Stran & Company, Inc.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Strand & Company Third Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode. If you have any questions or comments during the presentation, you may press star 1 on your phone to enter the question queue at any time, and we will open the floor for your questions and comments after the presentation. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Allie Schilt, Vice President of Crescendo Communications. Ma'am, the floor is yours.

Thank you. Good morning and thank you for joining Strawn & Company's 2022 Third Quarter Financial Results and Business Update conference call. On the call with us today are Andy Shape, Chief Executive Officer, and David Browner, Interim Chief Financial Officer. The company issued a press release today, November 14, 2022, containing its third quarter financial results, which is also posted on the company's website. If you have any questions after the call or would like any additional information about the company, please contact Crescendo Communications at 212-671-1020. The company's management will now provide prepared remarks reviewing the financial and operational results for the three months ended September 30th, 2022. Before we get started, we'd like to remind everyone that during this conference call, We may make forward-looking statements regarding timing and financial impact of Strong's ability to implement its business plan, expected revenues, and future success. These statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties and are based on assumptions involving judgment with respect to future economic, competitive, and market conditions and future business decisions, all of which are difficult or impossible to predict accurately and many of which are beyond Strong's control. With that, we will now turn the call over to Andy Shape, Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead, Andy.

Thank you, Allie, and thanks to everyone for joining us today as we discuss our progress and financial results for the third quarter of 2022. We continue to witness steady growth in sales for the third quarter of 2022, as evidenced by our revenue of $13.6 million, a 24% increase compared to the same period last year. It's also worth noting that our third quarter of 2021 was the second best quarter in the company's history, notably received 50% increase in sales year over year. Additionally, we continue to carefully manage expenses, and even though we reported a slight loss for the quarter, this is part of our deliberate investment in infrastructure and capabilities to further accelerate our growth. While we have historically been profitable and will be profitable again in the near term, this market is ripe for consolidation. This time to strike is now. I'm also confident the investments we're making into organization will allow us to reap the rewards for years to come. At the same time, we have maintained a strong balance sheet with a combined $22 million of cash and cash equivalents in short-term investments as of September 30, 2022, and no long-term debt. We believe the activities we are undertaking, including mergers and acquisitions that complement our business operation, increasing STRON's recognition within the industry, and entering new geographies are the fundamental pillars for accelerated growth and ongoing success, while also serving as the key differentiating elements that will position STRON at the forefront of the industry. To execute on our growth strategy, we actively explore, identify, and research companies within the promotional products market that we believe have the potential to be synergistic and accretive to STRON. Towards this end, we completed the acquisition of TrendBrand Solutions in September as we have fully integrated the business within STRON. Trend has been established presence in the South, specifically in this Houston area. Expanding our geographic presence is key to our growth strategy, and Houston ranks third among metro areas and Fortune 500 headquarters locations and is home to two dozen Fortune 500 companies. With Trend's recognition in the Houston market and our comprehensive platform comprised of leading technologies and knowledgeable employees, we believe we have the ability to become a leading player in the Texas market. In connection with the acquisition, we welcome Michael Krauser, former CEO of Trend, as our new regional vice president of STRUN. Michael has assumed the responsibility to oversee our Texas region operations with the aim of further penetrating the southern market, and we look forward to his contributions. Not only are we executing on our M&A strategy, we're also continuing to secure significant multi-year contracts with high-profile clientele. This includes our contract with the leading North American infrastructure service company announced during the quarter. We've been contracted to provide promotional products and services, which we are currently delivering. The customer's goal is to increase our market awareness as well as our customer loyalty. This contract is projected to generate over $1 million in revenue annually, and I'd like to highlight that this contract came as a referral from an existing customer, which we believe further validates the quality of our products and services as well as our value proposition for our customers. We've effectively implemented a growth strategy that is allowing us to reach new records operationally, financially, and geographically. Furthermore, as I previously mentioned on the call, we have invested heavily and launched an expanded sales and marketing program with a dedicated lead and demand generation team comprised of experienced industry veterans. We believe these leads are resulting and resulting active discussions with potential customers and companies validates our ongoing efforts and demonstrates the vast opportunities within the industry which we intend to take advantage of. Through these and other initiatives, we are gaining significant traction in the market and believe we are firmly positioning ourselves as a leader in the promotional products industry. In addition to our sales and marketing efforts combined with acquisition opportunities, we have worked diligently to implement Oracle's NetSuite as our new ERP in order to gain operational efficiencies, provide greater financial analysis, and prepare for additional scalability. And we expect to be fully implemented by the end of 2022. Looking at the fourth quarter, we are seeing very strong bookings with over $48 million in orders secured year-to-date. It's important to reiterate that these numbers aren't reflected in build revenue until the products are delivered over the next few months, which includes the holiday season that is approaching. However, it does reinforce our traction in the market. Overall, we continue to build upon an already established and successful business model that we are actively scaling. We believe our activities have directly resulted in our record revenue numbers as well as assisted in the steady growth of the company. Lastly, we continue to carefully manage expenses and have maintained a strong balance sheet, as I mentioned earlier. We ended the quarter with $22 million of cash and cash equivalents in short-term investments and no long-term debt. As a result, we are well capitalized to internally fund and execute both organic growth and acquisition strategies, firmly establishing STRON as a leader in the promotional products industry, a market valued at over $23 billion. Furthermore, showing our confidence in the business, we have continued to execute our share repurchase program. Since we last reported the senior management team has purchased approximately $1.2 million worth of common stock, we've repurchased shares opportunistically and tend to continue to do so as appropriate. In summary, we are very proud of the ongoing efforts that allow us to further execute our growth strategy, has resulted in growing our customer base, expanding geographically, and identifying accretive acquisition targets. At the same time, we are focused on increasing awareness of STROM through investor and industry-related activities. Together, we believe these initiatives, along with continued execution, will drive long-term value for our shareholders. At this point, I'd like to turn the call over to our Interim Chief Financial Officer, David Browner, to go over the financials in more detail. Please go ahead, David.