Artisan Partners Asset Management Inc. Class A

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the Artisan Partners first quarter 2024 conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please email a conference specialist by pressing star and zero on your telephone keypads. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star and one using a telephone keypad. To withdraw your questions, you may press star and two. We do also ask that you please limit yourselves to the two, your questions to two, in order to allow time for other questions. Please note this event is being recorded. I'd now like to turn the floor over to Artisan Partners Asset Management. You may begin.

Welcome to the Artisan Partners Asset Management Business Update and Earnings Call. Today's call will include remarks from Eric Coulson, CEO, Jason Gottlieb, President, BJ Daley, CFO. Following these remarks, we will open the line for questions. Our latest results and investor presentations are available on the investor relations section of our website. Before we begin today, I would like to remind you that comments made during today's call including responses to questions, may include forward-looking statements. These are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties, including the not limited to the factors set forth in our earnings release and detailed in our SPC filing. These risks and uncertainties may cause actual results to differ materially from those disclosed in the statement and we assume no obligation to update or revise any of these statements following the presentation. In addition, some of our remarks today will include references to non-GAAP financial measures. You can find reconciliations of those measures to the most comparable GAAP measures in the earnings release and the supplemental materials, which can be found on our Investor Relations website. Also, please note that nothing on this call constitutes an offer or solicitation to purchase or sell an interest in any Artisan investment product or recommendation for any investment advice. I will now turn it over to Eric Coulson, CEO.

Thank you. And thank you everyone for joining the call or reading the transcript. We constantly come back to who we are. We are a high value added investment firm. designed for talent to thrive in a thoughtful growth environment. This is who we have always been. It is our DNA and our competitive edge. We steer clear of narrow labels. A term like traditional manager has never accurately described who we are and what we do. We have always taken a broader view. Our focus has always been on high-value added investments managed by exceptional talent. In our earliest years, with great talent, we entered the marketplace in non-core, high-dispersion areas like small-cap and mid-cap equities, international growth, and value investing. These were and remain areas where exceptional talent can generate differentiated results. When we entered fixed income in 2014, we started with high yields. another inefficient space where talented portfolio management can add value and manage risk. We have expanded our fixed income capabilities with additional high-value-added strategies, including long-short credit, emerging market debt, and global macro. We have demonstrated time and again our ability to deliver across different talent, generations, asset classes, geographies, and client types. by building and maintaining a home designed specifically for investment talent. We are able to generate alpha for clients, develop durable investment franchises, and produce quality outcomes for shareholders. Turning to slide two, in my 2023 annual letter, I described the characteristics that we believe define an ideal home for investment talent. It all starts with our investment first culture. This culture originates from the belief system of our investment talent who must have a passionate conviction in their investment philosophy and a willingness to execute through thick and thin over long periods of time. This waterfall of passion, philosophy, process, execution, and alignment flows into business operation and distribution, which we build and manage for our investment talent and investment capabilities, not the other way around. At Artisan Partners, every single person prioritizes investments, from the board of directors to our newest associates and across all functional areas of the firm. Everything is focused on and flows from investments. We attract and retain great talent. That talent generates results for clients. Revenues grow over time. We generate successful outcomes for our associates and shareholders. At Artisan, each investment team operates autonomously with respect to its investment philosophy, process, people, research, and decision-making. We complement investment team autonomy with extensive resources and support, customized to fit each team. We believe that the Artisan combination of investment autonomy, resources, and support is unique in the industry and a competitive advantage. is what attracted Brian Krug to join Artisan Partners in 2013 and partner with us to establish the Artisan Credit Team. On April 1st, the Credit Team's high-income strategy had its 10th anniversary, joining 10 other Artisan strategies with track records of more than 10 years. I've asked Jason to spend a few minutes on the Credit Team's platform and, most importantly, the team's future.