Columbus McKinnon Corporation

Greetings and welcome to the Columbus McKinnon Corporation fourth quarter fiscal year 2022 financial results conference call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star 0 on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Sean Southard of Investor Relations. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Donna. And good morning, everyone. We certainly appreciate your time today and your interest in Columbus McKinnon. Here with me are David Wilson, our president and CEO, and Greg Westowitz, our chief financial officer. You should have a copy of the fourth quarter fiscal 2022 financial results, which we released this morning before market. If not, you can access the release as well as the slides that will accompany our conversation today. at our website, www.columbusmckinnon.com. After our formal presentation, we will open the line for Q&A. Please limit yourself to one question with a follow-up and then return to the queue to allow for continuous flow and adequate time. If you'll turn to slide two in the deck, I'll review the Safe Harbor Statement. You should be aware that we may make some forward-looking statements during the formal discussions as well as during the Q&A session. These statements apply to future events that are subject to risks and uncertainties, as well as other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from what is stated here today. These risks and uncertainties and other factors are provided in the earnings release, as well as with other documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These documents can be found on our website or at sec.gov. During today's call, we will also discuss some non-GAAP financial measures. We believe these will be useful in evaluating our performance You should not consider the presentation of this additional information in isolation or as a substitute for results prepared in accordance with GAAP. We have provided reconciliation of non-GAAP measures with comparable GAAP measures in the tables that accompany today's release and the slides. With that, please advance to slide three, and I'll turn the call over to David to begin. David?

Thank you, Sean, and good morning, everyone. We outperformed expectations with record sales in the quarter and for fiscal 2022, even while we were challenged with the inefficiencies created by supply chain constraints and inflation. Sales in the quarter were up 36% over last year's fourth quarter to a record level of $253 million. Organic growth was a very strong 17%. We're steadily advancing our transformation to be the global leader in intelligent motion solutions for material handling, and Columbus McKinnon is uniquely positioned to help solve many of the critical challenges the world is facing today. We are central to the investments being made in infrastructure, global efforts to localize and rebalance supply chains, the need for automation in the midst of shortages in labor availability, and the need for safe ergonomic material handling in a world of factory automation and direct to consumer delivery. As we executed to meet customer needs and growing demand for our products, gross margin was impacted in the quarter given rapid increases in freight and expediting costs associated with high inflation and the effect that the war in Ukraine and the shutdowns in China are having on the global supply chain. We also completed a large project where we did not recover the full impact of recent material cost increases given the rate at which cost inputs escalated and the strategic nature of that customer relationship. Our operating income was $24 million, and our adjusted operating income established a new record level in the quarter at nearly $29 million. EBITDA margin in the quarter was 15.4%. We are taking further actions to address the risks associated with this unusual operating environment and remain committed to realizing our longer-term financial targets. Fiscal 2022 was a year of significant progress and represents a step change in Columbus McKinnon's business model and mix as we execute on our strategic transformation. We began the year with the addition of a precision conveyance platform through the acquisition of Dorner. This platform expanded our offerings, provided increased access to attractive markets with strong secular tailwinds, and diversified our revenue stream with higher margin business. We later added the market-leading capabilities, high growth, and accretive margin profile of Garvey to this important strategic platform. We also accelerated organic growth through initiatives leveraging our core growth framework, looking outward to our customers and markets to clarify opportunities, while innovating with automation and rethinking our commercial strategy. We also benefited from further core market recovery and increasing demand across targeted secular growth markets. The food and beverage, life sciences, and e-commerce markets remained robust, and the entertainment market began to pick up nicely in the latter half of the year. We ended fiscal 22 with record quarterly orders of nearly $270 million and entered fiscal 23 with a backlog of over $309 million, also a new record. If you'll please turn to slide four, I'd like to highlight the significant progress we made over the past year as we reimagined our portfolio and improved our approach to the markets we serve to unlock Columbus McKinnon's potential. Given this transformative work, approximately 40% of our business is now tied to higher growth, higher margin markets. If you'll advance to slide five, I'll now turn the call over to Greg to review our financial performance in the quarter. Greg?