Auto parts company and Motley Fool Stock Advisor recommendation BorgWarner
The results: sales grew 16% over Q3 2003's numbers; earnings rose 22% for a total quarterly profit per diluted share of $0.79. And over the longer, year-to-date term, the company did almost as well, with sales again up 16% and earnings up in tandem.
As good as all that news was, however, it was only the beginning. The company proved even more profitable from a free cash flow perspective, growing that metric by 77% year-on-year to rake in $154 million in the first three quarters of 2004. Much of that was used to pay down long-term debt by $61 million; the rest went into the bank and swelled company coffers to $189 million. That's a luxury that free-cash-flow-negative auto parts makers such as Visteon
With Detroit starting to slash its production schedules, will it be possible for BorgWarner to keep its growth up and drive its debt down? Considering that BorgWarner was recently tapped to help build a new engine that will become standard at Hyundai, Mitsubishi, and DaimlerChrysler
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Fool contributor Rich Smith owns no shares in any of the companies mentioned in this article.