The Carlyle Group Inc.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Carlisle Group first quarter 2026 earnings call. All lines have been placed on a listen-only mode, and the floor will be open for questions and comments following the presentation. To ask a question at that time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw your question, press star one again. At this time, it is my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Daniel Harris, head of investor relations. Sir, the floor is yours.

Thank you, operator. Good morning and welcome to Carlyle's first quarter 2026 earnings call. With me on the call this morning is our chief executive officer, Harvey Schwartz, and our chief financial officer, Justin Plouffe. 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 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 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 that 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 today, please limit yourself to one question and then 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. We wrapped up another strong quarter, headlined by record U.S. buyout realizations, a high level of inflows, fee-related earnings of $300 million, and a 47% margin. Momentum across the platform continues to accelerate, and performance remains strong, reinforcing our confidence in our strategic plan. These results came against a complex global backdrop. Before we go deeper into the quarter, I want to spend a few minutes on the environment and the global network trends. Geopolitical uncertainty and splintering are front of mind for investors and are influencing capital allocation and investment decisions. But, of course, this is not new. Over the past five years, we've navigated COVID, the ongoing Ukraine, Russia war, and now the war in the Middle East. As a result, there are two subjects that every government official I meet with wants to discuss, national security and stimulating economic growth. By national security, I mean both investment in traditional defense, but also energy security. The focus on economic growth and competition across regions is intense, with a focus on reindustrialization and on ensuring top of mind. Underpinning all of this change is an increasing need for capital and innovative client solutions. Everywhere I go in the world, The message is the same. The demand for private capital continues to grow. Our team and the breadth of our platform is well-positioned in this environment. Our diversified set of businesses span private equity, real assets, private and liquid credit, and parallel alpha invests. In today's environment, diversification is a distinct advantage. Our deep sector expertise in aerospace and defense, industrials, energy, and healthcare maps directly towards a growing investment opportunity set. and we've been doing this at scale for decades. Now, before Justin and I run through the quarter's financial performance, I would like to highlight an important milestone from earlier this week. We closed the first-of-its-kind investment solution, anchored by a $5 billion commitment secured for our next vintage U.S. biofarm. This innovation provides a capital-efficient way to address our clients' needs. It's a solution that provides both access to our next U.S. biofarm and simultaneously offers them a tailored solution to provide liquidity. This solution underscores how we are leveraging Carlisle Alpha Invest capabilities in portfolio finance and secondaries alongside our private equity platform to deliver differentiated outcomes for our investors. It was truly a win-win for our investors and for Carlisle. Through this structure, several cornerstone investors have increased their scores at a U.S. buyout, further demonstrating their confidence in our platform and continued interest in the core sectors we focus on. Also, it's important to note that that we haven't launched fundraising for the next U.S. buyout fund. That will come later this year. Let me move on to some of the strong activity trends we saw in the quarter. As you have seen in prior quarters, we continue to return capital to investors at a faster pace than the industry. Realizations were more than $12 billion, reflecting the high quality of our portfolio and continuing prioritization of returning capital to our fund investors. It is also worth noting that we returned a record amount of capital to U.S. buyout fund investors this quarter, a rate which is more than 40% higher than our prior record set in 2021. We continue to have a deep set of assets to monetize for our investors. The point was $10 billion in the quarter, and we also announced two large transactions that will close in the coming months, the $8 billion carve-out for the Coney's business from BASF and the $3 billion acquisition of MAI Capital Management. We also invested $4 billion in private credit and nearly $4 billion across a diverse set of strategies in Carlisle Health Invest. These transactions should also contribute to a pickup in transaction fee revenue in the coming quarters. On inflows, we had a great start to the year, attracting $13 billion of new capital. In Carlisle Health Invest, we raised nearly $7 billion in the quarter, reflecting strong demand for a broad set of secondaries, co-investment, and portfolio finance strategies. We also saw sustained inflows in our wealth vehicles, including cap M and caps. Alpha Invest is benefiting from both favorable market dynamics and strong performance. In global credit, we raised $4 billion in the quarter. Demand remains strong across our diversified platform. We had a first close on a new close and asset-backed finance strategy. That strategy now tops $12 billion, up more than 30% compared to last year. In summary, Carlyle continues to benefit from a diversified platform that can provide durable results across dynamic changes in geopolitics and market environments. As you would expect, two months after the shareholder update, we remain quite confident that we will reach or exceed the targets we laid out for you in February. With that, let me turn the call over to Justin.