Good day everyone, and welcome to the FTI Consulting First Quarter 2015 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. And now for opening remarks and introductions I'll turn the call over to Mollie Hawkes, Head of Investor Relations at FTI Consulting. Please go ahead ma'am. Mollie Hawkes - Director, Investor Relations & Communications: Good morning. Welcome to the FTI Consulting conference call to discuss the company's first quarter of 2015 results as reported this morning. Management will begin with formal remarks, after which we'll take your questions. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that this conference call may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 that involve risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements include statements concerning plans, objectives, goals, strategies, future events, future revenues, future results and performance expectations, plans or intentions relating to financial performance, acquisitions, business trends and other information or other matters that are not historical, including statements regarding estimates of our future financial results and other matters. For discussion of risks and other factors that may cause actual results or events to differ from those contemplated by forward-looking statements, investors should review the Safe Harbor statement in the earnings press release issued this morning, a copy of which is available on our website at www.fticonsulting.com, as well as other disclosures under the heading of Risk Factors and forward-looking information in our most recent Form 10-K, and in other filings filed with the SEC. Investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements, which speaks only as of the date of this earnings call and will not be updated. During the call we will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures, such…

Thanks, Steve. Turning to slide four in the deck that accompanies the call, revenues for Q1 were $432.3 million, up 1.6% from the prior year quarter, and that 1.6% increase is net of the negative impact of foreign exchange translation on revenues, which cut 2.6% from revenue growth. That is, we would have been up 4.2% year-over-year otherwise. Revenues were up sequentially from Q4, 2014 by almost the same amount. They were up 1.7%, and that's net of a 1.6% negative drag from FX translation in that three-month period. Fully diluted GAAP EPS were $0.57 compared to $0.45 in the prior year quarter, and $0.02 in Q4. In this quarter, first quarter, 2015, there's no difference between fully diluted GAAP EPS and adjusted EPS which is also $0.57, and on an adjusted basis $0.57 compared to $0.41 a year ago and $0.04 in Q4. Just as Steve did, I want to caution you that $0.57 is not our new quarterly run rate for EPS. In particular, I'd like to highlight several items. First, we spent very little on corporate investments in the first quarter. We have no precise quarterly budget for investments, but arguably this lack of spending benefited our first quarter results by at least $0.10. We hope and expect to spend that $0.10 plus additional dimes in later quarters so that $0.10 is not upside for the year or an indication that we are now at a higher earnings run rate. It's just timing. In addition to investment timing, we also benefited from lumpy items in the first quarter compensation and benefits, and that's not unusual in our business. Those benefits aggregated to about $0.11 in the first quarter. To give you a sense of the things that helped us, first, we saw improvement in healthcare costs for…

Thank you. I'll go first to Paul Ginocchio of Deutsche Bank.

Thanks. David or Steve, I guess the question is, about $0.10 or $0.11 you got in the first quarter from benefits. Does that basically offset any incremental FX and that's why the guidance is unchanged? Steven Henry Gunby - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: No, FX didn't really cost us very much. It was about – well, it had bigger revenue impact where we're pretty much naturally hedged. So FX only probably cost us about a penny in the first quarter. No, I think the benefits is – that's just – the point is, that wasn't expected, it wasn't in our guidance nor will it be reoccurring in the second quarter, third quarter and fourth quarter.

So if you got $0.10 from the benefits that you didn't expect, what's going to cost you an extra $0.10 that you didn't change your guidance, or is that just too precise to think about? Steven Henry Gunby - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I think that's too precise to think about. It's definitely a positive. It makes us more comfortable that we will be able to deliver within the guidance range, but we could easily see drags in that size, unexpected in our operations over the balance of the year. So yeah, the $0.10 from benefits is a positive, it's not timing, but it's not reoccurring.

Great. And Steve, the delayed investment, are you having any trouble hiring people? The labor market is pretty tight particularly for skilled people. Is that an issue or no? Steven Henry Gunby - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: It was an issue last year, particularly because we weren't geared up to focus on it. During the course of last year, we have geared up a lot of activity. I would say, particularly in our Corp Fin business we hadn't been hiring for a long time, and we started to go after it, and low and behold, found to get the right people, the people who can actually be accretive to our business, doesn't just fall off trees, you actually have to work. And we hadn't done that sort of work for a while. And I think that to some extent we have that across our segments. I mean, it hasn't been a focus for the last few years. I think we have made a lot of progress in that in the second half of the year, Holly working with each of the segment heads. And I won't say it's not an issue, but we have made material progress in attracting people over the last few months. So I think we're making good progress there.

Steve, my understanding is that, this is the investment year and the payoff is in 2016. The fact that we're sort of maybe a little bit – at least a quarter behind on the investment, that doesn't change any plans for 2016, or how should we think about that? Steven Henry Gunby - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: It doesn't. Look, I think, to some extent, we could have probably done even a better job of budgeting. The way the investments flow in this company, it's kind of large – always be back-loaded, partially because we don't have a great process to sort of launch the investments that we want to spend by January 1 of the year. And then some of the things that we've done in the past are inherently fourth quarter activities. Like, last year, we had an all SMB meeting, which was well done towards the end of the year. And so I think there is a couple of things in there that I wish we had gotten launched earlier. But I would also say, none of us were born yesterday. You know there are going to be slippages in some of these things, and you build that into your forecast for where you think you're going to take the business. So a long way of saying, yeah, we're going to move on that stuff. We're going to invest the money. But no, I'm not worried that the delays are going to compromise our aspirations for 2016 and beyond, if I got your question right, Paul.

That's it. Thank you. Steven Henry Gunby - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah.

We'll go next to Tobey Sommer of SunTrust. Steven Henry Gunby - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning, Tobey.

Good morning. I wanted to ask a question about the change in stock for cash that you outlined in detail. Is that a material change to the compensation from the revenue-generating consultant standpoint? Is that kind of material, or was that kind of a technical issue, which you wanted to explain for EPS purposes but not all that impactful from their vantage point? Thanks. Steven Henry Gunby - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. You're absolutely right. It's the latter. Yeah. I only highlighted it because it's an example of how technical the things that benefited the $0.11 are, and how you shouldn't look at those as reflecting a fundamental improvement in our run rate. It gets no change in the economics delivered to the practitioners at all. It's just a change in form and which was positively received. It was a voluntary opportunity to do cash versus stock. But you have to wait around for the cash, just like you have to wait around for the stock. We did it as part of our larger program to make more efficient use of shares for employee benefits programs in compensation which is part of our overall governance improvement program. And so it was only material to explaining the $0.11, no impact on the economics delivered to out practitioners.

Thank you. Are there any other changes to the compensation program for practitioners that has already been unveiled internally that you could discuss? Steven Henry Gunby - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: No.

Okay. Steven Henry Gunby - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah.

I'm sorry. Was that a yes or a no? Steven Henry Gunby - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I mean, we're always continually tinkering. But no, this was a limited number of people had this stock feature. We offered the option in the quarter, but it had a several cents benefit unexpected for technical reasons. But it's not material in any way to the economics people are getting.

Okay. And then, I had a question for you about M&A and second request. The couple of high-profile deals have recently been presented some obstacles by regulators. And I'm wondering if a more, kind of, stringent interpretation of anti-trust and a little more forceful regulator, what that might do for the parts of your business that it touches? Thanks. Steven Henry Gunby - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, I mean, we obviously can never comment on particular matters, but I would say, that antitrust engagement and by parties on either side, more discussion of antitrust and more interest in sharpening pencils and increasing the rigor of analysis can only be good for us. That's where we are excellent. So – and then we work – we don't just work for companies, we work for regulators sometimes, too. So we don't see any hindrance to our practices from increased focus on anti-trust, in fact, probably, it should be a positive.

My last question has to do with the global reach and positioning of your business in that regard. Are you as strong in the European market to help with issues in Brussels and in other international geographies as you would like? Steven Henry Gunby - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I think that may come as a surprise, but we are actually stronger than people realize in that. A few years ago, we did a very good acquisition of a company called LECG in Europe. There was a team of people there that we had seen as very comparable in quality to us, we had courted for years, and were not able to get them go over. They were very loyal. And then when LECG got into trouble, they came over, and that has bolstered our practice in ECon in Europe considerably. We have a terrific group led by somebody who is on the Compass Lexecon side by somebody who I think is seens as one of the leading economists in Europe went by the name of Jorge Batista (48:18). But he has a terrific team there and also group of international arbitration people, some of whom are under our Compass Lexecon brand and some of us under FTI. So we have a terrific position in Europe. We are I believe the leaders in Europe, in competition space, and in most places in Europe, and not just on in the UK but on the continent. We also just, for your information, have made major investments behind a very good business we have in public affairs in Brussels. And I think we have the leading or certainly a leading public affairs business in Brussels at this point. That's one of the areas in our Strat Comm business that we've invested behind. So I think some of our businesses we are really smaller than I would like by a long shot on the continent. These I'd like to grow, but we are very strong in those businesses, and we look for – and they are actually growing. Does that answer your question?

It does. Thank you. Steven Henry Gunby - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah.

We'll go next to Tim McHugh from William Blair & Company. Steven Henry Gunby - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning, Tim. Tim J. McHugh - William Blair & Co. LLC: Yes, thank you. Hey, good morning, guys. First on the Economics; I guess, it's been a couple of quarters now. So what do you point, I mean, do you still point to just, I guess, normal volatility in engagements as we talk about the economic business and I guess specifically, obviously, the non-M&A antitrust. I guess, how do you reconcile to the disconnect between the M&A part being strong, and then I guess the non-M&A anti-trust being weak for a little while now. Is it tough times, is there something with the market that I don't understand or with the people, I guess, what's your view of what's going on in there? Steven Henry Gunby - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, I think it's, I would say, probably the larger part is ebb and flow, and then the smaller part is kind of, short-term cyclical trends in volume. So we had a very good book of non-M&A anti-trust and finance litigation in past years. Some of those matters rolled off or decreased in volume last year, and particularly in the fourth quarter, and have not picked back up again in volumes sufficient to give us a positive comparison. It's not because we don't have work in those areas and we don't have strong positions, but the particular portfolio we have is just down a bit. That's hard to speculate or to prognosticate in terms of sub markets like that i.e. finance litigation in the United States and its particular dynamic. But there probably is some weakness in volume there though again, I'm not an expert…

We'll go next to David Gold of Sidoti. Steven Henry Gunby - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning, David. David J. Gold - Sidoti & Co. LLC: Hi, good morning. So just really a quick question, and you've given a lot of detail, which we appreciate. Just curious Steve or David, if you could speak a little bit more on, I guess we're sort of the second period where the ramp-up in investments and hiring was maybe a little bit slower than we had expected. And just, you could just speak towards what one can do to spur that a little bit, to push it along a little, maybe as quickly as you were initially thinking. Steven Henry Gunby - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. Look, I'll say, David, look, what we're doing here at this company is trying to take a great company to the next generation of growth, and what we have is a great set of practitioners. Some of the processes that we're using though are not ones that have been employed. We have not been a company that's been historically that focused on organic growth. We've not been a company that has historically been surfacing ideas to invest EBITDA, bubble them up, sort through them, and then be willing to hurt our quarterly earnings in order to invest for 2016 and 2017. It's not sort of the reflex action. We have some other great strengths where we've historically been, done a lot of acquisitions and so forth. But where we're heading right now, some parts of where we're heading right now is different than what the organization is used to. And so you put in place processes, and you make progress, and some places people – a year ago people looked skeptically…

We'll go next to Jerry Herman of Stifel. Steven Henry Gunby - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning, Jerry. Jerry R. Herman - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Thanks. Good morning, everybody. Howdy. Let me start, if I can, with sort of a high level elementary question, because I really appreciate your commentary about the quarter and the influences on the quarter, and the $0.57, and the notion that it's more like $0.35 to $0.40. I just want to ensure that if that's true then that actually puts you sort of operationally below the level of a year ago. And I just want to make sure that I'm not getting the wrong message there with regard to the underlying core business. Steven Henry Gunby - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: No, I think, we – yeah, if you have – I mean, you do some crude math, if you said it's a $0.40 quarter, and you multiply that by four, you get to $1.60, and you look at the $0.10 of comp and benefits as permanent, that gets you to $1.70, so you would say, okay, that's not bad, but it's a little running in place versus last year. So they clearly need to continue the program of operational improvement that they espoused when they gave their guidance in February in order to get to their $1.95 to $2.20 and a little bit of it remains back loaded. So yes, you're absolutely right. First quarter is, we think, in a number of fundamentals, better than last year's first quarter, but from an absolute earnings point of view, it's a little bit better, but not wildly better in order to get to our earnings guidance we need to continue to improve through the balance of the year. I…

We'll go next to Randy Reece of Avondale Partners.

Good morning. Steven Henry Gunby - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning, Randy, how are you?

Doing all right. Not that long ago you put some formal structure around the HR function that probably hadn't been there in the past, been a little more distributed. And I'm wondering, how much progress you have made reorganizing the recruiting process if there is any greater centralization involved, or if you're still kind of thinking through what might be the optimal structure for a company like this. Steven Henry Gunby - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah, there's a lot of work being done, Randy, a huge amount of work, and I think we have a lot of work ahead of us. But there's been a major set of work, upgrading of additions of talent, lots of conversations that never happened before between the center and the businesses. It is a very different place. I would say it's still – if Holly were here, I think she would say, it's still very much a work in progress, but I'd say the amount of progress we have made in whatever six months since Holly has joined has been extraordinary. So work in progress, but real progress made. Does that help?

Yes. Do you see any changes in the supply of talent or the competitiveness for talent since you've been in charge of FTI? Steven Henry Gunby - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: There may be, but to be honest, it is a rounding error in terms of the quality of our efforts. I mean, yes, we have great people, but there are great people out in the world. I mean we just need to have the right mechanisms to make sure we're identifying them and getting to know them. When the talent out there in the world gets to know our professionals, we have a very high success rate in recruiting. But a huge amount of our recruiting historically has depended on that. Somebody worked with somebody at the SEC or at the Justice Department or worked with them on a particular matter, and they were so impressed with our people they said, geez, I didn't know your company, what do you guys do? We recruit people. We can do better than that. So I'm not too worried about whether the markets' tightened out there. What we need to do is upgrade our processes faster than the markets are tightening, if they are, and I think we can do that. Does that help?

Yes. And there is increasing discussion from management over time compared with the past, about your focus on revenue continuity and the handoff from project-to-project. And has there been any real change or accomplishment yet in how you manage that process? Steven Henry Gunby - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, we have a number of initiatives underway, which I'm not willing to go into all of them in any detail, but a number of initiatives underway both within segments and cross segments on that. I mean one of the things we've never had as a company is a key account management program. So we have no systematic process not only to ensure continuity and follow-up, but also to make sure that if we're incredibly well regarded in one geography there's a systematic process to introduce ourselves to another geography or another segment. And we are not surprisingly experimenting with pilots to change that. So there's a lot of work underway on that, Randy. And the thing I would say about that is those are fundamental changes that I think are critical, and I talked a little bit about those in the Investor Day, but I think those take a while to really translate into material profit dollars. So I see those as major contributors to where we take the business between 2016 and 2021. And we're not counting on huge tangible dollars from them, from now to 2016. but we're trying to learn how to do that effectively and show results so we can scale over time. Does that help?

That is what I expected. Thank you very much. Steven Henry Gunby - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you. Are we done, Mollie? Mollie Hawkes - Director, Investor Relations & Communications: Yeah. Steven Henry Gunby - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you all for your attention and your support and your good questions. And I hope you found this conversation useful, and we look forward to staying in touch. Thanks.