Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to PriceSmart, Inc.'s Earnings Release Conference Call for the Third Quarter of Fiscal Year 2024, which ended on May 31, 2024. After remarks from our company's representatives, Robert Price, Intern Chief Executive Officer; and Michael McCleary, Chief Financial Officer, you will be given an opportunity to ask questions as time permits. As a reminder, this conference call is limited to 1 hour and is being recorded today, Thursday, July 11, 2024. A digital replay will be available following the conclusion of today's conference call through July 18, 2024 by dialing 1 (888) 660-6264 for domestic callers or 1 (646) 517-3975 for international dollars and by entering the replay access code 97656#. For opening remarks, I would like to turn the call over to PriceSmart's Chief Financial Officer, Michael McCleary. Please proceed, sir.

Thank you, operator, and welcome to PriceSmart Inc.'s earnings call for the third quarter of fiscal year 2024, which ended on May 31, 2024. We will be discussing the information that we provided in our earnings press release and our 10-Q, which were both released yesterday afternoon, July 10, 2024. Also in these remarks, we refer to non-GAAP financial measures. You can find a reconciliation of our non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures in our earnings press release and our 10-Q. These documents are available on our Investor Relations website at investors.pricesmart.com, where you can also sign up 3 e-mail alerts. As a reminder, all statements made on this conference call, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements concerning the company's anticipated plans, revenues and related matters. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements containing the words expect, believe, plan, will, may, should, estimate and other expressions. All forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and assumptions as of today, July 11, 2024. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially, including the risks detailed in the company's most recent annual report on Form 10-K, the quarterly report on Form 10-Q filed yesterday and other filings with the SEC, which are accessible on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. These risks may be updated from time to time. The company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements made during this call. Now I will turn the call over to Robert PriceSmart's Interim Chief Executive Officer.

Thank you, Michael. On behalf of myself and our Board of Directors, congratulations to the PriceSmart team for the excellent sales and earnings results in our recently completed third quarter. As we enter our final 3 months of fiscal year 2024 and finalized planning for fiscal year 2025, we will continue to focus on improving sales, operating efficiencies and the use of technology to further enhance our business performance. PriceSmart is a highly respected and valued brand in all our markets. Our goal is to continue to improve our business operations for the benefit of our members and our employees. Thank you to our many shareholders for your continued confidence and support. Now Michael will continue with his presentation.

Thank you, Robert. We had a strong third quarter as net merchandise sales reached almost $1.2 billion, and total revenue was over $1.2 billion. For the quarter ended May 31, 2024, net merchandise sales increased by 11.6% or 9.1% in constant currency and comparable net merchandise sales increased by 7.8% or 5.6% in constant currency. For the 9 months ended May 31, 2024, total net merchandise sales reached almost $3.6 billion, and total revenues were almost $3.7 billion. Net merchandise sales increased by 11.8% or 8.3% in constant currency and comparable net merchandise sales increased by 8.2% or 5% in constant currency for the 9-month and 39-week periods, respectively. By segment, in Central America, where we had 30 clubs at quarter end, net merchandise sales increased 11.2% or 8.9% in constant currency, with a 7.4% increase in comparable net merchandise sales or 5.2% in constant currency. All of our markets in Central America had positive comparable net merchandise sales growth, except for El Salvador, which recently opened 2 new clubs, which are not yet included in the comparable net merchandise sales calculation. Our Central America segment contributed approximately 450 basis points of positive impact to the growth in total consolidated comparable net merchandise sales for the third quarter. We opened our sixth warehouse club in Guatemala in November 2023 and our fourth warehouse club in El Salvador in February 2024. In the Caribbean, where we had 14 clubs at quarter end, net merchandise sales increased 5.3% or 8.3% in constant currency and comparable net merchandise sales increased 5% or 8% in constant currency. All of our markets in this segment had positive comparable net merchandise sales growth. Our Caribbean region contributed approximately 140 basis points of positive impact to the growth in total consolidated comparable net merchandise sales for the…

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from John Braatz from Kansas City Capital.

Robert, Michael, most recently, the Colombian currency has weakened quite a bit, and I don't know if it will continue or not. But have you seen any change in consumer behavior in Colombia? And have you made any changes in pricing like you did maybe 1.5 years ago? Or is it too soon to do something like that?

Why do you say it's weakened?

Well, it has weakened. It was at -- it's at 4,000 now, and it was at 3,600 or something like that. So it's weakened a little bit.

Yes. I mean it's -- I think it's kind of hung in around 3,900 to 4,000 for a while. I wouldn't say it's particularly weakened. I mean that's pretty much what we would have expected and hoped for is around 4,000. I don't think it's really impacted our general approach to how we price merchandise, I mean, I think we're feeling pretty good about the fact that it's around 4,000 and it's made it probably a little more positive for imports.

Yes. Okay. Okay. That's good. And Michael, when you think about the additions and the expansions at your existing stores, when you add everything up, how much of a square foot increase is that in terms of those expansions? How much are you expanding those facilities by?

Maybe I can take it. We have, what, 4 locations that are being expanded, 3 or 4. Are you asking that as a percent of those individual locations?

Yes, Yes, that would be great.

I would guess I'm not sure we thought about it quite like that, but I would guess maybe 15% to 20% more sales floor.

Okay. Okay. And then when you do that, what kind of -- what new merchandise do you put in there? What's the additive?

Yes. It's not necessarily that you put more SKUs in. What happens is that the ability to display the products with better facings improves so that you have a bigger impact for each item and less labor related to stocking and handling the items. It improves the efficiency. And I think for the member, it presents a more compelling individual item value than the issue we have, we are trying to fit items into a more limited space. It just seems to make it more both efficient and impactful.

Okay. Very good. That's all I have.

There are no further questions. I will now turn the call over to Michael.

Okay. Thank you, everybody. We hope you have a good day. Take care. Bye-bye.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the call for today. Thank you for calling in. Please go ahead and disconnect your lines.