Spruce Power Holding (NYSE:SPRU) held its first-quarter earnings conference call on Wednesday. Below is the complete transcript from the call.

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Summary

Spruce Power Holding Corp reported first quarter 2026 revenue of $23.4 million, maintaining consistency with the prior year despite weather impacts.

The company achieved a 49% increase in operating EBITDA to $18.4 million, driven by cost optimization and operational efficiencies.

Operational expenses decreased significantly, with a 70% reduction in operations and maintenance costs and a 21% decline in SG&A expenses.

Spruce Power Holding Corp successfully extended the maturity of its SP1 facility and is actively exploring refinancing options to optimize its capital structure.

The company maintains a stable cash flow from approximately 84,000 customer contracts and continues to focus on operational efficiency, cost reduction, and strategic growth opportunities.

Full Transcript

OPERATOR

Hello everyone. Thank you for joining us and welcome to Spruce Power First Quarter 2026 Earnings Results Conference Call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. I will now hand the call over to Julia Gasparri, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Thank you. Operator Good afternoon everyone and welcome to Spruce Power's first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Joining me today are Chris Hayes, Spruce Power's Chief Executive Officer, and Tom Cimino, the company's Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that we will comment on our financial performance using both GAAP and non GAAP financial measures. Important information about these non GAAP financial measures, including reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP measures, is included in our earnings Release for the first quarter of 2026 is available on the Investor Relations section of our website. Our discussion today will also include forward looking statements that reflect management's current expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Please refer to our earnings release and SEC filings for a discussion of these risk factors. With that, I will now turn the call over to Chris Hayes, Chief Executive Officer of Spruce Power.

Chris Hayes (Chief Executive Officer)

Chris thanks, Julia. Good afternoon everyone. We began 2026 with continued progress against our operational and financial priorities, delivering meaningful year over year improvement in profitability and operating efficiency while maintaining stable liquidity and recurring cash flow generation from our portfolio. For the first quarter, revenue totaled approximately 23.4 million, which was generally in line with the prior year period despite weather related impacts in the Northeast. Importantly, we continue to realize the benefits of our operational streamlining initiative, resulting in substantial margin expansion and improving operating performance across the business. Operating EBITDA for the quarter was approximately 18.4 million, an increase of 49% compared to the first quarter of 2025. Income from operations improved by more than 5.5 million year over year reflecting continued cost discipline, lower operating expenses and the structural efficiencies we implemented through 2025. Our first quarter results demonstrate the strength of our operating platform and the durability of our long term contracted revenue base. While top line growth was modest during the quarter, our focus remains on maximizing cash generation, improving operating leverage and positioning the business for sustainable long term value creation. During the quarter we executed our cost optimization initiatives, Operations and maintenance expenses declined 70% year over year while SG&A expense declined 21%, driven primarily by lower labor costs, reduced professional services spend and ongoing operational efficiencies associated with project streamline. Importantly, we believe a significant portion of these improvements are structural in nature. While some O&M activity shifted into later quarters of the year, the broader improvements in labor efficiency, vendor management and servicing operations continue to support a meaningfully lower recurring cost structure for the business. Turning to Liquidity and Financing as expected, our quarter end financial statements include a going concern disclosure tied to the accounting treatment associated with the current maturity classification of the SP1 Facility. Importantly, we successfully completed an extension of the SP1 Facility during the quarter and continue to advance constructive refinancing discussions consistent with our historical financing strategy. We believe the extension provides additional flexibility as we evaluate a broader refinancing opportunity designed to optimize our long term capital structure and align financing with the scale and maturity of the platform we have built. Operationally, the business remains stable with approximately 84,000 customer contracts generating predictable recurring cash flows supported by long term agreements and diversified geographic exposure. Looking ahead, our priorities remain consistent. First, continue to improve the efficiency and profitability of our operating platform. Second, advancing our refinancing initiatives and maintaining disciplined liquidity management. Third, selectively pursuing growth opportunities across portfolio acquisitions, programmatic partnerships and Spruce Pro servicing relationships where we believe we can generate attractive returns without significant incremental overhead. We also continue to see encouraging long term opportunities within a variety of new business initiatives that we are exploring as the year continues. Overall, we are encouraged by the progress we made during the quarter and remain focused on disciplined execution as we move through 2026. With that, I'll turn the call over to Tom.

Tom Cimino (Chief Financial Officer)

Thanks Chris. Good afternoon everyone. I'll begin with our first quarter financial results. For the first quarter 2026 revenue totaled 23.4 million compared to 23.8 million in the first quarter of 2025. The modest year over year decline was primarily attributable to lower non cash amortization revenue associated with our previously acquired solar energy agreements as well as lower PPA revenue driven by weather related impacts and customer buyouts. These items were partially offset by higher SREC and performance based incentive revenue. Turning to expenses, total operating expense for the quarter was 19.6 million compared with 25.5 million in the prior year period. Core operating expenses which include SG and A and O and m totaled approximately 12.7 million compared with approximately 18.6 million in the first quarter of 2025. Breaking that down further, SG&A expense was approximately 11.6 million. O&M expense was approximately 1.2 million. The year over year improvement reflects our continued execution of streamlined initiatives including lower labor costs, reduced professional service expense and ongoing operating efficiencies throughout the organization. Within O&M, the reduction was driven by improved servicing efficiencies, lower third party vendor activity and the completion of elevated service and meter upgrade activity that occurred during the prior year period. As Chris mentioned, some O&M activity shifted into later quarters of 2026 as we aligned servicing volumes with our full year operating plan. As a result, we expect O&M expenses to increase sequentially throughout the year while remaining generally in line with our full year expectations. Operating EBITDA for the quarter was 18.4 million compared with 12.3 million in the first quarter 2025, representing an increase of 49%. Net loss attributable to stockholders, improved significantly to approximately 2.9 million compared with a net loss of approximately 15.3 million in the prior year period. The improvement was driven primarily by lower operating expenses and favorable year over year changes in the valuation of our interest rate swaps. Now turning to the balance sheet and liquidity, we ended the quarter with total cash and restricted cash of approximately 85.6 million, including approximately 50 million of unrestricted cash. During the quarter we repaid approximately $8.2 million of debt principal continuing our long term deleveraging strategy. Total outstanding Debt as of March 31, 2026 was $668 million with a blended interest rate of approximately 6.6% including the impact of our hedge arrangements. As Chris discussed, we completed an amendment to the SP1 Facility during the quarter extending the maturity to October 2026 with the potential extension to January 2027 subject to achieving a signed term sheet. We continue to actively evaluate refinancing alternatives and remain encouraged by ongoing discussions. Looking ahead, our current outlook for full year 2026 remains generally consistent with our prior expectations. We expect full year operating EBITDA to remain in line with our budget with lower first quarter O&M spend and collections offset by higher servicing activity and collections. During the second half of the year, we expect continued improvements in SG&A run rate as additional streamline initiatives are implemented. Overall, we believe the business is well positioned to continue generating stable recurring cash flow from operations while improving operational efficiency and advancing our financing objectives. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Chris for closing remarks.

Chris Hayes (Chief Executive Officer)

Thanks Tom. To summarize, our first quarter results reflect continued progress executing our operational and financial strategy. We delivered substantial year over year improvement in profitability and operating EBITDA, continued to reduce costs across the organization, maintained stable liquidity and advanced our refinancing process. As we move through 2026, we remain focused on disciplined execution, recurring cash flow generation, operational efficiency, and long term shareholder value creation. We appreciate the continued support of our investors and look forward to updating you again next quarter. Operator, Please open the line for questions.

OPERATOR

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, press star one again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question. And if you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q and A roster.

Disclaimer: This transcript is provided for informational purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, there may be errors or omissions in this automated transcription. For official company statements and financial information, please refer to the company's SEC filings and official press releases. Corporate participants' and analysts' statements reflect their views as of the date of this call and are subject to change without notice.