Good day and thank you for standing by and welcome to the Scholastic Reports Q4 and Fiscal Year 2022 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today’s conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Paul Hukkanen. You may begin.

Hello and welcome everyone to Scholastic’s fourth quarter and fiscal 2022 earnings call. Joining me on the call today are Peter Warwick, our President and Chief Executive Officer and Ken Cleary, our Chief Financial Officer. As usual, we have posted the accompanying investor presentation on our IR website at investor.scholastic.com, which you may download now if you have not already done so. We would like to point out that certain statements made today will be forward-looking. These forward-looking statements, by their nature, are subject to various risks and uncertainties 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. The reconciliations of those measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures maybe found in the company’s earnings release and accompanying financial tables filed this afternoon on a Form 8-K. This earnings release has also been posted to our Investor Relations website. We encourage you to review the disclaimers in the release and investor presentation and to review the risk factors disclosed in the company’s annual and quarterly reports filed with the SEC. Should you have any questions after today’s call, please send them directly to our IR e-mail address, investor_relations@scholastic.com. And now, I’d like to turn the call over to Peter Warwick to begin this afternoon’s presentation.

Good afternoon, everyone and thank you for joining today’s call. Our fiscal year 2022 came to a close with a strong fourth quarter, which builds upon three solid quarters to secure impressive results for the full year and establish positive momentum for moving forward. These results are a direct reflection of the adaptability, resolve and unparalleled dedication of Scholastic employees. To that point, we delivered more than 500 million units of books and educational materials in the United States this past fiscal year. It takes strong teamwork at every level to accomplish that. As usual, Ken will provide greater detail later in the call. But at a high level, our results exceeded expectations for this rebuilding year, particularly for Book Fairs, which was initially the area most affected by COVID. Overall, full year revenues grew 26%, operating income increased by $120 million, and free cash flow increased by $162 million. Based on our strong performance and our optimism for the future, we were pleased to announce yesterday a 33% increase in our regular quarterly dividend, the first change in nearly a decade. Further, we are resuming guidance for our new fiscal year, which we suspended in 2020 due to the uncertainties of the pandemic. We expect fiscal year 2023 revenue growth in the range of 8% to 10% and adjusted EBITDA is expected to be $195 million to $205 million, up from $189 million in 2022. If we learned anything over the past 2 years, it’s that change is a certainty and the pace of that change is more rapid than previous generations have ever experienced. Our confidence moving forward is rooted in that knowledge and fueled by our proactive work to both prepare for and to embrace the future. Our highly skilled management team is working effectively to better…

Thank you, Peter, and good afternoon. Today, I will refer to our adjusted results for the fourth quarter and full fiscal year, excluding one-time items unless otherwise indicated. Please refer to our press release tables and SEC filings for a complete discussion of one-time items. My focus this afternoon will be primarily on the full year results given the backload seasonality of our business. We have performed well in this transitionary year coming out of the pandemic under Peter’s leadership. The operating leverage we created through our cost-savings programs during the pandemic are evidenced in our EBITDA results for the year. We have set the stage for future growth while ensuring current operations provide substantial returns for our investors. Overall, we are pleased with our performance. Revenue for the fourth quarter was $514.4 million compared to $401.4 million in the prior year period. For the full fiscal year, revenue was $1.64 billion compared to $1.3 billion in the prior fiscal year. Operating income in the quarter was $66.1 million versus $41.6 million in the fourth quarter last year. For the full year, operating income was $97.5 million versus $39 million last year. Full year operating income increased $58.5 million on incremental revenues of $342.6 million, demonstrating the high operating leverage the company created through the prior year’s cost-savings initiatives. Likewise, full year adjusted EBITDA increased from $139.6 million in fiscal 2021 to $188.9 million in fiscal 2022, an increase of $49.3 million. And diluted EPS for the full year more than doubled to $2.38 from $1.02. Net cash provided by operating activities was $47.5 million in the quarter compared to $34.5 million in the prior year’s fourth quarter. Free cash flow for the quarter was $34.9 million compared to $19 million last year. For the full year, net cash provided…

Thank you, Ken, for that walk-through of our results and future outlook. Overall, we are extremely pleased with the positive momentum of our strategic and operational initiatives, which have positioned us very favorably for fiscal year 2023 and beyond. Importantly, we expect the positive trends from our recent performance to continue, trends, which in many cases lead the industry. In the near-term, we anticipate our book fairs recovery to advance from this year’s 72% of pre-pandemic levels to 85% and for continuing high levels of government funding into K-12 education post-pandemic that will bolster our sales. We will also capitalize on sustainable trends long-term, such as recognizing and growing the demand for independent reading and children’s book ownership, coupled with the need for support to grow students’ literacy skills, an unparalleled level of trust in our brand earned through a century of partnership with families and schools, growing opportunities for our IP that lift our backlist, and finally, ensuring our core businesses remain formidable, gives us the flexibility to implement targeted growth investments to increase innovation and opportunity. With that, I thank you again for joining us today. Paul will now conclude this call for us.

Thank you, Peter. And as a reminder, we invite questions to be directed to our IR mailbox, investor_relations@scholastic.com. We appreciate your time and continuing support.

Thank you. This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.