Perdoceo Education Corporation

Good evening and thank you for attending today's Prodocio Education Corporation fourth quarter 2021 earnings conference call. My name is Selena and I will be your moderator. All lines will be muted during the presentation portion of the call with an opportunity for questions and answers at the end. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to pass the conference over to our host, David Snyder with Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our fourth quarter and full year 2021 earnings call. With me on the call today is Todd Nelson, Executive Chairman, Andrew Hurst, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Ashish Gia, Chief Financial Officer. This conference call is being webcast live within the Investor Relations section at pregocioed.com. A webcast replay will also be available on our site, and you can always contact the Alpha IR 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 these 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 31st, 2021, and subsequent filings with 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 measures. The earnings release that accompanies today's call contains financial and other quantitative information to be discussed today, as well as a reconciliation of the GAAP to non-GAAP measures, and is available within the investor relations page of the company's website. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Todd Nelson. Todd?

Thank you, Davis. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our fourth quarter and full year 2021 earnings call. I'd like to begin by thanking our faculty, student support staff, and all our employees for their hard work, dedication, and diligence in serving and educating our students. 2021 was another good year during which we prioritize resources for academic operations and technology enhancements, while adjusting our operating processes to support and educate our students as they adapted to the challenges presented by the pandemic. We are also pleased with the two acquisitions completed in the second half of 2021, which expanded our institution's portfolio of non-degree professional development and continuing education offerings. Supported by our existing university operations, we believe these businesses have significant opportunities for growth. I'd also like to welcome Andrew Hirsch to today's call as our new president and CEO. Andrew is an industry veteran with almost four decades of experience including over seven years at Prodocio. I've had the pleasure of working with Andrew for a long time and look forward to working with him going forward. Now to our operating results. Fourth quarter net income was $24.5 million, or 35 cents per diluted share, while adjusted earnings per diluted share, which excludes certain significant and non-cash items, was 40 cents. During the quarter, our teams continued to refine and adjust marketing and admissions processes while maintaining their focus on student experiences, retention, and academic outcomes. Let me quickly touch upon some of the key takeaways and highlights from the fourth quarter and full year 2021. 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. During the year, we experienced some student pause their academic programs to decide or to decide not to begin classes, and we believe this will have a lingering impact on total student enrollments during 2022. However, we did experience marginal improvements in student engagement during the fourth quarter and remain cautiously optimistic that those improvements will continue through 2022. Two, 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 total student enrollment during 2022. However, in the long run, we believe these marketing adjustments will further enhance student experiences, retention, and academic outcomes. And then lastly, the leadership team did an excellent job in managing overall expenses responding in part to recent student enrollment levels while continuing to prioritize resources for our student-serving functions. With that, I'd like to turn it over to Andrew to discuss some of the operating trends at our academic institutions. Andrew?