Founded in 1932 and incorporated in Delaware in 1989, Ethan Allen Interiors Inc., through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Ethan Allen Global, Inc., and Ethan Allen Global, Inc.’s subsidiaries (collectively, “we,” “us,” “our,” “Ethan Allen” or the “Company”), is a leading interior design company, manufacturer and retailer in the home furnishings marketplace. Today we are a global luxury international home fashion brand that is vertically integrated from design through delivery, which affords our customers a value proposition of style, quality and price. We provide complimentary interior design service to our customers and sell a full range of furniture products and decorative accents through a retail network of approximately 300 design centers in the United States and abroad as well as online at ethanallen.com. The design centers represent a mix of independent licensees and Company-owned and operated locations. As of December 31, 2020, our Company operates 144 retail design centers, with 138 located in the United States and the remaining six in Canada. The majority of the independently operated design centers are in Asia, with the remaining independently operated design centers located throughout the United States, the Middle East and Europe. We also own and operate nine manufacturing facilities including six manufacturing plants in the United States, two manufacturing plants in Mexico and one manufacturing plant in Honduras.

COVID-19 Update

The COVID-19 crisis has challenged our operations, but our associates continue to persevere through these challenges. Our primary focus has been to operate in a safe manner, for our associates and clients. As our design centers began to reopen, we implemented various mitigating and safety protocols recommended by the United States Center for Disease Control (“CDC”) guidelines for operating businesses safely. We established logistics for the supply of hand sanitizer and related dispensers, disinfectant cleaning supplies, masks and nitrile gloves, and have increased the cleaning frequency of our design centers and other facilities. For the safety of our associates in our design centers we require all associates and clients to wear masks.

In our initial response to the COVID-19 health crisis, we took immediate action and made adjustments to our business operations, including temporary design center and manufacturing plant closings, a reduction in headcount, curtailing certain operating expenses, suspension of our dividend and share repurchases and delaying investments and capital expenditures. Our approach to the crisis continues to evolve as business trends substantially improved during the first half of fiscal 2021. Given the positive trends in cash flows, we repaid the remaining $50.0 million in outstanding debt, previously borrowed under our credit facility in March 2020. We also resumed production in our North American manufacturing plants to work through existing order backlog and have ramped up to near pre-COVID-19 production levels. The temporary salary reductions were lifted, effective June 30, 2020, as planned and we have brought back many of our associates previously furloughed in April 2020. Further, on August 4, 2020, our Board of Directors reinstated the regular quarterly cash dividend.

We have seen a significant improvement in business conditions, which has increased our profitability and generated strong positive cash flow during fiscal 2021. Substantially all of our design centers that were temporarily closed have reopened and written orders taken at both the retail and wholesale segments exceeded levels from a year ago. Tempering these improvements are the continuing logistical challenges faced by the entire home furnishings industry resulting from COVID-19-related labor shortages and supply chain disruptions creating significant delays in order fulfillment and increasing backlogs. Inventory and supply chain management remain our areas of focus as we balance the need to maintain supply chain flexibility to help ensure competitive lead times with the risk of inventory shortage and obsolescence. We continue to produce about 75% of our products in our North American manufacturing facilities. The other 25% is sourced primarily from Southeast Asia and China. The receipt of inventory and raw materials imported from these areas has been slowed or disrupted. In addition, ocean freight capacity issues continue to persist worldwide due to the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic, which has resulted in recent price increases per shipping container. While we continue to manage and evaluate our logistics providers, there is no indication that ocean freight container rates will return to pre-COVID-19 levels in the near-term and these increases could have an adverse effect on our consolidated results of operations.

Whereas some state and local governments have eased restrictions on commercial retail activity, it is possible that a resurgence in COVID-19 cases could prompt a return to tighter restrictions in certain areas. Furthermore, while the home furnishings industry has fared better during the pandemic than certain other sectors of the economy, continued economic weakness may eventually have an adverse impact upon our business. While we continue to serve our customers and operate our business while managing the ongoing COVID-19 health crisis, there can be no assurance that future COVID-19 related developments will not have an impact on our business, results of operations or financial condition since the extent and duration of the health crisis remains highly uncertain. We will continue to make decisions regarding the sources and uses of capital in our business to reflect and adapt to changes in market conditions, including any lasting effects of COVID-19. Future adverse developments in connection with the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, including additional waves of COVID-19 outbreaks, evolving international, federal, state and local restrictions and safety regulations in response to COVID-19, changes in consumer behavior, health concerns, the pace of economic activity in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, or other similar issues could adversely affect our business, results of operations or financial condition in the future, or including our financial results and business performance for fiscal 2021.