Franklin Resources, Inc.

Welcome to the Franklin Resources Earnings Conference call for the quarter ended March 31st, 2020. My name is Darrell, and I will be your call operator today. Statements made in this conference, which are not historical facts, are forward-looking statements within the Meaning Form Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements involve a number of known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially, applied by such forward-looking statements. Uncertainties and other important factors are described in more detail in Franklin's recent filings with the Secure... ...including in the risk factors of MD&A... ...form 10-K and 10-Q filings. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. If you would like to ask star one on your telephone keypad, the confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. For your assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. I ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up question. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Franklin Resources President and CEO, Jenny Johnson. Ms. Johnson, you may begin.

Hello, and thank you for joining us today to discuss Franklin's significant events in the company since we held our first quarter. To start, this is my first official earnings conference call as President and CEO. With each new day, for the opportunity and promise that the future holds for our industry and for our business. Today, I'm joined by Matthew Nichols, our CFO. We hope that everyone on this call and your loved ones are staying safe and healthy. As an organization, our top priority is on the health and well-being of our employees and we're proud of and grateful for how resilient they've been under these difficult conditions and their ongoing efforts to keep maintaining our strong focus on our clients. With respect to business priorities, admits the security selection is more critical than ever. We like to say that today's market dislocation are tomorrow's alpha. And I've had a number of encouraging, compelling opportunities. It's also encouraging to note that over the recent producing strong results. February 20th through March 31st, which is the time frame which reflects the sharpest market volatility during the quarter, approximately two-thirds of our U.S. listed mutual funds and ETFs were in the top two quartiles of their respective Morningstar categories, and more than half of those were in the Performance across many of our investment strategies has been strong in such areas as U.S. equity, municipal bonds, global macro, and global equity, among others. Our funds continue to outperform through April. Our acquisition of Legg Mason remains on target to close in the third quarter, third calendar quarter, and integration plans are well underway. We continue to see the long-term value of these combined franchises and create new opportunities the right one. Additionally, our strong balance sheet continues to provide us with tremendous flexibility. As an organization, we have the talent, discipline, and foresight to continue our long-term success while helping our clients achieve their financial goals. Now, I'd like to open it up to your questions.

Operator? Our first questions come from the line of Craig Sagenthaler of Credit Suites. Please proceed with your questions.