Capstone Turbine (CPST)

Q1 2013 Earnings Call

August 09, 2012 4:45 pm ET

Executives

Jayme L. Brooks - Chief Accounting Officer and Vice President of Finance

Darren R. Jamison - Chief Executive Officer, President and Director

Edward I. Reich - Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President and Secretary

Analysts

Sanjay Shrestha - Lazard Capital Markets LLC, Research Division

Ajay Kejriwal - FBR Capital Markets & Co., Research Division

Walter Nasdeo - Ardour Capital Investments, LLC, Research Division

Presentation

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Capstone Turbine Corporation Earnings Conference Call for First Quarter Fiscal Year 2013 Financial Results ended June 30, 2012. During today's call, Capstone management will be referencing slides that can be located at www.capstoneturbine.com under the Investor Relations section. I will now turn the call over to Ms. Jayme Brooks, Vice President, Finance and Chief Accounting Officer. Please proceed.

Jayme L. Brooks

Thank you. Good afternoon, and welcome to Capstone Turbine Corporation's conference call for the first quarter of fiscal year 2013. I am Jayme Brooks, your contact for today's conference call.

Capstone filed its quarterly report on the Form 10-Q with the Securities and Exchange Commission today, August 9, 2012. If you do not have access to this document and would like one, please contact Investor Relation via telephone at (818) 407-3628 or email ir@capstoneturbine.com, or you can view all of our public filings on the SEC website at www.sec.gov, or on our website at www.capstoneturbine.com.

During the course of this conference call, management may make projections or other forward-looking statements regarding future events or financial performance of the company within the meaning of the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements relate to, among other things, market expansion, new product development, growth in the revenue, gross margin and backlog, attaining profitability, helping certain clients meet their power generation goals, improvement in certain key performance indicators and strategic initiatives, low cost of ownership and advantages over competing technologies. Forward-looking statements maybe identified by words such as expects, objective, intend, targeted, plan and similar phrases.

These forward-looking statements are subject to numerous assumptions, risks and uncertainties described in Capstone's Form 10-K, Form 10-Q and other recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission that may cause Capstone's actual results to be materially different from the future results expressed or implied in such statements. Because of the risks and uncertainties, Capstone cautions you not to place undue reliance on these statements, which speak only as of today. We undertake no obligation and specifically disclaim any obligation to release any revision to any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this conference call or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.

I will now turn the call over to Darren Jamison, our President and Chief Executive Officer.

Darren R. Jamison

Thank you, Jayme. Good afternoon, and welcome, everyone to Capstone's First Quarter Fiscal Year 2013 earnings call. With me today are Ed Reich, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Mark Gilbreth, our Executive Vice President and Chief Technical Officer.

Today, I will again start the call with a general overview of our first quarter achievements and then turn the call over to Ed, who will review the detailed financial results. During our remarks, we'll be referring to the presentation slides that can be found on Capstone's website under Investor Relations.

Let's go ahead and start with Slide 2. We continued our strong execution during the first quarter on most of our key performance indicators. We are able to increase revenue year-over-year despite the challenging economic conditions worldwide due to 2 key factors: First, we continue growth in broadening of our distribution network; and secondly, the continued market acceptance of our new C200, C1000 Series microturbine products.

Product revenue for the quarter was $23.6 million, up 13% year-over-year. New product orders totaled $24.1 million for the quarter, which, again, gave us a positive book-to-bill ratio. We shipped 25.1 megawatts, which was up 15% from 21.9 megawatts in the first quarter last year.

Most importantly, we again delivered positive gross margins, which we have now done in 7 of the last 8 quarters. Gross margins increased to 8% or nearly 600 basis points year-over-year as we realize strong sales volumes from higher kilowatt products and a 44% higher average revenue per unit while continuing to focus on reducing direct material costs. We also maintained a record level of backlog at $139 million and a strong balance sheet at over $45 million. In market sector penetration, we made great progress during the quarter especially in the oil and gas and other natural resources market.

Now, let's turn to Slide 3. In our last call in June, we secured 4 megawatts of new orders for 17 microturbines ranging from 65 kilowatts to 1 megawatt to generate prime power in 9 remote LUKOIL Russian oilfields. All the microturbines we filled by untreated associated gas from the well sites that otherwise would have been flared. The 9 microturbine power stations will help LUKOIL meet its goal to use 95% of associated gas from its oil wells for power generation activities.

In the U.S., we received an order for 12 microturbine totaling 1.9 megawatts from a large oil and gas producer headquartered in the south. This customer selected Capstone for their higher reliability and low-emission products and benefits of around the clock at the remote power generation sites.

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