Firan Technology Group Corp
TSX:FTG
If you don’t study any companies, you have the same success buying stocks as you do in a poker game if you bet without looking at your cards.
Utilize notes to systematically review your investment decisions. By reflecting on past outcomes, you can discern effective strategies and identify those that underperformed. This continuous feedback loop enables you to adapt and refine your approach, optimizing for future success.
Each note serves as a learning point, offering insights into your decision-making processes. Over time, you'll accumulate a personalized database of knowledge, enhancing your ability to make informed decisions quickly and effectively.
With a comprehensive record of your investment history at your fingertips, you can compare current opportunities against past experiences. This not only bolsters your confidence but also ensures that each decision is grounded in a well-documented rationale.
Do you really want to delete this note?
This action cannot be undone.
| 52 Week Range |
3.96
7.86
|
| Price Target |
|
We'll email you a reminder when the closing price reaches CAD.
Choose the stock you wish to monitor with a price alert.
This alert will be permanently deleted.
Firan Technology Group Corp
You don't have any saved screeners yet
Good morning, everyone. My name is Ray, and I will be your conference operator today. I would like to welcome everyone to the FTG Q4 2021 Analyst Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this call is being recorded today, February 10, 2022 at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Brad Bourne, President and Chief Executive Officer of Firan Technology Group. Mr. Bourne, you may proceed.
Thank you. Good morning. I'm Brad Bourne, President and CEO of Firan Technology Group Corporation or FTG. Also on the call today is Jamie Crichton, our Chief Financial Officer. Before we go any further, I must caution you that this call may contain forward-looking statements. Such statements are based on the current expectations of management of the company and inherently involve numerous risks and uncertainties, known and unknown, including economic factors in the company's industry generally. The preceding list is not exhaustive of all possible factors. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, and actual events and results could differ materially from those expressed or implied by forward-looking statements made by the company. The listener is cautioned to consider these and other factors carefully when making decisions with respect to the company and not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The company does not undertake and has no specific intention to update any forward-looking statements, written or oral, that may be made from time to time by or on its behalf, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Well, 2021 proved to be a lot more challenging than we expected when we started the year. I will explain some of these challenges later, but I do want to say that again this year, I am still very proud of the efforts of everyone at FTG in doing whatever it takes to overcome these challenges. In the face of such a difficult year for the aerospace industry and so much adversity, everyone buckled down, worked together and did what was needed to be done to get us through the year in good shape. I am sure that this team is up to any challenge we might face in future years. Before I get into details, let me summarize some key accomplishments from 2021. FTG had forced sequential increases in quarterly bookings through the year as the commercial aerospace industry began to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. Fourth quarter bookings of $23.6 million are up 42% over Q4 2020. FTG increased its net cash on the balance sheet to $17.9 million, an increase of $5.3 million in 2021, again showing the cash-generating nature of the business. Over the past 2 years, during the pandemic, FTG has added $15.7 million in net cash on the balance sheet after $16.8 million investments in R&D and capital equipment. FTG achieved EBITDA of $9.6 million in 2021. FTG remained profitable in fiscal 2021 despite challenging conditions in the commercial aerospace market, currency headwinds and COVID-19 operational impacts. And maybe most importantly, FTG accessed government support in Canada and the U.S. and even China in 2021 to enable us to maintain our workforce and position FTG to recover quickly when the demand rebounds in the aerospace industry. In addition, during the year, FTG extended the existing USD 20 million committed credit facility with their primary lender to July 2026 with improved financial terms. In technology, FTG installed and commissioned the Averatek semi-additive circuit board manufacturing equipment in our Circuits Fredericksburg facility during the year. Activity has been initiated with over 10 customers to develop this process to address future industry demands. This is a longer-term R&D initiative, but one we consider strategic. This manufacturing process is definitely more environmentally friendly and NAND product should have improved signal integrity. Also during the year, FTG was awarded a contract value of $3.7 million from the U.S. -- United States Defense Logistics Agency to provide electronic assemblies to retrofit airborne radar systems on U.S. Armed Forces aircraft. This work will be performed at the FTG facilities in Chatsworth, California. FTG Aerospace Chatsworth, which had maintained an engineering office in Dallas Fort Worth since the acquisition of PhotoEtch in 2016, closed its office late in 2021 and moved the function to its Chatsworth site in California, reducing the site's facility costs in 2022 and beyond. And in Tianjin, we received a significant new customer approval from a Tier 1 aerospace company, opening up significant new revenue opportunities for the future. Jamie will talk about the financials shortly, but I'd like to highlight what we are seeing in future market demand. To state the obvious, the COVID-19 pandemic deeply impacted air travel in 2020 and 2021. This, in turn, has impacted airlines, which then flows through to hurt the aerospace industry. But we are seeing a positive trend develop. In Q4, U.S. air travel continued to rebound. It is nearing 90% of pre-pandemic levels, and we are seeing the easing of travel and border restrictions. So barring any unforeseen setbacks, we anticipate an improving market going forward. There are many predictions regarding the length of the time to recover, but all of them indicate or forecast a strong commercial aerospace market in 2022, even if it is not quite back to pre-pandemic levels. Our customers are mostly showing return to sales growth in their latest quarters. When you look at aircraft deliveries, Airbus had reported a 35% drop in deliveries in 2021, but then achieved an 8% recovery -- the 35% drop in deliveries in 2020, but achieved an 8% recovery in 2021. This does still leave them about 29% below 2019 levels. At Boeing, it is more dramatic that they also had the challenges of the 737 MAX to deal with. Their 2020 deliveries were down 80% from pre-pandemic pre-737 issues. In 2021, their deliveries are up 116% versus 2020, but this still leaves them down 58% from their high in 2018. Both companies have announced production rate increases for 2022. And with their increased bookings, we should see revenue growth, at least, sequentially going forward. I've also looked at results from defense contractors. And for example, Lockheed, the largest defense contractor, reported a 4% revenue growth for fiscal 2021, and Northrop Grumman reported a 3% growth for the same year. The defense market is government-funded and it appears well-supported in the near term. At a higher level, President Biden released his defense budget request for 2022 and that had some growth, so this market should remain strong for a while longer. Looking at the longer term, Boeing's most recent 20-year forecast for commercial air transport were lower than last year, thus show growth beyond the 2- to 3-year downturn as air traffic recovers. And it continued to show 40% of all new aircraft deliveries going to Asia, as has been the case in their recent forecast. The business jet market has already seen traffic recover. The recent business jet market forecast from Honeywell similarly predicts growth in this market in the coming years. The simulator market mirrors the end-market application so commercial aerospace simulator activity is down, whereas defense simulator remains strong. But as we always remind everyone about this market, it is lumpy, so the year-to-year variations are large and to occur. So if we said for many years, FTG's goal is to participate in all segments of the aerospace and defense markets as each moves through their independent business cycle. This continues to prove effective. In the past number of years, dips in activity in helicopter and business jet markets did not impact FTG's growth. Now the commercial aerospace market is in a downturn, that as it represents about 40% of FTG's overall activity, we have mitigated the impact. Our Circuits Toronto site as well as our sites in China are most closely tied to commercial aerospace so they were the most impacted. Our U.S. sites are more focused on the defense market. Beyond all this, let me give you a quick update on 2021 for FTG. First, as already noted, the leading indicator of our business is our bookings for new orders. And each quarter, 2021 bookings increased and Q4 2021 saw bookings up 42% compared to the same quarter in the prior year. In 2021, sales at FTG were $79.4 million versus $102.4 million in the prior year. This is a 22% drop. This was a much tougher year than we expected for a few reasons. First, the COVID-19 pandemic was sustained through all of 2021 as the Delta and Omicron variants arose and spread around the globe. This impacted our total demand by about 8%, which on its own is not too bad. But on top of that, our simulator business was down almost $10 million due to its inherent variability we talked about each quarter. And this was unfortunate timing to have to deal with this decline at the same time as the pandemic was happening. This represented a negative 10% impact on year-over-year sales. And finally, the strengthening of the Canadian dollar versus U.S. dollar was a $4 million or 4% headwind. In our Aerospace business, sales were down 26% or $9.6 million compared to the prior year. The decline is virtually 100% due to the decline in our simulator business year-over-year, which was also down $9.6 million. So we are seeing stable demand in our traditional products, which is a surprisingly good result in the middle of a pandemic. On the Circuits side of our business, sales were down $13.4 million or 20% on a year-over-year basis. Circuits Toronto was [ up ] the most in absolute dollars as their focus is primarily in commercial aerospace. But all 3 North American sites had decreased sales. Our joint venture in China saw a decline in demand from existing customers due to the pandemic, but offset this with new wins and ended the year up marginally compared to 2020. Overall, at FTG, our top 5 customers accounted for 51.1% of the total revenue in the year. The percentage compares -- this percentage compares to 51.5% last year. While the percentage is similar, the companies have changed. Last year's top 5 included a large simulator company, and there are no simulator companies in the top 5 this year. Also interesting to note, of the Top 10 customers, 7 are customers shared between circuits and aerospace. We will like to see the shared customers as it means we are maximizing our penetration of these customers by selling both costive products and circuit boards. In 2021, 34% of our total revenues came from our Aerospace business compared to 35.7% last year. The drop is due to reduced simulator activity, partially offset by stable demand for legacy products. I'd like to turn the call over to Jamie, who will summarize our financial results for 2021. And afterwards, I will talk to some key priorities we are working on. Jamie?
Thanks, Brad. Good morning, everyone. I'd like to provide some additional detail on our financial performance for 2021 and Q4. On sales of $79.4 million, FTG achieved a gross margin of $17.1 million or 21.6% in 2021 compared to $26.4 million on -- or 25.8% of sales of $102.4 million in 2020. The decrease in gross margin dollars and the gross margin rate is the result of reduced operating leverage on lower sales volume. In addition, gross margin at the Toronto sites is negatively impacted by the stronger Canadian dollar relative to the U.S. dollar as much of the cost structure of those sites is in Canadian currency. In Q4, on sales of $20.3 million, FTG achieved a gross margin of $4.2 million or 20.9% compared to $7.1 million or 26.4% on sales of $26.7 million in Q4 2020. Reduced sales volumes of $6.4 million, principally within the simulator product line resulted in lower gross margin of approximately $2 million. Although FTG continued to qualify for wage subsidy programs in Canada and the U.S., the amount realized in Q4 2020 -- 2021, sorry, was $0.9 million less than in the prior quarter, which equates to approximately 4.5% of gross margin points. From a geographical standpoint, 75% of FTG's 2021 sales were derived from customers in the U.S., which has decreased from 77% in the prior year. The lower percentage of revenue from U.S.-based customers is due to lower simulator revenue, which is primarily for U.S. customers. SG&A expense was $11 million or 13.8% of sales in 2021 as compared to $13.3 million or 13% of sales in the prior period. The reduced expense level is due to reduced travel, lower marketing costs, reduced performance compensation costs and reduced provisions for expected credit losses. R&D costs for 2021 were $5.4 million or 6.7% of net sales compared to $5.3 million or 5.2% of sales for 2020. R&D efforts include product and process improvements at the Circuits segment and efforts to develop and qualify products for future aerospace programs. FTG is exposed to currency risk through transactions, assets and liabilities in foreign currencies, primarily U.S. dollars. The average exchange rate experienced in 2021 was $1.25 as compared to $1.34 in 2020, which equates to a strengthening of the Canadian dollar of 7%. We estimate that for each 1% of strengthening of the Canadian dollar, FTG would experience a reduction in pretax earnings of $217,000. In 2021, the negative impact was approximately $1.5 million, which was largely offset by realized gains on foreign currency contracts of $1.25 million. In 2021, we have reduced our exposure to currency risk by reducing the amount of foreign currency cash balances on the balance sheet. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization, as EBITDA, as calculated or described in the press release, was $9.6 million for 2021 compared to $13.4 million for 2020. The EBITDA margin for 2021 is 12.2% as compared to 13.1% for the comparable period in 2020. EBITDA for Q4 2021 was $2.3 million or 11.1% of revenue. Arguably, Q4 2021 was FTG's strongest quarter as EBITDA, excluding government subsidies, was $1.9 million. For 2021, FTG recorded earnings before income taxes of $2.6 million as compared to earnings before income taxes for 2020 of $4.6 million. Reduced profitability follows from lower sales of 22%, which was mitigated in part through increased government assistance, $6.5 million in 2021 as compared to $3.2 million in 2020. Government assistance in 2021 included a gain of $3 million on forgiveness of U.S. PPP loans following achievement from despecified criteria. The 2021 income tax provision of $2.4 million or 93% of pretax earnings reflects that the corporation's Canadian operations were profitable and that deferred tax assets on foreign operating losses were not recognized during the year. Our net cash position as of Q4 2021 is $17.9 million as compared to net cash of $12.6 million as of Q4 2020. Free cash flow, defined as cash from operating and investing activities, excluding acquisitions, less lease liability payments, was $2.9 million for 2021 as compared to $11.1 million for 2020. As of the 2021 year-end, the corporation's primary sources of liquidity totaled $54 million, consisting of cash, accounts receivable, contract assets and inventory. During 2021, FTG extended the committed revolving credit facility with our existing [ link ] to 2026. This facility includes $10 million in support of working capital requirements and USD 10 million in support of CapEx investment. As of the 2021 year-end, outstanding term loans pursuant to this credit agreement amounted to USD 1.8 million, leaving over USD 18 million of credit availability. Working capital at November 30, 2021, was $40 million, which is up $0.6 million from 2020. Accounts receivable days outstanding were 72 at the 2021 year-end compared to 62 last year. Inventory turns were 3.4 as compared to 3.8 in 2020. And accounts payable days outstanding were 86 at the 2021 year-end as compared to 74 in 2020. Investment in planned equipment for 2021 was $2.9 million, with over $1 million of that investment focused on operational improvements in the Circuits Chatsworth facility. We entered Q1 2022 with a backlog of just under $40 million, which is an increase of 6.6% as compared with the start of 2021. We will continue our focus on cash management in the balance sheet, cost control and operating efficiency. Our complete set of Q4 2021 filings are now available on sedar.com. With that, I will turn things back over to Brad.
Thanks, Jamie. For me, I thought our fourth quarter was our best operational quarter of the year. I say this because the government support reduced dramatically from previous quarters, but our results did not drop off by the same amount. I do believe the government support, for the aerospace industry, at least in Canada, has ended before it should but we dealt with it through a strong effort across the company. I would have liked to have seen a bit more of a ramp in the top line in Q4, but this will come as our backlog continues to build. Almost all of our drop in sales from Q4 last year to Q4 this year was due to reduced simulator product sales. In our Aerospace business, our Toronto facility has done a great job in managing costs down over the last 18 months. And to support future efforts, we have made some good inroads in increasing activity in the defense market. involved in some exciting new programs in the defense market, including a new vessel for a U.S. military trainer aircraft start in production, and they've won a second military vessel assembly from the same customer. Both our sites in North America were significantly impacted in Q4 due to a drop in simulator product sales when compared to Q4 of 2020. We are seeing a rebound for simulator product opportunities for 2022. And while maybe not back to historic levels, it should be above what we saw in 2021. The Chatsworth facility was additionally impacted by pushouts by suppliers for some military components, but they continue to have a long list of new sales opportunity, almost all coming from the defense market. As we announced during the year, that site has had success in winning aftermarket defense work from the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency, and this is becoming an important element of their total sales. In our Circuits segment, as noted previously, sales in Toronto were down compared to last year due to the reliance on the commercial aerospace market. But even at reduced revenues, they have managed costs carefully and remained profitable. Their sales were up each quarter through the year, and their bookings are even stronger, indicating recovery is building in the commercial aerospace market. Circuits Fredericksburg started the year slowly, but have had improved bookings and backlog as the year progressed. Early in the year, the previous General Manager at the Fredericksburg site had resigned for family reasons, and transition to a new GM caused some disruption in operations. But their fourth quarter was [ advanced ] as Chatsworth continues to have a solid backlog, but stronger value year to ramp production to benefit from this demand. To assist in the needed ramp in production at Circuits Chatsworth, we invested in some key new pieces of production equipment to insource some processes, which will save costs and improve cycle time. These investments include a VFL machine, an electrical tester and a laser drill. All the equipment was delivered and installed and operational by year-end. The benefits of these investments will increase going forward as they are fully integrated into our operations. Both our China sites are exclusively focused on the commercial aerospace market. But as noted from the Boeing market forecast, Asia remains a key market for commercial aerospace activity, so we believe these sites will be valuable in the long term. Our Aerospace Tianjin facility has seen sales increase each quarter this year as the commercial aerospace market recovers. Their fourth quarter sales were 66% above their first quarter sales. They are entering 2022 with a very strong backlog. And progress continues on the C919 aircraft development in China. And while we've not quite completed all our qualification and program activities, we have shipped our first production orders in the year. At our Circuits joint venture in China, the uncertainty regarding the new owners of our partner are settling down in a very positive way. We are seeing new wins and increased demand at that site for 2022. We continue to manage our balance sheet. Our net cash on the balance sheet increased from $12.6 million at the end of 2020 to $17.9 million at the end of 2021, an increase of $5.3 million. We are seeing a number of acquisition opportunities arise that could fit with either of our businesses, but we are currently seeing more on the circuit side. Given our increased confidence in our performance, the overall recovery in the commercial aerospace market and our very strong cash position, we are evaluating these opportunities. Our criteria for any such transaction would remain what we've always said they would need to meet a number of the following objectives: be aligned with our current market and product focus; expand our technology offering; expand our geographic coverage to Europe for commercial aerospace or defense market; accelerate FTG's penetration of the aftermarket segment; drive up plant utilization... [Technical Difficulty]
Excuse me, this is the operator. I apologize, but there will be a slight delay in today's conference. Please hold and the conference will resume shortly. Thank you for your patience.
Okay. I apologize for that. Obviously, we've had a bit of a phone issue. I have completed my presentation. Hopefully, you heard everything I had -- I have to say, and we would now like to open the phones for any questions. Rain, can we see if there's questions.
[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Nick Corcoran from Acumen Capital.
The first question for me just has to do with the simulator order. You mentioned that there should be an improvement in 2022. Can you give any indication how those orders might fall through the year?
Yes. I guess, all I can say right now is, at this moment, we have not booked significant orders, but we are seeing and including significant orders as we speak, including today. And I would expect within the next few months, we would see the orders and they would be deliverable in the second half of 2020.
Great. And then just thinking of the supply chain, has there been any impacts from the pandemic on delivery of parts? And has that had an impact on your ability to supply customers?
Yes, in 2 ways. I guess, first of all, I touched on it where I said in Aero Chatsworth we've had some delays and deliveries for military components, that was not really logistics issues. That was suppliers having their own production issues, again, I'd say primarily due to COVID impacting their operations. Beyond that, in our Circuits business, a lot of our raw materials do come from Asia. And so there is a risk of supply chain issues and logistics issues on that, but we are actively working with our suppliers, and we've actually bought extra material beyond what our typical demands are to protect ourselves from any impact. And so far, we've been successful and mitigated our impact from supply from any suppliers in our Circuits business.So -- and I guess the last one, we did -- there's still some ongoing simulator activity. I know we've had some delays on components for our simulator project that we're hoping to ship late last year, it's pushed into Q2 this year due to component delays, but not a significant amount, but there was a little bit of delays around that.
Great. And then the last question for me. I know government subsidies have trailed off through the end of the year. Have you received any subsidies in the first quarter? Or do you expect to receive that?
The AMJP program in the U.S. will continue into the first quarter and a touch of the second quarter. It will contribute about USD 200,000.
Your next question comes from [ Austin Buedell ] from [ O-Quest Corporation ].
Brad, a couple of questions. The first one is on the research. You mentioned that part of the research is done for the improvement of current products and processes and many other priorities, the brand-new stuff. Could you give me a little more color on the proportions in each? And how you feel the prospects are for coming up with some products that represent a complete brand-new area for FTG?
Right. And I guess, first one, I would talk about -- like to talk about, and it's from our Circuits Fredericksburg site, but we are working on an additive manufacturing process. So that's not new product, but it's a new way to make a circuit board. And just as we look around the world, some of the industries are looking at different additive technologies. It's more environmentally friendly. It actually ends up with improved product performance in this case. So we're actually -- we're really excited about that one. But that is a long-term effort. It's changing everything as to how you make a circuit board. So we need to work with our customers. We need to understand any reliability issues, any other implications from this. It's a multiyear effort, but it could dramatically change the way circuit boards are made over the next 5 to 10 years. So that is one where it's a new process, but it could dramatically change our business. The more closer to home, in 2021, we won a new family of cockpit assemblies from one of our key customers, the Tier 1 avionics company in the U.S., and they don't want to say their name. That family of products, it requires us to develop the electronics that goes into the assembly. We need to go through a full approval, environmental approval. And after a bit of a year, that converts to about $1.5 million a year of production revenue from those parts. And so we're hoping that will end up in production at some point in 2022, and then it becomes an ongoing annuity for us as their demand flow through to us for those products. So that's definitely near term. So those are a couple of examples. And then to try answer your question, how much of this is related to new products versus existing products? I'd say our goal is really to focus our R&D to either develop capabilities or to develop specific products to grow our revenue stream. There's a little bit of benefit in terms of improving our efficiencies, but really the benefit for FTG is to invest in technologies that drive the top line and grow the company.
I would agree with that. And another area, you've been remarkably successful in maintaining margins. You made no reference to margins other than the fact that some of the margins were down as a result of lower business. Generally speaking, are margins holding up in both segments, both aerospace and defense?
Yes. I mean a couple of comments on that. First of all, in manufacturing, there's a certain fixed cost in our business. And so as you add revenue, margins expand almost automatically. As you reduce business, the opposite happens. So our goal, again, for sure, is to drive the top line to improve margins, and that's really just drive up plant utilization. And over the last few years, I guess I would give the government credit for helping us. And the reason I say that is as activity came down, if we had, had no government support, we would have had to aggressively reduce our workforce to manage our costs and to stay viable. But because the U.S. government had the Paycheck Protection Program, the Canadian government has the Emergency Wage Subsidy, both of those programs were aimed at enabling companies to retain their skilled workforce, and we took advantage of them. And I think I'm happy we took advantage of them. And I think it's really important for us because it helped us short term maintain the margins, but more importantly, it allowed us to keep our skilled and trained workforce so that we can recover and grow as the market picks up.
Implicit, Brad, in what you're saying, though, is that the customer is not looking for lower prices.
That is true. And I guess that leads to the second topic, and we're definitely working through this and addressing this. We're seeing -- the world is seeing inflation pick up these days. So we're not immune to that, but we are working where we can to manage our costs, and we're also working with our customers in some cases to adjust prices. But we are -- our goal is not to get squeezed due to inflation. And to specifically answer your question, for sure, we have not seen any customers try to push prices down right now.
[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from Ashvin Moorjani from Edward Jones.
Just one question about future developments. Do you guys foresee any -- or do you guys seen the pipeline? Any interesting programs coming up either in the short-term and long-term? And what do you guys believe your prospects are on winning those programs? That's it.
Right, right. It depends on what you mean by new programs. What I would say is there's not a significant or there's not really much new aircraft development happening these days in terms of truly new platforms. Neither Airbus or Boeing have development program underway. And there's no significant military program, maybe with one exception, there's a new bomber being developed in the U.S. But -- so not a huge number of new development program, but we are seeing a number of opportunities at a subsystem level. And when I say that, that in both of these markets, whether it's commercial aerospace or defense market, there is, from time to time, upgrades and systems on those aircraft, and that leads to opportunities at a system or subsystem level. And we're seeing those, and we're definitely pursuing those. And just to give you a feel, we put together a list, and our list of opportunities at this moment is 6 or 7 pages long. So there's a lot of opportunities out there. I'm not going to say we're going to win them all. But the fact that there's so many opportunities actually gives me a good feeling that we have opportunities to grow our market share in the aerospace and defense market in the coming year or 2. And I guess, finally, just last comment on that. We've talked about it a long time, that C919 aircraft development in China, we've now been involved for 7 years on the development cycle of that plane. That plane is truly getting really close to final approval, and then it will go into production. And that represents a revenue growth opportunity for us. And yes, we've been running maybe $1 million or so a year on that program during the development cycle. If it gets to full rate production based on the forecast from China, that represents about a $5 million program for us. So yes, that's not going to happen, that full rate in 2022, but we're heading in that direction as that plane gets certified and has entry into service.
And do you see a list of opportunities expanding in a more recent channel? Or how do you look at that change this year and perhaps over previous years?
It is as -- just trying to think it through. I'd say it's expanding a little bit. We are seeing new opportunities. I guess the other thing, which we have not talked about, but we did make a decision late last year that we are going to grow our sales team. And so we have grown our sales team. We've added people. And I believe there is a connection. If you have more feet on the ground and you're knocking on more doors, you're going to see more opportunities. And I think that is happening. I know that is happening for us right now.
There is no further questions this time. You may continue.
Okay. Thank you. A replay of this call will be available until March 10, 2022, at the numbers noted on the press release. The replay will also be available on our website in a few days. And thank you all for your interest and participation. Thank you.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.