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ExOne 1Q17 results ?3

11:21 11-May-17


I've just finished listening to the replay of ExOne's conference call. Cost cutting is going well, but the main thing that has improved seems to be presentation skills, thanks to new management.  Management spent a good part of the call touting Industry interest increasing, but I see reason to doubt the applicability to ExOne's binder jet specialization. 

Most of the new sales are replacement S-Max machines, at lower net prices, and there will be continued impact on margins going forward.  Results will be further challenged by the company dropping its high margin specialty machining operations, probably due to emerging competition in that area. The current quarter was also boosted by unusually high customer prepayments.

Nonetheless, management maintains its full year outlook and expects sales and margins to improve in the second half.  Given the 12 month sales process for revamped CHP machines, that seems realistic.  However, I could easily imagine improvements dragging, especially as customers check out new alternatives.  Analysts paid particular attention to Desktop Metals in their questioning.  Though the products are unproven, I see this entrant as potentially eating away at ExOne's low-end sales.  Overall, I still found no good reason to own XONE shares in this call.

On 05/10/2017 04:31 PM, Esekla wrote:

ExOne has announced results for its first quarter:

  • a loss of 42 cents per share misses by 16 cents
  • on sales of $10.9M, which beats by $800K
New management affirms its projection of 25% sales growth for the year, and the backlog growing by 19% lends a little creditability to that.  The company was slightly in the black on an operating basis, allowing the balance sheet to remain stable with around $28M in cash.  The conference call is tomorrow morning.