Brookfield Business Corporation

As a reminder, all participants are in a 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 touchstone 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 our 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 Adrian Letts, Global Head of Business Operations, to talk more about a few of our recent acquisitions. Jaspreet Dehl, our Chief Financial Officer, will finish with a review of our financial results for the quarter. After we conclude 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 all for joining us on the call today. Halfway through the year, the value of our business continues to compound, which is exactly what we set out to do. Over the past six months, we generated $1.2 billion in proceeds from asset sales and distributions, including an agreement we reached last month to sell Multiplex for about $650 million. Multiplex marks one of the last significant legacy assets left on our balance sheet from the spin-out. Over the past several years, we've monetized these assets and put that capital back to work in larger, higher-quality businesses that are more closely aligned with our long-term strategy of compounding capital. Consistent with that strategy, during the quarter, we also committed over $300 million to acquire two market-leading industrial and services businesses and close our strategic investment in the OpenAI deployment company, or DeployCo, which I'll come back to in a moment. Today, our balance sheet is as strong as it has ever been. As our business continues to scale, we recognize the importance of having our shareholders participate in the value we generate when we sell or monetize assets. Since we launched our buyback program early last year, on the back of our strong capital recycling activity, we have repurchased more than $300 million of our own shares at a nearly 50% discount to net asset value. From the capital recycling activity during the quarter, we were allocating $150 million of proceeds to additional repurchases while our shares continue to trade at a meaningful discount to intrinsic value. Stepping back, we created BBUC a decade ago to give public investors access to Brookfield's global private equity capabilities. Since then, we have compounded net asset value per share at a mid-teens annual rate by applying the same playbook that we have refined over more than 25 years. Buying high-quality, market-leading businesses, improving their operations and cash flows, and recycling capital when the time is right to reinvest and continue growing our business. Today, investors are placing a greater premium on resilience. The market used to pay up for businesses that could scale fast and is now paying up for businesses that can't be tipped over. Businesses like ours, with hard-to-replicate assets and capabilities, critical customer relationships, and durable cash flows, are becoming more valuable. Against this backdrop, we continue to see attractive opportunities to deploy capital where our capabilities can create significant value. In industrials, large conglomerates are simplifying their operations and divesting high-quality businesses that are no longer core to their strategies, creating a growing pipeline of attractive carve-outs. These transactions are often complex, which can create opportunities to acquire excellent businesses at reasonable valuations. Our experience executing carve outs allows us to take on that complexity, improve performance and unlock meaningful value. Similarly, in essential services, many end markets remain fragmented with mission critical providers benefiting from recurring demand and long standing customer relationships, but lacking the scale, technology or investment required to reach their full potential. These conditions can allow us to acquire strong businesses with untapped potential where our hands-on operating expertise can help build scale in fragmented markets and accelerate growth through focused investment and operational improvement. Turning back to DeployGo, AI is allowing us to transform businesses faster than ever. This investment gives us access to leading models and world-class technical talent. Combined with the change management expertise of our operating teams, it allows us to accelerate the implementation of AI across our operations. We have real momentum heading into the second half of the year as we continue to invest for growth, return more capital to shareholders, and compound the value of our business. And with that, I'll turn it over to Adrian.