MeridianLink, Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to Meridian Link's third quarter 2024 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your first speaker today, Giana Rogelini. Giana, please. Go ahead.

Good afternoon and welcome to MeridianLink's third quarter fiscal year 2024 earnings call. We will be discussing the results announced in our press release issued after the market closed today. With me today are MeridianLink's Chief Executive Officer Nicholas Block, President Larry Kass, and Chief Financial Officer Elias Olmeda. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that today's conference call will include forward-looking statements based on the company's current expectations. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of significant risks and uncertainties, and our actual results may differ materially. For discussion of the risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could affect our future financial results and business, please refer to the disclosure in today's earnings release and the periodic reports and filings we file from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission. All of our statements are made based on information available to us as of today and, except as required by law, we assume no obligation to update any such statements. Please note that, other than revenue, all numbers and our remarks are on a non-GAAP basis, unless otherwise stated. A reconciliation to comparable GAAP metrics can be found in today's earnings presentation which is available on our investor relations website and as an exhibit to the form 8K, furnished with the SEC just before this call. Our earnings presentation is available for you to download and reference throughout our prepared remarks. With that, let me turn the call over to Nicholas.

Thank you, Gianna. Good afternoon, everyone. Our team executed well in the third quarter. We achieved revenue of $80.4 million, or 5% growth year-over-year, in line with the high end of our guidance. Adjusted EBITDA was 33.8 million, representing a 42% EBITDA margin, exceeding the high end of our guidance. I'm pleased that we returned 31.3 million of capital to shareholders via stock buybacks at attractive valuations. Our solid Q3 results were driven by the company's continued disciplined execution. Revenue growth accelerated in the quarter on the back of continued annual contract value or ACV release. Margins exceeded expectations as we proactively managed spend in an uncertain macro environment. Last quarter, we discussed the headwinds that our community bank and credit union customers face in this uncertain macro environment. This quarter, we saw a modest rebound in activity due to lower rates. but our view of recovery remains unchanged as we expect that headwinds will persist and the market will take time to normalize. First, community banks and credit unions continue to be deposit constrained as loan to deposit ratios remain at elevated levels. We expect that deposit growth will return to pre-pandemic levels, but it will take time for depositories to migrate deposits back from higher yielding alternatives. Second, affordability of used cars continue to be out of reach for many due to high prices and elevated financing rates. We expect lower used car prices as new cars work their way to used car lots, but it will likely take time to see meaningful impact on affordability. We also expect that affordability will improve with lower financing rates, but to date, financing rates remain persistently high. particularly in the used auto market. Third, although we are seeing an increase in mortgage originations, we are not expecting a robust originations market in the short or medium term. Mortgage rates have moved higher in recent weeks, which continues to moderate demand and reflects macro uncertainty. Most outstanding mortgages are priced well below current mortgage rates. and we expect it will take multiple rate cuts to stimulate a significant increase in activity. Moving to highlights in the quarter, I want to start with one of our strategic focus areas, developing our people and leadership team to scale our business. In Q3, we strengthened our management team with the promotion of Larry to president and the onboarding of Elias to CFO. These proven SaaS leaders have deep industry knowledge and have operated successfully at scale. We are already seeing the impact of their leadership in the business. We continue to have great success with our land and expand strategy as we deepen relationships with customers and generate solid demand from those continuing their digital transformation. Financial institutions are expressing more confidence in the midterm economic outlook and we are seeing increased buying signals from customers using both mortgage and consumer lending solutions to strategically retool for a market recovery and the evolving digital lending needs of consumers. Our innovative platform continues to be a differentiator on the market. I love getting feedback from customers that use MeridianLink One to serve clients, accelerate growth, and achieve operational efficiencies. We continue to invest in innovation that delivers differentiated outcomes for our customers. With that, I will turn it over to Larry to review our business highlights in more detail. Larry?