Ducommun (NYSE:DCO) Q3 2026 Earnings Call

0:00 Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q3 2026 DoCommon Earnings Conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Dukkhamen's Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Suman Mookerji. Please go ahead.

0:38 Thank you and welcome to Dukkhamen's 2026 Third Quarter Conference Call. With me today is Steve Oswald, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer. I'm going to discuss certain limitations to any forward-looking statements regarding future events, projections, or performance that we may make during the prepared remarks or the Q&A session that follows. certain statements today that are not historical facts, including any statements as to the company's progress and value creation opportunity for shareholders under our Vision 2027 game plan for investors, beliefs about the company's ability to attain the goals stated in our Vision 2032 strategic plan, potential destocking headwinds and their impact on the company's business for the remainder of 2026, expectations related to the U.S. Department of War's long-term framework agreements for key missile programs, with defense primes, our share of potential orders from those primes, the increase in production on many of those missile programs and their impact on the growth of our defense business, estimated synergies to be realized under the company's facility consolidation project, and the outlook for the company's revenue and commercial aerospace and defense businesses for the full year 2026 are forward-looking statements under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and are therefore prospective.

1:54 These forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties, and other factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from the future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in our forward-looking statements are reasonable, we can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to have been correct. In addition, estimates of future operating results are based on the company's current business, which is subject to change. Particular risks facing Dukkhamen include, amongst others, the cyclicality of our end-use markets, the level of U.S. government defense spending, our customers may experience changes in production rates or delays in launch and certification of new products, timing of orders from our customers which are subject to cancellation, modification, or rescheduling, our ability to obtain additional financing and service existing debt to fund capital expenditures and meet our working capital needs, legal and regulatory including pending litigation matters generally and as well as any potential losses arising from third party subrogation claims related to the Guaymas Performance Center fire that may become material, the cost of expansion, consolidation and acquisitions, competition, economic and geopolitical developments including supply chain issues, our ability to successfully implement restructuring, realignment and cost reduction initiatives that could adversely impact our ability to achieve our strategic objectives International Trade Restrictions, and our ability to obtain necessary U.S. government approvals for proposed sales to certain foreign customers, the impact

3:27 of tariffs and elevated interest rates, risks associated with a prolonged partial or total U.S. federal government shutdown, the ability to attract and retain key personnel and avoid labor disruptions, the ability to adequately protect and enforce intellectual property rights, pandemics, disasters, natural or otherwise, and risk of cybersecurity attacks. Please refer to our annual report on Form 10-K-A, quarterly report on Form 10-Q, and other reports filed from time to time with the SEC, as well as the press release issued today for a detailed discussion of the risks. Our forward-looking statements are subject to those risks. Statements made during this call are only as of the time made, and we do not intend to update any statements made in this presentation, except if and as required by regulatory authorities.

4:14 The call also includes non-GAAP financial measures Please refer to our filings with the SEC for a reconciliation of the GAAP to non-GAAP measures referenced on this call. We filed our Q3 2026 quarterly report on Form 10Q with the SEC today. I would now like to turn the call over to Steve Oswald for a review of the operating results.

4:36 Steve? Okay, thank you, Suman. Thanks, everyone, for joining us today for our third quarter conference call. Today, as usual, I will give an update of the current situation at the company. Afterwards, Suman will review our financials in detail. To start, I want to thank everyone that attended the launch of our Vision 2032 strategy in September, either in person, in New York, or virtually. It was over 1,300 days since our last Investor Day in 2022, and we were excited to share our game plan for continued growth. The highlights were new revenue and margin expansion targets, along with plans for a significant increase in percentage of engineered products for the DCO P&L. The feedback we have received since then from all shareholders has been very positive, so again, thank you. As in previous calls, I will reiterate the Commons Vision 2027 strategy as we continue to make great progress heading into our fifth and final year starting this January. The strategy and vision were developed coming out of the COVID pandemic over the summer and fall of 2022, unanimously approved by the Commons Board in November 2022, and then presented the following month in New York to investors where we got excellent feedback.

5:41 Since that time, the Commons management has been executing the strategy by increasing the revenue percentage of engineered product content which was 24% in Q3, a record, consolidating our rooftop footprint in contract manufacturing, continuing our focused acquisition program, executing the offloading strategy with defense primes and high growth segments, driving value-added pricing, and expanding content on key commercial aerospace platforms. All of us here are thrilled about Vision 2027 and many accomplishments to date. The Q3 2026 results show again that the strategy initiatives are working. with, again, record gross margins. I'm happy to report our adjusted even of margins and engineered product revenue mix are very close to our final Vision 2027 targets a year early. Wonderful news.

6:32 Our Vision 2032 strategy continues that momentum. We'll take DCO to the next level. We're doubling down on engineered products to build that to at least 40% of revenue, both organically by increasing our acquisition activity. We expect to grow total revenue to the range of $1.6 to $1.7 billion and expand adjusted to even margins to 23% of revenue. We've got the right team in place, and the plans to execute these targets are already in motion. For Q3, we achieved a new record of $227 million in revenue, 6% growth over last year, and our sixth consecutive quarter of over $200 million in revenue, and now 22 consecutive quarters of year-over-year revenue growth. In Q3, commercial aerospace performed extraordinarily well, growing 28% over last year, with narrow-body platforms of both Boeing and Airbus growing significantly as we're working through the final stages of destocking, and that is coming to an end in December.

7:25 We're also benefiting on the commercial side from a major new program for VA, supplying proprietary switches we talked about last quarter. This is an engineered product designed by DCO engineers and is driving retrofit and new bill revenue at significant margins for us, and DCOs receive bookings in excess of $30 million are first for us at this level. Military and space revenues came in at 7% lower this quarter versus prior year due to the timing of orders and production on certain programs, including some pull forward into the first half of the year that we discussed previously. We closed on $263 million in military and space bookings in Q3, an all-time record, which represents a book-to-bill of 2.2, and takes our military and space revenue performance obligation to an all-time high of $868 million.

8:12 This record level of order activity sets us up well for strong growth in our military and space business. Missiles continues to outperform other areas of our defense portfolio, with another quarter of double-digit growth as well as continued strength in fixed-wing aircraft, which is offset by temporary softness in our rotary wing, ground vehicle, and radar platforms. Overall for DCO, we closed on $354 million of new bookings during the quarter to book the bill of $1.6 million. This increases our remaining performance obligations for the company to a record $1.3 billion, $255 million higher than prior year, and $127 million higher than Q2. All outstanding. Our defense business RPO grew $275 million year-over-year, highlighted by a $90 million order on the SPY-6 Navy radar from RTX.

9:04 This is the offload of CCAs from the Andover, Massachusetts facility that I've talked about over the past few years. that is now really paying off in a big way, but it did take time. $54 million in bookings as well for the Mesa Airborne Surveillance for Northrop Grumman that supports the Boeing E-7 Wedgetail, and that number is for five planes. I am thrilled with the current state of our radar business, which is now becoming a franchise like the DCO missile business. To put this segment in perspective and context, in 2024, we booked $65 million for five radar programs, In 2025, only $11 million for three programs, and year-to-date in 2026, we've booked over $150 million for seven programs, and that is just in the first nine months. Such wonderful news. Overall, in 2026, we have booked $535 million of defense orders through Q3 of this year, and I want to point out that this does not include any orders under the seven-year missile framework agreements for RTX and Lockheed. For clarity, Framework agreements announced have resulted in contract awards but not orders to defense primes, and will eventually turn into purchase orders that get slowed down at the supply chain.

10:19 While the timing of such orders is hard to predict, our current expectation is for that to happen starting in late Q1 and Q2 of next year, but we'll be getting OEM commitments to start ordering material in Q4. In addition, we've been adding staff and floor space as we speak. Production on many of these missile programs, such as the PAC-3, AMRAAM, Standard Missile 3, Standard Missile 6, and Tomahawk are expected to grow several fold, and this will be a big driver of growth for DCO and the industry over the next several years. Gross margins grew by $7 million in the quarter to 28.9%, a 140 basis point improvement, another record from 27.5% last year in Q3. The benefits of our Vision 2027 strategy continue to flow through the P&L with expansion from DCO's engineered product portfolio, which again includes the new major BA application I mentioned earlier, and we have now reached 24% of revenue.

11:13 This along with strategic value-added pricing, restructuring actions, and productivity improvements are all reading through to the P&L. Our cost-saving expectations of $13 million annually from our facility consolidation program have also been realized at this time. For adjusted operating income margin in Q3, the team delivered 12.3% 40 basis points below the prior year of 12.7%. This is mainly due to timing of stock-based compensation expense during the year. Adjusted EBITDA continues to improve towards our Vision 2027 goal of 18% in 2027 from 13% in 2022. DCO achieved 17.5% in the quarter, or 39.7 million, up 2.4 million from Q3 2025. This puts us in great shape to achieve our 2027 target. GAAP EPS was $0.89 per diluted share in Q3 2026 versus a loss of $4.06 per share for Q3 2025 from the litigation settlement.

12:13 With adjustments, diluted EPS was $1.21 a share in Q3 versus $1.22 in prior year quarter. Higher operating income drove the higher GAAP EPS during the quarter, while adjusted net income was essentially flat prior year. As I've touched on earlier, we've had some significant orders in the quarter with over 354 million of bookings and a book-to-bill of 1.6. Over the last 12 quarters, we've closed on over 1.1 billion of bookings, a trailing 12-month book-to-bill of 1.3. With increased defense spending and positive momentum in commercial aerospace, we have strong tailwinds in both our primary and markets. It is the best I have seen since joining Duke Common in 2017. On the outlook for the fourth quarter, I expect to see continued growth, especially in our commercial aerospace business. In September, during our investor day, we narrowed our revenue guidance for 2026 to a range of $880 million to $890 million.

13:07 We're continuing to track to that and further refine that range to $885 million to $890 million. This is also in line with our original guidance for February of this year, amid the single high-digit revenue growth for the full year 2026. Now let me provide some color on our markets, products, and programs. Beginning with our commercial aerospace operations, third quarter revenue increased 28% year-over-year to $97 million, with strong growth in production and deliveries on single aisle platforms for both Airbus and Boeing. In particular, on the 737 MAX platform, we benefited from the shipments of the proprietary switches, and overall, Our aerospace business grew across all platform groups, single aisle, wide body, commercial rotorcraft, business jets, and engines.

13:54 Now that Boeing received FAA certification of the 737 MAX 10 in October, the company has cleared another hurdle in their recovery. The new production line is also up and running, and the company is working to stabilize at 47 MAXs a month on the way to 52 in the second half of next year. While this is slower than the prior expectations, it still represents great progress for our second largest customer. and with internal and external destocking largely coming to an end, we are set up very well for good growth going into 2027 and beyond. I will also add that the 787 build rate increases will be good for the common. We have limited exposure as well as 777 production delays and don't expect those to affect revenue in Q4 and in 2027. Airbus has an aggressive Q4 goal for shipments and DSO is fully supporting the production needs with capacity available to meet the demand.

14:46 The other item I want to cover in commercial aerospace is our seven-year LTA expiration for Airbus at the end of 2026. I'm happy to report we have now finalized a new two-year agreement to continue supplying superplastic-formed and hot-formed titanium products for the A320 family. And in addition, we received a purchase order today from Airbus. Such great news. This content is for both Pratt engines and CFM engines and will be in effect starting in January. We will now see significant double-digit price increases for both Pratt and CFM to sell components, which shows our strategy of high-value and niche contract manufacturing, which has been developed over the decades, is a winner and very effective.

15:32 Ducomet, for those who do not know, is the worldwide market share leader in titanium, SPS, and hot form outside of the OEM Toulouse operation and one of the very few companies in that space. This is a big deal for our P&L shareholder value and will make a difference in DCO Structure's gross margin of profitability in 2027 and 2028, starting in January. In our military and space sector, we saw revenues of $119 million compared to $128 million in Q3 2025. This represents a 7% decline as related to timing as we built more military space in the first half to level low production for the year. Our missile franchise continues to form well, up 25% year-over-year in Q3, as well as double-digit growth in fixed wind platforms.

16:19 This was offset by temporary declines in radar, ground vehicles, and rotorcraft due to timing of orders and production schedules. As I've noted earlier, we had robust bookings in our defense business with a book-to-bill of 2.2, and with the RPO record levels positioning us for growth in the future. Our missile franchise continues to perform a double-digit growth rate at Tacoma, and Tacoma expects orders for the seven-year agreements to come in starting in late Q1 and Q2 of 2027. DCO is a key supplier on the PAC-3, SM-3, SM-6, Tomahawk, THAAD, and Amran, and we continue to work with Defense Primes on multiple opportunities. DCO is also in great shape with capacity at our operations to fully support the required ramp-up with minimal capital.

17:05 Overall, our missiles, radar, and electronic warfare franchise grew 12% during the quarter on a year-to-date basis, represents 39% of our military and space segment, and more than 21% now of our total company revenues. This is a great platform that I expect to drive growth for us for multiple years going forward. In summary, the outlook for the next few years continues to be exciting for the company and our shareholders. We like the balance of defense and commercial aerospace, and like I said earlier, This is the best position I've seen the company in for future growth since I joined Dukaman in 2017. With that, I'll have Suman review our financial results in detail. Suman?

17:45 Thank you, Steve. As a reminder, please see the company's 10Q and Q3 earnings release for a further description of information mentioned on today's call. As Steve discussed, our third quarter results reflected another strong quarter of revenue with strong growth in commercial aerospace offset by temporary decline in our military and market. Gross margins and adjusted EBITDA margins both showed continued improvement over the previous year and hit new records. The synergies from our facility consolidation projects completed last year are now fully in our P&L and along with our value-based pricing approach and the pickup from operating leverage positions us well to achieve our Vision 2027 goal of 18% adjusted EBITDA percentage of sales. Now turning to our third quarter results.

18:30 Revenue for the third quarter of 2026 was $227 million versus $214.4 million for the third quarter of 25. The year-over-year increase of 6% reflects strong growth in commercial aerospace of 28% driven by growth on single life platforms including the 737 MAX and A320 as well as growth on wide body platforms and business jets. The strength in the commercial aerospace business was supported by higher production and Deliveries for OEM customers and new aftermarket business on the 737. Our defense business experienced a temporary decline of 7% year-over-year with continued strength in missiles and fixed-wing platforms offset by temporary declines in ground vehicles, rotorcraft and radar platforms. As Steve mentioned earlier, our missiles business saw another quarter of double-digit growth with our missile, radar and electronic warfare programs combined now representing 39% of yesterday's defense revenues and more than 21% of total DCO revenue.

19:30 It's a strong franchise with great platforms to drive significant upside for Duke Common in 2027 and beyond as the framework agreements start converting into orders on these missile platforms vital to the country's defense. Overall, Q3 was a strong revenue quarter for us, even with the pull forward of production and related revenue from the second half into the first half of the year and level loaded activity at our factories. We posted total gross profit of $65.6 million or 28.9% of revenue for the quarter versus $59 million or 27.5% of revenue in the prior year period. The record gross margin was driven by an improved mix of our engineered product business, realization of our planned synergies from the facility consolidation program, which are now at their full run rate, as well as the benefit of higher manufacturing volumes.

20:22 Operating income for the third quarter was 25.8 million or 11.4% of revenue compared to an operating loss of 75.3 million or minus 35.1% of revenue in the prior year period. Last year's operating income was negatively impacted by the one-time litigation settlement in the quarter. Adjusted operating income was 28 million or 12.3% of revenue this quarter compared to 27.2 million or 12.7% of revenue in the comparable period last year. the adjusted operating income benefited from higher volume and gross profit offset by higher SG&A spending driven by a change in the calendarization of stock-based compensation expense during the year. Companies net income for the third quarter of 13.9 million or 89 cents per diluted share compares to a loss in the prior year of 60.8 million or negative $4.06 per share.

21:14 On an adjusted basis, The company reported net income of $18.8 million or $1.21 per diluted share compared to an adjusted net income of $18.8 million or $1.22 in Q3 2025. Now let me turn to our segment results. Our structural system segment posted revenue of $97.4 million in the third quarter of 2026 versus $89 million last year. The year-over-year change reflected $8.6 million higher revenue in our commercial aerospace business driven by single aisle platforms including the 737 MAX and the A320 as well as business jets. The military and space business within this segment was down 0.4 million on a year-over-year basis with production lower in military aircraft and ground vehicles, partially offset by growth in missiles and fixed wing aircraft.

22:11 Structural systems operating income for the quarter was 11.9 million or 12.3% of revenue compared to $12.2 million or 13.7% of revenue for the prior year quarter. Excluding restructuring charges and other adjustments in both years, the segment operating margin was 14.2% in Q3 2026 versus 16.4% in Q3 2025. The decrease in year-over-year margin was primarily due to product mix and other manufacturing costs. Our electronic system segment posted revenue of $130 million in the third quarter of 2026 versus 125 million in the prior year period, an increase of 3%. The year-over-year change reflected 12 million growth in commercial aerospace, primarily in Boeing and Airbus platforms.

22:58 Military and space applications declined in the quarter by 9 million, with lower production on radars and other miscellaneous platforms. Our industrials business also grew 0.8 million during Q3 due to timing of production orders. Electronic Systems operating income for the third quarter was $28.7 million or 22.2% of revenue versus $23.3 million or 18.6% of revenue in the prior year period. Excluding restructuring charges and other adjustments in both years, the segment operating margin was 22.5% in Q3 2026 versus 18.9% in Q3 2025. The year-over-year increase was driven by higher manufacturing volume and our value-based pricing approach. turning now to liquidity and capital resources.

23:45 In Q3, 2026, we generated 32.7 million in cash flow from operating activities compared to 18.1 million in Q3 of last year. Our strong cash generation was driven by higher net income, partially offset by higher working capital during the quarter. Year-to-date cash flow from operating activities is 77.5 million and year-to-date free cash flow was 65.2 million, representing year-to-date free cash flow conversion of 134% of adjusted net income. In Q4 of last year, the company amended its credit agreement, which now includes a 200 million term loan and a 450 million revolver.

24:31 The new 650 million facility lowers our cost of capital and gives us incremental capacity to execute on our acquisition strategy. as of the end of the third quarter, we have available liquidity of $434 million comprising of the unutilized portion of our revolver and cash on hand. Interest expense in Q3 was $3.1 million compared to $2.9 million in Q3 of 2025. The year-over-year increase in interest cost was primarily due to higher debt balances offset by lower interest rates on our debt due to more favorable terms in our new credit agreements. Also, as a reminder, in November 2021, We put in place an interest rate hedge that went into effect for a seven-year period starting January 2024 and pegs the one-month term so far at 170 basis points for $150 million of our debt. The hedge is still in place and will continue to drive significant interest cost savings for the rest of 2026 and beyond.

25:30 To conclude the financial review, I would like to say that the third quarter results continue to affirm that our Vision 2027 strategy is working and we are not only on track to achieve those targets, but well positioned to deliver on our new Vision 2032 strategy as well. I'll now turn it back to Steve for his closing remarks.

25:50 Steve. Okay, thanks, Suman. Just in closing, just a few things. First, Q3 was another record quarter for DCO and, frankly, I could not be happier. This year we achieved record revenues, record EBITDA margins, record bookings and strong cash generation. The Strong Book to Build will also be a tailwind for us going into 2027. It was also our sixth consecutive quarter of revenue over $200 million, and gross margins and adjusted EBITDA margins were 28.9% and 17.5% respectively, and ahead of schedule to meet our Vision 2027 goals. In addition, the company's engineered product revenues were at 24% in Q3 as we drive higher OEM and aftermarket products through the P&L. As everyone knows, driving this percentage as high as possible is our number one strategic focus with 100% commitment.

26:41 Finally, let me again go back to the beginning of my remarks and thank you all again for your strong support for the Vision 2032. It means a lot to us at the Common. We all look forward to a great future for our company and shareholders with the finishing of Vision 2027 and the launching of Vision 2032 in January 2028. I'm excited for the future of New Common over the next six plus years and I'm proud to be leading this company as we drive DCO to new heights. Okay, with that, now let's go to questions. Thank you for listening. Thank you. At this time, we will conduct the question and answer session. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again.

27:32 please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of John Godden with Citi. Your line is now open.

27:42 Hey guys, thanks for taking my question. Maybe a good place to start is just talking a bit about the outlook for missiles at large. And Steve, you know, it's not about Reading the tea leaves on politics, obviously the market is sort of saying that it's concerned about the defense outlook. I'm more curious, you guys are a principal supplier into the missile supply chain. You're not necessarily having the same kind of conversations with the government and contracting that the primes have. How do you protect yourself? How do you look at a situation like this to to make sure that you're kind of insulated from any potential policy changes in the future and just position the company to really kind of benefit from this runway.

28:35 Any general thoughts would be helpful.

28:37 Yeah, great, great, John. Good to be with you. Thank you. So, look, first of all, like I mentioned in my remarks about titanium earlier in commercial aerospace, same thing goes for defense electronics. We're really sort of, you know, very niche-oriented companies. A lot of things that we do for these missile programs, we've been doing for a long time. A lot of things are sole sourced. Now they might be not fully sole sourced because of the volumes. For instance, on a tomahawk, we go from 80 a year to 1,250. I feel very good about our situation. Again, it all goes back to our strategy. It all goes back to our manufacturing know-how.

29:22 It all goes back to our trade secrets that we use to insulate us. So, you know, these missile programs, this is my view, you know, certainly are needed. Certainly the next few years, I think, you know, regardless of politics and everything else, there needs to be this replenishment. I see lots of great things with FMS as well, certainly for the PAC-3 and some others. So our manufacturing strategy fits into, you know, this whole sort of and many more.

30:18 unlike others who may have to put in significant amount to build new factories and production capability. For us, it's a mix of existing capacity and nominal expansion at existing facilities that will support the higher volume. So we are more flexible in flexing up and down depending on where the volume comes in.

30:39 Yeah, John, for us, it's more about manpower and training, you know, maybe a few machines, you know, that type of thing, retrofit, you know, a building a little bit, but nothing We're not doing anything that we get nervous about.

30:52 Got it. Very helpful. And if I think back to the Investor Day, capital allocation, M&A was a big topic. From some of the other companies today that have printed, SMICAP companies and AMD, we've heard of an M&A landscape that is very active in breadth and depth. I'm curious how you would characterize it and maybe kind of revisit some of the thoughts from the Investor Day.

31:17 I would agree. We are seeing a number of opportunities come to market here over the past few, I would say, last couple of months and even in the past few weeks. So I agree with that characterization. We are actively working and analyzing and working through a number of different opportunities. Okay. Thanks, guys.

31:41 Appreciate it. Yeah, we're encouraged. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ken Herbert with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

31:55 Yeah, good morning, Stephen Suman. Maybe just to start, wanted to see if we could drill down a little bit on the defense sales in the quarter. It sounds like there was some Timing, obviously, the bookings were really strong. Can you flesh out anything structurally change in how you view some of the programs you're on or some of the outlook for defense, in particular on the non-missile piece of the business? As I know in the press release, you called out some timing around some of the more ground systems or combat-related markets.

32:29 Ken, great question. The slowdown in the current quarter was really due to both timing of orders and production. We did telegraph earlier that we had pulled in demand into the first half, mainly production into the first half, and so that was part of it, and also the timing of orders where on ground vehicles, on even some of the radars, it was timing of orders. If you look at our remaining performance obligations or backlog for radar, it's at an all-time high. It's up 135 million over previous quarter. That's the extent to which our radar business's RPO has increased, even though in the quarter, revenue was down.

33:23 So we do view this as temporary. We expect growth to come back in 2027. I think the back half of this year was expected to be softer versus the front half of the year. It was telegraphed as such and is panning out as we had somewhat expected.

33:39 Let me just jump here, Kent. So yeah, just ground vehicles, a few other things. You know, we have Nobles. We have other programs that are supporting different, you know, defense programs. There's no one major program. So one of the great things that we have here is diversification along the defense line. So we have lots of different things. I do want to also mention that just because we brought up the bookings is that, and I mentioned in my remarks, you know, this radar thing is a big deal for us. And I know for several years I was talking about these moving work out of OEM plants and putting them into Tulsa and other places and how painful, but how it was finally going to pay off and I'm very happy to see that this SPY6, after many years and lots of hard work, is going to pay off for shareholders big time.

34:32 I do want to mention that as well. I feel great about where we are. It's just timing a little bit. The order book is really good.

34:40 Steve made the point earlier about our book to build for defense as a whole, which includes a mix of both missiles, radar, and the legacy platforms. That was at 2.2 times. 2.2 times book-to-bill ratio. I mean, that really shows you the strength of the defense portfolio that we have on a combined basis. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Mike Crawford with B. Reilly Securities. Your line is now open.

35:11 Thank you. Glad to hear that you're progressing towards getting these LTAs in place with your Framework, Fence Customers. But what about progress on finding more things for them to offload to you guys?

35:31 Can you say that again? Offloading. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so, yeah, that's ongoing. Like I've said in many calls, you know, OEMs are always nervous about moving things out of their operations because they lose control, okay, especially the operations people. Supply chain people love it. not so much on the other side. So it's sort of a long-term trust building situation. And I would say we're working right now with, and this is really on the defense prime side, we're really working with Northrop now and other operations to do that. So I'll have more to say about that in future calls, but that's ongoing. But the big deal is Raytheon was the numero uno for us and it's finally really paying off. So we're really happy.

36:20 OK, thanks, Steve. And then just one follow up on M&A. You did convey your intent to kind of move higher up and take a bigger bite at something. Have you been rebuffed in any of these approaches or any other color on that landscape?

36:46 We're continuing to evaluate a mix of opportunities, both that are slightly larger than what we have done in the past, as well as smaller opportunities that are tuck-in acquisitions in line with what we've done in the past. We're not looking to do, again, to clarify something that is a huge transformative acquisition that was not, you know, how we messaged it, but we are looking to do things that are bigger than what we have looked at in the past. So we absolutely are have things in the pipeline and things that we're working on that cover that wider range. And as was noted earlier, we are seeing a higher level of activity in the M&A market. So we remain hopeful about getting something done here. We've also increased the bench strength of the M&A team.

37:34 And I mentioned earlier about having hired a strong director of corporate development to lead the function for me. And we also have now hired another extremely capable manager-level resource to support him. So we have much more capacity to process and execute transactions than we've ever had at the company in the past.

37:56 Yeah, that's a great point. We're fully committed, obviously, Mike, as you know, to this, and we're building capacity both internally with our team, but also now we have the capacity to go up the ladder a bit with a larger buy. So, you know, stay tuned, Mike.

38:15 All right. Thanks, guys.

38:17 Thanks. Good to be with you. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Michael Cermoli with Guggenheim Securities. Your line is now open.

38:27 Hey, good afternoon, guys. Thanks for taking the call. Maybe Steve or Suman, just really good commercial aerospace growth in the quarter here. How do we think about this rate of growth going forward? I mean, you're going to have obviously ramping production. You've got the destocking coming to an end. You've got the switch kicking in, and then you've got the double-digit pricing from Airbus. I mean, is there... Any way you can help us kind of calibrate our expectations? I mean, it was certainly a high watermark, I think, since pre-COVID, maybe 2019 with these aerospace revenues. But this rate of growth, does it stay into the 20s here as we think about into 27?

39:13 I think we can expect to see strong growth. I wouldn't say it stays above 20%. That would probably be a bit sporty. But we are going to... We're continuing to see the destocking wind down on the 737. We shipped at around 40 for most of our structural products. On the 737, we shipped at the rate of about 40 during the quarter, which is getting close to, I guess, a range of 42 to 47 that Boeing is producing at. So that's a good sign. Our revenue recognition was in the mid-30s. So you think about growth in our 737 business going from mid-30s to wherever you view 2027 max production to be in, right?

40:03 Somewhere in the low to mid-40s. So that's what you would expect.

40:08 Yeah, I think 20 plus is a bit sporty. But, you know, Mike, what I'll tell you, though, in February we'll have a much better view because we'll have everything sort of locked in by then, okay? But I think it's going to be good. Maybe not 20 plus, but it's going to be good. Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you'll need to press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Our next question comes from the line of Rishi Kumhokar with Guggenheim Securities. Your line is now open.

40:43 Rishi, your line is now open.

40:54 This concludes the question and answer session. I would now like to turn it back to Steve Oswald for closing remarks.

41:10 Okay, I want to thank everybody. I really appreciate you listening. I also appreciate the questions. We'll continue to work together as we move forward. We want to make sure everybody has a real good understanding about where we are and where we're going. I think, you know, we had a great investor day again. Thank you for the support of that. I do, again, want to come back to the defense situation and, you know, make sure to reiterate that, you know, we have a lot of insulation around some of the other things that might be happening. We have a lot of diversification in our defense portfolio. So I think that's going to be great for us going forward. And, you know, the numbers speak for themselves. Being a 2.2 book to bill, that's, I think, a wonderful job by our team. and also a statement by the industry that they have a lot of trust in DCO and that we're going to deliver for them.

41:59 So on that note, I'll thank you again for listening and have a great rest of the day. Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.