Earnings Call Transcript - CLFD Q2 2025

Operator, Operator

Good day, and welcome to the Clearfield Fiscal Second Quarter 2025 Conference Call. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Gregory McNiff, Investor Relations for Clearfield. Please go ahead.

Gregory McNiff, Investor Relations

Thank you. Joining me on today's call are Cheryl Beranek, Clearfield's President and CEO; and Dan Herzog, Clearfield's CFO. As a reminder, Clearfield publishes a quarterly shareholder letter, which provides an overview of the company's financial results, operational highlights and future outlook. You can find both the shareholder letter and the earnings release on Clearfield's Investor Relations website. After brief prepared remarks, we will open the floor for a question-and-answer session. Please note that during this call, management will be making remarks regarding future events and the future financial performance of the company. These remarks constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements. It is important to also note that the company undertakes no obligation to update such statements, except as required by law. The company cautions you to consider risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements contained in today's press release, shareholder letter and on this conference call. The Risk Factors section in Clearfield's most recent Form 10-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission and its subsequent filings on Form 10-Q provide a description of these risks. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Clearfield's President and CEO, Cheryl Beranek. Cheri?

Cheryl Beranek, President and CEO

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today to discuss Clearfield's second quarter results. We are happy to report a profitable second quarter of fiscal 2025. I will start by discussing the macro outlook, followed by some commentary on the industry and then turn it over to Dan for a summary of our performance and outlook. For more detailed information, please refer to our shareholder letter posted on the IR section of our website. We reported second quarter fiscal 2025 net sales of $47.2 million, an increase of 28% over last year and above our guidance range, highlighted by net sales in our Clearfield segment, which increased 47% year-over-year. Likewise, our net income per share of $0.09 was above our guidance range and significantly improved from a year ago period. Consistent with previous quarters, we view our second quarter performance as another step closer to returning to a normalized level of growth for Clearfield. I now want to address the evolving tariff dynamic. As we've highlighted previously, all of Clearfield's products manufactured in Mexico are exempt from current tariffs as they are covered under the United States, Mexico, Canada agreement. We purposely designed our U.S. and Mexican manufacturing facilities to support dual sourcing, cost optimization and supply chain resilience, and our Nestor business has enabled us to relocate our cable production from Europe to the U.S. as well. Additionally, we are shifting the production of our affected components to multiple manufacturing sites across the globe. Our proactive diversification of our supply chain has allowed us to maintain stable product availability even as trade policies fluctuate. Regarding Asian sourced products, in particular, we maintain strong supplier relationships across Asia and have additional sources in place globally to ensure continued product availability. However, while we do anticipate increased costs as a result of the recent tariff policies, we continue to implement tactics to address these impacts and to understand how potential increases in selling prices could impact demand from our customers. We do not believe the evolving tariff situation as currently known will materially affect our operating results. Turning to the industry. We continue to view the BEAD program as a meaningful long-term growth catalyst, particularly for community broadband and Tier 3 service providers. Although funding has faced administrative delays and regulatory uncertainty, we remain confident in the program's direction. Despite political shifts and increased discussion around technology neutrality, we believe the majority of BEAD funding will ultimately support fiber-based infrastructure. As such, we expect that BEAD will begin to contribute materially to Clearfield's revenue in fiscal 2026. As for near-term growth catalysts, we expect the Enhanced Alternative Connect America Cost Model, or E-ACAM program, to contribute meaningfully in the upcoming build season. While E-ACAM and BEAD funding cannot be applied to the same service addresses, providers can leverage both programs across different areas of their networks, enabling broader and more efficient network expansion. Because of the BEAD and E-ACAM government programs, combined with a return to a more normal ordering pattern for the overall industry, we believe Clearfield is well positioned to benefit from these opportunities. Finally, I'd like to highlight an important achievement in the quarter. Our FieldSmart FiberFlex 600 active cabinet has been recognized among the best in the industry by the 2025 Lightwave + BTR Innovation Reviews in the optical category. This award further validates our approach to providing flexible, scalable solutions that empower our customers to deploy networks efficiently and effectively. As we continue positioning the company to capitalize on current opportunities, we remain focused on identifying the next catalyst for growth. I look forward to updating you on these opportunities later in the year. I'd now like to turn the call over to our CFO, Dan Herzog, who will provide an overview of our financial results for the second quarter fiscal 2025 as well as to share our outlook for the remainder of the fiscal year.

Dan Herzog, CFO

Thank you, Cheri, and good afternoon, everyone. I will now review our second quarter results, beginning with sales. Consolidated net sales in the first quarter of fiscal 2025 were $47.2 million, a 28% increase from $36.9 million in the prior year second quarter and above our guidance range of $37 million to $40 million. This figure includes $40.6 million of Clearfield segment net sales, up 47% year-over-year, and $6.6 million of Nestor segment net sales, down 30% year-over-year. Our outperformance this quarter was driven by strong customer demand across all our Clearfield segment end markets and solid execution as we converted quoting activity into revenue at a faster pace and higher rate than anticipated. Once again, our strong bottom-line performance and continued gross margin improvements were primarily driven by lower year-over-year excess inventory reserve costs, led by improved utilization as well as increased overhead absorption due to increased volumes at our Clearfield facilities. We are pleased with the progress our Nestor segment is making with the production of microduct at our new facility in Estonia, as we continue to rightsize the cost structure for the business. We remain focused on improving our European operations by prioritizing higher gross margin solutions. Based upon these trends, we are reiterating our fiscal 2025 outlook of net sales in the range of $170 million to $185 million. As Cheri noted, we anticipate annual revenue growth for the Clearfield segment to be in line or above industry forecast, while we expect annual revenue from our Nestor segment for fiscal 2025 to fall slightly year-over-year as we focus on improving margins. For our third fiscal quarter of 2025, we anticipate net sales in the range of $45 million to $50 million and net income per share in the range of $0.01 to $0.08. The net income per share range is based on the number of shares outstanding at the end of the second quarter and does not reflect potential share repurchases completed in the third quarter. Our guidance reflects the evolving tariff situation as currently known, which we do not believe will materially affect our operating results. And with that, we will open the call to your questions.

Operator, Operator

Our first question comes from Ryan Koontz with Needham & Company.

Ryan Koontz, Analyst

Congrats on a great quarter. Cheri, can you comment on the product mix? You've had very strong subscriber additions over the last several quarters. Can you update us on how new passings were in your first quarter and how they are off to a start in the June quarter?

Cheryl Beranek, President and CEO

In the quarter ending in March, we experienced strong sales of products for connecting homes. Additionally, we saw renewed growth in these products. There had been a surplus of fiber distribution hubs or cabinets available, but that stock has now been depleted, and our cabinet sales are picking up again. Looking ahead, especially this summer when there’s a heightened focus on connected homes, which require more labor, we expect to see an increase in the number of homes connected with Clearfield equipment.

Ryan Koontz, Analyst

Got it. And how is traction coming along on your new connected home products there?

Cheryl Beranek, President and CEO

We are very pleased with our progress on the fiber and the home deployment kits. Our emphasis is consistently on labor efficiency and solutions that are easy for technicians to use. The home deployment kits contain all the necessary equipment for setting up a home in one package, which sets us apart from others in the market. These solutions allow us to streamline the process so that one person can complete the setup instead of two. You can expect to see a lot of attention given to the home distribution kits at summer trade shows and similar events. Additionally, our trucks traveling nationwide will be showcasing our products, and you'll notice our equipment being utilized by customers as they connect homes.

Ryan Koontz, Analyst

Great. And really strong bounce back from your regionals there in the quarter, nice to see. Roughly, how is that diversification within that category? Or roughly how many customers are contributing materially to that number in regionals?

Cheryl Beranek, President and CEO

Large regionals, there's a half a dozen companies that are involved, but there was one customer that did pull forward about $3 million worth of business into this quarter. And so always thrilled to be able to do ongoing business with the large regionals and being in a good place for their builds. But you will see in the queue when it's filed that we have one large regional that will become a 10% customer.

Ryan Koontz, Analyst

Okay. Great. And Dan, on the gross margin there, you talked about lower E&O reserve. Did you end up crediting back some of that E&O reserve in the quarter? Or you're just saying it was less of a reserve?

Dan Herzog, CFO

It was less of a reserve. Last year in this quarter, we had about $5 million or $4.9 million. This year, we ended up with about $400,000. We also reversed around $500,000 due to recoveries. We continue to see strong utilization, which acts like prepaid inventory, and it effectively reduces costs with the higher demand.

Ryan Koontz, Analyst

Sure. Great. And then lastly, you talked about Nestor, maybe making some changes there. Can you unpack that a little bit in terms of your cost reduction approach or what you're thinking for that business?

Cheryl Beranek, President and CEO

We're continuing to expand the product mix and the new products that are being produced there are predominantly being produced in Estonia. So we'll continue the business that we're doing in Finland and the development of cables, but our higher gross margin solutions are predominantly coming out of the Estonia plant. That plant was just finished building that plant, and it's really optimized for diversification, really optimized for flexibility of product mix. And so being able to bring new products to market that are in that higher-margin category will really help us and get the products closer to the European continent because we could ship them out of Estonia more quickly than we can out of Finland.

Operator, Operator

There are no further questions at this time. At this point, I'd like to turn the call back over to Cheryl Beranek for closing comments.

Cheryl Beranek, President and CEO

Thanks so much. Unfortunately, for those of you who may be on the call, we've identified that there are a lot of calls from a lot of public companies going on at this point in time. So unfortunately, the rest of our analyst community was not able to join us today, but know that we will be speaking to each of our analysts later this evening when they are available so that they can put their reports out tomorrow morning. So for those of you who receive the reports from the analysts, I know that we will have a chance to speak with each of them this evening. We are thrilled with where we see the market recovering. Our position, especially within the Clearfield segment, is one in which demand is there. We're seeing it both in our connected home and in our past home and excited about new trade shows and new products that you're going to see launch moving forward. We believe that the U-shaped recovery is underway, and we look forward to a lot of great business moving forward until next quarter. Please be careful. Be nice to each other, and we'll talk soon.

Operator, Operator

Thanks. This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and we thank you for your participation.