Earnings Labs

Ultralife Corporation (ULBI)

Q3 2014 Earnings Call· Thu, Oct 30, 2014

$7.06

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day and welcome to this Ultralife Corporation Third Quarter 2014 Earnings Release Conference Call. At this time for opening remarks and introduction, I would like to turn the call over to Ms. Jody Burfening. Please go ahead.

Jody Burfening

Management

Thank you, Jennifer and good morning everyone. This is Jody Burfening (inaudible) thank you for joining us this morning for Ultralife Corporation’s earnings conference call for the third quarter of fiscal 2014. With us on today’s call are Mike Popielec, Ultralife’s President and CEO; and Phil Fain, Ultralife’s Chief Financial Officer. The earnings press release was issued earlier this morning and if anyone who has not yet received a copy, I invite you to visit the company’s website www.ultralifecorp.com, where you’ll find the release under Investor News in the Investor Relations section. Before turning the call over to management, I would like to remind everyone some statements made during this conference call contains forward-looking statements based on current expectations. Actual results could differ materially from those projected as a result of various risks and uncertainties. These include potential reductions in the U.S. military spending, uncertain global economic conditions and acceptance of the company’s new products on a global basis. The company cautions investors not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which reflects the company’s analysis only as of today’s date. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances. Further information on these factors and other factors that could cause Ultralife’s financial results is included in the Company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission including the latest Annual Report on Form 10-K. In addition, on today’s call management will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures that management considered to be useful metrics that differ from GAAP. These non-GAAP measures should be considered as supplemental to corresponding GAAP figures. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Mike. Good morning Mike.

Mike Popielec

Management

Good morning, Jody and thank you everyone for joining the call this morning. Today, I will start by making some overall comments about our third quarter 2014 financial performance. Then I'll turn the call over to Phil, who will take you through the detailed financial results. After Phil is finished, I’ll provide a review of our Q3 operating performance and an update on the progress against our 2014 revenue initiatives and then talk about our full year expectations and financial outlook for 2014 before opening it up for questions. In the third quarter of 2014, commercial revenue in our battery and energy products business was up 36% year-over-year, fully upsetting the decline in the B&E government defense revenue and leading to a 3% year-over-year growth for the total B&E. For the quarter, the B&E business represents approximately 87% of total company sales and approximately 61% of that B&E revenue comes from commercial customers. As a result of the increased higher margin commercial revenue and continuing execution of our business model, battery and energy products is profitable in the third quarter. In our communication systems business, continuing sluggishness in the government defense tactical communications contracting drove revenues down 69% year-over-year which led to a total company revenue decline of 21%. However, based on the operating leverage achieved by increasing B&E revenue by approximately 14% sequentially from the second quarter of 2014 and overall company cost adjustments from actions taken in the first half, we were able to improve our profitability from the $1 million plus quarterly losses in each of the first two quarters of this year to deliver roughly breakeven operating profit performance in Q3. Now I’d like to ask Ultralife CFO Philip Fain a take you through additional details of the third quarter 2014 financial performance. Phil?

Philip Fain

Management

Thank you, Mike and good morning, everyone. Earlier this morning, we released our third quarter results for the period ended September 28, 2014. Consolidated revenues for the third quarter totaled $16.1 million representing a $4.3 million or 21% decline from the $20.4 million for third quarter of 2013. Revenues from our battery and energy product segment were $13.9 million, an increase of $0.4 million or 3% from last year. The year-over-year growth was fully attributable to an increase in commercial sales which exceeded the decrease in government and defense sales. Commercial sales increased $2.2 million or 36% over the third quarter of 2013, primarily driven by shipments of new products, including those specifically designed for medical devices in our Multi Kilowatt Module battery systems. This marks the third consecutive quarter of double-digit commercial sales gains and brings to increase on a year-to-year basis to 27%. Sales to government and defense customers declined $1.8 million or 25% from the third quarter of 2013, as a result the mix of commercial sales increased from 46% to 61% in government and defense sales down from 54% to 39% versus last year. For the third quarter of 2014, international sales accounted for 48% of battery and energy products revenue, up from 39% last year. Communication system sales of $2.2 million decreased by $4.7 million or 69% from the prior year. Continuing the trend that started in the second quarter of 2013, we experienced slowness impacting our daily (inaudible) business and in the final sign off in purchase order issuance of several large projects. The large programs are all active, none have been canceled and we remain in close contact with the contracting officers about the status of these orders. Our consolidated gross profit was $4.5 million compared to $6.1 million for the 2013 period…

Mike Popielec

Management

Thanks, Phil. In 2014, we have continued to launch new products and value propositions that result in gross margin rates to support improve profitability and to fund both new product development and end-market diversification. This combination gives us the best shot at controlling our own destiny in the phase of decreased government defense spending. To expand our market and sales region, our Battery & Energy Products business, the primary approach has been a diversified outside of our core U.S. government defense market by growing our commercial and international revenue. A key driver has been a new product introductions in the medical field where our revenues increased by over 80% versus the prior year's third quarter. For our international business, in Q3 we received key certifications for our new version of our medical cart battery system covering the 200 to 240 volt range which is expected to be released in the fourth quarter and give us access to more global medical cart opportunities. In addition, in Q3, we secured two contracts from international government defense customers for battery charging systems that totaled in excess of $2.5 million dollars. These systems will be delivered over the next two quarters and have options for additional quantities in 2015. Total B&E international revenues were up 25% year-over-year in Q3 2014 and represented 48% of total B&E sale. Lastly, in our core U.S. government defense business, additional orders under our five-year IDIQ DLA contract for legacy 5390 batteries have generated a backlog in excess of $2 million. Investment in new product development expand our addressable market also remains a core strategic point for Battery & Energy products and revenues derived from products introduced less than or equal to three years ago represented more than 60% of our sales in Q3. As an update for my…

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) And we will take our first question from William Jones from Morgan Stanley. William Jones – Morgan Stanley: Gentlemen, can you tell me the average price you paid for that stock or the dollar amount.

Jody Burfening

Management

Yes. $3.30, for full disclosure on a month by month basis, so we made available in our 10-Q which will be issued in the next week or so. William Jones – Morgan Stanley: Okay and I don’t know if you can answer this but some of these new product initiatives, are you kind of going for revenue potential of $2 million to $5 million or $10 million or can you say anything there?

Phil Fain

Analyst

It certainly differs by business. The new products initiatives in B&E business tend to lower per unit dollar values but much higher volumes where the communications systems new products to range more of, smaller volumes both could be in the sort of thousands of dollars per products. So when we look at overall contribution to a whole product line, when we put forward our new product development strategy, we set up a sort of internal goal for ourselves of having a revenue stream of at least $3 million a year within three years and that's how we make those decisions about what products we invest and versus products we don’t invest in. William Jones – Morgan Stanley: Okay, I guess that’s it. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) And there are no further questions in the queue at this time.

Mike Popielec

Management

Okay, well thank you once again for joining us for our third quarter 2014 earnings call. We look forward to sharing with our quarterly progress and each quarters conference call in the in the future. Thank you very much and have a nice day.

Operator

Operator

And that does conclude today’s conference. Thank you for your participation.