Laureate Education, Inc.

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Fiscal Year 2025 Laureate Education, Inc. Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising that your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Adam Morris, Senior Vice President of Finance. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us on today's call to discuss Laureate Education's fourth quarter and year-end 2025 results. Joining me on the call today are Alec Sarkanson, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Rick Buskirk, Chief Financial Officer. Our in-press release is available on the investor relations section of our website at laureate.net. We've 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 would 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 to differ materially from our expectations are disclosed in our annual report on Form 10-K filed 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-GAAP measures that we discuss, including and among others, adjusted EBITDA and its related margin, adjusted net income, and adjusted earnings per share, total cash and equivalents, net of total 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 Alice.

Thank you, Adam, and good morning, everyone. L'Oréal delivered another strong year of performance in 2025 with sustained revenue growth and expanding margins. Full-year revenue reached $1.7 billion and adjusted EBITDA was $519 million, both exceeding the guidance we provided last October. Throughout 2025, we continued to execute on both our growth agenda and our productivity initiatives, which resulted in top-line growth of 9% and a historical high margin of 30.5% for the full year. We've maintained strong financial discipline throughout the year and closed 2025 with a net cash possession. Our cash-accretive business model enabled us to return $217 million of capital to shareholders last year through our stock repurchase program we remain well positioned to continue to invest in future growth and innovation while maintaining our commitment to returning access capital to shareholders today we are also pleased to announce that our board of directors has authorized an additional 150 million dollars increase to our stock repurchase program underscoring our focus on long-term value creation for shareholders With nearly 500,000 students across Mexico and Peru, we have proven that excellence and scale can go hand in hand. The scale that we have achieved provides significant competitive advantages in terms of our ability to invest in growth, innovation, and academic excellence. In 2025, we continue to strengthen our academic offerings and made further investments in our campus networks, including the opening of two new campuses for our value brands, one in Monterrey, Mexico, and one in Lima's Ate District. Both projects opened on time and on budget, and they performed as expected during their first year of RAMP. We also made further investments in our health sciences portfolio last year, including the opening of one new medical school and one new veterinary school. Health science programs remain a key focus for our institutions, given the long term demand and workforce needs for graduates in that field of study. Laurette also continues to lead the way in innovation, both inside and outside the classroom. The significant investments we have made in online capabilities position us as the leader in online education in both markets. We now serve more than 100,000 students in our fully online programs focused on working adults. Within our back office, our innovation capabilities have been acknowledged by industry leaders such as Google, who recently recognized L'Oréal Mexico as the most advanced company in digital marketing maturity across all industries in Spanish-speaking Latin America. These type of recognitions highlight L'Oréal's deep digital expertise, which in turn has put us at the significant competitive advantage when it comes to embedding AI tools into our student lifecycle journey. Our investments combined with innovation mindset continues to drive improvement in our academic quality and student outcomes. Throughout the network, our institutions continue to be recognized as leaders in the sector. We are pleased to share the latest results from QS Stars, one of the world's leading independent university ranking and ratings organizations. For the third consecutive years, All our universities in Mexico and Peru have achieved five-star rating, the highest rating attainable in employability, online learning, and social impact. Our institutions also received strong market recognition for academic excellence and brand leadership. A few examples from this past year include, in Peru, UPC ranked the number one education brand for the fifth consecutive year by Merco and received a five-star global university rating by QA Stars. In Mexico, UVM was ranked the second best private university by Reader's Digest 2025 ranking, second only to Tec de Monterrey. Our value brands in both markets, UPN in Peru and Unitec in Mexico, were ranked in the top 10 in their respective countries by the same ranking agencies. I extend my deepest gratitude to our faculty and staff for their commitment to academic excellence and congratulate them on these outstanding recognitions. Looking ahead, we remain confident that the demand for quality higher education in both Mexico and Peru will continue to increase. This demand is fueled by rising participation rate, strong wage premiums for graduates, and the affordability of our programs. Additionally, the private sector, which accounts for over 55% of the combined university seats in the two countries, plays a critical role in the market due to limited public resources. For 2026, our guidance call for U.S. dollar reported revenue growth of 11 to 12%, of which approximately five point is attributable to the more favorable FX environment. Further, we expect 50 basis points of margin expansion during 2026, reflecting continued operating leverage from growth initiatives, despite some incremental costs associated with the opening of new campus locations. We see sustained growth opportunities in both markets, including building additional new campuses for our value brands in new cities and site locations over the next five year period, and have already begun to procure land for some of these new sites. Additionally, we are expanding our addressable market through continued AI enabled investments in digital education with a significant focus on fully online segment for working adults. Many of our AI tools that we have developed for the online portfolio are also being deployed to our face-to-face students and short course upskilling efforts. From a macroeconomic perspective, we expect Mexico's GDP growth for 2026 to be relatively modest, albeit slightly better than 2025. The key upcoming event to watch is the USMCA trade negotiations. President Sheinbaum's pragmatic approach to managing the U.S.-Mexico relationship has helped maintain a constructive tone as discussions are being kicked off. Many economists anticipate a favorable outcome and are projecting an increase in economic activity for Mexico starting in the second half of 2026, setting the stage for more robust GDP growth in 2027. In Peru, the economy continues to perform solidly with strong domestic demand and a favorable macro environment. Supportive monetary conditions, strong commodity prices, and new mining projects should continue to underpin strong economic activity throughout the year, even against the backdrop of a presidential election. From a supply and demand perspective in Peru, we continue to rapidly scale our fully online offerings, but are somewhat capacity constrained in our face-to-face campus operations. We expect that to be alleviated following the launch of our second new campus that opens in March of 2027 in South Lima, with additional new campus projects beyond that already in the pipeline. That concludes my prepared remarks, and I will now turn the call over to Rick Boskirk for a more comprehensive financial overview of the fourth quarter and full year 2025 performance, as well as further details on our 2026 outlook. Rick?