Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Beneficient Second Quarter Fiscal 2024 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, David Rost, General Counsel. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon. And thank you for joining us today for Beneficient’s fiscal second quarter 2024 conference call. In addition to this call, we issued an earnings press release that was posted to the Shareholder section of our website at shareholders.trustben.com. Today's webcast is being recorded, and the replay will be available on the company's website at shareholders.trustben.com. On today's call, management's prepared remarks and answers to questions may contain forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from those discussed today. Forward-looking statements represent management's current estimates and Beneficient assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements in the future. Today's call also contains certain non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to our earnings press release, which is available on our Web site for important disclosures regarding such measures, including reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP financial measures. Hosting the call today are Mr. Brad Heppner, CEO and Chairman; and Mr. Greg Ezell, CFO. Following the prepared remarks, we will answer selected questions that were submitted through our Investor Relations Web site at shareholders.trustben.com. Now, I will hand the meeting over to Mr. Heppner.

Thank you, David. And good afternoon, and thank you for joining us for our first earnings call as a public company. On today's call, I will provide some insight into how Ben goes to market, an update on some key topics, and Greg will share some highlights from our results for our second fiscal quarter 2024 ended on September 30, 2023. Since our listing in June this year, we have secured our recent financing, enhanced our AltAccess tech platform and expanded our liquidity product offerings. I will now share a quick history and summarize the advantages of the Beneficient model. Ben is built to address the financial services needs of investors and sponsors within the illiquid private investment market. There are two kinds of asset markets; those that are liquid, such as stocks, bonds, currencies, commodity derivatives, mortgages; and then those that are illiquid, such as real estate, private companies and private fund partnerships, just to name a few. Ben aims to be the primary provider of liquidity solutions and financial services for investors in private markets. For the last millennium, illiquid markets have been transforming into liquid markets. Starting with family sponsored banking networks for more efficient capital formation, market-after-market has evolved from illiquidity toward increasing liquidity. This process has progressed in ways driven by technology and innovation that has increased and broadened access to opportunities for investors, which expands the market itself. Our mission is simple. Ben exists to transform the market for fund partnership interests and alternative asset investments from an illiquid market into a more liquid market available to everyone or stated simply, complete democratization. Here at Ben, we believe all markets need three building blocks to drive access to retail investors toward a more liquid market. First, investment opportunities. We believe these are best in…

Thank you, Brad. Now let's turn to our quarterly results and our financial position as of September 30, 2023. My plan today is to summarize and contextualize the results from a top down perspective. Our financial structure is complicated as is true of many financial service companies, but the meaning of the numbers can sometimes be clearer when the results are simplified for illustration. For this, it's relevant to review the business segment financial information for Ben Liquidity and Ben Custody as it's the operations of these business segments, along with corporate and other, that accrues to Ben's equity holders. The Customer ExAlt Trusts segment does not directly contribute income or loss to Ben's equity holders. Ben generates revenues principally through two categories; interest revenue for supplying liquidity off the balance sheet; and fee revenue for the use of the platform and trust services. In our Ben Liquidity segment, we generate income through the base interest rate approximately 10% annually of the total financing amount and the potential for a 1 time catch up payment on the financing at the end of the life of the LP unit. The payment is capped generally at a 23% IRR net of all fees and other obligations. In our Ben Custody segment, we generate transaction fees, approximately 7% 1 time fee based on the initial NAV and recurring custody and trust service fees approximately 2.8% annually of the remaining NAV. Total NAV in the trust is driven by new originations, liquidations on existing LP interest and change in value of existing LP interest. Ben Liquidity recognized $13 million and $10.9 million in interest income during the three months ended September 30, 2023 and 2022 respectively, while Ban Custody recognized $6.5 million and $7.8 million during the same three month periods in 2023 and…

Thank you, Greg. We do have a few questions that have come in. I will read them and let you and Brad respond accordingly. Question one, what is the total NAV of the collateral underlying your financing, and how does it break down between larger versus smaller transactions? Greg, this question will go to you.

Since inception, Ben has provided financings with underlying collateral of approximately $1.2 billion of NAV. With approximately 87% in transactions larger than $50 million, the remaining $156 million was in transactions smaller than $50 million. Over the next few years, we expect liquidity on alternative assets will be broadly available and tied into the brokers used by families and smaller businesses in the same way that stocks and bonds are handled today. As with the creation or disruption of any market, full adoption will take time but Beneficient will be at the forefront of that revolution.

The next question is, how many different private interests has Ben financed?

Since inception, Ben has financed 376 distinct funds and other private interest. Today, there are approximately 276 distinct position underlying our financings and held in our trust accounts.

Our next question is, how does Ben plan to finance the growth of the balance sheet? Brad, this question is for you.

Packaging our financings and selling them to institutional buyers allows us to recycle capital, which we believe distinguishes us from other participants in the industry. However, sales do not build our balance sheet. On the financings we hold to maturity, we use the cash of those financings to fund not only our corporate and operating expenses but also the fintech costs related to our investments in developing the technology and our scale. Thus, income from holding the maturity only builds the balance sheet as scale is reached. At that point, we will start to generate more profitability. Our initial target near to medium term is to build the business to that scale. With that final answer, we would like to thank you for your interest in Ben and look forward to speaking with you soon.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.