liquidity. I think in general, we've announced we wanna have at least $700 million, and that accounts for a very severe three-year downturn, still being able to make all of our debt payments, still doing dividends, still doing CapEx, still doing investments. Right now, we're hitting at close to $1 billion.
Mm-hmm.
Because we have about $477 million of cash on hand. So it's about a little over $200 million, kinda high. We probably $225 million is kind of a good number for us. And so we have plenty of cash to put to use. Having a little bit of extra cash on hand for a period of time's not a bad thing, in my opinion, given the dynamics of the market. We were able to upsize our last offering at a very good rate for unsecured. And we figured, "Hey, we've got share repurchases, and the M&A front is starting to pick up a little bit, so there may be some opportunities there." But they'll be smaller bolt-on acquisitions. And again, we're gonna kinda continue to do this in a steady manner.
We're not looking to do anything that's just, you know, grand or super all at once. We're gonna continue to be consistent and steady.
Great. Well, with that, we're out of time. So, Brady, Chris, thanks so much for joining us today. Really appreciate having you here.
Yeah. Good. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
Take care.
Thank you.