CBIZ, Inc.

Good day and welcome to the CBiz first quarter 2024 results conference 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 telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Lori Novakos, Director of Corporate Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for the CBIS First Quarter 2024 Results Conference Call. In connection with this call, today's press release and investor presentation have been posted to the Investor Relations page of our website. As a reminder, this call is being webcast, and a link to the live webcast can be found on our Investor Relations website. An archived replay and transcript will also be made 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 presentations. 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 Grisco.

Jerry. Thank you, Laurie. Good morning, everyone. we were pleased to report that we're off to a strong start to the year. For the first quarter, total revenue was up 8.7% with growth coming from every major service line across our two business divisions. Our performance for the quarter came in as expected and reflects continued strong demand for our services and the optimism and resilience of the clients that we serve. Now turning to the performance of our two major divisions. Our financial services division demonstrated growth across each of its three major service groups, accounting and tax, advisory, and government healthcare consulting. For our tax and accounting business, client demand for these essential and recurring services remains high, and our results include our continued success in capturing increased pricing to reflect the value of the services that we provide to our clients. Likewise, our advisory services also enjoyed a strong start to the year. including for those services that are more closely tied to M&A activity. After the start of the year with cautious optimism, we are already seeing the impact of improved deal flow in Q1, with especially strong demand for our private equity-related advisory services. Encouragingly, we're also beginning to see increased demand for new projects within our technical accounting prep for IPO service lines. Our government healthcare consulting business was able to build on progress made in the second half of 2023, as this group was successful in securing new business and launching new projects. During the first quarter, the continued increased volume of work translated to strong growth to start the year. Now turning to our benefits and insurance division, where we maintained our record of achieving growth across each of our four major service lines. For our employee benefits business, the growth came primarily from strong client retention and market rates. Also, our producer pool is up when compared to the same period last year. For our property and casualty business, increased service revenue and market rates contributed to continued strong results. Our P&C business remains encouraged by a healthy pipeline of new business opportunities, despite a slight decline in the number of producers as a result of planned retirements. Growth in our retirement investment services business was largely driven by market trend and special projects in our actuarial business. This group also continues to add producers. For our payroll business, strong interest in Centrally HR, which is our upmarket payroll platform that serves larger and more sophisticated businesses, continued to fuel strong growth. The growth in revenue we experienced in the first quarter was in line with our expectations and affirms the overall health of our business and the consistent demand for our services. With that by way of background, we are affirming our previously issued guidance for the year. I will now turn it over to Ware Grove, our Chief Financial Officer, to provide more specific details on our financial performance for the first quarter and to remind those on the call today of our guidance for 2024.