Cooper Standard at J.P. Morgan Auto Conference: Strong Recovery and Growth Outlook

On Wednesday, 13 August 2025, Cooper Standard (NYSE:CPS) presented at the J.P. Morgan Auto Conference, showcasing its robust financial recovery and future growth strategies. The company highlighted its strong position after overcoming challenges in recent years. While the outlook remains optimistic, Cooper Standard continues to address industry headwinds.

Key Takeaways

• Cooper Standard anticipates double-digit EBITDA margins and a return on invested capital.
• Significant growth is expected in the Fluid Handling Systems business, driven by hybrid and electric vehicle adoption.
• The company has achieved $700 million in cost savings since 2019.
• New business awards totaling $300 million will further support margin expansion.
• Geographic expansion, particularly in China, is a key strategic focus.

Financial Results

• EBITDA and Return on Investment: Cooper Standard expects a return to double-digit EBITDA margins and a double-digit return on invested capital.
• Cost Savings: Since 2019, the company has achieved approximately $100 million in annual cost savings, totaling $700 million year-to-date.
• Revenue Targets: The Sealing Systems business is projected to generate $1.4 billion in revenue, with a target margin expansion to over 13% by 2030.
• Fluid Handling Systems: Adjusted EBITDA is expected to grow from 9% to over 16% by 2030, with a return on invested capital more than doubling from 13% to over 30%.

Operational Updates

• Strategic Focus: Emphasis on financial strength, operational excellence, innovation, and corporate responsibility.
• Cost Management: The company has rationalized its manufacturing footprint and renegotiated supplier contracts.
• Commercial Agreements: Enhanced agreements have improved variable contribution margins.
• Business Bookings: Booked business is 99% for the next year, 95% for the following year, and 85% for the third year.

Future Outlook

• Growth in Fluid Handling Systems: This business is expected to double in the next seven years, with significant content increases per vehicle for hybrid and electric models.
• Margin Expansion: Expected to outpace light vehicle production volume growth through at least 2027.
• China Expansion: The company is leveraging its global footprint to grow with both domestic and international customers in China.
• Financial Projections: Assume minimal volume upside, driven by new business bookings at higher margins.

Q&A Highlights

• Negative Margins: Addressed challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic and chip shortage, citing a lack of material economic indexing.
• Contractual Indexing: Implemented with the supply base and customers to mitigate raw material price volatility.
• Industry Growth: The company’s financial targets are not contingent upon industry volume growth.
• Competitive Environment: Focus on innovative solutions to reduce customers’ overall costs.
• Pricing and Payment: Challenges with Chinese automakers are ongoing, but the company has adapted its business model.

For those interested in a deeper dive into Cooper Standard’s strategic plans and financial outlook, the full transcript of the conference call is available below.

Full transcript - J.P. Morgan Auto Conference:

Ryan Brinkman, U.S. Automotive Equity Research Analyst, JPMorgan: Okay. We’re going to get going now with the next presentation. Once again, I’m Ryan Brinkman, U. Automotive Equity Research Analyst from JPMorgan. Very happy to have with us Jeff Edwards, Chairman and CEO of Cooper Standard as well as Jonathan Bonas, Chief Financial Officer.

So I’m going to turn it over to Jeff for some prepared remarks and then we’ll engage in a chat and take your questions. Thanks so much.

Jeff Edwards, Chairman and CEO, Cooper Standard: Okay. Thanks, Ryan. Good afternoon, everyone. We’ll start with kind of an overview, first of all, of Cooper Standard for those of you that don’t know us. We put this together because we do, as we sit here in 2025, feel that we are a compelling investment opportunity.

And we feel that we’ve come through the last four or five years, and we’re in a position of strength. And we’ll talk about that as we go through the presentation and how our business is growing and the margins are expanding as we speak. Again, for those of you that don’t know, we really go to market with two product groups within Cooper Standard. The first is our Sealing Systems business, represents about $1,400,000,000 in revenue. We are the global leader in that product line.

The car that you see on the screen designates in blue the ceiling that we provide virtually all automakers with around the world. And then the green fuel handling systems that you see depicted as well, we’re two globally in that business, and that’s a $1,200,000,000 revenue generator for the company. This just gives you an idea of the global nature of the business. We have 21 countries, 21,000 employees come to work every day inside Cooper Standard. It’s 2,700,000,000 of revenue.

And we’ve depicted here, just for your benefit, the 56% of that business is in North America. The rest is outside. And you can see also depicted on the screen the customer base, a very diverse customer base that we’ve been providing these type of products to, frankly, since 1960. I think all suppliers will tell you probably the last five or six years has been quite the challenge from all fronts. One of the biggest challenges is maintaining relationships when you’re going through the type of turbulence that the industry has been faced with.

And we’re really proud of the way we’ve executed. We’re proud of the way we’ve maintained customer relationships. And we’re proud of the way our employees have demonstrated a level of excellence continues to garner recognition not only for our product and our quality performance, but also for being a leader in climate as well as culture. And I think both of those serve us extremely well. As we always say, it’s not the sign on the building, it’s the people in it.

And we’ve got really great people around the world and they line up with a set of values. This is just one way to demonstrate that we’re keeping our customers happy during some challenging times here. Each of our businesses come to work really focused on these four strategic imperatives. I’m not going go through these in detail. But first and foremost is on the left hand side of the chart, you can see the financial strength.

We’ve said recently that we expect to return to double digit EBITDA margins as well as double digit return on invested capital. We’re well on our way to achieving that. We just had our earnings call for the second quarter and have demonstrated our level of confidence by increasing guidance for $4.25 We also provided a look forward through 2030 that I’ll talk about in a few slides. So the business has been restored to a position of financial strength, and we expect that will continue to grow over the next several years as we grow, in particular, our Fluid Systems business. It doesn’t come without a challenge from an execution point of view.

We don’t like surprises operationally needed to our customers. And we’re really proud that we continue to be the first choice of the stakeholders that we serve. Innovation is why we can answer the question that we’re not worried about double digit margins and being attacked for it. We’re providing innovation to really help improve the customer’s financial performance as well as the overall system efficiencies of the products that we supply. And then finally, in this day and age, corporate responsibility is hand in hand with the overall profitability of the business.

If we can’t do things from an environmental, social and governance standpoint, employees find companies that do and so will customers. So we’re really proud of our strength in that area, and we continue to be very committed to that over the course of the next decade. This chart might be the one that provides the greatest level of confidence that our management team has in our continued financial success. We demonstrate here that we’ve averaged $100,000,000 of cost savings out of our business since 2019. That’s about $700,000,000 year to date.

It’s really allowed the company to make it through the challenging times from a volume point of view as well as the overall economic environment that we’ve all been faced with. We’ve rationalized our manufacturing footprint. It’s world class. We’ve streamlined our operations. We’ve rightsized the headcount and really taken advantage of the investments that we’ve made in our financial systems and overall operating systems to do more with less and do it faster and more accurately.

We also have renegotiated our supplier contracts as well as heightened the recovery efforts there across the board during these challenging times. So the foundation from a cost point of view has never been stronger within Cooper Standard, and we expect to continue to find opportunities within and take care of the things that we can control to continue to help offset whatever cost headwinds or inflationary headwinds that we’re presented with. So I think our track record here is world class, and we expect it to continue. The next area is really about the gross profit margin. We’ve given you really the journey here from 2021 through ’twenty four and now the last twelve months.

You can see that we’re on an upward trend here. We believe that’s certainly sustainable. We’ve got enhanced commercial agreements that support this. We’ve launched higher VCM programs. And we’re fortunate that as we sit here today, next year’s business is about 99% booked.

The following year is 95% booked and the third year is probably 85% booked. So we know what our prices are. We know what our costs are. And we know that this trajectory of improved variable contribution margin is here to stay. Performance from a cost point of view and our performance in doing what our customers need us to do helps ensure that for sure.

You’ll see also in the bottom left, the adjusted EBITDA margin percentage equally tracking, and we expect free cash flow to continue to improve. Liquidity is sufficient. And certainly, the net leverage ratio will continue to work its way down below two as we go to 2027 and have that conversation. So I think we’re well positioned. The strength of the company is established.

The financial stability is there. And more importantly, the book of business going forward will launch at higher margins than that that it replaces. A little bit about each individual product group and our sealing systems. All of you, I assume, own vehicles, so you know that when you go through a car wash, you don’t want to get wet. Well, that’s what we do.

We make sure that the seals that protect the inside of the vehicle from bad things getting in. And we’ve done a nice job with that since, as I said, 1960. Our operational excellence is good. The financial health of the company is a strong foundation. We’ve done a great job leveraging advanced technology to continue to improve the overall efficiency in our manufacturing plants.

Our safety performance is world class, and this business is really a cornerstone. Every vehicle in the world needs ceiling systems, and we produce our fair share of that market, which has led to us being the number one provider of these systems to our customers within the industry we serve. And content per vehicle and market share growth is really protected as we see it over the course of the next decade because of the way we’ve innovated, both from a manufacturing and a cost and quality point of view as well as offering our customers solutions from a ceiling system that they can’t get anywhere else. These are some of the things that I mentioned in the opening remarks, whether it be lightweight materials, bio and recycled materials, the innovation that we’re ready to launch with Flexicore, and certainly the manufacturing facilities becoming even more energy efficient over time. It’s garnered us a lot of recognition with those that measure these things within the industry, and it’s also garnered us a lot of recognition in orders with our customers.

Financially, the Sealing business is strong as we sit here in 2025. You can see that the guidance we’ve put out in our business plan, about $1,400,000,000 in revenue. And you look at the strategic targets going forward between now and 02/1930, we show excellent growth in that business. We have $300,000,000 of new business awards already since 2023. So that all launches as we speak this year, next year and in the following year.

The new launches continue to drive variable contribution margin up. We’re launching business with higher VCMs than the business that’s currently in our factories. Further footprint optimization is also increasing in the production in the best cost countries is where we’re doing business. We still have very little production in those countries that are high cost. We’ll manage through that over the next couple of years.

But we’re well positioned from a factory point of view. We’ve optimized our cost structure significantly. It’s really improved our competitiveness and has enabled us to really grow this business in a way that you’d be surprised as the number one market share leader in the world. We continue to outgrow the market because of the innovation and the quality performance of this business. You can see the capital spend continues to be world class.

We continue to find ways to do more with less. Our margin expansion is expected to achieve a level of greater than 13% by the time we get to 02/1930, and the return on invested capital in this business will double between now and 2030 to above 20%. Moving to the Fluid Handling System and really unlocking the potential of this business. Those of you that are familiar with autos know that we’re in really an evolution of powertrain going from ICE to hybrid and EV vehicles. And for the Fluid business, that represents a significant opportunity.

We’re filling market white space through really a strategic geographic expansion with all of our customers, particularly in China. Leveraging the advanced global footprint that we have continues to allow us to grow with our biggest customers, but at the same time, on growing with those that have global expansion ambitions. Next, capitalizing on the growth of the hybrid vehicle market. I’m going to talk about that as we go through here. But think about this baseline, ICE, fluid handling, content per vehicle as a baseline.

If you shift that same vehicle to hybrid, our content per vehicle goes up 80. If you do it for EV, it goes up 20%. And we continue to find ways to enhance the efficiency for our customers. So we’re taking their costs down as we innovate and come up with ways to do things differently from a fluid handling point of view. So our revenue is growing and our margins are expanding as a result of the solutions that we’re bringing to our customers.

The beautiful thing about this evolution is it’s not going to take place in a year or two. It’s going to take place over the course of the next decade and really positions our company to grow with this business in a way that just a few years ago we didn’t think was possible. So we’re really excited about the Fluid Handling business and an opportunity to really double it over the next seven years, we believe, as the powertrain shift gets underway. This talks about some innovations. Again, when you think about the hybrid vehicles that are on the road today, there’s opportunities.

All the OEMs and all of our customers would tell you the same thing. There’s an opportunity to improve the systems that were first, right? Usually is. And so as we sit here as a supplier of choice, we’re able to offer them innovations to certainly change the way they think about the tubes that are transferring the fluids through the system. Our Ergoloc connectors and EZ Lock connectors ensure that when you park your car at night, you don’t get anything on the garage floor or in your driveway.

And our integrity of the system is why we’re winning all this business. We’re also growing and vertically integrating by bringing in pumps and other sensors, fuel tubes, hoses are going to help us deliver an integrated solution to the customers that ultimately reduces their overall cost. But it really takes our content more than doubles it. And at the same time, because we’re offering innovations that we’ve developed and that we own, that we’ve patented, we’re seeing a margin expansion as a result. So this isn’t what I think.

It’s what I know. The business that we’re booking today represents that. So as we go forward, we fully expect that trend to continue because of the way we’re offering cost down solutions for our customers is helping us grow profitably. And I guess that’s always a secret if you can find out how to help the customer and at the same time expand your business, then both win. I mentioned the evolution of powertrain.

Here it is on a slide just for those of you that didn’t get it. We see that the internal combustion engine is the baseline. Hybrid electric vehicles up 80% for Cooper Standard. That doesn’t have anything to do with our vertical integration. As we integrate it vertically, that number actually goes up considerably.

This would just be comparing the basic ICE to the new hybrid electric. That content goes up 80%. As we integrate and put more components in there, that number goes much higher. Battery electric vehicles, apples to apples, up 20% content per vehicle for Cooper Standard.

Ryan Brinkman, U.S. Automotive Equity Research Analyst, JPMorgan: That’s not an extra 20%. You benefit less from electrification than partials because you don’t lose the fuel. Is that the idea of getting the cool?

Jeff Edwards, Chairman and CEO, Cooper Standard: Yeah. So for electric vehicles, in essence, the system complexity to heat and cool the batteries and continuing to manage brakes, that content is up on a comparison basis by 20% over what would be our base level ICE. So it’s just a simple comparison to suggest that as ICE builds out in hybrid and electric replaces it, our content goes up by definition. As we continue to offer solutions to the customer by embedding our technology, our vertical integration, displacing some things that they had already engineered to the system, that number actually goes up quite a bit. I mean, in some cases, you’ll see the hybrid electric vehicle will go up well over 100% of our content just because of the additional solutions that we’re providing on these new hybrids going forward.

So hence, doubling the overall business in seven years. That’s quite a feat, and that’s how it happens. This is interesting. I’m sure that Ryan has showed slides like this. But if you just take a look at the powertrain trends that I’m referring to that impact our fluid business, you can see that this gap on the chart that I’m showing you represents the increase in each region as we sit here today that hybrid growth will have.

So if you go to 2030 as an example, these numbers, probably conservative by most people’s feelings, would suggest 20,000,000 hybrids globally. And so that’s a big number. I think it probably is even going to be higher. But at least as we sit here today, it gives you a chance to see the significant change that’s taking place. And I think it’s all good as we exit ICE and move towards hybrid and electric vehicles, consumers have a lot more choice.

And for us, as the fluid system provider, it couldn’t be coming at a better time. Again, a quick summary on our Fluid business. You can see the growth of that that I just talked about between now and 02/1930. And again, this would assume very little volume pickup. This is strictly new business that we’re booking at higher margins and at higher prices.

The adjusted EBITDA of this business is going go from 9% to over 16%. The capital spend continues to represent a very disciplined approach of doing more with less or for less. And the return on invested capital will more than double from 13% to over 30% by 02/1930. So excited about this. It’s certainly going to be a period of ten or fifteen years here for this business to really create the tailwind for Cooper Standard that excites really all of our stakeholders, we’re proud to deliver that message to you today.

If you look at the margins ramping up faster than the light vehicle production volume is, it just talks about how we’re managing things that we can control. The ability to continue to expand this and outpace production growth in Q3 and the trend is expected to continue at least through 2027. I won’t talk again about the 2030 plan. It’s represented. The margins are going to continue to grow, and we’re excited about that.

If we take a look at the outlook, continuing operational excellence and profitable growth outweigh any near term market uncertainty. I mean, we’ve dropped our breakeven to a point now where we’re making the type of cash flow and the type of returns on really minimal volumes when you think about it. It’s roughly 80,000,000 units, if you want to stretch it, being produced in the world, probably 110,000,000 or 120,000,000 units of capacity. So we believe that that will continue to grow. We believe that our cost, quality, innovation will continue to help us book a lot more than our fair share of business and continue to expand margins.

And that’s really our story. Plug in whatever volume you want going forward, I think you would probably agree they’re going to go up over the course of the next five or six years. Our financial projections that I just showed you assume virtually no volume upside. So that tells you that we’ve done a great job managing cost and growing the business in a very profitable way and have really established the company to compete anywhere in the world. And we’ve been on our own in China now for a long time and have demonstrated our ability to compete in that market to a point where those OEMs are taking us around the world as they expand and export their vehicles.

So I think whether it’s Europe, North America, China, we’re winning and we’re proud of that. Again, back to what we talked about earlier. I’ll finish on this slide, and then I’ll turn it over to Ryan for Q and A.

Ryan Brinkman, U.S. Automotive Equity Research Analyst, JPMorgan: Great. Thanks. It’s very interesting. Is it fair to say that all suppliers that you suffered in 2021 and 2022 because of the run up in non commodity supply chain costs that weren’t fully compensated for immediately. And then you were thought to benefit from electrification like other suppliers, the growth there.

But then there was the EV slowdown and whereas some other suppliers are going to see substantially less growth because of that, that for you, maybe the tailwind remains because of the shift toward lesser degrees of electrification where you participate very well?

Jeff Edwards, Chairman and CEO, Cooper Standard: Yeah, I think whether it’s ICE, whether it’s hybrid, or whether it’s EV, the products that we go to market with apply to all. So I think that really positions us to do well regardless of the powertrain of choice. Our Sealing business is, in essence, the same as you take it across those three. Our fluid business, I just spent quite some time talking about how we benefit as it shifts from ICE to hybrid and EV. I think our challenge is to continue to manage the customer relationships, continue to execute at a very high level, continue to innovate and provide our customers solutions to make their systems less costly for them and more efficient for their customers.

And as we do that, our growth and profitability along that growth trajectory is really unlimited. And I think we’ll continue to demonstrate that our forecast for this year and for next year and for the next five years is probably conservative if you believe volumes are going to go up, Ryan.

Ryan Brinkman, U.S. Automotive Equity Research Analyst, JPMorgan: Great. Thanks. And I realize that the margin has been stabilizing and improving. What would you say though to the strongly negative margin that you had there for a while in the negative free cash flow? I think most suppliers didn’t experience negative margins during the downturn around COVID and the chip shortage.

Was it just because your margins were lower to begin with because of the nature of what you provide? Or did you have trouble passing along certain costs to the customers and you’re better able to do that now more formulaically? Or what would you just say to that?

Jeff Edwards, Chairman and CEO, Cooper Standard: Yes, good question. And I guess I’d start with the statement. I guess what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. So we feel pretty proud that we weathered that. But it was kind of all those things.

We didn’t have material economic indexing in place for the customer or the supply base at that time. So it took a while to get that ship going in the right direction. We now have contractual indexing with the entire supply base and with all of our customers. And it took us a while to recover the economics that we were owed by both, and that has been accomplished as well through very challenging negotiations, as you can expect. That was part of it.

I think the other thing I mentioned that we really looked at our operations and said, look, we’ve invested in systems and processes and financial systems, IT systems. We So needed to get off napkins, get off Excel spreadsheets and start running the business in a sophisticated way related to price and costs. And certainly within our manufacturing facilities, how do we continue to digitalize things and get smarter and do a better job at process control so we can reduce scrap, improve yields, and really focused on getting cost to a position that we were extremely competitive and really focused on lowering the breakeven of the company. And as I mentioned earlier, one of the slides that I’m most proud of is that slide that shows $100,000,000 a year for the past seven years taken out of the business from a cost point of view. So we didn’t go over in the corner and whine about volumes.

We didn’t whine about COVID. We didn’t whine about the financial crisis that the industry was going through. We decided that we would roll up our sleeves, go to work. We did. We also invested in innovation.

We invested in technology. And now that’s helping springboard us to a point that I think the return to prosperity for our company is well on its way, and we’re really proud of how we did that. And we did it also by preserving relationships with our customers despite, as you can imagine, some pretty challenging conversations.

Ryan Brinkman, U.S. Automotive Equity Research Analyst, JPMorgan: I used to cover a company, AGC Technologies. They didn’t make the same products as you, but they, I think, might have bought the same sort of commodities. It’s been a while, but there’s polypropylene, high density polyurethane or something like that, HDPE. And all the analysts were just so surprised that they weren’t indexed. And this is just the way that it works for these commodities.

And it resets once per year. Has that changed in that corner of the parts industry? I mean, don’t see how you could with all the volatility. That a large part of what it hit you?

Jeff Edwards, Chairman and CEO, Cooper Standard: Yeah, just think about oil, right? So if being produced in our factories or other factories like the company you referred to and it’s oil based, I mean, that’s been a pretty volatile situation. And ours, be it EPDM rubber or other plastic components that go into our products. I mean, we were faced with some pretty strong headwinds. Historically, the company never had indexing.

We clearly wanted to change that. It took us about two years to negotiate with customers and suppliers to get the indexing models in place that were needed. That’s done. That’s behind us now two years. So as I call it, the Cedar Point roller coaster rides of trying to predict our quarter by quarter volatility are over.

We are pleased to be in that particular position because it really allows us to focus on the right things, right? The team can run fast. They’re not looking over their shoulder worrying about macroeconomic issues that they can’t do anything about. And I think the customers prefer it that way, certainly we do, too.

Ryan Brinkman, U.S. Automotive Equity Research Analyst, JPMorgan: And can you remind me what you said about achieving some of your financial targets not being contingent upon industry volume growth? Because I think and through which year is that I think S and P Global Mobility does have some volume growth.

Jeff Edwards, Chairman and CEO, Cooper Standard: About 2%, Ryan. So if you look at our out year projections, I think it’s an average of about 2% increase each year in volume. So not very much at all. And that’s the point we wanted to make is that the business that we will be launching this year, next year, the following year that’s already booked and already priced is going to have this uplift as a result of the type of compelling business solutions we’re delivering for our customers. And so we’re excited about that.

We’re also excited about someday getting back to 16,000,000, 17,000,000, maybe 18,000,000 units in North America would be nice. There’s so much capacity in the world. I’m hopeful that at some point we’ll get on one of those seven year trends where the auto cycle runs for seven years and it’s going up each year and there’s a level of prosperity. And consumers are going to benefit. There’s great vehicles out there.

I just I’m excited to see the competitive landscape that’s upon us now. And I think it’s going to drive volume that not many people are predicting. But most people that predict volumes kind of wait until after it starts before they predict it. So I wouldn’t put too much on that.

Ryan Brinkman, U.S. Automotive Equity Research Analyst, JPMorgan: It looks like you’re counting on or expecting another large increase in your gross and EBITDA margin. Just curious, I mean, said it’s been booked. So I guess you know what the pricing is. And you seem to be happy with the pricing relative to what you expect will be your costs and maybe the pricing is more variable than in the past on the raw mat side at least. But is there any execution still required on the other parts of the cost in order to hit those numbers?

What gives you the confidence that you’re able to perform on the controllables costs?

Jeff Edwards, Chairman and CEO, Cooper Standard: Yes, it’s a good question. We have a high level of confidence to answer your question. Why that is, is because, as I mentioned, we have

Ryan Brinkman, U.S. Automotive Equity Research Analyst, JPMorgan: a

Jeff Edwards, Chairman and CEO, Cooper Standard: very, we have a set of hurdle rates and a very robust system to measure our team’s performance against it. And so whether you’re talking about the quoting cycle or the engineering that takes place over a couple year period and then ultimately launching it and keeping track of changes that the teams are faced with executing really on a regular basis and getting paid for that. We’ve never had a situation within our company where our costs are as under control as they are and as low as they are. And the sophisticated management systems and the financial systems that we’ve invested in really provide our smart folks with the type of tools they need to manage the business. And so that’s why we have a high level of confidence.

We’ve been in this mode now for about the last year and a half, so I don’t have to guess about it. And I know that the two and three year plan that we have ahead of us is based on business that we already have And it’s already priced and we already know what the costs are. And we execute better than anybody. So I don’t have to worry about manufacturing surprises or things like that. So that’s why we have a high level of confidence as we sit here today.

Ryan Brinkman, U.S. Automotive Equity Research Analyst, JPMorgan: So sounds like there’s already been some progress on the debt deleverage. Looks like it’s mostly because of the increase in EBITDA. How should we think about and there’s more of that to come, but how should we think about the balance sheet part? Will all of the cash flow be going toward all of the free cash flow that is going toward debt pay down? Or are there opportunities?

I don’t imagine you’d be returning capital to shareholders, but inorganic that you would explore or investing even more in CapEx to pursue organic opportunities? Or how are you thinking about the allocation of free cash flow going forward?

Jeff Edwards, Chairman and CEO, Cooper Standard: Yes. So I’ll answer it this way. And then we’re about out of time. So I can tell you by the 2027, leverage is going to be less than two.

Ryan Brinkman, U.S. Automotive Equity Research Analyst, JPMorgan: Very good. And what about the implied share gains? Said you’re number one in ceiling and number two in fluid. What does the competition look like there? Have you been gaining and I mean you’re going to be gaining, looks like.

Is it primarily on the fluid side? I know the fluid market is growing probably faster, right, because of the EV tailwind. But where you expect the market share gain to come from?

Jeff Edwards, Chairman and CEO, Cooper Standard: Clearly, as I mentioned earlier, China is a big deal. I mean, the overall volumes will continue to increase in China. So we’re participating in that. But we’re not just rising with the docks. We are booking a lot of business with the larger Chinese domestic manufacturers that are expanding their businesses and exporting vehicles globally.

So we’re on virtually all of those, especially with our fluid business and our sealing business as well. So that would be probably the largest growth region as a percentage when you look at our business. But because of the increase in hybrid manufacturing that’s projected, the fluid business will grow in every single region with every single customer just because of the transition from ICE to hybrid.

Ryan Brinkman, U.S. Automotive Equity Research Analyst, JPMorgan: And curious your conversations with customers. And I heard you say that we’re comfortable that we’re going to be able to because of the value that we provide generate over double digit EBITDA margin. I feel like they kind of owe you too because they should have been paying more than they did probably in 2021 and 2022. But what are your conversations with them like? And they probably want you to be profitable, I would imagine, and delever.

Jeff Edwards, Chairman and CEO, Cooper Standard: Yeah. I end every earnings call by thanking the customers and thanking them for the trust that they put in all of us. And I truly believe that. I think it’s been a six year period here where without that, you kind of had nothing, right? And so I think we’ve earned it.

We’ve come through it. We provide them with great product quality. We have innovation that we’ve invested in that’s going to save them a considerable amount of money on their overall systems going forward. We ended up with very fair indexing contracts for raw material recovery and where we needed help in terms of catching up with purchase orders that weren’t enough for us to stay alive, they were good enough to help us with that. So at the same time, we don’t feel like you know, we love the Red Cross, but we aren’t it.

And so, you know, we have to make our own way here. We’re not a charity, and we have to we have to continue to do things for our customers that will benefit them, so that they continue to give us more business. And and I’ve never been more confident in the decade plus that I’ve been talking to you in the future of our company and especially in the next five years. We’ll continue to knock it out of the park. And we do that because our customers like us, trust us, support us, and we do the same with them.

Ryan Brinkman, U.S. Automotive Equity Research Analyst, JPMorgan: Are there any questions for Jeff and Jonathan in the audience? Yes, we do have one up front, please.

Unidentified speaker: First question just on like the competitive environment because you mentioned ABCT and they’ve acquired TI Auto since. Maybe you can give us a sense like how you compare or when you’re winning market share, Are you winning it from TI Auto? And on kind of what basis is it better costs or pricing or technology?

Jeff Edwards, Chairman and CEO, Cooper Standard: Yes. I would say that we like the competition right now because it’s based on solutions, new solutions that we’re providing in the fluid handling system architecture. And we’re able to reduce customers’ overall cost and yet increase our revenue and margins. So to me, that’s the perfect environment. That’s the environment that’s been created by because of the shift from ICE to hybrid and EVs.

I’m sure they have the same opportunity. So I believe both of us will continue to innovate and provide solutions that allow both to prosper and grow in an environment that we find ourselves in that’s going to continue march its way towards 20,000,000, 30,000,000 hybrid units a year. So that’s how I would answer it. I think they’re a great competitor. I’m sure they say the same thing about us.

We’re not the only two in the world. We just happen to be the two biggest. And there’s a lot of formidable regional players as well that our customers have access to other than just the two of us.

Ryan Brinkman, U.S. Automotive Equity Research Analyst, JPMorgan: I’ll ask to finish. I heard you say that you expect to grow and outgrow because of your leverage to the domestic Chinese automakers, including export ones, which is a tremendous growth story. And I’m a big believer in the growth of Xiaomi, for example, and BYD. Think it’s a great story. At the same time, we’ve also been hearing and asking companies at the conference to comment on the pricing and payment terms that these automakers can sometimes command because they know that everybody wants to be levered to them because they’re growing so quickly, etcetera.

And we hear that BYD doesn’t instead of 2% annual customer price reduction for four years, they want 8% in year one and then it can be 0% thereafter. You’re to to lose money a little bit. And they don’t want to pay you in ninety days. They want to pay you in one hundred and eighty days And then they might not pay you in one hundred and eighty days. And they’re going to pay you in BYD notes.

And you’ve got to hawk that off to your suppliers or something like that. So just talk a little bit about how you are thinking about balancing the tremendous growth opportunities that are clearly there with maintaining the commercial and financial discipline, which it seems is like front and center for a lot of what you’re talking about.

Jeff Edwards, Chairman and CEO, Cooper Standard: Yes, I would answer it this way. I’ve been doing business personally there since 1998. I started when I was 12. And I will tell you that the terms and conditions and the environment related to payment terms and prices and everything else you mentioned has always been there. And I think you could argue that whether you’re in North America, whether you’re in Europe, whether you’re in South America, each region has its own business model, and everybody has to survive within it.

I haven’t seen big changes in China. I know when they go to do business in Europe and when we provide them product around the world in different regions, they will adapt to those terms. And it’s just that we’ve gone from zero to 30,000,000 units in China over the last twenty five years. And so that has created a fairly turbulent environment for everyone. But those that have survived it, I think, are continuing to prosper from it.

And the opportunity to innovate and grow in that region helps all the regions in our company. So I’m really proud of that. I think our relationships in China. I’m so proud of our local team. We don’t fly expats around China.

We have local leadership. We have just a great, great manufacturing and engineering and commercial purchasing teams there. We build some of our best practices in the world from our China team. It’s not China us, it’s Cooper Standard employees in China. And that’s how I think about it.

So we’re really proud of that. And I think it will be a pillar of strength for us over the course of the next decade. I guess time will tell.

Ryan Brinkman, U.S. Automotive Equity Research Analyst, JPMorgan: Very helpful response. Thank you. So we’re out of time, so please join me in thanking Jeff and Jonathan.

This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.