Hibbett, Inc.

Good morning. Please note that we have prepared a slide deck that we will refer to during our prepared remarks. The slide deck is available on Hibbett.com via the investor relations link found at the bottom of the homepage or at investors.hibbett.com and under the news and events section. These materials may help you follow along with our discussion this morning. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that some of management's comments during this conference call are forward-looking statements. These statements, which reflect the company's current views with respect to future events, financial performance are made in reliance on the safe harbor provisions of the private securities litigation reform act of 1995 and are subject to uncertainties and risks it should be noted that the company's future results may differ material from those anticipated and discussed in the forward-looking statements some of the factors that could cause or contribute to such differences have been described in the news release issued this morning and are noted on slide two of the earnings presentation and the company's annual report on form 10k and in other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We refer you to those sources for more information. Also, to the extent non-GAAP financial measures are discussed on this call, you may find a reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP measures on our website. Lastly, I'd like to point out that management's remarks during the conference call are based on information and understandings believed accurate as of today's date, May 26, 2023. Because of the time-sensitive nature of this information, It is the policy of HBIT to limit the archive replay of this conference call webcast to a period of 30 days. The participants on this call are Mike Longo, President and Chief Executive Officer, Jared Briskin, Executive Vice President Merchandising, Bob Voelke, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Bill Quinn, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Digital, and Ben Knighton, Senior Vice President of Operations. I'll now turn the call over to Mike Longo.

Thank you, Kevin. Good morning and welcome to the HBIT Q1 earnings call. For those of you following along, I'm on slide three. Our financial and operating results for the first quarter reflect the challenging retail environment. Our consumers face difficulties ranging from inflation to fears over job loss. This and other factors have combined to lower consumer sentiment, and we think this adversely affects sales. Also, the important tax season in the first quarter was negatively affected by lower tax returns versus last year and caused sales to come in lower than our expectations. Having said that, we still achieved a 7.4% year-over-year sales growth and a 4.1% comp sales increase. We believe these sales results in increased share prohibit and are a reason for confidence in our business model. Also, our strong relationships with our brand partners give us the ability and confidence to continue to execute our store opening plan. We continue to invest in our already best-in-class consumer experience and business model while still taking costs out of the business. In the first quarter, we managed to produce leverage on SG&A of 140 basis points versus last year. And all the while, we believe we increased our market share. We believe we have a proven operating model that will support our business regardless of market conditions, and we remain committed to executing our strategy of focusing on our distinct competitive advantages. namely our customer service, the compelling product selection, best-in-class omnichannel experience, and our positioning in underserved markets. In summary, we believe Hibbett is well positioned for the short and long term to continue to grow and increase market share. Before turning the call over to Jared, I'd like to thank our approximately 11,000 team members across the organization, whether they're working in our stores, or on our omnichannel platform, our logistics facilities, or our store support center. They're the face of Hibbett, providing consistent, superior service that's synonymous with our brand. I'll now turn it over to Jared.

Thank you, Mike. Good morning. The first quarter started strong with double-digit gains in the first half of the quarter. As March progressed, we began to see some deceleration in our comp performance, and this deceleration continued to pressure the business into April, leading to our total comp of just over 4%. Footwear was our strongest category during the quarter, growing high teams versus the prior year. Our strong footwear results continue to be driven by several solid launches, as well as strength across basketball, lifestyle, and casual categories. In addition, we saw an improving trend in our running business. Apparel and team sports were both negative for the quarter, with apparel down in the low 20s. Approximately half of the decline in apparel came from winter carryover in the prior year that we did not anniversary. This was planned in order to ensure that our inventory was seasonably appropriate now that the supply chain is more predictable. Sales of spring and summer apparel started the season slowly and remained under pressure due to the consumer environment. Specific to footwear and apparel, men's, women's, and kids all count positively driven by our footwear results. Men's and women's both were up in the low single digits, Kids was up in the high teens. Slowdown in sales in the back half of the quarter, the continued promotional environment, and a much more selective consumer prompted additional markdowns and promotional activity during the back half of the quarter. We expect this to continue at least through the third quarter as we work to reduce our inventory. These promotional efforts, as well as support from our key brand partners, will help us to achieve our goals for inventory reduction. While year-over-year inventory compares, we'll still be volatile due to the challenges in the supply chain during fiscal 23. Our expectations remain the same for our inventory levels. We will have growth in the first half of the year and year-over-year declines in the second half of the year. I'll now hand it over to Bob to cover our financial results.