RDW 2023Q4

Greetings, and welcome to the Redwire Space Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Jeff Zeunik, Senior Vice President, Financial Planning and Analysis and Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Thank you, Jesse, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Redwire's fourth quarter and full year 2023 earnings call. We hope that you've seen our earnings release, which we issued yesterday afternoon. It has also been posted in the Investor Relations section of our website at redwirespace.com. Let me remind everyone that during the call, Redwire management may make forward-looking statements that reflect our beliefs, expectations, intentions, or predictions of the future. Our forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that are described in more detail on Slide 2. Additionally, to the extent we discuss non-GAAP measures during the call, please see Slide 3, our earnings release, or the investor presentation on our website for the calculation of these measures and GAAP reconciliations. As previously mentioned, I am Jeff Zeunik, Redwire Senior Vice President of Financial Planning and Analysis and Investor Relations. Joining me on today's call are Peter Cannito, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Jonathan Baliff, Chief Financial Officer. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Pete. Pete?

Thank you, Jeff. During today's call, I will take you through a discussion of our key accomplishments in the fourth quarter and full year 2023, followed by a discussion of our outlook for 2024, and Jonathan will present the financial highlights for the same fourth quarter and full year 2023 period, after which we will open the floor for Q&A. Please turn to Slide 6. The fourth quarter of last year was another excellent quarter for Redwire, during which we continued our positive momentum. We have now delivered four consecutive quarters of positive adjusted EBITDA and revenue growth. During the fourth quarter, we achieved $63.5 million in Q4 revenue, an 18.2% improvement over Q4 2022. We achieved positive adjusted EBITDA of $1.7 million in Q4, a $2.5 million increase on a year-over-year basis from the fourth quarter of 2022 to the fourth quarter of 2023. We narrowed our net loss to $8.2 million, a $17.7 million year-over-year improvement from the fourth quarter of 2022. We achieved free cash flow of positive $12.6 million, a year-over-year improvement of $18.1 million. We also achieved cash from operations of positive $15.7 million, a year-over-year improvement of $20.5 million. And finally, we achieved a book-to-bill ratio of 2.81 times during the quarter. It was a fantastic quarter for bookings. Please move to Slide 7. In addition to a strong fourth quarter, I am very pleased to report that 2023 was a record year for financial performance at Redwire. Our ability to deliver differentiated, high-quality solutions and products to our customers resulted in tangible financial results for our shareholders. During 2023, we achieved record revenues of $243.8 million, which was at the top of our annual guidance range of between $220 million to $250 million. We achieved positive adjusted EBITDA of $15.3 million and positive cash from operations of $1.2 million for the full year. We also received $300 million in contracts awarded during the year and had a full year book-to-bill ratio of 1.23 times. Our heritage plus innovation strategy is working. Please turn to Slide 8. By focusing on the fundamental building block of space, we are meeting the expanding demand of our customers for Redwire's differentiated core offerings. For the full year of 2023, we grew revenue 51.9% from 2022 to 2023. We narrowed our net loss to $27.3 million, a $103.4 million improvement from 2022 to 2023. We improved adjusted EBITDA by $26.3 million from 2022 to 2023. With disciplined cash management, we improved cash from operations year-over-year by $32.9 million and improved free cash flow year-over-year by $28.7 million in 2022 to 2023. It is important to note that we achieved these positive financial results by developing and delivering critical innovations for our customers throughout the year. We are not a maybe someday space company. In 2023, 24 Redwire solutions were deployed on 14 launches, whether deploying antennas for national security, rolling out solar arrays for the International Space Station, or meeting our milestones on full satellite solutions for the European Space Agency. Our reliable technical performance for our customers throughout 2023 was the foundation of our positive financial results. These results are directly attributable to the commitment and expertise of our workforce. Thank you to all the employees of Redwire for a great year. Next, we would like to focus forward and discuss our outlook for 2024. Please turn to Slide 10. With the continuing trend in the decreasing cost of launch, deploying space infrastructure is more affordable than ever. As a result, we continue to see signs of a massive expansion in demand for space infrastructure. The image depicted on this slide underscores the breadth of the opportunity. Space infrastructure expansion not only includes small satellite constellations in lower Earth orbit, but also includes expanding investment in infrastructure for medium Earth orbit, geostationary Earth orbit, cislunar, lunar, deep space, and even very low Earth orbit or VLEO, to name a few. As a provider of the fundamental building blocks of space infrastructure across all these areas, Redwire is participating in the growth of the entire space ecosystem from VLEO to Lunar and beyond. From our perspective, the strong demand for space infrastructure is driven by three key developments. First, as we hear and read about routinely in the news, space is increasingly a warfighter domain, with peer and near-peer threats continuing to target U.S.-based superiority, major investment is occurring across the entire space domain. Second is the growth in demand for lunar infrastructure. The U.S. is heading back to the moon, and this time we plan to stay. Whether participating in groundbreaking programs like Artemis or the recent Intuitive Machines commercial Lunar Landing where we provided critical components, Redwire will play a significant role. Third is the rapid expansion of proliferated LEO satellite constellations. Both government and commercial customers see tremendous value in a new proliferated architecture of small satellite constellations for a wide variety of applications such as communications and Earth observation. This is resulting in increased spending for satellite systems, subsystems, and components. These factors and others are positive indicators of continuing demand for Redwire space infrastructure products and solutions for the foreseeable future. With that, please turn to Slide 11. In an effort to focus and optimize our go-to-market strategy for 2024 and clearly emphasize where we are delivering value, Redwire has grouped our products and solutions into six core offerings that we consider the fundamental building blocks of space infrastructure. First is Avionics and Sensors. These are the spacecraft subsystems and components that are used for navigation, control, and imagery collection. Then Power Generation. This includes solar arrays and power distribution systems that generate the necessary power for space systems that operate regardless of size or location. Next is Structures and Mechanisms. These include a variety of space infrastructure that provides critical mechanical functionality for on- and off-orbit operations from launch release mechanisms and deployable booms to berthing and docking systems. Redwire's radio frequency systems are the systems and payloads that enable space-to-space and space-to-Earth communications. Next, Platforms, Payloads, and Missions. This includes full satellite systems, such as the Redwire PROBA satellite, as well as our proprietary digital engineering and modeling and simulation solutions that enable spacecraft development and operations. And finally, Microgravity Payloads, which includes next-generation biotech and material and space manufacturing payloads that utilize the microgravity environment to manufacture innovative new products that are difficult to manufacture on Earth. These offerings can be thought of as the picks and shovels of space with broad utility to nearly all space markets and many space assets that are being developed by national security space customers, civil space agencies, and commercial companies globally. Please turn to Slide 12. With a clear focus on our six core offerings, we are executing an optimized growth strategy for 2024 that is centered around four key principles: protecting the core, scaling production, moving up the value chain, and venture optionality. On the next few slides, I'll describe these principles and provide an example of a recent success that best represents these principles in action. Turning to Slide 13. Our first growth principle, protecting the core, means continuing to deliver on our strong foundation of existing products with proven reliability, as demonstrated by our heritage. It is about continuing the growth momentum of our success in 2023. An example is that in December 2023, Redwire announced that our L-band Link-16 Antenna successfully demonstrated the transmission of Link-16 signal from space. This is a major milestone for the development of warfighter communications. Redwire has delivered antennas supporting more than 50 spacecraft for a national security constellation being developed. With the opening of our new manufacturing and testing facility in Longmont, Colorado, announced in January, Redwire anticipates being able to triple the amount of hardware throughput in the next few years, building on the successful heritage of our RF systems. Please turn to Slide 14. Our second growth principle, scaling production, means winning and delivering on increasingly larger orders by scaling our production to meet growing demand. As an example, I am proud to announce that during the fourth quarter of 2023, Redwire won a $142 million contract award for ROSA Power Solutions from an undisclosed satellite manufacturer. This award is a testament to the differentiation, innovation, and on-orbit success of our rollout solar array technology and demonstrates that our heritage is leading to increasingly larger orders. This announcement comes on the heels of another announcement that we were selected as a strategic supplier for Blue Origin's Trailblazing Blue Ring Space Mobility Platform, where we were awarded a contract to develop and deliver for ROSA wings as well as multiple ARGUS cameras and low-voltage distribution units. With these two awards, we have begun to scale our production capabilities while continuing to add to the heritage of our power generation offerings, which demonstrates how we are being baselined onto growing systems. As the systems we are baseline into, such as Blue Ring and a new set of satellites using ROSA, continue to sell and scale, Redwire will grow with our customers. Please turn to Slide 15. Our third growth principle, moving up the value chain, means leveraging our proven capabilities in developing and deploying space subsystems and components into future success developing and deploying next-generation spacecraft and integrated mission payloads. As an example, I am also excited to announce that Redwire has invested in the design of a Very Low Earth Orbit for VLEO spacecraft known as SabreSat. VLEO is a crucial domain for the future of defense and intelligence operations for the U.S. and its allies. With the SabreSat design, we are offering customers an innovative approach to explore a leap-ahead orbital platform that could meet future mission needs for a new breed of vehicles with the performance potential between that of an unmanned aerial system and a standard LEO satellite. This is just one example of how we are exploring opportunities to move up the value chain by designing and developing differentiated next-generation spacecraft that will fill identified gaps in the market for future space infrastructure. Please turn to Slide 16. Lastly, our fourth principle is to maintain venture optionality by continuing to pursue breakthrough development on high-potential technologies that could create new markets with game-changing potential. Earlier this year, Redwire was pleased to announce the second mission of our in-space pharmaceutical development platform, PIL-BOX, again, in partnership with Eli Lilly. The second PIL-BOX mission is focused on researching widespread chronic diseases, which have massive global demand for treatment. PIL-BOX 2 follows closely on the heels of the successful inaugural PIL-BOX 1 mission, which launched in November 2023 and returned to Earth in late December 2023 for delivery to the customer. Please turn to Slide 17. Now turning to our bookings and backlog. Our bookings during the fourth quarter of 2023 were $178.2 million. Our book-to-bill ratio was 2.81 times for the fourth quarter of 2023. We continue to see lumpy bookings growth from quarter to quarter but a consistently positive growth rate on an annual basis. Finally, as you can see on the right-hand side of this slide, our contracted backlog has increased 19.1% since the end of 2022 to a contracted backlog of $372.8 million. The growth in contracted backlog is one of many factors that gives us confidence in our future growth and stability. We continue to have a healthy pipeline with an estimated $4.8 billion of identified opportunities, including approximately $944 million in proposals submitted during the full year of 2023. Please turn to Slide 18 for a brief discussion of the outlook for 2024 and why Redwire management believes the performance momentum from 2023 will continue into this year and beyond. Our fourth quarter was a strong finish to 2023, with record revenues and positive adjusted EBITDA, positive cash from operations, and positive free cash flow, plus sequential improvement in liquidity and contracted backlog. As a result, for 2024, we are forecasting full-year revenue to be $300 million, which represents a 23% year-over-year growth rate. Through our excellence in execution initiatives, we continue to focus on improving operating leverage and cost efficiency, and we expect to continue on our path to profitability in 2024.

Thank you, Pete. Before I turn to the financial results, I would like to highlight the photo on this Slide 19, which is of the RF testing chamber that Pete spoke about at our newly expanded Longmont, Colorado facility. This chamber is just one of the many investments we made during the year in support of future growth to serve the customer demand for Redwire's space infrastructure. Please turn to Slide 20. Our fourth quarter 2023 saw continued positive momentum driven by this customer demand and Redwire's excellence in execution focus. We achieved record revenue of $63.5 million, while also achieving our fourth consecutive positive adjusted EBITDA quarter since becoming a public company and our second positive free cash flow quarter as a public company. As you can see on this chart, all of our critical financial metrics saw significant year-over-year improvement on a dollar amount and on a percentage basis. Record revenue also led to a $17.7 million year-over-year narrowing in our net loss to $8.2 million and a $2.5 million improvement in adjusted EBITDA to $1.7 million. This result is also attributable to the disciplined project program management and continued cost controls. The fourth quarter 2023 also saw record positive free cash flow of $12.6 million, a year-over-year improvement of $18.1 million, and this is after investing over $4 million in growth CapEx and research and development during the quarter. Please turn to Slide 21. As you can see on this page, and similar to Page 16, all of our critical financial metrics saw significant year-over-year improvement in the full year 2023 on a dollar amount and a percentage basis. Redwire's excellence in execution yielded revenues of $243.8 million, 51.9% growth while also achieving four consecutive quarters of positive adjusted EBITDA and our first full year of positive cash from operations. Record revenue also led to a $103.4 million year-over-year narrowing in our net loss to $27.3 million and a $26.3 million improvement in adjusted EBITDA to $15.3 million. But importantly, Redwire improved cash from operations year-over-year by $32.9 million, leading to our fiscal year 2023 cash from operations of a positive $1.2 million. Operating cash flow led to year-over-year improvement in full-year free cash flow of $28.7 million to a use of cash of only $7.1 million. These impressive results are attributable to the capability and commitment of our global team members and were achieved by investing over $13 million in growth CapEx and research and development for our future businesses. Please turn to Slide 22. Specifically for quarterly revenue, as you can see from the chart on the right, this quarter's record $63.5 million represented an 18.2% increase on a year-over-year basis, an increase of 1.4% on a sequential basis. During the quarter, more than 85% of our revenue derived from funded government programs or from global marquee customers delivering in the areas of national security, satellite proliferation, and the exploration of space, to name just a few. Excluding the revenue contributed by Space NV, our fourth quarter revenues were $48.6 million, an excellent organic growth of 15.5% on a quarterly year-over-year basis through work on existing contracts and incremental revenues from bookings that resulted in a strong fourth quarter book-to-bill ratio of 2.81 times. Please turn to Slide 23. For the full year 2023, not only did we grow revenues by 51.9% on a U.S. GAAP basis, excluding revenue by Space NV, but revenue grew organically at 26.9% compared to 2022. Additionally, during 2023, 71% of our revenue by location of the customers were attributable to the U.S. and 29% were attributable to Europe and other geographic locations. Finally, let's step back and look at Redwire's growth since 2021, a period of significant change for the space sector, significant interest rate increases and a slowing of the global economy and a very challenging capital market for small-cap companies. During the period from 2021 to 2023, the compounded annual growth rate of Redwire revenue on a U.S. GAAP basis has been 33.1%, while also achieving positive cash from operations in 2023. Please turn to Slide 24. We drove an improvement in adjusted EBITDA of $2.5 million year-over-year from the fourth quarter of 2022 to a positive $1.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2023. Once again, our year-over-year adjusted EBITDA improvement was primarily driven by an improvement in gross profit with fourth quarter gross profit growing 1.2 times higher from $8.6 million to $10.7 million on a year-over-year basis. This gross profit improvement was primarily driven by better contract mix and the maturing of our program management. The sequential decline in adjusted EBITDA was primarily driven by discrete EAC adjustments on select projects, partially offset by higher revenues during the fourth quarter. And just to note, on a year-over-year basis, Redwire saw a significant reduction in our net EAC adjustments compared to FY '22, while also growing revenue by over 50%. Our adjusted EBITDA improvement was also supported by excellent cost control from Redwire's fourth quarter SG&A revenues that were 26% of revenue, a notable drop from the 30.8% in the fourth quarter of 2022. On a year-over-year basis, we saw an improvement in adjusted EBITDA of $26.3 million. This was primarily driven by an excellent increase in operating leverage year-over-year on both a percentage and an absolute basis. Please turn to Slide 25. As we have mentioned several times today, throughout last year, we made significant prudent strategic investments. During 2023, we made $8.3 million in capital expenditures, which is double 2022's CapEx of $4.2 million, plus $5 million in investments in research and development and $3.6 million in a variety of corporate investments in systems and infrastructure that flow through SG&A. Clearly, we continue to demonstrate our ability to perform and deliver now while also making investments in future growth and profitability, which we're beginning to self-fund. Please turn to Slide 26. Similar to last quarter, on the left-hand chart, we show free cash flow. As a reminder, free cash flow provides a metric based on our U.S. GAAP cash from operations minus capital expenditures or CapEx. On a year-over-year basis, quarterly free cash flow improved by $18.1 million to a record positive $12.6 million for the fourth quarter due to a $20.5 million improvement in cash from operations. Credit goes to the revenue growth and profitability improvements already discussed. In addition, we had more efficient and effective working capital management over the fourth quarter, and this was helped by a diversity of core offerings, customers, and new contracts, which cascades down to our cash flow from operations. Again, we continue to invest a significant amount of CapEx and research and development. We saw improvement in year-over-year quarterly cash from operating activities while continuing to invest in the business and actually make other expenditures associated with the resiliency of Redwire. These expenditures are intended to grow, diversify our revenue, scale the operations, and accelerate our path to profitability. On the right-hand chart, we show our available liquidity as of December 31, 2023, which totaled $48.3 million, including $30.3 million in cash and cash equivalents. This quarter's liquidity is a significant sequential improvement as we continue on our path to profitability. I want to thank all of Redwire's team for this quarter's excellent results, a total global effort that we will work to continue in 2024 and beyond.

Thank you, Jonathan. For perfect clarity, I would like to go back and reemphasize from Slide 23 that the 51.9% growth on U.S. GAAP was including Space NV, and Redwire grew organically at 26.9% compared to 2022, excluding Space NV. I too would also like to thank all the Redwire professionals around the world for their hard work and excellent fourth quarter and full year 2023 and all our customers for trusting Redwire. We will now open the floor for questions.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will be conducting our question-and-answer session. Our first question is coming from the line of Suji DeSilva with ROTH MKM. Please proceed with your question.

Good morning, Peter. Good morning, Jonathan. Congratulations on the revenue growth here and the profitability that's coming with really good execution here.

Hey, Suji.

Yeah. Hi, guys. So the $300 million guide for '24, can we just understand some sense of linearity there? Is there any back-end loading? Or is that fairly linear from the first half to the second half? And maybe you can talk about the backlog visibility you have into the next 12 months versus the overall backlog?

The backlog visibility for both 2024 and into 2025 looks strong. Regarding the $300 million, we've noted that we don’t provide quarterly guidance because our revenue can be uneven. This unevenness is due to some programs involving substantial material purchases. You can think of the revenue as being distributed over the year, but certain quarters might see significantly higher figures due to large material buys that can affect the overall numbers. Does that address your question?

Yes, it does. Absolutely. And then perhaps for Jonathan, a question on the gross margin trend. I think the fourth quarter was down a little bit. Just how should we think about gross margin going into 2024? What's the right framework for that?

Yes, I'll respond with a focus on historical performance as we don't provide guidance on gross margin or gross profit. Throughout 2023, we experienced a steady increase in gross margin and gross profit. Similar to what Pete mentioned, our revenue can be a bit inconsistent. Additionally, our contract mix suggests we may not see the same level of increases in 2023 and 2024. While we've benefited from improved project and program management, some aspects of our contract mix, particularly with larger products, indicate that we shouldn't expect such significant growth. However, our EBITDA margin is improving, driven by better declines in SG&A margin due to enhanced operating leverage. We're making ongoing investments reflected in the SG&A line, yet our revenue growth is outpacing SG&A, resulting in more EBITDA contributing to our bottom line. This context informs my answer, as the growth from our larger projects may not match previous levels due to contract mix. Pete, do you have anything to add?

Yes, that's correct. I believe it's about the product mix, and with larger programs, the gross margins are sometimes lower. However, the overall gross profit value will remain positive for us over the years.

Understood. And then one last question probably for Peter. Just very topical in the headlines about government funding trends in various space endeavors, particularly there was a specific headline in OSAM-1, I'm just curious about the implications for you guys. Maybe talk about national security as a growing opportunity for you and how that maybe is a mix shift.

Yes. No, that's a great question. So first and foremost, we have no exposure to OSAM-1. We weren't involved in that program in any way. As a matter of fact, we see the winding down of OSAM-1 and freeing up dollars in the NASA budget that we certainly will be throwing our hat in the ring and engaging with the customer to see if that can free up some dollars for programs that we're largely interested in. So no impact there. National security, I love that question. We actually doubled our national security revenue in Q4. So we're experiencing pretty significant growth in national security. We did put out a press release about our new office in Chantilly that has some pretty sizable secure space associated with it. I think I've mentioned on previous calls that I think Redwire hits above its weight class in terms of our clearances and our insights in national security. I have a high-level security clearance and have worked in national security for my entire career, and we have a number of contracts that have the associated documentation in there to allow us to operate at high levels of classification. So, we're really bullish on the current trends going on in national security and Redwire's ability to participate in that growth.

Okay. Thanks, Peter. Thanks, Jonathan.

Thanks, Suji.

Thank you. Our next question is coming from Griffin Boss with B. Riley Securities. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, Pete, Jonathan. Thanks for taking my questions. So yes, first off, for me, the growth in pipeline and bids submitted is really impressive, especially given the strong backlog growth we saw in the quarter. Can you just give us some more color on the breakdown of that pipeline, just generally speaking, kind of what areas you're seeing with the most opportunity tying it back to those six core offerings that you talked about?

Yes. We don't really break down the individual opportunities in the pipeline. But I will point you to our four growth principles for 2024 because I think that represents really what's going on in that continued growth in our pipeline and proposals under review. Again, as we continue to scale and as we continue to demonstrate on-orbit performance, that is leading to us being baselined on larger and larger programs. I think we have in many of our products a lot of customer confidence. And so we're bidding on bigger programs, as well as moving up the value chain, like I mentioned, and starting to take some bigger swings on larger subsystems, fully integrated mission payloads, and even full satellite mission solutions. As you're probably aware, in Europe, we provide full satellite missions with our Proba satellite and have done so for many years; we're now starting to look at other opportunities to move into whitespace, like I mentioned in VLEO spacecraft, as well that will result, I think, in a growing pipeline over time.

Got it. Yes. Thanks for that, Pete. There are a lot of exciting developments in space right now. I'll turn to the growth in lunar infrastructure. There's been a lot of attention on that with the recent lunar landing from Intuitive, and your team is involved in that. How significant do you see NASA's CLPS program as an opportunity? Are you collaborating with any of the other CLPS awardees besides Intuitive?

One of the great aspects of Redwire is that we engage in various opportunities across different areas. While I can't immediately recall everything we've announced in this space, we are certainly proud to be part of the Intuitive Machines bid. You'll notice that whenever Redwire successfully delivers capabilities in one mission, we often establish a reputation that makes us a sought-after partner for other missions as well. We're very proud to be involved in the lunar infrastructure mission, which has been a success for us. Last year, we discussed our Mason program, where we are providing technology and collaborating with NASA on developing landing pads for the moon. We believe that having a landing pad on the moon could increase the likelihood of smoother lunar landings, which earlier attempts may highlight as a potential benefit of this technology. Our focus on lunar infrastructure is clear. Additionally, we've mentioned our VSAT partnership, where we will be supplying solar arrays for future lunar infrastructure. This is a positive trend for Redwire, and that’s why I wanted to emphasize that space infrastructure isn’t solely about LEO satellites, even though that sector is rapidly growing and significant. Our total addressable market expands beyond satellites to encompass the exciting developments we anticipate for the moon's future.

Yes. Excellent. I really appreciate the detailed response, Pete. And then just one more, if I could, for Jonathan. Just turning back to the EAC adjustments. Obviously, as you mentioned, they came down significantly year-over-year, and I mean it's becoming somewhat of a moot point given the size and scale of your revenue. But can you just give us some more color on where those were coming from in the fourth quarter? Was it one or two specific programs or more widespread on a smaller scale?

It definitely wasn't widespread. In 2022, our EAC investments were primarily in our lower Technology Readiness Levels. We have a mix of very mature projects and some that are a bit less mature. We do engage in R&D as we develop the next-generation space infrastructure. The EACs are associated with those infrastructures. However, I must emphasize that we managed to reduce those EACs by half while increasing our U.S. GAAP revenue by over 50%. I want to give credit to our operations team and our presidents for ensuring that our program management is on schedule. The key to these EAC adjustments and net EAC adjustments lies in on-time delivery, which we are very committed to as part of our pursuit of excellence in execution.

Got it. Okay. Thanks for taking my questions and great to see the progress.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question is coming from the line of Andres Sheppard with Cantor Fitzgerald. Please proceed with your question.

Good morning, everyone. Congratulations on the strong financial quarter, and thanks for taking our questions. I guess I was just wondering, considering you reported a positive free cash flow in Q4. I know - I realize you're not guiding free cash flow throughout 2024. But just curious if you can maybe give us some color as to how we should continue to think about that for modeling purposes. Should we expect continued growth quarter-over-quarter? Or what's the best way to think about that? Thank you.

Well, I'll link a bit of our cash flow generation in that fourth quarter with a large contract win, which we disclosed. And so some of the cash comes in and you see it on the balance sheet. That being said, we've said in the past, and that's one of the nice things about the fourth quarter is that we're bidding on projects that are greater than our annual revenue, right? And those are projects that obviously had multiyear. But the bottom line is we generally in our projects want a decent amount of cash coming in on the front end for material subcontractors and just generally because we're running a much tighter shift on our working capital. That being said, again, mimicking what Pete said, it can be lumpy. But I will say, we believe now we have a very nice liquidity profile and cash flow from operations. This is a company that can fund a significant amount of its growth as not just witnessed in the fourth quarter, but also we generated positive operating cash flow, and that's in addition to an IRAD spend that was significantly higher in the fourth quarter and the full year '23 than we did in the previous years. So again, we don't give specific quarterly guidance on that, but we continue our path to profitability, and we're again focused on making sure that we can fund a lot of our own growth.

Got it. That's super helpful. And I guess that's actually a great segue to my next question. So regarding that recent $142 million contract to produce the solar arrays. I'm wondering how should we be thinking about that translating into revenue over what time period might you expect to recognize the majority of this contract? Thank you.

Yes. No, great question. So we'll be recognizing that over '24 and a little bit of '25, like many of Redwire's contracts, it's there. Well, I don't want to make a broad characterization, but many of our contracts are 2-year contracts. And it's already kicked off and started. So we'll be seeing the impact of that all through Q1, all the way through the rest of the year.

Got it. I see. Okay. So then I could assume that that's embedded in the revenue guidance for 2024, I guess?

That's correct.

Got it. Okay. And maybe just one last question, if I may, one for Jonathan. How are you thinking about activity in the M&A market for 2024? I know historically, you have grown inorganically as well as organically. So just curious if you're looking to remain active in this market. Thank you.

The answer is yes, but we're very focused on our return on invested capital, cash flow, and profitability. I'll hand it over to Pete. But again, from a CFO standpoint, we are - we've obviously shown an ability to do successful M&A both on a commercial operational and financial basis. We continue to look at it, but we're pretty disciplined when it comes to M&A. Pete?

Well, the good news is we know how to do it. We've done it nine times so far, I believe. So that's a really viable tool in our toolkit. But we're constantly scanning the market for the best value out there. And yes, if we find something that makes a lot of sense both strategically and has a really nice financial profile that meets our overall objectives, we're certainly out there and active.

Got it. Very helpful. Congratulations on the quarter again. I'll pass it on. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question is from Brian Kinstlinger with Alliance Global Partners. Please go ahead with your question.

Great. Thanks so much. Solid bookings, and thanks for all the backlog and pipeline stats as usual. You submitted more than $944 million in bids in 2023. Can you quantify the value of bids that have yet to be awarded? And then as we look at the $4.8 billion in the pipeline, how much of that do you expect to bid in 2024? Will it be more than 2023?

So I'm not sure I totally understand the question, but if I don't answer it, just let me know. So in terms of characterizing the proposals under review, we don't give any specific data on that, but I'll say they all vary in size. So we have a variety of larger programs, as well as a really strong, like I like to say, protecting the core basis for repeat orders as well. So that's how I would characterize what is under the bids that are under submission right now if that's what you were asking. In terms of the pipeline, again, I'll point everybody back to our four growth principles for 2024. We see the pipeline continuing to expand as we move up the value chain and continue to scale production. I think, obviously, it's really exciting to win a $142 million contract, and so just the near-term 2024 impact of that in our financial projections is really exciting. But it also underscores our ability to compete for and win larger and larger programs. So with that kind of success under our belt, I would anticipate that the intent is for - when it comes to the pipeline that we're going to continue to include larger swings in that pipeline. Did I answer your question?

Kind of. I'm curious, do you expect to bid on more in 2024 than 2023?

The pipeline falls out, how it does many times. But yes, we're investing in our bidding proposal and if we execute on our plan of bidding on larger programs, then you should see that number go up.

We've observed an increase in both pipeline and bids over the past few quarters. This trend has been evident for two consecutive quarters, and we anticipate it will continue as we focus on bidding for larger projects. While we have had a recent win, we do not base our expectations solely on pipeline figures. Nevertheless, the positive trend over the last two quarters is encouraging.

And then one follow-up on the visibility question that one of the analysts asked. I'm curious, as I've listened to some other contractors discuss guidance. I'm curious how much of your $300 million in revenue guidance do you expect to come from the current backlog versus how much do you need to generate in awards or revenue from awards that are yet to be won in 2024 to hit your 2024 goals?

So we don't break it down. But I think if you look at backlog at the start of 2023 and then how we were - what we ended up from a revenue point, I think if the trend continues, you could see that with our current backlog in comparison, which I don't have the exact number. I believe it's 372.

Yes, we are starting the year with 372.8. Last year, on an equivalent basis, our contracted backlog was $313.1 million. This reflects a significant increase in backlog, especially considering we had nearly $244 million in revenue. You can see an increase in contracted backlog on a comparable basis. In response to your question, we don't provide specific details, but our contracts typically last around two years. With Redwire 101, we've gained good visibility into 2024 and 2025, thanks to this level of backlog increase.

Yes. The numbers are 372 to 300 forecast is a reasonable amount of backlog to support our forecast of the year.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question is coming from Greg Konrad with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.

Good morning.

Hi, Greg.

Hey, Greg.

Maybe just to ask the last question in a different way. You carried a range for revenue guidance throughout the year, even into the final quarter. And this year, you're guiding to more of a point estimate. Has anything changed in terms of how you guide or what you're seeing or risks that cause that variability that make you more comfortable this year to give a point estimate versus a range?

Our forecasting, we believe is maturing. So we are trying to tighten the range. I think in this particular case, it was just about keeping it simple. A lot of times in last year, we found that if we gave a range, people get selected to the midpoint. So we thought that it would be more appropriate to just select where we think that things are going to come out and then keep it simple throughout the year.

And then maybe just to follow up on drivers. I mean I appreciate laying out the six core offerings, and we probably could place it that way regionally or even by customer. But at least near term, thinking of those six core offerings, are there one or two areas that drive more of the growth and then maybe longer-term areas of those six that lead to maybe more upside? Or how are you thinking about growth across those six areas?

So I think all of them have significant growth potential. If you were to say currently, and we don't break it down by specific numbers, but the solar array business has been really strong. There's been a really positive reception to our rollout solar array technology, which is highly differentiated. It has a lot of great heritage. So I think certainly, solar is a big part of it. Moving up the value chain and looking at more platforms and full payloads, like I said, in that segment has a lot of high growth potential as well. I think one of the things that I find most exciting about Redwire is the portfolio effect of our offerings. Again, we don't break it down this way, but we have some offerings that I would characterize as very high volume potential, but perhaps lower gross margin. We have other offerings that I would characterize as having maybe more limited total addressable market but tend to have better gross margins. So we can take that portfolio effect and manage our offerings and focus our growth dollars in a way that helps us balance our revenue and profitability over the long term.

I'll leave it at two. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Greg.

Thanks, Greg.

I did just to follow up, go back into the archives and see that we announced that we are partnered with Firefly on the Blue Ghost Lunar Lander. So in addition to Intuitive machines and Firefly and we obviously know all the other ones as well. So just a follow-up on that.

Thank you. We have reached the end of our question-and-answer session. So I'd like to turn the floor back over to management for any additional concluding remarks.

All right. Well, we appreciate the engagement, as always. Thank you for participating in today's call and go Redwire.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's teleconference and webcast. We thank you for your participation, and you may disconnect your lines at this time.