Prepared remarks
Greetings, and welcome to Innovative Aerosystems Third Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call. Please note this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Paul Bartolai. Thank you. You may begin.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Innovative Aerosystems Third Quarter Fiscal 2026 Results Conference Call. Leading the call today are our CEO, Shahram Askarpour; and CFO, Jeff DiGiovanni. This morning, we issued a press release detailing our fiscal 2026 third quarter operational and financial results. This release is publicly available in the Investor Relations section of our corporate website at www.iascorp.com. I would like to remind you that management's commentary and responses to questions on today's conference call may include forward-looking statements, which, by their nature, are uncertain and outside of the company's control. Although these forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations and beliefs, actual results could differ materially. Our management believes that these forward-looking statements are reasonable. However, you should not place undue reliance on any such forward-looking statements because such statements speak only as of today's date. We do not undertake any obligations to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. In addition, forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, events and developments to differ materially from our historical experience and our present expectations or projections. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those described in the reports which we file with the SEC. For a discussion of some of the factors that could cause actual results to differ, please refer to the Risk Factors section of our latest reports filed with the SEC. During the call, we will reference certain non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of these measurements to the most directly comparable measure calculated in accordance with GAAP is provided in the press release, which is also available on our website. Today's call will begin with prepared remarks from Shahram, who will provide a review of our recent business performance and an update on our strategic framework, followed by a financial update from Jeff. At the conclusion of these prepared remarks, we will open the line for your questions. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Shahram.
Thank you, Paul, and good morning to everyone joining us on the call today. During the third quarter, the IA team delivered another strong operational and financial performance, driven by continued organic growth, improved margin realization and free cash flow conversion. Importantly, beyond our strong financial performance, we made meaningful progress advancing the key strategic priorities that we believe will drive sustainable long-term value creation. These progress points include some recent developments such as the acquisition of Aydin Displays and a new OEM contract with a leading developer of electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, which represents the first major award based on our Liberty Flight Deck. I will discuss each of these important items later in my remarks. We are excited by the strong momentum in our business, and we are confident we are well positioned for a solid finish to fiscal 2026 while building momentum into fiscal 2027. I will now discuss third quarter results in greater detail. Despite a difficult prior year comparison, I'm pleased to state that we were able to generate approximately 11% revenue growth in the third quarter, highlighting what remains a period of increased demand across our commercial aftermarket and business aviation markets. Our disciplined execution, combined with a more favorable business mix and improved operating leverage contributed to third quarter net income of $4.5 million or $0.25 per diluted share compared to $0.14 a year ago. Gross margin of nearly 52% compared to 36% last year and adjusted EBITDA growth of approximately 75% from a year ago, highlighting the strength and scalability of our business model. These results reflect our disciplined execution of IA Next, our long-term value creation strategy focused on organic growth through innovation and integrated solutions, operational excellence and disciplined returns-focused capital allocation. I'll now provide additional details on our recent progress and the strategic priorities that will drive our performance going forward. In July, we announced the acquisition of Aydin Displays, a leading developer and manufacturer of rugged display technologies serving defense, industrial and other mission-critical aerospace applications. Aydin is located right up the road from Exton in Birdsboro, PA and currently supports over 20 military platforms across more than 80 countries. Aydin brings with it a leased vertically integrated manufacturing facility. Together with our Exton facility, we will be able to serve our customers more efficiently and further grow our business with the expanded footprint. Aydin enhances our display technology capabilities, bringing us additional engineering talent, proven display technologies and a respected product portfolio that aligns closely with our integrated avionics solutions. Aydin further strengthens our position in our traditional military avionics markets through exposure to new defense platforms. Additionally, the acquisition expands our military business into naval and ground programs and also diversifies our business into industrial applications, including the medical instrument market. This is our first acquisition of an operating business and demonstrates the broadening scope of our M&A strategy beyond the product line acquisitions we've historically pursued. Looking ahead, we will continue to target aerospace and defense component product lines and businesses with significant aftermarket potential, proprietary content, above-market growth, strong cash generation and profitability. Our acquisition pipeline remains very active. As we build the business through accretive acquisitions, we also remain highly focused on continuing to drive organic growth through new product introductions, cross-selling initiatives and contract wins. To that end, in August, we announced an exciting new contract win with a leading Japanese developer of electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. Under the agreement, IA will develop the main display and avionics architecture for an eVTOL aircraft program. This is the first OEM program based on our Liberty Flight Deck, highlighting the growing commercial validation of our technology. We expect early engineering work to begin in Q4 2026 with initial production targeted for late 2027. We currently expect to progress towards full production during 2028, in support of the customer's targeted 2028 full-scale commercial launch. The program currently holds a total of over 400 eVTOL orders from partners in Japan and overseas. The advanced air mobility market represents one of the most exciting frontiers in aviation and our flexible integrated avionics platforms are ideally suited for this market. This program reflects our continued focus on developing next-generation systems that enable safer, smarter and more capable flight across both traditional and emerging aviation platforms. As previously discussed, we completed the development and certification of the UMS Version 2. Production began in June of this year and Q3 revenues benefited from this product line. The Radio Management Unit contract with L3 is at its final certification phase and production deliveries will commence in Q1 of our fiscal 2027. The KC-767 contract with Boeing is progressing per plan and production deliveries will commence in Q2 of our fiscal 2027. In addition to progress on our strategic initiatives, we recently made meaningful strides in our corporate rebranding and efforts to expand market visibility. Last October, we announced our rebranding to Innovative Aerosystems, a pivotal step in our broader strategic evolution. Building on that momentum, we are pleased to announce our planned NASDAQ ticker symbol change to IA, better aligning our public market identity with our corporate name, brand and long-term strategy. The company will cease trading under the NASDAQ ticker symbol ISSC and begin trading under the symbol IA, effective at the U.S. market open on August 18. To mark this milestone, members of our leadership team will be in New York to ring the NASDAQ closing bell on August 18. Additionally, on June 29, IA was added as a member of the U.S. Small Cap Russell 2000 Index as part of the 2026 Russell Indexes reconstitution. This is an important milestone in our company's evolution and is a direct reflection of the important progress we have made against our strategic priorities and long-term investments we have been making to scale our business. In summary, we are excited by our strong third quarter results as well as the important progress towards our strategic plan. Based on our strong business momentum and successful execution, we are confident we remain well on track to achieve our long-term $250 million revenue target. As before, we remain focused on our strategy, energized by the opportunities ahead and committed to creating long-term value for our shareholders in the years ahead. With that, I'll turn the call over to Jeff for his prepared remarks.
Thank you, Shahram, and good morning to all those joining us. Today, I will provide a high-level overview of our third quarter performance, including a discussion of our balance sheet and our liquidity profile at quarter end and conclude with comments on our outlook for the business, which remains positive given current demand conditions. We generated net revenues of $26.7 million in the third quarter, up approximately 11% from the third quarter last year, driven by another quarter of strong organic growth in our commercial aviation and business jet markets, partially offset by an elevated prior year comparison within our F-16 business. As a reminder, in the third quarter of 2025, F-16 revenues were $12.6 million as there was a pull forward of revenue due to the transition of manufacturing into an Exton facility as compared to $5.7 million in the current quarter. Excluding the F-16 revenue from both periods and the new acquisitions, our business grew by over 40% during the third quarter. Product sales were $17.5 million during the third quarter, up from $16.6 million during the same period last year, driven by strong sales into our commercial and business aviation markets. Service revenue was $9.2 million, up from $7.5 million in the same period last year due to growth in service volumes related to the IRUs and autopilot product lines. Gross profit was $13.8 million during the third quarter, up 61% from $8.6 million in the same period last year. The improvement was driven by revenue growth and a favorable sales mix given the strong commercial aftermarket growth. As we've discussed previously, we experienced some lumpiness in the timing of expense recognition during the manufacturing transition from Honeywell that impacted our quarterly results. Last year's third quarter results were impacted by elevated costs on the F-16 product line as Honeywell incurred extra expenses in order to expedite the building of safety stock ahead of fully transitioning production to us. As a result, our third quarter gross margin was 51.7%, up from 35.6% last year. This is our fourth consecutive quarter with gross margins of at least 50%. Operating expense during the third quarter of 2026 was $7.8 million, an increase from $5.1 million during the same period last year. R&D expense increased by approximately $1 million as compared to the prior year. As previously discussed, the company is accelerating investments in R&D to drive long-term growth for the next-gen capabilities that support multiple platforms and end markets. As such, we continue to expect elevated R&D spending to support our growth initiatives. Net income was $4.5 million or $0.25 per diluted share during the third quarter compared to net income of $2.4 million or $0.14 per share in the third quarter of last year. Adjusted net income, which includes the same adjustments made to adjusted EBITDA in addition to an adjustment for the amortization of acquired intangibles, was $6 million for the quarter as compared to $2.9 million last year. Adjusted earnings per diluted share were $0.33 versus $0.16 last year. Adjusted EBITDA was $7.7 million during the third quarter, up from $4.4 million in the third quarter of last year due to the solid revenue growth and more favorable revenue mix, partially offset by the continued investments in R&D to drive long-term growth for the next-gen capabilities that support multiple platforms and end markets. Moving on to backlog. New orders in the third quarter of fiscal 2026 were $22.7 million and backlog as of June 30 was approximately $83 million, an increase of approximately $5.5 million over the comparable prior year period. Backlog represents the value of contracts and purchase orders less revenue recognized to date on those contracts and purchase orders. The backlog includes committed purchases and excludes potential future sole-source production under the company's engineering development contract programs. Next, turning to cash, cash and cash equivalents were $10.7 million compared to $10.3 million in the year ago comparable period, driven by our solid operating results and financial discipline. Capital expenditures during the first 9 months of 2026 were $3.2 million versus $5.5 million in the year ago period. Free cash flow was $12.3 million during the first 3 quarters of the year, up from $4.8 million in the previous year. Our strong free cash flow reflects the capital-light nature of our business model, translating into consistently strong conversion rates. At the end of third quarter of 2026, we had total debt of $54.5 million and cash and cash equivalents of $10.7 million, resulting in net debt of $43.8 million. Net debt increased $21 million from the year ago period despite more than $35 million deployed towards acquisitions and capital expenditures in support of growth initiatives. As of June 30, we had total cash and availability on our line of credit of approximately $53.7 million. Our net leverage at the end of the quarter was 1.4x despite the recent acquisitions. Our modest leverage, combined with our availability under our expanded credit facility gives us significant financial flexibility to continue executing on our strategic initiatives. Before we move into our Q&A session, I'd like to provide our current thoughts around the outlook for the remainder of the fiscal 2026. As we look ahead, we expect to close out our fiscal 2026 on a positive note. We expect to generate fourth quarter revenue around $28 million to $30 million, including continued expected organic growth and the contribution from recent acquisitions. That completes our prepared remarks. Operator, we are now ready for the question-and-answer portion of the call.
Questions and answers
Please proceed with your questions. Our first question comes from Bobby Brooks with Northland Capital Markets.
I wanted to unpack the eVTOL program win yesterday, very exciting news, but wanted to hear more about how this win came about. How long was the sales process attached to it? Then the last piece, you cite like $50 million total contract value. Is that assuming all 400-plus units are produced? Or just how should we be thinking about that $50 million?
We're having a little bit of a phone issue here. For your first question of how long was the sales process, it's been about a year now that we've been working with this company to finalize agreements and put them in place. In terms of your question about what the value of the contract is, we really can't comment on that right now. It's early on. We know they have about 400 airplanes in the backlog, but that's not the extent of this program. We believe that there is a significant number of aircraft that are going to be produced by this manufacturer.
That contract value is assuming all 400-plus get shipped out.
Got it. That's helpful. Maybe you could touch on what led you to get this win — the factors you think contributed. Obviously Liberty Flight Deck is very customizable, and I'm guessing that was one part. Was there anything else important to note about landing that win?
When we look at the cockpit of some of these newer aircraft that are coming into the market, the customization of their graphics and the cockpit displays is very important and key to the operators. Our system is very flexible, and we can customize it at a very reasonable cost, and that's essentially what made it attractive to this particular company. But we're seeing similar interest from a number of aircraft manufacturers. Again, this is the first air mobility aircraft that we've signed the contract with, but it's not the only one that we see on the horizon.
Got it. That's helpful. And then just last week, Honeywell Aerospace called out some challenges within their own supply chain, specifically relating to electronic suppliers. My initial thought is this wouldn't be you or affecting you, but just wanted to confirm that and hear anything you might be seeing within your own supply chain?
Our supply chain is a little bit different than Honeywell's supply chain as we don't outsource our circuit cards. We build them in-house. We don't have those kinds of issues that they have. Also, the basic principles that we've had in our product development for years has always been that we make sure any component that we have multiple sources available. Sometimes we even qualify some of the key components, like the LCD, for example, with LCDs from multiple suppliers and multiple manufacturers that make the same size. So we don't get into this trap of supply chain concentration. Internationally, there's a lot of changes happening with the political environment, and that's created issues for companies that a few years ago outsourced IP and production abroad in Southeast Asia. That has created some of the supply chain challenges for them now because they don't have the in-house capabilities to do it themselves.
That's super helpful color, Shahram. I really appreciate it. And then just one last question for me. Jeff, in your prepared remarks I think you said that, excluding the F-16 year-over-year comps, the sales this quarter, and I believe acquisitions as well, you gave a growth rate. Could you just repeat that?
Yes. So what we do is we backed out the F-16 over comparable periods because keep in mind, this time last year, there was about $12 million of F-16 revenue that got sort of front-loaded because of the buildup of inventory before the change over to the Exton facility versus $5 million this quarter. So when you back those two out and the acquisitions revenue, we came in about 40% growth year-over-year.
On the organic side?
Correct.
Our next question comes from Josh Sullivan with JonesTrading & Company.
Just as you guys execute on your long-term strategy here and the recent acquisitions, how do we think of that 50% gross margin run rate you're doing over the last 4 quarters here looking ahead?
I think the guidance we've given before was somewhere around 45% to 50%. Again, quarter-by-quarter, depending on the product mix that we sell, those margins are going to vary. But around 50% is where we're heading. On some of these product lines that we acquired as well, the in-sourcing of the circuit cards is ongoing right now. We believe that once all of that is completed, those margins should become more uniform and fall within that 50% gross margin, which is our ultimate goal to try to keep it there.
But moreover, we're really focusing on the EBITDA margin, where we've said before about 25% to 30% overall from an EBITDA margin perspective.
Okay. And then you made a comment about the medical instrument market in your prepared remarks there. Is this just did it just come with the acquisition? Or is this an area where we could see some efforts going forward?
Aydin is in the mission display business and some of those applications fall within the medical instrument industry. They do have a small portion of revenue that comes from that market and it allows us to seek other opportunities. For example, there is more to medical instruments than just the display side of it. At IA, we have the capabilities to go into that area of the market. We've never done that before. Gaining customers in the medical instrument area would allow us to evaluate whether there are additional products we can develop for that market. The volumes are obviously much higher than the aviation and aerospace market for those products.
And then just coming out of Farnborough Airshow, any regulatory dynamics we should be thinking about looking at potential ATC funding or altimeters or anything from next-gen FAA we should be thinking about as it relates to IA's strategy?
Farnborough was interesting. The mandate coming out of the FAA for the 5G-friendly radar altimeters is coming up. We do not have a radar altimeter in our product portfolio, so that doesn't benefit us directly. But we continue looking at teaming as well as acquisitions and we look at product lines that have a good future within them. Radar altimeter is one of the product lines that is on our acquisition strategy.
Our next question comes from Greg Palm with Craig-Hallum.
Congrats on a lot of positive news. I wanted to maybe start because the 40% kind of organic on a more apples-to-apples comparison was pretty impressive, and it could be hard for some of us to kind of delineate the growth drivers. So I don't know, based on like end market exposure and the various programs, what are the biggest drivers of that? Like how much of that is just you're tied to some end markets that are growing versus some of these new programs or product lines that are starting to ramp?
I think with the aging fleet, you're seeing services go up in terms of replacement as well as just repairs. So that's what we saw driving growth in the commercial side. As well as business aviation, this was the quarter we started shipping the UMS2, so we actually have the growth in there from a UMS2 perspective year-over-year. Business aviation was a little down last year, and you're seeing that pick up mainly with the UMS2 for that product line. But you're seeing growth drivers in both business aviation and, a little bit in the military as well this quarter besides the F-16. And then we saw it mostly in the commercial air transport, again, both in the product sales as well as services-related activities.
Okay. And as it relates to military, I think the F-16 was at or maybe even above the higher end of what you had talked about, and it was up. I think the F-16 specifically was up significantly versus last quarter. Just help us understand, are you ramping that up a little bit faster than you thought? Was there anything kind of one-time in the quarter?
Last quarter, we were down on the F-16. Part of that was because of one of the product lines; we have two product lines that we acquired for the F-16. One is the digital flight control computer and the other one is the mission display generator. The mission display generator transition completed last quarter, more towards the end of the quarter, which limited the amount of deliveries we could do on that product line. So this Q3 was the first quarter that we had full production for the whole period of three months. We're hitting that kind of $5 million range per quarter that we think is sustainable long term.
Okay, fair enough. I wanted to shift gears to the press release last night. I thought it was interesting, so I have a couple of questions. Regarding the $50 million in contracted value, I just want to be clear, Jeff, you said that was based on the customer's 400 orders. Hypothetically, if this customer made thousands of these aircraft, would you see a substantial increase over that amount? Are you the sole source on this program?
We're going to be part of the certification of the baseline of the equipment, so typically you become sole source on it. The $50 million in value was a nominal number at this stage. At this point, you really don't know what the final thing is going to look like. I remember when we did the system for Pilatus for the PC-24, our expectations were 30 shipsets a year based on what we were told. We're delivering close to 60 shipsets a year now on that platform. This initial program that we have right now over the next year is really an engineering development program to configure the system to their requirements. Once production begins, I believe we will see growth in their volume. It is an impressive platform compared to other companies that have done similar air mobility aircraft.
Yes. Okay. And as it relates to this, how big of an opportunity is that whether it's air mobility, eVTOL opportunity versus some of the other newer aircraft? Where are you seeing in terms of your pipeline the most opportunities for Liberty?
I think the air mobility systems market is where eventually the industry is heading. The opportunities are huge. It's difficult to put a single number on it, but the potential is significant when you consider the number of aircraft being discussed across the industry. The key questions are how quickly and how nimbly you can modify your system to work on multiple platforms. That's where we see our advantage in this market. There are several established players — Honeywell, Rockwell Collins and Thales — but our flexibility and ability to customize quickly is a differentiator.
We have reached the end of the question-and-answer session. I'd now like to turn the call back over to management for closing comments.
Thank you, operator, and thank you, everybody, for joining our call today. Have a nice day.
This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and we thank you for your participation.