Q3 2022 American Superconductor Corp Earnings Call
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Good morning, and welcome to the a M. S C third quarter of fiscal year 2022 financial results Conference call.
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I would now like to turn the conference over to John Hi. This is <unk> a L. H a please go ahead.
Thank you Gary Good morning, everyone and thank you are welcome to Americans Dr. Corporations third quarter of physical 20 twenty-two earnings conference call I have John Hiatt.
J Investor Relations M S Gs Investor Relations agency of record.
With us on today's call a gang them again, chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, and John <unk>, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer.
And superconductor issued its earnings release for the third quarter of physical 2022 yesterday after the market closed, but those of you who would I get seen the release of copies available in the investors page of the company's website at Www Dot com.
Or are starting to call I would like to remind you that various remarks that badger may make during today's call about Americans superconductors future expectations, including expectations regarding the company's fourth quarter of fiscal 2022 financial performance.
The prospect constitute forward looking statements for purposes of the Safe Harbor revision under.
Under the private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward looking statements as a result of various important factors, including those set forth and risk factors section of America Superconductors annual report.
Ted K for the year ended March 31, 2022, which the company filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on June 120, 22, and a couple of these other reports filed with the SEC.
These forward looking statements represent management's expectations only adds up today and should not be relied upon as representing management's views as of any subsequent date to today.
While the company anticipates that subsequent events and develop a space cause the company's views changed the company specifically disclaims any obligation to update these forward looking statements.
Also on today's call Magill referred to non-GAAP net loss of non-GAAP financial measures.
The company believes that non-GAAP net loss assess management and investors and comparing the company's performance across reporting periods on a consistent basis by excluding these non-cash nonrecurring or other charges that it does not believe are indicative of its core operating performance.
The reconciliation of GAAP net loss to non-GAAP net loss can be found in the third quarter physical 20 twenty-two earnings press release that the.
Company issued edit furnished CFCC last night on Form 10-K pardon me.
All of American Superconductors press releases and SEC filings can be accessed from the investors page of its website at www MSG Dot com.
I will now turn the caught up with the chairman President and Chief Executive Officer date him again, Daniel Thanks, John and good morning, everyone and thank you for joining us.
I will begin today by providing an update and sharing a few remarks on our business.
John Conceivable then provide is a tale review of our financial results for the third fiscal quarter, which ended December 31, 2022 and.
And we will provide guidance for the fourth fiscal quarter, which will add March 31 2023.
Separately, John will update our operating models and talk about actions. We took that are expected to lower operating expenses.
Following are comments will open up the lines of questions from our analysts.
During our third quarter of fiscal year 2022, we are delivering on our strategic priority of a more diversified business.
Total revenues for the third quarter of fiscal year 2022 came in within our guidance range or third quarter revenue of nearly $24 billion was driven by new energy power system shipments.
Our great segment revenue for the third quarter of fiscal year 2022 accounted for over 85% of the Msc's total revenue the.
The remainder of the revenues came from our wind business.
During our third quarter, we saw a diverse set the product shipments we shipped voltage compensator is capacitor banks harmonic filters Transformers rectifiers bar Optimizers ship protection systems, and electrical control systems.
These products went into renewables and a variety of industrial markets, including semiconductor mining as well as weren't maybe projects.
We ended the third quarter with more than $30 billion in cash and.
And I'm happy to announce that we have met our obligations and the Chicago project the $5 billion of restricted cash further resilient electric grid project in Chicago or.
I expect it to become unrestricted and hit our books during our fourth quarter of this fiscal year 2022.
During our third quarter, we booked $43 million.
New orders.
And grew our backlog to over $110 million.
Our backlog at the end of the third quarter increased by nearly 40% when compared to the same quarter a year ago.
We announced our ship protection system contract with Huntington ankles to be deployed on the San Antonio Class amphibious ship L. P. D 32.
The LPGA 32 contract marks Msc's fifth.
<unk> protection system for the San Antonio Class ship platform.
Over the past several years, we've taken a series of very deliberate actions to diversify our business and grow through our grid business.
Over a four year period, we doubled our business over the same period, we nearly tripled our grid business.
Fiscal year 2022 has been a year of transition for the company.
To a broader product portfolio pricing and cross changes were possible and aligning are fixed cost better with historical revenues.
John Cassava will provide more color on this today.
We have expanded the market's we serve and that has translated into a higher order intake right.
We do not intend to stop here.
We have a lot of work ahead of us, but our longer term priority is to build a sustainable business that is well positioned to not only take advantage and renewables, but also in semiconductor mining of materials as well as in defense.
We believe that this sustainable business is not so far off in the future.
John is going to update our operating models later in the call.
I will provide the deeper review of some of the drivers of our business going forward for now I'll turn the call over to John placebo to review our financial results for the third quarter of fiscal year 2022, and provide guidance for the fourth quarter of fiscal year, 2022, which will end March 31.
2023 job.
Daniel and good morning, everyone.
MSC generated revenues of $23.9 million for the third quarter of fiscal 2022.
The 26.8 million in the year ago quarter.
Alright, Great business unit accounting for 87 per cent of total revenues, while I win business unit and call it a 13%.
Weird business unit revenues decreased by 17% in the third quarter versus the year ago quarter, while I win business unit increased by 76% over the same time period.
Looking at the Pinella more detailed gross margin for the third quarter of fiscal 2022 was two per cent compared to 13% in the year ago quarter.
Gross margin for this quarter was adversely impacted by the continued to drag on logins associated with the required Neil travel backlog.
Additionally, one of our larger projects that Neil trend required additional costs to complete than we had originally planned this required approximately 900000 of additional unanticipated costs in the corner.
We do not anticipate any of these costs reoccurring in queue for that project is now in the final stages of production.
To help provide some quantitative reference as a result of several loss contracts associated with required Neil turned back on which includes the project I just discussed third quarter reported consolidated gross margins have been adversely impacted by approximately 660 basis points.
We believe that Q3 fiscal 2022 will be the peak of the drag from Neofan acquired backlog.
We anticipate Neil train gross margins to improving Q4, and further strengthen into fiscal 2023 as we begin to execute on the new project sold postproduction posted up acquisitions sorry.
Moving onto operating expenses, R&D and SG&A expenses for the third quarter of fiscal 2022 were $9.3 million compared to $9.4 million in the year ago quarter.
Approximately 15% of R&D and SG&A expenses in the third quarter of fiscal 2022 were non-cash.
non-GAAP net loss for the third quarter of fiscal 2022 was $7.7 million or 27 cents per share compared with $4.6 million.17 for sure and the year ago quarter.
Oh no. It wasn't the third quarter of fiscal 2022 was $9.6 million.34 per share.
This compared to a net loss of $4.3 million.16 for sure and the year ago quarter.
Please see a press release issued last night for a reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP results.
We ended the third quarter of fiscal 2022 with $31.4 million in cash cash equivalents unrestricted cash. This compares with 37.4 million on September 30th 2022.
Are operating cash burned in the third quarter of fiscal 2022 was $5.5 million.
They will turn into a financial guidance for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2022.
We expect that our revenues will be in the range of $27 million to $30 million on that losses expected not to exceed $8 million or 28 cents per share.
non-GAAP net loss is expected not to exceed $6 million.21 per share.
We expect operating kind of show it to be a burn a 4 million to $6 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2022.
We expect the and the fourth quarter with greater than $25 million in cash clash equivalents and restricted cash.
Yeah, I'd like to take a few moments to update you on several strategic steps, we have undertaken over the past three days.
Are expected to lower our castle breakeven revenue targets.
Ah revenue product mix has evolved as a result of the two acquisitions.
Was once heavily dependent on the renewable market to a much more diversified revenue stream.
It took some time to integrate both nessie male friends to the point that we have now experienced some operating leverage across the grid segment.
As a result, we have taken several steps.
We're expected to lower both Ah manufacturing and SG&A overhead costs.
These steps range from combining positions, which were redundant across multiple product lines.
Leveraging our engineering and SG&A cost across the entire company.
This has been part enabled us to undertaken organizational realignment and to reduce our workforce across multiple product lines.
We anticipate annualized savings of $5 million, resulting from these actions.
Ah business outlook for the fourth quarter does not contemplate any signs related costs for the reduction in workforce actions, which are expected to be no more than a million dollars.
We expect to experience the full impact of these anticipated savings starting in Q1 FY 2023.
Now let me further elaborate on how this is expected to impact our cash flow breakeven scenarios moving forward.
As we move into the thought of FY 2000, twenty-three, we expect short term cash gross margins, who approached the upper team as.
As we move further into F Y 2023, we see scenarios with cash gross gross margins could reach 20 per cent, if our revenue approaches $30 million.
And we have several scenarios would cast gross margins approach twenty-five percent of revenue approaches $35 million.
These cash gross margin scenarios, a result of actions we have taken over the past year to raise our prices coupled with what we believe is stabilized raw material costs.
We will continue to be vigilant and both on pricing models and proactive to any changes in raw material costs as we move into F y 2023.
Moving along to our operating expense models, we anticipate our cash operating expenses will be approximately $9 million a quarter. Once the full extent of a recent cost reduction steps are realized.
When you combine the anticipated gross margin improvement with our updated operating expense profile, we see revenue breakeven scenarios and the $35 million quarterly range.
These scenarios are based on current assumptions, which are subject to change <unk>.
Please note. This is not financial guidance. This has meant more to help our shareholders understand our current forecasts some operating model.
We will continue to provide our current quarter.
Waterleaf financial guidance, when we announced our earnings for the private water.
With that I'll turn the call back over to Daniel.
John .
We have macro trends in the market that are starting to drive our business.
Our backlog is over $110 million.
And our pipeline of prospective orders reflects our growing and diversified company.
We have doubled our new energy power systems order intake break.
These macro trends are driven by climate and environmental policies, which raised a man or a new energy power systems.
More specifically are diversified pipeline of orders come from investments in renewables and industrial markets such as semiconductors.
And mining metals and materials.
Our company has transition from almost a pure play in wind.
To a company that's focusing on grid resiliency.
We now have multiple place at multiple points and the power infrastructure.
Voltage compensator as capacitors harmonic filters transformers rectifiers can power the energy intensive factories of the future without the risk of costly power interruptions.
Today, our business is about a quarter based upon renewable energy.
We grow into business, that's supporting power management at the substation level for the utility as well as supporting customers in the semiconductor industry.
We have a variety of applications for industrial processes, and manufacturing like mining metals extraction mental processing and chemical plants.
The company is moving in a direction, where expects to provide more new energy power systems for more industrial uses.
More than half of our new energy power systems orders during the third quarter of fiscal 2022.
Come from industrial markets.
One fourth is from renewables.
In the past, we've talked about sales leverage with our acquisitions for example.
If we get a 5 million dollar order or D bar and semi conductor.
We have the ability to be a nap seat to get an additional 20% or $1 million of this case of additional revenue.
At similar margin of profit.
When we look at the sales leverage in the mining and materials space. If we get a 1 million dollar order from a mining project for Nancy.
We have the ability to get another $5 billion.
From the leverage of Neil Tramps product line.
This is.
Five times expansion of revenues.
I State. The example, with Dempsey first followed by Neil Tran because that was the order in which we acquired the two companies and part of what drove us to like the potential sales leverage.
Both companies.
You can reverse the example, and see similar potential leverage for mining when comparing to semiconductor projects for a mining and materials project that Neil traveling generates a $5 million, we're able to expand those revenues by another $1 million from Pepsi.
We are working to make those also be yet similar margin levels. We believe that we're almost through that.
We have a handful of Neil Tran projects, we need to deliver.
On in our fourth quarter of fiscal 2022.
Which is part of the guidance.
I have been asked about potential operating leverage and synergies between the operations that were acquired and the historical distance.
My answer has been no up until now.
The team has worked diligently on driving operational leverage between the business lives.
We are seeing that now coming to fruition due in part to this leverage during the fourth quarter, we were able to trim, what we expect to be approximately $5 million from our annual operational expenses beginning in fiscal 2023.
This is expected to help us get better financial leverage from the business. We believe that this helps put us on a better foot forward.
Financially.
We discussed the impact of the neoprene backlog on our financials.
This is something we have largely work through it.
And I want to reassure you that going forward, we feel very confident about prospective margins.
With that I'll move on to our ship protection systems.
In an age of increasing global tensions.
We're helping to move U S Navy ships into the future by installing protection systems that help them stay hidden from our enemies threats.
Our ship protection systems are Sps provides a solution that masks the ship from harm's way when an operation lifestyle.
We announced our fifth ship protection system contract for L. P. D 32.
Which has become the baseline design for the San Antonio Class and maybe a ship platform right. Now we are installing our first ship protection system on the U S S Fort Lauderdale.
This is something the navy and our shipyard partner are monitoring closely.
We are preparing deliver on our second shift contract the U S is Harrisburg.
We currently have orders for the U S is Harrisburg B U S is Pittsburgh the U S S, Richard but cool and the recently at a L. P. G 32.
S. B S contributed nearly 10% of revenues in the third quarter of fiscal 2022, and that's been a very consistent source of grid revenue for several quarters.
Our team is focused on continuing to expand our ship protection systems and other than vessels, while we install our initial systems.
As I have mentioned in the past.
We are working on developing additional content that could be inserted in a future fleet.
We hope to have some news very soon on our progress here.
On our resilient electric grid or Reg system in Chicago, It continues to perform very well and.
In fact, we received notification from the utility that's the system map specified performance requirements and as a result, we expect to see the return of a 5 billion dollar bond, which was held until the Reg system pass. This important accomplishment. The performance bond was structured as a letter of credit this letter.
It is expected to hit our books during the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2022.
We continue to see strong desire from this utility as well as others to further deploy rag into the power grid.
It is clear at least to us that Reg offers that capability in functionality to solve some of the nation's current critical grid infrastructure problems right now.
This initial project is provide a tremendous learning and.
And it is clear to me that utilities are thinking about Reg as a viable product.
Turning to wind we are supporting IMAX with the initial prototype of a three megawatt class wind turbine.
And do something with the initial waiting for a 5.5 megawatt wind turbines.
During the third quarter of fiscal 2022, we shipped two megawatt electrical control systems to our partner in India IMAX wind.
You can see that I Knox was just over 10%.
All of our revenues this quarter.
The design certificate of the three megawatt class wind turbine prototype for the Indian market is complete.
We are now working on the type certification and hopefully will report back to you soon on our progress type certification means that the three megawatt class wind turbine will be able to connect to the power grid.
It's worth noting that towards the end of 2022.
<unk> did announce the completion of a capital raise.
About 15 billion rupee.
Which translates into something on the order of about $180 billion.
We believe I knox's closer to expanding its business with the three megawatt class wind turbine this calendar year.
Which we expect will translate into an expanded order book for us.
We hope to be.
Sporting progress.
In the near future.
To conclude.
We have built a diversified business that we believe is well positioned to capitalize on future investments in renewables future investments semiconductors future investments and electric vehicles.
And the mining of the materials that go into these three markets.
As well as the defense business.
We are driven by the opportunities that climate change presented to us as well as the electrification of transportation.
Our products provide support to the grid.
The power consumption point of the electric vehicle.
As well as the operations that provide the metals and materials used to build the vehicles.
We evolved from being a very concentrated business.
With both customer and market concentration.
A more diverse business all at the same time growing revenues.
We are focused on improving the financial performance of the business.
Continuing to deliver a diversified business and making progress towards our longer term priority of building a sustainable business.
I think the team has done a terrific job of achieving this.
We understand the broader geopolitical environment is mixed with uncertainty surrounding the supply chain constraints inflation recession.
Stock market volatility.
When we look at our prospects are sales pipeline it appears to be strengthening.
[noise] weakening.
Orders are becoming larger.
Smaller.
The types of markets, we serve are becoming more diverse less concentrated.
Somebody I looked at the near term say the next year or so I think our prospects are great.
As we look ahead into the fiscal year 2023, I am optimistic that are recently announced backlog will result in a more diversified and financially stronger MSC.
You can see from the backlog and Johns commentary on our operating models that we are nearly there.
We believe that are differentiated solutions and set of capabilities are a significant advantage that will allow us to serve our customers even more efficiently.
I want to thank our team for their hard work and support and I look forward to reporting back to you at the completion of or for physical border in fiscal year end of 2022.
Gary.
Now I'll take questions from our analysts.
We will now begin the question and answer session.
To ask a question you May press Star then one on your telephone keypad.
If you're using a speaker phone please pick up your handset before pressing the keys to.
To withdraw your question. Please press Star then too at.
At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster.
Our first question comes from Eric Stein with Craig Hallum. Please go ahead.
Hi, Daniel again.
They are good.
Good morning.
Maybe just on the Reg milestone I, if you're able to maybe some details on exactly what that milestone is and you know potential read through to next steps.
You know I recently actually yesterday saw that Chicagoans com, Ed announced a pretty wide ranging agreement included a lot of energy initiatives and grit investments. So curious you know maybe your confidence level or what type of visibility you might get after this milestone into the next steps.
Yeah, I mean to be bought my confidence is very very high I think you know the good news about rag is and we.
We've designed the business in a way financially the rags not necessary to be you know.
Our margin projections and kind of the near term financial aspects of the business.
But looking at the longer term. This is a huge milestone for the company. It means the system's performed as advertised it means that.
The utility has been able to work with with their constituents, specifically regulators and.
All the local politics that they have to deal with where this is now a permanent part of the great. It has been accepted.
The number of people that they brought their that worked for the utility.
The number of people that they've brought their their work for other utilities has been staggering.
Their efforts all along had been to look at this first project as a stepping stone to a future with superconductivity.
Everything that we see everything that we're told everything we've been shown leads us to believe that there's a very bright future for Reg and many many cities in the country. This is a huge milestone for the company I think the hardest challenge, though is to predict or handicap.
Over time, how will this progress utilities are notoriously slow.
You know when negotiating contracts that we do today for any of our other products take a longer time than many there'll be other markets that we serve.
But I think when we look back about embarking on to this product right.
We really have met a tremendous milestone we have a system. That's in the grid. That's been accepted by the utility and expected and accepted by you know all of their constituencies, which I think is huge for the product that means we really have a product that you can go and sell going forward.
[noise] got it and I can appreciate the the lack of timing visibility, but if you had the handicap. It I mean do you think especially given all of the parties that have come in and looked at this deployment I mean do you think that that second Chicago project is next or would you expect.
You've talked about diversity, a diversity of customer would you expect it to potentially be another utility.
I really can't handicapped up the other than saying, we're working in parallel with multiple cities right now on projects that solved haole problems.
Right now and.
And we see Rag is really the only solution if they want to solve these in the near term.
Got it okay.
Maybe last one for me just I appreciate the commentary on the breakeven, giving your backlog pipeline and you know the potential for quicker turned business I mean, when you think about that breakeven number you think that you can get there.
On the grid momentum alone you know with the wind kind of in its current state or you know when you get there do you anticipate that wind would be a meaningful part of the dance well.
Yeah, I think that's probably the question of the day error.
[noise] nailed it I think we are both passed open to us I think.
See if there's a rapid rebounded when we get there much faster meaning that.
Rebound comes were really almost there with the backlog today right. So incrementally growing the new energy part of the business is happening you know if we can continue at the current rate we've been pumping those waters.
Basically there.
We have to deliver on it and we have to deliver it on time and on cost.
And we've been able to successfully do that throughout the business that we have improved Neil Tran pretty significantly quarter on quarter with our operating efficiency capability.
So you know what.
I think you know when I look at this I see the backlog and I see the comments John made about where the operating leverage comes from and I think we already have the backbone to get there I think time will be the the towel and I think certainly additional when would make it easier it might make it faster.
But it it today as we sit here I feel better than I ever have that we're now at the point, where we're talking about potentially achieving these milestones not in the next year or two or three but in the next quarters or a year or so so.
We have a much brighter future right in front of us right now.
Okay. Thank you.
The next question is from calling rush with Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.
Thanks, So much guys can you talk a little bit about the the raw material impact on your margins and and what you're seeing in terms of the cadence some of those lower raw materials starting to flow through your through your counseling.
Yeah, I think Collins.
The challenge for the business has is the rate at which we take orders and deliver them. So you know for some products were out we're booking orders as early as six months, maybe nine months for many of the products were out your plus at this point.
You know and that compared to where the business was a coupla years ago, certainly has extended by at least a quarter or more for many of the product lines.
And that's a bit of the kind of constipation of the backlog Ah if I use that term for please don't write that but I don't have a better language that we're kind of stuck with this backlog, we're trying to get it out.
And the and the good news is as we've price to new orders of new backlog.
As John said that those are whereas we bottled up going for it it certainly margins that we we have hope for an expected.
Where material prices specifically in Jon's commentary, we see a stabilization of those costs.
Which means now as we priced in new orders. It's just the time it takes for when we received that order to when we deliver on it and we're kind of been that cadence now in the coming quarters.
Okay and that's that's helpful. I may ask some questions later, but.
Next I'm just curious about the the bid activity you know obviously, there's a lot that's happened from regulatory perspective around capacity building.
<unk>, you know and and so I'd love to get a better sense of how.
How much sales activity, there is and what your conversion rate.
Is on on what you've seen so far you know I guess called over the last six to 12 months.
Yeah, I think the bid activity has exploded I think the number of projects that we've looked at <unk>.
Certainly is that the the highest point since since I can remember.
So the prospects for the for the business are greater than they've been.
Lee in the past years.
When we look at the order intake, we've we've been announced today, we close more than $40 million of orders basketball.
When we look at the run rate of what we're just doing the new energy over the past three quarters, it's about $30 billion just for new energy right. So then you gotta add in what we're doing with the Navy you Gotta add in what we're doing with wins as well.
Is there any other commentary you Wanna talk about yeah.
Does that help color.
Yeah, I'm, just curious about the wind right and any delta around that.
Well the hard part we have with the wind right as most projects down this is what we've done.
You know, even with the old tree and and to some extent with Nancy we try never to compete directly.
So the way we do it it's a very early decision if we're gonna win or not and then it depends upon how the project goes for it as we make things smaller and less complex.
And if we're able to design that in with the engineering company, which is usually the engineering procurement construction company.
Then we.
We really eliminate a lot of competition I won't say, all but almost all.
So were we.
Today in this version of the business, we're really never in the in the in the decision making by purchasing an engineer has made a design that requires are smaller footprint, which means that it's hard to go out and get an altered so when we look at direct project win rate.
It is extremely all right, but to be transparent there's a lot of work that happens in the quarters before even getting the order. We're we're trying to get designed it on the print be it for a ship prefer a substation.
It really those are the the two that were focused on and the same techniques. We use for the ship we used for the substation, which is how do we make it smaller more and more energy dense how do we have more feature function than what the alternatives are and that's true across to everything that we do.
That's incredible thanks, so much guys.
Oh and there are two two indicators, we're looking at is pipeline growth which is.
Highlighted and we do you know, especially for last year as we had to address our prices based on the raw material inputs has gone up.
We have been carefully watching our customers and making sure that we remain competitive in you know.
Across the board and the businesses, there's no evidence to suggest a at the bids were doing are making us uncompetitive. There's isolated pockets were watching and we're concerned about whether it is a more competitive landscape to it and.
As of now there's no and that's actually going to happen were much more focused on March and going for it right and everything. So that's the thing that people need here is we're trying to grow the business, but we're trying to expand margins as well and that means that and that's why I think my colleagues get that the question as well now your running up to a competitive pressure with this current.
Pricing, we haven't seen it for the business that we Wanna take and that's really I think the key point, we Wanna make today.
I appreciate the details guys.
Sure.
The next question is from Justin Claire with Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead.
Yeah, Hi, thanks for taking our questions.
Hey, Hey.
Hey, Hey, Daniel So I guess the first one here the $5 million of annual savings that you expect from cost reduction actions. Just wondering if you could talk through how much of that is expected to impact your cost of goods sold versus opex and and maybe what the impact too you know either R&D or SG&A.
Might be.
I can talk about the impact on do you Wanna take the financial part of it yeah. So.
Addressing the vast majority of this is going to be in Opex, we didn't break it down publicly about what I will say is on a scale.
Call. It you know north of 75 per cent will be opex related versus you know less than 25% will be Cox.
I think from a capability standpoint.
Reiterate paraphrase something I said earlier as we were expecting.
More content per ship.
From the Navy.
Which means that when that happens that means we've met certain development milestones which means.
Unless we have something else to develop.
Those are not cost that we need to continue to carry.
I think when we look at the substation type products.
We're at a point now I think we've learned a lot about the sales leverage I think we're now going to demonstrate some operating leverage particularly in the back office, we need the continued to digest, what we have which means the need to go to develop something over the next quarter's is very limited so but going for it we still have the capability to be able to service our customers.
We still have the capability to be able to make changes or make adjustments.
And we still have the capability to develop some new technology, which could translate into future products, but right now on our roadmap really is we have to focus on the financial leverage that the remedy will bring in the near term focus for the team and then it allows us to take.
Maybe a very different look at our operating expenses.
Gotcha, Okay. Thanks, Thanks for the <unk>.
Color there Ah I guess, then just on the gross margin here. So it looks like gross margins are expected to improve in queue for Ah. It's wondering is is a high single digit number for the gross margin reasonable there and then is the improvement primarily due to the Neil trend kind of.
Lower margin backlog rolling off or are there other factors like a change in the product mixer, whereas Q for where you're going to start to see some of these pricing actions that you've taken you know benefit the margin.
Sure. So I'll have a second question. The first question, we don't gross margin Ah. So I want to be careful not to give too much clarity on that but what I will tell you as the gross margin improvement in queue for will be driven by all three of those right. We said Neil train gross margins are kind of improve.
You know, we do have a healthy expectation of d'ivoire revenue in the fourth quarter. So that's inherently gonna help the mix.
And then as we continue to ship backlog you know in particular, so for you know.
The next the product line has the quickest Ah lead times and so the pricing that we've been able to implement <unk> will flow through the piano, but quick us and so you're going to see it in all all three areas, you're gonna see pricing improve the margin.
Mix them proved the margin and you're going to see the impact of Neil Jam improve the margin.
And that's not just isolated cute boy, that's really what we're talking about is that with an throughout two F y 2023.
Gotcha, Okay, and then I guess, it's lastly here I I wanted to understand that that kind of cash flow breakeven scenario and the model you are thinking about I I think I heard that it was $35 million in revenue with gross margins near 20%, but correct me if I'm wrong, so that'd be about 7 million.
Gross profit and then cash Opex of say 7 million, we'd get you to a breakeven is.
Is that the right way to think about it or or are there different well it's.
I think he I think he might've misheard that part of the script. So what I said was we see scenarios, where it gross margin can approach twenty-five per cent and we see our operating expenses models closer to 9 million. So the breakeven is assuming they twenty-five percent gross profit with 9 million of cash on books.
Gotcha, Okay. Thanks for the clarification I'll pass it on.
Yeah.
Again, if you have a question. Please press Star then one.
The next question is from chip more with E. F. Hutton. Please go ahead.
Good morning, he gambled done.
How're you doing.
Great.
What is the follow up on the sales leverage potential <unk>.
Details about like that again.
I guess, just curious on that cross selling or how does that progress that you know versus expectations.
Better than you expected.
And I'm just looking forward.
Yeah, I think that's exactly what we're trying to get at is really set an expectation. We did this that we thought that these things would happen now we're seeing them right and we're seeing them specifically in semiconductor and we're so.
And specifically in this new space for us the the metals mining and materials space.
You know the good news is when we look at semi which is really a combination of you are in the offerings that we inherit from <unk>.
You know those today are in similar margin, which is great. That's what we had expected.
When we look at the mining in the metal of material space, which is the example, we've been using for Neil Tran, That's a combination of neptunium, Neil Tran and I tried to do it both ways, depending upon how people think about it.
Because as we looked at it.
And the and the prepared remarks I looked at it as we looked at it as a additional expansion of what we already have begun with Dempsey that we saw Neil Tran kind of continuing on that he was even greater let's say all right, but then I brought it back to just kind of compare directly those two markets and just say you know if we get $5 million of one will get another 20 per cent.
But other than.
And we said all these things when we did the deals.
And now we have been examples and it's not one or two it's been quite a few of them in the backlog.
The challenge as I pointed out in the challenge that everybody you know obviously see a year is how.
How do we have the backlog that we have on the books for the Altria and how do we digest that process and move on to better priced higher margin.
A backlog and that's really why we're confident today and updating operatic models talking about breakeven. These are things we have not done.
In <unk>.
Coupla years, right, maybe three years.
We want people to understand that John and I are highly confident based upon our backlog and based upon how we're usually able to deliver product.
Race that if those things can both happened, we're not really far away.
That's a great color great to hear Daniel.
<unk> another question would that strong backlog the inventory position.
He needs to build you know any.
When.
When you think about working capital over the next you know.
12 months or so.
Yeah. So the inventory has built over the last year Soviet Stooges tobacco growth and some of it has been timonism shipments, we do have a fair amount of shipments going out in the bar this quarter, where we had some inventory build up to that so the expectation is we should leave that project auto weapons and we should.
To see that on the working capital strain.
We've.
This quartering assumes we have some working capital. So the guidance I gave you are <unk> you know if you look we got into non-GAAP up six you know there's about a million an episode depreciation.
So in theory, we'd be closer to four and a half I gave a pretty wide range because of working capital that could impact that up to 6 million or so but moving forward after that I see working capital.
Probably in Q1, if it's negative in Q4, it's probably gonna be positive in Q1.
And it will let up to zero, so I expect working capital to be closer to flat and have no impact just because of the way our milestones structure is.
Q boring to one we may have a little bit of swing from one part of the other but that's already incorporated into the guidance.
Yeah, that's perfect.
And there might be that deep and larger d'ivoire project to push that last quarter, you still expect that to get.
In the current quarter.
That project is included and organize themselves.
Perfect Alright, thanks very much.
This concludes our question and answer session I would like to turn the conference back over to Daniel began for any closing remarks.
Thanks, Gary I, just want to wrap up by saying that.
We're a much broader and more vibrant company today than we were just a few years ago.
We've been able to add new pieces of new markets.
We've been able to manage pricing.
We've positioned ourselves to grow.
Hoping to see that start to pay off as early as next fiscal year.
We think there's a series of Tailwinds driven by climate change that are here to stay.
And are pushing the business forward.
As I mentioned earlier, our pipelines is growing and becoming more diverse our order book has gone from delivering at a rate of $20 million, a new energy power systems orders per quarter. So now delivering at a rate of over $30 million for the past three quarters.
This is just for the new energy power systems.
So our ability to convert that potential pipeline into actual orders.
Really start starting to happen.
I think it felt great prospects for us.
As we look at 2023.
And we're even looking at quoting products or delivery already in 2024.
So when you think the next years.
Look very bright for the company.
Thanks, everybody.
The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation you may now disconnect.
[music].
[music].
Good morning, and welcome to the a M. S C third quarter fiscal year 2022 financial results Conference call.
All participants will be in listen only mode.
Should you need assistance. Please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero.
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To withdraw your question. Please press Star then two please.
Please note this event is being recorded.
I would now like to turn the conference over to John House Horn of L. H a please go ahead.
Thank you Gary Good morning, everyone and thank you and welcome to American Superconductor Corporation's third quarter of fiscal 2022 earnings Conference call I am John Heilshorn of <unk> Investor Relations <unk> Investor Relations agency of record.
With us on todays call are Daniel Mcgann, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, and John Kosiba, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer.
American Superconductor issued its earnings release for the third quarter of fiscal 2022 yesterday after market closed for those of you who have not yet seen the release a copy is available in the investors page of the company's website at Ww Dot <unk> Dot com.
Starting the call I would like to remind you that various remarks that management may make during today's call about American superconductors future expectations, including expectations regarding the company's fourth quarter of fiscal 2022 financial performance plans and prospects constitute forward looking statements for purposes of the safe Harbor provision.
Under the private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1095.
Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward looking statements as a result of various important factors, including those set forth in risk factors section of American Superconductors annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended March 31, 2020 to which the company filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on June one.
2022, and the company's other reports filed with the SEC.
These forward looking statements represent management's expectations only as of today and should not be relied upon as representing management's views as of any subsequent date to today.
While the company anticipates that subsequent events and developments may cause the Companys view to change the company specifically disclaims any obligation to update these forward looking statements.
So on today's call management will refer to non-GAAP net loss, a non-GAAP financial measure.
The company believes that non-GAAP net loss assist management and investors and comparing the company's performance across reporting periods on a consistent basis by excluding these noncash nonrecurring or other charges that it does not believe are indicative of its core operating performance.
The reconciliation of GAAP net loss to non-GAAP net loss can be found in the third quarter of fiscal 2020 earnings press release that the company issued and furnished to the SEC last night on form 10 eight.
<unk> 8-K pardon me all of American Superconductors press releases and SEC filings can be accessed from the investors page of its website at Ww Dot <unk> Dot com.
With that I will now turn the call over to Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Diane Mcgann, Daniel Thanks, John and good morning, everyone and thank you for joining us I.
I will begin today by providing an update and sharing a few remarks on our business.
John could favorable then provide a detailed review of our financial results for the third fiscal quarter, which ended December 31, 2022 and.
And we will provide guidance for the fourth fiscal quarter, which will end March 31 2023.
Separately, John will update our operating models and talk about actions. We took that are expected to lower operating expenses.
Following our comments, we will open up the line to questions from our analysts.
During our third quarter of fiscal year 2022, we are delivering on our strategic priority of <unk>.
More diversified business.
Total revenues for the third quarter of fiscal year 2022 came in within our guidance range, our third quarter revenue of nearly $24 million was driven by new energy power system shipments.
Our grid segment revenue for the third quarter of fiscal year 2022 accounted for over 85% of <unk> total revenue the remainder of the revenues came from our wind business.
During our third quarter, we saw a diverse set of product shipments, we shipped voltage compensator capacitor banks harmonic filters transformers rectifiers, both of our optimizer <unk> ship protection systems and electrical control systems.
These products went into renewables and a variety of industrial markets, including semiconductor mining as well as where it may be projects.
We ended the third quarter with more than $30 million in cash.
And I'm happy to announce that we have met our obligations and the Chicago project, the $5 billion of restricted cash for the resilient electric grid project in Chicago.
I expect it to become unrestricted and hit our books during our fourth quarter of this fiscal year 2022.
During our third quarter, we booked $43 million.
New orders.
And grew our backlog to over $110 million.
Our backlog at the end of the third quarter increased by nearly 40% when compared to the same quarter a year ago.
We announced our ship protection system contract with Huntington Ingalls can be deployed on the San Antonio class in February a ship our PD 32.
The <unk> 32 contract marks <unk> fifth.
<unk> protection system for the San Antonio Class ship platform.
Over the past several years, we've taken a series of very deliberate actions to diversify our business and grow through our grid business.
Over a four year period, we doubled our business over the same period, we nearly tripled our grid business.
Fiscal year 2022 has been a year of transition for the company.
To a broader product portfolio price again cross changes, where possible and aligning our fixed cost better with historical revenues.
John Kosiba will provide more color on this today.
We've expanded the markets, we serve and that has translated into a higher order intake rate, we do not intend to stop here.
We have a lot of work ahead of us, but our longer term priority is to build a sustainable business that is well positioned to not only take advantage in renewables, but also in semiconductor mining and materials as well.
Defense.
We believe that this sustainable business is not so far off in the future.
John is going to update our operating models later in the call.
I will provide a deeper review of some of the drivers of our business going forward for now I will turn the call over to John placebo to review our financial results for the third quarter of fiscal year 2022, and provide guidance for the fourth quarter of fiscal year, 2022, which will end March 31 two.
'twenty three John Thanks.
Thanks, Daniel and good morning, everyone.
<unk> generated revenues of $23 9 million for the third quarter of fiscal 2022.
<unk> to $26 8 million in the year ago quarter.
Our grid business unit accounted for 87% of total revenues, while our wind business unit accounted for 13%.
Grid business unit revenues decreased by 17% in the third quarter versus the year ago quarter, while our wind business unit increased by 76% over the same time period.
Looking at the P&L in more detail gross margin for the third quarter of fiscal 2022 was 2% compared to 13% in the year ago quarter.
Gross margin for this quarter was adversely impacted by the continued drag on margins associated with the acquired Neil trend backlog. Additionally.
Additionally, one of our larger projects that Neil trend required additional cost to complete than we had originally planned this required approximately 900000 of additional unanticipated costs in the quarter.
We do not anticipate any of these costs reoccurring in Q4 as that project is now in the final stages of production.
To help provide some quantitative reference as a result of several loss contracts associated with the acquired <unk> backlog, which includes the project I just discussed our third quarter reported consolidated gross margins have been adversely impacted by approximately 660 basis points.
We believe that Q3 fiscal 2022 will be the peak of the drag from Neogen acquired backlog.
We anticipate <unk> gross margins to improve in Q4 and further strengthen into fiscal 2023 as we begin to execute on the new projects sold post production post acquisition sorry.
Moving on to operating expenses, R&D and SG&A expenses for the third quarter of fiscal 2022 were $9 3 million compared to $9 4 million in the year ago quarter.
Approximately 15% of R&D and SG&A expenses in the third quarter of fiscal 2022 were noncash.
Our non-GAAP net loss for the third quarter of fiscal 2022 was $7 7 million or <unk> 27 per share compared with $4 6 million or <unk> 17 per share in the year ago quarter.
Our net loss in the third quarter of fiscal 2022 was $9 6 million or <unk> 34 per share.
This compares to a net loss of $4 3 million or <unk> 16 per share in the year ago quarter.
Please see our press release issued last night for a reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP results.
We ended the third quarter of fiscal 2022 was $31 4 million in cash cash equivalents and restricted cash. This compares with $37 4 million on September 32022.
Our operating cash burn in the third quarter of fiscal 2022 was $5 5 million.
Now turning to our financial guidance for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2022, we expect that our revenues will be in the range of 27% to 30 million on net loss is expected not to exceed $8 million or 28 per share on.
Our non-GAAP net loss is expected not to exceed $6 million or 21 per share.
We expect operating cash flow to be a burn of 4 million to $6 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2022.
We expect to end the fourth quarter with greater than $25 million in cash cash equivalents and restricted cash.
Sure.
Now I'd like to take a few moments to update you on several strategic steps we have undertaken over the past 30 days that are expected to lower our cash flow breakeven revenue targets.
Our revenue product mix has evolved as a result of the two acquisitions from what was once heavily dependent on the renewable market to a much more diversified revenue stream.
It took some time to integrate both <unk> and Niall trend to the point that we have now experienced some operating leverage across the grid segment.
As a result, we have taken several steps that are expected to lower both our manufacturing and SG&A overhead costs.
These steps range from combining positions, which were redundant across multiple product lines to leveraging our engineering and SG&A costs across the entire company.
This has in part enabled us to undertake an organizational realignment and to reduce our workforce across multiple product lines.
We anticipate annualized savings of $5 million, resulting from these actions.
Our business outlook for the fourth quarter does not contemplate any severance related costs for the reduction in workforce actions, which are expected to be no more than $1 million.
We expect to experience the full impact of these anticipated savings starting in Q1 FY 2023.
Now let me further elaborate on how this is expected to impact our cash flow breakeven scenarios moving forward.
As we move into the start of FY 2023, we expect short term cash gross margins to approach the upper teens.
As we move further into FY 2023, we see scenarios, where cash growth gross margins could reach 20%, if our revenue approaching $30 million.
And we have several scenarios, where cash gross margins approach, 25% if revenue approaching $35 million.
These cash gross margin scenarios are result of actions, we have taken over the past year to raise our prices coupled with what we believe is stabilized raw material costs.
We will continue to be vigilant in both our pricing models and proactive to any changes in raw material costs as we move into FY 2023.
Moving along to our operating expense models, we anticipate our cash operating expenses will be approximately $9 million a quarter. Once the full extent of our recent cost reduction steps are realized.
When you combine the anticipated gross margin improvement with our updated operating expense profile, we see revenue breakeven scenarios in the $35 million quarterly range.
These scenarios are based on current assumptions, which are subject to change.
Please note. This is not financial guidance. This has meant more to help our shareholders understand our current forecast and operating model.
We will continue to provide our current quarter.
Quarterly financial guidance, when we announce our earnings for the prior quarter.
With that I'll turn the call back over to Daniel.
Thanks, Jeff.
We have macro trends in the market that are starting to drive our business our backlog is over $110 million.
And our pipeline of prospective orders reflects our growing and diversified company.
We have doubled our new energy power systems order intake rate.
These macro trends are driven by climate and environmental policies, which raised demand for our new energy power systems.
More specifically, our diversified pipeline of orders come from investments in renewables and industrial markets such as semiconductors.
And mining metals and materials, our company has transitioned from almost a pure play in wind to a company that's focusing on grid resiliency.
We now have multiple plays at multiple points in the power infrastructure.
Our voltage compensated capacitors harmonic filters transformers, and rectifiers compound or the energy intensive factories of the future without the risk of costly power interruptions.
Today, our business is about a quarter based upon renewable energy.
We are growing the business, that's supporting power management at the substation level for the utility as well as supporting customers in the semiconductor industry.
We have a variety of applications for industrial processes, and manufacturing like mining metals extraction metal processing and chemical plants.
The company is moving in a direction, where expects to provide more new energy power systems for more industrial uses.
More than half of our new energy power systems orders during the third quarter of fiscal 2022 comp from industrial markets.
<unk> is from renewables.
In the past, we've talked about sales leverage with our acquisitions for example.
If we get a $5 million order for D var and semiconductor.
We have the ability via NFC to get an additional 20% or $1 million of this case of additional revenue at similar margins and profit.
When we look at the sales leverage in the mining and materials space. If we get a 1 million dollar order from a mining project for <unk>.
We have the ability to get another $5 billion.
From the leverage of Neil Trans product line.
This is <unk>.
Five times expansion of revenues.
I would state. The example, with Dempsey first followed by Neil trend because that was the order in which we acquired the two companies and part of what drove us to like the potential sales leverage of both companies.
You can reverse the example, and see similar potential leverage for mining when comparing to semiconductor projects for our mining and materials project that Neil traveling generates a $5 million, we're able to expand those revenues by another $1 million from FMC we.
We are working to make those also be at similar margin levels. We believe that we are almost through that.
We have a handful of Neil tram projects, we need to deliver on in our fourth quarter of fiscal 2022.
Which is part of the guidance.
I have been asked about potential operating leverage and synergies between the operations that were acquired and the historical distance.
My answer has been no.
Until now.
The team has worked diligently on driving operational leverage between the business lines.
We are seeing that now coming to fruition due in part to this leverage.
During the fourth quarter, we were able to trim, what we expect to be approximately $5 million from our annual operational expenses beginning in fiscal 2023.
This is expected to help us get better financial leverage from the business. We believe that this helps put us on a better foot forward financially.
We discussed the impact of the <unk> backlog on our financials. This is something we have largely worked through and I want to reassure you that going forward, we feel very confident about prospective margins.
With that I'll move on to our ship protection systems.
In an age of increasing global tensions, we're helping to move U S. Navy ships into the future by installing protection systems that help them stay hidden from our enemies threats.
Our ship protection systems, or Sps provides a solution that masks the ship from harm's way when an operation lifestyle.
We announced our fifth ship protection system contract for LPG 32.
Which has become the baseline design for the San Antonio Class in February a ship platform right. Now we are installing our first ship protection system on the USS Fort Lauderdale. This is.
Is something the Navy and our shipyard partner are.
We're monitoring closely.
We are preparing to deliver on our second ship contract the U S.
S Harrisburg.
We currently have orders for the U S is Harrisburg.
Pittsburgh, the USS Richard Mccool, and the recently added LPG 32.
<unk> contributed nearly 10% of revenues in the third quarter of fiscal 2022 and has been a very consistent source of grid revenue for several quarters.
Our team is focused on continuing to expand our ship protection systems and other in vessels, while we install our initial systems.
As I have mentioned in the past.
We are working on developing additional content that could be inserted in the future fleet.
We hope to have some news very soon on our progress here.
On our resilient electric grid or Reg system in Chicago that continues to perform very well in.
In fact, we received notification from the utility of the system met specified performance requirements and as a result, we expect to see the return of a $5 billion bond, which was held until the Reg system pass. This important accomplishment. The performance bond was structured as a letter of credit this letter.
<unk> is expected to hit our books during the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2022.
We continue to see strong desire from this utility as well as opex to further deploy reg into the power grid.
It is clear at least to us that Reg offers the capability and functionality to solve some of the nations current critical grid infrastructure problems right now.
This initial project has provided tremendous learning.
And it is clear to me that utilities are thinking about Reg as a viable product.
Turning to wind.
We are supporting IMAX with the initial prototype of a three megawatt class wind turbine.
And do something with the initial wind farm.
Five five megawatt wind turbines.
During the third quarter of fiscal 2022, we shipped two megawatt electrical control systems to our partner in India IMAX wind.
You can see that IMAX was just over 10%.
All of our revenues this quarter.
The design and certificate of the three megawatt class wind turbine prototype for the Indian market is complete.
We are now working on the type certification and hopefully we'll report back to you soon on our progress type certification means that the three megawatt class wind turbine will be able to connect to the power grid.
It's worth noting that towards the end of 2022.
<unk> did announce the completion of a capital raise.
Of about 15 billion rupee.
Which translates into something on the order of about $180 billion.
We believe IMAX is closer to expanding its business with the three megawatt class wind turbine this calendar year.
Which we expect will translate into an expanded order book for US, we hope to be reporting progress.
In the near future.
To conclude.
We have built a diversified business that we believe is well positioned to capitalize on future investments in renewables future investments in semiconductors future investments in electric vehicles.
And the mining of the materials that go into these three markets.
As well as the defense business.
We are driven by the opportunities that climate change presents to us as well as the electrification of transportation.
Our products provide support to the grid.
The power consumption point of the electric vehicle as.
As well as the operations that provide the metals and materials used to build the vehicles.
We evolved from being a very concentrated business.
With both customer and market concentration.
To a more diverse business while at the same time.
<unk> revenues.
We are focused on improving the financial performance of the business.
Continuing to deliver a diversified business and making progress towards our longer term priority of building a sustainable business.
I think the team has done a trajectory job of achieving this.
We understand the broader geopolitical environment is mixed with uncertainty surrounding the supply chain constraints inflation recession.
Stock market volatility.
When we look at our prospects our sales pipeline appears to be strengthening.
Not weakening.
Orders are becoming larger not smaller.
The types of markets, we serve are becoming more diverse less concentrated.
So when I look at the near term say the next year or so I think our prospects are great.
As we look ahead into the fiscal year 2023, I'm optimistic that our recently announced backlog.
Salt and a more diversified and financially stronger MSC.
You can see from the backlog and Johns commentary on our operating models that we are nearly there.
We believe that our differentiated solutions and set of capabilities are a significant advantage that will allow us to serve our customers even more efficiently.
I want to thank our team for their hard work and support.
I look forward to reporting back to you at the completion of our fourth fiscal quarter and fiscal year end of 2022.
Gary.
We'll now take questions from our analysts.
We will now begin the question and answer session.
To ask a question you May press Star then one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone. Please pick up your handset before pressing the keys to withdraw your question. Please press Star then two.
At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster.
Our first question comes from Eric Stine with Craig Hallum. Please go ahead.
Hi, Dan Hi, John .
Hey, Eric Good morning, Hey, good morning.
Maybe just on the Reg milestone if youre able to maybe some details on exactly what that milestone is and potential read through to next steps.
You know I recently actually yesterday saw that Chicago and comment.
Announced a pretty wide ranging agreement. It included a lot of energy initiatives in grid investments. So curious maybe your confidence level or what type of visibility you might get after this milestone into the next steps.
Yes, I mean to be blunt.
My confidence is very very high I think the good news about Reg isn't.
We've designed the business in a way financially the regs is not necessary to meet our margin projections in kind of the near term financial aspects of the business but.
But looking at the longer term. This is a huge milestone for the company. It means the systems performed as advertised it means that the utility has been able to work with their constituents specifically regulators.
All of the local politics, so they have to deal with where this is now a permanent part of the grid has been accepted.
The number of people that they brought their that work for the utility the number of people that they've brought their that worked for other utilities has been staggering.
Thereafter, it's all along has been to look at this first project as a stepping stone to a future with superconductivity.
Everything that we see everything that we're told everything we've been shown leads us to believe that there's a very bright future for Reg and many many cities in the country. This is a huge milestone for the company I think the hardest challenge, though is to predict predict or handicap.
Over time, how will this progress utilities are notoriously slow.
Negotiating contracts that we do today for any of our other products take a longer time than many of the other markets that we serve.
But I think when we look back about embarking on to this product Reg we really have met a tremendous milestone we have a system. That's in the grid. That's been accepted by the utility and expected and accepted by all of their constituencies, which I think is huge.
The product that means we really have a product we can go and sell going forward.
Got it and I can appreciate the lack of timing visibility, but if you had to handicap. It I mean, do you think especially given.
All of the parties that have come in and looked at this deployment I mean do you think that that second Chicago project is next or would you expect.
You've talked about diversity diversity of customer.
Would you expect it to potentially be another utility.
I really can't handicap other than saying, we're working in parallel with multiple cities right now on projects that soft compelling problems in the grid right now.
And we see Reg is really the only solution if they want to solve these in the near term.
Got it okay.
Maybe last one for me just I appreciate the commentary on the breakeven.
Given your backlog pipeline and the potential for quicker turn business I mean, when you think about that breakeven number you think that you can get there.
On the grid momentum alone.
With the wind kind of in its current state or when you get there do you anticipate that wind would be a meaningful part of it as well.
Yes, I think thats, probably the question of the day.
Eric.
Neil but I think we have both pass opened to US I think obviously, if there's a rapid rebound it when we get there much faster, meaning that that effect rebound comes were really almost there with the backlog today right. So incrementally growing the new energy part of the business is happening if we can continue.
At the current rate we've been booking those orders were.
We're basically there.
We have to deliver on it and we have to deliver it on time and on cost.
And we've been able to successfully do that throughout the business and we've improved Neil Trent pretty significantly quarter on quarter with our operating efficiency capability.
So.
I think when I look at this I see the backlog and I see the comments that John made about where the operating leverage comes from and I think we already have the backlog to get there I think time will be the talent and I think certainly additional wind would make it easier might make it faster.
But.
Today as we sit here I feel better than I ever have that we're now at the point, where we're talking about potentially achieving these milestones not in the next year or two or three but in the next quarters or year or so so.
We have a much brighter future right in front of us right now.
Okay. Thank you.
The next question is from Colin Rusch with Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.
Thanks, So much guys can you talk a little bit about the raw material impact on your margins and what you're seeing in terms of the cadence some of those lower raw materials starting to flow through your.
Through your Cogs line.
Yes, I think Colin.
The challenge for the business has is the rate at which we take orders at the rate of weeks redeliver them. So.
For some products, where we're booking orders as early as six months, maybe nine months for many of the products were out for a year plus at this point.
And that compared to where the business was.
Years ago, certainly has extended by at least a quarter or more for many of the product lines.
And that's a bit of the kind of constipation of the backlog if I use that term, but please don't write that but I don't have a better language is that we're kind of stuck with this backlog, we're trying to get it out.
And the good news is as we've priced in new orders and new backlog.
As John said that those are as we model that going forward. It certainly margins that we hoped for and expected.
<unk>.
Raw material prices, specifically in John's commentary, we see a stabilization of those costs.
Which means now as we've priced in new orders. It's just the time it takes from when we receive that order to when we deliver on it and we're kind of in that cadence now in the coming quarters.
Okay.
That's helpful and they ask some clarifying questions later, but.
Next I'm just curious about the bid activity and obviously, there's a lot that's happened from a regulatory perspective around capacity building domestically.
And so I'd love to get a better sense of.
How much sales activity, there is and what your conversion rate.
Is on what you've seen so far.
I guess call it over the last six to 12 months.
Yes, I think the bid activity has exploded I think the number of projects that we've looked at.
Certainly is at the highest point since I can remember.
So the prospects for the business are greater than they have been certainly in the past years.
When we look at the order intake.
We've been announcing today.
Closed more than $40 million of orders last quarter.
When we look at the run rate of what we're just doing the new energy over the past three quarters, it's about $30 million just for new energy right. So then you've got to add in what we're doing with the Navy you've got to add in what we're doing with wins as well.
Is there any other commentary you want to talk about yet.
That helped column.
Yes, I'm, just curious about the win rate and any delta around that.
Well the hard part we have what the win rate is most projects now and this is what we've done.
Even with Neil Trient and to some extent with Pepsi.
We try never to compete directly.
So the way we do it it's a very early decision if we're going to win or not and then it depends upon how the project goes forward as we make things smaller and less complex.
And if we're able to design that in with the engineering company, which is using the engineering procurement construction company.
<unk>.
We really eliminate a lot of competition I won't say, all but almost all.
So we.
Today in this version of the business.
Were really never in the in.
And the decision, making by purchasing an engineer has made a design that requires our smaller footprint, which means that it's hard to go out and get an alternative so when we look at direct project win rate is extremely hot right, but to be transparent there is a lot of work that <unk>.
<unk> in the quarters before even getting the order we were trying to get designed in on the print be it for a ship or for a substation.
And really those are the.
The two that we're focused on and the same techniques. We use for the ship we used for the substation, which is how do we make it smaller more energy dense how do we add more feature function than what the alternatives are and that's true across everything that we do.
That's incredibly helpful. Thanks, so much guys.
And there are two indicators, we're looking at is pipeline growth, which as Dan just highlighted.
And we do.
Especially over the last year as we had to adjust our prices based on the raw material inputs going up.
We have been carefully watching our customers and making sure that we remain competitive in.
Yeah.
Across the board in the businesses. There is no evidence to suggest that the bids we're doing are making us uncompetitive, there's isolated pockets, where we're watching and we're concerned about whether there is a more competitive landscape to it.
But as of now.
And that potentially can happen, we're much more focused on margin going forward because that's the thing that people need to hear is we're trying to grow the business, but we're trying to expand margins as well and that means that and that's why I think my colleagues get that question as well now you're running up to a competitive pressure with this current pricing.
We haven't seen it for the business that we wanted to and that's really I think the key point, we want to make today.
I appreciate the details guys.
Sure.
The next question is from Justin Clare with Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead.
Yeah, Hi, thanks for taking our questions.
Thanks.
Hey, Hey, Daniel So I guess the first one here.
$5 million of annual savings that you expect from cost reduction actions. Just wondering if you could talk through how much of that is expected to impact your cost of goods sold versus opex, and maybe what the impact to either R&D or SG&A might be.
I can talk about the impact John do you want to take the financial part of it yes.
Good morning, Jonathan.
The vast majority of this is going to be in Opex, we didn't break it down publicly about what I'll say is on the scale.
Call it.
North of 75% will be opex related versus less than 25% will be cogs.
I think from a capability standpoint.
Ill reiterate paraphrase something I said earlier as we are expecting more content per ship.
From the Navy.
Which means that when that happens that means we've met certain development milestones which means.
Unless we have something else to develop those are not costs that we need to continue to carry.
When we look at the.
A substation type products.
We're at a point now I think we've learned a lot about the sales leverage I think we're now going to demonstrate some operating leverage particularly in the back office.
We need to continue to digest, what we have which means they need to go to develop something over the next quarters is very limited so but going forward, we still have the capability to be able to service our customers. We still have the capability to be able to make changes or make adjustments.
And we still have the capability to develop some new technology, which could translate into future.
But right now on our roadmap really is we have to focus on the financial leverage that the revenue will bring and that's the near term focus for the team and then it allows us to take maybe a very different look at our operating expense.
Gotcha Okay.
Thanks for that.
Color there.
I guess then just on the gross margin here. So it looks like gross margins are expected to improve in Q4 I was wondering as a high single digit number for the gross margin reasonable there and then is the improvement primarily due to the Neal trend kind of lower margin back.
Log rolling off or are there other factors that could change in the product mix or whereas Q4, where youre going to start to see some of these pricing actions that you've taken.
Benefit the margin.
Sure so ill handle the second question on the first question, we don't guide to gross margin. So I want to be careful not to give too much clarity on that.
But what I will tell you is the gross margin improvement in Q4 will.
We will be driven by all three of those right. We said Neil train gross margins are going to improve.
We do have a healthy expectation of D var revenue in the fourth quarter. So that's inherently going to help the mix and then as we continue to ship backlog.
In particular so for.
The <unk> product line has the quickest lead times.
And so the pricing that we've been able to implement at NEP C will flow through the P&L the quickest.
And so youre going to see it in all three areas, so you're going to see pricing improve the margin youre going to see mix improve the margin and youre going to see the impact of neogen improve the margin.
And that's not just isolated to Q4, that's really what we're talking about is and throughout FY 2023.
Gotcha Okay.
And then I guess, just lastly here I wanted to understand the kind of cash flow breakeven scenario in the model Youre thinking about.
I think I heard that it was $35 million in revenue with gross margins.
20%, but correct me if I'm wrong, so that'd be about $7 million in gross profit and then cash opex of say $7 million would get you to a breakeven is that the right way to think about it or.
Are there different I.
And I think I think you might've misheard that part of the script.
So what I said was we see scenarios, where gross margin can approach, 25% and we see our operating expense model is closer to $9 million. So the breakeven is assuming a 25% gross profit was $9 million of cash opex.
Got you okay. Thanks for the clarification I'll pass it on.
Again, if you have a question. Please press Star then one.
The next question is from Chip Moore with F. Hutton. Please go ahead.
Good morning Heath Gainesville done.
Sure.
How're you doing great.
Great.
Wanted to follow up on the sales leverage potential for <unk>.
As outlined in that again.
I guess, just curious on that cross selling how does that progress versus expectations.
Better than you expected.
Okay.
Just looking forward.
Yes, I think thats exactly what were trying to get at is we set an expectation. We did this that we thought that these things would happen now we're seeing them right and we're seeing the specifically in semiconductor and we're seeing them specifically in this new space for us for the metals mining and materials space.
The good news is when we look at semi which is really a combination of D var and the offerings that we inherit from Nancy.
Those today are at similar margin, which is great and that's what we had expected.
When we look at the mining and the metal materials space, which is the example, we've been using for Neil trend. That's a combination of NFC and Neil Trent and I tried to do it both ways, depending upon how people think about it.
Because as we looked at it.
In the prepared remarks I looked at it as we looked at it as a.
Additional expansion of what we already have begun with Nancy that we saw Neil trend kind of continuing on that theme was even greater lead sales leverage rate, but then I brought it back to just kind of compare directly those two markets and just say you know if we get $5 million of one we'll get another 20% or 1 billion of another.
And we said all these things when we did the deals.
And now we have an examples and it's not one or two its quite a few of them in the backlog.
The challenge as I pointed out in the challenge that everybody obviously see it here is how do we have the backlog.
That we have on the books for <unk>, how do we digest that process move on to better priced higher margin.
Our backlog and that's really why we're confident today and updating operating models talking about breakeven. These are things we have not done.
<unk>.
A couple of years, maybe three years.
We want people to understand that John and I are highly confident based upon our backlog and based upon how we're usually able to deliver product.
At a pace that if those things can both happen, we're not really far away.
Yes, that's great color great to hear Daniel.
Okay.
Another question.
With that strong backlog the inventory position.
It needs to build.
Any.
Way to think about working capital over the next.
At 12 months or so.
Yes, so the inventory has built.
Over the last year some of its due just to the backlog growth and some of it has been timing of some shipments we do have a fair amount of shipments going out in.
D var. This quarter, where we had some inventory buildup to that so the expectation is we should lead that project.
And we should start to see that on the working capital strain.
This quarter I assume.
<unk>, we have some working capital so the guidance I gave you are 46.
If you look we guided to non-GAAP of <unk>, there's about $1 million of episodes depreciation.
So in theory would be closer to four and a half.
Give a pretty wide range because of working capital that could impact that up to $6 million or so.
But moving forward after that I see working capital probably in Q1, if it's negative in Q4, it's probably going to be positive in Q1.
And it will net out to zero, so I expect working capital to be closer to flat and have no impact just because of the way our milestone structures.
Q4, and Q1, we may have a little bit of swing from one party, but that's already incorporated into the guidance.
Yes, that's perfect.
And there might be that deep that larger D var projects that pushed out last quarter, you still expect that to hit.
In the current quarter.
That project is included in our guidance yes.
Perfect Alright, thanks very much.
This concludes our question and answer session I would like to turn the conference back over to Daniel Mccann for any closing remarks.
Thanks, Gary I, just want to wrap up by saying that.
We're a much broader and more vibrant company today than we were just a few years ago.
We've been able to add new pieces of new markets.
We've been able to manage pricing.
We've positioned ourselves to grow.
And we're hoping to see that start to pay off as early as next fiscal year.
We think Theres a series of tailwind driven by climate change that are here to stay and are pushing the business forward.
As I mentioned earlier, our pipeline is growing and becoming more diverse our order book has gone from delivering at a rate of $20 million and new energy power systems orders per quarter to <unk>.
Now delivering at a rate of over $30 million for the past three quarters.
This is just for the new energy power systems.
So our ability to convert that potential pipeline into actual orders is really start starting to happen.
I think it's felt great prospects for us as.
As we look at 2023.
And we're even looking at quoting products for delivery already in 2024.
So we think the next years.
Look very bright for the company.
Thanks, everybody.
The conference.
Is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation you may now disconnect.