Press Release - Magna Announces Record First Quarter Results

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• Record quarterly sales, up 21% year over year to
• Record quarterly diluted earnings per share of , increased 21%
• Cash provided from operating activities of , up 26%, a first quarter record
• Paid dividends of and returned to shareholders through share repurchases
• Increased full year outlook for sales and net income attributable to Magna

AURORA, Ontario, (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- (TSX:MG) (NYSE:MGA) today reported financial results for the first quarter ended .

"We had a strong start to the year, reporting record first quarter results and increasing our outlook for sales and earnings. We continue to position Magna for the emerging mobility ecosystem as demonstrated by the recently announced partnership with Lyft."

Please click HERE for full first quarter Financial Statements and MD&A.

THREE MONTHS ENDED

We posted sales of for the first quarter of 2018, an increase of 21% over the first quarter of 2017. The strong growth was achieved despite light vehicle production that declined 2% in North America and was essentially unchanged in Europe, both compared to the first quarter of 2017. We delivered sales growth in each of our operating segments, most notably in our Complete Vehicles segment, which contributed approximately 60% of the increase in sales in the first quarter of 2018.  Excluding the impact of foreign currency translation and net divestitures, sales increased 14%.

Adjusted EBIT increased 7% to in the first quarter of 2018 resulting in an adjusted EBIT as a percentage of sales of 8.1% in the first quarter of 2018 compared to 9.2% in the first quarter of 2017.  This margin decline was largely driven by an increase in the proportion of sales generated in our Complete Vehicles segment, which have a significantly lower margin as a percentage of sales than our consolidated average, as well as higher launch costs.

Income from operations before income taxes and net income attributable to were and for the first quarter of 2018, increases of 7% and 14%, respectively, compared to the first quarter of 2017.

Diluted earnings per share increased 21% to in the first quarter of 2018, reflecting higher income from operations before income taxes, a lower income tax rate primarily as a result of U.S. tax reform, and the favourable impact of a reduced share count.  Adjusted diluted earnings per share increased 20% to compared to for the first quarter of 2017.

In the first quarter of 2018, we generated cash from operations before changes in operating assets and liabilities of , and invested in operating assets and liabilities. Investment activities for the first quarter of 2018 were , including in fixed asset additions and a increase in investments, other assets and intangible assets.

"We had a strong start to the year, reporting record first quarter results and increasing our outlook for sales and earnings. We continue to position Magna for the emerging mobility ecosystem as demonstrated by the recently announced partnership with Lyft."
- Don Walker, Magna's Chief Executive Officer

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://resource.globenewswire.com/Resource/Download/9b2aa63a-cfe9-4e35-bfcc-6a0fefca3a3e

RETURN OF CAPITAL TO SHAREHOLDERS

During the three months ended , we paid dividends of .  In addition, we repurchased 1.9 million shares for in the first quarter of 2018.

Yesterday, our Board of Directors declared a quarterly dividend of with respect to our outstanding Common Shares for the quarter ended . This dividend is payable on to shareholders of record on .

SEGMENT SUMMARY⁽²⁾

For further details on our segment results, please see our Management's Discussion and Analysis of Results of Operations and Financial Position and our Interim Financial Statements.

UPDATED 2018 OUTLOOK

In this 2018 outlook, we have assumed:

• 2018 light vehicle production volumes (as set out above);
• no material unannounced acquisitions or divestitures; and
• foreign exchange rates for the most common currencies in which we conduct business relative to our U.S. dollar reporting currency as follows:
  equals U.S. dollars     0.780
  equals U.S. dollars                       1.225

NON-GAAP FINANCIAL MEASURES RECONCILIATION

Certain of the forward-looking financial measures above are provided on a Non-GAAP basis. We do not provide a reconciliation of such forward-looking measures to the most directly comparable financial measures calculated and presented in accordance with U.S. GAAP.  To do so would be potentially misleading and not practical given the difficulty of projecting items that are not reflective of on-going operations in any future period. The magnitude of these items, however, may be significant.

This press release together with our Management's Discussion and Analysis of Results of Operations and Financial Position and our Interim Financial Statements are available in the Investor Relations section of our website at www.magna.com/investors and filed electronically through the System for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval (SEDAR) which can be accessed at www.sedar.com as well as on the and Exchange Commission's Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis and Retrieval System (EDGAR), which can be accessed at www.sec.gov.

We will hold a conference call for interested analysts and shareholders to discuss our first quarter ended results on at . The conference call will be chaired by Don Walker, Chief Executive Officer. The number to use for this call from North America is 1-888-224-3708. International callers should use 1-303-223-4397. Please call in at least 10 minutes prior to the call start time. We will also webcast the conference call at www.magna.com. The slide presentation accompanying the conference call will be available on our website Thursday prior to the call.

TAGS
Quarterly earnings, record quarter, financial results, sales growth

INVESTOR CONTACT
Louis Tonelli, Vice-President, Investor Relations
louis.tonelli@magna.com │  905.726.7035

MEDIA CONTACT
Tracy Fuerst, Director of
tracy.fuerst@magna.com │  248.631.5396

OUR BUSINESS ⁽⁵⁾
We have more than 172,000 entrepreneurial-minded employees dedicated to delivering mobility solutions. We are a mobility technology company and one of the world's largest automotive suppliers with 340 manufacturing operations and 93 product development, engineering and sales centres in 28 countries. Our competitive capabilities include body exteriors and structures, power and vision technologies, seating systems and complete vehicle solutions. Our common shares trade on the (MG) and the (MGA). For further information about Magna, visit www.magna.com.

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⁽⁵⁾ Manufacturing operations, product development, engineering and sales centres and employee figures include certain equity-accounted operations.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
We disclose "forward-looking information" or "forward-looking statements" (collectively, "forward-looking statements") to provide information about management's current expectations and plans. Such forward-looking statements may not be appropriate for other purposes.

Forward-looking statements may include financial and other projections, as well as statements regarding our future plans, objectives or economic performance, or the assumptions underlying any of the foregoing, and other statements that are not recitations of historical fact. We use words such as "may", "would", "could", "should", "will", "likely", "expect", "anticipate", "believe", "intend", "plan", "aim", "forecast", "outlook", "project", "estimate", "target" and similar expressions suggesting future outcomes or events to identify
forward-looking statements.

Forward-looking statements in this press release include, but are not limited to, statements related to:

Our forward-looking statements are based on information currently available to us, and are based on assumptions and analyses made by us in light of our experience and our perception of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments, as well as other factors we believe are appropriate in the circumstances.

While we believe we have a reasonable basis for making such forward-looking statements, they are not a guarantee of future performance or outcomes. Whether actual results and developments conform to our expectations and predictions is subject to a number of risks, assumptions and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control, and the effects of which can be difficult to predict, including, without limitation:

In evaluating forward-looking statements or forward-looking information, we caution readers not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statement, and readers should specifically consider the various factors which could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements, including the risks, assumptions and uncertainties above which are discussed in greater detail in this document under the section titled "Industry Trends and Risks" and set out in our Annual Information Form filed with securities commissions in Canada and our annual report on Form 40-F filed with the , and subsequent filings.