Frequency Electronics Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
December 10, 2024

There are 7 speakers on the call.

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to the Frequency Electronics Second Quarter Fiscal 'twenty five Earnings Release Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. Any statements made by the company during this conference call regarding this future constitute forward looking statements pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements inherently involve uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward looking statements. Factors that would cause or contribute to such differences are included in the company's press releases and are further detailed in the company's periodic report filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Operator

By making these forward looking statements, the company undertakes no obligation to update these statements for revisions or changes after the date of this conference call. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Thomas McClellan, President and Chief Executive Officer.

Speaker 1

Good afternoon, everyone. By all financial metrics, the Q2 of fiscal year 2025 performance was excellent. For both the quarter and the year to date, revenue, gross margin and operating income have grown substantially. The backlog is also holding strong at $81,000,000 which is, by the way, an all time high, compared to $70,000,000 at the end of the first quarter and $78,000,000 at the end of the last fiscal year. The results reflect continued solid growth in our core businesses, which show every indication of continuing.

Speaker 1

The primary source of growth this year has been the U. S. Government Space Business. The U. S.

Speaker 1

Government Space Business is responsible for more than half the revenue and operating income for the first half of the current fiscal year, and we're very busy responding to inquiries and writing proposals for new government space programs. As we've discussed in the past, a significant portion of existing as well as new potential space work relates to heritage satellite systems and our core technologies. However, we are seeing a lot more and more new business in the proliferated small satellite domain. And it's very clear that this is the direction in which space technology is headed. At this time, less than 10% of our backlog is associated with proliferated small satellites, but it's anticipated that this will grow dramatically over the next decade.

Speaker 1

The potential is huge, But instead of 1 or 2 high performing systems delivered on a given program, we're looking at 100 of lower cost, sometimes lower performing systems on a given program. And continuing replenishment business on those programs to replace systems on satellites, which have exceeded their expected lifetime of 3 to 5 years. In order to be successful in this domain, we must develop products targeted at this market. In general, our existing technologies packaged in smaller, lower power, lower performing variants. It has become clear over the last few years that a significant amount of this development needs to happen now and must be funded internally.

Speaker 1

Our R and D expenditures are up this year because of this, currently about 10% of revenue compared to about 6% of revenue last fiscal year. It's anticipated that R and D will remain steady at approximately 10% of revenue for the foreseeable future. But we believe that the return on this investment has the potential to be extremely attractive in terms of new business wins with years of follow on business behind them. In short, we should make it back in spades. In October, FEI hosted the Quantum Sensor Summit in New York City, a technical conference bringing together experts from around the world to share insights and expectations regarding this rapidly developing area of technology.

Speaker 1

This event was well attended. There were roughly 88 attendees, and we have obtained a lot of positive feedback from it. Quantum sensors is a rapidly developing market, one which FEI is well positioned to participate in based on our existing expertise and one which we are actively pursuing as an additional avenue to continued growth well into the future. Much of the development in this arena will be funded externally on U. S.

Speaker 1

Government R and D programs. And in fact, some government funded, excuse me, some government funding is expected within the next two quarters. With a new administration to be sworn in, in January, we're cautiously optimistic that a government fiscal year 2025 budget will be passed expeditiously and that funding will thus be available sooner rather than later. In parallel, we're pursuing Cooperative Research and Development Agreements, or CRADAs, with NIST and other government laboratories in order to harvest their expertise in specific quantum technologies. All in all, I'm happy with our performance, very excited about our future and proud to lead a workforce of talented and really dedicated individuals who deserve most of the credit for our current success.

Speaker 1

I'll now turn things over to our CFO, Steve Bernstein, who will fill you in on some of the financial details. Steve?

Speaker 2

Thank you, Tom, and good afternoon. For the 6 months ended October 31, 2024, consolidated revenue was $30,900,000 compared to $26,000,000 for the same period of the prior fiscal year. The components of revenue are as follows: revenue from commercial and U. S. Government satellite programs was approximately $17,700,000 or 57% compared to $9,500,000 or 37% in the same period of the prior fiscal year.

Speaker 2

Revenue on satellite payroll contracts are recognized primarily under the percentage of completion method and recorded only in the FEINew York segment. Revenue from non space U. S. Government and DoD customers, which are recorded in both the FEINew York and FEIN ZYPHR segments were $12,100,000 compared to $15,100,000 in the same period of the prior fiscal year and accounted for approximately 39% of consolidated revenue compared to 58% for the prior fiscal year. Other commercial and industrial revenue were $1,100,000 $1,400,000 for the 6 months ended October 31, 'twenty four and 'twenty three, respectively.

Speaker 2

The significant increase in revenue for the period was primarily related to an increase in U. S. Government customer sales for space product. For the 6 months ending October 31, 'twenty four, gross margin and gross margin rate increased as compared to the same period in fiscal year 'twenty three. The gross margin dollars increased as direct result of the increase in revenue.

Speaker 2

The gross margin rate increase was particularly attributable to a large space program that completed a major milestone in its production as well as the older programs at lower margin are complete or near completion. For the 6 months ending October 31, 'twenty four and 'twenty three, SG and A expense was approximately 20% 19%, respectively, of consolidated revenues. The increase in SG and A expense during the 3 6 months ending October 31, 'twenty four was mainly related to an increase in payroll related expenses, costs from the realignment of employees from overhead to SG and A and the costs related to Frequency Electronics' 1st Quantum Summit in October of 'twenty 4. The annual run rate for SG and A for the year is expected to be approximately $3,000,000 per quarter. It should be noted that the payroll related expenses, which are driving the majority of the increase, approximately 25 percent are non cash transactions such as stock compensation and 401 expense.

Speaker 2

R and D expense for the 6 months ending October 31, 'twenty four increased to $3,100,000 from $1,300,000 for the 6 months ending October 31, '24, an increase of approximately $1,800,000 and were approximately 10% and 5% respectively of consolidated revenue. R and D increase for the 6 months ending October 31, 'twenty four was primarily due to a focus on advances and modernization of products as opposed to fiscal 'twenty four where the company was primarily focused on customer production orders resulting in much lower R and D expense than initially planned. The company plans to continue to invest in R and D in the future to keep its products at the state of the art, however, actual quarterly spend is expected to vary. For the 6 months ending October 31, 'twenty four, the company recorded operating income of $5,000,000 compared to operating income of $3,000,000 in the prior year. Operating income increased partially due to large space program that completed a major milestone in its production during the 3 months ending October 31, 'twenty four as discussed earlier.

Speaker 2

However, the increase is also a result of the successful efforts of the company to complete complex and costly programs and to work more efficiently in bidding, building and testing our products. The company believes the improved operating income results for the first half of this fiscal year are a tangible outcome of these efforts. Other income can be derived from reclaiming of metal, refunds, interest on deferred trust assets or the sale of fixed assets, interest expenses related to the deferred compensation payments made to retired employees. This yields pre tax income of approximately $5,400,000 compared to $2,900,000 for the prior fiscal year. For the 6 months ended October 31, 'twenty four, the company reported a tax provision of $272,000 compared to $13,000 for the same period of the prior fiscal year.

Speaker 2

Consolidated net income for the 6 months ending October 31, 'twenty four was $5,100,000 or $0.53 per share compared to $2,800,000 or $0.30 per share in the previous fiscal year. Our fully funded backlog at the end of October 24 was approximately $81,000,000 compared to approximately $78,000,000 for the previous fiscal year end April 30, 2024. The company's balance sheet continues to reflect a strong working capital position of approximately $23,000,000 at October 31, 'twenty four and a current ratio of approximately 1.8:one. Additionally, the company is debt free. The company believes that its liquidity is adequate to meet its operating and investing needs for the next 12 months and the foreseeable future.

Speaker 2

I'll turn the call back to Tom, and we look forward to your questions soon.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Steve. I think we can now take questions.

Operator

Thank you. At this time, we will be conducting a question and answer session. Okay. The first question comes from Chris Vakovsky, Private Investor. Please proceed.

Speaker 3

Hello, congratulations on great results first. And I wanted to ask you to talk a little bit about these new products you will be developing for these smaller satellites. And tell us about what kind of competitive advantage you have there? Presumably, these products will not be as difficult as your usual products as the satellites have shorter lifetimes and they don't require that much precision. So is there what is your competitive advantage?

Speaker 1

Okay. Good question. I think that fundamentally, we're talking about the same products that we sell today to the satellite business, but we're going to modify those products to optimize them for the small satellite applications. Now one of the things to understand right from the start is that this whole thing is evolving fairly rapidly. It's a little bit unclear where the world ends up in terms of this spectrum of cheap and inexpensive and small on one side and very, very high performance and long lasting on the other end of the spectrum.

Speaker 1

We believe that the portion of this that we're going to be able to address is not necessarily the absolute smallest and absolute cheapest, but somewhere moving in that direction from the exquisite long lasting kind of satellites that we're used to dealing with in the past. So we do believe that there's a sweet spot in there that we're well positioned to address. And we think that's we have products that we can develop that are much smaller than the things that we deliver today on the larger satellites and much lower power and lower cost, but still have pretty good performance, not necessarily as good as the absolute best that we've been able to do when money is no the right place to be going forward. But this is something that we have to kind of monitor as we go, so that we get this right going forward. We it doesn't pay to have better performance than what people are looking for out there.

Speaker 1

But on the other hand, it doesn't pay to have tiny, very low cost products, but it don't perform and deliver the kind of performance that's needed for the applications that are out there. So it's a bit of a challenge, but we do feel that we have a pretty good idea of where we need to be and how to go about it.

Speaker 3

So you're saying that your advantage is just your history of designing high quality products and it will be easier for you to develop your products and make them a little bit cheaper than for somebody else to come up from below?

Speaker 1

Yes. I think the fundamental advantage that we have is we have technologies and capabilities that nobody else has. And I think a corollary to that is that I think we have a pretty good understanding of the applications and what kind of performance is necessary to make those applications work. And so yes, that's what we bring to the table.

Speaker 3

All right. That's good to hear. And another question, and this is a little bit playing devil's advocate. Is there any danger of those more cheaper satellites of kind of taking away your business of the expensive satellites, which is seems to be still 80% of your business?

Speaker 1

Sure. There's a potential for that. But I think the thing we have to understand that there are small satellites that are up on orbit as we speak. And we have not participated in those programs. And the reason we haven't participated in those programs because there is nothing our technology brought to the table that couldn't be procured from somebody else at a much lower cost.

Speaker 1

And so there's definitely a portion of the business that we will never be able to address. But the higher end performance, the part of the satellite business that requires precision time and synchronization, I think we will participate in. There are trade offs and this is something that we're monitoring very closely. There are various other technologies that can be brought to bear that have an impact on just how much precision time and frequency is needed for particular applications. And that's something we have to monitor.

Speaker 1

But we do believe that as people demand more from these systems in the future, the need for high precision frequency and timing hardware will be there, and we're going to be ready to address those needs.

Speaker 3

All right. So to simplify, I think you're saying is that even if your clients decide to serve the same functions with smaller satellites, they'll probably still need precise timing and they'll still get some kind of a product from you. Is that correct?

Speaker 1

Yes. That's correct. There are the applications that will require our products. Yes.

Speaker 3

Yes.

Operator

The next question comes from Brent Gerrickson, Private Investor. Please proceed, Brent.

Speaker 4

Hello, guys. Congratulations on a fantastic quarter.

Speaker 1

And I think

Speaker 4

I speak for everybody. I really appreciate the long hours and hard work you guys are putting in. Everybody at at Frequency, just want to say a big thank you. My question is, we've seen kind of a breakout here in the backlog. And I'm just kind of wondering when do we start seeing a breakout in the revenue and EPS going forward?

Speaker 4

Thank you.

Speaker 1

Well, I'm not sure I understand the definition of breakout, but I think the revenue has been growing. And yes, I think yes, I don't know what else to say beyond that. I mean, I guess, we can't necessarily look at it's not fair to assume that the percentage change in backlog is going to be instantaneously reflected in the percentage change in revenue. But I think they do at least qualitatively track.

Operator

Okay. The next question comes from George Marama with Pareto Ventures. Please proceed.

Speaker 1

Hey, thanks guys. Hey, Tom.

Speaker 5

Along the line of this smaller cheaper satellite direction, how would you describe the technical lift to get there? Is it do you need breakthroughs in physics and engineering? Or how would you characterize the difficulty in getting to a smaller, cheaper version of what you have today to be competitive?

Speaker 1

Okay. That's a really good question. I think that the interesting point is that we actually have products that we sell for terrestrial applications that are smaller and cheaper. The problem is that the fundamental way that you make electronic products smaller and cheaper is you use a lot of digital electronics. And of course, we all know from our own experience that with cell phones and everything else that digital electronics gets smaller and lower power all of the time.

Speaker 1

So the fundamental way that we make things smaller and cheaper is we employ more and more of those digital electronics. The problem is when you want to utilize those things in space, you have to contend with the fact that there's nuclear radiation in space. There are protons and electrons and various other types of nuclear radiation in space. And it's well known that this very high density digital electronics are sensitive to what's called single event upset. So particles radiation particles in space can cause upsets.

Speaker 1

They can cause bits to flip. And these can cause severe problems in those small devices. If we try to take the things that we use here on earth and utilize them without any modifications up in space. So this is the primary thing. What we are really looking at is taking products that we sell currently on the ground and adapting those to be able to survive and function properly in the space environment.

Speaker 1

And so this is actually a fairly big challenge. In some cases, we have to replace some digital parts with radiation hardened digital parts. But that's difficult because a lot of the things that are designed for space that are radiation hardened are bigger than the same kind of devices that don't have those features. And in other cases, it's a question of doing adequate testing of the parts on the ground in order to verify that they will survive in space. Now a lot of the applications in space for these small lower cost devices are at low earth orbits where the radiation isn't as severe in higher as in higher orbits, but still we have radiation.

Speaker 1

And of course, the lifetimes of these devices are shorter. So we can get away with some radiation problems. But so it's really one of the biggest challenges is to just figure out how to do this good enough. We need something that's going to survive and be effective for 3 to 5 years in these low Earth orbit kind of environments. So I think that's not the whole story, but that's a huge part of the story and the biggest challenge in developing these things.

Speaker 5

Tom, have you looked at the, it's in the final phase, it's not commercialized today, but there's a project being done for SkyWater with QuickLogic and Honeywell, which is an FPGA radiation hardened technology for space. Have you worked that?

Speaker 1

Yes. We've looked at any number and worked with any number of this radiation hardened FPGAs. And there are various different levels of them. So that part of the challenge is figuring out what's the most effective thing. Some of those devices are extremely expensive.

Speaker 1

And for our small products, we don't require huge FPGAs that have tremendous amount of capabilities. We need smaller things. And so sometimes the larger FPGAs aren't really appropriate for our needs. And also, there are just different levels of radiation tolerance or intolerance. And again, the challenge is getting the lowest cost, smallest items that we can get away with using without having problems.

Speaker 1

And some of this trial and error, a lot of testing, etcetera in order to optimize things.

Speaker 5

And one last thing about government budgets. I was happy to see the backlog increase by it looks like just rough math $25,000,000 in the quarter over last quarter. Given an election and

Speaker 1

the new administration, I was happy to see that during

Speaker 5

this time. It appears from all available information that the space race is really going to be amped up for the next several years. There's a lot of talk on orbit space services, NASA is doing stuff, DoD has a lot of plans. How would you describe the budgetary environment in the next few months? And you kind of made some comments about 'twenty five hopefully, but is it difficult right now in the transition period?

Speaker 5

Are a lot of things getting gummed up or not necessarily?

Speaker 1

Well, yes, not necessarily. I think the one thing where there's always a certain level of frustration with government funding. It's never as fast as we would like it to be. And of course, we're pretty concerned with the election this year and the way things turned out and independent of one's political leanings, I think the good thing about the result is that it looks like we will not have a divided Congress. And so I think there's at least some hope that we get an actual budget sometime soon after the inauguration.

Speaker 1

And that will just be helpful. The continuing resolution thing limits the ability of a number of these programs to move forward. And so usually what these kind of things mean, your comment about space growing for the foreseeable future, I think is correct. And so it's not a question of the business disappearing. It's just a question of it moving to the right, moving out further in time.

Speaker 1

And we have a pretty good handle on what things look like over the next few months. And I think we're in really good shape after that. It's anybody's guess. I think we'll start to get some clarity on that hopefully in the next few months. Okay.

Speaker 1

Thanks.

Operator

The next question comes from Michael Eisner, Private Investor. Michael, please proceed.

Speaker 4

Great job all around. Thanks, Michael. The company did a really good job. Your gross margins went up to 48%, which I thought was very impressive. You went up on the cost of R and D rather.

Speaker 4

Do you see that coming down or that's going to continue at this point until you get government funding?

Speaker 5

Well, let's see. I think

Speaker 1

several comments. First on the gross margin, I think we've been talking over the last couple of years about gross margin. And I think we've been targeting just the kind of numbers that we're delivering at this point in time. We won't always be able to do that. It depends on the mix of work.

Speaker 1

But that's kind of where we really ideally want to be. With respect to R and D, I think I did talk about this a little bit just a few minutes ago. I think it's up significantly from last year. I guess the thing to say is we probably underspent where we really need to be in terms of R and D last year. And I think we're about where we need to be in terms of R and D spending right now.

Speaker 1

So I'd like to look at it as a percentage of revenue. And we anticipate that for the foreseeable future, right now, this year, we're at about 10% of revenue, and I anticipate being somewhere near that point over the next couple of years.

Speaker 4

All right. And one thing on the gross margins, a lot of companies say they're going to get their gross margins up, but they never do. You did. 48% is a very impressive number. I hope it continues.

Speaker 5

And any of the

Speaker 4

what was that?

Speaker 1

I hope so too. We're working hard to actually achieve it. So, yes.

Speaker 4

Is any of the revenue we had this quarter, is any from quantum sensing?

Speaker 1

I hesitate to get into any specifics in this regard. But suffice it to say, there's not a significant amount of revenue this quarter from quantum sensors.

Speaker 4

I didn't even expect you to have anything really because everything is getting going at the beginning of this, I was thinking. That's why I thought the gross margins weren't going to be high until like next year sometime. I think you reach them like 6 months to 9 months before I thought you could get there even. Is LEO the future of the company?

Speaker 1

LEO as in low earth orbits?

Speaker 4

Yes.

Speaker 1

Yes. It's part of it, but it's not the whole story. And I think lots of times for people that follow satellite stuff, the low earth orbits are talked about a lot. But we're looking at small low cost satellite applications that are not LEO orbits. So it's not exclusive to LEO.

Speaker 1

And in fact, the LEO environment is going to get pretty crowded here over the next decade or so. So exactly what that's going to mean for some of this stuff is not 100% clear. But there's going to be a lot of LEO stuff, but that's not the only game in town.

Speaker 4

Do we work with GEO also and MEO, medium earth orbit?

Speaker 1

Yes, absolutely. A lot of our heritage satellite work is geosynchronous orbits or GEO. And of course, the most well known medium earth orbit satellite system is GPS. And there are some other global navigation satellite systems that are also in medium earth orbits. So yes, we are involved in all of that stuff.

Speaker 4

All right. Final question. Are we working on our GPS with the STRONUS? I don't know if you can answer that. That's a backup GPS by Space.

Speaker 1

Corps? Yes. We're very familiar with, I think, it's resilient GPS, and we're actively pursuing that. The that's one of these programs that we'll see with the new administration how things go. The funding for that is very limited at the moment.

Speaker 1

But we are working actually the government has funded 4 different prime contractor teams. Astronis, who you mentioned, is one of them. And we are actually talking to and working with 3 of the 4 prime contractors at this point in time.

Speaker 4

Are you working with 3 out of 4? That's very impressive.

Speaker 1

I was hoping I want to emphasize, we're not under contract with anybody at this point in time, but we are working with 3 of the 4. And if that program moves forward and get some additional funding, I think we're in a pretty good position to be involved with several of the prime contractors.

Speaker 4

Because it seems like every all these companies I mentioned work with different types like, Astronas uses GEO, SpaceLinker uses MEO

Speaker 1

and So the resilient GPS, our GPS program is specifically targeting MEO orbits at this point in time.

Speaker 4

I never heard you say the medium Earth orbit before. I don't think you said mentioned that. All around fantastic job. I'm very impressed. Thank you for your time.

Speaker 1

Okay. Thanks, Mike.

Operator

The next question comes from Frank Wisniewski, Private Investor. Frank, please proceed. Good

Speaker 6

evening, Tom, and all. First, I was glad to see you were appointed to the Board, very well deserved. My question is on the non space U. S. Government and DoD business, the Cipher and some of the West Coast operations.

Speaker 6

They continue to be weak. And I assume when you were talking about the funding difficulties, the continuing resolutions and such, it referred mainly to this area of your business. Could you give us a little feel for whether you expect any recovery in the revenues from those operations in the next 6

Speaker 1

months? Yes. I think it's certainly true that the non space government stuff, We definitely programs get pushed out and there are challenges there. I think that I do anticipate some what we've seen is that there's a fair amount of variability quarter to quarter. So I don't think we're on a downward trend in any sense with that business.

Speaker 1

I think it's solid, it's profitable, and we do see some we anticipate some significant growth. The timing is just very, very challenging to predict at this point in time.

Speaker 6

And would your backlog be primarily space business?

Speaker 1

Well, it's certainly a big chunk of it is space business. I don't have the exact breakdown at this point. Okay.

Speaker 4

Thank you.

Speaker 5

Okay.

Operator

The next question comes from Tim Hasara with Sunnette Capital. Please proceed. Yes. Just curious, what's the prospects for

Speaker 1

more GEO contracts with upgrades to some of your existing programs that have been out there for a while and just over the next 6 to 9 months here? We do anticipate significant amount of work in that area. Definitely within the next 6 to 9 months, There we have proposals out to multiple primes on several different programs. Again, we have a new administration and exactly how things play out is a little bit hard to say. But we definitely anticipate continued business there.

Speaker 1

And I feel that that's quite important for us because those are the programs where I think we when we do things right, and I think we've bid those programs properly, we should be able to get good margins on those programs, give us a little bit of leeway to try to do some of what we need to do to get positioned properly for the small satellite stuff.

Operator

We have a follow-up coming from Michael Eisener, Private Investor. Please proceed.

Speaker 4

Tom, I meant to congratulate you on joining the Board. Thank you.

Speaker 1

Thanks.

Operator

Okay. The next question is from George Marama with Pareto Ventures. Please proceed.

Speaker 5

Yes. Hi. I didn't want to leave Zifer as the odd man out. How is the Zifer unit performing?

Speaker 1

They're doing pretty good actually. Yes, I think you'll see some specifics on that, but I think we're pretty happy with their performance at this point.

Speaker 5

Are there any R and D priorities for ZEIFER or any new areas or new things going on there?

Speaker 1

Yes, we do. We definitely have some R and D activity going on at Zephyr. I think I think the main area there, so variant of the theme we see in the satellite business, smaller, cheaper. So we have some development to do some of the same things that they've been doing for years, but in smaller packages. And then I think the other thing is to take some of their products, which traditionally they take they incorporate a GPS receiver and perform timing and synchronization functions, utilizing GPS receiver and precision clocks locked to the GPS receiver.

Speaker 1

I think one of the things going forward is to add to that some capability for navigation in the absence of GPS. So, and inertial navigation and potentially alternate means of navigation. So, yes, and that kind of gets leads to some of the quantum sensors that we've been looking at. And so we're looking to potentially incorporate some of that technology into Zipher products in the future.

Speaker 5

Any cybersecurity connections to any of this with them?

Speaker 1

Well, cybersecurity is a huge thing with everything that we do. It's a means to an end. It's not really an end in itself, but it's very important.

Operator

Yes. As we have no further questions in queue, I'd like to turn the floor back over to management for any closing remarks.

Speaker 1

Okay. I'd like to thank everybody for participating in this call. And I'd like to wish everyone happy and healthy holiday season. Thank you very much.

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Frequency Electronics Q2 2025
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