Earnings call transcript: Hexcel Q2 2025 sees strong defense growth

Hexcel Corporation reported its Q2 2025 earnings with robust growth in its defense segment, despite experiencing a decline in commercial aerospace sales. The company’s stock price remained stable, closing at $62.40, reflecting a modest increase of 0.72% from the previous session. According to InvestingPro data, Hexcel currently trades near its Fair Value, with a market capitalization of $5 billion and a beta of 1.33, indicating higher volatility than the broader market. Hexcel’s strategic initiatives and market positioning continue to bolster its long-term outlook.

Key Takeaways

• Defense, Space, and Other sales increased by 7.6% year-over-year.
• Commercial aerospace sales declined by 8.9% year-over-year.
• Hexcel signed new agreements with Embraer and Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace.
• The company is focusing on future factory initiatives with automation and AI.

Company Performance

Hexcel’s Q2 2025 performance was marked by a divergence between its commercial aerospace and defense segments. While commercial aerospace sales decreased, the defense sector showed resilience, contributing significantly to the company’s overall revenue. This performance aligns with broader industry trends where defense spending is on the rise, driven by geopolitical tensions and increased government budgets.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $490 million, reflecting changes in segment performance.
• Earnings per share: $0.50, with a focus on adjusted diluted EPS.
• Gross margin: 22.8%, down from 25.3% in the previous year.
• Adjusted EBITDA for the first six months: $172.5 million.

Outlook & Guidance

Hexcel anticipates generating over $1 billion in cash flow over the next four years, bolstered by strategic agreements and market demand. The company projects full-year EPS guidance of $1.95, while InvestingPro analysts forecast EPS of $1.86 for 2025, with price targets ranging from $55 to $92. The company expects significant revenue growth as Boeing and Airbus reach peak production rates. However, potential tariffs could impact revenue by $10 million.

Executive Commentary

Tom Gentile, CEO of Hexcel, emphasized the company’s robust cash flow projections and growth opportunities in the defense sector, stating, "We expect that we will generate over $1 billion of cash flow in the next four years." He also highlighted the importance of defense in Hexcel’s revenue mix, noting, "Defense is about 30-35% of our total revenue. We see that as a potential big opportunity for growth."

Risks and Challenges

• Supply chain disruptions could affect production schedules.
• Potential tariffs may impact profitability.
• The commercial aerospace market faces destocking challenges, particularly with the A350 program.
• Currency fluctuations pose a risk to international sales.
• Macroeconomic uncertainties could influence demand in key markets.

Hexcel’s Q2 2025 earnings call underscores its strategic focus on defense and innovation, positioning the company for sustained growth despite challenges in the commercial aerospace sector. For deeper insights into Hexcel’s financial health, valuation metrics, and growth potential, investors can access comprehensive analysis and additional ProTips through InvestingPro’s detailed research platform.

Full transcript - Hexcel Corp (HXL) Q2 2025:

Conference Call Operator: Hello and welcome to the Hexcel second quarter earnings call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker’s remarks, there will be a question and answer session, and if you would like to ask a question during this time, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. I would now like to turn the conference over to Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations, Hexcel Corporation: Hello everyone. Welcome to Hexcel Corporation second quarter 2025 earnings conference call. Before beginning, let me cover the formality. I want to remind everyone about the safe harbor provisions related to any forward looking statements we may make during the course of this call. Certain statements contained in this call may constitute forward looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. They involve estimates, assumptions, judgments, and uncertainties caused by a variety of factors that could cause future actual results or outcomes to differ materially from our forward looking statements today. Such factors are detailed in the company’s SEC filings and earnings release. A replay of this call will be available on the investor relations page of our website. Lastly, this call is being recorded by Hexcel Corporation and is copyrighted material. It cannot be recorded or rebroadcast without our express permission.

Your participation on this call constitutes your consent to that request. With me today are Tom Gentile, our Chairman, CEO and President, and Patrick Winterlich, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. The purpose of the call is to review our second quarter 2025 results detailed in our news release issued yesterday. Now let me turn the call over to Tom.

Patrick Winterlich, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation: Tom.

Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations, Hexcel Corporation: Thanks, Kurt. Hello everyone and thank you for joining us today as we discuss our 2025 second quarter results. The fundamentals for the commercial aerospace industry and for Hexcel’s outlook continue to be very positive. Hexcel has a strong market position with its uniquely extensive range of advanced lightweight composite materials to meet the requirements for the record levels of new commercial aircraft on order with Airbus and Boeing, as well as supporting military applications and growing global defense spending. Starting with Boeing, there is a positive momentum for their key programs with Boeing stating that they are now at a production rate of 38 aircraft per month for the 737 MAX aircraft. Solid progress also continues through the 787 build rate as Boeing moves toward producing seven aircraft per month in 2025.

Following the apparent resolution of supply chain issues for Airbus, the outlook for the A320 ramp is also becoming more encouraging in terms of the growing availability of engines in the second half of 2025 to enable Airbus to increase the build rate and then push monthly build rates through the 60s in 2026. Airbus continues to project that they will achieve a production rate of 75 aircraft per month on the A320neo program by 2027. The A350, Hexcel’s largest program, is currently one of our major challenges as Airbus looks to stabilize the program’s build rates and move monthly rates towards 7 by the end of 2025. In addition to A350 production challenges due to supply chain disruption, we have seen some destocking impact in Europe in the second quarter based on high levels of inventory for A350s for certain parts, including the wings.

As previously communicated, we expect this destocking to continue through the third quarter. Airbus has indicated that the destocking should end as we go into Q4 and they’re still targeting to achieve a build rate of 12 aircraft per month on the A350 program by 2028. Remember that the ship set for Hexcel on the A350 is between $4.5 million and $5 million per ship set and each monthly step up in the monthly A350 build rate brings significant revenue and operating leverage benefits for Hexcel. The medium to longer term outlook is very positive for Hexcel, including the expected multi-decade production life for both the A350 and the 787. The material demand requirement from these two programs will drive strong ongoing capacity utilization for Hexcel, which will underpin strong cash generation for years to come.

As we have communicated, we expect to generate over $1 billion of cash cumulatively over the next four years. Demand within other commercial aerospace is also solid, and second quarter revenues saw growth both year over year and sequentially. As a reminder, the modern large cabin business jets now have extensive composite content with ship set values between $200,000 and $500,000 per ship set. The second quarter of 2025 saw strong defense sales with broad strength across a number of domestic and international programs. Military and defense budgets around the globe continue to strengthen. Notably, NATO members in Europe have indicated that they will increase defense spending to 5% of GDP, which ultimately translates to higher and sustained build rates for most platforms. Development of new platforms is also encouraging, such as sixth generation fighters and autonomous drones.

Hexcel participated in the Paris Air Show last month, which provided a confident outlook for the aerospace industry and where we reinforced existing relationships, announced new relationships, and highlighted recent advances with our innovative technology for lightweight material. Some items of note included Embraer and Hexcel celebrating 50 years of Hexcel supplying lightweight composite solutions by signing a preferred supplier agreement for composites. Hexcel has been a long-standing provider to Embraer on a range of advanced lightweight composite materials, including prepregs, engineered core, and advanced structures. Various Embraer aircraft platforms use these lightweight composite materials, such as the C390 military transport and the KC390 tanker, the E2 jet family of narrow body regional aircraft, and the Phenom 300 business jet. We also signed a long-term agreement with Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace, the Norwegian defense and aerospace systems provider.

The agreement covers the supply of Hexcel’s lightweight engineered honeycomb and prepreg products for strategic production programs over five years. This is just one example of Hexcel’s strong European presence in relation to the increasing defense spending in Europe. In addition, we announced a collaboration with Flying Whales and Hexcel on an exciting project to develop an advanced solution for modern airship structures. The project will utilize a broad range of Hexcel’s products, and especially Hexcel’s lightweight carbon fiber, which has been selected for the protruded tubes that compose the skeleton of the Flying Whales airship. Each airship is forecast to have a ship set of more than $1 million. Looking at our financial results for Q2 2025, we generated sales of $490 million and adjusted diluted EPS of $0.50 per share.

As we highlighted at our last earnings call, aircraft production rates in 2025 will not meet the initial expectations due to supply chain disruption. Commercial aerospace sales in the second quarter of 2025 were $293 million, down 8.9% on a constant currency basis in the same period in 2024. Lower sales year over year were primarily due to the A350 and the Boeing 787. However, this was partially offset by a 5.1% increase in sales within the other commercial aerospace from international demand. To share some additional color, commercial aerospace sales were up on a sequential basis. The Boeing 787, the 737 MAX, and the Airbus A320neo all increased sequentially, as did other commercial aerospace. The A350 sales were lower as anticipated due to channel destocking. In defense, space, and other sales totaled $197 million, up 7.6% in constant currency in the same period in 2024.

Growth was driven by the CH-53K, international fighter programs, and a strong quarter for space including launchers, rocket motors, and satellites. Conversely, the V-22 Osprey continues to weaken as expected as that program comes to the end of its production layer. However, the overall continued growth in defense underscores capabilities and value Hexcel lightweight materials brings to the military market. With lower than expected sales volume in our commercial business, we see 2025 as a year where we need to remain focused on the fundamentals of our operations and controlling costs as we navigate reductions in near term production for commercial aerospace programs, notably the A350, before the production rates continue to increase in the second half of 2025.

Our gross margin of 22.8% for Q2, down from 25.3% in 2024, was negatively impacted by lower operating leverage from the lower sales combined with actions that we are taking to reduce inventory levels. Margins also were impacted by this lower overhead absorption. In addition, we are now beginning to feel the impact of tariffs. However, production rates increase in the back half of 2025 and into 2026. The increased volume will drive operating leverage and expanded margin. While production rate increases for original equipment in commercial aerospace have experienced delays in 2025, the Commercial Aerospace industry outlook and confidence levels appear to be getting stronger. Given this backdrop, we continue to remain extremely vigilant on the internal elements of our business that we can control, such as on-time delivery.

We were pleased to receive a Supplier Award for Best Performer from Airbus this quarter, recognizing Hexcel for our outstanding delivery and quality. We continue to push pricing and recover cost inflation impacts from contracts when they renew. About 15% of our contracts by number come up for renewal each year, and historically the average life of our contracts has been about seven years. We have worked hard over the last few years on all our contract renewals to get pricing to offset recent material, energy, and labor cost pressures, and we will continue to do so. We are also introducing more escalation and pass-through clauses for sales contracts whenever we can. We will continue to seek price increases to offset the inflation we have encountered over the last several years as our contracts come to the end of their terms.

As we have mentioned in recent quarterly calls, we are managing headcount very tightly and will only add people when the demonstrated production rate clearly justifies it. Specifically, as we stated in our first quarter earnings call, we expect that our headcount at the end of 2025 will be no higher than the headcount we ended with in 2024. This will be more than 400 heads below our original plan for 2025. As of June 30, our headcount was below the fiscal year-end 2024 level and decreased sequentially from the end of the first quarter. Our strong focus on operational excellence and general cost control remains as robust as ever as we continually work to drive efficiency and productivity.

We also continue to move forward on our future factory efforts, which will see significant cost per unit improvements over the next several years, in part through the adoption of more automation, digitization, robotics technology, and the incorporation of artificial intelligence at our production sites. In relation to continued efforts to optimize our production efficiency and overall facility footprint, we have now completed the legal process required in Belgium and have announced the closure of our engineered products facility in that country. Production stopped at the end of June and the majority of our employees have departed, leaving a small residual team to decommission the site and prepare it for sale. We took a restructuring charge of $24 million in the second quarter relating to severance and associated costs for the Belgium site.

This Belgium site was operating as part of Hexcel for decades, but over time the cost structure became untenable. While we are incurring near term costs to close the site, there will be a longer term reduction in structural costs within the engineered products segment of our business. From this action, please also note the production and sales from this plant have been transferred to other existing Hexcel sites, largely to our facility in Morocco, but also to our plant in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, so there is no impact to our top line. The previously announced divestiture of our Australian glass fiber prepreg and recreation business is continuing and we plan to provide an update later this year.

We also recently divested our additive manufacturing business in Hartford, Connecticut as part of our overall streamlining of non-core activities so we can focus on the upcoming production rate increases in commercial and military aerospace. Hexcel is well positioned to on off runs to meet the opportunities that lie ahead. We have an unrivaled product portfolio of advanced lightweight composite materials. We have world-leading technology and intellectual property positions, we have world-class production facilities across the U.S. and Europe, and we have the right team to drive growth as build rates increase. We are well positioned to drive EBITDA and free cash flow while delivering strong returns to our shareholders. OEM build rates increase and they will be a part of our growth in the next few years.

Indeed, once Airbus and Boeing hit their publicly announced peak build rates across all their programs, Hexcel will see an additional $500 million in annual revenue. That is without winning another contract or program. On top of this organic growth, we also believe there is a place for targeted and disciplined M&A. We continue to be vigilant for appropriately priced assets that would provide synergistic benefits to Hexcel and complement what we do today in the sphere of advanced material science technology. To date we have not found any actionable assets at the right prices, but we continue to look and evaluate potential opportunities. In the meantime, we have continued our periodic repurchase of Hexcel stock, and indeed we bought back another $50 million of shares in the second quarter.

This now brings our repurchases to $100 million for the year and $350 million for almost 6% of our outstanding stock in the last 18 months. With that, let me turn it over to Patrick to provide more details on the numbers.

Patrick Winterlich, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation: Patrick, thank you, Tom. As a reminder regarding foreign exchange exposure, Hexcel benefits from a strong dollar. We continue to hedge foreign exchange exposure over a ten-quarter time horizon. The year-over-year sales comparisons I will provide are in constant currency, which thereby removes the foreign exchange impact. Sales in the commercial aerospace market reported approximately 60% of total second quarter sales in 2025 of $489.9 million. Second quarter commercial aerospace sales of $293 million decreased 8.9% compared to the second quarter of 2024. We experienced lower sales year over year with each of the four major commercial aerospace programs, including the Airbus A350 and A320neo and the Boeing 787 and 737 MAX, as the overall aerospace supply chain continues to experience challenges ramping as quickly as the market demand.

A350 sales declined year over year and sequentially as expected on channel destocking as Airbus has faced supply challenges causing delays in the rate ramp. As Tom mentioned, 787, A320neo, and 737 MAX all increased sequentially. Sales for other commercial aerospace in the second quarter increased 5.1% year over year, led by international demand. Defense, Space, and Other represented approximately 40% of second quarter sales and totaled $196.8 million, increasing 7.6% from the same period in 2024. For Rotorcraft, the CH-53K and Black Hawk programs grew year over year, partially offset by the sunsetting V-22 and a softer quarter for Apache. The space market grew strongly year over year, including both from the traditional defense prime and private space companies. Growth was across multiple space applications, including launchers, rocket motors, and satellites.

Gross margin of 22.8% in the second quarter of 2025 decreased from 25.3% in the second quarter of 2024 as lower sales and inventory reduction actions negatively impacted operating leverage. Specifically, this softer gross margin reflects the impact of our underutilized carbon fiber assets and the initial impact of increased tariffs, which started in the second quarter.

Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations, Hexcel Corporation: We expect upcoming production rate increases, especially.

Patrick Winterlich, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation: In commercial aircraft, to create operating leverage and drive increased margins as we go through the year. As a percentage of sales, selling, general and administrative expenses and R&T expenses were 11.7% in the second quarter of 2025 compared to 10.9% in the comparable prior year period. Upgrades to financial and manufacturing IT systems combined with some additional professional fees contributed to higher operating expenses as a percentage of sales. The closure of the engineered products facility in Belgium drove the other operating expense of $24.2 million in the second quarter of 2025. These costs consist primarily of severance expenses with the majority of cash outflows expected to occur in the second half of 2025. Let me reiterate what Tom said.

There will be minimal impact to sales with the closing of this facility as production is transferred to other Hexcel sites and longer term, this plant closure will help us reduce our engineered product cost structure as Belgium was a high-cost market for the product being manufactured. Adjusted operating income in the second quarter was $54.2 million or 11.1% of sales compared to $72 million or 14.4% of sales in the comparable prior year period. The year-over-year impact of exchange rates in the second quarter to operating income was favorable by approximately 10 basis points. Now turning to our two segments. The Composite Materials segment represented 80% of total second quarter sales, generated an adjusted operating margin of 14.1%. This compares to an adjusted operating margin of 17.2% in the prior year period.

The Engineered Products segment, which is comprised of our structures and engineered core businesses, represented 20% of total sales and excluding the impact of the Belgian plant closure, generated an adjusted operating margin of 10.9%. This compares to an adjusted operating margin of 14.3% in the prior year period. Net cash used by operating activities in the first six months of 2025 was $5.2 million compared to net cash provided of $37.2 million in the first six months of 2024. Working capital was a cash use of $124.5 million in the first six months of 2025 compared to a cash use of $118.3 million in the first six months of 2022. Capital expenditures on an accrual basis were $31.8 million in the first six months of 2025 compared to $41.1 million in a comparable prior year period.

Free cash flow in the first six months of 2025 was negative $46.6 million, which compared to negative $14.4 million in the first six months of 2024. We typically use cash in the first half of the year, and this year was no different. Adjusted EBITDA totaled $172.5 million in the first six months of 2025, compared to $204 million. We used $50.5 million to repurchase stock during the second quarter. The remaining authorization under the share repurchase program as of June 30, 2025 was approximately $134 million. The Board of Directors declared a 17% quarterly dividend yesterday. The dividend is payable to stockholders of record as of August 8 with a payment date of August 15. We are reaffirming our 2025 guidance with the caveat that we are still reviewing the recent change to tax laws.

Our initial assessment is that our cash taxes will be lower in 2025 than our book taxes due to the deductibility of past R and T costs with what is in essence a one-time catch up. I would also like to clarify that our guidance of an effective tax rate of 21% is the underlying ETR we are currently assuming for the third and fourth quarters of 2025. Therefore, given some discrete adjustments in the first six months of 2025, we expect the average adjusted ETR for the full year of 2025 to be lower than 21%. As I have just indicated, we will update our forward ETR guidance if needed once we have fully digested the impact of recent tax law changes. We continue to forecast a tariff impact of $3 to $4 million per quarter. However, the tariff situation remains uncertain with more potential changes to come.

Our regional sourcing helps us to insulate us from the impact of tariffs, and we will continue to work on mitigation and pass throughs. That takes time. Finally, I would like to share a reminder of the typical third quarter sales seasonality that arises from European summer vacations. With that, let me turn the call back to Tom.

Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations, Hexcel Corporation: Thanks, Patrick. Despite the challenging first half of the year and the near-term softer than expected demand for the A350, the fundamental outlook for Hexcel remains robust. Backlog for new aircraft is at an all-time high, and every new commercial and military aircraft program brings more demand for advanced lightweight composite materials than the older generation it replaces. As defense budgets around the world continue to get stronger, this provides an additional tailwind for Hexcel. Given this landscape, we are extremely confident that with Hexcel’s unrivaled portfolio of technology and lightweight product offerings, and given the production footprint we already have in place, requiring minimal capacity increases over the next several years, there is a great opportunity for Hexcel to generate strong incremental margins, drive growing EBITDA, and generate significant free cash flow for many years to come.

We expect that we will generate over $1 billion of cash flow in the next four years. Hexcel has the technology, the lightweight product portfolio, customer relationships, the qualification, and the team to deliver as commercial production rates fully recover and defense spending increases. We appreciate your engagement with us today. With that, we’re ready to take your questions.

Conference Call Operator: Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press Star one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press Star one again. Please ensure that your phone is not on mute when called upon. We ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up.

Speaker 8: Thank you.

Conference Call Operator: Your first question comes from Ken Herbert of RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Speaker 0: Yeah, good morning, Tom and Patrick.

Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations, Hexcel Corporation: Good morning, Ken.

Speaker 0: Hey, Tom, or Patrick, just to.

Speaker 4: Start off, can you outline specifically what?

Speaker 0: The assumption is on either build rates or delivery rates or sort of the growth in the second half for the A350 program?

Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations, Hexcel Corporation: Yes, Ken, sure. As we said, that’s a program that has changed. Airbus announced back in November that they were bringing down their schedule, and then in February, they announced again another reduction in the schedule. We had built our plan around 84, and we dropped that to 60 at our last call. What we’re seeing now is something in the low 60s for the full year. We do see that we think that destocking should end in the third quarter. Airbus has said that they’re going to get to seven aircraft per month in the September timeframe. We’re expecting a pretty strong fourth quarter, probably 20, 21 units in the fourth quarter of demand pull from us. That’s how we see the year shaping out.

It’s lower than we originally thought, but we do see with Airbus planning to increase rates to 7 in September, that Q4 should be pretty strong as we get past the destocking.

Great.

That’s very helpful.

Speaker 0: Is there any reason to think that we shouldn’t see continued growth within the defense space and other portfolio in the back half of the year? I think the run rate’s been very nice to start the year.

Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations, Hexcel Corporation: It has been probably a little bit higher than we expected, and I think it should continue. I mean, defense spending around the world on all programs is going up. We are very encouraged with the Q2 results and extremely optimistic about the rest of the year.

Great.

Speaker 4: Thanks, Tom.

Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations, Hexcel Corporation: Thanks, Kim.

Conference Call Operator: The next question comes from David Egon Strauss of Barclays Bank PLC. Your line is open.

Thanks. Good morning.

Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations, Hexcel Corporation: Following up on Ken’s question there with Tom, with destocking that you’ve seen in, you know, the destocking on the A350 you’ve seen in Q1, Q2, what rate were you effectively shipping at in the first half of the year for the A350? The rate, it’s always a little bit different because we’re a little bit ahead of everybody by six, eight months just because of the type of material we provide. In the first quarter, the rates were kind of in the low sixes, and then in the second quarter in the high fives. Don’t forget, those are the rates, and what they actually ship can be different.

Conference Call Operator: And.

Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations, Hexcel Corporation: It also depends on whether they can ship sometimes. For example, they’ve talked about the fact that they have some shortages on laboratories or things like that. That can all impact it. Those are the kind of rates we saw, so low sixes in Q1 and kind of high fives in Q2.

Patrick Winterlich, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation: The thing I just mentioned is we’ve got a disparity between what we’re shipping in the U.S. and what we’re shipping in Europe. The destocking is largely Europe, and we were shipping at a lower rate in Europe, whereas we’re getting pulls still at a relatively high rate, a higher rate, in the U.S. as the Spirit plant catches up.

Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations, Hexcel Corporation: Okay, good. Just to clarify, those aren’t the stated Airbus rates. Those are the rates you’re actually shipping at.

Patrick Winterlich, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation: Yeah. What Tom was talking about is what we’re shipping at, and we’re shipping more in the U.S. than we are in Europe.

Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations, Hexcel Corporation: Let me clarify. This is the destocking aspect because what the stated Airbus rates are could be one level, but what they’re pulling from us because they’re destocking is another level. Our results kind of reflect the lower number, which is the destocking. Our results won’t reflect what Airbus is reporting as their shift rates because they are destocking. Yeah, perfect.

Patrick Winterlich, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation: That’s what I was getting at.

Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations, Hexcel Corporation: Thank you. Patrick, on currency, you’re still seeing a bit of a tailwind given your hedging. When would you expect the currency comparison to flip negative here, given the weakening in the dollar?

Patrick Winterlich, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation: We’ve seen, we have continued to benefit and it really does kind of speak for the merits of the currency hedging that we do. It was a tailwind again. I think we will actually continue to see a net tailwind this year. If rates stay where they are, we’re going to see that flip or start a flip, I think, next year in 2026.

Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations, Hexcel Corporation: David.

Thank you very much.

Conference Call Operator: The next question comes from Gautam J. Khanna with TD Cowen. Your line is open.

Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks. Good morning, guys. Was wondering to follow up on the prior two questions, do you guys have any expectations, can you give us any framework for thinking how the recoupling to underlying rates on the A350 progresses in 2026? Do you think you’ll be at that 7 issue rate that you implied for Q4 for much of 2026, irrespective of where Airbus is? I’m just curious, like, you know, there’s a destock and then there’s a recoupling. I’m just wondering the pace of.

Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations, Hexcel Corporation: Recoupling, if you will. Right. Our sense is that we’ll get through the destocking in Q3 and start to get closer in terms of that coupling that you mentioned in Q4 and through next year. Airbus looks like they’re going to enter 2026 at 7 on the A350, probably raise it to 8 sometime during the course of the year, and we’d expect that we’ll be closely more and more coupled with them throughout 2026.

Speaker 2: Gotcha. Okay. Just on the other major programs like the 787, can you update us on where you are and how you see that progressing into 2026, right?

Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations, Hexcel Corporation: To be honest, the first half year was probably a little soft for us on 787 just in terms of what they were pulling. Boeing is getting up to rate 7 and they have plans to continue all the way up to rate 10 and beyond. Again, we’re expecting the back half of the year to be stronger on the 787. Boeing has been reporting very strong production rates on that. Our pull was probably a little softer in Q1 and Q2, but the production rates on that program look very strong and are expected to grow.

Speaker 2: I think you mentioned something on the pricing side in your prepared remarks. Is there any reset that you can point to with respect to a time? Is it like in 2026, you start to see kind of a reset on pricing or anything you can speak to on how pricing might change and when?

Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations, Hexcel Corporation: Right. As I mentioned, our average contract length is about seven years. We’re doing about 15% or 20% of the contract renewals every year. When contracts come up, we always take the opportunity to reset the terms and also negotiate price to reflect some of the inflation that we’ve been seeing, make sure we’re getting a fair return on our investment. It’s an ongoing gradual process, about 15% or 20% of the contracts per year. The one exception on that would be some of our Airbus contracts. Our bigger Airbus contracts, including for the A350, are set up till 2030, so that’s a slightly longer term. Those contracts go back at least. The A350 contract originally goes back to 2008. That was a very long term contract going forward. That’s not been the case.

Our contracts, as I said, average about seven years now and about 15% or 20% come up each year for renewal.

Speaker 2: it. Thanks so much. I appreciate it, guys.

Conference Call Operator: The next question comes from Myles Walton with Wolfe Research. Your line is open.

Speaker 4: Thanks.

Speaker 0: Good morning, Tom. You mentioned the award from Airbus for the best supplier for schedule and quality. I’m just curious, how do you use that to your advantage, and what conditions on the ground would have to exist such that on your Airbus contracts in particular, because they’re so onerous and so long dated, where you would say we’re your best supplier, we’re not getting value for what we’re delivering, and we need to renegotiate.

Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations, Hexcel Corporation: I think the key right now for commercial aerospace for Boeing and Airbus is to get the production rates back up. To do that, they need the supply chain delivering and performing. We’re very proud on Airbus, as I mentioned, that we received an award for best performer, and this was in the materials category for our quality and delivery. That’s very important to support Airbus as they’re increasing the rates across all their programs. We’re going to continue to do that. At the same time, we always are working with our customers, including Airbus, to drive productivity. Even though our contracts in the case of Airbus aren’t due to 2030, we’re constantly working productivity initiatives where we can jointly share the benefit. The contracts do go through 2030, but that doesn’t mean we’re not working productivity to drive mutual benefit in the meantime.

Speaker 0: Okay, just to circle the square on the A350 deliveries. In 2021 in the fourth quarter, you’re shipping probably something like 10 in the third quarter. Is there any risk internally for that kind of 50% upslope that you anticipate, or is that something that’s not really a test of the system for you?

Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations, Hexcel Corporation: Not an issue. We’ve got plenty of capacity in place. We’ve got a trained workforce, and that’s one of the things. I mean, because the volumes have been a little bit lower than we expected, we’re essentially overstaffed. We could have probably taken out 50 or 100 people, but we didn’t because we know the rates are going up in the back half and we’re going to need those folks. We didn’t want to have to rehire and retrain them, but we are, absolutely. We’ve got enough capacity and staffing to meet the demands as they come up in Q4 2025, but also all 326.

Speaker 0: Okay, and one last one, Patrick. The $24 million in restructuring, how much of that is cash that you have to spend in the second half?

Patrick Winterlich, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation: Yeah, a large majority of it, 85% to 90%, will end up as cash, and majority of that cash I would expect to move in the third quarter. Myles.

Speaker 0: Okay, thank you.

Conference Call Operator: The next question comes from Michael Frank Ciarmoli with Truist Securities. Your line is open.

Speaker 0: Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking the question. Just a further clarification on the A350. Does the full year guidance contemplate low 60s or do you think you end up at?

Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations, Hexcel Corporation: At 68?

Speaker 0: From a seasonality perspective, does 3Q look a lot weaker across the board than normal?

Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations, Hexcel Corporation: Q3 does look weaker. We’ve got the destocking, as Patrick mentioned, you’ve got the seasonal holidays that always take place in Europe. Q3 does look softer. Yes, the full year, we think, is kind of low to mid-60s overall. As I said, we’re expecting a fairly strong Q4. Airbus is planning a rate break to 7 in September, and the destocking should really be behind us by that point. Q4 should be strong, and that leads into 2026. Okay, okay.

Speaker 0: Just for clarification, the tariff headwind, I mean, it sounds like you’re trying to offset. You’ve got some regional sourcing, but kind of indicated you’re starting to feel it. How should we think about just the earnings guidance, do we think the low end comes into play or is that range doable if you kind of get the full brunt of tariffs?

Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations, Hexcel Corporation: Right. The tariffs, they’re changing frequently, and we’re trying to keep up and figure out what they are. As we said, the direct impact on us is about $3 million or $4 million a quarter. There’s three quarters. We said we’re at the low end of the range this quarter. We anticipate, given things in the outlook right now, maybe it’s $10 million, but we don’t know. We didn’t include it in the guidance just because it could be smaller or larger. We just don’t know. Based on where the negotiations end up, we’ve left it out, but you could probably extrapolate and say it could be up to $10 million. Our EPS target is $1.95, and there could be some pressure that brings us toward the lower end of the range if the full tariff impact hits. We just don’t know.

We didn’t want to build it into the guidance and then have to change it based on what we learned. We’ll know more in the next few months. It seems like some of the deals are coming through, and that will provide more clarity. To put it in right now just seemed to us to be a little bit premature, especially since it’s only $3 million or $4 million a quarter and we’re at the low end of the range.

Speaker 0: Got it.

Conference Call Operator: Helpful.

Speaker 0: Thanks guys.

Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations, Hexcel Corporation: Thanks, guys. Thanks.

Conference Call Operator: The next question comes from Richard Tobie Safran with Seaport Research Partners. Your line is open.

Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations, Hexcel Corporation: Thanks, Tom.

Speaker 4: Patrick, Kurt, good morning. I just have one two-part question for you guys on defense this morning. First, Tom, you touched on this a couple of times for 2025 this morning, but could you discuss a bit more about how the administration spending on defense and the increases you’ve been mentioning in European defense spending impact your longer-term outlook? You know, given the increase in U.S. and Europe, I just would have to think it’s infinitely better than when you started the year. Second, would you be willing to provide some comment on your view of the long-term growth and margin potential for your defense business? Thanks.

Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations, Hexcel Corporation: There is no doubt that the defense spending has increased. The recent budget has a higher amount and then there are the supplemental funds as well. I think that is definitely driving the current performance and the outlook for the rest of the year. There is no doubt about that. We are seeing strength across the board in some of our big programs like the CH-53K where we do the whole material system, or the F-35 where we provide all the carbon fiber for the material system. Some of the space and the missiles have also been strong. We expect that to continue, if not accelerate, because the underlying defense spending and the demand is so great. We are also seeing that in Europe we have a big work share on the Rafale program, which is the fighter jet from Dassault.

That was up a lot and the demand for that is up significantly. Many countries are turning to that aircraft as they go forward. We expect that to continue throughout the year. I do not know if it will be the same level of increase that we saw in Q2, but we certainly expect to see strength. As we translate that into the long term, I think that is a key aspect. Right now defense is about 30-35% of our total revenue. We see that as a potential big opportunity for growth organically and potentially inorganically as we go forward. I think this long term trend in increased defense spending both in the U.S. and in Europe is going to benefit our defense growth in the future. We see that probably as our top core organic growth opportunity is defense, both in the U.S. and in Europe.

By the way, it is not just Europe. We also have some very good defense contacts in Turkey and India and we expect those to continue to grow as well.

Speaker 4: Thank you very much, Tom. Appreciate the color.

Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations, Hexcel Corporation: Thank you.

Conference Call Operator: The next question comes from Scott Deuschle with Deutsche Bank AG. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning, Patrick. To get to the midpoint of the EPS guide, I have to assume something like a 45% incremental operating margin in the back half, I guess. Does that math sound directionally right? If it is, can you walk through what’s going to drive that type of operating leverage? Thank you.

Patrick Winterlich, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation: Yeah, we clearly need a step up.

Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations, Hexcel Corporation: In the second half.

Patrick Winterlich, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation: We’ve got the seasonality sales effect in Q3, but with cost and management, we will drive as solid a Q3 as we can. As Tom has said at least a couple of times this morning, we’re leaning into a strong fourth quarter as we exit the year, as the build rates go up, as the widebodies kind of move towards 7, the 320 moves towards 60, and hopefully we’re sort of getting aligned on the 38 on the MAX. That should drive pretty strong leverage as we exit the year and deliver what we see as a positive fourth quarter. Yeah, I agree roughly with your numbers. As Tom said, sort of the 195 or less. The tariff impact is really where we’re expecting to finish the year.

Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations, Hexcel Corporation: Okay, Patrick, can you give.

The latest split in cost of goods sold between energy, raw materials, direct labor, overhead, and the like? Has energy become a meaningfully larger share of that cost breakdown, or has that been fairly stable as a percentage of your overall cost of goods sold?

Patrick Winterlich, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation: Yeah, I mean, we’ve never shared the details of that, but materials continues to be the largest part of our COGS, followed by people costs, labor costs. I mean, energy is still single digit, I’ll say that much. I think we’ve indicated that before. It stepped up with the European impact of the Ukraine war a few years ago now, and it’s still at that level. It hasn’t, certainly hasn’t materially changed in the last year or two, but it’s in that sort of mid, just above mid single digit level.

Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations, Hexcel Corporation: Okay, thank you.

Conference Call Operator: The next question comes from Scott Stephen Mikus of Melius Research LLC. Your line is open.

Morning, Tom and Patrick. Tom, to dig in a little bit on the pricing protections and the LTA negotiations. Historically, some suppliers have had to pass back productivity, Boeing and Airbus, as part of their LTAs, and you mentioned that some of your Airbus contracts, you’re sharing the productivity benefits with them. As you renegotiate these LTAs when they come due or you bid for new programs, are you making sure that you get to keep the productivity that you drive in your own four walls?

Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations, Hexcel Corporation: I would say as we get into renegotiations, trying to learn from the past, we’re building in volume adjustments because certainly that was a big issue from the pandemic. We’re also looking to ensure that there’s appropriate escalation protection for things like inflation in labor or material, or if we were just talking energy or logistics or tariffs, as we have learned. Those are some of the ways that we’re looking at it. The thing on productivity is that this is a tough industry and you always need to be running fast to stand still. Our customers expect ongoing productivity. If we can get buying protection and we can get escalation protection, we certainly have to be willing to work jointly with them to get productivity that we share.

That’s been a hallmark of our contracts with all of our big customers in the past, and I expect it will be in the future as well.

Patrick Winterlich, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation: Yeah, because you have to remember, Scott, most of the time with all our qualified products and processes to make changes, we need the cooperation of our customers. If we can do it in house, and it’s purely in house, then yes, we would keep it. The vast majority of the time to speed up our lines, change our parameters, we need those signed off and approved by the customer. We do tend to work with them. To Tom’s point, ultimately it’s a competitive advantage if we can give them some benefit as well as clearly keep as much as we can for ourselves. Normally we do have to collaborate.

Okay. Thinking about build rates, we saw GE raised its commercial OE sales growth and reaffirmed the LEAP delivery guidance. Boeing’s production rates have been surprising to the upside. You mentioned the A350 destocking too.

Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations, Hexcel Corporation: Be over by the fourth quarter.

Could we see a possibility maybe in early 2026 where you start to see a restocking benefit actually on the 737 MAX and 787, while destocking on the A350 is entirely behind you?

When you say restocking, just the build rates going up.

Customers, some of the sub suppliers that you ship to maybe have burned down excess inventory and need to rebuild higher levels of buffer inventory.

To support future higher production rates. I mean, it remains to be seen. I think the goal for everybody is to synchronize and get everybody on the same production rates as we go forward. We’re not quite there yet, but getting closer. I don’t think so. I think the goal for everybody in the supply chain is to get synchronized so that we’re all at the same rates, not different parts of the chain building at different rates.

Patrick Winterlich, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation: Restocking is a very gradual process, Scott. It takes time. There might be a little bit of it, but it’s not like destocking, which is tough, abrupt, and significant. Restocking is very gradual over a period of time as the network, as the supply chain builds up for higher rates.

Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations, Hexcel Corporation: I would say just to your point, we are starting to see this inflection point with the rates going up in a sustained way across all the major programs at Boeing and Airbus. That is very positive. We’re still in the kind of final throes here of the destocking on the A350, but it looks very strong for Q4, as we’ve said, and into 2026. It’s not just the A350, the A320neo, the 787, 737 MAX. It’s been a long recovery period, but we’re finally getting to the point where it’s going up.

Thanks for taking the questions.

Conference Call Operator: The next question comes from Sheila Karin Kahyaoglu with Jefferies LLC. Your line is open.

Speaker 1: Good morning, guys, and thank you. Tom, Patrick, sorry, I’m going to ask you to do some math on this, because all this capacity and headcount had me thinking. When we look at your headcount per aircraft, it’s actually flat versus 2019 levels. Obviously, headcount is down because revenues are down, but the actual number of aircraft people produce are the same. It implies that you’re actually getting a net price decline of 6% where other companies in the sector are probably up multiples of that. I guess how do we think about when that fixes itself to get the margins back up, not only based on volume, but this contract renewal process, Tom, if that makes sense.

Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations, Hexcel Corporation: I think there’s two things going on. One is just operating leverage, because if you go back to 2019, we peaked in terms of our revenue and our production. We shipped 112 A350s and our revenue was $2.35 billion. We had all the capacity in place to support that level of production. Where we are now is a much different place. Obviously, last year Airbus delivered 57 A350s, and so we’re utilizing only a portion of the capacity, probably 2/3 to 3/4. We’re not getting the operating leverage that we should get, both in terms of headcount, but overall. That’s what’s impacting our margin. I think as our margins, our revenues, and build rates recover to where they were in 2019, you’ll see us get the operating leverage, and that will improve revenue per headcount, and it will also improve margin.

As we’ve said, because we’ve experienced some inflation in labor and in material and in utilities, even when we get back to the previous levels of revenue, we’re still going to have some headwinds. Couple hundred basis points of headwind on margin. That’s what we’re working to offset with our future factory initiative. Ultimately, as we get to the renewal period for our contracts, the goal is to use price to help offset some of that as well. That’s how I would lay it out.

Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense. If I could ask, as the destocking alleviates itself from the Q2 levels, what program has the most operating leverage? How do we think about the Belgian factory payback?

Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations, Hexcel Corporation: The destocking, it’s really an A350 story for us. Primarily, it’s our biggest program. We invested significant amounts of money from 2010 to 2019 to support the industrialization, to go up to 13 aircraft per month. The rates have been far below that, as you know, since the pandemic. That’s the biggest issue in terms of operating leverage. I’d say A350 has probably been the biggest issue in terms of destocking. Just to give you some quick math, it’s not perfect, but look at last year’s numbers. We reported that our results for the A350, we delivered about 72 ship sets in 2024. Airbus only delivered 57. It’s not an exact comparison, but that’s essentially what’s destocking right now. Got it.

Speaker 1: Thank you so much.

Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations, Hexcel Corporation: Thanks.

Conference Call Operator: The next question comes from Gavin Eric Parsons of UBS Investment Bank. Your line is open.

Speaker 0: Great, thank you.

Speaker 4: Morning, Tom.

Speaker 0: Pretty healthy pace of buybacks, but I thought in the prepared remarks you maybe sounded a little more front footed on M&A. Just wanted to know how you think about that trade off and how you’re contemplating size of maybe bolt ons for something more significant.

Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations, Hexcel Corporation: Right. M&A. As I said, we’re looking at it. We think it could be a good complement to the organic growth that we’re going to experience, both from the recovery and build rates and the growth in defense spending. We’re going to be very disciplined. We’re going to look for things that are strategic, that advance our advanced material science focus, have a heavy emphasis on aerospace and defense, and meet our return thresholds, which are quite high. If we can’t find something that fits that criteria, we have been doing share buybacks and will continue. That’s how we’re thinking about it. We think it could be a good complement if the right opportunity surfaces. We’re going to be very disciplined, and in the absence of that, we’ll continue to fund our productivity, our innovation, our organic growth, and then continue to do share buybacks on a selected basis.

Speaker 0: Okay. It seems like Kinston is the main bottleneck on the A350. Wonder if you could share some insights on the improvement timeline given your familiarity with that facility, and if you think that’s contingent upon.

Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations, Hexcel Corporation: The transaction closing, I think Airbus has pointed to that in the past, but they could probably provide more insight onto it. One thing they’ve said is that once the deal closes and they take full control of that operation, they’ll be able to drive more productivity. I think that’s probably the case.

Speaker 0: Thank you.

Conference Call Operator: The next question comes from Ron Epstein of BofA Securities. Your line is open.

Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations, Hexcel Corporation: Hi, guys.

Speaker 0: This is Alexander Christian Preston on for Iran Today. Good morning.

Speaker 4: I was wondering, we talked a little.

Speaker 0: Bit about the direct impact of tariffs. Maybe if you’re considering, are you seeing any impact indirectly on, I’m thinking especially like Airbus demand in the U.S. and sort of maybe how you’re thinking about that in the early stages here.

Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations, Hexcel Corporation: As we said in the past, that’s our bigger concern is not the direct impact of tariffs on us, but if there’s any indirect impact that could impact build rates for Airbus or Boeing. At this point, it doesn’t look like that will be the case. We need to wait and see. Obviously, there is no deal yet with the European Union. We’ll have to wait and see what that is and then what the treatment is of aerospace trade that goes back and forth. One thing I’ll say is over the years, aerospace has been a great industry for the U.S. It’s probably the biggest net importer for industrial industries with over $120 billion of net exports, and it’s relied on zero tariffs. That served the industry well. We’ll see where we end up. At this point, it’s hard to say.

For us, as I said, the direct impact of tariffs is relatively minimal or $4 million a quarter. The indirect could be bigger, but we don’t know what that could be yet.

Speaker 0: Got it. Thanks for the help.

Conference Call Operator: The next question comes from Kristine T. Liwag of Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

Speaker 8: Hey, good morning, everyone. Maybe I’ll kick off with a currency question. Can you remind us your mismatch with your European business? How much of the European footprint are actually sold in dollars? If you could remind us regarding your hedging policy, how much are you hedged for this year and next year? If we see the dollar be weaker for longer, how should we expect that to result in your margins?

Patrick Winterlich, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Hexcel Corporation: Yeah. We enter a year roughly 75% hedged. If I look at 2025, for the back half of 2025, we are going to be hedged more than that at this point with just those two quarters remaining. We’re probably 80%, 85% hedged, if not 90% now through the end of 2025. We’re building up our hedge profile for 2026, and by the end of this year, as I said, I would expect to enter 2026 around 75% hedged. The vast majority of our sales in Europe are in dollars, and with the decline of the wind energy business, that was actually a source of euros that has now gone away. If anything, our need to sell dollars to cover our European cost base in euros and pounds has actually grown a little bit. Not massively, but it’s grown a bit. Our hedging policy remains the same.

It’s very disciplined, over 10 quarters, and we layer it in each quarter as we move forward. In terms of putting a magnitude on things, yes, ultimately, if the dollar stays weaker, that will be a marginal headwind, certainly to where we are today. I’m not going to speculate onto the size of that at this juncture.

Speaker 8: Great, thank you. If I could follow up on the contract negotiations. Tom, hearing from your tone, it sounds like you’re a bit more conservative or maybe more balanced regarding these contract negotiations with your customers as these contracts roll off. When we’re talking to other industry players and other suppliers, they seem to be a lot more optimistic that there’s significant pricing increases for these contracts as the OEMs really want to ramp. I guess I want to understand, when you’re doing these contract negotiations, are there offsets that you have to factor in? Why can’t you get more pricing through when it seems like a lot of your peers are getting that pricing? Ultimately, the OEMs can’t really change out their material input at this point. They’re pretty, you’ve got that strategic advantage. Why can’t you get more pricing?

Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations, Hexcel Corporation: As you go into any contract negotiation, your goal is always to maximize the value of the contract. Of course, you have to negotiate that with the other party, and there are trade offs to be made. Our goal is always to make sure that we get a fair price that reflects the value we provide and the huge investment that we’ve made, and also takes into account the cost increases that we’ve seen over the last years in labor, material, utilities, and logistics. The goal is always to maximize price, and you take into some account other considerations. For example, this is a long cycle business and there are only a few players in it, and the programs come up only once every few decades.

We’re always also trying to get on the next program, and the next program, of course, is going to be the narrow body, and that’s going to be a huge program. That’s another trade off that you factor in. Again, our goal, Kristine, I can assure you, is always to maximize price in the contract negotiations, subject to where our counterparties will let us go.

Speaker 8: Thank you, Tom, and good luck.

Kurt Goddard, Vice President, Investor Relations, Hexcel Corporation: Thanks.

Conference Call Operator: That is all the time we have for questions. This concludes today’s conference call. We thank you for joining. You may now disconnect.

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