Good morning. Thank you for attending the Aspen Aerogels, Inc. Q4 2024 Financial Results Call. All lines will be muted during the presentation portion of the call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Neal Baranosky, Aspen's Senior Director, Head of Investor Relations and Corporate Strategy. Thank you. You may proceed, Mr. Baranosky.

Thank you, Ezra. Good morning, and thank you for joining us for the Aspen Aerogels fourth quarter 2024 financial results conference call. With us today are Don Young, President and CEO; and Ricardo Rodriguez, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. The press release announcing Aspen's financial results and business developments and the slide deck that will accompany our conversation today are available on the Investors section of Aspen's website, www.aerogel.com. During this call, we will refer to non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA. The reconciliations between GAAP and non-GAAP measures are included in the back of the slide presentation and earnings release. On today's call, management will make forward-looking statements about our expectations. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially. These risks and uncertainties include the factors identified in our filings with the SEC. Please review the disclaimer statements on Page 1 of the slide deck as the content of our call will be governed by this language. I'd also like to note that from time to time in connection with the vesting of restricted stock units and/or stock options issued under our long-term equity incentive program, we expect that our Section 16 officers will file Forms 4 to report the sale and/or withholding of shares in order to cover the payment of taxes and/or the exercise price of options. I also want to highlight a few of our near-term IR engagements. On Tuesday, February 25, management will be hosting virtual one-on-one investor meetings at the Oppenheimer 10th Annual Emerging Growth Conference. On Wednesday, February 26, management will be hosting virtual one-on-one investor meetings at the CG Sustainability Virtual Summit. And finally, on Monday, March 17, management will be hosting one-on-one meetings at the 37th Annual ROTH Conference in Dana Point, California. I'll now turn the call over to Don. Don?

Thanks, Neal. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for our Q4 2024 earnings call. My comments will focus on the recent quarter and full year performance, the status and expected impact of several key elements of our strategy and our view of the current environment. Ricardo will dig deeper into our 2024 financial performance and our strategy and will provide a first look at our 2025 plan. We look forward to your questions. We operated well in Q4 and for the full year 2024. The execution of the plan was driven by the strength of our teams throughout the company. Revenue of $453 million, adjusted EBITDA of $90 million and net income of $13 million were all milestones. We grew revenue by 90% in 2024, exceeded our long-term target of 35% gross margins and increased adjusted EBITDA from negative $23 million in 2023 to positive $90 million. Our PyroThin Thermal Barriers revenue increased from $7 million in 2021 to $56 million in 2022 to $110 million in 2023 and to $307 million in 2024. At the last earnings call, we announced a new OEM award to supply PyroThin Thermal Barriers to Mercedes-Benz. And on this call, we are pleased to announce a PyroThin Thermal Barriers Design Award from Volvo Truck, our second in the Commercial Vehicle segment, highlighting the significant opportunities in this space. A major Korean Battery Manufacturer is supplying the cells to Volvo Truck, and we expect start of production during the second half of 2026 and for sales to ramp in 2027. This award was our third in 2024 and our eighth overall. Our Energy Industrial business also had an outstanding 2024 and a significant fourth quarter. A key achievement was the productive transition to our External Manufacturing Facility or EMF, and the better matching…

Thank you, Don, and good morning, everyone. I'm happy to report another record-breaking quarter on behalf of our team, starting on Slide 3. We delivered $123.1 million of revenue in Q4, which translates into 46% growth year-over-year. This reflects an annual revenue run rate of over $490 million. Having our Q4 revenues exceed our annual revenues of 2021 is a testament to our team's ability to efficiently scale our capacity. Our annual revenues of $452.7 million reflects 90% year-over-year increase and slightly beat our most recently communicated expectations of $450 million for the year. Our Energy Industrial revenue set another quarterly record at $53.1 million, a 70% year-over-year increase and the near doubling of our supply constrained revenues in Q3. Most of the segment's product was supplied by our external manufacturing facility. Total 2024 revenues of $145.9 million reflects a 13% year-over-year increase and another all-time record that exceeded our most recently communicated guidance of $135 million for this segment in 2024. EV thermal barrier revenue of $70 million was up 32% year-over-year and down by 23% quarter-over-quarter, reflecting the point that we've been making for several quarters about produced parts requiring several weeks to make their way through our customers' value chains into produced vehicles. We clearly produced a lot of the parts that were used in Q4 vehicle production during Q3, and this vehicle production schedule had at least 10 fewer production days in Q3 due to various holidays. As vehicle inventory hit our customers' target levels, we started seeing OEMs revised production schedules downward after the U.S. presidential election, even if vehicle sales increased at the end of the quarter. More on this later. Nonetheless, revenues of $306.8 million in EV thermal barrier represents 179% year-over-year increase and then over 50% beat over our initial expectations for…

Thank you, Ricardo. Before we move to Q&A, I'd like to comment that while we may have an unsettled near-term environment, we believe that electrification through this decade will be a major driver for both our Thermal Barrier and Energy Industrial businesses. Our customers in these 2 businesses have vital safety, cost and performance goals and our products, both current and future, provide critical solutions to them. Going forward, we are confident that electric vehicles will be the choice of a growing number of car buyers and that energy and power generation will be important macroeconomic drivers, and we have an important role to play in both. We continue to invest in our strategy to leverage our aerogel technology platform into large dynamic markets. Our operational and financial performance in 2024 exceeded all expectations, and we believe we will continue to perform at a high level in the years to come. We are focused on profitable growth and believe that we are positioned to thrive and to win. Ezra, let's turn to Q&A, please.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from George Gianarikas with Canaccord Genuity. George, your line is open. Please go ahead.

So maybe given the change in business strategy, can you just help us sort of quantify and think about what the long-term financial profile/business model looks like? What sort of EBITDA margin can we expect? What sort of revenue capacity? What sort of free cash flow margin do you think the enterprise is capable of producing over time? Thank you.

Thanks, George. Yes, I mean, the margin targets remain unchanged. We want to do everything at 35% plus gross margins and to gear the company to deliver over 20% EBITDA margins. The supply strategy does not change that. And in fact, as you've seen in the energy business, we picked up a couple of points of margin, thanks through working with our external manufacturing supply. And so when we look at that for the EV thermal barrier business versus deploying an incremental $671 million of capital, it really is a no-brainer, right? We can more modularly build up the supply source for that. We would not have gotten awards last year and this year if customers were not okay with that. And everything that we've discussed previously about our revenue potential and the pipeline remains the same. It is just that rather than supplying it now with one very large capacity original project, which is what Plant II was, we are going to incrementally build the capacity beforehand. And Don and the team was actually in China here a couple of weeks ago looking at that capacity get built up. And it's just really encouraging to see how that will be there ready to supply all of this additional demand that we expect in as early as 2026 without requiring additional capital from us.

Thank you. Maybe as a follow-up, so is China, the jurisdiction in which you'll be building additional capacity for PyroThin? Or is it -- or are you exploring other geographies and how much --.

Initially, yes. Yes, initially in 2026 -- sorry, George, go forward.

So -- and these margin targets that you've talked about, those are inclusive of any tariffs, et cetera, in these other -- from China?

That's correct.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Our next question comes from Colin Rusch with Oppenheimer. Colin, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Thanks so much guys. With the lower fixed costs, can you just walk us through timing on how we should start thinking about that savings being realized? And what the nature is of it? Is that related to some of the scrap getting reduced in the manufacturing process? Or is there a process change that we should be thinking about in terms of the production? Or is it really just related to migrating some of the production into the contract manufacturing?

So the cost reductions that Don and I mentioned the roughly $8 million per quarter and $35 million that I mentioned, those are actually just structural costs. So we are reducing -- I mean, we already reduced in the first half of this quarter, several positions in the company, looking at overhead in the operations as well as our OpEx spend and external spend. We mentioned that there are basically $3 million of restructuring charges that we expect to impact us here in Q1, and those are reflected in the guidance. But then from Q2 onwards, that's when we can start expecting these $8 million of savings from the fixed cost base, not material costs in other parts of the P&L. This is -- I mean, we are in essence, bringing the fixed cost structure of the company back to the levels that they were in roughly Q4 of 2023. And obviously, as we pick up upside from GM here in hopefully the second half of this year or even in Q2, we think that -- that can yield several benefits. And again, our main focus with these actions is to protect the company's ability to generate a profit and generate cash flow.

That's super helpful. And then from a customer perspective, you guys have been out working with customers for a number of years now. I'm curious about not just with the pricing dynamic, but just in terms of the product development and integration into new vehicles, are you seeing any sort of acceleration in the sales cycle? Any slowdown? And any commentary around kind of previous expectations for ramp with some of the European OEMs and timing of those production schedules would be helpful.

Yes. We see acceleration in adoption interest but deceleration when it comes to ultimately the OEMs making the sourcing decision and launching these nameplates, right? With the Europeans, I think we all know what's going on at Northvolt. It's worth highlighting that our award with Audi and Scania was originally intended to be supplied with Northvolt cells. We're actually in the middle of validating the Plan B cell source for those programs. And just reiterating what I mentioned in my remarks, we do expect those guys to launch here towards the end of this year and in the first half of next year.

Great. Thanks so much guys.

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our next question is from Eric Stine with Craig-Hallum. Eric, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

So should we take it from your commentary, is it fair to say that you think that the GM inventory is something that largely normalizes in Q1? And then Ricardo in the remarks, you talked about looking at the progression from '23 to your original '24 outlook as a way to think about '25. Could you just be a little more specific? Are you saying take the original outlook you had for '24 and kind of take that progression and grow it from there? Just looking for some directional outlook, and I realize there are a lot of uncertainty. There's a lot of headwinds here, at least in the near term, but that would be helpful.

Yes. I mean the way we look at it is this way, regardless of what General Motors is saying around their production targets and how many vehicles they're going to wholesale this year, we estimate that there are about 83,000 units -- there were about 83,000 units sitting in inventory at the end of the year. And then -- I mean, we're dealing with the reality here, right? The production schedule is something that we've been -- we get for 40 weeks out. In the near term, it's pretty accurate, and we started to see that come down here in December and January. And when we look at the inventory levels, we can -- it's easier to understand why. When it comes to picking out the right level for the year, the reason why in my remarks, I point folks to looking at our original expectations for last year, which were basically of $200 million, so doubling our 2023 levels. Using that as a jumping off point for then trying to size out 2025 makes more sense versus using the outperformance of $100 million on top of the $200 million that we were originally expecting for last year. So I think that the number can still be higher than what we delivered last year if General Motors truly get to the 300,000 unit level. But just based on the demand for parts and this inventory bank of vehicles, we just don't see it in Q1. And in Q2, it will likely start ramping up again. But I mean, given the environment, given the $7,500 credit, all those incentives that were so strong prior to the election for these OEMs to just build, incentivize and clear out EVs and offer cheap leases are not as prevalent here in 2025 or as clear, right? And so while we -- I mean if GM gets to 300,000 vehicles plus more if we actually include the Honda and the Acura nameplates will be ecstatic, right? It will be a better year than last year. That's just not what we are seeing in Q1.

Got it. So to clarify, jumping off point, you’re just saying $200 million is a fair place to start and then make your judgment about how the remainder of the year plays out.

Correct. I mean, we doubled '23 to 2024, right? Then we almost doubled that again, right? And I think the growth rate for '25 could be somewhere in between where we would have ended up in 2024 with our original expectations and doubling, right?

Very, helpful. Thanks.

Thank you. Our next question is from Chip Moore with ROTH. Chip, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. I want to ask on Statesboro the capital you've deployed there, can you use some of the assets? How much capital is stranded and some of the equipment on the ground? What are your plans there?

Some of it, we are moving to Rhode Island to increase the throughput of that facility, particularly some post-processing equipment. And then the rest, as we mentioned in the press release and in our remarks, I do think there's a lot of value there, and we'll work to capitalize on it and there is a potential to send some of the equipment to the external manufacturing facility as well, which we'll be evaluating. But that's all happening now as we speak.

Got it. Ricardo. And for the sort of modular strategy and adding capacity as you need it, is there a thought on how quickly you can do that and stage that? Obviously, I would assume it was faster with external partners, but how do you think about that sort of staging?

Yes. I mean, again, going back to what we covered with George, in essence, I mean we had to find a supply source for 2026. If you recall, Plant II would not have been available until 2027. And so the facility that would supply this is being built right now as we speak. Don and the team was there in January. And the speed with which things get done there is really incredible. So the goal is to have this facility online, ready to supply in 2026.

Got it. And if I could sneak one last one in, back to capital and maybe getting some more from Statesboro. You mentioned organic and inorganic potential uses of capital. Just expand on that and then even return of capital, buyback or what are you thinking about there? Thanks.

Yes. I mean, I think we obviously want to see how the rest of the year plays out and even though we're playing it safe here in Q1, there is no denying to the fact that we’re sitting on $220 million of cash, right? And so we have several R&D efforts that we could lever up on. If you take this strategy of mission-critical materials that solve key problems where you can generate 35% gross margins, we do see several opportunities in that space. And I do think that as we work our way through the year, we’re going to figure out what the right amount of cash on the balance sheet is. And to what extent that there is – to whatever extent there’s some excess cash, we obviously need to see where the equity is at. I think at that point, we could go out and reduce the share count.

Thank you very much. Our next question is from Jeff Osborne with TD Cowen. Jeff, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Maybe just following up on a couple of other questions before. As it relates to the annualized capacity with moving the Georgia equipment to Rhode Island and also the EMF expansion that Don saw in China, can you just give us an update on what that annualized capacity will be in '26? And then adjacent to that or in relationship to that question, what is the process for qualifying Chinese-made PyroThin product with GM and others? Is that a requalification, rebidding, repricing process? Or do they not care where it's made?

They don't care where it's made. It's basically another PPAP for recertifying, and we're looking at adding that capacity increments of $150 million to $200 million of supply per year.

And what will Rhode Island be with the equipment movement?

Rhode Island could be closer to $600 million.

And then China is $200 million today and adding $150 million to $200 million more?

Correct. And then with literally no limit to that, right? So we could replicate that several times over within China or even outside of China.

Thanks again.

Our next question comes from David Anderson with Barclays. We're going to have to go through to the next question with Ryan Pfingst with B. Riley. Please go ahead.

Yeah, hi guys. Thanks for taking my question. For the Volvo commercial trucks program, could you give us an idea of CPV there? And just broadly, and you touched on it earlier, but do you see additional wins coming here in the near term? Or are OEMs maybe taking a wait-and-see approach as policy changes take hold?

Yes. On the CPV, I mean, it's comparable to our other commercial vehicle truck program. To give you an idea, our on a 70 to 90-kilowatt-hour prismatic battery, we would have roughly $300 of content. This -- I mean, some of these batteries are up in the 350, 300-plus kilowatt-hour size. And so the CPV opportunity is meaningful without going into a ton of detail on the specifics of their configuration. To your question on just the broader environment, it's really interesting. China is at 50% EV penetration already. In North America and Europe, we continue to dabble in this 10% to 15% level. So you do start wondering, right, like is that progress? And so while there's a lot of noise and uncertainty here around the U.S. regulatory environment, it all really seems to be lower on the priority list relative to a bunch of other things that the new administration seems to be doing. And so really, time will tell. That's why I think if you look at what some of the OEMs are saying, they are all just sort of staying the course and putting out targets with an asterisks, right, basically saying, assuming the regulatory environment stays the same, this is what we're going to deliver. And I think that is probably the right thing to do given how drawn out any regulatory changes are, right? I mean the Trump administration basically ran out of time during their first term trying to amend the CAFE standards. So this stuff takes quite a while. And for companies to pivot too quickly, it's really expensive, and they can end up burning a lot of capital that they just don't pay back. Then in Europe, in Europe, we just don't see the requirements being relieved at all. And so with these OEMs being global and with our European customers, those guys are staying the course, still trying to build a certain level of EV mix. And 4 years within a 20-year transition of electrification is not a ton. And so I do see some OEMs staying the course, but being overly cautious as they deploy capital, right? The broader new vehicle market seems to be stressed as the Western OEMs lose China. And so that is having an effect on their CapEx budgets. And that I believe is ultimately why they are being a little slower to launch new vehicles, launch new nameplates and just source new technologies, including ours. So we are cautiously going into 2025, but this is stuff that we foresaw back in the beginning of 2023 when we retimed Plant II.

Got it. Appreciate the color.

Thank you very much. Our next question is from Tom Curran with Seaport Research Partners. Tom, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Just to clarify, Ricardo, try to put a fine point on it. Is what you're doing on the structural cost savings front, is that so that as we move through 2025 and head into 2026 and you have the incremental capacity coming online at the EMF in China and generating more production for [EVTB] (ph). Is that all in the associated tariffs to ensure that you can defend this hell or high water baseline for gross margin at 35%? Or is it expected to actually generate upside and take you to a new higher run rate for gross margin?

No, I don't think it's really tied to gross margin. It's actually more to protect the EBITDA and net income potential of the company. So it's -- quite a bit of it is below the gross margin line. And it's to protect Q1 and protect the rest of 2025. Some of it is also just general housekeeping, right? When you go through an expansion as the one that we did, you sit back and realize that some positions were critical and some you could do without. And we just thought that it'd be prudent to do that early on going into this year regardless of the demand and supply outcomes.

Tom, I would just reiterate or emphasize -- if I could just amplify one point. When we talked about the $8 million per quarter, we've completed those actions. I thought by your question, you might be suggesting that we are going to do it over the course of the year. These actions have been taken.

Got it. So it's all done. It's been fully implemented and you're 100% there as of Q2?

Exactly. That's correct.

Okay. Great. Helpful. And then shifting to EI. Don, could you share some color on how the LNG end market is shaping up for 2025? Do you expect it to account for at least 30% of EI's revenue in 2025? And then how we might see the mix between U.S. and international revenue evolve over 2025 for EI?

Yes. So the LNG business, Tom, we know is strong. It was strong in 2024. And I think in this new environment, it's poised to be yet even stronger. And I do think Cryogel, our cold processing materials are headed to 30%. They're not quite there yet. In terms of the split geographically, as I said in my comments, about 40% historically has been U.S. based. It's interesting some of our larger LNG projects are located here in the U.S. So it's possible that, that number can shift around. But our business in the other regions is strong as well. So I don't mean to suggest that, that will be a meaningful or dramatic change, I guess, I should say. But we're in good shape in this business. Of course, some uncertainty on the EV side. The flip side of that is some pretty clear tailwinds on the energy industrial side. And by the way, it is terrific to be able to be unconstrained in our capacity for that business here in 2025.

Understand. I appreciate you taking my question.

Thank you very much. We currently have no more questions. That marks the end of our Q&A session. I will now hand back over to Don for any closing remarks.

Thank you, Ezra. We appreciate your interest, as always, in Aspen Aerogels and look forward to reporting to you our first quarter results in early May. Be well. Have a good day. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Don, and thank you, Neal, and Ricardo for being our speakers today. Thank you, everyone, for joining. We appreciate your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.