I'm Joe Gomes, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at NOBLE Capital. With us today for our fireside chat is Paul Reitz, President and CEO of Titan International. Good morning, Paul, and thanks for taking the time to sit down with us.
Hey, good morning, Joe. Good to be with you.
Let's start big broad. For those in the audience new to the Titan story, can you provide a brief overview of the company, the products, the markets, geographies, etc.?
I mean, we manufacture the products that make off-road equipment move. The wheels, the tires, the steel tracks that go on off-road equipment for agriculture, construction, earth moving, and then all the way down into utility vehicles, turf equipment. We get to manufacture products that go on really cool equipment. I look at what we do as being that important interface between that really cool equipment doing important things. What our product does is really brings that equipment into the ground and interfaces with the application. What we do goes beyond just a simple wheel, tire, or undercarriage. It's really what we're about is making the equipment perform better.
We manufacture those products from locations around the world, a little over 20 locations that touch, obviously, here in the U.S. as a primary market, but have a number of locations into Latin America, throughout Europe, into China as well. We touch just about all the global OEMs that you could think of in the spaces that I mentioned.
Great. Now, while you're a global company, you have a significant portion of the revenue here in the U.S. And most of that is manufactured in the U.S., whereas a lot of competitors in your space are foreign-based. What are some benefits of the strong U.S. manufacturing base? And kind of what are the challenges to having that?
Yeah, it's a great question. I will come back to the U.S. I'll start just on a bigger macro perspective with what we produce because it can be larger in size. Being able to manufacture close to our customers is a strength of ours. The geographies that I mentioned we operate in is really being close to where our customers are at. That could be aftermarket, but also, obviously, OEM where the equipment's manufactured. As you asked, I mean, the U.S. is our primary manufacturing location. We have eight plants in the U.S. that we're very proud of, large in size. The U.S., it's a great place to be. I'll start there. As you asked in your question, I mean, it does have its challenges.
We do operate in some locations where those challenges do become very evident because we manufacture in some low-cost manufacturing countries, and we operate in some ones that have a higher cost base. I would say Titan has a fairly unique perspective on that, not just from the standpoint that we manufacture in different locations, but we've gone in front of the ITC, the International Trade Commission, three times in the U.S., and won all three times, two of them being unanimous votes. When you go through that process and you win unanimously, that's a pretty strong indication. We've done that over a period of about 10 years. That's a strong indication that the world is not a fair place to compete. There's really no other way to put it.
Again, when a panel of extremely smart people agree with that comment after listening to testimony from not just us, but our competitors in those locations. The world is not a fair and equitable place. I think what I would say about U.S. manufacturing is we have incredible plants supported by incredible people that make incredible products. One of the challenges we face is that the world is not equal. I know there are things that are being done to address that. We could sit here and debate that back and forth, I mean, about how it is being addressed.
I don't think there's any argument to say that from a U.S. manufacturing perspective, if we want to continue to make great products and get great jobs for our great people that we have in this country, and I hate to use adjectives like that, but that's true, then we better do something different. I think we're on that path. We are going to continue to support U.S. manufacturing. It's all those reasons I just said. Our customers are here, but we believe really strongly in the plants and the people that we have here in the U.S. I think we'll find a way politically to the world's never going to have a perfectly level playing field, but I think we'll find a way politically that we can continue to make great products in the U.S. We need to.
I think you're dancing around the T word, but I'm going to say it. Let's talk about tariffs for a second. You've mentioned in the past that tariffs could be a net benefit to the company. Can you explain how that's the case? And kind of what's the best-case tariff outcome? What's the worst case?
Yeah. I do. I dance around that word because I think we all in the business community have to realize we have to adapt to what's going on in the world. The reality is tariffs are now part of that world. From our perspective at Titan, and I'm going to echo really what our management team and our employees have been saying to me versus just giving you what I think. They have strong conviction that the overall tariff policies, that the path we're going down, are good for Titan. I didn't have to go out there and create a message that says, "This is what you should be thinking, and this is how you should be approaching tariffs." They immediately came to me and said, "Look, we have conviction.
We believe internally that these tariffs long-term, again, referencing what I just said about the ITC, these tariffs will bring it in a playing field that is a net positive for Titan long-term. We're starting to see it from our customers. They're asking questions that are different. The big thing that it puts on the radar of our customers is risk mitigation. Supply chains, really one of the key elements of a supply chain is, do you have a reliable supplier that can deliver the products when you need them, where you need them? That drives into Titan's strength. Again, going back to what we started off with, where we manufacture, being close to our customers, the depth of our product portfolio.
Nobody can stand up to what we do if you look at the investments we've made into engineering, tooling, and then they throw in the quality of our products. You need to be able to support the manufacturing bases that are right where your customers are using and building that equipment. I think we're seeing that from our employees. We're also seeing it from our customers asking questions different because they're looking at it from the risk mitigation standpoint. Now, tariffs in the short term, it's chaotic. There's no doubt about it. Every company I've talked to, every company you've talked to is going to tell you that tariffs are chaotic. That's not good for any business that's trying to make decisions. I think we got to get through the short-term noise. It's our job as business leaders to figure that out.
I think we've redone our overall business strategy probably four times in the last 60 days. It's not enjoyable, obviously. I think what I'm going to keep referencing, though, is what I said. Long-term, our employees have conviction. Our management team has conviction with tariffs. In the short run, because of that, our approach to dealing with the tariffs has been excellent because our team is behind it. They're like, "Look, we're understanding what's going on. We got to do something about it." We go look at the data. We analyze our costs. We understand what's going on with the tariffs to the greatest extent we possible, and we make decisions from there. I think the attitude and the approach that Titan's team has taken to it in the short run is going to be effective. Hopefully, the chaos subsides at some point.
Joe, snap your fingers and make that happen, okay?
I wish I could for you. Let's dive now into each of the business segments. We got the agricultural, construction, mining, consumer. Maybe you can kind of give us, the audience, what are the demand drivers for each one of those sectors? What are some of the long-term trends that we believe will be a benefit to Titan?
I'll start with agriculture. All of our segments have something in common, and they are cyclical. I'll start with agriculture. We're in what I would call the tail end of a down cycle. With ag, it never goes up or down 5%. It moves in much larger swings than that, as everybody knows. We're getting close to that two-year mark of this existing ag downturn. You can look at farmer sentiment and different psychological polls. I think those have been better now because of the political regime. Really, I mean, ag is going to be driven by farmer income and the age of the equipment and the technology that's coming into the space. What this cycle has been about, probably more than any, a little bit more than other cycles, is just dealing with inventory.
Because the cycle was expected to start to break already, there's been this longer lag on getting the inventory levels to the right place, whether it's used or new, getting the late model used moving so you can clear the room for the new. I mean, it's just been a longer cycle because of dealing with inventory. I think that's been driven by forecasting has been difficult. Again, I'm not just referencing ag when I say that. A lot of industrial companies have had a challenge forecasting in this environment. Obviously, COVID was one type of forecasting challenge, but even post-COVID, it's been challenging. Now you get into the political cycle we've been in, now the tariff cycle. I think the lack of good forecasting has made the cycle more challenging, and it's created this inventory overhang in ag.
I think if you look at the basics of ag, the equipment is going to need updated. There's good technology that goes along with newer equipment. You want to stay within your warranty period. Farmer incomes are stabilizing and getting to a pretty decent point. Watch crop prices, obviously. Stocks-to-use ratios are getting better. There are a lot of fundamental things along with some psychological farmer sentiment index that are saying, "Okay, the turn is around the corner." Plus, again, we're kind of near the end of year two of this cycle. It's just get this inventory cleared. You get the inventory in a better place, kind of mute the noise around tariffs. I think farmers are going to be fine. Land values are holding up. U.S. and Europe are still pretty quiet in ag. Not much is going on.
We are seeing Brazil start to pick up already. Part of that could be driven by the Chinese purchases of grains, but that's really been ongoing for a while. We're starting to see Brazil pick up already. Our business is usually a good leading indicator of that. You think about it, you got to have your wheels and tires in place in order to sell that equipment. We usually get out in front of the cycle as far as the preparations go to get the products that we produce in place for our customers. Again, I think the ag cycle will be turning. It just hasn't really started to hit that inflection point yet. I would point towards 2026 with that. The other segments we serve, the construction market, it didn't go up or down quite as bad as ag has.
It is at that point right now where I think everybody's trying to figure out what's going to happen. That's both politically, geopolitics, tariffs, all that rolled into a basket. We are seeing the construction markets go into kind of a pause. One of the things that we always look back at in both these businesses, whether it's ag or construction, is the reality is farmers still got to farm and construction and roads still got to continue to be developed and maintained. Aftermarkets become a bigger part of our business. That's where we see the activity. The activity is not slowing down from that perspective. Equipment is being used. The world's population is going to continue to grow. The needs of society from an infrastructure standpoint will grow along with feeding people. The macro trends are still there.
Our aftermarket business has become a bigger part of what Titan does, and that is holding up better than the cycle we're seeing with OEMs. I don't think there's anything that's earth-shattering changing in the last three months as far as our end markets go. At the same time, I think once that catalyst and those drivers start to peek their head up into the sun a little bit, I think we'll see those markets move in a positive direction.
Thanks for that. I'm going to piggyback two questions here. One, maybe you could talk a little bit about your customer base. I'm sure it's a lot of well-known names on the kind of who are some of the key OEMs across your segments. The second part, you touched a little bit about the aftermarket. You're selling into OEMs for new, then you're selling also aftermarket. Kind of what's the split there? How are you trying to drive more into that aftermarket?
It's a good question. We do work with a broad spectrum of global OEMs. John Deere is our largest customer that we disclose annually the level of sales we have with them. We have a number of tremendous customers that we work with in the ag space. The CNHs, the Kubotas, the AGCOs, Coyotes. We touch there. We have great customers in the construction side, road building with [Labee r]. I mean, because we go from wheels and tires to steel track that goes into a lot of different applications. I mean, we have a really strong subset of customers that we can rely on for good intelligence, market intelligence. Like I was saying earlier, what we produce, you got to get out in front of because you need it to move the equipment. We are really proud of our OEM customer base.
Going back to the second part of your question and going back to what I've been alluding to, I mean, we also realize that it's great to sell a wheel and tire assembled to an OEM. At the same time, we got to make sure we're taking care of the products as they continue to go through their entire life cycle. We've really worked hard to improve and establish a stronger aftermarket connection. We've done that by the basics of servicing those dealers. If you're going to be in the market saying you can do things, you need a good strong dealer network, and you got to take care of those dealers. We put a tremendous amount of effort into that, but also having the right products available for them.
One of the strengths that Titan has compared to our competitors, and I mentioned it earlier, but our product portfolio. What is different about our space is that there are so many SKUs that go into our business. It's not like on-road tires. That is why we've been around for 35 years and three decades as a public company is because there's so many SKUs and the complexity of what we produce that goes on to different equipment, goes into different applications that you got to have the right products available. The way Titan approaches the market is we want to fully serve our customers. We're not going to come in there and say, "Joe, I got five great products for you. Buy these five." Then you have to go buy your other 50 products from a multitude of other suppliers. We approach it.
We're going to come in there and take care of all your needs. That helps us, obviously, with the OEMs, but we've really done that as well with the aftermarket. With the recent acquisition we did last year, our product portfolio just continues to expand. We're becoming a one-stop shop for the aftermarket. Have the right products available and build great products. Innovation has been a key thing for Titan. We've done some really impressive innovation into the space that makes equipment perform better. To be honest with you, aftermarket moves quicker than OEMs when it comes to innovation. If the end user knows a product's going to make their equipment perform better, they'll jump on it. That innovation, it leads towards OEMs, but it really moves quicker through the aftermarket channels. That's been a nice plus for Titan.
Let's stick with that for a second, the innovation. One of the big innovations recently has been your LSW product. I think a more recent one has been the VPO technology. Maybe you can talk a little bit more about these innovations and how they are helping benefit your end customers, which obviously ends up benefiting Titan in the long run.
One of our strengths is it could be viewed as a weakness because we only serve cyclical markets, but from a customer standpoint, it's a strength. This is all we do. So we better be damn good at it. Some of our competitors that we compete against will have the off-road segment be a smaller part of their bigger portfolio of other products, which obviously get more attention from the engineering and the innovation perspective. For us, we need to drive innovation because this is all we do. We really put an emphasis on how do we make that equipment perform better. We do that by putting investments into the obvious. You got to have a good quality team of engineers. Got to be able to get it on the front end. What separates us is on the back end.
Working with the end users, understanding their products, how their equipment interfaces with the applications they're operating in, and how the products we manufacture can be an important part of that interface. We develop the technology that makes equipment perform better. That is exactly what LSW has done. It does the obvious things, which is a more comfortable ride, all those things that you look for when you buy an SUV or a car. Those are obvious. Quite frankly, that is not what makes our innovation go. Our innovation makes the farmer more money. It improves the yields of their fields. It improves the investment that they, well, the biggest investment they have, which is the land because it protects the soil compaction. It does things that drive ROI and value to our customers. That is the innovation that we look towards. LSW does that.
You mentioned VPO. What that does is it's a safety. It's a safety-type product where if you're operating a piece of equipment and you have a tire issue, which is going to happen, you go over a nail or something in an outdoor piece of equipment, the VPO will keep running. You're not breaking down, having to tow it, whatever it may be. You look at our R14 technology. You used to have a multitude of tires you needed if you're operating smaller tractors. Smaller tractors are not just hobby tractor toys. A lot of them go into municipalities. They do utility work on construction. They do utility work in different operations. You needed a different tire for turf, for construction, for ag. We developed a tire that, you know what, it does all of that.
You do not need to buy two or three sets of tires. You can buy one R14, and it will take care of all that for you. Our innovation, again, is about making equipment perform better. We have great technology going on with our trust technology with ITM, where it is taking interfaces from RFID and real-time information and presenting it to the customer to let them know how the track is performing and, quite frankly, what they need to do to maintain it. Those are the things that drive us. We are going to continue to have the biggest portfolio in our business. We also want to make sure we are developing the newest products that make equipment perform better. We invest in it. It is a key part of us.
I mean, but again, it's not just a bunch of engineers sitting in a room thinking up ideas. I mean, we're out there with the customers. Again, I'm going one step beyond the customers. We're out there with the end users figuring out how that equipment works for them and what we can do to make it perform better.
Excellent. You mentioned you completed an acquisition last year with Carlstar. Can you tell us a little bit about that business, how that diversified Titan's offerings and kind of how that acquisition, the integration of that is proceeding?
It's a company that we've known well, and they've known us well for many years. We operated in tangent spaces with just a little bit of overlap. It is a good candidate for an acquisition or a marriage. We always had visions of getting into some of what they're doing, and they always had visions of getting into what we're doing. As I said to them as we were going through due diligence, the reality is we're never going to be good at what you do, and you do not have a snowball chance of being good at what we do. There was some nodding of the heads. Obviously, I was doing it to kind of get under their skin a little bit and see what their reaction was. We have seen that play out exactly like that. Very little product portfolio overlap. They are strong in what they do.
They get Titan into the places of the market where we weren't. It's the high-speed trailers. It's the outdoor power equipment. It's the turf. They have great brands. They have great products, and they have great people. The same things Titan has in the segments that we were serving with very little overlap. We have been able to bring the two companies together. The key thing is whenever you do an acquisition, how do the people respond? Going back to what I said earlier about it looked like a good marriage on paper. We have seen that play out over the last 15 months is that it does. It works. Our team realizes it works. It fits. The excitement is, one, it came together. The puzzle pieces fit. The excitement really is driven by, okay, now what do we do?
Clearly, Titan has some resources that can make them accelerate what they're doing as far as the engineering and some of the stuff we already touched on, Joe. We've been able to learn from them because they had a great distribution channel in place, and they were touching parts of the market that we weren't necessarily getting to. Now you bring that together. Let's go accelerate the innovation with their products. We just signed our Goodyear deal again so we can bring the Goodyear brand into some of these off-road segments that they were servicing. We got that. That can add a few of growth. Really kind of looking beyond just the traditional markets when we're operating and going, okay, now we have this full product portfolio.
Let's go start filling in some cracks geographically where we were not necessarily touching because either Titan did not have enough volume or they did not have enough volume. Now together, we can have a different type of presence in those markets. Really good stuff. Again, looking back 15 months later, it has come together very nicely. Now we are just, let's just accelerate it for the future.
Recently, you did an acquisition. Last year, you bought back a big slug of stock. Kind of what's the capital allocation strategy here going forward? Still focused on buybacks, M&A, debt pay down? What are your thoughts?
The stock buyback, the big chunk that we did was a very positive transaction. It was an investor that had been in our stock for about 10 years, still on our board. It was a smooth exiting process, but was not necessarily in our capital forecast for that year. I think for us, it is, one, continuing to fund the business and the innovation that I have been highlighting. That is an absolute must. Two, focus on, let's pay down a little bit of debt. We did an acquisition. We did that large chunk of a buyback. Let's fuel the CapEx. Let's focus on the balance sheet to make sure we pay down a little bit of that debt. Just be prepared for some opportunities in M&A. Is there anything imminent?
Now, we're still biting off the one that we just did last year, and that's going very well. I would say the one thing that we are always looking at, and it does not take as much capital, is good formations of JVs and ways to bring in either geographical or product portfolio expansions from a financial perspective, less capital-intensive way, where you're buying a part of their capabilities and kind of taking some of our strengths and mirroring it with their strengths and then going to market together. You can do that through some formation of JVs that, again, are less capital-intensive. That is something we are always looking at. We are in good shape on the balance sheet. Yeah, after those two events last year, we do want to continue to focus on paying down some debt.
Great. Let's finish up with this one, Paul. What are you most excited about for the future of Titan?
Products. I mean, I think that's what drives our culture is let's continue to innovate and make great products. We do that in a different way. I keep referencing being connected to the end users, but that's truly in our culture. We kind of let the culture build from that. You don't need to put 100 slogans up on a wall and build a culture when the energy comes from the products we produce and the way those products operate out in the field. I mean, the equipment our products go on is cool. I mean, pull up some videos of LSW. You're going to go, wow, that's pretty awesome. I never really thought about it that way. You think about large ag equipment going through the difficult conditions they have to operate in. You go look at an excavator going in operation.
To think that what we build is that key interface between the equipment and the application. What we do is cool. It creates a great energized workforce. We got to keep that momentum going. That's what gets me excited. We got to continue to be excited and move forward in that way.
Great. Paul, we covered a lot of ground today. You got significant insight into what Titan does, its markets, and opportunities. We appreciate you taking the time to do this fireside chat, and we wish you and the company the best in the future. Thanks again.