Northern Trust Corporation

Please stand by, we are about to begin. Good day and welcome to the Northern Trust Corporation second quarter 2024 earnings conference call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Jennifer Child, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Northern Trust Corporation second quarter 2024 earnings conference call. Joining me on our call this morning is Mike O'Grady, our chairman and CEO, Jason Tyler, our chief financial officer, John Landers, our controller, and Grace Higgins from our investor relations team. Our second quarter earnings press release and financial trends report are both available on our website at northerntrust.com. Also on our website, you will find our quarterly earnings review presentation, which we will use to guide today's conference call. This July 17th call is being webcast live on northerntrust.com. The only authorized rebroadcast of this call is the replay that will be made available on our website through August 17th. Northern Trust disclaims any continuing accuracy of the information provided in this call after today. Please refer to our safe harbor statement regarding forward-looking statements on page 12 of the accompanying presentation, which will apply to our commentary on this call. During today's question and answer session, please limit your initial query to one question and one related follow-up. This will allow us to move through the queue and enable as many people as possible the opportunity to ask questions as time permits. Thank you again for joining us today. Let me turn the call over to Mike O'Grady.

Thank you, Jennifer. Let me join in welcoming you to our second quarter 2024 earnings call. Our results for the quarter reflect continued progress executing against our strategic priorities, boosted by strong underlying equity markets and favorable client activity levels. Trust fees were up a solid 6% over the prior year. Deposit levels proved resilient, and our capital levels reached a multi-year high. In the quarter, we participated in the Visa Class B common stock exchange offer, positioning us to monetize 50% of our long-held stake in Visa. As a result, we recognized a pre-tax gain of nearly $900 million with another 50% of shares still to be monetized. We intend to use the visa proceeds to fund additional share repurchases, contribute to our charitable foundation, and make investments in the resiliency of our business. Reported results also included approximately $200 million in restructuring charges and other notable items, reflecting our continued efforts to optimize our cost base, drive efficiencies, and effect change within the organization. Jason will discuss the details in a few minutes. Turning to the performance of the business units, wealth management generated 9% year-over-year trust fee growth and our new business momentum remains strong. We're continuing to generate interest from our Secrets of Enterprising Families national book tour, and we're seeing solid success from digital marketing initiatives. In May, we hosted our annual Northern Trust Institute Symposium, attracting more than 1,500 influential estate planning attorneys, trust practitioners, and other wealth industry specialists who serve as key referral sources. We also celebrated the opening of our new office in New York City. Asset management generated positive liquidity flows for the sixth consecutive quarter and delivered strong performance within active fixed income. We raised assets in the private equity space in the quarter, although index flows have otherwise been soft. NTAM continued to leverage our One Northern Trust strategy. delivering clients the solutions and capabilities of the entire firm. Joint meetings between our asset management and asset servicing businesses accelerated in the second quarter, leading to more than 100 new business opportunities and 15 wins year to date. NTAM also launched seven new funds in the second quarter, expanding our global liquidity business and adding to our fixed income solutions. Our asset servicing business performed well in the quarter. Transaction volumes were healthy, Capital markets activities were up 16%, and new business growth continues to be booked at attractive margins. As we discussed, our goal is to generate new business that is scalable. We've shifted our sales focus to opportunities that require lower levels of incremental costs, while emphasizing approaches with multiple points of connectivity. In addition to the bundled sales generated with NTAM, more than 140 existing asset servicing clients have expanded their relationships with us by adding services such as capital markets and data analytics. We're being disciplined on pricing and bidding on fewer opportunities. In spite of our new focused approach, asset servicing continues to realize momentum, particularly among asset owners. In the second quarter, Northern Trust was appointed as the new custodian and asset servicing provider for Nest Invest, the United Kingdom's largest workplace pension scheme. Initially an NTAM client, NEST supports 13 million members and has AUM of approximately $45 billion. Our ability to manage sophisticated strategies and the flexibility of our open architecture approach were the key factors that helped secure this highly competitive win. In North America, we've achieved more than 30 new wins year-to-date among asset owners. We enter the second half of the year with strong market tailwinds and good new business momentum. well positioned to navigate the current macroeconomic environment, and generate value for our stakeholders. With that, I'll turn it over to Jason to review our financial performance for the quarter. Jason?