Drilling Tools International (DTI) Q3 2025 earnings call transcript

It is now my pleasure to introduce Ken Denard. Thank you. You may begin. Thank you, Operator, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us for Drilling Tools International's 2025 third quarter conference call and webcast. With me today are Wayne Prejohn, Chief Executive Officer, and David Johnson, Chief Financial Officer. Following my remarks, management will provide a review of third quarter results and 2025 outlook before opening the call for your questions. There will be a replay of today's call that will be available by webcast on the company's website at drillingtools. com, and also be a telephonic replay, a recorded replay, which will be available until November 14th. Please note that information reported on this call speaks only as of today, November 7, 2025, and therefore you are advised that time-sensitive information may no longer be accurate as of the time of any replay listening or transcript reading.

Also, comments on the call will contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the United States Federal Securities Laws. These forward-looking statements reflect the current views of DTI's management. However, various risks and uncertainties and contingencies could cause actual results, performance, or achievements to differ materially from those expressed in the statements made by management. The listener or reader is encouraged to read the annual report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, and current reports on Form 8-K to understand those risks, uncertainties, and contingencies. The comments today will also include certain non-GAAP financial measures, including, but not limited to, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted free cash flow.

The company provides these non-GAAP results for information purposes, and they should not be considered in isolation from other directly comparable GAAP measures. A discussion of why we believe these non-GAAP measures are useful to investors, certain limitations of using these measures, and reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures can be found in the earnings release and our filings on the SEC.

And now with that behind me, I'd like to turn the call over to Wayne Prejean, DTI's Chief Executive Officer. Wayne.

Thanks, Ken, and good morning, everyone. I will provide some opening remarks before handing the call over to David to review the financials and our reaffirmed 2025 outlook. I'll then come back and provide a few additional thoughts before we open it up for questions.

We are pleased to report that our 2025 third quarter results came in better than we anticipated. We have been doing this for a long time. Currently, we paid down $5.6 million in debt, increased our cash position by $3.2 million, and bought back an additional $550,000 of common shares.

DTI has benefited from solid progress on our strategic initiatives, particularly the integration of our recent acquisitions in the Eastern Hemisphere. During the third quarter, we saw a significant increase in utilization of the DNR tool fleet in the Middle East and throughout the Eastern Hemisphere. This increase in DNR tools deployed contributed to our Eastern Hemisphere growth and Middle East expansion during the quarter.

Year over year, our Eastern Hemisphere operations grew revenue by 41% and contributed approximately 15% of our total revenue in the third quarter. The Eastern Hemisphere is performing in line with our forecast plan, demonstrating our disciplined approach to capital allocation and our ability to successfully integrate new assets into our operations.

Looking forward, commodity prices continue to flex as geopolitical uncertainty has enhanced volatility in oil and gas markets. However, average rate counts and activity levels appear to have stabilized during the quarter. However, inasmuch, our teams continue to skillfully manage their current fluctuations in commodity prices and rig counts delivering resilient financial results while navigating this evolving energy landscape. Again, while the rig count appears to be stabilizing, we still expect uncertainty to continue causing disruptions through both pricing pressure and utilization. To combat these disruptions, we implemented a cost-cutting program in the first half of 2025 to reduce expenses by an annual $6 million in order to align our spending with the activity levels of our customers.

However, we have experienced an increase in customer activity that has directly offset price discounts, particularly in our DTR product line, as well as new contract wins with customers. Therefore, we are pleased to report that we no longer anticipate needing the full $6 million of cost cuts to maintain adjusted free cash flow and achieve other outlook ranges. Our pricing strategies that we have implemented are yielding positive results on activity levels, and we currently believe $4 million of cost cuts will prove sufficient for 2025. Please note, however, that we still have contingency plans to adjust the organization while maintaining operational flexibility to quickly respond to any market events in the future.

David will now take you through some third quarter and nine-month metrics, as well as our 2020 VIVE Outlook. David?

Thanks Wayne In yesterday earnings release we provided detailed third quarter and nine financial tables So I use this time to offer further insight into specific financial metrics Looking at our third quarter results we generated total consolidated revenue of million Third quarter tool rental revenue was million and product sales revenue totaled million Next, net loss attributable to common stockholders for the third quarter was $903,000, or a loss of $0.03 per share.

An adjusted net income was $751,000, or adjusted diluted EPS of $0.02 per share. Third quarter adjusted EBITDA was $9.1 million, and adjusted free cash flow was $5.6 million. Additionally, our capital expenditures in the third quarter were $3.5 million. If activity stays level, we expect CapEx to be relatively flat for the fourth quarter. Looking at maintenance CapEx for the third quarter, it was approximately 10% of total revenue. As a reminder, our maintenance capital is primarily funded by tool recovery revenue, which keeps our rental tool fleet relevant and sustainable regardless of market trends. As I say each quarter, we will continue to review all CapEx spending with an eye on activity levels while demonstrating our ability to generate adjusted free cash flow.

As an update on our capital allocation strategy, we are constantly evaluating opportunities to strategically deploy capital with the sole focus of maximizing value for our shareholders. I am pleased to announce that during the third quarter, we paid down $5.6 million in debt, increased our cash position by $3.2 million, and bought back an additional $550,000 of common shares at an average of $2.09 per share. As of September 30, 2025, we had approximately $4.4 million of cash and cash equivalents and net debt of $46.9 million, compared to $1.1 million in cash and cash equivalents and net debt of $55.8 million at the end of the second quarter. We will continue to prioritize financial strength through a disciplined capital allocation strategy by utilizing all of the tools at our disposal when opportunity presents itself.

Looking at our geographic segment mix, we continue to benefit from our diversified geographic footprint and customer base with 15% of our total revenue coming from our eastern hemisphere segment. We continue to expect gradual improvement in this area with additional product sales and rental opportunities as rigs are added back in the Middle East and customers' existing inventories are depleted.

The Eastern Hemisphere segment has helped offset some of the activity decline in North America by contributing to our overall positive trajectory throughout the first nine months of the year.

Before I turn to our outlook discussion, let me recap the results of our first nine months. Nine-month revenue totaled $121.1 million. Adjusted EBITDA was $29.2 million. Capital expenditures were $16.1 million. And adjusted free cash flow during the first nine months of 2025 was $13.1 million. Our team continues to execute well across multiple fronts, from operational efficiency to customer satisfaction to strategic initiatives.

As we disclosed in yesterday's earnings release, and as Wayne mentioned earlier, we are maintaining our 2025 full-year guidance ranges, albeit leaning at or slightly above the midpoints of these ranges based on our past three quarters positive results. 2025 revenue is expected to be in the range of $145 million to $165 million. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be within the range of $32 to $42 million. Capital expenditures are expected to be between $18 and $23 million. And finally, we expect our 2025 adjusted free cash flow to range between $14 to $19 million.

In the long run, we believe we can position ourselves to improve our consolidated margin profile over time as we continue to manage our cost structure and add scale. The strategic acquisitions to our portfolio are positioning us for international growth and are also providing valuable synergies that will benefit our long-term growth trajectory. That concludes my financial review and outlook section.

Let me turn it back over to Wayne to provide some summary comments.

Thank you, David. We are continuing to make substantial headway on our Synergy program called 1DTI. Our 1DTI program has been onboarding all our operating divisions onto the same systems and processes and integrating the acquired business units to our Compass platform to manage assets and customer transactions. As I mentioned in our last call, we relocated our U. S. drilling ring repair facility from Vernal, Utah to Houston, Texas, and it is now fully operational. This strategic relocation came two years ahead of schedule and is delivering expected cost savings and efficiency benefits. Additionally, we expect to have integrated all Eastern Hemisphere operations into one centralized accounting platform by the end of December, going live in January of 2026.

This is a major milestone for the growth potential of the company as it streamlines workflows, maximizes accountability, and importantly, will accelerate the integration of future acquisitions into the DTI platform much more quickly. And, of course, we continue to be actively looking at M&A opportunities. So, before we open up the lines for questions, I would like to highlight the following.

We remain upbeat about our prospects for the remainder of 2025 and into 2026 While the activity declines to date have not been quite as severe as we initially anticipated seven months ago we have demonstrated that we can quickly adapt to a rapidly evolving market I will now turn the call over to management preserve our financial strength and deliver meaningful shareholder value We continue to see opportunities in our core markets Our competitive position remains strong and the acquisition integrations are positioning us well for sustained growth We are confident that elevated demand for complex well solutions will further strengthen the need for our differentiated technology and the value solutions we provide our clients across the world The foundation we've built through our strategic acquisitions gives us confidence in our ability to capitalize on emerging opportunities that broaden our geographic reach, diversify our revenue streams, and serve our customers even more effectively in key markets.

Our past M&A activity has enhanced our competitive position, increased our resilience in a dynamic environment, and has positioned us to move quickly when new value-creating opportunities present themselves. We believe that our best-in-class, performance-driven, technologically differentiated offerings, expanding global geographic footprint, combined with disciplined M&A activity, will deliver solid results as energy markets recover in 2026 and beyond.

In closing, I'm encouraged by the momentum we're building across the organization, and it's exciting to see how we have adapted and pushed ahead in a dynamic environment. We are seeing the benefits of our investments beginning to materialize, and our personnel continues to execute well in a rapidly changing global marketplace. I would like to thank every member of the DTI organization for their continuous dedication to working in a safe, inspired, and productive manner. This commitment by our employees is critical in managing this volatile commodity cycle and is vital to our future growth and ability to deliver value to our shareholders.

With that, we will now take your questions. Operator?

So thank you, Steve. This is Wayne. We've been working on a number of initiatives to mitigate this slow creep of a recount decline, but it was certainly a lot less of a decline than we tried to anticipate early on, which is all indication where it was going to be more severe. We participated in a number of RFQs and tenders in the North American market throughout the last few months, and we were able to win some business and maintain some of the business we had with existing clients. So that enabled us to maintain a very reasonable level of activity despite seeing a rate count decline. I know red count decline means some jobs are not going to be available for suppliers, so there seems to be a mix that occurs when that happens.

And we were more successful, we believe, in maintaining or aggregating some of that business over that period of time. And I think that sells itself well because what we're able to do is, you know, our best-in-class products and service and the things that we do usually are successful when quality and service matter. And what happens in these down cycles, these operators focus specifically on who or what service suppliers and product suppliers are giving the best quality and service because they need that to translate into performance and results in their well boards and lessen those events. So, you know, our market-leading position and tools and the things we provide to all of these clients, that leading indicator for us prevailed throughout this little cycle that we're experiencing.

So we're pretty proud of that. And our other product lines have held up pretty well. So overall, I think we feel like it's a win. We've outperformed the down cycle.

So we're well positioned in every market out there and appropriately positioned for scale, size, and capabilities, particularly in the Northeast where, you know, activity in Haynesville is where gas activity is holding strong and you're seeing some light at the end of the tunnel. And as you remember in some of our discussions, we're able to move tools around to service those markets fairly easily because of the type of business we have. So we've made sure that we've supplied those customers in those areas where the activity is created, and we keep those supply chains running smoothly.

You mean in Q4?

Well it doesn feel like it accelerating It feels like we still a month away from someone having budget exhaustion and thinking they going to drop a number of rigs but we not seeing an acceleration of that happening as of today That doesn't mean we couldn't see a more accelerated decline, but it feels like it's just flat to slightly down the rest of the year, then some optimism going into next year.

Sure. I'll tell you, I spent the last week in the Middle East, and there's definitely some optimism, And there are some, you know, detailed announcements where Saudi's picking up a few rigs from land and offshore. And ADNAC, I think, in UAE is also going to maintain an activity that's solid. The interesting thing is there's so much talk about the unconventional gas becoming more prevalent in both of those major operating areas being, you know, Saudi and UAE. So, again, because of our experience and the types of tools and services we provide, we will be more and more successful in supplying those markets because we have all the experience here, and we've transferred a lot of the tools and technology and people that we have aligned there.

We're kind of ready to go in the unconventional uptick that's going to happen in those markets. So we feel pretty positive about that.

Well, we continue to try to look at the three or four tools that are just, you know, at our discretion to use for our free cash flow. And, you know, debt reduction is probably the primary one that we'll use.

So it's kind of baked into, you know, to, you know, remember our stock buyback program is baked into some limitations on volume. So as that ebbs and flows, we'll take advantage of that, and we believe our stock is undervalued, and we'll use a portion of those proceeds to do that, you know, with those limitations. So I think it's more debt pay down, you know, some stock buybacks and, you know, some selective CapEx purchases where needed, where we think the opportunities arise. And then, as usual, we're laser focused on M&A opportunities going forward.

Thank you, John. Yeah, no problem. So, historically, you could count on the international rig count, the international activity being, you know, NOC-driven, more longer-term, different operating metrics there, driven by those NOCs for longer-term objectives. And so the rig count is usually stable. But, you know, we had a little outlier event when Saudi dropped a bunch of rigs here last year and kind of surprised.

I think there was not a surprise. It was every surprise soul in the market was watching that with wonder. And but I think it was temporary. And I think the market is becoming more in balance. And, you know, we're hearing good, you know, we're hearing positive indications that they're going to pick up some rigs next year and re-implement some drilling programs that they had recently idled. So that's good news. But, you know, the remaining part of the international market was relatively flat. I mean, you know, but for a few ebb and flows that naturally occur. We're seeing, you know, the enthusiasm around that show at Atapec, it's really an international oil show.

It's amazing how many people throughout the world attend that show, and it's not just specifically focused on the Middle East. So there's a lot of enthusiasm around what's happening in the Eastern industry, and we're glad that we're strategically positioned to be a part of it. And to answer your question about our acquisitions, the lessons learned is, you know, make sure we stay focused on executing on those, and but for the Saudi downturn, recent downturn activity, but hopefully pick up in the future, you know, that would be the outlier on some of our acquisition execution expectations.

Yeah, you bet. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, everyone, for your interest in listening. We continue to be focused on executing on our international expansion, and we've got a lot of resources focused on making that happen. We have a solid team here, a well-oiled machine here in North America that continues to be a market leader and perform well in a challenging market environment, but we see optimism on the horizon as well, and we'll continue to deliver solid financial results throughout this continuous cycle that we're experiencing. We have optimism for 2026, so thank you for your interest, and we'll look forward to the next call.