Mistras Group Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
August 7, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Recorded a Q2 adjusted EBITDA of $24.1 million, up 8.9% year-over-year, driven by cost management and a 130 bps margin expansion to 13%.
  • Negative Sentiment: Reported Q2 revenue of $185.4 million was flat year-over-year on an organic basis but declined 2.3% reported due to $3 million of lab exits and softness in the oil & gas end market.
  • Positive Sentiment: Delivered strong organic growth with International revenues up 14%, PCMS Data Solutions up over 30%, aerospace & defense up 7.4%, and industrials up 7.2%, contributing to a 200 bps gross margin improvement.
  • Negative Sentiment: Generated negative operating cash flow of $3.5 million and free cash flow of $16.2 million in Q2 due to ERP conversion timing and unbilled receivables, though normalization is expected in H2.
  • Positive Sentiment: Maintained a strong balance sheet with a leverage ratio just under 2.75x (well below the 3.75x covenant) and targeting below 2.5x by year-end, with debt reduction as a priority.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Mistras Group Q2 2025
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Good day. My name is Leila, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome you to Mistras Group Incorporated Q2 twenty twenty five Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session.

Operator

If you would like to ask a question during this time and if you have joined via the webinar, please use the raise hand icon, which can be found at the bottom of your webinar application. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Thomas Tibulski, senior vice president of finance and treasurer.

Thomas Tobolski
Thomas Tobolski
SVP - Finance & Treasurer at Mistras Group

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Mistras Group's second Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Conference Call. I'm joined today by Natalia Schumann, President and Chief Executive Officer and Ed Preisner, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before we start, I want to remind everyone that remarks made during this conference call well as supplemental information provided on our website contain certain forward looking statements and involve risks and uncertainties as described in Mistras' SEC filings. The major actual factors that can cause Mistras' actual results to differ are discussed in the company's most recent annual report on Form 10 ks and other reports filed with the SEC. The discussion of this conference call will also include certain non GAAP financial measures that we believe are useful to investors evaluating the company's performance, but that were not prepared in accordance with U.

Thomas Tobolski
Thomas Tobolski
SVP - Finance & Treasurer at Mistras Group

S. GAAP. Reconciliation of these non U. S. GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable U.

Thomas Tobolski
Thomas Tobolski
SVP - Finance & Treasurer at Mistras Group

S. GAAP financial measures can be found in the tables contained in yesterday's press release and in the company's related current report on Form eight ks. These reports are available at the company's website in the Investors section and on the SEC's website. I'll now turn the conference call over to Natalia Schumann.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. It is my pleasure to be providing you with an update on our progress to date and report on our second quarter and first half results. I'm very pleased to report on our second quarter performance, which resulted in a record adjusted EBITDA of 24,100,000.0 up nearly 9% year over year, reflecting significant improvements in our operating leverage as a result of effective execution of our strategic priorities, diversifying our business, building scale and efficiencies and engaging with our customers, all while leading with technical innovation. In Q2, we strengthened our performance across several key areas as compared to the prior year comparable quarter.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

Most notably, we demonstrated organic growth of over 14% in our International segment, primarily within our European operations and growth of over 30% in our PCMS service offering within our Data Solutions business. Within our end markets, we delivered growth of 7.4% in aerospace and defense and 7.2% in industrials. These gains were offset by softness in our oil and gas end market, largely due to macroeconomic volatility in the beginning of the year and subsequent customer deferrals and project delays. We do expect a stronger second half in oil and gas, largely due to our strong fall turnaround season. The majority of this work has been awarded to us and is hands in our backlog.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

I'm also very bullish on the overall energy market. I had the honor to present at New York Energy Week twenty twenty five back in June, discussing the future of energy and the role we play in enabling this progress. From extending asset life and supporting that energy transition to rapidly growing demand for the new infrastructure assets, the way we inspect, monitor, analyze the grid has never been more important. And at Mistras, we are proud to help customers do just that with data driven solutions that improve safety, performance, reliability and uptime, which we believe will help us grow both top line and bottom line for the remainder of the year and into the future. Aerospace and defense is our second largest end market and we delivered 7.4 revenue growth in second quarter, following a slow start to the year in Q1.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

The momentum we've seen in this market gives me confidence in our growth prospects within this end market going forward, as we continue to expand and leverage the capabilities in our aerospace and defense platform, supporting both Boeing and Airbus supply chains, as well as private spacecraft customers. Given the attractive margin profile in this segment, we believe this growth will produce a meaningful impact on our financial performance in the second half and beyond. As further evidence of the evolution of our platform is our recent National Aerospace and Defense Contractor Accreditation Program, NatCap, certification for welding services, which adds to our airspace quality system certifications previously achieved. NatCap certifications ensure that companies meet specific industry standards and requirements, enhancing product quality and reliability. And safety standards are adhered to.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

This certification reflects our dedication to precision, consistency, innovation, and meeting the highest standards required by leading aerospace manufacturers. Over the past quarter, as part of our efforts to restart our growth engine, I have established a key strategic initiative for myself as well as the senior leadership team both at corporate level and in the field to improve customer engagement. The voices of the customer is crucial to us. We have been actively listening in order to better understand our customers' evolving needs as well as their current assessment of our services level. My executive team and I have met with over a 100 customers during the 2025 alone, and the message being received is crystal clear.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

Our customers value our trusted relationships and they are also asking for a more proactive partnership with integrated, agile, customizable solutions, while maintaining cost efficiency. As an example, we've learned that our customers are going through their own management consolidation, restructuring and reorganizations, specifically in the oil and gas industry. During these conversations, we continue to showcase our differentiation and value proposition to our customers, especially when it comes to our integrated digital offerings, predictive analytical tools, and breadth and depths of our global footprint and coverage, which we believe will greatly assist them in reducing their maintenance costs while improving their reliability. In certain cases, we also learned that we have not connected closely enough to our customers. This input we received is invaluable to us and our recent actions will be internalized as we continuously and proactively seek feedback moving forward.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

This dialogue is shaping our capital investment and our R and D roadmap and reinforcing our role as a long term strategic partner for our customers. With respect to our Data Solutions business, this business is a key pillar in our forward strategy where we deliver tailored, high value solutions that integrate our proprietary software and advanced analytics. We recently held our PCMS users conference in Orlando, Florida in June. This conference was once again attended very well with over 110 participants representing over 40 customers. The content was focused on upcoming release of PCMS and recently launched mobile version.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

We also showcased case studies highlighting real world customer successes through the use of three d modeling and digital twins. These case studies were developed based on customer feedback gathered during last year's conference and refined over the intervening period. In a similar manner, our PCMS customers simultaneously expressed their current challenges and needs and share it within a network of industry peers, while at the same time actively engaging in the development of the roadmap for future PCMS software updates and upgrades. Many of our customers also share that digital transformation is a top priority for their organization and that they have allocated budgetary spending in this area to improve asset performance and uptime, which we are well positioned to capitalize on. Again, our primary objective is active engagement and seeking real time input from customers in order to evolve our solutions for them collaboratively, addressing their needs, at the same time maximizing our ROI while maintaining leading edge innovation.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

As part of our end market diversification efforts, we have experienced increased level of overall commercial bid activity, which has real resulted in recent wins in other end market beyond our core in oil and gas. This diversification helped contribute to our 30 basis point improvement in gross profit margin in q one of this year, which greatly expanded to a 200 basis points increase in Q2 of this year, which increased margins across all segments as compared to the prior year comparable periods. We are focusing on areas such as new construction projects related to data centers, AI and other high margin infrastructure and power generation projects, in addition to opportunities in the industrial and other process industries. We have already made good progress in power generation and transmission end market as evidenced by our quarterly revenue growth of over 30%. As we retool, reshape and reinvigorate our business, we have taken many decisive steps to enhance profitability and sharpen our focus.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

This reflects the strengths of our operating model, disciplined cost management and continued focus on driving efficiencies across the business. These results demonstrated our ability to deliver value despite market volatility, positioning us well to restraint restarting our growth engine. We have adjusted our company's organizational structure, delayered the organization, reinforced performance management at each lab, and implemented clear KPIs, which are using to continuously manage performance and control our costs. These are not just short term cost calibrations. They are structural improvements designed to improve and expand decision making capacity, reinforce the field organization and help ensure operating leverage for all business cycles.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

As a result of these efforts, in 2025, we decided to close and consolidate several underperforming offices and lab operations, effectively existing exiting several unprofitable businesses and eliminating operations that had negative income and unclear path to sustainable returns. The revenue loss tied to these labs amounted to approximately $3,000,000 in Q2 and $5,000,000 in the first half, which drove a portion of our 2.3% year over year reported revenue decline. Excluding those exited revenues, our overall revenue base was effectively flat in Q2 as compared to the prior year comparable period. At the same time, these actions have contributed to EBITDA improvements in the first half of the year and will positively reflect in our overall 2025 results and beyond. Ultimately, while these labs closures are short term revenue drag, the strategy to reduce underperforming assets and projects will be an evergreen effort, while focusing on profitable growth to drive margin expansion.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

We have remained focused on the development and retooling of our in lab services business, a process that began with an appointment of a new senior vice president of in lab services in April. Since then, we have integrated and standardized operating protocols across all of our lab facilities, hired a new divisional sales leader, secured additional accreditations and expanded our portfolio of service offerings. Customer conversations have reinforced the industry that the industry continues to face near term inflationary pressures and supply chain constraints. Having said that, we believe our integrated approach coupled with the most comprehensive suite of services in this market positions us well to create meaningful value for our customers via offering premium services and expanding our capacity. Looking ahead, we will continue to invest in this business through strategic and focused capital expenditures and a sharpened focus on growth over both the near and long term.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

Overall, despite this pro form a flat revenue in q two, we significantly improved profitability. We have increased our adjusted EBITDA by 8.9%, driven in large part by gross margin expansion by 200 basis points with expansion across all segments due to diversification efforts and improved operational efficiencies. Our balance sheet also remains strong as we continue to manage our working capital and control discretionary spending, while making continuing investment in our capabilities. Our leverage ratio still remains slightly below 2.75 and well below our permitted ratio of 3.75. Our goal is to finish 2025 with a leverage ratio of below 2.5.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

To conclude my opening remarks, I would like to say that we are not just managing quarter to quarter. We are building for the long term future. We have restarted the growth engine in our industrials and aerospace and defense end markets and are keenly focused on improving our performance and capabilities in oil and gas and diversifying to other industries such as infrastructure and power generation end markets, all of which will drive long term growth. We are also reassessing our portfolio through the lens of return on invested capital and alignment with current and future market trends. Our strategic objective is to become an agile, client focused, innovative, asset integrity, and testing market leader and ready to scale as demand expands.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

In short, we are staying close to our customers, changing what we no longer feeds, improving our bottom line, and investing in what is needed for our customers. As the market continues to evolve, we are focused on aligning our capabilities to meet increasing demand for more integrated and data enabled solutions. By combining advanced technologies with deep operational expertise, we're positioning Mistras to lead in high growth sectors and provide critical support where reliability, safety, and performance matter the most. With that, I will turn the call over to Ed for more financial details on the second quarter and first half results.

Edward Prajzner
Edward Prajzner
Senior EVP & CFO at Mistras Group

Thank you, Natalia. As shown on Slide eight, revenue for the second quarter was $185,400,000 in line with analyst consensus and consistent with the prior year comparable period after adjusting for the business we voluntarily exited related to lab closings and consolidations. While the reported decline in second quarter revenue was modest and not related to any market share loss, we are monitoring trends closely and remain focused on returning to growth in the second half year over year. In spite of the consolidated shortfall in the first half revenue, there was strong growth within certain businesses, such as within our PCMS offering, aerospace and defense, industrials and power generation and transmission end markets and our international segment. Gross profit increased by $2,600,000 in the second quarter versus prior year, which represents a 200 basis point expansion year over year to 29.1%.

Edward Prajzner
Edward Prajzner
Senior EVP & CFO at Mistras Group

This improvement was attributable to an improved business mix and operating efficiencies. We improved adjusted EBITDA to $24,100,000 an all time high second quarter record, resulting in an 8.9 increase from the prior year quarter. This reflects our proactive cost management, operational efficiencies and leverage and a shift towards higher margin offerings. Our adjusted EBITDA margin increased to 13% from 11.7%, an expansion of 130 basis points. As noted in our press release, our results reflect certain overhead and personnel expenses, which have been reclassified from SG and A to cost of revenue, as we determined this reclassification would be preferable as it provides greater transparency regarding the true cost of the company's revenue and aligns with how our business is managed.

Edward Prajzner
Edward Prajzner
Senior EVP & CFO at Mistras Group

These overhead and personnel costs, which were determined to be directly related to the company's delivery of services, are generally variable to revenue being recognized and results in gross profit that fully encompasses all costs necessary to generate such revenue. This reclassification recorded within our financials was $4,800,000 for the three months ended 06/30/2024. The impact of this reclassification for full year 2024 was approximately 20,900,000.0 from s g and a to cost of revenue. This redistribution of overhead and personnel cost has no impact on operating income, net income or adjusted EBITDA comparability. Selling, general and administrative expenses in the second quarter were up $3,600,000 or 10% from the prior year comparable period due primarily to foreign exchange loss within our SG and A of 2,800,000 For the 2025, the company recorded $3,000,000 of reorganization and other cost related to our continuing initiatives to reduce and recalibrate overhead cost in addition to incremental cost of other related actions.

Edward Prajzner
Edward Prajzner
Senior EVP & CFO at Mistras Group

Our effective income tax rate was a benefit for the 2025, whereas we anticipate an effective income tax rate of approximately 25% for the full year 2025 as we experienced in the 2025. Interest expense was $4,200,000 for the second quarter, decreasing by $200,000 or 4.5% from the prior year due to a lower interest rate environment. For the second quarter, we reported GAAP net income of $3,000,000 or $0.10 per diluted share. Excluding special items, non GAAP net income was $5,800,000 or $0.19 per diluted share for the second quarter compared to $6,800,000 or $0.21 per share in the prior year. Operating cash flow was negative $3,500,000 in the 2025, down from $5,100,000 in the prior year, largely due to working capital timing.

Edward Prajzner
Edward Prajzner
Senior EVP & CFO at Mistras Group

Specifically, in the second quarter, we had a buildup in unbilled receivables and a delay in invoicing related to our conversion to a new ERP effective April 1. Although our unbilled and billed receivable balances were up as of June 3025, we expect a significant reduction over the remainder of the year. Free cash flow was negative $16,200,000 in the '5 compared to negative $6,900,000 in the prior year comparable period, attributable to the same factors impacting operating cash flow. On a trailing twelve month basis, which better normalizes year to year differences, our free cash flow was $17,800,000 despite the first half twenty twenty five year over year lagging results compared to the prior year period. We expect normalization in the coming quarters and remain committed to strong free cash flow generation over the 2025.

Edward Prajzner
Edward Prajzner
Senior EVP & CFO at Mistras Group

Our trailing twelve month bank defined leverage ratio was just under 2.75 times as of 06/30/2025, which is up slightly from year end, but still well within allowable permitted ratio of 3.75 times. We expect to finish 2025 with a leverage ratio below 2.5 times. We continue to emphasize debt reduction as our priority use of free cash flow. However, we will also continue to invest in capital expenditures and other resources that support our organic growth strategy while providing solid returns. As our leverage ratio is in line with our expectations, we do currently possess optionality as it relates to free cash flows.

Edward Prajzner
Edward Prajzner
Senior EVP & CFO at Mistras Group

So we will be balancing these two priorities to maximize shareholder value. We will not be providing full year guidance for fiscal twenty twenty five as our CEO and renewed senior management team are still reviewing our entire portfolio of business. We are also continuously assessing market volatility, including the impact of recently enacted tariffs on our business and results for fiscal twenty twenty five. Having said that, we nevertheless expect our 2025 adjusted EBITDA level to exceed the adjusted EBITDA level achieved in 2024, which had been the second highest annual level achieved all time. We appreciate your continued support.

Edward Prajzner
Edward Prajzner
Senior EVP & CFO at Mistras Group

And at this time, I would like to turn the call back over to Natalia for her closing remarks before we move on to take your questions.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

Thank you, Ed. First, our senior leadership team and I, in coordination with our board, are highly engaged and increasingly excited as we continue to develop our five year strategic road map, Vision 2030 for Mistras. We plan to share these details of this plan as we finalize our go to market strategy to capitalize on significant opportunities to enhance growth and profitability in a more holistic way across the entire organization. Second, we believe demand in our key asset integrity end markets is accelerating and broadening. Secular trends in both energy and aerospace and defense markets require deeper integration, high technology expertise, and meaningful data capabilities.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

Mistras is uniquely positioned with our current portfolio of assets, technology, and services and is poised to become a large asset integrity and testing market leader with increased coordination and synergy of these integrated offerings. Third, as we spoke to this quarter, Mistras is committed to profitability as key North Star in our strategic decision making. In both the short term and long term, each decision we make, whether it be operational or through the deployment of the capital and resources, will require improvements in our return. This will be critical on how we measure our people and hold our company to a higher level of accountability. And finally, I would like to extend my sincere thanks to our customers and our dedicated employees.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

Your continued dedication, collaboration, and focus on results have been instrumental in building the momentum that is driving us forward in a stronger and promising future. It is an exciting time at MISTRAS, and I will end my by thanking all of you again for your support. We'll now ask the operator to open the call to your questions.

Operator

We will now begin q and a. For today's session, we will be utilizing the raise hand feature. If you would like to ask a question, simply click on the raise hand button at the bottom of your screen. Once you've been called on, please unmute yourself and begin to ask your question. Thank you.

Operator

We will now pause a moment to assemble the queue. Our first question will come from Mitchell Pinheiro with Sturtevant.

Mitchell Pinheiro
SVP & Director - Research at Sturdivant & Co

Hey. Good morning.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

Good morning, Harish. Yes.

Mitchell Pinheiro
SVP & Director - Research at Sturdivant & Co

Yeah. Good. So hey. Couple questions. First, just on guidance or or the lack thereof.

Mitchell Pinheiro
SVP & Director - Research at Sturdivant & Co

So EBITDA, I got that part. I'm curious about revenue. Is that also gonna be above last year, or are there puts and takes in that? You know, I see you know, from foreign currency and things like that, will there be puts and takes that drive it lower than last year?

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

Right. Mitch, yes. EBITDA is clear. We exceed the the last year results, But revenue, it's hard to tell. We are still continually reviewing our portfolio.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

As you've seen in the first half, you know, we are we did exited few operations, right, few labs. So that's re resulted in decline in revenues. So on top of that, there is a market volatility continues. Right? Tariffs again, you know, additional uncertainties.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

So that's hard for us to control on the revenue side. So we are laser focused on what we can control at this time on and and and really focus on the EBITDA improvements. So, you know, oil and gas still volatile. It's it's very hard to predict what our customers will do. You know, first first half was tough, right, with delays and deferrals of the projects and work.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

So we'll we'll see how it's we'll we'll end up in second half.

Mitchell Pinheiro
SVP & Director - Research at Sturdivant & Co

Okay. I mean, so so within that, like, you did say you expect a strong fall turnaround season. I guess you have good visibility into that. Is that is that correct?

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

That's right, Mitch. Exactly. So that's what's, you know, what gives us line of sight that we will be having a good second quarter. So it's really the turnaround.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

So we have a robust robust backlog of turnarounds work. That's number one. Then, obviously, the large portion of our business is nested sort of embedded teams at our customers that do run and maintain work. So that we have a line of sight to. And then, of course, incremental revenue.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

Right? So as you can see, our data group is doing really well, especially, in particular, PCMS. Right? So we're using this time to really connect with customers and look at the incremental opportunities. As they're looking at, you know, digital transformation, we are right there for them.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

So it might not come from the services in particular, but we we see that, we have line of sight for other incremental revenues.

Mitchell Pinheiro
SVP & Director - Research at Sturdivant & Co

Let me ask, just just staying on on the oil and gas for just a second. Is midstream, which I thought would be more of a regular, predictable revenue stream, has been down for, I don't know, like, quarters or so. You know, I think you were doing a 100,000,000 back in '23, and we're run rating somewhere in the 70,000,000 area. What's what's happened with the midstream? Is that I thought it was sort of temporary, you know, but it seems to be a little more than temporary.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

Yes. We have some challenges. That's that's that's right. You you're correct in that. We have some challenges in the business that particularly service midstream end market customers.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

That challenge is continued through beginning of this year. So most of it is increased competition, increased price, and and or or lower price. Sorry. And, we we have addressed that, so we changed the leader of that particular business. We're looking to, to turn around this business.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

So I believe that the prospects are there because midstream has great opportunities, especially with the demands, for natural gas, the data centers, explosion, and so on. So, we believe that we're well positioned to capitalize on these opportunities in the future. So we continuously invest in this business. But, again, that has been quite challenging in the last in the last couple of quarters.

Mitchell Pinheiro
SVP & Director - Research at Sturdivant & Co

K. Thanks. That's helpful. And then I was, you know, sort of pleased to see and and hear your comments about your customer engagement meeting with, you know, your customers. I I'm curious.

Mitchell Pinheiro
SVP & Director - Research at Sturdivant & Co

Like so so as you guys get together for I think you said, you know, like, a more proactive relationship. I mean, what what does that mean? You know, how's that different than your, you know, relationship now? Or was it all, like, a big relationship and now it's more of a partnership? How how what does can you give a little more color into what that meant?

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

Absolutely. It's been great to to really engage with the customers on all kinds of levels. And and what we are doing here, Mitch, is we're really shifting from transactional relationships to strategic partnerships. Right? What does it mean?

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

It's really three things. It's a strategic alignment. So as we're looking at building the the road map for our investments, for our innovation, for our r and d, right, we want to be very aligned with our customer needs. So, you know, again, PCMS is a great example. They've been doing it for a number of years already.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

So we've gotta get better at in other in other businesses as well. Then the second one is really lead with technical innovation. So we do have Mistras is, you know, historically been really, really good in innovating and and leading with new technologies, and that's what we continue doing is really leading with that. And then the three is really get customers to understand our the full portfolio of services and the entire suite of our integrated solutions. Because, you know, we not just field services.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

We're not just data. We really have the data data analytics solutions. We have field services. We have in lab solutions. We have product and monitoring technologies.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

So what I've learned from my kind of conversations with customers that they did not necessarily were aware of all of our breadth and depths of our service offerings. And that's what we mean by that those integrated solutions, right, where, you know, if today, maybe, you know, they are all very focused on operational efficiencies, we are right there to deliver at low cost at, you know, to meet them where they want to be. So that's what we mean by that kind of stronger partnership, stronger relationships with customers. It's been exciting because feedback was really, really good. So we're doing the right things, the right quality.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

It just the customers are not fully aware of our full, full suite of services.

Mitchell Pinheiro
SVP & Director - Research at Sturdivant & Co

And and and how long does it take, you think, to sort of convert, you know, sort of this new sort of this new relationship that yeah. And their awareness of of your, you know, of your one stop shop and your your robust services. How long does it take before, you know, you sort of see that creeping into the act to the revenue line?

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

Yes. We expect well, first of all, we're already seeing it. Try we're little by little, we're seeing that. So we have already increased that cross sell kind of, when customers are using, you know, not just one service, but two. So we continue we we're seeing it now.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

You know, it will take time, but, again, we we have now have consolidated our sales approach. Right? We hired new salespeople. We are training the entire sales team on all per all our services. Right?

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

So it will take time, but we believe that, again, we're restarting that engine growth now. So we've seen it in aerospace and defense. We've seen it in industrial. Look at our power. Yes.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

It's very small, but, again, increased double digits. You know, very pleased with the efforts of our sales team, of our operational folks, but it it will take a little time.

Mitchell Pinheiro
SVP & Director - Research at Sturdivant & Co

Okay. Just just if I could sneak in one more. Was very pleased to see the well, first, you talked about increased commercial bid activity, which is nice. I'm I'm curious on that. One, is that do you have a different Salesforce or different sales approach, or is there so much demand out there that you're just getting this bid activity just because you're there?

Mitchell Pinheiro
SVP & Director - Research at Sturdivant & Co

And then second, is there is is the power generation, you know, was up 31% or so. It's small, but it's very nice growth. Is that something is is that gonna be sort of the growth engine, you know, of all the smaller segment of you know, among the your smaller segments?

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

Okay. So let let me address the sales first sales question first, and then I comment on power because it's one of my, you know, really exciting topic to talk about. So the the commercial team definitely strengthened the team. Right? Hired just in this quarter alone, we hired seven additional salespeople.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

So sales executives. So we continue to focus on the commercial discipline. So, yes, revenue is important to us, but we do not compromise on profitability. So that discipline that was, you know, instilled by many, you know, in q in last last year, we continue with that. That's number one.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

Number two, again, that strengthening the training training machine of our salespeople so that continuously keep keep happening. And the third one, we really we our lead generation platform. So huge improvements there with the arrival of our chief marketing officer. So and they're working very closely with, our commercial officer. So that's been done, and that's already generating that sufficient amount of bid activity.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

And then we're really working on the maximizing our brand impact. You will see more from coming from us in this third quarter when it comes to our brand. Because, again, Mistras is a is a great brand. We are not leveraging it just, you know, enough. So we we gotta do more on that front.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

And so now moving into power. Yes. Power is definitely one of the item where I I would like us to diversify too because, you know, the the demand for power is unprecedented. Right? Look at AI.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

It's a huge consumer of power. And there's, obviously, now, you know, natural gas, the energy infrastructure, mistrust. This is all core. Right? So data centers.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

This is our core, applied to the new use case. Right? So that's where we feel very strongly, where we can contribute right away. We have already great success this quarter with data centers. The feedback from the customers were excellent.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

We help them to avoid very, very costly repairs and, delays in in going, live with the data center. So, again, very encouraging feedback, and we believe the opportunity is is just great in power gen and transmission.

Mitchell Pinheiro
SVP & Director - Research at Sturdivant & Co

K. And actually Thank you for the time.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

Question. Just back to your question, really, on the midstream. So midstream will will play excellent the the very critical role, when it to the natural gas distribution to data centers. So we believe, again, we are we're going to turn around that business that serve midstream customers, and they have tremendous opportunities. So that's another point that I just wanted to make on on the the energy infrastructure.

Mitchell Pinheiro
SVP & Director - Research at Sturdivant & Co

Okay. Alright. Well, thank you. Thank you for the questions.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

Thank you, Mitch.

Operator

Your next question will come from Chris Sakai with Singular Research. Chris, your line is now open. Feel free to unmute and ask your question.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

Hi, Chris. We

Operator

can go to our next person, and Chris can reenter the queue. Our next question will come from John Franzreb with Sidoti and Company.

Justin Mechetti
Equity Research Associate at Sidoti & Company, LLC

Good morning. This is Justin on for John. Can you hear me?

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

Hi, Justin. Yes. Yes.

Justin Mechetti
Equity Research Associate at Sidoti & Company, LLC

Great. Good morning. So it was great to hear about the strong attendance at the PCMS users conference. Can you share some of the key takeaways from your customer conversations there? And secondly, following the q one rollout of PCMS mobile, how is customer adoption trending?

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

Thank you. Thank you for that question. Yes. PCMS conference is, usually the the hallmark of, our year, and the the team has been, having those conferences on annual basis. So it it's it's had great attendance.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

And, you know, the customer's feedback is is very favorable. You know, the the development and upgrades and new versions of software works very well. So we did include additional modules to the into the new offering. So, again, this was based on the customer feedback, from the, last year conference. For example, digital twin.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

Right? So the, the the modeling of their assets in virtually, that is is being adopted, and a few of our customers already have implemented that, digital twin in their operations. That allow them to really kind of play with the asset, you know, in changing different parameters and see how it will influence their life cycle. We did also introduce additional services when it comes to the risk based inspections. So that business, and we see it's reflecting in the revenue stream as well already.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

So we just mentioned that PCMS alone was 30% up versus prior year. So, again, feedback has been very, very important to us and and, very favorable. So moving forward, there's already an r r and d sort of pipe, right, when it comes to to to the software. But we're also adding AI capabilities, which is very exciting, and this team is very excited about that, how that will allow the customers to implement it sooner and and faster and also introduce it to the their value chain. Because, you know, again, especially, like, oil and gas is pre PCMS servicing predominantly our oil and gas customers.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

All oil and gas customers going through their own digital transformation as they're looking for the pro the the operational efficiencies. So we're right there for them, you know, allowing them to manage their data and and capture it and and use it. So, again, very favorable feedback.

Edward Prajzner
Edward Prajzner
Senior EVP & CFO at Mistras Group

And you mentioned, Justin, mobile as well. Same point there, quicker, faster, collect data at the point, do a calculation in the field. Data is king. The faster we get it up into the the IBM s Workhorse database, more analysis can happen quicker. So mobile being adopted very rapidly.

Edward Prajzner
Edward Prajzner
Senior EVP & CFO at Mistras Group

It's another extension. It's easier to use. And PCMS, that's we we'd be going after that. It's a SaaS service. It's a very quick, easier adoption for the customer, and it keeps us very connected to them.

Edward Prajzner
Edward Prajzner
Senior EVP & CFO at Mistras Group

And mobile is our newest launch there, and and we feel very good about the adoption rate of that. That'll help, you know, increase that connectivity Natalia talked about with the customer, that integrated value add stream. And this data piece is important because it can pull service through. Service can then use the data. They go hand in hand as a great cross selling and opportunity and a leverage for the customer to get, you know, much more information actionable for them.

Edward Prajzner
Edward Prajzner
Senior EVP & CFO at Mistras Group

And the faster we can do it for them all, the better. So hope that hope that answers.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

Yeah. And as you can hear, we all love PCMS story here. So and it's a recurring revenue. You know, one, are we are the customer, so it's it's it's a it's a revenue that is going to recur and reoccur every year. Right?

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

So and we're now servicing half of US oil refineries. So that's kind of now we're it as well. So it's it's a great story.

Justin Mechetti
Equity Research Associate at Sidoti & Company, LLC

Very helpful. Really appreciate the color there. And secondly, can you speak to the demand you're seeing from data center customers and how your services are positioned to support their needs in the back half of the year?

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

So data centers is is another Right? As I just mentioned just a few minutes ago, right, it's certainly it's a great consumer of of power of and and the demand grows exponentially with those data centers. So for us, we are well positioned from two different ways. Right?

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

First is we serve data centers directly. So meaning that this is our core capabilities. You know, when you look at the systems being used in data centers, you know, they need NDT services. It's, you know, it's a cooling. It's it's making sure that there's no failure.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

It's making sure this predictive maintenance, predictive analytics. All of that, right, is our core. So we've been doing it all along, you know, in in with Mistras, and now we're just applying it to data centers. So we are tracking very well. It's one of our top strategic priority in order for us to diversify the company.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

So that's, one thing is is, again, like, data centers. But also then look at the energy infrastructure. Right? How the power gets to to data centers. That's another opportunity for us, again, to serve with those midstream customers that are very excited about data centers as they delivering natural gas to them.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

So, for us, it's a tremendous opportunity. We're yet to capture it fully. So we made great strides this quarter, received very favorable feedback. That's encouraging. And we will report on our progress moving forward.

Justin Mechetti
Equity Research Associate at Sidoti & Company, LLC

Very exciting. Thank you for answering my questions. I'll turn it back.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

Of course. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question our next question will go to Chris Sakai with Singular Research. Please go ahead.

Christopher Sakai
Analyst at Singular Research

Yes. Hi. Good morning. Can you hear me?

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

Yes. Hi. Good morning, Chris.

Christopher Sakai
Analyst at Singular Research

Oh, okay. Great. I just wanted to ask about the gross profit margin improvement for the quarter. Is this something that that we can expect going forward, or is this a onetime mix shift? Can you give us some more color there?

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes. Very happy with the progress. So the drivers behind gross profit expansions are really three.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

One is diversification that we just talked about. Right? It's focused on that, you know, high margin business. So secondly, it's operational efficiencies. So when you think about, you know, managing bill rates on up build, unbilled training cost, our operations doing really good job in looking at the how to generate those operational efficiencies.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

So, again, that is something that and that that we believe that we can we can do better job. And the third one, you know, if we're looking at the moving forward, we've done pretty good job, I would say, in in the second quarter. We most likely will moderate off here and there a little, you know, but we expect that level of of our gross margins to sustain itself, you know, in the second half and beyond.

Christopher Sakai
Analyst at Singular Research

Okay. Great. And then can you talk about the new ERP system? You know, what what can we expect as far as the improvement there goes in the second half as far as unbilled and billed account accounts receivable is concerned?

Edward Prajzner
Edward Prajzner
Senior EVP & CFO at Mistras Group

Sure, Chris. Thanks for the question. Yeah. So we went to April 1 adoption of it's a cloud SaaS version of our prior system. So we went to the latest version of of our incumbent.

Edward Prajzner
Edward Prajzner
Senior EVP & CFO at Mistras Group

So as as, expected or as is normal, we had some learning curve growing pains there as we cut over. Obviously, we had to delay itself in cutting over the data. So, yes, admittedly, we fell behind on generating WIP into build AR, and invoicing customers timely. So that delay we talked about in the script did cause a buildup. You know, that WIP value went up in April.

Edward Prajzner
Edward Prajzner
Senior EVP & CFO at Mistras Group

It's back down in June, so there is a much higher, healthier level of AR to collect during the third quarter. So we have confidence that free cash flow does get better over the second half, significantly better. Going forward, we're now coming up the learning curve, getting more efficient. There's more workflows built in and efficiencies in in the new ERP, but it'll take a little time to extract out the the full benefits there. Again, getting through the learning curve, it it was a significant change.

Edward Prajzner
Edward Prajzner
Senior EVP & CFO at Mistras Group

New reports, new process flow. The good thing is it's very standardized. There's one way of doing it, one process, one chart of accounts. So there is a a great way to standardize, regionalize, and centralize, and standardize how we're thinking and how we're operating. So benefits to be had going forward.

Edward Prajzner
Edward Prajzner
Senior EVP & CFO at Mistras Group

Think of it as leveraging the footprint. We can grow the company now on this better backbone we built where we're not adding people as we expand. We'll be able to leverage the system going forward and grow the company on top of and and we're looking at other related systems, off workflow related, you know, data flows, reports, and systems that run the operations. We're looking at all of that now as well to really enhance and speed up decision making going forward. That's the benefit.

Edward Prajzner
Edward Prajzner
Senior EVP & CFO at Mistras Group

All these cost efficiencies, Natalia talked about efficiencies, will come from, you know, working all eyes in one place, working on a very common platform. But there's still, you know, opportunities in front of us to to maximize the dashboard and the decision making and speed it up from the new system. It know, it'll take a few more months to really ideally maximize that. But we're in a good place right now, and we'll take full advantage of that. And we will absolutely get the the the build AR back on cycle here and and and flip the the cash flow in the second half. We're very confident about that.

Christopher Sakai
Analyst at Singular Research

Okay. Sounds good on that. And then lastly, can you give an idea about the any sort of reorganization extra reorganization costs in the second half of the year? Are we gonna see something similar to the second quarter? Or or how do we how should we go about that, looking at that?

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

Yeah. Maybe, Chris, I will start on that, and Ed will, add additional details on what to expect. So so, you know, as I'm you know, took over, right, at the beginning of the year, we are continuously recalibrating our structure. Right? So we continue to assess our portfolio, our teams.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

We are, as I mentioned before, making it more integrated companies. So we're breaking those silos that we had before. We've been layered the organization. So that's helping us with, again, this going as a one stop shop to our customers as a one single front solution. And for us, it will continue.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

It will it will be evergreen efforts to make the organization more agile, more efficient, more kind of, more more changing as we need to change. Right? So having said that, we do not expect the large restructuring charges or cost, moving forward. So there will be some, but going to be sort of moderate. Let's put it this way.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

So what we continue to assess and calibrate the the organization, for sure, our structure and and our you know, kind of our cost, right, as well. Do you want to

Edward Prajzner
Edward Prajzner
Senior EVP & CFO at Mistras Group

Yeah.

Edward Prajzner
Edward Prajzner
Senior EVP & CFO at Mistras Group

No. No. Absolutely right, Chris. Or, I'm sorry. It will moderate, Chris, to your point in the second half.

Edward Prajzner
Edward Prajzner
Senior EVP & CFO at Mistras Group

We we go after a rather rapid, you know, return and payback for the actions we take. So, you know, the you know, continuing to balance headcount and facilities, we had the lab closures we talked about. That will continue. We'll continue to recalibrate as we go. There was a few onetime charges in the in the first half that won't recur in the second half, so that number will drop back off.

Edward Prajzner
Edward Prajzner
Senior EVP & CFO at Mistras Group

But, again, we're gonna continue to make sure that the overhead footprint is supportive of the current run rate of revenue and the business, and we're in a good place right now. But that number will will definitely drop off. It's it is significantly higher than last year at this point through six months, but it will drop back off in the in the second half and moderate as we as we go forward. But we will continue to make this an important priority here to make sure that we're continuing to keep the footprint ready to flex and leverage up with volume, and, you know, it it's keeping it balanced.

Christopher Sakai
Analyst at Singular Research

Okay. Great. Thanks for the answers.

Edward Prajzner
Edward Prajzner
Senior EVP & CFO at Mistras Group

Thank you.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

Thank you.

Operator

At this time, I see no callers in the queue. So I will hand the call back to Ms. Schumann for her closing remarks.

Natalia Shuman
Natalia Shuman
Director, President & CEO at Mistras Group

Well, thank you, operator, and thank you, everyone, for joining this important call today and for continued interest in Mistras. I look forward to providing you with an update on our business vision 2030 strategic plan and progress achieved towards our ongoing initiatives on our next call. Call. Thank you very much. Have a good day.

Operator

This ends today's conference call. You may disconnect at this time.

Executives
    • Thomas Tobolski
      Thomas Tobolski
      SVP - Finance & Treasurer
    • Natalia Shuman
      Natalia Shuman
      Director, President & CEO
    • Edward Prajzner
      Edward Prajzner
      Senior EVP & CFO
Analysts
    • Mitchell Pinheiro
      SVP & Director - Research at Sturdivant & Co
    • Justin Mechetti
      Equity Research Associate at Sidoti & Company, LLC
    • Christopher Sakai
      Analyst at Singular Research
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