Savaria Corporation

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. My name is Razia. I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the various corporations Q1 2023 conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question during this time, simply press star one and one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. This call may contain forward-looking statements which are subject to the disclosure statement contained in Savaria's most recent press release issued on May 10th, 2023 with respect to its Q1 2023 results. Thank you. Mr. Sebastien Bourassa, you may begin your conference.

So basically this morning, I have the honor to lead the call because Mr. Marcel is absent for a personal reason, but he wants to know that he's always available by call or email if you have any questions, and he's doing very good. And he was proud of his Q1, so that's why he thought to let his team lead the call. So it was a very good first quarter, historically, which is our slowest quarter for Savaria. So we would like to thank Solar Inc. for the hard work, and we think it was a solid execution. because we have a very good organic growth in the accessibility and the patient care. Positively, our backlog remains at a hysteric level, which is very good news because it shows again that we are in a fantastic industry and that will be good for the remaining of the year. So very happy about that. As Marcel said in his press release, we continue to build on our plan for the $1 billion. The $1 billion is a target that we want to achieve by 2025. So we continue to elaborate on this plan to make sure we'll be able to execute. Some key highlights in the accessibility. Mexico ramp-up continues to happen. Right now we have 45 employees. We have four different assembly lines and we are doing some shipment of some units straight to the USA. So this is very important. Supply chain, I hope we don't have too many questions on that today because for us we consider it is relatively stable. Is it perfect once in a while? There's going to be a little issue, but overall, it is good. And give us your portion key to achieve your plan. Vinny Karas should have keyed this segment for me this morning, but you want to highlight a bit the patient care?

Yeah, thanks, Evan. For sure, our patient care segment delivered record results in Q1, including an EBITDA margin that topped 20% for the quarter. And again, that was a first for the segment. As you might imagine, the team is very proud of their performance, as they should be. While we don't want to get ahead of ourselves, and is just one quarter, it goes to show what's possible. And what we're seeing, and this is really a continuation of what we saw last year, is evidence of the tremendous synergies being unlocked through the integration of SPAN and Handicare. And in particular, as it relates to Q1, sales were especially strong, up 13% organically versus last year. This was driven by a number of factors, including continued strength in new build activities, cross-selling initiatives, and good spending by certain strategic partners. In turn, the higher sales volume allowed for a better fixed cost absorption, which contributed to the record margins experienced in Q1. In addition, we benefited from a good product mix and the realization of some higher margin projects. And finally, the pricing initiatives that were put in place last year are having a meaningful impact on profitability. So to conclude, it's always nice to start the year with a solid Q1, and we feel good about the backlog exiting the quarter, so there's a certain level of optimism for the remainder of the year as well. With that, I'll pass it over to Steve for the financial review.