Earnings Labs

Comtech Telecommunications Corp. (CMTL)

Q3 2025 Earnings Call· Mon, Jun 9, 2025

$3.51

-7.63%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

-18.11%

1 Week

-20.47%

1 Month

+12.99%

vs S&P

+9.00%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome to Comtech Telecommunications Corp. Conference Call for Third Quarter of Fiscal 2025. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Maria Ceriello, Senior Director of Financial Operations of Comtech. Please go ahead, Maria.

Maria Ceriello

Management

Thank you, operator, and thanks, everyone, for joining us today. I'm here with Ken Traub, Comtech's Chairman, President and CEO; Mike Bondi, CFO; Daniel Gizinski, President of Satellite and Space Communications business; and Jeff Robertson, President of the Terrestrial and Wireless Networks business. Before we get started, please note we have a detailed discussion of the quarter in the press release and 10-Q we issued this afternoon, which is available on our website as well as the SEC's website. 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 always involve 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 SEC filings. With that, I will turn it over to Ken. Ken?

Kenneth H. Traub

Management

Thank you, Maria, and good afternoon, everyone. I appreciate you taking the time to join us today. I'm going to provide some high- level comments on the business and this past quarter's results and then turn it over to Mike to go deeper into the financials. Daniel and Jeff will also be available for questions during the Q&A section. When I took over as CEO of Comtech earlier this year, I unveiled a transformation plan and committed to earn the trust of all of our stakeholders by being transparent and delivering on our promises. In this spirit, I would like to provide an update on my observations and our progress in executing the transformation plan. First, the update on my observations. Overall, while Comtech has faced significant challenges over the past few years, the company also has compelling opportunities that make it worthwhile to address these challenges so that we can capitalize on the upside. I will provide additional perspective on both the challenges and the opportunities ahead. Let's review the major challenges the company has been facing. We are, frankly, gratified that we have made significant progress in addressing many of these challenges, which include the following. First, this company has had a burdensome capital structure. Comtech has $168 million of senior secured debt with tight financial covenants, $65 million of subordinated debt and $200 million of preferred stock, plus additional rights and preferences from each of these securities. Second, Comtech has an extensive cost structure. Due to the capital structure, organizational design, inefficiencies and various legacy factors, the company's historical cost structure has been much too high to support the company's recent historical revenue run rate. Third, Comtech has had an extensive leadership turnover. I am the fifth CEO to lead Comtech in less than 4 years. Other…

Michael A. Bondi

Management

Thank you, Ken. Before getting into the detailed results, I would like to first summarize this past quarter for you. Sequentially, our consolidated GAAP results were better than our second quarter of fiscal 2025. We experienced a better mix of higher gross margin business, lowered our operating expenses, increased our EBITDA and achieved positive cash flows from operations. The T&W segment continues to perform well, and our Satellite and Space Communications segment reported improved bottom line results. While more work is needed, we are encouraged by another good quarter of meaningful progress. Now let's turn to the key metrics for this past quarter. Consolidated net sales were $126.8 million compared to $128.1 million a year ago and $126.6 million in Q2 of fiscal 2025. Relative to the prior year period, net sales this quarter in the T&W segment were higher, while the S&S segment was lower. Compared to last year, our T&W segment benefited from higher sales of our NG-911 services as we continue to migrate customers through their implementation phases on to recurring services. Compared to last year, net sales in our S&S segment reflect lower sales of our troposcatter solutions, offset in part by higher sales of our SATCOM solutions. As discussed on prior earnings calls, within our troposcatter product line, our legacy next-generation troposcatter contracts with the Marines and Army are winding down, as anticipated. Collectively, these 2 programs accounted for approximately $13 million of quarter-over-quarter reduction in net sales. Such reduction was substantially offset, though, by increased sales of VSAT equipment to the U.S. Army and increased sales of our satellite ground infrastructure solutions. Sequentially, T&W's net sales increased 12% to $59.2 million. Net sales in this segment for the third quarter of fiscal 2025 included over $3 million of incremental NG-911 services revenue due to…

Kenneth H. Traub

Management

Thank you, Mike. To summarize, first, we recognize Comtech has long-standing challenges, much of which we have already made strong progress in resolving. Second, Comtech has strong assets and compelling opportunities for growth and value creation. And third and finally, we have already made significant progress in executing on our transformation plan, which is already resulting in improved financial performance, enhanced accountability and improved pride in the future of Comtech. Operator, please open the call to questions.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And we'll take our first question from Greg Burns with Sidoti. And hearing none, we'll move to Mike Crawford with B. Riley.

Michael Roy Crawford

Analyst

In Satellite and Space, there's a number of next-generation digital back-end modems that are under development, including EDIM. And can you just walk through where you stand on development acceptance and potential full rate production for some of these most important platforms?

Kenneth H. Traub

Management

Thanks, Mike. We'll let Daniel take that question.

Daniel Gizinski

Analyst

Yes. Thanks for the question. I think a really important one. I'll try and briefly summarize some of the progress we've made on the next-generation digital platforms and where we are in that transition. As pointed out, we do have a number of products under development, one of which is with the U.S. Army under their EDIM program. We continue to make good progress in the development of that platform. There is still some ongoing work that we're expecting to see completed prior to moving into a joint certification phase with the U.S. Army. There's still a couple of indeterminate dates that we have based on inputs from subcontractors, but we are expecting to make significant progress in moving towards certification prior to the end of the calendar year. In terms of other products in the portfolio, we've made really strong progress in some of the variants and actually have early production units that have been deployed to a couple of key select customers for several of the products within that family.

Michael Roy Crawford

Analyst

Okay. And then just switching gears to the 911 business, are there any outstanding competitions that you're tracking or awards submitted that you're awaiting decision on for that business?

Kenneth H. Traub

Management

Thanks, Mike. We'll let Jeff handle that one.

Jeff Robertson

Analyst

Thanks for the question, Mike. The simple answer to your question is, yes, there's a number. The RFP process, obviously, with competition, we prefer not to comment on which ones we're in, but there's a number of compelling bids that we're waiting on.

Michael Roy Crawford

Analyst

Okay. And then just in terms of the current quarter that we're about halfway through, how would you characterize bookings so far in this quarter? And is there any thought on how the second half of the quarter might look like?

Kenneth H. Traub

Management

We're not going to -- we're not in the mode of giving guidance, Mike. And so at this stage in the quarter, we're really not going to comment on Q4.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And we'll move to Greg Burns with Sidoti.

Gregory John Burns

Analyst

The number of products that you discontinued on the satellite side of the business, how much revenue is going to be going away over the next -- and I guess, over what time frame?

Kenneth H. Traub

Management

Well, we don't expect it to be a material impact on revenue, but I'll let Daniel get into the specifics on what we cut and what we expect the impact to be.

Daniel Gizinski

Analyst

Absolutely. Thank you for the question. I think we discussed in the previous earnings calls that we expected the impact as a result of some of these discontinued products to be less than 10% of the Satellite and Space segment revenue. I think that still aligns with our expectations. And I think ultimately, we've seen, as we've discontinued a number of these products, it's allowed us to emphasize development and production of some of the newer later-generation products that come at a slightly higher margin. I think ultimately, no material changes expected as a result of -- above what's previously been discussed to revenue as a result of discontinuing those products.

Kenneth H. Traub

Management

Greg, this is consistent with a strategy of focus. we are deliberately eliminating product lines that are either obsolete or low margin and enabling us to focus better on those products that we can deliver to customers, better solutions at fair and appropriate margins. So this, we hope, will result in better service to customers, more satisfied customers and improved gross margins.

Gregory John Burns

Analyst

Okay. And in Terrestrial and Wireless, the revenue has been relatively flat there for a while, and you've mentioned some growth opportunities there. So what's the outlook in terms of maybe returning that segment to growth? And do you have any initiatives in place to improve the margins of that business?

Kenneth H. Traub

Management

Jeff, do you want to get into some more specifics there?

Jeff Robertson

Analyst

Yes. Sure, Greg. I think the first part of your question is growth, and we obviously don't comment on financial performance and growth. But I will tell you from a strategy perspective, we do see in our, what we call, CLT business, a growth opportunity in the international carrier markets, especially in 5G with some of the services we provide to carriers in North America. We're seeing a great move there from a growth perspective. We also see and are looking at launching some new products. You see in our announcement a new cloud-based call handling product that would enter us into a new segment of the market and open up other markets for us with that. So those are probably the main drivers for growth. On the margin part of your question, we do believe we are looking very, very hard at the architecture and the ways we deploy our Next Gen 911 networks, both historically and in the future for our new customers, and do believe we can do a better job on our margin performance there. Also, when deploying cloud-based products, it usually has a different margin profile, which I'm counting on to be positive, but we haven't necessarily deployed those yet. That's a new product.

Gregory John Burns

Analyst

Do you have a target for maybe where you think that the business can operate from maybe an EBITDA margin or operating margin perspective?

Jeff Robertson

Analyst

At this time, I probably wouldn't want to comment on that publicly. But yes, I would stay just by my comments, on the strategy.

Operator

Operator

And it does appear that there are no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn it back to the company for any additional or closing remarks.

Kenneth H. Traub

Management

We'd like to thank you for your continued interest and support of Comtech and look forward to reporting next quarter and beyond. Thank you all for your support and interest in Comtech.

Operator

Operator

This does conclude today's program. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at any time, and have a wonderful afternoon.