Educational Development Corporation

Thank you for joining the Educational Development Corporation's first quarter earnings call. Before beginning the call, we would like to remind you that some of the statements made today will be forward-looking and are protected under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied due to a variety of factors. We refer you to Educational Development Corporation's recent filings with the SEC for a more detailed discussion of the company's financial condition. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Craig White, the company's president and chief executive officer.

Thank you, Justin. Thank you and welcome everyone to the call. With me today are Randall White, our executive chairman of the board, Heather Cobb, chief sales and marketing officer, and Dan O'Keefe, our chief financial officer. Some points I'd like to start off with As much as we hate to keep pointing this out, our first quarter sequential comparisons remain difficult. Quarter one last year had tailwinds continuing from the pandemic, including retail stores reopening, record levels of active consultants, and continued school disruptions. Quarter one this year was impacted additionally by headwinds. primarily tied to the overall economy, such as the war in Ukraine, record inflation resulting in double-digit fuel and food price increases, and employees returning to work back in the office. While we continue to manage through the impacts and changes created from the pandemic and these other global related headwinds, I'm proud of our ability to remain profitable and to see the resiliency of our team, our employees, to manage through these tumultuous times. and I will walk you through the recent announcement in regard to our Esmeralda Publishing Distribution Agreement announced in May of this year. With that, I will now turn the call over to Dan O'Keefe, our Chief Financial Officer, to provide a brief overview of the financials for our first quarter of fiscal 2023.

Thank you, Craig. Our first Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. or 93.6% compared to 4.7 million reported in the first quarter last year. Net earnings totaled 200,000 compared to 3.4 million, a decrease of 3.2 million or 94.1% from last year. Earnings per share on a fully diluted basis totaled 3 cents compared to 41 cents, down 92.7% on a fully diluted basis from last year. Some balance sheet highlights. As we mentioned in the last earnings call, inventory levels peaked at the beginning of this fiscal year at approximately $17.6 million and reduced slightly to $71.6 million by the end of the first quarter. We continue to expect inventory to reduce in future quarters as we normalize our volumes to match current sales volumes. We expect to see the biggest change in inventory in the fiscal third quarter when our sales are the highest. Cash flow generated from inventory sales will be used to reduce our working capital line of credit. That concludes the financial report, and now I'll turn the call over back to Craig.