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Eve Holding, Inc. (EVEX)

Q3 2023 Earnings Call· Tue, Nov 7, 2023

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to the Eve Air Mobility Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Lucio Aldworth Director of Investor Relations. Thank you, sir. You may begin.

Lucio Aldworth

Analyst

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone. This is Lucio Aldworth, the Director of Investor Relations at Eve, and I wanted to welcome everyone to our third quarter 2023 earnings conference call. I have here with me, our newly appointed Board Member, Jerry DeMuro, our new CEO, Johann Bordais, our CFO, Eduardo Couto, as well as our Chief Engineer, Luiz Valentini. After their initial remarks, we are going to open the call for questions. And we do have a deck with a few additional slides and more information on our website at ir.evermobility.com. So please feel free to download it and follow along. Let me just start by saying, that this presentation includes forward-looking statements or statements about events or circumstances that have not yet occurred. These are largely on our current expectations and projections about future events and financial trends affecting our business and our future financial performance. These statements are subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions, including, among other things, general economic, political and business conditions both in Brazil and in our markets. The words, believe, may, will, estimates, continues, anticipates, intends, expects and similar words are intended to identify forward-looking statements. And we undertake no obligation to update publicly or revise any of those forward-looking statements because of new information, future events or other factors. In light of these risks and uncertainties the future events and circumstances discussed in this presentation might not occur. Our actual results could differ substantially from those anticipated in our forward-looking statements. With that, I will now turn the presentation over to Jerry. Jerry?

Gerard DeMuro

Analyst

Thanks, Lucio, and good morning, to everyone. Before we dive into the third quarter results, I want to say that it has been a distinct privilege to have worked with the incredible Eve team for the past two years. And the deal with Zanite through listing on the New York Stock Exchange, in our critical startup phase with our structure and operating model with our partner, Embraer well established. The program is now progressing at pace and we have created irreversible momentum. It is the right time to step aside for someone who is so well prepared and uniquely qualified to leave Eve through its next phase. As Lucio mentioned, I will be moving to the Board of Directors and Andre Stein and myself have passed the baton to Johann Bordais. Johann is a proven Senior Executive with an incredible record of success, building and operating multibillion dollar global businesses within the aviation sector. With his proven track record, and direct experience with our major partner Embraer, Johann will be a tremendous asset and leader for Eve. With that, I will now turn it over to our new leader, Johann Bordais. Johann, welcome.

Johann Bordais

Analyst

Thanks, Jerry. After being on the job for 60 days, let me start by saying how happy I am to host, this first earnings conference call and share this moment with such an accomplished team. I'm proud and impressed by all of what they have achieved and I know that it is much more to go. This is a reason why I'm here, to carry the torch and ensure Eve breaks the market the best in class aircraft, but also services to transform the Eve Air Mobility on the global scale. Having said that, we continue to make progress in the development of our suite of products and service for the UAM market. Last quarter, we announced the definition of our aircraft architecture. And since then, we have taken important steps in the development of our project. We started to build several components of our first full scale prototype, such as the wings and its many structural parts, the harness to integrate sensors and systems via the aircraft and the fuselage. We also launch what we call this joint definition phase, a JDP. This is important because this is when our engineers interact closely with their counterparts from the suppliers that we have selected, obviously, and we go over the minute details on how each component will work and interact with each other with a seamless and integrated system. Ultimately, we're developing a lift and cruise aircraft that will be simple to fly and maintain. And this is one of our main differentiators in this market. I have no doubt about this. Moving to Slide 3. It shows to you some of the components, I’ve just mentioned before we started and come together, I'm really thrilled. I mean, it shows you know the recent wind tunnel tests, we conducted with…

Eduardo Couto

Analyst

Thanks, Johann. Now moving to Slide 8, Eve is a pre operational company, and our financial results reflect mostly the costs associated with the development of our eVTOL in our solutions to the urban air mobility market. Starting with income statement highlights, we invested $28.6 million during the third quarter '23 n our program development, versus $40 million a year ago. The majority was invested to develop our eVTOL and a portion in service and support solutions in the urban air traffic management system. On top of development expenses, we also spent $5 million in SG&A this quarter, compared to $7 million last year. But keep in mind that we incurred several non-recurring expenses last year, and when those are excluded, SG&A is actually growing, as we now have a bigger corporate structure and a more mature development program. Eve also reported $4 million in financial income during the third quarter, twice as much as last year, mostly due to higher interest rates. We have a very conservative financial policy and invest our cash in short term depositors with first grade banks. With that, we reported a net loss of $31 million in the third quarter of 2023. Now moving to cash flow, our operations consumed $22.4 million in the quarter versus $16.8 million last year. Attributed mostly to higher R&D expenses. It's important to say that we are intensifying our tests with different rigs to test systems and components, wind tunnel tests to validate our models for aerodynamic drag and efficiency, and now are assembling our first full scale prototype, which involves supply payments, so it's natural our cash consumption increase. Finally, our cash consumption in the first nine months of the year was 70 million. This is almost twice the cash consuming the same period last year. With…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. [Operator Instructions] One moment please while we pole for questions. Thank you. Our first question comes from a line of Savy Syth with Raymond James, please proceed with your question.

Savanthi Syth

Analyst

Hey, good morning, everyone. And maybe a first question for Johann here. The team is clearly executing on the plan. And just kind of curious with your kind of leadership, what do you see as your priorities?

Johann Bordais

Analyst

Well, thanks, Savy. Yes, 60 days on the job and I can clearly see that the team is passionated about what they're doing. And then we're really with a big mission of reimagining the urban mobility. And it takes you know, a big know how. And I think it's not only about the -- and I've been mentioning, this is not about the vehicle, but it's also about the whole ecosystem, the service and support. And I think this is what I'm going to be coming in. And we're at the time where we need to execute the plan. And definitely on the short term, I want to -- with the team continue to develop the focus on the development of eVTOL for certification, and also preparing the internet service, which we're planning for '26. We will work also with UAM ecosystem, as I mentioned early on, because it's all about making the operators a success, right, not only Eve, by certifying and delivering those aircraft and the solution but also who's going to be starting, taking deliveries and operate the eVTOL. So I think we need to continue to understand what's going to be our priority and the first operators for 2026. So then afterwards, we can replicate this model to other cities around the world.

Savanthi Syth

Analyst

That makes sense. And, and if I might on the services and operations deals that are set up with certain customers. Could you talk a little bit about how those are set up, and what the driver is, are those kind of like power by the hour, what's the kind of the length of the contract and any kind of high level of clarity on what those deals look like?

Johann Bordais

Analyst

Sure. Eve was really successing and delivering a product that will be at a high level of operation, we're not talking to only about substituting helicopters or sightseeing, obviously, it's going to be one of the application. But what we're looking for also is the commuting, is the inter-urban shuttle, and that requires a very high mature operation. And it takes both operators and the OEM, and also the rest of the ecosystem, whether it's the energy provider, whether it's work support that we'll be setting up. And I think customers are starting to understand this, when they start to look at what's going to be the first route that they will operate and their feet on the ground. And then we make sure they have their feet on the ground, also to say, look, we're going to be using the existing ecosystem, the existing infrastructure, but also we'll have to scale up, we'll have to come up with work support where today there is none. And when you understand this, you want to make sure that the operation is well backed up. And this is exactly what we're doing based on the Embraer model. And I've been having the pleasure to lead for the last 20 years. There's two things that the operators will always ask Eve is the availability of the aircraft, and the optimized operating cost. Those are two guarantees that the operator wants. Beautiful aircraft reliable, that will be delivered on time for the internet service, yes. But afterwards, it needs to be available, and also with the operating costs. And this exactly what the solution that we've been working on and development and the base. And I agree with you, you mentioned, some power by the hour, a total support package, full executive care program, whatever we're going to name it, it needs to be guaranteeing the availability and the operating costs. And that's what the operators will want. Just to ensure there’s also make money right at the end of the day. That's important.

Savanthi Syth

Analyst

So to clarify that, so that's what the deals offer is just some level of kind of guarantee and then support to kind of get to scalability?

Johann Bordais

Analyst

Yes, full solution on MRO, on the spare parts solution also, exchange program on the spare parts, on expandable, the training, a turnkey solution, we want to take it to the next level. I firmly believe that Eve should be an urban solution, a turnkey, its urban solution, as a service. Right as you go, you pay as you use. And I think this is where we're going and strong from the experience of Embraer and by the way, on all the segments, whether it's executive segment, aviation segment, if it's commercial, or even defense eventually, they all looking for this availability and the operating cost control. So all our solutions are based on this. Not even though you're talking about the predictive solution that we've been delivering, delivering an Embraer for so many years, predict the unpredictable. So that's also a solution. And the suppliers that we just announced, such as Garmin, and Avionics will have this ability to also predict what's coming up and make sure again, that operation is at the at the maximum at the top.

Savanthi Syth

Analyst

Interesting. All right. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from a line of Conor Walters [ph] with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Hi, guys, thanks for taking my question. Having completed the final design configuration in Q2 and initiated the prototype build in Q3, can you just walk us through the next steps on the road towards the IS? And maybe what you see as your largest hurdle moving towards the initial test campaign next year?

Gerard DeMuro

Analyst

Well, thanks. Thanks for the question. As you said, I mean, we're really focused now on getting the full scale with our prototype, where we started as you could see the pictures, and the first parts and pieces that come together. That's one part of the full scale prototype that we're building up. In parallel what we've done and we're still doing is selecting down via suppliers. So we have what we call the G0, the G1, the G2 and the G3 that will come along. So both for the prototypes, but also mainly and more important for the Siri [ph] vehicle. And then yes, we'll have this full scale prototype being assembled. And it's happening now. And we can start early next year, or during the course of next year, we'll do the best thing. Okay.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Got it. That's very clear. And maybe on a similar note, what is the path forward for the ATM software development looks like between now and the beginning of customer trials? Maybe just what should we be watching to better understand your progress here?

Johann Bordais

Analyst

Well, this is based on strong from the experience that we have on the Atech, the company the part of Embraer Group, we have had long history, the ATM system in Brazil is based and is using the software that Atech and the Embraer group has been developing strong from this. And also, with the operators and talents that we've hired at Eve, we've been coming up with a few releases. So we're at the second release, now that we've been, as a matter of fact, next week, we will be starting some test with operators. Okay. And, and then next year, we'll go for a third and the fourth release. And hopefully, we'll be able to get one of our operators adopted helicopter customers that could start to operate it even before the eVTOL comes in. And I don't know maybe Valentini, if you want to add something.

Luiz Valentini

Analyst

Sure, so, good morning. So, as Johann mentioned, the next steps that I think everyone can look for is further integration with potential operators of this system. And so, we are working together with them to make sure that the solutions that are developed will be valuable to them and help solve problems that are actually faced by them this at this time with their current systems. Another point is that the system is comprised of several modules, for example, some that are more specifically towards the infrastructure on the ground, others that are more directed to operator’s functions. So, we will see also these individual functions be adopted separately if they are valuable to customers. So, this is also something that can be looked for in the future.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Got it. That's very helpful. Thank you for taking my question.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from line of Cai von Rumohr with TD Cowen, please proceed with your question.

Cai von Rumohr

Analyst · TD Cowen, please proceed with your question.

Yes, thank you so much and Johann, welcome. So, first question, I guess for you, Luiz. You know, as you know, the FAA is proposing side by side pilot training for in-flight training, which is really at this point incompatible with your pilot’s setup and the same for Archer and Ehang, and Joby and they also are acquiring relative calling for at least at this point, relatively stiff diversion requirements 30 minutes for VFR. What is the position as you understand it, that ANAC is taking and what kind of resolution do you see coming out of this issue?

Luiz Valentini

Analyst · TD Cowen, please proceed with your question.

Good morning, Cai. So, this is a very important topic of discussion with the authorities both with the FAA, but also with ANAC, as you mentioned, so, NAC is the primary authority for the Eve development that is in terms of the certification of the vehicle, but then in terms of the operation, the vehicle will follow local operational rules. So, for the vehicles for operating the U.S., they will follow what is today published as the as far but then that will be turned in the future into new operational part with requirements from the FAA. What ANAC is doing is trying as much as they can both in terms of certification requirement but also in terms of operation to be aligned with the FAA and also with EASA in Europe, so that we can have similar requirements. Again, both for certification and operation for all of the vehicles not only the one that we Eve is developing here in Brazil and B, will be operated worldwide, but also vehicles developed in other countries that will be operated in Brazil. Both the examples you gave in terms of pilot training, and today the need for flight hours and pilot training but also the reserves the requirements, they were very questioned in the process of publishing the requirements made by the FAA. So, this is something that I feel is very much under discussion. Today, currently the FAA is in the process of reviewing the industry's comments, and publishing the final rule, which is expected in the case of the [indiscernible] by the end of next year, right. So we expect to see evolution on these requirements. And we also see that both ANAC and EASA have contributions to make that are different with respect to was published by the FAA and the [indiscernible] for public commenting. So Cai, I believe that there will be significant evolution on these topics that you mentioned, and that the end result will be similar, or at least as aligned as the authorities can make them once they are finalized and published that’s final rule.

Cai von Rumohr

Analyst · TD Cowen, please proceed with your question.

Terrific. Thank you very much. And Johann, on the service, both you and Archer have united as a customer, I think it's your biggest customer. And in talking with Archer, they have said you know that they might have you do the maintenance of their vehicles? Could you give us some color on this $540 million customer at six or seven customers? Basically, where's that business coming from? What are your key targets? Is it basically servicing united? Is that the biggest one or you know, give us some color in terms of where that business is? And who are the key customers we should be looking at?

Johann Bordais

Analyst · TD Cowen, please proceed with your question.

Well. Thanks for the question. Yes, the fact that United has been asking also Archer, to get in touch with us, it really proves that united sees how important and all the other customers as I was mentioning early on, the operation is as much as important as the vehicle the developing and we understand that we have a competitive advantage when it comes to the knowledge, also the footprint that we will have right away, we'll have the backup or Embraer and using also the business model that they have been developing, and it will allow us to have multiple internet service around the world. And we've been in talks, yes, with Archer, nothing to mention here in more detail. But I think, again, you know, the whole industry understand that it takes more than two EASA and addition of a new type certificated aircraft. It takes way more than this. And I think this is you know, what everybody is really come to this consensus, let's say. So, and we position Eve, position ourselves as one of the leader and the one that understand very well, what we get against in those coming years when it comes to internet service, it's going to be a challenge, and we're up for it. And yes, the market understands that.

Cai von Rumohr

Analyst · TD Cowen, please proceed with your question.

Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from line of Andres Sheppard with Cantor Fitzgerald, please proceed with your question.

Andres Sheppard

Analyst · Cantor Fitzgerald, please proceed with your question.

Hi. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking our question. And Johann, welcome aboard. Excited to work with you. Maybe just as our first question, was hoping to get maybe a little more detail regarding the test flight campaign beginning in 2024. Curious if you can maybe give us a little more detail as to kind of how you expect that to ramp up and particularly as you continue to ramp up into pilot test flights, just curious if you can maybe give us a little more granularity there. Thank you.

Johann Bordais

Analyst · Cantor Fitzgerald, please proceed with your question.

Okay, well if you don't mind, Andres, I will pass on to Valentini. I'm sure I'm going to give you the same information that gave you and that you're looking for a bit more insight. So Valentin, he will give you a more detail there.

Luiz Valentini

Analyst · Cantor Fitzgerald, please proceed with your question.

Sure, so the vehicle is an unmanned vehicle, so we will not progress to a man flights with this vehicle and it's a vehicle that has some simplifications with respect to the systems when it's compared to what we will put out as the commercial vehicle. So with these two characteristics, it will help us to speed up what we think as a test campaign that helps us understand the flight characteristics of this vehicle, the noise characteristics of the vehicle in flight and also the transition from hover to cruise and then of course from cruise to hover flight right. So, these characteristics we can explore with simplified systems again, since the vehicle is a full scale vehicle and its representative in terms of the configuration. But simplifying the flight test campaign, with the fact that we don't have a person on board, which, again requires us to have more care as we progress, the flight test campaign. And also we have a simpler vehicle in terms of systems, we can progress that more the flights more easily. So the idea is this flight test campaign will contribute to the development of flight control laws, to us understanding flight dynamics, and contribute that with the maturity of the vehicle as it goes into flight test campaign with the commercial representative prototypes, and 2025.

Andres Sheppard

Analyst · Cantor Fitzgerald, please proceed with your question.

Got it. That's super helpful. I appreciate that. And maybe just as a quick follow up, in the past, you've talked about ramping up the service and support revenue stream, maybe prior to certification. I'm just curious, you know, Hanks certification in China and some of the other OEMs targeting 2025. What are kind of some of the efforts or things being put in place to ramp up the service and support revenue stream? Is that something that continues to be a priority and a way to potentially produce some revenues prior to certification? Just curious on any updates on that front? Thank you.

Johann Bordais

Analyst · Cantor Fitzgerald, please proceed with your question.

Thanks, Andres. Yes, well, the priority is definitely just to get the prototype next year and getting the test to ground as Valentina has been talking about and get the internet service in 2026. Yes, the possibility, especially on the UTM. That could be agnostic. That's, that's also a possibility. I think we will do it on opportunistically based and not just going after it, because of the bandwidth because of the resources. And we really want to make sure that our solution is the one and may not be the first one, but it'll be the right one. So, I think well I was mentioned before, there's other eVTOL OEMs or looking and getting in touch with us also when it comes to serving support. But as you could see the $540 million, we put it aside because we understand that this will be and it's representing seven customers within all the customers that we have. It is an opportunity that customers want. Big agnostic for the moment. No opportunities, we're focused on our solution.

Andres Sheppard

Analyst · Cantor Fitzgerald, please proceed with your question.

Wonderful. Thanks again, appreciate you taking the question. I'll pass it on. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Austin Moeller with Canaccord Genuity. Please proceed with your question.

Austin Moeller

Analyst · Canaccord Genuity. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, good morning. Can you discuss the safety rating that you're certifying to both ANAC and the FAA, I know the FAA has specifically gone with a 10 to the negative 7, safety rating and Eocene the Civil Aviation Authority are going with 10 to the negative 9? So like other commercial aircraft, so how do you expect you the safety certification for your aircraft to impact the portability of it as an asset internationally with both airlines and the aircraft lessors?

Johann Bordais

Analyst · Canaccord Genuity. Please proceed with your question.

Thanks, Austin, I'll defer to Valentini

Luiz Valentini

Analyst · Canaccord Genuity. Please proceed with your question.

Sure, so what we have in mind that the vehicle will be operated worldwide. So we have to be able to certify with all of the certification authorities where the vehicle will be operated, and we would like to have as much as possible a vehicle that is common within all of the certification authority. So, we just to making that more clear, we want to avoid having a version that is for operation in the U.S. and then another one that is for operation in Europe and other version or somewhere else and so, the idea is that as much as we can we are making one vehicle that will be certified and operated in all these places. So, we with the safety level as an example, we are designing a vehicle that we will be able to operate and certified before that and all of the certification authorities. So we are following what EASA is putting out as requirements, but also discussing the other aspects of the safety level in general. One of them is as you mentioned is the probability of failures for catastrophic events. But there are many other aspects about the architecture, the similarities, redundancies and things like that, that we are working together with the authorities to make sure that whatever we design and we certify at having ANAC as primary certification authorities will also be accepted by other authorities in the world.

Austin Moeller

Analyst · Canaccord Genuity. Please proceed with your question.

Okay, that's helpful. Do you expect the 60 mile range on your EV tool to be sufficient to meet most urban air mobility use cases, despite the FAA battery reserve requirements of 30 minutes?

Johann Bordais

Analyst · Canaccord Genuity. Please proceed with your question.

So Cai, so kind of mentioned about the reserves requirement, this is something that it's still under discussion. So we don't have today a final rule on what will be, even though the as far currently states the same regulation for the part '23 airplane, right, so part 135, airplane operation, by 135. We, at the same time that we discussed the regulation, we are also studying what the missions will be for the urban air Mobility, we believe that typically the missions will be much shorter, so we don't expect to be executing the 60 mile missions all the time. And we expect to be mostly around the 30-mile distance mission that we think covers the urban air mobility function that our vehicle has been designed to and that our business case is based on, right. So we are designing the vehicle very much for this mission, and making all of the technical decisions that are directed toward this urban mobility mission, which again, is comprised mostly of the shorter missions than we were, for example, target, regional air mobility or something like that. So we believe that the longer missions will be possible, but again, the actual reserve requirements is still under discussion with the authorities.

Austin Moeller

Analyst · Canaccord Genuity. Please proceed with your question.

Great, thanks for all the details.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from a line of Marvin Fong with BTIG. Please proceed with your question.

Marvin Fong

Analyst · BTIG. Please proceed with your question.

Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. And welcome, Johann. Just one for me. I apologize. I missed the prepared remarks. But I did want to follow up again on the $540 million solution, potential solution revenue. So my question was, could you just kind of -- so should we expect the margin profile for this revenue to be kind of similar to the maintenance rent and service revenue that Embraer was able to generate? Or could you kind of speak to the economics of that and just sort of like, what the contractual terms are like, are these multiyear agreements? Or how long do they run? Thanks so much.

Johann Bordais

Analyst · BTIG. Please proceed with your question.

Thanks, Marvin, for the question. Do you want to answer it, when it comes to the margin side?

Luiz Valentini

Analyst · BTIG. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, Marvin. Yes, in general, you know, as you said, right service and support business, they tend to have better profitability, higher margins. The agreements that we have been closing with all these suppliers that we announced recently, they're also going in that direction. Eve is going to be the face to the customer. So we're going to be providing services and support, we're going to be providing the parts and our expectations. Of course, we're still few years from entering to service. But given these binding agreements, right, we are closing long term binding agreements with suppliers, which sometimes is a little bit different from some other players that have more short term agreements or our agreements are really long term. We those contracts, they indicate that we're going to have good profitability on the service and support side and to believe that our profitability is going to be similar to what we see on Embraer, for me seems a reasonable assumption at this point.

Marvin Fong

Analyst · BTIG. Please proceed with your question.

Yes. Thank you for this.

Johann Bordais

Analyst · BTIG. Please proceed with your question.

And the way those contracts, obviously, they're conditioned, the fact that we'll have to deliver and certify and deliver also the vehicle, but definitely looks at the internet service. So that's what we structure them. They focus on the extra support at the beginning and the ramp up of experience on the operation. And then afterwards, getting really focused on depending on what the operators got also his own in house capabilities. So we have this flexibility to adapt. It's almost like cart. Okay, as usually based would the spare parts that's the backbone of the support and service that we offer and just to guarantee the availability of the parts along with the suppliers. And I think you do really spot on when you mentioned that, the contract that we're signing with the suppliers includes a lifetime cycle of the operation not only just the prototype development or until the first entry to service, it's really about the whole operation. And yes, this is what the customers have been looking at and seeing a lot of value on this right, and this is why the customers are engaging right away.

Marvin Fong

Analyst · BTIG. Please proceed with your question.

Thanks so much, guys.

Operator

Operator

We have no further questions. At this time, I'd like to turn the floor back over to management for closing comments.

Lucio Aldworth

Analyst

Thank you, Christine. And I wanted to thank everyone who joined the call today and for your questions. We look forward to updating you on our upcoming milestones in the upcoming quarters. And in the meantime, if you do have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out via email or phone and I will be more than glad to talk to all of you. Thank you so much. Have a good day.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation and have a wonderful day.