Laureate Education, Inc.

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Laureates Education's second quarter 2026 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 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 Morse, Senior Vice President of Finance. Please go ahead.

Good morning and thank you for joining us on today's call to discuss Lardy Education's second quarter 2026 results. Joining me on the call today are Eilif Serck-Hanssen, President and Chief Executive Officer and Rick Buskirk, Chief Financial Officer. Our inks 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 and many more. Thank you very much. filed 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, the 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 debt net of cash and cash equivalents 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 Eilif.

Thank you, Adam, and good morning, everyone. I am pleased to report strong execution across the board for the second quarter and first half of 2026. Through year-to-date June, new and total enrollments were up 10% and 6% respectively versus the comparable period in prior year, driving 7% growth in revenue on a timing-adjusted and constant currency basis. In addition to favorable operating results, we have also benefited from improved currency over the past few months. As a result, we are raising our full year 2026 outlook at the midpoint by $28 million for revenue, $8 million for adjusted EBITDA, and $0.03 per share for adjusted earnings per share. The operating momentum of our business, as well as the strong balance sheet and free cash flow generation, continue to support our commitment to return excess capital to shareholders. Through the first half of the year, we repurchased $181 million worth of our shares, and today we are announcing an additional $150 million increase to our stock repurchase program. Throughout the first half of the year, we continue to advance on key priorities, which include the opening of new campuses and investment in digital leadership. The two new campuses we opened last year in Monterrey, Mexico and Lima, Peru's Ato District continue to perform in line with our expectations. Our new campus opening for this year in Puebla, Mexico is off to a strong start with enrollments already well underway for our primary intake in September. Looking beyond these projects, we have a clear multi-year roadmap of attractive new campus expansion opportunities across both Mexico and Peru and have already secured multiple sites to support that growth pipeline in the years to come. We do expect two new campus projects to be operational next year, one in southern Lima, which is on track to open during the first quarter of 2027, and one in Mérida, Mexico, which we anticipate being open in time for our primary intake in September of 2027. Further momentum for new campus openings are planned for 2028 and beyond. On the digital front, AI is becoming a core capability across our organization and an increasingly important driver of our long-term strategy. We are modernizing not only how and what we teach, but also how we operate, translating technology-enabled efficiencies into greater affordability, broader access to high-quality education, and further progress towards L'Oréal's mission. By enabling AI throughout the student journey, we aim to deliver more personalized learning experiences, strengthen student support, and improve academic outcomes. At the same time, we are equipping our faculty and staff with AI-enabled tools that allow them to focus on activities that create the greatest value for our students. To support this transformation, we are investing in our data and IT infrastructure and collaborating with leading technology companies. By leveraging their expertise and capabilities, we are orchestrating and building an integrated ecosystem of AI-powered learning, cloud, and education solutions for more than 500,000 students, faculty, and staff across Mexico and Peru. From a geopolitical and macroeconomic perspective, the backdrop in Mexico and Peru remains stable, and we are confident in the long-term fundamentals of both markets. In Mexico, the existing USMCA trade agreement remains in place through 2036 and continues to provide Mexico with reliable and preferential access to the US and Canadian markets, supporting investments in economic cross-border opportunities across North America. Although the USMCA agreement wasn't extended during the first mandatory joint review in July of this year, the absence of consensus simply activates the annual review mechanism beginning in 2027. Mexico continues to play a central role in the regional economy as the United States' largest trading partner. and the record export level for Mexico into the United States during May shows that trade and supply chain integration between the two countries remain very strong. Future bilateral discussion will focus on improving market access, strengthening regional production and addressing select tariffs. In Peru, the political outlook has become more stable following the recent national election. President Keiko Fujimori is expected to pursue a more market-oriented agenda, which could strengthen business confidence, encourage private investment, and support further economic growth, reinforcing Peru's long-standing position as one of Latin America's more established and resilient market economies. That concludes my prepared remarks, and I will now turn the call over to Rick Buskirk for a more detailed financial overview of our second quarter and year-to-date performance, as well as further details on our 2026 full-year outlook.