Innovative Solutions and Support, Inc. (NASDAQ:ISSC) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript
Innovative Solutions and Support, Inc. (NASDAQ:ISSC) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript December 21, 2023
Innovative Solutions and Support, Inc. isn’t one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here).
Operator: Welcome to the Innovative Solutions & Support Fourth Quarter and Year End Fiscal 2023 Financial Results Conference Call [Operator Instructions]. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Shahram Askarpour, CEO. Please go ahead.
Shahram Askarpour: Good morning. This is Shahram Askarpour, Chief Executive Officer of Innovative Solutions & Support. Welcome to our conference call to discuss our performance for the fourth quarter and full year fiscal 2023, current business conditions and outlook for the coming year. Joining me is Rell Winand, our CFO. Before we begin, I'd like Rell to provide cautionary statements about forward-looking information.
Rell Winand: Thank you, Shahram, and good morning, everyone. I would remind our listeners that certain statements made and matters discussed in the conference call today, including those about new products and operational and financial results for future periods contain forward-looking information. The forward-looking statements are subject to assumptions, risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially, either better or worse from those discussed. I specifically call our listeners' attention to our disclaimer regarding forward-looking statements at the end of the earnings release, which was included in a Form 8-K filed yesterday, which disclaimer, along with other public filings referred in it describes these assumptions, risks and uncertainties.
I also remind our listeners that plans and expectations we express speak only as of today's date and listeners should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. Now I'll turn the call back to Shahram.
Shahram Askarpour: Thank you, Rell. I will begin today with remarks on our performance in the fiscal fourth quarter and full year 2023, followed by comments on our long term growth plan and strategy, including the recent Honeywell products purchased and licensed. I will then turn the call back to Rell, who will take us through the financials. For the quarter, revenues were up 79% with net income increasing 63% from a year ago. Our fiscal year 2023 results were driven by continued organic growth in our production contracts and aftermarket sales, as well as the full quarter of Honeywell product sales, which we acquired at the end of June. As anticipated, the Honeywell products supported our strong margins, which were up sequentially from the third quarter and similar to a year ago.
We have also continued to generate strong cash flow, which contributed to reduce the borrowings used for our June acquisitions. This strong fourth quarter led to our fifth consecutive year of revenue growth, strong cash flow and another increase in the full year earnings. Our cash has also enabled further paydown of our borrowings in the current quarter despite the heavy onetime significant expenses incurred for auditing fees, legal expenses and cost of hiring and training new technical personnel in relation to the acquired products. We are fortunate to have a great relationship with our bank PNC, and they have been very supportive of our growth strategy. This week, we converted our $20 million term loan to a revolving line of credit that has enabled us to reduce our total debt from $20 million to less than $12 million.
It is noteworthy that we achieved the strong fourth quarter growth results despite the additional burdens under which we operated over the past year by amending our bylaws, negotiating the bank agreement, as well as facilitating and subsequently integrating a substantive acquisition. Despite these nonrecurring events, our team delivered financial performance that maintained our track record of steady profitable growth. Our goal now is to leverage this momentum to sustain this growth over both the near and longer term organically and through additional acquisitions. To that end, we have several plans in motion. Organically, we have plans to continue further product innovation and to sustain our high level of investment in research and development, especially in the area of cockpit automation that will ultimately lead to single pilot operations in large transport aircraft.
Our value proposition is to focus on products that continue to reduce pilot workload and improved safety. For instance, we plan to add capabilities to existing technologies, such as our flat panel displays to include automated emergency checklists and pilot alerting systems. We expect these technologies to serve as stepping stones that will help prepare the market for single pilot flights in air transport aircraft. We were recently awarded a development contract for the second generation of UMS for Pilatus. We expect that second generation technology will expand capabilities such as AI and improved versatility of the UMS. In the process, we anticipate this will create new platforms that can be adopted for other aircraft and eventually constitute another step along the path to autonomous flight.
In order to maintain our leadership in cargo retrofit business, we are in the process of adding new features to our products that we expect would allow increase in content and selling price, protecting this business' overall revenue in the face of any potential slowdowns in the cargo conversion market. Our autothrottle OEM business has continued to do well with Textron and we have continued to pursue additional platforms in the military and regional airline markets. Across the board, we are increasing our business development activities by working to grow our sales and marketing group, both domestically and internationally. The acquired Honeywell products have put us in front of a new set of buyers, which we believe our sales team can use that relationship to introduce them to our broader range of products.
Secondly, we plan to leverage acquired technologies to enhance and expand our product offerings. As an example, with the Honeywell product lines, we now have our own radios and adjacent technology capabilities we previously had to buy on the open market to integrate into our products. Acquisitions such as this are complementary to our existing product portfolio and will likely accelerate our ability to develop new technologies needed to eventually achieve autonomous flight. As a direct result of this acquisition, we believe that we are on pace to achieve annualized 40% top line growth once the Honeywell integration has been fully completed. Those integrations are making steady progress. As planned, this quarter and next we are moving inventory, installing the purchased equipment in our facility and training our employees.
Having anticipated some of the disruptions arising from the integration over the first and second quarters of FY 2024 and by customer requests, we accelerated some of the deliveries into the September 2023 quarter. Consequently, we expect results in the current quarter and the next to be weaker than the results of the Q4 2023. As the second part of our growth strategy, we continue to evaluate other acquisitions, opportunities and plan to execute additional complementary acquisitions as these opportunities arise. Thank you for your time and interest. We look forward to updating you in the upcoming quarters. Now I will turn the call over to Rell for a closer look at the numbers.
Rell Winand: Thank you, Shahram, and thank you all for joining today. I will review our financial results for the fourth quarter and full year of fiscal 2023. Revenue in the fourth quarter was up 79%, primarily due to the contribution from the sales of products purchased and licensed from Honeywell. As Shahram noted, revenues in the fourth quarter included the pull forward of Honeywell products, some of which would have otherwise been delivered in the first and second quarters of 2024. Work was accelerated in the September quarter to meet our delivery commitments before production that was anticipated to be slowed by the movements of inventory and equipment, as well as other [disruptions] that are typical when undertaking an integration of this size and complexity.
As a result, we expect results in the current quarter and next to be weaker than the results of the Q4 2023. Fourth quarter gross margin was 62%, a sequential improvement from the third quarter and unchanged from the same quarter a year ago. Margins reflect both the better absorption of our fixed overhead as a result of revenue growth as well as the impact of the margins of the Honeywell products. In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2023, research and development expense increased in absolute terms consistent with our commitment to innovation, but decreased relative to sales. As Shahram previously mentioned, we anticipate that research and development will continue to increase as the company works to develop new features and capabilities to our existing product base.
As the Honeywell product line integration continues into the spring, we expect expenses to remain somewhat above what we would see as our normalized run rate. The fourth quarter of fiscal 2023 increase in selling, general and administrative expenses reflect onetime costs associated with the Honeywell transaction, including the higher legal, accounting, professional fees and amortization expense. In addition, selling, general and administrative expense in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2022 was reduced by $1.2 million due to a gain on the sale of the company's PC-12 aircraft. Interest income was up in the quarter due to an increase in interest rates on our interest bearing cash deposits. Interest expense in the quarter reflects costs associated with the borrowings used to consummate the Honeywell transaction.
We expect interest expense to trend down, not only as interest rates are anticipated to fall, but also due to our continued pay down of these borrowings under the terms of revolver facility. Tax expense in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2023 was $0.7 million compared to $0.76 million in the fourth quarter of 2022. Fourth quarter net income was $2.6 million or $0.15 per share, up from $1.7 million or $0.09 per share in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2022. Backlog at September 30, 2023 was $13.5 million and new orders in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2023 were approximately $12.7 million. As always, quarterly orders can vary due to a number of factors that are not meant to provide an indicator of future revenues. Virtually, all the Honeywell revenues are from intra-quarter book and ship orders that are not included in the backlog.
Cash at September 30, 2023 was $3.1 million, up about $500,000 from June 30th. Over the three months ended September 30, 2023, we also reduced our term loan debt by $500,000. This week, the company converted its $20 million term loan into a $30 million revolving line of credit as it was combined with the company's $10 million revolving line of credit. Under the terms of the agreement, our cash balance will be swept daily against the outstanding revolver balance, thereby reducing interest expense. This revolving line of credit is expected to allow the company greater flexibility when the next acquisition opportunity presents itself. As previously noted, cash flow has continued to improve into the fiscal 2024 quarter, including the collection of a significant amount of receivables and the sale of the company's King Air aircraft for $2.3 million so that our current net debt position has been reduced to less than $12 million.
For the year, the company generated $2.1 million of cash flow from operations. With that, operator, we're ready for questions.
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