Marine Products Corporation

and only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. Instructions will be provided at that time for you to queue up for questions. I would like to advise everyone that this conference call is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Smith.

Thank you and good morning. Before we begin, I want to remind you that some of the statements that will be made on this call could be forward looking in nature. and reflect a number of known and unknown risks. Please refer to our press release issued today, along with our 2023 10-K and other public filings that outline those risks, all of which can be found at www.marineproductscorp.com. In today's earnings release and conference call, we'll be referring to several non-GAAP measures of operating performance and liquidity. We believe these non-GAAP measures allow us to compare performance consistently over various periods. Our press release issued today and our website contain reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures, the most directly comparable GAAP measures. I will now turn the call over to our President and CEO, Ben Palmer.

Thanks, Mike, and thank you all for joining our call. a few weeks ago after a long and courageous battle with cancer. I worked closely with Jim here at Marine Products for more than 20 years. He was a tremendous contributor to the company in so many ways. I'm sure those of you listening today who were lucky enough to work with him over the years know he was also a great friend and colleague. He will truly be missed by all of us. Shifting to our results, First quarter results showed signs of stability on the top line and some improvement in profitability sequentially compared to the fourth quarter of last year. However, year-over-year comparisons were very challenging, consistent with the near-term expectations we signaled on our last call. Both the quarter played out generally as we anticipated, and our discussion today might feel quite similar to our last call, as the key themes remain very much the same. uncertain demand, and higher floor plan carrying costs. We are being proactive in managing costs and production schedules during this soft period. As we said last quarter, we have reduced our production levels to be more in line with current demand as our dealers' work-throughs show remuneratories. This production scaleback was in order of magnitude of around mid-30% range Although we would certainly want our plant to be busier with more production to fill orders, we are taking advantage of this slowdown to execute operational projects we were unable to undertake during our periods of surging demand from the pandemic through mid-2023. Examples include projects to maintain and repair our tooling, improve consistency of lamination and other assembly processes, and evaluate alternative production schedules. With regard to dealer inventory, I'll echo my comments from last quarter, that we remain pretty comfortable with the level of our products in the field. But we continue to hear that high inventories are still an issue for many dealers, often in categories where we do not compete. We would note that our field inventory units is solidly below pre-pandemic levels. However, we may not return to those levels regardless of demand, given the new normal of higher carrying costs. We continue to have attractive retail incentives in the marketplace and are encouraged to see monthly sales trends for our dealers reflecting the typical ramp up throughout the first quarter. There was positive reception at most of the early 2024 boat shows with customers excited about our product lineup. Consistent with recent trends since the rise in interest rates, our larger priced boats, which are often purchased by cash buyers, sold better than smaller, lower priced boats Speaking of borrowing costs, it is worth noting that there remains a great deal of uncertainty regarding the timing and magnitude of a potential decline in interest rates. Though there had been broad consensus for multiple rate cuts by the Fed during 2024, expectations have clearly moderated with mixed economic data clouding the interest rate output. While this is a macro factor out of our hands, we will focus on things within our control. to support our dealers and maximize our partnerships. Now, Mike will provide an overview of the financial results.