Digital Brands Group, Inc. 10-K

ITEM 1. BUSINESS Digital Brands Group is a curated collection of lifestyle brands that offers a variety of apparel products through direct-to-consumer and wholesale distribution. Our complementary brand portfolio provides us with the unique opportunity to cross merchandise our brands. We aim for our customers to wear our brands head to toe and to capture what we call “closet share” by gaining insight into their preferences to create targeted and personalized content specific to their cohort. Operating our brands under one portfolio provides us with the ability to better utilize our technological, human capital and operational capabilities across all brands. As a result, we have been able to realize operational efficiencies and continue to identify additional cost saving opportunities to scale our brands and overall portfolio. Our portfolio consists of four significant brands that leverage our three channels: our websites, wholesale and our own stores. ● Bailey 44 combines beautiful, luxe fabrics and on-trend designs to create sophisticated ready-to-wear capsules for women on-the-go. Designing for real life, this brand focuses on feeling and comfort rather than how it looks on a runway. Bailey 44 is primarily a wholesale brand, which we are transitioning to a digital, direct-to-consumer brand. 2 Table of Contents ● DSTLD offers stylish high-quality garments without the luxury retail markup valuing customer experience over labels. DSTLD is primarily a digital direct-to-consumer brand, to which we recently added select wholesale retailers to generate brand awareness. ● Harper & Jones was built with the goal of inspiring men to dress with intention. It offers hand- crafted custom fit suits for those looking for a premium experience. Harper & Jones is primarily a direct-to-consumer brand using its own showrooms. ● Stateside is an elevated, America first brand with all knitting, dyeing, cutting and sewing sourced and manufactured locally in Los Angeles. The collection is influenced by the evolution of the classic t-shirt offering a simple yet elegant look. Stateside is primarily a wholesale brand that we will be transitioning to a digital, direct-to-consumer brand. ● ACE STUDIOS offers stylish high-quality garments without the luxury retail markup valuing customer experience over labels. ACE STUDIOS is primarily a digital direct-to-consumer brand. We believe that successful apparel brands sell in all revenue channels. However, each channel offers different margin structures and requires different customer acquisition and retention strategies. We were founded as a digital-first retailer that has strategically expanded into select wholesale and direct retail channels. We strive to strategically create omnichannel strategies for each of our brands that blend physical and online channels to engage consumers in the channel of their choosing. Our products are sold direct-to- consumers principally through our websites and our own showrooms, but also through our wholesale channel, primarily in specialty stores and select department stores. With the continued expansion of our wholesale distribution, we believe developing an omnichannel solution further strengthens our ability to efficiently acquire and retain customers while also driving high customer lifetime value. We believe that by leveraging a physical footprint to acquire customers and increase brand awareness, we can use digital marketing to focus on retention and a very tight, disciplined high value new customer acquisition strategy, especially targeting potential customers lower in the sales funnel. Building a direct relationship with the customer as the customer transacts directly with us allows us to better understand our customer’s preferences and shopping habits. Our substantial experience as a company originally founded as a digitally native-first retailer gives us the ability to strategically review and analyze the customer’s data, including contact information, browsing and shopping cart data, purchase history and style preferences. This in turn has the effect of lowering our inventory risk and cash needs since we can order and replenish product based on the data from our online sales history, replenish specific inventory by size, color and SKU based on real times sales data, and control our mark-down and promotional strategies versus being told what mark downs and promotions we have to offer by the department stores and boutique retailers. We believe that the highly fragmented nature of the apparel industry, combined with the opportunity to leverage our position as a public company with access to financial resources, presents a significant opportunity for consolidation of apparel brands. We use a disciplined approach to identify and evaluate acquisition candidates. We believe there are three ideal acquisition targets: (1) strong legacy brands that have been mismanaged, (2) strong brands that do not have capital to grow, and (3) wholesale brands that are struggling to transition to e-commerce. We look for brands that have an emotional hook in its customers, a high repeat customer rate, the potential to scale and strong financials. We source and identify acquisition targets based on our industry knowledge and through our network of investment banks, finders, private equity and venture capital firms, among others. We intend to continue to actively pursue acquisitions to increase and tighten customer cohorts and increase our ability to create more customized content and personalized looks and styles for each customer cohort. We believe that customers want and trust brands that can deliver customized content and personalized looks and styles. We expect this should result in higher customer loyalty, higher lifetime value, higher average order value and lower customer acquisition cost. Organizational Structure We operate the brands on a decentralized basis with an emphasis on brand level execution supported by corporate coordination. The brand’s executive teams will continue to operate and leverage relationships with customers and suppliers, including designing and producing product and developing marketing plans including social media, email and digital communications. We consolidate marketing and tech contracts as we have done with Bailey’s contracts, which has provided significant cost savings. We review the fabric mills and factories used by each brand to see if we can consolidate or cross utilize these mills and factories, which 3 Table of Contents will drive increased volumes, lower production costs and higher gross margins. As an example, we are utilizing DSTLD’s denim mills and factories to develop denim products for Bailey’s and Harper & Jones. We are also consolidating production into a few factories in Europe from China and the U.S., which lowers our average production cost per unit. We leverage the Digital Brands Group marketing and data analytics team to create cross marketing campaigns based on the customer data respective to each brand’s customer base. As an example, the Digital Brand’s Group marketing and data team reviews the customer data across all our portfolio brands and will work with each brand to identify the new customers from our other portfolio brands that they can target and what styles and looks should be created for each of those customer cohorts. The brand level employees then execute the looks and styles and create the customized customer communication based on the information and data from the Digital Brand Group marketing and data teams. Certain administrative functions are centralized on a regional and, in certain circumstances, a national basis following, including but not limited to accounting support functions, corporate strategy and acquisitions, human resources, information technology, insurance, marketing, data analytics and customer cross merchandising, advertising buys, contract negotiations, safety, systems support and transactional processing. Principal Products and Services Bailey — Brand Summary In February 2020, we acquired Bailey. Bailey delivers distinct high-quality, well-fitting, on-trend contemporary apparel using at an entry contemporary price point. Bailey combines beautiful, luxe fabrics and on-trend designs to offer clean, sophisticated ready-to-wear separates that easily transition from day to night and for date night. Bailey offers fashionable staples with timeless design features, making them wearable for any occasion — majority of products are tops, sweaters and dresses. Bailey’s full seasonal collections of dresses, tops, jumpsuits, bottoms, sets, jackets and rompers retail at price points between $90 – $350. We believe that we can create more compelling price points as we leverage our direct-to-consumer expertise. As we increase the direct-to-consumer revenue mix, we believe we will have opportunities to increase our margins, which will mostly be passed along to the customer with lower price points. Harper & Jones — Brand Summary H&J is well-known for delivering extremely high-quality, luxury custom and made-to-measure suiting and sportswear. The company provides full-closet customization, including shirts, jackets, pants, shorts, polos, plus more products that made-to-measure. H&J offers a proprietary custom and made-to-measure supply chain, which creates positive working capital since the customer pays for the product upfront and we have terms with vendors to pay 60+ days later. Their custom bench-made suit prices range between $1,995 – $4,995, custom bench-made jacket prices range from $1,895 – $3,495, custom-bench made trousers range from $600 – $1,100, and custom bench- made shirts range from $250 – $450. Stateside — Brand Summary We acquired Stateside in August 2021. Stateside is a collection of elevated American basics influenced by the evolution of the classic T-Shirt. All garments are designed and produced in Los Angeles from the finest fabrics. All knitting, dyeing, cutting and sewing is sourced and manufactured locally in Los Angeles. Stateside is known for delivering high quality, luxury T-shirts, tops and bottoms. Stateside is primarily a wholesale brand with very limited online revenue. Their T-shirt prices range from $68 to $94, their other tops range from $98 to $130, and their bottoms from $80 to $144. 4 Table of Contents DSTLD — Brand Summary DSTLD focuses on minimalist design, superior quality, and only the essential wardrobe pieces. We deliver casual luxury rooted in denim; garments that are made with exhaustive attention to detail from the finest materials for a closet of timeless, functional staples. Our brand name “DSTLD” is derived from the word ‘distilled,’ meaning to extract only the essentials. As such, DSTLD boasts an line of key wardrobe pieces in a fundamental color palette of black, white, grey, and denim. Our denim prices generally range from $75 to $95; similar quality brands produced at the same factories wholesale for approximately $95 to $125 and retail for $185 to $350. Our tee shirts and tops range $30 to $90, similar quality brands produced at the same factories wholesale for approximately $25 to $75 and retail for $60 to $250. Our casual pants range $85 to $109, similar quality brands produced at the same factories wholesale for approximately $85 to $115 and retail for $175 to $250. ACE Studios — Brand Summary ACE Studios will design and offer luxury men’s suiting with superior performance, superb fits, and excellent quality at an exceptional value. We will offer men’s classic tailored apparel with premium and luxury fabrics and manufacturing. We work with the same high-quality mills and factories in the world as the leading luxury brands. We believe most customers have different shapes and sizes, so we plan to offer multiple fits for our products. We sidestep the middleman and sell our products ourselves, allowing us to offer top-tier quality without the standard retail markup. Our suits are expected to range from $295 to $495; similar quality brands produced at the same factories wholesale for approximately $300 to $600 and retail for $600 to $1,200. Our dress shirts will range $55 to $65, similar quality brands produced at the same factories wholesale for approximately $50 to $75 and retail for $95 to $150. Our casual pants will range $85 to $109, similar quality brands produced at the same factories wholesale for approximately $85 to $115 and retail for $175 to $250. We anticipate rolling out the ACE Studios brand in the second quarter of 2023 as a digitally native first brand. Sales and Distribution Bailey products are distributed through wholesale and direct-to-consumer channels. The wholesale channel includes premium department stores, select independent boutiques and third-party online stores. H&J products are currently sold solely through direct-to-consumer, via their three showrooms. The three showrooms are located in Dallas, Houston and New Orleans. We expect to open additional showrooms in the future. We believe that we can sell our other menswear products and brands in the H&J showrooms. Since all the product is custom made, there is no old stock to sell off. Stateside products are distributed through wholesale and direct-to-consumer channels. DSTLD products have historically been sold solely direct-to-consumer, via our website. We started offering DSTLD products through a wholesale channel in October 2020. We intend to leverage the Bailey sales force to sell DSTLD products into their select independent boutiques and select department stores. We believe that we can increase the brand awareness, new customer acquisition and revenue by leveraging the Bailey independent boutiques. We will start selling old season stock through selected off-price retailers, with additional sales expected to be generated through specifically-cut product for select off-price retailers. As of December 31, 2021, products are distributed through 75+ doors at major department stores, over 350 points of sale at boutique stores and several major e-commerce multi-brand platform wholesale customers. We do not have material terms or arrangements with our third-party distributors. As is customary in the wholesale side of the retail apparel industry, we work with the wholesale buyers for every product collection and season to develop a purchase order based on quantities, pricing, profit margin and any future mark- down agreements. Historically, these factors are driven by the wholesale buyer’s belief of how well they think the product will sell at their stores. For example, if the collection is considered very strong by the wholesale buyer, we usually achieve higher quantities, higher margins and lower future markdown guarantees. Conversely, when the wholesale buyer considers the collection to be weak, we experience lower quantities, lower margins and higher mark-down guarantees. 5 Table of Contents Our direct-to-consumer channels include our own website. Old season stock is sold through selected off- price retailers, with additional sales generated through specifically-cut product for select off-price retailers. All of our DSTLD, Bailey and Stateside sellable product is stored at our corporate warehouse and distribution center in Vernon, CA, which also houses our corporate office. In addition to storing product, we also receive and process new product deliveries, process and ship outbound orders, and process and ship customer returns in this same facility. All of H&J product is sent directly to the showroom, clothier or customer from our custom tailor vendors. If goods are received to our showrooms or clothiers, we arrange pickups without the end customer. They also receive and process new product deliveries, process and ship outbound orders, and process and ship customer returns through their showrooms or clothiers. We offer free shipping and returns above to all our customers in the United States. We also offer customers the option to upgrade to 2-Day or Overnight Shipping for an additional cost. Design and Development Our products are designed at headquarters of each brand, which are in in Los Angeles, CA and Dallas, TX in the top floor of H&J’s showroom. Each brand’s design efforts are supported by well-established product development and production teams. The continued collaboration between design and merchandising ensures it responds to consumer preferences and market trends with new innovative product offerings while maintaining its core fashion foundation. . In-house design and production teams in Los Angeles perform development of the sample line allowing for speed to market, flexibility and quality of fit. We are engaged in analyzing trends, markets, and social media feedback along with utilizing historical data and industry tools to identify essential styles and proper replenishment timing and quantities. We hired a new head designer for DSTLD Men’s in December 2019 and contracted with a third-party designer for DSTLD Women’s in June 2020. We also contracted with a third-party designer for Bailey in June 2020. We rely on a limited number of suppliers to provide our finished products, so we can aggregate pricing power. As we continue to increase our volumes, we will source additional factories to spread out our risks. While we have developed long-standing relationships with a number of our suppliers and manufacturing sources and take great care to ensure that they share our commitment to quality and ethics, we do not have any long-term term contracts with these parties for the production and supply of our fabrics and products. We require that all of our manufacturers adhere to a vendor code of ethics regarding social and environmental sustainability practices. Our product quality and sustainability team partners with leading inspection and verification firms to closely monitor each supplier’s compliance with applicable laws and our vendor code of ethics. Currently, our Bailey, DSTLD and Stateside products are shipped from our suppliers to our distribution center in Vernon, CA which currently handles all our warehousing, fulfillment, outbound shipping and returns processing. In 2022, we will review maintaining our own distribution centers versus using a third-party solution. For Harper & Jones, finished product is shipped to either the Company’s headquarters in Dallas Texas, or directly to one of their showroom locations. Product Suppliers: Sourcing and Manufacturing We work with apparel manufacturers in North America, Asia and Europe. We work with full package suppliers, which supply fabric, trims, along with cut/sew/wash services, only invoicing us for the final full cost of each garment. In Los Angeles, we also work with several local trim, fabric and garment dye houses to create garments for Stateside. This allows us the ability to maximize cash flows and optimize operations. We do not have long-term written contracts with manufacturers, though we have long-standing relationships with a diverse base of vendors. We do not own or operate any manufacturing facilities and rely solely on third-party contract manufacturers operating primarily in Europe, United States, and the Asia Pacific region for the production of our products depending on the brand. All of our contract 6 Table of Contents manufacturers are evaluated for quality systems, social compliance and financial strength by our internal teams prior to being selected and on an ongoing basis. Where appropriate, we strive to qualify multiple manufacturers for particular product types and fabrications. All of our garments are produced according to each brand’s specifications, and requires that all of manufacturers adhere to strict regulatory compliance and standards of conduct. The vendors’ factories are monitored by each brand’s production team to ensure quality control, and they are monitored by independent third-party inspectors we employ for compliance with local manufacturing standards and regulations on an annual basis. We also monitor our vendors’ manufacturing facilities regularly, providing technical assistance and performing in-line and final audits to ensure the highest possible quality. We source our products from a variety of domestic and international manufacturers. When deciding which factory to source a specific product from, we take into account the following factors: ● Cost of garment ● Retail price for end consumer ● Production time ● Minimum order quantity ● Shipping/delivery time ● Payment terms By taking all of these into consideration, we can focus on making sure we have access to in-demand and high quality products available for sale to our customer at the competitive price points and sustainable margins for our business. Marketing We believe marketing is a critical element in creating brand awareness and an emotional connection, as well as driving new customer acquisition and retention. Each brand has their own in-house marketing department, which creates and produces marketing initiatives specific to each marketing channel and based on the specific purpose, such as acquisition, retention or brand building. We also have an in-house marketing team at the DBG portfolio level, which reviews these brand initiatives, develops and helps initiate cross merchandising strategies, manages the data analytics and negotiates contracts using all our brands to lower the cost. Our goal at the brand and the portfolio level is to increase brand awareness and reach, customer engagement, increase new customer conversion and repurchase rates and average order size. We utilize a multi- pronged marketing strategy to connect with our customers and drive traffic to our online platform, comprised of the following: Customer Acquisition Marketing Paid Social Media Marketing: This is our primary customer acquisition channel, and it is composed almost entirely of paid Facebook and Instagram marketing. We believe our core customers rely on the opinions of their peers, often expressed through social media, Social media platforms are viral marketing platforms that allow our brands to communicate directly with our customers while also allowing customers to interact with us and provide feedback on our products and service. We make regular posts highlighting new products, brand stories, and other topics and images we deem “on brand”. By being a verified brand, our followers can shop products directly from our posts. We are also able to link to products in the stories feature. Affiliate Marketing: With select online publications and influencers, we’ve sought to establish CPA or revenue sharing agreements. We believe these agreements are effective in incentivizing influencers or media to push our product and allowing us to only pay partners based on performance. Email Marketing: We utilize email marketing to build awareness and drive repeat purchases. We believe this can be the most personalized customer communication channel for our brands, and therefore should continue to be one of our highest performing channels. We use an email service provider that enables us to send out a variety of promotional, transactional, and retargeting emails, with the main goal of 7 Table of Contents driving increased site traffic and purchases. We maintain a database through which we track and utilize key metrics such as customer acquisition cost, lifetime value per customer, cost per impression and cost per click. Retargeting: We engage the services of certain retargeting engines that allow us to dynamically target our visitors on third-party websites via banner/content ads. Content Marketing: We use content marketing platforms that allow us to serve up native ads in the form of articles promoting our brand story and specific products. Search Engine Optimization: This is the process of maximizing the number of visitors to our website by increasing our rankings in the search results on internet search engines. This is done by optimizing our onsite content, by making sure our pages, titles, tags, links, and blog content is structured to increase our search results on certain keywords, and our offsite content, which is the number of external websites linking to our website, usually through press articles and other advertising channels. Print Advertising : We also intend to utilize print advertisements in magazines or billboards in major metropolitan areas to drive increased site traffic and brand awareness. Video / Blog Content: We plan to offer videos and blog posts as a way to engage and educate the customer on our brands, how to wear different looks and styles, and create confidence and trust between our brands and customers. Videos and blog posts will include interviews with our designers, a behind-the- scenes look at how products are made, features of other artists or creatives, and photo shoots. Retail Stores: We have successfully tested retail “pop ups” in the past. These “pop ups” have resulted in higher average order value, significantly lower customer returns (even when the retail customer orders online at a later date), and higher repurchase rate and annual spend. We view these retail locations as a marketing strategy, similar to allocating funds towards digital/online marketing. We expect our pop ups to generate a small to break even profit, which is more than offset by any potential marketing costs to acquire those customers in another marketing channel. As we grow the entire DBG portfolio, we will test “pop up” locations for specific brands, and also develop a multi-line pop up that incorporate our other brands into the “pop-up”. We believe this strategy should be cost effective given the number of store closures from COVID-19. We will determine whether a “pop up” or wholesale specialty boutique is the better option for each market and brand. Instagram and Influencer Marketing Instagram and influencer marketing is one of our largest initiatives. On a weekly basis, we reach out to and receive requests from tastemakers in fashion, lifestyle, and photography. We have developed a certain set of criteria for working with influencers (for example, engagement level, aesthetic, audience demographic) that have enabled us to garner impactful impressions. Our focus is not on the size of an account, but on creating organic relationships with influencers who are excited to tell our story. While most of our collaborations are compensated solely through product gifts, we also offer an affiliate commission of up to 20% through the influencer platform reward Style, which is the parent company of LiketoKnow.it, the first influencer platform to make Instagram shoppable (users receive an email directly to their inbox with complete outfit details when they “Like” a photo with LiketoKnow.it technology). Retail Locations Currently, H&J has three showrooms located in Dallas, Houston and New Orleans. We plan to selectively open a number of selected additional H&J showrooms. We will also test opening a men’s multi- line showroom next to our H&J showrooms. At the time of acquisition, Bailey 44 operated three retail locations in Southern California. All three locations were shut down in 2020 due to declining revenue and profitability. Public Relations To generate ongoing organic and word-of-mouth awareness, we intend to work with print and online media outlets to announce new products and develop timely news stories. We are in contact with leading fashion, business, and tech writers in order to capitalize 8 Table of Contents on celebrity fashion features, e-commerce trend pieces, or general brand awareness articles. We may utilize outside agencies from time to time. We plan to visit the major fashion, tech, and news outlets in New York City on a quarterly basis to keep them up to date on our latest launches and any relevant company developments. We also plan to host local Los Angeles press at our office space. Celebrity gifting We approach celebrity gifting in a strategic, discerning manner. We have longstanding, personal relationships with the industries top stylists; we do not send clothing blindly or unsolicited. We have successfully placed clothing (and as a result, fashion press) on a number of well-known A-list celebrities. Loyalty Program We plan to develop and launch a company-wide loyalty program, which would include all our brands. Our customer loyalty program will be designed to engage and reward our customers in a direct and targeted manner, and to cross merchandise our portfolio brands to our customers. Customers will earn reward points that can be used to purchase products. We will also use loyalty point multipliers to create customer purchases, especially, which is a strategy beauty retailers have effectively used. Competition Our business depends on our ability to create consumer demand for our brands and products. We believe we are well-positioned to compete in the apparel, leather products and accessories segments by developing high quality, well designed products at competitive prices that are often below our competitor’s pricing. We focus on designing products that we hope exceed consumer expectations, which should result in retention and repurchases. We will invest in cross merchandising brands to customers through customized customer communications and personalized styles and looks utilizing products across all our portfolio brands, which we believe creates a competitive advantage for our brands versus single brands. As noted above, each of our brands has different competitors depending on product, quality and price point. Government Regulation Our business is subject to a number of domestic and foreign laws and regulations that affect companies conducting business on the Internet, many of which are still evolving and could be interpreted in ways that could harm our business. These laws and regulations include federal and state consumer protection laws and regulations, which address, among other things, the privacy and security of consumer information, sending of commercial email, and unfair and deceptive trade practices. Under applicable federal and state laws and regulations addressing privacy and data security, we must provide notice to consumers of our policies with respect to the collection and use of personal information, and our sharing of personal information with third parties, and notice of any changes to our data handling practices. In some instances, we may be obligated to give customers the right to prevent sharing of their personal information with third parties. Under applicable federal and state laws, we also are required to adhere to a number of requirements when sending commercial email to consumers, including identifying advertising and promotional emails as such, ensuring that subject lines are not deceptive, giving consumers an opportunity to opt-out of further communications and clearly disclosing our name and physical address in each commercial email. Regulation of privacy and data security matters is an evolving area, with new laws and regulations enacted frequently. For example, California recently enacted legislation that, among other things, will require new disclosures to California consumers, and afford such consumers new abilities to opt out of certain sales of personal information. In addition, under applicable federal and state unfair competition laws, including the California Consumer Legal Remedies Act, and U.S. Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, regulations, we must, and our network of influencers may be required to, accurately identify product offerings, not make misleading claims on our websites or in advertising, and use qualifying disclosures where and when appropriate. The growth and demand for eCommerce could result in more stringent domestic and foreign consumer protection laws that impose additional compliance burdens on companies that transact substantial business on the Internet. Our international business is subject to additional laws and regulations, including restrictions on imports from, exports to, and services provided to persons located in certain countries and territories, as well as foreign laws and regulations addressing topics such as advertising and marketing practices, customs duties and taxes, privacy, data protection, information security and consumer rights, any of which might apply by virtue of our operations in foreign countries and territories or our contacts with consumers in such foreign 9 Table of Contents countries and territories. Many foreign jurisdictions have laws, regulations, or other requirements relating to privacy, data protection, and consumer protection, and countries and territories are adopting new legislation or other obligations with increasing frequency. In many jurisdictions, there is great uncertainty whether or how existing laws governing issues such as property ownership, sales and other taxes, libel and personal privacy apply to the Internet and eCommerce. New legislation or regulation, the application of laws and regulations from jurisdictions whose laws do not currently apply to our business or the application of existing laws and regulations to the Internet and eCommerce could result in significant additional obligations on our business or may necessitate changes to our business practices. These obligations or required changes could have an adverse effect on our cash flows and results of operations. Further, any actual or alleged failure to comply with any of these laws or regulations by us, our vendors or our network of influencers could hurt our reputation, brand and business, force us to incur significant expenses in defending against proceedings or investigations, distract our management, increase our costs of doing business, result in a loss of customers and suppliers and may result in the imposition of monetary penalties. Employees As of December 31, 2021, we had 58 employees, all of whom were full-time employees. We believe our relationship with our employees is good. None of our employees are currently covered by a collective bargaining agreement. We have had no labor-related work stoppages and we believe our relationship with our employees is strong. Available Information Our Internet address is https://www.digitalbrandsgroup.co. Our website and the information contained on, or that can be accessed through, the website will not be deemed to be incorporated by reference in, and are not considered part of, this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Our Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K, including exhibits, proxy and information statements and amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Sections 13(a), 14, and 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or the Exchange Act, are available through the SEC’s Interactive Data Electronic Applications system at http://www.sec.gov . All statements made in any of our securities filings, including all forward-looking statements or information, are made as of the date of the document in which the statement is included, and we do not assume or undertake any obligation to update any of those statements or documents unless we are required to do so by law.