Natural Gas Services Group, Inc. (NYSE:NGS) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Justin Jacobs: Well, I mean that’s just push back — yes. But just to push back on that for a second. I mean, if you’re saying that you’ve got these 2,500s that are coming on sometime in the second half, maybe the EBITDA is sitting at that point, but maybe it’s not if there are delays, some issues getting out there. I mean Q4 a year ago you had significant issues and incremental costs in getting new equipment out in the field. So, that’s my question here, is this kind of all plays into then capital structure, as you said, $120 million by year-end. That’s slightly — slightly below what your market cap is currently. That’s a pretty material change. And you’ve got $125 million uncommitted accordion on top of that. I just don’t know where you’re going from a capital perspective. And I’m trying to get an understanding of thinking forward, not just one quarter or even three quarters, how much more that’s going to be on this business?

Steve Taylor: Yes. Well, our projections show that our debt would peak and this is based on 2023 from what we see and then this equipment being set and EBITDA — some EBITDA being generated in 2024, obviously, the full year of whatever is put in the second half. Our debt would peak in about the fourth quarter of this year. And all I can say is what we see from a static standpoint now based on our projections now what we see from the market and the borrowings. And then the EBITDA coming in starts paying that down and we would have the debt paid down in a couple of years after that. That’s static. I know it and I know your question is, well, I want to now dynamics. I want to know what’s going on next year. It’s really hard to say what’s going on next year.

If the market stays strong, it could be. It could be another $95 million maybe. I don’t know. That’s — I hesitate to fill that number out there because it could be $50 million or could be $25 million if everything — if we have a big recession next year and things fall down. It’s just hard to say. I’d have to really take a stab at something that really we don’t have any basis and fact for right now as far as what next year is going to look like.

Justin Jacobs: Okay. All right. Let me go to a different topic here, which is the SG&A increase. If I look at 2022, it’s $13.6 million, which is an increase of $2.9 million versus last year. All this increase is Q3 and Q4. In the fourth quarter, you’re running at 4/8 of SG&A. Two questions for you. First is, what are the components of the $700,000 sequential increase from Q3 to Q4? And then second question is, what are the components of the $2 million increase from Q4 a year ago?

Steve Taylor: Okay. The primary differences in the year-over-year are the retirement and severance expenses and frankly, that it was my retirement agreement. And then John Chisholm’s severance expenses, the interim there. So we had higher costs there over $1 million on that. There were double salaries in there from a CEO standpoint, certainly for about six months. We’ve had higher administrative salaries around $140,000 or $50,000 there. We had about $150,000 higher software expenses and about 300,000, well, about $0.5 million higher consulting and stock expense. So that’s year-over-year. Now sequentially, the consulting and deferred comp, again, round about $500,000 higher. Health insurance is a little over $100,000 higher stock about $300,000 higher and administrative salaries also.

So that’s the majority of it. The majority of it is, as I mentioned, some of these transition costs of my retirement agreement coming back in, John being interim for six months in there and the associated expenses there and then higher administrative salaries and some higher software costs.

Justin Jacobs: What were the stock — what were the nature of the consulting expenses?

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