Heritage Global Inc.

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Heritage Global Inc. First Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, you'll have the opportunity to ask questions during the question-and-answer session. You may register to ask a question at any time by pressing the star and 1 on your telephone keypad. Please note today's call will be recorded, and we will be standing by if you should need any assistance. It is now my pleasure to turn today's conference over to John Nesbitt of IMS Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

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 call. 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?

Thank you, John, and welcome all to our first quarter earnings call. I'm pleased to again report a solid profitable quarter. we once again executed safe and smart decisions and transactions across all of our revenue streams. Over $1.5 million in free cash flow affording us the continued currency to fuel growth as we pursue both organic and M&A initiatives aggressively. We had a very slow start to the quarter. It was really a tale of two halves. Until mid-February, the markets we operate in had the similar and continued wait and see sentiment of the second half of last year. But the feeling of a pent up demand continued and then sellers eventually needed to realize that the dispositions decisions they needed to make really took way midway through the quarter and opened up in mid February across the board. We experienced a very strong March with followed with a particularly good April, which really bodes well for both revenue generation and the conversion from our pipeline to contract on multiple larger projects, both fee-driven and principal purchases. Our expectations have a very positive sense that this is a trend that will continue throughout the year and well into 2026. Asset-based lenders of both industrial assets and financial assets want to ensure they have strong cash positions in these uncertain geopolitical landscape. And there is a greater push to mark the market now more expeditiously. We have experienced both large healthy corporations focusing a greater emphasis on surplus and the back end of their supply chains. Alongside this is an increase in corporate bankruptcy filings with more Chapter 11 filings converted to Chapter 7 liquidations, requiring alternate services like we do. Financial asset sellers are moving quicker to recapture values on non-performing loans at both the banking and fintech sectors, as well as with consumer debt remaining still at record levels. Brian will now walk you through in detail our Q1, and then I will come back and give you some thoughts on where we look for our growth going forward. Brian, you're up now.