Array Technologies Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
November 7, 2023

There are 13 speakers on the call.

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to Array Technologies Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Cody Mueller, Investor Relations, operator, please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Good evening and thank you for joining us on today's conference call to discuss Array Technologies' 3rd quarter 2023 results. Slides for today's presentation are available on the Investor Relations section of our website arraytechinc.com. During this conference call, management will make forward looking statements based on current expectations and assumptions, which are subject to risks and uncertainties. Time, actual results could differ materially from our forward looking statements if any of our key assumptions are incorrect. We identify the principal risks and uncertainties that may affect our performance in our reports and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which can also be found on our Investor Relations website.

Speaker 1

Time, we do not undertake any duty to update any forward looking statements. Today's presentation also includes references to non GAAP financial measures. Call, you should refer to the information contained in the company's Q3 press release for definitional information and reconciliations of historical non GAAP measures to the comparable GAAP financial measures. With that, let me turn the call over to Kevin Hostetler, Array Technologies' Chief Executive Officer. Call, please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Cody, and welcome everyone. In addition to Cody, I'm also joined by Neel Patel, our Chief Financial Officer. Time, before I start with the discussion on the quarter, I would like to first discuss our transition in the CFO position that we announced earlier today. Time, starting on November 13, Kirk Wood will take over as the CFO of Array Technologies replacing Neepul Patel. Time, we are grateful that Nipple has agreed to stay on board in an advisory role until the end of the year to ensure that we have a smooth transition.

Speaker 1

Time, I'd like to thank Neepul for his instrumental role in the success of Array. From leading the company through the IPO We certainly would not be where we are today without NIIPABLE. The entire team at Array wishes him the best in his future endeavors. I am also extremely pleased to welcome Kirk Wood on board. Kirk brings an incredibly strong finance and operational background to Array

Speaker 2

time, it

Speaker 1

will be invaluable to us as we continue to grow and mature as a company. With that, let's move to slide 3, where I'll provide some highlights from the quarter. Array once again delivered a strong performance against all of our key metrics. For the quarter, we delivered $350,000,000 in revenue, which was in line with our expectations and as Neepa will discuss call, more later, is inclusive of a roughly $20,000,000 reduction for year to date reclassification of Brazilian ICMS tax incentives. This quarter, we also continued to over deliver on our gross margin expectations, Reporting 26% on an adjusted basis, which combined with an increased expectation for Q4 Has raised our full year outlook on gross margin once again.

Speaker 1

It is important to point out this result does not include any benefit from the IRA's 45x manufacturing credits. On the strength of our margin performance, we recorded adjusted EBITDA point from the same quarter last year. I'm also happy to note that we delivered $69,000,000 in free cash flow this quarter call, bringing our year to date total to $126,000,000 which keeps us well on pace to our previously stated target of delivering between $150,000,000 $200,000,000 of free cash flow in 2023. In the quarter, we also made a $50,000,000 prepayment of our term loan bringing the total principal balance down to $239,000,000 Finally, this quarter I'll always spend a short amount of time talking about the overall demand landscape as not much has changed since last quarter. As shown by our reduced revenue outlook, we have continued to be impacted by short term project timing challenges that are outside of our control.

Speaker 1

For instance, this quarter we had several projects that experienced delays Associated with financing as developers are focused on renegotiating PPA rates to improve project returns in this higher interest rate environment. While we fully expect financing and continued delays related to permitting and other items to be sorted out in the near term, This is yet another complexity that we are working to understand with our customers. However, It's important to note that we have continued to execute on elements that we can control and have largely maintained our profitability and free cash low expectations for the full year. As we look past some of these short term project timing issues, I remain optimistic about the direction of our industry. Remember, solar accounted for over 50% of all new electrical generating added to the U.

Speaker 1

S. Grid at the start of this year and there is no reason to believe this will slow down. It still represents the cheapest fastest form of new energy generation. Also, utility scale solar is not facing any structural demand weakness or destocking issues. Add to that the fact that the tracker market is poised to well outpace strong overall projected utility scale solar growth over the next few years and we still have many more tailwinds in this industry than headwinds.

Speaker 1

So while our bookings number this quarter was still reflective of these near term dynamics, we are seeing lots of positive proof points on the longer term outlook which align with these trends. For example, we have seen our domestic project pipeline double from June 30 to September 30. This is a strong sign of the health of our demand overall, but also showcases the traction our new product offerings are gaining with our customers As we already have multiple gigawatts of quoting activity on both the H250 and the OmniTrak. Also, we're pleased to note that we have recently signed 3 long term agreements, which collectively will represent multiple gigawatts same time, we anticipate in the Q2 of 2024 and beyond. And finally, Of the $320,000,000 of IRA related projects that were on hold at June 30, we only saw $35,000,000 convert to orders this quarter, which leaves almost $300,000,000 still sitting on the sidelines.

Speaker 1

This means we have not yet unlocked anywhere near the full value of those projects into our order book. So while we will obviously wait until our Q4 call to provide a more detailed discussion about 2024, time, I'm encouraged by the positive indications we have been seeing. If we turn to the next slide, This quarter, I want to give a brief update on 2 exciting business developments. Last week, we announced our plans to expand our operations in by leasing a brand new built to spec 216,000 square foot manufacturing campus. This expansion is exciting as it reinforces our long standing relationship with the community, but also will give us the space to time, we are appreciative time of our partners in the state of New Mexico and we look forward to updating you more on the progress of our new facility as we move forward.

Speaker 1

Next, building upon what I discussed last quarter on non tracker revenue streams, last week we also announced the rollout start of our services and training offerings. These offerings include commissioning, preparation and process training, Installation training with the Golden Row, Operations and Maintenance and Page Turn Best Practices. Stage, while these offerings will be a small portion of our revenue initially, we do see a path for these services to become a larger part of our business over time and will positively contribute to our overall gross margin. Each of these value added services are designed to reduce operational downtime And increased productivity, while improving our customers' overall experience with each of Array's product platforms. To support these offerings, we have also expanded our customer and product support teams over the last year, which has included hiring of directors of services, product management and training and development.

Speaker 1

While we remain early in our journey on the expansion of non tracker offerings, elements like these training offerings have already helped to increase our margin expectations time, we will now discuss in more detail along with the further analysis of the quarter. Neepul?

Speaker 3

Thanks, Kevin, and I appreciate the kind words. After nearly a 5 year run of turning a privately held company into whole public company listed on NASDAQ, it is the right time for me to step down as the CFO. I'm grateful for the opportunity to have worked alongside such a collaborative and talented team. I thank Kevin for his leadership and for supporting my career growth and I believe Array is well positioned strategically and financially to continue its growth and drive value for our customers and shareholders. I'm highly confident in Array's leadership and future time, I look forward to working with my successor, Kurt, on a smooth transition in the upcoming months.

Speaker 3

I'd also like to thank the employees at Array For their hard work and support over the years, it has been an honor working alongside them. That being said, let's get into a summary of our 3rd quarter financials. Please turn to Slide 6. In the Q3, we reported revenue of $350,400,000 compared to $515,000,000 for the prior year period. It's important to note that our 3rd quarter revenue excluded the impact start of a $20,100,000 Brazil Value Added Tax or ICMS that was reclassified from revenue to cost of revenue.

Speaker 3

Time, this reclassification was determined to be appropriate after we evaluated the expected treatment of governmental incentives for the 45x manufacturing credits under the Inflation Reduction Act, but has no impact to profitability or cash flow. Comparable amount in the prior year was $8,200,000 and was not reclassified out of revenue. Segment and $106,000,000 from the STI segment. This result was driven by both a 22% decrease in the total number of megawatts shift from 4.4 gigawatts to 3.4 gigawatts and a 12% decline in ASP from $0.116 point to $0.102 per watt. As communicated last quarter, this was an expected volume decline and change in project timing year over year, given the scale of project push outs we've seen due to the various macroeconomic elements at play.

Speaker 3

Additionally, the ASP decline was also anticipated given the reduction in steel, aluminum and logistics costs year over year. This quarter, we introduced adjusted gross profit and margin as a new non GAAP metric following the reclassification time of our developed technology amortization expense from operating expenses to cost of revenue. Time, we believe this reclassification aligns the presentation of our financials more broadly with industry peers and this change did not affect operating income, Net income or earnings per share for any current or historical periods. That said, adjusted gross profit increased to $91,000,000 time, we expect to be approximately $82,400,000 in the prior year period due to improved gross margin despite the reduction in volume. Gross margin increased to 26% from 16% on an adjusted basis.

Speaker 3

Adjusted gross margin was 25.3% for the LifeC array business and 27.6 percent for the STI business in the quarter. We were pleased to see our margin Performance continued to benefit from our operational improvement and focus on our non tracker revenue opportunities. Operating expenses of $47,200,000 were down $12,200,000 from $59,400,000 during the same period in the previous year. However, we had a $12,000,000 improvement in amortization expense year over year due to lower amortization of intangible assets That's related to the acquisition of STI. Excluding this impact, our operating expenses are roughly flat year over year.

Speaker 3

Net income attributable to common shareholders was $10,100,000 compared to $28,400,000 during the same period in the prior year And basic and diluted income per share was $0.07 compared to basic and diluted income per share of $0.19 during the same period in the prior year. This decline year over year was largely due to a $43,000,000 legal settlement we received in the Q3 of 2022. Same time, adjusted EBITDA increased to $57,400,000 compared to $55,400,000 for the prior year period. Same time, adjusted net income increased to $31,400,000 compared to adjusted net income of 28 point $9,000,000 during the same period in the prior year and adjusted basic and diluted net income per share was $0.21 compared to adjusted basic and diluted net income per share of $0.19 during the same period in the prior year. Finally, our free cash flow for the period was $69,400,000 versus $102,000,000 for the same period in the prior year.

Speaker 3

On a year to date basis, our free cash flow of $126,400,000 represented a 2 38% year over year increase. Time, I'd like to go to slide 7, where I will discuss our updated outlook for 2023. For the full year 2023, we now expect revenue to be in the range of $1,525,000,000 to $1,575,000,000 time, we'll reduce our outlook by approximately $25,000,000 2nd, we had 4 projects that were delayed due to developer financing challenges. While we fully expect these challenges to be alleviated in the near future, we no longer can count on the deliveries to occur in 2023. And third, we had several projects with permitting delays in Spain, which we now expect to deliver in the beginning of 2024.

Speaker 3

However, as a testament to our continued operational improvement and our focus on high margin non tracker offerings, we are largely holding our adjusted EBITDA time, adjusted EPS guidance as we have increased our gross margin outlook to be in the mid to high 20s for both segments. Time, we now expect to be in the range of $280,000,000 to $290,000,000 for adjusted EBITDA and $1.05 on adjusted EPS. Important to note, these changes do not reflect any assumed benefits from the 45x manufactured credits, although we are actively finalizing with our suppliers and will provide an update to the market when final 45x guidance is provided call, once we complete the agreements with our suppliers and have ensured proper recognition on timing under U. S. GAAP.

Speaker 3

Finally, with the improvement in our adjusted EBITDA margin, we are well on track to deliver our previously provided free cash flow guidance between $150,000,000 $200,000,000 for the full year as Kevin mentioned. Now, I'll turn it back over to Kevin for some closing remarks. Thank you, Neepul.

Speaker 1

I am pleased with our performance this quarter as we once again delivered better than anticipated earnings. Time, we continue to work hard on improving our business and our product and service offerings to ensure we deliver increasingly more value to our customers And we look forward to updating the market on even more exciting progress in this area in the near future. With that, Operator, please open the line for questions.

Operator

Call, thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now be conducting a question and answer session. First question we have comes from Mark Schlot from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Yes, good afternoon. Thank you very much for taking our questions. I wanted to start with the projects that have been delayed. So just to be clear, These are delayed. You're not seeing any cancellations other than the Brazilian contract that you mentioned.

Speaker 4

And then Anything on timing, what are you hearing from your customers? Is this kind of a matter of months, quarters? Is it just kind of indefinite until they renegotiate?

Speaker 1

Yes, Mark, this is Kevin. Good question. Thank you. So we haven't seen any meaningful cancellations yet at all. And what we are seeing is just these project delays and shifts.

Speaker 1

Quite often, it's really relative to these customers going out and trying to renegotiate PPAs prior to moving forward on projects. That's one of the biggest things we're seeing. And that's new and on top of the interconnect issues and panel availability issues that we've had for a couple of quarters now. So What we're seeing in terms of delays is customers pushing out not 2 weeks or 3 weeks, but they're pushing out measured in months, 3, 4 months at a time right now. And what they're trying to do is push it out.

Speaker 1

And then again, we get into the winter build season in North America, so they're not pushing it out to January or February. They're pushing it out to March, April May at this point. That's kind of what we're experiencing. So as expected, when we every quarter we look order by order go through, talk to the customers, sure that that project is on, for example, for a December shipment. And what we're just experiencing now is on some of these, they're pushing out of this year and into the end of Q1, beginning of Q2.

Speaker 1

And that's really what we're experiencing.

Speaker 4

Okay. And then just a follow-up On the 45x split or the IRA 45x, understand we're still waiting on the government here. But We were under the impression that there was better clarity that the industry was getting as far as kind of what The splits might be between the different participants within the value chain. Any update there that you can help us kind of quantify how to think about and how you've historically talked about keeping about a third or so of that 45 extra credit? Thank you.

Speaker 1

Yes. Another good question, Mark. So I can only say that as usual, we won't negotiate ourselves in a public forum, right? But I will tell you that while historically you've heard me say we think it's going to be a third, a third, a third, What we're negotiating now in all cases is greater than half coming to Array. And I think that's substantial upside to what we thought previously.

Speaker 1

So I think we're going to continue to negotiate each of those contracts with vendors on an individual basis, but I think we're more optimistic Than we were perhaps a few quarters ago.

Speaker 4

Great. Okay. Thanks, Kevin. And thank you, Naples, for all of your help since the

Speaker 3

IPO. Thanks

Operator

Mark. Thank you. The next question we have comes from Julien Dumoulin Smith of Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Speaker 2

Hey, just want to come back to the delay question first and foremost. Just when you think about the shift in the backlog here or perhaps Contemplated within that bucket, how do you think about this adding to the backlog versus, say, just Adding novel projects, right? I mean, in theory, you should be seeing something of a bloat in the backlog. And then maybe the secondary question here is, as you set perhaps I was saying about 24. Should you expect a step up?

Speaker 1

Step up in terms of volume, is that what you're asking?

Speaker 2

Yes, I was saying on 24, a step up here. Just how are you thinking about the recovery, like recognizing these projects that are delayed? And then just why are we not seeing more of a bloat in the backlog Kind of an expansion.

Speaker 1

Yes. So what we're seeing where we're seeing the bloat is really in what we call our pipeline, meaning And I think it's incredibly significant. It's the fastest growth in the pipeline that we've seen. And for our overall pipeline, that's the stuff that's coming into the top of our funnel to Double in 1 quarter, that's incredibly significant. What we're still seeing is that delay in getting them through the pipeline converted to orders, That's going to continue to be a delay until we have clarity around the IRA for one aspect, Because again, our customers are not sure what we need to quote them, right.

Speaker 1

So they're telling us so the pipeline is getting bigger because we need to be planning for demand scenarios that conversion from that overall pipeline into our order book It's elongated and delayed simply because we don't know the rules yet. So we have had a few customers say, listen, I get it, you don't know the rules. So quote me at X percent of domestic content to the best of your knowledge and ability today as we need to give you an order and get moving. So that's happened, but that's What we represent of that $320,000,000 that was sitting on the sidelines waiting for IRA clarity, that's only happened to about $35,000,000 of that Our customers are saying, look, I've got to get an order out to you. Let's get going.

Speaker 1

Others are still waiting for that additional clarity. So I think you're still going to see that You won't see that bloat up in the order book just yet until we have that clarity. You are going to see some customers need to go forward Under a looser set of understanding, if you will, not fully defined. So I think we are going to see that through the end of the year. And then, the second part of your question as it relates to 2024, I think some of these challenges are going to continue into 2024 for the entire industry.

Speaker 1

I think If you recall, you can't just push and add more to the specific size in a given year because of labor constraints, interconnection constraints and things of that nature. So I don't think it's as simple as adding all the push from this year on to next year plus The overall what would have been viewed as the market growth rate of 20% to 30% CAGR previously. I think it's going to be a little bit more muted than that As we go forward into next year, still waiting for some of these things to get cleared up.

Speaker 2

Got it. In the international backlog, you feel good at this point, just given the dynamics you described on the prepared remarks?

Speaker 1

Yes, we feel really good about Latin America, feel good about Australia, good about Europe. I think we feel pretty good. We've had a great level of growth as you've seen this year internationally, as we've really focused on working on those businesses and improving the quality of those businesses. So we expect that to continue going forward.

Speaker 2

Okay. Excellent guys. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question we have comes from Donovan Schafer South Northland Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. So my first question on the project delays I guess, Kevin, you just hinted at there can be labor constraints and other things. But Some of the projects that have been delayed, if they're able to ink a PPA tomorrow or the next day With your customers are able to turn around to their customers and find the right price that allows them to proceed with the project, Can that drive like can that be pretty quickly converted into revenue or would it even if that was something resolved Hypothetically tomorrow, would that then that still take another quarter or something before it could flow through and have an impact?

Speaker 1

You're correct. It will still take a quarter of our standard lead time, right? So what we're trying to be really mindful of this year is that we're not pre ordering and presupposing all the stuff It's cleaned up by a particular month and therefore over investing in our supply chain, right. So we're being very mindful. We're communicating with these customers literally on a daily basis as some of them are going out for additional PPAs, we're truly having calls every other day to get an update from them on Are they successful?

Speaker 1

And I can only say that in every case that I'm aware of that I could think of in these communications, they're confident that they're going to get that revised PPA, but they're just saying these are negotiations that take longer than a couple of weeks, right? And The way one of the large developers put it to me is fundamentally the end utilities that are purchasing this Energy have previously made commitments to their customers and to their shareholders of hitting very particular target in terms of a percentage of renewable energy. And we all know that the demand for energy is increasing. We all know that that's a definitively lower carbon source of energy that customers are looking for. So again, we feel really good about those fundamentals and we feel good that they need This is Renewable Energy.

Speaker 1

So in all cases, we're hearing that they're having very favorable discussions in terms of renegotiating these PPAs. It's just a timing issue. Again, that's almost a verbatim quote from one of our large developers who's in this very position right now.

Speaker 5

Okay. And then as a follow-up, I know in this space there can be very large projects, there can be a lot of lumpiness kind of in this business in general. But I have to ask just because we have had Some other equipment providers that serve the U. S. Utility scale market, Whether it's trackers or other kind of equipment, as that showed some sequential improvement this quarter.

Speaker 5

And so do you think that comes down to just lumpiness and maybe kind of related if you can comment on it? Is it maybe a case is there could we see something here like what we saw in Q1 where you were almost sort of being Punished for having high domestic content and not like if you're not high domestic content and you're not compromising on price and maybe that leads to More customers kind of holding out again to get the next incremental piece of guidance. Are those there's anything you can share there would be very helpful.

Speaker 1

I think it's a consistent set of factors that we're seeing as we're really focused on that domestic content customers. Those are the same customers and that's why we've identified the $300,000,000 sitting on the sidelines that we had hoped would have converted, We all cannot control the pace with which the government is providing this level of clarity that's needed to go forward. We all had hoped it was hitting their previous deadline, which was October, but October obviously has come and gone without any clarity. And now the latest update is that we may hear same time, we have a number of bits and pieces by the end of the year, but likely not the full story. And again, as I just alluded to, so what you have is you have A couple of customers asking for quotes with a lot of, I should say, leeway or liberty on our side is that, well, we could give you this at this price Given this definition, but we're not going to guarantee that that will be the final definition.

Speaker 1

And some of those customers are saying that's okay to me, I need to get going, right? That's only of that $320,000,000 that's $35,000,000 only, right? So it's a small percentage yet that are moving forward despite Lack of clarity, right? And again, I caution people to not think about bookings on a quarterly basis as you did in Q1 and then Q2, we had a great level of bookings that surprised to the upside significantly. That lumpiness and that seesaw, I think, is going to continue for a couple of quarters.

Operator

Thank you, sir. The next question we have comes from Tristan Richardson of Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Speaker 6

Hey, good evening guys. Appreciate all the comments on what you're seeing in the market. Maybe if you Could just help us out from an update on average project size either in the pipeline today or at least in the backlog either from A megawatts perspective or even a dollar perspective.

Speaker 3

Hey Tristan, it's Neepul. On average In our order book and backlog, it's about 150 megawatts.

Speaker 6

Great. That's helpful. And then maybe just are there any other characteristics kind of where you're seeing this dynamic with respect to developers? Is it for smaller projects or larger projects that are perhaps little bit more dependent on financing, etcetera. Is this just or is this more broad based?

Speaker 1

It is broad based. So as you know, we do quite a bit of work in the C and I space as well. We believe we're the largest provider of trackers to the C and I space. And While we've been experiencing this for now a couple of quarters on the utility scale, we're also seeing it in the C and I space in the last quarter, it's really coming to light of the delays. So I think it's something that's more broad based.

Speaker 1

And I don't think anyone's immune from this in the industry. So if anyone out there is saying, look, this isn't happening to us at all, I don't believe that. It's consistent. I'm constantly on the phone with developers and our partners and it's a consistent theme that I'm hearing in the marketplace. It's not An array issue to be clear.

Speaker 6

I appreciate it, Kevin. And thank you, Neepul. All the best.

Operator

Thank you. Next question we have comes from Jordan Navey from Trade Securities. Please go ahead.

Speaker 7

Good afternoon, all. And I would just echo everyone's comments, April. Thanks for everything. Maybe just to start sort of on I'm curious how All these dynamics in the market right now with the project delays and that sort of thing, if that's had any influence on what you're seeing from a competitive landscape perspective And just give a broader update there from what you're seeing?

Speaker 1

No, there's nothing we're seeing that's different from a competitive landscape. What we saw earlier in the year was much more price aggression from some of our competitors. I think that's abating somewhat now as we get into the back half. Outside of that, not really seeing any Changes in market dynamics are noteworthy.

Speaker 7

Appreciate that. And then maybe just as it relates to the new product rollouts in 20 How should we think about that in light of the IRA guidance and is it beholden to kind of the same factors we're talking about for the broader order book?

Speaker 1

Our new product development going into next year. Look, one of the areas I continue to be most excited about is the amount of effort that we've put into our accelerated new product development. We talked about a little bit on the last call, we still have several exciting announcements to make in terms of new products to come out, both in Q4 and then into next year. And I would just say just stay tuned and let us get through our timing internally and we'll make those announcements as appropriate. But There are some exciting things going on here in Q4 yet and then again into next year.

Speaker 7

Thanks so much for everything.

Operator

The next question we have comes from Brian Lee of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Speaker 2

Hey guys, good afternoon.

Speaker 8

Thanks for taking the questions. Neepul, you will be missed. Pleasure working with you. Best of luck in your next venture.

Speaker 3

Hi, Brian. I guess time

Speaker 8

Question I had and I apologize I had to jump on late, if you already covered this. A couple of quarters ago, you mentioned $150,000,000 being pushed from 23 to 24. At the midpoint, there's about another 150 not quite Coming out of the guidance revenue wise, so is it fair to assume do you have visibility that that roughly $300,000,000 revenue, which has come out of this year, is firmly in 24%. Do you have that visibility and sort of timing commitment from these customers that you've seen slip into next year or is there some of that where you're having to go back and re win the business or you're waiting to make sure that these customers are still going to move forward with their products. Just wondering how much of this is just Timing versus some of this stuff actually maybe just moving out into the right and not going back?

Speaker 1

Yes, Brian, I think that's a great question. And I'll tell you it's almost 100 percent exclusively timing. We've not had project cancellations at this point. The bulk of these have slid to the right, but historically if something would have slid to the right, it would have slid to the right weeks or maybe 6 weeks, right. What's happening now is they're sliding to the right certainly 3 months, right, 4 months.

Speaker 1

So we do have visibility to these next year. As I said, none of them have been canceled. We're not renegotiating rates on these for our products. So this is simply about getting financing, getting supply of panels, getting supply of labor and or getting a revised PPA or connection date, that's what we're doing. None of these projects have been canceled.

Speaker 8

Fair enough. No, that clarification is super helpful. I guess the second question I have is just around, I know you alluded to it in a prior The bookings number and sort of what the implied share ebbs and flows are between you and other tracker But over the balance of this year, there's been a couple of push ups for you all that maybe others And your current group haven't been seeing. So the natural question is, are there changes you're seeing in the competitive landscape market Share wise, anything that is notable just given this is a couple of quarters here where you've had Some issues around timing, whereas maybe some of your peers haven't had as much of that due to the balance of this year.

Speaker 1

I think there's a few things to think about. And the first, what I'll tell you is, I think market share flexes from quarter to quarter quite a bit With the inclusion of 1, 2 or 3 projects when you're looking at the increasing size of the utility scale landscape here per project. So that's certainly something. I think there's a secondary component which really has to do with the percentage of business that's domestic U. S.

Speaker 1

Based experiencing these versus international and we all recognize that we have a higher percentage of domestic revenue in our business that maybe some of our other public year, companies. So, if you were to set here and talk about this in Q1 or Q2, you would have been looking at Our publicly traded competitors and looking at us within a half of a percentage point of market share Domestically, right. And I think that was indicative of a strong gain in 2022 for Array and a rapid loss of market share for one of our competitors. Right on the back of that, what we saw was some really aggressive pricing in the market and we chose to hold our discipline in price, and I think that's still in my gut was the right decision to not dilute our value proposition, dilute our price. And I think that will serve us well in the maintaining of margins and hitting our margin aspirations As we finish this year and turn into 2024.

Speaker 1

So outside of that, no different dynamics, but really I want to talk about. I don't think there's any real changes, look, as it relates to new product and software, every quarter one of us is one up and the other in a small percentage Back and forth and I think that's going to continue. We both are investing a lot in new product development both in terms of our product portfolio as well as our software portfolio. So I think you're going to continue to see that and I think it's going to continue to be largely a few players controlling the bulk of the domestic market as we go forward and we're certainly going to be at that table.

Speaker 8

Okay, makes sense. I'll pass it on guys. Thanks a lot. Appreciate it.

Operator

Thank you. The next question we have comes from Colin Rusch from Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.

Speaker 9

Thanks so much guys. With the new products in hand, can you you talk about the competitive environment outside the U. S. And just how intense it is at this point and how much progress you're making in terms

Speaker 3

of moving customers through the sales funnel? Yes.

Speaker 1

I think that the difference outside of the U. S, again, none of the markets are monolithic. They're all very different. And The experience we're having in Brazil in terms of tremendous market share recovery and Australia is different than Europe And the price points are radically different in each one of these regions. And I'd say the biggest focus for us is increasing our competitiveness By leveraging our global supply chain first, second is taking our joint engineering organization and cost reducing our product portfolio.

Speaker 1

As an example of as we rapidly launch the H250 for the U. S. And again we'll be initiate deliveries of that in January of 2024. We quickly had such demand for that product for both the EU and LatAm region for that improved product line. And I think I don't think we gave the data on the call, but we've got over 6 gigawatts in various stages of quotes Of that already on a global basis and there's a significant amount of that that is outside the U.

Speaker 1

S. So that revised product platform is getting a lot of attention globally, it's and I think that's probably one of the biggest efforts we'll do to be more competitive internationally. It's the launching of that product On a global basis, the addition of the Array software on top of that product and then leveraging the global supply chain to continue to cost reduce And be more competitive on a price basis internationally. Those are the 3 levers that we're pulling and we feel really good about our traction that we have thus far.

Speaker 9

Perfect. Thanks so much. And then just in terms of how you execute against that and the spend levels on the R and D line, how are you expecting that trend, you've been able to get some pretty significant operating leverage to date. Is there a sense that you're going to need to spend in a meaningful way to deliver on all of those elements? Or are you going to be able to do that within the pre reasonable budget, like similar to what you've been spending recently?

Speaker 1

Yes, I think if you look at the uptick, I believe this year we were up circa 40% in terms of R and D as a percentage and I think that's more respectable level than what we were Historically, and I think the team is going to deliver a phenomenal funnel of new product development for that spend. But I want to be absolutely clear on this. I think the use of our profit to generate more incremental new product development, I really believe in. And if the team continues to bring me great new product ideas that are vetted by both sales, product management and the engineering organization, I'm going to continue to fund them even if I have to increase that, right. Running an engineered products company, your new product development is one of the lifebloods of your company and we're going to continue spend there, because I think the more we dive in and the more we open our eyes to what adjacencies we could get into with our products, We feel stronger and stronger about it.

Speaker 1

So we're going to continue to emphasize new product development. We'll be spending at least a similar amount next year, if not accelerated further.

Operator

Thank you. The next question we have comes from Joe Osha from Guggenheim Partners. Please go ahead.

Speaker 10

Hi, thanks for taking my question. I hope you have some great plans. Just to return to the issue we've all been talking about, obviously, You've got developers going back and trying to open reopen PPAs. PUCs don't always necessarily roll over. Sometimes they do things The issue of potentially some of these developers coming back to you next year and saying, no, we didn't get everything we wanted.

Speaker 10

We need you to reopen conversations on the contract and the price?

Speaker 1

Yes, that's a great point. So clearly what you're seeing is that As these developers over the last years had settled for a particular IRR and interest rates are rising, that IRR is no longer attractive when you could go put your money in a CD and get 5% today, right? So they're raising their hurdle rates and they have 2 choices there, right? It's either Go back and raise PPA, so they're de facto raising revenues or the flip side

Speaker 2

of that is they've got to go

Speaker 1

and reduce costs. So Are we having conversations with developers on how we could redesign sites to take cost out of those sites for those developers? We absolutely are. That would be a natural occurrence for us at this stage. So we are having those dialogues.

Speaker 1

I would say, In some cases, there are some pricing concessions on that. But again, thus far, we've been able to offset those with cost reductions. But certainly that's a natural dynamic that we could see as we go into next year. Absolutely.

Speaker 10

And thank you. And just to follow-up, I mean, obviously, this is happening, but the fact that rates are high is not a surprise for anybody. Is the fact that this seems to be hitting now just a function of People getting their ducks in a row for the end of the year or what? It's interesting to me that this appears to be occurring now when the rate environment Has been with

Speaker 1

us for a while. Yes, I agree. And that's we absolutely, I 100% agree with you. The rate environment has with us a while, so we're a little bit caught off guard that this is happening more now, more recently, but we've had conversations with developers who are simply Raising their internal rates of return expectations given this environment. And obviously, where A lot of our customers are counting on the IRA benefits to support that coupled with falling module prices And then also the domestic content matter is the big piece that I think a lot are counting on to further move forward on some of these projects.

Speaker 1

So and And I think that's probably the incremental delay is that piece that we all expect to be received.

Speaker 10

I'm sorry to belabor this, but I do want to you said something very I want to clarify. It's less, it sounds like, about bank financing being more expensive since most of these guys have that locked in anyway. It's more about developer internal IRR hurdle rates. Is that what you're saying?

Speaker 1

Well, Yes. I think it's both. I think it's about one developer I spoke to about a week and a half ago who's challenged with this very dilemma, right now it's also about that developer being able to sell a project at a particular IRR in the future Given other interest rates and other investment alternatives, right?

Speaker 10

Thank you so much.

Operator

Thank you. The next question we have comes from John Wyndham point, UBS, please go ahead.

Speaker 6

Hey, thanks for taking the questions. I just want to talk about The adjustment in revenue, if we exclude the Brazil related accounting classification, there's about $118,000,000 pushed off in the next year. Yes, you're more or less maintaining the EBITDA guide, which means basically $21,000,000 of EBITDA that's not being pushed out. Can you talk a little bit about what's driving the higher profitability and what you are shipping?

Speaker 3

Yes. Hey, John, it's Neapol. So The higher profitability is continued favorability in logistics cost and material cost that we're seeing flow through for the balance of the year. We had a couple of projects we talked about that were delivering in the back half of the year at the lower challenge margins, especially overseas, those have been a little bit delayed. And so therefore, that's helped with the pricing, That's helpful to the overall margins, but that's the reason why we're keeping the mid to high teens gross margins for the full year.

Speaker 6

Got it. And maybe just a quick follow-up. How much of the project delays do you see as a function of customer selection? Or is it a bit more random, and certain developers have certain problems with projects? Or what is there anything you could do due diligence wise to time, I'll ask some of these in the future.

Speaker 6

Thanks for taking the time.

Speaker 1

No, there's nothing I can think of that we would do differently.

Operator

Thank you. The next question we have comes from Tom Curran from Seaport Global Securities. Please go ahead.

Speaker 11

Hi, thanks for taking my question. Would you share what non tracker offerings accounted for as a percentage of 3Q's top line and maybe give us an estimate or range for their likely contribution to full year 2023 revenue.

Speaker 2

And then

Speaker 11

I guess part 2 on this topic would be as I think about the non tracker side, it seems to consist of 4 drivers, aftermarket sales, engineering services, smart track monetization and then better change order capture, perhaps would you provide us an update on the progress you're making with each?

Speaker 1

No, Tom, sorry. I don't I think it's too premature. We've been at it for a few quarters. It's still going to be lumpy. I think we're going to end the year very pleased with our overall revenues in that space because again it's been a high quality of revenue for us, But we're not at this point ready to go and delineate by sub segment or to give you a forecast for the full year 2023.

Speaker 11

Okay. I'll try again maybe in 2024. But Kevin, could you perhaps maybe just highlight Within those 4 sub segments as I'm categorizing them, are there any that are Clearly in the lead right now or that you're more optimistic about or making more progress with faster than others?

Speaker 1

Look, I think they're all contributing at a really exciting rate for us. If I think about SmartTrak software, for example, what's in the order book is 5 times what's been deployed to date, right? So that's an exciting The better change order management is really about taking what were profit leaks historically and converting them time, we're going to continue to see positive both revenue and margin and that's going really, really well for us. And it's really about just having the discipline As we get changes to ensure that we're monetizing those changes and this is about making sure we're balanced and fair with our customers. But again, if we have take back material or dispose of something that we're doing that in a more effective way than maybe historically where We may have played too much of a nice guy in the middle, if you will.

Speaker 1

We're doing that. The engineering services are going very well for us. So I think every single one of them are beginning to contribute. But to be clear, what's driving it is really the fact that we brought in product management. We decided to productize each of those, Which meant clearly delineated value proposition, sales literature, content, value selling training for the sales team, Ensuring that they're quotable upfront in the project, going back and looking at how we harvest our installed base and look at some of the additional O and M services we can do after that.

Speaker 1

It is a really comprehensive amount of work that's been done over the last 6 months to drive that. And I'm just really pleased with the level Of traction that we're getting on all that. And again, it's a good quality revenue for us as we go forward.

Speaker 11

Got it. That was some helpful color. And then, Neifel, best of luck. And just as you prepare to pass to baton here. Would you refresh us on what was your leverage target As part of the ongoing debt reduction, what were you hoping to get to?

Speaker 3

Yes, it was in the secured leverage is going to be under 1 by the end of the year and the total debt was going to be around 2 to 2.5. Got it. Thanks. Very

Speaker 1

much on pace for that. We're very pleased with the cash flow of the business at this point.

Operator

Thank you, sir. The next question we have comes from Philip Shen of Roth MKM. Please go ahead.

Speaker 12

Hi, all. Thanks for taking my questions. I'm jumping on a bit late here. Neepul, it's been great working with you. Sorry to Hugo, I know this may have been addressed in some from some angles, but wanted to just see if you could Talk about any patterns you're seeing, for the push outs, meaning are you seeing any similarities with the developers?

Speaker 12

Or Are they smaller ones or are the utility developers typically not impacted or have you seen delayed projects even from the Larger utility developers, are there any other patterns as it relates to access to capital? I know you're talking earlier, Kevin, about just Making internal decisions requiring a higher return, but just curious if you could see or share any patterns with these customers? Thanks.

Speaker 1

Phil, it's nothing that we're willing to give any additional color on at this point. I think it's Suffice to say, it's been actually fairly broad based. I don't think there's been any customer sub segment that's been immune to it at this point.

Speaker 12

Shifting to the implied Q4 EBITDA margin, I was wondering you may have touched on this earlier as call with international being maybe a bit of a drag, but I was wondering if you could give us some more color on the implied Q4 EBITDA margin, which seems closer to 13% versus Q3 of 16% in the first half of twenty twenty, What's driving that and would you expect a recovery back to either 16% or even 20% in the first half of next year? Thanks.

Speaker 3

Yes. Hey, Phil, I'll take that one. So the implied EBITDA margins really related to the gross margins that we talked about, we had Some projects that we're going to deliver in the back half of this year, finish up the projects in the U. S. From our STI division, they were going to finish up and they were lower than our expected margin rate.

Speaker 3

And we had a project or 2 related to the array slide, which we had signed a while ago that we knew there was going to be a little bit challenging on the margins. So similar to what we had said in Q2, those will still deliver here in Q4, providing the lower than expected gross margins and therefore dropping down to the EBITDA margins.

Speaker 12

Great. Thanks. And so I know you don't have guidance for the first half of next year, but would it be fair to presume that after these projects are taken care of, we get back to the normalized call it 16 to 20?

Speaker 3

That would be our expectations, yes.

Operator

Thank you. The final question we have comes from Sean Milligan from Janney. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Hey, thank you for fitting me in this afternoon. Just wanted to touch base on the new products, H250, I think you quoted Over 6 gigawatts in various bidding stages globally and then OmniTrak also I guess for both of those you talked about pretty robust bidding, curious in terms of, 1, do you view that as an incremental opportunity for you relative to like where you would have Did DuraTrac before? Just kind of maybe could you address like what the like the TAM is for that in terms of gigawatts? And then 2, like are those bids for 2024, 2025, how should we think about that?

Speaker 1

So the first part of your question relative to, I think you're asking how much of it's incremental versus replacement or cannibalization, if you think about the Array OmniTrak, we expect that to be a part cannibalization of DuraTrac in a better fit product, but also lead to about a 10% increment in TAM. So that's kind of how we look at it from that product. As it relates to the S250 and the strong bookings that we're seeing there or this strong funnel, if you will, that we're seeing there. There's a portion of that that is replacing the old STI-two fifty where customers are just now saying, look, I really want that new product. I would have given Array the order previously for the old version, but I really want to I was just recently in Brazil where I was in the room where we were talking to a customer that was placing a very large order, We demanded that they get all new product as quickly as possible, right.

Speaker 1

So I think a portion of that will be incremental and a portion of that will be replacement. But I will say that's replacement at accretive margins to the product it's displacing. Hopefully, that's helpful.

Speaker 4

That's helpful. And then kind of the second part would just be in terms of the bidding that you talked about in the 6 gigawatts, is that for 2024, 2025, how can we think about that in terms of timing potential?

Speaker 1

I think there's it's split. There's at least half of it that I would say is really about 24. And then there's another large multi year VCA, if you will, that would cover 2 years. That's a big portion of that 6 gigawatts as well. I would say it's largely 24 with a portion of 25.

Speaker 4

Okay. And then just You mentioned in the first response, you mentioned kind of the margins being accretive to the legacy project or legacy product on 250. Are they in line with like margin rate expect to see those shake out?

Speaker 1

Yes. I mean what you've seen, if you just look at the gross margins of the STI business and certainly in this quarter, We've been focused on the recovery of the STI gross margins. I think that focus over the last year has gone very well. They are back to pre acquisition gross margin levels, so we're quite excited about that. And as we launch the new product that's time, again, a product with really good gross margins for us as we go forward.

Speaker 1

So I think we're quite satisfied there.

Speaker 3

Time, we will now begin

Operator

the call. Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. Concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you for your participation.

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Key Takeaways

  • Strong Q3 results: Delivered $350 M revenue in line with expectations, 26% adjusted gross margin, and $69 M free cash flow, raising full-year margin outlook despite no benefit from IRA manufacturing credits.
  • CFO transition: Neel Patel will step down Nov. 13 and move to an advisory role as Kirk Wood takes over to support growth and operational maturity.
  • Short-term project delays due to financing and PPA renegotiations pushed some shipments into Q1/Q2 2024, but no cancellations have occurred and the domestic pipeline doubled from June 30 to September 30.
  • Announced expansion of a new 216,000 sq ft manufacturing campus in New Mexico and launched services and training offerings to boost non-tracker revenue and margins over time.
  • Updated 2023 guidance: revenue lowered to $1.525–1.575 B, adjusted EBITDA of $280–290 M, and adj. EPS of $1.05, while maintaining a $150–200 M free cash flow target; excludes anticipated IRA 45X credits.
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Earnings Conference Call
Array Technologies Q3 2023
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