Terran Orbital Corporation (NYSE:LLAP) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Marc Bell: It’s really just about timing of payments at this point. Right now, the last thing any of us want to do is raise additional cash. It’s one of the largest shareholders. I could say that. I don’t want the dilution. It’s one of the largest shareholders I could say that. Last thing I wanted any dilution. So it’s really just about timing of payments. If things work out as planned, we will be in pretty good shape. So right now, everything is lining up well for us.

Robert Spingarn: Okay. Super helpful. Thank you.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] With our next question comes from Griffin Boss from B. Riley Securities. Your line is now open.

Griffin Boss: Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. I want to jump back to the competitive landscape and margins. So LeoStella recently talked about a bigger bus to focus on SDA contracts. Maxar is making a bigger push into small sats then you have York and Millennium sort of ramping up capacity alongside yourselves. Obviously, that highlights the demand, Marc, that you were talking about earlier, but how is this translating into the bid and proposal process? Is it having any effect on your prior expectations regarding how you think about gross margins when you’re bidding for contracts? Or said differently, is your ability to grow margins as quickly as you might have thought in the past changed at all?

Marc Bell: It’s just like launch. There is an incredible shortage of launch and there is an incredible shortage of capacity to build satellites. I mean think about it, 60,000 satellites are on file with the SEC right now. If you add up all the capacity in the United States, it doesn’t even come anywhere near close to that. It’s a fraction of that. So we see continued margin expansion as we continue to grow. It’s also as we add payloads into the mix, we’re adding more value into the mix, which also allows us to grow margins. And our margins, obviously, were very small when we started off on this and they’re becoming now more appropriate for the size of business and what we’re doing for the customer.

Griffin Boss: Okay. Thanks, Marc. So I guess related to that — how are the gross margins — or how are you looking at gross margins for Rivada. And how does that stack up to the guide that Gary gave earlier in terms of going to sort of mid to high-teens mid20%?

Marc Bell: We don’t bring our customer margins for obvious reasons on our call. But that said, we’re very comfortable with our overall blended gross margin and where it’s going.

Griffin Boss: Okay. Sure thing. And then just in terms of the EAC adjustments, any expectation on when those are going to begin to abate?

Gary Hobart: I think we’re seeing them level off right now. A lot of it really comes down to teething as we’re doing ramping up module production and really commissioning out all of our lines. It’s really hard to tell. The numbers have kind of leveled off the last couple of quarters, but I would expect them to stay low and hopefully get down to something we’re not even to the point of reporting. But right now, I feel like they seem bigger just because we’re dealing with smaller numbers. But relative to our backlog, I would expect them to be de minimis going forward, but that’s going to be part of how we execute and commission our overall offering.

Griffin Boss: Okay. All right. Great. And then just last one for me, I wanted to shift gears, talk about Lockheed. They opened up a new 20,000 square foot low bay facility earlier this month for satellite inauguration and testing. Can you just comment on how this fits into yours and Lockheed’s overall small satellite supply chain and just your overall ability to continue service and growing defense demand?