Earnings call transcript: Desert Control Q4 2024 sees revenue surge

Desert Control AS (NASDAQ: DESO), a $23.76 million market cap company, reported a significant increase in revenue for Q4 2024, doubling its liquid natural clay (LNC) revenues compared to the previous year. The company also improved its EBITDA and projected a substantial revenue increase for 2025. Following the earnings announcement, Desert Control’s stock rose by 1.31%, reflecting positive investor sentiment. According to InvestingPro, the stock is currently trading near its 52-week low, with 10 additional real-time insights available to subscribers.

Key Takeaways

• Desert Control doubled its LNC revenues in 2024 compared to 2023.
• The company improved its EBITDA from -60 million NOK to -57 million NOK.
• Sales revenue reached nearly $2.2 million in 2024, up from $850,000 in 2023.
• The company projects a tenfold increase in sales for 2025.
• Stock price increased by 1.31% following the earnings announcement.

Company Performance

Desert Control’s overall performance in 2024 was marked by significant growth in its LNC revenues, which doubled compared to the previous year. The company’s strategic focus on expanding its technological capabilities and transitioning its operations to a licensed operator model in the Middle East contributed to this growth. The company also reported an improved EBITDA, narrowing its loss margin from -60 million NOK to -57 million NOK.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $2.2 million in 2024, up from $850,000 in 2023
• EBITDA: Improved from -60 million NOK to -57 million NOK
• Cash balance: 64 million NOK with no interest-bearing debt

Outlook & Guidance

Desert Control is optimistic about its future prospects, projecting a tenfold increase in sales for 2025. The company plans to expand its Pay As You Save business model and continue developing its technology to further penetrate the market. It also anticipates a sixfold increase in LNC volumes in the Middle East by mid-2025. Analyst consensus from InvestingPro supports this optimistic outlook, with a strong buy recommendation and a target price of $0.67, suggesting potential upside.

Executive Commentary

"Our LNC technology is now reaching its inflection point for scalable commercialization," said Ole Christian Siweltsen, CEO. Lars Heismark, Chairman, emphasized the vast potential across markets, stating, "The potential across markets are enormous." Siweltsen also highlighted the expected growth, noting, "We anticipate more than tenfold increase of volumes and revenues in 2025."

Risks and Challenges

• Market Saturation: As Desert Control expands, it may face challenges in maintaining its growth trajectory in saturated markets.
• Regulatory Approvals: Securing and maintaining regulatory approvals in key markets such as the UAE and US is crucial for sustained growth.
• Technological Advancements: Continued investment in technology is necessary to stay competitive and reduce operational costs.
• Economic Conditions: Global economic conditions, including soil degradation and desertification, could impact demand for Desert Control’s products.

Desert Control’s Q4 2024 earnings call highlighted its strong performance and optimistic outlook, driving a positive reaction in the stock market. The company’s strategic initiatives and technological advancements position it well for future growth, despite potential challenges in market expansion and regulatory compliance. For deeper insights, investors can access Desert Control’s comprehensive Pro Research Report, available exclusively on InvestingPro, which includes detailed analysis of the company’s financial health, growth prospects, and market position.

Full transcript - Desert Control AS (DSRT) Q4 2024:

Ari, Moderator/Host, Desert Control: Welcome to the DASTR Control Q4 twenty twenty four company update webcast. It will cover the Q4 report and interim financial results for the fiscal period that ended on 12/31/2024. Some updates for the Q1 year to date will also be included. A Q and A session will follow the presentation and we invite to you to use the Q and A function to submit questions. Before the official Q4 update agenda, Desert Control CEO will share a brief introduction.

Ole Christian Siweltsen, CEO, Desert Control: Thank you. Desert Control specializes in nature based solutions to combat desertification, soil degradation and water scarcity. Our innovation, liquid natural clay, enables thirsty soils to improve its quality and retain water and nutrients, improving soil health and our clients span agriculture, landscaping and forestry sectors. Our solutions have proven to save water by 25% to 50% while improving plant health and crop yields, which provides significant economic value for our clients and a solid return of investment with payback times of one to two years or less. More than 110 countries are exposed to desertification, soil degradation, water scarcity and severe droughts.

The impact of these challenges on the global economy is estimated to represent $490,000,000,000 of annual losses, making the soil and water technology market a huge opportunity. With such a large market, a startup must stay focused and plan its global expansion in stages. Our initial target markets are therefore The U. S. Southwest, where we have direct operations, and The Middle East where local partners extend our reach.

We focus on sandy soil areas affected by drought, testification and water scarcity, emphasizing areas with high water costs. With a solid base secured in our initial markets, we will then continue our global expansions to markets like Australia, Southern Europe, Africa and the rest of the world. Just a brief overview of our history and journey. Desert Control was incorporated in late twenty seventeen. The first significant capital race which allowed us to hire people and expand the team was secured in December 2019.

In 2020, the first MVP, first minimum viable product of the LNC production system was built and independent validation of LNC’s effectiveness was performed in The UAE with the International Center of Biosilvan Agriculture. Based on a successful MVP and positive validation of LNC in landscaping and agriculture, we raised another $20,000,000 in 2021 to move from MVP to industrial grade prototypes for higher capacity production technology. This further allowed us to expand operations to The United States, launching our first U. S. Pilots in 2022.

In 2023, we transitioned our Middle East operation to a licensed operator model, expanding our regional reach with local partners, which also unlocked capital to strengthen our activities in The U. S. Regulatory approvals for LNC in The UAE and The U. S. Were also secured in 2023, and our portfolio of pilots in The U.

S. Grew to 24 projects with 2,000,000 liters of LNC in the ground. Based on the field experience from projects, we then identified key technological triggers to unlock further cost effectiveness and scalability to support larger scale projects and commercialization. This led to major technological breakthroughs during 2024 with our next generation production system prototype, which will take production capacity from 15,000 liters per hour to over 120,000 liters per hour. Further enhanced by moving from manual application with hoses and sprayers to being able to apply LNC directly through irrigation systems.

Thanks to these technological breakthroughs, we more than doubled LNC volumes and revenues in 2024. So in summary, our LNC technology is now reaching its inflection point for scalable commercialization. Technological advances are unlocking opportunities that previously were out of reach. This in turn expands our addressable market, it improves unit economics and operational cost effectiveness. Thanks to these breakthroughs, the opportunity pipeline keeps growing at an accelerating pace And the results of this are seen in the growing number of contracts announced over the past month, both in The Middle East and in The United States.

Based on solid achievements of 2024, we are now on track to increase LNC volumes and revenues by more than tenfold in 2025. So we have an exciting year ahead and we will dive into more details about this during today’s presentation. Thank you for joining us. I am Ole Christian Siweltsen, CEO of Descent Control and I will take us through today’s agenda for the Q4 twenty twenty four and year to date company update which has four parts. First, I will present highlights and achievements so far this year.

Next (LON:NXT), our CFO, Leonhard, will take us through the financial update. Then I’ll share a brief outlook before we close with the Q and A session. Starting with the highlights of our Q4 twenty twenty four and year to date update, we will focus on our progress in The United States, the solid traction by our partners in The Middle East and the innovation and technology breakthroughs that are powering our progress. For The US, we will dive deeper into the pay as you save business models that we launched in the fourth quarter in the coming slide. This fast tracked securing our first commitments for full scale golf course deployment in The United States with Berkeley Country Club and Woodland Hills as announced during the fourth quarter.

At the recent GCSAA Golf Industry Show in San Diego, our technology and pay as you save model garnered significant interest thanks to the reference clients we have secured up until now. Also our agriculture business continue to evolve and I will come back with more details, especially on the recent announcement on Oasis Date, where commercial deployment is happening as we speak. Further, The Middle East is now becoming a high growth region with LNC volumes and licensing revenues increasing significantly in the fourth quarter. I will share more highlights on the traction with our partners before closing the update with more insights into the innovation and technology advancements that make all of this possible. Starting with the Pay As You Save model.

So I want to explain quickly how it works. First, we start with understanding the client’s historical data on water use. So they share with us reporting on how much water they’ve been consuming per month over the previous couple of years. Based on this, we develop a baseline that says like going forward, this is how much more water you would use without our solution in the ground. This baseline also has functionality to adjust extremities in weather conditions.

Any actual delta in water use below the baseline is defined as savings. The savings in units of water volume multiplied by the actual price of water per unit for each month will represent the financial savings which we then will share between the client and Desert Control. This model creates monthly recurring revenues for our company as illustrated by the Berkeley Country Club business case that we see in this slide. The chart on the left shows the accumulated annual revenues for Desert Control simulated here at 30% water savings. You see there is an annual growth as well and this is driven basically just by the increasing water pricing.

The chart on the right side shows a sensitivity analysis based on various levels of achieved water savings and the total potential contract value over a five year term. So keep in mind here also that all of our projects so far have consistently performed above 25% water savings and we have had several cases with up to 50% and even higher. So for our clients, this is seen as a no cure, no pay model that provides them with immediate positive cash flow showing unquestionable confidence in our technology. This shortens the sales cycles, it accelerates adoption and it creates long term recurring revenue streams for DESO Control. The combined total contract value of Berkeley and Woodland has the potential as shared in our press releases of exceeding 14,000,000 Norwegian kroners.

And keep in mind that these are small golf courses in the size of just over 40 and just over 60 acres of irrigated turf. We anticipate also to secure and activate a meaningful number of these contracts and also with significantly larger golf courses during the coming quarters. Just as a reference, there are nine fifty golf courses in California alone where increasing water prices are driving demand that really represents a significant potential for us. I also want to add that while this pay as you say model is expected to play an important role in accelerating adoption, we will also continue to secure traditional upfront paid contracts. So going forward, we’ll anticipate a balanced revenue mix combining high value upfront sales with recurring revenue contracts so that we ensure a nice and optimal balance that utilize our financial resources.

Next, I want to call out the post quarter announcement of Oasis Dates, who are now moving forward with commercial deployment of LNC. So, Oasis Dates, they went direct to a stage two pilot. They skipped this smaller stage one. And we launched the pilot back in July 2024. That showed really good and positive results during the year leading to us in December starting the negotiation with them for commercial deployments with the first ranch being the Corn Springs Ranch in California.

This is a 160 acre area that we are now treating with a revenue for Desert Control at approximate 1,500,000.0 Norwegian kroners. Deployment started yesterday and we will be finished in just a few days. We have here the high capacity prototype unit in use and it is performing extremely well. We are also applying it through the irrigation system and I got reports during the night that we were delivering LNC to thousands of date palm trees simultaneously. And the team is very, very excited.

Oasis Date is also North America’s largest date grower. So this is just the beginning of the journey with them. They have a vast number of ranches and more than 5,000 acres of farmland and date farms under their management. So we anticipate further deployments with them in the coming quarters. Turning to pipeline development in The U.

S. Here, I also want to underscore that we are a technology company and our technological advancements are a huge driver for growth of the pipeline and also expanding the addressable market for our solutions. So compared to the pipeline we showed in Q3 twenty twenty four, the total pipeline for both existing and new client opportunities has grown significantly. This is primarily due to expanded feasibility of LNC beyond highly sandy soils. We have visualized this by also adding an adjustment to the ongoing engagement and also the ones that we started before the end of the year 2023.

So the 24 projects in the bar to the left here where we started engagements in 2023 or earlier now has a total potential at 100% conversion for 100% of the addressable acreage for all of these clients of around 1,750,000,000 liters of LNC, which is up from $950,000,000 compared to what we presented in Q3. Then the added 20 projects in 2024 where we have deployed 5,200,000 liters of LNC. Then that brings a total addressable acreage on these clients that represents a potential of additional 1,250,000,000 liters of LNC, which brings the total pipeline of the 44 ongoing projects and deployments to a total potential also at 100% conversion for 100% of the addressable acreage per these clients up to 3,000,000,000 liters of LNC. This number is up from 1,300,000,000 compared to Q3. Additionally, our sales pipeline of well developed prospects that we anticipate to turn into contracts in 2025 has grown from ’19 to 2025 bringing the total pipeline volume potential up to more than 6,000,000,000 liters of LNC.

So if we use an assumption of $0.05 per liter, that means that the total LNC volume potential for these clients and engagements, of course, for a long term deployment period from ’25 to 2028 could exceed $300,000,000 Then I also want to touch on some recent events that we’ve attended Some of you may have followed and seen that we were at CES this year and there we were invited and actually showcased by Siemens (ETR:SIEGn) who wanted to demonstrate their technology being used for meaningful impactful use cases. And I must say I was really, really impressed by the massive interest in LNC, the way that Siemens hosted us and drove traffic to have discussions with several clients that turned out to meaningful leads as well. Some of these leads include sizable real estate development projects, a massive sustainable city development with more than 2,000,000 trees to be planted in the desert. And we also had the number of farmers and avocado growers in California coming by with interest that we are now following up with just to mention a few of the leads that came from this event. Then just a week back, we attended GCSAA, the International Golf Industry Event.

This is the largest industry event in the world. It’s an international one attracting 11,000 participants from the golf course industry, high participation of superintendents, management companies, etcetera. And our solution for water conservation really garnered, as I say, significant interest. And we do anticipate several contracts to materialize as a result of the conversations we had during this event. Then turning to The Middle East and here I want to start by calling out a huge thanks to our partners.

We’re now seeing that the investments that are put in this region over many years are starting to pay off with accelerating commercial adoption. LNC and licensing revenues increased by threefold from the third to the fourth quarter last year. In The UAE, significant traction. I mean, we had multiple landscaping projects being deployed commercially, contracts and agreements with some of the largest real estate developers have been secured and a number of projects in this segment is also continuing going forward. Also in Saudi Arabia, the traction is developing with projects having been executed both in the public sector for landscaping, a number of trees have been treated in some prominent projects in Riyadh and we’re also seeing some exciting private sector projects and initiatives.

Here, I wanted to touch specifically on a very inspiring project by one of the region’s largest food sector companies who are aiming to convert the desert into fertile land to grow feedstock for their business locally in Saudi Arabia and reducing the dependence on import. So very exciting. We were also at COP sixteen that put significant focus on the importance of combating desertification, food and water security. And during this event, our partner Saudi Desert Control also signed an important agreement with SDDARMA, which is the Saudi National Center for Sustainable Agriculture under the Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture, MIVA. And this collaboration will focus on enhancing water efficiency, soil health and crop productivity in line with Saudi Arabia’s national sustainability goals and the Vision 02/1930.

The agreement is expected to drive further pilot to commercial transitions and position LNC as a scalable solution for water conservation in The Kingdom (TADAWUL:4280)’s agricultural sector. So we have good traction and an exciting outlook based on indications from our partners. We do anticipate that L and C volumes for the region will grow six times the full year deployments that we had in 2024 already by the end of the first half of twenty twenty five. There are also a number of larger scale projects in the pipeline with our partners that indicate potential requirements for the next generation high capacity production units for the second half of twenty twenty five. So exciting developments and again huge thanks to our partners for the all the work that you’re putting in and driving this forward in the region.

Then I want to spend a little time on the World Food Programme and the Innovation Accelerator Sprint Programme that was announced in the fourth quarter. So this is a funded six month demonstration project in Iraq. The picture that we’re seeing in the screen here was actually received a couple of days ago from a site visit that our partner Soil did down in Iraq. So we see that this is a completely barren area where the objective is to turn this into fertile land for climate resilient farming in areas that are severely water stressed and impacted by droughts. So the objective now is to start the implementation in April, May this year.

And our Middle East partner Soil, part of the Mawarit holding investment will be our on the ground force implementing this in collaboration with WFP’s Iraq Country Office. So this has, of course, a massive humanitarian potential. If we can develop a blueprint for drought response and land restoration that we can deploy together with organizations like the UN and the WFP, we can really also help to secure a stable future for food and water security and mitigate the risks of mass migrations and really contribute to the greater vision of desert control. The long term potential of what we’re starting here is what’s called an LTA agreement, where our technology would be very easy to deploy for WFP entities around the world. And WFP does operate in more than 120 countries around the world that have a significant potential for this type of technology.

Then touching on the technology breakthroughs that we have worked the grounds for in 2024 and that we’ll see further implementation of now in 2025. So our production technology is improving significantly. I mentioned that already as we speak, we’re using our prototype at Oasis Dates with impressive results. And it is really a massive leap of capacity to go from 15,000 liters per hour to over 120,000 liters per hour that we have proven and now field tested through the last half of 2024 and into this year. So that means that one single unit will have more than eight times the capacity of the current 20 foot container sized units in half the footprint of one such unit and at a quarter of the cost really.

We’re also seeing significant improvements here in the way that we operate and run these units. One example is that we’re moving now from manual input loading of the clays and the mineral content. In the past, we’ve been dependent on 20 to 25 kilo bags manually loaded in by the operators into the units one by one to now automated loading with one ton big bags operating with two bags at a time in the back and really fast switching between them so that we can maintain sustained production at this 120,000 liters per hour level. Also, the team has put significant efforts into automation and improving the technology platform so that we’re reducing the number of operators required to drive these units. So basically a unit today can be operated by a single operator.

We’ll always have two people out in the field for safety and security, but it’s massive improvements that really drives the cost effectiveness of bringing our solution to the market to a very, very good level. Further, there are great work put in in terms of telematics and automated reporting, fleet management. We’re doing great things here, much of it also thanks to the technology that we’re accessing and doing in collaborations with Siemens. We remain on track for commercial readiness for this platform as we’ve previously announced that we’ll have commercial readiness during the first half of twenty twenty five. In addition on technology breakthroughs, I also want to repeat the importance of having now a good control over the particle sizes and the way that we are processing and delivering this that has enabled us to move from manual application to application through irrigation systems.

Right. As I mentioned, we’re now deploying simultaneously to thousands of trees at Oasis States, which in the past would have been a massive undertaking to do manually. We’ve also enhanced our capability to work with a greater variety of the local water qualities to ensure that we really don’t need to bring in portable water or water trucks for the production of the LNC that we can work with the locally available irrigation water that is there and increasing as I mentioned the feasibility from just highly sandy soils to a greater variety of soil types. Just as a reference, if you wonder if the market for highly sandy soils is not big enough. So to give you a reference there, if we were only feasible for soils that had more than 95% sand content of the 4,700,000,000 hectares of agricultural land globally, we would only be relevant for a very few percent of that market.

But as we can now grow into the categories of not only sandy soil, but also a good part of Sandy loam and loamy sand, That means that we’re expanding that from a couple of percent to maybe 20% to 25% of the global markets. So it’s a huge uptake in addressable market for us. I also want to thank our R and D team. They keep on track on driving our priorities that help achieve this in terms of formulations and developments that allow us to increase the addressable market. And they also keep driving a very, very inspiring agenda focused on soil health innovation, where programs like the collaboration initiatives we’re doing with Syngenta, etcetera, other possible synergetic values that are very promising when it comes to biologicals, etcetera, are making good progress.

Just before we end on the technology update, I want to really revisit this slide. I’ve shown it before, but I just want to emphasize the cost efficiency improvement this technology development drives. As evidenced by the energy use efficiency that you see in the bottom line here, this is really a tremendous development. So you see, we’ve gone from an energy consumption that would cost an energy $78,000 to treat a 50 hectare areas to below 2,000 two hundred to produce LNC for such an area. That’s really a massive, massive leap.

And it’s also just the fact of being able to produce such high volumes in such a short time, enabling projects that require very quick turnarounds such as for example the golf course market where we typically have three to four days of the maintenance windows that they have where the course is closed as the limitation for doing such jobs. So it’s an amazing development. As we see here, a thousand times capacity increase since 2019. And doing that while maintaining none of scale precision on the output is really, really a very high innovation level. So huge thanks to our team for the progress and achievements that have been made.

And we will now turn to the financial update and I pass it over to our CFO, Lennart Schaparian.

Lennart Schaparian, CFO, Desert Control: Thank you very much, Olakassan, and good morning to you all. The figures are shared in detail in the financial report published earlier this morning. These financial key figures will be covered in more detail in the following slides. In 2024, we more than doubled our L and C revenues compared to 2023, driven by technology advancement, increased project volumes and enhanced operational efficiencies. In addition, we are pleased to report that licensing royalties from our partners in The Middle East continue to grow.

Full year EBITDA improved from -sixty million NOx to -fifty seven million NOx in 2024. However, this progress is more significant than it appears as our Q4 twenty twenty three EBITDA received a temporary boost of 15,500,000.0 from discontinued operations related to the transitioning to licensing model. Excluding this one off, our EBITDA improvement is closer to SEK19 million this year. The company closed the fourth quarter with a positive cash balance of SEK64 million and has no interest bearing debt. These figures include both ongoing and discontinued operations of Desert Control.

Revenue from sales in 2024 also included licensing royalties. For further details, please refer to note number two. Year to date, our sales revenue has reached nearly $2,200,000 compared to $850,000 for the same period last year, more than doubling year over year. This growth has been driven by larger scale deployment and increased number of pilot projects. Furthermore, we are projecting a tenfold increase in sales in 2025.

In Q4, the company capitalized some of our development efforts undertaking in 2024 for the L and C production units. This primarily impacted salary and employee benefit expenses. The company financial position is strong, and during the year, we converted our funds investments into more liquid assets to ensure that market fluctuations do not impact our position. By taking this measured step, we underscore our commitment to preserving financial stability and reducing risks. Cash and funds in total amounts to DKK 64,000,000 as of the end of Q4 ’20 ’20 ’4, and we have no interest bearing debt.

Our financial resources are robust and sufficient to support both our ongoing operations and planned activities. As previously anticipated, we remain on track for financial runway to extend to Q4 twenty twenty five, even when excluding revenue. The overall reported equity of SEK 74,300,000.0 equals 90.7% of our total assets. The cash flow from operating activities divided between continued and discontinued operations reflect the operational profit and loss adjusted for depreciation and amortization, highlighting the company’s cash focused approach. In Q4, we received approximately SEK 1,500,000.0 in Skatefen government grant funding.

Otherwise, there were no notable deviation in cash flow with overall movement aligning with expectations and previous quarters. No additional significant sources of capital has been introduced during the fourth quarter. For discontinued operations in 2024, activity has essentially ceased, leaving only one VAT reimbursement outstanding. We are therefore approaching the point where discontinued operations will no longer need to be included in this report, as the comparative figures have been becoming immaterial. To get additional information about the Desert Control share and the top 20 shareholders, please visit our webpage, desertcontrolinvestors.

Thank you.

Ole Christian Siweltsen, CEO, Desert Control: Thank you very much, Leo. We will now turn to outlook before we move to the Q and A. So on the outlook, we do anticipate to expand LNC’s footprint in The Gulf and Turf management sector, especially focused on California and the high water costs area in that region. And building on the early successes of the Pay As You Save model, we have significant interest and expect to implement and activate additional projects and clients under this model in the coming year. We’re anticipating the first clients to be installed early in the year.

The first one already in April and during the first half see revenue generation from the model. Then moving to The U. S. Agriculture segment, we are scaling deployments there focused on high value permanent crops. We’re focused on areas like the DATE project that we have now with Oasis Date, where we will see continuing adoption.

We’re also in negotiations and discussions with the additional DATE growers that have had successful pilots on expanded deployments for the year. And also leveraging the industry partnerships that we have and the strong reference projects to continue driving adoption in this sector. Then we have the great traction in The Middle East with our partners. So we do anticipate the licensing revenues to keep growing. And we also foresee opportunities for activating hardware sales for more units and more production capacity towards the later part of the year.

We remain on track to be readiness with the commercial grade systems of the new prototype in the first half. That will also unlock significant operational efficiencies and further cost reductions in our operations, which will help us to grow more revenues, to unlock more of these sales opportunities and also generate additional hardware sales. So with this pipeline that we have, the secured contracts that are already entered and the strategic partnerships, we are now moving forward with a diversified revenue model, both upfront sales, pay as you save model and hardware and licensing revenue. And based on that, we are firmly on track to continue growing and we foresee more than tenfold increase in LNC volumes and revenues for 2025.

Ari, Moderator/Host, Desert Control: We will now start the Q and A session

Ole Christian Siweltsen, CEO, Desert Control: Thank you, Ari. Today, we also have the honor of having our Chairman Lars Eysmach joining us. And before we start the questions, I want to give Lars the opportunity to introduce himself. So Lars, the stage is yours.

Lars Heismark, Chairman of the Board, Desert Control: Thank you Ole Christian and good day to everybody who has joined our webcast here. My name is Lars Heismark. I joined the Board of Directors of Desert Control over the summer last year in 2024. And during q four, last year, I was offered the position as chairman of our board of directors, which I, of course, accepted with excitement. Prior to joining Desert Control, I spent thirty years in executive positions across various industries, and my latest stint was a senior partner with AT Kearney, where I was leading our largest global industry practice, which by the way, included several of the larger agriculture players.

Today, I spend the majority of my time in board positions across a variety of companies, including large family owned companies and private equity owned companies. And then, oh, for more than ten years, I’ve been part of the board of directors at the World Wildlife Fund. So, I’m so happy to be on board. I’m excited about our technology. I think we’re super relevant and I can’t wait to get started and realizing the full potential of this great company.

So, a pleasure being here. Thank you.

Ole Christian Siweltsen, CEO, Desert Control: Thank you very much, Lars. And then I throw it back to you, Ari, to kick off the questions in our Q and A.

Ari, Moderator/Host, Desert Control: Thank you, Alekristian. When do you expect to be cash positive? And can you elaborate on how the Pay As You Save model works? And what financial implications it has in the short and long term?

Ole Christian Siweltsen, CEO, Desert Control: All right. You’re really starting fresh head on here with the most relevant questions. So when it comes to the question of cash flow positive, it’s quite easy to see that we do have a operational cost base with a burn rate of around $6,000,000 annually. And we’ve indicated previously that we operate with a gross margin in the range of at least 50%. And as I say with the increase in production capacity from our technology development areas, we also see further improvements and strengthening that.

So you know simple maths that means that once we reach somewhere in the range $10 to $12,000,000 we will be in revenues. We will be in the cash flow positive operations mode. We’ve said that we do anticipate more than tenfold increase of volumes and revenues in 2025. I anticipate that growth rate to continue also in 2026, which means that we’ll be very likely to hit that milestone in 2026. But keep in mind also that we are a technology company that has a huge global market potential.

There are 110 countries in the world that has a substantial need and represents substantial opportunity. So rather than focusing on cash flow positive overall as a company, I think we should keep in mind that we definitely want to keep investing in growing this business and bringing it to additional markets as well. Then to the Pay As You Save model, I think I did elaborate quite in detail in the presentation today on how it works. Basically establishing the baseline of historic water use and then from that we define every saving that we create as a saving and we take the monthly financial value of that saving and split between us and the client. We’ve created a very incentivizing model here as well where the lion’s share of the initial 10% of water savings goes to Desert Control because we are taking the investment here.

I need to recover that first. And then we have an increasing percentage of the share going to the client on higher and higher water savings, which stimulates the clients to turn down the thermostat as much as possible on the water. And we also have contractual obligations for them to continue decreasing the irrigation volumes to the level where it gets to the balance of not just not jeopardizing the turf health. We also have a good level of transparency here. We have sensors that we put in the ground to look at moisture levels to see that they’re not over irrigating.

We have readings from flow meter data etcetera to see the actual water consumption and copies of the invoices from the water providers that gives us a very good overview that we are getting proper data and sharing these savings according to the model and the agreement. So please feel free if you have further detailed questions on this to shoot them into the Q and A here or email them into us and we’ll be happy to dive further into this.

Ari, Moderator/Host, Desert Control: Thank you so much, Alacristian. We have our next question. Can you comment on whether Vaster Control has plans for future capital raising near the future?

Ole Christian Siweltsen, CEO, Desert Control: So, we do have a financial runway at the moment as Leo commented that takes us to the fourth quarter of this year excluding revenues. We are focused on driving revenues and sales activities. And when it comes to sort of how to fund the continued expansion of our business and getting us to the cash flow positive point in 2026 and beyond, we’re continuously always looking at various sources and ways of funding those activities, which any company always does.

Ari, Moderator/Host, Desert Control: Thank you, Alicration. We have our next question. Four years ago, there was a visual and huge enthusiasm in industrial control regarding The Middle East. Several L and C units were made and the partnership with Mawari was expressed something like match made in heaven. Why is is the conversion looks as absent?

And why all this change from now on?

Ole Christian Siweltsen, CEO, Desert Control: So I think if you, if we put the group CEO of, Mawarid onto the call, he would still say that this is a match made in heaven. I mean, they have a huge focus on sustainable management of natural resources. And since then, we’ve also added a very enthusiastic group in Saudi with our Saudi Desert Control extended family members as well. So I think the enthusiasm that is still there and still strong. Now I did show also the development of Desert Control since 2017 to 2019 and onwards.

And we have to also respect that some of these initiatives do take time to get going. Remember that it was only in 2023 that we actually got through the regulatory approvals and built the foundation. Since then, especially during 2024, Mawarit has made significant investments in building a dedicated team. They’ve rebranded to soil and put significant sales resources onto the field. And I must say that I am truly impressed by the sales momentum that is now playing out in The UAE as well as in Saudi Arabia.

I see that the traction that both of our partners, both the marketing, the awareness that people like Doctor. On in Saudi Desert Control as well as driving on our LinkedIn and social medias and all the activities happening on the ground is really building the momentum. And of course, as in any new technologies, we do see a need for a number of piloting initiatives. That’s what our partners also are seeing. And remember that these pilots start fairly small, then they expand to a larger stage and it’s huge opportunities that are at the back end of this.

So I think the commercial success is not absent. I think the years of investments that we’ve put into the region and that our partners are putting in is now evidently starting to pay off. And we’ve seen it with a tripling of activity and licensing revenue from the third to the fourth quarter. And we do anticipate only in the coming six months, six folds that level of activity and LNC deployments compared to all of 2024 in The Middle East. So we’re very happy with the development.

Lars Heismark, Chairman of the Board, Desert Control: Maybe just to add a little bit from my side. We had yesterday the pleasure of having our two Middle East partners presenting a status during our board meeting. And I have to say that I was very impressed with the rigor and structured approach that our partners are displaying in their local markets. Very, very well structured go to market approach, Priority set investments into the go to market teams. So I was I was very happy to see, the enthusiasm, the momentum, and and needless to say the success that our partners are having in The Middle East.

And I think everybody’s aware their success is is our success and vis a vis. So we’re very, very happy with the people we have in in our partnerships.

Ari, Moderator/Host, Desert Control: Thank you, Lars. The next question is also regarding our partners in The Middle East. Saudi Desert Control is a company with much shorter history than soil despite this. They seem to be more pressing and acted in a lot of processes and initiatives. Why do soil seems to move so slow and Saudi gas controls so fast and how to ensure that soil gain tailwind?

Ole Christian Siweltsen, CEO, Desert Control: Well, I think both partners are moving strongly. We are seeing significant, you know, increased level of activities as Lars was mentioning that we clearly saw in our board meeting as well yesterday across the region with both partners. So Soil is part of a larger corporate system. They’ve invested significantly now into the rebranding to drive their own brand concept around Soil that is purely built on bringing LMC to market. And we see growing traction for that in The UAE and also into Saudi Arabia.

And we’re very, very grateful for the strong tailwinds that is created around Saudi Desert Control as well. That really elevates everyone in the market locally.

Ari, Moderator/Host, Desert Control: Okay. Next question, how many LNC production units are there worldwide now? And will we be upgraded with the new technology this year? And will there be there units added to the total fleet this year?

Ole Christian Siweltsen, CEO, Desert Control: Yes. So we have a number of the, we call it the Oasis version, the 20 foot container units, which is our current platform, the 15,000 liters per hour capacity units in The Middle East. So soil has seven such units and Saudi Desert Control has four such units. And then we had a few of them in The U. S.

Where we have transitioned to drive our projects primarily with the next generation prototype that really lifted our activity level and L and C production volumes in The U. S. During last year. So going forward, I think we mentioned in our last quarterly update that once we are done with the development of the next generation model so that we can start putting them into production will also make available upgrade kits for the current platform or the old platform to increase the volume of that of these units and secure that that capital is protected and provides good value also going forward. And on top of that, of course, there are significant other benefits, not only higher production volumes, but much more efficient mobilization, smaller footprint, etcetera, much less strain on labor with the new technology that we bring.

And we do foresee projects that will have the need for such high capacity. There are developments also in sports fields and golf courses, etcetera, in The Middle East that will drive a need for the next generation production systems. And we do anticipate in the second half to also increase units there. And we will be adding more production capacity in The U. S.

To support the scale up of deployment of pay as you save models and other projects.

Ari, Moderator/Host, Desert Control: Thank you, Olga. Next question. When you will conclude the trial project with Syngenta?

Ole Christian Siweltsen, CEO, Desert Control: So, this is not a concluding of a trial project. This is a development of a collaboration, Right? So here we are constantly evolving and looking at different areas where we can add value to their portfolio and where their products and inputs can add value to the soil health initiatives that we are driving on our side. So that is evolving. We’re now also in discussions with their US team.

We are planning to do things with their research farm up in Colorado during this upcoming season. We’re also seeing Syngenta as a very, very active and leading player in sports fields, golf and the turf industry and exploring also opportunities with them on that arena.

Ari, Moderator/Host, Desert Control: Thank you, Leclercian. The next question is likely to is likely that you will get more licensed partners in The Middle East and or Africa?

Ole Christian Siweltsen, CEO, Desert Control: Well, we do have continuously certain incoming requests and interests across the region. Our focus is to really make sure that the great partners that we have on board are successful and making sure that we don’t, you know, expand and spread our resources too thin, too quickly. But there is definitely a potential across the region and that could be explored in partnership with our existing partners. And there could be opportunities for growing in additional partnerships across the region.

Ari, Moderator/Host, Desert Control: Thank you. Will we possibly tariffs in The U. S. Impact the cost of the production producing L and C of the cost of the production systems?

Ole Christian Siweltsen, CEO, Desert Control: Well, I think we are producing systems in The U. S. So that will give us some protection and some advantages in the current settings. When it comes to certain components, I think we are focused on making sure we select components where we have potential of multiple providers from various places. But you never know, there can always be certain components that will be hit by tariffs, etcetera.

But we have very few sort of areas where we have a high dependency on a very, very rare or single vendor etcetera. So we do feel fairly confident on this.

Ari, Moderator/Host, Desert Control: Next question. How many of the new units do you expect that the Middle East Eastern partners will acquire?

Ole Christian Siweltsen, CEO, Desert Control: Well, the pipeline of opportunities to be delivered and developed will tell the story of that more as we develop through the year. So of course, there is a focus of the partners to utilize fully the capacity that they already have in the current platform. But we do foresee, as I say, certain projects with higher capacity needs that will require it. So we do see a potential for at least a couple of units in the second half of this year. And if some of the really large opportunities come through, it could be even more.

Ari, Moderator/Host, Desert Control: Thank you. Any updates on the partnership with Syngenta?

Ole Christian Siweltsen, CEO, Desert Control: I think we just answered that. But

Ari, Moderator/Host, Desert Control: okay. Let’s do next question is for Lars. It will be interesting to hear Lars as the newest board member expand on what previously described in the presentation as test control full potential.

Lars Heismark, Chairman of the Board, Desert Control: So I think the full well, I’ll see actually in several stages. First of all, the potential across markets are enormous. And I think the most important task force now is really to prioritize our efforts, focus on some of the areas where our technology is proven, where we already have clients, happy clients, where there’s plenty of potential within those segments. So needless to say, where we’re already having successes, we need to expand within those segments. We have to continue to be supportive to our successful partners across The Middle East.

They’re doing a great job. And of course, across technologies and units, we have to support that even more. So I think I when I joined the board, I said you can decide yourself how big the market opportunity is and you can decide how many zeros you want to put back on on that on on the value of that potential. But we need a certain structure here. We need to be very disciplined on on how we’re going to realize that potential.

And that starts with the areas where we know we’re doing well, where we have happy clients, even expanding within those clients within in segments, within the geographies we already present. So that’s where our main focus is going to be kept for the short and medium term.

Ari, Moderator/Host, Desert Control: Thank you. And we have a last question. Two full scale golf course L and C implementations are planned in April. Do you aim to land additional golf contracts for implementation in this spring window?

Ole Christian Siweltsen, CEO, Desert Control: We do aim to land additional contracts already in the coming months. We do have really solidly developed opportunities that we are in discussions with and that we had advanced discussions with during the GCSAA show in San Diego last week. And the objective is definitely for some of them to be implemented in the early part of the year’s maintenance window.

Ari, Moderator/Host, Desert Control: Seems like we have some more questions while having this one. And we have our next questions. Where are you in the process with the PGAOS? And how do you envision the timeline for the development there? And when do you expect to a contract will be finalized?

Additionally, how do you see the overall golf initiative moving forward? What are the main obstacles preventing you from simply seeing contracts? One will, I will think it will be no brainer for golf courses as they stand gain significantly from more water saving model.

Ole Christian Siweltsen, CEO, Desert Control: Yeah. No, good questions. With PGA West, we have very good development. For those of you who are following news, we had a wonderful interview with Nick Hoisington and our Head of the Golf and Turf Landscape segment, Kevin Neal in Golf Industry Magazine here recently, where PGA West is expressing how excited they are about our technology. They’re especially emphasizing how it’s been important for them to understand if it has any impact on the playability and confirmed also in the interview there that it really the playability remains the same with significant water savings potential there.

At the course we’ve been doing around 25% water savings and maintaining higher moisture levels which means that the grass stays healthier, recovers faster from play etc. So good development there but we’ve started with them with the objective of doing a traditional model. So here we’re not working on sort of the pay as you save model with them. They have the necessary financial means to also invest in technologies like this, which means they’re following the small pilot stage to the expanded one. We expect expansion to larger areas there in this spring season and anticipate that that will then be proven throughout the warmer part of the summer in the desert down there so that we can negotiate next steps for deployments across their golf courses towards the end of the year.

Then there were more parts of this question on the overall golf initiative. So I’m very excited by how things are developing there. Especially the Pay As You Say model is helping to accelerate adoption because having these small pilots on some tee boxes and some greens and expanded pilot to some fairways is great, right? But it really doesn’t prove in a large scale that this also works financially. It proves it technically on a smaller scale.

But what’s important to really gain momentum is for other clients to see reference clients who have implemented this for the entire golf course, seeing that is working and seeing that is working also financially. And we are heading there with the likes of Berkeley Country Club, Woodland Hills now and we anticipate adding more of them that will prove this and prove the financial model with significant results during the summer that will really remove many of the questions that are requiring these longer pilots at the moment towards the end of this year. So we anticipate to add a meaningful number of clients there and having them activated and installed for four golf courses during the year. And that will drive the opportunity to really accelerate that deployment onwards in 2026 and beyond.

Ari, Moderator/Host, Desert Control: We have another question. Can you say anything about the pipeline of the licensed partners and what the potential royalty payment for DASA Control over the next year or

Ole Christian Siweltsen, CEO, Desert Control: two? So I’ve shared sort of our excitement on the growing pipeline. And I think I’ll just reiterate what I said previously in the presentation that based on the indications that we have from our partners now, we do anticipate the first half of twenty twenty five to see a six fold increase of LNC volumes deployed. And there should be a natural correlation between those volumes and the growth in licensing revenues. Further to that, both of these companies do operate autonomously and independently and they will once they share, secure significant contracts, send out their press releases, we will be eager to also echo those in the market when they are being announced.

Ari, Moderator/Host, Desert Control: Thank you. And we have a last question. I believe one of your licenses operators is increasing their ownership in vessel control through the purchase of shares in the stock change. Do you have any thoughts on whether our intentions might be?

Ole Christian Siweltsen, CEO, Desert Control: Well I’m not familiar with a specific licensed operator that significantly is increasing. We have several nominee accounts where there could be various interests of increasing their ownership. I think anyone that is as a single investors increasing their stake in the company is a very positive signal. We are very happy to see shareholders growing to a larger stage. We do have a fairly diversified and spread out shareholder base today.

So I think any such indications would be a strong signal of confidence in our technology and in the opportunities in the market. And, Lars, feel free to also add in here.

Lars Heismark, Chairman of the Board, Desert Control: No, I think you said it, Ole Christian, and I support the statement here.

Ari, Moderator/Host, Desert Control: Ole, we have a last question. This will be the last one. How many golf courses can you trade in a year per L and C production systems? How will the growth in The US golf courses impact the number of employees?

Ole Christian Siweltsen, CEO, Desert Control: Yeah. So with the new next generation production system, we’ll be able to treat sort of the average golf courses that we’re dealing with in a couple of days. Now, here as well, it’s important to understand a little bit the operations of these golf courses, Right? So these golf courses will not close down necessarily. And some of them could, but not in general for just doing maintenance activities at any given time.

So they typically have two maintenance windows per year. One that starts in the early part of the year around March, April, stretching a little bit into May, some a little bit further, where we could do really with one unit quite a number of these. So if you say we do a golf course in the beginning of the week and one in the end of the week and then continue doing that for those months, then there will typically be a period where it’s more focused on play and keeping revenue generation for the golf courses open during the high season before we have the second maintenance window that typically kicks off around September, October ish. That gives us the opportunity for a good boost in installations there as well. Some of these golf courses, I will add, will have so high water costs that they will be willing to make exceptions and actually adapt their maintenance window to when we have availability to deliver, which also evens out that curve quite a bit.

So what was the last part of the question? How it will impact the number of employees? Well, of course, as we are targeting to do more courses in parallel, we’ll add more production capacity, have more units. And then I did emphasize how efficient we’re becoming. Of course, we’ll add some more employees, but you know, one to two operators to really run this activity on a production and application level since we’re applying through the irrigation system is the rule of thumb that you should calculate with.

Ari, Moderator/Host, Desert Control: That was the last question.

Ole Christian Siweltsen, CEO, Desert Control: Great. Then, let me just switch back to our presentation again here, if I can find my share button. There we go. So then I want to thank you all for great questions. It’s always very engaging to have so many joining us and being curious about the development.

I thank you for joining also for the company update presentation. Thank the team. Thanks to Leo. Thanks to Ari and to Lars for taking part from the company side. And before we close the session, just want you to take note of the disclaimer related to forward looking statements and say thank you and we’ll see you again in the near future.

Our annual report for 2024 is coming out on April 9. And then we’ll have our next quarterly report for Q1 twenty twenty five and this company update session on the May 12. Thank you. Have a wonderful day and see you soon.

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