Good morning, and welcome to the Emerald Holding, Inc. Fourth Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. During today's call, all parties will be in listen-only mode. Following the prepared remarks, the call will be opened for questions, with instructions to follow at that time. Before we begin, let me remind everyone that this call may contain certain statements that constitute forward-looking statements, within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These include remarks about future expectations, beliefs, estimates, plans, and prospects. Such statements are subject to a variety of risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially, from those indicated or implied by such statements. Such risks and other factors are set forth in the company's most recently filed periodic reports on Form 10-K and Form-10-Q, and subsequent filings. The company does not undertake any duty to update such forward-looking statements. Additionally, during today's call, management will discuss non-GAAP measure, which it believes can be useful in evaluating the company's performance. The presentation of this additional information should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for results prepared in accordance with U.S. GAAP. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measure, can be found in the company's earnings release. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded and a replay of this call will be available on the investors section of the company's website to 11:59 PM Eastern Time on March 3rd, 2022. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Herve Sedky, President and Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, operator. And good morning, everyone. On today's call, I will first provide an update on our recently staged shows in seconds will outline the progress we have achieved executing upon our strategic initiatives designed to transform our business while positioning Emerald for accelerated growth and a return to strong profitability and cash flow generation in the years ahead. David Doft, Emerald, Chief Financial Officer, will review our Fourth Quarter and year-end results, as well as our 2022 outlook, which we're initiating this morning. We will then open the call for your questions. As I look back on the past year, I'm struck by the disconnect that has existed between what is said and printed in various media outlets and what I see in our business. While I do not want to diminish the very real impact of the pandemic, I am in an advantageous position given that I speak to our customers every day and get to see first-hand what it is they value which is in-person, face-to-face events where they can meet with buyers and sell their products in the most efficient and productive medium possible. We're not only an integral part of their marketing budgets, but among the highest return spend within those budgets. While some customers remain concerned with the pandemic, and have not come back to live events, that concern is rapidly diminishing. In fact, we're seeing more and more of our customers return to our shows, as time has gone by. Last quarter, we told you that we successfully staged events in the summer and fall with a 50% to 60% decline in attendees and exhibitors from pre-COVID levels. That has improved to a 35% to 45% decline in the fourth quarter, and we expect to see continued improvements in attendance in our…

Thank you, Herve, and good morning. As Herve discussed, we are experiencing a strong recovery in the event sector, which led to our improved fourth quarter results, where we reported revenues of $41.1 million as compared to $12.2 million in the year-ago fourth quarter. The increase in the typically seasonally lighter quarter was primarily due to $21.7 million in revenues related to live events which staged in 2021's fourth quarter, but were canceled in the year-ago fourth quarter due to COVID. Organic revenues for the fourth quarter of 2021 were $12.1 million, an increase from $9.4 million in the prior-year period. Please note that our definition of organic revenue only includes events that staged both this year and in 2020 and thus excludes events that did not stage last year due to pandemic related cancellations. A key driver to our improved organic revenue growth was a $1.9 million increase in our print and digital advertising revenues for our content properties which is an area of focus for our team as part of our 365 engagement strategy which Herve highlighted earlier. Our adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter was $52.6 million as compared to $18.3 million in the same period last year. The increase in adjusted EBITDA of $34.3 million was primarily the result of profits generated from the live events that stage during the quarter and the recognition of $59.9 million in other income in the quarter related to event cancellation insurance claim proceeds received or confirmed, which compared to $42.7 million of insurance claim proceeds recognized in the fourth quarter of 2020. Looking at our event cancellation insurance in more detail, we have submitted $249.1 million in total claims to date. These claims represent the net amount of budgeted gross revenues, less avoided costs for impacted or canceled events…

Thank you, David. This is an exciting time at Emerald as we plan for a full slate of events in 2022, as the recovery is taking hold. In fact, our stronger events set to stage in the first quarter are pacing within 20% of their pre-COVID levels. While certain other brands are taking a bit longer to fully bounce back due to new industry specific issues, tied to lingering supply chain challenges and changes in sales cycles. In addition to pandemic related reasons. Importantly, we are tracking to substantial year over year revenue and adjusted EBITDA growth as our guidance implies. While we're enjoying strong cyclical growth, we're working hard to expand our business and our revenue streams. Historically, Emerald's growth was dependent on price increases, minimal new show developments, and accretive M&A. We see a much more open ended growth opportunity as we work to grow our total addressable market by tapping into a larger pools of our client's marketing budgets. To do this, we're working to engage with our customers 365 days a year to boost the volume of leads we can provide through our live events, our staffed digital marketplace, as well as the publications and the digital offerings and have made significant progress towards achieving our goal over the past year. We have diversified our business by acquiring and launching events, as well as purchasing several complementary businesses through the pandemic and are coming out with strong organic growth led by the important and high-growth fast platform embedded in our business, entry into new high-growth industries, and improved digital assets that we expect will provide a more robust model in sustained growth as we look into the future. Thank you again for your time today and now, Operator, please open the meeting for questions.

We will now begin the question and answer session to ask the question, [Operator Instructions]. The first question is from Annick Maas of BNP Paribas, please go ahead.

Hi. Good afternoon. And thank you for the presentation. So my first question is, you've suggested that that this year you expect to do more M&A. Can you maybe comment on what you're seeing in the industry or is it fair to assume that your latest acquisition, the multiple that you've disclosed in the range that you can see these days in the industry. Secondly, you've suggested that one of the growth opportunity is to basically increase your time by, I guess I would put it going more into digitally the ration. What makes you say that this is a incremental opportunity as opposed to just a switch from maybe you've done lead generation before by going to face-to-face exhibition? And then finally, can you comment on whether you were able to raise your prices versus 2019 for the first shows that you run already this year? Thank you.

Good morning, Annick. This is David, I'll take the first and last question. I'll leave the middle for Herve. On the M&A front, the range of multiples continue to be fairly wide depending on the asset, the scale of the asset, the industry that it's in. So I'd say that from a smaller tuck under standpoint, there surely are deals in the mid single-digit EBITDA, multiple range were more scaled higher-growth assets, were in the high single-digit multiple range is generally what we're seeing out there. Ultimately, every deal is unique and of itself, and had to tone facts and circumstances. But that's generally what we're seeing and it continues to be a wide range depending on the type of business that's available in the marketplace. In terms of pricing,

Can I just clarify. So when you speak about this [Indiscernible], it's the one-year forward margin, is that right?

Well, it depends, again, on the asset. There are still --

Okay

-- some assets that did not trade during the pandemic or traded in a very different form during the pandemic. And so sometimes you're looking at a combination of pre -pandemic performance of the business combined with an expected look and come up with some sort of blend. So there is no clear and clean way to answer that question because of the unique circumstances of the pandemic and how each business was able to manage through it.

Okay. Thank you.

In terms of pricing, we have in fact been able to continue to improve yield at our events based on the value that the events are providing. Part of what we've successfully been able to do throughout the pandemic is worth to improve our offerings to our customers, adding things like matchmaking, which have alluded to in each comment that provide incremental value, and we very strongly I believe in positioning ourselves to price to the value that we deliver, and that has allowed us to continue to have a favorable environment on that front for our business.

With reference to the content question that you raised, Annick, we do see that as incremental revenue for a couple of reasons. The primary reason is that in working with the brands that we have that have good strong content, either acquired brands like MJBiz that we just acquired or existing Emerald brands, what we see is the ability for us to provide leads to our customers all year. And so while we continue to invest in live events, continue to provide leads of live events, and price for the value that we create for live events, there is incremental opportunity to do so through content; capturing leads, and providing these to our customers through the content platform. So we really see the revenue streams as live events, content, and marketplace as three distinct revenue streams for us.

Okay, thank you.

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from Katherine Tait of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Good morning, Herve, good morning, David. A couple of questions from me. Firstly, you very helpfully gave the figures for the decline in attendees versus pre -pandemic levels for Q4. Can you also give the versus pre -pandemic for exhibitor figures as well. Just keen to understand the difference in dynamic there and between the number of attendees and also the exhibitors. And then I should link to that, could you give us a sense of what your forward bookings in looking like for the last half of 2022? Linked to that, are exhibitors leaving at more to the last-minute to really sign up? And to that point, how much visibility do you really feel you have going into the year ahead? And then slightly different question, can you just touch on inflation and what you're seeing from that perspective? Is that impacting the way you're thinking about the cost base over the next 12 months or so? Thanks very much.

Great. Thank you, Katherine, and good morning. From an attendee standpoint versus exhibitor standpoint, the ranges that we gave in the script is actually the range for both. And I would say that the attendees was at the better end of the range and the exhibitors were at the worst ends of those ranges. And the reason for that is that exhibitors, in many cases, were uncertain if the attendees would show up and given the pandemic and the impacts of it, well, surely there were some exhibitors that didn't attend because of health and safety concerns and hopefully those continue to alleviate over time. Some also didn't depend because they were concerned about ROI and who would depend on the other side. And so to us, the big success of the year and in the return of live events post the reopening of the pandemic, is that attendees came and they generally came in droves and in much larger numbers than exhibitors which made for just tremendous experiences for the exhibitors who did come. And tremendous buzz and word of mouth is coming out of the events, which has proven to be a catalyst to bookings for the next event in 2022, which is one of the reasons why we are looking for such a strong incremental recovery in the coming year. So that translates directly into the forward bookings question that you asked. It is true people are waiting a little bit longer, because of the uncertainty out there to book, and so we don't have as early view. Now we've been able to counter balance that with some things, In terms of best practices of how we're selling. So for example, before the pandemic, Emerald only did on-site re-booking for the next event, that about a quarter…

Okay. Thanks so much.

This concludes the question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Herve Sedky for closing remarks.

Thank you, Kate, and thank you all for joining us today and we look forward to speaking with you next quarter. Thank you and goodbye.

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.