Energy Recovery, Inc. (NASDAQ:ERII) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Unidentified Analyst: Thank you very much for taking my question. And I have two questions actually. One in reference to the buybacks, I know it’s been discussed already. But Josh, you said something in reference to you’re not sure how much money you’re going to be spending on the CO2 thereafter. And just wondering if you can take that much cash flow, you have $106 million in the bank right now or cash equivalents. Do you foresee that you’re going to really have to hold on to that much cash, maybe just buying back a few million shares wouldn’t make that huge of the dent in the cash holdings?

Joshua Ballard: Yeah. Well, we’ll see. I mean, we’re talking about inventory builds which takes a lot of cash. We’re talking about building new capacity which takes a lot of cash. And more importantly, as David was describing the European market and as we kind of vet out what it will take to truly conquer that market, those are the questions that are at least top of my mind in terms of how we use cash. I’m not suggesting this will take us a year to figure out but it’s something that I think together with the Board we’re in budgeting season. These are things that we need to dive into and make to move on before we start making decisions around our cash for next year.

Unidentified Analyst: Okay. My second question is as you mentioned you had great numbers for the quarter. Congratulations on that. So glad to hear that. And you also acknowledged that the stock being down so much. It seems that the stock’s reaction was due to a lack of communication by management especially with the CEO transition. I’m sure maybe that’s been brought to your attention. But what do you have to do in the future, what do you plan to do in the future maybe to communicate on such major events going forward?

Pamela Tondreau: Hi. This is Pam Tondreau. So we apologize for any worry that’s caused everybody. The topic of CEO succession had been on the Board’s mind for a year. We had already engaged the head hunter but this is not the type of thing that gets discussed until it happens unfortunately. We feel good about where we are the company. We feel good about having David Moon able to step in as interim CEO and we ask you to stick with us. And let us show you that we know what we’re doing here.

Unidentified Analyst: I appreciate that, but also other companies when they start to go into CEO transitions, they do bring that up on calls or maybe if you could have just brought it up in today’s call, but it’s just this lack of communication. People were just thinking the worse obviously because their stock is down over 50%. So I appreciate your response.

Pamela Tondreau: Thank you.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] And our next question comes from the line of Wally Walker with Hana Road Capital. Please proceed with your question.

Wally Walker: Yes. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. First of all Pam and David, thanks for your expressing your confidence in the underlying business and a follow-up on the previous question or comments. Stating that in last week’s release, would have gone a long way to new rate the uncertainty that was created and evisceration of stock price. So I also appreciate the apology and perhaps lesson learned. Josh, a question for you on the guidance more near term the Q4, so I’m trying to make sure, I correctly understand what you said about the deliveries risk and potential for delay, if the ones that you detailed, the potential delayed deliveries actually all get delayed, my math still shows a record quarter for the company of all time. And the guidance on the margins you prescribed, would be a very profitable quarter also even with that delay and also add to your cash balance. So long question. but am I thinking about that or hearing that correctly?

Joshua Ballard: Yes. No, I appreciate that, Wally. You’re exactly, right actually because I cited about $19 million. If you do the math, we’re at $60 million plus that’s remaining for Q4. And you’re right, we would still — we should still — even with that if those were to move out have a record quarter a record quarter, if I remember right about $42 million last year, we should still beat that regardless. So yes, it would still be an outstanding quarter. Absolutely, from a profit and a revenue perspective, no doubt.

Wally Walker : And within the scope of your margin profile as well, even with the potential delays?

Joshua Ballard: Yes. But we fall back into — we wouldn’t exceed that guidance, which is what I’m citing now if everything goes out that 65% to 67%, we’d fall back within that guidance. We still within the guidance though. We wouldn’t exceed it if — because all — those shipments were all very pressure exchanger heavy, which are higher margin. So we would naturally see it, come down a little bit, but we would still — we should still be within guidance regardless.

Wally Walker : Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you. Good luck

Joshua Ballard: You bet. Thanks, Wally.

Operator: And this concludes this — We’ve reached the end of the question-and-answer session. I’ll now turn the call back over to Jim Siccardi for closing remarks.

Jim Siccardi: Thank you everyone, for joining us this evening. We look forward to talking to you in the near future. Have a great evening.

Pamela Tondreau: Good bye.

Operator: This concludes today’s conference and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

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