T. Rowe Price Group, Inc.

Good morning. My name is Norma, and I will be your conference facilitator today. Welcome to T. Rowe Price's first quarter 2024 earnings conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode until question and answer period. I'll give you instructions on how to ask questions at that time. As a reminder, this call is being recorded and will be available for replay on T. Rowe Price's website shortly after the call concludes. I will now turn the call over to Linsley Caruth, T. Rowe Price's Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Hello, and thank you for joining us today for our first quarter earnings call. The press release and a supplemental materials document can be found on our IR website at investors.troweprice.com. Today's call will last approximately 45 minutes. Our CEO and President Rob Sharps, CFO Jen Dardis, and Head of Global Distribution, Dee Sawyer, will discuss the company's results for about 20 minutes. Then we'll open it up to your questions, at which time we'll be joined by Head of Global Investments, Eric Bile. We ask that you limit it to one question per participant. I'd like to remind you that during the course of this call, we may make a number of forward-looking statements and reference certain non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to the forward-looking statement language and the reconciliations to GAAP in the supplemental materials, as well as in our press release in 10Q. All investment performance references to peer groups on today's call are using Morningstar peer groups. Now I'll turn it over to Rob.

Linsley, thank you, and thank you all for joining us this morning for our first quarter update. Before I get started, I'm pleased to say that Dee Sawyer, our head of global distribution and a member of our firm's management committee, will be joining us today. Dee will provide an overview of our retirement business, which is critical to our clients and integral to our firm's long-term success. We'll hear from Dee after Jen's update on our financial results. With that, I'll turn to first quarter performance. Tailwinds from stronger than anticipated markets drove assets under management up in the first quarter, bringing our total assets under management to $1.54 trillion as of March 31st, a 15% increase over the first quarter of 2023. Our first quarter net outflows of $8 billion were about half the level we had in the first quarter of last year. This improvement came from increased client demand driving higher sales and stronger investment performance reducing redemptions, particularly in U.S. equity. As I said on last quarter's call, we expect to see net outflows in 2024, but anticipate substantial improvement compared to last year. However, this improvement will not be linear. It's important to understand that monthly flows can be heavily impacted by client activity, including rebalancing, new mandates, and terminations. So far in the second quarter, net flows are shaping up to be weaker in April, in part due to rebalancing in a handful of large clients. However, at this point, our pipeline suggests the balance of the quarter will be stronger. Investment performance was solid in the first quarter, with 65% of our funds beating their peer group one-year medians. I'd like to mention a few other performance highlights. Our capital appreciation, U.S. equity research, mid-cap value, and financial services funds all had top quartile performance versus peers for the one, three, and five-year time periods. Our integrated U.S. small-cap core and integrated global equity funds which combine our fundamental and systematic processes, we're also top quartile performers for these time periods. And in our multi-asset range, our nearer-dated retirement funds, the 2005 to 2035 vintages, as well as our managed payout fund, Retirement Income 2020, are all top quartile performers for the one-, three-, and five-year periods. All vintages of our more recently launched retirement blend funds are top quartile performers for the one-year period. Over 50% of our fixed income funds beat their peer group medians for the one, three, and five-year time periods. And several of our fixed income muni funds, as well as our global multi-sector bond, credit opportunities, and U.S. dollar hedged international bond funds are in the top third of their peer groups for these same periods. Investment performance across the alternatives platform in the first quarter was generally strong. Private credit, structured products, and liquid portfolios generated attractive returns driven by strong credit selection and favorable market dynamics. Before I turn it over to Jen, I want to acknowledge our associates. We reached important milestones in the first quarter thanks to their hard work and commitment to our clients, including Our capital appreciation equity ETF surpassed $1 billion in assets under management less than a year after its launch last June. Across a number of channels, we are seeing sales momentum with significant year-over-year gross sales improvement with our wealth and individual investor clients. Earlier this month, Ocredit launched on its first major wire house, demonstrating the close partnership of T. Rowe Price and OHA, in successfully launching our first BDC with a key strategic partner in the wealth management channel. We retained our number two position among the over 330 asset managers nominated in Institutional Investors 2024 ranking of America's top asset management firms. This distinction reflects the value of our corporate access model and the importance of our differentiated research capabilities. And for the 14th consecutive year, The firm was named one of Fortune Magazine's world's most admired companies. I'm proud of these accomplishments and am grateful to our associates around the globe who continue to put our clients first in everything they do. With that, Jen will now provide an overview of our first quarter results.