Adtalem Global Education Inc.

Hello, and welcome to the Ad Telum Global Education Second Quarter Fiscal Year 2023 Earnings Call. If anyone should require operator assistance, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It's now my pleasure to turn the call over to Chandrika Nagamp. Please go ahead.

Thank you. I'd like to remind you that this conference call will contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 with respect to the future performance and financial condition of a talent global education that involves risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those projected or implied by these forward-looking statements. Potential risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause results to differ are described more fully in Item 1A, Risk Factors of Unworked Treatments, and will report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC and our other filings with the SEC. Any forward-looking statement made by us is based only on the information currently available to us and speaks only as of the date on which it was made. We undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether written or verbal, that may be made from time to time, whether as a result of new information, future developments, or otherwise, except as required by law. During today's call, our commentary will refer to non-GAAP financial measures which are intended to supplement, though not substitute for, our most direct comparable GAAP measures. Our press release, which contains the GAAP financial and other quantitative information to be discussed today, as well as reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures, is available on our website. Please note that all financial results and comparisons made during today's call are on a continuing operations basis, exclude special items, and are in comparison to the prior year period unless otherwise stated. Telephone and webcast replays of today's call are available for 30 days. To access the replays, please refer to today's press release. We'll begin today's presentation with prepared remarks from Steve Beard, a Talents President and Chief Executive Officer, and then hear from Bob Phelan, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Following the prepared remarks, we will have a question and answer session. And with that, I'll now turn the call over to Steve.

Thank you, Shantrico. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for taking time to join our second quarter fiscal year 2023 earnings call. Our teams delivered another solid quarter. For the fiscal second quarter, we delivered revenue of $363 million and adjusted earnings per share of $1.17. with adjusted EBITDA margins of 25.4%, reflecting a 220 basis point improvement over the prior year. These results demonstrate our commitment to serving our students and driving operational discipline across the organization, supporting long-term profitable growth as we continue to position Atalem as a leading provider of professional talent to the healthcare industry. In the second quarter, We continue to maximize operational effectiveness across our institutions through a range of initiatives. To enhance the student experience, we continue to deploy new capabilities focused on driving improved persistence. We have introduced new affirmative registration tools to aid our students in the process of curating their courses for the upcoming term, providing selections that can be tailored to their individual interests as well as other criteria. This proactive approach also helps our teams prioritize students that might be at risk for not registering for the next term. As a result of these efforts, we're seeing a trend of improving persistence rates across each of our institutions. On the marketing side of the house, we continue to scale our capabilities in branding, paid media, and web experience with the goal of further optimizing our marketing spend. In addition, we're adopting an approach to deploying that spend that is better balanced across the top and bottom of the marketing funnel, allowing us to build brand equity even as we drive improved enrollments. These efforts are occurring in the context of a broad range of transformational initiatives aimed at accelerating performance across the critical value-creating activities that drive sustained profitable growth. Moving on to results by segment, Our performance in the second quarter was largely supported by strength in Chamberlain and MedFed, partially offset by enrollment headwinds at Walden. Importantly, the margin expansion we delivered during the quarter was a direct result of our focused on cost discipline, coupled with solid execution on capturing synergies and what remains of the Walden integration. Looking at our segments, Total enrollment at Chamberlain continued to show modest improvement during the quarter, supported by the success of campus-based BSN programs, along with the growth of BSN online. Qualified medical staff are now needed more than ever due to the national shortage in nurses as evidenced by the recent strike we saw in several New York City-based hospitals. As the leading U.S. nursing educator, we expect Chamberlain to continue to play a key role in filling these gaps and empowering students to make meaningful contributions to the profession. Within MedVet, while the second quarter was not an intake period for the segment, we continue to drive our efforts towards improving student enrollment and persistence rates. Now turning to Walden. Walden remains an important catalyst for ABTALM's transformation. We are making consistent progress in our integration efforts, and expect to fully realize the benefit of Walden's unique capabilities, breadth of programs, and the attractive synergy opportunities the combination affords. We remain confident in our ability to deliver improved enrollments and expect to see improving trends in the latter part of the year. In the meantime, we continue to invest in strengthening the capabilities of our student-facing teams across the segment. While our primary focus has shifted from integration to growth, synergy capture remains on track, and we expect to deliver the anticipated $30 million cost synergies in year two of the acquisition. Our confidence in the near-term prospects for Walden remain high. We expect the investment to deliver its intended results, and just as importantly, we expect it to play a critical role in helping us realize our ambition of being a category of one in healthcare education. Moving on to academic highlights. Our commitment to expanding access to quality education and driving superior outcomes for students remains at the core of what we do. This is underscored by several achievements in the quarter. We're pleased to note that Walden continues to rank first in granting research doctoral degrees in health sciences, psychology, social sciences, business, education, and other non-science and engineering degrees. At Chamberlain, we announced the launch of a home health specialty initiative with funds from a $1.2 million grant from the American Nurses Foundation. As part of this initiative, Chamberlain is developing an online didactic course for use in its nursing programs in partnership with the country's leading home care and medical staffing franchise, Bright Star Care. This course will provide nursing students broader access to home health and other specialties which are in critical need of staffing. At Walden, we're quite excited about the Believe and Achieve Scholarship Program, which recently launched as a tool to enhance persistence for students enrolling starting in the February 2023 session. The program rewards persistence through the student journey and underscores our commitment to empowering students and ensuring that they realize their academic and professional goals. With that, I'll address our guidance for the year. We are reaffirming our fiscal 2023 guidance for revenue to be in the range of $1.38 billion to $1.45 billion, and adjusted earnings per share of $3.95 to $4.20. For the balance of the year, we remain optimistic that the demand environment will continue to improve modestly. Most critically, we are confident that our strategic investments in brand and student experience, coupled with our disciplined operational focus, will support maximized value creation for our shareholders. We are optimistic about the future and the foundation we are building for the students we serve. We're executing on a number of transformational initiatives that will position ATALM to be a key player in the evolving healthcare industry. These efforts are core to our recently launched Growth with Purpose program, which we're excited to tell you more about over the coming months. With hundreds of thousands of medical professionals having exited the space in recent years, along with growing demand for better working conditions, We believe that the programs we provide to address critical shortages in healthcare talent are more important than ever. Our initiatives are centered on supporting enrollment while enhancing student outcomes and propelling our graduates toward gainful employment. This is what drives AdTalent's impact on our communities, which is central to our growth with purpose. We remain enthusiastic about what lies ahead. Now with that, I'll turn the call over to Bob for discussion of our financial results.