Apologies for the technical interruption there. Good morning. My name is [ Colin ], and I'll be your conference facilitator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Crawford & Company First Quarter 2024 Earnings Release Conference Call. In conjunction with this call, a supplementary financial presentation is available on our website at www.crawco.com under the Investor Relations section. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, this conference is being recorded today, Tuesday, May 2, 2024. Some of the matters to be discussed in this conference call and in the supplementary financial presentation may include forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. [Audio Gap] So apologies again, there's just some technical issues.

[ Colin ], I will read the forward-looking statement at this point. Thank you.

Okay. [ Apologies ].

This is Tami Stevenson. Some of the matters to be discussed in this conference call and in the supplementary financial presentation may include forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. These statements may relate to, among other things, our expected future operating results and financial condition, our ability to grow our revenues and reduce our operating expenses, expectations regarding our anticipated contributions to our [ underfunded ], defined benefit pension plans, collectability of our billed and unbilled accounts receivable, financial results from our recently completed acquisitions, our continued compliance with financial and other covenants contained in our financing agreements, our long-term capital resource and liquidity requirements and our ability to pay dividends in the future. The company's actual results achieved in future quarters could differ materially from the results that may be implied by such forward-looking statements. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly release revisions to any forward-looking statements made in this conference call to reflect events or circumstances occurring after the date of the call or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. In addition, you are reminded that operating results for any historical period are not necessarily indicative of results expected for any future period. For a complete discussion regarding factors which could affect the company's financial performance, please refer to the company's Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 30, 2024, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, particularly the information under heading Risk Factors and Management Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations, as well as subsequent company filings with the SEC. This presentation also includes certain non-GAAP financial measures as defined under the SEC rules. As required, a reconciliation is provided for those measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures. I would now like to introduce Mr. Rohit Verma, Chief Executive Officer of Crawford & Company. Rohit?

Thank you, Tami. Good morning, and welcome to our first quarter 2024 earnings call. Joining me today is Bruce Swain, our Chief Financial Officer; and Tami Stevenson, our General Counsel. After our prepared remarks, we will open the call for your questions. Before we begin today, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge the recent tornado activity and resulting damage in the Midwest. Our thoughts are with the many people who were impacted by devastating tornadoes this weekend, and we stand ready to support our industry partners as the areas affected begin the damage assessment and the [ build-back ] process. Our results for the first quarter of 2024 came in largely as expected. Benign weather continued to impact our consolidated revenue compared to last year, but our underlying nonweather-related business performed very well. My comments today will focus on operational updates for the quarter, and Bruce will then take a deeper dive into our first quarter financial performance. As a reminder, Crawford is the largest publicly listed provider of claims management. We manage more than $18 billion in claims annually across 70 countries, employing approximately 10,000 talented individuals and thousands of [ field ] resources. Our scale and global presence set us apart from other providers and offer a competitive advantage in a fragmented market. As a result, we are valued as a partner of choice for top carriers and continue to be an industry leader. We are well positioned to drive growth and strategic success. Although we may see quarter-to-quarter variation, several key factors support our long-term progress. First, the frequency and severity of extreme weather events is increasing. While we have seen some benign weather pattern from the back half of 2023 through the beginning of this year, catastrophic weather remains a significant long-term growth…

Thank you, Rohit. Looking at the first quarter of 2024, company-wide revenues before reimbursements decreased 5% to $301.7 million. Foreign exchange rates increased revenues before reimbursements by $1 million or 0.3%. In the first quarter of 2024, selling, general and administrative expenses increased $10.6 million or 15.5% compared to the prior year period. The increase was primarily due to professional fees, IT costs, bad debt expense and compensation expense, including taxes and benefits as well as investments in sales and marketing. GAAP net income attributable to shareholders totaled $2.8 million compared to net income of $10.7 million in the same period of 2023. GAAP diluted EPS in the 2024 first quarter was $0.06 for both CRD-A and CRD-B compared to $0.22 for both share classes in the 2023 period. On a non-GAAP basis, diluted EPS was $0.13 for both CRD-A and CRD-B compared to $0.28 for both share classes in the prior year period. The company's non-GAAP operating earnings totaled $12.1 million in the 2024 first quarter or 4% of revenues compared to $24.9 million or 7.9% of revenues in the prior year period. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA was $20.6 million in the 2024 first quarter or 6.8% of revenues compared to $32.8 million or 10.4% of revenues in the 2023 quarter. I'll now review the first quarter performance for each of our segments. North America Loss Adjusting revenues totaled $77.4 million in the 2024 first quarter, decreasing slightly from $77.6 million reported in last year's quarter. The segment reported operating earnings of $4.5 million in the quarter, decreasing from $8.1 million reported in last year's quarter due to milder weather activity. The operating margin was 5.8% in the 2024 first quarter compared to 10.4% in the 2023 quarter. International Operations revenues totaled $98.1 million in the 2024 first quarter, up…

Thank you, Bruce. In conclusion, this quarter came in largely where we expected. Our nonweather-related business performed very well, and our business is well positioned to service clients when increased storm activity inevitably returns. Our balance sheet remains strong, and I'm quite optimistic about the prospects for continued improved financial performance looking forward. Thank you for your time today. Operator, please open the call for questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Mark Hughes with Truist.

The U.S. GTS, you suggested that had a good performance in the quarter. Could you talk about that? What's driving the upside there?

Mark, U.S. GTS has been performing really well, not just this quarter but for several years. This quarter certainly was another breakout performance. As you know, we have been investing, and we had talked about adding experts, and we had a target of adding 200 experts by the end of 2023, and we met that target in Q1 of 2023. Adding these experts has given us depth, has given us eminence in the industry. So we're seeing a lot of notable losses come to us, and that team has been hitting on all cylinders. So we feel very good about that business. We believe that, that business has good long-term prospects. It's one of those businesses that doesn't get touched by AI or technology of any form from a disruption perspective. So that's the reason for the performance and the continued confidence in that business.

And then likewise, the International, it has good momentum in U.K. and Europe. It sounds like you're looking for margin improvement there. What's -- is that new hires driving the incremental volume? What's driving that?

Yes. If you recall, right around the end of 2022, we had started signaling that we were making some changes in our International. We had made some leadership changes. We had made some other sort of structural changes within International. We believe that those results are showing. We had also talked about diversifying in Europe from a client base, which was largely travel and entertainment to a much broader client base, that is showing as well. We had made a couple of acquisitions in Netherlands, as an example. I think that is showing success. So we believe that there's good momentum in International. We've made some investments in technology. We believe that, that will lead to efficiency. We are very closely looking at our pricing to make sure that if there's anything which is underpriced or mispriced, so that gets corrected. And that's what gives us the confidence on International as well. And I feel very good about the leadership team that we have in place in International now.

And Bruce, SG&A, it looks like some of the expense items up this quarter. How do you think that's going to play out for the balance of the year?

Yes. Mark, we had some investment in SG&A, as I mentioned, with professional fees, some increase in IT costs, compensated relation -- compensation related costs, including investment in sales and marketing. I would say about $3 million of that increase in SG&A is kind of onetime for the quarter, and we wouldn't see that continuing as we go through the year.

And then finally, in Broadspire, any observations about underlying claims? It looks like your overall volume is going up because of -- or helped by new customer wins, but I wonder whether in workers' comp, for instance, or any other line do you see any notable inflection in the underlying claims activity?

Mark, I won't say that there is any -- I mean, certainly, the claims are up since they were during the pandemic, right? There's no question about it. And we have seen from a recovery standpoint a full recovery of the claims frequency as well as the full recovery of what we saw as medical management cases. But I won't say that I'm seeing any kind of underlying secular increase in the frequency of claims in comp. I would say that most of our increases are coming from additional new business and additional economic activity as opposed to just pure increase in underlying plans.

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from Kevin Steinke with Barrington Research.

You had mentioned you reached the goal of adding 200 new GTS adjusters earlier -- in 2023 earlier than you had planned. Just wondering about the pace of hiring in that business now? And if you continue to look to add there? And also, maybe, given the growth in that business, I don't know if it's possible to provide just kind of a rough approximation of what percentage that business is of the overall North American Loss Adjusting segment?

Sure. So look, we -- I think I've shared this with you before, Kevin, that we're always in the market for expertise. We're an expertise-based business. Clients come to us because we have the expertise on our roster. So we will always continue to look for it. We haven't slowed the hiring down. We certainly had a target that we had shared with you, also, we thought compelled to make sure that we were reporting on it. We haven't slowed our hiring down. If we're finding experts, we're bringing them on, not just in the U.S., but elsewhere in the world as well. We've certainly had the most success in the U.S. But we're seeing replication of that success in other parts of the world as well in the service line. As far as North America Loss Adjusting is concerned, do you want to, Bruce?

Yes, I would say roughly 1/3. Yes, roughly 1/3. So think about -- Global Technical Services is 1/3, Canada is 1/3, and then our field operations business as another 1/3. You'll see some variability there dependent upon weather and where that's occurring, but that's a general framework to use.

Okay. So the $24 million of new and enhanced business in the quarter, should we think of that as fairly broad-based across the company? Or there's one area that stand out? Just wondering about that in the terms of the kind of...

It's broad-based, but I would say the preponderance of that business is U.S.

Okay. I assume there's still good momentum in Broadspire as well with new business. Could you speak to that?

Yes. We feel -- look, I mean, I would say I feel good about all of our businesses, right? But as it specifically relates to financial results in 2024, I'm particularly bullish about Broadspire's continued momentum. And if I were -- I would say that I'm bullish about all our businesses. With the return of weather activity, you should see us -- all of our businesses performing really, really well.

Okay.

Revenue was up 12% quarter-over-quarter.

Yes. I know. That was a really nice result. Good to see that. So you didn't call it out on this call, but you talked about continuation of fairly benign weather. It looks like we'll still have a fairly difficult comparison in the second quarter here in the Networks Business. Is that the right way to think about it?

Kevin, it's early -- it's still early in the quarter, I would say. And we often see a lot of activity in May and June of second quarter. Yes, if we don't have any weather activity in May and June as well, it will be a difficult comparison, but everything that we're reading and learning that it should be a fairly active weather season. So that's where I'll leave it at. But if we don't have weather, then your assessment is accurate.

Okay. And May and June we just usually think about more like the convective storm activity?

Convective storm, that's correct.

Okay. All right. You mentioned in your prepared remarks potential acquisitions. Just wondering what sort of opportunities you're seeing there, if there's an active pipeline and how the market looks in terms of valuation for potential [indiscernible]?

Kevin, I think we've always shared that we're always actively looking in the marketplace. Our pipeline is anywhere from 10 to 30 deep depending on how things are going. But we are very discerning in terms of what we want to acquire and how we want to acquire. We're always looking if -- and that's the reason why we said that we have the financial flexibility to do it. If something aligns with us strategically and we believe the valuation is attractive, then we will. The valuations have come down slightly. But I think for quality assets, valuations still remain fairly high. Obviously, not at the same level as what you saw 2 years ago, but still fairly high.

Could you just remind us of particular areas you'd like to acquire? And I guess it really comes down to capabilities and technology, adding some of those things that you might not have. But any thoughts on that?

Yes. We always look for -- we kind of put a lens which has 3 different axis, if I can put it, right? One axis is, does it give us capability in a geography that we already exist that we don't have? So as an example, what you saw with our acquisitions with edjuster in Canada or with the acquisitions that we made in Netherlands, those were our capabilities that we didn't have. Then we look for acquisitions where there's a geography that we believe has significant scale opportunities for us, but we just don't have scale or we are not there. So that was the acquisition that you saw from us, as an example in Chile. And then the third and final, I would say is where we need to establish some kind of a [ beach head ]. I would say that the capability, one -- the first one that I mentioned, the first dimension is probably where we're looking the most, right, where we want to have newer capabilities than have something purely for scale.

There are no further questions at this time. I will turn the call back to management for closing remarks.

Thank you, Anders, and thank you to all our employees, clients and shareholders for your continued commitment to Crawford & Company. Thank you, and God bless.

Thank you for participating in today's Crawford & Company conference call. This call will be available for replay beginning at 11:30 a.m. EST. today through 11:59 p.m. EST on June 2, 2024. The [ e-conference ] ID number for the replay is 309448#. The number to dial in for the replay is (877) 674-7070. Thank you. You may now disconnect.