Howmet Aerospace Inc. (NYSE:HWM) Q3 2023 Earnings Conference Call November 2, 2023 9:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Paul Luther - Vice President, Investor Relations

John Plant - Executive Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

Ken Giacobbe - Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Kristine Liwag - Morgan Stanley

Scott Mikus - Melius Research

David Strauss - Barclays

Scott Deuschle - Deutsche Bank

Myles Walton - Wolfe Research

Ronald Epstein - Bank of America

Seth Seifman - JPMorgan

Noah Poponak - Goldman Sachs

Sheila Kahyaoglu - Jefferies

Operator

Good day and welcome to the Third Quarter 2023 Howmet Aerospace Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note this event is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Paul Luther, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Paul Luther

Thank you, Betsy. Good morning and welcome to the Howmet Aerospace third quarter 2023 results conference call. I'm joined by John Plant, Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Ken Giacobbe, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. After comments by John and Ken, we will have a question-and-answer session.

I would like to remind you that today's discussion will contain forward-looking statements relating to future events and expectations. You can find factors that could cause the company's actual results to differ materially from these projections listed in today's presentation and earnings press release and in our most recent SEC filings.

In today's presentation references to EBITDA, operating income, and EPS mean adjusted EBITDA excluding special items, adjusted operating income excluding special items, and adjusted EPS excluding special items. These measures are among the non-GAAP financial measures that we've included in our discussion. Reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures can be found in today's press release and in the appendix in today's presentation.

With that I'd like to turn the call over to John.

John Plant

Thanks P.T. and welcome everybody to the Q3 earnings call. The results for the third quarter were solid in all respects and exceeded the guidance given in August, which itself was a further increase on that provided in May and February. Sales of $1.658 billion, increase of 16% year-over-year. EBITDA was $382 million, an increase of 18%. EBITDA margin increased to a headline rate of 23%. Margin rate improvements reflect the continuing good work in all segments.

I would like to note fasteners with not a sequential quarterly improvement of 230 basis points and additionally, the structure segment had a 320 basis points recovery from the Q2 rate.