Q1 2025 Powell Industries Inc Earnings Call
and Matt Damon, there are three Jets takes, a challenge, and brevity. They so sound a lot more respectable and kind of compliant as owning a Sable Airplane, but it's clear they're not as bad. Being very ordinary and very humble actually has something very special about them. They are accepting people in there because they've been around for a long time,
Speaker Change: Good day and welcome to the Powell Industries fiscal first quarter 2025 earnings conference call.
Speaker Change: All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions.
Speaker Change: To ask a question, you may press star, then 1 on a touch-tone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star, then 2. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Ryan Coleman with Alpha IR. Please go ahead.
Ryan Coleman: Thank you operator and good morning everyone. Thank you for joining us for Powell Industries conference call today to review fiscal year 2025 first quarter results. With me on the call are Brett Cope, Powell's chairman and CEO, and Mike Metcalf, Powell's CFO.
Ryan Coleman: There will be a replay of today's call and it will be available via webcast by going to the company's website powellind.com or a telephonic replay will be available until February 14th. The information on how to access the replay was provided in yesterday's earnings release.
Ryan Coleman: Please note that information reported on this call speaks only as of today, February 7th, 2025, and therefore you are advised that any time-sensitive information may no longer be accurate at the time of replay listening or transcript reading.
Ryan Coleman: This conference call includes certain statements, including statements related to the company's expectations of its future operating results that may be considered forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
Ryan Coleman: Investors are cautioned that such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties and that actual future results may differ materially from those projected in these forward-looking statements.
Ryan Coleman: These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, competition and competitive pressures, sensitivity to general economic and industry conditions, international political and economic risks.
Ryan Coleman: availability and price of raw materials and execution of business strategies. For more information, please refer to the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Brett.
Brett Cope: Thanks, Ryan, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to review Powell's fiscal 2025 first quarter results. I will make a few comments and then turn the call over to Mike for more financial commentary before we take your questions.
Speaker Change: All recorded a strong start to the fiscal year, highlighted by revenue growth of 24% and new order growth of 36% compared to the prior year.
Speaker Change: while the electric utility and commercial and other industrial sectors grew 26% and 80% respectively.
Speaker Change: Our order total of $269 million also saw broad strength led by an award this quarter for a large domestic LNG project to be located along the U.S. Gulf Coast. New project activity continues to be balanced across our industrial, utility, and commercial sectors.
Speaker Change: Our strategy in the utility market continues to be a bright spot as the sector once again accounted for nearly one-third of our backlog.
Speaker Change: Roast margin was roughly unchanged from the prior year but lower sequentially. This was in line with our expectations given the seasonal challenges we typically see in the first quarter as well as the benefit of project close outs we experienced in the fourth quarter of 2024.
Speaker Change: On the bottom line, we recorded debt income of $35 million in the first quarter, or $2.86 per diluted share, which was 44% higher than the prior year.
Speaker Change: Our backlog of $1.3 billion increased by $48 million compared to the prior year and by $14 million sequentially.
Speaker Change: We remain very encouraged by the overall composition and project schedules of our backlog, which is well balanced across both the markets and geographies in which we compete, and provides revenue visibility into fiscal 2027.
Speaker Change: We are making good progress with our capacity initiatives, which are advancing as planned to help facilitate the execution of our current backlog, as well as provide room for modest volume growth going forward.
Speaker Change: Remediation work at the nine acres we purchased last July continues to progress on schedule and has already freed up important capacity at our largest manufacturing facility based in Houston.
Speaker Change: We expect this incremental capacity to contribute revenue in fiscal 2025.
Speaker Change: The expansion and improvement of our electrical products factory in Houston also remains on schedule and is expected to be completed by mid-fiscal 2025.
Speaker Change: The incremental space will be focused on supporting organic development of new products to better position Powell in our key markets.
Speaker Change: We continue to invest in our R&D function to support those efforts, as our R&D spend was up 26% versus one year ago to $2.5 million in the first quarter.
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Speaker Change: We continue to attract and strengthen our talented workforce and are confident that we are adequately positioned to execute our backlog.
Speaker Change: Last quarter, we detailed the opening of an engineering satellite office on the far west side of Houston, allowing us to better engage and hire from a wider population of qualified engineers.
Speaker Change: Efforts like these are critical as we plan over the medium term, allowing us to attract the talent to fuel each of our three strategic growth initiatives.
Speaker Change: Looking ahead, we have every reason to expect another solid performance for Powell in fiscal 2025.
Speaker Change: We are in an incredibly strong financial position and maintain a 1.3 billion dollar order book comprised of projects that are central to what Powell does best.
The Fundamentals.
Speaker Change: For our oil and gas and petrochemical markets support our expectation for continued strength for these sectors
Speaker Change: Specific to the fundamentals of the U.S. natural gas market, price spreads across global markets remain favorable and conducive to U.S. export activity. Activity within our commercial and other industrial market also remains healthy and includes activity within the data center market.
Speaker Change: We continue our efforts to further penetrate the data center market and expand the total content opportunity for Powell within this market sector.
Speaker Change: Specifically, we are working to qualify more of our products and services for this important end market as we also work to build relationships with both new customers and new channels to position Powell to succeed in this market.
Speaker Change: Last, the outlook for our utility market remains very healthy. The overall volume of projects coming to market is materially higher than past years. And while we have increased our win rate, we continue to drive towards higher levels of success.
Speaker Change: Expanding our presence in this market has been the result of a deliberate and concerted effort going back more than a decade.
Speaker Change: Throughout the years, when power demand was flat or falling in the U.S. and new generation projects stalled, we invested considerable time and resources to position ourselves as a market leader and valued partner to utility customers.
Speaker Change: Today, as electricity demand is rising and new generation capacity must now work to catch up, we are in a prime position to leverage our relationships and capabilities to help power this new era of investment in our energy infrastructure.
Speaker Change: As a proud Texas-based company with a storied history that stretches back more than seven decades, we believe that the renaissance in building and strengthening America's electrical infrastructure is best served by American manufacturing jobs and companies based right here in the United States.
Speaker Change: Here at Powell, we are excited to continue to play a leading role in powering our nation's future.
Speaker Change: With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Mike to walk us through our financial results in greater detail.
Thank you, Brett, and good morning, everyone.
Mike Metcalf: In the first quarter of fiscal 2025, we reported net revenue of $241 million compared to $194 million, or 24% higher, versus the same period in fiscal 2024.
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Mike Metcalf: New orders booked in the first fiscal quarter of 2025 were $269 million, which was 36% higher than the same period one year ago, and included a large domestic liquefied natural gas project order during the quarter.
Mike Metcalf: Notwithstanding this mega LNG order, the order's cadence across most of our reported market sectors continues to be active.
Mike Metcalf: As a result, our book-to-bill ratio in the period was 1.1 times, with a backlog of $1.3 billion as we exited our first fiscal quarter.
Mike Metcalf: which was 48 million higher than one year ago and 14 million higher sequentially.
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Mike Metcalf: Compared to the first fiscal quarter of 2024, domestic revenues improved by 24 percent.
Mike Metcalf: Well, international revenues were 28% or $10 million higher to $44 million in the current fiscal quarter.
Mike Metcalf: The increase in our international revenues was driven predominantly by an increase in project volume across our Canadian operations.
Mike Metcalf: From a market sector perspective, revenues across our petrochemical, oil and gas, utility, and commercial and other industrial end markets continued their positive momentum from fiscal 2024.
Mike Metcalf: Compared with the first fiscal quarter of 2024, our revenues from the petrochemical sector were higher by 17%, while revenues from the oil and gas sector increased by 14% in the current fiscal quarter.
Mike Metcalf: Additionally, we achieved substantial growth in the electric utility and commercial and other industrial market sectors, with increases of 26% and 80% respectively.
Mike Metcalf: These results reflect our continued strategic focus on diversifying and expanding into markets outside of our core industrial end markets.
Mike Metcalf: Albeit a small percentage of the total revenues, the light rail traction power market also experienced an increase of 89% on a modest revenue base.
Mike Metcalf: Gross profit in the current period increased by $11 million to $60 million in the first fiscal quarter versus the same period one year ago.
Mike Metcalf: Gross profit as a percentage of revenue was roughly flat versus the same period one year ago at 24.7% of revenues
Mike Metcalf: and lower sequentially by 460 basis points in the absence of the strong project closeouts that we experienced in the fourth fiscal quarter, combined with the seasonally lower first quarter shop activity.
Mike Metcalf: As we noted in our fourth quarter release, we anticipated a challenging sequential comparison, considering that our first fiscal quarter is historically the softest quarter across our fiscal year.
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Mike Metcalf: SG&A, as a percentage of revenue, decreased 160 basis points to 8.9% in the current fiscal quarter on the higher revenue base versus the same period one year ago.
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Mike Metcalf: In the first fiscal quarter of 2025, we reported net income of $34.8 million, generating $2.86 per diluted share.
Mike Metcalf: This represents a 44% increase compared to net income of $24.1 million, or $1.98 per diluted share in the same period of fiscal 2024.
Mike Metcalf: During the first quarter of fiscal 2025, we generated 37 million dollars of operating cash flow on favorable income generation through the period.
Mike Metcalf: Investments in property, plant, and equipment totaled 2.2 million dollars as we continue to fund the large facility expansion and improvement project at our breaker facility in Houston.
Mike Metcalf: At December 31, 2024, we had cash and short-term investments of $373 million compared to $358 million at September 30, 2024, and the company does not hold any debt.
Mike Metcalf: And finally, earlier this week we announced an annualized one cent per share increase to our common stock dividend.
Mike Metcalf: This is the third consecutive year that the board has taken this action.
Mike Metcalf: This action demonstrates our commitment to continually improving shareholder returns while also ensuring sufficient liquidity to fund our CapEx and working capital requirements in addition to the growth aspirations for the business.
Mike Metcalf: As we look ahead to the remainder of fiscal 2025, we are encouraged by the sustained commercial momentum across our end markets through the first fiscal quarter of 2025, which has allowed us to maintain both the quality and the quantity of our backlog.
Mike Metcalf: Combined with our ongoing focus on optimizing margin levers, in addition to the strength of our balance sheet, Powell is well positioned to deliver robust revenue and earnings throughout the rest of fiscal 2025.
At this point, we'll be happy to answer your questions.
We will now begin the question and answer session.
Mike Metcalf: To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your touchtone phone.
Mike Metcalf: If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys.
Mike Metcalf: If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then 2.
Speaker Change: At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster.
Speaker Change: The first question today comes from Chip Moore with Roth. Please go ahead.
Chip Moore: Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. Brett and Mike, maybe we could start on the project pipeline you're seeing here in the New Year post-elections, and particularly, I guess, what you're seeing on LNG and any more color on that order you won this quarter.
Morning Chip, it's Brett.
Chip Moore: Yeah, nice award in the first quarter, roughly $75 million, give or take.
Chip Moore: of the first quarter booking number. I think I noted last quarter that the funnel activity on the market started to pick up, I think in anticipation of the change of the administration.
Chip Moore: It's nice to see that they started permitting process again, at least, as the new DOE Secretary has gotten in there. And I'd say that in line with that, from...
Chip Moore: The end of the year till this Q1 activity is picked up that much more. So we are very encouraged by the outlook for that particular market.
Speaker Change: Great. And if I could ask on margins, obviously you're, you know, seasonally weaker quarter with shutdowns on holidays and things like that.
Speaker Change: Can you talk a little bit more, are you seeing any competitive pressures out there or anything like that?
Speaker Change: On the go forward, you know, should we be thinking about potential margin expansion this year? I know Q2 last year was sort of flat-ish, quarter over quarter. Anything to call out there? And then any impact on tariffs or any thoughts on tariffs?
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Speaker Change: Yeah, hi Chip. This is this is Mike. I'll start off by addressing your question on margins. First, as we noted in the in the prepared comments, our first fiscal quarter historically is softer versus the remainder of the fiscal year.
due to the under-recovery resulting from the holiday seasonal period.
Speaker Change: We see it really every year. And it really, it results in a much lower operating leverage number compared to 2Q, 3Q, and 4Q.
So as we look forward...
Speaker Change: You know, the right barometer, I think, to use is if you look at trailing 12 months of margins.
Speaker Change: that were exiting backlog, excluding those strong project closeouts that we saw in the second half of fiscal 2024, which on an annualized basis probably contributes 100 basis points of lift in margins.
Mike Metcalf: Yeah, I'll comment quick on tariffs and have Mike jump back in.
Mike Metcalf: Watching it really closely, I'd remind everybody that we don't direct source anything out of the Far East, China specifically. Relative to North America, Mexico, and Canada, there is some intercompany. Not a significant part, as we know.
Mike Metcalf: under one real philosophy with commodities in and product out and all our factory locations, so a little bit of intercompany. It would really be more of any indirect impact, what we saw.
Mike Metcalf: years ago, when some of this went on, was logistic challenges, sort of backup or indirect effect. And so that's kind of where we're watching. We do have some aluminum every now and then, specific to a certain couple of products that could get impacted, but we...
Mike Metcalf: We feel pretty good with our sourcing strategies. We can go to other areas and acquire it. So it's really that indirect effect that probably would have us most concerned. And anything direct, we feel like we could.
handled pretty well in the model.
Mike Metcalf: And just to follow on there, Chip, I mean, we're staying very close to both the imported material costs as well as any foreign currency fluctuations as it may result from the threat of tariffs that may or may not materialize.
Mike Metcalf: Fortunately, as Brett mentioned, the majority of our product costs are sourced domestically in each one of our geographies that we operate in.
Mike Metcalf: And in the event that we do encounter tariff cost headwinds, these will be passed along in the form of price through our pricing models, so we're staying very close to it.
Got it. Very helpful. If I could ask.
Mike Metcalf: One more, I guess, on commercial data center, it sounded like, I think you said 80%.
Mike Metcalf: you know, within quarter to quarter growth and activity and opportunity. We continue to build the channels, continue to build direct and client relationships as we continue to make our way into that market.
Mike Metcalf: We are beyond the cable bus product. We are definitely supplying gear through different channels into that market. There were some nice wins within the quarter bookings.
be good for Powell over the mid to long term.
Very good. I'll hop back in queue. Thanks.
Mike Metcalf: The next question comes from John Fansgrove with the Doty. Please go ahead.
John Fansgrove: Good morning, Brett and Mike, and congratulations on another great quarter.
I'm going to jump.
Speaker Change: I guess, Brett, I'd like to, you know, hear your thoughts about the capacity expansion, maybe a little bit of an update. You know, I know it's largely geared towards new product development, but is there any thoughts about expanding overall production capacity, and if so, can you kind of quantify that?
Brett Cope: Good question. Thank you, John. Yeah, the product factory, as we noted in prepared comments, last two quarters on track. So, you know, mid-fiscal 25, which will be another couple months.
Speaker Change: Buildings up, roofs on, cranes are in, so I was just over there a couple days ago checking it out, looks great.
So those products roll out organically, R&D.
Speaker Change: We, you know, including the nine acres that we bought in June of last year for other capacity options that Powell can quickly spin up.
Speaker Change: We're currently doing some soil sampling over there right now to maybe consider pivoting a little bit on that for optionality.
Speaker Change: And then in addition to that, so that's about half of that nine acres, and then if you look elsewhere in Powell at the offshore channel, and then even at the product factory, we have another 20 acres. All in all, about 30 acres that we can convert and move, especially on substation opportunities if we needed to move.
Speaker Change: Say, you know, to be able to take more opportunity there, move more outside of the under one roof and create up for gear. So.
Speaker Change: Kind of alluded to that a little bit in Q1, back in December, that we are looking at the footprint, continue to do it, as well as maybe other inorganic opportunities more mid-term. So it is more active and we're watching it very closely.
Speaker Change: understanding how quick and you know how much capex and and just kind of matching that to the market so we can
Speaker Change: and if we do pull the trigger, we can maximize the return.
Speaker Change: All right, that's great to hear. Hey, can you talk a little bit about the pricing environment? With the demand profile so high, are you able to implement higher prices on the projects?
Aye.
Speaker Change: Yes and no. You know, when you look at the capital side of the gear and the substations, that has been pretty consistent over the last, you know, well over a year. They're not, you know, we've talked before about watching any erosion in that market. It's something we watch very closely.
Speaker Change: Seems to be holding overall. We're looking for value-add opportunities right now Expanding the service side of the equation, you know the strategy around the OPEC side. We're starting to get some
Speaker Change: Some good momentum built there. And then and then on the automation front, which continues to bring in heavier calories. We are quietly growing that that business as well within the company. And so we're looking for the value additions into the model there where we can.
Speaker Change: go in and around a capital job and extend it to the brownfield side. But no real...it would be tough, I think, at this point to say we could see any more upside on the big capital jobs. They're kind of holding, which is good. We're kind of more watching if there's any threat to the downside.
Speaker Change: It's hard to ignore the fact that the cash is up nearly four-fold since the first quarter of 2023. What are your thoughts about cash?
Uhh, I- I- I...
Speaker Change: kind of last quarter, you know, he asked on the M&A, it's, it's...
Speaker Change: I took off the long-term, kind of more bracketed it more near to midterm. I'd hold those comments.
Speaker Change: Mike and I started this work years ago and talking with yourself. I think you followed the story. We've expanded within the team of the folks that are involved with us in that.
Speaker Change: and the activity across that team has picked up. So I think that would be, you know, we've identified some pretty good opportunities and working hard to figure out if we can make them go. And John, I would also note that it's...
Speaker Change: It's prudent to understand, given our $1.3 billion backlog in our ability to execute, roughly half of that, probably a little less than half, probably $175 million or so, will be at some point deployed to working capital.
Speaker Change: That's a good chunk of the cash that will be deployed to working capital.
Speaker Change: So about half the caskets drawn down as you execute a new project. So really what's available is roughly half of that. Okay. Fair enough. And just, Brett, would you care to, you know, frame the size of acquisitions you're kind of looking at? Is it niches, you know?
Any way you can kind of qualify it.
Well, I'll go back to the strategy to start with.
Speaker Change: The automation space, there's some things there that we feel could be added into the model. When I look at.
total potential with the board, it's, it's...
Speaker Change: It's in the $50 to $75 million range right now. We could lever up higher if we really found something that was...
Speaker Change: that attractive but in terms of accretion and you know look at what's affordable out there and what really helps our strategy you know take a step forward that's currently the area that I'd say is most attractive to us.
Speaker Change: Thanks. Thanks for the clarity. I'll get back in the queue.
I'll see you in the next one.
Speaker Change: The next question comes from John Bratt with Kansas City Capital. Please go ahead. Good morning Brett, Mike.
Morning, Joe.
Speaker Change: There's been a lot of noise in the LNG sector and I just want to make sure the $75 million award in this quarter
Speaker Change: has all the necessary permits, requirements, and so on, so forth, to move forward, and that there's nothing that they're waiting for.
Speaker Change: Yeah, this one has all the permits. It is a full go. It's one that historically was out there for years.
Speaker Change: paused for different reasons other than permitting, but their permit has always been good.
Speaker Change: Okay. Okay. And then secondly, again, as we think about the LNG prospects ahead, you know, the DOE issued a report in December that wasn't too flattering for LNG, although they...
Speaker Change: They didn't say they were against it. As I understand it, the administration has to come up with a rebuttal, so to speak.
Speaker Change: and not be hit with some lost dudes that put a snag into everything. How are they thinking about that?
Speaker Change: So we are talking with a lot of those folks at the senior level to understand all the puts and takes that you're sharing with in the question. I'd say what I could share is there is absolutely, in the last 60 days, they were.
a heightened renewed
Speaker Change: Encouragement within within the sector. It's not to say timing as we've kind of indicated over the last 12 months isn't going to be
Speaker Change: Somewhat more suspect than that big wave that hit us back in 22-23 all at once So I think there's still that question of timing and and and dotting I's and crossing T's to get through it but
Speaker Change: I think Mike and I, from the engagements we've had with the clients and the sector, as we kind of look out at what people are planning to do and we look at the activity we're being asked to support for that planning process,
It's definitely taken a step up towards, you know,
getting going in a much more
Speaker Change: Encouraging way over the next next couple years, not to say timing won't be an issue I can't say here today, and you know the ones that we are tracking and say exactly when FID and permitting everything gets full clearer for your first question, but
Should the floodgates open up?
Would you have to say no to some projects?
Ah...
Speaker Change: I hope not. And that's kind of, for John Fransma's earlier question, it's the reason we put renewed energy into the acreage that we own here in Houston, and how quick can we...
Speaker Change: If you look at the last Capital Expansion, we did it offshore.
Speaker Change: The team came up with a great idea of how to not just minimize the capital, but deploy the capital so that we could maximize lay down area.
Speaker Change: Unlike previous expansions we've done out there, we've gone deeper with more engineered soil. We came up with a way to kind of only do a foot and a half down as opposed to a three foot dig that Powell historically has done over the years out there. That supports the need for the for the weight displacement that we require and so
and we've got some some really good
Speaker Change: Supplier folks contractors and good quarry spent some time in the quarry material. So
Speaker Change: We put all that together, you know, we're kind of refreshing that and going, okay, what can we really do next wave and make sure that we're, you know, you look at the engineering process and when you, and when you get to the drawing process, we can time if that were to happen.
Speaker Change: And along with that engineering office that we noted last couple quarters, we want to have the upfront engineering resource so that as the drawings get done and get through the process, we have the area to lay down the sub that if and when that wave were to kind of pile up on each other, that we can.
We can make
Speaker Change: When you look back at the slew of projects that you were awarded back in 2022-23, when you look at it in aggregate and the opportunities that are out there,
Speaker Change: Would you see it being materially larger than what you saw back a few years ago?
Speaker Change: Yes, my answer that yes, although I won't come in bit one big wave So I think I shared last couple calls Intermittently in my comments that I believe that the amount that's out there in front of us is definitely bigger than Than the way you just noted. I just think the timing of that will be
It is uncertain, but there is definitely...
Speaker Change: Definitely more planned over, I'll say maybe more midterm versus say you know all going to happen in the next two years but it's
Brett Cope: There's a lot of potential that we're tracking. Okay. Brett, thank you very much. You bet. Thanks, John.
Speaker Change: This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Brett Cope for any closing remarks.
Brett Cope: Thank you, Betsy. I would like to thank our valued customers and our supplier partners for their continued trust and support of Powell. And to our employees, thank you for your incredible energy and commitment as we have risen together to meet opportunity with open minds and a healthy dose of Powell Can-Do spirit.
Brett Cope: We are very pleased with our first quarter and expect another strong year for Powell. Thank you for joining this morning. Mike and I look forward to updating you all next quarter.
Thanks for watching!
Brett Cope: The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.