Earnings Labs

INNOVATE Corp. (VATE)

Q4 2021 Earnings Call· Wed, Mar 9, 2022

$12.50

+3.99%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon and welcome to INNOVATE Corp's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2021 Earnings conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. After prepared remarks and presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. And please note that this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Anthony Rozmus with Investor Relations. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Anthony Rozmus

Management

Good afternoon. Thank you for being with us to review INNOVATE's fourth quarter and full year 2021 earnings results. We are joined today by Avie Glazer, Chairman of INNOVATE; Wayne Barr Jr., CEO of INNOVATE; and Mike Sena, INNOVATE's Chief Financial Officer. We have posted our earnings release and our slide presentation on our website at innovatecorp.com. We will begin our call with prepared remarks to be followed by Q&A session. This call is also being simulcast and will be archived on our website. During this call, management may make certain statements and assumptions which are not historical facts, will be forward-looking, and are being made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Any such forward-looking statements involve risks, assumptions, and uncertainties, and are subject to certain assumptions and risk factors that could cause INNOVATE's actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements. The risk factors that could cause these differences are more fully discussed in the cautionary statement that is included in our earnings results and in the slide presentation and further detailed in our 10-K and other filings with the SEC. In addition, the forward-looking statements included in this conference call are only made as of this date of the call, and as stated in our SEC reports. INNOVATE disclaims any intent or obligation to update or revise these forward-looking statements, except as expressly required by law. Management will also refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures, such as adjusted EBITDA. We believe these measures provide useful supplemental data that while not a substitute for GAAP measures, allow for greater transparency in the review of our financial and operational performance. At this point, it is my pleasure to turn things over to Avie Glazer.

Avie Glazer

Management

Good afternoon. And I'd like to thank you all for joining us. I'm incredibly proud of the progress INNOVATE achieved in 2021. In a short period of time, INNOVATE successfully transformed into a business with three best-in-class companies that should benefit from growth trends in the new economy. I'd like to spend a few minutes highlighting our accomplishments. We sharpened our business focus by reducing our number of primary operating segments from five to three, by completing the sale of Beyond6 Clean Energy and Continental Insurance. We both enhanced their capital structure and improved our financial flexibility by refinancing our senior notes and credit facility. We re-branded and changed our name to INNOVATE Corporation in order to align with our core principles along with stakeholder capitalism and sustainable value generation. Our Infrastructure segment acquired Banker Steel, which added an industry leader to DBM and helped expand DBM size and geographic footprint. On the heels of that transaction, DBM entered into a new credit agreement at more favorable term. In Life Sciences, R2 launched its first product, Glacial RX, and invested in R2's business to increase our ownership position. We are pleased with R2's progress and continue to be excited by the opportunity in that business. Additionally, R2's Glacial RX earned an important FDA indication and unique product code. And with the network largely in place, we saw great interest from both new and existing customers and achieved our first year of adjusted EBITDA profitability in Spectrum for 2021 while at the same time expanding our nationwide broadcast footprint. As you can see, 2021 was an eventful and exciting year for INNOVATE. We believe we are still in the early stage of this transformation and we see much more value to be derived from Infrastructure, Life Sciences, and Spectrum. We remain excited about the opportunities in front of us and look forward to operational excellence in each of our three best-in-class assets in 2022. With that, I'm pleased to turn the call over to Wayne Barr, CEO of INNOVATE.

Wayne Barr Jr.

Management

Thanks, Avie and thank you all for joining us today. As Avie highlighted, 2021 was a major stepping stone for INNOVATE. It's clear that the strategy we put in place over a year ago is coming to fruition in our financial results. We continued to execute that strategy in the fourth quarter, which drove consolidated revenue and adjusted EBITDA growth of 122% and 121% respectively. Once again, this quarter, we were able to extract more value from each of our three best in class assets. Turning now to highlights for each of our operating segments. DBM Global delivered record fourth quarter revenue with increased demand in commercial, industrial services, and public sector projects as a part of the post - COVID recovery. Our total adjusted backlog of $1.9 billion showcases our strong pipeline and visibility into future potential revenue. I would be remiss by not mentioning that Banker Steel has been a great addition to the DBM family. The integration of Banker Steel is going according to plan and we continue to benefit from their capabilities and presence in key geographic regions, helping build out our national footprint. There has been significant new project activity in our market following the COVID pandemic and this increase in demand is having a positive impact on the margins for our business as capacity begins to saturate the market. There remains optimism in the construction industry and we continue to see significant pipeline, as demonstrated in our backlog number, despite rising steel prices. We also acknowledge various challenges in both the supply chain as well as the tightening of the labor market for our business. However, at this point in time, we believe the risks are being well-managed by the strong team in place at DBM. We will continue to monitor the potential impacts…

Michael Sena

Management

Thanks, Wayne. I will first review our financial performance, and then I'll walk you through key changes to our capital structure to help you bridge the quarter, and the key transactions that have taken place in 2021. Consolidated total revenue for the fourth quarter of 2021 was $394.8 million, an increase of a 121.8% compared to $178 million in the prior-year period. The increase is driven by our Infrastructure segment, led by the contribution from Banker Steel, as well as higher revenues across DBM service offerings, attributable to timing of project work under execution and backlog mix. Net loss attributable to common and participating preferred stockholders for the fourth quarter of 2021 was $5.2 million or $0.07 per share, compared to a net loss of $7.1 million or $0.11 per share in the prior-year period. Total adjusted EBITDA, which excludes discontinued operations was $22.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2021, an increase from an adjusted EBITDA of $10 million in the prior-year period. The increase was primarily driven by the contribution from Banker's structure, revenue increased 129.6% to $383.4 million from a $167 million in the prior-year quarter. As discussed earlier, this increase is due to the acquisition of Banker Steel resulting in an additional $112 million of revenue as well as higher revenues across DBM service offerings. Infrastructure adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter of 2021 increased to $28.8 million from $17.4 million from industrial business and Infrastructure, the completion in Q3 of a highly profitable project at the design business, as well as modest SG&A expense increases. DBMG has begun to see improved margins in the legacy fabrication erection business during the quarter as the backlog sold during the pandemic continues to burn off. However, the industrial business has continued to lag and it's just now starting…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. At this time, we will be conducting a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] One moment please while we poll for questions. Our first question comes from the line of Brian Charles with R.W. Pressprich. You may proceed with your question.

Brian Charles

Analyst

Good afternoon, and certainly congratulations on the quarter. I'm wondering if maybe I could get a little bit of color on -- it's nice to see the progress in the Life Sciences businesses too, and I know you've put in another $15 million of incremental financing. I'm wondering if at this point, are those businesses largely self-funding from INNOVATE's perspective, or do you expect more investments in the next couple of years or so?

Michael Sena

Management

Hey Brian, it's Wayne and Mike, hope you're doing well.

Brian Charles

Analyst

I'm all right.

Wayne Barr Jr.

Management

Good. So from an R2 perspective as we've announced, we did launch, in the United States, the Glacial Rx product and as we indicated there, again, we're getting ready to and have shipped product over to China for the Glacial Spa. We did invest the $15 million in 2021 and we're very happy to do that to really support all of the progress that they've made. At this point, there were no further commitments to R2 that INNOVATE has made.

Michael Sena

Management

I would just say that these businesses will likely need funding. At the point when they do, it would be a decision as to whether it'd be something that we would want to invest in at the time and we obviously are very pleased with the progress of the businesses. So it's going to just depend on the timing and what else is in the works.

Brian Charles

Analyst

Okay. So it sounds like any incremental investment would be based on sort of opportunity, not capital needs. Is that [Indiscernible]

Michael Sena

Management

Much more articulate than what I expect.

Wayne Barr Jr.

Management

[Indiscernible]

Brian Charles

Analyst

Okay, that's great. Fair enough. Secondly, I'm wondering -- do you have any color on the scale of incremental financing might draw down at the infrastructure business? You were talking about ramping up the line of credit a bit.

Wayne Barr Jr.

Management

Well, if you look at what happened during the quarter -- during the fourth quarter, they reduced their credit line by approximately $40 million. All I wanted to point out is that that was really a dip in the working capital and as they ramp up, they will go back into that line. We obviously don't give guidance, but I don't want people to think that's a permanent reduction of capital. And that's why I mentioned that. They're going to need to invest in some of these bigger projects as they run off that backlog and that's what I was just getting at because it was $40 million higher just three months ago.

Brian Charles

Analyst

Okay. That's fair enough. All right, thanks. That's all I've got for now.

Michael Sena

Management

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. At this time there are no further questions and I will now turn the call back over to Wayne for any closing remarks.

Wayne Barr Jr.

Management

Thanks, John. And thank you all for joining us today. As always, we're available for any follow-up. And hope you all have a very nice evening.

Operator

Operator

This does conclude today's conference; you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank your for your participation and have a great day.