Cadre Holdings, Inc.

Good afternoon and welcome to Cadbury Holdings' first quarter 2024 conference call. Today's call is being recorded. All lines have been placed on mute. If you would like to ask a question at the end of the prepared remarks, please press the star key, then the number one on your touchtone phone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Matt Berkowitz of the IGB Group of Introductions and the reading of the Safe Harbor Statement. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, and welcome to today's conference call to discuss CADRE's first quarter results. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that during today's call, we will be making several forward-looking statements, and we make these statements under the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements reflect our best estimates and assumptions based on our understanding of information known to us today. These forward-looking statements are subject to the risks and uncertainties that face CADRE and the industries and markets in which we operate. More information on potential factors that could affect CADRE's financial results is included from time to time in CADRE's public reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Please also note that we have posted presentation materials on our website. at www.cadre-holdings.com, which supplement our comments this evening and include reconciliation of certain non-GAAP financial measures. I'd like to remind everyone that this call will be available for replay through May 21, 2024, starting at 8 p.m. Eastern time tonight. A webcast replay will also be available via the link provided in today's press release, as well as on CADRE's website. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to CADRE's Chairman and CEO, Warren Kanders.

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining CADRE's earnings call to discuss our results for the first quarter of 2024. I am joined today by our President Brad Williams and our Chief Financial Officer Blaine Browers. Following a year of record net sales and adjusted EBITDA, our significant momentum continued in the first quarter. Driven by the team's outstanding strategic execution, together with strong sustained demand for our mission critical safety equipment. We generated first quarter net sales and adjusted EBITDA that were the highest in our history and represented increases of 23% and 32% respectively. At the same time, our intense focus on margin expansion continues to deliver incremental benefits. On a sequential basis versus the fourth quarter, Gross margins improved 190 basis points, and adjusted EBITDA margins improved 120 basis points. As we have highlighted in depth, the rollout of the CADRE operating model is an ongoing process that has driven enhanced performance and execution and guides how our teams work, innovate, and solve problems on a daily basis. We are pleased with the operating model's success to date and are excited about the potential to continue to build a culture of operational excellence throughout our organization, particularly as we grow and scale. For CADRE, complementing our core organic growth initiatives, the company's M&A program is crucial to our long-term growth objectives. During the first quarter, we completed two accretive acquisitions, I-CORE Technology and Alpha Safety. Moving forward, we intend to remain patient and disciplined and are committed to evaluating M&A consistent with our highly selective key criteria. We expect to continue to be active in our existing law enforcement, military, and nuclear markets with a longer-term focus on opportunistically exploring new verticals to go to further diversify our platform. For now, our primary objective is to integrate and build out the businesses we currently own with ample opportunities to accelerate growth in our existing portfolio. As we have shared previously, Alpha Safety, for example, has a proven track record of executing M&A, and the platform comes with 100 plus potential targets that we have begun to evaluate. Based on these opportunities and others, we believe we are well positioned to complete one to two transactions before the end of 2024. After our follow-on equity offering of common stock in March, which yielded proceeds to CADRE of approximately $77 million, we have reloaded our balance sheet with additional capital to opportunistically execute on our M&A objectives. From a macros perspective, we continue to see signs that the secular trends driving demand for our mission-critical, lifesaving products around the world are only growing stronger. Conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East carry on with no end in sight, creating geopolitical uncertainty and underscoring the importance of robust defense budgets. In the U.S., while first responder recruiting has been slow, crime rates are a focus, and we have seen increased levels of protest and civil unrest. Historically, our businesses have been resilient across economic, political, geopolitical, and other cycles. and we expect this will continue to be the case. We maintain a bullish outlook on Cadre's prospects for 2024 and beyond, and look forward to capitalizing on attractive opportunities to further grow our platform and enhance our market leadership over the long term. With that, thank you for being with us today, and I will turn the call over to Brad. Brad, over to you.