Medical Facilities Corporation

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Medical Facilities Corporation's 2023 fourth quarter earnings call. After management's remarks, this call will include a question and answer session in which qualified equity analysts will be permitted to ask questions. Before turning the call over to management, listeners are reminded that today's call may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the Canadian Provincial Services Laws. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties and undue reliance should not be placed on such statements. Certain material factors or assumptions are applied in making forward-looking statements and actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. For additional information please consult the MD&A for this quarter. The risk factors section of the annual information form and medical facilities are the filings with Canadian securities regulators. Medical facilities does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements. Such statements speak only as of the date made. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Mr. Jason Redman, President and CEO of Medical Facilities. Please go ahead, Mr. Redman.

Thank you, Operator, and good morning, everyone. With me on the call is our Chief Financial Officer, David Watson. Earlier this morning, we reported our fourth quarter and year-end results. Our news release, financial statements, and MD&A are available on our website and have been filed on CDAR+. Throughout 2023, we remained disciplined, both operationally and financially. We executed our strategy to focus on our core operations, drive financial performance, and unlock additional shareholder value. We completed the divestiture of the MSC Nutera ASCs and successfully achieved overhead cost reductions. We reduced our corporate debt and returned additional capital to shareholders through a normal course issuer bid. The fourth quarter was a very solid finish to a strong year. Higher surgical volumes helped drive revenue increases and profitability for the quarter. Excluding the divested ASCs, surgical case volumes were up 4.9%, contributing to a 7.8% increase in facility service revenue compared to the fourth quarter of the year prior. Similarly, when excluding the results from the divested ASCs, as well as the prior year impairment charge relating to those ASCs, our income from operations for the quarter was up 144% to $25.6 million, and adjusted EBITDA increased 97.3% to $30.5 million. We used our cash flow to pay down the outstanding balance in our corporate credit facility by $8 million in the quarter and $20 million for the year. During the quarter, MSC returned an additional $2 million to shareholders to the repurchase of close to 300,000 common shares under our normal course issuer bid. For the year, we repurchased approximately 1.19 million common shares for total consideration of $7.4 million. As we look back in 2023, it is clear that our deliberate and focused approach has made MSC stronger and better positioned for 2024 and beyond. Speaking of positioning, our surgical hospitals continue to rank among the best hospitals in the nation for high quality of care. Last month, for the second year in a row, Black Hills Surgical Hospital was named the number one hospital in the US for major orthopedic surgery in both medical excellence and patient safety categories by care checks. Around the same time, Sioux Falls Specialty Hospital received the 2024 Outpatient Orthopedic Surgery Excellence Award from Healthgrades and was ranked amongst the best hospitals in the US for outpatient and joint replacement surgery. And in January, Arkansas Surgical Hospital ranked in the top 5% of healthcare providers for patient experience over the last year. being named a Human Experience Guardian of Excellence Award winner for the fifth year in a row by Press Ganey. We are proud and thankful for the dedication and high quality of care provided by the teams at each of our facilities. Not note, I'll turn the call over to David to review our financial results in more detail. David?

Thank you, Jason. Good morning, everyone. Before I begin, please note that all dollar amounts that follow are in U.S. dollars unless stated otherwise.