Q1 2023 Comtech Telecommunications Corp Earnings Call

December 8, 2022

Speaker 3: Thanks for watching!

Speaker 4: The So.

Speaker 5: Welcome to Comtex fiscal queue.

Speaker 6: Thank you.

Speaker 7: Welcome to Comtech's Fiscal Q1 2023 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded Thursday, December 8, 2022. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Robert Samuels of Comtech. Please go ahead, sir.

Speaker 8: Thank you. Thank you.

Speaker 9: Good afternoon everyone and thanks for taking the time to dial in today. I'm Rob Samuels, Comtech's Head of Investor Relations. Welcome to Comtech's Telecommunication Corps' conference call for the first quarter of fiscal year 2023.

Speaker 10: Today, I'm here with Comtech Chairman, President and CEO , Ken Peterman. We're also joined by Mike Bondi, our CFO , and we'll also be hearing from Maria Hedden, our Chief Operating Officer.

Speaker 11: Before we get started today, I'll also say that both myself and Ken are always available to answer questions our investors may have. So please get in touch if you want to organize a meeting to talk about the company, our results, or our strategy.

Speaker 12: We also have a detailed discussion of the quarter in our shareholder letter, available on our website, and we have also been working to communicate directly about our business and our market between quarters in our blog, Contact Signals.

Speaker 13: Finally, let me remind you of the company's safe harbor language.

Speaker 14: Certain information presented in this call will include, but not be limited to, information relating to the future performance and financial condition of the company, the company's plans, objectives, and business outlook, and the plans, objectives, and business outlook of the company's management.

Speaker 15: The company's assumptions regarding such performance, business outlook, and plans are forward-looking in nature and involve significant risks and uncertainties.

Speaker 16: Actor results could differ materially from such forward-looking information. Any forward-looking statements are qualified in their entirety by cautionary statements contained in the company's Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

Speaker 17: Now I'm pleased to introduce the President and Chief Executive Officer of ComTec, Ken Peterman. Ken?

Speaker 18: Hello everyone, and thanks again for taking the time to dial in today.

Speaker 19: As you all know, this is still early days in my tenure as CEO and early in the journey for everyone at Comtech as we move to fundamentally transform our business.

Speaker 20: That said, as we head into a new calendar year and close the books on our first quarter of fiscal 2023, I could not be more pleased with the progress we're making and the opportunities ahead.

Speaker 21: One thing that I was consistent and clear about from day one in my conversations with everyone from my leadership team, our employees, and our investors, was that Comtech needed to move faster than ever before.

Speaker 22: Our end markets are changing in real time, our customers' needs are constantly evolving, and new technologies mean that we can offer creative solutions to solve their problems if we as an organization commit to working together as one Comtech.

Speaker 23: This means sharing our collective expertise, our insights and abilities to improve everything from our operations to our products and our culture.

Speaker 24: It's early in the process, but the one contact journey is underway and working.

Speaker 25: I see it every day in our people and it's also being reflected in our financial performance. In addition to a quarter over quarter increase in consolidated net sales, representing the fourth straight quarter of top line sequential growth for Comtech, our bookings of $181 million foreshadows the increasing customer value we are creating as one Comtech.

Speaker 26: I should also point out that this performance was delivered even as we reorganized our business, continued to restructure our senior leadership team across multiple functions with key appointments, and continued to make changes to improve the functional machinery of our organization.

Speaker 27: I want to talk a little more about what we've accomplished and what you can expect from us going forward, and I want you to hear directly from our COO, Maria Hedman, as she's in the trenches streamlining and improving our processes so that everything we do at Comtech, we do better, faster, and more efficiently. Before that...

Speaker 28: I do want to turn the call over to Mike Bondi, our CFO , so he can walk you through our financial performance for the quarter.

Speaker 29: so he can walk you through our financial performance for the quarter. Mike.

Speaker 30: Thanks, Ken.

Speaker 31: For Q1 fiscal 2023, we recorded $131.1 million of consolidated net sales.

Speaker 32: of which 80.9 million were reported in our satellite and space communications segment and $50.3 million were recorded in our terrestrial and wireless network segment.

Our consolidated first quarter net sales represented a 3.3% increase over last quarter.

And, as Ken mentioned, our fourth consecutive quarterly increase.

Compared to the year-ago quarter, our consolidated Q1 fiscal 2023 net sales increased $14.3 million, or 12.2%, driven by higher revenue in our satellite and space communications segment.

Consolidated gross margins were 35.7%, in line with our gross margins achieved in Q1 to four fiscal 2022.

Our gross profit percentage in Q1 Fiscal 2023 reflects an increase in net sales and overall product mix changes.

It also reflects startup costs associated with the opening of our new high-volume technology manufacturing centers, as well as increased costs resulting from the ongoing impacts of COVID-19 and inflationary pressures.

As explained in more detail and reconciled in our Form 10Q filed earlier today, we utilize a non-GAAP measure that we refer to as adjusted EVA-Dot.

Q1 fiscal 2023 adjusted EBITDA with $10.7 million, or 8.2% of consolidated net sales.

as compared to $5.5 million or 4.7% in Q1 fiscal 2022.

The increase, both in dollars and as a percentage of sales, is primarily attributable to the increase in Q1 fiscal 23 net sales.

Sequentially, in line with our prior guidance, adjusted EBITDA and Q1 fiscal 2023 was lower, both in dollars and as a percentage of sales, reflecting overall changes in mix, a general rise in costs due to an inefficient supply chain and inflation, and the settlement last quarter.

of fiscal 2022 annual incentive compensation with fully vested share units in lieu of cash.

As Ken previously mentioned, bookings during the quarter totaled $181.2 million, representing a 26.9% sequential quarterly increase and a quarterly book-to-bill ratio of 1.38 times.

Our current revenue visibility is approximately $1.1 billion and is equal to the sum of our $668.2 million of funded backlog plus the total unfunded value of certain multi-year contracts that we have received and from which we expect future orders.

Overall, our consolidated Q1 net sales and adjusted EBITDA were ahead of our guidance provided last quarter and we're pleased to have exceeded our targets and to have increased our funded backlog from July , particularly in light of an economic environment that continues to be challenging.

Now, let me return the call back over to Ken.

Thanks, Mike.

As I said at the top of the call, a big part of our financial performance reflects a lot of hard work that we're doing to improve the core machinery of our business. In my opinion, we have the best people and the best solutions, and we serve the most demanding customers in the world.

and we're growing.

To support everything we're doing and everything we want to do, we have to make sure that Comtech's organization, operations, and systems can keep pace with where our business is going.

A lot of that work is being spearheaded by Maria Hedden, our Chief Operating Officer.

Maria joined us in March, bringing over 20 years of executive P&L management experience and a history of improving business performance.

At the core of Maria's work is her commitment to a one-context strategy, ensuring that everyone at the company shares a common set of tools and processes to improve and optimize everything they do, every day.

I want you to be able to hear directly from Maria as her work plays such an important role in accelerating the growth and profitability of our business.

Maria.

Thanks, Ken, and good to be able to have the opportunity to speak with all of you today. Today is actually the first time I participated on an earnings call, but I think it highlights two things that I expect are important for investors.

The first is that context. We are making serious strategic commitment to operational integration and excellence. What you've heard can call one context.

The second is that we are focused on translating that strategic commitment into tangible actions on the ground that improve the way we work and the way we work with each other every day.

Our belief is that cumulatively, those actions will make us a stronger company, will directly translate into growth and profitability, and in so doing, deliver value to our shareholders.

All of this is to say our one-context strategy isn't about ideas as much as it is about actions.

Shortly after I arrived, it became clear to me that we already had the single most important resource a company can have in place. A talented, passionate workforce.

As I saw it, my job was to ensure that all these talented people had the right organizational machinery around them to support what they were already doing in ways that were more effective, efficient, and scalable.

We needed to collectively harmonize our business with best practices through each business unit. That meant everything from optimizing the company's supply chain, our engineering operations, our manufacturing, to our sales processes, including pricing and contract reviews.

And it also meant we had to make sure all our teams were appropriately staffed to not only meet today's needs, but for the growth we anticipate.

and invent a reorganization of our leadership structure to make sure we had the right executives in place, but also create structures to ensure all our leaders had a clear sense of the totality of our business and access to the insights and innovation from across the business.

In a very short period of time, we have not only committed ourselves to the idea of one context, but we are implementing it.

We have made key appointments and strong hires into leadership positions. We are in the process of a firmware business and operations improvement project to control costs where we can to defend and grow margins while at the same time make deliberate investments to promote our growth and ability to operate at scale.

And while this may sound straightforward, we make sure we are talking to each other all of the time.

I have instituted a monthly business review process which convenes the entire leadership team for a full day to make sure we celebrate our wins, learn from our losses, and make sure our plans and targets are on track and appropriately resourced.

Related, I also hosted a strategic goals deployment session so that I, as COO, can make sure that the organization has a clear understanding of how to properly support our growth initiatives.

There's a lot of change happening at Comtech right now, and in many organizations change can bring uncertainties and doubt. But at Comtech, I see every day what our financial performance this quarter confirms, that we're making the right kind of changes that are unleashing and empowering our people to do what they already were doing.

innovating and delivering the best solutions to our customers around the world.

We all know there is a lot of work to do ahead of us, but I have the confidence that the changes we are and will be implementing at Comtech will create permanent competitive advantages for our company and our customers as well as value for our shareholders.

Thank you for your time, and now let me turn to Ken for his closing remarks.

Thanks, Maria.

You know, I just want to extend the point Maria was making about the incredible and incredibly positive changes that are happening every day at Comtech. As she said, we made significant changes to our leadership structure and now have executives focused on both our key end markets as well as our key customer segments.

Tim Jenkins is our Terrestrial and Wireless Networks Segment President, and Justin Wexler is our Satellite and Space Communications Segment President.

We also appointed Daniel Giesinski as our Chief Strategy Officer for Defense and Jay Whitehurst as our Chief Strategy Officer for Commercial.

Finally, we appointed Doug Houston, our Vice President of Global Support.

Together, it means we have a leadership structure that is ready to partner with customers across business units and has expertise in the specific needs of key customer segments.

I believe that with the people we have in place heading an organization that is itself improving every day, Comtech is poised for a successful year ahead.

Before I move on to take questions, let me circle back to our bookings. We shed $181 million for the quarter, with over 2x higher than our first quarter of last fiscal year.

Our investors should take this to be a clear indication that while we continue to improve the machinery of our business, we have not and will not fail to remain completely focused on solving our customers' problems and creating unprecedented customer value in unique and innovative ways.

Our contract wins during the quarter to validate not only our unwavering customer focus, but also make it clear that Comtech's solutions and services continue to set the standard in every one of our key markets.

It never leaves our mind that we have the most demanding customers in the world. Our technology-enabled solutions are not just field tested, they're battle tested.

Among the contracts we were awarded during the quarter from customers we have worked with before, we saw key wins with the U.S. military as well as for the Ukrainian government, which is adding new communication systems identical to those we donated to them in March of this year.

In addition, one of the largest wireless carriers in the United States renewed our 911 services contract with them. Again, underscoring that across our segments and our end markets, customers have come to know, trust, and depend upon contact.

With that, let me acknowledge that the road ahead will be challenging.

given a macroeconomic environment that combines inflationary pressures, pandemic aftershocks, and unresolved geopolitical tensions.

But we believe Comtech has never been better prepared to meet these challenges and take advantage of the opportunities they present. With new leadership, a new organization, a refreshed common operational infrastructure, and an energized and invigorated team, our one Comtech transformation is positioning us for success.

One Comtech is working, and we're moving fast.

and we are winning in a market that is itself growing.

Now finally, I want to take a moment to thank Fred Kornberg for his 50 years of service to Comtech. Next week, Fred will be retiring from our board, and from all of us here at Comtech, we wish him well and thank him for all his contributions over the years.

And with that, let me take your questions.

At this time, if you would like to ask a question, please press the star and one on your touchtone phone. You may withdraw yourself from the queue at any time by pressing star 2.

Once more, that is star and one to join the queue.

And we'll move first to Joe Gomes with Noble Capital. Please go ahead.

Joe Gomes with Noble Capital. Please go ahead.

Thanks for taking my questions.

Hi, Joe. Good evening, Joe.

wanted to ask

You know, you've now got a quarter under your belt.

you know, maybe a little more, you know, detail or color on your observations, your evaluation, your conclusions.

You did some of that in your prepared remarks. Let me dive a little bit deeper into that. Where are you getting any pushback, if you're getting any pushback on some of these changes that you're making to the organization?

Thank you.

Yeah, thanks, Jill. I'm going to offer a perspective on that, and then if Maria or Mike want to chime in, they can with respect to the lens through which they look through. But I'll tell you that

First of all,

The move to OneComTech is challenging.

And obviously our biggest challenge here in the beginning is aligning our various businesses on the common operating practices and common operating systems. We're moving through that aggressively and we've baselined the current configuration, current operating processes that they operate on.

We've put an integrated master schedule together that transitions them. We prioritize those tasks and we put key metrics and key performance indicators in place so that we can measure our performance on that. We were able to forecast at this juncture when and how much.

the return on that investment might be and on what programs. So the goodness is we're moving ahead on that and the team is very excited about it. Secondly,

I'll say that we've launched a number of crucial initiatives. One of those is the launch of the Innovation Foundry, our technical incubator, if you will, that's being led by our Chief Growth Officer. I'm really excited about that, Jill, because we've identified already some initial partners.

who can bring exciting and relevant technologies into that technology incubator so that we can assess and blend them with our own capabilities to demonstrate how they improve customer value and how they improve customer outcomes. And in this kind of a controlled environment, we can even quantify what we think that customer value might be.

That's really significant. So one of the things is I'm really excited and enthusiastic about the innovation foundry and how that provides a lens through which we can up-tier our capabilities to the systems and services level and measure the performance that that brings our customers.

Okay, great. Thank you for that. Pardon me. Maybe you could talk a little bit more on the terrestrial business.

you know, was down sequentially, you know, maybe a little more color detail. You know, how is it the 911 market opportunities out there, the deployments, you know, in Pennsylvania, Arizona, some of the other states that you've won.

Are we making any move there, getting those deployments up and running? Any color there on the terrestrial business would be great. Thank you.

Sure. Sergio, thanks. I'm going to let Mike jump in on that.

Sure, Joe on the terrestrial wireless business, you know as background again an early part of fiscal 21 we announced winning several large 5g location based services contracts those software contracts definitely contributed to a favorable sales mix.

that we disclosed last year in Q2 and Q3. Also, coming in fiscal 22, and especially in Q2, just to remind everybody, we did have a $2.5 million benefit to cost of sales that was the result of reducing the warranty approval due to lower than expected.

warranty claims in that 911 product area. So certainly we had some favorable headwinds last year. When you look at the sales and the adjusted EVA contribution, you know, in Q1 of fiscal 23.

As we stated before, we're subject to mixed changes and the recently awarded statewide NG911 contracts, as we disclose, generally have lower upfront margins, lower than our NG911 wireless core routing services.

And that's generally because the legacy 911 call routing services are based on advanced and mature software. Whereas you have to keep in mind the new contracts that we're winning in the 911 area, the NG 911 area, those contracts were recently won. We're installing the infrastructure.

And it was going to take some time as we turn on the PSAPs to absorb that upfront cost. And, you know, in terms of improving margins over time, the more PSAPs we light up on the recurring servers, you know, our expectations are to have a better bottom line. So to answer your question in terms of the progress...

on Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Arizona, those big contracts that we won. I think we are very happy with the progress on all three of those contracts. We're getting towards the tail end of the deployment portions of those contracts where we're spending the CapEx and we have been lining up the PSAPs.

And so we're very encouraged by that progress. And as we move into 2023, we're likely to see more of those PSAPs go live.

Great, thanks for the insight there guys. I'll get back in queue. Thanks again

There they go.

And we'll take our next question from George Nautter with Jeffries. Please go ahead.

Hi guys, thanks very much. You mentioned the $181 million number in bookings for the quarter. I assume that included some big chunky contracts. I think during the quarter you announced a Troppo deal with the US military for $50 million. I assume that ran through that bookings number.

Are there any other chunkier pieces in there as well?

I'll take that George. We did in our 10-Q . We tried to give some color on the largest of the orders. It's also included in the shareholder letter and I think as you have outlined. We definitely had the next-gen troposcatter terminals.

That order was nice to see. It came in bigger than we were expecting. So that was a great award. We also had the Ukrainian comets that was received in the first quarter. We made really good progress this quarter in the first quarter delivering on those 80 units. And in terms of the next item, I would say we call out...

We have a large tier one carrier that we provide pull routing services for that customer. And in the first quarter, we renewed our annual contract. Those are probably, you know, the largest. We had some additional VSAT orders with the US Army and some other key wins. But, you know, certainly those were the three largest that we would call out.

Got it. Okay.

George, I will tell you that as we bring our business together, we are seeing our addressable and serviceable markets expand as we look to harness the enterprise-wide capability of OneComTech and that enables us to move up here into the systems and services segment. So we're pretty enthusiastic about the opportunities that's revealing to us.

And we're seeing customers even engage with us directly to better understand how this expanded value proposition can create value for them. We're engaging directly with both satellite and terrestrial customers. We have strategic partnering discussions underway in the upcoming 30, even within the next 30 days. We're hosting technology workshops.

and leveraging the innovation foundry to demonstrate and quantify these enhanced capabilities in a customer context. So looking forward, our customers are aligned with us in this expanded value proposition. That's expanding our new business funnel going forward.

Got it. Okay. A quick question on the balance sheet also. I think you guys have about 130 million drawn on the credit line, the revolver right now. I know that expires in the fall of next year. Could you kind of talk about your plans to...

kind of deal with that given where the balance sheet is right now.

Sure, George, in terms of the debt on the balance sheet, it's actually a little north of what you just said, but more importantly, I would add, about a week ago, we did announce through 8K that we did basically amend our credit facility. So we genetics actually began to move down a committed asset bank not just in ourPhilippine region.

In the presentation on our balance sheet, you see it as long term. It's because we were successful in getting our lenders to, you know, move forward with an amended deal. We did change some of the deal terms to, you know, be more representative of today's business. But that was a syndication we announced last week. And we're very pleased with that and very thankful.

you know, in this environment. Obviously, you're reading a lot of news reports, there's a lot of skittishness out there with the lenders, you know, dealing with the global recession potentially, higher default rates. And so, you know, navigate navigating through that in this environment, we're very pleased with the outcome and it gives us the flexibility to operate.

Got it. Great. Thank you very much. I'll take a look at the. Appreciate it guys. Thank you.

Thanks.

And we'll move next to Mike Lattimore with North Wind.

to Mike Lattimore with Northland Capital Markets.

Please go ahead.

Thank you.

Great, yeah, thank you. Yeah, definitely hit the ground running here. Looks good.

Just on the gross margin, can you just kind of go through a little bit of the drivers and headwinds you're seeing on gross margin this year? I'm just trying to get a sense of...

or that might go overtime here.

In terms of our guidance, I certainly would be mindful that we're only given guidance for Q2. We're certainly in an economic environment that's challenging, as Ken mentioned, and as we disclosed, we definitely have seen inflationary pressures.

supply chains are still not running optimally. And against that background and backdrop, we're pleased with our performance in Q1. We think that over time our margins will improve, but we do have a lot of backlog in our terrestrial and wireless network segment. A lot of that backlog is multi-year.

in nature, you know, and that was set up, you know, a year or so ago. So it will take some time to burn off that backlog. But when and where we can, we are resetting that backlog with higher pricing that is market based, taking into account, you know, inflationary pressures, but, you know, certainly for the rest of the year, it's a little too early to call.

We're pleased with the fact that we're holding the line and able to keep that 35%. And as I pointed out last year in Q2 and Q1, we certainly had some favorability based on the mix at the time. But when you isolate those out, we're sitting in that mid 30% range. So

Our goal and the targets for us are certainly higher, but right now we're not going to go beyond what we're saying for Q2's guidance on the top and bottom line.

I will tell you Mike, I'll tell you also that we are making great progress. I'd like to give Maria a chance to jump in here, but we clearly have the bus headed in the right direction, we got the right people in the bus, we got the right people in the right seats, and we provided some details on that in the shareholder letter with respect to who some of those people are.

Thanks, Ken. So just a couple things on that. So obviously, we've rolled out some of our people strategy and what we've done with that. But clearly some of the new processes that have been instituted over the last quarter that is focused on really understanding some of our business risks.

understanding those key performance indicators. As Ken mentioned, I hosted a full day session of developing what are stretch objectives and what we needed to do. And really that's driving visibility and alignment across the organization to stay focused on really being able to grow the organization while continuing to perform day to day on our...

and how healthy is it, what areas are particularly prominent in the pipeline here.

I'll speak to that, I tell you. Both our segments have some pretty exciting growth potential. In our satellite and space segment, we're now able to move up here to offer systems and services that our individual siloed businesses could not offer before.

This significantly expands our market opportunities. It enables us to offer customers significantly greater value. It significantly expands our market opportunities and it expands the size of our new business funnel. Now we're able to offer customers in the satellite and space arena significantly greater value proposition because it creates more significantly more customer value.

and we can move then to more innovative business models that enable us to monetize that value proposition more effectively, so we're excited about that.

Now, in terrestrial and wireless, we're expanding both geographically and we're also increasing the number of transactions that we handle with respect to either 911 calls or location-based queries. So the number of transactions as that increases.

And in fact, as we move toward machine to machine 911-like calls and not just human to human, that will increase another and make available another dimension of growth for Comtech.

Thirdly, as the satellite and terrestrial network infrastructures converge, we see yet gross opportunities in another dimension. And you see that with devices now offering multiple connectivity choices, terrestrial like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and cellular, but also satellite.

connectivity to LEO and you see multiple devices and device providers moving in that direction. So at the end of the day, we see significant growth potential in each of our individual segments as well as at the enterprise level through the convergence of satellite and thruster domains where Comtech is uniquely advanced.

Is that a big part of the pipeline? Are there big deals out there?

Well, we see TROPO as an exciting technology that complements SATCOM because when SATCOM tends to degrade in its performance, such as in a hurricane where you have extremely heavy rain, TROPO scatter actually improves in its performance envelope.

environment, but we also see opportunity commercially in terms of connectivity, connecting oil and gas enterprises, providing robust connectivity between critical operation centers like hospitals, fire...

firehouses, law enforcement, emergency operations centers in a hurricane or other kind of a situation. So we see that technology being able to expand in the defense market because of the success it's having in the peer adversary conflict.

We see it moving into new markets as well. Adjacencies commercially as well as at the enterprise level like oil and gas. So we see that as a significant growth opportunity for us.

Great, sounds good. Thank you.

Thank you, Mike.

And we'll take our next question from Chris Sakai with Singular Research. Please go ahead.

Hi guys, this is the same for Chris.

In light of you taking help, Ken, and the temporary headwind to free cash flow, has there been a discussion around a commitment to and or growth of dividends?

Well, yes, I can tell you we look at deployment of capital on a regular basis. We try to optimize that with respect to driving our business performance and creating shareholder value. We deal with that at the board level. So yes, there's continuing conversations in that regard.

Our capital allocation plans are continually discussed, reviewed. I point you to our disclosure in the liquidity section of our 10Q, but I don't have anything specifically that I'm going to say on that right now.

beyond that, beyond the fact that we continually look at it.

you'll be okay okay

The company's international customer base has a percentage.

has stayed constant last couple of years, last five years or so, around one quarter. Correct me if I'm wrong.

So can you comment on the dynamics of business development internationally and the sales and marketing effort internationally, maybe how it is per se and how it is different from domestic dynamics.

We have a dedicated sale team that serves the international market. We have a dedicated sale team that serves the defense market and then the domestic market as well. I think our international presence is about 21.2%. So you're right in the sense that it's about a quarter.

of our business, but it's going to benefit as part of this one contact transformation in ways that

seem to me going in that they're going to be at least as favorable as our domestic and defense business. And the reason I say that is because as we move to ground, satellite ground infrastructure, and maybe providing that as a system or providing that as a service.

international customers have the opportunity to benefit that as well. As we see the international community migrate from 2G and 3G to 4G, 5G technologies in the terrestrial wireless market, we see the opportunity that that will benefit us and we see the opportunity to extend our location-based services into the international market in a bigger way too.

So we think really the several legs of our business all can move into the international market. As we up tier our capabilities and our marketing schemes, the international market will benefit by that the same as our domestic and defense activities.

So this quarter benefited from military sales, foreign military sales for your Beyond Line of Sight communication terminals and for Ukrainian government. To an extent you can give us color. Do you think next quarter and how long do you think any color you can give this would be?

daughter who is in a conflict or otherwise in the service of the nation. And the Ukraine is a great example because they're in a conflict with what we like to say is a peer adversary. And our equipment is present. Our equipment is working. So that becomes a test.

that has a greater value than any marketing brochure or podcast that I've ever seen. So yes, we do expect that to have an extended benefit that continues the viability of our equipment and extends its value because it works.

a greater value than any marketing brochure or podcast that I've ever seen. So yes, we do expect that to have an extended benefit that continues the viability of our equipment and extends its value because it works. It works in the toughest of environments, proven.

Absolutely, yeah. And it develops a great narrative for the stock too. And finally, it's a very long-term question. So if you can comment on this. So the recent iPhone models have this emergence.

threat or a substitution possibility or you see it the way that Apple's foray as a complementer to companies offerings.

Well, I'll tell you, the convergence of satellite and terrestrial network infrastructures we see as a significant opportunity for Comtech because we have technology leadership in both of those domains. They have traditionally been different domains with different devices, different frequency bands and frankly different players.

We've been strong and are strong in both of those domains. And so as that convergence of satellite and terrestrial comes together, we see Comtech uniquely positioned to take advantage of that.

I'll say that as a first point. The second point that I'll say is sometimes the future is predicted by looking at the past.

And when we saw the flip phone, which was voice only, moved to the Blackberry.

What you saw is the BlackBerry took market share away from the providers that only had voice.

But when you saw the smartphone emerge,

It introduced the opportunity for many more applications. Many more apps could run on a smartphone. So when the smartphone was introduced, it didn't just take market share from the BlackBerry, it in fact created a much larger market.

of new apps that had never been done before that created enormous customer or user value. Apps such as downloading your boarding pass, making restaurant reservations, online banking. I don't need to list them. You see them on your phone.

Okay, so in the second case, the smartphone's introduction didn't just take market share from the incumbent, it expanded the entire ecosystem.

So now bringing your attention to looking forward, none of us know right now whether the convergence of satellite and terrestrial is going to behave like the former where it's going to take market share from those providers that do not provide SATCOM or...

whether it will create an explosion in the ecosystem of new apps and new capabilities that create an expanded market for everyone. So I'm not going to make a prediction except to say that I think Comtech, to reiterate my first point, Comtech is I think...

very advantageously positioned because our strength in both satellite and terrestrial network technologies and location-based services. So that's one of the reasons, one of the driving reasons we brought our siloed businesses together so we could up-tier our capabilities and take advantage of this kind of a market inflection.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Good luck to you and the new team. I appreciate it.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

And once again for your questions that is Star and 1. We'll move next to Greg Burns with C. Dodi Company. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon. With the terrestrial and wireless segment, what is a good target or steady state margin profile for that business?

Yeah, I think historically we saw, you know, because it was combined with our commercial segment, you saw the EBITDA profile there. You know, going forward, certainly we're at a point where we're seeing, you know, convergence of two types of revenue streams at the same time.

and the building up of the NG911 revenue. So right now it's a initially, as we absorb those upfront costs, the EBITDA contribution will be, sort of what you're seeing right now, because we're in between those large 5G LBS contracts. As we announced in Q4, we had a nice sized order come through, but...

you'll see the revenues from that ramp up towards the tail end of this year. So right now you're getting more of a mix of our NG911 revenues. And as we said, flip on more PSAPs and start leveraging the infrastructure over a broader base of recurring services, the EVA.profile will improve.

I'm not going to give a specific percentage, but it's certainly higher than what it is right now, because we're just at the front end of those contracts.

Can you give a range, like high teens, low 20s? What should investors be expecting from this business as these 9-1-1 deals scale up?

I'll answer this way in a more broader answer. In the past couple of years, you've seen our EBITDA, you know, contributions, you know, come down from say the 14% that we were doing pre-COVID. You know, as a company, in all of our product areas, you know, not just in the 911 area.

We want to get back to those historical levels and if not exceed that. And as we've articulated, you know, we have a lot of initiatives going on right now. And once we start to bear fruit, our expectation is that we will get there. So, you know, I don't want to overstate we have a lot of work to do.

It's certainly a challenging environment, but in the next couple of years, I would expect us to get back to that level.

Okay, on the contract with Verizon, how many years was that extended for and was there any change in pricing? That contract was an annual renewal. It was – Okay, on the contract with Verizon, how many years was that extended for and was there any change in pricing?

at this point in time, annual renewals. And in terms of pricing, just due to competitive aspects of it, we have a very good relationship with our tier one carrier, and it was a seamless type of renewal. Just roll forward.

OK.

The.

TRPO deliveries to the Marines or maybe that was in bookings.

Can you just remind us the total size of that?

That contract

that you were awarded and how much of that have you delivered on?

Just to be clear, you're talking about the marine contract for NextGen Troppo?

Yes. Okay, that's the contract we won about two years ago. I think the headline ceiling was 200 plus million, maybe $213 million. We initially got a $13 million order to run out the first leg of prototypes, which we delivered about a year ago, and they've been using them in the field and testing them.

And this particular go around, it was a 50 plus million dollar order that we received, which is sort of the first production run. You know, in terms of their needs for it, it's something that they, you know, have a need and a desire for. It's going to take some time to get the deliveries out, you know, based on, you know, the fact that it's a very large order. But,

globally there's still a lot of headroom left on that contract. But in terms of our outlook, we're just focusing on the current order that we have.

Okay, and then the award to the US Army, I think at the time…

When you were awarded the the marine contract the US Army had a larger contract that they awarded to someone else is the Is what you were awarded this quarter

part of that? Are they coming back to market? Like what is the opportunity there?

Well, we were awarded this quarter is completely independent of the Army situation. The Army situation is one that we are exploring.

quarter is completely independent of the Army situation. The Army situation is one that we are exploring and

working toward because our equipment, as I mentioned before, our equipment is proven in battle and obviously that's a heck of a credential. So what we're doing is trying to leverage that and have exploratory discussions that can lead to something that helps the Army be more effective as they as they get in the fight.

But we don't have any more to say on that right now. Okay, and then on the 911 side, any update on Ohio? Is there any line of sight on when funding might be approved for that contract?

So in terms of Ohio, I think at this point it's not likely to be voted on before the end of the year. In our view, just to remind everybody that that was just a booking this year and there was likely no revenue contribution just given that you have to do a lot of design work up front. But we are working very closely with our end customer.

They certainly have a need and a desire for the application and trying to figure out the next steps in terms of what kind of funding we can get. Our view right now in terms of our outlook is it's certainly a large contract potential. It could be north of $100 million. Right now.

in terms of setting our own expectations, we're viewing it as, you know, it's something that could be in the short term to get a booking, but, you know, in terms of revenue contribution or E-bought contribution, it wouldn't be until next year. And it's likely to be something that's gonna be a function of how much funding they give us upfront. I don't think they'll at this point give us the whole thing upfront. It might be.

Yes, there are other opportunities. So, despite getting pushed out for us, Ohio, we certainly have identified other near term opportunities. We're not sitting idle. In terms of the competitive nature of those procurements, I'm not going to name the states or the regions, but there are.

a handful of those that are coming to market and will be responding. And, you know, I think with our, you know, recent wins and our capabilities, we think we have good positioning there, but, you know, we'll have more to report on that in the future.

to satisfy some of their high volume, some new high volume production for the new LEO and MEO satellite networks that are out there. Is there any update on when those might ramp up and start contributing to revenue? Yeah, go ahead. Sure. In terms of our progress here with our large LEO customer, as we announced last quarter we expanded our relationship. Certainly there is a desire to move fast and the facility that we are bringing online has the capabilities to meet the high volume demands.

that we would expect from this contract over time. And in terms of where we're sitting with the customer, like I said, things are progressing. We expanded the relationship. We're talking about other aspects of that relationship and other areas of this overall relationship. And we'll see in terms of our timing for production orders, I think that's still early to call.

But as we always said, it could be later in this year, early part of next year with revenue contributions in 2024. But it's certainly going in the right direction. I don't know if anybody else wants to say anything.

Just some other things in addition to what Mike shared. Obviously, there's a couple of development contracts that we're moving into production phase. And with the rollout of our new S&T line, it will definitely make us more efficient as we build those units and continue to drive production use bodies higher for that facility.

So we definitely are planning as part of that release and opening of the facility to drive additional throughput through the facility and workload in that area.

All right, perfect. Thank you.

And we'll take our last question from Asia Merchant with Citigroup. Please go ahead. Great. Thanks for the opportunity. So a lot of questions have been asked. I just wanted to ask about cash flow. You know, was a drawdown this quarter as well on your cash flow from operations and other operations, which is how old was that cash flow that you debug your, of those other promotions? And I would like to see if there's any kind of concerns, comments, wants made to the thank you for a sacrifice for X and Y on how To.

How should we think about the cash trajectory for the remainder of the year? Sure. Just to, you know, level set too for the quarter, Asiya, keep in mind that we did pay out about $4 million in CEO transition costs during the quarter. So just making sure you're aware of that.

In light of our backlog growing about $50 million this quarter, we certainly felt that it was prudent to start the procurement cycle of some specific items to support that increase in backlog. As an consequence, we received what was tested as a cost-Christopher mother labour research grant. Over the past year, Brewster, Lori has had set up its own government operation to do something specific or to enable a national poverty organization to

And from an investing perspective, CapEx and Q1 might look a little high right now, but keep in mind that at the end of last year, we had about $6 million of unpaid capital purchases, so that hit in Q1. And coming off of a $30 million target for last year.

At the same time, we're also seeing the Chandler facility move coming towards its end. You know, the Pennsylvania contract, Arizona contract, and South Carolina contract, you know, in the 911 space, we're also getting those PSAPs on to the system. So we should start to see that capex start to, you know, turn back to more historical levels.

You know, in terms of cash flows for Q2, we still have some other initiatives that we're working on. I would say you can, you know, not going to give specific guidance on CapEx for Q2, but it's going to be, you know, probably still elevated and then travel off towards the back half of the year. But, you know, in terms of overall cash flow generation...

We're trying to be mindful of a leverage ratio now that we have a new credit facility in place. We have some flexibility to operate and to support some of these large bookings. So overall for the year, I'm not going to give a specific number. We do at this point expect to be positive, but there's a lot of year left.

We still have some pipeline opportunities that may hit. And so right now we're just going to keep our comments down to Q2.

Okay. And then just, you know, there are these one off charges that kind of seem to show up in the non-GAAP adjusted, you know, strategic technology costs and things like this. Is this going to be, is this something that's recurring? And then if so, why not just include it in your regular R&D or OFAC?

In terms of the strategic emerging technology costs, it is specific to a type of technology and customer set as we're evaluating this market. It's not recurring in nature, you know, save for the opportunities that are very near term in front of us.

We would not likely be spending that, but because of those opportunities, we've made a decision as a company to go above and beyond to show our potential customers and existing customers that we're here to partner with them. So, you know, it will be something that is not going to be there for forever.

But right now, it's a very competitive marketplace. There's a lot of opportunity to grab. And so we're going to make those investments to secure for the long term.

I know you guys talked about eBITDA margins and how currently there's puts and takes to that. I'm not going to get it fixed in the end.

specifically on why it's hanging around the 8% level. I know you guys are now guiding, but is it fair to assume that by the end of the year, at least, as you exit into fiscal, as you exit this fiscal year, maybe even into early next year, we should get back to.

specifically on why it's hanging around the 8% level. I know you guys are now guiding, but is it fair to assume that by the end of the year at least, as you exit into fiscal year, maybe even into early next year, we should get back to margins with the double digits?

level versus these high single-digit margins that you are right now at? I would love to address that question with a definitive percentage, but right now while we're encouraged at the start of Q1 and going into Q2,

It's just a little too early for us to call in terms of this challenging environment that we're still navigating through. And so we're going to keep our comments to our top line and bottom line growth for Q2 at this point.

Okay, I'm sorry, one last one. So a lot of our telecom equipment companies are reporting better results. And some of it's just a function of better supply chain that's allowing them to convert elevated levels of backlog into revenues. Can you give some color on how much perhaps that was an effect on the revenues that wereuber? Yeah, sure.

than what was expected for the quarter? Yeah, I mean, I would say this, Aseah, too. The, our trajectory, we certainly are pleased with our trajectory having four quarters of sequential growth. So I know we're being compared, you know, to maybe others in the industry, but certainly with what we had to face in 2022.

with certain specific headwinds in our business and then the rush of Ukraine war. It's nice to see that we've been growing our backlog and having such a strong bookings quarter. It's in our backlog, we now just need to execute on it. Supply chain, we're aware of what we have to work around namely long lead items.

and making sure we procure timely enough to deliver on time. But I think we are building a good foundation to continue our growth.

I'd like to add to that if we just take a minute and then I can have Maria add some color too.

those buys and we should see a benefit from that. In addition, we're doing some strategic sourcing. We've brought some seasoned veterans on board. I'll have Maria offer another comment to extend into that part of the discussion. Yeah, thanks, Ken. So we brought on Don Bach as our VP of Operations and one of his initial charters.

is really to drive strategic sourcing. He has his team around him. He's identified some near-term opportunities. And obviously, that will definitely be impacting our ability in the supply chain to be able to leverage that and drive more efficiencies across the entire business instead of it being stove-piped as it is today. When we talk about improving the machinery of our business and the supply chain, we're talking about the ability to leverage that and drive more efficiencies across the entire business

Just thanks to Ken, Mike and Maria, and thanks to everyone for dialing in today. As Ken said, there are additional details about our strategy and performance available in our investor letter and SEC filings, and we'll provide ongoing insights in our signals blog. And as a reminder, we intend to be as responsive as we can with investors going forward. So for anyone with questions, please just reach out to me directly.

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Welcome to Comtech's Fiscal Q1 2023 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded Thursday, December 8, 2022. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Robert Samuels of Comtech.

Please go ahead, sir. Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for taking the time to dial in today. I'm Rob Samuels, Comtech's Head of Investor Relations. Welcome to Comtech Telecommunication Corps' conference call for the first quarter of fiscal year 2023. Today, I'm here with Comtech Chairman, President, and CEO Ken Peterman.

We're also joined by Mike Bondi, our CFO , and we'll also be hearing from Maria Hedden, our Chief Operating Officer.

Before we get started today, I'll also say that both myself and Ken are always available to answer questions our investors may have. So please get in touch if you want to organize a meeting to talk about the company, our results, or our strategy. We also have a detailed discussion of the quarter in our shareholder letter available on our website.sn C Keller trans was

And we have also been working to communicate directly about our business and our market between quarters in our blog, ComTech Signals.

Finally, let me remind you of the company's safe harbor language.

Certain information presented in this call will include, but not be limited to, information relating to the future performance and financial condition of the company, the company's plans, objectives, and business outlook, and the plans, objectives, and business outlook of the company's management. The company's assumptions regarding such performance, business outlook, and plans are forward-looking and—

I'm pleased to introduce the President and Chief Executive Officer of Comtech, Ken Peterman. Welcome to the onboarding of draft Will highlights event for comp Chi we Burger.

Hello everyone, and thanks again for taking the time to dial in today. As you all know, this is still early days in my tenure as CEO and early in the journey for everyone at Comtech as we move to fundamentally transform our business. That said, as we head into a new calendar year and close the books on our first quarter of fiscal 2020, we will be back with more information about our current

move faster than ever before.

Our end markets are changing in real time, our customers' needs are constantly evolving, and new technologies mean that we can offer creative solutions to solve their problems if we, as an organization, commit to working together as one Comtech. This means sharing our collective expertise, our insights and abilities to improve everything from our operations to our products and our culture.

It's early in the process, but the one contact journey is underway and working. I see it every day in our people and it's also being reflected in our financial performance. In addition to a quarter over quarter increase in consolidated net sales, representing the fourth straight quarter of top line sequential growth for contact, our bookings of $181 million foreshadows the increasing customer...

I want to talk a little more about what we've accomplished and what you can expect from us going forward, and I want you to hear directly from our COO, Maria Hedman, as she's in the trenches streamlining and improving our processes so that everything we do at Comtech, we do better, faster, and more efficiently.

Before that, I do want to turn the call over to Mike Bondi, our CFO , so he can walk you through our financial performance for the quarter.

Mike? Thanks, Ken. For Q1 fiscal 2023, we recorded $131.1 million of consolidated net sales, of which 80.9 million were reported in our satellite and space communications segment, and $50.3 million were recorded in our terrestrial and wireless network segment.

Our consolidated first quarter net sales represented a 3.3% increase over last quarter.

And, as Ken mentioned, our fourth consecutive quarterly increase. Compared to the year-ago quarter, our consolidated Q1 fiscal 2023 net sales increased $14.3 million, or 12.2%, driven by higher revenue in our satellite and space communications segment.

Consolidated gross margins were 35.7%, in line with our gross margins achieved in Q1 and Q4 fiscal 2022.

Our gross profit percentage in Q1 fiscal 2023 reflects an increase in net sales and overall product mix changes.

As explained in more detail and reconciled in our Form 10Q filed earlier today, we utilized a non-GAAP measure that we refer to as adjusted EBITDA. Q1 Fiscal 2023 adjusted EBITDA was $10.7 million, or 8.2% of consolidated net sales.

as compared to $5.5 million or 4.7% in Q1 fiscal 2022.

The increase, both in dollars and as a percentage of sales, is primarily attributable to the increase in Q1 fiscal 23 net sales. Equentially, in line with our prior guidance, adjusted EVA-DA in Q1 fiscal 2023 was lower.

both in dollars and as a percentage of sales, reflecting overall changes in mix, a general rise in costs due to an inefficient supply chain and inflation, and the settlement last quarter of fiscal 2022 annual incentive compensation with fully vested share units in lieu of cash.

As Ken previously mentioned, bookings during the quarter totaled $181.2 million, representing a 26.9% sequential quarterly increase and a quarterly book-to-bill ratio of 1.38 times $1.8 million.

Our consolidated Q1 net sales and adjusted EVADA were ahead of our guidance provided last quarter, and we're pleased to have exceeded our targets and to have increased our funded backlog from July , particularly in light of an economic environment that continues to be challenging. Now let me return the call back over to Ken. Thanks Mike.

To support everything we're doing and everything we want to do, we have to make sure that Comtech's organization, operations, and systems can keep pace with where our business is going. A lot of that work is being spearheaded by Maria Hedden, our Chief Operating Officer.

Maria joined us in March, bringing over 20 years of executive P&L management experience and a history of improving business performance.

I want you to be able to hear directly from Maria as her work plays such an important role in accelerating the growth and profitability of our business.

to be able to hear directly from Maria as her work plays such an important role in accelerating the growth and profitability of our business.

Thanks, Ken, and good to be able to have the opportunity to speak with all of you today. Today is actually the first time I've participated on an earnings call, but I think it highlights two things that I expect are important for investors. The first is that context, we are making serious strategic commitment to operational integration and excellence. With respect to

what you've heard Ken call one context. The second is that we are focused on translating that strategic commitment into tangible actions on the ground that improve the way we work and the way we work with each other every day.

Our belief is that cumulatively, those actions will make us a stronger company, will directly translate into growth and profitability, and in so doing, deliver value to our shareholders. All of this is to say our one-context strategy isn't about ideas as much as it is about actions.

Shortly after I arrived, it became clear to me that we already had the single most important resource a company can have in place, a talented, passionate workforce. As I saw it, my job was to ensure that all these talented people had the right organizational machinery around them to support what they were already doing.

and ways that were more effective, efficient, and scalable. We needed to collectively harmonize our business with best practices through each business unit. That meant everything from optimizing the company's supply chain, our engineering operations, our manufacturing, to our sales processes.

including pricing and contract reviews. And it also meant we had to make sure all our teams were appropriately staffed to not only meet today's needs, but for the growth we anticipate. And it meant a reorganization of our leadership structure to make sure we had the right executives in place, but also create structures to ensure all our leaders had a clear sense of the totality of our business and our leadership structure.

and access to the insights and innovation from across the business. In a very short period of time, we have not only committed ourselves to the idea of one context, but we are implementing it. We have made key appointments and strong hires into leadership positions. We are in the process of a firmware business and operations improvement project to control costs.

where we can to defend and grow margins while at the same time make deliberate investments to promote our growth and ability to operate at scale.

And while this may sound straightforward, we make sure we are talking to each other all of the time. I have instituted a monthly business review process which convenes the entire leadership team for a full day to make sure we celebrate our wins, learn from our losses, and make sure our plans and targets are on track and appropriately resourced. Related, I also hosted a strategic goals deployment session so that I...

as COO can make sure that the organization has a clear understanding of how to properly support our growth initiatives. There is a lot of change happening at Comtech right now, and in many organizations, change can bring uncertainties and doubt. But at Comtech, we have a lot of change happening.

I see every day what our financial performance this quarter confirms, that we're making the right kind of changes that are unleashing and empowering our people to do what they already were doing, innovating and delivering the best solutions to our customers around the world. We all know there is a lot of work to do ahead of us.

But I have the confidence that the changes we are and will be implementing at Comtech will create permanent competitive advantages for our company and our customers as well as value for our shareholders.

Thank you for your time, and now let me turn to Ken for his closing remarks.

Thank you for your time, and now let me turn to Ken for his closing remarks. Thanks, Maria.

Tim Jenkins is our Terrestrial and Wireless Networks Segment President, and Justin Wexler is our Satellite and Space Communications Segment President.

We also appointed Daniel Biesinski as our Chief Strategy Officer for Defense and Jay Whitehurst as our Chief Strategy Officer for Commercial.

Finally, we appointed Doug Houston, our Vice President of Global Support. Together, it means we have a leadership structure that is ready to partner with customers across business units and has expertise in the specific needs of key customer segments.

I believe that with the people we have in place heading an organization that is itself improving every day, Comtech is poised for a successful year ahead.

Before I move on to take questions, let me circle back to our bookings. We shed $181 million for the quarter. We're over 2x higher than our first quarter of last fiscal year.

Our contract wins during the quarter validate not only our unwavering customer focus, but also make it clear that Comtech solutions and services continue to set the standard in every one of our key markets. It never leaves our mind that we have the most demanding customers in the world. Our technology-enabled solutions are not just field-tested, they're battle-tested.

We welcome new business at Comtech, but I'm always happy to win repeat business too, because it means that these tough customers have put our products through their paces and we have measured up to their very high standards. Among the contracts we were awarded during the quarter from customers we have worked with before.

We saw key wins with the US military as well as for the Ukrainian government, which is adding new communication systems identical to those we donated to them in March of this year. In addition, one of the largest wireless carriers in the United States renewed our 911 services contract with them, again, underscoring that across our segments and our end markets.

customers have come to know, trust, and depend upon Comtech. With that, let me acknowledge that the road ahead will be challenging, given the macroeconomic environment that combines inflationary pressures, pandemic aftershocks, and unresolved geopolitical tensions. But we believe Comtech has never been better prepared to meet these challenges and take advantage of the opportunities they present.

With new leadership, a new organization, a refreshed common operational infrastructure, and an energized and invigorated team, our one contact transformation is positioning us for success.

OneComtech is working and we're moving fast and we are winning in a market that is itself growing. Now finally, I want to take a moment to thank Fred Kornberg for his 50 years of service to Comtech. Next week, Fred will be retiring from our board.

And from all of us here at Comtech, we wish him well and thank him for all his contributions over the years. And with that, let me take your questions. At this time, if you would like to ask a question, please press the star and one on your touch tone phone. You may withdraw yourself from the queue at any time by pressing star 2.

Once more, that is star and one to join the queue. And we'll move first to Joe Gomes with Noble Capital. Please go ahead.

star and one to join the queue. And we'll move first to Joe Gomes with Noble Capital. Please go ahead.

Thanks for taking my questions.

I wanted to ask, you know, you've now got a quarter under your belt, you know, maybe a little more detail or color on your observations, your evaluations, your conclusions.

Yeah, thanks, Jill. I'm going to offer a perspective on that, and then if Maria or Mike want to chime in, they can with respect to the lens through which they look through. But I'll tell you that, first of all,

The move to OneComTech is challenging. And obviously our biggest challenge here in the beginning is aligning our various businesses on the common operating practices and common operating systems. We're moving through that aggressively and we've baseline the current configuration, current operating processes that they operate on.

We put an integrated master schedule together that transitions them. We prioritize those tasks. And we put key metrics and key performance indicators in place so that we can measure our performance on that. And we're able to forecast at this juncture when and how much the return on that investment might be and on what programs. So in terms of

So the goodness is we're moving ahead on that, and the team is very excited about it. Secondly, I'll say that we've launched a number of crucial initiatives. One of those is the launch of the Innovation Foundry, our technical incubator, if you will, that's being led by our Chief Growth Officer.

I'm really excited about that, Jill, because we've identified already some initial partners who can bring exciting and relevant technologies into that technology incubator so that we can assess and blend them with our own capabilities to demonstrate how they improve customer value and how they improve customer outcomes. And in this kind of a controlled environment.

We can't even quantify what we think that customer value might be. That's really significant. So one of the things is I'm really excited and enthusiastic about the Innovation Foundry and how that provides a lens through which we can up tier our capabilities to the systems and services level and measure the performance that that brings our customers. Okay, great. Thank you for that.

You talk a little bit more on the terrestrial business, it was down sequentially, maybe a little more color detail. How is it the 911 market opportunities out there, the deployments in Pennsylvania, Arizona, some of the other states that you've won?

Are we making any move there? Getting those deployments up and running? Any color there on the terrestrial business would be great. Thank you. Sure. Sure, Joe, thanks. I'm gonna let Mike jump in on that. Sure. Joe, on the terrestrial and wireless business, Joe, as background, again, an early part of fiscal 21.

We announced winning several large 5G location-based services contracts. Those software contracts definitely contributed to a favorable sales mix that we disclosed last year in Q2 and Q3. Also, you know, coming in fiscal 22, especially in Q2, just to remind everybody, we did have a $2.5 million benefit to cost the sales.

that was the result of reducing the warranty approval to lower than expected warranty claims in that 911 product area. So certainly we had some favorable headwinds last year. You know, when you look at the sales and the adjusted EVA contribution, you know, and that in Q1 of fiscal 23.

As we stated before, we're subject to mixed changes and the recently awarded statewide NG911 contracts, as we disclose, generally have lower upfront margins, lower than our 911 wireless call routing services. And that's generally because the legacy 911 call routing services are based on advanced and mature software.

Whereas you have to keep in mind the new contracts that were winning in the 911 area, the NG911 area, those contracts were recently won. We're installing the infrastructure and it's going to take some time as we turn on the PSAPs to absorb that upfront cost.

And, you know, in terms of improving margins over time, the more PSAPs we light up on the recurring servers, you know, our expectations are to have a better bottom line. So to answer your question in terms of the progress on Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Arizona, those big contracts that we won, I think we are very happy with the progress on all three of those contracts.

We're getting towards the tail end of the deployment portions of those contracts where we're spending the CapEx and we have been lining up the PSAPs. And so we're very encouraged by that progress. And as we move into 2023, we're likely to see more of those PSAPs go live. Great. Thanks for the insights there, guys. I'll get back in queue. Thanks again.

Thank you. We'll take our next question from George Nautter with Jeffries. Please go ahead.

I'll take that, George. We did in our 10Q, we tried to give some color on the largest of the orders. It's also included in the shareholder letter. And I think as you have outlined, we definitely had the next-gen troposcatter terminals. That order was nice to see. We came in bigger than we were expecting.

So that was a great award. We also had the Ukrainian comets that was received in the first quarter. We made really good progress this quarter in the first quarter delivering on those 80 units. And in terms of the next item, I would say we call out, we have a large tier one carrier that we provide pull routing services for that customer.

and in the first quarter we renewed our annual contract. Those are probably the largest. We had some additional VSAT orders with the US Army and some other key wins, but certainly those were the three largest that we would call out.

Got it. Okay. George, this is Ken. George, I will tell you that as we bring our business together, we are seeing our addressable and serviceable markets expand as we look to harness the enterprise-wide capability of OneComTech and that enables us to move up here into the systems and services segments. We're pretty enthusiastic about the opportunities that's revealing to us.

We're hosting technology workshops and leveraging the innovation foundry to demonstrate and quantify these enhanced capabilities in a customer context. So looking forward, our customers are aligned with us in this expanded value proposition. That's expanding our new business funnel going forward. Got it. Okay. A quick question on the balance sheet also. I think you guys have about a hundred and

It's actually a little north of what you just said, but more importantly, I would add, about a week ago, we did announce through 8K that we did basically amend our credit facility. So in the presentation on our balance sheet, you see it as long-term. It's because we were successful in...

getting our lenders to move forward with an amended deal. We did change some of the deal terms to be more representative of today's business, but that was a syndication we announced last week, and we're very pleased with that and very thankful in this environment. Obviously, you're reading a lot of news reports. There's a lot of skittishness out there with the lenders dealing with the global recession potentially.

higher default rates and so you're navigating through that in this environment we're very pleased with the outcome and it gives us the flexibility to operate. Got it, great. Thank you very much. I'll take a look at the AK. Appreciate it guys. Thank you.

Good to see you. Thanks. And we'll move next to Mike Lattimore with Northland Capital Markets.

You too. Thanks. And we'll move next to Mike Lattimore with Northland Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

And we'll move next to Mike Lattimore with Northland Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Thank you.

Great, yeah, thank you. Yeah, definitely hit the hit the ground running here. Looks good. Just on the gross margin, can you just kind of go through a little bit of the, you know, the drivers and headwinds you're seeing on gross margin this year? Just trying to get a sense of.

or that might go overtime here? Sure, in terms of our guidance, I certainly would be mindful that we're only given guidance for Q2. We're certainly in an economic environment that's challenging as Ken mentioned and then we disclose.

We definitely have seen inflationary pressures, supply chains are still not running optimally. And against that background and backdrop, we're pleased with our performance in Q1. We think that over time our margins will improve. But we do have a lot of backlog in our terrestrial and wireless network segment. A lot of that backlog is multi-year.

in nature, you know, and that was set up, you know, a year or so ago. So it will take some time to burn off that backlog. But when and where we can, we are resetting that backlog with higher pricing that is market based, taking into account inflationary pressures. But, you know, certainly for the rest of the year, it's a little too early to to call. We're pleased with the fact that we're holding the line.

and able to keep that 35%. And as I pointed out last year in Q2 and Q1, we certainly had some favorability based on the mix at the time. But when you isolate those out, we're sitting in that mid 30% range. So our goal and the targets for us are certainly higher.

But right now we're not going to go beyond what we're saying for Q2's guidance on the top and bottom line. I will tell you Mike, this is Ken, I'll tell you also that we are making great progress. I'd like to give Maria a chance to jump in here, but we clearly have the bus headed in the right direction, we got the right people in the bus, we got the right people in the right seats.

We've provided some details on that in the shareholder letter with respect to who some of those people are. These are seasoned veterans that have done this kind of thing before, bringing businesses, siloed businesses together. And so maybe just a word from Maria with respect to the metrics, the KPIs, the way you're tracking that on the integrated master schedule and driving the team against clear goals. Yeah, thanks, Ken. So just a couple things on that. So obviously.

We've rolled out some of our people strategy and what we've done with that, but clearly some of the new processes that have been instituted over the last quarter that is focused on really understanding some of our business risks, understanding those key performance indicators. As Ken mentioned, I hosted a full day session of developing what are our stress objectives and what we needed to do.

I mean, you kind of called out the macroeconomic, geopolitical effects here, but also you obviously had strong demand. So maybe just in terms of the pipeline, how healthy is it? What areas are particularly prominent in the pipeline here? Sure, I'll speak to that, I tell you. Both our segments have some pretty exciting growth potential. Our satellite and space segment.

We're now able to move up here to offer systems and services that our individual siloed businesses could not offer before.

This significantly expands our market opportunities. It enables us to offer customers significantly greater value. It significantly expands our market opportunities, and it expands the size of our new business funnel. Now we're able to offer customers in the satellite and space arena significantly greater value proposition because it creates more significantly more customer value.

And we can move them to more innovative business models that enable us to monetize that value proposition more effectively. So we're excited about that. Now, in Terrestrial and Wireless, we're expanding both geographically and we're also increasing the number of transactions that we handle with respect to either 911 calls or location-based queries.

So the number of transactions as that increases, and in fact as we move toward machine to machine, 911-like calls and not just human to human, that will increase another and make available another dimension of growth for Comtech. Thirdly, as the satellite and terrestrial network infrastructures converge, we see yet gross opportunities in another dimension, and you see that with.

with devices now offering multiple connectivity choices, terrestrial like Bluetooth, WiFi, and cellular, but also satellite connectivity to LEO, and you see multiple devices and device providers moving in that direction. So at the end of the day, we see significant growth potential in each of our individual segments.

as well as at the enterprise level through the convergence of satellite infested domains, where Tomtech is uniquely advantaged. It's just last one, troposcatter, is that a big part of the pipeline? Are there big deals out there?

Well, we see TROPO as an exciting technology that complements SATCOM because when SATCOM tends to degrade in its performance, such as in a hurricane where you have extremely heavy rain, TROPOScatter actually improves in its performance envelope because it operates by bouncing the signal.

the propagated signal off of particles and the more particles there are generally the better it works. So it becomes a natural companion to SATCOM and we see opportunity there in the traditional military and defense environment but we also see opportunity commercially.

in terms of connecting oil and gas enterprises, providing robust connectivity between critical operation centers like hospitals, firehouses, law enforcement, emergency operation centers in a hurricane or other kind of a situation. So we see that technology being able to expand in the defense market.

because of the success it's having in the peer adversary conflict, we see it moving into new markets as well, adjacencies commercially, as well as at the enterprise level like oil and gas. So we see that as a significant growth opportunity for us.

Great, sounds good. Thank you. Thank you, Mike. And we'll take our next question from Chris Sakai with Singular Research. Please go ahead. Hi, guys. This is the same for Chris. That kind of scale is sort of alternative.

In light of you taking help, Ken, and the temporary headwind to free cash flow, has there been a discussion around commitment to and or growth of dividends?

Our capital allocation plans are continually discussed, reviewed, I point you to our disclosure in the liquidity section of our 10Q, but I don't have anything specifically that I'm gonna say on that right now. Beyond that, beyond the fact that we continually look at it.

The company's international customer base as a percentage.

has stayed constant the last couple of years, last five years or so, around one quarter. And correct me if I'm wrong. So can you comment on the dynamics of business development internationally, and the sales and marketing effort internationally, maybe how it is per se, and how it is different?

is about 21.2%, so you're right in the sense that it's about a quarter of our business. But it's going to benefit, and as part of this one contact transformation in ways that seem to me going in that they're going to be at least as

favorable as our domestic and defense business. And the reason I say that is because as we move to ground, satellite ground infrastructure, and maybe providing that as a system or providing that as a service, international customers have the opportunity to benefit that as well. As we see the international community migrate from 2G and 3G to 4G, 5G technologies in the terrestrial wireless market, we see the opportunity that that will benefit us.

and we see the opportunity to extend our location-based services into the international market in a bigger way, too. So we think our, you know, really the several legs of our business all can move into the international market as we up tier our capabilities and our marketing schemes. The international market will benefit by that, the same as our domestic and and defense activities. So this quarter benefited from the

What I can tell you is something we've said in our blogs as well as other communications and that is the most effective marketing person in the world is a customer in a uniform, a uniformed son or daughter who is in a conflict or otherwise in the service of the nation.

that I've ever seen. So yes, we do expect that that had to have an extended benefit that continues the viability of our equipment and extends its value because it works.

It works in the toughest of environments. Proven. Absolutely, yeah. And it develops a great narrative for the SPOT too. And finally, it's a very long-term question.

So if you can comment on this. So the recent iPhone models have this emergency SOS. So in that regard, do you think this product from Apple, or if you kind of draw a trend line what they might come next year in their products, it would be a competitive threat, or a substitution possibility, or you will see it the way that...

and frankly different players. We've been strong and are strong in both of those domains and so as that convergence of satellite and terrestrial comes together we see ComTech uniquely positioned to take advantage of that.

I'll say that as a first point. The second point that I'll say is sometimes the future is predicted by looking at the past. And when we saw the flip phone, which was voice only, move to the BlackBerry, what you saw is the BlackBerry took market share away from the providers that only had voice.

But when you saw the smartphone emerge, it introduced the opportunity for many more applications, many more apps could run on the smartphone. So when the smartphone was introduced, it didn't just take market share from the BlackBerry. It in fact created a much larger market of new apps.

that had never been done before that created enormous customer or user value. Apps such as downloading your boarding pass, making restaurant reservations, online banking. I don't need to list them. You see them on your phone. Okay, so in the second case, the smartphone's introduction didn't just take market share from the incumbent. It expanded the entire ecosystem. So now, bringing your attention to looking forward.

None of us know right now whether the convergence of satellite and terrestrial is going to behave like the former, where it's going to take market share from those providers that do not provide SATCOM, or whether it will create an explosion in the ecosystem of new apps and new capabilities that create an expanded market for everyone.

So I'm not going to make a prediction except to say that I think Comtech, reiterate my first point, Comtech is I think very advantageously positioned because our strength in both satellite and terrestrial network technologies and location-based services. So that's one of the reasons, one of the driving reasons we brought our siloed businesses together so we could up-tier our capabilities.

and take advantage of this kind of a market inflection. Thank you. Thank you so much. Good luck to you and the new team. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Good luck to you and the new team. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you.

And once again for your questions, that is Star and 1. We'll move next to Greg Burns with C-DOTI Company. Please go ahead. Good afternoon. With the terrestrial and wireless segment, what is a good target or steady state margin profile for that business?

Initially, as we absorb those upfront costs, the EBITDA contribution will be sort of what you're seeing right now because we're in between those large 5G LBS contracts. As we announced in Q4, we had a nice sized order come through, but you'll see the revenues from that ramp up towards the tail end of this year. So right now you're getting more of a mix of our NG911 revenues.

And as we said, flip on more PSAPs and start leveraging the infrastructure over a broader base of recurring services, the EBITDA profile will improve. You know, I'm not going to give a specific percentage, but it's certainly higher than what it is right now because we're just at the front end of those contracts.

Can you give like a range like high teens, low 20s? What should investors be expecting from this business as these 9-1-1 deals scale up? I'll answer this way in a more broader answer. In the past couple of years, you've seen our EBITDA contribution come down from say the 14% that we were doing pre-COVID.

as a company, in all of our product areas, not just in the 911 area, we want to get back to those historical levels and if not exceed that. As we've articulated, we have a lot of initiatives going on right now, and once we start to bear fruit, our expectation is that we will get there. So I don't want to overstate we have a lot of work to do. It's certainly a challenging environment, but...

in the next couple of years, I would expect us to get back to that level. Okay, on the contract with Verizon, how many years was that extended for and was there any change in pricing? That contract was an annual renewal. It was

at this point in time, annual renewals. And in terms of pricing, just due to competitive aspects of it, we have a very good relationship with our Tier 1 carrier and it was a seamless type of renewal. Just roll forward. Okay. The TROPO deliveries to the Marines – or maybe that was in bookings –

Do you just remind us the total size of that contract that you were awarded and how much of that have you delivered on? Greg, just to be clear, you're talking about the marine contract for NextGen Troppo? Yes. Okay, that's the contract we won about two years ago.

I think the headline ceiling was 200 plus million, maybe 213 million. We initially got a $13 million order to run out the first leg of prototypes, which we delivered about a year ago. And they've been using them in the field and testing them. And this particular go around, it was a 50 plus million dollar order that we received, which is sort of the first production run.

In terms of their needs for it, it's something that they have a need and a desire for. It's going to take some time to get the deliveries out based on the fact that it's a very large order but globally there's still a lot of headroom left on that contract. But in terms of our outlook, we're just focusing on the current order that we have. Okay. And then the award to the US Army, I think at the time.

when you were awarded the Marine contract, the U.S. Army had a larger contract that they awarded to someone else. Is what you were awarded this quarter part of that, or are they coming back to market? Like, what is the opportunity there? Well, we were awarded this quarter is completely independent of the Army situation. The Army situation is one that we are...

exploring and working toward because our equipment, as I mentioned before, our equipment is proven in battle and obviously that's a heck of a credential. So what we're doing is trying to leverage that and have exploratory discussions that can lead to something that helps the Army be more effective as they get in the fight. But we don't have any more to say on that right now. For more information, visit www.fema.gov

Okay, and then on the 911 side. Um, any update on Ohio is there any line of sight on. When funding might be approved for that contract.

Okay, and then on the 911 side, any update on Ohio? Is there any line of sight on when funding might be approved for that contract?

the application and trying to figure out the next steps in terms of what kind of funding we can get. Our view right now in terms of our outlook is, it's certainly a large contract potential, could be north of $100 million, but right now in terms of setting our own expectations, we're viewing it as something that could be in the short term to get a booking, but in terms of revenue contribution or EBITDA contribution, it wouldn't be until next year.

And it's likely to be something that's going to be a function of how much funding they give us upfront. I don't think they'll at this point give us the whole thing upfront. It might be an increment, but it's still, the story needs to be told there. I think we have to wait for the next session to see how the vote goes.

Okay, and the pipeline for E911, is there any other large state contracts that are up for bid that we should be focusing on? Yes, there are other opportunities. So, despite getting pushed out for us, Ohio, we certainly have identified other near term opportunities. We're not sitting idle in terms of the competitive nature of those procurements.

I'm not going to name the states or the regions, but there are a handful of those that are coming to market and will be responding. I think with our recent wins and our capabilities, we think we have good positioning there, but we'll have more to report on that in the future. Okay. And then lastly, you're bringing on the added capacity in Arizona now, and I think a large part of that is...

to satisfy some of their high volume, some new high volume production for the new LEO and MEO satellite networks that are out there. Is there any update on

on when those might ramp up and start contributing to revenue? Yeah, go ahead. Sure, in terms of our progress here with our large LEO customer, as we announced last quarter, we expanded our relationship. Certainly, there's a desire to move fast and, you know, the facility that we are bringing online has the capabilities to meet the high volume demands.

in 2024, but it's certainly going in the right direction. I don't know if anybody else wants to say anything. Yeah, just some other things in addition to what Mike shared. Obviously, there's a couple of development contracts that we're moving into production phase, and with the rollout of our new S&T line, it will definitely make us more efficient as we build those units and continue to drive production bodies higher for that facility.

So we definitely are planning as part of that release and opening of the facility to drive additional throughput through the facility and workload in that area.

definitely are planning as part of that release and opening of the facility to drive additional throughput through the facility and workload in that area. Perfect, thank you.

And we'll take our last question from Asia Merchant with Citigroup. Please go ahead. Great. Thanks for the opportunity. So a lot of questions have been asked. I just wanted to ask about cash flow. You know, with the drawdown this quarter as well on your cash flow from operations and how should we think about the cash trajectory for the remainder of the year? Sure, just to, you know, level set.

And from an investing perspective, CapEx and Q1 might look a little high right now, but keep in mind that at the end of last year, we had about $6 million of unpaid capital purchases. So that hit in Q1. And coming off of a $30 million target for last year.

you know, holistically we spent about 25 million of that, 26 million. So, you know, where we can, we are trying to be very prudent about the timing and the amounts of what we're spending. Certainly we have, you know, thoughts of growth in our future. And so we will continue to make those investments, but at the same time, we're also seeing the Chandler facility move coming towards its end. You know, the Pennsylvania contract, Arizona contract, and South Carolina contract.

in the 911 space, we're also getting those PSAPs on to the system. So we should start to see that CapEx start to turn back to more historical levels. In terms of cash flows for Q2, we still have some other initiatives that we're working on. I would say you can, we're not gonna give specific guidance on CapEx for Q2, but it's gonna be probably still elevated and then trail off towards the back half of the year.

But in terms of overall cash flow generation, we're trying to be mindful of a leverage ratio now that we have a new credit facility in place. We have some flexibility to operate and to support some of these large bookings. So, overall for the year, I'm not gonna give a specific number. We do at this point expect to be positive, but there's a lot of year left. We still have some pipeline opportunities that may hit. And so right now we're just gonna keep our comments down to Q2. Okay. And then just, you know,

There are these one-off charges that kind of seem to show up in the non-GAAP adjusted, you know, strategic technology costs and things like this. Is this going to be, is this something that's recurring? And then it's still why not just include it in your regular R&D or OFAC?

In terms of the strategic emerging technology cost, it is specific to a type of technology and customer set as we're evaluating this market. It's not recurring in nature, you know, save for the opportunities that are very near term in front of us. We would not likely be spending that but because of those opportunities.

We've made a decision as a company to go above and beyond to show our potential customers and existing customers that we're here to partner with them. So it will be something that is not going to be there forever, but right now it's a very competitive marketplace. There's a lot of opportunity to grab, and so we're going to make those investments to secure for the long term. Okay, and then I know you guys talked about EBITDA margins and how currently, you know, most people their

there's puts and takes to that, specifically on, you know, why it's hanging around the 8% level. I know you guys are not guiding, but is it fair to assume that, you know, by the end of the year, at least, as you exit into fiscal, as you exit this fiscal year, maybe even into early next year, we should get back to margins, you know, with a double digit level versus these high single digit margins that you are right now at? I see, I would love to address that question, you know, with a definitive, you know,

allowing them to convert elevated levels of backlog into revenues. Can you give some color on how much perhaps that was an effect on the revenues that were better than what was expected for the quarter? Yeah. I mean, I would say this, Asiya, too. Such a reminder, the scientist group I'm working with at Gallup, I was asked why he's TwitchSc12. I asked if it really had anything12. What happened?

and then the Russia Ukraine war. You know, it's nice to see that we've been growing our backlog and having such a strong bookings quarter. So, you know, it's in our backlog. We now just need to execute on it. Supply chain, you know, we're aware of what we have to work around, namely long lead items and making sure we procure timely enough to deliver on time. But.

I think we are building a good foundation to continue our growth. I would like to add to that if we just take a minute and then have Maria add some color too.

One of the significant value propositions of bringing our siloed businesses together as one Comtech is we can now deal with our supply chain with a single voice, an amplified voice, and instead of maybe ordering perhaps the same part through two different businesses in smaller quantities, we can speak with a louder voice and consolidate those buys and we should see a benefit from that. In addition, we're doing some strategic sourcing, we've put some of the seasoned veterans on board, I'll have Maria offer.

across the entire business instead of it being stove piped as it is today. When we talk about improving the machinery of our business operations, that's the kind of thing we're talking about.

business instead of it being stovepiped as it is today. When we talk about improving the machinery of our business operations, that's the kind of thing we're talking about.

Thank you. It does appear there are no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn it back to Robert Samuels for any closing remarks. Yes, thanks. Just thanks to Ken, Mike, and Maria, and thanks to everyone for dialing in today. As Ken said, there are additional details about our strategy and performance available in our investor letter and SEC filings, and we'll provide ongoing insights in our signals blog.

And as a reminder, we intend to be as responsive as we can with investors going forward. So for anyone with questions, please just reach out to me directly and let's connect. This concludes our first quarter call. Happy holidays to our employees, customers, suppliers, and shareholders. We thank you for your continued support.

This does conclude today's program. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at any time and have a wonderful evening.

Q1 2023 Comtech Telecommunications Corp Earnings Call

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