Sprott Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Sprott, Inc.' 's 2025 First Quarter Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a 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, May 7, 2025. On behalf of the speakers that follow, listeners are cautioned that today's presentation and the responses to questions may contain forward-looking information and forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable Canadian and U.S. securities laws. Forward-looking statements involve risk 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. securities regulators. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Whitney George. Please go ahead, Mr. George.

Thank you, Operator, and good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. On the call with me today is our CFO, Kevin Hibbert, and John Chimpaglia, CEO of Sprott Asset Management. Our 2025 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 go to slide four. A quick review of first quarter and year-to-date highlights. A lot has happened since we last spoke late February. On April 2nd, 2025, Liberation Day, the Trump administration announced massive tariff hikes, which triggered a sharp sell-off in a wild month in the markets. After initially falling by 12%, the S&P 500 finished April basically flat. Ten-year Treasury bond yields initially fell as the beginnings of a global trade war introduced the possibility of a recession. However, yields later spiked back up as foreign and domestic confidence in U.S. investments was shaken. Despite the recent volatility, all signs are currently pointing to a period of stagflation. Against this backdrop, gold has emerged as the last hedge standing. Turning now to our results, I'm pleased to report that despite the volatile environment, our assets under management increased by 3.5 billion in Q1 to 35.1 billion. Our asset growth was driven by both surging gold prices and strong inflows to our precious metal strategies. During the quarter, we generated $407 million in net sales. Our managed equity strategies performed well during the quarter with our flagship gold equity fund posting a gain of 26.4%. While mining equities have benefited from rising precious metal prices, investors have not yet returned to the sector. Despite what appears to be a very attractive catch-up trade, with the miners lagging the metals. With the addition of lower oil prices and higher metal prices, we've rarely seen such a strong setup for that sector. We continue to expand our ETF product suite. During the first quarter, we launched the Sprott Silver Miners and Physical Silver ETF, and our first actively managed ETF, the Sprott Active Gold and Silver Miners ETF. We are very pleased with the early reception for these funds, which have been two of our most successful ETF launches to date. 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 quarter at $35.1 billion, as Whitney mentioned, which was up 11% from $31.5 billion on December 31st, 2024. On a three months ended basis, we did benefit from strong market value appreciation and net inflows to our precious metals physical trusts, to Whitney's point. However, that was partially offset by weaker market valuations in our critical materials products. Subsequent to quarter end, on May 2nd, our AUM increased to $36.5 billion, and as of close of business yesterday, our AUM has now surpassed $38 billion. That's $3 billion of new AUM since the quarter end, $800 million of which are new inflows into our flagship physical trusts. Slide six provides a brief look at our three-month earnings. Net income this quarter was $12 million, up 3% from $11.6 million over the same three-month period last year. Similarly, adjusted EBITDA was $21.9 million in the quarter, up 11% from $19.8 million over the same three-month period last year. Our earnings results benefited from higher average AUM on strong market value appreciation and inflows to our precious metals physical trusts, partially offset by ongoing weaker market valuations of our critical materials product offerings. Importantly, the strong run-up in gold prices to north of $3,000 an ounce did not occur until very late in the quarter on March 17th. Effective the first quarter of this year, we changed the name of our key non-IFRS measure, adjusted base EBITDA, to adjusted EBITDA. The change was made to simplify wording, and there was no impact to the underlying calculation. Finally, slide 7 provides a few Treasury and balance sheet management highlights. And as you can see, our cash and liquidity profile remains strong, and we continue to be debt-free. For more information on our revenues, expenses, net income, adjusted EBITDA, and balance sheet metrics, you can refer to the supplemental information section of this presentation, as well as our quarterly MD&A and financial statements filed earlier this morning. With that said, I'll pass things over to John.