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Operator:
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Good
morning, my name is (Arnika) and I will be your conference operator
today. At this time I would like to welcome everyone to the
Iridium first quarter earnings conference call. All lines have
been placed on mute to prevent any background noise.
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After
the speakers' remarks there will be a question and answer
session. If you would like to ask a question during this time
simply press star then the number 1 on your telephone
keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question press the
pound key. Thank you.
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I
would now like to turn the call over to James Babski of GHL Acquisition
Corp. Please go ahead, sir.
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James
Babski:
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Thank
you, operator. Before I review the structure of this morning's
call I would like to read the Safe Harbor statement. This
conference call could contain forward-looking statements about GHL
Acquisition Corp. or Iridium Satellite LLC within the meaning of the
Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
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Forward-looking
statements are statements that are not historical fact. Such
forward-looking statements are based upon the current belief and
expectations of the management of GHL Acquisition and/or Iridium Satellite
and are subject to risks and uncertainties which could cause actual
results to differ from the forward-looking
statements.
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Such
risks are more fully discussed in GHL Acquisition Corp.'s filings with the
Securities and Exchange Commission. The information set forth
herein should be considered in light of such risks. Neither GHL
Acquisition nor Iridium Satellite assume any obligation to update the
information contained in this conference call.
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I
now would like to turn the floor over to Scott Bok, CEO of GHL
Acquisition, for some brief comments. Then we'll hear from Matt
Desch, Iridium Satellite's CEO, who will take us through the highlights of
the first quarter. Eric Morrison, Iridium's CFO, will then
review details of the financial results with us, and then we'll take your
questions. Now I'll turn the program over to Scott
Bok.
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Scott
Bok:
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Thank
you, James, and good morning to all of you on the line. I
imagine many of you have participated in our conference call on April 28th
and are aware at that time that we announced amended terms for the GHQ -
Iridium transaction.
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The
amendment reduced the total consideration payable to Iridium's owners to
reflect changes in equity market valuations since we entered the original
transaction agreement last September. The amended terms imply
an enterprise value purchase price of $517 million.
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Particularly
when you combine this change with recent moves in the stock market, we
think this change was quite attractive for GHQ
shareholders. Before we move on to Iridium's results, I want to
update you on a few GHQ transaction related items.
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First,
GHQ announced last night that it has retained Deutsche Bank as a financial
advisor with respect to the transaction between GHQ and
Iridium. GHQ also announced that it has filed the shelf
registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission
pursuant to which it may offer, and subsequent to the closing of the
transaction between GHL Acquisition and Iridium, sell additional shares of
common stock.
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In
connection with any such offering of common shares, we will seek to
appoint underwriters who are respected for their expertise in the
satellite communications and related industry
sectors. Separately, Bank of America Securities has agreed to
sell all of the approximately 3.7 million GHQ warrants that it owns to GHQ
for an aggregate consideration of approximately $1.8 million subject to
the closing of the Iridium transaction.
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GHQ
may, subject to market conditions, engage in various additional open
market and privately negotiated transactions in its common stock and
warrants. GHL Acquisition further announced that B of A has
agreed to reduce the amount of its deferred underwriting compensation by
approximately $8.2 million. Taken together all of these steps
relate to the goal of transitioning our shareholder base to a group of
long-term fundamental investors over time
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Now
turning to Iridium's financial results, when we announced the amendment to
the transaction agreement in April, Iridium provided guidance for 2009 of
single digit revenue growth and operational EBITDA in the range of $120
million to $130 million for the full year.
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Iridium's
first quarter results announced last evening are on track with that
guidance, and we continue to be impressed with the company's resilience
and growth during very tough global economic conditions. The
company's full year guidance implies growth in operational EBITDA from
2008 to 2009 in the range of 11 percent to 20 percent which is a healthy
growth rate even in a good economy.
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Before
I turn the call over to Matt, I'd like to make a few comments on what we
learned from the first quarter. In both this quarter and the
last, Iridium has demonstrated its resilience. In a time of
unprecedented corporate cutbacks of all kinds, Iridium continues to grow
and be profitable.
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This
points to the strength of the management team, the company's global
network coverage and the critical nature of the services Iridium
provides. There is no company like Iridium and this is apparent
in the results that we announced last night.
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With
that I'll hand it over to Matt Desch for Iridium's first quarter 2009
update. Matt?
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Matt
Desch:
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Thanks,
Scott. Hello, everyone. The first quarter was not a
typical quarter for Iridium, but it was a good quarter and we continued
our positive momentum in spite of the current economic
conditions. Let me share a few key points and some observations
on the quarter and then I'll turn it over to Eric to go through the
numbers in greater detail.
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First,
total subscribers reached 328,000 in the first quarter. That's
a 31 percent increase over this time a year ago and about a third more
subscribers. I think this represents healthy growth during an
especially tough time in the economy and keeps us on track to increase
subscribers by 20 percent in 2009 as we announced before as
guidance.
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Our
strongest performance during the quarter came from commercial service
revenues which increased 27 percent over the same period last
year. We are particularly pleased by this because commercial
service revenue represents the highest margin recurring revenue stream in
our business. This growth is an excellent indicator of the
fundamental strength of our business in difficult economic
times. In short, Iridium customers place a high value on our
service.
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As
we indicated in our release, subscriber equipment revenue was off 34
percent compared to first quarter 2008. First, a change
in accounting rules contributed to this result. In fact
year-over-year comparisons of revenue are affected by $2 million of
equipment amortization related to sales of equipment in prior years that
are included in the first quarter of 2008.
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Without
the impact of the amortization, overall revenue would have increased 4.8
percent versus two percent and equipment revenue would have declined by
29.8 percent rather than by 34.8 percent. Second, undoubtedly,
the global economic climate contributed to subscriber equipment sales that
were slower than their traditional pace.
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And,
finally, we believe that this was compounded by the process of phasing two
new products into the market. These products are the Iridium
9555 handset and our new enhanced band with data and voice service,
Iridium OpenPort, and I will return to those in a
moment.
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Total
revenue increased two percent over the same period last year, almost $76
million in the quarter. First quarter is typically one of our
slowest quarters and this year was no exception, but I'm pleased that
despite lower device shipments, we're still registering growth in line
with our expectations.
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Let
me go back briefly into a little more information on our service growth
and then into the equipment transition. First, in terms of
commercial voice and data traffic, in the first quarter, usage increased
in the markets that we serve, including maritime, aviation, and land
mobile.
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Combined
commercial voice and data traffic grew nearly 12 percent for the first
quarter of 2009 compared to the same period in 2008. This
included growth in voice traffic of seven percent and growth in
traditional data traffic of 23 percent during the quarter, as compared to
the same quarter in 2008.
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Usage
is a strong indicator for us and we're pleased to see that it's increasing
even in a time when fewer business jets are flying and fewer ships are
sailing. Our commercial service revenues often consist of a
monthly service fee in addition to minute or per kilobyte pricing, so even
when airplanes are grounded or ships are in port, we're generating revenue
from the customer.
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We're
also hearing that a lot of maritime customers are still sailing but with
reduced loads. In those cases, the crews still call home and
the captain still needs to communicate the ship’s business with the fleet
owner as well.
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In
terms of commercial equipment, a couple of things are going
on. First the market response to the Iridium 9555 handset has
been very enthusiastic. You may have read the recent Financial
Times review where our handset was pronounced, and I quote, "Without a
doubt the best satellite phone the reviewer had ever
tested."
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We
have built a better mousetrap and our customers think it's a winner,
too. That said, in a soft economy, we see our partners working
through existing inventory of our prior model and behaving more
conservatively in terms of inventory kept in stock. Because
many of us tend to think of the mobile device market in terms of the large
traditional mobile phone market, it's important to put the introduction of
the 9555 in context.
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Satellite
phones of the feature rich, rugged quality that we produce are expensive
and this is the first new Iridium handset in four years. It's
not a market where consumers are driven by the bleeding edge or even the
leading edge, when it comes to new devices.
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Iridium
handsets are the only mobile communication handset that works anywhere in
the world and developing, marketing, and selling a quality satellite phone
is a complex endeavor. It's also an area where Iridium has had
a long track record of unmatched leadership.
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And
we also continue the roll out of OpenPort, our high speed maritime
product, after completing extensive sea trials and testing with our
service partners who are taking the product to market. Today,
hundreds of vessels are using OpenPort at sea as an alternative to
existing products from our competitors and we're hearing confirmation from
the market that this is an attractive product at the right price point in
terms of hardware, installation, and service costs.
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We're
especially pleased with the public support that Iridium partners like
Globe Wireless have voiced in recent weeks and with the promotions that
our partners have launched in support of OpenPort.
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One
great example is that on a recent trip to Antarctica crew members of an
Argentinean navy vessel used OpenPort to call their families and also blog
about their trip on Facebook, which is all the more remarkable, when you
consider that Iridium is the only mobile satellite communications service
that covers Antarctica.
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While
still early, we're encouraged by the volume of usage that OpenPort units
are generating. This brings me again to the maritime industry
as a whole, which continues to represent great opportunity for
Iridium.
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As
I said before, the fact that ships are still sailing and crew are calling,
in particular, remains a bright spot in maritime, no doubt bolstered by
recently introduced products like our Go-Chat prepaid card for crew
calling.
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On
our last quarterly conference call, I mentioned that the International
Maritime Organization, which governs ocean-going vessels, issued a rule
requiring every vessel of 300 gross tons or more on international voyages
to have a long-range identification and tracking or LRIT device
installed.
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Now
that ruling is significant for Iridium because we're the only approved
solution for tracking in sea area four, which encompasses the world's
polar regions. The new rules go into effect on July 1st, 2009
and to date we have certified three value-added manufacturers for
Iridium-enabled LRIT devices.
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LRIT
drives home an important aspect of our strategic value, namely that we are
the only truly global MSF company in ships, and particularly the large
ocean-going vessels that LRIT tracks and that are increasingly finding
themselves in extreme northern or southern latitudes, where other
satellite systems don't work well or do not have
coverage.
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Iridium
also continues to see progress in the aviation sector, which is noteworthy
because it emphasizes the diversity of our aviation customer
base. We all know that usage of business jets has dropped in
the current economy, but Iridium has seen continued strength in the
aviation market, which is coming from petroleum service helicopters, air
transport, MEDEVACs and other specialized aviation
installations.
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For
example, in the first quarter, Ornge, which is a leading Canadian medical
transport company implement Iridium for tracking, text messaging, and
TeleMedic data capture and transmission, for all of its medical
helicopters. Again, here's an example of a customer choosing
Iridium because we provide reliable, critical communication
lifelines.
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On
the last quarterly call, I talked about the opportunity we're seeing in
providing Iridium-based safety services to the aviation market, and we
continue to make progress towards securing full international regulatory
approvals for Iridium to be used for air safety communication by
commercial carriers on transoceanic flights. Soon we expect to
commence final onboard evaluation tests with Continental
Airlines.
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And
finally, we've experienced exceptional quarter-over-quarter growth in our
machine-to-machine or M2M data market, in terms of both subscribers and
revenue. Iridium's machine-to-machine subscribers nearly
doubled in the first quarter of 2009 in comparison to the first quarter of
2008, and Iridium experienced 73 percent growth in service revenue over
the prior year quarter.
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We
attribute this rapid growth to our industry leading offering which
combines small, easy to integrate data modems, which our partners
manufacture into a broad array of devices for different industries,
allowing them to track, monitor, and control assets
globally.
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It's
not hard to see why there is such a great demand for these
services. In Brazil, where there's a truck hijacking epidemic,
Iridium is now part of a tracking service that helps ensure the safety of
fleets and drivers throughout the country.
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In
Kuwait, where KGL Transportation Company wanted to ensure the reliable
tracking of its assets among a fleet of some 1,500 different trucks,
tankers and other vehicles, Iridium helped the company recover revenue in
just the first week of use.
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In
commercial shipping, we're helping companies track and monitor
refrigerated containers that carry highly perishable
cargo. Non-U.S. government organizations also rely on Iridium
for mission critical activities.
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In
the first quarter Blue Ocean Satellite Systems and Iridium Bar announced
an Iridium-based explosive magazine monitoring solution developed to meet
the requirements of Canada's explosive magazine security surveillance
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program
and for the certified two-way access control for tracking and remote
monitoring of explosive magazines.
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So
in just those few examples, you can see why the market is enthusiastic
about our M2M offerings. What's more, we passed a significant
milestone in the first quarter surpassing 1 million data messages sent
each day over the Iridium network.
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You
may recall that the Iridium satellite constellation was originally built
to carry only voice traffic and it's a testament to the genius of our
engineering teams and the resilience and flexibility of our constellation
that we're now eight years into providing robust data services that are
the fastest growing piece of our business.
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So
let me transition to our government business now. This was
another good quarter in our long-standing and valued relation with the
U.S. government and the Department of Defense, with service revenues from
the government increasing more than 30 percent, including revenues from
our consulting service contracts.
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Iridium
continues to be a critical part of the military communications
infrastructure in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Moreover, in a
trend that parallels our commercial business, we're seeing more and more
defense department uses for our M2M services as military assets are
deployed and tracked around the world.
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Through
consulting services provided under various contracts, we're working with
the military on innovations like Netted Iridium, our push-to-talk tactical
radio service, which is now in trial use by hundreds of
soldiers. In fact, Iridium anticipates supplying production
units under contract by the end of the next quarter.
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Before
turning the call over to Eric, I want to update you on the status of
Iridium NEXT, our next generation of satellite
constellation. Simply put, we're on track and in the final
stages of our selection process. In the coming months, we're
concluding a competitive selection of either Lockheed Martin
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or
Thales Alenia Space to be our prime contractor for the new network and we
continue to expect to begin deployment in 2014.
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So
at this point, I'll turn the call over to Eric, who will give you more
detail on the first quarter and year-end results and then we'll be able to
answer your questions.
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Eric.
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Eric
Morrison:
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Thanks,
Matt, and good morning everyone.
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As
you've seen in this morning's press release, Iridium had approximately
328,000 total cumulative subscribers as of March 31, 2009 marking a 31.2
percent increase in subscribers compared to our numbers at the close of
the first quarter of 2008.
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Revenue
in the first quarter of 2009 was $75.8 million versus $74.3 million in the
first quarter of 2008 representing a two percent increase. As
Matt indicated, the overall revenue reflects a decline in subscriber
equipment revenue, while commercial service revenue increased
substantially.
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Subscriber
equipment revenue was down 34.3 percent to $20.5 million from a $31.2
million in the first quarter of 2008, while commercial service revenue was
up 26.9 percent increasing to $36.8 million from $29 million in the same
quarter of last year.
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Operational
EBITDA increased by 4.9 percent to $27.6 million from $26.3 million in the
first quarter of 2008. You will recall that we define
operational EBITDA as EBITDA that excludes revenue and expenses incurred
in the development of Iridium NEXT, as well as non-recurring expenses
related to the company's financing activities, including the transaction
with GHQ.
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The
primary expenses and operational EBITDA in the quarter came from costs
associated with Iridium NEXT, our next generation satellite constellation
program.
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The
company tracks operational EBITDA because we believe EBITDA is a useful
measure to evaluate the ongoing operational performance of our
business. Our management team also uses operational EBITDA for
operational planning purposes, including the preparation of its annual
operating budget, financial projections, and compensation
plans.
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Net
income was down 41.9 percent to $9.7 million from $16.7 million in the
first quarter of 2008, again primarily due to increased investment in
Iridium NEXT. As we pointed out on the last call, once an
agreement with a prime contractor is in place, the NEXT expenses will
become capitalized and the impact to net income will be greatly
reduced.
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In
closing, I would like to echo Matt's comment that while this was not a
typical quarter for Iridium and we are feeling some effects of the economy
in our subscriber sales, overall we are pleased with our
results.
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We
have started the year on track to meet our guidance of low, single digit
revenue growth, 11 percent to 20 percent growth in operational EBITDA and
a 20 percent increase in cumulative subscribers for the full year of
2009.
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With
that, I'll turn the call back to Scot Bok.
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Scott
Bok:
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Thanks,
Eric, and congratulations to the entire Iridium team on a job well
done.
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On
this morning's conference call, you have heard that there are myriad new
and emerging uses for the Iridium network across many different
industries, that the company is growing, resilient, and on track against
its 2009 financial goals, and that Iridium is making progress towards its
next generation satellite constellation.
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You've
also heard that we are taking steps to create a strong group of
fundamental investors to carry Iridium and GHQ forward into the
future. All the factors make us enthusiastic about Iridium and
its long-term prospects.
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Thank
you for your time and attention and we'll now be happy to take your
questions.
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Operator?
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Operator:
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At
this time, I'd like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, press
star and then the number one on your telephone keypad. We'll
pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster.
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Your
first question comes from Chris Quilty with Raymond
James.
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Chris
Quilty:
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Good
morning, gentlemen.
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Matt
Desch:
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Morning,
Chris.
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Scott
Bok:
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Morning.
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Chris
Quilty:
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Wanted
to talk a little bit about the hardware sales. You obviously
gave a full year revenue guidance number, but I was hoping you could break
that down in terms of service revenues versus hardware, and more
specifically, what you see as sort of the recovering pattern for hardware
sales to the remaining three quarters of the year.
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Matt
Desch:
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We
don't breakdown guidance, really, right. We're just providing
overall guidance in our planning. To really break that down by
equipment and services, I don't think that would be that helpful,
especially quarter-over-quarter and how it relates.
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However, you
know I think, as I said, the equipment revenue piece of it is affected
both by the economy and by the service transition that have between the
inventory of the old 9505A phones evolve out of the market and the 9555
comes in.
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And
as OpenPort continues to ramp, we think that mix will
change. But I still think equipment's going to be softer,
really, than service revenues, which I still think will be stronger, so at
least in relative terms, I think those general effects are going to
continue, but we're not going to break them down at this
time.
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Chris
Quilty:
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Fair
enough, but perhaps if you look at the first quarter hardware sales, which
were down pretty dramatically, would you presume that most of that was
related to the economy? Or was that the channel effect of
inventory bleeding down on the old models? And, I guess, also,
have you seen any indications that there's starting to be some channel
fill on the 9555?
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Matt
Desch:
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It's
hard to tell exactly what the breakdown is. I mean we only have
sort of indirect knowledge about exactly how those effects are
working. You know it's been in discussions with our service
providers and some of their distributors, we have – we clearly see that
demand is lower right now and that's one aspect of it. So we
see that is an effect.
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But
we also see the effect that they were really selling the 9505 phones which
it does affect our service revenues and increases those. But
those were out in the markets and those were sold last year and really
were being taken up as the quarter progressed.
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Eventually
they're going to run out of those obviously and they're going to need to
refill and we are seeing 9555 orders. Can't really say in terms
of exactly how that relates to percentages, et cetera, but we clearly are
seeing the transition. I think it's going to probably continue
a little bit through the second quarter but eventually we're going to –
those 9905 phones will be gone and it will be all
9555s.
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Chris
Quilty:
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Great. And
the – switching to the maritime market, first of all, just a
clarification. Are you – have you commenced commercial sales of
the OpenPort and are you generating service revenues off
it?
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And
then, the second part of the question I think Iridium – or Inmarsat,
excuse me – timed the announcement of their FB150 to coincide with your
announcement of commercial service. What impact have you seen
or how do you think the two products stack up or what's the feedback
you're hearing you know from the dealer and systems integrator channel
about the competitiveness of the two products?
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Matt
Desch:
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Excellent
question. First, your first point, yes and yes. We
are generating service revenues and they're, as I said, alive in operation
and have been for the last couple of months.
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We,
as you saw the recent announcement that we had, in fact some of our
service providers were doing extremely thorough tests of the systems to
ensure that when they put them on ships and they're out for weeks at sea
or months at sea that there really isn't any kind of service quality
issues that they could have. And all of them have really, at
this point, declared that the system is completely
ready.
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There
were ships sailing and revenues being generated you know even before that
but I think they're all now saying that the system is rock solid and ready
to go.
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As
far as the FB150, yes we certainly have generated a competitive response
in Inmarsat because they realized how competitive now the OpenPort product
really is and they've seen it in action. I really think we're
going to have a you know it will be a competitive product in some ways
though even at the significant price reduction that it is for Inmarsat to
compare to its previous models, it still is probably twice as expensive as
OpenPort from a hardware perspective and is more expensive on a service
front.
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So
it's certainly the most competitive product that Inmarsat will have
against OpenPort but it still doesn't match OpenPort's
economics. And that's just on sort of the short-term
basis. We really think there's going to be some long-term
customer advantages to OpenPort.
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It's
a much simpler product mechanically and therefore will probably last a lot
longer, require less maintenance and adjustments and
repairs. So the long-term costs of ownership per ship owner is
going to be better too.
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Don't
just take that from me. You can check the channels you know
yourself. They are service providers. They are
distributors. They've been selling us this. They've
been announcing this. They've been announcing trade-up programs
to the older Inmarsat technology that's being phased out, things
like
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miniM
and Inmarsat-C, et cetera. And they are saying that – they are
telling us really that it's a very, very competitive product that's going
to be a winner in the market.
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Chris
Quilty:
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Excellent. You
mentioned on the aviation side of the market the business jet and
obviously the fact that that market has weakened. I was always
under the assumption that most of your tracking units were on
helicopters.
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Is
business jet a significant end market for you and you know can you just
comment on you know, where you are seeing pockets of strength in that
market?
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Matt
Desch:
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We've
always been, business jets have always been a part of our aviation sector
and you know really general aviation and corporate aviation are a place
where Iridium has significant advantages over any other solution because
you know the size of our antennas are typically very, very small compared
to anything that they'd have to put on for a geostationary
system.
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So
our systems are lighter. You know they're aerodynamic antennas
and they cost a lot less. So we've always had good use in
corporate aviation and many big platforms, corporate aviation platforms,
come off the line with an Iridium system in them.
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You
know partners like NetJets, for example, has one in almost all their
aircraft, for example. So you know it's always been a part of
our aviation market but as I said we have a diversity of
applications.
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We've
always been – we always did very well on helicopters for the same reason,
because of the weight and size, power, et cetera are better for helicopter
tracking or communication platform as well, and also you know increasingly
in things like UAVs and other kinds of balloons and other kinds of things
that are in the air.
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And
the new market, as I said before, is where we hadn't really been much in
the past, has been commercial aviation. Our systems were used
by some aircraft for you know calling by the crew, particularly freight
and some
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commercial
aircraft. But now with aviation safety services, we're going to
start penetrating that market more significantly.
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Chris
Quilty:
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And
that obviously brings up the question with the Air France flight
447. If they did have an Inmarsat system onboard, it went
in-operational as soon as the electrical power went down because there's
no backup battery system.
|
|
|
You
know is this, not to be gruesome, but is there an opportunity here for
Iridium you know whether the pilots were carrying a handheld unit that you
know you could integrate as a tracking device or to sell discreet tracking
devices that you know you could install on commercial
aircraft.
|
||
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Matt
Desch:
|
Well
you know some of those sort of things exist in tracking
solution. Some of our VAMs and VARs in the avionic sector and
we have about, I don't know the exact number, but roughly about 15 or so
in that general category, build tracking solutions into their
products.
|
|
|
And
there is ability, if they use it, to provide live tracking of the aircraft
as it proceeds. So clearly one would have been able to see
exactly where the last place it was. And those things can have
battery backups and provide that as well.
|
||
|
And
increasingly we're seeing other devices. You know people do use
handheld devices. We think, we can't really track it as much,
but a lot of handheld devices are used by pilots around the world for
emergency reasons.
|
||
|
And
you know we certainly are very popular in Alaska and other places where
just about every bush pilot probably would carry an Iridium phone with
them just to ensure that if, in remote locations, they can use it for
emergency purposes.
|
||
|
But
you know as I said, we're getting a lot of scrutiny right now by ICAO and
FAA and we're completing something call FANS testing I think this
summer. Yes, it stands for Future Air and Navigation Systems,
which is the ICAO's standard really for aviation safety services in the
future for providing tracking, providing for flight following, providing
for flight plan filing, and communication between
aircraft.
|
|
Replacing
either the existing systems that are in those systems or being put on new
aircraft as the sole purpose for really safety type services on commercial
aircraft. So you could see an aircraft like that with one of
our systems in the future on it.
|
||
|
Chris
Quilty:
|
Great. Finally,
the Iridium per se, the Netted Iridium product – when you say that that
product will begin production shipment at the end of next quarter, is that
the end of the second quarter or the end of the third
quarter?
|
|
|
Matt
Desch:
|
I
think it's the end – well it's the end of the third
quarter. We're going to be putting out some news I think on
that pretty soon which will give you some more information about
that. Just for those others, we have been in sort of a
prototype test phase right now with Netted over the last few years,
primarily driven by the Marine Corps but with a lot of growing interest in
the last year, year and a half by a number of other areas in the military
who see this as a gap filler for Tasco radios which they have been running
out of capacity for in the last few years and they see a real gap in the
next few years.
|
|
|
So
they have been funding us and we've been using their money to adapt our
system, both in our satellite and in devices that they are getting people
to produce that will be able to use Iridium service as a tactical push to
talk radio system.
|
||
|
And
it's pretty exciting and we've heard great things from the people who are
using it right now live in Afghanistan where it is – has been talked about
quite a bit in military circles as a real important system for the
future.
|
||
|
We
see that system kind of going commercial, if you will, at least in our
terminology where it will – where it's being finalized and we'll really
see what I would call true commercial units being shipped now in volume
usage, as I said, toward the end of the third quarter and through next
year. And I think that that will be a driver of growth on the
DOD side or the defense side going forward.
|
||
|
Chris
Quilty:
|
Now,
did you accelerate the launch date for that, because I thought you had
talked about a 2010 launch date
previously?
|
|
Matt
Desch:
|
Well,
there's a lot of R&Ds that we are being built to develop and it's an
ongoing product with enhancement going forward. I think the
2010 date you may have heard before is probably the completion of a phase
of the R&D contract.
|
|
|
But
really, it provides a commercial capability that can be used in the field
quite a bit earlier than that. It's just, the R&D will be
complete by that time. So it's all done, essentially, at least
that phase of the program is done by 2010.
|
||
|
So
it will probably be declared you know final from that perspective by our
customer but it really is going to be in use before
that.
|
||
|
Operator:
|
As
a reminder, in order to ask a question, press star then the number 1 on
your telephone key pad. Your next question comes from Kent
Escalara with RBC Capital Markets.
|
|
|
Kent
Escalara:
|
Hi
guys. I was just wondering when you expect to close the
transaction.
|
|
|
Scott
Bok:
|
Maybe
I'll answer that one, Matt. It's – the really substantive issue
that remains is simply the FCC approval. You know we're working
our way through the FCC process but that's a fairly tried and true path
that we've been on many times with other companies.
|
|
|
So
the one issue that is not as knowable because there's just not a defined
statutory time table is the FCC approval. So we're, obviously
we're taking a lot of steps to move the transaction forward and you know
whether it happens in you know a matter of weeks or whether it ends
up happening you know in a few months is just something we
don't know.
|
||
|
So
we're getting as ready as we can. Obviously we'd like to go to
our shareholders as soon as we can. We're in a very strong
market. The company has strong results. It's a great
time to bring this to a head and you know as soon as we get that
clearance, we're going to do that.
|
||
|
Kent
Escalara:
|
So
would your best guess be the third
quarter?
|
|
Scott
Bok:
|
I –
I mean, it would probably be a guess, but I think I mean realistically you
know if we haven’t mailed already it’s going to be at least July so you
know we’d love to get it done in July. If we don’t get it done
in July we’d certainly love to get it done in
September.
|
|
|
You
know I guess if I was guessing, yes, I think it should be the third
quarter. But again it’s a regulator. We don’t
know why we wouldn’t be cleared in plenty of time to do say you know the
September date at a minimum but it’s a regulator. They makes
their own decisions and obviously there’s just no guarantees that we can
give or even have for ourselves.
|
||
|
Kent
Escalara:
|
OK. And
with regard to the open market of privately negotiated transactions, is
that something you could talk about in a little more detail as far as you
know maybe the quantity or limits to you know what the size of those would
be, if any.
|
|
|
Scott
Bok:
|
I
mean certainly of course there are limits. We know, certainly
we’ve seen what other SPACs have done. We think we have a
higher quality company than frankly any of those.
|
|
|
We
believe there is strong fundamental interest among institutional investors
in becoming significant owners of Iridium and at the same time we know
that some Iridium or GHQ shareholders are probably not long-term
holders.
|
||
|
So
we’re going to explore as other SPACs have done. The
possibility of having agreements to buy back shares from some shareholders
that are not likely long-term holders and essentially at the same time
place shares with institutions who we think are good long-term
investors.
|
||
|
And
that’s essentially what many others have done. We think we’re
in a stronger position to do it because of the higher quality company, the
market rally, what’s happened with our peer group, the company’s results,
et cetera. And you know and then of course we announced the
Bank of America repurchase of the warrants and you know we think there is
the possibility of exploring more transactions along those lines as
well.
|
|
Operator:
|
At
this time, we have reached the allotted time for questions. I
would now like to turn the call back over to Mr. Bok.
|
|
|
Scott
Bok:
|
OK,
well, we just want to thank everybody for dialing in and we look forward
of keeping you apprised as we continue to make progress. Thank
you.
|
|
|
Male:
|
Thank
you.
|
|
|
Operator:
|
This
concludes today's conference call. You may now
disconnect.
|