Jeffrey S. Edwards
9 and 10 quantify the significant drivers of the year-over-year changes in our sales and adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter and full year, respectively. For sales in the fourth quarter, favorable foreign exchange increased sales by $14 million. This was partially offset by unfavorable volume and mix of $3 million. As mentioned, this category includes the impact of customer disruptions as well as net customer price adjustments and recoveries. In terms of adjusted EBITDA, volume and mix was a net benefit of $4 million in the quarter, as the overall mix of production and net pricing and recoveries in the quarter helped offset the negative impact of customer production disruptions. Manufacturing and purchasing efficiencies drove just $1 million in savings during the quarter, as efficiency was negatively impacted by trap costs and reduced fixed cost absorption levels caused by those customer production disruptions, as well as higher-than-launch volumes on a couple of new programs. Savings from restructuring initiatives resulted in an additional $1 million of cost improvement and a slight tailwind on raw materials amounted to $1 million in the period. These improvements were more than offset by million dollars of general inflation, such as wage and energy cost increases, while the nonrecurrence of some one-off positive items from the prior year and higher incentive compensation expenses year over year combined for the rest of the walk. Moving to Slide 10. For the full year, favorable foreign exchange increased sales by $12 million while unfavorable volume and mix net of customer price adjustments and recoveries reduced sales by $2 million. For full year adjusted EBITDA, $64 million of improved manufacturing and purchasing efficiencies, $18 million of restructuring savings, $10 million of favorable foreign exchange, and $2 million of lower material costs were all positive factors. Offsetting these positive items were $25 million in higher wages and other general inflation, and $17 million in unfavorable volume mix and net customer price adjustments. Other includes a minor amount of tariffs yet to be recovered, just due to timing, higher incentive compensation year over year, increased SG&A primarily due to share price appreciation, and a collection of other smaller items. Moving to Slide 11 and an update on our liquidity and our balance sheet. We were very pleased to end the year with strong free cash flow of $44.6 million in the fourth quarter, and importantly, positive free cash flow for the full year as we indicated we would of $16.3 million. Net cash provided by operating activities in the fourth quarter was $56 million, a decrease of $18 million compared to the same period last year due to the lower cash earnings in the quarter. Capital expenditures were $11.7 million in the quarter as we continue our intense focus on cash preservation and optimizing asset utilization. We ended the year with total liquidity of over $352 million. As of 12/31/2025, we had cash on hand of $191.7 million and an additional $160.9 million of availability on a revolving credit facility which remained undrawn. Based on our current outlook for production volumes and expectations for continued operational efficiencies and margin expansion, we expect that free cash flow in 2026 will again be positive. We believe our current cash on hand, expected future cash generation, and access to flexible credit facilities will provide ample resources to support our ongoing operations, make required interest payments, and execute planned strategic initiatives. Before we wrap up, I wanted to offer some thoughts on managing our debt maturities and how we are looking at our financing options going forward. We have continued to monitor the debt markets and consult with our advisors in anticipation of a potential refinancing of certain of our outstanding debt. We have made significant progress on evaluating potential paths forward. While the timing for the initiation of any refinancing action will be market dependent, we continue to target a refinancing transaction in the near future. That concludes my prepared comments. So let me hand it back over to Jeff. Thanks, John, and to wrap up our discussion this morning, I want to share a few thoughts regarding our outlook for 2026 and why I remain extremely optimistic about our opportunities this year and beyond. If we could move to Slide 13. The first reason for optimism is our continued success in executing our strategic plans, based on the four key strategic imperatives you see on this slide. Since we first defined these imperatives a couple years ago, the alignment and the focus of our teams has enabled us to drive significant improvements in virtually every aspect of our business. And importantly, our operational improvements in our manufacturing facilities and investments in innovation are translating to improved financial results. Turning to Slide 14. The charts on this slide clearly illustrate strong trends in margin expansion and improved cash flow, despite revenue declining due to lower industry production volumes over the past three years. As we have significantly reduced our fixed cost and continue to optimize manufacturing and purchasing efficiencies, we believe we can further accelerate margin expansion as our top line begins to grow. And we believe that both of our product segments are well positioned to grow significantly over the next few years. Turning to Slide 15, the strategy for our Fluid Handling Systems segment looks to unlock the full potential of the organization by expanding geographically in association with key fast-growing customers, leveraging the growth trends in hybrid vehicles to expand content per vehicle, and launching new innovative products and technologies including thermal management solutions and our award-winning EcoFlow family of integrated coolant control products. Please turn to Slide 16. As the global leader, our Sealing Systems strategy is focused on sustaining the operational excellence that has reestablished the financial strength of the business and leveraging global expertise in engineering, design, and manufacturing to drive profitable growth in both our existing and new markets. We are using digital tools and world-class engineering capabilities to make the design and validation process for new products faster and more efficient, supporting our customers in developing markets that tend to have a shorter product development cycle. Paying close attention to the voice of the customer, the Sealing team is quickly bringing additional innovative products and technologies to market that we expect will add value for our customers and enable the company to expand content per vehicle and drive market share gains going forward. Turning to Slide 17. For both of our segments, China represents a key part of our profitable growth strategy. And as you know, Chinese OEMs are expanding aggressively into many global markets and are expected to gain significant market share by 2030. As a key part of our strategy, CPS expects to grow and gain share alongside Chinese OEMs, leveraging our world-class technology and service, and the relationships that we have established over twenty years of operating in China as well as our outstanding locally led team. Currently, Chinese OEMs represent approximately 36% of our revenue in China, while Western OEMs and their joint venture partners represent approximately 60%. Based on the recent new business awards already in hand and developing target business, we expect to grow our business with Chinese OEMs to more than 60% of our revenue by 2030. In addition, given our existing available production capacity, we believe we will be able to scale our business with Chinese OEMs with minimal incremental investment resulting in very favorable returns on invested capital. In the near term, we expect our total revenue attributable to China will grow at a CAGR north of 15% between 2025 and 2028.