UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

 

Form 10-K

 

For the fiscal year ended March 31, 2021

or

For the transition period from                    to                   

Commission File Number: 001-33887

 

Orion Energy Systems, Inc.

(Exact name of Registrant as specified in its charter)

 

 

 

(920) 892-9340

(Registrant’s telephone number, including area code)

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the act:

 

 

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the act:

None

 

Indicate by check mark if the Registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act.    Yes  ☐    No  ☒

Indicate by check mark if the Registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Act.    Yes  ☐    No  ☒

Indicate by check mark whether the Registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days.    Yes  ☒    No  ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit such files).    Yes  ☒    No  ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, smaller reporting company, or an "emerging growth company". See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” “smaller reporting company,” and "emerging growth company" in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act:

 

 

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act.   ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has filed a report on and attestation to its management’s assessment of the effectiveness of its internal control over financial reporting under Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (15 U.S.C. 7262(b)) by the registered public accounting firm that prepared or issued its audit report. Yes ☒    No  ☐  

Indicate by check mark whether the Registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act).    Yes  ☐    No  ☒

The aggregate market value of shares of the Registrant’s common stock held by non-affiliates as of September 30, 2020, the last business day of the Registrant’s most recently completed second fiscal quarter, was approximately $189,240,242.

As of May 21, 2021, there were 30,806,390 shares of the Registrant’s common stock outstanding.

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

Portions of the Registrant's Proxy Statement for the 2021 Annual Meeting of Shareholders to be held on August 5, 2021 are incorporated herein by reference in Part III of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

 

 

---

 

 

ORION ENERGY SYSTEMS, INC.

ANNUAL REPORT ON FORM 10-K

FOR THE YEAR ENDED MARCH 31, 2021

Table of Contents

 

 

 

 

---

 

 

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This Annual Report on Form 10-K includes forward-looking statements that are based on Orion Energy Systems, Inc.'s ("Orion", "we", "us", "our" and similar references) beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to us. When used in this Form 10-K, the words “anticipate,” “believe,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “potential,” “predict,” “project,” “should,” “will,” “would” and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements. Although we believe that our plans, intentions, and expectations reflected in any forward-looking statements are reasonable, these plans, intentions or expectations are based on assumptions, are subject to risks and uncertainties, and may not be achieved. These statements are based on assumptions made by us based on our experience and perception of historical trends, current conditions, expected future developments and other factors that we believe are appropriate under the current circumstances. Such statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control. Our actual results, performance or achievements could differ materially from those contemplated, expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements contained in this Form 10-K. Important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from our forward-looking statements. Given these uncertainties, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Also, forward-looking statements represent our beliefs and assumptions only as of the date of this Form 10-K, including particularly the Risk Factors described under Part I. Item 1A. of this Form 10-K. All forward-looking statements attributable to us or persons acting on our behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by the cautionary statements set forth in this Form 10-K. Actual events, results and outcomes may differ materially from our expectations due to a variety of factors. Although it is not possible to identify all of these factors, they include, among others, the following:

4

---

 

You are urged to carefully consider these factors and the other factors described under Part I. Item 1A. “Risk Factors” when evaluating any forward-looking statements, and you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements.

Except as required by applicable law, we assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements publicly or to update the reasons why actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in any forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future.

5

---

 

As used herein, unless otherwise expressly stated or the context otherwise requires, all references to “Orion,” “we,” “us,” “our,” “Company” and similar references are to Orion Energy Systems, Inc. and its consolidated subsidiaries.

Overview

We provide state-of-the-art light emitting diode (“LED”) lighting systems, wireless Internet of Things (“IoT”) enabled control solutions, project engineering, design energy project management and maintenance services. We help our customers achieve energy savings with healthy, safe and sustainable solutions that enable them to reduce their carbon footprint and digitize their business. We research, design, develop, manufacture, market, sell, install, and implement energy management systems consisting primarily of high-performance, energy-efficient commercial and industrial interior and exterior LED lighting systems and related services. Our products are targeted for applications in three primary market segments: commercial office and retail, area lighting, and industrial applications, although we do sell and install products into other markets. Virtually all of our sales occur within North America.

Our principal customers include large national account end-users, electrical distributors, electrical contractors and energy service companies (“ESCOS”). Currently, a significant amount of our products are manufactured at our leased production facility located in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, although as the LED and related IoT market continues to evolve, we are increasingly sourcing products and components from third parties in order to diversify our product offerings.

We have experienced recent success offering our comprehensive project management services to national account customers to retrofit their multiple locations. Our comprehensive services include initial site surveys and audits, utility incentive and government subsidy management, engineering design, and project management from delivery through to installation and controls integration.

Our lighting products consist primarily of LED lighting fixtures, many of which include IoT enabled control systems provided by third parties. We believe the market for LED lighting products continues to grow. Due to their size and flexibility in application, we also believe that LED lighting systems can address opportunities for retrofit applications that cannot be satisfied by other lighting technologies.

We generally do not have long-term contracts with our customers that provide us with recurring revenue from period to period and we typically generate substantially all of our revenue from sales of lighting systems and related services to governmental, commercial and industrial customers on a project-by-project basis. We also perform work under global services or product purchasing agreements with major customers with sales completed on a purchase order basis. The loss of, or substantial reduction in sales to, any of our significant customers, or our current single largest customer, or the termination or delay of a significant volume of purchase orders by one or more key customers, could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations in any given future period.

We typically sell our lighting systems in replacement of our customers’ existing lighting fixtures. We call this replacement process a "retrofit". We frequently sell our products and services directly to our customers and in many cases we provide design and installation as well as project management services. We also sell our lighting systems on a wholesale basis, principally to electrical distributors, electrical contractors and ESCOs to sell to their own customer bases.

The gross margins of our products can vary significantly depending upon the types of products we sell, with gross margins typically ranging from 10% to 50%. As a result, a change in the total mix of our sales among higher or lower gross margin products can cause our profitability to fluctuate from period to period.

Our fiscal year ends on March 31. We refer to our current fiscal year which ended on March 31, 2021 as "fiscal 2021". We refer to our most recently completed fiscal year, which ended on March 31, 2020, as “fiscal 2020”, and our prior fiscal year which ended on March 31, 2019 as "fiscal 2019". Our fiscal first quarter of each fiscal year ends on June 30, our fiscal second quarter ends on September 30, our fiscal third quarter ends on December 31, and our fiscal fourth quarter ends on March 31.

6

---

 

Reportable Segments

Reportable segments are components of an entity that have separate financial data that the entity's chief operating decision maker ("CODM") regularly reviews when allocating resources and assessing performance. Our CODM is our chief executive officer. We have three reportable segments: Orion Engineered Systems Division ("OES"), and Orion Distribution Services Division ("ODS"), and Orion U.S. Markets Division ("USM").

For financial results by reportable segment, please refer to Note 18 – Segment Data in our consolidated financial statements included in Item 8. of this Annual Report.

Orion Engineered Systems Division

Our OES segment develops and sells lighting products and provides construction and engineering services for our commercial lighting and energy management systems. OES provides engineering, design, lighting products and in many cases turnkey solutions for large national accounts, governments, municipalities, schools and other customers.

Orion Distribution Services Division

Our ODS segment focuses on selling lighting products through manufacturer representative agencies and a network of North American broadline and electrical distributors and contractors.

Orion U.S. Markets Division

Our USM segment sells commercial lighting systems and energy management systems to the wholesale contractor markets. USM customers include ESCOs and contractors.

Our Market Opportunity

We provide enterprise-grade LED lighting and energy management project solutions. We are primarily focused on providing commercial and industrial facilities lighting retrofit solutions in North America using solid-state LED technology. We believe the market for lighting products has shifted to LED lighting systems and continues to grow. We believe that LED lighting technology allows for better optical performance, significantly reduced maintenance costs due to performance longevity and reduced energy consumption. Due to their size and flexibility in application, we also believe that LED lighting systems can address opportunities for retrofit applications that cannot be satisfied by other technologies.

Our products deliver energy savings and efficiency gains to our commercial and industrial customers without compromising their quantity or quality of light. We estimate that our energy management systems reduce our customers’ legacy lighting-related electricity costs by approximately 50% or greater, while maintaining their quantity of light after the reduced wattage and improving overall lighting quality when replacing traditional fixtures. Our customers with legacy lighting systems typically realize a one to four-year payback period, and most often 18 – 24 months, from electricity cost savings generated by our lighting systems without considering utility incentives or government subsidies. Energy-efficient lighting systems are cost-effective and environmentally responsible solutions allowing end users to reduce operating expenses and their carbon footprint.

We serve government and private sector end-customers in the following primary markets: commercial office and retail, exterior area lighting and industrial applications.

Commercial office and retail. Our commercial office and retail market includes commercial office buildings, retail store fronts, government offices, schools, hospitals and other buildings with traditional 10 to 12 foot ceiling heights.

Exterior Area lighting. Our market for area lighting includes parking garages, surface lots, automobile dealerships and gas service stations.

Industrial applications. Our market for industrial facilities includes manufacturing facilities, distribution and warehouse facilities, government buildings and agricultural buildings. These facilities typically contain "high-bay" lighting fixtures.

7

---

 

Commercial and industrial facilities in the United States employ a variety of lighting technologies, including HID, traditional fluorescents, LED and incandescent lighting fixtures. We estimate that approximately 50% of this market still utilizes inefficient high intensity discharge ("HID") lighting technologies. Our lighting systems typically replace less efficient HID, HIF fixtures, and earlier generation of LED fixtures.

We believe that utilities within the United States recognize the importance of energy efficiency as an economical means to manage capacity constraints and as a low-cost alternative when compared to the construction costs of building new power plants. Accordingly, many of these utilities are continually focused on demand reduction through energy efficiency. According to our research of individual state and utility programs, utilities design and fund programs that promote or deliver energy efficiency through legislation, regulation or voluntary action. Our product sales are not solely dependent upon these incentive programs, but we do believe that these incentive programs provide an important benefit as our customers evaluate their out-of-pocket cash investments.

Our Solution

Value Proposition. We estimate our LED lighting systems generally reduce lighting-related electricity usage and costs by approximately 50% or greater, compared to legacy fixtures, while retaining the quantity of light, improving overall lighting quality and helping customers reduce their carbon footprint.

Multi-Facility Roll-Out Capability. We offer our customers a single source, turnkey solution for project implementation in which we manage and maintain responsibility for entire multi-facility rollouts of our energy management solutions across North American commercial and industrial facility portfolios. This capability allows us to offer our customers an orderly, timely and scheduled process for recognizing energy reductions and cost savings.

Rapid Payback Period. In most retrofit projects where we replace HID and HIF fixtures, our customers typically realize a one to four year, but most often 18 – 24 months, payback period on our lighting systems. These returns are achieved without considering utility incentives or government subsidies (although subsidies and incentives are continually being made available to our customers in connection with the installation of our systems that further shorten payback periods).

Easy Installation, Implementation and Maintenance. Most of our fixtures are designed with a lightweight construction and modular plug-and-play architecture that allows for fast and easy installation, facilitates maintenance, and integration of other components of our energy management system. Our office LED Troffer Door Retrofit ("LDR^TM") products are designed to allow for fast and easy installation without disrupting the ceiling space or the office workspace. We believe our system’s design reduces installation time and expense compared to other lighting solutions, which further improves our customers’ return on investment. We also believe that our use of standard components reduces our customers’ ongoing maintenance costs.

Expanded Product Offerings. We are committed to continuing to develop LED product offerings in all of the markets we serve. Our third generation of ISON® class of LED interior fixture delivers a market leading up to 214 lumens per watt. This advancement means our customers can get more light with less energy, and sometimes fewer fixtures, than with any other product on the market. We have also recently launched a variety of new products, features and functionality targeting healthcare, food service, high and low temperature environments and other market segments. Our lighting products also may be configured to include IoT enabled control systems. See "Products and Services" below.

Environmental Benefits. By allowing for the permanent reduction of electricity consumption, we believe our energy management systems significantly reduce indirect CO2 emissions that are a negative by-product of energy generation.

Our Competitive Strengths

Compelling Value Proposition. By permanently reducing lighting-related electricity usage, our systems enable our customers to achieve significant cost savings, without compromising quantity and quality of light in their facilities. As a result, our products offer our customers a rapid return on their investment, without relying on government subsidies or utility incentives.

Comprehensive Project Management. We offer our customers a single source solution whereby we manage and are responsible for an entire retrofit lighting project, from initial site surveys and energy audits through to installation and controls integration. Our ability to offer such comprehensive turnkey project management services, coupled with best-in-class customer service, allows us to

8

---

 

deliver energy reductions and cost savings to our customers in timely, orderly and planned multi-facility rollouts nationwide. We believe one of our competitive advantages is our ability to deliver full turnkey LED lighting project capabilities. These turnkey services were the principal reason we achieved significant revenue growth in fiscal 2020 as we executed on our commitment to retrofit multiple locations for a major national account customer. This roll-out resumed in the second half of fiscal 2021 after a suspension in the first half of fiscal 2021 related to the COVID-19 pandemic response. Our success in the national account market segment centers on our turnkey design, engineering, manufacturing and project management capabilities, which represent a very clear competitive advantage for us among large enterprises seeking to benefit from the illumination benefits and energy savings of LED lighting across locations nationwide. Few LED lighting providers are organized to serve every step of a custom retrofit project in a comprehensive, non-disruptive and timely fashion, from custom fixture design and initial site surveys to final installations. Incrementally, we are also able to help customers deploy state-of-the-art control systems that provide even greater long-term value from their lighting system investments.

Large and Growing Customer Base. We have developed a large and growing national customer base and have installed our products in commercial and industrial facilities across North America. We believe that the willingness of our blue-chip customers to install our products across multiple facilities represents a significant endorsement of our value proposition, which in turn helps us sell our energy management systems to new customers. We intend to leverage our expertise in managing projects across multiple facilities within our new LED product markets, which now include new customer opportunities with banks, insurance companies, hospitals, fast food chains, retail storefronts, grocery and pharmacies.

Innovative Technology. We have developed a portfolio of United States patents primarily covering various elements of our products. We believe these innovations allow our products to produce more light output per unit of input energy compared to our competition. We also have patents pending that primarily cover various elements of our newly developed LED products and certain business methods. To complement our innovative energy management products, our integrated energy management services provide our customers with a turnkey solution either at a single facility or across their North American facility footprints. Our demonstrated ability to innovate provides us with significant competitive advantages. Our lighting products offer significantly more light output as measured in foot-candles of light delivered per watt of electricity consumed when compared to HID or traditional fluorescent fixtures. Beyond the benefits of our lighting fixtures, we believe that there is also an opportunity to utilize our system platform as a “connected ceiling” or “smart ceiling”, or a framework or network that can support the installation and integration of other solutions on a digital platform. This “smart ceiling” can be integrated with other technologies to collect data and manage assets and resources more efficiently. Orion’s percentage of systems utilizing IoT enabled devices has grown significantly over the past few years and we expect this trend to continue. Our “Industrial Internet of Things” or IoT enabled devices not only contain energy management control functions, but also have the ability to collect facility usage and traffic data as well as collect data from other facility mechanical systems, providing our customers with a path to digitization for their business operations.

Expanded Sales and Distribution Network. In addition to selling directly to national accounts, electrical contractors and ESCOs, we sell our lighting products and services to electrical distributors through a North American network of independent lighting agencies. As of the end of fiscal 2021, we had 29 independent lighting agencies representing us in substantially all of North America. We intend to continue to selectively evaluate our sales network in the future, with a focus on geographic regions where we do not currently have a strong sales presence.

Impact of COVID-19 in Fiscal 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted business, trade, commerce, financial and credit markets, in the U.S. and globally. Our business was adversely impacted by measures taken by customers, suppliers, government entities and others to control the spread of the virus beginning in March 2020, the last few weeks of our prior fiscal year, and continuing most significantly into the second quarter of fiscal 2021. During the third quarter of fiscal 2021, we experienced a rebound in business. Project installations resumed for our largest customer and we started installations for a new large specialty retail customer. However, some customers continue to refrain from awarding new projects and potential future risks remain due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

As part of our response to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020 we implemented a number of cost reduction and cash conservation measures, including reducing headcount. While certain restrictions began to initially lessen in certain jurisdictions during the second half of fiscal 2021, stay-at-home, face mask or lockdown orders remain in effect in others, with employees asked to work remotely if possible. Some customers and projects are in areas where travel restrictions have

9

---

 

been imposed, certain customers have either closed or reduced on-site activities, and timelines for the completion of several projects have been delayed, extended or terminated. These modifications to our business practices, including any future actions we take, may cause us to experience reductions in productivity and disruptions to our business routines. In addition, we have needed to make substantial working capital expenditures and advance inventory purchases that we may not be able to recoup if our customer agreements or a substantial volume of purchase orders under our customer agreements are delayed or terminated as a result of COVID-19. It is not possible to predict the overall impact the COVID-19 pandemic will have on our business, liquidity, capital resources or financial results, although the economic and regulatory impacts of COVID-19 significantly reduced our revenue and profitability in the first half of fiscal 2021. If the COVID-19 pandemic becomes more pronounced in our markets or experiences a resurgence in markets recovering from the spread of COVID-19, our results of operation would likely be materially adversely affected.

Our Growth Strategies

In fiscal 2021, we continued to successfully capitalize on our capability of being a full service, turn-key provider of LED lighting and controls systems with design, build, installation and project management services, including being awarded large additional projects for a major national account. To build on this success, we are evolving our business strategy to further leverage this unique capability, while making targeted additions to the scope and nature of our products and services to enhance the value we can provide to our customers. In particular, we are working to develop recurring revenue streams, including lighting and electrical maintenance services, with an emphasis on utilizing control sensor technology to collect data and assist customers in the digitization of this data, along with other potential services. We also plan to expand our “smart-building” and “connected ceiling” IoT capabilities, along with related software and control technology products and services offerings. While we intend to pursue these expansion strategies organically, we also are actively exploring potential acquisitions that could accelerate our progress. Our ability to achieve our desired revenue and profitability goals depends on our ability to manage the adverse impact of COVID-19 and effectively execute on the following key strategic initiatives.

Focus on executing and marketing our turnkey LED retrofit capabilities to large national account customers. We believe one of our competitive advantages is our ability to deliver full turnkey LED lighting project capabilities starting with energy audits and site assessments that lead to custom engineering and manufacturing through to fully managed installations. These attributes coupled with our superior customer service, high quality designs and expedited delivery responsiveness resulted in our contract to retrofit multiple locations for a single national account in fiscal 2020 that continued into fiscal 2021.

Continue Product Innovation. We continue to innovate, developing lighting fixtures and features that address specific customer requirements, while also working to maintain a leadership position in energy efficiency, smart product design and installation benefits. For interior building applications, we recently expanded our product line to include a family of ceiling air movement solutions, some of which incorporate LED lighting and others which utilize ultraviolet C light waves to kill viruses, bacteria and germs. We also continue to deepen our capabilities in the integration of smart lighting controls. Our goal is to provide state-of-the-art lighting products with modular plug-and-play designs to enable lighting system customization from basic controls to advanced IoT capabilities.

Leverage Orion’s Smart Lighting Systems to Support Internet of Things Applications. We believe we are ideally positioned to help customers to efficiently deploy new IoT controls and applications by leveraging the “Smart Ceiling” capabilities of their Orion solid state lighting system. IoT capabilities can include the management and tracking of facilities, personnel, resources and customer behavior, driving both sales and lowering costs. As a result, these added capabilities provide customers an even greater return on investment from their lighting system and make us an even more attractive partner, providing our customers with a path to digitization for their business operations.

Develop Maintenance Service Offerings. We believe we can leverage our construction management process expertise to develop a high-quality, quick-response, multi-location maintenance service offering. Our experience with large national customers and our large installed base of fixtures position us well to extend a maintenance offering to historical customers, as well as to new customers. Development of this recurring revenue stream is making progress and we believe there is significant market opportunity.

Support success of our ESCO and agent driven distribution sales channels. We continue to focus on building our relationships and product and sales support for our ESCO and agent driven distribution channels. These efforts include an array of product and sales training efforts as well as the development of new products to cater to the unique needs of these sales channels.

10

---

 

Products and Services

Our primary focus has been the sale of our LED lighting fixtures with integrated controls technology and related installation services. We will continue to focus on these products and services, as well as the development of a maintenance service offering.

Currently, most of our products are manufactured at our leased production facility location in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, although as the LED market continues to evolve, we also source products and components from third parties in order to have versatility in our product development. We are focused on researching, developing and/or acquiring new innovative LED products and technologies for the retrofit markets. We plan to focus our efforts on developing creative new LED retrofit products in order to offer our customers a variety of integrated energy management services, such as system design, project management and installation.

Products

The following is a description of our primary products:

Interior LED High Bay Fixtures: Our LED interior high bay lighting products consist of our Harris high bay, Apollo^TM high bay and ISON® high bay products. Our ISON® class of LED interior fixture offers a full package of premium features, including low total cost of ownership, optics that currently exceed competitors in terms of lumen package, delivered light, modularity and advanced thermal management. Our third generation of ISON® class of LED interior fixture delivers up to an exceptional 214 lumens per watt. This advancement means our customers can get more light with less energy, and sometimes fewer fixtures, compared to other products on the market. Our Apollo^TM class of LED interior fixtures is designed for new construction and retrofit projects where initial cost is the largest factor in the purchase decision. Our Harris high bay is ideal for customers seeking a cost-effective solution to deliver energy savings and maintenance reductions. In addition, our LED interior lighting products are lightweight and easy to handle, which further reduces installation and maintenance costs and helps to build brand loyalty with electrical contractors and installers.

Smart Lighting Controls. We offer a broad array of smart building control systems. These control systems provide both lighting control options (such as occupancy, daylight, or schedule control) and data intelligence capabilities for building managers to log, monitor, and analyze use of space, energy savings, and provide physical security of the space.

The LED Troffer Door Retrofit (LDR^TM): The LDR^TM is designed to replace existing 4 foot by 2 foot and 2 foot by 2 foot fluorescent troffers that are frequently found in office or retail grid ceilings. Our LDR^TM product is unique in that the LED optics and electronics are housed within the doorframe that allows for installation of the product in approximately one to two minutes. Our LDR^TM product also provides reduced maintenance expenses based upon improved LED chips.

Other Products. We also offer our customers a variety of other LED and HIF fixtures to address their lighting and energy management needs, including fixtures designed for agribusinesses, parking lots, roadways, retail, mezzanine, outdoor applications and private label resale.

Warranty Policy. Our warranty policy generally provides for a limited one-year warranty on our HIF products and a limited five-year warranty on our LED products, although we do offer warranties ranging up to 10 years for certain LED products. Ballasts, lamps, drivers, LED chips and other electrical components are excluded from our standard warranty as they are covered by separate warranties offered by the original equipment manufacturers. We coordinate and process customer warranty inquiries and claims, including inquiries and claims relating to ballast and lamp components, through our customer service department.

Services

We provide a range of fee-based lighting-related energy management services to our customers, including:

11

---

 

We also provide other services that comprise a small amount of our revenue. These services primarily include management and control of power quality and remote monitoring and control of our installed systems. We also sell and distribute replacement lamps and fixture components into the after-market.

Our Customers

We primarily target commercial, institutional and industrial customers who have warehousing, retail, manufacturing, and office facilities. In fiscal 2021, one customer accounted for 56.0% of our total revenue. In fiscal 2020, that same customer accounted for 74.1% of our total revenue, and in fiscal 2019, this same customer accounted for 20.7% of our total revenue. We expect that we will continue to experience significant customer concentration in fiscal 2022, particularly as we focus on large multi-location retrofit programs. While we continue to seek to diversify our customer base by expanding our reach to national accounts, ESCOs and the agent driven distribution channel, we expect to continue to derive a significant percentage of our revenue from contracts with one or a few customers. These contracts are entered into in the ordinary course of business and provide that we will deliver products and services on a work order or purchase order basis and any purchase order may be terminated prior to shipment. These contracts generally do not guarantee that the customer will buy our products or services.

The amount and concentration of our revenues with one or more customer may fluctuate on a year to year or quarter to quarter basis depending on the number of purchase orders issued by our customers. The loss of a significant customer or the termination of a material volume of purchase orders (or the underlying agreements) could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations.

Sales and Marketing

We sell our products in one of three ways: (i) directly through our relationships with our national account partners; (ii) indirectly through independent sales agencies and broadline North American distributors; and (iii) through ESCOs. Our ODS segment focuses on developing and expanding customer relationships with independent manufacturer’s sales agents and broadline distributors. As of the end of fiscal 2021 we had 29 independent lighting agencies representing us in substantially all of North America expanding our reach with broadline distributors. We attempt to leverage the customer relationships of these distributors to further extend the geographic scope of our selling efforts. We work cooperatively with our indirect channels through participation in national trade organizations and by providing training on our sales methodologies.

We have historically focused our marketing efforts on traditional direct advertising, as well as developing brand awareness through customer education and active participation in trade shows and energy management seminars. These efforts have included participating in national, regional and local trade organizations, exhibiting at trade shows, executing targeted direct mail campaigns, advertising in select publications, public relations campaigns, social media and other lead generation and brand-building initiatives.

Competition

The market for energy-efficient lighting products and services is fragmented. We face strong competition primarily from manufacturers and distributors of lighting products and services as well as electrical contractors. We compete primarily on the basis of technology, cost, performance, quality, customer experience, energy efficiency, customer service and marketing support.

12

---

 

There are a number of lighting fixture manufacturers that sell LED and HIF products that compete with our lighting product lines. Lighting companies such as Acuity Brands, Inc., Energy Focus, Inc., Signify Co., Cree, Inc., LSI Industries, Inc., Cooper Lighting Solutions, GE Current, a Daintree Company, and Hubbell Incorporated are some of our main competitors within the commercial office, retail and industrial markets. We are also facing increased competition from manufacturers in low-cost countries.

We also face competition from companies who provide energy management services. Some of these competitors, such as Ameresco, Inc., Johnson Controls International and Honeywell International, provide basic systems and controls designed to further energy efficiency.

Intellectual Property

As of March 31, 2021, we had been issued over 100 United States patents and have applied for a number of additional United States patents. The patented and patent pending technologies cover various innovative elements of our products, including our HIF and LED fixtures. Our patented LDR^TM product allows for a significantly quicker installation when compared to competitor's commercial office lighting products. Our smart lighting controls allow our lighting fixtures to selectively provide a targeted amount of light where and when it is needed most.

We believe that our patent portfolio as a whole is material to our business. We also believe that our patents covering our ability to manage the thermal and optical performance of our lighting products are material to our business, and that the loss of these patents could significantly and adversely affect our business, operating results and prospects.

Backlog

Backlog represents the amount of revenue that we expect to realize in the future as a result of firm, committed orders. Our backlog as of March 31, 2021 and March 31, 2020 totaled $15.5 million and $18.6 million, respectively. We generally expect our backlog to be recognized as revenue within one year, although the COVID-19 pandemic extended this time period.

Manufacturing and Distribution

We lease an approximately 266,000 square foot primary manufacturing and distribution facility located in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, where most of our products are manufactured. We utilize both solar and wind power to support the energy requirements for our manufacturing facility, allowing us to reduce our carbon footprint.

We generally maintain a significant supply of raw material and purchased and manufactured component inventory. We contract with transportation companies to ship our products and manage all aspects of distribution logistics. We generally ship our products directly to the end user.

Research and Development

Our research and development efforts are centered on developing new LED products and technologies and enhancing existing products. The products, technologies and services we are developing are focused on increasing end user energy efficiency and enhancing lighting output. Over the last three fiscal years, we have focused our development on additional LED products, resulting in our development and commercialization of several new suites of LED interior high bay products.

We operate research and development lab and test facilities in our Jacksonville, Florida and Manitowoc, Wisconsin locations.

Regulatory Matters

Our operations are subject to federal, state, and local laws and regulations governing, among other things, emissions to air, discharge to water, the remediation of contaminated properties and the generation, handling, storage, transportation, treatment, and disposal of, and exposure to, waste and other materials, as well as laws and regulations relating to occupational health and safety. We believe that our business, operations, and facilities are being operated in compliance in all material respects with applicable environmental and health and safety laws and regulations.

13

---

 

State, county or municipal statutes often require that a licensed electrician be present and supervise each retrofit project. Further, all installations of electrical fixtures are subject to compliance with electrical codes in virtually all jurisdictions in the United States. In cases where we engage independent contractors to perform our retrofit projects, we believe that compliance with these laws and regulations is the responsibility of the applicable contractor.

Our Corporate and Other Available Information

We were incorporated as a Wisconsin corporation in April 1996 and our corporate headquarters are located at 2210 Woodland Drive, Manitowoc, Wisconsin 54220. Our Internet website address is www.orionlighting.com. Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K and amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or the Exchange Act, are available through the investor relations page of our internet website free of charge as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file such material with, or furnish it to, the Securities and Exchange Commission, or the SEC. We are not including the information contained on our website as part of, or incorporating it by reference into, this report.

Human Capital

As of March 31, 2021, we had approximately 213 full-time employees. We also employ temporary employees in our manufacturing facility as demand requires, at times up to 130 temporary employees. Our employees are not represented by any labor union, and we have never experienced a work stoppage or strike due to employee relations.

We are an employee centric organization, maintaining a safe and respectful environment that provides opportunity for our employees.

We believe our employees are among our most important resources and are critical to our continued success. We focus significant attention on attracting and retaining talented and experienced individuals to manage and support our operations. We pay our employees competitively and offer a broad range of company-paid benefits, which we believe are competitive with others in our industry.

We are committed to hiring, developing and supporting a diverse and inclusive workplace. Our management teams and all of our employees are expected to exhibit and promote honest, ethical and respectful conduct in the workplace. We will not tolerate discrimination or harassment in any form. All of our employees must adhere to a code of conduct that sets standards for appropriate behavior and includes required annual training on preventing, identifying, reporting and stopping any type of unlawful discrimination.

During fiscal 2021, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we implemented safety protocols and new procedures to protect our employees and our customers. These protocols include limiting travel, restricting access to our facilities along with monitoring processes, physical distancing, physical barriers, enhanced cleaning procedures, and requiring face coverings. In addition, we modified the way we conduct many aspects of our business to reduce the number of in-person interactions. For example, we significantly expanded the use of virtual interactions in all aspects of our business, including customer facing activities. Many of our administrative and operational functions during this time have required modification as well, including most of our professional workforce working remotely. We expanded paid time-off for employees impacted by COVID-19 and provided increased pay for certain employees involved in critical infrastructure who could not work remotely. We expect to continue such safety and wellness measures for the foreseeable future and may take further actions, or adapt these existing policies, as government authorities may require or recommend or as we may determine to be in the best interest of our employees, clients, vendors and shareholders.

14

---

 

You should carefully consider the risk factors set forth below and in other reports that we file from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the other information in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. The matters discussed in the following risk factors, and additional risks and uncertainties not currently known to us or that we currently deem immaterial, could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and future growth prospects and could cause the trading price of our common stock to decline.

Risk Factor Summary

Our business is subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those highlighted immediately following this summary. Some of these risks are summarized below:

 

Risks Related to Our Business

Operational Risks

Our business has been, and could again in the future be, negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted business, trade, commerce, financial and credit markets in the United States and globally. Our business has been adversely impacted by measures taken by customers, suppliers, government entities and others to control the spread of the virus beginning in March 2020, the last few weeks of our prior fiscal year, and continuing most significantly into the second quarter of fiscal 2021. During the third quarter of fiscal 2021, we experienced a rebound in business, with a full quarter

15

---

 

of project installations for our largest customer, as well as installations for a new large specialty retail customer, and no significant COVlD-19 impacts. However, some customers continue to refrain from awarding new projects and potential future risks remain due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

As part of our response to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020, we implemented a number of cost reduction and cash conservation measures, including reducing headcount. While certain COVID-19 related restrictions began to initially lessen in certain jurisdictions during the second half of fiscal 2021, stay-at-home, face mask or lockdown orders remain in effect in others, with employees asked to work remotely if possible. Certain areas of the country have seen spikes of COVID-19 cases (including in and around our headquarters in Manitowoc, Wisconsin and our office in Jacksonville, Florida), which could result in renewed restrictions and lockdown orders. Some of our customers and projects are in areas where travel restrictions have been imposed, certain customers have either closed or reduced on-site activities, and timelines for the completion of several projects have been delayed, extended or terminated. These COVID-19 related modifications to our business practices, including any future actions we take, may cause us to experience reductions in productivity and disruptions to our business routines. In addition, we have needed to make substantial working capital expenditures and advance inventory purchases that we may not be able to recoup if our customer agreements or a substantial volume of purchase orders under our customer agreements are delayed or terminated as a result of COVID-19. It is not possible to predict the overall impact the COVID-19 pandemic will have on our business, liquidity, capital resources or financial results, although the economic and regulatory impacts of COVID-19 significantly reduced our revenue and profitability in the first half of fiscal 2021. If the COVID-19 pandemic becomes more pronounced in our markets or experiences a resurgence in markets recovering from the spread of COVID-19, or if another significant natural disaster or pandemic were to occur in the future, our results of operation would likely be materially adversely affected. The impact of COVID-19 may also exacerbate other risks discussed in Item 1A of this Annual Report on Form 10-K, any of which could have a material effect on our financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.

Our ability to achieve our desired revenue and profitability goals depends on our ability to effectively and timely execute on our key strategic initiatives.

Our ability to achieve our desired revenue and profitability goals depends on how effectively and timely we execute on our following key strategic initiatives:

We also may identify and pursue strategic acquisition candidates that would help support these initiatives. There can be no assurance that we will be able to successfully implement these initiatives or, even if implemented, that they will result in the anticipated benefits to our business.

Our products use components and raw materials that may be subject to price fluctuations, shortages or interruptions of supply, including semiconductor chips that have been subject to an ongoing significant shortage. If we are unable to maintain supply sources of our components and raw materials or if our sources fail to satisfy our supply requirements, we may lose sales and experience increased component costs.

We are vulnerable to price increases, as well as transportation and delivery delays, for components and raw materials that we require for our products, including aluminum, copper, certain rare earth minerals, semiconductor chips, power supplies and LED chips and modules. In particular, we utilize semiconductor chips in our LED lighting products and control sensors. Since semiconductor chips have been recently subject to an ongoing significant shortage, our ability to source these important components that use semiconductor chips has been adversely affected. This has resulted in increased component delivery lead times, delays in our product production and increased costs to obtain components with available semiconductor chips. To the extent this semiconductor chip

16

---

 

shortage continues, our production ability and results of operations will be adversely affected. We also source certain finished goods externally.

Limitations inherent within our supply chain of certain of our components, raw materials and finished goods, including competitive, governmental, and legal limitations, natural disasters, and other events, could impact costs and future increases in the costs of these items. For example, the adoption of new tariffs by the new United States administration or by other countries and the ongoing impact of COVID-19 in China could continue to adversely affect our profitability and availability of raw materials and components, as there can be no assurance that future price increases will be successfully passed through to customers or that we will be able to find alternative suppliers. Further, suppliers’ inventories of certain components that our products require may be limited and are subject to acquisition by others. As a result of disruption to our supply chain due to COVID-19, which has caused supplier delivery constraints and concerns over component availability, we have attempted to purchase excess quantities of certain components that are critical to our product manufacturing. We will likely need to continue to follow this practice in the future. As a result, we have had, and may need to continue, to devote additional working capital to support component and raw material inventory purchases that may not be used over a reasonable period to produce saleable products, and we may be required to increase our excess and obsolete inventory reserves to account for these excess quantities, particularly if demand for our products does not meet our expectations. Also, any further delays, shortages or interruptions in the supply of our components or raw materials could further disrupt our operations. If any of these events occur, our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows could be materially adversely affected.

The success of our business depends upon market acceptance of our energy management products and services.

Our future success depends upon the continued market acceptance of our energy management products and services and obtaining additional project management retrofit contracts, as well as customer orders for new and expanded products and services to supplement our contract with our current single largest customer. If we are unable to convince current and potential new customers of the advantages of our lighting systems and energy management products and services, or our expanded product and services offerings, then our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows will likely be materially adversely affected. In addition, because the market for energy management products and services, as well as potential new customer uses for our products and services, is rapidly evolving, we may not be able to accurately assess the size of the market, and we may have limited insight into trends that may emerge and affect our business. If the market for our lighting systems and energy management products and services, as well as potential new customer uses for our products and services, does not continue to develop as we anticipate, or if the market does not accept our products or services, then our ability to grow our business could be limited and we may not be able to increase our revenue and our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows will likely be materially adversely affected.

We increasingly rely on third-party manufacturers for the manufacture and development of our products and product components.

We have increased our utilization of third-party manufacturers for the manufacture and development of our products and product components. Our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows could be materially adversely affected if our third-party manufacturers were to experience problems with product quality, credit or liquidity issues, or disruptions or delays in their manufacturing process or delivery of the finished products and components or the raw materials used to make such products and components.

We operate in a highly competitive industry and, if we are unable to compete successfully, our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows will likely be materially adversely affected.

We face strong competition, primarily from manufacturers and distributors of energy management products and services, as well as from ESCOs and electrical contractors. We are also facing increased competition from manufacturers in low-cost countries. We compete primarily on the basis of customer relationships, price, quality, energy efficiency, customer service and marketing support. Our products are in direct competition with the expanding availability of LED products, as well as other technologies in the lighting systems retrofit market.

17

---

 

Many of our competitors are better capitalized than we are and have strong customer relationships, greater name recognition, and more extensive engineering, manufacturing, sales and marketing capabilities. In addition, the LED market has seen increased convergence in recent years, resulting in our competition gaining increased market share and resources. Competitors could focus their substantial resources on developing a competing business model or energy management products or services that may be potentially more attractive to customers than our products or services. In addition, we may face competition from other products or technologies that reduce demand for electricity. Our competitors may also offer energy management products and services at reduced prices in order to improve their competitive positions. Any of these competitive factors could make it more difficult for us to attract and retain customers, or require us to lower our average selling prices in order to remain competitive, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows.

Our ability to balance customer demand and production capacity and increased difficulty in obtaining permanent employee staffing could negatively impact our business.

As customer demand for our products changes, we must be able to adjust our production capacity, including increasing or decreasing our employee workforce, to meet demand. We are continually taking steps to address our manufacturing capacity needs for our products. If we are not able to increase or decrease our production capacity at our targeted rate or if there are unforeseen costs associated with adjusting our capacity levels, our ability to execute our operating plan could be adversely affected

We have recently experienced increased difficulty in hiring sufficient permanent employees to support our production demands. This circumstance has resulted in our increased reliance on temporary employee staffing to support our production operations. Temporary employees can be less reliable and require more ongoing training than permanent employees. These factors can adversely affect our operational efficiencies. This situation has also placed a significant burden on our continuing employees, has resulted in higher recruiting expenses as we have sought to recruit and train additional new permanent employees, and introduced increased instability in our operations to the extent responsibilities are reallocated to new or different employees. To the extent that we are unable to effectively hire a sufficient number of permanent employees, and our reliance on temporary staffing continues to increase, our operations and our ability to execute our operating plan could be adversely affected.

Our inability to attract and retain key employees, our reseller network members or manufacturer representative agencies could adversely affect our operations and our ability to execute on our operating plan and growth strategy.

We rely upon the knowledge, experience and skills of key employees throughout our organization, particularly our senior management team, our sales group that requires technical knowledge or contacts in, and knowledge of, the LED industry, and our innovation and engineering team. In addition, our ability to attract talented new employees, particularly in our sales group and our innovation and engineering team, is also critical to our success. We also depend on our distribution channels and network of manufacturer sales representative agencies. If we are unable to attract and retain key employees, resellers, and manufacturer sales representative agencies because of competition or, in the case of employees, inadequate compensation or other factors, our results of operations and our ability to execute our operating plan could be adversely affected.

If our information technology systems security measures are breached or fail, our products may be perceived as not being secure, customers may curtail or stop buying our products, we may incur significant legal and financial exposure, and our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows could be materially adversely affected.

Our information technology systems involve the storage of our confidential information and trade secrets, as well as our customers’ personal and proprietary information in our equipment, networks and corporate systems. Security breaches expose us to a risk of loss of this information, litigation and increased costs for security measures, loss of revenue, damage to our reputation and potential liability. Security breaches or unauthorized access may result in a combination of significant legal and financial exposure, increased remediation and other costs, theft and/or unauthorized use or publication of our trade secrets and other confidential business information, damage to our reputation and a loss of confidence in the security of our products, services and networks that could have an adverse effect upon our business. While we take steps to prevent unauthorized access to our corporate systems, because the techniques used to obtain unauthorized access, disable or sabotage systems change frequently or may be designed to remain dormant until a triggering event, we may be unable to anticipate these techniques or implement adequate preventative measures. Further, the

18

---

 

risk of a security breach or disruption, particularly through cyber attacks, or cyber intrusion, including by computer hackers, foreign governments, and cyber terrorists, has generally increased as cyber attacks have become more prevalent and harder to detect and fight against. In addition, hardware, software or applications we procure from third parties may contain defects in design or manufacture or other problems that could unexpectedly compromise network and data security. Any breach or failure of our information technology systems could result in decreased revenue, increased expenses, increased capital expenditures, customer dissatisfaction and potential lawsuits, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows.

Some of our existing information technology systems are in need of enhancement, updating and replacement. If our information technology systems fail, or if we experience an interruption in their operation, then our business, results of operations and financial condition could be materially adversely affected.

The efficient operation of our business is dependent on our information technology systems, some of which are in need of enhancement, updating and replacement. We rely on these systems generally to manage day-to-day operations, manage relationships with our customers, maintain our research and development data, and maintain our financial and accounting records. The failure of our information technology systems, our inability to successfully maintain, enhance and/or replace our information technology systems, or any compromise of the integrity or security of the data we generate from our information technology systems, could have a material adverse affect on our results of operations, disrupt our business and product development and make us unable, or severely limit our ability, to respond to customer demands. In addition, our information technology systems are vulnerable to damage or interruption from:

Any interruption of our information technology systems could result in decreased revenue, increased expenses, increased capital expenditures, customer dissatisfaction and potential lawsuits, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows.

If we fail to establish and maintain effective internal controls over financial reporting, our business and financial results could be harmed.

Our management is responsible for establishing and maintaining effective internal control over financial reporting. Internal control over financial reporting is a process to provide reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of financial reporting for external purposes in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States. Because of its inherent limitations, internal control over financial reporting is not intended to provide absolute assurance that we would prevent or detect a misstatement of our consolidated financial statements or fraud. As of March 31, 2021, our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer concluded that our internal controls for fiscal 2021 were designed and operating effectively. There can be no assurance that we will not experience a material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting in the future. A material weakness is defined as a deficiency, or a combination of deficiencies, in internal control over financial reporting, such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of our annual or interim consolidated financial statements will not be prevented or detected on a timely basis. A failure to maintain an effective system of internal control over financial reporting could limit our ability to report our financial results accurately and in a timely manner or to detect and prevent fraud, could result in a restatement of our consolidated financial statements, and could also cause a loss of investor confidence and decline in the market price of our common stock.

19

---

 

Financial Risks

Adverse conditions in the global economy have negatively impacted, and could in the future negatively impact, our customers, suppliers and business.

Our operations and financial performance are impacted by worldwide economic conditions. Uncertainty about global economic conditions has contributed to customers postponing purchases of our products and services in response to tighter credit, unemployment, negative financial news and/or declines in income or asset values and other macroeconomic factors. The occurrence of these circumstances will likely have a material negative effect on demand for our products and services and, accordingly, on our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows. For example, any economic and political uncertainty caused by the United States tariffs imposed on other countries, and any corresponding tariffs from such other countries in response, may negatively impact demand and/or increase the cost for our products and components used in our products.

The new United States administration may pursue a wide range of monetary, regulatory and trade policies, including the continued imposition of the previous United States administration’s tariffs on certain imports. Certain sourced finished products and certain of the components used in our products are impacted by tariffs imposed on China imports. Our efforts to mitigate the impact of added costs resulting from these tariffs include a variety of activities, such as sourcing from non-tariff impacted countries and raising prices. If we are unable to successfully mitigate the impacts of these tariffs and other trade policies, our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows may be materially adversely affected.

In addition, global economic and political uncertainty has led many customers to adopt strategies for conserving cash, including limits on capital spending. Our lighting systems are often purchased as capital assets and therefore are subject to our customers’ capital availability. Uncertainty around such availability has led customers to delay their purchase decisions, which has elongated the duration of our sales cycles. Weak economic conditions in the past have adversely affected our customers’ capital budgets, purchasing decisions and facilities managers and, as a result, have adversely affected our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows. The return to a recessionary state of the global economy could potentially have negative effects on our near-term liquidity and capital resources, including slower collections of receivables, delays of existing order deliveries, postponements of incoming orders and reductions in the number and volume of purchase orders received from key customers as a result of reduced capital expenditure budgets. Our business and results of operations will be adversely affected to the extent these adverse economic conditions affect our customers’ purchasing decisions.

We do not have major sources of recurring revenue and we depend upon a limited number of customers in any given period to generate a substantial portion of our revenue. The loss of any significant customers or a major customer would likely have a materially adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows.

We do not have any significant long-term contracts with our customers that provide us with recurring revenue from period to period. We currently generate a substantial portion of our revenue by securing large retrofit and multi-facility roll-out projects from new and existing customers. As a result, our dependence on individual key customers can vary from period to period due to the significant size of some of our retrofit and multi-facility roll-out projects. Our top 10 customers accounted for approximately 80%, 83% and 48% respectively, of our total revenue for fiscal 2021, 2020 and 2019. In fiscal 2020, one customer accounted for 74.1% of our total revenue compared to 20.7% in fiscal 2019. In fiscal 2021, this customer accounted for 56.0% of our total revenue. We expect that we will continue to experience significant customer concentration in fiscal 2022, although we expect this relative concentration level to diminish during fiscal 2022. The loss of this customer or our failure to satisfy its installation requirements could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows, as well as on our reputation and our ability to execute our business strategy. We expect large retrofit and rollout projects to continue to remain a significant component of our total revenue.

The multi-location master retrofit agreements we have entered into with several of our key customers (including our current largest customer) generally require that the customer issue individual facility location work orders or purchase orders before we may install our products at that location. These master agreements do not guarantee that our key customers will make individual facility location purchases from us and they also generally allow any individual location purchase order or work order to be terminated prior to shipment. As a result, the relative amount and concentration of our revenues may fluctuate year over year and period over period

20

---

 

depending on the number of purchase orders or work orders issued by our key customers, which may fluctuate due to factors such as our customers’ capital expenditure budgets and general economic conditions. The loss of, or substantial reduction in sales to, any of our significant customers, or a major customer, or the termination or delay of a significant volume of purchase orders by one or more key customers, would likely have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows in any given future period.

Our net operating loss carry-forwards provide a future benefit only if we continue to be profitable and may be subject to limitation based upon ownership changes.

We have significant federal net operating loss carry-forwards and state net operating loss carry-forwards. If we are unable to maintain our recent profitability, we may not be able to fully utilize these tax benefits. Furthermore, generally a change of more than 50% in the ownership of a company’s stock, by value, over a three-year period constitutes an ownership change for federal income tax purposes. An ownership change may limit a company’s ability to use its net operating loss carry-forwards attributable to the period prior to such change. As a result, our ability to use our net operating loss carry-forwards attributable to the period prior to such ownership change to offset taxable income could be subject to limitations in a particular year, which could potentially result in our increased future tax liability.

Given our current earnings and potential future earnings, as of March 31, 2021, we recorded a valuation allowance release of $20.9 million against our deferred tax assets. This resulted in substantially and disproportionately increasing our reported net income and our earnings per share compared to our operating results. Historical and future comparisons to these amounts are not, and will not be, indicative of actual profitability trends for our business.

We may not be able to obtain equity capital or debt financing necessary to effectively pursue our evolving strategy and sustain our growth initiatives.

Our existing liquidity and capital resources may not be sufficient to allow us to effectively pursue our evolving growth strategy, complete potential acquisitions or otherwise fund or sustain our growth initiatives. If we require additional capital resources, we may not be able to obtain sufficient equity capital and/or debt financing on acceptable terms or conditions, or at all. Factors affecting the availability to us of additional equity capital or debt financing on acceptable terms and conditions, or in sufficient amounts, include:

Our inability to obtain the equity capital or debt financing necessary to pursue our evolving growth strategy could force us to scale back our growth initiatives or abandon potential acquisitions. If we are unable to pursue our evolving growth strategy and growth initiatives, our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows could be materially adversely affected.

Until fiscal 2020, we had a history of losses and negative cash flow and we may be unable to sustain our recent profitability and positive cash flows in the future.

Prior to fiscal 2020, we experienced net losses and negative cash flows for the prior five fiscal years. There is no guarantee that we will be able to sustain our recent profitability and positive cash flows in the future. Our inability to successfully sustain our

21

---

 

profitability and positive cash flows could materially and adversely affect our ability to pursue our evolving strategy and growth initiatives.

We are subject to financial and operating covenants in our credit agreement and any failure to comply with such covenants, or obtain waivers in the event of non-compliance, could limit our borrowing availability under the credit agreement, resulting in our being unable to borrow under our credit agreement and materially adversely impact our liquidity.

Our credit agreement contains provisions that limit our future borrowing availability and sets forth other customary covenants, including certain restrictions on our ability to incur additional indebtedness, consolidate or merge, enter into acquisitions, make investments, pay any dividend or distribution on our stock, redeem, repurchase or retire shares of our stock, or pledge or dispose of assets.

There can be no assurance that we will be able to comply with the financial and other covenants in our credit agreement. Our failure to comply with these covenants could cause us to be unable to borrow under the credit agreement and may constitute an event of default which, if not cured or waived, could result in the acceleration of the maturity of any indebtedness then outstanding under the credit agreement, which would require us to pay all amounts then outstanding. Such an event could materially adversely affect our financial condition and liquidity. Additionally, such events of non-compliance could impact the terms of any additional borrowings and/or any credit renewal terms. Any failure to comply with such covenants may be a disclosable event and may be perceived negatively. Such perception could adversely affect the market price for our common stock and our ability to obtain financing in the future.

Strategic Risks

As we evolve our business strategy to increase our focus on new product and service offerings, including our comprehensive energy management and maintenance services and our IoT, “smart-building,” “connected ceilings” and other related technology, software and controls products and services, the nature of our business may be significantly changed, or transformed, and our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows may be materially adversely affected.

Our future growth and profitability are tied in part to our ability to successfully bring to market new and innovative product and service offerings. We have begun to evolve our business strategy to focus on further expanding the nature and scope of our products and services offered to our customers. This further expansion of our products and services includes pursuing projects to develop recurring revenue streams, including beginning to offer lighting, electrical, heating and ventilation, and other energy maintenance services to large customers with numerous locations. Our expansion efforts also involve utilizing control sensor technology to collect data and assisting customers in the digitization of this data, along with other potential services. We have experienced recent success offering our comprehensive energy project management services to national account customers to retrofit their multiple locations. We also plan to pursue the expansion of our IoT “smart-building” and “connected ceiling” and other related technology, software and controls products and services we offer to our customers. We have invested, and plan to continue to invest, significant time, resources and capital into expanding our offerings in these areas with no expectation that they will provide material revenue in the near term and without any assurance they will succeed or be profitable. In fact, these efforts have reduced our profitability, and will likely continue to do so, at least in the near term. Moreover, as we continue to explore, develop and refine new offerings, we expect that market preferences will continue to evolve, our offerings may not generate sufficient interest by end-user customers and we may be unable to compete effectively with existing or new competitors, generate significant revenues or achieve or maintain acceptable levels of profitability.

If we are successful in introducing new product and services offerings, including expanded energy management and maintenance services and products with new technology, software and controls, the nature of our business may significantly change or be transformed away from being principally lighting products focused. Additionally, our experience providing energy maintenance services and technology, software and controls products and services is limited. If we do not successfully execute our strategy or anticipate the needs of our customers, our credibility as a provider of energy maintenance services and technology, software and controls products could be questioned and our prospects for future revenue growth and profitability may never materialize.

22

---

 

As we expand our product and services offerings to new markets, the overall complexity of our business will likely increase at an accelerated rate and we may become subject to different market dynamics. The new markets into which we are expanding, or may expand, may have different characteristics from the markets in which we have historically competed. These different characteristics may include, among other things, rapidly changing technologies, different supply chains, different competitors and methods of competition, new product development rates, client concentrations and performance and compatibility requirements. Our failure to make the necessary adaptations to our business model to address these different characteristics, complexities and new market dynamics could adversely affect our operating results.

Accordingly, if we fail to successfully launch, manage and maintain our evolving business strategy, our future revenue growth and profitability would likely be limited and our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows would likely be materially adversely affected.

Our evolving business strategy includes actively exploring potential acquisitions, including potential acquisitions that could significantly change, or even transform, the nature of our business. These acquisitions could be unsuccessful or consume significant resources, which could materially adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows.

We are actively exploring potential business acquisitions which would more quickly add expanded and different capabilities to our product and services offerings, including potential acquisitions that could significantly change, or even transform, the nature of our business. There can be no assurance that we will identify or successfully complete transactions with suitable acquisition candidates in the future. Similarly, there can be no assurance that any completed acquisitions will be successful. Acquisitions may involve significant cash expenditures, debt incurrence, stock issuances, operating losses and expenses that would otherwise be directed to investments in our existing business and could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition, results of operations and cash flows. To pursue acquisitions and other strategic transactions, we may need to raise additional debt and/or equity capital in the future, which may not be available on acceptable terms, in sufficient amounts or at all. In addition, we may issue new shares of our common stock as consideration in such transactions, which may have a dilutive impact on our existing shareholders and may also result in a reduction in the market price of our shares once those newly issued shares are resold in the market. In addition, acquisitions involve numerous other risks, including:

23

---

 

 

Many of these factors will be outside of our control and any one of them could result in increased costs and reduced profitability, decreases in the amount of expected revenues and diversion of our management’s time and attention. They may also delay, decrease or eliminate the realization of some or all of the benefits we anticipate when we enter into the transaction.

Because we have historically only made one acquisition to date, our ability to do so again successfully is unproven. Moreover, our management team has limited experience in, and limited time to dedicate to, pursuing, negotiating or integrating acquisitions. If we do identify suitable candidates, we may not be able to negotiate or consummate such acquisitions on favorable terms or at all. Any acquisitions we complete may not achieve their initially intended results and benefits, and may be viewed negatively by investors and other stakeholders.

We may undertake acquisitions financed in part through public offerings or private placements of debt or equity securities, including through the new issuance of our common stock or debt securities as consideration in an acquisition transaction. Such acquisition financing could result in dilution to our current shareholders, a decrease in our earnings and/or adversely affect our financial condition, liquidity or other leverage measures.

In addition to committing additional capital resources to complete any acquisitions, substantial additional capital may be required to operate the acquired businesses following their acquisition. Moreover, these acquisitions may result in significant financial losses if the intended objectives of the transactions are not achieved. Some of the businesses we may acquire may have significant operating and financial challenges, requiring significant additional capital commitments to overcome such challenges and adversely affecting our financial condition and liquidity.

Failure to implement our acquisition strategy, including successfully integrating acquired businesses, could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows.

The success of our business depends upon our adaptation to the quickly changing market conditions in the lighting industry and on market acceptance of our lighting retrofit solutions using LED and control technologies.

The market for lighting products has experienced a significant technology shift to LED lighting systems. In addition, we continue to explore utilizing our system platform as a “connected ceiling” or “smart ceiling”, or a framework or network that can support the installation and integration of other business technology or data information solutions on our lighting platform.

As a result, our future success depends significantly upon the adoption rate of LED products within our primary markets, our ability to participate in this ongoing market trend and our ability to expand into complementary markets. To be an effective participant in the LED market, we must keep up with the evolution of LED and related technologies, which continue to move at a fast pace. We may be unable to successfully develop and market new products or services that keep pace with technological or industry changes, differentiate ourselves from our competition, satisfy changes in customer demands or comply with present or emerging government and industry regulations and technology standards. The development and introduction of new products and services may result in increased warranty expenses and other new product and services introduction expenses. In addition, we will likely continue to incur substantial costs to research and develop new products and services, which will increase our expenses, without guarantee that our new products and services will be commercially viable. We may also spend time and resources to develop and release new products and services only to discover that a competitor has also introduced similar new products and services with superior performance, at a lower price or on better delivery terms. Moreover, if new sources of lighting or lighting-based solutions are developed, our current products and technologies could become less competitive or obsolete, which could result in reduced revenue, reduced earnings or increased losses, and/or inventory and other impairment charges.

Finally, in connection with our historical primary focus on selling our LED products, we expect our results of operations to continue to fluctuate from quarter to quarter to the extent that customers delay purchasing decisions as they evaluate their return on investment from purchasing LED products compared to alternative lighting solutions, the pricing of LED products continues to fall

24

---

 

and LED products continue to gain more widespread customer acceptance. Similarly, these circumstances have adversely impacted, and may continue to adversely impact, our product gross margins and our profitability from quarter to quarter.

If we are unable to achieve market acceptance of our lighting retrofit solutions using LED technologies and our system platform as a “connected ceiling” or “smart ceiling” or realize the expected benefits from our focus on promoting new products and services, our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows will likely be materially adversely affected.

The success of our LED lighting retrofit solutions depends, in part, on our ability to claim market share away from our competitors. If we are unable to expand our customer base and increase sales in our targeted markets, our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows will likely be materially adversely affected.

Participants in the LED market who are able to quickly establish customer relationships and achieve market penetration are likely to gain a competitive advantage as the lighting retrofit solutions offered by us and our competitors generally have a product life of several years following installation. If we are unable to broaden our customer base and achieve greater market penetration in the LED market in a timely manner, we may lose the opportunity to market our LED products and services to significant portions of the lighting systems retrofit market for several years and may be at a disadvantage in securing future business opportunities from customers that have previously established relationships with one or more of our competitors. These circumstances could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows.

In addition, as we continue to seek to expand our customer base within our national account, agent and ESCO sales channels, our success will depend, in part, on our ability to attract and retain talent to execute on our sales model. If we are unable to attract and retain sufficient talent, we may be unable to broaden our customer base, which will adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows.

Our continued emphasis on indirect distribution channels to sell our products and services to supplement our direct distribution channels has had limited success to date. If we are unable to attract, incentivize and retain our third-party distributors and sales agents, or our distributors and sales agents do not sell our products and services at the levels expected, our revenues could decline and our costs could increase.

We utilize manufacturer representative sales agencies that sell our products through distributors. Many of these sales agents and distributors are not exclusive, which means that these sales agents and distributors may sell other third-party products and services in direct competition with us. Since many of our competitors use sales agents and distributors to sell their products and services, competition for such agents and distributors is intense and may adversely affect our product pricing and gross margins. Additionally, due to mismanagement, industry trends, macro-economic developments, or other reasons, our sales agents and distributors may be unable to effectively sell our products at the levels desired or anticipated. In addition, we have historically relied on direct sales to sell our products and services, which were often made in competition with sales agents and distributors. In order to attract and form lasting partnerships with sales agents and distributors, we are attempting to overcome our historical perception as a direct sales competitor. As a result, we may have difficulty attracting and retaining sales agents and distributors and any inability to do so could have a negative effect on our ability to attract and obtain customers, which could have an adverse impact on our business.

Our financial performance is dependent on our ability to achieve growth in our average selling price of our products.

The gross margins of our products can vary significantly, with margins ranging from 10% to 50%. While we continue to implement our strategy of transitioning to higher-margin products and reducing the material cost of our products, a change in the total mix of our sales toward lower margin products, a decrease in the margins on our products as a result of competitive pressures driving down the average selling price of our products, lower sales volumes, and promotional programs to increase sales volumes could reduce our profitability and result in a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows. Furthermore, the average selling price of our products has been, and may be further, negatively impacted by market over-supply conditions, product feature cannibalization by competitors or component providers, low-cost non-traditional sales methods by new market entrants, and comparison of our retrofit fixture products with replacement lamp equivalents. While we recently implemented a general price increase applicable to many new product orders, there is no assurance that such price increase will be accepted by our customers or succeed in increasing the average selling price of our products. In our highly competitive lighting industry, we must be

25

---

 

able to innovate and release new products on a regular basis with features and benefits that generate increases in our average selling price and average gross margin. There can be no assurance we will be successful in achieving these goals.

Legal, Regulatory and Compliance Risks

Government tariffs and other actions may adversely affect our business.

The United States government has been implementing various monetary, regulatory, and trade importation restraints, penalties, and tariffs. Certain sourced finished products and certain of the components used in our products have been impacted by tariffs imposed on China imports. Our efforts to mitigate the impact of added costs resulting from these government actions include a variety of activities, such as sourcing from non-tariff impacted countries and raising prices. If we are unable to successfully mitigate the impacts of these tariffs and other trade policies (including any new or different tariffs or policies implemented by the new United States administration), our results of operations may be adversely affected. Any future policy changes that may be implemented by the new United States administration could have a negative consequence on our financial performance.

The reduction or elimination of investments in, or incentives to adopt, LED lighting or the elimination of, or changes in, policies, incentives or rebates in certain states or countries that encourage the use of LEDs over some traditional lighting technologies could cause the growth in demand for our products to slow, which could have a material adverse affect on our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows.

Reductions in (including as a result of any budgetary constraints), or the elimination of, government investment and favorable energy policies designed to accelerate the adoption of LED lighting could result in decreased demand for our products and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows. Further, if our products fail to qualify for any financial incentives or rebates provided by governmental agencies or utilities for which our competitors’ products qualify, such programs may diminish or eliminate our ability to compete by offering products at lower prices than ours.

The elimination of, or changes in, policies, incentives or rebates in certain states that encourage the use of solar power over other traditional power sources could cause the revenue from our sale of solar-related tax credits to third parties to decrease, which could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows.

We have long-lived assets associated with our legacy solar business and recognize revenue from the sale to third parties of tax credits received from operating these solar assets. There is currently legislation pending which may decrease the future cash flows associated with the sale of these tax credits. Such a decrease could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows. Depending on the result of this pending legislation change, we may be required to record a non-cash impairment charge in a future period.

26

---

 

Changes in government budget priorities and political gridlock, and future potential government shutdown, could negatively impact our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows.

Actual and perceived changes in governmental budget priorities as a result of the new United States administration, and future potential government shutdowns, could adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows. Certain government agencies purchase certain products and services directly from us. When the government changes budget priorities, such as in times of war, financial crisis, or a changed administration, or reallocates spending to areas unrelated to our business, our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows can be negatively impacted. For example, demand and payment for our products and services may be affected by public sector budgetary cycles, funding authorizations or rebates. Funding reductions or delays, including delays caused by political gridlock, and future potential government shutdowns, could negatively impact demand and payment for our products and services. If any of these events occur, our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows could be materially adversely affected.

Product liability claims could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.

We face exposure to product liability claims in the event that our energy management products fail to perform as expected or cause bodily injury or property damage. Since virtually all of our products use electricity, it is possible that our products could result in injury, whether by product malfunctions, defects, improper installation or other causes. Particularly because our products often incorporate new technologies or designs, we cannot predict whether or not product liability claims will be brought against us in the future or result in negative publicity about our business or adversely affect our customer relations. Moreover, we may not have adequate resources in the event of a successful claim against us. A successful product liability claim against us that is not covered by insurance or is in excess of our available insurance limits could require us to make significant payments of damages and could materially adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows.

Our inability to protect our intellectual property, or our involvement in damaging and disruptive intellectual property litigation, could adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows or result in the loss of use of the related product or service.

We attempt to protect our intellectual property rights through a combination of patent, trademark, copyright and trade secret laws, as well as employee and third-party nondisclosure and assignment agreements. Our failure to obtain or maintain adequate protection of our intellectual property rights for any reason could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows.

We own United States patents and patent applications for some of our products, systems, business methods and technologies. We offer no assurance about the degree of protection which existing or future patents may afford us. Likewise, we offer no assurance that our patent applications will result in issued patents, that our patents will be upheld if challenged, that competitors will not develop similar or superior business methods or products outside the protection of our patents, that competitors will not infringe upon our patents, or that we will have adequate resources to enforce our patents. Effective protection of our United States patents may be unavailable or limited in jurisdictions outside the United States, as the intellectual property laws of foreign countries sometimes offer less protection or have onerous filing requirements. In addition, because some patent applications are maintained in secrecy for a period of time, we could adopt a technology without knowledge of a pending patent application, and such technology could infringe a third party’s patent.

We also rely on unpatented proprietary technology. It is possible that others will independently develop the same or similar technology or otherwise learn of our unpatented technology. To protect our trade secrets and other proprietary information, we generally require employees, consultants, advisors and collaborators to enter into confidentiality agreements. We cannot assure you that these agreements will provide meaningful protection for our trade secrets, know-how or other proprietary information in the event of any unauthorized use, misappropriation or disclosure of such trade secrets, know-how or other proprietary information. If we are unable to maintain the proprietary nature of our technologies, our business could be materially adversely affected.

27

---

 

We rely on our trademarks, trade names, and brand names to distinguish our company and our products and services from our competitors. Some of our trademarks may conflict with trademarks of other companies. Failure to obtain trademark registrations could limit our ability to protect our trademarks and impede our sales and marketing efforts. Further, we cannot assure you that competitors will not infringe our trademarks, or that we will have adequate resources to enforce our trademarks.

In addition, third parties may bring infringement and other claims that could be time-consuming and expensive to defend. Also, parties making infringement and other claims against us may be able to obtain injunctive or other equitable relief that could effectively block our ability to provide our products, services or business methods and could cause us to pay substantial damages. In the event of a successful claim of infringement against us, we may need to obtain one or more licenses from third parties, which may not be available at a reasonable cost, or at all. It is possible that our intellectual property rights may not be valid or that we may infringe upon existing or future proprietary rights of others. Any successful infringement claims could subject us to significant liabilities, require us to seek licenses on unfavorable terms, prevent us from manufacturing or selling products, services and business methods and require us to redesign or, in the case of trademark claims, re-brand our company or products, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows.

Our retrofitting process frequently involves responsibility for the removal and disposal of components containing hazardous materials.

When we retrofit a customer’s facility, we typically assume responsibility for removing and disposing of its existing lighting fixtures. Certain components of these fixtures typically contain trace amounts of mercury and other hazardous materials. Older components may also contain trace amounts of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. We currently rely on contractors to remove the components containing such hazardous materials at the customer job site. The contractors then arrange for the disposal of such components at a licensed disposal facility. Failure by such contractors to remove or dispose of the components containing these hazardous materials in a safe, effective and lawful manner could give rise to liability for us, or could expose our workers or other persons to these hazardous materials, which could result in claims against us which may have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows.

The cost of compliance with environmental laws and regulations and any related environmental liabilities could adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows.

Our operations are subject to federal, state and local laws and regulations governing, among other things, emissions to air, discharge to water, the remediation of contaminated properties and the generation, handling, storage, transportation, treatment and disposal of, and exposure to, waste and other materials, as well as laws and regulations relating to occupational health and safety. These laws and regulations frequently change, and the violation of these laws or regulations can lead to substantial fines, penalties and other liabilities. The operation of our manufacturing facility entails risks in these areas and there can be no assurance that we will not incur material costs or liabilities in the future that could adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows.

Risks Related to Our Common Stock

We expect our quarterly revenue and operating results to fluctuate. If we fail to meet the expectations of market analysts or investors, the market price of our common stock could decline substantially, and we could become subject to securities litigation.

Our quarterly revenue and operating results have fluctuated in the past and will likely vary from quarter to quarter in the future. Our results for any particular quarter are not an indication of our future performance. Our revenue and operating results may fall below the expectations of market analysts or investors in some future quarter or quarters. Our failure to meet these expectations could cause the market price of our common stock to decline substantially. If the price of our common stock is volatile or falls significantly below our current price, we may be the target of securities litigation. If we become involved in this type of litigation, regardless of the outcome, we could incur substantial legal costs, management’s attention could be diverted from the operation of our business, and our reputation could be damaged, which could adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows.

28

---

 

If securities or industry analysts do not continue to publish research or publish inaccurate or unfavorable research about our business, our stock price and trading volume could decline.

The trading market for our common stock will continue to depend, in part, on the research reports that securities or industry analysts publish about us and our peer group companies. If these analysts do not continue to provide adequate research coverage or if one or more of the analysts who covers us downgrades our stock, lowers our stock’s price target or publishes inaccurate or unfavorable research about our business, our stock price would likely decline. If one or more of these analysts ceases coverage of our company or fails to publish reports on us regularly, demand for our stock could decrease, which could cause our stock price and trading volume to decline.

The price of our common stock has been, and may continue to be, volatile.

Historically, the market price of our common stock has fluctuated over a wide range, and it is likely that the price of our common stock will continue to be volatile in the future. The trading price of our common stock has ranged from $3.22 to $11.67 per share during the period from April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021. The market price of our common stock could be impacted due to a variety of factors, including:

In addition, due to one or more of the foregoing factors in one or more future quarters, our results of operations may fall below the expectations of securities analysts and investors. In the event any of the foregoing occur, the market price of our common stock could be highly volatile and may materially decline

The market price of our common stock could be adversely affected by future sales of our common stock in the public market by us or our executive officers and directors.

We and our executive officers and directors may from time to time sell shares of our common stock in the public market or otherwise. On February 18, 2021, we reported that Michael W. Altschaefl, our Chief Executive Officer and Board Chair, and Scott A. Green, our Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President, had each adopted separate prearranged trading plans for a specified number of their shares of our common stock, in accordance with guidelines specified by Rule 10b5-1 under the Exchange Act and our policies regarding transactions by insiders in our common stock. We cannot predict the size or the effect, if any, that future sales of shares of our common stock by us or our executive officers and directors, or the perception of such sales, will have on the market price of our common stock.

29

---

 

We are not currently paying dividends on our common stock and will likely continue not paying dividends for the foreseeable future.

We have never paid or declared any cash dividends on our common stock. We currently intend to retain all available funds and any future earnings to fund the continued development and expansion of our business, and we do not anticipate paying any cash dividends on our common stock in the foreseeable future. In addition, the terms of our existing revolving credit agreement restrict the payment of cash dividends on our common stock. Any future determination to pay dividends will be at the discretion of our board of directors and will depend on our financial condition, results of operations, capital requirements, contractual restrictions and other factors that our board of directors deems relevant. The restrictions on, and decision not to, pay dividends on our common stock may impact our ability to attract certain investors and raise funds, if necessary, in the capital markets.

Anti-takeover provisions included in the Wisconsin Business Corporation Law, provisions in our amended and restated articles of incorporation or bylaws and the common share purchase rights that accompany shares of our common stock could delay or prevent a change of control of our company, which could adversely impact the value of our common stock and may prevent or frustrate attempts by our shareholders to replace or remove our current board of directors or management.

A change of control of our company may be discouraged, delayed or prevented by certain provisions of the Wisconsin Business Corporation Law. These provisions generally restrict a broad range of business combinations between a Wisconsin corporation and a shareholder owning 15% or more of our outstanding common stock. These and other provisions in our amended and restated articles of incorporation, including our staggered board of directors and our ability to issue “blank check” preferred stock, as well as the provisions of our amended and restated bylaws and Wisconsin law, could make it more difficult for shareholders or potential acquirers to obtain control of our board of directors or initiate actions that are opposed by our then-current board of directors, including to delay or impede a merger, tender offer or proxy contest involving our company or result in a lower price per share paid to our shareholders.

Each currently outstanding share of our common stock includes, and each newly issued share of our common stock will include, a common share purchase right. These rights are attached to, and trade with, the shares of our common stock and generally are not currently exercisable. These rights will become exercisable if a person or group acquires, or announces an intention to acquire, 20% or more of our outstanding common stock. These rights have some anti-takeover effects and generally will cause substantial dilution to a person or group that attempts to acquire control of us without conditioning the offer on either redemption of the rights or amendment of the rights to prevent this dilution. These rights could have the effect of delaying, deferring or preventing a change of control or result in a lower price per share paid to our shareholders.

In addition, our employment arrangements with senior management provide for severance payments and accelerated vesting of benefits, including accelerated vesting of stock options and restricted stock awards, upon a change of control and a subsequent qualifying termination (other than for our Chief Executive Officer). These provisions could limit the price that investors might be willing to pay in the future for shares of our common stock, thereby adversely affecting the market price of our common stock. These provisions may also discourage or prevent a change of control or result in a lower price per share paid to our shareholders.

None.

30

---

 

We lease our approximately 266,000 square foot manufacturing and distribution facility located in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. On January 31, 2020, we entered a new lease for the facility with a ten-year term, and an option to terminate after six years.

We own our approximately 70,000 square foot technology center and corporate headquarters adjacent to our leased Manitowoc manufacturing and distribution facility, of which we sub-lease a portion to third parties. We also lease approximately 10,500 square feet of office space in Jacksonville, Florida.

The facilities noted above are utilized by all our business segments.

We are subject to various claims and legal proceedings arising in the ordinary course of business. As of the date of this report, we do not believe that the final resolution of any of such claims or legal proceedings would have a material adverse effect on our future results of operations.

None.

Shares of our common stock are traded on the NASDAQ Capital Market under the symbol “OESX”.

Shareholders

As of May 21, 2021, there were approximately 159 record holders of the 30,806,390 outstanding shares of our common stock. The number of record holders does not include shareholders for whom shares are held in a “nominee” or “street” name.

Dividend Policy

We have never paid or declared any cash dividends on our common stock. We currently intend to retain all available funds and any future earnings to fund the development and expansion of our business, and we do not anticipate paying any cash dividends in the foreseeable future. In addition, the terms of our existing credit agreement restrict the payment of cash dividends on our common stock. Any future determination to pay dividends will be at the discretion of our board of directors and will depend on our financial condition, results of operations, capital requirements, contractual restrictions (including those under our loan agreements) and other factors that our board of directors deems relevant.

31

---

 

Securities Authorized for Issuance under Equity Compensation Plans

The following table represents shares outstanding under our 2004 Stock and Incentive Awards Incentive Plan, and our 2016 Omnibus Incentive Plan as of March 31, 2021.

 

 

Issuer Purchase of Equity Securities

We did not purchase shares of our common stock during the fiscal year ended March 31, 2021.

Unregistered Sales of Securities

We did not make any unregistered sales of our common stock during the year ended March 31, 2021 that were not previously disclosed in a Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q or a current report on Form 8-K during such period.

 

32

---

 

 

You should read the following selected consolidated financial data in conjunction with Item 7. "Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations" and our consolidated financial statements and the related notes included in Item 8. "Financial Statements and Supplementary Data" of this report. The selected historical consolidated financial data are not necessarily indicative of future results.

 

 

 

33

---

 

 

 

34

---

 

 

The following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations should be read together with our audited consolidated financial statements and related notes included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2021. See also “Forward-Looking Statements” and Item 1A “Risk Factors”.

Overview

We provide state-of-the-art light emitting diode (“LED”) lighting systems, wireless Internet of Things (“IoT”) enabled control solutions, project engineering, design energy project management and maintenance services. We help our customers achieve energy savings with healthy, safe and sustainable solutions that enable them to reduce their carbon footprint and digitize their business. We research, design, develop, manufacture, market, sell, install, and implement energy management systems consisting primarily of high-performance, energy-efficient commercial and industrial interior and exterior LED lighting systems and related services. Our products are targeted for applications in three primary market segments: commercial office and retail, area lighting, and industrial applications, although we do sell and install products into other markets. Virtually all of our sales occur within North America.

Our lighting products consist primarily of LED lighting fixtures, many of which include IoT enabled control systems. Our principal customers include large national account end-users, federal and state government facilities, large regional account end-users, electrical distributors, electrical contractors and energy service companies ("ESCOs"). Currently, most of our products are manufactured at our leased production facility located in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, although as the LED and related IoT market continues to evolve, we are increasingly sourcing products and components from third parties in order to provide versatility in our product development.

We have experienced recent success offering our comprehensive project management services to national account customers to retrofit their multiple locations. Our comprehensive services include initial site surveys and audits, utility incentive and government subsidy management, engineering design, and project management from delivery through to installation and controls integration.

We believe the market for LED lighting products and related controls continues to grow. Due to their size and flexibility in application, we also believe that LED lighting systems can address opportunities for retrofit applications that cannot be satisfied by other lighting technologies. Our LED lighting technologies have become the primary component of our revenue as we continue to strive to be a leader in the LED market.

In fiscal 2021, we successfully capitalized on our capability of being a full service, turn-key provider of LED lighting and controls systems with design, build, installation and project management services, as we continued a very large project for a major national account. As a result of this success, we have begun to evolve our business strategy to focus on further expanding the nature and scope of our products and services offered to our customers. This further expansion of our products and services includes pursuing projects to develop recurring revenue streams, including providing lighting and electrical maintenance services and utilizing control sensor technology to collect data and assisting customers in the digitization of this data, along with other potential services. We also plan to pursue the expansion of our IoT, “smart-building” and “connected ceiling” and other related technology, software and controls products and services that we offer to our customers. We currently plan on investing significant time, resources and capital into expanding our offerings in these areas with no expectation that they will result in us realizing material revenue in the near term and without any assurance they will succeed or be profitable. In fact, it is likely that these efforts will reduce our profitability, at least in the near term as we invest resources and incur expenses to develop these offerings. While we intend to pursue these expansion strategies organically, we also are actively exploring potential business acquisitions which would more quickly add these types of expanded and different capabilities to our product and services offerings. It is possible that one or more of such potential acquisitions, if successfully completed, could significantly change, and potentially transform, the nature and extent of our business.

We generally do not have long-term contracts with our customers that provide us with recurring revenue from period to period and we typically generate substantially all of our revenue from sales of lighting and control systems and related services to governmental, commercial and industrial customers on a project-by-project basis. We also perform work under master services or product purchasing agreements with major customers with sales completed on a purchase order basis. In addition, in order to provide quality and timely service under our multi-location master retrofit agreements we are required to make substantial working capital

35

---

 

expenditures and advance inventory purchases that we may not be able to recoup if the agreements or a substantial volume of purchase orders under the agreements are delayed or terminated. The loss of, or substantial reduction in sales to, any of our significant customers, or our current single largest customer, or the termination or delay of a significant volume of purchase orders by one or more key customers, could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations in any given future period.

We typically sell our lighting systems in replacement of our customers’ existing fixtures. We call this replacement process a "retrofit". We frequently engage our customer’s existing electrical contractor to provide installation and project management services. We also sell our lighting systems on a wholesale basis, principally to electrical distributors and ESCOs to sell to their own customer bases.

The gross margins of our products can vary significantly depending upon the types of products we sell, with margins typically ranging from 10% to 50%. As a result, a change in the total mix of our sales among higher or lower margin products can cause our profitability to fluctuate from period to period.

Our fiscal year ends on March 31. We refer to our just completed fiscal year, which ended on March 31, 2021, as "fiscal 2021", and our prior fiscal years which ended on March 31, 2020 and March 31, 2019 as "fiscal 2020" and “fiscal 2019”, respectively. Our fiscal first quarter of each fiscal year ends on June 30, our fiscal second quarter ends on September 30, our fiscal third quarter ends on December 31 and our fiscal fourth quarter ends on March 31.

Reportable segments are components of an entity that have separate financial data that the entity's chief operating decision maker ("CODM") regularly reviews when allocating resources and assessing performance. Our CODM is our chief executive officer. Orion has three reportable segments: Orion Engineered Systems Division ("OES"), and Orion Distribution Services Division ("ODS"), and Orion U.S. Markets Division (“USM”).

Impact of COVID-19 and Fiscal 2022 Outlook

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted business, trade, commerce, financial and credit markets, in the U.S. and globally. Our business was adversely impacted by measures taken by government entities and others to control the spread of the virus beginning in March 2020, the last few weeks of our prior fiscal year, and continuing most significantly into the second quarter of fiscal 2021. During the second half of fiscal 2021, we experienced a rebound in business. Project installations for our largest customer recommenced, as well installations for a new large specialty retail customer began, with no further significant COVID-19 impacts. However, some customers continue to refrain from awarding new projects and potential future risks remain due to the COVID-19 pandemic, including supply chain disruption for certain components.

As a deemed essential business, we provide products and services to ensure energy and lighting infrastructure and we therefore have continued to operate throughout the pandemic. We have implemented a number of safety protocols, including limiting travel and restricting access to our facilities along with monitoring processes, physical distancing, physical barriers, enhanced cleaning procedures and requiring face coverings.

As part of our response to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020 we implemented a number of cost reduction and cash conservation measures, including reducing headcount. While certain restrictions began to initially lessen in certain jurisdictions during fiscal 2021, stay-at-home, face mask or lockdown orders remain in effect in others, with employees asked to work remotely if possible. Some customers and projects are in areas where travel restrictions have been imposed, certain customers have either closed or reduced on-site activities, and timelines for the completion of several projects have been delayed, extended or terminated. These modifications to our business practices, including any future actions we take, may cause us to experience reductions in productivity and disruptions to our business routines. In addition, we are required to make substantial working capital expenditures and advance inventory purchases that we may not be able to recoup if our customer agreements or a substantial volume of purchase orders under our customer agreements are delayed or terminated as a result of COVID-19. At this time, it is not possible to predict the overall impact the COVID-19 pandemic will have on our business, liquidity, capital resources or financial results, although the economic and regulatory impacts of COVID-19 significantly reduced our revenue and profitability in the first half of fiscal 2021. If the COVID-19 pandemic becomes more pronounced in our markets or experiences a resurgence in markets recovering from the spread of COVID-19, our operations in areas impacted by such events could experience further material adverse financial impacts due to market changes and other resulting events and circumstances.

36

---

 

The impact of COVID-19 has caused significant uncertainty and volatility in the credit markets. We rely on the credit markets to provide us with liquidity to operate and grow our businesses beyond the liquidity that operating cash flows provide. If our access to capital were to become significantly constrained or if costs of capital increased significantly due the impact of COVID-19, including volatility in the capital markets, a reduction in our credit ratings or other factors, then our financial condition, results of operations and cash flows could be adversely affected.

In addition to the managing the adverse financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, our ability to achieve our desired revenue growth and profitability goals depends on our ability to effectively execute on the following key strategic initiatives. We may identify strategic acquisition candidates that would help support these initiatives.

Focus on executing and marketing our turnkey LED retrofit capabilities to large national account customers. We believe one of our competitive advantages is our ability to deliver full turnkey LED lighting project capabilities. These turnkey services were the principal reason we achieved significant recent revenue growth as we executed on our commitment to retrofit multiple locations for a major national account customer. Our success in the national account market segment centers on our turnkey design, engineering, manufacturing and project management capabilities, which represent a very clear competitive advantage for us among large enterprises seeking to benefit from the illumination benefits and energy savings of LED lighting across locations nationwide. We believe one of our competitive advantages is that we are organized to serve every step of a custom retrofit project in a comprehensive, non-disruptive and timely fashion, from custom fixture design and initial site surveys to final installations. We are also able to help customers deploy state-of-the-art control systems that provide even greater long-term value from their lighting system investments.

Looking forward, we are focused on continuing to successfully execute on existing national account opportunities while also actively pursuing new national account opportunities that leverage our customized, comprehensive turnkey project solutions, and expanding our addressable market with high-quality, basic lighting systems to meet the needs of value-oriented customer segments served by our other market channels. Given our compelling value proposition, capabilities and focus on customer service, we are optimistic about our business prospects and working to build sales momentum with existing and new customers.

Continued Product Innovation. We continue to innovate, developing lighting fixtures and features that address specific customer requirements, while also working to maintain a leadership position in energy efficiency, smart product design and installation benefits. For interior building applications, we recently expanded our product line to include a family of ceiling air movement solutions, some of which incorporate LED lighting and others which utilize ultraviolet C light waves to kill viruses, bacteria and germs. We also continue to deepen our capabilities in the integration of smart lighting controls. Our goal is to provide state-of-the-art lighting products with modular plug-and-play designs to enable lighting system customization from basic controls to advanced IoT capabilities.

Leverage of Orion’s Smart Lighting Systems to Support Internet of Things Applications. We believe we are ideally positioned to help customers to efficiently deploy new IoT controls and applications by leveraging the “Smart Ceiling” capabilities of their Orion solid state lighting system. IoT capabilities can include the management and tracking of facilities, personnel, resources and customer behavior, driving both sales and lowering costs. As a result, these added capabilities provide customers an even greater return on investment from their lighting system and make us an even more attractive partner. We plan to pursue the expansion of our IoT, “smart-building” and “connected ceiling” and other related technology, software and controls products and services that we offer to our customers. While we intend to pursue these expansion strategies organically, we also are actively exploring potential business acquisitions which would more quickly add these types of expanded and different capabilities to our product and services offerings.

Develop Maintenance Service Offerings. We believe we can leverage our construction management process expertise to develop a high-quality, quick-response, multi-location maintenance service offering. Our experience with large national customers and our large installed base of fixtures position us well to extend a maintenance offering to historical customers, as well as to new customers. Development of this recurring revenue stream is making progress and we believe there is significant market opportunity.

Support success of our ESCO and agent-driven distribution sales channels. We continue to focus on building our relationships and product and sales support for our ESCO and agent driven distribution channels. These efforts include an array of product and sales training efforts as well as the development of new products to cater to the unique needs of these sales channels.

37

---

 

Major Developments in Fiscal 2021

During fiscal years 2021 and 2020, we executed on a series of master contracts for a major national account customer with our state-of-the-art LED lighting systems and wireless IoT enabled control solutions at locations nationwide. This single national account customer represented 56.0% of our total revenue in fiscal 2021 and 74.1% of our total revenue in fiscal 2020. During March 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this customer temporarily suspended our installations at a significant number of locations that were scheduled for installation during our fiscal 2020 fourth quarter and our fiscal 2021 first quarter. These originally scheduled installations resumed during the second quarter of fiscal 2021 and continued through the second half of fiscal 2021.

Additionally, we added a large specialty retail customer and are providing turnkey LED lighting retrofit solutions for a number of its stores. This project generated product and service revenue of $8.1 million during the second half fiscal 2021. We expect to retrofit additional stores for this customer in fiscal 2022.

We also completed several initial retrofit projects at facilities for a major global logistics company. This customer is expected to be a significant source of revenue as we move forward, although these installations are likely to occur more slowly than we had originally anticipated. We expect to work with the customer on a project-by-project basis, versus larger-scale multi-site commitments, which limits visibility on the timing of future revenue contributions. We also have been selected to work with another major logistics company that is also expected to be a significant source of revenue in the future.

Given our current earnings and potential future earnings, as of March 31, 2021, we recorded a net valuation allowance release of $20.9 million against our deferred tax assets. This resulted in substantially and disproportionately increasing our reported net income and our earnings per share compared to our operating results. Historical and future comparisons to these amounts are not, and will not be, indicative of actual profitability trends for our business.

Results of Operations: Fiscal 2021 versus Fiscal 2020

The following table sets forth the line items of our consolidated statements of operations and as a relative percentage of our total revenue for each applicable period, together with the relative percentage change in such line item between applicable comparable periods (in thousands, except percentages):

 

38

---

 

Revenue. Product revenue decreased by 22.7%, or $25.7 million, for fiscal 2021 versus fiscal 2020. Service revenue decreased by 22.2%, or $8.3 million, for fiscal 2021 versus fiscal 2020. The decrease in product and service revenue was primarily due to multiple projects put on hold during the first half of fiscal 2021 as a result of COVID-19, including the projects for one large national account customer which represented 56.0% of revenue in fiscal 2021, and 74.1% of revenue in fiscal 2020. The project installations for this large national account customer resumed during the second quarter of fiscal 2021. Total revenue decreased by 22.5%, or $34.0 million, due to the items discussed above.

Cost of Revenue and Gross Margin. Cost of product revenue decreased by 24.4%, or $20.4 million, in fiscal 2021 versus the comparable period in fiscal 2020. Cost of service revenue decreased by 22.1%, or $6.6 million, in fiscal 2021 versus fiscal 2020. The decrease in product and service costs was primarily due to the decrease in revenue. Gross margin increased from 24.6% of revenue in fiscal 2020 to 25.8% in fiscal 2021, due primarily to cost management and a change in customer sales mix.

Operating Expenses

General and Administrative. General and administrative expenses increased 0.7%, or $0.1 million, in fiscal 2021 compared to fiscal 2020, primarily due to a decrease in travel as a result of COVID-19 restrictions, offset by an increase in services and insurance costs.

Sales and Marketing. Our sales and marketing expenses decreased 6.9%, or $0.8 million, in fiscal 2021 compared to fiscal 2020. The decrease year over year was primarily due to a decrease in commission expense on lower sales and a decrease in travel, both a result of COVID-19 restrictions.

Research and Development. Research and development expenses decreased by 1.8%, or $31 thousand in fiscal 2021 compared to fiscal 2020 primarily due to lower travel costs due to COVID-19 restrictions, partially offset by an increase in site testing.

Interest Expense. Interest expense in fiscal 2021 decreased by 54.5%, or $0.2 million, from fiscal 2020. The decrease in interest expense was due to fewer sales of receivables.

Loss on Debt Extinguishment. Loss on debt extinguishment in fiscal 2021 related to the write-off of fees incurred with respect to our prior credit facility, which was recognized upon execution of our new credit facility during the third quarter of fiscal 2021.

Income Taxes. In fiscal 2021, we recognized a tax benefit of $19.6 million. The benefit was driven by the release of the valuation allowance on a significant portion of our deferred tax assets. This resulted in substantially and disproportionately increasing our reported net income and our earnings per share compared to our operating results. Historical and future comparisons to these amounts are not, and will not be, indicative of actual profitability trends for our business.

39

---

 

Results of Operations: Fiscal 2020 versus Fiscal 2019

The following table sets forth the line items of our consolidated statements of operations and as a relative percentage of our total revenue for each applicable period, together with the relative percentage change in such line item between applicable comparable periods (in thousands, except percentages):