Earnings Labs

CSP Inc. (CSPI)

Q4 2012 Earnings Call· Thu, Dec 13, 2012

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, and welcome to CSP's Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2012 Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded. The financial results news release is posted on the website at www.cspi.com for those of you who did not receive it by e-mail. Later, we will be conducting a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] With us today are CSP's President and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Victor Dellovo; and Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Gary Levine. At this time, for opening remarks and introductions, I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Levine. Please go ahead, sir.

Gary Levine

Analyst · Wedbush

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. With me on the call today is Victor Dellovo, CSP's Chief Executive Officer. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that during today's call, we will take advantage of the Safe Harbor Provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 with respect to statements that may be deemed to be forward-looking under the act. The company cautions that numerous factors could cause actual results to differ materially from forward-looking statements made by the company. Such risks include general economic conditions, market factors, competitive factors and pricing pressures, and others described in the company's filings with the SEC. Please refer to the section on forward-looking statements included in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. With that, I'll turn the call over to Victor Dellovo, Chief Executive Officer. Vic?

Victor Dellovo

Analyst · Wedbush

Thank you, Gary, and good morning, everyone. We've got an excellent fourth quarter this year that includes some exciting operational highlights that I'll discuss in a moment. First, however, I'd like to make some initial comments about my transition to the role of Chief Executive Officer. As many of you are aware, CSP was saddened by the sudden passing of our long-time CEO, Alex Lupinetti, in August of this year. The company had been preparing for Alex's planned retirement, so it was unexpected to have to accelerate the succession plan. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to work closely with Alex during my tenure at MODCOMP. And I'm honored to be taking the reins as CEO. Alex accomplished a great deal at CSP, and we are now working to take the company to the next level with the new corporate strategy that I will be discussing today. The format of the call represents a slight departure from the norm. I'll start by providing the quarterly highlights, and then Gary will be -- take you through the fourth quarter and year-end financial results, as well as provide some commentary on our outlook for next year. And then I'll spend some time outlining our new strategy and vision for the future before we go to your questions. As I mentioned previously, we had an excellent fourth quarter and fiscal year. Both our segments increased revenue, and we generated strong gross margin and significantly improved EPS. In light of CSP's strong performance this year, our Board of Directors, on December 10, 2012, approved a special annual dividend of $0.20 per share, payable on December 28, 2012, to shareholders of record as of December 20, 2012. The board carefully evaluated our current cash position, considered alternatives for deploying our cash, including stock repurchases,…

Gary Levine

Analyst · Wedbush

Thank you, Vic. Total sales increased 35% to $22.3 million compared with $16.6 million in the fourth quarter a year ago. Foreign currency had approximately a $1 million unfavorable impact on revenue year-over-year. On a constant-currency basis, revenues actually increased by $6.7 million or 40%. For the full year, consolidated sales increased 15% to $84.8 million from $73.6 million in the prior year. Foreign currency had a $2.4 million negative effect on the full year results. On a constant-currency basis, sales increased by $13.5 million or 18%. CSP's total cost of sales for Q4 were $16.7 million compared to $12.6 million in Q4 2011. Gross profit for the quarter increased to $5.7 million from $4 million as a result of the higher sales volume. Gross margin was 25% compared with 24% in Q4 2011. The slight increase in margins is attributed to higher systems royalties in Q4 of 2012 versus last year, as well as a higher percentage of sales from our Systems segment. Fourth quarter engineering and development expense was $400,000 compared to $300,000 a year ago. As a percentage of sales, Q4 2012 engineering and development expense was at 1.9% compared to 2% last year. As you may recall, our target range for engineering and development expense is 2.2% to 2.6% of sales. We expect in 2013 that the range will be between 2.4% and 2.7%. SG&A expenses increased to $5 million in the quarter from $3.6 million a year ago. Included in SG&A expenses for the quarter was $1 million from the cash surrender value of a life insurance policy death benefit, which offset the $2.1 million of proceeds from officer's life insurance settlement so that we have a total gain of $1.1 million. Excluding the cash surrender value of the life insurance policy from SG&A, the…

Victor Dellovo

Analyst · Wedbush

Thank you, Gary. We believe there is a significant potential for growth in CSP's business. We have a new 5-pronged strategy to capitalize on those opportunities. The first element of our strategy is to cross-sell our Systems segment MultiComputers with our Service and System Integration software and services to become a more of an end-to-end supplier to our legacy customers, as well as to new customers and new markets. Our Systems segment has historically operated as 2 mutually exclusive businesses, with completely separate products and customers. With the advancements we made in our Service and System Integration business during the past few years, we are now seeing the opportunity to leverage our capability in this segment to enable our Systems segment to become a single-source solution for customers. This includes our traditional defense customers, as well as other government and commercial sector customers. When a customer buys a MultiComputer from our Systems segment, they also need to purchase networking storage and security products from companies such as Cisco, NetApp, EMC and VMware for the back end of the systems. In the past, customers have always made those purchases from other providers. However, these are all parts that MODCOMP can provide. We are taking action to be more fully integrated as a company with our sales, marketing and products so that our customers have the option to have one company configure, install, support and fulfill MultiComputer systems and software. There is no other company that is providing such a comprehensive offering. We've already had initial discussions with some of our customers about this strategic initiative with very positive feedback. Of course, this type of transition does not happen overnight. And we were working very hard to execute on this element of our strategy. We are cross-training salespeople at our Systems business…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Vincent Staunton with Wedbush.

Vincent Staunton

Analyst · Wedbush

Can you provide the operating income for each segment for the quarter?

Gary Levine

Analyst · Wedbush

I don't have it right here, Vince, unfortunately. I can contact you with that.

Vincent Staunton

Analyst · Wedbush

All right, that's fine. Also, in terms of royalty revenue, how much royalty revenues should we expect in fiscal 2013? Just one plane?

Gary Levine

Analyst · Wedbush

Correct. There's only one plane that's been ordered at this point. And we don't believe there'll be any others in the year, at least in talking to our customer.

Vincent Staunton

Analyst · Wedbush

And are you having success in getting new business in the Systems segment? For the quarter, I think you had -- was it $1.8 million in royalties and like $1.3 million in other revenue?

Gary Levine

Analyst · Wedbush

Yes.

Victor Dellovo

Analyst · Wedbush

Yes, we've talked to some of our other customers, and there have been some new potential projects that we have bidded on recently. And you know it takes time for that process to go through.

Vincent Staunton

Analyst · Wedbush

For the reversal of the deferred tax asset valuation allowance, how much profit did you need to anticipate to reverse that?

Gary Levine

Analyst · Wedbush

Well, I mean, basically, within the calculation, obviously, we need to transact the $3 million that we've done over the period. We don't really disclose that calculation. We go through a long projected analysis and look at things, such as the E-2D program and the numbers, but we haven't put that out, Vincent. And we don't give any forward projections. So -- but we believe based on our analysis, that we will have future profitability to cover that entire deferred tax asset and realize those deductions.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Brett Davidson with Investletter.

Brett Davidson

Analyst · Brett Davidson with Investletter

That certainly was quite a bit to digest, and I just have a couple questions for you guys. The SG&A expense -- so back end LLP [ph] expenses, that relates to that insurance?

Gary Levine

Analyst · Brett Davidson with Investletter

Correct.

Brett Davidson

Analyst · Brett Davidson with Investletter

Ends up net at $1.1 million?

Gary Levine

Analyst · Brett Davidson with Investletter

Correct.

Brett Davidson

Analyst · Brett Davidson with Investletter

So the effect on the operating income would have been, then it would have been about $1.2 million prior to tax?

Gary Levine

Analyst · Brett Davidson with Investletter

About $1.1 million prior to tax. That was the gain, yes, $1.1 million.

Brett Davidson

Analyst · Brett Davidson with Investletter

So if we back out the $1.1 million from the $2.3 million leaves us $1.2 million prior to tax? I mean, what -- I don't have the figure offhand, but do you know offhand, Gary, what taxes usually run at, is it upper 30s?

Gary Levine

Analyst · Brett Davidson with Investletter

Yes, between the state and the federal, yes. We have a blended rate that runs and, yes, between 38% and 40%.

Brett Davidson

Analyst · Brett Davidson with Investletter

Got you. Did you guys have any success in buying back shares over the quarter?

Gary Levine

Analyst · Brett Davidson with Investletter

We bought some, very few, in the quarter.

Brett Davidson

Analyst · Brett Davidson with Investletter

But that's still an active program?

Gary Levine

Analyst · Brett Davidson with Investletter

Absolutely.

Brett Davidson

Analyst · Brett Davidson with Investletter

And is that up for renewal or anything? I can't remember how long.

Gary Levine

Analyst · Brett Davidson with Investletter

We have -- we had accruals; I think we got about 200,000 shares left in the buyback.

Brett Davidson

Analyst · Brett Davidson with Investletter

Is that limited by a date?

Gary Levine

Analyst · Brett Davidson with Investletter

No, it's open-ended.

Brett Davidson

Analyst · Brett Davidson with Investletter

And the E-2D, I mean, you guys indicated that you don't have anything yet that there's any activity that will occur in fiscal '13?

Gary Levine

Analyst · Brett Davidson with Investletter

Right.

Brett Davidson

Analyst · Brett Davidson with Investletter

I have seen orders going out for spares and some other activity on that. Do you know offhand, is that the first regular production run that's coming up?

Gary Levine

Analyst · Brett Davidson with Investletter

We haven't been told that -- we don't have any information related to that right now, specifically from our customer. I know there's been a lot of projections, but nothing specific.

Brett Davidson

Analyst · Brett Davidson with Investletter

Do you guys have any indication what that first full regular rate run is going to be at? Is that going to be in the neighborhood of 7 planes, or no?

Gary Levine

Analyst · Brett Davidson with Investletter

We don't really have it. Because of the budget situation, it makes it difficult, and they don't really speak. They just give estimates and projections, but they're all sort of hunkering down, so we don't have any details. And as soon as we're made available, we'll try to make them available for the shareholders.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Sheldon Grodsky with Grodsky Associates.

Sheldon Grodsky

Analyst · Sheldon Grodsky with Grodsky Associates

My question is a partial rerun of the one we just had. But what is the potential maximum of the E-2D program if it comes to fruition? And obviously, this could be the end or just be the beginning. Do you have any sense of where it could go?

Gary Levine

Analyst · Sheldon Grodsky with Grodsky Associates

Well, the fleet, they have 75 planes in the fleet. And initially, they were going to be replacing all of those planes. And at this point, I think the number through the LRIP has been about 14 planes. But there has been nothing put out, whether the whole fleet is going to be completed. But with the budget situation, it's very difficult to follow, and we don't have any visibility at least at our level of that kind of thing at this point. So we're not sure with the rollout and the timing and whether they're going to replace the whole fleet. But the initial concept, the discussion was to replace the whole plane because it's over 20 years old, the aircraft.

Operator

Operator

At this time, we have reached the end of the question-and-answer session. I will now turn the conference back over to Mr. Victor Dellovo for closing comments.

Victor Dellovo

Analyst · Wedbush

Thank you for joining us today, and we look forward to speaking with you all again in Q1 call. Thank you.

Gary Levine

Analyst · Wedbush

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And that concludes our conference call. Thank you for joining us today.