NanoXplore Inc.

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the fourth quarter 2024 and year end NanoExplorer earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Pierre Therese, VP of Corporate Development. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining this discussion of NanoExport Financial and Operating Results for the fourth quarter and year-end result of fiscal 2024. The press release reporting this result was published yesterday after market close and can also be found on our website along with our financial statement and MD&A. These documents are also available on CIGAR+. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that today's remark, including management's outlook and answer to questions, contained forward-looking statement. These forward-looking statements represent our expectation as of today September 19, 2024, and accordingly are subject to change. Such statements are based on assumptions that may not materialize and are subject to risk and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially unless there are cautions not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. A description of the risk factor that may affect future results is contained in NanoExport's annual information forum available on our corporate website and in our filings with the Canadian Securities Administrator on CEDAR+. On the call with me this morning, we have Sorouche Nazarpour, NanoExport Chief Executive Officer, and Pedro Azevedo, our Chief Financial Officer. After remarks from Sorouche and Pedro, we'll open the call to questions from financial analysts. Let me now turn the call over to Sorouche.

Thank you, PY, and good morning to everyone joining us on the call. We will first start with the review of the economy and the impact on our business. I will then expand on our graphene sales activities, capital allocation plan, and I will end my remarks with an update on Volta Exploring. As the central banks are making progress toward interest rates cuts, some industry headwinds from supply shortages Inflationary cost pressures and tight labor markets continues to improve. This, along with increased activities for our customers, resulted in a very strong quarter with record sales of $38 million. Gross margin continued to expand and reach nearly 24%, which is a record as well. All in all, we're operating very well and I expect both sales and gross margin to continue increasing in the current year. Moreover, fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA, excluding Volta Explorer, came in at $3.3 million. Resulted in the first full year positive adjusted EBITDA of $5.2 million for the corporation. I would like to congratulate NanoExplore team for achieving this milestone. In general, we continue to perform at the high level. and we're executing on our capital allocation priorities. We foresee this momentum continuing into fiscal year 2025. In regards to our direct graphene powder and compound sales activities, Validation and testing activities are ongoing with several new customers, and during the quarter, we started supplying new customers. In fact, we are currently supplying 17 customers outside of our internal use, and our sales pipeline continues to advance. For our graphene-enhanced composite products, demand continues to be very strong, and our current capacity is almost fully utilized. During the year, we have made investments in new equipment and will continue to invest more as a part of our five-year strategy plan. A large part of these investments will be in the United States and are supported by booked contracts with existing and new customers. Turning to VoltaExplore, as mentioned in our previous quarterly call, we are in discussion with a potential strategic investor, but no progress has been made. It's our analysis that the current state of the EV and battery space is not conducive of another Gigafactory. In this environment, management has decided to postpone the Gigafactory project and focus only on the silicon graphene material, which shows promising demand and application for active anode material. We have received government grants to continue our R&D on SICK, and we are proactively reducing costs at Volta Explorer. VoltaXplore is going to be a scaled-down project until we see a much more favorable environment for ecofactors. This approach reduces risks, uncertainties, and costs while the EV, battery, and market stabilizes. Regarding our graphene and coated spherical purified graphite expansion, we are continuing discussion with potential partners and customers who received various specs of our CSPG samples. We continue to see significant demand for CSBG as current supply in North America is very limited and potential customers need to be IRA compliant by the end of 2026. We are in an administrative process of finalizing both federal and provincial government support for our graphene CSBG plant and investors should expect our final decision to be taken in the near future for the construction of our new plant near Montreal. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Pedro, who will provide details about our financial performance. Pedro?