BRC Group Holdings, Inc.

Good afternoon and welcome to B. Riley Financial's fourth quarter and full year 2021 earnings call. Earlier today, B. Riley issued a press release and presentation detailing its financial results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2021. Copies are available in the investor section of the company's website at ir.brileyfn.com. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. An audio replay will be available on the company's investor relations website later today. Joining us today from B. Riley are Bryant Riley, Chairman, Co-Founder, and Co-CEO, Tom Kelleher, Co-Founder, and Co-CEO, and Philip Ahn, CFO and COO. After management's remarks, we will open the line for questions. And before we conclude today's call, I will provide the necessary cautions regarding forward-looking statements. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Bryant Riley. Mr. Riley, please proceed.

Thanks. Welcome, everyone.

We are pleased to report an extraordinarily successful quarter for B. Riley Financial. 2021 was an important year for us strategically, operationally, and financially. The fourth quarter caps off another record year for B. Riley, where we generated total revenues and total adjusted EBITDA in 2021 of $1.7 billion, and 762 million respectively, representing a 93% revenue increase year-over-year and an 87% increase in our adjusted EBITDA. During the same period, operating revenues totaled 1.35 billion, resulting in operating adjusted EBITDA of 422 million. This translates to a 70% increase in year-over-year operating revenues and a 35% increase in operating adjusted EBITDA. In 2021, our investment banking division delivered extremely strong results thanks to a robust pipeline of activity as we leveraged our growing reputation as a preferred banking partner to small and mid-cap companies. In total, B-Rally Securities raised nearly $7 billion across IPO underwritings, follow-on underwritings, SPAC new issuances, and debt raises in 2021. Over the last three years, B-Rally Securities has gained meaningful market share, expanding our product offerings and our brokerage businesses' earnings. However, I want to take a moment to discuss what we believe is a significant competitive advantage and an important differentiator for our shareholders and team members in view of softer capital markets. As you're likely aware, IPOs, secondaries, and SPAC offerings have effectively come to a halt over the last two months. While it is impossible to predict how long these markets will be closed, I want to briefly discuss why we believe this slowdown will highlight our diversified business model and commitment to managing operating expenses. When we took the business public in 2014, B-Riley Financial effectively consisted of two cyclical subsidiaries, B-Riley Securities, our investment banking business, which we expanded through acquisitions, including FBR in 2017, and most recently Focal Point last month, and Great American Group, which was primarily a retail liquidation business. Since that time, we have added to our collection of operating companies by purchasing four telecom and communication assets, two wealth management businesses, a forensic accounting litigation support and restructuring business, a portfolio of retail brand licenses, a loans receivables portfolio, and several smaller complementary assets. All of these purchases were opportunistic and share the common characteristic of being cash flow generative and mostly uncorrelated assets. This was by design. In addition, we have used our cash and investments of over $2 billion to create an investment portfolio that consists of public and private debt and equity securities in businesses where we have deep conviction and capital appreciation, medium to long-term investment horizons, and have often taken board-level involvement. Approximately $800 million of this portfolio is dedicated to interest-bearing investments and generates approximately $85 million of annual income. This income goes a long way in servicing our interests and servicing our clients, while utilizing approximately a third of our balance sheet. It is important to put this in perspective. When you add a conservative view of the cumulative annual EBITDA generated from these strategic assets to a significant interest income stream, one could assume that if we were to derive almost no income from our BRI securities business, a business that generated operating EBITDA of 51 million, 111 million, and 272 million in 2019, 20, and 21 respectively, we would still have enough cash flow to pay a full $4 annual dividend, which equates to approximately $110 million of excess cash after payment of interest and taxes. Our objective is to utilize the proprietary opportunities that our platform offers to make these types of investments with the goal of continuing to provide a hedge against a market decline and an opportunity to regularly increase our dividends. Despite this robust cash flow from our subsidiaries, we diligently maintain our focus on expense control. Over the last three years, despite revenues related to our B. Reilly Securities broker deal or business more than doubling, our break-even levels for total revenues have increased by only 10%. In summary, when I think about the earnings profile of B. Reilly Financial, I believe we have strong recurring cash flow with minimal correlation to the markets that allows us to confidently return $4 of dividends to shareholders every year, Plus, a brokerage business will provide strong cash flow more correlated with the general markets. This was a key factor in our delivering $10 in total dividends to our common shareholders for 2021. Over time, we will continue to focus on utilizing our cash flow to enhance our business, make accretive acquisitions, and to return capital to our shareholders. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Phil Ahn, our CFO and COO, who will provide more context around our quarterly metrics. And then Tom Keller, our co-CEO, will discuss some highlights across our operating units. Over to you, Phil.