Dror Sharon
Analyst · Magal Security Systems. Your line is now live
Thank you, Brett. I'd like to welcome all of you to our call and thank you for joining us today. I just hope that your family and friends are well and everyone is okay with this crisis around us. For 2019, we reported $86.8 million of revenue, achieving 10% plus reduction in operating expenses that fueled the 61% in operating income. 2019 EBITDA rose 17% to $8.1 million, resulting in an expansion of EBITDA margin from 7.5% to 9.4%. We maintained an elevated level of revenue in 2019 by offsetting the Latin American contract that did not occur last year with solid execution of our strategy to expand in new markets and new verticals along with strong product and software sales. In parallel, we also maintained the high level of backlog, which was the same level as the one we had by the end of 2018. Give me just a moment. Okay. When I joined Magal in July 2018, I led in varieties of markets and with Magal for macro opportunities to identify the company's capabilities and strength. And from this we developed a growth strategy to increase revenue and improve profitability. Our team has been executing this strategy to diversify revenue sources, improving growth through expanding our geographic presence with an increased focus on critical vertical markets and aligning R&D resources to meet requirement of those verticals. We have been improving the operational performance of the business in order to increase cash generation and improve EBITDA margin, key indicator of our business, performance that drive shareholders’ value. We have made a number of organizational changes, including creating two business divisions, which improved the overall structure of the business, facilitating an increase in revenue from new verticals and geographies. Our performance in 2019 confirms that our strategy to deliver our revenue is working, as evidenced by the broad based 90% growth in the Magal integrated solutions division, excluding the Latin American region and the Senstar product division delivering 9% growth across all regions. The diversification of revenue streams as evidenced by the addition of new geographic, new customers and consecutive year-over-year growth in the Senstar products division as elevated revenue levels from those seen in the years prior to executing this growth strategy. Our strategy has also been successful in improving margins and financial stability. Gross margin improved in 2019 by 120 basis points, primarily due to the increase in Senstar gross profit division as division software sales driven by Symphony, our video management solutions software and our enhancement to this most flexible platform. As disclosed in our last year's results, I mean Q2 non-recurring expenses as in last year totaling $2.3 million, which did not recur in 2019. With our continuing efforts to achieve operational efficiencies in 2019, we realized 61% increase in operating income year-over-year. In order to support our future growth, we have been able to consolidate business units and realize cost savings, which we have used to efficiently make new hires to sell to our sales team. We anticipate maintaining operating expenses growth below revenue growth, which will improve profitability as we grow. Net income in 2019 was impacted by a non-cash flow and exchange expenses and accounting effect we regularly experienced due to variance from the currencies adjustments, cash balances held in U. S. dollar currency. At the end of each period, the changes in currency valuations recorded is non-cash financial expense or income. This adjustment does not affect the actual level of U. S. dollar assets but there's an variable impact on net income making comparison across supporting periods inconsistent. As a result, variance in foreign exchange rate can obscure our profitability performance. For this reason, we used EBITDA, a non-GAAP metric, to even out the variable impact of foreign exchange fluctuation and other non-cash factors and believe that EBITDA is a better measure of the company's performance. For 2019, we delivered an outstanding 17% increase in EBITDA with an annual EBITDA margin of 9.4%. In 2019, we made solid progress in our historical and new geographies, including Kenya, Spain, CIS countries. We had several new wins for our Perimeter Intrusion Detection, the PIDS technology. Two of these were sizeable border protection project, as well as extensive PIDS installation contract for two major international airports. In Spain, we expanded our overall solutions to include further security with advanced cameras and small sensors at a key seaport. We also won a significant contract with the Israeli Ministry for vehicle mounted electro-optic system for day and night observation capability. In terms of vertical markets, in 2019 we made advancements in oil and gas collection and critical infrastructure, including airports. We landed the new contract with a global operator for airport in Armenia. In Southeast Asia, we secured new contract with a correctional facility. On the on the product front, we advanced the Symphony platform, our open software all-in-one solution for video security and information management with new access control features, using electronic access control software code that required, our R&D team is in the process of integrating access control capabilities as a module of our distinct video management solution platform. Before I move on to talk about future growth, I'd like to highlight the outstanding performance of the fourth quarter. Gross margin improved in the quarter by 740 basis points to 48%. Operating income increased to $2.9 million compared to $435,000 last year, delivering net income of $1.8 million compared to a loss of $100,000 in the last year. As a result, EBITDA in the fourth quarter rose to $3.4 million, an increase of over 160% from the previous fourth quarter. EBITDA margin rose 14.1% in the fourth quarter up from 4.9% last year. This is a strong finish to the year, especially given the challenging revenue compare compared with the prior year. Let me shift my comments to our [indiscernible] for growth. We have set ambitious growth and I want to explain how we plan to achieve them. Recently, we announced new leadership for both business divisions with mandates to streamline the organizational structure and the focus on four key verticals. The new appointments have impressive track record and bring tremendous industry experience. Both will report directly to me and this new structure will enable us to improve the situation and drive our performance globally. Each division has an increased focus on the technology and to operate with their own payload go-to-market strategy. As we leverage our capabilities with the new organizational structure and companies directing into sources and growing in four key vertical; oil and gas, logistics, correctional institutes, institutions and the critical infrastructure. We are approaching this verticals with the two-fold strategy to expand sales in payload security solution features featuring tech-rich product and software for physical security solutions and with new adjustment solution that leverage core capabilities in each of those verticals. In each of those vertical, we can provide unique solution beyond security. For example, in the oil and gas sector, the company currently secured facilities and pipelines using optical fiber [replace] down the pipe. It further gives the high indication if someone is trying to dig next to it and can identify if it is person, animal or vehicle. We intend to apply this technology to test gas or fuel leaks from a pipeline for the same customer, leaving pipeline maintenance crews the ability to identify to rapidly find and address the problem. This is an area we will allocate resources to expand our capability. In the logistics vertical, our security cameras installed in the warehouses monitoring the activity of people and vehicle and now can also monitor the movement of packages. The system can alert if a package has accidently reached a different conveyor belt than it was intent for if it is handled in an un-authorized manner. For correctional institutions, Magal is developing a system to detect and disrupt drones to prevent the possibility of those devices being used to deliver illicit goods to prisoners. In the infrastructure vertical, we are targeting managing functionality to manage on site assets, such as computer, generators and other physical assets into the command and control capabilities giving us stable recurring revenue. The M&A targets we have identified for 2020 support our key verticals and capabilities expansion groups. We want to acquire technology that can leverage the capabilities of our existing platform and bring new technology, innovation and expertise. We are currently in advanced stage with several acquisition targets. Given our net cash and related cash balance of $51.6 million with no debt, we believe that we are well positioned to respond to challenges and opportunities ahead. By increasing the technology in our offering both organically and through M&A growing revenue, particularly from our higher gross margin Senstar division while maintaining expenses controls and the increasing operational performance, we anticipate continued improvement in profitability and cash generation for Magal. With this strategic initiative we renegotiate and enhance the offering combined with the strategic M&A, Magal is now well positioned to continue its growth. In summary, our strategy to diversify our revenue streams and improve the performance of our business is showing the market marked progress. We are executing a strategic, focusing growth in four key verticals. We have made significant steps to improve the professional performance of our company and retain our financial position. I'd like to thank the entire Magal team for the exceptional performance in 2019 to deliver those outstanding results. I value the dedication and hard work of our global team and appreciate the commitment to our strategy. Before I hand the call over to Kobi, I'd like to comment on the impact of the coronavirus on our business. We have a worldwide sales force that is embedded in the countries they support and therefore we have relatively little international governance. We do have a no travel ban on our employees at this time. The company has a presence in China and sales in that country has declined recently, but this has little impact on our overall results. In Africa and Latin America, it is less clear what the impact will be but at this time, we have not seen a slowdown. We manufacture in Israel and Canada, and thus far we have no disruption in our manufacturing function. We are looking at the contingency plans in the event of our teams need to work remotely in any of our countries. Though it is still unclear how long global crisis continue, the fact that we have entered the price following a profitable 2019 with a strong cash position and no debt provide us with the confidence that Magal should endure the prices and continue its growth in the years to come. And now, I would like to hand the microphone over to Kobi to summarize the financial results. Kobi, please go ahead.