Eltek Ltd.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the LTCH LTD 2025 Annual and Fourth Quarter Financial Results Conference Call. All participants are at present in a listen-only mode. Following management's formal presentation, instructions will be given for the question and answer session. For operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. Before I turn over the call to Mr. Eli Yaffe, Chief Executive Officer, and Ron Spreud, Chief Financial Officer, I'd like to remind you that they will be referring to forward-looking information in today's presentation and in the Q&A. By its nature, this information contains forecasts, assumptions, and expectations about future outcomes, which are subject to the risk and uncertainties outlined here, and discussed more fully in LTCH's public disclosure filings. These forward-looking statements are projections and reflect the current beliefs and expectations of the company. Actual events or results may differ materially. We'll also be referring to non-GAAP measures. LTCH undertakes no obligation to publicly release revision to such forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances occurring subsequent to this date. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Eli Yaffe. Mr. Yaffe, please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning. Thank you for joining us for our 2025 Annual Earnings Call. With me is Ron Freund, our Chief Financial Officer. We will begin by providing you with an overview of our business and summary of the principal factors that affected the results during 2025. After our prepared remark, we will be happy to answer any of your questions. By now, everyone should have access to our press release, which was released earlier today. The release was also available on our website. Revenue for 2025 totaled $51.8 million, representing an 11% increase compared to 2024. This growth reflects the company's Strategic Accelerated Investment Program, which is the beginning of our barefoot, also transparent, not yet its full potential. I will elaborate on this shortly. During the year, we faced several operational challenges, including the reallocation of the machinery and production lines within the facility to prepare for the installation of the new plating lines, difficulties in recruiting employees, challenges in retaining highly experienced personnel, and a significant depreciation of the U.S. dollar exchange rate, which adversely affects the dollar-dominated profitability we report by approximately $2.2 million compared to 2024 profitability. I will now address each of these areas in more detail. As noted, we concluded the year with revenue approaching $52 million. At the time we approved the accelerated investment plan, Eltech was generating average annual revenue of approximately $37 million. The subsequent increase in revenue reflects strong demand for the company products, alongside the substantial investment made in the machinery and equipment over the recent years. As previously communicated, we are targeting annual revenue installed capacity in the current plan, of $60 to $65 million at current market prices. During the year, we encouraged significant operational constraints that affected our ability to meet customers' delivery schedules. This situation, combined with the demand level exceeding domestic production capacity in Israel, led to increased competition from overseas players seeking to capture a share of the local demand. We continue to observe strong demand for our products, including from international customers, driven by limited manufacturing capability in the Western countries. We are steadily improving delivery performance for our domestic customers, recognize that many Western countries, including Israel, aim to preserve local manufacturing capability. At the same time, we are actively expanding our presence in overseas markets, particularly in the United States, to increase order volume from these regions. Turning to operation, we are making steady progress on our investment program. The core components expected to drive meaningful improvement in output and quality are the two new plating lines. While they do not represent the majority of the accelerated investment budget in financial terms, Their impact on production is highly significant. The first line arrived to the facility at the beginning of 2026, and it is currently in the assembly phase, which was interrupted by the current tension situation in Israel. We remain hopeful that the ongoing conflict will not result further delay in the completing the installation. Following the installation, an extensive qualification process will be required to certify the lines across the full range of our product portfolio. Throughout the years, we also addressed the need to recruit additional employees, particularly engineers, to support the extended base of the machinery and equipment, as well to manage the operational complexities created by reallocation production lines and the resulting impact of ongoing manufacturing. In addition, we experienced the departure of several highly acknowledged employees, including retirements. These operational challenges weighted on overall efficiency. We continue to make progress in advancing the process of bringing foreign workers from abroad in order to support our workforce needed as the company expands. Finally, the depreciation of the U.S. dollars results in the increase of approximately $2.2 million. It's reported in the NAS demonet expenses compared to 24%. adversely affecting both gross and operational profits. It was nothing that part of our current backlog was priced based on higher exchange rate, therefore margin on these orders will remain below the level originally anticipating the same in the time of the quotations. Despite these challenges, we remain confident in the company's business and in our ability to return to ELSI profitability levels upon completion of the investment program, installation of the new plating lines, and stabilization of the production. In line with this long-term commitment, we extended the lease agreement for our manufacturing facility through the end of the year 2039. As part of this extension, we received a payment intended to partially offset the company investment in the facility. This amount will be amortized over the lease terms and will modestly reduce annual rental expenses. I will now turn the call over to one friend, our CFO, to discuss our financial results.

Thank you, Eli. I would like to draw your attention to the financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2025 and for the fourth quarter of 2025. During this call, I will also discuss certain un-gapped financial measures. EdTech uses EBITDA as a non-GAF financial performance measurement. Please see our earnings release for its definition and the reasons for its use. I will now go over the highlights of 2025. All numbers mentioned are in U.S. dollars. Revenues for the year ended December 31, 2025, totaled $51.8 million, compared to $46.6 million in 2024. Gross profit was $8 million compared to $10.3 million in 2024. Gross margin was 15% compared to 22% in 2024. The decline in gross profit and gross margin was primarily attributable to higher NIS-denominated expenses resulting from the depreciation of the U.S. dollar in 2025, as well as reduced production efficiency. Operating profit amounted to $2.3 million in 2025 compared to $4.4 million in 2024. In 2025, we recorded financial expenses of $1.3 million compared to financial income of $0.7 million in 2024. This change was primarily due to the depreciation of the U.S. dollar against the NIS. Net profit was $0.8 million or $0.12 per share in 2025 compared to net profit of $4.2 million or $0.63 per share in 2024. EBITDA was $4.5 million in 2025 compared to $5.9 million in 2024. During 2025, we generated positive cash flow from varying activities of $0.6 million, compared to $4.5 million in 2024. As of December 31, 2025, we had cash and cash equivalents and shortened bank deposits in the total amount of $12.1 million. I will now go over the highlights of the fourth quarter of 2025 compared with the fourth quarter of 2024. Revenues for the fourth quarter of 2025 were $13.2 million compared to $10.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2024. Gross profit amounted to $1.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2025 compared to $1.9 million in the fourth quarter of 2024. Net loss in the fourth quarter of 2025 was $0.3 million, or $0.05 per share, compared to net profit of $23,000 in the fourth quarter of 2024. EBITDA was $0.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2025, compared to $0.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2024. We are now ready to take your questions.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question and answer session. If you have a question, please press star one. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you are using speaker equipment, kindly lift the handset before pressing the numbers. Your questions will be answered in the ordinary speed. Please stand by. The first question is from Mark Serogatsky of Kepler Capital. Please go ahead.

Hello, guys. The first question I have, the gross margin for this quarter was really low, like 9%, if I collected correctly. So when do you expect to see some improvements of this result? Because revenue was pretty okay, but the gross margin was really low. So how do you see the situation?

Hi, Mark. As we previously reported, we expected to complete the integration and installation of the new plating line, which arrived at the beginning of 26 by mid-26. The line is expected to streamline the core manufacturing processes and expand the production capacity. Following the completion of the installation, we will begin the qualification process, and it's expected to continue through the remainder of 2026. During this period, we plan to qualify product families and gradually basis, enabling you the phase transition of the production to the new line until fully comply and full qualification for all company products is completed. We also expect that that time our production process will be stabilized. We should contribute to the improvement of the gross margin. And as we noted in the past, each additional dollar of revenue contributes meaningful to the gross profit and, of course, to the net income. Therefore, the answer to your question is increasing our sales volume is expected to have significant positive impact on the profitability and improve the gross margin.

Yeah, but I'm trying to understand that even before you had the gross margins of 27% to 29%. And now I understand the dollar situation and everything, but why such a sharp drop on the margins even now, even before those lines are installed?

Mark, hi, this is Rony. So on the first quarter, you know, the depreciation of the U.S. dollar continued, and this caused a significant additional NIS report, NIS-denominated expenses to be dollar reported, amounts to increase. In addition, you know, the same as was in prior quarters, we have issues with efficiency in production, and we expect that, as Eli said previously, once we will achieve increased sales volume, a gross margin will return to its positive prior margins.

Okay. And can you guys speak a little bit about the pricing dynamic? Because everyone saw this USD depreciation, but I was also today on PCB calls, and they said they are raising prices now to adjust this depreciation to work on normal gross margin. So how do you see the pricing dynamic going forward?

The pricing dynamic is that we immediately update our pricing system to reflect the new depreciation and the new exchange rate of the dollar. But as I mentioned before, we have quotations on the way that was based on long-term proposals, that was based on dollar to NIS ratio that is higher than today, and we will... get these purchase orders and we will have some of our basket in the future is going to be below the expected volume of our proposals today.

And Mark, it is not just quotation. We have actually orders that were given and received in a higher dollar rate. So in these orders, we expect a lower margin then anticipated for new orders to be received in the next month.

Of course, I understand. So if you will adjust those orders to the new USD exchange rates, then do you expect to see some improvement of this adjustment in the next quarter, in Q1 or in Q2?

You know, as we told before, usually we have a one to two quarters backlog. And we didn't wait until this call. We already updated our pricing system. So we expect to see it within four to five months to see some increase.

Okay. No, because I assume that you also updated it before because the problems began already in Q3.

Yeah, you're right. But, you know, as in the fourth quarter, the depreciation continued. Yeah, I understand. We had to update it again.

I understand. Okay. Okay. I don't have a further question.

Thank you, Mark.

Thank you.

If there are any additional questions, please press star one. If you wish to cancel your request, please press R2. Please stand by while we pull for more questions. There are no further questions at this time. Before I ask Mr. Yaffe to go ahead with his closing statement, I would like to remind the participants that a replay of this call will be available tomorrow on our website. Mr. Yaffe?

As we conclude, I would like to thank our investors for their support and confidence in the company. Your long-term representative and the belief in our strategy enable us to continue investing in our capability and pursuing our growth objectives. I also want to recognize the commitment of our employees. Their professionalism, adaptability, and dedication throughout the period have been critical to maintaining our operations and advancing our strategic initiatives. Thank you for joining us today. Have a good day.

This concludes the LTCH-LTD 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. Thank you for your participation. You may go ahead and disconnect.