S&W Seed Company - Q1 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good day, and welcome to the S&W Seed Company Reports First Quarter Fiscal Year 2023 Financial Results. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Robert Blum with Lytham Partners. Please go ahead.

Robert Blum (Managing Partner)

All right. Thank you very much, and thank you all for joining us today to discuss S&W Seed Company's first quarter fiscal year 2023 financial results for the quarter ended September 30th, 2022. With us on the call representing the company today are Mark Wong, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Betsy Horton, Chief Financial Officer. At the conclusion of today's prepared remarks, we'll open the call for a question-and-answer session.

Before we begin with prepared remarks, please note that statements made by the management team of S&W Seed Company during the course of this conference call may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as amended, and such forward-looking statements made are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements describe future expectations, plans, results, or strategies and are generally preceded by words such as may, future, plan or planned, will or should, expected, anticipates, draft, eventually, or projected.

Such forward-looking statements on this call include, but are not limited to, the advancement of S&W's business strategy, S&W's financial guidance for fiscal 2023, and S&W's expectations regarding its lender relationships and planned use of loan proceeds. Listeners are cautioned that such statements are subject to a multitude of risks and uncertainties that could cause future circumstances, events, or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements, including the risks that actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors and other risks identified in the company's 10-K for the fiscal year ended June 30th, 2022, and other filings subsequently made by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In addition, to supplement S&W's financial results reported in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles or GAAP, S&W will be discussing Adjusted EBITDA on this call. This non-GAAP financial measure is not meant to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the comparable GAAP measure, should be read in conjunction with S&W's consolidated financial statements prepared in accordance with GAAP, has no standardized meaning prescribed by GAAP and is not prepared under any comprehensive set of accounting rules or principles. A description of Adjusted EBITDA and a reconciliation of historical Adjusted EBITDA to net loss is included at the end of S&W's earnings release issued earlier today, which has been posted on the investor relations page of S&W's website.

S&W has not reconciled its guidance for Adjusted EBITDA for fiscal 2023 to net loss because the reconciling line items that impact net loss are uncertain or out of its control and cannot be reasonably predicted. The actual amount of these items during fiscal 2023 will have a significant impact on net income or loss. Accordingly, reconciliation of this non-GAAP measure is not available without unreasonable efforts. An audio recording and webcast replay for today's conference call will also be made available online on the company's investor relations page. With that said, let me turn the call over to Mark Wong, Chief Executive Officer for S&W Seed Company. Mark, please proceed.

Mark Wong (President and CEO)

Thank you, Robert, and good morning to all of you on the call today. As we talked about during our year-end call in September, for fiscal year 2023, we're focused on commercial execution as we begin to leverage all the work that has been done over the past five years. Simply put, it's about driving towards and beyond profitability in the near term. We are doing this by being intensely focused on the four key centers of value we have outlined previously, including number one, our sorghum technology operations led by Double Team, a next generation non-GMO herbicide-tolerant sorghum solution. Number two, our international forage operations, which primarily operate out of Australia and provide products around the world. Number three, our U.S. forage operations. Number four, our specialty crops, which include Camelina for biofuel applications and stevia.

I'll review the progress of each of these areas during my presentation. Q1 of 2023, at a high level, I am extremely pleased when we started the first quarter off on a very high note. Our first quarter revenue of $19.9 million was an increase of 28% compared to Q1 of a year ago. As we discussed on our last call, fiscal 2023 is not simply about revenue growth, but our efforts to drive margin expansion and improvements in Adjusted EBITDA. Compared to Q1 of fiscal 2022, we achieved a 260 basis point improvement in gross profit margins and a $2.4 million improvement in Adjusted EBITDA, up from -$4.0 million to -$1.6 million.

Considering we had a $4.3 million increase in revenue, nearly 60% of our revenue growth dropped to the Adjusted EBITDA line. One item I want everyone also to remember is that the first quarter is typically a heavy alfalfa quarter, with very little of our high-margin sorghum or Double Team sales occurring in this quarter. As we entered the back half of the year, we see potential for further significant gross margin and Adjusted EBITDA improvements. Beyond sales execution and margin controls, we are executing on the cost control initiatives we discussed earlier this year. SG&A and R&D each dropped by $500,000 during the quarter or about $1 million in total compared to Q1 fiscal 2022. Overall, we expect our OpEx spend to be much lower than last year.

Operationally versus Q1 last year, 28% gross revenue growth, 260 basis points improvement in gross margin, $1 million decrease in operating expenses, and a $2.4 million improvement in Adjusted EBITDA. Needless to say, we are very pleased with our progress in the first quarter. Let me talk a little bit about the four key centers of value again. The first being our U.S. sorghum technology Double Team business. First, let me discuss what I believe to be Double Team's potential to revolutionize the sorghum market in the same way other weed control technologies have enhanced yields for crops such as corn, soybeans, and cotton.

From a numbers standpoint, during the last year, we sold approximately $3 million of Double Team, but as we have stated, one of the biggest hindering factors we have is availability of seed. On that front, we have materialized our seed production and have taken steps we believe are appropriate to limit the risk, natural risk to farming that we can see, such as freezes and excess heat. To date, we have not seen quality concerns, and our ongoing production harvest remains on track to support our $12 million revenue target from Double Team sales. These expected sales translate to about 500,000 acres of Double Team being grown by farmers in 2023. Operationally, the first half of our fiscal year is where we are booking pre-orders for the first quarter of the year.

Initial indications are very positive, and with a third of our expected crop already pre-ordered, the positive experience and word of mouth across the industry is truly benefiting us this year. We talked about the same last quarter, but additionally, selling Double Team under the S&W Sorghum Partners brand, we are also looking at a number of private label opportunities which we believe can expand distribution. We currently have many more private label partners looking at packaging and selling Double Team. We expect that about a third of the $12 million of expected sales for 2023 will be to these private label customers. The ability to leverage key private label partners and utilize their expertise in distribution systems in other key geographies should be of huge benefit to us.

Our private label partners will be important next year when we again expect Double Team sales to grow significantly in the American market, and we are also beginning to formulate our Double Team strategy for South America, Asia, and Africa. The reason we are excited about Double Team is the significantly enhanced margins for the product. Based on our outlook of $12 million of Double Team sales in fiscal 2023, we expect about a 50% or $6 million to drop to the EBITDA line. In summary, at the moment, we feel we are well positioned to hit our outlook for sorghum this year. I want to give an update on a sorghum product technology we've discussed previously that plays in the forage space.

The technology is what we have previously called Dhurrin-Free, and we continue to believe that it has some real potential in the global forage markets. We are renaming it Prussic- Free to reflect the fact that the trait eliminates prussic acid in sorghum. Farmers are more familiar with prussic acid terminology and with the fact that this naturally occurring compound can under certain conditions occur in conventional sorghum, endangering grazing livestock. Prussic Free trait will eliminate this risk and allow worry-free use of sorghum, forage sorghum, regardless of growing conditions. We have introductory amounts of seed that we're growing this year, and we will have enough parent seed to produce a lot more seed for next year's crop year and expect to roll out in the U.S. to solid demand.

Our second center of value, international forage, is also on a very positive upswing. The key drivers for improvement during the first quarter was alfalfa, particularly from our international forage operations, not from sales in Australia. Remember, this is traditionally a quarter where about 75% of our sales are alfalfa. As I mentioned a moment ago, this isn't just about sales, but gross margins as well. Our alfalfa business has margins in excess of 22% for the quarter, the highest quarterly margin for alfalfa that we have achieved in several years. We believe that the strong commodity prices globally are underpinning continued strong growth in all agricultural inputs and that the alfalfa market is no exception. Alfalfa pricing is up 22% compared to a year ago in the same period.

On the flip side, our tighter cost controls and inventory management that we have put in place, we are achieving the forecasted savings outlined earlier in the year, leading to the improvement in margins. Further, the international shipping challenges we encountered as recently as a few months ago are starting to ease. Looking ahead, devastating floods, though, in Eastern Australia has severely impacted vast swaths of cropping land and mixed farming enterprises. Once the water recedes, we believe there will be substantial remediation required, including replanting of crops and pastures. This has led, though, to a slow start for our Australian domestic business, but we expect it should benefit from international forage operations later in the year.

While one quarter does not make a year, recall that the high end of our original guidance called for approximately $9 million in growth from international forage operations, while the low end had a assumption of flat revenues. While we believe our shipping issues have somewhat eased, we still face risks of delay on future shipments in future quarters. However, with a $3.5 million first quarter increase in international forage sales, we believe we are starting the year off on the right foot. Commenting now on our third center of value, our U.S. forage business. It's pretty much steady state as it goes. We continue to encounter headwinds that we have discussed in the past based on decreasing U.S. alfalfa acres.

We have a nice base of business within this segment, though, and as our customers desire our germplasm base with an emphasis on high yield and forage quality with resistance to diseases and stress. Operationally, about $10 million-$11 million or so of annual revenue is what we continue to expect from this sector. However, beyond the germplasm base, the real assets here remain our breeding station and processing facilities in Nampa, Idaho, which we believe can be utilized for biofuel species such as Camelina. Our last center of value, which is the specialty crops, and again, the topic of biofuels. I don't have any real update since our last report, but let me remind you of what we have discussed last quarter.

It is our intent to partner with large energy companies for biofuel production, leveraging our capabilities in production, processing, packaging of Camelina. Due to our unique position as an integrated global seed company with specific expertise in breeding, production, sales, and distribution of small seeded specialty crops, including Camelina, which are highly desirable for biofuel production, we believe we'll be an ideal partner. As I mentioned last quarter, we're planting about 300 acres of Camelina this fall for seed harvest next year. It remains our goal to enter the Camelina market as a seed and technology provider with multiple industry transactions and to provide a potential roadmap. We are optimistic that there is a mutually beneficial agreement to be had in the future. I look forward to hopefully being able to provide further updates on this in the next couple of quarters.

Just an update on our wheat JV. We're targeting to finalize the deal in the second quarter of this fiscal year, so the next couple of months, which would combine our wheat efforts in Australia with Trigall Genetics. As we've mentioned previously, it's a JV between Bioceres Crop Solutions and Florimond Desprez, a European wheat breeding company. We believe that the joint venture could significantly strengthen S&W's position in wheat, enabling us to benefit from the worldwide exposure the combined entity would provide. Further, we would allow us to focus in our efforts internally on our key centers of value. A banking update from me.

Usually Betsy normally would hit most of the banking updates, but I just wanted to point out a few high points since we've made a lot of progress in this area. I just wanted to highlight how pleased I am to have entered into a new increased and extended credit facility with the National Australia Bank for up to AUD 48 million, which is an increase of AUD 9 million from our current facility. Further, at the end of October, our largest shareholder, MFP Partners, L.P., increased their letter of credit from $9 million to $12 million, allowing us to increase our CIBC loan from $18 million to $21 million. We believe these increased credit facilities reflect the support these groups have in our strategic plan going forward as we grow revenues and drive towards profitability.

Before I turn it over to Betsy, just let me remind everyone of our outlook for fiscal 2023. On the high end of guidance, we're expecting $92 million in sales and a negative Adjusted EBITDA of about $2 million. On the low end, it's $80 million in sales and a -$7 million in Adjusted EBITDA. The low end of the guidance assumes only growth from Double Team and flat revenue through the rest of our operations. Among other things, the higher end assumes $3 million in growth from traditional sorghums and $9 million in growth from our international forage operations. Betsy will give you more detail and expand on this in her presentation.

With the progress made during the first quarter, where international forage is up $3.5 million, we see a path to achieve, we believe something closer to the high end of the guidance. As I said earlier, our quarter does not make a year, and we still have a lot of work ahead of us to achieve these results in the current fiscal year. One additional item I'll point out is that we have made zero assumptions for any biofuel or stevia-related agreements for fiscal year 2023, guidance which may prove to offer upside opportunity for the company. It's a great start in the year on all fronts. Let me now turn it over to Betsy to walk through the numbers in more detail, and then we will be back, and happy to answer any questions.

Betsy, I'll turn it over to you, please.

Betsy Horton (CFO)

Thanks so much, Mark. Thanks to everyone for joining us on the call this morning. Let's start on the revenue line. Revenue was $19.9 million for the quarter, an increase of 27.9% compared to $15.5 million in the prior year's first quarter. The increase is primarily attributed to a $3.5 million increase in our international forage operations, which was driven by strong international alfalfa results and offset by a reduction of almost $1 million in our Australia domestic business due to those wet weather conditions that Mark mentioned. We also had a $1 million increase in revenue across sorghum and alfalfa in North America.

While we did see a shift in revenue from the fourth quarter of fiscal 2022 to this quarter, which we talked about during our year-end call, please remember that we also had a shift from fourth quarter of FY 2021 into last year's first quarter, which essentially cancels out when comparing year-over-year. Another way to look at it is that two years ago, core revenue in Q1 of fiscal 2021 was just $9 million. Excluding the shift, we still achieved significant growth on a more normalized basis this quarter. Mark hit on the revenue guidance, but to reiterate what we discussed last quarter, our FY 2023 revenue guidance is currently in the range of $80 million-$92 million.

As we look to bridge from $71 million in fiscal 2022 to $80 million-$92 million in 2023, we are making the following growth assumptions. On the low end of the guidance, we are simply taking into account $9 million in incremental revenue growth attributable to Double Team and flat revenue in the rest of our operations. At the higher end of the guidance, in addition to the $9 million of Double Team growth, we are assuming approximately $9 million in growth from international forage operations, with about half coming from pricing improvements and half coming from volume. About $3 million in assumed growth from our traditional non-DT related sorghum operations. As Mark stated, given the $3.5 million growth in international forage during Q1, we are starting the year off strong. Now turning to margins.

Gross margins were 22.7% in the first quarter of fiscal 2023, compared to 20.1% in the prior year's first quarter. The key driver to the 260 basis point improvement in gross margins was alfalfa, which was up over 1,000 basis points over the last year and accounted for nearly 75% of Q1 sales. While something I wouldn't normally highlight, but given our recent history, I think it warrants mentioning, is that we had inventory write-downs of about $500,000. This is much more in line with what we would expect in a normal quarter compared to what we saw in Q4 of 2022. You may recall that we have been very focused on inventory management and really digging into our inventory valuation.

We know that inventory management is so incredibly critical for our industry, and we are extremely focused on improving our life cycle management so we can avoid big write-downs in the future. We therefore have established a reserve process whereby we match the timing of the reserve with the revenue generation period of the life cycle of each hybrid. Having some inventory write-downs is part of participating in the seed industry. However, through this reserve methodology and our life cycle management efforts, we should avoid the large one-time impacts that we have experienced in the past, and instead see amounts more like we do this quarter. Now we'll transition to operating expenses. Our GAAP operating expenses for Q1 2023 were $6.6 million compared to $7.6 million in the prior year's first quarter, a decrease of $1 million.

Half of the expense reduction came from SG&A, with the other half coming from reductions in R&D. We do have some timing differences where we will catch up on the underspend later in the year, but we believe we are on track to achieve our goal of $5 million in annualized cost savings outlined last quarter. For the year, we believe operating expenses, including stock-based comp of about $2 million, will be about $27 million, which is consistent with our earlier guidance. At the Adjusted EBITDA line, we had a negative Adjusted EBITDA of $1.6 million for the first quarter, compared to negative Adjusted EBITDA of $4 million in the prior year's first quarter, an improvement of $2.4 million.

As Mark pointed out, this $2.4 million improvement to Adjusted EBITDA was achieved on a $4.3 million increase in revenue. With improvements in margin, nearly 60% of the revenue increase dropped to the Adjusted EBITDA line. Similar to what I did last quarter, let me bridge out how we look to achieve our Adjusted EBITDA guidance in fiscal 2023. Let's start with the high end of our assumptions, which is a $2 million Adjusted EBITDA loss for the year. Starting at a negative Adjusted EBITDA of $24 million for fiscal year 2022, we assumed the following for fiscal year 2023. First, a $5 million improvement to our LCM or lower of cost or market charges. Second, $7 million in incremental gross profit due to DT and traditional sorghum revenue growth.

Third, a $5 million improvement in international forage gross profit due to both the higher end of our expected growth as well as overall improvements in our production costs. Fourth, a $5 million improvement from cuts to our operating expenses. All of that gets us to an expected $2 million Adjusted EBITDA loss for fiscal year 2023. For the low end of our Adjusted EBITDA guidance, I'll remind you what we did for the low end of the revenue guidance. We simply took into account incremental revenue growth attributable to Double Team and assumed flat revenue in the rest of our operations. On the low end of our range for Adjusted EBITDA, we did the same and assumed growth only in DT, which would be a $6 million Adjusted EBITDA loss. We made some additional assumptions.

-$2 million of the international forage benefit would be captured due to increase in margins. Between our lower of cost or market charges and OpEx combined, we would have a $9 million benefit versus 2022. This would end with an EBITDA loss on an adjusted basis of about $7 million. These are only assumptions, and there are a tremendous number of variables, but we believe it is important for our investors to understand the methodology behind the numbers we provided. Now let's talk about our financing. As Mark discussed, in late October, we announced an extension and an increase to certain of our credit facilities with National Australia Bank or NAB to a combined maximum borrowing capacity of AUD 49 million or approximately $31.8 million as of September 30th, 2022.

This is an increase of AUD 9 million, or approximately $5.8 million compared to our prior facilities. The modified credit facilities include a seasonal credit facility, which is comprised of a borrowing baseline and an overdraft facility. We also have a flexible rate loan and a master asset finance facility with expiration dates ranging from September 2023 to May 2026. We plan to use the increases in our credit facilities to support our growing international forage operations based out of Australia. We are grateful for the relationship we have had with NAB for more than 10 years and look forward to a mutually beneficial relationship for years to come. Additionally, as you might have seen from the 8-K we filed on November 1st, we have amended a couple of our other financing agreements.

MFP, our largest shareholder, continued to show their support for S&W by issuing a $12 million standby letter of credit to back our CIBC facility. This was a $3 million increase from what was in place previously. The LC allowed us to increase our total revolving loan commitment with CIBC to $21 million, up from $18 million. We felt this was a relatively non-dilutive way to improve our balance sheet, and we thoroughly appreciate the ongoing support from MFP. We continue to actively pursue long-term financing with a replacement lender, with an expectation that a non-bank lender is likely a better fit for us at this point in time, and expect to close a new deal prior to the maturity of the CIBC facility at the end of the calendar year.

We know there's a lot of work ahead of us, but we are extremely pleased with the progress made during the first quarter and the pathways we believe it provides us for a potentially strong fiscal 2023. With that, I will turn the call back over to Mark.

Mark Wong (President and CEO)

Thank you, Betsy. Just in closing, we feel very good about the progress we've made so far in the first quarter. We remain focused on developing the four key centers of value we've outlined previously and continue to focus on. We have executed on the alignment of our cost structure to support these key centers of value. Further, we are assessing potential value-generating transactions intended to drive the business towards profitability. Our international forage operations had a very good quarter, and initial indications on pre-orders of Double Team indicate that our assumptions for growth are reasonable. As always, we thank you for your continued support of S&W and look forward to taking your questions. Operator?

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question comes from Ben Klieve with Lake Street. Please go ahead.

Ben Klieve (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

All right. Thanks for taking my questions, and congratulations on a good quarter, especially on the margins and the capital availability side. A couple questions from me. First of all, on the Camelina initiative. Mark, I'm wondering if you can update us on the expectations for planting I assume going on as we speak here for Camelina as a cover crop. If you could update us on kind of acreage and locations of expected plantings, that'd be great.

Mark Wong (President and CEO)

Thanks, Ben. I always appreciate your questions. Yeah. So I've said we've got about 300 acres of seed Camelina. That would be the amount of Camelina that then we produce seed that we sell to our farmer partners, and then they grow the grain Camelina, which is pressed for oil. That's a pretty big bite for just starting the program. We think that the biodiesel market is going to be a huge opportunity. There's obviously a lot of other companies working in other crops and all around the world, and we believe we can participate in that early on. We're pretty excited about that. We also believe that the Idaho location where our breeding station and production plants are ideal for producing Camelina.

Some of the companies that are also in the U.S. market are a little farther north than we are. We think that adds some weather risk to the seed production. We would prefer to frankly produce it in a little better weather environment, even though it might be a little higher cost because the competing crops earn more for the farmers, so we have to pay a little bit more for our Camelina. You know, as everyone on the call knows, the ag business, ag seed business is a long product line business. We've been doing this now, I've been CEO for five years, and now we're finally hitting our stride to the genes that we put into the market, to these opportunities like Camelina.

you know, we think that having stable seed supply is more important than a couple of pennies per pound cost savings, at least at the beginning of the cycle, where demand is higher than capacity to produce the seed. We're really excited about what's happening on the Camelina and the biodiesel side. It's pretty clear that in the U.S. market, there won't be enough oil seeds to satisfy the diesel market for many, many years to come, maybe never. We think it's a tremendous opportunity to produce oils that have a much, much improved carbon footprint versus petroleum-based diesel. At the same time, not obviously affect the cost of food because it's Camelina's grown as a second crop basically over the winter.

We're pretty excited and, you know, we took a big bite putting 300 acres in the ground, and, we'll be updating, you know, in the next couple of quarters as to status of the seed production and what the actual farmers were able to produce and, whatever the winter weather's gonna be here, in the next three-four months.

Ben Klieve (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Very good. All right. Well, I appreciate that, and we'll stay tuned for more updates next spring. Pivoting over to sorghum. Mark, you commented that you've got expectations that about a third of your or the Double Team is going to be in the form of private label. Can you just kind of talk about just kind of the different business model of private label versus selling direct to farmers and kind of the challenges around, you know, the private label process here in the very early stages and kind of your expectations for that private label business, you know, over the next two to three years.

Mark Wong (President and CEO)

Yeah. Great question, Ben. You know, it's good, as you point out, to look forward into the future because our decision to frankly sell a little bit more of our available inventory through private label is one that's based really on the future. I said that this spring planting, you know, based on our sort of 55,000 bag kind of estimate of sorghum that we're gonna sell, that it's a roughly 500,000-acre crop. That's on a sorghum base in the U.S. of 6 million acres, right? That's a fairly significant piece. We think that, you know, obviously we have to sell that, and we have to distribute it, and it has to get planted.

We think based on the demand, there's going to be a huge opportunity, again, to increase our sales in 2024, and maybe up to 1 million acres. We're in seed production in terms of you know, the male and female lines that we need to produce our hybrids and stuff to have enough hybrid seed to in the 2024 spring planting, so that's next year, to basically be targeting close to 1 million acres. That would be really significant given the 6 million acres. That's on the basis of 6 million acres of existing grain sorghum plantings in the U.S., that we think is the 2024 expected planting rates for farmers.

You know, one of the big opportunities for us is to use the bigger customers who want private label to basically use their sales forces to continue to improve the penetration rates, market share rates that we get for Double Team Grain Sorghum. One of the big reasons why we're putting more of our available seed this year to private label is that we think in 2024, that's going to help us improve and increase, you know, to 1 million acres, our penetration rates. That's really one of the reasons. It's not just for 2023 sales, it's really looking forward to 2024 sales. Again, I can't say this enough times, you know, the product development life cycles are really long for ag.

You know, we're always looking forward a couple of years. As your question pointed out, you can't just focus on the year that you're in, you have to focus a couple of years ahead. That's the reason why we're very bullish on all of the interest in private label. We didn't have this interest last year, right, because people were just assessing our gene and stuff. Remember we sold about a sixth of the seed that we're gonna sell in 2023 last year, and people were just getting used to seeing Double Team Grain Sorghum.

The overwhelming response of the farmers to wanna purchase it is really uplifting to all of our employees, especially the R&D guys who have been working on this for seven, eight years, and our production guys who put the stuff in the field, and, you know, our sales team who's selling it today. We're looking forward to 2024. That's the real reason to put more of our available seed sales and inventory through private label rather than in our own branded Sorghum Partners brand.

Ben Klieve (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. Makes plenty of sense. Very good. There's plenty more to talk about, but that's probably a good place to leave it. Thanks for taking my questions, and I'll get back in line.

Mark Wong (President and CEO)

You're more than welcome.

Operator (participant)

Again, if you'd like to ask a question, please press Star then one at this time. Our next question comes from Jonathon Fite with KMF Investments. Please go ahead.

Jonathon Fite (Managing Partner)

Great. Good morning, Mark. Good morning, Betsy. Thanks for your time today.

Mark Wong (President and CEO)

Morning, Jonathon.

Jonathon Fite (Managing Partner)

Just wanted to start high level. If we go back to kind of your technology presentation from December of 2020, you all outlined kind of some growth areas that y'all were gonna focus on, some areas that you had intended to divest, had put a flag in the ground as far as kinda where you thought you'd be in 2024, 2026. I know it's way too early to be giving guidance for next year, but just directionally, what's changed and what is still on track from your mind in relation to kinda where you thought you'd be two years ago?

Mark Wong (President and CEO)

Yeah. You know, like all things in business that has long product development timelines, you know, facts in the market do change your opinion. I would say at this point, the percent of our proprietary, you know, are based on we own. That percent is pretty good estimate. We think that number's pretty spot on, and we're excited because when we did that technology growth three-five-year plan, you know, we didn't understand the Dhurrin-Free now Prussic Acid-Free opportunity that we were going to have in forage sorghums. You know, having two traits following each other is always a huge benefit to the farmers and to the company, frankly, because, you know, we are getting a reputation in the sorghum market as a technology leader.

We have a lot of ongoing discussions with every single one of the other sorghum companies around the world that are fairly major in sorghum grain sorghum and forage sorghum sales. You know, we just are very optimistic that there's a technology plan that our R&D from biotech and from our standard plant breeding is gonna yield us continued products in the future. On the downside, I'd say that our estimates of kind of our general sales growth is gonna be a bit slower than in that plan. You know, I think that the sales number is probably high in that plan, but the profitability is probably a pretty good estimate. We get the chance because we've been pretty busy to redo that plan.

When we're gonna issue one is not totally clear to me, but you know, hopefully by the end of this fiscal year, we'll have the time to put all of our teams together around the world and assess both the interest of other seed companies for licensing and our own direct sales. We will put out a three- to five-year technology plan that'll give your question a much more thorough answer than just sort of ahead. You know, it's something we spend a lot of time thinking. It's the new plan will be along the same lines that I'm outlining. I think it'll have lower total sales. It'll have about the same amount of sales in technology-based products and about the same earnings, EBITDA, that we outlined in the three- to five-year plan.

Jonathon Fite (Managing Partner)

That's interesting. I mean, that's a significant step up in cash flow over the next 18-24 months. Given that you all still plan to burn a fair amount of cash this year, can you talk to, you know, there's the balance sheet data as of seven or as of September 30th, I don't think comprehended some of the latest credit line adjustments and facility adjustments. Can you talk to if those adjustments give you enough working capital to kind of manage the cash burn this year? If asset sales or other items are really going to be needed to kind of bridge the pathway.

Mark Wong (President and CEO)

Right.

Jonathon Fite (Managing Partner)

To profitability.

Mark Wong (President and CEO)

Yeah, great questions. I think that obviously we're working on increasing our, as Betsy pointed out and as I pointed out, in two phases, one with NAB in Australia and one. You know, we believe that we're gonna have the ability to both that we're looking internationally and MFP has been just incredibly supportive of our plan, and I think they understand that these things take a number of years. You know, now we're in that part of the cycle where we've spent the money, the time, the effort, the sweat, and the blood to create these opportunities, and now we need to be a profitable company. To your point, Jonathon, you know, we in 2024, frankly. You know, we don't have obviously detail, 2024.

You know, that would depend on how well we do with Double Team in 2023. Double Team profit margins, as everybody knows who's on the call today, you know, are so large compared to forage margins, gross profit margin percentages, that, you know, it's just what you need for working capital to get a huge boost in cash for the same exposure of sales. That's those are the products that make seed companies profitable, and those are the kind of products that we've been managing towards and looking towards in the five years that I've been with the company.

Jonathon Fite (Managing Partner)

Are there any other? I mean, I think you've talked about some additional partnerships, perhaps in wheat. You've talked about some Camelina partnerships, but are there other non-core businesses that you would think are kind of ripe for some business development, just to provide a cash infusion to bridge you over the next 18 months?

Mark Wong (President and CEO)

You know, we think that the opportunities that we have are so big, especially for a company our size, you know, under $100 million in sales, that we are just absolutely focused on bringing those home, right? As I said, we've sweat blood and tears on the ground to get to where we are. Double Team is gonna have another good year in 2024. Whether other companies want to do about licensing, but that could be, you know, the way that we add a huge amount of market share.

Remember, the Monsanto strategy was always to put the traits in your own seed bags, but also license the traits to your competitors because the traits are so profitable that it's better for you to get the market share penetration from your competitors than it is to try to use the traits to generate market share only on your part. You know, we've learned those lessons over the years. Remember, I sat on Monsanto's board for part of those times. You know, it was a long process for the industry to figure that out. Some of the industry giants did not license their traits to other companies. I think the conclusion of that effort was that the Monsanto strategy was the one that generated the highest amount of cash flow in the long run for the company who owned the traits.

That's the philosophy that we're following. We think that the oil company sort of market where you're gonna grow vegetable oils that have a you know 50% better carbon footprint than petroleum-based diesel that is just a gigantic market. If you look at some of the studies and you know people are trying to use soybean oil right now but by 2035 the market penetration is in the billions of dollars and it's relatively like 15% of the available diesel market in the U.S. which is just a gigantic huge use for large ships but it's also used for trucking. It's probably not gonna be substituted by electric motors and stuff like that.

Yes, for light trucks, for delivery trucks, for vans, electric motors work, but for cross-country delivery of goods, you need diesel. It's a huge opportunity, and we're very close to signing a deal that we think is gonna be advantageous to S&W. We've been working on it for over a year. These deals are difficult to do because they are so potentially big. Everybody's looking at, you know, what's my benefit gonna be from signing this, and are you the right partner? We think we found the right partner, and we think we are on to have a good relationship in finalizing a deal. That will also allow us, as we pointed out in our earnings discussion this quarter, to supply other diesel companies with vegetable oil.

It's an all-encompassing deal, not just focused on one company, but on the industry. We're very excited about it. It's frankly, to your question, everything we can do. We're also working on the ingredient deal we're making progress on. That needs, as everyone remembers, a production plant to be established in the West. There's some good reasons for that, i.e., the relationships between China and the U.S. are such that you can't depend on source of supply from China. All the leaf right now that ingredient is processing is coming from China, so they do want another source. You know, it's a pretty big capital investment. About traveling today, if everybody can hear.

We're excited that that is gonna be a deal that gets, you know, hopefully in the next month with ingredient. We want to and effectively do with the staff that we have. You know, we've cut expenses. We've basically stopped all the projects that in my management's beliefs have lower potential markets and lower returns. We've fine-tuned with a scalpel our focus on the biggest opportunities. You know, we think that's plenty to do for now and that there'll be plenty to do for all of our employees and management here in the next couple of years without looking at too many new opportunities.

Jonathon Fite (Managing Partner)

Great. Thanks, Mark. Betsy, I just have one quick follow-up. In the bridge, the EBITDA bridge, given the upper end of your guidance of getting from -$24 last year down to -$2, I think I heard $5 million in kind of LCM benefits, $5 million in gross profit on the forage market side, $5 million in cuts to operating expenses, and then I didn't catch the $7 million. What category was that tied to?

Betsy Horton (CFO)

$6 million was due to DT and another $1 million from our traditional sorghum portfolio.

Jonathon Fite (Managing Partner)

$6 million from, what was it?

Betsy Horton (CFO)

Double Team.

Jonathon Fite (Managing Partner)

Oh, Double Team. Okay, great. Thank you.

Betsy Horton (CFO)

Yeah. Yeah. You're welcome.

Jonathon Fite (Managing Partner)

Appreciate you guys. Have a great day.

Mark Wong (President and CEO)

Thanks, Jonathon.

Operator (participant)

This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mark Wong for any closing remarks.

Mark Wong (President and CEO)

Well, thanks everyone today for getting on the call. Hopefully, it was very informative. You know, Betsy and I and the board really do appreciate the support from the market, and we felt that going to an explanation of our potential in the short term this year and the next year or two in terms of sales and EBITDA now is hopefully beneficial for everyone understanding the real opportunities that S&W has got before it. We think that there's just gonna be a huge explosive growth for the company, both in sales and profitability. We really do appreciate all of those of you who follow the company and our shareholders. So thank you very much, and thank you for attending the call today. Bye-bye now.

Operator (participant)

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.