Q4 2022 Byrna Technologies Inc Earnings Call
Greetings and welcome to the Burnett Technologies 4th quarter 2022 earnings conference call and Webcast. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded in all participants or in our interview. Only mode.
Before turning the call over to Brian Yantz, Berner technology chief executive officer, I will read the safe harbor statement. Some discussions may today may include four leaking statements. At your results, the difference early from the statements made today. Please refer to Berner's most recent 10K and 10Q filings for a more complete description of risk factors that
could affect these projections and assumptions. The company is in general obligated to update for the new statements as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.
As this call, we'll include references to non-guess.
Please see the first release and the next session of our website, ir.burner.com.
For further information regarding four-link statements and reconciliations of non-GAAP results to GAAP results, I will now turn the call over to Mr. Brian Ganz. Sir, please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for BERNA's fiscal 2022 fourth quarter earnings call.
David North, our CFO , and I will be discussing our Q4 and full year 2022 results, and I will be providing some additional color on both the quarter and the year and discuss recent developments. We'd like to start by turning the call over to David so that he can discuss the Q4 and full year.
Revenues for the fourth quarter of 2022 were $16.00 million. That's a 43.5% increase over the $11.00 million for last year's fourth quarter. Gross profit increased by 52.0% to $8.7 million from $5.7 million. $2.7 million.
in last year's fourth quarter, while gross margin improved to 54.1% of net revenue from 51.1% in last year's fourth quarter. The improvement in gross margin was driven by a reduced dependence on air freight and an improved product mix with higher...
margin ammo sales representing a greater percentage of overall sales.
Operating expenses remained relatively flat at $8.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2022 compared to $8.8 million in the fourth quarter of last year. The combination of higher revenue and a higher gross margin percentage coupled with flat operating expenses resulted in improved profitability.
Net loss for the fourth quarter was near breakeven at $0.1 million or 1 cent per share compared to a net loss of $3.2 million or 14 cents per share in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021.
excluding long-term stock-based compensation and one-time severance costs are non-gap adjusted EBITDA.
And was $1.4 million for the water, making this a second sequential fiscal quarter with positive non-gapagetism. Taking a look now at the full year financial results, revenues for the full year increased by 13.8% to 48.0 million.
64.6 percent. The other sales rose by $1.6 million or $28.4 percent. And Amazon's sales grew by $4.6 million or $522.5 percent. There's more than offset the decline in Berna website sales of $6.6 million or $20.9 percent.
2022 website sales were lower than in 2021 because 2021 benefited from a one-time $9 million spike in sales attributable to an unsolicited endorsement from Sean Henney in April of that year.
Higher sales drove an increase in gross profit of $3.4 million to $26.3 million in fiscal 2022 as compared to gross profit of $22.9 million in fiscal 21. The gross margin percentage of the full year for fiscal 22.
remained relatively consistent at 54.7% compared to 54.3% and fiscal 21 as the increase in the proportion of lower margin international and dealer sales was offset by lower freight costs and an improved product mix.
Operating expenses rose by $7.5 million to $33.7 million in 2022 from $26.2 million in physical 21 due primarily to increased spending on marketing, which increased by $3.3 million. Non-cash stock compensation expense was up by $2.3 million.
and variable selling expenses increased by $1.2 million due to the higher sales volume.
Net loss for this fiscal year was $7.9 million compared to a net loss of $3.3 million in fiscal year 2021. Non-Gap adjusted EBITDA loss was a loss of $1.0 million versus a profit of $1.3 million in fiscal yeariu.
Finally, we'll look at our balance sheet and financial position. We ended the fiscal year with $40.1 million of cash on the balance sheet. Obviously, this is a 6.0 million dollar than the $56.4 million on the balance sheet at the end of 2021 after having raised $56 million from the sale of $2.8 million shares of common stock.
use of cash was to increase working capital levels. We increased inventory levels by $8.8 million from $6.6 million at the end of 2021 to $15.5 million at the end of 2022. That's allowed us to cut our reliance and exorbitant air freight for raw materials.
and to move to slower but far less expensive ocean freight.
Our accounts receivou balance of $5.2 million was $4.3 million higher than the prior year imbalance mainly due to large international sales in the fourth quarter.
We also use $1.9 million cash to enter the self-defense spray market with the acquisition of Fox Labs in May of 2022.
At your end there was no current or long-term debt.
And with that I'll turn it back over to plant.
Thank you David
As David said, the fourth quarter was a record quarter for the company, the second in a row, and the third consecutive quarter sequential top-line growth. Q4 was also the second consecutive quarter of profitability on an adjusted EBITDA basis.
The improving profitability is due to improving operating leverage. Sales last quarter grew by 43% in comparison to the fourth quarter of 2022, while operating expenses were actually down slightly down 1% compared to the same quarter last year.
While our sales growth for the full year of 2022 was a disappointing 14%, over the last two quarters of the year, BERNA experienced year-over-year revenue growth of 43%. Full year sales growth was dragged down by the 14% decline in the first half sales of 2022
live television in April of 2021. If we back out the 9 million of HannityFX sales that occurred in the second quarter of 2021, sales in the first half of 2022 would have been up 47% year over year, and full year 2022 sales would have been up 45% year over year.
more in keeping with Burnett's long-term growth trajectory. In fact, over the last four years, Burnett has experienced compound annual growth rate of 272%.
This significant top-line growth for BERNA has been driven by both growing brand awareness and an overall increase in the demand for less lethal alternatives to traditional firearms. BERNA specifically and the less lethal industry generally.
is benefiting from two societal trends that well on their face may seem to be countervailing when taken together they create a tailwind for the less lethal industry.
First, as we all know, there is an overall sense of unease driven by a spike in violent crime and growing civil unrest. This is a global phenomenon as people around the world are becoming increasingly concerned for their safety and the safety of their families.
At the same time, there is growing outrage over the level of gun violence. Again, this is a global phenomenon and is resulting in tougher gun laws. Just a few months ago, Canada essentially banned the sale of handguns. This had an immediate effect on Burna as we saw sales in Canada more than triple.
after the ban went into effect. Even in the US, an increasing number of states, such as Oregon, are adopting more stringent gun laws. We believe that this is the beginning of a longer term trend that will greatly benefit BERNA. These tailwinds can be seen in the increased interest in BERNA's line of West Lethal.
personal self-defense products. In 2022, web sessions on burna.com grew by 32% year over year. If we include Amazon DTC sessions, total visitors grew by 75% year over year to more than 11 million visitors.
with more than half of the traffic being new to Burna. At the same time, we are seeing an increase in repeat customers. In fiscal year 22, 47% of Burna sales on burna.com were to repeat customers, compared to 40% in 2021 and 24% in 2022.
This supports our thesis that burn up benefits from a razor razor blade model. As our installed user base grows, we are seeing an increase in sales of higher margin ammo, accessories, and other products such as pepper spray, body armor, and less lethal rifles to our existing customer base.
In fact, as of the end of the year, our top 250 customers on burna.com have each purchased more than $4,200 of Burna products.
Two months ago, we said that we would be introducing several new products at Cha Cha.
The Jotcho is the premier trade show for the shooting sports hunting law enforcement firearms industries.
Shachot which takes place in Las Vegas every January was back in full swing this year as worries over the pandemic Subsided I am pleased to report that the show this year was an amazing success for Berna
We debuted our new good, better, best pistol strategy with the introduction of the price point Berne EP and the all-new much more powerful Berne LE or law enforcement edition. Consumers, representatives of the media and industry insiders had the chance to test fire these weapons at both the industry range day and the industry range day.
which takes place the day before shot show and at the grand opening of Berna's Las Vegas Retail Center.
We also introduced Berna's new 12-gauge round at SHOT Show, and the response was overwhelming.
With a 100-foot effective range, no recoil, and tremendous stopping power, Berna's new less lethal 12-gauge Kinetic Round was a smashing success. It was named one of the four best new products at SHOT Show by Police One magazine and made the list of best personal defence world's top...
addition to additional 12 gauge molds that will allow us to double our production of the kinetic 12 gauge round by June of this coming year. Until then, we will allocate all production to our Berna authorized stocking dealers. The first shipment to dealers will begin later this month. We will roll this product out to our online customers.
Once we have taken care of our dealers, we expect that to be sometime in April .
We plan to release the payload rounds later this year. These rounds will carry the same chemical irritant formulations as the 68 caliber projectiles used by our range of less lethal launchers. Accordingly, we will be introducing the Bernabéper 12 gauge rounds, the Bernabéter Max 12 gauge round, and the Bernabéter Pro Training.
12-gauge round. We are also developing a dedicated launcher, our pump action launcher, that will be able to shoot the 61-caliber fin projectiles that are currently fired from our 12-gauge rounds without the need for a 12-gauge shotgun and the need for a casing wad and protective clamshell.
For 2023, while we remain bullish on the long-term prospects for less lethal industry, and while we expect to maintain our leadership position in the consumer segment of the less lethal industry, we do not expect to see sales continue to grow by 40% this year.
Rather, we are forecasting revenue growth for fiscal year 23 of approximately 20%. And accordingly, we are providing revenue guidance of $55 to $60 million for the full year of 23.
The reason that we have damped our growth expectations somewhat for this coming year is because we believe that 2020-3 will be a more difficult economic environment than 2022 for consumer products companies.
Whether or not the U.S. is technically in every session and whether or not the Fed has engineered a soft landing, rising prices and higher interest rates have reduced demand for high price discretionary consumer goods.
In coming up with this guidance, we also took into account the uncertainty associated with rolling out three brand new products with no sales history and opening an all-new production facility in South America. For this reason, we did not think it would be prudent to provide precise earnings guidance at this time. However, we do expect to be solidly profitable for the full year 2023 on an...
For 2023, we expect to be able to hold the line on operating expenses other than variable expenses that track with sales and expenses at our South American Bernalatam Joint Venture. We also believe that we will see a minimum 5% improvement in gross profit margins for the full year 2023.
due to a continued transition from air freight to ocean freight and an improving product mix.
In addition, for 2023, we are significantly reducing our reliance on discounts and special pricing to move our products on Burner.com. During much of 2022, Burner relied heavily on discounts and special pricing to drive DTC sales. This had the negative effect of conditioning our customers to expect discounts.
and to wait for discounts. It also undermined our dealer sales effort and the constant discounting depressed margins.
For 2023, Burns committed to maintaining price integrity. Prices will only be discounted on special pre-plan map holidays, and these map holidays will be shared with our dealers while in advance. The first such map holiday for 2023 will be the four-day period over President's Day weekend.
Understandably, reinstating pricing integrity may negatively impact sales for a period of time as our customers adjust to our new pricing policy. We believe, however, that this short-term pain is well worth the long-term gain. Already, during the first six weeks of Q1, Gross Proper March and company-wide, have-
our new Argentinian production facility. While there are always hiccups with any new product launch or the opening of any new subsidiary or facility, we expect that the combination of new products and a production facility dedicated to the South American market will open significant new markets and new opportunities for burnout.
Once the art and tinium facility is in full swing, and once we have better visibility on the sell-through of the new products, we should be able to better refine our guidance, full top line and bottom line.
In conclusion, we've made excellent progress this year in terms of both growing the top line and controlling expenses. As I said in our last earnings call, we have reached the point in terms of operating leverage that will allow us to consistently generate positive cash flow and strong year-over-year revenue growth. For more information, visit www.fema.gov
Now I'd like to turn it back to the operator and we'll be happy to take questions from our analysts.
Thank you. At this time, we will be conducting a question and answer session.
If you would like to ask a question, please first start with a telephone keypad. The confirmation phone will indicate...
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One moment please, while we pull it forward. In the next video.
Our first question comes from the line of.
Jeff VanCinderen with BeRided. Please proceed with your questioning.
Good morning everyone. First let me say congratulations on the Shotgun Brown launch. Great to see that among other new product launches.
So, multiple questions here, so I appreciate you guys bearing with me on the end.
I'm wondering if you could speak a little bit more about what you saw in projectile sales in Q4, maybe any sense you can give us of concentration of overall revenues in a call it ammo. And then with the launch of the shotgun rounds, just wondering what you're seeing out there in early days realize it is very.
what needs to happen to get those completed and ready to launch at any time frame there. Sorry, I know there's a lot of that.
All right, well, at least, Jeff, they're all sort of ammo-based questions. So let's focus on the 12-gauge first because I think that that is the more important product.
All of the initial production was spoken for by our Berna authorized stocking dealers So the large chain stores that carry Berna and and frankly, you know, most of our dealers were interested in carrying The 12-gauge we made a commitment to the dealers at SHOT Show that we would not start selling to the consumer
So long as there were open orders and that we would give their refill orders priority And the reason for this is is pretty simple We want to make sure that if they're giving us a shelf space that we don't let it sit empty So we've told them that we will not offer it online until we feel that we have adequate
through retailers are right around 50%.
Our margins when we go to sell this online are going to of course be much higher again closer to 70% gross profit margins. We don't, again, we don't know whether we're at the right price point on this product. We're selling.
a ten count box of rounds for fifty dollars. We didn't seem to get any pushback at all on this. If we have difficulty maintaining production to keep up with demand, we could consider raising the price. But I think a fifty dollar price for a box of ten rounds is a fair price.
and gives us adequate margin. And again, the most important thing here is that we get them out into the market. We allow consumers to use these rounds. When we were trying to understand the TAM for 12-gauge, our research told us that there's about...
100 million shotguns in the US and probably somewhere between 30 and 50 million shotgun owners in the US. If we can get 10% of that market over the next five years, that's 5 million people. If all they do is buy one box of rounds, that's 250 million in revenue.
complicated to produce because not only do they require us to create the 61 caliber round ball payload projectile but we then have to fill the tail fin and weld that into the tail fin. So it's requiring some very very expensive equipment to be able to do that.
We expect that equipment to be in the factory in South Africa sometime in June . Right now we're going through basic testing of this process. But I'm not sure how important the payload rounds will be because the kinetic rounds have tremendous stopping power.
So, with the Berna SD, we didn't really advertise the kinetic rounds as being a self-defense round. We advertise the kinetic rounds, it really is being a training round, a round to be used for target practice, because out of the SD, the dual energy of these rounds is about 10 joules.
With the introduction of the Berna LE, which is a much more powerful launcher, the joule energy is up to 16 joules. These rounds become a legitimate self-defense round at 16 joules. And as we go to the 12 gauge, that climbs to 20 joules of energy.
We did a lot of human effects testing and we were having to pay people of course to take the rounds and we were paying people $100 a round and we had a lot of tough guys say, you know, I'll take five rounds. Nobody took more than two before they said no more.
So we know that the Kinetic Round has a lot of stopping power. So again, we're committed to the payload rounds, but we're not sure at twice the price whether they're going to be a significant portion of our overall sales or not. David, I'm going to turn it over to you to talk about the product mix of the two products.
lower than that in the fourth quarter of last year. So we're seeing a gradual increase in that as a total percentage.
And keep in mind what we're seeing is a couple of things with the increase in returning customers. So this year as our returning customers went from 40% to 47% of sales, we obviously saw an increase in ammo sales.
a slightly lower average order value. We went from $345 average order value in 2021 to a 320 average order value in 2022, but we saw improving margins. So we think that over time ammo and accessory sales will get closer to 45% of overall sales.
have several employees that were former employees at a competitor. And it seems that that 45% range for ammo is where you end up with when you stop.
growing at double digit rates of return.
Okay, I think you covered all of those questions pretty well. There was a lot of questions. There was a lot of questions. There was a lot of questions. Fewer questions than my next question, but I guess if we can just touch a little bit more on, it sounds like you're putting the dealers first with a 12-gauge allocation at least.
Maybe you can just speak a little more about production plans when will the pump action answer be introduced. And then also with the new Latin American facility, the factory in Argentina, how much of your production do you expect to move there? And also does that include the shotgun rounds in Argentina?
That was a lot of questions. Yeah, the shotgun round, the plastic pieces that make up the shotgun round are going to be made at one factory. But each factory, the US, South America, the Argentinian factory and South Africa will each put in.
regulation and taxation and yeah, it's easier for us to ship when it's just plastic pieces and not ammo. I want to weigh in on this question because the question implies kind of a misunderstanding about what we're doing in our Latin American joint venture. You asked how much a production will be moved there. The reason for the Latin American joint venture
is not to move production there. It is not to take advantage of a lower cost production location. It is to take advantage of the two giant South American markets in Argentina and Brazil. Not so much to take advantage of, but to get access to them.
local content manufacturing within the tariff boundaries of Merkel's sewer which has a 20% tariff surrounding those countries.
So we're able now to sell our products into those markets at a profit.
and pay that 20% tariff. But by moving in there and putting production there, we're able to get all of that profit margin for the investors and have direct access to those markets. So it's really moving inside the castle walls is what we're doing.
I think that's a very good point. In fact, what drove this home was the last shipment that we sent to Argentina. We ended up having to pay $37 a launcher in freight and another $38 a launcher in duty.
So we had $75 in freight and duty. The bill of materials for that launcher is $82. So basically by moving inside the mode inside Mercassort, the bill of materials is essentially free because we're getting rid of the very expensive freight and duty.
is you put your production there.
Okay, good. That's really helpful to understand that. I'll let somebody else jump in since I've asked you too many questions already.
Okay, good. That's that's really helpful to understand that. I'll let somebody else jump in. I've asked you too many questions already. Thank you, Jeff.
Our next question comes from the line of Ryan Rackley with Raymond James. So you can proceed with your question.
Hey guys, thanks for taking my question. Actually, I've started to do this, but I have a couple more on the 12 gauge round.
It's really interesting to us. I just, I wanted to clarify, so you're seeing demand across all of your dealers or is it concentrated just within a few? How's that spread across your customer base?
It's been pretty universal. Obviously we've got some very large dealers that are taking thousands of boxes, tens of thousands of rounds, but we've got a lot of dealers that are taking 10 boxes, 100 rounds. So it's pretty universal. I think that the dealers like us are...
relatively easy market to reach shotgun owners. There are very specific magazines for us to advertise in. This product is being written up by a lot of various magazines lauded by places like Police One and the personal defense world.
So we should see what the consumer demand is. But frankly, we need to get it on the shelves first. And we felt that dealers were important to this because we don't actually know what percentage of our...
current BERNA customers own a shotgun. My guess is it's well under 50%. I mean, it may be only 10% that actually own a shotgun. And that's the reason they're buying a BERNA. By going after these customers through the brick and mortar dealer base that we have.
we're doing two things. One, as I said, I mean, we see this as potentially being, you know, a several hundred million dollar market in and of itself, but
Just as importantly, we are going to get people to now come to our website. So a guy that has a shotgun and may buy a box of non-lethal or less lethal ammo for it, will then see, oh look, they've got a burn of shield for my elementary school-aged child.
and maybe my wife would like this Bernadette or Bernalee. So we're hoping that this is a very inexpensive way to get them into the Bernadette ecosystem. So right now the most important thing is just to get these into the market and as widely disseminated as possible. And that was the reason we chose the brick and mortar route.
I think that this also, you know, it also may give us access to more dealers that we might not already have because you've got a gun dealer who's selling 12-gauge shotgun ammunition. He might not have been interested in the beginning in a CO2 launcher, but now he is interested in this product. So it expands our relationships as well with the...
But we don't know what the overall demand will be, we don't know what the dealer sell-through will be, we're at very early stages.
Are you seeing any interest from dealers that don't sell traditional AMO?
Yes.
Yes.
And frankly, we're also seeing interest from dealers that are not selling our burnout. So there's been a number of dealers that we've spoken to that we've been unable to get our foot in the door that you know we've made several presentations who have now reached out to us and said that we'd like to start with the 12 gauge and then we'll see how it goes from there.
Okay. Alright, that's great. So yeah, just last one on the 12 gauge.
The pump launcher for the fin tail projectile just want to clarify that that won't be considered I know your fin tail projectile can be shot out of fire arm, but your pump launcher will not be a firearm
Correct. So, no, interestingly the fin tail projectile was originally developed to be fired out of this pump action launcher. So they were sort of developed in tandem.
And we came up with the idea of putting that little projectile in a 12 gauge casing. And the reason for that is the pump-action launcher is going to be a $1000 launcher. So, you know, while there is a market for us, it's not a market in the millions. There aren't millions of people that are going to buy a $1000 launcher.
launcher, and frankly it is very, very far down the road. We have working prototypes of that currently. It's an amazing technological tour de force, but we don't think it will have anywhere near the commercial impact that putting that same projectile in a 12-gauge casing will.
And we started off initially just thinking that we would drop it in an existing 12-gauge casing. That we would buy a casing from Fiocchi or from Hornaday or from one of the big ammo companies. You know, because of the shortage of ammunition, we were unable to get adequate casings from any of these ammo manufacturers, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
they didn't want rounds that could be confused, where somebody thought they had a less lethal round in their shotgun, but in fact had a lethal round. So with the plastic casing, we don't look anything like a normal 12 gauge that has a brass casing. Secondly, we're now in control of our own destiny. We're not limited to, you know, body.
Okay, that's all. Full thanks. So I guess, so jumping to the 23 guide, I know that there's a lot of moving parts of the new products. You know, your Amazon relationship is maturing. How are you thinking about the seasonality of 23 relative to 22? Thank you.
No, we think 22 is pretty indicative of what we should see. Q1 is always soft because it comes on the heels of our big Christmas shopping season in Q4. The summer months are a little slower, but what we saw in 2022 with the constant build I think is probably what we should see in 23. 2020 and 2021 both had an endorsement from Sean Hannity, which made the sales very lumpy and made quarter over quarter, year over year comparisons very difficult. This is the first time in 2023.
that we will be comparing ourselves to a year that did not have an exogenous event. Yeah, I think the overall seasonality we all agree should stay there. The main thing in forecasting that I think is difficult for this year is just figuring out what were the effects of the macroeconomic.
factors that we've seen due to the pandemic and that sort of thing, particularly on the fourth quarter. So it's hard to say, in the past two fourth quarters, what were the effects of what was going on in the macroeconomic environment and how will that affect 23.
Okay, great. Well, that's it for me. I really appreciate the time. Thank you, Ryan. Thanks, Beth. And as a reminder, if anyone has any questions, you may press star 1001 to help keep it to join the question and execute. Thank you, Josh.
for joining us today and for your interest in BRNA. If anyone would like to set up a one-on-one call with either me or David, please reach out to Errol Gurgen at Stonegate. His email is errol at Stonegateinc.com.
and he will make an arrangement for a one-on-one conversation. Once again, thank you very much and we'll be signing off.
In this concludes today's conference and you may discuss your lives at this time. Thank you for your participation.
That.