InfuSystem Holdings, Inc. Price & Performance (INFU)

Good morning, and thanks you for joining us today to review InfuSystem fourth quarter and full year 2024 financial results ended 12/31/2024. With us today in the call are Rich Diorio, Chief Executive Officer Barry Steele, Chief Financial Officer and Carrie LeChamps, President and Chief Operating Officer. After the conclusion of today's prepared remarks, we'll open the call for questions. Before we begin with prepared remarks, I would like to remind everyone certain statements made by the management team of InfuSystem during this conference call constitute forward looking statements. Within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Except for the statements of historical fact, this conference call may contain forward looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties some of which are detailed under Risk Factors and documents filed by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the annual report on Form 10 ks for the year ended December 31, 2023. Forward looking statements speak only as of the date the statements were made. The company can give no assurance that such forward looking statements will prove to be correct. If InfuSystem does not undertake and specifically disclaims any obligation to update any forward looking statements except as required by law.

Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Rich Di'Orio, Chief Executive Officer of InfuSystem. Rich, Thank you, Joe, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to NPS Systems' fourth quarter and fiscal twenty twenty four year end earnings call. Thank you all for joining us today. I'll begin the call with an overview of the fourth quarter and the year, After that, Barry will provide a detailed summary of our financial results.

Carol will give an update on our launch of Chemo Mugpiece and then I'll have some additional comments before opening the line to questions. At the start of last year, we announced that 2024 would be an accretion year, year. After growing 14.4% in 2023, in part due to the rollout of the national service agreement with GE Healthcare, we communicated that our focus would be on continuous process improvements designed to deliver greater efficiencies and higher recurring and long term profits. Our financial targets for the year were high single digit revenue growth and adjusted EBITDA margin in the high teens improving on the 17.8% result delivered in 2023. [indiscernible] The year started out slowly, but as is common for our business, momentum grew as we progressed through the year. With the third quarter showing us tracking towards our targets. Our business momentum continued into the fourth quarter and we delivered on our objective of making 2024 an accretion year. [indiscernible] Gross margins increased year over year by a full 2% to 52.2%. Operating income increased 69% from last year. To $6,900,000 and adjusted EBITDA increased 13% to $25,300,000 Our adjusted EBITDA margin in the third and fourth quarters exceeded 22% and for the full year came in at 18.8%, a full percentage point increase over 2023. [indiscernible] This result is after $735,000 of technology systems upgrade costs that were not included in our original forecast for the year.

Our revenue growth in 2024 also built up as we work through the year. As we added new projects and scaled existing business lines. We ended the year with revenues up 7.2% versus the prior year.

This step up was a result of growth in almost every business line, including oncology and pain management, which were up 6.114.7% respectively. In device solutions, equipment sales by 20.6% driven by a large one time transaction in the third quarter The Biomed grew by 6.7%. The one business line that came in below our expectations for the year was Wound Care, and this was not due to a lack of business opportunity. But rather due to our decision to pause the onboarding of some new initiatives at the end of the year to ensure that the quality of the referrals align with existing resources and expectations as we prepare to ramp this initiative in 2025. Much of our recent focus in wound care involves partnering with regional wound care DME companies to leverage our extensive payer contracts and expand upon our historic revenue cycle capabilities. We see a significant amount of opportunity for revenue cycle in the wound care space and because of its long term importance, we are taking a conservative approach taking time to test our processes and improve the ways we are receiving the referrals so we can scale effectively. This new business is in addition to the Smith and Nephew Negative Pressure partnership, which continues to scale up as expected.

As we've highlighted in the past, our core businesses specifically in oncology and pump rentals are capital intensive. That is growth requires investments in pumps to enable incremental growth. Our newer initiatives in wound care and biomed are far less capital intensive and accordingly will generally result in greater free cash flow. We can see the growing impact of this changing business in our 2024 financial statements. Our debt balance at year end was down to a little more than $23,000,000 And remember, we still have a long term interest rate swap on the first $20,000,000 of debt at favorable below market rates We paid down debt in 2024 at a historic rate and we did that after some larger than expected pump purchases during the year and $1,200,000 of stock repurchases. Also as reported in the press release, we have repurchased an additional $2,400,000 in the first quarter of twenty twenty five. I'll stop here and turn the call over to Barry to discuss our financial results in more detail. Barry? Thank you, Rich, and thank you everyone on the call for joining us today. I'm going to focus on three topics including the main drivers for the current quarter's results I'll then talk about the high tax rate we show for the quarter and finally, I'll update you on our current financial position and how it changed during the quarter.

Now let me start with our financial results for the period. During the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four, our net revenue totaled 33,800,000.0 representing a $2,000,000 or 7% increase from the prior year fourth quarter. That included growth in both of our operating segments or 8%. And the device solutions segment having increased net revenue of 475,000 or 4%. Higher net revenue for the Patient Services segment included increases due to higher treatment volumes in all three therapies. Oncology net revenue increased by nearly 1,000,000 or 6%.

Advanced Wound Care revenue totaling 700,000 was up by 342%. And pain management increased by 23%. These increases were partially offset by lower negative pressure wound therapy equipment sales due to a difficult comparison that included a surge in equipment leases in the prior year. The growth in device solutions was primarily attributable to higher rental revenues, coming from new customers and was partially offset by lower biomedical services revenue related to a greater amount of seasonal downtime and large project timing impacts.

Gross profit for the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four was $18,200,000 which was $1,500,000 or 16% higher than the prior year fourth quarter. Our gross margin percentage was 53.8% representing a 1.2% improvement over the prior year fourth quarter amount of 52.6%. This improvement was mainly driven by favorable revenue mix favoring high margin revenue such as oncology and rentals, and lower negative pressure worn therapy equipment sales. Selling, general and administrative expenses for the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four totaling $15,600,000 was about the same as the prior year despite including approximately $500,000 in expenses during the quarter associated with our business application upgrade project and a higher short term incentive expense accrual which was approximately $500,000 higher. These increases were offset by lower selling during the current year period as compared with the twenty twenty three fourth quarter. Adjusted EBITDA during the twenty twenty four fourth quarter was $7,500,000 or 22% of net net revenue. Which represented an increase of over $1,300,000 or 22% from the prior year fourth quarter. Our effective tax rate for the twenty twenty four fourth quarter was 59% and was 54% for the full year. About 10% of this amount reflects tax deduction shortages and equity compensation.

That is the amount of actual tax benefits or deductions related to equity compensation realized by our employees was lower than the amounts expense for book purposes. This is because of the reduced value of equity awards related to the lower market price of our stock over the last few years. We expect this effect to continue in 2025, however, Other contributors to the higher rate include limitations on deductibility of reimbursed meals for our travel teams and officers' compensation, and impacts for local and foreign income taxes for jurisdictions where we do business. Our tax expense continues to be mostly non cash due to the utilization of net operating loss carry forwards. Turning to a few points on our financial position and capital reserves. Our operating cash flow for the fourth quarter totaled $7,900,000 This amount was 70% higher than the amount for the prior year fourth quarter This increase was due to higher operating income net of non cash expenses and a reduction in our working capital levels as compared to the prior year when our working capital increased. The increase for the prior year, you may recall, was partly due to high amount of sales type lease revenue for nitrile pressure equipment and due to the growth of a contract asset associated with the GE Healthcare contract during the prior year's onboarding period.

The increase contributed to the twenty twenty twenty four full year amount of operating cash flow, which totaled $20,500,000 representing an all time annual record topping the previous record set in 2020 during COVID. Our net capital expenditures were $3,300,000 during the twenty twenty four fourth quarter was higher than the $1,400,000 we spent during the fourth quarter in 2023. The amount during the current period was focused on infusion pumps needed support increased volume in oncology and the device solutions rental business. Both of which are expected to contribute to 2025 revenue growth. We continue to anticipate that our overall capital spending requirements will moderate as compared to amounts in prior years as the sources for our revenue revenue growth will continue to be more weighted towards less capital intensive revenue sources. Such as biomedical services and advanced wound care supplies. We continue to be positioned well to fund continued net revenue growth with the growing cash flow from operations backed by significant liquidity reserves. Available from a revolving line of credit, and manageable leverage Our net debt decreased by $4,300,000 during the fourth quarter and by $5,300,000 for the full year to $23,300,000 This despite having spent nearly $1,200,000 during the year under our stock repurchase Our available liquidity continue to be strong and totaled more than $51,000,000 as of December 31, 2024, Our ratio of total debt to adjusted EBITDA a modest point nine two times.

Our debt consists of borrowing on our revolving line of credit with no term payment requirements more than three years in the remaining term and with $20,000,000 of the outstanding balance locked in at a below market rate, by an interest rate swap having the same expiration. Now I'll turn it over to Carey.

Thanks, Barry. I'd like to provide an update on KEYOMELFI. You will recall that in September, SI Healthcare Technologies our joint venture with SenaraMedTech, signed an exclusive distribution agreement for KEYMA mouthpiece. This product is used to reduce the incidence and severity of oral mucositis in patients undergoing chemotherapy. The device received five ten clearance in the first half of twenty twenty four and then received an initial CPT code for the reimbursement in July of twenty twenty four. Tenera helps identify the opportunity and InfuSystem with our deep relationships into more than 2,000 oncology centers is well positioned to distribute and support the product. We are providing the tip of the spear for distributions for our existing oncology sales force aided by additional sales personnel from other parts of our business. We've made broad initial contact with our customers to educate on the availability of this new treatment opportunity and the reimbursement to hospitals provided by the CPT code. We have received a few small orders and are starting to see interest and momentum built. We are working with our partners at Chemo Maltese and are impressed by their clinical and marketing investment and capabilities. Currently, are awaiting the publication of two clinical papers, The first on the medical efficacy of cryotherapy treatment and the second on the economics to hospitals of reducing the incidence of oral mucositis and the costs associated with treating patients with severe cases.

Precisely when the papers will be published is still unknown. But we do believe once providers understand the health benefits, ChemoMildpiece will see broad adoption and oral cryotherapy utilizing the product will become common for cancer patients receiving chemotherapy. Now I'll turn it back to Rich.

Thanks, Carey.

Moving to guidance.

We are expecting revenue growth for the full year 2025 to come in between 810%, and our adjusted EBITDA to again demonstrate the leverage in our business increasing at a faster rate taking our adjusted EBITDA margin above the 18.8% delivered in 2024. This improved adjusted EBITDA is after the impact of costs related to our ongoing technology systems upgrade, which expenses are expected to be approximately $2,500,000 in 2025. Without the impact of this upgrade program, is expected to be largely completed this year, our outlook for the full year 2025 be for adjusted EBITDA margins above 20%. As we have seen over the last couple of years, first quarter adjusted EBITDA margin is expected to be lower in the first quarter than the rest of the year. We expect to have adjusted EBITDA margins in the mid teens in the first quarter, offset by significantly higher adjusted EBITDA margins in the second half of the year as we saw in both 2023 and 2024. This is a result of having higher expenses in the first quarter such as a large portion of our audit expense, marketing expenses that occur earlier in the year, and higher patient financial responsibility before they start reaching their co pay and deductible requirements.

Revenue should also ramp sequentially as we work throughout the year. Scaling new projects including our programs with the Nephew, the new wound care initiatives and increased chemo mouthpiece adoption. Operator, we are ready for the Q and A portion of the call.

Session. First question today comes from Brooks O'Neil with Lake Street Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning guys. This is Aaron on the line for Brooks. Are you able Loud and clear. Good morning.

Good morning. Thanks for taking our question. So So you expect Advanced Wound Care products should continue to grow in 2025 and beyond. As we understand that should be a good amount of the growth this year. And can you just give us some additional color on what you're seeing in both wound care and biomedics? You called out some specifics in your prepared remarks, but we just see both seem ripe with opportunity. And I'm just kind of curious on the traction you're getting with potential new customers in both those areas, realizing those are less capital intensive for the company?

Sure.

So I think good news in 2025 similar to what we saw in 2024 is we're going to grow probably in all of our business lines. Aaron, you're definitely right, like Advanced Wound Care is going to drive most of the growth. Biomed will contribute as well. And I think both of those opportunity or both of those lines have plenty of opportunity. So on the Advanced Wound Care side, there's plenty of DME partners that are coming to us and need help with referrals.

That's what I mentioned about the end of last year. We saw a lot of that coming coming to us. We wanted to make sure we had our systems and processes and people in place. So we can scale it in 25. And on the biomed side, obviously, we have GE. They've given us a couple of smaller opportunities that we've continued to add.

We added Dignitama at the end of the year, so that should roll out this year. And then there's other opportunities in the pipeline. So both of those businesses will grow for sure. I would say most of the growth will be driven by Advanced Wound Care Biomed and then we'll see what chemo Maltese can do this year. But those are definitely contributors and all three of those are very, very light from a capital cost standpoint. And then maybe just piggyback on for what you just said on chemo maltease, I'm curious maybe just any feedback that you've received received from oncology centers and or patients. I know Carrie called out We should be able to look out for those papers. But obviously, we no real competition out there. Are you just beginning to see a real opportunity think that will be a material contributor here this year? Yes. So we are definitely seeing momentum building for sure. Where the sales cycle will start to pop in the next few months. We'll know a lot in the next few months as far as how many orders start to come through. But definitely a lot of interest from customers There's some customers that knew it was coming and were waiting for it.

So as Carrie mentioned, we had some small orders come in. We have some good sized customers a sales cycle standpoint that are pretty far down the process. We just have to see when they close. Is it this month? Is it in a few months? Time will tell from that in that respect. And then when the clinical trials come out and those get published, that will definitely have a big impact on the market There's a lot of physicians that just won't write it until they see that.

So yes, we're very happy with where Cameo Muth piece is today. Awesome partner, as Kerry mentioned, and a great product that fits an unmet need in the marketplace. So we think we can help a lot of patients which will make all of us very successful if that's the case. Absolutely. Yes, I totally agree. We see that as a pretty big opportunity for you guys. So appreciate you taking the questions. I'll hop back in queue. Thanks, Aaron.

The next question comes from Matt Hewitt with Craig Hallum Capital Group. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thanks for providing the update and taking the questions. Maybe first up, regarding the referral process, could you kind of just walk through what changes or how you're improving that process and kind of where you are in that? Is it something where you're largely complete and you expect to see that the benefits of that starting here in Q1? Or does it take a little bit longer and so the real benefit will come in the second half of the year? I think we'll see it ramp throughout the year for sure. We should see some benefit in Q1.

But really what it is, Matt, when we're talking about different DME suppliers coming to us with opportunities, they all have different systems, they all feed us information differently. We want to make sure we get the right information that it comes in at the right time that we're compliant, and it comes in a form that we can then process it into our system. Depending on the partner, some partners it's going to come in really clean early and it's very easy to integrate with them. Some of them are a little more difficult and we had a couple more of the difficult ones at the end of the year. But we're working through those. The good news is both sides kind of want to be successful and want to help the patients out. So we'll get through there. We'll see some impact in Q1, but as we go through the year, it'll get better and better. But that'll be a it's not a one time thing. It's a continual process every time we start with a new partner. So we will see some revenue this quarter from it and build throughout the year and hopefully for years to come.

That's great. And then maybe a separate question regarding chemo Maltese. Thank you for the update there. Obviously, a nice potential driver. As we look at that, if I'm not mistaken, that should carry a above corporate average margins, particularly on the gross margin side. So as we exit this year and get into next year, I would anticipate or correct me if I'm wrong, but anticipate a nice lift in gross margins as you see broader adoption of that platform? Thank you.

That's not exactly correct. We do have good EBITDA margins on that product, but we are sharing with our partner And so the profits will come through the equity line for us. And gross margin will be a little bit lower because of that.

But it will be accretive to our overall EBITDA margin?

Nicely accretive to our EBITDA margin.

Okay. Thank you for the clarification. Thank you.

Thanks, Matt.

The next question comes from Kyle Bauser with B. Riley Securities. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. And great update here. Just following up on chemo Maltese and Dignitana. Can you just give us sense as to how material these businesses could be or maybe talk about the address [indiscernible] just kind of sizing up those opportunities to get a better sense of what a sales number would be at scale Sure. So Digitana's in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's not a huge contract. But it was a nice one to get because it was the first good size one outside of GE that helped that we'd leveraged our GE team right, our on-site team or not our on-site team, our regional technician team. Hopefully, it's the first of many that are in the hundreds of thousands, low millions. Those are very easy to integrate tend to be more profitable than the bigger ones. So, Ding the Time is not not a tremendous opportunity other than it shows us being able to use our capabilities and scalability of our team. T Mobile piece is a totally different product line. KEYOMLPC addressable market is in the hundreds of millions I think it's around $500,000,000 or $600,000,000 if you got kind of wide adoption.

I don't expect to to be that big necessarily, but that's the market. The fact is it's a product that right now when it comes to oral mucositis, there's no real product that helps reduce incidence and severity of it. And the standard of care today is ice chips. If you've ever been in a cancer center and the patient has ice in their mouth, that's why they're doing it. They're trying to cool their mouth down. And shut down the uptake of the chemo in their oral cavity. So it's certainly an unmet need. There's really no product like it. The reimbursement certainly helps We'll see how the reimbursement adoption happens over the next year or so. But between reimbursement for the hospital an unmet need for the patient, It could be a revenue generator depending on reimbursement for the hospital. It's really the opportunity is huge. We don't we have to wait for the studies to come out, which will be a big lift for us. But right now, what we've seen in the market is people are excited about having an opportunity and a new product that can help their patients that there really is nothing to help them today.

So that's why we're seeing that excitement. Everything from small private practices to huge hospital and teaching institutions are excited about it. So we'll have to watch how the sales cycle plays out over the next few months, but we'll know a lot pretty soon the sales cycle starts to hit.

Got it. And I appreciate that. Exciting. Looking forward to seeing that play out. And then just on the guidance, from an EBITDA margin standpoint, can you just help me understand kind of what are the key factors that will be big contributors to the earning leverage this year to going north of 8.8%. Obviously, top line sales growth will be will be nice, but just help remind me what other factors are important in being able to achieve improvement in operating leverage. Thank you.

Yes. So I think it's continued efficiencies and improvement in the biomed see some improvements we're getting back. We expect more for next year. So just continuing to hone that additional new business that we have into something that's much better as it has been. You're adding things like Dignicon Dignitana help leveraging that team and covering fixed costs. It's just the growth in the other areas. As we just mentioned, QML fees is accretive to EBITDA margins. We had some unusual expenses last year that is held us back a little bit.

Those will disappear. The only thing kind of working against us this year is that we are spending on the ERP, but we expect, even with that expenditures, Richmond, mentioned, will be better than the prior year in terms of profitability.

Yes. What's nice to see is if if you kind of put that to the side because it's largely this year, the cost of that, our underlying EBITDA margin we believe is over 20%. Which is kind of what our target has been in the last couple of years to get back to that threshold. It looks like we're there. [indiscernible] That's great. Excellent. Super helpful. Thanks so much. I'll jump back in queue.

The next question comes from Jim Sidoti with Sidoti and Co. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. The umptology business, your biggest business is up mid single digits again in the quarter. Which seems to be a pretty steady grower. Do you see any changes for that going forward? Or do you think that will continue to grow in that mid single digit level?

Yes. Good morning, Jim. I think that's a good question. It's beaten our expectations in the last couple of years. I think it's grown in two ways. Number one, our team has done a good job just adding volume, new customer, new sites, new locations. Our revenue cycle has also done a really good good job at collecting more per dollar than we ever used to and that's that's been the case for the last few years. They've been improving that. So it's a combination of those two things. There'll be I'd love to see every year be 6% to 8% like it has been in the last couple of years. I don't know how much more we can squeeze out of the revenue cycle side. I think we're getting about as good as we can get we're going to continue to add volume. [indiscernible] low to mid single digits is probably a good place to be. I don't but it shouldn't be less than three or four either. So it's probably in that range.

Okay.

All right. And the $2,500,000 you're spending on the ERP upgrade, I think you said that that's that should be done by the end of this year. So by 2026, you think those costs are much lower?

Yes, I think the cost in 2026 should be lower this year. We'll have it ready to go and then it's more of a timing of when do we implement and do the cutover. From our existing system and newer system. And that'll be early next year. We got to make sure it doesn't interact and interrupt the closing of the year for 2025. So most of the costs will be will be in this year for sure.

All right. And then, Barry, did a nice job going over the the reason why the tax rate went up so much because of the option deductibility. But you mentioned the NOLs. Just can you remind me how much NOLs do you have and when do you think you'll start paying cash taxes?

Yes. So after this year, we're down to around $20,000,000 in NOLs remaining. So but we do have some other timing differences that we'll be able to take some deductions for bad debts, for example. We haven't been writing off some bad debts. So I would expect that at the current rate of our profitability, we have few years left before we'll be a cash taxpayer. However, we'll probably be improving our our pre tax income and so it'll go a little faster than that.

Okay.

All right. Thank you.

Thanks, Jim.

I would like to turn the conference back over to Rich DiOrio for any closing remarks.

Thank you, Betsy.

Want to thank everyone for participating on today's call and we look forward to our call to discuss our first quarter results.

Thank you and have a great day.

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.