PHINIA Q1 2026 Earnings Call - Resilient Growth Amid Tariff Volatility and Aerospace Expansion

Operator: Good morning, welcome to the PHINIA first quarter 2026 earnings call. I am France, I’ll be the operator assisting you today. 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. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star 1 on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star 1 again. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Kellen Ferris, Head of Investor Relations.

Kellen Ferris, Head of Investor Relations, PHINIA: Thank you. Good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us. Our conference call materials were issued this morning and are available on PHINIA’s investor relations website, including a slide deck that we’ll be referencing in our remarks. We’re also broadcasting this call via webcast. Joining us today are Brady Ericson, CEO, and Chris Gropp, CFO. During this call, we’ll make forward-looking statements which are based on management’s current expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from these statements due to a variety of factors, including those described in our SEC filings. We caution on listeners not to place undue reliance upon any such forward-looking statements. With that, it is my pleasure to turn the call over to Brady.

Brady Ericson, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), PHINIA: Thank you, Kellen, and thank you everyone for joining us this morning. I will start with some highlights on the first quarter and discuss our strategy at a high level. Chris will provide additional details on our first quarter results and discuss our 2026 financial outlook. We will open the call for questions. The first quarter developed largely as we expected with highlights, including solid revenue growth from both Fuel Systems and Aftermarket, keeping us on track to achieve our full-year guidance. At the same time, we maintained a healthy balance sheet while paying dividends and repurchasing shares. While the environment continues to evolve rapidly, our teams are managing our business well and deliver results that strengthen our foundation for the long term. Our diversification across regions, customers, end markets, and products help offset variability in any single region or segment.

Now let’s jump into the 1st quarter results on slide 5. In the 1st quarter, PHINIA continued to demonstrate resilience in a mixed macro environment. Demand conditions across key end markets remained steady, supported by durable replacement cycle fundamentals and some encouraging green shoots in the commercial vehicle industry. At the same time, we navigated ongoing geopolitical and trade-related uncertainty, including tariff volatility, shipping disruptions, and regional production variability. We face these challenges with strong operational execution and disciplined cost management. For the 4th consecutive quarter, we delivered year-over-year growth in both the Aftermarket and Fuel Systems segments. Total net sales in the quarter were $878 million, up 10.3% from the same period of the prior year. Excluding FX impacts and the contribution of SEM, revenue was up 3.6%.

We reported Adjusted EBITDA of $115 million for the quarter, up $12 million and a margin of 13.1%. Total segment adjusted operating income was $107 million, with a 12.2% margin. The Fuel Systems segment delivered a strong quarter with sales of $549 million, up 12% and adjusted operating margin of 9.3%. The Aftermarket segment had sales of $329 million, up 7.5% with adjusted operating margin of 17%. Adjusted earnings per diluted share, excluding non-operating items, was $1.29 for the quarter, compared to $0.94 in the same period of the prior year, a 37% increase year-over-year. Closing out with a comment about our balance sheet. PHINIA continues to demonstrate financial stability and consistency.

We ended the quarter with a cash position of $328 million and total liquidity of $808 million. Our net leverage ratio was 1.4 times, nearing our target of 1.5 times. We returned $67 million to shareholders in the form of share repurchases and dividends. Our balance sheet provides financial flexibility to support future growth initiatives and return to shareholders. During the quarter, we also hosted a successful Investor Day in New York, 2 days after a historic blizzard, which in hindsight, may have been the universe’s way of testing whether investors were truly committed. They showed up. So did we. We were able to showcase the diversity of our products, our business model, and our long-term growth outlook. We had more than 200 live viewers watching from 30 countries.

All in all, it was a great experience for us and want to thank everyone who helped make such a wonderful inaugural Investor Day. In summary, while the external environment continues to evolve, we remain focused on the things that we can control. The first quarter performance underscored the durability and resilience of our business amid a rapidly changing global environment by serving a broad mix of regions, customers, end markets, and products. Moving to slide 6. We had a good quarter when it comes to new business, which reflects continued progress across multiple fronts. Importantly, we are continuing to grow with our existing customers while also bringing in new ones, and we’re starting to see real traction in some newer areas for us. Aerospace and defense is an area where we are incrementally winning business and building a presence with customers.

Recent wins highlight the strength of our offering and our ability to compete and win in adjacent markets with the same manufacturing human capital, as well as an important long-term growth opportunity. During the quarter, we were awarded a new program with a new customer for use in unmanned aerial drone. The program leverages our GDI injector technology to power the drone engine. It highlights our growing capabilities in advanced propulsion solutions for these aerospace and defense market. It is encouraging to see our capabilities translate into success in this new market as we continue to expect to see additional announcements in the future. This quarter included notable wins across Fuel Systems and Aftermarket channels, reinforcing customer trust, technology differentiation, and PHINIA’s ability to deliver premium solutions to our customers.

In addition to the aerospace and defense win I just highlighted, notable Fuel Systems wins in the quarter include Compressed Natural Gas Fuel Rail Assembly with a leading global OEM, marking our third consecutive quarter of a major alternative fuel program win in India. Direct Injection Fuel Rail Assembly with a major Chinese OEM, supporting a luxury SUV platform equipped with a dual-fuel-injection V8 engine. Now to slide seven. Our Aftermarket business continues to be a steady and reliable contributor to our solid results. We’re seeing consistent demand driven by an aging fleet and a growing vehicle park. As vehicles stay on the road longer, we are well-positioned to support our customers around the world with the quality parts and service they depend on every day.

Our strong and recognizable brands, broad and consistently expanding product offerings, and focus on customer service are helping us build deeper relationships and win new opportunities. Recent wins were across diverse geographies, further strengthening our position in the independent Aftermarket. A few notable wins during the quarter include expanding our product portfolio with a major warehouse distributor in the Americas by adding steering and suspension and vehicle electronics. Adding 2 new customers in Europe and growing our propulsion agnostic program within the Asia Pacific region. Renewing a starter program with a global commercial vehicle on- and off-highway OEM, reinforcing our long-standing presence to supply starters for severe-duty and long-haul applications. These wins show our consistent progress towards seamlessly diversifying into higher-growth end markets by leveraging our existing human and manufacturing capital. Moving next to slide 8.

This is from our Investor Day deck, and is a reminder of the diversification of our business across regions, customers, and end markets. Off-highway, industrial, and other, which includes aerospace and defense and power generation, is our fastest-growing end market, followed by service. We expect both of these end markets to become larger parts of our overall business in the years to come. Customer regional diversification has also been beneficial for us. We’ve highlighted numerous natural gas fuel injection wins in India and have strong relationships with the Chinese OEMs, as roughly 80% of our revenues for China are for the local OEMs, putting us in a favorable position as they look to grow their market share globally, which we expect to be a tailwind for us. As we highlighted in prior calls, several regions of the world are not switching to electric as quickly as previously expected.

In some markets like South America and India are leaning into ethanol, natural gas, and alternative fuels rather than battery electric altogether. As we shared in our Investor Day, we see our business continuing to diversify further, as well as moving towards higher long-term growth markets. Moving next to capital allocation on slide 9. There’s no change in how we’re thinking about capital allocation. We’re staying disciplined and balanced, continuing to invest in our business to support long-term growth, both organically and through strategic opportunities that strengthen our competitive position and expand our long-term opportunities. At the same time, we are committed to maintaining a healthy balance sheet and returning cash to shareholders through dividends and share buybacks. This approach reflects our strong financial position, our confidence in the path ahead, and our focus on long-term value creation.

During the quarter, we repurchased approximately $56 million worth of shares and paid $11 million in dividends, with $258 million remaining under our current share repurchase authorization. Since the spin-off in July 2023 through the first quarter of this year, we have repurchased $492 million worth of shares, representing approximately 23% of our original share count, and paid $120 million in dividends. In total, we’ve returned over $600 million to shareholders through share buybacks and dividends since July 2023. We’ve achieved all of this while keeping net leverage below our target, preserving strong liquidity, and continuing to fund the growth of the business. I will now turn the call over to Chris to discuss our financial results in more detail and discuss our 2026 outlook.

Chris Gropp, Chief Financial Officer (CFO), PHINIA: Thanks, Brady. Thanks to all of you for joining us this morning. As a reminder, reconciliations of all non-GAAP financial measures that I will discuss can be found in today’s press release and in the presentation, both of which are on our website. In the first quarter, we delivered results in line with our expectations and reflect both the strength of our diversified portfolio and the benefits of our operational discipline. Diving into the details, which you can find in slides 10 and 11 of the presentation, I will bridge our revenue and Adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter. Specifically, during the quarter we generated $878 million in net sales, an increase of 10.3% versus a year ago.

Compared to Q1 2025, our top line rose 4.9% on favorable foreign exchange of $39 million as the euro, Chinese renminbi, British pound, and Brazilian real strengthened against the US dollar. We saw a positive contribution from volume and mix of $17 million, or 2.1%, as higher sales in the Americas and Asia offset flat sales in Europe. Revenue in the quarter also benefited from tariff recovery of $12 million, while SEM contributed sales of $14 million in the quarter. Excluding the FX impact and the SEM contribution, sales were up 3.6% in the quarter. Moving next to the bridge on slide 11. Adjusted EBITDA was $115 million in the quarter, with a margin of 13.1%, representing a year-over-year increase of $12 million and a 20 basis point increase in margin.

Supplier savings and cost control measures were a $6 million tailwind. Net tariff pass-throughs were $3 million. Volume mix, SEM, and all other changes were an additional $3 million year-over-year. The operational performance of our segments and functions was solid and in line with our high expectations. We continue to effectively execute our disciplined capital allocation strategy, successfully balancing significant cash return to shareholders with the potential for strategic accretive M&A. Cash and cash equivalents at quarter end were $328 million, while available capacity under our credit facilities remained at approximately half a billion dollars for a resulting liquidity of $818 million. Our strong cash generation enabled us to continue returns of capital to our shareholders through cash dividends and buybacks.

In January, our board approved increases to both our quarterly dividend and share repurchase program, reaffirming their confidence in our disciplined approach to capital allocation. Cash flow from operations was $53 million, an increase of $13 million over the first quarter of 2025. Adjusted Free Cash Flow was $22 million, our best first quarter since becoming a standalone company, with capital expenditures of 3.6% coming in below our target of 4% and efficient uses of working capital in the quarter. Share repurchases and dividends represented our primary use of capital, with value back to our shareholders of $56 million and $11 million respectively in the quarter. We remain confident in our ability to generate strong free cash flow to support our future capital allocation priorities.

Our broadening portfolio of products, solutions, and services, coupled with our healthy balance sheet, will enable us to continue to deploy capital with discipline focused on delivering long-term, sustainable, profitable growth, creating value for our shareholders. Now moving next to slide 12 to comment on our 2026 outlook. We had a solid start to the year and reiterate the full-year guidance we issued earlier this year. Specifically, at the midpoint of our revenue outlook range of $3.5 billion-$3.7 billion, we would expect an increase in net sales in the mid-single-digit range, inclusive of FX. Excluding expected FX, our growth is projected to be in the low-single-digit area. We are guiding Adjusted EBITDA to be $485 million-$525 million, with an EBITDA margin of 13.7%-14.3%.

We believe the business is well-positioned to continue generating meaningful free cash flow, and our 2026 outlook for Adjusted Free Cash Flow is $200 million-$240 million. We expect the adjusted tax rate to be in the 30%-34% range. Overall, we expect to continue to deliver strong results in 2026 as we drive operational efficiency and search for new areas of growth for both segments. As a reminder, our outlook does not account for potential impacts from recent or future government policy changes that could influence our operations or technical centers. This includes measures such as additional tariffs, tax reforms, or any other policies that might either increase or decrease our revenue assumptions and/or alter our cost structure.

It should be noted, however, we do not see a material change in our tariff position based upon the recently issued Section 232 tariff clarifications. We are also not currently experiencing any material supply chain or revenue disruptions related to the conflict in the Middle East. As we look forward to the rest of the year, we are taking disciplined actions to manage controllable factors, including optimizing costs, aligning supply with and where current demand exists while preserving financial flexibility.

Brady Ericson, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), PHINIA: PHINIA is well positioned to navigate global market conditions and changes, we are confident in our operations and our ability to generate sufficient cash for our needs while also continuing to invest in the future. We want to thank all of you for joining us today on the call. We’re ready to open the call. Operator, please open the lines for questions.

Operator: Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. At this time, if you would like to ask a question, press star followed by the number 1 on your telephone keypad. If you are called upon to ask your question and are listening by a loudspeaker on your device, please speak up when asking your question. Just a reminder, we ask you to please limit yourself to 1 question and a maximum of 2 follow-up only. After that, you can simply join the queue again. Thank you. As of now, I would like a few moments to compile the Q&A roster. Thank you. Your first question comes from the line of Joseph Spak from UBS. Please go ahead.

Joseph Spak, Analyst, UBS: Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Chris Gropp, maybe to start, just the negative mix that weighed on the Adjusted EBITDA line relative to the positive volume growth. Maybe you could give us a little sense of what really drove that, what sort of products or anything. I’m assuming that’s in Fuel Systems, not Aftermarket, but maybe you could provide some clarity there.

Chris Gropp, Chief Financial Officer (CFO), PHINIA: Hey, Joe. Yeah, it’s mainly gonna reside in the Fuel Systems and it’s relating to some programs that are launching and have not gotten fully up to full ramp. Well, he’s talking just about the volume and mix on it. Yeah, there’s FX and tariffs. Yeah, it’s some programs that we’re launching. They’re not up to full volume. It’s mainly in Europe and Asia-Pacific. They will get up to a better volume and mix, but it’s gonna take about a year until they’re at their full capacity. This should go away. Not a concern for us. We knew this was going to be an issue as they ramped up.

Joseph Spak, Analyst, UBS: Okay. We should expect that sort of softer flow through to persist for the next couple quarters. Is that the view?

Chris Gropp, Chief Financial Officer (CFO), PHINIA: Maybe for another quarter or so. It gets better as the year goes on because this is obviously going to, you know how the year flows in automotive. You start off, and you get going, and then third quarter you hit full volume. It gets better as the year goes on.

Joseph Spak, Analyst, UBS: Yeah. Brady, you mentioned some, you know, green shoots in commercial vehicle. Like, have you actually revised some of your outlooks for the different end markets? Like, is that considered in your view? Or, you know, if things start to come in better, does that portend some upside?

Brady Ericson, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), PHINIA: I mean, it’s still early in the year, but we are seeing positive signs on order boards, you know, as far as orders for trucking North America. China’s actually already starting to see some uptick in their revenues on the CV side. The early indications are positive. As you know, the CV forecast was very back-end weighted, you know. At least right now we’re feeling good that we’re starting to see some positive sign that that’s coming, and we’ll probably evaluate again maybe later on this summer once that order board fills in for the second half of the year.

Chris Gropp, Chief Financial Officer (CFO), PHINIA: Yeah, we really saw it in Europe and Asia-Pacific. In China specifically, pass car was down slightly, but our CV more than made up for it. In Europe, the same thing. It was rather flat for us in Europe, but its CV was actually up.

Joseph Spak, Analyst, UBS: Okay. Last question. Just, can you remind us, roughly, like, how much you paid, in IEEPA-related tariffs last year, and have you filed for a refund? If you get that, do you think you’re gonna have to give back to your customers who reimbursed you for it maybe prior?

Brady Ericson, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), PHINIA: You ready?

Chris Gropp, Chief Financial Officer (CFO), PHINIA: It was about $40 million.

Brady Ericson, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), PHINIA: 40 million in total for the 3 quarters. I think they’ve then replaced that with other tariffs kinda going forward. I mean, our expectation is most of those IEEPA tariffs will flow back to our OE customers, you know, once we get that. We’re already in conversations with them. It’ll then have an effect on revenue, no effect on EBITDA, it’ll be accretive to margin. No effect on EBITDA dollars.

Joseph Spak, Analyst, UBS: Okay. Have you filed for that refund already, or that’s still a work in progress?

Brady Ericson, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), PHINIA: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, we’re still working through that, so some of them have started to go through. The process is gonna be slow.

Joseph Spak, Analyst, UBS: Yeah

Brady Ericson, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), PHINIA: We’re not booking anything until we receive the cash.

Joseph Spak, Analyst, UBS: Okay, great. Thanks so much. I’ll pass it on.

Operator: Any more follow-ups? Okay. Your next question comes from Bobby Brooks from Northland Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Brady Ericson, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), PHINIA: Bobby, are you there?

Operator: If, in sector line, if you’re on mute, Bobby. Thank you.

Bobby Brooks, Analyst, Northland Capital Markets: Hey, sorry about that, guys. Some technical issues. Yeah, congrats on the strong quarter. You know, the first question I was looking to hear on was, it was nice to read about the fuel injector win for the drone engine. Just was curious on, like first, is that a specific drone company or an aerospace company making drones? Second, is this for a product that is going into commercial production, or is it still in the testing phase?

Brady Ericson, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), PHINIA: It’s going into commercial production. It’s for the engine manufacturer that’s also making the drone as well.

Bobby Brooks, Analyst, Northland Capital Markets: Got it.

Brady Ericson, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), PHINIA: For defense applications. It’s, it’s defense. It’s a larger internal combustion engine.

Bobby Brooks, Analyst, Northland Capital Markets: Got it.

Brady Ericson, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), PHINIA: It’s for a larger drone.

Bobby Brooks, Analyst, Northland Capital Markets: Got it. Got it. That would be now your third customer, like in the aerospace defense market?

Brady Ericson, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), PHINIA: second customer, fourth program.

Bobby Brooks, Analyst, Northland Capital Markets: Second customer, fourth program. All right. Thank you for that clarity. Then, you know, there’s a little bit of a sequential step up in SG&A. Could you maybe, Chris, could you maybe just expand a little bit more on what drove that and maybe how to think about it turning forward?

Chris Gropp, Chief Financial Officer (CFO), PHINIA: Most of it was just going to be the normal bonus and some of the other costs that we’re seeing come through this year, some of the shares. It’s the third year in session, so it’s the third year tranche of the performance and other shares that go into effect for the management teams going down. That’s the biggest issue. That acceleration sort of stops overall and stays flat from here on out. We also did, we were down a little bit on some of our IT costs. The restructuring program that we announced last year is going into effect, and we are seeing some reductions in our IT structure area. That did offset a little bit.

Bobby Brooks, Analyst, Northland Capital Markets: Got it. That’s probably safe to think it’s flat or a little touch down going forward?

Chris Gropp, Chief Financial Officer (CFO), PHINIA: I’d say flattish.

Brady Ericson, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), PHINIA: Yeah, I mean, sequentially, I think Q4 or corporate costs were at $29. Are you talking about just SG&A or corporate costs?

Bobby Brooks, Analyst, Northland Capital Markets: Talking about SG&A, like overall.

Brady Ericson, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), PHINIA: Yeah. Okay.

Bobby Brooks, Analyst, Northland Capital Markets: I guess I should have said on a year-over-year basis, that’s my bad. Just last one for me, you know, I was just curious of obviously, you guys have like a $12 million benefit in the first quarter from tariff recoveries. How should we think about that going forward? I would guess that’s not all you have available and it might continue into second quarter. Just trying to get a sense of how that trends.

Chris Gropp, Chief Financial Officer (CFO), PHINIA: We did have a $12 million benefit. We had $12 million in tariff pass-through. We had a $3 million positive drop to the bottom line where we recovered some that were related to last year’s expenses. Going forward, we see the tariffs at a, on a quarterly basis and roughly the same pass-through area, even with the Section 232 changes. But I don’t see really a tailwind going forward. It’ll be pretty much flat. In and out.

Brady Ericson, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), PHINIA: Yeah, year-over-year, it’d be pretty much immaterial.

Chris Gropp, Chief Financial Officer (CFO), PHINIA: Yeah.

Brady Ericson, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), PHINIA: You won’t see that from a year-over-year perspective. Really, I think as we get into Q2, tariff becomes immaterial and FX, you know, is kind of similar to previous year as well. If it’s data to mainly the 170.

Chris Gropp, Chief Financial Officer (CFO), PHINIA: Yeah, sure.

Brady Ericson, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), PHINIA: Again, the, you know, the benefit that we’ve seen in FX for the last, you know, 3, 4 quarters actually kinda gets us back to an FX grade where it was in 2022 and 2023, we first started coming out. Anywhere in that 1.15-1.20 we think is more of a normal. When it really dropped down to the, you know, 1.00, 1.05 in 2024 was more the abnormal.

Bobby Brooks, Analyst, Northland Capital Markets: Got it. That makes sense. Appreciate the color. Thanks.

Operator: All right. At this time, before we proceed again, I would like to inform everybody if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad to join the queue. If you would like to withdraw a question, simply press star one again. Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the call back over to Brady Ericson for the closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Brady Ericson, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), PHINIA: Great. Thank you. You know, we delivered a solid start to the year, reflecting the benefits of a diversified portfolio, our disciplined execution, the strength of the markets that we serve. Really wanna thank our teams for their continued commitment and execution, just keeping just solid performance consistently in a very dynamic environment. We continue to remain focused on delivering consistent growth and profitability while building a stronger PHINIA for the long term. Thanks, everybody. Thanks for joining us this morning, and have a nice day.

Operator: Thank you, everyone, for joining the conference. That concludes our meeting for today. All participants may now disconnect. Thank you.