Bel Fuse Inc.

Good day and welcome to the Bell Fuse Inc. Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2021 Results Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Jean Young from Three Part Advisors. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Emma, and good morning, everyone. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that this conference call contains certain forward-looking statements regarding the company's expected operating, and financial performance for future periods. These statements are based on the company's current expectations. Actual results for future periods may differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements due to a number of risks and other factors. Additional information about factors that could potentially impact our financial results is included in yesterday's press release and is discussed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. including our most recent annual report on Form 10-K and our subsequent quarterly reports and other filings with the SEC from time to time. We may also discuss non-GAAP results during this call, and reconciliations of our GAAP results to non-GAAP results have been included in our press release. Our press release and our SEC filings are all available at the IR section of our website. Joining us on the call today is Dan Bernstein, President and CEO Baruch Tui, CFO, and Lynn Hutkin, Director of Financial Reporting. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Dan.

Thank you, Jean, and all of you for joining our call today. Our team at Bell has performed extremely well. In these challenging times, they have embraced our efforts to improve the company. I would like to thank every associate for their hardworking dedication to Bell for enabling us to have one of our best quarters in recent memories. We achieved our fourth quarters of strong year-over-year sales growth with new record highs in both quarterly bookings and in our backlog of orders at court end. This increase in demand is across each of our three product groups and the majority of our end markets. Our backlog remains at an all-time high, totaling $468 million at December 31st. In 2021, we launched 1,800 new standard part numbers into the channel. This will bode well for us for our future growth. Our acquisition of RMS and EOS completed last year are fully integrated and have contributed to Bell's bottom line through combined net earnings of $1.9 million in 2021. CUI acquired in late 2019 continues to be a strong performer with sales growth of 29% from 2020 to 2021. On the cost side, we continue to navigate direct and indirect supply chain challenges, including those related to raw material, logistics, labor availability, retention, and overall inflation. Last year, we concluded our four-year ERP conversion project, combining five systems into one. We have transitioned from a functional use of the system to data analytics and now have better visibility on margins by SQU. Although still in the early stages of adaptation, this data has quickly become the foundation of our day-to-day business decisions on how best to allocate our sales, engineering, and manufacturing resources. Overall, we invested $7 million in the ERP conversion and have recognized an annual cost savings of $2 million. With our legacy systems now fully integrated, we will utilize our internal resources to market our recent acquisitions onto the new system as well. Last quarter, we appointed Jackie Brito to our board, and she has provided to be a very valuable addition. As with many companies, Bell has been challenged with associate retention and job satisfaction. With Jackie's strong background in human resource development, she has been tasked with doing a cultural assessment of the company and how to identify areas for improvement. This assessment is completed, and we are implementing the recommendations to enhance the associate's experience at Bell. And furthering our commitment to becoming a better corporate citizen, we've implemented two new programs in 2022 around community engagement, charitable contributions that align with our values. Associates will now be provided with time paid off to volunteer within the communities, and Bell will be donating and matching contributions to local charitable organizations of choice. I'm very proud of the progress we've made throughout the company, And we will continue on our journey in 2022 to make sure Bell is the best it can be for our associates, stakeholders, and customers and communities in which we work in. I would like now to turn the call off to Lynn for the financial update.