Abacus Global Management, Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Abacus Global Management first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing star zero. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. To leave the queue at any time, please press star two. Please note that this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Robert Phillips, Abacus Global Management's Senior Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Affairs. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Operator, and thank you, everyone, for joining Abacus Global Management's first quarter earnings call. Here with me today are Jay Jackson, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Elena Plesko, Chief Investment Officer, and Bill McCauley, Chief Financial and Chief Operating Officer. This afternoon at 4.15 p.m. Eastern Time, Abacus Global Management released our first quarter 2026 results. This afternoon's call will allow participants to ask questions about our results. Before we begin, Abacus Global Management refers participants on this call to the investor webpage, ir.abacusgm.com, for the press release, investor information, and filings with the SEC for a discussion of the risks that can affect the business. Abacus Global Management specifically refers participants to the presentation furnished today on Form 8K with the Securities and Exchange Commission and to remind listeners that some of the comments today may contain forward-looking statements and, as such, will be subject to risks and uncertainties which, if they materialize, could materially affect results. For more information on the risks, uncertainties, and assumptions relating to forward-looking statements, please refer to Abacus Global Management's public filings. During the call, we will reference certain non-GAAP financial measures. Although we believe these measures provide useful supplemental information about our financial performance, they are not recognized measures and do not have standardized meanings under U.S. generally accepted accounting principles or GAAP. Please see our public filings for additional information regarding our non-GAAP financial measures, including references to comparable GAAP measures. With that, I'd now like to turn our call over to Jay Jackson, Abacus Global Management's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.

Thank you, Rob, and good afternoon, everyone. Having had the pleasure of speaking with many of you in the weeks following our fourth quarter earnings call, I will keep my remarks focused and direct. I want to lead with the headline. Based on what we are seeing in the business today, we are raising our full year 2026 adjusted net income guidance from a range of 96 to 104 million to a new range of 100 to 106 million, lifting both the low end and the high end of our range. The new range translates into $1 to $1.05 in adjusted EPS. The conviction behind that decision comes from a few drivers we are seeing in real time. We raised $288 million into our longevity funds this quarter, on top of the $275 million in Q4. By way of context, we raised $630 million across all of 2025. The step change in fundraising we saw at year end has carried cleanly into the new year, and our pipeline continues to grow. In Q1 alone, we reviewed nearly 9,000 qualified policies, compared to roughly 11,000 across all of 2025. The flywheel is working exactly as designed. Increased assets under management drives origination, and our infrastructure is meeting that demand. That near-term visibility is what gives us the confidence to provide a forward quarter guide alongside our full year range. For Q2, 2026, we expect adjusted net income of 24 to 26 million or 0.24 to 0.26 in adjusted EPS. I want to spend a moment in the shape of the year because the pace of our growth over the past several years has obscured a normal dynamic in how we operate. Revenue does not flow evenly across quarters. January is typically our lightest month with activity picking up through February and March. then running robustly through spring and summer. August is generally a slower month for both deployment and fundraising, before momentum picks back up in the fall and builds through a strong fourth quarter finish. Q1 ANI came in at $20 million. Q2 is guided to $24 to $26 million. The back half is historically our strongest, and that is the path to our raised full-year range. Bill will walk you through business operations and financial results, and you will see that strength reflected across the metrics that matter. Elena will cover our KPIs and capital allocation. But first, let me set up the two dynamics that I believe define this moment for Abacus. The first is the current macro environment and what it means for our asset class. The uncertainty that has characterized Q1 has created a defining moment across the alternatives landscape. Investors are reassessing where they allocate capital. They are moving toward assets that are genuinely uncorrelated from market sentiment and credit cycles. That is precisely what Abacus offers. Our yield is mortality-driven, not rates-driven. That means our returns are structurally uncorrelated. In this quarter, that distinction drove capital to us in a meaningful way. assets under management grew substantially in Q1, fueled by capital inflows from investors who understand that we are not private credit, we are the alternative to it. Now, I want to address something that is important for investors to understand clearly, the relationship between increased demand and purchase discount rates. As more institutional capital has flowed into the asset class, buyers are competing more aggressively for policies. That competition means buyers are paying more for each policy, which translates directly into lower purchase discount rates. I want to be emphatic about this. A lower purchase discount rate in our business is a positive outcome. It reflects rising asset values and expanded long-term spreads on the contracts we already hold, and we believe this dynamic will continue through 2026. The second thing I want to highlight is what I consider one of the most important proof points this company has ever delivered, and it happened this quarter. Our LMA Income 2 Fund reached the end of its initial term. This is a fund we launched three years ago that grew to approximately $115 million in assets under management. At conclusion of its term, we returned capital to every single investor who requested it, 100% on time, as promised. Returning investor capital at the end of a fund's term should be the norm. Across the alternatives industry today, it is not. At a moment when restrictions on investor capital have been commonplace, when redemption gates have become accepted norms, Abacus did what we said we would do. And here's what makes it even more meaningful. Approximately one-third of those investors chose to extend their investment, and another third reinvested their capital into our new products, This is not just capital retention. That is an affirmation. Investors who had full optionality evaluated this asset, evaluated these funds, and chose to put more capital to work with us. That is the strongest endorsement we can receive. Bill will address the balance sheet impact in detail, but I will note that this event reduces debt on our balance sheet by more than $75 million. further strengthening our capital position as we move through the remainder of the year. Looking ahead, I want to highlight two transformational growth opportunities that I believe will define the next chapter for Abacus. The first is our investment in Manning and Napier. This relationship continues to progress with real momentum. The strategic alliance and distribution agreements are both taking shape, and we are already working to integrate our respective platforms. Manning's existing infrastructure is robust and well-suited to support what we are building together. This is not a passive investment. It is a distribution partnership that we expect to materially expand the reach of our products to a broader base of advisors and their clients. We expect early results from that alliance in Q2 and we'll have more to say as that relationship matures. The second is our securitization program. Following the success of our first securitization, we are actively targeting a second significant securitization in late Q2 or early Q3. Securitization is a powerful tool for us. It allows us to recycle capital efficiently, diversify our funding sources, and demonstrate to institutional markets the quality and consistency of the assets we originate. A second transaction in this timeframe would represent a meaningful acceleration of that program and further validate the institutional credibility of this asset class. We will provide updates as that process advances. With that, I will turn it over to Bill.