Key Tronic Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
August 27, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • Negative Sentiment: Reported Q4 revenue of $110.5 M vs $126.6 M last year and full‐year revenue down to $467.9 M from $566.9 M, due to reduced demand from two key customers and tariff‐driven launch delays.
  • Positive Sentiment: Despite revenue falling by ~$100 M, gross margin improved to 7.8% for the fiscal year, reflecting efficiency gains, workforce reductions, and cost‐saving initiatives.
  • Negative Sentiment: Recorded a Q4 net loss of $3.9 M ($0.36/share) and a full‐year net loss of $8.3 M ($0.77/share) versus smaller losses in the prior year, driven by lower sales and reserve adjustments.
  • Positive Sentiment: Generated $18.9 M in operating cash flow, reduced inventory by 7%, cut liabilities by 14%, and improved DSO to 86 days, reinforcing financial flexibility.
  • Positive Sentiment: Advancing strategic expansions with a new $28 M Arkansas facility, doubling Vietnam capacity, and a ramping $20 M consigned‐materials contract, underpinning a robust new‐business pipeline.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Key Tronic Q4 2025
00:00 / 00:00

There are 5 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good day, and welcome to the Keytronic Q4 Fiscal Year twenty twenty five Investor Call. Today's conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be a question and answer session. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Tony Voorhees. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Good afternoon, everyone. I am Tony Voorhees, Chief Financial Officer of Q Tronic. I would like to thank everyone for joining us today for our investor conference call. We are excited to be calling in from our new Springvale, Arkansas facility this week. Joining me here is Brett Larson, our President and Chief Executive Officer.

Speaker 1

As always, I would like to remind you that during the course of this call, we might make projections or other forward looking statements regarding future events or the company's future financial performance. Please remember that such statements are only predictions. Actual events or results may differ materially. For more information, you may review the risk factors outlined in the documents the company has filed with the SEC, specifically our latest 10 ks and quarterly 10 Qs. Please note that on this call, we will discuss historical financial and other statistical information regarding our business and operations.

Speaker 1

Some of this information is included in today's press release. During this call, we will also reference slides that accompany our discussion. The slides can be viewed with the webcast and the link can be found on our Investor Relations website. In addition,

Speaker 2

the

Speaker 1

slides together with a recorded version of this call will be available on the Investor Relations section of our website. We will also discuss certain non GAAP financial measures on this call. Additional information about these non GAAP measures and the reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measure are provided in today's press release, which is posted to the Investor Relations section of our website. For the 2025, we reported total revenue of $110,500,000 compared to $126,600,000 in the same period of fiscal twenty twenty four. The revenue for the 2025 was adversely impacted by decreased demand from two large long standing customers.

Speaker 1

In addition, the recent escalation and fluctuations in global tariffs caused uncertainty that contributed to delays to new program launches as customers stalled orders. For the full fiscal year 2025, total revenue was $467,900,000 compared to $566,900,000 in fiscal year twenty twenty four. Our gross margin was 6.2% and operating margin was negative 2.1 in the 2025 compared to 7.20.1% respectively in the same period of fiscal twenty twenty four. These decreases largely relate to continued reductions in demand from two large long standing customers during the period. Gross margin and operating margin for the full fiscal year 2025 was 7.80.1% compared to 71.2% for the full year fiscal 2024.

Speaker 1

Despite the revenue reduction of approximately $100,000,000 in fiscal year twenty twenty five, we were still able to increase gross margins year over year. This is largely related to operational efficiencies gained from reductions in workforce and other cost savings initiatives over the last two years. In order to better align costs with current customer demand and boost automation, we cut approximately 300 more jobs during the 2025. For a total headcount reduction during fiscal year twenty twenty five of approximately 800. The negative impact of severance expense on our income statement was approximately 100,000 during the 2025 and $2,900,000 for the entire fiscal 2025.

Speaker 1

As top line growth returns, we anticipate margins to be strengthened by improvements in our operating efficiencies and the continued and increasing benefits of our strategic cost savings initiatives. We also believe the cost savings initiatives had allowed us to be more competitive in quoting new program opportunities. As production volumes increase and our operational adjustments take full effect, we expect to see greater leverage on fixed costs, enhanced productivity and a more streamlined supply chain, all contributing to stronger financial performance. Our net loss was $3,900,000 or $0.36 per share for the 2025 compared to a net loss of $2,000,000 or $0.18 per share for the same period of fiscal year 2024. For the full fiscal year 2025, our net loss was $8,300,000 or $0.77 per share compared to a net loss of $2,800,000 or $0.26 per share for fiscal year twenty twenty four.

Speaker 1

The increase in year over year net loss is primarily related to the large reductions in revenue as well as adjustments for estimated collections from customers of approximately $1,100,000 for the fourth quarter of fiscal year twenty twenty five and one point eight million dollars for the full year of fiscal year twenty twenty five. Our adjusted net loss was $3,800,000 or $0.35 per share for the 2025 compared to an adjusted net loss of $700,000 or $06 per share for the same period of fiscal year 2024. The adjusted net loss was $5,000,000 or $0.47 per share for the full fiscal year 2025 compared to adjusted net loss of $200,000 or $02 per share for the same period of fiscal year twenty twenty four. See non GAAP financial measures below for additional information about adjusted net loss and adjusted net loss per share. Turning to the balance sheet, we ended fiscal twenty twenty five by reducing inventory by approximately $8,000,000 or 7% from the same time a year ago.

Speaker 1

These improvements in inventory levels primarily reflect our strategic initiatives designed to better align our inventory with our current revenue. At the same time, the state of the worldwide supply chain still requires that we drive demand for parts differently than in historical periods. Many of our customers have revamped their forecasting methodologies and we have made significant enhancements to our materials resource planning algorithms. As a result, we are now more prepared to address potential future disruptions in supply chain and more able to respond to evolving to respond effectively to evolving tariff implications as we continue to manage inventory more cost effectively. For fiscal twenty twenty five, we also reduced our total liabilities by a combined amount of $32,700,000 or 14% from a year ago.

Speaker 1

Our current ratio was 2.5:one compared to 2.8:one from a year ago. At the same time, accounts receivable DSOs were at eighty six days compared to ninety five days a year ago, reflecting stronger collection on receivables. For the full fiscal year 2025, cash flow provided by operations was $18,900,000 up from $13,800,000 for fiscal twenty twenty four. This represents two fiscal years in a row of positive cash from operations. Total capital expenditures in fiscal year twenty twenty five are about 4,100,000.0 an increase of approximately 3% from a year ago.

Speaker 1

In addition, we entered into financing arrangements which will provide up to $9,000,000 in available funding to be used in our planned expansions in Arkansas and Vietnam. While we're keeping a careful eye on capital expenditures, we plan to continue to invest selectively in our production equipment, SMT equipment and plastic molding capabilities, utilize leasing facilities as well as make efficiency improvements to prepare for growth and add capacity. We expect to spend about $8,000,000 in capital expenditures during fiscal year twenty twenty six largely on new innovative production equipment and automation. As we move into fiscal year twenty twenty six, we are pleased to continue to see our new programs ramping and cost inefficiency improvements from our recent overhead reductions take hold. We expect to see growth in our U.

Speaker 1

S. And Vietnam production, have a strong pipeline of potential new business and remain focused on improving our profitability. Over the longer term, we believe that we are increasingly well positioned to win new programs and profitably expand our business. We will not be providing forward looking guidance due to uncertainty of timing of new products ramping over fiscal year twenty twenty six. That's it for me.

Speaker 1

Brett?

Speaker 3

Thanks, Tony. Fiscal twenty twenty five was a year of transition and uncertainty. We anticipated a reduction of demand from two long standing customers, but we had fully expected to fill that void with recently won new programs. However, with the uncertainty of recent varying tariffs, most of these launches were delayed into fiscal twenty twenty six. The reduction in overall revenue had a significant impact on our bottom line financial results.

Speaker 3

Nevertheless, during the fiscal year, we were able to right size our cost structure in Mexico and introduce new production efficiencies in automation that have allowed us to become more cost competitive. Additionally, we transitioned our manufacturing footprint by investing in a new facility here in The U. S. And investing in new production equipment in Vietnam that increases our capacity and capability. The sudden increases and decreases in tariffs have unfortunately impacted new program launches across all of our facilities.

Speaker 3

We are doing our best to work with suppliers and with our customers on options for manufacturing their products from different locations and best mitigating the impact of tariffs. Our changes made to our manufacturing footprint and our cost reductions enable us to offer improved mitigation options, particularly when our customers consider the varying implications of current and future potential tariffs. We're moving full speed ahead with adding capacity in key regions. In The U. S, we're expanding our clean tech, cutting edge manufacturing operations here in Arkansas.

Speaker 3

We expect to invest more than $28,000,000 in our new flagship manufacturing and research and development location here in Arkansas, which we will believe which we fully believe should create over 400 new jobs over the next five years. We're delighted to be enhancing our operations in a region where we have maintained a long standing presence and a strong team and can benefit from a business friendly environment. Our U. S.-based production provides customers with outstanding flexibility, engineering support and ease of communications. In Vietnam, we have ample space in our current facility to double our manufacturing capacity.

Speaker 3

We're also putting the finishing touches on a major production capability in Vietnam that will support future medical device manufacturing. Our Vietnam based production offers the high quality, low cost choice that was often associated with China and Mexico in the past. In coming years, we expect our Vietnam facility to play a major role in our growth. We anticipate these new facilities in The U. S.

Speaker 3

And Vietnam will come online during the 2026 and enable us to benefit from customer demand for rebalancing their contract manufacturing and mitigate the severe impact and uncertainties surrounding the tariffs on goods and critical components. By the end of fiscal twenty twenty six, we expect to approximately have half of our manufacturing take place in our U. S. And Vietnam facilities. These initiatives reflect both the long standing trends to nearshore and move more of their production away from China as well as derisk the potential adverse impact of tariff increases and geopolitical tensions.

Speaker 3

Our Mexico facility also offers a unique solution for tariff mitigation under existing USMCA tariff agreement. But there is a sustained trend of continued wage increases in Mexico. And as it has become clear that these changes in the base cost of Mexican production are longstanding, we have streamlined our operations, increased efficiencies and invested in automation in order to become more cost competitive in the market. During fiscal twenty twenty five, we reduced our total headcount by approximately 800 individuals or roughly 30% during the year, which was mostly done in Mexico. Our improved cost structure in Mexico is anticipated to lead to new programs and growth over the longer term.

Speaker 3

During fiscal twenty twenty five, we continued to win new programs in manufacturing equipment, vehicle lighting, aerospace systems, energy resiliency, telecommunications, pest control, energy storage, medical technology, temperature controlled shipping, personal protection equipment, air purification, automotive and utilities inspection equipment. In addition, we executed a manufacturing services contract with a data processing equipment OEM that will consign its materials to our Corinth, Mississippi manufacturing facility. The consigned materials model is new for us at this scale. And if successful, will considerably improve our profitability in the coming quarters. It has the potential to ramp significantly during fiscal year twenty twenty six and is estimated to grow eventually to over $20,000,000 in annual revenue.

Speaker 3

Despite the many uncertainties and disruptions in global markets, our strong pipeline of potential new business underscores the continued trend towards onshoring and dual sourcing of contract manufacturing. We expect that the global tariff wars and geopolitical tensions will continue to drive OEMs to re examine their traditional outsourcing strategies. Over time, the decision to onshore production is becoming more widely accepted as a smart long term strategy. We believe our manufacturing footprint and cost competitiveness will allow us to take advantage of these opportunities. The combination of our flexible global footprint and our expansive design capabilities continues to be extremely effective in capturing new business.

Speaker 3

Many of our manufacturing program wins are predicated upon Keytronics deep and broad design services. And once we have completed a design and ramped it into production, we believe our knowledge of a program specific design challenges makes that business extremely sticky. We anticipate a continued increase in the number and capability of our design engineers in coming quarters. We also continue to invest in vertical integration and manufacturing process knowledge, including a wide range of plastic molding, injection blow, gas assist, multi shot as well as PCB assembly, metal forming, painting, coating, complex high volume automated assembly and the design, construction and operation of complicated test equipment. We believe that this expertise will increasingly set us apart from our competitors of similar size.

Speaker 3

While the global tariff policies are creating delays to new product launches for us, our suppliers and our customers, we believe due to political tensions and heightened concerns about tariffs and supply chains, we'll continue to drive the favorable trend of contract manufacturing returning to North America as well as to our expanding Vietnam facilities. These tariff challenges were a significant factor in replacing reduced demand in both long standing and recently awarded programs, which hammered our growth and profitability in fiscal twenty twenty five. Nevertheless, we continue to rebalance our manufacturing across our facilities in The U. S, Mexico and Vietnam. We will move forward with a strong pipeline of potential new business, and we're seeing significant improvements in our operating efficiencies.

Speaker 3

Over the long term, we remain very encouraged by our cost reductions made over the past two years to become more cost competitive, our increasing cash flow generated from operations, enhanced global manufacturing footprint and the innovations from our design engineering. All these initiatives have increased our potential for future profitable growth. In closing, I want to emphasize that this was a challenging year for our industry and for Keytronics specifically. In these circumstances, the execution of our strategy was made possible not only by our investments in plants and equipment, but even more so because of the skills, local knowledge and talents of our people. I want to thank our exceptional employees for their dedication and hard work during this past year.

Speaker 3

This concludes the formal portion of our presentation. Tony and I will now be pleased to answer your questions.

Speaker 2

Thank

Operator

And our first question will come from Matt Dane with Titan Capital Management.

Speaker 4

Good afternoon, guys. I'm curious looking at the new wins in the quarter, can you give us the range of sizes of those six new wins and how we should be thinking about those ramping?

Speaker 3

Yes. For the quarter, those were predominantly around the $5,000,000 program size. Three of them in Mexico, the others are in The U. S. And then of course, the data processing could be could exceed $20,000,000 and that's more of a service consigned materials contract.

Speaker 4

Okay, great. Good to know. I also wanted to talk about the Vietnam medical device manufacturing capability that you folks are getting set up over there. How are you thinking about that? I know you called out that you want a medical device, it sounds like that's either for The U.

Speaker 4

S. Or Mexico where you're going be manufacturing that. But the go forward opportunity, do you are you talking with potential customers around that? And what attracted you to build out that capacity over there?

Speaker 3

Yeah. Absolutely. That's a great question. So we've always wanted to grow Vietnam. I think it was hampered largely after we took it and started that in Da Nang right around twenty nineteen, twenty twenty.

Speaker 3

I think we were hindered by COVID for a number of years and being able to market and sell that. That has drastically changed. And I think now being, certified to build medical product there and actually now having a program slated to start there in fiscal twenty twenty six, I think that'll just have our Vietnam shop show even even better and more capable. And we're expecting additional new opportunities there in Vietnam from that.

Speaker 4

Great. And final question, if I could ask here. You folks on the call and in the release talked about how you've seen an increase in new program bids recently. I was hoping for a little bit of additional color here. Is it just pent up demand people cannot continue to sit around and wait for 100% tariff clarity?

Speaker 4

Do they feel like they have enough clarity on tariffs? Is this things that you're doing to drive this increased bidding activity? Just yes, what more can you tell us around that?

Speaker 3

Sure. Probably two points. Probably the first and foremost is us becoming more cost competitive. I think the cost reductions we have done over the last two years have enabled us to provide, I think, what we've mentioned is commodity pricing for certain customers that require low cost. That has definitely opened up our opportunities to close out on quotes that we may have lost historically.

Speaker 3

I think the other is the impact of investing in key locations. Our new Arkansas facility, we're extremely excited about. We've had a number of customers come and visit it. There is quite a bit of pent up demand for U. S.

Speaker 3

Manufacturing, particularly with in light of the varying tariffs and geopolitical tensions that going on. That has definitely impacted recent quote opportunities as well. So I think it's kind of the combination of all. It's both the cost reductions, but then improving our actual global footprint to provide our customers with more options for tariff mitigation.

Speaker 4

Great. Appreciate the color.

Speaker 3

Thank you.

Operator

And our next question will come from George Melas with MKH Management.

Speaker 2

Thank you, operator. Hi, guys. Two questions. Hi, Brad. Question on the DSO.

Speaker 2

Somehow I probably calculated somewhat differently than you guys, but it seems that receivables came down by 16,000,000 sequentially. And I'm just wondering whether that's possible or whether there's something some factoring or some other factor that sort of explain that decline in your receivables?

Speaker 1

Yes, good question George. Appreciate it. This is Tony. So the large driver of that reduction in AR is primarily due to the reduction in revenue over the quarter.

Speaker 3

There is no factoring. I think we did a better job of collections during the year. There was also unfortunately some write offs and some bad debt that occurred during the year. But there was no factoring.

Speaker 2

Okay. Great. Regarding the write off in the bad debt, was there a significant amount of that in the fourth quarter?

Speaker 1

Yeah. There was $1,100,000 in the fourth quarter. We didn't write it off. Just reserved for it. But that did negatively Okay.

Speaker 1

Impact our

Speaker 2

And that flew all through to cost of goods sold, guess, then?

Speaker 1

It's down in SG and A actually.

Speaker 2

Okay. Great. Yes. And that reduced the net receivables that you had. Okay.

Speaker 3

Correct.

Speaker 2

Great. It's still an impressive reduction in in the DSO. And Yes. Do you think that could come down further? How is it just better collection collection or or is is it it somewhat somewhat different terms in your contracts with your customers?

Speaker 1

Yeah. I would say it's primarily collection efforts, George. We've done a better job of collecting recently from our customers. You know, we've really worked hard at building those relationships and making sure we have a path to a contact that can help us out when we need it.

Speaker 2

Okay, very good. And then help me understand a little bit better the potential size of that manufactured services contract that you single out with the data processor OEM. You say it could be 20 But given the fact that they would consign the parts, is this how does that compare with some other contracts that you may have from a size perspective? Because the 20,000,000 would not include, my understanding, does not include the parts flowing through your P and L. Is that correct?

Speaker 3

Yep. Absolutely. And I think that's one of the reasons we wanted to make mention of it. While

Speaker 2

it is only a 20,000,000

Speaker 3

only, it's it's it's a strong $20,000,000 program. But that's just for the manufacturing services that we would provide. So this is probably we've other consigned material contracts, but nothing to this scale. And so, you know, while it's 20,000,000 additional revenue to Keytronic, it should have a strong incremental improvement in margin, know, because there's far less material content to it. So, you know, is that $20,000,000 win really the equivalent of a, 80,000,000 to $100,000,000 program that's turnkey?

Speaker 2

Exactly. Okay. And that contract, it was signed in the June or? It was. It was in

Speaker 3

the fourth quarter and we are ramping that as we speak in our Corinth facility.

Speaker 2

Okay. And is it going to be just in the Mississippi facility or it will be in other places as well? Because it seems like a potentially large It

Speaker 3

is. It's currently scheduled for Mississippi, But with this new Arkansas facility, we've got plenty of capacity here as well. If it continues to grow, we may need to dual source it. But at this point, it's scheduled just to be within the Mississippi plan.

Speaker 2

Okay. Thank you, Brett. And in fiscal twenty six, what would you expect in terms of revenue from that contract?

Speaker 3

You know

Speaker 2

So let me ask you, first of all, maybe for all of the year and the run rate as you end the year. I'll make it more complicated, Brett. I'm sorry.

Speaker 3

Yeah. I know. You're not gonna let me get away with that.

Speaker 2

You're right.

Speaker 3

You know, with with all ramps, it it takes always longer than you hope. Our expectation is that we'll be at the 20,000,000 per year run run rate by the 2026. But there's still, you know, there's there's still a lot of unknowns between now and then. But that's what we're gonna be projecting to be at that level as we exit the fiscal year.

Speaker 2

Okay. So it means that it would have largely ramped to the $20,000,000 run rate by June by the June '26. So that's good. Yes. Okay, great.

Speaker 2

And in Mexico, you are adding three new so you added you're adding three programs six programs, three of which in Mexico. How do you see your Mexico operations in fiscal twenty six? Do you see them growing or sort of flattening? How do you see that part of the operation?

Speaker 3

I think with these recent program wins, we will see some growth in Mexico. We found that we were not always cost competitive, and I think we've made the correct reductions and changes to the cost structure down there. And the other thing is right now under the USMCA agreement, it really is a perfect way to mitigate tariffs for US consumed goods. So I think they're gonna continue to get opportunities down there. You know, and as you're fully aware, that's where predominantly a lot of our vertical manufacturing exists.

Speaker 3

So even if, you know, it's not a full box build down in Mexico, I could see us building subassemblies, either sheet metal or molded components that would then be shipped into a Vietnam or U. S. Location. So it's still going to be very much a critical operation facility for our success in the future.

Speaker 2

Okay, great. And then maybe a last question. Any thoughts about your gross margin in fiscal twenty twenty six and maybe longer term, is there any sort of thinking that it is impaired? Or do you think it can come back to the 9s and maybe even double digit at some point?

Speaker 3

That's always our goal. That's always our strategy to get there on paper. It looks like, you know, we can get there. There's just a lot of things that need to happen. So we definitely are not happy with the results of this past fiscal year, and that inclusive of gross margins.

Speaker 3

We're expecting those to improve. And I think now more than ever, with the increased capacity that we have in Mexico, in The US and in Vietnam now, it's incumbent on us to really grow our top line and utilize some of that capacity in order to get to reasonable gross margin.

Speaker 2

Okay. So from an incremental gross margin, as you add revenue, what do you think that could be?

Speaker 3

It can be 15% to 20%.

Speaker 2

Okay. And that would hold in all three locations?

Speaker 3

Yeah. Fried brush, yes.

Speaker 2

Okay, great. Okay. Thank you very much. Good luck in the New Year.

Operator

And that does conclude the question and answer session. I'll now hand the conference back over to you for any additional or closing remarks.

Speaker 3

Thank you again for participating in today's conference call. Tony and I look forward to speaking to you again next quarter.

Operator

Thank you. That does conclude today's conference. We do thank you for your participation. Have an excellent day.

Powered by Quartr