OTC Markets Group Inc.

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the OTC Markets Group first quarter 2024 earnings conference call and webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during this session, you will need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising you your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Dan Zinn, General Counsel. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator. Good morning, and welcome to the OTC Markets Group first quarter 2024 earnings conference call. With me today are Pramil Kulson, 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 2023 Annual Report, which is also available on our website. For more information, please refer to the Safe Harbor Statement on slide three 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. I will discuss our first quarter 2024 results at a high level, and we'll review our operational and strategic priorities for the year. Gross and net revenues slipped in the first quarter dropping 1% and 2% lower respectively versus the first quarter of 2023. Increases in market data revenues were not enough to offset a 5% decrease in corporate services and a 1% decline in OTC Link revenue. In the corporate services business, our OTCQX annual renewal percentage dropped slightly from prior years. leading to a lower number of companies on OTCQX at the start of the year. An increase in new OTCQX sales during the quarter presents a positive short-term trend. Similar to other public venture and small cap markets, OTCQB has seen a number of financially stressed smaller companies unable to maintain compliance and therefore drop from the market. The trend towards international trading activity has continued, with trading in ADRs and ordinary shares of non-US companies comprising over 80% of dollar volume across our OTCQX, OTCQB, and pink markets. Trading these global companies in US market hours is a unique value proposition, with dollar volumes growing for both European and Asian listed issuers. Our OTCQX and OTCQB markets provide an opportunity for these companies to improve visibility and better engage with US investors. We offer a unique way to connect their local primary listings to US valuations and secondary liquidity. At the beginning of the year, we reorganized our corporate sales and support resources into three regional teams covering the Americas, EMEA, and Asia. This will align outreach efforts with targeted global growth opportunities so we can better increase issuer understanding and engagement. Our market data results now reflect year-over-year performance, which includes our Blue Sky Data Core and your online acquisitions. Adding these operations enhances our ability to serve our broker-dealer subscribers, particularly with automation of their compliance and risk processes. The better we are at putting useful information onto investor screens and into broker-dealer machines, the more benefits we can offer corporate clients and the stronger our data-driven market model becomes. OTC Link saw a year-over-year decrease in trade volume but an uptick over the fourth quarter of 2023. The number of unique broker-dealer subscribers across our three ATSs rose slightly, with strong growth in subscribers using the ECN to directly access our markets. Our operating expenses during the quarter remained relatively flat to the first quarter of last year. Our approach to expense management is intentional. We pursue opportunities for growth And we are at a stage where focus on longer-term planning will both reduce costs and bring benefits from scale. Antonia will cover more of the details of our financial results in a few moments. Before I move on from discussing our expenses, I want to address one additional point. As has long been the case, our largest expense is our investment in people. I spoke last quarter about our long-term market integrity initiatives. Enhancing market quality and compliance is a priority throughout our organization. The integrity effort is led by our outstanding issuer services team operating primarily out of our Washington, D.C. office. That team, led by Liz Hess, includes market surveillance, issuer compliance, and qualifications teams that maintain the standards of our OTCQX and OTCQB markets and oversee our risk flags. These teams work with public companies to provide adequate current information, track ongoing disclosure, and regularly interact with the SEC FINRA and other state and federal regulators. Operating highly regulated markets also requires a dedicated broker-dealer compliance team within OTC Link. responsible for building and maintaining a robust compliance program. In particular, that team's work on our AML and suspicious activity report process has been important. Market integrity and compliance are cornerstones of the critical role we play and the teams ensuring we uphold our regulatory responsibilities are critical to our continued success. I thank all of our compliance professionals for their dedication to make us a stronger, more resilient organization. As 2024 continues, it is important to consider how our work in prior years has set the stage for our future initiatives. Providing seamless access to more electronic brokers has expanded our markets. Modern market makers are critical to continuous market liquidity They provide consistent execution quality for retail orders, liquidity in less active securities, and connect global prices in ADRs and ordinary shares. Our platforms also support the success of broker-dealers that desire order-driven matching engines. The best markets let participants choose the trading model that works best for their unique situation and provide a seamless connection across the widest possible range of participants. We recently announced our plan to introduce Closing Cross functionality for subscribers to our matching engine ATSs. Closing Cross is popular in other markets, and we are excited to offer this new feature to enhance choices for liquidity seekers. The liquidity of market makers already providing competitive closing prices directly to their correspondents and our new electronic closing cross process will make the overall OTC market stronger. Dynamic market structure requires multiple trading models and participants that are free to choose what best suits their needs and desires. Launching this initiative is a result of collaboration between our business and technology teams. We continue to pursue five strategic priorities this year. First, One team, one platform, driving results to build the value of one share. Under this initiative, we continue to integrate our teams and consolidate our technology platforms to drive operational efficiencies and client value in pursuit of revenue growth. Second, increase the number of securities on our markets. Our near-term opportunity is greater global trading. increasing the breadth and depth of ADR and foreign ordinary shares traded in U.S. dollars by U.S. broker-dealers to grow the size of our markets by adding securities, new asset classes, and trading functionality for our broker-dealer subscribers. Third, transform the client connection and improve the quality of information. We constantly work to enhance the customer experience through modernized interfaces and enriched data for external and internal users. It's an important lever for us that the more engaged issuers are and the better quality of information they provide, the better our markets will function. Fourth, mitigate operational risk and strengthen regulatory compliance. In keeping with our focus on market integrity and compliance, We invest in our core trading infrastructure, operational processes, and risk management systems, as well as our regulatory processes, in each case to enhance their reliability and our compliance with securities laws and regulations. grow revenue across business lines and align resources with long-term value creation. As much as we may wish, success will not be a straight line. We continue to focus on being good stewards of our markets and thoughtful commercial operators to align our operating costs with recurring revenue generation, where managers intelligently allocate company resources and act as fiduciaries to generate sustainable value for our shareholders. I look forward to reviewing these initiatives and our strategic direction throughout the course of the year. In closing, I am pleased to announce that on May 7th, our Board of Directors declared a quarterly dividend of 18 cents per share, payable in June. This dividend reflects our ongoing commitment to providing superior shareholder returns. With that, I will turn the call over to Antonia.