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Spruce Power Holding Corporation (SPRU)

Q2 2021 Earnings Call· Thu, Aug 12, 2021

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon, and welcome to the XL Fleet Corp. Second Quarter 2021 Conference Call. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. For opening remarks and introduction, I'd like to turn the call over to Jim Berklas, General Counsel and Vice President of Corporate Development for XL Fleet. Please go ahead.

Jim Berklas

Analyst

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to XL Fleet’s earnings conference call to discuss our results for the second quarter of 2021. With me today are Tod Hynes, our Founder and President; and Dimitri Kazarinoff, our Chief Executive Officer; and Cielo Hernandez, our Chief Financial Officer. Our call this afternoon includes statements that speak to the company’s expectations, outlook or predictions of the future, which are considered forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control, which may cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by these statements. We undertake no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements, except as may be required by law. We refer you to XL Fleet’s disclosures regarding risk factors and forward-looking statements in today’s earnings release, our Annual Report on Form 10-K and our other Securities and Exchange Commission filings. With that, I will turn the call over to Tod Hynes.

Tod Hynes

Analyst

Thanks, Jim, and thanks to everyone for joining us on the call this afternoon. As the global commercial fleet industry continues to express growing interest in electrification, our team remains focused on expanding our comprehensive set of solutions in ways that eliminate barriers and help customers adopt EVs faster, and in larger volumes. I'm proud of our company's track record of delivering innovative solutions to customers across a range of commercial fleet applications to help and save money, reduce carbon emissions and meet sustainability goals. When we announced our business combination with Pivotal II in September of last year, we illustrated that XL Grid and electrification-as-a-service would be important parts of our long-term growth strategy for the business. This unique approach to the fleet industry focuses on making it easier and more cost effective for companies to electrify their fleets by eliminating many of the common barriers, including infrastructure, financial, technological and power constraints, to name a few. At the time, we identified M&A as a key opportunity to add capacity and capability for our platforms that we would pursue in advancing this strategy. In the second quarter, we began to follow through on that plan with the acquisition of World Energy Efficiency Services. The highly strategic bolt on acquisition of World Energy expanded our XL Grid division by adding significant new capabilities to our core business. World Energy helps customers address the factors and challenges that can arise when companies transition their fleets to electric power. This often includes facility power constraints at sites resulting from new the addition of new charging infrastructure. While many companies don't know where to begin when scoping and planning and charging infrastructure projects, World Energy is a proven service provider who can help companies better understand their energy requirements, so they can more…

Dimitri Kazarinoff

Analyst

Thanks, Todd. I'd like to begin with the review of key highlights from the second quarter and recently. Despite continued supply chain issues and wide-scale shortages of key materials in vehicle production affecting drive system sales, total revenue grew to $3.7 million during the second quarter, up from approximately $1 million in Q1 of this year. The increase versus the prior year was driven by the addition of World Energy, partially offset by a reduction in drive system sales. Our World Energy business contributed $2.4 million, reflecting approximately a half quarter contribution following the acquisition completed in mid-May. The team successfully executed over 70 projects, helping customers with a wide range of energy solutions. We are excited at the continued opportunities for growth in this business and its significance to our wider XL Grid offering. We generated gross profit of approximately $1 million, primarily driven by our XL Grid division and reflecting margins of approximately 26%. Through the end of the second quarter, we have sold a total of nearly 4,500 hybrids and plug-in hybrid systems and remain on-track to deliver our all-electric solutions in 2022. We continue to expand the range of systems that we offer to customers and widen their applications, including our recent announcement with Curbtender to jointly develop electric refuse vehicles, and more recently with Rubicon, to more widely deploy these solutions to their customers throughout the waste management industry. We formally opened our Michigan Fleet Electrification Center, and were pleased to be joined by Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and other officials to commemorate this exciting event. The center is home to our growing base of engineering talents, including over two dozen Michigan employees who are already working in the facility. Its strategic location in the Metro Detroit region provides us access to a wealth of automotive…

Cielo Hernandez

Analyst

Thanks, Dimitri. Revenue for the second quarter of 2021 totaled $3.7 million, up from $1.9 million in the prior year's period. Key drivers behind the annual growth was the recent acquisition of World Energy. Revenue in our XL Grid division totaled $2.4 million, which was primarily comprised of our partial-quarter contribution from World Energy. We completed our acquisition of World Energy on May 17, and so this represent approximately half of the business performance during the quarter. We generated gross profit for the quarter of approximately $1.0 million, up from approximately $40,000 in Q2 of last year, and versus a gross loss of approximately $700,000 last quarter. The improvement was driven by contribution from World Energy in our XL Grid business. Adjusted EBITDA totaled negative $11.4 million, compared to negative $3.5 million in the prior year quarter. Research and development cost totaled $2.8 million. SG&A totaled $10.8 million, compared to $3.3 million in the prior year quarter and approximately $8 million in Q1. Decrease was primarily driven by the continued expansion of our team, technology and facilities to support our growth strategy and meet new obligations, as a public traded company. This also includes SG&A expenses associated with the addition of World Energy. As of June 30, we had cash and cash equivalents of $384 million, compared to $404 million last quarter. Our balance sheet remains strong following the capital raise as part of our business combination completed in December, 2020, and exercises of our public warrant as with this year. We believe that our balance sheet strength position us with flexibility and a competitive advantage as we continue to execute on our growth strategy over the next several years, including the potential foreclosure of strategic M&A. I will now pass it back to Dimitri. Thank you.

Dimitri Kazarinoff

Analyst

Thanks, Cielo. Before opening up the lines for Q&A, I would like to provide an updated outlook for 2021. Overall interest in our solutions remain strong, as companies and fleets continue to pursue new and immediate ways to electrify. The range of solutions we've developed positions up to meet this growing demand from our expanding base of commercial fleet customers. However, challenges resulting from very limited new vehicle availability and other shortages continued to impact the market for our drive systems, limiting our ability to meet some of this demand in the near-term and resulting in continued uncertainty in our outlook. Recently, OEMs have pushed out the opening of new orders and increased delivery lead time when orders will be taken, indicating the shortage of new vehicles is likely to extend into 2022. In addition, as the Delta variant has fueled a new spike in COVID-19 cases, we cannot rule out continued pandemic impacts as we go forward. Despite these industry-wide challenges, our business model positions us to remain nimble. As noted earlier, we've expanded our XL Grid division through the acquisition of World Energy, and we continue to actively pursue and win opportunities to retrofit our system on existing vehicles, and have increased our resources and effort around this approach. We are extending the drive system solutions we offer to our customers through new partnerships and collaborations, that have opened new markets for XL Fleet, including waste management, low floor buses for wheelchair accessible travel and refrigerated trailers. We are confident these solutions and execution of our long-term strategy will position XL Fleet for even greater success once conditions normalize. We continue to develop new electrification solutions across a broader range of chassis options, and expand our energy management and charging infrastructure capabilities, while also pursuing exciting new opportunities outside of North America. While the lack of commercial fleet availability is unprecedented, we remain focused on executing our strategy and leveraging the operational and financial flexibility of our business model. We are armed with more than $375 million of cash on our balance sheet, which positions us to remain aggressive in finding creative new ways to grow the business in the long-term while riding out the storm created by the current market conditions. With that we'd now like to open up the lines for Q&A.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of the question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the call back to Mr. Dimitri Kazarinoff for any closing remarks.

Dimitri Kazarinoff

Analyst

Thank you very much for participating in today's call and for your interest in XL Fleet. Have a great day.

Operator

Operator

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.