Laureate Education, Inc.

Hello, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q4 2021 Laureate Education, Inc. Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you'll need to press star 1 on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star 0. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Adam Morse. Senior Vice President of Finance. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us on today's call to discuss Laurier Education's fourth quarter and year-end 2021 results. Joining me on the call today are Iliff Sarkanson, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Rick Buzzkirk, Chief Financial Officer. Our earnings press release is available on the investor relations section of our website at laureate.net. We have also posted a supplementary presentation to the website, which we will be referring to during today's call. The call is being webcast and a complete recording will be available after the call. I'd like to remind you that some of the information we are providing today, including but not limited to our financial and operational guidance constitutes forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable U.S. securities laws. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may change at any time, and therefore, our actual results may differ materially from those we expected. Important factors that could cause actual results that differ materially from our expectations are disclosed in our annual report on Form 10-K, followed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, earlier this morning, as well as other filings made with the SEC. In addition, all forward-looking statements are based on current expectations as of the date of this conference call, and we undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. Additionally, non-debt measures that we discuss, including, and among others, adjusted EBITDA and its related margin, total cash, net of debt, and free cash flow, are also detailed and reconciled to their GAAP counterparts in our press release or supplementary presentation. Let me now turn the call over to Ayla.

Thank you, Adam, and good morning, everyone. 2021 was a year of structural transformation for L'Oréal. We completed all our pending divestitures at very accretive multiples. We paid on our debt. We significantly increased both our margins and free cash flow generation. and we returned nearly 1.8 billion U.S. dollars of capital to our shareholders. Laureate is now a strong and focused leader in higher education in Spanish-speaking Latin America. The growth agenda we initiated during the first half of 2021 continued to drive strong performance. Our fourth quarter results were ahead of guidance And for the full year 2021, we grew organic company currency revenue by 9% and adjusted EBITDA by an impressive 39%. The past two years have tested the resilience and adaptability of our students, faculty, and staff, as well as our entire organizations. I want to thank our faculty and staff once again for their agility and commitment to deliver on our promises to our students during another extraordinary year. Though the pandemic is not over, infection rates are declining rapidly in both Mexico and Peru, and we are now readying our campuses for a return of students this semester. We look forward to welcoming students and faculty back on site and will ensure we do that in a safe and responsible manner. We know our students are excited to get back to campus. As we begin 2022, I'm very encouraged by the trends in the business and our growth momentum. We are seeing positive signs from a market perspective and in terms of the effectiveness of our growth initiatives. Let me briefly remind you of the market dynamics of higher education in Mexico and Peru. Both countries are large and attractive markets with a combined population of more than 160 million people. Participation rates are growing, but still well below the levels we see in developed markets, thus providing significant headroom for growth. The regulatory conditions are clear and very conducive to private participation in higher education in both Mexico and Peru. Over half the student population in the combined market is served by the private sector, and Laureate is a quality operator at scale with approximately 200,000 students in each of our markets. We own the leading brands in both Mexico and Peru, and our institutions are among the most highly reputed universities in their respective markets. We are operating an identical segmentation strategy for both countries, where we have brands in the premium market and another brand in what we call the value segment. The pandemic has accelerated the adoption of online education in these markets, and L'Oréal is a digital leader in Mexico and Peru. These favorable market dynamics, combined with our growth momentum, give us confidence to announce a strong outlook for 2022. we anticipate top-line revenue growth at high single digits to low double digits, and for our adjusted EBITDA to increase by over 20% during 2022. In 2022, we will also continue to focus on closing the gap between the intrinsic value of our assets and the trading value of our stock. In addition to driving growth, we will continue to prioritize return of capital. We have a cash-accreted business model and a strong balance sheet, which gives us plenty of options. We currently have 132 million of remaining share repurchase authorization from our board, and we plan to distribute the remaining net proceeds from the Wharton sale including what is released from the ASCO in the second half of this year. I will now turn the call over to Rick Boskert for a more detailed financial overview of the fourth quarter and full year 2021 performance, as well as further details on our 2022 outlook. Rick?