The Shyft Group, Inc.

Good morning and welcome to the Shift Group's third quarter 2024 conference call and webcast. All participants will be in a listen-only mode until the question and answer session of the conference call. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. I would like now to introduce Randy Wilson, Vice President of Investor Relations and Treasury for the Shift Group. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us. Today, you will hear from John Dunn, President and Chief Executive Officer, and John Duyard, Chief Financial Officer. Their prepared remarks will be followed by a question and answer session. Before we begin, please turn the slide to the presentation for our Safe Harbor Statement. Today's conference call contains forward-looking statements which are subject to risks that could cause actual results to be materially different from those expressed or implied. Primary risks that management believes could materially affect our results are identified in our Forms 10-K and 10-Q filed with the SEC. We will be discussing non-GAAP information and performance measures, which we believe are useful in evaluating the company's operating performance. Reconciliations for these non-GAAP measures can be found in the conference call materials. We will begin with a business overview from our CEO, John Dunn, followed by John Dewyard's review of third-quarter performance and our 2024 outlook. We will then open the line for Q&A. Please turn to slide three, and I'll turn it over to John Dunn, who will begin today's prepared remarks.

Thank you, Randy, and good morning. Welcome to our earnings call, and we appreciate your interest in the SHIFT group. We are pleased with our third quarter performance and encouraged by our margin improvements as we continue to drive operational efficiency and flexibility. I would like to recognize the SHIFT team for their commitment and dedication to delivering improved results. Overall, we've increased adjusted EBITDA by 31% versus the prior year and achieved 10.5% adjusted EBITDA excluding EV spending. Additionally, despite a soft market, our fleet vehicles and services business has expanded margins to 9.3% of sales, demonstrating consistent sequential improvement since the start of the year. We have generated solid cash flow year to date and leveraged the strength of our balance sheet to accelerate our growth as evidenced by the acquisition of independent truck upfitters, expanding our vocational truck products and capabilities. Although ITU is in the initial stages of integration, we are already realizing synergies and seeing additional commercial opportunities. Overall, in the third quarter, we achieved better results and the team is engaged to execute further improvements. Please turn to slide four. Let me take a moment to expand on our progress and highlight SHIFT's journey over my first year as CEO. As a team, we've been focused on creating the foundation to efficiently deploy resources and capital that will deliver shareholder value. This focus includes working together as one shift, investing in our people, driving efficiency in our operations, improving the quality of our products, and enhancing our customer focus. Throughout the year, we highlighted key successes within our operational framework and i would like to reinforce a subset of those accomplishments we focus on making shift a great place to work by strengthening our talent improving leadership training and ensuring safety is at the front and center of everything we do our mission zero safety initiative is showing results we're reducing injuries and eliminating risks as we progress to a zero-injury workplace. We have focused on lean manufacturing and process improvements in our factories, resulting in reduced costs and improved quality. Our progress is evidenced by FES expanding margins year over year, as well as positive customer feedback on our product quality. We have greatly expanded our customer relationships, particularly at the senior levels of shift, and have taken great steps in implementing tools and processes to ensure our sales force is highly effective. We've made solid progress on key strategic initiatives, including a focused Class 4 Blue Arc program, which has transitioned from development into production, and expanding our M&A funnel to allow us to strategically deploy capital and accelerate future growth. In summary, we're fostering collaboration across the company to accelerate decision-making, focus on customers, and improve performance. Our strategic actions are strengthening the company and positioning us for success, ensuring we're well prepared as markets recover. Now let's turn to slide five, and I'll provide a Blue Arc EV update. I'm excited to say that initial production is now underway, and our team is focused on delivering high-quality vehicles to customers by the end of the year. The Blue Arc team has done an incredible job getting us to this milestone, and I want to recognize their accomplishments in delivering a great vehicle. From a commercial perspective, we can now announce further expansion of the Blue Arc dealer network with the addition of Allegiance trucks a leading commercial work truck dealer covering the Northeast United States. We are confident Allegiance will represent BlueArk well, and with this addition, BlueArk now has a robust nationwide dealer and service network. In July, we discussed vehicle demonstrations in the US and Canada. We're pleased to report those trials resulted in a dealer order and also a letter of intent from a key Canadian customer totaling 52 BlueArk vehicles. Our vehicle is currently in pilot with a large parcel customer in the New York Metro area, as well as on the West Coast, with favorable feedback and performance. Overall, we're encouraged by the long-term prospects of BlueArk, and we are actively engaged with customers in continuing to build out the commercial pipeline. However, we remain cautious on the rate of EV adoption as customer purchasing plans are measured in the near term. We continue to efficiently manage the program. And as we discussed in the last call, we are striving for financial breakeven in 2025. To sum it up, this year, a lot has been accomplished. We have focused the program on class four, lowered overall spending, transitioned into production, and positioned Blue Arc to be self-sustaining in the future. Now I'll turn it over to John for a detailed review of our financial results in 2024 outlook.