Aimia Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the AMIA Inc. Second Quarter 2021 Results Conference Call. At this time, all lines are in listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is re-recorded on Friday, August 13, 2021. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Tom Tran, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Anas, and welcome, everyone, to this morning's call. Today's presentation is available on CDAR in the company's website. Before we get underway, I would like to remind everyone to review our forward-looking statements and the cautions and risk factors pertaining to the statement. With me on the call today are speakers Phil Middleman, AMIA CEO, Michael Lehman, our president, and Steve Leonard, our CFO. Phil will begin with our strategic highlights, followed by Michael, who will cover the performance of our investments, before handing the call over to Steve to take you through the results of the quarter. We will have time for your questions at the end. And with that, let me hand it over to Phil.

Thanks Tom and good morning everyone on the phone and webcast today. We'll begin with our strategic highlights of the second quarter. We are very pleased with our second quarter and first half results and continue to focus on enhancing the value of our existing holdings while deploying excess capital towards new investment opportunities. BLM continued to perform well as it demonstrated ongoing recovery in its operating performance. AMIA received a distribution of $5.3 million in the second quarter. bringing the total distribution from PLM to $15.1 million in the first half of this year. Our amended shareholder agreement with Aeromexico continues to be honored by the airline, and we expect the agreements to be formally assumed in due course through Aeromexico's bankruptcy process. Cognitive continues to focus on the commercialization of its past offering and has been successful in securing contract renewals and extensions for major clients, while developing a strong pipeline of new clients, to onboard their collaborative commerce platform. At ClearMedia, we are pleased to participate in the planned privatization of the business, led by a blue-chip consortium comprised of ClearMedia's current CEO, JCDecaux, Jack Ma's Ant Group, and the China Wealth Growth Fund, and we're excited about ClearMedia's prospects. Members of the consortium, such as JCDecaux, the world's largest out-of-home advertising company, are leaders in digitization technology, and we expect Clear Media's management team to execute on its growth-oriented plan to digitize its 59,000 commercial panels, with the goal of attracting new, higher-margin advertising revenue streams and clientele. With less than 1% of its panels currently digitized, we believe there remains significant runway for digital penetration over the coming years. Since we made our investment, China's economy has continued to recover, and we continue to see these positive economic trends benefiting outdoor advertising sales in China. At Big Life, we completed the sale of our 20% ownership in the loyalty program to AirAsia in exchange for approximately 85.9 million shares of AirAsia and recorded a book value gain of 6.9 million on the transaction. Including our 35.6 million additional shifts acquired through a private placement, AMIA now owns a total of 121.5 million shares of AirAsia, representing an approximate 3.1% equity stake. AirAsia and its subsidiaries, including BigPay, which recently announced a U.S. $100 million financing, have been making good progress in raising new capital from various sources, and we believe that AirAsia will emerge from the pandemic as a stronger airline, uniquely positioned to capitalize on the sizable pent-up demand for low-cost air travel across Southeast Asia. Moving to our latest investment, AMIA invested $44 million as the lead investor of the most recent funding round for Tradex, an innovative solutions provider to the global pre-owned car industry, through its B2B cross-border automotive trading platform at a pre-money valuation of US $250 million. Following an additional US $10 million from other strategic investors in a subsequent closing, our equity stake in Tradex is now 12.3%. Tradex has been growing at a remarkable rate as it expands its market reach to other countries. Gross vehicle sales for the first half of this year have already exceeded 2020's full-year sales, And with recent sales volume activity demonstrating strong momentum, sales are expected to trend even higher in the second half of 2021. The company is generating positive EBITDA as it expands its reach globally and has a robust pipeline of acquisition targets. We realize a tax sheltered gain of $6.9 million from the sale of our investment at J.C. DeCoe. At the end of the second quarter of 2021, our liquid public securities portfolio totaled $57.6 million. including unrealized gains up to the end of the quarter of $8.5 million. We also enhanced our management team with the addition of Eric Blondeau as the company's new chief legal officer. Eric has extensive experience in legal matters with particular specialization in M&A and securities law, among other skill sets complementary to AMIA's strategy. Lastly, we established a new NCIB facility to repurchase up to 7.3 million shares to facilitate opportunistic common share buybacks. Over the past two and a half years, we have repurchased more than 40% of our outstanding shares. And with that, let me turn the floor over to Mike to provide you with some further updates on our holdings. Mike.