Full Year 2024 Complete Solaria Inc Earnings Call
Good morning, and welcome to Complete Solr's earnings call.
We will be
Today's conference call contains projections and other forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ from those expressed or implied in such statements.
Also on today's conference call we may discuss
certain non-GAP
Speaker Change: financial measures and reconciliation of the differences between those non-GAAP financial measures and the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures can be found in the press release issued this morning. I'll now turn the call over to TJ Rodgers, Complete Solr's Chairman and CEO.
Good morning.
Speaker Change: My name is T.J. Rodgers. I'm the Chief Executive and Chairman, Executive Chairman of Complete Solar. I'm here in Silicon Valley.
Speaker Change: I want to be in Utah but I have three board meetings here today and I called this meeting right in the middle of them because that was the timing I needed. So I will introduce Dan Foley, our CFO.
Speaker Change: Dan Myers, our Executive Vice President and General Manager of our New Homes Division. And Steve Erickson, our EVP GM of the Blue Raven Division. By voice only, I'm here at Inovix in Silicon Valley and I've got one channel. And that's me.
Speaker Change: and I've got voice for them. Dan, say hello so I can check your voice.
Hello, TJ.
Speaker Change: Oh my god. Okay, my connection is a cell phone. All right, good luck.
Speaker Change: Okay, this is a report we sent out. I will refer to certain parts of it.
Speaker Change: Today we're going to talk about Q424, which is the month behind us.
Speaker Change: unfortunately is subject to a full-year audit which is currently in progress and that audit that audit is currently hampered by the fact we have to recreate as if merged financials for SunPower.
Speaker Change: and Sun Power doesn't have complete financials, so that may take us till mid-March. Hence...
Speaker Change: I'm not waiting till mid-March to talk about 2024, so I call this meeting today. That puts me here in Silicon Valley because I've got other board meetings here. I apologize for that.
Speaker Change: Because this is a preliminary report, and it's unaudited for the reasons I just gave, we're only going to talk about what I think you want to know now, which is how did we do last quarter, and here where we think we're going in the current quarter. And that's all we're going to do today.
First of all, accomplishments. We had a great quarter.
Speaker Change: In our last third quarter report to you, we gave you a plan for complete solar.
Speaker Change: And that plan was aggressive, it was predicated on a successful $45 million acquisition of business unit assets from Sunpar to form a new company.
Speaker Change: and the plan had two big accomplishments that were required in it.
One that the little company, a $5.5 million company
Speaker Change: would acquire a much bigger company, the Sun Park Corporation, which has been around for almost 40 years and it's about 10 times bigger than us. That was one assumption achieved.
Speaker Change: and the second assumption in our plan that we wrote in our third quarter report, our revenue would be $80 million in Q4-24. That is, our revenue would jump from $5 million to $80 million in one quarter.
Speaker Change: This is a slide I showed to investors. I talked about old, complete Solaria, the trouble we had with private equity.
Speaker Change: we originally marketed a hundred million dollar quarter as a likely quarter that turned into be an eighty million dollar quarter which we announced on 11-13 and I was worried about
Speaker Change: Taking a jump from here to here, as opposed to a jump from here to here.
Speaker Change: until I watched your response to it and your response was right here. There's November 12th and your response was favorable. You'll take a solid 80 million dollars and that's where we where we ended up.
Speaker Change: I'd like to talk about our accomplishments through the quarter. I've got a series of bullets on that and a few slides to illustrate it. First of all, the SunPower integration is substantially complete. We're together.
We're organized together.
Speaker Change: We are starting to, we've already got down to our head count. This is a graph by workweek going back to the beginning of October. So there's the fourth quarter we're reporting right there.
Speaker Change: We started out when we first agreed to merge with 3,499 employees.
Speaker Change: Within three weeks, we were down to 416 in our first org chart, and then a week later, two weeks later, down to 1,257. So this is about what the company needed.
and we thought we were there.
Speaker Change: And then you notice here the number went up, and this is when we started discovering employees that Let's just say the two companies didn't count very well
Speaker Change: And I found 35 Pakistanis that think I'm their CEO. So that count went back in, then we started working on it again. And as of the end of the quarter, we're down to 1,140 employees. Our goal is to get to 980.
Speaker Change: So I'm claiming major progress from there to there and I'm saying we're getting close to the goal
That I pointed.
Speaker Change: We've got two new divisional GMs in place, EVs, PGMs. Dan Myers.
This guy.
I announced about a month ago
Speaker Change: He was a star manager from the Blue Raven systems division He was a supply is a supply chain expert and he took over new homes for us
And then more recently
We got Steve Erickson
Speaker Change: Steve is a well-known figure in Salt Lake, which is the middle of Solar Valley. In his career, he had 12 promotions from three companies between 2011 and 2024 when he came in.
Speaker Change: he hit the ground running wrote me a comprehensive memo the very first week he was there explaining what he saw that he liked and didn't like and I advised him to fix the stuff he didn't like and move on. Okay so we
We've got our GMs in place.
We are forecasting revenue growth next quarter.
Speaker Change: As you all know, the solar industry has, in the winter quarter, has a dip. Orders go down, people aren't interested in ordering solar when their roofs are covered with ice.
Speaker Change: And I did some research, that number has typically been 5 to 14 percent.
Speaker Change: We're going to buck that because we're finally getting our act together and we're going to have a good second quarter and I'm forecasting $82 million bucks up a little bit from the prior quarter and not down.
Speaker Change: The last point is the company's almost at its fighting rate. I went through that with you showing we're down to 1140 employees and we will we will hit the 980 we need to have. I'll tell you where that number comes from a little bit later.
Speaker Change: So, here's the same slide I already showed you showing the actual against the $80 million forecast last quarter in Q4, and the forecast for the quarter we're in at 82.
Speaker Change: I'll just tell you we're confident of that number and I'll show you why and when I show you the daily revenue charts.
Speaker Change: We've cut our operating expense by a factor of two. That of course comes from headcount reduction.
Speaker Change: Our OPEX was an incredible $94 million in the third quarter. That's because we had most of the people from both the companies and a lot of expensive software, you know, $5 million a year for Salesforce.com, etc.
Speaker Change: We've gone from $94 million in Q3 to $35 million in Q4. For the combined and cost-reduced companies I showed you the curve for a minute ago.
Speaker Change: I like to look at operating expenses, less sales commissions. GAAP requires that you call OPEX to be general sales and administrative, and if you have sales commissions, then they go into OPEX. So I like to look at the OPEX.
Speaker Change: without commissions because commissions come in as directly with sales and I really care about the fixed expense we've got back in the plant also.
Speaker Change: In that case you subtract out the numbers and in Q3 we were at 84 million again an astronomical number
Speaker Change: And in Q4, just finished, we had non-GAAP expense of $20 million. So we actually went down from $80 million to $20 million. It's a factor of 4 reduction. And we're planning on dropping another 30% in Q1. That's the $1140 million to $980 million that I showed you earlier.
Speaker Change: We're also forecasting that our cash, we're forecasting, this is a big one, operating income break even in Q125.
Speaker Change: The words carefully chosen say, given our current backlog and cost-cutting plan, we're forecasting non-GAAP operating income at breakeven in Q125.
Speaker Change: I can tell you that that number is plus 800,000 bucks.
Speaker Change: And it includes all the expenses we know about, but that's a kind of a fragile margin to predict operating income break even. And normally in presentations like this, you give numbers you're absolutely sure of achieving. In this case, we're going to get real close, worst case, and I'm announcing it, sort of putting, drawing a line in the sand here.
Speaker Change: people in the factory listening to what I'm saying. We're going to break even in Q125.
Speaker Change: And we're going to be positive in cash flow. We raised $80 million for the purpose of buying SunPower for $45 million and having operating expense.
Speaker Change: going forward to build a new company. We bottomed out at 13 million dollars of cash left out of the 80 in Q4 and we'll be going up this quarter.
Speaker Change: Now the, so these are the bullets, and now fellow shareholders, the main numbers.
Turn it over to Dan, let's...
Speaker Change: Nope, not going to turn it over to Nan. She's getting her cell phone so she can set it, and she can put it in the microphone and whatnot. And she's got a ring on her phone. We're not going to do that.
So I'll give you the numbers.
Speaker Change: Again, it's my fault I called this meeting out of phase with what we wanted to do because of the long audit.
Revenue, let me do non-GAAP, 81-1.
Speaker Change: Our gross margin, you notice, has been ugly and up and down. Our gross margin is 37%.
Speaker Change: And you notice our gap gross margin is the same thing so we're we've kind of flushed
Speaker Change: The ugly out of the gross margin chain, our operating expenses of $35,700, GAAP and non-GAAP, our operating expenses less commissioned $19,700, GAAP and non-GAAP.
Speaker Change: So, for our non-GAAP loss, excluding extraordinary costs, which blew up the GAAP number, it was 5940.
Speaker Change: So, you can say then, this is, you see the small company.
Speaker Change: And then there's the new company, this is their first quarter, we've now been defined. We're a $324 million company that's losing money and needs not to lose money as quickly as possible. That's our next goal. And we've got $13 million in the bank and we expect it to grow.
Speaker Change: We acquired SunPower on what I call a Noah's Ark model, I'll explain that in a minute. I already explained the leaning out process we've gone to and the fact we're not quite yet at our goal.
I've mentioned that we are going to grow next quarter.
Speaker Change: and that that number is conservative, I'm pretty confident in it.
We raised money, the $80 million.
with that plan.
Speaker Change: And then, after we had a flurry of cancellations on the SOMPAR side because of the bankruptcy, we ended up with the first quarter being $80 million. I'm pretty happy for that and solid.
So we're going to move forward from that number.
Speaker Change: Now, that says, if you look at our model for the company, instead of having 1,225 employees, we're going to have 980. So that's the goal we're enforcing. At 1,140, we're actually below our first goal, and we set a new goal that was more aggressive, a headcount of 980.
Speaker Change: illustrate that to employees I actually have shown this slide I will show it again
On Friday
The
Speaker Change: Arc-NorthArc merger theory is actually a typical Silicon Valley startup playing in disguise.
Speaker Change: Instead of a big company in trouble asking for and getting too much money, Sunpar was trying to raise, when I came in, $750 million.
Speaker Change: And, of course, what's worse than wanting to raise $750 million, the answer is actually getting it. Then you owe interest on it, and it burdens you forever.
Speaker Change: And so that's not the right way to do it, in my opinion. The arc theory, which I used once back in Cyprus, we did 20 acquisitions in Cyprus.
Speaker Change: asserts this, your old company has great assets. If I look at what I inherited, it was $80 million. It's enough to make the company profitable. Your old company has great assets. Get venture funding for those assets, in our case $80 million, and build a new organization that can make profit with what you've got.
Speaker Change: So, NOAA's arc, which is to protect us during floods, and we're having a flood of interest rate problems right now in the financial markets, got smaller and it's now got 980 seats.
Speaker Change: By the way, believe it or not, this is actually a 4 inch thick oak hull on a 500 foot long Noah's Ark model that's built in Williamsburg, Kentucky.
to make claim to biblical standards.
Okay, a little bit more detail on revenue.
This is a picture of my daily revenue report.
So the dots are 91 dots a quarter.
Speaker Change: We came in with a $100 million street number I showed you.
Speaker Change: and recreated our beginning of quarter plan, which is the daily plan. For example, you can see the weekends and holidays in here.
So it's a tight, well-conceived plan.
Speaker Change: we took off on the plan and then we got behind and right here
Speaker Change: We said that we're not going to make the BOQ beginning of quarter plan.
We need another plan.
So we did what we call an end-of-quarter plan.
Speaker Change: We decided what level we could get to and have the backlog for the next quarter after that, hence my certainty on the $82 million this quarter. We picked that target, no more fancy, we took a straight line and we started tracking daily to it.
And this was a pretty good quarter.
troops.
did a great job.
Speaker Change: I was I was worried because it was the first test and they passed it. As a matter of fact, right there you notice it goes flat.
Speaker Change: That says, in the middle of this week, instead of working like hell trying to get up here and not quite making it, we told him, you know, you've worked hard.
Speaker Change: You'd like to have a four-day weekend for the vacation Have a nice weekend BAM and we went flat and of course the revenue that we could have accrued there
became available to us quickly in the second quarter.
Okay, this is for the whole company.
New Homes
Speaker Change: different kind of story they had an aggressive plan they got behind they they had a new plan back this way they were spiking here they probably could have made the original plan but what they did was they got to where they needed to get for the street this is their component of the street number
Speaker Change: $80 million number, and they also, like everybody else, took the end of the quarter off.
Great quarter. Then we have Blue Raven.
Speaker Change: That was their first and second expectation. They redefined the quarter as well, everybody did, and they stayed ahead of it for the rest of the quarter and they also took off.
Record.
Speaker Change: Here's the other story. Dealers. So we have a dealer network that buys orders from dealers.
and they had a modest plan of 17 million dollars.
They started slow and kept on slow in the
Speaker Change: They reduced their plan a big amount. The reduction from $100 to $80 million for a plan, half of that, was from the smallest division missing its plan by a lot.
So
Speaker Change: We sized up. We're a new company. This quarter defines who we are.
Speaker Change: And we said this quarter Q4 defines who we are and we said we're cutting our head count from 140 to 5 in the dealer division So instead of having two divisions coming from SunPower New Homes and dealer We had New Homes Only and then Blue Raven and that's now the company
Speaker Change: And we took some of the stars and merged them into Blue Raven.
So here's our org chart.
So.
This half the company right here is two divisions now.
that are the company.
They have 921 people.
In this
Speaker Change: Although it's got a lot more boxes, it says a lot fewer people. 219 or 19 percent.
Speaker Change: And I'm in, I should have drawn that circle up around me, we're all in that, we're support. These guys make the money, we do things for them, we're CFO, Chief Administrative, Legal, HR, Information Technology.
I'd like to introduce Venky Sundaresan
Speaker Change: I'm usually pretty good with Indian names but his was kind of simple enough.
He came from Antaes.
Speaker Change: where he ran an important division for them and before that he came from Cypress Semiconductor, he ran all IT.
Speaker Change: formative for our company as thank you to be here he lives in Silicon Valley with me today
His name is Surrender Betty.
Speaker Change: And he came from Lucid Motors, so he actually was at SunPower very early in his career. He's also worked at Applied Materials, which is a known high-quality Silicon Valley company.
Speaker Change: and then Lucid, an automotive company. And automotive companies have, as a group of companies, better quality control than I think any other group of companies. Perhaps, maybe, semiconductors might be up there as well.
Anyway, we've done some bolstering of
Speaker Change: We've got two divisions. These are the guys that make the numbers for us.
Speaker Change: And our overhead is measured on head count is 19% of our population
Here's an important point.
Speaker Change: The board honored our fourth quarter performance with a modest 1.14 million dollar bonus 1.4 percent of revenue even in the last quarter which is rare. My rule number one of bonuses you never get bonus for losing money.
Speaker Change: But our performance was so good That the board agreed with me that we should do something This is 1.14 for the entire company that is our loss could have been that much less But we decided to make the loss bigger to reward the employees
Speaker Change: management, we chose the bonus money that went to all hands equally. So it's a thousand bucks a head to recognize that it was rank-and-file employees who made the quarter.
Speaker Change: You know, we sit, I sit here in Silicon Valley, and I work a lot of hours, but the rank and file made this quarter for us. The management team holds significant restricted stock, I'd point it out.
Speaker Change: If they ever want to gripe about, gee, only a thousand bucks for me and that's a tiny fraction of my salary.
Speaker Change: Management's got a lot of restricted stock and we're waiting for them to get rewarded when the market says they meet and beat the street a bunch of quarters in a row and then they'll be well rewarded.
Speaker Change: So this is a great way to do something for the workers now and remind management that they've still got to perform.
Speaker Change: Our $81.1 million revenue last quarter redefined our company with annualized revenue of $324 million in a loss of $5.4 million.
Speaker Change: When I did the bullet points up front, there are eight of them. And all I could think was, this is...
Speaker Change: really good. It's bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. And all I could think of was Muhammad Ali. In one of his first fights, he fought a firefighter in England, a guy's name is Brian London.
guys in one of those big square jawed
mean-looking guys
Speaker Change: And Ali the kid from Louisville, Kentucky went to London and they're all worried and they said this guy has no finesse He will walk directly at Ali put him in a corner and he's got him in a corner He will punch him once and he'll drop that was that was the worry about the fight
anyway in the third quarter of that fight.
Speaker Change: Ali never got touched, never got touched. He was floating around and the big guy kind of couldn't keep up with him and Ali went up and went bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. 12, 12 punches in 2.98 seconds.
Speaker Change: And the big guy was standing there, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. And all he just walked to the center of the ring. The guy fell flat in his face into the ring. So that's how I felt about those bullet points.
Speaker Change: that our 5.94 million dollar quarterly loss will not survive in 2025 little rhyme there
Speaker Change: Also, I want to thank shareholders you stuck with us you've given us money We are going to rebuild a classic iconic company and I want to remind all of you
Oh
Speaker Change: important SunPower used to be. It got, it wasn't run well at the end by a lot. There was contention between the divisions of the company.
I was I would have been unhappy too.
Speaker Change: But SunPower is an iconic company. They got founded in 1985.
They, you can see here, the black.
Speaker Change: The black square is in the wing of the airplane. This airplane's wingspan is bigger than the 747.
and it's completely powered by SunPower solar cells.
that were made in Sunnyvale, California.
Speaker Change: It takes off under its own power, 14 electric motors, so it was the Tesla of airplanes.
way back in 1999.
talks about the power of the Sun, which
I remember when Elon Musk brought out the Tesla.
Speaker Change: and everybody's saying, yeah, golf court, you know, electric car. All right, so you bring out the test and you find out you can lay rubber for two blocks.
Speaker Change: The Tesla Plaid today does 0-60 in 1.9 seconds. You can take the biggest muscle car GTO supercharged of any of the older cars and it will blow it off the road. And these guys did the same thing way back in 1999.
Speaker Change: Because this airplane flew to a record of 96,863 feet and that record still stands.
Speaker Change: And I'll point out, one of the challengers to that record is the F-15, which is a fighter plane been around. It's a Mach 2.5 fighter, and it's capable of accelerating, it's one of two airplanes we have capable of accelerating while climbing vertically.
and its service ceiling is 72,000 feet.
So.
This is iconic.
Picture of the Power of the Sun
It's already happened.
You know, we talk about NEM, Net Electricity Metering.
Speaker Change: And now NEM is being cut back, meaning that the grid is no longer giving money back to people, in California anyway, for people who have solar.
Speaker Change: Well, why is that? Well, that's actually good news. Solar right now, in the middle of the day, produces more power than they need, and they're not going to pay for it.
Speaker Change: We have a solution for that. It's called a battery. I'm actually in a battery company right now in Silicon Valley, not the one that's going to make our batteries.
Speaker Change: We have systems today that will make money and provide technology people need.
Speaker Change: Right now we're selling solar systems good ones. We're using good components my background is technical and We're going to work on technology as well. So at the end
lost will not survive in 2025 and
Speaker Change: We're going to bring back the great tech. We're going to create a great technology company. You can say bring back but create.
Okay, that's it. We're ready for questions.
Thank you TJ. As a reminder to our
Speaker Change: Send questions to us via the text box at the bottom of your screen.
Our first question today...
Speaker Change: comes from Derek Soderberg from Cantor Fitzgerald. Two questions actually. The first one is how is the portfolio churn trending in the new homes business and what's the plan to grow that business?
Speaker Change: First of all that that businesses are most are more profitable of our two businesses.
Speaker Change: Right now it's revenues looking flat. We have new orders we're getting. We had a bunch of cancellations so the lake went down and we're now putting filling the lake back up.
Speaker Change: We will we will be up by the end of the year in new homes having survived the bankruptcy and the hardest hit part of SunPower during its bankruptcy was new homes.
Speaker Change: Eric's second question was how will CSLR effectively leverage the SunPower brand? Do you have any new plans?
I do.
and this little teaser here is part of it.
right now I want to get
more braggable in the corporation but
Speaker Change: We are going to make use of the name. By the way, we were attacked in court to try to take the name we want. So we own the name.
Speaker Change: We have the Division, the Home Division of Sun Power still with us and some other people were in the Delo Division are still with us in Blue Raven.
Thank you.
The next question is
Speaker Change: We understand you have contracts with Starbucks. Is there any more commercial deals in the pipeline and how do you view that business?
Speaker Change: Okay, I don't, unfortunately, I don't have the picture here. Normally, I keep an appendix with all my pictures in it.
Speaker Change: There's a fantastic picture of a Starbucks and they've got an awning. So you're looking at a three-story high Starbucks with an awning that sticks out over the entire parking lot, all solar. And it's glass-on-glass solar.
Speaker Change: Some panels today are made with glass and then the silicon and then below that another layer of glass so when you look at them you can see right right through parts of them.
Speaker Change: That's a Starbucks. It's got a 50,000-watt system. We have 57 Starbucks we've dealt with.
Speaker Change: I think it's great business, but right now, I've got two divisions.
I got Blue Raven
And there.
They're putting homes all over America, throughout the Midwest included.
Speaker Change: and then I've got New Homes. The New Homes division is capable of doing the light commercial and that may be the place or we may acquire a company that is in that business.
Speaker Change: Thank you. The next question is, the company has moved through its initial integration and cost reduction quickly post acquisition of the SunPower assets.
Speaker Change: Can you discuss incremental cost reduction efforts and how much more should the market expect on that front?
Thank you. Thank you.
How much incremental cost reduction should we expect?
Speaker Change: What you don't know is we're actually ahead of that game.
Speaker Change: The reason last quarter had a $5.9 million loss was that curve. We had the high part of the curve spending a lot of money, then coming down. And the average of the quarter was the high part and the low part.
We're entering the new quarter low.
So that cost-cutting is there already built in.
Speaker Change: Where else? We're still paying some rent that we need to get rid of.
Speaker Change: We still have some software packages we need to stop paying on.
Speaker Change: But, by and large, the heavy lifting stun cutting costs another 30%.
Thank you.
Speaker Change: In a similar vein, you announced achieving operating income break-even in the first quarter of 2025. What are the risks to this? The risk is we don't do it, and that I'm making an aggressive announcement.
Speaker Change: which is atypical. As I said earlier, if you can see the spreadsheets, actually are in here, but I'm not going to show them.
planned profit, including the ability to pay another bonus.
plan profit is
$800,000
Disappears like that if you screw something up
Speaker Change: But, if we miss, I don't think it'll be by much, and if we make it, and I think it's more likely than not we will make it, it's not a given, it'll be a big deal, we'll celebrate.
Speaker Change: Thank you. The next question is with regards to additional acquisitions. What is your appetite and if you
Speaker Change: are seeking them, would targets be both on to current positions or seek to expand your footprint and offerings?
Give me the choice he gave me.
Speaker Change: I heard that. What are the two choices he gave me?
Okay, on expanding.
That can be good or bad.
Speaker Change: The problem is you've had, in the last two years, you've had 70 solar companies go out of business.
Speaker Change: and therefore high interest rates, the inflation that we've unfortunately inflicted on ourselves.
Speaker Change: has harmed a lot of solar companies and that's 70. I got a list. It's in alphabetical order and SunPower is on the list.
Solar companies do not run as tightly.
as other companies.
Speaker Change: point one and point two, the backlog of solar companies, the orders, is not as solid. For example, in the chip business, we would take backlog and we would make chips for somebody, not custom, just
a bigger number for another company.
Speaker Change: And they didn't take them. After that point in time, they would pay a down payment.
Thank you.
Speaker Change: Therefore, backlog is pretty sacred in our company as most chip companies.
Speaker Change: you were locked in the last 30 days to take or pay. So you were informed 30 days before the order was going to ship, the order was going to ship, and that was your last chance to bail out. Backlog isn't solid like that in solar. You actually have teams of people calling other people.
Speaker Change: And how are things going? And you have a real rate, like 20% of people say, you know, I kind of changed my mind. And it's a consumer thing, and you can't be the big, bad corporation pounding on some poor homeowner.
Speaker Change: somewhere. So for that reason, solar companies shrink and get bigger and smaller by huge factors.
Speaker Change: So you can't take a solar company that's, you know, big and doing well.
and buy it at a high price.
Speaker Change: So I look more at potential of companies than I look more at people.
And if you've got a solid company
that has good practices, that has
customers who love
Speaker Change: It hasn't eaten up a lot of cash, like some part ate up.
then
Speaker Change: then then you've got something worth acquiring. So I look for companies like that. I look for companies that we acquired a company
a year ago.
Speaker Change: And I talked to the founder and I said we were thinking about acquiring and I said send me your deck
Speaker Change: The guy's name is Cole Farmer, he's still with us, and he said, I don't have a deck. And I said, I'm thinking, how in the hell can you not have a deck?
And he said we never we never raised any money
Speaker Change: We funded our first systems and then the money from that funded the other systems. And I thought, my exact thoughts in that Sunday afternoon phone call, there's the real man. He didn't run to Wall Street and get paid and gripe about the economy. He goes and makes money.
Speaker Change: So that's the kind of company if we acquire and we will acquire if we can non non
Speaker Change: Indigenous growth is great, but extra growth through acquisition is fine. That's more like what I'm looking for. Not some high-flying company or new capability. The consumer commercial, rather, you talked about earlier.
Speaker Change: That's a more stable business, you're now dealing with other companies.
Speaker Change: And that's a business that if we found somebody that was good at it, and that means they make bigger systems. We're not talking not 10 kilowatts on your roof, we're talking about a million watts in a field with control of the angle of the panels to follow the sun.
that could be another option. Technology is another option.
Speaker Change: by getting a technology that gives us a better panel or gives us a better panel.
And I'm actually working with companies on that right now.
Speaker Change: They found out a bunch of small wheat companies equaled one big wheat company, and it didn't work out.
That's a long answer.
Thank you.
Speaker Change: I have a longer one with respect to the dealer's division. It sounds like you shrank the dealer's division to create more profitable growth in the long term. Can you please discuss the strategy and your outlook for that segment?
Speaker Change: It was a real tight call right at the end to stay in the dealer business or not. The way the dealer business works is...
You have people who sell orders.
Speaker Change: They go through their process, which is complex, and they get a homeowner to sign a contract. I will buy your system.
then they can sell that deal.
Speaker Change: to a company that installs and is a full-service company like ours.
Therefore, it's an unstable business.
Speaker Change: and there are tectonic shifts in the business where that goes into fashion, goes out of fashion.
Speaker Change: And what I know from our own experience with the division, we merged into the other division and my company before that, Complete Solar. The mother of this company, by the way, oddly enough, Complete Solar.
Speaker Change: The mother of this company is a grand total of maybe 60 people out of a thousand and we're spread all over the Company including my position and and we're not we're not that company anymore We are we're the money and the funding and the guidance for the company
Speaker Change: solid things. It's not quite reasonable to use Warren Buffett's name here but we're thinking that way when we look at what we can acquire and bring in and which businesses we should grow. And right now dealer does not look like one of those businesses we grow. And by the way I want to point out
that our Blue Raven division is its own dealer.
It has.
Speaker Change: a large group of salespeople and we get our own orders and therefore we get all the profit going up.
Speaker Change: So we understand how it works. We understand what it costs. That 30% is not phony. That is, it really takes that much money to get the order and keep it.
So, right now, that's not where we want to be.
Speaker Change: Thank you. Looks like we have two more in the queue. Just a reminder to the audience, if you have any additional questions you can put them in the text box at the bottom of your screen and we will see them there.
Speaker Change: The next question is, how do you see yourself differentiated versus your peers in the next six to 12 months?
We will be financially stable on a cash flow basis.
in tough times.
Speaker Change: So, you know, Marine Corps, we're going to come out of this being a difficult company to compete with.
Speaker Change: In a consumer business we are going, and are now, have great, great consumer ratings. We're going to get better on that.
Speaker Change: And then the new angle is going to be technology and acquisition, which again, I can't, right now I'm working on several technologies and I can't name one for you that I'm ready to move on.
And in acquisitions, we're always looking at acquisitions, always.
Speaker Change: Thank you. The last question I have here is, can you provide any timing on when your name change to SunPower might occur?
Speaker Change: I'm surprised that that is a major... well I asked for it right I showed the picture of the airplane.
Can't write now. Problem we've got.
is
the Sun Power I knew
Speaker Change: I was the chairman of Sun Power when it went public.
In the
Speaker Change: I think it was 2004. I was chairman of Sun Park, Cypress Semiconductor, my company owned them.
Speaker Change: and the sun power I remember that conquered the world and built and put the power in that airplane.
wasn't the one that was experienced in Salt Lake.
It was a
Speaker Change: something that would cause dislike if you worked with them and so I got half the company that doesn't remember SunPower well but I got a name that's worth half a billion dollars and I got to figure out how to make all that work together
Speaker Change: Thank you very much. That looks like all the questions we have in the queue today.