Monro, Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Monroe, Inc.' 's earnings conference call for the first quarter of fiscal 2022. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session, and instructions will follow at that time. If anyone should require assistance during the call, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. And as a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, this conference call is being recorded and may not be reproduced in whole or in part without permission from the company. I would now like to introduce Ms. Maureen Mulholland, Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer at Monroe. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us on this morning's call. Before we get started, please note that as part of this call, we will be referencing a presentation that is available on the Investors section of our website at corporate.monroe.com forward slash investors.com. forward slash investor dash resources. If I could draw your attention to the safe harbor statement on slide two, I'd like to remind participants that our presentation includes some forward-looking statements about Monroe's future performance. Actual results may differ materially from those suggested by our comments today. The most significant factors that could affect future results are outlined in Monroe's filings with the SEC and in our earnings release. and includes a significant uncertainty relating to the duration and scope of the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on our customers, executive officers, and employees. The company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by law. Additionally, on today's call, Management statements include a discussion of certain non-GAAP financial measures, which are intended to supplement and not to be substitutes for comparable GAAP measures. Reconciliations of such supplemental information to the comparable GAAP measures will be included as part of today's presentation and in our earnings release. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to our President and Chief Executive Officer, Mike Broderick. Mike?

Thank you, Maureen. And good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us. We had a great start to the new fiscal year with top line performance above pre-pandemic levels. We delivered double-digit comparable store sales growth across all our regions and categories, driven by strong demand, progress on our in-store operational excellence initiatives, and consistent execution across the entire organization. Over the last few months, I've enjoyed diving into the business with the support of our senior leadership team and getting to know our teammates better. I would like to thank them for their outstanding efforts and continued dedication to our customers. Turning to slide three, while we are not completely out of the COVID tunnel, we are encouraged by our strong fiscal first quarter performance and our outlook for the remainder of the year. Our first quarter performance reflects higher traffic and higher average ticket sales compared to the same period last year. Importantly, we exited the first quarter with strong momentum in our fiscal second quarter to date with comps up approximately 15% in fiscal July compared to comps down 12% in the same period last year. This represents an acceleration from June and we are encouraged to see comparable store sales levels trending above pre-COVID performance. We're seeing continued improvements in vehicle miles driven as more consumers start to reengage in their daily activities and commute miles return. We are particularly encouraged to see oil change customers starting to migrate back to our full service offering. Additionally, consumers are holding onto their cars longer as evidenced by lower new car sales. which means they continue to invest in their vehicles. As a best-in-class service provider, we believe we are well positioned to capitalize on these favorable trends and the strengthening demand environment. Moving on to slide four, we have a clear path forward, and our teammates will be the key enabler for us to realize the full potential of our growth strategy. Operational excellence starts with our teammates. And we're committed to investing in our people to drive an engaged, inclusive, and high-performing team. It is our goal to be the employer of choice in the automotive service industry. And our deep bench of talented technicians is paramount to our success as an organization. To ensure that we attract and retain the best talent, we offer career advancement and a robust curriculum with our online training platform, Monroe University. We also provide our technicians with the automotive service excellence certification to advance their technical skill set and support their career growth while increasing productivity and ensuring top quality service for our customers. Our continued investment in highly trained and certified technicians is a key tenant of our employer value proposition and an important differentiator in the industry. Since the beginning of fiscal 22, we have continued to hire new technicians to match the surge in customer demand and to ensure we have optimal staffing levels in our stores to meet the continued growth in our service categories going forward. In addition, we've recently added two industry veterans to our leadership team, Matt Henson as our new Chief Human Resource Officer and David Nichols as our Senior Vice President of Marketing and Category Management. Matt brings broad experience in leading large-scale performance-driven teams and will focus on advancing our vision to be a best-in-class field-led service organization. David will focus on enhancing Monroe's brand position in the communities in which we serve and support our strategic customer-focused initiatives as we aim to be our customers' number one choice for automotive services. With the continued support of our board of directors, I am committed to ensuring the continuity of Monroe's growth and transformation strategy through our Monroe Forward initiatives. In fact, my conviction has only grown stronger over the past few months that we have the right strategy for our organization. Our top priority now is to bring these initiatives to life in every store, for every guest, and for every teammate. At the heart of this strategy is our customer-centric approach and the Monroe way of serving our communities. We are focused on bringing customers the professionalism and high-quality service they expect from a national retailer with the convenience and trust of a neighborhood garage. When new customers visit our stores, our technicians are able to inspect their vehicles and provide them with a clear understanding of their vehicle needs. This complimentary inspection gives us the opportunity to recommend other needed services to the customer and perform these services during the current or future visits. Our objective is to build a lifetime relationship with our customer from their first visit to our store through the entire life cycle of their car service journey. Turning to slide five. In addition to supporting our Monroe Ford initiatives, our strong cash flow and solid financial position affords us the opportunity to take advantage of strategic and value-accretive consolidation opportunities in our fragmented industry. We closed the acquisition of the Mountain View Tire and Service in April, further solidifying our footprint in the western region with 30 retail stores in the Los Angeles area. We have been focused on seamlessly integrating this acquisition and are pleased with the contribution to date. Strategically located acquisitions at attractive valuations remain a cornerstone of our growth strategy. We have a robust acquisition pipeline and are well positioned to take advantage of the many opportunities for consolidation in our industry. We are excited about our growth prospects in the attractive and dynamic Western region, and as previously mentioned, We will also leverage green fields to fill out our footprint and optimize store density where needed. Our scalable platform allows us to quickly build new stores to meet our target customers where they are while leveraging our playbook to ensure a consistently high quality experience in each store. We have opened six green fields during the past year and a half and are currently considering several additional opportunities in markets where we are underpenetrated. In summary, we delivered outstanding performance this quarter and see a number of opportunities for both top line and margin expansion going forward. From a top line perspective, we believe we can drive higher traffic to our stores as vehicles mile driven improves. In addition, as we continue to drive stronger performance in our service categories, we also expect our sales mix to favorably impact our margins. As we look forward on our customers, teammates, and in-store execution will be the key drivers to realize the full potential of our Monroe Forward strategy. We will invest in our people who will be critical in our success through the next phase of our transformation. We will focus on advancing our vision to be a best-in-class, field-led service organization to increase the overall lifetime value to our customers and stakeholders. Lastly, our steadfast commitment to drive strong cash flow will allow us to continue to invest in attractive acquisitions and greenfield expansion opportunities to build a strong, scalable platform for sustainable growth. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Brian, who will provide an overview of Monroe's first quarter performance and strong financial position. Brian.