David Brown
Analyst · JPMorgan
Thanks, Carly, and Matt, on behalf of the entire Victory Capital team, thank you. Your dedication, your professionalism and the standard you set for how we engage with our shareholders and the investment community has been invaluable. We are deeply grateful, and we wish you all the best in this next chapter. Good morning, all, and welcome to Victory Capital's First Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. I'm joined today by Michael Policarpo, our President, Chief Financial and Administrative Officer; and of course, Matt and Carly. I will start today with an overview of our first quarter results, which I'm pleased to say were exceptional while also highlighting a few specific areas of our business. After that, I will turn the call over to Mike to review the financial results in greater detail. Following our prepared remarks, we will be available to answer your questions. The quarterly business overview begins on Slide 5. I want to start by saying that Q1 2026 was an exceptional quarter, one that set new records across multiple dimensions of our business. We achieved record long-term gross flows, record adjusted EBITDA and record adjusted earnings per share, all in the same quarter. We also progressed meaningfully in several other strategic areas of our business that are reflected in our quarterly results. The results reflect the strength of the platform and our team's ability to execute. We ended March with $313 billion in total client assets, slightly below the record quarter end level we achieved at year-end. Long-term gross flows reached $18.9 billion, which was up 11% from Q4 2025. To put that in perspective, this is 104% higher than in the same quarter last year and reflects the continued momentum of our expanded U.S. distribution platform, our growing international distribution channel and the ongoing strength of our VictoryShares ETF platform. At an annualized run-rate of approximately $76 billion or roughly 24% of long-term AUM, we believe we are generating gross sales at a level that can support positive organic growth over time as we continue to invest and integrate sales and marketing resources from our Pioneer acquisition. Long-term net flows improved meaningfully during the quarter. The trajectory here is encouraging with multiple investment franchises and VictoryShares ETFs generating positive net flows. Additionally, our international distribution channel continues to yield positive flows even as we are just beginning to get vintage Victory products launched and into the channel. From a financial perspective, adjusted EBITDA reached $204 million, and our adjusted EBITDA margin came in at 52.6%. We are particularly proud of these results because they demonstrate the resilience of our operating model and the exceptional people who run it day in and day out. The consistency of our margin speaks for itself, above 49% every single quarter since 2020 and above 50% in the majority of them. That does not happen by accident. It is the direct result of a purposely designed, highly efficient, scalable platform utilizing technology and smart strategic outsourcing, which affords us the ability to invest in the areas that matter the most for future growth while allowing us to maintain the discipline that defines how we run the business. Adjusted earnings per diluted share with tax benefit were $1.82, up 2% from Q4 and 34% higher than Q1 of last year. We also continue to return meaningfully capital to shareholders. I will cover this in more detail later, but we repurchased a quarterly record of 2 million shares of VCTR common stock during the quarter and combined with our dividend, returned $185 million to shareholders. As we step back and look at where we are as a company, Q1 2026 reflects the continued payoff of the strategic investments we have made in distribution, technology, product development and people as well as the transformational impact of the Pioneer acquisition and the Amundi distribution partnership. The integration is substantially complete. We are on track with our synergies and the benefits are evident in our results. Turning to Slide 6. I want to provide an update on our VictoryShares ETF platform, which continues to be one of the most exciting growth engines in our business. ETF AUM ended the quarter at over $20 billion, up 7% quarter-over-quarter and 53% year-over-year. That is a remarkable pace of growth and reflects both the quality of our product lineup and the investments we have made in distribution. Our ETF AUM CAGR since 2017 is 28%, and we see no signs of that momentum slowing. Net flows for the quarter were $1.3 billion, continuing the strong organic growth trajectory. Our free cash flow ETF series continues to generate consistent inflows and our fixed income ETFs remain in demand across the intermediary channel. We are winning new shelf space and home office recommendations, and our sales team continues to deepen relationships with key platform partners and financial advisers. Lastly, I would also like to remind you that our average ETF fee rate is 35 basis points with margins that meet our firm-wide requirements. Internationally, I'm pleased to report that we have commenced selling our U.S.-listed ETFs across Asia, which represents a new distribution channel for this business. The early reception has been positive. And as we develop this channel, we think there is a great opportunity to expand our client base to include investors outside the U.S. In addition, we are close to having our ETFs available for sale in certain countries in Latin America, which would represent another new geography for this platform. Looking ahead, we also filed 3 new ETF products with the SEC during the first quarter with additional launches planned throughout 2026. Product development remains active, and we continue to identify opportunities to expand our suite in ways that are aligned with client demand. Slide 7 highlights our international distribution platform, which continues to gain traction. At quarter end, we had $55 billion of assets under management from clients outside the U.S. across 60 countries with 29 of those countries now having more than $100 million in assets under management in Victory products. Importantly, our international channel was net flow positive again in Q1 '26 and is net flow positive since we closed the Pioneer acquisition. I want to take a moment to provide some context on where we are in the development of this channel because I think it is important to appreciate both the progress we have made and the significant opportunity that lies ahead. The Amundi sales force is a large and highly capable global distribution engine, and they are quickly learning about Victory Capital and our Investment franchises. Building conviction in a new product set, completing the necessary due diligence and educating platforms, financial advisers, consultants and institutional clients across dozens of markets around the world is a multiyear journey. Everything is going as planned, and the structural foundation is firmly in place, which we are building on. We have a 15-year strategic distribution agreement with Amundi, under which Victory Capital serves as their exclusive provider of U.S. manufactured traditional active investment solutions. We have a Victory Capital sales team located in major geographies supporting the Amundi sales infrastructure as well as a sales support group here in the U.S. And we now manage 23 UCITS products spanning equities, fixed income and global multi-asset strategies, giving the Amundi sales force a diversified and growing product set to work with. We are planning additional UCITS launches in 2026, including additional strategies from Vintage Victory investment franchises with priorities driven by bottom-up demand signals from Amundi's local distribution teams. The product set is expanding, the sales teams are getting up to speed and the momentum is building. We look forward to reporting on our progress here as this channel continues to grow. Turning to Slide 9. Investment performance improved during the first quarter and remains excellent across the platform. As of March 31, 2026, 58 mutual funds and ETFs earned 4- or 5-star overall ratings from Morningstar, representing 68% of our rated AUM. This performance reflects broad-based strength across our investment franchises. When we look at performance against benchmarks, the picture is equally compelling. 71% of our AUM outperformed over the 1-year period, 67% over 3 years, 68% over 5 years and an impressive 81% over the 10-year period. On a strategy count basis, 69%, 67%, 70% and 70% of strategies outperformed over those same periods. Investment performance is the foundation of everything we do. The results we are reporting today reflect the talent and discipline of our investment professionals across all our investment franchises, and we remain deeply committed to delivering excellent investment outcomes for our clients. Slide 10 covers our long-term growth and capital allocation strategy. Since our IPO in 2018, we have returned $1.4 billion to shareholders through a combination of share repurchases and dividends. That is a remarkable figure when you consider that we received just $157 million in net proceeds from the IPO back in February of 2018. During the first quarter, we repurchased 2 million shares of VCTR common stock. This reflects our conviction in the value of our stock and our commitment to returning capital to shareholders when the opportunity presents itself. Combined with our dividend, we returned $185 million to shareholders in the quarter alone. And over the trailing 12 months, we have returned $512 million of capital to shareholders, more than $6 per share. I also want to highlight that since April 1, 2025, the date we closed the Pioneer acquisition, we have repurchased approximately 5 million shares of VCTR common stock. That represents approximately 22% of the 22.9 million shares we issued to Amundi as consideration for the transaction. That said, I want to be clear about our capital allocation priorities. Strategic acquisitions remain our best and primary use of capital. Our buyback program is meaningful and ongoing, but is complementary to, not a substitute for our long-term inorganic growth strategy. We evaluate capital deployment on a facts and circumstances basis, and our flexible balance sheet gives us the ability to pursue multiple objectives simultaneously. Turning to Slide 11. I want to spend a few minutes on our acquisition strategy because it remains an important input into how we think about creating long-term value for shareholders. Inorganic growth is a strategic priority, and our pipeline of acquisition opportunities is extensive, and we are very active. The environment for transactions in our sector remains highly favorable. The structural forces driving consolidation, increasing regulatory complexity, technology requirements, distribution access and scale economics are only becoming more pronounced. That backdrop creates a compelling opportunity for a well-capitalized, proven acquirer like Victory Capital. Our approach has always been and will remain disciplined. We evaluate every opportunity against a clear set of strategic and financial criteria, and we will not compromise those standards. Every acquisition we have made has been strategically grounded, designed to improve our overall platform, enhance our distribution capabilities, diversify our client base or add complementary investment capabilities. The financial benefits are a positive outcome, not the starting point. Importantly, this remains a highly fragmented industry, and there are a lot of opportunities to better our company via acquisitions. In fact, I would stress we have more opportunities today than we have ever had as we review our pipeline and our current discussions. We have the ability to pursue multiple opportunities at the same time, and that is exactly what we have done over the years and what we are doing today. That said, we have the patience and discipline to wait for the right opportunity and the financial strength to move decisively when one presents itself. We have a tremendous business today that is positioned very well in the market to deliver for our clients and our shareholders in a very positive way. The exact timing of any given transaction is always difficult to predict, but our track record of consistent superior execution over more than a decade gives me great confidence in our ability to continue delivering transformational growth through M&A as we work our way to our $1 trillion in assets under management goal. With that, I will turn the call over to Mike, who will go through the financial results in more detail. Mike?