...December 7, 2023 The business model is resilient, with limited impact from economic cycles or downturns. S&P Global Ratings expects a slowdown in the global auto industry from the growth seen in 2023. Yet we forecast Art Holding's (AutoForm's) revenue to increase by 13%-14% annually in 2023-2024 after 11% growth in 2022, owing to price and volume effects, continued upselling, expanding business with existing customers, and increasing adoption of its assembly solutions. We think AutoForm's business resilience stems mainly from its software's importance to auto original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) for model development, leading to a much shorter time to production and higher cost savings than if OEMs had to develop their own software. Earnings growth will lead to deleveraging, but ratings upside remains limited by AutoForm's sponsor ownership. We anticipate EBITDA growth will support gradual deleveraging, with debt to EBITDA at 8.8x in 2023 and 7.8x in 2024 compared to 9.6x in 2022. The...
