通用動力 (GD) 2016 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the General Dynamics' Q2 2016 earnings conference call.

(Operator Instructions)

As a reminder, today's conference call is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to, Erin Linnihan, Staff VP for Investor Relations.

Please go ahead.

Thank you, Candace, and good morning, everyone.

Welcome to the General Dynamics' second-quarter conference call.

As always, any forward-looking statements made today represent our estimates regarding the Company's outlook.

These estimates are subject to some risks and uncertainties.

Additional information regarding these factors is contained in the Company's 10-K and 10-Q filings.

With that, I would like to turn the call over to our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Phebe Novakovic.

Thank you, Erin, and good morning.

As you may observe from our press release, we enjoyed a very good second quarter, with revenue of $7.67 billion and net earnings of $758 million.

We reported EPS of $2.44 per diluted share, $0.17 a share better than the year-ago quarter.

We were also $0.13 a share better than consensus.

With respect to consensus, it would appear that the sell-side anticipated about $200 million more revenue, lower margins and a somewhat higher tax rate.

Compared to consensus, we had about $30 million more in operating earnings on higher margins, $10 million less in taxes, resulting in about $40 million more in net earnings.

The big driver in the quarter was the operational performance.

Compared to the year-ago quarter, revenue of $7.67 billion was $217 million lower, however, earnings of $758 million were up $6 million on a 30 basis point improvement in the operating margin and 140 basis points lower effective tax rate.

I should note that our earnings in the year-ago quarter included a gain on the sale of our commercial cyber business.

Excluding that gain, there is a 60 basis point improvement in operating margin.

Sequentially, revenue was down $59 million or less than 1%.

And earnings from continuing operations were up $28 million on a 40 basis point improvement in operating margins and a lower effective tax rate.

Let me turn briefly to the first half of 2016 and compare it to the first half of 2015.

Revenue was down 1.8% against the first half of 2015.

On the other hand, operating earnings were up $15 million.

Operating margins were 30 basis points better.

Earnings from continuing operations were up $20 million.

EPS was $0.36 better.

In short, we're off to a good start ahead of both our internal plan and external expectations that leads quite naturally to the guidance increase reflected in the press release.

I will provide additional color on that guidance shortly.

First, let me give you some perspective on the segment reporting for the quarter and for the half.

I'll then conclude with some comments on the outlook for each segment for the remainder of the year and wrap that into our EPS guidance.

First Aerospace.

Aerospace had a very good quarter.

Revenue of $2.13 billion was $124 million lower than the year-ago quarter.

Operating earnings of $434 million were only $5 million less on a 90 basis point improvement in operating margin.

Importantly, on a sequential basis, revenue was up $147 million or 7.4% and operating earnings were up $23 million or 5.6%.

For the first half, revenue at $4.12 billion is off $245 million against last year.

Reflecting planned production cuts to the 450 and the 550, offset in part by increased delivery of the 650.

However, earnings at $845 million are off only $25 million on a 60 basis point improvement in margin.

In short, at $845 million in operating earnings for the first half of the year, we are well-positioned to achieve or exceed our earning goal for the year.

By the way, recall that last year we told you that we had in Q1 a positive supply of settlement.

Absent that contribution, earnings would actually have been up this year.

So let me give you some commentary about order activity in the quarter, and then some observations about the current state of the market.

First, on a numerical or unit basis, we had 50% more orders than we did in the first quarter, however the mix was not as advantageous.

In other words, think about it this way.

We sold more mid cabin in the quarter than in the first quarter.

So the dollar base book-to-bill was not much better.

About a third of our orders in the quarter were mid cabin.

Activity and interest level were good throughout the quarter.

But, the end of the quarter when many transactions typically close, activity almost ceased as a result of the events associated with the Brexit vote.

However, those customers did not go away and are continuing to pursue transactions with us this quarter.

We are quite optimistic regarding third-quarter sales activity.

Active prospects are very good, better than at any time in the year.

The US jobs report earlier this month, slightly improved economic stories in the US and to a lesser extent in Europe, coupled with the quick market recovery from the initial Brexit vote reaction seem to have accelerated the activity level on our prospects.

We fully expect a good third quarter and second half from an order perspective.

You may recall that the G500 made its first light in the second quarter last year.

This month, it made its international debut at the Farm Bureau Air Show.

T4, that is the fourth test article, made the flight from Savannah to Farm Bureau in 6 hours and 55 minutes, traveling at a steady 0.9 mach.

Flight test is going very well, and we are on our somewhat ahead of schedule.

We look forward to the first flight of the G600 late this year.

Let's take a look at Combat.

They had a very solid quarter.

Revenue was $1.32 billion, $93 million less than the second quarter last year.

However, a 60 basis point improvement in operating margins resulted in a modest $7 million increase in operating earnings over the year-ago quarter.

All in all, very good operating leverage and an outstanding 16.7%.

On a sequential basis, revenue was up $42 million or 3.3% and operating earnings were up $2 million, about 1%.

For the first half, revenue was down $183 million or 6.6% against the first half of 2015.

Operating earnings, on the other hand, were up $6 million on a 130 basis point margin expansion.

Pretty impressive operating performance.

Work is progressing quite well on our international orders, with prototypes in production for both our AJAX program and our Canadian mid-east contract.

We were also awarded a contract to begin fast fielding of the Upgun Stryker.

With respect to the Marine group, revenue of $1.99 billion was $14 million lower than Q2 a year ago.

Operating earnings were off $6 million against the year-ago quarter, and operating margins were off 20 basis points.

On a sequential basis, revenue was down $144 million due to timing on submarine material purchases.

Operating earnings were down $11 million, resulting in a modest 10 basis point improvement in operating margin.

For the first half, revenue of $4.1 billion was up $174 million or 4.4% against the first half of 2015.

Operating earnings were essentially the same on somewhat lower margins.

Marine Systems has been a compelling growth story for us and will continue to be so.

We have some work to do on margins in the second half.

Turning to IS&T, that group continues to do well.

Revenue of $2.2 billion and operating earnings of $244 million were up against the year-ago quarter $14 million and $7 million respectively.

There was a 20 basis point improvement in operating margin, which was particularly impressive when one considers that the sale of the commercial cyber products business contributed 100 basis points of margin in the year-ago quarter.

Sequentially, revenue was lower by $104 million, but operating earnings were down only $4 million or 1.6% on a 30 basis point improvement in margin.

This 10.9% margin is the strongest in nearly five years.

The story for the first half is much the same.

Revenue was down $23 million, 0.5%, and operating earnings were up $38 million or 8.4% on a 90 basis point improvement of margin.

So once again, very strong operating leverage.

This group also tells the story about building the backlog through the first half.

Book-to-bill at about 1.3, which marks the eighth quarter in the last ten quarters the group has achieved a book-to-bill equal to or greater than 1 to 1. In short, we believe all this leaves us poised for a good second half.

Turning to guidance.

Let me provide you some guidance for the year for each segment, and then compare it to what we told you in January and then wrap it up into our EPS guidance.

For Aerospace, our guidance was to expect revenue somewhat lower than 2015 and margin somewhat higher than 2015, leading to flat operating earnings.

We now expect to be between $8.5 billion and $8.6 billion of revenue, with margins slightly above 20%.

This implies a slight pressure on margins in the second half, particularly in the third quarter.

This will result in operating earnings the same as last year or even slightly better.

Despite all the handwringing by some, these two businesses will continue to perform well.

For Combat Systems, our previous guidance was to expect revenue of approximately $5.8 billion and margins in the mid-15% area.

We now expect revenue of somewhat over $5.7 billion and margins at 16% to 16.1%.

Revenue will see strong uplift in the fourth quarter.

The difference in revenue guidance is simply from timing.

For the Marine group, we previously guided to revenue of $8 billion and margins in the mid-9% range.

We now expect revenue to be between $8.1 billion and $8.2 billion and margins around 9.2%.

For IS&T, we guided to revenue of about $9 billion and margins approaching double digits.

It now appears that our revenue guidance was good with slight upward pressure, and that operating margins will be somewhat better than 10.5% for the year.

So all of this rolls up into revenue for GD of about $31.5 billion, operating margins of 13.7% to 13.8%, net income somewhat more than the $3 billion and a return on sales of around 9.6%.

Compared to our initial guidance, we will have somewhat lower revenue but higher operating income on higher margins.

A somewhat lower tax rate and a lower share count, which permits us to increase our EPS guidance to $9.70.

To help you further, our original EPS guidance was $9.20 per share.

The $0.50 difference is $0.24 from operations, $0.09 from a lower tax rate and $0.17 from share repurchases.

If you think about the progression for the remainder of the year, third quarter should be somewhat weaker than the second but much like the first.

Followed by a very strong fourth quarter.

I'd now like to turn the call over to Jason Aiken, our CFO.

Thank you, Phebe, and good morning.

I will start with an update to an issue that we've been addressing since last year, and that is the impact we're seeing from foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations.

This continues to be focused in our Combat Systems group.

And when you compare that group's results through the first half of 2016 to the similar period a year ago, our 2016 revenue would have been higher by approximately $75 million had the exchange rates that prevailed in the first half of 2015 remained in effect this year.

For the Company as a whole, revenue would've been a little over $100 million higher.

Moving down the income statement, our net interest expense in the quarter was $23 million versus $20 million in the second quarter of 2015.

That brings the interest expense for the first half of the year to $45 million versus $41 million for the same period in 2015.

For 2016, we continue to expect interest expense to be approximately $95 million, up from 2015 due to lower cash balances resulting from our capital deployment activities which I will cover in just a minute.

We continue to expect free cash flow this year to look similar to 2015, though more weighted to the latter part of the year.

At the end of the quarter, our balance sheet reflects a cash balance of $1.9 billion and a net debt position of $1.5 billion, both essentially unchanged from the end of the first quarter.

Subsequent to the end of the quarter, we had $500 million of fixed-rate notes mature and we're in the process of refinancing that debt as we speak.

We intend to replace that debt and raise an additional $500 million from general corporate purposes to include share repurchases.

Our effective tax rate was 27.7% for the quarter.

This was lower than our original expectation, as we adopted a new accounting standard that altered the accounting for tax benefits associated with our stock options and restricted stock.

In a nutshell, these tax benefits are now treated as a permanent benefit that impact our effective tax rate.

In the second quarter, this change reduced our effective tax rate by approximately 140 basis points.

We're at a rate of 28.8% year to date, and we're now targeting a full-year rate right around 29%.

On the capital deployment front, in the second quarter, we repurchased 1.1 million shares, bringing us to just under 9 million shares in the first half of 2016 for almost $1.2 billion.

In total, when combined with the dividends we've paid through the first six months of the year, we spent $1.6 billion in shareholder friendly capital deployment.

More than two times our free cash flow for the first half.

Erin, that concludes my remarks and I will turn it back over to you for the Q&A.

Thanks, Jason.

As a quick reminder, we ask participants to ask only one question so that everyone has a chance to participate.

If you have additional questions, please get back into the queue.

Candace, could you please remind participants how to enter the queue?

(Operator Instructions)

David Strauss, UBS.

Phebe, thanks for all the color on Gulfstream.

But maybe just a little bit more color on the large cabin market and how you saw evolve in Q2, both from a used inventory perspective, how you are competing on the 450 and 550 with the used inventory that is out there and the 650.

And then what you saw recently, did North America hold in there pretty well?

Thank you.

So I think I gave you a pretty robust response in my remarks, but let me parse this, our market, in a couple of ways.

First, let's talk about the 650 pre-owned market.

I have seen some folks saying they are going to be 20 or there are 21 used airplanes in the market.

We simply do not see them.

If I count serial numbers, we have 14 on the market right now with one pending transaction.

We have 186 in service, so that equates to 7.5% of the fleet, that is well below the 10% used to in-service ratio.

So that is rather typical.

And by the way, we have long anticipated the emergence of a 650 used market.

So in my mind, this should be no surprise.

I would also note that we have seen minimal impact, with a few customers choosing the near-term availability rather than wait.

So from my perspective, based on the facts and the data, we are quite comfortable that used market is appropriate and acting in a rational and typical sort of way.

650, if you talk about by model, the 650 demand remains quite active.

In our sub markets, subsections of the markets, the 450 and 550 are as we anticipated during this period of transition to the 500 and 600, complicated to touch by competitor's overproduction.

By the way, I might tell you that the 500 and 600 positions are sold to a lot of -- a lot of those positions are sold in 2016 and 2017.

So we like how all of that is shaping up.

With respect to the geographic distribution, about 50% of the orders were North America, and I think the rest split between mid-east, Asia-Pacific, Europe and South America in that order.

Okay?

Robert Spingarn, Credit Suisse.

I wanted to switch to Marine for a moment, Phebe.

You guided for us earlier, but you have a lot going on there.

You have got the Block 4 pricing going up, there is growth in ORP funding.

When would we start to see some real improvement in sales from all of these positives?

We have been experiencing that improvement.

But when we look at the Navy's plan to continue with the Gulfstream or the Virginia class deliveries as well as the [IR] our replacement, we see that we get some real nice ignitions starting in 2019 when we have long lead delivery.

We're anticipating, based on the Navy plan, long-lead delivery in 2019.

But let's not forget, this has been a very nice steady quarter-over-quarter performer.

True.

And how would the TAOX factor in, and does that impact Masco's margins late for this year and next year, the win there?

The TAOX, let's remember that -- our award was for one ship, and multiple, I think it with five options subject to the request authorization and appropriation.

So those oilers are right in our wheelhouse and we ought to be able to perform very nicely on those, and it positions us well for the 17 ships in the Navy contract.

It was an unusual award, but there were no surprises and I think from -- it was an unusual contracting process.

But from my point of view, there were no surprises because lined up with who does what well.

Thank you very much.

Sam Pearlstein, Wells Fargo.

Phebe, you talked a lot about the earnings and the revenue for the year.

In the past, you've talked about free cash flow conversion relative to last year's.

So now with a higher net income, should we still see a similar conversion?

And somewhat related, we knew you were going to be eating into those international combat advances.

But really, what should that advances line look like when we get to the end of the year on the balance sheet?

Sam, so as I addressed in my remarks, we do continue to see full-year free cash flow for this year looking similar to what we had last year.

Although as I said, a little bit inverted toward the second half of the year.

A slightly different profile than we had last year from a timing standpoint.

As it relates to the advances, we will continue to draw down on those so you will see that balance.

You have seen it come down throughout the first half of the year, and will see that continue as we continue to make progress on the production side of those contracts through the balance of the year.

But coming down at the same rate?

I don't have the exact specifics on that, we can perhaps talk after the call on that.

But directionally, yes, we'll see it continue to come down.

Thank you.

Doug Harned, Bernstein.

I wanted to try and understand a little bit of the margin situation of Gulfstream.

The margins have been great at around 20% level, even with declining production.

So can you talk a little bit about what has enabled you to achieve that as you are going through a transition to the new programs?

You have a lower rate on the 450 and 550.

And when you roll that forward, do you expect, if you have to take rate down perhaps even more on the 450 and 550, can you keep that margin level through the product transition?

Let's talk about this year, and I don't want to get into too much specificity in 2017 and 2018.

But the margins are driven by, and this is true year in and year out, they are driven by our managing of costs and our cost reductions in addition to the 650's nice contribution.

When I think about that, that and our performance on service has been quite nice through the course of the year.

So I have a great deal of confidence that we can continue to maintain our profitability as we go through.

We will have to modify it somewhat, but with our profitability going through this transition period.

And that is that even as you take rates down and you in theory would lose some operating leverage?

Well we have pretty much planned in the rates on the 450, I do not see any more reductions.

In fact, I don't see any more reduction on the 450, and the 550 we see very minimal changes going forward.

So our job is to keep earnings up as high as possible during this transition period and manage our margin.

We're going to continue to do that.

I think we have demonstrated that track record the last six quarters, and we're going to continue going forward.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Howard Rubel, Jefferies.

First, Phebe, I have a clarification.

I think you said 500, 600s sold in 2016 and 2017.

Did you mean that you're largely sold out in 2017 and 2018?

Yes, I'm sorry if I was not clear on that.

The 650 is sold out in its entirety through 2016, and also in its entirety in 2017.

So when we look at the order activity on the 500 and 600, what I'm saying is is that our expectations to our entry into service would remain the same.

We have, in that projection, we have sold an awful lot of our, both of those 500s and 600s.

So that positions us very well I think.

I'm sorry.

Again, so 2017 and 2018 for the 500 and 600 are largely sold.

Is that how I'm hearing this?

Yes.

They have had a lot of sales.

Then, just to follow this, it sounds like though there were some adjustments to the large cabin delivery schedule.

Could you articulate where you are for this year, and I guess you probably won't?

And maybe if you can address some elements of how you are thinking about 2017.

I don't want to get into 2017 at the moment, because as you know, we provide that to you all in the fourth quarter or the 2016 call by tradition.

That said, let me give you some color on where we are in the moment.

First, production rates this year have not changed, so we've kept them the same as when we set this plan.

Revenue is impacted in 2016 by a couple of factors.

One, we have one less green airplane, I think it is a 280 and six [here are] completions.

We are moving these completions from this year into next, largely because of customer preferences and when they want to take the planes.

And then we have got a mix of other smaller puts and takes.

Okay, thank you.

Jason Gursky, Citi.

Just to follow up on the 500 and the 600 really quickly.

I think at the launch event a few years ago, you suggested that the book-to-bill or the bookings that you take on that aircraft would be barbelled.

You'd take some at the beginning, we would have a lull until you got closer to the entry into service of the aircraft.

I am wondering if that's still the way that you are thinking about that.

And at what point historically do you see the second end of that barbell begin to pick up?

Meaning, when might we see some more orders for the 500 and 600 begin to come in relative to the entry into service, how much before the entry into service do we see that pick back up?

I don't have perfect clarity about the precise timing of when orders will pick up.

But it is our expectation, building on the good sales we have had here before, that the closer these airplanes are to entry into service, our sales will pick up.

Myles Walton, Deutsche Bank.

Phebe, can you comment on the capital deployment strategy and where your head is currently in terms of M&A, the market has gotten richer or cheaper and property availability has gotten better or worse?

And also the repurchase slow down, is there anything to read there?

On M&A, I really do not have an update for you.

But if and when we do something, we will let you know, we will advise you.

Jason, do you want to talk through the share repurchase?

Yes, I think, Myles, for the balance, when you think about the year, our objectives, our targets for the year on the deployment haven't changed.

As you know, we were fairly on the active side in the first quarter of the year.

So we looked at the second quarter and feel like by the balance of the first half of the year, we're right on track and doing exactly what we had hoped to do.

We've deployed, as I said, two times our free cash flow on share repurchase and dividends.

So I don't think you should see that as a signal of any directional shift for us at any time.

Okay.

So the full-year return of capital is still targeted to be 100% of net income now?

That is correct.

Okay, thanks.

Carter Copeland, Barclays.

Good morning and nice quarter.

Thank you, Carter.

Just a clarification and a question.

I know, Phebe, you said the production plan did not change but I just wondered if you could clarify whether or not your cost plan changed at all?

I know you had some cost reduction actions and furloughs, I did not know if any of that changed from what you initially planned on.

And then one for Jason, just on the FX front, you have called out the UK impact, I think you've got a little bit of Swiss impact as well.

What should we be thinking of in terms of forward impacts if currencies stay where they are?

Are there any transactional FX exposures that we should be aware of going forward?

Thank you.

Yes, so as I mentioned earlier, our margins at that level really aren't sustainable each and every quarter.

But the 650 is contributing, and really is cost management, cost reduction that is driving our margin.

So it is hard with perfect clarity to estimate the goodness that you can achieve until you are really in the moment.

We are continuing to manage our costs.

I think we have got more way to go, and then at the same time, by the way, we have got to continue to improve the 650 and 280 operating margins which we will do and are doing, and then we have got to ensure that the 450 and 500 maintain their profitability.

I think that will look very nice on track, particularly with respect to the latter.

Carter, with respect your foreign-exchange question.

You can think about our exposures this way in order of magnitude, if you will.

It is really Canadian dollars, euros, pounds and then Swiss francs in terms of magnitude.

But the updated guidance that Phebe walked you through earlier was actually predicated on the latest rates we have at hand projected through the balance of the year.

So that is the latest look at the impact, and it's not -- I wouldn't call it material through the balance of the year, but we also do not necessarily take a bet on rates moving further one way or another.

So if there is a further movement in the second half, we would obviously tell you about that and it could have an upside or a downside impact to that guidance.

The last thing I would say is that there is no, absolutely zero, from our perspective transactional exposure.

This is all strictly as we have discussed before the translation for US dollar reporting.

Everything from a transactional perspective is hedged and has been working effectively up to this point.

Great, thank you for the color.

Ron Epstein, Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Phebe, I was wondering if you could just give us a quick update where we stand on the Ohio class program in terms of what is going on actually at electric boat, and then what you're looking for over the next coming quarters?

If you have been following this, maybe an electric boat have been active in a number of discussions.

Most recently, we delivered our Ohio replacement integrated product and process development plan and think about that as the detailed design and long-lead material portion of the procurement process.

The Navy is reviewing that in the moment.

I think their plan is to get back to us sometime late summer, early fall, but that is their call in terms of the cadence of the timing.

But that will provide and should provide, depending when we close on that, some upside in this year.

And then again, as we have talked before, this is a very strong growth engine for us over time.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Cai von Rumohr, Cowen and Company.

Phebe, how far are the G450 and 550 sold into next year?

And I think at one point, you said you would rather take down production than take down price.

How large is that period between when that backlog ends and when we might see initial deliveries of the G500?

I am comfortable that we can manage this transition, and we are in good shape to either we sold a fair number of the positions going into next year, particularly on the 450 and also on the 550.

The transition, the trick to the transition is still, you've got to bring down the production on the 450, 550 while ramping up the production on the 500 and 600.

The ease of this is somewhat benefited -- are somewhat benefits from the fact that these two sets of airplanes are built in completely different facilities.

If you are suggesting that we have a gap, that is not an altogether bad thing as long as we stay on schedule for our deliveries in the 400 or 500 and 600, which I see no reason why we can't at the moment.

But we are in good shape for next year on the 450, 550.

Got a little ways more to go, and then we will set the production rates for the 500 and 600 as we move forward.

Does that get to the essence of your question?

That's helpful.

Thanks so much.

Seth Seifman, JPMorgan.

I was wondering if you could tell us, maybe, Jason, of the shortfall in cash flow, free cash flow, relative to net income this year, maybe in qualitative terms how much of that is related to the construction of flight test articles for G500 and 600?

And do all of those flight test articles go to customers and so do all of those costs go into inventory?

The flight test articles do go into inventory, and they will eventually either go into long-term product design use or to customers.

I would say that the outsized from a qualitative standpoint, the outsized impact on the cash flow differential is really more about the international program advances being drawn down.

There is some impact on not so much the flight test aircraft impact at Gulfstream so much as just inventory build toward production, but that is the minor share.

The larger share really is about the international advance drawdown.

Okay, very good.

Thank you.

George Shapiro, Shapiro Research.

I wanted to pursue, you had four used sales in Gulfstream.

Could you give us the revenues and approximate earnings?

And I would assume that would have deflated the margin you reported as high as it was.

So when you go to the second half and you have higher revenues, why does the margin be somewhat less than what it was this quarter?

Thanks.

George, I will take that.

The revenues for the quarter were right around $40 million I believe was the number for pre owned, and as is typical, it's right around breakeven.

Maybe a $1 million or $2 million loss associated with those, which is pretty typical.

If I understand your question, for the balance of the year, we do have profiled as we have talked about before an expectation of additional pre owned coming into inventory and being sold.

Which actually is consistent with the point Phebe made before with a little bit of a downtick in margins, particularly in the third quarter.

So I think those are consistent, unless I misunderstood your question about the balance of the year.

No, I think it is right Jason.

I just through that to deliver four used planes in subsequent quarters, you're probably not going to do that much, maybe you will.

So I was figuring the used planes would be less, so you have got a little bit less pressure on the profit and you've got higher revenues.

A little bit more color on that, the planes in the quarter, there were four of them but the mix of them they were pretty modest in terms of revenue per unit.

So that is not the assumption necessarily going forward.

There are a lot of different mix in there in terms of the inventory that we take in.

Think about it this way, George, we sold four in the quarter, which you note.

We took in three and have sold one, so today, we have two in inventory.

But remember that the margin impact can vary depending on the aircraft itself.

Okay, that's a good answer.

One quick one, Combat margin is usually the biggest in the fourth quarter, and yet your guidance is implying the second half won't be as good as the first half.

So if you had a little explanation on that.

Yes, so we're in the third and more importantly the fourth quarter beginning to move from our -- as the domestic land forces contracts some of those begin to taper down.

We are increasing our international production, so we have got -- that's really the margin pressure, it's simply a question of mix.

As long as operating performance is good, these guys have done very well but they have got to come down their learning curves.

Okay, thanks very much.

Very good.

Hunter Keay, Wolfe Research.

Phebe, can you give us any color on the customer mix or geography on all those mid-cabins in the quarter that you sold?

And was order activity in line with your expectations on a dollar base book-to-bill basis, or would you say first of all that you are surprised at the upside?

And to that, can you talk about how wait times on the mids change in the quarter?

Thank you.

If I understand your question properly, we had -- our sales on the 280 were a little different or a little better than we had anticipated, and I think that is just reflecting the strength of the North American market.

With respect to wait times, and let me give you this opportunity or take this opportunity to give you a little bit of color on the wait times.

On the G650 and 50ER, we are about 24 months, 550 and 450, 9 to 12 months, no change, 280, 9 to 12 months, and the 150, we have got onesees and twosees left to sell there.

So the first available there is a year from now.

Okay, thanks.

So on the 280, better than expected, that was not just timing that was actually maybe you just won a few more awards that you could've gone either way.

Yes.

I think that's right.

That is always the case, right?

We understand our customer's needs, but the order in which they want to execute replacement of their fleet will depend on their imminent needs for the mission that a particular airplane serves.

The good news is, they are selling well, the 280s, but it does impact book-to-bill.

Sure, thank you.

Pete Skibitski, Drexel Hamilton.

Phebe, I guess I'll ask you one on the Navy subs program.

I'm wondering how you think about -- there seems to be some emerging chatter from the Democrats about the affordability of nuclear triad recapitalization.

I know you have some potential CapEx bills to pay as you think about what the rates are going to be.

How do you decide on your CapEx profile at Marine given the sizable bills the Navy is gong to have to pay and if they can pay those bills or not?

There's often chatter, and this has been true from the last time that we recapitalized our nuclear fleet about the affordability of it.

But this is really a national policy issue, and to the extent that the United States wants to maintain a nuclear deterrent, they've got to build this submarine.

So that is number one, and that is my view and I think that is supported by many people in the government on both the executive and the congressional side.

I wouldn't say that democratic -- some chatter in the system suggest a walking away from this requirement.

I think in terms of -- so the Navy has budgeted here a revenue flow to us that we can easily accommodate the CapEx and the other improvements that we have going forward in terms of the ability to build these.

I might also tell you that we have been spending CapEx over the past few years to position ourselves, particularly at the [quonset] point on the Ohio replacement.

We work very carefully with our Navy customer to determine what they need, what we need, the funding allocation, who is responsible for what, and we're certainly not going to get caught long.

Do you think ultimately you keep the Virginia rate at two per year?

That is the plan.

We like that plan.

I hear you.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Thank you everyone for joining our call today.

If you have additional questions, Erin can be reached at 703-876-3583.

Have a great day.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's conference.

This does conclude the program and you may all disconnect.

Have a great day everyone.