H&R Block, Inc.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for your patience. You've joined H&R Block's first quarter fiscal 2020 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session, and instructions will be given at that time. Should you require any additional assistance during the call, please press star then zero on your touchtone telephone. As a reminder, this conference may be recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to your host. VP of Finance and Investor Relations, Colby Brown.

You may begin. Thank you, Lateef. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss our fiscal 2020 first quarter results. On the call today are Jeff Jones, our President and CEO, and Tony Bowen, our CFO. We've posted today's press release on the Investor Relations website at hrblock.com. Also on the website, you will find a link for the webcast containing today's presentation, which will be posted after this call. Some of the figures that we'll discuss today are presented on a non-GAAP basis. We've reconciled the comparable GAAP and non-GAAP figures in the schedules attached to our press release. Before we begin our prepared remarks, I'll remind everyone that this call will include forward-looking statements as defined under the securities laws. Such statements are based on current information and management's expectations as of this date and are not guarantees of future performance. Forward-looking statements involve certain risks, uncertainties, and assumptions that are difficult to predict. As such, our actual outcomes and results could differ materially. You can learn more about these risks in our Form 10-K for fiscal 2019 and our other SEC filings. H&R Block undertakes no obligation to publicly update these risk factors or forward-looking statements. At the conclusion of our prepared remarks, we will have a Q&A session. During Q&A, we ask that participants limit themselves to one question with a follow-up, after which they may choose to jump back into the queue. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Jeff. Thank you, Colby.

Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining us. As you may remember from our last call, we made tremendous progress in our tax business last year. We achieved the high end of our financial outlook and strengthened our growth trajectory through the acquisition of Waves. Today I'd like to provide initial thoughts on our plans for fiscal 20, the second year of our strategic journey. Tony will then discuss how we're reporting WAVE's financial results, our first fiscal quarter, and our full year outlook. Starting with WAVE, we announced the acquisition on June 11th and the transaction closed a few weeks later. We're delighted to have the WAVE team officially on board. As the two teams have come together post-acquisition, we are more excited than ever about how the combined entity can deliver value for small business owners. We've been working with the team to establish the appropriate operational cadence to enable their sustained growth. We're also prioritizing the numerous growth and monetization opportunities that lie ahead for the business as WAVE continues to innovate. An example of this is the recent launch of instant payouts. Managing cash flow is one of the most critical issues entrepreneurs face, resulting in significant day-to-day stress and causing small businesses to fail. When entrepreneurs accept payments through credit cards or ACH from a third party, it typically takes up to two business days to process, leaving them waiting longer for their cash. With WAVE's instant payout, they can get their cash in seconds, significantly reducing the time it takes to receive funds and ultimately making it easier to manage cash flow. This is one simple example of how Wave is constantly innovating on ways to serve the needs of entrepreneurs. Wave continues its historic trends by posting 50% revenue growth this quarter when compared to the same quarter in the prior year. Through product innovation and organic growth, WAVE has generated consecutive year-over-year quarterly revenue growth of greater than 40% over the last several years. It's clear from these results that WAVE is solving challenges for entrepreneurs and delivering value. By improving its world-class offerings and developing new solutions that simplify the financial lives of entrepreneurs, WAVE will drive monetization and increase its user base. And the WAVE team is excited about the additional capabilities that H&R Block brings that can accelerate them on this path. This acquisition is a key element of our strategy as we invest for the long term. WAVE is a strong strategic fit that will allow us to accelerate our efforts in serving small businesses, driving overall growth, and enhancing shareholder value. In the tax business, we're coming off the first year of our multi-year strategy. We made excellent progress against our long-range objectives. We achieved strong results in assisted, DIY, and virtual taking share overall. Our associates and franchisees delivered significant improvements in how we serve our clients. We led the industry with upfront transparent pricing. and we made tremendous progress on our technology roadmap. As we enter the second year, we're building on our learnings to continue innovating across all our platforms, providing better service to our clients and enhancing our brand relevance. In assisted, we'll remain focused on operational excellence and improving our value proposition. By concentrating our efforts on the standard operating procedures that matter the most, We're simplifying our approach and driving consistency within our offices. And we'll further leverage upfront transparent pricing, which was extremely well received by both task pros and clients. In DIY, we'll advance our challenger strategy to continue our growth and share gains. We're investing in enhancement to the user experience, which is earning accolades from independent reviews. This includes better help within the product to drive consumer confidence and conversion, leveraging AI to personalize the experience, and effectively setting expectations up front and throughout on price. These enhancements will be complemented by competitive pricing and aggressive marketing to ensure consumers know about our award-winning product. And in virtual, we'll continue to lead in this emerging segment building on the success of the past year in which we attracted new clients to our brand through innovative products. This year, we're taking the feedback we've received from clients to improve our offerings and better leverage our TaxPro network as we provide expertise and care in new ways. All of these efforts enhance our value proposition, which in turn elevates our brand relevance. We're demonstrating in very tangible ways what consumers should switch to H&R Block. To wrap up, we're building on our momentum from the last few years. We have great plans in place that align with our strategy and position us for success. I'm excited to share more details closer to the start of the tax season. With that, I'll now hand the call over to Tony.