Tekna Holding ASA

OSE:TEKNA

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q3

[Luc Dionne, executive]

Greetings, everyone, and welcome to Tekna's webinar on the company's results for the Third Quarter of 2022. My name is Luc Dionne. I am the CEO of Tekna, and I am joined today by Arina van Oost, VP for Investor Relations. The presentation should take a little less than 30 minutes and will be followed by a Q&A session. So for those who have questions, you may post them in the chat during my presentation.

Next slide. So for those who are joining us for the first time, I'd like to share a brief overview of Tekna before we dive further into the Q3 highlights and results.

Next slide. Tekna is a world-leading provider of advanced materials and plasma systems. The company was founded in 1990, and has its headquarter in Canada. We've listed Tekna on the Oslo Euronext growth in March 2021 and the main index of the Oslo Bors in July this year. We have just over 200 employees working in 3 production facilities with sales offices, subsidiaries and distributors that are strategically located in Canada, the U.S.A., France, China, Korea, and India and Japan. They support our global portfolio of world-class customers. What has made Tekna relevant to the market, however, is our technology and our product portfolio.

Next slide. Tekna's revenues are generated from 2 distinct product lines. The first and the largest, with 75% of our revenues to date is advanced materials. More than 80% of these revenues are generated by recurring customer orders. We manufacture these materials in the form of very fine metal powders that are used in various applications such as additive manufacturing. The graph here on the left depicts the distribution of these sales by industry, while the table on the right shows the quality of customers we are serving. 1/3 of our additive materials are delivered to the aerospace industry, 1/3 to the manufacturers of the 3D printing machines, and the balance is distributed between medical applications, consumers electronics, and the automotive industry.

Over the past 7 years, we have developed an industry-leading position with many blue-chip customers while maintaining an average annual growth rate of 50%, securing long-term supply agreements with customers like Airbus, and delivering hundreds of tons of quality powders in a highly regulated industries. Being a supplier in this industry requires organizational discipline and commitment. The supplier qualification processes are stringent and the customers expect that we deliver constant quality on time every time. So this leads to a sticky business model with long-term customer commitments.

Next slide. Now our second product line, the plasma systems. This product line of very sophisticated machines uses an inductively generated thermal plasma to create insight and enclosure, an environment that can reach over 10,000 degrees. This is as hot as the surface of the sun. It's a super exciting technology, and this is the real genius behind everything we do at Tekna. The plasma systems are typically sold to the institutionals and OEMs for conducting research and development work. 2 years ago, we have introduced the PlasmaSonic product family. I will say a few words about that later in this session, but we can see here the quality of the customers are typically targeted for this product family. The Plasma System segment is important to Tekna because; for one, it allows us to finance a great part of our overhead and research work. And I would say, most importantly, it also allows us to continuously improve on our own technology.

Next slide. On October 3, Mr. Dag Teigland was elected as Chairman of the Board of Directors for Tekna Dat is an experienced executive with a broad knowledge of the metal industry, where he has held CEO and Board positions. I had the opportunity myself with my staff to work closely with Dag since his appointment in October. He visited Tekna in Canada twice already. He toured the factories and made some time to understand our business in very fine detail. He's a great asset, and it's good to have him on the team. The good news along with this is that Morten Henriksen, who was the former Chairman, will stay as an active director on our Board. So many things and kudos to Morten, who has brilliantly held the Chairman position since 2017.

Some governance, I would say, is key to developing a sustainable business. So in addition to strengthening the Board over the past 6 months, as we have done with Anne Lise, Barbara and Dag, we proceeded in August with the hiring of Mrs. Sophie Burguad, in the position of VP, Legal Affairs and Corporate Strategy -- Corporate Secretary. Sophie has more than 20 years of experience in business, while working with both public and private companies operating in various jurisdiction around the globe. Again, welcome, Dag, and welcome, Sophie. It's nice to have you on the board -- on the team.

Next slide. So now let's have a closer look at the Q3 highlights. Next slide. The total revenues in Q3 increased by 5.7% over the same period last year. In our last quarterly report, we had foreseen the softer progress, which resulted in part by the machine downtime while we were proceeding with capacity upgrades. Accordingly, we expect that the sales revenues for the second half of this year will be similar level as the same period last year. This being said, however, the demand for additive manufacturing is strong and the industry momentum is not slowing down, and it's our objective to complete the 70% machine output increase announced earlier by the end of Q1 2023.

On the microelectronics side, we continue to see a strong interest for Tekna's material. Our recent tour of leading MLCC manufacturers in Asia confirmed the trends and needs for the sourcing of MLCC materials. The development work is progressing with the leading customers, but we're not expecting any order before 2023. In October, we have acknowledged an order valued just over CAD 9 million for a PlasmaSonic system. This order confirms the increasing demand driven by hypersonic travel and space tourism, and this order will be reflected in Q4.

Finally, due to the production and development delays we're seeing, we expect to require additional financing in 2023. On that matter, we are having a constructive dialogue regarding future financing with our main shareholder, Arendals Fossekompani. And we expect a conclusion no later than the first quarter of 2023.

Now let's move to the revenue and EBITDA slide. In Q3, we recorded total revenues of CAD 5.9 million for the quarter, including CAD 4.2 million in materials revenues. The revenues for materials was marked by summer vacation in the U.S. and Europe and the available machine capacity. Systems revenues have reached CAD 1.7 million, in addition to the major PlasmaSonic order we have received earlier in October. Going forward, we have a number of systems opportunities that have passed the customer budget approval stage. And this is, for us, indicative of a potential market rebound.

The adjusted EBITDA was minus CAD 4 million, reflecting both lower revenues and powder margins as well as front-loading of resources in support to our strategy. And of course, thelower powder margins are resulting from the systems downtime that we have used to upgrade the system performance. We have made strategic investment in our organization that allows us to drive the top line. And in the context of the solar development, we're assessing opportunities to improve our cash flow.

Now let's have a closer look at materials sales. Next slide. The industrialization for additive manufacturing is driving a significant demand for metal powders and Tekna has built a strategic position with many leading OEMs, as I had explained earlier. The lower order intake in Q3 is not what we like, but we expected it. Increasing our capacity, as I will explain on the next slide, will translate into higher material availability, shorter delivery lead times and increase sales and improve margins. Simply said, we have a capacity constrain, not a demand problem.

Next slide. Talking about machine capacity. We are progressing thoroughly with our upgrade program. The output is consistently increasing. And in October, we have qualified a first round of 20% increase on the machines. The development work is progressing well, and we are still targeting to achieve 70% by the end of first quarter next year. The full effect of the output increase will be reflected in the sales once all the machines will have been upgraded to the new level.

Next slide. As I have mentioned a few times already, the additive industry is creating a lot of traction for advanced materials and for Tekna, of course. Formnext is the largest exhibition dedicated to additive manufacturing. The number of exhibitors has increased by 4x since 2015, and this is showing how the whole industry has developed and develop interest for investing in this sector. Tekna will be attending next week in Frankfurt, this trade show. So if you are in the area, you are welcome to stop by our booth and visit us. This exhibition is a great opportunity to book orders for the following year. Last Friday, we had over 60 customer meetings already scheduled and more are being added every day.

This image here shows Tekna booth. So if you look around for -- to see our booth, these are the colors. And we operated this booth with [ Aftechpowder ] which is a subsidiary of [ AselaMitan ] and also a joint venture of Tekna. So this subsidiary -- sorry, this joint venture in Aftechpowder is dedicated to the sales of special steel others.

Next slide. For those who have attended our webinar in August, you will recall we had highlighted a substantial market opening for Tekna's PlasmaSonic. We are excited to share again that we have secured a major order for a PlasmaSonic wind tunnel facility, very similar to the one you can see on the screen here. The value for this order exceeds CAD 9 million, and it is the central piece for our customer ground testing infrastructure. This is the third order we have received from this industry in the last 2 years, and we see it picking up. The typical customers attracted by our solutions are universities, government space agencies such as NASA and the European Space Agency, or OEMs such as SpaceX, Blue Origin, Aireon Space. So far, we have delivered quotes for over CAD 100 million, and we are currently having discussions with 7 prospective customers with total potential orders valued between CAD 45 million and CAD 75 million in the next 3 to 4 years.

Next slide. Now I will update you on our 2 main development programs, starting with microelectronics, then followed by energy storage. Next slide. First, let's take a quick look at how the field analysts view our markets. It is expected that the additive manufacturing industry will grow at a rate of up to 30% until 2030. They expect that the demand for microelectronic MLCC devices will grow by 14% on average by 2027. And the demand for anode materials that are related to lithium-ion batteries would grow with an annual average rate of 28% until 2030.

In the case of hypersonic travel, which I briefly mentioned on the previous page, the opportunities in this market were assessed by Tekna. We have identified a potential of CAD 220 million for PlasmaSonic solutions similar to the order we have just received in October. The megatrends are driving the growth for each of our business segments. Our business strategy is designed to be robust and to leverage the changes in paradigms and in economic framework we operate in. On the following 2 pages, I will share further details on the 2 segments in the middle here, which is microelectronics and energy storage.

Next slide. Starting with microelectronics. As referenced on the left-hand side of the slide, developing new customers is a long process. And in the case of microelectronics, we are not only refining our own technology and products, we are also working closely with our prospective customers while they are adjusting their own manufacturing process. From Tekna, this type of partnership requires a deep understanding and mastery of the technology, qualified engineers and obviously, patience. A few years ago, we started with a list of 18 MLCC manufacturers. Very few of them actually have the ability to develop high-end MLCC devices like the one we are pursuing. So we narrowed it down to 4 prospective customers for now. These players are among the top 6 leaders of this industry, and they share over 50% of the market. They have -- each of them have now received material samples from Tekna.

The development work consists in pairing our nickel nano powder with each customer's manufacturing process. Once the pairing is achieved, it translates into initial small size orders of a few hundred kilograms and then followed by a progressive volume ramp-up until it reaches the customer's expected maturity level. This process takes time. But based on our reading of the market and interaction with these leaders, the need for new supply sources is real, and the tensions between Japan, Korea and China are favoring Tekna in this context.

At this moment, we are, in particular, close dialogue with 2 players, one in Korea, the other in Asia Pacific. We recently visited both plants and have some very fresh insight into their plans and decision-making process. Unfortunately, in both cases, the progress has not been as expected and we don't expect any orders to materialize before 2023. In Korea, for instance, we learnt that additional work is required to match our product with their manufacturing process, and we will soon provide them with adjusted material samples. We also had the opportunity to survey their view regarding the supply of nickel nano powder for high-end MLCCs from their current source. We are encouraged -- definitely encouraged by the fact that they shared the challenges they are facing and expressed interest in developing a local supply base potentially together with Tekna.

Development work for the prospective customer in Asia Pacific has also not progressed as we had expected. They recently shared a revised schedule and technical feedback is now expected in Q1 next year. They confirm the startup of a new plant for manufacturing high-end MLCC in late 2023, and we are planning on meeting with them here in Canada in December this year or in January. This prospective customer reconfirmed industrial volumes at maturity of around 40 tons per year. And to put this into perspective, our current capacity is approximately 50% of this -- 15% of this. So this should give you an impression of the potential we see in developing our supplies to the MLCC industry and why we are so diligently and patiently following up our cooperation with these players. So discussions are still underway. But as I said before, developing this forward-looking business takes time, and we don't expect any order before 2023.

Now let's talk about our energy storage segment, which we believe could represent an even bigger potential for our products, but also more long term than what we see for MLCCs. So next slide. As many of you already know, the demand for lithium-ion battery is growing rapidly and is following the global demand for electric vehicles. The anode is a key component of the lithium-ion battery and is composed of graphite for typical batteries and a mixture of silicon and graphite for higher-performing batteries. Tekna has developed a process capable of producing high-quality silicon material that can be added to the anode. When combined graphite, our silicon -- the silicon we produce can increase the driving distance per charge, reduce the size of the battery, as well as reduce the size -- the volume of other critical materials used in manufacturing batteries. This segment is potentially a very large market for Tekna silicon products, and we are looking at various alternatives for securing our position in this promising vertical.

Next slide. Now I would like to conclude this presentation by restating our immediate priorities. First, we need to continue increasing the production output for additive manufacturing powders. Additive manufacturing remains the most commercialized and fast-growing market segment for Tekna. Our second priority is to address our financing need. To do this, we are pursuing a constructive dialogue with our main shareholder, Arendals Fossekompani, and we expect to conclude on this no later than first quarter of 2023. Our third priority is to continue developing our emerging segment, focusing on qualifying a first customer in microelectronics, while we are carefully managing our cash flow and resources.

So this concludes our third quarter presentation. Thank you to all of you for your kind attention, special thanks to our employees and to our customers and investors. We will now open the question period.

[Arina van Oost, executive]

Thank you, Luc. I hope you can hear me.

[Luc Dionne, executive]

Just hold on. All right. Go ahead.

[Arina van Oost, executive]

All right. Yes, we have received a few questions. So thanks to the audience for submitting them. Let's start with the first one, which is on our capacity increase. How confident are you now that you will reach the 70% by Q1?

[Luc Dionne, executive]

Very confident. We have achieved already 20%. That's a 20% increase is in the bank right now. So we are really taking advantage. And we're working on the next step that will take us to reach 70%. And we're fairly confident that this target will be met by the end of Q1 2023. So that's, I would say, the easy answer is we're confident.

[Arina van Oost, executive]

Excellent. Am I right in understanding that the slow order intake in powder only relates to the machine upgrade?

[Luc Dionne, executive]

Yes, definitely. And it's just we have to take down the machines to implement the upgrades and implement the -- and qualify these upgrades. So that's the only reason. I said it, we're not facing a demand issue. It's a capacity constraint issue.

[Arina van Oost, executive]

Thank you. Can you please elaborate on the additional financing alternatives you are working on?

[Luc Dionne, executive]

Yes. Well, I cannot provide too many details here, but I can confirm that we have initiated a dialogue with Arendals Fossekompani. Discussions are progressing well, and we expect to reach a conclusion by the end of the first quarter of next year.

[Arina van Oost, executive]

Okay. We have a question on energy storage, which year at the earliest do you think energy storage could give a meaningful contribution to the revenues? I think we've guided earlier, in '25, '26. Okay. Should we expect any news flow related to microelectronics within the next couple of months? Or is further news around technology pairing validation more likely a first half 2023 event?

[Luc Dionne, executive]

I cannot precisely answer this question. That's a good one. However, we'd like to have the answer. We are waiting to have this conversation with our customer in December and January, and also with the Korean customers. So we wait to have their qualification schedule before we can answer the next round of feedback.

[Arina van Oost, executive]

Okay. We have another question on MLCC. Regarding the high-end MLCC plants with expected start-up in late 2023, the start-up referred to start-up of construction or start-up of production?

[Luc Dionne, executive]

Of production.

[Arina van Oost, executive]

Okay. We have a few more. Could you give some additional color on what remains to be done to reach the 70% output increase target? And also how many new machines you plan to add in '23?

[Luc Dionne, executive]

Right, good. At this point, we -- there are like 2 questions. I'll start with the remaining effort to reach the 70%. We are actually in the qualification stage of the second round of capacity upgrade. So it's -- for us it's a matter of time, then this next upgrade will be qualified, and we have to run the machines for a while before we reach the right confidence level. So that's why I say we're very confident that we're on the right track here. And we have a total of 3 machines for various materials that we plan in putting into production next year.

[Arina van Oost, executive]

So we have another question. If we hypothetically assume no contribution from microelectronics or energy storage, what do you see as a likely long-term gross margin and EBITDA for the AM segment alone?

[Luc Dionne, executive]

We have not guided -- provided any guidance on specific segments. But what I can say, we already have parts of our business that are already profitable. And we -- right now we are still -- our ambition of developing a business that will generate 25% EBITDA remains unchanged. So this is definitely our target. I will not comment on specific segments for now.

[Arina van Oost, executive]

Okay. That was it for the moment. I don't see any further questions coming in. So maybe some closing remarks from your side?

[Luc Dionne, executive]

Well, I just want to say that we're -- it's -- we're very focused. We have 3 priorities that I had mentioned earlier, increasing capacity, resolving the financing situation with our main shareholder, Arendals Fossekompani, where this is going well, and closing on the microelectronics order, hopefully next year, are our 3 priorities. So I want to thank everyone at Tekna for the great work. I want to thank our shareholders and customers for supporting us, and we look forward to sharing the next quarterly result next year. Thank you, everyone.