Global Industrial Company

industrial company first quarter 2025 earnings call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touchtone phone. And to withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Mike Smarjasi with Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, and welcome to the Global Industrial First Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. Today's call will include formal remarks from Anissa Chaibi, Chief Executive Officer, and Tex Clark, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Formal remarks will be followed by a question and answer session. Today's discussion may include certain forward-looking statements. It should be understood that actual results could differ materially, from those projected due to a number of factors, including those described under the forward-looking statements caption and under risk factors in the company's annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. The press release is available on the company's website and has been filed with the SEC on a Form 8-K. This call is the property of Global Industrial Company. I will now turn the call over to Anissa.

Thank you, Mike. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. In the first quarter, we generated revenue of $321 million, a decline of less than 1%. This performance was significant given the soft start in January, which was impacted by the midweek timing of the New Year's holiday. Excluding the holiday impact, revenue would have been up low single digits in the quarter. Strength by end-off in our largest strategic accounts enhanced our results. Performance improved as we moved through the period and we ended the quarter with growth in March. Gross margin increased 60 basis points over the first quarter of 2024 and with strong cost controls, operating income improved 4.6%. These results reflect good execution across the business and I'm very proud of the team. Since joining Global Industrial in mid-February, I've spent a significant amount of time visiting our locations in the United States and Canada, meeting with the teams and gaining a greater understanding of the business. I've been impressed with the culture and the level of engagement of our management team and our dedicated associates. It is clear we bring significant value to the market through a broad offering of high-quality exclusive brands and vendor partner products. and our extensive product knowledge helps customers solve their problems to better operate their businesses. Our customer-centric focus is enabling our ability to deliver a frictionless end-to-end experience, and we continue to enjoy high customer satisfaction scores. These core attributes provide an outstanding foundation for growth and are a point of differentiation in the market. Global Industrial has an exceptional platform and the ability to scale the business organically. We can and intend to broaden whom we serve by expanding existing account relationships and accelerating our growth initiatives. This will open the aperture of the total addressable market that we pursue. We have seen good momentum and sales progression in our largest strategic accounts and GPO base. I believe we can accelerate the success going forward by being very targeted, focused, and intentional in how we go to market, along with further refining our value proposition and our sales approach. In this regard, we are taking steps to enhance our performance by developing an account-based marketing program and improving the alignment of marketing and sales to capture and nurture the customer relationships that we anticipate will drive growth. In addition, the implementation of our new CRM will enhance the visibility into our customers across all functions and remains on track for completion this summer. We've been pleased with the progress of these initiatives to date, and I look forward to sharing additional details on our efforts as the year progresses. Turning now to the tariffs that were enacted in April, they have created a disruption not only in our business, but to the entire supply chain and our customers. impacting price and demand dynamics. Our teams remain in all-hand status, making sure we proactively manage through the current environment. Our focus is on what we can control, working closely with manufacturers and vendor partners, ensuring product availability, and providing customers with as much visibility as we can in a very fluid environment. Our core attributes, which I noted earlier, specifically our customer-centric culture, along with our strong balance sheet, will serve us well as we look to mitigate the impact of tariffs on our business and for our customers. Further, I believe we are well positioned to support and strengthen customer relationships during this period of disruption. In closing, we delivered a solid first quarter. Global Industrial has a unique go-to-market platform strong customer relationships, and an exceptional team. I'm excited about the potential of the business and taking it to the next level. We remain well-positioned to continue to invest in our growth initiatives and to evaluate strategic opportunities. I will now turn the call over to Tex.