Richardson Electronics, Ltd.

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Richardson Electronics earnings call for the third quarter of fiscal year 2026. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you'll need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Ed Richardson, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you all for joining Richardson Electronics conference call for the third quarter of fiscal year 2026. We appreciate your continued support and interest in Richardson Electronics. Joining me today are Bob Benn, Chief Financial Officer, Wendy Dedell, Chief Operating Officer, Greg Peliquin, General Manager of our Power and Microwave Technologies and Green Energy Solutions Group, and Jens Rupert, General Manager of Canvas. As a reminder, this call is being recorded and will be available for playback. I would also like to remind you that we're making forward-looking statements. They're based on current expectations and involve risks and uncertainties. Therefore, our actual results could be materially different. Please refer to our press release and SEC's filings for an explanation of our risk factors. I'm pleased to report that Richardson Electronics has now delivered seven consecutive quarters of year-over-year sales growth. reflecting continued progress in executing our multi-year strategy. Our performance this quarter was led by strong momentum in PMT, particularly in EDG and the semi-fab equipment market. Third quarter sales growth was supported by continued discipline around gross margin and operating expenses. Our performance reflects the strengths of our team as we continue to invest across the organization to build depth, technical expertise, and operating performance. I believe our efforts are positioning Richardson Electronics for sustainable long-term value creation. Looking at our third quarter FY26 results, total sales were $55.5 million, up from $53.8 million in Q3 of last year. while operating income improved to $1.5 million compared with operating loss of $2.7 million in the prior year quarter. Gross margin increased to 31.9%, an increase of 90 basis points over last year. PMT sales increased to $38.7 million, up $3.4 million year over year. Green energy solutions performed in line with expectations, although below the prior year due to the timing of sales, and Canvas remained profitable with a 32.2% gross margin despite softer revenue in North America. It's important to note that this is the final quarter in which our year-over-year comparisons are affected by the sale of much of our healthcare business in Q3 of FY25. That transaction continued to impact our year-over-year sales and profitability comparisons this quarter, but it will no longer impact going forward. We also remain focused on expense discipline, working capital management, and improving inventory turns. We ended Q3 with $29.5 million in cash and cash equivalents. Our order activity remains solid, and total backlog increased to $151.2 million at quarter end, giving us confidence as we move forward into the final quarter of the fiscal year. We also closely are monitoring the developing situation in Iran, the related movement in energy markets, and the involving tariff environment. While these issues are creating real uncertainty for many companies, they've not had a significant impact on our business or markets at this point. We've remained disciplined in how we manage sourcing, inventory, pricing, and customer commitments. We believe that disciplined positions as well as to navigate changing trade environment. Over time, if higher conventional energy prices persist, that could further improve the economic case for certain alternative energy solutions. In any event, we're continuing to invest in and support a number of programs tied to global wind, EV, and other related power management markets. We believe initiatives underway can support attractive long-term growth opportunities for Richardson Electronics. I'll now turn the call over to Bob Benn, our Chief Financial Officer, who will provide a detailed review of our third quarter results and capital positions. Following Bob's remarks, Greg and Jens will provide updates on our business units, and then Wendy will follow up with the progress we're making executing against our multi-year growth strategies.

Thank you, Ed, and good morning. I will review our financial results for our third quarter and first nine months of fiscal year 2026, followed by a review of our cash position. In addition, please note that I will be discussing non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of non-GAAP items to the comparable GAAP measures is available in our third quarter fiscal year 2026 press release that was issued yesterday after the market closed. Consolidated net sales increased 3.1% to $55.5 million compared to net sales of $53.8 million in the prior year's third quarter. When excluding health care, for which the majority of assets were sold in January 2025, net sales increased by 6.0%. Please note that healthcare results, including prior periods, are consolidated into the PMT segment beginning in fiscal 2026. This was our seventh consecutive quarterly year-over-year increase in sales. Third quarter net sales growth was led by a 9.7% increase in PMT sales, driven by significant increases in semiconductor wafer fab and RF and microwave products. Excluding healthcare, PMT net sales increased by 14.5%. Sales for GES were $0.5 million below the third quarter of fiscal 2025 due to project timing. Canvas sales decreased $1.2 million, which primarily reflected project timing in North America. Consolidated gross margin for the third quarter improved to 31.9% in net sales, compared to 31.0% during the third quarter of fiscal 2025. The 90 basis point increase in consolidated gross margin was due to higher margin in PMT, partially offset by lower margin in GES and Canvas. Operating expenses were $16.2 million compared to $14.5 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2025. The increase in operating expenses resulted from higher salaries and incentives associated with critical ads to staff and in support of our existing employees, as well as related medical benefits and travel expenses. Also, the operating expenses in the third quarter of fiscal 2025 were historically low. Operating income was $1.5 million for the third quarter fiscal 2026 compared to an operating loss of $2.7 million and non-GAAP operating income of $2.2 million in the prior year's third quarter. Net income was $0.9 million for the third quarter fiscal 2026 compared to net loss of $2.1 million and non-GAAP net income of $1.6 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2025. Earnings per common share diluted were $0.07 in the third quarter of fiscal 2026 compared to net loss per common share diluted of $0.15 and non-GAAP earnings per common share diluted of $0.11 in the third quarter of fiscal 2025. EBITDA for the third quarter fiscal 2026 was 2.2 million versus negative 2.1 million in the prior year's third quarter. Adjusted EBITDA was 2.8 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2025. Turning to a review of the results for the first nine months of fiscal year 2026, net sales were 162.4 million, an increase of 3.4% from $157.0 million in the first nine months of fiscal year 2025, which reflected higher sales across our business segments. When excluding healthcare, consolidated net sales increased by 7.2% and PMT net sales increased by 8.2%. Gross margin was 31.2% of net sales, which was a 40 basis point increase from the first nine months of fiscal 2025. As a percentage of net sales, operating expenses for the first nine months of the fiscal year improved to 29.6% from 29.7% for the first nine months of the prior fiscal year. Operating income for the first nine months of fiscal year 2026 was $2.6 million as compared to an operating loss of $3.1 million and non-GAAP operating income of $1.8 million for the first nine months of fiscal year 2025. The company reported net income of 2.7 million or 19 cents per diluted common share for the first nine months of fiscal year 2026 versus a net loss of 2.2 million or 16 cents per diluted common share and non-GAAP net income of 1.4 million or 10 cents per diluted common share for the first nine months of fiscal year 2025. EBITDA for the first nine months of fiscal 2026 was 6.2 million versus negative 0.5 million in the prior year's first nine months. Adjusted EBITDA was 4.5 million in the first nine months of fiscal 2025. Turning to a review of our cash position. Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the third quarter of fiscal 2026 were 29.5 million compared to 33.1 million at the end of the second quarter of fiscal 2026. This use of cash primarily related to higher inventory associated with final buys from a critical supplier. Capital expenditures of $0.8 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2026 were primarily related to our manufacturing business, facilities improvements, and IT systems versus $0.5 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2025. We paid $0.9 million in the third quarter for cash dividends In addition, based on our current financial position, our board of directors declared a regular quarterly cash dividend of $0.06 per common share, which will be paid in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026. As of the end of the third quarter of fiscal 2026, the company had no outstanding debt on its revolving line of credit with PNC Bank. Now I will turn the call over to Greg, who will provide more details for our PMT and GES business groups.

Thank you, Bob, and good morning, everyone. GES and PMT remain key components of our multi-year growth plan, and the progress we are making is encouraging. Coming out of FY25, we had a number of strategic imperatives, including developing a strong backlog, launching several new products, expanding our customer base, and advancing multiple development programs from beta testing to pre-production. I am pleased to report that we continued this momentum through the first three quarters of FY26. Starting with GES, backlog for our core PEM products include the Altria 3000 multi-brand offerings grew 15% in Q3 as more companies adopted our key products across a broader set of applications and expanded globally. Year-to-date bookings from our key products including PEMs and multi-brand solutions had a high double-digit growth rate versus prior year. That booking string positions us well for Q4 and a strong FY26 with forecasted double-digit revenue growth, as well as supporting continued momentum into FY27. Coming out of 39% growth in Q2, GEF sales were down 5.4% in Q3 versus the prior year. However, after three quarters, both sales and bookings are up versus prior year. And in our most recent second quarter, we had significant sales growth in our core business, including PEMS, startup modules, and global expansion of key products, which helped offset softer year-over-year growth results in Q3, mainly in components business as our mix continues to shift towards engineered solutions. We are also beginning to experience longer lead times for certain components due to precious metals supply constraints. These factors contributed to sales being down, but in no way indicate the underlying strength of the business. Within GES, we saw progress across three key growth opportunities. First, We experienced growth adoption of our PEM modules across multiple wind turbine platforms and owner-operators around the world. We also booked our first BES program in Q3, which began shipping in Q4. In addition, Q3 was strong for our locomotive products, including starter modules and superstructures. Across these programs, testing continues to progress well with our key customers. as we feel this will help us achieve double-digit growth again in FY27. Our GES growth strategy remains centered around power management applications. We've rapidly designed multiple products, secured patents, and built a strong global base of customers and partners. Our success is evident in our growing sales pipeline as we capitalize on numerous growth opportunities tied to evolving power management requirements and significant entity transformation initiatives. We serve dozens of wind turbine owner and operators, including exclusive partnerships with the top four owner-operators of GE wind turbines, RWE, InverEnergy, Enel, and Exedera. We also saw growth from our new multi-brand PEM platforms. We continue to grow this program internationally, expanding into Europe and Asia with new products for other turbine platforms, including Suzlan, Senvion, Nordex, and SSB. We have now received orders from customers in Brazil, Australia, India, France, and Italy, in addition to our strong rollout in North America. Turning to PMT and excluding the legacy healthcare business, sales were $38 million in the quarter, a 14.5% increase over the prior year. This reflects a slight slowdown in the electron device MRO business, more than offset by growth in the RF and wireless components business, which had a strong growth in SATCOM, radar, and microwave communications, and strong growth in the semiconductor wafer fab market, We are excited about the positive feedback from our semi-fab customers, expressing ongoing optimism and continued growth going into our FY27. Across both segments, one of the most important priorities is accelerating the design to production cycles. We are expanding our design capabilities to move more products more quickly from concept into manufacturing and test in the Fox. We're also adding experienced industry talent to help expedite growth. Our Illinois-based design center, intended to showcase our BS solutions, which we had expected to be operating in Q4 FY26, is now more likely to come online in Q1 FY27. Even so, we are still quoting numerous opportunities throughout North America, including shipping our first system this month. More broadly, we're investing in infrastructure, expanding our design and field engineering teams, enhancing our in-house design and manufacturing capabilities to support growing demand and innovation. our field engineering team continues to identify new customers and opportunities across our end markets. We continue to gain market share by developing new products and solutions that are accepted by our customers. Our Sweetwater, Texas Design Center is finalizing several new products that will generate new revenue in FY27. Looking ahead, we are encouraged by the strategic initiatives underway across PMT and GES, including our ESS program, global expansion of our key products, and new technology partnerships. Our global capabilities and global go-to-market strategy continue to differentiate us from our competition in power management, RF and microwave, and green energy markets. By combining legacy products and new technology partners and engineered solutions, we believe we are well positioned to deliver continued growth. In summary, we remain optimistic about our growing project-based business, even though quarterly timing can be difficult to forecast. We continue to expand our technology partnerships, design opportunities, and engineered resources while addressing technology gaps with new partners and solutions. We believe FY26 will be another growth year for both PMT and GES with solid momentum going into FY27. And with that, I'll turn it over to Jens to discuss Canvas.

Thanks, Craig, and good morning, everyone. Canvas designs, engineers, manufacturers, and sells custom displays to original equipment manufacturers across global industrial and medical markets. It is our mission to deliver high-quality display solutions tailored to our customers' needs. Canvas reported revenues of $8.0 million in the third quarter of fiscal year 2026, compared with $9.2 million in the same quarter of the previous year. As we have said before, our business remains project focused and can vary from quarter to quarter based on customer program timing. On a year-to-day basis, revenues were 25.0 million up from 23.7 million in the comparable period last year. Our gross margin as a percentage of net sales was 32.2% in the third quarter, compared with 33.2% in the third quarter fiscal year 25. While product mix and freight, duty and other supply chain related costs affected the year-over-year comparison, margin remained at a healthy level. The backlog at the end of the third quarter of fiscal year 2026 increased to 38.2 million, up from 38.0 million at the end of the second quarter, providing a strong foundation as we move into Q4. The quarter unfolded against the backdrop of the global economy that remains resilient overall, but uneven across regions. While trade policy shifts, tariffs on logistic markets continue to create pockets of uncertainty. In response, we stayed focused on disciplined execution, close customer collaboration, and maintaining the operational flexibility needed to support customer schedules. During this most recent quarter, Canvas secured orders from both repeat and new medical OEM customers for a range of applications. Our primary focus remains on robotic-assisted surgery, navigation, endoscopy, and human-machine interface solutions for the control of medical devices. At the same time, our solutions continue to support a broad set of commercial and industrial applications, including passenger information systems in trains and buses. as well as HMI technologies used in printing, vending, milling, and packaging equipment. Our initiatives remain centered on increasing Canvas' visibility and market leadership by developing new opportunities, deepening customer relationships, and converting our pipeline into additional design wins and production programs. We have also recently added to our sales leadership team and continue to strengthen our supply chain flexibility and execution capabilities so we can respond effectively as customer demand patterns evolve. Looking ahead, while the business remains project focused and can vary quarter by quarter, we are encouraged by the level of customer engagement, our requests for quote activity, and the quality of our opportunity pipeline. With backlog now at 38.2 million and our Q4 forecast looking very promising, we believe we are well positioned for a strong finish the fiscal year our dedicated sales teams continue to pursue new opportunities while i remain focused on executing our strategic plans to try sustainable growth and deliver long-term value for our shareholders i will now turn the call over to wendy thanks jens and good morning everyone as a reminder the remaining portion of our healthcare business including the manufacture and repair of certain ct tubes

is now recorded under PMT. Under the January 2025 supply agreement with DirectMed, DirectMed is our sole customer for our CT tubes. Since the healthcare divestiture closed in Q3 of FY25, Q3 of FY26 should mark the end of the tough year-over-year comparisons. During the quarter, we wrapped up production of our Alta tubes, and we're now focused entirely on repairing Siemens tubes. We shipped a limited number of repaired Stratton Z tubes during the quarter. We also completed life testing on the MX series and are now building beta tubes. These must run for at least 60 days in the field without failure before we can launch the rest of the series. With the completion of the Alta build-out and continued expansion of the Siemens repair program, we expect that to translate into a meaningful improvement in our bottom line starting in FY27. Stepping back to our multi-year strategy, we remain focused on two primary operating priorities, accelerating growth and improving efficiency. The third quarter, particularly February, was a good indicator of performance. This was driven by the strength we're seeing in the semiconductor wafer fab market as AI continues to lift equipment demand globally. We also launched new programs in our green energy solutions business unit, including the long-awaited Soudalon India program. We're concentrating our new term development efforts on several products that we expect will contribute to sales growth in calendar year 2027. A key example is the battery energy storage solutions Greg mentioned. Our best strategy is supported by our decades of engineering know-how, bringing emergency applications to market, a world-class battery energy storage design center at our LaFox facility launching in FY27, and our more recent experience developing power modules for world-class wind and rail customers. We're seeing the commercial and industrial storage market become more attractive as customers put a higher priority on resiliency, power quality, and managing energy costs at the site level. That's especially true in applications where downtime is expensive and distributed storage can solve an immediate operating issue. For us, the opportunity isn't just overall market growth. It's turning those real customer needs into a repeatable pipeline of commercial projects. Within our Made in America growth strategy, we're seeing credible evidence that the U.S.-based production and investments have been increasing. particularly around factory construction and reshoring. Initially, we have focused on leveraging our existing customer and supplier relationships along with targeted outbound marketing to highlight our U.S. engineering and manufacturing capabilities. While we've added several small programs that will begin shipping in the coming weeks, we remain actively engaged in the quote and prototype stage on several programs with larger companies nearing $1 million in potential annualized revenue. We expect our Made in America strategy to expand over time. Recent new program wins provide us with growing confidence in the need for our capabilities, while also helping us fully utilize our factory and resources over the near term. Turning to efficiency and cash generation, we're pleased to share that the multi-year inventory investment we made around a single critical supplier is now complete. We believe this investment in inventory will support our business through 2030. We've also identified alternative suppliers with enough lead time to protect continuity, quality, and our ability to meet customer demand. More broadly, we remain focused on controlling inventory and improving turns across all our segments. Without this one supplier, our inventory levels are trending down. We've also kicked off a disciplined, cost-controlled effort to evaluate where AI can help us, including an enterprise-wide AI steering committee with multiple working groups. The intent is to exit a 90-day period with some early wins and a practical roadmap focused on high ROI use cases across our global operations, driving efficiency, improving decision-making, and reducing manual work. We're keeping this tightly scoped and milestone driven, leveraging internal teams so we can capture real benefits without meaningful incremental cost. Looking further out, we remain focused on driving growth through a mix of organic initiatives and a disciplined approach to acquisitions. We're evaluating opportunities thoughtfully with an emphasis on areas where we can leverage our existing capabilities and global infrastructure. We believe the initiatives we're executing today position us well to accelerate revenue growth and improve profitability over time. And we'll stay patient and selective as we consider longer-term acquisition opportunities. With that, I'll turn it back to Ed.

Thanks, Wendy. In closing, our third quarter results reflect the continued progress in strengthening the financial profile of the business. We delivered our year-over-year sales growth, improved gross margin and generating operating income. We also believe our exposure to select alternative energy and EV programs provides an additional avenue for long-term growth as market conditions continue to evolve. With a strong balance sheet, increasing backlog, a continued focus on repeatable sales, operational discipline, Higher value engineered solutions, we believe Richardson Electronics is well positioned to build on this momentum. We remain committed to improving profitability and creating sustainable value for our shareholders, customers, and employees as we move forward. We'll now open the call for questions.

As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 1-1 on your telephone. and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Ladies and gentlemen, due to time constraints, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Again, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question and a follow-up until all have had a chance to ask a question, after which we will answer additional questions from you as time permits. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. And our first question comes from Anya Soderstrom with Sidoti & Company. Your line is open.

Good morning, Anya.

Good morning. This is Justin on for Anya. Hi, Justin. Good morning.

Hi, good morning. Following the March launch of your LaserSlat Saver solution, can you discuss how customer interest, initial adoption, and order activity has trended?

What do you think?

Yeah, so right now there's a, we've identified on our system, so just real quickly, all of our customers on our system are applied one to three application codes. And so we started our customer base like we do with any new product introduction of any customers that will be working in an application that would need that product. So the team has done that. They mailed out sales tools. to get with them they're having a show uh this quarter when they're gonna feature it in in the booth so right now they're getting a lot of requests for more data more information um but it's in the infancy chase of its um you know of its launch thanks for the color there and then can you provide more detail on the project timing dynamics within ges this quarter

and how we should think about revenue contribution and project conversion in the fourth quarter?

Yeah, so it's a very project-based business, which, as we've mentioned, it's very hard to forecast quarter over quarter. Prime example of that is in Q2, we grew 39%. And the backlog with GES is very, very strong. It's close to 40 million. But that's the backlog that was generated over the past four years. And in those four years, these products didn't exist. We identified the opportunity. We did the design work. We did the manufacturing testing. And then the field alpha, beta testing. So the backlog is ordered based on annual contracts of 12 months, large quantities, large dollars. And then they pull off of that. So in Q2, they pulled a lot of the issues in terms of they were designing it in in the field, putting it into their turbines. And then in Q3, we saw sales not be as high as we would like, but backlog and bookings continued to grow as they, you know, pull off of these programs. The good news is, is the $8-plus million we shipped in GES was pulled off of backlog and current purchase orders. The backlog stayed flat actually is up a little bit. That's new business, new customers, and new products that keeps that backlog at $40 million. So we're very confident that we're meeting our objectives in terms of adding sales growth, adding increase in backlog, increasing our customer base, and increasing the number of products that we've developed in our design centers. We've done all of that this year. And as of the end of the third quarter, Sales are up, backlog is up, and we're looking for a Q2 type growth in our Q4. And going into FY27, looking for, again, double-digit growth. So we're very confident and happy with our backlog and the customers that are adopting these products as we introduce them.

Great. Thanks. I'll turn it back. Thanks, Justin.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Bobby Brooks with Northland Capital Markets. Your line is open. Hey, good morning, team. Thank you for taking my question.

It was great to see the backlog growth exiting the third quarter. Just wanted to dive a bit deeper into that, specifically with the PMT stuff. What specific end market or customers or products drove that strength in the PMT backlog growth?

Yeah, in Q3 specifically, on the GES side, it was our international growth.

PMT, PMT, on the PMT stuff first.

Oh, on PMT, it was our semiconductor wafer fab customers, and then RF and wireless components going into SATCOM applications and aerospace and defense. Those two had very nice quarters and also an increase in backlog. So for PMT, it was specific to our semi-fab wafer fab customers. and our RF and microwave components business.

Got it. And then on GES, right, it's like up slightly, but core backlog up more. And you gave some color to Justin on the last question. But what I was kind of confused, so the backlog is ordered based on annual contracts. So like you're getting one order at the beginning of the year from a customer saying, okay, we want X amount of alter 3000s this year and then they pull from that like do they have to hold like do they have to if they order 100 ultra capacitors do they need to take all 100 in the year exactly Bobby so they give us an order for an annual usage of their forecast um but they could order one one unit

or pull one unit off of, let's say, 100 pieces like you talked about at the beginning of the year, and at the end of the 12 months, they could take the other 99, or they could take 25 a quarter. It's very hard because with them, it's all based on the time of year, the weather, the wind speed. That's why we carry such a large inventory because they'll literally look at a weather report and find that the wind speeds will be down this certain week in a certain month and ask us to ship that month. So that's kind of how it's really hard to say what the sales will be and then the backlog because of these annual contracts. But, Bobby, the good news is when you see $8 million in shipments that were pulled off of current orders, the backlog stays the same. That's new orders from other customers that were coming in. And just overall, a $40 million backlog generated on products that didn't exist four years ago, it is a strong backlog, even if it stayed at $40 million.

Yeah, I, that, I agree with that. And so one more clarification point. So let's, we're walking down the road of annual order. If someone orders a hundred units and let's say they pull 20 or they do 25, 25, 25. So then you would be expecting, they should be pulling 25 in the fourth quarter. Do they like, are they con guess the purpose of the question is, are they contractually obligated to hit that number that they pledge to, or can they push it over to the next? Okay. So like you already know how many.

Yeah. So they give us the quantity based on that quantity. We give them a price. Obviously it's quantities larger to get a better price. And, um, they give us the peel and their commitment is to take those products over a 12 month period. Okay. Got it.

Uh, And then just like if you had a rank order, what would be the three most compelling near term, call it over the next 12 months, opportunities you see in the GES segment and why?

Well, the first one is because, you know, we're quoting opportunities between two and 20 million is the BES, obviously. you know, those bookings would be huge in a given quarter. And the other two going into FY27 and some in FY26 is new products coming out of our Sweetwater Design Center. We have a new PEM coming out for the 20-newton-meter turbines throughout the world. We have a number of accessory, walk-home accessory products, the turbine guard and others that will be just finishing up beta testing now. Absolutely fantastic performance. We've ordered all the housings and starting to bring in products so we can start booking and shipping that in Q1 of FY27. So the three would be BES and then a handful of new products, mainly the 20-newton meter. We see that a very large growth area for us. And then these turbine guards, which go into every turbine that we've ever sold a pitch energy module in. So we have a captured audience, we have the contacts, and that's usually what takes the most amount of time when you're introducing a new product. Who are the people that make the decisions? On and on and on. Well, we've already worked with most of them for four years. So Bobby's kind of new products and then the major big BES strategy that we're implementing, right? We're in the very infancy stages of that.

I appreciate that, Colin. Then just last one for me is Just a little bit more color on so that the BES demo plant, that timeline of it getting up has slid to the right by a quarter. What happened there? And could you just remind us on the capex required for that and just the specs of the plant?

Yeah, so it has nothing to do with us, really. And if you've ever built a new house in a rural area, it's getting all the hookups. They have to increase. the transformer, and getting something like that through ComEd. I don't know who you use, Bobby, but here in Illinois, it's just time-consuming. But we do have, and they committed to it, we have a weekly call with them now, but it's just very time-consuming to get them to get the grid set up that we can put in the demo center so we can also then obviously sell back into the grid. But we'll probably proceed without it. We might just put it in place so people can see it, see how it's hooked up to our facility, because obviously we're going to use it here, and then move forward. So that's kind of the status of the BES. Just like the other programs we've done in the past with the RF and microwave components, and then what we call Project Turbo internally here, which is the engineered solutions, we've identified technology partners. We feel we have a couple of very strong ones for this project. strategy, one that will support us in the Americas, another one that will support us globally. And that's what we're using right now to do these quotes. So we're not waiting and running in place. We're out looking for opportunities. And as you know, we identified one in a 16-page proposal, and we won it in December. And I can tell you it's already been shipped this quarter, Bobby. It was about $570,000 or $590,000, our first system.

Awesome. I'll return it to Q. Congrats on the strong quarter.

Bobby, you're not going to ask me about GE? I waited and waited. I got good news for you. I didn't put it in. Oh, he's off? Okay. I'll talk to you later, Bobby. So just to add to that, we have this program going with GE that they, for installers that are GE installers for customers that have service agreements, they needed to test our product because obviously right now they're using lead acid batteries in these service agreements and they have a installation manual with all the safety characteristics so they just have to match our product up with their lead acid batteries and make sure the ESR there's no difference which you already know there's not then they can put the design in an installation manual with check-off from safety. So anybody that has a GE service contract and uses GE to do the service, they can now tell them, which they've been trying to do, to use our pitch energy modules and don't replace the lead-acid batteries with lead-acid batteries. So very positive, Bobby. We tested it here at PAST. I talked to Mike Rodkin yesterday, and he's just going to finish it up. So hopefully in Q1, knock on wood, that program will be all signed off, and we'll be up and running.

Hi, Ross. Are you on the phone?

Thank you. Our next question comes from Ross Taylor with ARS Investment Partners. Your line is open.

Yeah, thank you very much. Going over your balance sheet, it looks like you've got north of $11 of share in book value. It looks like over 80% of that book value is current assets, net current assets. And obviously, I'm curious on getting to how much of the inventory line is the tallest inventory you've built up and how rapidly do you anticipate converting that inventory into cash?

So we've got about $45 million in TALIS inventory, and we've been communicating over the past several years we will have enough inventory to take us through 2030. So we're in good shape there. We are done with the purchases. So what you'll start to see now in Q4 and obviously going into the next several years is burning down that inventory level. And as I mentioned, the team has done a phenomenal job of reducing inventory with our other suppliers. So I think you're going to see that be a cap generation going forward.

Okay. And the fact that you found qualified replacement suppliers makes you comfortable and should allow you to perhaps do that at a faster pace than might have been the case if you weren't able to find those.

I wouldn't say we're going to sell off the inventory quicker because of that. It gives us comfort that we're never going to be in a position where we lose sales because we don't have product.

Okay, and that's important. Can you talk about a couple areas? One, initiatives you have, you've talked about the idea of getting more recurring business. I think one of the drawbacks the stock has suffered from historically is the high volatility in earnings. So Can you talk about both the progress on those initiatives and how we should see it as investors, how we should see the fruits of that in a more stable earnings or less downside to earnings bluntly? And then along with that, would you also talk about the potential opportunities in the idea of artificial diamonds? You're hearing a lot of talk on the leading edge in the AI chip space that silicon has limitations to heat transfer and heat absorption and that it turns out that artificial diamonds apparently work quite well in that. And so there's, from my understanding, there's an initiative to push forward with turning artificial diamonds into substrate and how you might benefit from your involvement in that space.

all right let me that's two very different long questions let me start with the second yeah but you've only given me two so i've got to get them that counts to be more than two um all right artificial diamonds we are dealing with um a couple very large customers that make um those type of substrates for cooling ai and it's still using as you call them artificial diamonds that's still in its early phases we have shipped them I think it's three now, microwave generators, large generators. That's the Great Lakes Crystal Technology Company that's making those. So we will continue to participate with companies like that using our microwave generators. So it's a good opportunity, and we hear the same things you do, Ross. Now, on recurring revenue, I'm looking around the room here a little bit. I'll start with the easy part of that, which is we consider a lot of our EDG, our core business, as being recurring revenue, not in the sense that it's service contracts like you might be looking for, but it's recurring in that we basically have the tubes to fit those sockets, and those tubes have a limited shelf life, or not shelf life, but usage life. So when those tubes fail, then they come back to us and they order them again. That's the strength of the MRO business and the EDG business in particular. Now, if you're talking more about service agreements and contracts, I'm going to turn that over to Greg and let him address that.

Yeah, just a couple things to add. Also, to jump in what Wendy said, most of our RF and microwave semiconductor products customers are looking at diamond substrates for semiconductors. It's becoming a technology of choice, going from GaN and silicon carbide, now diamond. And so we hope that continues, because they're going to need different equipment, which will come from our semi wafer fab customers that are building this type of equipment, and then hopefully using, obviously, our products that we make here. On the recurring revenue, Wendy hit it on the head. We have a very, obviously, very strong base business we call it legacy I call it legendary the tube business and that is pretty consistent you know plus or minus two or three percent obviously very profitable and so we're using some of those profits but also that base business including the customers to bring in new products and you know we have forecasts for every product we introduce based on the number of customers Tams details all that stuff and when we introduce a product we have a very high confidence level that it will go into production and that we can start gaining market share. So it's just a pretty much standard model in that we have a very strong base business. And then we continue to bring into that those similar type markets, power management and RF and microwave, which are also tubes, and bringing new products with the state-of-the-art technology that we can design, manufacture, and test here.

And can I throw one quick theoretical question in for Ed? I mean, frequently, Ed, the stock trades at or even under book value. The book value, as I noted, is over 80% current assets. It strikes me as replacement value for your assets is probably a significantly higher number than book value. Does it frustrate you? And what do we need to do to get investors to recognize that this company actually should trade at a more meaningful premium to book?

Well, I think we just need to continue the development of the new programs we're talking about. You know, every quarter, I'm sure this was coming up, our board talks about whether or not we should buy our stock back. And we've gone through that program in the past. And every time we buy the stock back and reduce our cash, the price of the stock would go down. So there was no benefit to that. And the real answer to your question is to continue to develop these new programs and increase the business and the profit generated by the new programs.

Yeah, and I wasn't going to bang my head on the buyback. You and I. I tried to edit through you. Well, we're just in different places. I actually would argue your buybacks haven't been a failure. But, you know, we can do that intellectually at some other point in time. But, no, I do think it's an area, and I do think that these initiatives to, you know, capitate the downside in earnings numbers will pay tremendous benefit from a shareholder standpoint because it simply will take away that downside risk and might give the sales side a little bit more courage to actually value the business more appropriately.

Thanks. Thanks, Ross. Thank you.

As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone. Again, that is star 11. 1-1 to ask a question. Our next question comes from Chip Rui with Rui Asset Management.

Good morning, guys. It sounds very, very positive. I mean, it really feels like you guys are tipping to an inflection point in a dozen areas. And I guess I'll just ask specifically if you could talk about two. One, you know, SemiCapEx has been the historical volatility for you guys. It's been in a tremendous down cycle for a couple years, but you've, you know, industry-wide have seen people like Micron talk about chips sold out for years and massive capital investment by them and others. So what are you seeing on that? How much of it could you play in and how – would that shake out as far as future orders, um, kind of over the next two or three years, if that cycle develops the way some of the larger industry players see. And, and then secondly, um, congratulations on that GE warranty. Um, I was going to ask it to, um, so just to clarify, um, It's approved, it's baked. Have you actually signed off or you still need to? And just for clarity, that does open about 50% of the market that you haven't been able to touch. So just some more color on how meaningful that could be. Okay, thank you.

Yeah, so the situation we have, the team obviously has done a great job selling to owner-operators. As you know, we have exclusive agreements with the top four But these owner-operators do not have service contracts with GE. They bought a GE turbine, but they service it themselves, so they can do with it whatever they want with the turbine. There's other customers, and that number has become lower than we originally thought. It's a much smaller percent of the owner-operators that actually have GE contracts, but it's still worth this process. Our part, they're not testing to see if it works. We've sold over 84,000 of these to date with Sig Sigma-like quality. We're on their website already. What this program is, is if you have a service agreement with GE, and you're using GE to do that service, They have to go through and make sure that product that you now want to install meets all the safety requirements of a GE safety manual. And so the good news is they sent us the spec that they're going to test. We've already tested the product. Every one of them has worked perfectly and matched up with that. have sent products to them. They're going through the testing. And again, I hope this is completed by Q1. But just like the NDA and this agreement that we have with them, and I can't say GE anymore. I have to say a large wind turbine manufacturer, you know, it just, those companies that are that large, it just takes time, but very positive, you know, working directly with them. They're going to do the final tests on the product. And what they're doing is just making sure that the ESR matches up the same with the battery. Then they don't even have to change a manual because there's no technical changes to the product and in the installation. Plus, as you know, we designed and developed a discharge tool that's becoming more and more popular that actually discharges all the energy in the cells in the UltraCaps before you put it in and then before you take it out. So that's kind of the scenario with it. You know, it's worth millions of dollars to us, but it's not a 50% increase in our SAM. It's probably about, you know, 15% to 20% increase in our opportunity or served available market.

Does that explain it a little bit better? Yes, great. Okay.

And then your other question was regarding the semi-market, the first question.

Yeah, just it's been kind of a down cycle for a few years from kind of the fab guys are talking about really needing to step up. How could that pull through to you over the next two to three years?

Yeah, I think that what you're going to see is continued good growth. in that particular part of our business.

Greg? Yeah, I think what you're going to see is you're still going to have cycles, but this cycle that we're seeing now, especially in their forecast and what they're putting in the portal that we have with them in terms of their forecast, I think the upside is going to be longer than we've seen it in the past, just because of all the things that many of you mentioned in the phone with the need for more site conductors, data centers, the whole thing. that this upside should last longer versus the six to 12-month cycles that we've seen in the past. So that's the other benefit of this. And then while that's growing, before the cyclical part of it, we will hopefully be bringing in new products to balance out the downsides of the semi-organic wafer fat market.

So when it does pick up, for use of a better term, it's gravy to our overall results. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Chip.

Thank you. And our final question comes from Andrew Rem with Odinson Partners. Your line is open.

Hi, Andrew. Andrew, please check mute button.

Sorry. Greg, could you give what the backlog for PMT was in the quarter? Do you have that for me, Bob? I have it.

Backlog for PMT at the end of the quarter was 75.4 million.

Okay. So that was a pretty substantially, I mean, I think you guys said in your prepared comments up 15% or maybe a little bit higher.

Backlog overall, excuse me, was up 11.4%.

So total backlog is around 153, 155, somewhere in there? 151.2.

Okay.

And then in the past, you've commented on what the semi-waiver backlog has been. Can you comment on that or just maybe even in rough terms?

We'll just tell you it's up.

Okay.

And then I guess you commented on the inventory. I didn't check, but for the Thales inventory, will you guys put a footnote in your Q and K? as you work that down through time or what would be the best way to kind of get at like because you said excluding sales overall inventory is down i think that's kind of an important metric here so if you don't provide it in as a footnote i guess i would encourage you to do so because i think that's pretty important because you guys have worked hard on reducing overall inventory so i think that's important to this story.

Thanks, Andrew. We'll take that under advisement.

All right. Thanks, you guys. Great quarter. Thanks, Andrew. Good hearing from you. Thank you.

This concludes the question and answer session. I would now like to turn it back to Ed Richardson for closing remarks.

Well, thanks again for joining us today and your questions. We look forward to talking to you again in July. We're happy to take your calls anytime. So feel, you know, we're happy to take the calls and we're welcome to call us anytime. Thank you very much.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.