“While we have slowed down hiring within our commercial organization, we are moving forward with filling key positions to round out our capabilities. We will also move forward with the sales and marketing tools that we believe will enhance our sales performance for a nominal cost. We expect that commissioning activities for our new South Carolina plant will begin in the second half of 2020, with commercial operations expected to commence in the first half of 2021. With the establishment of our capital lease facility, we believe the incremental commissioning cash cost of approximately $4.0 million, of which approximately $2.0 million will be financed, is a prudent investment that will eliminate single-plant risk and will, we believe, create significant cost savings through material and labor efficiencies as well as logistics improvements.”
Mr. O’Meara concluded, “While it is impossible to predictCOVID-19’s near- and long-term impact on how organizations use their space and thus commercial construction activity levels, we believe the current crisis may present new opportunities, such as increased investment in healthcare infrastructure and the need for flexibility as people begin tore-occupy their existing work spaces. Nevertheless, we remain prepared to take further actions as necessary if economic or industry conditions deteriorate. Whatever the ultimate timing and pace of economic recovery, our goal is to have a strong financial position and the organizational capabilities to enable us to target the market segments where we can be most effective and grow our market share.”
First Quarter Financial Review
Revenues for the first quarter of 2020 were $41.0 million compared to $65.1 million reported in the first quarter of 2019. In the first quarter of 2020, we experienced the ongoing effects of disruption in sales activity levels, particularly with respect to larger size projects, stemming from the distraction of rebuilding our management team and sales and marketing function during 2018 and 2019.
Correspondingly, gross profit for the first quarter of 2020 declined to $11.3 million from $23.6 million in the prior year period. Gross profit margin decreased to 27.6% of revenue in the first quarter from 36.3% in the prior year period, but up from 25.3% in the fourth quarter of 2019.
Gross profit was impacted by reduced fixed cost leverage on lower revenues and excess labor capacity prior to headcount reductions. During the quarter, we took steps to manage our excess labor capacity, including a previously disclosed reduction in production staffing by 14%. In April, we made a further 12% reduction and undertook planned factory curtailments and reduced shift lengths. These actions realigned our capacity with currently expected activity levels, but we retain the flexibility to expand capacity quickly in the future as needed.
Adjusted Gross Profit Margin in the first quarter decreased to 38.0% from 39.6% in the prior year period but increased from 33.4% in the fourth quarter of 2019. In the quarter, we separately classified $2.0 million as costs related to our under-utilized capacity in cost of sales. Adjusted Gross Profit Margin excludes the costs of under-utilized capacity.
Sales and marketing expenses decreased to $7.4 million for the first quarter of 2020 from $7.8 million in the prior year period. The decline was caused primarily by decreased commission expense on lower revenue.
General and administrative expenses increased to $7.8 million for the first quarter of 2020 from $6.9 million for the prior year period. The increase was due primarily to higher professional fees of $0.8 million due to ongoing litigation matters. In the first quarter of 2020 we recorded expected credit losses of $0.6 million against our accounts receivable balance. Additionally, in the first quarter of 2019 we incurred $0.7 million of costs related to the listing of our common shares on Nasdaq.
Operations support expenses of $2.5 million in the first three months of 2020 were consistent with the prior year period.