Sprott Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Sprott, Inc.' 's 2023 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. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded today, February 21st, 2024. 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 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 cause actual results to differ materially from expectations and about material factors or assumptions applied in making forward-looking statements, please consult the MD&A for the quarter and Sprott's other filings with the Canadian and U.S. security regulators. I will now turn the conference over to Mr. Whitney George. Please go ahead, Mr. George.

Whitney George Thank you. The rest of this presentation will go much faster than the disclosures. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. On the call with me today is our CFO, Kevin Hibbert, and John Cimpeglia, the CEO of Sprott Asset Management. Our 2023 annual results were released this morning and are available on our website where you can also find the financial statements and MD&A. Starting on slide four, we're pleased with our performance during 2023 as we grew our AUM by $5.3 billion to $28.7 billion. This strong AUM growth was driven largely by our strong uranium prices and inflows into our exchange listed products. On the year, we generated $1.1 billion in net sales. Much of our AUM growth in 2023 came late in the fourth quarter and is positively impacting our 2024 performance. In 2023, we also finished the cleanup of our legacy non-core businesses, exiting both our Canadian broker-dealer and our Korean operations. With this cleanup behind us now, we expect to see much less noise in our quarterly results going forward. We were very active on the product development front in 2023 as we expanded our ETF product suite with seven new ETF launches in the US and in Europe. We also completed successful private strategies capital raises and launched an actively managed physical commodity strategy. Finally, to meet the needs of our growing client and investor base, we reorganized and expanded our sales and marketing and investor relations teams and added new talent in each of these key areas. With that, I'll pass it over to Kevin for a look at our financial results. Kevin.

Thanks, Whitney, and good morning, everyone. I'll start on slide five, which provides a summary of our historical AUM. AUM finished the year at $28.7 billion, up $3.3 billion, or 13% from September 30th of this year, and is up $5.3 billion, or 23% since the end of 2022. As Whitney mentioned, on both a three and 12 months ended basis, we benefited from strong gold and uranium prices, particularly late in the fourth quarter, as well as inflows across the majority of our exchange listed products throughout the year. We also benefited from capital raises in our private strategies funds. And with the recent growth of our uranium physical trust and ETFs, our critical materials product offerings now account for 28% of total assets under management. Slide six provides a brief look at our three and 12 month earnings. Adjusted base EBITDA was $18.8 million in the quarter, up 4% from the $18.1 million we earned over the same three month period in 2022. On a full year basis, adjusted base EBITDA was $71.9 million, up 1% from the $71 million we earned over the same 12-month period of 2022. The increased management fees generated from higher average AUM on a full-year basis arose largely in the fourth quarter as rising precious metals and uranium prices benefited our AUM. However, those results were largely offset by lower commission income due to the sale of our former Canadian broker dealer during the second quarter of the year and weaker at the market origination of our uranium trust throughout 2023. As Whitney noted, with the successful exit of all remaining non-core businesses in the year, the company is now well positioned to reap the full benefits of the 2024 operating environment. Finally, Slide seven provides a few capital management highlights from the past year. We paid down over half our debt, took advantage of market dislocation to buy back shares, and maintained a strong cash and liquidity profile moving into 2024. For more information on our revenues, expenses, EBITDA, and balance sheet metrics, you can refer to the supplemental information section of this presentation as well as our annual MD&A filed earlier this morning. With that said, I'll pass things over to John.