Leonardo DRS Inc

NASDAQ:DRS

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q4

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to Leonardo DRS Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2022 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Steve Vather, Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Finance. Please go ahead.

[Steve Vather, executive]

Good morning and welcome everyone. Thanks for participating on today's quarterly earnings conference call, on our first call since returning to the public markets. With me today are Bill Lynn, our Chairman and CEO; and Mike Dippold, our CFO. They will discuss our strategy, operational highlights, financial results and forward outlook.

Today's call is being webcast on the Investor Relations portion of the website where you will also find the earnings release and supplemental presentation. Management may also make forward-looking statements during the call regarding future events, anticipated future trends and anticipated future performance of the company. We caution you that such statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. Actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements due to a variety of factors. For a full discussion of these risk factors, please refer to our latest Form 10-K and our other SEC filings. We undertake no obligation to update any of the forward-looking statements made on this call.

During this call, management will also discuss non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe provide useful information for investors. These non-GAAP measures should not be evaluated in isolation or as a substitute for GAAP performance measures. You can find a reconciliation of the non-GAAP measures discussed on this call in our earnings release. At this time, it is my pleasure to turn the call over to Bill. Bill?

[William Lynn, executive]

Thanks, Steve. And on behalf of our 6,000-plus employees, I want to thank all of you listening for your interest in Leonardo DRS. Before I talk about how DRS is performing, I would like to provide some background on our business in context for our recent reentry to the public markets.

Let me begin by saying that I'm excited about where DRS is today, the strength of our market position and our future prospects. We worked aggressively to shape the business over the last decade by building balance in the portfolio, increasing differentiation and driving alignment to growth markets. Over the course of our 50-year history, we have earned a reputation of putting our customers first. As a result, we have cultivated a broad and diverse set of long-standing relationships across the DoD and with international allies. What that translates to is a balanced customer base with approximately 37% of our revenue coming from the Army, 32% from the Navy, 15% from the Air Force and other DoD customers with the remaining 16% coming from commercial and international customers.

We have a rich program portfolio that cuts across all war-fighting domains. We enjoy great program diversity with no program representing more than 10% of our revenue. Our largest program provides the electric power and propulsion system for the Columbia-class submarine. The aggregate DRS content for this important priority program approaches 10% of our revenue.

We also enjoyed great stability from a platform-agnostic approach to our business. We are equally adept at providing our best-of-breed technologies for new platforms or using them to upgrade legacy platforms. We have purposefully focused the business around four key technology areas: advanced sensing, network computing, force protection and electric power and propulsion. We have built market-leading positions across these technology areas. As a result, over 60% of our business is performed on a sole source basis, which underscores the criticality of DRS to important National Security Customers and their missions. Additionally, we have evolved our business to not only supply critical defense technology but also serve as a systems integrator, which now represents over 1/3 of our business.

Our core operating philosophy remains centered on being agile and innovative. We can deliver efficient and affordable technology innovations on expedited schedules. Coupling this agility with superior performance execution allows us to meet and exceed the needs of our national security customers.

Let me move to discuss our strategic accomplishments in the year. 2022 was both a transformative and dynamic year for DRS as we executed several strategic initiatives to unlock shareholder value and position the business for long-term accelerating growth by focusing on our core technology strengths. These strategic actions included the divestitures of our global SatCom services business called GES, the monetization of our majority stake in the advanced Acoustics concepts joint venture. And finally, the acquisition of RADA. As a result of the RADA acquisition, we expanded our technology portfolio through the addition of advanced radar capabilities. These capabilities strengthened our position in the growing force protection market and is paving the path to advance our vision of integrated sensing.

Furthermore, by structuring the RADA transaction as an all-stock merger, we also gained a public listing for DRS. This gives investors an opportunity to access a premier U.S.-focused mid-tier defense technology company, a scarcity in today's public markets. In conjunction with our public listing, we took action to reinforce our Board with the appointment of Dr. Reggie Brothers and Mr. Eric Salzman, both are welcome additions to the Board and their wealth of expertise, experience and insights will be invaluable to growing shareholder value.

Shifting now to operations. We continue to demonstrate strong momentum across our business throughout the year. In our Electric Power and Propulsion business, we achieved several key milestones. In 2022, we completed the factory acceptance testing and shipment of the first production unit of the main propulsion motor for the Columbia-class submarine. Second, we secured a multi boat contract for our electric power and propulsion system in late 2022 valued at over $1 billion. Lastly, we continue to shape opportunities for long-term growth of this propulsion technology for new platforms, both domestically and internationally.

In advanced sensing, we are expanding our market leadership through next-generation sensor development and through proliferating our sensors into new domains. We are raising the bar across the sensing market by driving capability to significantly increase resolution to high definition and are expanding [spectral debt]. We are also pushing tremendous capabilities to evolve sensing capabilities for more rigid size, weight and power requirements, making our sensors a compelling option for smaller platforms with these demanding sensing requirements.

As a result of our innovation across the sensing market, we are seeing strong demand signals emerge from existing and new customers. In 2022, we secured a sole source position on the third-generation ground vehicle sensing program, which cements our leadership position in ground sensing. Furthermore, we are moving into additional domains with our sensing capabilities as we successfully deployed an uncooled sensor as part of a payload on a LEO satellite. Additionally, we are deploying sensing capabilities in the unmanned market, introducing mobile electronic warfare systems, and expanding our differentiated receiver technology for ELINT applications into new air, land and sea markets.

In network computing, we are injecting innovation in several ways. First, we are inserting assured position, navigation and timing capabilities into our systems to enable the ability of platforms operate in GPS-denied environments. We are also continuously progressing the cyber resilience and assurance capabilities of our network compute products as cyber risks and threats continue to grow from the supply chain to the tactical edge. These two initiatives are propelling our integrated sensing strategy as we boost the compute capabilities to empower more autonomous sensing. Lastly, we are pleased with the growth of our multi-domain force protection business. We are honored that our counter UAS capabilities are actively being used globally to protect lives today. Additionally, our technology that enables infrared-based countermeasures to protect rotary wing aircraft has achieved initial operating capability.

These successes are resulting in deep R&D partnerships with customers to develop next-generation solutions in the areas of force protection as well as integrated sensing and computing. Our agility, steadfast commitment to national security and drive to provide best-of-breed technologies to customers are the foundation of our success.

While we had many strategic and operational achievements in 2022, the year was not without its challenges. Our team managed the business through an incredibly challenging supply chain, dealt with labor constraints and battled elevated inflation last year and are still contending with these same factors in 2023. With respect to supply chain, the silver lining is that it has largely stabilized. But there is certainly a long road ahead before it returns to pre-pandemic norms. As you have heard from many other companies, long lead times still exist for electronic components, and we do not expect a broader recovery to occur until 2024.

As a result, we have been focused on making our supply chain more resilient by working closely with suppliers in several ways. We are providing them with greater visibility into demand, we are driving increased volume and moving orders to the left where possible. And we are rooting out engineering and quality issues earlier to enhance program execution efficiency.

Moving to labor. The market for qualified engineering and manufacturing talent remains constrained. We continue to focus on retaining and growing our engineering and manufacturing talent base, who are critical to delivering for our customers. While we are operating in a tough labor market, our culture remains as a point of differentiation in that market. Our mission focus, agility and embrace of innovation continues to drive talent to DRS. Furthermore, we recognize that our employees are the most valuable asset we have. And as such, we are investing in enhancing and expanding our benefit offerings.

Moving to inflation. In addition to the impacts of supply chain delays and labor availability, we have also felt the impact of inflation. In 2022, we experienced increased labor and material input costs and are working to offset those impacts by incorporating the higher costs into our forward pricing. As I mentioned earlier, we have pulled several levers to restore the health of our supply chain. Many of those actions have also helped us manage costs. Additionally, we are routinely evaluating opportunities for efficiencies across our business with a keen focus on optimizing throughput and utilization.

Despite the challenging environment, overall, we delivered solid results for both the quarter and the full year. We excelled at capturing bookings and growing backlog. We achieved a 1.2 book-to-bill ratio for the year and grew backlog by 49% to a record $4.3 billion. For full year revenue, we declined low single digits organically, which was mostly due to the continued supply chain disruptions that I discussed earlier. However, we continued to drive adjusted EBITDA growth and expand adjusted EBITDA margins, which were up 100 basis points to 11.8% for the year.

Even with the profit expansion, we invested $123 million in R&D as well as CapEx as investments for future growth. The stronger profitability fell to the bottom line with solid net earnings and adjusted diluted EPS results. Lastly, free cash flow for the full year was lighter than our expectations as cash conversion cycles remain elongated due to the challenging supply chain.

Moving to the budget and market environment. Demand drivers for the business remain strong as evidenced by the enacted FY '23 appropriations and the healthy FY '24 request. Our customers have solid visibility and the 10% increase to funding levels in FY '23 presents opportunities for continued growth across the business. Furthermore, our portfolio is closely aligned to well-funded and growing investment and modernization budget priorities. We believe that there is overwhelming bipartisan support to countering near-peer threats.

The global threat environments remain elevated and, quite frankly, the rapidly evolving threats, spanning domains and vectors are shaping customer requirements. Additionally, the digitization of platforms is propelling continued and increasing electronics density and demand. This tailwind touches every aspect of our business. DRS is well positioned to deliver technologies and capabilities to meet enduring and critical national security needs. While we continue to operate in a dynamic environment on multiple fronts, we are focused on execution and on operational excellence by delivering value for customers and investors in 2023 and beyond. Let me now turn the call over to Mike.

[Michael Dippold, executive]

Thanks, Bill. I want to echo my thanks to the entire team for their dedication and incredible efforts in 2022 as we deliver for our customers and shape the business for future growth. Our fourth quarter and full year 2022 results were largely in line with our expectations given the dynamic operating environment. Revenue was $820 million for the fourth quarter, flat on a reported basis, but up mid-single digits organically. Revenue for the full year was $2.7 billion, which represented a 6% decline from 2021, but on an organic basis was down low single digits.

Two factors drove the annual revenue decline. First, the contribution differences in the timing and magnitude of the divestiture of our GES business versus our RADA acquisition, which I will refer to as the net divestiture impact was a headwind. Second, the continuing supply chain challenges, particularly with respect to the timing and availability of electronic components constrained growth.

Moving to the segment trends. Quarterly revenues in our advanced sensing and computing, our ASC segment, increased due to strong demand for our sensing capabilities, and we saw a slight reduction in the net divestiture impact as RADA started to contribute to our financials in the month of December. Full year revenues in the ASC segment declined as a bore the annual impact from the supply chain disruptions and the net divestiture impact throughout the year. At our Integrated Mission Systems segment, IMS, we saw revenues decline in the quarter due to a tough compare against Q4 2021, which was somewhat elevated due to programmatic timing. On a full year basis, however, greater demand for our electric power and propulsion and force protection capabilities drove revenue growth in the IMS segment.

Now to adjusted EBITDA. Adjusted EBITDA was $120 million for the fourth quarter and $318 million for the full year, representing year-over-year growth of 21% and 3%, respectively. Resulting margins were 14.7% for the quarter and 11.8% for the full year, an expansion of 260 and 100 basis points, respectively, as compared to the prior year. We drove adjusted EBITDA growth and margin expansion for both the quarter and the year as stronger program efficiencies significantly outweighed the impact of lower volume and inflation.

Moving to the segment trends. ASC segment adjusted EBITDA increased and margins expanded for the quarter on better volume and strong program performance across the segment. Full year ASC segment adjusted EBITDA declined due to the lower volumes and the net divestiture impact, but margins expanded slightly due to better program execution. Quarterly IMS segment adjusted EBITDA and margins declined largely on the lower volume due to programmatic timing. For the full year, IMS segment adjusted EBITDA and margins were up due to improved program profitability, particularly on the Columbia class program.

Now to the bottom line metrics. Net earnings increased 12% to $65 million for the fourth quarter and was up 163% to $405 million for the full year. The full year net earnings benefited from the net gain on our divestitures. Adjusted net earnings were $81 million for the fourth quarter and $179 million for the full year. Both were in line with our expectations and represented a growth of 28% and 3%, respectively, versus the prior year. Both diluted EPS and adjusted diluted EPS were impacted by the significant increase in share count as a result of the all-stock combination with RADA. Full year diluted EPS was up 157% as a result of the gain on our dispositions and on an adjusted basis, it was up 3% versus the prior year.

Moving to free cash flow. Free cash flow was $336 million for the fourth quarter, reflecting strong collections but was $74 million for the full year as supply chain challenges resulted in less cash conversion efficiency. As we stabilize the supply chain, moving forward, we should revert to 90% conversion of adjusted net earnings to free cash flow when excluding the impact of Section 174. That said, we have an attractive balance sheet exiting 2022, which provides for solid capital deployment flexibility. Our capital deployment strategy is focused on growth. We will be selective and prudent with our energy focused on pursuing M&A that further enhances positioning in our 4-core technology areas. In the near term, our efforts will be focused on completing the integration of RADA and delivering success against our acquisition thesis.

Now to guidance. We expect to deliver organic growth in 2023 as we execute on our record $4.3 billion of backlog and see steady demand for our technologies. However, we anticipate the global supply chain, tough labor market and inflation to persist and remains as constraints on the business. Taking all these factors into account, we are initiating the following 2023 guidance. Revenue between $2.7 billion and $2.8 billion. Compared to 2022, this is flat to up 4% on a total basis and implies an organic growth between 2.5% and 6%, consistent with what we have previously discussed. To assist with the modeling on revenue cadence for the year, I will provide a little bit more granularity into quarterly trends. To be clear, we don't intend to provide this level of color on a recurring basis, but we are expecting a lighter Q1, with revenues in the low to mid $500 million range with the following quarterly revenues building on a stair-step basis as we execute throughout the year. This is comparable to prior year trends. The [lighter] Q1 is being driven by the net divestiture impact as well as the programmatic timing.

Moving to adjusted EBITDA. We are expecting between $315 million and $330 million for 2023. The margins are expected to be relatively flat due to increased internal research and development expenses, incremental public company costs as well as increased labor and material input costs stemming from inflation. The quarterly cadence for adjusted EBITDA will be slightly steeper than that of revenue. Q1 adjusted EBITDA will be hampered by lower volume and related fixed cost absorption. And additionally, we have a $25 million revenue and profit driver that occurred in Q1 of 2022 that will not repeat in 2023. We recognized stepped-up program profitability as a result of completing contract negotiations for follow-on efforts related to our Columbia class program in Q1 of '22.

Now to adjusted diluted EPS. The range we are calling for is for $0.64 to $0.69 per share. Please note that we have changed our calculation methodology for this metric to mirror similar nonoperational adjustments made to the adjusted EBITDA, and we are also applying a tax effect to such adjustments. A tax rate of 24% is embedded in the guidance, and we are assuming a fully diluted share count of 263.1 million shares. We recognize that the divestitures, acquisitions and public listing in 2022 make the results and comparisons both to the prior year and prospectively to 2023, quite complex.

That said, as we move through 2023, the numbers and comparisons should become clearer and the strength of the business become more apparent. We are focused on executing in 2023 with the goal of accelerating financial performance exiting the year to set the foundation for delivering on long-term growth and margin expansion. Now let me turn the call back over to Bill.

[William Lynn, executive]

Thanks, Mike. Let me close by thanking our talented people. The passion, determination and ingenuity they bring every day is what drives DRS forward. We are honored that our customers have entrusted us to support their critical national security missions.

Our strong technology, customer and program portfolio is well positioned to deliver sustainable profit growth and margin expansion. We believe that rigorous execution of our strategy will result in long-term shareholder value creation. Lastly, I'm pleased to announce that we will be conducting our Investor Day on November 13 of this year, in New York. This will be a great opportunity to learn more about our business and our strategic vision. We hope you will join us for this event later this year. With that, we're ready to take your questions.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Peter Arment with RW Baird.

[Peter Arment, analyst]

Yes. Bill, Mike, Steve. Thanks for your time. So Bill, I guess, on just the outlook for revenues, 2.5% to 6% organic. Maybe you could just talk a little bit about the puts and takes behind this range and then how you think about kind of long-term growth off of what you've seen in the budget environment.

[William Lynn, executive]

Sure, Peter. Sure. On the long-term growth, I think two points to be made. One is, I think, obviously, it's the defense budget, that's the engine of our growth, that's 80% of the revenue base. I think the underlying trends in defense are strong and a 10% growth in the '23 appropriation I think President Biden's put forward a strong proposal building on that. I think Congress is likely to again add to that. So that underlying base continues to move up. And we think our position is stronger than the budget as a whole because we're -- as a mid-tier, we're able to target our markets, and we're positioned in those 4-core markets that we've described, all of which grow faster than the budget as a whole. So overall, we think we should be able to simply [buy] holding serve, be able to grow somewhat faster than the market.

[Peter Arment, analyst]

Okay. And just regarding Mike, maybe on the adjusted EBITDA margins for the -- if you finished at 11.8% for the year, and I know there's a lot of moving parts impacting the supply chain, but the midpoint implies 11.7% kind of for this year. Maybe you can talk about when we should expect to see some expansion? I know you've talked about kind of a longer-term play to get into the low teens. How should we think about that?

[Michael Dippold, executive]

Sure, Peter. I'll take that. First, as you're looking at 2023 with the flatter margins to 2022, Really, what we're seeing is an impact of the inflation that's going to hit our kind of a fixed price program portfolio. So that's going to be a headwind. Also, we're looking to invest a little more from an IRAD perspective as a percentage of revenue to maintain the foundation for future growth. So that's kind of holding the margins a little flat in 2023.

Looking out to 2024 and beyond, a couple of things change. First is that we are going to be pretty well through the cycle of refreshing our program base and our fixed price contracts, and bidding those with the kind of new macro inflationary environment in mind. So that's going to be a nice tailwind to margins prospectively. And then also, and maybe more importantly is on the Columbia class as we move forward to having all of the revenue generated from the production -- newly negotiated production units, that should also help. So we still feel confident on future margin expansion towards the peers.

[Peter Arment, analyst]

Okay. And just lastly, just Bill, your thoughts on the continuing resolution impact at year-end. Obviously, we've had a lot of CRs over the years, but just how you factored that into your guidance?

[William Lynn, executive]

Yes, sure, Peter. Obviously, CRs aren't great, but they're a fact of life. It would be an exceptional year not to have a CR, I think only one in the last 20. So we've had to adapt. That does -- what it does to us is it tends to backload our volume towards the end of the year. But we've been able to achieve our targets with that. And so I don't think this year is going to be any different. We're going to see success and it's going to be backloaded.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Robert Stallard with Vertical Research Partners.

[Robert Stallard, analyst]

Thanks so much. I think first of all I'll start with Mike. Just to follow up on Peter's question with regard to the margin. I was wondering if you can possibly size what the negative impact year-on-year is expected to be with regard to cost inflation. Basically, what would margins have been like if we had these issues?

[Michael Dippold, executive]

Sure. So the inflation, we continue to see the inflation as being a headwind into us. Given our fixed price portfolio, you can kind of see that, that impact is going to be in that 50 to 60 basis point range, we see a headwind on that type of magnitude.

[Robert Stallard, analyst]

Okay. And then so the other portion on top of that is R&D, what sort of scale of increase are you expecting there in that expense in 2023?

[Michael Dippold, executive]

So we've always targeted to kind of increase our R&D as a percentage of sales to kind of the mid-2.5% range and maybe even a little north of that. That's slightly higher than where we were coming in this year at the kind of 2.2% of sales range. So I expect to kind of move up the curve to that 2.5% to 2.8% of sales.

[Robert Stallard, analyst]

Okay. And then secondly, maybe one for Bill. Obviously, Ukraine has caused a change in the demand environment out there for defense equipment. I was wondering if you're starting to see this flow through to DRS either directly or indirectly going into the U.S. military or its allies.

[William Lynn, executive]

Yes. We see it both ways, Rob, both directly and indirectly. First of all, we've had some sales that have gone into Ukraine. They've been relatively modest, but the impact of them has more been on our backlog because of the urgency of getting that equipment to the fight, the U.S. has tended to -- we have pulled things from our U.S. -- the inventory intended for U.S. sales and sent them into Ukraine, they'll then be backfilled later on, which adds to the backlog. So it's less of a punch to revenue and more of a punch backlog. At the same time, I think we're starting now to see increased demand for -- on the European side is the NATO nations, more of the NATO nations are moving to achieve that 2% of GDP target for defense.

And as being a part of Leonardo, European defense sales are a home game for us. So we see opportunity there. And finally, probably most importantly, I think Ukraine has been an overall accelerant of U.S. defense spending. I think it's put a floor under U.S. defense spending. I think it's partially responsible for the increases I was mentioning to Peter in both '23 and '24. And I think that's going to continue. And since the vast majority of our revenue comes from the U.S. Defense Department, that's probably the most important impact of Ukraine on our business.

[Robert Stallard, analyst]

Okay. So is added to the backlog, but when do you expect this to convert into revenue? Is this going to take roughly 12 months to flow through the system?

[William Lynn, executive]

You'll see in '24 and '25 is more, I think it's incrementally coming in, but the bubble kind of hits in '24 '25.

[Robert Stallard, analyst]

Okay. And then just finally from me, you mentioned Leonardo there. There's been obviously some talk in Europe about the CEO position potentially changing with the new Italian government. I was wondering what sort of potential impact this could have on DRS, whether this could change things?

[William Lynn, executive]

I mean, it's the normal appointment cycle. The Leonardo goes on a 3-year appointment cycle. This is the normal appointment cycle. We actually operate in what's called a proxy and now it's an independent public Board. So we have a separate structure that we operate in and these kinds of changes don't really have too much impact on us.

[Operator]

Next question comes from Austin Moeller with Canaccord Genuity.

[Austin Moeller, analyst]

Just my first question on the supply chain, can you sort of quantify some of the lead times that you're looking at right now for electronic components? And what particular components are the [biggest fall in nitrogen] hardware?

[William Lynn, executive]

I'm going to let Mike go into the specifics, but things have gone up, in some cases, two or threefold. I mean, we've gone from 30, 60 days to now 6-month lead time. And as we've said, our assumption in our '23 guidance here that we're going to see stabilization of those lead times, but we're not going to see improvement in those lead times until probably '24. So we're not basing our revenue projections on return to pre-pandemic norms. We're -- we think the supply chain itself is going to stabilize, and then we're taking steps to backstop that increased volume moving buys left, giving our suppliers greater visibility into our projection using our fixed price contracts to lock things in. But let me let Mike give you a little bit more detail.

[Michael Dippold, executive]

Yes, Austin. So I think what we're seeing is originally in kind of early 2022 we saw the higher expense components, having the longer lead times and really what was disrupting the industry on the circuit cards and the FPGAs. I think what we're seeing now is the migration to a little less availability on some of the, I call them the cheaper, less expensive parts, your kind of resistors, connectors. And that tends to be a little bit of the bottleneck we're seeing right now as we saw more stabilization in the higher tech, higher expense type of components. So what we're hoping for, as Bill mentioned, is to continue to have stabilization. One of the assets that we have is that backlog visibility and that is going to allow us to do advanced procurement, that's going to allow us to give that visibility to our suppliers. And that's the stabilization that we think we've injected into the business to allow for predictable growth.

[Austin Moeller, analyst]

Great. And then do you have any specific updates either on the SSNX next-generation attack sub program or the Korean KDDX program as you think about the next year?

[William Lynn, executive]

The KDDX is in the competition phase. We don't really have any update on that. And the SSNX is a little bit further out, but we're taking steps to propose our technology, the electric propulsion systems technology for the Columbia-class submarine to be used in that SSNX, we're in the early stages of the decision-making on that.

[Operator]

And I have a follow-up with Robert Stallard with Vertical Research Partners.

[Robert Stallard, analyst]

Just a couple more from me. Bill, I was wondering if you could give us an update on the integration of RADA and how that's going.

[William Lynn, executive]

Great question. Thanks, Rob. The integration is going well. I think we'll -- we started at the -- when we closed at the end of November, we expect to have it completed, I would say, by midsummer or so midway through the year. It's going well. We are adding it as our -- we had 7 lines of business, and we're adding it as an 8th line of business so will basically operate as an Israeli subsidiary of DRS. That's a fairly clean structure. And we're very pleased with the technology that RADA is bringing. We think it really strengthens our force protection offerings. And in the longer term, we really feel that bringing Radar inside our perimeter. It was the one sensor that we were missing. And by having Radar with all of our other sensors and our computing capabilities, we think that really positions us well future, which we see as an integration of sensing inputs, taking the individual inputs that go into a vehicle or platform and integrating them into a single picture for the operators and their commanders.

[Robert Stallard, analyst]

Okay. That's great. And then on your largest program, Columbia-class, it appears like the entire defense industry is being affected by supply chain and labor and all the rest of it. But this one appears to be on track. What would you say the risk is of Columbia getting delayed going forward from here?

[William Lynn, executive]

Well, I think there are two parts of that question, Rob. One is do the government priorities change, the budgets change. I think the risk of that is extraordinarily low. I think this is the premier program in the budget. It is the submarine-based deterrent is the core of our nuclear deterrent. I think there's no higher priority for the government. So I can't imagine budget priorities would shift in a way that would cause any delays in this program. The other would be, would there be execution issues or technology issues. I think on our part of the program, we had those challenges a few years ago, where we've now delivered the first set, where we're completing the development program. So the likelihood in our portion of the program that we're going to see those kinds of delays is -- it's not -- you haven't completely retired all the risk most of it is now in the past.

[Michael Dippold, executive]

And Rob, I'd just like to point out in addition to what Bill said is this is why we received this multi-boat contract, and that's what's increasing the backlog. That's showing the commitment to this program and making sure that we can execute on time.

[Robert Stallard, analyst]

Yes. And then, Mike, just a final cover for you. I was worn you can give us an idea of what you're expecting on the interest expense in 2023? And also, if you could give us any more detail on the cash flow expectation. That would be great.

[Michael Dippold, executive]

Yes. So from an interest expense standpoint, we did kind of set up a new capital structure when we went public. So that comprises of a $225 million term A loan and a $275 million revolver. From a pricing standpoint, it allows us to have pricing kind of at a pretty favorable rate to sales for plus 150 and 210 basis points. Given our cash linearity, I think the interest would be about the yield similar to what we saw this year, maybe a slight reduction.

Moving over to cash flow. On your second question, Rob. We do expect because of what we saw in terms of the supply chain stabilization and the investments that we made on the balance sheet to be able to return to the 90% conversion of adjusted net earnings. But I'll remind you that, that is kind of excluding the impact of the Section 174 for the tax R&D capitalization, and that will be in the neighborhood of $40 million to $50 million headwind to that conversion number.

[Operator]

Thank you for your questions. I would now like to turn the call back over to Steve Vather for closing remarks.

[Steve Vather, executive]

Thank you all for your time this morning and your interest in DRS. Of course, if you have follow-up questions, please don't hesitate to call or e-mail me. We look forward to speaking with all of you soon. Have a great day.

[Operator]

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect. Thank you for your participation. Everyone, have a wonderful day.