ECD Automotive Design Q3 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

  • Negative Sentiment: Q3 reported a negative gross profit of $1.7M, driven by completion of legacy builds and one-time adjustments (a $3.0M labor/consumables release and a $0.5M out-of-period inventory adjustment) that reduced inventory from $7.9M to $3.8M.
  • Positive Sentiment: Management is implementing operational changes and cost reductions that together target over $2M of annualized savings (initial $1M plus an incremental $1M announced later) with most benefits expected in 2026, and expects margins to normalize as legacy builds clear.
  • Positive Sentiment: Company is diversifying and expanding addressable markets — an award-winning Porsche 911 restomod (Project Gravette) validates the boutique 911 program and a new U.S. distribution partnership with Chelsea Truck Company will produce modern Defender and Ineos Grenadier builds designed for faster, lower-cost production and broader customer reach.
  • Neutral Sentiment: Financials show Q3 revenue of $5.8M (down QoQ and YoY) while net income of $2.2M was driven by non‑cash fair value gains from debt conversions; subsequent capital actions include $1M Series C proceeds, $1.5M note conversions, and commencement of an equity purchase facility of up to $300M, and the company says it remains confident it will regain NASDAQ compliance early in 2026.
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Earnings Conference Call
ECD Automotive Design Q3 2025
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Greetings and welcome to the ECD Automotive Design third quarter 2025 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce Chris Donovan of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Chris Donovan
Chris Donovan
Head of Investor Relations at ECD Automotive Design

Thank you, Operator, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to ECD Automotive Design's third quarter 2025 earnings conference call. Today's date is November 24, 2025, and on today's call from ECD Automotive Design are Scott Wallace, Co-founder, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman, and Victoria Hay, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that this call may contain forward-looking statements as they are defined under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

Chris Donovan
Chris Donovan
Head of Investor Relations at ECD Automotive Design

These statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in forward-looking statements. For discussion of such risks and uncertainties, please see ECD Automotive Design's most recent filings with the SEC. All forward-looking statements made today reflect our current expectations only, and we undertake no obligation to update any statement to reflect the events that occur after this call.

Chris Donovan
Chris Donovan
Head of Investor Relations at ECD Automotive Design

Also, during the course of today's call, the company will be discussing one or more non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in the press release we issued on Thursday, November 20, 2025. Copies of that press release are accessible on ECD's Investor Relations website, ecdautodesign.com. In addition, ECDA's Form 10-K and 10-Qs are also available on the Investor Relations website. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Scott Wallace. Scott?

Scott Wallace
Scott Wallace
Co-founder, CEO and Chairman at ECD Automotive Design

Thank you, Chris. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us as we review ECD's third quarter results. I would like to begin with thanking my co-founders and friends, Tom and Emily Humble, who had the original vision for ECD 14 years ago. They have been critical in scaling the business, creating the brand, and building some incredible vehicles with us.

Scott Wallace
Scott Wallace
Co-founder, CEO and Chairman at ECD Automotive Design

We wish them success in the future as they move to new opportunities, and we are grateful to retain Emily's knowledge and expertise of ECD as a board member. The numbers this quarter reflect a period of transition, one-time impacts to the business, and elevated costs from tariffs and shipping. I believe our recent decision to reduce costs and diversify our product offering positioned ECD on strong footing.

Scott Wallace
Scott Wallace
Co-founder, CEO and Chairman at ECD Automotive Design

Before I get into the details, let me take a moment to remind everyone of who we are and what makes ECD so special. ECD Automotive Design is a U.S.-based builder of fully bespoke, restored luxury vehicles, combining classic automotive beauty with modern performance and customization. We participate in a $90 billion-plus global classic car ecosystem and operate a capital-light model with scalable manufacturing and multiple growth channels, including retail and licensing.

Scott Wallace
Scott Wallace
Co-founder, CEO and Chairman at ECD Automotive Design

From our headquarters in Kissimmee, Florida, master-certified craftsmen and women refurbish each vehicle. We also operate a logistics center in the U.K. that sources vintage vehicles and parts for transformation. Our core offering has expanded beyond our British roots of Land Rover Defenders, Range Rover Classics, and Jaguar E-Types, to include Ford Mustangs, Toyota FJs, and boutique Porsche 911 modernization.

Scott Wallace
Scott Wallace
Co-founder, CEO and Chairman at ECD Automotive Design

Each vehicle is designed in partnership with a client through an immersive luxury design process that results in a one-of-one personalized vehicle. To date, we've completed almost 700 vehicles, each a testament to the skill, passion, and pride of our team, with average selling prices between $300,000 and $400,000. We've built a brand that competes among the highest tiers of the luxury automotive market with craftsmanship, not mass production, as our advantage.

Scott Wallace
Scott Wallace
Co-founder, CEO and Chairman at ECD Automotive Design

During the quarter, we focused on clearing our production of a number of older vehicles that we'd been in progress for several months. These legacy builds impacted our gross margin, and now our production team is focused on new client builds with healthier economics. Macro conditions, including ongoing tariffs and logistics inflation, continue to create pressure on our COGS this quarter.

Scott Wallace
Scott Wallace
Co-founder, CEO and Chairman at ECD Automotive Design

We are taking measures to optimize sourcing and reshape our vendor strategy to blunt those effects moving forward. After dealing with these legacy builds as well as the cost structure reset, we expect margins to normalize. Since June, we've been taking a hard look at how we operate and made changes that will make us stronger, implementing targeted cost savings, refined inventory management practices to improve working capital velocity, and finally leaning into businesses that generate cash quicker, like our retail strategy and recent partnership with Chelsea Truck Company.

Scott Wallace
Scott Wallace
Co-founder, CEO and Chairman at ECD Automotive Design

These cost reduction measures will result in over $1 million in annualized savings, with the majority reaching the financials throughout 2026. We streamlined overhead and simplified the organization without touching what matters most: our craftsmanship, production quality, customization, and the customer experience. We're leaner, faster, and sharper because of it.

Scott Wallace
Scott Wallace
Co-founder, CEO and Chairman at ECD Automotive Design

I'd now like to touch on two recent developments that have helped to diversify our offering, expand the model range, and address the market. I'm pleased to share that our inaugural Porsche 911 build, Project Gravette, recently took home a best-in-show at the 2025 Festival of Speed. In October, we formally expanded into the Porsche market with a fully bespoke Porsche 911 restoration and customization through our boutique division.

Scott Wallace
Scott Wallace
Co-founder, CEO and Chairman at ECD Automotive Design

This move builds directly on the success of ECD's Mustang program launched earlier this year and represents the next evolution of ECD's strategy to selectively enter high-demand, high-value enthusiast segments where craftsmanship can truly differentiate. Vintage 911s are among the most iconic and sought-after platforms for collectors and enthusiasts and are a perfect fit for ECD's best-in-class boutique production focused on low-volume, high-touch vehicles that command premium prices.

Scott Wallace
Scott Wallace
Co-founder, CEO and Chairman at ECD Automotive Design

Expanding into Porsche's 911 restomods allows us to further elevate our average selling price, drive efficiencies in our factory, and extend the ECD experience to an even broader collector community. Project Gravette's award-winning debut helped us to quickly validate our approach and early conversations with prospective clients, reinforcing the strong demand we see building around this program.

Scott Wallace
Scott Wallace
Co-founder, CEO and Chairman at ECD Automotive Design

While still in its early stages, we expect to deliver additional Porsche 911 commissions next calendar year and believe Porsche 911s could become a meaningful long-term contributor to our boutique mix. In November, we were proud to announce that ECD and CTC brand and the U.S. Distribution Alliance with Chelsea Truck Company, a subsidiary of Carn Design, are creating a new collaborative line of modern Land Rover Defender, L663, and Ineos Grenadier builds. Carn has been a longtime partner of ECD, so we found this to be a natural fit.

Scott Wallace
Scott Wallace
Co-founder, CEO and Chairman at ECD Automotive Design

The ECD and CTC collaboration combines CTC's British design and parts engineering expertise with ECD's full vehicle craftsmanship, performance integration, and interior luxury capabilities. Vehicles will be assembled at ECD's facility using CTC's premium exterior and interior components. The result is a new class of modern luxury builds designed for faster delivery, holistic engineering, and refined design execution.

Scott Wallace
Scott Wallace
Co-founder, CEO and Chairman at ECD Automotive Design

It is estimated that more than 100,000 new Land Rover Defenders and over 12,000 new Ineos Grenadiers have been sold in the United States since their introduction to market in 2020 and 2023, respectively. Adding modern trucks to our pipeline expands our total addressable market while allowing us to leverage existing factory capacity and technical expertise in a capital-efficient way, with production cycles that can be completed in as little as five days.

Scott Wallace
Scott Wallace
Co-founder, CEO and Chairman at ECD Automotive Design

With pricing designed to be more approachable, ECD and CTC see SUV broaden our reach to first-time ECD buyers while remaining competitive with the luxury SUV landscape, where models such as the Mercedes-Benz G-Class start near $155,000. These customers will become part of our ecosystem and ECD family, creating future opportunities for upgrades, repeat purchases, and retaining them long-term within the ECD product family.

Scott Wallace
Scott Wallace
Co-founder, CEO and Chairman at ECD Automotive Design

Finally, alongside our direct-to-consumer work upgrading existing vehicles, we are also opening a second channel through partnerships with dealerships, enabling them to offer ECD upgrade packages on new vehicle purchases. This strategy extends the reach of the ECD brand, integrates us earlier into the purchase journey, and strengthens our presence within the broader luxury SUV ecosystem. We are also excited to continue expanding the ECD and CTC offering with additional vehicles in the near future.

Scott Wallace
Scott Wallace
Co-founder, CEO and Chairman at ECD Automotive Design

As we touched on it in the last call, our jump into retail has been great for the ECD brand, serving as hubs for community engagement to build new client relationships. Our store-within-the-store concept at One Drivers Club in West Palm Beach continues to draw interest, and we completed our first summer season in Nantucket. Based on this success, we will still plan on future standalone ECD locations, now with the addition of ECD and CTC showrooms, to be even more impactful, blending vintage and modern offerings in a single space to drive engagement and sales. With that, I will now pass the call over to Vicky to review our financial results. Vicky.

Victoria Hay
Victoria Hay
CFO at ECD Automotive Design

Thank you, Scott. Before going through today's results, I would like to address our NASDAQ compliance status. In September, we were granted an extension into January 26 to solve our bid price and shareholder equity deficits. We have diligently been working through this and still remain confident that we will be fully compliant early in 2026. Now, to discuss third-quarter results.

Victoria Hay
Victoria Hay
CFO at ECD Automotive Design

ECD reported third-quarter revenue of $5.8 million, a $1.2 million decrease compared to Q2 2025, and a decrease of $0.6 million year-on-year. Gross profit for the quarter was negative $1.7 million, down $3.1 million from Q2 2025 and $3.7 million from Q3 2024. The negative gross margin primarily reflects the completion of several older builds, which resulted in a one-time release of $3 million in labor and consumable allocations from the balance sheet.

Victoria Hay
Victoria Hay
CFO at ECD Automotive Design

In addition, a $0.5 million out-of-period adjustment was recorded in Q3 2025 to release inventory tied to transactions completed and recognized during the first two quarters of the year. These items represent one-time cleanup adjustments that are not expected to recur. As a result, you will see inventory decrease from $7.9 million to $3.8 million quarter-over-quarter. We are also continuing to experience elevated shipping and tariff expenses and are actively evaluating opportunities to reduce these costs.

Victoria Hay
Victoria Hay
CFO at ECD Automotive Design

Total operating expenses were $3.4 million, a $0.6 million decrease on the prior quarter, and a $0.8 million increase on Q3 2024. The quarterly decrease reflects the impact of our continued cost reductions and right-sizing. The year-over-year increase is driven mainly by higher G&A expenses, including a non-cash stock-based compensation expense of $0.4 million associated with the rollout of the company's employee stock plan, introduced to acknowledge and reward our staff's contributions.

Victoria Hay
Victoria Hay
CFO at ECD Automotive Design

Loss from operations was $5.1 million, an increase of $2.5 million from the prior quarter and $4.5 million from the prior year period, primarily driven by the previously discussed impacts on gross margin. Net income was $2.2 million compared to a net loss of $4.3 million in the prior quarter 2025 and a net loss of $2.6 million in Q3 2024. Positive net income in Q3 2025 is attributable to non-cash fair value gains recognized in connection with the conversion of debt to preferred stock.

Victoria Hay
Victoria Hay
CFO at ECD Automotive Design

I'd like to close by discussing some subsequent developments. During the fourth quarter, several transactions were completed to support both our compliance efforts, equity position, and broader growth strategy. These include the receipt of $1 million of cash for the sale of Series C preferred stock and the conversion of $1.5 million of convertible notes to common stock.

Victoria Hay
Victoria Hay
CFO at ECD Automotive Design

In addition, following the filing of the registration statement on Form S-1 on November 3, 2025, the company commenced sales of common stock under the equity purchase facility agreement. The agreement provides capacity for up to $300 million in common stock sales and offers increased flexibility in our treasury strategy, including the potential use of Bitcoin for inbound and outbound transactions, along with general corporate use.

Victoria Hay
Victoria Hay
CFO at ECD Automotive Design

In the fourth quarter, we took additional cost-saving actions from those previously announced in June that are expected to bring an incremental $1 million annual saving that will be realized in 2026. Collectively, these efforts are intended to restore and maintain compliance with NASDAQ. Presenting our balance sheet and combined with continued G&A streamlining and planned margin improvements position us well as we exit the fourth quarter and move quickly into 2026.

Victoria Hay
Victoria Hay
CFO at ECD Automotive Design

Our focus remains on executing our growth strategy and delivering long-term value to our shareholders. This concludes my prepared remarks. I'll now hand it back to the operator to open the line for questions. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad, and a confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we pull for questions. As a reminder, that is star one to ask a question. Thank you. There are no questions at this time, and I'll hand the call over to Scott Wallace for closing remarks.

Scott Wallace
Scott Wallace
Co-founder, CEO and Chairman at ECD Automotive Design

We appreciate everyone's time today and your continued interest in ECD. Please visit our website, ecdautodesign.com, to stay up to date on our latest projects, and feel free to reach out via our IR site if you have any questions. Have a great day and happy Thanksgiving.

Operator

This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

Executives
    • Victoria Hay
      Victoria Hay
      CFO
    • Scott Wallace
      Scott Wallace
      Co-founder, CEO and Chairman
    • Chris Donovan
      Chris Donovan
      Head of Investor Relations