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spk01: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining Mistress Group conference call for its second quarter, end of June 30th, 2021. My name is Olivia, and I'll be your event manager today. We'll be accepting questions after management prepared remarks. Participating on the call for Mistress will be Dennis Batalati, the company's president and chief executive officer, Ed Preissner, executive vice president, chief financial officer and treasurer, and John Wolfe, Senior Executive Vice President, and Chief Operating Officer. I want to remind everyone that remarks made during this conference call will include forward-looking statements. The company actual results could differ materially from those projected. Some of those factors that can cause actual results to differ are discussed in the company's most recent annual report on Form 10-K and other reports filed with the SEC. The discussion in this conference call will also include certain financial measures that were not prepared in accordance with the U.S. GAAP. Reconciliation of these non-U.S. GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable U.S. GAAP financial measures can be found in the tables contained in yesterday's press release and in the company's related current report on Form 8-K. These reports are available at the company's website, in the Investors section, and on the SEC's website. I will now turn the conference over to Dennis Bertolatti.
spk08: Thank you, Olivia. Good morning, everyone. Results in the second quarter were outstanding, consistent with our expectation that this quarter would mark an inflection point in our growth trajectory for 2021. Consolidated revenue was up nearly 43% in the quarter. We saw strength in our energy markets both domestically, including on stream, and in Europe. Actually, all of our end markets were up year over year in the second quarter, with the sole exception of aerospace and defense, although that market was up internationally. Consequently, we believe end markets are rebounding and will continue to do so over the balance of 2021. Together with a solid first quarter, results today have us excited about the momentum achieved over the first half of this year and leading into what we believe will be continued strength over the remainder of 2021. For the second quarter, gross profit margin increased over $14 million from last year, which is an increase of over 34%. Gross profit margin did decrease to 31.1% from 33.1% last year, which was anticipated as 2020 had a lower relative level of pass-through costs, such as travel and per diem, due to COVID lockdowns last year. On a year-to-date basis, gross profit margin is consistent with the first six months of 2020, both periods being at 28.8%. We remain very focused on improving gross profit dollars and gross profit margin through efficiency enhancement and better product mix. Selling general and administrative expenses were up in the second quarter over prior year quarter by $2.1 million. due primarily to restoring substantially all of the interim cost reduction measures that have been in place last year, most of which I am pleased to report have now been restored. Compared sequentially to the first quarter of 2021, SG&A is essentially flat, and SG&A is also essentially flat on a six-month basis with prior year, which is remarkable given the significant year-over-year revenue increase. but this is clear evidence of our keen focus on cost containment. Given our consistent gross profit margin and strong overhead controls, we had a strong improvement in operating income, which was $11.4 million for the second quarter of 2021. This drove an impressive $5.9 million of net income this quarter, or 20 cents per diluted share. Adjusted EBITDA was $22.5 million this quarter, an increase of nearly 100% over the prior year period, also being a five-year high as a percentage of revenue at 12.7%. In addition, adjusted EBITDA dollars were only 6% lower than our all-time high adjusted EBITDA as reported in the second quarter of 2019. This demonstrates a steady improvement in our productivity and efficiency, as well as the increased operating leverage we are creating with higher levels of volume. We also generated very strong cash flow this quarter, which enabled us to further reduce debt by $11.4 million in the second quarter. I am also very pleased with our revised credit agreement into this quarter, which significantly reduces our borrowing costs and enables increased investment in our growth initiatives, while also allowing us to continue to focus on reducing debt. Ed will walk you through the finer details But I want to emphasize that we would have been compliant with all financial covenants this quarter under the previous credit agreements requirements. I'm extremely pleased with the confidence our lending syndicate has shown in MISRUS and the support they are providing to fuel our growth. From virtually all perspectives, the second quarter of 2021 was a clear sign that we are well positioned to capitalize on a return to more normal economic conditions. Results demonstrate that we have implemented a solid growth strategy and increased operating leverage that is bringing more to the bottom line. And we substantially improved our financial condition, increasing our ability to further invest in our growth initiatives. Looking more closely at our various markets, last quarter we mentioned how a slow seasonal start and the Gulf storms looked like it was going to delay the turnarounds later into the spring. This ended up being exactly the case, and as a result, revenues in energy were strong again in the second quarter, as we captured the late spring start turnarounds for revenue, as well as the incremental revenue arising as turnarounds ran longer than usual into June. While turnarounds may be periodic and difficult to predict, they are indicative of the overall condition of energy markets, and right now we see the energy markets as rebounding. For instance, oil prices that were in the mid-60s per barrel at the time of our last call had more recently been hovering closer to 70 per barrel range. Energy remains our largest market, both traditional, fossil, and renewable. Consequently, over the near to intermediate term, we believe energy will continue to represent an attractive market for us. We have a multi-pronged strategy to succeed in energy. First, by continuing to take profitable market share. we believe we are growing share because owners are increasingly choosing partners that offer them an attractive value proposition which reduces their all-in cost. With our ruggedized tablets running MISROS Digital, PCMS, and other technological innovations, we are no longer competing exclusively on price. We are also expanding our scope of services by offering rope access, adjacent mechanical, and other capabilities that complement more traditional NDT services, which makes it easier to control our project costs. And finally, we can grow by introducing new products, such as data services via OneSuite, which we will be rolling out in the second half of 2021, and which represents a growing revenue stream for Mistrust. We also believe each of these strategies provides a point of differentiation, allowing Mistrust to become stickier with owners, which in turn should improve margins. As the energy market recovers, our on-stream business, which also serves a less volatile segment of the market, being midstream, is growing, both domestically and in Canada. For instance, the termination of the Keystone Pipeline has producers relying on their volumes through older existing pipelines. The aging infrastructure is creating demand to have these older pipelines inspected to not only determine if they can accommodate any increased demands, but also to ensure they comply with new more stringent safety regulations, including PIMSA. Onstream has also introduced new tools that can inspect larger diameter pipes, which is also opening up new, larger markets both in the United States and Canada. Today, about 70% on average of the revenue generated in our energy markets is from ongoing run-and-maintain business, which does not experience the dramatic peaks and valleys of capital budgets or periodic turnarounds. As we continue to implement our strategies, we believe we will become an increasingly valuable partner, growing in proportion of this less volatile, reoccurring revenue stream. In aerospace, there is anecdotal evidence suggesting that the commercial aerospace industry will bounce back sooner than previously thought, even in Europe, which has been particularly hard hit, although full recovery in aerospace is probably still not going to occur there until mid to later this next year. In fact, this quarter, aerospace was up in our international segment. Elsewhere, continued softness in the U.S. commercial aerospace sector is being offset by growth in the domestic defense and especially in the private space sectors, where revenue run rates are basically double that of a year ago. While it is still early on as we penetrate this market, growing both the materials we inspect and the operators for whom we work private spaceflight could become a very interesting sector, as could the closer-to-Earth business of privately maintaining satellites. Our renewable energy efforts are also continuing to make significant progress. Customers keep adding new blades and hubs to those we already are inspecting in the wind turbine sector. We are demonstrating how our proprietary acoustic emission technology, consisting of very sophisticated sensors and detection algorithms, can provide better information faster, than the inspection technologies currently used in the market today. While most of our active programs are on existing properties, we are also working with manufacturers who we believe can increase the value of their products by directly embedding our sensors into their new assets. But perhaps our most exciting initiative serving as a significant step in the digital transformation of asset protection is the introduction of Mistress OneSuite, our innovative, proprietary, an all-new asset protection software ecosystem, which we previously referred to as Project Kappa. The software platform offers functions of Mistrust's popular software and services brands as integrated apps on a cloud environment. One suite will ultimately serve as a single access portal for customers' data activities, while also providing opportunities for customers to discover Mistrust's breadth and depth in software and data insights from our current 50-plus applications being offered on one centralized platform. Just like any thriving ecosystem, apps within the OneSuite platform interact with each other, sharing critical information in real time. Put simply, MISRES OneSuite makes asset protection smarter and more digitally connected than ever before. Right now, we have nearly two dozen customers participating in the system's soft launch. Later in the year, we will have the official lunch suite launch, whereupon we will commence a more aggressive campaign. I am very enthusiastic about this very exciting area, which we will be speaking about in much greater depth in the future. I would now like to turn the call over to Ed to give you more detail on our financial results for the second quarter of 2021.
spk07: Thank you, Dennis, and good morning, everyone. It was truly an outstanding quarter, and it could be an inflection point And while some of the improvements over a year ago are attributable to the extreme effects on the year-ago quarter from the COVID-19 pandemic and other related macroeconomic factors, we nevertheless established new all-time records or near records in several key metrics. A five-year high adjusted EBITDA margin and the second-best all-time quarter of adjusted EBITDA puts the quarter's accomplishments in a more appropriate overall historical perspective. For the three-month end of June 30, 2021, total revenue increased 43% versus the prior year comparable period due predominantly to organic growth as well as the low single-digit favorable impact of foreign exchange. All land markets improved, again, with the sole exception of aerospace and defense market, which was down only modestly for the quarter and actually up in the international segment. The oil and gas market was 57.2% of revenue for the quarter, and is now 58.6% for the first half of 2021, which is up 140 basis points from last year. As Dennis mentioned, while we continue to invest in our growth initiatives, such as digital, private space, and renewable energy, the traditional oil and gas market will remain a large market for us, where we are having tremendous success gaining share while expanding our service offerings and thus growing revenue and earnings. Gross profit in the quarter increased over $14 million, or just over 34%. Gross profit margin was down from a year ago at 31.1% compared to 33.1%, but was consistent at 28.8% on a year-to-day basis for both the current and prior year. Keep in mind, as conditions normalize, our travel and related expense increases, and these costs are reimbursed by our customers as incurred, has the effect of reducing gross margin percentages although absolute gross profit dollars are up due to volume. We continue to constantly calibrate and then again recalibrate overhead costs with the current Revenue Monday. Compared to the first quarter, overhead was essentially flat, even though revenues were significantly higher, and we restored some of the costs that had been suspended last year. We are additionally restoring the remaining suspended temporary cost reductions, such as the company's 401 matching, and certain employee merit increases in the second half of 2021, which will modestly increase quarterly overhead in the third and fourth quarters of 2021. With the majority of pandemic-induced customer price concessions now restored, and hence the contribution margin and gross margin dollars recovered, we felt it was the right time to bring back the remaining temporary cost reductions that we instituted on the business back in April of 2020. Much of these reductions were imposed on employees, allowing the company to ensure its recovery. We are confident this recovery is underway, and now was the right time to bring these things back to normal, and we are very appreciative of our employees' contribution to Mishra's success. Our operating income improved dramatically to $11.4 million for the second quarter, compared to our small operating loss in the prior year period. Likewise, the bottom line we reported a tremendous increase in that income to $5.9 million, or $0.20 per diluted share, compared to a $2.7 million net loss, or negative $0.09 per diluted share, in the same period last year. As a result of this significant increase in gross profit and careful calibration of overhead, we had the second-best adjusted EBITDA quarter in the company's history, only $1.4 million, or 6% below, our best-ever quarter in Q2 of 2019, when sales were more than $22 million higher, and it was a five-year record for the highest quarterly adjusted EBITDA as percentage of revenue at 12.7%. This demonstrates our continued efforts to improve the operating leverage in our business model through both expanded gross margin and tight overhead expense control. Cash flow from operations in the quarter was $15 million, and pre-cash flow was $8.5 million. In contrast to last year, where there was a drop in revenue from the first quarter to the second quarter, we generated an increase in second quarter revenue this year. This required us to fund the corresponding increase in working capital, particularly accounts receivable, whereas a year ago, we harvested accounts receivable in the second quarter. Last quarter, we signaled that our growth was going to have this temporary dragging effect on cash flow. Accordingly, for the full year, we expect continuing positive free cash flow. However, the conversion rate as a percentage of adjusted EBITDA will be below our historical average of 50% of adjusted EBITDA. This is attributable to the effect of one-time items, such as through a payment of the CARES Act payable tax deferral, which is due later this year. Hence, our free cash flow conversion rate of approximately 25% for the first half of 2021 is a good estimate of what to expect for the full year of 2021. Capital expenditures are running a little ahead of last year, as expected, but we still anticipate total capital expenditures for the year to be in the $20 to $22 million range. Nevertheless, despite these increased uses of cash, we have reduced long-term debt by $11.4 million through the first six months of this year. At the end of June, net debt was down to $191.2 million, low below our targeted $200 million goal. Let me take a minute to further expand upon what Dennis mentioned earlier. what we consider to be a strong endorsement from our bank group, that is, our revised credit agreement executed in May 2021. This amendment included several significant improvements for us. First, the revised agreement removes the minimum 1 percent LIBOR floor. Instead, actual LIBOR will be used to calculate interest. And with the 30-day rate at 0.9 percent as of today, this represents a more than 90 basis point reduction in our borrowing rate relative to the previous 1 percent floor. Secondly, the LIBOR margin and base rate margins in the existing pricing grid were unchanged, but are now based on total consolidated debt leverage ratio to include junior debt, rather than the previous funded debt leverage ratio, which excluded junior debt. This is somewhat academic, since we don't currently have any junior debt, nor are we anticipating such. But more importantly, since we were below 3.75 leverage as of June 30, 2021, we moved to lower in the pricing grid, and therefore our all-in interest rate drops from LIBOR plus 4.15% to LIBOR plus 2.5% prospectively, commencing in the third quarter, which is an additional 165 basis point reduction in our effective interest rate. Coupled with the removal of the LIBOR floor, which actually commenced back in May, this lowers our all-in cost of borrowing from approximately 5.2% to 2.6%. At our current outstanding debt level, this represents a nearly $6 million annualized savings in interest expense. And thirdly, our allowable consolidated debt leverage ratio is now four times as of the end of each quarter due March 31 of 2022, dropping to 3.5 thereafter. At June 30, 2021, not only do we comply with the Disney leverage ratio, but we would have been in compliance under the old leverage test. So we have not and do not foresee any covenant compliance issues, nor do we perceive such as being a hindrance to executing on our business plan. Again, we estimate that the revised agreement coupled with our continued deleveraging will reduce interest expense by approximately $6 million over the next four quarters. When after tax basis at an assumed 30% tax rate, this will be approximately 14 cents per diluted share on an annualized basis. Consequently, this positive development frees up additional resources to invest in our growth initiatives through the reduced interest burden and more flexible terms. However, as Dennis stated earlier and I reiterate, these more favorable terms do not change our commitment to reducing debt. Actually, the revised agreement does require a slightly higher level of term loan amortization, although it is consistent with what our prior debt repayment plans would have otherwise been. Lastly, we did reduce the size of the revolver while maintaining required liquidity. This additionally saves us unused commitment fees. Turning to the tax rate, our consolidated effective tax rate was 27.7% for the second quarter of 2021. There were discrete benefits favorably impacting the rate thus far this year, so we anticipate an effective rate of closer to 30% for the second half of 2021. As Dennis mentioned, growth in our two largest segments, services and international, actually outpaced our consolidated growth In services, this generated a 69% increase in operating income, while we turned year-ago operating losses in both international and the products and systems segments into operating income this quarter. Revenues were also up in each of our end markets, except aerospace, with revenues from oil and gas up 52%, and now comprising 57% of total revenues in the quarter. We expect energy to remain strong throughout the balance of the year, with aerospace recovering somewhat more slowly except for the space sector, where revenues are growing robustly year over year. From all perspectives, it truly was an outstanding quarter. In addition, we are in a much stronger financial position with our revised credit agreement, which will provide additional resources to fund our growth initiatives. Regarding our outlook for the third quarter of 2021, our business has been recovering over the past four quarters from the low we experienced in the second quarter of 2020, when the effect of COVID-19 was most impactful to our financial results. Although energy prices and demand are currently stable, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic continues to significantly impact our second largest market, that being aerospace. We expect revenue to increase in the low to mid-teens percentage in the third quarter of 2021 over the prior year quarter. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be higher in the third quarter of 2021 than the prior year period, but lower sequentially than the second quarter of 2021 due to substantially all of the remaining temporary cost reduction measures from 2020 being restored during the third quarter of 2021. This outlook, of course, is contingent on continuing macroeconomic stability, including stabilization in crude oil markets, a timely and effective COVID-19 vaccine rollout throughout the remainder of 2021, as well as no new or increased stay-at-home mandates resulting from an increased spread of the COVID-19 variants, all of which could impact our ability to work as a critical service provider. Throughout the pandemic, and now as we cautiously rebound and recover, we have demonstrated Ms. Ross's ability to quickly adapt to a challenging market, and not just for immediate results, but also to set the stage to capitalize on emerging opportunities. As we look forward to the second half of 2021, we are highly confident that our business model is robust and sustainable, and we remain firmly committed to executing our plans by maintaining our intense focus on cost containment while continuing to prudently invest in the business. That is our strategy both today and over the long term, and it will continue to be a very exciting journey. And with that, I will now turn the call back over to Dennis for his wrap-up before we move on to take your questions.
spk08: Thanks, Ed. So to recap, as we recover from both the pandemic and the fall in the oil market experience in 2020, we are planning for our next stages of growth. The first half of the year has us back on a more solid footing, and we believe markets will continue their gradual recovery. Our goal has been to end this year with revenues that approximate the exiting quarterly run rate of 2019. And in the second quarter of 2021, we have already attained that level of revenue. From here, we can focus on returning to the steady growth trajectory that MISRIS has generated over the years, while also improving our operating leverage and reducing debt. Although the energy markets, both oil and gas and power generation, are cyclical and beyond our direct control, they are currently stable and rebounding. And we are focused on continuing to gain market share with winning new contracts and expanding our services in mechanical and data services, particularly via OneSuite. We are largely agnostic about the industries we support. and we have and will continue to flex into alternative sectors such as renewable energy, particularly wind. This is an area that we can control by focusing our efforts into adjacent markets, utilizing our core competencies such as acoustic emissions and complementary mechanical offerings. This is very similar to how our NADCAP-certified aerospace labs are flexing into support of space work. Again, realigning our core capabilities into higher growth sectors of our existing markets. OneSuite is yet another illustration of how we continue to enhance the value of our legacy investments while increasing the ROI for our customers today and into the future. In many ways, MISRIS has always and certainly will continue to focus on customers' ESG compliance, particularly the E for environmental and especially the S for safety, which is our primary value proposition. For MISRES, safety is so paramount to what we do for our customers that our recently implemented initiative was chartering a new board-level function known as the SES Committee, which stands for Social, Environmental, and Safety. And speaking of safety, before taking your questions, I would like to thank all the MISRES employees once again for your understanding and the leadership shown in helping us through this crisis. You have shown an unwavering focus on building on our solid reputation for safety, quality, and innovation, all while providing outstanding customer service and dedication during these extremely trying times. By sticking to the tenets of our Caring Connect initiative, we can provide a better workplace, not only for the mistress family, but for all those whom we work with in a positive and safe manner. Lydia, please open up the phone line.
spk01: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder to ask a question, you will need to press the star, then the one key on your touch-tone telephone. To withdraw your question, you may press the pound key. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Now, first question coming from the line of Andrew Obin with Bank of America. Your line is open. Thank you.
spk04: Good morning. This is David Ridley Lane on for Andrew Oban. Can you talk a little bit about the headwinds and tailwinds to gross margins as you think about the second half? I understand you'll have some lower pass-through costs or, excuse me, higher pass-through costs in the second half. I'm just trying to understand if that kind of offsets the underlying improvement you're seeing.
spk08: So I'll start with that, David, and let John back me up. You're right about the pass-through. I mean, that was a big part of the savings while we increased quite a bit in 2020. Probably about a third to a half in some quarters were because of the reduced pass-through. But customers really right now are still being a little bit cautious about how much travel and how much extra expense they're doing. So I don't really perceive the second half of 2021 to look like 2019 as far as their travel and all that goes. I still think there's some savings there. And we are being much more cautious on what work we're picking up in our sales mix. Sales mix is an easy way to say that we're watching how we work with customers and how our expenses and our cost of goods are flowing. So I think we're going to be able to keep some of that. It will be a little bit different, but I don't see it going back to going below where we've been. I think we can hold it and grow from there.
spk03: Hi, David. It's John. I echo Darius's comments. I think I'd say that Sequentially, you know, for the Q3 versus Q2, I think revenue should be similar. Margins may be a little bit lower. Q2 tends to be a strong margin quarter for us. It tends to rebound again in Q4. So you have some seasonality in there. Compared to prior year, I think what Dennis highlighted in terms of the pass-through costs, we'll have more of that this year as business is more typical levels. So we may not quite reach prior year gross margin levels, but still we feel good about the margin profile. We feel good about volumes at this point. And so therefore, I think margins should be healthy.
spk04: Thank you for that. And then one of the topics that's come up in many of the other earnings reports has been, you know, labor availability. and also some wage pressures. So what are you seeing on those fronts? Thank you.
spk08: Dave, I'll take it much on jumping. So we did a strong focus during COVID to not do anything to reduce our technician base more than what the customers were doing. If they would take off some work, we would try to find other places for them during the peak of it. We were trying to do what we could to keep them there. Consequently, we are working on less hours, but we're still trying to keep the bulk of our employees. Most of our employees stayed with us through COVID and have returned. So we don't have any overall problem as far as labor to handle the work. There's always going to be some type of hot skill sets or things needed for a certain area where you use more of one type of technology than the other. So there's always some individual issues. needs that maybe exceeded our capabilities. But overall, we really believe we're in good shape there as far as total bodies. We just haven't worked in as many hours as we have pre-COVID as we have post. As far as increases, again, those certain skill sets will, you know, have to find some ways in certain areas. And customers realize that for us and other labor. They're going to have to adjust accordingly. And so far, we've found them willing to do so.
spk04: Perfect. Thank you very much, and congratulations on the strong results.
spk08: Great. Thank you, David. Thank you.
spk01: Our next question coming from the line of Sean Eastman with KeyBank Capital. Your line is open.
spk05: Hi, guys. This is Alex on for Sean. Congrats on the strong quarter. Thank you. First one for me. It's clear that the oil and gas segment has recovered nicely. Revenue growth of 50% this quarter. And with a spring turnaround season that started later but ran longer than historical norms, what is your expectation for the fall turnaround season and what's your visibility like? I'm just wondering if there's still uncertainty around push-out and activity levels into next year or a turnaround season that just doesn't run as long as the spring.
spk08: So, Alex, that's a great question. I don't think there's any doubt customers tried to save some money in the first half of 2021 where they could. For the most part, every turnaround that was scheduled happened, you know, but if there was a way to make a couple dollars savings, either on traveling per diem or maybe not as many hours, you know, during COVID you'd work 40-hour weeks during a turnaround, which was unheard of. We were working overtime, but maybe not at the same amount of hours. I don't think in the fall you'll probably get back to those 7-12s like we had seen pre-COVID. I don't think customers are spending that, and they might. try to harvest some savings in the back half, but it wasn't as aggressive or, or, you know, uh, like you've seen anything in COVID days, it was just a little bit more logical. They're putting some back so I could see some savings, but for the most part, they're not pushing too much work out of this current year into 22. I think what they're trying to do is make up for what happened in 20. So they don't have that much room to keep pushing things out. Right. They're just trying to say where they can, but I think the second half will probably look the same. Um, Traditionally, the spring turnaround season the last few years has been stronger than the fall. I wouldn't doubt that would probably happen this year, but you never know what could happen with one-off customers or something like that.
spk05: That's very helpful. And second one, if we break out your oil and gas business between downstream, midstream, upstream, and maybe Petchem, which is smaller, how did all this stuff just perform during the quarter, maybe compared to the last quarter? I'm just wondering which of these are driving the strength and energy and maybe which of these have been weaker. John, if you want to get to the details here.
spk03: Yeah, sure, Dennis. Thank you. Yeah, good question. I think for us, you know, echoing Dennis's comments, we've seen, you know, a resumption to more normalized patterns. But for us, the biggest gain in oil and gas in Q2 is was really more market share driven. As we picked up some new business, we were awarded some contracts that we staffed up. And for us, downstream has not really recovered to the extent yet that we expect it to recover. I think that, you know, I'll echo Dennis's comments that there's still a cautiousness in the market. Spending levels haven't resumed to what we would have seen in 2019. And there's always uncertainty in turnarounds because they run long, they run short, and they're hard to predict. But I'd say that in Q2, mostly it was market share gains. Secondly, it was a resumption to activity levels that were starting to approach normal. I think certainly we're strong offshore. But downstream, you know, it's a bit cautious yet, and it's on the way back.
spk08: I guess the one thing I'll add Alex to John's last comment on, on offshore or upstream in total, you still worry about close camps and you still worry about COVID, right? So he's in close camps where you're on a rig, you're in a remote area, whatever it is. You know, there's still, we're still, the COVID is still there, however you want to argue it. And you know, there has been some breakouts and things like that. So there's still a little bit of concern there too, about safety of personnel and just COVID safety in those operations.
spk05: Yep, that's right. Thanks, guys. I'll turn it over. Okay. Thank you.
spk01: Our next question coming from the line of Brian Russo with Fedoti. Your line is open.
spk02: Yeah, hi. Good morning. Morning, Brian. How are you? Good, thanks. You know, there's a lot of discussion on your SG&A run rate. Should we assume going forward that the SG&A run rate looks something like the first quarter of 2020, you know, pre-pandemic, or are there, you know, sustained cost savings, you know, outside of what's variable and what, you know, you commented that you're adding back? Do you want to cover that?
spk07: Yeah, I'll address that. There'll be some cost outs that'll be sustained, so we won't exactly rebound. Revenue is going to rebound, but not cost to 2020 level. If you look at the current quarter, SG&A approaching $40 million, exclusive of R&D and DNA, that $40 million is going to creep up. The cost outs came back this quarter, as we said, but we're fully back in fourth quarter. So the current $40 million You know, maybe it's going to grow another million, million and a half going forward to its peak level. So, you know, you can think of it maybe, you know, capping out around there and, you know, and sustaining itself at that point. Some of the cost measures will stay sustained. So, yeah, the $2 million increase you saw this quarter versus same quarter last year, we don't intend to go back up to that level. We can hopefully go up, you know, half of that, you know, maybe a little bit more going forward. But, yeah, we will stay under the 2020, you know, run rate going forward.
spk02: Okay, good. And, you know, with your commitment to debt reduction, are you still targeting three times or less leverage by the end of 2022? Or given the solid first half results, do you think that could be accelerated?
spk07: By the end of 2022, certainly we'd be at a 3.0, hopefully sooner than the end of the year. So, yeah, we're going to definitely keep our focus on reducing debt. So, yeah, that target is absolutely still our goal. Yep.
spk02: Okay, and then correct me if I'm wrong, but I think there was some commentary in the press release that by, and you may have mentioned this earlier, but by the end of 2021, you'll be on a run rate of 2019. Is that a top line run rate or is that, you know, a margin run rate? Just want to be clear on that.
spk07: We were referring to the revenue run rate, so the exit revenue run rate in fourth quarter of 2019. Coincidentally, it's the same revenue run rate this quarter is where we said we would end the year. Yeah, exiting this year at, you know, how we exited 19 at the revenue run rate level. Hopefully margins and everything else holds up as well, if not being a little bit better. But we were referring to the revenue run rate exiting this year would be, you know, feeling very much like how we exited 19. Right.
spk02: So to summarize or to characterize it, you're going to be at a 2019 top-line run rate but meaningfully higher EBITDA and operating income-type margins, correct?
spk07: You should be similar, yeah. By then, you'll have cost outs weren't in 19. You know, cost outs are all recovered here in 21. So, yeah, your overhead dynamics should be similar, hopefully a little more efficient this year. than we were in 19. Mix plays a part of that, obviously, on the gross margin side. Overheads will be controlled very well, but margins are all relative to the mix at that time. So that's a bit of a variable, but should be very comparable, hopefully a little stronger if we're lucky.
spk02: Okay, and then the low to mid-teens percentage top-line increase in 3Q21. versus the year-ago period, is that all driven by energy, given your comments that aerospace isn't really recovering yet? I'll take that.
spk03: Go ahead, John. It's John. Thank you. I'd say it's not all driven by energy. I mean, energy is still slightly the majority of revenues, and it's been a good portion of the growth so far in the first half of the year. We look for energy to continue to be strong in the second half, third quarter, and second half. But also, as Dennis alluded to in his comments, you know, aerospace, and with this emphasis on space, commercial is starting to edge back in, but it's a slow burn at this point. We anticipate commercial aero really starting to tick up, you know, the middle of next year and beyond to much higher levels. But for the second half of this year, it's energy. It's space. You know, there's other sectors which are doing well, too.
spk02: Okay. Then just, you know, on renewables and private space, as you've mentioned, emerging markets contributing very little currently to revenue and margin. You know, where do you see that headed over the next several years in terms of the percentage of your overall mix of business?
spk08: So Brian, it's done us. I mean, our goal is to, and you know, when we look out four to five years, we'd like to be below 50, 50 on the oil and gas portion of our business. And that is not at all by saying we're reducing or letting her foot off the gas pedal and oil and gas. We believe there's a lot of room for growth there, but we want to start focusing on alternatives such as wind alternatives, such as the infrastructure and all these other things that we can do. I mean, over, you know, the next year or so, it's going to be organic growth and we'll follow that path, but eventually we can get back to being more purposeful and looking at diversification, you know, in the third and fourth and fifth year out. Next couple of years, you know, we're going to be probably still over 50%, but we see in five years to be below just by focusing on those things that are not oil and gas while keeping oil and gas strongly in our, in our portfolio.
spk02: Okay. And then just lastly on a, the wind sensor and monitoring and detection products and services that you're working on. Offshore wind is gaining momentum, I could say. There's federal support. Utilities are pursuing it, especially on the East Coast. I would imagine that that market would be a big opportunity for you, given that You know, these wind turbines are nearly four to five times higher in the air as the ones on land. And then just given the climate, there's got to be a lot more erosion and wear and tear. Any thoughts on that?
spk08: So, Brian, I'll let John answer that. But the one thing you want to think about is we're promoting a remote censoring capability. We're better, but in the middle of the North Sea or how many miles off the coast of Jersey or wherever else they put these new places up. would you want a remote capability, right? That is absolutely leaning into the kind of thinking we're doing, but I'll let John answer what we think we can do on wind.
spk03: Yeah, thanks, Dennis. Good question, Brian. Yeah, as Dennis just said, I mean, our remote sensing capability works wherever a wind turbine is located. And so, you know, the great thing is if you're in the middle of the country in a wind farm in Texas or in Iowa, or especially if you're offshore, you know, the thing is that access to these wind turbines is difficult and it doesn't happen very frequently. So the great thing about our remote sensing capability is it's on all the time. And so you're not beholden to time intervals where you're inspecting, you know, whenever you can get to it on some kind of, you know, rotational basis. You know all the time the condition of your wind turbine blades or even your wind turbine hubs, for that matter, other parts of the wind turbine. So offshore, the value proposition is even stronger, if you can imagine, because access is so difficult. And to your point, damage occurs on a more frequent basis. So, yes, it's a definite yes to the answer to your question.
spk02: All right, great. Thank you very much.
spk01: Our next question coming from the line up. Mitch Benharia with Serbian and Company, Yolanda Salpin.
spk06: Hey, good morning. Good morning, Mitch. I wanted to just step back a bit. You know, it's been such a disrupted, you know, environment for the last 12 months. You know, it's really hard for me to sort of understand the moving parts sort of from a longer-term growth basis and For instance, and the way you sort of report your revenue is not as helpful for me to sort of understand what's really driving everything. I understand now there's pent-up demand and energy, and I understand the aerospace part. As we look six months out, you know, brand-new year in 2022, can you talk about, like, the composition of revenue, not from an from a growth rate point of view? For instance, you talk about maintenance and mechanical. How's that going to, is that all incremental business for us next year? The online monitoring and your one suite. How do we build to a revenue growth rate next year that I can sort of understand in a normal environment? I'm not sure if I asked the question properly, but I don't really understand how it's going to build. Are we going to see it's going to be alternative energy markets and monitoring is going to be the big incremental boost next year? Can you talk a little bit about some of the tangible things that we'll see next year in terms of end markets and initiatives?
spk08: So much, let me throw that to John, but before I do a couple of quick comments here, the segments that you're saying, we're looking at different ways of maybe representing our segments might maybe make it easier for folks going forward. But, you know, one of the things I'd like to say is, is because of COVID owners and our customers in aerospace and in oil and gas, all segments are going to be looking for vendors that are more reliable. that are strong, that came out of this. You know, you don't want to give a five-year contract to a vendor who may or may not be able to either be there or be handicapped in their funding for growth and technology. And when we talk about these crossover services, all we're doing is really talking about every project we work on has a lot of preparation before and after to take it, to prepare it and put it back after our inspection. And all these steps can be can be time-consuming and very, very dysfunctional for our customers. And the more we take on some of these simple steps, the more we can control the cost. So total cost containment, someone who's using technology and or crossover services to get the job done more efficiently is going to be a better partner for them than having 12 different people trying to run the hourly cost, you know, gambits that you see so many times in a T&M market. I'll throw it to John for some of the longer-term things that he sees, but we really see all of our segments growing because of COVID recovery and because of the things that we're doing. We're not sitting and waiting on any one thing. John, I'll let you maybe take a shot.
spk03: Yeah, Dennis, thanks. That's a perfect setup. Mitch, it's a great question, and it's one we ask ourselves all the time. As Dennis just indicated, the thing is, you know, to an owner, Sometimes, you know, a purchasing department can really start thinking along the lines of, you know, if I just get the lowest rates, I've done my job and I've reduced costs for my employer. And, of course, that's partly true. But the thing is that we're emphasizing that Dennis keyed on is this convergence of services, this convergence of different disciplines that we bring to bear, be it multi-certified technicians, be it accessing inspection or mechanical service points in a different way, not just on the ground and not just via scaffolding, for instance. It's with our rope access personnel. It's with the convergence of mechanical services and rope access to create greater value to customers in ways that they haven't been able to realize before. It's remote monitoring in the renewable sector where we're essentially displacing or replacing other forms that are not as effective at sort of barely doing the job, and we can do it for a very compelling business proposition, a business model that gives them a great return on any investment they make with us. It's in the convergence of mechanical with inspection, you know, for aerospace, for both commercial and for space, which we do today, and we're doing increasing amounts, as we're alluding to. Essentially, it's again by that crossover of combining disciplines, combining different activities that the owner needs on their parts and doing it under one roof and doing it in an innovative way to reduce cycles, to reduce time, to reduce cost, and to produce recovery rates, to reduce scrap rates for them in ways that they just don't have other alternatives to get the same kinds of results that we do. I sympathize because it's hard to model that, what we're saying, and it's up to us, I think, over time to increasingly provide more visibility into those kind of activities. And as they mature and as they really start to grow even more, as Dennis said, we're going to increasingly try to do that.
spk06: Okay, that's helpful. So how do you think – I mean, how do you know if you're capturing – you know, your fair share of a customer's overall needs? I mean, is there, you know, do you just, I mean, obviously you just can't sit back and hope that they come to you. You're going out and selling them, but are you emphasizing, is there a growth rate among these services that are growing faster than the others? Yeah. Absolutely. Are we seeing growth in the digital solution, the tablets? I mean, is there growth rates we can talk about so you can help us understand how to build the revenue model? I mean, that's also part of my question is it's hard to see, you know, I understand turnarounds and length of turnarounds and things like that, but it's just hard to see clearly how the revenue builds next year. I mean, I'm sure it will, but I just need a little help in whether we can talk about contracts, new contracts, wins, and things like that. Is there visibility that you have, or is it literally just one sales call after another sales call and hope they build to higher revenues? It's a little bit of both, to be honest.
spk03: In terms of how we measure how we're doing with the customer, we're working with them day in and day out. I mean, as you can imagine, we've got technicians working with customers at their sites, at our sites, et cetera. We're working with the operational folks at our customers and understand how we're performing. We regularly grade ourselves with key performance indicators that we're reporting out to our customers and getting their feedback all the time. So that's how we're gauging that and that's how we're kind of measuring how we're doing with the customers to answer that part of the question. In terms of the growth and where it comes from, absolutely. Some of the areas that we've already called out in our prepared remarks and in some of these Q&A questions, you know, we're talking about sort of the areas of emphasis. Dennis mentioned many of them in terms of the digital aspects. If we were to show you the adoption chart right now of of MISDRAW's digital tablets, it looks, as you would hope, like a great hockey stick going up and to the right. You know, the base was relatively small where we started from, of course, but where it is right now, where it goes by the end of the year, and importantly, where it goes next year, we're really excited about, and that's why we're talking about these in our comments. As Dennis said, we're not quite ready on a resegmentation basis as we're exploring, but to share that data as we're going through that analysis. But we're really emphasizing these parts of the market, you know, the renewable sector and the monitoring and so forth, you know, space and commercial aerospace in addition to oil and gas. I mean, these are all levers that my team is actively pulling to great effect right now. So we're really excited about it. I'm sorry, go ahead. That's it, Dennis. Thank you.
spk08: And without getting into resegmentation later this year, Mitch, to make it easier for you guys, we've already been internally working some of the data metrics. So we have that running, and we'll start bringing that out later in the year just to show you where we were, like the adoption of the tablets and all the mistress digital and OneSuite and all that. So we are going to be doing that. The other point that we do do when you're asking how we do the selling, we actually – sell to the customers by showing them our key performance indicators, which shows them our productivity, our total cost of savings. Obviously, our safety and things like that are always in there first. But we are always showing them what we're doing for them. And on the savings, we're using their metrics of cost per whatever it is they're trying to measure and showing them how our time on tools, we're improving that. And all these things, time on tools, can be a huge waste of time for a a refiner or any type of oil and gas customer power out there in the field where they have these turnarounds and there's just so many people, you know, just stepping over each other trying to get the job done. So anything that we can do to improve that, mistress digital, all these things are huge improvements in there. We're absolutely going to be running metrics to show them those savings. And that's one of the ways we're going to be showing them how we're growing. What we got to do for you is show you guys measurements to understand how that translates to revenue for us, right?
spk06: Well, thank you very much for the call. I appreciate it. Thanks, Mitch.
spk01: And I'm sure enough for the questions. At this time, I would now like to turn the conference call back over to Mr. Bertolatti for any closing remarks.
spk08: All right. Thank you. I'd like to thank everyone for your interest today in Nostros and for joining our call. Please have a safe and a productive day, and we look forward to updating you next time. Thanks, Lucia.
spk01: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that's our conference for today. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.
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