CBIZ, Inc.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the CVIZ fourth quarter and full year 2021 results conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star and then one. To withdraw your questions, you may press star and two. Please also note today's event is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the floor over to Lori Novickis, Director of Corporate Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for the CBIS fourth quarter and full year 2021 results conference call. In connection with this call, today's press release and quarterly presentation have been posted to the investor relations page of our website, cbiz.com. As a reminder, this call is being webcast and a link to the live webcast as well as an archived replay and transcript can also be found on our site. Before we begin our presentation, we would like to remind you that during the call, management may discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these measures can be found in the financial tables of today's press release and in the investor presentation on our website. Today's conference call may also include forward-looking statements, including statements regarding our business, financial condition, results of operation, cash flows, strategies, and prospects. Forward-looking statements represent only estimates on the date of this conference call and are not intended to give any assurance as to actual future results. Because forward-looking statements relate to matters that have not yet occurred, these statements are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause future results to differ materially, and CBIS assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements. A more detailed description of such factors can be found in the filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Joining us for today's call are Jerry Grisco, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Ware Grove, Chief Financial Officer. I will now turn the call over to Jerry for his opening remarks. Jerry?

Thank you, Lori. We are proud to share our fourth quarter and full year results for 2021 and our outlook for this year. From nearly every measurable perspective, 2021 was at or near our strongest performance in recent history. Most notably, for the full year, total revenue was up 14.6%, organic revenue grew 7.7%, adjusted earnings per share was up 16.9%, Our adjusted EBITDA improved 12.4%. Our stock price increased 47%. And with the additions of Mark Panett announced in early January of this year, we made seven acquisitions, adding over $200 million in annualized revenue. And our strong revenue growth for the first nine months of the year continued into the fourth quarter, where our total revenue was up 15%, and our organic revenue grew 9.4%. Our full-year results are the direct outcome of the strategic direction that we established for the business over five years ago, the investments that we've made to support that strategy, the fundamental attributes of our business, and the commitment and character of our over 6,000 team members across CBIS. And of important note, our full-year growth came from nearly every major service line across the business. Our results demonstrate important alignment and focus among our team on our commitment to sustained growth And our success in 2021 provides important momentum for the coming year. Within our financial services group, demand for our essential accounting and tax services remained strong throughout 2021. Our clients rely on us for these services to conduct their businesses, and they turn to us to provide them regardless of the business climate. An important difference in 2021 versus the prior year was the significant increase in demand that we experienced for our advisory services. much of which are project-based and more discretionary. We saw a decline for those services in the first half of 2020 as businesses navigated the uncertainty of the pandemic. Demand for those services began to return in the second half of 2020, and that trend continued and gained momentum throughout 2021. We also benefited from the multi-year investments that we've been making to improve our processes, systems, tools, support, and training that better equip our teams to improve pricing and profitability on our client engagements. We saw the impact of these investments in 2021 as more consistent and disciplined approach to pricing helped to fuel growth across many of our service lines. One area where we experienced somewhat slower growth in the prior years was our government healthcare consulting business, where the rate of growth was in the low single digits. The slower rate of growth in this business was caused by a number of factors, including the loss of a large federal contract that we were awarded, but was then subsequently canceled, and the number of states that had not yet fully reopened following the Omicron variant surge. While we've proven to be quite effective when working remotely in this area, being present on site often improves productivity and enables us to be more proactive in identifying opportunities to better serve our government clients. Now turning to our benefits and insurance division. We experienced strong growth and performance across nearly every major service line, payroll being the one exception, as I will explain in a moment. I want to start with our employee benefits business, where we experienced our strongest rate of organic growth in six years. Our growth in this area is being driven in large part by the investments that we've been making over the past several years to increase the number of producers, enhance and standardize the sales and marketing and services process, and leverage digital marketing strategies. Client retention rates are over 90%, and they improved even further last year. Further, our producer count, a key growth indicator for this business, is also up by 15% over the prior year, with the new hires added through 2021. Our property and casualty insurance business also experienced high client retention rates and strong production in 2021. The commercial side of the business continues to perform well, and improved demand for our program services lines bolstered our performance in this area. Similar to our employee benefits business, we're also investing in standardizing our sales management processes and increasing the number of producers within our P&C business. The retirement and investment solutions business experienced similar trends with strong production contributing to growth, while favorable market conditions aided the defined contribution investment strategies components of this business. And while they make up a small segment of our benefits and insurance division, our advisory and project-based businesses, such as our executive search and compensation consulting business, also benefited from strong demand in 2021 and are off to a similar start this year. Now, turning to payroll. While we continue to experience strong demand for our payroll platform targeting larger clients with more complex payroll needs, the impact of the pandemic on our legacy payroll platform which generally serves our small business clients, dampened our overall performance within the service line in 2021. Overall, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, we are exceptionally pleased with the outstanding performance of the business throughout 2021. While a number of significant factors that could impact the business climate remain uncertain for 2022, based on our strong financial performance over the past two years, the high demand for our services that we continue to experience, the investments to accelerate growth that we've made in the business, our strong balance sheet and outlook for 2022, we will once again be providing financial guidance for the year. Similar to last year, I want to caution that we do expect more volatility in our financial results from quarter to quarter than we've historically experienced, due in part to the significant number of acquisitions completed in the past 12 months. As a result, we advise against comparing any given quarter to the same period in the prior year. With this, I will turn it over to Ware Grove, our Chief Financial Officer, to provide more specific details on our financial performance for the fourth quarter and the full year of 2021. Ware?