Sensata Technologies Holding plc (NYSE: ST) Q3 2025 Earnings Call dated Oct. 28, 2025
Corporate Participants:
James Entwistle — Senior Director of Investor Relations
Stephan Von Schuckmann — Chief Executive Officer, Director
Andrew Lynch — Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President
Analysts:
Ashley Wallace — Analyst
Mark Delaney — Analyst
Guy Drummond Hardwick — Analyst
Joseph Spak — Analyst
Joseph Giordano — Analyst
Luke Junk — Analyst
Shreyas Patil — Analyst
Konstandinos Tasoulis — Analyst
William Stein — Analyst
Robert Jamieson — Analyst
Manmohanpreet Singh — Analyst
Presentation:
operator
Good. Day and welcome to the Sensata Technologies third quarter 2025 earnings call. All participants will be in a listen only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today’s presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on a touch tone phone. To withdraw your question, please press Star then two. Please note that this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. James Entwistle, senior Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead sir.
James Entwistle — Senior Director of Investor Relations
Thank you operator and good afternoon everyone. I’m James Entwistle, Senior Director of Investor Relations for Sensata and I would like to welcome you to Sensata’s third quarter 2025 financial results conference call. Joining me on today’s call are Stephan Von Shookman, Sensata’s Chief Executive Officer and Andrew Lynch, Sunsata’s Chief Financial Officer. In addition to the financial results press release we issued earlier today, we will be referencing a slide presentation during today’s conference call. The PDF of this presentation can be downloaded from Sensata’s investor relations website. This conference call is being recorded and we will post a replay on our investor relations website shortly after the conclusion of today’s call.
As we begin, I would like to reference Sensata’s Safe harbor statement on slide 2. During this conference call, we will make forward looking statements regarding future events or the financial performance of the company that can involve certain risks and uncertainties. The company’s actual results may differ materially from the projections described in such statements. Factors that might cause such differences include, but are not limited to those discussed in our Forms 10Q and 10K as well as other filings with the SEC. We encourage you to review our GAAP financial statements in addition to today’s presentation. Much of the information that we will discuss during today’s call will relate to non GAAP financial measures.
Our GAAP and non GAAP financials, including reconciliations, are included in our earnings release, in the appendices of our presentation materials and in our SEC filings. Stephan will begin the call today with comments on the overall business. Andrew will cover our detailed results for the third quarter of 2025 and our financial outlook for the fourth quarter of 2025. Stefan will then return for closing remarks. We will then take your questions now. I would like to turn the call over to Sunsata’s Chief Executive Officer, Stefan Von Schuchman.
Stephan Von Schuckmann — Chief Executive Officer, Director
Thank you James and good afternoon everyone. Let’s begin on Slide 3 before we get into the third quarter results. I’d like to start today by briefly reflecting on what we have accomplished so far this year and where we are in our transformation journey. In our first earnings call after I joined Sunsata at the beginning of 2025 outlined the transformation ahead of us built around three key pillars operational excellence, capital allocation and a return to growth. In each of our subsequent earnings calls, we provided updates on our transformational journey framed around these three pillars. I’ve been pleased with the incremental progress in each of these quarterly Updates.
With the Q3 results we are reporting today, we have reached a significant milestone in our transformation journey. While we have more work to do and plenty of challenges ahead, Our Exceptionally Strong Q3 results give me confidence that we have meaningfully improved our core business. Our emphasis on operational excellence and margin resilience has positioned us to overcome challenges such as tariffs and end market volatility. Our laser focus on free cash flow and optimizing capital allocation to reduce net leverage has been successful and we are now well ahead of our net leverage and cash conversion targets. As a result, earlier today we commenced cash tender offers to purchase $350 million of our long term debt.
Finally, with respect to growth, we’ve conducted a thorough assessment of our product portfolio, production capacity and growth investments and we are taking action to position our business to maximize the benefit of from secular tailwinds. I will now share some additional colour on the third quarter through the lens of our key pillars. Our Q3 results represent a compelling proof point in the progress we have made on operational excellence. The third consecutive quarter we delivered on expectations, reporting results at or above guidance ranges. Third quarter Adjusted operating margins and adjusted EPS both expanded sequentially from Q2 despite seasonally lower revenues.
We’re now on path to expand a full year adjusted operating margins on a year over year basis excluding the dilutive impact of pass through revenue. This is yet another compelling proof point in the progress our team has made with our 2025 full year outlook standing in sharp contrast to the preceding three years when our business experienced year over year contraction in adjusted operating margin. Now let’s turn to slide four and I will discuss cash flow and capital allocation. Our near term capital allocation strategy is simple. We’re focused on rapidly deleveraging our business. While we are comfortable with our balance sheet, we believe that reducing leverage to a level more consistent with our peers removes a potential barrier for some investors, making SENSATA a more compelling investment.
Our operational excellence pillar has been a key enabler of this strategy as we optimize working capital and improve free cash flow conversion. After converting free cash flow at above 90% of adjusted net income last quarter, we made more Progress in the third quarter with conversion now exceeding 100%. As a result of our strong free cash flow generation and strong cash position with $791 million of cash on the balance sheet as of September 30, we’re taking decisive action to deploy capital and retire debt. Today. As I mentioned, we commenced Cash Tender Office to purchase $350 million of our long term debt.
More information about these cash tender offers can be found in the press release that we issued on this transaction earlier today. Discipline around our capital expenditures and reducing the capital intensity of our business has been a key driver of our progress toward improving cash flow conversion and we are acting on these priorities without compromising on growth. In fact, as we look ahead towards growth, we have studied past capital allocation to ensure we are making the right investments going forward. On our July earnings call, we defined a three part framework to which we would evaluate growth.
Allow me to recap that again here today. First, we’ll stick to our core product technologies with sensing and electrical protection. Second, we’ll prioritize platform driven applications with an emphasis on regulated or mission critical sockets and third, we’ll focus on our key markets, prioritizing those with secular tailwinds and ensuring appropriate diversification. We will continuously evaluate our product portfolio using this framework and where we identify areas where it is necessary to shift our strategy. We will be decisive in our Dynapower business which provides micro grid power inversion and rectification. It has become clear that the investment thesis and strategic plan around clean energy no longer offers the most compelling growth vector for this business as government policies have shifted and investment has slowed.
That said, we do see other areas where Dynapower aligns to our growth framework, specifically in applications where grid stabilization and redundant power supply are mission critical, such as defense and data center power delivery. Accordingly, we have recast our growth plans for this business enabled by a more focused strategy. We believe this provides more compelling long term growth with higher certainty of outcome. However, due to recent changes in clean energy policy and the anticipated slowdown in the clean energy sector, it was necessary to reevaluate the book value of this business today. As a result, we recorded a non cash goodwill impairment charge in the third quarter, which Andrew will discuss in more detail in a few minutes.
Now let’s turn to slide five and I’d like to take a moment to highlight some of the Recent Additions to our Executive Leadership Team as we embark on the next phase of our transformation journey, I’m pleased with the momentum we have built in our business through our Operational Excellence pillar. Not only have we delivered on our quarterly targets, we have done so with demonstrable margin resilience as we continue to perform in the face of multiple challenges in our end markets. Given the relatively short period of time in which we have made this progress, it is clear that our most significant opportunities are ahead of us.
At this juncture, it is imperative that we install the right leadership to ensure that we continuously unlock value and by optimizing our cost structure, streamlining our production network and serving our customers well. In the Form 8K that we issued along with our earnings press release today, we announced that Nicolas Bardot will join Susarta effective November 1st as Chief Operations Officer. Nicolas has more than 20 years of operations leadership experience including supply chain optimization, manufacturing excellence and leading transformations which would be a tremendous asset to Sensata as we strengthen our global operations footprint to meet the needs of changing and dynamic markets.
Most recently, Nicolas served as Division Operations Officer at ZEV Commercial Vehicle Solutions. Previously he held leadership roles at wabco, including Chief Supply Chain Officer and Vice President of Sourcing and Purchasing. His accomplishments include leading several organizational transformations and applying innovative technologies to achieve measurable productivity and quality gains. With operations on solid footing and with accelerated progress on our capital allocation pillar, we are now ratcheting up the intensity of our focus on our third pillar, returning sunsada to growth. This too requires experienced leadership. Earlier this quarter, we announced that Patrick Herzger joins Sensada as our Chief Growth and Transformation Officer.
Patrick has extensive automotive and industrial experience both in industry as well as at McKinsey & Co. Where he was a partner in the automotive practice. During Patrick’s 13 years at McKinsey, he led projects including Go to Market Strategy, Enterprise Transformations and AI Technology Strategy. We also announced today that Jackie Chen has been promoted to Executive Vice President and President of Sensata China effective January 1, 2020. 2026 Gaki joined Cinsada in January 2024 as Vice President and General Manager. China Automotive has been instrumental in positioning Sensada to re win market share and increase the localization of our business and supply chain.
In his expanded role, Jackie will have P and L responsibility and primary management oversight of all of Sensada’s business in China. Jackie’s promotion underlines the importance of succeeding in China and he has demonstrated that he is the right leader. Under Jackie’s leadership, automotive business in China has returned to outgrowth with double digit growth over market in the third quarter, and 90% of our new business wins this year have been with local OEMs. Now let’s turn to slide 6 and I will discuss some recent product innovations that will drive growth across multiple end markets. We previously mentioned that we were first to market with a tyre burst detection solution for a vehicle stability control application.
We continue to make progress here and we have now secured business with two leading Chinese OEMs. We’re proud to see our tyre burst alert feature gaining traction in the market, becoming a trusted component in vehicle safety strategies. These wins highlight a common theme as vehicles become more intelligent, so must the systems that support them, giving us a clear roadmap for how to expand content and win new business. Looking ahead toward the medium term, it’s clear that our path to expanding content will be driven by meeting the global shift towards sustainable mobility with smart, impactful solutions.
One such example is our High Efficiency Contactor, which simplifies EV charging by enabling vehicles to work seamlessly with both 400 and 800 volt architectures. As 800 volt vehicles launch in markets where the charging infrastructure is predominantly 400 volt, our contactor enables a switchable architecture. This product was recently recognized as a finalist for EV Charging innovation at the 2025 Battery Show, North America. As we have discussed on past earnings calls, global regulations are requiring more sustainable refrigerants in H vac systems, and with that, demand for reliable gas leak detection is accelerating. Our ATL sensor is helping customers across key markets detect and manage refrigerant leaks with speed and precision.
By supporting compliance and improving system performance, this solution is becoming a trusted part of HVA platforms. We have recently secured two customer agreements, solidifying our market leadership position for the next several years. As additional customer programs are awarded in the coming months. We foresee this business accelerating to more than $100 million of revenue in the near future, and we see expanded opportunities outside of the United States in the years ahead, making this product a potential growth driver for many years to come. Finally, as we look more broadly at secular trends, we expect our aerospace business to emerge as a meaningful growth engine for Sensado going forward.
Sado has proven capability in this space and a clear right to win as we have been sailing into the defence sector since the 1940s. Looking ahead over the next decade, US and allied nations defence spending expected to increase significantly from $1.7 trillion in 2025 to $2.8 trillion in 2035. The vast majority of the spend is expected outside of the US primarily driven by EU defence spending. Given our global footprint and deep business relationships in Europe, we are focused on winning our share of this growth. While I’m excited by the additions to our leadership team, I would also like to acknowledge the exceptional progress from the whole Sensado team.
Collectively, we embraced our three pillars approach and ready to bring forward and build initiatives around these pillars. We have worked relentlessly in pursuit of value creation, guided by the pillars and enabled by the initiatives that underpin them, and we are getting results. We have turned a corner on financial performance, consistently meeting or exceeding our plan and delivering on our commitments. We have unlocked free cash flow and meaningfully accelerated our capital allocation strategy and net leverage is improving and we return to market outgrowth in the third quarter with our automotive business outgrowing global vehicle production by approximately 1%, HBR outgrowing its end market by approximately 5% and our sensing solutions business delivering organic revenue growth of 2.5% with approximately 1% outgrowth in industrials while aerospace grew approximately 2% roughly in line with the market.
With that, I’ll turn the call over to Andrew to provide greater detail on Q3 financial results, market outlook and our guidance for the fourth quarter.
Andrew Lynch — Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President
Thank you Stephan and good afternoon everyone. Let’s turn to Slide 8. We delivered another strong quarter in Q3, once again achieving results that exceeded our expectations across all of our key metrics. We reported revenue of 932 million for the third quarter of 2025, which exceeded our expectations due to stronger global auto production amplified by our return to outgrowth. Third quarter revenue of $932 million represented a decrease of 51 million or 5.2% as compared to 983 million for the third quarter of 2024, primarily due to our previously discussed divestitures and product lifecycle management actions. On an organic basis, revenue increased approximately 3% year over year.
We delivered adjusted operating income of 180 million and adjusted operating margins of 19.3%, which is up 30 basis points sequentially from the second quarter of 2025 and up 10 basis points year over year. Our adjusted operating margins were diluted by approximately 20 basis points due to $12 million of 0 margin pass through revenues related to tariff recovery. Excluding the dilutive impact of tariff pass through third quarter. Adjusted operating margins increased by 30 basis points year over year. Tariff pass through revenues did not meaningfully impact sequential performance as we recorded approximately equal levels of tariff costs and pass through revenues in both the second and third quarter of 2025.
Adjusted earnings per share of $0.89 in the third quarter of 2025 increased by $0.02 sequentially from the second quarter of 2025. Despite seasonally lower revenues as we delivered on our margin expansion plans, adjusted earnings per share was flat with the third quarter of 2024 on lower revenue Free cash flow generation has been a primary focus for us this year and and our improvements accelerate our capital allocation objectives. I am pleased to report that we delivered free cash flow of 136 million in the third quarter which was an increase of approximately 49% year over year. This represents an exceptionally strong conversion rate of 105% of adjusted net income, an increase of 14 percentage points compared to the second quarter of 2025 and 37 percentage points compared to the third quarter of 2024.
Now let’s turn to Slide 9 and I will discuss capital deployment. With our strong free cash flow, we reduced NET leverage to 2.9 times trailing 12 months adjusted EBITDA compared to 3.0 times at the end of June. Last quarter we indicated that our capital allocation strategy would prioritize deleveraging. Today we took initiative to deploy capital in furtherance of this priority as we commenced cash tender offers to purchase $350 million of our long term debt. Our capital allocation strategy combined with the performance of our business is delivering returns with return on invested capital increasing to 10.2%, which is an improvement of 10 basis points sequentially from the second quarter of 2025 and 20 basis points year over year compared to the third quarter of 2024.
In the third quarter we returned $17 million to shareholders through a regular quarterly dividend. Last week we announced our fourth quarter dividend of $0.12 per share payable on November 26th to shareholders of record as of November 12th. Turning to Slide 10, I’ll talk through the results for our segments. Performance Sensing revenue in the third quarter of 2025 was 657 million approximately flat year over year on a reported basis. Organically, revenue increased 3.6% year over year as we outgrew our end markets in Both Automotive and HVOR, consistent with the expected return to outgrowth in the second half of 2025 that we had communicated earlier this year.
Performance sensing adjusted operating income was 156 million or 23.7% of performance sensing revenue representing year over year margin expansion of 160 basis points inclusive of any dilutive impact from tariffs. Sensing Solutions revenue in the third quarter of 2025 was 275 million, which was approximately flat year over year Organically, revenue increased 2.5% year over year driven by new content in our industrials business and growth in our aerospace business. This marks our third straight quarter of year over year organic growth. Sensing Solutions adjusted operating income was 85 million or 30.9% of sensing solutions revenue representing year over year margin expansion of 150 basis points, again inclusive of any dilutive impact from tariffs.
The margin expansion in both our Performance Sensing and Sensing Solutions segments represents the significant strides our teams have made in the last year in unlocking productivity and I want to echo Stephan’s comments regarding the great work being done by Team Sensata. Corporate and other adjusted operating expenses increased by $12 million compared to the third quarter of 2024, primarily driven by higher variable compensation due to better underlying performance. Finally, just a brief follow up on the Dynapar topic that Stephan mentioned earlier. In the third quarter we recorded $259 million in non cash charges as a result of changes in clean energy policy and emissions regulations.
This included a goodwill impairment charge of approximately $226 million related to the Dynapower business as well as certain other non cash charges primarily due to excess capacity related to electrification. These costs were excluded from adjusted operating income as they are non cash and non recurring in nature. More detail regarding the reconciliation of our GAAP and non GAAP financial metrics is available in our SEC filings, in the appendix to today’s earnings presentation and on our Investor relations website. Turning briefly to Slide 11, I will share some high level thoughts on our markets within Performance Sensing, we have been pleased with the durability of automotive demand.
We are encouraged by the growth in China where we continue to increase our share. And in North America, despite concerns around end market demand, production has lagged. SAR and inventory levels remain relatively normal indicating further durability. The HVOR end market has been soft, particularly with on road trucks in North America, though we have been pleased with our ability to expand margins overall despite weakening end market demand in this high margin business. In Sensing solutions, gas leak detection has provided meaningful growth against an end market that has not yet fully recovered. Given our exposure to H Vac and appliance, we look at housing recovery and interest rates as the likely catalysts for this end market.
And lastly in our aerospace business we have seen reliable market growth in the low to mid single digit range all year and we expect that to continue with strong order books across the sector. Before I discuss our fourth quarter expectations, let’s turn to Slide 12 for a brief update on tariffs. In the third quarter of 2025, we recorded approximately $12 million of tariff costs and associated pass through revenues. This was approximately flat with the second quarter of 2025 and looking ahead, we expect the same exposures in the fourth quarter based on trade policies currently in effect.
The vast majority of our imports into the United States are from Mexico and over 80% of those imports are USMCA qualified. We do not expect any meaningful changes in our USMCA qualification levels moving forward. Additionally, ENSATA is not directly exposed to either the automotive parts nor heavy truck parts tariffs as the products we produce are not included within the scope of these tariffs. And finally, just a brief reminder on our operating posture regarding tariffs. ENSATA will produce the customer demand signals and will make product available to our customers at our production locations or deliver to any appropriate destination of our customers choosing.
Should our customers require that we import materials into any jurisdiction that applies the tariff to such imports, we will only do so with a reimbursement agreement in place. We are grateful to our customers and suppliers for their continued support in this process. Their partnership and collaboration has been invaluable. With that, let’s turn to Slide 13 and I will walk through our expectations for the fourth quarter of 2025. We expect fourth quarter revenue of $890 million to $920 million, adjusted operating income of $172 million to $179 million, adjusted operating margins of 19.3% to 19.5%, adjusted net income of 121 million to 127 million, and adjusted earnings per share of $0.83 to $0.87.
Our revenue guidance range reflects a cautious outlook in light of recent idiosyncratic events such as the Nobelis factory fire and the potential supply disruptions related to nextperia. To be clear, we have not projected any major disruptions to our business in connection with these events. However, we are taking a more cautious view on the market and our order book. At the midpoint of our guidance range, we expect approximately 10 basis points of sequential margin expansion and and we have assumed the same level of tariff costs and pass through revenues to what we incurred in the third quarter.
As noted in our press release and earnings materials, our guidance and tariff assumptions are based on trade policies and tariff rates in effect as of October 28th and do not incorporate any impacts from proposed changes to trade policies. Finally, while we are not yet providing 2026 guidance, I would like to share initial thoughts on 2026. We are reasonably comfortable with consensus estimates for the full year. However, as we look at the quarters within 2026, we see a wider range of estimates, particularly in the first quarter. As a reminder, Q4 to Q1 margin seasonality is driven by pricing dynamics.
In our automotive business. Specifically, contractual price downs to our customers typically take effect at the beginning of the year, as do our supplier price reductions. However, with approximately 90 days of inventory on hand, the majority of our first quarter sales reflect higher cost inventory. As we progress into the second quarter, margins normalize and each quarter thereafter we typically see margin expansion driven by productivity in our factories. This trend was observed in the years preceding the pandemic and the inflation that followed, and was observed again in 2025 as pricing returned to pre pandemic norms. We expect similar seasonality moving forward.
With that, I will turn the call back to Stephanie.
Stephan Von Schuckmann — Chief Executive Officer, Director
Thank you Andrew. As we look ahead, I’d like to leave you with a few parting thoughts. Over the last nine months we’ve executed with consistency, laying a solid foundation on which to build. Beyond significantly improving our say due ratio, we have also improved underlying performance in our business and our free cash flow conversion is a compelling proof point. Additionally, we have demonstrated a return to market outgrowth beginning with our industrial and aerospace business earlier in the year and with our third quarter results also in our automotive and heavy vehicle businesses. And lastly, we’re acting decisively to set ourselves up for long term shareholder value creation by installing the right leadership team, adjusting course on strategy as end markets change, and deploying capital to retire debt.
Look forward to continuing to update you on our progress as we transition towards the next phase of our transformation. We’ll now turn the call back to James for Q and A.
James Entwistle — Senior Director of Investor Relations
Thank you Stephane and Andrew. We will now move to Q and A. In order to ensure adequate time for all participants to ask a question, we will limit each participant to one question. Should you wish to ask a follow up question, please re enter the queue. Operator, please introduce the first question.
Questions and Answers:
operator
Your first question today will come from Wamsey Mohan with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Ashley Wallace
Hi, this is Aisling on for Wamsi. Congrats on the results. Just one question for me on the tire burst detection last quarter. I believe it was mentioned that winds might be able to help contribute to revenues relatively quickly. Just can you help us think through quantifying this revenue impact in China from these additional wins? Thanks.
Andrew Lynch
Thank you Ashley. Yeah, so in China the design cycle tends to be much shorter than in the West. It can be as quick as sort of six to nine months from a design win to start a production. With respect to individual wins Given that these are only at a couple of OEMs so far, we’re unable to disclose the actual value of these wins. What I can say is that we expect to, we return to outgrowth in China in the third quarter and we expect to continue to outgrow the market moving forward. And these wins and other wins with local OEMs in China are a big reason why we’d expect our outgrowth to be in the low single digit market.
Low single digits above market range initially.
Ashley Wallace
Great, thank you. I’ll pass it back.
operator
And your next question today will come from Mark Delaney with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Mark Delaney
Yes, good afternoon. Thank you very much for taking the question. I also was hoping to better understand what the company has seen in terms of its ability to outgrow the auto market. So to recognize you outgrew globally in the third quarter. I think you said double digits in China. And your comments, Andrew, about outgrowth going forward is really where I was hoping to focus as you, as you look into 2026, you think about the auto business more generally, but both in Asia and on a global perspective, based on the wind you have and your discussions with customers, do you think your overall auto business can outgrow auto production next year? Thanks.
Stephan Von Schuckmann
So, hey Mark, nice to hear you. Let me answer that question for you. So yes, I mean, you’re absolutely right. We’ve had like double digit outgrowth in China with one fantastic business. I just, you know, as you heard in my script, we, you know, we have a new president in China with Jackie and he has really done a great job to win new business on the contactor side. But as you know, just mentioned on the typist system and that has enabled us to outgrowth in that, in that market and given us an overall, I would say modest outgrowth in quarter three of this year.
And going forward with those wins and potential further wins that we’re currently working on, we’re looking at further outgrowth going forward into 2026.
operator
And your next question today will come from Guy Hardwick with Barclays Capital. Please go ahead.
Guy Drummond Hardwick
Hi. I’m just looking at the revenue by end markets, am I reading this correctly? That H Vac stepped up very considerably sequentially and quarter on quarter, that’s 6% of revenues compared to just over 4 a year ago and 4.6 in Q2. So kind of implies almost 40% growth in the H Vac business. Has there been some segmental change or is that Real growth.
Stephan Von Schuckmann
That’s real growth. Definitely real growth. So overall, what’s obviously fueling this growth is our so called HL gas leak detection product. We’ve won your business, we’ve won two new businesses and we’re continuing to gain market share. We’ve got a substantial market share from today’s perspective and that is basically fueling this growth and also fuel the growth going forward. That’s the main reason for that.
Andrew Lynch
And Guy, just for clarity, we presented the gas leak detection revenue in industrial last quarter. We’ve recast Both on a Q3 and on a year to date basis into the H VAC segment. So I think that may be what you’re seeing in those end market disclosures.
operator
Thank you. And your next question today will come from Joe Spack with ubs. Please go ahead.
Joseph Spak
Andrew. There’s three debt securities listed in the tender offer. Obviously the five and seven days are the most expensive. Is there any reason to believe you wouldn’t go after those first? And just somewhat related is the lower interest expense considered in your fourth quarter EPS guidance?
Andrew Lynch
Thanks. Yeah, so given that the tender is still open, we’re sort of limited in how much we can share about what notes we prefer to retire or anything like that. But what I can share on the interest is we’re earning roughly at parity between cash on the balance sheet and the interest expense that we’re incurring on those 29 notes. And then obviously the other notes are a little bit more pricey. But on balance I wouldn’t expect it to have a material impact on net interest in the fourth quarter. And so nothing to consider from a, from a guide perspective there.
And then beyond that, you know, we’ve, we’ve referred to the tender offer materials. That we, that we issued with the. Press release earlier today. Thanks.
operator
And your next question of the day will come from Joe Giordano with TD Cowan. Please go ahead.
Joseph Giordano
Hey guys, nice job. As you think through, as you think through the capital structure here, I think everyone probably likes what you’re doing with the charging and the charges and taking down Dyna Power and the debt reduction. But how do you think, like, how do you marry the innovation internally that you’re doing with like the desire to ultimately deploy more in the future. So I know now we’re talking about. Retiring debt and paying down and getting. Leverage down, but what’s the target where you start to feel comfortable enough that. You can start to take iterative steps. Outside of the current portfolio again?
Andrew Lynch
Sure. Thanks for the question. So I think in the short term we’re very focused on our core business. We believe that we have all the building blocks that we need to grow, succeed in our end markets and return to outgrowth like Stephan mentioned. So I want to be very clear, that’s our core focus right now. A big part of that involves improving the cash generation in our core business and then prioritizing the deployment of that capital to reduce our leverage. And I think you can look for that to be our, your primary focus for the near to medium term.
Stephan Von Schuckmann
And let me add to that, Joe. So basically, I mean, yes, for now, the story that we’ve been continuously telling also in the last call is first wanted to leverage the company. We use some excess cash to strengthen our operations. So we’ve been very, you know, very busy around smart automation in our factories to increase productivity. That’s proven to be the right investment as you can see in the results, as one effect. Yes. And going forward, obviously we’ll reevaluate if we’ll deploy cash somewhere else. But at this point in time we’re sticking very much to what we’ve been telling you and deleveraging the company and improving performance.
And that’s the focus for, for the next quarters ahead. Thank you guys.
operator
And your next question today will come from Luke Young with Barrett. Please go ahead.
Luke Junk
Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question, Stephen. Hoping you could just double click on the aerospace portfolio, especially your IP and innovation cycle in that business relative to your right to win comment in the prepared remarks. I guess if I look, it’s been growing low single digit plus in recent years seems like the market’s been growing a little bit faster in aggregate. Just the levers that you see to growing that business more quickly into the future too. Thank you.
Stephan Von Schuckmann
So first of all, let me reflect back on the growth. We’ve had steady growth, like you say, mid single digit and this has basically been both in commercial and defence markets. In quarter three of this year this was actually a record revenue result and I think as Andrew mentioned in his script, it was basically the fifth straight quarter of positive outgrowth. Now I think one topic is well known but I’d like to repeat it. We still have high customer backlogs. They still persist, they’re still there. And this is basically in current, basically this persists. But recent information that we received, FAA is now approved with our biggest customer, one of our biggest customers, an increase to 42 aircraft per month.
And as you can Remember back since January 2024, that was roughly 38 aircraft per month. So basically that’s going to increase our part of that growth and the other part of it is our exposure to defence business. And that will be the other area we’ll be growing in this business unit.
operator
And your next question today will come from Shreyas Patil with Wolff Research. Please go ahead.
Shreyas Patil
Hi, thanks a lot for taking my question. Wanted to better understand the strategic positioning of Dynapower at this point. You talked a little bit about the potential for applications related to data centers. Wanted to maybe see if you could expand on that a little bit more. And are you seeing engagements from customers in some of those end markets, either grid storage, utility or grid applications or then even data center. Thanks.
Stephan Von Schuckmann
Basically the main focus for now around data power are high energy requirements which for us create use cases around grid stabilization. That is the major use case around data centers from today’s perspective.
operator
And your next question today will come from Costa Tasolis with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.
Konstandinos Tasoulis
Hey guys, thanks for taking my question. I think you guided organic growth over the next 12 to 18 months to be in the 2 to 4% range. I think the commentary last quarter was a lot of that was being helped by the non light vehicle business, But I think H4 housing still looks kind of challenged. Can you just parse out how you’re thinking about that now?
Andrew Lynch
Sure. Happy to. So I think first, so obviously we’ve seen a slowdown in some of our non auto businesses this year. Hvor and specifically on road truck in North America has slowed. And so while we’re outgrowing that end market, the ability to grow with it is hampered by the lower levels of production that’s impacted organic growth a little bit this year. I think we’re still on track for about a percent ish organic growth. If you look at where third parties are for the fourth quarter and then where the midpoint of our revenue guide is and admittedly that was a cautious guide given some of the risks that we see in the fourth quarter.
So we’ll see how that all settles in terms of production levels, et cetera. I think as you look forward beyond the fourth quarter. So certainly again we’re not giving 2026 guidance, but we, you know, the biggest outgrowth headwind we’ve had this year which has challenged our organic growth rate has been the China market. And we turned a corner here in the third quarter where we’re now outgrowing production in China. So if end markets hold up and we continue to deliver the level of outgrowth that we’ve had here in the third quarter, we’d have very high confidence in our ability to grow organically low single digits moving forward.
Thank you.
operator
And your next question today will come from William Stein with Truist. Please go ahead.
William Stein
Great. Thanks for taking my question. I’m hoping you can remind us of your longer term margin outlook. I forget what you’ve targeted in the past and I forget if it’s single year out or expansion view or multi year. Can you just catch us up on that, please? Thank you.
Andrew Lynch
Thanks. Thanks for the question, Will. So you may recall on the last call we talked about a margin floor of 19%. We’re still committed to that floor. The reason that was an important data point for us is because there’s obviously a lot of end market volatility and challenges. We’re dealing with mixed matter matters in our business. Certainly we feel very comfortable in our ability to defend that floor on a full year basis. And then beyond that I would point to, you know, we’ve demonstrated an ability to sequentially expand margins throughout the year as we’ve done this year.
And lastly, I would just point out that our two of our higher margin businesses, HVOR and Industrial, are both in markets that are that are relatively soft right now. So if and when those markets recover, certainly there’s some margin help that we get with that. But without clarity on that and without having guided 2026, where we stand today is that we’re very comfortable defending a margin floor of 19%.
operator
Thank you. Once again. If you would like to ask a question, please press star then one. And your next question today will come from Rob Jamieson with Vertical Research Partners. Please go ahead.
Robert Jamieson
Hey guys, nice results tonight. Just had a couple on free cash flow. Just a really strong conversion this quarter. Again, I just wonder if you could walk through some of the details on working capital improvements, gas discipline driving this performance and then just kind of your thoughts around the sustainability this level. And then Stephane, just on the some of the benchmarking initiatives that you talked about in terms of getting different manufacturing facilities to kind of get to best in class internally. Just wanted to see what you’re starting to see there in terms of early improvements.
Stephan Von Schuckmann
Let me start with the second question. Thanks for the question. Look, we’ve continued with our benchmarking with benchmarking progress. First of all, the idea was to benchmark ourselves internally. So from a product family perspective, we would take the best in class product from a cost perspective and then benchmark that against all the other factories where that product is produced. And we made good progress. So we’ve reduced our costs significantly. On each and every product, but we still have some way to go. And then the other view is obviously outside of Sansada. So if we can obtain benchmarks where we find products being produced better than our factories, we’ll take that benchmark and work off against, work ourselves off against that target, which we also do for certain product families.
So continuous progress, I think we’ve improved a lot, but still ongoing.
Andrew Lynch
Great. Yeah. And on the cash flow question, so biggest lever, there has been lower capital expenditures in our business and I think that’s really reflective of the level of discipline we’re applying to CapEx. We’re certainly looking at things like the certainty of the production outlook on the programs that we’re investing in, as well as the timing and that’s driven a lower level of capex in our business. You know, I’m comfortable that we can continue to convert free cash flow at a relatively healthy level and the number that we’ve committed to is greater than 80%. I don’t think that our, that our, you know, relatively low level of capex this year is a, is a benchmark for where we’re going to be indefinitely.
But certainly as we’re looking at EV production outlook, that’s a little bit uncertain volumes that are maybe softer than where they were expected to be a few years ago, we’re applying a lot more rigor on the CapEx that we’re improving and that’s showing up in our free cash flow conversion. So I’m comfortable that we’ll continue to convert at a high level and I think the year to date result has been reflective of CAPEX discipline.
operator
And your next question today will come from Samik Chatterjee with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Manmohanpreet Singh
Hi, this is MP on Fosomic strategy. Thank you for taking my question. I just wanted to double click on your return to growth pillar of the overall strategy. Just wanted to understand in terms of end markets, which end markets are strategically of higher importance in terms of returning to growth or where do you expect the growth will be more skewed in terms of the overall end markets from.
Stephan Von Schuckmann
An end market perspective? I think Andrew has given some highlights on that. We see from Sunsado’s perspective strong market outgrowth on the HVIR sector that is mainly driven due to construction and agricultural business and that basically offsetting the softness in that market. And we also see, as I’ve mentioned earlier, you know, with very, very strong order books in the aerospace area, we’ll see a potential of growth going forward there as well. That is another area of high growth automotive, I would say is rather soft with a slight outgrowth going forward. So the two strong ones being aerospace and HVR and industrial, sorry, industrials.
Industrial was a third one that also wanted to mention especially you know, with our gas leak detection product that’s enabling us to outgrow the market and going forward that will also be pushing growth.
operator
Understood. Thank you. That concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Andrew lynch for any closing remarks.
Andrew Lynch
Thank you, Operator and thank you all for joining today’s presentation. We look forward to seeing you at. Various investor events later this quarter. We are currently expected to participate in the following the R.W. baird Global Industrial Conference in Chicago on November 12th the UBS Global Industrials and Transportation Conference in West Palm beach on December 3rd and the Oppenheimer Winter Industrial Summit, which is a virtual conference on December 11th. This concludes our third quarter earnings conference call. Operator, you may now end the call.
operator
Thank you. The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.