Brookfield Business Corporation

call and webcast. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, simply press star 11 on your telephone. I'd now like to turn the conference over to Alan Fleming, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Mr. Fleming.

Thank you, Operator, and good morning to everyone. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that in responding to questions and talking about our growth initiatives and our financial and operating performance, we may make forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to known and unknown risks, and future results may differ materially. For further information on known risk factors, I encourage you to review our filings with the securities regulators in Canada and the U.S., which are available on our website. Joining me on the call today are Cyrus Madden, our Chief Executive Officer, Dennis Turcotte, our Chief Operating Officer, and Jaspreet Del, our Chief Financial Officer. Cyrus will start with an update on our strategic initiatives, and Dennis will then discuss progress on our business improvement plans. Jaspreet will finish with a discussion of our financial results, and then we'll be available to take your questions. With that, I'll pass the call over to Cyrus.

Thanks very much, Alan. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us on the call today. 2022 was a great year for our business. We made excellent progress on our growth and capital recycling initiatives, committing $2.7 billion to acquire several high-quality market-leading businesses that should contribute meaningful value to our business. We also generated $2.3 billion from distributions and business sales, including an agreement to sell Westinghouse. We're also pleased with our solid financial performance, continued resilience of our operations, Adjusted EBITDA increased to $2.3 billion, and free cash flow increased to a record $3.40 per unit for the year. Stepping back, like many, our business has experienced a lot of volatility in the operating environment over the past year. Inflation has been persistent, supply chains continue to be stretched, labor markets remain tight, and energy costs in many developed markets we operate in are far higher than a year ago. We all know that interest rates are also higher and global growth is decelerating. Despite this backdrop, our business has continued to perform very well. Adjusted EBITDA is up 30% compared to last year and up 3% on a same store basis, which is after adjusting for the impact of acquisitions and dispositions. Our EBITDA margin has also continued to improve to a record 19% up from 11% just three years ago. This improvement is driven by both the quality of the businesses we've been acquiring over the last few years and the progress we've achieved on our improvement plans. And Dennis is going to talk to you about that more shortly. The value we're building in our business contribute to adjusted free cash flow of $740 million an increase of nearly 20% on a per unit basis compared to last year. We'll use this cash flow to fund our growth, reinvest in our operations, and pay down debt. As we look forward, our business should continue to generate strong performance in all market environments. Our balance sheet is also in good shape, and we ended the year with over $9 billion of available liquidity across our operations. At the corporate level, We've drawn on our credit facilities to bridge the timing of our growth activities. This is temporary, knowing that at some point we'll be in a position to repay these borings with the proceeds we expect to generate from our capital recycling activities. And to that point, as many of you know, we reached an agreement to sell Westinghouse last year. We'll generate about $1.8 billion in proceeds for BBU when the sale closes in the next few quarters. which will substantially reduce our borrowings at the corporate level. This sale also demonstrates that even in difficult markets, high-quality businesses, like many we own today, are readily saleable, especially to strategic buyers. At any given time, we are progressing sales process for a handful of our businesses, several of which are substantial, which will be sold in due course and generate significant proceeds for BBU. While we're pleased with our business fundamentals, we're equally disappointed in our trading price performance, which has become materially disconnected from the value of our business. I thought I wanted to put that in context. Today we're trading at about eight times annual EBITDA. This is a massive discount to the S&P 500. That's trading at 13 times. And businesses generating margins on par with ours that are trading at 15 times. or more. In our view, it's a great entry point for BBU. We're going to continue building value in our business as we execute on our improvement plans, and as a result, investors should out-earn the underlying performance of our operations as the discount between our trading price and intrinsic value narrows. With that, I want to hand it over to Dennis.