FuelCell Energy's CEO Discusses Q4 2011 Results - Earnings Call Transcript

Arthur A. Chip Bottone

Thank you, Kurt. Good morning, everyone, and welcome. Fiscal year 2011 was a year of growth for our company. We had record revenues and generated gross profits during the third and fourth quarters, the first since commercializing our products. We successfully managed a significant production increase and are executing on our backlog. Credit for these achievements goes to our talented team of associates and their dedication to our vision, which is to provide ultra-clean, efficient distributed generation baseload power for less than the cost of grid-delivered electricity.

I'll review our business and update you on our execution of our strategic initiatives in greater detail after Mike Bishop, our Chief Financial Officer, reviews our financial results for the quarter. Mike?

Michael Bishop

Thank you, Chip. Good morning, and thank you for joining our call today. FuelCell Energy recorded total revenues for the fourth quarter of 2011 of $34.7 million compared to $19.7 million in the same period last year. Product sales and revenues for the fourth quarter were $33.3 million compared to $17.2 million reported in the prior year. This is a 94% increase in quarterly product revenue and a record for the company. The company's product sales and service backlog totaled $210 million as of October 31, 2011, compared to $154 million at the end of the prior year. The components of this backlog include product orders of $132 million, service agreement backlog of $78 million. We plan to deliver product backlog through October 2013.

We generated gross profit from product sales in the fourth quarter of 2011. This is our second consecutive quarterly gross profit resulting from increased production volume and lower product costs. Margins for product sales and revenues improved by $4.3 million compared to the fourth quarter of 2010, and the product cost-to-revenue ratio improved to 0.98:1. Research and development contract revenue was $1.4 million for the fourth quarter of 2011 compared to $2.5 million in the prior year. The company's research and development backlog totaled $15.8 million as of October 31, 2011 and increased compared to the $9.7 million reported in the prior year.

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