Orion Energy Systems Inc. Reports Operating Results (10-Q)

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Feb 09, 2011
Orion Energy Systems Inc. (OESX, Financial) filed Quarterly Report for the period ended 2010-12-31.

Orion Energy Systems Inc. has a market cap of $97.6 million; its shares were traded at around $3.98 with and P/S ratio of 1.4. Hedge Fund Gurus that owns OESX: Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies LLC. Mutual Fund and Other Gurus that owns OESX: John Rogers of ARIEL CAPITAL MANAGEMENT LLC.

Highlight of Business Operations:

Because of the recessed state of the global economy, especially as it relates to capital equipment manufacturers, our fiscal 2011 first half results continued to be impacted by lengthened customer sales cycles and sluggish customer capital spending. During the fiscal 2011 third quarter, capital equipment purchases were slightly improved and we continue to remain optimistic regarding customer behaviors heading into calendar year 2011. To address the economic conditions, we implemented $3.2 million of annualized cost reductions during the first quarter of fiscal 2010. These cost containment initiatives included reductions related to headcount, work hours and discretionary spending and began to show results in the second half of fiscal 2010 and the first half of fiscal 2011. During the second quarter of fiscal 2011, we identified an additional $2 million of annualized cost reductions related to decreased product costs, improved manufacturing efficiencies and reduced operating expenses. We began to realize some of these cost reductions during the fiscal 2011 third quarter through reduction in general and administrative expenses and improved product margins for our HIF lighting systems.

Our OTA financing program provides for our customers purchase of our energy management systems without an up-front capital outlay. Our OTA is structured as a supply agreement in which we receive monthly rental payments over the life of the contract, typically 12 months, with an annual renewable agreement with a maximum term between two and five years. This program creates an ongoing recurring revenue stream, but reduces near-term revenue as the payments are recognized as revenue on a monthly basis over the life of the contract versus upfront upon product shipment or project completion. However, we do retain the option to sell the payment stream to a third party finance company, in which case the revenue is recognized at the net present value of the total future payments from the finance company upon completion of the sale transaction. The OTA program was established to assist customers who are interested in purchasing our energy management systems but who have capital expenditure budget limitations. For the first nine months of fiscal 2010, we recognized $0.5 million of revenue from completed OTAs. For the first nine months of fiscal 2011, we recognized $1.3 million of revenue from completed OTAs. As of December 31, 2010, we had signed 167 customers to OTAs representing future potential gross revenue streams of $16.6 million. We report the gross value of future revenue from OTAs due to the short-term nature of the contracts and because we often receive cash energy efficiency rebates from utilities which is recorded as deferred revenue on our balance sheet. In the future, we expect an increase in the volume of OTAs as our customers take advantage of our value proposition without incurring up-front capital cost. The timing of expected future GAAP product revenue recognition and the resulting operating cash inflows from OTAs, assuming all renewal periods will be exercised over the term of the contracts, was as follows as of December 31, 2010 (in thousands):

Contracted Revenue. Although Contracted Revenue is not a term recognized under GAAP, since the volume of our OTA and PPA business is expected to continue to increase and because of the deferred revenue recognition of our retained OTA and PPA projects, we believe Contracted Revenue provides our management and investors with an informative measure of our relative order activity for any particular period. We define Contracted Revenue as the total contractual value of all firm purchase orders received for our products and services and the expected future potential gross revenue streams, including all renewal periods, for all OTAs upon the execution of the contract and the discounted value of future potential revenue from energy generation over the life of all PPAs along with the discounted value of revenue for renewable energy credits, or RECs, for as long as the REC programs are currently defined to be in existence with the governing body. For OTA and cash Contracted Revenue, we generally expect that we will begin to recognize GAAP revenue under the terms of the agreements within 90 days from the firm contract date. For PPA Contracted Revenue, we generally expect that we will begin to recognize GAAP revenue under the terms of the PPAs within 180 days from the firm contract date. We believe that total Contracted Revenues are a key financial metric for evaluating and measuring our performance because the measure is an indicator of our success in our customers adoption and acceptance of our energy products and services as it measures firm contracted revenue value, regardless of the contracts cash or deferred financial structure and the related different GAAP revenue recognition treatment. For our first nine months of fiscal 2010, total Contracted Revenue was $57.2 million, which included $6.4 million of future expected potential gross revenue streams associated with OTAs and $1.7 million of potential discounted revenue streams from PPAs. For our fiscal first nine months of fiscal 2011, total Contracted Revenue was $74.8 million, an increase of 31% compared to the same period in fiscal 2010, which included of $10.9 million of expected future potential gross revenue streams associated with OTAs and $1.9 million of potential discounted revenue streams from PPAs. A reconciliation of our Contracted Revenue to our GAAP revenue for the three and nine months ended December 31, 2010 is as follows:

Backlog. We define backlog as the total contractual value of all firm orders received for our lighting products and services where delivery of product or completion of services has not yet occurred as of the end of any particular reporting period. Such orders must be evidenced by a signed proposal acceptance or purchase order from the customer. Our backlog does not include OTAs, PPAs or national contracts that have been negotiated, but under which we have not yet received a purchase order for the specific location. As of December 31, 2010, we had a backlog of firm purchase orders of approximately $8.6 million, which included $3.9 million of solar PV orders, compared to a backlog of firm purchase orders of approximately $5.1 million as of December 31, 2009. We generally expect this level of firm purchase order backlog related to HIF lighting systems to be converted into revenue within the following quarter and our firm purchase order backlog related to solar PV systems to be recognized within the following two quarters. Principally as a result of the continued lengthening of our customers purchasing decisions because of current recessed economic conditions and related factors, the continued shortening of our installation cycles and the number of projects sold through national and OTAs, a comparison of backlog from period to period is not necessarily meaningful and may not be indicative of actual revenue recognized in future periods.

We recognize compensation expense for the fair value of our stock option awards granted over their related vesting period. We recognized $0.9 million in the first nine months of fiscal 2011 and $1.1 million of stock-based compensation expense in the same period in fiscal 2010. As a result of prior option grants, we expect to recognize an additional $4.3 million of stock-based compensation over a weighted average period of approximately seven years, including $0.4 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2011. These charges have been, and will continue to be, allocated to cost of product revenue, general and administrative expenses, sales and marketing expenses and research and development expenses based on the departments in which the personnel receiving such awards have primary responsibility. A substantial majority of these charges have been, and likely will continue to be, allocated to general and administrative expenses and sales and marketing expenses.

Income Taxes. As of December 31, 2010, we had net operating loss carryforwards of approximately $13.4 million for federal tax purposes and $7.9 million for state tax purposes. Included in these loss carryforwards were $6.1 million for federal and $3.2 million for state tax purposes of compensation expenses that were associated with the exercise of nonqualified stock options. The benefit from our net operating losses created from these compensation expenses has not yet been recognized in our financial statements and will be accounted for in our shareholders equity as a credit to additional paid-in capital as the deduction reduces our income taxes payable. We also had federal tax credit carryforwards of approximately $712,000, but we have not currently recorded any state credit carryforwards after giving effect to our related state valuation allowance of $572,000. We believe it is more likely than not that we will realize the benefits of our federal loss carryforwards. We have reserved for an allowance on our state carryforwards due to a reduction in our Wisconsin state apportioned income as our business has grown nationally and for the potential expiration of the state tax credits due to the carryforwards period. These federal and state net operating losses and credit carryforwards are available, subject to the discussion in the following paragraph, to offset future taxable income and, if not utilized, will begin to expire in varying amounts between 2014 and 2030.

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