Brookfield Business Corporation

Welcome to the Brookfield Business Corporation's first quarter 2026 results conference 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 us, you simply press star 11 on your touchtone phone. Now I'd like to turn the conference over to Alan Fleming, head of investor relations. Please go ahead, Mr. Fleming.

Thank you, operator, and good morning. 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 will be available on our website. We'll begin the call today with Anuj Ranjan, our Chief Executive Officer, who will provide an update on our strategic initiatives. Anuj will then turn the call over to Stuart Levings, Chief Executive Officer of Sajan, our Canadian residential mortgage insurer, to talk about the positioning and performance of the business in the current environment. Jeffrey Deller, Chief Financial Officer, will then discuss our financial results for the quarter. After we finish our prepared remarks, the team will be available to take your questions. With that, I'd like to now pass the call over to Anuj. Thanks, Alan, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us on the call today.

we had a great quarter, which was defined by three things. First, Clarios received a billion dollars of cash tax credits, the first of similar amounts we expect annually for the end of the decade. Second, we sold a 27% interest on Latrobe, an Australian asset manager and lender, and it implied three times multiple of our capital in just under four years. And third, we committed to lead a $500 million investment alongside OpenAI, in the newly created OpenAI Deployment Company, platform built to deploy enterprise AI inside real operating companies. We also completed our corporate simplification at the end of March, and since closing, our daily trading volumes are up 40% compared to average levels last year, and we're anticipating about 5 million shares of incremental demand from index rebalancing over the next few months. Both very important steps towards improving the trading liquidity and index demand of our shares. Let me touch on a few of the defining highlights of the quarter in more detail. Starting with Clarios, which received its fiscal 2025 cash tax refund of $1 billion in March tied to its U.S. production in critical minerals activity. This is equivalent to about $1.50 per share of VVUC, and we expect these credits will continue annually through 2030. Today, Clarios is our largest and most valuable business, and with the investments it's making to expand production capacity and scale its critical mineral capabilities, we see a path to the value of our investment in Clarios doubling over the next five years. In addition, during the quarter, we reached an agreement to sell a minority interest in La Trobe Financial at a $2 billion valuation. Since we bought the business, we've transformed it from a mortgage lender to a leading asset manager in Australia, and increased its AUM from $10 billion to $16 billion. This sale realizes $1 per share in cash and results in a 35% IRR and a three times multiple of our capital. In a market that is increasingly appreciating critical cash-generative industrial and services businesses, we expect our monetization activity to continue. The sale of La Trobe is the latest example of our strong track record of value creation built on a simple approach of buying, building, and operating vital industrial and services businesses. When the right moment arrives, we monetize to realize value, and we deploy that capital into new opportunities to fuel our engine and continue compounding value at scale. We recently did just that, committing to lead a $500 million Brookfield investment in DeployCo alongside OpenAI and a group of global investors. Our share of the investment is expected to be about 150 million dollars. Stepping back, AI adoption is moving quickly, and returns will not only accrue to those who build the models, but to those who can deploy them at scale inside real operating businesses against real K&L. This requires operating capabilities, proprietary data, technical talent, and experience running and transforming industrial and services businesses. DeployCo is focused on enabling large organizations from pilot use cases to full enterprise-wide implementation, addressing one of the primary bottlenecks in realizing AI-driven productivity. The platform will combine engineering talent, a strong commercial relationship with OpenAI, early access to models, and the capabilities of best-in-class operators like ourselves to deploy AI at scale. With more than 300 operating companies across the Brookfield ecosystem, We have a direct line into where AI creates value, and importantly, where it does not. We've already been using AI in our own businesses as the latest tool to accelerate transformation, enhance growth, and drive efficiencies. We expect to draw on deployed code's capabilities to drive even harder in these areas to automate workflows, improve decision making, and capture meaningful productivity gains in our own operations. As we look forward, the market for what we do is as attractive as it has been in years. Demand for essential services and industrial businesses has rarely been stronger, and we have the capital, capabilities, and the expertise to execute. We're in an excellent position to build on a strong start to the year and continue compounding capital for our shareholders. With that, I'll turn it over to Stuart.