Lloyd Hoffman
President and
Chief Executive Officer
TO
OUR
SHAREHOLDERS
Entering fiscal year 2024, Alpha Pro Tech is positioned strongly both operationally and financially, emanating from our success in 2023, which saw expanded production capacity and new product innovation. We also focused on driving operational cash flow, which efforts culminated in our cash position increasing by over 25%, to $20.4 million despite spending approximately $4 million to repurchase shares in 2023.
The strategic research and development investments to expand our product offerings and capital investments to increase production capacity have positioned the company for incremental growth in 2024 and beyond. The launch of our housewrap accessories line in 2022 saw a 180.5% increase in sales during 2023 and we continue to make inroads into the multi-family and commercial construction sector, evidenced by a 33.9% increase in premium housewrap sales in 2023. We also expanded our roofing products with the launch of our self-adhered product line in late 2023, which we expect to grow revenue within our current customer base and allow for expansion into new markets and business segments.
The company experienced the six highest revenue quarters on record for the Building Supply segment over the past eight quarters: the second, third, and fourth quarters of 2023 and the first, second and third quarters of 2022. These achievements come despite the continued softness in the housing market, as new U.S. housing starts in 2023 decreased by 8.8%, compared to 2022. Despite this decline, Building Supply segment sales for 2023 increased by $3.5 million, or 9.4%, to a record sales year of $40.4 million, compared to $36.9 million in 2022.
2 ANNUAL REPORT 2023