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Orion Energy Systems, Inc. (OESX)

Q4 2013 Earnings Call· Wed, May 22, 2013

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Orion Energy’s Fourth Quarter 2013 Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session with instructions following at that time. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I’ll now turn the conference over to, Scott Jensen, Chief Financial Officer. Please begin.

Scott Jensen

Management

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for the Orion Energy Systems’ fourth quarter and fiscal 2013 year-end conference call. Once again, my name is Scott Jensen, Chief Financial Officer. With me on the call today is John Scribante, Chief Executive Officer. As a reminder, the earnings press release issued today once again includes a section that briefly discusses the supplemental information document that was posted to the company’s website. This supplemental information document provides additional details and analysis on Orion’s financial performance for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ended March 31, 2013. Additionally, several slides that highlight key metrics from the company’s financial and operational performance for the same time period have also been posted to the company’s website. I will now read the Safe Harbor statement. Our remarks that follow, including answers to your questions, include statements that we believe to be forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are generally identified as such because the context of such statements will include words, such as believe, anticipate, expect or words of similar import. Similarly, statements that describe future plans, objectives, or goals are also forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks that could cause actual results to be materially different. Those risks include among others matters that we have described in our press release issued this afternoon and in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as described in these filings we disclaim any obligation to update these forward-looking statements, which may not be updated until our next quarterly conference call if at all. And now, I would like to turn the call over to John Scribante, Chief Executive Officer of Orion Energy Systems.

John Scribante

Management

Good afternoon everybody. Thank you for joining our call. Today, I'll begin with a brief overview of our results for the quarter. Then I'll discuss our pending transaction with Harris Manufacturing. Third, I'll give you an update on the progress we’ve made against our strategic initiatives. And finally I'll detail some of our more longer term priorities. By all accounts, we ended our fiscal 2013 in a much stronger position than when we began. Our improving financial results in the second half of our fiscal year that is consistent year-over-year revenue growth, substantial earnings improvement and a strengthening balance sheet. These all are direct results of the execution of our short-term plan to realign and expand our sales force, increase our fiscal discipline and streamline our operations. Turning to our results, the fourth quarter was a great quarter for Orion by delivering very solid performance. Specifically, revenue increased 4% over 2012 to $22.3 million and our core lighting product revenues increased 10%, marking it the first time in six quarters that we grew our revenues in this segment, and our GAAP earnings per share were $0.03 versus a loss of $0.01 last year. And most significantly, our fourth quarter performance marks the second consecutive quarter of improving both revenues and profitability. So continuing with our financial position, we finished the fourth quarter with approximately $14.4 million in cash and generated $2.3 million in free cash flow. With cash, equity and total assets relatively unchanged, we reduced our debt 11% compared to the prior quarter. Continued execution of our purchasing strategies and financial discipline led to across the board reductions in all significant inventory product categories, and inventory level decreased 10% from our third quarter and 12% from our prior year-end. Overall, these improving results were driven by our diligence and…

Scott Jensen

Management

Thank you, John. Consistent with our prior earnings announcement we've provided additional content within the supplemental information document which was posted to our website earlier this afternoon covering our fourth quarter and fiscal year 2013 performance. Accordingly I will not spend time on the call walking you down the P&L on a line by line basis, but I do want to address some of our key areas. We're very pleased with our results for the fiscal 2013 fourth quarter. Revenue of $22.3 million exceeded our prior year fourth quarter by 4%. Additionally, we experienced improved gross margins due to manufacturing cost containment initiatives and favorable contract cost management related to our solar projects. Our cost containment measures have also positively impacted our operating expenses. Although the full impact of these reductions continues to be offset by legacy legal expenses related to the SEC solar restatement inquiry and other legacy legal matters. These legal costs increased our fourth quarter G&A expenses by $340,000. Additionally, we experienced higher insurance cost due to increasing premium rates, which will increase our G&A expenses by 200,000 during fiscal 2014. Despite these expense increases, our profit of $0.03 per diluted share for the fourth quarter was greatly improved over our prior year’s $0.01 loss per share in the fourth quarter. We finished fiscal 2013 with a $0.50 loss per share. This loss can be broken down in three significant areas. First, the valuation allowance against our deferred tax assets impacted us by $0.19 per share on a non-cash basis. Reorganization cost due to the management change that occurred in September impacted us by $0.10 per share and our first half fiscal 2013 results excluding the previously mentioned unusual charges resulted in $0.27 per share loss. Our revenue for the fourth quarter included 3.6 million or approximately…

John Scribante

Management

Thanks, Scott. To sum up, our continued commitment to succeed was evident in our fourth quarter results. And as we build upon two consecutive quarters of robust performance, we firmly believe that we have established an even stronger foundation for future success and quarter that success is our sustained focus on innovation, financial discipline and operational excellence. Operator, we will take calls at this time.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) First question is from Steve Shaw of Sidoti. Your line is open. Steve Shaw - Sidoti & Company: Why was the acquisition so cheap in terms of Harris sale numbers?

John Scribante

Management

I think we certainly saw value in the Harris acquisition and we felt good about the price that we paid. We see a lot of opportunity and return on our investment related to their sales force, their customer relationships and their product, which really rounds out some areas where we had gaps in our product portfolio. Steve Shaw - Sidoti & Company: And then, does Harris rely on capital spending as much as Orion does?

John Scribante

Management

So Harris does certainly sell into commercial, industrial, government. So they do have some of the challenges that we have related to capital spending. I think the one thing that they have done very well is to be able to enter into some longer-term commitments with customers, some key customer accounts and they are able to generate that revenue over multi-year periods where we have struggled sometimes within our national accounts to get sustained, consistent year-over-year revenue. It becomes little more capital budget sensitive. Steve Shaw - Sidoti & Company: And what percentage of Harris’ sales are LED products?

Scott Jensen

Management

Yeah, I think it's a small percent right now. Although with this innovation as they come forth with, we are anticipating it to be a large portion as we go forward. It's a very complementary product to our existing lines and historically their sales has been a lot of the same types of customers that ours have been and so LED is a great opportunity for both of us. I think for both companies LED is going to be a significant growth driver here. Steve Shaw - Sidoti & Company: And John, can you just go over the LDR product one more time quickly?

John Scribante

Management

Sure, you mean in terms of its functionality? Steve Shaw - Sidoti & Company: Yeah.

John Scribante

Management

And its play, well it’s for general offices, it replaces your standard two-foot by four-foot or two-foot by two-foot fluorescent fixture. We replaced the fluorescent with LED, but the most significant part about this and it's very unique in the marketplace and that is you have got two things that makes it significant. One is the time, and by the way, there is a YouTube video out there that will highlight this, but the time that it takes to replace a entire fixture versus just a swing door, so typically the swing door usually just includes the lens. In the LDR, it actually includes not only the lens, but all of the electronics and the guts of the LED fixture. So all you’re doing is taking the lens off and replacing it with the LDR as opposed to having to remove the entire fixture, which is more labor intensive; it creates a lot of dust and disruption in the workplace. And then finally in a lot of these offices and older installations, if you are getting above the ceiling grid you’ve got contaminants like asbestos and other things you have to be concerned with. It is historically prohibited or at least slowed down a lot of our customers from making these changes. So this solves all of those problems and squarely puts us in a position from a cost point of view, total installed cost, and then just the disruption factor for customer. Steve Shaw - Sidoti & Company: Okay. And then Scott, how might the Harris acquisition affects operating expenses in the back half of 2014 as you guys integrate?

Scott Jensen

Management

Yeah, so what we expected in the back half of 2014, we will have some synergies, some costs that can be shared, but at this time Steve honestly we are not quite prepared to get into all of that detail.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Our next question is from (George Caspar) [ph].

Unidentified Participant

Analyst

Congratulations on obvious progress that you have been making in the last several months, that is very good news. Just a little additional on the acquisition if I may, in terms of the square footage associated with Harris, what do they have in terms of manufacturing space and can you outline whether sales are generated geographic basis relative to their location?

John Scribante

Management

They have, I am just generalizing here but probably about 40,000 square feet of manufacturing warehouse and front office and that's located in the Jacksonville area and their sales much like Orion’s are really across domestic US and a little bit throughout North America but its primarily the same market that Orion serves.

Unidentified Participant

Analyst

As you move toward conclusion of the acquisition, do you have some type of strategy that maybe you could manufacture their products at both the Florida location and your location in Manitowoc?

John Scribante

Management

Sure. We are still working on really the strategy on the integration. We do see that there are operational and manufacturing synergies in just how we build products and utilize each other’s strengths, but we really haven't finalized any plans with regard to that.

Unidentified Participant

Analyst

Okay and one question on your current operations in Manitowoc. What's your objective over the next two quarters in terms of additional that you would like to accomplish to streamline operations on a cost basis, do you think you pretty well gleaned out what you possibly can on the cost side or can you do more?

John Scribante

Management

Sure, great question. We certainly have taken a lot of strides in the manufacturing to date; however we are very optimistic in what we have yet to achieve and we have just started in the last several weeks a lean manufacturing initiative. We see some great early wins on some specific production lines where we are having significant improvements in efficiencies and throughput, quality improvements, some cost reductions and some of the component materials. We just see a lot of opportunity ahead of us there.

Unidentified Participant

Analyst

Again I just want to say how enthusiastic I am as a long term shareholder as to the changes in management direction at Orion and can’t help and be enthusiastic about your future. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

There are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the call over to management for any closing remarks.

John Scribante

Management

Okay, well I guess that sums up our conference call today. We truly appreciate your continued support and confidence in the work that we are doing and we look forward to reporting to you again in August for our fiscal ’14 first quarter results. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen thank you for your participation in today's conference. This concludes the program. You may now disconnect and have a wonderful day.