Shoals Technologies Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:SHLS) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Brandon Moss: That would be our ability to produce both products. So that is across our product suite.

Operator: And your next question comes from Colin Rusch from Oppenheimer.

Colin Rusch: Can you talk a little bit about your ability to move some of the stationary storage and charging projects through the queue in your pipeline? And give us a sense of kind of an order of magnitude of in the backlog how much of that backlog is not solar?

Brandon Moss: We haven’t broken that down. I appreciate that question. But we are not providing that level of detail. The backlog and ordered orders does include all product types, but we haven’t reached that. What we did want to show was the strength of the international, because that hit a level of significance for us this time around that we felt that was appropriate that you have that for your models, that you see that the strength of the quoting activity and the awarded orders in the international space is now 10% of our backlog and awarded orders combined. But that’s more important to us at this point in time that you see that, the rest we haven’t broken down.

Colin Rusch: Okay, I’ll take it offline with the rest of that. And then on working capital, you guys have done a nice job of shrinking the working capital consumption here, and inventories are actually getting [Indiscernible]. Can you talk about how we should be thinking about that trending through the balance of this year and in the next year as you grow and start working on multiple continents presumably? How should we be thinking about that, those inventory levels growing and overall working capital usage?

Brandon Moss: So as I’ve said, and I think now this is probably four or five earnings calls in a row where I’ve said this, that I believe there’s still more room for inventory optimization. We intend to be as efficient as possible. That said, there are some growth pillars that we’re examining from our strategic plan that might cause investments in inventory, but we’ll be able to signal that. So I do think inventory, we still have some more room to optimize. And then it’ll get to a point where it will just naturally have to grow with our growing business volumes. Our receivables are higher than I want them to be right now. If you look at our balance sheet, the receivables, it’s a factor of growth, absolutely. But there are things that we can always do to be more efficient in our invoicing process and make sure that we hit cutoffs and work with our suppliers to — our customers to get those payments in a more timely fashion.

So that’s going to be an area of focus for me. But you did see the improvement in the accounts payables and inventories you’ve noted. So yes, working capital is as important to me as driving the cash and the efficiencies out for everybody as anything on the income statement. So I appreciate that line of questioning.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from Mark Strouse from JP Morgan.

Unidentified Analyst: This is Michael on from Mark. I just have one question. I was wondering if you guys could talk about the new focus on smaller projects, and just how you’re looking to attack that market and how small those project sizes could get? Thank you.

Dominic Bardos: Yes, Brandon’s going to handle that one. I just want to give you one bit of notice on that. When we look at data as many of you probably do as well for like Wood McKenzie, many of those smaller projects are included in utility scale solar. So in the total utility scale space, those smaller projects have always been included. As we have mentioned before, our focus has predominantly been the 75 megawatts and up. And I will hand it over to Brandon.

Brandon Moss: Look, the smaller projects, I think, that our product suite is applicable to those. The same value proposition we have on larger products, many of those can be applied to smaller projects. The way that we think about this market opportunity is about a 10% growth to our total available market. So that will be the focus for us. Specifically going into 2024, we will gear up commercially around that and begin focusing on those smaller markets that we may have ignored in the past. We have got capacity to attack those markets now. And I think with our production efficiencies, we can be very competitive in that space.

Operator: And your next question comes from Andrew Percoco from Morgan Stanley.

Andrew Percoco: Maybe just to come back to the wire shrinkback issue. Can you maybe just discuss any customer impacts, had there been any projects that have tripped offline from this or has this been kind of a proactive warranty campaign? It feels like that that could be a pretty important kind of swing factor in terms of the remediation timeline and cash impacts of this warranty issue.

Brandon Moss: Mehgan, maybe I will kick that to you, and then I can talk specifically about the customers.

Mehgan Peetz: I think our top priority is always our customers. So those relationships are important to us and we will continue to take care of them through this process. So as we started to investigate the matter, we did notify our customers and we had a process for doing that. And we have been working with them to identify, remediate and if necessary, replace any issues that they have had.

Brandon Moss: Just add to that. As Mehgan said, we are proactively reaching out to our customers. We have not seen any project movement specific to the warranty issue. I think the customers understand that this is a supplier issue. And as Mehgan said, taking care of them is our is our top priority. So I think everybody is appreciative of how we are communicating and working in the marketplace around this issue.

Andrew Percoco: And maybe just as a follow-up on the macro environment and the growth outlook for utility scale solar. Are there any specific ISOs or geographies where you are seeing more of an outsized impact from project delays, whether it’d be permitting, financing, IRA uncertainty? Just wondering if there is specific geographies that we should be focusing in on in terms of where the delays are occurring. Thank you.

Brandon Moss: Nothing specific. I don’t think that we could point out in terms of geographies. And again, the movement that that we are seeing quarter-to-quarter, month-to-month in terms of project delays, it’s been quite typical of what we see, I think, we have seen historically in the business. Look, we manage our funnel very closely. We understand where project is falling almost on a daily basis. And again, no significant movement due to the things that you are reading about these days. So we are pretty pleased with where the business sits today. And again, no significant push outs.

Operator: Your next question comes from Christine Cho from Barclays.