Michael W. Delgatti
Analyst
Thank you, Alan. As we head into what is historically the industry's strongest selling season, we feel very good about our momentum and market position in the upholstery operations. We were particularly gratified to have achieved, this quarter, our 12th consecutive month of operating profitability at Bradington-Young domestic operations, and we believe we're on a solid path of sustained profitability. Both Bradington-Young and Sam Moore recorded increased sales for the quarter, including a robust 28% year-over-year sales planned gain at Sam Moore. Consumer demand for the Sam Moore product line continues to grow, with incoming orders up 24% for the quarter. We believe that both brands are gaining market share. Bradington-Young has achieved sustained single-digit sales increases during a period of time in which the overall premium leather upholstery market has not grown. And at Sam Moore, our expansion from a chair-only line to a full-line upholstery resource offering sofas, sectionals, recliners and chairs, has led to a double-digit sales increases becoming the norm at Sam Moore. I'll begin with Bradington-Young as we look at our 3 upholstery units: Bradington-Young, domestic leather upholstery; Seven Seas, imported leather upholstery; and Sam Moore, custom upholstery, one at a time. As I mentioned earlier, the overall premium leather upholstery market has experienced a loss of retail floor space in the last couple of years as escalating leather costs have prompted retailers to give more floor space to upholstery featuring lower-price fabrics and leather substitute covers. However, during this time, Bradington-Young has actually gained retail floor space through our Comfort@Home in-store leather seating galleries, which now number nearly 150. Growth among our Comfort@Home dealers had outpaced the rest of our dealer base, and the Comfort@Home program now drives 35% of our domestic leather business. Another strategy that has helped us to successfully address rising prices has been our effort to position Bradington-Young as a luxury brand in the trade and increasingly to the consumer. In fact, we will launch, for 2 weeks in October, a luxury Leather Your Way national leather event. We expect that all of our Comfort@Home dealers and preferred partner dealers will participate offering savings on all special orders during the event. We have provided advertising materials to the dealers to run in their local area, and we'll support the campaign with digital promotions at the Bradington-Young website and social media venues. As we've mentioned in other conference calls, the rising costs are even more of a challenge for our Seven Seas Seating line, as it is positioned as a more affordable, moderately priced leather line and is in a more price-sensitive niche. In order to keep our value proposition strong for Seven Seas Seating, we have become aggressive in our product development efforts and are planning for the up and coming October market to introduce stationary sofas and sectionals at some very attractive wholesale price points that are about 10% to 15% lower than what we've offered in the past. The Seven Seas line continues to be profitable and hold its own. We grew this quarter and incoming orders are up modestly. At Sam Moore, we are disappointed that the 28% sales increase only translated to a breakeven profit performance this quarter. But we are definitely making progress and in proving, it has not been as quickly as we would like. The challenge of ramping up production, expanding capacity and manufacturing productivity has proven greater than expected. Today, our backlog is 75% higher than it was 1 year ago. For the last several quarters, we have continued to hire people, but it typically takes at least 3 months before a sewer or upholsterer makes a direct contribution, and we've had significant training and overtime costs. Our goal was to take our current backlog of approximately 8.5 weeks down to 5 weeks. We believe that once we reduce backlog and increase capacity, the additional shipment volume and improved labor efficiency will result in increased profitability. As we move forward, we will also expect to reduce our training and overtime costs for additional savings. While the progress has been slower than we would like, we are quite bullish about the long-term future for both sales and profitability at Sam Moore. Short term, as we head to both the fall-selling season and prepare for the October furniture market, we believe all the upholstery brands are well positioned, with retail placements around the country to fully participate in any upturn in business. At this time, Paul Huckfeldt is going to share further details that drove our performance this quarter, as well as review our balance sheet. Thank you.