Gilat Satellite Networks - Q4 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Gilat's Fourth Quarter 2023 Results Conference Call. All participants are present in listen-only mode. Following management's formal presentation, instructions will be given for the question-and-answer session. For operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded, February 26, 2024. By now, you should have all received the company's press release. If you have not received it, please contact Gilat's investor relations team at EK Global Investor Relations at 1-646-688-3559, or view it in the news section of the company's website, www.gilat.com. I would now like to hand over the call to Mr. Ehud Helft of EK Global Investor Relations. Mr. Helft, would you like to begin?

Ehud Helft (Co-Founder)

Yeah, good morning. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for Gilat's Fourth Quarter 2023 Results Conference Call and Webcast. The recording of this call will be available beginning at approximately noon Eastern time today, February 26, as a webcast from Gilat's website for a period of 30 days. Also, please note that investors are urged to read the forward-looking statements in Gilat's earnings release, with the reminder that statements made on this earnings call are not historical facts. It may be deemed a forward-looking statement within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All such forward-looking statements, including statements regarding future financial operation results, involve risk, uncertainties, and contingencies, many of which are beyond the control of Gilat and which may cause actual results to differ materially from anticipated results.

Gilat is under no obligation to update or alter these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, and the company explicitly disclaimed any obligation to do so. More detailed information about risk factors can be found in Gilat's reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. With that said, let me turn to the actual introductions. On the call today are Mr. Adi Sfadia, Gilat's CEO, and Mr. Gil Benyamini, Gilat's CFO. I would now like to turn the call over to Adi. Adi, we're ready to begin.

Adi Sfadia (CEO)

Thank you, Ehud, and good day to everyone. I want to thank you for joining us today to discuss our fourth quarter and full year 2023 results. Before discussing the quarter's business results, I want to re-emphasize my comments from the previous quarter that Gilat is a strong global company with operation and development centers worldwide. Our operations remain unaffected by the recent events in Israel. Now, let's move to the business review of the fourth quarter of 2023 and the full year results. We are very pleased with our fourth quarter and 2023 full year results. We ended 2023 with strong Q4 results. We are reporting fourth quarter revenues of $75.6 million, bringing us to a full year revenues of about $266.1 million, which is year-over-year growth of 11%.

Most importantly, we are particularly proud of the strong improvement in our profitability across the board, with fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA of about $9.4 million, bringing us to a full year adjusted EBITDA of $36.4 million, which represents a significant year-over-year growth of 44%. This is a solid demonstration of the operating leverage inherent in our business model, combined with a more favorable revenue mix sold during this year. I am pleased with our Q4 achievements in the IFC and defense verticals. In the IFC, we managed to gain two new awards from strategic customers that extended our product portfolio. In the defense vertical, we ended the year with important wins for our SkyEdge IV systems, SSPA, transportable hubs, and the first order for our next-generation military modem.

The fourth quarter was also a strong quarter for our operations in Peru, with a more than $17 million award from Pronatel to expand the Amazonas Regional Project. Looking back over the year, we progressed with our strategy to be the partner of choice for the satellite operators by winning and extending key strategic VHTS and NGSO deals. We also progressed significantly with our strategy to expand our market share in the defense vertical with the acquisition of DataPath in the United States, which we believe will be a significant long-term growth asset for Gilat. We extended our market leadership in the in-flight connectivity vertical and our dominance in the satellite-based cellular backhaul vertical. We continue to release new exciting products in all of our business lines.

Overall, 2023 represents a key growth year from both a strategic and financial perspective, and over the next few minutes, I will summarize our progress. Our solid revenue growth and strong adjusted EBITDA performance in 2023 were due to the continued growing market interest in the satellite communication sector, specifically for our solutions. Looking ahead to 2024, we expect another year of top-line and profit growth. Our guidance for 2024 is as follows: we expect revenues of between $305 million and $325 million, representing approximately 18% year-over-year growth at the midpoint. We expect an adjusted EBITDA of between $40 million-$44 million, representing year-over-year growth of 15% at the midpoint. Our acquisition of DataPath was concluded in mid-November. The acquisition is a major milestone in Gilat's strategic initiative to increase its presence in the growing defense communication market powered by satellite connectivity.

It allows us to better penetrate into the U.S. Department of Defense and government sectors, as well as into other international government and defense markets. DataPath is a U.S.-based system integrator and a market leader in secure communication systems, services, and end-to-end solutions for mission-critical operations over satellite. DataPath and Gilat bring strong competencies and synergies in system engineering, software development, and mechanical engineering. DataPath is a key enabler to the U.S. DoD and government mission-critical sector. It provides and maintains its subcomponents, such as portable and transportable ground stations and related services. I'm happy to say that we already see a good level of business progress at DataPath, as witnessed by the booking of more than $20 million since we closed the acquisition in mid-November until today.

Looking at some of the other market verticals we support: in the very high-throughput satellite, the VHTS, and the non-geostationary satellite, the NGSO constellation business, we continue to lead with follow-on multimillion-dollar orders from our strategic partners for MEO and GEO networks. Furthermore, we are competing on additional large-scale opportunities for next-generation MEO and LEO platforms and user terminals. These platforms signal the digital transformation of ground systems to the cloud, 5G NTN, and the staged transition to all software offerings. Network expansions and deliveries of Gilat multi-orbit next-generation platform, SkyEdge IV, are taking place globally to support multiple applications such as in-flight connectivity, cellular backhaul, enterprise, and social inclusion. 2023 was another record year for Gilat cellular backhaul solution over satellite. We received a renewal and extension of a contract of approximately $20 million from Tier 1 MNO in the United States.

We are continuing this multi-year agreement as end-to-end managed service provider of satellite-based cellular backhaul and emergency response for this long-term leading customer. We remain the leading global 4G cellular backhaul over satellite solution provider, demonstrating unparalleled technology delivery and operation capabilities. Our superior technology enables a smooth transition to 5G backhaul over multi-orbit constellation and VHTS satellites. During the fourth quarter, Gilat, SES, and one of the largest MNOs in the world demonstrated the operation of the SkyEdge IV platform for 5G cellular backhaul on MEO constellation that delivered more than 600 Mbps speed directly to the handset. In mobility, we are progressing both in IFC and cruise verticals. We see growth potentials with new operators and system integrators globally.

Our Wavestream subsidiary is making significant progress with two new awards from strategic customers: one very large system integrator and another large IFC terminal manufacturer that is extending its portfolio to also support IFC terminal auxiliary. Earlier in the year, we won a strategic ESA deal for the business aviation market with Satcom Direct, and we are optimistic about the growth of this market. As I have just mentioned, we are putting significant focus on the defense market segment, and DataPath acquisition is a prime example. We are seeing good progress in this area and expect this extra focus will bear fruit soon. We expect our DataPath revenues to exceed $45 million in 2024. We recently announced that the U.S. Army awarded our U.S.-based subsidiary Wavestream a $20 million contract for the Sustain Anytime, Anywhere Satellite Connectivity program.

We will provide an additional 50-watt Ka-band BUCs for the long-term sustainment of thousands of mobile satellite transportable terminals, enabling continued communication on-the-pause solutions across diverse climates and harsh conditions around the globe. We also received a $multi-million order for our SkyEdge IV system from a leading military government organization. This is the first order we have received for our SkyEdge IV platform for the defense vertical. The SkyEdge IV can potentially become an important part of the net-centric battlefield. Moreover, we embarked on developing a next-generation military modem to succeed our GLT product line. This modem will use state-of-the-art resilience waveforms to allow secure communication anywhere. In addition, through Wavestream, we're introducing a new high-power SSPA product line called Endurance. The Endurance BUC is a hot-swappable rack-mount design that can cover multiple commercial and military frequency bands with a switchable up-converter.

We believe that the Endurance product line will take market share from the current products based on TWTA technology, solid-state, and future upgrades. Our enterprise customers worldwide continue to depend on us to enhance their business, and new opportunities continue to arise. The industry is facing intense competition from Starlink. To overcome this challenge, we are working with our partners to explore the multi-service capabilities of our deployed platforms and use common network infrastructure to support our enterprise customers. We already see initial business from this approach and expect more in 2024. In Peru, we are progressing with the construction of the Amazonas networks. We aim to deliver the network to Pronatel and move into fully operational mode during the second quarter of 2024.

During the last quarter, we received more than $17 million expansions to the Amazonas network from Pronatel, expanding the network deployment, including a service agreement for 10 years to address the growing needs of internet in additional parts of the Amazonas region. The expansion will include connectivity to 35 new localities and dozens of new public institutions, including schools and health centers. We are expecting additional progress in Peru over the next few months. This includes the maturity of several large program RFPs with Pronatel and the Peruvian government and several project extensions. To conclude, I'm happy with our strong progress for both a strategic perspective and a financial one in 2023. We continue to lead with our next-generation platform in the growing satellite connectivity market.

Our SkyEdge IV platform, which supports multiple orbits and verticals, including our strategic markets of mobility, cellular backhaul, and defense, is making great inroads and seeing strong and growing traction among existing and new customers. In particular, we are very excited about the new potential in our defense business, especially given the closing of the DataPath acquisition and our next-generation military modem initiative. We continue to secure new opportunities for our SSPA business, especially in the IFC vertical, and are seeing increasing opportunities in this line of business. Overall, as we move into 2024, we believe it will be a year in which many opportunities of the LEO vertical will turn into wins and orders. We have a strong pipeline and expect the materialization of important deals over the coming months and quarters. And with that, I hand over to Gil Benyamini, our CFO. Gil, please.

Gil Benyamini (CFO)

Thank you, Adi. Good morning and good afternoon to everyone. I would like to remind everyone that our financial results are presented both on a GAAP and non-GAAP basis. We regularly use supplemental non-GAAP financial measures internally to understand, manage, and evaluate our business and to make operating decisions. We believe these non-GAAP financial measures provide consistent and comparable measures to help investors understand our current and future operating performance. Non-GAAP financial measures mainly exclude, if and when applicable, the effect of non-cash stock-based compensation expenses, amortization of purchased intangibles, amortization of intangible assets related to acquisition transactions, lease incentive and amortization, impairment of held-for-sale assets, other expenses, one-time changes of deferred tax assets, one-time tax expense related to release of historical tax-trapped earnings, other operating expenses or income, and the income tax effect on the relevant adjustments.

The reconciliation table in our press release highlights these data, and our non-GAAP information presented excluded these items. I will now move on to our financial highlights for the fourth quarter of 2023, followed by our full year 2023 highlights. Overall, as Adi mentioned earlier, we are very pleased with our performance in 2023. We ended the year with continued improvements in our results and especially the strong year-over-year improvement in revenue and profitability. I'm pleased to say that despite the macroeconomic headwinds and geopolitical challenges, our performance shows that we have been able to mitigate most of these issues without a significant impact on our profitability. Even though 2024 may contain some potential macro challenges ahead, we believe that we're well-positioned to overcome these challenges and continue to improve our financial performance as we move through 2024.

This was a significant quarter for Gilat as we closed the strategic acquisition of DataPath, which we believe will accelerate our growth. In terms of our financial results, revenues for the fourth quarter were $75.6 million, 4% higher than those of the fourth quarter of last year, which were $72.6 million. DataPath acquisition, which closed on November 16th this year, contributed modestly to our quarterly revenue in line with expectations. For the year, revenues were $266.1 million, up 11% versus $279.8 million in 2022. The improvements were driven by growth in all of our segments and mainly from the VHTS and NGSO, IFC, and cellular backhaul verticals. In terms of revenue breakdown by segments, Q4 2023 revenues of the Satellite Network segment were $53.5 million compared to $36.4 million in the same quarter last year.

Q4 2023 revenues of the Integrated Solution segment were $9.5 million compared to $16.3 million, same quarter last year. The decline was mainly due to transformation periods between strategic and large projects in the segment. Q4 revenues of the network infrastructure and services segment were $12.6 million compared to $19.9 million in the same quarter last year. The decline was mainly due to deliveries that slipped to 2024. I would now like to summarize our fourth quarter results first on a GAAP basis, and then I'll cover the non-GAAP numbers. Our GAAP gross margin in Q4 2023 remains similar to last year, 38.2%. GAAP operating expenses in Q4 2023 were $26 million in the quarter compared with $21.6 million in the same quarter last year. The increase is mainly due to higher R&D expenses incurred in order to support our current and future growth.

GAAP operating income for the quarter was $2.9 million compared to $6.1 million in the same quarter last year. GAAP net income in the fourth quarter was $3.4 million or diluted income per share of $0.06. This is compared to GAAP net loss of $6 million or loss per share of $0.11 in the same quarter last year. Moving to non-GAAP results, our non-GAAP gross margin in Q4 2023 improved to 39.1% compared to 38.3% in the same quarter last year. Non-GAAP operating expenses in Q4 2023 were $23.4 million compared with $20.7 million in the same quarter last year. Non-GAAP operating income in Q4 2023 was $6.1 million compared to an operating income of $7.1 million in the same quarter last year. Non-GAAP net income in the fourth quarter was $6.5 million or diluted income per share of $0.11.

This is compared with net income of $7.9 million or income per share of $0.14 in the same quarter last year. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $9.4 million compared with an adjusted EBITDA of $10.1 million in the same quarter last year. For the year, adjusted EBITDA was $36.4 million compared with an adjusted EBITDA of $25.2 million in 2022. Moving to our balance sheet. As of December 31st, 2023, our total cash and cash equivalents and restricted cash net of loans were $95.3 million compared with $100.3 million on September 30th, 2023, and compared to $87.1 million on December 31st, 2022. The reduction is mainly due to $5.7 million that was used for the DataPath acquisition and $9.5 million of debt we assumed as part of the acquisition agreement. In terms of cash flow, we generated $10 million from operating activities during the fourth quarter of 2023.

DSOs, which exclude receivables and revenues of our terrestrial network construction projects in Peru, were 63 days, lower than the previous quarter DSOs, which were 75 days. The decrease was impacted by both an increase in revenue as well as a decrease in receivables due to higher collection in the last quarter. Our shareholders' equity as of December 31st, 2023, totaled to about $275 million compared with $244 million at the end of 2022. Looking ahead, as Adi already mentioned, we're expecting a strong 2024 with revenue of between $305-$325 million, representing year-over-year growth of 18% at the midpoint, GAAP operating income of between $15 million-$19 million, and Adjusted EBITDA of between $40 million-$44 million, representing year-over-year growth of 15% at the midpoint. That concludes my financial review. I would now like to open the call for questions. Operator.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question-and-answer session. If you have a question, please press star one. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you're using speaker equipment, kindly lift the handset before pressing the numbers. Your questions will be polled in the order they are received. Please stand by while we poll for your questions. The first question is from Ryan Koontz of Needham & Company. Please go ahead.

Ryan Koontz (Managing Director and Research Analyst)

Hi. Thanks for the question. Let's see. With some housekeeping first with respect to Q4, I assume the GAAP step-up in G&A there may be related to acquisition expenses. Is that correct?

Gil Benyamini (CFO)

Some of it is acquisition expenses, and some of it I mean, mainly it is acquisition expenses. Yes.

Ehud Helft (Co-Founder)

Okay. Thanks. Thanks. On the guidance for 2024, can you maybe walk us through some of the puts and takes on some of the segments? Are you still expecting in the ballpark of $50 million from DataPath, and are there any other major programs or segments of the business that are contributing to upside or downside? We talked about the macro caution. Which areas of the business do you think are most affected there?

Gil Benyamini (CFO)

Yeah. So in general, we expect growth in all of our business segments. We don't provide the guidance by segment, but we do expect growth in all of our segments, both organic and, of course, inorganic by DataPath. As I mentioned, DataPath contributed a relatively modest amount in 2023 in the last six weeks of the year. Next year, we expect about $45 million, as Adi mentioned, from DataPath. Of course, as it is the first year of acquiring it, we applied some conservative assumptions over that as well and reached our guidance.

Ryan Koontz (Managing Director and Research Analyst)

Okay. That's fair. And any updates for us on some of the big drivers there for your business, whether it's some of the LEO opportunities or some of the IFC programs you're attached to? Anything you can share there that would get investors excited about the story?

Adi Sfadia (CEO)

Yeah. I think the main progress is that those several RFPs that we are competing on are still in progress. We believe that awards or decision is going to be towards the mid for some of them, towards the mid of the second quarter, and for some, towards the end of the year. In fact, all of our large partners are having new RFPs for new technology and existing technology, and we expect most of it to mature during the year. In some of them, we are the incumbents, so we feel comfortable. And in some, especially on the LEO, on OneWeb and IRIS² in Europe, we are competing against several other companies, but we believe that we have a superior technology, and the potential from each and every opportunity over there is hundreds of millions of dollars and can change the future of Gilat.

Ryan Koontz (Managing Director and Research Analyst)

Sure. That's great to hear. So it sounds like you're not baking in those assumptions into your 2024 guidance, any of these changes in your current?

Adi Sfadia (CEO)

It's a combination of the two. The ongoing business with our strategic partners, it's baked into our guidance in a way. We. We are having a discussion with them, and we understand what is their forecast and putting our assumption on top of it. On the LEO part, even if we get it, once we get the award, it's a matter of several years of development. So the effect on 2024 will be minimal, and then we'll have around three years of developing the platform. It's a completely new platform, and then we'll start seeing a significant top-line contribution.

Ryan Koontz (Managing Director and Research Analyst)

Okay. Great. That's helpful. And in terms of Peru and the network infrastructure business, how is that tracking as far as your expectations for 2024? I know you're not guiding quantitatively, but anything you can share with us about how the program is progressing?

Adi Sfadia (CEO)

Yeah. So we have the original Amazonas network that we are in the final stages. We're in the acceptance process of part of the network and about to finish the second part of the network during Q1, and we expect to deliver the network and start the operational phase by the end of the second quarter. The new award of the $17 million comprises around 60% of construction, which should be carried until early next year and then additional 10 years of operation. The rule of thumb, we expect that Peru revenues to modestly grow in 2024 over 2023 results.

Gil Benyamini (CFO)

Okay. That's really helpful, Adi. Thank you. I'll get back with you.

Operator (participant)

The next question is from Chris Quilty of Quilty Space. Please go ahead.

Chris Quilty (Co-CEO and President)

Thanks, gentlemen. I think, is this the first time you've really talked about the opportunity with IRIS², or has that been previously in some of your expectations?

Adi Sfadia (CEO)

No. We are talking about IRIS² for quite some time. Last quarter, we said that we received the eligibility. We have a very large in order to be eligible to participate in the program, you need to have to be a European company, and we have a significant operation in Europe, and we strengthen our operation in Europe. We expect to continue and increase our operation. We have a large operation in Bulgaria. We are building a large operation in Madrid, in Spain. We received the eligibility, and IRIS started to launch several RFI, RFPs, and we started to answer them. But I think it's in initial stages, and it will take time until the final RFP and award will occur. I suspect it won't happen before the end of this year.

Chris Quilty (Co-CEO and President)

Gotcha. And when you were referring earlier to a three-year development timeframe, was that referring to the IRIS² program, or was that one of the other NGSO programs you were talking about?

Adi Sfadia (CEO)

I think the rule of thumb, developing a new platform and not an enhancement to existing platform, is usually around three years. Now, there is a request in the market to shift to cloud. There is a request in the market to move to virtualization, virtual modem, SDR modems, 5G NTN. So a shift like this requires a lot of development, and the rule of thumb, it's around three, maybe four years.

Chris Quilty (Co-CEO and President)

Understand. So this is essentially the future replacement for SkyEdge IV?

Adi Sfadia (CEO)

If you will talk to the product team, they will say no. But for IRIS², it will be a totally new platform. For OneWeb Gen 2, it will be a totally new platform. For our large satellite operator partners, at the first stage, it will be a significant enhancement to the existing platform, shifting more and more capabilities into the public cloud. And later on, there will be a shift also to 5G.

Chris Quilty (Co-CEO and President)

Understand. And I think last quarter, you had mentioned a possible beginning of a rollout during Q3 with one of your NGSO customers. Did that rollout happen, or what's the progress there and expectations for incremental growth in 2024?

Adi Sfadia (CEO)

So the rollout hasn't started yet. The customer is expecting to launch service during 2026, and we expect to get production unit orders towards, let's say, before the end of the year. We do have a substantial amount of units that we need to deliver as part of the original order. I can tell you that right now, our power amplifier is the only one that is working with the test satellite that this customer launched.

Chris Quilty (Co-CEO and President)

Great. A question for you, Gil. Can you give us perhaps a ballpark of EBITDA for this year with the DataPath acquisition?

Gil Benyamini (CFO)

Yes. We expect to see about $3 million of depreciation plus about $5 million of stock-based related expenses to the deal. So all in all, it should be about $8 million in the non-GAAP expenses that we should expect to see next year with the expected acquisition.

Chris Quilty (Co-CEO and President)

And that's $8 million in total or not incremental?

Gil Benyamini (CFO)

No. It's incremental. It's incremental. I mean, it's included, obviously, in the guidance for the operating income. One of the reasons that it decreased, it's incremental. And actually, it is also further affected by the stock price of Gilat, so it might change as well. But currently, according to our expectations, it should be around $8 million.

Chris Quilty (Co-CEO and President)

Understand. And when you look at the IFC market, where do you see the best opportunities there? Is that with existing players, or are you targeting inroads with additional systems integrators?

Adi Sfadia (CEO)

We see a lot of growth with existing partners and also using our platform to shift to other applications and take advantage of the fact that our platform is a multi-application platform. We are seeing nice business from several new customers on the SSPA side but also on the network and on the modem side. Not a big one yet, but each one of them can become a significant revenue generator in the next several years.

So we are seeing a lot of orders for our SSPA, a lot of orders for auxiliary for ESA, like frequency control unit and power supply unit and things like that, and also orders for modem, as I said. I remind you that earlier in the year, we signed the agreement with Satcom Direct, and now we are in the development phase, but we expect to see deliveries towards mid-next year, which support revenue growth, especially in the IFC segment.

Chris Quilty (Co-CEO and President)

Great. And I guess final question here, looking at the DataPath acquisition, that obviously brings along a higher level of backlog and perhaps orders that you can identify. Is there any intention to provide a little bit more details, either book-to-bill, backlog for that business on a go-forward basis?

Adi Sfadia (CEO)

Yeah. It's something that we are considering internally, and once we will be able to share, we will share it.

Chris Quilty (Co-CEO and President)

Gotcha. And oh, final question, Gil. I know you've provided this before, but I just want to assure where DataPath is going to land in terms of segment reporting.

Gil Benyamini (CFO)

It's included under the Satellite Networks segment results.

Chris Quilty (Co-CEO and President)

Great. Awesome. Well, thank you, gentlemen.

Adi Sfadia (CEO)

Thank you.

Gil Benyamini (CFO)

Thank you, Chris.

Operator (participant)

If there are any additional questions, please press star one. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. Please stand by while we poll for more questions. There are no further questions at this time. Mr. Benyamini, would you like to make your concluding statement?

Gil Benyamini (CFO)

Yes.