Good day, and welcome to the Lakeland Industries Fiscal 2023 First Quarter Financial Results conference call. All lines have been placed on a listen-only mode, and the floor will be open for your questions and comments following the presentation. During today's call, we may make statements relating to our goals and objectives for future operations, financial and business trends, business prospects, and management's future performance that constitute forward-looking statements under federal securities laws. Any such forward-looking statements reflect management expectations based upon currently available information and are not guarantees of future performance and involve certain risks and uncertainties that are more fully described in our SEC filings. Our actual results, performance, or achievements may differ materially from those expressed and are implied by such forward-looking statements. We undertake no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect events or developments after the date of this call.
During today's call, we will discuss financial measures derived from our financial statements that are not determined in accordance with US GAAP, including EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA, and EBITDA margin. A reconciliation of each of the non-GAAP measures discussed on this call to the most directly comparable GAAP measure is presented in our earnings release. At this time, I would like to introduce you to your host for this call, Lakeland Industries Chief Executive Officer, Charlie Roberson. Mr. Roberson, the floor is yours.
Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us on our fiscal 2023 first quarter earnings call. I'm joined today by Lakeland's Chief Operating and Financial Officer, Allen Dillard. As you saw in this afternoon's press release, Lakeland delivered a solid quarter as we maintained our gross margin improvements and continued to execute on our strategic objectives. Our revenue for the first quarter was $27.3 million, up slightly on a quarter-to-quarter basis. However, most importantly, we had strong profitability with a gross margin of 40.5%, which is in line with the long-term financial targets that we laid out in last quarter's call.
In terms of revenue, we believe that our top-line results from the past two quarters, inclusive of these most recent results, constitute a revenue base from which we will continue to grow going forward with improved results in the second half of the fiscal year. We anticipate a pickup in demand across our end markets and are currently seeing strength return in the fire service and electrical utility segments of the broader energy market. While we have yet to see order rates return to pre-pandemic levels in some of our important industrial markets, specifically the oil and gas segment, as we discussed in last quarter's call, we are beginning to see refinery turnaround scheduling for the second half of the year in Europe and have been advised that activity in the U.S. market will also increase in the second half.
However, labor availability remains a challenge in the U.S. market, which has the potential to delay the process. More specifically, with respect to this particular end market, we've seen various publications note the decline in the number of workers within the oil and gas segment, inclusive of extraction labor with employee levels down by approximately 100,000 workers as a result of the pandemic. That said, we believe that turnarounds will increase in the second half of the year, albeit at a pace that the labor supply will support. We remain optimistic about a return to growth in these markets and are increasingly positive that our operating leverage will be beneficial to our results as the demand comes back online.
Similar to others in our industry, we continue to face supply chain disruptions that pose risks to our business, specifically as it relates to increasing freight costs and the ability to source and deliver our products. Our team has done an outstanding job of mitigating these effects through strong inventory management and pricing actions. Quarter- to- quarter, we added approximately $2.2 million in inventory as part of our planning to protect against potential future supply chain pressures on the business. This is a continuation of our inventory strategy, which we have accelerated since the beginning of the third quarter of last year, as we believe product availability is critical to maintaining a high level of customer satisfaction and achieving our target gross margins. It is also a significant competitive advantage relative to those in the industry who do not possess in-house manufacturing.
Put more simply, our supply will be in Lakeland warehouses and not held up by raw material shortages or sitting in international ports in the event the freight supply chain becomes challenged in the future. At the end of the day, we will have the product available and the ability to service our customer base in a timely fashion, which as we have stated before, is the one customer requirement that trumps price in our industry. As it relates to our ongoing strategic initiatives, I will let Allen provide more detail. However, I'm pleased to say that our team has not taken our foot off the gas.
This includes the build-out of our sales and marketing team and investment in centralized data systems, manufacturing facilities, and new product development. Looking ahead, I remain extremely confident in our team's ability to deliver on our long-term financial targets, which as a reminder, include mid- to high-single-digit annual revenue growth on average in our core markets, gross margin levels in the low 40s, and EBITDA margin levels in the high teens to low 20s, leading to strong and growing levels of free cash flow generation to further support our growth plans and priorities over the long term. That concludes my remarks. I'll now pass the call to Allen to provide more insight into the company's operations and financial results. Allen?
Thanks, Charlie, and good afternoon, everyone. As Charlie highlighted, our results in the first quarter reflect the resiliency of the business model our team has worked hard to refine, as key profitability and operating metrics remain strong despite headwinds outside of our control. On a consolidated basis for the first quarter of fiscal 2023, domestic sales were $11.2 million, or 41% of total revenues, and international sales were $16.1 million, or 59% of total revenues. This compares with domestic sales of $15.7 million, or 46% of total revenues, and international sales of $18.4 million, or 54% of total revenues in the same period of fiscal 2022.
In terms of product mix for the quarter on a consolidated basis, we saw essentially the same mix as we experienced in the fourth quarter last year, with disposables at 53% and chemical at 19% of sales. That said, we did see some product mix shifts geographically with fire and wovens continuing to demonstrate strength in North America. We expect our product mix to rebalance towards disposables once we begin to see increased U.S. industrial activity. Distribution inventory continues to indicate it is correcting as our direct container order intake for future periods began to increase during the quarter. These orders are from our traditional industrial distributors whose order rate has been depressed since the height of COVID demand in late 2020.
Gross profit as a percent of net sales was 40.5% for the fiscal 2023 first quarter, down from 43.4% for the fiscal 2022 first quarter. We continue to manage our raw material costs through proactive negotiations and longer term purchasing arrangements. Our production planning activities seek to balance reasonable manufacturing efficiencies and flexibility with our product inventory and stocking goals. We continue to be impacted by freight costs, but have been fairly successful in managing this via our pricing arrangements with our customers. During the quarter, we were not impacted by curtailments in any of our manufacturing facilities, and based on our manufacturing plan, expect to continue at normal capacity levels in the absence of unanticipated COVID interruptions. Lakeland reported operating profit of $1.4 million in first quarter 2023, down from $6.6 million in first quarter 2022.
Negative operating leverage from lower revenues versus the prior period, as well as increases in travel and trade show expenses, administrative expenses, and currency fluctuations were the largest contributors to the drop in operating profits year- over- year. Operating margins were 5.3% in the first quarter compared to 19.5% for the three months ended April 2021. Net income was $1.1 million or $0.15 per common share, down from $5 million or $0.63 per common share in first quarter 2022. Capital expenditures for the quarter were $400,000. This figure compares to spending last year of $800,000. The majority of our spending during the quarter was related to capital purchases for our manufacturing facilities in Mexico, Vietnam and India, expansion of our global IT infrastructure, and investments at our new corporate offices.
We expect CapEx to be approximately $3 million for the full fiscal year as we continue to make these adjustments and investments. Moving to the balance sheet. Working capital was $106 million at April 30th, 2022, compared to $108.6 million at January 31st, 2022. The company's current ratio at the end of the first quarter decreased to 8.1- 1 from 12.8- 1 at the end of the prior quarter, but is up from 7.7- 1 at the end of the first quarter of fiscal 2022. Our cash balance was $50.8 million at the end of the quarter, compared to $52.7 million at the end of the fiscal year.
The company continued to have no debt at the end of the quarter and has up to $25 million available from bank credit facilities. During the fiscal 2023 first quarter, the company repurchased $400,000 or just over 25,000 shares of common stock under its repurchase program. Notably, we were limited in our ability to buy back shares during the quarter as a result of a seasonally compressed trading window, which we experience each year between the completion and reporting of our fiscal year-end results.
Preparation for our fiscal first quarter reporting period. However, in the shortened period that was available to us this past quarter, it's important to note we maximized our purchase activity for the days available in our open trading window. We now have approximately $5.4 million remaining under the current authorization as of April 30th, 2022. Because of this, we expect to remain highly active in the market going forward, ultimately reaffirming our confidence in the company's future success. As Charlie already alluded to, we remain committed to growing our market share, enhancing profitability, and focusing our efforts, our investments in areas that will drive attractive returns for our shareholders. For example, we are expanding our clean room manufacturing capabilities in Vietnam.
Additionally, we are well down the road with the new manufacturing facility in Mexico that will not only expand our capacity in fire and wovens products, but will also expand our capacity for nearshore opportunities in our traditional disposable market and cleanroom products. Our investments in technology are expanding globally with CRM planning and reporting capabilities coming online in FY 2023. These investments are expected to improve our decision-making and deliver operating efficiencies and support our future growth initiatives. With that overview, I'd like to turn the call over to the operator to open the call for questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, the floor is now open for questions. If you have any questions or comments, please press star one on your touchtone phone. Pressing star two will remove you from the queue should your question be answered. Lastly, while posing your question, please pick up your handset if listening on speakerphone to provide optimum sound quality. Please hold while we poll for questions. Once again, that's star one if you have a question or comment. The first question is coming from Alex Fuhrman with Craig-Hallum Capital Group. Your line is live.
Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. You know, wanted to ask about the recovery of the oil and gas sector. It looks like revenue for the quarter was, you know, pretty nicely modestly above what you've reported the last two quarters, and yet it sounds like oil and gas continues to be under pressure given the war and some of the labor constraints that you mentioned. Can you talk about, you know, what you're seeing in the market that gives you confidence that oil and gas is gonna be coming back in the back half of the year? Have you started to see any signs of that yet? Or is this based on conversations with your customers? Any more color there would be very helpful.
The bulk of our oil and gas business is here in the United States and specifically Gulf Coast and Southern California oriented. What we're garnering with regard to the second half is primarily talking to our distributors that are working with those end users. They have pushed off maintenance, you know, longer than they would've liked to. Labor is the primary constraint that everyone's trying to deal with now. It's likely that we're not gonna see full turnarounds, but we're gonna see individual parts of plants come down as labor's available. As far as, you know, why I think that it's gonna happen in the second half, I think that the pricing for fuel is getting to where efficiency is going to matter. You know, they're gonna have to be able to produce more rapidly.
I think the supply side is being worked out. OPEC and OPEC+ just announced or Saudi announced that they were gonna increase pumping. That's gonna help. They did. That remains to be seen exactly how that's gonna work. That's highly variable, but it was a positive from our perspective.
Okay. That's really helpful, Charlie, thanks. Then just talking about your long-term EBITDA margin targets. You know, thanks for providing those. That's very helpful. You know, you were quite a bit below that EBITDA margin range here in the first quarter despite you know, really strong gross margin in the quarter. Can you talk about where that leverage is gonna come from in the model? Should we start to see progress towards that, you know, incrementally over the next couple of quarters, you know, as demand starts to come back? Just wondering what levers we should be kinda thinking about as you scale into those numbers.
The biggest element of that, Alex, is going to be revenue growth. You know, we're at a point in our financial leverage where our OpEx doesn't increase dollar for dollar with revenue at this point. In fact, you know, a lot of that revenue will come with you know, only additional expense being you know, sales commissions. That's the biggest part of it. You know, we are watching our cost. You know, we're aware that we're at the lower end of that leverage and you know, are being prudent with adding any to our SG&A or to those costs at this point.
Okay. That's really helpful. Thank you, Charlie.
Once again, if there are any remaining questions or comments, please indicate so by pressing star one on your touch tone phone. Once again, that's star one if you have a question or a comment. Okay, I'd like to turn the floor back to management for closing remarks.
Thank you all for joining. As I mentioned in today's call, we believe our results this quarter in terms of both sales and profitability will serve as a base from which we will grow the remainder of fiscal 2023. We remain confident in our ability to deliver mid- to high-single-digit annual revenue growth in our core markets, gross margin levels in the low 40s, and EBITDA margin levels in the high 10s-low 20s over the next three to five years. We look forward to sharing these successes with you, and have a great day.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This does conclude today's conference call. You may disconnect your phone lines at this time and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.