Q1 2023 Nortech Systems Incorporated Earnings Call

Speaker 1: C.

Speaker 1: Oh.

Speaker 2: Greetings. Welcome to Nortex First Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listening mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should acquire operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad.

Speaker 2: the conference over to your host, Chris Jones, Chief Financial Officer at NORTEC. You may begin. All right, thanks, Paul. And I'd also like to welcome everyone to today's conference call. Jay is going to begin today's call with a review of our business, current trends, and our strategic planning process. Then I'll review NORTEC's Q1 2023 financial results before turning it back over to Jay for his closing comments.

Speaker 2: And then we will open it up to all of you for questions.

Speaker 2: Before we continue, please note that statements made during this call and Q&A sessions may be forward-looking regarding expected revenue, earnings, future plans, opportunities, and other company expectations.

Speaker 2: These estimates plans another forward-looking statement involved unknown and known risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in this call.

Speaker 2: These risks, including those that are detailed in our most recent Form 10Q may be amended or supplemented.

Speaker 2: as of the date and time of this call and we assume no obligation to update the information in today's call. You can find NORTAC's complete safe harbor statements in our SEC filings.

Speaker 3: Chris and good afternoon everyone. We appreciate you joining us.

Speaker 3: We're very pleased with our first quarter financial results, including strong year-over-year growth. In fact, for the past eight quarters, Nortec has posted year-over-year quarterly growth in four key metrics, sales, gross profit, gross margin, and EBITDA.

Speaker 3: I talked in some detail about NorTech's value proposition.

Speaker 3: For any new listeners today, I'll just touch on a few of the key points.

Speaker 3: We manufacture low-volume, high-mix electromechanical systems including complex cables assemblies, printed circuit boards also known as PCBs, and other components inside boxes or housings.

Speaker 3: Our solutions provide critical connections with our customers' products, transmitting power and data, and oftentimes both. And in some cases, we manufactured the whole product. We serve a wide range of medical, industrial, and defense firms from Fortune 100 multinationals and OEMs to smaller regional U.S. manufacturers and startups.

Speaker 3: Geographically, we have successfully expanded our own global footprint over the years, to now include the US, Mexico, and China. This three-tier cost structure, coupled with lean manufacturing principles, help keep us cost-competitive and responsive to customers around the world. NorTech is a high-touch business. Our skilled team members provide hands-on expertise while also leveraging sophisticated equipment in production and testing.

Speaker 3: Our people are a key element to NORTAC's competitive advantage, and they deserve our deep gratitude and admiration, particularly for their efforts during the pandemic and supply chain disruptions. One of the privileges of being NORTAC's President and CEO is the opportunity to meet our people at our locations around the world.

Speaker 3: Whenever and wherever I talk to North Tech team members, I'm impressed by their strong desire to provide excellence to our customers.

Speaker 3: Our people are justifiably proud of their efforts and results, and I am very proud of them.

Speaker 3: Next, I'd like to reiterate.

Speaker 3: the key goals of NORTEC's Strategic Plan developed and regularly refined by our management team and overseen by our board. Taking care of our people is foundational for all the reasons I mentioned earlier.

Speaker 3: This care involves ongoing training, support, recognition, and professional development. We also want NORTECH to be a positive influence and contributor in the communities where we operate.

Speaker 3: Second, we must take care of our customers.

Speaker 3: consistently providing the high quality complex solution they, and in turn their customers, rely on. We strive for world-class performance levels, following well-established quality management systems like ISO 13485 and AS9100 for example.

Speaker 3: Third, Nortech is carefully investing in strategic innovation.

Speaker 3: engineering new technologies and products that can uniquely differentiate us to our customers, including advanced fiber optic and the internet of things, also known as IoT solutions.

Speaker 3: We are in the early phases of North Texas environmental, social, and governance, or ESG journey.

Speaker 3: guided by industry best practices, outside experts, and our board of directors.

Speaker 3: Our leadership team and board of directors believes executing against select ESG goals will deliver business benefits well beyond compliance and proactively position NorTech for sustained growth with the help and support of our employees, customers, and suppliers.

Speaker 3: team and board of directors believes executing against select ESG goals will deliver business benefits well beyond compliance and proactively position NorTech for sustained growth with the help and support of our employees, customers and suppliers. More on that later.

Speaker 3: The fourth pillar of our strategic plan focuses on our financial results and driving shareholder value.

Speaker 3: For example, we are pleased that our 16.5% revenue increase during fiscal 2022 exceeded the 9.5% average revenue growth among the world's 50 largest EMS firms, as published last month by Manufacturing Market Insider.

Speaker 2: For more in-depth financial discussion, I will now turn it back over to Chris. Chris? All right. Thanks, Jay. All right. In the next few minutes, I am going to provide some details of our financial performance in the 2023 first quarter. But I would—all right.

Speaker 2: Let me take a minute to highlight a new chart we added to the press release.

Speaker 2: which includes we're going to include each quarter going forward. It provides eight quarters of trailing 12-month historical data and four key metrics cited earlier sales, gross profit, gross margin, and EBITDA. So I wanted to add this chart because we know there are individual quarters.

Speaker 2: that can be affected by outside factors. And these might include timing fluctuations, customer shipments, supply chain issues, any of these during a given reporting cycle can temporarily disrupt our momentum. Nortech also reported numerous non-recurring items in 2020 and 2021, including PPP loan forgiveness, again on sale leaseback, goodwill impairment and other items. Thank you.

Speaker 2: Those non-recurring items are listed on our press release and they are excluded from our adjusted gross profit, gross margin, and EBITDA. The LTM charts also show a dramatic turnaround from our lowest quarter in Q1 of 2021, two years ago. At that time, our LTM revenue was $99 million, gross profit was $8 million, gross margin was 8.1 percent.

Speaker 2: In EBITDA, it was negative 2.3 million. For the 12 months just ended, March of 2023, our revenue is now $138 million. Our gross profit is 22 million.

Speaker 2: Gross margin is 15.8% and EBITDA is $6.7 million.

Speaker 2: NORTEX finances are healthier on every metric.

Speaker 2: All right, switching gears to this quarter's financial performance, as Jay noted, progress is made on several key performance areas with quarterly revenue up nearly 14% from the prior year period.

Speaker 2: Again, we're particularly pleased with this Reveno momentum as the quarters year-over-year growth continues and comes on a strong prior year comparable.

Speaker 2: We also saw sustainable year-over-year backlog levels, year-over-year gross margin expansion of 256 basis points and solid growth in net income in EBITDA.

Speaker 2: an increase on revenue of 30.7 million in the first quarter of 2021, so 2022, and was in line with our prior quarter, as I mentioned earlier. The first quarter revenue was driven by growth in our medical and industrial categories.

Speaker 2: and fled on a sequential basis. During the quarter, general administrative costs increased by $500,000, primarily driven by investments in IT and HR systems. Net income totaled $681,000, or 23 cents per diluted share in Q1, up from net income of $138,000, or 5 cents per diluted share in Q1 of 2022.

Speaker 2: I also do have good news to add about our employee retention credit payments. So in December , we did receive our first payment on the ERC. And at March 31, 2023 on the balance sheet, we did have a receivable of $2.7 million. And we are pleased to report that that second IRS payment was not received.

Speaker 2: payment did arrive on May 1st, so we'll report that cash inflow net of 1.2 million dollars in deferred payroll tax payments in our Q2 results. And moving on to the rest of the balance sheet in the cash flow statement, in the first quarter of 2023, cash provided by operating activities—

Speaker 2: was $1.7 million compared to $1.5 million in the prior year period.

Speaker 2: During the quarter, decreases in working capital due to increased shipments drove positive operating cash flow. Inventory levels declined to $21.3 million, down from $22.4 million in the prior quarter due to less pressure to respond to global supply chain challenges.

Speaker 2: And we ended the first quarter of 2023 with $5.8 million of borrowings and $5.9 million availability on our $16 million line of credit with Bank of America. At March 31, 2023, cash and cash equivalents totaled $2.6 million, about flat to the prior quarter.

Speaker 2: We believe that our existing financing arrangements and anticipated cash flows from operations will be sufficient to satisfy our working capital needs in 2023, as well as any capital expenditures and debt repayments. We believe we have created a solid financial base to take this company into the future. So on a final note, let me reiterate our top financial priorities in 2023. We are winning new business bookings, expanding gross margins, growing EBITDA and strengthening our balance sheet.

Speaker 2: We believe we will create shareholder value through these actions by delivering sustainable free cash flow growth. Our last eight quarters of year-over-year results demonstrate that our approach is working.

Speaker 3: And with that, I will turn it back over to Jay for his closing comments. Thank you, Chris. Before we open the call for your questions, I'd like to brief you to share my thoughts on our ESG initiatives.

Speaker 3: According to the Electronics Trade Association IPC, the leading companies in our industry are highly intentional about their ESG priorities.

Speaker 3: Goals related to climate change and energy use are currently garnering the most attention.

Speaker 3: NORTEC intends to lead and not follow with ESG. In the early phases of this journey we are looking more at the environmental and social category.

Speaker 3: As a public company, we believe we are further along with our governance than many private firms in our industry and supply chain.

Speaker 3: Generally speaking, the overall ESG process consists of four ambitious elements, base lining, peer analysis, stakeholder engagement, and evaluation determination.

Speaker 3: We are taking a long view of the Strength and Air Company for the future. In the short term, however, we are also focusing on maximizing financial results for our shareholders.

Speaker 3: We believe these long and short term goals can be balanced.

Speaker 3: They are not mutually exclusive. With our ESG initiatives, we are committed to leveraging industry best practices, trapping outside experts for guiding and harnessing the collective experience and expertise of our board and company leadership. I speak for our entire leadership team and saying we believe succeeding with ESG goals will provide NorTech with a clear business benefits beyond simple compliance. Our ESG efforts will also serve the proactively positioned us favorably with our employees, customers and suppliers. Related to this topic, we are watching to see the disclosure actions of the SEC may take later this year.

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Speaker 4: And there are no questions from the lines at this time.

Speaker 3: Very good, Paul. Thank you. And thanks to everyone for joining us today. We obviously feel you're very good about our first quarter results. We look forward to talking to you again next in August with our second quarter of 2023 results.

Speaker 2: And with that, I'll hand things back to Chris. Chris. All right, thanks Jay. And I will also end with our safe harbor statement. So as I mentioned at the beginning of the call, please note that statements made during this call were forward-looking regarding expected revenue earnings, future plans, opportunities, and other company expectations.

Speaker 2: These estimates plans another forward-looking statement involve unknown and known risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed term flight on this call.

Speaker 2: These risks, including those that are detailed in our most recent Form 10-Q , may be amended or supplemented. Statements made during this conference call are based upon information known by NORTEC as of the date and time of this call and we assume no obligation to update the information in today's call. You can find NORTEC's complete Safe Harbor Statements in our SEC filings.

Speaker 4: Thank you and have a good evening. Thank you for your participation.