RB Global, Inc.

Good morning. My name is Joanna, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Ritchie Brothers Auctioneer's fourth quarter conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star, then the number two. Thank you. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Samir Rafid, Vice President of Investor Relations and Market Intelligence, to open the conference call. Mr. Rafid, you may begin your conference.

Hello and good morning. Thank you for joining us today to discuss our fourth quarter results. Joining me today are Jim Kessler, our Chief Executive Officer, and Eric Guerin, our Chief Financial Officer. The following discussion will include forward-looking statements, which can be identified by such words as expect, believe, estimate, anticipate, plan, intend, opportunity, and similar expressions. Comments that are not a statement of fact, including but not limited to projections of future earnings, revenue, gross transaction value, debt, and other items, business and market trends, and expectations regarding the integration of IAA, including the anticipated cost energies are considered forward-looking and involve risk and uncertainties. The risk and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ significantly from such forward-looking statements are detailed in our news release issued this morning, as well as our most recent quarterly report and annual report on Form 10-K, which are available on the Investor Relations website and EDGAR and CEDAR. On this call, we will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures including forward-looking non-GAAP financial measures. For the identification of non-GAAP financial measures, the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures, and the applicable reconciliation of the two, see our news release, Form 10-K, Form 10-Q, and the investor presentations posted on our website. We are unable to present quantitative reconciliation of forward-looking non-GAAP financial measures as management cannot predict all the necessary components of such measures. investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking non-GAAP financial measures. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Jim. Jim?

Thank you, Samir, and good morning to everyone. We finished the year strong with fourth quarter gross transaction value growth of 13% on a pro forma combined basis. All our sectors contributed to solid GTV growth. fueled by our team's dedication to consistently over-deliver on the commitments we make to our customers. Our continued focus on operational excellence and driving incremental efficiencies across the organization resulted in strong adjusted EBITDA growth. Investing in our teammates through a best-in-class people experience remains core to our strategy. Our one-team, all-in culture was recognized recently with the prestigious Great Place to Work certification. The recognition underscores our ongoing progress in integrating our teams and solidifying RB Global as a highly attractive workplace. This translates to increased engagement and productivity with our teammates, which benefits our customers and all our stakeholders in the long term. Let me start by talking about our commercial construction and transportation sector. We continue to be the partner of choice for our customers as we guide them through their disposition needs. The consignment environment remains supportive as OEM production has ramped up, allowing equipment owners to act on fleets that were aged during a pandemic. That said, we are not resting on our laurels. We are reinforcing our winning strategy by investing in our sales force, recruiting top talent, and providing better sales coverage in certain markets within North America. Every market share percentage point we capture translates to more satisfied customers solidifying our commitment to excellence and remaining the partner of choice. Moving to the automotive sector, we continued our steady acceleration towards operational excellence by implementing enhanced processes to over-deliver against our service level agreements. Customer savings and operational efficiencies go hand in hand for us. That's why we prioritize optimizing tow performance after transaction closing. Picking up the vehicles quickly and efficiently stops storage costs, rental car costs, and other auxiliary costs for our customers and significantly impacts net returns. I am proud of the team and pleased to say that our process improvement combined with strategically deploying internal tow assets have dramatically improved our performance compared to prior levels. Our pickup compliance and internal measure of our tow performance was approximately 98% in the fourth quarter, a substantial improvement year over year. More importantly, we have consistently been in the high 90s of compliance for several months. We are focused on streamlining buying processes and strategically leveraging technology to maximize gross returns for our customers. Our efforts yielded measurable results again in the quarter, with automotive average selling prices climbing an industry-leading 2.5% year-over-year. A prime example of our technology deployment is our recent implementation of JD Power Chrome Data VIN descriptions with our IAA Interact merchandising platform. This gives buyers unparalleled and industry-leading insights for trim-level data on vehicles in our marketplace while unlocking additional value for our sellers. We're also getting phenomenal feedback on our recently launched Sales Decision Center. This system gives our sellers incredible real-time transparency into the variables impacting the market's microstructure of our auctions, allowing them to optimize their price realization further and unlock incremental value. As we continue to discuss our operational excellence program with our partners, we will launch a program that will provide our aggregated SLO performance to all of our insurance partners next week, creating an industry-leading level of transparency. The road ahead is paved with continuous improvement, and we're committed to exceeding customer expectations and our commitments at every turn. The momentum from our efforts to integrate IEA is feeling a broader focus on efficiencies and operational excellence across the entire organization. We've realized $17 million in actual cost synergies in the quarter and have actioned a total of $70 million in annual run rate cost synergies since the close of the transaction. We are confident with all the plans in place to achieve our cost synergy target on the timetable we previously communicated. Our responsibility is to manage overall costs, not just cost synergies, and more importantly, deliver overall results. We are keenly focused on top-line growth and margin expansion opportunities across the entire organization, and therefore, we will no longer be reporting progress on cost synergies quarterly. By continually exploring ways to efficiently manage the cost of our business through operational excellence, we will enable strong flow through which will drive shareholder value. In our discussions with our value partners, land ownership is not necessary for meeting or exceeding our service level agreements or winning additional market share. We maintain a surplus of land capacity across our asset classes, allowing us to accommodate our operational requirements easily. As we indicated last quarter, we will continue to purchase property strategically and opportunistically in regions acceptable to CATS, where the market opportunity makes strong financial sense for us to make these investments. In certain markets, we proactively have and will continue to acquire space to better service the needs of our customers. Before passing the call to Eric, I'd like to introduce him formally. When seeking our new CFO, we had three critical criteria in mind. Firstly, we wanted someone who could enhance operational excellence by collaborating closely with the sales and operational teams. Secondly, a people-oriented leader who seamlessly aligned with our one-team, all-in culture. Lastly, someone with a deep understanding of a customer-centric company. Eric embodies all these qualities, and his experience within the automotive ecosystem has allowed him to dive in and make immediate impact. Let me pass the call to Eric to discuss our financial results for the fourth quarter and our outlook for 2024. Eric?