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. Welcome to Invesco's fourth quarter earnings results conference call.

All participants will be in a listen-only mode until the question and answer session. At that time, to ask a question, press star 1. 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, you may disconnect at this time. Now, I would like to turn the call over to your speakers for today, Marty Flanagan, President and CEO of Invesco, and Allison Duke, Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Flanagan, you may begin.

Thank you, Operator, and thank you, everybody, for joining us, and Happy New Year. We did end up 2021 with a strong fourth quarter and momentum going into 2022, so we'll spend a few minutes looking back at the fourth quarter and also take a Quick look at 2021 because it really sets the context as we go into the new year. Our focus has been and will continue to be on clients and employees as we execute in this COVID operating environment. And we've embedded new ways of working together to deliver outcomes for our clients. And we've maintained our focus in six key capability areas. ETFs, factors index, private markets, active fixed income, active global equity, greater China and solutions. This approach has helped us generate consistent, strong, and broad organic growth in the end of the year, crossing over $1.6 trillion in assets under management. And as you can see on slide three, our net long-term inflows of $12.5 billion represents organic annualized long-term growth of 4%, despite the marked volatility in the fourth quarter. This is the sixth consecutive quarter of strong growth and is a direct result of the investments we've made over time to enhance and evolve our business to meet the needs of our clients, and it also speaks to the broad diversification of our business. Growth was driven by continued strength in our key capability areas as we strategically invest in areas where we see client demand and have competitive strengths. For the year, Invesco delivered the strongest organic growth in our history. We generated over $81 billion of net long-term inflows, representing 7% organic growth rate, which is one of the best in the industry. Looking at our specific capabilities, our global ETF platform closed up the year very strong. ETFs generated net inflows of nearly $22 billion in the fourth quarter. including our flagship QQQ product. The QQQ product had an exceptional quarter, generating $13 billion net inflows. For the year, ETFs globally generated a record $62 billion net inflows, and we increased our market share in both asset center management and revenue. The Qs had an outstanding year with over $21 billion net inflows, growing to $215 billion at year end. QQQ product has become the fifth largest ETF globally. Its popularity has spurred growth in the rest of our global ETF platform and laid the groundwork for the launch of the adjacent fee-generating products, such as the Q Innovation Suite. We launched the suite in October 2020, and it has been highly successful, growing to $5 billion in asset center management by the end of 2021. We continue to see clients increasing their allocation to alternative strategies as they search for diversification and higher return. and investors build a broad platform across real estate to meet client demands. We are confident in our ability to accelerate the growth as we look to the future. In the private real estate business, long-term net inflows were $2.4 billion in 2021, comprised of a new acquisition activity of $12.4 billion and investment realizations of $9 billion. Our direct real estate asset center management grew by 12%. Our private credit business saw robust bank loan product demand, resulted in net long-term inflows of $7.5 billion for the year, including the launch of several new CLOs. Our active fixed income business remains strong, generating net inflows of $9.3 billion in the fourth quarter, including $7.1 billion from Greater China, and $35 billion for the year, representing an organic growth of 13% over the prior year. Within active global equities, although our $45 billion developing markets fund saw net outflows in the quarter, the fund generated net long-term inflows in 2021 of $1.2 billion, an improvement of $4.3 billion over 2020. On the institutional side, we finished a strong year with solutions-enabled opportunities accounting for 35% of our institutional pipeline. Business in Greater China closed out an exceptional year of growth with fourth quarter net long-term inflows of $9.5 billion. For the year, net long-term inflows were $28.7 billion, representing organic growth of 32%. Business in China continues to be a source of strength and differentiation, and we expect strong growth in the years ahead. On slide four, we highlight a very strong set of results for 2021. In addition to reporting that long-term inflows in 2021, we generated record gross inflows of $427 billion, a 37% increase compared to 2020. Net revenues were 17% over the prior year, helping drive adjusted operating income to nearly $2.2 billion, a 31% increase over 2020. Revenue growth coupled with strong expense discipline led to a 450 basis point increase in our net operating margin to 41.5%. In the second half of the year, we reported the second highest net operating margins since the company became U.S. listed in 2007. These factors start with a 60% increase in our full-year DPS to $3.09. Strength in our business has generated strong cash flows, improving our cash position to a point where we are resuming our share buybacks. We intend to purchase up to $200 million in common shares during the first quarter. We remain focused on continuing to build a stronger balance sheet and improving our financial flexibility for the future. I'm pleased with the progress we've made over the last year and even more confident that Invesco is on the right path to sustainable organic growth. And as we look to the future, we're determined to continue delivering consistent organic growth together with our disciplined approach to expense management should enable us to generate positive operating leverage while at the same time continuing to invest in growth, the growth of our business and the efficiency of our business. I do want to take a moment to thank our employees for the continued resilience, hard work, and dedication through this COVID operating environment. Their efforts are delivering the strong results you're seeing from Invesco. The breadth of our capabilities and our competitive strengths position us well as we look forward. We will continue to focus our efforts on delivering positive outcomes for clients while driving future growth and delivering value over the long run for our stakeholders. With that, I'll turn it over to Allison. Allison.