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DATE

Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026 at 5:00 p.m. ET

CALL PARTICIPANTS

  • President and Chief Executive Officer - Sam Rubin
  • Chief Financial Officer - Albert Miranda

TAKEAWAYS

  • Annual Revenue -- $71.7 million, representing a 92.7% increase compared to $37.2 million in the prior fiscal year.
  • Full-Year Gross Margin -- 36%, expanding from 27.2% due to a shift toward higher-margin assemblies and operational efficiency gains.
  • Adjusted EBITDA -- $4.2 million profit for the full year, an improvement of $9.3 million compared to a $5.1 million loss in fiscal 2025.
  • Order Backlog -- $110.9 million as of June 30, 2026, representing a 197% increase from $37.4 million at the prior year-end.
  • Fourth Quarter Revenue -- $21.2 million, a record for the company and a 73.8% increase year over year.
  • Fourth Quarter Gross Margin -- 39.4%, driven by assemblies and modules comprising 43% of total revenue.
  • Cash Position -- $93.2 million at fiscal year-end, following a $50 million primary equity offering completed in June 2026.
  • Assemblies and Modules Revenue -- $31.9 million for the fiscal year, growing 281% year over year as these products reached 44% of total sales.
  • Infrared Components Revenue -- $21.2 million for the year, a 52% increase from $13.9 million in the previous fiscal year.
  • Visible Components Revenue -- $15.5 million for the year, up 32% compared to $11.7 million in fiscal 2025.
  • Twelve-Month Backlog -- $85.6 million of the total backlog is scheduled for delivery within the next year, providing visibility into near-term performance.
  • China Subsidiary Sale -- $4.5 million to be received in installments over 5 years, representing the divestiture of manufacturing operations in China.
  • Fiscal 2026 Capital Expenditures -- $6.3 million, with $4.4 million spent in the fourth quarter to expand facility capacity.
  • Counter-UAS Bookings -- $24 million in combined follow-on orders received in July 2026 for cameras and optical assemblies.
  • Acquisition Earnout Charge -- $15.6 million for the fiscal year, primarily due to the outperformance of G5 Infrared relative to initial targets.
  • Fourth Quarter Net Loss -- $4.1 million, or $0.06 per basic and diluted share, compared to a net loss of $7.1 million in the year-ago period.
  • Full-Year Operating Expenses -- $45.5 million, up from $22 million in fiscal 2025, reflecting higher personnel costs and the addition of Amorphous Materials operations.
  • New Product Development Spending -- $3.8 million for the fiscal year, an increase from $3.1 million in the prior year as management expanded R&D investments.

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RISKS

  • Rubin reported that the Army delayed the Next Generation Short Range Interceptor program timeline by several months as the military explores additional options.
  • Rubin indicated that the redesign of G5 cooled cameras to use Black Diamond glass is "behind schedule," despite progressing technically.
  • Rubin warned that the lead time for detectors "has been growing from, I think, 6 months to 10 months, even more now."

SUMMARY

LightPath Technologies, Inc. (LPTH -4.96%) reported that fiscal 2026 marked a transition to a high-growth model centered on Western-aligned manufacturing and the replacement of germanium with proprietary materials. Management stated that its strategic focus on assemblies and systems, which reached 44% of annual revenue, shifted the margin profile upward and record backlogs provide a foundation for further scaling. The company reported that it has eliminated its manufacturing footprint in China and is now qualifying products for major defense primes ahead of federal deadlines to remove foreign-sourced optics from the supply chain. Management stated that the primary operational objective for fiscal 2027 is increasing capacity across all domestic facilities to meet existing demand.

  • The company's camera systems are being designed into or evaluated for seven different platforms, including three programs with Lockheed Martin.
  • Management stated that the acquisition of Amorphous Materials enabled large-diameter melting capacity up to 10 inches, facilitating entry into long-range and space-based systems.
  • CEO Rubin stated, "Demand for glass is running ahead of supply even after the acquisition," leading to planned capacity increases in Orlando and Texas.
  • The company completed its transition to a fully Western-aligned footprint with no facilities or commercial activity remaining in China.
  • Management reported that counter-UAS and drone dominance programs are driving demand, with some transitioning to monthly delivery cadences of tens of systems.
  • CFO Miranda indicated that the fiscal 2027 plan is to expand all locations to meet the backlog and anticipated demand through fiscal 2028.
  • Rubin noted that fiscal 2026 was "the first year in which the transformation we have been describing shows up cleanly in every line of the financial statements."

INDUSTRY GLOSSARY

  • Black Diamond: A proprietary family of chalcogenide glasses used as an alternative to germanium in infrared optics.
  • Germanium: A rare earth material commonly used in infrared lenses that is currently subject to export restrictions by China.
  • Counter-UAS: Systems designed to detect, track, and mitigate unmanned aircraft systems or drones.
  • NGSRI: Next Generation Short Range Interceptor, a U.S. Army program for missile defense.
  • Chalcogenide Glass: A type of infrared-transparent glass containing one or more chalcogen elements such as sulfur, selenium, or tellurium.
  • LWIR: Long-wave infrared, a portion of the infrared spectrum used for thermal imaging in uncooled cameras.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Operator: Thank you for your continued patience. Your meeting will begin shortly. If at any time you need assistance, please press 0, and a member of our team will be happy to assist. Please stand by. Your meeting is about to begin. Afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to LightPath Technologies Fiscal Fourth Quarter and Full Year 26 Earnings Conference Call. During today's presentation, all parties will be in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, the conference will be open for questions. This conference is being recorded today, September 10, 2026, and the earnings press release accompanying this conference call was issued after the market closed today.

I would like to remind you that during the course of this conference call, the company will be making a number of forward looking statements that are based on current expectations. Involve various risks and uncertainties and discuss in its periodic SEC filings. Although the company believes that the assumptions underlying these statements are reasonable, any of them could be proven to be inaccurate, and there can be no assurances that the projected results would be realized. In addition, references may be made to certain financial measures, that are not in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles or GAAP. We refer to these as non GAAP financial measures.

Please refer to our SEC reports in certain areas of our press releases, which include reconciliations of non GAAP financial measures and associated disclaimers. CEO Sam Rubin will begin today's call with an overview of the business and recent developments for the company. While CFO Albert Miranda will then review financial results for the quarter and the fiscal year. Following the prepared remarks, there will be a formal question and answer session. I would like to now turn the conference over to CEO, Sam Rubin. Sam, the floor is yours.

Shmuel Rubin: Thank you, operator. Good afternoon to everyone, and welcome to LightPath Technologies fiscal fourth quarter and full year 26 financial results conference call. The last few calls, I typically opened by talking about strategy and how the strategy is working and where it is taking us. Tonight instead, I will let the numbers talk. And let the fiscal year results do the talking. Fiscal 26 is the first year in which the transformation we have been describing shows up cleanly in every line of the financial statements. Not just the backlog. 4 numbers frames a year. Revenue grew 93% from $37 million to nearly $72 million Gross margin expanded from 27% to 36%.

Adjusted EBITDA moved from $5.1 million loss to a $4.2 million profit, a swing of more than $9 million And backlog finished at $110.9 million up 197% from where we started the year. The fourth quarter was our best quarter in every 1 of those categories. Revenue of $21.2 million was a company record. And our fourth consecutive quarter of sequential growth. Gross margin was 39.4%, Adjusted EBITDA was $2.1 million or 10% of revenue. Which was our fourth straight profitable quarter on that measure. All great results, which we expect will continue to grow and improve. Now I would like to spend a moment on the quality of that margin.

Because it is a part that I am most pleased with. The 39.4% margin did not come from a 1 time favorable contract or from raising prices. It did come from 2 things we did. First is the mix of product. Assemblies, modules and cameras were 43% of the fourth quarter and 44% of the full year. Compared to 23% of the revenue in fiscal 25. These products, our strategy has really taken us towards, have both higher prices and higher margins. As a result of the significant value add compared to our legacy component business. Second is execution. Yield and throughput problems that dragged our component margins in the past are, well, in the past.

And every 1 of our 4 product groups improved its margin year over year. The mix improvement is a result of strategy, The margin improvement is a result of operation. We needed both, and this year, we got both. And while backlog has not grown sequentially, shortly after we closed the quarter, we reported 2 large orders totaling $24 million and have been continuing to book and grow our backlog. So the backlog you will see for the quarter ending in about 3 weeks' time will show already some more growth. While we continue securing new customers, both by converting them to black Diamond and by providing them with assemblies and systems.

Much of the orders coming now, like the 2 large orders I just mentioned from July, are for production. As many of the programs we have been working on move from qualification to production. We have said in the past that a design and qualification of a new programme, whether it is a redesign to use Black Diamond or a new programme altogether, can take up to 2 years. Much of the growth in our backlog and bookings recently that we are seeing is the result of such new programs beginning to move into production. 2 years ago, in late 24, China imposed the first restrictions on export of germanium and gallium.

And we began to see a growth in demand to Black Diamond, and systems using Black Diamond class. Now we are beginning to see the transition of some of those into production. A trend I expect will intensify as most customers did not start their redesign and substitution effort until much after the initial export ban on Germania. To that end, I will provide now an update on some of our key programs we have in the pipeline and their status. As mentioned in recent calls, due to the good problem of experiencing exponential growth in all our sales fronts. I cannot really cover all the large programs.

Instead, I will focus on ones where we had some changes or recent developments. NGSRI. Our 3 year old Interceptor program with Lockheed Martin. As many have heard, the Army has pushed out the timeline by a few months, in an effort to potentially explore other options. We do not see this as a risk to us only a delay. We have seen this happen in multiple other programs. Where the army wants to foster a truly competitive environment. Our confidence continues to be very high. And given that our seeker is being designed and evaluated into multiple now, we have little concern here.

The last few months, we have relocated the groups that work on seeker into a new building and have begun investing in increasing capacity for building seekers. Knowing that any program that moves into production will need to scale very quickly. More broadly about seekers and imagers, our camera systems are now being designed into or actively evaluated in 7 different platforms, 3 of which are with Lockheed Martin. The remainder are with primes or a zero. Sometimes referred to recently as neoprimes. Newer companies entering the defense market. The full qualification of our low-cost seeker that was completed as a result of the NGSRI flight test as expected, opens the door to many other opportunities.

The same manufacturing facility in Texas will support all of those opportunities. In border patrol, or border tower, we have seen funding being released from DHS to the prime. However, that has not yet translated into orders for cameras. What we have seen is a growth in demand for similar towers and cameras that end up installed outside The US, primarily in The Middle East. A few other programs. Have a unnamed airborne program, which has completed qualification, and we await the production order for LRIP. The Apache program is looking like the my make a comeback soon with a renewed interest in that system.

Drones and, in particular,, drone dominance programs or generating significant demand, which we are addressing by starting to add automation to some of our processes for high volume assemblies. And counter UAS programs continue to move along well with 2 of the programs now transitioning to a cadence of deliveries of tens of systems a month. In parallel to more design wins of our existing product, the teams have been working on designs and redesigns of additional products. All of which leverage our Black Diamond glass and make use of our supply chain resilience, and having alternative materials instead of depending on germanium. On the camera front, we have been redesigning the last of the G5 cooled cameras.

Here's Black Diamond instead of germanium. That program is progressing well technically, though behind schedule. However, all the results we have seen so far indicate the cameras will work at least as well as the germanium based cameras. We have also been working on zoom lenses and zoom cameras in what is called long wave infrared. Often referred to as uncooled cameras. Here too, we identified an area of the market in which we can leverage our position to provide products without supply chain constraints. An effort that has been ongoing for the last year is now coming to fruition with our first orders for zoom lenses and complete uncooled zoom cameras, to be delivered soon.

Once those are fully production ready, we expect to see the need in the market translate into orders fairly quickly. Let me now turn to the structural changes we have completed after year-end. Which is the divestiture of our China operation. In July, we signed a definitive agreement to sell our China subsidiary to an entity owned by the local management team that has run the facility for us. For $4.5 million, payable in installments over 5 years. And that transaction is expected to close later this month. Financially, it is a modest event, roughly $1.5 million of annual third party revenue leaves our consolidated results.

The entity continues to supply us third party to supply us as a third party vendor for our commercial customers in The US and Europe. So there is no disruption to those customers. Strategically, it is not modest at all. 6 years ago, most of our manufacturing footprint was in China, and more than a third of our revenue came from China. As of this fall, LightPath now does everything, melts glass, coats optics, builds cameras and assembly, exclusively outside of China in Orlando, in Plano, Texas, in Hudson, New Hampshire, and in Riga, Latvia. We have no ownership, no facility, and no commercial activity in China.

For a customer base that is now dominated by the defense primes, and public safety agencies, that is no longer a nice to have talking point. But something that will now open up significant bid opportunities where that is a condition for participation. That connects directly to our regulatory backdrop. Defense programs are required to move off optical glass and optical components, source from covered nations before the end of the decade. What has changed over the last year is not the rule, it is the timing. Qualification cycles for an optical system run 2 to 3 years. So the sourcing decisions that determine who supplies those programs in 2029 and 2030 are being made now.

In this fiscal year and in the next 1. However, several executive orders around waivers for germanium and classification of material as critical and specific tariffs applied would likely pull that timeline even closer. Now to address that, let me talk about capacity a bit, because capacity is our single biggest operational theme going into fiscal 27. When we acquired Amorphous Materials in January, we increased our Black Diamond melting capacity. And just as importantly, we unlocked large diameter melting. Up to 10 inches and beyond. Versus the 5 inches we could produce before. In optics, the further you need to see, the larger the optic need to be.

Large diameter is what opens up long range camera systems large assemblies, and space based missile detection and tracking. I told you in May that doubling the glass capacity was nowhere near enough. That is still true. Demand for glass is running ahead of supply even after the acquisition. So we are adding melting capacity in Orlando and Texas We are moving the AMI's, our office operation, into a larger building near our Visimid camera business in the Dallas area, and we are expanding downstream capacity in optical fabrication, coating, the assembly, across The US and Latvian sites. Including adding shifts in all locations. Albert will talk about what that means for capital spending.

The short version is that fiscal 27 CapEx will be higher than fiscal 26, and that is a deliberate choice made against a visible order book and pipeline. Before I hand it to Albert, like to discuss the balance sheet. In June, we raised $50 million in a primary offering alongside a secondary sale by Northland Capital, who funded our acquisition of G5. We ended the fiscal year with $93.2 million of cash and effectively no debt.

Some of that capital will be used to fund the capacity and working capital required to convert our growing backlog that has now grown over 5 consecutive quarters and continues to grow and some will be to pursue accretive capability adding acquisitions such as the 1 similar to G5 and AML that have proven we can execute and integrate. With that now, I will turn the call over to Albert Miranda, CFO, to walk through the fourth quarter and full fiscal year 2026 financial results. Albert, go ahead.

Albert Miranda: Thank you, Sam. As always, I will keep my review to a succinct highlight of the financials, Much of what we are discussing was also included in our press release issued earlier today. And will be included in the 10 k for the period. I encourage you to visit our investor relations web page to access both documents. In the fourth quarter, revenue increased 73% to 21.2 million as compared to $12.2 million the same year ago. Quarter. Sales of infrared components were $7.1 million, 34% of consolidated revenue. Visible components were $4.2 million or 20% of consolidated revenue. Assemblies and modules were $9.1 million or 43%, of consolidated revenue. Engineering services were $800 thousand or 4% of consolidated revenue.

Gross profit increased 210% to $8.3 million or 39.4% of revenue in the fourth quarter as compared to $2.7 million or 22% of revenue the same year ago quarter. Sam mentioned the reasons for our gross margin increase in addition to better absorption on higher production volume and we also had a quarter carried through of $5 million inventory reserve charge last year that did not recur this year. Operating expenses for the fourth quarter of fiscal 26 were $12.6 million as compared to $7.2 million in the prior year period. Of the $5.4 million increase, $2 million relates to noncash fair value adjustment to the acquisition earn out liabilities. Which are remeasured through operating expenses until fully settled.

The increase is primarily related to G5 infrared, reflecting its strong performance against the earn out targets. The final earn out amount was agreed to and accrued in the fourth quarter of fiscal 26 to be paid in January 2027. The remaining operating expense increase of $3.4 million is primarily comprised of increased selling, general and administrative expenses, where the fourth quarter of fiscal 26 included the additional of AML operations, incentive compensation accruals, additions to senior leadership team, higher sales and marketing investments, and continued information technology spend to meet customer security requirements.

Net loss for the fourth quarter was $4.1 million or 0.6 excuse me, 0.06 per basic and diluted share compared to a net loss of $7.1 million or $0.16 per share in the same year ago quarter. Adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter was $2.1 million or 10% of revenue, compared to an adjusted EBITDA loss of $2 million in the year ago quarter. This is our fourth consecutive quarter of positive adjusted EBITDA. As I have said before, adjusted EBITDA is non GAAP, and not a perfect measure, but it is the better indicator of core operating performance because it strips out the noncash acquisition accounting that otherwise dominates our reported results.

For the fiscal year, revenue for 2026 increased 93% to $71.7 million as compared to $37.2 million in the fiscal 25. Sales of infrared components were $21.2 million or 30%, an increase of 52% year over year. Visible components were $15.5 million, or 22% of consolidated revenue, an increase of 32% Assemblies and modules were $31.9 million or 44% of consolidated revenue, an increase of 281% Engineering services, were $3.1 million, or 4% of consolidated revenue. Roughly flat with the prior year. Operating expenses for fiscal 26 were $45.5 million as compared to $22 million in the prior year. Of the $23.5 million increase, $14.1 million relates to the noncash fair value adjustment to acquisition earn out liabilities.

Which I will discuss further in a minute. The remaining operating expense increase of $9.4 million reflects a full year of G5 infrared operating cost the addition of AML operating cost, higher sales and marketing spend, information technology investments, to meet heightened customer security standards, and increased personnel costs associated with filling executive roles, and accruing for incentive compensation plans. In addition, new product development costs also increased which management views as an important part of execution of our strategy, employing us to continue to grow our investments in new product developments.

I want to be direct about the earn out accounting because it is the largest single line in our income statement this year and the least reflective of our operating performance. The $15.6 million charge in fiscal year 26 is a remeasurement of what G5 sellers earned. And it moved because G5 is outperforming the amount estimated at the time of acquisition which per GAAP was largely weighted based on historical financials. it is not an ongoing operating cost, and the majority of it is behind us as we have now accrued for the final G5 earn out to be paid in January 2027. There may be small adjustments in future quarters related to AML and Visimid still to come.

Adjusted EBITDA for fiscal 26 was a profit of $4.2 million compared to a loss of $5.1 million in fiscal 25 As Sam said, a swing of $9.3 million. A good indicator of where we are heading. Backlog at June 30 was $110.9 million. Up 197% from $37.4 million a year ago, Approximately, $85.6 million of that is requested by customers for delivery within 12 months. And then I will touch on CapEx as Sam mentioned. It is an indicator of how we are managing growth. In fiscal year 26, we spent $6.3 million in CapEx. $4.4 million in Q4 alone.

The last time we spent at that level was in calendar year 23 when we expanded the Orlando facility and doubled the size of the manufacturing and the clean room. The fiscal 27 plan is larger and more ambitious. We will expand all of our locations to meet the backlog we have and the demand we foresee through fiscal 27 and into fiscal year 28. The plan is to get ahead of demand in some key areas like the production of black diamond glass. With that in mind, let me close with the frame I would use if I were on your side of the call.

2 years ago, this was a $32 million per year revenue business, with negative adjusted EBITDA, $3.5 million of cash, This fiscal year, it is a $72 million revenue business positive adjusted EBITDA, $93 million cash, no debt and $111 million order book that continues to grow. The work in fiscal 27 is to add capacity fast enough. Hold the margin gains, and convert the book. That is a straightforward execution mandate and it is fully funded. With that, I will turn the call back to Sam for some closing remarks.

Shmuel Rubin: Thank you, Albert, and thank you to everyone for joining us today. Fiscal 26 was the year the pieces came together. A full year of G5, the addition of AML, a fortified balance sheet, a Western aligned manufacturing base, and a set of programs that are moving from qualification into production. The upcoming fiscal 27 will be different kind of year. It is less about proving the thesis and more about scaling against it. Doubling a manufacturing business in 12 months is hard. Doing it twice in a row is harder, and it will require capacity we are still building.

And people we are still hiring We are clear eyed about it, but we are doing it with $93 million of cash no debt, 2 domestic glass plants, the broadest info portfolio of infrared materials available, and a customer base that increasingly cannot source what they need for what they make from anyone else on acceptable terms. With that in mind, I want to close by before we open for Q&A by thanking the Lightpath team. You, my team, delivered a record year while integrating 2 acquisitions migrating infrastructure, and building capacity underneath a backlog that is tripled. That is a great deal to ask of an organization our size and you delivered it.

With that in mind, I will turn it back to the operator for Q&A. Operator?

Operator: Thank you, Sam. At this time, we will open the floor for questions. To remove yourself from the queue, you may press 2. Again, that is 1. To ask a question. And we will take our first question from Clark Jeffries with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Analyst: Hello. Thank you for taking the First question, just looking out to 2027., that $86 million that is sort of primed for delivery in 2027. Wondering if we could get a sense of the major programs that are embedded there and those 2 large contracts in July, are they set for 2027 to then just 1 follow-up.

Shmuel Rubin: Sure. So I will answer the second part. First, yes, sir, for 2027 delivery. The 2 large contracts that were in July. what is also nice about them or really, you know, encouraging about them is already in production, and both of them are on a cadence of deliveries spread over months. And therefore, we expect them to be renewed in the years to come as kind of programs of record typically do. Secondly, in terms of the breakout of it, Albert, I do not know if you have it by product, group, but application wise, counter UAS is still probably 1 of the biggest parts in there. Optics for drones and assemblies for drone dominance.

Is a growing part in there. We do not have a lot of border patrol in there yet. Because the funding that has flowed through to the client has not come its way to us. So I would say primarily Counter UAS right now is a very big driver. Perfect. And then just wondering if, Sam, you could give a little bit of additional context for G5 and the redesign timeline Just any reasons for the delay, and maybe just a right setting on, you know,, the earliest contribution you would expect from those redesigned products? Thank you. I think supply chains are stretched everywhere.

And the redesign, while you know, does not require redesigning the entire camera, there is still mechanics and some other lenses that need to be redesigned and some changes. So we are we are starting to fill the supply chain, especially on the detector side. Impacting us across the board. So it really impacted that part as 1. The second is while amorphous are able to melt the glass in that size. It is the first time or you know, 1 of the first times Amorphous was melting that glass. And melting those kind of glass is not a plug and play recipe.

I mean, even for us, from the moment we licensed the novel materials, it took us to be 3 years until we started producing them. So there is quite a bit of fine tuning that once you start melting it. Lucky to have an incredible team as we do at Amorphous that is able to do that at a really record pace. But it is still, you know, more effort than just saying, okay. We will melt it, and that is it. Perfect. Really appreciate it. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. And, again, as a quick reminder, if you like to ask a question, you may press 1 now. Our next question will come from Austin Moeller with Canaccord. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Austin Moeller: Hi. Good afternoon, Sam and Albert. So just my first question on the border patrol cameras or the equivalent overseas, are the overseas camera opportunities, are those foreign military sales to Middle East allies? Or is that the US Air Force and the army deploying those on bases and what could the TAM look like compared to border patrol?

Shmuel Rubin: Those are mostly foreign military sales. To allies. The air force and so on, those are mainly counter UAS systems, different SWIS systems. So I was talking about border patrol and towers along the borders of different Middle East or North African countries. The TAM is a bit difficult to tell because I do not know that market well enough. We are in it sort of we are 1 down with subprimes there. But I would say that every deal like that comes in, usually, it is in the tens of millions of dollars for us. Us.

Austin Moeller: Okay. And I understand you have shipped SPEIR cameras at least in initial prototype to the Navy, and they installed them immediately. How many more SPEIR cameras can be made available to the navy in the next one2 months and installed remotely in Southeast Asia. Just given the tanker war, they are getting courted by drones every day.

Shmuel Rubin: Well, I cannot speak for the Navy and the about the installation process or timelines. We did ship, I believe, the first camera or maybe 2 and I think we have another 5 cameras in dispatch before we get another order. And those 5 are expected to ship really in the next few weeks. But beyond that, I really have no visibility into the process once we ship them until they make it onto the ship. Okay. Awesome. that is super helpful. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. We will take our next question from Richard Shannon with Craig Hallum. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Richard Shannon: Well, great. Thanks, Sam and Albert for letting me ask a couple of questions. Apologies for any ambient noise here in the loud area. I want to follow-up on NGSRI. You made some prepared remarks here about not seeing any risk in the contracting proposal, I think, a term used by the government to the army for this. I would love to get a little more detail as to why you do not think that is a risk here. I think that anyone who read this says as I do at the time, it made it sound like they were dissatisfied in some manner with the current options here.

And you have expressed a lot of confidence in the solution you are supporting there. So would love to get a sense of why you think that is very low risk here, please.

Shmuel Rubin: Yeah. So I will refer here to a article that was published earlier this week. I cannot remember the name of it, but the person there described, I think, pretty accurately that there are tens of thousands of launches deployed in the field of the old Stinger missile. These new missiles need to be reverse compatible with those launchers. I am not going to go into details of what the effort it takes to do that and what either Lockheed or L3 had to go through to do it. I will point out that this program has been in the works for 3 years already or even more.

So this is not something where if you have a great missile, you can show up with it tomorrow morning and this will meet all the requirements and get in there. I view this more like to take an analogy, the XM30 or MX30 tank. So, what was the order of the letters are. Not tank. Sorry. carrier, that just a couple of weeks ago, the army said, okay. So 2 main primes on this. Same thing exactly. Right? And we are gonna open it up to see if by any chance anyone has someone else. Something else to do our diligence properly.

I think that the military organization as a whole it seems that some of the neoprimes and new primes go off and often develop some solutions on their own dime. As they sort of if we build it, they will come. And it is doing their work properly, and they applaud them for that by saying, hey. Before we stick to the same way we have been doing this for years, let's just check if someone happened to have developed something that fits the bill here and can do it. So I do not think this is come necessarily from being dissatisfied as much as it has come from the landscape is changing.

It is on all on most systems out there that you see, even if there are 2 primes it gets opened up again to an industry day or call for RFIs. To see if there is something else that anyone else developed. I just think that it is highly unlikely that someone has something that was developed here and that can fit the bill exactly in this short time frame.

Richard Shannon: I mean, somebody would have to be well down the road in developing something not right now. They were gonna hit that April time frame next year. Right? And I mean, the community for building these sorts of things is pretty small. I imagine this is probably well-known it exists. And so does that mean you do not think there is anyone out there that has that?

Shmuel Rubin: Well, I would not quite say that. I do not know all the players out there and never say never, but I would say that both Lockheed and Raytheon are very, very experienced and really know what they are doing. They have been working on this for 3 years. Everyone is welcome to reach their own conclusions. I do not wanna jump to conclusions for other people. Okay. that is fair enough. Thanks for that perspective, Sam. Appreciate that.

Richard Shannon: My second question is, in your prepared remarks, you also talked about some missile, programs here. So I took good notes here about 7 different platforms are being evaluated or are with Lockheed Martin and some other ones. Maybe you could talk about some of these programs if you are if you are able to. And maybe if you can convey either average platform size or total TAM or something just to give us a sense here. You seems like missile programs can be pretty sizable like the NGSR that you are already on. Maybe you can talk about the opportunity and the kind of time frame to when those might be decided. Thank you.

Shmuel Rubin: So yeah. Definitely. I have to be a bit careful here First of all, some of them, we do not know enough about the end program to relay that. We know what we are told, but we do not know enough about it. Others might be very early or in a stage where they really do not want us talking about them. But let's just say that was a talk by 1 of the generals recently from the army talking specifically about a air defense being a very layered approach where you have short range interceptors, mid range, long range, and even recently, there was a call for space based interceptors.

So the army and the Department of War as a whole need a entire range of products and not 1. And there is not 1 fits it all. So there is a very big push right now on building up capacity and refilling the inventory of the THAAD and PAC 3. Patriot PAC-3. You know, there is probably an even bigger push at the next generation of all these interceptors. So I would say we are in almost all different types of interceptors. Or precision munition. When I say missiles, it is not only interceptors, Some of them are precision munition also. But I mean, unfortunately, do not have numbers really I can share at this point.

Okay. that is fair. Appreciate all that detail. Thank you, Sam.

Operator: Thank you. We will take our next question from Jon Hickman with Ladenburg Thalmann. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Jon Hickman: Hi. And I might I probably should know the answer to this, but could you explain to me what is a Zoom camera?

Shmuel Rubin: Yeah. Zoom camera means it can change its field of view. So, like, in your iPhone you can zoom in and out of the picture, like magnify it. As opposed to a fixed focus camera. So cameras and optics we make for the small drone those usually cannot zoom. They have a fixed field of view. You see 1 area, because you are really trying to trade off weight and size. But the larger platforms all have the ability to zoom in and out.

Jon Hickman: Okay. Okay. And then I have 1 more question. In the past, you have indicated that you thought you had a multiyear kind of runway before there might be other solutions for germanium? You know, to replace germanium other than your black diamond glass How do you feel about that now?

Shmuel Rubin: I feel like we actually have more time than I thought. I recently took a look at some of the announcements about germanium capacity. So you have on 1 hand Umicore, the Belgium company that is considered the most promising in increasing capacity and having a mine in Congo, they recently announced that what they are producing now is really only 3 to 4 tons of germanium a year And what they expect to produce in a few years, and they are talking about 4 to 5 years, is, you know, is more, but it is not definitely nowhere near solving the whole problem.

And then you look at some of the awards to companies in The US, for either on the mining or refining, each 1 of them is talking about single digits tons of germanium. So I think we might have more time than I thought.

Jon Hickman: Okay. And then just so my math is correct, you reported a backlog of $110 million and then you reported these 2 big contracts for another $21 or $22 million. So if you add that to your backlog and then subtract whatever our estimates are for Q1, that should be close to a backlog for Q1.

Shmuel Rubin: Well, except that, you know, we also ship product out. And we are continuing to grow. So I would not quite say it is guaranteed that is the backlog. But, you know, it is definitely the backlog has been growing quite a bit. since the $110 million. So I think at the end of this quarter, we will have a very healthy backlog to report. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate that. Nice quarter. Thank you. Thank you, Jon.

Operator: Thank you. We do have a follow-up from Richard Shannon with Craig Hallum. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Richard Shannon: Thanks, Sam and Albert for letting me ask 1 more here. Sam, to follow-up on the supply chain comments here, I would love to get a sense of what are the kind of long poles in the tent here or the most difficult hurdles to overcome here for adding capacity across all the elements of what you are trying to do here. it is kind of whole you know, it is kind of holistically, qualitatively, and, over what time frame do we expect to, see this capacity increase complete? Thank you.

Shmuel Rubin: Yes, that is a great question. And in a vertically integrated company, it is kind of like a whack a mole game, if you would, because you solve 1 problem and it pops up elsewhere. However, right now, by far, glass is our biggest capacity constraint. We are adding a lot. that is where the spending on CapEx is coming from. A lot of it is around the glass. We will probably need to add even more. And we are adding it mainly for our systems, but also for some other customers or for subsystems.

After the glass, the detectors of the long pole in the tent, which we do not have much control over, the lead time on them has been growing from, I think, 6 months to 10 months, even more now. So you see that in our inventory where we are building up and preparing parts ahead of time ordering them knowing that, you know, we our vendors cannot really react fast enough After that, it is really breaks down pretty quickly into many, many small things, mechanics, motors, have become a really big deal because of the magnets in the motors now. it is the same pain everyone is feeling everywhere, I think. Of making an integrated system. Thank you, Shannon.

Operator: Thank you. This concludes our question and answer session and today's event. Thank you for joining LightPath Technologies fiscal fourth quarter and full year 2026 earnings conference call. You may now disconnect your lines.