TechPrecision Corp (TPCS) 2021 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the TechPrecision Corporate Fiscal 2021 Fourth Quarter and Year-End Financial Results. (Operator Instructions)

It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Brett Maas of Hayden IR. Sir, the floor is yours.

Thank you. On the call today is Alex Shen, Chief Executive Officer; and Tom Sammons, Chief Financial Officer.

Before we begin, I'd like to remind our listeners that management's remarks may contain forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties, and management may make additional forward-looking statements in response to your questions. Therefore, the company claims the protection of the safe harbor for forward-looking statements as contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ from those discussed today, and therefore, we refer you to a more detailed discussion of risks and uncertainties in the company's financial filings with the SEC.

In addition, projections as to the company's future performance represents management's estimate as of today, June 10, 2021. TechPrecision assumes no obligation to revise or update these forward-looking statements.

With that out of the way, I'd like to turn the call over to Alex Shen, Chief Executive Officer, to provide opening remarks. Alex?

Brett, thank you. Good day to everyone, and thank you for joining us. Our fourth quarter was highlighted by an increase in operating income of 79% to $298,000 when compared to the same quarter a year ago. Our operating margin improved to 7.4% for the fourth quarter, and net income was $214,000 or 5.3% as a percentage of sales.

For the full year, we realized improved manufacturing throughput on the remaining components from 2020 that negatively impacted our prior year results with learning curve-related costs. This resulted in an improvement in gross margin to 22.2% for fiscal year 2021. Net income was $321,000 for fiscal year 2021 compared to a net loss of $342,000 in fiscal 2020. We expect to carry these improvement into fiscal 2022.

After a strong third quarter of bookings, we booked an additional $4.2 million of orders in the fourth quarter as our sales order backlog increased to $18.6 million as of March 31, 2021, up from $16.8 million at the end of fiscal year 2020.

Now I would like to turn the call over to our CFO, Tom Sammons, for a brief review of our fiscal 2021 fourth quarter and 2021 full year results. Tom?

Thank you, Alex. Net sales in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2021 were $4 million compared to $4.9 million in the same quarter a year ago. The decrease was due primarily to lower sales in our industrial markets for large-scale medical device components. Cost of sales were $3.1 million or a decrease of 15%, primarily due to lower revenue, and gross profit was $933,000 or a decrease of 28% compared to a gross profit of $1.3 million in the same quarter a year ago. Gross margin was 23.2%, down versus 26.4% realized in the same quarter a year ago. The prior fiscal year included a more favorable product mix.

SG&A expense decreased slightly by $5,000 or 1%, primarily on lower travel expenses due to COVID-19 restrictions and lower professional fees, offset in part by higher stock-based compensation. As Alex mentioned, operating income was $298,000 or 79% higher than the same quarter a year ago. The fourth quarter of fiscal year 2020 included nonrecurring expense of $495,000 for civil class action claims settlement. The settlement was paid in full on May 10, 2021.

For fiscal year 2021, revenue was $15.6 million or 3% lower than fiscal year 2020, primarily on lower sales to defense markets, offset in part by an increase in sales to precision industrial markets. Cost of sales were $12.1 million or 6% lower than fiscal year 2020, due in part to significantly reduced loss provisions in fiscal year 2021. As a result, gross profit was $3.5 million or 10% higher when compared to fiscal year 2020. The gross margin percentage was 22.2% for fiscal year 2021 compared to 19.6% in the prior fiscal year.

SG&A increased slightly by $56,000 to $2.8 million when compared to the fiscal year 2020 as expense for share-based compensation, employee benefits and office costs more than offset a decrease in professional fees and the travel expenses as a result of the COVID-19 restrictions.

Operating income increased to $623,000 for fiscal year 2021 compared to an operating loss of $141,000 in fiscal year 2020. Fiscal year 2020 included nonrecurring expense of $495,000 for the civil class action claims settlement I referred to earlier. Interest expense decreased by 32% to $202,000 compared to $296,000 in fiscal year 2020, primarily the result of paying off our capital equipment loan in full in January 2020.

Net income was $321,000 for fiscal 2021 compared to a net loss of $342,000 for fiscal 2020. In fiscal year 2021, we generated approximately $636,000 of cash from operating activities and used $608,000 of cash to purchase new fixed assets as we continually look to invest in new equipment.

Our total debt was $3.8 million at March 31, 2021, $1.2 million higher than reported on March 31, 2020. The debt increase is the result of $1.3 million borrowed on May 11, 2020, under the Paycheck Protection Program. This PPP loan was forgiven in full by the Small Business Administration on May 12, 2021.

Cash balance at March 31, 2021, was $2.1 million compared to $931,000 at March 31, 2020. Our net debt at March 31, 2021, was $1.7 million or $42,000 higher when compared to March 31, 2020.

With that, I will now turn the call back over to Alex.

Tom, thank you. TechPrecision is proud and honored to serve the United States defense industry, specifically naval submarine manufacturing through its Ranor subsidiary. We continue to see meaningful opportunities in our defense sector, primarily in the nuclear submarine business for the next 12 months and beyond.

Before we take questions, I would like to make 2 points. The first is in regard to STADCO. We are continuing our due diligence and negotiations with regard to the proposed acquisition. We look forward to finalizing this matter and expect to reach a resolution before August 1, 2021. As due diligence and negotiations continue into the final stages, we will not be making any further comments or taking any questions with regard to any aspect of that transaction.

The second point is to remind all of us that we do most of our work in industries that are highly sensitive to confidentiality, which preclude us from speaking publicly about many things that a company not operating in these fields might discuss. As such, there are real limits as to what I can discuss and sometimes those limits change. Please understand that my saying that I am not allowed to discuss that is based on these requirements and the environment in which we conduct business.

Operator, we can open for Q&A.

(Operator Instructions) Your first question is coming from [John Hardison].

First, I wanted to say I'm impressed you can make money at $4 million a quarter. That's a really great job. I also wanted to say that while we're waiting for more of the subs to come through, so none of us missed the boat, that I wanted to go spend a few minutes talking a little bit about the past and to thank you, Alex and you, Tom, for the remarkable jobs that you've done so far.

For me, this company has always been about you, Alex, and the vision you have for the company with the DoD submarine business. I look at this as a 20- to 30-year annuity on Virginia-class and Columbia-class subs. It's not about a quarter or 2. And I'd also like to remind everyone that when Alex became CEO back in August of '14, the company was trading at around $0.15 a share. It's now over 8x from that day. So congrats Alex and Tom, that's over 100% annual growth from the time you took over.

Alex, when you joined Ranor back in 2014, the company was near bankruptcy and it traded as low as $0.07 a share, but you quickly got to work. You rightsized the company. You cut costs. You vastly improved quality and production, and you announced the first quarterly profit on June 30 of '15 that had happened since June 30, 2011.

Under your leadership, you refinanced the debt at much more favorable terms. You did a lot of hard decisions and heavy lifting. You closed offices. You moved headquarters to the plant location, and you teamed up with, I think, a very good strategy to focus on DoD work, and you won back customers with improved quality and timely delivery.

I also think that you guys have had major challenges in the last 2-plus years. Just to name a few of them, you had long delays of the Virginia Block 5 from Block 4. You had work that was put on hold while the Navy and General Dynamics worked through bad welds at another prime contractor. You've had learning curves on bidding and making new parts. And if that wasn't enough, you had COVID thrown into the mix.

So Alex and Tom, my hat's off to both of you for the fantastic job you're doing. I'm extremely excited about the future. And I have one last comment, I think the Board of Directors should recognize this and the Compensation Committee should look at giving you and Tom salary increases.

Well, thank you, John, for your support. Was there a question in all of this?

No, just keep up the good work.

Yes, sir. Thank you.

(Operator Instructions) Your next question is coming from Ross Taylor.

Your next question is coming from Richard Greulich.

I apologize, I wasn't paying as quite as much attention as I should have. Alex, when you spoke about the reason for the sales decline, it was in precision industrial components. And then you mentioned something about a large medical devices. What did I not hear?

That was in the quarter, and let me just kind of get back to that.

Net sales in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2021, Tom was commenting.

Okay.

Yes. The decrease in the sales in the fourth quarter was primarily due to lower sales to our industrial markets for large-scale medical device components.

When compared to the same quarter a year ago.

Right.

So the large-scale medical devices was the -- was that -- I can't remember the name of the company now. With the...

We won't be -- Richard, we won't be able to talk about the name of the company.

Okay. But now -- so you're categorizing large-scale medical devices within your precision industrial controls comments then?

Yes, that's in that sector. We're basically breaking it to -- it's either defense or precision industrial.

(Operator Instructions) Your next question is coming from Ross Taylor.

So Alex, first question, is this the quarter, the current one that we're in, the one that you thought was finally going to get off the boat and on to the beach?

That's a good question.

I see no reason why you can't answer it.

What are you specifically asking, though?

A combination of factors. Obviously, we've been waiting for months to see -- you said STADCO will resolve itself. So my hope is that we actually see that.

But the other thing is, really, I think a lot of people are waiting to see the backlog start to meaningfully grow. We've kind of been -- you've been growing it incrementally at this, like, $4 million-ish level the last few quarters. But when you go back to kind of what people are looking at and projecting opportunity-wise in this, obviously, the Virginia is running behind schedule, but one would think that you're starting to get to a point where you should start to see bigger orders, bigger backlog building as a result of where they are in the cycle. They've been behind, but they are beginning to get to where I would think they should be benefiting you in the backlog of TPCS.

Okay. I don't disagree that it should be like that. And we're -- believe me, we're doing everything we can. I just -- it's hard for me to tell when exactly it's going to come. It'll come when it comes. I'm not trying to be coy. I'm just trying to tell you the truth. This is very lumpy. I'm -- on many of these items, we have been waiting. All of us have been waiting, including me or starting with me, I guess.

So in looking at that, I have to say the operating margin is -- I was hoping to see it actually move higher from the prior quarter's numbers instead of moving lower. When you're looking at your projected backlog, you know what you bid on, would you expect that the operating margin should move back to somewhere at or above where we were prior quarter?

Ross, let me try to answer that in a different way. As we add new backlog, this would mean new part numbers that, for the most part, we are building for the first time. So some of the things that has happened to us in the past with learning curve-related costs, we incurred losses, unfortunately. You would think that, hopefully, seasoned operators like Tom and myself would learn our lesson better and incur less losses, but there are learning curve-related costs with new part numbers.

It's not a simple fact of making more of the same exact -- making more of the same exact part number as in quarters before when we enjoyed much higher margins. So I would caution that line of thinking that says, okay, going back the past, we had high margins in the 30s, for example. Maybe we did that. Looking forward, will we hit that? We are absolutely targeting that. We intend to hit what we target. When will it happen? How will it happen? What will the numbers be when it happens? We'll report that.

Okay. But there's no reason why, after you -- you do have new part numbers, but after you get through the first cycle of those part numbers, that you shouldn't be able -- I mean as you just yourself said -- and I would agree with you. I would -- given your operating expertise, I would expect better numbers. That's kind of what you brought to the table was that expertise, and so I think we would be looking for that. As a shareholder, I know I'm looking to see that ability to get those numbers up, get them in line, kind of get them back to historic levels because I'm not sure why they shouldn't be able to be at historic levels given the nature of what you're doing. I understand the first time through can be difficult but the second time through should be...

Right. I'm just pointing out that the -- I don't mean to talk over you. I'm just pointing out that the historic levels...

It's all right. My wife...

Well, we have a relationship, too. The historic -- well, the historic levels are also based on a historic part number. So if we don't have history with the part number, it's difficult to think that we're going to have the historic performance. And the first time through, also sometimes these parts have never ever been outsourced before by our customers, so it's their first time as well, and there are changes that happen the second time, which caused the second time to be yet another first time of maybe smaller magnitude.

Sometimes it's larger magnitude because there's larger changes of more magnitude that need to be inserted into the supply base. I'm not trying to diminish the enthusiasm here. There is a lot of enthusiasm because we have been capable of securing new backlog with new part numbers. Absolutely. I just tend to look at it more as in -- if you build it one time, yes, if nothing ever changes again. However, it's not just -- Ranor is not in control of the entire destiny of that new part number because there will be changes that are happening that are not within the control of Ranor itself.

How do you handle -- or how does the person giving you the contract, either the prime or the subcontractors giving you the contract, handle cost changes as a result of changes at their end?

That's probably drifting in the area of something that I will not be able to talk about much, but I think both sides are clearly handling it very clearly. Both sides meaning I'm handling it very clearly and carefully and so are the customers. There's a lot of attention.

Okay. As I said, I think -- and one last question is have -- has the backlog -- what's the backlog done since the last quarter, the end of this -- the quarter we're speaking about here?

Since the end of the quarter we're speaking about, there are a certain number of -- you're hitting on one of the things that I'm waiting for. So I'm waiting to tell you if you don't mind.

Will I actually be told?

Are you asking just for the change between Q3 and Q4?

For right now. Yes, I understand that there are other things. From Alex' answer, I understand that there are orders that you guys are waiting on. But no, just looking right now, I'm trying to figure out where we are since the end of -- Q4 was a while back. So we're talking about -- there's a fair amount of time that has passed since Q4. So I'm trying to get an understanding of what has happened since then.

I suppose without letting too much confidential information, I'm patiently waiting.

Okay. If it's meaningful, it might be something that would warrant an announcement prior to the end of the next quarter since one of the problems little companies have like you is you don't get a lot of airtime. And so this is 1 of only 4 times a year, you're in front of your holders, and we're not going to be having the chance to question you much through the balance of the summer so it would be nice to actually, if there's good news out there, to get that.

Also, I would suggest that when -- if you're able to complete the STADCO transaction, that there be some type of call because that's a bit of a mystery to most people, and I think it would be helpful to at least give them a little bit better idea. Given that it's a private company, there's not a lot of available information on it.

Tom, I think we're writing down the suggestions, right?

Yes.

(Operator Instructions) Your next question is coming from Richard Greulich.

So Alex, while we are eagerly awaiting submarine orders, and the finalization of the STADCO acquisition, what can you do? And what are you doing to generate revenue and income from the precision industrial area until those other revenue sources begin to start?

We have certain targeted customers in the precision industrial areas. We do know -- I think you know that we are defense-centric, concentrated on submarines. So we have other targets in the industrial areas that we're pursuing.

Okay. Are you increasing your efforts in that area?

I think we're drifting into the place where I can't talk about it anymore.

I'm talking about increasing your efforts in the precision industrial area.

Are you talking about quarter-by-quarter and trying to adjust when 1 quarter, the submarine orders don't come in, so we need to increase the other sector that we pursue? Is that the thrust of the question?

Well, not maybe quarter-to-quarter, but maybe even a little bit longer than that. In other words, like, are there areas of growth outside of the submarine defense area that are useful to target?

Our strategy is to pursue business that is defense-centric and submarine-centric.

(Operator Instructions) Your next question is coming from Ross Taylor.

Yes. What I'd like to follow up on Alex from the answer you just gave to the last question, how much of your floor is basically reserved for business that you're expecting to get from the Navy right now? It would seem that there are some areas such as wind turbines -- offshore wind turbines and things of that nature, which might be a natural fit for your expertise, and yet, at this point, it sounds like from what you're saying is that you actually probably are waiting for a lot of business from the Navy that might preclude you from taking on other business at this moment.

I don't think it's as simple as that. Given the lumpiness of the business, it's pretty difficult to change gears mid-quarter so that the quarter comes out even and there's a steady revenue that happens, given the lumpiness -- the nature is lumpy of this business. So there's going to be ups and downs.

But is -- but are you -- when you look at your floor, how are you allocating -- how are you making the decision between what you might do for the Navy, hopefully, at some point in the future versus, instead, using that space on your floor to do something for a customer who might be there now, here, available and might offer a different angle to the business?

I understand you want to serve the Navy well. But by the same measure, I'll be blunt, the Navy hasn't served your shareholders particularly well in the fact that it's taken them a long time to get these -- we're well behind -- we're years behind. And quite honestly, in this program, the Navy is serving the country particularly well. All you got to do is watch what's going on in China -- with China and Russia the weapon systems developments and listen to the head of the Pacific Fleet talk about the threat he feels from China with Guam -- and the Pacific theater with Guam and the like, that all that tells you...

Let me let Tom take a stab at answering this question because he's looking at this on a daily basis as well.

Well, I was just -- we're not holding space for anybody at this point. I mean we're looking at all opportunities that we can that we think would reasonably fit into this company.

That's right. We're not holding space open so that -- in hopes of securing a contract.

Are you holding space for contracts...

We don't hold space open for business we don't have.

What level of capacity are you operating?

That is a place where I cannot answer that question. Come on, Ross, you know that.

No, no, actually, it's -- I don't see anything -- and I had an exceptionally high clearance at one point -- I see nothing about my question that's unanswerable. You have a production capacity. You know -- you have an idea of what you can produce. What level are you producing. How many man-hours would you be -- are you basically billing out or billing in a quarter versus what you would be doing if you're running at full capacity? Forget the dollar amount. Let's talk about man-hours. So I'm looking at it and I'm seeing that...

Ross, Ross, Ross, we're not going to be able to answer that question.

Yes. I figure that we're -- we're still waiting for the job. Okay.

Your next question is coming from [Sameer Gulati].

Yes. So I guess I'm looking back to Ross' first question about -- maybe I'm just providing some clarification on it. Alex, you talked about learning curve. I guess I look at it as R&D prototyping. Is that what you mean by learning curve?

Not at all.

Okay. I guess in your learning curve process of a new product or SKU, what are the major costs that go into that? Is it engineering design?

So we're a manufacturing company, right, we're built-to-print. But if there's another build-to-print company out there that's never seen this product before, that's never seen the sets of drawings that go with it before, they would probably need some time to learn the product, right? So that's probably the first part.

They have never built it before, right? So you can imagine somebody who's never built this having to learn how to build it. And everyone wants to build it differently. So there's learning curve. That's what I meant by learning curve. It takes a while to figure it out.

Okay. No, I get it. You're a contract manufacturer and you get a design, but you have to figure out how to do it. The tooling, there's uncertainties within it during -- you're basically -- the costs are taking that print and determining how to make it -- basically you make a prototype to determine if you can do commercial production. How are you going to commercially produce it is the learning curve, yes?

Are you saying that -- are you asking if I make prototypes first? It depends on what the customer wants. Everyone is different. There's no set formula to any of these things.

Exactly. So I guess...

So while your question is asking -- seems to be asking for a general answer, I don't have a general answer because, specifically, they're different. A different part number behaves a different way.

I think I'm going to give you the answer. And I think when outside of finance, I also deal with various aspects of the tax code, and R&D tax credits is one of them. And it's a newer improved product process technique formula invention software. So what you're doing...

Sameer, we are not in the R&D sector.

I get it. But...

We do not design anything.

Where I'm going with this is some people can view R&D as when someone gives someone a product and a design to manufacture, that person has a learning curve to figure out how they're going to make it. I think that we're on the same page with that, it seems like. You have to -- there's a learning curve because you got to figure out how to do it. If you have 10 different manufacturers and shops, you may get 10 different answers and 10 different approaches to manufacture it. Is that a fair statement?

That is. But nevertheless, R&D is not part of our scope.

That's fine. Then I won't use -- I'll use learning curve more. You say learning curve. I'm saying that I look at this as, you have pre-commercial production costs to get you set up...

Sameer, I need to correct you again. We don't do commercial product whatsoever. None of this is commercial volume at all. Submarines are built one at a time, and so are the part numbers that go into submarines are built one at a time.

Do you make one part 10 times in a submarine? Or no, you're saying you make one part and that's the only one. You don't make 10 of those same part numbers.

Sometimes we make 1. Sometimes we make 5. Sometimes we make 20. It depends.

Right. So I guess we're talking the same thing but different ways. I'm saying when you make 10 of the same part, I consider that commercial production, meaning...

We do not. We do not.

Okay. And that's fine. I think I don't need to get too much in a hole on this because it's not terribly material. I guess in the closure, I look at your margin being lower because you have a learning curve, and that learning curve is an investment in potential future revenue. And your cost structure now may include items that have more learning curves within them and costs associated with it, therefore, once you start actually making that part, you don't have to spend on that learning curve as much. If you spend 80 -- maybe you have 20 -- if you spend $100 of learning curve, when you actually start making it and get revenue off of it, you're only going to spend $10 on learning curve or $20 on learning curve to make it versus -- because you already spent the $100?

Yes, that's the idea. Absolutely. You hit the nail on the head.

Okay. Perfect. And then in my world, not your world, that's R&D. That's research. But -- so I look at it as an investment.

R&D has different connotations, so we carefully legally do not do any R&D.

Yes. I'm with you. So cool. I just -- I wonder -- our understanding is less learning curve later once the sales flow because we've already invested into that portion. Perfect.

Yes. That's the whole idea. Absolutely.

Great. No, I appreciate that. I appreciate your dialogue and the gentleman at the front of the call. I think that was a very fair statement. We've all been patient and you guys have been executing. I guess when I look at it, a lot of companies fall apart when there's this long of a wait. And so that's a positive and echoing kind of what the gentleman at the front said is you were making money off this, but we're still waiting. We hope as long-term shareholders, that it's sooner than later, but it's somewhat out of our hands. I get it. But you guys are staying afloat quite well, and that's a great thing. That's why we're still here and that's why our money is still here and that's why we still support you. So once again, keep it up.

Absolutely, Sameer. Thank you very much. And the -- Tom Sammons and I are both big option holders as well as some shares as well, so we are patiently waiting for ourselves to get this moving along here.

Your next question is coming from [Brian Robson].

Alex, you've spoken in the past about 2 significant demand drivers that essentially will be doubling the overall nuclear submarine work at the shipyards. And I'd like to kind of just perhaps summarize some things and then you can comment, I think, with publicly available information in terms of the status.

But the first was in terms of Block 5 of the Virginia class submarines that were going to include the Virginia payload module. And specifically, you have commented that that module definitely creates additional opportunities for you. And that block is expected to be 10, and then there's expected to be 2 more blocks that follow that of 5 boats each. And with the Block 5, am I correct that only work has begun on the first 2 and of those first 2, the first 1 did not have a Virginia payload module. So it's just those first 2 boats that have orders out on them now. Is that an accurate comment?

That specific comment, I really cannot respond to, whether only 2 boats have been released for funding or not.

Okay. And then the second driver was the Columbia program, which is...

Hold on, Brian.

Sure, sure.

You did mention that the first boat in Block 5 does not have the Virginia payload module, that is correct. So there are certain things that I can respond to that I will. I'll tell you everything that I can.

Sure. And then with the Columbia-class program, that's 12 submarines and essentially, that is representing a doubling of the overall demand as compared to the Virginia class construction program. And I'm going to give you an opportunity to give me the exact same response you gave me on the Virginia class, which is, at the moment, there's only funding related to procurement of the lead boat and maybe some advanced procurement on the second boat.

That's another area that I will not be able to comment on.

Okay. Fair enough. I guess the point on both of these items is that we're in the early innings on both of these opportunities. And I guess speaking of the opportunities, I'm going to just give you an opportunity to not comment on the fact that your opportunities remain in the $75 million to $100 million range. So you mentioned significant opportunities, but you also mentioned in the past that you would let us know if it's less than that range. So I guess I'm just letting you, in essence, know that that range remains. So that's it for me.

It is definitely not less. It is definitely not less.

There are no further questions in the queue. I will now hand the floor back to management for closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Thank you, everyone, for your attendance today. Have a good day.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's event. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.