Sprott Inc.

Good morning ladies and gentlemen and thank you for standing by. Welcome to SPROUT Incorporated 2020 Annual Results Conference Call. At this time all participants are in listen only mode. Following the presentation we will conduct a question and answer session. Instructions will be provided at that time for you to queue up for questions. If anyone has difficulties hearing the conference please press star followed by zero for operator assistance at any time. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded today, February 26, 2021. On behalf of the speakers that follow, listeners are cautioned that today's presentation and the responses to questions may contain forward-looking statements within the means of the safe harbor provision of the Canadian Provincial... securities law. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties and undue reliance should not be placed on such statements. Certain material factors or assumptions are implied in making forward-looking statements and actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. For additional information about factors that may actually may cause actual results to differ materially from expectations and about material factors or assumptions applied in the making forward-looking statements, please consult the MD&A for the quarter and sprouts other filings with the Canadian and U.S. securities regulators. I will now turn the conference call over to Mr. Peter Grossoff. Please go ahead, Mr. Grossoff.

Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. On the call with me today is Whitney George, our president, Kevin Hibbert, our chief financial officer, and John Champaglia, the chief executive officer of Sprott Asset Management. Our 2020 annual results were released this morning and are available on our website, where you can also find our financial statements and MD&A. I'll start on slide four. 2020 was clearly a year unlike any other. COVID-19 took a toll and altered the way we live and work, including the way we work at Sprott. Happily, we can now see that there's a light at the end of the tunnel, and we can start to think about moving on with our lives as vaccine programs are rolled out. While the worst of the pandemic may be behind us, we now need to turn our attention to the impacts of pandemic response on the financial markets. As governments and central banks resorted to unprecedented monetary and fiscal stimulus, we believe they exacerbated pre-existing conditions and ensured that continued interventions will be required to keep the global debt bubble from bursting. In this light, in 2020, Gold performed well in its traditional role as a safe haven asset, reaching a record high in August before finishing the year up approximately 25%. For our business, it's important to note that with equity markets at all-time highs and valuations stretched across the financial markets, investors are increasingly turning to gold as a portfolio hedge. Our universe is thriving, and at Sprott, Our strategy to address this large and growing market segment by providing investors with access to a global year in metals and mining strategies is still in its relatively early stages. We see a lot of growth available to us in the market, and we see a lot of investors turning not just to gold and precious metals, but other mining equities as they make their real asset investments for the future. Turning now to slide five. Looking at some of our 2020 highlights, in January, we completed the acquisition of Tocqueville Gold Strategies. In June, we took the next step in the evolution of the company with our listing on the NYSE. We believe this increased our profile in our largest market and made it simpler for US investors to purchase our shares. In Canada, our strong financial performance was recognized with Sprott being added to the TSX composite and named to the TSX-30. And as demand for precious metals surged, we finished the year with $17.4 billion in AUM, a record high for the company. So we had a busy year, to say the least. I wanted to take a moment on this slide to recognize how proud I am of the state of the company at this time. It's directly a result of the contributions of our employees, management, and our board, specifically the quality of the people and culture, our practices, including the treatment of customers, disclosure, regulatory, and ESG, and the breadth and global status of the company. With respect to 2020, it was the first year that I believe it all came together. First, each of the businesses performed well and capitalized on strong market conditions. each hired and improved on their already excellent talent pool, and each produced growing financial returns. More importantly to me was how all the spokes of the wheel worked together. I noticed how our collective DNA of mining investment helped each other succeed. Great talent is always mobile, but they still stay or come to Sprott because of the unique benefits of our platform. So I'll... Turning now to slide six, over the past five years, we've repositioned our business to focus on our core strengths in precious metals and mining. The results of this transition over the last five years have been significant improvements across all of our key financial metrics. Over this period, our AUM grew by 224%, and our adjusted base EBITDA increased by 240%. Last November, we increased our annual dividend by 8.7%. While we're pleased with our progress so far, we believe that we're still just getting started, and we look forward to capitalizing on the exciting opportunities ahead of us. With that, I'll turn it over to Kevin for some details on our financial results.

Thank you, Peter, and good morning, everyone. I'll start on slide 7, which provides a summary of of our AUM as at December 31, 2020. As Peter just mentioned, our AUM finished the year at a record $17.4 billion, up $1.1 billion, or 7% from September 30, 2020, and up $8.1 billion, or 88% from December 31, 2019. Our AUM benefited largely from strong inflows into our physical trusts and rising precious metals prices, particularly gold. The acquisition of Tocqueville's Gold Strategies Fund in the first quarter of the year and strong market value appreciation across most of our equity fund products. Moving now to slide 8 for a look at our 3- and 12-month earnings. Adjusted base EBITDA in the quarter was $14.8 million, up $7.3 million, or 98% from the prior period, and was $44.2 million on a year-to-date basis, up $15.2 million, or 52%. The increase in the quarter and on a full year basis was primarily due to strong net inflows and precious metals price appreciation in our exchange listed products. The Tocqueville Gold Strategies acquisition earlier this year coupled with stronger equity valuations in our precious metals fund strategies and we also benefited from increased commission revenues in our brokerage segment due to strong equity origination and transaction activity. Those increases more than offset lower finance income in our lending segment and higher variable at-risk compensation on increased revenues, earnings generation, and strong operating margins across the company, which are key performance metrics for our AIP and LTIC programs. For more information on our revenues, expenses, and EBITDA, you can refer to the supplemental information section of this presentation, as well as our 2020 MD&A filed earlier this morning. With that said, I'll pass things over to John.