Good day and welcome to the VPG fiscal first quarter results conference call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Wendy Wilson. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Chad, and good morning, everyone. An audio recording will be made of the conference call today, including any questions or comments that you may contribute. By now you all should have received the earnings release and we hope you have taken the time to read through it, as it does contain important information. You can find it including relevant non-GAAP reconciliations on our website. An audio recording will be available on the internet for a limited time and can be accessed on our website. The content of this conference call is owned by VPG and is protected by U.S. and International Copyright Law. You may not make any recordings or other copies of this call and you may not reproduce, distribute, adapt, transmit, display or perform the contents of this conference call in total or in part without our written permission. Today's remarks are governed by the Safe Harbor provisions of the 1995 Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. Actual results may turn out significantly better or worse than indicated by any forward-looking statements that we may make today. For a more complete discussion of the risks associated with VPG's operations, please refer to our SEC filings, especially the Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2014, and our other recent filings. And now, it's my pleasure to introduce the host for today's call, Ziv Shoshani, CEO and President; and Bill Clancy, CFO. Bill?

Thanks, Wendy. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on our call today. I'd like to start by reviewing a couple of highlights, and then summarizing the financials. Following that, Ziv will provide his view of results and the global business environment. Firs quarter revenues came in at $56.6 million, within our revised guidance announced on April 13. Revenues for the first quarter were negatively impacted by the strengthening of the U.S. dollar against all currencies. This negative foreign currency impact had a $4.4 million effect compared to the first quarter last year, and had a $2.3 million effect sequentially. Adjusted diluted earnings per share were $0.05 versus $0.14 in the first quarter of fiscal 2014. The overall negative impact of foreign exchange rates to pre-tax income for the quarter as compared to the first quarter of 2014 was $500,000 or $0.03 per diluted share. Now, a few highlights. For the quarter we reported net revenues of $56.6 million, a 7.3% decrease from $61.0 million for the prior-year period. As I mentioned, net revenues were negatively impacted by the effect of foreign exchange rates, both year-over-year and sequentially. The consolidated adjusted gross margin for the first quarter of 2015 was 36.7% versus 36.2% for the first quarter of 2014. As of today, we've purchased 156,000 VPG shares at a total cost of $2.4 million as part of our announced stock repurchase program. Given the diversity of end-markets that we serve, some markets are stronger, while others are weaker. And assuming a similar exchange rate impact to revenues, our overall sentiment is stable. For this reason, we are forecasting second quarter revenues to be in a range of $56 million to $61 million. Moving on to our financial results. The year-over-year increase in gross margin for Q1 2015 is…

Thank you, Bill. Given the diversity of end-markets that we serve, some markets are stronger than others, while other end-markets are weaker. Our overall business climate is stable. The global economy has experienced a dramatic decline in oil and gas prices and a dramatic increase in the value of the U.S. dollar in the past few months, affecting our recently reported results and demand for our product in some of our end-market. The U.S. economy came to a new halt in the first three months of the year. With harsh spring weather, lower exports and lower oil and gas exploration, business investment spending on equipment fell at 3.4% annual rate, in large part from a nearly 40% drop in the category that includes oil and gas. Despite this, the U.S. economy appears to be relatively stable. Europe and Japan seem to be slowly recovering, while China's economy continues to decline. Steel sector capacity utilization continued to decrease to 71.6% in March 2015, 4 percentage points lower than in March 2014 and 1.8 percentage points lower than February 2015. Global world crude steel production in March 2015 decreased 2.7% compared to March 2014, with most regions reporting lower output on a year-over-year basis. This trend is expected to continue for the rest of the year. Looking forward, we expect the Eurozone's slow recovery to continue. The U.S. will continue to slowly expand, based on lower energy cost, which are 50% lower than this time last year. The Chinese economy continues to decelerate, despite the government's efforts to manage the trends, and we expect Japan to slowly recover from its 2014 GDP decline. Moving on to operational trends, let's start by comparing consolidated year-over-year and sequential results. The company's overall book-to-bill was 1.05 in the first quarter of 2015 compared to 1.09…

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes today from John Franzreb with Sidoti.

First, I'd like to ask a question about the cost related to the advanced sensor platform. So I heard correctly, this $1 million, was that for the quarter? And when do you expect those cost to rollover?

No, John, that $1 million was a payment for -- that was cash out the door for equipment that we ordered in the fourth quarter of '14. That was just cash outlay.

So how much incremental cost is FTP absorbing related to the new platform right now?

John, as we have announced there is major, major ramp up and we have been providing information regarding the advanced sensor revenue evolution. For this year budget, we have been projecting close to 50% of the $14 million announced. Capital spending would be allocated to the expansion of our advanced sensor line, which in principal would enable us, I would say, to double the capacity of the current strain gage capacity that we have in the company in order to capture new business.

I guess, what I'm trying to get out guys is that the gross margin and FTP was really good in spite of the fact to the incremental costs. So I was just trying to bridge how much of that is the transfer of customers to the new product line at a higher margin? Is cost starting to roll down, incremental cost? So I'm just trying to reconcile some of those items?

Regarding the advanced sensors, I could definitely say that the contribution margin this quarter is higher than last year's quarter due to the fact that we continue to transition product from the old platform to the new platform in conjunction with new applications that generate revenues. I should also state that some of the smaller portion of the higher gross margin is related to a smaller inventory build up on the resistor line in order to support very few big projects that will be delivered later on this year for a telecom base station under sea projects.

And moving to the currency issues as it impacts the weighing segment, can you talk a little bit about what your expectations are for the balance of the year in weighing? It seems like that's a significant headwind at this point?

If we are looking at the third segment, if this is what you're saying, the WCS, as you know we have quite a large exposure due to the fact that at least 40%, 45% of our revenues are coming from a Euro base in conjunction with the fact that we have also a Canadian base -- due to the Kelk acquisition, also a Canadian based currency. In that regard, it will be harder to predict how the currency is going to fluctuate going forward, but at this point in time I can say that we do see some signs of recovery in process weighing project in Europe, in regards to higher volume in the near future. In conjunction with that, as we have been speaking, and this is more regarding the Canadian currency, which is more related to the steel market, as we have been reporting a very, very low steel utilization, still the demand is not there. The only sign is that India, and all countries are reducing the steel capacity except India, which have announced that this is like a national project that they would like to increase capacity. So we see more signs of activities in India coming on the steel market in the near future.

There appears to be no further questions. At this time, I would like to turn the conference back over to Wendy Wilson for any closing remarks. End of Q&A

Thank you, Chad. And thank you everyone for dialing in today. We really appreciate your support. And we look forward to seeing you throughout the year this year as we get out on the road. And we look forward to you dialing in on our next call. Thanks, again, and have a great day.

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.