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Electrovaya Inc T.ELVA

Alternate Symbol(s):  ELVA

Electrovaya Inc. is a Canada-based lithium-ion battery technology and manufacturing company. The Company designs, develops and manufactures lithium-ion batteries and battery systems for energy storage, clean electric transportation, heavy duty electric vehicles and other specialized applications based on its Infinity Battery Technology Platform. The Company is focused on contributing to the prevention of climate change by supplying safe and long-lasting lithium-ion batteries. The Company is also developing next generation solid state battery technology at its Labs division. The Company has two operating sites in Canada and has a 52-acre site with approximately 135,000 square foot manufacturing facility in New York state. Its battery products are used across various applications, including material handling, e-mobility and energy storage.


TSX:ELVA - Post by User

Comment by Stockholder2008on May 16, 2024 9:41am
58 Views
Post# 36043143

RE:Wazup

RE:WazupNow is not the time to leave.  Take a look at the conference call Transcript.  Then look at the question and answer session to follow.

Operator

Greetings. Welcome to the Electrovaya Q2 2024 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions] Please note this conference is being recorded.

I will now turn the conference over to your host, John Gibson, CFO. You may begin.

John Gibson

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining today's call to discuss Electrovaya's Q2 2024 financial results. Today's call is being hosted by Dr. Raj Das Gupta, CEO of Electrovaya; and myself, John Gibson, CFO.

Today, Electrovaya issued a press release concerning its business highlights and financial results for the three and six month period ended March 31, 2024. If you would like a copy of the release, you can access it on our website. If you want to view our financial statements and management discussion and analysis, you can access those documents on SEDAR+ website at www.sedarplus.ca or on the SEC EDGAR website at sec.gov/EDGAR. 

As with previous calls, our comments today are subject to the normal provisions related to forward-looking information. We will provide information relating to our current views regarding market trends, including the size and potential for growth, and our competitive position within those target markets. Although, we believe that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, they do involve risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements.

Additional information about factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations, and about material factors or assumptions applied in making forward-looking statements may be found in the company's press release announcing its Q2 2024 results and the most recent annual information form and management discussion and analysis under risks and uncertainties, as well as in other public disclosure documents filed with the Canadian Securities Regulatory Authorities and the U.S. Security Regulatory Authorities. Also, please note that all numbers discussed on the call are in U.S. dollars, unless otherwise noted.

And now, I'd like to turn the call over to Raj.

Rajshekar DasGupta

Thank you, John, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our fiscal Q2 2024 call. Electrovaya continues to make great strides in strengthening our business, including a new supply agreement with Sumitomo Corporation Power & Mobility, or SCPM, improved non-dilutive working capital availability and progress with regards to technology development and cost optimizations. We delivered significant improvement in profitability and margins, despite less revenue growth than anticipated due to delays driven solely by our customers' delivery schedules shifting.
In our business, there can be uncertainty with respect to delivery dates of our battery systems as customer sites are often newly constructed and they are thus subject to potential delays. Broader foundations are now in place to ensure continued and stronger financial performance going forward. We continue to see increasing reception of our products from major Fortune 100 customers. We expect our revenue growth to accelerate in the second half of this fiscal year and into our next fiscal year.

While our revenue continued to demonstrate growth year-over-year, the most important area of financial progress is with our gross margins and overall profitability. Our gross margins increased to 35%, and this helped support growth in our adjusted EBITDA to about $1.5 million and an operating profit of $700,000. In the current era of high interest rates, profitability is paramount, and we are firmly focused on increasing our margins and ensuring our working capital is spent effectively.

During the quarter, we increased our working capital facility from $16 million to $22 million, with accordions in place to go to $26 million. This increase in working capital is important to support a growing business size. Currently, we are actively focused on reducing our cost of capital. And I believe with our strong trailing EBITDA figures and a good projection going forward, Electrovaya is in a position to have Tier 1 bank lending at more reasonable interest rates. We are actively in discussions with several banks and are optimistic about completing a refinancing this fiscal year.

I'd like to reflect on a few of the key milestones we achieved over the quarter and our vision going forward. First, we signed a key supply agreement with Sumitomo Corporation Power & Mobility, a 100% subsidiary of Sumitomo Corporation. This relationship has been growing over the past 12 months and together we have closed our first supply agreement with a leading Japanese construction equipment OEM. This OEM, who has major operations in both North America and Europe, will need volume deliveries of batteries to Japanese manufacturing sites starting in 2026

This is significant, as overall there have been very few, if any, North American battery companies with exports to Japan. It doesn't stop there. We are also in discussions with multiple other OEMs in the construction, equipment, and mining industries with Sumitomo. Our relationship with Sumitomo opens many doors from sales to finance support. And this relationship is going to be one of the central aspects of our strategy to expand our geographic and application diversification.

Secondly, our core market, the material handling industry, remains robust and is where we have the strongest set of end customers and OEM partners in the industry. Our backlog remains robust and growing despite economic and interest rate headwinds and we have a good line of sight with regards to demand for the foreseeable future, including into fiscal 2025. This strong base provides us with the platform for growth while enabling the company to spend a greater share of its resources on product development and research and development.

We have continued to make traction with existing Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 companies while also adding additional enterprises in a seed stage. Furthermore, Electrovaya continues with our OEM partners on next generation electrified platforms and other improvements in our offerings which we will expect to generate further increased interest in our products, especially in late fiscal 2025 and onwards. We've also worked with our partners to provide the longest warranty in the industry, a testament to the cycle life and quality of our battery systems.

This recent update will likely lead to higher levels of adoption, especially with regards to least battery systems. Our first Infinity Battery systems for material handling were deployed at Mondelez in 2017 and then at Walmart in 2018. And they are all still in operation, outlasting the vehicles they were originally installed in. These are some of the reasons Electrovaya can continue to generate high and growing margins from our products. We simply have the best product offering in the market.

Thirdly, our product development efforts are moving forward. Our high voltage battery systems launched last year are continuing to be tested with initial customers with positive feedback. Given our battery technology's ability to sustain higher levels of safety, cycle life, and overall performance than typical lithium-ion battery systems, we are seeing certain applications where we stand out even further, and thus can continue to garner the premium we have established in the material handling industry.

Some verticals that are particularly interesting are defense, mining, and hybrid applications, and we are engaged in multiple opportunities with each. Importantly, these are applications where we sell on performance and are not dependent on government incentives, which are unpredictable and subject to change. With the overall electrification rates for bus and truck applications have been less than anticipated, and this can be seen directly from the results of some of our peers who have targeted these markets, whether they be battery companies or electric vehicle companies.

One thing that we have continued to focus on are applications that sell on their own merit and are not dependent on government subsidies. The material handling market is a good example of this, and so are the other verticals I mentioned. Our customers purchase our products purely based on the return on investment that they obtain from operational and lifecycle cost efficiency. If a new subsidy becomes available or is canceled, we are immune. I believe this is especially important given the uncertainty of our political and geopolitical landscape.

Despite this, we remain confident that our technology will be utilized in the all-electric bus and truck markets. We have started two research and development programs with two major bus OEMs. In the hybrid truck market segment, we are very well-positioned and we are actively in discussions on some projects. Our solid-state battery research efforts have reached some key milestones, and we plan on announcing our progress at the company's Battery Technology event on June 12.

Finally, we continue to make progress towards securing financing for investment in our project to expand manufacturing and sell assembly in Jamestown, New York. As mentioned previously, we anticipate the financing will have a government backed component, which requires a higher level of due diligence on the part of the lenders. This is still progressing, but has been slower than we anticipated. That said, given improvements in supply chain and operations at our current facilities, we will not need the Jamestown output until 2026.

With that, I'd like to pass the call back to John Gibson, who will go into the financial results in more detail.

John Gibson

Thanks, Raj. To start, I'd like to explain the reason for filing of the quarter with a notice to reader. The reviewer work for Q2 is essentially complete. However, we discovered a currency translation difference relating to the 2022 equity balances. This obviously has a cascading effect through the equity opening balances. The adjustment has no impact on the income statement for the current year and is solely an opening balance issue. We expect to complete the analysis and the review shortly.

We continue the momentum from fiscal year 2023 and the December quarter into the first quarter, and that is emphasized by some of the significant improvements we have made. Revenue for Q2 was $10.7 million compared to a restated $8.5 million for Q2 fiscal 2023, an increase of 26% year-over-year. While this is not as high as we would have liked due to some products being pushed out of the quarter, we made substantial headway in terms of profitability, further emphasizing the operational transformation of the company in general.

Gross margins increased by 1,240 basis points to 34.8%, with a significant growth in the gross margin for battery systems. Importantly, our adjusted EBITDA grew by $1.7 million to a positive $1.5 million for the quarter, giving us an EBITDA percentage of 14%. This is impressive off a relatively low quarter revenue rate, and provides us confidence of continued improvement of EBITDA going forward.

As of the end of this quarter, our trailing 12 month EBITDA was $5.75 million, with an operating profit of $0.7 million compared to an operating loss of $0.6 million in the prior year. We expect to continue this trend throughout the rest of the fiscal year. Our overall net loss for the quarter was $0.8 million, a decrease of $0.5 million from the prior year. As you will see from the income statement, the finance cost had a substantial impact on this number. The company had positive cash flow provided from operating activities of $0.4 million compared to cash used in operating activities of $2.4 million in the prior year.

As of March 31, 2024, total debt was $18 million compared to $17.2 million in the prior year. The company continues to manage our cash conservatively. With the additional space we have in a revolving facility that Raj mentioned, we believe we have adequate liquidity to support our anticipated growth to fiscal year 2024 and beyond.

That concludes the financial review. I'd like to turn the call over to Raj for concluding remarks.

Rajshekar DasGupta

Thank you, John. Electrovaya continues to demonstrate a nose to the ground mentality, that has led us to providing continued non-dilutive growth with a focus on the bottom line. We recognize we are still operating with a high cost of capital and will remain focused on our profitability, which I believe has made the company compelling for most banks.

Our technology is truly exciting. While the material handling market remains our core market, I believe this is just the first innings as there are many applications where the Infinity Battery technology is an industry beater (ph). It just takes time and effort to ensure this is completed at the highest standard.

With regards to our revenue projections for the remainder of the fiscal year, we have decided to stand by our previous guidance of $65 million to $75 million. There are some risks of meeting this range. Approximately $20 million of this anticipated revenue is dependent on customers' new distribution center sites.

Any delays on the startups of these sites may lead to a proportion of revenue moving into the subsequent fiscal year. We expect to have further clarity on the firm delivery dates of these sites over the next several months. The annual revenue forecast takes into consideration revenue from already delivered orders. The company's current purchase order backlog, which is of May 13, 2024 is over $43 million.

In addition to anticipated new orders based on historical patterns and additional demand communicated to the company, but not yet provided as a purchase order. This guidance is subject to change and is made bearing unforeseen circumstances. We continue to see increasing demand for our products in fiscal 2025, and I expect that that year will represent a significant ramp up in deliveries, margins, and profitability.

Electrovaya is focused on continuing our great progress with regards to profitability and setting the company up for its long-term goal to be a globally dominant force for heavy duty lithium-ion batteries.

That concludes our remarks this evening. John and I would now be pleased to hold any questions-and-answers.

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