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LightPath Technologies, Inc. (LPTH)

Q3 2016 Earnings Call· Sat, May 7, 2016

$12.09

-4.72%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon and welcome to the LightPath Technologies Fiscal 2016 Third Quarter Financial Results Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Dorothy Cipolla, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

Dorothy Cipolla

Analyst

Thank you and good afternoon. Welcome to LightPath Technologies' fiscal 2016 third quarter financial results conference call. The call today will be hosted by Mr. Jim Gaynor, President and CEO. Following management's discussion, there will be a formal Q&A session open to participants on the call. Before we get started, I would like to remind you that during the course of this conference call, we will be making a number of forward-looking statements that are based on our current expectations and involve various risks and uncertainties that are discussed in our periodic SEC filings. Although we believe that the assumptions underlying these statements are reasonable, any of them can prove to be inaccurate and there can be no assurance that the results will be realized. With that out of the way, it's now my pleasure to introduce Mr. Jim Gaynor, President and CEO of LightPath.

Jim Gaynor

Analyst · Taglich Brothers, please go ahead

Thank you, Dorothy and welcome to everyone who has joined us on the call today. We appreciate your interest in LightPath. As usual, I will open with an overview of operational results, highlights and recent developments and then we'll turn the call over to Dorothy for a more in-depth review of our financials. After some closing remarks, we'll open the call to your questions. For the three months ended March 31, 2016 we turned in another quarter of solid performance that was in line or ahead of our stated operational and internal metrics for the full year. LightPath has continued to execute on its business plan, putting up another excellent quarter. Specifically, revenues increased $29% in the period from the year, against our target of 12% to 16%. Importantly, strategic revenue growth of 93% for the quarter exceeded our target by two times. The Company EBITDA margin and adjusted return on assets of 14% were ahead of our annual target of 13 plus percent and 12-15% respectively as we continue to invest in our growth initiatives and certain higher expenses in the third quarter which were one time in nature. The Company’s top line was driven by strong growth across all our product groups, with particular strength in medical and telecom applications. As discussed in last quarter’s call, we’ve seen interest in our products for use in medical instrumentation, a relatively new market for us, an instance which has been turning into orders and revenue. Revenues from sales of infrared products and infrared non-recurring engineering products NRE increased by more than 69% in the third quarter of fiscal 2016 compared to the third quarter of fiscal 2015. While infrared continues to develop and grow, it was at a smaller pace than we’ve planned for the quarter, but we continue to…

Dorothy Cipolla

Analyst

Thank you Jim. First I'd like to mention that much of the information we're discussing during this call is also included in the press release issued earlier today and on Form 10-Q which we also filed today. I encourage you to visit our website at lightpath.com and specifically the section entitled investor relations. I'll now review financial performance and operational details for our fiscal 2016 third quarter which ended on March 31st. Revenue for the third quarter was 4.1 million an increase of 29% compared to last year. This rate of growth is higher than the rate of growth of 26% from the second quarter of fiscal 2015 against that prior year period. The fiscal 2016 third quarter growth is attributable to an 11% increase in sales of our specialty products and a 577% in sales of non-recurring engineering products of which 381% was for infrared NRE projects. Precision molded optics revenues increased by 28% and infrared product revenues increased by 27% in the quarter as compared to last year. This marks the fourth consecutive quarter where we have experienced year over year increases in sales of both our infrared and precision molded optics lines. In addition to these product groups this is the fourth consecutive quarter in which our NREs increased by over 200%. It is important to note that for our NRE book this is essentially revenues generating engineering and technical R&D which would otherwise have been spent. So when you look at our R&D and product development expenses of about 1 to 2 million per year it really would further add to our intellectual acumen. Moving to our geographic revenue mix, 41% was from the US, 31% was from Asia and 24% was from Europe and 4% was from Rest of World on a geographic mix revenues…

Operator

Operator

Thank you we will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] the first question is from John Noble of Taglich Brothers, please go ahead.

John Noble

Analyst · Taglich Brothers, please go ahead

Hi, good afternoon Jim and Dorothy. Once again good numbers, congratulations on that. I wanted to get some insight into SG&A expenses. The press release said that -- it was increased by about $226,000 due to the normal expenses relating to proxy felicitations another corporate growth and global marketing initiative. So can we assume that SG&A expenses are going to be returning I guess to the $1.5 million to $1.6 million range in Q4?

Jim Gaynor

Analyst · Taglich Brothers, please go ahead

I think that's a good assumption yes John, we had about a couple of hundred thousand dollars of things that I don't think will reoccur. We did that proxy felicitation with the annual meeting and that was a piece of it that was kind of a special event and then we also had a contract with a rep firm that wasn't performing and so we decided to terminate it early and pay some fees so that we could get out of that contract and we think that will -- those fees really don’t amount to anything we wouldn’t have paid them over time but we won't be wasting the time dealing with them.

John Noble

Analyst · Taglich Brothers, please go ahead

Alright, and last call you mentioned interest in your products from medical instrumentation. Could you talk a little about your prospects for this market say over the next 12 to 18 months?

Jim Gaynor

Analyst · Taglich Brothers, please go ahead

Well, you know medical instruments, we've always dabbled in that market segment, it has last quarter our order intake it was the strongest segment in terms of orders coming in across a number of different projects but one in particular where we're getting involved with some companies that are involved in some disposable instruments, and we're making some relatively unique optics that go into those devices and I think that's going to be -- that has a lot of potential going forward and I think that's going to be a very good opportunity and application for us going forward, so that's where most of that is coming from.

John Noble

Analyst · Taglich Brothers, please go ahead

And when you say stronger sort of segment last quarter you're talking about the quarter that just ended, the third quarter.

Jim Gaynor

Analyst · Taglich Brothers, please go ahead

This Q3, yes.

John Noble

Analyst · Taglich Brothers, please go ahead

Okay I just wanted to make sure, it’s Q3 of this year. And you have a nice boost in the specialty product sales. It's basically related to a license agreement, but I was hoping you could talk a little bit about that segment and the prospects for that segment outside of the license agreement what do you expect?

Jim Gaynor

Analyst · Taglich Brothers, please go ahead

Well I think you're going to see continued strength in what we call specialty products which basically are optics that we do some value added work to. I mean that's how we define that product segment internally, so it will be -- it'll be lumpy I think but I think as a percent of our business it’s going to be much larger than it historically has been and will continue to be. We have a number of ongoing projects in there and you know Dorothy outlined some of the strengths that we've seen in our e-type non-recurring engineering which is all development work associated with specific applications for customers and some of those will fall into that specialty product group so I think it’s going to continue at the kind of rates that we have seen in the recent quarters which are you know between that 800,000 and 1.2 million type range depending on how you know the production quantities hit and those projects move through the pipeline.

John Noble

Analyst · Taglich Brothers, please go ahead

Now continuing with -- I'm sorry I didn't catch 800K to was it 1.2 million you believe.

Jim Gaynor

Analyst · Taglich Brothers, please go ahead

Yes, roughly in terms of where we expect the revenue level to be on a quarterly basis.

John Gaynor

Analyst · Taglich Brothers, please go ahead

Okay, that's positive and I have just one last question and I'll --for other people to get on here. In particular are there any new applications for your lenses that you are currently focusing on.

Jim Gaynor

Analyst · Taglich Brothers, please go ahead

Well I guess we're -- I mean again we're doing a lot of engineering development work, I think these disposable type products for medical instruments could fall into that category that's a relatively new application for us. I think you know the infrared as we get into some of these sensing type optics that go into sensors I think that's going to be a new area for us as well as some of the other set devices that that's going into. So I think those are some of the areas that we see some growth in. And we're also investigating some market segments that we think have potential for the future one of those being automotive safety, so there's some automotive applications I mean this could be things that are out there like night vision systems, but we see that but other sensing type applications associated with autonomous automobiles and those kinds of things that are coming down the pipe, so we see that as an area. Again medical instruments is an area of growth and then sensing technology overall I think our three market segments that we’re going to be doing some research in and exploring how we could participate in products that are in those markets and applications. And that’s where we’re strategically driving base business growth.

John Noble

Analyst · Taglich Brothers, please go ahead

And if you can clarify medical instruments, disposable from medical instruments. So we’re talking about endoscopes for the other instruments we’re talking about here.

Jim Gaynor

Analyst · Taglich Brothers, please go ahead

We’re talking about -- it could be in endoscopes or other types of instruments as well.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is from [Jericho Veskosky], a Private Investor. Please go ahead.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

So I want to ask you, do you still seeing strengthening Chinese telecom? And if so do you think that would actually get even stronger in this current quarter, which is after the Chinese New York holiday?

Jim Gaynor

Analyst · Taglich Brothers, please go ahead

I think surprisingly enough, the answer to your question is yes. We’re well aware of the slowdown in the Chinese economy overall. We have been doing quite a bit of work with several major telecom companies in that segment as they expand their work in their networks. So I think we’re seeing continued strength in there which is counter to the trend. But it's broad based across a number of companies and I just recently saw some reports where companies like Lumentum or Clair, Finisar, are having very strong performance and predicting continued strong performance and even in the Chinese market. So, I guess overall those guys continue, those are customers of ours, we provide products into their products. So I think we’re going to see continued strength for the foreseeable future.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

And just to confirm you’re seeing continued strength in this current quarter as well, that’s correct. Right?

Jim Gaynor

Analyst · Taglich Brothers, please go ahead

Yes…

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Okay, moving on to infrared. Is your interest by infrared sales do mostly firefight and in face sensor cameras, or are you moving into the other types of HVAC cameras that you talked about before?

Jim Gaynor

Analyst · Taglich Brothers, please go ahead

I think the current production is still centered around the safety equipment in firefighting cameras, but the newer projects are more in the sensor type applications in markets that we see going forward. So, those haven’t hit the revenue line yet, but as we said we’re doing quite a bit of development work in those things. So we expect to see that in the future.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

So you’re getting orders for NREs is it purchasing or are you getting actual bookings for lenses?

Jim Gaynor

Analyst · Taglich Brothers, please go ahead

Yes, we’re getting quite a bit of NRE work as well as the lens the production lens that’s what we’re seeing is growth in the safety equipment, the NREs are more sensor related and those types of devices.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Now, your gross margin decreased a little bit and your guidance seems to be such that you’re at where the actual range of the guidance now, or should we expect gross margin to normalize a little bit down from here?

Jim Gaynor

Analyst · Taglich Brothers, please go ahead

I think as we said we were off maybe 1 or 2 points from Q2 to Q3. But that’s really mostly related just to the particular mix that shifted -- not shifted, but shift in the individual quarters. But I do agree that and we think that we’re normalized in the high 40s to the low to mid 50s where we expected to gross margin level out and continue.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

And you said something in your remarks that was not about -- you said that your price advantage might decrease a little bit in the future. Could you let me know what you can do to combat that and usually companies that are likely that are leading the storage edge usually find further ways to lead in technology, so they keep their prior prices advantages. And I wanted to ask you specifically if new field in optics, in lenses there is room to increase technological need, or is it the case that once you made spherical lenses that’s the size you can go?

Jim Gaynor

Analyst · Taglich Brothers, please go ahead

I think I guess that’s not an easy question to answer, but I think we’re able to do both. I mean we have some higher volumes high products lines that are very price competitive in the marketplace. And we participate very nicely in that segment of the business because of our low cost structure, and we continue to work on that. And that’s why we’ve taken our precision molded optics and really divided it into two product groups, one we call LVPMO which is low volume precision molded optics and that’s the higher price lower volume higher mix type product line and then we have a high volume PMO which is other than the lower price, very price competitive but much higher volumes that we’ve participated. And so we have those two distinct product segments that we work on. One is more -- it has a certain commodity driven element to it, even though the products are very technical in nature and we’ve been competing on price and we run good margin with that. On the other end of the spectrum and low volume stuff we commend very good prices and very good margins because the products are very customer specific, custom design type things that we participated. So, we see both ends of it. Now the comment is just basically over time particularly what we’re seeing now in infrared area is the market is trying to figure out where it can price things versus the commercial development in applications. And so you see price pressure in a marketplace that’s not fully developed yet. We approach that market. We’ve been developing our product using a molded technology, molded lens technology, which is geared towards the volume production and repetition. So that tends to be more price-driven. And over time as competition improves and efficiencies improve, prices tend to come back. And then what’s happening in that market as the price of the components come down, not just the optics but the sensors and the size of the sensors and cooled versus non-cooled type technology, the applications increase and the volume increase. And so, we’re very excited about that market. We think some imaging devices for example will follow a cost and pricing point very similar to what GPS systems did which were very expensive when they first came out, they got down in that $1,000 price point so it became traveling and automotive applications and today they’re free on your smartphone basically. So, we see thermal imaging devices following a similar costing and pricing type curve. Numbers may not be the same but the trend will be the same. So that’s what we see going on and that’s kind of what we’re referring to.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

That’s good, and you have the capacity to take advantage of this rise in demand?

Jim Gaynor

Analyst · Taglich Brothers, please go ahead

Our cost of capital and our molding process is designed for volume manufacturing. We have low cost operating platforms in China that can produce those kinds of products. And so I think we’re very well positioned to do that and we have capacity of that one.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

And last, anything you can tell us about April, probably your orders coming along? Are you still growing, this still has high book to bill ratio since on?

Jim Gaynor

Analyst · Taglich Brothers, please go ahead

No, I think as we stated, we expect the trends that we have seen in the previous couple of quarters, we don’t see anything that’s changing that in our view at this point.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] I am showing no additional questions. This will conclude our question-and-answer session. I’d like to turn the conference back over to Jim Gaynor for any closing remarks.

Jim Gaynor

Analyst · Taglich Brothers, please go ahead

All right. Thank you. In conclusion, we appreciate the support of our shareholders and the dedication of our global team at LightPath. We remain focused on our efforts to drive diversified revenue and growth and continue to drive benefits from the leverage in our business as we improve our profitability and generation of cash flow. With the progress that has been made and our plans for continued execution, we look forward to delivering long-term profitable growth which may deliver meaningful returns for the benefit of our shareholders. Thanks again and we look forward to speaking with you next quarter.

Operator

Operator

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.