Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Fourth Quarter 2024 and Year-End NanoXplore Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Pierre -Yves Terrisse, VP of Corporate Development. Please go ahead. [Foreign language] Bonjour à tous, et bienvenue à la conférence téléphonique du quatrième trimestre de vingt vingt-quatre de NanoXplore. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining this discussion of NanoXplore Financial and Operating Results for the Fourth Quarter and Year-End Results of Fiscal 2024. The press release reporting these results was published yesterday after market close and can also be found on our website, along with our financial statement and MD&A. These documents are also available on SEDAR+. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that today's remarks, including management's outlook and answer to questions, contain forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements represent our expectation as of today, September 19, 2024, and accordingly are subject to change. Such statements are based on assumptions that may not materialize and are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially, and listeners are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. A description of the risk factors that may affect future results is contained in NanoXplore's annual information form, available on our corporate website and in our filings with the Canadian Securities Administrators on SEDAR+. On the call with me this morning, we have Soroush Nazarpour, NanoXplore Chief Executive Officer, and Pedro Azevedo, our Chief Financial Officer. After remarks from Soroush and Pedro, we'll open the call to questions from financial analysts. Let me now turn the call over to Soroush. Thank you, PY, and good morning to everyone joining us on the call. We will first start with the review of the economy and the impact on our business. I will then expand on our graphene sales activities, capital allocation plan, and I will end my remarks with an update on VoltaXplore. As the central banks are making progress toward interest rate cuts, some industry headwinds from supply shortages, inflationary cost pressures, and tight labor markets continues to improve. This, along with increased activities for our customers, resulted in a very strong quarter with record sales of CAD 38 million. Gross margin continued to expand and reached nearly 24%, which is a record as well. All in all, we're operating very well, and I expect both sales and gross margin to continue increasing in the current year. Moreover, fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA, excluding VoltaXplore, came in at CAD 3.3 million, resulting in the first full-year positive adjusted EBITDA of CAD 5.2 million for the corporation. I would like to congratulate the NanoXplore team for achieving this milestone. In general, we continue to perform at a high level, and we're executing on our capital allocation priorities. We foresee this momentum continuing into fiscal year 2025. In regards to our direct graphene powder and compound sales activities, validation and testing activities are ongoing with several new customers, and during the quarter, we started supplying new customers. In fact, we are currently supplying 17 customers outside of our internal use and our sales pipeline continues to advance. For our graphene-enhanced composite products, demand continues to be very strong, and our current capacity is almost fully utilized. During the year, we have made investments in new equipment and will continue to invest more as a part of our five-year strategic plan. A large part of these investments will be in the United States and are supported by booked contracts with existing and new customers. Turning to VoltaXplore, as mentioned in our previous quarterly call, we are in discussion with a potential strategic investor, but no progress has been made. It's our analysis that the current state of the EV and batteries space is not conducive of another gigafactory. In this environment, management has decided to postpone the gigafactory project and focus only on the silicon graphene material, which shows promising demand and application for active anode material. We have received government grants to continue our R&D on SiG, and we are proactively reducing costs at VoltaXplore. VoltaXplore is going to be a scaled-down project until we see a much more favorable environment for gigafactories. This approach reduces risks, uncertainties and costs while the EV battery end market stabilizes. Regarding our graphene and coated spherical purified graphite expansion, we are continuing discussions with potential partners and customers who received various specs of our CSPG samples. We continue to see significant demand for CSPG, as current supply in North America is very limited and potential customers need to be IRA compliant by the end of 2026. We are in an administrative process of finalizing both federal and provincial government support for our graphene CSPG plant, and investors should expect our final decision to be taken in the near future for the construction of our new plant near Montreal. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Pedro, who will provide details about our financial performance. Pedro? [Foreign language] Merci, Soroush. Bonjour à tous. Good morning, everyone. Today, I will begin with a review of our Q4 and full year financial results, followed by an update on financial aspects of our five-year plan, and conclude with some commentary on near-term CapEx spending. Total revenues in Q4 were 14% higher than Q4 2023, at CAD 38.1 million, which was a record for NanoXplore. The increase in revenue was attributable to an increase in both product sales volumes and progress revenue recognition on new tooling being manufactured for three different customers. Tooling revenues will continue to be higher than normal into our fiscal year 2025, due to the previously announced expansion of an existing program and the launch of two new programs. Once the tooling of these programs is completed, part revenues will increase with the additional capacity and with the new program starting production. With regard to adjusted gross margin, which excludes depreciation as a percentage of sales, continued to have increased during the quarter to reach 23.6%, an increase of 270 basis points year- over- year, and was driven by higher activity levels, improved productivity, resulting in part from the manufacturing of cost benefits of producing graphene-enhanced products, and various manufacturing efficiency improvement initiatives. This year-over-year margin improvement has been a trend over the last eight quarters, and we are pleased that it is in continuing. As a reminder to our shareholders and analysts, as the proportion of sales of graphene powder and graphene-enhanced materials increases, gross margins as a percentage of sales will also increase. Adjusted EBITDA was CAD 2.6 million and was comprised of CAD 3.3 million in the Advanced Materials, Plastics, and Composite Products segment, a record achievement and a nearly threefold improvement year- over- year, offset by CAD 820,000 dollar loss in the Battery Cells segment, which encompasses the VoltaXplore initiative versus a loss of CAD 600,000 last year. VoltaXplore expenditures during the quarter were higher than usual due to a third party and pre-engineering expenses undertaken during the quarter. In June, Revenu Québec confirmed they would make a CAD 1.2 million partial refund on our CAD 1.5 million investment tax credit claim related to VoltaXplore. This previously unreported claimed amount was recorded as a receivable and as a reduction of plant, property, and equipment, and was subsequently received in July. The balance of the claim is being reviewed. With regards to our balance sheet and cash flows, we end the quarter with CAD 26.5 million in cash and cash equivalent and CAD 7.9 million in short-term and long-term debt. Operating cash flows amounted to CAD 300,000, inclusive of a negative impact of CAD 1.2 million receivable from Revenu Québec. Cash flows from financing activities were nil, resulting from a netting effect between lease payments and proceeds from the closing of the new RBC credit facility. Finally, cash flows from investing activities were negative CAD 3.5 million, mainly related to capital expenditure payments and is net of a CAD 1.2 million dollar reduction related to the investment tax credit. Our cash, along with the unused space in our revolving credit lines, resulted in total liquidity of CAD 36.5 million at June 30. Looking at our full year results, while sales were lower than expected in the first half of the fiscal year, the second half was strong, and we were able to deliver the full year revenue guidance set at the end of Q1. Sales for the year were a record CAD 101.3 million, and adjusted EBITDA was CAD 2.6 million. If you look at the segments, adjusted EBITDA in the advanced materials, plastics, and composite product segment reached CAD 5.2 million, an improvement of CAD 5.5 million versus fiscal year 2023. During the year, gross margins, excluding depreciation, increased from an average 17.3% in fiscal 2023 to an average of 21.1% in fiscal 2024, leading to an increase in CAD 6 million in margins. Adjusted EBITDA loss in the battery cell segment was CAD 2.6 million, compared to a loss of CAD 621,000, but the amount excludes the EBITDA loss prior to NanoXplore acquiring Martinrea's share in VoltaXplore. Moving now to an update on financial aspects of our five-year strategic plan. With regard to the expansion of graphene-enhanced SMC capacity, expansion is underway in our Beauce, Quebec, plant and expect the construction to be completed by the end of October. The new press and tooling are expected to be delivered by November and increased production to start by February. Our U.S. expansion, which includes both graphene-enhanced SMC as well as additional capacity for the composites business, is also underway, with most of the equipment having been ordered. We are currently evaluating a few sites near Newton, North Carolina, for the new facility. With various equipment expected to be delivered during fiscal Q3 2025, we expect production to start towards the end of our fiscal 2025 year. With regard to the battery material initiative of our five-year strategic plan, as Soroush mentioned, we continue with the administrative processes related to due diligence with both levels of government in securing support for the initiative. The process has been slow, but we are staying the course and remain confident this initial support will be confirmed. In addition to this, we have recently been awarded a grant of up to CAD 2.9 million over the next three years from the National Research Council of Canada's Industrial Research Assistance Program, IRAP, for the research and development of novel low carbon footprint anode materials for the use in lithium-ion batteries. This grant will not directly, while not directly related to the anode material initiative, does provide financial support to our R&D work for future improvements to anode materials chemistry. Turning now to our near-term CapEx spending. With regard to CapEx spending, we expect to spend CAD 3-5 million in each of the next three quarters as we increase the spending on our U.S. expansion initiative and graphene-enhanced SMC initiative of the five-year strategic plan. This CapEx spending amount will be updated once the government support for the anode material initiative is finalized and the anode material plant moves forward. With that, I will pass it back to Pierre-Yves. Thank you, Pedro. Operator, we can now open the lines for questions. Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster, and our first question comes from Amr Ezzat of Ventum Capital Markets. Hi, gents. Congrats on a very strong quarter and year. Good morning, Amr. Morning. On your sales growth, I'm wondering if you could give us a sense of what portion of the increase is related to tooling versus parts sales. I just wonder how sustainable is this growth as we move into fiscal 2025, especially as tooling revenues might normalize at some point. I know, Pedro, you said that you still expect some tooling in 2025. So the Q4, I would say it's about. I didn't get the numbers exactly, but it's about two-thirds that relates to tooling and about one-third relates to the parts sales. So it is important amount in the quarter that relates to tooling. But as I mentioned in the past, Amr, is that as tooling comes down, parts revenue will start going up. There's gonna possibly be a timing, but the tooling revenue does get replaced by the parts that they eventually will produce. We are seeing the growth continue into 2025 and Q1, as a seasonal aspect of our business, Q1 should be pretty good versus last year as well. Okay. That's good color, Pedro. On the gross margins, there's a couple of moving parts. First, I congrats on the 23.6%. But I wonder, with your composites business being fully utilized, how much more upside is there in margins until your expansions come online? Or do we expect a significant step up in graphene powder sales to improve margins further? It's a good point. I think what you have to think about is that seasonality does play into this, in that Q1, compared to Q1 of last year, will continue the trend. Q1 will not probably reach the level of margins that we achieved in Q4 because of that seasonality, and revenues are just stronger in Q4. But the growth in margins should continue. The question is whether Q4 of the end of this year versus the Q4 of 2024 will be significantly higher, and that part I just can't tell you right now. It should continue, because most of the increases in margins are coming from manufacturing efficiencies and volume increases. So if the volume increase is there, we do have capacity in other plants. There's parts of the business that still have capacity and will grow, but there are other parts that more are maximized, so I would say that you still will expect to see some margins increase, even in Q4 of next year. Okay, that's good color. On the anode material side, so if we speak about both, the CSPG and silicon, could you provide an update on number one, the validation process with customers? Then, you know, like you spoke about, finalizing the government support there. So I just wonder, how should we think about timeline on scaling production? Sure. So, battery material in general, there is, you know, between two to three years of validation process from the original testing that happens with the clients all the way to the end. So we are discussing and providing samples to different battery makers and also OEMs related to those battery makers. And the testings are ongoing. Most of the time, those clients ask for, let's say, some technical changes in the product, and there's a strong back and forth happens with the supplier and the customers. So, we are in different stages with different clients, on that regards. And, the second question? ... is like, just like looking for an update on the government's support, and, you know, which would inform the timeline? Yeah. So right now, where we are is with both provincial and federal government. We have received initial support letters. So where we are is technically advanced with the due diligence process. We are also working with Hydro-Québec to get the power requirements for the plant. This is the critical part, to get the power for us to really start the construction, so. Okay. Maybe one last one. It seems like your language from the last conference call on VoltaXplore, is the same, i.e., it's, you know, like on the macro environment, it'll be like on the back burner for now as you focus on your other exciting projects. But I, but I just wonder, with the, you know, like, the cost increase this quarter, what specific steps are you guys taking to mitigate, I guess, like, cost increases? And how should we think about that for, fiscal 2025? So Amr, if I may, the increases were caused by pre-engineering work that was undertaken during the quarter before any decisions to kind of slow things down. But one thing that's important to understand is that Volta is gonna continue to be a business that we continue to work with or to focus on, especially with the silicon graphene element that Soroush mentioned. With the IRAP grants coming into play, it's going to offset an important part of the cost that we have undertaken in Volta. It'll just be offset by those grants. Overall, Volta will probably cost a lot more or will impact a lot more on the financials of the business. Sorry, has a lot less impact on the business than it has in the past. The net impact will be greatly reduced because of the grant. The one million a year IRAP, does that go directly against, like, Volta's EBITDA, or is it reported separately, I guess? So we're working on that right now, but the idea is that, yes, it'll be against the VoltaXplore expenditures, and you should see the net impact in the financials of VoltaXplore when we report. Fantastic. It might be break even then. Okay, gents. Thanks for the color, and congrats again on the quarter. Thank you. Our next question comes from James McGarragle of RBC. Hey, congrats on the great quarter, and appreciate you having me on. Morning, James. Morning. Hey, I just have a kind of a more global question on the graphene supply. I know there's some reports talking about China investing heavily in building out graphene capacity. You know, we've kind of seen this in steel where you know the day they invest heavily, they kind of flood the market. It impacts pricing. You know, is this something that you're concerned about, or any conversations you're having with the government to potentially mitigate any risks from that Chinese investment? What I can say is, if you look at the graphite mining, it mostly happens in China. When you look at the battery material on the graphite side, more than 75% of anode production is in China. So it's natural for Chinese companies to look into graphene production as well. But what we can say is that production of graphene and cost associated to that is really dependent on the technology of the production. At this point, we are by far the lowest cost producer of graphene in the world, and that can even strengthen our position significantly after the dry process production of graphene, which, you know, we expect it reduces the cost of production materially again. And really puts us comparable in terms of cost and selling price to carbon black, which is a commodity material. So I would say it's difficult for Chinese companies to match those cost structure. It doesn't necessarily come from the scale of production, it also comes from the technology, and I think we have a very decent position and we're a leader in this market right now. No, that, that makes a lot of sense. Appreciate the color. And then just on the new production process for the dry graphene, you know, you talked about some of the, you know, potential uses. Can you just kind of give us an update, you know, on potential, some conversations you're having with customers? And, you know, specifically, when we can see this process implemented on a more commercial scale? We have one small module already set up in the current headquarters, and it's already working for a, I would say, a bit more than a month. We already moved out of the lab, and we're producing it more, a little bit more industrial. We are planning as well to put one industrial module, same as what's coming out of the new 60,000-ton facility in Thim ens, ahead of that, and that's what we're working towards, and we have already allocated the capital needed for this as well. I would say it's a new advancement versus what we have. When we are looking at the performance of the dry process graphene, without making it very technical, we're seeing improvements in the surface area and the quality of the graphene. But also the structure of the cost is very beneficial, the cost is quite low. So, performance to cost ratio, it actually beats our current product, and we don't find anything in the market today with that level of performance to cost ratio. So the testing is continuing. A lot of testing is happening in-house, and as well with a couple of key partners, we are testing that product. Testing will continue. We're still, I would say, two years away from the industrial production, so we're kind of continuing to work with some of those, let's say, selected partners to validate the product. So far, we're quite impressed with the performance of the product. And then one more for me before I turn the line over. I know you talked about, you know, you gave some color on how you expect top line and margins to evolve, in this current fiscal year. But can you provide, you know, maybe a specific target? I know you've done so in the past on, you know, maybe top line or, you know, where you expect margins to evolve, just to help level set, you know, our models for EBITDA in the current fiscal year. And I appreciate it. I'll turn the line over after that. Sure, so for the average of the year, it'll just probably expand by about 100-200 basis points as an average for the whole year, but that's the limitation in the immediate year. And then, sorry, on the top line as well? On the top line, we'll give guidance at the end of Q1. We'll take a look at how the economy is evolving, and we'll provide guidance at the end of Q1, but it should be another growth. I just can't quantify. Thank you very much. Yeah. Thank you, and as a reminder, if you have a question, please press star one one. Our next question comes from MacMurray Whale of CSI. Hi, good morning, guys. Good morning. On the VoltaXplore, with this delay on the Gigafactory, do you expect this level of OpEx to continue? It looks a little higher in the Q4, given what the year-end results were, or was there some one-off things that you don't expect to repeat? So in Q4, there was about CAD 200,000-CAD 300,000 that was extraordinary. It was related to pre-engineering work that was taking place at the time that we had engaged in, I think, Q3 of 2024. But the answer is that the costs are definitely gonna be coming down. We are reducing spending and with the grant that's been given to us by IRAP and the work that we're gonna shift to do silicon graphene, the impact from Volta will be much smaller than it has in the past in the 2025 year. Okay. Okay, great. And then, I'm not sure if I fully understood your comment on the margin. With the capacity utilization, obviously the margin is improving. You saw that in through the course of 2024. Are you expecting then in this first quarter to go back to the margin levels that we saw sort of Q1 of fiscal 2024? Or is it basically this, the level you've established maybe in the middle of the year, do we go back down to that, or can you continue to increase from the Q4 level? Because the business is seasonal, you always have to compare year- over- year. Q1 of 2023, we had, I think it was around 20%, give or take. Yeah. We should expand margins from that point. They won't be as high as Q4, mainly because revenues won't be as much as Q4. A lot of the benefits that we had in reaching 23.6% margins in Q4 relate to the fact that we had high volumes. The manufacturing improvements are definitely gonna continue, but because the volume is gonna come down in Q1 related to Q4, those margins are definitely gonna be much more in line with Q1 of last year, but they will expand. For the year, as I mentioned, for the year, the average, I think, was about 21% for the whole year, and we will expand for 2025 by about 100 to 200 basis points for the average for the full year. Okay. And then when the new capacity in the U.S. comes online, is that effectively the same level of margin, sort of contribution margin you expect from those facilities? Or is there something there that you think you could do a little bit better, or is there a bunch of offsets in terms of perhaps some higher local costs offsetting some efficiency improvements? Like, can you comment on the U.S. operations? So, as you start a new facility, as we fill it, the margins will be starting to be maybe a little bit lower, specifically in that margin in that environment, but they will grow as we improve manufacturing, as the volumes increase. So, I don't expect the U.S. operations to be impacting our overall margins very much negatively. It should be more or less neutral, but we do expect margins to be somewhat in line with what we see today as we start the new operations. Great. That's all my questions. Thanks, guys. Great. Thank you. Our next question comes from Buddy Wiseman- Barker of National Bank Financial. Hi, guys. Just filling in for Rupert here. Thanks for taking my question. Most of them have been answered. Just wondering, trying to get a sense of the pace of investment related to the five-year plan, and if you guys can give a sense of what maintenance CapEx was last year and what you expect it to be next year. We expect to be spending about CAD 3 million-CAD 5 million in each of the next three quarters, give or take, as we continue to put the equipment, pay for the scheduled payments to our suppliers and as equipment is delivered. So for the next three quarters into calendar 2025, we should be at CAD 3 million-CAD 5 million. For the full year, we'll probably be around the CAD 12 million-CAD 15 million for the full year, versus I think it was about CAD 10 million last year. Okay, thank you. And just one more. So you said earlier this year you had some labor issues. Have those resolved themselves? Labor issues? I'm not sure what you're referring to. Yeah, during the year, there was a strike in a- Oh, yes. - customer facilities, but they all. That impacted, I think, the second quarter- Yeah reporting quarter, and that thing is over. Yeah. Okay, yeah. But just to add to customer, other labor issues at our plants. Okay, sorry. Thank you. You're welcome. That's all the questions. Thank you. I'm showing no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn it back to Pierre-Yves Terrisse for closing remarks. Thank you very much. I would like to thank everybody for participating on this call. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.