Dana Incorporated announced preliminary earnings results for the full year ended December 31, 2017. For the year, the company's sales approximated $7.2 billion, about 24% higher than 2016, primarily due to strong end-market demand, acquisitions, conversion of sales backlog, and favorable currency. Adjusted EBITDA approximated $835 million, or 11.6% of sales, a 30 basis-point improvement over 2016. The primary driver of the top line growth was indeed organic.

For the year 2018, the company expects sales to be approximately $7.6 billion, which represents a $400 million or nearly 6% increase over last year. They expect profit to grow by $100 million, which represents a 12% growth over the prior year, achieving a margin of 12.3%, which is an expansion of 70 basis points over the prior year. They expect their diluted adjusted EPS to grow by $0.35 a share, aided by about a $0.10 increase associated with savings in the U.S. tax law changes which recently occurred. Adjusted EBITDA to be $910 million to $960 million, adjusted EBITDA as a percentage of sales of 12.1% to 12.5%, operating cash flow of approximately 7.5% of sales, capital spending of approximately 4.0% of sales; and free cash flow of approximately 3.5% of sales.

For the year 2019, the company expects sales to be about $7.9 billion, representing a $700 million increase from the guidance that they provided for 2019 about a year ago. And they do expect to be able to achieve $3 of diluted adjusted EPS by 2019, which is about a $0.40 increase compared to what they had highlighted over a year ago. They do expect profit to top $1 billion, achieving the 12.8% margin targets that they set out over a year ago, and that represents about a $90 million improvement over what they had previously. And they remain convicted that their cash flow will achieve a level of 5% of sales by next year on a free cash flow basis as they have these major program launches moved behind them and they're positioned to be able to get CapEx to a more consistent level going forward as well as the incremental profit contribution. Adjusted EBITDA margin and free cash flow as a percentage of sales are expected to remain in line with prior target ranges at 12.8% and 5.0%. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to increase by $90 million, compared with the prior 2019 target ranges, due to the impact of stronger than expected end-market demand, increased sales backlog, and continued cost discipline. On a diluted or on an adjusted EBITDA perspective, they expect over nearly $360 million of profit growth and over 200 basis points of margin expansion as they move from about 10.8% to 12.8% over this period.