Comtech Telecommunications Corp. (NASDAQ:CMTL) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Page 10 of 12

Mike Bondi: Greg, on that — good question. Certainly, as we’re looking at the full year and looking at the lean initiatives, we do expect certainly the RIF actions taken last year, that’s going to be sort of foundational in each of the quarters. But as we go throughout the quarters, as Ken just alluded to, we have supply chain initiatives, facility initiatives, common tools and platform initiatives. And we’re starting to see those getting engaged and driving some of the results in our outlook. So, I would say each quarter you’ll see probably progressively better bottom-line margins as the year progresses. I think we’re setting our sights higher than where we are today. We’re not satisfied with the 12.7% in Q4. Certainly, we want to continue to do better.

We had always said as a target, we wanted to get back to at least the 14% we were doing before COVID and then exceed that. So, I think with the trajectory that we’re on, I think, we have line of sight for that. In the first quarter, in terms of our guidance, and I think Joe asked the question earlier about sort of the margin profile of some of these new contract wins. I think just given the fielding schedules of the Army and what we’re seeing — being expected of us for deliveries in Q1, I would say, probably our margins are probably going to be slightly down from Q4, what we just reported, but then progressively throughout the year with the mix that we’re seeing it would get back to the more historical levels say in the mid-30% range. So, overall, I think it’s the lean initiatives and they can help drive it up from here.

I don’t think this is where we want to stay. I think we still have more to do.

Ken Peterman: I’ll offer — I’ll also offer market perspective on that. I think that you’re all aware we’re in a very dynamic geopolitical situation globally. And sometimes that imparts sudden changes in mix because the customers in those situations can place sudden orders and they may need something differently than what they planned on needing maybe six months or so ago. So that kind of dynamic and volatility is favorable in a macro sense to our top-line, but it can introduce variability and mix that was unanticipated.

Greg Burns: All right. Great. Thank you.

Operator: And we do have Lance Vitanza with TD Cowen back in queue. Your line is open.

Lance Vitanza: Thanks, guys. I apologize for the technical difficulty a second ago, but congrats on the quarter. And I did just have a couple of questions. I wanted to actually go back, I think Joe had asked about the outperformance in the quarter, and you had talked about the lean initiatives. But with respect to the revenues in particular at the outperforming there, would you say that that was most notable in either of your two segments? Or was that sort of better-than-expected revenue growth, was that more broad-based?

Mike Bondi: I think it’s going to be in our Satellite and Space Communications segment for sure. They had a pretty strong quarter when it came to deliveries of troposcatter and SATCOM solutions. We’re delivering items off to the U.S. Marine Corps, VSAT equipment for the Army, solid state, microwave, high-power amplifiers. We’re also pretty strong this quarter. And so that definitely was giving us a good contribution in Q4.

Lance Vitanza: Great. Okay. So, on the Army contract, I think you mentioned during the Q&A that there was a prior contract that could offer some clues as to how this one might look when it ramps. My question is, does the [GDSR] (ph) contract, does that have a specific targeted lifetime in terms of years? And if so, could you discuss that? If it doesn’t have a specific lifetime, maybe you could just remind us how long that prior contract you were thinking about how long that wound up running?

Ken Peterman: When I was talking about the prior contract, I was talking about EDIM and EBEM, the two modem contracts, and that’s one with the production tail. I don’t think that’s what you’re talking about here. You mentioned GFSR, right?

Page 10 of 12