MTI Wireless Edge Ltd

LSE:MWE

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q3

[Operator]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the MTI Wireless Edge Ltd. investor presentation. [Operator Instructions] The company may not be in a position to answer every question it received during the meeting itself. However, the company will review all of the questions submitted today and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so.

Before we begin, I would like to submit the following poll. And if you could give that your kind attention, I'm sure the company would be most grateful.

And I'd now like to hand you over to CEO, Moni Borovitz. Good morning, sir.

[Moshe Borovitz, executive]

Good morning, Jake. Thank you, everybody, for joining us this morning. And I'll start giving a presentation on the results of the company for the third quarter of the year. As a quick reminder, we are working with wireless and RF communication solution, operating in 3 vertical markets: the antennas; the wireless water control and management; and the distribution of special consulting services.

Overall, 2022 seems to be a very good year to MTI. If we look at the 9-months results, you can see that revenue grew 8% year-on-year. The EBIT grew 5% year-on-year. And here, we include within the G&A about $200,000 one-off costs relating to the acquisition of PSK. The EBITDA grew 14% year-on-year, which we are very happy with exceeding the revenue growth. And we remain with a very strong balance sheet with over $5 million in cash -- net cash. I remind you that this is after the payment of dividend, the acquisition of PSK and the disposition of our Russian operation earlier this year.

The disposition of the Russian operation also shows some changes in our working capital requirements. As in Russia, we always used to work with no credit, it means that revenue were immediately translated into cash because only when we got the cash do we record the revenue. This is not the case in most other areas of the world, where we usually give somewhere between 60 and 100 days, depends on the customer and the market of credit. So this slows a little bit the cash generation. And as you can see, the trade receivable are much higher and will translate into cash later on.

And overall, the business, if you look at the split of revenue did not change a lot between this year and the last year. And we remain with a very loyal customer base. We sell globally, again, quite similar to previous quarters, and with Israel having about 25% out of this going with indirect export.

If we focus on the third quarter, the results are satisfactory for us. We had a double-digit growth in revenue and profits all the way down to the earnings per share. And again, I'd like to emphasize the EBITDA as it's showing stronger growth in revenue, and this is where we aim to go to expand the margin as we go forward.

A little bit about each of the segments. So as a quick reminder, in the wireless control and management of water, we use the Motorola hardware, and our IP is the software and the ability to integrate sensors. It is becoming much more critical to integrate more sensor as everybody is looking to manage the water smarter and based on real-time data. Here, we have 20% return on revenue, mostly from the municipalities we service.

And as you can see, we were able to grow the revenue, but profits were a little hit because the prices with those municipalities are fixed. However, we were able to negotiate those prices. And in the beginning of 2023, prices are going up, and it's going to be scaling up year-over-year for the next several years. So a little bit in '23, a little more in '24 and so on, so we are fairly optimistic that the profit will grow in the Mottech business.

In the Antenna business, we focus today mainly on 5G backhaul antenna solution and military. We see revenue growth this year. And after reporting a small loss in the first quarter of the year, already in the second and the third quarter, we return to profitability, and we are fairly optimistic about the direction of this business.

In the Distribution & Professional Services, I remind you that we have what we call the legacy part of the business, representing about 40 companies from the international market into Israel. We did a lot of more new design wins, and the business grew year-over-year, of course, with higher profitability. And the addition of PSK is very successful, and it contributed to both the revenue and the profits.

On a macro level, I think that the last summer showed everybody what global warming is all about. We see a lot of interest coming from Europe for water management. Unfortunately, we know that the governments are spending a lot of money on defense budget. It still did not fell into real projects, but no doubt that both our Antenna division and the Distribution business will enjoy for those increased budgets. And the requirement for cellular backhaul and 5G is starting to happen. We see some progress in India and elsewhere.

If I'll discuss the achievement we had in the water management business. So first of all, we renewed the key service agreement with the municipalities. And as I explained, it is with increased pricing that we will see the benefit starting in 2023. I remind you that we announced earlier about -- earlier this year about the management of the fountains control. It's a very interesting project. It is still ongoing. We expect to finish the project probably by the end of the first quarter in '23. And then the idea is to duplicate it to other areas of the world offering such solutions.

In Italy, we announced a very large quarter -- a large order that was submitted already in the third quarter. The Italian government, as part of its water distribution solution, announced that they are going to spend a lot of money in the next several years. We already put some bids into the Italian customers of ours. And we hope that we will receive more exciting orders from Italy for the coming years.

The Autopilot, which I remind you is the sensor that helps to measure the moisture at the root level, is being very well accepted. You can see how intuitive, it's on the right-hand side and the picture, that the farmer can immediately see in each area of the field if it's green, it's red, and you know how to operate. We sold quite a lot of first installation units to let them try. And we are quite certain that from what we hear that we will see a far more business coming out of it.

Going into the Antenna division. I'll start with the 5G backhaul updates. So first of all, we continue to keep our market position within the key OEMs, which is very important because we are waiting for the trials to move into deployment, and then we would see higher revenues.

On our automatic beam steering antenna solution, we made a great achievement. And actually, about 2 weeks ago, we completed the first real prototype trial in a live field together with the customers. The results are excellent, and the customer is very happy with it. As a matter of fact, today, we already have 4 customers that we do customization work for. And I remind you that this antenna includes software, so we need to customize it to each customer. And customers are paying for this customization. And here, we also gained a new Tier 1 customer that did not work with us before, so we see that's a big achievement.

In August, the Indian government will list the frequencies to operate the 5G backhaul. And the operators, the cellular operators that are starting to utilize system, we received a very nice order from one of our customers in India immediately after to be supplied in the first quarter. We are talking about a huge number of towers that are forecasted to be installed. There is a big advantage to have a manufacturing facility in India because the antennas are quite heavy and big. And MTI is 1 out of 3 companies that have such facilities to manufacture those antennas in India, so we see it as a big advantage. I think that the size and the impact of the requirement will allow all 3 companies to join and enjoy part of the explosion in India that we expect to have, probably starting sometime next year.

In the military antenna business, revenues were a little slow this year. I think that it's still part of the effect of the pandemic that people are still afraid to meet face-to-face in some areas of the world. But with the strengthening technology capability and the marketing effort that we did, we were able to penetrate to new customers and have bids with new potential customers. So overall, today, we have some quite interesting number of large bids with both existing and new potential customers. And we are fairly optimistic about where this market can go.

In terms of the distribution, so as I said, a perfect year again with double-digit revenue and profit growth. And I think that the fact that we are continuing to do so strong with the design wins and make the customers happy to see us as a one-stop shop is a big helper. PSK secured its and MTI's largest order in July. It immediately came into effect. It's with an option for the customer to length for 7 years, so we consider it to be a very stable contract.

And on top of it, we won several contracts for shelters with PSK. So the integration is continuing well. And I think that I can now say that the acquisition was a good one.

Strategically speaking, we are still very focused on increasing the revenue by innovation in order to enable and expand the margins. And the EBITDA shows that we are doing the right way. We continue to search for acquisition, always on a better-safe-than-sorry mode, always a profit-enhancing acquisition. And of course, once we will have something at hand we will announce. And we also remain very focused on generating the cash in order to continue and support both dividend and buyback program.

In the buyback program, we bought 200,000 shares in September, and we still have enough cash in the fund to continue and buy it. On the shareholder base, there was no real change in the last several quarters. And I'm very happy to say that both Miton and Herald are long-term supporters of the company. And dividend became, I think, part of the culture of MTI, and we will continue to do so.

So if I may summarize. 2022 is another good year for MTI. We look with a lot of excitement for the near and midterm future as all of our business units have a very nice growth opportunity, whether it's in the water management solution due to the climate change, the 5G backhaul picking up and, of course, the defense budget that are increasing and will allow us to supply more military antenna and the distribution part of our business.

With that, I would like to thank you and happy to take any questions you may have.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Just while Moni takes a few moments to review those questions that were submitted already, I would like to remind you that a recording of this presentation, along with a copy of the slides and the published Q&A, can be accessed via your Investor dashboard.

Moni, as you can see in the Q&A tab there, we have received a number of questions during your presentation today, so thank you to everyone on the call for taking the time to submit their questions. Moni, if I could just hand back to you to respond to those where it's appropriate to do so, and then I'll pick up from you at the end. Thank you.

[Moshe Borovitz, executive]

Okay. Thank you. So the first question was how can the company increase its sales. So I hope that the presentation answered it. We are doing a lot of work and are in the growing markets.

The second question is, could you please explain why tax charge is 25% higher than last year and also why there is $350,000 finance expense, if there is such a large justified? And I'll start with the finance expenses. Most of it relates to currency translation, currency exchange. As you know, this year was a very unnormal one with the euro, pound and dollar playing each against the other very dramatically, also against the shekel. And as we work globally but report in dollar, most of the expenses are related to exchange rate.

The tax, it really depends on where we make profit for. I remind you that we paid some tax in order to release some old profits that we had. And therefore, the withholding tax of the dividend was lower last year and will be somehow a bit lower this year, and this is the main reason for the tax increase.

What is the potential for further growth in fountain management mentioned in the operational highlights? So as I mentioned, what we do in the fountain management, we went to one municipality that has over 30 fountains around town, and we helped them to understand how to look at it as a system and see which fountains is operating and if there is any malfunction. And they really needed and liked to see the solution. We want to complete the project, understand what is the added value that they see from me, and then we can offer it to many other municipalities around the world where we weren't anyhow in landscape irrigation. So I think it could be another niche solution that we can provide to our customers.

Another question from [ Malcolm ]. In which country, geography, do you see the most growth potential? So this is a difficult question. As I mentioned, 5G antenna is right now looking very big in India, but I'm sure that it will be very big elsewhere in the world. I remind you that here, we sell to the OEMs, to companies like Nokia, like Aviat, like Ceragon. And then they sell it all over the world. In India, it helps them that we have the local facilities there.

In the water distribution, as I mentioned, we worked very strongly in the Gulf area. And we now see a lot of demand coming from Europe mainly after the summer that you had here in Europe. So I think that we are positioned very well to enjoy everywhere. And of course, the U.S. is a big market for Mottech as well.

[ Mark ] is asking, can you give guidance on how much of the revenue growth was due to organic growth, how much due to acquisition and how much due to price inflation? So I think that most of the growth, you can look at it nearly as organic growth. It's true that we have PSK as an add-on, which was about $3 million in revenue for the 9 months. But in parallel, we lost in the comparable about $2 million from the Russian operation that we had last year. So nearly almost all of the growth, you can look at this as an organic. And due to price inflation, it's very difficult to say because we increased prices in many areas where we could. And as I mentioned, in some areas, it will come in the future. But I think the important thing is that we are able to increase prices when we see the inflation cost -- pushing cost higher.

Are you operating in China, particularly with regard to water management? Yes, we have our own company in China for the water management. Actually, we did not do too well this year because China is still going in and out of lockdowns, so it's very difficult to operate there. But we do have a company and we do support the business there.

Are you concerned the global recession will affect your growth going forward? Of course, I am. We cannot be resilient to that. But I think that our advantage that we are so diverse both geographically and vertically, that I do not see the recession affecting everything at the same pace and at the same time. So we have some kind of an internal recess and stabilization model, I think. I think that usually in time of recession, government sometimes are trying to help economies by putting programs. This could be helpful, for instance, in Italy with the water distribution solution that we're trying to provide. And of course, on the defense budget, that we all know that there was a big allocation and we expect to push for. So overall, we look cautiously on the recession, but I think that we can overcome it.

And I think that I answered all the questions.

[Operator]

Moni, absolutely, and thank you very much indeed for addressing all of those questions that came in from investors this morning. And of course, if there are any further questions that do come through, we'll make these available to you immediately after the presentation has ended for you to review and then add any additional responses where it's appropriate to do so.

Moni, perhaps before redirecting those on the call to provide you their feedback, which I know is particularly important to yourself and the company, if I could please just ask you for a few closing comments to wrap up with, that would be great.

[Moshe Borovitz, executive]

Yes. First, I want to thank everybody for joining the call today. I hope that you are enjoying as we're part of the growth that we see in 2022, and we look fairly optimistic, I would say, for the next coming years.

[Operator]

Moni, that's great, and thank you once again for updating investors this morning. Could I please ask investors not to close this session as you'll now be automatically redirected for the opportunity to provide your feedback in order that the management team can better understand your views and expectations. It's going to take a few moments to complete, but I'm sure it'll be greatly valued by the company.

On behalf of the management team of MTI Wireless Edge Ltd., we would like to thank you for attending today's presentation. That now concludes today's session, so good morning to you all.