Earnings Labs

XWELL, Inc. (XWEL)

Q1 2016 Earnings Call· Sat, May 7, 2016

$1.17

-1.68%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Thank you for joining us for today’s call. Before I turn the call over to the company, we need to advise you of the following, comments made on today’s call may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are based on current assumptions and opinions and involve a variety of known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those contained in or suggested by such forward-looking statements. Important factors that might cause such differences include those set forth from time-time in the company’s SEC filings, including the company’s annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015 and it's updated by the company's quarterly report on Form 10Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2016 and the current and periodic reports that the company files with SEC. At this time I’d like to introduce Andrew Perlman, the Chief Executive Officer of Vringo.

Andrew Perlman

Management

Good afternoon and thank you all for taking the time to join us for an investor update and earnings call. I'd like to update our shareholders on recent events as well as provide an outlook for the future of the company. I will then open up the call for Q&A. Joining me on the call are Anastasia Nyrkovskaya, our CFO, Cliff Weinstein our Executive Vice President and President of Fli Charge and David Cohen, our Chief Legal and Intellectual Property Officer. As we announced shortly before this call Vringo will be renamed Form Holdings Corporation effective on Friday May 6, 2016 in an effort to solidify our position as a diversified holding company. Furthermore the shares of the company's common stock will commence trading under a new ticker symbol SH, when the market opens on Monday May 9, 2016. The company has effectively been operating as a holding company for some time, In fact if you were to look at the company's organizational structure and how we have deployed capital and other resources you would see a holding company with three distinct business segments. Group Mobile, Fli Charge and our IP Monetization business as well as our minority interest in infomedia all of which I will provide updates for on this call, but first I would like to discuss the name Form Holdings and where we envision the company going in the months and years to come. The name Form Holding stems directly from its definition. Form, means to bring together parts or to combine to create. The goal of Form Holdings it to identify and invest in opportunities that expand and diversify our business and to achieve consistent growth by utilizing our core competencies, by diversifying our business through acquisitions and investments we believe that we will increase our…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. And our first question comes from David Huff [ph]. Please state your question.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Couple of quick questions on the IP side and then on Fli Charge side. We had the settlement with -- it's considered quarter two. Was there any litigation filed to get that resolved?

Andrew Perlman

Management

There was no litigation involved in the $8.9 million license that we recorded in the second quarter.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Can you give me a rough idea on how long it took from I guess the initial engagement I would imagine a litigation stand still until the time when an agreement was reached? Was it six months, 12 months, 18 months?

Andrew Perlman

Management

So it was approximately six months.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

And obviously this is something that can be replicated, can you give a rough idea this might be actually tough, a rough idea how many other opportunities might be out there?

Andrew Perlman

Management

So as you know IP licensing is something that the timeframes can vary greatly and also the parties that are on the other side of license can vary greatly. It vary to a large degree. All I can say is we're actively engaged in conversations with over dozen parties all of them vary in size. Some of them are much smaller licenses, some of them should be I guess what I would categorize is lower seven figure numbers but I think it would be difficult and probably incorrect for me to set a real expectation of a time horizon for any of the individual licensing conversations that we're having. What I would say is that we are obviously able to reach a license in a relatively short period of time because the patents that we own are now proven.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Okay, is there a longer term plan with the patents? Is it may be to move them to another entity you know and just do it as a sale so you can wipe them off the books and you don't take that amortization every single quarter or is the plan to keep licensing them and basically till you get everyone licensed?

Andrew Perlman

Management

So right now we’re our obviously of the mind of we’re in the position where we're actively engaged with a number of other parties but as a public company with shareholders we will always do what we believe creates the most value add of the asset. So if there were an opportunity for a joint venture or sale where we thought that created the most value that’s the avenue that we will take.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

I guess turning to the Fli Charge and Group Mobile, you know Fli Charge is being redesigned which I think previous announcements was quarter two, quarter three. I'm just trying to get an idea of what a successful launch would be I guess revenue wise, profits probably a little difficult at this time and we kind of what you're expecting over the near term in the next six months and long term. I guess the next 18 months. A - Cliff Weinstein Yes the product has been redesigned, we’re ramping up to manufacturing now and as Andrew stated on the call shortly ago consumers will have the ability to order the product in the month of June and we'll be announcing and hopefully making a splash on that launch. As it relates to revenue in a larger opportunity we believe that on the initial launch and somewhere inside of call it 60 to 90 days, I think a million dollars would be a solid result on top line revenue at Fli Charge and what that does for us and for the company is it shows that there is demand for this product. We obviously believe there is demand, we've been using this for a long time, we think the technology is great and then you're also mentioned superior to all if not most of the stuff that's out there in the wireless or wire free power and charging space. If we're successful on the launch and we do prove there is demand it really enables us to execute on our business development pipeline. In two ways, one is from the companies that we met and we continue to speak with very large companies from CES and those potential partnerships not just on phones or consumer electronics but larger powered devices as well as the retailing or in Big Box stores and exploring that. We've engaged in agency that represents a lot of the top tier consumer electronics companies that are household names, they actually approached us at the SEMA [ph] Show last year and we've engaged them to make that introduction and get us and facilitate getting us into retail if we choose to go down that path as well as continuing to work out the business plan, the budget for direct to consumer which is it tends to be a very profitable exercise if there's strong demand for the product. Long term, we see this technology being embedded into larger powered devices like I mentioned things like power tools, furniture in the classroom of our partnership with Bradford and the list goes on and on but we're very excited about it. The products been redesigned, manufacturing we've selected a contract manufacturer that we’re excited about. Our team just returned from China a couple of days back and everything is looking good right now for us.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Keith Goodman. Please state your question.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

You gave guidance of 100% year-over-year at Group Mobile which is obviously pretty good, what do you think the longer term hopes are? I mean what's the market size and what do you think over the next 24 months you could?

Andrew Perlman

Management

If we were looking 24 months in the future I think the goal should be for this to be a $50 million business 24 months out. This is a largely fragmented subset of the computing industry. In the rugged space you really have players like CDW and then once you go down from there, there are a lot of players that are at the $5 million and $10 million with no infrastructure, that's why one of the things we were discussing before and focusing on is building out the platform. I think that 24 months from now with some key personnel changes additions in sales staff and other things that we're doing as well as building the best platform out there that we should be able to get to $50 million run rate and that's the goal 24 months out. This year I think 100% year over year growth is absolutely our baseline and what we're going to try and achieve is beyond that and like we said earlier in the call to the extent that there are big chunky orders that come in and we will let the market know that that's happening and update our guidance.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

And what type of margins have you seen in that business and what do you think they will be going forward?

Andrew Perlman

Management

So historically it's been a little bit north of 15% gross margins, we think that there might be a little bit of margin compression as we ramp the revenues but once we actually are able to achieve scale we can do things like layering in other services whether it's a services for installing devices into vehicles or selling additional software and services like cloud storage services that we're seeing in the space. But historically they've been in that range, I think the goal once we get on the north side of say 20 million - 25 million will be to add those services to help boost our margins.

Operator

Operator

Okay. Our next question comes from Jordon Meadow [ph]. Please state your question.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

So it seems like a great idea that you’re solidify into a holding company. Have you given thought to the Investment Company Act and any possible limitations going forward?

Andrew Perlman

Management

So basically the Investment Company Act creates very restrictive disclosure rules and rules about the way that a company can take on debt and other financing mechanisms if the bulk of its business is to own minority stakes in a bunch of different companies. That's not what we're doing. What we've done with Fli Charge and Group Mobile is something that we hope to replicate in the future but we've acquired a controlling position in operating business not a minority stake and then whether it's adding more capital or rebranding, redesign, remarketing we feel like that’s the core competency in what we’re good at. So in the model of taking control interest and not minority interest the Investment Company Act, while it's something that we've obviously spent a lot of time thinking about in formulating what we want to do on a going forward basis if we're taking control positions and companies the Investment Company Act is something that doesn't affect us.

Operator

Operator

And that was the last question.