Virtus Investment Partners, Inc.

Good morning. My name is Kevin, and I'll be your conference operator today. I would like to welcome everyone to the Virtus Investment Partners quarterly conference call. The slide presentation for this call is available in the investor relations section of the Virtus website, www.virtus.com. This call is also being recorded and will be available for replay on the Virtus website. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer period, and instructions will follow at that time. I will now let you turn the conference over to your host, Sean Rourke.

Thank you, Kevin, and good morning, everyone. On behalf of Virtus Investment Partners, I would like to welcome you to the discussion of our operating and financial results for the third quarter of 2020. Our speakers today are George Aylward, President and CEO of Virtus, and Mike Angerthal, Chief Financial Officer. Following the prepared remarks, we'll have a Q&A period. Before we begin, I direct your attention to the important disclosures on page two of the slide presentation that accompanies this webcast. Certain matters discussed on this call may contain forward-looking statements, within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and as such are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties, including but not limited to those factors set forth in today's news release and discussed in our SEC filings. These risks and uncertainties may cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed in these statements. In addition to results presented on a GAAP basis, we use certain non-GAAP measures to evaluate our financial results. Our non-GAAP financial measures are not substitutes for GAAP financial results, and should be read in conjunction with the GAAP results. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the applicable GAAP measures are included in today's news release and financial supplement, which are available on our website. Now I would like to turn the call over to George. George?

Thanks, Sean. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on our third quarter earnings conference call. We are pleased with the consistently strong operating performance that continued to be demonstrated in the quarter, which included positive net flows and strong sales, Our highest level of assets under management, revenues, and earnings per share, continued excellent investment performance, disciplined expense management, and an increased dividend and continued debt reduction. We're especially pleased with the positive net flows we generated in total and across product categories. Annualized organic growth exceeded 4% in the quarter and was nearly 3% over the trailing 12 months, which included significant market disruption in the first quarter. Feverable trends in flows and sales reflect the differentiated nature of our investment strategies, consistent strong investment performance, and the breadth and effectiveness of our retail and institutional distribution. Turning to a review of the results, our long-term assets under management in September 30th reached their highest level, increasing sequentially by nearly $8 billion, or 7%, to $115 billion as a result of both market appreciation and positive net flows. Total assets, which include liquidity strategies, ended the period at $116.5 billion. Sales momentum continued with $7.6 billion of inflows, representing our second-best quarter of sales. While sales were down sequentially from the second quarter, that was largely due to meaningful flows last quarter into an existing institutional sub-advisory mandate. Year-to-date sales were up 54%, with significant increases in open-end funds, retail separate accounts, and institutional. For the quarter, we had $1.2 billion of positive net flows with strong momentum in both retail separate accounts and open-end funds, continuing the trend we have seen over the past year. Retail separate accounts have delivered consistently positive net flows, reaching $1.1 billion in the third quarter, led by the intermediary sole channel. Open-end net flows were positive $0.4 billion, primarily due to the strength in domestic equity and investment-grade fixed income. Institutional net outflows were $0.3 billion, down from $1.5 billion of net inflows last quarter. Over the past four quarters, institutional has generated over $1 billion of positive net flows, representing organic growth rates exceeding 3%, with contributions from existing mandates and new accounts reflecting the attractiveness of our investment strategies and the continued traction in institutional distribution. In terms of what we're seeing in October for flows, while it's still very early, The trends we have seen throughout the year for both products and asset classes have continued. Our financial results for the quarter reflected the continued market rebound in addition to the impact of the current operating environment on travel expenses. Operating income has adjusted at $54.1 million and the related margin of 39.3% increased from $40.5 million and 34.3% respectively in the second quarter. Earnings for shares adjusted reached their highest level, increasing 39% sequentially to $4.49 due to higher revenues and lower other operating expenses. Turning now to capital, we continued our balanced and prudent approach to capital management, and we maintained a capital position that provides flexibility for future growth opportunities. During the quarter, we raised the quarterly common dividend by 22%, We've purchased approximately 54,000 shares, or 0.7% of shares outstanding, and continue the consistent paydown of debt ending in the quarter with net debt to bank EBITDA of 0.1x. Over the past year, we've reduced our debt by 26%. With that, let me turn the call over to Mike to provide more detail on the results. Mike? Thank you, George.