Good morning, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to The Hillman Companies Conference Call to discuss First Quarter 2021 Results. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Hillman will not be fielding any questions on today’s call in light of its recently announced planned merger with Landcadia Holdings III. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to introduce your host for today’s conference, Nick Ruffing. You may begin.

Thank you, Operator. Good morning and thank you for dialing in to the Hillman Group’s conference call to discuss first quarter 2021 results. I am Nick Ruffing, Vice President of Finance and on the line with me today is Doug Cahill, our Chairman, President, and CEO; Rocky Kraft, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, we would like to caution you that certain statements made today may include forward-looking statements that are subject to the Safe Harbor provisions of the securities laws. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to certain risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors many of which are beyond the company’s control and which could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in such statements, including with respect to COVID-19. Some of the factors that could influence the company’s results are contained in our periodic and annual reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company expressly disclaims any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, further developments, or otherwise. In addition, in this call, we may refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to our press release furnished on Form 8-K filed on May 11, 2021 for reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP. We will begin the call with a business update from Doug, followed by Rocky providing a financial review of the quarter. Let me now turn the call over to Doug for an update on the business.

Thanks Nick. Good morning, everyone. We had an exceptional start to 2021 with sales and adjusted EBITDA each up 15% in the first quarter, reflecting continued strong demand for our hardware and home improvement products in the U.S. and Canada. This performance demonstrates the strength of Hillman’s operating model and all-around exceptional execution by our in-store sales, service, and supply chain teams that is our competitive moat and truly differentiates us in the marketplace. Today, I am going to cover four themes that underpin our current optimism about Hillman and the exciting opportunity ahead of us to continue growing by helping our retail customers win and when our customers win, we win. First, we are not your everyday distributor. We are a full-service supplier of a complex array of SKUs that are critically important and valuable to our customers. This is our competitive moat and it starts with service, service and service. Second, the exceptional innovation, commitment and delivery of our sales, service and supply chain teams during the pandemic has further strengthened our relationships with our key retail partners and helped us win new business and gain market share. Third, we are seeing a continuation of the favorable tailwinds that began during the pandemic and a normalization of our business mix as vaccines rollout and the pandemic recedes. This is driving better than expected growth in our flagship Hardware Solutions business in both the U.S. and Canada and our Robotics & Digital Solutions business is rebounding faster than expected. On the flipside, working together with our retail partners, we are transitioning away from sales of COVID-related Personal Protective Equipment, or PPE sooner than we expected. And finally, underlying market growth and the performance of our operating model has reinforced our conviction in our long-term expectations for high single-digit sales…

Thanks, Doug. On a GAAP basis, our sales in the first quarter of 2021 were $341 million, an increase of $45 million, or 15.4% versus the prior year quarter. The growth was primarily attributable to strong hardware sales, particularly in our construction fastener category, along with strong sales of protective solutions driven by high demand for gloves and masks. Our Robotics & Digital business was flat for the quarter as it recovered to pre-pandemic levels. Our gross profit increased $11 million over the prior year quarter to $140 million, representing a gross margin of 41% compared to 43.7% in the prior year quarter. The difference in margin was primarily related to product and segment mix, mainly due to flattish performance in our high margin Robotics & Digital Solutions business compared to double-digit growth in other segments in Q1 of 2021. We experienced modest inflation in freight and transportation. Our first quarter SG&A as a percent of sales was flat to the prior year quarter at 30.2%. We saw good operating leverage on higher sales volume, which was offset by higher professional fees associated with items, such as our pending merger with Landcadia III and by inflation in wages and freight costs. Excluding the impact of restructuring and other costs, adjusted EBITDA was $48 million for the first quarter of ‘21 compared to $42 million in the prior year, an increase of 15%, representing a solid start to the year. Please refer to our press release furnished with Form 8-K on May 11, 2021 for reconciliations of net income to adjusted EBITDA. Now, let me now turn to cash flow and the balance sheet. In the first quarter of 2021, operating activities used $45 million of cash as compared to $18 million in the prior year. The primary driver of the…

Thank you. Ladies and gentleman, this concludes our call today. Thank you all for joining the call and for your continued interest in Hillman.