CBIZ, Inc.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the CVIZ third quarter and nine months 2024 results conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please see your conference specialist by pressing the star key and then zero on your telephone keypads. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star and then one using your telephone keypads. To withdraw your questions, you may press star and two. It is also known today's event is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the floor over to Lori Novickis, Director of Corporate Relations. Ma'am, please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on today's conference call to discuss CEBA's third quarter and nine-month 2024 results. As a reminder, this call is being webcast, and a link to the live webcast can be found on the Investor Relations page of our website, cbiz.com. A replay and transcript will also be made available on our website after the call. Today's press release and investor presentation have also been posted to the investor relations page of our website. 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 operation, cash flows, strategies, and prospects. Forward-looking statements represent our expectations, estimates, and projections as of this 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 except as required by law. A more detailed description of such factors can be found in today's press release and 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'll now turn the call over to Jerry.

Jerry? Thank you, Lori. Good morning, and thank you for joining us for today's call. We're pleased to share our third quarter performance and to discuss our outlook for the remainder of the year. This is an exciting time for our company, as we're in the final stages of closing our acquisition of Markham, and I will provide an update on our progress a little bit later in today's call. First, I want to highlight the overall health of our business, which was demonstrated by our strong results for both the third quarter and year-to-date. For the first three quarters of this year, our business has generally performed as expected, with total revenue up 7.1%. For the third quarter, total revenue was up 6.9%. While our first nine-month results are as expected, we did face some unique headwinds in the second quarter, which impacted our results for that period. As we commented on our second quarter call, we planned on our results for this quarter being stronger, and they came in as expected, another reason why we do not guide quarter to quarter, but only for the full year. Now turning to the performance of our two primary divisions, starting with our financial services division. The solid organic growth experience in our core accounting and tax business was primarily driven by pricing. Our advisory services, which tend to be more project-based and discretionary, also had a solid third quarter, with even stronger growth rates than anticipated. It's also worth highlighting that the performance of our government healthcare consulting business continues to be very strong, and had a very strong year coming now from new contracts and the expansion of work for existing projects. Within our benefits and insurance division, we also experienced growth in all major service lines. As I've mentioned on past calls, we informally survey a cross-section of our clients at the end of each quarter to hear their sentiment on the economy, plans to invest, opportunities and concerns. While client sentiment has waned somewhat compared to the same period last year, Many of our clients continue to express cautious optimism through the remainder of this year. As anticipated, concerns around the pending national election focus on both short-term potential for market volatility and longer-term regulatory and legislative changes. Clients also cited continuing geopolitical concerns as reasons to wait and see how the next months unfold before committing to material incremental investments in the coming months. Access to talent and concerns around inflation are top of mind for these businesses, but the general outlook in the economy has improved when compared to the same period at the beginning of this year. As in any time of change, we see opportunities to serve our clients as they navigate this environment, given our unmatched breadth of services and depth of expertise. The health of our business remains very strong, and we're optimistic about the prospects for the business for the remainder of the year. Given our strong performance today, I am pleased to reaffirm our guidance previously outlined for the full year of 2024. We will provide 2025 guidance, including that impacted by Markham, when we announce Q4 and full year 2024 results. I will now turn it over to Ware to discuss more of the details on our performance for the third quarter and year to date. Ware?