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spk00: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to NORTEC's third quarter 2022 earnings call. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode, and we will open the floor for your questions and comments after the presentation. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Chris Jones, CFO. Sir, the floor is yours.
spk03: Thanks, John. I'd also like to welcome everybody to NORTEC's third quarter 2022 conference call. So Jay will begin today's call with a brief review of our third quarter operational performance, and then I will review Nortec's Q3 financial results before turning it back over to Jay for his closing comments. And then we'll open up the call at the end for your questions. Before we continue, please note that statements made during this call and Q&A session may be forward-looking regarding expected revenue, earnings, EBITDA, free cash flow, future plans, opportunities, and other company expectations. These estimates, plans, and other forward-looking statements involve unknown and known risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied on this call. These risks, including those that are detailed in our most recent Form 10Q, may be amended or supplemented. The statements made during this conference call are based on information known by NORTEC as of the date and time of this call, and we assume no obligation to update the information in today's call. You can find NORTEC's complete safe harbor statements in our SEC filings. And with that, I will turn it over to Jay for his opening comments.
spk04: Thanks, Chris, and good afternoon, everyone. We appreciate you taking the time with us today. On the subject of appreciation, I want to start by thanking our roughly 700 dedicated Nortec team members across our seven locations in Minnesota, Mexico, and China. Whenever I visit our facilities, I'm always impressed with the high level of commitment, care, and quality that our people exhibit on a daily basis. In my travels, I also meet with Nortec customers, and I know they certainly share my appreciation. I should thank our customers as well. They've been very patient with us as we've been working hard to manage through the current global supply chain crisis. Speaking of which, I want to thank our supplier partners who've been working very hard with us to get quality parts shipped to us as close to on time as possible. We really appreciate all of their hard work. Turning now to our third quarter results, we continued the trend of sequential and year-over-year improvements that we have seen over the past four quarters, both on the top and bottom lines. On the revenue side, we're pleased that demand from our diverse customer base remains solid. We posted strong double-digit sales growth for the third quarter and nine-month periods, both overall and in each of our three core markets, medical, industrial, and defense. Our third quarter and year-to-date results also benefited from selective pricing actions that we're taking to offset inflationary pressure on labor rates and material costs. We're seeing continued positive trends in our chosen markets. For example, our largest customer in the medical segment recently reported quarterly revenue up in the mid-single digits. They also cited solid spending trends on healthcare equipment, especially in Europe and Asia. Much of their current equipment innovation is aimed at productivity improvements, in large part driven by labor shortages, including highly skilled jobs like nurses and imaging techs. We collaborate closely with this customer in every facet of their growing business, including end-to-end supply chain optimization, advanced research and development, and cost improvement initiatives to move production to the lowest cost plant location. Nortec offers our customers a unique skill set of capabilities and strategic fulfillment solutions, truly a collaborative partnership. As such, our services deserve to be valued differently and more highly than if we operated merely as a transaction-based commodity business. I believe this partnership mindset shared by Nortec and our customers is a key reason why we've not experienced any significant order cancellations or push-outs from customers in any of our core markets thus far. We work hard to act as an extension of our customers' own operations as a trusted resource. In the third quarter, we were able to increase shipments due to continued supply chain improvements, fewer component shortages, and shorter component lead times. The lead time improvements are in sync with the latest industry outlook from the Electronic Components Industry Association announced last month. For the remainder of 2022, we are cautiously optimistic about finishing strong, with momentum also carrying over into 2023. Our backlog remains healthy. As Nortec has done constantly in recent quarters, we expect to outpace the overall economy by focusing on the things we can control. Executing with excellence, taking great care of our employees, listening carefully to our customers, innovating quickly with our new core technologies, and remaining disciplined with our cash. To explain our financials in more depth, I'll now turn it back over to Chris.
spk03: All right. Thanks, Jay. So I'll provide more details of our financial performance in the third quarter, but I would also encourage all of you to review our latest Form 10-Q, which we filed yesterday, as it contains far more information about our business operations and financial performance than we will cover on this call. So as Jay pointed out, we're carefully monitoring macroeconomic headwinds, and we are encouraged as our customers are reporting fewer supply chain disruptions. So while our backlog was up more than 30% from prior year levels to $103 million, we did see a slight sequential decline from $106 million at the end of second quarter of 2022. And we view that slight decline in our backlog as a positive sign because increased component availability resulted in orders moving through our production process so we could build and ship more product this quarter. Turning to the P&L details, in Q3 2022, our revenue totaled $35.3 million. This represents a 19.8% increase from revenue of $29.5 million in the third quarter of 2021, and it was up more than 8% from our prior quarter, with increases coming from both higher volume and pricing actions. For the first nine months of 2022, our revenue totaled $98.5 million, a nearly 21% increase from revenue of $81.7 million for the first nine months in 2021. Nortec's third quarter 2022 revenue performance was driven by growth in net sales across all the markets that we serve. The medical market was up by $3.5 million, or 21%, compared to the prior year. The industrial market was up by $1.5 million, or 16% from the prior year. And finally, the aerospace and defense markets were also up from prior year levels by 26%, totaling $3.9 million. Gross profit totaled $6.3 million or 17.9% compared to gross profit of $8 million or 27.3% in the prior year quarter. However, gross profit in Q3 last year included a one-time cost of goods credit of $4.7 million related to the Employee Retention Credit or ERC. If we exclude that ERC credit, adjusted Q3 gross profit totaled $3.4 million or 11.4%. So year-over-year, our gross margin was up from 11.4% to 17.9%. That resulting 650 basis point improvement relates primarily to price increases coupled with increased plant utilization resulting from sales volume increases. Third quarter 2022 operating expenses totaled $4.4 million, a 38% increase from the third quarter of 2022 adjusted operating expenses of $3.2 million. We also had adjustments in SG&A last year. We had three of those non-recurring items. So the first one is $540,000 for the SG&A portion of the ERC credit, a $560,000 non-cash expense from the device trade name abandonment, and a $93,000 gain from our final settlement of our Merrifield facility sale. So the resulting $1.2 million year-over-year increase in operating expenses was driven in three areas. First, $385,000 in selling expenses related to technology innovation marketing initiatives and sales engineering resources. Second, a $490,000 increase in G&A for essential investments in IT and other back office capabilities. And third, a $334,000 increase in research and development costs to support continued investment in new technologies, such as the AOX cable platform announced earlier this year, and a recent patent announcement for the new Flex Faraday Extreme technology. Finally, on the P&L, we have grown EBITDA each quarter in 2022. Adjusted EBITDA in Q3 was $2.4 million compared to $735,000 of adjusted EBITDA in Q3 of 2021. For the year to date, adjusted EBITDA is now $4.7 million compared to only $149,000 for the same timeframe last year. The year-over-year improvement is due to higher volume, improved plant efficiency, and pricing actions. Moving on to the balance sheet and cash flow statement, operating cash flow for the year-to-date 9-30-2022 was a $1 million source of cash as compared to an operating use of cash last year at this time of $2.9 million. During the third quarter, decreases in working capital due to increased shipments as well as less pressure to build higher inventory safety stocks kept inventory levels at $23.6 million, relatively flat quarter-on-quarter. We entered the third quarter in 2022 with $5.8 million of borrowing capacity on our $16 million line of credit. And in the third quarter of 2022, we also amended our credit agreement through 12-31-22 to extend the inclusion of the employer retention credit receivable as collateral on our borrowing base. We have been in contact with the IRS, and based on their confirmation of progress, they are making on our ERC application. We are cautiously optimistic that we will receive the $5.2 million ERC relatively soon, and we will use those funds to reduce our line of credit balance. In addition, we anticipate that over coming quarters, we will continue to make steady progress generating free cash flow that we will use in combination with that one-time ERC payment to reduce the outstanding balance on our line of credit and improve our liquidity position. So with that, I will turn it back over to Jay for his closing comments.
spk04: Thanks, Chris. Before we open the call to your questions, I'd like to briefly comment on our strategic planning process and ongoing supply chain optimization activities. First, our strategic planning process is dynamic and quite detailed and involves all facets of our business across three countries. This annual activity focuses on delivering value for all of our stakeholders. This includes taking great care of our people as well as our supplier partners and maximizing our major strategic customer relationships. which are defined by four key characteristics. Proactive communication with customer leadership, R&D investments and development in new core intellectual property that delivers higher quality, environmentally sustainable, and more competitive product capabilities. Early engagement between our engineering teams, and frequent, open, candid, and honest dialogue between our supply chain teams. These relationships leverage Nortec's highest value-added strengths, which help differentiate differentiate us in the marketplace and position us well for the future. We are continuing to make measurable progress in numerous areas that are critical to improving customer on-time delivery of quality products, including hiring great people, providing them with effective training, paying them fairly, offering great benefits, and retaining them for the long term. Improving plant capacity and throughput, reducing waste and process inefficiencies, conducting customer engineering discussions to plan future product capabilities, relocating production to the optimal plant, whether it's in the U.S., Mexico, or China, and proactive communication up and down the supply chain to address bottlenecks and prevent lead time issues. Supply chain success starts and ends with our operations and supply chain team. We are always seeing steady improvement. I must thank them again for their tireless efforts in these areas. As always, we look forward to updating you on our progress in future quarterly calls and shareholder communications. With that, I'll conclude our prepared remarks and we'll open the call for questions. John?
spk00: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, the floor is now open for questions. If you have any questions or comments, please press star 1 on your touchtone phone at this time. Pressing star 2 will remove you from the queue should your question be answered. And lastly, while posing your question, please pick up your handset if listening on speakerphone to provide optimum sound quality. Please hold while we poll for questions. Once again, that's star 1 if you have a question or comment. Okay, it looks like the first question is coming from Paul Luber, private investor. Paul, your line is live.
spk02: Hey, thank you. First and foremost, congrats on another wonderful quarter and great progress. And with that, I guess my ask would be, do you see continued sequential revenue and margin growth in the Q4 of this year?
spk04: Yeah, we expect, without giving any formal guidance or quantitative guidance, we expect a good solid Q4, and we expect that to carry over, that momentum to carry over into 2023. We're optimistic about 2023. We're, as Chris mentioned, we're carefully monitoring macroeconomic conditions, of course, but we're feeling pretty good about the fourth quarter and 2023.
spk02: That's wonderful. So with that, my question would go to more shareholder value. Now, you're in 50 cents plus in Q3. And hypothetically, if you annualize that, you're in that $2 EPS line. And where the stock is, that seems like a very modest valuation. I mean, you take a Plexus albeit a larger quasi equivalent to you guys, they're trading at a 20 PE plus. And even if you apply a, you know, a small cap discount or such, you'd think the value would be higher. So, I mean, is there initiatives at your end to try to take on analyst coverage, attend, you know, shareholder events or, have them at your place or just really create awareness for the wonderful job you guys are doing in the performance because I feel it's unrecognized.
spk04: Yeah, Paul, it's a very good question that is not lost on Chris or myself or our board of directors. First of all, we will Communicate more as we generate good results, as we come up with new intellectual property and make some announcements there. You'll see, I'd say generally you'll see a more steady and more frequent set of press releases around how the business is doing. You know, in terms of comparison with a company like Plexus, obviously they're much, much larger. They've got many, many, many more shares out there. Candidly, I might argue they've got a more efficient share price because of that. And again, that's not lost on either Chris or I or the board of directors. We're not necessarily ready to announce any actions around those things, but we do recognize that. And of course, For you, our shareholder stakeholders, it's important that we recognize how important it is to realize the value of the company in the financial markets.
spk02: That's wonderful because you've got a good story to tell. We'd love to see more knowing about it. One last question. How are you guys situated with labor? Are you staffed where you want to be for the current business run rate? Are you tight and running a lot of overtime or temp labor or kind of a sense of that?
spk04: We're actually doing reasonably well on the labor side. We typically will work a little bit of overtime, but not so much overtime that we're burning people out. And in the plants where we need to hire, we're able to hire relatively steadily and That said, the thing that really is the bottleneck for us more than labor is just parts, of course. I mentioned in the comments that we do a better job every day of managing the global supply chain crisis, but in fact, there is still a global supply chain crisis, and we're not getting quality parts in as fast as we'd like to. which means we can't get quality parts built and shipped to our customers as fast as we'd like to. So the bottleneck, I guess the point there, the bottleneck is not right now, for the most part, people. It's really parts. I'd say right now we're relatively happy with where we're staffed.
spk03: Yeah, and that's Chris. I will add to that, as you heard in our prepared comments. But our backlog did level out. And so it is improving. I think, and Jay had that as part of his prepared comments, and I did too, is that supply chain component parts, while it's worse than direct labor, it's still better than it has been, and we see trends going in the right direction.
spk04: We are seeing things get a little bit better almost on a daily basis. It's still a challenge, of course, but we are starting to see things loosen up a little bit.
spk02: Understood. So perhaps your closing kind of past due work as material becomes available and you're closing the gap? Yes. Yes, that's a good way to look at it. Great. Well, thank you, and keep up the good work. Thank you, Paul.
spk00: If there are any remaining questions, please press star 1 on your touchtone phone. Once again, that's star 1 if you have a question or a comment. Okay, we have a question coming from Dennis Olson, private investor. Dennis, your line is live.
spk01: You know, you're talking about supply chain disruptions for you. I was kind of wondering about your customers now. How many of them are basically reshoring? You know, you hear a lot about China and the problems they're having with COVID lockdowns and getting parts out of there. How many of your customers, how much extra revenue are you getting from customers that are going to you and reshoring?
spk04: You know, it's a very good question, and I can't give you a quantitative answer. I will tell you that through this whole supply chain crisis, we have a lot more strategic discussions with our customers about making sure that we are manufacturing in the right plants for them, whether it's a full reshoring or it's just you know, moving production, you know, maybe a little closer to where they're going to sell the product. We have a lot of those discussions. Before COVID and before this global supply chain crisis, there were these issues, but they weren't as big a deal with our customers as they are now, of course. So as we have brought these things up and some issues we've known about with them for, you know, four or five or more years, now it really gets their attention because they're because they are shifting more and more resources to help mitigate their supply chain risks, which candidly helps us build in the right place and ship to the right place more efficiently. So there is quite a bit of that activity going on. Now, those things are not things you necessarily fix overnight. They take work, and oftentimes they take engineering work. But we're spending quite a bit of time helping our customers to make sure that we're building the right places as efficiently as possible.
spk01: Very good. Thank you.
spk00: Of course. Thanks, Dennis. If there are any remaining questions, please indicate so by pressing star 1 on your touchtone phone. Okay, there are no further questions in queue. I'd like to turn the floor back to Jay Mayer for his remarks.
spk04: Thank you very much, John, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today. We look forward to talking to you next in March with our fourth quarter results. Goodbye for now. I'll turn things back over to Chris.
spk03: Yep, and at the request of our attorney, I'm going to close with our safe harbor statement. So, you know, I want to reiterate that statements made during this call and the Q&A session may be forward-looking regarding expected revenue, earnings, EBITDA, free cash flow, liquidity, future plans, opportunities, other company expectations, including our expectation of receiving the ERC funds timely. These estimates, plans, and other forward-looking statements involve unknown and known risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in this call. These risks, including those that are detailed in our most recent form 10Q, may be amended or supplemented. And statements made during this conference call are based on information as NORTEC knows it as of the date and time of this call. And we assume no obligation to update the information on today's call. So you'll find NORTEC's full safe harbor statements in our SEC filings. And we thank you for the call.
spk00: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This does conclude today's conference call. You may disconnect your phone lines at this time and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.
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