ADDvantage Technologies Group, Inc.

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Advantage Technologies Group to report fiscal 2021 first quarter financial results conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star and zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to Brett Mass, Hayden AR. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. We are joined today by Joe Hart, President and CEO, as well as Jarrett Watson, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin today's call, I'd like to remind you that this conference call may contain forward-looking statements which are subject to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Allegation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements include, among other things, statements regarding future events, such as the ability of Advantage Technologies and its subsidiaries to maintain strategic relationships and agreements with certain original equipment manufacturers and multiple system operators, as well as the future financial performance of Advantage Technologies. These statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Participants are cautioned that these forward-looking statements are only predictions and may materially differ from the actual future events or results identified. due to a variety of factors, such as those contained in Advantage Technologies' most recent report on Form 10-K on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Financial information presented on this conference call should be considered in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements and notes included in the company's press release issued earlier today and included in Advantage Technologies' most recent report on Form 10-K. The guidance regarding anticipated future results on this call is based on limited information currently available on Advantage Technologies, which is subject to change. Although any such guidance and factors influencing it may change, Advantage Technologies will not necessarily update the information, as the company will only provide guidance at certain points during the year. Such information speaks only as of the date of this call. During the call, we also may present certain non-GAAP financial measures, such as non-GAAP net income and certain ratios that are used with these measures. In our press release and in the financial tables issued earlier today, which are located on our website at advantagetechnologies.com, you will find a reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures with the closest GAAP financials and a discussion about why we believe these non-GAAP financial measures are relevant. These financial measures are included for the benefit of investors and should be considered in addition to and not instead of GAAP measures. I would like to now turn the call over to Joe Hart, President and Chief Executive Officer of Advantage Technologies. Joe, please go ahead.

Thank you, Brett, and thank you to everyone joining us on the call today. It has been just over a month since we last spoke with the investment community, which was during our full year fiscal 2020 earnings call late in December. Since that time, we have continued our efforts to streamline our expenses, improve operational efficiencies, and position our wireless business for growth and profitability ahead of an acceleration in the transition to 5G by the wireless carriers. The first fiscal quarter was impacted, as it often is, by the typical seasonal challenges, including the winter weather, the holidays, and we further experience some COVID-19-related crew quarantines in late November in the north. November through March is also a period when our high-margin specialty work in the north takes a hiatus until the warm weather returns in the spring. However, our confidence and optimism about the 5G rollout has only been strengthened by some of the advancements in press releases we've seen over the last 90 days. We continue to believe that we will capture a meaningful share of new business opportunities as demand for 5G accelerates. And while this rollout has certainly taken longer than we anticipated due to the pandemic and other factors, we are now seeing clear and unambiguous signs that the rollout will happen in the second half of this calendar year. We have seen a notable uptick in our sales and bid activity and we are seeing accelerating demand in anticipation of the 5G rollout, though the velocity has yet to reach the desired levels. In response, we are prudently ramping up our crew capacity in anticipation of expected demand. Our confidence that we will play a meaningful role has been validated, as we have been added to the preferred vendor list for several key carriers, and we have been given strong indications that we may be the lead vendor in several large and important markets. The recent FCC C-band auction raised over $81 billion as both existing wireless and broadband carriers pursued the additional 3.7 to 3.98 gigahertz spectrum made available to help facilitate the expected 5G growth and network capacity needs. We have multi-year service agreements in place with all of the major players in this auction and are well positioned to assist them in their growth plans throughout the Southwest and Midwest regions. In addition, DISH, the newly approved fourth wireless carrier, has reportedly secured leases on over 20,000 existing tower sites owned by Crown Castle and gained access to over 300,000 sites owned by Vertical Bridge. According to fierce wireless reports dishes committed to build a cloud native 5g nationwide wireless network and has committed to build at least 15,000 sites to meet its minimum requirements to cover 70% of the US population by mid 2023. This initiative is on top of the ambitious plans of T-Mobile and others as publicly reported. We currently expect the second half of calendar 2021 to benefit from the higher volumes and our businesses scale to drive improvements in profitability on these expected levels. We are encouraged by the slight uptick in Q1 revenue in our wireless segment of approximately $500,000, particularly given the typical seasonality I mentioned earlier. Additionally, While consolidated revenues declined $1.2 million year over year, gross margins were improved. In fact, we generated the same $3.6 million in gross profit this Q1 as in the prior year, even at lower revenue levels, reflecting the progress we have made in aligning expenses with revenue and improving our operational efficiency. I am encouraged by what this portends for our second half of the year, with improved operational efficiency and higher volume of work driven by all four carriers building out their networks at the same time to compete in 5G. In the telco side of our business, revenue was up 5% over the first quarter of last fiscal year. We have entered into agreements with new customers and partners for the NAVE and Triton Datacom businesses that give our salespeople access to new clients, product lines, and a much higher level of consignment-based inventory to offer our customers. This equates to better use of cash, lower operating costs, and reduced inventory. Our sales teams at both companies have fully adjusted to the remote working environment and are selling at higher levels than the past. While our Triton business is still being impacted by the nationwide shutdown of most offices and the move to remote work, Our team has added new offerings and new clients to offset a great deal of that impact felt throughout the second half of last year. We remain hopeful that the COVID vaccine, besides being a safeguard for the health and well-being of many Americans, will lead to a return to the office for most US workers and have a positive impact on the sale of enterprise network products in the second half of this year. Importantly, The work we completed last year to rationalize our telco cost structure translated to a significant improvement in EBITDA contribution on those higher revenues for this portion of our business. Our balance sheet remains quite strong following the actions we took in fiscal 2020 to bolster our overall cash position, create an excess reserve and working capital in anticipation of accelerating 5G infrastructure build-out. There is also an increased vigilance around managing our inventory. As of the end of the first quarter, we had approximately $5.7 million in cash on our balance sheet. We continue to expect that the 5G transformation will begin in earnest in 2021, and we remain confident in our abilities, our offerings, and our position in the areas that we currently serve. We are seeing increased activity from all of the carriers, and the amount of capital expenditures anticipated as the 5G expansion rolls out are significant. Overall, it has been a relatively uneventful few weeks since we last spoke. However, we remain highly optimistic about the forthcoming opportunities in the second half of our fiscal year, and we are confident that we are taking the right steps to capitalize on those opportunities. In closing, I'd like to thank our shareholders and institutional investors. It has not been an easy last two years as we have rebuilt our telco businesses, Nave and Triton, sold off our legacy cable TV business, Tulsat, acquired a new wireless services company and Fulton Technologies, and lastly pivoted our business to be ready to grow with the coming wave of investment in the fifth generation of wireless technology. We are ready. And it is about to begin in a big way in the second half of 2021. Thank you for your investment and for your support. With that, I'll now turn the call over to our Chief Financial Officer, Jared Watson, for a more detailed review of our financial results. Jared, please go ahead.