Flexible Solutions International, Inc. (FSI) Q2 2015 Earnings Call Transcript
Published at 2015-08-17 00:00:00
Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Flexible Solutions International Second Quarter 2015 Financial Results Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like turn the conference over to Dan O'Brien, Chief Executive Officer of Flexible Solutions. Please go ahead, sir. Daniel O’Brien: Thank you, Laurie. Good morning. This is Dan O'Brien. Safe harbor provision. The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides a safe harbor for forward-looking statements. Certain of the statements contained herein, which are not historical facts, are forward-looking statements with respect to events, the occurrence of which involve risks and uncertainties. These forward-looking statements may be impacted, either positively or negatively, by various factors. Information concerning potential factors that could affect the company is detailed from time to time in the company's reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. First, let me review the company products, give some guidance as to future expectations, and then I will move on to the financials. The NanoChem division, or NCS. NCS makes polyaspartic acid, TPA, a biodegradable protein with many valuable uses, and the nitrogen conservation products, SUN 27 and NSavr 30 [ph]. NCS represents approximately 95% of revenue and is the sales and profit driver of our company. TPA is used in agriculture to increase crop yield. TPA keeps positive and negative fertilizer ions bioavailable to plants by loosely associating with the positive fertilizer ions and preventing precipitation of salts such as calcium phosphate. Higher bioavailability leads to higher yields. We sell TPA at prices that allow strong margins for distribution, while still providing a significant profit for the grower. There are at least 300 million acres in North America that could use TPA profitably. TPA is a biodegradable way of treating oilfield water to prevent pipes from plugging with mineral scale. Our sales into this market are strong, and oil companies in the Nordic countries use TPA as part of environmental compliance. We're experiencing interest from forward thinking oil-producing countries other than Scandinavia and have reasonable expectations of gaining new customers over the next several quarters. There is continuing research into the concept of TPA as part of tight oil and gas fracturing liquids. This research has progressed to early adoption and we have seen increased sales over the past year. TPA is used as part of the fracking fluid and intended to prevent scale from destroying the permeability of the rock pores as well as its better-known function of scale control and piping. Clogged rock pores reduce well production. TPA has added value compared to existing fluid components due to its biodegradability. It doesn't need to be removed when cleaning used fracking water and it demonstrates oil industry sensitivity to environmental safety, which can improve relationships with neighbors and regulators. SUN 27. NCS has been making and selling this product for a year and we're satisfied with the initial success. We expect it to become a significant revenue stream in 2016 and onward. SUN 27 is a fertilizer additive that reduces the speed of nitrogen fertilizer degradation in soils. Most soils contain the protein urease, which is an enzyme that degrades nitrogen fertilizer. Up to half the nitrogen applied to a field can be lost to urease activity. This is a significant cost to the grower and it has negative environmental side effects. The size of the potential market for urease inhibition is very large. Nitrogen in various formats that can be protected by SUN 27 is applied to millions of acres of crop land worldwide each year. And nitrogen loss through urease enzyme activity destroys large amounts of expensive nitrogen fertilizer. SUN 27 is equal to or better than competing products, and our pricing is set to be very competitive at both wholesale and retail levels. SUN 27 has a lower freezing point than competing inhibitors, resulting in reduced storage problems. And SUN 27 is manufactured in the U.S. and sold by our NanoChem subsidiary. NSavr 30 [ph]. As a result of our inventive work to develop SUN 27, NCS became expert enough in nitrogen conservation chemistry to formulate a solution to the second major cause of nitrogen fertilizer loss, denitrification. This is also caused by bacterial activity in soil. Warm, wet soils are the most prone. And it results in oxygen being stripped from the fertilizer to leave nitrogen gas. The gas can't be used by the plants and escapes to the atmosphere. The gold standard for reducing denitrification is a DCD solution and we've developed an excellent version. At this time, NCS is manufacturing for distribution under trade names owned by our distributors as well as our registered trademark, NSavr 30 [ph]. NSavr 30 [ph] is the new name for what we previously referred to as DCD 30. It is, like SUN 27, manufactured in the U.S. and sold by NanoChem. WaterSavr. Well, WaterSavr might have had the breakthrough it has sought for years with the project in Wichita Falls, Texas. However, Texas experienced massive flooding with much loss of life and property just as WaterSavr was due to be ordered for the 2015 evaporation season. We are sorry for what the people of Texas have endured, first with the drought and then with the floods. We hope to be able to help with any new drought conditions that may emerge in 2016 and have maintained our strong relationships with the group who -- groups who manage water in the state. We have several additional WaterSavr opportunities in progress, but none as far advanced as Texas was. Q3 and the rest of 2015. We think that the combination of TPA, SUN 27 and NSavr 30 [ph] and WaterSavr will result in growth under most economic conditions. However, our customers buy purchase order by purchase order without providing us forward guidance. We have negative and positive surprises, such as oil platform maintenance shutdowns and fast volume uptake by new customers. In Q3, we no longer expect significant WaterSavr sales due to the floods in Texas. Agriculture sales in Q2 were affected negatively by sales that might have incurred -- occurred in Q2 being pulled forward into Q1. Q3 is often weak for agriculture and sometimes for oilfield as well. So predictions are not really available. In Q4, we will strive to book early sales in all 3 of our agriculture products to obtain growth in fourth quarter. If successful, we may accumulate double-digit growth for the year as a whole. And to highlight the financial results. Sales for the quarter decreased 9% to $3.9 million compared with $4.29 million for 2014. The result is a gain of $319,000 or $0.02 a share in the '15 period compared to a gain of $400,000 or $0.03 a share in 2014. Our working capital is sufficient to support our growth and is increasing as a result of retained earnings. The company is also supported by its line of credit with a Chicago-based bank. Because of the outsized effects of depreciation, stock option expenses and onetime items on the financials of small companies, FSI also provides a non-GAAP measure useful for judging year-over-year success. Operating cash flow is arrived at by removing depreciation, option expenses and onetime items from the statement of operations. For the first half of 2015, operating cash flow was $1.89 million or $0.14 a share compared to $793,000 and $0.06 a share in the first six months of 2014. Detailed information on how to reconcile GAAP with non-GAAP numbers is included in our news release of August 14. The text of this speech will be available on our website by Tuesday, August 17th, and email or faxed copies can be requested from Jason Bloom at 1 (800) 661-3560, jason@flexiblesolutions.com. Thank you. The floor is now open for questions. Laurie, will you please give instructions and carry on?
[Operator Instructions] And we'll go to William Gregozeski at Greenridge Global.
A couple of questions for you. The gross margins in the quarter were your highest in the last 4 years. Given where oil prices are, should we be looking for gross margins to be in that high 30s, low 40s range going forward, assuming oil stays around where it is? Daniel O’Brien: The answer is maybe, but obviously, we will do whatever is required to maintain our customer base, and that may require us to selectively change our pricing, or it may not. We are happy with those margins, but it's a moving target in this world and we'll just do our best. So counting on these things would not be appropriate.
Okay. In regards to the oil business, how has that fared given the oil prices? Daniel O’Brien: On the granular level, our business -- our established businesses with high capital cost customers, such as the North Sea, continue as normal. We are seeing that because the fracking world in the United States is weak, that our growth in fracking is not there right now. However, we are not losing customers. We are not just seeing the growth that we would have expected to see if fracking had continued at the rate it was going at a year ago.
Okay. With the ag business, now that you have more products in the portfolio, are you seeing any more interest from distributors that might want to distribute your -- now that you have a few products, distribute them for you? Daniel O’Brien: Yes, we're always talking to new groups. And having 3 products so that when myself or one of our other sales-oriented people goes into an office, 3 products gives you 3 chances to make a sale, which is -- it's a lot easier than saying, "Well, we've got yellow eggs. And how many yellow eggs do you want?" It's way easier to say, "Well, you may not have a localized phosphate problem, but most people are using nitrogen. Would you like to have a look at our nitrogen conservation products?" And so yes, it is helping the sales process. And it makes it highly likely that we will find new distributors or make new sales into our existing distributors.
Okay. And then, last question, was I saw you guys bought a boat during the quarter? Are you doing any WaterSavr spreading in the drought areas up in Washington? Or is it for R&D purposes? Daniel O’Brien: That boat was -- that was bought against the probability of needing to work in Texas. The boat is now in storage in Las Vegas and we will use it for spreading in the first place we get a contract. So it's on a trailer and it will go to the job.
[Operator Instructions] And with no other questions in queue, Mr. O'Brien, I'll turn it back to you for any additional or closing remarks. Daniel O’Brien: Ladies and gentlemen, thanks for joining us this conference call. I look forward to speaking with you again in the next quarter, and I hope you have a wonderful remainder of your summer. Thank you, and goodbye.
That will conclude today's conference. Thank you all for your participation.