American Superconductor - Earnings Call - Q1 2022

Transcript

Speaker 0

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the American Superconductor First Quarter Fiscal twenty twenty one Earnings Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. John Helshorn. Please go ahead, sir.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Sharon. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to American Superconductor Corporation's first quarter of fiscal twenty twenty one earnings conference call. I am John Halshorn of LHA Investor Relations, AMSC's Investor Relations agency of record. With us on today's call are Daniel McCann, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer and John Kosiba, Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. American Superconductor issued its earnings release for the 2021 yesterday after the market closed.

For those of you who have not seen the release, a copy is available at the Investors page of the company's website at www.amsc.com. Before starting the call, I would like to remind you that various remarks that management may make during today's call about American Superconductor's future expectations, including expectations regarding 2021 financial performance, plans and prospects constitute forward looking statements for purposes of the Safe Harbor provisions 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 in the Risk Factors section of American Superconductor's Annual Report on Form 10 ks for the year ended 03/31/2021, which the company filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on 06/02/2021, and the company's subsequent 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 date subsequent to today. While the company anticipates that subsequent events and developments may cause the company's views to change, the company specifically disclaims any obligation to update these forward looking statements.

Also on today's call, management will refer to non GAAP net loss and non GAAP financial measure. The company believes that non GAAP net loss assists with management and investors in 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 GAAP net loss can be found to non GAAP net loss can be found on the 2020 earnings press release that the company issued and furnished to the SEC last night on Form eight ks. All of American Superconductor's press releases and SEC filings can be accessed from the Investors page of its website at www.amsc.com. With that, I will now turn the call over to Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Daniel McCann.

Daniel?

Speaker 2

Thanks, John, and good morning, everyone. I'll begin today by providing an update on our Grid and Wind business units. John Kaseba will then provide a detailed review of our financial results for the first fiscal quarter, which ended 06/30/2021, and provide guidance for the second fiscal quarter, which will end 09/30/2021. Following our comments, we'll open up the line to questions from our analysts. At the top, I just want to say I'm very excited about the progress we've been making on the REG installation in Chicago.

Both teams have been working very well together, and I hope that we'll be

Speaker 1

able to update you soon.

Speaker 2

We are growing and diversifying our business. Our Grid segment revenue for the 2021 grew by more than 30% versus the year ago period and accounted for over 90% of AMSC revenue. In fact, this was the largest grid quarter we have had ever. Since the start of this fiscal year, we have been building momentum, while further strengthening our backlog and extending our grid visibility well into fiscal twenty twenty one and also a glimpse into fiscal twenty twenty two. This certainly is a very different and stronger business than it even was a few years ago.

Our Grid business was driven by strong new energy power system shipments as well as higher Ship Protection System revenues. Total revenue for the entire business grew by nearly 20% versus the year ago period. In fact, our first quarter revenue of approximately $25,000,000 was our highest quarterly revenue at some time. Just so people understand the numbers a bit better and the impact of Neotran, remember we said that we expected that Neotran would be accretive to earnings per share within twelve months from closing, not right away. Nealtrend delivered revenues of about $5,000,000

Speaker 1

during the first quarter. This did come in line with our expectations.

Speaker 2

The operating cash flow number came in line with how we would anticipate that the business would typically operate at revenues of about $20,000,000 per quarter. When John goes through the numbers, he will highlight this. And as you look at the guidance for next quarter, please keep this in mind. We have integrated Nepc nicely into the business. We are working to do the same with Neotran.

We are starting to see leverage between the product lines as evidenced by the recent $21,000,000 in orders that were just announced, which was driven by the mining and semiconductor markets. To give you some color on these orders, nearly half of the orders come from mining and about a quarter come from semiconductor fabs. We are getting leverage across the product lines selling into mining. We are presenting more content and getting orders from semiconductor in the middle of what is a challenging period for supply chains, while we're seeing an increase in capital investment to build semiconductor capacities. These are two markets, mining and semiconductor, that may continue to be tailwinds for the business.

As you'll see from our revenue guidance for the second quarter of fiscal twenty twenty one, we are anticipating growth. Given our current momentum in existing backlog, we certainly could surpass the $30,000,000 quarterly revenue level as soon as this fiscal year. Now that we've reached $25,000,000 we have our sights set on $30,000,000 Our revenue backlog is more than 50% higher than this time a year ago, and we ended the first quarter with much more than $60,000,000 in cash. In fiscal twenty twenty one, we expect year over year revenue growth again in our grid and in our overall business. Our new energy power systems backlog is very strong.

We are manufacturing ship protection systems for the first San Antonio Class ship platform LPD with our first delivery expected this year. We are supporting Inox with commissioning in the field and providing electrical control systems or ECS as they need and pay for it. And our South Korean wind partner has begun erecting offshore wind turbines utilizing AMSC's 5.5 megawatt turbine design and ECS. Our new energy power systems business has been supported by a strong base of projects in the renewable and industrial segments. Our systems have gained notable momentum, and we expect that they will drive growth and diversification for our company this fiscal year.

Our new energy power systems include dynamic power correction platforms, our static power correction line of capacitor banks and harmonic filter systems, as well as our rectifiers and transformers. Our dynamic power correction platform consists of our voltage management solutions. These solutions are focused on addressing renewable energy installations on the transmission grid and industrial installations like a semiconductor fab, which would reside on the distribution grid. We are presenting more content to customers as we leverage the strong combination of our new energy power systems solutions. In May 2021, we acquired Neotran Inc, a Connecticut based company that supplies rectifiers and transformers to the industrial market.

The acquisition of Neotran as well as it was with Nepse, which we acquired last October, directly in line with our strategic priorities to accelerate profitable growth independent of our wind business, broaden our product offering and expand both market reach and content per sale. We believe our new energy solutions will play an important role in accelerating us to being operating cash flow positive and position us hopefully for even more dramatic growth. Our growth through grid strategy is working. Our business development and manufacturing teams are driving very hard. Our supply chain so far has been able to respond to the increasing demand for our new energy products.

We work closely with the semiconductor industry on long lead item supply. To date,

Speaker 1

we

Speaker 2

have not felt impacts of the semiconductor shortage on shipments. We continue to monitor our suppliers and try to work closely with them to make sure we don't miss a beat in production. We are seeing lead times trending upwards, but we believe that we have the time to react to this and have built that into our material flows. When many manufacturers rely on lean production, we believe for critical components, you cannot run so lean. I am very happy that we've been running our business this way.

We are starting to see product costs on the rise, specifically around commodity metals. This impacts every product of ours from the cabinets that enclose them down to the materials used in the semiconductor wire. We are proactively updating our prices where we can to include these additional costs. We can't adjust much against the backlog already established, but the good news is that in most cases, we have either procured the material or have material contracts in place for a large portion of our existing backlog. Moving forward on new orders, we are reviewing all our cost estimates and raising prices when appropriate.

The markets in general understand that prices for many commodities have been rising and we are adjusting accordingly. We anticipate that new energy shipments should provide a strong base of grid revenues in the second quarter as well as the balance of this fiscal year. This expectation is driven by the strong backlog that we have for new energy power systems as well as the overall grid business. Now turning to our Ship Protection Systems or SPS. Our Ship Protection System is the Navy's baseline degaussing design for the San Antonio Class ship platform LPD.

In fiscal twenty twenty, we announced two separate delivery contracts for our SPS systems. These two contracts represent our third and fourth Ship Protection System orders for deployment on LPD 31 and LPD 29. The SPS is designed to reduce the magnetic signature of a ship, which can interfere with undersea mines' ability to detect and damage the ship. AMSC has worked with the U. S.

Navy to develop a lighter weight, more power efficient, high temperature superconductor version of the Stegaussig system. The SPS, we are now manufacturing for the Navy. The Navy's plan is to build 15 additional San Antonio Class ships starting with LPD 28. We are working very closely with the Navy and our supply chain to ensure timely delivery of our SPS orders. Our SPS team is very busy and focused on delivering our first systems.

The San Antonio Class is our first design win with the U. S. Navy. Other potential platforms include, but are not limited to, carriers, frigates, destroyers and littoral ships. SPS grew and contributed to our strong Grid segment revenues in the first quarter of fiscal twenty twenty one.

Moving on to wind, Doosan is now erecting their first series of production 5.5 megawatt offshore wind turbines utilizing AMSC's design as well as AMSC's ECS. We believe Southeast Asia is a geography well suited for our five megawatt class wind turbine and for our partner Doosan. South Korea tends to become one of the world's top five offshore wind power producers, and we believe Doosan is well positioned for a very high market share. To date, there are wind farms in the development pipeline, which totaled nearly nine gigawatts of wind capacity. We understand Doosan will supply wind turbines for the Southwestern offshore wind project, which is a 2.5 gigawatt development and the Goonsan offshore wind farm, a one gigawatt development.

Our team is working very closely with Doosan, and we look forward to potentially penetrating the global offshore wind market with this partner. Regarding our onshore ECS business, we stand ready to support our partner in India as they need support commissioning new turbines or need new stock of two megawatt ECS. For now, we are supporting Inox with commissioning of two megawatt turbines in the field and providing ECS product as they need and pay for it. But let me note importantly today, we expect to ship two megawatt ECS in the second quarter. Now I'll turn the call over to John Kasiba to review our financial results for the 2021 and provide guidance for the second fiscal quarter of twenty twenty one, which will end 09/30/2021.

John? Thanks, Daniel,

Speaker 3

and good morning, everyone. AMC generated revenues of $25,400,000 for the 2021 compared to $21,200,000 in the year ago quarter. Our Grid business unit accounted for 92% of total revenues, while our Wind business unit accounted for 8%. Grid business unit revenues increased by nearly 33% in the first quarter versus the year ago quarter. The year over year growth is due primarily to the revenues generated from both of our acquisitions, Nepse and Nailtrail.

Additionally, we experienced growth within our SPS product line. Wind business unit revenues decreased 45% in the first quarter versus the year ago quarter as a result of ECS shipments to Doosan during the year ago period. Looking at the P and L in more detail, gross margin for the 2021 was 13% compared to 24% in the year ago quarter. The year over year decrease was due to an unfavorable product mix and additional costs related to purchase accounting adjustments associated with the Neotran acquisition. I realize that with the two acquisitions being incorporated into our financial statements over the last nine months, it may be difficult to get a sense of what normalized gross margins may look like after the full integration of both Nepse and Neotran.

To help you understand what a normalized consolidated gross margin could look like on this revenue profile, I've modeled AMSC's consolidated gross margins assuming that Neotran and Nepse have gross margins consistent with similar product lines like D VAR. In that scenario, consolidated gross margins for the company would be between 2025%, depending on product specific mix. As a reminder, when we acquired Neotran, we mentioned it would take up to a year from closing for Neotran to be accretive to earnings. As we ship off existing Neotran backlog and replace it with new orders like the ones we announced on Tuesday, we expect to see Neotran's gross margins improve considerably over the next twelve months. Moving on to operating expenses.

R and D and SG and A expenses for the 2021 were $10,200,000 This was up from $8,100,000 for the same period a year ago. The year over year increase was primarily the result of absorbing the operating expenses for both our Nepse and Neotran acquisitions. Additionally, in Q1 of FY twenty twenty one, there were approximately $700,000 of acquisition related expenses to complete the Neotran acquisition. Approximately 13% of R and D and SG and A expenses in the 2021 were non cash. Our non GAAP net loss for the 2021 was $2,700,000 or $0.10 per share compared with $2,400,000 or $0.11 per share in the year ago quarter.

Our net loss in the 2021 was $5,400,000 or $0.20 per share. This compares with $3,400,000 or $0.16 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 2021 with $63,100,000 in cash, cash equivalents, marketable securities and restricted cash. This compares with $80,700,000 on 03/31/2021.

Approximately $12,700,000 in cash was used to acquire Neotran in the quarter. Our operating cash burn in the 2021 was $5,800,000 I would like to take a moment to bridge the operating cash flow for this quarter. If you recall, when we announced the Neotran acquisition, we stated that we anticipated Neotran would be additive to AMSC's operating cash flow within twelve months from closing. Implied in that statement is that AMSC would absorb Neotran into the operations and it would take some quarters before we experience any meaningful cash contribution from this business. To help normalize this quarter's cash flow, if we back out NeoTrans revenue in this quarter, AMSC's revenue is closer to $20,000,000 in Q1 of FY 'twenty one.

On that revenue profile, we would normally expect an operating cash burn of $3,000,000 to $4,000,000 With that said, we're anticipating revenue growth in both our Grid and Wind businesses over the coming quarters. And as a result, we are investing in working capital to support this growth. This additional working capital investment is expected to continue into Q2, then we expect to levelize working capital in the second half of fiscal twenty twenty one. Now turning to our financial guidance for the second quarter of fiscal twenty twenty one. We expect that our revenues will be in the range of 24,000,000 to $27,000,000 Our net loss on that revenue is expected not to exceed $6,700,000 or $0.25 per share.

Our net loss guidance assumes no changes in contingent consideration nor any purchase accounting adjustments associated with the Neotran acquisition. Our non GAAP net loss is expected not to exceed $5,000,000 or $0.18 per share. The company expects an operating cash burn of 4,000,000 to $6,000,000 in the second quarter of fiscal twenty twenty one. We expect to end the second quarter with no less than $56,000,000 in cash, cash equivalents, marketable securities and restricted cash. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Daniel.

Dan?

Speaker 4

Thanks, John.

Speaker 2

The emergence of COVID-nineteen has created both operational challenges and macroeconomic concerns for all businesses. And now just after it seems we're getting back to business as usual, we see a surge in COVID cases due to this new virus variant. Throughout the past eighteen months of the pandemic, AMSC has demonstrated it can operate effectively through times of crisis. We were early to implement physical separation at our manufacturing sites and did not miss a beat in production. We instituted cleaning protocols for our offices to help keep everyone safe and healthy, which is paramount.

We are focused on our people and the parts to make our products as well as on strong customer service and product quality. Our factories remain open and have been operational throughout the pandemic. We have started fiscal twenty twenty one on a very strong note. Grid represented over 90% of our revenue in the 2021 and was our strongest Grid quarter since we began reporting the Grid segment. Our new energy power systems business is very strong, and we are beginning to see the initial benefits of our two recent acquisitions.

Bookings are off to a strong start for the year. We have shipped protection system orders for deployment on LPD 28, LPD 29, LPD 30 and LPD 31. We are supporting Doosan's efforts to penetrate the offshore wind market with our 5.5 megawatt turbine. We are preparing for our onshore wind partner, Inox, to transition to a larger three megawatt class wind turbine for deployment in India. We are executing against our objectives and that is to the credit of our employees due to their hard work and dedication.

And I'm very proud of all the AMSC and ComEd employees that have worked very hard to make REG happen. We have delivered the REG hard work to the site in Chicago on time, and we believe many utilities are interested in seeing the performance of our product in Chicago. I look forward to reporting back to you at the completion of our second fiscal quarter of twenty twenty one. Sharon, we'll now take questions from our analysts.

Speaker 0

Thank you. We'll now take our first question from Eric Stine from Craig Hallum. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Great. This is Aaron Spahal on for Eric. Thanks for taking the questions.

Speaker 2

Hey, Aaron. Good morning.

Speaker 5

Good morning. Maybe first on REG, it sounds like we'll look for details there on the energization of that. But can you just kind of talk about the impact when that happens on maybe Phase two? And you mentioned other utilities that are kind of interested in seeing how that performs. Can you just remind us of the opportunity there with other utilities as we look over the next couple of years?

Speaker 2

Yes, think it's an important step for the product being in a permanent installation, working with a world class utility like ComEd and Exelon. We know there are other opportunities within the city of Chicago and within the broader Exelon utility. We know as per our discussions with ComEd, they really want to see this thing operate at least a year before they go forward and make additional decisions. But the number of people that have been involved, the level of training, the level of deep conversations with such a broad group within the utility gives me strong comfort that this is really a product that's needed now for the grid and solves a lot of those problems. We're seeing, I'll say, an uptick in demand and identification of specificity of products sorry, of projects for the product in other cities that we've talked about in the past.

I think the team has done a very good job canvassing The United States to look for potential opportunities to deploy REG. But I do think it's now gated by successful operation for at least a year Chicago.

Speaker 5

Great. We'll stay tuned there. And then second question, with the infrastructure bill, can you just kind of talk about thoughts on that and then how you might see that impact your business?

Speaker 2

Yes, think they all represent tailwinds. I think a lot of what we're doing is back in vogue. It's the type of infrastructure that needs to be spent on, that there seems to be funding being allocated for clean and renewable energies as well as the systems like the grid that support them. So I think it's a very good time to be American superconductor. We

Speaker 0

will now take the next question from Philip Shen from Roth Capital Partners. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Hey, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. Just as a follow-up on the REG project. I think back in June, Daniel, at our virtual London event, you talked about maybe ComEd being just few weeks away. Just was wondering if you could give a little bit of detail as to if you're seeing any bottlenecks or challenges as you guys kind of get to the final stages or is mostly everything kind of running smoothly?

And I know your original target was to get this done in the summer, but wanted to just check-in to see if there's more detail you could share?

Speaker 2

Yes, think that still targets on track. I see all green lights and I hope that we can report back to you guys soon with some news.

Speaker 4

Okay. Thanks. And then I think in your prepared remarks you talked about mining and semiconductor end markets as being a nice source of steady demand ahead. Can you give us a little more color on what you might be seeing there? Are you seeing kind of more orders from the same customers you've had in the past?

Or do you see the diversity of customers increasing or possibly both? And then, would you say that these are key end markets to drive toward your target of $30,000,000 per quarter run rate for Grid? Thanks.

Speaker 2

Yes. Everything you said, the answer is yes. So we're seeing diversification of customers. We're seeing repeat customers. We're seeing expansion of content per sale given the acquisitions.

So just to kind of talk briefly, when we think about doing semi, there is a fit to add NEPC content to what we do traditionally with D VAR. We are seeing an uptick in orders to do exactly that. So that part of the acquisition certainly is working. Similarly in mining, we see a lot of opportunities that have been coming through Nealtran, lot of opportunities coming through Nepsey. We're able to combine content on most of those opportunities, which again translates to even more revenue growth.

We think that these acquisitions are a great fit to diversify our business. We love what

Speaker 1

we do in renewables and in wind,

Speaker 2

but we think we've added a few more markets here that we can go penetrate and deliver additional growth.

Speaker 4

Great. And on that thread, in FQ1, I think I heard you said that Neotran did $5,000,000 of revenue in the quarter. I was wondering if you could give us a more specific split of what your core revenues were for Grid, sorry if I missed it, and then perhaps what it was for each of the other recent acquisitions?

Speaker 2

So we do break out wins. We don't break out the details within the Grid. We did say that we added in Neotran of the five and we did say that the Ship Protection Systems grew.

Speaker 3

And that's kind of the length of the color that I can give you.

Speaker 4

Got it. Great. Well, thanks very much. I'll pass it on. Thanks,

Speaker 0

We'll now take the next question from Colin Ross from Oppenheimer. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 6

Thanks so much. Guys, in the Grid business with these integrations, can you speak to the cadence of the sales process? Are you seeing any shortening of the sales cycle? And then also if you could give us an update on your conversion rates from pipeline into actual sales, how that's trending?

Speaker 2

Yes, those are good questions, Colin. So I think what we're seeing is the cadence being kind of what we had thought. Typically, we think about our existing products closing anywhere around six to nine months out. We see kind of similar timetables for Nepse for some projects maybe a bit shorter. We see similar timetables for Nepse, but I'd say usually a bit longer, maybe as much nine or twelve months out.

We do have some things that we're starting to book now that are fifteen months out and more. So I think what we're seeing is strengthening of the conversion and more clarity on what the year is going to look like. And we're really comfortable to stand behind what we said about growth. The conversion of the pipeline, I think, where the team has done some really good work is strong identification of what truly is in that near term pipeline for things that we can close in the next six months. And we've seen, I'll say, an increase in the conversion rate or the win rate.

And I think that's again a testament to being able to deliver more content to the customer. A lot of times in projects, it's much more about the timing and the financing of the project than it is really losing to other parties. But we see that with existing customers and new customers, we're able to deliver quotes with more content and that's being well received.

Speaker 6

That's super helpful. And then as you think about the medium term in that business, now that you've got a broader portfolio of solutions and I'm sure looking at a little bit longer term relationships with some of these customers, is there a really meaningful opportunity to evolve the portfolio and design out some of the components and some of the costs or evolve the performance of those solutions to serve a different need?

Speaker 2

I think a little bit more of the latter. I think in the longer term, maybe some of the former. We're trying to find what that sweet spot is, particularly when we combine content from D VAR plus Nepse where we combine content with Neotran plus NEPSI. Are there ways to think about streamlining cost and supply chain? But really, we want to get the stickiness with the customer and to get the order size growing.

That the effort per order should be roughly the same, but the yield per order we're looking to grow or enhance. That's really the message that the team has.

Speaker 6

Perfect. Thanks so much guys.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Colin.

Speaker 0

It appears that there are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the conference back to Mr. Daniel Macklin for any additional or closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Sharon. I really just want to emphasize with people today, we're really going for growth here. We're starting to see the beginning of that in what we reported out for Q1. You see in the guidance clearly that we're looking to grow as well in Q2. You can hear in some of the remarks that we made, John made about working capital and preparing for growth that we see growth coming on the horizon.

We're driving the team to become a much bigger business with these additional acquisitions. We are acknowledging today that's going to take time. And we said that on the outset when we bought these companies that it doesn't happen in a quarter to resolve it. Good news is we inherited some great backlog with great customers. The challenge is how do we improve the financials on the orders going forward.

And I was very proud that the team was able to generate even more orders this quarter than last quarter. I'm very proud that the backlog is expanding and the backlog is getting better financially. So we're really on to growth. And a lot of what we've talked about to put the company in position for the past few years, you're going to see that to come to fruition here in 2021 and certainly 2022 and beyond. Happy with all the questions with REG, real excited to hear about what's going on.

And we'll leave it at that and look forward to getting back to you guys with how we do with second quarter operations. Thank you everybody for your support and attention.

Speaker 0

That concludes today's conference. Thank you everyone for your participation. You may now disconnect.