This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.
spk07: Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Genesis Incorporated Fiscal Second Quarter 2024 conference call. All lines have been placed on a listen-only mode, and the floor will be open for questions and comments following the presentation. If you should require assistance throughout the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad to reach a live operator. At this time, it is my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Brian Alger, SVP of Investor Relations and Corporate Development. Sir, the floor is yours.
spk01: Thank you, Kat. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Genesys' second quarter fiscal 2024 financial results conference call. I'm Brian Alger, SVP of Investor Relations and Corporate Development for Genesys. With me on the call today are Richard Danforth, our CEO, and Dennis Klon, the company's CFO. During today's call, management will make forward-looking statements regarding the company's plans, expectations, outlook, and future financial performance that involve certain risks and uncertainties. The company's results may differ materially from the projections described in these forward-looking statements. Factors that might cause differences and other potential risks and uncertainties can be found in the risk factors section of the company's form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2023. Other than statements of historical facts, forward-looking statements made on this call are based only on information and management's expectations as of today, May 14, 2024. We explicitly disclaim any intent or obligation to update those forward-looking statements except as otherwise specifically stated. We will also discuss non-GAAP financial measures and operational metrics, including adjusted EBITDA, bookings, and backlog. We believe providing helpful information to investors with respect to evaluating the company's performance For reconciliation of the adjusted EBITDA to GAAP financial metrics, please see the table in the press release issued by the company at the close of the market today. We consider bookings and backlogs as leading indicators of future revenues and use these metrics to support production planning. Bookings is an internal operational metric that measures the total dollar value of customer purchase orders executed in a given period, regardless of timing of the related revenue reduction. Backlogs is a measure of purchase orders received that are scheduled to ship within the next 12 months. Finally, a replay of this call will be available in approximately four hours through the company's investor relations website.
spk04: At this time, it's my pleasure to turn the call over to Genesys' CEO, Richard Danforth. Richard.
spk05: Thank you, Brian, and welcome, everybody. After the market closed today, we issued two press releases in addition to our quarterly earnings report. The first, the expansion of our board with two fantastic additions, and the second, closing of a $15 million debt financing. As we discuss our business and outlook on this call, I think it should be clear to everyone that Genesis is in the best position it has ever been. Adding Senator Bill Dodd and Craig Fugate to our leadership team is going to help open up even more opportunities in the coming months and years. Bill Dodd currently serves in the California State Senate representing the Third Senate District, which encompasses the Northern San Francisco Bay Area and Delta region. Prior to his election to the State Senate, Bill served in the California State Assembly representing the Fourth Assembly District, which includes all portions of Yolo, Napa, Sonoma, Lake, Solano, and Coluso counties. Craig Fugate served as the FEMA administrator from May 2009 to January 2017. Previously, he served as the Florida Emergency Management Director from 2001 through 2009. Craig led FEMA through multiple record-breaking disasters over the years. Moving on, our previously announced selection for the Puerto Rico Dam Project has grown in scope, and we now expect to receive up to $75 million from PREPA. Contract terms and conditions are being actively worked and are expected to be finalized before the end of this quarter. The new program of record with the U.S. Army, adding AHDs to CROWS systems, now identified as CROWS 16, was written into law with the 2024 federal budget. We expect this current program to yield at least as much revenue as our prior program with the United States Army, which netted over $110 million. And as we'll discuss in more detail, our software business is continuing to grow with Q2 recurring revenues and ARR growing more than 120 percent year-over-year this past quarter. Finally, we secured financing through a $15 million two-year senior secured loan that fortifies our balance sheet, enabling profits from our major contracts and our investments in the software business to be realized. In summary, the company is now well financed with a very significant hardware business that will result in record backlogs going into our fiscal 2025. Further, our software business is expected to continue to grow and get to scale that makes it profitable on a standalone basis, not only providing better visibility and consistent revenues, but also additional profits for the overall company. Looking backwards, the second fiscal quarter was financially disappointing. While our software business was strong with quarterly bookings of 4.3 million, second quarter hardware bookings continued to fall short at only 2.1 million. One of the projects to slip out of the second quarter was a $2.7 million contract with the United States Navy to begin replacing LRAD units previously installed on the surface ships. That order was finally received today and is expected to be in our third quarter revenues. Another million or so was delayed by the late passage of the federal budget. While these revenues are now expected to be realized in our fiscal third quarter, the low bookings combined with the low hardware backlog entering the quarter resulted in a total hardware revenues of just $4 million, up sequentially but well below the prior year period that included roughly $5 million from the prior Army AHD program. As we look at our hardware pipeline and current activities, we expect sequential improvements in bookings and revenue in both Q3 and Q4, not including the Puerto Rico project or orders under the new Army program of record. International orders are expected to play a key role, as should shipments to the USDOD that were delayed by the budget process. Additionally, we are pursuing a number of acoustic opportunities for both public safety and critical infrastructure protection that will diversify our hardware revenue base. As strong as the outlook for the second half is, the current expected improvements in bookings is not what we had forecasted at the beginning of the fiscal year. Though a couple of opportunities were canceled, we are still pursuing and expect to secure the projects previously identified, but we don't know precisely when we will be able to recognize their revenues. Excluding bookings from Puerto Rico and the Crow 16 program, our expectations of what we will be able to close this fiscal year has dropped by approximately $15 million. Though hardware bookings and revenue from projects could pull forward, our recent history shows that it is unreasonable to expect material movement forward. On a more positive side, our software business continues to do very well. Software bookings in the quarter included the announced EVAC contract with Los Angeles County, the bookings in total were over $4 million. As mentioned previously, recurring revenues were up 124% year over year. ARR exiting March quarter was $6.5 million. With strong activity quarter to date, we expect to have another strong quarter of software bookings. And as such, we continue to believe software recurring revenues and ARR will at least double for fiscal 24 versus fiscal 23. As we communicated last quarter, the vision and strategy that Genesys has been pursuing for more than four years is being realized. We successfully adapted a business focused on military application for acoustic hailing devices to serve a much larger market of mass notification, originally with hardware sold to Japan, but ultimately enhanced and improved with software development through the 2018 acquisition of Genesys. From the get-go, our hardware business has afforded us the opportunity to develop our software capabilities both internally and through acquisitions. Through the Zone Haven acquisition in 2021, our zone-based software combined with our market-leading mass notification software and market-defining hardware is transforming and redefining the market of protected communications. Today, Genesys is serving a multi-billion dollar market with differentiated software, and category-defining hardware. Our selection in Puerto Rico and our announced developments in Europe validate this strategy. Looking forward, we are going to aggressively pursue opportunities in public safety and critical infrastructure protection. Positioned with a fortified balance sheet, strong anchor winds, and the additional support of our new board members, who each bring remarkable experience and expertise in public safety and critical infrastructure protection. Genesis is entering a new phase of profitable growth. Through near-term and granular visibility may not be as precise as some may wish, there's no denying that the Genesis prospects over the next few years is dramatically improved, and we will secure resources to attain our potential. Now I will turn the call over to Dennis to go through the second quarter financials. and Outlook in greater detail. Dennis?
spk00: Thank you, Richard. In the second quarter, we continued to see strength in our software business, with year-over-year growth of 104%, and recurring revenues growing 123% over the same prior year period. Revenues for the second quarter of this fiscal year were $5.7 million, a decrease of 49% from the prior year's second quarter, which benefited from approximately $5.7 million from a prior program of record that was completed in 2023. Software revenue this quarter was 1.7 million, reflecting the 123% growth in recurring revenue. More than offsetting that growth, hardware revenue decreased 61% to 4 million. As we discussed last quarter, Genesys started fiscal 2024 with exceptionally low hardware backlog. In addition to a low backlog entering the quarter, The delayed approval of the 2024 USDOD budget resulted in revenue again slipping out a quarter. Gross profit margin was 38% in the fiscal second quarter, a decline of six percentage points or $2.7 million from the prior year period. The drop in gross profit was primarily attributable to lower hardware revenue in this year's quarter and the related reduction in overhead absorption. We do expect gross margin percentages to recover with increased revenues in the coming quarters. Quarterly operating expenses were $9.2 million, up 10% from $8.3 million in the second quarter of fiscal 23. SG&A increased 10%, while R&D increased 11% over the prior year period. The difference was largely attributable to the acquisition of EverTel and increased professional services expenses that account for more than 50% of the incremental change. On a gap basis, our second fiscal quarter operating loss was $7 million, compared to a loss of $3.4 million in the year-ago quarter. Adjusted EBITDA, which excludes non-cash stock comp, was a negative 5.7 million compared to last year's negative 2.3 million. The year-over-year decline in adjusted EBITDA was due to the lower hardware revenues and subsequent reduced overhead absorption in the current year. Cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities totaled 6.6 million as of March 31, 2024, compared with 10.1 million as of the September fiscal year-end. Excluded from the cash figure is $3.5 million being held as a bid bond for the Puerto Rico business Richard discussed just a moment ago. Cash used in operating activities in the second fiscal quarter was $6.8 million. As Richard mentioned in his remarks, we expect to receive both the return of our $3.5 million bid bond and an initial award payment after the terms and conditions of the Puerto Rico contract are finalized later this quarter. strong software bookings continue to provide upfront cash and the announced financing has fortified our balance sheet considerably. We believe we have ample resources to monetize the investments we have made in growing and diversifying our business. As we have discussed in our earnings release and this call, there are a number of large opportunities that we are excited about. Between the Puerto Rico and CROWS 16 business alone, We're expecting nearly $200 million in highly profitable revenue in the coming years. Our software business continues to grow rapidly, and it is on track to post triple digit growth in ARR this year. We're confident that second half fiscal 24 hardware and software revenues will grow considerably from the first half, but we're not in a position to be more precise than that at this time. And now, we'd like to open the call to Q&A. Operator?
spk07: Thank you. The floor is now open for questions. If you do have a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad at this time. If your question has been answered, you can remove yourself from the queue by pressing 1. Again, ladies and gentlemen, it's star 1. And our first question comes from Mike Lattimore from Northland Capital. Go ahead, Mike.
spk03: All right, very good. Yeah, great. Thanks for the update here. On the CROWS revenue, you know, I believe that's in the budget, but, you know, do you have clarity on whether you'll get it by calendar year-end, you know, funding for the CROWS orders?
spk05: It's not currently in our internal forecast, Mike. The money is beginning to flow to the program office. The initial kickoff meeting is scheduled for the first week of June. After that, we'll have more clarity. Okay.
spk03: And then you gave some guidance for fiscal 24 excluding Puerto Rico, but it sounds like you're expecting maybe a payment from the right after closing of the the deal. I guess any clarity on how much revenue you might get from Puerto Rico this year?
spk05: I think we spoke about this on the last call. I'm not expecting any at this point. There's an initial phase of they need to accept our designs for each of the 37 dams. I think if we close the contract by the end of June, which is our expectation, it gives us July and August and September to get the approvals required, and then we're into our fiscal 25. There will be an initial deposit subsequent to the contract being signed. Yeah, okay.
spk03: And then on the revenue recognition on the Puerto Rico DL, what's the reason? Too soon to tell.
spk05: There's been a lot of moving parts, Mike, since the last call we had. I believe we told you the contract would be worth, I don't know, $60 to $65 million last time, and now it's worth about $75 million. So the customer has added scope to each and every dam. So that all has to be included in our and our designs and our proposal, and we're doing that now. So I think we can, at our next conference call, Mike, I would expect to be able to provide way more clarity then than I can right now. I mean, is that something that can get deployed over like five years or 10 years? No, no, I don't think so at all. The initial RFP had it done 240 days after approval of all the dams. It will not likely be 240. It will be more than that, but I'll know more at next conference call.
spk04: Okay.
spk05: Thank you. Still should be very good for 25 and probably 26 as well.
spk06: Okay.
spk07: And our next question comes from Ed Wu from Ascending Capital. Go ahead, Ed.
spk02: Yeah, thank you very much for the update. You know, my question is on a slightly different market that you guys have been used to, civil disobedience. You know, across the country, we've been hearing about all these protesters on the college campuses and people claiming that they're not getting notified or whatnot. Obviously, that would be a great opportunity for your LRAD devices. Have you seen any upticks in, you know, civil disobedience type of opportunities with police forces?
spk05: Yes, incoming inquiries, Ed, but as typical, during a crisis is not a good time to be selling. Most all police forces, major police forces here in the United States have LRADs. What this typically would do is shine a light on the need for more of them, and the acquisition of those would follow. But as you've watched some of the news over the last several weeks, there's been a lot of use of Elratt around the countries.
spk02: Well, that's great to hear. I was going to say, you play some really loud music, and maybe some of these protesters wouldn't be so happy to be camping overnight. All right, well, thank you very much, and I wish you guys good luck with everything.
spk04: Thank you. Thank you.
spk06: Again, ladies and gentlemen, it's Star 1 to ask a question on the phone. Please hold while we poll. And at this time, I'd like to turn it back to management for any closing remarks.
spk04: Well, I appreciate everyone getting on the call tonight.
spk01: Obviously, there's a lot that's been going on over the past several months, and we look forward to updating you all on our next quarterly conference call.
spk04: With that, I wish everyone a good night. Thank you.
spk07: Thank you. This does conclude today's conference. We thank you for your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time and have a wonderful day.
Disclaimer