Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Weyco Group Second Quarter 2021 Earnings Release Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Mr. John Wittkowske. Sir, please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to Weyco Group's conference call to discuss our second quarter 2021 earnings. On this call with me today are Tom Florsheim, Jr., our Chairman and CEO; and John Florsheim, our President and COO. Before we begin to discuss the results of the quarter, I will read a brief disclaimer. During the course of this call, we may make projections or other forward-looking statements regarding our current expectations concerning future events and the future financial performance of the company. We wish to caution you that such statements are just predictions and that actual events or results may differ materially. We refer you to Weyco Group's most recent Form 10-K as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission as well as its other filings with the SEC. The Form 10-K identifies important factors and risks that could cause the company's actual results to differ materially from our projections. With respect to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, numerous factors will determine the extent and length of the impact on the company, including the extent and duration of the pandemic and its impact on the global economy. Actions taken by governments such as stay at home or similar orders that, among other effects, require retail store closures or limit foot traffic, the financial health of the company's customers and business partners, including the effects of any bankruptcy proceedings by such parties, the performance of the company's supply chain and the health and welfare of the company's employees. Net sales for the second quarter of 2021 were $57.6 million, up from second quarter 2020 net sales of $16.6 million. Operating earnings totaled $4.5 million for the quarter compared to operating losses of $13 million last year. The company's net earnings rose to $3.8 million or $0.39 per diluted share for…

Thanks, John, and good morning, everyone. We are extremely happy with how our wholesale business opened up in the second quarter. In fact, we have never really seen demand go from lackluster to supercharged in such a short period of time. Credit vaccinations, stimulus checks, pent-up demand for restocking wardrobes, return to the office and social events or a combination of all of the above, the end result is we feel much more positive about the fundamentals of our business. Our legacy brands, Florsheim, Nunn Bush and Stacy Adams all bounced back strongly in the spring with Florsheim being the outstanding performer. With events such as weddings and formal gatherings on the calendar, we saw renewed demand for more refined footwear. While at the same time, retailers have reduced both their dress and dress casual style offerings and inventory levels. Florsheim, Nunn Bush and Stacy Adams all were able to address this void in the market as Weyco Group was one of the few footwear wholesalers that stocks significant inventory. We saw both unprecedented sell-throughs at the retail level and corresponding orders at the wholesale level as retailers pivoted strongly back to the refined footwear category. We should see continued pipeline fill to our retailers throughout the back half of 2021. We are very pleased with the performance of our legacy brands. We are also excited about the breakthroughs that we had this spring with casual footwear. The pandemic pushed the company to accelerate development, delivery and selling a more casual athletic inspired footwear to fit the more relaxed lifestyle trend in apparel that we believe, over the long term will continue to grow in importance. Florsheim, Nunn Bush and Stacy Adams all significantly increased the percentage of purely casual shoes. The consumer has responded well with certain styles being…

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of JW Milligan from Woodworth.

Can you expand on what on your balance sheet, the -- or cash flow, the -- wait a minute, where is it? The investments there of about $30 million?

Yes. This is John. We -- as Tom mentioned, our inventories have been getting lower relative a variety of issues. And we knew that we would have to -- we were going to generate a lot of cash early on in the year. And with the delay in some of the purchases, we've been able to build up our cash balance, as you saw, to like $65 million. The $30 million represent very short-term liquid investments that we wanted to be able to earn something on until that cash will likely be used in the third and fourth quarter to purchase these inventories that are going to be coming in. As you saw, our inventories are low, and they are going to be building up. And we just needed a holding place for that cash. So these are short-term liquid investments, very low risk, just to generate some added income.

Do you -- we have some shipping companies. Why do you think that you'll be able to -- the backlog on shipping will change later in the year?

What's the -- well, I think we have our people working all the time on trying to get space on containers. We are working with our factories. We're having success in booking some space on containers outside of our freight contracts. We have been -- we do have a lot -- quite a bit more in transit right now that are actually on boats. So we do know that things are going to be coming in later in the month and throughout the rest of the year. Now you're right, there is no absolute guarantee, but we're working diligently to get as much space as we can to get those product in.

[Operator Instructions] There are no questions on the queue at this time. Presenters, please continue.

I would like to thank everyone for their attention this quarter, and have a good day, and we'll talk to you next quarter. Thank you.

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