Lakeland Industries faces revenue decline and margin pressure, but remains optimistic about future tender opportunities and strategic growth initiatives.

California PPE is a leading and rapidly expanding UL certified ISP in the California Firefighting Services market, one of the largest fire markets in the United States. From these two outstanding companies, we intend to continue growing the North American service segment of the global fire services market by leveraging the combined strengths and experience of Lakeland's LHD service offerings in Asia and Australia with the outstanding teams from Arizona PPE and California PPE to develop a strong North American platform. Lakeland LHD was awarded an approximately USD 5.6 million 3 year contract to provide advanced decontamination, managed care and maintenance services for the Hong Kong Fire Services Department's Firefighter Protective Gear, one of the largest emergency response organizations in Asia. The contract, running through 2028, covers advanced decontamination services as well as comprehensive care and maintenance of an estimated 14,500 firefighter ensembles each year. This award underscores our strong presence in the Asia Pacific market and reinforces the trust placed in our services by one of the region's most respected fire services organizations. Additionally, we completed a 6.1 million sale and partial leaseback of our Decatur, Alabama warehouse property to an unrelated party in connection with capital reallocation initiatives, resulting in a gain of 4.3 million as well as strengthening the balance sheet and providing financial flexibility for future growth. The third quarter reflected the impact of tariff uncertainty, inflation effects and the associated mitigation strategies we have employed since the election. Beyond tariffs, we also faced raw material inflation and rising supply chain costs that also contributed to the impact on both revenue and gross margin. Revenue softness was visible across our portfolio in the U.S., Canada, Latin America and parts of EMEA. North America faced challenges with revenue down quarter over quarter and Latin America came in below our plan due to macroeconomic conditions impacted by political uncertainty. Our acquired businesses also came in below our plan due to timing, certification delays and material flow issues rather than underlying demand. As we step back, it's important to acknowledge that this softness is not isolated to Lakeland. Nearly all of our peers are reporting similar challenges tariffs, freight, raw material inflation and rising supply chain costs. This is not an excuse, but it is the reality of the environment we are operating in and it reinforces that the pressure on margins is broad based, not unique to us. At the end of Q3, inventory was 87.9 million, down from 90.2 million at the end of Q2 fiscal year 2026. We have recently initiated a series of targeted actions to optimize inventory levels across our entire organization. Looking ahead, we are highly focused on the upcoming tender cycle which will position us for stronger execution and building momentum heading into calendar year 2026. Renewed tender activity is expected to increase demand for fire services in the US and internationally and contribute to improved performance at Eagle and LHD Germany. We have approximately 178 million of global tender opportunities, including 38 million over 100,000 in value with high probabilities of success. These opportunities are positioning us for expanded operating leverage with expense reductions and expanded margins. As tenders deliver margins above normalized profile. We are now starting to see tender wins for calendar one 2026 across our entire product portfolio. Taken together, this past quarter was unacceptable. We missed our targets across multiple areas and as CEO, I take full responsibility for that performance. Our forecasting has not been reliable and the gap between our internal expectations and actual results has grown too large. Because of this, we will be withdrawing formal guidance. Instead, we are shifting to a more disciplined operating model focused on measurable execution, cash generation and transparency to help lead us forward. We have also realigned our finance team with the appointment of Calvin Sweeney as interim CFO effective January 1st. You'll be hearing from Calvin in a moment. At the same time, it is important to recognize that this quarter occurred against a backdrop of unprecedented headwinds across virtually all of our global operations. These challenges affected not just Lakeland, but our peers as well, many of whom have publicly acknowledged similar pressures. Despite this environment, our long term fundamentals remain intact and our strategic conviction has not changed. We remain extremely optimistic about the underlying demand signals. We are seeing a robust and global fire tender pipeline, the necessary US Refinery shutdown cycle ahead, our disciplined sales process and clear signs of pent up demand across nearly every region. We expect these headwinds to begin to ease as we move into calendar year 2026 and we continue to believe strongly in the long term potential of both our fire and industrial strategies. This is not about lowering ambition, it's about rebuilding trust through results, not projections. We will provide regular updates on key operational milestones, inventory reduction progress, margin improvements and the ERP and integration timelines. When our forecasting accuracy, sales cadence and operational visibility improve to an acceptable standard, we will revisit reinstating guidance. For now, our full focus is on running the core business with rigor, improving forecast accuracy and delivering sustainable, predictable performance. With that, I'd like to pass the call to Barry to provide an update on FHIR services.

Thank you, Jim. Looking at our fire services, revenue underperformed primarily because certification cycles and tender timelines extended longer than anticipated across multiple regions. These are timing delays rather than structural Demand issues. The opportunities remain in the pipeline. The majority have not been lost, they've simply shifted later than expected. We continue to believe we have a high probability of success in securing 38 million of these opportunities within our total pipeline of 178 million. Our tender activity remains strong globally. Current delays reflect regulatory timing and administrative bottlenecks and as Jim mentioned, competitors have cited similar headwinds. The underlying demand environment for fire services and protected gear remains intact. We remain highly confident in our major tenders currently in the late stages. Feedback from end users and procurement teams remain positive. Delays have been driven by certification cycles and administrative timing, not competitive losses, and our confidence remains high. But we are not assigning timing commitments to these opportunities except to say majority of the 38 million of opportunities we believe will hit FY27. Fire service margins remain structurally sound. The temporary compression came from the volume timing and low absorption during the delays. As volume normalizes and tenders convert, margins are expected to recover without requiring broad pricing actions. For our sales team, the priority is to build a dependable base of monthly sales that is not dependent on large tenders or seasonal cycles. This means expanding distributor engagement, tightening forecast accuracy, strengthening bid coverage across brands and accelerating new product commercialization. Our global fire strategy remains intact heading into next fiscal year. The product portfolio is broader and stronger than at any time in the company's history. The Jolly NFPA launch is progressing, LHD Europe is stabilizing and we're positioning the entire fire platform across the upcoming global cycle. I'll now pass the call to Cameron to cover our industrial and chemical critical environment sectors.

Thanks, Barry. During the third quarter, industrial demand softened across several industrial channels faster than expected. Distributors reduced inventory, certain customers deferred purchases, and competitive pricing tightened in pockets of the market. Our forecasting did not capture these shifts quickly enough, creating the variance between expected and actual performance. We are seeing cyclical adjustments in certain channels, not long term erosion. Several customer segments and geographies show stabilization signals and we expect run rate predictability to improve as customer inventories normalize in response. Forecasting has been unified into a consistent process across all industrial regions with more rigorous mid month accuracy checks and tighter reconciliation with distributor data. We've shifted to channel level segmentation, so forecasting reflects real behavior inside customer groups rather than broad regional assumptions. Looking to our competitors, share movement has been limited and localized pricing pressure has increased in spots where certain competitors have short term tariff or sourcing advantages. We are addressing this with selective incentives aimed at volume stability while managing overall margin discipline. Our sales strategy requires rebuilding distributor run rates, reengaging customers who deferred purchases, tightening CRM and channel discipline, and stabilizing the chemical and critical environment segments. These actions create a predictable foundation of volume. When delayed tenders, certifications and turnaround activity return, that volume becomes upside that drops directly to operating leverage. The goal is stable, predictable growth driven by improved forecasting accuracy, stronger distributor engagement, recovery in delayed chemical and critical environment orders, and disciplined channel management. We are focused on building consistency rather than volatility. With that, I'd like to pass the call to Calvin to cover our financial results.

Thank you Cameron and hello everyone. I'll provide a quick overview of our fiscal 2026 third quarter financials before diving into the details. Revenue for the quarter grew 1.8 million year over year to 47.6 million, an increase of 4% compared to the third quarter of fiscal 2025. Consolidated gross margin decreased to 29.7% from 40.6% for the third quarter of fiscal 2025, while our adjusted gross margin decreased to 31.3% as compared to 41.7% in the year ago period. Adjusted operating expenses increased by 0.4 million from 14.3 million in Q3 of last year to 14.7 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2026, primarily due to inorganic growth. Net loss was 16 million, or $1.64 per basic and diluted earnings per share for the third quarter of fiscal 2026, compared to a net income of 100,000, or $0.01 per basic and diluted earnings per share for the third quarter of fiscal 2025. Adjusted EBITDA excluding FX was $0.2 million for the quarter, a decrease of $4.5 million, or 95%, compared with $4.7 million for the third quarter fiscal year 2025. Adjusted EBITDA excluding Fx margin in the third quarter fiscal 2026 was 5.5%, a decrease of 988 basis points from 10.3% in the third quarter of fiscal 2025 and a decrease of 918 basis points from 9.6% in the second quarter of fiscal 2026. Cash and cash equivalents were 17.2 million on October 31, 2025, compared to 17.5 million on January 31, 2025. On a consolidated basis for the third quarter of fiscal 2026. Domestic sales were 19.2 million, representing 40% of total revenues, and international sales were 28.4 million, accounting for 60% of total revenues as our recent Veridian acquisition contributed to increased U.S. revenue. This compares with domestic sales of 15.4 million, or 34% of the total and and international sales of 30.4 million, or 66%, in the third quarter of fiscal 2025. Looking at our third fiscal quarter of 2026, our quarterly revenue faced challenges. Globally, sales from our recent acquisitions accounted for 10.1 million, while organic sales were 37.5 million. Sales of the fire services product line increased by 6 million year over year, driven by 3.4 million sales from viridian as well as organic fire Services. Growth of 3 million adjusted gross profit for the third quarter of fiscal 2026 was 14.9 million, a decrease of 4.2 million or 22%, compared to 19.1 million for the third quarter of fiscal 2025 due to lower sales, higher product costs and tariffs, and impacted US gross profit by 3.2 million versus Q2. Adjusted gross profit as a percentage of net sales decreased to 31.3% for the third quarter of fiscal 2026 from 41.7% for the third quarter of fiscal 2025. On an adjusted basis, operating expenses excluding foreign exchange were 14.7 million in the fiscal third quarter, more accurately showcasing the decreases in both our organic and inorganic segments resulting from the new cost reduction initiatives. On a sequential basis, adjusted operating expenses were stable, increasing by 0.1 million or 1% due to focused cost control measures and the previously mentioned initiatives. Adjusted EBITDA excluding FX was 200,000 for the fiscal third quarter, a decrease of 4.5 million or 95%. Compared with 4.7 million for the third quarter of fiscal 2025 and a decrease of 4.8 million or 98%, compared with $5.1 million for the second quarter of fiscal 2026. This significant decrease was a result of lower performance in north and South America. Adjusted EBITDA FX margin was 0.5% for the most recent quarter, a decrease of 988 basis points from 10.3% in the third quarter of fiscal 2025 and a decrease of 918 BAS from 9.6% in the second quarter of fiscal 2026. Revenue for the trailing twelve months ended October 31, 2025 was 193.5 million, an increase of 41.7 million or 27%, versus the Q3 fiscal 2025 trailing twelve months revenue of 1:51.8 million. With our recent fire service acquisition supporting Lakeland's continued revenue growth trailing twelve months. Adjusted EBITDA excluding the impacts of FX was 9.3 million compared to 11.7 million for the prior quarter's trailing twelve months. The decrease was driven by lower margin revenue mix, increased material and freight costs and tariffs. Considering we completed four acquisitions in the past 12 months, the full immigration implementation, which requires some time, will, we believe the resulting synergies and efficiencies will begin to translate into stronger financial performance in the coming quarters. Adjusted gross margin percentage decreased in the third quarter of fiscal 2026 to 31.3% compared to 41.7% in the same period last year due to lower acquired company gross margins, increased material supply chain costs and tariffs. Margins in the acquired businesses were impacted by increased material costs. Adjusted EBITDA excluding FX was 0.2 million for the fiscal third quarter, a decrease of 4.5 million or 95% compared with 4.7 million in the third quarter fiscal 2025. The decline was driven primarily by significant revenue shortfalls in Latin America, our highest margin region, and lower than expected sales in the U.S. fire and industrials Meridian, LHT and Eagle were also impacted by NFPA certification delays and slower tender conversion. Globally, these factors more than offset the reductions achieved in operating expenses. We are currently implementing an additional $1.3 million of cost reductions for the fourth quarter. Reviewing our performance for the third quarter. Our most recent acquisition, Meridian contributed $3.4 million in revenue during the quarter and LHD added 6 million across three subsidiaries, Germany, Australia and Hong Kong. We expect sales from our fire services to accelerate as we fulfill open orders, capitalize on cross selling opportunities and execute on our sales and tender pipeline. Looking at our organic business, our US revenue decreased 3% to $15 million from 15.4 million driven by declines in our industrial business due to tariff uncertainty. Our European revenue including Eagle, Jolly and our recently acquired LHC business increased 6% to 15.2 million. We continue to see very good sales opportunities in Europe and are committed to its growth trajectory. Our Latin American operations experienced a 0.8 million decrease in sales from 5 million in the year ago period to 4.2 million in the current quarter, primarily due to to ongoing delayed purchase decisions resulting from political uncertainty. In Asia, sales decreased 19% year over year from 3.6 million to 2.9 million. Regarding product mix for fiscal year to date 2026, our fire services businesses grew to 49% of revenues versus 39% for fiscal year 2025 driven by full nine months of Veridian sales and organic gains. In the US for our industrial product line, disposables accounted for 26% of the year to date revenue while chemicals accounted for 11%. The remainder of our industrial products including high performance and high VIS accounted for 14% of sales. Now turning to the balance sheet. Lakeland ended the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of approximately 17.0 million and long term debt of 37.1 million. This compares to $17.5 million in cash and $16.4 million in long term debt as of January 31, 2025. As of October 31, 2025, our long term debt of $37.1 million included borrowings of $33.2 million outstanding under the revolving credit facility with an additional $6.8 million of available credit under the loan agreement. We were in compliance with all our credit facility covenants. In August we sold our Decatur, Alabama property for 6.1 million less customary commissions and closing fees and applied 100% of the net proceeds to repay our revolving credit facility. Net cash used in operating activities was 17.6 million in the nine months ended October 31st, 2025 compared to 12.5 million in the nine months ended Oct 31st, 2024. The increase was driven by decline in profitability, previously discussed ERP implementation costs and an increase in working capital of 7.9 million. Capital expenditures total 8 million for the nine months ended October 31, 2025, primarily related to replacement equipment for our manufacturing sites and developed technology projects. We anticipate FY26 capital expenditures to be approximately 1.2 million. Lastly, given near term headwinds and in order to prudently manage our cash, the Company has made the decision to suspend its quarterly cash dividend on our common stock. We believe reinvesting profits into growth opportunities such as acquisitions or market expansion is a better return for shareholders in the future. The payment of any future dividends will be at the discretion of the Board and will depend on the Company's financial conditions, results of operations, capital requirements and any other factors deemed relevant by the Board. At the end of Q3, inventory was 87.9 million, down from 90.2 million at the end of Q2 fiscal year 2026. We have recently initiated a series of targeted actions to optimize inventory levels across specific categories. Our immediate priorities include US Industrial, Jolly, LHD and Viridian, where we see the greatest opportunity to align balances with demand and improve efficiency. Inventory of acquired companies totaled 14.3 million versus 7 million last year. Six million of the acquired companies increase came from the ridden acquisition and LHC's inventory increased by 1.3 million versus last year. Year over year we saw an increase in our organic inventory of 7.9 million versus the quarter ended October 31st, 2024. Organic finished goods were $38.8 million in the third quarter fiscal 2026 up $5.6 million year over year and down $0.5 million quarter over quarter. Organic raw materials were $33 million in the third quarter, fiscal 2026 up $2.1 million year over year and down 0.4 million dollars quarter over quarter. With that overview, I'd like to turn the call back over to Jim before we begin taking questions.

Thank you, Calvin. In conclusion, we continue to demonstrate net sales growth reflecting the strength of our underlying business. This growth is further supported by a 31% year over year increase in our fire services. Our robust pipeline of approximately 178 million includes approximately 38 million in near term high probability opportunities providing momentum heading into fiscal year 27. We are now starting to see tender Wins for calendar Q1 2026 across the entire product portfolio. These opportunities are positioning us for expanded operating leverage with expense reductions and expanded margins as tenders deliver margins above normalized profile. Our near term strategy is focused on navigating the continued challenges from the evolving macro environment while expanding top line revenue in our fire services and industrial verticals. By maintaining a focus on operating and manufacturing efficiencies, we believe we are well positioned to deliver higher margins and improve free cash flow all against the backdrop of ongoing macro uncertainties. Looking long term, our strategy remains to grow both our fire services and industrial PPE verticals through our strategically located company owned capital light model. By maintaining a focus on operating and manufacturing efficiencies, we believe we are positioned to grow faster than the markets we serve. Our acquisition pipeline also remains robust with active discussions underway and in line with our overall growth strategy. Although challenges have affected our forecasting ability and we have withdrawn our formal guidance, we expect top line revenue growth in the high single digit revenue growth across global operations over the next three quarters. We are targeting 10 to 12% adjusted EBITDA margins with incremental growth and EBITDA margins over the next three quarters. Looking farther ahead, we expect 15 to 17% adjusted EBITDA margins over the next three years through cost discipline, operational consolidation and targeted commercial investments. As we look forward to the future, we are confident that our continued focus on targeted acquisitions will serve as key growth drivers over the next three to four years. We are actively engaging in discussions aligned with our decontamination, rental and services growth strategy. We look forward to sharing upcoming milestones in the weeks and months ahead. With that, we will now open the call for questions. Operator.

Thank you. And with that, this will now start the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate that your line is in the question queue. You may press star two to remove yourself from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up the handset before pressing the star keys. One moment while we poll for questions. And our first question comes from the line of Jerry Sweeney with Roth Capital Partners. Please proceed with your question.

Good afternoon, Jim. Thanks for taking my call. Hey, Jerry, I wanted to talk about. The fire service tenders. 38 million high probability. What makes you think they're high probability? And then the follow on to that was, would be that 178 million total. Is there an opportunity for that to expand further, especially with some of the NFPA determinations coming out in the next couple, hopefully in the next month or two. Yeah.

Yes, Jerry. So, yeah, so I'm going to, I'm going to. You know, I'm glad Barry is here is one of the reasons why I wanted to have Barry and Cameron here was to talk about some of these opportunities. And Barry, I'll let you sort of answer that because I know there's a number of buckets that those fall into those high probabilities.

Yeah, thanks. There are basically there's four buckets to position ourselves in a high probability position. Is are we the incumbent? So do we already have the business with that core relationship with that end department. Next would be is the competitor that's incumbent struggling in some manner? Additionally, we are also looking at where we can come in with a multiple brand strategy and with some of our portfolio that we have overlaps in year, for example, we can have two or more bids involved in the process. And lastly, if we're positioned well with the department and we're written into the specifications.

So, Jerry, that 38 million is where all of those sort of four buckets fall for us. So that's why we view them as high probabilities. And then that 178 million. And look, we won't win all the high probabilities and we'll win some of the others in 178 million. But I think if you talk to any of our competitors, they'll say the same thing. You know. Once these certifications and standards are adopted, sort of the floodgates should open over a period of time. And again, I think what we're trying to caution is it's not going to, it's going to happen and it's going to happen during fiscal 27, but, but it's going to happen over a period of time during that fiscal year. I look at certifications and standards and they appear over a very long period of time. There's a 10 year sort of window for these standards and they're kind of like the cicadas. They show up every 17 years. These standards kind of show up and when they do there's a bit of. A. You know, a loggerhead here that kind of gets, kind of slows it down on the decision making front. I talked about this in prior calls about the 25 year automobile model versus the 26 and waiting. And this is exactly what's happened I think in the tender cycle that we're seeing is that these tenders, particularly in the US and in areas where NFPA is becoming more rapidly accepted, those tenders have slowed down. And so we'll see those pick up as soon as those standards are issued. Originally we believe the standards were going to come into play in March of 25. They were then extended to September of 25 and ultimately extended to March of 26. We have no reason to believe and in fact what we're hearing is that that will be the date. The 26th should be the date, March 26th should be the date. So that's why we're feeling very bullish about where we're driving. Our fire opportunities.

Got it. Then on the margin front, if I heard you correctly, obviously there's a lot more costs, tariffs, raw materials, logistics, etc. But it sounded also that as sounded as though you could recover those costs through just higher absorption or higher production levels and absorbing some of the overhead. Did I hear that correctly or could you walk through?

No.

That is correct. It's a function of getting ourselves at full capacity at a certain dollar amount where that operating leverage kicks in. So that's a critical component to it. The other is while you're waiting for tenders, you're selling hoods and gloves and boots and frankly lower margin products to your captive customers who have those needs and occasionally replacing know turnout gear. But it's not 500 suits or a thousand suits, it's 50. And so yeah, it's actually a reflection of product mix. So typically we'd be having a high range or more than 2/3 of our fire sales would be in custom made turnout gear and the remainder being the commodity products. Now we're in higher range in the, in the commodities while we're waiting for the turnout gear business to come back into with the new standard certification. And you kind of couple that in a perfect storm with what's transpired in Latin America where we've had a significant reliance on Argentina. Whether that was shrewd or not, it was just the case. And you drop that high margin and you drop the high margin, you know, you see some softness in the high margin areas in Canada. And that generates sort of a perfect storm when you've got the industrials that.

Have a geopolitical component and then we have a tender delay. I'm not suggesting those are excuses. Those are just, you know, we need to work our way around those excuses or those issues. And we are. And we're driving similar opportunities in industrial. And I can certainly have Cameron address that.

Gotcha. One more question. Obviously, you know, multiple international acquisitions, global footprint, how important is getting the ERP system up and running to really give you visibility on. Mechanics.

The ERP system? So there's a couple places internationally where the erp, the systems we have are pretty solid. China's got a good system for Asia. We've got a nice system in Argentina for Latin America. And so those are, we look at those as lower priorities. Veridian has a very solid ERP system as well. So the prioritization of this right now is North America, which we're driving towards a June, July rollout for our SAP implementation. And then the next phases are frankly, to look at some of the acquisitions and folding some of those in, and then it's Vietnam and some other areas. So it's going to take a prolonged period of time. But getting the first step in place, which is North America, which is sort of the brains of the organization, so to speak, the rest of the world, sort of the heart. Having the brains of the organization with a solid system in place is going to serve service mightily. Would you agree, Cal?

Yes.

I'll jump back in line. Thanks. Thank you.

And our next question comes from the line of Mark Smith with Lake Street Capital. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, guys. I just wanted to ask about certification delays. You know, can you give us an update on anything that's that's changed on that since the end of the quarter?

Yeah. So the certification, the delays in certification, we knew that that certification was coming in March of 26. We also know that all of our products are in the queue for certification with all of our competitors. And I don't believe there's any exceptions at this point, Barry. So I'll let you. I mean, the extent that we don't expect any further delays on that front.

The one thing that is different this cycle, most of my career in this space. So this is actually the combination of four standards that were brought together. As opposed to having a specific certification standard for firefighting gear, it now was grouped together where it includes firefighting gear, it includes SCBA PASS or personal Alert Safety systems, as well as tactical apparel, all under one standard. So that's forced now all the manufacturers to hustle in and go to the same certifying agencies to address all these products that now need to be recertified. So there's quite a backlog at the certification agencies which has been causing some of this delay for all of us.

Okay. And Dennis, if you think about kind of mitigation efforts here to improve gross profit margin. You know, headwinds and which ones maybe expect to normalize first?

Look, I think on the headwind front, you know, sort of the tariffs, I mean, you've got issues with. We got issues with the tariffs. We're addressing that, you know, as best we can with sort of programs with our suppliers. We're simplifying the product lines and sort of shifting production towards the higher margin categories as those certifications come online, which is the certification component. And you know, the idea here obviously is to do that, do an SKU rationalization which we're in the middle of. We're rationalizing. We've got sins of the past from a legacy perspective. We've had thousands of SKUs that Helena and her team are rationalizing now down to a much more manageable number. And of course we've got the targeted inventory reductions and we're about a third of the way there towards year end of about 6 million. And we're hopeful we can get a little bit north of that. So go ahead. Yeah. Additionally, we are bringing third party manufactured products into our own factories. Right.

In particular with our turnout gear production.

Okay. And then lastly from you, just thinking about tariffs, high freight costs, high raw material costs. Can you just talk about pricing opportunities?

Are you talking about pricing increases? Yes. Okay. So yeah, so we have our annual pricing increases that are being communicated in fire and in industrial. We've got a different, obviously they're different businesses, so we're dressing them differently. You know, it's not going to be a one size fits all. You know, we have pivoted a little bit in the, in the tariff range because we have seen some competitive pressures on pricing in that regard. We still are sitting on a significant amount of inventory in the CE space, the critical environment space that we're looking to move on that is not, you know, is not tariff driven because we've had, we've got it in the states now. So we are increasing prices. We're not going to do them across the board. We're going to do them strategically. We've done it in fire and we're doing it in industrial and those are, those are driving some additional decisions. Cameron's got an inventory reduction program that he can certainly speak to that, you know, is, is driving decisions because our year end is February 1st and a lot of our channel partners have new budgets starting January 1st. So we're introducing some programs here to help drive some inventory towards the end of this fiscal year with customers that beginning January 1st will have new money to utilize for that.

Okay, thank you. Thank you.

And our next question comes from the line of Mike Slisky with DA Davidson. Please proceed with your question.

Yes, hi, good afternoon. I want to maybe ask for a quick NFPA101 here. As far as I can tell, you're a paying member or a paying customer of this organization. People on the board, on the committees that approve all these products and now their action or their lack of action is now causing your business to struggle. And other parts of the industry as well. I guess that they need time to make sure the fire, fire safety is obviously the most important priority. But do you know what they're doing at the NFPA to increase their approval throughput? It just seems like at this point they're now affecting business activity among their members. And that sounds like a real issue.

Go ahead, Bert.

NFPA is a standards writing body. They are not the certification agencies that certify the product. And the NFPA standard writing process involves a combination of end users, manufacturers and third party experts that build up that committee and build up and write the standards that then go through the process and are reviewed on a five year cycle. So once the standard is written, peer reviewed and approved and in process then becomes the timing of from a manufacturing perspective is building to that standard, submitting to that standard to third party agency and then basically waiting for the third party agency to commit the approval or provide whatever actions needed.

Third party is UL generally and UL has now all of our competitors and our products sitting there and they've got limited resources.

Okay, so now let's go to the next question then. They're a public company at this point and their lack of action is now causing your business to suffer. So have you Heard anything from those folks about how fast they're going to increase the throughput of approvals?

They are working with the resources that they have available to them and working through the process we have. There are options to go to other certification agencies and we use different certification agencies around the world, but we find the same level of performance throughout. We are committed to trying to push through as rapidly as possible and will continue to do so. It is a third party agency and it's outside of our control.

Okay, maybe last one on this topic. Who's paying the bill? The NFPA or Lakeland for the UL.

And other agency testing, each manufacturer pays for their certification activities.

Okay. Thank you for all that information. Moving on, the Hong Kong deal in Malaysia, do you think those are going to provide an outsized margin benefit given the size and the footprint you have there? Should we expect to see some really good margins, I guess, starting in fiscal 27 from those two contracts?

Yeah, the Malaysia contract, certainly that's a high margin opportunity, long term opportunity for us. Hong Kong continues to generate really decent margins for us. The tragedy that occurred in Hong Kong, sadly, when you operate a business like this, tragedies end up generating, frankly opportunities. And in Hong Kong, our team spent hours and hours and hours over time helping that Hong Kong team as they, you know, as they fought those fires in those four buildings and hundreds of people lost their lives, they're going to need a lot of, they're going to need a lot of new suits, a lot of new turnout gear as a result of that. And you know, we've been on the, we've been on the phone periodically with our friends in Hong Kong driving that business and they're suggesting to us that we'll see a bump in business there probably in the, you know, first quarter of fiscal 27.

Okay, great. Sounds good. And then I guess given the status, I know there's some, quite a few contracts in the pipeline on the fire side, but given the status of. You mentioned there's some customers or some competitors that were struggling. Are you concerned at all on the. Pricing environment for what's being bid on today? And some of the other folks out there might get a little bit irrational if they're in a bit of a pickle financially.

Well, struggling can be at various different factors. Sometimes it's struggling just to perform and support and provide the equipment kind of timely manner. One of the things the standard is also providing is there are requirements, varied requirements in the fabrics that are being used in the, in the products. So it's changing the buildup of those products which is going to change the price point actually at a higher level in the marketplace because of the needs to incorporate these more advanced fabrics into the gear.

Okay, okay. Makes sense. I'll pass it along. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

And with that, there are no further questions. I'd like to turn the call over back over back over to Mr. Jenkins for closing remarks. Thank you, operator. Thank you all for joining us for today's call and thank you to our customers and distributor partners worldwide for trusting us with your lives and safety. Lakeland continues to be well positioned for long term growth. If we were unable to answer any of your questions today, please reach out to our IR firm, MZ Group. We'll be more than happy to assist. Thank you.

And with that, this does conclude today's teleconference. We thank you for your participation and you may disconnect your lines at this time and have a wonderful day.