Research Frontiers Incorporated (NASDAQ:REFR) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Research Frontiers Incorporated (NASDAQ:REFR) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript May 6, 2023

Operator: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Research Frontiers Investor Conference Call to discuss the first quarter of 2023 results of operations and recent developments. During today’s presentation, all parties will be in a listen-only mode. And following the presentation, the conference will be opened for questions. This conference is being recorded today. A replay of this conference call will be available starting later today in the Investors section of Research Frontiers’ website at www.smartglass.com and will be available for replay for the next 90 days. Please note that some of the comments made today may contain forward-looking information. The words expect, anticipate, plans, forecasts, and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements.

Statements that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements that are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions that are part of the Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements reflect the company’s current beliefs, and a number of important factors could cause actual results for future periods to differ materially from those expressed. Significant factors that could cause results to differ from those anticipated are described in our filings with the SEC. Research Frontiers undertakes no obligation to update or revise these forward-looking statements to reflect new events or uncertainties. The company will be answering many of the questions that were e-mailed to it prior to this conference call, either in their presentation or as part of the Q&A session at the end.

In some cases, the company has responded directly to e-mail questions prior to this call or will do so afterwards in order to answer more questions of general interest to shareholders on this call. If you find that your question has been substantially answered as a courtesy and to allow time for other shareholders to ask their questions, please remove yourself from the queue, my present pound 1. Also, we ask that you keep your questions brief in the interest of time. I would now like to turn the conference over to Joe Harary, President and Chief Executive Officer of Research Frontiers. Please go ahead, sir.

Joe Harary: Thank you, Ross, and welcome aboard, and hello, everyone, and welcome to our first quarter 2023 Investor Conference Call. If you had a chance to review our 10-Q or the press release we issued earlier today with your financial results for the first quarter of ’23, you’ll see that we’re in very good shape. Total expenses were lower in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the same quarter last year. Investment income was up and our net loss was down 26%. At March 31, 2023, we had no debt and more than $4 million in cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities and working capital of $4.6 million. We expect to have sufficient working capital for at least the next 5 years of operations. I think everyone will be very pleased to hear that royalty income for the first quarter of 2023 was up 91% from the previous quarter and was up 43% from the first quarter of 2022.

This increase came from higher royalties in our 2 largest markets, the automotive and aircraft markets. Car models from Cadillac, Ferrari, McLaren, and at least one other Asian car manufacturer are expected to be introduced into cereal production in 2023 using our patented SPD-SmartGlass technology and their panoramic glass roofs. Sales continue in various models of aircraft, and you will see from recent announcements just a few weeks ago by our licensee Vision Systems, they are now supplying SPD electronically dimmable windows on 2 very large aircraft from Airbus, the ACJA319neo with AMAK Aerospace and the ACJ220 with Comlux. Deployment of SPD on trains and boats continue as well as for architectural applications.2023 started as an active year for SPD with debuts by Galsi and many of their customers at the Consumer Electronics Show, including the keynote by the CEO of BMW, joined on the stage by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The car had SPD SmartGlass all around the side glass as well as being featured in the keynote presentation in the heads-up displays. What I like about this, besides the sheer volumes of vehicles that BMW makes, is that they’re not only working with SPD to solve traditional problems of heat, light and glare coming into their cars from the roofs, but also to use it for range extension, fuel economy and as Bentley also pointed out, reducing weight and the number of moving parts and components in the vehicle. As BMW recently demonstrated, they also have worked with SPD for nontraditional uses for SmartGlass. Last year, they showed the dynamic headlights. And this year, SPD became an important feature in adding function and performance to their heads-up displays to be introduced in cars starting in 2025.After CES, Cauthen Vision Systems were at the bus world in Detroit from February 4 through 7.

And since our last conference call, SPD was also showcased elsewhere around the world, including their helicopters at the Hellapo in March in Atlanta. Galaxy will have SPD for architectural and other applications at Glass China and Shanghai starting this weekend, May 6 through 9. And we expect more public exhibitions and trade shows in product and project launches moving forward. With that, I look forward to answering your questions, and let’s start with some of the ones that were e-mailed to us in advance of the meeting. In some cases, I’m combining several questions that are related to each other into one. This is from Patrick Joe, can you please talk about your competition in various markets? Well, for a long time, Patrick, our competition was traditional carton shades and blinds, low-tech solutions to shading and often low-cost.

Then people realized that more elegant solutions were possible to shade light while not blocking one’s view. The 3 main technologies, Patrick, that are used in the smart glass industry are PDLC, electrochromic, and SPD. And we are the leading and best-performing technology when it comes to shade and also the one with the longest track record of reliability performance out there. We’re also the most expensive, at least we think, because no one knows quite for sure because electrochromic has been heavily subsidized. However, those costs are coming way down based on the capacity at the current factory at Gauzy and are probably going to approach 1/4 to 1/3 what they were when the technology first came out. Let’s talk about the different technologies.

So Patrick, in general, there’s PDLC, which is very good for privacy, and it’s mostly used in interior applications for architectures such as bathrooms and conference rooms, and it’s a relatively cheap commodity-type solution. It has been tried by some automakers, but one of the first to try at Mercedes eventually realized its durability and performance shortcomings and adopted SPD Smart Glass instead. Electrochromic technology and other types of technology has received massive amounts of taxpayer dollars with not much to show for it as far as I’m concerned. Two companies, Sage and View use technology, Sage is a private company, View is a public company, so there is more information available about it. So just to give you some performance data, SPD will switch from tented to clear in about 1 to 2 seconds.

Electrochromics typically takes 10 to 40 minutes to switch depending upon the size of the glass, maybe about 8 to 10 minutes for a sunroof and 40 minutes for a typical architectural application. It also changes from the outer edges first, creating a donut hole look in round aircraft windows and an Iris effect in larger architectural windows. The technology is different, but also the companies that we compete against are also much different, and probably they are good examples of how not to work with SmartGlass. And if you will allow me a little detour, Patrick, with your question, I think it will illustrate some key points about this in our competition. View is a public company. And as of this morning, their stock year-to-date was down over 72% after being down 75% last year.

View also failed to file its proxy on time, and this makes me speculate that a stock split in even more dilutive stock issuances, assuming that they can raise capital, need to be approved by their shareholders under NASD rules. In early April, you announced that we’re cutting 170 jobs, which represents about 23% of their workforce, and they needed funding to survive. Their SmartGlass sales were down over 16% in 2022 versus 2021, and they reported a loss of $337 million in 2022 and had $198 million in cash at year-end and burned through $260 million during the year. I’m thinking that May 9 conference call should be very interesting. Another publicly traded SmartGlass company, Crown, is down 28% and is actually about 33% after being down 95% in 2022.

And they also had layoffs. They reduced their headcount for SmartGlassfrom 31 to 16 people. And from a technical and product standpoint, Crown is falling far short of their stated requirement of 1.5-meter wide film. They announced about 2 weeks ago that they can now make a prototype of 24 inches wide. And they’re not in commercial production and are years beyond their target date for that production. And to quote their shareholder letter about a week ago, this 24-inch wide film is by far one of our greatest accomplishments. Crown has not even delivered their first-generation smart window inserts to customers, much less their highly touted second-generation inserts. They lost $14.3 million in 2022 and burned through over $11 million in cash, had about $800,000 in cash at year-end.

So based on their public filings with the SEC, I’m estimating that View runs out of cash in early September and Crown lends out of cash in late June. But both will undoubtedly try to extend these dates and try to raise additional financing if they can. And both of these companies, as I mentioned, at very large layoffs. And they’ve also disclosed in their SEC filings, it’s been hidden in the footnotes that they had issued warrants to their key customers to get them involved. And I think that they’ve done some highly dilutive financing just to keep their doors open, and their prospects for continuing to do that keep diminishing. They’ve also bought other businesses to hide the fact of their lack of sales in their smart window products. So I think that shows , and I appreciate the detour, Patrick.

I know you asked a general question, but I went a little bit beyond that with some more detail. But I think it clearly shows how not to operate a SmartGlassbusiness. We spoke earlier in this call about some of the accomplishments that we’ve had just this year. Our stock was up over 11% last year, and expect this year, we expect to reward shareholders again. Gauzy has been able to raise capital from key strategic investors like Hyundai and Avery Dennison, and other industrial companies in their supply chain and are hiring people worldwide. So when you look at research renters and our licensees, I think you’ll see some great real-world examples of how smart glass business and products should be done. Let me take a couple more questions that have been e-mailed to us.

Okay. So this one is from Jeff. So the EV market is running into a roadblock. They cost too much, witness Tesla lowering prices 3x. FiscaRivian and others not meeting their production quotas, and the rollout of charging stations is coming solely. I think this will slow the rollout of mass-produced EVs in the near term and will affect your royalty stream. What is your thinking? Well, first, Jeff, we certainly can benefit the electric vehicle market. We increase the driving range of electric vehicles by 5.5%. But we’re not relying on the electric vehicle market for increased revenues. Most new cars this year are internal combustion engines, vehicles that are coming out with our technology. And the new ones are also internal combustion as well as EV.

So while electric vehicles give us a nice push over time, they’re not essential today or in the near term to our growth of revenue. And I think you’ve probably seen a little bit of that already. And right now, only about 7% of cars in the world are electric vehicles. So we have a lot to go. Another question from Colin. Okay. When can we first expect the first announcement from 1 of the 2 Asian automakers? Many thanks. Okay. Well, we know when cars are coming out. We just don’t know when they’re going to be announced, and that’s kind of the nature of the business we’re in. And just to give an example, sometimes even the carmakers don’t know. When the Cadillac sales came out, it was announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, 6 months before that announcement, the people on the production team had no idea when they were going to announce it.

So even within the automakers, sometimes you don’t know when the marketing department is going to pull the trigger. But you can actually get a good sense from some of the auto magazines and blogs when cars are coming out and the general equipment they’re going to have, and I think that’s helpful to have on. So this question is from Randy. When will the 2 Asian automakers we have discussed and you mentioned in the conference call begin production? Will they be in production models or concepts? And if production models, will those revenues be included in the third or fourth quarters of this year, as was alluded to as well? And first of all, thanks for the question. These are production models in that concept. And I don’t know if it’s going to be the third or fourth quarter, and that really depends on what type of lead times these auto manufacturers will need to put these in the car.

Now when we first came out in Mercedes, just to give you an idea, and I think it’s probably a good thing to talk about. There was a very, very, very intense effort to get qualified as a technology for automotive. Very few companies have done that. Certainly, in the automotive industry, we are the leader in that, and we’ve done it, and we’ve done it with probably the most demanding launch customer there was, Mercedes. It’s a very long process. And typically, though, if you do that process successfully, and there’s been tens of thousands of cars that have our technology on the road that haven’t had one reported problem. The other carmakers tend to not have to do as much development work. So it really depends on what kind of lead time they want on that.

Another question I got was how is that development work going with Hounde? First, let me say that while we haven’t officially confirmed that Hyundai is coming out with our technology, I think it’s important to note that Hyundai is a strategic investor in our licensee Gauzy and some of their public statements have talked about a car with SPD coming out in series production. So now to answer the question, that development work has gone very, very well. People are very, very satisfied with how SPD is performing. And we kind of expected that because we had gone through this ourselves with other licensees when Daimler first came out with the various Mercedes models. So we expected this to go well, and in fact, it did go well. So that’s something that we could all look forward to.

Another question is from Sam. On my previous visit to the research frontiers, I noticed a large SPD glass at the entrance that has been cycling on and off for years. How many times has this cycle been down and off without failure now? Well, we stopped counting. I know that we’ve gone beyond 20 million cycles. And I know our licensees for some of the testing they’ve done for customers have gone well beyond 20 million cycles. We don’t expect any kind of degradation from on-off cycling. The reason is that we’re not an electric chemical reaction like a battery charging and discharging. To put it in context, electrochromic technology, which we talked about earlier in response to Patrick’s question, is an electrochemical reaction, those tend to get slower and less performing with cycling.

SPD is simply these nanoparticles that line up and are randomized based on running motions and no electrochemical reactions in there. And because of that, you don’t have the degradation on the on-off cycle. What gives you confidence, another question. What gives you confidence that we’ll see more automakers adopt SPD over PDLC in the near future? And what kind of feedback have you had on automakers from both technologies? Well, the confidence I have is really based on experience. Mercedes started actually with PDLC many years ago, and it didn’t take long to realize that using PDLC and the roof of a car has the opposite effect of what was desired and actually created greenhouse effects inside the vehicle, made the cars hotter. And it’s because PDLC is good for privacy, as I mentioned to Patrick, but it’s not very good for shading.

And because of that, it creates all these environmental issues inside the car in terms of heat buildup and other things. Another question. I answered one of them from Jared about GN7, which is the Hyundai vehicle we talked about. Is Gauzy making the film for the Ferrari Purosangue? And the answer is yes. They are supplying the film for that. And is Gauzy able to make SPD film for commercial applications right now at any price with acquired OEM-level quality control. And the answer is yes, you’re seeing this based on the development efforts from going on in Asia, going on in Europe, and just in general, that. Another question is from Frank. I ask if you could speak to Honda’s chances about going into production. I know what you could say is limited, but investors are going by the multiple articles that are on the Internet that says the GN7 is expected to have the Magic roof similar to the Mercedes-Benz.

Okay. Well, yes, the answer there is, I think, based on the development efforts and the fact that Honda’s a strategic investor in Gauzy, that we have a pretty good chance of seeing success. The other part of your question was, can you talk about the significance of that? Well, Hyundai is a high-volume producer of automobiles. So just the sheer volumes of that, I think, are important. But I think also one of the really important things here is that if you look at the car, they’re targeting this for, it’s a $35,000 to $37,000 MSRP vehicle and the luxury addition of that comes out in August. And if you can make it into a $37,000 vehicle, I think it’s a huge game changer on how the industry will look at SmartGlassin general, but SPD in particular, because up until now, we’ve been in mostly the high-end cars like the Ferraris and Mercedes and McLaren and Cadillacs of the world.

And this would be the first mid-level car that we’re in. This question for many posts by BMW and Gauzy, does the new class have an actual plan to adopt SBTech and the heads-up displays seen in the iVision D? Or are they just planning to use the dark enters the windshield to project on their 2025 new classic. And I’ll give you the answer. First of all, being at CVS and specifically being invited by the CEO of BMW to attend, Gauzy was really honored to be there for the keynote address. And Gauzy supplied SPDSmartGlassfor all the glass in the car. So all around the glass sides was SPD-SmartGlass. But I think that if you listen to the presentation that Aleris made about the car itself and what’s planned for 2025. He talked about the ability to vary the visibility of the heads-up display based on what mode the car was in, whether it’s in fully autonomous mode, or whether the car is completely driving itself.

And there, the heads-up display in the glass will show a lot of information because you don’t have to see there the windshield, you can watch a movie or check your social media posts or whatever you want. When you’re in semiautonomous mode, you get a lot of the useful information in the heads-up display like speed and navigation and other things like that. So it’s very important to be able to see that information on the screen and you need to have a variable dynamic display in order to do that well. And if you look at some of the Gauzy posts that they made about the Vision D debuting in Shanghai this week, they do discuss the high contrast displays that are possible with SPD. So I think the plans are to definitely do a kickass heads-up display that people are going to really enjoy having in their car.

So now I’m going to ask our operator, Ross, to open up the conference for any additional live questions since we’ve now answered all of the e-mail ones that we’ve gotten so far. So Ross, if you wouldn’t mind us somewhere in the queue there, that would be great.

Q&A Session

Operator: [Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from Jared Sherman from Strategic Planning Group.

Operator: And our next question comes from Jeremy Law at Investor.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] And at this time, there appears there to be no further questions. I’d like to turn the call back over to Joe for closing remarks. Joe, would you like to take the question?

Operator: Okay. And our next question comes from Bruce Danny from Investor.

Operator: And our next question comes from William Berg, Investor.

Operator: And our next question comes from Francis Altera at Investor. Francis Altera

Operator: And at this time, there are no further questions. [indiscernible] to close out the call.

Joe Harary: Sure. First of all, I want to welcome my new Sunila Ezra to our family. You make my baby girl, Victoria, who’s not such a baby, very happy. We had a recent wedding in the family. And also, to my good friend, Dennis, you sounded much better last time we spoke, and I wish you a complete and full recovery. To our shareholders, thank you for your support and your guidance. I do listen to your suggestions and appreciate them very much. And we’re truly fortunate to have your support and engorgement, we couldn’t have done what we have done without it. And perhaps to some new shareholders who invested in the SmartGlass industry because of either the investment tax credit from the recently enacted Dynamic Last Act or see energy efficiency and carbon reduction in cars and buildings is an important goal.

Hopefully, today, you have a better idea about the differences in smart glass technologies and the companies who bring them to you, and who to invest in. And I also want to thank our hard-working employees at Research Frontiers and our licensees. Today, the success we constantly work towards is being tangibly shown as we bring new products to the world to make people safer, more comfortable and which save energy and reduce carbon and other forms of pollution and simply make life better for tens of thousands of people each day and really, once again, I have to thank the hardworking people in our supply chain who do all this. One housekeeping reminder, we have our upcoming annual meeting in second Thursday in June. We have a fairly routine list of items on our annual meeting in 5 weeks from now.

So please remember to vote your shares because we’ve had this conference call, I don’t expect any real other business at that meeting other than the administrative business, but it’s important that everyone votes. So I thank you all, and I look forward to sharing more good news with you again in August at our next investor conference call.

Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for attending.