Perdoceo Education Corporation

Good afternoon and welcome to the Prodocio Education Corporation third quarter 2021 earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press store then to. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Wyatt Turk. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our third quarter 2021 earnings call. With me on the call today is Todd Nelson, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Ashish Gia, Chief Financial Officer. This conference call is being webcast live within the investor relations section of ProdocioEd.com. A webcast replay will also be available on our site, and you can always contact the AlphiR group for investor relations support. Let me remind you that this afternoon's earnings release and remarks made today include forward-looking statements as defined in Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These statements are based on assumptions made by and information currently available to Prodocio Education and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual future results, performance, business prospects, and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by those statements. These risks and uncertainties include but are not limited to those factors identified in Prodocio's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2020, and subsequent filings of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as expressly required by the securities laws, the company undertakes no obligation to update those factors or any forward-looking statements to reflect future events, developments, or change circumstances, or for any other reason. In addition, today's remarks refer to non-GAAP financial measures, which are intended to supplement, but not substitute, for the most directly comparable GAAP measure. The earnings relief that accompanies today's call contains financial and other quantitative information to be discussed today, as well as the reconciliation of the GAAP and non-GAAP measures is available within the Investor Relations page of the company's website. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Todd Nelson.

Todd? Thank you, Wyatt. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us on our third quarter 2021 earnings call. I'd like to begin by thanking our faculty, student support staff, and all of our employees for their hard work, dedication, and diligence in serving and educating our students. In general, we are pleased with our third quarter results, during which we made adjustments to our marketing and admissions expenses while continuing to prioritize resources for technology and relevant student support processes that we believe enhance student experiences, retention, and academic outcomes. For the quarter, we reported net income of $27.8 million, or $0.39 per diluted share, while adjusted earnings per diluted share, which includes certain significant and non-cash items, was $0.45. It was also a busy quarter on the acquisition front. We completed two acquisitions, Digital Crafts, which closed on August 2nd, and more recently, Hippo Education, which closed on September 10th. Digital crafts provides individuals an opportunity in the technology area through reskilling and upskilling courses within the areas of web development, web design, and cybersecurity. HIPPO Education is a provider of continued medical education and exam preparation for medical professionals. These two recent acquisitions have significantly expanded our non-degree portfolio of professional development and continuing education offerings. Supported by our existing university operations, we believe these businesses will have several opportunities to grow their revenue. Ashish will provide more details around these acquisitions shortly, but for now, let us go back to our operating results. Some of the key takeaways and highlights for the quarter and year-to-date results. First, as discussed last quarter, we believe the prolonged pandemic and its resulting safety measures, as well as the macroeconomic and governmental responses, has impacted overall student engagement. we continue to see some student pause their academic programs or defer their decision to begin classes during the current quarter. We are cautiously optimistic that these trends will reverse and are already seeing some positive signs for our September and October sessions. Second, beginning in the third quarter and aided by data analytics, we made adjustments to our marketing strategies to further improve our focus on identifying prospective students who are more likely to succeed at one of our universities. We believe these adjustments, along with the enrollment trends I just discussed, will impact near-term student enrollments. However, in the long run, we believe these marketing adjustments will further enhance student experiences, retention, and academic outcomes. Third, the team did an excellent job in managing overall expenses, responding in part to recent student enrollment trends while continuing to prioritize resources for our student serving functions. Fourth, we continue to focus on our corporate partnerships programs at both institutions. And as previously mentioned, CTU's enhanced corporate partnership team is fully in place and is already engaged with employers to leverage their tuition assistance programs and provide a debt-free education to their employees. With that said, total student enrollments at September 30th, 2021 decreased by 0.9% compared to our September 30th of the prior year. At CTU, total student enrollments increased 7.5%, primarily due to its academic calendar redesign. As a reminder, CTU implemented a redesigned version of its academic calendar in early 2021, similar to what AIU implemented a few years ago. At AIU, total student enrollments decreased by 11.6%. We believe this decline was attributable to the factors I discussed earlier. Triton University, which primarily serves active duty and military-affiliated student populations, continued to be impacted by the transition of the Army education and registration portal and the subsequent technical challenges with the portal. Triton is working with student individually to minimize confusion and uncertainty. Before turning the caller to Sheesh, I'll now touch briefly on investments in technology and other student-facing functions. Our investments in machine learning and data analytics for the third quarter was largely a continuation from previous quarters. as we further expand their use across academics and advising functions. We also began a multi-year projection to implement enhancements to our student technology infrastructure during this quarter. This includes several upgrades to our mobile platform and virtual campus, as well as a redesign of our digital tool sets and technology that are utilized by our faculty and student support teams to serve and educate students throughout their academic life cycle. We are confident that these upgrades will further enhance student experiences, especially for our non-traditional adult learners, while driving efficiencies within the business. With that said, I would now like to turn the time over to Ashish for a deeper review of our operating performance in quarter. Ashish?