Crown Electrokinetics Corp. (CRKN) 2023 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Crown Electrokinetics Corporation third quarter 2023 conference call. At this time, participants are in a listen-only mode. The question and answer (technical difficulty - audio cutout) will not be following the management's remarks. This conference call is being recorded of play up. Replay of today's call will be available on the Investor Relations sections of the Crown's website. I will now hand the conference over to Jason Assad, Director of Corporate Communications for introductions and the reading of the Safe Harbor statements. Please go ahead.

大家早安，歡迎參加 Crown Electrokinetics Corporation 2023 年第三季電話會議。此時，參與者處於只聽模式。問答（技術難度-音頻剪切）不會按照管理層的發言進行。本次電話會議正在錄製播放。今天電話會議的重播將在官方網站的投資者關係部分提供。我現在將把會議交給企業傳播總監傑森·阿薩德（Jason Assad）進行介紹並宣讀安全港聲明。請繼續。

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone. And welcome to Crown's third quarter 2023 conference call. With us today on the call are Doug Croxall, Crown's Chief Executive Officer and Chairman; and Joel Krutz, Chief Financial Officer; in addition to Mike Sullivan, David Martinez, and Jeremy Hubbard from our fiber optics division.

謝謝你，接線生。大家，早安。歡迎參加 Crown 2023 年第三季電話會議。今天與我們一起參加電話會議的有皇冠執行長兼董事長 Doug Croxall；喬爾‧克魯茨 (Joel Krutz)，財務長；另外還有我們光纖部門的 Mike Sullivan、David Martinez 和 Jeremy Hubbard。

Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that today's call contains certain forward-looking statements from our management made within the meaning of Section 27A of Securities Act of 1933 as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 as amended. Words such as may, should, projects, expects, intends, plans, believes, anticipates, hopes, estimates, and variations of such words and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements These statements are subject to numerous conditions, many of which are beyond the control of the company, including those set forth in the Risk Factors section of the company's quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the third quarter ended 2023 filed with the SEC.

在我們開始之前，我想提醒您，今天的電話會議包含我們管理層根據 1933 年證券法修正案第 27A 條和 1934 年證券交易法第 21E 條的含義做出的某些前瞻性聲明。已修改。諸如“可能”、“應該”、“預計”、“預期”、“打算”、“計劃”、“相信”、“預期”、“希望”、“估計”等詞語以及這些詞語的變體和類似表達旨在識別前瞻性陳述。這些陳述受到多種條件的約束，其中許多條件超出公司的控制範圍，包括公司向SEC 提交的截至2023 年第三季度的10-Q 表格季度報告的風險因素部分中列出的因素。

Copies of these documents are available on the SEC website at www.sec.gov. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The company undertakes no obligation to update these statements for revisions or changes after the date of this call except as required by law.

這些文件的副本可在 SEC 網站 www.sec.gov 上取得。實際結果可能與此類前瞻性陳述明示或暗示的結果有重大差異。除非法律要求，否則本公司沒有義務在本次電話會議之後更新這些聲明的修訂或更改。

Now at this time, it's my pleasure to introduce Doug Croxall, CEO and Chairman of Crown. Doug?

現在，我很高興向您介紹 Crown 執行長兼董事長 Doug Croxall。道格？

Thank you, Jason, and welcome, everybody to our third quarter earnings call. We're going to do things a little bit different than our traditional earnings call, which typically is just myself and Joel Krutz speaking. We had an Investor call a little -- about a month or two months ago, I guess, and you got to hear from Dave Martinez and Mike Sullivan. So today, I'm going to give a general corporate update putting on a couple of highlights and then I'm going to hand the call over to Dave Martinez, who will go through a customer update; Mike Sullivan, who will go over a construction update; and newest to our teams, Jeremy Hubbard, who runs recruiting for us, and he will go through recruiting and personnel update.

謝謝傑森，歡迎大家參加我們的第三季財報電話會議。我們要做的事情與傳統的財報電話會議略有不同，傳統的財報電話會議通常只有我自己和喬爾·克魯茲（Joel Krutz）發言。我猜，大約一兩個月前，我們召開了一次投資者電話會議，你會聽到戴夫馬丁內斯和麥克沙利文的來信。因此，今天，我將介紹公司的整體最新情況，其中包括幾個亮點，然後我將把電話轉交給戴夫·馬丁內斯（Dave Martinez），他將負責客戶最新情況；麥克‧沙利文 (Mike Sullivan)，他將負責更新施工；我們團隊的最新成員傑里米·哈伯德（Jeremy Hubbard）負責我們的招募工作，他將負責招募和人員更新。

So as you saw from our recent announcement, we've added our third MSA our (technical difficulty - audio cutout) third customer and we started work on customer number two. So we have two active projects now in the field, both of these are in Arizona, in the Phoenix area. One is micro trenching, and one is traditional directional drilling. We -- as we had mentioned before, we're going to continue to focus on the Arizona market. I spent time with our customers last week and there are -- there's significant work for us to do. We will continue to add customers and we'll continue to add more and more projects with the customers that we've already announced.

正如您從我們最近的公告中看到的，我們已經添加了第三個 MSA（技術難度 - 音訊剪切）第三個客戶，並且我們開始處理第二個客戶。因此，我們現在有兩個活躍的項目，這兩個項目都在亞利桑那州的鳳凰城地區。一種是微挖溝，一種是傳統的定向鑽進。正如我們之前提到的，我們將繼續關注亞利桑那州市場。上週我與我們的客戶共度了時光，我們還有大量工作要做。我們將繼續增加客戶，並將繼續與我們已經宣布的客戶一起增加越來越多的項目。

We do think that there will be some opportunities to move out of the state of Arizona. And when those arise, we will look, we will look at those as long as they are within the general vicinity of Arizona or the Southwest, West Coast area. We also expect that we should be adding another, hopefully, two to three MSAs before the end of the calendar year. I know that we get a lot of requests as to who the customer actually is and while we are precluded from putting our customer's name in a press release, I do want to give some insight as to who's fiber-optic network we're building and who the prime contractors are that we're working with.

我們確實認為會有一些機會搬出亞利桑那州。當這些出現時，我們會關注，只要它們在亞利桑那州或西南部、西海岸地區的大體範圍內，我們就會關注。我們還希望在今年年底前再增加兩到三個 MSA。我知道我們收到了很多關於客戶到底是誰的請求，雖然我們無法將客戶的名字放在新聞稿中，但我確實想提供一些關於我們正在建設的光纖網路的信息，以及與我們合作的主承包商是誰。

So the work that we're doing in Arizona currently is for fiber-optic networks that are going to be owned by Google Fiber, Verizon and Giga Fiber. Some of the prime contractors that we're working with are [Tilson, Mosstech, Mirrors, and Blue Wedge] So while we can't go into specifics at least not today, as to what each of those customers are going to represent. Those are the type of customers that we're working with. Some of the best construction companies in the country and obviously, some of the best fiber optic networks in the country as well.

因此，我們目前在亞利桑那州所做的工作是建立光纖網絡，該網絡將由 Google Fiber、Verizon 和 Giga Fiber 所有。與我們合作的一些主要承包商包括 [Tilson、Mosstech、Mirrors 和 Blue Wedge]，因此，雖然我們無法詳細說明（至少今天不能），但我們無法了解每個客戶將代表什麼。這些就是我們正在合作的客戶類型。該國一些最好的建築公司，顯然還有該國一些最好的光纖網路。

So I want to move quickly on to the EK film side because the rest of the team is going to bring you up to speed on the rest of the fiber optic side. On the film side, we actually just got word yesterday that some of our mastering that was being done with our vendor in Europe has come back positive. So we're looking to go to the next step in our mastering phase. We expect that we should have 12-inch masters done some time before the end of the calendar year and be able to cycle that into our production with product coming hopefully towards the end of Q1 next year or early Q2. We will continue to provide updates on the film business and the film mastering as those occur.

因此，我想快速轉向 EK 薄膜方面，因為團隊的其他成員將帶您了解光纖方面的其他部分。在電影方面，實際上我們昨天才得到消息，我們與歐洲供應商一起完成的一些母帶製作工作已經取得了積極的結果。因此，我們希望進入母帶製作階段的下一步。我們預計，我們應該在今年年底之前完成 12 吋母版製作，並能夠將其循環到我們的生產中，產品預計將在明年第一季末或第二季初推出。我們將繼續提供有關電影業務和電影母帶製作的最新資訊。

One of the things that we also want to do this year, which we've not done in the past is that after today's earnings call, you don't typically hear from our company until our 10-K earnings call, which isn't until typically the end of March. So that's obviously four months, 4.5 months. So what we're going to do some time in mid-January is another Investor call like the one that we did in mid-September, where you're going to get to hear from the team, we're going to give you an update on customers, revenue, EBITDA and all the things that you're going to hear about today.

我們今年還想做但過去沒有做過的事情之一是，在今天的財報電話會議之後，你通常不會收到我們公司的消息，直到我們的 10-K 財報電話會議，這不是通常持續到三月底。所以這顯然是四個月，4.5 個月。因此，我們將在 1 月中旬的某個時間進行另一次投資者電話會議，就像我們在 9 月中旬所做的那樣，您將聽到團隊的聲音，我們將為您提供有關客戶、收入、 EBITDA 以及您今天將聽到的所有資訊的最新資訊。

So with that said, I'd like to turn the call over to Dave Martinez, who's going to walk through some of our customers.

話雖如此，我想將電話轉給戴夫馬丁內斯 (Dave Martinez)，他將介紹我們的一些客戶。

Hello. Good morning, everyone. It's my pleasure to be here again today. I want to share with you a few of our new opportunities that we have been able to secure with three of our key customers since our last update. The first customer is a Houston-based company focused on developing fiber and network infrastructure solutions as a premier provider of engineering, design, and construction services to a pipeline and utility industries. It is a subsidiary of a much larger parent company, consisting of over 200 companies that service North America. With this customer, we have been able to secure three HDD, horizontal directional drill projects in the Phoenix, Arizona market, but more projects are expected to be awarded as the permits and work is available. In this market, it seems to be on almost weekly basis. Just this last week, we announced this customer to discuss a partnership for a project in Northern Arizona that is over 1.2 million feet of directional drilling and another 600 feet of aerial. Although this is still in the early stages, we are working diligently with the customer to secure this award.

你好。大家，早安。我很高興今天再次來到這裡。我想與您分享一些自上次更新以來我們已經與三個主要客戶合作的新機會。第一個客戶是一家總部位於休士頓的公司，專注於開發光纖和網路基礎設施解決方案，是為管道和公用事業行業提供工程、設計和施工服務的首要供應商。它是一家規模大得多的母公司的子公司，該母公司由 200 多家為北美提供服務的公司組成。透過該客戶，我們已經能夠在亞利桑那州菲尼克斯市場獲得三個 HDD 水平定向鑽項目，但隨著許可證和工作的到位，預計將授予更多項目。在這個市場上，似乎幾乎每週都有一次。就在上週，我們宣布該客戶正在討論亞利桑那州北部一個項目的合作夥伴關係，該項目擁有超過 120 萬英尺的定向鑽井和另外 600 英尺的空中鑽井。儘管這仍處於早期階段，但我們正在與客戶努力合作以確保獲得此獎項。

The second customer has been involved in some of the largest and most complex infrastructure construction projects across the country. With offices across North America, 80 plus years of experience, and nearly 32,000 employees this customer has become a leader in the infrastructure construction. We recently secured an MSA, Master Service Agreement with this customer. During a recent meeting we had with them in their Phoenix office, they shared with us some of their projects, timelines, and their need for partners with micro trench capabilities. They were very excited to hear that we have those micro trenchers, and we can place them on their projects immediately. We will be following up with this team this week to further discuss the logistics and the timing of the project and awards. They have also shared with us that this project is expected to run 7 to10 years.

第二個客戶參與了全國一些最大、最複雜的基礎設施建設項目。該客戶在北美設有辦事處，擁有 80 多年的經驗和近 32,000 名員工，並已成為基礎設施建設領域的領導者。我們最近與該客戶簽訂了 MSA（主服務協議）。最近，我們在鳳凰城辦公室與他們舉行了一次會議，他們與我們分享了他們的一些項目、時間表以及他們對具有微溝能力的合作夥伴的需求。他們非常高興聽到我們擁有這些微型挖溝機，並且我們可以立即將它們放置在他們的專案中。本週我們將與該團隊跟進，進一步討論專案和獎項的後勤以及時間表。他們還與我們透露，該項目預計將運行 7 至 10 年。

The third customer that I would like to share with you today is an established networking communications infrastructure company, providing network infrastructure, design, engineering, development solutions to the leading communication firms throughout the United States. Just this past week, we have signed an MSA with this customer, and through this customer, we have secured a project that includes work from [network splicing] fiber placement, and fiber splicing or a global Internet service provider that's providing the services to local municipalities through this customer. This project is expected to run five to seven years. These days, we are excited about this customer relationship as they are to have our crews, skill set, and equipment as part of the development offering so much so that we will be discussing future local projects and multistate projects with this customer.

今天我想與大家分享的第三個客戶是一家成熟的網路通訊基礎設施公司，為美國各地領先的通訊公司提供網路基礎設施、設計、工程、開發解決方案。就在上週，我們與該客戶簽署了一份MSA，並透過該客戶，我們獲得了一個項目，其中包括[網路拼接]光纖放置和光纖拼接或向本地提供服務的全球互聯網服務提供商的工作。各市政府透過該客戶。該項目預計將持續五到七年。如今，我們對這種客戶關係感到很興奮，因為他們將擁有我們的人員、技能組合和設備作為開發產品的一部分，因此我們將與該客戶討論未來的本地專案和多州專案。

For our future pipeline, our team has been working diligently to expand our customer base and grow our teams to meet and exceed the current and future needs of our customers. Over the next month, we will be speaking with three nationwide companies and one international company about their needs and how Crown Fiber Optics can be part of their solution in building better communications. We look forward to everything that's coming down the pipeline. It's going to be an exciting adventure. I'm glad that we're here. With this, I would like to go ahead and pass the call over to Mike for our construction updates.

對於我們未來的管道，我們的團隊一直在努力擴大我們的客戶群並發展我們的團隊，以滿足並超越客戶當前和未來的需求。下個月，我們將與三家全國性公司和一家國際公司討論他們的需求，以及 Crown Fiber Optics 如何成為他們建立更好通訊解決方案的一部分。我們期待著即將發生的一切。這將是一次令人興奮的冒險。我很高興我們在這裡。有了這個，我想繼續將電話轉給麥克以獲取我們的施工更新。

Thank you, Dave, and hello, good morning. It's a pleasure to meet with you today and provide an update on our status. Currently we have established a yard, office, and shop facilities in Arizona. This location is close to our workload in Mesa and Chandler, as Dave described with the current contracts we have. This eliminates a lot of windshield time and gets us on the job efficiently and effectively. Additionally, we'll be adding fuel storage to our yard, which again, increases our efficiency. And cement silos, and I'll go over that later as we discuss volumetric trucks. For production equipment, we have three directional drills ready to go, we have the crews established to manage those machines. Total production between all three machines is around 2,200 feet per day. We have micro trenchers in market, two units are here right now capable of producing 4,400 feet per day and we have three additional units ordered.

謝謝你，戴夫，你好，早安。很高興今天與您見面並提供我們最新的狀態。目前我們已在亞利桑那州建立了一個庭院、辦公室和商店設施。正如戴夫在我們現有合約中所描述的那樣，這個地點靠近我們在梅薩和錢德勒的工作量。這消除了我們大量的擋風玻璃時間，讓我們有效率、有效地工作。此外，我們將在院子裡增加燃料儲存，這再次提高了我們的效率。還有水泥筒倉，稍後我們討論容積卡車時我會再討論一下。對於生產設備，我們準備了三台定向鑽機，並配備了管理這些機器的人員。所有三台機器的總產量約為每天 2,200 英尺。我們在市場上有微型開溝機，目前有兩台設備每天能夠生產 4,400 英尺，我們還訂購了另外三台設備。

And as I said, volumetric cement trucks, we've ordered two. One is on its way here. Second one is in the manufacturer right now. And the reason we're going with that is that increases our effectiveness and efficiency in the field. Rather than ordering ready mix, we can produce our own grade of concrete or slurry and clean up our jobsite. This allows us to continue production because the cleanup is done, and it puts more permits and more work in front of us. Additionally, we have three VAC units and three additional units coming in. A VAC unit is a piece of ground support equipment that is required with both directional boring and micro trenching.

正如我所說，容積式水泥卡車，我們已經訂購了兩輛。其中一艘正在來這裡的路上。第二個現在在製造商。我們這樣做的原因是提高我們在該領域的有效性和效率。我們可以生產自己等級的混凝土或泥漿並清理工地，而不是訂購預拌混凝土。這使我們能夠繼續生產，因為清理工作已經完成，並且它為我們帶來了更多的許可和更多的工作。此外，我們還有三個 VAC 裝置和三個附加裝置。VAC 裝置是定向鑽孔和微挖溝所需的地面支援設備。

We've established direct relationships with the manufacturers of this equipment, and to have a projected pipeline and production reserves as we increase contracts and production goals. As Dave described, the pipeline of work is ongoing and increasing as we move along here. The market is huge right now (technical difficulty - audio interference) telecommunications infrastructure, and we anticipate five to eight years of growth in this market. Therefore, we've coordinated the efforts of equipment, procurement and staffing such that we can address the needs of our clients.

我們已與該設備的製造商建立了直接關係，並隨著合約和生產目標的增加而製定了預計的管道和生產​​儲備。正如戴夫所描述的，隨著我們在這裡前進，工作管道正在持續不斷地增加。目前電信基礎設施市場龐大（技術難度-音訊幹擾），我們預計該市場將持續五到八年的成長。因此，我們協調了設備、採購和人員配備的工作，以便我們能夠滿足客戶的需求。

With that, I'm going to introduce Jeremy Hubbard, Director of Recruiting.

接下來，我將介紹招募總監 Jeremy Hubbard。

Thanks, Mike. Thanks, Dave. It's a pleasure to be a part of this team. As a Director of Recruiting here at Crown, I lead the talent acquisition strategy and execution for our growing and dynamic organization. Behind me, I have over 15 years of experience in the staffing and recruiting industry, working with clients across various sectors, disciplines, and geographies. I'm born and raised here in Arizona. I hold a great market behind me, and I hold core competencies and business planning, sales, compensation, as well as employee benefits and new business development. I hold two degrees in International Business and Marketing from the University of North Florida as well as studied abroad in three different countries to gain a global perspective of cultural awareness in our market and variety of other industries. I'm very passionate about finding and retaining the best talent for Crown Fiber and empowering them to succeed and thrive in their roles.

謝謝，麥克。謝謝，戴夫。很高興能成為這個團隊的一員。身為 Crown 的招募總監，我負責領導我們不斷發展、充滿活力的組織的人才招募策略和執行。我在人力資源和招聘行業擁有超過 15 年的經驗，與不同行業、學科和地區的客戶合作。我在亞利桑那州出生長大。我身後有一個巨大的市場，我擁有核心能力和業務規劃、銷售、薪資、以及員工福利和新業務開發。我擁有北佛羅裡達大學國際商務和行銷兩個學位，並在三個不同的國家留學，以獲得我們市場和各種其他行業文化意識的全球視角。我非常熱衷於為 Crown Fiber 尋找和留住最優秀的人才，並幫助他們在自己的職位上取得成功和發展。

So what I'd love to share with you today is just our current status. Where we're moving, where we're grooving and where we're growing here in the near future. So currently we have five crews established. In just one month, I was able to design five crews comprised of skilled labor, general labor, equipment operators, foremen, and leadership supports. This has been instrumental in breaking ground on our first project, which we did break ground on time and is currently in process, so very excited about that.

所以今天我想跟大家分享的只是我們目前的狀況。在不久的將來，我們將搬到哪裡，我們將在哪裡成長，我們將在哪裡成長。目前我們已經組了五名工作人員。僅僅一個月的時間，我就設計了五名工作人員，包括熟練工人、普通工人、設備操作員、工頭和領導支援。這對我們第一個專案的破土動工起到了重要作用，我們確實按時破土動工，目前正在進行中，對此感到非常興奮。

In addition to my recruiting efforts, I've also brought on three subcontractors to help us with the added business that we'll be bringing on board. So that way, we -- as I build out this squad and multiple other teams, we can also grab other business that may have come upon us. I do have additional subcontractors in process as well to tag into whenever we need. So very, very good on that side.

除了我的招募工作之外，我還聘請了三個分包商來幫助我們處理我們將要引入的額外業務。這樣，當我建立這支球隊和其他多個團隊時，我們還可以抓住可能發生在我們身上的其他業務。我確實還有其他正在處理中的分包商，可以在我們需要時隨時加入。在這方面非常非常好。

I also want to foreshadow some expected growth due to these new clients that David and Mike shared with you. I'll be building out teams for our fiber slicing divisions, engineering teams, micro trench teams, and then continuing to build out our directional drill teams. Part of my recruiting processes is working hand in hand with Dave and Mike, is identifying the needs in regards to the equipment that Mike has gotten forth as well as how -- what talent do I need to bring in charge of that equipment to achieve Dave's projects. So it's posting, recruiting, interviewing, hiring, onboarding, and training these individuals with our different clients and then getting them on the ground.

我還想預示大衛和麥克與您分享的這些新客戶帶來的一些預期成長。我將為我們的光纖切片部門、工程團隊、微溝團隊建立團隊，然後繼續建立我們的定向鑽團隊。我的招募流程的一部分是與戴夫和麥克攜手合作，確定麥克所提供的設備的需求，以及如何——我需要哪些人才來負責該設備才能實現戴夫的目標項目。因此，我們需要與不同的客戶一起發布、招募、面試、聘用、入職和培訓這些人員，然後讓他們落地。

I also have enlisted virtual HR partner as well as standard industry recruiting tools, and I'm utilizing a variety of referrals from our current workforce as well as through my own network to build out these squads. Building a culture is extremely important to me as we build out these teams. How we're defining that culture, of course, is finding individuals that are self-thinking, motivated, that are -- want to work as a team, and developing a sense of teamwork and family within this workforce is really what we're after and then showing these employees that we genuinely care about them. We want this to be a job. We want this to be a career, and I'm making that evident on day one and following us through the interview process so that David and Mike can keep that flow and culture rolling as they hit the ground.

我還招募了虛擬人力資源合作夥伴以及標準行業招聘工具，並且我正在利用現有員工的各種推薦以及透過我自己的人脈建立這些團隊。當我們建立這些團隊時，建立一種文化對我來說非常重要。當然，我們如何定義這種文化，是尋找那些有自我思考、有動力、願意作為一個團隊工作的人，並且在這支隊伍中培養團隊合作和家庭意識，這才是我們真正要做的。然後向這些員工表明我們真誠地關心他們。我們希望這成為一份工作。我們希望這成為一種職業，我會在第一天就明確這一點，並跟踪我們完成面試過程，以便大衛和邁克在落地時能夠保持這種流程和文化的滾動。

So outside of that, I am doing a variety of team building events, family building events. Our benefits are top-notch as far as the competitive wage, health benefits, [or our own K-ESPP] and really just branding us outside of that is another option we're going into, which is community events, networking through local councils, and business executives as well as getting our faces out to conferences throughout the nation, primarily in the Southwest regions. We've already identified four conferences that will be in attendance in the following year. So very, very bullish on the employment market. While it does remain highly competitive here in Arizona in regards to a ton of business. I feel very confident in our market that I will be able to provide and deliver every person we need to get every one of these projects moving.

除此之外，我還參加各種團隊建立活動、家庭建設活動。就具有競爭力的薪資、健康福利（或我們自己的 K-ESPP）而言，我們的福利是一流的，實際上，我們正​​在考慮的另一種選擇是社區活動、透過當地議會建立聯繫和企業高階主管，以及讓我們的臉出現在全國各地（主要是西南地區）的會議上。我們已經確定了明年將參加的四場會議。所以非常非常看好就業市場。儘管它在亞利桑那州的大量業務方面仍然保持著高度競爭力。我對我們的市場非常有信心，我將能夠提供和交付我們需要的每一個人來推動每個專案。

And onto Joel.

還有喬爾。

Thank you, Dave, Mike, and Jeremy, for those updates. And good morning, everyone. And today, I'll be discussing Crown's third-quarter financial results, but just ahead of that, though, I wanted to address the minimum bid price notification, which we received from Nasdaq on October 19. We have 180 days from that date to again, trade above $1 for 10 consecutive days to regain compliance. We are confident that the progress we're making, as you've just heard, against our strategic plans will mean that we again meet the compliance standards, but we will also prepare alternative options to ensure that we retain our Nasdaq listing.

謝謝戴夫、麥克和傑里米的更新。大家早安。今天，我將討論 Crown 的第三季財務業績，但在此之前，我想談談我們 10 月 19 日從納斯達克收到的最低投標價通知。從該日期到我們有 180 天的時間再次，連續10 天交易高於1 美元即可恢復合規。我們相信，正如您剛才聽到的那樣，我們在戰略計劃方面所取得的進展將意味著我們再次達到合規標準，但我們也將準備替代方案，以確保我們保留納斯達克上市。

Onto the financials. Crown's pretax loss for the third quarter of 2023 was $2.9 million. This loss was $0.3 million lower than the same quarter ended September 30, 2022. We did not record any revenue or cost of revenue in Q3 as we focused on building out our organization and equipment in preparation for the Q4 projects, which are now underway. As you've heard, there's a huge amount of work that's gone into that and a huge amount of progress has been made.

進入財務狀況。皇冠2023年第三季的稅前虧損為290萬美元。這一損失比截至2022 年9 月30 日的同一季度減少了30 萬美元。我們在第三季度沒有記錄任何收入或收入成本，因為我們專注於建造我們的組織和設備，為目前正在進行的第第四季專案做準備。正如您所聽說的，我們為此做了大量的工作，並且已經取得了巨大的進展。

Operating expenses for the third quarter were $3.4 million of that research and development expenses were $0.5 million, a decrease of $0.5 million compared to the three months ended September 30, 2022, primarily due to a decrease in salaries and benefits. SG&A expenses were $2.9 million for the quarter, which represents a $0.7 million increase versus Q3 of last year. This was primarily due to an increase of $0.5 million in professional fees related to Crown's significant transactional levels. Other income was $0.6 million for the three months ended September 30, and that was compared to zero in the prior year's quarter.

第三季營運費用為 340 萬美元，其中研發費用為 50 萬美元，較截至 2022 年 9 月 30 日止三個月減少 50 萬美元，主要是因為薪資和福利減少。本季的 SG&A 費用為 290 萬美元，比去年第三季增加了 70 萬美元。這主要是由於與 Crown 的重大交易水平相關的專業費用增加了 50 萬美元。截至 9 月 30 日的三個月，其他收入為 60 萬美元，而去年同期的其他收入為零。

Other income consisted of a $3 million change in the fair value of our warrants, notes, and derivative liabilities, which was related to remeasurement. This other income was offset by incurred interest expense of $2.4 million, primarily consisting of amortization expense from our lines of credit. Crown's net cash increased by $2 million in Q3. $5.5 million was provided from financing activities with $4.5 million from the equity line of credit and $1.8 million from our ATM. This was offset by $0.7 million of debt repayments as we eliminated debt from our balance sheet.

其他收入包括與重新計量相關的認股權證、票據和衍生負債的公允價值變動 300 萬美元。其他收入則被 240 萬美元的利息支出所抵消，其中主要包括我們信貸額度的攤銷費用。 Crown 的淨現金在第三季增加了 200 萬美元。融資活動提供了 550 萬美元，其中 450 萬美元來自股本信貸額度，180 萬美元來自我們的 ATM。當我們從資產負債表中消除債務時，這被 70 萬美元的債務償還所抵消。

Net cash used in operations for the three months ended September 30 was $2.8 million, $0.7 million higher than the same quarter in 2022, driven primarily again by the increase in professional fees. Net cash used in investing activities was [$700.7 million] this was dedicated to fiber optics equipment acquisitions. Overall, the infusion of equity driven capital has been very important for Crown's shareholder equity levels, which increased by $4.7 million in Q3 to $9.3 million, leaving Crown comfortably above the $2.5 million Nasdaq compliance threshold.

截至 9 月 30 日的三個月營運中使用的淨現金為 280 萬美元，比 2022 年同季增加 70 萬美元，這主要是由於專業費用的增加。用於投資活動的淨現金為[7.007 億美元]，專門用於光纖設備採購。總體而言，股權驅動資本的注入對於Crown 的股東權益水準非常重要，第三季股東權益水準增加了470 萬美元，達到930 萬美元，使Crown 輕鬆高於250 萬美元的納斯達克合規門檻。

That concludes the financial section. I'll now throw it back to Doug.

財務部分到此結束。我現在把它扔回給道格。

Thank you, Joel. And again, thank you, Mike, Dave, and Jeremy for all your contributions, both to this call and into the efforts behind Crown Fiber Optics I just want to remind people that if you look back one year from this day, we had no business in the fiber optics industry. We had no customers. We had no equipment. We had no personnel. Today, we have three very large customers with lots of work for us to do. We'll have more customers as well. Those customers will provide us revenue.

謝謝你，喬爾。再次感謝 Mike、Dave 和 Jeremy 對本次電話會議以及 Crown Fiber Optics 背後的努力所做的所有貢獻在光纖行業。我們沒有顧客。我們沒有設備。我們沒有人員。今天，我們有三個非常大的客戶，我們有很多工作要做。我們也會有更多的客戶。這些客戶將為我們提供收入。

We have equipment to handle the current customer need and we will have more equipment as the customer needs grow and we have personnel to handle the customers today and we'll have more personnel as we grow our customer base. And I want to thank everyone for their patience, and we will have some communication in the next month, indicating which day in January we'll do our next investors call, and we look forward to talking to everyone at that time. Thank you.

我們有設備來滿足當前客戶的需求，隨著客戶需求的成長，我們將擁有更多的設備，我們有人員來處理今天的客戶，隨著我們客戶群的擴大，我們將擁有更多的人員。我要感謝大家的耐心等待，我們將在下個月進行一些溝通，表明我們將在 1 月份的哪一天進行下一次投資者電話會議，我們期待屆時與大家交談。謝謝。

This conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines.

本次會議現已結束。感謝您參加今天的演講。現在您可以斷開線路。