AirBoss of America Corp

TSX:BOS

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q1

[Peter Schoch, executive]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Annual General Meeting of the Shareholders of AirBoss of America Corp. We are making today's meeting available through both the video and teleconference facility. Accordingly, I would like to welcome everybody who has been able to join us today in one form or another. I am Gren Schoch, Chairman and CEO of AirBoss of America Corp.

Joining me today are Chris Bitsakakis, President and COO; Frank Ientile, CFO; Chris Figel, EVP and General Counsel; and Patrick Callahan, CEO of AirBoss Defense Group. I would also like to introduce our Board of Directors who are participating electronically: Anita Antenucci, David Camilleri, Mary Matthews, Robert McLeish, Brian Robbins, Steve Ryan and Alan J. Watson.

For your information, we will start the meeting by addressing the formal agenda matters. Once all these matters have been addressed, Chris Bitsakakis and Frank Ientile and I will each make a short presentation, including a discussion of our first quarter '22 results, a brief overview of fiscal '21 and an update on our strategic initiatives. We will then follow that with a Q&A session, where we will welcome questions from those on the conference call or on the webcast.

In conducting the business of the meeting, I would appreciate your cooperation in allowing us to move efficiently through the agenda. In order to make the best use of our time, certain shareholders have been asked to move and second the resolutions, which we will consider at this meeting. I will call on them at the appropriate time.

I would now like to call this meeting to order. Chris Bitsakakis and myself will act as co-Chairs of the meeting, and Chris Figel will act as Secretary of the meeting. The Secretary has advised that the annual report containing the audited consolidated financial statements of the corporation for the fiscal year ended December 31, '21, was mailed to the shareholders of the corporation on April 8, 2022.

The notice of this meeting, the accompanying management information circular, form of proxy were also mailed to shareholders of the corporation on April 8, 2022. I direct the proof of service be annexed to the minutes of the meeting. Chris Bitsakakis, myself and our Chief Financial Officer, Frank Ientile, will be available to respond to any questions concerning the financial statements during the general question period that follows the formal business.

Before proceeding with the business of the meeting, I would like to take a moment to discuss the voting procedure. Each holder of the common shares of the corporation is entitled to one vote for each common share held.

There are 3 formal items of business to be dealt with today: a, to receive the annual report and financial statements of the corporation for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2021; b, to elect each of the 7 nominee directors to the Board for the ensuing year; and c, to reappoint the corporation's auditors, KPMG LLP, for the ensuing year and the authorization of the directors to fix the auditor's remuneration. All is described in the management information circular of the corporation dated April 8, 2022.

With the consent of the meeting, representatives of Computershare Investor Services, the corporation's registrar and transfer agent, will act as the Scrutineers and report on the number of shareholders present in person and the number of shares represented in person or by proxy. I will now ask the Secretary to confirm quorum for this meeting.

[Chris Figel, executive]

Mr. Chairman, I confirm we have at least 2 persons present, holding or representing by proxy 25% of the eligible votes, which results in a quorum.

[Peter Schoch, executive]

As the quorum is present, I declare the meeting properly constituted. I direct that the Scrutineers' report on attendance be annexed to the minutes of this meeting.

As the first item of formal business, I'd like to ask Frank Ientile, our Chief Financial Officer, to table AirBoss' annual report to the shareholders, which includes the audited consolidated financial statements of the corporation for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2021, together with the auditor's report.

[Frank Ientile, executive]

Mr. Chairman, the corporation's fiscal 2021 annual report is tabled.

[Peter Schoch, executive]

Thank you, Frank. A copy of the 2021 annual report has been mailed to all shareholders who have requested a copy. Copies can be found on online under AirBoss' profile at sedar.com.

We will now move to the second item of formal business, the election of 7 directors to AirBoss' Board of Directors. Nominations have already been proposed by management in the proxy circular. Seven of our current directors have agreed to continue serving on the Board of Directors. Details about each of the director nominees are contained in this year's proxy circular. At this point, I would also like to thank Brian Robbins for his more than 25 years of service to AirBoss.

Shareholders are required to cast their votes for each individual director nominee rather than voting for the entire slate. The meeting is now open for nominations for the election of the 7 nominees. I would like to ask Barb Lee, would you please dominate the individuals listed in the proxy circular as directors for the coming year?

[Barb Lee, executive]

Mr. Chairman, I nominate each of Anita Antenucci, David Camilleri, Mary Matthews, Robert McLeish, Stephen Ryan, P. Grenville Schoch and Alan J. Watson as Directors of AirBoss to hold office for the ensuing year or until their successors are elected or appointed.

[Peter Schoch, executive]

Thank you. Morris Eddy, will you second the nominations?

[Morris Eddy, executive]

Mr. Chairman, I second the nominations.

[Peter Schoch, executive]

Thank you, Morris. Are there any other nominations? If not, I declare the nominations closed. By -- May I have that resolution, please?

[Barb Lee, executive]

Mr. Chairman, I move the following resolution. Be it resolved that each of Anita Antenucci, David Camilleri, Mary Matthews, Robert McLeish, Stephen Ryan, Pete Grenville Schoch and Alan J. Watson be elected as directors of AirBoss for the ensuing year or until their successors are elected or appointed.

[Peter Schoch, executive]

Thank you. Morris, will you second the resolution, please?

[Morris Eddy, executive]

Mr. Chairman, I second the resolution.

[Peter Schoch, executive]

Thank you, Morris. As you know, management sourced the proxies for the business of today's meeting. On behalf of management, I received proxies representing over a majority of votes cast for the election of each of the director nominees named in our proxy circular.

Based on the proxy report received, greater than 90% of the shares voted were cast in favor of each of the nominees. Accordingly, along with myself, the following other 6 nominees have been properly elected as directors of AirBoss for the ensuing year: Anita Antenucci, David Camilleri, Mary Matthews, Robert McLeish, Stephen Ryan and Alan J. Watson.

If any shareholder or proxy holder is interested in the exact number of votes cast for or without for each nominee, you can get these particulars after the meeting from the Secretary. A press release and report on voting results indicating the detailed results of the vote on the election of directors will also be publicly filed after this meeting on SEDAR.

[Chris Bitsakakis, executive]

Item, formal business is the reappointment of KPMG LLP as the auditors of the corporation and authorization of the directors to fix the remuneration of the auditors. Morris Eddy, may I have a resolution, please.

[Morris Eddy, executive]

Mr. Chairman, I move the following resolution, be it resolved that KPMG LLP, the present auditors of the corporation, are hereby reappointed auditors of the corporation to hold office until the close of the next Annual Meeting of Shareholders or until their successors are appointed and that the directors of the corporation are hereby authorized to fix the remuneration of the auditors in such amounts as the directors may in their discretion determine for the current fiscal year.

[Chris Bitsakakis, executive]

Barb Lee, will you second the resolution?

[Barb Lee, executive]

Mr. Chairman, I second the resolution.

[Chris Bitsakakis, executive]

Thank you. On behalf of management, I've received proxies representing over a majority of votes cast for reappointment of KPMG LLP as the auditors of the corporation and authorization of the directors to fix the remuneration of the auditors. Based on the proxy report received, greater than 90% of the shares voted were cast in favor of this resolution. Accordingly, I declare it carried.

[Peter Schoch, executive]

If there is no further business for this meeting, I request the motion that the formal meeting be terminated. Barb, would you please bring a motion to terminate the meeting?

[Barb Lee, executive]

Mr. Chairman, I move that the meeting be terminated.

[Peter Schoch, executive]

Thank you. Morris, will you second that, please?

[Morris Eddy, executive]

Mr. Chairman, I second the motion.

[Peter Schoch, executive]

Thank you, Morris. All those in favor of the motion, please raise your hands. Anybody opposed? I declare the motion carried and the formal business of the meeting concluded.

Ladies and gentlemen, I will now make a presentation and announcement regarding the Chairman's Award. Following Chris Bitsakakis, President and Chief Operating Officer of AirBoss, will give an overview of our current operations. And following him, Frank Ientile, Chief Financial Officer, will discuss our financial results and our outlook for 2022. With the formal meeting now over, we will move to our management presentation.

In terms of an agenda, we will start with our annual Chairman's Award, followed by a management presentation and overview of our first quarter results, which were released yesterday. And then we'll take questions, starting with analysts covering our company and then from shareholders. To respect people's time, we will do our best to be expedite.

Every day at AirBoss, there's inspirational work being done across all divisions and departments, with team members going above and beyond to ensure our continued success. In 2019, we created our annual Chairman's Award program to formally recognize the special efforts made by our AirBoss employees. It is a peer-to-peer recognition program that as employees identify, recognize and appreciate a broad range of strong contributors who go above and beyond for AirBoss.

When selecting the Chairman's recipient, we ensure that we have a strong representation of our AirBoss employees by presenting an award to one peer-nominated hourly employee and to one peer-nominated salaried employee, who have both shown exceptional dedication and commitment as they've gone above and beyond for AirBoss.

I'm pleased to announce that yet again, we've had great employee participation this year with a total of 134 employees nominated from across the organization and the selection of 12 divisional winners. From these 12 divisional winners, there were 2 employees that stood out and thus exemplified the Chairman's Award attributes.

I'm delighted to announce that this year's winners are Jeff Gies, Production Control Manager from ARS here in Kitchener, Ontario; and [ Pierre-Marc Bergeron ], Production Operator from our ADG facility in Acton Vale, Quebec.

After graduating from college in May of 2003, Jeff started with AirBoss as a student on May 12, 2003. Jeff was hired full time in September of that same year and has not looked back. He learned the business from all angles, working in the powders department as an expeditor, a master scheduler and a customer service manager before taking on his current role as production control manager.

Jeff's unmatched work ethic and responsiveness to change have been integral in the AirBoss Rubber Solutions' ability to successfully navigate through a major ERP implementation, the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain barriers and labor supply challenges. Through these unprecedented times, Jeff always maintained his can-do attitude and ensures all efforts are made to protect our customers, both internal and external.

Jeff is a tireless worker who can be called on at any time, including weekends or vacation to provide support to various departments and locations and to ensure seamless operations throughout the company. Throughout his years at AirBoss, Jeff has been commended for his relentless dedication, his positive attitude and friendly demeanor.

He continues to impress his colleagues and customers with his wealth of knowledge of the business, his resilience and his energy. Jeff is celebrating 19 years of service with AirBoss today. So in addition to wishing Jeff a happy anniversary, I want to thank him for his unrelenting loyalty and service to AirBoss and congratulate him on being a 2022 Chairman's Award winner. Thank you, Jeff.

[ Pierre-Marc ] [Foreign Language]

To recognize their efforts, Jeff and [ Pierre-Marc ] will both be receiving the 2021 Chairman's Award trophy, a cash award, a few other prizes to be given at a later date. On behalf of the Board and our shareholders, I want to take this opportunity to thank all our nominees and winners across the organization for their outstanding contributions to AirBoss.

With that, I would like to turn the meeting over to Chris Bitsakakis for a review of our results. Chris?

[Chris Bitsakakis, executive]

Thank you, Gren, and thank you to all of those joining us virtually today.

As a reminder, this presentation contains forward-looking statements, including our estimates of future developments. We invite listeners to review risk factors related to our business in our annual information form and our MD&A, both of which are available on SEDAR and on our corporate website.

Also, we will discuss certain non-GAAP measures, including EBITDA. Reconciliations of these measures are available in our MD&A. And finally, please note that our reporting currency is in U.S. dollars.

2021 presented many opportunities and challenges for AirBoss as communities and businesses globally continued to manage through the complexities related to COVID-19. Factors such as supply chain issues and the availability of raw materials put companies like AirBoss to the test in new ways.

I'm excited to once again say that our team at AirBoss stepped up to play an essential role in the fight against the pandemic and has shown its capabilities and commitment to supply our global customer base with the products and solutions they need, including critical personal protective equipment, or PPE, for frontline health care workers as well as safety solutions for military personnel and law enforcement.

The proactive work we did to mitigate the impacts of COVID-19 on our business in 2020 continued to serve us well as we face 2021's challenges. Our efforts to build a resilient supply chain to ensure the operation and growth of our business supported our performance in 2021. And we strengthened our role as a go-to domestic supplier for our customers.

We expanded our capacity to deliver on vast quantities of PPE as the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, and the Department of Health and Human Services, HHS, continued their fight against the pandemic. These efforts led to another year of solid performance for AirBoss in both our top line and bottom line and a strong 22% return on equity for our shareholders. Our financial results in 2021 allowed us to continue to execute on our growth strategy while maintaining a strong balance sheet.

Our cash flow exited 2021 remained strong. And despite our investment in the business in 2021, our debt position remains well below our historical average and well within our comfort zone. In Q2 of last year, our Board extended AirBoss' track record of dividend growth with their approval of a 43% increase in our quarterly dividend to CAD 0.10 per share. We're pleased to note that 2021 marked our 26th straight year of operating profitability, including through 3 different recessions.

At our 2020 shareholders' meeting about this time last year, we outlined our strategic decision to create the AirBoss Defense Group, which resulted in a significant step-change in the overall scale and capabilities of AirBoss. I want to take a moment now to highlight the combined capabilities from across our company on how we create competitive advantage in our core markets.

We have built AirBoss to share common strengths across our 3 platforms while bringing new value to customers through multiple channels. At our core, we remain focused on manufacturing and marketing high-quality, proprietary rubber-based and non-rubber-based products for a growing base of customers in a wide array of industries, including defense, heavy commercial, automotive, industrial and others.

One of our strategic priorities is to share our core competitive advantages across our 3 business segments: the AirBoss Defense Group, AirBoss Rubber Solutions and AirBoss Engineered Products. We are committed to using our scale, our focus on production and operating efficiency and our ability to innovate in partnership to bring new value to our customers and to AirBoss as a whole.

We've worked hard to build AirBoss' base of manufacturing locations to work to our advantage and to serve the growing needs we see within our customers. Our manufacturing capacity as well as our proven track record of securing and delivering against large-scale government contracts places us in a strong position for further successes on this front.

We've continued, and this has been especially true during the pandemic, to refine our supply chain, logistics capabilities to provide the levels of service our major domestic customers demand from their suppliers. Our domestic manufacturing presence is strong and works to our advantage. The idea behind our formation of ADG was to create a value chain dedicated to survivability.

We've combined decades of experience, expertise and innovation in manufacturing and engineering, design and marketing, distribution and supply management expertise to offer new solutions to a global customer base. ADG offers industrial and military-grade protection against a variety of threats to human life.

Our products range from personal protective equipment, or PPE, for health care setting to innovative solutions for blast monitoring and other applications that are designed to protect military and law enforcement personnel. ADG's financial performance in 2021 demonstrated the power of this platform. We generated $330 million in net sales and $117 million in contributions to AirBoss' gross margins over the full year.

This included a significant amount of deliveries toward our purchase order from HHS for the supply of nitrile rubber gloves. This project has added further depth to our relationship with HHS, and we expect opportunities to compete for other further similar PPE contracts in the coming months and years. Overall, ADG has made excellent inroads with customers last year, and we're building on this momentum to pursue and capture more business in 2022.

Moving now to AirBoss Rubber Solutions. We continue to advance our capabilities as a leader in custom rubber compounding. Our strategy for ARS has involved the 2 main components. First, to effectively use our new compounding capacity to increase margins by developing new proprietary compounds in collaboration with our customers.

And second, to grow specialty and color compounding within our overall mix of business and to complement our traditional strength in black rubber. We posted strong growth in sales of colored rubber and have now developed new proprietary compounds while also improving our existing product offerings.

Our efforts within ARS have solidified our position as one of the largest customer compounders in North America and is a trusted supplier to significant blue chip customers with which, in many cases, we hold long-standing relationships.

In 2021, we continued to see increases in raw material prices and international freight constraints, both of which affected our gross margins. As we have dealt with these conditions, we have put new measures in place to lessen the impact of these forces, including our ability to pass on raw material price changes to our customers on a monthly basis. ARS was a valuable part of our sales execution in 2021, having generated $172 million in net sales over the year, along with continued strong gross margin contribution.

In 2021, our AirBoss Engineered Products business continued to face challenges. Automakers and Tier 1 part suppliers contended with globe chip shortages and other supply chain challenges. And this hindered production levels for many manufacturers. Our pivot to certify AEP to help fulfill some of these larger awards secured within ADG contributed to AEP's results and supported ADG's results.

Last year, it was year 3 of our 5-year strategy to transform the segment and return it to profitability. We continue to focus on certain key steps in order to do this: automate to drive efficiencies, we made progress on this front with the addition of a second robotic work cell in 2021; innovate to produce more technically sophisticated higher-margin parts; expand our sales into new sectors, potentially including renewable energy, marine, rail, construction equipment and appliances to reduce our reliance to (sic) [ on ] the automotive sector.

In 2021, we achieved approximately 10% of net sales coming from non-automotive sources. And finally, when possible, we are working with our customers to update terms within certain contracts, which are currently unprofitable.

During the first quarter of 2021, we commenced installation of new injection presses to support our long-term transformation through automation and continuous improvement as well as the diversification of product lines into sectors adjacent to the automotive space. Our target remains to get close to operating profitability in the near term, though this is dependent on continued normalization of the economy.

For those that have been tracking our progress, you will have noticed that we published AirBoss' inaugural sustainability report in early March of this year. We're excited to offer this deeper level of transparency into how we operate and manage our business from an ESG perspective. Within 2021, we engaged an external adviser to guide our team as we assessed our company through the lens of sustainability. Through this process, we identified the main ESG priorities for AirBoss and started to collect and analyze the data we will need to measure our performance.

With this base understanding, we are now identifying the areas where improvements are needed, and we're identifying the KPIs that our teams will be responsible for as they support our progress against our ESG priorities.

We have noted details of our ESG priorities on the right half of the slide, which includes our approach to climate change and environmental responsibility, our corporate governance practices and our commitments to employee base and the community in which we operate our facilities. I encourage you to have a look at our sustainability report, which can be found in the About US section of our AirBoss corporate website. We are committed to enhancing our reporting on our ESG priorities and progress as we go forward.

Closing off my opening remarks today, I want to emphasize that the AirBoss team will never stop innovating to bring new solutions to our customers. And while we've made strong strategic progress within our business, we continue to focus on where we need to be tomorrow and how to position our company to get there successfully.

With that, I'll now turn it over to Frank for a review of our Q1 2022 financials. Frank?

[Frank Ientile, executive]

Thank you very much, Chris, and good morning, everyone. As Chris mentioned, any dollar amounts referred to today are in U.S. dollars, except for references to dividends per share, which are in Canadian dollars. To be respectful of your time today, [ I'll link ] to be brief in my summary of our Q1 2022 results.

Starting from our highlights for the company as a whole. We posted growth in net sales of 35% to $144.5 million, with substantial contributions from both our ADG and ARS business segments. EBITDA increased by 37% to $19.7 million, driven by the increase in gross profit combined with lower cash expenses and our focus on operational efficiencies. Our profit was $9.6 million or $0.34 per diluted share. Our diluted EPS showed a 55% improvement over Q1 of 2021.

ADG sales in Q1 '22 increased $64 million. This 42% increase versus Q1 of 2021 was supported by our deliveries against our HHS nitrile glove contract and improved volumes from our Acton Vale facility in Quebec. Gross profit for ADG was $27.7 million or 43% of sales, a 33% increase from $21 million or 46% of sales we posted in Q1 of 2021.

Net sales in our Rubber Solutions segment increased by 52% to $57 million, driven by strong demand throughout the ARS customer base and partially offset by material supply challenges as we continue to manage. Gross profit increased by 54% to $8 million, which was supported by higher non-tolling volumes. We're pleased to have delivered this increased profitability despite higher raw material and logistics costs.

Net sales in our Engineered Products segment declined by 8% to $30 million due to lower volumes in the automotive as OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers dealt with chip shortages, higher raw material costs and freight challenges. And while we did have some success in our initiatives to contain costs, the challenges that impacted our sales also impacted AEP's gross profit, which was negative $4.1 million for Q1.

Turning again to our combined results. Operating cash flow, excluding working capital, was approximately $13 million versus $17 million in Q1 of 2021. However, due to increased working capital needs, cash flows used in operating activities during Q1 of '22 was $32.7 million. CapEx was $2.1 million in Q1 of '22 versus $5.2 million in Q1 of '21 primarily related to productivity and cost savings initiatives in each of our segments.

Our net debt at the end of Q1 '22 was $94.2 million. We maintain a credit facility of $250 million, and currently $110.5 million is drawn against the facility, much of which relates to the working capital requirements and acquisitions.

And now back to you, Chris, to discuss our outlook for growth.

[Chris Bitsakakis, executive]

Thank you, Frank. We have high potential initiatives underway within each of our 3 businesses to support our growth in 2022. For ADG, strong market conditions, along with our expanded capabilities, continue to favor our growth of ADG. Our focus is to secure new contracts and to deliver PPE consumables to our customer base and also to develop new survivability solutions for defense and first responder applications.

We think there are more cross-selling opportunities we can capture between our businesses. And as we have in the past, we will continue to seek those strategic acquisitions to broaden our ADG platform.

For ARS, as we mentioned earlier, our strategy is focused on the deepening of our product lineup and the improvement of our margins. And our expanded compounding capabilities position us well to achieve this. And similar to ADG, we see acquisitions as a possible source of new products that fit well with our client base and skill set and that have the potential to fortify our supply chain. Our domestic manufacturing capabilities position us well to be cost competitive for future business.

And finally, for AEP, we remain committed to strengthening this business group with new product innovations, more emphasis on higher-margin products and additional gains and operating efficiency.

Our efforts to expand our exposure to new industries is expected to bring important diversification benefits and reduced sector concentration risks. Throughout our business, our opportunity pipeline is at a record $1.5 billion, and we look forward to more announcements about our projects in 2022.

[Peter Schoch, executive]

Thank you, Chris. As we wrap up our prepared remarks, we want to thank our team at AirBoss for their hard work and dedication through 2021 and as we progress in 2022.

The financial and business performance we have highlighted this morning are the direct result of contributions our employees make every day as they strengthen our skills, bring new innovations to the table and successfully get our products delivered to our customers. We owe our success in '21 to the dedication and persistence of our entire team here at AirBoss. We're grateful for our valued relationships with our customers and suppliers.

Our partnerships with you are a core component of our strength as a company. I also want to thank our company's bankers, analysts, advisers, auditors for their support over the past year. And finally, I offer my thanks to our shareholders for their ongoing support and belief in AirBoss. And with that, I will turn the Q&A session over to Chris, and we can open up the lines for questions.

[Chris Figel, executive]

We will now start the Q&A session. Please be patient as we will aim to start with sell-side analysts covering the company, followed by shareholders.

As mentioned at the opening, this meeting is being made available both via conference call and via webcast. As an administrative convenience, we will now take questions from those who have submitted questions to the conference call line and then open up the meeting to questions from those attending via webcast, after which we will then open the floor for questions from individuals attending here in-person.

At this time, we will proceed to questions, if any, which are queued up on the conference line. And we will have the questions, because of the format, run through Gren who will then pass them off to the correct speaker to answer them if he doesn't answer them himself.

[Operator]

Our first question comes from Miguel Ladeira of Cormark.

[Miguel Ladeira, analyst]

You reiterated the pipeline still remains at record levels. However given the Ukraine conflict, how far do you see the realization of these awards being pushed to the right? Is there a time line you can point to?

[Peter Schoch, executive]

I had trouble hearing the last part of your question. Can you repeat the last part?

[Miguel Ladeira, analyst]

Yes, how far do you see this thing pushed to the right? Is there any time line you can point to regarding contract awards under this record pipeline?

[Peter Schoch, executive]

I can tell you what we're being told, but what we're being told in the past hasn't happened. We anticipate that we will get some awards very shortly. There are some -- a number of RFIs and RFPs that have been posted and then taken down because they needed some changes made to them. And they are supposed to be reposted shortly, some this month and some in June.

The -- we are being told that the awards will be spread up once the postings have happened, but I wish I could tell you that I have high confidence in that. I have high confidence that they are going to come. I have less confidence in the timing. I do believe we will see some awards in the next relatively short period of time. The bigger ones, which are obviously the most important ones, because of the size of them, take a little longer, but we're still being told that we will see them this year.

[Miguel Ladeira, analyst]

That's helpful. Yes, I can imagine it's pretty hard to gauge timing when they're coming on and then getting pulled off. So I'm going to switch gears now to Engineered Products. Are you having any conversations with customers about passing costs through? If so, what would you estimate is the expected lag here?

[Peter Schoch, executive]

I'm going to pass that to Chris to answer.

[Chris Bitsakakis, executive]

Thank you for the question. We have been having ongoing conversations with all of our customers at AEP. And as you could imagine, in the automotive space, the contracts are fairly rigid and fairly difficult to be able to pass on some of these raw material increases. That's the bad news. The good news is that quite a few of our customers have been working with us, and we're already starting to see some new contracts and amendments happening so that we can start to reclaim some of the lost profitability because of the hyperinflation environment that we're in.

Some of our bigger customers are even coming to the table now, which they haven't for the past year. So we expect to see here, over the next few quarters, a significant improvement in our ability to make up some ground in this hyperinflation environment with our customers, despite the rigidity of their contracts, which we have been fighting here for the past year. But clearly, they understand that we're a critical part of their supply chain. And they're starting to work a little bit closer with us to make sure that we remain a viable business there to continue to support them.

[Miguel Ladeira, analyst]

And just to follow on that, when you say make up some ground, what is -- how do I -- let's say, what is your thoughts on the pathway -- like your pathway to breakeven and then venturing into profitability? Is that going to be a late '22 event? Or perhaps working our way through these contracts in 2023?

[Chris Bitsakakis, executive]

Yes. I mean it's hard to predict for sure. We have millions of dollars at stake in these contract negotiations. If we're successful on all of them, we'll see a breakeven point occur this year. If we have to make compromises on those final negotiations, it could take a little bit longer.

However, the new business that's coming in is coming in at higher margins. Some of the new products we're making are more technically advanced. We invested, I think, close to $11 million in new equipment in the past 1.5 years, and that's really paying dividends in terms of our efficiencies. So I think once we get these pricing issues under control, I think we'll see a breakeven point and then a return to profitability probably early 2023.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Kevin Chiang of CIBC.

[Kevin Chiang, analyst]

Maybe just the first one, if you could provide some -- maybe some additional color on the completion of the HHS contract in Q1. The absolute size was smaller, but you've completed, I guess, the deliveries here. Just I guess how did you and HHS decide on a revised number here? And was that just a reflection of some of the supply chain issues and they're not willing to wait anymore? Do you think this has implications in terms of the longer-term demand for nitrile gloves, just given how this contract shaked out at the end?

[Peter Schoch, executive]

It wasn't -- HHS informed us late in the quarter that they would -- that they had enough -- with what we were going to be able to deliver them, and that was going to satisfy their short-term needs. And they paused any additional acquisitions until they knew their needs better. So it was agreed between us that we would stop shipping by the end of the contract date.

[Kevin Chiang, analyst]

Do you think that changes how -- you think -- they were thinking about the longer-term demand for nitrile gloves because they felt like it would be a multiyear process to get the stockpile up to levels that they thought they needed to get to post-pandemic?

[Peter Schoch, executive]

It's just my opinion because I don't know this from them. I think that they think that they have enough for their short-term needs and they have other priorities for some of the other products that we've been talking about bidding on for them that they need more urgently. So I think they've paused the nitrile glove acquisition for the short term at least.

Now obviously, that can change in a heartbeat if, all of a sudden, demand picks up for them because of a new outbreak or something like that. But right now, they have big shortages of other PPE, and they did take on billions of nitrile gloves over the last year or so. I think they've got a short-term -- they figured the problem is solved for the short term. But I want to emphasize that's my opinion, that's not fact.

[Kevin Chiang, analyst]

That's helpful. Just turning to the M&A environment. You've talked about your ability to manage through the supply chain issues pretty well here despite all that's going on. Is that opening the door for more M&A or -- just as other smaller players find themselves in a tougher situation? And is that something you'd be interested in? Or are you worried about importing somebody else's supply chain issues on to your platform if you do go over and buy them?

[Peter Schoch, executive]

I think we've got an excellent supply chain management group. I mean it's grown from 6 or 7 to, I think, about 7 to 8 now. And we -- because of the huge variety of what we buy all over the world, we've got arms into all sorts of markets. So to the extent that somebody is having supply chain issues in areas that we know well, I think we can certainly help them and that can create opportunities for us.

But I don't want to minimize the supply chain issues. They're getting worse, not better since this Ukraine conflict has happened. I mean it's created tremendous shortages in products that came out of Russia that people can no longer buy and products that are coming out of Ukraine. So it's a big problem, but it could create some M&A opportunities. We have got, I would say, a normal amount of M&A opportunities that we're looking at now, not necessarily an increase, but certainly not a decrease.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Ben Jekic of PI Financial.

[Ben Jekic, analyst]

I have one question, and I will try to ask it in the right way, so I'm sorry if it doesn't come out right. But I think you'll probably know what I mean. So the question is, as you're waiting for the award of these contracts, is time the only factor or is there a risk that something is happening in the background that presumably the government comes back and says, "Now the game has changed. We want 50% more volumes or 50% less volumes"?

Or something that will catch you offguard to an extent that maybe a new bidder comes in or something like that? Like is timing the only issue? Or is there a risk that something down the line changes significantly?

[Peter Schoch, executive]

I'll give you the -- the short answer is, as far as we know, yes, time is the -- timing of getting these contracts properly bid and awarded is the main issue. There's been a reasonable or probably more than normal amount of politics in some of them. The other issue, of course, is funding. And although we don't know this, there's been a tremendous focus in the last 2 months on rushing aid to the Ukraine.

And there's only a certain number of people involved in the government organizations. And there's only a certain number of things they can do it at once. So I think possibly they've been distracted a little bit. Patrick is on the line, and I don't know if -- he is the guy who deals with this every day. So I don't know if you want to add some color to that, Patrick?

[Patrick Callahan, executive]

Yes, sure. Thank you, Gren. It's a very difficult question to answer. And I think it depends on what contract and what market we're talking about. Certainly, in the health care space, there are certain contracts that we are planning to bid on that we know with a relatively high level of certainty, it's timing. It's a timing issue. We are in constant conversation with our partners, with the government. As you know, some of these RFPs have been brought up for bid. Some of these, we've actually worked through proposal efforts, and then they've been taking down to change.

And to be clear, a lot of the change that we're seeing and the reason for the change and the RFPs coming down is the Biden administration following the Trump administration's desire to go to a U.S.-manufactured and U.S.-sourced plan for all markets, but specifically for us with PPE and survivability products, which ADG supports.

So we've been working very hard in the background to put together a supply chain that can do that, can make all of our products in the U.S., both manufacture them and source them, which, as all of you know, a lot of these products are -- many of these products had supply chain components that were from overseas. So that's a direction that we do appreciate and we do support.

But to answer your question that we have many contracts on the health care side that we know for certainty are a timing issue. Other ones are timing, but as Gren said, there are some budget implications because of the complicated nature of the world today. Funding going to Ukraine, as you guys know, resolutions and bills being passed in Washington with different components, both for COVID relief and for Ukraine support. And that's difficult and takes time for that to be passed. Some of the larger contracts that we know are a requirement, that we know are going to come. Part of the delay, it could be timing, but also a mix of budget. So there's a mix there.

On the defense side, it's similar where you have -- certainly, competition is always a factor, but we work very hard to make sure that our products are best-in-class. And as similar to the health care side, some of the products on the defense side have -- our U.S. programs have been a little bit delayed because of the focus to rush products to Ukraine. But for us at ADG, some of those being chemical, biological or counter-explosive equipment, that's not a bad story for our business because they're going to be pushing product to Ukraine out of the U.S. national reserves, which will lead to more procurement from ADG in the future for U.S. forces.

So there's a real mix. What I can tell you is we have a very, very healthy pipeline of contracts that will be let this year that are simply waiting on timing and, some larger ones, there is a combination of some budgetary constraints and timing. But all of which in that $1.5 billion forecast, we are bullish will be coming in the next 6 to 9 months.

[Peter Schoch, executive]

Did you have a follow-up, Ben? Or are we good? Okay, great. Thanks, Patrick. The only thing I'd like to add to Patrick is more to reinforce some of these starts and stops on these contracts have really appeared to benefit where our strength is, which is in domestic manufacturing, as the Biden administration attempts to make sure that the language and the clarity around American produced and sourced is really clear.

And when that happens, although it's frustrating from a timing perspective, the language that ends up being changed really benefits us because we are primarily focused already on being a domestic manufacturer. So we do think that, that's going to bode well for us as the year progresses.

Now that concludes the questions from the conference call. I would like to now ask Chris Figel to read any questions which have been submitted electronically.

[Chris Figel, executive]

Mr. Chairman, I confirm that there are no questions on the webcast at this time.

[Peter Schoch, executive]

[indiscernible] attending in the room. Good. Okay. It appears that there are no further questions. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for taking the time to attend this meeting.