Perma-Pipe International Holdings Inc

***Evaluation of Disclosure Controls and Procedures.***The Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer have evaluated the effectiveness of the Company's disclosure controls and procedures (as defined in Rule 13a-15(e) and 15d-15(e)) under the Exchange Act as of January 31, 2024. This evaluation included consideration of the controls, processes and procedures that are designed to ensure that information required to be disclosed by the Company in the reports the Company files or submits under the Exchange Act is recorded, processed, summarized and reported within the time periods specified in the SEC’s rules and forms, and to provide reasonable assurance that such information is accumulated and communicated to the Company’s management, including its Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, as appropriate to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosure. Based on this evaluation, the certifying officers have concluded that, as of the end of the period covered by this Annual Report on Form 10-K, our disclosure controls and procedures were not effective because of the material weaknesses described below under "Management's Annual Report on Internal Control Over Financial Reporting."

***Management's Annual Report on Internal Control Over Financial Reporting.***The Company's management is responsible for establishing and maintaining adequate internal control over financial reporting, as such term is defined in Rule 13a-15(f) under the Exchange Act. As required by Rule 13a-15(c) under the Exchange Act, the Company's management carried out an evaluation, with the participation of the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, of the effectiveness of its internal control over financial reporting as of January 31, 2024. The framework on which such evaluation was based is contained in the report entitled Internal Control-Integrated Framework (2013) issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission.

The Company's system of internal control over financial reporting is designed to provide reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of financial reporting and the preparation of financial statements for external purposes in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. Because of its inherent limitations, internal control over financial reporting may not prevent or detect misstatements. Also, projections of any evaluation of effectiveness to future periods are subject to the risk that controls may become inadequate because of changes in conditions, or that the degree of compliance with the policies or procedures may deteriorate.

Based on management's evaluation, management has concluded that we did not maintain effective internal control over financial reporting as of January 31, 2024, due to the material weaknesses identified below.

A material weakness is a deficiency, or a combination of deficiencies, in internal control over financial reporting, such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of the Company's annual or interim financial statements will not be prevented or detected on a timely basis.

Material Weaknesses Identified in the Period Ended January 31, 2024.

We did not maintain effective information technology general controls ("ITGC") specifically related to the policies and procedures over the timely review of security management and monitoring, user access and security administration, password control, administrative access, program change management, data security and back up, review of third-party SOC 1 reports, and related management's review of the completeness and accuracy of certain system-generated reports. Additionally, we did not maintain effective controls over certain entity level controls over financial reporting related to the review and approval of manual journal entries, the timely review of the financial close process, and timely review of certain financial policies and procedures and respective HR policies. We also did not maintain effective controls at certain operating locations in the Middle East and North Africa ("MENA"), specifically we did not maintain sufficient documentation to support our evaluation that controls over business processes were operating effectively.

Material Weakness Identified in the Prior Year Ended January 31, 2023 and Continuing Remediation Plan.

As previously disclosed in the January 31, 2023 10-K, management had identified a material weakness in the Company's internal control over financial reporting regarding the design and operating effectiveness of controls related to the existence of inventory during the fiscal year ended January 31, 2023. Specifically, the Company failed to appropriately perform cycle count procedures at one of the Company's operating facilities, resulting in a significant adjustment during the full physical inventory count at period end. Further, management’s review of the process and resulting adjustments on a periodic basis failed to identify the issue. The material weakness did not result in any material misstatements to the Company’s consolidated financial statements. The Company's remediation plans progressed during the year ended January 31, 2024, and included hiring of an additional resource with inventory management expertise, engaged outside consultants for additional expertise to review current practices to assist in updating and monitoring inventory count policies and procedures, and performed physical counts periodically throughout the year at the Lebanon, Tennessee plant to supplement the cycle count process. The Company has also redesigned cycle count parameters to ensure higher value and more active inventory parts are counted more frequently and include additional review by finance and accounting personnel to ensure any necessary adjustments are addressed in a timely manner; and reviewed and updated physical organization of inventory to better identify and segregate inventory.

Management has determined that with its new control over quarterly physical counts at the plant, along with updated reviews, the Company has changed its controls over the existence of inventory. As a result, the Company has determined that the material weakness over the existence of inventory at the above Lebanon plant has been remediated as of January 31, 2024.

Remediation Plan for the Material Weaknesses Identified in the Period Ended January 31, 2024.

The remediation plans related to ITGCs include: (i) addressing the identified issues with control owners, including company leadership and IT personnel; (ii) engage outside consultants with expertise relating to ITGCs to document processes, assist in addressing the design and operating business process controls, monitoring and testing reviews focusing on systems supporting our financial reporting process (iii) developing and maintaining documentation underlying ITGCs for knowledge transfer and function changes, including access control and change management; (iv) outsource certain functions to third-party providers, specifically relating to servers and firewalls, and managed detection and response.

The remediation plans related to the entity level controls and business process controls over MENA locations include: (i) addressing issues with control owners, including company leadership; (ii) evaluating and updating the Company's evidence of internal control policies and procedures as needed and providing necessary guidance to applicable locations; (iii) assessing the adequacy and determine whether enhancements are needed to the design of corporate and / or operating locations business process controls; and (iv) augmenting our internal audit function by hiring an additional resource to assist in overseeing the remediation process, including updating policies and procedures, and implementing internal controls; (v) engage outside consultants to conduct training sessions.

The Company anticipates the actions described above and resulting improvements in controls will strengthen the Company's processes, procedures and will address the related material weaknesses described above. However, the material weaknesses cannot be considered fully remediated until the remediation processes have been in operation for a period of time and successfully tested.

***Changes in Internal Control over Financial Reporting.***While the Company continues to implement design enhancements to our internal control procedures, we believe that, other than the changes described above regarding the ongoing remediation efforts, there were no changes to our internal control over financial reporting which were identified in connection with the evaluation required by Rules 13a-15(d) or 15d-15(d) under the Exchange Act during the fourth quarter of the fiscal year ending January 31, 2024 that have materially affected, or are reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.

***Attestation Report of Registered Public Accounting Firm.***This Annual Report does not contain an attestation report of our independent registered public accounting firm related to internal control over financial reporting because the rules for smaller reporting companies provide an exemption from the attestation requirement.