Educational Development Corporation

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Educational Development Corporation's third quarter fiscal year 2025 earnings call. At this time, all lines are in listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on Monday, January 13, 2025. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Stephen Hooser, Investor Relations, please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for Educational Development Corporation's Fiscal Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. On the call with me today are Craig White, President and Chief Executive Officer, Heather Cobb, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, and Dan O'Keefe, Chief Financial Officer. After the market closed this afternoon, the company issued a press release announcing its results for the fiscal third quarter and year-to-date results. The release will be available later today on the company's website at www.edcpub.com. Before turning to the prepared remarks, I 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 more details on the company's financial conditions and full forward-looking statements. With that, I'd now like to turn the call over to Craig White, the company's president and chief executive officer. Craig?

Thank you, Stephen, and welcome everyone to the call. We appreciate your continued interest. I will start today's call with some general comments regarding the quarter. Then I will pass the call over to Dan and Heather to run through the financials and provide an update on our sales and marketing. Finally, I will wrap up the call with an update on our progress of the cell lease back of our headquarters, the Hilti complex, and provide some comments on strategy for fiscal 2025. During the third quarter last year, we recognized a $4 million gain on the sale of our old warehouse. Without this one-time event, our third quarter pre-tax losses would have been $1.3 million compared to the pre-tax loss of $1.1 million in the third quarter of this year. Our third quarter results on lower than historical revenue levels reflect the continued operational improvements we have made over the past year and our continued focus on driving continued operational and cost efficiencies. During the quarter, we continued intentionally to offer additional discounts to our customers which negatively impacts our gross margin and bottom line. Our increased discounting has slowly been to boost bolster sales and turn excess inventory into cash to be used to pay down our bank debt. This is a short term strategy that we will continue to strategically pursue until we sell our building and pay back all of our borrowings. At that time, we will be able to return to more historical promotions and pricing, which should have a positive impact to our cash flow and margins. With that, I will now turn the call over to Dan O'Keefe to provide a brief overview of the financials. Dan?