Baylin Technologies Inc

TSX:BYL

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q1

[Operator]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Baylin Technologies First Quarter 2024 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] This call is being recorded on Thursday, May 9, 2024.

I will now turn the call over to Kelly Myles, Director of Marketing and Investor Relations of Baylin Technologies. Please go ahead.

[Kelly Myles, executive]

Hello, and welcome, everyone. Thank you for joining us this morning for the First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call for Baylin Technologies. On the call with us today from Baylin are Leighton Carroll, Chief Executive Officer; and Dan Nohdomi, Chief Financial Officer. We will be available for questions at the end of the presentation.

Before we begin, let me make it clear that our comments today may include forward-looking statements and information and answers to questions that could imply future expectations about the prospects and financial performance of the business for 2024 and could include the use of non-IFRS measures. These statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Accordingly, actual performance could differ materially from statements made or information provided today, so you should not place undue reliance on them.

We also do not intend to update forward-looking statements or information, except as required by law. I ask that you read our legal disclaimers and explanation of the use of non-IFRS measures and refer you to the risks and assumptions outlined in our public disclosures, in particular, the sections entitled Forward-looking Statements and Risk Factors in our annual information form for the year ended December 31, 2023, and our other filings which are available on SEDAR.

Our Q1 2024 results were released after market close yesterday. The press release, financial statements as well as the MD&A are available on SEDAR and on our website at baylintech.com.

I would now like to turn the call over to Leighton.

[Leighton Carroll, executive]

Thank you, Kelly. First, I want to thank the employees of Baylin for their incredible work this quarter, driving our business back to the right side of the ledger. Like many businesses in our space, we had a tough fourth quarter of 2023. The improvement in financial results in Q1 of this year was pretty remarkable compared to the fourth quarter. And look, I talk to the CEOs of companies in our space, partners, people who do similar things and even competitors, and we really did fared better than just about everybody I've spoken with. It's been pretty remarkable.

To that end, we've continued to work setting up the company for success in the future, and we'll talk about several of the wins that we've had as well as the momentum we have in terms of product developments a little later. I also like the pipeline of opportunities we're pursuing as well as the continued resilience in our backlog.

Before I provide an update on our business lines, I'd like to remind the audience of the important change to the presentation of financial results of our Mobile and Network business line. We've hired an investment banker to facilitate the divestiture of that business this calendar year. As a result, and for the purposes of presentation reporting of our financial results, continuing operations now comprises 3 business lines: the Embedded Antenna line, the Wireless Infrastructure line and the Satcom line, while the Mobile and Network business is being reported as held for sale.

M&N continues to deal with our primary customers reduction in volume, which has impacted all suppliers in their ecosystem. While the business, the Mobile and Network business, has won a number of new products which will come to production this year, the principal customers indicated that they expect to see continued softness in demand for the products we supply them. Separately, the Mobile and Network team remains focused on diversifying revenue through non-Mobile-based customers as well as continuing their work in improving their cost efficiencies and operational controls.

To our current lines, to our ongoing lines, the Embedded Antenna business delivered a strong quarter. They just -- to be blunt, they knocked the cover off the ball. Really, really solid. Great growth. Huge rebound. And in one case, new customers and new products coming online above and beyond what we were producing, which is kind of a great thing to see and see how robust the activity is.

The Wireless Infrastructure business also had a good quarter. A number of really nice wins. And the business has been making progress on numerous fronts, which has really resulted in improved order flow. So while we get the order flow in Q1, we've certainly seen that in April, the result of that doesn't come immediately. So we had a good Q1. And the nice part is the order flow is actually higher, and that's going to set us up for Q2 and beyond.

Satcom's performance, despite a change in mix and, to be honest, more challenges that the production team had to overcome, they've been right on plan and they have been consistent. And I'm really proud of the work that our production teams and our engineering teams have done to deliver their results consistently.

Getting to backlog, which is really in many respects about what we're -- where we're going and what we're doing. Backlog from continuing operations increased to $33.2 million at the end of April of this year. This is due to order intake across all 3 of our business lines. This compares to $30.3 million at the end of the quarter this year and $31.2 million at the end of last year. So again, it's actually a positive. The backlog is starting to go in a very -- in a solid direction, a direction I like.

We're also pleased with the quality of the backlog. Gross profits -- and look, you don't really see these in our quarterly results, they're just -- they have been stronger and they were remarkably stronger from the time that I've gotten here. New products, better operational controls, efficiency, and products customers want and are willing to pay for. It's not rocket science. You start to drive your business that way, it will pay off in the long term.

I'm also pleased but not satisfied with the improvements that we have in the business. In fact, if I compare the gross margins from when I joined to now, they've improved 16% from -- excuse me, they improved -- well, almost, it's actually more than 16%. They have improved from 16%, which 16% gross margin is disastrous, to -- we were over 38% for 2023 and for the first quarter. Incidentally, I do aspire fire. And we are working towards that end. And a lot of that's going to be additional products come to market, and a lot of that is going to be continuing to work on cost efficiencies.

Even though the Mobile and Network business is -- it's a bit of a pure victory. It's seeing better gross margins than any time since I've been here. The work we have been doing to drive cost control into that business over these past 3 years, it's really paid off. That business is actually now hitting its gross margin plan. The problem is the revenue side, the softness, and that softness certainly hurts that business. It's obviously a reason why we're divesting it. Finally, the number of active bids, the things we're working towards for our future, it remains at a record level. The funnel is good.

So with that, recent developments, we've had several notable successes over the past year. Being a bit on the geeky side, I just think it's super cool that our Advantech Wireless group won an award for NASA's Artemis lunar exploration and colonization initiatives to supply our amplifiers. Basically, when those lunar modules are going out away from the earth, the communication to them is powered by us. That's pretty cool.

We also announced that we were selected by a systems integrator for Salt Lake City Airport. We also announced that we were put into Heathrow Airport. Heathrow being our first European airport and kind of a nice marquee win. And then, look, we've obviously had a whole bunch of other things going on. It's actually interesting how many stadiums and other things that we have both done and are coming, where we are continuing to win in that business.

And then, look, finally, we obviously had a multimillion-dollar award in our Embedded line we did a press piece about. And you know what, we're just starting that program, which is kind of cool because the Embedded team is already rocking and rolling. So overall, I'm really happy with the direction. I'm happy with some of these wins. The wins are fun, but it's the consistency of the business to deliver results that's starting to take shape that I'm starting to feel good about.

Dan Nohdomi, our CFO, will now comment on the first quarter and full year results. Excuse me, on our first quarter, not full year results. Excuse me.

[Dan Nohdomi, executive]

Thanks, Leighton. Really cool developments recently. That's really encouraging.

Revenue from continuing operations in the first quarter was $20.1 million, which was an increase of about $1.3 million or 7% compared to the same quarter last year. Compared to Q4 of '23, this was an increase of $3.9 million or 23.8%. And the increase was due to sales volume increases, primarily in the Embedded Antenna business line. Revenue in Q1 of '24 for both Embedded and Wireless Infrastructure was significantly higher than in Q4 of '23. Revenue in the Satcom business line was relatively consistent with the same period last year.

Gross profit from continuing operations was $7.7 million in Q1 of '24, which was relatively consistent with the same quarter last year. Margins, 38.5% in Q1 of '24, moderately lower than the same quarter last year. But I'll talk about some of the reasons why. And it does compare with just over 35% in Q4 of '23 compared to the same period last year. The lower margin in Q1 of '24, primarily due to product mix. Wireless Infrastructure revenue as a percentage of total revenue was higher in Q1 of '23, and most of its products generated higher margin than other product lines.

Adjusted EBITDA from continuing operations, we returned to positive territory. Pleased to report that it was positive $0.5 million in Q1 '24. It was a moderate -- it was a decrease of $1.1 million compared to the same quarter last year. However, it does represent an increase of $2.6 million compared to Q4 '23. Significant turnaround quarter-over-quarter sequentially compared to the same period prior year. The decrease was due to a combination of OpEx, lower relative margins, along with not having the benefit of onetime government incentives that were recorded in the same quarter last year.

Operating expenses in Q1 '23 were lower due to the recognition of the U.S. employee retention tax credit in the amount of $0.8 million, of which $0.7 million was recorded as a reduction of operating expenses. Net loss from continuing operations was $2 million in the first quarter of '24 compared to net income of $0.9 million in Q1 of '23. This also represents an increase of nearly $5 million compared to a net loss of $6.9 million in Q4 of '23.

The net loss in Q1 of '24 was primarily due to an operating loss of $1.4 million as well as interest and other finance expenses. The positive net income in Q1 of '23, mainly due to a gain on the successful lease transfer or lease termination and sale of noncurrent assets for consideration of about $2.7 million as a result of completing the transfer of the MMU facility lease in Vietnam. On a per share basis, net loss of $0.01 per share in Q1 of '24 compared to net income of $0.02 per share in Q1 of '23.

Net debt from continuing operations was $15.7 million at the end of Q1, which was an increase of $2.9 million from the end of last year, primarily due to an increase in working capital investment as a result of stronger sales in Q1 of this year and the order backlog that Leighton referred to.

In terms of discontinued operations, I'll provide a few comments. Adjusted EBITDA from discontinued operations was close to 0 in Q1 of '24, which was an increase of $0.7 million compared to the same quarter last year. The increase mainly due to an increase in gross profit as a result of improved product mix in M&N, an improvement in margin as a result of the hard work that the team has done in terms of efficiencies and cost reductions there.

Net loss from discontinued operations was $0.8 million in Q1 of '24 compared to a net loss of $2 million from discontinued operations in Q1 '23. The net loss from discontinued operations in Q1 to '24 was mainly due to an operating loss of $0.2 million as well as other finance expenses in the M&N business line. On a per share basis, that translates to a net loss of $0.01 per share in Q1 of '24 compared to a loss of $0.03 per share in Q1 of '23.

Lastly, before I turn the call back to Leighton, we're continuing our efforts to replace our revolving credit facility with an asset-based loan, the structure of which would be more conducive to an operating business such as ours. With a recapitalized balance sheet as a result of the term loan being fully repaid from net proceeds of the rights offering and private placement of preferred shares, annual debt service costs are significantly lower which will allow us to reinvest any excess cash flow in the business, which is obviously important.

I'll now turn the call back over to Leighton.

[Leighton Carroll, executive]

Thanks, Dan. Compared to the fourth quarter of last year, 24% increase in revenue and 36% increase in gross profit is just a spectacular rebound. I'm really happy with how Q1 played out. And I'm also really happy with the momentum that we have going into Q2. The Embedded Antenna line just killed it. There was some over built-up inventory that affected some of the products that we have, but we've also added new customers and we're seeing a lot of momentum in what we are producing for them.

We've also seen one customer who had really cut back on their spending come back in full board this year, which is also very cool. The Infrastructure business, really, really solid. And then Satcom remains just consistent. And the next part is it's generating -- it's a slow road to do this within Satcom because of the age of the legacy products, but we have slowly and surely been improving gross margins within that business as well.

And then obviously, the irony is the Mobile and Network business, which we are divesting, actually had probably one of its best quarters in a long time, albeit it's still not good enough, right? It's -- we needed the revenue in that business, just isn't there at this point, even though the cost structures are better. And for that reason and several others, it's just not strategic, we're looking to divest.

All right. The macroeconomic environment and the effect of high interest rates on customer spending remains a challenge, I think, broadly. It's something that we pay attention to. It's something we pay really attention to and how it will affect the behavior of our customers. Nonetheless, the recent improvements in our businesses and our continuing operations is very likely to continue into the second quarter.

Now I'm going to speak about each of our businesses briefly. The Embedded Antenna business line had an amazing first quarter even though they had a challenging Q4 of last year. Conditions right now, that's what we're seeing, we don't think it's going to -- what we saw and what we dealt with for that business with its customers in Q4 of last year, we don't see that degradation occurring this calendar year.

We are also seeing many of our customers making a shift of their product from Wi-Fi 6 to Wi-Fi 7, particularly in wireless gateways. And we are already producing and starting to produce Wi-Fi 7 solutions for some of our customers. We see that as a net positive with more opportunity in the future.

The Wireless Infrastructure business line, it rebounded and came -- it did well. Margins are good. By the way, margins are remarkably better than when I got here in this business. I do want more out of this team, but the nice part is it's fully capable. The products we have been building in there, the strategy that we have, the go-to-market changes, they are working and it's super clear it's working. We're going to announce some more wins in our future that are coming here shortly.

And in April, the Infrastructure business had nearly a record sales month. And unlike the record from many years ago, it actually has diversity, has customer diversity, has product diversity and, oh, by the way, it has a good margin profile. All those things portend really well for our future. So even though we saw a pullback from -- in spending by wireless carriers in Q4, because of our diversification, we're seeing growth with new customers. And by the way, we are seeing several of our wireless customers back in spending with us because we have unique products that actually are hitting some pretty interesting use cases for them.

The Satcom business line continues to see consistent demand and strong capital spending. But it's interesting. It's -- the commercial side of that business has absolutely seen a softening. Now the fact that we have taken the time in that business is really positioned more on high-powered unique applications, it means large programmatic wins. Many of which are governmental, DoD, NATO-related kind of things; or space, like the NASA win, those are resilient.

And in fact, we have a very large bid book in that space, and I expect that we're going to be announcing more wins in our future. Based on the work that's been done on our amplifiers, the revisions in the technology, the improvement, the Genesis and Summit lines that -- and what they represent in its industry, this is really a good place to be. And I feel pretty good about our position and our positioning for the long term, and that this business will continue to be resilient.

Overall, we expect revenue and adjusted EBITDA this year will be stronger than last year. The Satcom business line has a strong order book with gradually improving margins. We've seen production efficiencies across the board. And we do see the new Genesis amplifiers which will speed time to market of production coming online more fully this year.

Now the Mobile and Network business I've talked about, I think the clear piece here is that we still have a revenue challenge in that business, the models for -- which we produce for Samsung have not done well for Samsung or have underrun their forecast. And as a result, that business is not seeing the revenue that it is hoped to attain. The gross margin work has been excellent. We're going to continue to take steps while we have this business to manage it smartly, to minimize impacts it could have on the larger organization, while we are working towards divesting it.

So with that, we started 2024 with a significant improvement from how we ended 2023. It just demonstrates that our core businesses and the structure that we have put in place and the strategies that we have, it's legitimately working. We're also working on the recapitalization of our balance sheet. We did so, took a major step in Q4.

And then the next step is to change our credit facilities, which we would not have been able to if we did not take the steps that we took in Q4. Now we are in a super solid place, in multiple discussions, and I feel confident that we're going to be fine for the long term with our credit facility and changes that I expect will be forthcoming.

And with all of this, I'm confident in our future. I'm confident about the path we're on. And again, I'm going to wrap it by how I started. None of this would be possible without the commitment of the employees of Baylin. One of the things that I have been blessed with is good people, smart people in this company who bought in, dug in and helped us dig the company out of the whole it was in when I got here. We're night and day from where we were 3 years ago. We're so much better, and I'm excited about where we're going.

That concludes our formal remarks. Operator, thank you for the time today.

[Operator]

Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. We thank you for participating and ask that you please disconnect your lines. Have a lovely day.