Xcel Brands, Inc

Welcome to Excel Brands first quarter 2024 earnings conference call. Please be advised that reproduction of this call in whole or in part is not permitted without prior written authorization of Excel Brands. And as a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Paul Kuntz from Red Chip. Paul, you may begin.

Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Welcome to the Accel Brands first quarter of 2024 earnings call. We greatly appreciate your participation and interest. With us on the call today are Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Robert DeLoren, Chief Financial Officer Jim Herron, and Executive Vice President of Business Development and Treasury Seth Burrows. By now, everyone should have had access to the earnings release for the quarter ended March 31st, 2024, which went out this evening. And in addition, the company is filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission its quarterly report on Form 10Q today. The release and the quarterly report will be available on the company's website at www.excelbrands.com. This call is being webcast and a replay will be available on the company's investor relations website. Before we begin, please keep in mind that this call will contain forward looking statements. All forward looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from certain expectations discussed here today. These risk factors are explained in detail in the company's most recent annual report filed with the SEC. Excel does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forwarding statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. The dynamic nature of the current macroeconomic environment means that what is said on this call could change materially at any time. Finally, please note that on today's call, management will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures, including non-GAAP net income, non-GAAP diluted EPS, and adjusted EBITDA. Our management uses these non-GAAP metrics as measures of operating performance to assist in comparing performance from period to period on a consistent basis and to identify business trends relating to the company's results of operations. Our management believes these financial performance measurements are also useful because these measures adjust for certain costs and other events that management believes are not representative of our core business operating results, and thus they provide supplemental information to assist investors in evaluating the company's financial results. These non-GAAP measures should not be considered in isolation or as alternatives to net income, earnings per share, or any other measures of financial performance calculated and presented in accordance with GAAP. You may refer to the attachment to the company's earnings release or to Part 1, Item 2 of the Form 10-Q for reconciliation of non-GAAP measures. And now, I'm pleased to introduce Robert DeLoren, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Bob, please go ahead.

Thank you, Paul. Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'd like to start today's call with a brief update on our performance for the first quarter and then our outlook for the remainder of the year. After that, our CFO, Jim Herron, will discuss our financial results in more detail. As I have previously mentioned, with the discontinuance of all wholesale operations behind us, we have returns to a working capital life. core licensing business. We have made significant headway toward improving our financial performance and operating results. Our total revenues for the first quarter declined year over year, given that this was our first quarter in several years with zero product sales from wholesale activities. Our licensing revenues were up across our brands, except for our logo Lori Goldstein brand, which caused royalties to be flat. and our bottom line on a non-GAAP basis showed significant improvement. Our adjusted EBITDA for the quarter improved by almost 50% from the prior year quarter. As we continue to gain traction and accelerate in future quarters, we expect our licensing revenues to grow and our bottom line results to continue to improve. We plan to launch our new brand, Tower Hill, by Christie Brinkley on HSN later this month. followed by the launch of additional categories of products outside of HSN starting this fall. To date, we have received strong interest from potential licensing partners for the brand across multiple categories, including footwear, handbags, beauty, and skincare. The Sea Wonder by Christian Siriano brand is performing well. We expect to see retail sales volume up to about 20 to 25 million annually in 2024. That's up 100% from last year's retail sales, with a goal of over $50 million in 2025, including HSN and other retailers. We will launch additional new core categories in footwear and handbags in spring of 2025. We also expect to announce the launch of another celebrity designer brand on HSN before the end of this year. We are working with JTV to offer greater product assortments including our Judith Ripka couture jewelry products, both on-air and on JTV.com. This has the potential to add over 50 million visitors to the Judith Ripka e-commerce business and allows for email marketing campaigns to an additional 2.1 million customers. We look forward to seeing strong sales momentum carry forward through 2024 and 2025. As previously discussed, G3... is on schedule to launch Halston this fall. We expect them to begin shipping shortly after the second quarter. We expect revenues from this license to begin to pick up later this year and grow strongly in 2025 and beyond. OrmeSoft launched its video and social commerce marketplace approximately three weeks ago. The Orme team is doing a great job building awareness for the app and onboarding premier brands. They are pleased with the results to date. As I previously mentioned, this is a joint venture with a technology company in which Excel owns a 30% interest in this new video and social commerce marketplace. We believe this marketplace has the potential to transform the video and social commerce markets in the US, and its growth potential potentially is virtually unlimited. Based on all of the progress with Project Fundamentals, our strategic plan to get Excel back to what made us successful over the years, and the organic growth in our brands, we expect to return to profitability in 2024. I should note that our logo Lori Goldstein business was softer than expected in Q1 of 2024, caused by continued scheduling conflicts with talent. We continue to work with QVC and our on-air talent to reach a resolution for this, This includes identifying additional on-air guests to support the business or a satisfactory disposition of the brand. Also, we are working on launching a robust pipeline of new brands on QVC and HSN and other potential business opportunities as we seek to ensure continued growth in our core live stream interactive TV business. And now, I'd like to turn the call over to Jim to discuss our financial advice. Jim?