Fluence Corporation Limited (FLC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you all for standing by, and welcome to the Fluence Corporation Quarterly Business Update. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Tom Pokorsky, CEO and Managing Director. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, good evening, depending on where you are in the world, and thank you all for dialing in to hear our first half and second quarter update. I'm pleased to be here to fill you in on the accomplishments in the first half of the year. We are continuing to make progress on our strategic objectives. As noted in the business update, and you'll hear more from Francesco in detail, in the first half, the bookings and revenues are significantly higher than the first half of 2021. A particular interest to us is that 80% of the SPS revenues for Q2 are from areas outside of China, which was, in fact, one of our strategic goals for the year. Even with these increasing numbers, we are also continuing to manage expenses and become more efficient. I've traveled around and spent the last couple of months going to our business units to get a better feel for the businesses. I found that in addition to having extremely capable and talented employees, there are some additional improvements we can make to even reduce our fixed cost more than we already have. I believe we can also make some adjustments to our corporate structure to become even more efficient. And in fact, I will be meeting with the executive management team in August to work on this issue further. In China, we still continue to see headwinds due to COVID restrictions. But we aren't appearing to lose any work. It appears that the projects are simply being delayed. However, we're not sitting idle while this is happening. Our Southeast Asia team has been busy developing additional pipeline outside of China and other parts of Southeast Asia, and we are finding significant opportunities there. In addition, other parts of the world seem to be having a post-COVID bounce back where we're seeing projects that were put on hold during the pandemic now being released. The Ivory Coast project also continues to progress within budget and under the quality we planned. However, there is -- the euro-dollar exchange rate has affected the first half numbers, which Francesco will address. But of course, this is a translation issue and not a performance and has no cash impact. Finally, we're not just working on reducing overhead but looking to improve production costs globally. We have 2 teams currently working on developing lower-cost production facilities, and we'll also be reviewing our entire global supply chain procedures. Depending on the product, this effort will get us higher margins and become more competitive in the marketplace. I'm really looking forward to additional improvements we can make to this company. For now, I'll turn it over to Francesco, our CFO, for his comments and a bit more detail on the numbers. Francesco?

Thank you, Tom. In the second quarter of 2021 (sic) [ 2022 ], we had unaudited revenue from continuing operations of $25.7 million, up 9% on the same period of 2021. For the first half, the unaudited revenue from continued operations was $60.2 million, up 52% on the same period of prior year. Revenue from Smart Products Solutions are $10.9 million in the first half, tracking in line with our expectations. The weakening of the euro relative to the U.S. dollar during Q2 resulted in a reduction in reported revenue and profit for the Ivory Coast project. The negative effect of these exchange rate fluctuations, however, has no cash impact. We continue to focus on improving operating efficiency and prudently managing expenses while supporting the growth of the business. Our operating expenses were 21% of revenue during the first half of 2022 compared to 28% of revenue in the same period of 2021. Fluence continues to have a strong cash position with cash and cash equivalents of $31.8 million at the end of June 2022, up from $31.1 million at the end of Q1 2022. In addition, the company owed $17.8 million in short-term and long-term liquid investments that provide adequate operating results. Net cash used in operations in Q2 was approximately $6.8 million, and this was mainly due to payment to vendors of Ivory Coast project. Fluence had a contract backlog of $80 million at the end of June, of which $44.2 million related to Ivory Coast project and $29.4 million to Smart Product Solutions. The booked revenue and the backlog of orders give us confidence to achieve our guidance and deliver full year revenue of $144 million, Smart Products Solutions revenue of $45 million and to achieve $3 million of positive underlying EBITDA. I will now hand back the call to Tom. Tom?

Okay. Thank you, Francesco. Now we get into the questions that you have been sending in. And Francesco, I'm going to turn it right back to you because there are several questions right off the top on cash flow and cash burn. And I'd like to have you address those, if you would, please.

Yes. So I will. As we said in prior quarter, our cash flow is still ably independent on the cash flow cycle of the Ivory Coast project. And as you will remember, we made a significant -- we received a significant payment in Q4 at the very end of the year of 2021, for which we are making payment to vendors in the first half. So that has been driving our operating cash flow on the negative side. Going forward, we will continue to be dependent on the timing of Ivory Coast cash flow, payment and collection. Although as Smart Product Solutions recurring revenue grow that in terms of lumpiness should be reduced. Today, as I mentioned, between cash and cash equivalent and liquid investment, we have about $49 million, almost $50 million, and we think that, that is appropriate to support the plan of the company going forward.

Okay. Thank you, Francesco. I see there's a question here about the Caribbean. The question is the sale of wastewater treatment and reuse projects in the Caribbean and beyond, including resort. Residential communities and other areas has been mentioned for more than a year, why are we not seeing significant results? And can I shed some light on it? We have started with putting a team together in January to go after this work. We have built a significant pipeline up and are getting ready to be closing on some projects. So the answer to your question is, we are making progress. We are starting to see some traction, and I expect to see significant impacts very soon. Okay.

There was another question that just came in on the cash flow in relation to specific line item in the 4C. So in line 22D the $5 million positive on the cash flow from investing activity represent the divestment of some of those short-term liquid investments, some of which are related to collateral to support guarantees and bonds in relation to the Ivory Coast contract.

Okay. Thank you. I see there's also a question about China. The question is whether or not our forecast is contingent on the China restrictions easing. I can only tell you, to some extent, it is. We're hoping it will ease a bit between now and the end of the year. Shanghai is already open. Beijing is now shut down. But it's not 100% contingent on that, but there's partial in our estimates based on restrictions easing. Okay. There's a question about production improvements and which markets we are struggling to be a leading solution given advantage of our products. Well, clearly, we want to introduce and attack the North American market better than we have in the past. And I think the competitiveness of the MABR product, it would be real strong there. However, there are all kinds of rules in the U.S. market about U.S. production. And so to some extent, we have to improve our production capabilities in North America to fit into that area. So we're spending some time on that. And then we're just looking at other areas to improve cost of production.

So Tom, there is a question on the asset held for sale.

Yes.

I will take that. So you remember, we closed the sale of the Peru asset in -- at the beginning of the year. And right now, the asset held for sale are related to our Italian business for anaerobic digestion. We continue to report that business as an asset held for sale, therefore, is excluded from our profit and loss. The plan is to seek for a buyer. The process is ongoing, and there are no changes so far to what we presented to you and the market in the audited financials.

Okay. Well, if there's no further questions, I believe we can close out this discussion for the day, and thank you all for tuning in. But before we do, I'd like Francesco to just say a word.

Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Tom. Before ending the call, I want just to say that, as you know, this is my last quarterly call with Fluence. I'm grateful to Richard, Tom and the Board to have given me the opportunity to be part of the team that is Fluence, ready for growth in the distributed water treatment solutions. I also would like to thank all of you for your engagement in this call over the last 4 years and wish Fluence the very best.

Well, thank you for that, Francesco, and we will miss you. So if there's nothing else, we will close out this call for this quarter. Thank you again for dialing in.

Thank you.

That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect.