IGM Financial Inc.

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the IGM Financial first quarter of 2024 analyst 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, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star then zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to Kyle Martins, Treasurer and Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Carl. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to IGM Financial's 2024 first quarter earnings call. Joining me on the call today, we have James O'Sullivan, President and CEO, IGM Financial. Damon Murchison, President and CEO, IGM Wealth Management. Luke Gould, President and CEO, Slides four and five summarize non-IFRS financial measures and other financial measures used in this material. And on slide six, we provide a list of documents that are available on our website related to IJM's first quarter results. I'll turn it over to James.

All right. Good morning, everyone, and thank you, Kyle. Turning to slide eight, we delivered a record high first quarter adjusted EPS of 94 cents up 8% year-over-year, driven in part by strong asset growth during the past 12 months. AUM&A, including our proportionate share of strategic investments, reached $422 billion at the end of the first quarter. This is up 21% relative to the same time last year. Both our wealth and asset management segments contributed to asset growth, with each and every company increasing their AUM&A over the past year. I'd remind you that our reported Q1 2024 net outflows of $128 million exclude our strategic investments, each of which experienced positive net flows during the quarter. We spoke to our approach to capital allocation during our investor day and on our previous earnings call. Our number one priority continues to be investing to position our core businesses for continued long-term success and growth. Our current strong dividend continues to be very important to us and we know attractive to our shareholders. And we have addressed our approach to share buybacks where we will seek to offset dilution where applicable and opportunistically repurchase additional shares in consideration of other capital allocation priorities. During the first quarter, we began acquiring shares under our NCIB at an attractive price. We returned $146 million of capital to shareholders during the quarter, including $12 million through share repurchases. We continue to be very well positioned financially with reasonable leverage and over $400 million in unallocated capital on the balance sheet as of March 31st. We remained in the market repurchasing shares through the month of April, buying an additional 440,000 IGM shares for $15 million. Finally, IGM continues to be recognized as a top employer. In addition to being recognized as a top 100 employer in Canada by Mediacorp, during the first quarter we received further recognition as one of Canada's greenest employers, a top diversity employer, and a top employer in the province of Manitoba. Our collective achievements and progress across IGM Financial are fueled by our diverse and highly engaged teams. We've invested considerable time and effort into shaping a leading and deeply rewarding experience for our employees and are proud to see this continue to be recognized. Shifting to the current environment for our businesses, starting with recent financial market conditions on slide nine. Even after factoring in a softer April, we've seen strong growth in equity markets year to date across all major economies around the world. adding to the roughly 10% average return achieved for our clients in 2023. Looking at the Canadian fund industry on slide 10, the first quarter's industry net flows were effectively zero, with net flows into income-oriented solutions and alternatives offset by outflows elsewhere. While high interest rates and inflation continue to weigh on Canadians, We are seeing strength in a number of areas, including an extended period where being invested in the financial markets has been well rewarded, supporting investor confidence levels over the long term. A demonstrated ability at IG Wealth to attract high net worth and mass affluent client relationships through a wide range of business cycles. At McKinsey, we see strength in distribution relationships with wealth management partners, including PFSL and Wealthsimple. And finally, there has been significant growth across our strategic investments that are each positioned to take advantage of attractive secular trends in the wealth and asset management industries. Slide 11 outlines IGM's consolidated average AUM&A and the record high Q1 adjusted EPS. And on slide 12, we show the strong growth in net earnings at our wealth and asset management segments, up 7% and 12% respectively. Keith will speak to this in more detail later in the call, but I'd like to highlight here that the increase in earnings power has been supported by very strong asset growth over the past year. Turning to slide 13, where we show double-digit AUM&A growth over the past 12 months at almost all of the businesses, including IG Wealth Management, which Damon will speak to next, along with the Wealth Management segment as a whole. And so I'll pass it over to Damon.