Good morning. My name is Paul, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Park Aerospace Corp. First Quarter Fiscal Year ‘23 Earnings Release Conference Call and Investor Presentation. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. At this time, I will turn the call over to Mr. Brian Shore, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Shore, you may begin your conference.

Thank you, Paul. This is Brian. Welcome everybody to our first quarter conference call. With me, as always, as usual, Matt Farabaugh, our CFO. So, this morning, we put out our earnings release, our first quarter earnings release. And in earnings release, there are instructions how to access the webcast, get access to the presentation that we're about to go through, also the presentation is on our website. So, the presentation, as you've probably already noticed, is quite long but don't be alarmed. This is dilemma we had. It's been less than two months since our Q4 conference call, less than two month. So, not very much time has passed, and a lot of the stuff in the Q4 presentation was new information, new material, which still is very relevant. So, we didn't want to just kind of eliminate that. So, what we decided to do is this. We decided to carry over much of what was in the Q4 presentation to the Q1 presentation, but with some updates and additions, new items in other words. And what we'll do is focus during this call, focus on the updates and new items, and we'll be skipping over, will be skimming over a lot of the rest of it, so. And also the Q4 call is still on our website. If you want to go back and listen to that, feel free, of course. If there are things we skip over that you want to ask questions about, please ask questions. It's not that we don't want to cover these things, but we're trying to be practical here. Because we're going to be jumping around a little bit, hopefully, we’ll try to make it as cohesive as possible, but if it's a little bit uncohesive, if that's a term, we apologize…

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Nick [indiscernible] with NR Management.

Good morning, Brian. I wonder if you could comment on kind of new niche markets for Park potential. I'm thinking of SpaceX, electric aviation. Are there any products that Park could make for those markets? And do you think your sales process would be different for those endeavors?

Thanks, Nick. Thanks for the question. So, we haven't done a lot in terms of sales so far in these two markets, like maybe electric aircraft and private space. We do have a product that we are targeting toward these tall type aircraft I guess you call them aircraft. And we have been working toward these private space companies. I mentioned a little in a pie analysis, there's some from private space. But I would say not the success that we would have liked to achieve so far. But still those two markets that you mentioned, Nick, are still markets that are really interested in targeting. And I think we have products that may help us maybe they’re appropriate for those markets.+ Is that helpful or do you want more information?

` Yes. No Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question is from Brian Glenn with Olcott Square Investment Partners.

Just two questions. I guess, the first, this goes back to, I think, it's slide 17, it might be 18 million. You mentioned fiscal year 2023 sales for the ablative and RAYCARB, you guys are expecting $10 million. Is there any indication that you can provide with respect to what that figure would have looked like for fiscal year 2022 just so we can understand the trajectory a bit?

Yes. $5 million, $5 million to $5.5 million, something like that. And I think we said that, yes, we really should have said over $13 million. I think we're trying to be too conservative. This is a forecast. This is not all booked. So actually, the number we're looking after this year is over $13 million. But yes, last year was, I think, 5.5. I don't have the number in front of me, but somewhere in the 5ish.

Understood. Okay. That's helpful. And then the second question, and I know you mentioned you've spoken with shareholders, and I've asked a few times as well regarding capital allocation, specifically share repurchases. And the only other thing I want to bring up, I know you guys are giving serious thought about the best way for the Company to consider that, and there's a lot of assumptions that go into that. But, the only other thing I wanted to bring up is if there's the view that you guys have a multiyear period of earnings growth. And I know nothing is guaranteed, but if that's the view, and obviously there's some calculus as to whether the stock is cheap relative to that growth or not. But I did want to bring up, you save a couple of bucks on the dividend for the shares you repurchased. And the other thing you do is you potentially cash out short-term shareholders. So, anyone who has ownership in the company, and I know you appreciate ownership, but anyone who has a short time horizon is more likely to be a seller. So, you effectively cleanse the capital structure a bit with respect to the ownership piece. And there's sort of a selection bias that exists whenever a company engages in share repurchases. Again, they have to be thoughtful and calculated, but you do end up kind of calling your investor base and you end up with, hopefully, a better crop of fellow shareholders and partners that have an appreciation that the business is worth more, that's why they didn't sell and also a better time horizon, which is more of a long term. So, there's kind of that selection bias, which I think, should be considered by the Board and might be appealing.

I agree, and I appreciate the input. You've gave this input before, appreciated. And I commented, we see -- it was kind of interesting. I don't know why but we received probably from maybe 6 to 8 different investors input, opinions about capital allocation. And that was interesting, with some was before we even made the announcement. So I don't know there's some anticipation or whatever, but we appreciate the input. And we give consideration to all the valid input. Your input is valid. I can't tell you what direction we're going right now. I think at this point, we want to evaluate a little bit. As I mentioned, we are pretty concerned about the situation in our country and the economy and the country generally and where it's going. It's one of the factors and not the only factor, but the factors you're mentioning are obvious. We've received some analysis even from unsolicited, but appreciated from some shareholders. And I gave a little kind of number crunching about, well, if you buy stock, just make sure at this level, looks what happen. And we've done it ourselves. We have outside advisors and investment banks that do this work for us as well. But we always appreciate kind of input. And I won't disagree with anything you said. I think it's all valid. At the end of the day, we have to make a decision based upon considering all the factors and like often is the case, Brian, in the big boy and big girl world, all the indications aren't going in the same direction. So, you have to make judgments and you do the best you can. And then, you always course correct, I hope, anyway, if you realize that wait a minute, that wasn't the right decision. So, I think that's the best I can do in answering your -- responding, except to just say again, I don't disagree with anything you said.

Yes. I appreciate that. And yes, I totally understand. I guess, the last thing, which is, I guess, is more of a question. But it looks like -- again, I'm a passive shareholder, of course. It looks like outside of any significant M&A, and I know you guys know this much better than me, but it looks like all the growth opportunities that Park has explored or considered or some of the partnerships you're through the facility expansion, it seems like -- and correct me if I'm wrong, that they're relatively small in terms of the capital that they may require. And I know you can't talk about what hasn't happened or what's being privately negotiated. But as I kind of glance across like a number of levers that you're polling over the last two years, they're all pretty light on the capital investment side or the working capital related to that partnership. But I guess, correct me if I'm wrong, I guess that's the question is, am I reading that right, or some you're looking at to possibly have a larger capital commitment component?

I would say that's partially correct. Now, if we talk about this thing in the slide and the presentation about these two projects, capital projects and the plan, you're right, I think it's $7 million, $8 million, something like that. However, we have ongoing discussions with others about projects that would consume much more capital, not talking M&A here, as you pointed out. But joint ventures, for instance, which would consume much more capital. And we've been kind of proactive in that regard. We're trying to use our balance sheet as an advantage. We've talked -- spoken OEMs and even customers saying, maybe you like, maybe we should talk, we initiate discussions sometimes about this project or that project, something we could do together. And those -- some of those are -- would consume much more capital.

[Operator Instructions] There are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the floor back over to Brian Shore for any closing comments.

Okay. Thank you, Paul, and thank you, everybody, for listening. I appreciate the questions. I appreciate your time. Matt and I are always available. Feel free to call us any time you want. And have a great summer, and we'll talk to you soon. You take care.

This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.