NVE Corporation (NVEC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Well, it's 3:30, so we can get started. Good afternoon, and thank you for attending our 2021 Virtual Annual Meeting of Shareholders. I'm Dan Baker, NVE's President and CEO. Due to the pandemic, this meeting is being held by telephone and electronic communication as described in our proxy statement and permitted under Minnesota business law and NVE's bylaws as amended. We're looking forward to returning to in-person annual meeting starting next year. On the call co-hosting this meeting with me are Curt Reynders our CFO, Secretary and Election Inspector; Terry Glarner, our Chairman; Pat Hollister, our Audit Committee Chair; Jim Bracke, first-time Director nominee; and Brittany Hancock, our Audit Manager with Boulay PLLP, our registered public accounting firm. Director Rich Kramp was unable to call in due to a scheduling conflict. All of us on the call will be able to answer your questions during the Q&A session. I have to note with sadness the passing of 2 members of the NVE family the past quarter, both of whom some of you will remember from in-person annual meetings. Kathryn Herman, who coordinated our annual meetings and greeted shareholders as they arrive, passed away unexpectedly in May. She worked here more than 23 years and handled a variety of accounting, investor relations and human resources functions. She is deeply missed. We also lost former Director, Robert H. Irish in May. Bob was a -- on our Board for 22 years from 1992 until he retired in 2014. In addition to serving on our Board, he was a consultant to the company until 2003. He was a dedicated director with a big personality. Our agenda this afternoon is a formal vote on the items in our proxy statement. I'll briefly review our strategy and summarize the video demonstrations associated with this meeting, and we'll open the call to questions. [Operator Instructions] I hereby call the formal meeting to order and call on Mr. Reynders to present proof of the due calling of this meeting. Well, Curt might have had some technical difficulties. But as of the June 11, 2021, which is the date of record for these -- for those shareholders eligible to vote. There were 4,000 -- 4,833,232 shares of common stock of the company outstanding and entitled to vote. We have an affidavit that the notice of this meeting and the proxy statement were mailed to the shareholders of record on June 21, 2021, and the report from Broadridge Financial Solutions that our materials or notice of Internet Availability for the materials were sent to our shareholders who held their shares in street name. A majority of the outstanding shares of common stock entitled to vote are required to constitute a quorum. Proxies indicating abstention from a vote and broker non-votes are counted toward determining whether there is a quorum. We have represented by proxy today, the holders of more than 50% of the shares outstanding on the record date. So we have a quorum, and I declare the meeting to be duly called and convened and confident to proceed to conduct business. The notice of this meeting and proxy statement are available on our website at nve.com/annualreports, if anyone would like to refer to them. As a matter of good corporate governance, each of our directors stands for election each year and we submit our auditors for ratification. So we have 3 items of formal business: first, to elect directors to serve until the next annual meeting; two, consider advisory approval of named executive officer compensation; and third, to ratify the selection of Boulay PLLP as our independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2022. The director nominees are designated and listed in the proxy statement. Gary Maharaj isn't standing for reelection. We thank him for his service as Director over the past 7 years. Gary will be concentrating on his day job of CEO of SurModics, Inc., and we wish him continued success. We are pleased to recommend James W. Bracke as the first-time nominee. He's been a Director of Image Sensing Systems, Inc. since 2009 and was the CEO of Lifecore Biomedical for 21 years. No other director candidates were nominated, and no shareholder proposals were submitted so there are no other items on the agenda. In accordance with Minnesota business law, the affirmative vote of a plurality of the voting power of common stock represented by proxy or by telephone and entitled to vote is required to approve proposal 1, that is director election. And the affirmative vote of a majority of the voting power is required to approve proposal 3, the ratification of our independent registered public accounting firm. Typically, our shareholders vote in advance via mail, Internet or telephone, but if anyone is voting now, please e-mail an image of your proxy and a government-issued form of photo identification to investor@nve.com. The image should be of a proxy from us with a mailing label indicating your shareholder number and the number of shares held if you are a shareholder of record or a form called The Legal Proxy you could have requested from Broadridge if you hold your shares in street name. We'll allow a few minutes if anyone is voting now. And in the meantime, I'll summarize the video demonstrations associated with this meeting. Hands-on product demos have been a popular feature of our in-person annual meetings. This year, instead, we have a playlist of demo videos on our YouTube channel at youtube.com/nvecorporation. We've done a number of demonstrations of sensors, couplers and of the Internet of Things. To highlight our innovations the past year, there's a playlist called 2021 Annual Meeting demonstrations on our YouTube channel, and there's a link on our Investor Events page. Another tradition is for us to use bad sports analogies when our meetings or during the Olympics as they are now. So we'll be doing that. By the way, congratulations to Minnesota's Suni Lee and Regan Smith on winning 3 medals each at this Olympics, Suni Lee in gymnastics and Regan Smith and swimming. There are 5 demonstration videos, so it's a modern pentathlon of demonstrations. The first demonstration shows how our smart sensors are used to control the rotation and power to an electric motor. According to one estimate, motors account for 45% of the global power consumption. This is one of the areas targeted by smart grids and the Internet of Things. Unlike the Olympics, we cooperate with other teams, and the second video shows our cooperation with our Swiss and German colleagues at Angst+Pfister to market our couplers as part of the onboard charging circuitry for electric vehicles. Electric vehicles are part of our long-term growth strategy. The third video shows our new and improved couplers with best-in-class Common-Mode Transient Immunity or CMTI. High CMTI allows the circuitry to switch faster, which for motors means higher efficiency or for electric cars means less kilowatt hours per hundred miles and faster charging. Just like Olympic cycling, the goal is to maximize speed and distance. The fourth video demonstrates a new high-sensitivity proximity sensor. We demonstrate the new parts' ability to detect small objects at the distance by detecting a nail in a sheetrock stud a fair distance away just as Olympic shooters can hit a tiny target. These features allow more productive robots in factories of the future. And finally, the fifth video demonstrates one of our new DC to DC converter products, which transmits power as well as data without a direct electrical connection. Power conversion solves a major challenge for the industrial Internet of Things, just as athletes train for more efficient power conversion. So in the past year, we leveraged our leadership in practical spintronics with a number of new products in our strategy to target the large, fast-growing Internet of Things and electric vehicle markets. So back to the voting. Curt, are you on? Well, we didn't receive any additional votes during the meeting, so our voting report shows the following results. For item 1, each director nominee received in their favor, at least 88% of the shares voted. On item 2, 99% of the shares voted to approve named executive officer compensation and on item 3, 99% of the shares voted were in favor of the ratification of the selection of Boulay PLLP as our independent registered public accounting firm. On the basis of the voting, I declare that each director nominee has been elected, named executive officer compensation has been approved, and the selection of our independent registered public accounting firm has been ratified. I do want to welcome Jim Bracke to our Board. We're confident he will be an excellent director. We will file a vote report in our current report on Form 8-K within 4 business days. With no other formal business, I declare the formal meeting adjourned, and we'll open the meeting to questions. [Operator Instructions] Are there any questions? Well, I heard a few background noises as we unmuted the line, but I didn't hear any questions. Anyone have any questions? If not, we can adjourn the meeting, and thanks to everyone who voted and attended this meeting by telephone. We'll speak with you again on our next earnings call in October. And as I said, we look forward to a face-to-face annual meeting next year. Thanks, everyone.