Q1 2024 Powell Industries Inc Earnings Call
Participants
Ryan Coleman; IR; Powell Industries Inc
Brett Cope; Chairman of the Board, President, and CEO; Powell Industries Inc
Michael Metcalf; CFO, EVP, Principal Accounting Officer, Treasurer, and Company Secretary; Powell Industries Inc
John Franzreb; Analyst; Sidoti & Company
Jon Braatz; Analyst; Kansas City Capital Associates
John Deysher; Analyst; Pinnacle
Presentation
Operator
Good morning. And welcome to the Powell Industries Fiscal First Quarter 2024 Results Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions to ask a question. You may press star, then one on your telephone keypad to withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Ryan Coleman, Alpha IR Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Ryan Coleman
Thank you, and good morning, everyone.
Thank you for joining us for Powell Industries conference call today to review fiscal year 2024 first quarter results. With me on the call are Brett Cope, Powell's Chairman and CEO, and Mike Metcalf, Powell's CFO.
There will be a replay of today's call and it will be made available via webcast by going to the Company's website.
Paulo IND. dot com or a telephonic replay will be available until February eighth. Information on how to access the replay was provided in yesterday's earnings release. Please note that information reported on this call speaks only as of today, January 31st, 2024.
And therefore, you are advised that any time-sensitive information may no longer be accurate at the time of replay listening or transcript reading this conference call includes certain statements, including statements related to the Company's expectations of its future operating results that may be considered forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Investors are cautioned that such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties and that actual future results may differ materially from those projected in these forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to competition and competitive pressures, sensitivity to general economic and industry conditions international, political and economic risks, availability and price of raw materials and execution of business strategies. For more information, please refer to the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission with that, I'll now turn the call over to Brooks.
Brett Cope
Thanks, Ryan, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to review Powell's fiscal 2024 first quarter results. I will make a few comments and then turn the call over to Mike for more financial commentary before we take your questions.
Powell delivered a strong start to our fiscal year as our first quarter was very much a continuation of the trends and strong results we saw in the prior quarter. Despite what is typically a seasonally slow period, we recorded $198 million of new orders, which was sequentially higher by 15% and in line with our expectations for a more normalized, but still strong cadence of project bookings, we also delivered revenue growth of 53% compared to the prior year as we saw broad strength across our petrochemical, oil and gas utility and commercial and other industrial sectors.
Mike will provide additional detail on our revenue growth by market sector in a moment.
Our strong revenue growth, coupled with maintaining our focus on both project execution and operational efficiency, are all working together to help deliver significantly improved profitability.
Our gross margin in the quarter was 24.8%, an improvement of 950 basis points compared to last year and the best first quarter gross margin performance since fiscal 2010. It also puts us comfortably on track to deliver on our previously communicated guidance of gross margin in the low 20s in fiscal 2024.
On the bottom line, we recorded net income of $24 million or $1.98 per diluted share, which was significantly above net income of $1.2 million or $0.1 per diluted share in the year-ago period. Our backlog remains very strong and was roughly unchanged sequentially at $1.3 billion. We continue to feel confident that our current backlog is comprised mainly of projects that speak to Paul's core competencies, capacity expansion of our Houston facility on the Gulf Coast is effectively completed. As we noted last quarter. This investment was planned last year to give us expanded fabrication and integration support for large power control rooms, especially for projects that support delivery and transport by water access. Also, as we noted last quarter, we expect to launch a more modest expansion of our Electrical Products factory based in Houston. This $11 million expansion will take approximately 18 months to complete the investment coincides with our development plans to release new products in support of our initiatives, helping facilitate future growth across the customers and markets we serve. We remain comfortable with our current staffing levels and are confident that we have the right people in place to meet the demanding project schedules of our current backlog Our teams also continued to successfully manage price fluctuations of key materials as well as the general availability of select engineered compounds. We continue to see encouraging levels of project activity within our oil, gas and petrochemical markets. As we have noted for some time, we believe the fundamentals of the US natural gas market remain favorable for our core markets and support many global economic and environmental goals over the long-term horizon. Recent and highly tied to actions by the current U.S. administration will most likely serve to slightly slow the pace of project schedules creating a bit more uncertainty around project timing over the near term. We also continue to see healthy activity across the other markets where we compete. We enjoyed solid contributions to the order book in our first quarter and our newer sector of commercial and other industrial sectors. We experienced solid activity during the quarter from markets such as data centers. I would also note increased uncertainty in lithium related projects in support of future electric vehicle demand and large-scale battery storage energy transition projects that have been in process for some time, including hydrogen, biofuels and carbon capture and sequestration continue to be active and will be larger contributors to our financial results in fiscal 2024 and 2025. Our near and medium term priorities remain unchanged.
Fiscal 2024, we are focused on growing our electrical automation platform, expanding our existing services franchise and diversifying and expanding our Electrical Products & Solutions portfolio in summary, our fiscal 2024 is off to a strong start with another quarter of nearly $200 million of booked orders and significantly improved profitability compared to the prior year. Our backlog remains strong with a healthy mix of projects that we believe will sustain our profitability through fiscal 2024 and into 2025. The markets we serve continues to exhibit encouraging levels of project activity and remain favorable, and we continue to monitor recent developments in select markets for their effect on the timing of future projects. We are highly confident that our financial position, commitment to execution and continued progress against our strategic initiatives will support another successful year for Pall.
With that, I'll turn the call over to Mike to walk us through more of our financial results in greater detail.
Michael Metcalf
Thank you, Brett, and good morning, everyone. 15. In the first quarter of fiscal 2024, we reported net revenue of $194 million compared to $127 million or 53% higher versus the same period in fiscal 2023. New orders booked in the first fiscal quarter of 2024 were $198 million, which was 7% lower than the same period one year ago. As the prior period included a large LNG project bookings as our continued effort on end-market diversification continues. New bookings in utilities as well as commercial and other industrial markets improved in the current quarter compared with the first quarter of fiscal 2023. Our book-to-bill ratio was 1.0 times in the current period, maintaining the fiscal first quarter ending backlog at $1.3 billion, $620 million higher versus one year ago and flat sequentially compared to the first quarter of fiscal 2023. Domestic revenues improved by 60% to $160 million, while international revenues were 28% higher, driven by increased project volume across our U.K. and Canadian facilities. In total, international revenues were up by $7 million to $34 million in the first fiscal quarter. From a market sector perspective versus the first quarter of fiscal 2023. Revenues across our industrial end markets maintained the positive momentum. Our petrochemical sector was higher by 26%, while oil and gas sector nearly doubled higher by 92%. Additionally, we experienced notable increases in both the utility and the commercial and other industrial market sectors increasing by 43% and 45%, respectively, reflecting our strategic focus on continued market diversification. The traction sector was lower by 39% as this market sector remains soft.
Gross profit increased by $29 million to $48 million in the first fiscal quarter versus the same period one year ago. Gross profit as a percentage of revenue increased by 950 basis points to 24.8% versus the same period a year ago. And roughly flat sequentially. Margin rates exiting the backlog were driven largely largely by favorable volume leverage, operational enhancements across most of our manufacturing facilities, as well as our strong project execution we do anticipate based on the quality of our backlog and the trend of the margin rates over the past two to three quarters that we will sustain our margin levels in the low to mid 20s throughout fiscal 2024.
Selling, general and administrative expenses were $20 million in the current period, higher by $3.5 million and increased variable performance-based compensation versus the same period one year. Sg&a as a percentage of revenue decreased by 280 basis points to 10.5% in the current fiscal quarter on the higher revenue base. In the first quarter of fiscal 2024, we reported net income of $24.1 million, generating $1.98 per diluted share compared to a net income of $1.2 million or $0.1 per diluted share in the first quarter of fiscal 2023.
During the first quarter of fiscal 2024, we generated $84 million of operating cash flow as we continue to build our cash balance, resulting from advanced project payments and working capital efficiencies. A portion of which will be allocated to fund the projects in the order book as we execute our back investments in property, plant and equipment totaled $1.2 million as we continue to target productivity enhancements across the business. At December 31st, 2023, we had cash and short-term investments of $355 million compared to $279 million at September 30th, 2023, and the company does not hold any debt. And finally, yesterday, we announced a 1% increase to our common stock dividend. This is the second consecutive year that the Board has taken this action, albeit modest. This increase demonstrates our prudent approach to improve shareholder returns while also ensuring sufficient liquidity to fund our growing working capital requirements and growth aspirations. Looking forward, we remain encouraged by the commercial activity across most of our end markets and are optimistic that this will continue throughout fiscal 2024. We do, however, recognize some of the recent uncertainties in the macro environment that could have a timing impact on near term market activity. Considering these factors and combined with both the quality and level of our backlog, we are well positioned to sustain the solid financial results that we delivered exiting fiscal 2023 and anticipate that this momentum will continue throughout fiscal 2024. At this point, we'll be happy to answer your questions.
Question and Answer Session
Operator
We will now begin the question and answer session to ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question. Please press star then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question is from John Franzreb with Sidoti & Company. Please go ahead.
John Franzreb
Good morning, guys. And congratulations on another great quarter on. I'd like to start with the gross margin profile in the first quarter. I'm curious, was there any unusual items in there that that kept it at an elevated level and seasonally weak period. Can you just talk about that? And and that's first and foremost.
Michael Metcalf
Yes, good morning, gents. This is Mike. I'll take that first, no, there were no unusual nonrecurring events in the quarter. We've been very pleased with the margin rates as we exited the last two to three quarters on the margin expansion that we've seen resulting from a lot of the work that the team has done over the last 18 to 24 months. It's really being driven by the volume and the operating leverage across the business. Really every division has got a very, very healthy backlog, and we're seeing really, really good project execution. So considering these variables, in addition to the size and quality of the backlog. We have more confidence that we'll be able to sustain these margin rates in the low- to mid-20s throughout the rest of the year. Fiscal year.
John Franzreb
It's excellent results on the gross margin profile, but why could you take a step up in the gross margin profile considering I assume you had some downtime in the in the fourth and the first quarter. Why couldn't improve beyond this threshold on a go-forward basis?
Michael Metcalf
Yes. But right now, we are from a capacity standpoint. We're like I said, every every division is quite quite loaded and we're seeing some very, very good volume leverage across most every division in the business. And given that volume leverage and our fixed base, we feel we feel pretty comfortable that that our range in the low 20s to mid 20s is probably a good range to target.
John Franzreb
In fact, gone up and down. You have a lot of cash on the books. Can you talk a little bit on about when you start to draw down on that cash for working capital needs? How should we think about that on a go-forward basis, how do you think about it on a go-forward basis?
Michael Metcalf
Sure, sure. As I mentioned in the last earnings call as well, we were at $279 million last quarter. And I did mention that though, we think it'll plateau sometime early to mid fiscal 2024. I think we're close to that level and as we begin to execute these much larger projects in the backlog will begin to, we'll begin to draw down that cash that that cash level probably mid midyear fiscal 2024,
John Franzreb
any sense of how much cash would be drawn down? Mike?
Michael Metcalf
Yes. Typically we earmark roughly 15% of the volume level that revenue level to working capital. So when you think about our backlog at $1.3 billion, roughly 15% of that is going to be deployed for working capital. That's roughly half of the half of the cash. So we would expect to see a lot of that cash drawdown from considering. No, no other new big projects coming coming into fill the tail. But a lot of that credit cash drawdown will occur in mid to late fiscal 24.
John Franzreb
Great. That's very helpful. And down, maybe, Brian, you could touch on this. Any thoughts about the administration's some freeze on new LNG plants? And does that impact you ESMO? Can you just maybe talk about that a bit?
Brett Cope
Yes. I mean, look, John, I got from my prepared comments and I wrestle a lot with what word to put in there. It is just for me personally and as the CEO, Paul, very ugly times and early Tea Leaves from our customers kind of the same thing. What do I really think it will? I mean, I've stopped projects. I don't think so, but it clearly is going to create a little bit more near-term uncertainty on timing, given what they've explained, how they you know, not much. I don't see much yet as to why they did what they did on looking at the other folks in this marketplace along with our clients. I think I was kind of scratching their head, but they did it. And I think we'll just work together to get our way through as quick as we can.
Ryan Coleman
I tend to agree on. Thanks for taking the questions guys on and come back into queue.
Michael Metcalf
Sure, sir.
Operator
The next question is from Jon Braatz with Kansas City Capital. Please go ahead.
Jon Braatz
Morning, Brian. Morning, Mike. Earning on the gross margin front, Mike, are you incurring or would you expect to incur as you go forward this year? Any overtime charges or expenses? In terms of labor?
Michael Metcalf
Yes, most of the divisions, given my comments on the utilization capacity levels across the business are incurring modest levels of OT as we as we execute the backlog.
Okay.
Jon Braatz
Okay. Well, what would you anticipate growing levels multi-zone going going forward throughout the year?
Michael Metcalf
No, no, there's a point of diminishing returns, and I think the operating teams are on that quick quite strongly. So no, I wouldn't I wouldn't anticipate that,
Jon Braatz
Brett, on the on the big picture front in terms of what the administration has done in terms, obviously, it's a political decision delaying these these LNG expansions and new new facilities. Is there any thought within the industry that may be the interim administration?
Not only will delay it, but they will I mix these projects for climate change reasons and so on.
Is there any consideration of that amongst the industry?
Brett Cope
I mean, it would be hard to say that that the more severe outcome isn't on the thoughts and minds of certainly the owners as they're trying to work their way through their project process and interacting with the government. I wouldn't say that's the case right now. I think everybody feels at least early on here that this is a slight slowdown and things will get back on track and it really doesn't seem to be a lot of practical reasons. And if anything, it seems to be again, not to be a political person here, but it certainly from where I sit hurts the states and the global outlook for what we're trying to do around the world. So I got to believe that's being echoed with the folks with much bigger positions in ethanol and myself and the interactions we've had with our clients and our and our engineering partners would seem to indicate that sort of the tenor at the moment.
Jon Braatz
Yes. Okay. Okay. Thank you, Brett.
Operator
The next question is from John Deysher with Pinnacle. Please go ahead.
John Deysher
Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. On the LNG front, I realize that we're not going to be canceling any existing projects or expansions. Can you give us an idea of the backlog? How much of that backlog is LNG related at this point on a percentage basis roughly
Brett Cope
thinking back to. So we started at the end of '22 sharing updates in the market. We never really quantify any any one job we really can't, John, but it is given the size and depth and breadth of what you've experienced with Paul over the years, it's about a quarter 30%-ish kind of in that range,
John Deysher
25% to 30%. Okay. Is LNG related that? That's helpful. Okay, good. From the other question is you talked about the CapEx expansion of $11 million. I think for one of the facilities. What is the CapEx budget for fiscal 24 at this point?
Michael Metcalf
Yes, John, this is Mike. Typically our normal burn rate CapEx is roughly $4 million to $5 million and as Brett mentioned, we are on we are initiating an expansion at one of our facilities here in Houston. That is roughly $10 million to $11 million.
Brett Cope
Yes, a little suspect that timing when that would actually report out, John, just because the permitting process like always is it's kind of like the other conversation today whenever you get the government involved in a lot of what else. So we're we're working through that now and we're excited by it. And and in the prospect of where we're at all the things we've shared in the calls last two years about getting getting new products out in the market and then with the R&D teams that have been delivering for us.
John Deysher
Okay. When do you expect that $11 million expansion to start? And how long would it take to complete?
Brett Cope
Yes, we started the process. We've got we've got a prime contractor on, I think, in the next three to four months, we'll probably be a little slower just as we kind of get through all the permits, and we'll use that time to hone in on our final construction costs. So I think in earnest sort of mid-late summer. And and once we get going the build, the build time is too long, quite frankly, is to while building over there today at the factory and team came up with a really nice plan called the backside of the building and put into really a nice space. And Andrew, we need for the future. So pretty excited to get going, but we'll have to get through that permitting process and then sometime mid fiscal next year, we ought to be up and going.
John Deysher
Okay. So it sounds like you won't break ground until late summer and probably a year or so to complete it,
Brett Cope
correct. I mean, I hope we can move the permitting process, if that's the case we are absolutely ready to move quicker. We just have to get through the first three.
John Deysher
Okay, fair enough. Thanks and good luck for
Operator
the next question is a follow-up from John Franzreb with Sidoti & Co. Please go ahead.
John Franzreb
Yes, guys. I was just curious about the tax rate a little bit lower than expected in the quarter on anything going on there that we should be cognizant of.
Michael Metcalf
Yes, John, there the lower effective tax rate relative to the US statutory rate was driven by a onetime favorable tax item relative to stock-based compensation. So just to explain that a little further, as you know, our stock values appreciated considerably throughout 2023. And as such, the vesting price is significantly higher than the original grant price that difference when they actually vested generated a favorable tax benefit, reducing the the ETR. percent. So that was a kind of a one-time one-time item there. It was a benefit from a tax perspective in 1Q.
John Franzreb
So how should the tax number look on a go-forward basis?
Michael Metcalf
Mike, we are still targeting 24% each year as we navigate through the remainder of the year.
John Franzreb
Greg and Brad, I've asked you this, I think two quarters ago and I want to revisit the question on what inning you put the order book and rate at most visited now, especially in light of how good the most recent quarter was at $198 million ?
Brett Cope
Yes. On the gas related comments I made in the prepared remarks, John, I still feel good. I mean, clearly, the uncertainty on timing has ticked up a little bit over the last few weeks. And so I anticipate it may draw out a little further. But when I look at the other things that are going on in the energy transition, are there still there's still a lot of activity are the uncertainties slowly increasing?
Yes, that was the reason for the comment also on the lithium side is commercial and industrial has been a great, a great new market as we kind of build new channels and build out Nepal since the post pandemic. But what we're just experiences, how quick it's been down as well. So there's still a lot of activity in that segment, but feel good about it in the near term. But yes, maybe slightly more uncertainty as we go out midterm.
John Franzreb
Okay. Fair enough.
Thank you, guys, for taking my follow-up.
Operator
This concludes the question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Brett Cope for any closing remarks.
Brett Cope
But Gary, as you've heard from Mike and me, we are pleased with our first quarter results and the momentum it provides through the balance of fiscal 2024 and to our incredible employees well done. I am fortunate and proud to be a part of a group of talented individuals with power can do on full display and demonstrating a laser focus on the success of our customers.
With that, thank you.
For joining us this morning. We appreciate your continued interest in Powell and look forward to updating everyone next quarter.
Operator
The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.
