Doman Building Materials Group Ltd.

Greetings and welcome to the Doman Building Materials Group, third quarter, 2024, Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. The question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Ali Madhavi, Head of Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us this morning for Doman Building Materials' third 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 Code. If you have not seen the news release, which was issued after the close of market 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 on November 22nd. Following management's 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 DMDNA 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'd like to now turn the call over to Ammar.

Thanks, Elian. Good morning, and thank you, everyone, for joining us on today's call. On the back of a steady yet challenging second quarter in volatile market conditions, 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 volatility and general activity and lower average pricing when compared to the third quarter of last year. Throughout the third quarter, once again, we continued to work through the impact of challenging year-over-year pricing comparatives, largely due to the impact of construction materials pricing, which on average was higher across all categories for most of 2023. Overall, we continue to see weakness in the North American market due to cooling customers' demand, which placed downward pressure on materials pricing during the quarter. Despite these external pressures impacting our year-over-year financials, our focus remains on what we can control to ensure we maximize margins and 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 gross margin performance within our target range. While we continue to see more of a cautious tone and sentiment across the industry, we are encouraged with some early positive indicators of construction materials pricing firming up in certain categories, as well as steadier activity in our key markets. Despite the lower pricing and macroeconomic concerns, 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. As a result of our collective efforts, revenues amounted to $663 million. Gross margin remained strong at 15.5% or $103 million. Adjusted EBITDA amounted to just under $48 million. Net earnings came in at $14.6 million. And lastly, we paid another quarterly dividend totaling $0.14 per share. Speaking of financial performance, I am pleased with our continued 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 effectively manage debt levels thanks to the strength of our free cash flows. During the quarter, we announced the closing of a $265 million senior unsecured note offering, which went towards the reduction of amounts outstanding under our credit facility, as well as buying back and cancelling $52.3 million of our 2026 senior notes. As a result of our efforts to maintain an optimal and growth-friendly balance sheet at all times, after quarter end, we announced the acquisition of Tucker Lumber, a leading family-owned lumber and treated wood supplier and a large producer of specialty value-added products ranging from lumber, fencing, deck components, and plywood, operating in the eastern United States with three very large lumber treating plants, specialty sawmilling, and a captive trucking fleet. We welcome all new 450 team members to the Dolman team. In addition to being immediately accretive to EBITDA free cash flow and earnings per share, this highly strategic acquisition complements Goldman's existing central and West Coast operations in the U.S. with immediate scale in 10 new states, including South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Virginia, West Virginia, Delaware, Maryland, New York, and Pennsylvania. Looking ahead, we are very excited as we work through the integration of Tucker in demonstrating our improved earnings profile. 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 very excited about our growth profile and the overall prospects of the business. And with that, I would now like to ask Jay Cote, our CFO, to take over and provide a review of the company's third quarter 2024 financial results in greater detail. And then we will open up the call for analyst questions. Jay? Thank you, Amar. Good morning, everyone.