Frequency Electronics - Q4 2024
July 22, 2024
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Greetings and welcome to the Frequency Electronics year-end fiscal 2024 earnings release conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. Any statements made by the company during this conference call regarding the future constitute forward-looking statements pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements inherently involve uncertainties that could cause acts or results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. Factors that would cause or contribute to such differences are included in the company's press releases and are further detailed in the company's periodic report filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
By making these forward-looking statements, the company undertakes no obligation to update these statements for revisions or changes after the date of this conference call. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Thomas McClelland, President and Chief Executive Officer.
Thomas McClelland (President and CEO)
Good afternoon, everyone. We have a very positive story to tell regarding the fiscal year that ended April 30th. Revenues have grown consistently throughout the year, and we expect that to continue in the near term going forward. The backlog of $78 million is a historic high for the company, and we anticipate the backlog will remain strong based on a very healthy new business outlook. The company is reporting an operating profit for the year of $5 million, with the operating loss in the third quarter being followed by a profitable fourth quarter. We anticipate continued long-term growth in our primary end markets of space, navigation, secure communication, and timing. Our proven heritage technical expertise in these disciplines allows us to continue to win new business while maintaining healthy gross margins.
This puts us on a very solid footing going forward and gives us some breathing room to develop new technologies and products in these markets as they evolve over the next decade. As we've discussed in the past, there is a growing concern with the vulnerability of satellite assets and thus a move to lower-cost, easily replaceable satellite hardware. The company continues to respond to new business opportunities in this arena. In some cases, these programs involve higher risk and potentially lower gross margins but are essential for the long-term strength of the company. Our very healthy backlog of traditional satellite programs, incorporating our legacy technologies, allows us to participate in these more risky programs while maintaining growth and profitability overall. I would like to add a few words about our other press release today.
As you have hopefully seen today, the board of directors authorized a $1 per share special dividend, and I encourage you to read that press release for the details regarding the record and payment dates coming up in August. This is the second such dividend that the board has authorized in approximately a year and a half. I'm proud of the continued progress we have made on profitability and cash generation, which allows us to reward our shareholders in this fashion. While we're not committing to a certain cadence or amount of such dividends in the future, it's reasonable that should we continue to make progress, the board will consider similar capital plans in the future. We're able to do this while maintaining a debt-free balance sheet and continuing to invest in next-generation programs, which we are winning and are poised to continue to win.
As we've seen over just the past two quarters, the path to improved profitability is not always going to be perfectly linear, especially given some of the bleeding-edge technology that we're working on. But as I said earlier, business is booming, and we believe it is prudent to return excess cash to shareholders so that future gains in profitability can accrue in a more pronounced manner to equity holders. I'll now turn things over to our CFO, Steven Bernstein, who will fill you in on the financial details.
Steven Bernstein (CFO)
Thank you, Tom, and good afternoon. Before we jump into the details of the company's results for the fiscal year ended April 30th, 2024, I would like to remind everyone that, as mentioned on previous calls, there will be times the company's results will fluctuate quarter-over-quarter and that a single quarter is not indicative of future results. As an example, sometimes the effect of changes taken in one quarter can reverse in another quarter as engineering problems are solved and revenue and profitability flow through. For an accurate view of the company's performance, it's important to review the entire year and other significant items. For the fiscal year ended April 30th, 2024, consolidated revenue was $55.3 million compared to $40.7 million for the same period of the prior fiscal year. The components of revenue are as follows. Revenue from commercial and U.S.
government satellite programs was approximately $23.2 million, or 42%, compared to $17.9 million, or 44%, in the same period of the prior fiscal year. Revenues on satellite payload contracts are recognized primarily under the percentage of completion method and are recorded only in the FEI-New York segment. Revenue from non-space U.S. government and DoD customers, which are recorded in both the FEI-New York and FEI-Zyfer segments, were $29 million compared to $20.3 million in the same period of the prior fiscal year and accounted for approximately 52% of consolidated revenue compared to 50% for the prior fiscal year. Other commercial industrial revenue was $3.1 million and $2.6 million for the fiscal years ended April 30th, 2024, and 2023, respectively. The significant increase in revenue for the period was primarily related to increase in U.S. government orders.
For the fiscal year ended April 30th, 2024, gross margin and gross margin rate as compared to the same period in fiscal year 2023, the gross margin dollars increased as a direct result of the increase in revenue. The gross margin rate increased significantly due to the fact that many of the technical challenges faced in the prior fiscal year have been resolved, and as a result, the related programs are now moving forward and running more efficiently. Previous programs that sustained lower margins due to technical issues are near completion or have been completed. For the fiscal year ending April 30th, 2024, and 2023, SG&A expenses were approximately 18% and 23%, respectively, of consolidated revenue.
While total SG&A expenses increased in fiscal year 2024 as compared to the prior fiscal year, SG&A expenses decreased as a percentage of revenue in fiscal year 2024 due to an increased revenue as well as the company's successfully monitoring costs given the current economic conditions. R&D expense for the fiscal year ended April 30th, 2024, increased to $3.4 million from $3.1 million for the fiscal year ended April 30th, 2023, an increase of $300,000, and were approximately 6% and 8%, respectively, of consolidated revenue. The company's funded R&D amount was slightly higher in fiscal year 2024 as compared to the previous fiscal year, reflecting the company's commitment to maintaining its technical excellence. The company expects future R&D investment to be in line with or even potentially above historic commitments.
For the fiscal year ending April 30th, 2024, the company recorded operating income of $5 million compared to an operating loss of $4.7 million in the prior fiscal year. The change from an operating loss to operating income year-over-year is attributable to the company's significant increase in revenue and margin during the fiscal year 2024, along with the positive effects of cost-cutting measures instituted by management. Other income can be derived from reclaiming of metals, refunds, interest on deferred trust assets, or the sale of fixed assets, interest expenses related to the deferred compensation payments made to retired employees. This yields pre-tax income of approximately $5.5 million compared to a $5.4 million pre-tax loss for the prior fiscal year.
For the fiscal year ended April 30th, 2024, the company recorded a tax benefit of $130,000 compared to a tax provision of $74,000 for the same period of the prior fiscal year. Consolidated net income for the fiscal year ended April 30th, 2024, was $5.6 million, or $0.59 per share, compared to a $5.5 million net loss, or -$0.59 per share in the previous fiscal year. Our fully funded backlog at the end of April 2024 was approximately $78 million compared to approximately $56 million for the previous fiscal year ended April 30th, 2023. The company's balance sheet continues to reflect strong working capital position of approximately $27 million at April 30th, 2024, and a current ratio of approximately 1.8 to 1. Additionally, the company is debt free.
The company believes that its liquidity is adequate to meet its operating and investing needs for the next 12 months and the foreseeable future. I will turn that call back to Tom, and we look forward to your questions.
Thomas McClelland (President and CEO)
Okay. Thank you, Steve. We're now prepared to take questions.
Operator (participant)
Certainly. Everyone at this time, we'll be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you have any questions or comments, please press star one on your phone at this time. We do ask that while posing your question, please pick up your handset if you're listening on speakerphone to provide optimum sound quality. Once again, if you have any questions or comments, please press star one on your phone. Please hold while we poll for questions. Your first question is coming from Brett Reiss from Janney Montgomery Scott. Your line is live.
Brett Reiss (Financial Advisor)
Gentlemen, can you hear me because I'm calling from home?
Thomas McClelland (President and CEO)
Yes, we can hear you.
Brett Reiss (Financial Advisor)
Great, great. Congrats on a spectacular quarter to both of you and the team. The $1 special dividend, fantastic. And I'm not going to give it back, but you described that business is booming, and there were so many secular tailwinds in the satellite business. How did you arrive at the $1? Why not $0.50 and retain $0.50 to reinvest in the growth opportunities in the business? If you could give me your thoughts on that, I'd appreciate it.
Thomas McClelland (President and CEO)
Yeah. Well, I think that's primarily a board decision. I think there are arguments, an infinite number of arguments for different levels of dividend there. I think this is a one-time dividend, and I think the feeling is that we can do that. We can afford that at this point in time. And we'll evaluate going forward whether there are additional dividends in the future. If some of the tailwinds that you talk about occur or become more pronounced, then we can always back off from that. But at this point in time, the feeling is that this is something that we can afford. And yeah.
Brett Reiss (Financial Advisor)
Great, great. One more, if I may, and then I'll drop back in queue because I'm sure there's a line. This tremendous momentum and business opportunity going forward, what keeps you up at night that could derail the continued taking advantage of the opportunity that lays before us?
Thomas McClelland (President and CEO)
Well, there's certainly plenty to keep me awake at night. I think a couple of things that stand out. In my earlier words, I tried to hit on it. We do see changes in the satellite industry. Exactly how best to deal with those changes and how best to position ourselves relative to those changes is something that we give an awful lot of thought to, certainly. Particularly with government customers, we see there's kind of a desire to have the best of all worlds. They want smaller, cheaper, faster satellite hardware, and they don't want to invest anything in order to get there. How exactly to be able to do that is certainly a challenge. I think it's something that we're working on. The trick is to do that. On the one hand, we absolutely have to participate.
On the other hand, we don't want to start giving things away for nothing and go back into a situation where we're potentially losing money on these programs. So this is certainly perhaps the biggest challenge that keeps us awake at nights at this point.
Brett Reiss (Financial Advisor)
Thank you for taking my questions. I appreciate it.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Your next question is coming from Richard Johns. Your line is live.
Speaker 5
Good afternoon, and thanks very much for the call and the great job you're doing. I just have one question. I'm wondering what the size of the tax loss carry forward is as of the end of April.
Steven Bernstein (CFO)
I believe the NOLs were roughly in the low $20 million range. They're not all 100%. Some will be used, obviously, this year, and then it'll be recalculated after we file our tax return.
Speaker 5
Okay. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Your next question is coming from George Marema from Pareto Ventures. Your line is live.
George Marema (Equity Research Analyst)
Hey, good afternoon, Tom.
Thomas McClelland (President and CEO)
Hey.
Steven Bernstein (CFO)
Hi.
George Marema (Equity Research Analyst)
Hey.
So this quarter, your gross margin was about 40%. Your backlog increased substantially here. A couple of questions on this. So how do you see is there any revision to your gross margin outlook over the long term? Or if you look into fiscal 2025, how should we think about gross margin, the cadence of that? And then I want to talk a little bit about the seasonality of that.
Thomas McClelland (President and CEO)
Okay. It's actually a really good question. I think, and we've talked about it on the last few calls a little bit. I think I divide things into two categories. We have the traditional programs that we've dealt with, particularly in the satellite industry. And I think there we really can push to keep the gross margins high. As we've said previously, we target 50% gross margin on those kind of programs. But then we have what we were just discussing a little bit earlier, these new programs where there's tremendous pressure on costs. And of course, we have a concern that if we don't get involved in some of those programs, we may lose out in the long run. So in some cases, we have to take on some additional risk.
Effectively, that means that the gross margins we can expect from those programs is a little bit lower. I think that realistically, I think we can expect the gross margins to stay where they are. We may be able to push them higher in some cases. I think on an overall basis, I don't see them going a lot higher in the near future.
George Marema (Equity Research Analyst)
Okay. And then in terms of backlog, it looks like there's generally some seasonality where you win the bigger contracts in the fall, which I imagine is somewhat tied to the government fiscal year. So I was a little surprised to see in the springtime here the backlog go up so dramatically. Is there any seasonality to this?
Thomas McClelland (President and CEO)
Well, I don't really think so. Maybe there was at one time, but the government fiscal year is a little bit distorted at this point since the fiscal year starts on October 1st. Last year, we didn't have a budget for six months after that. I don't think we're really too tightly correlated with the government fiscal year. I mean, there are some aspects of our business that definitely are. I think most of our work is not direct government contracts, but subcontracts with the major prime contractors to the government. So there's usually a lag between when they're under contract and when we get our contracts. I think that any appearance of a seasonality over the past year or so is more coincidental than anything else, frankly.
George Marema (Equity Research Analyst)
Yeah. Did you win any? I mean, because your backlog last quarter was $67 million, now it's $78 million. And you did $16 million of revenue, let's call it, rounded off. So that's about $27 million-$28 million net-net positive. Were there any large contracts in that or a bunch of small ones? Or what was the makeup of that?
Thomas McClelland (President and CEO)
We've had, I don't think there are any excessively large contracts during that time. But a number of, I guess, medium-sized contracts is the best way to put it.
George Marema (Equity Research Analyst)
Okay. Thank you. I'll get back in the queue.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Your next question is coming from Michael Eisner. Your line is live.
Speaker 6
Hey, great job.
Thomas McClelland (President and CEO)
Thank you.
Speaker 6
When you said 40% gross margins, was that going forward for the year?
Thomas McClelland (President and CEO)
Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 6
Roughly, roughly.
Thomas McClelland (President and CEO)
Yes.
Speaker 6
The contracts we received in November of last year.
Thomas McClelland (President and CEO)
Yes.
Speaker 6
How is that coming along? Is that no problems?
Thomas McClelland (President and CEO)
Well, there's never a case where we have no problems. But I would say everything is very positive at this point in time. If it was a no-problem kind of contract, they wouldn't be coming to Frequency Electronics. But we don't have the kind of technical problems that caused difficulties in the past, not yet, on these contracts. And yeah, so I think things are looking pretty good in that respect.
Speaker 6
Is Zyfer back on schedule?
Thomas McClelland (President and CEO)
Zyfer is back on schedule, yes. That's a management effort to be pretty disciplined in that regard.