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Gilat Satellite Networks Ltd. (GILT)

Q2 2019 Earnings Call· Sat, Aug 10, 2019

$16.40

-5.58%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Gilat's Second Quarter 2019 Results Conference Call. All participants are in a listen only mode. Following the managements formal presentation instructions will be given for the question-and-answer session. [Operator instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded, August 6, 2019. I would now like to turn the call over to June Filingeri of Comm-Partners LLC to read the safe harbor statement. June, please go ahead.

June Filingeri

Analyst

All right. Thank you. Good morning and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for Gilat's Second Quarter 2019 Conference Call and Webcast. A recording of this call will be available beginning at approximately noon Eastern Time, today, August 6, and will be available for telephone replay until August 9 at noon. The webcast will be archived on the Gilat Web site for a period of 30 days. Also, please note that investors are urged to read the forward-looking statements in Gilat's earnings release with a reminder that statements made on this earnings call that are not historical facts may be deemed forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. As such, forward-looking statements, including statements regarding future financial operating results, involve risks, uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are beyond the control of Gilat and which may cause actual results to differ materially from anticipated results. Gilat is under no obligation to update or alter these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, and the company expressly disclaims any obligations to do so. More detailed information about risk factors can be found in Gilat's reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. With that said, let me turn to introductions. On the call today are Yona Ovadia, Gilat's CEO and Adi Sfadia, Gilat's Chief Financial Officer. I would now like to turn the call over to Yona Ovadia. Yona, we are ready to begin.

Yona Ovadia

Analyst

Thank you, June. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, everybody. Thank you for joining us today. I'm pleased to report that Gilat achieved continued improvement in profitability in the second quarter of 2019 as we continue to focus on building a mix of high-quality revenues through our growth engines of broadband, mobile cellular backhaul and mobility in-flight connectivity. I'm especially pleased to share with you two significant milestones that we have recently announced. First, in the area of in-flight connectivity, we have now entered into the business aviation antenna market segment, and this further strengthens Gilat as a major IFC player in this fast-growing satellite communication market. Secondly, we reached a critical milestone in Peru with approval to enter the operational phase of the three region telecom projects awarded to Gilat in 2015 by Fitel. And I will elaborate more on both of these accomplishments in a few moments. Summarizing our financial performance in the second quarter, GAAP operating income totaled $4.9 million, adjusted EBITDA was $8.9 million and revenues totaled $59.7 million, and we continue to deliver bottom line profitability with GAAP net income of $3.4 million or $0.06 per diluted share. Based on our performance year-to-date and our current outlook, we reiterate our management objectives for 2019, namely revenues ranging between $275 million to $295 million, GAAP operating income of between $23 million and $27 million and adjusted EBITDA between $38 million and $42 million. Moving to the business section and starting with Mobility. As I've discussed with you several times in the past, we view aero antennas, and in the long-term, particularly ESA antennas, to be a key component of our IFC growth engine. I'm pleased to share with you that we have entered the business aviation antenna market with an initial award of tens of millions…

Adi Sfadia

Analyst

Thank you, Yona, and good morning and good afternoon, everyone. I would like to remind everyone that our financial results are presented both on a GAAP and non-GAAP basis. We regularly use supplemental non-GAAP financial measures internally to understand, manage and evaluate our business and to make operating decisions. We believe these non-GAAP financial measures provide consistent and comparable measures to help investors understand our current and future operating performance. Non-GAAP financial measures mainly exclude the effect of stock-based compensation, amortization of purchased intangibles, amortization of lease incentive, litigation expenses or income related to trade secrets claims, reorganization costs, expenses for tax contingencies to be paid under an amnesty program and initial recognition of deferred tax assets with respect to carry forward losses. The consolidation table in our press release highlights this data, and our non-GAAP information presented exclude these items. I will now move to our financial highlights for the second quarter of 2019. Revenues for the second quarter of 2019 were $59.7 million compared to $66.5 million in the second quarter of 2018. Revenues in the previous quarter were $62.1 million. Fixed Networks segment revenues, which includes cellular backhaul revenues, were $30.4 million in the second quarter compared to $36.2 million in the same quarter last year and $36.4 million in the previous quarter. The decrease in revenue is mainly due to lower revenues from the Latin America region, especially due to finalizing our projects in Colombia as well as temporary delays in closing some expected deals. Mobility Solutions segment revenues in the second quarter were $22.6 million compared to $25 million in the same quarter last year and $20.9 million in the previous quarter. Second quarter 2019 revenues were impacted by some delays in shipments from our Wavestream subsidiary, which we expect to catch up within the…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from Gunther Karger of Discovery Group. Please go ahead.

Gunther Karger

Analyst

Yes. The question has to do with tariffs, trade wars and unpredictable trade policies of the United States potentially with the Trump administration regarding China. Does this, in any way, positively or negatively, impact Gilat's business worldwide?

Adi Sfadia

Analyst

No. Actually, we don't feel any pressure from -- or expect any influence of the trade war between China and the U.S., at least not in the near future. Actually, we hope to a bit benefit in it because we are not American company and it will not affect our ability to sell in China. Other than that, we don't see any influence.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Kevin Dede of H.C. Wainwright.

Kevin Dede

Analyst

I was curious about the commercial versus private mix in your aircraft antenna business. I know you talked about great opportunities on both sides, I was just wondering if you could talk to exactly where you're putting your priorities given the interest in the commercial airline fleets in the U.S. and -- versus the large private fleets?

Yona Ovadia

Analyst

Yes. We believe that the business aviation market is more of a blue ocean than the commercial aviation market, and therefore, it's a path to create and win business in that segment would be easier than in the commercial aviation. So we think that we have, right now, more opportunities than the one that we announced in the business aviation. And through that, we want to create a presence in the market. We want to create acknowledgment that Gilat has a leading product, and with that, expand to commercial aviation. Commercial aviation was and remains on our agenda. However, we think that the path to that part of the market is through business aviation where there is, as I said, more of a blue ocean. There is opportunity that we can capture. There is revenue that we can realize, and from there, expand. Both of these markets are part of our long-term plan, but the easier path we thought was through business aviation where we see huge potential and less of offerings, definitely not the best-in-class product that we bring to the table. But I want to start this is on the antenna side. We keep pushing hard on both fronts from the modem perspective. As I mentioned, we have Gogo, we have announced Honeywell, and we believe we'd achieve more wins in the coming months.

Kevin Dede

Analyst

You started to touch on technological differences. I was wondering if you could just kind of convert that to sort of the bandwidths that you have to deal and, right, I mean, obviously, you're not going to need the same throughput on the business side.

Yona Ovadia

Analyst

No, of course not. The business aviation market is, of course, typically private jets, corporate jets, things of that nature. They don't come close to what a commercial flight would use, but they need high quality, no interruptions and a varying degree of connectivity depending on their needs. So the solution we bring to market that we announced earlier this week addresses that part of the business. However, the technology remains the same both on the antenna side as well as on the modem side. The technology that we have can fit business aviation and commercial aviation. It's just a question of the size of the antenna that you put on the airplane and the strength of the modem that you have inside the airplane. From our perspective, the technology we developed and the innovation we bring to the table addresses both markets. We have no issue and no challenges in meeting the demands of both markets, but as I said, the easier path into the market was through business aviation. And we have a significant player that is working with us, so that's the first achievement that we have. I believe more will follow.

Kevin Dede

Analyst

And just from a profitability perspective, are both segments pretty much the same from a margin perspective?

Adi Sfadia

Analyst

In terms of margin, yes, more or less, the margin are the same. I would stress that the antennas margin is a bit lower than margins on baseband because the product significantly more expensive than modems.

Kevin Dede

Analyst

Last question for me, Yona and Adi. The -- congratulations on the work in Peru. I was wondering, if you could offer some insight on how that progress has translated to business development opportunities given that you've been able to help an important partner build a considerable network and prove it. How does that open doors for you?

Adi Sfadia

Analyst

It's opened lot of doors in Peru. There is a lot of demand for bandwidth in the rural areas. This is why the government is investing about $2 billion in putting fiber all across Peru. Now the fact that we managed to get the ATP after about a year delay, the acceptance, and we've recently started the operation, it's going to affect, first of all, our revenue because it's unlocked about $12 million in recurring revenue on a yearly run rate. In addition, the pipeline of services that we can sell over the network is increasing. We could not sell anything because the networks were idle. Now that's working and we see a lot of interest from the local MNOs and other service providers. And I guess, in few months, we'll be able to start selling those services as well.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Michael Hebner of IFS Securities. Please go ahead.

Michael Hebner

Analyst

I was wondering about the cash situation in the balance sheet. And so, I see you used last year, for the 6 months, you had $18 million provided. And this time, you had a negative $2.4 million; and trades payable wrong way $3 million; inventory is wrong way $6 million; advances from customers, wrong way by $8 million. I'd assume the cash is going to be replenished by the $23 million we received in the quarter?

Adi Sfadia

Analyst

Yes. I think you did the math right. Last quarter, since we had to progress in the acceptance in Peru, we had to pay a lot of vendors in order to run and close everything, it's why you see about $12 million decrease in our cash in Peru. But we already got $23 million out of it in July and another $15 million we should get in the coming few weeks. So I think it's decreased, but I guess until the end of the year, we'll continue to see increase in cash generation from operating activity. As for inventory, in my notes, I said that we had some delays in shipments in our Wavestream subsidiary. This caused a bit of inventory increase. Nothing that has worried us. We already see how, we're already seeing these days how they catch up, and I believe they will do all the catch-up until the end of the year. Trade receivables and payables, it's ongoing business, depends on payment terms with each vendor or customer.

Michael Hebner

Analyst

So you got the antenna business, why not the modem business? We have -- who is the competitor there that's getting the modem business?

Adi Sfadia

Analyst

Actually, we are selling full terminal, which includes antenna, box, amplifiers and modem.

Michael Hebner

Analyst

So it's just a package deal?

Adi Sfadia

Analyst

Yes.

Yona Ovadia

Analyst

Yes. It's a full terminal. We sell full terminal, everything included.

Michael Hebner

Analyst

Now like the big picture going forward here, so where do you see, I mean you talked about those things, and so you've got the $200 million or $300 million in revenue $275 million to $295 million, so where do you see the business coming in new markets, new things 5G, whatever? I mean where do you see the growth in the business here?

Adi Sfadia

Analyst

I think that the growth will come from several different vectors. First of all, cellular backhaul is very important growth engine for us both in terms of top line and bottom line. In-flight connectivity with or without the new antenna is a growth engine, and we expect it to continue to grow in the coming few years. In addition, we are aiming to enter into the NGSO. And winning a deal in NGSO means a lot of revenues to Gilat, but it's not something that will happen tomorrow morning. Even if we win tomorrow morning, there is a development time, and it will take time until we see the revenues. In addition, the bread and butter, the broadband services and the product that we are selling, we believe it will continue to grow, not in high double digits but definitely continue to grow.

Michael Hebner

Analyst

Where do you see you're having a distinct advantage where your product is better than the marketplace? Do you have any vision in that front?

Yona Ovadia

Analyst

I think, first of all, from an IFC perspective, our modem is, in our humble opinion, the best in the market. And I think that as we talk today, the number of airplanes flying, as we speak, with a Gilat modem is significantly higher than any other competitor in the marketplace. So we are very proud of our IFC technology. We think it's the best in the market. And the proof is in the fact that Honeywell has selected our product, and we believe we'll get more traction in the market. Now we want to grow and accelerate our growth with IFC, and therefore, we've penetrated the antenna market, and we believe that our antenna for the BA market is the best in the market and significantly, if I may say so. And we are quite proud of the product we have, we developed and the innovation we brought to our customer. We intend to take this product further and to expand later on into the commercial aviation market. This is on the IFC side. On the NGSO side, these are long cycles that will take a long time to win and further time to materialize into revenues. However, we are currently planning a platform that will be, in our opinion, the best in the market for NGSO. NGSO is a huge market. If you look at the number of players in the market, we are starting with mPOWER for FCS and then we have Telesat, we have Amazon, we have OneWeb, we have LEO sat and many others. So the market is very, very significant from our perspective, and we're investing a lot in R&D in order to build the platform that will take a significant portion in that market. This platform, by the way, is also the catalyst for our entry into the next generation of product, which will be 5G-enabled, and we think that there will be short distance between our NGSO platform and 5G. So we are preparing ourselves for that as well. So I think from a technology perspective, I would just summarize it saying that we continue to invest in R&D in significant percentage of our revenues. Currently, we are exceeding, I think, 13% or 14% of our revenue, and we intend to keep it, if not to grow it. And therefore, I don't think that -- I'm not aware of any other players that invests so much in R&D in order to keep our edge and our advantage in the growth engines that we are focused on. So I believe that we will continue to maintain technological advantage compared to other alternatives in the marketplace, which will pave our way into continued growth in the growth vectors that we identified.

Michael Hebner

Analyst

Did I see on your balance sheet -- I mean on the statement that your R&D spending was actually down over...

Adi Sfadia

Analyst

Yes. It's not down. In some cases, we need to categorize R&D cost as cost of goods sold in case we are providing some development services uniquely to a specific customer and he pays for that. So this quarter, we had some revenue that required R&D to invest and it's part of COGS. I believe that even starting from next quarter, we'll see R&D in the same ratio you saw in the previous quarter.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. We have a follow-up question from Gunther Karger of Discovery Group.

Gunther Karger

Analyst

The question deals with the recent military order from the U.S. Army. It's been some time since Gilat has gotten business in this sector, and I'm just wondering if this order was a one-shot thing. Or is it the beginning of a reentry or a resurgence in that particular military market?

Adi Sfadia

Analyst

Yes, Gunther, actually, it's a good question. First of all, it's a very important order for us. Indeed, the U.S. military and defense, in general, wasn't a growth engine in the last few years, but we are still serving this market. We haven't announced a lot of deals, but we're still serving this market. This is important deal, and it looks like a new beginning. I can't say it's going to be the next growth engine, but no doubt there is a lot of budget spending in the U.S., and we have plans to take different parts of it.

Gunther Karger

Analyst

A follow-up on that, if I may. The U.S. is one market, and what the policy has been evolving under the Trump administration is trying to get other countries that participate and then in programs to pick up an increased share of their expenses and commitments. So what I'm asking here is, does this increase worldwide in defense spending at the expense of possibly a reduction in foreign military aid by the U.S. have any positive impact on your business?

Adi Sfadia

Analyst

No. Currently, we don't see any impact on our business.

Operator

Operator

There are no further questions at this time. Before I ask Mr. Adi Sfadia to go ahead with his closing statement, I would like to remind my participants that a replay of this call is scheduled to begin 2 hours after the conference. In the U.S., please call 1 (888) 326-9310. In Israel, please call 03-925-5900. Internationally, please call 972-3-925-5900. Mr. Sfadia, would you like to make your concluding statement?

Adi Sfadia

Analyst

I want to thank you all for joining us on this call and for your time and attention. We hope to see you soon or speak to you in our next call. Thank you very much, and have a great day.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. This concludes Gilat's Second Quarter 2019 Results Conference Call. Thank you for your participation. You may go ahead and disconnect.