Doman Building Materials Group Ltd.

Greetings and welcome to the Doman Buildings Materials Group first quarter 2023 financial results conference call. At this time, all participants are on 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. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Ali Madhavi, Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for Dolman Building Materials' first quarter 2023 financial results conference call. Joining me this morning are Amar Dolman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and James Coat, Chief Financial Officer. If you have not seen the news release, which was issued earlier, it is available on the company's website, as well as on CDAR, along with our MD&A and financial statements. I would also like to remind you that a replay of this call will be accessible until midnight, May 26. Following management's presentation, we will conduct a Q&A session for analysts only. Instructions will be provided at that time for you to join the queue for questions. Before we begin, we are required to provide the following statements regarding forward-looking information, which is made on behalf of Doman Building Materials Limited and all of its representatives on this call. Remarks and answers to your questions today may contain forward-looking information about future events or the company's future performance. This information is subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual events or results to differ materially. Any information regarding forward-looking statements is made as of the date of this call and the company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements. Please read the forward-looking statements and risk factors in the MD&A as these outlined the material factors which could cause or would cause actual results to differ. The company will not provide guidance regarding future earnings during today's call, and management does not anticipate providing guidance in future quarterly or interim communications with investors. I'd like to now turn the call over to Omar.

Thanks, Ellie, and good morning, everybody. Thanks for joining the call. Let me begin by highlighting some of our key financial metrics, followed by some color on our operations during the first quarter. And then I'm going to hand the call over to Jay Code who can review the numbers in further detail. Let me start by briefly discussing our first quarter results and what we are seeing in the market and how supply and demand looks as we push through into the second quarter. We are pleased with our first quarter results. However, we continue to monitor inflationary and interest rate concerns and if and how they may have an impact on our business. Our financial and operational performance in the first quarter is a testament to our ability to work through volatile markets and our team's track record on managing the business through similar cycles. Throughout the quarter, we remained laser focused as always on margins and optimizing our balance sheet. The strength in our first quarter results came from the combination of the impact of our strategic acquisitions, steady volumes in all our markets, which resulted in strong revenue performance in the quarter. Further, our ongoing cost management focused on operational efficiencies and successful integration efforts enabled the company to realize strong gross margin and EBITDA margin performance. Simply put, we optimized the use of all the levers available to us in our resilient business model to maximize margins. During the first quarter, consolidated revenues amounted to $609 million compared to $851 million in the same period in 2022. The decrease in revenues is largely due to the impact of construction materials pricing, which peaked in the comparative period in 2022. Our treated wood business continued to deliver strong performance during the period due to increased demand and volumes coming from consumers both in Canada and the U.S. I am both pleased with and very proud of our employees on both sides of the border for their hard work and attention in serving our customer needs with the utmost attention to quality and service. As a result of our collective efforts, I am pleased to report that for Q on our team delivered revenues amounting to $609 million, gross margin remaining strong 16.1%, $98.2 million. EBITDA of $44.8 million. And our net earnings came in around $15 million. Lastly, we paid a quarterly dividend of $0.14 per share in the quarter. On a year-over-year basis, due to the lower pricing, our top-line results are demonstrative of the continued strength of our business platform in Canada and the States. I'm extremely pleased with our financial performance, which has resulted in the continued successful unfolding of of our overall growth strategy. Although the economy is performing fairly well, we continue to see the risk of general economic headwinds manifesting in inflation, increased interest rates, along with price volatility in certain product categories. We remain focused on adapting and performing during these uncertain times, which is familiar territory for our team as we focus on growth and overall cost management. Looking back at the quarter and looking ahead, we saw some evidence of these headwinds, which we are cognizant of, and the potential impact on our performance. Despite the current market environment, as always, we remain confident, focused, and disciplined on closely managing our costs and servicing the needs of our customers with the highest level of quality and service as we have done in the past. And with that, I'd like Jay Cote, our CFO, to take over and provide a review of the company's first quarter 2023 financial results in greater detail. And then we're going to open up the call for analyst questions.