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Q1 2025 L3Harris Technologies Inc Earnings Call

In This Article:

Participants

Dan Gittsovich; Vice President of Investor Relations; L3Harris Technologies Inc

Christopher Kubasik; Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer; L3Harris Technologies Inc

Kenneth Bedingfield; Chief Financial Officer, Senior Vice President; L3Harris Technologies Inc

Seth Seifman; Analyst; JPMorgan

Ronald Epstein; Analyst; BofA Global Researhc

Douglas Harned; Analyst; BERNSTEIN

Sheila Kahyaoglu; Analyst; Jefferies

Matt Akers; Analyst; Wells Fargo Securities, LLC

Noah Poponak; Analyst; Goldman Sachs

Robert Stallard; Analyst; Vertical Research Partners

Myles Walton; Analyst; Wolfe Research

Jason Gursky; Analyst; Citi

Michael Ciarmoli; Analyst; Truist Securities

Peter Arment; Analyst; Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc.

Presentation

Operator

Greetings. Welcome to the L3Harris Technologies first-quarter calendar year 2025 earnings call. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded.
It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Dan Gittsovich, Vice President of Investor Relations. You may begin.

Dan Gittsovich

Thank you, Ena. Good morning, and welcome. Joining me this morning are Chris and Ken. Earlier today, we published our first quarter earnings release detailing our financial results and updated 2025 guidance. We also filed our 10-Q and provided a supplemental earnings presentation on our website.
Today's discussion will include certain matters that constitute forward-looking statements. These statements involve risks assumptions and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. For more information, please reference our earnings release and SEC filings. We will also discuss non-GAAP financial measures, which are reconciled to GAAP measures in the earnings release.
With that, I'll turn it over to Chris.

Christopher Kubasik

Thank you, Dan, and good morning, everyone. During our January call, I discussed how this administration is planning to drive transformative change like never before, and we are seeing it unfold daily. L3Harris isn't only embracing these changes. We are helping shape the future and advocating for more commercial-like business practices within the DoD. Our trusted disruptor culture and mindset continues to deliver results.
It enables us to stay agile and rapidly adapt to the changing environment, whether from the administration or Allied Partners or world events. . The external environment remains dynamic, and since we live it every day, I thought I'd give you the latest update and how we assess its impact on L3Harris. We're pleased that President Trump signed a full year continuing resolution. Unlike a traditional CR, this bill allows for new program starts, greater budget flexibility and affirmed the budget in line with the expected 1% increase over 2024 levels.
Congress is now focused on a reconciliation package, which could include over $150 billion in additional defense funding. We view the continued emphasis by key congressional leaders to bolster our national defense as a positive sign for us. There are many initiatives within the DoD in Congress focusing on existing program capabilities, cost and schedule performance and investments in emerging technologies.
To highlight a few. Each service has been asked to reduce 8% of their budget to allow for reallocation of funding to administration priorities. We don't have any insights into these deliberations at this time. Secondly, as part of this process, the 74 MDAP, which is the major defense acquisition programs are being evaluated to identify those that are either 15% over budget or 15% late to schedule. For the programs where we are prime, our performance is solid.
And for those where we are a subcontractor, we are highly dependent on the Prime's performance. DoD issued their 17 priorities, which we are well aligned with. Our 2 most recent acquisitions are clearly in the sweet spot for capabilities needed for the future fight and the classified interim national defense strategy was released focusing on deterring China and defending the homeland. All these initiatives may be hard to follow from the outside, but clearly show a fresh look at aligning dollars to programs that are performing well while reallocating budget to the administration's identified priorities.
You saw the President Trump and Secretary, Hegseth suggested that the upcoming 2026 presidential budget request could be as high as $1 trillion. This represents strong top line growth and highlights a sense of urgency and is another positive development. Over 130 executive orders have been issued in the first 100 days, and I wanted to highlight a few, starting with Golden Dome. We're well positioned to support this initiative and ready to respond directly to customer requests and contribute to emerging industry teams given our world-class capabilities and missile warning, tracking and discrimination. We've made substantial investments in new space factories in Fort Wayne, Indiana and Palm Bay, Florida.
We are the only company to secure awards across all 3 tranches of the Space Force's tracking layer and are prepared to respond to the recently released RFP for the next tranche expected to be awarded later this year.
Our Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space sensor satellite known as HBTSS, launched in February 2024 and is the only proven on-orbit system capable of tracking the new rain hypersonic missiles. This is expected to be a core component of the Golden Dome architecture. If we were to get an award in the next few months, we could launch enough satellites into orbit, while President Trump is still in office, thereby having complete coverage of the U.S. We broadly participate across offensive and defensive missile programs, providing propulsion and attitude control for all interceptors, both in production and development. This supports our long-term growth and underscores our leadership in this area.
One of my favorite executive orders is entitled Restore Common sense to federal procurement. This focus is on simplifying the acquisition process across the federal government. We've been the only major A&D company publicly advocating for reform and supportive of those efforts. I continue to think significant changes in the best interest of the defense ecosystem and the long-term benefits will be significant for the country and our company. Those efforts in prioritizing budget for high-priority capabilities, advancing innovation, promoting efficiency and acquisition and implementing risk reduction policies all aligned with our strategy and keep us at the forefront of innovation and customer alignment.
As the DoD considers procuring more through a commercial model, we are very comfortable with this approach with over 20 years of experience and about 20% of our products already being sold in this way. At its core, our LHX next initiative embodies [indiscernible] principles, tailored to accelerate internal transformation through greater speed, efficiency and agility.
Turning to International. We're seeing a significant increase in defense spending as our NATO allies modernize their technologies. We continue to see strong demand for our mission-critical solutions across key regions. So far, we've seen the need for the most advanced battlefield proven equipment, taking priority over politics, and we are staying closely connected with our customers, through our NATO offices in countries, including Poland, Germany and the Netherlands and the U.K. As the global defense landscape shifts, we are exploring new models for collaboration, including partnerships with European domiciled companies.
We secured a key international award just after the quarter closed with the Dutch Ministry of Defense for network modernization and software-defined radios valued at over $1.1 billion.
The Netherlands selected our radios for their battlefield based on our proven hardware and software which deliver industry-leading resiliency, low probability of detection and Intercept, while ensuring secure and interoperable communications with U.S. and allied forces. Looking ahead to 2026, we remain confident in achieving our financial framework, $23 billion in revenue, low 16% margins and $2.8 billion in free cash flow. With the priorities of the new administration, we're well positioned to continue to drive profitable growth while meeting our customers' evolving mission-critical needs and delivering on our commitments. For example, as a result of our ability to rapidly respond to customer requirements.
Early in the second quarter, we secured a classified award in our ISR business valued at over $350 million along with a $200 million international award.
And with that, I'll turn it over to Ken.