Boeing’s narrow-body business was severely battered by the extended grounding of its 737 MAX due to two fatal crashes of the plane

Business Strategy & Outlook

Boeing is a major aerospace and defense firm that makes money mostly by manufacturing large commercial airplanes. Its narrow-bodied planes are ideal for high-frequency, short-haul routes, and wide-bodied ones are used for long-haul and transcontinental flights. Worldwide sales of narrow-bodies have increased over the past 20 years with the rise of low-cost carriers and middle-class consumers in emerging markets. Boeing’s narrow-body business was severely battered by the extended grounding of its 737 MAX due to two fatal crashes of the plane before the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic cut air travel by two thirds between 2019 and 2020, and Boeing’s primary competitor, Airbus, saw a one-third drop in airplane deliveries while Boeing had to cease deliveries of its workhorse plane entirely for 20 months to rework the navigation and other systems on hundreds of jets. It can be seen that there’s a pent-up demand for air travel adding to the long-term increase in demand for air travel in emerging-market economies. It can be anticipated that Boeing will grow 737 MAX production to meet that demand. Critical to thesis is at least some normalization of U.S.-China trade relations, as it anticipates Chinese carriers will take up to a quarter of new airplanes in the next decade.

Boeing also supplies military products to governments and aftermarket services to its commercial customers. These businesses together generate just over a third of its operating income over a cycle. There’s a GDP-like growth in the defense business and expect the services business will regain profitability faster than Boeing as a whole because aftermarket revenue increases directly with flight activity.

Financial Strengths

Credit metrics are expected to deteriorate as debt costs rise. Interest cover of 5.4 times in fiscal 2022 was well above the 2 times covenant limit. However, interest cover is deteriorating to 2.3 times by 2025 (in the absence of an equity raising) as debt costs rise from extremely low levels, leaving slim headroom to the covenant limit. Some form of remedial action, like an equity raising, may be needed. Other credit metrics are also aggressive. For example, the net debt/ EBITDA of 8 times for the next few years. Nonetheless, the trust has a Baa2 issuer credit rating from Moody’s Investors Service and gearing of 33% is towards the bottom of the 30% to 40% target range and well below the 50% covenant limit. Average debt duration is reasonable at four years and the trust has only modest debt maturities in the next couple of years. But limited interest rate hedging means the trust is exposed to rising interest rates–weighted average hedge maturity is 2.1 years. The trust is to pay out close to 95% of funds from operations, which is aggressive as FFO ignores such things as maintenance capital expenditure, leasing incentives, and debt establishment costs. It is estimated current distributions exceed underlying earnings by about 10%, which could be unmaintainable if property values stop rising. The trust’s portfolio has grown rapidly via acquisitions, requiring substantial equity raisings. Units on issue have increased more than six-fold since 2014.

Bulls Say

Boeing has a large backlog that covers several years of production for the most popular aircraft, which gives us confidence in aggregate demand for aerospace products
Boeing is well-positioned to benefit from emerging market growth in revenue passenger kilometers and a robust developed market replacement cycle over the next two decades.
Commercial airframe manufacturing will remain a duopoly for most of the world for the foreseeable future. The customers will not have any meaningful options other than continuing to rely on incumbent aircraft suppliers.

Company Description

Boeing is a major aerospace and defense firm. It operates in four segments: commercial airplanes; defense, space & security; global services; and Boeing capital. Boeing’s commercial airplanes segment competes with Airbus in the production of aircraft ranging from 130 seats upwards. Boeing’s defense, space & security segment competes with Lockheed, Northrop, and several other firms to create military aircraft and weaponry. Boeing global services provides aftermarket support to airlines.

(Source: Morningstar)

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