Doman Building Materials Group Ltd.

Greetings and welcome to the Doman Buildings Materials Group Limited third quarter 2023 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. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce Ali Madhavi, Head of Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Thank you, Operator, and good morning and good afternoon to everyone, depending on where you are. Thank you for joining us today for Dolman Building Materials' third quarter 2023 Financial Results Conference call. Joining me this morning are the company's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Amar Dolman, and Chief Financial Officer, James Cote. If you have not seen the news release, which was issued after the close of markets yesterday, 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 November 17th. Following the presentation of the third quarter results, 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 Dolman Building Materials Group 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 outline 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'll now turn the call over to Amar.

Thanks, Ali, and thank you for joining us on today's call, everyone. I'd like to first of all thank all of our great employees, our customers and partners of the company, for their efforts and continued partnership with Dolman. On the back of a strong second quarter, the third quarter was similar in terms of our focus on optimizing operational and financial performance on both sides of the border while navigating through continued macroeconomic headwinds stemming primarily from rising interest rates, inflationary pressures and concerns around the risks of a recession. Throughout the third quarter, we continued to work through the impact of challenging year-over-year pricing comparatives largely due to the impact of construction materials pricing which peaked in the first quarter of 2022. These trends continue to exist in our day-to-day activities and we are working through areas where there may be some softness as we have done so in the past. To put the external market dynamics in perspective vis-à-vis our financial performance in the third quarter, the seasonally adjusted annualized rate for single detached housing starts in Canada, which is a relevant leading indicator for our business, was $52,000 for the third quarter of 2023 versus $75,000 in the comparative period of 2022, a decrease of 30%. During the same period, we've experienced pricing declines in lumber and plywood when compared to the third quarter of 2022. Some are now down 35%. Despite these external pressures impacting our top line numbers, our focus remains on what we can control to ensure we maximize margins, free cash flow generation, Inventory and overall cost management were once again key contributors to our success in the third quarter, resulting in another period of strong gross margin performance. While we continue to see more of a cautious tone and sentiment from customers in how they are working through some of the same macroeconomic headwinds, demand remains steady across all key end markets during the quarter with volumes in various categories remaining range-bound. However, given the lower pricing for construction materials on a year-over-year basis, Revenues were lower in the third quarter when compared to the same period last year, but at improved margins. To put this in numbers, gross margin for the third quarter was 16% compared to 12.3 a year ago. Despite the lower pricing and concerns caused by the global macroeconomic environment, I remain pleased and encouraged by the strength of our business model and our ability to perform while ensuring that our first class level of service remains on point to our customers. As a result of our collective efforts, our revenues amounted to $644 million. Gross margin remained strong at 16%, or $102 million. EBITDA, $52 million. Net earnings, just over $21 million. And lastly, we paid a quarterly dividend of $0.14 per share. I believe that's our 56th straight dividend. Speaking of financial performance, I'm also very pleased with our relentless focus on balance sheet management and optimization. To this point, during the last 12 months, while working through some of the challenging market dynamics, we were able to reduce our debt by $122 million, thanks to the strength of our free cash flows. Looking ahead, we remain very excited and cautiously optimistic as we work through the macro-related and pricing-related dynamics while we continue to manage our costs and always look for growth opportunities. We are aware of external pressures which may come into play, not only into our industry, but any other... others that touch similar end customers. As always, we remain confident in our ability to work through volatile markets diligently while serving our customers' needs at the highest level of service. We remain excited about our growth profile and the overall prospects of the business, and we'll continue to look for strategic growth opportunities vis-à-vis acquisitions. With that, I would like to ask J. Code, our CFO, to take over, provide a company overview of the third quarter financial results in greater detail, And then we're going to open up the call for questions. Jay?