Heritage Global Inc.

Good day, everyone, and welcome to today's Heritage Global Inc. fourth quarter and full year 2024 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, you will have the opportunity to ask questions during the question and answer session. You may register to ask a question at any time by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad. You may withdraw yourself in the queue by pressing star 2. Please note this call may be recorded, and I will be standing by if you should need any assistance. It is now my pleasure to turn the conference over to Mr. John Nesbitt. Please go ahead, sir.

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. We speak only as of the date of this call. For more details and 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. Rostov. Ross?

Thank you, John, and welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining. Let me give you my thoughts first, and then I'll turn it over to Brian to go into more details. 2024 was not the easiest year as I had originally predicted. I'm really proud of the strength of our team and what they showed throughout a series of challenges, staying profitable all year in all our business units quarter after quarter. 9 million in cash flow for the year and 2 million even if you're 2-4 would have a few short years ago been considered some giant windfall. In many ways, it's still an extremely positive outcome. Industrial supply was light in 2003 and again in 2004. However, we stayed profitable and continued to grow our pipeline as many projects were continued to delayed into 2025. We're now seeing much larger asset flow already and with recorded layoffs here at an all-time high. and DOGE accelerating even further corporate rightsizing initiatives, we're now ramping up to meet the supply. We've expanded our warehouse size and our staffing. We've dramatically upgraded our inventory at AOT. We're very positive as we move into the next year. Our M&A efforts have produced now multiple prospects, and we're actively engaged with them. On the financial front, we're excited to be seeing more and more sellers enter the market and more of them rely upon NLEX. There has been an extended period now of high default volumes driving a steady flow of consumer charge-offs with no end in sight. Pricing has stabilized and with increasing buyers absorbing supply, we're now in a robust, active, and growing market. In summary, We're in our strongest cash flow position yet, with near zero debt and entering what I will call and what I will truly define as an auctioneer's market. Take a look at it. 14,000 industrial workers have been laid off in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico just since February 1st, with a wave of closures announced in food processing, in automotive, in trucking, in distribution, and more. It appears clearly there's a rise. That's basically caused by a combination of those people's thoughts about the defaults and an increasing likelihood that it will continue. Demand for used equipment is at an all-time high as people are looking at supply chains tightening and the potential of tariffs raising prices on new equipment and possibly delaying orders. It looks like 2025 is the year of the auctioneer. Near the end of 2024 on the financial side, we saw charge-offs with credit cards hit a decade-plus high, as did with delinquencies. The delinquency high tells us the market will be strong for the next 6 to 12 to 18 months. We're seeing the same with auto loans, and we have a very busy fintech schedule also. All signs point to an economy that is live for auctioneers and a great execution for auctioneers to really take advantage of 2025. It's on us to perform. I feel very comfortable we can. We're rolling strong into the new year, and we're starting out with a very positive look going forward. I'll now turn it over to Brian to give you the background and the details. Thank you all for listening in. Thank you all for sticking with us. And we're feeling good about our future. Go ahead, Brian.