Adient plc (NYSE:ADNT) Q2 2024 Earnings Conference Call May 3, 2024 8:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Mike Heifler - Investor Relations
Jerome Dorlack - President, CEO & Director
Mark Oswald - Executive VP & CFO

Conference Call Participants

Emmanuel Rosner - Deutsche Bank
Dan Levy - Barclays
Joseph Spak - UBS

Operator

Welcome to the Adient Second Quarter Financial Results Earnings Conference Call. [Operator instructions] Today's conference is being recorded. I'd now like to turn the call over to Mike Heifler. Thank you, you may begin.

Mike Heifler

Thank you, Amanda. Good morning, and thank you for joining us. The press release and presentation slides for our call today have been posted to the Investors section of our website at adient.com. This morning, I'm joined by Jerome Dorlack, Adient's President and Chief Executive Officer; and Mark Oswald, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. On today's call, Jerome will provide an update on the business followed by Mark, who will review our Q2 financial results and outlook for the remainder fiscal 2024. After our prepared remarks, we will open the call to your questions.

Before I turn the call over to Jerome and Mark, there are few items I'd like to cover. First, today's conference call will include forward-looking statements. These statements are based on the environment as we see it today, and therefore involve risks and uncertainties. I would caution you that our actual results could differ materially from these forward-looking statements made on the call. Please refer to Slide 2 of the presentation for our complete Safe Harbor statement.

In addition to the financial results presented on a GAAP basis, we will be discussing non-GAAP information that we believe is useful in evaluating the company's operating performance. Reconciliations for these non-GAAP measures to the closest GAAP equivalent can be found in the appendix of our full earnings release. And with that, it’s my pleasure to turn the call over to Jerome.

Jerome Dorlack

Thanks, Mike. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining as we review our second quarter results, discuss the drivers for a revised full-year outlook, and share insights into the long-term direction of the business and how we plan to create value for our shareholders. Turning to slide 4, let me begin with a few comments related to the quarter. I'm proud of the Adient team for delivering strong results underscored by 60 basis points of margin expansion from a year ago through being nimble, finding incremental efficiencies and maintaining a laser focus on flawless launch execution. The team was able to overcome a production volume environment that was weaker than ongoing expectations, driven by slower than anticipated ramp of key launches and softening EV demand in the Americas and EMEA regions. The Americas and EMEA were able to proactively take out costs through austerity measures, reduced freight expense, and carefully controlled launch expense, driving improved business performance in the face of volume challenges.