Heritage Global Inc.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Heritage Global Inc. 3rd Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session, and instructions will follow at that time. As a reminder, this call may be recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Michael Kim, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Michael.

Thank you and good afternoon, everyone. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that this conference call contains forward-looking statements based on our current expectations and projections about future events and are subject to change based on various important factors. In light of these risks, uncertainties, and assumptions, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this release. For more details on factors that could affect these expectations, please see our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Heritage Global's Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Ross Dove. Ross?

Thanks, Michael, and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Heritage Global's first earnings conference call. As you may know, we recently uplisted our shares to the NASDAQ stock market, and successfully completed a public offering of our common stock which I'll discuss in more detail a bit later. So as part of our effort to enhance investor relations we wanted to provide the investment community with a forum to discuss quarterly results as well as review why we believe the company is positioned to increasingly leverage our differentiated diversified business model. Heritage Global is an asset liquidation services company specializing Thank you for joining us. of 2019 and adjusted EBITDA of 1.8 million, equating to a 28% growth over the third quarter of 2019. Focusing on industrial assets, Heritage Global advises enterprise and financial customers on the sale via auctions of industrial assets, mostly from surplus and sometimes distressed circumstances, while acting in a range of roles, including as an agent A guarantor or a principal. During the quarter, we continue to capitalize on rising demand for the re-commerce of used surplus equipment as companies increasingly look to source more affordable machinery. As a result, we benefited from strong growth in online auction volumes and related revenue. In addition, auctions represent a key source of market intelligence for our valuation business. Thank you very much. Remember, NLEX provides liquidity to issuers of consumer debt that are looking to monetize charged-off loans which creditors have written off as uncollectible. Second, Heritage Global Capital continues to ramp up its business of providing specialty financing solutions for businesses, small and medium-sized investors in charged-off and non-performing asset portfolios. We're currently excited about deploying a portion of the capital we raised from our recent equity offering to fund secured loans to financial debt buyers. That capital is expected to generate attractive returns with upfront fees, interest income, ongoing fees, and back-end participation. Looking ahead, we remain focused on driving sustainable growth by increasing capitalizing on several powerful drivers. First, a more challenging economic backdrop typically drives increased supply of surplus and distressed assets and rising demand for liquidation services via brokered asset sales, which bodes well for auction volumes. Related to that, ongoing social distancing as a result of COVID-19 pandemic enhances the relative attractiveness of Heritage Global's online auction model. Second, we believe rising charged off consumer loan sales, as indicated by banks significantly increasing their loan loss reserves, will drive expanding volumes and commissions for MLEX, particularly given the continued growth of digital and other non-bank lending platforms. Third, with conventional lenders continuing to tighten underwriting standards to manage credit losses through the cycle, we believe Heritage Global Capital remains well-positioned to capitalize on rising demand for capital by debt buyers. Fourth, the additional working capital from our recent stock offerings Thank you very much. With that, I'll now pass it over to our Chief Financial Officer, Scott West, for a deeper dive into our financials. Thank you.