Earnings Labs

Comtech Telecommunications Corp. (CMTL)

Q3 2015 Earnings Call· Fri, Jun 5, 2015

$3.51

-7.63%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. And welcome to the Comtech Telecommunications Corp's Third Quarter Fiscal 2015 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded, Friday, June 05, 2015. I would now like to turn the conference over to Ms. Maria Salerno of Comtech Telecommunications. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Maria Salerno

Analyst

Thank you and good morning. Welcome to the Comtech Telecommunications Corp. conference call for the third quarter of fiscal year 2015. With us on the call this morning are Dr. Stanton D. Sloane, President and Chief Executive Officer of Comtech; and Michael Porcelain, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before we proceed, I need to remind you of the Company's Safe Harbor language. Certain information presented in this call will include, but not be limited to, information relating to the future performance and financial condition of the Company, the Company's plans, objectives and business outlook, and the plans, objectives and business outlook of the Company's management. The Company’s assumptions regarding such performance, business outlook and plans are forward-looking in nature and involve certain significant risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from such forward-looking information. Any forward-looking statements are qualified in their entirety by cautionary statements contained in the Company's Securities and Exchange Commission filings. I am pleased now to introduce the President and Chief Executive Officer of Comtech, Dr. Stanton Sloane. Dr. Sloane?

Stanton Sloane

Analyst

Thank you, Maria. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on the call. As announced yesterday afternoon we reported our third quarter results of $71.6 million in revenue. GAAP diluted earnings per share of $0.30 and adjusted EBITDA of $11.6 million. The third quarter results reflect the fact that many of our customers continue to face economic headwinds such as the impact of lower oil prices and the strong U.S. dollar. We do not anticipate meaningful improvements during our fourth quarter. Based on the Company’s year-to-date results and anticipated fourth quarter performance we now believe that revenues in fiscal 2015 will be in the range of $310 million to $314 million. GAAP diluted earnings per share are expected to range from a $1.38 to $1.54 and adjusted EBITDA is expected to be in the range of $52 million to $56 million. I continue to view certain current market conditions and short-term impediments on the road to long-term growth. We have already begun the process of positioning our company to better deal with the current business environments as well as to be able to take advantage of any improvement in market conditions when it occurs. Let me turn the call over to Mike now, who will provide an overview of our financial results and some additional comments on our business outlook. Afterwards, I will return and talk more specifically about each of our three business segments as well as provide you an update on my review of strategy and operations that I mentioned during my first conference call with you back in March. Mike?

Michael Porcelain

Analyst

Thanks, Stan, and good morning, everyone. Let me walk you through our Q3 results and as I do I will provide some comments as it relates to our updated fiscal 2015 business outlook. During Q3, we generated revenues of $71.6 million of which 37.5% were for the U.S. Government, 50.6% were for international customers with the remainder being for domestic, commercial customers. Net sales in our Telecom Transmission segment were $45.6 million in Q3 of fiscal 2015, as compared to the $61.2 million we achieved in Q3 of last year representing a decrease of 25.5%. This decrease reflects lower comparative net sales in both our satellite earth station and over-the-horizon microwave system product lines. Bookings in our satellite earth station product line during the third quarter of fiscal 2015 were nominally higher than the second quarter of fiscal 2015. At the same time sales of satellite earth station products were significantly lower during Q3 of fiscal 2015 as compared to both Q2 of fiscal 2015 and Q3 of fiscal 2014. Market conditions continue to be difficult and based on our year-to-date net sales and expected fourth quarter performance fiscal 2015 net sales for this product line are anticipated to be significantly lower than in fiscal 2014. Our second product line in our Telecom Transmission segment is our over-the-horizon microwave system product line. Here sales in Q3 of fiscal 2015 were also significantly lower than Q3 of last year. During Q3 of fiscal 2015, we continued our ongoing performance on our two large multi-year contracts that design and supply over-the-horizon microwave systems and equipment for use in a North African government’s communications network. Although both of these contracts are nearing completion we have multiple large project opportunities both with the U.S. Government and international customers for which we expect to receive…

Stanton Sloane

Analyst

Thanks Mike. Before I discuss our third business segments, I want to provide you with an update on my review of strategy and operations which was briefly discussed in my first conference call back in March. I continue to spend a great deal of time meeting with our management team our employees, our customers and believe that our products and technologies are second to none. I do believe we are on the right path to long-term growth. At the same time, we can continue to improve our current performance. In March, I initiated the assessment of our operations to determine what changes in our business approach or operations could help us better serve our customers and potentially reduced operating expenses. As a result, I’ve made some changes and will continue to consider others. First, in light of market conditions that have impacted our satellite earth station product line we have significantly reduce staffing to a level that we believe this commensurate with current business activity. Second, we have expanded and we expect to continue to expand our corporate marketing and business development function to enhance our focus on existing and untapped market opportunities. The benefit of this expansion will take sometime to produce results. But I do believe that the additional investment in this area will result in demonstrable returns down the road. Third, I’ve made some organizational changes to leverage our strong product portfolio. For instance as many of you know we have multiple legal subsidiaries each of which have traditionally marketed their products and services separately from each other. During the third quarter we formed legal joint venture consisting solely of our domestic subsidiaries which will allow us to propose our new opportunities including several large U.S. Government solicitations with the unified approach. During the quarter we submitted…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Mark Jordan from Noble Financial. Your line is open.

Mark Jordan

Analyst

Good morning gentlemen. Question on the Tropo sector couple. Will the MTTS product as I understand that you have a partner in that program, what percent of the content of MTTS is Comtech provided versus your partners?

Stanton Sloane

Analyst

Mark, to be honest with you I would have to refer you to the prime contractor because there is other elements to those programs that we have no inside on, so I really can’t answer it by providing chunk of the system, but not all the services and logistics and all the other stuff to go with it.

Mark Jordan

Analyst

Okay, and will the MTTS replace the track 170s or will they remain in the Army’s inventory to the longer term and remain an upgrade opportunity for you?

Stanton Sloane

Analyst

Well, again I’d have to refer you to the Army for what their plans are, but that is our from a technical point of view that’s what we believe make sense; the current system would replace the track 170.

Mark Jordan

Analyst

Okay, you mentioned foreign military sale opportunities with MTTS if you take a parallel I guess like the Harris Corp has been very successful selling their next generation radios into friendly countries you believe that there will be with the Army adopting MTTS is a mainstream communications methodology that should have a parallel opportunity to what Harris has done internationally?

Stanton Sloane

Analyst

So just I guess words are important, when you say mainstream obviously this is one piece of the communications architecture that consist a whole lot of other things, obviously Tropo is one element, but they have all sorts of other radios and communications systems. There are opportunities internationally are in addition to FMS we think there is opportunity for direct sale to other governments only military, but commercial sales overseas as well. So we are pursuing all of that at the moment we [indiscernible], but as I said we are hoping that some of those things will come to fruition in the near-term.

Mark Jordan

Analyst

Okay. Question for Mike relative to accounts receivable and inventory you mentioned some significant milestone I think in the tropo area. If you look at the balance sheet inventories and accounts receivables is up about $20 million versus the start of the fiscal year, is that the order of magnitude of accounts receivable and inventory that could convert to cash in the fourth quarter with certain milestone are hit?

Michael Porcelain

Analyst

Mark, I don’t know it would be that high, but it would certainly be in the $10 million to $15 million range and it will be depending on progress and exact timing of the buildings, but it should be north of $10 million.

Mark Jordan

Analyst

Okay. Thank you very much. End of Q&A

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And it appears we have no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the call back over to the company for closing remarks.

Stanton Sloane

Analyst

Thanks again for joining us today. We look forward to talking with you again in September. Have a great day.