Geospace Technologies - Q1 2023
February 9, 2023
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Welcome to the Geospace Technologies first quarter 2023 earnings conference call. Hosting the call today from Geospace is Mr. Rick Wheeler, President and Chief Executive Officer. He is joined by Robert Curda, the company's Chief Financial Officer. Today's call is being recorded and will be available on the Geospace Technologies investor relations website following the call. At this time, all participants have been placed in a listen-only mode. The floor will be open for your questions following the presentation. If you would like to ask a question at that time, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If at any point your question has been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star two. We ask that you please pick up your handset to allow optimal sound quality. Lastly, if you should require operator assistance, press star zero.
It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Rick Wheeler. Sir, you may begin.
Rick Wheeler (President and CEO)
Thank you, Brittany. Good morning, welcome to Geospace Technologies conference call for the first quarter of fiscal year 2023. I'm Rick Wheeler, the company's President and Chief Executive Officer, I'm joined by Robert Curda, the Chief Financial Officer of the company. In these prepared remarks, I'll first provide an overview of the first quarter, Robert will then provide an in-depth commentary on our financial performance. After some final comments, we'll open the line for questions. Some of today's comments about markets, revenue recognition, planned operations, and capital expenditures may be considered forward-looking as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Statements we make are based on our present awareness, while actual outcomes are affected by uncertainties we cannot predict or control. Both known and unknown risks can lead to results that differ from what we say or imply today.
These risks and uncertainties include those discussed in our SEC Form 10-K and 10-Q filings. For convenience, we will link a recording of this call on the investor relations page of our geospace.com website. I recommend that you browse our website to learn more about Geospace and our products. Note that the information recorded this morning is time-sensitive and may not be accurate at the time one listens to the replay. Yesterday, after the market closed, we released our financial results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2023, spanning October 1st through December 31st of 2022. We were pleased to see that revenue for the quarter reached $31.1 million, reflecting an increase of 73% over last year's same period.
Moreover, the amount represents the company's highest quarterly revenue in the last 8.5 years, going back to June 2014. Gross profits for the quarter were also strong and reached a three-year high of $10.5 million. Factoring in all other expenses, the first quarter posted a narrow net loss of $0.01 per share. However, it must be noted that the slight loss comes after including $1.4 million in one-time charges. These charges were a combination of restructuring costs, write-offs of Russian inventory, and non-recurring repair costs. Those actions stem from our commitment to achieve future profitability through streamlining our operations, reducing operating costs, and increasing revenue in each of our business segments. The majority of first quarter revenue came from our oil and gas segment, led by wireless seismic products.
While a sale of GSX Land equipment from our rental fleet was a contributing factor, the largest portion of wireless seismic revenue came from our OBX ocean bottom nodes. Rental revenue from performing OBX rental contracts was certainly the largest component. However, a significant amount of OBX-related revenue was the result of compensation for OBX equipment that was lost by a rental customer during a survey. We intend to build out additional OBX nodes to replenish this lost equipment in the rental fleet as demand for both the deepwater and shallow water OBX models continues to strengthen. Many of our existing customers have stated an intention to move their crews into follow-on client contracts after their existing surveys are complete. Combining this demand with an increasing number of shallow water surveys being put out for bid, interest in using our new Mariner nodal technology is also growing significantly.
Our strategic diversification efforts continue to bear fruit as evidenced by the performance of our adjacent market segment. First quarter revenue from these products came within 1% of its all-time record set in last year's third quarter, adding traction to our move toward profitability. As a premier manufacturer and supplier of ruggedized water meter connector cabling, our market position in these products continues to climb. To maintain this position, we work closely with trusted water meter companies to meet the design and specifications of their domestic municipality customers. The breadth of discussions taking place with these partners for specialty cables as well as the Aquana Smart Valve products gives us confidence that future growth in this market will continue. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Robert to give more financial detail on first quarter performance.
Robert Curda (CFO)
Thanks, Rick. Good morning. Before I begin, I'd like to remind everyone that we will not provide any specific revenue or earnings guidance during our call this morning. In yesterday's press release for our first quarter ended December 31st, 2022, we reported revenue of $31.1 million compared to last year's revenue of $18 million. Net loss for the quarter was $100,000 or $0.01 per diluted share, compared to the first quarter of last year's net loss of $6.8 million or $0.52 per diluted share. Our oil and gas product revenue is as follows. Traditional product revenue for the three-month period ending December 31st, 2022, was $2.8 million compared to revenue of $600,000 for the last year. The increase in revenue is due to higher demand for seismic sensors and marine products.
Seismic sensor sales are up due to the long-term order with an international company and a modest increase in domestic sales in our Russian entity. Our wireless product revenue for the quarter was $17.2 million, an increase of 98% compared to revenue of $8.7 million last year. The increase in revenue is due to higher rental revenue from higher utilization of our old OBX rental fleet and higher Marine wireless product revenue from a rental customer's compensation for lost OBX nodes. Moving to our adjacent markets product segment. Our industrial product revenue for the first quarter was $7.9 million, an increase of 58% compared to last year's revenue of $5 million. The increase in revenue is due to higher demand for our smart water meter connectors and cables.
Imaging product revenue for the three months ending December 31st, 2022 was $2.9 million, a decrease of 8% when compared to $3.2 million from the same period last year. Lower demand for thermal film products during the holiday season explains the slight reduction in revenue for the first quarter as compared to the same prior year period. Revenue from our emerging market segments for the first quarter of fiscal year 2023 is $93,000, compared to $137,000 for the first quarter of fiscal year 2022. The revenue for both periods is related to the ongoing contract with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency. Our consolidated gross profit for the first quarter of fiscal year 2023 was $10.5 million, compared to $1.7 million last year.
The increase in gross profit was due to higher utilization of our OBX rental fleet, higher Marine wireless exploration product sales, and increased demand for our water meter cables and connector products. The first quarter of fiscal year 2023 operating expenses are $10.8 million. This is an increase of 26% when compared to $8.6 million for the first three months of fiscal year 2022. The increase is due to a favorable non-cash adjustment reported in the prior year for a change in the estimated fair value of contingent consideration related to our Quantum and OptoSeis acquisitions. Severance costs we announced in our prior teleconference and higher selling, general and administrative expenses resulting from our increase in revenue. These increases are partially offset by a decrease in R&D project costs.
Q1 2023 cash investments into our property, plant, and equipment are $265,000, and cash investments into our rental fleet is $162,000. Our 2023 capital investments into the rental fleet could be as much as $6 million, provided new rental contracts warrant the additions to our fleet. Investments in property, plant, and equipment could be as much as $1 million for the fiscal year. Our balance sheet at the end of the first quarter of fiscal year 2023 reflected $12.3 million of cash and short-term investments, and we maintained additional borrowing ability of $8.5 million under our bank credit agreement. Thus, the company's total liquidity was $20.8 million.
We currently have no debt and own numerous real estate holdings in Houston and around the world that are owned free and clear without any leverage. This concludes my discussion, and I'll turn the call back to Rick.
Rick Wheeler (President and CEO)
Thanks, Robert. After the first quarter closed, our Quantum Technology Sciences subsidiary secured a new contract with an undisclosed federal government contractor. While the initial dollar amount of the contract is modest, it holds strategic significance and future potential for serving an application unrelated to our previous border security work. In conjunction with multiple active discussions surrounding other unique applications of Quantum's analytics technology, we believe the outlook for projects in our emerging market segment is expanding. As part of our plans for streamlining operations and reducing costs, we anticipate completing the sale of our satellite Houston facility within the second fiscal quarter. This facility currently houses our OBX rental operations, which we are in the process of consolidating into our main campus location. In accommodating this consolidation, we sold some obsolete equipment after the first quarter closed.
We believe the continuation of our planned efforts and vigilance in maintaining a strong balance sheet will successfully lead us to profitable returns for our shareholders. With that, this concludes our prepared commentary, and I'll now turn the call back over to Brittany, our moderator, for questions from our listeners.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. The floor is now open for questions. At this time, if you have a question or comment, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If at any point your question has been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star two. Again, we do ask that while you pose your question, you pick up your handset to allow optimal sound quality. Now we'll take our first question from Martin Lorenzen, who is a private investor. Your line is now open.
Martin Lorenzen (Private Investor)
Hi, hi to Texas, from Germany, and thank you for taking my questions.
Rick Wheeler (President and CEO)
You bet.
Martin Lorenzen (Private Investor)
I have a few, if I may. The first one, can you shed some additional light on the property sale you indicated last quarter on this call as well? Are we talking about the Langfield Road facility?
Rick Wheeler (President and CEO)
Yes, that's exactly the one we're talking about.
Martin Lorenzen (Private Investor)
Okay. Thank you. Thank you. In terms of streamlining operations, can we expect further sales this year?
Rick Wheeler (President and CEO)
Well, we're certainly gonna be examining our assets with our property, plant, and equipment as far as that goes. I don't think there's any anticipation of our properties at this point in putting those up for sale, but we're open to doing that if in fact our examination shows that that would be beneficial for us, in our overall approach, you know, in our plan towards profitability.
Martin Lorenzen (Private Investor)
Got it. On a higher level, can you address market share and how that potentially shifted since the onset of the pandemic, especially given the consolidation that seems to be happening and picking up in Europe as well?
Rick Wheeler (President and CEO)
Well, I mean, the market is certainly picking up. The pandemic, for the most part, you know, had a massive effect on the overall demand for oil and gas. Subsequent to that, seismic exploration, for several years now has been at the lowest it's ever been in history. That being the case, we see with what's happening in Ukraine, as well as the fact that China's coming out of its isolation more so from the pandemic, the demand for oil and gas and energy in general is improving. I think that's what's driving most of what we see today. It is true that we don't see as much improvement in the land side of things, although there are signs of that also improving.
Most of what we see is occurring, in the offshore space, and certainly that's why you see that our OBX, rental fleet and ocean bottom nodes are driving our revenue at this point in time.
Martin Lorenzen (Private Investor)
Got it. Okay. Then lastly, you see room for further freeing up of working capital that we've seen over the last few quarters? What can we expect the cash balance to look like?
Rick Wheeler (President and CEO)
I think we're looking good for cash. Again, we don't give any guidance to how those things are manifesting in the future, as it were. We do conservatively manage our cash, as is exemplified for the many years gone by. We expect ourselves to be in good shape with respect to our cash.
Martin Lorenzen (Private Investor)
Okay. Thanks and good luck.
Rick Wheeler (President and CEO)
Thank you very much.
Operator (participant)
Our next question comes from Bill Dezellem with Tieton Capital. Your line is open.
Bill Dezellem (Founder, President, and Chief Investment Officer)
Thank you. Rick, I'd like to start with a comment you just made about the land market, and that there are some small signs that it's improving. Would you walk through those for us?
Rick Wheeler (President and CEO)
Many of these improvements are coming about in foreign locations. Certainly in Canada and North America, you know, things are still depressed, but even there we're seeing improvements. To the extent that, you know, seismic exploration has just been at such low levels, there's a little bit of pent-up demand that I think that we believe is what might be driving some of that. Overall, it's still too early to tell, you know, what sort of recovery we might see in the land side of the business.
Bill Dezellem (Founder, President, and Chief Investment Officer)
Thank you. Relative to the new Mariner product, you'd mentioned that there was increasing interest. Would you help us understand whether that's predominantly an interest in rental or if that product is gaining a purchase interest?
Rick Wheeler (President and CEO)
It's actually both, but certainly, the Mariner represents a very cost-effective solution compared to what has historically been available for ocean bottom nodes. That was one of the primary design targets of our engineers was to ensure that, you know, we could maintain the quality while lowering costs in that manufacture. I think we've been successful with that, and it has features that you're not gonna find in the general equipment that's out there. That being said, I think that's driving interest both on the sales side and on the rental side. I'm sure that the rental of those units will certainly be a driving force. We'll have to see to what extent the sales also manifest.
Bill Dezellem (Founder, President, and Chief Investment Officer)
Rick, how are you thinking that you may look back, say, a couple of years from now on this and see Mariner versus OBX in terms of what's a bigger driver of the business?
Rick Wheeler (President and CEO)
That's really too hard to predict. So long as, you know, the prevalence of ocean-bottom surveys persists, I think the Mariner has a good future for it, as it were. The OBX technology is serving that industry very well, and the Mariner is gonna serve it equally well, if not better.
Bill Dezellem (Founder, President, and Chief Investment Officer)
Do you see cases where customers will be making a choice between OBX and Mariner, or where Mariner will be taking share from OBX? Or are they really serving different applications?
Rick Wheeler (President and CEO)
No, I think you're not gonna see one overtake the other, particularly from a use case point of view. The Mariner is a shallow water designed node, just like the OBX 750. To that extent, you know, it's been carefully designed such that you can mix these units. The data from each of them is completely cross-compatible, as well as the systems that operate that equipment, can operate both simultaneously and any cross combination of the two. The Deepwater OBX is one that has seen some of the very same improvements embedded in its design, so to speak. It serves a different market. You're not gonna see the Mariner represent a different use case than what the current shallow water version of the OBX uses.
They're both, going to be able to be mixed together.
Bill Dezellem (Founder, President, and Chief Investment Officer)
Great. Thank you. Shifting to Aquana. Are the discussions that you are talking about there with Aquana. Are those with the same buyers of the water meter connectors or is this a different buyer set that you are interacting with?
Rick Wheeler (President and CEO)
It's somewhat a combination of both, but it definitely intersects with a completely different market, and group of customers than the water meter cables just themselves do. The fact is that, you know, the water meter cables are used in the same environment that those valves are going to be used, you know, so there is some crossover.
Robert Curda (CFO)
We also are targeting Aquana valves for property management purposes also. That's an entirely different set of customers.
Rick Wheeler (President and CEO)
Yeah, that's a good point. It's not really addressing the aspects of the needs of the municipalities. It's a different market altogether.
Bill Dezellem (Founder, President, and Chief Investment Officer)
In that case, you would be interacting with a real estate owner or property managers that would be making the decision to implement these, either with new construction or with existing apartments?
Rick Wheeler (President and CEO)
That's exactly right. And/or the service providers that perform those sorts of services for those property owners.
Bill Dezellem (Founder, President, and Chief Investment Officer)
That's helpful. Thank you. Shifting to Quantum, if we may. Would you please discuss the new contract that happened at year after quarter end?
Rick Wheeler (President and CEO)
Can't really get into too much of it, as far as, you know, the details of that contract. It's with a very well-known, you know, federal contractor, for very specific and targeted purposes that really aren't available to be discussed at this point. We will you know, it's easy enough to say that the available commerce, with, this particular use case, is gonna be significant.
Bill Dezellem (Founder, President, and Chief Investment Officer)
Thank you. Then, in the release, you mentioned that Quantum has an expectation for additional orders. I did take note that orders was plural as it was written in the release here, in the remainder of this fiscal year, so the next nine months. Talk more to that, if you would, please.
Rick Wheeler (President and CEO)
You know, one of the things that, you know, we're doing and quite in the middle of, is expanding the utilization of the Quantum analytics into other spaces. That includes our oil and gas and other components of the energy business. Much of what we're examining is going to fall into that category. As well, there are some additional government agencies that we're in discussions with for things, and we do have those expected contracts to be issued sometime this year.
Bill Dezellem (Founder, President, and Chief Investment Officer)
Great. Thank you both.
Operator (participant)
Our next question comes from Jeffrey Feldman with Primary Succession Capital LLC. Your line is now open.
Jeffrey Feldman (Managing Member)
Thank you. Thank you, and thank you for the updates on the company. I've been a shareholder a long time and, you know, I think you guys just keep fighting, which is tremendous. It sounds like, you know, things are just starting to turn, which is great. My question really goes back to liquidity and cash availability to see, you know, the outcome you're all hoping to achieve. The cash balance against the CapEx that you had reported, you know, you're gonna need working capital and so forth. I understand the bank line is there, and I understand it's a forward-looking comment, but it's kind of simple math. When I look at it, I'm sort of feeling this year and a half, two years to make this work, or there's something existential on the horizon.
Am I seeing that right, or do you guys see it differently?
Robert Curda (CFO)
You know, we don't... You know, looking at our forecast, we think we're in pretty good shape to end this next 12 months in a cash positive position. I'm not really concerned from a liquidity point of view at this point.
Jeffrey Feldman (Managing Member)
Great. Great. If you're not nervous, I won't be nervous. Thanks. Thanks, guys.
Operator (participant)
Once again, press star and one if you would like to ask a question. We will take our next question from Scott Bundy with Moors and Cabot. Your line is now open.
Scott Bundy (SVP Investments)
Good morning, guys.
Rick Wheeler (President and CEO)
Morning, Scott.
Scott Bundy (SVP Investments)
Rick, can you just give us a rough idea of what the building, the value of the building will be when it's sold in the quarter?
Rick Wheeler (President and CEO)
I don't think we've revealed that. I mean, I'm sure it will become very, very evident, you know, as we close that this quarter. We definitely anticipate closing that sale in the second quarter here. It's not earth-shattering, but it's also, you know, a substantial benefit to us, you know, and we do anticipate a gain on that property on our books.
Scott Bundy (SVP Investments)
How much, if any, of the $6 million that you have earmarked for rental equipment are you guessing would come from Mariner?
Rick Wheeler (President and CEO)
The Mariner is not going to begin contributing until later on this fiscal year. I can tell you that. Certainly, you know, the construction of the Mariner is gonna be a big part of what that is. I think the revenue from the Mariner is going to be something that you see more so in the tail end of the fiscal year and then going forward.
Scott Bundy (SVP Investments)
Rick, no discussion regarding PRM. Can you give us some idea if those multiple customers are still interested? We keep hearing an awful lot about
The deep water market opening up quite dramatically from other players in your field.
Rick Wheeler (President and CEO)
That's a very good question. Yes, there's not really much discussion because there's not much really new. The interest is absolutely ongoing and active. You know, we've had active discussions with those representatives here at our facilities as well as being at their facilities. You know, the interest is still there, and I think that to your point, you know, the examination of getting the most out of these deep water assets is largely what keeps those discussions floating, you know, and in the top of mind.
Scott Bundy (SVP Investments)
Rick, can you just give us a rough idea of the potential addressable market that we're talking about for Quantum? I mean, are we talking PRM type contracts? Can you give us any idea of, you know, what that addressable market looks like if you're successful?
Rick Wheeler (President and CEO)
Again, I don't think we've actually revealed what we think some of those numbers are, but, you know, we wouldn't be bothering with it if we didn't think it was significant. Those opportunities, you know, certainly are gonna be ones that, you know, the government itself is going to be involved in, both for the military, as well as, you know, some of the law enforcement agencies.
Scott Bundy (SVP Investments)
Last question. For the land wireless customers, has most of that existing inventory by your customers been absorbed, or is that still an issue?
Rick Wheeler (President and CEO)
No, we still have inventory as it relates to the wireless land product. Certainly, some of it, you know, has made its way to the hands of customers. In fact, that's what we were referring to in this release. There was a component of revenue in that space, in the wireless product space, that was land equipment sold out of our rental fleet.
Scott Bundy (SVP Investments)
I'm sorry, one more question. This environment to me reminds me a lot of 2005. Do you agree in terms of, you know, what you're seeing?
Rick Wheeler (President and CEO)
You know, in my, in my mind, every one of these cycles has its own character and its own personality. While I do see some similarities to what has happened in the past in that regard, there are a lot of things that are very unique to this situation. I don't know that I would have that one-to-one correspondence, but I do understand the analogy you're drawing.
Scott Bundy (SVP Investments)
Thanks, guys.
Operator (participant)
We have a follow-up question from Joe Zelman with Tieton Capital Management. Your line is open.
Joe Zelman (Analyst)
Thank you. Continuing down the question relative to PRM, how are the discussions different today versus back in, well, a decade ago, 2012, when those conversations were taking place?
Rick Wheeler (President and CEO)
Well, I think at the time earlier on, you know, they were anticipating that they would, you know, be putting out a tender sooner than that, actually was going to occur. The discussions, I think, have got a little bit more realistic. That's why we say that even amidst these discussions, we don't expect anything to land in such a way that it would offer the opportunity to generate any revenue in this fiscal year. All that that we see in these discussions are all focusing on things that would come in subsequent fiscal years.
Joe Zelman (Analyst)
Are the oil companies looking for something different, whether it be a use case or configurations, just philosophically different today versus then, or are they very similar?
Rick Wheeler (President and CEO)
I think they're very similar. I mean, you know, these are longstanding needs, and the fields are, you know, have long lifetimes to them, and they wanna get into that early. Some of these are brand new fields, other of these are fields that already exist. you know, so I think that, I think that sums up, you know, the general nature of the discussions and is why they're basically, you know, very similar to what they have been.
Joe Zelman (Analyst)
Rick, you said that you don't anticipate any anything that would lead to revenue this year. Do you anticipate you may see orders this year, even though they would not contribute to revenue in this fiscal year?
Rick Wheeler (President and CEO)
Again, I'm not putting high probabilities on that occurring, given, you know, the slip that has already occurred in several occasions on some of these anticipated tenders.
Joe Zelman (Analyst)
All right. Finally, what was the revenue that was associated with the lost OBX equipment that was then purchased by the customer?
Rick Wheeler (President and CEO)
You know, we did not reveal that exact number. Quite honestly, the only ones that need to know that exact number are those that are party to the t ransaction, largely because competitors, both in our area and in our customers' area, could try to leverage that information to their benefit in some way. I will say that, you know, it was significant, and that was, and we did make note of that to be as transparent as we could in our revenues.
I'll also say that that same, you know, the fact that we had quarterly revenues that were the highest they've been in eight and a half years, within that same span, even without that sale taken out, you know, there would've been very few, maybe three quarters that would have in that time span, that would have been better. Great. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Once again, if you would like to ask a question, you may press the star one on your telephone keypad at this time. We'll take our next question from Michael Melby with Gate City Capital. Your line is now open.
Michael Melby (Founder and Portfolio Manager)
Good morning, gentlemen, and congratulations on the new results. Within the commentary, you talked about a path to profitability, and that is encouraging to a lot of investors, I think. Realizing you don't, could you talk at a high level on the components you envision to get you to profitability? Realizing it's probably dependent on higher revenue. As you think about your business plan and your business model, if you could highlight the components you need to improve either on a revenue or cost side to get you to where you wanna be, I think that would be a helpful way to frame it to the investment community.
Rick Wheeler (President and CEO)
Yeah, I think all fronts are gonna have to be pursued, Mike, and that's exactly what's in our plan. You know, part of that is examining in great detail, you know, the cost structure of our manufacturing operations, which aspects have the greatest efficiencies, which ones do not, where our assets and our working capital is best put to use. Those pieces of the puzzle are ones that we're still putting together, and we're gonna be acting on those as we discover them. On the revenue side, there's a clear aspect that revenues, you know, need to increase in all these segments. There are expansion efforts going on in some areas within the organization to increase our capacities for very well-known products that we see good forecasting on.
It's gonna be a combination of those sorts of things, but as you say, none of which in any specific manner can we really annotate at this point.
Michael Melby (Founder and Portfolio Manager)
I think it can be challenging from our side to think about, how those all come together. Can you highlight any timeframe that you thought about internally to get you close to your profitability goals?
Rick Wheeler (President and CEO)
We're certainly targeting this year as making significant improvement on that. As far as, you know, what you've seen this quarter, you're gonna see more of that as we go forward in terms of our examination of things, restructuring of things, as it were. You know, it's not something that happens overnight, and it's something that requires some really pensive examination as we go forward on this stuff. I wish I could give you a timeline, but that would kinda be, you know, not really a, you know, something I could give you something accurate on.
Michael Melby (Founder and Portfolio Manager)
Okay. Just maybe a quick clarification. On the OBX, rental equipment that was lost, was that included in product revenue or rental equipment revenue?
Rick Wheeler (President and CEO)
It was included in product revenue.
Michael Melby (Founder and Portfolio Manager)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
We'll take our next question from Walter Emanuel Levinson with Levinson Capital Management. Your line is now open.
Walter Emanuel Levinson (Analyst)
Thank you. Good morning.
Rick Wheeler (President and CEO)
Good morning.
Walter Emanuel Levinson (Analyst)
I think really the bottom line here is from a qualitative and a quantitative perspective is that under the current leadership of the company, something like 97% of shareholder value has been destroyed. Retained earnings and owner's equity has dramatically been reduced for the owners of the company. The only way you guys have come close to breakeven this last quarter, apparently, is because of an equipment loss. The board's bloated. Management salaries and benefits are always hidden in SG&A, which is always going up. The Quantum acquisition hasn't really panned out, at least not yet, and it's been a couple of years. It just feels like you guys are always hanging a carrot in front of investors. In the meantime, while the board and the management team's pretty well compensated, investors are getting hosed.
To me, that looks like corporate governance failures, and it really should lead to Rick Wheeler's ouster. A board that leaves the management team in place this long with this many losses, what is it, 42 quarters of losses? I mean, the price of oil goes up, you guys lose money. Price of oil goes down, you guys lose money. The economy's great and booming, you guys lose money. The economy's doing badly, you lose money. That's a corporate governance failure. I think until the investors and the board are honest about it, you're gonna keep losing money. Every conference call, somebody asks Rick Wheeler, "When are you gonna be profitable?" He can never give a clear, intelligent, solid answer. Investors should be very, very concerned about that. I've always said you guys have great technology. You've got great R&D.
You're sitting on a ton of assets, but the day is gonna come when you run out of real estate to sell, and you're gonna run out of hard assets to sell to buttress your cash position. These are just not adequate answers for investors. I think the company needs to take a hard look at who really owns that company and start thinking about why these failures are going on year after year after year. I want to know what you guys have to say about that.
Rick Wheeler (President and CEO)
Well, I think in many respects, you're really all wrong about how the business operates. I mean, in most respects, you know, we're managing ourselves-
Walter Emanuel Levinson (Analyst)
Well, I'm not wrong. Destruction of shareholder value under your leadership, Rick. Is that wrong? Am I overstating? I'm understating that number. Is that wrong?
Rick Wheeler (President and CEO)
Well-
Walter Emanuel Levinson (Analyst)
Businesses exist to earn a profit and to increase the value of their shareholders' wealth and their investment in that business. You've not done that. You've been in reverse for eight years. Is that not a true statement? Show me where on the income statement or balance sheet I'm wrong. Look at your retained earnings. You've eroded them. Look at your shareholder equity. It goes down every single quarter. That's straight facts.
Rick Wheeler (President and CEO)
Right.
Walter Emanuel Levinson (Analyst)
You can't tell me that isn't a fact. Well, what are you gonna do about it? That's what we gotta find out.
Rick Wheeler (President and CEO)
Well, I think that's something that you're seeing. I mean, to the extent that we're restructuring what we're doing and aligning ourselves with, those components that are more revenue producing, you are gonna see that occur.
Walter Emanuel Levinson (Analyst)
Well, I hope that's true because honestly, I think this board should be cut in half. I think it's extremely bloated for a company with your market cap size. Honestly, Rick, you should step down. Your performance has been terrible economically. You seem like a nice guy, but I think these shareholders are gonna have an effective CEO than a nice guy. This is just an indefensible performance. The price of oil shot up, you guys didn't capitalize on it. Your competition's capitalizing left and right. There's record spending with E&P companies. I mean, somebody just asked your CFO. He answers, "We're gonna cash flow cash positive." That's not that encouraging. I mean, look at your burn rate.
The bank's cutting your credit line, your cash is constantly dwindling, you're selling real estate left and right, but you're gonna run out of real estate. The fact of the matter is, when Gary was running the company, he was a great CEO. Gary's retired. He's out on some exotic vacation every time I talk to him. You're not Gary Owens, and that's the problem here. All of those assets were accumulated under Gary's leadership, and now we're just burning through them. Look, this isn't an indictment of you personally, Rick, but something's gotta change, and it's gotta change quick. You gotta get all these academics off your board who all they talk about is playing with rocks. You gotta get some people who understand Wall Street on that board because that's who you're talking to. You're talking to Wall Street.
You're not talking to geologists from the Colorado School of Mines. That's my $0.02, and I hope you guys take it to heart.
Rick Wheeler (President and CEO)
All right. Well noted.
Operator (participant)
It appears we have no further questions at this time. I'll turn the program back over to Mr. Rick Wheeler for any additional or closing remarks.
Rick Wheeler (President and CEO)
All right. Well, thanks, Brittany, and thanks to all of y'all who joined our call today, and we'll look forward to speaking with you again on our conference call for the second quarter of fiscal year 2023 in May. Thanks again and goodbye.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. This does conclude today's Geospace Technologies first quarter 2023 earnings conference call. Please disconnect your line at this time, and have a wonderful day.