Deepak Chopra
Analyst · Imperial Capital. Your line is open
Thank you, Alan, and thanks to everyone joining us on today's call. We had a good second-quarter and first half of fiscal 2022 while working to a challenging macro environment that was significantly impacted by the rapid spread of Omicron variant. This latest COVID [Indiscernible] continues to hamper our supply chain, logistics, and business-related travel. Security has been the most impacted, while Opto Electronics and healthcare were less affected and performed to our expectations. We ended the quarter with a backlog of over $1.2 billion and enter the second half of fiscal 2022 with confidence in our ability to execute in a tough environment. Taking onto each division's performance in the quarter, starting with Security. The Security division delivered Q2 revenues that were slightly higher than Q2 in the prior year, and revenues in the first half that were 5% higher than the first half of fiscal 2021. In Q2, the Omicron variant impacted a pandemic-challenged environment, especially for the aviation security market, as certain airports prolonged their equipment upgrade, replacement, and service cycles. Local travel restrictions in certain regions of the globe also are so affected timing for installation, test, and acceptance phases by the customer of our aviation board and border security products. Discussing some of the highlights, unit quarter and the first half, the security team captured several key booking opportunities during the quarter. We announced one of these wins valued at about $29 million from an international customer to provide cargo and vehicle inspection systems, baggage and parcel inspection systems, related training and maintenance services. At the end of the quarter, previously we announced $200 million in orders that were received near the end of Q1 from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, CBP, under two indefinite deliveries, indefinite quantity contracts called IDIQs, that collectively have a ceiling value totaling approximately $870 million. As CBP further strengthens its border security to Internet contraband and illegal drugs hidden in cargo and vehicles, we believe that there are opportunities for additional orders under these IDIQs to support the customer's non-intrusive cargo and vehicle inspection programs for what --we have one of the broadest solution offerings in the industry. As we have mentioned before, that the shipments on this contract will -- is more towards the Q4 and into 2023. Internationally, we are currently working on several projects to upgrade and maintain existing rapid scan and AS and E cargo and vehicle inspection systems and new installations. Our ZBV, mobile backscatter vans, Auto sixties, high-energy and multi-energy configurations for drive-through portals, and G60 fixed-gantry configurations, among others, are utilized at one or more of these projects to provide customs clearance of goods at ports and border crossings. On some projects, we are also incorporating our proprietary software integration software called Search Scan, which is cyber -secure and helps manage inspection image data, travel, vehicle identification, and integrate with other IT systems at cargo and vehicle inspection checkpoints, thereby streamlining and facilitating the inspection process. CertScan was designed to work with third party inspection systems, and can be sold as a standalone software. We continue to gain traction with our CertScan software-as-a-service, or SaaS model, with potential customers that have inspection equipment from multiple vendors to utilize the software platform. As mentioned before, in our $200 million contract that we announced before, there is a good portion of the CertScan Software also. In turnkey services, our projects in Albania, Puerto Rico, Guatemala, continue to perform well on experience and capabilities derived from operating and managing these turnkey programs have been invaluable as they have allowed us to differentiate ourselves and win critical border security projects that have a scope, which involves equipment installation, civil works, system integration, and operating training, and in some cases, the CertScan Software also. During the quarter, we continued to work with third-party global logistics providers to support their infrastructure expansion efforts that require various solutions for parcel inspection and explosive detection. And again, we have a broad set of solutions here that match well to the requirements of these customers. They are very focused on capturing new opportunities in this growth area primarily, driven by increased e - commerce goods flow. As mentioned before, air cargo has become a very good product portfolio for us and we feel that we are the best placed as our broad product portfolio for that market. In Q2, Secura did a commendable job delivering to our customers while prudently managing the cost structure, dealing with the ongoing supply disruptions, travel bans, travel quarantines and test and acceptance delays. Looking ahead, we believe that security with a solid backlog and opportunity pipeline is well-positioned for a strong second half of our fiscal year. As Alan will talk later, definitely some of the revenue in Security got pushed from Q2 into Q3 and Q4. Moving on to our Optoelectronics division, we had a strong quarter by leveraging our global operational presence to deliver to our various OEM customers. Opto's third-party Q2 revenues of $78 million represented yet another new record for the division. Opto dealt with instances of material shortages, component price increases, and higher praised costs and still achieved record quarterly profit in an increasingly difficult macro environment, the Opto team has done well to anticipate potential supply chain constraints and plan workarounds as needed to maintain deliveries to OEMs in aerospace, defense, healthcare, automotive, and telecommunication industries among others. During the quarter, we announced an order for approximately $6 million to manufacture sub-assemblies for a wireless critical communication provider. To support growth in Asia, especially for our medical products, we're expanding Opto's India's operation, as we transition to a larger facility shortly, which will come online in the second half of 2022. Looking ahead, with a record Q2 ending backlog, we anticipate Opto continuing to perform well in the second half of the fiscal year. I want to make an extra comment that our customers, OEM customers in the Opto business, they have been super cooperative, and have helped us in the supply chain. And in some cases, we've been able to pass on the price increases over to them. Moving onto the healthcare division, we reported revenues of $52 million, a bit lower than the same period from a year ago, which was expected. Last year's Q2 revenues still had tailwinds from hospitals, expanding their ICU capacity for the pandemic. During the quarter, we announced a couple of key wins totaling $9 million from US hospitals in the North West and South regions. These hospitals ordered a wide array of patient monitoring solutions, including our Xhibit Central Stations, Qube transport patient monitors, and related accessories. During the quarter, we continued to significantly invest in developing new products for the patient monitoring and cardiology product lines to further strengthen our offering for the future. For cardiology, we have also invested in building out a U.S. sales channel that, together with new products launched, helped drive strong cardiology top-line growth in Q2 in the first half. While we have a significant portion of revenues in the U.S. for patient monitoring, we're just getting started for establishing our U.S. presence for cardiology. Going forward, we plan to maintain our focus on operational execution and stay agile to handle additional demand that may arise from certain hospitals that need to increase capacity, currently being strained by the latest COVID variant. Overall, we are pleased with the company's fiscal 2022 first half performance considering the conditions that quickly arose due to the Omicron variant. We are hopeful that the overall impact from Omicron will dissipate as quickly as it started. There are signs already of them picking it. However, due to the ongoing challenges now exasperated by the latest variant, we are revising our top-line guidance to a slightly lower range, while simultaneously, feeling confident of increasing our earnings guidance with expected improving operating margins and product mix in the second half, but more security revenue, which Alan will go into more detail. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the company has proven its ability to maintain its focus on helping customers worldwide with their critical roles and providing public health, safety and security. I would like to thank our employees, customers, and shareholders for their confidence in us and I look forward to the second half of our fiscal year. I will now turn the call back over to Alan to further discuss our financial performance before we open the call for questions. Thank you.