Gold.com Aktie

Good afternoon, and welcome to Gold.com's conference call for the fiscal third quarter ended March 31, 2026. My name is Matthew, and I'll be your operator this afternoon. Before this call, Gold.com issued its results for the fiscal third quarter 2026 in a press release, which is available in the Investor Relations section of the company's website at www.gold.com. You can find the link to the Investor Relations section at the top of the web homepage.

Joining us for today's call are Gold.com's CEO, Greg Roberts; President, Thor Gjerdrum; and CFO, Cary Dickson. Following their remarks, we'll open the call for your questions. Then before we conclude the call, I'll provide the necessary cautions regarding the forward-looking statements made by management during the call. If you'd like -- I'd like to remind everyone that this call is being recorded and will be made available for replay via a link available on the Investor Relations section of Gold.com's website.

Now I'd like to turn the call over to Gold.com's CEO, Mr. Greg Roberts. Sir, please proceed.

Thank you, Matt, and good afternoon, everyone. Thanks again for joining our call today. Our third quarter results reflect the strength of our fully integrated platform and our ability to capitalize on strong market conditions. As I noted on our last call, we were beginning to see a meaningful shift in market dynamics, and that momentum carried over favorably into this quarter.

During the quarter, we experienced an unprecedented surge in activity across both our Wholesale Sales and our Ancillary Services as well as our Direct-to-Consumer segments. Market participants across the spectrum from individual investors to institutional buyers moved aggressively to increase exposure to precious metals. This environment created a highly dynamic 2-way market with elevated levels of both buying and selling activity, which allowed us to efficiently deploy inventory and capitalize on favorable trading opportunities.

The pace and magnitude of the movement was extraordinary. We saw one of the most volatile spot price environments in recent history, which drove significant transaction velocity across our platform. Operationally, our teams executed extremely well under these conditions. The rapid spike in demand challenged system-wide capacity, and we were positioned to respond by quickly scaling inventory and production levels at our mints as we leveraged our balance sheet. This resulted in record financial performance, including over $10 billion in revenue and over $175 million in gross profit as well as $59.5 million in net income for the quarter.

Our direct-to-consumer segment led the way during the quarter, reflecting strong customer engagement, higher order values and increased transactional activity across our platforms. JMB outperformed and did exceptional, reporting record levels of profitability. Our Wholesale Sales and Ancillary Services segment also delivered significant quarter-over-quarter improvement following the more challenging market conditions we experienced last fall.

The favorable market conditions we experienced this quarter were also global with LPM continuing to build momentum across Asia and benefiting from a heightened regional demand and increased trading activity. Activity began to moderate towards the end of the quarter as is typical following periods of heightened volatility. We are now seeing a bit more normalized environment. While geopolitical dynamics remain an important factor influencing demand, overall market conditions remain constructive, and we believe the underlying drivers for precious metals investments remain firmly in place.

We've also seen an extreme benefit as last quarter's backwardation has moved more into contango. We remain focused on driving synergies across our business units and maximizing efficiencies at every level. Our acquisition of Monex during the quarter is already delivering strong returns and the addition of Sunshine Mint to our portfolio will meaningfully expand our production capabilities going forward.

As previously disclosed, in February 2026, we entered into a Securities Purchase Agreement with an affiliate of Tether Global Investment Fund, whereby Tether agreed to purchase an aggregate of 3,370,787 shares of Gold.com's common stock at a price of $44.50 per share. The first tranche of the shares was purchased on February 6, 2026, corresponding to 2,840,449 shares for an aggregate purchase price of $126.4 million.

Following receipt of regulatory clearance, the second tranche of 530,338 shares was purchased on May 5, 2026, for an aggregate purchase price of $23.6 million. This strategic equity investment further enhanced our overall capital and liquidity position and is a powerful validation of our vertically integrated model.

During the quarter, we also entered into storage, metal leasing and trading agreements with Tether and their affiliates and purchased $20 million of Tether's Gold-backed stablecoin XAUT. We believe this partnership represents a meaningful step forward in aligning our physical precious metals platform with emerging digital asset ecosystems and we are encouraged by the early progress we've made.

I will now turn the call over to our CFO, Cary Dickson, who will provide an overview of our financial performance. Then our President, Thor Gjerdrum, will discuss key operating metrics. After that, I will provide further insights into the business, our growth strategy, and I will take questions.

Cary, please proceed.

Thank you, Greg, and good afternoon to everybody. Our revenues for fiscal Q3 '26 increased 244% to $10.3 billion from $3 billion in Q3 of last year. Excluding an increase of $4.3 billion of forward sales, our revenues increased $2.9 billion or 187%, which was due to higher average selling prices of gold and silver as well as increase in gold and silver ounces sold.

For the 9-month period, our revenues increased 142% to $20.5 billion from $8.4 billion in the same year ago period. Excluding an increase of $7.4 billion of forward sales, our revenues increased $4.6 billion or 95%, which is due to higher average selling prices of gold and silver as well as an increase in gold and silver ounces sold.

Revenues also increased in both the 3- and 9-month periods due to the acquisitions of SGI, Pinehurst and AMS in the last 2 quarters of fiscal '25 and Monex in the third quarter of fiscal '26. Gross profits for Q3 '26 increased 331% to $176 million or 1.7% of revenue from $41 million or 1.36% of revenue in Q3 of last year. The increase was due to an increase in gross profits earned by both our Wholesale Sales and Ancillary Services segment and our Direct-to-Consumer segment, including the acquisitions of SGI, Pinehurst, AMS and Monex, which were now fully included -- were not fully included in the same year ago period.

For the 9-month period, gross profit increased 165% to $342 million or 1.6% of revenue from $129.2 million or 1.53% of revenue in the same year ago period. The increase was due to an increase in gross profit driven by both our Wholesale Sales & Ancillary Services segment and the Direct-to-Consumer segment, including the acquisitions of SGI, Pinehurst, AMS and Monex, which were not fully included in the same year ago period.

SG&A expenses for fiscal Q3 '26 increased 134% to $78 million from $33 million in Q3 of last year. The change was primarily due to an increase in compensation expense, performance-based accruals of $27 million, higher advertising costs of $7 million, increased insurance costs of $4 million, higher bank service and credit card fees of $1.9 million and an increase in facilities expense of a little over $1 million.

SG&A expense for the 3 months ended March 31, 2026, included $33 million of expenses from SGI, Pinehurst, AMS and Monex, which were not included in the same year ago period as they were not consolidated subsidiaries for the full year. Excluding the increase from these newly acquired subsidiaries, SG&A increased $11.6 million. So in essence, 75% of our overall increase in SG&A period-over-period related to the acquisitions of our new subsidiaries that we've acquired recently.

For the 9-month period, SG&A expense increased 130% to $197 million from $85 million in the same year ago period. The increase was primarily driven by higher compensation expense, including performance-based accruals $68 million, higher advertising costs of $17 million, an increase in consulting and professional fees of $7 million, an increase of insurance costs of $6.1 million and then an increase in banking service and credit card fees of $4.5 million.

SG&A expenses for the 9 months ended March 31, 2026, included $93 million of expenses from SGI, Pinehurst, AMS and Monex, which were not included in the same year ago period as they were not consolidated for the full period.

Excluding the increase from these newly acquired subsidiaries, SG&A increased $18 million year-over-year. In essence, 84% of our overall increase in SG&A period-over-period related to the acquisition of these new subsidiaries. Depreciation and amortization expense for fiscal Q3 '26 increased 88% to $9.4 million from $5 million in the same year ago period. The change was predominantly due to a $4.6 million increase in amortization expense relating to the intangible assets acquired through our acquisitions of SGI, Pinehurst, AMS and Monex and a $1.5 million increase in depreciation expense, partially offset by a $1.6 million decrease in intangible asset amortization from JMB and Silver Gold Bull.

For the 9-month period, depreciation and amortization expense increased 72% to $24.6 million from $14.3 million in the same year ago period. The change was primarily due to the $10 million increase in amortization expense related to intangible assets acquired through our acquisitions of SGI Pinehurst, AMS and Monex and a $4.6 million increase in depreciation expense, partially offset by $5 million decrease in intangible asset amortization from JMB and SGB.

Interest income for Q3 '26 increased 1% to $6.8 million from $6.7 million in the same year ago period. The aggregate increase in interest income was due to an increase in interest income earned by our Secured Lending segment of $0.5 million, partially offset by the same amount in our finance product income category.

For the 9-month period, interest income decreased 12% to $18.2 million from $20.6 million in the same year ago period. The aggregate decrease in interest income was due to a decrease in other financing income of $2.6 million, offset by an increase in interest income earned by our Secured Lending segment of $0.2 million. Interest expense for fiscal Q3 '26 increased 47% to $19 million from $13 million in Q3 of last year. The increase is primarily due to higher interest and fees of $3 million related to product financing arrangements, an increase of $2.6 million related to precious metal leases and an increase of $0.3 million associated with our trading credit facility.

For the 9-month period, interest expense increased 44% to $47.9 million from $33 million in the same year ago period. The increase was primarily due to higher interest and fees of $7.2 million related to product financing arrangements, an increase of $5.8 million related to precious metal leases and an increase of $1 million associated with our trading credit facility.

Earnings from equity method investments in Q3 increased 1,115% to $2.3 million from a loss of $0.2 million in the same year ago quarter. For the 9-month period, earnings from equity method investments increased 215% to earnings of $2.4 million from a loss of $2.1 million in the same year ago period. The increase in both periods was due to increased earnings of our equity method investees.

Net income attributable to the company for the third quarter of fiscal '26 totaled $60 million or $2.09 per diluted share compared to a net loss of $8 million or $0.36 per diluted share in the same year ago quarter. For the 9-month period, net income attributable to the company totaled $70 million or $2.65 per diluted share compared to $7 million or $0.29 per diluted share in the same year ago period.

Adjusted net income before provision for income tax, a non-GAAP financial measure, which excludes depreciation, amortization, acquisition costs and contingent consideration fair value adjustments for Q3 totaled $87 million, an increase of $81 million or 1,415% compared to the $5.7 million in the same year ago quarter. Adjusted net income before provision for income taxes for the 9-month period totaled $115 million, an increase of $81 million or 240% compared to $33.9 million in the same year ago period.

EBITDA, another non-GAAP liquidity measure for Q3 '26 totaled $103.4 million, an increase of $102 million or 7,939% compared to $1.3 million in the same year ago quarter. EBITDA for the 9-month period totaled $151.6 million, an increase of $116 million or 329% compared to the $35 million in the same year ago period.

Now turning to our balance sheet. We maintained a strong liquidity position supported by expanding financing capacity, including increased precious metal lease facilities and the recently completed Tether equity and financing investments to date. At quarter end, we had $143-plus million of cash compared to $77.7 million at the end of fiscal '25.

Our nonrestricted inventories totaled $1.319 billion as of March 31 compared to $794 million as of the end of fiscal '25. Gold.com's Board of Directors has declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.20 per share, maintaining the company's current dividend program. The dividend is payable on June 1, 2026 to stockholders of record as of May 20, 2026. That completes my financial summary.

Now I will turn the call over to Thor, who will provide an update on our key operating metrics. Thor?

Thank you, Cary. Looking at our key operating metrics for the third quarter of fiscal 2026. We sold 538,000 ounces of gold in Q3 fiscal 2026, which is up 25% from Q3 of last year and down 1% from the prior quarter. For the 9-month period, we sold approximately 1.5 million ounces of gold, which is up 17% from the same year ago period. We sold 34.6 million ounces of silver in Q3 fiscal 2026, which was up 120% from Q3 of last year and up 86% from the prior quarter.

For the 9-month period, we sold 63.6 million ounces of silver, which is up 10% from the same year ago period. The number of new customers in the DTC segment, which is defined as the number of customers that have registered, set up a new account or made a purchase for the first time during the period was 292,800 in Q3 fiscal 2026, which was down 68% from Q3 of last year and increased 205% from last quarter. For the 3 months ended March 31, 2026, approximately 58% of the new customers were attributable to the acquisition of Monex.

For the 3 months ended March 31, 2025, approximately 93% of the new customers were attributable to the acquisitions of Pinehurst and SGI. For the 9-month period, the number of new customers in the DTC segment was 458,300, which decreased 55% from 1,020,300 new customers in the same year ago period. Approximately 37% of the new customers for the 9 months ended March 31, 2026, were attributable to the acquisition of Monex. Approximately 82% of the new customers for the 9 months ended March 31, 2025, were attributable to the acquisitions of SGI and Pinehurst.

The number of total customers in the DTC segment at the end of the third quarter was approximately 4.7 million, which is a 40% increase from the prior year. These changes in customer base metrics were primarily due to the acquisitions of AMS and Monex, which were not included in the same year ago period as well as organic growth of our JMB customer base.

Finally, the number of secured loans at the end of March totaled 337, a decrease of 31% from March 31, 2025, and a decrease of 5% from the end of December. The dollar value of our loan portfolio as of March 31, 2026, totaled $126 million, an increase of 46% from March 31, 2025, and an increase of 5% from December 31, 2025. That concludes my prepared remarks. I'll now turn it over to Greg for closing remarks. Greg? Greg, you may be muted. Apologies.

Thanks, Thor and Cary. This quarter was a clear demonstration of the strength and scalability of our fully integrated platform. We capitalized on a highly dynamic market environment, delivered solid financial results and further strengthened our strategic and financial positioning. Our strategic focus remains on integrating and realizing cost savings and the synergies from our recent acquisitions, expanding both our domestic and geographic reach as well as further diversifying our customer base.

With an expanded portfolio of category-leading brands and improved operational leverage, we believe Gold.com is positioned to capture growth across multiple markets and continue to deliver long-term value for our shareholders. This concludes my prepared remarks. Operator, we can now open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions]

Your first question is coming from Michael Baker from D.A. Davidson.

A couple of questions, unbelievable quarter. But Greg, you said something about businesses "normalized" what does normalized mean to you? I mean we track spreads and sure we see they've come down so far in the June quarter versus the March quarter, but still way above where they were for much of calendar 2025. So we wouldn't consider 2025 to be normal. I guess, or I'm asking you if that -- if you would consider that normal.

And then sort of related to that, put it all in the context of there's a much -- because of all the acquisitions, even a "normal" earnings power for the company should be a lot higher than it was in the past. Is there any way to sort of quantify what normal earnings power would be?

Yes, that's a lot. I think first and foremost, as we've always said, the environment is going to drive the profitability and combine that with the acquisitions that we do, clearly, we're going to get different revenue streams and the revenue streams are going to vary a bit between the different divisions and the different parts of the company. I think last year was below par, was below normalized for most of calendar '25.

As we talked about on our last call, things really started to improve towards the end of October, the early part of November and December was pretty strong. I think when I said normalized, what I meant was just reflecting on how crazy and active January and February was and how March became what I would call a bit more normalized for the environment.

I think January and February of this quarter, we significantly outperformed what I would call normalized. And I think that there was a question on the last call, if these conditions continue, what's going to happen? And I said, if these conditions continue, we're going to have a great quarter. And clearly, we had a great quarter. I would say that a lot of the headwinds that we had through the fall of last year that were attributed to the backwardation issues that we had. And I think we highlighted that quite a bit that, that was a major headwind on performance as it related to our cost of financing and our ability to collect contango, which collecting contango is a more normalized environment.

Backwardation is highly unusual. And what we saw this quarter was a more normalized contango environment, which did help some of our other businesses, and that has continued in what I would call normalized the first month of our Q4 and in March. So I think we're still very active. I think that certainly, the war in Iran has caused a lot of change and disruption in the overall volumes in the financial markets. And I think there has been -- although our premiums are still quite nice, we have had a bit of volume retreat from where we were in January and February.

Your next question is coming from Thomas Forte from Maxim Group.

Great. So first off, Greg, Cary, Thor and Steve, whoa. Three questions, one at a time. So Greg, high level, how did the M&A enable you to capitalize on demand versus previous spikes?

I mean in what we saw in January and February, we saw an environment where the tide rose for all of our businesses. So that was really quite nice to see. I would say that within our -- within DTC, we had a couple of overachievers. And as I mentioned earlier, JM had a great quarter, great customer counts, great premium spreads. So that was great.

I think the other thing that I highlighted was we saw a big uptick in our LPM business in Hong Kong and Singapore. And again, it was new for -- that was new for us because we were able to see what customers in an area of the market that geographically that we hadn't been able to experience what they were capable of before.

So we were able to benefit from that this quarter. And what we saw were there were days or weeks where China, in particular, seemed to outperform our domestic businesses and a little bit vice versa, but it was great data for us to see. And we're just very enthusiastic about what we were able to accomplish down there with that new acquisition.

On the other side of things, certainly, the bullion business would be an overachiever. I think collectibles were strong in the quarter, but they didn't -- because of just the nature of the collectibles business, and it didn't benefit as much as the bullion business did.

Excellent. And then second of 3 questions. How if at all, did your strategic partnership with Tether contribute to your performance?

Well, in this particular quarter, I think it had -- it did contribute I wouldn't say it was greatly significant. But as we've onboarded Tether as a trading partner, I think one of the most exciting things that you'll see in our numbers is just one part of our business that I've highlighted that is super important for us right now is our storage business. And with Tether's help as well as Monex from 12/31/25 to 3/31/26, we've gone from $1.1 billion in storage, and we've doubled that where I think we are today in May of $2.2 billion.

And as we said in the in our release as it related to Tether, storage is a big part of our strategic relationship with them, along with our -- the leasing arrangements, the gold leasing arrangements we have with them, which are now currently above what we had projected in the release. So we're getting those benefits now and in this quarter in the current quarter.

Excellent. Last one, Greg. So can you give us your current thoughts on your onetime dividend philosophy?

Sure. I think we have explored the special dividend in the past. We have rewarded, I guess, shareholders when we've had a great year. I think that we have -- we're very active right now, we have a lot of opportunities still in front of us. So as I have said before, there's 5 things that I really look at as it relates to deployment of capital, paying down debt, strategic inventory increases, acquisitions, share buyback and dividends.

And based on the performance that we are seeing from our acquisitions right now, I would continue to probably put that near the top of the list as things we're looking at. And I think we're doing a good job right now on -- in a number of ways, cutting -- paying down debt and lowering our interest expense and then dividends and share buyback will continue. But I'd like to see how the fourth quarter shapes up here before we get too far down the road on a special dividend.

Your next question is coming from Andrew Scutt from ROTH Capital Partners.

Congrats on the really strong results. First one for me. Can you just help us understand a little bit over $1 billion increase in restricted inventory? And then kind of in the same vein, with the addition of Sunshine Mint, kind of how that will help you manage your inventory moving forward?

Yes, I think there are 2 different things. I think the inventory, as we've talked about before, you had a situation in January and February, as we've talked about, where you had record spot prices. So you had days where silver was $120 and gold was $5,500. That is going to just naturally increase our restricted inventory or our total inventory because the spot price effects, if we have the same amount of ounces, we're going to have higher inventories.

I think, as I said earlier, we pivoted very quickly from November, early December where we were we had some headwinds and holding more inventory cost us a significant amount more because of the backwardation issue. By the time we got to mid-December or January, we could see the environment was demanding more inventory from us to accomplish these numbers that we're reporting. So we were able to pivot very quickly.

I think that our Silver Towne Mint, first and foremost, was able to ramp up and get us product, again, when there was periods where our competition didn't have product, and we were able to satisfy that demand.

As it relates to Sunshine, we've announced that we've gone from a 45% approximate ownership interest to 100%. And we thank Tom Power, the founder, for all that he did. And we made the decision, which the process started towards the end of calendar '25, but that Tom was ready to retire, and it was great timing for us as we moved into the very active period.

And I think we did benefit. We benefited from our minority interest in Sunshine. And then today, now owning 100%, we will be able to even have greater control over what product Sunshine is making.

And I just want a shout out to Jamie Meadows, our new President of Minting and Jason, the President of Sunshine. As Tom has retired, those 2 are going to really lead our minting operations, and I'm very confident and very much looking forward to what they're going to be able to do together, having Silver Towne and Sunshine with a slightly closer relationship.

Great. I appreciate the color there. And second one for me. You guys have kind of demonstrated an ability in the past to extract some SG&A synergies from JMB and other acquisitions. So as we look at recent acquisitions like Monex, [indiscernible], Sunshine, can you just kind of help us understand if there's some SG&A synergies you guys can reap over the next couple of quarters?

I mean I think everybody on our side and on our team are looking for synergies from an SG&A perspective. I think we also are looking for synergies where we can create more gross profit between all the companies. A quarter like this really throws a lot of the comparison numbers a little bit out of whack because to do $10 billion in sales, we're going to spend more money doing it. And I mean, this number is quite astounding to really think that we had -- it wasn't that long ago where a $5 billion year was good for us. And now we've achieved a $10 billion quarter, which I think is -- it's going to cause the variable parts of our SG&A are going to increase.

The market environment in the next 6 months is really going to dictate where we can find those cost savings and where we can look at our overall SG&A and find places where we can work on it. We're focused on it. So we're always looking at it. But I do think that investors should recognize, and I think we're very proud of our ability that when the market shifts to what was a very strong tailwind in this quarter, we were able to pivot and our earnings potential, which is a question I get asked a lot, what is that earning potential?

Well, this was one of those examples of in the current environment with our acquisitions and with our ability to access capital very quickly, this was a -- this really illustrated what that earning potential is.

[Operator Instructions]

Your next question is coming from Sy Jacobs from Jam Partners.

I just wanted to ask 2 questions. First, just digging down into the discussion earlier when we discussed it last quarter, the shift in hedging costs from negative to positive as especially silver went from backwardation to contango. The way I remember it is that it was still really bad at the end of the year and January in backwardation and costing you money.

And I think on the last call, you quantified exactly -- not exactly, but generally how much it was costing you in hedging costs. Was this quarter -- you seem to be talking about this quarter on this call as if it really benefited from return to contango, but it seems to me that happened during the quarter, maybe like halfway through the quarter. So is this coming quarter, the April through June quarter effectively going to be the first full quarter where you're benefiting? Or did you see the full benefit in the first quarter -- in the first quarter?

Definitely not. You are correct that we experienced backwardation and higher lease costs and higher repo costs. Those definitely continued through the first half of the quarter, I would say. And when we hit the record spot prices, our transactional business was extraordinary, but we still had higher than what we -- higher expense, and we still had the backwardation issue. I would say you are correct that things have normalized in March and definitely in April.

And then obviously, the investment from Tether, both in the stock purchase as well as the leases that we are currently transacting with them. Those have had a positive effect on our interest expense, our carry costs and our ability to pay down our dollar lines. So yes, this current Q4 will be the first full quarter in a while that we haven't had those headwinds.

Okay. Great. And then I wanted to shift gears. You mentioned earlier and in the release, as part of the Tether transaction, you bought $20 million of XAUT stablecoin. I'd love to know what the strategy is there, what that lays the groundwork for. I think you mentioned or I heard elsewhere, XAUT or Tether gold stablecoin is not fully tradable or it's not -- it's really an overseas offshore thing. There are restrictions in owning it or redeeming it in the United States.

So I'm guessing the $20 million investment is not because you want to be $20 million more long gold. If there's some sort of business laying the groundwork to be able to do something in the future that you're not able to do now. Can you just expand on what the strategy is?

Yes. I'll expand a little bit, but I'm not trying to give away all of our launch codes here. I think that to start, we invested USD 20 million in XAUT. I believe our average cost is around $4,700 spot, so about where it is right now. We are unhedged on that as we have disclosed before. So we're long $20 million worth of gold. The exercise of opening account that we have now opened and the kind of the plumbing or the way that we've handled these transactions and understanding what it really means to buy XAUT and hold it in a wallet.

We're now familiar with that, and we've completed the onboarding process that we needed to. And there's onboarding with a digital bank as well as we're working on some onboarding with Tether directly. I do believe there is an opportunity for us to get further involved in XAUT as part of our DTC network. I think there's probably going to be some trading opportunities for us. The ability to trade Tether truly 24/7 at some pretty good volumes and trade XAUT and Tether, I think, is going to be valuable for us.

We've seen the volumes and what we can expect in XAUT over the weekend. I think there could be some opportunities there. I think we're going to go down the path of a Gold.com wallet is something that we're working on. And I believe that giving our customers the ability to have access to XAUT and the ability to redeem XAUT for physical as we've -- as I said on the last call, I think that redemption feature, which is not currently in place for XAUT holders, I think, is going to be a good opportunity for Gold.com.

As it relates to whether it's outside the U.S. or inside the U.S. as it relates to holders of XAUT, we're still researching that. I mean, at the moment, it looks like that will be more of an international opportunity for us than it is a domestic opportunity, but we're still vetting that.

Okay. And then last question on the rebranding to Gold.com. We saw the launch of the unified website that feeds into all your different brands. Can you just talk a little bit about what benefits you've seen so far on the marketing front? I think there was a discussion about offering sort of Gold.com branded services, financial services, all that stuff. What's the update on the rebranding and the benefits you see and what's maybe some that are still on the come?

Yes. I mean, so far, the rebranding has gone great. I'm speaking to new shareholders all the time. I think that in hindsight, it was an exceptional move, and I think it's been good for the company to kind of get everything under one umbrella brand.

As we go forward, we continue to work on a Gold.com credit card, which is something that we feel like is important to give our DTC customers an opportunity to connect even better with Gold.com. So that is on the to-do list. I won't say we're in the red zone yet, but we're probably on the other side of the 50%. So I'm looking forward to that and then exploring how that Gold.com credit card may connect with other opportunities on the digital side.

At this time, this concludes our question-and-answer session. I'd now like to turn the call back over to Mr. Roberts for his closing remarks.

Thank you, Matt. Once again, as I do every quarter, I'd like to thank our many shareholders and our employees. And we look forward to keeping you updated on our future progress and everybody's dedication and commitment to Gold.com's success. I thank everybody very much. So thank you all for joining today.

Thank you. Before we conclude today's call, I'd like to provide Gold.com's safe harbor statement that includes important cautions regarding forward-looking statements made during this call.

During today's call, there were forward-looking statements made regarding future events. Statements that relate to Gold.com's future plans, objectives, expectations, performance, events and the like are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These include statements regarding expectations with respect to future profitability and growth, international expansion, operational enhancements and the amount or timing of any future dividends.

Future events, risks and uncertainties, individual or in the aggregate could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in these statements. These include the following: with respect to proposed transactions with Spectrum Group International, the failure of parties to agree on definitive transaction documents, the failure of parties to complete the contemplated transactions within the currently expected time line or at all; the failure to obtain necessary third-party consent or approvals and greater-than-anticipated costs incurred to consummate the transactions.

Other factors that could cause actual results to differ include the failure to execute the company's growth strategy, including the inability to identify suitable or available acquisition or investment opportunities; greater-than-anticipated costs incurred to execute the strategy; government regulations that might impede growth, particularly in Asia, the inability to successfully integrate recently acquired businesses; changes in the current international political climate, which historically has favorably contributed to the demand and volatility in the precious metals market, but has also posed certain risks and uncertainties for the company, particularly in recent periods.

Potential adverse effects of the current problems in the national and global supply chains; increased competition for the company's higher-margin services, which could depress pricing; the failure of the company's business model to respond to changes in the market environment as anticipated; changes in consumer demand and preferences for precious metal products generally, potentially negative effects that inflationary pressures may have on our business; the inability of the company to expand capacity at Silver Towne Mint; the failure of our investee companies to maintain or address preferences of our customer bases; general risks of doing business in the commodity markets; and the strategic business, economic, financial, political and government risks and other risk factors described in the company's public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. Listeners are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements.

Finally, I'd like to remind everyone that a recording of today's call will be available for replay via a link in the Investors section of the company's website. Thank you for joining us today for Gold.com's earnings call. You may now disconnect.

Good afternoon, and welcome to Gold.com's Conference Call for the Fiscal Second Quarter ended December 31, 2025. My name is Paul, and I will be your operator this afternoon.

Before this call, Gold.com issued its results for the fiscal second quarter 2026 in a press release, which is available in the Investor Relations section of the company's website at www.gold.com. You can find the link to the Investor Relations section at the top of the homepage.

Joining us for today's call are Gold.com's CEO, Greg Roberts; President, Thor Gjerdrum; and CFO, Cary Dickson. Following their remarks, we will open the call for your questions. Then before we conclude the call, I'll provide the necessary cautions regarding the forward-looking statements made by management during this call.

I would like to remind everyone that this call is being recorded and will be made available for replay via a link available in the Investor Relations section of Gold.com's website.

Now I would like to turn the call over to Gold.com's CEO, Mr. Greg Roberts. Sir, please proceed.

Thank you, Paul, and good afternoon to everyone. Thank you again for joining us today for our first earnings call as Gold.com. This is a truly historic moment for our company and I'm excited to officially address you under our new corporate identity following the successful completion of our rebrand to Gold.com as well as the New York Stock Exchange relisting in December. This transition represents far more than a name change.

It encapsulates our corporate identity as the most trusted and globally-recognized precious metals platform and our commitment to delivering value for our customers, partners and, of course, our shareholders. It also represents our evolution as a category leader with a diversified portfolio spending -- spanning precious metals, numismatics, wine and other high-value collectibles as well as alternative assets, and this is all supported by a vertically integrated operating model and a growing global footprint.

I'm excited to share that we have entered into an agreement with an affiliate of Tether Investments, whereby Tether will be purchasing approximately $125 million of Gold.com's common shares at an issue price of $44.50. And they have agreed to purchase approximately $25 million more of our shares at the same price following regulatory clearance. We and Tether are extremely excited to enter into certain other mutually-beneficial commercial commitments. I'll touch on the details of the transactions before turning to the quarter.

Tether is one of the largest owners of gold globally and sponsors the largest dollar-backed stablecoin, USDT, and the largest gold-backed stable coin, XAUT, in the world. As part of the transaction, Tether is entitled to nominate a member to the Board of Directors of Gold.com. It is expected that Tether will provide Gold.com with a gold leasing facility of no less than $100 million. The companies are also expected to enter into agreements for Gold.com to provide storage and utilize logistics and for Gold.com to offer Tether stablecoins through its DTC channels. Gold.com has agreed to invest $20 million of the proceeds raised from this investment in Tether's XAUT stablecoin.

Tether's minority investment in Gold.com validates our strategy to be the vertically integrated leader in physical bullion and to offer the industry's most comprehensive precious metals platform. This investment builds upon our 60-plus year legacy and expands our reach beyond traditional bullion into cryptocurrency. The proceeds from this transaction will provide us with increased funding and flexibility to strengthen our balance sheet by further developing our portfolio of category-leading brands. We look forward to Tether's continued support and partnering with their team to potentially develop additional innovative, mutually-beneficial commercial opportunities.

Now turning to the quarter. Our second quarter results demonstrate our ability to successfully navigate rapidly evolving market conditions. During the quarter, we experienced an increase in consumer demand across our platforms. Premium spreads remained tight through the end of 2025 and backwardation in the silver market contributed to trading losses and higher interest expense due to increases in product financing and precious metals lease rates. Despite these headwinds, we delivered $11.6 million in net income and earnings of $0.46 per diluted share, demonstrating the resilience of our business model and our disciplined approach to managing market volatility.

As announced last week, we also closed the acquisition of Monex Deposit Company. Monex's large and loyal customer base, along with its well-established storage and services platforms, strengthens our offerings and expands our ability to serve customers across the full precious metals value chain.

We are making meaningful progress in optimizing our expense structure as well as unlocking synergies from all of our recent acquisitions. Integration efforts continue to advance with our AMGL facility in Las Vegas, operating at increased capacity and delivering the operational leverage we anticipated.

Internationally, we are seeing encouraging signs of growth and remain committed to expanding our international presence. At the end of the second quarter, we increased our equity interest in U.K.-based Atkinsons Bullion & Coins with an additional 24.5% investment, bringing our total ownership to 49.5%. Since our initial investment in 2023, we have been very impressed by the Atkinsons team and the business' sustained success across Europe.

Moving on, performance at LPM in Hong Kong and our new location in Singapore also remains incredibly strong with both retail showroom activity and wholesale trading volumes showing positive momentum. Asia continues to represent an attractive long-term growth opportunity for Gold.com, and we remain focused on expanding our footprint across that region.

Looking ahead to fiscal third quarter, consumer demand remains elevated, and we have experienced an expansion of premium spreads. The problem with backwardation in Q2 has eased, and we're starting to see the markets move back towards contango, which is a positive for our trading business. We continue to benefit from our strong balance sheet and the ability to adjust weekly production levels across our minting operations to manage our inventory levels and to keep up with demand.

I will now turn the call over to our CFO, Cary Dickson, who will provide an overview of our financial performance. Then our President, Thor Gjerdrum, will discuss key operating metrics. I will then provide further insights into the business and growth strategies followed by taking your questions. Cary, jump in.

Thank you, Greg, and I hope everyone is having a great afternoon. Our revenues for fiscal Q2 '26 increased 136% to $6.5 billion from $2.7 billion in Q2 of last year. Excluding an increase of $2.5 billion of forward sales, our revenues increased $1.2 billion or 69% which was due to higher average selling prices of gold and silver as well as an increase in gold ounces sold, partially offset by a decrease in silver ounces sold.

For the 6-month period, our revenues increased 86% to $10.1 billion from $5.4 billion in the same year-ago period. Excluding an increase of $3 billion of forward sales our revenues increased $1.6 billion or 50.3%, which is due to higher average selling prices of gold and silver as well as increase in gold ounces sold, partially offset by a decrease in silver ounces sold. Revenues also increased in both the 3-month and the 6-month periods due to acquisitions of SGI, Pinehurst and AMS in the last 2 quarters of fiscal '25.

Gross profit for fiscal Q2 '26 increased 109% to $93 million or 1.44% of revenue from $44.8 million or 1.63% of revenue in Q2 of last year. The increase was due to an increase in gross profit driven by both the Wholesale Sales & Ancillary segment and the Direct-to-Consumer segment, including the acquisitions of SGI, Pinehurst and AMS, which were not included in the same year-ago period, partially offset by lower trading profits.

For the 6-month period, gross profit increased 88% to $166.3 million or 1.64% of revenue from $88.2 million or 1.62% of revenue in the same year-ago period. The increase was due to an increase in gross profit earned by both the Wholesale Sales & Ancillary segment and the Direct-to-Consumer segment, including the acquisitions of SGI, Pinehurst and AMS, which were not included in the same year-ago period, partially offset by lower trading profits.

SG&A expenses for fiscal Q2 '26 increased 132% to $59.8 million from $25.8 million in Q2 of last year. The change is primarily due to an increase in compensation expense, including performance-based accruals of $21 million, higher advertising costs of $5 million, an increase in consulting and professional fees of $2.7 million, an increase in facility expense of $1.3 million. SG&A expenses for the 3 months ended December 31, '25 included $30 million worth of expenses that were incurred related to SGI, Pinehurst and AMS. So they accounted for the bulk of the increase, which were not included in the same year-ago period as they were not consolidated subsidiaries.

For the 6-month period, SG&A expenses increased 128% to $120 million from $52.4 million in the same year-ago period. The change was primarily due to an increase in compensation expense, including performance-based accruals of $41 million, higher advertising cost of $10 million, an increase in consulting and professional fees of $6.7 million and an increase in facilities expense of $2.6 million. SG&A expenses for the 6 months ended December 31, '25 included $60 million of expenses incurred by SGI, Pinehurst and AMS, which were not included in the same year-ago period.

Depreciation and amortization expense for fiscal Q2 '26 increased by 65% to $7.6 million from $4.6 million in the same year-ago quarter. The change is primarily due to a $3.2 million increase in amortization expense related to intangible assets acquired through our acquisitions of SGI, Pinehurst and AMS and $1.6 million increase in depreciation expense, partially offset by a $1.8 million decrease in intangible asset amortization from JMB and Silver Gold Bull.

For the 6-month period, depreciation and amortization expense increased 63% to $15.2 million from $9.4 million in the same year-ago period. The change is primarily due to a $6.4 million increase in amortization expense related to intangible assets acquired through our acquisitions of SGI, Pinehurst and AMS. And a $3.1 million increase in depreciation expense, partially offset by a $3.7 million decrease in intangible asset amortization from JMB and SGB.

Interest income for fiscal Q2 '26 decreased by 15% to $5.8 million from $6.8 million in the same year-ago period. The decrease was due to a decrease in other finance product income of $1.1 million, partially offset by an increase in interest income earned by our Secured Lending segment of $0.1 million. For the 6-month period, interest income decreased 18% to $11.4 million from $13.9 million in the same year-ago period. The decrease was due to a decrease in other financing product income of $2.2 million and a decrease in interest income earned by our Secured Lending segment of $0.3 million.

Interest expense for fiscal Q2 '26 increased 57% to $16.3 million from $10.4 million in Q2 of last year. The increase is primarily due to an increase of $3.7 million related to product financing arrangements, an increase of $1.9 million related to precious metal leases, an increase of $0.1 million associated with our trading credit facility. For the 6-month period, the interest expense increased 42% to $28.9 million from $20.4 million in the same year-ago period. The increase is primarily due to an increase of $4.2 million related to product financing arrangements, an increase of $3.2 million related to precious metal leases, an increase of $0.7 million associated with our trading credit facility.

Earnings from equity method investments in Q2 '26 increased 142% to earnings of $1.0 million from a loss of $2.4 million in the same year-ago period. For the 6-month period, earnings from equity method investments increased 106% to earnings of $0.1 million from a loss of $1.8 million in the same year ago period. The increase in both periods were due to increased earnings of our equity method investees.

Net income attributable to the company for the second quarter of fiscal '26 totaled $11.6 million or $0.46 per diluted share compared to net income of $6.6 million or 27% diluted share (sic) [ $0.27 per diluted share ] in the same year-ago quarter. For the 6-month period, the net income attributable to the company totaled $10.7 million or $0.42 per diluted share compared to net income of $15.5 million or 65% (sic) [ $0.65 ] per diluted share in the same year-ago period.

Adjusted net income before provision for income taxes, a non-GAAP financial measure, which excludes depreciation, amortization, acquisition costs and contingent consideration fair value adjustments for Q2 totaled $23.2 million, an increase of $9.9 million or 74% compared to $13.4 million in the same year-ago quarter. Adjusted net income before provision for income taxes for the 6-month period totaled $28.1 million, which is consistent with the same year-ago period.

EBITDA, a non-GAAP liquidity measure, for Q2 fiscal '26 totaled $33.9 million, an increase of $17.7 million or 109% compared to the $16.2 million in the same year-ago quarter. EBITDA for the 6-month period totaled $48.2 million, an increase of $14.2 million or 42% compared to the $34 million in the same year-ago period.

Turning to our balance sheet. At quarter end, we had $152 million worth of cash compared to $78 million at the end of fiscal '25. Our nonrestricted inventories totaled over $1 billion, $1.031 billion as of December 31, '25, compared to $795 million as of the end of fiscal '25. Gold.com's Board of Directors has declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.20 per share, maintaining the company's current dividend program. The dividend is payable on March 4, 2026, to stockholders of records as of February 20, 2026.

That completes my financial summary. Now I will turn the call over to Thor, who will provide an update on our key operating metrics. Thor?

Thank you, Cary. Looking at our key operating metrics for the second quarter of fiscal 2026. We sold 545,000 ounces of gold in Q2 fiscal '26, which was up 17% from Q2 of last year and up 24% from the prior quarter. For the 6-month period, we sold 984,000 ounces of gold, which was up 14% from the same year-ago period. We sold 18.6 million ounces of silver in Q2 fiscal 2026, which was down 15% from Q2 of last year and up 79% from last quarter. For the 6-month period, we sold 29 million ounces of silver, which was down 31% from the same year-ago period.

The number of new customers in the DTC segment, which is defined as the number of customers that have registered or set up a new account or made a purchase for the first time during the period, was 96,100 in Q2 fiscal 2026, which is up 47% from Q2 of last year and increased 38% from last quarter. For the 6-month period, the number of new customers in the DTC segment was up 165,500, which increased 37% from 120,700 new customers in the same year-ago period.

The number of total customers in the DTC segment at the end of the second quarter was approximately 4.4 million, which was a 37% increase from the prior year. These changes in customer base metrics were primarily due to the acquisitions of SGI, Pinehurst and AMS, which were not included in the same year-ago period as well as organic growth from our JMB customer base.

Finally, the number of secured loans at the end of December totaled 355, a decrease of 31% from December 31, 2024, and a decrease of 16% from the end of September. The dollar value of our loan portfolio as of December 31, 2025, totaled $120.4 million, an increase of 22% from December 31, 2024, and an increase of 16% from September 30, 2025.

That concludes my prepared remarks. I'll now turn it back over to Greg for closing remarks. Greg?

Thanks, Thor and Cary. With Tether's strategic investment in Gold.com and our expanded portfolio of category-leading brands, we believe Gold.com is well positioned to capture growth across multiple channels and to deliver long-term value for our shareholders. Our strategic focus remains on integrating and realizing cost savings and the synergies from our recent acquisitions, expanding both our domestic and geographic reach as well as further diversifying our customer base. We are pleased with our recent accomplishments and remain committed to exploring additional opportunities to deliver value to our shareholders over the long term.

This concludes my remarks. Operator, we can now open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] And the first question today is coming from Thomas Forte from Maxim Group.

Great. First off, Greg, congratulations, especially on the announcement of Tether. I'm going to ask both my questions at the same time. So the big difference between this quarter and quarter-to-date, in recent quarters, is that silver is starting to run. So I was hoping that you could compare and contrast the performance of gold and silver in the December quarter?

And then the second question I had was, you invested in expanding your facility in Las Vegas. And then you also have the Dallas facility, which I think you got with the JMB acquisition, with the Tether investment, how should we think about your capacity and if you need to further expand your fulfillment center and logistics efforts?

Yes. So we have expanded in Vegas, and I'm happy to say that we really tested the ceiling on Vegas in January. We were excited and over 120,000 packages in January alone and a similar number, not quite that high, in December. So the facility is operating and it's built to do more, but it was great to test the limits over the last couple of months. I think that we're ready to do more.

One of the challenges right now is this uptick and this swing up in volume really happened very quickly. November was a very slow month for us for whatever reason and then things started to pick up in December. But really, it was craziness through the last 3 weeks of December and then into January, and we did need at that point to hire some more actual humans. Even though we have been using and testing our automation, we did need more actual employees. So the fact that we were able to scale up and get the packages we did out in January is a real testament to everything Thor and Brian have been doing there and to see it all work was very exciting for us.

As it relates to Tether and what we're going to do for them, I mean, it's no surprise that they are the -- what I believe to be the largest holder of gold in the world outside of central banks, and they need to store that metal. And the conversations we've had and within our press release, storage is a big component for us to assist with, and time will tell if we need to build another facility or expand the facilities we have. But these guys have a lot of gold and that gold takes up a lot of space. So we're hoping to be able to help them with storage solutions.

And then the gold versus silver performance in the December quarter?

Yes. I mean, I think we talked a little bit about it in Q1 and probably a little bit in last fiscal year. We had seen -- throughout the slower times that we were dealing with earlier in 2025, we saw a much higher gold ratio to silver at the DTC brands. What we've seen in the last, let's call it, 8 weeks, is a shift back to silver. And I would say silver could be either side of 50% right now as it relates to total volume.

And as we expect and what we have seen in the past is when you get that increased demand, you're going to see premiums go up. And anybody that's on the call, and I know there's many of you that track the premiums at JM Bullion, the premiums are significantly higher for 1 ounce silver products than they were 3 months ago. So the demand has -- the demand in silver is, as we've always talked about, silver is good to us, and volatility is good, and we've seen a lot of that. So silver is our friend.

Mike Baker from D.A. Davidson.

Great. So yes, everyone has seen the craziness -- and I guess, your words, craziness in silver pricing and gold pricing and volatility the last couple of months or so, you seem to indicate that -- well, you said that premiums are wider now in the current quarter than they were for at least the beginning of last quarter. Remind us how that impacts profitability? I know you don't give any kind of guidance or anything along those lines. But how should we think about the impact of profitability from widening spreads in the March quarter versus December quarter?

You should probably think about that we're going to have a really good quarter this quarter.

Fair enough. Okay. A couple more questions since that was such a quick answer. In the past, and you even alluded to it, I think, in the press release, at times when pricing was really high, there's been a situation where you've been more of a buyer than a seller as people sort of proverbially empty out their closet and sell you back, the gold or silver that they might have in store and that hurts you guys in -- or your profitability. It seems like -- is that what you're referring to in terms of the trading losses in the December quarter? And how does that play out in the March quarter?

No, I think they're two separate issues. I think that when we're talking about trading headwinds, we're talking about backwardation specifically. And as we've talked about before, this -- Gold.com has historically enjoyed a short position in silver and gold that hedges our position. And with that trade comes contango income and it gets carried in our interest income. And when you have backwardation, that turns into an expense -- an interest expense.

So we -- with everything that's been going on, particularly in silver and the tightness of the market at an institutional level and our being net short in backwardation, it created a significant expense in Q2 versus Q2 of 2024. So I think that answers that question.

As it relates to the buybacks, buybacks are great when your demand is increasing. And you have a significant increase in demand, which is what we're seeing here in December and what we're seeing in this quarter, and at that point, when product actually starts to become scarce on the silver side, and we have seen a tightening of supply across the silver market, having those buybacks is actually helping us.

And the majority of the buybacks coming in today are going to our own DTC platform. So they're being sold off as opposed to maybe last quarter, a lot of the buybacks were going out into the wholesale market. So when we actually need them and premiums are up and we can resell 100% of what we're buying back at a retail level, it's going to improve our performance.

Yes. That makes perfect sense. If I could ask one more, just help with, where and how does the Tether acquisition -- where does that show up in the P&L going forward, or the Tether investment, I should say, in terms of storage, how does that impact your profitability? Remind us how big that business is for you guys in terms of profits and what that deal could do for that line item?

Well, I think if you look at the fact that we're bringing in $150 million of fresh money as well as a gold lease, which will provide more liquidity for us, my anticipation is that you're going to see a significant drop in our interest expense and our dollar borrowings. If you look at our dollar borrowings, we're paying 6% to 7% for our dollar lines. The less we can be reliant right now on those dollar lines and the more we can utilize gold leases for liquidity, which are at a much lower rate, we're going to see an immediate impact. So it's a very good thing.

If you just throw everything else out, and you just take the interest expense benefits we're going to see from this transaction, it's a significant amount of money.

The next question will be from Craig Irwin from ROTH Capital.

So Greg, over the last number of weeks, a few of your smaller private competitors have talked publicly about challenges, keeping some of their most popular SKUs in inventory. And I know you deal with more than 12,000 SKUs, but can you maybe comment on your ability to keep products and inventory as we're seeing this surge in demand? And if you do touch on the captive mint capacity, can you maybe talk a little bit about your combined monthly production capacity in ounces?

Yes. I mean I don't have the exact numbers in front of me, but I can tell you that having our balance sheet and having two mints available to us is going to allow us to sell more products than our competitors and there's nobody really even close.

Probably mid-summer last year, we had production at the Silver Towne Mint in the 200,000 ounces a week rate for silver, small silver products. We anticipate we're going to sell -- we're going to manufacture over 800,000 ounces this week. So demand creates supply and we have an option on supply. So having these mints is very important.

Now that doesn't mean we're not going to run out of Silver Eagles at our platforms because Silver Eagles are on allocation, and there's only so many being minted right now. But when Silver Eagles do go on allocation and become scarce, customers tend to buy our other private mint products. So there's a direct correlation, and I believe that although we're not trying to maintain 12,000 SKUs right now, we're trying to maintain a core group of SKUs that everybody wants that we can deliver.

We have still faced some of the challenges that our competitors have in a small scale, just on delayed delivery. So we do have a little bit higher percentage right now of what we call preorders that are customers committing and paying for product, knowing that -- we disclosed to them, there will be a slight delay in delivery. So we're balancing through that. But I do believe we're taking market share right now. And I do believe -- I've always believed we're better than everybody else.

Excellent. Excellent. So then I wanted to ask about the throughput capacity at AMGL. So yesterday, I visited the facility with Steve Reiner. And the last time I had visited that facility, you had actually just hit about 100,000 packages in 1 month, which is just a mind-blowing number. And now the level of automation in that facility is something that is kind of like night and day as far as how well organized and how precise everything Brian has the whole facility running.

With the roughly 25% to 30% capacity increases as far as throughput, you still have a number of initiatives that you're in the process of implementing there that will improve efficiency further. Can you maybe talk about what your goal is as far as monthly throughput or what your aspirations are?

And then what would it take you -- what would it take for you to put a similar logistics facility in Europe or in Asia to capture on the local production, local shipment synergies that come from what you've developed in Las Vegas?

Yes. Like I said earlier on this call, we were in excess of 120,000 packages in December. I would anticipate that we'll be in the 275,000 range for December and January. And I think that those are going to be likely our two busiest months. We still have automation that is coming online. We're still improving software and APIs and the ability for customers to direct shipments more efficiently. And I think there's room to grow in that facility. I would think that within a few months or 6 months when everything is -- that we have planned for is online, we should be easily able to ship 150,000 packages a month, which would be a phenomenal number and would be a very impressive accomplishment.

As it relates to other facilities, as you can probably imagine walking through this place, it's a very large capital commitment which we made and we committed to, and we continue to expand even when things were slow. So we're hoping we're going to benefit from that gamble and benefit from the rewards of being committed to that facility.

But to stand up another facility like it in Europe or somewhere else, pretty big capital commitment and a pretty big -- it's a pretty big project. And at the moment, I just don't see outside of the U.S., a real need for small package delivery at these quantities. It is somewhat -- although we do ship from Vegas to all parts of the world, I don't know that at the moment, we would need to tie up inventory and tie up capital in a facility this size outside of the U.S.

Understood. That makes a lot of sense. And then if I could just slip in another question. So sometimes GAAP EPS and the onetime items in GAAP EPS ends up being important. And I think that might be the case this quarter. Your noncontrolling items in the second quarter of negative $1.892 million, it's a deviation from what's generally been a positive contribution over the last several quarters. Was there anything specific at one of your equity investments that you can possibly call out for us so that we can understand this impact on GAAP earnings and whether or not this is transitory or something that can repeat?

Well, probably the key issue that we dealt with in this quarter was Sunshine Mint, which we do have a minority interest in. They shut down their facility in Idaho and consolidated everything in Las Vegas. And the timing of that may not have been perfect because they consciously did it when they were slowing down and then things picked up. So there's been a little bit of a whipsaw there for them. But I think that, that's probably the area that I would expect where these numbers are coming from. I consider it an anomaly. I think Sunshine is having a very good start to this quarter.

A lot of it also has to do with demand at the U.S. Mint. And because Sunshine makes blanks for the U.S. Mint, and that is one of their key businesses, and they're geared for that and relying on that customer. When the U.S. Mint slows down, they're going to have some negative results. But I do believe that we've got a little -- we've got most of that behind us and they're looking better this quarter.

Congratulations on this nice big investment.

[Operator Instructions] The next question is coming from Sy Jacobs from Jacobs Asset Management.

So I appreciate the rare and really bullish forward-looking statement in response to the first questioner about the swing [ up ] in margins. So my question would be really easy because I'm asking for a historical number, which was about -- when you talk about how the sort of prolonged and protracted and atypical backwardation in the silver market caused hedge losses but that has now moved back at least to a slight contango, can you quantify in dollars either for the -- either the second quarter or the past year or whatever time period you want to be just to give us a sense for how much the backwardation actually cost? And once it goes back to contango, does that swing from a negative number to a positive number?

Yes. I mean I think it's a little -- it's a great question. And the numbers are a little bit masked because they get blended with other interest expense or interest income and they're spread out a little bit. But I think a fair comparison, if you were going to compare October, November, December, in calendar 2024 versus the quarter we're talking about right now, I think we probably swung -- just roughly, I bet we swung from about a $6 million gain from contango in December of '24 to a $5 million or $6 million loss in Q2 of calendar '25.

So it's about a -- year-over-year, same quarter, it was a $10 -- probably a $10 million to $12 million swing. So obviously, that's pretty material and it's extremely material when we're slow. And to have that swing back to -- I mean, it's not back to where the contango was in '24 but at this point, we were just happy to see it's swinging back towards a positive. So we're hoping that, that continues.

But when you have this kind of volatility in silver, and we've had two kind of black swan events in the last 1.5 weeks where silver was down $20 in one session and then it was up $10 and it was back down $10 in the last 24 hours. The silver market is very volatile right now. And the lending of silver, which is critical to us, which is silver leasing at these higher numbers, it can be a big deal.

And to be quite honest, silver at $100 and gold at $5,000, as we've talked about before, it causes us a significant increase in the amount of dollars we need to manage those positions. To this point, we have been successful and we've been able to move capital around and we've been able to manage through these numbers, but it is a bit of a stress when the numbers are this big, which, to be quite honest, this relationship with Tether and what we're going to benefit with them from the investment and the gold lease, it's going to really give us a lot more liquidity and be prepared in the event gold goes to $7,000 or silver goes to $150.

I'm not saying that's going to happen. But in my world, you really have to be prepared for anything because every morning, you wake up, not knowing which direction it's going right now. So I think the strategic investment from Tether was important in this area also.

And then one follow-up question. You've talked about the Tether agreement helping in one area in that they're going to be -- become a storage customer; in another area, the $150 million of equity capital and $100 million of lines, which will replace other expensive lines.

Are there any -- what are some of the other commercial opportunities here? It strikes me that they're a buyer and inevitably seller, at times, of gold to back their stablecoin. Is Gold.com in a position to be their agents, broker, dealer in any way that's going to help your volumes?

I see a lot of opportunity in areas that you can imagine we can help them with or they can help us with. I think that the beauty of this relationship is from every discussion I've had with them, it's been a real two-way street. I think there's things they can help us with. I think there's things we can help them with.

They're a huge, huge company, as everybody knows, this business and the size of the gold, the size of the treasuries and just the performance of Tether that's been published out there, I'm very excited about this relationship. And I do think there's a number of opportunities that have been discussed, but not yet formalized that I think will be very beneficial for Gold.com as well as for Tether.

The next question is coming from Greg Gibas from Northland Securities.

Congrats on the Tether announcement. And I wanted to kind of follow up on that strategic investment by Tether. Wondering where you see that relationship going forward? Do you see it expanding further by chance?

Yes. I mean, I think we put out in the press release that we believe the gold leasing, storage and utilizing the Tether stablecoins as a currency on our retail platforms is a great opportunity. We've previously announced a Gold.com credit card that we're developing. I think there may be some opportunity there with Tether.

And I think that we have been trading gold for 40 years. And I think that Tether will be looking for opportunities where they can expand their business and they can grow what they're doing. And I think they identified Gold.com -- when they approached us, I think they identified us as a great partner that there's plenty of opportunity, and I agree with that.

Got it. That's helpful. And wondering if you could kind of speak to or elaborate on your mint production volume, all the investments there and the ability to ramp that up. How kind of that's positioned to meet demand and what we're seeing in terms of the increase in demand for silver?

Yes. I mean, it's a feast or famine business, the silver minting business. We intentionally, and we had -- it was necessary for us back in July and August and September that we had to really pull back. We had to cut some costs. We had to unfortunately let some people go. And we got down to really barely utilizing 1 shift a day. In the past, we've been 3 shifts a day at Silver Towne 24/7. You can imagine in today's labor market, it just is a little bit tougher to snap on and off talent that you need that has any experience in minting 1 ounce silver around.

So I think we -- Jamie Meadows, who runs Silver Towne Mint, has done a fantastic job. He's ramped up very quickly. I think our liquidity and our ability to provide feedstock to the Silver Towne Mint has been exceptional, and I think we're getting him enough silver to make. But there are a lot of factors in what that top line number comes out to. I think it depends a bit on whether or not this demand we're seeing right now continues. Again, I said it. We're going to -- we should be having a very good quarter this quarter, but we're only 35 days into it. And we've seen before where these bull markets or these hot markets can turn very quickly.

So I think we're careful and we're being very cautious as we ramp back up at Silver Towne and Sunshine but I think there was a week a year, 1.5 years ago where they turned out 1.3 million ounces in a week, and I think that was kind of the peak. So we're not there yet, and we're trying to get back to 900,000. But as you can imagine, it's going from 200,000 or 250,000 a week to even just 900,000, there's a lot of juggling.

And we have a follow-up coming from Thomas Forte from Maxim Group.

Sure. So Greg, I'm going to control myself and limit myself to one statement and one follow-on question. So having had more time to think about this as the call has progressed, I think the strategic partnership with Tether is the most significant announcement in the history of the company. And then my question is, does working with Tether change your strategic M&A efforts, including your ability to engage in larger transactions?

It doesn't change a thing, and I think it gives us the opportunity to grow the company with bigger transactions, yes. And I think that from my conversations with Tether, they're very supportive of carefully and cautiously and continuing to grow Gold.com in the physical gold markets. And I think they're going to be great partners for that.

But you can just look at our top line numbers for Q2 and the amount of metal and the amount of top line volume that we're moving through. I mean this is -- these are big numbers. And I think having somebody that is the size of Tether and some of the great ideas that Tether has, what they're going to be doing with their business going forward and the -- their very, very large customer base, and I think it's going to back up and we will continue with the plan that we've had since the day I met you.

At this time, this concludes our question-and-answer session. I'd now like to turn the call back over to Mr. Roberts for his closing remarks.

Thanks, everybody. As Tom Forte just said, we view this as a really big day in our evolution and where we started and where we're going with Gold.com.

Continued as every quarter, I thank you for the loyalty for our shareholders for being with us and letting us invest your money and put it to good use. Thank you for joining the call today. Continuing, as always, to thank many of -- all of our employees and the many contributions they make to getting us to where we are right now and the commitment to our success. And we see exciting times moving forward, and we look forward to updating you on our progress. So thank you very much.

Thank you. Before we conclude today's call, I would like to provide Gold.com's safe harbor statement that includes important cautions regarding forward-looking statements made during this call.

During today's call, there are forward-looking statements made regarding future events. Statements that relate to Gold.com's future plans, objectives, expectations, performance, events and the like are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These include statements regarding expectations with respect to future profitability and growth, international expansion, operational enhancements and the amount of timing of any future dividends.

Future events, risks and uncertainties, individually or in the aggregate, could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in these statements. These include the following: with respect to the proposed transactions with Spectrum Group International, the failure of the parties to agree on definitive transaction documents, the failure of the parties to complete the contemplated transactions within the current expected time line or at all, the failure to obtain necessary third-party consents or approvals and greater-than-anticipated costs incurred to consummate the transactions.

Other factors that could cause actual results to differ include the failure to execute the company's growth strategy, including the inability to identify suitable or available acquisition or investment opportunities; greater-than-anticipated costs incurred to execute the strategy; government regulations that might impede growth, particularly in Asia; the inability to successfully integrate recently acquired businesses; changes in the current international political climate, which historically has favorably contributed to demand and volatility in the precious metals market, but also has posed certain risks and uncertainties for the company, particularly in recent periods; potential adverse effects of the current problems in the national and global supply chains; increased competition for the company's higher-margin services, which could depress pricing; the failure of the company's business model -- business model to respond to changes in the market environment as anticipated; changes in consumer demand and preferences for precious metals products generally; potential negative effects that inflationary pressure may have on our business; the inability of the company to expand capacity at Silver Towne Mint; the failure of our investee companies to maintain or address the preferences of their customer bases; general risks of doing business in the commodity markets and the strategic business, economic, financial, political and governmental risks and other risk factors described in the company's public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. Listeners are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements.

Finally, I would like to remind everyone that a recording of today's call will be available for replay via a link in the Investors section of the company's website. Thank you for joining us today for Gold.com's earnings call. You may now disconnect.

Good afternoon, and welcome to A-Mark Precious Metals Conference Call for the fiscal first quarter ended September 30, 2025. My name is Kelly, and I will be your operator for this afternoon.

Before this call, A-Mark issued its results for the fiscal first quarter 2026 in a press release, which is available in the Investor Relations section of the company's website at www.amark.com. You can find the link to the Investor Relations section at the top of the homepage.

Joining us for today's call are A-Mark's CEO, Greg Roberts; and CFO, Cary Dickson. Following their remarks, we will open the call to your questions. Then before we conclude the call, I'll provide the necessary cautions regarding the forward-looking statements made by management during this call.

I would like to remind everyone that this call is being recorded and will be made available for replay via a link available in the Investor Relations section of A-Mark's website.

Now I would like to turn the call over to A-Mark's CEO, Mr. Greg Roberts. Sir, please proceed.

Thank you, Kelly, and good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining the call today. Today is an exciting day for A-Mark. As you may have seen in our press releases, we announced today the acquisition of Monex Deposit Company and our upcoming rebrand and relisting to gold.com. I'll touch on both before getting into the quarter. Monex is one of the nation's largest direct-to-consumer or DTC precious metals dealers. Since its founding in 1987, Monex has facilitated billions of dollars in transactions and built a full-service platform offering bullion and coin products. The business also includes a sizable secure storage offering, which now exceeds $630 million in assets under custody.

I've known and worked with the Carabini family throughout my career, and we're excited to welcome Michael and his team under the A-Mark gold.com umbrella. This acquisition strengthens our DTC presence by leveraging Monex' well-established brand, reputation and loyal customer base. We also expect operational synergies that will enhance and streamline both organizations.

Turning to our decision to rebrand and transfer our listing. We began laying the groundwork several years ago when JM Bullion acquired the gold.com domain. Once the GOLD ticker became available on the New York Stock Exchange, the timing was right to make the change. Gold.com embodies who we are as we strengthen our category leadership and help shape the future of precious metals, numismatics and other collectibles. This name change marks the first step in positioning us for continued long-term success, enhancing operational excellence and delivering value to customers, partners and shareholders.

Investor interest in gold and silver has grown in recent years. And as we expand into adjacent categories such as wine, sports cards and other collectibles, now is the right time to modernize our corporate identity and how these assets are bought, sold and managed.

While gold.com will serve as the corporate brand, our Wholesale Sales & Ancillary Services segment will continue to operate under the A-Mark name and brand. Our direct-to-consumer segments will continue to go to market through the portfolio of trusted brands and channels, including JM Bullion and Stack's Bowers, Collateral Finance, Goldline and will also retain their names. We're excited about this next chapter and look forward to the official exchange transfer on December 2.

Now on to our quarter. Our results demonstrate the resiliency of our fully integrated platform and the early benefits of our recent acquisitions. While July and particularly August were marked by subdued demand and historically tight premium spreads, conditions improved meaningfully after Labor Day. For the quarter, we delivered $72.9 million in gross profit. This performance reflects the late quarter shift in consumer demand, combined with strong auction results from our recently acquired Stacks Bowers galleries. In September and October, we experienced a welcome increase in demand and expanded premium spreads. We have benefited from our strong balance sheet and our ability to manage our inventory levels to satisfy this increased demand. The ability to quickly ramp up production at both of our mints has proved to be timely as we have been moving through the second quarter. Although spot prices have come off all-time highs in the last two weeks, we are well positioned to take advantage of a continuation of elevated demand environment.

Operationally, our investment in AMGL over the past several quarters has paid off as we integrate our recent acquisitions. This quarter, we successfully consolidated Pinehurst's operations, inventory and shipping with AMGL and have automated those initiatives. We're also continuing to rightsize AMS, and we expect additional savings as we centralize operations and capture further economies of scale. Internationally, our move to Asia with LPM has delivered sizable contributions this quarter. We believe the traction in the business is a strong indicator of what's ahead. Our fully integrated platform positions us to succeed across market environments.

With that, I will turn the call over to our CFO, Cary Dickson, for a detailed financial review and to walk through our key operating metrics. Afterwards, I will return with additional comments on our business growth strategy for the coming fiscal year as well as take your questions. Cary?

Thank you, Greg, and good afternoon to everybody. Our revenues for Q1 fiscal '26 increased 36% to $3.68 billion from $2.72 billion in Q1 of last year. Excluding an increase of $561 million of forward sales, our revenues increased $404 million or 27.6%, which was due to an increase in gold ounces sold and higher average selling prices of gold and silver, partially offset by a decrease in silver ounces sold. Revenues also increased due to the acquisitions of SGI, Pinehurst and AMS in the last two quarters of fiscal '25.

Gross profit for Q1 fiscal '26 increased 68% to $72.9 million or 1.98% of revenue from $43.4 million or 1.6% of revenue in Q1 of last year. The increase was primarily due to higher gross profits earned by both the wholesale sale and ancillary services and direct-to-consumer segments, including the acquisitions of SGI, Pinehurst and AMS, which were not included in the same year ago quarter, partially offset by lower trading profits.

SG&A expenses for Q1 fiscal '26 increased 125% to $59.8 million from $26.6 million in Q1 of last year. The overall increase is primarily due to increases in compensation expense of $19.5 million, advertising costs of $5.2 million, consulting and professional fees of $4.1 million, facilities expenses of $1.3 million and bank and service credit fees of $1.2 million. SG&A expenses for the three months ended September 30, '25, included expenses incurred by SGI, Pinehurst and AMS, which were not included in the same year ago period as they were not consolidated subsidiaries, and we have not acquired them yet.

Depreciation and amortization for Q1 of '26 increased 61% to $7.6 million from $4.7 million in Q1. The increase was primarily due to an increase in amortization expense resulting from the increase in step-up of our intangible assets through the acquisitions that we've been talking about.

Interest income for Q1 fiscal '26 decreased 21% to $5.6 million from $7.1 million in Q1 of last year. The decrease is primarily due to a decrease in other finance product income of $1 million and a decrease in interest income earned by our Secured Lending segment of $0.5 million.

Interest expense for Q1 fiscal '26 increased 26% to $12.6 million from $10 million in Q1 of last year. The increase in interest expense is primarily due to an increase of $1.3 million related to precious metal leases, an increase of $0.6 million associated with our trading credit facility, an increase of $0.5 million related to product financing arrangements.

Earnings from equity method investments of Q1 fiscal '26 decreased 257% to a loss of $0.9 million from earnings of $0.6 million profit in Q1 of last year. The decrease is due to decreased earnings from our equity method investees.

Net loss attributable to the company for the first quarter of fiscal '26 totaled $0.9 million or $0.04 per diluted share. This compares to net income attributable to the company of $9 million or $0.37 per diluted share in Q1 of last year.

Adjusted net income before provision for income taxes, a non-GAAP financial performance measure, which excludes depreciation, amortization, acquisition costs and contingent consideration fair value adjustments for Q1 '26 totaled $4.9 million, a decrease of 67% compared to $14.8 million in the same year ago quarter.

EBITDA, a non-GAAP liquidity measure for Q1 fiscal '26 totaled $14.3 million, a 20% decrease compared to $17.8 million in the same quarter last year.

Turning to our balance sheet. As of September 30, we had $89.2 million in cash compared to $77.7 million at the end of fiscal '25. Our nonrestricted inventories totaled $846.1 million as of September 30 compared to $794 million at the end of fiscal '25.

That completes my financial summary. Now looking at our key operating metrics for the first fiscal quarter of '26. We sold 439,000 ounces of gold in Q1 fiscal '26, which was up 10% from Q1 of last year and up 27% from the prior quarter. We sold 10.4 million ounces of silver in Q1 fiscal '26, which was down 49% from Q1 of last year and down 34% from the prior quarter.

The number of new customers in our DTC segment, which is defined as those who registered, set up a new account or made a purchase for the first time during the period was 69,400 in Q1 fiscal '26, which was up 25% from Q1 of last year and decreased 36% from last quarter. The number of total customers in our direct-to-consumer segment at the end of the first quarter was approximately $4.3 million, a 37% increase from the prior year. This year-over-year increase in total customers is predominantly due to the acquisitions of SGI, Pinehurst and AMS as well as organic growth of our JMB customer base.

Finally, the number of secured loans at the end of September totaled 424, a decrease of 5% from June 30, '25, and a decrease of 25% from September 30, '24. Our secured loans receivable balance at the end of September was $103.6 million, a 10% increase from June 30, '25, and a 2% increase from September 30, '24.

That concludes my prepared remarks. I'll now turn it back over to Greg for closing remarks.

Thank you, Cary. We've seen the momentum that began late in the first quarter carry into our second quarter, and we're cautiously optimistic about the year ahead. With the addition of Monex and our recent acquisitions, we're now better positioned to perform across all market environments and to capitalize on periods of heightened volatility. As we prepare for our transition to gold.com next month, this milestone underscores our vision to build the most trusted and globally recognized precious metals platform. Backed by the strength of our core business, the power of our integrated model and the momentum from our recent acquisitions, we have a solid foundation for sustained growth and profitable -- sustained and profitable growth. We remain confident in our long-term trajectory and our ability to create lasting value for our shareholders.

That concludes my remarks. Operator, we can now open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question is coming from Thomas Forte with Maxim Group.

Yes. So Greg, congrats on all the advancements and the rebrand to gold.com. One question, one follow-up, and then I might get back in the queue. I wanted to ask you, Greg, for your current thoughts on strategic M&A. You've had a lot of transactions over the last 12 to 18 months. What's your current appetite for additional deals? And how should we think about areas of focus, domestic versus international, DTC and I guess, precious metals versus other collectibles. The recent examples have been wine and numismatics.

Yes. As always, I think this question, I answer it the same way. We're always looking at opportunities, always looking at pieces that we think fit in the overall goals and where we want to be going forward. We've digested, and we've digested the acquisitions we did earlier in the year. The team has done a great job getting those in a position where we can now start to see the benefits from the acquisitions. On the rare coin side, which generally has some correlation to precious metals prices from a buyer behavior perspective, we accomplished one of the largest auctions that Stack's Bowers has had in history in August and September. So we've seen great strength there.

As we look for other opportunities, we're always open and always looking at ways to expand. I think we've done a lot in Asia over the last 24 months, and we're definitely seeing the benefits of those acquisitions pay off today. We have a great partner in Atkinsons in the U.K. Their business has been very strong over the last 24 months, and we would love to help Atkinsons grow in the U.K.

As it relates to other geographical areas, there's nothing at the moment that is a must-have, I believe, for us, although we're -- if we see something we like, we'll talk about it.

The Monex transaction is something that I've worked on for many quarters now, a company that has been a customer, the counterparty of A-Mark for over 25 years. They have a great model, a great customer base, and most importantly, management, the Carabini family are -- and others there are just great assets that we're bringing into the A-Mark fold. So we want to get that deal closed. We want to continue to look for synergies. As we've grown, as you can see from the numbers, our SG&A has grown, a lot of it having to do with new employees through the acquisitions.

Our finance costs are up. A lot of that having to do with headwinds related to the precious metals financing overall macro business as well as we're financing the same amount of ounces at much higher spot prices right now. So I think our appetite is still there, and we'll continue to look for deals that we believe are accretive to the business.

And then for my follow-up, and then I might get back in the queue. I really appreciate your thoughts on stablecoins and gold demand. So I think there's been a long-time debate or had been a long-time debate on kind of gold versus Bitcoin, and I see this as an example of gold and crypto. So I would appreciate your thoughts on stablecoins and gold demand.

I mean the gold demand has been incredible over the last 9 to 12 months, and it's reflected in the performance of the spot prices. And you have throughout the beginning of the year and most of last year, you had strong central bank buying. And I've talked about this before. China has been buying large quantities of gold for at least the last three or four years. And that demand has trickled down to other governments. I think you could look towards India, you could look towards Russia, you could look towards other countries that are kind of on the anti-dollar trade right now. And whether it be redeploying assets from maturing treasuries or just reallocation, you've seen central banks really leading. And to move the spot price of gold as much as it has moved, it's a very large amount of dollars that move that price.

I think that throughout July and August, the spot prices continued to rise. And in the U.S., the domestic consumer, as I have talked about before, the domestic consumer was not really motivated by the higher spot prices. In fact, as we talked about last quarter, A-Mark was a terminal point of liquidity for a lot of people selling and taking profits at the spot prices.

As I mentioned before and in the press release, we have seen a welcome change in September and October, where it does appear that there has been a lot of publicity. I think Goldman came out with something. Others have said the same that U.S. citizens should have a higher percentage of their investable assets in gold and silver, and we have definitely seen an uptick in September and October, and we have got back to a situation where there's been some tight supply on certain products and our premiums have finally started to grow a little bit. I think at JM Bullion in September and October premiums have probably gone up about 20% since August. And so that has been a shift in kind of what's going on in the gold market.

And then finally, I think starting in October, we did see an increased demand for silver as silver got over $50. So I think our customers have taken a little breather the last week as spot prices have come off a little bit. But I think the major shift in what we saw in September and October were as gold and silver made new highs, we saw a shift in demand from our customers. So that was welcome and we hope it continues.

Your next question is coming from Mike Baker with D.A. Davidson.

So you just sort of touched on it, but I was going to ask you, what's changed because in the past and even last year, when we saw really high prices, you didn't see the demand. In fact, as you said, you were providing liquidity. I guess you just sort of -- I was going to ask what has changed this time, but you sort of answered that.

So I guess I'll pivot my question. How sustainable is this change? You said your customers have taken a bit of a breather in the last week, and we're not going to look at things on a week-to-week basis. I get that. But how sustainable is the better trends that you've seen in September and October? Is it that everyone sort of emptied out their closet of the gold they have. And so now there's no more selling to you and it's much more buying. Is that sustainable? And if you could, just take the last two months and what's sort of the run rate of the profitability of this business now relative to where you just finished?

Yes. I think as it relates to whether or not it's sustainable or not, I mean we've had extreme, extreme volatility and behavior of our customers -- it changes fairly regularly. Like I said, July and August were particularly August were about as slow as I have seen our business, which is, for the most part, reflective in our performance. I think that we had a great rebound in September and made up for a very slow period as well as extreme volatility and some extreme increases in financing costs in July and August.

We continue to have a very volatile and erratic market as it relates to gold leases and repo, which are gold and silver leases and repo rates, which are a big component of how we finance our business. Those rates have been very volatile. The market has flipped a bit into backwardation, which is never great for us because we're short the market and we have a very big short book. So, in July and August, we did face some headwinds.

As it relates to why the customer base in our DTC segment decided after Labor Day to change their behavior or their attitude, I don't have a single reason for that. I mean I do a lot of research. We do a lot of looking at behavior, look at macroeconomic issues. Certainly, I think the continued back and forth trade war with China was a big issue. I think the government shutdown has likely in its first few weeks, probably woke up a number of our customers to what's going to happen. Now the shutdown has become like just ho hum every day, we're shut down and who knows what's going to happen. And China has temporarily seems to have calmed down a little bit.

So I think there are some macro things that have affected us. I think throughout October, there was a lot of focus in mainstream media on precious metals, rare earth metals, gold and silver. And I think the awareness was just higher than we have seen it since probably the Silicon Valley Bank crisis. We didn't -- unlike Silicon Valley Bank, we didn't get the feeling that our customers were fleeing to safety or looking for a place to put cash. It felt for the first time that there was a bit of FOMO related to the record spot prices. And so if that's the case, spot prices are down 8% from where they were a few weeks ago. We'll have to see whether that slows the behavior or whether or not our customers decide to buy the dip.

As it relates to run rate, as it relates to how we're looking this quarter, I've gone about as far as I'm going to go saying with October being very strong on the heels of September. And we'll continue to update you on how we see the markets performing and how we're able to take advantage of it.

Fair enough. Thanks for the detail. If I could ask one more. Just about the expenses, we get that expenses are higher because of all the acquisitions that you've made. But at some point, the acquisitions make sense in that they drive higher sales, higher gross profit and you leverage the expenses just that EBITDA is -- goes up. Presumably, that's the outcome at some point.

So any idea of when you start to sort of synergize some of these expenses or when that starts to show up a little bit more in the P&L such that EBITDA is increasing in line with the gross profit dollar increase?

Yes. I mean I think $73 million of gross profit in the quarter and almost $14 million in EBITDA, I was very satisfied with that for what we were experiencing as it relates to just the amount of ounces we were selling and the other factors I've already talked about.

The company is digesting the acquisitions. My strategy is generally we try to buy great businesses with great management and we let them manage their businesses. At the same time, from a corporate standpoint, we are looking for redundancies, and we're looking for places to be more efficient. We don't want to keep spending more money on an apples-to-apples comparison. We want our expenses to go down, and we want our profits to go up. So that's something we're focused on.

We are very, very focused last quarter and this quarter on ways that we can integrate ways we can reduce redundancy, ways we can relocate some of the employees and relocate some of the operations that have been run in remote locations to our Vegas facility. As we announced with this rebranding, we are going to be closing our offices in El Segundo, and we're going to be moving -- employees are going to be moving either to the new corporate offices in Orange County that are where Stack's has been located or they -- some employees are moving to Santa Monica where Goldline is located.

So we are we do have a process that we're going through. And I think that the goal for us is are we reducing costs on an apples-to-apples basis? Are our costs efficient and moving in the right direction absent the acquisitions? And then total, as we get into quarters-over-quarters, are we able to be more efficient and deal with lower expenses across all the businesses. But at the moment, I thought based on how July and August started, I thought we got a lot out of the quarter. I think that the flipping of the switch for whatever reasons, some of it we've talked about, the customer base in our DTC business has really just they woke up and the business that profits we've been able to generate in that segment have been great in September, October.

And we have also worked through a lot of inventory that we've been able to monetize and reposition at the A-Mark trading corporate level. And we're hoping that we see at the wholesale level, a drying up of excess supply and that A-Mark is going to reestablish itself as the go-to when you want to buy something and you need product at a wholesale level, not just when you're looking for liquidity to sell stuff to A-Mark. So these things for the last 60 days have been going in the right direction. So we'll try to continue that.

[Operator Instructions] Your next question is coming from Andrew Scutt with ROTH Capital.

Congratulations on the announcements. First one for me, you guys kind of historically have done acquisitions, I guess, I would call them in piecemeal. And you did talk about the long-standing relationship with Monex, but was there any other factors that went in the decision to do this in one full swoop?

Yes. Like I said, this is a transaction I've been working on with Michael for a couple of years now, and it took -- the stars have aligned, and we felt this was a deal we wanted to go in 100%. And Michael was enthusiastic about taking some A-Mark's stock and being part of the A-Mark family as well as we were able to structure an earn-out that gave both sides some opportunities as it relates to whether or not the Monex businesses can grow and whether they can continue to perform or if it takes a little bit longer.

So I think the structure of the deal and the willingness of both sides to make the move, it just fit for this transaction. It wasn't a transaction, I think, where either side really wanted to start with a 10% or 20% or 40% stake in the company. I think -- I know the business very well. I've been looking and diligencing the business for a long time.

The business is very important to moving forward in what we're trying to accomplish. There is some -- it's a different model most of the customers store their metal and hold their metal in storage and are much more frequent traders of gold and silver as opposed to a cash and carry and take possession of the metal.

So it's a little different model, but I believe it's got enough uncorrelation to it that in viewing it, particularly the last nine months, it felt that to me that this was a great move for us because I think we have a customer base that's a little bit different motivated, particularly through the slower periods that we've experienced the last six to nine months in our retail business. The Monex business has actually outperformed what I would expect. And I think the customer base is a little bit more of a -- it's a bit more of a high-frequency trading business where customers are actually able to move in and out and go between cash and go to metal that's in storage.

I've talked about it before. Storage is a huge component of what we're focused on growing right now. And Monex provided us with $600 million to $700 million of storage right now. That's likely adding 50% to 75% of what we have under management in storage right now. And that's just storage fees and storage are paid day in, day out, and it's a good steady stream of income for us.

And I think that the that their customer base was a bit more -- seems to have been a bit more motivated by the higher spot prices. And so it felt at this moment that there's not another model like this out there that we're familiar with. And just very happy with the 50 years they've been in business or 40 years they've been in business, and they have a very, very loyal customer base and a great management team.

Great. Well, I appreciate the color. And second one for me, a little bit more high level. So now that you've kind of made all these acquisitions, you have all these DTC brands under your umbrella, does it make sense to kind of combine a few of them and have a one-stop shop and say, here we are at gold.com? Or is there greater value in having multiple storefronts under multiple different brands?

Great question. I think about this all the time. And when we're doing acquisitions, one of the key diligence items we look at is what is the crossover from one brand to another as it relates to the customer base. If there is a high level of crossover, the brands may not be as important. If there's very, very low crossover, I view that as value in the brand and value in what the customer knows and what the customer is comfortable with. I think the Monex brand has been around forever. The Monex brand is well known throughout all of the retail precious metals business. So I love the brand. I have been familiar with the brand forever. So I don't see anything changing with that.

I do think that our rebranding and our move to gold.com as an umbrella over our brands is important, and it's an important milestone. I do believe there -- having a an umbrella brand that can look for ways where the individual brands can be more familiar with each other or how there might be offerings that we can come up with that will be appealing to all the brands. I think this is an important step in that. I think the new logo we've developed will be launching December 1.

We're launching gold.com precious metal products that are branding of the gold.com brand and the products that we have developed to this point are going to be incredible and they're going to bring that the gold.com website that will also be going online in early December. It is going to connect all the brands in one place. And they'll be -- if you want to buy gold, you're going to get to see all the different options that gold.com will offer you, and you'll be able to choose who you want to do business with within our ecosystem.

So I'm very excited and very enthusiastic about this move. And I think in some way, what you're asking the question, part of our strategic plan is to use this great domain name that we bought, this great new website we've developed, this new great corporate location and this have the ability to promote one brand that encompasses everything and then introduce people to our distinct and different DTC platforms, I think, is going to be a great opportunity for the company.

You have a follow-up question coming from Thomas Forte with Maxim Group.

Greg, last one, I promise. So you've done a great job.

That's okay. Many as you want, Tom.

Don't say that. The call go on more half an hour. So you've done a great job upgrading the technology and adding physical space to your logistics effort in Vegas. How should investors think about your logistics capacity given all the recent M&A activity?

We built this thing, and it is incredible. The automation that Thor and Brian have accomplished up in Vegas is -- it's better than anything I've ever seen. And we have onboarded a number of new clients there, some corporate clients that are new to us. But the ability for the facility to operate and the capacity that we can now get out of it is, I think we have absolutely the best in the business.

I think we shipped in October, I want to say, 60,000 packages plus, which was a very strong month for us. I think we could have shipped 100,000 packages in October, if need be. So we have great capacity. We have onboarded, I know of at least three new customers that are outside of the A-Mark umbrella that are using our services as well as, as I said earlier, we've taken the Pinehurst logistics and inventory from Pinehurst, North Carolina, and we've moved that to Las Vegas. And now all the Pinehurst packages on eBay to their retail customers, to their wholesale customers, all those packages are being shipped out of Vegas.

We need to continue to do that with our other brands and utilize the facility. But we are very well positioned if the market continues to perform or even gets better, we will still be able to get our customers' packages out within one or two days. And at the level of 100,000, 110,000 packages a month, to be able to do that. I think the moat around now gold.com, the moat is just very difficult for our competitors to address. I think that we can really promote and really separates us from others, our ability to store and to ship logistics.

At this time, this does conclude our question-and-answer session. I'd now like to turn the call back over to Mr. Roberts for his closing remarks.

Okay. Thank you very much. Once again, thank you to all of our shareholders. There have been a lot of change, a lot going on here. We've continued to try to make what we think are great long-term moves as well as short-term adjustments that we need to make. Your continued interest and support is most appreciated. And I'd also like to thank all of our employees for their dedication and commitment to A-Mark's success. We look forward to keeping you apprised of A-Mark and gold.com's further developments, and we look forward to talking to you again in a few months, if not sooner. So thank you very much.

Thank you. Before we conclude today's call, I would like to provide A-Mark's safe harbor statement that includes important cautions regarding forward-looking statements made during this call.

During today's call, there were forward-looking statements made regarding future events. Statements that relate to A-Mark's future plans, objectives, expectations, performance, events and the like are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These include statements regarding expectations with respect to growth, long-term success, operational enhancement, delivery of value, access to and credibility in the public markets, continuing execution on other steps in our strategic planning and anticipated cost savings. Future events, risks and uncertainties individually or in aggregate could cause actual results or circumstances to differ materially from those expressed or implied in these statements.

Factors that could cause actual results to differ include the following: a neutral or negative reaction of our customers, partners and public markets to the change of our name, our brand, other corporate identifiers and to our listing venue, our inability to seamlessly execute our rebranding strategy, potential confusion in the markets that we serve concerning our rebranding, difficulties with formulating and effectively executing on additional steps in our strategic plan and our inability to successfully expand into other categories of collectibles or to enhance how these new asset categories are managed or transacted.

There are other factors affecting our business generally, which could cause our actual results to differ from those that we anticipate as a result of our rebranding program, including government regulations that might impede growth, particularly in Asia, including with respect to tariff policy, the inability to successfully integrate recently acquired businesses; changes in the current international political climate, which historically has favorably contributed to demand and volatility in the precious metal markets, but has also posed certain risks and uncertainties for the company, particularly in recent periods, increased competition for the company's higher-margin services, which could depress pricing; the failure of the company's business model to respond to changes in the market environment as anticipated; changes in consumer demand and preferences for precious metal products generally; potential negative effects that inflationary pressure may have on our business; the failure of our investee companies to maintain or address the preferences of their customer bases; general risks of doing business in the commodity markets; and the strategic business, economic, financial, political and governmental risks and other risk factors described in the company's public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements.

Finally, I would like to remind everyone that a recording of today's call will be available for replay via a link in the Investors section of the company's website. Thank you for joining us today for A-Mark's earnings call. You may now disconnect.

Good afternoon, and welcome to A-Mark Precious Metals Conference Call for the Fiscal Fourth Quarter and Full Year ended June 30, 2025. My name is John, and I will be your operator this afternoon. Before this call, A-Mark issued its results for the fiscal fourth quarter and full year 2025 in a press release, which is available in the Investor Relations section of the company's website at www.amark.com. You can find the link to the Investor Relations section at the top of the home page.

Joining us for today's call are A-Mark's CEO, Greg Roberts; President, Thor Gjerdrum; and CFO, Cary Dickson. Following their remarks, we will open the call to your questions. Then before we conclude the call, I'll provide the necessary cautions regarding the forward-looking statements made by management during this call. I would like to remind everyone that this call is being recorded and will be made available for replay via a link available in the Investor Relations section of A-Mark's website. Now, I would like to turn the call over to A-Mark's CEO, Mr. Greg Roberts. Sir, please proceed.

Thank you, John, and good afternoon to everyone. Thanks once again for joining our call. As we reported in our earnings release today, our fourth quarter and fiscal year 2025 results underscore the ability of our fully integrated platform to generate positive results during challenging market conditions. Despite the ongoing uncertainty in the physical markets, which has led to increased supply and range-bound premium spreads, we reported $17.3 million of net income non-GAAP adjusted net income before provision for income taxes of $53.1 million, non-GAAP earnings before interest taxes, depreciation and amortization of $64.4 million and diluted EPS of $0.71 per share for our fiscal year 2025. For the fourth quarter of 2025, we generated $10.3 million of net income, non-GAAP adjusted net income before provisions for income taxes of $19.2 million, non-GAAP earnings before interest taxes, depreciation and amortization of $29.2 million and diluted EPS of $0.41 per share.

Our fourth quarter results improved from the previous quarter with a 99% increase in gross profit, a 233% increase in non-GAAP adjusted net income and a 2,167% increase in non-GAAP EBITDA, reflecting the benefit of our recent strategic acquisitions. We have made steady progress bringing Spectrum Group International, AMS Holdings and Pinehurst Coin Exchange under the A-Mark umbrella, managing inventory levels and completing automation upgrades at our AMGL facility with centralized operations now in place.

We completed the migration of Pinehurst logistics operations from North Carolina to AMGL in Las Vegas. One example of our cost savings synergies we expect to achieve from our recent acquisitions. As we continue to progress our integration initiatives, the scale and efficiencies we're achieving will help to optimize expenses, create greater operating leverage and maintain costs at more optimal levels going forward. We have also made significant progress in our expansion into Asia with LPM, now fully operational in Singapore across both wholesale and e-commerce channels, further broadening our reach into the Southeast Asian market.

We believe these acquisitions, combined with our growing international presence, strengthen our distribution channels and expand our reach into higher-margin collectible and luxury segments. With a broader and more diversified platform, improved operational leverage and a strong balance sheet, we enter the new fiscal year well positioned to capture growth across multiple channels. Now, I will hand the call over to our new CFO, Cary Dickson, who will provide a more detailed financial overview of our results. Then A-Mark's President, Thor Gjerdrum, will discuss our key operating metrics. Afterwards, I will provide further update on our business growth and strategy for the upcoming fiscal year and then take your questions. Cary?

Thank you, Greg, and good afternoon to everybody. Our revenues for Q4 fiscal '25 decreased 1% to $2.51 billion from $2.52 billion in Q4 of last year. Excluding a decrease of $94 million of forward sales, revenues increased $81 million or 5%, which was due to higher average selling prices of gold and silver, offset by a decrease in gold and silver ounces sold.

For the full year, our revenues increased 1.3% to $10.98 billion from $9.7 billion in the prior fiscal year. Excluding an increase of $446 million of forward sales, -- our revenues increased $832.9 million or 15%, which was due to higher average selling prices of gold and silver, partially offset by a decrease in gold and silver ounces sold. Revenues also increased due to the acquisition of a controlling interest in Silver Gold Bull, which we refer to as SGB in June of '24, and the acquisitions of Spectrum Group International, which we refer to as SGI and Pinehurst Coin Exchange, which we will continuously refer to as Pinehurst in February of 2025. And finally, AMS Holdings, which we refer to as AMS in April of '25.

Gross profit for Q4 fiscal '25 increased 90% to $81.7 million or 3.25% of revenue from $43.0 million or 1.7% of revenue in Q4 of last year. The increase was primarily due to the acquisition of a controlling interest in SGB in June of '24 and the acquisitions of SGI and Pinehurst in February '25 and AMS in April of '25.

For the full fiscal year, gross profit increased 22% to $210.9 million or 1.92% of revenue from $173.3 million or 1.79% of revenue in the prior fiscal year. The increase in gross profit was due to higher profits earned by our direct-to-consumer segment, partially offset by lower gross profits earned from our wholesale sales and ancillary services segment.

SG&A expenses for Q4 of fiscal '25 increased 135% to $53.4 million from $22.7 million in Q4 of last year. The overall increase was primarily due to an increase in compensation expense, including performance-based accruals of $17.6 million, an increase in advertising costs of $5.3 million, an increase in consulting and professional fees of $3.1 million and other expenses.

Increases in SG&A expenses, including expenses incurred by SGB, SGI, Pinehurst and AMS, which were not included or only partially included in the same year ago period. For the full fiscal year, SG&A expenses increased 55% to $139 million from $89.8 million in the prior fiscal year. The increase is primarily due to an increase in compensation expense, including performance-based accruals of $24.1 million as well as increases in consulting and professional fees of $9.1 million, advertising costs of $8.4 million, facilities expense of $3.0 million and other expenses.

SG&A expenses include expenses incurred by LPM, SGB, SGI, Pinehurst and AMS, which were not included or only partially included in the same year ago period. Depreciation and amortization expense for Q4 of fiscal '25 increased 201% to $8.6 million from $2.8 million in Q4 of last year. The increase was primarily due to an increase in amortization expense of $6 million related to intangible assets acquired through the acquisition of a controlling interest in SGB and the recent acquisitions of AMS and SGI.

For the full fiscal year, depreciation and amortization expense increased 101% to $22.9 million from $11.4 million last fiscal year. The increase was primarily due to an increase in amortization expense of $12.9 million related to intangible assets acquired through our acquisitions of LPM, SGI, Pinehurst AMS and the acquisition of a controlling interest in SGB. -- an increase of $1.8 million of depreciation expense due to an increase in capital expenditures, partially offset by a decrease in JMV intangible asset amortization of $3.1 million.

Interest income for Q4 of fiscal '25 decreased 34% to $5.3 million from $8.1 million in Q4 of last year. The decrease is primarily related to lower interest earned from repurchase agreements with customers of $1.4 million and other finance products of $0.7 million.

For the full fiscal year, interest income decreased 4% to $25.9 million from $27.2 million in the prior fiscal year. The decrease is primarily due to a decrease in interest income earned by our Secured Lending segment of $0.8 million and other finance product income of $0.5 million. Interest expense for Q4 of '25 increased 34% to $12.9 million from $9.6 million in Q4 of last year. The increase in interest expense was primarily driven by higher overall borrowings related to precious metal leases, the trading credit facility and product financing agreements.

For the full fiscal year, interest expense increased 17% to $46.2 million from $39.5 million last fiscal year. The increase is primarily driven by higher overall borrowings related to precious metal leases, the trading credit facility and product financing agreements, partially offset by the repayment of AM Capital funding notes that we had back in December of 2023. Earnings from equity method investments in Q4 decreased 201% to a loss of $0.8 million from earnings of $0.8 million in Q4 of last year. For the full fiscal year, earnings from equity method investments decreased 170% to a loss of $2.8 million from earnings of $4.0 million last fiscal year. The decrease in both periods was due to decreased earnings from our equity method investees.

Net income on a GAAP basis attributable to the company for the fourth quarter of fiscal '25 totaled $10.3 million or $0.41 per diluted share. This compares to net income attributable to the company of $30.9 million or $0.29 per diluted share in Q4 of last year. For the full fiscal year, net income on a GAAP basis attributable to the company totaled $17.3 million or $0.71 per diluted share, which compares to net income attributable to the company of $68.5 million or $2.84 per diluted share last fiscal year.

Adjusted net income before provision for income taxes, a non-GAAP performance measure, which excludes depreciation, amortization, acquisition costs, remeasurement gains or losses and contingent consideration fair value adjustment for Q4 fiscal '25 totaled $19.2 million, a decrease of 5% compared to $20.1 million in the same year ago quarter.

Adjusted net income before provision for income taxes for the full fiscal year totaled $53.1 million, a 34% decrease from $80.3 million in the prior fiscal year. EBITDA -- another non-GAAP liquidity measure, which excludes interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization for Q4 fiscal '25 totaled $29.2 million, a 24% decrease compared to the $38.4 million in Q4 of fiscal '24. EBITDA for the full fiscal year totaled $64.4 million, a 40% decrease compared to the $106.5 million last fiscal year.

Turning to our balance sheet. At fiscal year-end, we had $77.7 million of cash compared to $48.6 million at the end of the fiscal '24. Our nonrestricted inventories totaled $794.8 million, up by $215 million from the $579.4 million we had at the end of the last fiscal year in '24. And that completes my financial summary. Now, I will turn the call over to Thor, who will provide an update on our key operating metrics. Thor?

Thank you, Cary. Looking at our key operational metrics for the fourth quarter and full year 2025, we sold 346,000 ounces of gold in Q4 fiscal 2025, which is down 23% from Q4 of last year and down 20% from the prior quarter. For the full fiscal year, we sold 1.6 million ounces of gold, which was down 11% from last fiscal year. We sold 15.7 million ounces of silver in Q4 fiscal 2025, which was down 38% from Q4 of last year and down 0.2% from the prior quarter. For the full fiscal year, we sold 73.6 million ounces of silver, which was down 32% from last year.

The number of new customers in the DTC segment, which is defined as those who register, set up a new account or made a purchase for the first time during the period was 108,900 in Q4 fiscal 2025, which was down 81% from Q4 of last year and decreased 88% from last quarter.

For the 3 months ended June 30, 2025, and June 30, 2024, approximately 30% and 92% of the new customers were attributable to the acquisition of AMS and the acquisition of a controlling interest in SGB, respectively. For the 3 months ended March 31, 2025, approximately 84% and 9% of the new customers were attributable to the acquisitions of Pinehurst and SGI, respectively. For the full fiscal year, the number of new customers in the DTC segment was 1,129,200, a 57% increase from the 718,500 new customers in the prior fiscal year. Approximately 79% of the new customers for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2025, were attributable to the acquisitions of SGI, Pinehurst and AMS.

Approximately 73% of new customers in fiscal year 2024 were attributable to the acquisition of a controlling interest in SGB. The number of total customers in the DTC segment at the end of the fourth quarter was approximately $4.2 million, a 37% increase from the prior year. The year-over-year increase in total customers was due to the acquisitions of SGI, Pinehurst and AMS as well as organic growth of our JMB customer base.

The DTC segment average order value, which represents the average dollar amount of products ordered, excluding accumulation program orders delivered to customers during Q4 fiscal 2025 was 2,443, which is down 15% from Q4 fiscal 2024 and down 21% from the prior quarter. For the full fiscal year, our DTC average order value was 2,886, which was up 19% from fiscal 2024.

For the fiscal fourth quarter, our inventory turn ratio was 1.9, which was a 17% decrease from 2.3 in Q4 of last year and a 21% decrease from 2.4 in the prior quarter. For the full fiscal year, our inventory turn ratio was 9.1, a 1% decrease from the 9.2% last fiscal year. And finally, the number of secured loans as of June 30, 2025, totaled 445, a decrease of 9% from March 31, 2025, and a decrease of 24% from June 30, 2024. Our secured loan receivable balance at the end of fiscal year was $94 million, a 9% decrease from March 31, 2025, and a 70% decrease from June 30, 2024. That concludes my prepared remarks. I'll now turn it over to Greg for closing remarks. Greg?

Thank you, Thor and Cary. Our recent acquisitions and growing international presence have strengthened our competitive position while expanding our footprint into higher-margin luxury segments. Our investment in infrastructure and automation technology at our Las Vegas facility has enabled us to centralize our operations, manage costs and allows us to scale up as market conditions evolve.

Looking ahead to fiscal 2026 with our expanded brand portfolio and ongoing integration and optimization opportunities, we remain confident in A-Mark's long-term trajectory and our continuing ability to deliver shareholder value. That concludes my remarks. Operator, we can now open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Thomas Forte with Maxim Group.

So 3 questions for me. I'll go one at a time. The first one is a high-level question. You had indicated and you saw in the quarter an improvement in the performance versus the prior quarter. At a high level, though, I was curious where you think we are in the cycle right now.

I mean we saw some real strength in April. May and June were a little more -- a little slower. What we've talked about the last 2 or 3 quarters, the continued higher spot prices, which result in higher carry costs for A-Mark as well as the headwinds as it relates to the premium in our -- particularly our silver products, it has continued.

And we continue to battle these issues, and they are continuing. I do -- I am optimistic that our -- integration of our acquisitions and our continuing efforts to optimize and integrate and reduce the expenses in these acquisitions will ultimately is going to pay off. But at the moment, the market is about how it has been over the last 3 to 6 months.

Okay. And then for my second, you did engage in a lot of strategic M&A over the last 12, 18 months. Where are your thoughts today? It seems like you have more opportunities to take advantage of, but I don't know if you feel like you need to digest what you just did. But what are your current thoughts on strategic M&A?

I mean I think we're always looking for opportunities, and there are still opportunities in the pipeline that we're looking at. I do believe that we closed 3 acquisitions in our Q3, and we did digest those, and we do believe that we've made good progress in integrating them, although we're not complete yet. I think that the team at A-Mark has done a great job with the integration, and I believe that we are ready to digest something else if the opportunity presented itself.

And we're just trying to, as usual, balance our capital allocation between inventory and acquisitions and continuing to optimize what we've already purchased. So work is ongoing in all areas, but I certainly wouldn't shut the door on future acquisitions. I've said before for quite some time that when the market is slow, we believe that opportunities will present themselves and that the acquisitions that we can make now when the market is slower are a lot easier for us to digest and grow and expand than making an acquisition when the market is very hot. So feeling good about it. Door is open and looking for opportunities.

All right. So 2 more. I just thought of one more I wanted to ask quickly. So I think that the answer to this one is that they're still in their early days, but some of the acquisitions you did were intended to give you some element of countercyclicality. So where are we with those efforts?

I mean, I think particularly in the Stack's Bowers area, we just concluded last Friday, our largest sale in history on the Rare Coin auction side. It was a $62 million sale -- over 9 days. We sold over 14,000 lots, a very good result. The team at Stack’s Bowers did excellent work getting that auction and those auctions out the door.

And that particular market on the rare coin side is very strong right now. And to the countercyclical nature you just mentioned, it is proving out that we're benefiting on the higher-margin rare coin side right now than maybe on the 1 ounce silver rounds. So I believe that the strategy is sound. I think the acquisitions were appropriate and they were well timed, and we just need to continue to expand on them.

Great. And then last one. So it wasn't clear to me in the prepared remarks, I apologize if it was clear, and I just didn't understand. Have you finished fully upgrading your Vegas distribution center? I know you're adding in or implementing some pretty impressive tech -- is that fully?

Yes. I would say we're 95% complete. From an infrastructure standpoint, we are complete. We continue to work on the software and IT side of it, integrating all of our different customers and all of our internal DTC customers, we are integrating that, but it is operational.

And I would say that, like I said, it's mostly complete. We're very happy. The increased capacity and cost savings has been everything we expected it to be. We have been able to onboard a number of new clients there, which ultimately in the long term is going to translate into more business and give us opportunity to take market share when the market heats up.

The next question comes from Mike Baker with D.A. Davidson.

Okay. A few for me. Starting big picture, you said, Greg, at the beginning, just the environment remains weak or soft or slow, whatever you said. Can you just remind us, bigger picture, what's a good environment for you guys? What are we from -- looking from the outside looking in, what do we need to see in the world for it not to be a slow environment. I mean, April, we had a lot of volatility around Liberation Day. I guess that's sort of calmed down. Is it just that the world is too good right now? What makes a good environment for you guys?

I mean the world is too good if you're in the equities market, and that's where a lot of people are right now. It's hard to compete with the returns. As you point out, yes, April, there was a great deal of volatility. If you look at the [indiscernible] levels, they were very high. And our business performed very well in the first 10 days of April. The uncertainty as it relates to tariffs and as it relates to interest rates and our cost of financing has been negatively affected by a lot of the current administration's strategies.

And I believe that when you ask the question, what's good for us? Well, certainly, volatility and some uncertainty in the equity markets would be good for us. The bigger picture macroeconomic issues that are generally good for us are fear and uncertainty. And our last really big run was the Silicon Valley Bank crisis. So these are things that would affect us positively. But we can't just wait and hope they're going to happen. I mean we're continuing to grow this business. We're continuing to take seriously our view of our SG&A and particularly our inventory and carrying costs.

And historically, we've held a very good-sized inventory in preparation for higher premiums and for more activity. But really, over the last 9 months, we've probably had a bit too much inventory. So that is something that we're taking a look at. Certainly, the higher spot prices have put a lot of -- put a spotlight on precious metals, but they haven't particularly been good for us.

Most of the demand and drive in the higher spot prices has been from central banks, and it has not yet translated into a FOMO type effect as it relates to our DTC customers. We see glimpses of change and of things kind of rebounding, but no what we could consider multi-month traction at the moment. So doing everything we can and just making sure we're in a position where if something happens tomorrow that we're able to take advantage of it.

Understood. Okay. That's helpful. A couple of follow-ups. One, you said you mentioned tariffs. Remind us how are tariffs impacting your business right now?

Well, certainly, the tariffs are causing a great deal of consternation as it relates to countries that are subject to tariffs and changing tariffs. In particular, a high percentage of the gold that comes into the United States comes from outside the U.S., particularly Switzerland, London and some other areas. There have been a number of occasions over the last 8 to 12 weeks, where uncertainty as it relates to where metal should be located to avoid tariffs has disrupted a number of our different places that we borrow metal or where we borrow dollars and the cost of carry has just been higher for us.

I think also the uncertainty just as it relates to what will be taxed or what will be tariffed and what will not has caused some disruption in our hedge position, which historically has been a regular contributor to our profitability. And that what we call contango has had some periods of flipping to backwardation. So that in general, we get paid to have a short position and that reduces our carry costs in a backwardation situation, near-term spot prices are higher than longer-term prices, and that can negatively affect our profitability. So it has been -- I think we've managed it well, but it has certainly caused a bit of uncertainty in parts of our business.

Yes. Okay. A lot there. If I could ask one more good news question. Your gross margin was really strong. So I get that gross profit dollars were helped by acquisitions, but what was the big driver to the margin so gross profits relative to sales? It was up...

I mean I think the gross profit...

1.7 Yes, what was that?

I mean the gross profit is up because we've added in gross profit from our acquisitions. We've also -- as Cary noted, we've added a lot of SG&A. So you -- our actual gross profit percentage margin is likely to be up because we've integrated the higher-margin businesses. But those acquisitions and higher-margin top line is just a minor percentage of our $11 billion annually in sales.

The higher-margin businesses are a few hundred million dollars. So it's going to add gross profit. I mean our job right now is to continue to look at efficiencies and synergies and how to capture more of that gross profit and we can do that by making sure we're taking a close look at our SG&A as well as I do believe there's an initiative we're working on right now to reduce our inventories a bit and lower our cost to carry.

Our interest carry cost, as you can see from the release, are very high. And historically, that has given us optionality as it relates to selling that inventory and being able to maximize the premiums we achieve. In the current environment, those premiums are -- have shrunk. So we just don't believe we're going to need to have the same inventory in the future.

The next question comes from Andrew Scutt with ROTH Capital.

So you talked a lot in the -- on the call about greater exposure to international markets. If you look at it, I know revenue is not maybe the best indicator for your business, but as a percentage of revenue, it's grown substantially around 50% last year, over 60% year-to-date. Can you just kind of talk to us where you see that mix balancing out maybe over the medium and long term as you continue with these strategic acquisitions?

Yes. I would say that we're very pleased. It took 6 to 9 months, but we've been able to integrate our LPM acquisition that was in Hong Kong, that is in Hong Kong. And LPM has been able to expand and open a retail facility in Singapore.

We've also made a couple of hires to move more into the wholesale trading business in Singapore. And those areas are new to us. We're very optimistic of what we've seen, particularly in the more recent months as the opportunities there appear to be what we hope they would be. And so I think we just like the growth opportunity down there. I'm not saying that it's going to be immediately a material portion of our top line sales. But we are onboarding new customers, and we are -- we have gained access through our LPM brand to a number of new product offerings and higher-margin products that originate in China or in Southeast Asia.

And having access to those products gives us optimism that this is going to be a new kind of frontier for us that we haven't tackled before. We continue to have good strong new customer growth numbers in the U.S. But certainly, we are very new to the Asian markets, and we see some good client onboarding there, and we're starting to see some very positive numbers.

Great. And right know -- I mean, it is a soft environment. You guys have really expanded your DTC exposure to different types of markets, online sales over the phone sales. Are there any particular pockets right now that are currently showing promise? And kind of can you talk about how that expansion has benefited you in this environment?

Like I said earlier, I think the [indiscernible] some higher premium bullion products as well as the rare coins in our new Stack’s Bowers brand has been very positive. I believe that our CFC finance business is strong right now. I think that is growing. We did get back over $100 million of our loan book in the last few weeks. And there does seem to be -- I don't know if it's connected to the overall economic environment or what it is, but we do see an uptick in new loans and new draws against existing loans. So those areas are good. But we're still buying back a lot of material from customers.

Our DTC brands are buying back a very high percentage of what they're selling is coming through buybacks. We're keeping up with that with regular melt lots where we're actually melting quite a bit of stuff right now. So the premiums continue to be a challenge, and we're looking towards when that's going to change and an uptick in silver, in particular, over the last few weeks with silver getting above $40. We have seen a bit of positivity there from the silver buyer. So there's a few pockets of positivity. And again, I believe that we're headed in the right direction, and we're making the right adjustments with our business. So looking forward to the future.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Gregory Gibas with Northland Securities.

I wanted to follow up on what you mentioned earlier regarding backwardation. I know we talked about it last quarter. Just regarding the impact that maybe backwardation and the cost to carry had in the quarter in fiscal Q4 versus fiscal Q3, was it pretty similar? Or are you seeing it lighten up as there is a little bit more clarity in terms of tariffs?

You asked -- your question is Q4 versus Q3 2025.

Yes. And just kind of how it's trending maybe post that as well.

I mean I don't think it's eased up at all. I think it continues to be challenging. Within the last 3 to 4 weeks, the White House announced that silver was going to be a strategic metal or was going to be a rare earth type strategic item. That threw a great deal of disruption into the silver market. And it does affect our ability to finance our silver inventory and as well as our hedge because a good portion of our hedge is in silver.

But what it tends to do when you have these disruptions is it causes the curve in contango to flip and you have 1,000-ounce bars, -- there was a period 2 weeks ago where 1,000-ounce bars were trading at a $1 premium over the melt value for delivery into New York. I mean we're struggling to sell 1 ounce silver rounds at $0.40 an ounce over melt. So it gives you an idea of the flip.

And when large traders around the world believe that they're going to get metal locked, the demand coming out of New York to get the metal into New York as soon as possible creates this very near-term spike in the premium over the spot price. So that is what leads to backwardation. And that's the definition of it is where future values are lower than near-term values. So to this point, we haven't seen this become long term. For the most part, you get announcements out of the White House or out of other parts of the government, and it creates a bit of immediate panic or a week or 2 of uncertainty.

And then things tend to settle down again. I mean, we had an announcement that was kind of what, I guess, is fake news a few weeks ago where there was a rumor out there in the Financial Times, and there was a story that Trump was going to put tariffs and taxes on gold being imported from Switzerland along the same time that there was a lot of trade war chatter going on.

In the end, Trump came out a few days later and said, no, I'm not going to tariff gold from Switzerland. But it was only -- this was 4 or 5 weeks ago, it was only in the last week that the administration came out with proper guidance to the import agents as to what code they were supposed to use for gold bars. There's just a lot of disinformation out there.

I believe there's a lot of trading strategies going on taking advantage of some of this. I think in all of my analysis of our book, of our hedge book of where we're at, we have 20-year history of managing our book and managing a contango environment very profitably to A-Mark. But we are -- there are a few bumps in the road right now. And every morning, we wake up wondering what's going to be next. So that's really what's going on.

Yes. I appreciate the details, Greg. And I guess I just wanted to follow up, too, in terms of the solid progress that you've made digesting those recent acquisitions. Could you maybe just go over the highlights in terms of what's been done and maybe what's on the horizon regarding integration work that's not yet completed with SGI and AMS?

Sure. I mean I think the first big lift was for Cary and Jill on our finance team. They've done a great job of the purchase price accounting. We were able to complete our year-end. We're here talking and we have our release here. And I think the integration of the accounting for the acquisitions is 90% complete now and a great job by the finance team.

We started and it was our plan first to integrate Pinehurst, and Pinehurst was a stand-alone business that we had a minority interest in located in North Carolina. And we have completed moving their inventory and all of their shipping and logistics, storage, pick and pack, all of that has now been moved to Las Vegas.

Thor Gjerdrum spearheaded that along with Brian Aquilino and Vince from Pinehurst, and that's now complete. We've been able to eliminate a lot of redundancy and a lot of costs there. From the Pinehurst DTC side of things, we are continuing to look for redundancies and synergies that we can find with JM Bullion and our DTC operations in Texas.

As it relates to AMS, I think we are in process of looking at where the synergies are, particularly with their marketing department and some of their marketing expertise that we're rolling out across some of our other platforms and again, looking for synergies and looking for redundancy in expenses that we don't have to incur.

And I think on the stack side, we've moved some of our resources from El Segundo. We've moved them down to Orange County, and we are developing and building a more integrated trading desk down here. So we have a lot on our plate. We have a lot going on, but very excited about the opportunity.

At this time, this concludes our question-and-answer session. I'd now like to turn the call over to Mr. Roberts for his closing remarks.

I'd like to thank our many shareholders once again for your loyalty and being with the company and joining our call today. Continued interest and support is important to A-Mark. I'd also like to thank our many employees for their dedication and commitment to A-Mark's success. I look forward to keeping you apprised of A-Mark's progress and turn it back over to John. Thank you for being on the call today.

Before we conclude today's call, I would like to provide A-Mark's safe harbor statement that includes important cautions regarding forward-looking statements made during this call. During today's call, there were forward-looking statements made regarding future events. Statements that relate to A-Mark's future plans, objectives, expectations, performance, events and the like are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These include statements regarding expectations with respect to growth, the delivery of long-term value, expense optimization, cost containment and operating leverage. Future events, risks and uncertainties individually or in the aggregate could cause actual results or circumstances to differ materially from those expressed or implied in these statements.

Factors that could cause actual results to differ include the following: the failure to execute the company's growth strategy, including the inability to identify suitable or available acquisition or investment opportunities; greater-than-anticipated costs incurred to execute this strategy; our inability to execute on our cost containment and expense reduction programs, government regulations that might impede growth, particularly in Asia, including with respect to tariff policy; the inability to successfully integrate recently acquired businesses; changes in the current international political climate, which historically has favorably contributed to demand and volatility in the precious metals markets, but also has posed certain risks and uncertainties for the company.

Particularly in recent periods increased competition for the company's higher-margin services, which could depress pricing; the failure of the company's business model to respond to changes in the market environment as anticipated; changes in consumer demand and preferences for precious metal products generally; potential negative effects that inflationary pressure may have on our business; the failure of our investee companies to maintain or address the preferences of their customer bases; general risk of doing business in commodity markets and strategic business, economic, financial, political and governmental risks and other risk factors described in the company's public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. Listeners are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Finally, I would like to remind everyone that a recording of today's call will be available for replay via a link in the Investors section of the company's website. Thank you for joining us today for A-Mark's earnings call. You may now disconnect.