Aimia Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the AMIA Inc. Third 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 being recorded on Thursday, November 11, 2021. I would now like to turn the conference over to Tom Tran, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Miranda, and welcome everyone to this morning's call. Today's presentation is available on CDAR and the company's website. Before we get underway, I would like to remind everyone to review our forward-looking statement 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 investment 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 for the third quarter. Our third quarter results demonstrated exciting and significant progress as we continue maximizing the value of our existing holdings while deploying capital into new investment opportunities. PLM continued to demonstrate a strong recovery in its operating performance. AMIA received a distribution of 6.3 million in the third quarter, bringing the total distributions from PLM to 21.4 million on a year-to-date basis. As we announced in October, in conjunction with the recent disclosures made in the bankruptcy proceedings of Aeromexico relating to PLM, AMIA confirms that it is in discussions with Aeromexico for a potential transaction to divest our 48.9% equity stake in PLM. These discussions continue to advance and we look forward to providing an update at the appropriate time. Cognitive continues to develop a strong pipeline of new, prospective clients to onboard to their collaborative commerce platform under the leadership team led by Sean Pearson, who was recently named Chief Executive Officer, in addition to his role as President of Cognitive. At Clear Media, the planned privatization of the business was completed, led by a blue-chip consortium of investors comprised of Clear Media's current CEO, as well as JCDecaux, Ant Financial, and the China Wealth Growth Fund. We are very excited about Clear Media's prospects. Members of the consortium, such as JCDecaux, the world's largest out-of-home advertising company, are also leaders in the digitization of outdoor advertising street furniture. We expect Clear Media's management team to execute on its growth-oriented plan to expand its digital footprint among its 61,000 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. Moving to our investment in AirAsia. We are very pleased to see AirAsia resume its domestic travel and the government's plan to start reopening their borders as the region moves away from its zero COVID strategy. Additionally, it has announced its transformation from an airline into a digital travel and lifestyle services holding company. AMIA owns an equity stake of over 3% of AirAsia, which was acquired from the sale of our previous holding in the Big Life loyalty program to AirAsia, and additional shares acquired through a private placement. AirAsia's share price has performed well and was up 18% in the third quarter and continued to climb higher after the country announced measures that lifted travel restrictions on interstate and international travel in Malaysia. AirAsia also recently announced a reorganization into a holding company to separate its core airline business from its portfolio of digital assets. in which we see significant upside potential in companies such as Big Pay, one of the fastest-growing fintech companies in Southeast Asia. Big Pay recently secured up to U.S. $100 million in financing from South Korean conglomerate SK Group. According to a recent Credit Suisse report, AirAsia's portfolio of digital businesses achieved unicorn status with a combined valuation of over U.S. $1 billion. AirAsia continues to raise new capital from various sources, And we believe that AirAsia will merge from the pandemic as a stronger airline and holding company, uniquely positioned to capitalize on the sizable pent-up demand for low-cost air travel across Southeast Asia, while enhancing the value of its digital assets. Moving to our new investments. AMIA invested $44 million Canadian 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. AMIA's current equity ownership stake in Tradex is 12.3%. Tradex continues to commercialize its core product with major automotive customers and continues to exhibit rapid growth and profitability as it expands its reach globally to Europe, Africa, South America, and China, amongst others. After having generated $74 million in gross vehicle sales in the first half of this year, Tradex generated gross vehicle sales of $87 million in the third quarter alone and positive EBITDA. With recent sales volume activity demonstrating strong momentum, we expect Tradex to continue to grow its business at a rapid rate. The addressable market for exporting used cars is immense and is estimated to be approximately $100 billion annually. We believe Tradex is poised to capture a meaningful share of this global trading volume by automating and streamlining global vehicle commerce through its highly scalable AI-powered digital platform. The company is actively pursuing a robust pipeline of accretive acquisition targets, including its recently closed acquisition of Techlandic in September. We believe Tradex represents an outstanding opportunity in a business with tremendous growth prospects as it scales its platform and expands its geographical footprint, and we look forward to sharing more positive developments over the coming quarters. Moving to our new investment in a second special purpose vehicle, In November 2020, AMIA announced an initial commitment of $6.4 million to a special purpose vehicle created to pursue a leveraged buyout of a target. As of September 30, 2021, the fair value of this special purpose vehicle increased to $8.1 million. Following the early success of this investment, in November, the company made a new investment of $12.4 million in a second special purpose vehicle, which was created to pursue a similar buyout strategy. Subsequent to the end of the quarter, we realized a tax shelter gain of $9.7 million from the sale of our entire stake in Newmark, representing a return on investment of 107%. Finally, as discussed previously, in 2020, we rapidly cut costs and right-sized our corporate expenses and achieved cash flow break-even at the holding company with cash operating expenses, preferred dividends, and taxes covered by PLM dividends and other investment activities. For 2021, Inclusive of PLM dividends and cash gains on the sale of JC Deco and Newmark, we expect to be cash flow positive at the whole co-level. And with that, let me turn the floor over to Mike to provide you some further updates on our holdings.