Rocket Lab USA, Inc. (NASDAQ:RKLB) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

So again, I think the uptick in spending the current — or the forecasted Q1 adjusted EBITDA, while we don’t give guidance beyond kind of the next quarter, I think that’s a number that’s going to be — I don’t think we’re looking at the low watermark as far as adjusted EBITDA loss in the quarter because again spending has continued to ramp up. But I also don’t think that we’re looking at it — that it’s going to get dramatically higher than where it is. But we feel like we’re kind of in a new range of kind of spending on the program. But we also see revenue increasing over the same time period. So hopefully, a lot of that is because of offsetting. So yes, spending will increase fairly significantly, but we believe that revenue is going to be helpful in growing along with that growth in R&D spend so that we don’t kind of balloon that adjusted EBITDA loss on any quarterly basis.

Scott Deuschle: Okay. So I mean, if Q1 is not the low watermark I mean, could full year EBITDA losses be $120 million or more? I’m just trying to put some sort of finer point on it, because to your point there’s not a lot of resolution to Street models?

Adam Spice: Yeah. Again, a lot of it depends on — a lot of things are still in flux as far as the major prototyping items when we’re going to get invoiced for those types of things. So it’s really hard to predict right now like exactly what that — what the curve is going to look like, what the slope of the line on R&D spending increase related to Neutron. We also have some pretty significant revenue growth coming in the second half of the year related to some of our space systems programs again, which depending on how hard they hit up and the related margins that accompany those hopefully moderates quite a bit of that spending increase. So yeah at this point, I’m not able or kind of willing to go really beyond what the next quarter looks like. But as we spend more time together and we get a little more color and visibility we’ll certainly share that with you and others.

Scott Deuschle: Okay. I mean that’s super helpful. And then just as a follow-up does the $143 million contract with the MDA, does that include any inflation protection mechanisms on it just given that it’s kind of a multiyear contract in you’re in an inflationary environment? Just curious on inflation protection on that contract specifically. Thank you.

Adam Spice: Yes Scott. No, it’s a good question. No, that’s a firm fixed price contract. So, we were able to secure some incremental scope under that agreement with the SOCC to operate the satellites on orbit for the customer. So, we got some uplift to total revenue from that. We didn’t disclose the exact amount. But I think we feel pretty good because when we were modeling out the BOM and other factors building satellites, we took into consideration a certain amount of inflation. Now, is inflation running hotter than we thought it was going to be a year and a half ago when we were doing that modeling? Certainly, but we also put in some cushioning factors to make sure that we come out on the right side of that. So, we feel very good and we don’t see anything right now that would kind of impact the margin expectations for that program versus where we originally modeled it.

Scott Deuschle: Thank you, Adam. Really appreciate it.

Operator: Thank you. The next question comes from Suji Desilva of ROTH MKM. Please proceed.

Suji Desilva: Hi, Peter, hi Adam. So, first question on the launches the $14 million to $15 million — the 14, 15 for the year, sorry. What number are you roughly expecting from Virginia? And what’s the incremental launch opportunities that are available from the US soil that maybe weren’t unavailable to New Zealand? If you could talk about that that would be helpful?