The Carlyle Group Inc.

Thank you for standing by and welcome to Carlyle Group's first quarter 2023 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. I would now like to hand the call over to head of public investor relations, Daniel Harris. Please go ahead. Thank you, Lateef.

Good morning and welcome to Carlyle's first quarter 2023 earnings call. With me on the call this morning is our Chief Executive Officer, Harvey Schwartz, and our Chief Financial Officer, Kurt Buser. Earlier this morning, we issued a press release and a detailed earnings presentation, which is also available on our investor relations website. This call is being webcast and a replay will be available on our website. We will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures during today's call. These measures should not be considered in isolation from or as a substitute for measures prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. We have provided a reconciliation of these measures to GAAP in our earnings release to the extent reasonably available. Any forward-looking statements made today do not guarantee future performance and undue reliance should not be placed on them. These statements are based on current management expectations and involve inherent risks and uncertainties, including those identified in the risk factor section of our annual report on Form 10-K that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated. Carlisle assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements at any time. I'm going to begin with a quick discussion of our results and then hand the call over to Harvey. For the first quarter, we generated $193 million in fee-related earnings and $272 million in distributable earnings with DE per common share of 63 cents. We raised 6.8 billion of new capital and deployed 3.8 billion in capital across our carry funds. Our crude carry balance remains at a robust $4 billion. We declared a quarterly dividend of 35 cents per common share. We know it's a busy morning, and as we already have a long queue, please limit yourself to one question and move back into the queue for any additional follow-ups. And with that, let me turn the call over to our Chief Executive Officer, Harvey Schwartz.

Thanks, Dan. Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. It's great to be here with all of you. Some of you I've worked with in the past, and others, it'll be great to meet you soon. There are three things I plan to review today. Our first quarter performance, the macro environment, and our general outlook. And lastly, I'll end with some initial thoughts on my first 80 days here at Carlisle. First, with regards to our performance, let me be clear, we're not pleased with our first quarter results. Kurt will walk you through the details, but our activity levels in investments, realizations, and fundraising were more muted than our prior expectations. We continue to navigate one of the most complex financial markets in recent memory, which is clouding the near-term outlook and impacting market sentiment. It's our expectation these effects will last throughout the remainder of the year and impact both FRE and distributable earnings. That said, importantly, We are confident that Carlyle is well positioned for when markets stabilize and activity levels ultimately pick up. We don't invest and we don't run the firm quarter to quarter. The firm has a long history of successfully investing through all cycles. We have a leading private equity business with a long-term track record, a fast-growing global credit business, and a high-performing investment solutions business. We have $381 billion in assets under management and 73 billion in capital available to deploy across strategies and geographies. And we have longstanding, very deep relationships with the largest and most sophisticated global investors. There is substantial and very attractive white space for Carlyle to continue to grow our platform, which alongside a disciplined approach joining the firm will ultimately expand margins, expand FRA, and grow distributable earnings. Shifting now to the macro environment, for the past 30 to 40 years, there were several megatrends at play. These megatrends underpinned economic activity. A long-term downtrend in interest rates, supporting an upward trend in equity markets and asset prices broadly, markets benefited from historically low inflation, and increased globalization and technological innovation allowed global economies to thrive. Today, for the first time in many investors' lifetimes, Some of those trends are slowing or even reversing. The cost of capital has gone up. Discount rates and cap rates have increased and are pressuring valuations as well as expected returns. Of course, this shift in trends will take time to work through global markets and asset prices. Adding even more complexity, while the banking system in the U.S. and abroad generally have healthy balance sheets from years of capital building, they are now tightening underwriting standards, and regional banks following recent stress, are likely to face increased regulation and capital requirements. In my experience, this will almost certainly lead to a further tightening of lending standards, dampening the pace of economic activity. While companies are not raising capital at the same frequency as prior years, their core needs haven't changed. They need capital to grow and capital to refinance liabilities. This is where our global credit business is taking share from traditional lenders. And just this week, you will have seen Fortitude announce a major reinsurance transaction that will accelerate the growth of their business. For our LPs who require help managing their portfolios in this complex environment, our global investment solutions business is well positioned to meet this demand and continue to grow the platform. The important point to remember is that Carlyle has operated through significant market dislocations before. We remain actively engaged with sellers, buyers, and capital providers around the world. We're very front-footed. We certainly don't invest for any single quarter or year. We raise capital and we invest for the long term. The opportunities across asset classes, regions, and sectors are growing increasingly more attractive as markets remain volatile and uncertain. While we remain cautious on the near-term environment, We also are beginning to see opportunities to put a huge amount of capital to work that will help drive long-term performance and asset growth. This is an exciting time to be an investor in global private markets. I'll close with some thoughts that have gotten started in my new role. I spent the past few months meeting our people and getting to know our investors around the world. Carlyle is an iconic brand, one I've admired my entire career. We have an experienced and talented team of professionals who are up for any challenge, and that team is a big part of why I'm here. Our culture is strong. It reflects the 35-year history of the firm, and it's made up of a group of talented, smart, hardworking, world-class professionals who care deeply about our firm. And we are committed to being a fiduciary for our clients. We are in an industry that is growing and there is massive long-term potential for Carlyle. Everything starts with investment performance and our firm was built to provide the highest level of care to our investors and to capture the significant opportunities that continue to emerge. Throughout my career, I've been a believer in discipline growth. As we grow, we're also working to identify areas where we can instill more discipline around our operations. This approach will deliver returns for our shareholders and fund investors alike. It's an exciting time for the industry and for Carlyle, and I'm very excited to be here and be part of it. With that, I'll hand things over to Kurt to provide a more detailed breakdown of the quarter.