Consolidated Water Co. Ltd. (CWCO) Earnings Call Transcript

Good morning. Thank you for joining us today to discuss Consolidated Water Company's Second Quarter of 2026 Operating and Financial Results. Hosting the call today is the Chief Executive Officer of Consolidated Water, Rick McTaggart; and the company's Chief Accounting Officer, Doug Vizzini. [Operator Instructions]. I'd like to remind everyone that today's call is being recorded, and it will be made available for telecom replay. Please see the instructions in yesterday's press release that has been posted to the Investor Relations section of the company's website. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Consolidated Water CEO, Rick McTaggart. Sir, please go ahead.

Thanks, Nick. Good morning, everyone. I appreciate you joining us today. While our consolidated second quarter revenue reflected softness in manufacturing, we were pleased to see growth across our retail, bulk and services segments along with some important developments that support our outlook for the balance of this year and into 2027. Retail revenue increased modestly despite wetter weather, which reduced Grand Cayman water sales volume by 2%. The increase in retail revenue was driven by a base water rate increase for a major non-potable water customer. And this was following the May 2026 expiration of its concessionary water purchase agreement. Our bulk revenue increased 20% and bulk gross profit increased 27%, mainly due to higher energy pass-through charges to our buyer Bahamas company. Results also benefited from two new Cat Island desalination plants, which are supplying potable water to the water and storage corporation of the Bahamas. Cost reductions, lower G&A expenses across our retail, bulk and service segments. In our Services segment, those savings were offset by higher cost of revenue due to a greater mix of construction revenue and a lower proportion of higher margin O&M design and consulting revenue in our Services segment. Services O&M revenue declined after two contracts expired in Q1 of this year. This decline was partially offset by a new Southern California municipal O&M contract that is expected to generate approximately $4.5 million over 3 years. Our Services segment construction revenue increased driven by two previously announced water treatment projects 1 in Colorado, which is a $3.9 million drinking water plant expansion and the second $11.7 million wastewater recycling plant in California. Both projects are scheduled for substantial completion this year. In July, our Hawaii client issued a limited notice to proceed for our project to design, construct, operate and maintain a 1.7 million gallon per day seawater desalination plant in Kalaeloa, Hawaii. This limited notice to proceed authorizes us to begin procuring certain long lead materials and equipment for the project with the value of approximately $6 million. Communications and information exchanges with important permitting agencies have recently increased in Hawaii, which supports our expectation that construction on this project will start later this year. Once construction starts, we believe the project will significantly contribute to revenue and earnings growth in future periods. Subsequent to the end of the second quarter, we announced the receipt of purchase orders totaling approximately $10.1 million for municipal water treatment equipment in Florida. These purchase orders represent our largest municipal membrane equipment order in dollar terms and our largest horizontal cartridge filter ordered to date, demonstrating the strength and breadth of our manufacturing capabilities. Now before getting into recent developments and our outlook for the rest of the year beyond, I would like to note that our Chief Financial Officer, David Sasnett, who normally joins us on these calls, is unable to participate today as he is recovering from the flu. In his place, I will turn the call over to our Chief Accounting Officer, Doug Vizzini, who will take us through the financial details for the quarter.

Thanks, Rick. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Our revenue totaled $32.9 million for the second quarter of 2026, representing a 2% decrease from the second quarter of 2025. The decrease was due to lower manufacturing revenue, which was partially offset by revenue increases in our retail, bulk and services segments. Retail revenue was $8.7 million and remained relatively consistent versus the prior quarter despite an approximate 2% decrease in the volume of water sold. The impact of the lower sales volume was mitigated by a higher rate charged to a major non-potable water customer and an increase in the volume of water sold to that customer. Bulk revenue was $9.9 million, increasing 20% versus the prior year quarter, primarily due to higher energy pass-through charges by CW Bahamas driven by higher energy costs. Bulk revenue also benefited to a lesser extent from revenue earned from Cw Bahama's new plans on Cat Island in the Bahamas. [indiscernible] revenue was $11.6 million, increasing 1% versus the prior year quarter due to a higher construction revenue, partially offset by lower O&M revenue following the expiration of contracts with two customers in the first quarter of 2026. Construction revenue increased $2.5 million due to work on two water treatment plant projects. Manufacturing revenue was $2.7 million, decreasing 49% from the prior year quarter due to a decrease in the total dollar amount of new purchase orders. Based on our current projections, we continue to believe that manufacturing revenue for the full 2026 year will be less than the manufacturing revenue generated in 2025. Gross profit was $11.0 million or 33% of total revenue compared to $12.8 million or 38% of total revenue in the prior year quarter. The decrease was primarily due to lower manufacturing gross profit and a change in revenue mix in the Services segment. Net income from continuing operations attributable to Consolidated Water stockholders was $4.0 million or $0.25 per diluted share compared to $5.2 million or $0.32 per diluted share in the prior year quarter. Including discontinued operations, net income attributable to Consolidated Water stockholders was $3.9 million or $0.24 per diluted share compared to $5.1 million or $0.32 per diluted share in the second quarter of 2025. Now turning to our balance sheet. Cash and cash equivalents totaled $132.6 million as of June 30, 2026, with working capital of $144.6 million and stockholders' equity attributable to Consolidated Water of $225.6 million. Our balance sheet continues to have no significant debt. CW Bahamas accounts receivable, which represents the majority of our consolidated accounts [indiscernible] decreased to $18.8 million as of June 30, 2026, from $20.7 million as of December 31, 2025. We continue to be in frequent contact with officials of the Bahamas government who continue to express their intention to significantly reduce CW Bahama's delinquent accounts receivable balances. However, we are unable to determine when such reduction will occur. Our projected liquidity requirements for the balance of 2026 include capital expenditures for our existing operations of approximately $4.8 million. We also paid approximately $2.3 million in dividends in July 2026, and our liquidity requirements may also include future quarterly dividends if such dividends are declared by our Board. We continue to evaluate how to best utilize our strong cash position to increase shareholder value. This completes our financial summary for the quarter. Now I'll turn the call back over to Rick.

Thank you, Doug. I'll just run through some updates here. During the quarter, we completed negotiations with the Cayman Islands water utility regulator, OfReg, for our retail water utility license in Grand Cayman. We received a new license from off-rig in mid-June, and it became effective on August 1. After so many years of negotiations, this new 25-year license provides certainty to this very important part of our business. The license preserves Cayman Water's exclusive right to produce and distribute potable water to customers in our licensed area and gives us long-term earnings visibility as we continue investing and reliable water infrastructure for residents, businesses and visitors on Seven Mile Beach and West Bay Grand Cayman. The new license sets out reduced water rates base water rates and an annual inflation-based rate adjustment mechanism that is similar to our previous license. For customers, the new rates are expected to lower the average cost of water per gallon by about 6.5% compared with the prior license. For consolidated water, it provides long-term regulatory clarity for a business that has historically been a significant contributor to our revenue and gross profit. The new license comes as Grand Cayman continues to experience strong tourism momentum a key demand driver for our retail water sales. As mentioned on previous calls, demand for our water in the Cayman Islands is affected by, number one, stay over tourism and number 2, rainfall. The Cayman Islands continued its strong tourism momentum in Q2. Stay over visitations increased year-over-year in April, May and June, in the first half of 2026, stayover arrivals totaled more than 288,000 visitors, which is up 11.3% from the first half of 2025 and 2.8% above the Island's comparable 2019 precoded level. The local newspapers reported that if current trends continue, 2026 could set a new annual stay-over tourism record. This growth has been supported by strong North American tourism demand, expanded airlift, including a new direct flight from Austin, Texas and new hotel inventory and Cayman. Looking ahead, public tourism announcements point to a positive outlook for the balance of 2026. While the weather is always difficult to predict the Cayman Islands National Weather Service has indicated a greater than 70% probability of below average rainfall during this current wet season. If this prediction is realized, those conditions could provide an additional driver for retail water demand this year. We were pleased with the performance of our Caribbean-based bulk businesses which remain a stable source of long-term recurring revenue. During the quarter, bulk results benefited from our two new desalination plants on Cat Island and the Bahamas, as supply potable water to the Water and Sewage Corporation of the Bahamas. The first facility was commissioned in December last year and the second in April this year. So the quarter reflected contributions from both plants. Turning to manufacturing. We still expect full year, as Doug mentioned earlier, full year 2026 results to fall below last year's record level but current backlog and recent order activity that we mentioned earlier, gives us confidence that manufacturing revenue can improve in future quarters. In particular, the orders we have received and the active municipal market in Florida support a strong outlook for 2027. This outlook is supported in part by the a $10.1 million purchase orders we received last month for a municipal water treatment project in Florida with delivery currently scheduled for November of 2027. We continue to see an active market for our products and services, particularly with municipal projects in Florida. The key driver is the growing need for membrane-based treatment systems as utilities look to alternative water sources, including brackish groundwater to meet long-term supply needs and drinking water requirements. Our extensive experience manufacturing large-scale membrane-based water treatment systems, combined with our Fort Peers Florida manufacturing location positions us well to capitalize on growth opportunities in the Florida market which we believe will benefit 2026 and 2027 performance. As mentioned earlier, our construction revenue increased $2.5 million due to work on two previously announced projects, construction projects, both of which are scheduled to be substantially completed this year. The Colorado drinking water plant expansion has been a good entry point for us in that market with the current O&M customer and helps position us for additional design-build opportunities in the future. Although new O&M and design-build opportunities in California are not as active as they were over the last 2 to 3 years. We continue to pursue some very attractive opportunities some of which are larger than previous projects we have done in California. As I mentioned on past earnings conference calls, our customized design report or CDR program remains an important business development tool for identifying and advancing potential design build and O&M opportunities. Through the CDR process, we prepare comprehensive project-specific plans that incorporate life cycle cost, schedule and performance metrics helping prospective clients evaluate project scope, cost, schedule and water quality certainty before committing to construction. In Arizona, we have several CDRs outstanding with residential developers and are broadening our CDR sales effort to include industrial clients. So based on recent developments I mentioned at the beginning of the call, we remain cautiously optimistic that construction of the Hawaii project will begin before the end of this year. The limited notice to proceed with the procurement of long-lead equipment should help reduce potential scheduling pressure and allow the project to move forward more efficiently once the required permits are in place. The recent uptick in communications and information exchanges with key regulatory authorities in Hawaii supports our cautious optimism. Looking ahead, we feel very good about where we are today. Our Grand Cayman retail operations, recurring Caribbean bulk water revenue and expanding opportunities across U.S. manufacturing design build and O&M markets gives us multiple ways to grow with strong demand for reliable water infrastructure and a healthy balance sheet we believe we are well positioned to continue creating value for our shareholders. To support this growth, we also strengthened our leadership team with the appointment of Sachin Chawla as our Senior Vice President of Business Development. Sachin brings meaningful experience across water infrastructure and treatment markets and we believe he can help us identify and advance additional opportunities in desalination, water reuse, industrial water and other areas where our technical and operating expertise is highly relevant. Our strong balance sheet gives us the flexibility to move decisively on desalination and water infrastructure opportunities across all of our markets while also evaluating strategic acquisitions and partnerships that could accelerate growth. So now with that, Nick, I'd like to open the call up for questions.

[Operator Instructions]. The first question will come from Gerry Sweeney with ROTH Capital.

I know you touched upon it in your prepared remarks around the Hawaii [ deisel ] project. But my understanding, I believe it's just one permit, the archeological permit that is maybe the last gate to getting the project going. And you did mention increased talks, I think, with regulatory agencies. But I was curious if you could just give any more detail, if possible, is that the last permit? Is that the gating factor? And any additional information on maybe when that permit can be received?

Yes. Sure, Gerry. Just to clarify, it's not the last permit. That's sort of a in sort of permit and it prevents us at the moment from applying for other important permits because you have to have that archeological permit in place. So we're discussing ways to proceed with the applications with -- on some of the other permits we need with the blessing of the archeological regulator. So, yes, I mean, it's definitely not the last one we need, but it is -- we have to have that as a prerequisite for some other permits.

I got you. And the other permits are sort of -- for lack of a better term standard construction permits that are normal in any of these type of projects. Is that fair to say?

Yes. Some of them are other ones are with the, I think, the drinking water regulator there in Hawaii. So I mean, we're looking at ways similar to the limited notice to proceed. We're looking at ways to speed up the process without suffering further delays because of this linchpin permit delay.