Aimia Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the EMEA Inc. Second Quarter 2022 Results Conference Call. At this time, all lines are in listening 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 Friday, August 22, 2022. I would now like to turn the conference over to Stephen Leonard. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Sergio, 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'd 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 my name is Steve Leonard, AMIA CFO. Phil will begin our strategic highlights, followed by Michael, who will cover the performance of our investments. Before handing the call over for me to take you through the results for the quarter, we'll have time for your questions at the end. With that, let me hand it over to Phil.

Thanks, Steve, and good morning to everyone on the phone and webcast today. We continue to advance our strategy of maximizing the value of our existing holdings while seeking to deploy capital towards new investment opportunities to deliver strong returns for our stakeholders. With $580 million in cash and liquid investments, no debt, and approximately $750 million in tax losses, we continue to actively pursue an exciting pipeline of opportunities with long track records of free cash flow generation. To recap the strategic highlights of the second quarter, beginning with PLM. This is our first chance to comment on the transaction since it closed. We are very pleased to report that we received $537 million in cash on closing, or $5.84 per common share, which was $45 million more than when we announced the proposed transaction in February. The proceeds are net, aside from some transaction related fees, and we do not expect to pay any additional cash taxes on this transaction. In addition, We are eligible to receive an earn-out of approximately $27 million on a net basis should the PLM program achieve targeted annual gross billings by 2024. AMIA intends to deploy most of the proceeds towards the acquisition of majority or significant minority stakes in cash-generative businesses operating either the U.S. or Canada that will, ideally, utilize our sizable tax losses. We will also use a portion of the proceeds to continue to repurchase shares under our NCIB, which we renewed in the quarter. So far this year, we have repurchased over 2 million shares, including 1.4 million shares under the current program. We have 6.3 million shares available to repurchase under the current NCIP program, supported by an automated share purchase plan. As we discussed previously, we continue to opportunistically buy back our common stock as we see a significant discount to our intrinsic net asset value. Moving to TradeX. Tradex continues to grow as it opens new global trade corridors to facilitate cross-border automotive transactions across Europe, Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Tradex recently announced the opening of a new corridor in the Dominican Republic where there are exciting opportunities for imports into this Caribbean nation. While we have seen headwinds in the fundraising market for technology and growth companies, Tradex continues to execute on its commercial strategy to achieve approximately $1 billion in gross vehicle sales this year. Moving to Cognitive. Recently, Cognitive is successful in securing a multi-year contract extension with National Australia Bank that will utilize the collaborative commerce platform. Cognitive continues to focus on strengthening of its pipeline with several new global brands across different verticals that are prime candidates to benefit from its approach to empowering business to grow, adapt, and transform through collaborative commerce. Moving to our investment in ClearMedia. The slowing Chinese economy and recent COVID-related shutdowns have created a challenging operating environment for advertising in China, and Clear Media is facing a situation that is similar to the first half of 2020 and has responded to the situation by implementing cost-saving initiatives. Clear Media is a high-quality business that stands to benefit from its sizable market position and enhanced digital offering. Moving to our investment in Capital A. AirAsia continues to see the benefit of increased travel as the Southeast Asia region emerges from COVID restrictions. In the second quarter operating results, the airline carried 5.6 million passengers, more than seven times the volume carried in the same period in 2021. This represents about 43% of 2019 passenger levels, so there's still room to recover, but the trend is very positive. This low-cost airline is uniquely positioned to capitalize on the sizable pent-up demand for travel across Southeast Asia while Capital A continues to develop and enhance the value of its digital assets. And with that, let me turn the floor over to Mike to provide you some further updates on our investment portfolio. Mike?