Sprott Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Sprott, Inc.' 's 2021 First Quarter Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are on the 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 your questions. If anyone has any difficulties here in the conference, please press star followed by the zero for operator assistance at any time. As a reminder, this conference has been recorded today, May 7th, 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 meaning of the Safe Harbor provisions of the Canadian Provincial Securities Law. Forward-looking statements involve risk and uncertainties that 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 cause actual results to differ materially from expectations and about materials, factors, or assumptions applied in making forward-looking statements, please consult the MD&A for the quarter and SPARTS or the filings with the Canadian and U.S. securities regulators. I will now turn the conference Over to Mr. Peter Groskopf. Please go ahead, Mr. Groskopf.

Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. On the call with me today is Whitney George, the president of Sprott, Kevin Hibbert, our CFO, and John Champaglia, the chief executive of Sprott Asset Management. Our 2021 first quarter results were released this morning and are available on our website, where you can also find the financial statements and MD&A. I'll start on slide four. The resilience of Sprott's business model was demonstrated during this quarter as we continued to deliver consistently strong results for our shareholders despite a pullback in precious metal prices. We were very pleased with our quarter. The first quarter of 2021 saw gold and silver prices decline by 10 and 7.5% respectively, driven primarily by yield increases in the U.S. Treasury markets and investor apathy for gold while they were convinced about strong economic growth and the strength in other markets. Precious metals have rebounded in the second quarter as yields have retreated and mining equities have performed better as investor interest has gradually started to increase. Our physical trusts continue to expand their client base and take market share away from some of our larger competitors. PSLV was a standout in Q1 as interest in physical silver surged. We recently announced we're expanding our exchange-traded product segment through an agreement to acquire Uranium Participation Corp., the leading physical uranium vehicle in the market. John will talk about that transaction in more detail in a few minutes, but we believe it is a perfect fit alongside our precious metal physical trusts and will appeal to our client base both in the U.S. and internationally. With that, I'll pass it over to Kevin for a look at our financial results.

Thanks, Peter, and good morning, everyone. I'll start on slide five, which provides a summary of our AUM as of March 31st, 2021. AUM was $17.1 billion this quarter, down $300 million, or 2% from December 31st of last year. Our AUM was largely impacted by market value depreciation that was partially offset by strong inflows into our various fund products in the quarter. In particular, our physical silver trust, which saw a little over $1.1 billion of inflows in the quarter. And subsequent to quarter end, management estimates that consolidated AUM as of May 4th was $18.2 billion, up $1.1 billion or 7% from March 31st. The estimated increase in AUM from the quarter end was primarily due to a combination of precious metals and mining equity valuation recoveries across our various fund products and continued strong inflows into our physical trust. On slide six, you'll see our three-month earnings summary Adjusted base EBITDA in the quarter was $14.6 million, up $6.4 million, or 78% from the prior period. And this marks the second consecutive quarter that we've posted results surpassing our previous quarterly historic high recorded back in the third quarter of 2011. The increase in the quarter was primarily due to strong net inflows in our exchange-listed products, as I alluded to earlier, higher average AUM in our managed equity segment and a significant increase in commission revenues from our brokerage segment on very strong equity origination activity. For more information on our revenues, expenses and EBITDA, you can refer to the supplemental information section of this presentation, as well as our first quarter 2021 MD&A filed earlier this morning. So with that said, I'll pass things over to John.