Stran & Company, Inc.

Greetings. Welcome to the Strand and Company first quarter 2026 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Alexandra Schilt. You may begin.

Good morning, and thank you for joining Strawn & Company's 2026 First Quarter Financial Results and Business Update Conference Call. With us today are Andy Shape, Chief Executive Officer, and David Browner, Chief Financial Officer. Yesterday, we issued a press release detailing our results, which is available on our website at ir.strawn.com. Before we begin, please note that today's remarks may include forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties as described in our SEC filings. With that, I'll turn the call over to Andy Shape. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Allie. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. The first quarter of 2026 demonstrated that STRON has reached a genuine inflection point in profitability. It validates the strength of our platform, the depth of our client relationships, and the scalability of our operating model. Most importantly, it confirms what we've long believed, that investments we have made over the past years are now translating directly into profitable growth. During the first quarter, total revenue grew 8.9% year over year to $31.2 million, reflecting continued momentum across both existing client relationships and new business wins. Even more importantly, that growth translated into significantly improved profitability and operating leverage across the organization. Gross profit increased 13.7% to $9.6 million, while gross margin expanded more than 100 basis points to 30.9%, when compared to the prior year. These results demonstrate the strength of our execution, the value of our client relationships, and the benefits of the operational discipline and strategic investments we've made over the last several years. We've also achieved significant profitability milestone this quarter, generating net income of $744,000 compared to a net loss of $393,000 in the prior year period. In addition, EBITDA improved to $1 million versus a negative $201,000 a year ago. A year-over-year improvement of $1.2 million. These are not incremental improvements. This is a fundamental shift in the earnings trajectory of our business. What makes these results especially encouraging is that we're delivering profitable growth while simultaneously investing in the future of our company, expanding our technology capabilities, deepening our enterprise-client relationships, and building toward the significantly larger market opportunity ahead. We have turned the corner on profitability, and we intend to keep widening that gap. As we continue to scale, we are seeing tangible operating leverage throughout the organization. Total operating expenses remained essentially flat year over year at $9 million, despite meaningful revenue growth. As a percentage of sales, operating expenses improved to 28.8% from 31.4% a year ago. a 260 basis point improvement. I also want to highlight the dramatic turnaround within the strong loyalty solution segment during the quarter. SLS generated $532,000 of operating income in Q1 2026 compared to an operating loss of $462,000 in the prior year period. This reflects both the successful integration of Ganner Group Business and the sustained operation discipline our team has implemented. Importantly, the SLS segment gross margin expanded to 28.7% from 21.8% in Q1 2025, a nearly 700 basis point improvement. Beyond the financial results, the first quarter is also marked by several highly strategic client wins and relationship expansions that reinforce the growing relevance of our solutions in the marketplace. One of the highlights of the quarter was the extension of a three-year multi-million dollar partnership with one of the world's premier nonprofit running organizations. This renewal reflects the trust our clients place in Strong and validates our ability to execute complex, high-impact engagement campaigns. In addition, we secured a new multi-million dollar agreement with a leading gaming company to support a large-scale rewards and loyalty initiative. This win demonstrates the growing demand for integrated promotional products and incentive solutions, particularly among consumer-facing brands, seeking innovative ways to strengthen customer engagement and loyalty. We're also proud to add two top global 100 law firms as new clients. These relationships further diversify our customer base and reflect the increasing appeal of Strahd's solutions among sophisticated professional service organizations that require premium service, strategic execution, and scalable technology capabilities. Collectively, these wins highlight several important themes that we believe position Strong for future sustained long-term growth. First, we continue to gain traction with enterprise-level clients that value strategic partnerships rather than transactional vendors. Second, we are expanding into new verticals and end markets where branded merchandise, loyalty solutions, and employment engagement programs are becoming increasingly important components of customer acquisition and retention strategies. And third, our technology investments are creating meaningful competitive differentiation. We recently launched STRON Digital Solutions, a proprietary SaaS-based platform designed to enhance client engagement, streamline campaign execution, improve analytics capabilities, and generate recurring revenue over time. This is a platform that makes STRON harder to replace and more valuable than ever to every client we service. With Strawn Digital Solutions, we are moving beyond being just a best-in-class promotional product provider and becoming an integrated marketing ecosystem partner. We are adding scalable software capabilities that deepen client relationships and create opportunities for higher margin, recurring revenue streams, the kind of revenue that compounds over time and expands our long-term earning potential. This is an important strategic initiative because it positions Strawn at the intersection of branded merchandise, technology, and data-driven engagement solutions. As more companies seek integrated marketing ecosystems rather than isolated service providers, we believe our combined physical and digital offering creates a compelling competitive advantage. Equally important, we continue to maintain a strong balance sheet that provides significant flexibility to support future growth initiatives. We ended the quarter with $12.8 million in cash, cash equivalents, and investments. This financial position allows us to continue investing in technology, expanding our sales and marketing capabilities, evaluating strategic acquisition opportunities, and pursuing initiatives that enhance long-term shareholder value. Looking ahead, we are not just optimistic, we are confident. This quarter demonstrated the power of STROM's growth model. Revenue growth, margin expansion, and profitable operations all delivered simultaneously. We believe that promotional products and loyalty industries continue to benefit from strong secular trends, including increased corporate focus on customer engagement employee retention, experiential marketing, and brand activation. At the same time, clients are increasingly looking for partners that can provide integrated, scalable, technology-enabled solutions with measurable ROI. Strawn is exceptionally well-positioned to capitalize on those trends. Strategic acquisitions also remain a core pillar of our long-term growth strategy. While we continue to evaluate opportunities actively, we are being increasingly disciplined and selective in today's environment, focusing on targets that enhance our technology capabilities, expand our client base, strengthen our vertical expertise, and create clear long-term shareholder value. With our strong balance sheet and improved profitability profile, we believe we are well-positioned to pursue the right opportunities at the right time. We are entering the remainder of the year with strong momentum on expanding pipeline, growing enterprise relationships, two profitable segments, and a platform we believe can continue compounding. The promotional products and loyalty industries are large, fragmented, and shifting towards integrated partners with technology in scale, and that describes Strong. Our focus remains on driving sustainable, profitable revenue growth, expanding margins, deepening client relationships, and continuing to build a platform capable of generating compounding value for our shareholders. We have the strategy, the team, the balance sheet, and the momentum. The opportunity in front of us is significant, and we are executing. And while trading blackout restrictions prevented us from repurchasing shares during the first quarter, we intend to resume our buyback program as a direct expression of our confidence in the business. We believe the current share price meaningfully undervalues strong, and we view repurchases as an attractive and disciplined use of capital as we continue to build long-term shareholder value. I'll now turn the call over to our CFO, David Browner, for a more detailed review of our financial results. David, please go ahead.