Acadian Asset Management Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Acadian Asset Management Inc. Earnings Conference call and webcast for the second quarter 2026. During the call, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. After the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. To be added to the queue, please press the star followed by one at any time during the call. If you need to reach an operator, please press the star followed by zero. Please note that this call is being recorded today, Thursday, July 30th, 2026 at 11 a.m. Eastern Time. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Melody Huang, Senior Vice President, Director of Finance and Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Melody.

Good morning and welcome to Acadian Asset Management Inc.'s conference call to discuss our results for the second quarter ended June 30th, 2026. Before we begin the presentation, please note that we may make forward-looking statements about our business and financial performance. Each forward-looking statement is subject to risk and certainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. Additional information regarding this risk and uncertainties appears in our SEC filings, including the Form 8-K filed today containing the earnings released, our 2025 Form 10-K, and our Form 10-Q for the first quarter of 2026. Any forward-looking statements that we make on this call are based on assumptions as of today and we undertake no obligation to update them as a result of new information of future events. We may also reference certain non-GAAP financial measures. Information about any non-GAAP measures referenced, including a reconciliation of those measures to GAAP measures, can be found on our website along with the slides that we will use as part of today's discussion. Finally, Nothing Hereum shall be deemed to be an offer or solicitation to buy any investment products. Kelly Young, our President and Chief Executive Officer, will lead the call. And now I'm pleased to turn the call over to Kelly.

Thanks, Melody. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. I'm delighted to share our exceptional Q2 26 results with you. As Acadian celebrates its 40th anniversary, our assets under management and profitability continue to reach new heights, with recent strong growth underscoring sustained momentum in our business and disciplined execution of our strategic plan. Before turning to the quarter in more detail, I want to highlight an investment team update that reflects both continuity and ongoing investment in our capabilities. We're pleased to announce that Alex Voigtnock, our Deputy Chief Investment Officer, will become co-CIO alongside Brendan Bradley, effective January 1st, 2027. Alex has been with Acadian since 2012 and has played an increasingly important leadership role across our investment organisation, specifically in the areas of portfolio construction, implementation, data infrastructure and investment engineering. This move further strengthens dedicated oversight across data, process, risk and trading as we continue to scale and allows Brendan to focus on investment policy, research innovation and strategic investment priorities. We're also pleased to have welcomed Jonathan Briggs, formerly of TC43 and CPP Investments, as well as certain other members of the former TC43 team to Acadian's investment organisation. Their research, data engineering and modelling capabilities are highly complementary to our systematic investment platform and will help accelerate work already undertaken across our research and innovation agenda. Taken together, these developments reflect the same strategic planning and organizational continuity that have defined Akkadian for decades. Disciplined systematic investing, continued investment in talent and technology, and a steady focus on delivering long-term outcomes for our clients. We're also pleased to see Akkadian move up meaningfully in the latest annual pensions and investments largest money managers ranking, rising to number 62 from number 76 last year. While rankings are only one measure, we view this as further external recognition of the scale we've built and the momentum we're seeing across the business. We continue to deliver outstanding results across all key metrics in the second quarter. Our US GAAP net income attributable to controlling interests was up 170% and EPS was up 171% compared to the prior year, driven by increased management fees, partially offset by non-cash expenses representing changes in the value of Acadian LLC equity and profit interests. ENI was up 107% to $47.5 million, and our ENI diluted EPS of $1.33 was up 108% driven by revenue growth. Our adjusted EBITDA was up 79%. We realized $4.3 billion of positive net client cash flows in Q2 26, representing a 9% annualized organic growth rate driven by enhanced and extension strategies. and finally AUM grew 54% from Q2 2025 to $232.7 billion as of June 30, 2026, marking another record high for Acadian. Turning to slide three, Acadian's investment performance track record remains strong. Five major implementations comprise the majority of our assets. As of June 30th, 2026, global equity, emerging markets equity, non-US equity, small cap equity, and enhanced equity have 100% of assets outperforming benchmarks across three, five, and 10-year periods, with only one exception. Global equity markets delivered strong double-digit performance in Q2 2026, while navigating significant volatility with a challenging geopolitical and macroeconomic backdrop. Emerging markets were standout performers, posting their strongest quarterly gains since 2009, which presented a tailwind for Acadian's portfolio returns. Acadian generated strong investment performance with broad-based outperformance across most major strategies. Our short term performance continued to improve in the quarter. 77% of assets outperformed over the trailing one year period. We believe these results reinforce the consistency and resilience of our disciplined, systematic investment process, which has been built and refined over Acadian's 40 year history. Slide four details how our investment process has generated meaningful long term alpha for our clients. Our revenue-weighted five-year annualized return in excessive benchmark was 4.3% as of the end of Q2 26 on a consolidated firm-wide basis. Our asset-weighted five-year annualized return in excessive benchmark was 3.6% as of the end of the quarter. By revenue weight, 96% of Acadian strategies outperformed their respective benchmarks across three, five and 10 year periods as of June 30th, 2026. And by asset weight, 94% of Acadian strategies outperformed their respective benchmarks across three, five and 10 year periods. The next slide highlights our sustained momentum in net flows. We realized positive net flows of 4.3 billion in Q2 26, representing a 9% annualized organic growth rate. Gross inflows were diverse across products and client types and driven by enhanced and extension strategies. We've now generated 10 consecutive quarters of positive net flows. and we continue to focus on renewing our pipeline, which remains very healthy and active after the funding of a number of significant client wins in Q2, 2026. I'm now going to turn the call over to our CFO, Scott Hynes, to provide you with more detail on our financial performance this quarter and an update on capital allocation.