Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. I am very pleased to welcome you all to VSE Corporation's First-Ever Investor Day. For those attending in person, we're excited to host you at Nasdaq MarketSite in New York City. For those attending virtually, you'll be able to view the presentation as we move the slides along. My name is Michael Perlman, and I lead Investor Relations and Communications at VSE Corporation. I joined VSE to be part of the transformation story and to be part of what I think is a world-class team. We have a lot of great content today, but before we get started, I'd like you all to check your cell phones to make sure they're on silence.
Leading the presentation today is John Cuomo, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Steve Griffin, Chief Financial Officer. You will also hear from our two business segment leaders, Ben Thomas, Group President of VSE Aviation, and Chad Wheeler, Group President of Wheeler Fleet Solutions. Also presenting today is Krista Stafford, Chief HR Officer. And now with the required statement. Today's discussion contains forward-looking statements about future business and financial expectations. Actual results may differ significantly from those projected in today's forward-looking statements due to various risks and uncertainties, including those described in our periodic reports filed with the SEC. We encourage you to review these carefully. In addition, we are using non-GAAP financial measures in our presentation. Where available, the appropriate GAAP financial reconciliations are incorporated in our presentation.
And with that, it's my pleasure to introduce you to John Cuomo, President and Chief Executive Officer of VSE Corporation.
Thank you, Michael. We're here to share an exciting story today, one of the VSE transformation and all the growth that's ahead. What I'm most excited for is all of you in the room have had many opportunities to hear me talk at length. I'm most excited for you to hear from our industry-leading team, the work they have done and everything yet that we will do together under these four key themes. First, VSE is repositioned and ready to scale. Our business transformation is near complete, and our near-term results validate our investment thesis. Second, our markets are robust and fragmented. Both our aviation and our fleet aftermarkets support both short- and long-term organic and inorganic growth opportunities.
Number 3, and a key one, is differentiation. Our products, our technical capabilities, our service, and our industry-leading team and culture establish unique positions in our market and differentiate us from our peers. And finally, growth and financial performance. We have so many levers to pull to drive above-market growth in all of our markets while focusing on strong and disciplined financial performance and increased profit.
Good morning, everyone. I'm John Cuomo. Thanks for being here today. It's exciting to have our first Investor Day, a long time coming. It's my privilege to lead the VSE organization. I spent 25 years of my career, maybe a few more years than that now, in aerospace and defense, mostly in distribution and services businesses. My last business was running for the last 15 years, B/E Aerospace's distribution business and KLX's distribution business, which was the world's leading consumables distribution business that we sold to Boeing in 2018, and-- Or 2019? 2018. Knowing and the reason I'm at VSE is knowing the market and what opportunities were out there. This is before COVID. Sitting in a market where you saw in both our transportation business, in our fleet business, as well as our aviation business, we were at the peak of new build and receipts of new both transportation vehicles and aircraft. The aftermarket is where the opportunities were.
They were fragmented, support was needed, and there was opportunities to take the gems inside of VSE and transform them into the global leading aftermarket business that we are today and we will continue to become. So I want to spend a few minutes and talk about the transformation story. So first, when we look at the phases of transformation here, and where we sit today is on phase three. When I arrived at the business, it was all about proving our setting our foundation and proving and validating our strategy. So if you think of it like a building, it's how do we build that foundation, make sure it's solid before we start to build and scale that business? Second, it was about program execution and strategy expansion, new customers, new capabilities, new product offerings.
And now, as we enter phase three, it's really refocusing our business into two distinct end markets and driving above-market growth and continuing to expand margins and drive increased profitability. So the four-year transformation was really-- You know, when I put this slide, it sounds simple. Doing what we said we would do was all about building credibility, both with our customers and supplier stakeholders, as well as our shareholders. So it was not only validating that thesis, but making sure that we were able to continue to, quarter after quarter, this is what we're going to do, this is what we did, and here are the results that prove it. Every single part of our business was touched over the last four years. We've integrated all of our legacy assets, IT systems across all of our businesses.
You're going to hear about facility and infrastructure as we created centers of excellence. You know, processes across all of our businesses. How we went to market and building anchor customers and supplier arrangements, adding new capabilities, new products. Each and every part of our business was touched as we went through the last four years of our transformation. And what those key initiatives were, were expanding our customer and supplier base, accelerating our market diversification, and key is differentiation. You're gonna hear a lot about differentiation this morning. Differentiation is what will continue to drive embeddedness with our customers and suppliers, and more important to shareholders over time, is the margin improvement. That is what allows us to continue to expand margins.
I've done it in the past, taking a commoditized distribution business that was in the low teens operating margin, and for a large number of years, drive that business to basically 20% operating margin. The key to that was differentiation, and that's exactly what Ben and Chad will talk about today of what they've been able to do. Building the VSE brand and integrating all of our legacy assets, and of course, generating above-market growth and continued improved profitability, all while investing in team, facilities, products, capabilities, and systems. Wanted to share a few highlights with you here over the last few years.
From a strategic acquisition perspective, we've now done four key acquisitions for our aviation business, three of them this year with our small Precision Fuel C omponents acquisition, our Desser acquisition, and our most recently announced Honeywell license agreement, which Ben will speak to later. Really excited about that growth opportunity. But along with that, we divested non-core assets. We divested two non-core assets in our aviation business. We've announced the divestiture and, you know, and plans to quickly divest of our federal and defense segment. With that, there were not only organic investments, but organic wins.
Right from the beginning, a $100 million agreement with Triumph that Ben will speak to later, and the power of that agreement, an agreement that was with an incumbent, that was a large commercial OEM, where we were able to very quickly drive our differentiation and bring this marquee partner on board. A number of agreements with one of our marquee partners at Pratt & Whitney Canada, Honeywell, and Bombardier, and significant investment in our fleet business organically, with a 400,000 sq ft distribution and e-commerce center of excellence, and as well as a diversification strategy that required a large amount of investment in people, processes, and systems. I am very proud of how quickly we were able to build our VSE brands and how quickly they were able to be recognized in the market.
But more importantly, the foundation work not only set us up to scale and grow these businesses, it not only set us up in our markets where we are now a market leader, but it also drove strong financial results, specifically over the last two years. As you look at last 12-month revenue growth, we grew 36% per year over the last two years, continuing to outpace even the best market peers. And growing, all while continuing to expand margins and growing 57% in EBITDA per year over the last two years. We now have a business that, with our two core segments, is far in excess of $800 million of revenue and in excess of $100 million of EBITDA, which was a key target for Steve and I when we both came on board. We didn't like having that two-digit EBITDA number.
So what are we left with here? We're left with a two-segment business. We're left with two market-leading, focused aftermarket businesses. About two-thirds of our business is aviation, and one-third is, or of our revenue is fleet. Our market channels are strong in both commercial business and general aviation and commercial, fleet. Our capabilities are market-tested, differentiated, and service levels are second to none, with both MRO and distribution services, and the results speak for themselves. I'll let Steve dive into the results in a little bit more detail.
So with that, let's dive deeper into our aviation business, and I'll turn it over to you, Steve.
Thank you, John. Good morning, everybody. I'm Steve Griffin. I lead the finance organization here at VSE. I spent 12 years before this with General Electric, most recently with GE Aerospace. I joined VSE three years ago, and I joined specifically because I wanted to help reinvent this company because of the attractive aftermarkets, the same story that John just told you. But the other element of why I wanted to join this company was I wanted to be at a place where we could start to realize the results of our hard work in weeks and in months versus years and decades, and that's exactly what we've done. So you heard John talk about the aviation market. I'm gonna give you some context as to why we think this is such an attractive investment opportunity.
In aviation, to start, everything begins with the number of aircraft in the fleet, and in this space, there are over 27,000 commercial aircraft flying today, and by 2033, we expect that to grow by 33% to have more than 36,000 aircraft in the fleet. This is driven by strong, robust demand for global travel, but also the large aircraft OEMs with their record backlogs and production rates. Now, a smaller market in terms of total spend, the business and general aviation aftermarket, or the business and general aviation fleet, actually has more aircraft in total than commercial, with almost 34,000 flying today, and it's expected to grow more than 21% by 2033 to almost 41,000.
This is driven by strong demand for corporate travel, as well as a strong preference and popularity amongst high-net-worth clientele that we expect to continue into the future. These record backlogs and production rates are going to lead to a larger fleet, more utilization, and with that utilization, an increased demand for maintenance. Now, talking about airline maintenance. Airline maintenance is the third largest expense for an airline, after the cost of fuel and the cost of the aircraft. And the ability to have a strong and resilient maintenance supply chain for an operator is going to be the true differentiator for them, for them to be able to deliver for their customers. And so it's critically important for them to have the right partners in their supply chain.
Commercial airline maintenance alone in 2023 was over $90 billion, and you can see the separation here, but I'll call out just for noting, the engine overhaul, the component line maintenance, and component repair. These are three critical areas for which our VSE Aviation business competes in. The demand for this aftermarket maintenance is very predictable in the sense that we know these aircraft will fly, and they have maintenance that must occur, so it creates a very repeatable stream of revenue for our business. Now, two things will happen. New aircraft will come in, and they will have entry into service issues which need to get resolved. And secondly, legacy aircraft will experience increased work scopes, which leads to opportunities for businesses like ours. In addition to this, the OEMs who support these new aircraft are faced with a difficult challenge.
They have to meet the production rates associated with the new airframes, and so therefore, their capital becomes constrained, both human capital and financial resources, where they have to decide between new make or the high-margin aftermarket repair and part distribution businesses that they run. And we believe, as they have in the last few years, they will continue to look for strong, very resilient partners like VSE Aviation to continue to support them and their customers in the aftermarket. And then lastly, part availability. When it comes to turnaround time on aircraft engines and components, the ability to have material readily available for customers is the true differentiator for why a customer might select what is called a PMA product or an alternatively manufactured product.
The ability to have that product is both aligned with the OEMs and the operators and sets an important stage for why we think part distribution is key in our business. Needless to say, we believe the strong maintenance markets and the aftermarket for aviation will continue. Now, our VSE Aviation business. We're headquartered in Miami, Florida. We have over 600 employees, and we operate out of 11 centers of excellence across the United States and globally. This year, so far, year to date, we're about $500 million in terms of total revenue. More importantly, we've grown 56% per year for the last two years.
In addition to that, and probably more notably, you'll notice the adjusted EBITDA for this business has grown 133% for the last two years, as we've put capital to work and driven strong financial returns for our shareholders and our customers. Our business is separated between 70% of our revenue coming from distribution of product and 30% of our revenue coming from the MRO space. I believe in this business, and I'm excited about what you're about to hear.
With that, I'll turn it over to Ben.
Great. Good morning, everyone. My name is Ben Thomas, and I lead our Aviation segment here at VSE. I've been in the industry for 14 years at companies such as B/E Aerospace, KLX, and then Boeing. I'm at VSE because I wanted to build something special and something different. I think our business is special because we put people at the center of everything we do, and these people are our customers, our suppliers, and our employees. It's different because we're developing solutions that don't really exist in the marketplace today, and I'm excited to tell you some more about that this morning. When we look at the aviation business, we're in the business of solving problems in the aftermarket.
You know, and at the end of the day, and to be, you know, very simple, customers come to us because something about their aircraft is broken. Now, they might have known it was gonna break, or it might be something that failed unexpectedly, but ultimately, something is broken. And that problem that they have can be solved by giving them something new, and we do that from our distribution business, by repairing what's broken, you know, through our MRO business, or providing a fully refurbished, rollable unit through what's called an exchange transaction. And ultimately, we work with our customers to determine what's the right way to solve their problem at that point in time. Basically, do they want something new? Do they want something used, or do they want us to fix what's broken?
So I'm gonna tell you more about our distribution capabilities and about our MRO services. But what really makes us different and makes us special is how we're combining our planning, and stocking, and logistics capabilities from our distribution business with our detailed technical understanding from our MRO services business to create solutions and solve problems for customers and for our OEM partners in ways that drive real value for their operations. So let's start with our MRO business. We're focused on component repair and engine accessory work, and we have a broad range of capabilities supporting hundreds of airframe and engine platforms across both, commercial and business and general aviation segments.
Now, when you look at an aircraft, just about everything on that aircraft is there to move one of four things around the aircraft: fuel, air, electricity, and water, or some other type of fluid. We have capabilities to repair all of those types of components with some of the industry's best technicians and equipment and processes. We are approved and actively solving problems for just about every major commercial and cargo airline in the world, as well as thousands of large and small operators in the business and general aviation space. This business is gaining share and outgrowing its markets. Over the last two years, it's grown by an average of 41% per year, and has done that by continuing to add new capabilities and new programs for our customers.
So I'm gonna turn it over to Ian Franklin, one of our MRO leaders, to share a little bit more about how we're supporting our customers.
Welcome, welcome to Miramar, Florida, to our VSE Aviation headquarters and our commercial MRO Center of Excellence. When parts break on commercial cargo and military aircraft, we fix your parts. As customer demand and opportunity has grown, so has our facility. We have the ability to more than double our current volume of our MRO, maintenance, repair and overhaul, facility while simultaneously adding new capabilities and increasing current capacity. The team here in Miramar collectively has centuries of experience within the aviation aftermarket. That level of technical expertise is unsurpassed. Given current market trends, with the challenges in both capacity and labor shortfalls, VSE has both the expertise and the technical abilities to provide and fulfill these needs. VSE is an OEM-authorized facility. OEMs choose to work with VSE because of our technical capabilities, our capacity, and the extensive experience of our personnel.
We service pneumatics, fuel, hydraulics, avionics, electromechanical, composite. Here at VSE, we provide many value-added services to our customers. Starting with our engineering team, we have a staff of mechanical and electrical engineers that allow us to provide additional capability and expertise to our customers. It allows us to expand our capabilities to fit what our customers' needs. Our customers have dedicated customer service personnel, as well as access to a 24/7 aircraft on the ground service. We offer a full spectrum of services to our customers, whether it's repair, replace, or exchange. Every customer's need is unique, and we tailor our services to fit their needs. It's not what we do, but how we do it. It's the passion that people put into their daily tasks.
Why this team is winning? Our broad range of capabilities, it covers not just the types of units that we repair, but also the scope of work that we can do to them. We can support an entire aircraft type, like the 737, in ways that is pretty unique in the industry. Our in-house capabilities allow VSE to control the quality, to control the turn times, and to control the cost of the MRO, of the MRO work in ways that our competition cannot do. And so these are the same factors that our customers are prioritizing, and it's a-- and this alignment with our customer priorities is what's driving that above-market growth for our business, and will continue to do so in the future. So let's switch over to our distribution business.
Now, as Steve mentioned, our distribution business represents about 70% of the revenue for the aviation segment. This business is focused on supporting high-value, technical, proprietary products that are made by some of the industry's leading aircraft engine and component OEMs. The proprietary nature of the products that we support provides both stability and stability of demand, as well as a defensible, protected position within the marketplace. The exclusive nature in which we work with our OEM partners, coupled with our product line management focus, which I'll share more about, it's driving significant growth. I am very proud of what this team has done over the last two years. They've generated over 64% growth per year for the last two years, and they've done this coupled with significant margin expansion.
So why, why does distribution matter, and why, why are we winning in the marketplace? It starts with understanding the, you know, the aftermarket. The aftermarkets that we support, it's characterized by really significant demand variability and a long tail of customers with different requirements. So the OEMs we work with, they're good at designing and engineering and manufacturing and doing production in large volumes and at scale, and they do that in a relatively stable environment. I mean, that's their world. The OEMs, they're often just not set up to manage all the swings and the demand, nor the diversity of customers in the aftermarket. VSE is.
So not only do we carry the broad inventory that's needed to support that range of requirements, but we understand the drivers and the events that are actually precipitating those aftermarket demand signals, and then we use those insights to deliver products through an approach and a mindset that's really embodied in our product line management philosophy. And this is really something that I believe makes us different in the marketplace. So let's see what that looks like in practice at VSE. And this part again, this is important. At VSE, we believe every part has a story. It's not just a number.
It goes on a specific aircraft or an engine, it performs a precise function under certain conditions, it's used by a specific operator in a certain way, it's different than similar parts in important aspects, and it's at a certain point in its life cycle. There are competitive and market dynamics that are applicable to that exact part. These are all factors that are important for understanding the story behind a part number and for maximizing the value of that part to the operator and to the OEM. This, this ideal is embodied in our, in our product line management teams. They understand these stories behind the products that we manage, and with those technical and market insights, they drive and they, they craft and drive cross-functional strategies with our suppliers. This OEM alignment and collaboration, it's really key to our differentiation.
So you think about it, OEMs spend millions of dollars spec'd in on, on new production, but the aftermarket for much of their, of their profit. They need someone who will work with them and give them insights, insights to maximize the value of their aftermarket. You also think about how OEMs today are being threatened by potential PMA entrants in many parts of their portfolio. And where they really need help is understanding what is driving that PMA competition. And I can tell you, it's usually not price. Availability and performance are much bigger issues than price when it comes to PMA competition. We understand these, these dynamics, and they need help crafting strategies that prevent PMA competition in the first place, or if it's already there, help win it back. This is what our product line managers do with our OEM partners.
They work with them to build and expand and protect OEM brand value, and ultimately extend the life of the products that we're supporting. So this is one of our product line management templates, and you can see it. It starts with customer insights and actions up there at the top. And it really takes a holistic view of a product line's performance. It includes not just sales and margin, but also customer fill rates and inventory metrics, including the cost of capital. And this is really important. As an inventory-centric business, it's important that each of our leaders understand how much inventory is being used to support a product line. They need to be aware of that inventory's holding cost, and with that understanding, they're driving and developing stocking and pricing strategies that make sure we're generating an acceptable return.
So it's this product line management focus that's resonating with our, our OEM partners. We have the structure that provides both expertise and accountability, and that structure is driving above-market growth for VSE and for our OEM partners.
So I'm gonna turn it over to Pedro to share a little bit more about what this looks like in action at VSE.
Our distribution business here at VSE Aviation is focused on offering supply chain management solutions to our OEM partners in the market. My name is Pedro Gonzalez, Vice President and General Manager of VSE Aviation Distribution Group. Over the last few years, not only have we seen significant market demand increase, we've also brought in a subset of new distribution agreements and partnerships requiring an urgent need for footprint growth in our business, and we've done exactly that.
We are currently operating in a 50,000-sq-ft facility. As our business continues to grow and expand, embedded in this structure is the ability to expand an additional 50,000 sq ft space, allowing us a 100,000 sq ft capacity to support our growing customers. My name is Michael Prkic, Director of Operations here at VSE Aviation. Welcome to our new state-of-the-art distribution facility here in Doral, Florida. We went from a facility that was much smaller in size and scale to this 3x facility that can support our growth here in the future, and that will enable us to grow even 2x greater than it is today.
Having all of our employees here together in the business allows us to improve our efficiencies, improve collaboration and communication across the building. It helps us become faster and more agile for our customers. A few years ago, a major commercial OEM in the market reached out to us with a clear problem statement. They had an incumbent distribution agreement that provided very traditional pick, pack, and ship capabilities, and we were able to come in and tailor our services to their need. They needed improved market intelligence, get closer to the customer, and improve service levels overall in order to keep their brand and their integrity at an all-time high.
Through our product line management capabilities, we sat our product line leaders with their leaders, and we built a very tailored and bespoke offering and overall process in order to gather that information, share it, and build reporting capabilities and dashboards that gives them the intelligence that they need in order to innovate. We've also been able to expand internationally into new regions that the prior incumbent wasn't able to penetrate in. We've now broken various records across multiple product categories from a sales perspective. We're closer to the customer than we've ever been, performing at service levels that are record-breaking, in some cases, 99% and above. We believe that every part number at VSE has a story, whether it's technical capabilities, where it goes, and the application and end use.
Our product line managers focus on understanding every aspect of that part number in order for us to give bespoke offerings in the market. We are an extension of that OEM. When we go to customers, the customers almost can't differentiate between us and our OEM partners.
The program that Pedro was referring there at the end, that's our Triumph Actuation program. You can, you can see the results there, but, you know, the sales have, you know, almost doubled, and again, growing in with customers and in markets that, you know, our competition was not. What I really like is the, the thing he said there at the end is, customers have trouble differentiating between the VSE team and the OEM team. That's exactly what we want. We are an extension of our OEM partners organization. We are their window into the marketplace and the dynamics that are happening there. And then again, that's something that's driving real value and real growth for our OEM partners.
So I've got one more video, which, you know, provides a little different perspective with, again, how we're partnering with our OEMs.
I'm Toby Lavine , Vice President of MRO Services, Business and General Aviation. We are in Independence, Kansas, at VSE Aviation Services. What we do at this facility is maintenance, repair, and overhaul on complex fuel systems. We are an international business that ships to over 80 different countries around the world. Primarily, the concentration of aircraft that we service is in North America and Europe. We average around 15,000 custom orders per year. What differentiates us is the speed and service we offer to our customers. We've taken a part and driven two or three states to deliver the part to a customer out in the field. These are small owner-operators. We definitely get a thanks, but even more than that, is they go tell 10 of their friends what we did.
All our locations run 24/7 with customer and logistical support. I'm Chelsea Angel . I am Director of an OEM engine line program for VSE. The engine OEM is a little too big to offer the really personal touch to these customers. We are the right size for this complex program because we are more responsive and flexible than the OEM. VSE was chosen because the OEM trusts us. We have the technical knowledge, and we have a long-standing relationship with them. Because VSE has three warehouses we're able to ship from, it allows us to get these parts to customers faster, and we can get them to customers in as little as two hours, which is best in the industry.
VSE is really good at teamwork and meeting customer demand.
So Chelsea was being humble in that video. She manages the largest product line in our organization. That's for our Pratt & Whitney Canada Engine Accessories program. So Pratt has dominant market share in the BGA engine space, and her program supports just about every one of those engines, including the PT6. The PT6 engine was first manufactured, you know, over 30 years ago. There's over 60,000 of those engines flying today, and this program is supporting those engines. So the way this program works, it supports a line maintenance event. So that sounds a little bit benign, but that's essentially that's an unplanned breakdown in the field and, these events were traditionally supported by Pratt, but they saw the value in how we could support their operators and provide them with a better experience.
And they believe when their operators get a better experience, ultimately, they can sell more engines. So you can see the performance metrics here. What I really like about it is we're measuring delivery time in minutes and in hours, and not in days. You know, we get that order ready and off our dock within minutes, and to the customer within hours. That's a real differentiator to have those type of capabilities in the market. But what I wanna highlight about this program is it's a great example of what I mentioned at the beginning about how we're combining distribution and MRO capabilities to solve customer problems and drive value for our OEM partners.
So we are planning for and stocking all of the piece parts for these components, and if an entire, you know, component actually fails in the field, that problem is solved with one of those exchange transactions, where we give them a refurbished unit. But then we get that defective unit, we get that back, and that comes back from the field and that has to be repaired. Managing that repair process, and by the way, many of those repairs will happen in our own facility, but that's a really complex task. You don't find that technical know-how and repair capabilities with other distributors in this space. So Pratt saw the value in this when they awarded VSE the North America region in 2021.
They affirmed the value of this when they expanded that program to the APAC region in 2022, and we are very, very pleased and excited. Just yesterday, we announced that we are expanding the same program to Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. So this is the program that is anchoring our business and general aviation business. We are expanding internationally to thousands of new customers for this program, and over time, we'll cross-sell other products and services, and other content there. Pratt will continue to add more engines to this program, and it will continue to be a growth driver for us in the future.
So with that, I'm gonna bring John back up, and we'll talk a little bit more about some of our other growth drivers.
Thanks, Ben. I appreciate it. Stay up here--
First, congratulations on the performance from you and your team.
It's, you know, the financial performance and the growth is one thing. Being able to maintain and to continue to deliver on those service commitments to our customers while you're growing at that pace is another thing. Ben, let's start and talk a little bit about the Honeywell fuel control new program that we a nnounced.
Yeah, we announced this a few weeks ago, but VSE is going to become the, has a license to become the manufacturer of about 340 fuel controls. By the way, they go on all the same engines that we are supporting in that Pratt Engine Accessories program, including the PT6. You can see how it relates to the existing programs, you know, that we have. And we know this product really well. We've been the exclusive distributor for all the piece parts and subcomponents for over 15 years, and we've been doing MRO work and repairing these units in our MRO facilities for over 30 years.
So we know this really, really well, and we're, again, excited about this program because it's another example of bringing distribution capabilities together with MRO capabilities, and really kinda extending that into intellectual property, you know, management and control. Now, what that is going to allow us to do is we're gonna be able to work on performance and reliability upgrades for these products, and that's gonna have the effect of extending the life of these programs even farther into the future. So we're very, very excited about that. More broadly, though, this opens up really a third pillar of potential growth for VSE. OEMs will continue to kinda look to offload some of their non-core, later-in-life product lines, and they just have to make room for some of their big volume increases on their newer product lines.
So by being able to manage the manufacturing, the distribution, and the repair of these products, we believe we're in a very good position to grow this type of business, as we move forward into the future.
Great. Thanks, Ben. I think you got some of those products here to show later as well.
I do.
Thanks, Ben. You know, let's talk a little bit about growth. One of the questions I get very often is: Can you continue to grow at the pace in which you have been growing? And the answer is, I could say yes probably 5x . The number of opportunities and the number of growth pillars in this business is plentiful, and our pipeline for growth continues to be extremely robust. So first, we wanna make sure we're ready to handle that growth. Krista will speak a little bit later about our teams and their ability to handle it, but what we have done over the last few years is make sure our systems and processes are ready, and that our facilities are ready. You heard about our Doral facility and our Miramar facility. Both of those facilities are ready to scale.
Our best-in-class Independence, Kansas, facility is undergoing a 28,000 sq ft expansion as we speak and be ready to scale, and we just announced yesterday the opening of a new facility in Hamburg, Germany, to support both the Pratt & Whitney Canada and other programs, and that is lease signed and ready, and we'll be shipping parts out of there by--
End of the year.
End of the year. So, ready to move and scale. But let's talk about these growth pillars. First, let's talk about distribution. So you've heard about some of the marquee OEMs that and the pillars, the, them being pillars for future growth. That said, we have not touched so many of the Tier 2 and Tier 3 OEM suppliers in this industry yet. We remain. We have a strong pipeline of OEMs and OEM relationships that we have been cultivating. We have a Chief Growth Officer starting in early next year who will lead a lot of these efforts as we drive organic growth at or greater than the pace that we've been able to drive over the last few years. Second is MRO. Now, the biggest opportunity for MRO growth comes from our OEM partners.
You heard Ian in the video mention our OEM authorized. It is a differentiator compared to our competition. Many of our competitors out there in the market are reverse engineering product and competing with these OEM partners. We are in a position of true OEM partnership. That's not just on the distribution side, but it's on the repair side as well. We signed and announced last year a relationship with Honeywell to do some authorized avionics. It takes a while to get those capabilities up and running and approved, and you'll start seeing revenue from that program in early 2024. There, again, is a large pipeline of opportunities there. The OEMs need us. They need us because of capacity, and they need us because of labor, and they need us because there are not capable partners out in the market to support them.
Third is international expansion. Ben mentioned, you know, Hamburg was chosen as our distribution center of excellence. It's where both Boeing and Airbus have tremendous aftermarket distribution in Europe. Many of us have worked together in the past, and we've got a real strong pipeline of talent that we can pull from pretty quickly to get that facility stood up. And we're very excited to have a launch customer with Pratt & Whitney Canada, with revenue starting and scaling from early next year.
Our Desser acquisition, which is really U.K.-based, in terms of tires, tubes, and other products, in the middle of next year towards the back end of next year, we will bring that product line into that facility as well, to sell to, to Central and Eastern Europe, and that's—there's plenty of white space above and beyond that for us to continue to grow and scale internationally. This is just the beginning. And last, well, not last, I got two more, is M&A. You know, M&A is, you know, we won't talk about this when we talk about the fleet business, and we'll share a little more details there. And I'll dive into some of the core competencies of M&A later. But M&A is a really important driver for the aviation business, but it's not needed. We can drive this business without any acquisitions.
Our plans are 100% built off of the organic growth. M&A is only additive. We see fragmented markets, we see niche players out there, both in business and general aviation, as well as in some other distribution and MRO spaces, and we're very good acquirers of assets, integrators of assets, and businesses that can truly realize synergies. And last, you know, is the total product line management, which is similar to the license deal that we announced with Honeywell. This is a first entrance to this market for us. We know this product inside and out. We are the exclusive distributor of it, of that product today. The Kansas facility that you saw earlier is repairing that equipment today. Essentially, our manufacturing is really more like assembly.
So we've got the core competence and expertise, but it's a great way in because we see OEMs wanting to outsource this type of work as they build capacity for new work. The last and most important part of it is, it's a driver for margins, because you're taking the OEM out of the supply chain, so we now become the manufacturer, the distributor, and the authorized repair network. So what you heard Ben speak to today, and I wanna kinda summarize the key themes of the slides that you saw this morning, as with Steve, as well as Ben, is first, let's talk about the market. The aviation aftermarket is strong and resilient and contains plenty of opportunities.
Second, our business transformation, both the results in above-market revenue growth, the expansion to mid-teens operating margins, and how our customers and suppliers have responded, have validated what is to come and our next steps. Third, VSE's unique and differentiated model, combining both MRO and distribution, creates value for both our OEM partners and our aftermarket customers. I spend just as much or sometimes even more time with our OEM supplier partners than I do with our end user customers. They are equally important in this unique model that we have. Fourth, the VSE product line management, the team, the culture, the processes, drive superior services, embedded this inside of our customer and supplier models and expanded margin opportunity.
Fifth, there are extensive, and I can use that word 10x , growth opportunities ahead for products with OEM partners, MRO capabilities, geographies, and licensed products. And finally, the robust M&A pipeline can support inorganic growth, and we'll talk more about that later on, this morning. Before I turn it over to Steve, I just wanna highlight, this aviation business truly has performed. I came here four years ago with a business that was less than $150 million of revenue. We sit here today with a business that's over $600 million of revenue, and the market is ready for us, and we are ready for what's ahead in this next phase of growth.
With that, Steve, I'll turn it over to you, and we can dive into the fleet segment.
Great. Thank you, John. Okay, now transitioning to our fleet segment. Again, I'm gonna give you an overview of the markets and why we believe these markets are attractive. So our automotive fleet market is large and is growing, and it all starts with, surprisingly, consumer demand. So consumer demand since 2018 has shifted, and this is not a surprise for anybody in the room. E-commerce has taken an enormous leap forward. The level of e-commerce percentage sales versus retail sales has jumped 50% since this time, and in 2023, about 15% of total U.S. retail sales happened on the internet. Now, with that growth comes increased demand for package delivery. Package delivery over a 10-year span from 2018 through 2028 is gonna grow on average 7% per year.
That means by 2028, 25 billion packages will get delivered in the U.S., which is roughly one package per person, per week, all year. To support this increasing demand for package delivery, there are more vehicles on the road, last mile vehicle, last mile vehicles that are in your driveway delivering packages. And because of that, over the last decade, we've seen the growth of new vehicles rise at an increasing rate, 7% per year, almost every single year, up through 2020, as fleet operators need to get these packages to their end customers. As these vehicles age, these operators are gonna look to maintain their assets and get the most out of them over the next decade, which means maintenance becomes critical. Whoops! The maintenance of aftermarket automotive is an interesting one.
It's over $400 billion, and the distribution network is highly fragmented. About half of aftermarket distribution happens directly from OEMs, but you'll note here, about 25% of this market is serviced through independent distributors. And of that, the top two represent only about 20% of that group. That leaves $80 billion a year that is distributed through independent distributors that are highly fragmented, highly decentralized, and not truly prepared for the level of growth that's gonna come. Now, when looking at this $400 billion market, roughly $300 billion supports passenger vehicles, and about $100 billion supports heavy and medium-duty vehicles. What's changed dramatically in this market segment is very similar to how consumers are purchasing online. Fleet operators have shifted their buying preferences to be online as well.
In 2023, we expect the online purchases of aftermarket parts to be about $40 billion, and expected to grow to about $67 billion by 2030. The changing of this buying preference among fleet operators makes e-commerce and e-commerce capabilities increasingly more important, as those highly fragmented independent distributors that I noted before are not truly set up to scale, to move online, and support their customers in a fast and agile way. As these aftermarkets grow, VSE Fleet is well prepared to grow with them. Our fleet segment is based in Somerset, Pennsylvania, and has over 400 employees that work across three domestically based distribution centers. The revenue for this business is around $300 million, and over the last two years has grown at a CAGR of about 15%.
Corresponding with that, we've seen an increase in our adjusted EBITDA of this business grow at about 6% per year, primarily because of the level of investments that we have made into our team, our facilities, and our systems to support that e-commerce growth channel that we believe remains highly attractive. The split of our revenue comes from about 44% from commercial operators and about 56% directly from the United States Postal Service, who represents an anchor customer for our business.
With that, I'll turn it over to Chad Wheeler.
Thanks, Steve. Good morning, everybody. My name is Chad Wheeler. I'm the leader of our Fleet Segment, otherwise known as Wheeler Fleet Solutions. I've been in the industry about 33 years, and I'm very excited to talk to you this morning about a company that my grandfather founded 63 years ago as a small alternator repair shop off the Pennsylvania Turnpike, that we've now grown into one of the nation's leading providers of fleet parts and services. So who is Wheeler, and what do we do at a glance? Simply stated, Wheeler Fleet Solutions provides parts, distribution, and inventory solutions based on Class 4 through 8 high duty cycle fleets. What do we mean by high duty cycle fleets? We're talking about fleets that literally stop and start hundreds of times each and every day they're in use.
From the vocational fleets that show up at your house to deliver concrete for your back patio, to the trash truck that shows up each way to take away your refuse, and last mile delivery fleets of USPS and Amazon to deliver parcels and letters to your mailbox. These are fleets that you know and depend on. Wheeler is organized into three distinctly separate revenue channels, the first of which is the United States Postal Service and our managed inventory programs. The second of which is commercial fleet sales, which tends to be much more transactional in nature. And the third, and not last, is e-commerce and e-commerce fulfillment, which is home to our very own wheelerfleet.com. When we talk about transformation, this is probably the topic I'm most proud of when you talk, talk about Wheeler Fleet.
It wasn't that long ago that 90% of all revenues from Wheeler Fleet came from the USPS. As we close out 2023, that number will shrink to just about 50/50. Over the last five years, we have transformed the business and maintained an extremely profitable USPS revenue stream with $167 million trailing 12 months revenue. This is fantastic progress. Turning to commercial revenues, as recently as 2019, we had only $25 million in commercial revenues. We will exit 2023 with an estimated $150 million of non-USPS, non-DoD revenue. In the past five years, we've grown this segment over 500%. What does this all mean?
After three consecutive years of revenue, where we had $215 million-$217 million top line, in 2019, we started on an aggressive transformation strategy, where we've grown our company from $217 million to over $300 million in 2023, all while diversifying that USPS customer an additional 25%. That is true and fantastic progress. So turning to the USPS, this is everybody's favorite customer. So not only is the U.S. Postal Service the largest non-military fleet in the world, it's also the largest and most tenured customer of Wheeler Fleet Solutions. We have a deep-rooted history with the USPS, having achieved our national order agreement back in 1989.
During our 35-year history with the USPS, we've established key relationships with each of the 314 vehicle maintenance facilities that service these trucks. These relationships have led us to being the primary supplier to the United States Postal Service for over 25 years. How many companies can stand on a stage and talk to you about being the leader in their market for a quarter of a century? We do not plan on giving up that baton anytime soon. Speaking to the fleet composition specifically, up until about 2021, we were looking at 213,000 vehicles in the USPS fleet that was supported by about four different OEMs. 2021 to 2024 will see the fleet surge to about 250,000 assets, supported by six or seven different OEMs.
In 2025 and beyond, we're looking for that fleet to top out at estimates of about 260,000 vehicles, represented by nine different OEMs. What does this all say? Not only is this fleet continuing to grow at a rapid pace, but it's becoming much more complex to manage. This provides greater opportunities for Wheeler and raises the barriers to entry. If you know anything about Wheeler, you know that complex fleet markets are where we win, and we win big. Commercial fleet sales. When we talk about commercial fleet sales, we're talking about national fleets that you all know, such as Penske, UPS, and Waste Management. While we sell these fleets a lot of the same products that we sell to USPS, we specifically lean in on our Wheeler Fleet specific private label parts.
These parts take away specific identified pain points from each fleet. After establishing a relationship with only one or two Wheeler Fleet products, we offer a host of value-added services and parts that allow us to sort of reverse integrate into some of the nation's largest fleets. The market is immense for commercial fleet sales, and we're just getting started. Our three-year, 36% CAGR demonstrates that our strategy is clearly on the right track.
I'd like to take a pause right now to hear from some of the leaders of our commercial fleet and our USPS sales teams about what's happening in these markets.
Welcome to Wheeler Fleet Solutions headquarters in Somerset, Pennsylvania. Our campus consists of five buildings, over 300,000 sq ft, which includes engineering, research, warehousing, and administrative functions. I'm Bryce McLay , Director of North American Sales. Wheeler Fleet Solutions supports various customer segments, including our commercial fleet customers, our e-commerce customers, and the United States Postal Service. We not only provide parts, we provide solutions to our customers with our unique capabilities. Here at Wheeler, what differentiates us is our in-house engineering department, which includes 3D printing, our CAD design, our research and development department, and our quality control.
I'm Dee Keel. I am Senior Director of USPS Sales and Customer Service. We supply automotive replacement parts to the Postal Service in all of their locations. The Postal Service has 245,000 vehicles in their fleet, and we support every one of those platforms with replacement parts. It's our responsibility to make sure that our customers have parts on their shelves when they need them in their stockroom. One thing that sets Wheeler apart is our customer service. We are very dedicated to our customer. When our customer needs a part or has a problem, they call Wheeler Fleet Solutions first.
We started in 1960 here in Somerset, Pennsylvania, as a starter and alternator rebuilder. Now, we are a primary leader in the automotive and the heavy-duty trucking industry.
So looking at e-commerce and e-commerce fulfillment, this brings us to our fastest-growing market segment, as well as our fastest-growing revenue stream inside Wheeler. Who do we sell to? This is the likes of Amazon.com, FinditParts, CARiD, our own wheelerfleet.com, and a host of other retail customers. We offer the 320,000 SKUs that I mentioned earlier and stock 50,000 of those SKUs in our distribution points across the United States, composed of OEM, aftermarket, and our own Wheeler Fleet products. The big question in these markets is: Why are we different? I would say three things, the aggregation of knowledge, data, and leverage. Our 40-year history as a supply chain solution company gives us an immense amount of experience and data about the markets we have served in the past and continue to serve in the future.
When you take that and couple with it the data that we garner from our USPS customers, from our commercial fleet customers, the traffic we have on Wheeler Fleet, as well as all the fulfillment providers that we supply parts for, you get a tremendous amount of data that allows us to position parts when and where we need them, and also identifies trends that tells us where is the market moving from and where is it moving to. One of the things you really want to remember when you think about the online retailers, such as RockAuto, FinditParts, and CARiD, is these are fancy websites that hook up customers with part numbers. They are not actually entities that have parts. Wheeler Fleet has the parts, and this is why those companies need us.
With a three-year, 67% CAGR, we are literally tearing the cover off the ball in a market that has almost limitless boundaries. With that, I'd like to take a minute to talk a little bit about our--
Ensuring that customers get their products as quickly as possible. The primary function of this facility is our e-commerce revenue stream. We service all makes and all models, anywhere from Class 2 through Class 8 vehicles. So we currently have 320,000 products in our e-commerce catalog. The traditional aftermarket sector right now is growing at a CAGR of 5.5%. When you look at the e-commerce aftermarket, it's growing at a CAGR of 14.4%. So you're looking at more than double growth for the e-commerce sector versus the traditional aftermarket. And what this facility allows us to do is capitalize on these consumer buying behavior changes. When you look at a $400 billion industry, you're looking at very significant opportunities that we have in front of us, and I think we're well positioned to capitalize.
With this warehouse expansion. Where we see the largest opportunity in this e-commerce aftermarket is Classes 4-8 vehicles. This is an area that is not well covered by most online retailers currently. It's also an area that we excel in because we support our fleet customers' needs in these exact class ranges. Through 30+ years of supporting the USPS fleet, we've been able to garner and establish deals with suppliers and manufacturers that allow us to increase profitability in the e-commerce markets. When it comes to the highly competitive nature of e-commerce distribution, having the ability to get products to a customer's doorstep faster is essential. The name of the game is definitely speed in e-commerce.
So the Wheeler Fleet Solutions difference. The big question here is: how do we differentiate ourselves in this very competitive marketplace? First, I would say world-class distribution, and by world-class distribution, I mean we take very complex processes, and we make them look very, very, in a technician's hand at the 314 USPS vehicle maintenance facilities in under a minute, and everything from the thousands of orders we receive from Amazon.com each and every day, as late as 10:00 A.M., that need to be out the doors and on trucks to all of you, no later than 4:00 P.M. Second, I would say service. Anybody that stands up on this stage is going to talk to you about customer service.
I will tell you, in the heavy and medium-duty markets that we serve, customer service is in very high demand and is in very low supply. At Wheeler, we are second to none when it comes to service. We have the ability to get to over 95% of our customer locations in under 24 hours. We have live agents that will greet you. You will not sit in a phone queue, and even if you get onto wheelerfleet.com and use our live chat, you will not be hosted by a bot, but actually a live customer service agent. On top of these two core capabilities of distribution and service, we have engineering capabilities, and this is all about finding the right part for our end-use customer. We have the ability to reverse engineer subpar OEM parts.
We can have the ability to source tier one OEMs from across the globe. We contract manufacture to introduce products that were not even on vehicles when they were originally created. In this space, you want to think about the Long Life Vehicle that delivers the mail. For the first 25 years of its existence, it did not have shelving in the back of it. That was an explosion of the dot-com era, and Wheeler was the winner of that product, and now 75% of LLVs in the United States have shelving in them. Last and not least is, you know, sort of the emergency services we offer, which is rapid prototyping and 3D printing. This comes into play for very low-volume runs and emergency repairs, where we can actually take failed products from our customers and 3D print them replacements.
This is all about problem-solving, and this is the Wheeler differentiation. With over 700 different reverse-engineered parts and solutions currently deployed in the field today, we already know what our differentiators are, and these will blaze a path for growth in our future. So with that, I'm going to take the opportunity to do a little show and tell. And you're probably wondering why, of the 50,000 products that we have in stock, I chose to bring this little gizmo with me to New York City. So simply put, this is a coolant hose that is connecting the engine to the cooling system on one of the most prevalent engine platforms in the vocational markets.
One of the leading refuse haulers in the United States called Wheeler Fleet and said, "We hear you're the company that solves unique fleet problems." The problem with this hose specifically is that if it fails, on route, you have three distinctly different problems. One, you have an environmental impact, which is a huge no-no for refuse companies. Second of all, you have a vehicle-down situation, which those of you who know about fleets know that when you talk about last-mile delivery and vocational, they do not have extra trucks sitting around to go on these routes. And third, you need to pull an engine out of the truck to repair this one part, and takes over a day.
So what I have in my hand is a product that lasts 3x-5x longer under similar operating conditions than the OEM, at a price point lower than the OEM, and at a margin profile very attractive for Wheeler. What's most impressive about this, and this is actually the most successful Wheeler Fleet product we've ever launched, what's interesting about this, it's not about the margin and the sales profile, it's about the reputation. This puts Wheeler on the map as a company that can solve unique fleet problems, and that is not prevalent in our industry.
So while I can only sell this hose so many times, I can sell our reputation over and over, which will just get us more and more calls to solve the problems that pop up in these unique fleets each and every day, and we have many, many examples of that happening in our company today.
With that, I'd like to turn it over to John to talk a little bit more about Wheeler's growth.
Thanks, Shane. I like the margins as much as I like anything else, but, I appreciate your passion around the products. You know, one thing I want to highlight before we talk about growth is, is speed and agility. So what you, you know, what you saw in that video from Shane earlier, and that's, that's a lot. You know, that was filmed about, what, Michael? About a month or two ago, in our facility outside of Memphis.
So you look back at, let's just say, I think it was May of last year, we were reaching capacity and said, "We need to look at how we're going to manage growth in the next phase." From May through January first, set up a new facility, stocked a new facility, have a new ERP system, a new warehouse management system, and a completely new team in a new city, state, and region that we've never operated in before, and this year, we'll ship about $50 million of product out of that facility. I highlight that not just because of the performance, but because of the speed and agility in these chaotic markets and how we're able to respond, very similar to what we're doing in Hamburg, and, you know, in that facility. Those conversations started-...
Probably June, July timeframe about how fast can we accelerate Europe. We were over in Europe earlier in October, got the lease signed, started the hiring, and we'll be shipping product out in January. This is not something that our competition can do, and something that continues to be a differentiator and it'll help us as we wanna scale. So we look at similar to what, what the conversation we had about aviation is, you know, how is this business going to scale? We'll talk about people a little bit later, but when we look at new ERP system, new warehouse management system, and now new centers of excellence, specifically the Olive Branch facility outside of Memphis, which is right now only at 20% utilization.
Shane, who runs the e-commerce business, is the first sales leader in my entire career who I've ever you know, downgraded his revenue forecast. He sees the demand that is there, and it's us being able to build capacity to manage, you know, the revenue and the opportunities that we see out there. So I'll start there. You know, Chad spoke about that e-commerce model and pillar as a revenue growth. It is the largest opportunity for revenue growth that we have in this business. I say that because we see the demand. This is a combination of a big data business and how to utilize that data, as well as managing the complicated supply chain. So I wanna repeat a few of the messages that Chad said, because I think they're so important. Most of the players out there, they're just systems.
They're IT solutions to bring customers through a channel so they can sell automotive or truck parts, but nobody has the parts, nobody's able to manage the supply chain, and nobody's able to deliver the service. We see this as a tremendous opportunity for growth as we continue to move forward in this business. Second, our commercial business. Very similar to aviation, where I said we have a few pillar marquee accounts . You know, Chad named a few of those accounts. We really started solving problems with a few of the marquee fleet customers, and we have not expanded. It's time for new customers. It's time to go through that pipeline of the large number of fleet operators out there, start solving problems for them, and you know, using the Wheeler solutions.
And last but not least, probably my favorite 'cause of the margins, is the private label product. But it's not just the margins, to Chad's point, it's the differentiation. So this. You know, when you see Bryce, who you saw on video there, every time I meet with him, I love to understand how he goes to market with these new customers. And he always says, "I love starting with a private label product. I love starting with a solution of a private label product." What you're going to see next year as we get into 2024, Chad, I'll, I hope I don't put you on the spot, about 100 new products minimum that we will bring to the market. So we have a history of doing this for the USPS. Remember, this is not just something new that we've started.
The USPS has fleet with OEMs that were building vehicles in the 1980s that no longer built the products. By necessity, Wheeler became that manufacturing arm, that contract manufacturing arm, to solve problems and to support, you know, an end user customer. We're doing the same thing now in the commercial market, and we'll bring 100 new products to market in 2024 alone. So very similar to our aviation business, we see tremendous opportunity for growth. Michael? Oh, I got my one more slide. Sorry. A few key takeaways here. I'm ready for the break. I don't know if everybody else is. But a few key takeaways before our coffee break. You know, first, I always like to start with the markets. How are our markets playing?
I think the biggest thing you heard from Shane, from Steve, and from Chad is the shift towards e-commerce and disruption of legacy distribution will drive the next level of growth. You think back, this is still a market that's being disrupted, traditional brick-and-mortar market that's being disrupted, and that will drive the next phase of growth for Wheeler. Number two, the customer diversification strategy is working and will continue to work. Number three, the USPS will continue as that anchor customer for VSE and for Wheeler into the future. Why? Because they're gonna grow their fleet, and because they have a more complex fleet. Again, increasing the barrier of entry and creating tremendous opportunities for Wheeler. Fourth, are both our commercial fleet and our e-commerce channels provide the greatest opportunities for above-market growth as we move forward.
Finally, our engineered product solutions will continue to drive differentiation and margin expansion as we move this business forward. Now, Michael, I'll turn it over to you.
Thank you. So it's 10:20 A.M. right now. We're gonna break for 15 minutes, so meet back here at 10:35 A.M. Feel free to grab a refreshment, use the facilities.
Perfect. Thank you.
Here? We can get everybody back? Okay, excellent. Good morning, everybody. I'm Krista Stafford, and I lead Human Resources. I've been with VSE just under four years now, where previously, I also was part of the transition from B/E Aerospace to KLX to Boeing. I started my HR career in talent and learning and development over 20 years ago, and I'm here at VSE because I have a shared philosophy with John and the rest of the leaders here about people and the important aspect of people in driving our results. I'm super excited to be here and to continue on with our story. Now, you heard before the break, John, Steve, Ben, and Chad all talk about our business strategy and how we have a differentiation in our products as well as our services.
Now, you'll also hear that, I should say, we cannot do any of that, and none of that happens without our talent. You'll also hear us talk about culture a lot. Culture is not just a word to us. Culture is how we operate, it's how we work together, and more importantly, it's how we win. So our differentiator truly is talent and culture. There are three areas that I'm gonna hit on today. There's a lot that goes into each of these three. I'm just gonna highlight a few things. On the attraction side, because of our growth, and certainly a little bit because of attrition, we have to look outside for talent. We have hired and added over 300 employees the last 12 months to our headcount in these two businesses, and we're gonna continue to look externally for the right talent that we bring in.
It goes beyond the resume for us, but how do we find the individuals that fit with our culture and fit with the VSE DNA? Out of our top 50 leaders, over 60% of them were selected with the VSE DNA in mind. Additionally, from an attraction perspective, we look at it also internally, not just externally. You hear about how our businesses have grown through legacy businesses. We have employees that have been with us for 10, 20, 30, even close to 40 years. You heard Dee Keel earlier talk as part of our fleet business. She is one of those that has grown with the business and continues to bring incredible value. Now, on the development side, we have built career paths for both of our businesses that start with entry-level positions all the way up to the vice president.
This creates a career ladder for our employees, so they understand how they can move through the organization, but then also what the organization looks like across departments as well. Since January, we have had 100 internal promotions with our business, over 100. That's significant. As we continue to grow, we are developing our talent from within. We also focus on technical skills, and we focus on leadership development. On the technical side, in our aviation business, technicians are a little scarce. We have implemented an apprenticeship program where we're able to tap into talent early in their career. Just last week, we had 15 students from Baker Aviation Technical School visit our Miramar facility. They had an opportunity to tour the shop floor and really get a sense of who we are and what we're about.
Super excited at turning those into students and future employees of VSE Aviation. Now, on the retention side, we also look at what is important to our people. We have to, okay? What is important to them, and we assess every single year how we can invest in them, certainly through total rewards, but also through development experiences as well. We also, when you look at retention, like, the aspect that's so critical for us is around our culture, and you hear me continue to talk a little bit about that word. But the culture piece is important from the environment that we create for our employees. It really is about how we create an environment where their voice is heard, where they can influence, and they are recognized and valued for their contributions.
Now, this particular piece within the culture aspect is also driven through inclusion. How do we make every single employee feel part of something that really matters? Now, along with that as well, I talked earlier a little bit about the culture, I'm sorry, about the DNA and the VSE DNA, and I want to talk a little bit more about that now. What is the VSE DNA? You can see here on the screen a lot of our character traits that represent the VSE DNA, and what I'd like to do is just share a couple of stories about some people who have made an impact in our business. These are some of the individuals that you saw earlier in some of the video snippets when you heard from our leaders.
I want to start with Pedro. Pedro leads our aviation distribution business. Now, Pedro's been with us just a couple of years. Came to us from Boeing, where he had a larger scope and definitely a runway for increased opportunities there at Boeing. But he chose to come to VSE because he wanted to be part of the beginning of the story. He wanted to build a business, and now here we are. He has grown the distribution business over 4x since he started in 2021. Pedro is passionate, inspiring, and he truly exemplifies what being competitive is because he wants to win. We also look at that internal talent we spoke of earlier. I want to talk a little bit about Shane. You heard him in the video as well. Shane has been in our business for 10 years. He worked in a data analytics role, and he leads our e-commerce and our e-commerce fulfillment division of fleets.
He's been with us for 10 years, and what Shane has is he had a vision. He saw an opportunity in the market where we can capitalize on that e-commerce fulfillment, and with investment, he has been able to grow to where we are, we'll be at almost $50 million by the end of the year in our Olive Branch facility. Remarkable. Shane demonstrates someone who is data-driven, he has a growth mindset, and he definitely thinks big. And lastly, talk about Chelsea Angel. Chelsea leads one of our aviation product lines. You heard Ben talk about her earlier. Chelsea came to the business 12 years ago. She started off in customer service. Customer service, no experience in aviation at all. Through the years, what Chelsea's been able to do is learn the very, very complex technical aspects to aviation parts.
What she's done is she now leads the largest product line, our Pratt engine product line for the aviation business. Chelsea truly demonstrates someone who's resilient, she is, she is knowledgeable, she's accountable, she solves problems, and she is someone who definitely models customer-obsessed mindsets. I'm extremely proud of Chelsea, but also all of the other women leaders in our business who are making a difference every single day and inspiring other women leaders to step out of their comfort zone and be part of something great. We have, in our three largest facilities, over, over 50% women in that workforce. That's significant. So now, when you talk about what people ask us the most, and that's what makes us different, it truly is not what we do, but how we do what we do. Starts with our people.
As good as our processes and our systems get, people are the true driver of the differentiation, and it's what's gonna help us win and win in this market. Thank you.
Thanks, Krista.
Let's talk about this one.
It's always hard to follow people's discussions with M&A discussions, but I guess they kinda go hand in hand. You know, the VSE DNA, I don't know how many of our leaders are listening to the call, so I'm not sure if they wanna know this, but we meet quarterly as an executive team, and we take our top leaders, and we highlight them in red, yellow, green, based on the DNA. It doesn't mean that they're they don't have a great resume, doesn't mean they're not performing well in their job. Is do they fit the model of the type of leader that is gonna take us to the next level? So the words that Krista used is really something that I am so passionate about, and we fundamentally believe drives such a strong level of differentiation in our business.
I appreciate it. So let's talk a little bit about mergers and acquisitions. I thought it would be helpful to talk about M&A and our framework, and talk a little bit about our pipeline for aviation deals. First, I wanna highlight, when we look at the fleet business, because of the tremendous opportunity set with e-commerce, we feel that right now, our organic pipeline is gonna drive more of the growth, and we're less focused on, you know, M&A as a driver for growth in that business. Second thing I wanna highlight is, our business plans, like Ben's entire operating plan and for his teams, have no M&A built in and never will. Our businesses are built off of all organic growth.
M&A is only additive if it is the right deal, and that's why I wanna start with that, because the framework is really important. First is strategic fit and cultural fit drive the entire process. We look to say: Does this add a customer? Does this add a capability? Does it add a geography? Does it add a customer or supplier we do not have? And then, as we fully integrate the business, can the business be fully integrated, and can we drive one plus one equals more than two? We say fully integrate, that means organizationally, systems and processes. Monica, I'm looking at you, all of the marketing and branding and bringing that VSE brand in every way, shape, and form to the forefront of the business.
I use an example, Steve and I were speaking about it the other day. We looked at a high margin, niche MRO in the middle of the country that we said, "This is gonna be a home run, non-marketed asset." Went and looked at the shop, the financials were great, the capabilities were outstanding. It would have never worked. How they go to market, the culture of their team, where they, where their areas of focus was, and systems and processes were never gonna integrate into the VSE model, and it's a deal that we turned down. So price discipline and accretive returns are always part of the model, but they actually come last. We make sure that this is going to be a deal that's a strategic and cultural fit, we can fully integrate it, and then we determine, is this price discipline?
Even if it's a lower margin business than we're running today, can we, when fully integrated, get that business to at or above combined, our existing margin profile today? It's a really important part. We get asked the question a lot about thresholds. It's much more to us about as we're looking at a mid-teens operating margin business, can we get a business that we acquire combined to that mid-teens or higher level once fully integrated? So let's talk a little bit about M&A as a core competency. You know, first, I want to just talk a little bit about myself. I've done about 30 deals in my career. Every single deal I did in my last business was 100% fully integrated. We were on our own systems. We were on, I mean, on one single system, one single go-to-market strategy, one single organizational design.
It truly was a core competency and truly was a differentiator. But the biggest differentiator was this bullet down here, which was the synergies. So at the end of the day, we were able to drive real synergies from the combined business. So what I wanted to highlight was our Global Parts acquisition, 'cause it's our first acquisition in aviation, fully integrated. First, a self-sourced deal. So I know some bankers in the room, but we-- I love working with all of you, but, you know, I do spend, as well as my team, we try to find small niche businesses and try to self-source deals, because obviously, it's preferable to have deals that are not publicly marketed. Second, we look at, you know, deals today are trading. Quality assets are trading low single digits to mid, I mean, low double digits to mid double digits.
This, before synergies, was less than a 6x multiple deal. Third, it hit the strategic and principled criteria, which is it added new OEM partnerships, it added business and general aviation product, and Krista, to go back to some of the DNA, they were a customer-obsessed business, we're fully integrated, and from a culture perspective, there was a lot of alignment. So we fully integrated that business. We've driven synergies, and we define synergies in a few ways. Right away, you know, one of the things Ben says to the team is: Can we get a new deal with a customer because we have a combined VSE global parts business? And we pretty quickly got a new deal with a customer that we wouldn't have had otherwise, and neither party would have had otherwise.
The second thing is, you know, we look at cost sometimes. You know, can you drive some cost out of the business? And the third is on that product margin side, whether it's price as a lever or product cost as a lever. And in this business, we drove about $5 million of synergies and took a business that was slightly below our margin at the time and brought it above where our margin profile is, as a now fully integrated business operating under the VSE brand.
Steve, with that, I'll turn it over to you to go over the financials.
Great. Thank you, John.
Sure.
Okay, so before we dive into 2024 and beyond, I thought I would take a moment and just kind of reaffirm our 2023 expectations. So when we look at the full year for the business, we expect to continue to see our aviation business grow between 30%-35% per year, outstanding growth, and we expect to continue to be at the high end of our previously provided 14%-16% range for the full year on adjusted EBITDA. For our fleet segment, we expect to be between 20%-25% growth on a revenue basis, with margin rates between 11%-13%, as previously provided. The one other area that I would highlight for this, for the full year is, we expect full year free cash flow between negative $40 million and negative $45 million, so a usage of cash flow.
That means that we expect to generate between $15 million and $20 million in the fourth quarter, which is against a comparison of $11 million in the third quarter. For the full year, our business is expected to grow, you know, at the midpoint, around 29% versus 2022, and deliver strong profitability on these recent investments. Now, moving to 2024 and beyond, I'm gonna start by discussing our aviation segment. We expect to see our aviation segment grow between 24% and 28% next year. I'm gonna break that down and explain a little bit about why. First, we expect to see the full year effect of our recent M&A, most specifically our Desser Aerospace acquisition, contribute approximately a high single-digit growth rate to our business, as we'll get now a full 12 months versus the six months that we had in 2023.
Second, we expect to see the markets grow between 10% and 12% next year, and there's a mixture and a combination underneath the surface. We expect to see the business and general aviation market grow in the mid-single-digit range, and we expect to see the commercial markets grow in the low-double-digit range, which will blend together for around 10%-12% growth. And then lastly, we expect the contributions of our organic growth initiatives, new capabilities and product lines, to contribute a high single-digit growth rate above that market growth rate. That in total brings us to that 24%-28%. When we look out to 2025 and 2026, we expect that we will grow between 10% and 13% per year, respectively. This is a combination of factors.
Obviously, we expect to see our markets grow, as you heard us talk about earlier, but we also expect to be able to grow new capabilities in our repair facilities and add new distribution businesses, as well as our international expansion that we've previously talked about. When we look at the margin profile of our business, in 2023, as I mentioned, at the high end of the 14%-16%, we expect in 2024 that we'll be between 15%-16%, growing 100 basis points in 2025, and then another 50 basis points in 2026.
Talking about 2024 specifically, we expect to start the year with a significant level of investments to support our new growth initiatives, regional expansion in Europe, as well as our new Honeywell fuel distribution program, and then ratably improve throughout the course of the year, such that we exit at a higher margin rate of a business. That will then carry forward into 2025 and in 2026. The margin initiatives that we've set forth at this point in time, which is increasing product, increasing, program margin rates, improving optimization of our programs, and then growing our high margin repair businesses, will lead to the margin initiatives that you see on this page. This business is well positioned to take advantage of the aftermarket repair growth, above market returns, as well as a stronger margin profile.
Next, I'll talk about our fleet segment. We expect to see our fleet segment grow between 15% and 20% next year. I'm gonna talk a little bit about some of the dynamics underneath the surface. So first, we expect our anchor customer, the United States Postal Service, to go through a bit of a revenue decline next year. We expect to see our Postal Service down around mid-single digits as they go through their vehicle transition. That'll have an effect of driving total segment revenue down low single digits. However, the commercial growth that you heard Chad talk about, both through commercial fleet sales as well as e-commerce, is gonna drive significant growth for the segment.
Now, first I wanna highlight, we've ramped our new Olive Branch, Mississippi facility. So as we exit this year, we're obviously at a significantly higher production rate than we started the year. Just carrying forward the levels of production that we're at today in that facility, will drive a high single-digit growth rate for the total business. But as you heard Chad talk about, we don't expect to continue to stay stagnant. We expect to grow in this ever-growing marketplace, such that the further commercial growth is gonna drive another low double-digit growth rate. That's gonna put us between 15% and 20% for next year. When we look out to 2025 and in 2026, we expect to see this business grow top line between 5% and 10%. This is with an underlying assumption around some declines within our postal service, offset significantly by the new commercial growth.
When we look at the adjusted EBITDA profile of this business, we expect to see the EBITDA dollars trend in line with that of revenue. So for example, in 2024, we expect to see the adjusted EBITDA grow between 15% and 20% next year, in line with revenue, and then up 5%-10% per year after that. This is as we drive significant expansion and scale on our fixed investments for our new e-commerce facilities, but slightly offset by the higher margin rate decline for our United States Postal Service customer. Over a three-year period, we expect to see this business grow 10% revenue per year and 10% profit per year. We're very proud of the opportunity that set, that is set forth in this segment.
Now, transitioning to talk about free cash flow. We've made significant investments in our businesses, as you can see, over the last four years. If you look at the free cash flow of our business over the last four years, we estimate that we'll use around $43 million on a cumulative basis. I get asked a lot about this number. I want to uncover this for you and help you understand these investments that we've made and how our business is performing. So first, what I'll point out is, over this time period, we've invested over $126 million into new distribution initial provisioning, which is inventory that we need to have on the shelf in order to stand up some of our newer programs. You'll see them highlighted here, three marquee OEMs.
In addition to that, we've invested over $40 million of working capital for our new Olive Branch, Mississippi, facility, for which we're just getting started, and you can see the enormous, enormous growth potential that is there. Now, excluding these investments, our core business generated $123 million of free cash flow. We're very, very proud of the underlying assets of VSE that creates that cash flow potential for us to reinvest that is driving the growth that you see. That is on average, $30 million of organic free cash flow generation per year. When we look forward to 2024 through 2026, we will continue to deliver strong organic free cash flow, excluding some of these one-time opportunistic investments that we make to grow our business. How will we do this?
First is by increasing sales and therefore increasing our overall inventory turns on our recent investments. Second is optimizing inventory positioning, so where we've taken initial provisioning, making sure that it's in the optimal regions and facilities to support an improved turns profile. And then lastly, through improved supplier payment terms as we gain scale. We will continue to maintain flexibility, though, as we move forward, as we see significant opportunities to make investments. You'll note here, and obviously yesterday we made an announcement that would say we would grow into the European region. That will require $30 million of upfront capital investment that will happen in the first half of next year, for which we see tremendous growth profile for. Now, along with those investments that you've seen, I often get asked about the returns profile for them.
I thought I would shed a little bit of light into these investments and give you a bit of an understanding. You can certainly see it in the growth rates for our businesses. You can see it in the margin improvement in our businesses, but we also look at it on a return on invested capital basis. So what you see here depicted on this slide is over $170 million of capital that we put to work. Across these 6 programs, I'll highlight four that are fully integrated, which means we've stood them up, fully recognized sales opportunities, and are in the right position from an inventory perspective. When you see the top four here, you'll recognize on average about 20% return on invested capital.
We're incredibly proud of these programs, and as we continue to add programs, we'll continue to measure these performance, especially on the newer programs, as they continue to get ramped up and realize full opportunities for revenue potential and inventory turns. Now to talk about capital allocation priorities. We've obviously made significant investments in our business, both organic and inorganic. I'll provide context to how much we've invested and why, and also how we expect to continue to make investments in the future. First, we've returned about $17 million back to our shareholders in the form of a dividend. We expect to maintain this consistent and steady dividend for our shareholders into the future through 2026. Second, we've invested organically in our business. Organic investment happens in two ways: first, through inventory, and second, through CapEx.
Our inventory investments in our aviation business, we expect to continue. We see opportunities for growth. In our fleet business, we do not expect to significantly invest new organic capital into this business as we begin to now realize the full synergy potential of getting our Olive Branch facility up and running and driving a strong free cash flow return for that business. When we look at geographic expansion, we will continue to invest in facilities. We, on average, spend around 1%-1.5% of our sales on CapEx. We expect that when we start 2024, it to be at the high end of that range, tailing down to 1% over the time period reflected here as we continue to try and monetize the assets we've recently invested in. Third, we've invested in strategic M&A. This has been in the aviation sector and will continue to be in the aviation sector.
As you can see from John's discussion before, we have a very disciplined approach to how we manage M&A. We will maintain that level of discipline. And when we look for assets, I often get asked what our return profile is. As you can see on the last page and also reflected here, we look at our businesses in terms of M&A, and on a post-synergy basis, look to achieve greater than 13% return on invested capital. As you can see on our prior slide, we've outperformed this. Lastly, with regards to balance sheet flexibility, we will continue to have a flexible balance sheet to make these investments into the future. In 2024, we expect to refinance our existing credit facility, which expires in 2025, and we expect to maintain a greater than 50% floating to fixed hedged position.
Now, diving deeper into the balance sheet, I thought I'd provide some clarity as to what we expect to see from a net leverage perspective. As our business has shifted and changed over the last few years to be more focused around consistent, reliable, and steady revenue streams, we are also increasing our targeted net leverage position to be between 3x and 3.25x net debt to adjusted EBITDA. As you can see here, over the last few years, we've been in or slightly above that range based upon strategic acquisitions that we've made within our business. As we look forward, we are willing to move to a 4.2x ceiling from a net debt to leverage - or leverage perspective, following an M&A acquisition. However, quickly thereafter, we expect to delever as we realize synergies.
We'll maintain this balance sheet flexibility by doing what I said before: driving strong organic free cash flow on the recent investments we made into our business, improving our inventory turns, growing our EBITDA, and then also completing the previously announced sale of our federal and defense divestiture. By 2026 and beyond, we expect to target net leverage of below 3x. I'm incredibly proud of the business's financial performance, both over the last four years and also where it's headed.
With that, John, I'll turn it back to you.
Thank you, Steve. Appreciate it. So I figured as we kind of come to closing here before Q&A, we revisit where we started this morning, which were some key themes about what you were gonna hear today. So first, the repositioning of the business, and I hope you heard from the teams we're repositioned. We have invested in our facilities, we've invested in our people, we've invested in our processes and systems, and we're ready to scale. Second, our markets are robust and fragmented. We continue to see opportunities in both the aviation and the fleet aftermarkets that support above-market, short and long-term growth opportunities.
Third is differentiation. It's the biggest key to driving margin improvement over time, and we see that in a number of ways, whether it's products, whether it's our technical capabilities, whether it's our service, our industry-leading team and culture, those are the items that will establish that unique value proposition in the market, that will enable us to continue to expand margins as we move forward. Last, our growth and financial performance. That you can see from Steve's presentation, both our commitment to outpace the market from a forecasting perspective, but with that, the improvement in not only the profitability, but the other underlying fundamentals of the business, including free cash flow generation.
So I leave you with a few investment highlights before Q&A. Number one, it all starts with our markets, fragmented and robust end markets. Second, we are ready. Our business transformation creates the foundation. I always talk about it with our teams as a building. We, the foundation is built, and we are ready to continue to grow and scale. We have proven it time and time again, and we will continue to grow and scale these businesses at the same or greater levels that we have over the last few years. Third, our stable anchor customer and supplier partners are really important and serve as annuity for the future. Not only are they stable with a 15-year contract, as an example, with Pratt & Whitney Canada, or the USPS, which, Chad, how many years was that program thus far? 34-year program, which we didn't share market share on that, but it's, you know, very, very strong market share on that program and quite consistent over that period.
So not only does that drive consistency in revenue and profitability, but what it does is the access that it brings. So if you think about that Pratt & Whitney customer, we are talking to all of those, you know, 60,000 PT6 engine users on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. As we bring new products into the portfolio, we are that access that those customers bring in both the fleet and the aviation business are platforms for growth. Next is proven teams, and Krista, I like your word better than mine. Teams that win. We love to win. We joke about it a lot. We're super competitive people, but it is a huge part of our DNA. We're laughing 'cause we've got a few games that we play internally, but proven teams and culture that wins and delivers for all stakeholders. You know, our teams understand.
We use the word stakeholder a lot: customers, suppliers, shareholders, and each other, and making sure there are real win-wins in life, and we're able to support all four. The infrastructure and systems ready to scale. You know, we didn't talk a lot about IT systems today. We didn't talk a lot about processes today, but just as you saw the quality of my team here, their teams are second to none. Our IT leaders inside of our businesses, the processes and systems that we have, they are second to none and ready to scale this business. Next is the extent of organic opportunities that support above-market growth.
I think you saw from the number of pillars from the aviation business and distribution, MRO, geographic expansion, new license agreements like our Honeywell agreement and potential M&A, as well as in the fleet business, our e-commerce, our licensed product, and our commercial sales growth opportunities. A lot of pillars for us within our existing framework of our business, for us to continue to outpace the market in terms of growth. M&A will remain a core competency and a growth driver if and when the markets allow. Margin expansion is a key component. We are a margin-driven business as we start to lever and drive growth in this business and utilize differentiation as an opportunity to grow margins. And last but not least, our investments and our strategic plans are designed to deliver above-market returns.
I appreciate everybody's time today. Michael, I'll turn it back over to you to facilitate some Q&A.
We're gonna take two minutes to set up. We're gonna have two folks walking around with microphones, so if you feel, prepare your questions in advance. I'll be back here in one minute.
Okay, great. Are we bringing our own chairs up?
All right. Thank you very much. We're going to circulate the microphone, so feel free to raise your hand. Michael?
Hey, thanks, guys. Mike Ciarmoli with Truist Securities. I don't know if Steve or John, just looking at the 2024 growth building blocks, wondering what you're thinking about the pricing environment and how you're thinking about that being potentially a contributor or how that's baked in. I mean, we've obviously seen very strong pricing in the aftermarket.
Sure. It is built into our assumptions, as you might expect, Mike, and it's built into the market expectations as well. I think I'll let John and Ben chat about what they expect to see in the market, though.
Yeah. I mean, Ben, you can, you can highlight what you think is going to happen in the market.
You know, so the flight hours will drive, you know, the volume growth. You know, the pricing will really be driven a lot by the performance of the supply chain. As long as the supply chain continues to be, you know, challenged in certain areas, you'll see OEMs and others really kind of pricing into those supply chain challenges. So we do have a, you know, a portion of that growth that is associated with assumed price increases.
I'd say from our perspective, to be a little direct, we think there's going to be. We think it'll moderate a little bit in 2024 compared to 2023, but we still think we'll see, you know, price increases in 2024.
Got it. Got it, and then just one more. On that distribution example, that kind of tear sheet you gave, I don't want to extrapolate, but it looked like that was an 18%--
Those were all made-up numbers. We're not going to give a real competitive number on a slide that's public.
In terms of the margin profile on distribution, you know, that's 70% of the business. I know sometimes that tends to be a little bit of a knife fight, you know, capturing a spread. But any sort of, as you guys think about driving the margin expansion, sort of how we should think about maybe the MRO versus distribution?
Yeah, let me address this question first, and then Ben could add some color. You know, ideally, we'd like to see a little bit more balance in our business. You know, we like balance. So we like balance between business and general aviation and commercial customers. We like balance between MRO and distribution. So you could see we're more heavily skewed to distribution. That's because of some of the opportunities that have presented themselves over the near term. What I would say is one of the things we don't share publicly is how we negotiate contracts with suppliers and where we find levers.
If you go back to Ben's first slide, where it showed that true value proposition, where we bring an OEM-centric model of MRO and distribution and other capabilities together, we believe that creates a very different discussion with OEMs, where we have a different way of negotiating that gives us some different levers to pull. I'll kind of leave it there because we do believe it's a proprietary element of our business, in how we drive margins. The last thing I will lead is that we do say no to deals that don't meet our margin thresholds.
Yeah. Hi, Ken Herbert with RBC. Maybe on the fleet segment, the 2026 guide implies basically flattish margins in the out years, 2025 and 2026. Can you just elaborate a bit on sort of how much is just conservatism in that and maybe where there could be maybe some incremental opportunity as you—I mean, you're obviously making a lot of investments. I would have thought you would have seen at least a little bit more tailwind beyond 2024.
Yeah, I mean, I'll start with it. It very candidly starts with the USPS. So our USPS is a higher margin contract because of the amount of proprietary product, the mix compared to commoditized mix. So it's a mix question, not a customer issue. So the question is: how does that customer perform? That customer's performance could, you know, make you think that model's conservative or aggressive. We think it's a realistic model at this point based on, you know, what we're hearing in terms of retirement or transition. You see, the fleet's growing, but with the transition of fleet is.
We do have margin drivers that will continue to pull both in terms of scaling, you know, we've got a fixed embedded cost in that Memphis business that we will scale over time, along with the, you know, bringing forward at least 100 new products next year and whatever products we bring forward in 2025 on licensed product, which tend to drive higher margins.
Great. And similarly, maybe on the aviation side, it looks like if we back out Honeywell, the margins from 2023 to 2024 are maybe sort of flattish. Is that the right way to think about it, or is there maybe some incremental opportunity in aviation?
I think the easiest way to think about the 2024 guide is the start of the year, we're going to have expenses, and this is no different than how we launched some of our other large programs in 2021 and in 2022. You know, we're investing in teams, quality systems, new manufacturing capabilities, and obviously, a new facility in Hamburg. That's going to drive expenses higher, and then expect at the end of the year, we'll end the year at a higher rate such that we can exit the year and start 2025 in a stronger position. Obviously, you can see the margin guide there, about 100 basis points better than how we expect to finish in 2024.
So Ken, I don't think it's necessarily just one program. It's actually the combination of two very large investments we're making that will drive sort of a near-term dip and then an expectation of ramp up throughout.
Yeah. On the licensed program, to understand a little bit of the mechanics of it, so we are the exclusive distributor for the aftermarket on that Honeywell fuel control today. So that means we've been buying product from Honeywell with their margin built in, and that's, you know, embedded in our inventory cost today. So we need to utilize that inventory before we have the new cost of inventory with us as manufacturer. That's another margin driver that will improve margins into 2025.
Great, and just one final question: I think the PMA story within Fleet should be pretty compelling. Obviously, in aviation, you're maybe not anti-PMA, but clearly OEM-centric. Does that ever become an issue in the marketplace, or is it-- Is it possible to keep the two businesses completely separate from a perception standpoint?
Yeah, I mean, I mean, having the two brands, 'cause the Wheeler business, the fleet business operates under the Wheeler Fleet Solutions brand. It was intentional. So their business was—we went through a rebrand for their business as well. They were running under a different Wheeler name, a legacy business called Wheeler Brothers at the time, and we wanted to revitalize their brand in the market. But we did choose a different brand purposefully, so that, you know, their brand is driving more of that PMA product. Today, in aviation, we like being in a position where we can differentiate. We believe, you know, you all speak to many of the OEMs. The supply chain constraints that they have, you see labor as a differentiator for us, but labor is a watch item for them.
Capacity is a watch item for them. Capacity is a differentiator for us. So we believe that partnership is really important to drive the next phase of growth. It doesn't mean at a certain point in time we may have a discussion where a different model makes sense with regards to OEMs, but today, we believe that OEM centricity is really important.
Jeff Van Sinderen with B. Riley. Can you speak a little bit more about the international opportunities? I know you're expanding there, the expected ramp in Hamburg, timing of that, and how important is that facility to serve the $750 million in new contracts you just announced?
Yes, so I'll start, and then you can dive in. It's always nice to open a warehouse when you have a contract to support it. So, having a contract that we have revenue, essentially day one, is a great place to be, as well as supporting, you know, a large group of business and general aviation customers. The second thing is, you know, because of Brexit, we felt there is greater opportunity to take tires and tubes out from the Desser business in the U.K. and expand them into Germany. Those are our first two launches. Ben, I don't know if you wanna speak to more color, and then, you know, there are plenty of deals out there that we haven't even spoken about today in terms of European opportunities.
Yeah, I mean, I, I think you said it well. I mean, having product in region to support, you know, those Pratt engine operators is a critical piece of that program. So, you know, that facility is certainly important to the logistics aspects of that program. And, you know, that'll ramp up throughout the year as the customers transition over to VSE. And then that provides a really launching pad for future expansion, with both the, you know, the Desser product lines, you know, supporting continental Europe from continental Europe is important for those customer base. And then we have a full portfolio, call it back in the U.S., which we can also add to the European offering. So, you know, having in-region inventory is an important part of that growth.
Okay, and then if we can just switch to M&A for a minute. Just wondering if you can touch on the size of acquisition targets. I'm sure you have things in mind, things in the pipeline that you like. Maybe you could just give us a sense of that average revenue size, the range of margin contribution rates, and are there any relatively large acquisitions that could be transformative? And if so, how do you think the balance sheet would flex relevant to those acquisitions?
Yeah, I'd say that we are-- There, there's a level of openness, and we always keep a robust pipeline. We always continue to look and try to stay ahead of the curve on deals that are gonna come to market or self-sourcing deals where we can. We look at opportunities on, and from a different size and scale perspective. You know, part of the initial model that we launched, you know, we've - we still have some pilots, right? So this Honeywell license agreement is now a pilot in that manufacturing. The, the Global Parts was our first distribution agreement that we-- a distribution acquisition, that we acquired a business fully integrated. Our Precision Fuel business- - Ben, how many technicians are in that site?
It's about 10.
So 10 technicians, nice, high margin, niche MRO, one shop, small acquisition. I highlight that because we wanted to build the model of how fast can we buy the business, get it fully integrated, realize synergies, and go to market as one business. So we've done that quite successfully, and we see it's--
Yeah, I mean, we cut the ERP system over here, the first part of December. At that point, that business is fully integrated, so less than 10 months.
And so we look at that model to say, we can do small deals, and they can really be additive to us. So I'd say that there's a pipeline of these small, maybe one or two-off capabilities, as well as some larger deals. I would say at this point in time, we don't really share much on size, but I would say there's you know, today there's nothing transformational that you're gonna hear from me four weeks from now, you know. I think you could see we've a lot in front of us, and it's a balance of growth and execution. So, you know, we wanna make sure that we look at the next six months.
You know, it's like grow, take on new business, kind of execute in some-- I don't want to say plateau, but it's, you know, focus on execution, and then you're building up to the next phase of growth.
Thanks.
Hi, there. This is Louie DiPalma from William Blair. Everyone, you have demonstrated a lot of success with Pratt and a lot of success with Triumph. Are there other Pratt & Whitney candidates available in the market, as in Tier 1 OEMs that are currently distributing in-house, that are willing to switch to outsourcing? And also, are there other Triumphs available where a Tier 1 OEM is dissatisfied with their current distributor? But does it even matter if there aren't any more Pratts and Triumphs? Are there just so many Tier 2 and Tier 3 suppliers that are currently using Boeing or somebody else that doesn't give the proper focus, that the TAM is sufficiently large for you to continue growing at + 20% for the next several years?
Yeah, the answer is, it's gonna sound silly. The answer is yes to all of, all of the above. And, you know, I'll highlight a few things, and then you can add some color. First, I would say is, you know, there's a lot of small, you know, smaller tier OEMs that may do, you know, $2 million in sales in the aftermarket. Now, we're touching all of these commercial and business and general aviation customers, and that, those are perfect suppliers for us, and there are a few of them announced in the announcement yesterday. Some of those are smaller suppliers. Perfect example of opportunities where we can add value because they can't touch the totality of the end users. So there's a strategy around that, and then there's a clear strategy around larger OEMs.
We like to diversify, so we like newer OEMs. I won't name any of them here 'cause we don't wanna give our-any of the competitive advantage away, but I'd say that there are both, you know, tier two and tier three sizable OEMs that we don't do business with today, that we see opportunities. First, some of it is outsourcing, and outsourcing for a number-a couple of reasons. It may be that they've just-- We can do it better than they can, and they're ready for that. It may be that the life cycle of that product hits a certain point, where they say, "Now it's time to partner with somebody." And then there's obviously share gain opportunities with some of our competition.
Any other color you wanna add?
Yeah, but I would add, I mean, those, you know, those programs we have, they're not just standalone. They're platforms for future growth. So it's under a certain, you know, scope of content today, where it's - I don't want to say... It's much easier to say, "Hey, we have this program. We like the way you're supporting our operators. Let's add more to that solution." So there's growth within those existing, you know, platforms. I mean, you talk about Pratt & Whitney Canada. They're part of a big Raytheon corporation.
Right.
You know, there's other divisions, Collins and others within that. When you have their sister division saying, "Hey, this worked really well with supporting our customers. You might wanna give them a look." You know, that's that voice of confidence that, again, we think is gonna drive a lot of growth over time.
Going back to Mike, to your question earlier on, kinda how the margin play comes. One of the things we love is to have a differentiated win. So example is we have a Honeywell Avionics program that I mentioned earlier on the MRO side. That's a combined distribution and MRO program. So we're distributing part products, and then we're gonna be repairing it. That puts us in a different position because most of our competition is gonna either bid a distribution deal or maybe an MRO deal. Not many of them are gonna look at that total life cycle the way we do, which the goal is always to look different so that you're not compared on a spreadsheet in terms of a discount off a list or something. Which again, you know, supports the model as you move forward.
Great, and do you think that down the road, there will be other opportunities similar to the Honeywell fuel control deal? I think you mentioned how you said OEMs will continue to offload some of their more legacy products to make room for other products. And so is this Honeywell deal a trial case, such that if it goes successful, then you're going to--
It's exactly that. So we do see it as an opportunity. Again, we—I don't—we're not going to be a manufacturer of products that supports OEMs. So just to be very clear on that. So it doesn't mean that we're not selling to-- These engines are still in production, so we are selling to two OEMs with this fuel control line. But the majority of the revenue is gonna go through the aftermarket channel, where those opportunities come to play for us, and we do wanna look at them for growth, as where we can have a distribution channel, and we can have a repair network channel, and now we're taking the manufacturer, you know, out of the equation. It gives us some margin expansion opportunities. Ideally, they'd be situations like the fuel control, and there's one here you can see at launch.
Ben can walk you through it. That's more of an assembly-looking manufacturer than a true manufacturing. We're not gonna have a, you know, 1-million-sq-ft manufacturing facility. It's gonna be more contract manufacturing, where there's a lot, a little bit assembly work, which is similar to the MRO work that we're doing. So the answer is yes, and that's the portfolio of type of deals that we'll be looking at as we move forward. That said, nothing's in the forecast for next year, that I will say, because we got to get this right. We need to develop and deliver on this the way we've done in the past on some of the other capabilities to show the market that we can do this.
Sounds good. Thanks.
Josh, what's the question?
Josh Sullivan, Benchmark. You know, as far as the fleet segment, when does the aftermarket and the EV market get interesting?
When does the-- The question was in the fleet segment, when does the aftermarket and EV market get interesting?
Yeah, let me tell you one first thing. What I love about the Postal Service having some electric vehicles, it would be a small portion of their fleet, is that, you know. I mean, we wanna buy one as soon as we can because, well, that's what we do. We kinda tear them apart and figure out how to support their aftermarket. So it's an amazing pilot customer for us to support it. So, so that's exciting for me. I'm not certain the market really understands what it's gonna actually be a part of that heavy-duty cycle market.
Yeah, it's something we talk a lot about. It's gonna be some ways down the road. You know, when you look at a lot of the, you know, what did I talk about earlier? High-duty cycle fleets, a lot of stopping and starting. We're not talking about situations where you're gonna get significant benefits from regenerative braking because they don't go far enough. They don't get up to speed. So it's really hard on the types of fleets we specifically service. You know, what we've learned talking to the U.S. Postal Service about what their expectations are about the Next-Gen Delivery Vehicle, which will be, I think, 10% of the 50,000 units they'll start to produce next year will be electric, is you have some less frequent services, but you have much higher price points in the services that you have.
So what we're trying to understand is the frequency of repair versus the cost of the average repair when you look at these vehicles, unlike the Long Life Vehicle, which has been around since 1987. They're much more composite, and they're much more built in sort of pods. So you can't just replace a front fender, it's a whole, you know, quarter of the vehicle. So we're trying to understand where the OEMs will break down those sub-assemblies and sort of understand the frequency at which they get repaired. One of the things we have learned, specifically from talking to some of the mobile maintenance providers about the current electric vehicles that are out there, even though it's kind of scarce, is there's a lot more preventative maintenance done on those than you would think. Specifically, I was holding up a hose earlier today.
There's more hoses on the current, Gates-supported, systems in electric vehicles than there is in internal gas engines. There's also a lot of filtration, a lot of fluid. So it's not as scary as you think, but there will be a trade-off for the frequency of service versus the price point of the service.
Yeah. It reminds me a little bit of back in the day when 787 was coming out, and, you know, its composite aircraft, how's it gonna impact some-- You know, I sold a lot of fasteners that touched metal airplanes. And what we saw was, SKU count for aftermarket went down, our total cost went up. So, you know, it's interesting to hear the story. It kind of reminds me of the similar story that we saw with, you know, in our—in my last business.
We do have a question from the virtual audience: How has some of the recent aviation M&A consolidation impacted our business, particularly HEICO-Wencor?
Mike, I'm sorry?
HEICO-Wencor deal.
Yeah. You know, I don't know if the one thing we intentionally left out of our presentation today is we don't really like to talk about competition, you know, out publicly too much. You know, I'm a big believer in, there's a lot of quality companies out there that do outstanding jobs, and, you know, the markets need a competitive landscape. We understand our competition, and, we feel that we differentiate enough in our markets to support them. I think when you see the recent, you know, aftermarket consolidation at the top, you know, so Jeff, you mentioned, you know, big deals. There's been a lot of big deals over the last X number of years. You know, our legacy business is one of them, with Boeing building up Global Services .
What we see on the distribution side is, as some of these companies get very, very large, we see service levels drop, and we see some opportunities there. I think what we've seen a little bit with the recent acquisition, with a more PMA-focused, you know, acquisition, is that the market, meaning the customers and suppliers, look at those businesses as PMA first, which again, goes to our OEM centricity, and our goal is to use that as an opportunity to say to OEMs: "You know, you have a choice here, but do you really want to be part of somebody who's gonna reverse engineer your products?
Or do you want to work with somebody who now we have proof points to say, there are ways in which we can manage around that and really help you maximize your aftermarket?" You have to remember something, and you know, for those of you who know the aviation aftermarket or don't know it well, that for the most part, and this is a generalization, you know, that's where the margin is created for the OEM. So what we do and why we're important there is not just-- You know, Ben mentioned earlier, you know, that some of the OEM, the engine manufacturers, need us to support that tail so they can sell new engines. That's all true, but they also need us to make sure their aftermarket works, so they can monetize that aftermarket the right way, because if they don't, their model doesn't work.
So we believe that we can continue to take an acquisition like the one that you mentioned and drive differentiation as an OEM-centric leader and hopefully, be in a position where we can start to take some share. Ben, any color you want to add on that one? I know we're touchy on the competitive front.
Yeah, no, I think, I think you said it well. I mean, some of those acquisitions, you know, imply a certain strategy, and, you know, we feel that our growth strategy is a clear alternative to that, that resonates with OEMs.
Okay. Any other questions from the audience? Mike.
Just, just one on free cash flow, just to put a finer point on that. I know you're not giving. I don't think you gave the explicit 2024, 2025, but you got the $30 million investment. Sounds like the CapEx might be more in the 1.5% range. I mean, should we be calibrating sort of a break even? I know it sounds like that core CapEx investment's been running $30 million, but should that kind of directionally where we should be calibrating our expectations for cash?
I think directionally, that's correct, Mike. I mean, what we're trying to get across here is the underlying businesses have done a terrific job of generating cash, $30 million a year, as you referenced. Obviously, we're gonna make the investments here associated with the European expansion. You referenced CapEx. That's kind of implicitly why I'm not gonna give you a specific guide yet on 2024. We'll share more once we get into 2024, and we have a little bit more certainty around it, but I believe the way you framed it is appropriate.
Okay. Any other questions? Oh, Josh.
On the ROIC model that you put up there, how much of that is aspirational versus, you know, what you think you'll deliver organically?
That's a great question. Those are the actuals. That's 2023 actual performance of each one of those programs.
Yeah. And Michael, if you can-- Can you go back two slides? Or three slides? Or four, I think it is, actually. Because I think, you know, Josh, if you look at the slide specifically, you can see that the. Keep going back one more. Yeah. So if you look at the, at E and F, I mean, Steve, you want to talk about when those deals kind of came in?
I don't.
Yeah.
But what I would say is that we haven't yet fully realized the opportunities from some of these investments. But I think what you can garner from this is, you, you heard Ben talk about it, it's embedded in our DNA. Our teams understand that we need to deliver on an investments, and that includes everything that's sitting on the balance sheet. I think it's just obvious from looking at this, that the way the teams go to market, the way they try and attack the, the gross margins and then take advantage of improved inventory turns, has resulted in very strong returns for our shareholders. I think it's reflected also in the total segment results. But I would tell you that our - this is not a surprise if you, if you bumped into some of our team members in Miramar and Independence. This is - nothing here is a surprise to them.
Yeah, I would add, I mean, you kind of look at this in three phases when we make a investment, whether organically or inorganically. The first phase is really focused on, like, transitioning. Make sure we get that, you know, asset fully ramped up and transitioned to our model. You know, that drives the second phase, which is, you know, some improved performance through scale and that operating leverage. And then the third is, you know, going back through and applying that kind of every part has a story model and really optimizing the, you know, the margin performance of that asset. So it kind of works in three phases to deliver these types of returns.
Okay. Ken?
Yeah, thanks. On distribution within aviation, what's been sort of the recompete success rate on those distribution contracts? And do you have any significant recompetes coming up in 2024 as you think about the business?
Do we have one coming up this year?
Not in 2024. 2025.
2025, I think is our next one.
Is our next one.
If I'm not mistaken, it's been 100%.
The success rate is 100%.
Correct.
We feel very confident that, once we get embedded with an OEM in a program, that that's again a model and a value proposition that resonates. And we've seen good success to not just renew, but expand, as those opportunities come up.
Louie, did you have a follow-up?
With the Honeywell deal and the launch of the Hamburg facility, should there be any pause in terms of the M&A program in order to ensure that you know these current projects are executed smoothly? Or does the team have enough capacity to handle everything?
I'll let you answer first. He's got to do the work, so what--
We've. It's certainly work to stand up these, you know, these programs and these expansions, but, I mean, we've got an experienced team. We've got a proven model, so it's work, and it's detailed, and it's focused. It doesn't come at the expense of being able to also move quickly if, you know, the right acquisition opportunity presents itself. So I wouldn't look at it as binary.
Yeah. And we're, I mean, I would couple the work that we're doing today with, I mean, we're in the middle of integrating Desser. So, you know, they're on different systems in different regions, so the U.S. distribution business will be integrated by?
First half of next year.
Yeah. So that work is ongoing with the teams as well. The one thing I'd add, Louie, if there's a quality asset out there, there are also ways to work a deal where you can keep an existing management team on for a certain period of time, and I can support Ben with kind of managing the business sort of as a standalone until we're ready to integrate.
Okay. And is there any update in terms of the potential timing for the re-divestiture of the defense division?
There isn't an update today. What I would say is we have a few different options on how to exit those assets and monetize those assets. We're pursuing all of those options at the same time, which is sell the business in all or in pieces, 'cause there's different elements that might you know, be beneficial to different buyers. We are, you know. It's back out in the market and with a tight timeline, and that will drive certainty of closure. And we plan to have a more sufficient update with our fourth quarter earnings.
Excellent. Thanks.
Okay. Any other follow-up questions? Okay. All right. Thank you, guys. This completes the presentation aspect. We're gonna raise the wall. We have lunch for you all. We also have a bunch of merchandise swag. Feel free to grab as much as you like. Plenty over there.
Yeah, thank you all for making time for us, those in person and those on video. Appreciate the continued support of our story. I hope you can see again, many of you see me and Steve and Michael often, but you can see the quality of the team and understand that their teams are, you know, a second to none as well. Excited about what's next for the company and appreciate all the support. Thanks, everybody.
Thank you.
Thank you.