Hamilton Lane Incorporated

Good morning. My name is Patricia and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Hamilton Lane Fiscal Year 2022 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, you may press the pound key. Thank you. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. John Oh, Investor Relations Manager. You may begin the conference.

Thank you, Patricia. Good morning and welcome to the Hamilton Lane Q4 Fiscal 2022 Earnings Call. Today, I will be joined by Mario Giannini, CEO, Eric Hirsch, Vice Chairman, and Atul Varma, CFO. Before we discuss the quarter's results, we want to remind you that we will be making forward-looking statements based on our current expectations for the business. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause the actual results to differ materially. For discussion of these risks, please review the risk factors included in the Hamilton Lane Fiscal 2021 10-K and subsequent reports we file with the SEC. We will also be referring to non-GAAP measures that we view as important in assessing the performance of our business. Reconciliation of those non-GAAP measures to GAAP can be found in the earnings presentation materials made available on the shareholder section of the Hamilton Lane website. Our detailed financial results will be made available when our 10-K is filed. Please note that nothing on this call represents an offer to sell or a solicitation to purchase interest in any of Hamilton Lane's products. Beginning with the financial highlights, for fiscal 2022, management and advisory fee revenue grew by 9% while our fee-related earnings grew by 11% versus the prior year. This translated into full-year GAAP EPS of $3.98 based on $146 million of GAAP net income and non-GAAP EPS of $4.39 based on $235 million of adjusted net income. Lastly, Our board has approved a 14% increase to our annual fiscal dividend to $1.60 per share, or 40 cents per share per quarter. This now marks the fifth consecutive annual dividend increase since going public in 2017, each over 10%, and with an average increase of over 18%. Our ability to consistently increase distributions to shareholders every year speaks to the growth and strength of our business. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Mario.

Thanks, John, and good morning. A few quick firm updates, beginning with the partnership that we recently announced. On April 5th, Hamilton Lane joined Ownership Works, a nonprofit organization that works with companies and investors to provide all employees with the opportunity to build wealth through equity. Echoing our own belief in the importance of equity culture, the organization was created to support public and private companies transitioning to shared ownership models. By 2030, Ownership Works anticipates the shared ownership movement will create hundreds of thousands of new employee owners across the U.S. Hamilton Lane joins a consortium of prominent organizations, including Goldman Sachs, KKR, JPMorgan, the Ford Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation, supporting Ownership Works in its mission. I'll also be joining the Board of Directors on behalf of Hamilton Lane. Shifting gears here, I'll now move to an update regarding our office locations. The firm continues to expand our geographic footprint, and we have opened an office in Zug, Switzerland. We've been serving clients in that region for over two decades, and the new office now provides a direct base from which to continue supporting and servicing our clients and build on our momentum in the region, particularly within the private wealth space. Our total office count now stands at 20. Lastly, before I move on to some results for the quarter, I want to take this opportunity to highlight the release of our 2022 market overview. Some of you may be familiar with our market overview, but for those who are not, it's an annual data-driven review and analysis of the private markets powered by our own private markets database and in-house research capabilities. In it, we conduct an in-depth review of the key drivers of the asset class over the last year and provide our perspective on what may unfold in the markets going forward. This year, in addition to a narrative version of the market overview, we presented the report in a highly produced virtual format, which allowed us to reach our largest audience yet. Over 1,300 individuals globally joined the live release event with many more viewing the piece on demand. 65% of the attendees represented investors and the remaining 35% fund managers and industry thought leaders. For those who are interested in this year's market overview, please visit our website for more information. Let me now turn to the results for the fiscal year, which were strong across the entirety of the business. Our total asset footprint at fiscal year-end, which we define as the sum of our AUM, assets under management, and AUA, assets under advisement, stood at approximately $901 billion, and represents a 25% increase to our footprint year-over-year, continuing our long-term growth trend. AUM growth year-over-year, which was $19 billion, or 21%, came from both our specialized funds and customized separate accounts. As for our AUAs, similar to that of our AUM, growth was from across client type and geographic region and came in at $164 billion, or 26%. As we have mentioned on prior earnings calls, AUA can fluctuate quarter to quarter for a variety of reasons, but the revenue associated with AUA does not necessarily move in lockstep with those changes. Let me now turn it over to Eric.