Hooker Furnishings Corporation

Greetings, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Hookah Furnishing Quarterly Investor Conference Call, reporting its operating results for the first quarter of 2023 earnings. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press the start and the 1 key on your touch-tone telephone. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Mr. Paul Huckfeldt, Vice President, Finance, and Chief Financial Officer for Hookah Furnishing Corporation. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Olivia.

Good morning, and welcome to our quarterly conference call to review our results for the fiscal 2023 first quarter, which began January 31st and ended on May 1st, 2022. Joining me this morning is Jeremy Hoff, our Chief Executive Officer. We certainly appreciate your participation today. During our call, we may make forward-looking statements which are subject to risks and uncertainty. Discussion of factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from management's expectations is contained in our press release and SEC filing announcing our fiscal 2023 first quarter results. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of today, and we undertake no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement to reflect events or circumstances after today's call. This morning, we reported consolidated net sales of $147 million, a decrease of $15.5 million, or 9.5%, compared to last year's first quarter, due to sales decreases in the Home Meridian and Hooker branded segments, driven by continued supply chain disruptions. The decreases were partially offset by strong sales in the domestic upholstery segment and the addition of Sunset West sales. The company reported net income of $3.2 million, or $0.26 per diluted share, compared to $9.4 million, or $0.78 per diluted share, a year ago. Now I'll turn the call over to Jeremy to comment on our fiscal 2023 first quarter results.

Thank you, Paul, and good morning, everyone. As we expected and forecasted last quarter, first quarter results continued to be hindered by the slow ramp-up of case goods production capacity in Asia following the factory shutdowns in the second half of last year. Consolidated net sales and earnings decreased on a year-over-year basis. However, they improved compared to an operating loss last quarter and surpassed management's expectations for the quarter. The Asian factory shutdown and lengthy ramp-up reduced the inventory available for direct shipment to customers and reduced our ability to replenish warehouse inventories, which became depleted as the shutdown wore on. At the end of the first quarter in April, Asian case goods production finally reached full capacity, so we expect improving conditions and results to continue. In addition, We have a record amount of inventory in transit now, and a high percentage of it is sold orders that will ship as soon as the shipments arrive in our domestic warehouses. Backlogs remain much higher than pre-pandemic levels, so we believe we will ship well as inventory availability improves. The Home Meridian and Hooker branded segments were most impacted by the factory shutdowns in Vietnam and Malaysia and the resulting sales declines. partially offset by strong sales in the domestic upholstery segment and the addition of the revenues of our newly acquired Sunset West business unit and our quarterly results. Despite continued supply chain disruptions and high transit costs, we are pleased to have started fiscal 23 with historically high backlogs, a leaner portfolio focused on our most profitable channels and products, and with the acquisition of Sunset West, a leading player in the growing outdoor furnishings markets. The integration of Sunset West is going extremely well. Sunset West contributed above expectations to operating profitability this quarter and offers significant long-term growth opportunities in the outdoor furnishings category for Hooker Furnishings. Now I want to turn the discussion over to Paul Huckfeldt, who will discuss highlights for the first quarter in each of our segments.

Thanks, Jeremy. The Hooker branded segment's net sales decreased by 9 million, or 17.5%. compared to the same period a year ago, a decline that was fully driven by case goods inventory unavailability resulting from the temporary factory shutdowns in Vietnam. The temporary halt of production during the summer and early fall of last year resulted in low inventory receipts in the second half of fiscal 22 and this quarter. Lower shipments of hooker case goods were partially offset by increased net sales at the hooker upholstery division due to quicker inventory terms in that division. Thanks to its domestic warehousing business model, Hooker Branded was able to sustain shipments longer, but eventually the strong shipments without sufficient replenishment resulted in depleted inventory. As of May, we are now moving into positive territory as our inventory levels have more than doubled compared to the fiscal year end, with a record amount of inventory in transit from Asia. Additionally, a large percentage of these shipments carry the price increases we implemented in July 2021 to mitigate excess freight and logistics costs. The Hooker branded segment reported $4.1 million of operating income and a 9.8% operating margin for the quarter. Incoming orders in the Hooker branded segment decreased by 13% compared to the prior year quarter when business was dramatically rebounding with exceptionally strong demand after the initial COVID outbreak. However, quarter end backlog was 11% higher than its fiscal 2022 year end and 87% higher than the end of the fiscal 2022 first quarter and has remained at historical highs. Turning now to the home reading segment, net sales decreased in the first quarter by 22 million, or 26%, compared to the prior year period, driven by continued supply chain disruptions and our exit from the unprofitable clubs channel, as well as lower e-commerce sales, reflecting recent trends in that channel. These declines were partially offset by the launch of the Pulaski Upholstery Division and sales increases in our hospitality business. Most shipments carry price increases and freight surcharges, which helped offset the impact of higher freight costs. However, profitability was negatively impacted by higher-than-expected demurrage expense and transition and startup costs at our New Georgia warehouse. We also experienced labor shortages and higher training costs as we bring the Georgia warehouse up to speed. These factors drove the segment's operating loss for the quarter. While disappointing, it was in line with our expectations for the quarter. Order backlogs decreased in the Homeridian segment due to our exit from the clubs channel and adjustments to programmed orders by some large customers. But backlogs are still about 50% higher compared to pre-pandemic levels of early 2020. the domestic upholstery segment continued strong revenue performance with its fifth consecutive quarter of double-digit net sales gains. Net sales in the segment increased by 15.8 million, or 62%, in the fiscal 2022 quarter due to strong sales at Bradenton Young, Sam Moore, and Shenandoah, as well as the addition of Sunset West sales. However, raw material price and cost increases and freight surcharges increased product costs and partially offset some of those gains from increased sales. So while profitability was higher than the same period last year, we were not fully able to leverage those sales increases. Incoming orders decreased by 5.4% compared to the prior year quarter due to current lead times and historically high backlogs. At the end of fiscal 2023 first quarter, the backlog was 18% higher than fiscal 2022 year end and 80% higher than the fiscal 2022 Turning now to cash debt inventory, cash and cash equivalents stood at $10 million at the end of the quarter, down $59 million as compared to the balance at year end due to a $30 million increase in inventory and $26 million spent on the acquisition of Sunset West. At quarter end, inventory stood at $107 million with a record $40 million of inventory at cost in transit to our domestic warehouses. We're experiencing a short-term decline in our cash balance. A very high percentage of this inventory in transit is sold, so we expect to convert much of that inventory to shipments fairly quickly. We expect our cash balances to improve by the end of the quarter and return to normal later this year. Last week, we declared a dividend of $0.20 per share, which represents about a 4.5% dividend yield at our current share price. And this morning, we also reported that our board has approved a share repurchase authorization of up to $20 million. Now I'll turn the discussion back to Jeremy for his output.

Thank you, Paul. We are seeing a leveling off of demand with incoming orders down from the meteoric but unsustainable levels we experienced in the last 18 months. Order rates are stabilizing at above fiscal 2020 levels for most divisions. HMI orders for the quarter were lower than pre-pandemic levels, reflecting our exit from the club's channel and order adjustments from some of our larger customers. Backlogs at all divisions remain sizable and sufficient to support our sales targets for coming quarters. Once we receive all the inventory in transit, we expect to be in a near optimum shipping position throughout the second quarter and will begin to feel the full benefit of Asian production levels being at 100% capacity. We continue to watch inflationary pressures in the economy and believe those are affecting consumers more at the lower price points than at the upper medium and upper price points. We are still optimistic about the housing market's strong levels of employment and having two of the largest generational groups in prime household formation and furniture purchasing years. Our variable cost business model will allow us to adjust to changing economic conditions, and we continue to focus on multiple strategic initiatives to spur organic growth and increase market share. This ends the formal part of our discussion, and at this time, I will turn the call back over to our operator, Libya, for questions.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to ask a question at this time, you will need to press the Start and the 1 key on your touch-tone telephone. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Now, first question coming from the line of Anthony Libesinski with Sodorian Company. Your line is open.

Good morning, and thank you for taking the questions.

Morning, Anthony. Morning, Anthony.

Morning. So, first, just an overall backlog. Can you provide consolidated backlog numbers, what you had at the end of the quarter? How does that compare to

versus a year ago, or maybe two years ago, whatever number you have handy, doesn't quite... Backlog at the end of the first quarter this year was 283 compared to 280 this time last year.

Okay. All right, that's helpful, okay. And in terms of the order cancellations or adjustments, are you only seeing that on the HMI side, or are you seeing anything on the hooker branded or domestic upholstery side of the business?

It's mostly the cancellations have happened on the HMI side and they're mostly orders that are planned much further out. And, you know, so with lead time starting to come down with the, with the productivity overseas changing, that's changing the dynamic of timing of what, what our accounts need on order. So a lot of that is result from that.

Got it. Okay. Thanks, Jeremy. And then for Sunset West, can you share how much revenue was impacted by the acquisition of Sunset West?

One second, Anthony.

Just wanted to get a sense as to what the organic growth was, kind of separating Sunset West.

About $7.5 million.

Gotcha. Okay. Thanks for that. Okay. And then, you know, SG&A was 19% higher than last year in the quarter. Can you just comment as to what drove the increase and how should we think about the SG&A expenses going forward?

Well, you know, of course, lower volume affects that. And the addition of Sunset West certainly drives some of that. And I think we have incurred additional labor costs, bonus accruals. So I think the quarter was pretty typical for spending. As you know, about 5 or so percent of our SG&A is variable. The rest of it's fixed. And I think if you back the 5% of sales out, I think you could probably get a run rate That's pretty normal for the rest of the year.

Okay, got it. Okay, so there weren't any one-off costs as far as associated with the integration of Sunset West that could have maybe caused the SG&A to be up higher?

Other than the addition of Sunset West, and of course, I think last year we reversed a bonus accrual in the first quarter. That was half a million dollars. So nothing major. I mean, like I said, I think if you backed out or adjusted for the variable portion of SG&A, this is probably a normal run rate.

Got it. Okay. Thanks for that. And I have a couple more questions here. So, you know, as we look forward, particularly for the second half of the year, you will face rather easy year-over-year comparisons, and specifically for HMI, I mean, that was, as you guys know, severely hurt last year because of the shutdowns in Vietnam. So, in theory, that should help the second half this year, but then you guys also talked about seeing some pressure on the lower-end consumer, which is understandable. So, kind of given the various puts and takes, you know, how should we think about, specifically HMI, sales and profitability for the back half of the year? Just kind of directionally, how should we think about that?

Anthony, I'll answer that. We like our opportunity at HMI mainly because the massive amount of things we had to both get out of, so when you look at the RTA cost, you look at the club's cost, you look at all the things that I would call massive headwinds, we feel like we eliminated a lot of those things and a lot of those things that could surprise us. And so, you know, right now it's really a matter of managing our day-to-day business and making sure, you know, some of the inefficiencies from a newer warehouse in Savannah and some things like that don't bite us. But these major things we had last year, we're feeling pretty good about the runway we have versus last year.

Okay. That's great to hear. Okay, and then the other thing I wanted to ask is in the release you talked about focusing on multiple strategic initiatives to spur organic growth and increase market share. Can you further expand on that as to what you guys are planning to do to help us think about as far as updating our models and so on? What are your thoughts there as far as the strategic initiatives?

Yeah, sure. I touched on it some last call as well. One of the big initiatives that we're working on at HMI is a program called Portfolio. It's a program designed to really target thousands of more customers in that customer base versus But we like our customer base now from a mega customer base standpoint. It can be very project oriented. It's with a lot of major customers. But if you take that down a level or two, there's a lot of opportunity for HMI to sell into a much deeper audience, which includes really utilizing the Savannah warehouse. It also would help us with more e-commerce business with having that inventory in Savannah. It would help us with selling the interior design channel as well. So doing all those things should help us mid to longer term, both grow our customer base, grow our revenues, and expand our margins. So that's a major one, and it's a big play for us at HMI that's going to play out longer, but that's definitely something we're launching in October, and we're preparing for that now. So that's one example. Another example, is when we get to april of fiscal 24 market hooker legacy the entire hooker hooker legacy company is moving showrooms to showplace which is we feel like it'll give us probably somewhere in the level of 10 times more exposure to you know a different audience and interior designers will still see all of our customers that we see now but we think we can really increase that footprint as well, not to mention all of the aesthetics advantages that we're going to have with natural lighting and the things to show furniture properly that we get in that building versus being on the 10th floor where we are, where there's candidly one window. So it's a major difference in a lot of ways that we feel will incrementally grow our sales in the different companies within Hooker Legacy. Got it, yeah. Vegas coming up sooner.

Gotcha, okay. All right, yeah, thanks for that additional color. And then I guess, you know, lastly, I guess it's more of a comment than a question, but, you know, the share buyback announcement certainly makes a lot of sense to me here. I mean, as far as when you guys would potentially start buying, any sort of comment that you, can you share with us as far as, you know, the buyback program?

Not a lot we're going to share, but... It should start in the next week or two, in the next couple weeks. There's some administrative work to be done to get that in place. It's an open authorization, and we'll have a 10b-5 claim in place to make purchases as per our instructions. I think we feel like our shares are undervalued, and if we think it's a good use of our capital at this point, that's probably... you know, continuing to pay the dividend and now doing the share repurchase. That right now is our entire capital allocation strategy.

Got it. Okay. Well, it definitely makes a lot of sense. So, well, thank you very much and best of luck.

Thank you, Anthony. Thanks, Anthony.

And as a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, please press star one. And our next question coming from the line of Sandy Mita with Evaluate Research, your line is open.

Yes, good morning. Can you provide a little bit more commentary on the price increases? How much have you increased prices? I know you said that there's a little bit more impact on the lower end of the market than the higher end. And also, the second question is that now that home prices seem to be leveling off, does that give people more discretionary funds that they can spend on furniture? Or does that reflect just a little bit of the overall cooling off of the housing market? Thank you.

Good morning, Sandy. This is Jeremy. Regarding the first part of your question, the price increases weren't more significant in the lower price points of our company. I was saying that the demand difference currently has affected lower price points more than it has affected affected the upper price points. So, I wanted to make that distinction. Also, as far as you really have to go through all 12 businesses to get an understanding of where each one had to price differently based on the conditions that it had to meet. So, for example, Hooker Branded, which is Hooker Case Goods, Hooker Upholstery, a major part of those price increases have to do with freight and all the transit costs that have gone up so significantly. So if you take that out of those price increases, that's probably in the neighborhood of 65% of the increases have actually been related to freight. On that side of the business, if you go into the domestic upholstery, They've been going up, of course, because we have responsibility for raw materials and all the things that you need to build furniture. We own those factories. So we obviously had to go up at the levels of those materials going up. So, Paul, I would say you could estimate that was in kind of the 8% to 10% range for domestic upholstery. And then on the HMI side, being that most of their business, 70% to 80% of their business is direct container. where a lot of our customers have their contracts for their freight, we're not really responsible for most of the freight on that side of the company. So we increase the level needed for factory price increases from our suppliers. So it's really three different stories. Regarding your housing question, first of all, I'm not going to pretend that I know the answer to that. I mean, your guess might be as good as mine, but we like the dynamics. We know that there's a backlog of homes still. We know that there's consumers still wanting to buy homes. And we know that that's an advantage to us when it happens. So, you know, we still feel pretty good about all of that. Of course, the interest rates are concerning, keep going up, the inflation, all those things happening. But we still have quite a bit of confidence from watching the housing market. Even if it slows down, it's still way ahead of where it was fiscal 19.

We feel like whenever there's a disruption, you know, interest rates go up or, you know, some of that news comes out. I think, you know, because housing is such a big purchase, I think it tends to cause consumers to pause. But longer-term media is still there. So, you know, we feel good about that. I mean, obviously, it's all predicated on our economy holding up. But we feel like housing demand is still really positive for the mid to longish kind of term.

Great. Thank you so much.

You're welcome. Thank you.

And I am showing no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the call back over to Mr. Jeremy Huff for any closing remarks.

Thank you, Olivia. I would like to thank everyone on the call for their interest in hooker furnishings. We look forward to sharing our fiscal 23 second quarter results in September. Take care.

Ladies and gentlemen, that's our conference for today. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm

Greetings, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Hookah Furnishing Quarterly Investor Conference Call, reporting its operating results for the first quarter of 2023 earnings. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press the star, then the one key on your touch-tone telephone. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Mr. Paul Huffield, Vice President, Finance, and Chief Financial Officer for Hookah Furnishing Corporation. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Olivia. Good morning, and welcome to our quarterly conference call to review our results for the fiscal 2023 first quarter, which began January 31st and ended on May 1st, 2022. Joining me this morning is Jeremy Hoff, our Chief Executive Officer. We certainly appreciate your participation today. During our call, we may make forward-looking statements which are subject to risks and uncertainty. A discussion of factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from management's expectations is contained in our press release and SEC filing announcing our fiscal 2023 first quarter results. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of today, and we undertake no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement to reflect events or circumstances after today's call. This morning we reported consolidated net sales of 147 million, a decrease of 15.5 million or 9.5% compared to last year's first quarter due to sales decreases in the Home Meridian and Hooker branded segments driven by continued supply chain disruptions. The decreases were partially offset by strong sales in the domestic upholstery segment and the addition of Sunset West sales. The company reported net income of 3.2 million or 26 cents per diluted share compared to 9.4 million or 78 cents per diluted share a year ago. Now I'll turn the call over to Jeremy to comment on our fiscal 2023 first quarter results.

Thank you, Paul, and good morning, everyone. As we expected and forecasted last quarter, first quarter results continued to be hindered by the slow ramp up of case goods production capacity in Asia following the factory shutdowns in the second half of last year. Consolidated net sales and earnings decreased on a year-over-year basis However, they improved compared to an operating loss last quarter and surpassed management's expectations for the quarter. The Asian factory shutdown and lengthy ramp-up reduced the inventory available for direct shipment to customers and reduced our ability to replenish warehouse inventories, which became depleted as the shutdown wore on. At the end of the first quarter in April, Asian case goods production finally reached full capacity, so we expect improving conditions and results to continue. In addition, we have a record amount of inventory in transit now, and a high percentage of it is sold orders that will ship as soon as the shipments arrive in our domestic warehouses. Backlogs remain much higher than pre-pandemic levels, so we believe we will ship well as inventory availability improves. The Home Meridian and Hooker branded segments were most impacted by the factory shutdowns in Vietnam and Malaysia and the resulting sales declines. partially offset by strong sales in the domestic upholstery segment and the addition of the revenues of our newly acquired Sunset West business unit and our quarterly results. Despite continued supply chain disruptions and high transit costs, we are pleased to have started fiscal 23 with historically high backlogs, a leaner portfolio focused on our most profitable channels and products, and with the acquisition of Sunset West, a leading player in the growing outdoor furnishings markets. The integration of Sunset West is going extremely well. Sunset West contributed above expectations to operating profitability this quarter and offers significant long-term growth opportunities in the outdoor furnishings category for Hooker Furnishings. Now I want to turn the discussion over to Paul Huckfeldt, who will discuss highlights for the first quarter in each of our segments.

Thanks, Jeremy. The Hooker branded segment's net sales decreased by 9 million, or 17.5%. compared to the same period a year ago, a decline that was fully driven by case goods inventory unavailability resulting from the temporary factory shutdowns in Vietnam. The temporary halt of production during the summer and early fall of last year resulted in low inventory receipts in the second half of fiscal 22 and this quarter. Lower shipments of hooker case goods were partially offset by increased net sales at the hooker upholstery division due to quicker inventory terms in that Thanks to its domestic warehousing business model, Hooker Branded was able to sustain shipments longer, but eventually the strong shipments without sufficient replenishment resulted in depleted inventory. As of May, we are now moving into positive territory as our inventory levels have more than doubled compared to the fiscal year end, with a record amount of inventory in transit from Asia. Additionally, a large percentage of these shipments carry the price increases we implemented in July 2021 to mitigate excess freight and logistics costs. The Hooker branded segment reported $4.1 million of operating income and a 9.8% operating margin for the quarter. Incoming orders in the Hooker branded segment decreased by 13% compared to the prior year quarter when business was dramatically rebounding with exceptionally strong demand after the initial COVID outbreak. However, quarter end backlog was 11% higher than its fiscal 2022 year end and 87% higher than the end of the fiscal 2022 first quarter and has remained at historical highs. Turning now to the home reading segment, net sales decreased in the first quarter by 22 million, or 26%, compared to the prior year period, driven by continued supply chain disruptions and our exit from the unprofitable clubs channel, as well as lower e-commerce sales, reflecting recent trends in that channel. These declines were partially offset by the launch of the Pulaski Upholstery Division and sales increases in our hospitality business. Most shipments carry price increases and freight surcharges, which helped offset the impact of higher freight costs. However, profitability was negatively impacted by higher-than-expected demurrage expense and transition and startup costs at our new Georgia warehouses. We also experienced labor shortages and higher training costs as we bring the Georgia warehouse up to speed. These factors drove the segment's operating loss for the quarter. While disappointing, it was in line with our expectations for the quarter. Order backlogs decreased in the Home Meridian segment due to our exit from the clubs channel and adjustments to programmed orders by some large customers. But backlogs are still about 50% higher compared to pre-pandemic levels of early 2020. the domestic upholstery segment continued strong revenue performance with its fifth consecutive quarter of double-digit net sales gains. Net sales in the segment increased by 15.8 million, or 62%, in the fiscal 2022 quarter due to strong sales at Bradenton Young, Sam Moore, and Shenandoah, as well as the addition of Sunset West sales. However, raw material price and cost increases and freight surcharges increased product costs and partially offset some of those gains from increased sales. So while profitability was higher than the same period last year, we were not fully able to leverage those sales increases. Incoming orders decreased by 5.4% compared to the prior year quarter due to current lead times and historically high backlogs. At the end of fiscal 2023 first quarter, the backlog was 18% higher than fiscal 2022 year end and 80% higher than fiscal 2022 Turning now to cash debt inventory, cash and cash equivalent stood at $10 million at the end of the quarter, down $59 million as compared to the balance at year end due to a $30 million increase in inventory and $26 million spent on the acquisition of Sunset West. At quarter end, inventory stood at $107 million with a record $40 million of inventory at cost in transit to our domestic warehouses. We're experiencing a short-term decline in our cash balance. A very high percentage of this inventory in transit is sold, so we expect to convert much of that inventory to shipments fairly quickly. We expect our cash balances to improve by the end of the quarter and return to normal later this year. Last week, we declared a dividend of $0.20 per share, which represents about a 4.5% dividend yield at our current share price. And this morning, we also reported that our board has approved a share repurchase authorization of up to $20 million. Now I'll turn the discussion back to Jeremy for his output.

Thank you, Paul. We are seeing a leveling off of demand with incoming orders down from the meteoric but unsustainable levels we experienced in the last 18 months. Order rates are stabilizing at above fiscal 2020 levels for most divisions. HMI orders for the quarter were lower than pre-pandemic levels, reflecting our exit from the club's channel and order adjustments from some of our larger customers. Backlogs at all divisions remain sizable and sufficient to support our sales targets for coming quarters. Once we receive all the inventory in transit, we expect to be in a near optimum shipping position throughout the second quarter and will begin to feel the full benefit of Asian production levels being at 100% capacity. We continue to watch inflationary pressures in the economy and believe those are affecting consumers more at the lower price points than at the upper medium and upper price points. We are still optimistic about the housing market's strong levels of employment and having two of the largest generational groups in prime household formation and furniture purchasing years. Our variable cost business model will allow us to adjust to changing economic conditions, and we continue to focus on multiple strategic initiatives to spur organic growth and increase market share. This ends the formal part of our discussion, and at this time, I will turn the call back over to our operator, Libya, for questions.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to ask a question at this time, you will need to press the Start and the 1 key on your touch-tone telephone. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Now, first question coming from the line of Anthony Libesinski with Sodorian Company. Your line is open.

Good morning, and thank you for taking the questions.

Morning, Anthony. Morning, Anthony.

Morning. So, first, just an overall backlog. Can you provide consolidated backlog numbers, what you had at the end of the quarter? How does that compare to versus a year ago, or maybe two years ago, whatever number you have handy, doesn't great.

Backlog at the end of the first quarter this year was 283, compared to 280 this time last year.

Okay, that's helpful, okay. And in terms of the water cancellations or adjustments, are you only seeing that on the HMI side, or are you seeing anything on the hooker-branded or domestic upholstery side of the business?

Mostly the cancellations have happened on the HMI side, and they're mostly orders that are planned much further out. And, you know, so with lead time starting to come down, with the productivity overseas changing, that's changing the dynamic of timing of what our accounts need on order. So a lot of that is a result from that.

Got it. Okay. Thanks, Jeremy. And then for Sunset West, can you share how much revenue was impacted by the acquisition of Sunset West?

One second, Anthony.

Just wanted to get a sense as to what the organic growth was kind of separating Sunset West.

about $7.5 million.

Gotcha. Okay. Thanks for that. Okay. And then, you know, SG&A was 19% higher than last year in the quarter. Can you just comment as to what drove the increase and how should we think about the SG&A expenses going forward?

Well, you know, of course, lower volume affects that. And the addition of Sunset West certainly drives some of that. And I think we have incurred additional labor costs, bonus accruals. So I think the quarter was pretty typical for spending. As you know, about 5% or so of our SG&A is variable. The rest of it is fixed. And I think if you back the 5% of sales out, I think you could probably get a run rate. That's pretty normal for the rest of the year.

Okay, got it. Okay, so there weren't any one-off costs as far as associated with the integration of Sunset West that could have maybe caused the SG&A to be up higher?

Other than the addition of Sunset West, and of course, I think last year we reversed a bonus accrual in the first quarter. That was half a million dollars. So nothing major. Like I said, I think if you backed out or adjusted for the variable portion of SG&A, this is probably a normal run rate.

Got it. Okay. Thanks for that. And I have a couple more questions here. So as we look forward, particularly for the second half of the year, you will face rather easy year-over-year comparisons, and specifically for HMI. I mean, that was, as you guys know, severely hurt last year because of the shutdowns in Vietnam. So, in theory, that should help the second half this year, but then you guys also talked about seeing some pressure on the lower-end consumer, which is understandable. So, kind of given the various puts and takes, you know, how should we think about specifically HMI and sales and profitability for the back half of the year? Just kind of directionally, how should we think about that?

Anthony, I'll answer that. We like our opportunity at HMI mainly because the massive amount of things we had to both get out of, so when you look at the RTA cost, you look at the club's cost, you look at all the things that I would call massive headwinds, we feel like we eliminated a lot of those and a lot of those things that could surprise us. And so, you know, right now it's really a matter of managing our day-to-day business and making sure, you know, some of the inefficiencies from a newer warehouse in Savannah and some things like that don't bite us. But these major things we had last year, we're feeling pretty good about the runway we have versus last year.

Okay. That's great to hear. Yeah. Okay, and then the other thing I wanted to ask is in the release you talked about focusing on multiple strategic initiatives to spur organic growth and increase market share. Can you further expand on that as to what you guys are planning to do to help us think about as far as updating our models and so on? What are your thoughts there as far as the strategic initiatives?

Yeah, sure. I touched on it some last call as well. One of the big initiatives that we're working on at HMI is a program called Portfolio. It's a program designed to really target thousands of more customers in that customer base versus But we like our customer base now from a mega customer base standpoint. It can be very project oriented. It's with a lot of major customers. But if you take that down a level or two, there's a lot of opportunity for HMI to sell into a much deeper audience, which includes really utilizing the Savannah warehouse. It also would help us with more e-commerce business with having that inventory in Savannah and It would help us with selling the interior design channel as well. So doing all those things should help us mid to longer term, both grow our customer base, grow our revenues, and expand our margins. So that's a major one, and it's a big play for us at HMI that's going to play out longer, but that's definitely something we're launching in October, and we're preparing for that now. So that's one example. Another example, is when we get to April of fiscal 24 market, Hooker Legacy, the entire Hooker Legacy company is moving showrooms to Showplace, which is, we feel like it'll give us probably somewhere in the level of 10 times more exposure to a different audience and interior designers. We'll still see all of our customers that we see now, but we think we can really increase that footprint as well, not to mention all of the aesthetics advantages that we're going to have with natural lighting and the things to show furniture properly that we get in that building versus being on the 10th floor where we are, where there's candidly one window. So it's a major difference in a lot of ways that we feel will incrementally grow our sales in the different companies within Hooker Legacy. Got it. Vegas coming up sooner.

Gotcha. Okay. All right, yeah, thanks for that additional color. And then I guess, you know, lastly, I guess it's more of a comment than a question, but, you know, the share buyback announcement certainly makes a lot of sense to me here. I mean, as far as when you guys would potentially start buying, any sort of comment that you can share with us as far as, you know, the buyback program?

Not a lot we're going to share, but... It should start in the next week or two, in the next couple weeks. There's some administrative work to be done to get that in place. It's an open authorization, and we'll have a 10b-5 claim in place to make purchases as per our instructions. I think we feel like our shares are undervalued, and if we think it's a good use of our capital at this point, that's probably you know, continuing to pay the dividend and now doing the share repurchase. That right now is our entire capital allocation strategy.

Got it. Okay. Well, it definitely makes a lot of sense. So, well, thank you very much and best of luck.

Thank you, Anthony. Thanks, Anthony.

And as a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, please press star 1. And our next question coming from the line of Sandy Mehta with Evaluate Research, your line is open.

Yes, good morning. Can you provide a little bit more commentary on the price increases? How much have you increased prices? I know you said that there's a little bit more impact on the lower end of the market than the higher end. And also, the second question is that now that home prices seem to be leveling off, does that give people more discretionary funds that they can spend on furniture? Or does that reflect just a little bit, you know, the overall cooling off of the housing market? Thank you.

Good morning, Sandy. This is Jeremy. Regarding the first part of your question, the price increases weren't more significant in the lower price points of our company. I was saying that the demand difference currently has affected low it affected the upper price points. So, I wanted to make that distinction. Also, as far as you really have to go through all 12 businesses to get an understanding of where each one had to price differently based on the conditions that it had to meet. So, for example, Hooker Branded, which is Hooker Case Goods, Hooker Upholstery, a major part of those price increases have to do with freight and all the transit costs that have gone up so significantly. So if you take that out of those price increases, that's probably in the neighborhood of 65% of the increases have actually been related to freight. On that side of the business, if you go into the domestic upholstery sector, They've been going up, of course, because we have responsibility for raw materials and all the things that you need to build furniture. We own those factories. We obviously had to go up at the levels of those materials going up. Paul, I would say you could estimate that was in the 8% to 10% range for domestic upholstery. Then on the HMI side, being that most of their business, 70% to 80% of their business is direct container— where a lot of our customers have their contracts for their freight, we're not really responsible for most of the freight on that side of the company. So we increase the level needed for factory price increases from our suppliers. So it's really three different stories. Regarding your housing question, first of all, I'm not going to pretend that I know the answer to that. I mean, your guess might be as good as mine, but we like the dynamics. We know that there's a backlog of homes still. We know that there's consumers still wanting to buy homes. And we know that that's an advantage to us when it happens. So, you know, we still feel pretty good about all of that. Of course, the interest rates are concerning, keep going up, the inflation, all those things happening. But we still have quite a bit of confidence from watching the housing market. Even if it slows down, it's still way ahead of where it was fiscal 19.

We feel like whenever there's a disruption, you know, interest rates go up or, you know, some of that news comes out, I think, you know, because housing is such a big purchase, I think it tends to cause consumers to pause. But longer-term media is still there. So, you know, we feel good about that. I mean, obviously, it's all predicated on our economy holding up. But we feel like housing demand is still really positive for the mid to longish kind of term.

Great. Thank you so much.

You're welcome. Thank you.

And I am showing no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the call back over to Mr. Jeremy Huff for any closing remarks.

Thank you, Olivia. I would like to thank everyone on the call for their interest in hooker furnishings. We look forward to sharing our fiscal 23 second quarter results in September. Take care.

Ladies and gentlemen, that's our conference for today. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.