Eltek Ltd (ELTK) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the LTCH LTD 2026 First Quarter Financial Results Conference Call. All participants are at present in a listen-only mode. Following management's formal presentation, instructions will be given for the question-and-answer session. For operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. Before I turn the call over to Mr. Eliafe, Chief Executive Officer, and Ron Freund, Chief Financial Officer, I'd like to remind you that they will be referring to forward-looking information in today's presentation and in the Q&A. By its nature, this information contains forecasts, assumptions, and expectations about future outcomes, which are subject to the risk and uncertainties outlined here and discussed more fully in LTCH's public disclosure filing. These forward-looking statements are projections and reflect the current beliefs and expectations of the company. Actual events or results may differ materially. We'll also be referring to non-GAAP measures. LTCH undertakes no obligation to publicly release revisions to such forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances occurring subsequent to this date. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Eli Yaffe. Mr. Yaffe, please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning. Thank you for joining us for our 2026 first quarter running call. With me is Ron Freund, our Chief Financial Officer. We will begin by providing you with an overview of our business and a summary of the principal factors that affected our results during Q1-2026. After our prepared remarks, we will be happy to answer any of your questions. Everyone should have access to our press release, which was released earlier today. The release will be also available on our website. As we previously indicated, revenue in the quarter were below our expectations. This was primarily driven by the mix of timing of backlog conversion, ongoing logistic constraints, and foreign exchange impacts, rather than any change in the underlying demand. The product mix in the quarter was primarily a function of a backlog release timing rather than any change in the price discipline, customers' quality, or market positioning. During the quarter, a larger portion of our shipments originated from the orders received in a prior period at lower average pricing levels, while significant portions of the higher value programs and advanced products added more recently to the backlog are scheduled for the delivery later in the year and into the year 2027. In addition, due to the supply change and material allocation constraint, we prioritized certain deliveries in order to maintain customers' commitments and production continuity, which also impacted our quarterly mix. As a result, the average selling price of products delivered during the quarter declined, negatively impacted profitability. We believe that the current quarter does not reflect the normalized margin profile of the business. Importantly, underlying demand remains strong. During the quarter, our backlog more than doubled compared to the beginning of the year. This increase includes the two orders we publicly announced, with deliveries expected across 2026 and the year 2027. We believe this substational backlog growth enhances our revenue visibility and provides a strong foundation for future growth. Even so, the timing of revenue recognition may continue to vary between quarters. On the operational side, we continue to operate in a challenging supply chain and logistic environment. Due to the ongoing regional complexities and global logistics disruption, we experienced constraint in sourcing, transportation, and material flow that affected our ability to manufacture at sufficient volume to efficiency absorbed fixed capacity from the Far East, Europe, and United States remained constrained, and certain chemicals that were previously eligible for air transportation can no longer be shipped by air reduce logistical flexibility. In addition, extended sea freight transit time and ongoing global shortage of pre-peg material are contributed to the longer supply cycle. The pre-peg shortage is being driven in part by strong demand for the fiberglass materials from the rapidly expanding AI hardware infrastructure market. These operational and logistical challenges further impact production efficiency during the quarter and limited our ability to increase output level. In addition, the continued weakness of the U.S. dollar against the Israeli shekels and the significant negative impact on our operational results and increase the operational loss by approximately $1.3 million compared to the corresponding quarter last year. We are actively managing this dynamics through close coordination with suppliers and customers. In response to the increased material constraint and cost, we have updated our pricing structure and are currently selling relevant fiberglass products at adjusting price level and under allocation quotas designed to secure supply continuity and protect operational efficiency. Turning to our investment plan, we continue to make progress. The first new production line was delivered and partially installed. As previously noted, due to the current situation in Israel and the war with Iran, the installation team from the supplier had temporarily left the country, which created delay in the installation processes. We are pleased to report that the supplier installation team returned to Israel yesterday and the installation work has now resumed. We expect the installation process to be completed over the coming weeks, after which we plan to begin the qualification process for commercial production. While recent events have created some delays in the installation timeline, they do not change our strategic direction. As we have noted in the past, the qualification process is inherently lengthy and expected to take several months. We will gradually ramp up the line into commercial production. Overall, while the near-term results are affected by timing and external constraints, we are encouraged by the strength of the demand and the significant growth in backlog and the progress we are making to expanding our production capacity. In parallel, the process of bringing foreign workers to work in our operation continues to advance. We believe that upon their arrival, we will be in a stronger position to address the ongoing challenges in the local labor market and better support our plant production growth. Looking ahead, our focus remains on gradually returning to business to normalize profitability levels. A key element in achieving this objective is our continuous effort to secure new orders at pricing level that apparently reflect the increase of raw material, the impact of the weaker U.S. dollar environment, and the value of the company execution, logical expertise, and on-time delivery performance. At the same time, we continue to invest operational improvement, production capacity expansion and supply chain stability in order to better support long-term profitable growth and strengthening our competitive position into the market. I will now turn the call over to Ron Foy and our CFO to discuss our financial results.

Thank you, Eli. I would like to draw your attention to the financial statements for the first quarter of 2026. During this call, I will also discuss certain non-gap financial measures. Eltec uses EBITDA as a non-gap financial performance measurement. Please see our earnings release for its definition and the reasons for its use. I will now go over the highlights of the first quarter of 2026. All numbers mentioned are in use. Revenues for the first quarter of 2026 totaled $10.4 million, compared to $12.8 million in the first quarter of 2025. Gross loss was $1.9 million, down from $2.2 million gross profit in the first quarter of 2025. The decline was driven by the mix and timing of backlog conversion, ongoing logistic constraint, and foreign exchange impact. Operating loss for the quarter was $3.3 million compared to operating profit of $0.7 million in the same period last year. We recorded financial expenses of $0.1 million in the first quarter of 2026 compared to financial income of $0.5 million in the first quarter of 2025. The expenses recorded in the current quarter are primarily due to the devaluation of the U.S. dollar against the Israeli shekel, net of interest earned on our interest-bearing accounts. Net loss for the quarter was $2.9 million, or $0.42 per share, compared to net income of $1 million, or $0.15 per share in the first quarter of 2025. EBITDA loss for the quarter was $2.7 million compared to EBITDA of $1.2 million in the prior year period. Cash flows used in operating activities totaled $0.4 million during the first quarter of 2026. As of March 31, 2026, we had $11.1 million in cash and cash equivalents with no outstanding debt. We are now ready to answer your question.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time we will begin the question and answer session. If you have a question, please press star 1. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star 2. If you are using speaker equipment, kindly lift the handset before pressing the numbers. Your questions will be answered in the order they are received. Please stand by. The first question is from Mark Shaurogratzky from Kepler Capital. Go ahead, please.

Hi, Ali. Hi, Ron. Really a disaster quarter, but I want to understand when we can expect margins normalization. because as we see there are huge demand to the pcb now in israel and also in usa for ai hyperscalers and so i'm really trying to understand why it's so difficult to raise prices in this environment forecast of looking for the gas in my life all the background for

you to decide when we'll come to normal operation. It depends upon the length of the conflict with Iran, it depends upon the labor market, it depends upon the Shekel against the Israeli, and a lot of factors that are unknown to us. But we do everything to adjust to accommodate this risk and mitigate against it. For example, we adjusted all our prices of the shekel against the dollar, but if there will be more devaluation, we cannot expect it and we cannot focus it. I never forecast that we'll be at 2.9 shekel per dollar. I didn't forecast the shutdown and the hours that we lost during the first quarter because of the siren in Israel. We cannot do it. What we do is we can promise that for long term, as I mentioned before, we continue with our strategic plan to continue to have the two lines operating by the end of this year and start to fly from this point.

Okay, so I want to understand. Let's say the dollar will stop to devaluate and everything will stabilize and you will finish your construction lines. So you still project that you will be able to achieve 27, 28 gross margin if there are no other devaluations in the U.S. dollar and you stop production of the old backlog.

Yes, as we said in the past, when we finish our investment plan and take into account that the current circumstances stay the same, no devaluation, no new bad news, We expect that our revenues will increase up to what we told before, up to around $60 to $65 million. And in that volume, we estimate the gross profit will be 26% to 28%, as we previously said.

Okay, nice. And I see, if I read recently the earnings call of TTMI, I see huge demand in the USA, and they even need to cancel or to delay some projects. So do you think you will be able to secure some additional orders from the USA at the current environment?

In the beginning of the year, we took a competition with TTM of a work, a defense contractor from the United States, that we compete head-to-head with TTM.

Okay.

It's a good signal, yeah.

Yeah, so now also a very big order for hyperscalers. do you think you will maybe be able to also secure some orders from those clients because they also need some specialized PCB to be manufactured?

You know, Mark, we don't know exactly which segment in the future will ask for bids from us. But what we can say is that our high technology and the products can serve many high-end segments. We hopefully, you know, we hopefully wish that we will be managed to compete TTM in that market also. Currently, we are investing energies trying to get more orders from customers abroad. The U.S. is a very important market. We are also trying in Europe. And we hope, you know, to increase our backlog. As we said before, we more than doubled our backlog from the beginning of the year.

Okay. And it's also very important, the mix of the backlog. So do you see enough products, not only on the rigid PCB, but also on the same flex PCB?

Yeah. The basket of the future, I don't have it in front of me in parallel, but the basket is well organized. But some portion of the basket is based on, and actually right now we are at 2.9.

And if the USD dollar against Shekel will rise in the near future, so you will benefit from the current orders that you receive?

Of course, like all exporters.

Okay, thank you. I don't have other questions at this stage. Thank you, Mark. Thank you.

The next question is from Ran Zor from Private Investor. please go ahead.

Hi, Eli and Ron. First question is regarding the sourcing problem. Can you elaborate more on that, like until when you're going to face this problem? Second question is, now I hear for the first time that the integration of the new equipment and facility is going to happen until the end of this year. Last time you mentioned it will due by the end of the first half of 2026.

Can you repeat the first question? I didn't hear your first question.

You mentioned that in the first quarter you had a problem with sourcing.

Yes.

Can you elaborate more on that? Because it's like an important issue. Is it done? Is it over? Do you still face it in this quarter? When do you think it will be over?

The sourcing problem and the logistic problem in the first quarter is divided to two. First of all is an international problem that there is a shortness of fiberglass all over the world because of the AI demand, as I mentioned before. And the suppliers allocated quotas. If we are ready to pay the AI prices, quote-unquote, we'll be out of the quota. and we agreed to pay the AI prices because we didn't want to stay in shorted. This was problem number one. Problem number two is how to bring this, and this is only related to Israel, is how to bring this raw material, which is a limited life shelf, to Israel under a cooling condition during the conflict time. And as I mentioned before, there was a short of supply, short of flights between the Far East, United States, fiberglass to Israel, and we suffer from shortness of raw material, which is not the situation today because we agree to pay the high prices, and the bottleneck is open. If the conflict will return, the problem will return again. This is regarding your first question. Regarding the second question that you asked...

Just a second. For the first question, the AI problem, the AI constraint is going to continue. It's not done.

It's only impacting them. If we pay the AI prices for fiberglass, we'll be out of the quotas. If we want to stay in the oil prices of the PCB only and not pay the premium that AI is willing to pay, we'll be under quotas.

Yeah, but the question is, does your business model, your pricing model take into consideration? You want to arrive at a specific gross margin. Does the pricing model take into consideration getting out of this quota and paying a premium?

I don't have a choice, and I have to load it on the prices to our customers.

So can you increase the prices to the customers?

It's very tough. It's very tough. We start to do it, and we got objections from our customers. so it's a lot of explanation work, showing articles. There is a very famous Morgan Stanley article, the Telpass, and we're going from customer to customer and explaining that it's not beyond our control. It's impacted, and I think that this is a common problem to all the PCB supplies all over the world. It's not related only to Israel.

And it's something that's going to accompany, you know, to be with the company in the coming future also?

Yes.

Okay. Regarding the second question?

Regarding the second question, as I mentioned, the plan was originally, and the installation started, and during the first two days of the conflict with Iran, the team, which was eight labor people and two engineers left Israel immediately and they returned only yesterday it was almost six weeks or seven weeks that they were not here and now so we suffer another delay now update that I had before that by July 9 has to be updated

right now I repeat, if you have a question, please press star 1 there are no further questions at this time Before I ask Mr. Yaffe to go ahead with his closing statement, I would like to remind the participants that a replay of this call will be available tomorrow on our website.

In summary, while we are negatively navigating near-term challenges related to the timing, logistic, and foreign exchange, we remain very confident in the foundation of the business. Demand continues to strong, as I reflected in the significant growth in our backlog and the long-term visibility is provided. At the same time, we continue to make strategic investment to expand our capacity and support future growth. As this initiative's progress and external constraint begin to ease, we believe we are well positioned to translate our strong demand environment into improved financial performance in the period ahead. I would like to take the opportunity to thank the employees for their decision and re-license, particularly in the current environment, as well as our investors for their continuous support and confidence in our strategy. Thank you all for joining us on today's call. Have a good day.

This concludes the LTCH LTD 2026 First Quarter Financial Results Conference Call. Thank you for your participation. You may go ahead and disconnect.