Fluence (ASX:FLC) Q3 2026 Earnings Call

0:00 During the first nine months of 2026, the company has delivered double-digit revenue growth, significant gross margin expansion, and more than tripled EBITDA compared to the same period in 2025. During the first nine months of the year as well, EBITDA has already exceeded the $4.1 million delivered in the full year of fiscal 2025, and is forecast to be positive in Q4 2026 as well, leading to significant growth compared to the prior year. While orders and operating cash flow were weaker as a result of certain delays, Q4 is expected to show a strong bounce back in terms of orders and operating cash flow is forecasted to be positive as the result of a collection of two large receipts as well as new order inflow. All in all, Fluence delivered another quarter of solid financial performance with strong double-digit revenue growth across our core business units, significantly expanding our gross margins and EBITDA already exceeding the entirety of fiscal 2025.

0:54 We are expecting to close out the year with nine consecutive quarters of positive EBITDA as well, a significant year-over-year growth and profit. With that, I plan to turn it over to Ozzy to review our financials in greater detail, but before that, I just will do a quick disclosure. Just a quick reminder that this presentation contains forward-looking statements and unaudited financial information. Past performance and pro forma financial information in this presentation is given for illustrative purposes only and should not be relied on and is not an indication of future performance. And finally, this presentation should not be considered as an offer or an invitation to subscribe for or purchase any shares influence. Now over to you, Ozzy, to present the financials in greater detail.

1:41 Thank you, Ben. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. I'll walk through our third quarter financial performance with particular emphasis on the progress we've made compared with last year, the improvement in our earnings profile, and the cash flow priorities we close out the year for 2026. For the first nine months of 2026, revenue reached $58 million, up 11.3% from the comparable period in 2025. What is particularly encouraging is where that growth is coming from. Smart product solutions and recurring revenue grew 38.5% year-over-year, or $12.5 million, and were up 44.6% in the third quarter alone. Our core business units grew 23% year to date and 35% in the quarter versus Q3 2025. This is important because it shows that our strategic focus is translating into stronger gross margins and profitability for Fluence overall.

2:40 Year to date, EBITDA was $4.7 million, an improvement of $3.3 million over the first nine months of 2025, and more than tripled the prior year level. Importantly, we have already exceeded the $4.1 million of EBITDA generated for all of 2025, with one quarter still remaining. We expect Q4 to remain positive, which would mark nine consecutive quarters, as Ben mentioned, of positive dividend. For me, the takeaway is consistency and sustainability of our earnings improvement, which we have demonstrated for two years now. Gross margin for the first nine months reached 35.2%. compared with approximately 29% for the corresponding 2025 period, an increase of 6.2 percentage points. This is a meaningful improvement and reflects our continued shift towards higher margin smart product solutions and recurring revenue.

3:34 At the same time, the lower fixed cost base we have established with SG&A and R&D reduced by roughly 25% since 2022 is allowing more of that gross profit to flow through EBITDA. That combination of better revenue mix and operating leverage is central to our strategy. Turning to cash flow, we begin this September with $6.7 million of cash and cash equivalents along with $4 million of deposits, much of which supports project-related bank guarantees and is not freely available operating cash. Operating cash outflows were $4.3 million in the third quarter. The principal issue was timing. Two significant customer receipts totaling more than $5.5 million relating to Ivory Coast 2025 O&M fees and Karaya Water Treatment Project had not been collected by quarter end but are in process and expected to arrive this week or next. We currently expect positive operating cash flow in Q4, supported by the Ivory Coast Addendum Milestone, a payment, and large customer receipts. Of course, the timing of those receipts remains important.

4:42 Stepping back, the comparison with 2025 demonstrates meaningful progress. We have higher revenue, stronger growth in our SPS, and recurring revenue segments, significantly improved gross margins, and year-to-date EBITDA that has already surpassed 2025. Our priorities for the balance of 2026 are converting delayed order opportunities and reporting our strongest order booking quarters for 2026. Collecting major outstanding customer payments and executing on the project backlog, we have in hand to deliver significant EBITDA growth as forecasted. Thank you and I'll turn back to Ben. Thank you, Ozzy. Now I'd like to spend just a minute reviewing the performance by business unit.

5:31 One thing I'd like to highlight from this slide is the fact that all of our core business units are showing positive trailing 12-month EBITDA and are all delivering gross margins at approximately 30% or higher. I think this is something that we could not talk about a few years ago. But specifically, as it relates to their year-to-date Q3 performance, what we saw was revenue grew in all four core business units. In our industrial wastewater and biogas business, revenue was up 3.6 million or 42% and EBITDA doubled to 1.6 million, all on higher project volumes and a lot more higher margin SPS solution revenue. Southeast Asia and China saw revenue up 1.8 million or up 45.9% and back to positive EBITDA of 0.3 million on a year-to-date basis. And that's being largely driven by gross margins that are up to 30.7% from 22.5% one year ago.

6:29 Municipal Water and Wastewater saw revenue up 1.8 million or 23.1%. EBITDA is down, however, but that's mostly a result of some one-time benefits that we generated in 2025. If you extract those out, MWW's EBITDA was actually up on a year-to-date basis. Municipal Water and Wastewater also won 4 million new orders in the Middle East on a year-to-date basis against 0.1 million last year. Industrial water and reuse saw revenue up just modestly on a year-to-date basis, mainly due to order delays. But Q3 revenue on a standalone basis was up 27%. Gross margins of 31.8% are below last year's exceptional results of 37.9% at the same time, but still within our expectations.

7:20 As a result of the lower gross margins and some investments that we've made on the SG&A side, EBITDA is down $1 million in our industrial water and reuse business. Ivory Coast, of course, contributed significantly to EBITDA as well, up $3.9 million with gross margin of 40% versus 15% last year. And some of that included some price escalation adjustments and, of course, the recurring maintenance fees as we continue to maintain that plant on behalf of the client. This momentum across the core businesses is in line with our expectations and really positions us well for a strong finish to fiscal 2026. Just a quick update as well on Ivory Coast. We continue to execute the addendum project and work advanced on the pipeline, the bridge crossing, access roads, and swamp stabilization.

8:10 Most of the pipeline and access road work should be complete by the end of October with some remaining bridge and swamp stabilization works scheduled for the remaining period through the end of the year, with project completion forecasted for the end of the year as well. The project continues to deliver strong financial performance and positive cash flow. We have collected seven milestone payments totaling 42.4 million euro of contract value, which represents about 87% of the total contract. Milestones eight and nine that are worth approximately 6 million euros are expected in Q4 and Q1 of 2027. Excuse me, Q4 of 2026 and Q1 of 2027. and we also booked 1.3 million euros of recurring maintenance fees in the quarter.

8:58 As it pertains to the long-term O&M contract, in Q3 we held a week-long negotiation session in Abidjan and resolved a significant number of the contractual and business plan matters. Pricing negotiations are ongoing as well as several key matters that need to be resolved. but really I think the point here is as fiscal 2026 comes to a close we're making strong progress toward closing out our large contract CES era as a company and converting this project to a long-term recurring revenue O&M contract which is really important and linked to our strategy. Q3 new orders were 8 million, bringing our year-to-date order total to 31.6 million, which is down about 20% compared to the prior year.

9:46 That is certainly below our expectations. The main cause is timing. Uncertain geopolitical environment has led to several customers deciding to delay certain investment decisions, and that caused several larger awards to slip. Most of these projects are delayed, not lost, and we did not receive any project cancellations as a result. We expect Q4 to be our strongest bookings quarter of the year. However, as a result of the order delays experienced in Q3, we no longer expect fiscal 2026 new orders to exceed prior year. On a trailing 12-month basis, our orders of $56.1 million are still 14% above the same period in Q3 2025. Recurring revenue orders are worth highlighting.

10:32 They're up almost 100% to 3.3 million in Q3 and up 68.4% to 10.3 million on a year-to-date basis. So while our orders in Q3 did not meet our expectations, it is notable that many of the orders that we had, several of the orders that we had are coming from repeat customers, as well as adding two more industrial orders in the US, which is also key to our growth strategy going forward. Stepping back from the results of the quarter, this slide really shows the strategic transition that we've made, illustrated by our financial results. Fluence is now a diversified, profitable, pure play water platform with demonstrated growth. SPS is now 57% of our revenue, up from 29% in fiscal 2022.

11:24 Recurring revenue is 18%, more than double its 2022 levels. Year to date, our SPS plus recurring revenue grew 12.5 million, or 38.5%, as Ozzy noted earlier. This mixed shift, together with the strong project execution our teams are delivering, is behind the expansion of our gross margins up to over 35%. Additionally, revenue is now spread across more end markets. Our core business units grew 23% on a year-to-date basis, while the Ivory Coast revenue fell $1.8 million as the addendum contract winds down, and we rely less on any single large project. So something's up. Flu has delivered another quarter of solid financial performance with year-to-date revenue growth across our core business units of 23% and recurring revenue showing exceptional growth of more than 50%.

12:24 Gross margins are now above 35% and EBITDA is more than three times the same period last year, already exceeding our full year 2025 EBITDA results. With another positive quarter expected in Q4, management continues to expect strong double-digit revenue growth across its core business units. And given the company has already exceeded its prior year EBITDA, another year of significant profit growth is expected in fiscal 2026. I want to thank everyone for your time and your continued interest and fluence, and I will now open it up for questions. Okay, so I'm not seeing any questions coming in, so I appreciate everyone's time and interest as noted, and we will sign off there.

13:26 Thank you, Andrew. Thanks, Ben.