Adient PLC

NYSE:ADNT

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q3

[Operator]

Welcome to the Adient Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] I would like to inform all parties that today's call is being recorded. If you do have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. I would now like to turn the conference over to [ Mark ] Heifler. Thank you. You may begin.

[Michael Heifler, executive]

Thank you, Sue. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. The press release and presentation slides for our call today have been posted to the Investor Section of our website at adient.com. This morning, I'm joined by Jerome Dorlack, Adient's President and Chief Executive Officer; and Mark Oswald, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. On today's call, Jerome will provide an update on the business, followed by Mark, who will review our Q3 financial results and outlook for the remainder of fiscal 2024. After our prepared remarks, we will open the call to your questions. Before I turn the call over to Jerome and Mark, there are a few items I'd like to cover. First, today's conference call will include forward-looking statements. These statements are based on the environment as we see it today and therefore involve risks and uncertainties. I would caution you that our actual results could differ materially from these forward-looking statements made on the call. Please refer to Slide 2 of the presentation for our complete safe harbor statement. In addition to the financial results presented on a GAAP basis, we will be discussing non-GAAP information that we believe is useful in evaluating the company's operating performance. Reconciliations for these non-GAAP measures to the closest GAAP equivalent can be found in the appendix of our full earnings release. And with that, it's my pleasure to turn the call over to Jerome.

[Jerome Dorlack, executive]

Thanks, Mike. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us to review our third quarter results. We'll also discuss the drivers for our revised outlook and reiterate our long-term commitment to creating sustainable value for our shareholders. Turning to Slide 4, which summarizes the third quarter. Adient's Q3 results were significantly impacted by the EMEA region, which experienced lower volume/mix, and weaker commercial recoveries. Americas and Asia performed generally in line with internal expectations. Our specific customer and platform sales have been affected much more than headline industry volume figures. For example, in the Americas, our top programs representing 60% of our volumes are down 8% this fiscal year, while S&P production estimates for the same period are up 3%. In EMEA, we are down 3% year-over-year versus S&P being down 1% year-over-year. We believe much of this underperformance is timing-related to launches and specific customer inventory management. As Mark will note later in our presentation, we are starting to see signs of progress on certain launches. The Adient team continues to quickly adapt to changing market conditions and declining vehicle volumes that we've seen across the industry. By diligently focusing on the factors that are within Adient's control, the team has continued to execute operationally, driving consolidated business performance. Before turning to Adient's key financial metrics for the quarter, which are shown on the right-hand by side of the slide, I want to remind you that prior year's results benefited from recognizing a [ one-time ] insurance recovery of approximately $20 million. Revenue for the quarter totaled $3.7 billion, down about 8% compared to last year's third quarter. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter totaled $202 million, down approximately 20% when adjusting for the insurance recovery. We have a high cash conversion business model that played out this quarter, generating free cash flow of $88 million. Adient ended the quarter with a strong balance sheet with ample liquidity that gives us flexibility to manage through a dynamic industry landscape and take advantage of opportunities to create value. In this regard, we remain committed to executing a balanced capital allocation plan and during the quarter, we returned $75 million to shareholders through share repurchases. This brought the total year-to-date share repurchases to $225 million. We have repurchased nearly 8% of our outstanding shares since beginning of the year. As I mentioned before, the industry is continuing to experience near-term volume headwinds, given the reduced customer production environment we are refining our guidance for the remainder of the fiscal year. Let's walk through some of the dynamics influencing this decision and how each region is navigating the challenging near-term macro conditions and the strategic focus in the long-term. Turning to Slide 5. In the APAC region, we have seen top-line sales performance in line with the market. This region continues to be the growth engine of the company, particularly in China, where we continue to perform above market. Business performance there continues to be strong, and as this region's share of portfolio grows, especially in China, this will provide a natural tailwind of mix for Adient overall. In the Americas, we expect volumes to eventually recover as customers clear excess inventories and make progress on their new product launches. The region continues to be laser-focused on flawless execution with a long-term focus on margin expansion. The region also continues to reduce its third-party metals business, which is underperforming our expectations for returns. In Europe, we are proceeding with increased caution due to declining volume, insourcing, and weakening customer program mix. This quarter, we continue to experience headwinds from customer-driven inefficiencies. Last quarter, we announced a first step in our European restructuring. We are planning additional steps to address the ongoing headwinds in the region to manage costs and capacity. We will have more to share when we provide our fiscal year '25 outlook in November. Overall, we remain confident in maintaining our strong business performance and are focusing on the aspects within our control to enhance our results. Turning to Slide 6. We are prioritizing winning the right business and executing successful launches. Our business awards this quarter demonstrate further market share growth in China and enhancements to our global customer relationships. I would like to point out the win with GAC, which resulted in part from our innovative capabilities to drive an outstanding customer experience while also maintaining a competitive business case. As you can see on the chart, these wins are vertically integrated to include complete seat systems that include JIT, trim, foam, and metals. This is a key enabler to improving margins. We have highlighted a few launches where we have demonstrated strong launch execution, and we continue to deliver on safety, quality, and on-time delivery metrics. One example of this is the Nissan Armada. Adient has fully engineered the full-size 3-row SUV with both a 7 and 8 passenger capacity. On this program, we have the JIT, foam, trim, second and third row metals. Another successful launch was BYD's first EV program in Thailand, the Dolphin. [ In ] the Americas, 2 Toyota launches have been key to our continued success in the region with our Japanese customers, a key differentiator for Adient. Ultimately, we believe our focus on vertical integration and operational excellence will drive meaningful margin improvements. [ Including ] on Slide 7, the team is not satisfied with the current results and the status quo. We continue to leverage our core principles, including operational excellence, customer portfolio management, and accelerating automation to improve business performance. Diving a bit deeper into these, let's start with operational excellence. As mentioned on the prior slide, excellence in launch execution underpins our business. The team is focused on operational excellence, streamlining processes, reducing waste, and optimizing resource allocation, coupled with disciplined capital expenditures, including asset reuse. Our cost-saving modular assembly process is in production, and more are planned for launch in the upcoming year. In addition, there is an increased focus on expanding automation. Automation is not new to Adient. We continue to deploy industry-leading tools, and now we're expanding artificial intelligence tools with a focus on our metals plants where we have the highest amount of non-value-added indirect labor that we see as right for the picking. Automation continues to transform operations by reducing labor costs, improving accuracy, and achieving repeatable and reproducible results to transform operations for the future. Innovation is also crucial. Not only does it increase seating content, but also increases and enhances customer satisfaction. With respect to that, Adient recently set up a JV with a local comfort system supplier to industrialize and innovate a mechanical massage system. This is the first ever innovative product in the market that Adient China and Jinbo have jointly developed. These innovative efforts are collaboratively distributed across all regions. Shifting to our portfolio where we are focused on growth in APAC, specifically China, where we have seen the strongest margins and increasing content opportunity. The strong portfolio that we have built in the region contributes to our expectation of substantial growth and positive mix. In the Americas region, we view the setup as favorable for continued execution and margin expansion. As I mentioned earlier, Adient's relationship with our Japanese and Asian OEMs is a key differentiator and one thing that makes Adient, Adient. We view this as a competitive advantage with these highly vertically integrated OEMs and programs. We continue to progress our plans to exit low margin Tier 2 metals contracts as well in the Americas region. As previously mentioned, we are reviewing the strategic plan in Europe and the need for additional pairing of those operations. And finally, we are committed to being good stewards of capital and executing a balanced capital allocation plan with a focus on return of capital to our shareholders. Similar to prior years, the team is developing next year's plan, which will be finalized in the upcoming months, including assumptions on macro factors such as production, volumes, FX rates, et cetera. We will share the details with you when we report our Q4 and full-year 2024 results in November. We remain committed to evaluating all options to deliver incremental value to Adient shareholders as part of this planning process. Now I'd like to turn it over to Mark to take you through our financials and updated guidance.

[Mark Oswald, executive]

Thanks, Jerome. Let's jump into the financials on Slide 9. Adhering to our typical format, the page shows our quarter results on the left side and adjusted results on the right side. We will focus our commentary on the adjusted results, which excludes special items that we view as either one time in nature or otherwise skew important trends in underlying performance. Details of all adjustments for the quarter are in the appendix of the presentation. Important to note, year-over-year results were impacted by a one-time favorable insurance recovery in the prior year of approximately $20 million. Higher level for the quarter, sales were approximately $3.7 billion, down about 8% compared to our third quarter results last year. Lower customer volume and the negative impact of FX movements between the 2 periods drove the year-on-year sales decline. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $202 million, down 20% year-over-year when adjusting for the one-time insurance recovery from the prior year. Adient reported adjusted net income of $29 million, or $0.32 per share. I'll cover the next few slides rather quickly since details of the results are included on the slides. This should ensure we have adequate time for Q&A. Starting with revenue on Slide 10. We reported consolidated sales of approximately $3.7 billion a decrease of $339 million compared with Q3 fiscal year '23. The primary driver of the year-on-year decrease was lower volumes and pricing of $285 million. The impact of FX movements between the 2 periods weighed on the quarter by $54 million. Focusing on the right-hand side of the slide, Adient's consolidated sales were lower in Americas and EMEA, while sales in Asia grew by about 1%, driven by a 6% year-on-year growth in China. In the Americas, lower sales were driven by lower volumes and a weaker program mix. We continue to see a slower-than-expected launch ramp phase from our customers on certain key platforms. In addition to the slow ramp of certain launches, a few of Adient higher volume programs also experienced downtime as customers managed inventory levels. I will note as we progressed out of Q3, we began to see some green shoots as 1 or 2 of our higher volume, richer [ mix ] launch programs appear to be moving closer to run rate, likely reaching that level early in our next fiscal year. In Europe, we were negatively impacted by overall weaker market demand as well as exposure to customers in programs that had lower production volumes. And in our APAC region, China continues to be the company's growth engine, with sales outpacing industry production. In Asia outside of China, sales were generally in line with industry volumes. Regarding Adient unconsolidated ceding revenue, year-on-year results show an increase of about 8% adjusted for FX. The deconsolidation of a joint venture aided the year-on-year comparison. Moving to Slide 11. We provided a bridge of adjusted EBITDA to show the performance of our segments between the periods. Adjusted EBITDA was $202 million in the current quarter versus $276 million reported a year ago. The primary drivers of the year-on-year comparison are detailed on the page. As mentioned earlier, lower volume and mix had the biggest impact, call it $60 million. The volume headwinds were experienced across each of our regions. Outside of volume and mix currency movements between the 2 periods, pressured year-on-year comparison by about $15 million, primarily related to the peso, RMB, yen, and Thai baht. Partially offsetting the headwinds just mentioned was positive business performance, call it $25 million when adjusting for the nonrecurring insurance recovery in last year's Q3. Key drivers of the year-on-year improvement were improved net material margin, freight costs, engineering, and admin costs. One last point, the timing and lumpiness of commercial recoveries had a significant impact on the EMEA region as last year's Q3 results included an outsized level of recoveries. The team did a good job at managing business performance in a tough market. The improvements in the Americas and APAC partially offset the lower volumes in business performance headwinds in EMEA. Similar to past quarters, we provided our detailed segment performance slides in the appendix of the presentation. Higher level for the Americas, improved business performance of $41 million, primarily driven by net material margin performance, improved freight costs, and engineering recoveries. As a reminder, Q3 of '23 benefited from a nonrecurring insurance recovery of about $4 million in the region. Volume and mix was a headwind of $34 million, impacted by adverse customer mix, slower launches on key platforms, and inventory management with certain customers. In EMEA, the year-on-year results were influenced by business performance, which pressured the quarter by about $55 million. It includes the nonrecurrence of Q3 '23 insurance settlement, call it $16 million, as well as adverse labor and overhead performance, primarily driven by short notice downtime at certain customers, which created inefficiencies. Commercial margin was a headwind in Q3 '23, as it benefited from an unusually high level of customer recoveries, essentially timing. Volume and mix negatively impacted the quarter by $16 million. Before leaving EMEA, I'll mention, given the challenging conditions in the region, our team conducted its normal course assessment of recoverability of long-lived assets, including goodwill. No formal impairment triggering events were identified. That said, due to the recent trend in EMEA's results, impairment warning language is being included in our Q3 '24 Form 10-Q, which we expect to file later this afternoon. Our detailed year-end testing is planned for Q4. As you know, we are taking steps to adjust our costs in Europe, we will continue to assess additional efficiency actions in the region. Moving on in Asia, improved business performance related to higher material margin and improved labor efficiencies. Volume and mix negatively impacted the quarter by $10 million. FX was a $7 million headwind in the quarter. In addition to the Q3 regional bridges, we also included a year-to-date look to provide a clear picture of how the regions are performing by smoothing certain of the one-time factors that could influence a particular quarter. In summary, the company continues to drive improved business performance, which is significant given the volume headwinds the team has had to manage through. This is especially true when looking at the Americas and Asia. EMEA, as previously mentioned, is a region that is facing significant macro and structural challenges. Let me now shift to our cash, liquidity, and capital structure on Slides 12 and 13. Starting with cash on Slide 12, the right side of the slide highlights the year-to-date results. You can see that the longer time frame helps smooth some of the volatility in working capital movements. For the quarter, free cash flow, defined as operating cash less -- CapEx, was $88 million. The primary drivers of the year-on-year results are listed on the right side of the slide. I won't read each one, other than to say that we continue to expect strong pre-cash conversion for the full year. One last point is called out on the slide, that it continues to utilize various factoring programs as low-cost source of liquidity. At June 30, 2024, we had $133 million of factored receivables versus $170 million at fiscal year-end. [ Whooping ] to Slide 13, it is noted on the right-hand side of the slide the company returned $75 million to shareholders in the quarter, bringing the total year-to-date cash return to shareholders to $225 million. This is approximately 8% of our outstanding shares at the beginning of the year. This move underscores Adient's belief in being good stewards of capital while maintaining a strong balance sheet, ensuring efficient allocation of resources and flexibility. Turning to our balance sheet, Adient's debt and net debt position totaled about $2.5 billion and $1.6 billion, respectively, at June 30, 2024. The company's net leverage at June 30 was just under 1.9x, which is within the targeted range of 1.5x to 2x. Total liquidity for the company was approximately $1.8 billion at June 30, comprised of $890 million of cash on hand in about $923 million of undrawn capacity under Adient's revolving line of credit. Moving to Slide 14, just a few comments related to our outlook for the remainder of fiscal 2024. As Jerome mentioned, we are updating Adient's fiscal year '24 guidance to reflect current market conditions. On the top-line, we have updated our sales guidance to approximately $14.6 billion. Result and outlook reflect revised production forecast and to a lesser degree, the temporary softness of adding customer mix, driven in a large part by customer launch curves and inventory management. Our adjusted EBITDA outlook is updated to reflect the volume impact of the lower top-line and is forecasted now at $870 million. For the remainder of the year, our current guide assumes business performance will trend higher mitigating the expected volume and mix headwinds. Net business performance is primarily driven by net material margin performance and improved freight costs. Equity income is expected at $80 million, and interest expense is still expected at $185 million, no change from our prior guidance on these 2 items. Cash taxes has decreased to about $100 million. For modeling purposes, tax expense is estimated at $110 million, reflecting our revised earnings expectations for the fiscal year. CapEx, largely based on customer launch schedules, is forecast at $285 million, a reduction from prior guidance as we are matching spending with our customer program volumes and timing, as well as our efficiencies that we're driving into the process. And finally, our free cash flow is expected at $250 million, no change from prior guidance, as we still expect some modest working capital improvements to offset the lower EBITDA impact on cash flow. To sum it up, we are focused on managing the business controllables, such as delivering excellent results for our customers, lowering costs, obtaining fair commercial recoveries, and generating strong free cash flow for the owners of our business, while maintaining flexibility with a strong balance sheet. With that, let's move to the question-and-answer portion of the call. Can we have the first question, please?

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Colin Langan with Wells Fargo.

[Colin Langan, analyst]

Maybe just to kick it off, I mean, if I look at the implied Q4, it implies a bit of a step up from year-to-date. So is that correct? And what would be driving the longer Q4 result?

[Jerome Dorlack, executive]

Yes, thanks for the question, Colin. You're absolutely right. If I move from Q3 to Q4, clearly there's going to be the volume decline that we're looking at there, if you just look at what the revenue implied guidance is there. But it's offset really by the business performance. So when I look at business performance rate, we're going to see some better ops waste, tooling is better, and then obviously our continuous improvement initiatives will help the quarter. Net material margin also is going to be a positive rate. So if I look at just timing of commercial recoveries, et cetera, then there's a little bit of net commodity. So in a large part, yes, outsized business performance versus the volume headwinds that we're expecting.

[Colin Langan, analyst]

And then it sounds like you're still sort of working on the 2025 plan. But maybe any update on, I think it was about this time last year, you talked about getting to the 8% long-term target and I think 100 basis points were for volume, 100 basis points from recoveries, and 100 basis points from performance. Any color on where that stands and any color maybe on FX? I think the peso was a headwind this year. Does that help into next year?

[Jerome Dorlack, executive]

Yes. So I'll start and then I'll turn it over to Mark to maybe give some additional color. When we think about kind of the long-term margin trajectory for the company getting to that 7.5%, 8% level, Colin. I would break it into the 3 regions now, really, and how each of the 3 regions has performed against expectations and where those are coming from. Where we stand today, we've got what we think is really now kind of 200 basis points left to go after. And if you then go kind of region by region, the Americas is really on track to get there. They have still some metals portfolio business left to wind down in their portfolio, I guess. They have things to wind out with certain customers that are taking a bit longer because ICE programs have been delayed. Really, even as recent as last week, meeting with certain customers, we now see a light at the end of the tunnel when those start to wind down in the '26 -- late '26, early '27 time period. And then it just comes down to getting those loss-making programs out. And the macro costs have really been recovered now. So it's largely a wind-out of the portfolio in the Americas, and we expect to see -- they've gotten 100 basis points better this year. We're not here to give a '25 guide, but I would expect similar progress out of them next year as we move forward. If you then move to Asia or Asia-Pacific region, for them it's really about just holding serve and expanding revenue. And as they expand revenue there, it's a natural tailwind for Adient. Just as they become a larger part of our portfolio, we just get a natural mixed tailwind. Then what's left for us to claw back really now, and you've seen it in this call in particular, is our European region. So the European region is now going to be year-on-year for us, a drag. And as we move forward into '25, we expect to see -- I wouldn't expect any significant recovery. And then really, as we get into '26, when we see business rolling out of that portfolio with customers that we're going to need to pair out of the portfolio who are either noncritical to us or we're noncritical to them. There'll be, I think, additional restructuring actions that we're going to have to take there to address what is a smaller region for us. We have to get our SG&A in line. You saw the first step of that announced last quarter in the earnings call. There'll be additional actions that we have to take. And then in addition to that, there are going to be metals projects just like in the Americas that have to roll out of the portfolio. And so I think it's a long way of getting at there's 100 basis points left to get in the Americas and 100 basis points left to get in Europe. And we still expect to see that come through really kind of in a run rate when we get to '27. It's just a different path now than what we would have expected when we started talking about the 300 basis points. 200 basis points left to get, 100 basis points in the Americas, 100 basis points in Europe. Europe's going to come through restructuring, and it's going to come through customer management, really. And then with respect to your question on the peso, we'll have more to say on that when we get to our '25 guide. I would caution you. I wouldn't start thinking about significant peso upside just because of we have -- and we talked about this when we talked about the '24 guide. I mean, we have a layered hedge policy where we're layering on hedges throughout the year and so we would have layered on '25 hedges during '24 when the peso would have been at MXN 16.5 and MXN 17. And so you shouldn't be thinking because the peso today is trading at MXN 19.5 that we're going to have massive upside going into '25. I mean you won't see the effect of a MXN 19.5 if it stays at this level until we get into '26 really. Just don't start thinking about massive upside at a MXN 19.5 from that standpoint.

[Operator]

Our next question is from Dan Levy with Barclays.

[Trevor Young, analyst]

Trevor Young on for Dan today. Just had a couple of questions here. The first, I was going to ask on, you highlighted the focus on asset reuse as a lever to drive the $25 million cut to your CapEx plan this year. I just wanted to see if you could unpack this a little bit more and give a sense as to how this could be used as a lever going forward.

[Jerome Dorlack, executive]

Yes. So thank you very much for the question. I think if you look at, maybe you start historically and then talk a little bit about the go forward piece of it. Historically, when we were heavily investing in particular into our metals business, I mean, we were spending capital in the $500 plus million range. And it was because we were really going out. We weren't leveraging our capital assets globally. We were really looking at metals in a siloed fashion and reinvesting into new recliner mechanisms, new track mechanisms, new product families. And we had a very heavy capital bill. As we've moved forward now as a company, we've started to leverage our asset base globally. We've really looked at, as an example, press capacity globally. We've started now where we've looked at Europe, which has obviously gone from a, call it a [ 20 million ] vehicle build. Now it's call it [ 16.5 million ]. And you just don't need that type of press capacity in that region. So we've started picking up presses, moving them from Europe into the North America region. We're picking up recliner lines, moving them globally around the world now. We're moving track lines around the world now. And so that's when we talk about asset reuse. It's really looking at our asset base globally, particularly in the metals business, and taking that burden and spreading it out across the world. And that's how we drive this capital bill down from a $500 million to a more sustainable $300 million level. And really taking this year, looking at, we thought it'd be $315 million. I think we're now down to the $285 million range. That's how we've gotten that $25 million out. Again, just looking at customer program timing, looking at when PPAPs need to be submitted, looking at total asset placement around the world, where can we reuse it, and really driving that to a more sustainable level of $300 million. And we do think that is kind of that long-term run rate for the business. Will there be years where it's at $310 million, $315 million? Yes. Or they're going to be years at $285 million? Yes. But it's going to be right around that kind of $300 million range for the business.

[Trevor Young, analyst]

Just as a follow-up, I know you've got the 3.5% note, I believe, should be paid down in 4Q, I assume. In the past, you've talked about paying down some higher-priced debt, but I guess just in -- also in the past, I think you've talked about some M&A opportunities. I just wanted to get a sense with the share price where it is, if you're giving any additional consideration to buybacks as a weight in the opportunity set or if the plan that -- I guess, framework is still the same in terms of priorities.

[Mark Oswald, executive]

Yes, great question. And yes, you're correct. Those 3.5% notes come due here in August. So the intent is to pay those, use cash on the balance sheet to pay those down. We've said all along that we're going to have a flexible capital allocation plan. We want to make sure that we could obviously invest in the business. We want to obviously return cash to the shareholders. We want to make sure that we have flexibility if an inorganic growth opportunity presented itself, right. And I think we're striking that balance today. I mean, if you look at what we returned so far, in terms of buybacks, $225 million, you could probably assume that we're going to continue to repurchase as we move through the fourth quarter. Our free cash guide this year is $250 million. So pretty likely that we're going to exceed that amount of free cash being returned to the shareholders. So again, striking that balance, so nothing has changed in terms of our thought process there.

[Operator]

Our next question is from Joe Spak with UBS.

[Joseph Spak, analyst]

Mark, maybe just to go back to some of the comments about the quarter and the implied fourth quarter guidance. It seems like one of the things, which I believe you mentioned that really hit, it seems like particularly Europe in the quarter was just sort of the very fast nature of the production cuts. And I think if you look at even quarter-over-quarter decrementals in EMEA, they were pretty severe. So it doesn't seem like sales get better in EMEA in the fourth quarter. But is your view just that with better planning, the decrementals can be a little bit better? Or how -- what else should it [Indiscernible]

[Mark Oswald, executive]

Exactly, Joe. Exactly. So as we called out in the third quarter, right, there was some short notice customer downtime that drives inefficiencies, right? So it's some better planning there. We also know and have a better line of sight in terms of certainly commercial recoveries, right? Those we've said all along can be lumpy between quarters. So we have a good, what I'd say, line of sight in terms of what recoveries we're going after here in the fourth quarter. I can also look at some of my engineering spend, et cetera. So yes, when I add those together, I see better business performance in EMEA for Q4.

[Jerome Dorlack, executive]

And the other thing, Joe, and thank you for the question, is in Q3 in EMEA in particular, we had 3 customer launches that were taking place simultaneously, and the customers were not executing very well. And so we had, I would call it schedule reliability on those 3 launches that was, I mean, sub 60%. And they were taking place in our 1 German site and 2 Czech sites that just -- our ability to manage that short-time workforce was extremely, extremely limited.

[Joseph Spak, analyst]

Maybe just as a follow-up to that then, and it seems like what you're implying is at least quarter-to-date, maybe customers are sort of hitting their plan schedule a bit better. But if you can confirm that, and is there any way to dimensionalize the magnitude of the recoveries you're expecting in the fourth quarter?

[Mark Oswald, executive]

Yes. I would say that we are, as I indicated, there are green shoots that we're seeing with the customers launching not only here in the Americas, but also over in Europe. So yes, we are seeing and feeling more comfortable now in the fourth quarter there. Really don't want to dimensionalize the recoveries other than know that or just say that we have that line of sight because, again those vary as we go through the quarter. But feeling confident in terms of what we need to get and the progress to date in terms of getting those.

[Joseph Spak, analyst]

If I could just sneak 1 more in. Can you just remind us with the exiting the third-party metal contract, like how much more is there to go? What's the size of that business now that you want to get out of?

[Jerome Dorlack, executive]

I mean, our total metals business, yes, let's call it $2.5 billion, I mean, of that, third-party metals represents almost $800 million to $1 billion or so. I mean, we have to wind off or call it balance in, balance out contracts of almost $800 million. It's not all wind off because there's some that are replaced with more profitable business. But you should really think about it of almost $800 million that's either being [ round ] off or balanced in, balanced out.

[Operator]

Our next question is from James Picariello with BNP Paribas.

[James Picariello, analyst]

Just on that $800 million number in terms of the metals exit, is that a net $800 million in terms of the revenue reduction? Because you just -- you also mentioned the -- that there's business coming in. I'm just wondering in terms of the net exit intention.

[Jerome Dorlack, executive]

Yes, I'd say, I mean, net exit, we've never, I'd say, given that number before, but I mean, to kind of dimensionally frame it up, it's probably in the, call it, $200 million to $400 million range, James. Rolling off.

[James Picariello, analyst]

And as you think about Europe and the excess capacity in the region, navigating a lower LVP backdrop, for years to come, as you might frame it. In addition to restructuring actions, is there anything else strategic-wise in terms of sharing capacity with others in the region? And just anything besides restructuring on the strategic effort in Europe?

[Jerome Dorlack, executive]

Yes. I mean, what I would say is we are evaluating all levers available to us to create value for our shareholders, including pairing of operations, sharing of operations, combining of operations, anything that eliminates capacity or makes use of capacity in an economically feasible manner. And that's the process we're going through right now in a very lively and timely manner. I mean, Europe is, to be very clear, the most burning platform that we have as a company, and it's the one that we spend the most time on. Because as you can see in the results, I mean, we're not satisfied with it. It needs to be addressed, and it's something that is not going to resolve itself if you look at both the total vehicle volume production is going to remain depressed. The entrants that are coming into the region are going to take capacity out because of the imports, along with our customer actions, with the insourcing that's taking place out there when new plants are being put down, they're doing ceding in-house. Those announcements are public from that standpoint that are impacting not only us but also our competitors, which is creating the excess ceding capacity in the region. And so anything that can create value is what we're evaluating from that standpoint.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our next question is from John Murphy with Bank of America.

[Unknown Analyst]

This is [ Federico ] on for John. I just have a question on Asia. And so I think, Jerome, you said that China grew 6% in your consolidated sales and the unconsolidated was 8%, and from what I remember, the unconsolidated sales are like 3x, 4x larger than the consolidated sales. Is there any reason why the unconsolidated business is growing faster and so much larger? Is it a strategic decision? Or is it just how the market behaves?

[Mark Oswald, executive]

Yes. I would say that if I look at the unconsolidated sales, as I indicated in my prepared remarks, there was a deconsolidation of one of our joint ventures that aided the year-on-year comparison there. I'd also say the customer mix is different, right? So if I look at certain of my unconsolidated sales, right? Whether it's my KEIPER joint venture over there, obviously they're exposed and have the business with BYD, some of the faster-growing Chinese local manufacturers over there. So that kind of aids, right, on a like-for-like basis. It's really customer mix is what I'd boil it down to, as well as the deconsolidation.

[Operator]

And at this time, there are no further questions. [Operator Instructions] One moment to see if there's any further questions. And there are no further questions at this time.

[Michael Heifler, executive]

Okay. Well, thank you, everyone, for joining us this morning. Feel free to give us a call if you have any additional questions. And have a good day. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. That does conclude today's conference. Thank you all for participating. You may disconnect at this time.