Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Hammond Power Solutions 2023 Second Quarter Financial Results Conference Call. Certain statements that will be discussed in this conference call will constitute forward-looking statements. The forward-looking information and statements included in this discussion are not guarantees of future performance and should not be unduly relied upon. Forward-looking statements will be based on current expectations, estimates, and projections that involve a number of risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated and described in the forward-looking statements. Such information and statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking information and statements. These factors include, but are not limited to, such things as the impact of general industry conditions, fluctuations of commodity prices, industry competition, availability of qualified personnel and management, stock market volatility, and timely and cost-effective access to sufficient capital from internal and external sources. The risks just outlined should not be construed as exhaustive. Although management of the company believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to have been correct. Accordingly, listeners should not place undue reliance upon any of the forward-looking information discussed in this call. I would now like to turn the call over to Bill Hammond, Chairman and CEO of Hammond Power Solutions. Please go ahead, Mr. Hammond. Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Hammond Power Solutions Second Quarter Financial Results Conference Call for 2023. Joining me today are Adrian Thomas, our Chief Executive Officer, and Richard Vollering, our Chief Financial Officer. Our second quarter of 2023 has been a noteworthy quarter for Hammond Power Solutions for several very upbeat reasons. Most importantly, we continue to deliver record financial results, and we are reinvesting in the expansion of our production capacities and improving our ability to service the needs of our distributors and customers. Secondly, we recorded the largest week of bookings in the history of HPS, which bodes well for continuing growth. Thirdly, we hired my successor as CEO, an electrical industry executive who has the credentials and experience to drive the future growth of our company. Finally, we launched a rebranding of HPS that will help position us better in the electrification of everything today and going forward. The strong momentum of top-line growth and margin performance that started in 2021 is continuing as predicted, well into 2023. This growth is coming from a diversified range of geography, markets, channels, and customers. Our sales are up significantly compared to a year ago in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and India, driven by end markets like data centers, EV recharging systems, energy storage, reshoring of manufacturing facilities, hospitals, mining, and solar projects. In parallel, we continue to expand our network of distributors in both the United States as well as Mexico, which broadens our ability to serve our customers and participate in new opportunities. Given our positive cash flow, we are investing in a significant expansion of our North American operations, which will increase our output by almost $250 million over the next several years. This includes a new small products plant in Mexico, which will be up and running by mid-2024. This capital investment will expand our foundation and capabilities to support our growth to $1 billion in sales before the end of the decade. With our ongoing evolution and the expanding opportunities driven by the electrification of everything, we decided to improve our internal and external branding for the first time in more than 15 years. In the last five years, we've seen significant changes in the way we go to market, the industries we sell to, the products we offer, overall sales growth, and how we recruit and retain employees, to name a few. To reflect these changes, we needed to rebrand HPS beyond just a logo and tagline. Our new brand will message to the market and investors our product solutions offering, future-focused direction, commitment to our employees, as well as positively impacting our commitment to social and environmental sustainability. All of this is creating excitement and optimism about the future decade for Hammond. We are indeed mindful about the possibility of a slowdown in certain interest rate-sensitive markets going into 2024, but remain steadfastly optimistic about our future growth opportunities as the electrification of our world continues to expand. As announced during the quarter, we hired Adrian Thomas as the new CEO of Hammond Power Solutions. Adrian has a very strong background in the electrical industry, previously working for companies like Schneider, TMEIC, which is a joint venture of Toshiba and Mitsubishi, and General Electric. I look forward to working with him as I continue as Executive Chair, building on the strong foundation of our company and business model to reach $1 billion in sales and beyond through his leadership and experience. I would now like to hand the call over to Adrian. Thanks, Bill. It's an honor to join Hammond Power Solutions as your CEO. Having worked in the electrical industry for the past 20 years, I'm very familiar with the Hammond brand, the employees' passion for the electrical industry, and the dedication they have to dominating the dry-type transformer market. These qualities and the large opportunity in front of Hammond is an opportunity I had to jump at. I look forward to working closely with Bill, Richard, and the board of directors as we set our strategy for the foreseeable future. To our shareholders, I look forward to meeting you over the next few months and sharing our vision for Hammond Power Solutions. I will now hand the call over to Richard to provide details on our financial progress. Thank you, Adrian. We're glad to have you on board. The second quarter results continued to deliver in terms of growing sales and profitability. We've discussed for many months now our need to add capacity to meet demand, and we were seeing an improving ability to ship with each passing quarter. Second quarter sales of $172 million set a new record for HPS and were 25% higher than the second quarter of 2022. On a year-to-date basis, sales are higher than 2022 by 29.5%. Of this, approximately 10% of the increase was due to pricing, 5.4% due to the stronger U.S. dollar, and 14% due to organic growth. We saw year-over-year improvements in the U.S., Canada, India, and LATAM. We also saw higher sales in our Mesta business unit. Even with this higher volume, backlog increased by 5% versus the first quarter of 2023, a testament to the resilient demand that we are experiencing. Gross margins also remained strong at just under 31% in the quarter. Pricing remained strong, while input costs remained stable. Gross margins are slightly weaker than Q1 margins, which were 32%. The slight deterioration is due to an unfavorable customer mix and slightly higher inventory positions. SG&A expenses were significantly higher in the second quarter versus the same quarter in 2022. Selling and distribution expenses were higher by 24%, roughly in line with the increase in sales volume. General and administration expenses were higher than the second quarter of 2022 by 53%, and on a year-to-date basis, by 54%. The increases are primarily the result of higher share-based compensation, driven by the increase in our share price over the past six months. Expenses are also higher as we continue to invest in new areas of the business, like Mesta, LATAM, and Power Quality, and other aspects that generally support our highest- higher business volumes. Net cash improved slightly. Cash flow from operations in the quarter was $12,297,000 and $1,829,000 on a year-to-date basis. Working capital requirements continued to increase, although at a slower pace than that seen in Q1. Capital expenditures were $4.3 million in the quarter and $6.4 million on a year-to-date basis. This reflects the expected ramp-up in spending to support our manufacturing capacity expansion plans. We expect that capital expenditures will continue to rise in the coming quarters. EPS was $1.12 in the quarter versus $0.55 in the same quarter of last year, and $2.44 on a year-to-date basis. We are pleased to report these strong results. It is the result of many positive internal and external factors converging, including strong demand in our end-user applications, our strong market position, and our ability to meet our customers' needs in terms of quality, service, and ease of doing business. We look forward to continuing all this in the coming quarters and the years ahead. Thank you, Richard. In closing, quotation activity, strong bookings, and increasing backlog look to extend their strong run into at least the back half of 2023. Looking ahead, HPS remains cautiously optimistic for the future, as there are many macroeconomic trends favoring the electrical industry, including onshoring of manufacturing, investment in renewable energy and infrastructure, electric vehicle charging, semiconductor production, and natural resource development, all of which the company participates in. Tempering this optimism is the possibility of a general economic decline as a result of rapidly rising interest rates, which could affect one or more of the sectors noted. We believe, however, our market-leading products and service, as well as our customer and geographic diversification, provide a competitive advantage in all market conditions. Thank you, and I will now turn the call over to the operator to take questions. Operator? Thank you. At this time, we will conduct the question-and-answer session. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star 1, 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1, 1 again. One moment while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Jim Byrne with Acumen. Your line is open. Good morning, guys. Welcome, Adrian. I look forward to meeting in person. A couple questions for me, guys. You mentioned, Bill, in your opening remarks about the, you know, the week of bookings, reaching a record high. Maybe just... Are there any details you could share about that? Is it, you know, a couple of large custom orders or just kind of a widespread, week of bookings? Good morning, Jim. Really a combination of a number of things, but we did receive a very large multi-year order for data centers in Texas. You know, that again, bodes well, very well, not only for this year, but for the next couple of years, because of the magnitude of that particular order. It, it certainly again, comes from a number of different sectors, and a continued growth in the distributor channel, particularly in the United States. Okay. Actually, that brings up, on the distribution side, I know, you know, that you did kind of slow that expansion and adding new distributors, just given the capacity constraints. Where are we here, do you think, for the rest of 2023? Maybe if you could quantify some of the additions you've made on, on the distributor network. We're in the process of quantifying how many new branches we can support for the rest of the year. We have initiated the steps to increase our distributor channel and the number of branches in the U.S. Again, as you noted, we were holding off on this expansion until we've been able to rebuild our inventories and expand our capacities. We're at a state where we're satisfied that we're well along that road. We're in the process of actually talking to target distributors right now and bringing them on board over the next couple of months. Okay, perfect. Maybe just, you know, you highlighted strong growth in Mexico. India has been up significantly year-over-year. How are the other markets that in Central and Southern South America that you were targeting? Is there any, any update there? Really, our focus right now is on Mexico, but we're going to be taking some steps to look at expanding our sales coverage in selective countries in Central America and South America. We, we tried to focus mostly on Mexico at this point, but we hope to have probably in the neighborhood of 30-40 distributor organizations representing our company and selling our products over the next six months, which will accelerate that growth in Mexico. You know, again, there, there have been some orders that are landing with customers that are supplying product into South America. You know, that's, that's going to continue to build as we improve our sales coverage and build our relationships with end users and distributors in those parts of Latin America outside of Mexico. All right. That's great. Thanks, guys. Thanks, Jim. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Did you get cut again? Our next question comes from the line of Matthew Lee with Canaccord Genuity. Your line is open. Hey, morning, guys. Congrats on the quarter, welcome, Adrian. I take a look at volumes up overall 14%. Can you maybe break it down by geography a little bit? I mean, you know, you kind of mentioned that Canada is a little bit slower than the U.S., but you can still fair to say that that's a, you know, mid-single digit to low double-digit grower? Hey, good morning, Matt. How are you doing? It's Richard here. The growth, yeah, that 14%, it's really, it's made up of our, you know, North American markets, Canada and the US, of which the US would represent the most growth in that. It also reflects the strong growth in Mesta and in India as well. I would say, you know, just generally speaking, that that US distribution network, that is, that is the leader in terms of growth for us right now. The Canadian market, is starting to show some signs of fatigue in commercial construction, but fortunately, we've seen a pickup in institutional business with regards to hospitals in particular and a number of other projects. You know, while the growth rate in Canada will be slower than the U.S., I think that's reflective of the significant market share that we have of between 60% and 65% in Canada. We see significant room for growth in the United States, particularly through the distributor channel, as Richard noted. You know, at the same time, we should point out, as Richard did, our Indian operation is doing, I think, extremely well, not only growing the business domestically, but also, with regards to, export projects that are going into, various islands in the Pacific as well as, the Philippines, Bangladesh, and even Indonesia. Again, we're extremely happy about the growth in the Indian operation and the improvement in profitability that we've seen there. Okay, that's really great color. Then maybe on margins, you know, even the margins right now are still nicely above your kind of previous guidance range. I know there's some costs coming from the opening of new facilities, are, are you starting to see margins weaken in the second half of the year, maybe related, you know, to pricing or, or material costs? Yeah. For the short term, and, you know, Matt, when we talk about those targets, we, we really talk, we talk about them in a long term, you know, in, in terms of, you know, the longer term. I think, you know, for the short term, prices remain stable and, you know, I mean, some of our commodities, you know, things like copper and aluminum, they will go up and they will go down. You know, some of the larger components, like electrical steel, you know, carbon steel, insulation, that, that, that seems to have stabilized for the time being. You know, we don't anticipate any major differences in the near term. Oh, okay. That's awesome. Thanks. I'll leave it there. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. We have a follow-up question from the line of Jim Byrne with Acumen. Your line is open. Yeah, thanks. I, I think in the press release you mentioned the capacity expansion starting to take effect, and starting to impact. Maybe just, either could you quantify that number, maybe for Q3 and Q4? Or, you know, what, what kind of equipment and projects, you know, have led to that capacity expansion? Yeah. Yeah, right, right now, Jim, the, the larger projects, like the, the new plant in Mexico and the Mesta expansion, they're really in the construction phase, so there will really be no additional volume from those in the next couple of quarters. The volume increases will really be coming from implementing machinery and equipment and, and equipment in the existing sites. You know, it's our hope that we can get our quarterly capacity to around the $180 million mark by the end of the year. Okay, that's perfect. Maybe, Richard, you mentioned working capital has been pretty significant here in the first half of the year. How, how should we think about the back half? Well, you know, it's a good question. You know, I think for the most part, it will stabilize, I don't think we'll see another increase in the back half of the year like we saw in the first, first quarter, because there was really a large leap in sales from the end of last year into 2023. You know, it's our hope that we can stay really around that, you know, 17% of sales mark. Okay. Maybe one for you, Adrian. I know you're new, just probably getting your feet wet. I just wondered, you know, is there a, is there a timeline we should expect, you know, a, you know, an unveiling of a new strategy? Or is this gonna be kind of maintain the status quo and, and, ride the waves of, of strength here for Hammond? How, how should we think about the next few months, for you in this new role? Well, thanks, Jim, for the question. You know, I think the strategy is quite clear, in some respects, so in terms of adding capacity to grow and take advantage of the trends in the market and expanding in terms of some of the areas such as Mesta. I think from that standpat standpoint, the strategy will continue. I do think as we roll into next year, more clarity in terms of specifics, we'll be able to share. All right. That's perfect. Thanks, guys. Thank you. One moment for our next question. We have a follow-up from the line of Matthew Lee with Canaccord Genuity. Your line is open. Hey, guys. Thanks again. You know, when I think about the backlog, and that's something that continues to grow quarter-over-quarter, maybe just talk a little bit about what you're doing internally to expand quotation activity? Then could you maybe give us some color as to how much the Mexican market is now contributing? Well, I'll tell you about the Mexican market, and, and, Bill, maybe you can talk about quotation activity. The Mexican market is still... I mean, we're growing. As you know, as, you know, we've, we've really, you know, we started that initiative last year, really from zero at the beginning of 2022. You know, we, we're hoping this year that that will be a $10 million business for us. Which is, you know, which essentially means that we'll, we'll almost have doubled the business in the space of a year. Of course, that all is coming from the addition of the distributor that Bill referred to earlier. Still relatively a small part of the overall picture, but, but, but, you know, in terms of growth rate, we, we expect to continue to grow it quickly. I would add to that, sorry, sorry, Matthew, go ahead. No, no, go ahead. Go ahead, sorry. I, I just wanted to say that we remain confident that we can grow the Mexico and Latin America business to $50 million in about five years' time. That's why we're excited about the opportunities that lie ahead south of the border, so to speak. I should add with regards to quotation activity, it is as strong or the strongest that it's ever been. We are seeing a resurgence in longer-term project quotes, which again, I think is very positive because it bodes well for the years ahead. It clearly shows that there are a lot of companies that are willing to invest in the future. So again, that's one reason that we are optimistic about the years ahead, because of this high level of quotation activity and the makeup of that business going forward into the future. Awesome. Thanks, guys. I'll, I'll leave it there. Thank you. That concludes the question and answer... Oh, I'm sorry. One moment for our next question. That concludes today's question and answer session. At this time, I would like to turn it back to Bill Hammond for closing remarks. Thank you, Abigail. We're very proud of our continued growth in both sales and profitability year-over-year. We are extremely excited about Adrian joining HPS as CEO and leading our company into our exciting future. We remain optimistic about our strong momentum to the end of this year and into future years, driven by such things as the U.S. distributor expansion, a geographical expansion in Mexico and India, as well as the growth that we see in markets like data centers, energy storage, solar projects, hospitals, oil and gas, and more. In closing, I would like to thank all of you for your time and joining us today, and we look forward to talking to you in the months ahead. Again, very positive Q3 in a number of months. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.