Aptiv Q4 2025 Earnings Call - VersaGen Spin April 1 Anchors 2026 Reset, Modest Growth Amid FX, Commodity, and Memory Headwinds

Conference Operator: Good day and welcome to the Aptiv Q4 2025 earnings call. Today’s conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Betsy Frank, Vice President Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Betsy Frank, Vice President Investor Relations, Aptiv: Thank you, Jess. Good morning, and thank you for joining Aptiv’s Q4 2025 earnings conference call. The press release and related tables, along with the slide presentation, can be found on the Investor Relations portion of our website at aptiv.com. Today’s review of our financials excludes amortization, restructuring, and other special items, and will address the continuing operations of Aptiv. The reconciliations between GAAP and non-GAAP measures are included at the back of the slide presentation in the earnings press release. Unless otherwise stated, all references to growth rates are on an adjusted year-over-year basis. During today’s call, we will be providing certain forward-looking information that reflects Aptiv’s current view of future financial performance and may be materially different for reasons that we cite in our Form 10-K and other SEC filings. We will begin today’s call with a strategic update from Kevin Clark, Aptiv’s Chair and Chief Executive Officer.

Then Varun Laroyia, Aptiv’s Chief Financial Officer, will cover our results and guidance in more detail. We’ll then have brief remarks from Joe Liotine, VersaGen’s Chief Executive Officer, before Kevin and Varun take your questions. With that, I’d like to turn the call over to Kevin.

Kevin Clark, Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Aptiv: Thanks, Betsy, and thanks everyone for joining us this morning. Starting on slide 3, we capped off 2025 with another solid quarter in which we seamlessly navigated ongoing changes in the macro environment. Our resilient operating model, which leverages our industry-leading engineering innovation, integrated global supply chain and manufacturing footprint, and best-in-class commercial capabilities, enables us to execute flawlessly in this dynamic environment. As we discussed at our recent Investor Day, we’ve been successfully leveraging our product portfolio and operating model to penetrate non-automotive markets, where the shared secular trends of automation, electrification, and digitalization are aligning customer needs for mission-critical applications across automotive, A&D, telecom, industrials, and other markets. Our momentum continued during the fourth quarter across all segments, as reflected by our partnership announcements with two robotics companies, Robust.AI and Vecna Robotics, spanning sensing, compute, and software in intelligent systems.

The launch of our modular connector series, developed jointly by our automotive and aerospace teams and engineered components for multiple end-market applications, and a new business award for energy storage and management in electrical distribution systems. Overall, we posted strong bookings in the quarter, validating customer confidence in our operating model across both geographic regions and end markets. During the quarter, we finalized a leadership team for our electrical distribution systems business, which remains on track to spin out as VersaGen on April 1st, under the leadership of Joe Liotine, who you’ll hear from in a moment. We’re confident that VersaGen is well-positioned to deliver continued value to their customers and create value for their shareholders. Turning to our financial highlights, we reported record fourth-quarter revenue of $5.2 billion, an increase of 3%, reflecting strength across multiple areas of our business.

Adjusted Operating Income totaled $607 million, as flow-through and volume growth and strong operating performance helped offset stronger-than-anticipated headwinds from FX and commodities. Combined with lower net interest expense and a lower share count, earnings per share totaled $1.86. Lastly, we generated $818 million of operating cash flow, more than half of which we deployed toward share repurchases and debt reduction. Varun will discuss each of these in more detail a bit later. I’d like to turn to slide 4 to touch on our achievements during 2025 and review the progress we made further strengthening our business model and increasing shareholder value.

First, we continue to enhance our product portfolio with the launch of a number of new innovations across each of our segments, including interconnect product lines that leverage our expertise in both the automotive and aerospace markets, next-generation sensing and AI-powered software solutions that deliver market-leading performance at a competitive cost for applications across a broad range of end markets, and lastly, high-power distribution solutions for applications in energy storage. Second, we continue to gain new business with target automotive OEMs and further penetrate higher-growth, higher-margin non-automotive markets, as reflected by almost $4 billion of new business bookings with leading local China OEMs, new business awards with non-China Asian OEMs that totaled just under $4 billion, representing an increase of 20% over the prior year, and non-automotive new business bookings that reached more than $4 billion.

Third, we continue to strengthen our operating model to further enhance our execution capabilities and enable profitable growth, including the continued enhancement of our supply chain digital twin with 95% visibility down to at least Tier 3 levels and 99% of our semiconductor supply chain down to Tier 5 level, the opening of a new engineering technical center in Chennai, India, to support our growing software and services business, and further optimization of our manufacturing footprint through the consolidation of 7 facilities in North America, EMEA, and Asia-Pacific, all which enabled us to deliver record financial performance, including the impact of headwinds associated with tariffs, FX, and commodity prices, further complemented by disciplined capital allocation, which Varun will talk about in more detail shortly. Moving to slide 5 to review our new business bookings.

As expected, customer awards were strong in the fourth quarter, leading a record second half of the year bookings, bringing full-year new business awards to $27 billion, short of our target of $31 billion, a result of customer awards shifting to the first half of 2026 as we previewed in the last quarter. Customer awards were strong across each of our segments and were highlighted by awards in the China market totaling $5 billion, of which almost $4 billion was with the leading local China OEMs, awards with Japanese and Korean OEMs that totaled $3 billion, representing a mid-single-digit increase over the prior year, and new business bookings in the rapidly growing India market, which increased significantly to over $800 billion. We exited the year with a large and growing pipeline of commercial opportunities and expect 2026 bookings for total Aptiv, including VersaGen, to increase to over $30 billion.

Let’s now review each segment in more detail. Moving to slide 6 to review fourth quarter and full-year highlights for our intelligent systems segment. A couple of notable program and product launches in the quarter include numerous launches of local China OEMs across our product portfolio, including a Gen 7 Radar launch with a time-to-market of just 4 months, a smart camera launch also leveraging Wind River VxWorks, and launches that leverage local China for China solutions for SOCs and software. The launch of an interior sensing system for a leading commercial vehicle OEM incorporating advanced biometric and attention monitoring software features, the launch of new ADAS software features on an existing system for a leading European OEM, and the introduction of next-generation radar solutions, as well as the Wind River Cloud Platform for AI-ready private cloud applications.

Moving to new business bookings, which were principally driven by strong demand for our active safety products, a Gen 6 ADAS system award spanning multiple models and variants for a leading Indian commercial vehicle OEM that includes the full software stack and Gen 8 Radar solution, a next-generation high-performance compute solution spanning multiple platforms developed in partnership with a top global OEM, and a full-stack ADAS system for a large Korean OEM incorporating Aptiv software and sensors reflecting the continued expansion of our technology partnership. In addition, we announced multiple new partnerships featuring integration with our innovative sensing solutions such as Pulse, Advanced Compute, and Wind River’s software suite, with Vecna Robotics to co-develop next-generation autonomous mobile robots, or AMRs, enhancing safety, intelligence, and cost-effectiveness across warehouses and factories, and Robust.AI to co-develop AI-powered cobots accelerating innovation in warehouse and industrial automation.

We’re encouraged by the momentum we have in the robotics sector and look forward to sharing further developments during 2026. Lastly, Wind River established a strategic partnership with a leading global cybersecurity provider to jointly pursue next-gen software tech stack opportunities in the automotive market. Moving to slide 7 to review the fourth quarter and full-year highlights for our engineered components segment. Our product and program launches, as well as our new business awards, validate the strength of our product portfolio and operating capabilities across multiple end markets.

Notable new product program launches during the quarter include the LightSpeed single pair Ethernet technology for applications across increasingly connected and space-constrained end markets such as A&D, industrial automation, and next-gen mobility, a compact connector featuring high-speed data interfaces for seamless integration with sensors for Japanese OEMs’ SUV models, a next-generation safety-critical rapid power reserve for a local Chinese OEM’s all-electric SUV, and a high-voltage connector launch for a European OEM’s global EV platform. New business bookings included a modular connector award for a major European OEM, enabling scalability across platforms to support next-gen architectures, an award from a leading North American OEM on their top-selling truck and SUV platform, including high-speed interconnects, connectors, and terminals, and a ruggedized high-performance interconnect award for use in marine applications, validating the lightweight, flexible, and highly durable nature of our products. Turning to slide eight to review our Electrical Distribution Systems segment.

New program launches reflected the strength of our new business awards over the past few years, including a launch for a high-volume SUV program for the leading North American-based global electric vehicle OEM, the launch of a BEV and extended-range EV for a local China OEM that are planned for export markets, a launch for a major India OEM’s premium SUV, and a complete low-voltage commercial vehicle launch for a next-generation high-performance agricultural vehicle.

Moving to new business awards would span all major geographic regions and include an award with a leading China-based global electric vehicle OEM for production in Europe, serving as a key enabler of their regional manufacturing expansion, an award with a leading European-based global OEM on their new software-defined vehicle architecture, an award for low and high-voltage content across brands, models, and powertrains for a Korean OEM, and lastly, an award for a high-efficiency energy storage solution engineered for grid optimization. In summary, we executed well throughout 2025 and finished the year with strong momentum in the fourth quarter. Each of our three segments is enhancing their market positioning, deepening their customer engagement, and broadening their revenue mix through the penetration of new end markets and regions. The customer awards we’ve received validate our strategy and the investments we’re making to capture the opportunity ahead.

I’ll now turn the call over to Varun to go through our financial results and our full-year and first-quarter guidance in more detail. Thanks, Kevin, and good morning, everyone. Starting with our fourth quarter financials on slide 9, Aptiv delivered solid financial results in the fourth quarter, reflecting our continued execution, focus on driving operational efficiencies, and reducing cost across our business. Revenues totaled $5.2 billion, an increase of 5% on a reported basis and up 3% on an adjusted basis. Adjusted EBITDA and adjusted operating income margin rates were in line with our Q4 outlook and down only modestly on an absolute basis year-over-year. This was entirely driven by the impact of unfavorable foreign exchange and commodities, which amounted to a 160 basis point headwind to margin in the quarter.

Excluding FX and commodities, our Q4 operating income margin would have been up 70 basis points versus prior year, reflecting flow-through on volume and ongoing performance improvements. Earnings per share totaled $1.86, an increase of 6% from the prior year, reflecting the benefit of share repurchases and lower interest expense from capital deployment initiatives over the course of the year, partially offset by a higher tax rate. Operating cash flow totaled $818 million, a decrease versus the prior year, owing to an increase in net working capital as we continued to invest in semiconductor inventory, as well as approximately $80 million in separation costs related to the upcoming spinoff of VersaGen. Turning to the next slide and looking at fourth quarter adjusted revenue growth on a regional basis. In North America, revenue grew 8% with double-digit growth in both intelligence systems and EDS.

In Europe, revenue was down 1% in line with vehicle production in the region and relatively comparable across our segments. In China, revenue was down 5%, reflecting the continued impact of unfavorable mix. That being said, our performance versus the market in China improved further this quarter, a positive sign as a team works to further enhance our customer mix. Of note, approximately 80% of our China new business awards in 2025 were from the local OEMs. Moving on to our segment performance on slide 11. Starting with Intelligent Systems, revenue of $1.4 billion increased 2% versus the prior year, predominantly driven by North America and the benefit of new program launches. Intelligent Systems operating income declined 17%, reflecting three items. First, investments across both product and go-to-market capabilities as we continue to expand into non-auto markets.

Second, the timing of engineering and commercial engineering credits and commercial recoveries. Third, unfavorable FX. For engineered components, revenue of $1.6 billion increased 1% versus the prior year. Operating income increased 8%, and margin expanded 60 basis points driven by flow-through on volume and continued performance improvements. This more than offset the impact of unfavorable FX and commodities, which were driven by higher copper, gold, and silver prices. Lastly, for our EDS business, revenue of $2.3 billion increased 5%, principally driven by North America. EDS operating income declined 2% year-over-year, and margin contracted 90 basis points. This was driven by a significant headwind from FX and commodities, as well as unfavorable labor economics, which were partially offset by performance improvements across manufacturing, material, and volume flow-through. Now let’s turn to cash flow before we discuss guidance.

Starting with slide 12, we generated $818 million of operating cash flow in the fourth quarter. The decrease versus the prior year was primarily owing to unfavorable working capital with investments to build semiconductor inventory. In some cases, this inventory build has been customer-required or even funded and has yielded dividends with our ability to mitigate supply chain constraints that have emerged in the industry. In addition, as we get closer to the spin, we incurred approximately $80 million of separation costs in Q4, bringing the year-to-date total to approximately $180 million. Nevertheless, our full-year operating cash flow remained robust at well north of $2 billion, which led to an elevated year-end cash balance of $1.9 billion. Our capital allocation efforts in 2025 were twofold. First, retiring $1 billion in debt to reduce our leverage following the accelerated share repurchase program.

In Q4 specifically, we retired approximately $150 million in debt through open market repurchases. Second, deploying $400 million towards share repurchases in the third and fourth quarters. This includes repurchasing 3.9 million shares in Q4, deploying approximately $300 million. As a reminder, since Q3 of 2024, with the accelerated share repurchase program, we have deployed approximately $3.5 billion towards share repurchases, reducing our share count by 20%. We remain committed to returning excess cash to our shareholders. Let’s turn now to our 2026 financial outlook. Our full-year 2026 financial guidance includes a view on total Aptiv, which we believe is important for continuity and comparison, as well as views on each of new Aptiv and VersaGen on a pro forma basis to provide visibility into our future state following the spin expected to be effective on April 1.

Starting with new Aptiv, we forecast revenue in the range of $12.8-$13.2 billion, up 4% to the midpoint, reflecting the benefit of new program launches, the abatement of certain headwinds that weighed on 2025 revenue growth, as well as improved end market and product mix. EBITDA and EBITDA margin are expected to be $2.42 billion and 18.6% at the midpoint. This includes approximately $50 million in stranded costs for the full year and $35 million of engineering and go-to-market investments we are making across our businesses as we continue to grow our non-auto revenues. Excluding stranded costs, new Aptiv pro forma margin would be up 30 basis points year-over-year, reflecting the benefit of volume flow-through and performance improvements, primarily in manufacturing and material. EBITDA margin will also reflect continued improvement in our business mix, specifically faster growth in software and services.

Adjusted earnings per share is estimated to be in the range of $5.70-$6.10, which assumes an effective tax rate of 18.5%. Please note that our new Aptiv EPS guidance does not incorporate the benefit of returning capital to shareholders through repurchases. However, it does incorporate the expectation that we will pay down approximately $1.9 billion in debt in 2026, funded principally from the VersaGen spin dividend proceeds of approximately $1.6 billion, with the remainder funded with cash on hand. Subsequent to this, both new Aptiv and VersaGen gross leverage is expected to be in the range of 2-2.5 times, in line with what we outlined at Invest Today. Free cash flow, measured as operating cash flow less capital expenditures, is estimated to be $750 million at the midpoint.

This is net of approximately $250 million in separation costs associated with the EDS spin to be settled in 2026 and a further $200 million investment in semiconductor inventory build. As we mentioned at the beginning of last year, we have worked diligently to strengthen the resiliency of our supply chain and invested to build semiconductor inventory coverage to approximately 12 weeks. This has positioned us well given the heightened concerns over an industry-wide DRAM shortage, and we see minimal impact to us from a supply perspective in 2026. While we are confident of our ability to build inventory and work on long-term solutions with our customers and suppliers, we do expect to see higher input costs related to semiconductors, which we will pass onto our customers.

Moving on to VersaGen, we forecast revenue in the range of $9.1-$9.4 billion, an increase of 2% at the midpoint versus a backdrop of vehicle production down 1% in 2026. We expect EBITDA and EBITDA margin of approximately $990 million and 10.7% at the midpoint. On a year-over-year basis, margin expansion is expected to be driven by flow-through on volume and manufacturing and material performance improvements, offsetting headwinds from labor economics, FX, and commodities. And lastly, free cash flow is expected to be $250 million at the midpoint, reflecting continued investments in footprint rotation and manufacturing automation that we discussed at Invest Today. Moving now to our first quarter guidance and expected cadence through the course of 2026. As a reminder, given the expected effective spin date of April 1, our first quarter results will be reported as total Aptiv.

We expect first quarter revenue for total Aptiv of $5.05 billion at the midpoint, reflecting adjusted growth of approximately 1%, with new Aptiv slightly above this range and EDS slightly below. Q1 revenue growth is below the full-year range, primarily owing to the cadence of expected global vehicle production in 2026. IHS forecasts vehicle production to be down 4% in Q1, which equates to down 2% on an Aptiv weighted market basis. We expect adjusted EBITDA and EBITDA margin of $740 million and 14.7% at the midpoint. This includes a 120 basis point headwind associated with FX and commodities, an earnings per share of $1.65 at the midpoint, and this reflects an effective tax rate of 20.5%.

For total Aptiv, the increase in the effective tax rate from 17.2% to 20.5% is attributable to the implementation of the Pillar 2 global minimum tax, though the cash tax rate is expected to be lower than the ETR by approximately 300 basis points. Finally, as I close, I’d like to reiterate that our resilient business model and relentless focus on optimizing performance, we remain confident in our ability to drive strong execution and financial results, as well as enhance shareholder value. And with that, I’d now like to hand the call to Joe Liotine for his thoughts on VersaGen.

Betsy Frank, Vice President Investor Relations, Aptiv: Thanks, Farron. It’s great to speak with all of you again. Since we last spoke, we’ve continued to work diligently to ensure a smooth transition ahead of our first day of trading as an independent company on April 1. As Kevin shared, EDS had a very good year in 2025. We posted solid revenue growth and expanded our EBITDA margins through continued progress on our operational initiatives, and drove another year of strong bookings, laying the foundation for future growth. We have momentum heading into 2026, and as an independent company with a strong financial profile, we’re confident in our ability to deliver value for shareholders. I look forward to meeting with many of you in the coming months. I’ll now hand it back to Kevin and Varun to complete the call.

Kevin Clark, Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Aptiv: Thanks, Joe. As I wrap up today’s call, I want to provide some additional context on 2025 and our outlook for 2026. Let me start by level setting on where we’ve been. During 2025, we continue to enhance the resiliency of our business model with the introduction of a broad range of market-relevant products and solutions, the continued increase in bookings with target customers across regions and end markets, excuse me, and the ongoing enhancement of our supply chain and manufacturing capabilities. During the year, we also illustrated our ability to execute in a dynamic environment. We navigated changes in geopolitical trends and global trade policies, as well as customer-specific challenges, and delivered earnings growth in the face of FX and commodity headwinds that were significantly larger than we had initially anticipated.

As we look ahead to 2026, we expect the macro environment to continue to remain dynamic, but with the strength of our operating model, we’re confident that we’re well positioned to execute our strategy. We’re poised to capture commercial opportunities that are higher growth and higher margin across multiple end markets, and we’ll continue to invest in our product portfolio and go-to-market capabilities to execute on these opportunities while also continuing to further optimize our cost structure and eliminate the stranded costs associated with the spin. 2026 is a very exciting year for both Aptiv and for VersaGen as we unlock value through formation of two independent, optimally positioned public companies. Our team remains relentlessly focused on navigating the challenges and opportunities ahead, flawlessly serving our customers, and delivering strong financial results that enhance shareholder value. Operator, let’s now open the line for questions.

Conference Operator: Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad. If you’re using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. We request that you limit your questions to one initial with one follow-up so that we may take as many questions as possible. Again, press star 1 to ask a question. We’ll pause for just a moment to allow everyone an opportunity to signal. And we’ll go first to Dan Levy with Barclays.

Dan Levy, Analyst, Barclays: Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. I wanted to start first with a question on your memory exposure because I think that’s top of mind for a lot of folks. You said that this wouldn’t really be an issue into 2027. Maybe you could just give us a little more insight into what percentage of your COGS memory is of RemainCo, and when your contract’s reset in 2027, what magnitude of impact this could be, and what is the line of sight to fully recovering all of those higher costs?

Kevin Clark, Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Aptiv: So it’s Kevin. Let me start with just sizing it. So to put it in perspective, the purchase value is roughly $175 million as we sit here, 2026. And the majority of that is DRAM 3 and DRAM 4. So those are the categories. Pricing or price increases for us in calendar 2026 are low double digits, and that’s the result of the supply chain management strategy that we’ve been implementing over the last couple of years that included higher inventory levels as well as longer-term contracts with our semiconductor suppliers. As we head into 2027 or look at 2027, those negotiations actually had started months ago. So we’re well ahead of kind of the current outlook for overall price increases. And we’re confident that we’ll be able to come in at a level that won’t be consistent with 2026.

It will be higher, but at a level that is certainly below the 100%-120% price increases that you’re hearing thrown around today. As it relates to whatever that price increase ends up being, we’ve been successful in the past, obviously, pushing through price increases or cost increases associated with various aspects or various inputs, including semiconductors. I think this is an area we’ve already had conversations with all of our OEM customers so that they understand the situation. And not that we won’t have to have some difficult conversations, but we’re highly confident we’ll be able to push those cost increases through to our OEM customers.

Dan Levy, Analyst, Barclays: Thank you. Just a reminder, you recovered 100% of your semi-inflation from the 2021 chip crisis?

Kevin Clark, Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Aptiv: Yeah, a little less than 100%, but pretty close.

Dan Levy, Analyst, Barclays: Great. Thank you. As a follow-up, I wanted to ask about the guide for new Aptiv into 2026. You’re guiding to an adjusted growth of 4%. It is at the low end of the range of the 4%-7% that you talked about at Investor Day. Maybe you could just give us a sense of what’s a little lighter in 2026 versus what accelerates into the out-years.

Varun Laroyia, Chief Financial Officer, Aptiv: Yeah. Hey, Dan. Good morning. It’s Varun Laroyia. Listen, with regards to RemainCo guide, if you go back to Investor Day, the 4-7 points growth that we had talked about through 2028, that remains intact, right? It really starts with RemainCo still has about three-quarters of its business in the auto industry. And as you think about where expectations are for global vehicle production in 2026, and then in 27, 28, which it gets back to some level of growth, that’s kind of the starting point, number one. And then the second point I’d like to highlight is with regards to our non-auto revenues, those are growing strongly. On a full-year basis, 2025, non-auto grew about 8 points. And in the fourth quarter, our other industrial revenue growth grew faster than our commercial vehicle revenue grew for new Aptiv.

So that continues to grow and grow well, but again, it’s about a quarter of the business. So in the out-years, with the investments we’re making in both product but also in go-to-market, we expect that business to come through strongly. And finally, our software and services business continues to grow at mid-teens, which we are pleased with.

Kevin Clark, Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Aptiv: Dan, if I could just argue with what Varun just talked about, it comes down to vehicle production and assumption. If you look at where we were and IHS was for the 2026 calendar year back in October and November, on an average weighted market basis, our outlook was vehicle production up 1%. As we sit here today, our outlook and where IHS actually sits is actually on a comparable basis for vehicle production to actually be down 1%. So it’s that swinging global vehicle production and the weighting by market.

Dan Levy, Analyst, Barclays: Great. Thank you.

Conference Operator: We will move next to Emmanuel Rosner with Wolfe Research.

Emmanuel Rosner, Analyst, Wolfe Research: Great. Thank you so much. Good morning. Continuing on the outlook for the new Aptiv, I was wondering if you could just frame for us some of the puts and takes in the EBITDA outlook for 2026. Margins basically stable at midpoint, but obviously pretty decent organic growth. And then you have some puts and takes in terms of one-time cost, inflation, and some of the offset. So if you could just give us a sense of what that walk looks like, landing you around stable margins.

Varun Laroyia, Chief Financial Officer, Aptiv: Yeah. Emmanuel, it’s Varun Laroyia, our chair. Listen, as we think about new Aptiv 2026 versus 2025, here are some kind of key elements just to highlight for you. The first is just in terms of revenue growth, the volume that comes through associated with that, and obviously the EBITDA. That’ll kind of pick up just over a point, okay? Commodities are expected to be in negative in 2026 for RemainCo. Again, it’s a far smaller number associated with RemainCo versus VersaGen. So about 50 basis points is what we currently forecast with regards to EBITDA margin hit associated with that. We have our usual net price down. So think about the 1-1.5 points of what we typically have with net price downs. So that’ll be another that’ll be in negative associated with that.

And then we’ve talked about investments to grow our non-auto side of the business. This includes go-to-market and also engineering. But again, stranded costs, as I mentioned also, which is about 40 basis points or about $50 million. Offsetting this are other performance items such as manufacturing, material, and also labor economics that we see from a RemainCo perspective that will kind of help offset some of those pieces. So net-net, as you think about it, outside, excluding stranded costs, we do expect on a performance basis, Aptiv margins moving up on a year-over-year basis.

Emmanuel Rosner, Analyst, Wolfe Research: That’s super helpful. And then as a follow-up, would you be able to provide a similar framework for SpinCo?

Varun Laroyia, Chief Financial Officer, Aptiv: Yes. Yes, most certainly. Listen, from a SpinCo perspective, overall, 2026 versus 2025 margins are up. And if you were to take them at a midpoint basis, on a performer basis, up about 40 basis points, right? And it really starts with the volume associated with the growth that’s anticipated. So obviously, VersaGen, EDS, had a terrific 2025, finished the year strong, tremendous momentum in the business, great bookings coming through. And so from a growth perspective, roughly about the volume growth that comes through and the volume flow through that comes through is a positive. On the flip side of it, as I mentioned, commodities are expected to be in negative, roughly about 50 basis points, net price downs about 60 basis points, and then finally some standalone costs, which are roughly about $15 million that we talked about at Investor Day.

Again, offsetting these elements are performance items such as manufacturing, material, which will add back the better part of about 130 basis points of positive EBITDA. That kind of are the key elements to think through from a bridge perspective, 2025-2026.

Emmanuel Rosner, Analyst, Wolfe Research: Great. Thank you.

Conference Operator: We’ll go next to Itai Michaeli with TD Cowen.

Itai Michaeli, Analyst, TD Cowen: Great. Thank you. Good morning, everybody. Just to follow up on the last question, curious how you’re thinking about just the FX commodity impact on new Aptiv kind of beyond 2026. I think the targets for 2028, I assume the minimal impact in the 200 basis points of EBITDA margin expansion. Do you think that’s kind of recoverable beyond this year, or kind of how should we think about the kind of longer-term impact?

Kevin Clark, Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Aptiv: Yeah, definitely. I mean, we’re still confident in our ability to expand margins at RemainCo by 200 basis points and obviously to do the same in the VersaGen business. 2026, as it relates to RemainCo, obviously, there’s the impact of stranded cost that Varun talked about. There’s some incremental investment in engineering go-to-market capabilities that he walked through. Those are more 2026-related than they are 2027 and 2028. Stranded costs, obviously, will come out of the system in 2027 and be gone by 2028. There’s a bit more that comes out in 2027 than in 2026 as we sit here today. So Itai, we remain very confident in our ability to expand margins by 200 basis points.

Itai Michaeli, Analyst, TD Cowen: Terrific. Very helpful, Kevin. Then as a quick follow-up, hoping you can give us a little bit of a high-level view of how you see your revenue performing regionally this year. You’ve had very strong outperformance in North America. You mentioned China also improved sequentially. Hoping you get a little bit more color as to kind of how you see regional revenue progress this year. Thank you.

Varun Laroyia, Chief Financial Officer, Aptiv: Yeah. Itai, it’s Varun out here. Great question. And really what I’d point you towards is how we performed in 2025. If you think about North America, certainly global vehicle production well, vehicle production versus what our initial estimates were and where it finally ended up, certainly provided a tailwind for North America. But I think importantly, as you think about our non-auto revenue growth, software and services predominantly in North America. So from that perspective, I would probably share with you that North America will continue to lead the way. And then from a European perspective, based on where GDP is expected to be out there, roughly flat to slightly down. And then from a China perspective, our overall mix continues to improve with the China local OEMs, number one.

The second piece I’d kind of highlight about Asia-Pac and China in particular is we will end up lapping the couple of programs and intelligence systems that we had called out in the second quarter. Those will lap. And so we will expect to see a better second-half number come through from China. And finally, I’d say is and Kevin referenced this in his prepared comments, the growth that we are seeing with the Japanese OEMs, the Korean OEMs, and also in India, that again is strong coming through. And so as you think about 2026, North America, APAC, and then I’d say Europe will be flat to slightly down.

Itai Michaeli, Analyst, TD Cowen: That’s very helpful. Thanks so much.

Conference Operator: We will go next to Mark Delaney with Goldman Sachs.

Mark Delaney, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Good morning. Thanks very much for taking the question. You cited the S&P outlook for the production cadence this year as being consistent with your view that 1Q growth is slower than growth picks up beyond the first quarter. Can you speak more to what you’re seeing with OEM schedules and how much visibility APTIV has into that pickup starting in 2Q?

Kevin Clark, Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Aptiv: Yes. It’s Kevin. I’ll start, and Varun will provide you with more details. Obviously, as you look at the first quarter, at least 4-6 weeks out, we’re on customer schedules now. We have forecasts from most of our OEMs out for the full year. As we sit here today, the schedules support a relatively weak year-over-year market in the first quarter, right? So vehicle production being down roughly 4%. We’re seeing weakness, or we see weakness in China in line with what IHS is forecasting at this point in time. Beyond that, the forecasts we receive from our customers, we see continued strengthening into Q2, Q3, Q4. Those aren’t schedules that are locked in at this point in time, but as the quarter continues to evolve, we’ll get increasing visibility.

To the extent we’re out communicating in the open market, we’ll share updates to investors in terms of what we’re seeing from a market outlooks team. Right now, we would say it very closely mirrors exactly what we’re forecasting from a 2026 vehicle production standpoint.

Mark Delaney, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Thanks for that, Kevin. My other question was on the bookings. And you had spoken last quarter about the potential for some timing to shift into 2026, which came through. But maybe just talk a bit more on the broader bookings environment in terms of some of the programs that did shift. Anything in common that led to that? Is it more regionally driven, or any commonality by powertrain type that may be behind some of that shifting? And when you look at your win rates, to what extent is that tracking in line with your expectations and supportive of that longer-term growth that you laid out at the Investor Day? Thanks.

Kevin Clark, Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Aptiv: Yeah. Win rates continue to be strong. The shifting we saw in the fourth quarter related to programs in North America and Europe were well-positioned. We’re confident that those are programs that will be awarded. It’s just a matter of timing. I think when you’re in markets like we’ve been over the last year or so with the dynamics of trade, with tariffs, with for some products, shortages or tightness, for some OEM customers, if they’re having specific unique supply chain issues, the focus of the procurement organization tends to shift to managing those situations versus awarding business. But ultimately, if they don’t want to impact SOPs, business needs to be awarded so that engineering organizations can start working on those programs.

Mark Delaney, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Thank you.

Conference Operator: We’ll go next to Joseph Spak with UBS.

Joseph Spak, Analyst, UBS: Hi, Joe.

Conference Operator: Sir, your line is open. You may want to check your mute button.

Mark Delaney, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Sorry about that. Good morning, everyone. Just going back to the 2026 outlook, and Varun, I appreciate all the puts and takes. I just want to maybe dive in on a couple more things, specifically on the top line. For VersaGen, how much is copper helping the top line in that growth number, maybe FX for each company as well? And then we also saw some big numbers put out by some automakers in terms of cash they’re going to give to suppliers for canceled programs or lower volumes. Is any of that baked into your outlook? And if not, is that something you are those conversations you’re having and something you think you could expect to receive over the course of the year?

Kevin Clark, Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Aptiv: Let me start with the last, and then Varun can walk you through your first few questions. Listen, as it relates to commercial recoveries, that’s an activity in dialogue that, quite frankly, is going on with customers all the time as it relates to various, whether they’re distinct or unique programs that are canceled or other items. As it relates to some of the larger decisions, principally in North America, as it relates to EV programs, those are discussions that are underway now at this point in time. Certainly, the resolution of those is factored into our 2026 outlook. I wouldn’t consider it upside to our overall operating performance. They still need to be negotiated and finalized.

I think some of the larger programs with some of the OEMs that we deal with, especially in North America, I would say there’s strong agreement that the situation needs to be resolved, and they need to support the supply base. So I don’t think it’s a matter of negotiating those recoveries. It tends to be how much. So yes, they’re in our outlook at a level that we have high confidence in. But Joe, the nature of this business is there’s an amount of that activity that goes on year in and year out. And it could be things like labor economics, program cancellation, program delays, commodity pricing, things like that that maybe there isn’t a contractual mechanism to deal with that need to be dealt with separately.

James Picariello, Analyst, BNP Paribas: Let me pick up the first part of your question, Joe. With regards to commodities, and essentially from our perspective for VersaGen, it’s primarily copper. We expect copper as of now; we’ve budgeted that at $5.50 a pound versus a $4.51 number in actuals 2025. That leads to close to $200 million from a top-line revenue perspective. Though I do want to share with you and clarify, when we talk about a 2% growth at the midpoint for VersaGen, that is adjusted growth. So that excludes the impact of any FX or commodities.

Kevin Clark, Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Aptiv: Perfect. And the other thing, just from a mechanism standpoint, the way that works, Joe, is copper’s index. So roughly 70% of our overall activity where we sell copper, and principally in the EDS business, it’s index. That price increase is passed on to the customer, typically three, sometimes it’s six months, but more often than not, roughly on a three-month sort of delay. So that’s how it effectively plays out from a reimbursement standpoint and pricing standpoint.

Mark Delaney, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Okay. Maybe just one more because I know this sort of changed over the years, but it’s something that’s come into more focus of late with investors is the peso. Because I know you used to hedge a lot of that, then I think you started to let more of it flow. Can you just remind us sort of what the current status of that is and maybe the sensitivity to the peso as well?

James Picariello, Analyst, BNP Paribas: Yeah.

Mark Delaney, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: On labor. Yeah.

Kevin Clark, Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Aptiv: Yeah. Yeah. Listen, Joe, no, thanks for raising that. Again, listen, as we think about FX, with the weakening US dollar and our lack of an operational hedge, primarily for our VersaGen business, that’s where the peso hurts. As that if you’re going to go back to a year ago when we gave guidance for 2025, the peso was just shy of 21 to the US dollar. I think we had flashed a 20.75. And if you see where it’s currently tracking at sub-18, that certainly causes a ton of OI impact. Having said that, obviously, we do have hedges in place. And then for 2026 in particular, we are essentially hedged about 95% below 18, okay? And so that certainly lessens the impact up to a certain point.

But clearly, in 2025, given the volatility from the start of the year to where it ended up, it certainly was a big driver of the impact that we certainly called out and were transparent in terms of what that was.

Mark Delaney, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Yeah. Okay. Thanks so much for the call.

Conference Operator: As a reminder, if you did have a question, it is star one. We will move next to Colin Langan with Wells Fargo.

Colin Langan, Analyst, Wells Fargo: Oh, great. Thanks for taking my question. I think there was some concern heading into guidance about VersaGen - I don’t know if I’m saying that right - being down given EVs, particularly in North America, are expected to be down a lot. I mean, what are you assuming in terms of EV volumes? And then so what is actually keeping that growth positive if EV is sort of an underlying headwind within there?

Kevin Clark, Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Aptiv: Yeah. Our outlook for EV growth as a company is roughly 15% year-over-year. The majority of that growth is driven in China. It’s a mix of BEV and slightly faster growth rate in plug-in hybrids and in hybrids. Very low growth here in North America, moderate growth in Europe, and then stronger growth in Asia-Pacific, principally China. I think we’re roughly Colin, I think we’re roughly 5 or 6 points from a growth rate assumption standpoint below where IHS sits today.

Colin Langan, Analyst, Wells Fargo: Cool. Okay. Great. And then intelligence systems margins were surprisingly weak in Q4, particularly since normally, that’s a quarter where you get a lot of engineering recoveries. Any color on the weakness? And I guess more importantly, how should we think about margins into 2026 as they kind of bounce back, or?

Kevin Clark, Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Aptiv: Yeah. On a full-year basis, margins in intelligence systems were up 30 basis points if you exclude foreign exchange. So strong year-over-year growth. In the quarter, I think we had three impacts. Varun talked about foreign exchange. So we were impacted from a foreign exchange standpoint very significantly. I think it’s roughly 170 basis points that we show on our chart. And then there are two aspects from a timing standpoint. One, engineering credits actually were not as heavily weighted in the fourth quarter. I think in our Q3 earnings call, we made some commentary with respect to timing of engineering credits. And then second thing, just Varun mentioned, we’ve accelerated the investment in some engineering areas in and around technologies and solutions or bringing technologies and solutions into the robotics market.

So we have incremental investment in the fourth quarter that will increase and that will continue into the first quarter of this year and through the balance of 2026. So those are the three drivers of the year-over-year margin degradation for the intelligence systems business.

Mark Delaney, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: I guess FX and into Q1, the engineering investment continue. Those would be incremental headwinds as we think about that second margin?

Kevin Clark, Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Aptiv: Yeah. There’s some headwind for FX and commodities, much lower based on where we sit today than what we had in the fourth quarter. And then the engineering investment will continue.

Mark Delaney, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Got it. All right. Thanks for taking my questions.

Conference Operator: We’ll go next to James Picariello with BNP Paribas.

James Picariello, Analyst, BNP Paribas: Hi, everybody. I just want to clarify first on the stranded costs that’s embedded in the pro forma outlook because, yeah, adding the EBITDA midpoints of Aptiv and EDS, right, there’s a $75 million difference. Does that account for both the remaining COGS, $70 million in stranded costs, well, based on the analyst day, as well as the standup costs that EDS will have as a separate entity? Thanks.

Colin Langan, Analyst, Wells Fargo: Yeah. James, it’s Varun Laroyia. Yes. We call out about $70 million in stranded costs at investor day. Obviously, we’ve made progress both from a headcount and non-headcount actions. So those have been layered in. Some of those actions have already begun. But $50 million impact in the first full year on a pro forma basis for new Aptiv, that’s the 50. Small, I call it public company setup costs for VersaGen, roughly about $15 million. And then the other piece, as we called out, were some of the investments from a go-to-market perspective and product perspective that we’re making in regional COE across both intelligent systems and engineered components. Those are kind of the key elements to think about from that perspective.

James Picariello, Analyst, BNP Paribas: Perfect. That’s very clear. Then my follow-up is on Wind River and its potential with respect to robotics and just how you foresee that, the future end-market demand tied to AI and robotics, human-armed robotics. Does Wind River have a TAM there and a place to play? Thanks.

Kevin Clark, Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Aptiv: Yeah. So Wind River, I would say, is from a software standpoint, the tip of the spear. So they serve multiple markets, including the robotics markets today with Linux solutions, with RTOS solutions, and other software products. So it’s a TAM that we estimate to be about $6 billion. When you look at a comparable to our contemporary vehicle that we use for the automotive sector, it’s roughly $4,000-$5,000 of content on a robot. When we look at sensor solutions, when we look at so that could be vision or camera as well as radar. When we look at the software tech stack, and then when we look at the interconnect and the cable or wire harness solutions. So we view it as a very attractive market. The partnerships that we’ve announced to date, we’re making meaningful progress with.

We think during the first quarter, we’ll have more commercial relationships or partnerships that we’ll be announcing that will show the traction that we have in place. And that’s what, quite frankly, gives us the confidence to increase the investment targeted at that specific market, just given the opportunity.

James Picariello, Analyst, BNP Paribas: Thank you.

Conference Operator: That was our final question. That will conclude today’s question and answer session. I will now turn the call back over to Mr. Kevin Clark for any additional or closing remarks.

Kevin Clark, Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Aptiv: Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. We really appreciate your time. We look forward to speaking with you and meeting with you over the coming months. Have a nice day.

Conference Operator: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that will conclude today’s call. We thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at this time.