Tecnoglass Inc.
Q4 2020 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 2 Mar 2021

[Operator:]

Greetings. And welcome to Tecnoglass, Inc. Fourth Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Rodny Nacier, Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

[Rodny Nacier:]

Thank you for joining us for Tecnoglass’ fourth quarter and full year 2020 conference call. A copy of the slide presentation to accompany this call may be obtained on the Investors section of the Tecnoglass website.

[José Manuel Daes:]

Thank you, Rodny, and thank you everyone for participating on today’s call. 2020 was a milestone year for Tecnoglass on many different fronts. On the operational side, during 2020, we further advanced our leadership position in the architectural glass industry to produce results at record level across many metrics. In early 2020, we announced that we had completed the implementation of several important high return investments in automation and capacity to further strengthen our vertically-integrated operations. These enhancements allowed us to produce record full year operating cash flow, in addition to record gross profit and adjusted EBITDA, both on dollar basis and as a percentage of sales. Building on the momentum from our structural enhancements, we navigated successfully through pandemic-related challenges to source and win new businesses, which allowed us to end the year with a backlog up a slightly on a year-over-year basis to a comfortable position of $545 million. These exceptional results reflect the resilience and dedication of our team.

[Chris Daes:]

Thank you, José Manuel. Moving to our backlog on slide five. Fourth quarter results were encouraging and we were pleased to return to growth in total revenues to close out on this extraordinary year. The resiliency of our business is evident in our backlog, which rose approximately 2% sequentially to $545 million or 1.5 times our LTM revenue with a good mix of project wins in some of our key U.S. markets. The overall growth in our building environment was strong throughout the fourth quarter and remained very active as we move into the New Year. We ended the quarter with a solid multi-year project pipeline and we are actively pursuing new projects and partnerships to advance our growth in the U.S. The most recent data from Ivy’s war indicates that the glass and glazing contractors industry is expected to rebound at an annualized rate of 4% to 5% over the next five years to 2025 led by residential. ABI projects inquirers a new design contracts have continued to recover since the bottom in April and the persistent trend in most of our sectors and regions give us the confidence that we are in the right markets with the right products at the right time. Based on both our new and longstanding partnerships in all the product lines, structural competitive advantages and attractive geographic focus, we believe we can grow above the market in the coming quarters. As we mentioned last quarter, our backlog includes all product types and is approximately one-third non-residential, while roughly two-thirds is related to medium and high-rise multifamily projects, as well as single-family in production. However, single-family is underrepresented in our backlog due to the short-term nature of the orders and these will continue to influence the relationship between backlog and forward revenue as we further increase the mix of our revenue towards single-family housing related projects. Looking to 2021, we are most excited about the significant opportunities we have to further penetrate the single-family residential market where we see the most attractive growth opportunities in the near-term. Turning to an overview of this business on slide six. Single-family macroeconomic tailwinds continue to support robust end market demand in the U.S. housing starts. Existing home sales, low supplies, the urbanization trends and low interest rates are providing us with opportunities to continue expanding our addressable markets.

[Santiago Giraldo:]

Thank you, Christian. During 2020, we reaped significant benefits from high return investments in our facilities, leveraged our remarkable cash flow through strengthening our capital structure, expanded our business into new geographies and captured additional market share in the U.S. Our 2020 results reflect these collective efforts and allowed us to drive record gross profit and adjusted EBITDA on both a dollar basis and as a percentage of sales, all while retaining our entire workforce throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Our achievements to-date underscore the resilience of our company and our people. Turning to the drivers of revenue on slide number eight. In the fourth quarter, outperformance in the U.S. drove growth in that market for the second straight quarter, leading to a return to growth in total revenues for the quarter.

[Operator:]

Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Tim Wojs with Robert W. Baird. Please proceed with your question.

[Tim Wojs:]

Hey. Good morning, guys. Nice close to the year and good to hear things are off to a good start in 2021.

[Santiago Giraldo:]

Good morning, Tim.

[Tim Wojs:]

Hey. Maybe just a big picture question and I am not sure how you could -- how to answer this. But is there any way to kind of frame new orders and kind of backlog? How much of it is coming from newer customers versus really leveraging existing or older customers? And really what I am trying to get at is, are you seeing accelerating traction in the U.S. with newer contracted customers, not just in residential but also in the non-res business?

[José Manuel Daes:]

Yes. This is José. Let me tell you this. We are penetrating a lot in the Northeast. I mean, our backlog in the Northeast is the highest we ever seen. In Florida, it’s been softer in the high-rise, higher in the mid-rise. And residential is not even there because residential we have a turnaround of six weeks or less, so our backlog for residential is very, very minimal in the backlog.

[Tim Wojs:]

Okay. Okay. That’s helpful. And then, I guess, on the residential side, are you seeing an opportunity in the Southeast from a production standpoint? And really what I am asking is we have seen a lot of window companies in the U.S. that are having kind of labor challenges and their lead times are extending. I mean, are you seeing the benefits from that or are you expecting that to kind of be a nice tailwind in 2021 for resi?

[José Manuel Daes:]

Yes. Yes. We are. I mean, we are hoping to increase by 40% to 50% residential this year. It’s unbelievable the demand that we have, because everybody has a huge lead times and our lead times are shortening. I mean, we have the best of both worlds. High demand and we have local strains of labor, very cheap labor and we are improving our production capacity. My brother has done marvelous job in automating and improving the productivity and we are even shortening our lead times. We have lead times from six weeks to 10 weeks depending on the project. Now we have all the lead times at six weeks and we are delivering in five or less.

[Tim Wojs:]

Okay. Okay. That’s fantastic. And then, I guess, the last one I have, just on free cash flow, you had a really strong year in ‘20. I guess as we look at ‘21, what are kind of the pluses and minuses from a free cash flow perspective? And then, I guess, maybe more broadly, you have taken the leverage down, you have extended the maturities. You have made a lot of CapEx investments already in the business. So what are kind of the key, I guess, cash flow or capital priorities over the next couple of years from your perspectives?

[Santiago Giraldo:]

All right, Tim. So, basically the first priority would be to reinvest in working capital. Based on our guidance, we are projecting growth as opposed to doubling contraction last year. So we are obviously going to reinvest in the business that way. Our CapEx as you heard from the call is going to be reduced this year from what you saw in the last couple of years with a lot of the automation being completed. However, we are seeing some opportunities to further automate a portion of other processes within the factory. So cash flow is going to be benefited from having a lower CapEx this year as well. From a capital allocation perspective, I think, it makes sense to continue paying down debt, reinvesting in the business and seeing what opportunities come about. But we are definitely expected to build on what we produce as far as cash flow in the last couple of years. There is also going to be some tailwinds to that. Obviously, having the $11 million less in interest expenses is going to help quite a bit and also expecting higher profitability based on higher margins is going to drive incremental cash flow. So I think it’s -- we are well situated to reinvest in the business, pay down leverage and see what opportunities come about.

[Tim Wojs:]

Okay. Okay. Great. Well, good luck on 2021 and great job on 2020, guys.

[Santiago Giraldo:]

Thanks, Tim.

[José Manuel Daes:]

Thank you.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from the line of Brent Thielman with D.A. Davidson. Please proceed with your question.

[Brent Thielman:]

Great. Thank you. Congratulations as well on a great year. I want to talk around on single -- the single-family business. I want to get a sense how impactful Multimax has been within that more than 50% single-family growth you reported this quarter versus the legacy products you have offered in that business.

[José Manuel Daes:]

So, we are just starting to sell the Multimax. Multimax is especially for the low end of the market where we were not even there in the business. And we started to see a lot of demand for that product, especially in tract homes where we were not. And we hope that by June is going to pick up a lot, because those are businesses that you sell the windows and they don’t order them for three months or four months or maybe even longer, not like the usual remodel and replacement in new construction that they order immediately. So we are very, very, very excited and very positive about our residential line.

[Brent Thielman:]

Okay. So not very impactful at all this quarter. It sounds like it’s going to ramp up here a lot in ‘21.

[José Manuel Daes:]

Yeah. Well, whole residential line is picking up a lot of steam. But what I mean is the Multimax is going to really hit the numbers after June. The order lines, for example, the first two months have been great in the residential so far and

[Rodny Nacier:]

And we just lost the speaker’s line. One moment. Santiago, if maybe you can take over right now. One moment.

[Santiago Giraldo:]

Yes. I am here, Brent. But just to finish that was -- what José was saying, Multimax did not add a whole lot during Q4. I mean, that was just getting started. So what you saw as a pickup was from Elite and Prestige. So it was the legacy business. Hello?

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from the line of Mike Shlisky with Colliers Securities. Please proceed with your question.

[Mike Shlisky:]

Hey. Good morning. Can you hear me okay? Is just Santiago or…

[Santiago Giraldo:]

Yeah. I can hear you perfectly, Mike. Yeah. How are you?

[Mike Shlisky:]

I am great. How are you?

[Santiago Giraldo:]

I am doing well. Thanks.

[Mike Shlisky:]

Good. I guess, I wanted to ask, you have always talked in the past about how the company has some great advantages in shipping, shipping cost, shipping container availability. We have been hearing some headlines about how in some parts of the world that’s been a little bit tougher to find some containers recently and some book capacity. Is that’s an issue for you guys at all and is that something that could happen going forward or do you feel pretty good about the Colombia-U.S. alliance right now?

[Santiago Giraldo:]

No. We are actually -- one of the great advantages of being fully vertically integrated is that we are not kind of reliant on an extended supply chain from many other places, right? I mean we source most of what we need internally. We are not relying on anybody to significantly contribute to our supply chain. So from that perspective that has not been the case. And furthermore, as you know, we have quite a bit of a trade imbalance with most containers coming in from value-added imported goods from the U.S. come back pretty much empty, right? So there’s still a lot of supply of container shipping back into the U.S. So, no, short answer to your question is, no. We have not been impacted by shortage of transportation.

[Mike Shlisky:]

Can I ask a question that’s kind of similar on the cost of aluminum from some of your extrusions. Any changes to the raw materials there we should be looking at then in next couple of quarters.

[Chris Daes:]

Well, this is Christian, we are -- we fix the price for the whole year of 2021. So we have no aluminum increases for 2021 and we already bought everything that we need for 2021. So we are fine. As a matter of fact, we were able to get magnificent prizes not only for the LME, but also there is a premium that you have to pay and we pay at the lowest premium possible. Now, they have gone up to double the premium price that we pay. So we are set up in glass and in aluminum. They -- like my brother said, the lines are steaming, producing windows and February was the best February in the history of the company.

[Mike Shlisky:]

Outstanding. If I just squeeze one more in here about and ask this question last quarter about COVID conditions within your facilities. Can you update us on whether cases are trending upwards or downwards in the Barranquilla area in your facilities themselves?

[Chris Daes:]

Well, today, we only have five or six active cases of COVID out 5,700 employees. We are doing really good. I mean, everything is contained. We haven’t had any hospitalizations in the last five months or six months. The numbers are dramatically down in Barranquilla where we are. So it’s looking good.

[José Manuel Daes:]

And in Colombia, in Barranquilla specifically, obviously, we have what is called the herd immunization. Already 72% of the people have antibodies. We are doing really great on that end.

[Mike Shlisky:]

Wow. That’s great to hear, guys. Thanks again and stay well.

[Santiago Giraldo:]

Thanks, Mike. Talk soon.

[Operator:]

There are no further questions in the queue. I’d like to hand the call back to José Manuel Daes for closing remarks.

[José Manuel Daes:]

Thank you, everyone, for participating on today’s call. We are going to keep having great news. Our company is aligned for better things and we are back in the queue. Thank you.

[Operator:]

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today’s teleconference. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time and have a wonderful day.