Good morning. Thank you. At this time, we'll begin the Aircastle Limited f irst quarter 2023 financial update conference call. Today's conference is being recorded, at this time, I'd like to turn the floor over to James Connelly, SVP of Corporate Communications. Please go ahead, Mr. Connelly. Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Aircastle Limited's first quarter 2023 financial update call. With me today are Mike Inglese, Chief Executive Officer, and Roy Chandran, Chief Financial Officer. Other members of the management team are also on the line, and they will be available during Q&A. We'll begin the presentation shortly, but I would like to remind everyone that this call is being recorded, and a replay will be available through our website at www.aircastle.com. There, you can also find the press release and PowerPoint presentation that accompany this call. I would like to point out that statements today, which are not historical facts, may be deemed forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from the estimates or expectations expressed in those statements. Certain facts that could cause actual results to differ materially from Aircastle Limited's expectations are detailed in our SEC filings, which can also be found on our website. I will direct you to Aircastle Limited's press release for the full forward-looking statement legend. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Mike. Thanks, James. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Last week, we were pleased to share the news about an additional $500 million equity commitment from our shareholders, Marubeni Corporation and Mizuho Leasing. We believe this will solidify our investment grade status and enhance our ability to source efficient liquidity as we continue to grow our fleet of newer narrow-body passenger aircraft over time. We're grateful for the additional commitment and believe it's a clear validation of our shareholders' long-term investment philosophy and their confidence in Aircastle's team, investment strategy, and the prospects of the aviation industry. When we last spoke three months ago, I highlighted the industry's return to profitability in 2022. Despite continuing macroeconomic volatility, we're pleased to see improvement sustaining into 2023. Two weeks ago, CAPA reported that the seat capacity for Europe and North America are above 2022 levels and slightly below 2019 equivalents by single digits, while capacity in the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa exceeds 2019 levels. IATA also shares this positive view of the global aviation demand. In their recently released Global Outlook for Air Transport, IATA predicts 2023's industry-wide RPKs will be approximately 88% of 2019, primarily due to pent-up demand, which remains buoyant in spite of economic headwinds. On a longer-term horizon, IATA predicts the demand for air travel is expected to double by 2040, growing at an average annual rate of about 3.4%. Lastly, at last month's Paris Air Show, Boeing and Airbus received significant orders for new aircraft, most notably passenger narrow bodies. We share the industry consensus that aviation is on a path of long-term growth. However, this growth will be impacted by changes in the macroeconomic environment, including higher interest rates, resulting in higher financing costs, supply chain blockages, labor shortages, and rising costs at OEMs and MROs, slowing GDP growth and persistent inflationary pressures. Consumer frustration at airport logistic delays we saw last summer have not been fully resolved. Global trend towards economic and political deglobalization, which impacts international connectivity. Lastly, aviation stakeholders will have to enact ambitious structural improvements to advance the industry's carbon transition. As we pursue growth amid these challenges, we believe managing risk, prioritizing liquidity, and maintaining conservative balance sheet are fundamental paths to weathering volatility and economic cycles. These are the principles that saw us through the pandemic, and these are the principles that have anchored our growth strategy since our founding. Turning now to our results, we're pleased to update you on our continued profitability and portfolio growth in the first quarter of 2023. We finished fiscal Q1 with net income of $23 million and Adjusted EBITDA of $191 million. Despite significant competition for new technology aircraft, our team successfully acquired six new tech aircraft during the quarter and one current tech A320ceo. At quarter end, new technology now makes up nearly 1/3 of our fleet, compared to 19% a year ago. Over the last three quarters, 89% of the assets we acquired were new tech aircraft. Although our recent investments keep us in line with long-term technology trends, our fleet of mid-life aircraft remains in robust demand because of OEM production delays, as well as servicing challenges experienced on some new technology engines. Our total liquidity of $2.6 billion as of early July, positions us well as we move forward. Not having a large forward order book gives us the flexibility to raise and deploy capital quickly, leveraging the strong relationships we have built in the secured and unsecured lending markets. Likewise, we have built equally effective relationships with our trading partners, who are confident about our team's efficient and professional transaction execution. As we look to the future, our experienced team will continue to provide creative solutions for our customers while maintaining a risk-focused objectivity of the broader aviation marketplace. Our growing new tech fleet keeps us abreast of the technological transition taking place across our customer base, while our mid-life aircraft remain in strong demand. As a demonstration of our commitment to our own sustainability goals and those of our customers, we continue our investment focus in the most fuel-efficient, low-emission aircraft. Later this month, we'll also be releasing our 2022 ESG report, Aircastle's Second. We invite all Aircastle stakeholders to read about our 2022 sustainability story and share their feedback. With a conservative balance sheet, an investment-grade rating, and the staunch support of Marubeni Corporation and Mizuho Leasing, we continue to be well-positioned for future growth. I'll pass the call over to Roy, who will go through our first quarter results in more detail. Thanks, Mike. For the first quarter, we reported net income of $23 million and Adjusted EBITDA of $191 million, a 25% increase from the first quarter of 2022. Gains of $43 million include $10 million from routine sales of four aircraft with an average age of 17 years, as well as a $33 million gain from the conversion of 10 leases from operating to finance sales-type leases. Operating cash flow for the first quarter were $100 million, a 7% uptick when compared to the fourth quarter of 2022. We invested $306 million in the first quarter, adding seven narrow-body aircraft, six of which were new technology. As Mike mentioned, this is our third consecutive quarter where we have invested nearly 90% of our acquisition investment dollars into new technology. It is a testament to our execution team that they can close deals in a competitive market for new narrow-body aircraft. We continue to diversify our funding sources, closing on our third JOLCO financing in March. In April, we successfully paid off $500 million of senior notes due in maturity. Our next major repayment is in September, and as always, we remain ready to access the unsecured markets when appropriate. Our net debt-to-equity at the end of the quarter was 2.8x. Our pro forma net debt-to-equity goes down to 2.2x when factoring in the $500 million equity commitment we are expecting from our shareholders. We finished the year with total debt at the end of the quarter of $4.7 billion, of which 80% was unsecured. The weighted average interest rate on our debt was 4.69% at the end of the first quarter. Continuing on with liquidity, as of July 7th, we had total liquidity of $2.6 billion. This includes $1.5 billion of undrawn liquidity facilities, unrestricted cash of $83 million, projected 12-month adjusted operating cash flows, committed sales of $560 million, and equity proceeds of $500 million. Looking ahead, as we source attractive growth opportunities, we will limit forward commitments, maintain our conservative leverage, thus affirm our dedication to maintaining our IG status and make it a strategic priority to improve our ratings. With that, operator, we're happy to open the call up to questions. Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star and one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Again, please press star and then one to ask a question. We'll pause for just a moment to allow everyone the opportunity to signal for questions. Once again, it is star and then one to join the question queue. Our first question today comes from Mark Streeter from JP Morgan. Please go ahead with your question. Good morning, Aircastle team. Roy, you said two things, very important, I think, in your prepared remarks there. Number one, you mentioned the 2.2 times leverage pro forma for the $500 million from your parent. I wanted to clarify that, because you also added, I think your last line was, "Improve your credit ratings." I've talked to a couple of investors, and I think there was an assumption that that $500 million, you know, could be used for growth, could be used to continue to buy, you know, newer technology aircraft and get younger and so forth. You're sort of implying that it's going to go straight towards sort of debt reduction and so forth, and sort of running at that lower 2x leverage, which I agree, would set you up maybe at S&P and Moody's for upgrades to mid triple B. Can you just sort of talk about, you know, exactly what your plans are here? As you try to fund growth and so forth, because I don't think the market assumed it was just going to go to sort of lower your leverage down to that level. Hey, good morning. Hey, thanks for that. No, I think you're exactly correct. The additional equity ultimately is to, you know, rebuild the business post-COVID, right? The majority of it will go towards, you know, acquisitions and getting us back onto a more sort of stable run rate. I think my point about, you know, getting to a higher level of rating, I think it remains a strategic alternative option. If you look at, you know, kind of how we trade relative to peers, we tend to think that the credit markets, you know, don't treat us as well. We believe that the single biggest thing we could do ultimately is to improve our ratings to get a better reception in the credit market. First and foremost, I think it's to reset the portfolio, get back on track. Like us, like most of our peers, took some body blows during COVID and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I think the message is, we're not going to be operating at 2.2x. That's, I think that's just an output from the $500 million. Ultimate operating leverage is probably 2.7x to 2.8x. That's where we'd like to operate. And we'll do everything else that we need to do to get a fair hearing from the agencies. That was really the second part of the question, which is: where do you think leverage needs to be in order to convince, because you're already there with Fitch, but with S&P and Moody's, where do you think you need to be to get to mid triple-B? Is it, you know, is it the 2.7x level? Do you think they're gonna want to see, you know, leverage a little bit lower? Or do you think it's more of a function for getting those upgrades that you mentioned, just continuing to get younger, you know, more focused on newer technology aircraft? Is it more the qualitative or is it the quantitative that's holding you back right now? I think it's a bit of both, right? Historically, the agencies have always held us up to a higher standard, given that we tend to operate in the secondary market, and I know they've always used, you know, debt to equity as a proxy, ultimately, for risk. You know, I think we'll have to do both. We'll have to improve, you know, the portfolio profitability, freshen up the portfolio and get to a leverage level that, you know, which is makes sense to get us the right returns. I don't think we'll go so far as to, you know, dropping leverage, you know, dramatically just to pacify the agencies. Now, thinking about this $500 million, I know it's coming in in two tranches. There have been some portfolios for sale. We saw Macquarie, for example, get dramatically younger by buying Alaska. There's still some piece of Alaska they did not purchase. You know, when we think about, you know, two and a half turns of leverage on it and so forth, you know, does it open up the possibilities more of looking at some, you know, bigger portfolio trades for Aircastle, or should we expect more singles and doubles, so to speak, as you continue to march towards, you know, a younger portfolio? Mark, I think it opens up that possibility more, obviously, but it's not something that we're necessarily counting on as we think about growing the business from here. We'll be going up to the plate, we'll be hitting singles and doubles, and if we get one down the middle, we may hit a home run. It's, you know, we're not counting on home runs. We're not planning to be the New York Yankees, so. Well, I guess I have the All-Star Game on my mind, so that's why I made the baseball reference. Okay, last question for me. Back to you, Roy. Can you just talk a little bit about the lease reclassification and what's behind that? Especially, I'm not sure exactly. I know exactly what's going on there, and I'm sure there's probably some bond investors on here as well, that are sort of wondering the accounting behind the switch here and why that results in the gain. Well, I'll try not to screw it up, but at a very, very high level, right? I mean, these underlying leases were restructured, and given the terms of the restructuring and the length of the restructuring, they ultimately required you to reclassify them from an operating lease to a sales-type lease, right? At the time it was done, you know, the assumption was that, you know, that the classification would change. Obviously, during the onset of COVID, a number of these restructurings and this particular lessee in mind was not consistent in their repayments. As a consequence of that, what you end up doing is you effectively, you know, continue to depreciate the asset, but, you know, hang the receivables up on the balance sheet. When you get to a point when, you know, the lessee is consistent in repayments and, you know, it's fairly predictable, you are then able to effect the conversion fully. When you do the conversion, you've fully depreciated, or not, you've substantially depreciated the asset, and yet you still have a high level of, you know, sort of receivables that's sitting up on the balance sheet. The reclassification results in a gain, right? To a certain extent, you're just, you know, bringing back into income, receivables that, you know, that were due. Okay. Is this a one-off related to- Yeah. One of the high-profile restructurings, or can you give us a little bit more color on that? Should we expect any more, Is pretty much this one of the, sort of last, sort of COVID-related or whatever, sort of accounting moves we should see within the book? Yeah, I think your prediction is correct. It's, you know, we reviewed it as, you know, fairly, you know, one-off, and it is sort of a legacy COVID restructuring lessee. We don't anticipate, you know, the same level of, you know, sort of conversion gains in the future. Okay, great. Mike and Roy, thanks very much. Appreciate it. Thank you. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one. Our next question comes from Doug Runte from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead with your question. Yes, good morning. Thanks, Mark, for asking many of my questions. A question on the equity. I guess over the last 3.5 or so years, you've been a net seller of aircraft, with the portfolio shrinking. I guess the question on the equity, big picture would be: why now? Are you seeing opportunities now? Have lease revenues or lease opportunities caught up with the rise in interest rates, which doesn't necessarily seem to be the case? What's the consideration set here that makes now the time to jump in with more equity? Yeah, look, I think simplistically, we think the market is heading in the right direction from a realignment. I would not tell you that lease rates have kept up with the rise in interest rates in the last 15 months, but I don't expect that to be the case forever. Bringing in some equity this year and some more next year, we think is consistent with the sort of timeline for finding those opportunities and being in a position to capture them. You can't do a lot of shopping if you have to then go figure out where you're gonna get your money from later. I think it's the nature of putting equity in the business. There's no specific way to do it. I'm not sure we're necessarily gonna just be looking and playing big game hunting and then saying, "Okay, now we're gonna put equity in to do this specific thing." That's not traditionally been our approach, and we think this way, and this timing is more consistent with how we've executed our business strategy over the last 15-plus years. That's very helpful. A question for Roy. You talked about the upcoming debt maturity. I'll revisit a question I'd asked a couple quarters ago. Is this an opportunity to, I guess, better match your average debt maturity, with your average lease term? Or do you think, with interest rates and spreads where they are, it's better to stay on the short end? I guess, what are you thinking in terms of cap structure strategy? I think, you know, cap structure strategy hasn't changed materially. Excuse me. You know, we as always, you know, sort of remain positioned to do a transaction when it makes sense. but against. Always have the option, obviously, with, you know, fairly robust liquidity from our liquidity facilities. Yeah, I think longer term, we always want to try and match, you know, debt maturities with lease term. That's, you know, that's objective. It's not always possible, given kind of, you know, the nature of the business. you know, strategically, we'd like to be able to, you know, build out the maturity stack and push it out as far as we can. Offset, obviously, by our ability to raise efficient financing. In the current market, it's, you know, it is what it is, right? You know, we like our peers, can't, you know, sit on the sidelines forever. On the other hand, you know, you gotta pick your spots. You know, we've proved before, we're always ready, and, you know, if it makes sense, we'll be back in the market. Great. A last question, finishing on an up note. You talked about the continuing demand for middle-aged narrow-body. I'm wondering if you can provide just a little bit more color, some anecdotes. We've seen the appraisers move up their valuations and assume lease rates for this category of aircraft pretty dramatically over the last 12 months. Since you're actually there doing stuff, I'm wondering if you could provide a little bit more color, maybe anecdotes and some numbers. Numbers, I'm not really prepared to get into, but I think, look, anecdotally, and I'm sure you've heard this from our peers, given what's happening with the supply chain and production levels, there are many, I would say, more extension discussions ongoing with customers, than on a historical basis we would have seen. And in cases where those aren't happening, the number of prospects and placement opportunities, I think are in as good a shape for moving these assets, as we've seen in some time. There's good demand. There's clearly a supply-demand issue in the world, in the context of old and new and what's happening with the production of new aircraft. That dynamic today continues to benefit us in the context of those lease extension discussions and what it means for the placement activity for the team. Great. Thanks very much, and, look forward to seeing, you, Mike, and the team in, September at our Deutsche Bank conference. Sounds good. Thanks, Doug. Ladies and gentlemen, it appears there are no additional questions at this time. I'd like to turn the floor back over to James Connelly for any additional remarks. Just want to thank everyone for joining the call today. Please reach out if you have any questions. We'll give you any further information. Thank you. Hope you have a great day. Ladies and gentlemen, with that, we'll conclude today's conference call and presentation. We thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your line.