Bel Fuse Inc.

Good day and welcome to the Bell Fuse first quarter 2022 earnings call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Jean Young with 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, Farouk Tewiq, CFO, and Lynn Hutkin, Director of Financial Reporting. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Dan.

Thank you, Jean, and thank you all for joining us on the call today. I'm pleased to report that all three business units performed exceptionally well, with all groups showing sales and margin improvement compared to the first quarter of 2021. With a record backlog of $525 million, we expect demand to remain strong for the balance of the year. The highlights this quarter were led by the Magnetic Solutions Group, where gross margin rose to 20.1% in the first quarter as of 2022, as compared to 13.7% in the first quarter of 2021, as a result of higher sales from our enterprise networking customers, and despite the temporary government mandate factory closes in China related to COVID. Revenue generated by our distribution partners grew by 12.9 million, or 36% of the first quarter of 2021. As we mentioned last quarter, demand from our commercial aerospace direct and aftermarket customers continued to rebound and reach 6.2 million of sales during the first quarter of 2022, up 90% from last year's quarter, including the RMS business we acquired in early 2021. This end market was extraordinarily running around 45 million per year. Our strong bookings from 2021 for power products in the EV end market generated into $5.9 million of sales during the first quarter of 2022, an increase of 89% from quarter one last year, and leaves us well positioned for incremental sales growth in the second quarter and beyond. Our circuit protection line had the strongest quarter in the history of our company, posting sales of over 8 million for the quarter, representing over 100% growth from the quarter last year. The supply chain continues to be I'm sorry, the supply chain continues to be constrained, and raw material availability remains tight. With the PRC recent closure of Beijing, and we see impact on the timing around movement of goods around the border, as our freight is now rerouted and screened through the freight forwarders in other regions of China. However, we are pleased to report that all our factories globally are fully operational as of today, and with the understanding that the environment and local regulations can change rapidly. I'd like now to turn over the call to Lynn for the financial update.