Brookfield Asset Management Ltd.

Hello and welcome to Brookfield Asset Management's fourth quarter 2024 conference call and webcast. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you'll need to press star 1 1 on your telephone. I would now like to hand the conference over to our first speaker, Mr. Jason Fuchs, Managing Director, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you for joining us today for Brookfield Asset Management's earnings call. On the call today, we have Bruce Vlat, our chief executive officer, Connor Teske, our president, and Hadley Pierre-Marshall, our chief financial officer. Bruce will start the call today with opening remarks on the tailwinds driving our business, followed by Connor, who will highlight our success over the past year and how that positions us well for 2025. And finally, Hadley will discuss our financial results and business operations. After our formal comments, we'll turn the call over to the operator and take analyst questions. In order to accommodate all those who want to ask questions, we ask that you refrain from asking more than two questions at one time. If you have additional questions, please rejoin the queue and we'll be happy to take additional questions at the end, if time permits. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that in today's comments, including in responding to questions and in discussing new initiatives in our financial and operating performance, we may make forward-looking statements, including forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable Canadian and U.S. securities law. These statements reflect predictions of future events and trends and do not relate to historic events. They're subject to known and unknown risks and future events and results may differ materially from such statements. For further information on these risks and their potential impacts on our company, please see our filings with the securities regulators in Canada and the US and the information available on our website. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Bruce.

Thank you and good morning to everyone on the call. We had a strong 2024 as both earnings and capital raising continued to gain momentum throughout the year, reflecting the strong growth profile of our business and the increasingly positive sentiment in the market today. Over the past year, we raised over $135 billion, including a record $29 billion of organic fundraising in the fourth quarter, deployed $48 billion, and monetize $30 billion of investments, our strongest year across the board. We expect this to continue as improving sentiment and increased liquidity in the capital markets is significantly favoring high-quality real assets. This has had and will continue to have an outsized impact on our portfolio, allowing us to finance our businesses at attractive levels, both increasing distributions and making assets easier to sell. The 18% annual growth of our fee-bearing capital base to $539 billion enabled us to generate $2.5 billion of fee-related earnings and $2.4 billion of distributable earnings for the year. This year, we also benefited from the strategic investments we made to expand our credit origination capabilities and bolstering our fundraising organization across both institutional and private wealth channels as we look to expand and diversify our product offerings. In addition, we add new partner managers and increase our investment in Oaktree. We want to spend a few minutes today speaking about the secular trends that will propel our business over the next decade and beyond. First, the alternative asset industry is poised to more than double. growth is being driven by institutional investors steadily increasing allocation to private funds alongside high net worth financial advisors who are increasingly allocating to alternative strategies. At the same time, the rise of private credit introduces additional fundraising opportunities, whether from insurers seeking investment grade solutions and the likely of inclusion of alternatives in retirement accounts. A second major trend is the ongoing consolidation of managers. Large clients are looking to streamline their relationships and want to allocate more to the largest managers with diversified global platforms and a proven track record. This should benefit our flagship strategies and also attract more SMAs where we can allocate client capital to both single strategies or across numerous businesses of ours. Finally, we are strategically aligned with the largest themes of our time. Digitalization and the associated infrastructure build-out, which is being further accelerated by artificial intelligence. The increasing demand for power, especially low-cost clean power. And the continued growth of private credit across all sectors. Starting first with digitalization. Artificial intelligence, which continues to expand at a remarkable pace, is further propelling digitalization, creating significant opportunities for us to invest in areas such as data centers, telecom towers, fiber, and semiconductor fabrication. At the same time, our operating businesses are using AI to drive more automation and productivity, supply chain optimization, and improved customer engagement. enhancing cash flows in order to support stronger investment returns. Second, upgrading power grids to meet large energy requirements will necessitate nearly doubling electricity generation. I'll repeat that again, doubling electricity generation along with transmission and or battery capacity. which will continue to drive opportunities for our infrastructure and many of our other businesses. Renewables will be the biggest beneficiary of growing electricity demand because they are the cheapest option, and off-takers will always absorb as much of the cheapest source power before turning to more expensive forms of power. Yet digitalization is only part of the story driving unprecedented global clean energy needs. As more countries are prioritizing energy security, development of renewables and nuclear power is the only path. With over $125 billion of AUM, deep operational expertise, and a reputation as a partner of choice, we are well placed to capture this accelerating demand. Lastly, on private credit. Private credit remains a very attractive and growing asset class spurred by desire among borrowers for flexible capital solutions. Alternative managers with specialized industry expertise like us are well positioned to provide a full suite of large-scale customized financing solutions. Our decades of experience in infrastructure real estate renewables alongside our partner managers focus on corporate and asset-based lending enable us to source proprietary opportunities and underwrite credit risk effectively. We see considerable potential for further growth in years ahead. Adjacent to these, our real estate business is picking off some excellent properties at very attractive entry points. Similar to previous cycles, we are well positioned to capitalize on these dynamics and deliver exceptional returns. In recent months, we have seen interest growing meaningfully for our real estate strategies, indicating the first phase of a recovery. Together, these drivers are among the many that position Brookfield for long-term success, and we believe we are well-positioned to deliver on our long-term goal of 15% annual growth in cash flow on a per-share basis. Our deep operational expertise and relationships across our five businesses will continue to enable us to identify compelling investments and generate excellent returns for our clients. At the same time, powerful secular trends in digitalization, clean energy, and private credit, as mentioned, will continue to drive growth, drawing more capital into markets where we have established a leadership position. Thank you for your ongoing support. I will now hand it over to Connor, who will talk about the past year and how that positions us for the future.