OTC Markets Group Inc.

ladies and gentlemen today's conference is scheduled to begin shortly please continue to stand by thank you for your patience Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the OTC Markets Group first quarter 2022 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 will need to press star 1 on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star then zero. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker, Mr. Dan Zinn, General Counsel. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator. Good morning, and welcome to the OTC Markets Group First Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. With me today are Cromwell Coulson, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Antonia Georgieva, our Chief Financial Officer. Today's call will be accompanied by a slide presentation. Our earnings press release and the presentation are each available on our website. Certain statements during this call and in our presentation may relate to future events or expectations and, as such, may constitute forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from these forward-looking statements. Information concerning risks and uncertainties that may impact our actual results is contained in the Risk Factors section of our 2021 Annual Report, which is also available on our website. For more information, please refer to the Safe Harbor Statement on Slide 3 of the earnings presentation. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Cromwell Coulson.

Thank you, Dan. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. The tragic war in Ukraine and the ongoing effects of the COVID pandemic continue to influence communities and economies across the globe. The resulting volatility impacts the broker dealers, companies, and investors that rely on our markets and our data. One point remains clear. We must continue to adapt in a changing business environment. It is crucial that especially in uncertain times, that we focus on areas where we have control of the inputs. To be agents of positive change and deliver consistent improvement that creates ongoing value for our clients. Our team's dedication, collaboration, and execution across all levels remains extraordinary. I am honored to work with this talented group. We all share a commitment, to serving our clients, ensuring that our mission-critical markets operate smoothly today, and building our services for a better tomorrow. Against this backdrop, our business delivered solid results during the first quarter. Our year-over-year growth slowed following record results in unprecedented trading volumes during the first quarter of 2021. We saw lower transaction-based revenues consistent with industry-wide trends. while user demand for our corporate services and market data business lines continued their upward trajectory. This shifted the overall balance of our business lines, with corporate services growth and market data subscription revenues taking up the slack for lower transaction fees. Gross revenues remained roughly flat year over year, while revenues less transaction-based expenses, net income, operating profit margin, and earnings per share all experience growth. Antonia will cover our financial results in more detail in a few moments. We remain big believers in including transaction-based fees in our revenue mix. Clients benefit from the variability of costs tracking their trading volumes, and we share upside opportunities in strong trading environments. With last quarter's normalized volumes, our OTC Link team has continued to grind away, growing subscribers across ATSs and gaining market share on our ECNs. Our broker-dealer subscribers can choose from the tailored trading models we offer through OTC Link ATS, OTC Link ECN, and OTC Link NQB to best suit their needs. Subscriber growth is also a testament to the value of our network, as broker-dealers use our regulated trading systems to serve investors and find better trade executions. Following the SEC's amendments to Rule 15C2-11 last year, OTC Link ATS's role as a qualified IDQS has allowed our subscribers to rely on our publicly available determinations regarding Rule 211 compliance. Our work eases broker-dealer regulatory burdens, increases the number of securities available to trade, and supports a more transparent public market. Our critical regulatory role is now an integral role and part of the fabric of our nation's markets, a responsibility we take with the utmost dedication to serving our subscribers. Data-driven markets improve information for investors while supporting industry-wide compliance initiatives. We intend to build our enhanced regulatory role to create new opportunities for our clients to be more successful. Security and uptime of our core SCI regulated trading systems are always a top priority. and throughout the first quarter of 2022, we delivered consistent, reliable service to our broker-dealer community. It is a testament to our engineering and operations team's focus on quality of service and system security. Demand for our corporate services products and services remained strong in the first quarter, drawing on the momentum generated last year. The Rule 211 changes led to significant growth in demand for our disclosure and news services, and our OTCQX and OTCQB markets continued to expand. The nearly 1,800 companies on these markets, as of the end of the first quarter, exemplify the value of our data-driven premium market standards and technology platform for digitalizing disclosure, demonstrating compliance, and distributing governance credentials. Our market data licensing business also continued to grow during the first quarter. While the number of non-professional users declined, reflecting lower retail participation in the U.S. equity markets as well as changes in broker-dealers moving to enterprise licenses, the broader Global and domestic interest in our markets and the data we provide led to strong increases in professional users and enterprise subscribers. We are thrilled to have recently closed our acquisition of substantially all of the assets of Blue Sky Data Corp. We have long felt this acquisition was the right fit for our company and our subscribers. We now offer comprehensive data regarding state Blue Sky law compliance for over 100,000 equity and debt securities, in addition to the federal compliance data we already provide. Our Blue Sky data offering will help broker-dealers, financial advisors, public companies, investors, and other interested market participants improve their understanding of and compliance with state securities laws. It is a multi-sided platform business where increased compliance by issuers and improved automation by broker-dealers will benefit both sides. Our market data and technology teams are working hard to quickly integrate the Blue Sky Data Corp business and onboard Blue Sky subscribers that are new clients. We are also excited to welcome several new employees as part of the transition to the OTC Markets team. With the addition of Blue Sky data, we remain focused on growing our global subscriber base and providing enhanced compliance data to a wider group of industry participants. Throughout the first months of 2022, we have continued to pursue our four strategic initiatives structured around continuing to serve our clients and shareholders. One, drive sustainable revenue growth across each of our business lines that increases the long-term per share earnings power. Two, commercialize our enhanced regulatory status under Rule 211 to create new opportunities for public companies and broker-dealers. Three, advocate for additional regulatory recognition of our markets to increase the value of being public. Four, pursue corporate development efforts to grow and diversify our product suite and client base. In closing, I'm pleased to announce that on May 10th, our Board of Directors declared a quarterly dividend of 18 cents per share, payable later this month. This dividend reflects our ongoing commitment to providing superior shareholder returns. With that, I will turn the call over to Antonia.