American Superconductor Corporation

Good day and welcome to the AMSC First Quarter Fiscal 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touchtone phone. And to withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Ms. Nicole Goles, Director of Communications at AMSC. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Thank you, Chuck. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to American Superconductor Corporation's First Quarter of Fiscal Year 2025 Conference Call. I am Nicole Goles, AMSC's Director of Communications. Joining me today are Daniel McGann, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, and John Kaciba, Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, and Treasurer. Yesterday, after market closed, American Superconductor issued its earnings release for the first quarter of fiscal year 2025. A copy of the release is available on the Investor's Page of the Company's website at .amsc.com. During today's call, remarks that management may make regarding American Superconductor's future expectations, including financial results, plans, and prospects, constitute forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements due to various factors, including those outlined on Form 10-K for the year ended March 31, 2025, which the company filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on May 21, as well as there are other filings, all of which are available on our website. The company disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements. On today's call, management will refer to non-GAAP net income, non-GAAP financial measures. Tables of reconciliation of GAAP to adjusted financial measures can be found in the company's earnings release. With that, I will now turn the call over to Chair, President, and Chief Executive Officer, Daniel McGann. Daniel?

Thanks, Nicole. And good morning, everybody. I'll begin today by providing an update and sharing a few remarks on our business. John Kaciba will then provide a detailed review of our financial results for the first fiscal quarter, which ended June 30, 2025, and provide guidance for the second fiscal quarter, which will end September 30, 2025. Following our comments, we'll open the line up to questions from our analysts. We kicked off fiscal 2025 with accelerated growth. Our results surpassed expectations, highlighting the strength and discipline fueling our business. This was our strongest quarter in years, a clear signal that our strategy is delivering consistent, positive results, and that the financial leverage we've talked about can happen. One of the key highlights for the quarter was a request from a customer who asked us to accelerate delivery for a specific project. This boosted our results, reflects the strong relationship we have with our customers, and demonstrates the rising demand across multiple markets, especially in the materials sector. We crossed a major milestone this quarter. Revenue exceeded $70 million for the first quarter. This is the acceleration we've been signaling over the past month. Total revenue came in above our guidance range, growing by 80% versus the year ago period, significantly driven by organic growth. Our grid revenue led the way, accounting for over 80% of AMSC's total revenue. Growing over 85% versus the year ago period. Meanwhile, our wind business posted extremely strong growth as well, up nearly 55% from the year ago quarter. We delivered net income of over $6 million, marking our fourth consecutive quarter of profitability. Gross margins topped 30%, driven by a combination of higher revenues and increased operating leverage through a near-ideal product mix. A key thing to note is that this quarter truly showcased the margin profile and operating leverage we've been working towards. In many ways, it was a near-perfect quarter, one the team feels very proud of. And one made possible by the relationships we have with our customers. We closed the quarter with a strong balance sheet of over $210 million in cash. Simply put, the business really is thriving. This quarter, the material sector was a main growth driver, driven directly by semiconductor capacity expansion. We believe this sector growth is fueled by demand for artificial intelligence applications and data center infrastructure. We closed the quarter with a 12-month backlog of over $200 million, up from $160 million the year ago quarter, and a total backlog of over $300 million. Over the past two quarters, we've brought in an average of just under $70 million in new orders each quarter. This is above the trailing four-quarter average of over $60 million of new orders per quarter. We continue to see strength across a range of industries. Revenue this quarter came from a diverse set of sectors. About one quarter of our sales came from traditional energy projects, with another quarter from renewable energy projects. Materials projects driven by semiconductor accounted for nearly 25 percent, while military and other industrial sectors made up the remaining portion. First quarter orders exceeded $63 million and reflected demand across renewables, traditional energy, materials, specifically semiconductors and mining, as well as industrials and utilities. Notably, the semiconductor industry is in the midst of a major capital expenditure cycle, and we are seeing the benefits of this. We see more semiconductor orders on the horizon and more broadly in the material sector. I'm including semiconductors in the material sector along with mining metals and other specialty materials. Traditional energy appears to be robust in the coming quarters as well. We feel encouraged by our strong momentum and believe the business is exceptionally well positioned for the future. Now I'll turn the call over to John Kaciba to review our financial results for the first quarter of fiscal 2025 and provide guidance for the second quarter, which will end September 30, 2025.