AAC Clyde Space AB (publ) ($AAC)

[Foreign Language] Luis, nice to see you again. How are things?

Nice to see you, Kaarlo. All good here in Glasgow. I hope things are also good in Stockholm.

Yes. Yes, they are. Luis, a busy past quarter and I guess, a busy quarter lying ahead of you. So no rest for the wicked, I take it. So please take it away.

Thank you very much. It has been quite a busy quarter. We have had big things, big discussions going on, negotiations, quite a lot to deliver. We have a big launch back in March. We launched 2 of our own satellites and 5 satellites for our customers. So it was a busy period during this last quarter. And if we go on to the next slide, we can, of course, see that the highlight was the signing of the Sterna contract. This was something we have been working on since last year, something that we have been really gearing up to. We prepared, we did a lot of preparatory work on this and was signed. And we now have an order backlog of about SEK 1.1 billion, largely due to this new contract. It's a very big contract for us. It's very important, not just for the company, but also for the European space sector. It's about improving the way we monitor and predict weather. And that is an extremely important thing for us over in Europe. And with these, of course, we secure a large share of our revenues. We -- one of the issues we had last time -- last year in 2025 was without Sterna, our revenues were down a bit. But now we have secured that, we have actually built up that backlog. And of course, we still have a bit more of these contracts to go there to sign. We still supply computers, power systems and other equipment to the prime contractor, OHB Sweden, so that's a negotiation that is ongoing right now. So this was a very good result for us in Sterna, and we're very thankful to both EUMETSAT and the European Space Agency and OHB Sweden for the trust they placed in us to do this. And this puts us in a position to accelerate our growth. But of course, -- and if we go on to the next slide, the results on quarter 1 because we were still waiting for the Sterna contract are subdued. They are not as good as we wanted. We also had one issue with the supply in our U.S. operation that removed a substantial amount of our net sales for the quarter and particularly on our EBITDA. Without that, we would have had a nice positive EBITDA. But those things are things that now when the contract signed for Sterna, we can get on with recognizing revenue for the next 3 quarters of the year. We have also largely solved our problem in the U.S. operations. So we are expecting to recover on quarter 2. So although the results were lower than what we wanted, nevertheless, that revenue didn't disappear. Those net sales didn't disappear. They just moved on to the next quarters. So we are very optimistic about the next few quarters. Just one note on EBITDA and particularly comparisons with last year. Last year, we had a few exceptional items in quarter 1, those did increase our EBITDA. But if you remove those in terms of the operational performance of the company, they are -- our EBITDA this year, although lower, is not -- doesn't compare so badly with last year. But this said, as I say, if we didn't have the issue with the supplier in the U.S., our EBITDA would have been much better this past quarter. But we expect to recover that on the next quarters. So if we go on to the next slide, -- in terms of -- we continue to build our data and services in particular. So now our hardware business through the Sterna contract is now doing well. But in terms of data and services, we launched 2 satellites, VIREON-1 and VIREON-2 in the last -- in one of the last Falcon 9 launches. Those satellites are going through commissioning. The next milestone for us is first images -- first light of the imager. We are taking -- as always, we are careful with making sure that the satellites are in good health, that all the software bugs are ironed out before we start imaging with the camera. We do not want to damage it or to do anything to it that we shouldn't. So we are always cautious, but the next big milestone of that project is first light on those cameras. And of course, in parallel, we'll continue to build VIREON-3 and VIREON-4 and also Sedna-3 and Sedna-4. So this will grow our maritime business that will reinforce our ability to deliver data and insights to our customers. And of course, we are now in the final discussions on INFLECION on the next phase in final phase of INFLECION that will carry us all the way to the end of that program. So this is something that we are now having final discussions. We have presented everything we needed to present, and we are just expecting -- waiting for the final decision from the European Space Agency, something that we expect to come through in this quarter, in the current quarter. So if we go on to the next slide, please. And of course, we -- as we said, we will do after Sterna contract signature, we presented a new guidance for the year. With the basis of Sterna contract, we are now in a better position to give good guidance. And this is guidance that is based already on a lot of these net sales, a lot of the revenue is already on our books, the majority -- the large majority of that. And that gives us a lot of confidence. We have nevertheless been fairly cautious and we have been, I would say, almost slightly pessimistic on our forecasts. But the idea there is that we are actually -- we give a more realistic forecast. So the full year guidance now stands at SEK 440 million to SEK 510 million for the year in terms of net sales on an EBITDA of around 10% and of course, with a positive operational cash flow. As I said, we were cautious on these numbers. We are cautious on the way we approached our planning for the rest of the year. We did several -- we did analysis using stress testing on our deliveries and everything. And so we give this guidance that we are fairly -- we are very comfortable with. So this is in summary of the quarter. And yes, we have plenty of work. We have a lot of work ahead of us. It's going to be an extremely busy quarter and year. And we have a very strong pipeline right now of opportunities also coming along, something that we are very happy to see. There is very large demand. There is very big demand for our products and for our satellites and also for our data and services, and that's great to see.

Thank you, Luis. And as you have been presenting here, there's been a couple of questions coming in from the live viewers, and I have some that I have been given ahead. So I'm going to start with one, which is more focusing on the margins and when it comes to the margins, the cost side here. So one question here is -- I would just read it, important for future margin scalability, how should we think about the cost structure in this case, related to the Sterna contracts? Will the projects primarily drive higher cost of goods sold? Or should we expect increased OpEx?

Operation -- so Sterna is a contract, it's a fixed price contract that is set up. So a lot of the supply chain is actually established by the time we start the contract. We have contracts with subcontractors already. So a lot of the margins, making good margin on products like those depends very much on our work, internal work, making sure that we actually deliver when we say we will deliver at the right cost, at the right -- agreed price and cost. Programs of this size usually have some margin for actually to absorb unexpected items and expected things that happen on the project. So they are designed to be quite cautious. They are built in a cautious manner, but this is a project that is very much defined at the beginning where the cost structure of the goods is defined at the beginning of the project. Others are different, of course. Other projects we do have more flexibility. There are other things where you have more variability on the cost structure on the supply chain. Satellite programs usually on the purely commercial terms tend to be like that, mostly because we don't necessarily go and buy and agree all the prices with all individual suppliers before. So there is a bit more variability in that. But we, of course, we try to make sure that -- anything that is critical, anything that we expect might rise in price, we buy in advance to reduce our exposure to that. And then again, as I say, it is more about the hours is the time that we spend. Data and service is a very different ball game. That is also about long-term contracts, long-term supply that's very much about recurring revenue. And there, OpEx becomes quite a big driver in terms of the cost -- our cost structure. So if we are -- because it's very much dependent on ground stations, we have to pay for those services. So it becomes more about negotiating continuously with our suppliers of services, people that supply our ground station services, people that supply our traffic control, our orbital management services. So we have to continuously do that. So it's -- they're different types of business. But ultimately, they're all based on the same technology on the same know-how. That's what we are good at. So we can usually control those items very well.

So no additional supply chain-related risk at this point?

No, we have -- as always, and we have been fairly open about some of the issues we have had with supply chain. It's always something that can happen. A supplier might not be able to deliver something. We tend to be very dependent on 1 or 2 suppliers on things. There are not that many options. So we do have -- and we have said that we have one program that has had some issues in our Gothenburg operation with the supplier. Those are being solved now. So tests have started actually or should be about to start on different options and solutions in tests in real life. They are now starting. So that we expect a resolution throughout over the next few months. And then we have an issue in our U.S. operation, a component that is supplied to us externally. We did some tests. We realized that the components were not -- the supplier had made some changes. The components were no longer meeting the spec of our product to our customers. So we had to suspend deliveries. And the supplier went and changed that component so that it now meets the targets. Tests are ongoing right now, should we expect this quarter to resolve that and start -- restart deliveries to our customers. So it was a big hit for us, but those are things that aren't unexpected. We manage a lot of that. So our internal controls, we have specialists in our organization in managing our suppliers, our supply chain. They will go and do audits. They will go and work with our suppliers when these problems happen. So we try to minimize that as much as possible. Occasions -- on some occasions, we can't. But we will try to have as much flexibility as possible and try to absorb those problems.

And now with, I have discussed a little bit about the cost base. So if we look at the revenue base here, what progress have you made in signing up new customers from VIREON here? As you mentioned, we now have launched the 2 satellites. Have we seen any progress? Or is it early days?

It's early days. So we are -- as I said, we are waiting for first light of those satellites. We then need to go through work with our potential customers. So we have a long list of them, and we have to work with them and they want to see the results. They want to see the data and then they'll make decisions based on that. But the interest has not gone down in any way. So we continue to have a long list of interested parties. We are working with them. We are doing some tests. We are doing some -- are doing some demonstration phases in some cases. So we are doing all of that. We have some customers already signed up, but other customers are waiting to see the results of the satellites, and we expect to start that very soon -- start those to show them the data and so they can evaluate that very soon.

And if we switch our eyes to INFLECION, could you comment about any customers' interest so far?

The INFLECION is a slightly more complex program in the sense that there are already customers. We already have a customer base on the ship tracking capability. INFLECION adds a whole new layer of capability. So for instance, we now have to work with customers on that new layer how to develop services. So for instance, we announced recently that we are doing a cooperative development agreement with the U.S. Coast Guard, where they are testing some of our VDS technology, and they are looking out to integrate that into their systems, their existing capabilities. We are doing that with another organization -- another national Coast Guard. Also, we have others interested. So what we are saying is we are building the customer base for when INFLECION goes online. So what these organizations are doing is evaluating the technology, evaluating the capabilities. So -- and this is about the extension. So as I say, we currently have a business that is growing on the data -- the ship tracking data. INFLECION will also cover that. But this is about the added capabilities, the extra capabilities that are of very high interest for organizations like Coast Guards and Navies that really want to access that. So we are working with them now. We are showing them. They are using our data -- our existing demonstration data. Our satellites in orbit, they are including that in their use cases in their future planning so that we are ready when INFLECION goes online. So that's -- this is a very important step right now for us.

So there will be perhaps not more customers, but there will be new orders from existing customers due to the INFLECION here.

Yes. We expect INFLECION is always based -- a large of it is based on existing customers in terms of ship tracking. But what we want is to extend that. We want to actually take it to the next level since we have a new technology, we have new capabilities on the satellite, we want to take it to the next level. And that's what we are working on right now.

And we will swap over from going from cost to revenue to revenue recognition. So there are expectations in the market of EPS-Sterna revenue recognition to kick in this coming quarter. Could you elaborate a little bit on that? And then I have a more granular question regarding recognition here. But if we start with the revenue from EPS-Sterna, should we watch that as a quarterly revenue? And when you recognize it, is that the same as you're showing it in the result?

Yes. So we recognize -- we started recognizing already revenue on EPS-Sterna. We'll recognize it from quarter 2 onwards. We have done quite a lot of work already beforehand in preparation. So particularly with our suppliers, we have done a lot of the detailed work already. So very quickly onwards, we start being able to actually recognize revenue. And we just need to sign the contract. We just need to do that and then sign all the contracts with our subcontractors, major subcontractors and suppliers. And from then onwards, we could actually start. So that's what we have done already. And as I said, we'll start seeing that coming in, in quarter 2 and we'll continue after that.

And then I'll swap up to the viewer question here, which is more granular. And I would just quote here, "how come you recognize the account receivables where you got a payment in April, but you did not recognize the revenues in Q1?" So whatever account receivable that would be?

So we get paid on contracts paid ahead of contracts. So we build our payment profiles to be cash flow positive. So of course, if we have a big project like Sterna coming in, we will actually receive down payments so that we can go and buy all the parts and all the components and all that. So -- but there is usually a separate -- certain amount of time between signing a contract and actually getting all that sorted and being able to actually have the invoices and everything in contracts with our suppliers. So -- and also receiving invoicing our customers. So there is always a certain separation there. In this case, in the specific case of Sterna because the signing of the contract is towards the end of quarter 1, any payments or any revenues that we can recognize will only start kicking in, in April, but the simple reason that there is a certain amount of time between one event and the other events. And the event that triggers payments and triggers contracts with customers or with subcontractors, there is some time between those. So it goes over a quarter. This is part of my reason why I say that judging us on quarters is always a difficult thing because we always have these events can -- something happens towards the end of the quarter, it might mean that actually revenue recognition payments will move on to next quarter.

Yes, exactly. And the fact that it hasn't been recognized the first quarter doesn't necessarily mean it won't be recognized in the second quarter.

Exactly.

And if we look at the customer conversions or the -- let's say, the time it will take from initial discussion to customer conversion. Could you just elaborate and give us a feel in the market for the pace or timeline when you convert an idea to a customer. And bear in mind that there are different customers for different services, but there is one AAC Clyde Space. So would you be able to -- would you dare to comment on this one?

Of course. And you touched exactly the hard point of this or the hard reality of this discussion is that we have very different customers. So if you look at one extreme, you've got EPS-Sterna. So discussions on these started probably 5, 6 years ago. You go through a demonstration phase with AWS, you then go through negotiations for the contract. So between idea and the contract, you are talking quite long times. On the satellites, we are usually seeing now between idea and the contract about a year. So between the first discussion with customers and actually a contract, we are seeing about 9 months to 12 months. Some are being a bit quicker, but we are -- there has been an acceleration over the last year or so. So people are more interested. I think particularly in Europe, with the new realities -- geo strategic realities, we are seeing quite a lot of demand for faster pace on this. And then on the products, we see there between first discussion with the customer and actually having a contract, it could be as short as a couple of months. So it depends very much on what you are dealing with. Contracts with data and services, that depends on the size of the contract. You can have a very quick thing -- quick signature if it is a small data supply. If, of course, you are talking about a multiyear, 5-year secured supply, that can take about 6 months to a year of negotiations and discussions. It depends on the customer. Some customers need data very urgently, so they are able to put a contract, as I say, probably not even months, probably a few weeks if we've got the data available. So it's a varied landscape when it comes to our -- how long it takes to secure a customer.

And are you still licensing avionics power supply to York Space Systems? A viewer question.

We sold the license. So we don't have any ongoing licensing agreements now with them, but we secured -- we sold licenses in the past, yes. But currently, no, there are no licenses -- active licenses.

And well, if we point a view to something else here, so far, all eyes and talk have been about Sterna, INFLECION and VIREON. But you have other projects and to me, they seem to sound the same, COMCUBE and COMCAT and so on. Should -- I mean, how important are those for us in the market?

So some of those are future programs with the European Space Agency and with partners. So we -- there are programs that are dependent on government financing that will be dependent on decisions that will be taken at a European level between different governments. So they are important for us in a sense. We want to do them. They are interesting projects, but we don't rely on them because they are large programs that might come in or not. There are others, and I believe the question might have been about CubeCAT that is about laser communications. So we currently have 2 of those terminals in orbit. We continue to work with -- particularly in our Dutch operation in our operation in the Netherlands. They are working on the technology. We continue to have that. It's a market -- a market for products. It's quite a competitive market right now. So we -- as always, we look at the market and see where we can actually add value. But it's a very -- it's one of our products -- it's one of our many products. And we always look at on some of them are very popular, and we sell quite a lot, others not so much. So we're always looking at that in terms of -- in terms of the market dynamic, we adapt our decisions and our strategy for the future depending on the market dynamic. So we will see how -- where the market is going, and we will then make decisions on that. But right now, we are in a very fast-paced market in the space industry. Things are changing a lot. There is a lot of growth everywhere. So we are looking at which better directions to go and what will bring us better value when it comes to products in the future. So that's an activity we are doing right now.

So to us in the market, it will be focused on Sterna, INFLECION and VIREON, and you will keep the other cards closer to your chest, and we will see it when it is time?

We have, of course, other programs and other things we are in discussions with customers. Some of them are quite important strategically for us. Those are quite important financially. So we are doing that, but those will announce when they come through and when they happen, we'll announce those.

Okay. And if we round off here with your revenue guidance, how much of your 2026 revenues would you say is already underpinned by backlog and contracted businesses?

I would say the large majority. I won't give you a specific number. It also depends on where you put us in that scale. It's a very -- it's a comfortable amount at this stage. I would say that we are comfortable with that right now. It's a very different picture, for instance, to last year. Last year, because of the impact of things like Sterna, we were very far when we made our forecast around this time of year or our guidance, we're very far from having that on the backlog. This year, we were in a very different position. So I would say the large majority. I won't give you a specific number, but the large majority of our is already on the books.

One can always try.

Yes.

All right. Thank you, Luis. Educational and interesting. And if there are any other questions out there, then feel free to contact the company. So Luis, thank you so much.

Thank you, Kaarlo. As always, a pleasure. Thank you very much.

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