Virtus Investment Partners, Inc.

Thank you for standing by. Your conference will begin in two minutes. Again, thank you for standing by. Your conference will begin in two minutes. Please stand by. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Richard, 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 in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer period. An instruction will follow at that time. I will now turn the conference to your host, Ian Ward. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Richard, 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 2021. Our speakers today are George Elward, President and CEO of Virtus, and Mike Angerthal, Chief Financial Officer. Following the prepared remarks, we will 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 the 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, the applicable GAAP measures, are included in today's news release and financial supplement, which are available on our website. Now I'd like to turn the call over to George. George?

Thank you, Sean. Good morning, everyone. I'll start today with an overview of the results we reported this morning before turning it over to Mike to provide more detail. We delivered very strong financial and operating results for the quarter, and although we did have modestly negative net flows attributable to equity mutual funds, we reported record levels of operating profitability and margin with operating income more than double the prior year period. Our highest level of earnings per share is adjusted. Continued strong investment performance. positive net flows in retail separate accounts, ETFs, and institutional, and meaningfully higher return of capital through increases in both share repurchases and our dividend. We also continue to take actions to enhance the company's strategic and financial positioning. On October 1st, we closed on our acquisition of Westchester Capital Management, further diversifying our investment offerings with $5.1 billion of differentiated, non-correlated, event-driven strategies. We also remain on track with the approval process to complete our transaction with Stone Harbor Investment Partners near year-end. Stone Harbor's $15 billion in emerging markets debt, multi-asset credit, and other strategies are highly complementary to our existing fixed income products and well-respected among clients and consultants. In addition, we completed the refinancing of our credit arrangement, providing additional financial flexibility, an extended maturity profile, and more attractive borrowing costs. Now turning to a review of the results. Total assets under management were $177.3 billion, down 1% from June 30th due to market performance and modest net outflows. Over the past year, AUM has increased by 52% from the addition of the AGI assets, market performance, and positive net flows. Sales of $7.6 billion declined sequentially from $9.6 billion, while redemptions were flat for the period. The sales decline were primarily due to weakness in equity funds, consistent with a shift in investor preferences during the period. On a year-to-date basis, sales have increased 13% on growth in retail separate accounts, open-end funds, and ETFs. Net outflows in the third quarter were $0.6 billion, as outflows in mutual funds, including a $0.7 billion model rebalance, offset organic growth in retail separate accounts, ETFs, and institutional funds. Open-end net flows, which included the model change, were negative due to international and domestic equity. Retail separate accounts continued to deliver positive net flows with an 8% annualized organic growth rate and positive flows across investment strategies. Institutional net flows were positive for the fourth consecutive quarter with continued traction at multiple affiliates. ETFs generated positive net flows for the fifth consecutive quarter. Organic growth for the trailing 12-month period exceeded 5%, with essentially all asset classes generating positive flows. In terms of the flows we are seeing so far in October, many of the third quarter trends have continued, including solid momentum in retail separate accounts and ETFs. In institutional, the pipeline is consistent with what we have seen over the past year. In open-end funds, areas of continuous strength in fixed income, multi-asset, and alternatives have are being offset by international and domestic equities. Westchester Capital, which generated $0.1 billion of positive net flows in the third quarter prior to the close, continues to grow organically in October. Our profitability for the quarter again reached a new high. Operating income has adjusted, increased by 7% sequentially and more than doubled over the prior year, and the related margin of 50.6% increased from 48.9% in the prior quarter to and by 11 percentage points from the prior year. Earnings per share as suggested were $9.71, up 7% sequentially due to higher revenues and stable expenses. Turning now to capital, during the quarter we increased return of capital to shareholders, reflecting the meaningful growth of free cash flow over the past year. We repurchased approximately 65,000 shares for $20 million, up from $7.5 million in the prior quarter, and we increased our quarterly common dividend by 83%, representing the fourth consecutive annual increase. Our balance sheet remains strong, and we ended the quarter in a net cash position as we continue to generate significant cash flow, providing opportunities to continue to invest in the growth of the business and growth of the shareholders. With that, I'll turn the call over to Mike. Mike?