Earnings Labs

Flexible Solutions International, Inc. (FSI)

Q4 2015 Earnings Call· Thu, Mar 31, 2016

$6.53

+0.31%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, and welcome to the Flexible Solutions International Fourth Quarter 2015 Financial Results Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Mr. Dan O'Brien. Please go ahead, Mr. O'Brien. Daniel O’Brien: Thank you, Val. Good morning. This is Dan O'Brien, CEO of Flexible Solutions. Safe harbor provision. The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides a safe harbor for forward-looking statements. Certain of the statements contained herein which are not historical facts are forward-looking statements with respect to events, the occurrence of which involve risks and uncertainties. These forward-looking statements may be impacted either positively or negatively by various factors. Information concerning potential factors that could affect the company is detailed from time-to-time in the company's reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. And welcome to the conference call for full year 2015. First, let me describe the business and review the changes that have occurred in the past year after which I will move on to the financials. The NanoChem division. This division makes polyaspartic acid, TPA, a biodegradable protein with many valuable uses. It now represents approximately 95% of revenue and is the sales and profit driver of our company. TPA is used in agriculture to increase crop yield. The chemical mechanism is the ability of TPA to maintain crystal embryos of fertilizer salts in their embryonic form in the soil for several months, which has the effect of making fertilizer easier for plants to absorb. Because the plant extends less energy getting its nutrients, it has more energy available to produce valuable crops. In North America, the wholesale market for this product is over $2 billion a year, and most crops are able to use TPA profitably. Crop prices currently available to growers are…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And we'll move to our first question from William Gregozeski from Greenridge Global.

William Gregozeski

Analyst

Dan, you mentioned that the ag sales were difficult with the lower crop prices. Are you seeing that farmers are more willing to use the products now because of the net positive with the lower crop prices or is it harder because of the lower crop prices? Daniel O’Brien: I would say that, anecdotally, whenever farmers are feeling that their top line revenue is pressured, their immediate response is to look for ways to use fewer inputs rather than look for ways to improve their outputs. We don't believe that's going to be an insurmountable problem for us, but whenever there's headwinds, what happens is instead of losing customers or losing growth, you do slow down your forward motion. So yes, growers have a psychological response to lower than what they feel ought to be normal pricing. But this is where we get into psychology fairly deeply. The other part of the farmer's headspace is that he has already forgotten that his diesel prices has dropped in half, and his margins have increased from a result in input costs there. So I think it's a lot of a wash, and it's up to us to do a good job of putting our profit opportunity forward and get them buying.

William Gregozeski

Analyst

Okay. Are you again seeing any potential interest from new distributors for any of the TPA products? Daniel O’Brien: Yes. There is interest throughout North America and several foreign countries. But I caution you that even after closing with the distributor, there is some trial-generation period because, no matter how many trials you have from the past, the first statement is that their soil is different and their water is different, and we can't really argue with that, but we do support them through at least a season of trials, which is after that season is when the significant sales start.

William Gregozeski

Analyst

Okay. On the oilfield side, are you seeing declines year-over-year because of the low prices? Daniel O’Brien: We're not. This just sort of speaks to geopolitical situations. You and I as business people would say, oh, price of oil is down, let's pump less oil and wait for it to get better. An awful lot of countries who rely on oil royalties and revenues to keep their people happy don't see it that way. They say well, I guess we better keep the fields open and flowing, and to keep the field open and flowing, if you've been using TPA, you really need to continue using TPA because there's a significant risk that if you start switching chemistries in the middle, you'll have something go wrong, and if it goes wrong, then the revenue stream stops. So no, we're not seeing -- we're not losing customers, but we're going to find it harder in this environment to get new ones.

William Gregozeski

Analyst

Okay. And then, last question is, you have 3 customers that make up 2/3 of your sales. Can you disclose what industries those customers are in? Daniel O’Brien: Oil, oil, agriculture. In that order.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] It appears that there are no further questions at this time. Mr. O'Brien, I'd like to turn the conference back to you for any additional or closing remarks. Daniel O’Brien: Thank you, Valerie, and thanks for a great call. Everyone who took the time to join us today, thank you very much. I look forward to speaking with many of you again in about 6 weeks' time when we will be able to talk about the first quarter and where we've gotten to by that time. Thanks a lot, and have a great day. Bye.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.