By Bjorn Fehrm
March 26, 2020, ©. Leeham News: Embraer presented its full-year 2019 results today and held an analyst call with the CEO, Francisco Gomes Neto, and the CFO, Antonio Carlos Garcia. The company posted a loss, but the underlying operational performance was a definite improvement over 2018.
The major part of the loss came from extra costs for the formation of a separate Commercial Aircraft division for the joint venture with Boeing. To understand Embraer’s position in these difficult times, we will separate the analysis of the 2019 results in three parts:
We focus on the Division result first and then discuss Group results including extra costs for the preparations for the Boeing Joint Venture (JV).
Commercial Aircraft
The Commercial Aircraft division delivered 89 E-Jets during 2019 compared with 90 for 2018, Figure 1. The aircraft paying the bills is the E175 as it’s the only in production aircraft for the US Scope Clause market (the CRJ production is stopping).
The E190 had eight deliveries, and the newer E2 E190 and E195 variants had 14 deliveries. Segment revenue was down 5% from 2018 at $2,335m versus $2,358m. The reason according to CFO Garcia is the deliveries were mainly to large orders from the US regional carriers where the net price (and margins) are lower.
Embraer delivered 14 E2s during the year, with production now reaching about an aircraft per month. CEO Neto said 2020 would have been similar if Covid-19 wouldn’t have happened. The reason is initial production causes a loss due to the learning curve costs. The ratio of legacy aircraft to new aircraft deliveries is, therefore, carefully managed.
Business Aircraft
The Business jet line has now come out of its large jet slump, Figure 2.
The ratio of margin richer large jets is now 43%, up from 30% for 2018. Segment revenue was up 27% with $1,397m for 2019 versus $1,104m for 2018.
Embraer new large jets Preator 500 and 600 are now selling where the previous program, Legacy 450 and 500, faded in the market. The smaller jets have kept their deliveries with the class-leading Phenom 300 as the star.
Defense & Security
Embraer achieved the first delivery of the KC-390 airlifter to the Brazilian Air Force in 2019, with a further two planned for this year. Segment revenue was up 27% at $775m versus $612m for 2018.
Services and Support
Services revenue for 2019 grew by 7% at $1047m versus $981m 2018.
All segments increased their revenue for 2019 compared with 2018. The total for the group was $5,462m vs. $5,071 2018, an 8% improvement. Despite the growth, the full-year result was a loss of $317m, which is 6% of revenue compared with a loss of $171m for 2018.
The reason is extraordinary for costs for 2019 of $347m. The cost of carving out Commercial Aircraft and then running it as a separate business in preparation for the Boeing JV was shown as $182m. In addition, the Business jets took a write-off of $71m on the Legacy 450 and 500 programs.
Without the separation of commercial aircraft division, Embraer would have shown a profit, according to Embraer CFO Garcia. It doesn’t mean Embraer is stepping back from the JV. Management focuses on doing the JV with Boeing, but right now, the execution hangs on the approval from the EU. This is not expected before July.
Embraer is, like other airliner OEMs, facing an unprecedented situation. Airline customers are in discussion to delay deliveries from 2020 to 2021, but no cancellations are on the table. For business jets, there are delivery delay discussions of a quarter but not more.
The group’s liquidity is strong at $2.8bn in cash at exit 2019. A loan of $0.6bn has added to this over the last weeks. Embraer also has a good debt position. It doesn’t have major parts of the loan mass of $3.4bn maturing until 2025.
For the moment there are no declarations of help from the Brazilian government, and right now Embraer can manage the situation according to the CEO and CFO. It now all depends on the further development of the crisis.
This is such a fast evolving situation that 2019 is totally irrelevant as 2020 is going to swamp the figures.
Yesterday AK Airlines said they were cancelling 30 flights (mostly to Hawaii) – today its 70%.
Right now deferred is as good as canceled for the 2020 impacts. Down the road for recovery relevant but if we are lucky that is late this year and maybe into early next year.
The other big story is what is Boeing going to do (or can) and are there penalties for backing out?
I have a Diesel trade magazine and there were a lot of deals in the works and I have yet to see people announcing what happens with those deals.
Clearly on company value alone there is a huge shift. Embraer is now worth a lot less than it was.
Crazy hope that Boeing being bailed out by US taxpayer/Federal Reserve will then take nearly $5 bill out of that pool of money to give to a company in Brazil
Not. going. to. happen.
Right now I don’t know that anything is off the table.
Fed Reserve has opened up access to corporations up to X value of the assets.
Moving so fast I can’t keep up with it, and what is the value based on?
Would Boeing try? Yep. Succeed? Maybe not with negative publicity but………………………………
If Embraer is a good opportunity & the Brasil government want to protect it’s interedt, their might be more options.
Boeing has demonstrated it’s short term driven priorities and it’s willingness to put most free cash flow into stock price/ salaries boosting.
Will they also try to drain Embraer for short term greed? Better stay away in that case.
Brazil government is broken due to previous presidents actions which increased the public debts and corruption to insane levels. Currently, if Boeing does not complete this deal, the government wouldn’t be able to help, and probably another company would takeover.