Earnings Labs

Curtiss-Wright Corporation (CW)

Q2 2025 Earnings Call· Sat, Aug 9, 2025

$703.17

-1.85%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.
Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome to the Curtiss-Wright Corporation Second Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the call over to Jim Ryan, Vice President of Investor Relations.

James M. Ryan

Analyst

Thank you, Madison, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Curtiss-Wright Second Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. Joining me on the call today are Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Lynn Bamford; and Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Chris Farkas. A copy of today's financial presentation and the press release are available for download through the Investor Relations section of our website at curtisswright.com. A replay of this webcast will also be available on the website. Our discussion today includes certain projections and forward-looking statements that are based on management's current expectations and are not guarantees of future performance. We detail those risks and uncertainties associated with our forward-looking statements, including the impacts of tariffs in our public filings with the SEC. As a reminder, the company's results and guidance include an adjusted non-GAAP view that excludes certain costs in order to provide greater transparency into Curtiss-Wright's ongoing operating and financial performance. GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliations are available in the earnings release and on our website. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Lynn to get things started.

Lynn M. Bamford

Analyst

Thank you, Jim, and good morning, everyone. As you will hear in our discussion today regarding our second quarter performance and the increases to our 2025 guidance, we are delivering on our pivot to growth strategy and in turn, driving strong results for our shareholders. The team's continued deployment of our operational growth platform is benefiting Curtiss-Wright in many ways, from internal collaboration on R&D projects to securing positions on meaningful programs and projects across all our end markets and commercial excellence initiatives throughout the book of business. As a result, we are well positioned to deliver strong financial performance in 2025 and maintain line of sight on the 3-year objectives that we provided at last May's Investor Day. As we look to the next 5 to 10 years and beyond, we see numerous opportunities developing globally that we expect to provide tremendous upside to Curtiss-Wright's long-term growth. Later in our prepared remarks, I'll spend some time discussing our excitement and alignment with 2 of those areas of growth, defense and commercial nuclear. With that, I'll turn to the highlights of our second quarter 2025 results. Sales of $877 million represented an increase of 12% year- over-year, exceeding our expectations and highlighted by strong organic growth of 9%. The primary drivers behind this performance were higher sales in our Naval and Power segment and continued momentum in Defense Electronics. Operating income increased 20% year-over-year, exceeding our sales growth and driving 130 basis points of overall operating margin expansion. Diluted earnings per share increased 21% year-over-year, which slightly exceeded our expectations based on the higher A&D sales. Free cash flow was $117 million as higher cash earnings and improved working capital management drove a year-over-year improvement of 17%, reflecting nearly 100% cash conversion as we continue to support capital investments across…

K. Christopher Farkas

Analyst

Thank you, Lynn. I'll begin on Slide 4 by reviewing the key drivers of our second quarter 2025 performance by segment. Starting in Aerospace & Industrial, overall sales increased 3% and were essentially in line with our expectations. Beginning with the segment's commercial aerospace market, we experienced solid OEM sales growth supporting increased production on both narrow-body and wide-body platforms. Across the segments, defense markets, we experienced modest increases in actuation equipment sales within our aerospace defense market, supporting various fighter jet programs and also in Ground Defense for the enduring Shield platform. In the general industrial market, sales were essentially flat overall despite the ongoing macro challenges facing global industrial vehicle markets. And turning to the segment second quarter profitability. Operating income and margin grew 5% and 40 basis points, respectively. These results were driven by favorable absorption on higher sales, restructuring savings and a tailwind from FX, which were partially offset by increased investments in customer-funded development programs. Next, in the Defense Electronics segment. Overall sales increased 11% and were slightly ahead of our expectations. Within the segments aerospace defense market, this performance was driven by increased sales of our embedded computing equipment on both European fighter jets and domestic UAV programs. In the ground defense market, our results reflected increased tactical communications revenues as well as continued support for U.S. Army vehicle modernization and replenishment. Elsewhere in the segment, commercial aerospace market, we experienced a modest increase in sales for our flight data recorder supporting Boeing aircraft under the new 25-hour safety mandate, and this activity is expected to accelerate going forward. Regarding the segment's operating performance, we delivered strong operating margin of 26.8%, up 110 basis points mainly reflecting absorption on higher revenues as well as the benefits of our ongoing operational excellence initiatives. Turning to…

Lynn M. Bamford

Analyst

Thank you, Chris. And turning to Slide 8. I would like to spend the next few minutes discussing Curtiss-Wright's potential for near, medium and long-term growth in defense and commercial nuclear driven by the tremendous global demand that continues to build across these markets. Starting in defense, where we are well positioned to capitalize on the continued acceleration in global defense spending. In the U.S., we are aligned to the strategic priorities outlined within the combined FY '26 DoD budget and reconciliation bill, including shipbuilding, the Golden Dome program, aircraft modernization and next-generation air superiority to name a few. Our proven capabilities as an industry-leading supplier of embedded computing technology and MOSA based solutions as well as our long-standing presence on the highest priority U.S. naval platforms ensures that Curtiss-Wright will continue to play an important role supporting both current and next-generation pursuits. In addition, we strengthened our alignment with strategic military priorities by consistently investing in R&D while ensuring that we are fully equipped to support our customers throughout the entire program life cycle across all of our defense markets. As a result, our strong position and success as a critical supplier has enabled us to deliver consistent growth in our defense markets and a demonstrated ability to win in any budget environment. Outside of the U.S. the acceleration of NATO and Allied funding and the need for advanced technologies to counter emerging threats has provided a meaningful accelerant to Curtiss-Wright's overall defense market growth rate. As Chris noted earlier, we now expect growth in direct foreign military sales to increase 20% this year, exceeding the mid-teens pace that we have delivered over the past few years as militaries across the globe continue to improve their operational readiness. In addition, the recently announced expectations for NATO countries to expand…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] [Operator Instructions] Our first question is coming from Scott Deuschle with Deutsche Bank.

Scott Deuschle

Analyst

Chris, quite a few commercial aerospace companies saw this quarter, their growth decelerate and some destocking headwinds, and so their commercial OEM revenue in many cases, declined. Curtiss-Wright seems to be seeing the opposite trend with growth accelerating. So can you speak a bit more as to what's driving that growth acceleration in commercial aerospace?

K. Christopher Farkas

Analyst

Sure. Yes. So I think first, it's important to note that we took a fairly conservative position on commercial aero coming into the year. There's certainly been more than a fair share of challenges in the industry over the past 18 months or so. So I think it was important that we recognize that. Destocking is really not an easy answer for us. I mean, given the breadth of our portfolio and our position as a Tier 2, 3 supplier, and I think as you look out across our customers and upward to Boeing and Airbus, it's a fairly mixed bag, depending on the platform, the engines, the airframes. We're seeing some positive signals, some negative signals. Overall, we do expect that there will be some adjustments to [indiscernible] that are made here in the third and fourth quarter but that our customers are also very concerned that they don't disrupt the flow and capacity of products that we've achieved over the past few years. So I think it's just particularly true when you think about the large growth rates that lie ahead on the major platforms over the next few years. So we think this will become a little bit clearer in the second half of the year. If anything, we think it may like temporarily abate some of the strong growth that lies ahead for commercial aero manufacturers, but we feel really well positioned with our guidance.

Scott Deuschle

Analyst

And then, Lynn, if I go to the Defense Solutions website, I can find quite a few of accelerated computing solutions that Curtiss-Wright now has in the market, including these GPU chips that have NVIDIA Blackwell chips on them. So just with that as context, can you speak a bit as to what kind of product applications these GPU cards are finding use cases for? And also what types of customers are using them today?

Lynn M. Bamford

Analyst

Yes. It's definitely an exciting new area, and I love the fact that you went to the Defense Solutions website and looked at some of our products. So that's pretty good. It's definitely the mention of the tactical edge that really a lot of what's going on in modernization is about taking sensor data, processing it and acting, whether that's defensive moves or offensive moves to counter the data that's coming in that sensor. And this is really opening up the ability to deploy those kinds of applications broadly across the battle space where quick decisions is essential. So that's like the high -- definitely a high level. So that comes in to defensive systems on ground vehicles that sends an incoming missile and something to counter that missile to a lot of other applications like that. But then also emerging data from many, many sensors on a more holistic approach across the battlefield to be able to provide a greater picture of the entire battlefield to command and control type of applications for making planning steps. And so there's a lot throughout the tactical edge and back into the command and control is just a couple of examples.

Operator

Operator

And our next question is coming from Peter Arment with Baird.

Peter J. Arment

Analyst

Chris, Lynn, nice results. Chris, on the Defense Electronics margin performance, and it continues to be a really robust when we think about, I guess, like 40% incrementals, like how do you think about the sustainability there? And is there opportunities for further expansion, just given how strong the performance already is?

K. Christopher Farkas

Analyst

Yes. The team is doing an absolutely great job this year, Peter. We've talked a little bit about the restructuring for growth that's been going on within the Defense Electronics segment this year, and particularly focus on throughput. And one of the great things about moving product through your shops faster is some of the improved absorption that you get in that way. But there's also been a lot going on across that team this year in both commercial excellence and operational excellence. And just taking a look at certain parts of the business, they have further opportunities, bringing them up to best practices when it comes to, I'll call it, the operational excellence. But then there's even been some pricing successes in a few areas of that business. So it's really a good collection of effort through our operational growth platform to drive that improvement. And yes, I do think that there's further opportunity that lies ahead for that team. But we're certainly balancing it against a couple of things here as we move deeper into the year. I mean we still are going through that restructuring. We're still moving product across the various business units. And beyond that, we have a lot of, I'll call it, focused disruption this year as the team readies itself for that full-scale ERP implementation that's currently going on. So that will kind of consume more management attention units as we get deeper into the year. So those are some of the things that were just kind of being a little bit more cautious for as we look at the margins. But then also, as you kind of look at the strong start to the year, it's important to note that we did have some favorable mix in C5/ ISR programs in the first half, we had some FX uplift. We expect the dollar is going to weaken as we get a little bit further into the year, and that's going to put that around. And we do have a strong IR&D ramp that's planned for that organization in the back half of the year. So really pleased with the continued raises and the margin performance, the record-breaking margin performance for that segment. We're optimistic as we go forward, but we're continuing to be cautious in a few areas.

Lynn M. Bamford

Analyst

Yes, Peter, I'd add -- no, that's okay. The other side of that story is our alignment with where the DoD budget is going and the direct for military sales is we have such strong incrementals in the team that our ability to store we're doing things to accelerate top line growth and that's everything from the NVIDIA partnerships we just talked about to Honeywell flight data recorders to our alignment on golden Dome and doors, that's going to open to us. And then our position -- our good strong position that we've had for years across Europe and the NATO allies of the build-out that's really just beginning there that is broadly very good margin business to us. So that -- we've got to keep the top line going too, and we've got a good line of sight on that.

Peter J. Arment

Analyst

Yes. Lynn, just as a quick follow-up to the voice -- the flight data recorders. Do you see the retrofitting being kind of at a steady cadence between -- or is there an accelerant around that?

Lynn M. Bamford

Analyst

I think it will accelerate I mean we're just getting going with people reconciling they have to do this. We've been working for -- with production with Boeing for that's been what been the underpinning of what was part of our guide. But I would say the majority of the raise we did last quarter is us getting clearer line of sight with our partner, Honeywell, on how the fleets are going to go about doing these retrofits. And then I mean we're still -- it's early days, but the mandate really goes across a good portion of the regional jets and that's a big area of focus for us, and there's a lot more regional jets than there are even 737. So a big, big area of growth there, and we've been pretty open that we're working to be qualified on Airbus, and that's anticipated in the first half of 2026. So a lot of things coming that are going to make that area growth. It's one of our -- as we talk about deep diving our capacity planning across nuclear, it's another area where we're really making sure we're fully analyzing our capacity planning for what's coming.

Operator

Operator

And our next question is coming from Myles Walton with Wolfe Research.

Myles Alexander Walton

Analyst

Lynn, I was hoping you could touch on the M&A pipeline, perhaps what you're seeing there. I know Ultra was the last deal in that space. But obviously, you're going to end the year here probably with a pretty unlevered balance sheet, excess cash. And just curious on the overall capital deployment and M&A pipeline.

Lynn M. Bamford

Analyst

Okay. So thank you for that. And I think when you probably took note that when we talked on this topic at the end of Q1, we indicated that we had a couple of things we were looking at. And we are not going to act on those things that we were in the process of looking at in Q1 as they really just didn't meet our strategic and financial requirements. And as much as we clearly state this is the top -- our top intended use for our capital. It is not with compromising our standards. And so we're -- the pipeline is not empty, so I'm not applying that, but there was, I think, a little bit more line of sight for something coming in the back half of this year and those we've dismissed. So with that, the teams are active, we're out looking. There's always we're prioritizing companies that are privately held that we can convince to go exclusively with Curtiss-Wright, but we're very active in the financial community also. But we will return capital to shareholders. We talked about raising our dividend and increased share buyback authorization from our Board. And maybe I'd ask Chris to speak a little bit to our thinking around the share buyback as our second priority for our capital.

K. Christopher Farkas

Analyst

Yes. We certainly believe that share buyback is the most effective way to return capital to shareholders. The Board increased our authorization by $400 million in May. We now have $534 million in authorization. We still believe that there's a lot in the windshield ahead for us, and we're excited to meet with the Board again here in September and have some discussions about the best way to deploy that cash. But we're certainly not intending to sit on our hands, and we're excited about what we can do with that money.

Myles Alexander Walton

Analyst

Okay. Cool. And then maybe on the Defense Electronics, third quarter decline and then reacceleration in the fourth quarter. How much of that is visible based on the backlog? How much of that is conversations with customers? And maybe if you can give us the book-to-bill that you had in Defense Electronics in the second quarter?

K. Christopher Farkas

Analyst

Sure. Yes. Maybe what I'll do is I'll just start with the book-to-bill that we have within Defense Electronics in the second quarter overall, which was about 0.9 book-to-bill. I will say that our orders were up 5% year-over-year, and our backlog has increased 3% year-over-year. But it's been kind of an unusual year. We are used to starting off as we have several times over the past 4 or 5 years under a CR. And then we had that resolved or what we felt was effectively resolved in the first quarter. But the CR has a little bit more nuance to it. It was a 1% increase over the prior year funding levels, but it also provided the government with opportunities to kind of redeploy funding to what they consider to be the highest priorities. And we think we're very well aligned with those priorities. But it has created some uncertainty and delay in the way that those decisions are being made and the orders are being placed and the most sensitive business for us as we've mentioned in the past, given the direct connectivity to the government customer is in tactical communications. So we've seen a little bit more delay in that order book here in the second quarter. Lynn and the rest of the management team have frequent discussions to kind of evaluate the pipeline, the status of where we are within our order book, and we do see a very strong pipeline in front of us. But there will be some timing issues here. We think some of those will be resolved here prior to the end of the government's fiscal year-end. And given the ship-and-bill nature of that business, we'll probably see those sales increase here in the fourth quarter. That's our current expectation. So we do have a strong backlog across this business. We're very, very confident in our overall sales guidance for the year, but it's going to put a little bit more pressure on Q3. We will maintain our profit margins, but Q4 is going to be a strong finish to the year from a sales perspective.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Louie DiPalma with William Blair.

Michael Louie D DiPalma

Analyst · William Blair.

Chris and Jim, good great quarter. You mentioned Golden Dome as a potential opportunity. But speaking of large programs, do you expect to play a role with the Army's next-generation command and control program with your edge products as there's been over $3 billion in funding. We know that Palantir and Anduril received an initial prototype contract, but there likely will be many vendors involved in that one similar to Golden Dome. So what are you seeing in the pipeline with that program? And just in general, where are you seeing the most demand for your encryption, tactical communications and edge computing products?

Lynn M. Bamford

Analyst · William Blair.

Yes. So we have been involved with that in that area with that program for several years and definitely see ourselves ramping with it. And you said Golden Dome, but stepping back broadly, there's a handful of new starts going on across next-generation fighter jets, next-generation rotor wings, the CCA program. And I feel very good about our penetration across those various platforms to be prepared and some -- a winner has been selected. Some are still in competition with 2 winners, and that's even the XM30 program as another example that doesn't seem to make it to the headlines quite as much we have solid content across the 2 players that are competing for final down select on that. So our tactical communications with some really advanced encryption technologies is being very well integrated into the rollout of those programs. And I think Golden Dome is going to be a great driver for Curtiss-Wright between the computing NAND and our electromechanical actuation equipment, along with the radars across a lot of the major systems that will be integrated to make Golden Dome working in unison and not as isolated systems. That's a very good alignment with our product.

Michael Louie D DiPalma

Analyst · William Blair.

Great. And did you estimate earlier in the call that the AP1000 reactor opportunity in North America is over $1 billion?

Lynn M. Bamford

Analyst · William Blair.

Yes. We just put that out as a reference, and it will be -- but again, we are cautious. We are a supplier to Westinghouse. We're working to -- we fully anticipate we'll be their partner on that program. But we don't like to get ahead of ourselves of is saying exactly what content and how things will shake out, that we need to work hard to be a good supplier to them, and that's the position we're in. But yes, it's a very significant opportunity for us.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Peter Skibitski with Alembic Global.

Peter John Skibitski

Analyst · Alembic Global.

Chris, I think your DCS sales or your direct FMS sales were about 9% of your total revenue last year. Just wondering, is that levered more so to one segment than another? And I was wondering which of the 3 segments do you expect to grow DCs the fastest this year?

Lynn M. Bamford

Analyst · Alembic Global.

So maybe I'll just talk about it broadly, and I don't think we've given much color on how it breaks out across the segment. But if you hear the product families, that kind of tells you where it is. So it's -- we've had a long position with defense electronics equipment of various types being sold directly into the defense markets across NATO and allied countries. And so that's probably the top area I would call out. Our turret drive stabilization capabilities and mission packages, which is part of defense electronics is definitely poised for some amazing growth. There was an announcement out of Germany a couple of weeks ago about spending $25 billion on military vehicles and one of the vehicles they called out was the Boxer tank, which we just announced a few months ago. Our partnership with Rheinmetall selecting us for the stabilization equipment and some other equipment on those tanks and they're going to build somewhere between 2,500 to 3,500 tanks. So that's a good place. We do a lot of equipment on European-built rotorcraft. It's just really a broad coverage European build fighter jet. So just broad coverage there. Our arresting system equipment which is in the Naval and Power segment is definitely well adopted across -- around the globe. And when we bought those, we bought the team as a carve-out from Safran, we were very open to 75% of their sales were outside of the U.S. So that's a great place where we have a great international footprint, and it's continuing to grow. And the other area I would call out is our aircraft landing equipment from our team that does a lot of specialized equipment that's integrated onto the deck of ships to allow helicopters to land at higher sea safely for the airmen. And so there's just a couple of the areas. So it's a very good portion of our business. And we are saying that now I appreciate you referencing the 9% that this year, we anticipate our direct foreign military sales will be up to 10% of Curtiss-Wright's overall revenues relating these areas of growth.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Nathan Jones with Stifel.

Nathan Hardie Jones

Analyst · Stifel.

Just a couple of questions. You guys have had really great success investing for growth over the last few years Pivot to Growth definitely has clearly been a success. And you do have plenty of good tailwinds to revenue over the next few years. I know you said you're investing an incremental $20 million in R&D this year. Are there -- do you see opportunities to further accelerate some of the internal investments targeting some of these areas that have come to the front in terms of growth over the next few years?

Lynn M. Bamford

Analyst · Stifel.

Yes. I think there will be areas that we will continue to invest in ourselves that are a priority for us, and we're not quite to those yet, but we will definitely have some significant expansion to do to ramp to the nuclear capacity, which is great. We are very transparent with the partners we have in this space as to how they see their ramp going and then therefore their need of our product. And so we're modeling that out, but that's definitely going to drive some incremental investments. And that's not just in capacity planning. There will be some investments in some -- building out some products to be -- have the right products to supply into some of these suppliers. And we talk with the various major players in the space where we're quite willing to make investments as the opportunity base becomes more clear. So that's one area that's top of mind. I mentioned the flight data recorder ramp that we see coming. I mean that's going to require some investment. There's no major capital with it that is as significant as really across some of the nuclear equipment. But there's a lot of areas that we can continue to invest in R&D across our businesses that there's an ever-growing capability. If I take our subsea area that we've been investing in really for over 5 years at this point, it's just taking off. And we're getting ready to deliver the first pump to Shell. We've been incremental opportunities and the investments required to be able to ramp in that area. And I'm not saying it's limited to those. Those are sort of the ones that come to top of mind. But we very much look -- when we think of our capital investments, we've typically always said that around 2% seems to be the right level for us to invest in capital back into the company. That may tick up a little above 2% in the back of this decade, but it will be a great situation for everyone that we need to do those investments because we'll have line of sight on the revenues that they're going to be tied to.

Nathan Hardie Jones

Analyst · Stifel.

High return capital, I don't think you get any pushback on investing in that. Here's a high-level question. Over the last several years, you guys have talked about being aligned to the DoD budget and expect to outgrow the DoD budget each year. It's like a 13% increase in the DoD budget for fiscal '26. Why shouldn't we expect you to outgrow that budget for your U.S. military business?

Lynn M. Bamford

Analyst · Stifel.

So I note that you've always taken note of our making that point, and we're very proud of what we've done over the past years and we had good growth and down budgets and up budgets. This is definitely an up budget with the combination of the base budget and the continuing in the...

K. Christopher Farkas

Analyst · Stifel.

Reconciliation.

Lynn M. Bamford

Analyst · Stifel.

Reconciliation, thank you very much. I don't think we're going to quite get ahead and talk about what we anticipate coming in '26 yet. But we are very well aligned to where those monies are being spent. And whether that the shipbuilding and funding for the industrial base, which we are very aggressively pursuing to the communications equipment to tactical aircraft where we have very strong historical footings in whether that is the F-47 or the MB-75 or the F-15, we really -- we're in good position across all those as doing retrofit on the existing fleet. So I know we're aligned to the right places and that added to our continued accelerant of the direct foreign military sales contributing to our overall defense growth. I definitely think it's definitely in the possibilities. So we'll wait until we get a little further through the end of this year, we really do need to get some more color on the '26 budget, and there hasn't been an FYDP published yet. So some of those things will play into our ability to characterize where our revenues will come, and you'll hear that guidance in due time as we round out this year.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Michael Ciarmoli with Truist Securities.

Michael Frank Ciarmoli

Analyst · Truist Securities.

I think I was under Chris, just an update on the Columbia, I think you said the profile stabilizes, then it's down. Can you just give us a general update maybe where you are on that? What ships that you're working on? And does that pick back up in '26?

K. Christopher Farkas

Analyst · Truist Securities.

Yes, sure. I mean as you saw, Mike, I mean, the strength of the Columbia was the #1 driver here in the first half of the year, ramped up significantly front-loaded with material receipts. We talked about in the script that the production is going to lower and stabilize in the back half, but that's really just kind of a shift from material to labor. It's not necessarily indicative of what's happening with the ship. But we continue to increase the cadence to meet that desired one per year pace that the customer has called out for, and as you kind of look at where we are from a ship perspective, we certainly had been working on one. And as you look at one, that peaked out in prior years. This year, we're working on sub-2. We'll probably reach the peak there and the production on sub-1, we're moving towards that. And again, we're ramping up to a desired nice one per year pace. And I think -- more importantly, as you take a look across our total naval business and then talked about the strong support for shipbuilding et cetera. We've got a very strong backlog in that business. And overall, a great growth trajectory lies ahead for Naval Defense at Curtiss- Wright.

Michael Frank Ciarmoli

Analyst · Truist Securities.

Got it. That's helpful. And then, Lynn, this might just be semantics or mincing words, but I think you say you fully expect to be a partner for Westinghouse. I mean, is there a chance you wouldn't be supplying the reactor coolant pumps? And then just thinking about the reactor coolant pump opportunity, when do you really start kind of priming that supply chain I know you're thinking of getting that order in '26, but is that supply chain ready to go?

Lynn M. Bamford

Analyst · Truist Securities.

Yes. So again, it probably is more semantics because we -- I just don't like to speak to it in a presumptive manner when we're working the details out with them, we're absolutely working with them to plan the not just overseas reactors, but the -- the 10 new reactors that are to be built here in the U.S. And I think it's just -- if you listen to some of the things they're saying publicly, one of the real strengths that they believe they have in winning business is not changing the design. And having a consistent design that has a very good proven track record that they can move into a sequential ramp by repeated production is very much publicly part of their strategy. And obviously, we're the only one to deliver the reactor coolant pumps to them. So that is obviously indicative of good business signs for Curtiss-Wright, but we just hold back and are cautious in saying anything is a given.

Michael Frank Ciarmoli

Analyst · Truist Securities.

Got it. And then just a quick follow-up. I mean if they do actually start construction by 2030, what's kind of your lead time on that?

Lynn M. Bamford

Analyst · Truist Securities.

Yes. I don't know. That's something we have to work with Westinghouse. We do still think that Poland -- somewhere in Eastern Europe, most likely Poland will be the first orders that we will get when we've been pretty consistent in saying some time in 2026, and we still see that. But obviously, they've got to be ordering pumps sooner than later, if they're going to be in construction in 2030. So we're definitely working on our capacity plan as indicative of when we see these orders.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Justin Lang with Morgan Stanley.

Justin M. Lang

Analyst · Morgan Stanley.

I'm on for Kristine today. Just sticking with the large reactor opportunity in the U.S. with Westinghouse, obviously, I appreciate it's early stages. But should we think about the economics around domestic efforts looking similar to may be in Eastern Europe? Or are there any material differences to note at the outset?

Lynn M. Bamford

Analyst · Morgan Stanley.

I think they'll be similar. Again, the details are not fully worked out. But yes, I mean, we will provide product Westinghouse at a negotiated contractual rate. And I think that will be relatively, if not exactly consistent.

Justin M. Lang

Analyst · Morgan Stanley.

Okay. Great. And then I think you called out higher embedded computing revenue in the quarter in part related to domestic UAV programs. So when I think back to the '24 Investor Day, there was some discussion of runway with unmanned systems, building off your role in Triton. So I was just hoping you could elaborate a little bit on the drone market. opportunities ahead of you, just given some of the momentum we've seen in that particular area?

Lynn M. Bamford

Analyst · Morgan Stanley.

Yes. I mean, Curtiss-Wright has a long history of participating in the drone market back to Global Hawk and EuroHawk going back well over a decade ago. And so one of the things that's exciting to me is, I mean, everybody sees the images in the news and I understand that the size of what a Global Hawk was and what people promote now is what the size of many of the UAVs are. And there is a level at a smaller level that would not be an area of Curtiss-Wright would play little things you see people holding in their hands and such like that. That's not an area that I see any fit for Curtiss-Wright, but there is a lot in between there. And our product portfolio is -- includes quite a range of size, weight and power compute options that could find applicability across a very large portion of platforms in this. And so there's a lot of things we're engaged in, not all of them are public knowledge yet, but it's definitely an area where were very active. And then the flip of that is the build-out of counter-UAS technology is definitely a focus knowing that the quantities of the smaller, cheaper drones that can be levered in the war space. And so that is also an area, not the UAVs themselves, but defenses against them is a very area where we have very relevant technology. And that's asked earlier about some of the applications for the NVIDIA products. That's also a good use case for it. And so a lot of things. And then there's -- all unmanned is there's unmanned ground vessels and unmanned water vehicles. And we're exploring where our product fit is across all of those.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Tony Bancroft with Gabelli Funds.

George Anthony Bancroft

Analyst · Gabelli Funds.

Congratulations on all your successes. You mentioned earlier about -- you talked a little bit about M&A. Maybe just to get a little more into that. You have a large group of great businesses that you've either acquired or grown from submarine to arresting gear, tactical communication equipment, planes. Could you maybe just give us some maybe broad stroke priority on if you were to continue doing M&A? I know it sounds like the beginning of this year didn't work out. But going forward, maybe how do you sort of align those? Or how do you prioritize those different businesses? Or is there something new that we're not thinking about?

Lynn M. Bamford

Analyst · Gabelli Funds.

Yes. So I definitely wanted to be open about pulling some things out that we had alluded to in Q1, but that does not mean there's not items in the pipeline. So I do want to just be cautious to make sure I don't send some tone. And M&A is absolutely going to be part of our future going forward. And we have been pretty open over the past couple of years. Defense Electronics is definitely a place that we look to acquire, and we have such good -- such a great track record and our global reach of that team really that some of these more bolt-on types of acquisitions. We can bring so much power to how they can sell their products based on the reach of our team that it usually can be a great fit. And so that's an area where we can push out the walls on the types of products we do and bring that expertise of ruggedization to help broaden the product offering. And so that's -- and there's a lot of properties in that space. So that's probably the highest area where we see potential acquisitions. And so we definitely continue to look there. Major naval and aircraft safety systems is definitely also fits our mandate of who -- where we drive our product strategies to safety critical types of applications. And so ESCO is a great example of that. They are absolutely critical for the safe landing of aircraft on both ground and sea. And so that is an area we look. I feel really lucky that last year, we were able to have 2 acquisitions in the commercial nuclear space. That is an area we look and we're still active. There's not a lot of properties that would come available…

Operator

Operator

And I'm showing no further questions at this time. I will turn the floor back to Lynn Bamford, Chair and Chief Executive Officer for additional or closing remarks.

Lynn M. Bamford

Analyst

Thank you, everybody, for joining us, and we look forward to either seeing you out on the road or at our next earnings call. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today's Curtiss-Wright earnings conference call. Please disconnect your line at this time, and have a wonderful day.