Ballard Power (BLDP) Q3 2025 Earnings Transcript

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DATE

Thursday, November 13, 2025 at 11:00 a.m. ET

CALL PARTICIPANTS

• President and Chief Executive Officer — Marty Neese
• Chief Financial Officer — Kate Igbalode
• Chief Operating Officer — Sumit Kundu

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TAKEAWAYS

• Revenue -- $32.5 million, representing a 120% year-over-year increase, primarily driven by bus and rail segment deliveries.
• Bus Segment Revenue Concentration -- Bus and rail accounted for more than 70% of total revenue, highlighting the strategic importance of these markets.
• Net Order Intake -- Approximately $19 million in new orders added during the quarter.
• Gross Margin -- Positive 15%, marking a sequential and year-over-year improvement, supported by reduced product costs and a net reduction in onerous contract provisions, though management noted this includes one-time benefits.
• Excluding One-Time Items -- Gross margin would have been slightly negative, but this reflects continued progress relative to the prior year and quarter.
• Total Operating Expenses -- $34.9 million, down 36% year-over-year, or 55% lower when excluding restructuring costs.
• Cash Operating Costs -- Decreased 40% year-over-year due to restructuring actions and ongoing cost management.
• Adjusted EBITDA -- Negative $31.2 million, improved from negative $60.1 million in the previous year, demonstrating material sequential progress.
• Operating Cash Flow -- $22.9 million used in operations, a reduction from $28.6 million in the comparable period.
• Ending Cash Position -- $25.7 million in cash and cash equivalents with no bank debt or near-term financing requirements.
• Capital Expenditures Guidance -- Now expected at $8 million to $12 million, lowered from prior $15 million to $25 million guidance, reflecting deferred facility investments and capital discipline.
• Largest Marine Order To Date -- A single 6.4 megawatt order to ECAP and Samskip placed during the quarter in the marine segment.
• Strategic Facility Decision -- Decision not to pursue development of the Texas Gigafactory, with management citing current global capacity sufficiency and a commitment to capital discipline.
• China JV Reduction -- Further reduction in involvement with the Weichai Ballard joint venture in China, reallocating resources to North America and Europe.
• Service Offerings Expansion -- Introduction of enhanced service offerings, including digital maintenance, extended warranties, and technical training, designed to strengthen customer value and engagement.

SUMMARY

Ballard Power Systems (NASDAQ:BLDP) management stated the commercial bus and rail segments were the primary revenue drivers, reflecting strategic market alignment and positive customer response. The company highlighted successful product innovation, including the launch of the next-generation FCmove SC, garnering early positive feedback from OEMs. Progress in core stack life and operational durability was emphasized, alongside the successful debut of the DNV-certified FCwave product in marine applications. Capital discipline was addressed via deferral of large-scale investment in Texas and lowering of current year capital expenditure estimates while retaining a cash buffer. Management reiterated the focus on margin expansion, operational cost reduction, and long-term movement towards cash flow positivity, although the path remains ongoing.

• Kate Igbalode stated, "Gross margin improved to 15%," which management clarified was bolstered by one-time items and is not likely to be a ratable baseline.
• Chief Financial Officer Igbalode forecasted that, "one time benefits, our gross margin would be slightly negative," but confirmed sequential improvement and projected "low to mid single digits on our gross margin" for 2026.
• Management reported Ballard is re-entering the material handling market, offering an air-cooled fuel cell stack with "at least 2x the state of the art" in durability compared to competitors.
• Sumit Kundu identified that "order pipeline is taking additional time as we work with current customers to secure more sustainable contract terms," with some orders shifting to later quarters for long-term sustainability.
• Chief Financial Officer Igbalode announced operating expenses (excluding restructuring) are now expected to be below the low end of prior guidance range, further tightening the cost base.

INDUSTRY GLOSSARY

• FCmove SC: Ballard's next-generation fuel cell engine module designed for higher power density, compact size, and improved operational efficiency in bus applications.
• FCwave: Ballard's fuel cell engine product certified for marine use under DNV (Det Norske Veritas), designed for large vessel propulsion and auxiliary marine power.
• Onerous contract provisions: Balance sheet reserves or adjustments for contracts expected to generate losses, due to delivery at costs exceeding the revenue recognized.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Marty Neese: I'll share progress on our recent restructuring and strategic alignment. Discuss our path toward becoming cash flow positive and provide updates on key developments across our global organization. I'll begin with an overview of our business and markets. Overall, I'm pleased with our performance in the quarter. We continue to progress on pace with order delivery resulting in 120% year over year revenue increase largely from our deliveries to the bus and rail segments. Representing more than 70% of this quarter's revenue. Net order intake was approximately $19,000,000 and we achieved a positive gross margin of 15%. Reflecting meaningful progress in reducing product costs and a net reduction in onerous contract provisions.

While this margin result may not represent a new ratable baseline, it demonstrates the progress of our product cost improvements and overall profitability trajectory. Our revenue makeup highlights the importance of the bus market. A market we expect to continue growing in the coming years. I recently had the opportunity to attend Bus World and meet with bus OEMs and transit operators. What was truly eye opening was the interest in electrification for buses has grown substantially with combustion engines, largely absent from the show and an almost exclusive focus being on electric alternatives. Including fuel cells. This is not surprising when considering that nearly 60% of new bus sales are now zero emission.

In this electrified space, the advantages of fuel cells to serve a wide variety of routes short refueling times and the increasing infrastructure costs in face of grid constraints is becoming ever clearer. As the market attractiveness and technical and competitive merits of fuel cell buses grow, so too is the competition in the fuel cell bus engine space. With new entrants coming in, it is more important than ever for us to continue to differentiate ourselves as the fuel cell industry leader. Here, we believe that our decades of innovation and hundreds of millions of delivered kilometers positions us well.

Having the most experienced and most durable reliable products with the lowest demonstrated total cost of ownership sets us apart. We are also ready for the next generation of buses At Bus World, we launched the FC Move SC, and initial feedback from OEMs has been very positive. Customers recognize the potential benefits of higher power density simpler and more integrated functionality a smaller lighter footprint and higher operating temperatures. These are all features that lower their total cost of ownership. Further, we continue to improve our core stack life and industry leading durability. Taken together, our customers are excited with these innovations.

In terms of timing, product availability is expected to line up well with OEM timing for homologation into their next generation of vehicles. Additionally, we are enhancing our product cost leadership and long product life with a more comprehensive focus on delivering best in class service. We are complementing our products with additional services including digital operations and maintenance services, extended warranties, spares management, and on-site and virtual technician training and support. Our strong balance sheet and commitment to long term service and support sets us apart and our customers are eager to engage with us further to enhance these offerings. Moving briefly to our Rail and Marine segments. We continue to see momentum for freight and passenger rail locomotives.

Recently in a milestone for sustainable transportation, Stadler's Flirt H2 hydrogen powered train officially entered service in San Bernardino, California. Another important step towards carbon free public transit. The train sets a new benchmark for clean, efficient and passenger friendly rail travel in the region that we are proud to be powering. In the Marine segment, during the quarter, we recorded our largest order ever to the marine market with our order totaling 6.4 megawatts to ECAP and Samskip. These are both interesting markets for Ballard though I would add that both these markets remain at early stage of development and customer adoption. For the stationary power market, let me address the topic that is particularly hot at this time.

AI data centers. It is clear that the rapid growth and the need for data centers and related is creating challenges for local grids and there's a shift to evaluate potential sources of off grid power as well as address CO2 emissions rules and noise requirements in many jurisdictions. This applies for both backup and primary power sources. Ballard's stationary solutions to date have demonstrated that we can supply kilowatts to megawatts of power. Our near term product offering for this market is focused on backup power solutions to replace diesel generators. Unit volumes in our forecast continue to increase as does our product evolution. From hundreds of kilowatts to multi megawatts.

We are leveraging these factors to innovate further with our stationary power and data center customers. Our FC Move XD product enables us to increase power densities today to 500 kilowatts and up to two to three megawatts in a small form factor module in the near future. This leading power density in a compact footprint opens the door to potential additional use cases. Hydrogen supply partnerships are essential and we are actively working on collaboration opportunities in this area. This is an exciting area of product innovation. We will continue to provide updates as customer engagement engagements develop further. Turning to our strategic realignment. We are making meaningful progress as we work toward cash flow positivity.

On the cost side, our recent restructuring actions are delivering tangible benefits. With significant reductions in cash operating costs and total operating expenses excluding restructuring charges. On margin and revenue, we remain focused on driving down product costs in the expanding our order book and total order back. Backlog. Building out our order pipeline is taking additional time as we work with current customers to secure more sustainable

Sumit Kundu: contract terms

Marty Neese: and some orders have shifted to Q4 twenty five or Q1 twenty six. We believe this extra time is well invested to ensure long term sustainability and appropriately balanced commercial agreements. Looking ahead to 2026 and 2027, we anticipate further improvement in gross margins supported by ongoing pricing and growth initiatives. Additional product cost reductions and the initial sales of our FC Move SC product. In addition, we expect further growth as we reenter the material handling market. We are seeing interest in our extended durability stack offering which more than doubles current material handling stack lifetimes available in the market today. Customers see this product as an excellent way to increase their delivered value and lower their overall cost.

Especially related to stack service and maintenance. As mentioned, as we further refine our product offering, for the stationary power market, we expect growth in this market as well. For both material handling and stationary power, we'll provide more details on pipeline and order book conversion efforts as these potential opportunities mature. Taken together, these efforts are critical in moving us towards our goal of cash flow positivity. While there is still work to be done to achieve long term sustainability, we are taking the right steps to grow our business in areas that make strategic sense all while maintaining a strong balance sheet for our long term resilience and in support of our customers.

Moving to two other items of note for Ballard's global operations. First, due to changes in funding options and updated capacity outlook, we have decided not to pursue the Texas Gigafactory development. Our analysis shows our existing global manufacturing capacity with minor adjustments will meet forecasted volumes. This decision underscores our commitment to capital discipline and focus on efficient execution. And second, as part of our strategic focus, we are further reducing our involvement in the way Ballard joint venture in China. Allowing us to concentrate resources on North America and Europe. Before I pass the call to Kate to review our financials, I would summarize this quarter as showing progress on our turnaround efforts.

Year over year growth in shipments and revenue progress on margin expansion, executing disciplined capital spending and launching compelling new products and services that deliver lower costs and more value to our customers is a really good start. There is much more to do to further transform the company and get to cash flow positivity and we are committed to this overarching goal. With that, I'll turn the call over to Kate for a detailed review of our financial results.

Sumit Kundu: Thanks, Marty, and good morning, everyone.

Kate Igbalode: For the 2025, Ballard delivered revenue of $32,500,000 an increase of 120% year over year driven primarily by the bus and rail deliveries. Gross margin improved to 15%, compared to negative 56% in Q3 twenty four. A 71 improvement. This reflects lower manufacturing overhead, continued product cost reduction, and a net reduction in owner's contract provisions. This reduction in owner's contract provisions coupled with a higher margin one time off road sales transaction contributed to the outsized gross margin performance in the quarter. Without these one time benefits, our gross margin would be slightly negative, still illustrating a marked year on year and quarter on quarter improvement.

As Marty highlighted, we continue to make measured progress towards gross margin expansion and expect this to be reflected in our 2026 outlook. Total operating expenses were 34,900,000.0 down 36% year over year or 55% lower when excluding restructuring costs. Cash operating costs declined 40% year over year as the benefits of restructuring actions flowed through to our results. The rightsizing of our corporate cost structure, while never easy, was critical for our long term sustainability and financial health. Adjusted EBITDA improved to negative 31,200,000.0 compared to negative $60,100,000 in the prior year. Cash used by operating activities was 22,900,000.0 an improvement from $28,600,000 in 2024.

We ended the quarter with 5 and $25,700,000 in cash and cash equivalents no bank debt, no near term financing requirements. Our strong balance sheet and firm hand on prudent capital allocation is a amongst peers key differentiator and provides us with business flexibility and resilience in this dynamic macro environment. Looking ahead, consistent with prior practice, are not providing specific revenue net income or margin guidance given the early stage of market development. We continue to expect revenue to be back half weighted for the year and total operating expenses excluding restructuring charges are expected to be below the low end of our 100,000,000 to $120,000,000 guidance range.

Including restructuring costs expenses are expected to be towards the high end of the guidance range. We now expect capital expenditures of 8 to $12,000,000 down from our prior guidance of 15,000,000 to 25,000,000 reflecting disciplined capital allocation and deferred facility investments.

Operator: Looking to 2026,

Kate Igbalode: you can expect us to maintain our lean organizational cost structure and continue to demonstrate capital discipline. Maintaining a healthy balance sheet and accelerating our pathway to profitability is critical for our success and to deliver value to our shareholders. With that, I'll turn the call over to the operator for questions.

Sumit Kundu: Thank you.

Operator: We will now begin the question and answer session. We ask callers to kindly limit themselves to one question and one supplemental. The first question comes from Rob Brown with Lake Street Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Sumit Kundu: Hi, good morning.

Marty Neese: Just wanted to get your thoughts on the growth kind of

Rob Brown: rates in the bus market. Are there additional kind of growth order activity that you're pursuing? And get a successful kind of conference activity. But just wanted to get your sense on the growth rate in the bus market going forward?

Marty Neese: Yes, would answer that Rob. By saying that the reception at Bus World was tremendous. The new product is being very well received. And that's by both existing OEMs and some OEMs in development. If you will.

Sumit Kundu: Further, the

Marty Neese: constraints I mentioned around infrastructure pinch points per battery electric charging infrastructure if you will is starting to change the dynamics for fuel cells where we look much more compelling than previously outlined if you will relative to battery electric. So I would say that's a good news for fuel cell story and starts pointing towards larger fleet size adoption

Rob Brown: especially where

Marty Neese: the infrastructure constraints can be overcome by adopting fuel cell buses. So in general, I would say Europe is making steady and improving progress and adoption rates for fuel cells North America is essentially flattish year over year and that's that's where I'd leave it.

Rob Brown: Okay. Thank you. Then quickly on gross margin, I think you talked about slightly negative sort of adjusted out. Is that the baseline you expect to grow from or improve from going forward?

Marty Neese: The short answer is yes. But Kate maybe you provide some more details on the gross margin bridge.

Rob Brown: For

Marty Neese: Q3 and then kind of what you're out looking from there?

Kate Igbalode: Yes, absolutely. So you're spot on, Rob, in that in our remarks we did highlight that without this kind of one time pieces in the quarter, would be slightly negative. That's kind of where we expect to close out in Q4 as well. Looking into 2026, again, I think you can expect

Sumit Kundu: low to mid single digits on our gross margin.

Kate Igbalode: We don't provide margin guidance, but I think you do expect us to see incremental progress going forward from here on out.

Rob Brown: Okay. Thank you. I'll turn it over.

Operator: The next question comes from Jeff Osborne with TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

Sumit Kundu: Thank you. I was going to ask on the former Project Ford in the Texas facility, some of the targets that were laid out for the restructuring there.

Jeff Osborne: Are those still achievable without the Texas facility? Can you remind me how important that was as it relates to getting gross margins higher than what Kate just mentioned?

Marty Neese: Yes. Would say Project Forge is primarily automation and materials efficiency And that is in fact still in flight yielding well heading in the right direction and not dependent on Texas in any way shape or form. Texas was more of an integrated view for a complete stacks and modules with Project Forge and the automation being a core attribute. But that's being done in Canada as we speak. So we're good on that front.

Jeff Osborne: Good to hear. And then Marty, you mentioned reentering the material handling space. I think from memory, years ago, you were just in the liquid cooled side for the ride on units versus I think the smaller pallet jack lifters were air cooled? Are you doing both? Or are you just doing the liquid cooled? Can you just further detail what specifically the strategy is on material handling?

Marty Neese: Yes. The near term interest we're seeing is for air cooled. And so air cooled with additional durability is resonating well with a handful of new customers And when I say additional durability, I mentioned at least 2x the state of the art as we see the market today. That really is attractive when you think about the service obligation for customers over the long run. And so different customers are really valuing that in a more thoughtful way as they get more and more experience servicing and managing a long lifetime fleet. And so that durability equation is starting to show economic clarity for them.

Jeff Osborne: Got it. Thanks for the detail.

Operator: The next question comes from Craig Irwin with ROTH Capital. Please go ahead.

Sumit Kundu: Hey guys, it's Andrew on for Craig. One quick one for me. So Congrats on the signing your largest marine order to date with the Samskip vessels I know you've been working with this partner for a couple of years now, think since 2021. So can you kind of talk about the just evolution of this agreement, how it came about and maybe what you can take away from it and learn from -- for other customers?

Marty Neese: Yes. I might pass that to Kate for additional clarity. But the headline is we have been developing this opportunity for a couple of years. And the product, FCwave product is [ DNB ] certified for a marine application. And so that took a good bit of time on certifications and standards bodies, but we were the first ones to do that. And after that heavy lift was complete on the [ certs, ] then we started seeing an adoption rate like the Samskip order.

Noteworthy is that FCwave product has additional use cases beyond marine, and that certification of DNB, if you will, for the marine application, provided a lot of comfort to other customers in using that product and the approach that we use relative to that product. So that's kind of what I know from a background or context standpoint. If there's more relative to the contract evolution, Kate, that you want to add, feel free.

Kate Igbalode: No, I think those are excellent points, Marty. And I think I'm glad you asked about this, Andrew, because I think there's a number of key learnings, not only on a technical basis, but also commercial and contractual with how we work with customers. I mean these are large projects. They take years to develop and form. And I think for me, one of my big takeaways was how are we listening to our customers in terms of what's important to them from a technological point of view and how we're using that to inform our next generation of product development.

And then I think the other piece, too, is understanding their entire ecosystem around how they're getting hydrogen supply at a cost that is affordable to them. So it's kind of looking at the whole holistic view of what it really takes to get these projects across the ball line. And it's a very collaborative effort for us with our technical teams, our commercial teams, and also on the after care and service piece is incredibly important in these types of applications, which really require very high reliability and ease of maintenance. So I was really happy to be involved on this across the last number of years, and I'm thrilled to see it coming to fruition.

Operator: This concludes the question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Marty Neese for any closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Marty Neese: Thank you, everyone, for participating in today's call. Really appreciate it, and we look forward to providing additional updates in the future.

Operator: This brings to a close today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.

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