Invesco Ltd

Good morning, and thank you all for joining us. As a reminder, this conference call and the related presentation may include forward-looking statements, which reflect management's expectations about future events and overall operating plans and performance. These forward-looking statements are made as of today and are not guaranteed. They involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions, and there can be no assurance that actual results will not differ materially from our expectations. For discussion of these risks and uncertainties, please see the risks described in our most recent Form 10-K and subsequent filings with the SEC. Invesco makes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. We may also discuss non-GAAP financial measures during today's call. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures may be found at the end of our earnings presentation.

and welcome to Invesco's fourth quarter results conference call. All participants will be on a listen-only mode until the question and answer session. At that time, to ask a question, press star one. This call will last one hour. To allow more participants to ask questions, only one question and a follow-up can be submitted per participant. Today's conference is being recorded. If you have any objections, please disconnect at this time. And now I would like to turn the conference call over to your speakers for today, Marty Flanagan, President and CEO of Invesco, and Allison Dukes, Chief Financial Officer. Marty Flanagan, you may begin.

Thank you, Operator, and thanks, everybody, for joining, and Happy New Year to everybody. I think we're all very ready to turn the page on what was a very challenging 2020. And while the global pandemic remains very pervasive, we do all see light at the end of the tunnel, and we look forward to 2021 with cautious optimism that conditions will improve. Throughout 2020, we focused on executing our long-term strategy while recognizing the necessity to focus on employee health and safety, finding new ways to work, and serving and delivering expected outcomes for our clients. I would like to thank all our employees and our clients during what has been a challenging period. Over the past decade, we've been successful in investing ahead of shifts in client demand, placing us in a strong position to take advantage of key industry tailwinds in the future. Our investments in these capabilities and our tremendous focus on our clients is now again producing good momentum in our business that became more visible as the year progressed. By working better to anticipate, understand, and meet client needs during the challenging times, we've achieved six straight months of net long-term inflows, totaling nearly $18 billion in the second half of 2020, with progress across channels, geographies, and asset classes. Retail flows improved in the second half significantly. Our solutions enabled institutional pipeline remain near record levels. We saw net inflows in Asia Pacific totaling $17 billion in the second half of the year and improving flows in the Americas over this timeframe. And net long-term flows in a fixed income remain robust during that period. All of these factors combined build a strong foundation as we head into 2021. and maybe a few highlights of the fourth quarter on slide four if you happen to be following along more specifically during the quarter investment performance for a large portion of our high demand capabilities were in the upper quartiles we had net long-term inflows of nearly 10 billion dollars during the quarter long-term inflows and fixed income capabilities continued while we saw client demand for equities within etfs quantitative and index strategies in particular We saw another quarter of strong inflows in the Asia-Pacific region and flows in the Americas turned positive. Allison will provide more information in a few minutes on the flows, strategic evaluation, more details of the quarter, but I would like to note we also improved our operating leverage during that period, paid our credit facility to zero, and made progress improving our cash position. I would like to spend a few minutes on slides five and six to talk about our competitive strength and key capabilities in areas with high client demand and our focus for 2021. Slide five illustrates the market opportunities we see for these key growth areas and demonstrates the majority of our investment capabilities are aligned with these opportunities. In these areas, our investment performance is strong. We're highly competitive and well positioned for growth. And as we move into 2021, we plan to further expand our market-leading position in ETFs in the U.S., in EMEA in particular, and build our passive presence in Asia Pacific. We are the fourth-largest ETF provider globally, and our capabilities span passive active strategies and established and developing spectrum of ETFs, ESG ETFs. And building on our 15-year legacy of innovation, we continue to develop new products in the space, as demonstrated by the launch of the QQQ Innovation Suite and our first non-transparent ETFs that we delivered in the fourth quarter. Strong alternative platform, and our focus is growing our private markets business, led by our market-leading real estate and bank loan businesses. Active fixed income and global equity remains areas of opportunity for us, and our offerings are well positioned with strong investment performance and high client demand. In addition, we are focused on our solutions efforts, and as we have seen by the contribution to the institutional pipeline, clients value the service, the ability to offer solutions that builds on the full power of our competitive set of capability, and services to clients continue to be a priority for us during 2021. We continue to invest in our leadership position in Greater China. We've been managing dedicated Chinese products for nearly 40 years. We have already seen the benefits of our early move for advantage in the China onshore market through our joint venture, which was the first CINO foreign joint venture in the industry established almost 20 years ago. Turning to slide six, as we noted in the third quarter, we see opportunities to invest in areas of growth aligned with our strategic plan. These areas include ETF, alternatives, active fixed income, global equities, which includes emerging markets. And we will build on our market-leading position in the fast-growing China market and further develop our leading solutions and asset allocation offerings. Given our investment in the business over the past decade, our most recent efforts to better align the organization with our strategy, I'm confident we have the talent, the capabilities, and the resources and momentum to drive future growth and success. We're optimistic about the new year and remain focused on helping our clients achieve their desired outcomes regardless of where the markets take us. And with that, I will turn it over to Allison to get into further details in a moment.