North West Company Inc. (The)

All participants, please stand by. Your meeting is ready to begin. Please be advised that this conference call is being recorded. Welcome to the Northwest Company First Quarter Results Conference Call. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Mr. Edward Kennedy, President and Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Kennedy, please go ahead.

Thanks very much. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our First Quarter Conference Call. Joining me today are Amanda Sutton, our VP Legal Counsel and Secretary, John King, our Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, Alex Yeo, our President of Canadian Retail, and Dan McConnell, President of International Retail. Before I begin with my comments, I'm going to ask Amanda to read our disclosure statement.

Thank you, Edward. Before we begin today, I remind you that certain information presented may constitute forward-looking statements. Such statements reflect Northwest's current expectations, estimates, projections, and assumptions. These forward-looking statements are not guaranteed the future performance and are subject to certain risks which could cause actual performance and financial results in the future to vary materially from those contemplated in the forward-looking statements. For additional information on these risks, please see Northwest's annual information form and its MD&A under the heading Risk Factors. Edward?