Good day, welcome to the LSI Industries Fiscal Q3 23 Earnings Call. All participants have been placed on read-only mode. If you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing star two, followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on the telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note that presenters being recorded. I'd now like to turn the conference over to Jim Galeese, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining. We issued a press release before the market opened this morning detailing our fiscal Q3 results. In conjunction with this release, we also posted a conference call presentation in the investor relations portion of our corporate website at www.lsicorp.com. Information contained in this presentation will be referenced throughout today's conference call. Included are certain non-GAAP measures to improve transparency of our operating results. A complete reconciliation of Q3 GAAP and non-GAAP results is contained in our press release and 10-Q. Please note that management's commentary in responses to questions on today's conference call may include forward-looking statements about our business outlook. Such statements involve risks and opportunities and actual results may differ materially. I refer you to our safe harbor statement, which appears in this morning's press release, as well as our most recent 10-K and 10-Q.
Today's call will begin with remarks summarizing our fiscal Q3 results. At the conclusion of these prepared remarks, we will open the line for questions. With that, I'll turn the call over to LSI President and Chief Executive Officer, Jim Clark.
Thank you, Jim. Good morning, all. Thank you for joining us on today's call. As you've likely seen from our press release, we had another strong quarter in our Q3 fiscal 2023. It's hard to believe, we are over just about 60 days from the end of our fiscal year. I could not be prouder of the efforts and progress of our employees, agents, and partners, as well as the continuing confidence of our customers choosing LSI to be the partner of choice. Sales for the quarter were up more than 7% year-over-year, with net income up over 29%. We had a strong free cash flow performance. I'm happy to say our net debt is below $50 million with a one time net leverage ratio.
We are in a good spot going into the Q4 of the year. Jim Galeese will provide a deep dive of the financials in a few minutes. Lighting provided another strong quarter of growth, with sales increasing 17% and operating income increasing 31% in what is historically a weaker quarter for LSI and against a very strong Q3 last year. As you may have noted last week, we published a press release providing an overview of a recent win with a large EV battery manufacturing plant being built in Kentucky. This is one of the largest manufacturing development projects in Kentucky's history. It says a lot about the confidence of the customer in LSI that we were chosen to be the lighting provider for this project.
It also says a lot about the focused nature of our selling efforts and the capabilities of our company. As you all know, we have a manufacturing facility in Kentucky. I'm thrilled that we were able to support a project of this size and complexity with folks that live and work in Kentucky. Thank you to everyone that recognized the importance of this decision. Over the last few weeks, we've had a flurry of customer and agent activity in our facility for both Lighting and Display Solutions. It's great to have the opportunity to sit down and talk with these folks that are making decisions that impact their company's performance. Just this week, we have more than 30 of our top automotive agents in-house for training and discussions.
I can honestly say that almost all of our conversations contain an acknowledgement and an appreciation for the values we hold dear, the culture of our company, and the focus on meeting our commitments. Our vertical market orientation and respect for our customers continues to pay dividends, and I'm confident that it will never go out of style and hopefully never go unnoticed. Speaking of our Display Solutions group, we continue to work with a large number of developing opportunities and projects, including ongoing activity in our digital and print menu boards, along with a 450-site renovation project for a large oil company. Our mobile displays group, offering both refrigerated and non-refrigerated displays, had a record-breaking performance in the Q3 while building some real momentum in the C-store refueling marketplace.
Our ability to offer even more goods and services to our grocery and C-store customers underlines the opportunities we see in front of us, and I'm thrilled with the progress we are making. New products and innovations continue to be a cornerstone of our performance over the last few years, and I'm happy to say that the company continues to demonstrate our commitment to ongoing investments in this area. Last quarter, I spoke about a number of new product introductions in our lighting segment, including the REDiMount. This quarter, I'm happy to announce a very meaningful investment in the Display Solutions Group. To continue growth in this segment and opportunities in the future, we're expanding our footprint in our refrigerated displays group, adding more than 65,000 sq ft of manufacturing, research, and development space.
More importantly, we're adding the capacity and capability to provide next-generation refrigerated solutions with the addition of an R-290-based product. R-290 is an environmentally friendly, non-toxic, propane-based gas refrigerant. It is free of ozone-depleting properties and is currently one of the most climate-friendly solutions available. We're excited to be able to offer this option to our customers. I don't mention this often on these calls, but I'd like to point out that LSI is making a real impact on the environment. From energy savings that are provided by our LED solutions to reduction in light pollution and the use of ozone-friendly products to the way we run our factories, we're proud to be doing our part meaningfully and positively impacting the environment. Going into Q4, our quote activity and prospects across all sectors remain strong.
We're still facing some headwinds, but we believe that many opportunities lie in front of us, and we'll continue to work to improve both our top line and bottom line. With that, I'll turn this call over to Jim Galeese for our look at our financials.
Thank you, Jim. Q3 was an active quarter from several perspectives. We delivered a solid quarter of financial performance, demonstrated durable, sustained operational execution, and we continue to make progress on key growth initiatives. I'll briefly comment on all three. Let me start with summary financials. Sales for the quarter were 7% above last year, building on the record-setting fiscal Q3 last year. Adjusted operating income, net income, and EBITDA all increased, with adjusted operating income increasing 47%, while adjusted EBITDA of $11.2 million improved 32%. Rate expansion was achieved in all margin categories, with adjusted operating income and adjusted EBITDA improving 210 and 190 basis points respectively. Volume, coupled with improved program pricing and favorable program mix, all contributed to the rate expansion.
Adjusted diluted earnings per share were $0.19, versus $0.15 last year, increasing our year-to-date earnings per share to $0.70, 62% above prior year EPS of $0.43. Free cash flow generation was strong for the quarter, $11.7 million, increasing our fiscal year-to-date cash flow to $31 million. Increased earnings and a reduction in working capital is responsible for the significant year-over-year improvement. Inventory decreased for the second consecutive quarter while successfully supporting 7% sales growth, reflecting ongoing stabilization and reliability in the supply chain. Our strong free cash flow reduced net debt to $48 million at the end of the quarter, with net debt decreasing $35 million over the last 12 months. As a result, the ratio of net debt to trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA declined to an even 1x.
Lower debt levels provide the financial stability and optionality for the business moving forward. As part of our capital allocation, the company declared a regular cash dividend of $0.05 per share, payable on May 16th to shareholders of record on May 8th. Some brief comments on segment performance. Lighting had an excellent quarter, with sales increasing 17% and operating income improving 31%. We continue to make progress in the market, increasing sales in all major verticals. I referenced growth initiatives in my opening comment, and we have multiple in lighting. Lighting has historically had a strong position in outdoor applications. As part of our overall vertical market strategy and objective of increasing our customer share of wallet, we have been strengthening our capabilities for indoor applications.
As a result, our growth rate for indoor applications is measurably above our total growth rate, enhancing our overall position with customers. Quotation activity for lighting remains healthy, with quote levels equal to the high fiscal Q3 levels last year. As we've mentioned previously, we are experiencing a lengthening quote-to-order conversion period, which has increased the backlog of outstanding quotes. While we expect activity to remain healthy, the lengthened quote-to-order conversion could cause timing fluctuations moving forward. For the Display Solutions segment, earnings increased measurably on slightly lower sales. Total Q3 sales were down 4%, driven by the forecast decrease in digital signage shipments as the large QSR program peaked in the H2 of fiscal 2022. This will also impact digital signage sales in Q4 as we transition into the indoor phase of the program, as well as early phase activity in other programs.
Order and inquiry demand remains steady in other verticals and products.
Including mobile display cases to the grocery vertical and static or print graphics for the petroleum C-store environment. Operating income for Display Solutions increased 23% on slightly lower sales, driven by a 430 basis point improvement in gross margin, reflecting strong improved program management pricing and favorable program mix. We continue to aggressively pursue growth initiatives in the Display Solutions segment as well. To highlight, in March, we announced the lease of additional manufacturing space, providing additional capacity to support the ongoing market demand for refrigerated display cases, and as Jim mentioned, support the planned introduction of new products. Cross-selling initiatives continued, including several pilot projects for display cases into the C-store vertical. Q3 was a successful quarter for LSI with improved financial performance and continued progress on our growth initiatives.
Given the current environment of broader economic uncertainties, we continue to be diligent, maintaining a strong focus on operational execution, including margin and cash flow management. I will now return the call back to the moderator for the question-and-answer session.
Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. To ask a question, you may press star and 1 on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the key. To withdraw your question, please press star then 2. At this time, we will pause momentarily to review our roster. Our first question comes from Aaron Spychalla with Craig-Hallum. Please go ahead.
Morning, Jim and Jim. Thanks for taking the questions. you know, first on QSR, maybe you touched a little bit on it, but Jim at the end, but just maybe an update on the large digital menu award. Sounds like we're kind of wrapping that up, at least from the outdoor portion. You could just see, you know, translating to a new pilot award for a new customer. Maybe just can you share a little more details on potential size, you know, anything on rollout or timing there?
Yeah. Good morning, Aaron. Jim Clark here. Thanks for the question. Yeah, I mean, the QSR, particularly on digital menu board, continues to do well. We, you know, we have rolled off substantially off of the big program. I think our peak was probably Q2, Q3 of last year. We've been, you know, working that down as that project became wholly complete. We have picked up other elements with that particular customer, specifically doing what started off as a $20 million indoor order now moving to a $30 million indoor order. It's just timing and coordination on their side right now, so we don't anticipate that taking off until Q1 of next year.
Subsequent to that, we've been infilling it for quite some time with other customers, and we do have another couple larger projects that we've been looking at that, you know, we're very hopeful. I would say that what you're not gonna see is, you know, a big drop-off. You're just gonna see. The beginning project was large, but then we had time to develop all of these smaller medium-sized projects. There are still large projects sitting out there. If you think about what happened to them during an inflationary period, anybody that had a static menu board or print menu board was really at a disadvantage to move their pricing. It's really created a sense of awareness, I won't say urgency, but awareness with some, you know, sense of speed counts.
We're happy with the activity that's going on there. All the activity you see moving forward has really just been infill as that project has, you know, kind of, substantially completed.
Good. Thanks for the color there. You know, maybe second, just since you see the margin expansion, especially, you know, incremental margins, given the supply chain challenges, can you just maybe give us an update there? You kinda mentioned some stabilization, but, you know, what are you seeing in the market? Is permitting still kind of the biggest push point? Just how do you think that margins, you know, can maybe trend over the near term?
Yeah. Depending on the projects we're doing, any type of retrofit or anything like that, permitting is the number one issue we're running into. Sometimes we're delayed by progress of, you know, maybe another contractor or something like that. New construction, you know, has just a litany of things that are putting pressure on it. Permitting is one. You know, switchgear, I'm sure you guys hear all the time. From what we understand, and we stay pretty close to a lot of the electrical guys, you know, switchgear is, you know, still massive demand, massive back orders and just time taking to fill. You know, from a margin standpoint, it was primarily mix. You know, a very favorable mix and good pricing discipline has allowed us to maintain those margins.
All right. You know, maybe last for me, just, you know, anything on fiscal 2023 targets? You kind of provided back in March, you know, maybe an early read on the Q4. I know you have a nice comp year-over-year there as well. Then just thinking about that given the kind of talk on conversion, cycle slowing.
You're saying, I'm just wanna make sure I understood that right. Fiscal 2024 targets or fiscal 2023 targets?
No, just kinda 2023. I think just in March when you gave kind of the Fast Forward, you know, there was some FY 2023 stuff. Just kind of any early read on what the Q1 might look like.
I mean, I think it's gonna remain fairly strong. We're anticipating staying right in the range that we expected to land in. You know, we certainly have our eye on fully completing that, you know, hitting that half billion dollar mark. It's, you know, it's just a lot of market conditions, you know, continuing to win on every front and, you know, we anticipate a solid Q4. I wouldn't wanna give any specific guidance right now, but I think it's safe to say we'll be pretty darn close to our goals.
All right. Under-understood. Thanks. I will turn it over.
Thanks, Aaron.
The next question comes from Amit Dayal with H.C. Wainwright. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Appreciate you taking my questions. Congrats on another really solid quarter. Jim, to begin with, maybe on the, you know, operating margin and cash flow side, is there room for, you know, operating leverage to continue coming through as you grow revenues? Are you at a point now where you need to add some more resources?
Oh, hi, Amit. Jim Galeese here. No, there certainly, you know, is room. You know, if we're successful in continuing to meet our growth objectives, that provides the leverage to continue to see margin rate expansion, but as well as, you know, invest in some of the, you know, the key resources in order to make that happen. You know, so it's not an either/or. You know, if we're continuing to grow the business, that provides the leverage for margin expansion and also providing the opportunity to continue key reinvestments.
You see some of those investments we're making, Amit, you know, I mentioned in the beginning of the call, you know, our step into, you know, next generation refrigerants on our refrigerated line is the R-290.
you know, last quarter, we talked extensively about the introduction of our REDiMount product. you know, we continue to be committed to investing in new products and in new markets. I think there is still, from Jim Galeese's point, still a lot of opportunity for us.
Understood. You know, the pull through order converse and any sort of, you know, pipeline build out, you know, is there impact from the interest rate environment on how, you know, customers are thinking about placing orders or, you know, just taking delivery of goods at this point?
No. I mean, you know, I certainly don't wanna be the, you know, the guy that says there's no impact. I'm gonna tell you that we're not seeing it from a day-to-day business standpoint, meaning incoming orders and inquiries are certainly not being affected by the interest rate environment. I do think that there are still a number of external things that are going on that are affecting, you know, a continuing pace like we are. Most of them are external to us: labor resources, permitting, switchgear.
We've heard, in fact, we've heard it from our people, we just saw an article in the Wall Street Journal maybe a week ago or so talking about large project demand, that it's all still there, but a lot of the ultra-large contractors and stuff are being very selective, actually turning projects down, mostly because of constraint around personnel and equipment and product. We're certainly not being exposed to that. You know, in terms of our ability to deliver, but we are being exposed only in the sense that some of those projects are slowing, not slowing in terms of demand, but just moving along slower than we would have anticipated.
Thank you. Understood. Last one for me. On the lighting side, how is the customer base changing, Jim, in comparison maybe a year or two ago? Is it more sort of industrial customers, you know, with this onshoring trend that is going on, especially in, you know, Texas, Oklahoma, Kentucky, et cetera, for manufacturing type of development? Are we seeing more of those types of customers come through versus, you know, what you might have described previously? Just to get a sense of, you know, what direction the lighting business sort of is heading towards.
Yeah, I think we're seeing growth across the board in general. What we are seeing. You know, I wish I could say that all of our customers appreciate the domestic manufacturing and that they all turn a blind eye to import product. Unfortunately, they don't. I was extremely happy that this RGZ win, you know, they considered that an important element, and I was really like the fact that we have a factory in Kentucky. You know, being here in Ohio, we're very close to that facility, and we have people that are making these products that live and work in the state and live and work in adjoining states that will, you know, be contributing to this project.
It's a big project, and we're very proud to, you know, be associated with it. I know that our folks will be, you know, driving by and pointing it out for a long time. I wish there was more of that that went on, that there was more, you know, the recognition of, you know, U.S. built and U.S. company and that type of thing. Where it is strong, it's strong, and where it's not, it's, you know, we're still able to compete. We, you know, we make a good product. We're proud of it. We're managing price really well. We're managing our margin really well. Product quality is strong. So we have a lot of compelling reasons for folks to buy from us. It would be nice, though, if the, if the Made in America was a stronger level.
I understand. Have you named the EV manufacturer? I may have missed this.
I did not. We did not. I would just say it's one of the big three.
Okay. Understood. That's all I have. Thank you so much. I'll take my other questions offline.
Very good.
Our next question comes from George Gianarikas with Canaccord. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. How you doing today?
Very good, George. How are you? Good to hear you.
Okay. Thanks for taking my questions. I guess maybe, first, you know, you mentioned some of the timing issues and some of the delays from that you're seeing in the marketplace, but you still expect to see a good close to the year and to the year at your half a billion target. Can you help us understand how to quantify this impact? Are you just kind of giving us color on the marketplace, as opposed to any sort of articulating any sort of financial impact to the firm as we close out the year?
I mean, I think to be accurate, we're just giving observations of what's going on outside, you know, factors outside of our control. I think that over the last few years, we've kind of bucked the trend about, you know, macro things, you know, things happening in the macro market, if you will, versus things that are happening to us. From an internal standpoint, the observation that I think Tim was trying to underline is quote activity. Quarter after quarter after quarter, and I'm talking, you know, eight, nine, 10 quarters, we've been seeing an increase in quote activity. We try to draw a parallel between how many inquiries there are and what that activity is as to an early indicator of how much we'll get in orders.
It doesn't, you know, it's not steady enough to be a, an absolute predictor or anything like that. It is an interesting statistic to look at. I think what we picked up on lately, and, when I say lately, I mean, you know, three to five, maybe even six months, is we're seeing initial inquiry to the teching up and finalization of the order. The activities are remaining high, but the time between that first inquiry and the time between the second and the close inquiry is lengthening.
Most of the time it's lengthening not because there's demand and not because interest rates went up and not because there's a lack of projects, but because, you know, projects are just getting extended and they're either ongoing things with, you know, supply chains of other suppliers or labor issues or projects being put in the queue and just, you know, the contractors not being able to get to them. We're just making mention that we notice that. Now, because George, as you know, you know, lighting is late cycle, right, in a construction project, so it's so dependent on other forms of completion.
Right. It sounds like you're saying that the supply chain situation that we've heard from others is improving. You're saying it's getting worse. By the way, you're not the only one to mention switchgear. I mean, we had a company last night that specifically mentioned switchgear as an issue of building out a facility in North Carolina, which is interesting.
Yeah. If you're in the, if you're in the electrical product industry, meaning, you know, we're dependent on copper wire and switchgear and switches and everything leading right up to our fixture to energize it and power it, you know, switchgear is definitely a, you know, a pain point going on right now. I mean, it has been. It has been since, you know, basically, you know, April of 2020, a month after, you know, we went into lockdown. It has not recovered yet.
Interesting. What about the permitting side? You've mentioned permits over the last couple of quarters. I'm curious as to whether there's any improvement in receiving permits and if any, kind of, freeing up on the part of municipalities and towns and issuing them. Any color there would be appreciated.
I think it's, I think that we're through the worst part. This is the new normal. You know, the reality of the situation is they built quite a backlog of projects. You know, some towns, states, cities are great and some are just awful. You know what? I think that we've taken the brunt of the pain, and you know, the situation's beginning to improve, but I would still say that it will be a ongoing issue for at least another year, maybe two years. I mean, simply put, many of the cities and townships, you know, have one or two guys, and they have a normal backlog of 10 projects, and now they have 100. They're not, you know, they don't have the budget or they're not hiring the people or whatever.
For whatever reason, they're not doing anything to work down that backlog. I think it's just gonna take a while for it to completely stabilize.
Got it. Maybe switching gears, pun intended, for a second. You talked about in your Fast Forward strategy outline about a lot of your growth hinging on additional M&A. You've now guided your leverage down to about one times. Should we expect that more closure in terms of targets? Are you waiting for the economic environment to clear before you initiate on any acquisitions? Any update there would be much appreciated.
Yeah, well, you know, acquisition development is an ongoing process. We have never stopped. We keep that funnel filled. We have always said, or I've always said that, you know, we would, if the right opportunity presented itself, regardless of where we were, you know, we would certainly consider. It may cause additional pause or we may need the deal to be structured differently or be at a different level, you know, as our, as our debt's a little bit higher. Us getting down below 1.0 isn't necessarily the only gate that we need. I'm not overly worried about economic conditions. We're very aware of them. We will be very strategic and very thoughtful and calculative about, you know, is it the right time? Is it the right, you know, is this the right opportunity?
The bottom line is acquisition is gonna be a part of our go forward plan. It actually is a smaller part. Organic growth is the bigger side of it. We're just gonna look for the right opportunity. If it materializes, you know, in the next three months, you know, we'd certainly, I think we're in a better spot to be able to capitalize on it. If it takes 13 months, you know, we'll take that time. We're disciplined investors.
How should we think about the financial metrics or the lens through which you view those acquisitions? Do they all have to be accretive to earnings? To any other profitability metric?
I think that they all ultimately have to be accretive to earnings. If, you know, if we saw something that may be slightly dilutive initially, but we think can create a great return for our shareholders and the people in the company and propel us forward, we are certainly structured to be able to take on a challenge like that, and we would certainly consider it. You know, we're always trying to look out for the best interests of our shareholders, you know, in balance that short-term, long-term component of it.
Okay. Maybe last question. Since you participate in several verticals across the economy, in terms of contributing color, you talked about lengthening quote-to-order cycle. Are there any particular verticals that you're seeing that more pronounced than others?
Well, I would say right now, I mean just specifically on. Two parts to that. I'll say right now, automotive is moving at an incredible speed. They've come back with a vengeance, and they're really, you know, there's a lot of inquiry, and they're really willing to invest. You know, warehouse has slowed a bit. You know, I mean, I think that it's just, it's just a more cautious approach. What's taken right over underneath that is large manufacturing investments in, you know, kind of, you know, U.S. manufacturing, if you will. The EV power plant's a good example of it. You know, there's a number of large, headline grabbing projects going on, but there's also a lot that are not grabbing headlines but are going on. We're seeing those large projects.
There's a lot of activity around that. That is probably the one that's most sensitive to lengthening, you know, a lengthening cycle because they're working it, they're moving forward, all of a sudden, you know, the concrete guys need, you know, an extra two months to get their project done or the, you know, the basic, you know, rough-in for electrical is taking a bit longer because, you know, switch boxes or cable's not available or whatever it is. Those are the ones that we see. It's more acute, that we see the complexity adding to the lengthening because it requires so many more components and pieces. The smaller projects, it seems as though some of the folks are able to hustle to find alternative sources.
When you're trying to find, you know, 50 feet of I-beam is a lot easier than when you're trying to find 5,000 feet of I-beam, you know? It might be some of that.
Thank you, guys. Appreciate it.
Okay.
Our next question comes from Fearon with Accretive Capital Partners. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Jim and J im, and congrats on another terrific quarter. Was interested in the new product development. The R-290 refrigerant is, sounds really exciting. One of those things that kind of fits in nicely with a industry trend towards environmental consciousness and all that. I know last year one of the big, you know, kind of new products was the REDiMount. Are you still running at a roughly one product annual sort of new product development annual cycle? Are there other things that, you know, we should kind of expect to be introduced this year that'll be those types of drivers? I mean, it seems like certainly the R-290 can be one of those. Yeah, I was wondering how the pipeline looks.
Yeah, Rick, good to hear you. Thank you for calling in the question. First of all, you know, we were just going over I was just talking with the marketing department, product development, and engineering a couple weeks ago, and I was saying about how important it is that we keep that rhythm up, and we keep the investment going, and that, you know, I love the fact that we get to say, you know, 20+ products. The reality is they were starting to add them up and show them to me, and they're every year they've been in excess of 20. I think that that pace will continue for quite some time.
I mean, I have the benefit of looking at our future development plans. We're already, you know, scheduled out now starting to talk about 2025. I think that pace will keep up. There's two avenues we have in new products, completely new product. R-290 and REDiMount would be something like that. Then products that we're, you know, going through additional enhancements or cost out initiatives or things like that may be a new category of product or something. I'd actually say that, you know, we basically, for the most part, have 20 brand new organic products on the roadmap, 20+, you know, again, going out for at least 18 to 24 months.
I don't mention this a lot, but we are an outdoor-oriented company, and we really wanna see outdoor be just kind of the lead. Our indoor product line, which has always been very strong, has really taken on legs of its own over the last couple of years. You know, we have spent a lot of that development time on that, and it has been paying off in spades for us. Our share of when we start to look at our mix between indoor and outdoor, we still always favor the outdoor mix. I'll tell you, it's getting a lot closer to 50/50 than I would have ever imagined. You're seeing, you know, the growth in the outdoor, but you're seeing, you know, maybe 2x growth on the indoor.
It's great because what you're seeing is us being able to provide just that much more of a solution, which has always been the foundation of our growth strategy, either more vertical markets or deeper into the vertical markets we're in. When indoor continues to improve, one of the things is that we're getting more of indoor on those projects we're on. That just goes to underline getting that greater share of wallet.
Oh, that's great color, Jim. That's actually really exciting. I'm sure that helps some of us in the seasonality as well. I was curious when it comes to margins on the indoor products, I'm guessing when you're rolling out something like the R-290, you do see a nice bump up in the margin there. As that side of the business grows and maybe starts kicking up at a more rapid pace, is that an improved margin? Is it sort of a, you know, indoor and outdoor are both commanding similar type margins these days? Or, you know, is there some changes acceptable on those ones?
Yeah. It's too early to tell on the R-290 side. It will be mostly at the end of this calendar year before we're delivering R-290 solutions with enough color to tell you. Certainly our intentions are, you know, to give our customers a very competitive product with compelling reason to move to it, offset by the learning curve that goes along with, you know, manufacturing, with the type of technology and investment and the startup that goes with it. On the indoor versus outdoor, you know, we're very disciplined around what we're gonna do for lighting, and if we can't keep those margin levels comparative, we're not interested in doing something that's dilutive to our overall position in lighting. The answer to your question is the indoor product is very competitive with our outdoor product in terms of margin and performance.
Yeah, that makes sense. I'm sure once you're been working on the larger projects, to the extent you're offering, you know, additional services or products, that, you know, those geographies will boost the margins. It's not just that you don't have to get crews in there, specific to those projects already there. The last question I've got, Jim, this is, you know, the de-leveraging of the company is nothing short of impressive. Do you have, sort of a, you know, when times just be the dial back a little bit and, you know, continuing cash flows strongly as the company does.
I'm sure that M&A funnel has been, is active and, just sort of general overview of size parameters, and any things specific to those areas that you'd like to strengthen that, you know, it's going into new vertical or enhancing verticals. I'm sure this is an opportunity as part of this, you know, review. Then, I know, you know, Tim you pushed some of this culture, with you, Jim, and that's what gives all of you a lot of confidence when it comes to any sort of general parameters in terms of size or specific industries that you might be interested in.
You know, I would say that we're opportunistic. We will look and consider everything and or most things that we feel would contribute to our ability to grow, but in a way that is, you know, financially responsible and stable. I'm glad you mentioned culture. I know that, you know, we've talked about it before, and I'm glad you mentioned it because I underline that, you know, so much of this has to start with the cultural fit. If, you know, If we're round and they're square or we're a triangle and they're, you know, an octagon, I don't know if we wanna go through all that work to try to mesh them together.
There's just, there's opportunity where we can find something that creates momentum, JSI being a good example of what can be done when you're measuring, you know, the tangible with the intangible. As far as how far out over our skis we would get, I mean, I think that anybody that's followed us for any length of time knows we're, you know, I'll just use the word again, we're disciplined. We're building a great company here. We're building a bigger company. We want this to be palatable for our employees, for our shareholders, and for our customers. What we don't wanna do is do something that risks that. Everything's on the table, but it would, you know, it would have to be the right opportunity.
I would just say to you as an investor, you can be confident that we would put every opportunity through the wringer, but we'll also require it to meet a certain threshold for it to be, for us to advance forward with it.
Yeah. Thanks, Jim. A wonderful situation and, you know, that gives us all the confidence we need. Just wanted to say thank you to you, to the team, for all the hard work and for being great custodians of our capital. We appreciate it.
You're welcome.
This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Jim Clark for any closing remarks.
Thank you, operator. I would just say again, thank you for taking the time to listen and learn a little bit more about LSI. Everybody that takes the time to get on the phone and listen to what we're doing just becomes that much more informed and that much more, has a greater understanding of what we're doing here. I think that, you know, we're gonna have a good fiscal 2023, and it's hard for me to believe, as I mentioned in the beginning comments, that, you know, we're only, two months, 60 some odd days away from the end of our fiscal year. You can be assured that we're doing our best, to, you know, hit the next objective, hit the next goal for us, and we're already moved on to our path forward plan for 2028.
You know, we're excited to hit that next level of growth and achievement and do it in a way that keeps our employees, our customers, and our shareholders all happy. With that, I'll just say good afternoon and thank you again for the time. Take care.
The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.