Hello everyone, I hope you are all enjoying a nice and warm summer. Thank you for joining us today, and welcome to Tekna's presentation for the second quarter results of two thousand and twenty-four. I am Luc Dion, the CEO of Tekna, and I am joined today by Arina van Oost, Vice President for Investor Relations, and by Espen Schie, our CFO. Unlike our previous webcast, today's presentation will follow a brief agenda, and it will be followed by a Q&A session, as usual. For those who have questions, you may post them in the chat during my presentation. Next slide, please. Our total revenues for the second quarter amounted to 11.2 million dollars, improving 2% over the same period last year, and 30% over Q1 of this year.
After a slow start in the year, material segment is showing some recovery in Q2, namely, with materials up 35% from Q1, at an all-time record of CAD 7.8 million. The trailing twelve months on the right side, trailing twelve month for revenue is closed at CAD 40.3 million. This is slightly above Q1, and it reflects a transitory slowdown that was observed across the additive manufacturing industry in the first half of the year. Next slide, please. The Adjusted EBITDA for Q2 was -CAD 1.5 million, down CAD 0.9 million from last year. While the Adjusted EBITDA improved from Q1, the trailing twelve-month trends remain below our expectations, and it's marking a decline in performance for two consecutive quarters.
The losses in Q2 are explained by a one-off loss of CAD 500,000 in contribution margin from working capital reduction measures taken to improve our balance sheet, and CAD 600,000 following the termination of charge back to our loss-making joint venture. These charges are now fully assumed by Tekna. Although some of our customers are entering the industrialization phase, the additive industry is still in a very early beginnings. So this causes some volatility in material sales, lack of transparency in the supply chain, and low predictability. So in this context, strong measures were initiated last year and continued throughout this year to improve our cost base and lower our break-even point. I will share more on this with the next two slides. Next slide, please.
An important focus was placed on cash management and cash flow in the first half of this year, and this will remain a priority moving forward. The net cash from operating activities in Q2 was negative CAD 0.5 million, and taking advantage from CAD 2.9 million dollars reduction in working capital in the second quarter. The working cap reduction was driven by cash conversion of smaller and larger powder fractions. While this reduction improves our balance sheet, it has temporarily affect the margins for materials. The capital expenditures in the quarter were CAD 0.9 million, ending the first half of 2024 at CAD 1.7 million. As a result, our CapEx guidance for the year is now reduced from CAD 5 million to CAD 4 million.
The cash balance at the end of the second quarter was reduced by CAD 0.7 million to CAD 9.3 million. Next slide, please. In addition to focusing on cash management and cash flow, we have implemented measures to reduce our cost structure. These actions are expected to result in approximately CAD 2 million in savings by end of 2024. While some of the measures are one-time adjustments, more than half of them will be recurring and yield increased savings over the coming years due to the volume effects. We have revisited many areas, including optimizing the sales mix, discontinuing the sales of low-margin alloys, and reducing the production cost. This was done either by improving the machine performance or reducing utilities and manufacturing supply expenses.
Furthermore, we have taken actions on overhead staff, which is down from 219 in January to 203 today, and we have streamlined many indirect expenses account. So these measures were necessary for Tekna to reduce its vulnerability to volume fluctuations and build a more resilient company. Next slide, please. I will conclude this presentation with a few words on our outlook. Starting with the systems. The pipeline of prospective systems projects for the remainder of the year and the midterm is strong, in particular, with some opportunities for PlasmaSonic systems, and CAD 2 million of new orders recorded in July and earlier this month... For advanced materials, we expect lower activity in Q3 as usual, with July and August vacations in North America and Europe.
But we remain focused on improving our revenues over last year in this segment. We have built a strategic position in the additive manufacturing industry. We are renowned for the quality of our products, and, the fundamentals of the industry are strong. And for this reason, it continues to reinforce our growth vision. In microelectronics development, the trials of Tekna's nanomaterial for next generation MLCCs continues, and we expect feedback from our prospective customers later this year. From a profitability and cash flow perspective, we have implemented a solid cost reduction program with concrete deliverables, leading to CAD 2 million in savings this year, and further reducing our break-even point. Along with these cost savings, reducing the working capital and limiting our CapEx remains our key priorities for the balance of the year.
We recognize that our growth and margin development has not always followed a linear trajectory over time, but we are confident in our strategy, and our outlook remains positive. On this, back to you, Arina.
All right. Good morning, and welcome to the Q&A session. We've already received some questions, and we'll start with our CFO, Espen Schie. Some questions for you on the profitability program. What are the key components of the profitability improvement program, and how will they specifically contribute to the Adjusted EBITDA?
Yeah. Thank you so much for the question. On the profitability improvement program, we are expecting improvements on production margins, so these are coming from production cost improvements, improving utilities such as gases, as well as manufacturing supplies. Furthermore, we are implementing savings on indirect costs, and here we anticipate those reduced operating costs. These measures, on the cost side, we then expect a CAD 2 million positive contribution from these actions in 2024, and more than half of this to be recurring also in 2025.
All right. So how confident are you in achieving the cost savings for this year, and what about next year?
Yeah, profitability and cash remain high on our agenda. This means we are accelerating the improvement measures we started over a year ago. We are confident that these cost savings can save a total of CAD 2 million over the next six months, and with full effect in Q4. We also anticipate the substantial recurring cost savings from these measures, then continuing into 2025 and potentially leaving full-year savings of the same measures.
Excellent! Looking forward to that. You've worked very hard on the working capital. Can you explain how you have improved it so much?
Yeah. We have started a comprehensive improvement program, starting of this year, which in Q2 alone, delivered CAD 2.9 million reduction. This involves reducing, among other things, also inventories, which did impact our margins by CAD 0.5 million in this quarter on the cost side of the margin equation. This involve measures and processes to improve our balance sheet, our cash flow, despite some temporary effect on the margins due to the cost side. I just want to emphasize that the development on our prices remain healthy and stable. In addition, we are also improving processes and follow-ups on other working capital items, such as the receivables and also the payable side.
That obviously helps our operating cash. How do you see our cash position going forward?
Yeah, we are confident with our current cash position. Keep in mind here that we are working on improving all cash drivers, so improve profitability, reduce working capital, and substantially reduced CapEx from previous years.
All right, then we're switching to you, Luc. We have a question about the litigation case. Is the judgment final, and how does this affect your powder operations?
Okay, thanks for the question. Well, first, let me say that the ruling was highly in favor of Tekna. The judgment is not final in the sense that the parties have the right to appeal from this decision until September nine. But with this ruling, Tekna continues to have freedom of operation and sales of our advanced materials for additive manufacturing globally. So right now, you know, how is this affecting our operations? We can continue to operate freely with our IP.
Excellent. Then referring to your comments about the additive industry slowdown, what's the situation exactly, and how is this affecting Tekna's powder sales for the remainder of the year?
Yeah, we have reported about this in Q1 and again this time. Well, we had noticed then a slowdown of our sales for advanced materials, specifically sales going to 3D printer manufacturers. This was also raised by some industry analysts at the time, and they pointed out, and we also point out from what we hear from our customers, that the higher interest rates were not very favorable for capital equipment investments. But on the other hand, the analyst also noted an increase in machine utilization rate, so we'd say, the operating time of these machines within the existing base of 3D printers already in the field.
More operating time means more power usage, so we start to see that utilization rate going up. That was reflected, you know, in this quarter with our advanced material sales picking up 35% in the second quarter over the first one. We believe looking forward Q3 will be a little slower due to vacation time, but things are picking up and will continue to pick up later in the year.
Thank you. And then, obviously, this year we have a lot less plasma system order intake compared to last year. So what are the reasons behind this lower order intake, and what does it look like for the rest of the year?
Yeah, well, we had expected lower sales in the first half of systems. It's a very cyclical business. It, you know, it's not a business that you can easily predict the cycle, but like this first half, we sort of knew that after like a strong year last year, we sort of predicted a lower volume of activity, but in the first half. But our pipeline of opportunities right now is quite strong. We've seen it with two orders that just came in in July and August, and we see more orders coming in in the second half that will continue to come in in the second half of this year.
Excellent. How significant... So in the report, we refer to PlasmaSonic order that we had last year, and that influences our backlog, the comparable with the backlog this year. So how significant was that one PlasmaSonic in those comparables?
Yeah. Well, that specific unit was sold to just below CAD 10 million, around CAD 9 million. So it has, it does have a significant impact, on the revenues in 2023. So, you know, we can see that, you know, when 2024, when you don't have this kind of large system that fills your, your order book for the year, it makes you a little bit more vulnerable. So last year it was about, 25%, of the revenues generated in the year for 2023. Mind you, we, we're still, this pipeline for PlasmaSonic system is still very healthy. We have some hot opportunities developing in many, well, I would say in at least three countries. And, and we're, quite optimistic about the future for this, product line.
All right, and then we got a question about the joint development agreement with LG Chem. Is there any news on that?
Joint LG Chem, yeah. Well, just as a reminder, this, this, I would say, joint development agreement for Tekna, we had supplied a plasma system that was specifically configured for LG Chem trials, and that, those were aimed, for LG Chem to develop material that could be used in manufacturing of, of batteries, rechargeable batteries. We are, you know, we still have this confidentiality agreement. We cannot say too much about it, but, the trials that they have, conducted were not conclusive, unfortunately, and LG Chem has, terminated this program. So, in the, in the framework of that collaboration with, with LG Chem, our role was to supply machines, industrial machines, if that had turned out to be positive.
It was not to supply materials or energy, or any nanomaterials to this company. It was more industrial-sized plasma that were, by the way, not those machines were not related to any of the current products of Tekna or any future products of Tekna.
Exactly.
Does that answer the question, yeah?
Yes.
Yeah.
Yes.
Okay.
Then we have one last question on microelectronics. So when do we foresee to see any benefit from this endeavor-
Yeah
... development program?
So microelectronics, just to say a few introduction words here. First of all, this is a program that we consider as an upside to our planning. So there's no you know, they are not. We see them coming in sometime, maybe next year, but for now, we don't, you know, we're not planning on those in any of our forecasts. But in terms of results, we have sent some samples throughout the year to the customers. Those samples are under evaluation. We've pointed out earlier that it was a iterative process with each of these customers, so we're still in the iteration cycles, but now those trials are conducted in industrial environment.
We expect that some results could become available in late Q3, early Q4 this year.
All looking forward to
Yeah
... those results.
Absolutely.
So I don't see any further questions coming in for now. So I think that concludes our Q&A session for Q2. Thank you for joining us today. Please consult the published half-year report for more details. Today's slides and also the webcast are available on our website, www.tekna.com. Enjoy the rest of your summer. Thank you.
Thank you.