Doman Building Materials Group Ltd.

Greetings, and welcome to the Dome and Building Materials Group Second Quarter 2024 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. If anyone should require operator assistance, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. You may press star one at any time to be placed into question queue. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It's now my pleasure to turn the call over to Ali Madhavi, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for Doman Building Materials' second quarter 2024 Financial Results Conference call. Joining me this morning are the company's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Amar Doman, and Chief Financial Officer, James Cote. If you have not seen the news release, which was issued after the close of markets on Friday, 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 on August 26th. Following the presentation of the second 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 defer. 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 will now turn the call over to Amar.

Great. Thanks, Ali. Good morning, everybody, and thank you for joining us on today's call. On the back of the first quarter, which was in line with our expectations, the second quarter was similar when considering the pricing environment, increases in interest rates, and the slowing North American housing market. These factors combined with the ongoing concerns of a possible recession of cooled consumers' demand, putting downward trends on materials pricing for the second quarter of 2024. To note, Southern Yellow Pine is off 30% year-over-year. As a result, during the quarter, not dissimilar to our disciplined approach on tight inventory management, our customers also remained conservative and replenished only when needed, keeping inventories light. During the quarter, we saw more price stability in Canada across all wood products. However, in the States, lumber prices, which had risen slightly in the first quarter due to supply tightness, have since pushed back down as changing expectations for the timing of federal monetary policy easing resulted in weaker lumber demand. Overall, despite the various macro headwinds and headlines that have influence on our markets and ultimately on consumer spending, we're encouraged with the continued level of activity we experienced during the quarter resulting in modestly lower sales when compared to the same period in 2023. These trends continue to exist in our day-to-day activities. However, our focus remains on what we can control to ensure we maximize margins and free cash flow generation. Our teams focus on optimizing gross margin performance combined with our constant efforts on overall cost management were key contributors to our second quarter results. However, the slowing in the construction market was a key factor in the lower sales on a year-over-year comparative basis. Our financial and operational performance in the second 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. Our ongoing cost management focus on operational efficiencies and successful integration efforts will continue to enable the company to optimize gross margin and EBITDA margin performance. Put all of this into numbers, our revenues amounted to $690 million. Despite market conditions, gross margin remained solid at 15.7% or $108 million. Adjusted EBITDA of $50.6 million. and our net earnings came in at $17 million, and we paid a quarterly dividend of $0.14 per share. Looking ahead, we are cautiously optimistic as we navigate through what seems to resemble volatile markets while we continue to manage our costs and always look for growth opportunities. Balance sheet optimization strategy remains a key priority as we look forward to having a solid, growth-friendly, and fire-ready balance sheet for opportunistic acquisitions. During the second quarter, we successfully renewed and amended our existing revolving loan facility, extending the maturity date from December 6, 2024 to April 30, 2028, while all other material terms, including the maximum available credit of $500 million, remained unchanged. As always, we remain confident in our ability to work through volatile markets diligently while serving our customer needs with the highest level of service. We remain excited about our growth profile and the overall prospects of the business. We have built a solid, diverse, and resilient business in North America with a broad and growing footprint, which we are extremely proud of. With that, I would like to ask James Code, our CFO, to take over and provide a review of the company's second quarter financial results in greater detail, and then we're going to open up the call for analyst questions.