ADDvantage Technologies Group, Inc.

Good day and welcome to the Advantage Technologies Fiscal 2021 Third Quarter Financial Results Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. And now at this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Mr. Brett Moss, Hayden Iyar. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Operator. We are joined today by Joe Hart, President and CEO, as well as Michael Remke, the Chief Company's Interim Financial Officer. Before we begin today's call, I would 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 Litigation 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 future financial performance of Advantage Technologies. These statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Participants are cautioned. These forward-looking statements are only predictions, and they materially differ from the actual future events or results 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 the Form 10-K. The guidance regarding the anticipated future results on this call is based on limited information currently available to Advantage Technologies, which is subject to change, although any such guidance and factors influencing it may change. Advantage Technologies will not necessarily update this 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 this call, we may also present certain non-GAAP financial measures, such as non-GAAP net income, and certain ratios are used with these measures. In our press release and in the financial tables issued earlier today, which are located on our website, advantagetechnology.com, you will find a recommendation 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'd like to now turn the call to Joe Hart, President and Chief Executive Officer of Advantage Technologies. Joe, please go ahead.

Thank you, Brett. Good morning and thank you to everyone joining us on the call today. This was an encouraging quarter for us. Revenues increased by more than 40% compared to Q3 of fiscal year 2020. And gross profits were up through nine months by 7% year over year. Before talking about our wireless business and the building 5G wave, I want to give due recognition to our telecom group for a great third quarter. As we reported in our earnings release, the third fiscal quarter benefited from 65% higher revenue in our telco segment, specifically from NAVE Communications, an all-time high for name, as the ongoing chip and electronic supply chain issues for new technology drove higher demand for refurbished alternatives. The higher volumes have generally continued into our current fourth fiscal quarter, but we anticipate a leveling off of demand at some point in future quarters, albeit at a somewhat elevated level relative to the recent past. NAVE is having a really strong year and Triton Datacom has made a nice recovery from earlier COVID related softness of sales in the year. What is especially encouraging is that this revenue growth came from our telecom business where the work from home trend and the global shortage of semiconductors and electronics drove increased demand for our refurbished telephone equipment. The anticipated revenue growth from our wireless segment should be incremental to this. The long awaited 5G expansion has begun in earnest and the hard work to position our company as a key player in the development of 5G networks by our Fulton Technologies team is paying off. Over the last few months, we have won site awards to upgrade technology to 5G for over 1,000 cell sites. And we are increasing our staffing to meet this growing demand. Last year at this time, we were lucky if we had visibility to workload more than four to six weeks out in front of us, as the volume of construction across the industry was still down. Last summer, we were running with about eight crews in any given week with steady work. Currently, we are running between 25 to 30 crews on a daily basis, and we'll be ramping up from there as we move into our new fiscal year in October. In the last few months, we also added two new major tier one clients in the 5G space. We are confident that the wireless segment revenue in the second half of calendar 21, the period encompassing our fourth fiscal quarter of this year, which is the current quarter, and the first fiscal quarter of next year, which begins in October. These will gradually double the levels we reported in the first half of calendar 2021. Moreover, this represents only a portion of the total work to be done. We already have purchase orders in hand for fiscal year 2022 construction services that exceed the total value of our fiscal year 2021 total wireless revenue. The initial awards are from multiple carriers, including both longstanding customers and two new entrants into the market. We have been awarded work in seven major markets, some of which are new for us, but all are in the greater Midwest and Southwest regions contiguous to our historical bases in Chicago and Dallas. More than 80% of the new site awards are for the installation of new 5G radios and antennas. But some also involve decommissioning and removing older technologies on the tower or rooftop to make room for new 5G installations to follow later. And in some cases, we are installing additional 4G frequencies at the site. As I've previously indicated, The 5G expansion is massive. It represents a multi-year secular trend, not just for tower work, but for data centers, technology providers, handset manufacturers, and wireless carriers. The capital expenditure plans of wireless carriers are public and often discussed. Tower work is just one piece of this effort, and we are strategically positioned to capture a meaningful portion of this work due to our established relationships and experienced crews under Fulton Technologies in key markets across the very center of the United States, from Texas up to the Great Lakes. The expected incremental revenue from our wireless segment in the fourth quarter, along with the higher telco sales, should help us finish the year strong with improved margins and significant momentum heading into the new fiscal year. I'm encouraged by what this all suggests for our second half of the calendar year. We are benefiting from improved operational efficiency and with a higher volume of work driven by all four carriers now building out their networks at the same time to compete in 5G. We are well positioned for success. The recent improvement in our telecom segment gives us a stronger base from which to grow. Though we expect demand to normalize somewhat at higher levels than we have enjoyed historically, but likely not at the level that it was in the third fiscal quarter. This growth reflects progress the new leadership has made and the new customers and partners our NAVE and Triton DataCom businesses have added. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Mike Ramke, our interim CFO, to provide a more detailed review of our financial results. Mike, please go ahead.