Summer Infant, Inc.

Good morning and welcome to the Summer Brands Third Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Chris Witte, the investor relations advisor. Please go ahead.

Hello, and welcome to the Summer Brands 2021 third quarter conference call. With me on the call today is the company's CEO, Stuart Noyes, and interim CFO, Bruce Meyer. I would now like to provide a brief safe harbor statement. This call may include forward-looking statements that relate to Summer Brands' outlook for 2021 and beyond. These forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and events to differ materially from these statements. Please refer to the risk factors contained in the company's annual report on Form 10-K, its quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, and in our other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. During the call, management may make references to adjusted EBITDA, adjusted net income, and adjusted earnings per share. These metrics are non-GAAP financial measures, which the company believes help investors gain a meaningful understanding of changes in summer brands' operations. For more information on non-GAAP financial measures, please see the table for a reconciliation of GAAP results to non-GAAP measures included in the company's financial release issued yesterday evening. And with that, I'd like to turn the call over to Stuart Noyes.

Stuart? Thanks, Chris, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining our third quarter conference call today. I'll start by providing an overview of recent developments, after which Bruce will go through our financial results in detail. When we last spoke, the team and I were very clear on the issues facing summer brands, which were those being faced by the entire industry. There was really nothing operationally specific to us as a company, but rather involved supply chain challenges impacting thousands of organizations around the globe. affecting product availability as well as driving up our costs. As I'm sure our listeners are aware, these factors have not gone away. However, I'm pleased that our team, to the best of their ability, have proven adept at managing through this difficult situation. Their work has, at a minimum, increased inventory levels and gotten more product into the hands of our consumers, who continue to exhibit high demand for many of our core category offerings. Net sales rose to 41.6 million this quarter versus 40.7 million a year ago, and a significant improvement over the second quarter's 30.6 million. Even with ongoing supply chain disruptions and resurgent pandemic-related restrictions, we were also successful in shifting certain domestic sales to direct import, avoiding some of the logistical bottlenecks the company otherwise experienced. We posted earnings of 12 cents per share and adjusted EBITDA up 2.4 million. Again, a substantial improvement over quarter two results, excluding the benefit from the PPP loan forgiveness. Many of our categories saw solid demand during the quarter with revenue growth across gates, bathers, entertainers, specialty blankets, strollers, and boosters. While we would have liked to ship more product, Revenue through the company's top customers, particularly through e-commerce channels, remained strong. Bottom line results were once again negatively impacted by higher freight expense and in some areas increased raw material costs. We're doing everything that we can control to mitigate these issues and raise prices when possible to offset the additional expense. Container rates continue to be unusually high and hard to forecast, but we are aggressively seeking out opportunities to ship greater volumes when possible, use alternative routes when available, and ship more product through our direct import channels. All of these actions have positively impacted our results this quarter, and we anticipate will again help in quarter four. As with last quarter, we simply have more demand than we can satisfy. And the reality is that we cannot say that current supply chain bottlenecks appear to be subsiding. However, we are working hard to overcome various parts of this puzzle to build a better level of inventory available for sale. While in transit products are a higher than normal percentage of the total inventory at this time, we are at times seeing improvement in the supply chain, but cannot say with certainty if this is temporary or not. As Bruce will review further in a moment, We took on debt this quarter to handle working capital issues and ensure we had inventory on hand. This does not mean that we are taking our eye off the balance sheet. Rather, we are doing what is necessary to grow the company out of this current predicament. We remain dedicated to keeping debt levels low and de-levering the balance sheet when possible. In the current environment, while cautiously optimistic, we will remain vigilant. in operating summer brands as efficiently as possible. Before turning the call over to Bruce, let me add that our pet expansion is on track for launch next year, and we continue to believe that these additions to our product portfolio will help strengthen our overall market presence, as well as open up new avenues of growth to the company. Our product and marketing teams are focused on creating new, innovative products, broadening the depth and breadth of our brands in increasing consumer demand. I feel optimistic about 2022, given the strategic plans we've implemented and our ability to execute on this vision. I'd once again like to thank our investors for their steadfast support over the past year. While we could not have predicted the supply chain inefficiencies, never mind the pandemic, our results have been a disappointment just as we were at the point of taking summer to the next level in terms of growth in operating performance. That said, I am very proud of the team at the company and what they've been able to accomplish during an extreme and unusual circumstance. With that, I'll turn it over to Bruce to review our financial results in detail. Bruce?