Q4 2022 Leonardo DRS Inc Earnings Call

Speaker 1: You.

Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Leonardo Leonardo, the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2022 earnings conference call at this time. All participants are in a listen only mode following the company's prepared remarks. There'll be an opportunity to ask questions and instructions will be given at that time as a reminder. This event is being recorded.

Speaker 2: I would now like to turn the conference over to Steve Vather, Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Finance. Please go ahead.

Speaker 3: Good morning and welcome everyone. Thanks for participating on today's quarterly earnings conference call on our first call since returning to the public markets. With me today are Bill Lin, our Chairman and CEO , and Mike DePold, our CFO . They will discuss our strategy, operational highlights, financial results, and forward outlook.

Speaker 3: Today's call is being webcast on the investor relations portion of the website where you will also find the earnings release and supplemental presentation. Management may also make forward-looking statements during the call regarding future events, anticipated future trends and anticipated future performance of the company.

Speaker 3: We caution you that such statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. Actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements due to a variety of factors. For a full discussion of these risk factors, please refer to our latest Form 10-K and our other SEC filings.

Speaker 3: We undertake no obligation to update any of the forward-looking statements made on this call.

Speaker 3: During this call, management will also discuss non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe provide useful information for investors. These non-GAAP measures should not be evaluated in isolation or as a substitute for GAAP performance measures.

Speaker 3: You can find a reconciliation of the non-GAAP measures discussed on this call in our earnings release. At this time, it is my pleasure to turn the call over to Bill. Bill?

Speaker 4: Thanks Steve, and on behalf of our 6,000 plus employees, I want to thank all of you listening for your interest in Leonardo DRS.

Speaker 4: Before I talk about how DRS is performing, I would like to provide some background on our business and context for our recent re-entry to the public markets.

Speaker 4: Let me begin by saying that I'm excited about where DRS is today, the strength of our market position, and our future prospects. We've worked aggressively to shape the business over the last decade by building balance in the portfolio, increasing differentiation, and driving alignment to growth markets.

Speaker 4: Over the course of our 50-year history, we have earned a reputation of putting our customers first. As a result, we have cultivated a broad and diverse set of long-standing relationships across the DoD and with international allies.

Speaker 4: What that translates to is a balanced customer base with approximately 37% of our revenue coming from the Army, 32% from the Navy, 15% from the Air Force and other DoD customers, with the remaining 16% coming from commercial and international customers.

Speaker 4: We have a rich program portfolio that cuts across all warfighting domains.

Speaker 4: We enjoy great program diversity with no program representing more than 10% of our revenue.

Speaker 4: Our largest program provides the electric power and propulsion system for the Columbia-class submarine.

Speaker 4: The aggregate DRS content for this important priority program approaches 10% of our revenue.

Speaker 4: We also enjoy great stability from a platform agnostic approach to our business.

Speaker 4: We are equally adept at providing our best of breed technologies for new platforms or using them to upgrade legacy platforms.

Speaker 4: We have purposefully focused the business around four key technology areas. Advanced sensing, network computing, force protection, and electric power and propulsion.

Speaker 4: We have built market leading positions across these technology areas.

Speaker 4: As a result, over 60% of our business is performed on a sole source basis.

Speaker 4: which underscores the criticality of DRS to important national security customers and their missions.

Speaker 4: Additionally, we have evolved our business to not only supply critical defense technology, but also serve as a systems integrator, which now represents over a third of our business.

Speaker 4: Our core operating philosophy remains centered on being agile and innovative.

Speaker 4: We can deliver efficient and affordable technology innovations on expedited schedules.

Speaker 4: coupling this agility with superior performance execution.

Speaker 4: allows us to meet and exceed the needs of our national security customers.

Speaker 4: Let me move to discuss our strategic accomplishments in the year.

Speaker 4: 2022 was both a transformative and dynamic year for DRS as we executed several strategic initiatives to unlock shareholder value and position the business for long-term accelerating growth by focusing on our core technology strengths.

Speaker 4: These strategic actions included the divestitures of our global SATCOM services business called GES.

Speaker 4: the monetization of our majority stake in the Advanced Acoustics Concepts joint venture.

Speaker 4: finally the acquisition of RADA.

Speaker 4: As a result of the RADA acquisition, we expanded our technology portfolio through the addition of advanced radar capabilities.

Speaker 4: These capabilities strengthened our position in the growing force protection market and is paving the path to advance our vision of integrated sensing.

Speaker 4: Furthermore, by structuring the RADA transaction as an all-stock merger, we also gained a public listing for DRS. This gives investors an opportunity to access a premier, U.S.-focused, mid-tier defense technology company.

Speaker 4: a scarcity in today's public markets.

Speaker 4: In conjunction with our public listening, we took action to reinforce our board with the appointment of Dr. Reggie Brothers and Mr. Eric Saltzman.

Speaker 4: Both their welcome additions to the board and their wealth of expertise, experience, and insights will be invaluable to growing shareholder value.

Speaker 4: Shifting now to operations.

Speaker 4: We continue to demonstrate strong momentum across our business throughout the year.

Speaker 4: In our electric power and propulsion business, we achieved several key milestones.

Speaker 4: In 2022, we completed the factory acceptance, testing, and shipment of the first production unit of the main propulsion motor for the Columbia-class submarine.

Speaker 4: Second, we secured a multi-boat contract for our electric power and propulsion system in late 2022 valued at over a billion dollars.

Speaker 4: Lastly, we continued to shape opportunities for long-term growth of this propulsion technology for new platforms both domestically and internationally.

Speaker 4: In advanced sensing, we are expanding our market leadership through next generation sensor development and through proliferating our sensors into new domains.

Speaker 4: We are raising the bar across the sensing market by driving capability to significantly increase resolution to high definition and are expanding spectral depth.

Speaker 4: We are also pushing tremendous capabilities to evolve sensing capabilities for more rigid size, weight and power requirements.

Speaker 4: making our sensors a compelling option for smaller platforms with these demanding sensing requirements.

Speaker 4: As a result of our innovation across the sensing market, we are seeing strong demand signals emerge from existing and new customers.

Speaker 4: In 2022, we secured a sole source position on the third generation ground vehicle sensing program.

Speaker 4: which cements our leadership position in ground sensing.

Speaker 4: Furthermore, we are moving into additional domains with our sensing capabilities as we successfully deployed an uncooled sensor as part of a payload on a LEO satellite.

Speaker 4: Additionally, we are deploying sensing capabilities in the unmanned market, introducing mobile electronic warfare systems and expanding our differentiated receiver technology for ELINT applications into new air, land, and sea markets.

Speaker 4: In network computing, we are injecting innovation in several ways.

Speaker 4: First, we are inserting assured position, navigation, and timing capabilities into our systems to enable the ability of platforms to operate in GPS denied environments.

Speaker 4: We are also continuously progressing the cyber resilience and assurance capabilities of our network compute products as cyber risks and threats continue to grow from the supply chain to the tactical edge.

Speaker 4: These two initiatives are propelling our integrated sensing strategy as we boost the compute capabilities to empower more autonomous sensing. Lastly, we are pleased with the growth of our multi-domain force protection business. We are honored that our counter UAS capabilities are actively being used globally.

Speaker 4: customers to develop next generation solutions.

Speaker 4: in the areas of force protection, as well as integrated sensing and computing.

Speaker 4: Our agility, steadfast commitment to national security, and drive to provide best-of-breed technologies to customers are the foundation of our success. While we had many strategic and operational achievements in 2022, the year was not without its challenges. Our team managed the business through an incredibly challenging supply chain.

Speaker 4: dealt with labor constraints, and battled elevated inflation last year.

Speaker 4: and are still contending with these same factors in 2023.

Speaker 4: With respect to supply chain, the silver lining is that it has largely stabilized.

Speaker 4: But there is certainly a long road ahead before it returns to pre-pandemic norms.

Speaker 4: As you have heard from many other companies, long lead times still exist for electronic components, and we do not expect a broader recovery to occur until 2024.

Speaker 4: As a result, we have been focused on making our supply chain more resilient by working closely with suppliers in several ways. We are providing them with greater visibility into demand.

Speaker 4: We are driving increased volume and moving orders to the left where possible. And we are rooting out engineering and quality issues earlier to enhance program execution efficiency.

Speaker 4: Moving to labor. The market for qualified engineering and manufacturing talent remains constrained.

Speaker 4: We continue to focus on retaining and growing our engineering and manufacturing talent base.

Speaker 4: who are critical to delivering for our customers.

Speaker 4: While we are operating in a tough labor market, our culture remains as a point of differentiation in that market.

Speaker 4: Our mission focus, agility, and embrace of innovation continues to drive talent to DRS.

Speaker 4: Furthermore, we recognize that our employees are the most valuable asset we have, and as such we are investing in enhancing and expanding our economy.

Speaker 4: Furthermore, we recognize that our employees are the most valuable asset we have, and as such we are investing in enhancing and expanding our benefit offerings.

Speaker 4: Moving to inflation. In addition to the impacts of supply chain delays and labor availability, we have also felt the impact of inflation.

Speaker 4: In 2022, we experienced increased labor and material input costs.

Speaker 4: and are working to offset those impacts by incorporating the higher costs into our forward pricing.

Speaker 4: As I mentioned earlier, we have pulled several levers to restore the health of our supply chain.

Speaker 4: Many of those actions have also helped us manage costs. Additionally, we are routinely evaluating opportunities for efficiencies across our business.

Speaker 4: with a keen focus on optimizing throughput and utilization.

Speaker 4: Despite the challenging environment overall,

Speaker 4: We delivered solid results for both the quarter and the full year. We excelled at capturing bookings and growing backlog.

We achieved a 1.2 book-to-bill ratio for the year and grew backlogged by 49% to a record $4.3 billion.

For full year revenue, we declined low single digits organically, which was mostly due to the continued supply chain disruptions that I discussed earlier. However, we continued to drive adjusted EBITDA growth and expand adjusted EBITDA margins, which were up 100 basis points to 11.8% for the year.

Even with the profit expansion, we invested 123 million dollars in R&D as well as CapEx as investments for future growth.

The stronger profitability fell to the bottom line with solid net earnings and adjusted diluted EPS results.

Lastly, free cash flow for the full year was lighter than our expectations as cash conversion cycles remain elongated due to the challenging supply chain.

Moving to the budget and market environment.

Demand drivers for the business remain strong, as evidenced by the enacted FY 23 appropriations and the healthy FY 24 request.

Our customers have solid visibility and the 10% increase to funding levels in FY23 presents opportunities for continued growth across the business.

Furthermore, our portfolio is closely aligned to well-funded and growing investment and modernization budget priorities.

We believe that there is overwhelming bipartisan support to countering near-peer threats.

the global threat environments remain elevated, and quite frankly, the rapidly evolving threats spanning domains and vectors are shaping customer requirements.

Additionally, the digitization of platforms is propelling continued and increasing electronics density and demand.

This tailwind touches every aspect of our business. DRS is well positioned to deliver technologies and capabilities to meet enduring and critical national security needs.

While we continue to operate in a dynamic environment on multiple fronts, we are focused on execution and on operational excellence by delivering value for customers and investors in 2023 and beyond.

Let me now turn the call over to Mike. Thanks, Bill. I want to echo my thanks to the entire team for their dedication and incredible efforts in 2022 as we delivered for our customers and shape the business for future growth.

Our fourth quarter and full year 2022 results were largely in line with our expectations, given the dynamic operating environment.

Revenue was $820 million for the fourth quarter, flat on a reported basis, but up mid-single digits organically.

Revenue for the full year was $2.7 billion, which represented a 6% decline from 2021, but on an organic basis was down low single digits. Two factors drove the annual revenue decline.

First, the contribution differences in the timing and magnitude of the divestiture of our GES business versus our RADA acquisition, which I will refer to as the net divestiture impact, was a headwind. Second, the continuing supply chain challenges, particularly with respect to the timing and availability of electronic components, constrained growth. Moving to the segment trends. The revenues in our advanced sensing and computing, our ASC segment.

increased due to strong demand for our sensing capabilities, and we saw a slight reduction in the net divestiture impact as RADA started to contribute to our financials in the month of December .

Full year revenues in the ASC segment declined as it bore the annual impact from the supply chain disruptions and the net divestiture impacts throughout the year.

At our Integrated Mission Systems segment, IMS, we saw revenues decline in the quarter due to a tough compare against Q4 2021, which was somewhat elevated due to programmatic timing.

On a full year basis, however, greater demand for our electric power and propulsion and force protection capabilities drove revenue growth in the IMS segment.

Now to adjusted EBITDA. Adjusted EBITDA was $120 million for the fourth quarter and $318 million for the full year, representing year-over-year growth of 21% and 3% respectively. Resulting margins were 14.7% for the quarter and 11.8% for the full year, an expansion of 260 and 100 basis points respectively as compared to the prior year.

and margins expanded for the quarter on better volume and strong program performance across the second.

Full year ASC segment adjusted EBITDA decline due to the lower volume and the net divestiture impact but margins expanded slightly due to better program execution.

Quarterly IMS segment adjusted EBITDA end margins declined largely on the lower volume due to programmatic timing. For the full year, IMS segment adjusted EBITDA end margins were up due to improved program profitability, particularly on the Columbia Class program.

Now to the bottom line metrics. Net earnings increased 12% to $65 million for the fourth quarter and was up 163% to $405 million for the full year.

The full year net earnings benefited from the net gain on our divestitures. Adjusted net earnings were 81 million for the fourth quarter and 179 million for the full year. Both were in line with our expectations and represented a growth of 28% and 3% respectively versus the prior year. Both diluted EPS and adjusted diluted EPS were impacted by the significant increase in...

Flow was $336 million for the fourth quarter, reflecting strong collections, but with $74 million for the full year as supply chain challenges resulted in less cash conversion efficiency.

As we stabilize the supply chain, moving forward, we should revert to 90% conversion of adjusted net earnings to free cash flow when excluding the impact of Section 174. That said, we have an attractive balance sheet exiting 2022, which provides for solid capital deployment flexibility.

Our capital deployment strategy is focused on growth.

We will be selective and prudent with our energy focused on pursuing M&A that further enhances positioning in our four core technology areas.

In the near term, our efforts will be focused on completing the integration of RADA and delivering success against our acquisition thesis.

Now to guidance. We expect to deliver organic growth in 2023 as we execute on a record $4.3 billion of backlog and see steady demand for our technologies. However, we anticipate the global supply chain, tough labor market, and inflation to persist and remains as constraints on the business.

Taking all these factors to account, we are initiating the following 2023 guidance. Revenue between $2.7 and $2.8 billion.

Compared to 2022, this is flat to up 4% on a total basis and implies an organic growth between 2.5 and 6%, consistent with what we have previously discussed.

To assist with the modeling on revenue cadence for the year, I will provide a little bit more granularity into quarterly trends. To be clear, we don't intend to provide this level of color on a recurring basis.

But we are expecting a lighter Q1 with revenues in the low to mid $500 million range, with the following quarterly revenues building on a stair-step basis as we execute throughout the year. This is comparable to prior year trends.

The lighter Q1 is being driven by the net divestiture impact as well as the programmatic timing. Moving to adjusted EBITDA, we are expecting between $315 and $330 million for 2023. The margins are expected to be relatively flat due to increased internal research and development expenses. The programmatic timing is expected to be relatively flat due to increased internal research and development expenses.

incremental public company costs, as well as increased labor and material input costs stemming from inflation.

The quarterly cadence for adjusted EBITDA will be slightly steeper than that of revenue. Q1 adjusted EBITDA will be hampered by lower volume and related fixed cost absorption.

And additionally, we have a $25 million revenue and profit driver that occurred in Q1 of 2022 that will not repeat in 2023.

We recognize stepped-up program profitability as a result of completing contract negotiations for follow-on efforts related to our Cumbia-class program in Q1 of 22. Now to adjusted diluted EPS. The range we are calling for is for 64 cents to 69 cents a share.

Please note that we have changed our calculation methodology for this metric to mirror similar non-operational adjustments made to the adjusted EBITDA. And we are also applying a tax effect to such adjustments.

A tax rate of 24% is embedded in the guidance, and we are assuming a fully diluted share count of 263.1 million shares. We recognize that the divestitures, acquisition, and public listing in 2022 make the results and comparisons both to the prior year and, prospectively, to 2023 quite complex. That said, as we move through 2023, the numbers and comparisons should become clearer, and the strength of the business become more apparent.

We are focused on executing in 2023 with the goal of accelerating financial performance exiting the year to set the foundation for delivering on long-term growth and margin expansion.

Now let me turn the call back over to Bill. Thanks, Mike. Let me close by thanking our talented people.

The passion, determination, and ingenuity they bring every day is what drives DRSFOLT.

We are honored that our customers have entrusted us to support their critical national security missions.

Our strong technology, customer and program portfolio is well positioned to deliver sustainable profit growth and margin expansion.

We believe that rigorous execution of our strategy will result in long-term shareholder value creation. Lastly, I'm pleased to announce that we will be conducting our Investor Day on November 13th of this year in New York. This will be a great opportunity to learn more about our business and our strategic vision.

We hope you will join us for this event later this year. With that, we're ready to take your questions.

Thank you. At this time, we'll begin the Q&A session. To ask a question, you'll need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. Please wait for your name to be announced. One moment for our first question.

Our first question comes from the line of Peter Arment with RW Baird. Your line is now open.

I guess good morning, Bill, Mike, Steve. Thanks for your time. Hi, Peter. Hey, so, Bill, I guess on just the outlook on for revenues, 2.5% to 6% organic, maybe you could just talk a little bit about the puts and takes behind this range and then how you think about kind of long-term growth off of.

what you've seen in the budget environment? Sure, Peter. Sure, on the long-term growth, I think two points to be made. One is, I think, obviously it's the defense budget that's the engine of our growth, that's 80% of the revenue base.

I think the underlying trends in defense are strong. A 10% growth in the 23 appropriation. I think President Biden's put forward a strong proposal building on that. I think Congress is likely to again add to that. So that underlying base continues to move up.

And we think our position is stronger than the budget as a whole because we're, as a mid-tier, we're able to target our markets and we're positioned in those four core markets that we've described, all of which grow faster than the budget as a whole. So overall, we think we should be able to simply buy a-

chain but the midpoint implies 11.7% kind of for this year. Maybe you can talk about

when we should expect to see some expansion. I know you've talked about, you know, kind of a longer term play to get into the low teens. How should we think about that? Sure, Peter, I'll take that. First, as you're looking at 2023 with the flatter margins to 2022, really what we're seeing is an impact of the inflation that's going to hit our kind of a fixed price.

beyond a couple things change. First is that we are going to be pretty well through the cycle of refreshing our program base and our fixed price contracts and bidding those with the kind of new macro inflationary environment in mind. So that's going to be a nice tailwind to margins prospectively. And then also

and maybe more importantly is on the Columbia class as we move forward to having all of the revenue generated from the production, newly negotiated production units. That should also help. So we still feel confident on future margin expansion towards the piers. Okay, and just lastly, just bill your thoughts on the continuing resolution impact at the year end. Obviously, we've had a lot of over the years, but.

just how you factored that into your guidance. Thanks. Yeah, sure. Peter, obviously, CRs aren't great, but they're a fact of life. It would be an exceptional year not to have a CR. I think only one in the last 20.

So we've had to adapt. That does, what it does to us is it tends to back load our volume towards the end of the year. But we've been able to achieve our targets with that. So I don't think this year is going to be any different.

we're going to see success and it's going to be back loaded.

and it's going to be back loaded. Appreciate the call. Thanks guys.

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Robert Stallard with Vertical Research Partners. Your line is now open. Thanks so much. Good morning. Good morning. I think first of all, start with Mike. Just to follow up on Peter's question with regard to the margin. I was wondering if you could possibly size what the negative impact year on year is expected to be.

to 60 basis point range, we see a headwind on that type of magnitude.

Okay, and then so the other portion on top of that is R&D. What sort of scale of increase you expecting there in that expense in 2023?

So we've always targeted to kind of increase our R&D as a percentage of sales to kind of the mid 2.5% range and maybe even a little north of that. That's slightly higher than where we were coming in this year at the kind of 2.2% of sale range. So I expect to kind of move up the curve to that 2.5% to 2.8% of sales. Okay. And then secondly, maybe one for Bill. Obviously Ukraine has caused...

that have gone into Ukraine. They've been relatively modest, but the impact of them has more been on our backlog because of the urgency of getting that equipment to the fight. The U.S. has tended to, we have pulled things from our U.S., the inventory intended.

for US sales and sent them into Ukraine, they'll then be backfilled later on, which adds to the backlog. So it's less of a punch to revenue and more of a punch to backlog. At the same time, I think we're starting now to see increased demand on the European side. The European side is the...

has been an overall accelerant of US defense spending. I think it's put a floor under US defense spending. I think it's partially responsible for the increases I was mentioning to Peter in both 23 and 24. And I think that's going to continue. And since the country has increased almost

The vast majority of our revenue comes from the US Defense Department. That's probably the most important impact of Ukraine on our business. Okay, so it's added to the backlog, but when you expect this to convert into revenues, it's going to take roughly 12 months to flow through the system.

I was wondering what sort of potential impact this could have on DRS, whether this could change things. I mean, it's the normal appointment cycle. The Leonardo goes on a three-year appointment cycle. This is the normal appointment cycle. We actually operate in what's called a proxy, and now it's an independent public board. So we have a separate structure that we operate in, and these kinds of changes don't really have too much impact on us. That's great.

Thanks so much. Thank you. One moment. Our next question comes from Austin Moeller with Canaccord Genuity. Your line is now open. Hi there, good morning.

Thank you. One moment. Our next question comes from Austin Moller with Canaccord Genuity. Your line is now open. Hi there. Good morning. Good morning, Austin. Good morning, Austin. Good morning, Austin.

Just my first question on the supply chain, can you sort of quantify some of the lead times that you're looking at right now for electronic components, and what particular components are the biggest bottlenecks for shipping hardware? I think so.

I'm going to let Mike go into the specifics, but things have gone up, in some cases two or three fold. I mean, we're gone from 30, 60 days to now six months.

lead time and as we've said our assumption in our 23 guidance here is that we're going to see stabilization of those lead times but we're not going to see improvement in those lead times till probably 24.

So we're not basing our revenue projections on a return to pre-pandemic norms. We think the supply chain itself is going to stabilize, and then we're taking steps to backstop that, and we're going to see increased volume moving buys left, giving our suppliers greater visibility into our projection.

using our fixed price contracts to lock things in. But let me let Mike give you a little bit more detail. Yeah, Austin, so I think what we're seeing is, originally in kind of early 2022, we saw the higher expense components having the longer lead times and really what was disrupting the industry on the circuit cards and the FPGAs.

I think what we're seeing now is a migration to a little less availability on some of the, I'll call them the cheaper, less expensive parts, your kind of resistors, connectors. And that tends to be a little bit of the bottleneck we're seeing right now, as we saw more stabilization in the higher tech, higher expense type of components.

So what we're hoping for, as Bill mentioned, is to continue to have stabilization. One of the assets that we have is that backlog visibility, and that is going to allow us to do advanced procurements. It's going to allow us to give that visibility to our suppliers, and that's the stabilization that we think we've injected into the business to allow for predictable growth.

Great. And then do you have any specific updates either on the SSNX, the Next Generation Attack Sub Program or the Korean KDDX Program as you think about the next year? The KDDX is in debates with the US Financial lazy so you don't want to lose a lot of pride or value you lose if you'reics ex threat

systems technology for the Columbia class submarine to be used in that SSNX. We're in the early stages of the decision making on that.

Okay, great.

Okay, great. Thank you for the details. Thank you.

And I have a follow-up with Robert Stalert with Vertical Research Partners. Your line is now open. Oh, yeah. Thanks very much. Just a couple more from me. Bill, I was wondering if you could give us an update on the integration of RADA and how that's going. Great question. Thanks, Rob. The integration's going well.

We have had seven lines of business and we're adding it as an eighth line of business. So basically operate as an Israeli subsidiary of DRS. That's a fairly clean structure. And we're very pleased with the technology that RADA is bringing. We think it really strengthens our force protection offerings.

And in the longer term, we really feel that bringing radar inside our perimeter, it was the one sensor that we were missing. And by having radar with all of our other sensors and our computing capabilities, we think that really positions us well for the future, which we see is an integration of sensing inputs, taking the individual inputs.

that go into a vehicle or platform and integrating them into a single picture for the operators and their commanders.

Okay, that's great. And then on your largest program, Colombia class, it appears that the entire defense industry is being affected by supply chain and labor and all the rest of it. But this one appears to be on track. What would you say the risk is of Colombia getting delayed going forward from here?

Well, I think there are two parts to that question, Rob. One is do the government priorities change, the budgets change? I think the risk of that is extraordinarily low. I think that this is the premier program in the budget. It is the

The submarine-based deterrent is the core of our nuclear deterrent. I think there's no higher priority for the government, so I can't imagine that budget priorities would shift in a way that would cause any delays in this program. The other would be, would there be, you know, execution issues or technology issues. I think on our part of the program, we have those challenges.

This is why we received this multi-boat contract, and that's what's increasing the backlog. That's showing the commitment to this program and making sure that we can execute on time.

Yeah, and then Mike, just a final couple for you. I was ready to give us an idea of what you're expecting on the interest expense in 2023, and also if you could give us any more detail on the cash flow expectation. That'd be great. Thanks.

Yes, so from an interest expense standpoint, we did kind of set up a new capital structure when we went public. So that comprises of a $225 million term A loan and a $275 million revolver. From a pricing standpoint, it allows us to have pricing kind of at a pretty favorable rate to SO4 plus 150 to 210 basis points.

Given our cash linearity, I think the interest would be about the, you know, similar to what we saw this year, maybe a slight reduction. Moving over to cash flow.

On your second question, Rob, we do expect because of what we saw in terms of the supply chain stabilization and the investments that we made on the balance sheet to be able to return to the 90% conversion of adjusted net earnings. But I'll remind you that that is kind of excluding the impact of the Section 174 for the tax R&D capitalization.

and that'll be in the neighborhood of $40 to $50 million headwind to that conversion number. Okay, that's very helpful. Thank you. Thank you for your questions. I would now like to turn the call back over to Steve Vather for closing remarks. Thank you all for your time this morning and your interest in DRS. Of course, if you have follow-up questions, please—

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Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Leonardo of the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2022 earnings conference call at this time. All participants are in a listen only mode following the company's. Prepared remarks there'll be an opportunity to ask questions and instructions will be given at that time as a reminder. This event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Steve. Rather.

and vice president of investor relations and corporate finance. Please go ahead. Good morning and welcome everyone. Thanks for participating on today's quarterly earnings conference call on our first call since returning to the public markets.

With me today are Bill Lin, our Chairman and CEO , and Mike DePold, our CFO . They will discuss our strategy, operational highlights, financial results, and forward outlook. Today's call is being webcast on the investor relations portion of the website where you will also find the earnings release and supplemental presentation. Management may also make forward-looking statements during the call regarding future events.

anticipated future trends, and anticipated future performance of the company. We caution you that such statements are not guarantees of future performance that involve risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. Actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements due to a variety of factors. For a full discussion of these risk factors, please refer to our latest Form 10-

substitute for gap performance measures.

You can find a reconciliation of the non-GAAP measures discussed on this call in our earnings release at this time. That is my pleasure to turn the call over to bill bill. Thanks Steve, and on behalf of our 6000 -plus employees, I want to thank all of you listening for your interest in Leonardo DS.

Before I talk about how DRS is performing, I would like to provide some background on our business and context for our recent re-entry to the public markets.

Let me begin by saying that I'm excited about where DRS is today, the strength of our market position, and our future prospects. We've worked aggressively to shape the business over the last decade by building balance in the portfolio, increasing differentiation, and driving alignment to growth markets.

Over the course of our 50-year history, we have earned a reputation of putting our customers first. As a result, we have cultivated a broad and diverse set of long-standing relationships across the DoD and with international allies.

What that translates to is a balanced customer base with approximately 37% of our revenue coming from the Army, 32% from the Navy, 15% from the Air Force and other DoD customers, with the remaining 16% coming from commercial and international customers.

We have a rich program portfolio that cuts across all warfighting domains.

We enjoy great program diversity with no program representing more than 10 percent of our revenue. Our largest program provides the electric power and propulsion system for the Columbia class submarine. The aggregate DRS content for this important priority program approaches 10 percent of our revenue. We also enjoy great stability from a platform agnostic approach to our business. We are equally adept at providing our best of breed technologies for new platforms.

or using them to upgrade legacy platforms. We have purposefully focused the business around four key technology areas. Advanced sensing, network computing, force protection, and electric power and propulsion. We have built market leading positions across these technology areas.

As a result, over 60% of our business is performed on a sole source basis, which underscores the criticality of DRS to important national security customers and their missions. Additionally, we have evolved our business to not only supply critical defense technology, but also serve as a systems integrator.

which now represents over a third of our business. Our core operating philosophy remains centered on being agile and innovative. We can deliver efficient and affordable technology innovations on expedited schedules.

coupling this agility with superior performance execution.

allows us to meet and exceed the needs of our national security customers.

Let me move to discuss our strategic accomplishments in the year. 2022 was both a transformative and dynamic year for DRS, as we executed several strategic initiatives to unlock shareholder value and position the business for long-term accelerating growth by focusing on our core technology strengths.

These strategic actions included the divestitures of our global SATCOM services business called GES.

the monetization of our majority stake in the Advanced Acoustics Concepts joint venture, and finally the acquisition of RADA.

As a result of the RADA acquisition, we expanded our technology portfolio through the addition of advanced radar capabilities. These capabilities strengthened our position in the growing force protection market and is paving the path to advance our vision of integrated sensing.

Furthermore, by structuring the RADA transaction as an all-stock merger, we also gained a public listing for DRS.

This gives investors an opportunity to access a premier, U.S.-focused mid-tier defense technology company.

a scarcity in today's public markets. In conjunction with our public listing, we took action to reinforce our board with the appointment of Dr. Reggie Brothers and Mr. Eric Saltzman. Both are welcome additions to the board and their wealth of expertise, experience, and insights.

will be invaluable to growing shareholder value. Shifting out operations, we continue to demonstrate strong momentum across our business throughout the year.

In our electric power and propulsion business, we achieved several key milestones. In 2022, we completed the factory acceptance, testing, and shipment of the first production unit of the main propulsion motor for the Columbia-class submarine. Second, we secured a multi-boat contract for our electric power and propulsion system in late 2022, valued at over a billion dollars. Lastly, we CLId a 50-year-old IW jacket, taxi incapabilityControl w

we continued to shape opportunities for long-term growth of this propulsion technology for new platforms both domestically and internationally. In advanced sensing, we are expanding our market leadership through next generation sensor development and through proliferating our sensors into new domains.

We are raising the bar across the sensing market by driving capability to significantly increase resolution to high definition and are expanding spectral depth. We are also pushing tremendous capabilities to evolve sensing capabilities for more rigid size, weight, and power requirements, making our sensors a compelling option for smaller platforms with these demanding sensing requirements.

As a result of our innovation across the sensing market, we are seeing strong demand signals emerge from existing and new customers.

In 2022, we secured a sole source position on the third generation ground vehicle sensing program, which cements our leadership position in ground sensing.

Furthermore, we are moving into additional domains with our sensing capabilities as we successfully deploy an uncooled sensor as part of a payload on a LEO satellite. Additionally, we are deploying sensing capabilities in the unmanned market.

introducing mobile electronic warfare systems, and expanding our differentiated receiver technology for ELINT applications into new air, land, and sea markets. In network computing, we are injecting innovation in several ways.

First, we are inserting assured position, navigation, and timing capabilities into our systems to enable the ability of platforms to operate in GPS-denied environments. We are also continuously progressing the cyber resilience and assurance capabilities of our network compute products as cyber risks and threats continue to grow.

from the supply chain to the tactical edge. These two initiatives are propelling our integrated sensing strategy as we boost the compute capabilities to empower more autonomous sensing.

Lastly, we are pleased with the growth of our multi-domain force protection business. We are honored that our counter UAS capabilities are actively being used globally to protect lives today. Additionally, our technology that enables infrared-based countermeasures to protect rotary wing aircraft has achieved initial operating capability. These successes are resulting in deep R&D partnerships with the UAS.

achievements in 2022, the year was not without its challenges.

Our team managed the business through an incredibly challenging supply chain, dealt with labor constraints, and battled elevated inflation last year.

and are still contending with these same factors in 2023. With respect to supply chain, the silver lining is that it has largely stabilized.

But there is certainly a long road ahead before it returns to pre-pandemic norms. As you have heard from many other companies, long lead times still exist for electronic components and we do not expect a broader recovery to occur until 2024.

As a result, we have been focused on making our supply chain more resilient by working closely with suppliers in several ways. We are providing them with greater visibility into demand.

We are driving increased volume and moving orders to the left where possible. And we are rooting out engineering and quality issues earlier to enhance program execution efficiency. Moving to labor. The market for qualified engineering and manufacturing talent remains constrained. We continue to focus on retaining and growing.

our engineering and manufacturing talent base, who are critical to delivering for our customers. While we are operating in a tough labor market, our culture remains as a point of differentiation in that market. Our mission focus, agility, and embrace of innovation continues to drive talent to DRS. Furthermore, we recognize that our employees are the most valuable asset we have, and as such, we are investing in enhancing and expanding our benefit offerings. Moving to inflation.

In addition to the impacts of supply chain delays and labor availability, we have also felt the impact of inflation. In 2022, we experienced increased labor and material input costs and are working to offset those impacts by incorporating the higher costs into our forward pricing. As I mentioned earlier, we have pulled several levers to restore the health of our supply chain. Many of those actions have also helped us manage costs.

Additionally, we are routinely evaluating opportunities for efficiencies across our business with a keen focus on optimizing throughput and utilization. Despite the challenging environment, overall, our honeymoon will begin in between two days after we have finished playing the game.

We delivered solid results for both the quarter and the full year. We excelled at capturing bookings and growing backlog. We achieved a 1.2 book to bill ratio for the year and grew backlog by 49% to a record $4.3 billion.

For full year revenue, we declined low single digits organically, which was mostly due to the continued supply chain disruptions that I discussed earlier.

However, we continued to drive adjusted EBITDA growth and expand adjusted EBITDA margins, which were up 100 basis points to 11.8% for the year.

Even with the profit expansion, we invested 123 million dollars in R&D as well as CapEx as investments for future growth.

The stronger profitability fell to the bottom line with solid net earnings and adjusted diluted EPS results. Lastly, free cash flow for the full year was lighter than our expectations as cash conversion cycles remain elongated due to the challenging supply chain.

Moving to the budget and market environment. Demand drivers for the business remain strong, as evidenced by the enacted FY23 appropriations and the healthy FY24 request.

Our customers have solid visibility and the 10% increase to funding levels in FY23 presents opportunities for continued growth across the business. Furthermore, our portfolio is closely aligned to well-funded and growing investment and modernization budget priorities.

We believe that there is overwhelming bipartisan support to countering near-peer threats. The global threat environments remain elevated, and quite frankly, the rapidly evolving threats, spanning domains and vectors, are shaping customer requirements.

Additionally, the digitization of platforms is propelling continued and increasing electronics density and demand. This tailwind touches every aspect of our business.

DRS is well positioned to deliver technologies and capabilities to meet enduring and critical national security needs. While we continue to operate in a dynamic environment on multiple fronts, we are focused on execution and on operational excellence by delivering value for customers.

and investors in 2023 and beyond. Let me now turn the call over to Mike.

Thanks, Bill. I want to echo my thanks to the entire team for their dedication and incredible efforts in 2022 as we delivered for our customers and shape the business for future growth.

Our fourth quarter and full year 2022 results were largely in line with our expectations, given the dynamic operating environment. Revenue was $820 million for the fourth quarter, flat on a reported basis, but up mid-single digits organically. Revenue for the full year was $2.7 billion, which represented a 6% decline from 2021, but on an organic basis was down low single digits.

Two factors drove the annual revenue decline. First, the contribution differences in the timing and magnitude of the divestiture of our GES business versus our RADA acquisition, which I will refer to as the net divestiture impact, was a headwind.

Second, the continuing supply chain challenges, particularly with respect to the timing and availability of electronic components, constrain growth.

the continuing supply chain challenges, particularly with respect to the timing and availability of electronic components' constrained growth. Moving to the segment trends. I hope a lot of you though, have a special interest in this program and if you are interested

Quarterly revenues in our advanced sensing and computing, our ASC segment, increased due to strong demand for our sensing capabilities, and we saw a slight reduction in the net divestiture impact as RADA started to contribute to our financials in the month of December . Full year revenues in the ASC segment declined as it bore the annual impact from the supply chain disruptions and the net divestiture impact throughout the year. At our integrated mission systems segment, IMS, we saw revenues decline in the quarter due to a tough compare against Q4 2021.

which was somewhat elevated due to programmatic timing. On a full year basis, however, greater demand for our electric power and propulsion and force protection capabilities drove revenue growth in the IMS segment. Now to adjusted EBITDA. Adjusted EBITDA was $120 million for the fourth quarter and $318 million for the full year, representing year-over-year growth of 21% and 3% respectively.

Resulting margins were 14.7% for the quarter and 11.8% for the full year, an expansion of 260 and 100 basis points respectively as compared to the prior year.

We drove adjusted EBITDA growth and margin expansion for both the quarter and the year as stronger program efficiencies significantly outweighed the impact of lower volume and inflation. Moving to the segment trends, ASC segment adjusted EBITDA increased and margins expanded for the quarter on better volume and strong program performance across the segment. Full year ASC segment adjusted EBITDA declined due to the...

Now to the bottom line metrics.

Net earnings increased 12% to $65 million for the fourth quarter and was up 163% to $405 million for the full year. The full year net earnings benefited from the net gain on our divestitures. Adjusted net earnings were $81 million for the fourth quarter and $179 million for the full year. Both were in line with our expectations and represented a growth of 28% and 3% respectively versus the prior year.

Both diluted EPS and adjusted diluted EPS were impacted by the significant increase in share count as a result of the all stock combination with RADA.

Full year diluted EPS was up 157% as a result of the gain on our dispositions, and on an adjusted basis it was up 3% versus the prior year.

Moving to free cash flow. Free cash flow was $336 million for the fourth quarter, reflecting strong collections, but was $74 million for the full year as supply chain challenges resulted in less cash conversion efficiency. As we stabilize the supply chain, moving forward, we should revert to 90% conversion of adjusted net earnings to free cash flow.

when excluding the impact of Section 174. That said, we have an attractive balance sheet exiting 2022, which provides for solid capital deployment flexibility. Our capital deployment strategy is focused on growth.

We will be selective and prudent with our energy focused on pursuing M&A that further enhances positioning in our four core technology areas. In the near term, our efforts will be focused on completing the integration of RADA and delivering success against our acquisition thesis.

Now to guidance. We expect to deliver organic growth in 2023 as we execute on a record $4.3 billion of backlog and see steady demand for our technologies.

However, we anticipate the global supply chain, tough labor market, and inflation to persist and remains as constraints on the business. Taking all these factors to account, we are initiating the following 2023 guidance.

Revenue between $2.7 and $2.8 billion. Compared to 2022, this is flat to up 4% on a total basis and implies an organic growth between 2.5 and 6%, consistent with what we have previously discussed.

To assist with the modeling on revenue cadence for the year, I will provide a little bit more granularity into quarterly trends. To be clear, we don't intend to provide this level of color on a recurring basis.

But we are expecting a lighter Q1, with revenues in the low to mid $500 million range, with the following quarterly revenues building on a stair-step basis as we execute throughout the year. This is comparable to prior year trends.

The lighter Q1 is being driven by the net divestiture impact as well as the programmatic timing.

Moving to adjusted EBITDA, we are expecting between $315 and $330 million for 2023. The margins are expected to be relatively flat due to increased internal research and development expenses, incremental public company costs, as well as increased labor and material input costs stemming from inflation. The quarterly cadence for adjusted EBITDA will be slightly...

as a result of completing contract negotiations for follow-on efforts related to our Cumbia class program in Q1 of 2022.

Now to adjusted diluted EPS. The range we are calling for is for 64 cents to 69 cents a share.

Please note that we have changed our calculation methodology for this metric to mirror similar non-operational adjustments made to the adjusted EBITDA. And we are also applying a tax effect to such adjustments. A tax rate of 24% is embedded in the guidance.

and we are assuming a fully diluted share count of 263.1 million shares. We recognize that the divestitures, acquisition, and public listing in 2022 make the results and comparisons both to the prior year and prospectively to 2023 quite complex. That said, as we move through 2023, the numbers and comparisons should become clearer and the strength of the business become more apparent. We are focused on executing in 2023.

with the goal of accelerating financial performance exiting the year to set the foundation for delivering on long-term growth and margin expansion. Now let me turn the call back over to Bill. Thanks, Mike. Let me close by thanking our talented people. The passion, determination, and ingenuity they bring every day is what drives DRS forward. We are honored that our customers have entrusted us to support their critical national security missions.

Our strong technology, customer and program portfolio is well positioned to deliver sustainable profit growth and margin expansion.

We believe that rigorous execution of our strategy will result in long-term shareholder value creation.

Lastly, I'm pleased to announce that we will be conducting our Investor Day on November 13th of this year in New York.

This will be a great opportunity to learn more about our business and our strategic vision. We hope you will join us for this event later this year. With that, we're ready to take your questions.

Thank you. At this time, we'll begin the Q&A session. To ask a question, you'll need to press star 11 on your telephone. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please wait for your name to be announced. One moment for our first question.

Our first question comes from the line of Peter Arment with RWBAR. Your line is now open. Yes. Good morning, Bill, Mike, Steve. Thanks for your time. Hi, Peter. Hey. So, Bill, I guess on just the outlook on for revenues, 2.5% to 6% organic.

Maybe you could just talk a little bit about the puts and takes behind this range and then how you think about kind of long-term growth off of what you've seen in the budget environment.

Sure, Peter. Sure, on the long-term growth, I think two points to be made. One is, I think, you know, obviously it's the defense budget that's the engine of our growth, that's 80% of the revenue base. I think the underlying trends in defense are strong, 10% growth in the 23 appropriation.

I think President Biden's put forward a strong proposal building on that. I think Congress is likely to again add to that. So that underlying base continues to move up. And we think our position is stronger than the budget as a whole because we're, as a mid-tier, we're able to target our markets and we're positioned in those four core markets that we've described. That's why Obama is hitting a billion dollars, which is becomes the top dollar. That's the biggest bear with their beloved nation. Underrastinating in the world as a nation is certainly something that's going to will continue to evolve towards a future that's incredibly broken.

all of which grow faster than the budget as a whole. So overall, we think we should be able to, simply by holding serve, be able to grow somewhat faster than the market. Okay, and just, and just regarding, you know, Mike, maybe on the adjusted EBITDA margins, for the few finished at 11.8.

grow faster than the budget as a whole. So overall, we think we should be able to, simply by holding serve, be able to grow somewhat faster than the market. Okay, and just regarding, you know, Mike, maybe on the adjusted EBITDA margins, for the, if you finished at 11.8 for the year, and I know there's a lot of moving parts.

impacting the supply chain, but the midpoint implies 11.7% for this year. Maybe you can talk about when we should expect to see some expansion. I know you've talked about a longer-term play to get into the low teens. How should we think about that? Sure, Peter. I'll take that. First, as you're looking at 2023 with the...

as a percentage of revenue to maintain the foundation for future growth. So that's kind of holding the margins a little flat in 2023. Looking out to 2024 and beyond, a couple things change. First is that we are going to be pretty well through the cycle of refreshing our program base and our fixed price rate.

and bidding those with the kind of new macro inflationary environment in mind. So that's going to be a nice tailwind to margins prospectively. And then also, and maybe more importantly, is on the Columbia class as we move forward to having all of the revenue generated from the newly negotiated production units. That should also help. So we still feel confident on future margin expansion towards the piers. Okay, and just lastly, just bill your thoughts on the continuing resolution.

continuing resolution impact at the year end. Obviously we've had a lot of CRs over the years, but just how you factored that into your guidance. Thanks.

Yeah sure Peter obviously CRs aren't great but they're a fact of life it would be an exceptional year not to have a CR I think only one in the last 20.

So we've had to adapt. That does, what it does to us is it tends to back load our volume towards the end of the year. But we've been able to achieve our targets with that. So I don't think this year is going to be any different.

we're going to see success and it's going to be back loaded. Appreciate the call. Thanks, guys. Thank you. One moment for our next question.

Our next question comes from Robert Stallard with Vertical Research Partners. Your line is now open. Thanks so much. Good morning. Good morning. I think first of all, I'll start with Mike. Just to follow up on Peter's question with regard to the margin, I was wondering if you could possibly size what the negative impact year on year is expected to be with regard to cost inflation. Basically, what would margins have been like?

that type of magnitude. Okay, and then so the other portion on top of that is R&D. What sort of scale of increase you expecting there in that expense in 2023? So we've always targeted to kind of increase our R&D as a percentage of sales to kind of the mid 2.5% range and maybe even a little north of that.

That's slightly higher than where we were coming in this year at the kind of 2.2% of sale range. So I expect to kind of move up the curve to that two and a half to 2.8% of sales. Okay. And then secondly, maybe one for Bill. Obviously, you know, Ukraine has caused a change in the demand environment out there for defense equipment. I was wondering if you're starting to see this flow through to DRS either directly or indirectly going into the US military or its allies. Yeah, we see it both ways, Rob, both directly and indirectly.

First of all, we've had, you know, some sales that have gone into Ukraine. They've been relatively modest, but the impact of them has more been on our backlog, because of the urgency of getting that equipment to the fight. The U.S. has tended to-we have pulled things from our U.S.-the inventory intended for U.S. sales and sent them into Ukraine.

they'll then be backfilled later on, which adds to the backlog. So it's less of a punch to revenue and more of a punch to backlog. At the same time, I think we're starting now to see increased demand for Europe on the European side as the NATO nations, more of the NATO nations.

overall accelerant of US defense spending. I think it's put a floor under US defense spending. I think it's partially responsible for the increases I was mentioning to Peter in both 23 and 24. And I think that's gonna continue. And since the vast majority of our revenue comes from the US Defense Department, that's probably the most important impact of Ukraine on our economy.

Finally, you mentioned Leonardo there. There's been obviously some talk in Europe about the CEO position potentially changing with the new Italian government. I was wondering what sort of potential impact this could have on DRS, whether this could change things.

I mean it's the normal appointment cycle. The Leonardo goes on a three-year appointment cycle. This is the normal appointment cycle. We actually operate in what's called a proxy and now it's an independent public board. So we have a separate structure that we operate in and these kinds of changes don't really...

Morning Austin.

Just my first question on the supply chain. Can you sort of quantify some of the lead times that you're looking at right now for electronic components, and what particular components are the biggest bottlenecks for shipping hardware? I'm going to let Mike go into the specifics, but…

things have gone up in some cases two or three fold. I mean, we're gone from 30, 60 days to now, you know, six month lead time. And as we've said, our assumption in our 23 guidance here is that we're gonna see stabilization of those lead times, but we're not gonna see improvement in those lead times till probably 24.

So we're not basing our revenue projections on a return to pre-pandemic norms. We think the supply chain itself is going to stabilize, and then we're taking steps to backstop that, increased volume, moving buys left, giving our suppliers greater visibility into our projection, using our fixed price contracts.

to lock things in. But let me let Mike give you a little bit more detail. Yeah, Austin, so I think what we're seeing is originally in kind of early 2022, we saw the higher expense components having the longer lead times and really what was disrupting the industry on the circuit cards and the FPGAs. I think what we're seeing now is the migration to a little less availability on some of the, I'll call them the cheaper, less expensive parts, your kind of resistors, connectors, and that tends to be a little bit of the bottleneck we're seeing right now.

as we saw more stabilization in the higher tech, higher expense type of components. So what we're hoping for, as Bill mentioned, is to continue to have stabilization. One of the assets that we have is that backlog visibility, and that is going to allow us to do advanced procurements. It's going to allow us to give that visibility to our suppliers. And that's the stabilization that we think we've injected into the business to allow for predictable growth.

Great. And then do you have any specific updates either on the SSNX, the Next Generation Attack Sub Program or the Korean KDDX Program as you think about the next year? The KDDX is in the competition phase. We don't really have any...

update on that and the SSNX is a little bit further out but we're taking steps to

propose our technology, the electric propulsion systems technology for the Columbia-class submarine to be used in that SSNX. We're in the early stages of the decision making on that.

Okay, great. Thank you for the details.

Thank you. And I have a follow-up with Robert Stalert with Vertical Research Partners. Your line is now open. Oh, yeah. Thanks so very much. Just a couple more from me. Bill, I was wondering if you could give us an update on the integration of RADA and how that's going. Great question. Thanks, Rob.

adding it as our, we have had seven lines of business and we're adding it as an eighth line of business, so basically operate as an Israeli subsidiary of DRS. That's a fairly clean structure and we're very pleased with the technology that Rada is bringing. We think it really strengthens our force protection offerings.

And in the longer term, we really feel that bringing radar inside our perimeter, it was the one sensor that we were missing. And by having radar with all of our other sensors and our computing capabilities, we think that really positions us well for the future, which we see is an integration of sensing inputs, taking the individual inputs that go into a vehicle or platform and integrating them into a single picture.

for the operators and their commanders. Okay, that's great. And then on your largest program, Columbia Class, it appears that the entire defense industry is being affected by supply chain and labor and all the rest of it, but this one appears to be on track. What would you say the risk is of Columbia getting delayed going forward from here? Well, I think there are two parts of that question, Rob. One is, do the government priorities change?

any delays in this program. The other would be would there be you know execution issues or technology issues. I think on our part of the program we we had those challenges a few years ago where we've now delivered the first set where we're completing the development program so the likelihood.

And our portion of the program that we're going to see those kinds of delays is large. It's not, you haven't completely retired all the risk, but most of it is now in the past. And Rob, I'd just like to point out in addition to what Bill said, is this is why we received this multi-boat contract and that's what's increasing the backlog. That's showing the commitment to this program and making sure that we can execute on time.

Yep. And then Mike, just a final couple for you. I was wondering if you could give us an idea of what you're expecting on the interest expense in 2023, and also if you could give us any more detail on the cash flow expectation. That'd be great. Thanks. Yeah, so from an interest expense standpoint, we did kind of set up a new capital structure when we went public. So that comprises of a $225 million term a loan and a $275 million revolver.

From a pricing standpoint, it allows us to have pricing kind of at a pretty favorable rate to SO4 plus 150 to 210 basis points. Given our cash linearity, I think the interest would be about the, you know, similar to what we saw this year, maybe a slight reduction.

From a pricing standpoint, it allows us to have pricing kind of at a pretty favorable rate to SOFR plus 150 to 210 basis points. Given our cash linearity, I think the interest would be about the – similar to what we saw this year, maybe a slight reduction. Moving over to cash flow.

On your second question, Rob, we do expect because of what we saw in terms of the supply chain stabilization and the investments that we made on the balance sheet to be able to return to the 90% conversion of adjusted net earnings. But I'll remind you that that is kind of excluding the impact of the Section 174 for the tax R&D capitalization. And that will be in the neighborhood of $40 to $50 million headwind to that conversion.

Have a great day.

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect. Thank you for your participation. Everyone have a wonderful day.