Clearfield - Earnings Call - Q2 2025

Executive Summary

• Clearfield returned to profitability: Q2 FY2025 net sales $47.2M (+28% y/y), diluted EPS $0.09, and gross margin 30.1% (vs 7.7% a year ago), materially aided by lower excess inventory reserve costs and improved overhead absorption.
• Strong beat vs S&P Global consensus: revenue $47.17M vs $38.53M*, EPS $0.09 vs -$0.19*, EBITDA ~$2.14M vs -$1.80M*; management’s execution converted quoting activity into revenue faster than anticipated, and a large regional pulled forward ~$3M of orders.
• Guidance: FY2025 revenue reiterated at $170–$185M; Q3 FY2025 net sales guided to $45–$50M and EPS $0.01–$0.08; management does not expect evolving tariff policies to materially affect operating results.
• Strategic momentum: Clearfield segment sales +47% y/y to $40.6M, Nestor segment $6.6M (-30% y/y); backlog rose to $34.1M (+31% q/q) with connected-home products and cabinets resuming growth; product innovation continued with the new TetherSmart MFT launch.
• Key near-term catalysts: sustained ordering normalization, connected-home kit adoption, cabinet demand recovery, and execution against BEAD/E‑ACAM program tailwinds as funding progresses; Q3 guide suggests continued profitability albeit at lower EPS.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Strong top-line and margin recovery: net sales $47.2M (+28% y/y) and gross margin 30.1% vs 7.7% y/y, driven by higher Clearfield segment volumes and lower excess inventory charges.
• Return to profitability and beat vs guidance/consensus: diluted EPS $0.09, above prior guide for a loss, with execution converting quotes into revenue “at a faster pace and higher rate than anticipated”.
• Strategic supply chain/tariff mitigation: Mexico manufacturing exempt under USMCA; diversified global sourcing; management does not expect tariffs to materially affect results in current form.

What Went Wrong

• Nestor segment continued pressure: $6.6M revenue (-30% y/y), as European operators focused on operations over buildouts; Clearfield is rightsizing Nestor cost structure and shifting to Estonia for higher-margin microduct.
• Segment/customer concentration and timing: a large regional pulled forward ~$3M, and one regional will be a 10% customer, creating quarter-to-quarter variability risk.
• Active cabinet supply chain friction: tightness for battery backup/rectifiers tied to tariffs, adding timing issues at the border; management has absorbed costs and is exploring alternative suppliers.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good day and welcome to the Clearfield Fiscal Second Quarter 2025 conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Greg McNiff, Investor Relations for Clearfield. Please go ahead.

Greg McNiff (Head of Investor Relations)

Thank you. Joining me on today's call are Cheri Beranek, Clearfield's President and CEO, and Dan Herzog, Clearfield's CFO. As a reminder, Clearfield publishes a quarterly shareholder letter which provides an overview of the company's financial results, operational highlights, and future outlook. You can find both the shareholder letter and the earnings release on Clearfield's Investor Relations website. After brief prepared remarks, we will open the floor for a question-and-answer session. Please note that during this call, management will be making remarks regarding future events and the future financial performance of the company. These remarks constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements.

It is important to also note that the company undertakes no obligation to update such statements except as required by law. The company cautions you to consider risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements contained in today's press release, shareholder letter, and on this conference call. The risk factors section in Clearfield's most recent Form 10-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission and its subsequent filings on Form 10-Q provide a description of these risks. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Clearfield's President and CEO, Cheri Beranek. Cheri.

Cheri Beranek (CEO)

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today to discuss Clearfield's second quarter results. We are happy to report a profitable second quarter of fiscal 2025. I will start by discussing the macro outlook, followed by some commentary on the industry, and then turn it over to Dan for a summary of our performance and outlook. For more detailed information, please refer to our shareholder letter posted on the IR section of our website. We reported second quarter fiscal 2025 net sales of $47.2 million, an increase of 28% over last year and above our guidance range, highlighted by net sales in our Clearfield segment, which increased 47% year over year. Likewise, our net income per share of $0.09 was above our guidance range and significantly improved from a year-ago period.

Consistent with previous quarters, we view our second quarter performance as another step closer to returning to a normalized level of growth for Clearfield. I now want to address the evolving tariff dynamic. As we've highlighted previously, all of Clearfield's products manufactured in Mexico are exempt from current tariffs as they are covered under the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement. We purposely designed our U.S. and Mexican manufacturing facilities to support dual sourcing, cost optimization, and supply chain resilience, and our Nestor business has enabled us to relocate our cable production from Europe to the U.S. as well. Additionally, we are shifting the production of our affected components to multiple manufacturing sites across the globe. Our proactive diversification of our supply chain has allowed us to maintain stable product availability even as trade policies fluctuate.

Regarding Asian-sourced products in particular, we maintain strong supplier relationships across Asia and have additional sources in place globally to ensure continued product availability. However, while we do anticipate increased costs as a result of the recent tariff policies, we continue to implement tactics to address these impacts and to understand how potential increases in selling prices could impact demand from our customers. We do not believe the evolving tariff situation as currently known will materially affect our operating results. Turning to the industry, we continue to view the BEAD program as a meaningful long-term growth catalyst, particularly for community broadband and tier three service providers. Although funding has faced administrative delays and regulatory uncertainty, we remain confident in the program's direction. Despite political shifts and increased discussion around technology neutrality, we believe the majority of BEAD funding will ultimately support fiber-based infrastructure.

As such, we expect that BEAD will begin to contribute materially to Clearfield's revenue in fiscal 2026. As for near-term growth catalysts, we expect the enhanced Alternative Connect America Cost Model, or EACAM, program to contribute meaningfully in the upcoming build season. While EACAM and BEAD funding cannot be applied to the same service addresses, providers can leverage both programs across different areas of their networks, enabling broader and more efficient network expansion. Because the BEAD and EACAM government programs combine with a return to a more normal ordering pattern for the overall industry, we believe Clearfield is well-positioned to benefit from these opportunities. Finally, I'd like to highlight an important achievement in the quarter. Our FieldSmart FiberFlex 600 active cabinet has been recognized among the best in the industry by the 2025 Lightwave BTR Innovation Reviews in the optical category.

This award further validates our approach to providing flexible, scalable solutions that empower our customers to deploy networks efficiently and effectively. As we continue positioning the company to capitalize on current opportunities, we remain focused on identifying the next catalyst for growth. I look forward to updating you on these opportunities later in the year. I'd now like to turn the call over to our CFO, Dan Herzog, who will provide an overview of our financial results for the second quarter, fiscal 2025, as well as to share our outlook for the remainder of the fiscal year.

Dan Herzog (CFO)

Thank you, Cheri, and good afternoon, everyone. I will now review our second quarter results, beginning with sales. Consolidated net sales in the first quarter of fiscal 2025 were $47.2 million, a 28% increase from $36.9 million in the prior year's second quarter and above our guidance range of $37 million-$40 million. This figure includes $40.6 million of Clearfield segment net sales, up 47% year over year, and $6.6 million of Nestor segment net sales, down 30% year over year. Our outperformance this quarter was driven by strong customer demand across all our Clearfield segment end markets and solid execution as we converted quoting activity into revenue at a faster pace and higher rate than anticipated.

Once again, our strong bottom-line performance and continued gross margin improvements were primarily driven by lower year-over-year excess inventory reserve costs led by improved utilization, as well as increased overhead absorption due to increased volumes at our Clearfield facilities. We are pleased with the progress our Nestor segment is making with the production of microduct at our new facility in Estonia as we continue to right-size the cost structure for the business. We remain focused on improving our European operations by prioritizing higher gross margin solutions. Based upon these trends, we are reiterating our fiscal 2025 outlook of net sales in the range of $170 million-$185 million.

As Cheri noted, we anticipate annual revenue growth for the Clearfield segment to be in line or above industry forecasts, while we expect annual revenue from our Nestor segment for fiscal 2025 to fall slightly year over year as we focus on improving margins. For our third fiscal quarter of 2025, we anticipate net sales in the range of $45 million-$50 million and net income per share in the range of $0.01-$0.08. The net income per share range is based on the number of shares outstanding at the end of the second quarter and does not reflect potential share repurchases completed in the third quarter. Our guidance reflects the evolving tariff situation as currently known, which we do not believe will materially affect our operating results. With that, we will open the call to your questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. At this time, we'll be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you'd like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Our first question comes from Ryan Coons with Needham & Company. Please proceed with your question.

Ryan Koontz (Analyst)

Great. Thanks for the questions. Congrats on a great quarter there. Cheri, on the product mix, can you comment on that? I know you've been very, very strong in the last several quarters on subscriber adds. Can you update us on how new passings were in your first quarter and how maybe they are off to your start of the June quarter?

Cheri Beranek (CEO)

Right. I mean, the quarter now ending in March, we had a really strong continuation of products being purchased for the connection of homes. And then, expanding upon that, reignited growth in the products for connecting homes. There had been previously some level of surplus fiber distribution hubs or cabinets in the marketplace. Those are gone, and now our sales of cabinets are resuming. I think moving forward, what we're going to see now, especially over the course of the summer when there is more focus on the connected home, which is more labor-intensive, that we'll continue to see an increase in the number of homes connected using Clearfield equipment.

Ryan Koontz (Analyst)

Got it. How is traction coming along on your new connected home products there?

Cheri Beranek (CEO)

Really thrilled with where we're at with the home deployment kits. One of the things that we do is really always a focus on labor, always a focus on craft-friendly solutions. The home deployment kits take all of the equipment that is necessary for turning up the home, put it in one package, which is different from anyone else in the marketplace. We use those solutions to, by which, take one whole person out of the equation. We can pull up a house with one person rather than two. You will see a lot of highlight about the home deployment kits in the summer trade shows and the like. You will see a lot of it on our trucks that are going across the country to demo our products. You will see a lot of that equipment in our customers' trucks that are out there connecting homes.

Ryan Koontz (Analyst)

Great. Thanks. Really strong bounce back from your regionals there in the quarter. Nice to see. Roughly, how is that diversification within that category? Roughly, how many customers are contributing materially to that number in regionals?

Cheri Beranek (CEO)

Large regionals, there's a half a dozen companies that are involved, but there was one customer that did pull forward about $3 million worth of business into this quarter. Always thrilled to be able to do ongoing business with the large regionals and being in a good place for their builds. You will see in the queue when it's filed that we have one large regional become a 10% customer.

Ryan Koontz (Analyst)

Okay. Great. Dan, on the gross margin there, you talked about lower E&O reserve. Did you end up crediting back some of that E&O reserve in the quarter, or you're just saying it was less of a reserve?

Dan Herzog (CFO)

It was less of a reserve. I think last year's quarter, we had about close to $5 million or $4.9 million. This year, we ended up with, or this quarter, we ended up with roughly around $400,000, but we did reverse about $500,000 of tailwinds of recovery. Continue to see strong—that's what we talk about when we say utilization. It's kind of like prepaid inventory, and it works really well for us reducing that with the higher demand.

Ryan Koontz (Analyst)

Sure. Great. Lastly, you talked about Nestor maybe making some changes there. Can you unpack that a little bit in terms of your cost reduction approach or what you're thinking for that business?

Cheri Beranek (CEO)

We're continuing to expand the product mix, and the new products that are being produced there are predominantly being produced in Estonia. We'll continue the business that we're doing in Finland and the development of cables, but our higher gross margin solutions are predominantly coming out of the Estonia plant. That plant was just finished building that plant. It's really optimized for diversification, really optimized for flexibility of product mix. Being able to bring new products to market that are in that higher margin category will really help us, I mean, get the products closer to the European continent because we can ship them out of Estonia more quickly than we can out of Finland.

Ryan Koontz (Analyst)

Yeah. Great. Super. I'll pass it on. Thank you.

Cheri Beranek (CEO)

Thank you so much.

Operator (participant)

As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. There are no further questions at this time. At this point, I'd like to turn the call back over to Cheri Beranek for closing comments.

Cheri Beranek (CEO)

Thanks so much. Unfortunately, for those of you who may end up be on the call, we've identified that there are a lot of calls from a lot of public companies going on at this point in time. Unfortunately, the rest of our analyst community was not able to join us today, but know that we will be speaking to each of our analysts later this evening when they are available so that they can put their reports out tomorrow morning. For those of you who receive your reports from the analysts, know that we will have a chance to speak with each of them this evening. We are thrilled with where we see the market recovering. Our position, especially within the Clearfield segment, is one in which demand is there.

We're seeing it both in our connected home and in our past home, and excited about new trade shows and new products that you're going to see launched moving forward. We believe that the U-shaped recovery is underway, and we look forward to a lot of great business moving forward. Until next quarter, please be careful, be nice to each other, and we'll talk soon.

Operator (participant)

Thanks. This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and we thank you for your participation.