Ethan Allen Interiors Inc.

Good afternoon, and welcome to the Ethan Allen Fiscal 2022 First Quarter Analyst Conference 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. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Matt McNulty, Vice President of Finance. Thank you. You may begin.

Thank you, Alex. Good afternoon and welcome to Ethan Allen's analyst conference call for our fiscal 22. First quarter ended September 30th, 2021. Joining me today is Farouk Kethwari, our chairman and CEO, and Corey Whiteley, our chief financial officer. Mr. Kethwari will open and close the call while Corey will speak to the financials midway through. After our prepared remarks, we will then open the call for your questions. Before we begin, I'd like to remind the audience that this call is being recorded and webcast live on ethanallen.com, where you'll find a copy of our press release, which contains reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures referred to in this release and on this call. A replay of today's call will also be made available via phone and on our website. As a reminder, our comments today will include forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. please refer to our SEC filings for a complete review of those risks. The company assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking matters discussed during this call. With that, I'm pleased to now turn the call over to Farooq Kathwari.

Thank you, Matt, and thank you all for participating in our earnings call today. We are pleased with the continued strengthening of many aspects of our enterprise, including our financial results, our talent, our manufacturing, our service, marketing, technology, and social responsibility. We have continued to strengthen our talent in our vertically integrated enterprise by adding to our workforce in manufacturing, logistics, and retail. Our headcount of 4,212 has increased 18.5% from the previous year first quarter. Continuing personal service of our interior design teams with technology has been a game changer and will continue to provide a major competitive opportunity to grow. Servicing our large backlog of orders is of critical importance. As September 30, 2021, our retail backlog was up 73% from a year ago, which provides us the continued opportunity to increase delivered sales. 75% of our products are made, and most of them custom, in our North American manufacturing workshops, providing us a good opportunity to service our clients. We have taken steps to strengthen the business, including additional workshifts within our North American workshops, building a new addition to our Made in North Carolina plant, continuing our investments in Vermont plants in Honduras, Mexico, and also in our various logistics centers. And also growing our manufacturing headcount by double digits over the last several months. Through these actions, we have increased capacity and are focused on servicing our large backlog of written orders. We continue to strengthen our product offerings, the projection of our design centers, and the various elements of marketing. For quarter ended September 30, 2021, we substantially increased our digital marketing, reaching over 15 million households with our 36-page digital magazine. We reduce our advertising in other traditional mediums, thereby reducing our overall advertising spend to 2% of sales compared to 4.1% in the previous year quarter. Going forward, we expect to increase our advertising to about 3 to 4% of sales. We have strong financial results during the first quarter of fiscal 2022, which Corey Whiteley will now briefly walk you through. Corey?