Cactus, Inc.

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Cactus Q1 2024 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in the listen only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there'll be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would not like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Alan Boyd, Director of Corporate Development and Investor Relations.

Thank you and good morning. We appreciate you joining us on today's call. Our speakers will be Scott Bender, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer and Al Keefer, our Interim Chief Financial Officer. Also joining us today are Joel Bender, President, Stephen Bender, Chief Operating Officer, Steve Tadlock, CEO of FlexDeal and Will Marsh, our General Counsel. Please note that any comments we make on today's call regarding projections or expectations for future events are forward-looking statements covered by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control. These risks and uncertainties can cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations. We advise listeners to review our earnings release and the risk factors discussed in our filings with the SEC. Any forward-looking statements we make today are only as of today's date and we undertake no obligation to publicly update or review any forward-looking statements. In addition, during today's call, we will reference certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in our earnings release. With that, I'll turn the call over to Scott.

Thanks, Alan, and good morning to everyone. We began 2024 with solid execution as revenues in both segments exceeded our expectations. I'm particularly pleased with spoolable technologies sales in the first quarter, which increased from the fourth quarter, largely due to strong sales to our large integrated customers. During this period, we also saw renewed international activity in the segment. This strength, which collide usual seasonal softness in the first quarter, further demonstrates the differentiation inherent in our spoolable products, as well as the benefits of expanding the product line of our overall Cactus portfolio. Some first quarter total company highlights include revenue of 274 million, adjusted EBITDA of 95 million, adjusted EBITDA margins of 34.8%, we paid a quarterly dividend of 12 cents per share, and we increased our cash balance to 194 million. I now turn the call over to Al Keefer, our CFO, who will review our financial results. Following his remarks, Al provides some thoughts on our outlook for the near term before opening the lines for Q&A. So, Al.

Thank you. As Scott mentioned, total Q1 revenues were $274 million. For our pressure control segment, revenues of 175 were down 3% sequentially driven primarily by decreased customer activity. Operating income decreased 4.4 million or .8% sequentially, with operating margins decreasing 160 basis points. Adjusted segment EBITDA decreased 4 million or .2% sequentially, with margins decreasing by 120 basis points. The margin declines were primarily due to lower operating leverage. For our spoolable technology segment, revenues of 99 million were up 5% sequentially on higher customer demand, largely from the majors. Operating income decreased 11.8 million sequentially, due primarily to an increase in the expense, resulting from the remeasurement of the flexed-deal earn-out liability. Adjusted segment EBITDA decreased 0.4 million or .1% sequentially, while margins decreased by 240 basis points due to an increase in input cost. Corporate and other expenses were 5.5 million in Q1, down 0.2 million sequentially. On a total company basis, first quarter adjusted EBITDA was 95 million, down .8% from 100 million during the fourth quarter. Adjusted EBITDA margin for the first quarter was 34.8%, compared to .4% for the fourth quarter. Adjustments to total company EBITDA during the first quarter include non-cash charges of 4.4 million in stock-based compensation, and a $13.3 million loss related to the flexed-deal earn-out liability remeasurement. Depreciation and amortization expense for the first quarter was $15 million, which includes 4 million of amortization expense related to intangible assets recorded as part of purchase accounting. Total depreciation and amortization expense during the second quarter is expected to be approximately 15 million, 7 million of which is associated with our pressure control segment, and 8 million of which is associated with spoolable technologies. Income tax expense during the first quarter was approximately $13 million. During the first quarter, the public or Class A ownership of the company was 82%, barring further changes in our public ownership percentage. We expect an effective tax rate of approximately 22% for Q2 2024. Cap net income was 50 million in the first quarter versus 62 million during the fourth quarter. The decrease was largely driven by the increase in the remeasurement of the earn-out liability. Adjusted net income and earnings per share were 60 million and 75 cents per share, respectively during the first quarter, compared to 65 million and 81 cents per share in the fourth quarter. Adjusted net income for the first quarter was net of a 26% tax rate applied to our adjusted pre-tax income. We estimate that the tax rate for adjusted EPS will be 26% during the second quarter of 2024. During the first quarter, we paid a quarterly dividend of 12 cents per share, resulting in a cash outflow of approximately $10 million, including related distributions to members. The board has approved a quarterly dividend of 12 cents per share to be paid in June. We ended the quarter with a cash balance of $194 million, a sequential increase of approximately 60 million. Net cap ex was approximately seven million during the first quarter. Our full year 2024 cap ex outlook remains in the range of $45 to $55 million. In conclusion, the revenue-based flex deal earn-out payment is currently estimated to be approximately 34.1 million, which will be paid in the third quarter of this year. This additional consideration has been more than offset by the substantial outperformance of the business relative to our expectations. That covers the financial review, and I will now turn the call back over to Scott.

Thanks, Al. I'll now touch on our expectations for the second quarter of 2024, our reporting segment. During the second quarter, we expect pressure control revenue to be relatively flat versus the first quarter, despite our anticipation that the US land recount will be slightly down from the first quarter average levels in the period as the effects of rig releases in gas basins lead to lower activity. Adjusted EBITDA margins in our pressure control segment are expected to be essentially flat at 33 to 35% for the second quarter. This adjusted EBITDA guidance excludes approximately three million of stock-based comp expense within the segment. As mentioned previously, we anticipate introducing our latest generation wellhead to customers in the coming months, which should begin to more significantly impact operating results late this year, depending on our inventory position. Regarding our Mideast expansion plans, we are pursuing two viable options in the region, but as we are at a commercially sensitive stage, I do not plan to share further details with you at this time. We believe the current market for surface pressure control equipment in Saudi Arabia exceeds half a billion dollars annually, and we look forward to establishing a more material presence in this market in the coming years. We view the recent shift towards onshore, unconventional gas production to be a net positive to our potential business. In addition, we are currently finalizing the terms of a significant international order outside of the Mideast. Switching over to spruitable technology segment, we expect second quarter revenue to be slightly up from the first quarter with increased installation efficiency from better seasonal activity, sales to midstream customers, and continued international shipments, offsetting general industry trends. Our cross-selling initiatives continue to expand, and we're enjoying the benefits of enhanced relationships with our core customers. We expect adjusted EBITDA margins in this segment to be approximately 36 to 38% for the second quarter. Increased input costs are impacting margins in the first half of the year, although we've seen a moderation from the recent peak. Additionally, we began to utilize our pressure control, low-cost supply chain to source select components of our spruitable pipe product, which should enhance margins as the sourcing effort expands throughout 2024. Note that this margin guidance excludes approximately one million of stock-based comp in this segment. Adjusted corporate EBITDA is expected to be approximately a $4 million loss in Q2 flat from the first quarter, which excludes approximately 1.5 million of stock-based compensation. Although the macro backdrop provides little reason for optimism about 2024 US activity levels, we remain well-positioned at the market and plan to execute on several internal initiatives this year that should improve cash flows and returns. These initiatives include our low-cost supply chain, diversification strategy, the introduction of our latest generation wellhead, enhanced frac innovations, and the progression of our expansion into international markets. Additionally, I remain very pleased with the integration of our spruitable technologies business, which has recently received inquiries from several non-oil and gas customers for large international projects and increasing number of orders of our pipe from a major new midstream customer with a strong outlook for larger awards later this year. Further CCUS related inquiries are increasing and we are involved with a customer in hydrogen transmission testing. We believe these new applications, along with the opportunity to gain market share with our existing E&P customer base should lead to further above market growth in this segment. These recent inquiries and wins further demonstrate the differentiation in the business and reinforce our rationale for this acquisition. So with that, I'll turn it back over to the operator and we can begin Q&A. Operator.

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. One moment for questions. Our first question comes from Stephen Gingaro with Stiefel, you may proceed. Hi Stephen.

Good morning everybody.

Morning. Forgive my voice, this pollen is killing me right now.

You sound fine. So two things for me, what I'll start with is when we think about our model for you guys, we basically think about North America, right? And you've mentioned some international opportunities and growth, from your seat, when would you expect just from a large, bigger picture, international to start sort of really showing up on the income statement where we need to be thinking about sort of baking that into our forecast? Is it later this year, is it next year? How should we think about that?

Yeah, I think it would be next year for it to be a meaningful entry.

Okay, okay. And when, we're talking maybe more about sort of the size over time, but when we think about your views of the US land market, I mean, you mentioned kind of not a lot of optimism this year, do you see, obviously the second quarter we've heard maybe is a bit lower, but do you see a plateau here as you kind of get this gas activity coming off in oil, hopefully at least stabilizing, if not trending a little higher, but how do you think about US activity in the back half of this year? What do you think sort of the catalyst is to get it moving in the right direction?

Yeah, you know, I don't think I've changed my opinion about activity maybe hitting a trough in the 650s onshore to 670, I'm sorry, 550 to 575 range, but I think we'll hit that trough as we exit the summer. And so maybe that'll be a time for a plateau. Okay,

great, thanks for the call.

Thanks.

Thank you, and as a reminder to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone. And I'm not showing any further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the call back over to Scott Bender for any closing remarks.

All right, well, I thank you all very much. I know we must have had some conflicting earnings calls this morning, but I absolutely, we all appreciate your support of the company. I think that although not asked, I need to express my extreme gratitude to Steve Padlock for the job he's done at Spoolables, and I think our bright outlook for the expansion of that business. Anybody, have a good day everybody. Thanks for calling.

Thank you, this concludes the conference. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.