Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. And welcome to Scholastic Third Quarter Fiscal Year 2021 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all participant lines are in a listen-only mode. Please be advised that today’s conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to Gil Dickoff, Senior Vice President and Treasurer. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Sarah, and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Scholastic’s fiscal 2021 third quarter earnings call. Joining me today on the call are Dick Robinson, our Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Ken Cleary, the company’s Chief Financial Officer. We have posted an investor presentation on our IR website at investor.scholastic.com, which we encourage you to download, if you have not already done so. I would like to point out that certain statements made today will be forward-looking. Such forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including those arising from the continuing impact of COVID-19 on the company’s business operations. These forward-looking statements, by their nature, are uncertain, and actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated. In addition, we will be discussing some non-GAAP financial measures as defined in Regulation G and the reconciliations of those measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures can be found in the company’s earnings release filed this afternoon on a Form 8-K, which has also been posted to our Investor Relations website. We encourage you to review the disclaimers in our press release and investor presentation, and to review the risk factors contained in our annual and quarterly reports filed with the SEC. If you’d like to ask a question, please send it to our IR email at investor_relations@ scholastic.com and we will respond within two business days. And now, I’d like to turn the call over to Dick Robinson.

Good afternoon and thank you for joining our third quarter call. We started 2021 reflecting on our roots with a segment on CBS Sunday Morning focused on how for generations we have inspired and supported readers through our classroom magazines, trade titles, clubs and fairs, instructional resources for schools and more. Throughout our 100-year history, Scholastic has always been there to support educators and students as we do today, a full year since the pandemic shutdown began and schools closed throughout the United States and the globe. We are proud of our reputation and our ability to explain contemporary issues in a balanced way to bring stories of diversity and social justice to children, and to help teachers and students learn through magazines, books and digital materials, not only the skills of reading and learning, but the social emotional impact of great stories and the ability to understand through information and nonfiction, how the world works and how we operate our democratic system. All this is part of Scholastic mission and daily work. Turning to our recently completed third quarter. Despite the $96 million or 26% decline in revenue mainly in Book Fairs, we were able to improve operating loss year-over-year, because of the significant cost reductions we’ve made throughout the business. For the nine months year-to-date, revenue declined by $304 million to approximately $900 million this year, compared to our pre-COVID results last year. But our operating income only decreased by $9.7 million, excluding one-time items. Our actions to change our operating model and reduce our cost base have largely offset the bottomline impact of the pandemic-related disruptions and should provide operating leverage going forward as we rebuild our revenues, which is an in progress gold. As we begin the fourth quarter, most schools across the United States are…

Thank you, Dick, and good afternoon, everyone. Today I will refer to our adjusted results for the third quarter excluding one-time items unless otherwise indicated. Third quarter revenue was $277.5 million, year-over-year decrease of 26% compared to the last year, due largely to lower sales in Book Fairs as Dick mentioned. Operating loss was $11.9 million, compared to a loss of $16.8 million last year. Net loss was $4.8 million, compared to a loss of $11.9 million last year. Adjusted EBITDA was $14.2 million, compared to $5.6 million last year. And loss per diluted share was $0.14, compared to $0.34 last year. Though we had lower revenues, our actions to reduce costs and scale our operations, resulted in improved bottomline results and effectively safeguard our cash position. We also benefit from certain COVID-related wage and rent subsidies, mostly in our International business. This was slightly offset by increased postage and shipping charges this holiday season due to parcel carriers, limited customer capacity and increased pricing and surcharges. Over the course of the quarter, we continue to optimize our distribution network and reduce our warehouse and office footprint. In the U.S., we exited Satellite office space in New York City and commenced a network optimization plan in our Book Fairs distribution network, resulting in the permanent closure of 12 distribution branches, while retaining our capacity to reach our customers due to our improved logistics capabilities and delivery methods. In our U.K. operations, we sold a narrow redundant distribution facility. We continue to pare operating expenses, limit discretionary spending and better align our inventory purchases to match expected sales volumes, leading to the achievement of our $100 million cost saving target. Approximately half of these savings will be permanent and will result in improved profitability as we rebuild our revenue base beyond…

Thank you, Ken. As a reminder, we invite questions to be directed via email to investor_relations@ scholastic.com. We’ll respond to your queries within two business days. And now I’d like to turn the call back over to Dick Robinson for closing comments.

Well, thank you all for joining the call today. We’re looking forward to this quarter, our final quarter of the year and to the fiscal year ‘21 end and now head to FY ‘22 as we see a strengthening market and improving operations for the company. Thank you so much for listening today. We’ll look forward to talking to you in July.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.