Heritage Global Inc. (NASDAQ:HGBL) Q2 2023 Earnings Conference Call August 10, 2023 5:00 PM ET

Company Participants

John Nesbett - Investor Relations

Ross Dove - Chief Executive Officer

Brian Cobb - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Mark Argento - Lake Street Capital Markets

George Sutton - Craig-Hallum

Operator

Greetings and welcome to Heritage Global Inc. Second Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.

It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Ross Dove, Chief Executive Officer. Thank you. You may begin.

John Nesbett

Thank you and good afternoon, everyone. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that this conference call contains forward-looking statements based on our current expectations and projections about future events and are subject to change based on various important factors.

In light of these risks, uncertainties and assumptions, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of date of this call. For more details and factors that could affect these expectations, please see our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Now I'd like to turn the call over to Heritage Global's Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Ross Dove. Go ahead, Ross.

Ross Dove

Thank you, John. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you all for joining. Welcome to our 2023 Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. Today, we'll start the call with Brian Cobb, our CFO. Brian, go ahead. You're up.

Brian Cobb

Thanks, Ross. We are pleased to reach the halfway point of 2023 with a record $7 million in operating income. Our solid second quarter results included operating income of $3.1 million, earnings of $0.07 per diluted share and EBITDA of $3.2 million.

Both our financial assets and industrial assets division are continuing to see tremendous opportunities in the marketplace as the current economic situation is driving increased volume in assets coming to market.

Our industrial assets division has seen a significant increase in its core asset disposition business during the first half of 2023 as compared to the same period in 2022. From time to time, we have real estate transactions in the mix, which occurred in the first half of 2022, but we think a more accurate comparison is looking at only our core auction business.

In the first half of 2023, we saw a higher volume of industrial auctions, which includes an increased contribution by American Laboratory Trading acquired in 2021. With growing synergies within the division and the industrial asset pipeline currently in place, we anticipate we'll continue to see substantial activity during the second half of 2023.