Consolidated Water Co. Ltd.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss the results for Consolidated Water's second quarter, 2024. Hosting the call today is the Chief Executive Officer of Consolidated Water Company, Bruce McFarland, and the company's Chief Financial Officer, David Bachman. Following 9 of March, we will open the call to questions. At any time during the call, you may join the question queue by pressing star and 1 on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your questions, you may press star and 2. Before we conclude today's call, I'll provide some important cautions regarding the forward-looking statements made by management during the call. I'd like to remind everyone that today's call is being recorded and will be made available for telecom replay per the instructions in REST 3A's press release, which is available in the Investor Relations section of the company's website. Now I'd like to turn the floor over to Consolidated Water Company's CEO, Rick McHagger. So, please go ahead.

Thank you, Jamie, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss our financial and operating results for the second quarter of 2024. As you saw in our release issued yesterday, we reported revenue of $32.5 million for the quarter. Our retail segment Revenue benefited from a 10% increase in the volume of water sold to customers in our exclusive utility service area on Grand Cayman, resulting from continued resident population growth and lower rainfall amounts during the quarter. This increased our retail revenue by 8% to $8.2 million for the quarter. Our bulk and manufacturing segments both had relatively consistent revenues compared with last year. Our services segment was down by about half due to the anticipated reduction in construction related new as the Grand Cayman and Arizona design build projects were completed earlier this year. Our construction of the $81 million water treatment plant in Goodyear, was substantially completed in the first quarter. We are currently finishing up minor site works and punch list items and expect final completion of this design-build contract by the end of the third quarter. Also during the second quarter, we completed the construction and commissioning of the new 2.6 million gallon per day Red Gate desalination plant in Grand Cayman for the Water Authority of the Cayman Islands. In May, we began operating this facility under a 10-year operations and maintenance agreement, which will fall revenues from that will fall within our bulk segment. Meanwhile, development activities continue to ramp up on the $147 million project to design, construct, operate, and maintain a seawater desalination plant for the Board of Water Supply in Honolulu, Hawaii. which was announced in June last year. We are currently in the piloting, design, and permitting stage, which we expect will lead into the full construction stage late next year. Such efforts now in development have included ongoing site investigations, design, procurement, installation, and operation of the piloting systems for the seawater desalination and post treatment systems permitting activities and public outreach initiatives. The installation and commissioning of the pilot plant was completed on schedule and is now gathering essential operational data that will inform the final design and permitting of the full scale project. The completion of the Hawaii project encompasses the current two year development phase, which started last year. followed by a two-year construction phase. And then after construction and commissioning is completed, we will operate the plant under a 20-year operations and maintenance contract, which also has two five-year extensions, which are exercisable at the client's discretion. For the reduction in construction-related revenue in the second quarter, was partially offset by an increase in the revenue generated from O&M contracts by both PERC and REC in Colorado. We acquired REC last October to provide a new channel for growth in water stress regions of Colorado, and we've been pleased with REC's integration into our company and the new opportunities we see developing in the Colorado market. Similar to our acquisition of PERC, we anticipate that our greater financial and management resources will enable REC to pursue larger projects that will accelerate their growth over time. During the quarter, we also settled our dispute with Mexico that arose as a result of the cancellation of the agreement for our desalination project in Playa de Rosarito, Mexico. That was canceled in 2020. We sold the project land and project documentation to the Mexican government as part of the settlement for net proceeds of approximately 32 million US dollars plus 20 million Mexican pesos. Now before getting more into recent developments and our outlook for the rest of the year, I'd like to turn the call over to our CFO, David Sassnett, who will take us through the financial details for the quarter.

Thanks, Rick, and good morning, everyone. In the second quarter of this year, revenues totaled $32.5 million, which is a decrease of 27% from the $44.2 million in revenue reported for the same quarter last year. This overall decrease in revenue is almost entirely due to a $16.5 million decrease in construction revenue attributable to PERC's project for Liberty Utilities in Arizona and the completion of the Red Gate project in Grand Cayman, as Rick has mentioned earlier. Retail revenue increased primarily due to a 10% increase in the volume of water sold The volume of orders sold for the retail segment was up due to a 5.5% increase in the number of customer accounts in our license area as compared to the second quarter of last year. And the retail revenue was also up due to significantly less rainfall on Grand Canyon in April and May of this year as compared to the same months of last year. Our marginal decrease in bulk segment revenue was attributable to lower energy costs, which decreased the energy pass-through component of our Bahamas operations bulk rates. And the decrease in services revenue, as we mentioned earlier, was attributable to a decrease in construction revenue. It's important to note that revenue generated under our operations and maintenance contracts totaled $7.1 million in the second quarter of 2024, an increase of 75% from the second quarter of last year. Revenue from REC, which we acquired in October of last year, constituted $1.9 of the increase, with the remainder of the increase related to new PERC contracts. Our manufacturing segment was consistent with last year, with revenue at $3.9 million as compared to $4.1 million in the second quarter of 23. Our gross profit for the second quarter of this year was $11.6 million, or 36% of total revenue, which was down from the $15.5 million, or 35% of total revenue, in the second quarter of last year due to the overall decrease in revenue. Net income from continuing operations attributable to our shareholders for the second quarter of this year was $4.2 million, or 26 cents per diluted share, compared to net income of $7.5 million, or 47 cents per diluted share, the second quarter of 23. We reported income from discontinued operations this quarter of $11.6 million. This resulted from the $12.1 million gain that we recorded on the sale of the project land and the project documentation. in connection with our settlement of the arbitration with the Mexico government. Including discontinued operations, our net income attributable to consolidated water stockholders for the second quarter of this year was $15.9 million or $0.99 per diluted share, which was up from the net income of $7.3 million or $0.46 per diluted share that we reported in the second quarter of last year. Now turning to the balance sheet, our cash and cash equivalents totaled 96.7 million as of June 30th, 2024. Our working capital was 131.2 million and our stockholders' equity was 206.7 million. Our substantial increase in cash and working capital since December 31st, 2023, reflects the 32 million in U.S. dollars and 20 million pesos that we received for the Mexico settlement. We have enhanced and continue to maintain very healthy levels of liquidity and credit capacity and in extremely solid financial condition. Our projected liquidity requirements for the balance of this year include capital expenditures for existing operations of approximately $7.1 million, which includes approximately $2.5 million to be incurred for our new West Bay plant and the addition of additional capacity there, and approximately $3.9 million to be incurred for other projects. We paid approximately $1.6 million in dividends in July 24, and our liquidity requirements may also include future quarterly dividends if such dividends are declared by our board. This completes our financial summary for the quarter. Now I'd like to turn the call back over to Rick.

Thank you, David. We believe our second quarter results were fairly positive despite the variability in service segment revenues and earnings caused by the timing of our large design-build projects in Arizona and Hawaii. As mentioned earlier, the Liberty project in Arizona was completed ahead of schedule in the first quarter of this year, and our Hawaii project is expected to start construction late next year. Revenues from our retail segment and services O&M business increased meaningfully this past quarter and have helped to offset the reduced design-build revenues. Our growth strategy continues to be to pursue opportunities in the most water-stressed regions of the United States and the Caribbean, offering a diversified suite of products and services such as our super-efficient desalination solutions, efficient and visually appealing wastewater treatment plants, world-class operation and maintenance expertise, and cost-effective project delivery models. All of which we believe set us apart from our competitors. As David mentioned, we plan to incur two and a half million in capital expenditures this year to expand our new West Bay desalination plant to meet the growing demand for water by our customers in our exclusive utility service area in Grand Cayman. The first phase of this new desalination plant was completed less than 12 months ago. and due to increasing retail water demand, we are already doubling the production capacity of this plant, which is also the most energy-efficient plant we have ever designed and built. In the Bahamas, we received a binding letter of acceptance notice to commence under a new 15-year agreement with the Water and Sewerage Corporation of the Bahamas to design, build, own, operate, and finance two seawater desalination plants, on Cat Highland in the Bahamas. This will be our first project for the WSC and the family islands of the Bahamas, which have historically been served by our competitors. We are very excited about this opportunity and hope to use this project as a stepping stone to grow our Bahamas business beyond currently Nassau. Our newest business in Colorado, REC, contributed $1.9 million in recurring revenue last quarter and is performing as anticipated. Our business development team is working very closely with the REC team to pursue important projects in the Colorado market with the greater financial and technical resources that consolidated water brings to the table. As mentioned in previous quarters, We are seeing interesting opportunities with potential industrial water treatment and lithium mining customers that require specialized high-pressure reverse osmosis equipment to concentrate source water, whether to extract the minerals in that source water or significantly reduce the volume of contaminated source water. Consequently, we formed a joint venture with two other industry experts in June of last year to pursue this business. If we successfully develop this equipment business, it could significantly increase revenues and earnings in the coming years and further diversify the products and services we offer to non-municipal markets. Looking ahead for the remainder of the year and beyond, we're very excited about Consolidated Waters' future. consistent, strong water sales growth in Grand Cayman, long-term recurring revenues from our Caribbean-based bulk water business and U.S.-based O&M business, stabilized manufacturing revenues and earnings that we saw this quarter, and expected revenues and earnings from our $147 million design, build, operate project in Hawaii, all together provide a very solid base for the company in coming years. Supported by our exceptionally strong balance sheet, we will continue to invest in new long-term projects such as the desalination plants on Cat Island in the Bahamas, as well as new infrastructure to serve the growing water needs of our utility customers in the Cayman Islands that will ultimately drive future revenue growth. Our strong balance sheet also gives us the ability to capitalize quickly on any potential acquisition targets that we may identify. In addition, the market for design-build projects shows no signs of slowing, and although we are currently in a period between two large projects, we believe that our efficient and aesthetically pleasing plant designs, our cost-efficient project delivery models, and our significant industry experience will help us obtain new projects. We recently signed master design-build service agreements with two major national clients for a number of projects that they are contemplating, which we believe will positively impact revenue and earnings in future periods. Along with the strong tailwinds from the positive market conditions in our industry, we anticipate these factors will continue to drive our long-term growth, enhance profitability, and further strengthen shareholder value. Now, Jamie, I'd like to open up the call for questions.

Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we'll begin the question and answer session. Once again, in order to ask a question, please press star and 1. To withdraw your questions, you may press star and 2. If you are using a speaker phone, if you ask that you please pick up your handset prior to pressing the keys to ensure the best sound quality. Once again, That is star and then one to join the question queue. Our first question today comes from Jerry Sweeney from Rock Capital. Please go ahead and review your question.

Good morning, Rick and David. Thanks for picking my call.

Hey, Jerry.

Hey, Jerry. Jerry, I was wondering if you could give us a little bit more detail maybe on the pipeline on the projects. Obviously, you know, water... projects. There's a lot percolating out there. We have some stimulus dollars coming through. Our channel check suggests that a lot of money is just starting to the front end engineering companies with projects coming behind that money 12 to 18 months. I'm just curious as to what you're seeing out there. Maybe a little bit of qualitative description of the pipeline.

Well, I mean, the you know, hard pipeline stuff. Obviously, the Hawaii project that you're well aware of. You know, the Cat Island project. This is non-U.S., obviously. I know you're interested in, you know, the U.S. market. Yeah. The Cat Island project really, I think, is, I would say, a game changer, but it's definitely a catalyst to to help us to expand our desalination business beyond just one island in the Bahamas. I mean, they're obviously very impressed with what we've done for Nassau. And now they've recognized what we can do for some of the other islands there in the Bahamas. And there's quite a number of islands that are having water issues at the present time. If you check the press, it's pretty much in the press daily in the Bahamas. So we're excited about that. The project is gonna run through this year, probably part of next year on the construction. And then we go into a 15 year operating agreement with them. Other things that we're seeing, I mentioned these master service agreements. There's some smaller projects that water treatment projects, wastewater treatment projects that we're discussing with these clients. Nothing that we can speak about in detail at this point, but it's possible that at least one of these will impact our revenues this year. We're seeing in certain markets, there's a because of the lack of fresh water and identifiable new natural sources. I mean, we're seeing less pricing sensitivity, I think, to the new drinking water sources. So, I mean, that's in very specific markets, Jerry. So I think in the Texas market, you're starting to see that. So, you know, that's good because desalination is not a cheap alternative, but When you don't have anything else, I mean, people are starting to recognize that that's what you've got to fall back on. So we are seeing less price sensitivity in some markets. Yeah, sorry. Go ahead. That's all I've got for you right now, Sherry.

Exactly. Yep. There are a lot of projects that we're pursuing that haven't actually gone to the point where we would submit a formal proposal yet. We're in the preliminary discussions with the client to understand their needs. When we do, all those things seem to come in bunches for us. There's a lot of conversations underway in the marketplace, but we don't have firm projects yet. The customer hasn't decided exactly what they want and when they want it.

Is it fair to say that there's more conversations this year on potential projects than there was last year?

I think it's similar. It's definitely not abating at all, but there's a lot of clients that need help. And we're talking to people that, for example, were going down the road of a sort of traditional design build project delivery model and we've been able to get a lot of traction with our CDRs, customized design reports and our not take seed pricing on these design build projects. What we try to do there is disrupt some of these traditional project delivery model projects and offer an alternative to the client and in some cases We have a lot of interest. As David mentioned, we're talking to people. I mean, we don't have anything specific to disclose other than what I talked about earlier. But I'll say this, Jerry.

Our sales department for Bains is very active. They have a lot to do these days.

Yeah, that's essentially what I was getting at. I mean, it feels like there's a lot of activity out there, and we do see a lot of projects, and we do know they're taking a little bit longer to get through the big process or It's taken longer to get to the big process per se, but suffice to say there's a lot of activity out there. On the Cat Island side, what's the size of those desal plants? Should we think of that more as a stepping stone? Are they larger, or should we look at that as a stepping stone, so you're going to do a much smaller plant in the outlying islands?

Well, they're much smaller than what we're doing in Nassau. I mean, right now we have, what is it, like 14, 15 million gallons per day of production capacity just on Nassau, which is the most populated island. These plants are a lot smaller. We're talking about islands that have populations of typically less than 5,000 people. But they're more challenging because they're remote, so the price of water is is typically higher than what we charge in NASA. I think you're going to see some meaningful revenues from these projects over time, certainly from the Cat Island project.

Yeah, we think we have a really good relationship with the Bahamian government, so we're hopeful that we can help them meet what's going to be a growing need for water in the Bahamas, not just in NASA, but elsewhere in the country.

Gotcha. One or two more quick thoughts. RAC said 1.9 million in recurring revenue in a quarter. I think you mentioned PERC, but I didn't catch it. I'm sitting on an airport, but could you, do you have that number? If not, I can follow up with you. So the increase was 75% year over year, right?

Yeah, so what we said was Revenue generated under O&M totaled $7.1 million for the second quarter. 1.9 of that was the REC increase. And then you just have to look at last year's segment. I think that's in there.

Well, our O&M revenue was $14.2 million for the first half of this year. compared to $7 million for the first half of last year. And if you look in the 10-Q, and I don't have it in front of me, we detailed exactly how much the O&M revenue was for both the first quarter and second quarter and the increase from last year. Okay.

Well, $1.9 million was right there to subtract it, and that should be per. Yeah.

So, you know, as we just mentioned, our O&M revenue for the second quarter was $7.1 million. We just have 75% in total for the same quarter of last year. And out of that, you know, we didn't have REC for the second quarter of last year. So 1.9 million of the 75% increase is related to REC. So I could, you know, we could do the math real quick here, but you could do it real quick on your calendar.

I was a history major, Rhett. What's that? I said I was a history major. Don't trust my math. Okay. probably shouldn't say that on top of it, but last question, obviously, very, you know, with the Mexico settlement, lots of cash on the balance sheet, and I get that this is probably a board decision, but I'm curious if there's been any discussions on sort of capital allocation, obviously looking at acquisitions, but, you know, dividends, buybacks, I don't know if actually buyback shares, but just curious.

Yeah, I mean, I could pretty much tell you that buying back here would not be considered just because of the challenges with our articles. We're not going to do that. Obviously, looking at the dividend rate and that sort of thing, it's really up to the board. I mean, we're meeting again next week, so I'm sure it'll be discussed.

Got it. Okay. I appreciate you guys' time. I'll jump back along. Thank you.

Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and 1. To withdraw your questions, you may press star and 2. Again, let us star and then 1 to join the question queue. Thank you. And once again, that is star and then 1 to join the question queue. And ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we'll conclude our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back over to Mr. McTaggart. Sir, please go ahead.

Thanks, Jamie. Just wanted to thank everybody again for joining on the call. I look forward to talking with you again in November when we release our third quarter results. I hope everybody has a great rest of the summer. Thanks.

Thank you. Before we conclude today's call, I would like to provide the company's Safe Harbor Statement that includes cautions regarding forward-looking statements made during today's call. The information that we have provided in this conference call includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of the private securities litigation reform act of 1995, including and not limited to statements regarding the company's future revenue, future plans, objectives, expectations, and events, assumptions, and estimates. Forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words or phrases usually containing the words believe, estimate, reject, intend, expect, should, will, or similar expressions. Statements that are not historical facts are based on the company's current expectations, beliefs, assumptions, estimates, forecasts, and projections for its business and the industry and markets related to its business. Any forward-looking statement made during this conference call are not guaranteed a future performance that involves certain risks and certainties and assumptions which are difficult to predict. Actual outcomes and results may differ materially from what is expressed in such forward-looking statements. Factors that would cause or contribute to such differences include but are not limited to tourism and weather conditions in the areas we serve, the economic, political, and social conditions of each country in which we conduct or plan to conduct business, our relationships with the government entities and other customers we serve, regulatory matters including resolution of the negotiations for the renewal of our retail license and growing Cayman, our ability to successfully enter new markets, and various other risks, as detailed in the company's periodic report filings to Securities and Exchange Commission. For more information about risks and uncertainties associated with the company's business, please refer to the Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Conditions, or Results of Operations and Risk Factors section, the company's SEC filings, including, and not limited to, Annual Report on the Form 10-K and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. Any forward-listing statements made during the process call speak as of today's date. The company especially disclaims any obligations or undertaking to update or revise any forward-listing statement made during the process call to reflect any changes in its expectations with regard there to or any changes in its events, conditions, or circumstances of which any forward-listing statement is based, except as required by law. I would like to remind everyone that this call will be available for replays federated this evening. Please refer to yesterday's earnings release for dial-in replay instructions available via the company's website at www.cwco.com. We thank you for attending today's presentation. This concludes the conference call. You may now disconnect your lines.