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, Inc. Second 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.

Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. Joining me today are Amanda Sutton, our VP, Legal and Secretary, John King, our Chief Financial Officer, Alex Yoke, who's our president of our Canadian retail group, and Dan McConnell, who's president of our international retail group. Before I go any further, I'll ask Amanda to read our disclosure statement.

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