Item 1. Business.
Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
Certain matters discussed in this Annual Report on Form 10-K contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, such as statements related to future events, business strategy, future performance, future operations, financial position, estimated revenues and losses, projected costs, prospects, plans and objectives of management. All statements other than statements of historical fact may be forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as “seek,” “anticipate,” “plan,” “continue,” “estimate,” “expect,” “may,” “will,” “project,” “predict,” “potential,” “targeting,” “intend,” “could,” “might,” “should,” “believe” and similar expressions or their negative. Forward-looking statements should not be read as a guarantee of future performance or results, and will not necessarily be accurate indications of the times at, or by, which such performance or results will be achieved. Forward-looking statements are based on management’s belief, based on currently available information, as to the outcome and timing of future events. These statements involve estimates, assumptions, known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. Mayville Engineering Company, Inc. (MEC, the Company, we, our, us or similar terms) believes the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K are reasonable, but no assurance can be given that these expectations will prove to be correct. Forward-looking statements should not be unduly relied upon.
Important factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those expressed in forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, those described in “Risk Factors” in Part I, Item 1A of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021, as such may be amended or supplemented in Part II, Item 1A of our subsequently filed Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, and the following:
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the negative impacts the COVID-19 pandemic has had and will continue to have on our business, financial condition, cash flows, results of operations and supply chain, including the supply chain issues encountered by our original equipment manufacturer customers, the current inflationary pressures on wages, benefits, components, and manufacturing supplies and future uncertain impacts; |
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risks relating to developments in the industries in which our customers operate; |
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risks related to scheduling production accurately and maximizing efficiency; |
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failure to compete successfully in our markets; |
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our ability to realize net sales represented by our awarded business; |
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our ability to maintain our manufacturing, engineering and technological expertise; |
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the loss of any of our large customers or the loss of their respective market shares; |
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risks related to entering new markets; |
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our ability to recruit and retain our key executive officers, managers and trade-skilled personnel; |
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volatility in the prices or availability of raw materials critical to our business; |
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manufacturing risks, including delays and technical problems, issues with third-party suppliers, environmental risks and applicable statutory and regulatory requirements; |
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our ability to successfully identify or integrate acquisitions; |
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our ability to develop new and innovative processes and gain customer acceptance of such processes; |
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risks related to our information technology systems and infrastructure; |
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political and economic developments, including foreign trade relations and associated tariffs; |
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results of legal disputes, including product liability, intellectual property infringement and other claims; |
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risks associated with our capital-intensive industry; |
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risks related to our treatment as an S Corporation prior to the consummation of our initial public offering of common stock (IPO); and |
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risks related to our employee stock ownership plan’s treatment as a tax-qualified retirement plan. |
These factors are not necessarily all of the important factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those expressed in forward-looking statements. Other unknown or unpredictable factors could also cause actual results or events to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements attributable to us are qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date hereof. We undertake no
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obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements after the date on which any such statement is made, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by federal securities laws.
General
MEC is a leading U.S.-based value-added manufacturing partner that provides a broad range of prototyping and tooling, production fabrication, coating, assembly and aftermarket components. Our customers operate in diverse end markets, including heavy- and medium-duty commercial vehicles, construction & access equipment, powersports, agriculture, military and other end markets. We have developed long-standing relationships with our blue-chip customers based upon a high level of experience, trust and confidence. “We Make Things Simple” by providing a diverse set of process offerings and a “one stop shop” for end-to-end solutions with benefits throughout the entire product lifecycle, including front-end collaboration in design and prototyping, product manufacturing, aftermarket components and ancillary supply chain benefits. Founded as a corporation in 1945 and headquartered in Mayville, Wisconsin, we are a leading Tier I U.S. supplier of highly engineered components to original equipment manufacturer (OEM) customers with leading position in their respective markets. We are focused on producing the highest quality components using complex processes at the lowest cost by working with customers throughout the product design and development process to establish optimal solutions. Our engineering expertise and technical know-how allow us to add value through every product redevelopment cycle (generally every three to five years for our customers). According to The Fabricator, we have been ranked as the largest fabricator in the United States for the past eleven years in a row (2011 – 2021). We are approximately more than two times the size of our next largest competitor, based on The Fabricator’s projections for revenue for metal fabricating companies.
Our customers’ complex products require a unique combination of our capabilities that allow us to achieve a customized offering to satisfy our customers’ desired outcomes. Our capabilities, which include, but are not limited to: metal fabrication, metal stamping, tube bending and forming, robotic part forming, robotic welding, resistance welding, five-axis tube and fiber laser cutting and custom coatings, including high heat and chemical agent resistant coating (CARC) painting, are used in a variety of applications and represent the building blocks of what we produce.
Our key customers have globally recognized brands and demand the highest product quality and expertise. Over our more than 75-year history, we have developed capabilities and provide solutions that result in customer loyalty and long-standing relationships, which we call “Experience You Can Trust”. We have a diverse and market-leading customer base that serves broad end markets representing favorable near- and long-term growth prospects for us. We have a track record of growth and are well-positioned to increase our market share and benefit from growth in customer demand as well as consolidate demand across the end markets that we serve. To help pursue our strategic mission, we have approximately 2,200 employees who are tactically aligned around our core values and will continue to participate in our employee ownership culture. We are led by an experienced management team that has contributed to our growth by establishing deep and long-standing relationships with key customers and has worked to expand the customer base both organically and through strategic acquisitions.
We maintain an established base of long-standing customers comprised of leading, blue-chip OEM manufactures across the United States. Our broad capabilities offering and track record of producing the highest quality solutions have allowed us to establish, and subsequently deepen, relationships with additional products and platforms over time. For example, our more than 40-year relationship with Deere & Company (John Deere) began with a small order of simple stamped parts for a farm tractor in its agricultural segment that expanded over time and represented 2021 sales in excess of $75.5 million across five market segments, representing over 60 model platforms. We have also been successful in winning customers and rapidly expanding relationships with high-growth customers by utilizing our diversified “one-stop” offering. For instance, our relationship with Volvo Truck began with fuel tanks and has expanded over the last nine years to include exhaust tubing, new sleeper cab and chassis fabrications and other fabrications. Through the expansion of multiple fabricated components from multiple facilities, we have been able to deepen our relationship with this customer and solidify our position as an important strategic sourcing partner.
We serve customers through 20 strategically located U.S. facilities, of which 19 are in operation, across seven states, with more than 3.1 million square feet of manufacturing capacity. Our expansive footprint enables us to service and maintain strong relationships with existing key customers across the United States with a “local” presence, as well as target new customer opportunities. Coupled with our focus on market alignment and execution, we constantly strive to improve and refine capabilities, capacities and reduce our carbon footprint. In addition, the ongoing investment in flexible, re-deployable automation allows us to expand output while reducing cost and improving quality, productivity and consistency for margin enhancement and market leading competitiveness.
Our historical success is a function of our engineering expertise, extensive manufacturing capabilities, limited commodity exposure, investment in automation and embedded relationships with the contractual ability to pass input costs through prices. We believe we are poised to grow through economic cycles due to our:
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market positioning and reputation; |
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flexible and re-deployable capital investment in automation and process capabilities; and |
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our geographic, end market and product diversification. |
Our diversified profile today best positions us for stability and leading market performance through all phases of an economic cycle.
Our Industry
We compete in the highly fragmented market of contract manufacturers, the majority of which are small local players that are limited in scale, capabilities and technology. Many of these local manufacturers have single or limited production capabilities and provide niche components in specific geographic markets. Accordingly, there are a limited number of competitors in the contract manufacturing market in which we operate with the capacity and expertise to deliver the full range of solutions we offer. For example, our diverse manufacturing capabilities across product lines have contributed to us being the recipient of The Fabricator’s “FAB 40” #1 Largest Fabricator in the attractive U.S. markets for the past eleven years in a row (2011 – 2021). While we compete with certain manufacturers across selected product lines, we believe that no single manufacturer directly competes with us across our full offering and end market applications.
Our end market diversification coupled with our extensive product breadth allows us to maintain financial stability as individual end markets fluctuate. The primary end markets we serve include heavy- and medium-duty commercial vehicles, construction & access equipment, powersports, agriculture, and military, among other machinery markets. As markets strengthen or weaken, our output is redirected and realigned to support ongoing change. Further, as these fluctuations affect the market, we are favorably positioned to benefit from the broader trend of our OEM customers to consolidate to fewer and more sophisticated suppliers in order to improve quality and delivery while lowering the total cost of doing business. This consolidation trend will allow us to grow and protects our cash flow as markets change and shift.
We have also experienced, and benefitted from, an OEM trend of seeking to improve their strategy execution and simplify their business through outsourcing. Based on our history, OEMs pursue a strategy that focuses on core component market differentiation, such as structural frames and complete powertrain assemblies, and prefer to outsource the remaining product components to third parties rather than manufacturing them in-house. This is done in order to maintain their strategic focus, drive cost savings and reduce their own investment in manufacturing, thereby allowing them to focus on the most important aspects of their value creation process, namely product design and development, final product assembly and testing, branding, sales, marketing and distribution. While each specific OEM differs in its strategy, we see this trend continuing as customers deal with workforce constraints and look for optimum return on investments and improving cash flow. Moreover, our OEM customers focus on the production of the core components of their products, which leads them to rely on outsourced providers like us for the remaining components of their finished product needs. We believe we will benefit from this continued shift in our customers’ focus and ongoing desire for OEMs to improve efficiencies, reduce costs and simplify supply chains. Our established and embedded relationships, breadth of capabilities and scalability will allow us to simplify the supply chain process for our customers by acting as a single point of contact in the supply chain. In addition, we believe OEMs are increasingly favoring platforms supported by larger, more sophisticated and financially stable suppliers with the ability to serve large national and international operations all while maintaining a local touch. Our extensive manufacturing footprint, competitive cost structure and integrated design, engineering, production planning and quality program management capabilities positions us favorably to take advantage of these opportunities and trends.
Our Competitive Strengths
We believe that customers turn to us for their manufacturing needs because we are the ultimate “ReSource”. ReSource is a dual-purpose acronym we use to describe the breadth of our capabilities and our goal to be the one-stop solution allowing customers to re-source all of their fabrication needs through us. We collaborate with our customers to generate a strategic alignment and position ourselves as an essential part of our customers’ product development and manufacturing process by drawing on our deep product and engineering knowledge to deliver best-in-class solutions. We offer a broad portfolio of end-to-end solutions comprised of advanced and innovative processes and capabilities that enhance quality and simplify supply chains. We are focused on producing the highest quality components using complex processes at the lowest cost by working with customers throughout the product design and development process to establish optimal solutions. Our engineering expertise and technical know-how allows us to add value through every product redevelopment cycle (generally every three to five years for our customers).
Value-Added Supply Chain Partner with Embedded Relationships. Our embedded relationships with our large and diverse customer base are driven by the P.R.I.D.E. (“Personal Responsibility In Daily Excellence”) approach our employees take in their work, which emphasizes the highest quality and performance in all facets of our business, including our ability to partner with our customers and deliver to them complex solutions across a wide range of products. Our unique, end-to-end offering provides solutions throughout the life cycle of a product, including upfront product manufacturability advice and prototyping, production volumes and aftermarket components. We strive to maintain operation alignment (and continuous re-alignment) with our customers’ strategy and production activities as they evolve, allowing us to remain agile in response to market changes, while enabling our customers to be successful, and to remain adaptable to changes in customer needs to retain flexibility to adjust appropriately. Together, these items comprise “The MEC Mission.” Our focus on collaboration with our customers and our breadth of capabilities also generates strategic
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alignment with our customers, resulting in sticky relationships, driving vendor reduction and providing other ancillary benefits such as optimization of working capital investments. Our track record of engineering expertise has resulted in our consistent inclusion in customer design and prototyping activities, enabling customers to view us as an invaluable extension of their own teams. In turn, this collaboration allows our customers to focus on the development of their core technologies and products. Our position as a deeply embedded supply chain partner of scale allows us to provide a multitude of solutions, driving strong customer relationships with high switching costs.
Leading and Defendable Market Position in Attractive North American Market. According to the Fabricator, we have been ranked as the largest fabricator in the United States for the past eleven years in a row (2011 – 2021). The market is highly fragmented and characterized by high barriers to entry given the complex nature of the work, established relationships, and high customer switching costs. While there are numerous competitors in the markets in which we operate, few maintain the product breadth, manufacturing capabilities, scale or engineering expertise that we do. Our depth of capabilities allows us to offer our customers:
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low volume production capability; |
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customized and sophisticated solutions; |
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unique engineering and manufacturing capabilities throughout the product lifecycle; |
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critical scale to service large national and regional customers as well as local customers; and |
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the ability to act as a single point of contact and offer seamless customer service. |
End Market and Customer Diversification. Our value-added manufacturing focus enables us to remain diversified across a variety of customer end markets, including heavy- and medium-duty commercial vehicles, construction & access equipment, powersports, agriculture, and military, among others. These end markets are representative of our globally recognized customers, which are comprised of large OEM manufacturers. In 2021, our top customer and top ten customers accounted for 16.6% and 79.6% of net sales, respectively, which collectively represents hundreds of platforms that we serve across a variety of end markets and customer operating segments. Our access to a multitude of end markets allows us to strategically shift focus to sell into current opportunities as end market demand evolves. In addition to customer and end market diversification, our customers themselves are also diversified across multiple end markets. For example, John Deere is one of our leading customers with 2021 net sales accounting for 16.6% of our total net sales, to whom we provide over 5,000 SKUs across over 60 individual John Deere platforms including the agriculture, forestry, turf care, power systems and construction & access equipment end markets. Our increasingly stable performance is a direct result of our intentional business design of agility and adaptability to realign manufacturing capacities to serve diversified and ever-changing end markets.
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Breadth of Capabilities Appealing to a Variety of Applications. We have many manufacturing capabilities that together represent the building blocks for the complex solutions we provide to our customers. We maintain a full spectrum of capabilities across our 20 production facilities, of which 19 are in operation, to address a wide set of customer needs, including upfront product development advice and prototyping, unique manufacturing processes and capabilities across a variety of products and back-end finishing, assembly and aftermarket components representing a unique end-to-end offering. Our range of capabilities combined with our breadth of components, including fabrications, tubes, tanks, and performance structures, expands the applicable uses and end markets in which we may offer our components. Throughout our history, our capabilities have allowed us to generate growth by expanding into new verticals and by further penetrating existing verticals through cross-selling to increase wallet share, a strategy that has driven sticky relationships with our customers. Further, our unique combination of manufacturing processes allows us to opportunistically target sophisticated, higher margin business. The diversity of our offering has provided our Company with financial stability through various end market and economic cycles.
Technology-Enabled Infrastructure. We continue to invest in a technology-enabled asset base that provides significant flexible and re-deployable capacity to support our planned growth, increases profitability, efficiency, quality and employee safety, reduces spend on energy and drives a long-term cost advantage over our competitors. We have leveraged our purchasing power to make significant investments in operational infrastructure throughout our history, in items such as flexible and re-deployable automation and capacity improvements to improve throughput, quality and consistency. For example, we were one of the first in our industry to adopt fiber lasers and have continued to invest in this capability. We have implemented 10,000- and 12,000-watt fiber lasers with an automation tower, which are on average three times faster, provide a cleaner, more precise cut and use one-third of the power compared to traditional CO2 lasers, with a payback period of less than two years. Additionally, the implementation of robotic brakes has improved quality through a continued shift towards precision automation. By reducing setup procedures, manual employee lifting requirements and downtime while offering additional capacity, the implementation of robotic brakes has resulted in a payback period of approximately two years. These two examples of investments in technology-enabled infrastructure allow us to reallocate our workforce, as employees can be retrained and redeployed into more technically skilled positions. In today’s ever-changing labor market, the ability to redeploy labor to increase flexibility and capacity for our customers is of utmost importance and interest as part of our strategy. Our investments in continuous improvement and automation have driven operational efficiencies and improved metric tracking allowing our management team to more effectively run the business and improve the value we provide to our customers. We have, from time-to-time, made strategic, customer-driven investments that directly support new product and market expansion which result in further competitive advantages and higher switching costs for our customers.
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Cost Structure and Operational Excellence. We have reduced our exposure to commodity price risk by structuring our customer contracts to pass through changes in commodity prices. As such, we have been able to effectively limit any potential impact from tariffs and commodity price volatility to our margins. Our scale and profitability have also allowed us the flexibility to implement continuous improvement initiatives in driving efficiencies, such as automation and additional capacity, which will result in long-term efficiency and margin improvements, and expanded capabilities.
Our Strategy
Achieve Sales Growth Through Organic Expansion. We believe there is ample opportunity to achieve deeper penetration of existing customers and to win new customers with our strong one-stop offerings. By leveraging our core product capabilities to expand into new markets, and establishing new offerings in attractive, adjacent or complementary platforms through new product introductions, there is significant opportunity to execute on our organic growth initiatives. Expanding our wallet share with our customers by capturing a wider variety of products and more platforms both solidifies our relationship with customers (because it increases customer switching costs) and attracts potential new customers that seek to simplify supply chains, while also defending our market position from our competitors. These opportunities are enhanced through cross selling between MEC’s capabilities and customer base. Our expertise allows us to produce higher quality components at cost-effective rates while our volume, equipment and know-how establish competitive advantages. Further, an expanded offering increases our strategic alignment with customers and supports our “We Make Things Simple” value proposition by presenting customers with further vendor consolidation opportunities.
Pursue Opportunistic Acquisitions. Our management team maintains a proven track record of successfully executing and integrating strategic acquisitions. We have completed two significant acquisitions since 2012 (Center Mfg. Co. in 2012 and Defiance Metal Products (DMP) in December 2018) and four other complementary acquisitions since 2004, which have contributed new capabilities, product offerings, end markets served, and technologies to our legacy business, along with significant synergy opportunities that have enhanced our financial position. Our strategy is to continue to identify, and opportunistically execute on, accretive acquisitions that will allow our Company to achieve further growth. We believe that our reputation, scale and track record of performance makes us a “consolidator of choice” among industry participants, which has led to an ample pipeline of actionable acquisition opportunities. Our investment criteria for acquisitions are U.S.-based companies with long-standing customer bases comprised of leading OEMs, and specialized manufacturing capabilities that allows us to enhance our existing expertise or expand into new types of capabilities, among other criteria. It is our view that continued execution of our acquisition strategy provides significant opportunity to generate shareholder value through further consolidation of our fragmented industry. The market environment, comprised mainly of small local and regional players, provides ample add-on acquisition opportunities to bolster our one-stop shop approach to broadly serving our customers. Beyond our existing served markets, we see potential acquisition opportunities within the rail, aerospace, medical, fitness, energy, heavy fabrication and food & beverage end markets, among others.
Continue Process-Driven Improvement Initiatives. Our process-driven improvement initiatives have resulted in significant savings throughout our history, leading to improved financial results and positive customer outcomes. Our strategy will continue to include a keen focus on continuous improvements in order to maintain a differentiated and defendable market-leading position, as well as ongoing costs and operating improvements including investments in technology and automation, plant consolidations, and acquisition integration synergies, which are expected to drive immediate and long-term productivity and margin improvements through permanent headcount reductions. Examples of recent process driven improvement plans include:
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successful integration of new 10,000- and 12,000-watt fiber lasers, robotic brake presses, and automated material handling equipment in Mayville, WI and Defiance, OH; |
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consolidation of shifts through better utilization of automation on paint lines, new laser and robotic brake press technology, automated machining centers and optimization of companywide assets; |
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closure of our Greenwood, SC and Wytheville, VA facilities and consolidation of their production capabilities into our other facilities, maintaining overall manufacturing capacity with a smaller footprint by leveraging our investments in technology and automation; and |
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acquisition synergies between DMP and legacy MEC through centers of competencies driving best practices throughout the organization. |
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Maintain Alignment with Employee Base and Employee-Driven Results. Our rich history of employee ownership and P.R.I.D.E has cultivated a strategic management-employee alignment and results-driven organization with each employee contributing to a common goal. Our employees maintain a significant ownership stake since our IPO, which we believe benefits the entire organization as our strategic alignment remains in place and continues to generate employee-driven results. As we continue to invest in our business and increasingly implement a more technology-enabled infrastructure, we will strive to redeploy our employees in other, higher-skilled areas of our business and invest in training where needed. Our employees are the foundation of our company; with experience across a diverse range of markets and capabilities, they drive innovation, believe in our process and the outcomes of their work and our success. Our investment in new technology attracts technically savvy employees to replace retiring traditionally skilled employees. We and our employees are also highly involved in, and actively support, the communities in which our facilities are located; our 2,200 employees take P.R.I.D.E. in creating value and support for both our customers and communities every day.
Our Capabilities
We offer a broad portfolio of end-to-end processes and solutions comprised of advanced and innovative capabilities that enhance quality and simplify supply chains for our customers. Through our collaborative approach, we maintain a complete, and growing, set of sophisticated manufacturing capabilities to meet the diverse needs of our customers, including:
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Program Management — We offer our customers a complete solution from concept to launch following the APQP (Advanced Product Quality Planning) process (planning, design for manufacturability and development, process design and improvement, product and process validation and continuous improvement). |
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Engineering — We collaborate with our customers and provide design for manufacturing, off-line programming (lasers, brake press, machining, robot welding, coordinate measuring machines), value engineering and CI (continuous improvement). |
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Tool Design and Build — Our in-house tool design and tool room capability ensures quality from start to finish. We build and service all categories of tooling, including large progressive dies. |
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Laser Cutting — Our programmable fiber and CO2 laser cutting capabilities eliminate expensive hard tooling. Our equipment can cut metal up to 1 inch thick while maintaining tolerances to .002 inches at speeds up to 4,000 per minute. Our tube lasers are state of the art cutting machines that offer exceptional tolerances and through-put. |
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Brake Press — We combine our operator’s expertise with the proper equipment required to offer top versatility to our clients for bending, forming, coining and air bending. Our facilities house the latest press brake machinery including robotic part manipulation and stacking. |
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Stamping — We provide custom metal stamping capabilities for short, medium or long production runs. For longer runs, our production of sheet metal stamping uses 50 to 1,200-ton manual or automatic feed presses with state-of-the-art feed lines for precision metal stamping. Our small, high-speed presses are ideal for producing intricate high-volume stampings. |
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Machining — We provide a variety of machining capabilities to meet our customer needs by providing in-house machining assistance for parts that are part of larger fabrications and assemblies. |
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Tube Bending — We maintain vast tube bending capabilities, including (i) manufacturing of oval, round and square tubes from .25 inch up through six inch and (ii) leveraging our extensive inventory of equipment including the latest CNC (computer numerical control) benders; and state-of-the-art technologies such as CNC electro-servo-driven bending with multi-task heads. |
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Welding — We have earned our reputation as one of the premier manufacturers of weldments. Our welding departments offer manual and robotic wire welding, including GMAW (Gas Metal Arc Welding and also known as MIG, or Metal Inert Gas), GTAW (Gas Tungsten Arc Welding) and also known as TIG (Tungsten Inert Gas), Heliarc, Fluxcore, Metalcore, Aluminum, Plasma Weld, Brazing and Pulse Heliarc. |
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Coatings, Assembly and Logistics — We provide premier full-service coating, assembly and logistics solutions for blue chip OEMs. Our coating capabilities offer a full-range of high technology industrial coating capabilities, including: E-Coat, military certified CARC, commercial and industrial powder and liquid coatings. Our coating systems utilize direct-to-metal and pre-treatments including acid pickle, zinc phosphate and in-line Alodine for the conversion of aluminum. |
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Our Proven Approach
We collaborate with our customers to generate a strategic alignment and position ourselves as an essential part of our customers’ product development and manufacturing process by drawing on our deep product and engineering knowledge to deliver best-in-class solutions. Our approach is simple: we view quality as a significant business strategy with a strong return on investment. Our philosophy on quality is based on Continuous Improvement with an IATF (international automotive task force) and ISO (international organization for standardization) foundation. Our skilled and experienced staff is highly trained in areas of quality planning, metrology, geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (ASME Y14.5M 1994), ISO, QS9000, statistical techniques (SPC) and ISO 14001 certifications. Our Quality Management System is comprised of the following:
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IATF 16949:2016 certification (one of the automotive industry’s most widely used international standards for quality management); |
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ISO 9001:2015 registration (international standard for quality management systems); |
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process and assembly line audits with focus on process control; |
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process capability that is proven at validation and monitored during production; and |
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specialized validations for paint and weld operations. |
We periodically enter into joint process improvement efforts with key customers. Such exercises have historically resulted in reduced manufacturing critical path time, cost reductions and quality improvements through effective batch sizes and more repeatable processes. Our continuous improvement initiatives have resulted in the acquisition and application of state-of-the-art technologies and plant improvements that support lean, quick response manufacturing flexibility that put us at the forefront of our market. Moreover, the agility that our quick response manufacturing methodology provides us keeps our purchasing, manufacturing, engineering and quality teams on the cutting edge of flexible manufacturing. This adaptable approach also decreases manufacturing costs, allows for faster order turnaround times, and elimination of excess waste.
We maintain an advanced machinery portfolio in our facilities that allow us to leverage our employee workforce with state-of-the-art capabilities and functionality. We strive to maintain our assets or upgrade capabilities where deterioration has driven obsolescence or better technology is available, reducing our carbon footprint. Most recently, we have invested in multiple fiber laser systems and robotic brake presses with automation aimed at reducing labor content and optimizing floor space which allows us to generate more revenue with the same workforce and footprint. We have also recently invested in a machining center with palletizers, leading edge tube lasers with automatic loaders, robotic brake presses, robotic weld cells and a direct-to-metal paint line.
Our Markets
Our primary end markets include (but are not limited to) the heavy- and medium-duty commercial vehicles, construction & access equipment, powersports, agriculture, and military markets. While our individual end markets may be exposed to cyclical variations, the diversified nature of our end markets affords us the ability to shift production with demand as certain end markets trend lower and others trend higher. In our experience, our diversification has muted the impact of downturns on our business that we have faced in the past. For example, we experienced net sales growth during the 2008 and 2009 recessions due to strong orders, particularly from our customers focused on the military end market. Moreover, as our heavy- and medium-duty commercial vehicles, construction & access equipment, powersports, and agriculture customers’ revenues fluctuated from 2013 to 2017, with median peak-to-trough sales decline of 23%, our peak-to-trough sales declines were less than that of those respective markets at only 10%. We were able to accomplish this by reallocating our resources to serve our heavy- and medium-duty commercial vehicles and powersports customers, leading to strong double-digit growth in those end markets.
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Heavy- and Medium-Duty Commercial Vehicles: Heavy-duty commercial vehicles include class 8 heavy trucks such as standard semi-trucks. Medium-duty commercial vehicles include classes 3-7 trucks such as box trucks; |
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Construction & Access Equipment: Primary applications include wheel loaders, crawlers, skid steer loaders, excavators, motor graders, aerial lifts, boom lifts and other construction equipment; |
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Powersports: Encompasses our all-terrain (ATV) and multi-utility (MUV) vehicles, as well as marine and motorcycle markets; |
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Agriculture: Primary applications include tractors, combines, sprayers, turf care, implements and other agriculture-related equipment; |
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Military: We provide a variety of components for military vehicle platforms; |
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Other: We provide components and assemblies to a variety of other industrial and automotive end markets, such as power generation, mining and medical cabinetry. |
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Our Customers
We are a critical and deeply embedded supply partner with strong strategic alignment and relationships with our customers. We have developed long-standing business relationships with our OEM customers, many of which span decades. Further, we are diversified by customers and end markets with net sales attributed to our top 20 customers accounting for $406 million of 2021 net sales, and no single end market accounting for more than 34% of net sales. For the year ended December 31, 2021, John Deere, PACCAR Inc., AB Volvo and Honda accounted for 16.6%, 14.1%, 10.8% and 10.0% of net sales, respectively. We have not historically experienced customer attrition given high customer switching costs resulting from our embedded relationships driven by our broad capabilities and scale.
Raw Materials and Manufactured Components
Our purchases primarily include steel and aluminum. We maintain a broad and diverse base of over 1,000 suppliers. Our established relationships provide efficient and flexible access to resources and redundancy to ensure support of our customers. We have no history of material supply issues or outages. In 2021, no single supplier represented more than 16% of our total purchases and 98% of the raw materials we purchased were sourced from domestic suppliers. Our suppliers are strategically located in order to maximize efficiencies and minimize shipping costs, although switching costs are minimal and we maintain a multitude of alternative suppliers that we could transfer orders to, if needed. We have structured our customer contracts to pass through commodity price changes, which has allowed us to remain mostly unaffected by the recent raw material price volatility and tariffs. As we continue to grow, we intend to leverage our size and scale to further reduce material costs.
Sales and Marketing
We have a strong sales team comprised of approximately 50 experienced professionals responsible for managing and expanding client relationships, and proactively pursuing new opportunities. Sales personnel are aligned by market segment and customer, including heavy- and medium-duty commercial vehicles, construction & access equipment, powersports, agriculture, military and other end markets, and employ a highly technical and collaborative sales process with deep knowledge of our customers and capabilities. Sales personnel have assigned support teams comprised of inside sales, marketing, and sales administration personnel. We are consistently involved in request for proposal processes, where our sales teams with deep process expertise collaborate with customers on optimal designs for manufacturability and manufacturing efficiency. The upfront collaboration drives formalization of product specifications, program lifecycle planning, cost estimates and risk mitigation. The sales process typically takes 3 – 18 months and ultimately ends in the implementation of product lifecycle timelines and purchase orders under long-term customer arrangements. The sales team utilizes systems infrastructure that effectively track and manage backlogs, quotes and bookings information, strategic projects and call reports, all of which are reviewed at weekly sales team meetings.
Information Systems
We utilize standardized information technology systems across all areas of quoting and estimating, enterprise resource planning, materials resource planning, capacity planning and accounting for enhanced procurement of work, project execution and financial controls. We provide information technology oversight and support from our corporate headquarters in Mayville, WI. The operational information systems we employ throughout our company are industry specific applications that in some cases have been internally or vendor modified and improved to fit our operations. Our enterprise resource planning software is integrated with our operational information systems wherever possible to deliver relevant, real-time operational data to designated personnel. Accounting and operations personnel of acquired companies are trained not only by our information technology support staff, but by long- tenured employees in our organization with extensive experience using our systems. We believe our information systems provide our people with the tools to execute their individual job function and achieve our strategic initiatives.
Our Competition
We participate in a highly fragmented market with competitors in each of the end markets we serve ranging in size from small companies focused on a single capability or end market, to large multi-disciplinary companies. While there can be instances of intense competition from specific end markets, we believe that we have been able to effectively compete, and maintain competitive advantages on the basis of our:
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• |
scale and product offering with the ability to cross-sell and provide our customers with a one-stop solution; |
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• |
broad manufacturing capability and flexibility to fulfill requests that require complex solutions; |
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• |
customer service with our highly skilled and knowledgeable workforce able to provide consultative advice; and |
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• |
regionalized geographic focus provides a defensible position from both foreign and domestic competitors as our customers continue to take a regionalized approach to production, which provides a shorter supply chain with greater flexibility. |
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Our Human Capital Management
As of December 31, 2021, we had approximately 2,200 full-time employees, approximately 1,725 of whom are production employees, none of which are unionized.
We maintain an experienced and skilled workforce. We have been highly focused on attracting and retaining high quality personnel as they represent a critical factor in our continued success. Despite the recent market challenges in the hiring of trade-skilled employees, our continued investment in newer technologies and capabilities has allowed us to opportunistically re-train and redeploy certain roles that were previously human capital-intensive, and re-train and repurpose employees into other areas of the company. On average, our employees have approximately seven years of service with us.
We believe we maintain strong relationships with our employees and believe they are aligned with our employee-owned mindset through our ESOP and annual discretionary profit-sharing programs. We offer our employees competitive compensation and comprehensive benefit packages, annually benchmarking them against comparable industries in the same geographic vicinity to where our facilities are located. Further enhancing our benefit offerings, we provide an on-site healthcare team at certain facilities to treat work and non-work related injuries and assist employees with general wellness and overall well-being.
The safety, health and well-being of our employees is one of the Company’s top priorities. Our “Work MEC Safe” program creates a strong safety culture based on five key elements: Inspire, Lead, Analyze, Educate and Recognize. These elements lay the foundation for establishing an employee voice in daily operations, ensuring safety ownership from those in leadership roles, identifying workplace hazards through routine inspections, audits and observations, training employees to identify and mitigate risks and prevent injuries, and developing avenues to continue enhancing the importance of safety in the workplace.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Company has taken steps at all locations across the U.S to limit the risk of exposure. These actions include continuous communication emphasizing personal hygiene best practices, providing hand sanitizer and masks for all employees, implementing additional cleansing and sanitizing processes in all our workstations and common areas, and providing on-site testing at certain facilities. Additionally, our employees are able to socially distance naturally to some extent as a result of being separated by their respective work cells.
Environmental Matters
We are subject to numerous federal, state and local laws and regulations relating to manufacturing, handling and disposal of materials into the environment. We believe that our environmental control procedures are adequate.
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Information About Our Executive Officers
The following table sets forth certain information as of February 1, 2022, regarding our executive officers:
Name |
|
Age |
|
|
Position |
Robert D. Kamphuis |
|
|
63 |
|
|
Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer |
Todd M. Butz |
|
|
50 |
|
|
Chief Financial Officer |
Ryan F. Raber |
|
|
39 |
|
|
Executive Vice President―Strategy, Sales & Marketing |
Rand P. Stille |
|
|
51 |
|
|
Chief Operating Officer |
Robert D. Kamphuis joined our company as President and Chief Executive Officer in 2005 and has served as the Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer since January 2007. Mr. Kamphuis also serves as a board member and past Chairman of Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, a board member of Brakebush Brothers, Inc. and Subzero Group Inc., a member of the John Deere Direct Material Supplier Council, and a past member of the Harley Davidson Supplier Advisory Council. Prior to joining our company, Mr. Kamphuis held various roles with Giddings & Lewis, Inc. including as President and Chief Executive Officer of Gilman Engineering and Manufacturing Co., LLC, a designer and manufacturer of automated assembly systems, and began his career with Ernst & Young. Mr. Kamphuis is a graduate of the Executive International Leadership Program at Stanford University and earned a Bachelor of Business Administration & Accounting from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. He is also a licensed certified public accountant.
Todd M. Butz joined our company in 2008 and has served as our Chief Financial Officer since January 2014. Mr. Butz also serves on the Board of Trustees for Marian University. Prior to joining our company, Mr. Butz spent time in various roles including Manager of Worldwide Financial Reporting at Mercury Marine, a subsidiary of the Brunswick Corporation, and Audit Supervisor at Schenck Business Solutions, now Clifton Larsen Allen. Mr. Butz earned a Bachelor of Science in Accounting and Business Management from Marian University and is currently a licensed certified public accountant.
Ryan F. Raber joined our company in 2009 and has served as our Executive Vice President – Strategy, Sales & Marketing since June 2019. Prior to serving in his current position, Mr. Raber served as our Executive Vice President – Sales & Marketing beginning in November 2018 and as our Vice President of Sales & Marketing beginning in August 2013. Mr. Raber earned a Masters of Business Administration from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University.
Rand P. Stille joined our company in April 2019 and has served as our Chief Operating Officer since March 2020. Prior to serving in his current position, Mr. Stille served as our Executive Vice President – DMP & Performance Structures Operations and Vice President – Performance Structures Operations. Prior to joining our company, Mr. Stille held various roles with Universal Logistics Holdings, Inc. including Senior Vice President of Operations, Vice President & Executive Director of Westport Axle and Vice President of Mexican Operations. Mr. Stille earned a Master of Science in Supply Chain Management from the University of Michigan State and a Bachelor of Arts, Economics and Management degree from Depauw University.
Available Information
Our website address is www.mecinc.com. We are not including the information provided on our website as a part of, or incorporating it by reference into, this Annual Report on Form 10-K. We make available free of charge (other than an investor’s own internet access charges) through our website our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, amendments to these reports and our proxy statements, as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file such material with, or furnish such material to, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC).
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Item 1A. Risk Factors.
Investing in our common stock involves a high degree of risk. You should carefully consider the risks and uncertainties described below, together with all of the other information in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, including “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and our consolidated financial statements and related notes, before making a decision to invest in our common stock. The risks and uncertainties described below may not be the only ones we face. If any of the risks actually occur, our business, financial condition, operating results and prospects could be materially and adversely affected. In that event, the market price of our common stock could decline, and you could lose part or all of your investment.
Risks Related to Our Business
The COVID-19 pandemic has had, and will continue to have, a negative impact on our business, financial condition, cash flows, results of operations and supply chain.
The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in national, state and local government authorities implementing numerous measures to try to contain the virus, such as travel bans and restrictions, border closings, restrictions on public gatherings, quarantining of people who may have been exposed to the virus, shelter-in-place restrictions, and limitations or shutdowns of business operations. These measures, some of which are continuing or being re-implemented in light of new variants of the virus, have impacted and may further impact our workforce and operations, including disruptions at some of our manufacturing operations and facilities, as well as the operations of our customers, and those of our suppliers. There is still uncertainty regarding the full impact and duration of such measures and potential future measures, and restrictions on our access to our facilities or on our support operations or workforce, or similar limitations for our suppliers.
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in supply chain issues at our original equipment manufacturer customers (such as microchip shortages and port issues). This, in turn, has weakened demand for our components, products and services, which has resulted in a decline in sales activities and customer orders, and it remains uncertain what impact this weakened demand will have on future sales activities and customer orders once conditions continue to further improve. The pandemic has also resulted in inflationary pressures on wages, benefits, components and manufacturing supplies.
The COVID-19 pandemic has had, and will continue to have, a negative impact on our business, financial condition, cash flows, results of operations, supply chain, and raw material availability, although the full extent is still uncertain. As the pandemic continues to evolve and new variants continue to emerge, the extent of the impact on our business, financial condition, cash flows, results of operations and supply chain will depend on future developments, including, but not limited to, the continued duration of the pandemic, government actions to contain the virus and/or treat its impact, restrictions on travel, the duration, timing and severity of the impact on customer spending, and how quickly and to what extent normal economic and operating conditions can resume, all of which are still uncertain and cannot be predicted.
We are affected by developments in the industries in which our customers operate.
We derive a large amount of our net sales from customers in the following industry sectors: heavy- and medium-duty commercial vehicles, construction & access equipment, powersports, agriculture and military. Factors affecting any of these industries in general, or any of our customers in particular, could adversely affect us because our net sales growth largely depends on the continued growth of our customers’ businesses in their respective industries. These factors include:
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seasonality of demand for our customers’ products which may cause our manufacturing capacity to be underutilized for periods of time; |
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• |
our customers’ failure to successfully market their products, to gain or retain widespread commercial acceptance of their products or to compete effectively in their industries; |
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• |
loss of market share for our customers’ products, which may lead our customers to reduce or discontinue purchasing our processes and solutions and to reduce prices, thereby exerting pricing pressure on us; |
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• |
economic conditions in the markets in which our customers operate, in particular, the United States, including inflationary pressures and the other negative impacts on economic conditions as a result of COVID-19 (including the uncertain future impacts of the continuing pandemic), as well as recessionary periods such as a global economic downturn; |
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• |
our customers’ decision to insource the production of components that has traditionally been outsourced to us; and |
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• |
product design changes or manufacturing process changes that may reduce or eliminate demand for the components we supply. |
We expect that future sales will continue to depend on the success of our customers. If economic conditions and demand for our customers’ products deteriorate, we may experience a material adverse effect on our business, operating results and financial condition.
Most of our customers do not commit to long-term production schedules, which makes it difficult for us to schedule production accurately and achieve maximum efficiency of our manufacturing capacity.
Most of our customers do not commit to long-term contracts or firm production schedules, and we continue to experience reduced lead-times in customer orders. Additionally, customers may change production quantities or delay production with little lead-time or advance notice. Therefore, we rely on and plan our production and inventory levels based on our customers’ advance orders, commitments and/or forecasts as well as our internal assessments and forecasts of customer demand. The volume and timing of sales to our customers may vary due to, among others:
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• |
variation in demand for or discontinuation of our customers’ products; |
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• |
our customers’ attempts to manage their inventory; |
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• |
changes in our customers’ manufacturing strategies; |
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• |
disruptive events in the markets in which our customers operate, including natural disasters, epidemics and pandemics like COVID-19; and |
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• |
acquisitions of or consolidation among customers. |
The variations in volume and timing of sales make it difficult to schedule production and optimize utilization of manufacturing capacity. This uncertainty may require us to increase staffing and incur other expenses in order to meet an unexpected increase in customer demand, potentially placing a significant burden on our resources. Additionally, an inability to respond to such increases in a timely manner may cause customer dissatisfaction, which may negatively affect our customer relationships.
Further, in order to secure sufficient production scale, we may make capital investments in advance of anticipated customer demand (including, in some instances, new customer demand). Such investments may lead to low utilization levels if demand forecasts change and we are unable to utilize the additional capacity. Because fixed costs make up a large proportion of our total production costs, a reduction in customer demand can have a significant adverse impact on our gross profits and operating results. Additionally, we order materials and components based on customer forecasts and orders and suppliers may require us to purchase materials and components in minimum quantities that exceed customer requirements, which may have an adverse impact on our gross profits and operating results. In the past, anticipated orders from some of our customers and anticipated new customers have failed to materialize and/or delivery schedules have been deferred as a result of changes in our customers’ business needs.
Failure to compete successfully in our markets could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations or prospects.
We offer our processes and solutions in highly competitive markets. The competitors in these markets may, among other things:
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• |
respond more quickly to new or emerging technologies; |
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• |
have greater name recognition, critical mass or geographic market presence; |
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• |
be better positioned to take advantage of acquisition opportunities; |
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• |
adapt more quickly to changes in customer requirements; |
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• |
devote greater resources to the development, promotion and sale of their processes and solutions; |
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• |
be better positioned to compete on price due to any combination of low-cost labor, raw materials, components, facilities or other operating items, or willingness to make sales at lower margins than us; |
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• |
consolidate with other competitors in the industry which may create increased pricing and competitive pressures on our business; and |
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• |
be better able to utilize excess capacity which may reduce the cost of their processes and solutions. |
Competitors with lower cost structures may have a competitive advantage over us. We also expect our competitors to continue to improve the performance of their current processes and solutions, to reduce the prices of their existing processes and solutions and to introduce new processes or solutions that may offer greater performance and improved pricing. Additionally, we may face competition from new entrants to the industry in which we operate. Any of these developments could cause a decline in sales and average selling prices, loss of market share or profit margin compression. Maintaining and improving our competitive position will require successful management of these factors, including continued investment by us in research and development, engineering, marketing and customer service and support. Our future growth rate depends upon our agility to compete successfully, which is impacted by a number of factors, including, but not limited to, our ability to (i) identify emerging technological trends in our target end markets, (ii) develop and maintain a wide range of competitive and appropriately priced processes and solutions and defend our market share against an ever-expanding number of competitors including many new and non-traditional competitors, (iii) ensure that our processes and solutions remain cost-competitive and (iv) attract, develop and retain individuals with the requisite technical expertise and understand of customers’ needs to develop and sell new technologies and processes.
We may be unable to realize net sales represented by our awarded business, which could materially and adversely impact our business, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.
The realization of future net sales from awarded business is inherently subject to a number of important risks and uncertainties, including a lack of long-term commitments and production schedules with customers and anticipated new customers. Accordingly, we cannot assure you that we will realize any or all of the future net sales represented by our awarded business. Any failure to realize these net sales could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.
In addition to not having a commitment from our customers and anticipated new customers regarding the minimum number of components they must purchase from us if we obtain awarded business, typically the terms and conditions of the agreements with our customers provide that they have the contractual right to unilaterally terminate our contracts with them with no notice or limited notice. In many cases, we must commit substantial resources in preparation for production under awarded customer business well in advance of the customer’s production start date. If such contracts are terminated by our customers, our ability to obtain compensation from our customers for such termination is generally limited to the direct out-of-pocket costs that we incurred for raw materials and work-in-progress. Although we have been successful in recovering these costs under appropriate circumstances in the past, we cannot assure you that our results of operations will not be materially adversely impacted in the future if we are unable to recover these types of pre-production costs related to our customers’ cancellation of awarded business.
We may not be able to maintain our manufacturing, engineering and technological expertise.
The markets for our processes and solutions are characterized by changing technology and evolving process development. The continued success of our business will depend upon our ability to:
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• |
hire, retain and expand our pool of qualified engineering and trade-skilled personnel; |
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• |
maintain technological leadership in our industry; |
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• |
implement new and expand upon current robotics, automation and tooling technologies; and |
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• |
anticipate or respond to changes in manufacturing processes in a cost-effective and timely manner. |
We cannot be certain that we will develop the capabilities required by our customers in the future. The emergence of new technologies, industry standards or customer requirements may render our equipment, inventory or processes obsolete or uncompetitive. We may have to acquire new technologies and equipment to remain competitive. The acquisition and implementation of new technologies and equipment may require us to incur significant expense and capital investment, which could reduce our margins and affect our operating results. When we establish or acquire new facilities, we may not be able to maintain or develop our manufacturing, engineering and technological expertise due to a lack of trained personnel, effective training of new staff or technical difficulties with machinery. Failure to anticipate and adapt to customers’ changing technological needs and requirements or to hire and retain a sufficient number of engineers and maintain manufacturing, engineering and technological expertise may have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results and financial condition.
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We are dependent on a limited number of large customers for current and future net sales. The loss of any of these customers or the loss of market share by these customers could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.
We depend on a limited number of major manufacturers for a majority of our net sales. For example, our largest customers in 2021, including John Deere, PACCAR Inc., AB Volvo and Honda accounted for 16.6%, 14.1%, 10.8% and 10.0% of our net sales, respectively. Our financial performance depends in large part on our ability to continue to arrange for the purchase of our processes and solutions with these customers, and we expect these customers to continue to make up a large portion of our net sales in the foreseeable future. The loss of all or a substantial portion of our sales to any of our large-volume customers could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows by reducing cash flows and by limiting our ability to spread our fixed costs over a larger net sales base. We may make fewer sales to these customers for a variety of reasons, including, but not limited to:
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• |
loss of business relationship; |
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• |
reduced or delayed customer requirements; |
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• |
the insourcing of business that has been traditionally outsourced to us; |
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• |
strikes or other work stoppages affecting production by our customers; or |
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• |
reduced demand for our customers’ products, including as a result of the continuing COVID-19 pandemic. |
Entering new markets, either organically or via acquisition, poses new competitive threats and commercial risks.
As we expand into new markets, either organically or via acquisition, we expect to diversify our net sales by leveraging our development, engineering and manufacturing capabilities in order to source necessary parts and components for other industries. Such diversification requires investments and resources that may not be available as needed. Furthermore, even if we sign contracts in new markets, we cannot guarantee that we will be successful in leveraging our capabilities into these new markets and thus in meeting the needs of these new customers and competing favorably in these new markets. If these new customers experience reduced demand for their products or financial difficulties, our future prospects will be negatively affected as well.
We depend on our key executive officers, managers, and trade-skilled personnel and may have difficulty retaining and recruiting qualified employees. Moreover, we operate in competitive labor markets, which may also impact our ability to hire and retain employees at our facilities.
Our success depends to a large extent upon the continued services of our executive officers, senior management, managers and trade-skilled personnel and our ability to recruit and retain skilled personnel to maintain and expand our operations. We could be affected by the loss of any of our executive officers who are responsible for formulating and implementing our business plan and strategy, and who have been instrumental in our growth and development. In addition, we need to recruit and retain additional management personnel and other skilled employees at our facilities. However, competition for our trade-skilled labor is high, particularly in some of the geographic locations where our facilities are located, and especially in light of the labor pressures resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Although we intend to continue to devote significant resources to recruit, train and retain qualified employees, we may not be able to attract, effectively train and retain these employees. Any failure to do so could impair our ability to conduct design, engineering and manufacturing activities, efficiently perform our contractual obligations, develop marketable components, timely meet our customers’ needs and ultimately win new business, all of which could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. If we are not able to do so, our business and our ability to continue to grow could be negatively affected. In addition, salaries and related costs are a significant portion of the cost of providing our solutions and, accordingly, our ability to efficiently utilize our workforce impacts our profitability.
Availability of, and volatility in the prices of, raw materials and energy prices and our ability to pass along increased costs to our customers could adversely affect our results of operations.
The prices and availability of raw materials critical to our business and performance are based on global supply and demand conditions. Certain raw materials used by us are only available from a limited number of suppliers, and it may be difficult to find alternative suppliers at the same or similar costs. While we strive to pass through the price of raw materials to our customers, we may not be able to do so in the future, and volatility in the prices of raw materials (including as a result of the inflationary pressures and the other negative impacts of the continuing COVID-19 pandemic) may affect customer demand for certain components. In addition, we, along with our suppliers and customers, rely on various energy sources for a number of activities connected with our business, such as the transportation of raw materials and finished parts. The availability and pricing of these resources are subject to market forces that are beyond our control. Furthermore, we are vulnerable to any reliability issues experienced by our suppliers, which also are beyond our control. Our suppliers contract separately for the purchase of such resources, and our sources of supply could be interrupted should our suppliers not be able to obtain these materials due to higher demand or other factors that interrupt their availability (such as the
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impacts of the continuing COVID-19 pandemic). Energy and utility prices, including electricity and water prices, and in particular prices for petroleum-based energy sources, are volatile. Increased supplier and customer operating costs arising from volatility in the prices of energy sources, such as increased energy and utility costs and transportation costs, could be passed through to us and we may not be able to increase our product prices sufficiently or at all to offset such increased costs. The impact of any volatility in the prices of energy or the raw materials on which we rely, including the reduction in demand for certain components caused by such price volatility, could result in a loss of net sales and profitability and adversely affect our results of operations.
Our manufacturing operations are dependent upon third-party suppliers, making us vulnerable to supply shortages.
We obtain raw materials, parts and certain components from third-party suppliers. Any delay in receiving supplies (including as a result of the continuing COVID-19 pandemic) could impair our ability to timely deliver components to our customers and, accordingly, could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows. The volatility in the financial markets and uncertainty in the sectors our suppliers service (including as a result of the continuing COVID-19 pandemic) could result in exposure related to the financial viability of certain of our suppliers. Suppliers may also exit certain business lines, causing us to find other suppliers for materials or components and potentially delaying our ability to deliver components to customers, or our suppliers may change the terms on which they are willing to provide parts or materials to us, any of which could adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations. In addition, many of our suppliers have unionized workforces that could be subject to work stoppages as a result of labor relations issues. Some of our suppliers supply components and materials that cannot be quickly or inexpensively re-sourced to another supplier due to long lead times and contractual commitments that might be required by another supplier in order to provide the components or materials.
Increases in the cost of employee benefits could impact our financial results and cash flows.
Our expenses relating to employee health benefits are significant. Unfavorable changes in the cost of and the unpredictability of claims under such benefits, including the current inflationary pressures on benefits (and wages) as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, could impact our financial results and cash flows. Healthcare costs have risen significantly in recent years, and recent legislative and private sector initiatives regarding healthcare reform could result in significant changes to the U.S. healthcare system. Pursuant to the Affordable Care Act, employees may be ineligible for certain healthcare subsidies if such employee is eligible and offered qualifying and affordable healthcare coverage under an employer’s plan. Due to the breadth and complexity of the healthcare reform legislation, the lack of implementing regulations and interpretive guidance and the uncertainty surrounding further reform proposals, we are not able to fully determine the impact that healthcare reform will have in the future on company sponsored medical plans.
Our growth strategy includes acquisitions, and we may not be able to identify attractive acquisition targets or successfully integrate acquired targets without impacting our business.
Acquisitions have played a key role in our growth strategy, and we expect to continue to grow through acquisitions in the future. We expect to continue evaluating potential strategic acquisitions of businesses, assets and product lines. We may not be able to identify suitable candidates, negotiate appropriate or favorable acquisition terms, obtain financing that may be needed to consummate such transactions or complete proposed acquisitions. There is significant competition for acquisition and expansion opportunities in our businesses, which may increase the cost of any acquisition or result in the loss of attractive acquisition targets.
In addition, acquisitions involve numerous risks, including (i) incurring the time and expense associated with identifying and evaluating potential acquisitions and negotiating potential transactions, resulting in management’s attention being diverted from the operation of our existing business; (ii) using estimates and judgments to evaluate credit, operations, funding, liquidity, business, management and market risks with respect to the target entity or assets; (iii) litigation relating to an acquisition, particularly in the context of a publicly held acquisition target, could require us to incur significant expenses or result in the delaying or enjoining of the transaction; (iv) failing to properly identify an acquisition candidate’s liabilities, potential liabilities or risks; and (v) not receiving required regulatory approvals or such approvals being delayed or restrictively conditional. In addition, any acquisitions could involve the incurrence of substantial additional indebtedness or dilution to our shareholders. We cannot assure you that we will be able to successfully integrate any acquisitions that we undertake or that such acquisitions will perform as planned or prove to be beneficial to our operations and cash flow. Any such failure could seriously harm our financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.
We routinely evaluate potential acquisition candidates and engage in discussions and negotiations regarding potential acquisitions; however, even if we execute a definitive agreement for an acquisition, there can be no assurance that we will consummate the transaction within the anticipated closing timeframe, or at all. Further, acquisitions typically involve the payment of a premium over book- and market-value for the target business or asset and, therefore, some dilution of our tangible book value and/or earnings per common share may occur in connection with any future transaction.
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If we fail to develop new and innovative processes or if customers in our market do not accept them, our results would be negatively affected.
Our processes must be kept current to meet our customers’ needs. To remain competitive, we therefore must develop new and innovative processes on an ongoing basis. If we fail to make innovations or the market does not accept our new processes, our sales and results would suffer. We invest significantly in the research and development of new processes; however, these expenditures do not always result in processes that will be accepted by the market. To the extent they do not, whether as a function of the process or the business cycle, we will have increased expenses without significant sales to offset such costs. Failure to develop successful new processes may also cause potential customers to purchase from competitors.
We are dependent on information technology and our systems and infrastructure face certain risks, including cyber security risks and data leakage risks.
We are dependent on information technology systems and infrastructure that could be damaged or interrupted by a variety of factors. Any significant breach, breakdown, destruction or interruption of these systems by employees, others with authorized access to our systems or unauthorized persons has the potential to negatively affect our operations. There is also a risk that we could experience a business interruption, theft of information or reputational damage as a result of a cyberattack, such as the infiltration of a data center, or data leakage of confidential information either internally or at our third-party providers. Although we have invested in the protection of our data and information technology to reduce these risks and periodically test the security of our information systems network, there can be no assurance that our efforts will prevent breakdowns or breaches in our systems that could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition, results of operations and liquidity.
We may incur additional expenses and delays due to technical problems or other interruptions at our manufacturing facilities.
Disruptions in operations due to technical problems or power interruptions as well as other interruptions such as floods, fire, other natural disasters, epidemics or pandemics like COVID-19 could adversely affect the manufacturing capacity of our facilities. Such interruptions could cause delays in production and cause us to incur additional expenses such as charges for expedited deliveries for components that are delayed. In addition, our customers have the ability to cancel purchase orders in the event of any delays in production and may decrease future orders if delays are persistent. Additionally, to the extent that such disruptions do not result from damage to our physical property, these may not be covered by our business interruption insurance. Any such disruptions may adversely affect our operations and financial results.
Political and economic developments could adversely affect our business.
Increased political instability and social unrest, evidenced by the threat or occurrence of terrorist attacks, enhanced national security measures, the risks related to epidemics or pandemics like COVID-19 and the related decline in consumer confidence may hinder our ability to do business. Any escalation in these events or similar future events may disrupt our operations or those of our customers and suppliers and could affect the availability of raw materials and components we need in our manufacturing operations or the means to transport those materials or components to our manufacturing facilities and finished parts to our customers. These events have had and may continue to have an adverse effect, generally, on the economy and consumer confidence and spending, which could adversely affect our net sales and operating results. The effect of these events on the volatility of the financial markets could in the future lead to volatility of the market price of our securities and may limit the capital resources available to us, our customers and our suppliers.
The impact of foreign trade relations and associated tariffs, as well as our reliance on international suppliers for certain raw materials, could adversely impact our business.
We currently source certain raw materials from international suppliers. Import tariffs, taxes, customs duties and/or other trade regulations imposed by the U.S. government on foreign countries, or by foreign countries on the United States, could significantly increase the prices we pay for certain raw materials, such as steel, aluminum and purchased components, that are critical to our ability to manufacture components for our customers. The international sourcing for these materials may also be hurt by health concerns regarding infectious diseases in countries in which these materials are purchased from (such as COVID-19), adverse weather or natural disasters. In addition, we may be unable to find a domestic supplier to provide the necessary raw materials on an economical basis in the amounts we require. If the cost of our raw materials increases, or if we are unable to procure the necessary raw materials required to manufacture our components, then we could experience a negative impact on our operating results, profitability, customer relationships and future cash flows.
Additionally, our customers’ businesses may be negatively impacted by import tariffs, taxes, customs duties and/or other trade regulations imposed by the U.S. government on foreign countries or by foreign countries on the United States, which could, in turn, reduce our customers’ demand for the components that we manufacture for them. Any reduction in customer demand for our components as a result of such tariffs, taxes, customs duties and/or other trade regulations, or as a result of the impact of infectious
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diseases such as COVID-19, could have a material adverse impact on our financial position, results of operations, cash flows and liquidity.
The risks associated with climate change, as well as climate change legislation and regulations, could adversely affect our operations and financial condition.
The physical risks of climate change, such as more frequent or more extreme weather events, changes in temperature and precipitation patterns, changes to ground and surface water availability and other related phenomena, could affect some, or all, of our operations. Severe weather or other natural disasters could be destructive, which could result in increased costs, including supply chain costs.
In addition, a number of government bodies have finalized, proposed or are contemplating legislative and regulatory changes in response to growing concerns about climate change. In recent years, federal, state and local governments have taken steps to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs). The Environmental Protection Agency has finalized a series of GHG monitoring, reporting and emissions control rules for certain large sources of GHGs, and the U.S. Congress has, from time to time, considered adopting legislation to reduce GHG emissions. Numerous states have already taken measures to reduce GHG emissions, primarily through the development of GHG emission inventories and/or regional GHG cap-and-trade programs.
Although it is not possible at this time to predict how future legislation or regulations to address GHG emissions would impact our business, any such laws and regulations imposing reporting obligations on, or limiting emissions of GHGs from, our equipment and operations, could require us to incur costs to reduce GHG emissions associated with our operations. We cannot assure you that our costs, liabilities and obligations relating to environmental matters will not have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.
Our manufacturing, painting and coating operations are subject to environmental, health and safety laws and regulations that could result in liabilities to us.
Our manufacturing, painting and coating operations are subject to environmental, health and safety laws and regulations, including those governing discharges to air and water, the management and disposal of hazardous substances, the cleanup of contaminated sites and health and safety matters. We could incur material costs, including cleanup costs, civil and criminal fines, penalties and third-party claims for cost recovery, property damage or personal injury as a result of violations of or liabilities under such laws and regulations. The ultimate cost of remediating contaminated sites, if any, is difficult to accurately predict and could exceed estimates. In addition, as environmental, health and safety laws and regulations have tended to become stricter, we could incur additional costs complying with requirements that are promulgated in the future.
If our manufacturing processes do not comply with applicable statutory and regulatory requirements, or if we manufacture components containing manufacturing defects, demand for our capabilities may decline and we may be subject to liability claims.
Our manufacturing processes and facilities need to comply with applicable statutory and regulatory requirements. We may also have the responsibility to ensure that the processes we use satisfy safety and regulatory standards, including those applicable to our customers and to obtain any necessary certifications. In addition, our customers’ products, as well as the manufacturing processes and components that we use to produce such products, are often highly complex. As a result, components that we manufacture may at times contain manufacturing defects, and our manufacturing processes may be subject to errors or not be in compliance with applicable statutory and regulatory requirements or demands of our customers. Defects in the components we manufacture, whether caused by a manufacturing or component failure or error, or deficiencies in our manufacturing processes, may result in delayed shipments to customers, replacement costs or reduced or cancelled customer orders. If these defects or deficiencies are significant, our business reputation may also be damaged. The failure of the components that we manufacture for our customers to comply with applicable statutory and regulatory requirements may subject us to legal fines or penalties and, in some cases, require us to shut down or incur considerable expense to correct a manufacturing process or facility. In addition, these defects may expose us to liability to pay for the recall of a customer’s product or to indemnify our customers for the costs of any such claims or recalls which they face as a result of using items manufactured by us in their products.
Adverse judgments or settlements in legal disputes, including product liability, intellectual property infringement and other claims, could result in materially adverse monetary damages or injunctive relief and damage our business and/or our reputation.
We are subject to, and may become a party to, a variety of litigation or other claims and suits that arise from time to time in the ordinary course of our business. The results of litigation and other legal proceedings are inherently uncertain and adverse judgments or settlements in some or all of these legal disputes may result in materially adverse monetary damages or injunctive relief against us, or in other adverse consequences to our financial condition and results of operations. Additionally, our insurance policies may not protect us against potential liability due to various exclusions in the policies and self-insured retention amounts. Partially or completely
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uninsured claims, if successful and of significant magnitude, could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Furthermore, any claims or litigation, even if fully indemnified or insured, could damage our reputation and make it more difficult to compete effectively or obtain adequate insurance in the future.
The components we manufacture can expose us to potential liabilities. For instance, our manufacturing operations expose us to potential product liability claims resulting from injuries caused by defects in components we design or manufacture, as well as potential claims that components we design infringe on third-party intellectual property rights. Such claims could subject us to significant liability for damages, subject the infringing portion of our business to injunction and, regardless of their merits, could be time-consuming and expensive to resolve. We may also have greater potential exposure from warranty claims and recalls due to problems caused by component or product design. Although we have product liability insurance coverage, it may not be sufficient to cover the full extent of our product liability, if at all. A successful product liability claim in excess or outside of our insurance coverage or any material claim for which insurance coverage was denied or limited and for which indemnification was not available could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and/or financial condition.
Any failure to protect our customers’ intellectual property that we use in the products we manufacture for them could harm our customer relationships and subject us to liability.
The products we manufacture for our customers often contain our customers’ intellectual property, including copyrights, patents, trade secrets and know-how. Our success depends, in part, on our ability to protect our customers’ intellectual property. The steps we take to protect our customers’ intellectual property may not adequately prevent its disclosure or misappropriation. If we fail to protect our customers’ intellectual property, our customer relationships could be harmed, and we may experience difficulty in establishing new customer relationships. In addition, our customers might pursue legal claims against us for any failure to protect their intellectual property, possibly resulting in harm to our reputation and our business, financial condition and operating results.
Compliance or the failure to comply with regulations and governmental policies could cause us to incur significant expense.
We are subject to a variety of local and foreign laws and regulations including those relating to labor and health and safety concerns. Such laws may require us to pay mandated compensation and penalties. Additionally, we may need to obtain and maintain licenses and permits to conduct business in various jurisdictions. If we or the businesses or companies we acquire have failed or fail in the future to comply with such laws and regulations, then we could incur liabilities and fines and our operations could be suspended. Such laws and regulations could also restrict our ability to modify or expand our facilities, could require us to acquire costly equipment, or could impose other significant expenditures.
Because our industry is capital intensive and we have significant fixed and semi-fixed costs, our profitability is sensitive to changes in volume.
The property, plants and equipment needed to produce components for our customers and provide our processes and solutions can be very expensive. We must spend a substantial amount of capital to purchase and maintain such property, plants and equipment. Although we believe our current cash balance, along with our projected internal cash flows and available financing sources, will provide sufficient cash to support our currently anticipated operating and capital needs, if we are unable to generate sufficient cash to purchase and maintain the property, plants and equipment necessary to operate our business, we may be required to reduce or delay planned capital expenditures or to incur additional indebtedness.
Prior to our initial public offering, we were treated as an S Corporation, and claims of taxing authorities related to our prior status as an S Corporation could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Upon the consummation of our initial public offering, our status as an S Corporation was terminated and we have since been treated as a “C Corporation” for U.S. federal income tax purposes and thus are now subject to U.S. federal income tax. If the unaudited, open tax years in which we were an S Corporation are audited by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and we determined not to have qualified for, or to have violated any requirement for maintaining our S Corporation status, we will be obligated to pay back taxes, interest and possibly penalties. The amounts that we would be obligated to pay could include taxes on all our taxable income attributable to such open tax years. Any such claims could result in additional costs to us and could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Prior to the completion of our initial public offering we were 100% owned by the ESOP, which is a retirement plan intended to be tax-qualified. If the ESOP fails to meet the requirements of a tax-qualified retirement plan, we could be subject to substantial penalties.
The Mayville Engineering Company, Inc. Employee Stock Ownership Plan (the ESOP), is a defined contribution retirement plan subject to the requirements of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (the Code), and the Employee Retirement Income
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Security Act of 1974, as amended (ERISA). The ESOP has received a determination letter from the IRS that it meets the requirements of a tax-qualified retirement plan in form and we endeavor to maintain and administer the ESOP in compliance with all requirements of the Code and ERISA. However, the rules regarding tax-qualified plans, and especially ESOPs, are complex and change frequently. Accordingly, it is possible that the ESOP may not have been and may not in the future be administered in full compliance with all applicable rules under the Code or ERISA.
If the IRS were to determine that the ESOP was not in material compliance with the Code or ERISA, then the ESOP could lose its tax-qualified status and we could be subject to substantial penalties under the Code and/or ERISA, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations. Additionally, any retroactive loss of the ESOP’s tax-qualified status would adversely impact our prior treatment as an S Corporation. See “—Prior to our initial public offering, we were treated as an S Corporation, and claims of taxing authorities related to our prior status as an S Corporation could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.”
Risks Related to Our Indebtedness
Our Amended and Restated Credit Agreement restricts our ability and the ability of our subsidiaries to engage in some business and financial transactions.
On September 26, 2019, and as last amended as of March 31, 2021, we entered into an amended and restated credit agreement (Credit Agreement) with certain lenders and Wells Fargo Bank, National Association, as administrative agent. The Credit Agreement provides for (i) a $200.0 million revolving credit facility (the Revolving Loan), with a letter of credit sub-facility in an aggregate amount not to exceed $5.0 million, and a swingline facility in an aggregate amount of $20.0 million. The Credit Agreement also provides for an additional $100.0 million of capacity through an accordion feature.
Our Credit Agreement contains a number of covenants that limit our ability and the ability of our subsidiaries to:
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create, incur or assume indebtedness (other than certain permitted indebtedness); |
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create or incur liens (other than certain permitted liens); |
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make investments (other than certain permitted investments); |
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merge or consolidate with another entity; |
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make asset dispositions (other than certain permitted dispositions); |
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declare or pay any dividend or any other distribution to shareholders; |
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enter into transactions with affiliates; |
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make certain organizational changes, including changing our fiscal year end or amending our organizational documents; |
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enter into any agreement further restricting our ability to create or assume any lien; |
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sell notes receivable or accounts receivable except under certain circumstances; |
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enter into sale leaseback transactions; |
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incur capital expenditures in excess of $35,000,000 in any fiscal year (or in excess of $70,000,000 in 2021); |
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permit any person or group other than the ESOP or other employee benefit plan of ours (like our 401(k) plan) to own or control more than 35% of our equity interests; or |
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permit our board of directors to not be composed of a majority of our continuing directors (i.e., our directors as of September 26, 2019 and any additional or replacement directors that have been approved by at least 51% of the directors then in office). |
Our Credit Agreement also requires us to maintain a minimum interest coverage ratio and a consolidated total leverage ratio, and contains certain customary representations and warranties, affirmative covenants and events of default (including, among others, payment default, covenant default, breach of representation or warranty, bankruptcy, cross-default, material ERISA events, certain changes of control, material money judgements and failure to maintain subsidiary guarantees). If an event of default occurs under the Credit Agreement, the lenders under the Credit Agreement will be entitled to take various actions, including the acceleration of amounts due thereunder, the termination of such credit facility and all actions permitted to be taken by a secured creditor. Our failure to comply with our obligations under the Credit Agreement may result in an event of default under the Credit Agreement. A default, if not cured or waived, may permit acceleration of our indebtedness. If our indebtedness is accelerated, we cannot be certain that we will have sufficient funds available to pay the accelerated indebtedness or that we will have the ability to refinance the accelerated indebtedness on terms favorable to us or at all.
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We are able to incur additional debt, which could reduce our ability to satisfy our current obligations under our existing indebtedness.
At December 31, 2021, we had $67.6 million outstanding under the Revolving Loan. In addition, we may be able to incur significant additional indebtedness in the future, and we may do so, among other reasons, to fund acquisitions as part of our growth strategy. Although the Credit Agreement contains restrictions on the incurrence of additional indebtedness, these restrictions are subject to a number of qualifications and exceptions, and we could incur substantial additional indebtedness in compliance with these restrictions.
Risks Related to Ownership of Our Common Stock
Your ability to influence corporate matters may be limited because the ESOP and our 401(k) plan own a substantial amount of our stock and continue to have significant influence over us, which may limit your ability to influence the outcome of important transactions, including a change in control.
As of December 31, 2021, our employees and certain former employees, through their interests in the ESOP and the Mayville Engineering Company, Inc. 401(k) Plan (the 401(k) Plan), beneficially owned approximately 48% of the outstanding shares of our common stock. Each participant in the ESOP and the 401(k) Plan is entitled to direct the vote of the shares allocated to his or her accounts, in his or her sole discretion. As a result, our employees and former employees, if acting together, will be able to influence or control matters requiring approval by our shareholders, including the election of directors, influence over our management and policies and the approval of mergers, acquisitions or other extraordinary transactions. As employees and former employees, the ESOP and 401(k) Plan participants’ interests may be contrary to other investors. This concentration of ownership may have the effect of delaying, preventing or deterring a change in control of our company, could deprive our non-ESOP and non-401(k) Plan shareholders of an opportunity to receive a premium for their common stock as part of a sale of our company and might ultimately affect the market price of our common stock.
The Trustees of the ESOP and the 401(k) Plan may have the power to vote a large block of shares on matters presented to shareholders for approval.
ESOP and 401(k) Plan participants have the right to direct the vote of the shares allocated to his or her ESOP and 401(k) Plan accounts. However, if a participant does not timely direct the voting of his or her shares, then (1) GreatBanc Trust Company (the ESOP Trustee) will vote such shares in its independent fiduciary discretion and (2) Principal Trust Company (the 401(k) Plan Trustee) will vote such shares as directed by the 401(k) Plan sponsor, which is the Company. Additionally, the ESOP Trustee and the 401(k) Plan Trustee have fiduciary duties under ERISA which may cause the ESOP Trustee or the 401(k) Plan Trustee to override participants’ voting discretions. Consequently, there may be circumstances in which the ESOP Trustee and the 401(k) Plan Trustee have the ability to vote a significant block of shares on matters presented to shareholders for approval. The ESOP and the 401(k) Plan, which as retirement plans have the purpose of providing retirement benefits to current and former employees of the Company and their beneficiaries, may have interests that are different from other investors and may vote in a way with which other shareholders disagree and which may be adverse to other shareholders interests.
The market price of our common stock may be volatile, and you could lose all or part of your investment.
Since our initial public offering in May 2019, the market price of our common stock has been volatile and has been and could continue to be subject to wide fluctuations in response to various factors, some of which are beyond our control. These fluctuations could cause investors to lose all or part of their investment in our common stock. Factors that could cause fluctuations in the market price of our common stock include the following: sales of substantial amounts of our securities by our directors, executive officers or significant shareholders (including our current and former employees via the ESOP and the 401(k) Plan) or the perception that such sales could occur; general economic and political conditions such as the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, inflation, interest rates, tariffs, fuel prices, international currency fluctuations, recessions and acts of war or terrorism; price and volume fluctuations in the overall stock market from time to time; relatively small percentage of our common stock available publicly; actual or anticipated fluctuations in our quarterly financial results or the quarterly financial results of companies perceived to be similar to us; changes in the market’s expectations about our operating results; changes in our orders in a given period; success of competitors; our operating results failing to meet the expectation of securities analysts or investors in a particular period; changes in financial estimates and recommendations by securities analysts concerning us or the markets in general; operating and stock price performance of other companies that investors deem comparable to us; our ability to manufacture new and enhanced components for the products of our customers on a timely basis; changes in laws and regulations affecting our business; commencement of, or involvement in, litigation
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involving us; changes in our capital structure, such as future issuances of securities or the incurrence of additional debt; the volume of securities available for public sale; any major change in our board of directors or management; and changes in our investor base.
In the past, following periods of volatility in the overall market and the market price of a particular company’s securities, securities class action litigation has often been instituted against these companies. This litigation, if instituted against us, could result in substantial costs and a diversion of our management’s attention and resources.
We do not expect to declare any dividends in the foreseeable future.
The continued operation and growth of our business, including acquisitions and capital expenditures, will require substantial cash. Accordingly, we do not anticipate declaring any cash dividends to holders of our common stock in the foreseeable future. Any determination to pay dividends in the future will be at the discretion of our board of directors and will depend upon results of operations, financial condition, any contractual restrictions, our indebtedness, restrictions imposed by applicable law and other factors our board of directors deem relevant. Consequently, investors may need to sell all or part of their holdings of our common stock after price appreciation, which may never occur, as the only way to realize any future gains on their investment.
Some provisions of Wisconsin law and our articles of incorporation and bylaws could make a merger, tender offer or proxy contest difficult, thereby depressing the trading price of our common stock.
Our status as a Wisconsin corporation and the anti-takeover provisions of the Wisconsin Business Corporation Law (the WBCL) may discourage, delay or prevent a change in control even if a change in control would be beneficial to our shareholders by prohibiting us from engaging in a business combination with an interested shareholder for a period of three years after the person becomes an interested shareholder. We may engage in a business combination with an interested shareholder after the expiration of the three-year period with respect to that shareholder only if one or more of the following conditions is satisfied: (i) our board of directors approved the acquisition of the stock before the date on which the shareholder acquired the shares, (ii) the business combination is approved by a majority of our outstanding voting stock not beneficially owned by the interested shareholder or (iii) the consideration to be received by shareholders meets certain fair prices requirements of the WBCL with respect to form and amount.
In addition, our articles of incorporation and bylaws contain provisions that may make the acquisition of the company more difficult, including the following:
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establishing a classified board of directors so that not all members of our board of directors are elected at one time, which could delay the ability of shareholders to change the membership of a majority of our board of directors; |
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authorizing undesignated preferred stock, the terms of which may be established and shares of which may be issued by our board of directors without shareholder approval; |
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requiring certain procedures to be satisfied in order for a shareholder to call a special meeting of shareholders, including requiring that we receive written demands for a special meeting from holders of 10% or more of all the votes entitled to be cast on any issue proposed to be considered; |
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requiring that a director may be removed from office only for “cause” and with the affirmative vote of shareholders holding at least 66 2/3% of the then outstanding shares of stock entitled to vote in the election of directors; |
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not providing for cumulative voting in the election of directors, which would otherwise allow holders of less than a majority of stock to elect some directors; and |
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establishing advance notice procedures for shareholder proposals or the nomination of candidates for election as directors. |
These provisions could have the effect of discouraging, delaying or preventing a transaction involving a change in control of the Company. These provisions could also have the effect of discouraging proxy contests and make it more difficult for shareholders to elect directors of their choosing or prevent us from taking other corporate actions that shareholders may desire.
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Risks Related to Being a Relatively New Public Company
If we fail to maintain an effective system of internal controls in the future, or if we experience any additional material weaknesses in the future, we may not be able to accurately or timely report our financial condition or results of operations, which may adversely affect investor confidence in us and, as a result, the value of our common stock.
As a public company, we are required to maintain effective disclosure controls and procedures and internal controls over financial reporting, as well as document and assess the effectiveness of our system of internal controls over financial reporting to satisfy the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (the Sarbanes-Oxley Act).
While preparing for the IPO in 2019 and as of December 31, 2019, we identified material weaknesses in the design and operation of our internal control over financial reporting that were remediated as of December 31, 2020. In 2019 and 2020, we took numerous steps to enhance our internal control environment and remediate the prior material weaknesses. Despite these actions, we may identify additional material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting in the future.
If we identify future material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting or if we are unable to comply with the demands that are placed upon us as a public company, including the current and future requirements of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (which currently requires annual management assessments of the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting and, in the future, will also require a report by our independent auditors addressing these assessments), in a timely manner, we may be unable to accurately report our financial results, or report them within the timeframes required by the SEC. In addition, if we are unable to assert that our internal control over financial reporting is effective in future years, or if our independent registered public accounting firm is unable to express an opinion as to the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting when required, investors may lose confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports, we may face restricted access to the capital markets and our stock price may be adversely affected.
We are an emerging growth company, and any decision on our part to comply only with certain reduced reporting and disclosure requirements applicable to emerging growth companies could make our common stock less attractive to investors.
We are an “emerging growth company” as defined by the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act of 2012 (JOBS Act). Under the JOBS Act, emerging growth companies can delay adopting new or revised accounting standards until such time as those standards apply to private companies. We have elected to use this exemption from new or revised accounting standards and, therefore, we will not be subject to the same new or revised accounting standards as other public companies that have not made this election.
In addition, as an emerging growth company under the JOBS Act we are only subject to one portion of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act at this time—management reporting on the assessment of internal control over financial reporting (we are not currently required to have our independent auditors issue a report addressing these assessments). Assuming we have not ceased to qualify as an “emerging growth company” earlier, we will be required to comply with both the management and the auditor assessment of internal control over financial reporting requirements of Section 404 at the time we file our annual report for 2024.
For as long as we continue to be an emerging growth company, we also intend to take advantage of certain other exemptions from various reporting requirements that are applicable to other public companies including, but not limited to, reduced disclosure obligations regarding executive compensation in our periodic reports and proxy statements, and exemptions from the requirements of holding a nonbinding advisory vote on executive compensation and shareholder approval of any golden parachute payments not previously approved. We cannot predict if investors will find our common stock less attractive because we will rely on these exemptions. If some investors find our common stock less attractive as a result, there may be a less active trading market for our common stock and our stock price may be more volatile.
We will remain an emerging growth company until the earliest of (i) the last day of the year which we have total annual gross revenue of $1.07 billion or more; (ii) the last day of the year following the fifth anniversary of the date of the closing of our initial public offering; (iii) the date on which we have issued more than $1.0 billion in nonconvertible debt during the previous three years; or (iv) the date on which we are deemed to be a large accelerated filer under the rules of the SEC.