CBIZ, Inc.

Good day and welcome to the CBiz second quarter 2022 results call. All participants will be in 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, then one on your touch-tone phone. To withdraw from the question queue, please press star, then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I'd now like to turn the conference over to Lori Novickis, Director of Corporate Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for the CBiz second quarter and first half 2022 results conference call. In connection with this call, today's press release and quarterly investor 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 can be found on our site. In addition, an archived replay and transcript will also be available after the call. Before we begin, 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 investor presentation. Today's call may also include forward-looking statements regarding our business, financial condition, results of operations, cash flows, strategies, and prospects. Forward-looking statements represent only estimates on the date of this call and are not intended to give any assurance of 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 these statements. A more detailed description of such factors can be found in our 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, Laurie. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for today's call. We're pleased to share our second quarter results and to discuss our outlook for the remainder of the year. As I discussed on our last call, we had strong momentum coming into this year based on our exceptional performance in 2021. And this momentum has continued through the first half of the year. I'm especially pleased to report that in the second quarter, we continue to experience strong organic revenue growth across all major service lines. Our results for the second quarter were aided by our recent acquisitions, including our acquisition of Mark's Panic, which we completed at the beginning of the year. Within our financial services group, we wrapped up our traditional busy season during the second quarter and continue to experience strong demand for our essential tax and accounting services. The strength of this demand has allowed us to take an aggressive approach to pricing, which has bolstered our rate of growth. Within our advisory services, we also continue to experience high demand, particularly within our private equity advisory practice, as the M&A market remains active. Similar to our essential services, we've also been successful in driving improved pricing for these advisory services. Turning to our government healthcare consulting business, the positive trend that we experienced during the first quarter has continued through the second quarter, and was aided by a number of projects that were delayed during the past two years that are now back on track, in addition to the launch of several new projects. As we've discussed in the past, sustained growth within our financial services group is dependent on our ability to attract and retain talent. While the labor market remains tight, we have experienced encouraging results from our efforts to attract talent by utilizing many of the same digital marketing techniques that we use to attract new clients. These strategies allow us to cultivate a full pipeline of potential candidates and to tailor the information that we deliver to each individual throughout the recruitment process. We've also expanded our team of internal recruiters to meet the growing needs of our business. While our turnover rates within this group are somewhat higher than in prior periods, they appear more favorable than many others in our industry, and we continue to take measures to create even more compelling culture and expanded career opportunities for our team members. Now turning to our benefits and insurance group. We finished last year with historic organic revenue growth rates, driven primarily by our employee benefits and our property and casualty insurance service lines. That group has continued throughout the first half of this year and reflects the impact of strong sales and high retention rates generated last year, combined with new strong sales, high client retention, and positive trends again this year. Our investment in producers is also continuing to grow as our producer pool for these two businesses is 10% higher this year than last year. We are also experiencing growth within our retirement investment services business and our payroll business. Within payroll, strong demand for our upmarket platform that serves larger clients with more complex needs continues, and our new sales pipeline remains strong. Like other areas of our business, both retirement investment services and payroll have been aggressive on pricing, and we are seeing the impact of these fee increases in our results. Finally, while they make up only a small segment of our benefits and insurance division results, we also experience strong demand for our advisory and project-based businesses, such as our executive search and compensation consulting business. We often view these businesses as a bellwether for the economy, and our pipeline of work for this business is extremely strong with no signs of slowing. I will remind you that during our last earnings call, we affirmed our full-year guidance that we had provided at the beginning of the year. Based on our strong performance through the first half of this year, we are pleased to be in a position to raise our full-year revenue and adjusted EPS guidance, and Ware will walk through the details in his comments. But before I turn it over to Ware, I want to take a moment to address the likely questions regarding the recent volatility in the market and the growing calls for concern of a pending recession. In speaking with a sampling of our clients, they generally remain confident in their ability to perform well through year end. While there's an acknowledgement of the issues related to inflation, rising prices and labor shortages at the national and even global levels, our clients generally remain confident in their ability to successfully compete in their industries and to navigate within their local and regional markets. For CBiz, when we consider the potential impact of a recession on our business, We look to our experience during the 2008 and 2009 financial crisis and consider the substantial investments that we've made in the business since then. Looking back to that period, the impact on CBIS came later into the downturn than for many other industries. Even with this lagging impact, we were able to use the various levers at our disposal to drive total growth in revenue and earnings per share, despite the more challenging business climate. Moreover, Since that time, we've made considerable investments in our business in everything from people to systems, processes, and tools, all focused on supporting sustainable growth and enabling more stability and resilience within our business, regardless of the business climate. Even further, we've also continued to expand and diversify the services that we offer to our clients. We're in a much different and better position to be able to support our clients in the face of uncertainty, and to help them navigate both the challenges and opportunities a changing economic environment may present. Given that, I am confident that if we were to face a recession or any significant economic downturn, we would start from a place of strength and continue to perform strong, certainly relative to others. One final note, 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 that we've completed in the past 12 months. As a result, we would advise against comparing any given quarter this year to the same period in any prior years. With this, I will turn over to Ware Grove, our Chief Financial Officer, to provide more specific details on our financial performance for the second quarter and the revision of our guidance for the remainder of the year. Ware?