The Carlyle Group Inc.

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Carlisle Group first quarter 2025 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Daniel Harris, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Daniel. Good morning and welcome to Carlisle's first quarter 2025 earnings call. With me on the call this morning is our Chief Executive Officer, Harvey Schwartz, and our Chief Financial Officer and Head of Corporate Strategy, John Redette. Earlier this morning, we issued a press release and a detailed earnings presentation, which is available on our investor relations website. This call is being webcast and a replay will be available. 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 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. In order to ensure participation by all those on the line, please limit yourself to one question and return to 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, everyone, and thank you for joining us. I'll quickly touch on this quarter's record results and then share my perspective on the macro environment. First quarter performance was quite strong, hitting record levels. Quarter's highlights include record fee-relating earnings of $311 million, That's up 17% year-over-year. Record FRE margin, 48%. Our highest level of distributable earnings in several years at $455 million, and record assets under management of $453 billion. Across the board, from margin expansion to FRE growth to investment performance and fundraising, you can really see the strategy coming together as we progress towards our goals for this year and beyond. Now let me shift and talk about how we're thinking about the current environment. We entered the year with a very high level of market optimism and very high expectations. The markets were fully risk on. Of course, as we saw, the recently announced trade policies very quickly impacted investor sentiment and risk appetite. With respect to our global portfolio, we think about this in terms of first order effects and knock on impacts. With respect to first order effects, The effects of the tariffs are contained to a limited number of investments. The majority of our global private equity portfolio is services-oriented, with 80% of companies based in the U.S. Second-order effects on the economy are beginning to emerge. As we've seen in some of the recent economic data, but given where we are in terms of the policy implementation, the long-term effects of the trade policy are too difficult to forecast at this point. From a Carlyle perspective, we are exceptionally well-positioned to lead in this environment. our investment horizon, and our capital base are long-term. And our Capital Light model affords us the ability to capitalize on compelling new investment opportunities. In a dynamic environment like today, you need experience, scale, brand, and a diversified platform to meet the shifting demands of private capital and serve the needs of our clients. With $84 billion of dry powder, we are well positioned to be active in this market environment as opportunities emerge. Although we are going through this period of uncertainty, the macro trends driving demand for private capital remain strong and likely will be reinforced over the coming years. Over the past two decades, the number of public companies in the U.S. has been cut nearly in half, while the number of private companies has increased by more than fivefold. For investors looking to drive returns and capture the next generation of market growth, Private market access has never been more important. These structural shifts are already showing up in Carlyle's results. We are seeing strong momentum across our key growth areas and believe the trends reshaping global markets will continue to play to our strengths. Now I'll touch on our businesses and growth areas that we've been focused on over the past two years. Carlyle App Invest generated record FRE in the first quarter, nearly double the first quarter last year. AUM in this business grew 12 percent over the past year to a record $89 billion. The business continues to diversify across client solutions. A good example of this is our latest portfolio finance fund, which held its final close last month at more than $4 billion, more than three times the size of its predecessor. In global credit, quarterly fee-related earnings surpassed $100 million for the first time, an increase of nearly 50 percent from last year. The significant demand for private credit solutions continues to drive inflows, and our investment opportunities continue to expand. Recently, our private credit team has leaned into significant opportunities in European lending, where less competition is leading to strong relative value. Ukrainian private credit deployment is up 150% year-over-year. We also had a strong start to the year in insurance, with Fortitude announcing more than $8 billion in reinsurance transactions. Fortitude's annuity reinsurance agreement with Tile Life Insurance Company was their sixth transaction in Japan. Carlyle's long-term track record in Japan, alongside strong investment origination capabilities, have helped Fortitude develop a leading presence in the market. Our pipeline of growth opportunities remains healthy, as insurance companies seek to transfer risk and improve capital efficiency. And our strategic initiative to grow capital markets continues to accelerate. Over just the past six months, we generated a record $150 million in fees. We see substantial opportunity for long-term growth in this business, although the near-term market environment may slow the pace of activity. Moving on to global wealth, as you know, two years ago, we prioritized this initiative by aggressively adding to the team and leveraging our global brand to drive growth. As a result, evergreen inflows have doubled over the past year. In global private equity, we remain focused on driving value in our portfolio companies and monetizing assets. We've generated $20 billion of realizations over the last 12 months. In the first quarter, we successfully IPO-ed Hexaware Technologies in India. This is the largest ever sponsor-backed IPO in India and the largest technology services IPO globally in more than a decade. We also closed a nearly $1 billion secondary sale of shares of Standard Arrow and a $1.4 billion sale of PyroAsset. John will touch on this in more detail. We saw continued appreciation in our two latest vintage U.S. buyout funds, and the underlying portfolio companies continue to grow EBITDA at double-digit rates through the first quarter. The portfolio remains well-positioned in the current environment. To close, Carlyle is much more diversified today than it has ever been. During these periods of market volatility, the breadth of our platform enables us to mobilize where opportunities present itself. We will continue to invest in our growth, leverage our long-term investment horizon, and capture value creation opportunities in the private markets. With that, let me now turn the call over to John, who will walk through our results in more detail.