Ryan Specialty Holdings, Inc. Class A

Greetings. Welcome to the Ryan Specialty Group first quarter 2022 earnings call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note, this conference is being recorded. I'll now turn the conference over to your host, Noah Angeletti. You may begin.

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, and welcome to Ryan Specialty Group Holdings' first quarter 2022 earnings call. This afternoon, the company released its financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2022. The earnings release is available in the investor section of the company's website at ryansg.com. I would like to remind everyone that certain statements made during this call are not based on historical information and may constitute forward-looking statements. Any statements that refer to projections, forecasts, guidance, outlook, or other characterizations of future plans, including integration expectations, restructuring initiatives, events or circumstances, including any underlying assumptions or forward-looking statements. These statements are based on management's current expectations and beliefs and are subject to a number of trends and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. I refer you to the company's filings made with the SEC for more detailed discussion of the risk factors that could cause actual results timing, levels of activity, performance, or achievements to differ materially from those expressed or implied in any forward-looking statements made today. Investors should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statement. The company undertakes no duty to update any forward-looking statements that may be made during the course of this call except as required by law. Additionally, certain non-GAAP financial measures will be discussed on this call, including organic revenue growth rate, adjusted net income, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted diluted EPS. Our presentation of this information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the financial information presented in accordance with GAAP. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most closely comparable measures prepared in accordance with GAAP are included in our earnings release, which is available in the investor section of the company's website at ryansg.com. With that, I'd now like to turn the call over to the founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Ryan Specialty, Pat Ryan.

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us on our first quarter 2022 earnings conference call. On today's call, I will provide a brief overview of the quarter and our strategy moving forward. Our president, Tim Turner, will then give an update on each of our three specialties and recent events. And lastly, our CFO, Jeremiah Pickham, will walk you through our financials. We'll then open it up for Q&A. Our first quarter of 2022 picked up seamlessly from our outstanding 2021 performance, as we grew total revenue 24%, led by organic revenue growth of 20%. We also achieved double-digit growth and adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net income on a year-over-year basis. Our excellent results were driven by strong growth across all three of our specialties. A strong performance this quarter and the prior quarters continues to demonstrate that a differentiated platform provides considerable value to our clients and enables us to outperform in various environments and against any competition. We are pleased to see that the NS marketplace remains robust. The market changes we've perceived on the periphery, which we flagged on our prior earnings calls, have not yet developed. Broadly speaking, rates remain resilient in the majority of our lines of business. Our rate increases have moderated. They've been more than offset by the continued expansion of the E&S market. We continue to add to our best-in-class team. We hit the ground running with onboarding new teammates in Q1, particularly in our underwriting management specialty, proving that we are a destination of choice for the top talent in the industry. We believe we offer leading underwriters and brokers a unique value proposition, the ability to build a business by leveraging our industry-leading capabilities, which provides them with strong financial backing and infrastructure support, allowing them to focus on providing innovative solutions for our clients. Further bearing this out is our industry-leading retention for underwriters and producers, which speaks volumes to our winning culture. Moving forward, we expect to stay the course on our growth initiatives. We are on pace to onboard our largest broker class ever in 2022. We remain confident that these investments and the next generation of teammates will be accretive for Ryan's specialty going forward. We are pushing ahead in our formation of de Novos, which you'll hear more from Tim on. Moreover, as we have previously conveyed, we will complete our 25 million 2020 restructuring program by June 30th of this year. Looking ahead, we remain very confident in our ability to maintain steady and profitable growth. The E&S market continues to expand As the complexity of risks increases, as we have for the last 11 years, we continue to take market share from our competitors. Along with our strong organic growth, we continue to maintain a highly active M&A pipeline as we look for additional opportunities to enhance our platform and capabilities. We have a strong balance sheet, an ample capacity that enables us to act when we find the right opportunities. As we've noted before, we will remain disciplined and move forward only when we identify an opportunity that we believe is strategic, a strong cultural fit, and accretive to our shareholder returns. Simply, this was another outstanding quarter for Ryan Specialty. Due to our incredible team, that is unwavering in their dedication to our clients and trading partners, our time-tested business model, and our winning culture. We are well-positioned to sustainably and profitably grow our business and to continue delivering long-term value for our shareholders. With that, I'll now turn the call over to our president, Tim Turner. Tim?