WisdomTree, Inc.

Hello, and thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Wisdom Tree first quarter earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you'll need to press star one on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star zero. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Jessica Zalum, Head of Corporate Communications, Please go ahead.

Good morning. Before we begin, I would like to reference our legal disclaimer available in today's presentation. This presentation may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in forward-looking statements. including but not limited to the risks set forth in this presentation and in the risk factors section of the Wisentries annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31st, 2021. Wisentries assumes no duty and does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements. Now, it is my pleasure to turn the call over to Wisentries CFO, Brian Edmondson.

Brian Edmondson Good morning, everyone, and welcome. I am incredibly pleased to report another fantastic quarter with record AUM levels and strong organic growth in the wake of a volatile market environment. A successful quarter like this doesn't happen by accident. Jarrett and John will unpack how we got here and the bright outlook ahead for us, but first I will walk you through our first quarter results. Our AUM at March 31st was $79.4 billion, which represents our second consecutive record quarter. Our average AUM for the quarter was 77.8 billion, our fifth consecutive record quarter. Our AUM has withstood a volatile market environment and is positioned to continue capturing market share as we experience a rotation towards value, rising rates, and inflation. We benefited from positive market movement, and we generated 1.3 billion of inflows during the quarter, representing a 7% annualized organic growth rate. Key contributors include 2.3 billion of flows from our U.S. business and almost 600 million from our European usage platform. Our U.S. business has now generated positive inflows for six consecutive quarters, and this is the second consecutive quarter of U.S. flows of roughly $2 billion. Our usage platform has also generated positive flows for eight consecutive quarters. These flows, which mitigated outflows from certain commodity products, highlight the breadth of our product lineup and demonstrate sustainable momentum. Our AUM currently stands at 77.8 billion, down from the end of the quarter as our inflows were offset by negative market movements. In the month of April, we have generated an additional 1.7 billion of flows, continuing the positive trends witnessed over the course of the last 18 months. Taking these additional inflows into consideration, increases our annualized organic growth rate from 7 percent to 12 percent. Next slide. Revenues were 78.4 million, a decrease of 1 percent from the prior quarter. This decrease is largely a function of two fewer revenue days this quarter, as our AUM was higher versus the prior quarter, and our fee rate was essentially unchanged. Adjusted net income was 14.1 million, or nine cents a share. This quarter, we recognized the non-cash after-tax loss of $17 million for our future gold commitment payment and $5.2 million in other net non-operating losses. Our adjusted net income also excludes $2.4 million of expenses incurred in response to an activist campaign by ETFS Capital and LionPoint. Next slide. Our adjusted operating expenses were up 3% for the quarter. Compensation costs increase due to seasonally higher payroll taxes in connection with the payment of year-end bonuses. Our discretionary spending of $11.3 million is well controlled and 5% lower than the prior quarter. Next slide. Now just a few brief comments on our forecasted expense guidance. Our compensation guidance, which contemplates hiring for our core business and digital assets, ranges from 92 to 102 million and is unchanged from what was communicated last quarter. If our strong organic growth persists, we would anticipate full-year compensation costs to be toward the high end of our guidance range. We continue to anticipate our discretionary spending ranging from 49 to 57 million. This range is influenced by our digital asset spend, which includes professional fees, marketing, product development, and other related expenses, and is dependent on the timing of the Woodland Tree Prime rollout and additional products and features to be launched. The range also considers the impact of the pandemic on our sales-related spending. Guidance related to gross margins, third-party distribution fees, and our tax rate are also unchanged from what was communicated last quarter. Our contractual gold payments guidance is being adjusted upward to between 18 and 19 million, given the recent increase in the price of gold. Next slide. Now I would just like to comment on our capital management priorities. Maintaining our dividend is our primary commitment. We are also prioritizing managing and ultimately reducing our debt. 175 million of our convertible notes are scheduled to mature in just over a year. While not committing to anything at this time, we anticipate reducing our debt levels and partially refinancing a portion of these notes sometime between the latter half of this year and early next year. The magnitude of any debt reduction will contemplate our capital needs and investment opportunities. We have also bought back $68 million of stock over the last two years, representing over 13 million shares, and we have liquidity for further buybacks to consider opportunistically. Further stock buybacks may occur in connection with any convertible note refinancing. However, that will need to be balanced with optimizing our debt and investing strategically in our growth. That's all I have. I will now turn the call over to Jono.