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spk02: Good afternoon and welcome to the BoxLight Corporation second quarter financial results call. At this time all participants are on a listen only mode and a question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. You could submit a question via the web at any time by typing them in the ask question box on the left side of your screen and hitting submit. For those who wish to ask a question via the telephone lines you may press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Please note, this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Mr. Jeff Stanliss of FNK IR. Sir, you may begin.
spk04: Thank you, Operator, and thank you, everybody, for joining. Earlier today, BoxLight issued a press release providing an operational update and discussing financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2024. This release is available on the Investor Relations section of the company's website at boxlight.com. Hosting the call today are Dale Strang, Chief Executive Officer, and Greg Wiggins, the company's Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I would like to remind participants that during the call, management will be making forward-looking statements. These statements may contain information about BoxLight's view of its future expectations, plans, and prospects that constitute forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from historical results, or those indicated by these forward-looking statements, as a result of a variety of factors, including, but not limited to, risks and uncertainties associated with its ability to maintain and grow its business, variability of operating results, its development and introduction of new products and services, marketing and other business development initiatives, and competition in the industry, among many other things. BoxLight encourages you to review other factors that may affect its future results and performance in BoxLight's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company does not undertake and specifically disclaims any obligation to update or revise such statements to reflect new circumstances or unanticipated events as they occur, except as required by law. And with that, I'd like to turn the call over to Dale Strang, CEO of BoxLight. Dale, the call is yours.
spk03: Thank you, Jeff. And thank you to everyone who's joining us today. When I took over as CEO in January, we indicated that we expected it would take several quarters for the demand cycle in our markets to turn positive again. We therefore made it our priority to focus on adjusting our organization, specifically our cost structure, in order to align with the current market reality and to set us up for ongoing consistent profitability. That initial assessment has largely held true. demand remains rather soft versus prior periods, particularly in some of our largest markets. Thankfully, we've made substantial progress in our business streamlining as evidenced by us meeting our profitability targets despite persistent revenue headlands. The current market conditions are certainly challenging and are expected to stay that way until the market returns to a broad growth cycle. Obviously, we're not immune to the effects of the market, but believe we're navigating these conditions better than most. And we're well poised to gain significant market share as we progress through that cycle. Here's why. First, we're responding to the market reality with assertive action. Our immediate focus on continued operational discipline has enabled us to streamline our organization's team, product, and go-to-market processes, and we're committed to ongoing application of this discipline to ensure that consistent profitability. Second, we're both anticipating and responding to our customers' needs with updated products and services. These new offerings are driving demand, and they're aligned with industry catalysts. The industry is increasingly focused on things like emergency preparedness and school safety, immediate communication that goes campus-wide, and accelerating curriculum focused on fast-growing markets like STEM. We're well positioned to meet these challenges and have meticulously developed solutions to solve for these evolving needs. We also maintain a broader range of both price and performance in IFPDs and a wide range of both hardware and software in our STEM offerings. In recent weeks, we introduced several new solutions, each integrating multiple capabilities and aligning with these demand catalysts. In the safety and security portion of our business, we developed and launched Unity, Unity is a small profile, all-in-one hardware device used in classrooms and campus-wide to unite and to manage audio communication, safety ecosystems, providing audio, bells, paging, and alerts integration. Whether used by a teacher in the classroom for audio while giving full control over all devices via a mic controller. On campus, Unity enables swift campus-wide communications, emergency notifications, and alerts. providing two-way communication and is customizable to work within the district's emergency operations plan. Unity is full of connections and is almost infinitely flexible. It's a small profile device that can be mounted or placed virtually anywhere for flexible installations and retrofits. Getting started has never been easier as this device is one device with a plethora of uses. We also launched TimeSign. TimeSign is an affordable 22-inch customizable digital clock display, which can be used for various aspects of campus communication, signage, and messaging. Displayed content is completely customizable through the included CleverLive software, which makes this solution easy and affordable. In the STEM space, we recently launched an update of our esteemed Robo3D printer. Our new version is one of the quickest, most accurate, yet most affordable 3D printers on the market, and it's backed with hundreds of lessons and curriculum and aligned to national K-12 standards. The Robo E4 is the most compelling 3D printer on the market for K-12 STEM education. And as a reminder, STEM is a fast-growing segment we participate in with a projected CAGR of almost 15 percent through 2030. Both Unity and the Roblo 3D printer won Best of Show awards at ISTE in June 2024, which confirms our commitment to ongoing innovation. Our diligence in developing a best-in-class ecosystem of edtech solutions puts us in a unique position to capture multiple levels of technology investment. No other vendor offers the set of solutions as comprehensive, integrated, and complementary as the BoxLight suite. And this continued innovation is critical to our long-term success and explains why we're so confident in our current competitive position. We're leaning into our advantages to best position our company for that next phase of sector growth. And the breadth and quality of our suite today helps us create incremental demand and win business from new and existing customers. Just two recent examples from the Midwest. First, one of our partners in Michigan. recognized the value of adding a box-like front row audio solution to an existing deployment of flat panel displays in school districts with hundreds of classrooms. This audio add-on enabled a state-of-the-art campus safety and communications capability while leveraging our attention software that ties all the hardware together and aligns simultaneous audio, video for notifications and alerts campus-wide. Similar exercises playing out in the school district in Iowa where you We have a fairly large deployment of Mimeo interactive panels installed in the middle and high schools that's being augmented with upgrades for existing non-interactive displays in the neighboring elementary schools. They'll soon be adding Front Row Conductor, which enables IP-based campus control and communication. It's a total solution that's only available from BoxLight. Our targeted investments in new and upgraded products in conjunction with our ongoing focus on operational discipline, are both key to us making improvements to our capital structure. We're working collaboratively with our banking partners and our lender to identify and secure the best long-term alternative to our current credit facility. I continue to be very confident that Boxel Edge is on the right path. We're bullish on the long-term outlook for our market, and our products and team are outstanding. Still, our progress will likely not be linear. Market conditions remain challenging, and this exacerbates quarter-to-quarter volatility. Our mission is to position BoxLight to successfully navigate these current challenges and simultaneously position BoxLight to thrive as these conditions improve. We're on the right path with much work still to do, but the pieces are in place. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Greg to discuss our second quarter results.
spk00: Thanks, Dale, and good afternoon, everyone. Before we review the financial results for Q2, I want to provide an update regarding some of our recent initiatives with respect to bolstering our balance sheet and reducing our operating costs. In mid-April, our current lender provided an additional $2 million bridge loan to help meet the company's short-term seasonal working capital needs, with the flexibility to borrow an additional $3 million in June. As stated on previous earnings calls, our operations are seasonal, with Q2 and Q3 being our busiest periods, and the additional liquidity ensured that we will have the necessary inventory on hand to meet our customers' demand. Recent improvements in cash flow, attributable in part to recent operating expense reductions, resulted in us only borrowing $2 million of the additional $3 million in July. We expect to pay these amounts by the end of November. Aligning operating expenses with operational performance continues to be a priority. As we shared with you on our Q1 earnings call, the company eliminated approximately $5 million in fixed costs in the first quarter, mostly through headcount reductions that did not impact our sales teams or other revenue generating departments within the organization. Other initiatives to reduce operating expenses, such as eliminating duplicative processes and related costs, are also in place and are expected to contribute to continued savings in the coming quarters. As a result of this cost reduction strategy, operating expenses decreased 15.8% quarter over quarter to $13.3 million. This marks our lowest quarterly operating expense total since Q3 2021 prior to our acquisition of Front Row. We are not done yet and we expect additional reductions benefiting the balance of the year. Our stated goal at the beginning of the year was to achieve a quarterly OpEx run rate by the end of 2024 of 12 to 13 million per quarter. however as dale mentioned our ultimate goal is to align operating expenses with revenue generation and we are committed to making continued changes to reflect operational trends i will now review our second quarter results revenues for q2 2024 were 38.5 million as compared to 47.1 million for q2 2023 resulting in an 18.1 percent decrease EMEA revenues comprised approximately 44% or 17 million of our total revenues. America's revenues totaled approximately 55% or 21 million of our total revenues, while revenues from other markets totaled approximately 1% of our total revenues. Flat panel displays comprised approximately 71% of total revenues. Audio solutions comprised 12% of total revenues, with the balance of our revenues comprised of device accessories, software, professional services, and STEM solutions. Gross profit for the quarter was $14.5 million as compared to $17.8 million for the prior year period. Gross profit margin for the quarter was 37.7%, which is a decrease of 20 basis points over the comparable three months in 2023. Total operating expenses for Q2 2024 were $13.3 million compared to $15.8 million in Q2 2023. Other expense for Q2 2024 was a net expense of $2.8 million as compared to net expense of $2.6 million for Q2 2023. The majority of other expense is related to interest expense on our current credit facility. The company reported a net loss of $1.5 million or $0.18 per basic and diluted share for the quarter as compared to net loss of approximately $800,000 or $0.12 per basic and diluted share for the prior year quarter. Adjusted EBITDA for Q2 2024 was $3.7 million as compared to adjusted EBITDA of $5.4 million for Q2 2023. Adjustments to EBITDA include stock-based compensation expense, severance charges, gains losses from the re-measurement of derivative liabilities, and the effects of purchase accounting adjustments in connection with recent acquisitions. Turning to the balance sheet, at June 30, 2024, Fox Light had $7.5 million in cash, $46.7 million in working capital, $37.8 million in inventory, $138.8 million in total assets, $40.3 million in debt, net of debt issuance cost of $1.9 million, and $7.5 million in stockholders' equity. At June 30, 2024, Fox Light had 9.8 million common shares issued in outstanding and 3.1 million preferred shares issued in outstanding. Following the 2 million borrowings in April and July, respectively, the principal amount of the company's term loan is $44.3 million. The industry downturn has persisted longer than expected, and we do not anticipate an immediate turnaround in Q3. We expect Q3 revenues will reflect the broader market dynamic for the first half of 2024, while we focus on operating expense reductions to generate positive EBITDA for the balance of the year. With that, we'll open up the call for questions.
spk02: Thank you. At this time we will be conducting our question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue and you may press star 2 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 poll for questions. Thank you. Our first question is coming from Brian Kinslinger with Alliance Global Partners. Your line is live.
spk01: Great. Thanks so much for taking my questions. Last quarter, you guys talked about improving market conditions that should drive second half growth. And your last comment there was the third quarter. That wouldn't be the case. And I'm guessing in the fourth quarter, probably not too, given some of the other pieces of the discussion you talked about, tough market conditions and less linear in the recovery. Can you talk about what's changed in the last three months that has changed your view? Has the market gotten weaker? Has it not recovered as you expected? Maybe some more clarity on what's going on in the last three months.
spk03: Sure. Thanks, Brian. This is Dale. I think your question kind of hints at the answer, but one thing is it's not one market right we we are in every market in europe uh and and of course they're well established here in the us and canada and some of them some of those markets are growing uh some of them are uh recovering after a period of softness and uh some of them are you know it's uh uh it's clear that the that they're on the mend and others the outlook remains really murky i would say that uh the overall the US market in our core market which is interactive flat panel displays has remained soft for a longer period than we anticipated and that that trend is slowly improving but not as quickly as maybe we'd hoped and in other markets we're seeing we're seeing really you know pretty solid improvement so the I think the quick answer to your question is we know that these markets are somewhat cyclical and they change each time, but they'll be developing and going into a growth cycle in each of the geographies we serve. The timing will differ. And in some cases, in some of our largest markets, it's been slower than we thought. One example would be the UK. That's been a really powerful market for us in the past. And there's been a great deal of uncertainty around that market until, I guess, fairly recently, where the speculation seems to be that the recent political situation being clarified with the new election will lead to kicking out some stops for some growth there. That's an example of where maybe we thought it would recover more quickly than it has, but now the outlook is looking relatively positive there.
spk01: But it's going to be uncertain for quite a while. Great. That was helpful. Thank you. And then the gross margin was quite strong in the quarter, one of the best from the company. Was this about the mix or pricing? I guess I'm just trying to understand the performance. And then as we look forward, been long communicated by you guys as well as the management before you that long-term sustainable growth margins somewhere in 30 to 33 percent. What will drive that pressure and when will that happen over the long term?
spk00: Yeah, so to kind of address where we were for Q2 is really a couple factors that are kind of offsetting each other to some extent. So we've already started to see a little bit of margin pressure just from the competition within our various market. What has helped in Q2 for us to maintain such a strong margin has been the result of a positive mix shift with increasing audio sales, which carry a higher margin as a percent of our total sales, probably helping us by 100 basis points or so in margin uplift. We are starting to see the James Moore- Competitive pricing, you know, in the markets and and that was expected. I think they've actually held up better than we anticipated. I think coming into 2024 James Moore- You know, on a consolidated basis we we viewed a gross margin of 34% you know as a possibility in our margins have held up above that through throughout the year. And I think we While we still expect to see some pressure throughout the remainder of the year, I think we still expect our margins to come in better than what we anticipated in the year. And I think part of that's just attributable to some of the various market demand considerations where we're starting to see a little bit of competitive pricing. But certainly mix is helping. And one of the reasons why we're very encouraged by that the audio business, uh, complimenting our, our panel business.
spk01: Yeah. The only thing that you're saying, Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. I was going to say, to be clear, if you're saying it's a hundred bips because audio sales are up, that still gets you to a relatively high margin, gross margin for box light. Historically that 30 to 33%, is that low end? much, much further away. And what we're looking at is more like 34 to 35% in the near term when if the mix changes. Is that how to think about it? That's how I think.
spk00: Go ahead. I'm sorry. I keep stepping on you. No worries. So, yes, to answer your question, Brian, I think that's how we view it in the short term as far as, you know, I don't think the decline is quite as drastic or as steep as we were originally anticipating, which has been good. I think we've been able to be very competitive with our products and the quality of the products that we're selling. So definitely we think there will be longer-term continued pressures, which will drive it down, but I think our original estimates we've been making in the past may be pushed out a little further than we originally anticipated.
spk03: The only thing I would add is that mix is a little bit more multi. There's a few elements to mix. Certainly, the higher percentage of audio we sell is going to move several basis points on our gross margin. Other factors include the mix within the product lineup. For instance, in the panel market, there's a sort of mainstream, you know, midpoint of price and performance that we're really well known for and we perform really well with. But we've also introduced some really high-performing, really top-end panels that have lots of features, lots of technology that tend to be both higher price and higher performance. the entire margin, those figure into it as well because those have been more received. Other factors include the advantageous way in which we're able to buy our components. There's timing around that and we work very closely with our sourcing partners to ensure that we're super competitive all the time. And the last thing is not every country is the same. There are countries that are known for being price driven first and only. And there's others that really want to find the right mix between performance and support and feature set. And those are reflected in the margins as well.
spk01: Great. My last question, Dale, when you joined, you talked about approving the balance sheet. You talked about it here. I know it's a focus of yours. Are we any closer, do you think, to making some changes on the balance sheet? Or is it... It's still a bit away.
spk03: It's not pending, but I think we're closer. Yeah. We've, as Greg and I both mentioned, we're tight with the folks on our balance sheet. And we talk all the time about what the right approach is and when and how we do it. So, I don't really know how to answer it other than that. It certainly is a priority. but there's nothing that we're going to do that's in any way rash. We don't need to rush. We just need to do it right, and we're working closely with everyone involved to make sure we do that.
spk02: Okay.
spk03: Thanks so much.
spk02: Thank you. Once again, if you have any questions or comments, please press star 1 on your phone at this time. Our next question is coming from Jack Vanderaarde with Maxim Group. Your line is live.
spk05: Okay, great. Hey, Dale. Hey, Greg. Despite the top line softness, it is good to see the strong margins, strong adjusted EBITDA, positive adjusted EBITDA. I guess I'll – I just want to circle back, I guess, on the OPEX. So you previously talked about moving toward a normalized quarterly OPEX level that was much lower than it was historically. You've done a great job of that. You're in that range, actually, close to it this quarter. Okay. Greg, you did mention, I believe, aligning OPEX based on revenue and business conditions. So just so I understand that, does that sort of imply, you know, you've kind of done a good job of getting to that normalized OPEX range that you guys stated you're moving towards. However, there's still an opportunity maybe for further cost reductions pending the demand environment, I suppose. But I wouldn't expect further increases to OPEX is what I'm thinking.
spk00: Yeah, so the way we've kind of looked at it, so going into the year based on, you know, our initial thoughts early in the year in Q1, Q2, you know, we wanted to target 12.5 million per quarter OPEX range. And we've made, you know, a large number of changes to execute on that. And as you noted, you know, a lot of that's already starting to bear itself out in our financial results for Q2. And as we, you know, progress through Q3, Q4, we think we're, you know, well on our way toward, you know, toward arriving at that number. I think just stepping back at a high level, you know, we're, you know, we don't have necessarily all the answers at this point as far as, you know, exactly, you know, when and to what extent, you know, the market will, you know, completely turn. I think in the past, you know, admittedly, you know, I think we would say the company hasn't always been as proactive about managing the OpEx spend in relation to, you know, where the market's been as far as, you know, customer demand and revenue generation. And I think from our point of view now, it's, you know, we, you know, are much more aligned with, you know, looking at the current market trends and adapting accordingly to our OpEx structure. Now, certainly there are fixed costs, you know, within our OpEx, within our OPEX structure. But I think we do have some, you know, ability to control some variable expenses, you know, as we move forward, but also just to really make the necessary changes proactively based on how the market is trending on the top line.
spk05: Okay, got it. That's really helpful. And maybe a question for Dale. Maybe qualitatively, can you provide some color maybe on just like the tone of some of the discussions you're having with your customers, potential customers across all your markets and verticals, whatever just stands out at the top of your head. Wondering just kind of, you know, what are you hearing from your customers? Is there a pause? Is there optimism at all? How has that changed? I know there's a lot of moving parts here, but that would be helpful.
spk03: Jack, I think that's a great question, and it's an interesting one because, as you know, I spend as much time as I can talking to those customers, and it's tough to generalize, but one way to look at it is our channel partners, you might even put them in a couple different buckets, right? One bucket being the people who really – consultatively work with their end user customers to provide a solution that is exactly meeting their needs and really is built for the future. And then there's other partners that maybe fall in the category of sort of volume producers or catalog providers or what some people would call box movers. I see a real disparity between the tenor of the conversations based on how I might characterize those people. By the way, all partners claim that they're the big value-add solution provider, you know, and nobody wants to accept the three-box movers. So I'm being disparaging without meaning to. But my point is the people who are based on volume moving without – really enhance value being part of the conversation. Those people are the ones that have the most dismay about the overall market turn. Those are the ones that are wondering what's going to happen. They view it as more of a commodity and they see the commodity as not being in as much demand maybe as it was two years ago. The solution providers, the people that we work best with, and that's true in every market, the ones who really are more curated in their approach, some of them are having record years. And they tend to be – I'm overgeneralizing, but many of them feel like the corner is about to turn or has been turned to turn to overall demand. And we find that super encouraging because that fits our competitive position really well.
spk05: Very interesting. No, that's really helpful color. I appreciate that. And then maybe just some of the metrics you guys have provided in the past. And I don't I kind of get the idea here in the near term. There's still sort of this unclear visibility, I guess, on the demand front. But, you know, mixed. Mixed conversation. Some are warming up, it sounds like. You have these new products you've launched that are actually pretty innovative, from what I can tell, especially with the Unity product offering. Can you just talk about, are these actively being ordered by customers? What's sort of just like the general idea of what these contribute to your run rate or just incremental sales in the back half of the year? Thanks.
spk03: They are just really, they're literally just announced a couple weeks ago for the most part. And we have more coming, more that'll come in the third and fourth quarter. And so we're just now accepting orders on some of these products. So it's too soon to really build it into the forecast, but we do believe it's going to, they're all going to contribute positively to our U.S. results this year. Most of the products that we describe are U.S. focused as opposed to Europe, although we think long term they'll do really well there as well. It's just the market for classroom audio, for instance, hasn't developed in most European markets the way it has here.
spk05: Gotcha. No, that was definitely getting ahead of my skis there, but that's good to hear. And I look forward to tracking that as well, see how those products are received and how that contributes to demand and orders. Maybe just one more last one, just because I know you guys didn't provide guidance, but it is the third quarter, which, you know, historically can be a stronger quarter. Would you maybe, you know, I know maybe year over year declines are, are, are still, uh, likely, but, um, would you, would you expect a sequential uptick from the second quarter in this third quarter as typical, or, um, is that just something where you're, you're unclear on and don't want to comment on at this time?
spk03: I have, I have my point. I have my point of view on this and, but so far this year and really much of last year, history has not been the reliable guide we'd hoped it would be. Um, The, we were, I got here in January, our team, uh, put together a really detailed plan for what we thought the first half of the year would look like. And we were spot on right up until the middle of June, you know? Uh, and so, uh, it's, so I would say that in the U S the outlook remains quite murky. We have a lot going on, but it still remains quite murky. I think we have a little more visibility or a little more certainty coming from several other markets. But I'm not even prepared to guarantee that just yet. Guy, that's fair enough. I appreciate it. It is really volatile. The market is really volatile right now. And there's a lot of reasons for that at the top end of the funnel, meaning funding sources, the certainty with which the funding is being delivered and so on. And at the final decision-making, all the things through there, it's volatile. So we'll know more soon, but I hesitate to close my eyes and stick a finger on a number, given the conflicting signals we're getting.
spk05: Yep. No, that's totally reasonable, and I appreciate you providing some extra color there. Well, I look forward to tracking the story, gentlemen. Thank you.
spk00: Thanks, Jack.
spk05: Thank you, Jack.
spk02: Thank you. If there will be any final questions or comments, please indicate so now by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad. Okay, as we have no further questions at this time, I will hand it back over to Mr. String for any closing comments.
spk03: Well, thank you, everyone, for your support and for joining us today. As I indicated, BoxLight's competitive position continues to improve. We're making progress to align our costs with our current revenue levels, and despite less than desired visibility, we're working to position BoxLight to thrive when market conditions improve. With the broadest and deepest offering in industry-leading solutions in several key categories, we're capturing market share today and bolstering our position for the future. I'm increasingly confident we're on a sustainable path for success. I'm incredibly proud of the BoxLight team for responding to the challenges we've talked about and operating with both professionalism as well as energy and creativity. We look forward to speaking to you again when we report our Q3 2024 results.
spk02: Thank you. This concludes today's call, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. And we thank you for your participation.
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