First Solar, Inc. (FSLR) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the First Solar's 2022 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the call over to Mark Widmar, Chief Executive Officer of First Solar, Inc. Mr. Widmar, you may begin.

Thank you. I would like to welcome you to the 2022 Annual Meeting of Stockholders of First Solar, Inc. Today's virtual-only meeting is a live webcast. We believe in engaging with our stockholders. I hope that this virtual meeting will maximize the participant of stockholders regardless of their location. This technology enables us to reach a larger audience while also containing our costs. Thank you for taking the time to participate today. On behalf of the Board, I also wish to express thanks to those stockholders who have submitted their proxies in advance. Participating with me today are Alex Bradley, Chief Financial Officer; Jason Dymbort, General Counsel and Secretary; and John Koppin, Partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers. I will call your attention to the rules of conduct set forth for this meeting. These are made available to each stockholder in the meeting center. We ask participants to abide by these rules so that we can conduct an orderly meeting. If you need a copy of the annual report or the proxy statement, these links are also available online in the meeting center. To access the links, click on the broadcast button at the top of the screen to navigate back to the meeting center. Only registered stockholders are entitled to participate in the business of the meeting. The business to be conducted at the meeting is as follows: to elect 12 members of the Board of Directors to hold office until the next Annual Meeting of Stockholders or until their respective successors have been elected and qualified and to ratify the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as First Solar's independent registered public accounting firm for the year ending December 31, 2022. While we will be soliciting your questions throughout the meeting, feel free to pose a question at any time. [Operator Instructions] In accordance with the bylaws of the company, as appointed by the Chairman of the company's Board of Directors, I will act as Chair of this meeting. In accordance with the bylaws of the company, Jason Dymbort, the General Counsel and Secretary of the company, will act as secretary of the meeting. Christal Goldman of Computershare Trust Company, NA, the transfer agent for the company, has been appointed inspector of election for this meeting. She has taken her oath of office, which will be filed with the records for this meeting. I'll ask Mr. Dymbort to give secretary's report of the qualification of this meeting to proceed.

Thank you, Mark. The notice calling this meeting was mailed on April 14, 2022, to stockholders of record as of the close of business on March 31, 2022. And the company has received an affidavit of mailing from the company's transfer agent as to its mailing. The affidavit of mailing is available for inspection by any stockholder and shall be retained with the records of this meeting. Since April 15, 2022, the proxy statement, the form of proxy and the annual report to security holders have been available to stockholders on the company's website in accordance with the Securities and Exchange Commission's notice and access rules. In addition, the proxies and the certified list of stockholders are in the custody of the inspector of election. For more than 10 days prior to this meeting, the stockholders list was available for inspection by stockholders during normal business hours at our corporate headquarters located at 350 West Washington Street, Suite 600 in Tempe, Arizona. Also, the company's audited financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2021, are provided online. Pursuant to the bylaws of the company, the holders of the majority and total voting power of the outstanding capital stock of the company entitled to vote at a meeting of the stockholders present in person or represented by proxy constitute a quorum for the company's annual meeting. Based on the inspector of election's preliminary report on attendance and proxy share count, I have been advised by the inspector of election that a quorum is present at this meeting. When delivered, a copy of the inspector of election's report on attendance shall be retained with the records of this meeting. As notice of this meeting has been given in accordance with applicable law and there is a quorum present, all legal requirements for holding this meeting have been satisfied. Following the formal portion of this meeting, Mark and Alex will present an overview of the company's business and address questions that are submitted. Please note, this presentation and the ensuing question-and-answer session may include forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from management's current expectations. We encourage you to view the safe harbor statements contained in today's presentation for a more complete description.

Thank you, Jason. This meeting is lawfully convened and ready to transact business. The proxy statement that was made available to the stockholders in connection with the notice of this meeting set forth the matters to be submitted to a vote of the stockholders. At this time, if you have not voted or wish to change your vote, you may do so by clicking on the link provided online. Any stockholder who has already voted and does not want to change his or her vote need not take any further action. We now proceed to the matters to be voted on. The first item to be voted on in this election of directors to hold office until the next Annual Meeting of Stockholders or until their respective successors have been elected and qualified. The proxy statement lists the director nominees, all of whom other than Ms. Kro and Mr. Wright are currently serving as directors of the company. Each nominee has consented to act as a director for the ensuing year. The director nominees set forth in the proxy statement are: Michael Ahearn, Richard Chapman, Anita George, George Hambro, Molly Joseph, Craig Kennedy, Lisa Kro, William Post, Paul Stebbins, Michael Sweeney, Mark Widmar and Norman Wright. Are there any comments or questions concerning the election of the directors? Okay. The next item of business is the ratification of the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers as First Solar's independent registered public accounting firm for the year-end December 31, 2022. At this time, Mr. Koppin, a partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers, is in attendance and available to answer any questions and to make statements if he wishes. John, do you wish to make a statement?

No, thank you.

I will pause now to allow for any comments or questions concerning the ratification of the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers as the company's independent registered public accounting firm. [Voting]

Okay. I hereby declare the polls closed. The formal portion of this meeting is hereby concluded. The inspector of elections will now tabulate the votes, during which time Alex and I will present an overview of the company's business and answer any questions you may have. We will report the results of the voting before the close of the meeting. Okay. Turning to Slide 6. I want to highlight the strong market opportunity before us. As shown in the graph to the left, the amount of PV capacity installed globally is expected to double in the next 5 years. As shown on the graph to the right, PV, on an unsubsidized basis in many markets, is more competitive than other forms of fossil fuel generation. Accordingly, the market momentum for PV continues to build. And our Series 6 technology, product road map and R&D are differentiators which we believe will enable us to [ meet if we ] participate in this wave of demand for clean energy. Turning to Slide 7. We will continue to adapt our business model to remain competitive and differentiated in a constantly evolving market through our points of differentiation, which include a competitively advantaged CadTel thin-film module technology and a vertically integrated continuous manufacturing process. We have created a resilient business model that better enables us to manage through periods of growth and uncertainty. Overall, I'm pleased with our manufacturing execution, which stems from our proprietary technology, which enables us to produce a CadTel module within a single factory in a matter of hours. This vertically integrated manufacturing process provides us with end-to-end manufacturing control and supply chain transparency for our customers. By contrast, the largest PV module manufacturers globally produce crystalline silicon modules using a batch-based technology with multiple process steps. None of these manufacturers are vertically integrated and able to provide the various degrees of third-party sourcing of polysilicon, ingots, wafers and cells. As a result, production of a single crystalline silicon module requires each of these process steps several factories and can take multiple days. Turning to Slide 8. We continue to expand our capacity with 2 new factories under construction, which will produce our latest Series 7 product. Our third Perrysburg, Ohio plant is due to commence production in the middle of 2023, followed by our first factory in India by the end of 2023. Turning to Slide 9. We show how we deliver responsible solar today. Environmental, we are addressing environmental impact across the product life cycle by providing PV modules with the lowest environmental footprint, reducing our operational impacts by committing to go 100% renewable by 2028, the only PV manufacturer with in-house PV recycling capabilities. On a social basis, we are committed to providing a safe, diverse and inclusive workplace for all of our associates and ensuring we operate a responsible supply chain with 0 tolerance for forced labor. We do not source any module components from Xinjiang, China, which mitigates supply chain disruptions and human rights risk. On governance basis, we have been publicly reporting on our sustainability performance for a decade and became the first PV product to be listed in the EPEAT registry for sustainable electronics. EPEAT is a globally recognized and independently validated ecolabel, which reinforces our sustainability credentials. We also recently became a member of the Responsible Business Alliance, in an effort to strengthen our responsible sourcing program. Turning to Slide 10 and providing a little more detail on the environmental impacts of our responsible solar approach. Firstly, due to our resource-efficient manufacturing process, our thin-film modules have the lowest carbon and water footprints and fastest energy payback available in the market today. Secondly, we have over a decade of experience in operating high-value PV recycling facilities on a global scale and remain the only solar manufacturer to have global in-house recycling capabilities. This recycling process establishes a circular economy by recovering more than 90% of the semiconductor materials for reuse in new First Solar modules and 90% of the glass for use in new glass container products. Thirdly, our vertically integrated manufacturing process enhances our supply chain transparency and control over our end-to-end manufacturing process. I'll now turn the call over to Alex, who will discuss our 2020 and Q1 2021 financial performance.

Thanks, Mark. Turn to Slide 12. In 2021, operationally, despite a challenging manufacturing and sales freight environment and COVID-19-related impacts, we produced 7.9 gigawatts of modules; increased our efficiency with the top production bin of 465 watts; and announced and began construction on 2 new factories, our third factory in Ohio and our first in India. In addition, we reduced our cost per watt produced year-over-year by 6%. Commercially, we shipped 7.7 gigawatts of products and had a record bookings year with 17.5 gigawatts of net bookings. From a strategic standpoint, we continued our strategic realignment back to our core module manufacturing business by completing the sale of our U.S. project development and North America O&M businesses. And finally, financially, we had earnings per share of $4.38 and ended the year with $1.6 billion of net cash. On Slide 13, we continued the strong momentum into the first quarter of 2022, with year-to-date bookings as of the last earnings call of 16.7 gigawatts, bringing our contracted backlog as of that date to over 35 gigawatts. Our pipeline of future opportunities remains robust at over 50 gigawatts. And from a risk mitigation perspective, we've updated how we contract future volume to provide more gross margin visibility into the future. Operationally, we produced 2.1 gigawatts and shipped 1.7 gigawatts in Q1 and continued technology road map development on our Series 7 product, bifaciality and tenant structures. And finally, financially, we had a Q1 2022 loss of $0.41 per share, in line with our expectations and ended Q1 with net cash of $1.3 billion. And with that, Mark, I'll turn the call back over to you.

All right. Thank you, Alex. The floor is now for any questions you may have. [Operator Instructions] Are there any questions that any of the stockholders would like to ask at this time?

Mark, there have not been any questions submitted by stockholders.

Okay. If there are no further -- or any questions I should say or comments, I've been advised by the inspector of election that the tallies are now available, and I will ask the secretary of the meeting to read them.

On the proposal regarding election of directors, the inspector advises that each nominee recommended by the Board of Directors has received the majority of the votes cast with respect to such candidate's election. Therefore, each of the 12 nominees has been duly elected to hold office until the next Annual Meeting of Stockholders or until their respective successors have been elected and qualified. On the proposal concerning the ratification of the appointment of First Solar's independent registered public accounting firm for the year ending December 31, 2022, the inspector advises that 82,164,781 shares or approximately 91.4% of the shares represented in voting on this proposal have voted for ratification of the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as the independent registered public accounting firm for the company and its consolidated subsidiaries for 2022. Mr. Chairman, the final results of the stockholder vote reflecting all proxies received through the close of the meeting and any votes cast during this meeting will be included in the final report of the inspector of election and will be published on a Form 8-K to be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and will be available upon request.

Okay. Thank you, Jason. The meeting is now concluded. I want to thank you all for attending today's meeting and for the support you have shown First Solar and helping us lead the world's sustainable energy future. Thank you.

This concludes the meeting. You may now disconnect, and have a pleasant day.