Pioneer Power Solutions, Inc. (NASDAQ:PPSI) Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Pioneer Power Solutions, Inc. (NASDAQ:PPSI) Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript April 15, 2025

Pioneer Power Solutions, Inc. beats earnings expectations. Reported EPS is $3.3, expectations were $0.13.

Operator: Greetings, and welcome to Pioneer Power Solutions, Inc.’s Q4 and Full Year 2024 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. Allow me to introduce your host, Brett Maas of Hayden IR. Thank you. You may begin.

Brett Maas: Thank you, operator. The call today will be hosted by Nathan Mazurek, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Walter Michalec, Chief Financial Officer, and Geo Murickan, President of Pioneer Power e-Mobility. Following this discussion, there will be a Q&A session over the participants on the call. We appreciate the opportunity to review the fourth quarter financial results and recent business highlights. Before we get started, let me remind you this call is being recorded and webcast. During the call, management may make forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Please refer to the cautionary text regarding forward-looking statements contained in the earnings release issued earlier today.

That applies to the content of this call. I’d like to now turn the call over to Nathan Mazurek, Chairman and CEO. Nathan, please go ahead.

Nathan Mazurek: Thank you, Brett. Good afternoon, and thank you all for joining us today. 2024 was a watershed year for our business. In the fourth quarter, we sold our Pioneer Custom Electrical Products unit, TCP, including the e-Block integrated power system, to Millpoint Capital for $50 million in cash and equity. Sales consideration was comprised of the cash payment to Pioneer of $48 million and approximately a 6% stake in Millpoint’s new Volteris energy transition platform. Concurrently, Millpoint also acquired Jefferson Electric, a storied electric transformer manufacturer from Ehrmco, to expand Volteris into a key power solutions provider. We expect strong profitable growth for Volteris and are pleased to hold equity in this platform.

Subsequent to the sale, our board declared a one-time special cash dividend of $1.50 a share payable on January 7, 2025, to shareholders of record as of December 17, 2024, essentially returning $16.7 million to our shareholders. Pioneer’s remaining businesses are critical power business, which is anchored by our eBoost mobile charging platform. Indeed, most of our remarks this afternoon, including the financial presentation, will be focused on this business. Since launching our first truck-mounted fast charging solution prototype in November of 2021, we have grown eBoost to a multimillion-dollar business with revenue reaching $22.9 million in 2024, more than double the $11.1 million we delivered in 2023, and way more than the $1 million of eBoost product we delivered in 2022.

Through engineering enhancements and market-driven innovation, we’ve expanded our product lineup beyond the original truck-mounted unit to include eBoost Mini, a skid-based DC fast charger, easily movable with a forklift, eBoost Mobile, our flagship trailer-based engine-powered DC fast charger towable by a truck or tractor, eBoost Goat, a truck-integrated DC fast charger modeled after AAA’s roadside assistance, and eBoost Pod, a containerized DC fast charger including engine, designed for rural extreme weather and semi-permanent application. With each solution, we have demonstrated our ability to innovate and adapt to a rapidly evolving market, customizing our units electrically and mechanically to meet diverse user needs. Today, eBoost is recognized as a leader in reliable, sustainably powered off-grid mobile EV charging.

Indeed, eBoost is eponymous with mobile high-capacity charging in the electric truck and the electric bus market. To date, we’ve delivered over 22,000 charging sessions and supplied more than 700 megawatts of sustainable off-grid power. Importantly, this diverse portfolio positions eBoost as a leader in mobile and adaptable EV charging solutions. We remain committed to innovation and expansion, continuously bringing new products to market. By diversifying revenue streams, we aim to continue to drive sustained long-term growth. For the fourth quarter, this business delivered impressive year-over-year revenue growth of 265% and 106% for the full year of 2024. Importantly, the economics of our eBoost business are highly attractive. We narrowed the loss from continuing operations in 2024 by nearly 50% compared to 2023.

And even more importantly, as Walter will detail in a few minutes, when we have a quarter with almost $10 million in revenue, as we did in 2024’s fourth quarter, how profitable the critical power segment becomes and how well the operating leverage continues to play for us. As of the end of 2024, our critical power segment, inclusive of the eBoost, had a total backlog of $19.8 million, an increase of 19% compared to the end of 2023. This backlog provides the basis for our revenue guidance for 2025 and reinforces our confidence in achieving or surpassing our guidance for 2025. Important to note that our revenue guidance for 2025 does not include any revenue or profit from the recently announced HomeBoost product. We announced the launch of our first residential offering, HomeBoost, last year.

Building on our innovative HomeBoost Residential solution, we refined our design to meet evolving market needs in response to industry feedback and consumer demand. We are indeed expanding our product line to serve both high-end residential and light commercial segments, including medical centers and cafe-type establishments. Our enhanced offering will provide whole-home 100% backup power and advanced EV charging capabilities, essentially a virtual power plant for the home or smaller light commercial user. We’re on track to launch the first units later this year, capitalizing on a growing market need for reliable, flexible power solutions. In short, the market opportunities for our eBoost solutions are massive. Robust demand is being driven by rapid expansion, rapid EV adoption, increased demand for mobile and off-grid charging, and for clean energy infrastructure.

Markets we are most active in at this time are transit bus, school bus, electric truck, and van fleets, large government and corporate fleet. Sub-markets that we concentrate on are construction equipment and airport ground service equipment. With rising EV adoption, the inability of users to secure ample power for their needs, and infrastructure gaps, eBoost is well-positioned to capitalize on the increasing need for flexible off-grid charging solutions. Importantly, with proceeds from the sale of PSET and zero debt, we have the capital necessary to fund our growth plans over the next several years. Following the sale of PSET, we are a more focused business. For 2025, we are reaffirming our revenue guidance of $27 million to $29 million. We expect the quarter-by-quarter cadence to be between $6 million and $8 million per quarter throughout 2025.

We expect this revenue will be primarily driven by eBoost product sales and rentals, along with service and maintenance revenue, specifically approximately $17 million from equipment sales and rentals, including approximately $2.5 million from long-term lease/rental agreements, and more than $10 million in 2025 from service and maintenance agreements. With that, I will turn the call over to Walter.

Walter Michalec: Thank you, Nathan, and good afternoon, everyone. As Nathan mentioned earlier, on October 29, 2024, we sold our California business, PSET, for $50 million in a cash and equity transaction, primarily cash, as we received total gross cash proceeds of $48 million, leaving our balance sheet in a very strong position. eBoost is the sole operating business unit that remains after the sale. Please be advised that we have included a non-GAAP financial measure of operating income that excludes corporate overhead expenses, research and development expenses, and nonrecurring professional fees. Please refer to our press release issued earlier today for further information, including a reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures.

The press release can be found on our website at www.pioneerpowersolutions.com/investors/neutral. Such non-GAAP measures should not be used as a substitute or alternative to any measure of financial performance calculated and presented in accordance with US GAAP. Instead, we believe this non-GAAP measure should be used to supplement our financial measures derived in accordance with US GAAP in order to provide a more complete understanding of the trends affecting the business. Fourth quarter revenue from continuing operations was $9.8 million compared to $2.7 million in the year-ago quarter, an increase of 265%. The increase was primarily due to the significant growth in our Pioneer e-Mobility business. Fourth quarter gross profit from continuing operations was $2.8 million or a gross margin of 29%, compared to gross profit of $610,000 or 23% of revenue in the fourth quarter of last year.

The increase once again was primarily due to the significant growth in our eBoost business. During the fourth quarter of 2024, our Critical Power segment incurred an operating loss from continuing operations of $1.1 million, a significant improvement from a loss of $1.9 million in the fourth quarter of last year. The improvement was primarily due to the large increase in revenue from the sale of our eBoost solutions and the higher margins we are seeing from that business. During the fourth quarter of 2024, our Critical Power segment generated $1.6 million of non-GAAP operating income from continuing operations, which again excludes corporate overhead expenses, R&D expense, and nonrecurring professional fees, as compared to $100,000 of non-GAAP operating income from continuing operations in the same quarter in 2023, a year-over-year improvement of approximately $1.5 million.

Income from continuing operations for the fourth quarter of 2024 was $759,000 compared to a net loss from continuing operations of $1.4 million during the fourth quarter of 2023, a year-over-year improvement of approximately $2.1 million. Turning to our full-year results, full-year 2024 revenue from continuing operations was $22.9 million compared to $11.1 million in 2023, an increase of 106%. The increase was once again primarily due to the growth in our Pioneer e-Mobility business, as we recognized a large increase in shipments and rentals of our eBoost equipment. Full-year 2024 gross profit from continuing operations was $5.5 million or a gross margin of 24%, compared to gross profit of $2.2 million or 20% of revenue in 2023. The increase to our gross profit and margin during 2024 was primarily due to the increase in sales of eBoost equipment from the company’s Pioneer e-Mobility business.

During 2024, our Critical Power segment incurred an operating loss from continuing operations of $5.2 million compared to $7 million in 2023, a year-over-year improvement of $1.8 million. During 2024, our Critical Power segment generated $1.7 million of non-GAAP operating income from continuing operations, which again excludes corporate overhead expenses, R&D expense, and nonrecurring professional fees, as compared to a non-GAAP operating loss from continuing operations of $1.3 million for the year ended December 31, 2023, a significant year-over-year improvement of approximately $3 million. Net loss from continuing operations for 2024 was $3.3 million compared to a net loss from continuing operations of $6.3 million in 2023, a year-over-year improvement of approximately $3 million.

Taking a look at our balance sheet, we had cash on hand of $41.6 million and zero bank debt as of December 31, 2024, compared to $3.6 million of cash on hand and zero bank debt as of December 31, 2023. The cash on hand as of December 31, 2024, represents cash per share of approximately $3.74. As Nathan mentioned earlier, subsequent to year-end, we paid a one-time special cash dividend of $16.7 million in aggregate to shareholders of record as of December 17, 2024. Today, we are reaffirming our guidance for revenue of $27 million to $29 million for the full year of 2025. This concludes my remarks. I will now turn the call back over to the operator for any questions.

Q&A Session

Operator: Great. Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you’d like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two to remove yourself from the queue. All participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. First question here is from Rob Brown from Lake Street Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Rob Brown: Hi. Good afternoon.

Nathan Mazurek: Good afternoon, Rob.

Rob Brown: On the strong backlog and growth in eBoost, what’s sort of the driving there? Where are the customer segments you’re seeing the visibility look at this point in the year in terms of new demand coming in?

Nathan Mazurek: Yeah. New demand is always coming in, but it’s coming really the biggest bucket right now is, you know, some form of government, state, county, city, town, and it’s usually related to transit or school buses. Sometimes fleets as well. That’s the biggest segment for us now. You know, if you look at the more recent announcements, you know, with the city of Portland, it’s going to be more government quasi-government type groups, ports, transit authorities, people like that.

Rob Brown: Okay. Great. And you talked a little bit about the service equipment mix. How does that mix look for 2025? Are you seeing a fair amount of rental revenue in that 2025?

Nathan Mazurek: So we’re kind of budgeted $2.5 million in lease and rental type revenue for 2025. And I think that’s what we’ll do. We might exceed it by a little, but that’s kind of the thinking. We look to continue to grow that, obviously, with quality-type counterparties, but that seems to be for a lot of the large users. That seems to be something that speaks more to them. And since they have the creditworthiness to make it worth our while, it’s good for everybody. It’s a more lucrative business, but we have to front it. So that’s really the…

Rob Brown: Understand. Okay. And then on the HomeBoost product, I think you talked a little bit about a redesign effort there. Could you give us some color there and maybe how like commercial, I guess, how that expands into like commercial?

Nathan Mazurek: Yeah. I mean, HomeBoost, you know, we’ve put together a special team. My goal was to have the team together by the end of 2024, which we did. It was me. It’s not me. I kind of pulled it back in February. Not because the product wasn’t really ready for prime time, but the product itself is beautiful, but it didn’t appear cosmetically as beautiful as I would have liked. You know, it’s a premium product. To sort of, you know, a premium user. So we went back into to make it look and feel that the person’s getting, you know, not just in functionality, but they’re getting aesthetically a value for the money that they’re spending. And, yeah, it’s targeted to the high-end residential, somebody that’s willing to spend, you know, call it $50,000, $60,000 to have full home backup.

You know, you’re talking about homes that will typically be 3,000 square feet plus probably more, you know, and they want the full backup prime rated engines as opposed to just the backup engine, the ability to produce their own electricity off their gas line, 24 hours a day if they choose to switch back and forth between the grid as they choose to. And initially, when we launched this, especially the generator dealers and distributors, were really the ones that almost in unison sort of designated the product for the medical center small business that really wants super resilience and to be able to integrate charging for really just spending a little bit more than they do on a backup plan. That gives them 24-hour, 100% resilience. So that’s where we’re going to be headed with it.

Rob Brown: Great. Thank you. I’ll turn it over.

Operator: As a reminder, if you’d like to join the queue, it is star one. Next question here is from Sameer Joshi from H.C. Wainwright. Please go ahead.

Sameer Joshi: Hey. Good afternoon, Nathan.

Nathan Mazurek: Good afternoon, Sameer. Thanks for taking my questions. On the gross margin front, I think your fourth quarter gross margins were around 29%.

Sameer Joshi: Right. And you saw nice revenues. Should we expect these levels going forward, or was there something one-time in this fourth quarter that resulted in the gross margins?

Nathan Mazurek: Yeah. I mean, the $9.8 million, more than 50% was eBoost product. Less than 50% was service. That’s a really nice mix for us. The gross margins on the product are higher than we get on service, especially for customers that are in a lot of different places. So we end up subbing some of the service and adding a surcharge we can make something that definitely compresses gross margins on the service side. If the product sales continue to grow, if leasing continues to grow, so the gross margins are going to gross margin picture should be there or maybe a little bit better.

Sameer Joshi: Understood. So then juxtaposing your fourth quarter revenues with your 2025 guidance, it seems like a run rate of $6 to $8 million versus $10 million, which you realized in full. Quarter. Is there a reason for this or, was there as I think you mentioned, more than 50% of revenues were from product this quarter and you are expecting around $17, $18 million from product next year.

Nathan Mazurek: Yeah. We had one it was for the Los Angeles Department of Transportation. That’s for the city of Los Angeles’ transit buses. The inner-city buses that move humans. It was one particular project of a little bit over $5 million that needed to be delivered in November. That was their window. The team did an amazing job to do it. You know, at first, maybe they weren’t so happy, but I’m talking about our own people, not the Department of Transportation. But we did it in a very short period of time and successfully, you know, met the internal markers. And really came in at the gross margin that we expected. So that was a nice thing to complete. We don’t have any large projects that split between the first quarter and the second quarter of 2025.

We don’t have any one the size of DOT yet. But the year for us, I neglected to kind of or I think maybe Rob had asked and I didn’t answer this part of his question. We’re projecting almost an even $6 million to $8 million per quarter depending on a few jobs moving here and there, but more or less $6 million to $8 million. Our year is I’d say, 80% baked in already. In the strength of the pipeline and orders that we hope to be announcing soon will support really not so much a little bit for to finish 2025, but, essentially, my head is already in 2026. Know, most of the efforts now are building the first half of 2026.

Sameer Joshi: Yeah. Understood. Thanks, sir. Because I was going to ask that. Confidence in 2025 top line given already strong backlog. Thanks for answering that. You’re very welcome. I think now you have around $25 million or just, like, $41.7 million minus $16.6 million. Or something like that. Yeah. Something like that. You know? Would you be looking for some strategic opportunities, or would you rather do some organic in-house product?

Nathan Mazurek: Yeah. So we’re open to all of it, really. We’re seeing, you know, me personally, I’m a serial acquirer. Prices are better now than they were a year ago or even six months ago when there there’s a reason for that as well. I mean, you know, one thing that we’re not going to do is I can’t go backwards financially. You know, I can’t take on a bleeder. Unfortunately, a lot of the businesses or enterprises that would maybe make a good fit on the charging side come with risks and built-in losses that we’re not, you know, even in an egomaniacal day, I don’t think we could turn around in time and would not be in the best interest of the shareholders. So we’re kind of looking for ancillary, you know, a little bit more in power, a little bit more in special forms of power, whether mobile or permanent, you know, in the distributed generation, you know, the appetite for power is endless.

You know, we were able to come up with something clever where we married the charging and unitized it within a certain package and made it mobile. But the essence of what we do is deliver on-site power. So that would really be the way we would go.

Sameer Joshi: Understood. And then just one last one, like, stepping back at the macro level. I do understand your backlog and engagement with the pipeline customers seem very strong, but do you think any macroeconomic events or tariffs or any other uncertainties could have an impact on your outlook for 2025?

Nathan Mazurek: Yeah. I mean, alright. It’s baked into the outlook. I mean, so the change in administration, you know, was not a positive for charging, frankly. Most of the customers and clients we’re dealing with, again, you know, these are city, states, whatever you want to call them, quasi-governmental agents. You know, they made certain decisions and, you know, they’ve crossed that already. You know, they’re going electric and that they’re making massive investments or have already, you know, they’re already deeply pregnant. You can’t there’s not a turning back, and that’s where we’re spending most of our time. From a tariff, you know, I guess, chaos or uncertainty, even at worst, it wasn’t going to have a major effect on us.

The effect would be, you know, anybody’s macro effect. You know, any receding of GDP or any slowdown in the economy is not good for anybody. So, you know, we’re not immune to that. But nothing specifically or nothing of real nothing of note. From an increase, you know, that we would see.

Sameer Joshi: Makes sense. Thanks for that. Thanks once again.

Nathan Mazurek: You’re welcome, Sameer.

Operator: This concludes the question and answer session. I would like to turn the floor back to management for any closing comments.

Nathan Mazurek: Alright. Thank you all for your time and support, and we look forward to updating you again on our next call, which will hopefully be right after the time to file the Q.

Operator: Thank you. This concludes today’s teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you again for your participation.