AAR (AIR) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript
- - - AAR (AIR) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript
Motley Fool Transcribing, The Motley FoolJuly 16, 2025 at 9:52 PM
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DATE -
Wednesday, July 16, 2025 at 5 p.m. ET
CALL PARTICIPANTS -
Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer — John Holmes
Chief Financial Officer — Sean Gillen
Vice President, Investor Relations — Denise Pacioni
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RISKS -
The repair and engineering segment experienced lower adjusted EBITDA and margins in Q4 FY2025 due to "higher costs at our New York component repair facility as we complete the integration and move toward fully closing it in Q1 FY2026," with management expecting these costs to end after exiting the facility.
Integrated Solutions faces "certain near-term headwinds driven by the Department of State cost efforts," expected to impact aviation operations under the WAS contract in Iraq, though management aims to offset this with growth in other programs.
TAKEAWAYS -
Revenue: $736 million in adjusted sales for Q4 fiscal year 2025, a 12% year-over-year increase for Q4 fiscal year 2025, setting a record for Q4 FY2025 adjusted sales.
Organic Sales Growth: 14% organic sales growth for Q4 FY2025, excluding the impact of the landing gear divestiture.
Full-Year Revenue: $2.8 billion in FY2025, representing a 20% increase over the prior year.
Adjusted EBITDA: $90.9 million in adjusted EBITDA for Q4 fiscal year 2025, 19% higher compared to the same quarter last year; Adjusted EBITDA margin rose to 12.4% from 11.6% in Q4 fiscal year 2024.
Adjusted Diluted EPS: $1.16 in adjusted diluted EPS for Q4 FY2025, a 32% increase from $0.88 last year (adjusted); Full-year adjusted diluted EPS was $3.91 in FY2025 compared to $3.33 for the prior year.
Government Sales: Grew 21% year over year in Q4 FY2025; commercial sales rose 12% in Q4 fiscal year 2025 compared to the same period last year and represented 69% of total sales in Q4 FY2025.
Parts Supply Segment: Sales rose 17% to $306 million in Q4 FY2025; new parts distribution grew over 20% in Q4 FY2025, with strong results in both commercial and government; adjusted EBITDA in this segment rose 36% in Q4 FY2025, adjusted operating income rose 41% in Q4 fiscal year 2025 compared to the same quarter last year
Repair and Engineering Segment: Organic sales rose 8% excluding landing gear in Q4 FY2025; adjusted EBITDA and operating income each declined 6% in Q4 FY2025, primarily due to fixed costs at the New York facility being closed.
Integrated Solutions Segment: Adjusted sales rose 10% to $181.5 million in Q4 FY2025; adjusted EBITDA in the Integrated Solutions segment rose 13% in Q4 fiscal year 2025 compared to the same period last year, and adjusted operating income in the Integrated Solutions segment rose 15% in Q4 fiscal year 2025 compared to the same period last year
Net Leverage: Reduced from 3.06x to 2.72x during the quarter; management targets net leverage of 2.0x–2.5x by FY2026, absent material M&A.
Cost Synergies: Product support acquisition integration was substantially complete as of Q4 FY2025, with the full $10 million of cost synergies expected to be realized in FY2026.
Trax Business: Trax annual revenue grew to about $50 million from $25 million over the two years since acquisition. A recent Delta Airlines “multi-year implementation” contract was cited by Holmes as the business’s “most significant” win, as discussed on the Q4 FY2025 earnings call.
Divestiture: Landing gear overhaul business was sold for $48 million in cash in FY2025, described as margin accretive.
Share Repurchase: $10 million was repurchased in Q4 FY2025 at an average price of $52.37 per share.
Capacity Expansion: Oklahoma City and Miami MRO expansions will add 15% to network capacity in CY2026; facilities are already sold out prior to coming online in 2026.
Guidance: Management expects organic sales growth in FY2026 to approach the prior year’s 9% organic growth rate, with adjusted operating margin expected to improve from the 9.6% delivered in FY2025; Q1 FY2026 sales are expected to grow 6%-11% (excluding landing gear), with adjusted operating margin of 9.6%-10% for Q1 FY2026.
AAR Corp. (NYSE:AIR) reported new Q4 and full-year revenue records for FY2025, driven by strong organic growth and margin expansion following recent portfolio optimization. Management emphasized the positive impact of completed acquisitions, divestitures, and cost synergies, as well as above-market growth and rising IP contributions from digital investments including Trax, as discussed for FY2025. Capital allocation remained disciplined with leverage decreasing, select share repurchases executed, and further investment capacity supported by robust operating cash flow.
Holmes said, "we are particularly proud of the 14% organic sales growth, which excludes land and gear, that we drove in the quarter."
Management stated Trax has doubled its revenue from $25 million two years ago at acquisition to about $50 million today, as of the Q4 FY2025 earnings call. Management is projecting another doubling as ramped implementations and customer upgrades proceed.
The product support acquisition’s integration is nearly finished; Holmes confirmed the anticipated full $10 million of cost synergies, to be realized across FY2026.
Management reported new business wins, including a long-term exclusive distribution agreement with Eptai through February 2030 and a US Defense Logistics Agency contract for new parts distribution.
Gillen said share repurchase would take priority over a dividend if leverage converges toward the lower end of target range, noting that $10 million was recently repurchased on price weakness in Q4 FY2025.
The company’s government business returned to growth in Q4 FY2025, with the largest opportunity for incremental margin improvement in repair and engineering expected after the New York facility closure eliminates stranded fixed costs.
Management noted capacity is already sold for the upcoming Oklahoma City and Miami hangars, with phased openings in calendar Q1 2026 (Oklahoma City) and calendar Q3 2026 (Miami).
INDUSTRY GLOSSARY -
CFM56: A widely used commercial aircraft engine family manufactured by CFM International, referenced for engine parts distribution.
USM: Used Serviceable Material, referring to sales of previously used, refurbished parts in the aviation aftermarket.
Trax: A software platform offering maintenance and engineering operations management for airlines and MRO providers.
MRO: Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul—services provided to maintain and restore aircraft to safe and operational condition.
ERP: Enterprise Resource Planning, referencing the digital backbone for business operations, here applied to maintenance services.
OEM: Original Equipment Manufacturer; in this context, refers to manufacturers of original aircraft and components.
Full Conference Call Transcript
Denise Pacioni: Fiscal Year 2025 Fourth Quarter Earnings Call. We are joined today by John Holmes, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Sean Gillen, Chief Financial Officer. The presentation material we are sharing today as part of this webcast can also be found under the Investor Relations section on our corporate website. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that the comments made during the call may include forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. Accordingly, these statements are no guarantee of future performance.
These risks and uncertainties are discussed in the company's earnings release and the Risk Factors section of the company's annual report on Form 10-Ks for the fiscal year ended 05/31/2024. In providing the forward-looking statements, the company assumes no obligation to provide updates to reflect future circumstances or anticipated or unanticipated events. Certain non-GAAP financial information will be discussed during the call today. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measures is set forth in the company's earnings release and slides. A transcript of this conference call will be available shortly after the webcast on AAR's website. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to AAR's Chairman, President and CEO, John Holmes.
John Holmes: Thank you, and welcome, everyone, to our fourth quarter fiscal year 2025 earnings call. We are very proud of the record year we just delivered, and as you will see, we are continuing to advance the execution of our strategy. We have accompanying information on the slides I will be referencing as I talk through the details of this release. Turning to slide three, there are five key highlights from the fiscal year 2025 that I would like to cover today. First, we delivered outstanding financial performance in the quarter and the full year. On that note, we are particularly proud of the 14% organic sales growth, which excludes land and gear, that we drove in the quarter.
Second, we have continued to refine and optimize our portfolio. We have substantially completed the integration of the Product Support acquisition and completed the divestiture of our landing gear overhaul business. Third, we are successfully driving above-market growth in our new parts distribution activities. Fourth, our track software solution is capturing new business wins and is delivering results. And fifth, we are continuing to reduce net leverage by both growing adjusted EBITDA and reducing net debt. We ended the quarter at 2.7 times, and absent any M&A, are on track to meet our leverage target of 2.0 to 2.5 times. Turning to slide four, is a high-level view of our financial results for fiscal year 2025.
We delivered record full-year results of $2.8 billion, up 20% over the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA margin increased 140 basis points to 11.8% in fiscal 2025, which reflects strong growth across our core segments. We generated record adjusted diluted earnings per share of $3.91 compared to $3.33 last year. We continue to reduce our net leverage, and our strong balance sheet, along with our disciplined capital allocation strategy, has us well-positioned for investments that will drive continued growth. Turning now to slide five, I will discuss our strategy execution in more detail.
We are executing across our strategic objectives to drive growth through market share capture and new business, improve margin through cost efficiency and synergy realization, increase the intellectual property in our offerings through digital and other investments, and to continue our disciplined portfolio management. The actions we are taking delivered the strong performance we saw in fiscal 2025, and we expect this to continue in 2026. Starting with growth, we announced several new business wins in the quarter. In our Parts Supply segment, we extended our multi-year agreement with Eptai to exclusively distribute CFM56 engine material to the aviation aftermarket through 02/1930.
We also entered into a supply chain alliance agreement with the US Defense Logistics Agency, which will enable AAR to provide comprehensive new parts distribution services to meet the needs of the DLA. In integrated solutions, we established a joint venture with Kira. The joint venture was awarded the US Navy's pilot training program on the E-6B aircraft. Additionally, we continue to make progress on our Oklahoma City and our Miami MRO airframe MRO expansions, which will come online in calendar 2026, adding 15% capacity to our network. These new business wins and expansions demonstrate the strength of our portfolio and the strong demand our customers have for our services.
In cost efficiency and synergy realization, we have substantially completed the integration of the product support acquisition. As a reminder, as part of the product support integration, we are exiting our Long Island, New York facility, consolidating that work into our locations in Dallas, Texas, and Wellington, Kansas. We transferred the last pieces of equipment and worked in New York in Q4, intending to fully exit the New York facility in our fiscal Q1. We are now in a position to realize the full $10 million of cost synergies, which should contribute to further margin expansion.
In our digital and IP-enabled offerings, we saw continued strong traction for our track software solution, as we announced several new business wins, including our largest win yet with Delta Airlines. Trax was selected by Delta to modernize Delta TechOps maintenance and engineering systems. Trax will replace Delta TechOps legacy systems with its EMRO and eMobility solutions. This multi-year implementation will ultimately be the largest of its kind in the maintenance ERP space. This win is a perfect example of our Trax acquisition thesis, whereby AAR can leverage its customer relationships to open doors for Trax. Furthermore, this win demonstrates that with AAR's investments, Trax can scale to support the largest airlines in the world.
Finally, as part of our disciplined portfolio management, we completed the divestiture of our landing gear overhaul business. This move generated $48 million in cash and is margin accretive. As previously mentioned, all of this execution delivered excellent results in our fiscal year 2025, strong double-digit growth across sales, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted EPS. With that, I will now turn it over to Sean to discuss the results in more detail.
Sean Gillen: Thanks, John. Looking now to slide six. Total adjusted sales in the quarter grew 12% to $736 million year over year, setting a new fourth-quarter sales record. This strong growth was across all of our segments, with particular strength in parts supply. Excluding the sale of landing gear, which contributed sales of $18.6 million in last year's quarter and $8.3 million in this quarter, Q4 organic sales growth was 14%. For the full fiscal year, our organic sales growth, excluding the impact of both the product support acquisition and landing gear divestiture, was 9%. Sales to government customers increased 21%, and sales to commercial customers increased 12% from the same period last year.
For the quarter, total commercial sales made up 69% of total sales, while government sales made up the remaining 31%. We are pleased to see the return to growth in our government business. Compared to the same quarter last year, adjusted EBITDA increased 19% to $90.9 million, and EBITDA margins increased to 12.4% from 11.6%. Adjusted operating income increased 25% to $70.9 million, with adjusted operating margins improving to 10.5% from 9.3%. Our focus on improving operating efficiencies, particularly strength in our parts supply segment, drove the improved margins. The combination of sales growth and margin expansion resulted in a year-over-year adjusted diluted EPS increase of 32% to $1.16 from $0.88 in the same quarter last year.
With that, I will turn to the detailed results by segment, starting with parts supply, on Slide seven. Parts supply sales grew 17% to $306 million from the same quarter last year. We once again saw above-market growth of over 20% in our new parts distribution activities, with strong growth across both the commercial and government end markets. In USM, we once again saw modest growth due to the constraints in asset availability. Fourth-quarter Parts Supply adjusted EBITDA was up $52.1 million, higher by 36%, and adjusted EBITDA margin increased to 17.1% from 14.8% the same quarter last year. Adjusted operating income rose 41% to $49.7 million, and adjusted operating margins also increased from 13.5% to 16.3%.
This significant margin improvement came from both new parts distribution and USM. In particular, USM had a very strong Q4 margin due to certain whole asset transactions. Turning now to slide eight, repair and engineering. Sales increased 3% to $223 million year over year. Excluding the impact of the Landing Gear divestiture, the organic sales growth in repair and engineering was 8%, as demand remained strong for our airframe MRO activities, and we continue to drive efficiency to increase throughput. Adjusted EBITDA of $26.7 million was 6% lower than in the same period last year, with adjusted EBITDA margins decreasing to 12% from 13.1%.
Fourth-quarter adjusted operating income of $23.3 million was also 6% lower than the same period last year, and adjusted operating margins decreased to 10.5% from 11.5%. These decreases were primarily driven by higher costs at our New York component repair facility as we complete the integration and progress toward fully closing it in Q1. Going forward, we expect to drive further margin expansion in this segment from the realization of product support synergies, continued rollout of our paperless hangar initiatives, and the capacity expansions that are in process. Looking now to slide nine. Integrated Solutions adjusted sales increased by 10% year over year to $181.5 million.
Note that adjusted sales are lower than our reported GAAP sales as we recognize $19 million in sales related to a previously exited power by the hour contract. Consistent with previous terminated contracts, we exclude the financial impact or benefit from our adjusted results. There was no margin on these sales. We saw growth across both our commercial and government end markets, with particular strength in our government programs. Integrated Solutions adjusted EBITDA of $14.2 million was 13% higher than the same period last year. Adjusted operating income of $10.7 million was 15% higher, with the adjusted operating margin increasing from 5.6% to 5.9%. Turning to Slide 10 of the presentation.
During the quarter, we reduced our net debt leverage from 3.06 in the third quarter to 2.72 times. This reduction was driven by strong Q4 cash flow from operations, $51 million, as well as net proceeds of $48 million from the Landing Gear divestiture. Additionally, in Q4, we did opportunistically repurchase $10 million worth of stock at an average price of $52.37 per share. In Q1, given the seasonality of the business and investment opportunities, we do expect a Q1 cash use. Our reduced net leverage provides us increased optionality for capital allocation going forward. Our strong balance sheet has us well-positioned to invest organically and to potentially pursue value-accretive acquisitions.
Absent any M&A, which remains part of our growth strategy, we would expect to continue to delever and achieve our target net leverage of two to 2.5 times in fiscal year 2026. With that, I will turn the call back over to John.
John Holmes: Great. Thank you, Sean. Turning to slide 11. Based on our strategy, these are our objectives for fiscal year 2026. We intend to continue expanding our market share in new parts and parts supply. In repair and engineering, we will add capacity to our heavy maintenance network with our hangar expansion in Oklahoma City. We will also focus on cross-selling opportunities to drive volume to our component services facilities. Finally, we will look to convert our pipeline of opportunities in integrated solutions government to new awards.
We plan to continue to expand margin through cost efficiency and synergy realization, and we expect to complete the product support integration and realize the full $10 million in annual cost synergies throughout the year. We will also make progress on our implementation of paperless in our hangars. We have completed about one-third of our facilities to date, and we will continue to roll this out throughout the network through the balance of the year. All of this will lead to further margin improvement in our operations. Increasing intellectual property in our portfolio will also be a focus this year, and will principally be driven through digital investments.
In 12, for context, as we look at the year ahead, we are providing some additional commentary on trends that we see in our selected end markets. As you saw throughout fiscal year 2025, our new parts distribution business grew 25% organically, which was significantly above market, and we expect that above-market growth to continue. In USM, we anticipate the market will remain dynamic during our FY '26, but we remain well-positioned in this space. In airframe MRO, we expect to continue to operate at full utilization with the additional capacity that's already sold coming online in 2026 and in fiscal year 2027.
In component services, we expect to fully complete the integration, and the sites are well-positioned for additional volume coming from cross-selling. In Integrated Solutions, we have certain near-term headwinds driven by the Department of State cost efforts, which we expect to impact the Iraq aviation operations under our WAS contract. But we expect to offset those headwinds with growth in other programs and new business wins as the year progresses. And digital tracks as a differentiated high-margin, high-growth capability that will continue to be a major focus for us. Given the overall macro environment, we will continue to provide guidance on a quarterly basis.
Having said that, and based on what we see today, we expect our organic sales growth to approach the 9% level that we drove in fiscal year 2025. This growth rate is from our fiscal year 2025 adjusted sales of $2.68 billion, excluding the impact of the Landing Gear divestiture. Additionally, we have an active pipeline of M&A opportunities that would augment this growth rate. I would also expect our adjusted operating margins to continue to improve from the 9.6% that we delivered in fiscal year 2025. For Q1, we expect sales growth of 6% to 11%, which excludes the impact of landing gear, which generated $19.2 million in sales in Q1 last year.
We expect adjusted operating margin of 9.6% to 10%. I would note that Q1 is typically a seasonally slower sales quarter for AAR as compared to Q4. In closing, I would like to highlight the strength of AAR as a business and as an investment. We are well-positioned at attractive, growing aviation end markets. We have unique capabilities that are unmatched across our industry. We are executing on our growth and efficiency initiatives. We have simplified and optimized our portfolio to deliver stronger growth at higher margins. We are reducing net leverage and thoughtfully allocating capital, and we are delivering on our strategic objectives, generating consistent financial performance.
Before turning it over to the operator for questions, I would like to thank our team of dedicated employees, our customers, and our shareholders for your continued interest and support of AAR. With that, we will open it up for questions.
Operator: Thank you. As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, please press 11 on your telephone, then wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press 11 again. Our first question comes from the line of Ken Herbert with RBC. Your line is open.
Ken Herbert: Hey, John. Just wanted to first ask. The first quarter guidance for revenue growth implies a fairly wide range, typically larger than what you have given in the past. Can you just talk about the puts and takes in terms of how we should think about what puts you to the lower end of that versus the upper end of that in terms of the revenue growth in the quarter?
John Holmes: Yeah. We have, but it's largely based on that. You know, I would say it's somewhat due to the USM environment. We have some transactions that are larger that, you know, may move around a bit. Obviously, having a really strong quarter there in Q4, and we are, you know, certainly anticipating growth in Q1.
Ken Herbert: Okay. Thanks. And specifically within the repair and engineering segment, the step down in adjusted EBITDA margins in the quarter, can you just talk about maybe some of the moving pieces there and how we should think about the pace of improvement in that segment in particular as we think about fiscal 2026?
Sean Gillen: Yeah. The step down in the quarter related to margins in repair and engineering was really all around the closure or the final activities as part of closing the New York facility. So the volume has moved away from that facility into the two Triumph facilities in Kansas and Texas. But the fixed cost, you know, remained. So you had stranded costs in the quarter that impacted the margins. As we exit that facility in this quarter, we would expect that to improve, and then that headwind will be out of the results for the balance of the year.
Ken Herbert: Okay. That's great. And, Sean, just finally on that, as you think about the full year, once you sort of normalize for that and considering what you are getting with the added capacity, I know you do not guide with too much granularity here, but as we look across the segments, where could we potentially see the most margin improvement in '26 across the various businesses?
Sean Gillen: Yeah. I think repair and engineering has the most opportunity for incremental margin improvement. As we talked about, now that the integration is substantially done, we will expect to start achieving more of the synergies, the $10 million of synergies. And the hangars continue to perform extremely well. And we could see some additional throughput and margin there. So I think there's the biggest opportunity in repair and engineering. And then in parts supply, I mean, Q4 was really, really strong. But I think for the full year, you would expect continued strong performance and growth out of that, which is the highest margin segment.
Ken Herbert: Perfect. Thanks. Nice quarter. I'll pass it back there.
John Holmes: Great. Thanks, Ken.
Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Louie DiPalma with William Blair. Your line is open.
Louie DiPalma: John and Sean, hi, good afternoon. John, you disclosed that Trax has recently crossed the $50 million revenue threshold, and you also announced the marquee win with Delta along with prior wins with Virgin Atlantic and Marijette and Rolls Royce. And so my question is, with all of this momentum and the plans to launch the supplier portal, what is the long-term view of Trax's revenue potential, and how do you view the TAM for Trax?
John Holmes: Yeah. So first of all, we are very proud to have doubled the revenue of Trax from the $25 million two years ago when we acquired it to about $50 million today. You know, the wins that we have been announcing continue to add to that growth. You know, Delta is the most significant. It is a multi-year implementation, so it will take a few years to get up to full run rate. But that will be a meaningful increase to Trax's revenue. You know, based on the momentum that we have got with new business wins, these contracts are implemented and ramped.
And based on the other initiative that we have talked about, which is upgrading existing Trax users to the new suite of Trax services, which carry with it additional revenue opportunity. Our goal is to, again, double the revenue of Trax. And we are excited about all those opportunities.
Louie DiPalma: Great. And for Sean, are there significant costs associated with the launch of the supplier market that you mentioned in the slide presentation? And should that launch take place this year?
Sean Gillen: Yep. There are costs associated with that, and we have talked about how we have grown Trax's revenue very nicely since acquiring the business. We have added costs to the business. It's still high margin, but we have added some cost to support the growth as well. And then part of that is some new digital initiatives, specifically some of this supplier portal that we are working on, and would expect those costs in this year in this fiscal year as we roll it out and hopefully make some announcements throughout the year.
Louie DiPalma: Great. And one final question. I can probably do the math, but what was the most recent growth rate for the Triumph business? And now it's going to be included as part of your organic growth. And so what's the most recent growth rate?
Sean Gillen: Yeah. So the growth rate, and it's all organic now because it was fully in the of Q4 of last year. So, when you think about the repair and engineering segment, it grew 8% excluding landing gear. And the Triumph product support business contributed to that 8%. We saw growth in both the airframe MRO and the Triumph product support. And we do want to get away from breaking out the TPS sites versus the non-TPS sites. Because at this point, now that the integration is complete and we have lapped the, call it, inorganic period, it's all just part of the growth, which will show up in the repair and engineering segment.
Louie DiPalma: Oh, okay. And one final one. What is the expectation for the amount of time that it will take to fill the Oklahoma City and Miami hangars? Like, the demand for those facilities, I guess? It's already sold. That capacity is already sold.
John Holmes: So as soon as the building is ready, we have customers eager to put aircraft into work. And so as a reminder, we anticipate the Oklahoma City site to come online in calendar Q1 2026. And we would expect the Miami facility to come online in the third calendar quarter of 2026.
Louie DiPalma: Sounds good. Thanks, John. Thanks, John. Thank you.
Operator: Please stand by for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Scott Mikus with Melius Research. Your line is open.
Scott Mikus: John, Sean, very nice results. I wanted to drill down into parts supply. Growth was very strong at 17%. I was just kind of wondering if we could parse that out by commercial new parts, commercial USM, and defense. And then, also, did you see any airlines potentially over-ordering parts in the quarter to try and get ahead of tariffs?
John Holmes: Yes, good question. So distribution led the way this quarter with another quarter of 20% plus growth we mentioned, we saw that throughout the year. So, distribution has really been the driver there. We did not see significant activity that would indicate, you know, kind of stocking up for distribution. It was relatively even order flow. If anything, we actually saw a decline in shipments to certain of our Chinese customers as a result of the tariff behavior there early in the quarter. But, you know, other airlines around the world, we did not see any abnormal behavior. So that's, you know, that led.
And then within distribution, you have had a relatively even split in terms of growth in the commercial market and the government market. And we have been really pleased to see a return to growth in government distribution in the last couple of quarters.
Scott Mikus: Okay. That's helpful. And then also in parts, by margins, you called out some margin benefit from a whole asset sale that came through in the quarter. Was that specific transaction unusually high margins, or should we assume that parts supply is a low teens margin business with potential to be mid, high teens? There's a healthy flow of USM. Yeah. I would say that's a safe assumption. You know, whole asset transactions are part of the USM business.
John Holmes: And the margin varies depending on the cost, obviously, in the sale of the whole asset transactions. So, you know, again, that's part of the activity. We hadn't seen many whole asset transactions throughout the year because that material was not available. We were happy to get a few of those across the finish line in Q4. And I think what that demonstrates is, you know, when there is supply, there is demand. And we are in a good position in the market to match those things up and achieve growth.
Scott Mikus: And then a quick one for Sean. Sean, it looks like you are going to get back into your target leverage range relatively soon. So absent any incremental M&A in the back half of your fiscal 2026, do you think about potentially restarting the dividend or doing more regular share repos?
Sean Gillen: Yeah. Good question. When we think about capital allocation, it's obviously getting in that leverage range, which you referenced. There's still a lot of opportunity to invest in the business organically. You heard about kind of multiple ways to do that. And then the M&A piece is kind of next on our capital allocation. To the extent that materializes, you know, we would kind of hold off on number four, which is around shareholder. But if we didn't and we got towards the low end of the leverage range, I think repurchase is where we would choose to put capital rather than bringing a dividend back in. We have authorization out on the existing authorization.
As I mentioned, we did $10 million early in the quarter when there was some weakness in the stock price. I think that would be the lever for capital return if we got leverage back towards the lower end.
Scott Mikus: Alright. Thanks for taking the questions, and nice quarter. Thank you very much.
Operator: Please stand by for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Michael Leshock with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Your line is open.
Michael Leshock: Hey, good afternoon, everyone. Wanted to ask the long-term vision of the USM business. You know, maybe as we look three to five years down the road. Clearly, it's an important part of the total business, but just looking at the strong growth opportunities within other segments, do you see USM coming down as a percent of sales over the long term? Or how are you thinking about that relative to the growth of other businesses?
John Holmes: Yes. That would be the answer. You know, we have been mixing USM down over the last couple of years, and it's a great business. It's the original business that founded AAR, but for all the reasons I just mentioned in the last question, you know, it's a dynamic business, and you have these moves. So we have been focused on investing in businesses with a, you know, a better line of sight to growth and the ability to consistently to more consistently produce margin expansion and consistent cash flow. And so I think USM is 15% or less of the portfolio today.
And as we grow other businesses, we would expect that percentage of as a total to continue to come down. And, you know, then having said that, though, the parts business in general, particularly distribution, are just a major focus with us. We are extremely proud of the momentum that we have in new parts distribution. We have really emerged as the largest independent provider of new parts distribution. The fact that we have the scale now and this momentum is getting us more and more opportunities with potential OEM partners. And so we really see a lot of space for growth there. So in terms of parts growth, that's really where the focus is.
Michael Leshock: Okay. And then on Trax with the Delta agreement, you touched on it a bit. But I'm curious if there's any way to frame, you know, the size of this opportunity relative to the current customer base within Trax or any way you're thinking about that outside of what you said? Appreciate it. Thank you.
John Holmes: Yes. The Delta implementation will occur over a multi-year period, and there are different phases as it ramps up to maturity. But obviously, we are spending a lot of time talking about it because it will be a meaningful single customer addition to Trax. But I would also mention, and I touched on this earlier, that as we upgrade existing Trax customers from legacy Trax to the new suite of offerings under eMRO and eMobility, that in and of itself carries significant revenue upside. To be more specific, you might have a legacy Trax user that pays a 2 or $300,000 a year annual license fee.
When they choose to upgrade to the new Trax system, which comes with much more functionality and options for them, that license fee could increase by four or five times. And so off of the existing base, as we move legacy Trax customers to the new offering, you can see pretty significant growth just from that base, which is already established.
Michael Leshock: Very helpful. Appreciate it.
John Holmes: Thanks, guys.
Operator: Thank you. As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, that's star one to ask a question. Please stand by for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Sam with Truist Securities. Your line is open.
Sam: Hey, good evening, guys. Thanks for taking the question. On for Mike Tramoli. I was wondering, could you guys give a little more detail on the Kira JV, and just kind of the potential scale there?
John Holmes: Yeah. We signed that JV to give us access to a certain market in the DOD and take advantage of their past performance. That contract is a decent contract. It's, you know, relatively modest in size. But the important part of that JV is that we are able to team with Kira to bid on certain types of contracts that AAR would not be able to bid on our own. And take advantage of their past performance. So it's a nice, I would say, kind of modest vector for growth for us.
Sam: Got it. Nice. Thank you. Next one, I guess, obviously, you guys called out, you know, the capacity in the hangars that are going to come on in the future is already sold out. So it seems like you have a pretty good line of sight there in terms of demand. But we have also seen some of the airlines, Delta, talk about potentially bringing down capacity, and we have seen some declines in outside maintenance spending. So I was just curious if you guys have any change in your view on that or if you have seen any signs from that kind of early reads or anything there.
John Holmes: Yeah. Great question. And the answer is our core customers have consistently reaffirmed their demand for our services. We have really, in the heavy maintenance business, positioned ourselves as the absolute top in North America for heavy maintenance. And so, you know, where we might see some of our competitors see some decline as a result of those capacity cuts, etcetera, our core customers have been very straightforward with us that they will remove maintenance work from others long before they would remove it from us. So we are feeling quite secure in our position and the demand for airframe MRO.
Sam: Sounds good, guys. I'll leave it at that. Thanks. Bye. Thank you.
Operator: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm showing no further questions in the queue. I would now like to turn the call back to management for closing remarks.
John Holmes: Great. Once again, we want to thank everybody for your time and interest. And we look forward to discussing our first quarter results in September. Thank you.
Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.
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