Steven Rostowsky
Analyst · expectations and about material factors or assumptions applied in making forward-looking statements, please consult the MD&A for this quarter and Sprott's other filings with the Canadian securities regulators. I will now turn the conference over to Mr. Peter Grosskopf. Please go ahead, Mr. Grosskopf
Thanks, John. Good morning, everyone. I'll start on Slide 6 with a look at our assets under management. Our AUM was $7 billion as of December 31, 2014, essentially unchanged from the end of 2013 and down approximately $300 million from the end of Q3 2014. Our AUM for the year reached nearly $7.9 billion in the summer, before declining later in the year, along with precious metals and energy equities. Net sales for the year were just over $200 million with the majority of that attributable to our Enhanced Fund. As John noted, we have recently began to see more broad-based sales across our products. After a strong start to the year, our overall investment performance finished flat, with a market value of all our AUM depreciating by a total of approximately $100 million from December 31, 2013, to December 31, 2014. Turning now to AUM by product type. Although, our AUM remained largely unchanged from the end of 2013 at $7 billion, there were meaningful shifts within the composition of our AUM during the year. These changes are reflective of our overall strategy of growing both our global presence as leading resource investor and our diversified asset management platform in Canada. Our mutual fund AUM grew by approximately $400 million on the year, mainly through net sales. Our Physical Bullion business, which remains the largest contributor to our total AUM, decreased by $350 million during the year, due mostly to redemptions from two of our Physical Bullion Trusts. Our mutual funds recorded $289 million in net sales during 2014, while our alternative investment funds as a group reported $147 million in net redemptions with the majority coming from our alternative income strategies. As of December 31, 2014, AUM of our managed companies was $770 million compared with $521 million as of December 31, 2013. The introduction of the AUM through our Korean joint venture more than offset the significant net asset value decline at Sprott Resource Corp. Our fixed term LPs declined by an aggregate of about $20 million during 2014. Moving on to Slide 8, which gives you a breakdown of our revenue for the year. Management fees was $78.4 million during 2014, reflecting a decrease of $6.3 million from the prior period, as average AUM for the year was about $7.5 billion, about 6.5% lower than the prior year. However, Sprott Asset Management's management fees were virtually the same as the prior year, reflecting the shift to higher margin AUM discussed earlier. Commission revenues were $7.8 million for the year ended December 31, 2014, reflecting an increase of 26% from the prior year. The increase was due to a higher level of private placement activity at GRIL and SPW during 2014, but still depressed by historical standards. Interest income was $20.2 million for the year ended December 31, 2014, up from $9.8 million in 2013, due largely to the performance of the loan book and cash following our acquisition of Sprott Resource Lending in July 2013. During the year ended December 31, 2014, we recorded $4.5 million in losses from capital invested in proprietary investments compared with a loss of $14.4 million in 2013. Looking now at Slide 9, summary financial information. Total expenses for the year, excluding impairment charges on intangibles and goodwill, were $93.6 million, a decrease of $8.4 million or 8% from the year ended December 31, 2013. The core components of compensation, salaries, benefits, commissions and bonuses declined slightly year-over-year, as lower salary costs were partially offset by higher bonuses on improved EBITDA. Trailer fees for 2014 increased by 5.2% compared with the prior year. This is a positive trend as our trailer-paying assets, particularly mutual funds have increased. G&A expenses for the year ended December 31, 2014, were about $33 million or 19% higher than last year. The increase was primarily due to higher sub-advisory fees on higher AUM and performance fees on sub-advised products, higher fund start-up costs and marketing costs. Adjusted base EBITDA for the year was $38.1 million, reflecting an increase of $5.9 million or 18.2% from the year ended December 31, 2013. However, EBITDA per share decreased from $0.16 to $0.15 due to the shares issued in 2013 pursuant to the SRLC acquisition. Net income was $19.4 million or $0.08 per share, reflecting an increase of $100.7 million from a loss of $81.3 million or $0.39 per share for the year ended December 31, 2013. The next slide shows EBITDA reconciliation in more detail. I think the slide is self-explanatory, but we feel it's useful to show the components of the adjustments, included in the adjusted base EBITDA metric. Slide 11 provides a snapshot of our current capital position. We currently have an extremely strong balance sheet with $360 million in investable capital as the composition of our capital book is currently approximately one-third cash in equivalents, one-third loans and one-third other investments, primarily seed investments in our own funds. We have a disciplined capital allocation framework in place, geared towards generating returns throughout the economic cycle. Our priorities for the capital book are: preservation of capital, yield generation and seeding our investments. With that, I'll turn it back to Peter.