Miller Industries, Inc.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Miller Industries third quarter 2021 results conference call. Please note this event is being recorded. And now at this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Mike Goudreau at FTI Consulting. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. I would like to welcome you to the Miller Industries conference call. We are here to discuss the company's 2021 third quarter results, which were released after the close of the market yesterday. With us from the management team today are Bill Miller, Chairman of the Board, Will Miller, President and Co-CEO, Jeff Badgley, Co-CEO, Debbie Whitmire, Executive Vice President and CFO, and Frank Madonia, Executive Vice President, Secretary, and General Counsel. Today's call will begin with formal remarks from management, followed by a question and answer session. Please note in this morning's conference call Management may make forward-looking statements in accordance with the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. I'd like to call to your attention to the risks related to these statements, which are more fully described in the company's annual report filed on Form 10-K and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Jeff. Please go ahead, Jeff.

Thank you and good morning, everyone. Our third quarter results are a testament to the perseverance of our workforce despite a precarious supply chain and labor shortages that are affecting nearly every company in the United States. Third quarter revenues were slightly lower year over year as increasing supply chain disruptions made it difficult to obtain all necessary materials to complete finished goods. More specifically, compared to the same period a year ago, our sales decreased 2.2% to $164.7 million. Gross profit for the third quarter remained flat from the prior year period at $17.8 million, while gross margin in the third quarter increased approximately 23 basis points year over year. with an increase in efficiencies offset significantly by inflationary pressures on the cost of purchased materials and component parts. As a reminder, we continue to strive to pass on price increases to customers to cover the increased costs we are incurring. However, it takes time to reap the benefits of these price increases, as we generally honor contract prices within our increasing backlog which results in near-term margin pressure. In our domestic business, demand for our products sits at near all-time highs. However, shortages in raw materials and component parts resulting from supply chain issues have continued to impact the amount of finished goods we can produce and ship. As always, we continue to leverage all available resources to actively mitigate supply chain disruptions and inflationary pressures. In our international business, European recovery from COVID, which lagged recovery slightly here in the US, increased demand and our backlog in the third quarter. Notably, our European entities experienced a very strong quarter while export activity from the US has yet to reach pre-pandemic levels due to global shipping constraints. However, as these constraints are lifted, we hope to see continued growth in our international markets. We are seeing the operational benefits of our fabrication equipment upgrades implemented during 2020 and our enterprise software upgrades completed in the first quarter of 2021. Now that these upgrades are complete, we expect to be able to truly leverage the full capabilities of these enhancements. Now I'll turn the call over to Debbie, who will review the third quarter financial results, and then I will finish by providing some commentary on the current market environment and some closing remarks. Debbie?