Eastman Kodak Company (NYSE:KODK) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Eastman Kodak Company (NYSE:KODK) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript March 14, 2024

Eastman Kodak Company isn’t one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here).

Operator: Welcome to the Eastman Kodak Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. Please be advised that today’s call is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to your host, Anthony Redding. Please go ahead.

Anthony Redding: Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. I’m Anthony Redding, Eastman Kodak Company’s Chief Compliance Officer. Welcome to Kodak’s fourth quarter and full year 2023 earnings call. At 4:15 p.m. this afternoon, Kodak filed its Annual Form 10-K and issued its release on financial results for the fourth quarter and full year of 2023. You may access the presentation and webcast for today’s call on our Investor Center at investor.kodak.com. During today’s call, we’ll be making certain forward-looking statements as defined by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All forward-looking statements are based upon Kodak’s expectations and various assumptions. Future events or results may differ from those anticipated or those expressed in the forward-looking statements.

Important factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements include, among others, the risks, uncertainties and other factors described in more detail in Kodak’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time. There may be other factors that may cause Kodak’s actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements attributable to Kodak or persons acting on its behalf only apply as of the date of this presentation and are expressly qualified in their entirety by the cautionary statements included or referenced in this presentation. Kodak undertakes no obligation to update or revise forward-looking statements to reflect the events or circumstances that arise after the date made or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.

In addition, the release just issued and the presentation provided contains certain measures that are deemed non-GAAP measures. Reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures have been provided with the release and within the presentation on our website in our Investor Center at investor.kodak.com. Speakers on today’s call are Jim Continenza, Kodak’s Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and David Bullwinkle, Kodak’s Chief Financial Officer. We will not be holding a formal Q&A during today’s call. As always, the Investor Relations team is available for follow-up. I will now turn the call over to Jim. Thank you.

James Continenza: Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining the fourth quarter and full year 2023 investor call for Kodak. I am very pleased with the company’s fourth quarter and full year performance for 2023. We have been committed to executing our long-term plan for the past five years, and our efforts are now coming to fruition. We are starting to deliver year-over-year improvements in gross profit, operational EBITDA, and improved cash flow, which is further evidence of our growing ability to deliver strong results. Actions we have taken over the last few years include stabilizing our balance sheet, reorganizing as one Kodak, putting our customers first, focusing on our core competencies in print, Advanced Materials and Chemicals, known as AMC, improving operational efficiency, and reducing our cost of sale.

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Q&A Session

We will continue to invest in opportunities that leverage our strengths as an industrial manufacturer to drive long-term growth and profitability. These actions have resulted in a solid foundation for the company, which allows us to make decisions from a position of strength and focus on initiatives that drive smart revenue and support our return to stabilizing the company’s profitable growth. It should be noted that our success has not come from the result of financial engineering. Instead, we’ve improved our performance the hard way, through operational excellence, investing in innovation, developing exciting new products, managing our costs, and selling our customers solutions that meet their needs and demands in a very challenging environment.

Keeping our customers satisfied and world-class service takes everyone at Kodak contributing to the success of our customers. We only win if our customers win. Turning to the next slide. I am pleased with the continuing progress reported in the company’s results for the fourth quarter 2023. Some highlights from the quarter are, we continue to invest in a number of long-term growth initiatives in AMC, and we are seeing growing revenue contribution from those businesses. These AMC initiatives are a natural extension of our unique strengths in material science, layering, and coding, and chemical manufacturing developed over decades of experience. For example, we are moving forward with the construction of our cGMP facility to expand our existing business in unregulated key starting materials into manufacturing diagnostic testing reagent solutions.

The facility is intended to help meet the growing demand for FDA-certified test reagents made in the USA. As part of our heritage, we are committed to being the last manufacturer standing in film, and proud of our role in continuing to make this artistic medium available to photographers and filmmakers who love the unique look of film. We are investing in a new film spooler in our manufacturing plant to increase our capacity and meet growing demand. Film is still the choice of many prominent directors and cinematographers, and I am proud of the fact that many of this year’s Oscar nominees were shot on Kodak film. Again, I’d like to congratulate the entire cast, crew, producer, and director of Oppenheimer for choosing Kodak. We continue to invest in innovation across our complete portfolio of print solutions.

Kodak is uniquely positioned as the only manufacturer that provides solutions for both traditional print and digital print process. We are excited about this year presenting at drupa multiple products from traditional print, digital, and workflow. Many of our customers have significant CapEx investment in traditional printing equipment, including offset presses, CTPs, and plates. We see plate demand consistent for many years in the future. We will continue to manufacture in the U.S., Germany, and Japan to help our customers mitigate risk of supply so they can keep their operations productive. Performance highlights for the fourth quarter include revenue decrease of $30 million, which represents minus 10% compared to the prior year quarter, decrease of $35 million, minus 11%, excluding foreign exchange.

The decline in revenue reflects our conscious decision we are making to prioritize increasing productivity, investing in innovation, and driving smart revenue. This strategy enables us to continue to lower cost of sale, get as efficient as we can, help us grow revenue, and maximize profitability. Gross profit percentage was 17% compared to 14% in the prior year quarter. Performance highlights for the full year include revenue decrease of $88 million, negative 7%, compared to the prior year, $89 million, negative 7%, excluding foreign exchange. Again, we are continuing to focus on smart revenue. Gross profit improved $40 million, or 24%, when compared to the prior year, or $38 million, plus 22%, excluding foreign exchange. Growth profit percentage was 19% compared to 14% in the prior year, despite rising costs and difficult macroeconomic conditions globally.

I’m pleased with our performance for 2023, which reflects our ability to continue making progress despite ongoing headwinds by focusing on the execution of a long-term plan, investing in innovation, improving efficiency, and helping our customers stay productive and profitable. I will now turn it over to David Bullwinkle to discuss the fourth quarter 2023 financial results.

David Bullwinkle: Thanks, Jim, and good afternoon. Today, the company’s filed its Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2023, with the Securities and Exchange Commission. As they always do, I recommend you read this filing in its entirety. Before I get into the details for the quarter and full year, I would like to briefly provide updates on some of the transactions the company completed within 2023, which provided additional liquidity to the company. As previously discussed, the company announced and closed on a refinancing transaction in the third quarter of 2023. On our last call, we provided an overview of the transaction, which, in summary, after satisfying refinancing obligations and a prepayment premium, provided net cash proceeds of $29 million being used by the company for general corporate purposes and working capital needs.

Additionally, during the third quarter of 2023, Kodak entered into multiple long-term brand licensing arrangements and recorded total deferred revenue of approximately $57 million. Kodak received approximately $12 million and $40 million of cash proceeds related to these licensing arrangements in 2023 and the first quarter of 2024, respectively. Kodak expects to receive the remaining $5 million in 2025. Details of these financing and brand licensing transactions are disclosed in our Form 10-K filed today. Additionally, there has been recent activity in the media about Kodak’s U.S. pension fund. We direct you to the company statement on this topic and the Form 10-K filed with the SEC today, including the statement within the Liquidity section of MD&A.

I will now share details on the full company results, operational EBITDA, and cash flow for the fourth quarter and full year 2023. Driving smart revenue, pricing rationalization, cost reductions, and customer-focused initiatives continue to be the priority for the company and have resulted in improvements in profitability as a result of the collective impact of these initiatives. In the face of an extremely difficult global economic environment, the company’s results reflect the continued focus on these priorities and the execution against this strategy. On Slide 7 for the fourth quarter of 2023, we reported revenues of $275 million compared to $305 million in the prior year quarter for a decrease of $30 million or 10%. Adjusting for the favorable impact of foreign exchange of $5 million in the current year quarter, revenue decreased by $35 million or 11% compared to the prior year quarter.