Firan Technology Group Corporation

Good morning everyone. My name is Michelle and I will be your conference operator today. I would like to welcome everyone to the FTG Q1 2023 analyst call. All lines have been placed on mute. There will be a question and answer session following the call. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star 2. Please note that this call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Brad Bourne, President and Chief Executive Officer of Ferrand Technologies Group. Mr. Bourne, you may begin.

Thank you. Good morning. I'm Brad Bourne, President and CEO of Ferrand Technology Group Corporation, or FTG. Also on the call today is Jamie Crichton, our Chief Financial Officer. Before we go any further, I must caution you that this call may contain forward-looking statements. Such statements are based on the current expectations of management of the company and inherently involve numerous risks and uncertainties, known and unknown, including economic factors and the company's industry generally. The preceding list is not exhaustive of all possible factors. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, and actual events and results could differ materially from those expressed or implied by forward-looking statements made by the company. The listener is cautioned to consider these and other factors carefully when making decisions with respect to the company and not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The company does not undertake and has no specific intention to update any forward-looking statements, written or oral, that may be made from time to time by or on its behalf, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Okay, FTG is off to a great start in 2023. FTG is playing offense, and it shows in our results. During the quarter, the company invested in technology, invested in new equipment, grew the business organically, completed a sale lease back on the facility in Chatsworth, received U.S. government funding assistance, announced a new Ontario government funding contract in support of future investments, and worked towards closing our two previously announced acquisitions. Through all of these actions, FTG is both building our available cash and then strategically deploying it in ways that will drive increased shareholder returns for the future in both the near term and long term. Within the first quarter of 2023, FTG accomplished many goals that continue to improve the corporation and position it for the future, including we achieved first quarter bookings of $33 million, up 28% over Q1 2022. We achieved a 1.34 to 1 book to bill ratio for the quarter, resulting in a backlog of over $74 million. Our first quarter revenues of $24.6 million were up 20% over Q1 2022. as FTG ramps up production to meet customer demand. We achieved net earnings in Q1 23 of 4.1 million, which was up 4.8 million from Q1 2022. Earnings include 3.4 million of U.S. government support in Q1 compared to 0.3 million in Q1 2022. FTG has cash on the balance sheet of 24.3 million as of the end of Q1 2023 as compared to 15.7 million at the end of last year. We added 12 staff in our first quarter, including operations leadership staff, to help increase throughput. As previously announced in our fourth quarter, we entered into an agreement to acquire IMI Inc. in Haverhill, Massachusetts, north of Boston. The closing of the acquisition is subject to approval by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, CFIUS, and other customary closing conditions. FDG will acquire 100% of the common shares of IMI for cash consideration of approximately $2 million. The CFIUS review appears to be coming to a conclusion, and we expect to close the acquisition in our second quarter. During the quarter, we entered into a second agreement to acquire Holiday Circuits based in Minnetonka, Minnesota. This closing is also subject to approval by CFIUS and other customary closing conditions. FTG will acquire 100 percent of Holiday for cash consideration of approximately $24 million and contingent consideration of up to $6 million, subject to typical closing adjustments. It is expected that the CFIUS review on this acquisition will also be complete in Q2 2023. In Q1, FTG received $3.4 million in employee retention credits, or ERC, for its U.S. sites as they retain their staff through the pandemic. This funding improved our profitability in the quarter substantially. FTG received funding of an additional $0.6 million in the quarter for a total of $2.5 million received to date under the Canadian Aerospace Regional Recovery Initiative. This funding is an interest-free loan, which helps to strengthen our balance sheet. More recently, FTG was awarded up to $2.6 million of funding from the Ontario government under their Advanced Manufacturing and Innovation Competitiveness Program. This funding will be a loan against qualifying investments made by FTG during a 33-month period ending November 30, 2024. The loan will be non-interest bearing through November 30, 2024, with up to half a million forgivable upon achievement of specific objectives. Again, this program strengthens our balance sheet. Jamie will talk about our financial shortly, but I'd like to highlight what we are seeing in future market demand. Our markets are strong or rebounding nicely. Air travel continues to rebound. When looking at aircraft production rates, Airbus is working to ramp production and are targeting 65 planes per month by early 2024, a 50% increase. But not everything is rosy, as they actually reported an 11% decline in shipments in their first quarter compared to a year ago. They, like many, continue to have supply chain challenges. At Boeing, it plans to ramp their 737 production from its current rate of 27 aircraft per month to 47 per month by the end of 2023, a 70% increase. In their first quarter, their shipments were up 37% from Q1 last year due to significant improvements in deliveries for their 737 and 787 aircraft. Both Boeing and Airbus continue to book new orders faster than they are delivering aircraft. In the business jet market, Lombardier provided guidance for a 15% to 20% increase in 2023. All of this bodes well for us as we look to future demand in 2023 and beyond. I've also looked at results from key defense contractors, and Lockheed, the largest defense contractor, provided guidance for continued strong sales in 2023. Northrop Grumman provided guidance of 3% to 5% growth for this year. The defense market is government funded and appears well supported in the near term, due to increased geopolitical tensions across the globe. Looking at the longer term, Boeing's most recent 20-year forecast shows long-term industry growth, and it continued to show 40% of all new aircraft deliveries going to Asia, as has been the case in their recent forecast. The business jet market has already seen traffic recover. A recent business jet market forecast from Honeywell similarly predicts growth in this market in the coming years. The simulator market mirrors end market applications, but as we always remind everyone about this market, it is lumpy, so large year-to-year variations do occur. As we have said for many years, FTG's goal is to participate in all segments of the aerospace and defense markets as each moves through their independent business cycles. This continues to prove effective. Beyond all this, let me give you a quick update on some key metrics for FTG for Q1-23. As already noted, the leading indicator of our business is our bookings or new orders. First quarter bookings were up 28% and total backlog within a Q1 was 74 million, the highest it has ever been in the history of FTG. But I should mention that our bookings are somewhat inflated by the tight supply chain, causing customers to place orders out further than they have historically done. Sales were 24.6 million compared to 20.5 million in Q1 last year. This is a 20% increase. Within this, our aerospace business sales were up 29% or 2.3 million compared to Q1 last year. The increase was due to the rebound and recovery of our simulator business. On the circuit side of our business, sales were up 1.4 million or 10% on a year-over-year basis. The growth was driven by the double rebounding of commercial aerospace markets. Overall at FTG, our top five customers accounted for 58.7% of total revenue in the quarter. This compared to 58.2% last year. While the percentage is similar, the companies have changed. Back in the top five this year is a simulator company. Also interesting to note, of the top 10 customers, seven are customers shared between circuits and aerospace. We like to see the shared customers because it means we are maximizing our penetration of these customers by selling both cockpit products and circuit boards. within the top 10 to our simulator companies, again, due to the rebound in activity in this market. In Q1 23, 39.1% of our total revenues came from our aerospace business, compared to 35.3% last year. I'd like to turn the call over to Jamie, who will summarize our financial results for our first quarter, and afterwards, I will talk about some key priorities we are working on. Jamie?

Thanks, Brad, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to provide some additional detail on our financial performance for Q1 2023. On sales of 24.6 million, FTG achieved a gross margin of 9.8 million or 39.7% in Q1 2023 compared to 4.2 million or 20.7% on sales of 20.5 million in Q1 2022. Government assistance within gross margin in Q1 2023 included $2.9 million from the U.S. retention ERC program compared to Q1 2022, which included $0.3 million from the U.S. AMJP program. Excluding the impact of government assistance, gross profit in Q1 2023 was $6.9 million or 28% of sales as compared to $4 million or 19.5% in Q1 2022. This means that FTG's underlying gross margin is up by $2.9 million on incremental sales of $4.2 million. The increase in gross margin dollars is the result of increased operating leverage on higher sales volume, operational improvements, and a favorable FX impact. On an annualized basis, revenue per employee was $208,000 in Q1 2023 an increase of 15% over Q1 2022. The average exchange rate experienced in Q1 23 was $1.35 as compared to $1.27 in Q1 2022 for an increase of 8 cents for 6%. Including unfavorable mark to market adjustments on US dollar forwards, there was a net favorable impact to sales of approximately $1 million. Most of that $1 million favorable FX impact on sales would also flow down to a higher gross margin. From a geographical standpoint, combined sales into Europe, Asia, and other Americas increased to $5.1 million, which is up 64% from $3.1 million in Q1-22. FTG sales into these markets is for the commercial aerospace market. where strong demand is being driven by increased production rates at our end customers. SGN expense was 3.8 million, or 15.4% of sales in Q123, as compared to 3 million, or 14.8% of sales in the prior period. The increased expense level is due to 0.4 million of acquisition-related expenses and increased performance compensation costs, partially offset by $0.5 million in ERC funds credited to SG&A. R&D costs for Q123 was $1.3 million as compared to $1.4 million in the prior quarter. R&D efforts include product and process improvements at the circuit segment and efforts to develop and qualify products for future aerospace programs. Continued significant investment in R&D reflects a high level of new initiatives in place at FTG. During Q123, Canadian dollar depreciated by approximately 1% as compared to Q422. FTG's balance sheet includes assets and liabilities denominated in U.S. currency with a net balance of approximately 20.4 million U.S. at the end of Q1 as compared to 11.8 million U.S. at Q4 2022. Realized and unrealized foreign exchange gains in Q1 2023 were 0.2 million as compared to losses of 0.2 million in Q1 2022. We have been intentionally building up our U.S. dollar cash balance in preparation of closing the IMI and holiday acquisitions. EBITDA was $6.3 million for Q123 as compared to $1.3 million for Q122. Adjusted EBITDA, which for Q123 included adjustments for government assistance and acquisition costs, was $3.2 million or 13.0% of sales as compared to $1.1 million or 5.2% of sales in Q122. On a trailing 12-months basis, EBITDA was $13.6 million and adjusted EBITDA was $10.9 million for an adjusted EBITDA margin of 11.7% of trailing 12-month sales. For Q2 2022, FTG recorded earnings before income taxes of $4.9 million as compared to loss before income taxes of $0.4 million in Q1 2022. the Q123 income tax provision of 0.8 million or 16% of EBIT is lower than the approximate statutory rate of 25% as there was a partial recognition of foreign tax losses which had not previously been reported on our balance sheet. Our net cash position as of Q123 is 20.6 million as compared to net cash of 12.3 at Q4 2022. Free cash flow, defined as cash from operating and investing activities excluding acquisitions, lease liability payments, was $8.3 million for Q123, which includes $8.4 million of proceeds from the sale leaseback transaction for the aerospace task force facility and $3.4 million of cash from government assistance. Uses of cash included $1.1 million for CapEx during the quarter, and $4.3 million for working capital growth. The working capital growth is primarily inventory in support of near-term customer deliveries. As at quarter end, the company's primary sources of liquidity totaled $64.4 million, consisting of cash, accounts receivable, contract assets, and inventory. In addition, FTG has access to approximately $19 million U.S. in credit lines. The pending acquisitions of Holiday Inn IMI will be primarily funded by cash on hand aided by modest use of our credit facilities. Working capital at quarter end was 42.6 million as compared to 30.5 million as of the 22 year end. Accounts receivable days outstanding were 63 a quarter end compared to 64 prior year. Inventory returns were 2.6 at the quarter end as compared to 3.7 at the 22-year end, and accounts payable days outstanding were 102 at quarter end, as compared to 73 compared to the prior year end. With robust market conditions, FTG will focus on profitable and efficient operations, closing and integration of the holiday and IMI acquisitions, and managing our balance sheet. Our complete set of Q1 filings are now available on cedar.com. With that, I will turn things back to Brad.

Thanks, Jamie. Let me delve into some important items in the quarter and or for the future performance of FTG. We started the year strongly. Our sales ramped nicely. We continue to work hard to ramp further in support of the band we are seeing. This includes the need to continue to add staff. While hiring is tougher than what it used to be, we are making progress and we are being aggressive. We reported great cash flow in the quarter, building our cash balance by $8.6 million to $24.3 million. The increase is really driven by the sale of the Chatsworth building. The other cash we received, such as the U.S. ERC funding and the Canadian AIRI funding, totaled $4 million. It was used to fund increased working capital and a few other items in the quarter. We did see our inventories grow by $3.4 million in Q1. This is partly due to growth in the business, but also partly due to timing of programs, like our simulator orders, where we have high material costs in the early phases of the effort. Also in the quarter, we paid out profit sharing and annual bonuses to employees to recognize their efforts from last year, and we paid cash taxes of $1.3 million as a final payment for 2022 taxes, along with 2023 installments. Q1 is typically a quarter where we see reduced cash flow because of these items. Looking forward into Q2, the key items for us are the closing of the IMI and holiday acquisitions. The CFIUS process is through its investigative phase for both transactions. The government target for completion is April 24th for both deals, and this looks to be achievable right now. If this is the case, I hope to close both acquisitions at the end of April and include them in our May results, the last month of our Q2. We are working towards this plan between us and the management of the to-be-acquired companies. These transactions will mean we have deployed our cash on the balance sheet in a way that should benefit FTG and our shareholders in the coming months and years. In both cases, the acquisitions help fill out or expand our product offerings to our customers. IMI adds RRS circuit board offering, which we don't have today, and Holiday adds high technology offering within the U.S., which can be important for some military programs. Also, in both cases, We intend to operate the businesses in their current location with the current management teams, so our integration risks is low. We believe we can drive improved financial results at both by implementing some of our management processes, by leveraging our sales team and our customer relationships, and by leveraging our buying power to reduce material costs. We have also worked on an aggressive plan at Holiday to add staff as this was really hampering the recovery from the pandemic. We are seeing great results from this initiative, even before closing. All of these improvements won't happen overnight, but we have put plans in place and are beginning their implementation. Together, we expect these acquisitions will enable us to positively invest our cash on the balance sheet without the need for any significant amount of new debt. They should materially increase our EBITDA with no shareholder dilution and will continue to strengthen FTG's market position for aerospace and defense printed circuit boards. All of this should create value for shareholders. With the more complex geopolitical situation in China, I'm sure there are questions and concerns about our activities there. Last year, both our operations in China had their best sales year ever, both were profitable, and this continued into our first quarter of 2023. We have repatriated some of the profits or cash back to Canada during 2022, and we are working to repatriate more this year. By doing this, we don't have surplus cash stranded in China, and it reduces our exposure if things continue to deteriorate between China and the West. On a more positive note in China, the C9-1 development program achieved CAAC certification last year, and we are finally in a position to see production orders. We received our first production orders just after our Q1 ended, valued at about $2.8 million, all deliverable this year. It is nice to see the fruits of our 10 years of development effort on this program. This will benefit our Chinese operations going forward and will be less susceptible to geopolitical uncertainties. But notwithstanding this good news, we are being cautious about our operations in China as any further increase in tensions between China and other countries could impact our operations there in the future. We continue to see acquisition opportunities that could fit with either of our businesses. but our near-term priority is to close and integrate our IMI and holiday acquisitions. And finally, looking forward into the balance of 2023 and beyond, there are reasons for optimism. As already noted, the industry is recovering and ramping production. Our sales team has been doing a stellar job, and we are seeing and winning new programs and adding new customers. With a focus on operational excellence in all parts of FTG, our improved financial performance in Q1 this year, our announced acquisitions, we are confident we are back on a strong growth trajectory. This concludes our presentation. I thank you for your attention. I would now like to open the phones for any questions. Michelle.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press the star followed by the one on your touchtone phone. You will hear a three-tone prompt acknowledging your request. Should you wish to decline from the polling process, please press the star followed by the two. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. One moment, please, for your first question. Your first question comes from Nick Cochran of Acumen Capital. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Just a couple of questions for me. The first one, the city's approval, is that going as you had expected it to?

Yes, it is. The IMI one, they had a new process which was a short form application and we attempted that and in the end they said we could not follow that so we started again on the standard process. But other than that, they're going exactly according to the process I would expect. But that's why I would have expected IMI to close sooner but given that we had to refile the long form. They're ending up exactly on top of each other.

That's fair. And then in the MD&A, you called out production challenges at Chatsworth. Can you maybe quantify what the impact of those in the quarter was?

Yeah. I actually don't know specifically in Chatsworth, but I'll give you a slightly different metric, but this is what I'm tracking. At the end of the quarter, Across FTG, we had $7 to $8 million of past due orders. It's a big number. It's almost a month for us. It's certainly something we're not proud of and something that we're working on. But between the rampant demand from our customers and between some of the challenges, for instance, in aerospace chatsworth in terms of getting components in a timely manner, You know, I don't see that number coming down in the next quarter or two.

And how do you get caught up on the past two orders over the next couple quarters?

I guess, you know, there's many actions. You know, first one is we are quoting longer lead times and telling customers our lead times are longer. So if they need parts on a certain date, they need to order them sooner. That certainly drives our backlog up, as I mentioned earlier. We are adding staff, which is an important one. So, you know, we added some people. We added 12 people in Q1. Our plan was to add double that. But we continue to need to add staff to ramp our production. And those are the immediate ones. Beyond that, we have other actions to try to, as always, continue to streamline the business. But the short-term actions are those ones I just talked about.

Great. And then the last question for me, how much of the backlog would you expect to get through in the second quarter?

Yes. I knew you were going to ask that one. So, you know, of the 74, close to 40 is due in the quarter, but do not expect 40. I, you know, I truly think I'm going to come out of Q2 with an increased past due. You know, it could be 10 million or more.

Great. That's good, Kelly. Thanks for taking my questions.

Thank you.

Once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you do have a question, please press star 1 at this time. The next question comes from Paul Steep of Dunlop Capital. Please go ahead.

Good morning, Brad. Great quarter. Could you just talk a little bit about the bookings mix as to how that's gone? It looks to me like multi-year high in terms of the number, in terms of book-to-bill. talk about a little bit, maybe anything you've changed in the process, obviously the market's robust and then maybe anything that's changed in the composition of those bookings.

Right. Sure. Let me give that a shot. So I guess, first of all, you know, Our deliveries are impacted by our suppliers and their extended lead times. And so my customers are basically seeing the same thing with me. My lead times are pushed out. And so one item definitely driving the bookings up is extended lead times. And so because our lead time's extended, customers have to place orders further out. And that just adds to the overall backlog. And I'd say we're extending our lead times 30% to 100% from what they had been historically, depending on the product. So it's significant. The other item is, for sure, when we book our simulator orders, that comes in in big lumps. Now, it came in late last year, but that was a bump to our backlog, and that's still carried through because we have a lot of it still left to ship. Uh, so, you know, those sorts of large bookings, um, drive the backlog backlog up. And we also see some of that in our Aero Chatsworth business beyond just the simulator side of things, or maybe all our aerospace business, to be fair, um, where we get discrete orders of significant size that come in, you know, not as a smooth order, but as, as lumps again. And that has, you know, bumped our backlog up. And we're definitely seeing some, you know, significant big one-time orders or not one time, but, you know, big orders that might carry us through the year in our aerospace side of the business. And so, and then beyond that, truly just demand is up. So, you know, that is definitely also driving up our backlog. And maybe the last item, and it's, you know, something that we put a lot of effort into. We are... working hard to increase our prices across our customer base to offset some of the cost increases we're seeing in our supply chain and in our internal costs and you know obviously if we do bump prices that results in increased bookings i don't have an exact number on that overall but i'd say you know we are doing price increases from 10 to 70% depending on the specific product and the customer.

Great. And then maybe, Brad, just talk about once we get the acquisitions closed, particularly holiday, we talked about it last call in terms of, you know, it adds capacity, it helps you open up some new programs. How should we think about that timeframe to start to bid maybe a new expanded FTG into clients, I'm assuming? The military in particular have longer bid and lead times, but maybe give us some context there.

I can give you good news and bad news on that. The first one, and I'll put it on the bad news side, Holiday, like us, is struggling to keep up with their current demand. As I mentioned, we've actually already worked with them, and they've done a good job of really turning the corner in adding staff and ramping their production. That's encouraging, but until they get caught up, it's really tough to talk about near-term, adding customers, adding new programs into them. So that's step one. But on the flip side of that, and we've had meetings with many customers, and our customers are generally out looking for capacity. So lots of our customers are asking exactly what you just said, you know, when would holiday be available so where we could, you know, get them added into the mix and, you know, help their demand. So the demand is there. The timing to be able to take advantage of that is for sure, you know, not on the day of closing, but, you know, hopefully later this year.

It helps. Just one last quick follow-up on that. How perishable should we think about the demand for this? I'm assuming this isn't something that the parts are needed, the parts are needed, but just to make sure I haven't misunderstood something.

This is not discretionary demand. This is real demand and The end customer, whether it's the U.S. military or the commercial or transport guys, have real demand that is a long-term demand. So it's not something that goes away in weeks or months. Maybe it could slow down in years, but it's that sort of timeframe.

Very helpful. Thanks very much. Great quarter. Thank you.

Thank you. The next question comes from Brian McIntyre of TD Wealth. Please go ahead.

Hey, Brad. Can you hear me? Yes, sir. Thanks for taking the call. Can you expand on what you do for Boeing and Airbus in terms of the components and also sort of as a follow-on to the other questions about keeping up with what looks like very strong demand in their area?

Sure. You know, the really simple answer, you know, what do we do for Boeing and Airbus is we do printed circuit boards and we do cockpit products because that's what we do for everyone. But that's probably not helpful. You know, specifically, and I guess, let me start on the circuit board side. Other than one or two very specific defense programs, our circuit boards sell into the tier one avionics company that then go to a Boeing or Airbus. And so, you know, we sell into Honeywell Aerospace, GE Aviation, Collins Aerospace, and those types of companies. And then they sell avionics systems into Boeing. But, you know, we're pretty entrenched with those Tier 1 avionics guys, and so really as Boeing ramps throughput, it just flows through to us at the circuit board level. But the other one... And the same applies to Airbus. I'd say our penetration on Boeing is better than at Airbus just because of geography, but we definitely have product that goes into Airbus aircraft as well. On the cockpit product side, we are seeing growth in two ways. I guess, first of all, It's a few years ago now, but we had a long-term effort to actually get qualified to supply cockpit products into Boeing. And it was a long and painful process. That happened a few years ago. And we started to see some benefit from that late last year in terms of revenue. And we are seeing huge opportunities this year that do not show up in Q1, but will hopefully show up in the balance of the year. So as Boeing is ramping their production, they have lots of supply chain challenges and certainly the cockpit product area is one where they and their suppliers are looking to take advantage of what we can offer to help ramp production. That's one part of it. The other part is, and we haven't talked a lot about this, but we work hard, particularly in our Aerospace Toronto facility, to supply higher value-add assemblies into this market. And we have some activities ongoing right now. Again, we're not direct to Boeing or Airbus, but we are getting close to completion of some development efforts of some assemblies, which are definitely higher value, that would go into production later this year in support of their ramp in production. And I think that's a double benefit for us. It's new product going into a ramping market. and I think that's going to be pretty exciting for FTG by the end of this year.

Thanks very much. That's very helpful, and nothing further. Great. Thanks, Brian. Thank you.

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I will turn the call back to Brad Bourne for closing remarks.

Thank you. The replay of the call will be available until May 13, 2023. The numbers are listed on the press release. The replay will also be available on our website in a few days. I thank you all for your interest and participation. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude the conference call for today. We thank you for your participation and ask that you please disconnect your lines.