Tel-Instrument Electronics Corp. Reports $639K Of Net Income for Third Quarter of FY 2019

Jeff O’Hara, Tel’s President and CEO said, “We are pleased to report a return to solid profitability in our latest quarter. The Company continues to build momentum while broadening our worldwide presence. Our team continues to work hard in pursuing new opportunities, developing new products and improving our manufacturing processes, while maintaining tight cost controls. The favorable product mix and tight cost controls resulted in Tel approaching its 50% gross margin target in the latest quarter. The near-term goal for the Company is to continue to increase revenues and profitability and to further rebuild our balance sheet that was negatively impacted by the Aeroflex litigation and damages award. The recent $1 million issuance of Series B Preferred Stock was crucial, as it has allowed us to quickly ramp up production and take full advantage of opportunities now in play for the Company. We continue to work hard on our domestic and international Mode 5 marketing efforts and we are pleased to report that our new T-47/M5 test set is making major in-roads in several key international markets. The $9.7 million of new orders for the third quarter will allow us to continue our growth path for the fourth quarter and into the 2020 fiscal year. We were particularly excited to finally secure the initial $520k purchase order from the German military this week after extensive delays resulting from a competitor’s unsuccessful protest. Based on customer input, we anticipate total bookings in CY 2019 from the German contract will total approximately $3.5 million. We also have several other large domestic and international contracts in play that we hope to announce in the next few months. Based on current backlog and expected contracts, we anticipate continued improvement in revenues and profitability for the balance of this fiscal year and for the next fiscal year.  

The Company continues to be excited about its new handheld avionics flight-line test set, the “SDR-OMNI”. The world’s first “All-in-One” Avionics Test Set utilizes true software-designed radio technology that enables it to test all common avionics functions in one 4.5 pound test set. The SDR/OMNI has very wide frequency to accommodate new commercial and military waveforms in an industry leading 4-pound package. This is half the weight of competitive test sets. It utilizes the latest touch screen technology and has the capability to replace all TIC commercial test sets and military flight-line test sets with one handheld product. We expect to begin shipments of the initial product later this summer. The Company’s goal is to use this hardware platform to move into the much larger digital radio communication test set market.

With respect to the Aeroflex litigation, we expect to file our appeal brief this month and it will likely take several years to reach a final decision. We believe that we have strong arguments for this award to be reduced or dismissed based on errors made during the trial and/or standing issues. Importantly, the legal expense associated with this litigation will be largely behind us after the current fiscal quarter. While we believe we have strong legal arguments, winning on appeal is always an uphill battle and we are working hard to generate sufficient cash-flow to satisfy the damages award in the event we are not successful.”

The Company encourages investors to read our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on February 8, 2019 at www.sec.gov.

About Tel-Instrument Electronics Corp.

Tel-Instrument is a leading designer and manufacturer of avionics test and measurement solutions for the global commercial air transport, general aviation, and government/military aerospace and defense markets. Tel-Instrument provides instruments to test, measure, calibrate, and repair a wide range of airborne navigation and communication equipment. For further information please visit our website at www.telinstrument.com.

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This press release includes statements that are not historical in nature and may be characterized as “forward-looking statements,” including those related to future financial and operating results, benefits, and synergies of the combined companies, statements concerning the Company’s outlook, pricing trends, and forces within the industry, the completion dates of capital projects, expected sales growth, cost reduction strategies, and their results, long-term goals of the Company and other statements of expectations, beliefs, future plans and strategies, anticipated events or trends, and similar expressions concerning matters that are not historical facts. All predictions as to future results contain a measure of uncertainty and, accordingly, actual results could differ materially.  Among the factors which could cause a difference are:  changes in the general economy; changes in demand for the Company’s products or in the cost and availability of its raw materials; the actions of its competitors; the success of our customers; technological change; changes in employee relations; government regulations; litigation, including its inherent uncertainty; difficulties in plant operations and materials; transportation, environmental matters; and other unforeseen circumstances.  A number of these factors are discussed in the Company’s previous filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of developments occurring after the date of this press release. The safe harbor for forward-looking statements contained in the Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (the “Act”) protects companies from liability for their forward-looking statements if they comply with the requirements of the Act.