Brookfield Corporation Class A Limited Voting Shares

Good day and welcome to the Brookfield Corporation first quarter 2025 conference call and webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, press star 1-1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker, Ms. Katie Battaglia, VP, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator, and good morning. Welcome to Brookfield Corporation's first quarter 2025 conference call. On the call today are Bruce Blatt, our Chief Executive Officer, Nick Goodman, President of Brookfield Corporation, and Sachin Shah, Chief Executive Officer of Brookfield Wealth Solutions. Bruce will start by giving a business update, followed by Nick, who will discuss our financial and operating results for the quarter. And finally, Sachin will provide an update on our Wealth Solutions business. 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 request that you refrain from asking more than two questions. I would like to remind you that in today's comments, including 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 laws. These statements reflect predictions of future events and trends and do not relate to historic events. They are 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 U.S. and the information available on our website. In addition, when we speak about our wealth solutions business or Brookfield Wealth Solutions, we are referring to Brookfield's investments in this business that supported the acquisition of its underlying subsidiaries. With that, I'll turn the call over to Bruce.

Thank you and welcome everyone on the call. We had a strong start to the year. Distributable earnings before realizations increased 30% to $1.3 billion. That was $0.82 a share for the quarter and $5.2 billion or $3.26 for the last 12 months. Each of our businesses performed well. Our asset management business delivered strong earnings growth backed by continued fundraising momentum. Our operating businesses were resilient with stable cash flows underpinned by largely contracted and inflation-protected revenue streams. Our wealth solutions business had a strong quarter, delivering organic growth, scaling earnings, and delivering on our goal of 15% ROE. In March, the business received its regulatory license to launch in the UK, marking the first dedicated PRT license granted there since 2007. Sachin Shah, CEO of our Wealth Solutions business, is with us today and will spend more time on the progress and growth of the business in his remarks. Focusing briefly on the macro environment, we started the year with positive economic momentum. As all of you know, since then, trade policy has created volatility in the capital markets. While our businesses and operations are not immune, They are generally insulated from the current environment. This is because we own and operate businesses which provide essential services and products without significant reliance on cross-border movement of goods. We operate domestic businesses in 30 countries. We serve local customers in markets where we invest. Most of these businesses have highly contracted income streams or regulated, meaning we can generally pass through increased costs to the end consumer. The global franchise, we have the operating expertise to successfully navigate change. As we have experienced in previous periods of stress, markets often move for reasons that don't reflect underlying fundamentals. This creates opportunities for experienced, well-capitalized investors to invest for value. This approach has allowed us to deliver stable and growing results for decades. This period should be no different. Despite the volatility we have seen, the underlying trends of deglobalization, digitalization, and decarbonization continue to drive our investment pipeline. In this regard, we committed $20 billion in the quarter to acquire some excellent businesses at very good value. Globalization policies promoting the reshoring of key manufacturing and supply chains are also now presenting opportunity. Breakthroughs in AI should also lead to further attractive opportunities for disciplined investors like us to continue to provide capital to fund these initiatives. With strong data center growth, they need an enormous amount of power. Renewables continue to offer the most viable solution to meet this growing energy demand. Our ability to provide scalable solutions across technologies and regions reinforces our position as a partner of choice. In total, with a record $165 billion of capital to deploy, we are well positioned in the current environment to invest for value in all of these areas. At the same time, operating fundamentals for high-quality assets remains very strong. For example, in our real estate business, we continue to benefit from increased demand for premium assets, further supported by a muted supply outlook. This has resulted in strong rental growth and higher occupancy rates across our portfolio. We are experiencing a significant increase in lease-up activity for our top tier assets in our global markets. For example, in our largest market, being New York, office leasing surged to its highest level since 2019. We completed 1.3 million square feet of leasing in the quarter. Rents in premier buildings are very high and going higher. While it always feels like the first time, we have navigated through many periods similar to the one we have in front of us today. It is important to remember at times like these, price fluctuations may seem significant in the moment, but they are likely to represent just small deviations in the overall trajectory of long-term wealth compounding. As an example, our shareholders have earned an annualized return of 18% over the past 30 years by simply staying invested in Brookfield. This has not been a straight line, nor will it ever be, but compound returns are the secret to great long-term wealth. Crucial to our success over the years has been effective capital allocation and reinvestment of the corporation's cash flows. We have a broad perspective on the relative investment opportunities and capital needs across our entire franchise. Our philosophy has, therefore, always been to largely distribute free cash flow up from our operating companies to the corporation and centralize the cash reinvestment decisions. This deliberate approach to capital allocation has been a key contributor to our ability to scale our business and withstand economic cycles across sectors that we invest in. This flexibility is one of our greatest strengths and is something that has been created methodically and meticulously over the years. This approach becomes even more valuable during periods of uncertainty when prices can diverge substantially from value and we are presented with attractive investment opportunities. One of the recent examples is repurchasing our own shares in the market. And given the trading levels of our shares, which gap down during the quarter like all markets, we repurchased $850 million of shares to date this year. This was the most shares we have ever purchased in the open market in a single quarter. Looking ahead, we will continue to invest in a disciplined manner while remaining focused on adapting with the ever-evolving backbone of the global economy. Our business has proven to be a great compounder of capital across economic cycles and by staying the course, We are well positioned to generate strong and sustainable returns for shareholders. Thank you as always for the continued support and interest in Brookfield. With those comments, I'll turn the call over to Nick.