Optical Cable achieves 9.5% growth in fiscal year 2025, driven by strategic initiatives and strong operating leverage, setting stage for continued success in 2026.

Please stand by. Your meeting is about to begin. Good morning. My name is Stephanie and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I'd like to welcome you to Optical Cable Corporation's fourth quarter and fiscal year 2025 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer period. If you'd like to ask a question at that time, please press star1 on your telephone keypad. If you wish to remove yourself from cue, please press star two. Ms. Caroline, you may begin your conference.

Good morning and thank you for joining us for Optical Cable Corporation's fourth quarter and fiscal year 2025 conference call. By this time, everybody should have a copy of the earnings press release issued earlier today. You can also visit www.OCCfiber.com for a copy. On the call with us today are Neil Wilkin, President and Chief Executive Officer of OCC, and Tracy Smith, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that this call may contain forward looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. The actual future results of Optical Cable Corporation may differ materially due to a number of factors and risks, including but not limited to those factors referenced in the Forward Looking statements section of this morning's press release. These cautionary statements apply to the contents of the Internet webcast on www.OCCfiber.com as well as today's call. With that, I'll turn the call over to Neil Wilkin. Neil, please begin.

Thank you, Caroline and good morning everyone. I will begin the call today with a few opening remarks. Tracy will then review the fOCC'sth quarter and full year results for the three month and twelve month periods ended October 31, 2025. In some additional detail after Tracy's remarks, we will answer as many of yOCC's questions as we can. As is OCC's normal practice, we will only take questions from analysts and institutional investors during the QA session. However, we also offer other shareholders the opportunity to submit questions in advance of OCC's earnings call. Instructions regarding such submissions are included in OCC's press release announcing the date and time of OCC's call. Fiscal year 2025 was a solid year for OCC. Driven by the successful execution of OCC's growth strategies and strong positioning in OCC's target markets. We entered into a strategic collaboration with LITERA that expands OCC's growth opportunities, which we believe will be reflected in OCC's top line in fiscal year 2026 and beyond. @ the same time, we continue to operate efficiently and benefit from OCC's strong operating leverage to drive gross profit growth in fiscal year 2025, we realized the benefits of actions we took the previous year as the weakness across OCC's industry during the second half of fiscal year 2023 and most of fiscal year 2024 subsided as a result 2025 we were able to capture new opportunities and deliver consolidated net sales of $73 million. Our net sales increased during each quarter of fiscal year 2025 compared to the same periods in fiscal year 2024. I'm pleased to share that OCC achieved growth by all measures. During fiscal year 2025, net sales grew by 9.5%, gross profit grew by 24.1%, gross profit margin increased to 30.9%. That compared to 27.3% and SG and A expenses decreased as a percentage of net sales, all contributing factors to the significant improvements in operating results compared to fiscal year 2024. OCC benefited from strong operating leverage in fiscal year 2025, and we anticipate this will continue to bolster OCC's results in fiscal year 2026 and beyond. Our manufacturing operating leverage tends to create disproportional increases in gross profit as net sales and production volumes increase. While both gross profit and gross profit margin can be impacted by product mix, as OCC's net sales and production volumes increase, substantial fixed costs are spread over higher sales volumes and importantly, manufacturing efficiencies also tend to increase because, particularly for fiber optic cable production, gross Profit disproportionately increased 24.1% as net sales increased 9.5% during fiscal year 2025. Our SGA operating leverage also tends to be positively impacted by efficiency. Excuse me, tends to positively impact efficiency and profitability as net sales increase. Many SGNA expenses are relatively fixed cost rather than varying with net sales, including significant public company costs. As a result, OCC's SGA expenses as a percentage of net sales typically decrease with increased net sales. OCC's commitment to pursuing new growth opportunities, including exposure, expanding OCC's presence in targeted market sectors, and the enhancement of OCC's product solutions offerings, including those resulting from OCC's strategic collaboration with Litera, will fuel OCC's future success. As demand for cloud computing and artificial intelligence applications continues to accelerate. OCC is capturing the opportunity by expanding OCC's existing presence and product solutions offerings for the data center market. We have continued to expand and innovate both OCC's fiber optic cable product solutions offerings and OCC's cable and connectivity product solutions offerings. As previously announced in July 2025, OCC and Litera entered into a strategic collaboration agreement to expand product offerings and solutions, especially for the data center and enterprise sectors. As A global leader in fiber optic and connectivity solutions, Litera has a long history of industry leading innovation, design and manufacturing capabilities including the production of high performance optical fibers. As respected manufacturers in the fiber optic industry, OCC and Litera have partnered in various ways over many years and this strategic collaboration builds on that long successful relationship. Through this strategic collaboration, OCC and Litera expect to benefit from offering expanded fiber optic and copper stabling and connectivity solutions to the enterprise and data center sectors as well as an expanded presence in other sectors. The companies have combined portions of the extensive product portfolios of both OCC and Litera to deliver innovation, integrated cabling and connectivity solutions offerings that will be sold by OCC. In connection with this strategic collaboration, Litera has made an investment in OCC purchasing shares of OCC common stock from OCC and resulting in Litera holding 7.24% of OCC's outstanding shares. Looking ahead, OCC remains uniquely positioned in the fiber optic and copper cabling and connectivity industry with differentiated core strengths and capabilities capabilities that enable us to offer top tier products and application solutions and to compete successfully against much larger competitors. OCC is committed to enhancing and leveraging OCC's core strengths and capabilities to drive long term value for OCC's shareholders. I'd like to highlight a few of those strengths for you today. First is OCC's strong market positions, brand recognition and long term industry relationships with loyal customers, decision makers and specifiers, installers and integrators and end users across a broad range of targeted market sectors. Second is OCC's extensive industry experience and experience and expertise in OCC's engineering, sales and business development teams who are well respected for their product and application experience and expertise which enables OCC to create and offer its portfolio of innovative high performance products. Next, OCC has a growing portfolio of innovative fiber optic and copper cabling and connectivity products and solutions that enable us to meet the unique needs of OCC's customers and end users as they are well suited for the applications in OCC's various targeted market sectors. We have significant availability of production availability at OCC's facilities, supported by knowledgeable and experienced manufacturing, quality and engineering teams. Finally, OCC's broad and diverse geographic footprint enables us to sell into approximately 50 countries every year. OCC has earned an exceptional reputation for its service, excellence, innovation and entrepreneurial spirit and we have built a team that embodies OCC's core strengths and capabilities. As we turn to fiscal year 2026, we are optimistic about OCC's growth opportunities, encOCC'saged by OCC's successes this past year and excited to build on the growing momentum we are creating in OCC's targeted market sectors. We look forward to leveraging OCC's strengths and executing OCC's strategies and initiatives to create long term value for OCC's shareholders. I'd like to thank the OCC team for its hard work, its commitment to OCC and those that count on us. YOCC's contributions to the team's accomplishment this past year have been significant. Much has been accomplished by the OCC team this year and we are confident we are well positioned for future growth in 2026 and beyond. I'd also like to thank OCC's shareholders for yOCC's continued support of OCC. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Tracy, who will review in additional detail OCC's fOCC'sth quarter and fiscal year 2025 financial.

Results. Thank you, Neil Consolidated net sales for fiscal year 2025 increased 9.5% to $73 million compared to net sales of 66 million for fiscal year 2024. With sales increases in both our enterprise and specialty markets at the end of fiscal year 2025, our sales order backlog and forward load was $7.3 million compared to $5.7 million as of October 31, 2024. Looking forward, we anticipate additional growth opportunities during fiscal year 2026. We continue to expand our product solutions offering for the data center market as demand for cloud computing and artificial intelligence applications continues to accelerate. Consolidated net sales for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2025 increased 1.8% to $19.8 million compared to $19.5 million for the same period in the prior year. We experienced an increase in net sales in both our enterprise and specialty markets during the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2025 compared to the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2024. Sequentially, OCC's net sales decreased less than $0.01% during the fourth quarter of Fiscal Year 2025 compared to net sales of $19.9 million for the third quarter of fiscal 2025. Turning to gross profit, our gross profit increased 24.1% to $22.6 million in fiscal 2025 compared to 18 point for fiscal 2024. Gross profit margin, or gross profit as a percentage of net sales increased to 30.9% during fiscal 2025, up from 27.3% for 2024. Gross profit margin for fiscal year 2025 was positively impacted by higher volumes as fixed charges were spread over higher sales. The impact of operating leverage. Additionally, our gross profit margin percentages are heavily dependent upon product mix on a quarterly basis and may vary based on changes in product mix. Gross profit decreased slightly to $6.3 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025 compared to $6.5 million for the same period last year. Gross profit margin decreased to 31.9% in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025 compared to 33.5% in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024. During the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2025, there was no significant change in the gross profit when Compared to the third quarter of fiscal 2025. Gross profit margins sequentially increased to 31.9% in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025 compared to 31.7% during the third quarter of fiscal 2025. SG&A expenses increased to $23 million in fiscal year 2025 compared to $21.5 million in fiscal year 2024. SGA expenses as a percentage of net sales were 31.4% in fiscal year 2025 compared to 32.2% in fiscal year 2024. SGA Expenses increased to $6 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025 Compared to $5.9 million for the same period last year. Year SGA expenses as a percentage of net sales were 30.4% during the fourth quarter of 2025 compared to 30% during the same period of fiscal year 2024. The increase in SGA expenses during the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2025 compared to the same periods last year was primarily the result of increases in employee and contracted sales personnel related costs and shipping costs. Included in employee and contracted sales personnel related costs are compensation costs and sales incentives. While profitable during the second half of fiscal 2025, OCC recorded a net loss of $1.5 million, or $0.18 per basic and diluted share for fiscal year 2025 compared to $4.2 million, or $0.54 per basic and diluted share. For the fiscal year 2024, OCC recorded net income of $49,000, or $0.01 per basic and diluted share for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025 compared to net income of $373,000, or $0.05 per basic and diluted share for the 4Q4 of fiscal 2024. And with that, I'll turn the call back over to you.

Neal. Thank you, Tracy. We have received a number of questions in advance of the call today, and we believe that those would be an interest to most participants. So we're going to go through those questions first, and then we will address any remaining live questions from analysts and institutional investors. Because some of those questions overlapped, we did try to combine them in a manner that we're addressing the core questions that were submitted in advance. Caroline, if you could please read the questions. We're happy to provide our.

Responses. Thanks Neil. The first question is can you update us on the data center opportunity in general, how you feel about it, if the opportunity has strengthened or not during the quarter and any major changes or.

Updates? Yes, we believe, like others in our industry, that the data center markets are strong and will continue to grow. I wouldn't say that it had a significant impact in our fourth quarter, but we believe that it will start to impact us in fiscal year 2026. OCC has a presence in the data center market with established market relationships as well as products. Of course, as you all know, OCC's products are best suited for multi tenant Data Centers or MTDCs and Enterprise Data Centers, sometimes referred to as Tier 2 and Tier 3 Data Centers. We're currently working to expand our presence in portions of the data center market and we're optimistic that the data center market, particularly this, the multi tenant data centers and the enterprise data centers, will provide an opportunity for revenue growth in fiscal year 2026 for.

OCC. Thanks Neil. Next question is over the last quarters you have been commenting on improvements in OCC end markets. Have those improvements continued into Q4? Can you comment on new and emerging trends or.

Risks? Yes, OCC continues to see strength in most of our targeted market sectors. There are certain market sectors where we've seen some projects delayed, but we do not believe that this has negatively impacted OCC's growth this year or that it would negatively impact OCC's growth in fiscal year 2026. We also believe that the continued growth opportunities in OCC's targeted market sectors for fiscal year 2026 continue to be significant. Of course, as we have said in the past and experienced in the past, during the first half of each year, OCC does experience the impact of seasonality and as of now we currently expect that to be the case as.

Well. Thanks Neil. The next question is whether you believe OCC will have any hyperscale data center.

Opportunities. We've talked about this before or we've received this question before and as we've noted that really our product solution offerings for the data center market are better suited and best suited for the multi tenant data centers and enterprise data centers. We believe that there's significant growth opportunities in the multi tenant data centers market segment as well as enterprise data centers, but particularly for the MTDCs and that will provide significant opportunities for OCC in fiscal year 2026. Yeah, I'd also add that and Tracy mentioned this in some of her comments that the multi tenant data centers also are positively impacted by the current growth in cloud computing and artificial intelligence and so we believe that that's a true market opportunity for.

Us. Thanks. The next question is what do you think the potential sales look like for 2026 and.

2027? I'll let Tracy take the financial.

Questions. Sure. As we said before, we don't provide forward looking guidance. However, I will say that we are optimistic about potential increases in sales based on the opportunities that we expect to arise in fiscal 2026, particularly during the second half of fiscal 2026. Our belief is based on what we're seeing in our targeted market sectors as well as our expected opportunities to expand in those market sectors as a result of the strategic collaboration with.

Lotera. Thanks Tracy. Next question, can you give a sense of the financial metrics behind the operational leverage? For example, how much EPS can impact different forward sales levels if they do in fact inflect higher on the.

Collaboration? We can't give you a specific formula. As you all know, operating leverage is a result of fixed costs in manufacturing and also in SG and a cost being spread over higher sales. Manufacturing operating leverage is also impacted by product mix sold, which is not a variable that's very easy to.

Predict. Thanks Tracy. Next question is Q1 and Q2 are typically the weakest quarters in terms of seasonality. Should we still expect the typical seasonality into.

2026? As Neil mentioned, we do continue to see a seasonality impact in our first and second quarters, although there can be exceptions, particularly if there are larger orders that impact the first half of the year or unanticipated macroeconomic conditions during the.

Year. Got it. Thanks Tracy. Next question, is the focus still on tier 2 data centers or is there some potential to capture some of the tier 1 data cent demand as part of your.

Collaboration? Well, without speaking specifically about the strategic collaboration with Litera, what I'd say is that OCC's products are best suited for tier 2 or multi tenant data centers and the enterprise data center market. And so that's really where our focus is as mentioned before. And and I would not expect that OCC to directly have any significant participation in Tier 1 or hyperscale data centers. Doesn't mean there couldn't be some impact at some level. And of course those growth in tier 1 data centers in the market can impact what kind of growth is being seen in Tier 2 for multi tenant data centers and other parts of the market. But directly I wouldn't expect us to have a significant participation at all in the Tier 1 or hyperscale data.

Centers. Thanks Neil. Next question. In terms of capacity available and any capacity constraints, are there any changes versus what you commented on last.

Quarter? We continue to evaluate our capacity, but right now we believe that OCC has the capacity to capture the growth opportunities that we expect to see in fiscal year 2020. So I think that really answers that.

Question. Thanks, Neil. Next question. OCC has been hiring a lot recently. Can you comment if you have seen any issues to find the right workers, why you saw the need to hire that significantly and if this will increase OPEX.

Significantly? Yes, I don't know if I'd characterize our hiring recently as significant. We do have a number of open positions that we are seeking to fill and that's not unusual for that to be the case. Most of those positions are typically in manufacturing. We are fortunate that OCC has a good record of recruiting and retaining needed talent. But I think like a lot of businesses generally, not just in our industry, OCC has seen some additional turnover among newly hired personnel. However, OCC has what we believe is a record of unusually low turnover among our longer term employees. So we do continue to expect to see hires. I don't expect that to significantly increase operating expense specifically. And of course we are consistently looking at what expenses we're incurring in order to provide the appropriate staffing as well as the appropriate balance of expense relative to our.

Opportunities. Thanks Neil. Next question is, can you please provide an update on progress of the LITERA.

Collaboration? Sure. So OCC and LITERA partnered in various capacities for many, many years. And so it's not surprising because we worked well with them in the past, that our new strategic collaboration with litera, I believe is going well. The LITERA team is exceptional and we think highly of the OCC team as well, obviously. And we believe that this strategic collaboration will create growing opportunities for OCC in fiscal year 2026 and hopefully for. Although I can't speak for Litera and for Litera.

Also. Thanks Neil. Last question this morning is LITERA has recently announced an investment into manufacturing. Is this an indication of strong demand for.

Occasional. Well, we can't. OCC really can't comment on announcements that L itera has made or what their specific business plans are. So I leave those questions for LITERA rather than.

Occ. Thanks Neil. We have no other questions that were provided in advance of the call today at this.

Time. Okay, so if those are the questions, I guess Operator Stephanie, if you could let us Know if there's any questions from analysts, we're happy to answer them. And if you could please, Stephanie, give the instructions for the folks to ask those questions, that would be wonderful. Thank.

You. Thank you. If you'd like to ask a question, press Star one on your keypad. To leave the queue at any time, press star two. In the interest of time we ask you, please limit yourself to one question and one follow up question. Once again, that is star one to ask a question. And we'll pause for just a moment to allow questioners to queue. And again that star one to ask a question. We'll take our first question from Anthony Crist with Odyssey.

Investments. Thank you very much, Mr. Wilkins. I have tried to call two or three times. I'm located up in Northern Virginia. My question deals with is there any visibility into whether or not Lightera may refer us some of the SMF Cabling, single mode fiber cabling or the Hallow Fiber cabling, which is basically tier one tier one products. And if you could, I know the words. If you could take a minute and explain what those two products are, I'd appreciate it. And then I have a follow.

Up. So Hollowcore is a type of fiber that's really looking to reduce latency and increase speed in certain applications. And so that is something that probably is usable in a lot of different applications. Our engineering team would be better able to answer that question. But as a general matter that the case, I think that I can't comment on what people are thinking about with respect to or what Litera is thinking about with respect to how they're going to use that product. But you know, occ, we partner with Litera in a number of different ways. And Litera is a large fiber producer of various different products that have been leading, having leading performance in the industry for many, many years. So again, our products are more focused on the traditional markets that we've had enterprise, various parts of the enterprise market, as well as a number of specialty markets including Harsh Environment and Military and others. We use some specialty technologies and some of those products and then in data centers. We've had a presence in data centers before, but now we're focusing on expanding that and leveraging our current relationships and also focusing on expanding our product offering. I don't know if that really helps specifically on your question. SMF specifically I think of just a single mode fiber. So that's a more typical product that would be used in data center, although multimode fiber is also.

Used. Thank you. And we'll take our next Question from Shawn Boyd with Next Smart.

Capital. He said he had a follow up question, though. Did you want to take that, Stephanie first? Anthony.

Did. Anthony, would you like to announce your follow. Up?

Yes, yes, your line is open.

Anthony. Okay, thank you. Dare I ask, Neil, if those two fibers, the SMFs and the hollow case fibers would make were competitive with the Corning fibers and if any automation AI would be given us by Litera to produce. Them? Yeah, I'm not the best person to answer the question about how those are going to be used. And there's a whole lot of intellectual property and strategy that goes behind which fibers are going into which applications and what plans are the fiber manufacturers have. What I can say is that Litera is known for having leading technology in fiber development, everything from the rollable ribbon fibers to many, many other types of fibers. They've been a leader in many ways and are well respected in that regard. How they plan to deploy those technologies in different markets is not really something that we can comment on. And those are questions that will really be left to Litera if they choose to answer them, which they may not be because of the proprietary nature of some of that. But Anthony, the one thing I guess I would add is if you're asking how they compare to Corning, I would suspect that as with any other competitors, Lightera would have a very favorable view of their products and I think the market does.

Too. Thank you again, Star one to ask a question. And we'll take our next question from Shawn Boyd with Nexmart.

Capital. Good morning. Can you hear me?

Okay? It's a little low, but I think we'll be able to make out what you're.

Saying. Okay, let's give it a shot here. So historically, the company has showed real positive seasonality in its October quarter, its fourth quarter, up double digits sequentially this year. We didn't quite see that. And I thought I might have heard something about delays. So the question is, were there any project delays or pushouts that might have caused.

That? Well, first of all, generally our seasonality is what we see in the first quarter versus the second quarter. I mean, excuse me, the first half of the year versus the second half of the year. So I don't have the precise percentage in front of me, but the growth that we would have seen from the second quarter to the third quarter would have been, I would expect in double digits sequentially. That wasn't the case from Q3 to Q4, but I would expect Q3 and Q4 to be more equal. Again, with most of the seasonality being impacting the first half of the year and seeing positive increases in the second half of the.

Year. And we did see our seasonality this year mirror that from 2024. So for the second half of the year, I think it was 48%. In the first half of total. Sales. I'm sorry, 46% of total sales in the first half of the year and the rest in the second half of the year. And that was exactly the same in 2025 compared to.

2024. And we'll be filing our annual report in Form 10K today. We expect to. In the footnotes we disclose details about some of the seasonality and the mda. The other question that you had was part of the same question you had was did we see any products that had been delayed impacting the fourth quarter? I don't think that that was significant. And again, I don't think that the delays are significant overall. I think they're. And one of the things that OCC benefits from is we're in many, many different markets geographically in particular market segments. And so sometimes we'll see big fluctuations in certain market sectors that are not truly visible because they're offset by other fluctuations and other market segments that we're.

Targeting. Let me just correct the seasonality percentage that I stated earlier. It was 46% in the first half of the year and 54% in the second half of the year. And that was the same seasonality pattern that we saw in 2024 and.

2025. Okay, so the 4654 is the year we just finished.

FY25. Yes. As well as 2024. They were exactly the.

Same. Got it. Okay. That color is helpful. Appreciate that. So just as a follow up, the collaboration with Litera, which we inked back in July, you indicate that should we should start to see that impact the top line in 2026? Can you give us any more color on that? Can we see that in the first half? Would it be the second half? And as of the just as a follow on why is that taking this long? What is it that. What are the gating factors before we see the revenue contribution of.

That? Yeah, I mean it's a good question. It also has a lot of details behind it. So specifically what we're going to see in 2026, we don't provide forecasts on what we're going to see. We do think we're going to see a positive impact and we've stated that with respect to the collaboration, as you'd imagine when you're working with companies in a different way that there is a lot of work that goes into that. I think that the work is going well and expeditiously and that there's a lot of work that's being done. You'd expect that that would be the case before it started to impact sales. But I can't be on that comment on what it is. I think that what I'd also I don't have the quite percentage. If you'll just hold on for a second. There was. I was just confirming you talked about the double digit increase because of seasonality. If you look at what our performance was in the second quarter of 2025 versus the third quarter of 2025, that does create that. You do see a double digit increase in sales which is consistent with the observation that you had made. But you wouldn't necessarily expect to see that between the third and fourth quarter because the seasonality between the first half and the second half as we described is fairly.

Consistent. Thank you. There are no additional questions at this time. I'd like to now turn it back to our presenters for any additional or closing.

Remarks. Thank you. Stephanie. Appreciate everyone's questions. We'd like to thank everyone for listening to our fourth quarter and fiscal year 2025 conference call today. As always, we appreciate your time and your investment in Optical Cable Corporation. We hope that you and your families have a wonderful holiday and a happy new year. Thank.

You. Thank you. This brings us to the end of today's meeting. We appreciate your time and participation. You may now.