The Shyft Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:SHYF) Q1 2023 Earnings Conference Call April 27, 2023 10:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Randy Wilson - Vice President, Investor Relations and Treasury

Daryl Adams - President, CEO and Director

Jon Douyard - CFO

Conference Call Participants

Felix Boeschen - Raymond James

Michael Shlisky - D.A. Davidson

Greg Lewis - BTIG

Steve Dyer - Craig Hallum

Matt Koranda - Roth MKM

Operator

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Shyft Group's First Quarter and Full-Year 2022 Conference Call and Webcast. All participants will be in a listen-only mode until the question-and-answer session of the conference call. [Operator instructions]

I'd now like to introduce Randy Wilson, Vice President, Investor Relations and Treasury of the Shyft Group. Mr. Wilson, you may proceed.

Randy Wilson

Thank you for joining this morning's call. I'm joined by Daryl Adams, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Jon Douyard, Chief Financial Officer. Their prepared remarks will be followed by a question-and-answer session. For today's call, we've included a presentation deck that's been filed with the SEC, and is also available on our website.

Before we begin, please turn to Slide 2 of the presentation for a Safe Harbor statement. Today's conference call contains forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks that could cause actual results to be materially different from those expressed or implied. Primary risks that management believes could materially affect our results are identified in our Forms 10-K and 10-Q filed with the SEC. We will be discussing non-GAAP information and performance measures we believe are useful in evaluating the company's operating performance.

During today's call, we will provide a business update before moving on to a more detailed review of the results and our 2023 outlook. We will then open the line for Q&A. Please turn to Slide 3, and I'll turn it over to Daryl Adams.

Daryl Adams

Thank you, Randy, and good morning, everyone. Overall, the Shyft Group had a solid start to the year, delivered improved financial performance, while continuing to deliver on our strategy and long-term growth initiatives. Our team achieved 18% sales growth led by another record quarter in our service body business and improved performance in Fleet Vehicles and Services.

Our ability to increase output enabled us to improve profitability by over $11 million versus the first quarter of last year. In addition, we delivered positive operating cash flow in the quarter and brought in nearly $34 million more than prior year, which allowed us to efficiently deploy capital. We continue to make great progress on our Blue Arc electric vehicle program in the quarter. We were very pleased to announce that not only did we achieve CARB and EPA certification for our Class 3, 4 and 5 EV delivery vehicles. What we did so with performance that more than exceeds our fleet customers' needs. The CARB test results for our Class 3 vehicle included a 225 mile city range and over a 200 mile combined city highway range, which can more than comfortably handle a daily delivery route.