PriceSmart, Inc.

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to PriceMort Incorporated's Earnings Release Conference Call for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2023, which ended on August 31, 2023. After remarks from our company's representative, Robert Price, Interim Chief Executive Officer, and Michael McCleary, Chief Financial Officer, you will be given an opportunity to ask questions as time permits. As a reminder, This conference call is limited to one hour and is being recorded today, Tuesday, October 31, 2023. A digital replay will be available following the conclusion of today's conference call through November 7, 2023, by dialing 877-877-8000. For opening remarks, I would like to turn the call over to Price Mart's Chief Financial Officer, Michael McCleary. Please proceed, sir.

Thank you, Operator, and welcome to PriceMart, Inc.' 's earnings call for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2023, which ended on August 31, 2023. We will be discussing the information that we provided in our earnings press release and our 10-K, which were both released yesterday afternoon, October 30, 2023. Also in these remarks, we refer to non-GAAP financial measures. You can find a reconciliation of our non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures in our earnings press release and our 10-K. These documents are available on our investor relations website at investors.pricemark.com, where you can also sign up for email alerts. As a reminder, all statements made on this conference call, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements concerning the company's anticipated plans, revenues, and related matters. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements containing the words expect, believe, plan, will, may, should, estimate, and some other expressions. All forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and assumptions as of today, October 31st, 2023. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially, including the risks detailed in the company's most recent annual report on Form 10-K and other filings with the SEC, which are accessible on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. These risks may be updated from time to time. The company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements made during this call. Now I will turn the call over to Robert Price, Pricemart's Interim Chief Executive Officer.

Thank you, Michael. I would like to begin by expressing my sincere thanks and appreciation to our more than 11,000 employees for their amazing dedication and hard work. Our Chief Financial Officer, Michael, will soon provide a detailed narrative for our fourth quarter and full year results. And I'm going to make a few comments in advance of his remarks. In spite of the two non-recurring expense charges during the fourth quarter, the write-off of our investment in the Trinidad packaging plant, and the settlement of a tax dispute, our company had a very strong fourth quarter. The fundamentals of our business are sound. Good growth in sales, an improved expense ratio, a strong cash position, and a much improved inventory and accounts payable compared to a year ago. For the full year FY 2023, our management team delivered a solid financial performance. Pricemart has three really significant assets that provide an optimistic outlook for the future of our company. One is our employee team, 11,000 dedicated and knowledgeable people who know the club business and know our markets. The second asset is our members, over 1.8 million accounts and over 3 million cardholders. The third asset is Price Mart's good name in the region where we operate. We are determined to leverage these assets in order to strengthen the value of the Price Mart membership. While continuing to improve our merchandise offering, we have added a strong representation of health services and online shopping, which is increasingly important to our members. We continue to grow our business-to-business sales segment to fulfill an important opportunity in our markets. I would like to conclude my remarks with a thank you to our shareholders. Now Michael will provide more detailed comments on our financial results.