Richardson Electronics Ltd Q4 2026 Earnings Call

Good day, and welcome to the Richardson Electronics earnings call for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2026. At this time, all participants are in listen only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand has been raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce CEO and Chairman of the Board, Ed Richardson.

Good morning, and thank you all for joining Richardson Electronics conference call for the fourth quarter and full fiscal year of 2026. We appreciate your continued support and interest in Richardson Electronics. Joining me today are Bob Benn, Chief Financial Officer, Wendy Diddell, Chief Operating Officer, Greg Peloquin, General Manager of our Power & Microwave Technologies and Green Energy Solutions groups, and Jens Ruppert, General Manager of Canvys. As a reminder, this call is being recorded and will be available for playback. I would also like to remind you that we are making forward-looking statements, and they're based on current expectations and involve risks and uncertainties. Therefore, our actual results could be materially different. Please refer to our press release and SEC filings for an explanation of our risk factors. I'm pleased to report that Richardson Electronics delivered both a strong fourth quarter and finished the fiscal year 2026.

While Bob will provide the detailed financial review shortly, I want to begin by highlighting the broader message from the year. We delivered significant year-over-year revenue growth, improved gross margin, and strengthened our operating performance. Those results reflect continued execution of the multi-year strategy we've discussed with you over the past few quarters. Our performance was not driven by a single product line, customer, or end market. We saw strength across all three of our business units from both new and existing customers. Power & Microwave Technologies continued to benefit from demand in semi-fab equipment, defense, healthcare, and other industrial applications. Green Energy Solutions continued to advance programs tied to wind, EV, power conversion, and other power management markets. Canvys remained an important and profitable part of the company with customized display solutions serving medical, industrial, and other specialized OEM customers.

Importantly, we also made progress in improving the quality of our revenue. We continued to align our strategic focus on pursuing higher value engineered solutions, repeatable sales opportunities, and customer programs where our technical knowledge, application engineering, global sourcing capabilities, and inventory position create real value. A more profitable mix of business together with operating discipline supported the margin progress we achieved during the year. We've also continued to invest in our current and emerging opportunities with Green Energy Solutions, and we are now advancing our efforts around battery energy storage. We believe this is a natural extension of our capabilities in power conversion and energy-related applications. Customers are looking for ways to manage growing power demand, improve reliability, support renewable generation, and reduce exposure to grid constraints and energy cost volatility. We believe Richardson Electronics is well-positioned to support those needs over time.

The opportunity around battery energy storage is still developing and is strategically important. We're working to build the right supplier relationships, technical capabilities, and customer engagement model before scaling the business. We're taking a disciplined approach as we believe the market has attractive long-term potential, particularly as utilities, commercial operators, industrial customers, data centers, and renewable energy developers look for practical solutions to improve power availability and resilience. From an overall market perspective, the global environment remains mixed, and we're managing the business accordingly. Tariff uncertainty, geopolitical risks, inflation, and uneven industrial demand continue to create challenges for many companies. At the same time, we believe several long-term demand drivers are a positive for Richardson Electronics.

Electrification, grid reliability, renewable energy integration, AI and data center power requirements, semiconductor capacity investment, defense spending, and the need for customized medical and industrial display solutions all align well with the areas we have experience and technical capability. We remain disciplined in sourcing, pricing, inventory management, customer commitments, and operating expense control. We believe this discipline, together with our strong balance sheet and technical sales organization, positions us well to navigate uncertainty while continuing to pursue growth opportunities. Our growth in backlog and improved cash flow from operation highlights this disciplined approach, and we're taking time to manage the business. The fourth quarter, our results reflected continued positive momentum and a strong close to the year. For the full year, we made meaningful progress against our strategic priorities.

We believe the company is entering fiscal 2027 with a stronger operating platform, broader customer engagements, and improved visibility in several attractive end markets. I'll now turn the call over to Bob Ben, our Chief Financial Officer, who will provide a detailed review of our fourth quarter and full fiscal year results and capital position. Following Bob's remarks, Greg and Jens will provide updates on our business units, then Wendy will follow with the progress we're making executing against our multi-year strategies.

Thank you, Ed, and good morning. I will review our financial results for our fourth quarter and fiscal year 2026, followed by a review of our cash position. Please note that I will be discussing non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of non-GAAP items to the comparable GAAP measures is available in our fourth quarter fiscal year 2026 press release that was issued yesterday after the market closed. Consolidated net sales increased 27.6% to $66.2 million, compared to net sales of $51.9 million in the prior year's fourth quarter. This was our eighth consecutive quarterly year-over-year increase in sales and the highest quarterly net sales since the third quarter of fiscal 2023. The fourth quarter was led by a 28.1% increase in PMT sales, driven by strong growth in semiconductor wafer fab and RF and microwave products.

Sales for GES were $1.1 million, or 20.4% above the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025 as a result of higher sales of wind products. Canvys sales increased $2.8 million, or 29.5%, reflecting higher sales in North America. Consolidated gross margin for the fourth quarter was 31.2% of net sales, compared to 31.6% during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025. The 40 basis point decrease in consolidated gross margin was due to lower margin in PMT and GES as a result of product mix, partially offset by higher margin in Canvys due to improved freight costs as a percentage of net sales. Operating expenses were $17.6 million, compared to $15.6 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025. The increase in operating expenses resulted from higher salaries and incentives driven by the significant sales growth in both the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2026.

Also included in operating expenses for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026 was a $0.4 million unclaimed property state audit settlement. As a percentage of net sales, operating expenses improved to 26.6% in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026 versus 30.0% in the prior year's fourth quarter. Operating income improved significantly and was $3.9 million, and non-GAAP operating income was $3.5 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026, compared to an operating income of $0.6 million and non-GAAP operating income of $0.8 million in the prior year's fourth quarter. Net income was $3.7 million, and non-GAAP net income was $3.0 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026, compared to net income of $1.1 million and non-GAAP net income of $1.8 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025.

Earnings per common share diluted were $0.25, and non-GAAP earnings per common share diluted were $0.21 in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026, compared to earnings per common share diluted of $0.08 and non-GAAP earnings per common share diluted of $0.12 in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025. EBITDA was $5.0 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026 versus $2.9 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025. Adjusted EBITDA was $4.2 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026 versus $3.1 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025. Turning to a review of the results for fiscal year 2026. Net sales were $228.6 million, an increase of 9.4% from $208.9 million in fiscal year 2025, which reflected higher sales across all three of our business segments. Gross margin was 31.2% of net sales, which was a 20 basis point increase from fiscal 2025.

As a percentage of net sales, operating expenses for the fiscal year improved to 28.8% from 29.8% for the prior fiscal year. Operating income was $6.5 million, and non-GAAP operating income was $6.1 million during fiscal 2026, compared to an operating loss of $2.5 million and non-GAAP operating income of $2.6 million during fiscal 2025. The company reported net income of $6.4 million and non-GAAP net income of $5.7 million for fiscal 2026 versus a net loss of $1.1 million and non-GAAP net income of $3.2 million during fiscal 2025. Earnings per common share diluted were $0.44 and non-GAAP earnings per common share diluted were $0.40 for fiscal 2026, compared to $0.08 net loss per common share diluted and non-GAAP earnings per common share diluted of $0.22 for fiscal 2025.

EBITDA was $11.3 million and adjusted EBITDA was $10.4 million for FY 2026 versus EBITDA of $2.5 million and adjusted EBITDA of $7.5 million in the prior fiscal year. Turning to a review of our cash position. Cash and cash equivalents at the end of FY 2026 were $31.8 million compared to $29.5 million at the end of the third quarter of FY 2026 and $35.9 million at the end of FY 2025. The increase in cash and cash equivalents from the third quarter related to net income, adjusted for depreciation and amortization and lower inventory, partially offset by higher accounts receivable. Capital expenditures of $1.0 million in the fourth quarter of FY 2026 were primarily related to our manufacturing business, facilities improvements, and IT systems versus $0.8 million in the fourth quarter of FY 2025.

Total capital expenditures were $4.4 million in FY 2026 as compared to $2.8 million in FY 2025. We paid $0.9 million in the fourth quarter and $3.4 million in FY 2026 for cash dividends. In addition, based on our current financial position, our board of directors declared a regular quarterly cash dividend of $0.06 per common share, which will be paid in the first quarter of FY 2027. As of the end of FY 2026, the company had no outstanding debt on its revolving line of credit with PNC Bank. Now, I will turn the call over to Greg, who will provide more details for our PMT and GES business groups.

Thank you, Bob, and good morning, everyone. GES and PMT are key components of the corporation's multi-year growth plan. We are encouraged by the continued progress we are making. Coming into FY 2026, we had a number of strategic imperatives, including developing a strong backlog, launching several new products, expanding our customer base, and advancing multiple development programs from beta testing to pre-production. I am pleased to report that we made excellent progress towards our goals throughout all FY 2026. We are accelerating momentum as we experienced in the fourth quarter. Starting with GES, I'm pleased with both the year-over-year and sequential trends we are seeing as we continue to grow the pipeline of opportunities through both current and new technology partners, products developed by our field sales engineers, and design team.

GES sales in the quarter grew 20.4% year-over-year as more companies adopted our key products across a broader set of applications. The strong fourth quarter helped us grow FY 2026 sales by 7.3% versus FY 2025. Continued sales growth, coupled with a growing backlog, positions us well going into FY 2027. Within GES, we saw continued progress across key growth opportunities. First, we're experiencing growth adoption of our PEM modules across multiple wind turbine platforms. We serve dozens of wind turbine owners and operators, including exclusive partnerships with the top four owner-operators of GE wind turbines such as RWE, Invenergy, Enel, and NextEra. We also saw growth from our new multi-brand PEM turbine platforms. We continue to grow this program internationally, expanding into Europe and Asia with new products for other turbine platforms such as Suzlon, Senvion, Nordex, and SSB.

We have now received orders outside of North America from customers in Brazil, Australia, India, France, and Italy, adding to our strong rollout in North America. We shipped our first BES program in Q4. This milestone highlights the accelerating momentum of our BES strategy, supported by a growing pipeline of nearly 50 active opportunities as of today. We believe we are attracting interest in our BES capabilities as a result of our engineering and manufacturing experience within niche power management markets and our unique technology partners, our U.S.-based footprint, and nearly 80-year corporate history. Today, our pipeline includes data centers and industrial applications throughout North America, and we believe there are many opportunities to increase our pipeline throughout FY 2027 and beyond. We are also focused on converting this growing pipeline into sales, with several exciting opportunities expected to close shortly.

In fact, we expect to announce a multimillion-dollar order for our BES systems in Q1. Our overall GES growth strategy remains centered on power management applications. We rapidly designed multiple products, secured patents, and built a strong global base of customers and technology partners. Our success is evident in our growing sales pipeline as we capitalize on numerous growth opportunities tied to evolving power management requirements and significant energy transformation initiatives. With these programs, testing and deployment continue to progress well with our key customers, and we feel that this will help us achieve stronger growth in FY 2027. Turning to PMT, excluding the legacy healthcare business, sales were $47.1 million in the quarter, a 31.1% increase over the prior year's fourth quarter. This reflects strong growth in the RF and wireless components product line, specifically in SATCOM, radar, and communication markets.

We again saw very strong growth in the semiconductor wafer fab market. This continued quarter-over-quarter growth trend in Q4 allowed us to expand sales at a double-digit rate in FY 2026, finishing the fiscal year with 14.2% growth versus FY 2025. We are excited about the positive feedback from our semi fab customers, who are expressing ongoing optimism and continued growth into calendar year 2027. Across both GES and PMT, one of the most important priorities is accelerating the design-to-production cycles. We're expanding our design capabilities to move products more quickly from concept into manufacturing and test in LaFox. Opening our Sweetwater, Texas location is one of the investments we expect will accelerate product development opportunities. We're also adding experienced industry talent to help expedite growth.

More broadly, we are investing in infrastructure, expanding our design and field engineering teams, and enhancing our in-house design and manufacturing capabilities to support growing demand and innovation. Our field engineering team continues to identify new customers and opportunities across our end markets. We continue to gain market share by developing new products and solutions that are accepted by our customer. Looking ahead, we are encouraged by the strategic initiatives underway across PMT and GES, including our new BESS program, global expansion of our key engineered solutions products, and new technology partnerships. Our global capabilities and global go-to-market strategy continue to differentiate us from our competition in the power management, RF and microwave, and green energy markets. By combining legacy products and new technology partners and engineered solutions, we believe we are well positioned to deliver continued growth. In summary, we remain optimistic about the growing project-based business.

We continue to expand our technology partners, design opportunities, and engineering resources while addressing technology gaps with our new partners and solutions. Coming out of a year with increased sales, new products, increased customer base, and new technology partners, and a 24.8% increase in the combined backlog of the two SBUs, we believe FY 2027 will be another year of growth for both PMT and GES. With that, I'll turn it over to Jens to discuss Canvys.

Thanks, Greg, and good morning, everyone. Canvys designs, engineers, manufactures, and sells custom displays to original equipment manufacturers across global, industrial, and medical markets. It's our mission to deliver high-quality display solutions tailored to our customers' needs. Canvys reported revenues of $12.3 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2026, up 29.5% from $9.5 million in the same quarter of the previous year, setting a new quarterly revenue record for the business. Our business remains project-focused and can vary from quarter to quarter based on customer program timing. For the full fiscal year, revenues were $37.3 million, up 12.4% from $33.1 million in the comparable period last year. Gross margin was 32.3% of net sales in the fourth quarter, compared with 32.1% in the same quarter last year. For the full fiscal year, gross margin was 32.0%, down from 32.9% in the fiscal 2025.

Product mix, tariffs, freight, and other supply chain costs continued to create pressure, but margins remained solid. The backlog at the end of the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026 increased to $40.8 million, up from $38.2 million at the end of the third quarter. With a Q4 book-to-bill ratio of 1.3, we entered the new fiscal year with a solid order book and improved visibility. The quarter unfolded in a resilient but uneven global economy, with tariffs, trade policy changes, and logistics conditions creating continued uncertainty. Focus on disciplined execution, customer collaboration, and flexibility to support customer schedules. During the most recent quarter, Canvys secured orders from both repeat and new medical OEM customers for a range of applications. Our primary focus remains on robotic-assisted surgery, navigation, endoscopy, and human machine interface solutions for the control of medical devices.

At the same time, our solutions continue to support a broad set of commercial and industrial applications, including passenger information systems in trains and buses, as well as HMI technologies used in printing, vending, milling, and packaging equipment. Our initiatives remain centered on increasing Canvys' visibility and market leadership by developing new opportunities, deepening customer relationships, and converting our pipeline into additional design wins and production programs. We continue to strengthen our supply chain flexibility and execution capabilities so we can respond effectively as customer demand patterns and trade conditions evolve. Looking to the new fiscal year, we expect customer investment decisions to continue varying by the market and be subject to program timing. Even so, we are encouraged by the strength of our customer engagement, the level of request for quote activity, and our opportunity pipeline.

Our record fourth quarter revenue, USD 40.8 million backlog, and Q4 book-to-bill of 1.3 provide a solid foundation for continued momentum. Our sales team remains focused on developing new opportunities, while I remain committed to executing our strategic plans toward sustainable growth and create long-term shareholder value. Now I'll turn the call over to Wendy.

Thanks, Jens, and good morning, everyone. Let's begin with a quick CT tube update. As I mentioned last quarter, we're now focused entirely on repairing Siemens tubes. We continued to ship a limited number of repaired Straton Z tubes during the quarter. We also completed life testing on the MX series. At the end of the quarter, we repaired several Siemens MX beta tubes. These have recently shipped and will be deployed for final review prior to full release. During the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026, we sold most of our assets dedicated to the ALTA Tube program. We completed production on this program in March of 2026. We also downsized our CT healthcare team. We remain optimistic that bottom-line results from this program will be significantly improved in FY 2027. Stepping back to our multi-year strategy, we remain focused on two primary operating priorities, accelerating growth and improving efficiency.

Accelerating growth is evident by our revenue trends in growing backlog. Even though a portion of our revenue is booked and shipped during the quarter, we view backlog as an important indicator of demand and future revenue visibility. A growing backlog is directionally positive because it reflects customer orders that are already committed or scheduled, and it gives us greater confidence in the pipeline. At the same time, backlog does not convert to revenue on a perfectly linear quarterly basis. The timing of conversion depends on product mix, customer delivery schedules, supply availability, and program schedules. While we view backlog as an indicator of underlying demand and future revenue, we do not use backlog in isolation as a precise quarterly sales forecast.

Turning to efficiency and cash generation, in addition to downsizing our CT healthcare team at the end of the quarter, we also closed our Powerlink Dubai operations, with all work being transferred to our Powerlink UK location. Our fourth quarter performance also reflects the culmination of the Thales inventory build and ability to generate cash from on-hand inventory. It also reflects our ongoing efforts to take a conservative approach to new inventory. The entire management team continues to look for ways to free up cash for our critical growth initiatives by becoming more efficient in our core operations. During the quarter, we completed the 90-day AI advisory engagement focused on AI readiness, building internal capabilities, and identifying practical use cases across the company. The engagement included four working groups, supply chain, manufacturing and engineering, sales, and finance, and resulted in 47 AI opportunities being identified and triaged.

Of those, 32 were classified as ready to execute using our existing AI tools with no additional technology investment required. 11 were identified as potential future agent build opportunities. We also saw meaningful AI adoption across the company during the engagement period. Users increased by 46%, message volume increased by 60%, and the use of projects expanded significantly. It is clear employees are beginning to incorporate AI into their daily work. Six initial pilot programs have been validated and are ready for execution, including use cases in at-risk account analysis, RMA tracking, supplier compliance, performance review support, and change log analysis. We believe this work establishes a practical foundation for using AI to improve productivity, strengthen workflow consistency, and support process improvement over time.

We continue to advance our Made in America strategy with a focus on opportunities where U.S.-based manufacturing, engineered solutions, and power management capabilities create a competitive advantage. This position is increasingly relevant to customers seeking a more reliable supply chain, reduced tariff exposure, faster response times, and stronger quality control. During the quarter, we converted several customer discussions into commercial activities across aerospace, unmanned defense systems, defense electronics, and U.S.-based industrial manufacturing. The broader pipeline remains active. Key opportunities include a U.S.-made self-checkout kiosk program for a major national restaurant chain that is currently under final consideration. We have confirmed competitive pricing and received initial approval to begin work tied to a major U.S. Defense program. These opportunities are expected to convert to revenue beginning later in the fiscal year. The key takeaway is that our Made in America initiative is moving from prospecting into execution.

We are converting customer interest into sample builds, purchase orders, and supplier onboarding activity. Our near-term focus is to stabilize early production, close open approvals, and continue building momentum in aerospace, defense, industrial, and power management applications while maintaining the financial flexibility and operating capacity needed to support project-specific purchases, technology partner requirements, and potential facility expansion. Looking further out, we remain focused on driving growth through organic initiatives while maintaining a disciplined and selective approach to capital allocation. Acquisitions are not a near-term priority, should the right opportunity arise, particularly one that supports growth in power management or expands our engineered solutions capabilities, we would evaluate it thoughtfully. At this stage, our priority is to maintain a strong cash position to support growth in battery energy storage, including key purchases tied to projects and potential facility expansion to accommodate increased demand with our technology partners.

We are encouraged by the direction we are headed and believe initiatives underway position us well to continue revenue growth and improve profitability over time. I'll turn it back to Ed.

Thanks, Wendy. In closing, fiscal 2026 was an important year for Richardson Electronics. We delivered significant year-over-year revenue growth, improved gross margin, and strengthened operating performance, as well as continuing to invest in areas that we believe can support sustainable long-term growth. We're encouraged by the strength across all three business units and by the market trends supporting demand for power management, electrification, energy storage, data center infrastructure, semiconductor manufacturing, defense, and customized solutions. We also recognize that the macro environment remains uncertain. We'll continue to manage the business with discipline. With a strong balance sheet, a growing base of higher value-engineered solutions, a continued focus on repeatable sales, and a team that's executing well, we believe Richardson Electronics is well-positioned to build on the progress we made in fiscal 2026.

We remain committed to improving profitability and creating sustainable value for our shareholders, customers, and employees as we move forward. We'll now open the call for questions.

Please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Due to time constraints, we ask participants to limit themselves to one question and one follow-up. To ask a question, please press star one one. One moment, please. Our first question comes from the line of Anja Soderstrom with Sidoti.

Hi, Anja. Good morning. Good morning.

Thanks for taking my questions. I'm just curious for the semi wafer fab demand, what kind of visibility do you have there, and what do you see now into the first quarter?

We still have limited visibility. People have a hard time forecasting, the feedback we're getting from our customers in that space and then their customers, end customers, is very positive. We saw, as you know, excellent growth in Q3 and Q4, that, according to the customer and their end customers, should continue throughout FY 2027.

Sort of what lead time do you have there if something comes up in quarter?

Lead time in terms of building the product for a new order?

Yeah. The team, we're very aggressive on inventory.

We try to make sure we actually have weekly, monthly calls with the customer. We have the piece parts in stock and just waiting for releases from the customer.

Okay. Thank you. Canvys was quite the surprise with a record quarter. What surprised you there, and do you see that continuing into the first quarter?

I'm really pleased with that record quarter we had, book-to-bill to 1.3. When you have a record quarter and the book-to-bill is up, it's really a great momentum. Obviously, our business is project-driven, we have sometimes larger call-offs. It's really project business, it's really hard to say, obviously, we all foresee a growth next fiscal year.

Okay. Thank you. I'll get back in the queue.

Thanks, Anja. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Bobby Brooks with Northland Capital.

Pardon me, Bobby. Bobby, are you with us?

Please check your mute button, Bobby.

Hey, can you guys hear me now? Sorry about that. You must be sleep-deprived, Bobby.

That happens. Yeah. I appreciate it.

Thank you guys for taking my question. Ed, you talked about pursuing higher value-engineered solution in your prepared remarks, and maybe I'm wrong here, but I feel like that's been a focus for the business for several years. If that is the case, and it seems like this is kind of turning a corner, maybe just could you expand on what-- because it seems like something really kind of clicked in the quarter or over the last several months that has kind of helped unlock growth with that. Just was curious to hear a more expanded view there.

Well, I think the thing that we're seeing is lots of new opportunities in new areas. I'll let Greg tell you about some of the new products that we're working on.

Yeah, I think Ed's comment was based on from an investment point view going forward, it will be focused on these higher engineered solution-type products.

We continue to get, first of all, the existing products that we've introduced over the years are gaining market share globally, as I said in my comments. In addition to that, we're getting more and more opportunities from customers that we did work for. For example, on the electric locomotive, we now have gotten a number of opportunities for other products for Progress Rail Caterpillar. Some of these are different than we've currently done, and they might take a different piece of equipment, maybe a different type of person in terms of engineer, software engineer, mechanical, electrical. I think that's what we talk about here in terms of long-term three or five-year growth is where do we invest, and that investment would be in these higher technology and higher integrated type products.

Got it. That makes a lot of sense. I know last quarter, your ultracapacitor replacements for the GE turbines, those became an approved product for GE service turbines, right? I was just curious to hear how that opportunity developed there during the quarter.

Yeah. As you know, Bobby, we worked with them. They wanted to do some testing so their GE site installers could use these products. Our product passed with flying colors. In fact, based on the data, it was proven safer than dealing with the discharge of the current lead-acid batteries in the turbine. That was very positive. What GE decided to do, and we have no control over that, we've done our job. We've created a product that works and is safe and is in high demand by their owner-operators. It's site-specific. Yes, they've approved a site in Canada for this because it's up to the owner-operators now to go back to GE and say, "Hey, this thing's now been approved by you. We'd like to install it," it's going to be site-specific, and we have no control over that.

Anyway, yes, they released an order for a site in Canada to one of our large owner-operators, and we did ship that in Q1. It was a nice start to Q1, so it's not even in the fourth quarter numbers.

That's great to hear. Then I just wanted to maybe get a little bit more context around the battery energy storage solutions and in its relation to the data center opportunity. It seems like you guys kind of spoke to that a little bit more today than in the past quarters. Is that, for my context and other people on the call, you're not necessarily focusing on these mega projects where folks are looking to secure 700 megawatts, a gigawatt-plus of power, but maybe kind of smaller installations? Maybe I'm off base, but I was thinking that or under the impression that your battery energy solutions are more like single-digit megawatt or maybe even kilowatt size. Could you just refresh us there and maybe just frame what type of data centers you'd be looking to service there?

Bobby, you're correct. The mega data centers is not really our focus today. It's more the C&I, commercial and utility-type products and applications. Our first offering, as we develop these relationships with technology partners such as Goshen and others, will be one product is 760 kilowatts, and the other one is five megawatts. If somebody wants a 10-megawatt, it just stacks up. It's the smaller niche applications that, not surprisingly, the current people involved in this market want nothing to do with. That opportunity I mentioned that we have now booked is for 17 units or containers, but it's a unique facility. It's actually, the press release will come out, it's for a federal reservation in Alaska, and they'll put one or two in each of the towns on that reservation to help balance the grid, give them backup power, et cetera.

The opportunities we have in our pipeline, and we're now over 50, are mainly for municipal buildings. That was the first one we booked with Goleta in California for their municipal building. Utility applications, commercial applications, and the demo center that we're putting here in LaFox is actually a working unit, and it is for us to use to keep backup power, but also store, balance the grid, and sell it back to the grid, and to make some money that way, which the state of Illinois has the best subsidies and grants. You're exactly right. Right now, there's more than enough opportunities for these smaller niche, I'll call them niche applications that we seem to have with our global capabilities, with being around 75 years. A lot of people that go after these smaller opportunities are LLCs. Just in 2025, over 100 LLCs went bankrupt.

These companies are really happy to work with a company that's been around for 80 years, no debt, and will service these niche applications with these products.

That's very helpful, Greg, and I think that's a great point on the niche of where you're playing and then the competition that you're facing. You have a significant advantage over them, it seems. I'll jump back into the queue, and congratulations on a really strong quarter. Thanks. Thanks, Bobby. Thanks, Bobby.

Thank you. Congratulations to you on the baby.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Joseph Midkiff, Independent.

Hey, good morning. Congrats on the excellent quarter, and really a long-term positive trajectory. I am a long-term retail holder of shares, and my question was really about capital and capital deployment. I was curious as to whether there's been any consideration made to returning additional capital to shareholders. I know the company has historically had a very conservative approach to the market, and I'm sure there's some strategic purpose, but I wondered if you could speak to what that strategic purpose may be, and whether any indicators in the business would give you confidence to deploy additional capital into buybacks or dividends. Thank you. That's a question that we hear every quarter, and every quarter, when the board gets together, we talk about it and we've always come to the same conclusion that we're better off to employ our capital in new opportunities that Greg was talking about rather than buying our own stock back.

Is there anything in the business or there particular hallmarks that would lead you to reevaluate that?

Not that we presently have visibility to.

Okay. Thank you very much, again, congrats on the great quarter and the fantastic long-term run.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Arian Schilke with Velta Research.

Hi, team. Just wanted to say solid work on this quarter. I did have a few questions. First question would be, could you guys provide the manufactured and distribution split within PMT? I was just hoping to get a gauge on the durability of the mix shift.

No, we don't provide that at that level.

Okay. That's no problem. I guess my next question would be more so on backlog. How much of it would you say is expected to fill within the next four quarters, like ballpark?

I'll speak to PMT. Most of our backlog is, because of the project-based nature of it, is scheduled, and the contracts that we sign are a year. It depends on when we signed it, whether it'll ship in this fiscal year or not. There's no three, four, five-year type contracts. Most of the backlog should ship within the fiscal year or within five quarters of PMT and GES. Jens, do you want to- Yeah.

Our backlog, because it's project-specific and we sell to large medical OEMs, it's a little different. We have sometimes contracts to deplete the backlog over two or three years even. However, we expect every quarter new orders to make more than backlog is right now. Backlog is going up for a while and, yeah, we are very positive on that.

Okay, awesome. Thank you so much, and congratulations again.

Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Bobby Brooks with Northland Capital.

Hey, just a quick one. I think it's in the release, GES backlog was up 5% year-over-year. Greg, could you speak to what the PMT specific backlog was? Because I know Canvys was really great growth, so I'm just trying to square off where PMT landed.

Yeah. The backlog increase and the backlog itself, there's no one-hit wonders. We're adamant about that. We want to have nice, consistent growth when we invest in a product or a product line, that it's consistent long-term, and short-term growth very fast. The backlog today, is a combination of both our technology partners on the power management side within GES. We did see a large increase in our Pitch Energy Modules with a very large order internationally that was part of the growth. Then, a handful of niche products that we have, such as the temperature monitoring device, the shunts, et cetera. The backlog growth was across the board, both in components and engineered solutions. If you look at the overall %, it's that Pitch Energy Module business that continues to gain market share.

As you know, Bobby, it's a very large market that we're penetrating.

Got it. Was PMT backlog up double digits in the fourth quarter fair to say?

PMT backlog was up double digits in the quarter, yes. I believe. Yes. Great. Maybe just one last one.

Go ahead, Bobby. Sorry. Oh, you said up $10 million?

Yeah. I believe it was up $10 million in the quarter.

Awesome. Just the last one for me is it a fair read-through to say, if we rewound the story to 2024, a lot of the focus was on the Pitch Energy Modules and the wind turbine solution opportunity. Now today, and especially over just the last two prints, it seems like that continues to be a risk growth opportunity, but it seems like there's more shine on, per se. Is that a fair way to be thinking, Perry? Maybe it's just something I missed two years ago, but just curious to hear your guys' thoughts there.

Yeah, Bob, you broke up pretty bad, but I think I understood your question in that our focus was never on wind turbines or solar or anything like that. It's been on power management applications. What we're finding as we even add new technology partners, we're finding other niche power management applications. I think you saw the press release on C-Motive, where we'll be building power supplies and motor drives for them. Also, you know about the starter modules, where we have another large locomotive manufacturer that is also having us design one for them. Of course, the Pitch Energy Module, it was one part, it was one customer, but the goal was to expand that globally because we are a global company with 60% of our sales outside of North America, and that's into effect.

With that, the whole growth concept in our model for 80 years has been what can you sell to an existing customer base? Because that's the most cost-effective way to bring new products to market. We're identifying what I call niche, but they're very large. The 20-newton meter product that we're coming out with for 20-newton meter wind turbines, that'll be out in Q1, allows us to sell Pitch Energy Modules in that application. We got the TurbineGuard. We've got the UPS now in an agreement with KK Wind. These are the things that are going to be coming out. You'll see the press releases, but it's more power management-type applications that just happened. The first large one we had was in a wind turbine.

I would always look at it as we have a very unique capability with all these new products that are out there. All of them either need a power management section or a new power management section based on the frequency or power levels. We've done years and years and years. We have 20 years of ultra-capacitor experience, high-power tubes, high-power industrial components, and a very strong and growing design and manufacturing team. That's kind of the direction. We're not focused on wind turbines. We're focused on power management. In this case, the initial growth was in wind turbines. You're right, that %, even though that's going to keep growing, the % will probably be in other products going forward.

Super helpful context, Ray. Thank you, guys.

Hey, let me jump in and correct something. The question was asked, I think maybe we misunderstood it, about what's the percentage of our manufactured product versus distribution product, and we said that we don't discuss that. We actually have reported that, and it is in the range of 55%-60% of the products that we sell are products that we either manufacture directly or are manufactured exclusively for us to our specifications. We wanted to follow up with that. Thanks. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Joseph Nurjes with Segrin Investments.

Well, first, let me congratulate you on a great quarter and on the prospects that you've enumerated on this call. My call is basically on, I'll call it before Goshen and after Goshen, after the press release with Goshen. In the last conference call, I guess you talked about quite a few quotes out there on the battery energy solution quite a bit. Were you utilizing Goshen Batteries previous to their press release, our partnership with them?

Yes. We were working with Goshen, and that's how we got to know them, and once we shared both of our capabilities, and as maybe you know, they're about 30 minutes from here. We talked to them about the batteries as we were looking at some of these opportunities. During those discussions, they needed us to help bring their batteries to market, being, again, a North American company, and to meet all of those BABA, Build America, Buy America, federal entity, et cetera, Made in America. Our relationship with Goshen in the beginning was, yeah, just buy batteries from them and build a product, and it was an application we're working on. It has evolved to where they'll be a technology partner of ours. They will give us the batteries, and we will build the containers and integrate them here.

We'll either design or build our own PCS, the transformer, and all the other products that would go in that, and use Goshen as our technology partner for their batteries. Again, the good thing is, with their batteries being built here in North America, we meet all the qualifications that the larger OEMs need to put that product and get the subsidies from the various states or grants based on the Made in America concept. It's a good match, and we just had a meeting about a month ago with the Goshen CEO, Ed and I, and the whole troop was out there, and we signed an MOU, and we're going to help them bring their batteries to market, and they're going to help us bring BES products to market.

That's terrific. Goshen has a sales force, too. Are they pursuing the sales independent of you guys on some of these projects, and then they come to you?

Yeah, they have a handful of people that talk to some of the larger things, like one of the other callers talked about these 100-megawatt Very large, yeah.

Yeah. We'll be exclusive for certain size containers, and all referrals would come to us. We'll work together. We have a much larger, much more knowledgeable sales force for North American opportunities than they do. They have the technology and a $2 million manufacturing location.

Billions. Was it 2 million square feet?

Oh, yeah. It's billion dollars, right?

Yeah. 2 million square feet facility. That's our relationship with Goshen, and they'll be our partner bringing BES the opportunity I just talked about that we booked, those will be Goshen batteries in those products.

Just one other follow-up. Subsequent to your announcement on the press release on the Goshen partnership, Goshen announced another battery, I guess, if I say it right, their Genaset sodium ion battery that they're introducing. That seems like, to me anyway, a game-changing potential product. I understand they're going to be manufacturing that battery in China. Do we know if there's any possibility that that will be manufactured in Illinois, let's say, over the next year or so?

Yeah. We've had conversations with them about that. Right now, the product they had fits the technical needs and cost needs of our current opportunities. They showed us our road map. The goal is to eventually bring that to North America. Again, for the same reasons we talked about, obviously, it's a huge market for BES products and the whole Build in America subsidies and grants. Their goal is to, yes, bring that to America eventually, but they're about three and a half, $4 billion company. They have a huge facility in China. I just think they're using that to get it introduced and to get it designed in, then they can transfer the production to North America.

All right. Well, again, congratulations. Terrific quarter, looking forward to see what happens over the course of this fiscal year. Thank you for the opportunity.

Thank you. Thank you. I'll now hand the call back over to CEO and Chairman of the Board, Ed Richardson, for closing remarks.

Well, thanks again for joining us today and for your questions during the Q&A portion of the call. We look forward to talking to you again next quarter, but if you have any questions at any time feel, you're welcome to call us directly. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating.

This does conclude today's program, and you may now disconnect.