SRT Marine Systems plc (SRT) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everybody, and welcome to webcast from SRT. I'm Simon Tucker, I'm the CEO. Long time no see, I think it's November when we last did a live webcast. It appears that there's quite a few new people that are joining us today. And so let me start with the ground rules and what this is all about. So I'm not going to say anything that's going to make you inside. And also I have to protect the confidentiality of our customers because a lot of what we do is revolving around their national security, et cetera. So forgive me if I can't perhaps be as open as you would like. So let's start with framing where we are with our business because I know some of you know a lot about our business, I just want to get to the meat of the contracts and things. But a lot of you, I think, would like to hear about our business, and that is the purpose of this webcast. So the business has transformed itself in the last 5 years. And what we did was we took a strategic decision to buy into what we call the digitization of the marine domain. Traditionally, there were these analog systems, which would give you a dot in the map. And we've got used to an air traffic control, which is now a $9 billion a year market to actually be able to identify targets that are moving around, understand what they're doing, et cetera, and really then really get a situational awareness. And that trend has now started to come to the marine domain. And we saw this many years ago. And as a result of that, we started to invest in the technology and the products that enabled us to be where we are today, where we're offering a solution that enables countries to really gain situational awareness of their maritime domain awareness, and also for mariners, so people on boats themselves to understand their situational awareness, improve their navigation safety and efficiency. The drivers for all of this market and this digitization are pretty simple and pretty clear. Security, you read a lot about it in the press, what's going on in the South China Sea, Middle East, pretty much everywhere. Fisheries and environment, it's no longer just a sort of a side show. This is about fundamental food security, protection of our environment. Most of the world is covered by oceans, most of it unprotected, most of it unmonitored. And then, of course, navigation safety, nearly 80% of the world's economic trade goes by sea. And as a result of that, people looking at autonomous shipping, more efficiency, et cetera. And these key drivers of what are pushing authorities to drive this digitization, this long macro trend of moving from analog to digital systems that we've bought into. It's been a long path for many of you and for us, to get to this stage. But the benefit of that is we've accrued over a number of years, the technology and the products to be where we are today where we can deliver the systems that people want in short order. This isn't something that is easily developed. It is something that has taken a long time and a lot of investment for us to be where we are today, and that enables us to get into this very large market. And you've started to see last year where we grew our business by over 200% to GBP 30 million revenue and profitable at EBITDA level, just the starting of the reflection of those investments and the growth of the market. And where the business is today that either you are a shareholder or you're contemplating becoming a shareholder is we've got a great team. I happen to just be the voice of that team. We have a great team that is delivering the products and solutions -- we have developed market-leading products, which are established in the market, which are driven by our own in-house technology, which provide differentiated performance and functionality and we have the global distribution. So we can get to countries in Southeast Asia and Middle East and America on a daily basis. And all of those ingredients feed through into a rapidly growing market, driven by those trends that I've just discussed. And to me that those are the ingredients for a successful and sustainable business, which I believe now we've passed that Rubicon now in that rapidly growing phase. So I want to thank you, as shareholders, those that have financed us to get to this stage, all our staff here who work well beyond the legal minimum and things like this, frequently working on Saturdays and Sundays to support the business through to where we are today to where we have this exceptional opportunity ahead of us that is starting. So let's talk about the business. So we have 2 divisions. We have a Systems division, and we have a Transponders division. Our Systems division is about delivering what we call a maritime surveillance system. We call it the SRT-MDA system. It's modular, it's flexible, so we can customize that for coast guards. We can customize that for fisheries or critical infrastructure, and you can scale that depending on the size of the country, to spend on the size of their budget, they can build it over a period of time. Obviously, a lot of you are keen for me to talk about the contract that we just signed, GBP 142 million. Really, it should come as no surprise to anybody. And I think that's the point I want to make. This was in our pipeline 2 years ago. I do read the Board. So I see lots of giggles about the pipeline will it ever happen and things. We knew this was coming 2 years ago. We said this was coming 2 years ago. And so really, it wasn't really a surprise to us when that arrived. Obviously, very pleasing but not a surprise, and we had started preparations for that for some time. So let's talk about the opportunity for the Systems business. So as we sit today, our pipeline stands at over GBP 1 billion of new potential contract opportunities. That's nearly doubled in the last 12 months. Of those plus billion worth of opportunities, about GBP 380 million worth are at a mature stage. And what we mean by that is that they're either in their final stages of procurement. So that is the government is doing their processing of contracts and checks and stuff, which does take some time or we're at the stage where we're finalizing the actual project specifications with the customer. We also have GBP 160 million worth of forward contracts as we sit today, which underpin the forecast that our brokers have circulated to the market. And so over the next 2, 3 years, there's quite a lot of significant potential upside from -- on top of the GBP 160 million that we'll be delivering also from the GBP 380 million that are at a mature stage and maybe even some of the other GBP 900 million odd opportunities that were also progressing that are currently in our pipeline. And what we expect to see is that pipeline actually continue to grow in terms of value. At the same time, opportunities are coming out of that pipeline and then coming under contract and then to start to deliver. So let's talk about why we are being successful in our systems business. Many years ago, as I said earlier, we set out to develop an integrated maritime surveillance system. This is a demo system -- live demo system that I'm sitting in front over here. And what it does is it provides an authority with a truly fully integrated platform upon which they can run -- continuously monitor their marine domain in real time using a whole variety of sensors that are all fused onto the single platform. It is entirely autonomous. So it's a secure system, which is installed in country. They can network hundreds of operators across the country, all integrates together working together. And what are the unique selling points of all of this that are peculiar to our system. There's the integration. People talk about integration, but then they just use web service. That's not integration, integrating multiple different types of sensors in multiple different types of locations and distributing that data amongst a secure network is quite a feat, and that's something that we have managed to develop over quite a period of time. Once you've got all that data, you need to fuse that data. And just when you think about the amount of data that needs to handle, one radar will generate about 3 megabytes of data every 3 or 4 seconds. You've then got -- once you've got that data, you need to analyze that. So a big part of our business is about AI analytics. So the behavior of a target, does that characterize that it's smuggling weapons or people or drugs? Or is that fishing transshipment? Or is that a territorial infringement that needs to be defended against? So very heavy analytics that pluck out the bad guys, if you will, from the hundreds of thousands of targets that are milling around doing their own thing. And then, of course, for the operators to enable them to bring their expertise and their knowledge to the party by visualizing all of that data in an intelligent way so that they understand what's going on and therefore, deliver situational awareness. And then for the final part of the system is they can actually have integrated command and control. So once you spotted the bad guy, you got to do something about it. There's no point in saying, well, okay, there's some smuggling over there now what? You need to be able to dispatch the appropriate asset to that area, and we call that intelligence-led operations. And that's what our system entails. So all of those together pretty puts us in a unique position to deliver what these countries want as they realize the importance of the marine domain and they, therefore, want digital systems to provide them with that maritime intelligence. So where we are with our business on that. We now have several contracts underway. We have existing contracts in the Middle East, which are now entering their next phases. We've completed the first phase of that. We have existing contracts with fisheries in Southeast Asia, where we've now just coming to the end of that and completing that. And we have our recently signed contract, I'm allowed to say the country with our new partners, which has taken 3 years of hard work to land and we will start implementing that later this year. That contract has an implementation period of about 2 years, after which there is an 8 years of sustainability and ongoing data sales and supply into that system. So the overall contract is framed as 10 years. Most of the value of that is delivered in the first 2 years. We've been preparing for this. And so our delivery team, which specializes in implementing that has now already been mobilized and actually has been in country only last week, starting those partnership discussions with the customer. You go from -- before contract where you're really trying to sell and land the contract to where now we have formed this real partnership, how is -- how are we going to implement that system. So that's physically installing it and how we're actually going to also implement it in terms of them being able to use it to the maximum effect. This is a very complex system we call that ConOps. And so all of that comes together in the package, in the turnkey package that we deliver to that customer. And so we're underway with that. New stuff that's coming up out of that GBP 380 million worth of opportunities. Quite a lot of that is from existing customers, so follow-on contracts. And that's an important thing to understand about our business. People get -- and we do get hung up on a single contract. But actually, each time we sign a contract with a new customer, that is a partnership. That is a long term, and I would even suggest a multi-decade partnership with a customer, they're buying into a new operating platform, new operating procedures right the way across their business, their operation, all based around the SRT platform, the SRT logic, which has been customized for the way they want to operate. And so what we expect is that once they've installed their first intelligence system, they will then continue to then grow that system, so maybe they add more radar towers to improve their coverage, maybe they add more command and control centers, more operators. So it's a never-ending succession of repeat contracts. Implicit underneath all of that is the increasing amount of data that they want. So the systems have their own data, which is from coastal stations. Nothing matches the surveillance quality of a coastal tower fitted with radars and cameras or their own patrol vessel with cameras or with a drone that we have supplied, which is then feeding that data all back into the system. But obviously, they want wide area, and there was a plethora of satellite and other commercial drones and things who are trying to sell data. And so we pick different types of data from different satellites, fuse that and provide a customized data product to the customer. And we will start to see that recurring revenue starting to grow. And I stress that this is a real partnership a tight partnership with our customers. Each country has its own delivery team -- dedicated delivery team who forms that partnership with that customer. They're in their offices on a daily basis. So this isn't a sort of shoot and forget. This is something where we are working hand in hand with the customer over many, many years with these repeat contracts. So the Systems business has taken a long time to get here, but we have this very substantial system that we continue to develop a new functionalities, it's an ongoing process. Every 6 months, there's new functionality being introduced that into the system, new intelligence, et cetera, which we will up-sell into customers make available to them as they then upgrade their systems going forward. And we're right at the beginning of this. Most countries have nothing today. They perhaps rely on web delivered services and things just as an interim. And so this is right at the tip of the iceberg for this market. So our Systems division is in great stead. Lots of challenges installing these systems is not an easy thing. We've done it, so we have references. We know how to do it. We know what the problems are, and we have the right people in place to cope with that. And we're hiring more to cope with what we've got and what we know is coming as well. So then we have our Transceivers division, which last year grew at over 50%, GBP 12 million revenue. Those that have been around for some time will know that I've [ rebidded ] on about this GBP 10 million a year of revenue. So we've finally achieved that. And that is courtesy of Louise and the rest of the transceiver team, who've been working very hard. We see that growth will continue. We've shipped about 380,000 transceivers to date. And really, that's starting to snowball the more that are out there, the more that people want that. So I see that there will continue to be organic growth in that market. There are 26 million vessels out there, 8 million of which are commercial, 18 million, therefore, are leisure. So very few of them still have these transponders, but it's becoming more and more commonplace. Certainly, when you buy a new vessel over 40 feet, you will have an AIS transponder standard. And increasingly, people are now retrofitting as well. So we will continue to grow that business organically. We're increasing our distribution. We've had pretty small distribution in the United States. We've recently done a new sales hire, and we've seen our distribution go up quite dramatically. We now have only over 3,000 distributors and dealers around the world for our business and OEM partners, which are very important to us, and we provide a full range of vessel transponders. Growth wise, as I said, that's going to be the organic growth on the vessel transponders, but we also have some new products coming out. We have our DAS initiative, and DAS is all about the safety of navigation, autonomous shipping. And DAS are devices that go on to buoys and infrastructure and things. So for example, a lock and it would transmit back to the vessel to say that lock is closed and 10 nautical miles away, the vessel will know that and therefore, can slow beforehand and queue in an orderly fashion, saving fuel, being more efficient, stopping things like the Evergreen vessel hitting the sides of a canal and causing a monumental supply chain blockage for the world. This is very much in its embryonic stages, but we're pretty much the only game in town with these complex DAS transceivers. And this is an area of focus for us that we will now start to build that business did well over GBP 1 million last year alone. This is extremely good margins because of the complexity. And we're seeing an increasing number of inquiries coming in. I mean, only last week, we had 2 inquiries for over 50 units for particular ports and particular waterways and things like this. So this continues to grow, and we will invest in that, particularly on sales and marketing where we've done no sales and marketing, now that we think that the market has got to that right early on an embryonic phase to be receptive to that marketing. There will be some product launches, most noticeably NEXUS, which I can show you here. So that is a pre-production prototype of NEXUS, which is now in type approvals -- this has been a hard project for our team. We've done this from scratch because we wanted to have the technology in-house. Why do we want to have the technology in-house because this, again, is a platform product. What we see is because of its unique ability to be able to interface with your mobile phone and your tablets and provide maritime communications, voice and data via those mobile devices that you generally use. We can then add on in the future additional functionalities and stuff through those mobile devices. And so we wanted to own that technology, so this has been completely developed internally from scratch. We own every ounce of the IPR that sits within that means we have a very stable, very elegant core technology that sits within that. We will bring that to market at some point this year. I'm not going to give you a date because I know I'll be held to it. We want this to be right. We want this to be perfect. And so very heavy testing much more so than the normal AIS transponders that we do. But this will make a substantial contribution to the business going forward in the years to come. So that's, I think, a decent update as to where we are. I'm going to look at some of the questions that I'm being asked. So first of all, I'm going to address those that have been e-mailed to me beforehand. I would just say at this point, again, if you're new to SRT, do e-mail me and ask questions, I will always respond perhaps a little bit slower at the moment with so much going on, but you will always get a response from me and you're always welcome to come and visit as well kick the tires.

So one of the questions was around the effects of the changing geopolitics. There is no question that -- and how that affects us? There's no question that the global geopolitical situation is changing. And actually, to our favor, longer really in the future is there going to be one global policeman. It's moving to being regionalization. So Southeast Asia and Middle East, and they're looking after themselves, and they want their own systems and their own autonomy. The balance of powers are changing. And what's happening is countries want their own capabilities. And obviously, maritime surveillance and having their own autonomous maritime surveillance system without an off switch somewhere is a key thing. So for us, we see countries really wanting to have that autonomous capability. So that changing to regional globalization is a great thing for our business. Could GeoVS be stolen, I suppose, is the question, or copied and stuff? If you want to copy what we're doing, you need to develop it. It's not a case of someone just taking a piece of software and then sticking or on a computer. This is a very complex integrated system, lots of different data points. The actual GeoVS software as itself is made up of a suite of applications. It's extremely complex to deploy. It's extremely complex to set up because of the nature of the system. This is not something that you just can hack and take and stick on a PC and where you go. It's not a web application sort of thing. So there's no worry there. In the fisheries form of our system, can it integrate with traceability and ongoing logistics? Yes, that's exactly what it does. So the system has a fisheries module in it, which enables fishermen of any type, be it on an artisanal vessel to use their mobile phone to report their fish catch. And that automatically gets transmitted back into the system and people on the dock when they come in, can audit and check what they're bringing in. So now you have the traceability, which has got the veracity of the fish. And that through an API, can then go into a logistics system to track that fish right the way through the supply chain and actually conceivably get to the point that if you're sitting in Tesco, you can scan the barcode, whether you like it or not, see where that fish was caught, when that was caught, therefore, how fresh that is. That is certainly possible and where that is headed in the long term. And we have the next phase of the project with one of our fisheries customers is exactly that. You've asked about our recruitment drive. You'll have seen in LinkedIn, we're looking for great people to come and join our great team? Yes, we're seeking to find good people to join us. We -- in addition to the contracts that we've announced, we see quite a lot coming down the line in the near future, and we need to be prepared for that. We've been running very lean and mean. That means that really does anybody go on holiday without their certainly senior here without being interrupted by text messages and e-mails and having to deal with stuff. Our customers are very demanding as they should be for the system. And so we need to now recruit to be able to mature that business to be able to maintain the systems that we've installed and as they get bigger and bigger. So we will continue to recruit. I think we've got something like 20 vacancies at the moment. It's hard to find the people with the right talent and enthusiasm to join our company, and we try not to -- we don't compromise. And I think that's then reflected in the quality of the product and the performance that we're starting to see. It's asked about the supply chain of chips. It's better, significantly better, so it's easing, but it's still not back to pre-COVID times. But it will get there. I think as I said in November, we think it will take until the end of this year to normalize. And then when we want to make one of these nexuses, it takes about 6 months to assemble all the components at the manufacturing point and then manufacture the product. I'm just going to have a look at some of the questions here on my little computer thing. So what happens at the end of 8 years or so when they -- a customer stops using our support and data services? Well, one of the -- this is going to sound a bit peculiar. We don't try to lock in our customer. The system is sensor agnostic. You can add different sensors to it. They can expand it as they like. But we form a partnership with the customer. They brought into our platform. And so once you brought into a platform, a bit like, I suppose, Microsoft or Apple or what have you, then you've done that because you want to be there. We want our customers to want to have our system. We're not out there ramming it down their throat trying to sell it to them. They're coming to us and say, "Hey, we want to have a surveillance system, and we hear from the coast guard up the road that yours is really the only one to have and really we should just come to you because you know how to deliver it." So I don't see that as a prospect -- if the customer at the end of 8 years wants to stop, it's a government, it will just stop. That's not a realistic prospect when you've brought into an ecosystem and your whole operation is based on that. You actually want to continue, if it's successful to continue to expand that system and use that more and more and more and have more and more functionality. So it's not something that we at all worry about with the partnerships that we have. Are we looking at dividend possibility or a one-off payment? I think that's a little bit premature. We are going from GBP 30 million this year, last year to GBP 70 million to whatever it might be in the year after that. Big contracts, we need to have the capital to deliver that. Obviously, then, as those projects come through in a year or so, maybe a little bit more than that, then that cash flow becomes extremely positive, and then we would look perhaps at returning cash to shareholders. But we're very focused. We've been years in investing in our products and technology, that will continue. Now we're in the implementation phase and delivery of these projects. And so we've got our head down thinking about that. We only signed it 2 weeks ago, and the first deliveries will start probably September, October for that particular contract. Thank you for that message. I will pass that on to everybody at SRT, who does the work as opposed to me, does the talking. What is date of the AGM? I don't know actually offhand. I'm sorry to say. I'm supposed to know that sort of stuff. But if you ever look on our website, you will find that -- and we will announce that in an RNS. So you'll know plenty of time for probably around end of August, beginning of September. Where do I think the share price can reach? Well, it depends on how much you boys want to pay for it. I'm not going to speculate on that. I don't look at the share price on a daily basis. My view is we're here to build a valuable business for our shareholders and value and the share price will be a reflection of that. I think if you look at the size of the market, what we're achieving, you may make your own calculations. As somebody who is vegan, can you please explain if SRT is solely concerned with fishing -- or is it also to do with finding people lost out of sea? We're not all about fishing. Fishing is just one application. It's the protection of the environment, reefs -- protection of the fish themselves, so they can spawn et cetera. But of course, when you're talking about a coast guard, if you look at their applications, law enforcement, safety of life at sea, search and rescue, tracking of pollution, detection of pollution. The whole raft of that function, it all sits within this one system, and it will detect that. And all the alerts will then -- so if there's a pollution event is detected somewhere in the Southeast China Sea, an alert will arrive on the operator's desk and he will immediately be able to go and see where that is and what ships went past it to trying to identify who did that. So it's a whole raft of different functionalities that achieve that. So I think I've covered everything. If I haven't e-mail me, lots of exciting times ahead. Do remember that's a product of all this time that it's taken us to get here all that sunk investment in our products and technology, the market and distribution and the people that we have here. So just thank you to all for their support to date, and we're just at the beginning. So thank you very much, and I'll speak to you in due course.