Richardson Electronics Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
January 8, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • Consolidated net sales rose 12.1% YOY to $49.5 M, operating loss narrowed to $0.7 M, EBITDA broke even vs. –$1.2 M prior year, and free cash flow was $4.9 M in Q2.
  • Green Energy Solutions sales more than doubled (+129% YOY), with backlog up over 16% to $44 M driven by new wind turbine repowering partnerships.
  • PMT sales increased 9.9% YOY on semiconductor wafer fab equipment demand, contributing to a combined PMT+GES backlog of $101 M and a strong global pipeline.
  • Healthcare division sales declined 22.8% YOY to $2.3 M despite gross margin improving to 35.7%, while Canvas sales dipped 6.0% YOY amid European headwinds.
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Earnings Conference Call
Richardson Electronics Q2 2025
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Richardson Electronics' earnings call for the second quarter of fiscal year 2025 conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Ed Richardson, CEO of Richardson Electronics. Please go ahead.

Ed Richardson
Ed Richardson
CEO at Richardson Electronics

Good morning, and thank you all for joining Richardson Electronics' conference call for the second quarter of fiscal year 2025. Joining me today are Bob Ben, Chief Financial Officer; Wendy Diddell, Chief Operating Officer and General Manager for Richardson Healthcare; Greg Peloquin, General Manager of our Power and Microwave Technologies Group, which includes Green Energy Solutions; and Jens Ruppert, General Manager of Canvys. As a reminder, this call is being recorded and will be available for playback.

Ed Richardson
Ed Richardson
CEO at Richardson Electronics

I would also like to remind you that we'll be making forward-looking statements. They're based on current expectations and involve risks and uncertainties. Therefore, our actual results could be materially different. Please refer to our press release and SEC filings for an explanation of our risk factors. I'm pleased to share an encouraging update on our second quarter performance as we're making significant progress with multi-year growth strategy.

Ed Richardson
Ed Richardson
CEO at Richardson Electronics

During the second quarter, we experienced sequential improvements in sales and delivering positive operating income in October and November. In addition to this operational momentum, we generated positive free cash flow during the quarter. We achieved outstanding growth in our Green Energy Solutions business during the second quarter, with sales more than doubling compared to the prior year. Furthermore, we experienced a significant improvement in revenues from our semiconductor wafer fab business, underscoring the strength of our diversified business segments.

Ed Richardson
Ed Richardson
CEO at Richardson Electronics

Overall, second quarter sales reached $49.5 million, exceeding $44.1 million, which we recorded in our Q2 last year, a solid 12% year-over-year increase. With this overview, I'll now hand the call over to Bob Ben, our Chief Financial Officer, who will provide a detailed review of our second quarter financial results and capital position. Following Bob's remarks, Greg, Wendy, and Jens will offer in-depth updates on our business and unit performance, including progress on our growth strategies, new product developments, key program wins, and the expansion of our customer relations. Thank you, and now over to Bob.

Bob Ben
Bob Ben
CFO at Richardson Electronics

Thank you, Ed, and good morning. I will review our financial results for our second quarter of fiscal year 2025, followed by a review of our cash position. Consolidated net sales for the second quarter of fiscal 2025 increased 12.1% to $49.5 million, compared to net sales of $44.1 million in the prior year's second quarter. This was our second consecutive quarterly year-over-year increase in sales. Second quarter net sales growth was led by a 129% increase in sales for our Green Energy Solutions business unit and a 9.9% increase in PMT sales, which was due primarily to higher sales to semiconductor wafer fab customers. Sales growth for the second quarter of fiscal 2025 was partially offset by a 6.0% decrease in Canvys sales and a 22.8% decline in healthcare sales, reflecting lower demand in the quarter unrelated to any specific customer or program loss.

Bob Ben
Bob Ben
CFO at Richardson Electronics

Consolidated gross margin for the second quarter was 31% of net sales compared to 28.4% during the second quarter of fiscal 2024. The largest component of the 260 basis points increase in consolidated gross margin was due to margin expansion across most parts of our business. PMT's gross margin increased to 30.3% from 28.5% as a result of an improved product mix. GES gross margin increased to 32.0% from 29.2%, also due to product mix. Healthcare margin increased to 35.7% from 14.8% because of an improved product mix and manufacturing efficiencies. Partially offsetting these improvements in gross margin was lower gross margin for Canvys compared to the prior year's second quarter. Operating expenses as a percentage of net sales improved to 32.3% for the second quarter of fiscal 2025, compared to 32.8% in the second quarter of fiscal 2024.

Bob Ben
Bob Ben
CFO at Richardson Electronics

Operating loss was $0.7 million for the second quarter of fiscal 2025 versus an operating loss of $2.0 million in the second quarter of last year. Income tax benefit was $0.3 million, or an effective tax rate of 28.8%, versus an income tax benefit of $0.5 million, or an effective tax rate of 21.6% in the prior year's second quarter. Net loss for the second quarter of fiscal 2025 was $0.8 million, or $0.05 per diluted share, compared to net loss of $1.8 million, or $0.13 per diluted share in the second quarter of fiscal 2024. EBITDA for the second quarter of fiscal 2025 improved and was approximately break-even versus negative $1.2 million in the prior year's second quarter.

Bob Ben
Bob Ben
CFO at Richardson Electronics

Please note that EBITDA is a non-GAAP financial measure, and a reconciliation of the non-GAAP item to the comparable GAAP measure is available in our second quarter fiscal year 2025 press release that was issued yesterday. Turning to a review of the results for the first six months of fiscal year 2025, net sales for the first six months of fiscal year 2025 were $103.2 million, an increase of 6.7% from $96.7 million in the first six months of fiscal year 2024, which reflected higher sales across our business segments except for Canvys. Gross margin was 30.8% of net sales, which was unchanged from the first six months of fiscal 2024. As a percentage of net sales, operating expenses for the first six months of the fiscal year were 31.1%, compared to 31.3% for the first six months of the prior fiscal year.

Bob Ben
Bob Ben
CFO at Richardson Electronics

Operating loss for the first six months of fiscal year 2025 was $0.4 million, as compared to an operating loss of $0.5 million for the first six months of fiscal year 2024. Income tax benefit was $0.2 million during the first six months of fiscal 2025 versus an income tax benefit of $0.1 million in the prior year's first six months. The company reported a net loss of $0.2 million, or $0.01 per diluted common share for the first six months of fiscal year 2025, versus net loss of $0.6 million, or $0.04 per diluted common share for the first six months of fiscal year 2024. EBITDA for the first six months of fiscal 2025 was $1.7 million versus $1.4 million in the prior year's first six months. Moving to a review of our cash position.

Bob Ben
Bob Ben
CFO at Richardson Electronics

Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the second quarter of fiscal 2025 were $26.6 million compared to $23.0 million at the end of the first quarter of fiscal 2025. Operating cash flow was $5.5 million compared to $0.8 million in the prior year's second quarter. This was the third consecutive quarter of positive operating cash flow. Capital expenditures of $0.5 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2025 were primarily related to our facilities and IT systems versus $1.5 million in the second quarter of fiscal year 2024. As a result, free cash flow was $4.9 million for the second quarter of fiscal 2025. We paid $0.9 million in cash dividends in the second quarter of fiscal year 2025.

Bob Ben
Bob Ben
CFO at Richardson Electronics

In addition, based on our current financial position, our board of directors declared a regular quarterly cash dividend of $0.06 per common share, which will be paid in the third quarter of fiscal 2025. As of the end of the second quarter of fiscal 2025, the company had no outstanding debt on its $30 million revolving line of credit with PNC Bank. Now, I will turn the call over to Greg, who will provide more details for our PMT and GES business groups.

Greg Peloquin
Greg Peloquin
General Management of Power and Microwave Technologies Group at Richardson Electronics

Thank you, Bob, and good morning, everyone. As we have stated in prior calls, we remain very optimistic about the future, both over the short and long term. Coming out of FY 2024, we had a strong backlog, numerous new product introductions and an expanded customer base, and several development programs transitioning from beta testing to pre-production.

Greg Peloquin
Greg Peloquin
General Management of Power and Microwave Technologies Group at Richardson Electronics

Building on this positive momentum, we are pleased to report continued growth in Q2 FY 2025 in both our GES and PMT strategic business units, including quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year growth in our semiconductor wafer fab equipment manufacturing business. Starting with our GES business, GES sales grew 129% to $5.9 million. The strong sales growth in this quarter was enhanced by strong bookings and increased backlog, growing by over 16% in Q2. Many of our recent achievements have been in development since FY 2023 and FY 2024, and it is rewarding to see them come to fruition.

Greg Peloquin
Greg Peloquin
General Management of Power and Microwave Technologies Group at Richardson Electronics

Our pitch energy modules and other products continue to gain momentum and market share as we add new customers and complete beta testing with our key owner-operators. Today, we serve dozens of wind turbine owners and operators, including exclusive partnerships with the top four owner-operators of GE wind turbines in North America, specifically RWE, Invenergy, Enel, and NextEra. Additionally, we continue to grow this program globally, expanding into Europe and Asia with GE and other new products for turbine platforms such as Suzlon, Senvion, Nordex, and SSB. As we have mentioned previously, our GES growth strategy is focused on power management applications in the green energy space. In a short time, we have designed multiple products, received several patents, and built a growing base of large, global, and industrial-leading customers and partners.

Greg Peloquin
Greg Peloquin
General Management of Power and Microwave Technologies Group at Richardson Electronics

This process positions us to establish a more predictable quarterly revenue and booking stream in our GES business scales. We believe our second quarter performance demonstrates the benefits of our multi-year GES growth strategy. Additionally, our customers continue to highlight our strong market position in our core GES power management applications. Our global pipeline continues to grow as we capitalize on numerous opportunities to support the significant energy transformation, such as wind turbine repowering projects.

Greg Peloquin
Greg Peloquin
General Management of Power and Microwave Technologies Group at Richardson Electronics

Turning to Power and Microwave Technologies Group, or PMT, which includes the electron device group, our legacy tube and semiconductor wafer fab equipment business, and the Power and Microwave Group. Sales were $34.4 million, up 9.9% compared to prior year. We continue to see growth in our RF and microwave components business and with our semi-fab equipment manufacturing customers.

Greg Peloquin
Greg Peloquin
General Management of Power and Microwave Technologies Group at Richardson Electronics

Our combined GES and PMT backlog remains strong as it increased to over $101 million in Q2. Given our inventory position, we will continue to ship many incoming orders from stock as we did last quarter. We remain focused on managing all aspects of our business to maximize profits while meeting the needs of our expanding customer base. A key component of our growth strategy is selectively expanding our global technology partnerships. We continue to add new partners who address technology gaps in our offering and align with our strategic growth priorities. Through these partnerships, we often identify opportunities for new products that we design, we manufacture, and test in-house. This approach enhances the value we provide our customers and allows us to capture more revenue while expanding and diversifying our customer base.

Greg Peloquin
Greg Peloquin
General Management of Power and Microwave Technologies Group at Richardson Electronics

Our technology partner relationships are extremely strong, and when appropriate, we collaborate on new component development, strategic purchases, and long-term planning. We are investing in our infrastructure to support our growth. This includes hiring talented design and field engineers to enhance our design and manufacturing capabilities. Our growing in-house design, engineering, and manufacturing teams are doing an excellent job supporting increased demand for current products and new product designs.

Greg Peloquin
Greg Peloquin
General Management of Power and Microwave Technologies Group at Richardson Electronics

Our field engineering team continues to identify new customers and opportunities. With this team, we will keep identifying, developing, and introducing innovative products and technologies for green energy, power management, and RF and microwave applications. Heading into Q3 FY 2025, we are excited about the opportunities within PMT and our GES businesses. As I mentioned, Q2 FY 2025 bookings were extremely strong in our GES SBU, and we see a positive outlook in our semi-fab market.

Greg Peloquin
Greg Peloquin
General Management of Power and Microwave Technologies Group at Richardson Electronics

Key customers in GES and RF and microwave are forecasting growth in FY 2025, and our technology partners continue to support our unique global business model, driving our business forward. We have many reasons to be optimistic about the growth strategies we are pursuing and the future of our business. Our unparalleled capability and global go-to-market strategy set us apart in the power management, RF and microwave, and green energy markets. We have developed a unique business model that combines legacy products with new technology partners and ES capabilities, aligning our growth strategy to deliver engineered solutions to a global customer base.

Greg Peloquin
Greg Peloquin
General Management of Power and Microwave Technologies Group at Richardson Electronics

This model differentiates us from our competition. By maintaining our steadfast and creative focus on customers, we continue to excel, capitalizing on opportunities as they arise. The execution of our strategy has never been stronger, and it is evident that our customer and technology partners rely on Richardson Electronics products and support more than ever. And with that, I'll turn it over to Wendy Diddell to discuss Richardson Healthcare.

Wendy Diddell
COO and General Manager of Richardson Healthcare at Richardson Electronics

Thank you, Greg, and good morning, everyone. In the second quarter of fiscal year 2025, our healthcare division generated $2.3 million in sales, reflecting a 22.8% year-over-year decline. All product lines experienced lower performance compared to the prior year. Despite the sales drop, gross margin improved to 35.7%, up from 14.8% in the same period last year and 32.3% in Q1. This growth was driven by improved manufacturing absorption and a favorable product mix, notably higher margin parts and CT tube sales. We maintained steady production of repaired Stratton Z tubes and advanced our repair program for the Stratton MX, MXP, and MXP46. Although the first MX series life tube fell short of expectations, our engineering team quickly isolated the problems and implemented improvements. This allowed us to restart life testing in December, keeping us on track for launch later this fiscal year.

Wendy Diddell
COO and General Manager of Richardson Healthcare at Richardson Electronics

Through disciplined expense management and an improved gross margin, our losses year-to-date are less than the prior year. Looking ahead, we are committed to enhancing sales and profitability while exploring strategic options for the healthcare business. I'll now pass the call to Jens Ruppert to discuss Canvys results.

Jens Ruppert
Jens Ruppert
General Manager of Canvys at Richardson Electronics

Wendy and good morning, everyone. Canvys engineers, manufactures and sells custom displays to original equipment manufacturers across global industrial and medical markets. Despite some macroeconomic-related challenges impacting the second quarter, Canvys remains resilient in its mission to deliver high-quality solutions tailored to our customers' needs. Net sales decreased 6.0% to $6.9 million during the second quarter of fiscal 2025, compared to $7.3 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2024, reflecting a temporary dip due to lower sales in our European markets.

Jens Ruppert
Jens Ruppert
General Manager of Canvys at Richardson Electronics

Nevertheless, we are confident in our ability to navigate these fluctuations. The German economy, one of our core markets, is currently facing headwinds. The IFO Business Climate Index, a key indicator for economic conditions, dipped to 84.7 points in December from 85.6 in November, marking the lowest level since May 2020.

Jens Ruppert
Jens Ruppert
General Manager of Canvys at Richardson Electronics

While this represents challenges, Canvys is poised to adapt and emerge stronger by focusing on innovation and customer engagement in this difficult global economic environment. On a positive note, our backlog grew from $38.1 million at the end of fiscal 2025 first quarter to $39.1 million at the end of fiscal 2025 second quarter, providing a robust foundation for future business. The increase highlights the trust our customers place in our products and services. Gross margin as a percentage of net sales was 31.7% during the second quarter of fiscal 2025, compared to 33.5% in the same fiscal 2024 period, largely due to increased freight costs. We are actively exploring ways to optimize costs and improve efficiency to enhance our margins moving forward. During the quarter, Canvys secured orders from both repeat and first-time medical OEM customers for a variety of applications.

Jens Ruppert
Jens Ruppert
General Manager of Canvys at Richardson Electronics

Additionally, our solutions continue to serve numerous commercial and industrial applications. For instance, our products enhance passenger information systems within trains and buses, as well as human-machine interfaces (HMI) technologies used in printing, vending, milling, and packaging machines. Our strategic initiatives are designed to elevate Canvys's visibility and position us as a leading player in the market. By actively seeking new opportunities and fostering connections with potential customers, we aim to drive sustained growth and innovation.

Jens Ruppert
Jens Ruppert
General Manager of Canvys at Richardson Electronics

We continue to engage directly with industry peers and stakeholders, fostering collaborations and strengthening our market presence. Despite recent economic challenges, primarily in our European markets, we remain committed to supporting our customers as they adapt to these conditions. Many are taking a cautious approach to new product development and inventory management, and we are here to help them succeed in this environment.

Jens Ruppert
Jens Ruppert
General Manager of Canvys at Richardson Electronics

Looking ahead, we are cautiously optimistic about improving demand in the North America markets. Positive indicators suggest a steady recovery as conditions stabilize, reinforced by encouraging customers' feedback. Our dedicated sales teams continue to explore new opportunities while I focus on implementing strategic plans to ensure sustainable growth and deliver long-term value to our stakeholders. Our dedicated sales team continues to explore new opportunities while I focus on implementing strategic plans to ensure sustainable growth and deliver long-term value for our shareholders. I will now turn the call back over to Ed.

Ed Richardson
Ed Richardson
CEO at Richardson Electronics

Thanks, Jens. We knew Q2 would be a challenge. However, it's nice to see the plan to return to growth in the third quarter, supported by incremental growth in Canvys backlog. Despite the ongoing uncertainties in the global and change in the political landscape, we remain steadfast in our commitment to our long-term growth strategies. Our green energy solutions business continues to present exciting opportunities with an expanding pipeline of global customers across the wind energy, transportation, and power management sectors. Shipping orders from inventory on a regular basis helps improve our cash flow and expands our gross margin. Product deployment and customer approvals are still taking longer than we'd like, but these partnerships are solid and support our confidence in our multi-year growth strategy.

Ed Richardson
Ed Richardson
CEO at Richardson Electronics

At the same time, we're seeing strong momentum in our semiconductor wafer fab assembly business, rising semiconductor demand driven by advances in AI, increased data center capacity, 5G deployment and efforts to localize semiconductor manufacturing are fueling this growth. While we have good visibility for this coming quarter, we anticipated sustained growth in the semiconductor wafer fab equipment market, which provides the resources needed to support the continued investment in our green energy solutions business.

Ed Richardson
Ed Richardson
CEO at Richardson Electronics

Our disciplined approach to managing expenses, optimizing inventory levels, and maintaining a strong balance sheet remains a top priority. These efforts will enable us to generate operating leverage as sales continue to grow. On behalf of everyone at Richardson Electronics, thank you for your continued support. We look forward to sharing updates on our progress, and we're now happy to answer your questions.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, due to time constraints, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Again, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question and a follow-up until all have had a chance to ask a question, after which we will answer additional questions from you as time permits. As a reminder to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Anja Soderstrom from Sidoti.

Anja Soderstrom
Anja Soderstrom
Analyst at Sidoti

Hi. Thank you for taking my questions and congrats on the quarter here. It seems like you are trending as expected with the pickup in the second half. But I'm just wondering, with those recent multi-million orders, what time frame are you expecting those to ship within?

Ed Richardson
Ed Richardson
CEO at Richardson Electronics

Good morning.

Anja Soderstrom
Anja Soderstrom
Analyst at Sidoti

Do you want to?

Ed Richardson
Ed Richardson
CEO at Richardson Electronics

Yes. They've already, can you hear me? Yes. Yes. We've already started to ship. The balance of it will ship throughout calendar year 2025. But those products, those contracts, we've already started to ship at the beginning of December. So it's moving along great.

Anja Soderstrom
Anja Soderstrom
Analyst at Sidoti

Those were for the non-GE wind turbine pitch modules, right?

Ed Richardson
Ed Richardson
CEO at Richardson Electronics

They were a combination in terms of overall bookings. But the two largest orders that I mentioned in the press release were both for GE wind turbine platforms from two of the largest owner-operators of turbines. One of them was a new customer, Xcel Energy, and the other one is RWE.

Anja Soderstrom
Anja Soderstrom
Analyst at Sidoti

How penetrated are you with those? Could there be a big potential for follow-ups, or?

Ed Richardson
Ed Richardson
CEO at Richardson Electronics

Absolutely. In fact, that's one of the things. The ULTRA3000, we shipped close to $30 million, and the numbers we see—we haven't even put a dent into the opportunity. So yeah, they'll continue. This is phase one of most of it. What they do is they pick a number of farms, they roll that out, do another capital expenditure at the end of 2025, do another rollout, and then it continues until they've completed all their wind turbines.

Ed Richardson
Ed Richardson
CEO at Richardson Electronics

One thing I want to add, which is really fantastic for the company, is the large order from this customer was for a repower program, and so this is where we are listed on the bill of materials when they do a repower for their entire wind turbine, which is similar to if you took a car apart and replaced everything on it and made it brand new again. Richardson being listed on the bill of materials for repowering should expedite the sales growth of the ULTRA3000 and the multi-brand.

Anja Soderstrom
Anja Soderstrom
Analyst at Sidoti

Okay. Thank you, and I'm just going to squeeze in one more. Can you just talk to some other GS opportunities that you think could come to fruition in the near term?

Ed Richardson
Ed Richardson
CEO at Richardson Electronics

Yeah. The programs we're working on, the multi-brand, we introduced that at the end of Q2 in Europe. That's getting traction both in Asia and Europe. We have a number of testing going on with our IGBT modules, also in wind turbines. We're in the process of finalizing our ESS strategy. And so these aren't. It's replacement of lead-acid batteries, but these are products that don't exist today, and they have to be designed to support and work in the customer's entire system, not just in that battery box. So the engineering team has done a great job. It takes time, but all those programs are moving forward, and we have weekly and biweekly calls with some large owner-operators to continue making the product fit and work within their system moving forward. So very positive.

Anja Soderstrom
Anja Soderstrom
Analyst at Sidoti

Okay. Thank you. I'll get back in queue.

Ed Richardson
Ed Richardson
CEO at Richardson Electronics

Okay. Thanks, Anja.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Bobby Brooks from Northland Capital Markets.

Bobby Brooks
Bobby Brooks
Senior Research Analyst at Northland Capital Markets

Hey. Good morning, guys [crosstalk]. Good morning. Thank you for taking the question, so in the prepared remarks of the press release, new program wins were mentioned as a benefit to the second quarter, so I was just hoping to get some more color on where those wins occurred and why. I know maybe some of it was from the earlier press release of those multi-million-dollar orders, and then just secondly, are those program wins expected to be a multi-quarter benefit, or is it more like a new customer buying ULTRA3000s for the first time for kind of a smaller project?

Ed Richardson
Ed Richardson
CEO at Richardson Electronics

Yeah. I'll touch on the booking side of it. They're new customers. And again, one of the things I've always mentioned over the past two years is we continue to gain market share. We started out with a couple of large customers. Today, we're selling to over 17 of them in North America. And so from a bookings point of view, they were customers that we were working with, doing designs, and then we did a great job supporting it, got approved by engineering, they got their capital expenses approved, and they placed the order in the second quarter. So it's new customers, but like I mentioned, the larger orders that we did the press release on were with the ULTRA3000.

Bobby Brooks
Bobby Brooks
Senior Research Analyst at Northland Capital Markets

Okay. And so just to kind of confirm, those new program wins are really kind of centered within the turbine opportunities, or was it anything outside of that?

Ed Richardson
Ed Richardson
CEO at Richardson Electronics

Yeah. The majority of it was in the wind turbine application.

Bobby Brooks
Bobby Brooks
Senior Research Analyst at Northland Capital Markets

Okay. Great. And then just kind of SG&A was up 10% year-on-year compared to sales up 12% on a year-over-year basis. The press release mentioned it was tied to incentives that were tied to sales growth. So I'm just trying to sort out if we see similar growth rates going forward, is SG&A going to continue to increase at a similar pace? And I'll just add in the first quarter, sales were up 2.2% and SG&A was up 2%. So just trying to get a feel of where SG&A trends as sales grow.

Bob Ben
Bob Ben
CFO at Richardson Electronics

Hi, Bobby. It's Bob Ben. Yeah. As you noted, most of the increase in the second quarter was due to the incentives tied to the sales growth. In the quarter a year ago, we really didn't pay out any incentives due to the performance then. There was a large loss and sales were low. So this quarter, with the improvement over the six-month period, there was an increase there. Regarding going forward, I think we expect some sort of an increase in the next two quarters, again, based upon sales growth, but not at the levels that you mentioned on the 10%.

Bobby Brooks
Bobby Brooks
Senior Research Analyst at Northland Capital Markets

It'll lag sales growth more notably?

Bob Ben
Bob Ben
CFO at Richardson Electronics

Yes.

Bobby Brooks
Bobby Brooks
Senior Research Analyst at Northland Capital Markets

Got it. I'll return to the queue. Thank you, guys.

Wendy Diddell
COO and General Manager of Richardson Healthcare at Richardson Electronics

Thanks, Bobby.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Brett Davidson from Investletter.

Brett Davidson
Publisher at Investletter

Good morning from sunny 15 degrees Fahrenheit Buffalo.

Wendy Diddell
COO and General Manager of Richardson Healthcare at Richardson Electronics

Good morning, Brett.

Brett Davidson
Publisher at Investletter

Good morning. I got a couple of quick questions. One is, can you guys provide an update on the shipping timeline for the diesel locomotive family of products?

Greg Peloquin
Greg Peloquin
General Management of Power and Microwave Technologies Group at Richardson Electronics

Yeah. The one major program we're working on is expected to ship, it's over $1 million, at the end of Q3. And that's the main one. And then they're taking that product and obviously building up their locomotives and shipping them to their customers to get testing done there. So on electric locomotives, we have a large shipment going out, which is scheduled to go out at the end of Q3.

Brett Davidson
Publisher at Investletter

Those are starter modules or the battery?

Greg Peloquin
Greg Peloquin
General Management of Power and Microwave Technologies Group at Richardson Electronics

No, that's the electric locomotives. So on the starter modules for electric and diesel locomotives, those have started to ship. They've just gave us their forecast for 1,000 trains this calendar year, and we'll start shipping those this quarter and then throughout 2025. And it's 1,000 trains, one per train.

Brett Davidson
Publisher at Investletter

Wow. And can you provide color on the drawdown in inventory during the course of the year? Are we looking at $2 million, $5 million, $10 million? What does that kind of look like through the course of the year?

Bob Ben
Bob Ben
CFO at Richardson Electronics

Hi, Brett. It's Bob Ben. Yeah. The inventory, as you know, was down a little bit in the second quarter, and that's due to improved management. We're trying to bring in less inventory and sell what we have on hand. But going forward in the third and fourth quarter, as we've said, we're expecting an increase in sales. And so I think there'll be some growth, but it shouldn't be that significant. We're going to have to bring in some products to sell for Q3 and Q4 sales, but I don't expect a significant growth there.

Brett Davidson
Publisher at Investletter

Okay. So you're expecting that to track kind of where it is at now, then not a drawdown during the course of the remaining portion of the year?

Bob Ben
Bob Ben
CFO at Richardson Electronics

Yeah. Probably not a drawdown with increased sales.

Brett Davidson
Publisher at Investletter

Got it.

Bob Ben
Bob Ben
CFO at Richardson Electronics

But again [crosstalk]

Brett Davidson
Publisher at Investletter

All right [crosstalk]. Thank you.

Bob Ben
Bob Ben
CFO at Richardson Electronics

Not a significant.

Brett Davidson
Publisher at Investletter

Got it. Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. As a reminder to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. We ask that you please limit yourself to one question and a follow-up until all have had a chance to ask a question, after which we will answer additional questions from you as time permits. Our next question comes from the line of Ross Taylor from ARS Investment Partners.

Ross Taylor
Partner and Portfolio Manager at ARS Investment Partners

Thank you [crosstalk]

Wendy Diddell
COO and General Manager of Richardson Healthcare at Richardson Electronics

Hey, Ross.

Ross Taylor
Partner and Portfolio Manager at ARS Investment Partners

Congratulations on the progress you guys are making. Quick. In the past, you've talked about the outlook for the semicap equipment-related space as having calendar 2025, particularly second half, showing a significant run rate and your key customers indicating that they would expect that second half of 2025, first half of 2026, you could be running at levels equal to or better than you saw at your peak a few years ago. Is that scenario still playing out, you think?

Wendy Diddell
COO and General Manager of Richardson Healthcare at Richardson Electronics

Right now, I think we mentioned it in the script that visibility is more challenging. Just that, for example, for us, for the Q3, we have good visibility and the numbers look good. They should increase again. But beyond that, it seems like our customers are kind of keeping their cards a little closer to the vest this time. We're not hearing anything to the contrary on that, Ross, meaning they're not telling us, "Expect a drop-off." As a matter of fact, they tell us to keep the momentum going. That's what we can see right now. So no bad news has been given to us, and we continue to see quarter-over-quarter increases in our revenue and in our demand.

Ross Taylor
Partner and Portfolio Manager at ARS Investment Partners

Okay. Great. Great. And second, I think people at times get confused about your wind turbine business, and they see moves or steps that might slow the adoption or implementation of new turbines as being negative to your business. It's my understanding that you're really an aftermarket, a refit, rebuild type play, and that market is still very lightly penetrated, even per comments you made on this call today. So is that really the case where if the U.S., if the president or president-elect were successful in slowing the adoption of new wind turbines, that shouldn't have a significant impact on your wind turbine-related business over the next several years?

Greg Peloquin
Greg Peloquin
General Management of Power and Microwave Technologies Group at Richardson Electronics

Yeah, that's correct. Our products go into existing wind turbines today. And as I mentioned before, we've also now started to participate in the repowering of wind turbines, which most people do instead of buying new ones, again, like ours. So that'll have no effect if there's a decrease in new wind turbines being shipped over the next or sold over the next couple of years because our business is focused on existing wind turbines and getting the lead-acid batteries out of those.

Ross Taylor
Partner and Portfolio Manager at ARS Investment Partners

Great. And if I can sneak one or two quick ones, one with regard to your inventories, where do you stand with regard to building up your inventory of tubes to cover for the fact that Thales will be stepping out of the business? You've been building that up fairly aggressively. It's a fairly significant portion, I think, of your overall inventories. And at some point, my assumption is you'll probably achieve a level where you're comfortable, and at which point then you will stop building them and actually, eventually, those will become cash flow as they move into the market.

Ross Taylor
Partner and Portfolio Manager at ARS Investment Partners

And the second question I wanted to ask just quickly is regarding the medical imaging space. In the past, you've talked about the idea that it basically needs to either be able to swim on its own or you would take steps to move away from it, monetize it. Where do we stand with regard to whether that's going to be able to swim on its own or need to be monetized? So Thales-related inventories as a percentage of overall inventories and medical imaging as a future?

Ed Richardson
Ed Richardson
CEO at Richardson Electronics

Sure. As far as Thales is concerned, we've had an agreement with Thales now that goes back about 20 years. And so we were manufacturing identical products in Brive, France that we'd acquired from Philips. And we made an agreement to consolidate our manufacturing facilities with theirs in Thonon, France. And it's been a very successful agreement. We do over $20 million a year on those products. The unfortunate part is that Thales has made a decision that they are going to exit the manufacture of those products in the next two or three years to come. And so it puts us in a position to try to move equipment and technology that belongs to us to other sources. So in the meantime, we built up a very substantial inventory, which now you're seeing start to level off. And they're going to discontinue that. Wendy, is it in 2025?

Wendy Diddell
COO and General Manager of Richardson Healthcare at Richardson Electronics

Right. We have one more year of inventory build, Ross, and that will end at the end of December.

Ed Richardson
Ed Richardson
CEO at Richardson Electronics

So that inventory will go down substantially as we move the equipment to other sources, and you'll continue to see that. We had a similar situation when we closed our business in France and moved it to Thales. We took in $10 million worth of inventory, and I can tell you that we sold every one of those tubes. And so although it looks like we're buying a lot of inventory, tubes are like fine wine. They last forever. They're in a vacuum, and those tubes are going to sell. Our problem is going to be trying to find other sources for those tubes.

Ross Taylor
Partner and Portfolio Manager at ARS Investment Partners

Okay, well, and what you have, I assume you're in the process of attempting to qualify or discover who those sources or those people are going to be.

Ed Richardson
Ed Richardson
CEO at Richardson Electronics

That's correct. I mean, we could move them here, but we bought 25 different divisions of tube companies, and it takes over a year to relocate equipment, and sometimes it takes another year to get it operating correctly. So it's a massive project.

Ross Taylor
Partner and Portfolio Manager at ARS Investment Partners

Okay. Well, it sounds like you guys are on top of that, and the business continues to roll forward as expected in spite of a small hiccup on the revenue and EPS side the quarter just passed. Thank you.

Ed Richardson
Ed Richardson
CEO at Richardson Electronics

Absolutely. I mean, we've made acquisitions, as I mentioned, of over 25 tube companies in the world. So we've been through this many, many times.

Ross Taylor
Partner and Portfolio Manager at ARS Investment Partners

Yeah. Great.

Wendy Diddell
COO and General Manager of Richardson Healthcare at Richardson Electronics

All right. So Russ, let me take your second question regarding the healthcare business unit, and at the risk of being very vague, as we've indicated, we are focused on running the business, and we are making improvements. The gross margin is improving. The factory absorption is improving as we introduce the additional tubes that we've been discussing, so we feel good about the business here. It is still losing money, and we are still exploring other alternatives.

Ross Taylor
Partner and Portfolio Manager at ARS Investment Partners

Okay. Great. Thank you very much.

Wendy Diddell
COO and General Manager of Richardson Healthcare at Richardson Electronics

You're welcome.

Ed Richardson
Ed Richardson
CEO at Richardson Electronics

Thanks, Ross.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Bobby Brooks from Northland Capital Markets.

Bobby Brooks
Bobby Brooks
Senior Research Analyst at Northland Capital Markets

Hey, guys. Just wanted to jump back on real quick and ask. So $142 million in backlog. I think Greg mentioned $110 million of that was PMT and GES backlog. So I was just trying to get a sense of, one, the timeline of that backlog turning into revenues. And then second, is it right for me to assume that much of that backlog will directly be drawn from inventory, or is it more nuanced than that?

Greg Peloquin
Greg Peloquin
General Management of Power and Microwave Technologies Group at Richardson Electronics

For PMT and GES, the combined backlog is $101 million. In looking at that backlog, about 80% of it is currently scheduled to ship over the next nine months. I don't have that breakdown, so what we're excited about is the new business with new products and new technology. A lot of that backlog is also tube-based, and so that's scheduled out in some cases for a longer period of time, then the Lam backlog. They don't give us a lot of visibility when they're going to take that. As Wendy mentioned, what they've given us for Q3 shows strong growth again in Q3, but outside of that, it's kind of hard to put a number on it.

Bobby Brooks
Bobby Brooks
Senior Research Analyst at Northland Capital Markets

Okay. So a lot of that is, and thanks for the correction on the $101 million, but is a lot of that backlog then more they say, "Hey, we want to get it shipped now," and then you go out and produce, you go and make it? Or is it them saying, "Hey, we want it now," and then you just tapping into your inventory and shipping it right away?

Greg Peloquin
Greg Peloquin
General Management of Power and Microwave Technologies Group at Richardson Electronics

No, other than the MRO business, most of our backlog is scheduled. In most cases, they give you a 12-month schedule, mainly based on people still having nightmares over the long lead times just 18 months ago where things were going out to 56 weeks. People are giving us orders. In most cases, specifically on the GES and PMT side, it is a 12-month schedule. I looked at it recently before the board meeting, and about 80% of that is scheduled to ship over the next 12 months. However, you can see our book-to-bill is continuing to grow and be strong. We have over hundreds of current design opportunities. We look at a design registration program where we register every single design we're working on globally and track it to fruition. We're seeing a lot of wins.

Greg Peloquin
Greg Peloquin
General Management of Power and Microwave Technologies Group at Richardson Electronics

Some stuff we thought we'd get in Q4, we got in Q2, and that kind of stuff. You just kind of manage that last 20% of the business. But if bookings continue at the rate they are, which we've seen for the past couple of quarters, obviously the backlog will grow. And again, we're getting scheduled orders over 12 months, and about 80% of that today is showing that it's going to ship in 2025.

Wendy Diddell
COO and General Manager of Richardson Healthcare at Richardson Electronics

And Bobby, if it's the Ultra 3000, those will ship from inventory. That was part of his question because we do have those built. If it's other products, in a lot of cases, we have raw materials already in stock that will be used. So it's not a matter of us having to go out and buy 100% of the components for new orders that we get.

Greg Peloquin
Greg Peloquin
General Management of Power and Microwave Technologies Group at Richardson Electronics

No, with our inventory position, we have, especially this fiscal year, shipped a majority from stock. And that's why you've seen a reduction in inventory because we built it up due to lead times, make sure we take care of our customers. And so that's kind of the process we go through. Tough to manage. Don't get a lot of visibility, but we're able to support the customer.

Bobby Brooks
Bobby Brooks
Senior Research Analyst at Northland Capital Markets

Yeah, for sure. I can appreciate that. Thank you guys for answering the question.

Greg Peloquin
Greg Peloquin
General Management of Power and Microwave Technologies Group at Richardson Electronics

Thanks, Bobby.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Andrew Rem from Odinson Partners.

Andrew Rem
Portfolio Manager at Odinson Partners

Hi guys. Nice quarter. Greg, can you give the detail on the backlog in PMT and then also GES?

Greg Peloquin
Greg Peloquin
General Management of Power and Microwave Technologies Group at Richardson Electronics

Sure. Within GES, the backlog grew substantially. It's right around $45 million, and that backlog is scheduled, as we've just talked about, to all ship in 2025. On the PMT side, which is our RF and microwave components business and our legacy MRO tube business, that's about $50 million. And that's kind of how it breaks down. So the GES backlog has grown quite substantially, up to $44 million, and the balance of it is PMT.

Andrew Rem
Portfolio Manager at Odinson Partners

Okay. I guess, can you just clarify if PMT is 50 and GES is 45, that's 95, and you said total was [crosstalk] 101?

Greg Peloquin
Greg Peloquin
General Management of Power and Microwave Technologies Group at Richardson Electronics

Yeah. So right now, GES is $44 million, and the balance of that, the total $101 is. I got a bunch of documents. Is PMT.

Andrew Rem
Portfolio Manager at Odinson Partners

Very good. All right. And then I guess you had talked, well, actually, I want to go back to the question earlier on the inventory that related to Thales. What is that current balance?

Greg Peloquin
Greg Peloquin
General Management of Power and Microwave Technologies Group at Richardson Electronics

It's around $30 million.

Andrew Rem
Portfolio Manager at Odinson Partners

Okay, so very similar to last quarter.

Greg Peloquin
Greg Peloquin
General Management of Power and Microwave Technologies Group at Richardson Electronics

That's about right [crosstalk]

Wendy Diddell
COO and General Manager of Richardson Healthcare at Richardson Electronics

[crosstalk] We didn't have. We were actually at an increase of sales. Yeah.

Andrew Rem
Portfolio Manager at Odinson Partners

Okay. And then I want to go back. I think you guys had said previously that you might add up to $10 million or so. Is that still the case?

Wendy Diddell
COO and General Manager of Richardson Healthcare at Richardson Electronics

No, I think we have about $5 million left in Thales inventory. Is that what you're asking?

Andrew Rem
Portfolio Manager at Odinson Partners

In terms of purchases this year?

Wendy Diddell
COO and General Manager of Richardson Healthcare at Richardson Electronics

Yeah. About $5 million this year. And calendar year 2025.

Greg Peloquin
Greg Peloquin
General Management of Power and Microwave Technologies Group at Richardson Electronics

Yeah, and we're selling over $20 million a year of that inventory, so it will start to deplete.

Andrew Rem
Portfolio Manager at Odinson Partners

Okay. Yeah. That was the other thing. Because I thought previously that you guys had said that that was kind of long-dated inventory, that you would sell it out over. I think the commentary that I remembered was over the next seven years, but that doesn't sound like what you're saying today. Or maybe that's incorrect [crosstalk]

Wendy Diddell
COO and General Manager of Richardson Healthcare at Richardson Electronics

Through 2030.

Andrew Rem
Portfolio Manager at Odinson Partners

Right.

Wendy Diddell
COO and General Manager of Richardson Healthcare at Richardson Electronics

So probably when we first said it was seven years, now it's five years.

Andrew Rem
Portfolio Manager at Odinson Partners

Yeah. Okay. And then maybe just lastly, you guys have done a nice job on the cash flow. From here, over fiscal 2025, what is the key in terms of, I mean, so far, in this case, this quarter, I guess, was more kind of the AR/AP was a big driver. But as you look at the second half of the year, what allows you to continue to put up nice positive cash flow?

Greg Peloquin
Greg Peloquin
General Management of Power and Microwave Technologies Group at Richardson Electronics

Earnings would certainly help. We do expect a good increase in sales in the second half of the year. With continued tight management of inventory, and then, of course, accounts receivable, we do expect to grow due to the increased sales, but that turns pretty well. Our DSO is around 40-45 days. Continuing to do what we're doing.

Andrew Rem
Portfolio Manager at Odinson Partners

Yeah. So if working capital is kind of stable, sales go up, and then the profit should kind of lift with it, and then that kind of drops down. I mean, that's kind of what I was thinking, just that the profitability is the bigger driver in the second half of the year versus working capital in the first half of the year.

Greg Peloquin
Greg Peloquin
General Management of Power and Microwave Technologies Group at Richardson Electronics

I think that's correct.

Andrew Rem
Portfolio Manager at Odinson Partners

Yeah. Okay. Thank you, guys. Good quarter.

Greg Peloquin
Greg Peloquin
General Management of Power and Microwave Technologies Group at Richardson Electronics

Thank you.

Wendy Diddell
COO and General Manager of Richardson Healthcare at Richardson Electronics

Thank you, Andrew.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Brett Davidson from Investletter.

Brett Davidson
Publisher at Investletter

Okay. Now it's sunny, 16 degrees Fahrenheit Buffalo without any sun.

Greg Peloquin
Greg Peloquin
General Management of Power and Microwave Technologies Group at Richardson Electronics

16? That's a heat wave, Brett.

Greg Peloquin
Greg Peloquin
General Management of Power and Microwave Technologies Group at Richardson Electronics

It's warmer than here. Okay. So I'm intrigued by that design registration program for new products. I think you said that there's over 100 of those currently right now. How does that compare to last year or five years ago? Can you give me some context? Is this a huge increase from what's normally seen, or is this kind of standard fare?

Brett Davidson
Analyst at Investletter

Yeah. This is a program that we've implemented here many, many, many years ago, and it's for our field engineering organization. And every opportunity that they're working on or identified, they register, if you will, on our system. And that's the data: part number, customer, application, quantity, forecast. And that's the document that they use in the quarterly business reviews with the product and sales management team. And so as we add new products and as we add new technology partners, that list has and continued to grow every year over every year. Our conversion rate today is about 27%-30% of that list, which, again, we've used this type of system for well over a decade, and that's kind of the norm.

Brett Davidson
Analyst at Investletter

It's a very detailed. I guess it's more of a sales and marketing management tool that we document every opportunity because, as you know, they can get lost and not focused on. And so one interesting thing to add to that is every opportunity is given a % of that will be booked in the next six months. So you have a 30, 60, 90% number put on that.

Brett Davidson
Analyst at Investletter

And what we focus on, what does it take to get that 60 to 90, that 30 to 60, and then that 90% group to 100%? And that's greatly helped us manage our opportunities. And like I mentioned before, just with the ULTRA3000, we have well over 40 different sites in North America that we're talking to to generate beta testing, alpha testing. So it's more of a software program that we use to track our opportunities globally and has grown every quarter since I came back about 10 years ago.

Brett Davidson
Publisher at Investletter

Over the past five years, I mean, was it something like 50, and now we're at 100? Is this largely driven by the green energy?

Greg Peloquin
Greg Peloquin
General Management of Power and Microwave Technologies Group at Richardson Electronics

No. It's currently. Yeah. It can be green energy, RF and microwave. Anywhere we have technology partners, so there's the component side of it and then the engineered solution side of it. I don't have the exact number right now or the growth of that over the years, but it's hundreds globally that the team's working on. I'll get you that number. I'll give it to you, Brett, and give you a call.

Brett Davidson
Publisher at Investletter

Okay. And yeah, I mean, I'm just curious, what's the driving factor in the increase? Is it business-wide, or is it tilted towards green energy?

Greg Peloquin
Greg Peloquin
General Management of Power and Microwave Technologies Group at Richardson Electronics

It's tilted towards the number of new products we introduce. Obviously, that generates more opportunities because you have more products to sell. When we sign these technology agreements, like you've seen the press releases, like Navitas, these are world-leading component suppliers. That generates more opportunities because you have more products to sell. Right now, looking at the percent, a majority of it, in terms of the increase, is, like you said, it is green energy. Green energy applications, both component and then our own engineered solutions products.

Brett Davidson
Publisher at Investletter

Got it. Thank you.

Greg Peloquin
Greg Peloquin
General Management of Power and Microwave Technologies Group at Richardson Electronics

You bet.

Operator

Thank you. At this time, I would now like to turn the conference back over to Ed Richardson for closing remarks.

Ed Richardson
Ed Richardson
CEO at Richardson Electronics

Thank you again for joining us today. We certainly appreciate your investment and interest in Richardson Electronics. You're welcome to call us at any time. We're happy to speak to you individually for questions that we didn't cover today. And we look forward to our ongoing discussions and sharing our third quarter results with you in April. Thank you very much.

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

Executives
    • Ed Richardson
      Ed Richardson
      CEO
    • Bob Ben
      Bob Ben
      CFO
    • Greg Peloquin
      Greg Peloquin
      General Management of Power and Microwave Technologies Group
    • Jens Ruppert
      Jens Ruppert
      General Manager of Canvys
Analysts
    • Wendy Diddell
      COO and General Manager of Richardson Healthcare at Richardson Electronics
    • Anja Soderstrom
      Analyst at Sidoti
    • Bobby Brooks
      Senior Research Analyst at Northland Capital Markets
    • Brett Davidson
      Publisher at Investletter
    • Ross Taylor
      Partner and Portfolio Manager at ARS Investment Partners
    • Andrew Rem
      Portfolio Manager at Odinson Partners
    • Brett Davidson
      Analyst at Investletter
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