Velan Inc.

Greetings and welcome to the Vellon Incorporated Q3 Financial Results Conference Call. Bonjour et bienvenue à la conférence téléphonique Vellon, résultat financier du troisième trimestre. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Afterwards, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. At that time, if you have a question, please press the 1 followed by the 4 on your telephone. Pendant la présentation, tous les participants seront en mode d'écoute seulement. Une période de questions suivant la présentation. Si vous souhaitez poser une question, appuyez sur le 1 suivi du 4 sur votre téléphone. If at any time during the conference you need to reach an operator, please press star 0. Si vous avez besoin d'un téléphoniste, s'il vous plaît, appuyez sur l'étoile suivie du 0. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded on Friday, January 12, 2024. Si nous vous rappelons que la conférence téléphonique d'aujourd'hui est enregistrée vendredi le 12 janvier 2024. I would now like to turn the conference over to Rishi Sharma. Je cède la parole à M. Rishi Sharma.

Thank you, operator. Good morning. And thank you for joining us for our conference call. which is available on our website in the investor relations section. As usual, the first section of the disclaimer mentions that the presentation provides an analysis of our consolidated results for the third quarter ended November 30th, 2023. The board of directors approved these results yesterday, January 11th, 2024. The second paragraph refers to non-IFRS and supplementary financial measures, which are defined and reconciled at the end of the presentation. The last paragraph refers to forward-looking information, which are subject to risks and uncertainties and are not guaranteed to occur. Forward-looking statements contained in this presentation are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. Finally, all amounts are expressed in U.S. dollars unless indicated otherwise. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Jim Manabac, Interim CEO and Chairman. Thank you, Rishi, and good morning, everyone.

During our last conference call, we communicated the unfortunate termination of the acquisition agreement with Folsom Corporation, following the French government's refusal to approve the transaction. The chapter is now behind us, and we've turned our focus at the company to strengthening the organization and growing the business. We believe Elan has tremendous assets at its disposal to further expand its global market reach. This includes an agile workforce, diversified manufacturing capacity, and above all, a solid brand reputation. As a supplier of critical equipment to essential industries, we anticipate growing demand for our products driven by energy transition trends and by our proven ability to provide solutions for the most demanding applications in a variety of market digits. Delving deeper into environmental matters, Many of our customers have started carbon emission reduction targets and programs accordingly related there, too, and are increasingly looking for energy-efficient solutions to reach these objectives. A lot is directly aligned with this secular growth trend, as we have dedicated significant resources to environmentally-driven solutions for many, many years. Our main goal of the company is to support our customers with safe and reliable flow control processes for their existing and emerging needs. Energy transition underway creates challenges for customers in several industries, including nuclear oil and gas, as well as processing power. The challenges become our opportunities. And as a key equipment supplier, we're excited about playing a leading role worldwide in this ongoing transformation. In parallel, we expect maintenance, repair, and overhaul activity which we refer to as MRO, on our extensive base of installed equipment to continue providing a recurring revenue stream. To make sure we can rapidly capture growing opportunities, I've assumed the role of interim CEO alongside my duties as chairman of the board. My 35-year experience in flow control industry and five-year tenure on the long board should serve the company well. I'm also pleased to report that Rishi has been promoted to the role of Chief Financial and Administrative Officer to oversee all of the land's administrative functions in addition to his oversight of the financial team. Over and above, the entire loan team is committed to building shareholder value through profitable sales growth and cash flow. 32 are operating performance. Long's backlog has increased 4.5 percent, 485 million since the beginning of the fiscal year. Of this, 361 million is expected to be delivered in the next 12 months. The increase is mainly attributable to changes in the profile of scheduled backlog shift updates. The strengthening of the euro also slightly improved our position in backlog as well. Third quarter bookings reached 78.3 million down 99 million from last year, as we were facing a tough comparable period in which North American operations reported large marine orders in the prior fiscal year. This was partially offset by higher oil and gas bookings in Italy. Sequentially, bookings were nearly 10% higher than those of the second quarter. And I'm pleased to report that the pickup of activity is continuing so far in the fourth quarter. For instance, We recently signed new large-scale orders in Italy, which constitutes a record for our subsidiary. We are very pleased with the strong commercial activity we are seeing all across Europe. As for our financial results, Rishi will provide more details in a minute. But in a nutshell, third-quarter sales of $80.9 million reflected renewed sales activity in North America, which contrasted with large shipments reported during the same period last year. Lower sales, combined with a drop in gross profit due to reduced volume, and the execution of a certain low-margin project negatively affected our profitability. Net loss totaled $77.3 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2024, while EBITDA was negative $2.3 million. Although third quarter results were disappointing and unacceptable, we anticipate shipments to accelerate in the fourth quarter, driven by the execution of large-scale projects. In addition, our strong backlog and the recent uptake in bidding and booking activity provide confidence as we look to projected sales in the new year. In summary, I want to stress that Milan's global presence, diversified customer base, and focus on critical applications represent significant advantages in a highly competitive industry. We're resuming our focus on growth, and we're confident about our future opportunities worldwide. At this point, I turn the call over to Rishi to share a financial review for the Corps.