Techprecision Q1 2027 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: First-quarter revenue rose 23% to $9.1 million, while gross profit increased 36% to $1.4 million. Ranor revenue grew 27% and Stadco revenue increased 22%, with Stadco gross profit improving 65% year over year.
  • Positive Sentiment: TechPrecision reported a $52 million funded backlog, plus approximately $22 million in unfunded purchase orders, which management expects to deliver over the next one to three fiscal years with gross-margin expansion.
  • Positive Sentiment: Defense-sector demand remains strong, supported by more than $24 million in grants tied to U.S. Navy submarine programs and continued new quoting opportunities from existing and prospective air-defense and submarine-defense customers.
  • Positive Sentiment: Cash management and deleveraging improved: operating and investing activities generated $1.9 million of cash, while total debt declined to $5.0 million from $7.0 million at the end of the prior quarter.
  • Neutral Sentiment: Management said Stadco has reduced loss-making work to less than 50% of its business and is implementing stricter quoting, milestone reviews, and estimate-to-complete processes. However, the company still posted a $153,000 quarterly net loss and acknowledged that Stadco has more work to do before reaching profitability.
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Earnings Conference Call
Techprecision Q1 2027
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Greetings, and welcome to the TechPrecision Corporation Fiscal Year 2027 first quarter earnings call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Mr. Brett Maas, Managing Director of Hayden IR. Thank you, sir. You may begin.

Brett Maas
Brett Maas
Managing Director of Hayden IR at TechPrecision

Thank you. On the call today are Alex Shen, Chief Executive Officer, and Phil Podgorski, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I'd like to remind our listeners that management's remarks may contain forward-looking statements which are subject to the risks and uncertainties, and management may make additional forward-looking statements in response to your questions. Therefore, the company claims the protection of the safe harbor from forward-looking statements and as contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ from those discussed today, and therefore we refer you to a more detailed discussion of risks and uncertainties in the company's financial filings with the SEC. In addition, projections as to the company's future performance represents management's estimates as of today, August 13, 2026. TechPrecision assumes no obligation to revise or update these forward-looking statements.

Brett Maas
Brett Maas
Managing Director of Hayden IR at TechPrecision

With that out of the way, I'd like to turn the call over to Alex Shen, Chief Executive Officer, to provide opening remarks. Alex, the floor is yours.

Alex Shen
Alex Shen
CEO at TechPrecision

Brett, thank you. Hello, and good afternoon to everyone. Thank you for joining us. Fiscal 2027 first quarter consolidated revenue was $9.1 million, 23% higher when compared to $7.4 million in the fiscal 2026 first quarter. Consolidated gross profit totaled $1.4 million, or 36% higher when compared to the first quarter of fiscal 2026, primarily due to higher revenue and gross margin. Fiscal 2027 first quarter Ranor revenue was $5.5 million, 27% higher when compared to the prior year first quarter results. Fiscal 2027 first quarter revenue at Stadco increased by 22% to $4.1 million as we executed on our strategy to improve both customer project mix and gross margin expansion. We remain highly focused on aggressive daily cash management, a critical piece of risk mitigation. We continue to manage and control expenses, capital expenditures, customer advances, progress billings, and final invoicing at shipment.

Alex Shen
Alex Shen
CEO at TechPrecision

Our tactical execution focus and success enables us to continuously resecure strategic customer confidence at both subsidiaries. Our Ranor segment continues to execute and install new equipment funded by the $24 million-plus in grants from our U.S. Navy submarine programs-related customers. This sustained cadence of new equipment procurement, delivery, and installation is enabling, and will continue to enable, a reliable, robust, and resilient manufacturing capacity dedicated to submarine programs at Ranor. At both Stadco and Ranor, our air defense and submarine defense customers have expressed their strong confidence as we continue to maintain on-time delivery of quality components. With strong customer confidence, both subsidiaries continue to experience meaningful new capture of business awards from these same customers, adding to our strong $52 million backlog. This $52 million only includes the funded portions of customer purchase orders, with an additional approximately $22 million of unfunded purchase orders.

Alex Shen
Alex Shen
CEO at TechPrecision

In addition, our delivery performance is leading both Stadco and Ranor to new quoting opportunities in air defense and submarine defense sectors. The quoting opportunities are twofold. With the same customers that already know and trust our capabilities and with new customers in the air and submarine defense sectors. New quoting opportunities enhance our potential to improve our throughput. For first articles and new work scopes, we are mindful of the uncertainty around the development and prove-out of the manufacturing approach and the fabrication and machining execution. From time to time, when necessary, we submit pricing adjustment requests, and equitable adjustments are adjudicated and approved by our customers. Regarding our backlog, we expect to deliver our $52 million backlog over the course of the next one to three fiscal years with gross margin expansion. We remain on track to meeting our fiscal year 2027 guidance provided in June 2026.

Alex Shen
Alex Shen
CEO at TechPrecision

I will now turn the call over to our Chief Financial Officer, Phil Podgorski, to continue with the review of our fiscal 2027 first quarter results. Phil, to you.

Phil Podgorski
Phil Podgorski
CFO at TechPrecision

Thank you, Alex. As Alex just mentioned, our fiscal 2027 first quarter consolidated revenue increased by 23% to $9.1 million, compared to $7.4 million in the same period a year ago. Driven on higher revenue at both Ranor and Stadco. Consolidated cost of revenue increased by 21%, in line with our revenue growth, resulting in consolidated gross profit increase of $400,000 in Q1 fiscal 2027 to $1.4 million, primarily due to higher revenue at both segments. Consolidated SG&A decreased by 3% to $1.4 million, primarily on a decrease in professional fees and services. Interest expense decreased by 21% due to lower interest incurred on our loans, as well as lower amortization of debt issuance costs. Net loss was approximately $153,000 for the first quarter, or $0.02 per share on both a basic and fully diluted basis. Moving on to our financial position.

Phil Podgorski
Phil Podgorski
CFO at TechPrecision

As Alex mentioned, we continue to actively manage our cash flow daily. Net cash flow provided by operating and investment activities totaled $1.9 million for the three months ended June 30th, 2026. Net cash used in financing activities totaled $2 million, primarily to pay down principal under the revolver loan and term loans. As a result, our total debt was $5 million even on June 30th, 2026, compared to $7 million on March 31st, 2026. Cash balance on June 30th was $279,000 compared to $431,000 on March 31st. Now, taking a little deeper dive into the segment performance for the quarter. For Ranor, first quarter revenue was higher by $1.2 million year-over-year, or 27% increase, primarily driven by favorable project mix. The revenue increase resulted in $1.6 million of gross profit for the quarter.

Phil Podgorski
Phil Podgorski
CFO at TechPrecision

For Stadco, Q1 fiscal 2027 revenue increased by $700,000 or 22% increase compared to the same period last year, as we continue to execute on our strategic project mix change at Stadco. Stadco experienced Q1 year-over-year gross margin improvement as gross profit increased by $300,000 or 65% improvement, mainly due to higher revenue and throughput improvement. As Alex mentioned, we continue to actively work with our customers to reduce the wait times and improve throughput. With that, I will turn it back to Alex.

Alex Shen
Alex Shen
CEO at TechPrecision

In closing, for those on the call who may not be very familiar with our company, TechPrecision is a custom manufacturer of precision large-scale fabricated components and precision large-scale machined metal structural components. The components that we manufacture are customer designed. We sell to customers in two main industry sectors, defense and precision industrial markets, predominantly defense. We do most of our work in industries that are highly sensitive to confidentiality, which preclude us from speaking publicly about many things that a company not operating in TechPrecision's specific environment might discuss. Please understand there are real limits as to what I can discuss, and sometimes those limits do change. TechPrecision is proud and honored to serve the U.S. defense industry, specifically naval submarine manufacturing through our Ranor subsidiary, and military aircraft manufacturing through our Stadco subsidiary. We aim to secure and maintain enduring partnerships with our customers.

Alex Shen
Alex Shen
CEO at TechPrecision

As noted earlier, the total of completely funded grant money of more than $24 million from our U.S. Navy submarine programs reflects this strong partnership. This commitment represents more than 50% of TechPrecision's market cap of $48 million. Overall, at both Ranor and Stadco, we continue to see meaningful opportunities in the defense sector, as evidenced by the strength of our backlog. We are encouraged by the prospects for growing our revenue and increasing profitability in future quarters. We are showing progress. We have more work to do with our Stadco subsidiary to get into the black. We are targeting to build and sustain a trend. Operator, please open the line for Q&A.

Operator

Certainly. Everyone at this time will be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you have any questions or comments, please press star one on your phone at this time. We do ask that while posing your question, please pick up your handset if you're listening on speakerphone to provide optimum sound quality. Once again, if you have any questions or comments, please press star one on your phone. Your first question is coming from Ross Taylor from ARS Investment Partners. Your line is live.

Ross Taylor
Analyst at ARS Investment Partners

Thank you. Well, first, congratulations, gentlemen. I cannot remember a time when you actually reported your earnings before the last date required. I think it's a big change and part of the shift in direction in the company.

Alex Shen
Alex Shen
CEO at TechPrecision

Thank you.

Ross Taylor
Analyst at ARS Investment Partners

Could you talk about Last call, we talked about getting a handle on the parts and the programs that were costing you money at Stadco. Can you give us an update on where we stand with regard to have we made any progress on taking contracts or parts of contracts that were losing money and turned them into break even or profitable in the last quarter?

Alex Shen
Alex Shen
CEO at TechPrecision

We have made great progress. It's good to be able to say this with some facts behind us. Yes. I'm not going to be able to pinpoint the specific programs, but it's not just one program, Ross. It's across the board. We continue to take a look at what our manufacturing costs and our approach is and see where from time to time we do go back to the customer and look to submit price adjustments. When they're warranted and adjudicated as such, they do come back with resolution in our favor. That has happened well the last quarter.

Ross Taylor
Analyst at ARS Investment Partners

When you look at the kind of the percentage of business or the business you do at Stadco, what percentage do you think is operating under this impingement in this kind of environment?

Alex Shen
Alex Shen
CEO at TechPrecision

Now?

Ross Taylor
Analyst at ARS Investment Partners

Yeah.

Alex Shen
Alex Shen
CEO at TechPrecision

After we got done through scouring everything, I think it's definitely less than 50%. I don't know that I can put a percentage number on there, because the mix tends to change quarter to quarter. I think on our new orders that we secure, other than new first articles and new work scopes that are added to current orders, the new orders coming in, we're pretty focused on making sure we really work with our customers much closer so they understand, hey, there's a lot of development, manufacturing development work in this new contract you've given us. Phil, on his side, is providing financial oversight early. On our side, from the quoting stage all the way through to execution and delivery, we've put in gates so that we see where we're at with these gates.

Alex Shen
Alex Shen
CEO at TechPrecision

When we reach a certain milestone with the customer on a project, on a new project, especially, that is the time to gauge, not wait till the end. It really starts off with a quoting process that has more rigor in it that we have ever had before, especially the legacy Stadco. I think as we correct the contracts that are the legacy and the new ones really have a lot more rigor in them built in from the very beginning.

Ross Taylor
Analyst at ARS Investment Partners

Okay.

Alex Shen
Alex Shen
CEO at TechPrecision

I am not trying to avoid answering your question on percentage. It is just hard to pinpoint a percent. I think it is more characterized by the new contracts. They are getting a lot of scrutiny before the pricing submitted, and even after the pricing submitted, there are things that we put in place to mitigate our risk.

Phil Podgorski
Phil Podgorski
CFO at TechPrecision

I will add to that, too, Alex.

Alex Shen
Alex Shen
CEO at TechPrecision

Yes, please.

Phil Podgorski
Phil Podgorski
CFO at TechPrecision

Alex talked about the quoting process, and as we hit milestones, reviewing. We have now a robust estimate to complete process in place that's going to help us avoid any surprises and get back to the customer much earlier than what we've had in the past. It will help us identify and address any issues, particularly on first articles, as we move forward. Positive improvement in the process as well.

Ross Taylor
Analyst at ARS Investment Partners

Yeah. It seems like part of the problem has been is older contracts, and as those older contracts roll off or are addressed, we should be looking at a situation where there are fewer and fewer parts numbers that you produce at Stadco that have losses, and eventually that should go, other than first articles, because we understand the difficulty and nature of first articles. But as we push forward, then we should really be seeing fewer and fewer drags on performance out of Stadco as the parts, the older contracts roll off and are replaced by newer contracts. Correct?

Phil Podgorski
Phil Podgorski
CFO at TechPrecision

Yes, that is correct, and that's the goal and what we're driving towards. Absolutely correct.

Ross Taylor
Analyst at ARS Investment Partners

Okay. Is part of the problem then that the quality of work you're receiving, because at times you received, my understanding or having long ago walked through Ranor's facility, some stuff comes to you partially worked or, in my words, partially worked, and you have to finish it. You have to take it from a mildly worked lump of metal and turn it into something actually meaningful. Is part of the problem that the work that comes to you has been substandard?

Alex Shen
Alex Shen
CEO at TechPrecision

That definitely is part of the problem, yes. Absolutely.

Ross Taylor
Analyst at ARS Investment Partners

Okay.

Alex Shen
Alex Shen
CEO at TechPrecision

That, not by itself is the problem, but that contributes to-

Ross Taylor
Analyst at ARS Investment Partners

It could be.

Alex Shen
Alex Shen
CEO at TechPrecision

Problems because it interrupts our manufacturing. The plan doesn't go accordingly. We didn't expect. Let's just talk about some specifics on metal. Some metal is formed by castings. Castings have inherent porosity that process is subject to it. When that happens, and you have unexpected porosity in unexpected places, that causes a blip, and sometimes the blip turns into it needs to go on hold and wait for material disposition by our client side. Yes.

Ross Taylor
Analyst at ARS Investment Partners

Which increases cost and reduces efficiency. It basically hits you two ways when that happens.

Alex Shen
Alex Shen
CEO at TechPrecision

Absolutely.

Ross Taylor
Analyst at ARS Investment Partners

Yep.

Alex Shen
Alex Shen
CEO at TechPrecision

Yep. We're addressing each one of those with each of the customers as well.

Ross Taylor
Analyst at ARS Investment Partners

Okay. Can you talk about your ability to bringing in new business, your customers, you've talked about how satisfied they are with your work efforts. Are you finding them bringing you more work? It seems that in this situation where the primes and the sub-primes are struggling to use their limited resources, that they might be eager to push more work towards you, so that you can effectively make their job easier, both in Ranor and Stadco. Are you finding that?

Alex Shen
Alex Shen
CEO at TechPrecision

Yes, we are, and thank you for asking the question. This is something I did want to find a way to expand on during our discussion during the Q&A. Because we are performing successfully with the contracts that we have, and by and large, delivering on-time quality components, that confidence level translates not only into more POs on stuff that we have repeated in the past, that we're still competing for every time. New quotes are hitting us from two ways. One is the very same customers that are confident in us, but there's new customers that also want to try a piece of the pie. We have certain capabilities, and we are becoming known for those capabilities, the ability to deliver, for example, there's electron beam welding capability at Stadco. Not everybody has that capability.

Alex Shen
Alex Shen
CEO at TechPrecision

Not every fabrication house, very few fabrication houses, as a matter of fact, have that capability and the size of the electron beam welding unit that we have. What happens is, we got new quotes. We got a lot of new quotes. It is not like we can land every single new quote, perhaps for every double-digit handful of quotes, 10 to 12 to 15, perhaps we can land one or two of those. But if we do not do any new quoting for those parts, we will certainly not get any. We are being given opportunities. We are actively searching and making sure we ask for the opportunity to quote more business with our current cadre of customers that trust us, but also the ones that are perhaps adjacent or competitors with our current customers.

Alex Shen
Alex Shen
CEO at TechPrecision

We are getting some traction, and we are getting, well, let us first deal with one thing. We want to improve our throughput. As we talked just a little bit earlier, Ross, with you just now on interruptions, how some customer furnished material might have defects. Okay. We need stuff in the background to fill the gap. That is really working quite nicely. We have quotes that are turning into business and new awards of new parts, and those do have a tendency to fill in the gap when it coincides and the mix is right. We have started to experience some of that. It is very encouraging. Yes. To answer your question in a long-winded fashion, we are seeing new opportunities, both from the current customer set and some new customers as well.

Ross Taylor
Analyst at ARS Investment Partners

Okay. We talked last call about the potential you have seen, and you highlighted the money that has been given to you by, whether it is the government or the primes, to help out build capacity at Ranor. We talked about the potential for that at Stadco. Has any progress been made? Are you seeing any shifts in that side, where it strikes me as, quite honestly, an editorial comment, with the U.S. Air Force looking at possibly replacing the F-15E with the F-15EX, as well as a much bigger F-15EX build. The fact that we are selling the advanced air-to-air missile, but I think the C-130 to Australia, which would make sense that they move away from their current platform to perhaps a more robust platform, perhaps like an F-15EX. You need to really meaningfully increase production.

Ross Taylor
Analyst at ARS Investment Partners

The Air Force probably needs to go from 24-48 or more aircraft a year. Have you seen any willingness or any interest in people like Boeing or Sikorsky or others to provide the capital needed or the equipment needed for you to meaningfully increase production?

Alex Shen
Alex Shen
CEO at TechPrecision

We are in active pursuit aggressively from our side to the customers. I think I have a clamp put on me on how much I can speak about it. So, I think that in itself is going to answer your question as in the incremental progress is being made, and I'm not at a point to speak of it yet. But I think that's an answer in itself, because if there was nothing going on, I would tell you that. There's something going on that I can't really talk about on the specifics. Yes. So, we're making progress. That's what I can tell you.

Phil Podgorski
Phil Podgorski
CFO at TechPrecision

The progress is not visible yet. So hopefully soon.

Ross Taylor
Analyst at ARS Investment Partners

But we could see that. Okay, I think it's quite clear that you guys have turned a corner. You've gained a level of confidence you haven't had as a business in a long time, and I think that's starting to show in the back-to-back $9 million plus quarters in revenues sets a strong base, and hopefully we'll see you guys start to meaningfully break into the free cash flow positive level. Along those lines, I would like to say one thing is, when your stock sells for less than a latte, it would be really nice to see insiders buy stock. You had two directors sell stock years ago at $7, $8 a share, I think. I haven't seen an insider buy stock since Hector was a pup, so it'd be really nice to see some people show support for the business.

Ross Taylor
Analyst at ARS Investment Partners

As I said, literally, I think it probably costs you more to get your coffee in the morning than to buy a share of stock. So, it'd be really nice to starting to see some releases talking about board members and senior management members actually buying stock.

Alex Shen
Alex Shen
CEO at TechPrecision

All right. Agreed. Thank you.

Ross Taylor
Analyst at ARS Investment Partners

Okay. Thank you very much, and congratulations on getting the release out early. Even though you dropped it into a day when I have five calls at the same time.

Alex Shen
Alex Shen
CEO at TechPrecision

Sorry about that.

Ross Taylor
Analyst at ARS Investment Partners

But on top of that, the progress you guys have made in the last couple of quarters, both financially, but even more importantly, I think culturally and how you come to the street is really important and is really appreciated.

Alex Shen
Alex Shen
CEO at TechPrecision

Thank you, Ross.

Phil Podgorski
Phil Podgorski
CFO at TechPrecision

Thank you.

Ross Taylor
Analyst at ARS Investment Partners

Thank you, gentlemen. Take care.

Operator

Thank you. That concludes our Q&A session. I will now hand the conference back to management for closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Alex Shen
Alex Shen
CEO at TechPrecision

Thank you very much, everyone. Have a great day.

Analysts
    • Brett Maas
      Managing Director of Hayden IR at TechPrecision
    • Alex Shen
      CEO at TechPrecision
    • Phil Podgorski
      CFO at TechPrecision
    • Ross Taylor
      Analyst at ARS Investment Partners