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Embraer SA
BOVESPA:EMBR3

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Embraer SA
BOVESPA:EMBR3
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Price: 36.65 BRL -1.4%
Updated: May 30, 2024

Earnings Call Transcript

Earnings Call Transcript
2024-Q1

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G
Guilherme Paiva
executive

So please let me say a short announcement for Portuguese speakers. [Foreign Language] My name is Guilherme Paiva, and I'm the Head of Investor Relations for Embraer. I want to welcome you to our First Quarter of 2024 Earnings Conference Call. The numbers in this presentation contain non-GAAP financial information to facilitate investors to reconcile Eve's financial information in GAAP standards to Embraer's IFRS. We remind you that Eve's results will be discussed at our Eve's conference call today at 9:30 AM New York time.It is important to mention that all numbers are presented in U.S. dollars as it is our functional currency. This conference call may include statements about future events based on Embraer's expectations and financial market trends. Such statements are subject to uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ from those expressed or implied in this conference call. Except in accordance with the applicable rules, the company assumes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements. For detailed financial information, the company encourages revealing publications filed by the company with the Brazilian Comissao de Valores Mobiliarios or CVM.[Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. Participants on today's conference call are Francisco Gomes Neto, President and CEO of Embraer; Antonio Carlos Garcia, Chief Financial Officer; Luiz Herrisson, Corporate Communications Director and myself. This conference call will have three parts. In the first part, top management will present the company's Q1 results. In the second part, we will host a Q&A session only for investors and last but definitely not least, we will host a Q&A session only for the press.It is my pleasure to now turn the conference call to our President and CEO, Francisco Gomes. Please go ahead, Francisco.

F
Francisco Neto
executive

Good morning and good afternoon to all. Thank you, and welcome to Embraer's first quarter 2024 results conference call. Our commercial activity in 2024 continues to be strong in all business units as we see solid demand in the company's main markets. Historically, Q1 is seasonally our weakest quarter. However, in 2024, our revenues were up 25% compared to a year ago, and our deliveries increased 67% helped by our Production Leveling initiatives. Speaking of Production Leveling, we expect further improvement as the year progresses and more importantly, in 2025.These operational changes should help the company to increase efficiency, productivity and post better financial results next year and years ahead. Our backlog reached $21.1 billion, which is the highest level over the past 7 years. In Commercial Aviation, American Airlines placed an order in March of 90 E175s with 43 additional purchase rights. The news demonstrated the still strong potential of this aircraft model in the U.S. market. Speaking of potential, we currently have concrete sales campaigns for more than 200 aircraft across the world for both our E1 and E2 jet families and also more concrete sales opportunities for our Defense aircraft.We also kept the good momentum in Executive Aviation with strong sales across all our aircraft. We recorded the highest Q1 in terms of sales, deliveries and revenues for the division over the past 80 years. Services & Support continued to be a pillar of profitability in one of our main growth drivers. Its revenues increased 12% in Q1 '24 compared to a year ago. The strong financial results of the company allowed us to reduce our gross debt without if by additional $276 million during the quarter, a total reduction of $754 million over the past year. Consequently, our gross debt-to-EBITDA ratio is now below 5 turns.It is important to mention that when we consider all the risks and opportunities for the company, we feel comfortable and reiterate our 2024 operational and financial guidance. I will now present the operational results by business units in the next few slides. In Commercial Aviation, the backlog rose $2.3 billion or plus 26% quarter-over-quarter and reached $11.1 billion with a book-to-bill ratio above 1 for the whole year. The American Airlines order reinforces the capability of our E175 model and more importantly, the partnership between both companies.Embraer, a leasing company as Evora delivered the second E195-E2 to Royal Jordanian, the first E2 operator in the Middle East. In Executive Aviation, the backlog registered a sequential increase of $300 million and ended Q1 with $4.6 billion or plus 7% quarter-over-quarter and a strong 2:1 book-to-bill for the quarter. We recorded our first set of firm orders from NetJets, whose deliveries will begin in 2025. In total, NetJets has purchased rights for 250 aircraft over the next 14 years. In the Defense & Security, we hosted the first Embraer Defense Day in the U.S. with a C-390 Millennium and A-29 Super Tucano.The event included a diverse guest list of government authorities, military officials, prospects and partners. In early 2024, Embraer and Mahindra signed a MoU to jointly pursue the sale of the C-390 Millennium to the Indian Air Force. The first Hungarian C-390 successfully completed its maiden flight. The aircraft continues to receive international recognition on the back of its remarkable operational performance and capabilities. We should note, the division reported lower year-over-year revenues because of supply chain delays and business seasonality.In Services & Support, revenue grew 12% compared to the same period last year with solid double-digit profitability. The business unit backlog maintaining the historical $3.1 billion record reached in Q4 '23, with a 10% plus EBIT margin. Another important step for our Services division was the induction of the first Pratt & Whitney GTF 1100 Engine in OGMA, our MRO in Portugal. The ramp-up should last four years, and we expect revenues to reach close to $500 million in 2028.Last but not least, Eve, our eVTOL business is on track to achieve important milestones in 2024. We have already selected now more than 90% of its component suppliers, and we successfully concluded a Urban Air Traffic Management Trial. The company is on track to accomplish the next development steps, first prototype assembly conclusion, initial tests and the definition of -- in certification basis. We also began the definition of our eVTOL factory configuration. All in, we estimate Eve should have a total cash consumption between $130 million and $170 million in 2024.I will now hand it over to Antonio, our CFO, to give you further details about the financial results, and then I will be back with closing remarks.

A
Antonio Garcia
executive

Thank you, Francisco. Good morning and good afternoon to everyone. I would like to highlight our operational performance in Q1 despite the historical seasonality. Total delivers revenue margins were higher than the same period in 2023, and the company's cash consumption was better than a year ago. Our focus in Q1 was on business and financial efficiency. We want to lay down important stepping stones to put us in a comfortable position to achieve our full year guidance even with the ongoing supply chain constraints, we continue to deal with.Let's now move to slide 9 in the presentation. Deliveries; Executive Aviation delivered 18 jets in Q1 for an increase of 125% versus a year ago and the highest Q1 level of the last 8 years. The Light Jets segment was 83% higher year-over-year with 11 Phenoms delivered, while the Medium Jets were more than triple during the period with 7 Praetors delivered. Meanwhile, Commercial Aviation deliveries were flat at 7 aircraft in Q1 compared to the same quarter of 2023 with four E1s and three E2 aircraft. In Defense, we should note there were no [ C-390 ] deliveries in the first quarter of '24 and '23. We continue to work steadfastly to accomplish our production plan and reach the milestones in our Defense & Security programs, which includes [indiscernible] deliveries scheduled for the year.It is important to mention the company has developed and is currently implementing a production level in plan to mitigate the business seasonality. The plan should help the company to deliver less volatile financial results throughout the year in the near- to medium-term future. Slide 10, please. The company registered a strong total backlog of $21.1 billion at the end of Q1 for an increase of 13% quarter-over-quarter and the highest number recorded over the past 7 years. Looking forward, our current backlog is accretive to our financial projections.The backlog for commercial aviation reached more than 380 aircrafts in Q1, and it is valued at $11.1 billion or $2.3 billion higher than the last quarter. Meanwhile, Executive Aviation ended with a solid $4.6 billion backlog or 7% higher quarter-over-quarter, helped by the inclusion of the first Praetor 500 Firm orders from NetJet. We should note NetJet's past order 246 options not included in the current backlog. The backlog for Services & Support finished stable at $3.1 billion in Q1. While for Defense & Security, it decreased marginally by 4% quarter-over-quarter to $2.4 billion.Again, we should [indiscernible] 11 C-390 aircraft in three tender offers; one, [ host ] contracts haven't been signed yet and this included [indiscernible]our backlog. Moving on to revenues; our top line reached almost $900 million Q1 or $180 million higher year-over-year for a 25% growth rate. If you look at the right chart, Service & Support represented around 41% revenue in Q1, followed by Executive 27%, Commercial Aviation 22%, and Defense at around 9%. Next slide; we generated $47 million in adjusted EBITDA in Q1 with a 5.2% margin, driven by higher aircrafts delivered compared to the same period of last year and better consolidated gross margin.Meanwhile, adjusted EBITDA was $7 million for an adjusted EBIT margin of 0.8%. Reported EBIT for the quarter was negative $4 million or a negative 0.4% margin. Both figures were better than the first quarter '23, supported by higher volumes, better mix, especially in Executive and Services & Support. Looking on the right chart, we can see Executive Aviation and Services & Support generated positive EBIT during the quarter, while Commercial and Defense presented negative results because our limited volume supply chain delays and more aircrafts in the early stage of assembly. Slide 12, please.In Q1, if we exclude Eve, we had an adjusted free cash flow consumption of $346 million or $53 million better in Q1 '23, driven by customer advanced payments. The Q1 cash consumption is basically due to the increase in inventories to support higher deliveries in the upcoming quarters. This cash should be reverted as more deliveries take place throughout the year. And we affirm our $220 million or higher guidance for the cash generation 2024. Moving to investment and again, without Eve, $47 million were allocated to research and development, $28 million to CapEx and a net of $15 million to the Pool Program in Q1 for a $90 million total compared to $82 million a year ago.We highlight our capital allocation continues to be focused on segments with higher returns, with projects such as expansion of our production capacity and Executive Aviation and Services & Support. Our adjusted net income was negative $13 million for the quarter on a negative 1.4% adjusted margin. Historically, the first quarter of the year is the weakest because of the business seasonality. The positive reported net income is driven by the mark-to-market valuation of the Eve warrants around $30 million. Next slide, going to our liability management plan -- in first quarter '24, we reduced our gross debt without Eve by $276 million, all in during the quarter and by a more sizable $754 million versus a year ago to a total of $2.6 billion.In addition, our net debt declined by $384 million year-over-year to a total of $1 billion in first quarter '24. However, on a sequential basis, our net-debt-to-EBITDA leverage ratio increased 0.4x to 1.8x as shown in the top right corner. This variance is expanded by the seasonality of the business. Our almost $2.4 billion liquidity position allowed us to cover our debt obligation beyond 2030 and leave us in a very contractable position.With that, I conclude my presentation, and I hand it back to Francisco for his final remarks. Thank you very much.

F
Francisco Neto
executive

Thank you, Antonio. The Q1 '24 was another step in the right direction, supported by both external factors like some marginal improvements in our supply chain and internal ones like our Production Leveling initiatives. Speaking of Production Leveling, we recently hosted a conference with our main suppliers to strengthen our partnership and operational plans for '24 and years ahead.We remain optimistic that supply chain disruption should continue to diminish and improve our ability to deliver more aircraft in the next few years. To finish, I would like to thank you all again for your interest and confidence in our company and a very special shootout to our friends in Dallas. We are very grateful for their partnership interest. We continue to focus on operational and business efficiency in 2024, having as foundation of our culture, safety first and quality always.Let's now move into the Q&A session of the call.

Operator

[Operator Instructions][Foreign Language][Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Cai Von Rumohr with TD Cowen.

G
Gabriel Rezende
analyst

It's Gabriel Rezende from Itau actually. So one question from our side here. You have just comment regarding the supply chain issues in the Defense business, and they are expecting these issues to improve along the year. But I was just wondering whether the supply issues that impacted the Defense business, the specific components that impacted your performance in the division, have some overlap with the Commercial division as well. So if you could provide a little bit more detail on that, it would be great.

F
Francisco Neto
executive

Hi Gabriel. Francisco speaking here. Yes, I mean, as I said, we see improvements in the supply chain from -- we saw from '22 to '23, from '23 to '24, but still with challenges in specific components that some are meeting our production in the year and also because of the delays, they are delivering the parts, but not on time to help us with the production. And then we have to make adjustments in our production schedule that affects our productivity and in some case putting risk deliveries as well. But we made our plan for this year based on the plans that we discussed a lot with the suppliers. So again, we are confident that we'll deliver the aircraft we announced in the guidance in this year regarding [ to other ] aircrafts.

A
Antonio Garcia
executive

Francisco, just to complete, Gabriel, for the Defense, especially, there is, I would say, not an overlap in regards to the specific parts for the C-390 -- there are different parts or in some cases, suppliers. And we just have, I would say, a concentration in Q1 with less receiving parts for Defense and also the mix of contracts will cause less revenue and impact our margins, especially in Q1, but there is nothing that concerns us for this fiscal year.

Operator

The next question comes from Myles Walton with Wolfe.

M
Myles Walton
analyst

Francisco, could you elaborate a little bit on the sales campaigns for the 200 aircraft you mentioned, both E1s and E2s. And I guess a couple of questions, if you could give us some color on; one is the geographic dispersion of those campaigns. And the other is, in the case of the E2s, are these customers looking to fulfill capacity needs that aren't being satisfied by Boeing and Airbus? Do you see that sort of opening emerging or are these more expansion of customers that you would have otherwise anticipated even if Boeing and Airbus had capacity?

F
Francisco Neto
executive

Thanks, Myles, for the questions. We had campaigns in all the regions. I will be clear with you. I mean all the regions, South America, North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific. With the good opportunities, I can't disclose details of ongoing campaigns. But as I said, it's more than 200 potential sales. And this is a combination of different factors. [Indiscernible] as we have said, it's a perfect solution to complement the operations of bigger narrowbodies. So we see now today is the first flight of our customers [indiscernible] in Singapore that they are going to use the E2s to open new routes and to increase the frequency of flights. And we see that in many different regions as well. So again, we are very -- it's not easy, but we are very optimistic with the potential sales of E2s in 2024. What else Myles, you asked, please will you repeat?

M
Myles Walton
analyst

Francisco, just more, are you seeing these campaigns build demand because of the lack of supply offered by Boeing and Airbus or is that not a major factor in how these campaigns are playing out?

F
Francisco Neto
executive

Okay. Again, as I said, it's a combination of factors. And for sure, I mean, the fact that we have -- slots, production slots available right from 2026 onwards. This is -- can help the airlines to add capacity sooner to the [ air fleet ].

M
Myles Walton
analyst

Yes. That's where I was going. It's surprising you still have that availability given the absence of supply [indiscernible]. Just one quick follow-up, if I could. The arbitration timing with Boeing, is that still on track for this quarter?

F
Francisco Neto
executive

Thank you, Myles. Yes, we expect this to end in the first half of this year. So we should be close, but it's not in our hands. It's a decision of the [indiscernible] in New York, but we expect this to end no later than the mid of this year.

Operator

The next question comes from Cai Von Rumohr with TD Cowen. Please go ahead. Cai, your microphone seems to be unmute. If you could please unmute on your end? The next question comes from Ron Epstein with Bank of America.

R
Ronald Epstein
analyst

A couple of quick questions. Can you talk a little bit more just about supply chain in general and where you are seeing constraints still both on Commercial and in Defense?

F
Francisco Neto
executive

Well, Rob, as we said before, we see improvements in average in our supply chain, but still with some challenges in the -- with specific products in terms of volume and also -- on-time delivery. We have a lot of suppliers improving, but still suppliers with difficult to deliver the parts we need on time. And this, again, this bring to us more difficult in our production. As you know, we are working this Production Leveling initiatives that we want to better distribute the production and deliveries throughout the year. So we will still have difficult in 2024, and we expect -- but again, in line with our [indiscernible], we deliver the guidance, and we expect even more improvements in 2025 in years ahead from our supply chain for both sides, Commercial and Defense.

R
Ronald Epstein
analyst

Got it. Got it. And then maybe one more follow-on, if I can. Just can you guys speak broadly to how you're thinking about product development and new products?

F
Francisco Neto
executive

Sure. Well, I mean, Ron, we fully understand all the excitement caused by recent media speculations. I mean it highlights the level -- the high level of market confidence in our company, right, because of the achievements, driven by engineering excellence, our enterprise efficiency and our customer-centric [indiscernible]. And we are -- of course, we are always looking at future options in our business. But however, as I said before we have -- we are now in our harvest season. So we are focusing on selling and on delivering the current -- the existing portfolio of products that is very modern and competitive. So we don't have a [indiscernible] to develop or launch a narrowbody or other aircraft in the next few years.

Operator

The next question comes from Victor Mizusaki with Bradesco BBI.

V
Victor Mizusaki
analyst

I have two questions here. The first one, apparently, [indiscernible] from Mahindra were recently -- Embraer in Brazil. So I don't know if you can give us some update on the negotiations. And second, when we take a look on the press release, there's a comment about the provisions for bad debt in Services & Support. So maybe you can comment a little bit if it's kind of a specific situation or there's something more to come in the second quarter.

F
Francisco Neto
executive

All right. Victor, I start with the question one, and then Antonio will help us with the question two. Yes, we did have a very exciting visit last week to our facilities in Brazil of the Mahindra CEO and two other members of this team, where we had opportunity to better know each other and talk about the next steps on this [indiscernible] process in India to sell from 40 to up to 80 C-390 to the Indian Air Force. So we believe we have a good partnership with them, and we do our best to convince the customer that our products is the best one for the Indian Air Force. Antonio, you can help us with the second.

A
Antonio Garcia
executive

Yeah, [indiscernible]. So very simple here, we just built up $3 million in Q1 for the bad debt provisions -- just Q1 was a little -- a bit -- higher concentration overdue payments, and it's not one specific customer. It's a bunch of customers. We just apply the accounting methodology. I do not see it being a trend for the future. And probably half of it is going to be a revert next quarter [indiscernible] not concern us right now.

Operator

The next question comes from Marcelo Motta with J.P. Morgan.

M
Marcelo Motta
analyst

Hi, everyone. It's regarding the Defense, I mean, do you guys have any updates regarding the conversion of the orders from Netherland [indiscernible] Czech Republic? I mean, you guys also mentioned on the deliveries and backlog reported from the first quarter, there are ongoing orders from EMEA, Asia-Pacific that are not incorporated to backlog yet? Could you please give us more color on maybe the size, potential size of these orders or maybe expectations for Defense backlog for the coming quarters or year-end?

F
Francisco Neto
executive

Marcelo, thanks for the question. Yes, we have high expectations to sign important contracts in Defense during this year. There was -- you know already that we have been selected in the past two years. We expect to sign during this year. And in parallel, we are working in the -- in other new campaigns either for the A-29 Super Tucano and the [ C-390s ]. We also expect 2024 to be a good year in terms of sales, not only in Commercial, but in Defense as well and taking the opportunity in the Executive Aviation, we take a very good momentum in sales as well. So again, this year, we are very optimistic in terms of sales in all of our business.

Operator

The next question comes from Stephen Trent. Mr. Trent, your microphone seems to be muted.

S
Stephen Trent
analyst

Hello, I'm sorry, can you hear me?

F
Francisco Neto
executive

Yes. Yes, we can Steve.

S
Stephen Trent
analyst

I'm sorry about that. I also had a sort of a follow-up on the Defense side. I know that Brazil's Air Force and Sweden have a solid relationship with the Gripen fighter and other cooperation. And I was wondering if you might just give us some high-level color about how Embraer might be working with Gripen and what opportunities you could see from the new technology?

F
Francisco Neto
executive

Thank you, Stephen, for the questions. Well, we do have a partnership with Saab to help them to sell Gripen, not only in Brazil, but outside Brazil. And they do help us to sell the C-390s. So we have been working together. And Sweden is one of our potential markets that we have been working on. So -- but we don't have any other information than that. And regarding sales of Gripen, this is better you ask Saab directly.

S
Stephen Trent
analyst

Great. I appreciate that. And just a quick follow-up. Any high-level color how you guys are feeling about your supply of engineers in terms of hiring and retaining those people?

F
Francisco Neto
executive

Thank you, again, Steve. Again, we have been working very hard on those topics that is the talent retention is one of the main focus of Embraer, not only engineering, but in the entire company. And again, we have a lot of new programs for engineers to work on in the future. We have improved our communication process. We have done a lot of things to help us to retain our talents within the company. I don't know [indiscernible], our VP, HR would like to add some other information on that because we have been personally involved in this topic.

U
Unknown Executive

Hello, everybody. Good morning. Thanks, Francisco. So as I said, we're working very hard on that. We have a lot of initiatives, especially internally by means of culture, the future of work, things that make our engineers and not only engineer -- all of our employees consider to keep in Embraer. And we also have been granted as a Great Place to Work. And this also helps to retain our employees. Thanks for the question, Steve.

Operator

The next question comes from Lucas Barbosa with Santander.

L
Lucas Barbosa
analyst

Congratulations with the results. So my question is looking a little bit longer term at the Commercial Aviation division. Embraer has deliveries to be done with better pricing conditions in the future, a higher mix of E1s given the AA, American Airlines order and the cost structure that is leaner than in several past years. So my question is, with all of those positive drivers, where can Commercial Aviation margins stabilize that in the future?

G
Guilherme Paiva
executive

Thanks for the question. This is Guilherme Paiva. So look, the points you mentioned are all correct. We don't provide official guidance for individual divisions of the company. But if you look in the past, Commercial Aviation was able to sustain margins in the double-digit territory in the mid-teens. Obviously, that is far away from where we are now, but we feel confident that in the next few years, we should see margins continue to improve towards that direction.

Operator

The next question comes from Kristine Liwag with Morgan Stanley. Ms. Liwag, your microphone seems to be on mute.

K
Kristine Liwag
analyst

Hello, can you hear me? Sorry about that. Maybe Francisco on competitive dynamics, Airbus continues to lose money on the A220 and they are aspirationally breakeven at 160 per year. But they're continuing to see pressure from labor costs in Canada and as well as their supply chain. Can you talk about what this means for the pricing environment for the E2? And how has the pricing environment for the E2 changed over the past few years since COVID? Are you seeing any improvement?

F
Francisco Neto
executive

Well, Kristine, it's -- thanks for the question. Good question, by the way. Well, why don't we have a free competition in the market? The result is pressure on the price, which benefit the customers, right? In case of Embraer, I mean, even with this tough competition, we have been profitable in our Commercial Aviation in the past year. In the past years, the past two years, we have been profitable, the Commercial Aviation with our services. And we don't sell our aircraft below cost.So what we have done, we have tried to offer competitive prices to our customers to show the value of our products that we -- our product, we believe that we do have the most efficient aircraft in that category, and we continue to work on reducing our internal costs with Kaizen programs, with cost reduction initiatives, involving many engineers in the organization. So again, we have prepared ourselves for this competition, but without selling products below our cost. So again, we expect again this year to be profitable in Commercial Aviation with our service. If we add service, we even improve the profit of our Commission business.

K
Kristine Liwag
analyst

And if I could tag another one and following up on Myles' question, there is a shortage of aircraft globally and Boeing continues to struggle with production and Airbus can't meet all the demand out there either. Now the E2 is a very attractive aircraft. I actually flew it recently from Paris to Zurich. I mean, what prevents customers from committing to more firm orders? I mean that said, like you are sold out through the end of 2026, but what's preventing them for committing for the slots in '27 and beyond?

F
Francisco Neto
executive

Another good question. Kristine, I think there was a wave of customers -- wave of customers buying bigger aircraft. But now, I mean, I think we see more and more opportunities for this, we call, small narrowbody. I mean [indiscernible] can dry up to 6 hours. And it's very efficient, very quiet and it's perfect for -- if the airline wants to offer a higher frequency of flights to the passengers, also to explore routes, I mean, until the demand is big enough to fuel a big narrowbody. I think the E2 is a perfect solution. And we see more and more customers now. I mean, we see the interest is growing more and more in that segment of a small narrowbody that will, for sure, benefit our E2s.

Operator

The next question comes from Noah Poponak with Goldman Sachs.

N
Noah Poponak
analyst

Good morning, everyone. What unit growth are you planning for based on demand backlog, how full the skyline is in the medium term in commercial?

F
Francisco Neto
executive

Could you please repeat the questions? I have difficult -- very difficult to understand here.

N
Noah Poponak
analyst

Yes. Can you hear me okay? Yeah. I'm wondering, from the starting point of 2024, given you have to set the system, the production system in motion, pretty far in advance, and delivery -- production and deliveries are still pretty far below pre-pandemic in commercial. I'm wondering how you're triangulating all of the inputs you have to decide where you should take production over the next two or three years in Commercial?

F
Francisco Neto
executive

Okay. Now, I got your question. Thank you. Well, this year, we are planning in Commercial Aviation deliveries between 72 and 80 aircraft. And we -- as I said before, we are working in a lot of sales campaigns for the future. Next year, we expect to grow the production of commercial jets, which should be very close back to the three digits production, I mean, in the commercial jets. And we expect to keep that level of production with a small growth in the years ahead. So again, we believe that next year, in the '25, '26 will be back to the production levels pre-pandemic levels, which will bring our commercial aviation to an even better profitability performance. So again, we are very optimistic with the production growth and deliveries of Commercial Addition as well.

N
Noah Poponak
analyst

Okay, great. Appreciate that detail. And then at Executives, obviously, the deliveries are up a lot year-over-year in the quarter. Obviously, it's off a low base. But have you had resolution of supply chain issues in Executive such that the year can be more level loaded as you go through the year or is there an implication that there's upside to the full year range?

F
Francisco Neto
executive

No. We had some difficulties last year. I mean external with suppliers, but internal as well because we were ramping up a lot the production. But no, since then, we have approved a lot of investments in our plans to increase the production capacity, either in Brazil and in the U.S. So with that, we expect -- we have [ plenty of roles ] this year and even more important growth in 2025 and years ahead because of these investments, we are implementing this year to help us to increase production from 2025 onwards in Executive jets.

Operator

This concludes the question-and-answer session for equity research analysts and investors. Now we will start the Q&A section dedicated to the press. First, we will answer questions in English, and then we will answer questions in Portuguese. We will also answer questions sent via the platform chat. Please let me say a short announcement for Portuguese speakers. [Foreign Language] [Operator Instructions] Our first question is from the chat is from [ Richard Sherman ], a freelance aviation reporter. Hello, Francisco. Obviously, you were very happy with the large order from American for 90 E175s. But how do you rate the chances of Embraer to win E2 orders from U.S. customers? They seem to favor larger aircraft.

F
Francisco Neto
executive

Thanks for the questions. Yes, we are extremely happy with the order of American Airlines last March that was very important early for us, that shows that our E175s still have many opportunities, especially in the U.S. market. The E2s more recently, we have seen the E2s flying over U.S. with Porter Airlines. Porter is flying now to New York, to Florida, to California with the Es. And we -- yes, we are in conversation with potential customers in the U.S., I mean, showing the -- how good the aircraft is and how the aircraft can help them to fill the gap between the regional jets and the big narrowbodies. So again, we see opportunities not only in the U.S. but in many other regions in the world for the E2s.

Operator

The next question comes from the chat from [ Richard Sherman ], the same questioner. Do you have updates on the initial agreement with Richard Sherman [indiscernible], for the conversion of E1s jacks in China as announced at the Paris Air Show?

F
Francisco Neto
executive

No, we don't have any update to share with you about that program at this point of time.

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] The next question comes from [indiscernible].

U
Unknown Analyst

I was wondering if you could update us on the sales campaigns in Asia. We know India has a big market, China as well. Embraer has been trying to tap into the Chinese market for commercial airplanes. How the campaigns in Asia are developing, especially now that you are flying the [indiscernible] in Singapore now.

F
Francisco Neto
executive

Hello [ Gabriel ], thanks for the question. Yes, Asia is a region we see the big potential for the E2s. Last February, we inaugurated a full flight -- the first full flight simulator of E2s in the region, in Singapore. And this will help us to pursue more opportunities -- sales opportunities in the region. And we are working in sales campaigns in many different countries. Now we have already more than 300 aircraft flying over the region. I mean, in China, in Japan, in Australia, and we are working all those countries to introduce the E2s as well. So good opportunities for us in Asia-Pacific, indeed, for the E2s.

Operator

The next question comes from [ Juliana Hosha ], a reporter from [ Red ] and it comes also from the platform chat. Can you give details on the arbitration proceeding with Boeing? When do you expect it to be over?

F
Francisco Neto
executive

Well, I mean, this process is not under our control, but it is the process in the final phase, and we expect a decision still within this first half of 2024.

Operator

This concludes the question-and-answer session in English for the press. This Q&A section is now being conducted in Portuguese. [Operator Instructions] The Director said that he doesn't intend to launch any narrowbody aircraft that you are focusing on delivering current model -- the current model backlog. Is that it?

F
Francisco Neto
executive

Yes, that's it. Right now, we're focusing on selling and delivering our current products, which are very modern and very competitive. We continue to look into potential new products for the future, but we don't have anything concrete to develop or to launch any major aircraft for the time being.

Operator

Next question is from [ Juliana Rosa ] a reporter from [ Red ]. Will you continue with your liability management procedure over the next quarters? Do you have a leveraging target?

F
Francisco Neto
executive

Thank you for the question. We are on target for our leveraging, which is net-debt-over-EBITDA below 5 and net-debt-over-EBITDA below 2. So that was our target. And right now we don't have any plans to go to market in the next quarters. The company situation is relatively stable, and we still believe interest rates are too high. So now is not the time to do anything with the market. But we're constantly looking at short-term opportunities. Thank you for the question

Operator

This concludes Embraer's conference for today. Thank you very much for joining us, and have a good day.