Staffing 360 Solutions, Inc.

Greetings, everyone, and welcome to the Staffing Solutions 360 Fiscal Q1 2021 Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. And as a reminder, this call is being recorded. This conference call will contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. federal securities law concerning the Staffing 360 Solutions, Inc. The forward-looking statements are subject to a number of significant risks and uncertainties, and our actual results may differ materially. Please refer to the company's filings with the SEC, which contain and identify important risks and other factors that may cause Staffing 360 Solutions' actual results to differ from those contained in our forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are made as of today, May 18, 2021, and Staffing 360 Solutions expressively disclaims any obligation to revise or to update any forward-looking statements after the date of this conference call. During these prepared comments, we may make reference to certain non-GAAP measures, such as adjusted EBITDA, which applicable we have provided reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures. It is now my pleasure to introduce Brendan Flood, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Staffing360 Solutions. Mr. Flood, you may begin.

Thank you, Operator. And thank you to everyone who has joined us for Staffing360's Fiscal Q1 2021 Financial Results Conference Call. I'm joined today by Khaled Anwar, our principal accounting and principal financial officer. I'm delighted to see the progress that is being made in the COVID-19 vaccination efforts in the United States and the United Kingdom. I will continue to stress that the well-being of our staff, contractors, and clients continues to be a key priority. Khaled will provide more depth to our financial results, and then I will provide an update on how we are progressing out of the pandemic and a view on our business outlook. The line will then be open for questions. As outlined in our press release of yesterday, revenue for Q1 2021 was $49 million with gross profit at $8 million. The first quarter of 2020 was the last pre-pandemic quarter and was also the quarter at the end of which the IR35 legislation in the UK was intended to be enacted. Overall, our first quarter revenue was down 16.6% year over year. Excluding the disposed business of First Pro, we saw an 11.3% decline. Gross profit was down 24.7%, or 9.4% excluding the disposal. On a sequential basis, our Q1 revenue was down 9% against Q4, with gross profit down 3.5%. We typically experience a seasonal drop in our commercial staffing revenues in Q1. As mentioned on the year-end conference call, this seasonal drop was not as pronounced as in the past and our professional business dreams continued to grow. Our adjusted EBITDA for Q1 was 1.1 million, which was broadly flat year over year. Q1 is typically our least profitable quarter, and this year the quarter was further impacted by the trailing economic effects of COVID-19. The key challenges that we faced during Q1 related to the delayed implementation of the IR35 tax legislation in the UK, which caused some uncertainty in our client base. Thankfully, this is now behind us and projects can get started. Despite the market uncertainty and the major impacts on both of our US and UK economies, we have used the time prudently to clean up some issues and to put our business on a more solid financial footing. In February, we raised $19.6 million of new equity, which allowed us to further reduce our debt levels. Overall, our debt levels have broadly halved since last summer, and we continue to manage this burden down. We have filed for forgiveness on our Paycheck Protection Program loans of $19.4 million. We've had a number of clarification requests from the Small Business Administration, but we continue to await a determination. I will now hand the call over to Khaled Anwar, our principal financial and accounting officer, for a further update. Khaled?

Thank you, Brendan, and good morning, everyone.