Crawford & Company

Good morning. My name is Brian, and I'll be your conference associate today. At this time, I would now like to welcome everyone to the Crawford & Company First Quarter 2023 Earnings Release Conference Call. In conjunction with this call, a supplementary financial presentation is available on our website at www.crawco.com under the Investor Relations section. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer period. Instructions will follow at that time. If anyone needs assistance at any time during this conference, please press star, then zero, and an operator will assist you. As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, this conference is being recorded today, Thursday, May 4, 2023. Now, I would like to introduce Sammy Stevenson, Crawford & Company's General Counsel.

Thank you, Brian. Some of the matters to be discussed in this conference call and in the supplementary financial presentation may include forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. These statements may relate to, among other things, our expected future operating results and financial conditions, our ability to grow our revenues and reduce our operating expenses, expectations regarding our anticipated contributions to our underfunded defined benefit pension plans, collectability of our billed and unbilled accounts receivable, financial results from our recently completed acquisitions, our continued compliance with the financial and other covenants contained in our financing agreements, our long-term capital resource and liquidity requirements, and our ability to pay dividends in the future. The company's actual results achieved in future quarters could differ materially from the results that may be implied by such forward-looking statements. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly release revisions to any forward-looking statements made in this conference call to reflect events or circumstances occurring after the date of the call, or to reflect the occurrence of any unanticipated events. In addition, you are reminded that operating results for any historical period are not necessarily indicative of the results to be expected for any future period. For a complete discussion regarding factors which could affect the company's financial performance, please refer to the company's Form 10Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2023, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. particularly the information under the headings risk factors and management's discussion and analysis of financial condition and results of operation, as well as subsequent company funds with the SEC. Presentation also includes certain non-GAAP financial measures as defined under SEC rule. As required, a reconciliation is provided for those measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures. I would now like to introduce Mr. Rohit Verma, Chief Executive Officer of Crawford & Company. Rohit.

Thank you, Tammy. Good morning and welcome to our first quarter 2023 earnings call. Joining me today is Bruce Swain, our Chief Financial Officer, Joseph Blanco, our President, and Tammy Stevenson, our General Counsel. After our prepared remarks, we will open the call for your questions. We continued our momentum and delivered another quarter of exceptional results. Revenues grew by 12% or 16% on a constant currency basis and operating earnings nearly doubled year over year. We experienced revenue growth and profit expansion across all segments, highlighting the underlying strength of our business model and solid execution of our stated strategy. Our outstanding first quarter result marks our 10th consecutive quarter of revenue growth, not only reflecting continued top-line momentum and increasing profitability, but also the hard work and dedication of our valued teams across the globe. Their unwavering commitment to quality and customer excellence is enabling us to execute our long-term strategy and bring our envisioned future to life. Two years ago, we shared our long-term growth strategy focused on driving organic growth and improving margins across our business. I'm extremely pleased to share that to date, we have made tremendous progress against our goals, including sustained revenue growth and margin improvement. Recall for North America loss adjusting, our strategy was to drive low to mid single digit revenue growth and improve margins through efficiency on the volume side and investment in the expertise on the major and complex side. Our ongoing investment in expertise, expansion of our geographic footprint, and industry leading quality have continued to drive growth in the North America loss adjusting business. During the first quarter, our pricing actions and improved utilization drove meaningful margin expansion. Moving forward, we believe we will see further growth resulting from our efforts to hire additional specialist adjusters and increasingly scale the business. Our focus in BroadSpire was to capture share in alternative markets and leverage data to offer cutting edge analytic services to our clients. In the quarter, Overall sales momentum was driven by new client wins and accelerated improvement in medical management revenues. We expect continued recovery in medical management as claims frequency improves through new and existing client wins as well as healthy pricing. Similarly, we had previously stated that our long-term focus in platform solutions is to scale this business to deliver double-digit revenue growth and strong flow-through to the bottom line. We're delivering on this objective, as our platform business remains our highest margin operating segment and continues to serve as a key growth engine for our business. We delivered double-digit revenue growth in the quarter, driven by pricing and improved utilization and contractor connection, along with increased market share gains with our top five carriers, partners in our CAT business. We expect continued strength moving forward, supported by healthy underlying demand and solid execution. We are very pleased with the turnaround we're seeing in our international business, which is now tracking towards our mid single digit growth target. This is resulting from the specific actions we have taken to address pricing and productivity, where we have implemented new systems, improved processes, and better aligned our cost structure with current market conditions. We expect continued momentum and further improvement as we move forward. Overall, we continue to deliver on our strategic vision for growth and margin expansion across the business that we shared with you two years ago. This track record of delivering what we laid out gives us confidence in our continued execution. Our success to date position us for sustainable growth, and we remain focused on delivering value to our shareholders. Turning now to capital allocation, we continue to maintain a disciplined and prudent capital allocation strategy. We leverage our liquidity to fund working capital needs related to the storm activities in the U.S. during the first quarter. As mentioned in the last quarter, we expect improved cash flow as we move forward, which will be used to pay down debt and reduce our leverage ratio, taking it below two times EBITDA by 2023, which is in line with our previously stated leverage target. Our positive earning results and conservatively managed balance sheet gives us tremendous flexibility to move forward with making investments for the benefit of the company. These have also enabled us to continue our quarterly dividend of $0.06 per share for both CRDA and CRDB. As a point of reference, we have returned more than $120 million of capital to shareholders through share buybacks and dividends over the last four years, further highlighting our commitment to deliver shareholder value. Overall, we are in a strong financial position and feel confident in our ability to continue execution on our long-term growth strategy. With that, I'd like to hand the call over to Joseph, who will discuss our business line results for the first quarter.