Welcome to the HIRE Technologies Q1 2022 Financial Results Conference Call. If at any time during this call you need assistance, please press star zero for the operator if dialing in. Note that this call is being recorded. I would like to turn the conference over to Caroline Sawamoto, Investor Relations for HIRE Technologies. Please go ahead. Welcome and thank you for joining HIRE Technologies Q1 2022 financial results conference call. Speaking on our call today is HIRE's Chief Executive Officer, Simon Dealy, and Chief Financial Officer, Dan Teguh. Our Q1 2022 results were disseminated yesterday and are available on SEDAR and on our website at www.hire.company. Before we get started, I wish to inform everyone that this presentation, including the question and answer component, contains forward-looking information and forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable Canadian and United States securities legislation. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of significant risks and uncertainties, and our actual results may differ materially from those suggested by our comments today. The most significant risk factors that could affect future results are detailed in our most recent SEDAR filings, including our interim management's discussion and analysis. Please note that all of the statements made today are current as of today, May 31, 2022, and are based on information currently available to us. Except as required by law, we assume no obligation to update any such statements as of this date. On this call, we will refer to the company as HIRE Technologies or HIRE. With that, I will turn the discussion over to Simon to share the company's update and then over to Dan to provide financial highlights. Please go ahead, Simon. Oh, thank you so much for that introduction, Caroline. Everyone, it is good to have you on the call today. As Caroline mentioned, I'm joined by Dan Teguh, HIRE's CFO, to give you an update on our Q1 2022 results. Yeah, HIRE and our portfolio companies have had a great start to 2022, really continuing their momentum from the previous quarter, enabling HIRE to achieve its sixth consecutive quarter of revenue growth, which has really showcased the potential of the HIRE portfolio companies, and it's truly a credit to what we have achieved across the network in the short time we have been a public company. You know, as many of you are aware, you know, the job market remains very tight, which means HIRE can further solidify its position as a strategic talent partner for a growing number of clients. The number of people applying for unemployment benefits is at an all-time low, indicating a strong labor market with near record high job opportunities and few layoffs. Workers are enjoying exceptional job security just two years after the start of the coronavirus pandemic, which obviously devastated the labor market. The employment market's durability, as well as the likelihood of this labor trend continuing for the foreseeable future, really presents HIRE, Canada's sole public HR consolidator, with a unique opportunity. All of this is the result of three major trends that support our business strategy and strategic objectives. To begin with, clients want more value, solutions, and flexibility from the vendors with whom they work. HIRE is satisfying this demand by combining its Pulsify + HIRE program, which integrates our SaaS solution into the services that we provide, with our internal referral and cross-selling program, which also widens the solution set each of our brands can offer their clients. Secondly, the market has transitioned to a candidate-driven environment, with talent being a key consideration for all company leaders. Clients have grown much more flexible and creative in how they recruit and retain talent because of the increased resource scarcity. HIRE helps clients with this critical issue by giving insights into hiring trends, retention strategies, and access to our candidate databases across Canada. Finally, the global trend towards digitization is continuing. The focus is on digital engagement, data harvesting, and of course, artificial intelligence. HIRE continues to employ cloud-based scalable platforms to give real-time actionable data insights to our business units, as well as developing its Pulsify platform and seeking out new synergistic technologies to add to our portfolio. Now, while Dan will give you more of a deep dive on the numbers themselves, I wanna cover the highlights here. You know, firstly, you know, supported by those favorable market conditions that we're talking about for the staffing industry, coupled with the strength of our multi-brand approach and the highly efficient and scalable back office, we're very proud to report quarterly revenue of CAD 9.1 million, up 66% from 2021. In addition, our gross margin of CAD 4.5 million is almost double the CAD 2.3 million we achieved in Q1 2021. Capping all of this off, we've achieved an Adjusted EBITDA of CAD 1 million for the quarter, which is the company's highest profitability in a quarter to date and represents 11% of revenue. This is a significant achievement for our company. Some fantastic numbers, and I'm truly honored to be the one who, you know, gets to present or report these results, which is a credit to our amazing team who are working tirelessly to provide staffing support in all major Canadian cities and who are quickly making HIRE a leading name in the human capital marketplace. As we look forward to the remainder of 2022, we see a positive outlook for the company and anticipate continued growth in 2022 with solid hiring intentions across all industry verticals being observed, even with the traditional seasonality in the staffing industry. We are confident that HIRE's broad range of services, national footprint, and continued investment in our brands will enable the company to benefit from the labor market's structural supply and demand forces. Our operational flexibility allows us to react swiftly and effectively to market changes, even in an uncertain macroeconomic environment. For the remainder of the year, we'll be focusing on improving our cross-selling strategies, operating performance, and cost structure. As you can see, HIRE has laid a strong foundation on which to build on to maintain its strong growth. I want to thank every one of our employees and managing directors from across our portfolio of companies for their dedication, thoughtfulness, and contributions to our great start for 2022. With that, I'll now hand over the call to Dan for his comments on the company's financials. Thank you, Simon. Good morning and good afternoon, everyone. As Simon mentioned, our Q1 results highlighted the tailwinds that our portfolio companies are benefiting from. Unprecedented client demand pushed revenue to CAD 9.1 million for the quarter. This is 66% higher than the last year and significantly higher than the 24% average for our peer group. Over 75% of this increase was attributable to organic growth, which came from both recurring contracts at 44% and the permanent placement book at 64%. Gross margin continued to trend favorably as well. Gross margin was CAD 4.5 million for the quarter, almost double the CAD 2.3 million from last year. As a percentage of revenue, gross margin was 49%, 7 points better than the prior year. Our portfolio continues to become more weighted towards higher margin non-recurring permanent and executive search revenue, which now makes up 39% of our revenue, up from 29% a year earlier. Moving to SG&A now, we are showing steady value creation from our platform. On an adjusted basis, which adjusts for non-replaced compensation, share-based compensation, and contingent remuneration from acquisitions, SG&A was 39% of revenue, which was 3 points better than 2021. Our results for the quarter were indicative of job order activity that has yet to lose momentum in 2022, while our SG&A spend reflected near run rate operational costing with very little in the way of non-operating items. Now let's take a look at our bottom line results. Adjusted EBITDA, as Simon mentioned, was CAD 1 million for the quarter, which was a fantastic result for us. Significant adjusting items included CAD 1.3 million recognized as contingent remuneration, CAD 0.7 million in net losses recognized on the revaluation of contingent consideration, and CAD 0.1 million in unrealized mark-to-market gains on convertible debenture derivatives. For certain transactions executed in 2020, we provided vendors with the opportunity to revalue their businesses based on EBITDA results in subsequent years. HIRE agreed to pay a multiple at closing and on incremental EBITDA generated for a trailing 12-month period in the future. Where certain portfolio companies do better, additional losses are therefore recognized on the reestimation of future payment obligations. Net income was also positive on an adjusted basis for the quarter at CAD 0.4 million versus a loss of CAD 0.3 million in 2021. With market conditions remaining favorable and client demand high in Q1, HIRE demonstrated the strength of its portfolio of brands this quarter. With that, I'll turn it over to the operator for your questions. Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one from the telephone lines, and you can also ask a question on the web by using the Q&A tab towards the top of your screen. One moment, please, while we compile the questions. Your first phone question is from Christian Sgro at Eight Capital. Please go ahead. Hi. Good afternoon. The first question I wanted to ask today is on the gross margin profile. I think when I do the math and back out the gross margins on the recurring contract side of the business, I think those were a little bit stronger than I would have expected, even if just by a little. I was wondering if there's anything to call out there if that's a function of the scale or demand or any other factors. Dan, did you want to take that one, bud? Sure, Simon. You know, very strong organic growth on the contract book and, you know, the margin tightening that we've been commenting on for the last two or three quarters has largely dissipated. You know, that is really chalked up to strategy, specifically on our IT book. We've effectively been very selective, and we make sure that, you know, we're getting profitability specifically from some of our larger clients. There's so many job orders that, you know, we have the luxury of being selective. As a result, you know, gross margins have improved significantly on the contract side of the book. Okay. Awesome. Moving down the income statement, I think you mentioned, Dan, that the cost profile, when I think of some of the OpEx items that Q1 could be a run rate, say for some of the items like salaries and such. Is that a way to model the business through the year, maybe thinking of Q1 as run rate numbers? Absolutely. I mean, as shown on our reconciliation between, you know, adjusted and reported, you know, very little in the way of transaction costs, non-replaced compensation, and restructuring charges and one-time items. So Q1 is very indicative of our cost structure moving forward, albeit, you know, still lots to do in that area. Simon and I will focus on further operational improvements as we move into the quieter summer months. Yeah. Awesome. One more question on sort of the financials and moving on to the balance sheet. When we think of some of the earn outs, I know some are doing combinations of cash or stock. Just wondering if there's conversations you're having with any of the business units, like if there's the potential to move, you know, more of those obligations or payments to stock or how you guys sort of see those earn outs playing out, you know, through the year and into 2023. Yeah, Christian, I can take that one. You know, we've got some pretty good structures as far as for the earn-outs or the revaluations we have for those, where there are actually a stock and a cash component for those. They're all sort of set up in a way that allows us to always maintain within a range of the multiples that we have. You know, we do have, you know, some of them, but I guess the larger of those commitments is actually not until next year, Q1 next year, requiring a payment. You know, we are looking at obvious ways to maximize the capital for the company in order to meet those obligations. Okay. That's helpful, Simon. I'll ask just one more question, more on the demand environment. It sounds like trends, you know, for the top line are moving well into Q2. I think I ask this every quarter, but helping us think of seasonality, is it right to think of like a lot of other industries, Q3 as the slowest quarter of the year? Or how is this year playing out so far in a post-pandemic world? Yeah, it's a good question, Christian. You know, we would expect with the summer months now a lot more people are taking vacations and going places that the typical seasonality that we get through the summer months should return. It's been a little bit unpredictable because the demand's been so strong for resources. We do, you know, we do say that, hey, we expect that to happen in Q3, and that would be our, I guess, our quietest quarter. But time will tell. You know, we really just don't know how that demand's gonna come off and in what way for those summer months as people are taking vacations. That's all helpful context, Simon. Thank you both for taking my questions. Yeah. Thanks, Christian. Thank you. At this time, we have no further phone questions. I would like to turn the conference back to Caroline Sawamoto. Thank you everyone who have joined us on the call today. If you have any follow-up questions, please reach out to HIRE's Investor Relations team. Thank you again and have a great day. Thank you. This does conclude your conference call for today. Once again, thank you for participating, and at this time we do ask that you please disconnect your lines. Thank you.