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Embraer S.A. (EMBJ)

Q4 2019 Earnings Call· Thu, Mar 26, 2020

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the audio conference call that will review Embraer's Fourth Quarter 2019 results. Thank you for standing by. [Operator instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded and webcasted at ri.embraer.com.br. This conference call includes forward-looking statements or statements about events or circumstances which have not occurred. Embraer has based these forward-looking statements largely on its current expectations and projections about future events and financial trends affecting the business and its future financial performance. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions, including, among other things, general economic, political and business conditions in Brazil and in other markets where the company is present. The words believe, may, will, estimates, continues, anticipates, intends, expects, and similar words are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Embraer undertakes no obligations to update publicly or revise any forward-looking statements because of new information, future events or other factors. In light of these risks and uncertainties, the forward-looking events and circumstances discussed on this conference call might not occur. The company's actual results could differ substantially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements. Participants on today's conference call are Mr. Francisco Gomes Neto, President and CEO; Mr. Antonio Carlos Garcia, Executive Vice President, Finance and Investor Relations; and Mr. Eduardo Couto, Director of Investor relations. I would like now to turn the conference over to Mr. Antonio Garcia. Please go ahead, sir.

Antonio Garcia

Analyst

Good morning, everyone. And thank you for all joining the call today. My name is Antonio Garcia. I am a brand new CFO and I will present the earnings results of Q4 and 2019 for the first time. I joined the company in January 2020. And my background comes primarily from the automotive sector working for German operating in Brazil went abroad. I'd like to say a few words before we start the presentation. First, I'd like to thank Nelson Salgado, our previous CFO for a nice transition phase. And Nelson returning to operation is going to lead our team has our Chief Operation Officer. Second, I decided to change my career in my personal life, coming back to Brazil, with my family after years of living abroad, because I truly believe in Embraer values in division for the future. I'm really impressed with what I have seen so far at Embraer. Embraer is a great company with a lot of opportunities, hard work and passionate employees. My mission at Embraer is to help the company to extract its full potential with increased financial discipline and focus on cost. My pillars are found in people, cash discipline, and shareholder value. I have no doubts that together with our team, we are prepared to face any challenge ahead. Moving on to Slide number 4. We found ourselves in a very uncertain times with the COVID-19 outbreak and its impact involving everyday risk to the global economy that continues to grow. That's why it's important to say that the Embraer liquidity position is very strong, with a total cash of $2.8 billion at the end of the year, hence, an additional liquidity of $600 million raised now in March. We have less than 15% of our total debt coming due in the…

Francisco Gomes

Analyst

Good morning to all the analysts and investors connected to our call today. I am Francisco Gomes Neto, President and CEO of Embraer. The coronavirus pandemic is affecting the whole world and our lives. We're still not able to quantify the impact that the recent measures of social business in terms of restriction will have not only on our business, but on many others around the globe. Our customers, especially in commercial aviation are sharply reducing capacity for the message in international flights. And we have started to see increasingly risks to our deliveries for the upcoming month. We are taking important measures and have launched a crisis committee formed by all our senior leadership to monitor the situation daily. We had already closed our main facilities in Brazil and put our workforce at home. Nothing is more important to Embraer than the safety and health of our employees, customers and associates. We are also implementing measures to preserve our liquidity and maintain our solid financials during this turbulent times. But we also have good news and I would like to mention some important achievements of Embraer during 2019. We had record cash generation in the last quarter of the year of almost $800 million. We had record sales in the executive jet business keeping price discipline and the successful launch of the Praetor family. Embraer delivered the first to KC-390s to the Virgin Air Force and completed the first international sale of our new military air lifter to Portugal in the defense and security business. We signed several contracts with Brazilian government, including the Navy, Army and Air Force, enforcing our position as Brazil's defense house and also very important because of that the commercial aviation business and its related services is a separate business as we continue to move forward in the partnership with Boeing. Regarding the partnership with Boeing, we still need anti-trust approval in Europe and we continue to work together with Boeing team to get it. We believe this is an important strategic partnership and we'll make a priority for Embraer. Finally, I'd like to reinforce that Embraer has already tested different crises in the past. And we are confident that this time won't be different. And together with all our employees, customers and partners we will come out of this virus outbreak even stronger. We will keep the market updated as the conditions continue to evolve in the upcoming months. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Ron Epstein of Bank of America.

Ron Epstein

Analyst

There you go. Good morning, guys. Just broader questions. How are conversations going with your customers on the -- in the commercial business? What are they coming to you? What are they saying? And how should we think about what the next 3, 6, 9 months could look like in the commercial airplane business?

Francisco Gomes

Analyst

Hi, Ron. Good morning. In terms of that I'm probably speaking here. Ron, [indiscernible] we are focused all of our investment to the product information and that Embraer have not yet any constellation of orders that's important for us. And we are discussing about some deferrals of deliveries from 2020 to 2021, is more or less in a nutshell the discussion we are having.

Ron Epstein

Analyst

Okay, okay. And then, when we look at the Jet business, what have you seen there? I mean, has there been an impact yet on customers decision-making and how's that?

Francisco Gomes

Analyst

I would say that what we are seeing right now, we have got impact on the executive jets/ We have let's say, more requests for deferral but to just quiet otherwise and we had no consolation event. Let's say pretty stable for the time being.

Antonio Garcia

Analyst

If I may add on, said earlier around, on executive jets we continue to deliver planes. We had a few deliveries this week. And we also continue with our sales activity. We had a couple sales being confirmed this week as well. So we are feeling good. On the executive jet side despite all the uncertainties on the COVID-19.

Ron Epstein

Analyst

Okay. Okay, great. And then, maybe just one last question, if I may. On the KC-390, when we think about the delivery profile of those aircraft this year into next, how many aircraft do you expect to deliver this year, I guess they were due to the Brazilian Air Force, right?

Francisco Gomes

Analyst

We have two aircrafts to be delivered this year. [Technical Difficulty] right now is the supply chain because we are talking for our customer, now we are aligned with our suppliers in regards to the parts because as everybody knows you have this threat, the restrictions and what we're doing right now is just to make sure that you have the parts to produce and deliver the requests, but we haven't joined the program.

Ron Epstein

Analyst

Thank you very much guys.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Robert Spingarn with Credit Suisse.

Robert Spingarn

Analyst · Credit Suisse.

On the Boeing deal, what is it that you think the European Commission is focused on at this point that pushes it to the right. Any color on that?

Francisco Gomes

Analyst · Credit Suisse.

Well, I mean, we and Boeing continue to work together to establish these important strategic partnerships. As I say we still need the antitrust approval in Europe, but we continue to work with Boeing to get it, so provided the documents they ask and try to do this as quick as we can.

Robert Spingarn

Analyst · Credit Suisse.

Okay. And then is there any -- what is the latest in terms of your expectations for proceeds from the Boeing deal. Just given the COVID-19 situation, does this change anything with regard to the payment of the special dividend?

Francisco Gomes

Analyst · Credit Suisse.

We are now focusing on to get this approval of the antitrust authorities in Europe and we'll work together and how to overcome the situation of the COVID-19 to make this deal happen.

Robert Spingarn

Analyst · Credit Suisse.

Okay. And then, just going back to the aftermath of 911, at a point where the 50-seat market was very active, there was an unexpected mix shift or demand shift toward the 50 seater away from the narrow body because of the slow recovery expected, and the idea that you could fill a 50 seater more easily than a 737 or an A320. Do you expect some kind of mix shift in demand away from the Boeing and Airbus narrow bodies and perhaps the A220 toward the E-Jet for the next few years to accommodate the lower demand?

Francisco Gomes

Analyst · Credit Suisse.

The commission and marketing people, they are analyzing all the possible effects, but I'd say that it's just only for us to come with a good prognosis on this.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Cai von Rumohr from Cowen.

Cai von Rumohr

Analyst

Yes. Thank you very much. So in the U.S. as you know, they just passed $2 trillion support package? Does Brazil have a support package that gives you support? And if not, what sort of numbers based on the closures that you currently expect? What sort of numbers might this be and just in terms of incremental cost?

Antonio Garcia

Analyst

We are getting work to get additional sources of liquidity. I would say -- too early to say what you are getting here, but for the time being, we are having some support from U.S. and because of tax deferral and more or less what we had today.

Cai von Rumohr

Analyst

Okay. And then, you have this very good fourth quarter cash flow. Could you update us on what was the status of payments on the KC-390 and have you early in the year seeing any resistance by commercial customer or biz jet customers to make the due diligence?

Francisco Gomes

Analyst

As far as payments from the government and free cash flow overall, we have a very stronger fourth quarter as you mentioned. We generated almost $800 million in cash. So, we had a lot of the levers on both commercial and business jets, and also payments from the government. So we were able to reduce the level of receivables from the government during the quarter. And it was very important for us to generate the cash that we did during the first quarter.

Cai von Rumohr

Analyst

Got it. And I think at one point, you talked about the incremental cost of keeping a commercial and biz jet defense business, is something like 10 million to 15 million in OpEx spend, some 10 million to 15 million in interest expense per month. Are those numbers still valid?

Francisco Gomes

Analyst

Sorry, Cai. You're talking about the additional costs from the delay on the deal?

Cai von Rumohr

Analyst

Well, the incremental cost of sort of running two separate businesses.

Francisco Gomes

Analyst

Yes. We have a special cost. The main cost we have is the additional financial expenses, around 10 million to 15 million per month. And also you're totally right, we have additional costs of running two businesses, another 10 million to 15 million per month.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Josh Milberg from Morgan Stanley.

Josh Milberg

Analyst

You guys have covered a lot of ground already but I wanted to just revisit the commercial profitability outlook. We saw that in the quarter, even adjusting for separation costs for your commercial profitability was below past fourth quarters. And I know that you've had the issue of the 175 SC, and also E2 ramp up. And I just wanted to ask assuming that you didn't have further separation costs and also assuming that COVID wasn't an issue. Can you just talk a little bit about how profitability for commercial might have evolved this year? And also just remind us what was the sort of rough mix of E2s and E1s you were anticipating for 2020? Thank you.

Francisco Gomes

Analyst

A lot of uncertainties right now with the COVID-19. But going to your question, the main facts on the commercial side as far as profitability, or the mix, right, we had more delivers in the U.S., those orders as you know, they are bigger. So given the bigger orders, they tend to have a slightly lower margin. The second point that affected commercial was the E2 ramp up. We continue to run past the [indiscernible] last year we had around 15 delivers, this is starting to help, but we need to continue to move through the learning curve of the E2 and that will -- as we continue to move on that that will positively affect margin going forward. So overall, those were the impact for this year, they said we still need to assess the impact of the COVID-19 to have a better visibility in terms of margins for this year for commercial.

Josh Milberg

Analyst

And if you didn't -- if we didn't have this COVID effect, what might have been a reasonable expectation for a mix of deliveries? What percentage of the volume could be E2 this year?

Francisco Gomes

Analyst

Excluding the COVID-19 effect, I think this year in terms of deliveries and even mix, should not be too different from what we had in the last two years around 90 to 100 points.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Noah Poponak Goldman Sachs.

Noah Poponak

Analyst

I'd love to attempt to get a little bit more precise on the degree of movement your airline customers and commercial are asking for, if we're looking at a production skyline that had roughly 90 units in it for several years, are we talking, five to 10 airlines that want to differ? Are we talking, 80 units that want to differ? And are we talking differing quarters or differing years?

Francisco Gomes

Analyst

In general, as I mentioned before, we know our airlines have got capacity sharply, if you needed to bet on recent impact but at least they're requesting most of them should differ from 2020 to 2021, and again, this question right now is very dynamic and we have changed everyday and but more between 2020 to 2021 versus deferrals and local solutions. That's important information. A very important information as Bernard, you said, No, we didn't have any cancellation so far. So, all the discussions are really regarding the [indiscernible], but no cancellation.

Noah Poponak

Analyst

And is it the majority of your previously scheduled 2020 deliveries that are discussing deferrals or is it something well under half?

Francisco Gomes

Analyst

As I said situation is really changing. We need to know for how long the capacity reduction will last, right? It will depend. It will depend how long the COVID-19 moving back the capacity to have an assessment of, we're talking about part of the delivers or what percentage of the delivery, we can't answer that right now.

Noah Poponak

Analyst

Understood on that, given how dynamic it is. But I'm actually just curious what percentage of those deliveries are even asking the question or even having the conversation? I mean, it's literally every airline that's supposed to take a delivery in 2020 having that conversation with you, or is it, some minority of them that's having that conversation with you?

Francisco Gomes

Analyst

It depends a lot on the region right now. And also how the COVID-19 is evolving each one of the regions. We have seen some airlines in Asia read are returning operation. In the U.S., the situation is changing a lot. So there was a shut down, but a lot of conversation regarding returning operations. It's very difficult to know the impact at this point. Unfortunately as soon as we have more visibility, we're going to restate our guidance and give the market more clarity on that. Okay?

Noah Poponak

Analyst

Okay. And then just on the planned special dividend. Are you today reiterating that? Or is that under review along with the rest of 2020 guidance being under review?

Antonio Garcia

Analyst

I guess it's important to clarify. We need for this time decent prudence with our investor and with you guys. And then we suspended the guidance. It's much more related to the operational guidance like say 2018 free cash flow and the structure of the news continued to hire them for this perspective. It's hard to say that right now that we are changing also the dividend. We continue to work on it. And again, the strategic partnerships we have agreed to close it. In fact to say right now that we have changed any guidance with regard to investment, but we prefer to sustained all of them and reevaluate the whole scenario.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Cai von Rumohr from Cowen.

Cai von Rumohr

Analyst

Yes. Thank you. I think you had planned to sort of report as NewCo without the commercial business, but clearly that's not going to happen. You're basically going to -- basically have commercial biz jet, the same businesses that you had Are you going to report in the same format for the first two quarters because it doesn't sound like the JV is going to get approved before them?

Francisco Gomes

Analyst

Sorry, its Francisco. Just going to mention that, since we signed it -- we got the approval from the shareholders for the deal last year in February, we have been reporting the commercial aviation business as a separate business right as a discontinued operation. And we're going to continue to report commercial as a discontinued operation until closing. So, Antonio, go ahead and just…

Antonio Garcia

Analyst

Just to say that compliment what to do just said we have implemented the internal governance that we are going to manage the commercial aviation as a separate unit, but we think in Embraer organization with all the process in places and all the reports and so on.

Cai von Rumohr

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's question-and-answer session. That does conclude Embraer's audio conference for today. Thank you very much for your participation. Have a good day.