Information Services Corporation

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the ISC Q1 2024 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Jonathan Hackshaw, Senior Director, Investor Relations and Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Shannon, and good morning to everyone joining us today. Welcome to ISE's conference call for the quarter ended March 31st, 2024. On the call today are Sean Peters, President and CEO, and Bob Antichow, Chief Financial Officer. This morning, Sean will take you through some of the highlights of the quarter. Bob will then provide some financial and operating highlights for the quarter, as well as speak to our outlook and guidance for 2024, before passing the call back over to Sean for some closing remarks. Before we begin, we would like to remind everyone that we will only be summarizing results today. The company's financial statements and MD&A have been filed on CDAR Plus and are available on our website. We encourage you to review those reports in their entirety. I would also like to remind you that any statements made today that are not historical facts are considered to be forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws. The statements may involve a number of risks and uncertainties that are described in detail in the company's CDAR Plus filings. Those risks and uncertainties may cause actual results to differ materially from those stated. Today's comments are made as of today's date and will not be updated except as required under applicable securities laws. Today's conference call is being broadcast live over the internet and will be archived for replay shortly after the call in the investor section of our website. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Sean.

Thank you, Jonathan, and good morning to everyone joining us for today's call. Following a very successful 2023, the first quarter of 2024 was in line with our expectations for the beginning of the year. Revenue and adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter were up 15% and 34% respectively compared to the first quarter of 2023. The robust year-over-year growth was due to strong operating results across all of the company's segments. In registry operations, revenue and adjusted EBITDA were up 15% and 37% respectively. The fee adjustments implemented in July 2023 in connection with the extension agreement And annual CPI adjustments in the Saskatchewan registries continue to have a positive impact on revenue, despite volumes in the land registry that were consistent with the prior year period. As a reminder, the first quarter of the year is typically our slowest in the Saskatchewan registries. Our services segment continues to deliver solid customer and transaction growth, mainly in regulatory solutions division, where financial institutions and auto finance customers continued to enhance their due diligence processes in an environment of higher interest rates and increased regulatory oversight. Revenue was up 9% while adjusted EBITDA was consistent with the prior year period. Technology solutions saw the impact of continued execution of third-party solution definition and implementation contracts with an increase in revenue of 64% and positive adjusted EBITDA compared to the first quarter of 2023 coming in at just under $1 million. Expenses were up by $11.3 million compared to the first quarter of 2023. However, $5.8 million of that was due to an increase in share-based compensation as a result of an increase in the company's share price during the first quarter of 2024 compared to a decrease in the company's share price in the same year in the prior period. All other expenses were in line with our expectations. Toward the end of the quarter, and as I mentioned in our 2023 fourth quarter conference call, We announced a goal to double the size of ISC on a revenue and adjusted EBITDA basis based on 2023 results over the next five years through a combination of organic growth and M&A. With the key ingredients in place to deliver organic growth, the first quarter of 2024 marks a strong start towards the execution of that goal. I'll now turn the call over to Bob to discuss some financial highlights in more detail before providing some closing thoughts.