John Granara
Analyst · Oppenheimer. Your line is open
Thank you, George, and good morning, everyone. As we get started with the financials, please note that unless otherwise stated all the amounts I reference relate to Q3 2016 and the comparisons are for the year-over-year changes. In reviewing our results, the prepared remarks on our website offer both our lines of business and our traditional segment reporting. This will keep the time series comparable for you. Total revenues of 180.6 million were down 4.5%, but were slightly ahead of the higher end of our guidance range of 170 million to 180 million. We are pleased with the solid revenue growth in both the small-scale infrastructure and federal segments, which are up 36% and 31%, respectively. As expected, Canada revenue was down as we finish up the large problem housing projects. Business in Canada is now shifting to smaller, more focused, and more profitable projects. Also, as expected, integrated PV sales were down due to the weakness in the oil and gas market. Finally, our core project business was impacted by the delay of two projects in our contracted backlog. Gross margin was 21.5%, up from 19.2% last year. The improvement was mainly driven by a better revenue mix with a greater portion of higher-margin recurring revenue which included a fair amount of renewable energy incentive revenue, which naturally boosts gross margin. Moving down the P&L, SG&A expense was 28.9 million. That amount included a 2.2 million reserve related to the SunEdison bankruptcy and 0.4 million of lingering charges related to our earlier restructuring actions. We elected to reserve amounts of accounts receivables that we believe may not be collectible due to the bankruptcy of SunEdison. However, we are still attempting to recover the assets associated with the projects. Without the bankruptcy reserve and restructuring charges, SG&A would have been 26.2 million and 14.5% of revenue compared to 26.6 million and 14.1% of revenue in the same period last year. We still have approximately 750,000 of unreserved receivables outstanding with SunEdison. Operating income was 9.9 million, which compares to operating income of 9.7 million last year. This equates to operating margin of 5.5% in Q3 2016. Operating income was higher than last year on both a dollar and percent of revenue basis. Below the operating line, other expenses were 2.3 million. This includes approximately 1.7 million of net interest expense. Our effective tax rate in the quarter was approximately 24%. Net income was 5.7 million, up 37%, and earnings per diluted share were $0.12, up 33%. Non-GAAP diluted earnings per share were $0.16 up 78%. Our bottom-line performance fulfilled our expectation that we would improve profitability in Q3. Adjusted EBITDA was 19.2 million, up 19%. Adjusted EBITDA margin in the quarter was 10.6% compared to 8.5% in the same quarter last year. Note that we are continuing to invest significantly to strengthen our presence in new U.S. regions. Turning to the balance sheet, I will highlight what happened during the quarter so all of the comparisons are sequential. Cash and equivalents, including restricted cash, was $30.8 million, up $3.1 million. Accounts Receivable, including retainage, was $102.5 million, essentially flat. Project assets were up $22.6 million, bringing the total to $279.3 million. As George mentioned, we invested approximately $24 million of CapEx into projects that we plan to own and operate, which brings us to $45 million of investment year-to-date. Consolidated debt of $128.8 million was up $9.2 million. Nonrecourse project debt is $100 million, representing most of our total debt. The debt increase was largely due to draws on the line of credit that we used to fund the assets in development and construction. As a reminder, we used the line until we put permanent project financing in place, which normally occurs after the asset is placed into operation. During the quarter we repurchased 503,000 shares of common stock for $2.5 million. We had approximately $5.6 million still authorized under this program as of the end of the quarter. Now that three quarters of the year are behind us, we are encouraged by our financial results year-to-date. Our solid results provide us with continued confidence in our annual guidance. With only a couple months left in 2016, we naturally have better visibility, so we are tightening the revenue range we offered at the start of the year. However, we are maintaining our earnings range since we have been improving our profitability. For the full year, we expect revenue to be in the range of $645 million to $660 million. We expect EPS in the range of $0.25 to $0.30 and adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $51 million to $57 million. Please keep in mind that the guidance we've provided excludes the impact of any noncontrolling interest and all charges related to the SunEdison bankruptcy or our restructuring activities. With that, we would now like to open the line for questions. I will turn the call back over to our coordinator, Nova, to run the Q&A session.