Hello, everyone. Thank you, and welcome to the Annual Meeting of shareholders of Stifel Financial Corporation. Today's meeting is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to turn today's meeting over to Ron Kruszewski, Chairman and CEO. Please go ahead. Thank you, operator, and I apologize for the technical difficulties to our shareholders. I will now ask our Corporate Secretary, Mark Fisher, to provide an introduction to today's meeting and to provide a quorum report. Today's virtual meeting is a live audio webcast. Shareholders who have already voted and do not want to change their votes do not need to take any further action. If you have not voted or wish to change your vote, you may do so at any time prior to 10:00 A.M. Central Time by clicking the vote link at the upper right of your screen, or by visiting the website www.investorvote.com/sf. If you need a copy of the annual report or proxy statement, links are provided at the investor relations page at Stifel.com. If you have logged in using a control number, you may submit questions online. This function is not available if you logged in as a guest. Consistent with our bylaws and in the interest of a fair and orderly meeting, we have established rules of conduct for this meeting. These rules are available under the Documents Tab at the upper right of your screen. Mr. Chairman, as to a quorum, the tellers have submitted a certificate showing that at least 98,094,408 shares, or 95.6% of the total outstanding shares of common stock of the company, are represented at this meeting, and so a quorum is present. Thank you. I call the meeting to order and welcome our shareholders to this annual meeting. The officers and directors view our shareholders as partners, and we value your shareholder input. The directors and officers of our company, in addition to myself, attending today's meetings are directors Marianne Brown, Michael Brown, Lisa Carnoy, James Kavanaugh, Maura Markus, and Michael Zimmerman. Also participating are senior officers James Zemlyak, Co-President, Victor Nesi, Co-President, Mark Fisher, General Counsel and Secretary, James Marischen, Chief Financial Officer, and David Sliney, Chief Operating Officer. Joining us today from Ernst & Young are Dave Rogan and Brett Ryan. Ernst & Young is being recommended to you as our independent auditing firm for this fiscal year. We will now begin the formal business of the meeting. In accordance with the bylaws of the company, I'm acting as chairman of the meeting, and Mark Fisher is acting as secretary. I appoint James Laschober and Michael Buckley as tellers to tabulate the votes at this meeting. An affidavit of the mailing of the notice of this meeting to all shareholders of record on April 8, 2024, will be filed with the minutes of this meeting. The previous annual meeting of shareholders was held on June 7, 2023. The minutes of that meeting have been made available to you under the Documents Tab at the upper right of your screen. I will deem these minutes accepted without objection, unless a shareholder or proxy objects by email to Stifel Investor Relations at stifel.com on or before June 19, 2024. We will now proceed to the proposal of directors... We will proceed to the proposal for directors for election. Our company's board of directors has proposed to the company's shareholders that the following individuals be elected at this annual meeting as directors, each to serve as a director of the company for a one-year term or until a successor has been duly elected and qualified. The directors being put up for election are Adam Berlew, Marianne Brown, Michael Brown, Lisa Carnoy, Robert Grady, James Kavanaugh, Ronald Kruszewski, Daniel Ludeman, Maura Markus, David Peacock, Thomas Weisel, and Michael Zimmerman. This proposal, item one, has been duly submitted to the shareholders for a vote. As reflected in the notice of this meeting, we have two additional proposals before you. Item two is approval of an advisory resolution on executive compensation, sometimes referred to as say on pay. The board of directors has recommended that shareholders approve this item two. Item three is the board of directors' proposal that shareholders ratify its selection of Ernst & Young as independent auditors for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2024. The board of directors has recommended that shareholders approve this item three. Items two, three, four, and five have each been duly submitted to our shareholders for a vote. I now recognize the representative from Ernst & Young and invite them to address this meeting. Are there any statements that you would like to make at this time? Not at this time. Later in the meeting, I will recognize anyone wishing to ask questions of the representatives of Ernst & Young. As already stated, shareholders who have already voted and do not wish to change their votes do not need to take any further action. If you have not voted or wish to change your vote, you may do so at any time prior to 10:00 A.M. Central Time by clicking on the vote link in the upper right of your screen, or by visiting the website www.investorvote.com/sf. Before hearing the results of the meeting, I will deliver remarks on the company, and we have company slides, as is our tradition here. But let me begin. You know, the cover of this year's annual report celebrates Stifel being recognized as the number one employee advisor firm in J.D. Power's 2023 U.S. Financial Advisor Satisfaction Study. Our top ranking across four of the six categories reflects our unwavering commitment to delivering exceptional service to our client-facing professionals.... Stifel was also named the 2023 U.S. Mid-Market Equity House of the Year by International Financing Review, recognizing the outstanding capital markets achievement of our institutional business. With this momentum, we're setting our sights on a transformative era for the firm, initially to double our size by attaining $10 billion in annual revenue and managing $1 trillion in client assets. Considering our historic growth, we view these as modest goals and merely milestones as we build a premier wealth management firm and middle-market investment bank. 2023 marks Stifel's third-highest year ever in net revenues at $4.35 billion, a testament to the strength and diversification of our business model in a challenging market environment. The results were essentially in line with 2022, despite significant industry-wide slowdown in investment banking activity. Stifel generated return on average tangible equity of 19% in 2023, and our net earnings were $532 million on a non-GAAP basis, or $4.68 a share. In addition, we increased our book value by 4% and our tangible book value by 2%. With respect to capital deployment, we returned approximately $650 million to shareholders through the repurchase of 7.2 million shares, totaling approximately $440 million and approximately $210 million in common and preferred dividends. Underscoring our confidence in executing our long-term plan, our board authorized a 17% increase in our annual dividend on common shares from $1.44 to $1.68 per share. Stifel is a growth company and will continue to reinvest in our business, as it has been instrumental in our long history of consistent, profitable growth. Turning to Global Wealth Management, this segment reported record net revenue of $3 billion for the year ended December 31, 2023, compared to $2.8 billion in 2022, marking its 21st consecutive year of record net revenue. Pre-tax income was $1.2 billion, compared to $1.1 billion in 2022. Financial advisor recruiting played a key role in our success. In 2023, we recruited 171 financial advisors, including 76 experienced employee advisors and nine experienced independent advisors, with total trailing 12-month production of approximately $70 million. Stifel is now home to nearly 2,400 financial advisors at, in more than 400 locations across the United States. This level of growth has been the result of our strategy to recruit high-quality advisors and provide them with extraordinary service. In this effort, we have continually invested in resources, support, and technology to reduce bureaucracy and enable our advisors to thrive. Turning to the next slide, in a year that saw many shifts in banking, Stifel's banks benefited from our diversified model and financial strength, enabling us to pursue multiple growth opportunities. Stifel Banc orp ended the year with $30 billion in assets while maintaining its conservative risk profile and expanding its role supporting our wealth management investment banking platforms. Like the rest of Stifel, our banks are extraordinarily diversified, with multiple specialized cash management, lending, and trust capabilities. In 2023, over 80% of Stifel clients' cash was in FDIC-insured products, and the average term of our investment bond portfolio in the bank was less than 1.5 years. You know, looking across our products, we expanded our venture and fund banking practice with strategic hires on the West Coast and across the country. This once again illustrates our strategy of taking advantage of market disruptions to make opportunistic hires that enhance our long-term growth. Looking at our trust company, Stifel Trust Services grew this year to $6 billion in assets under administration, up from a little over $5.5 billion in 2022, driven by an increase in our specialized trust service offering and exponential growth in the number of clients naming Stifel Trust as their successor trustee in their estate plans. Switching to the institutional group, market uncertainty led to an extremely difficult year across the industry. Faced with a number of significant headwinds, including tighter monetary policy, economic and geopolitical uncertainty, and the resulting market volatility, our institutional group achieved revenues of $1.2 billion in 2023, compared to $1.5 billion in 2022, and it was over $2.2 billion in 2021. Despite the significant decline in market activity and as a result, our decline in revenue, this business essentially broke even on a pre-tax basis. Again, to illustrate the relative time periods, our institutional business contributed pre-tax income of approximately $559 million in 2021 and $254 million in 2022. Yet again, Stifel received extensive praise for its creativity and resourcefulness in helping our clients navigate a challenging environment. As I mentioned, Stifel was named U.S. Middle Market Equity House of the Year by International Financing Review for the fifth time in the past 10 years. Showcasing our global footprint, Stifel was also named investment banking market leader in Israel by Euromoney for the second straight year. In 2023, we made significant investments in the scale of our business, which will position us to capitalize on the anticipated rebound in advisory and capital-raising activity when markets further stabilize.... We continue to build our leading investment banking franchise with the acquisition integration of Torreya Partners, a leading M&A and private capital advisory firm serving the global life sciences industry. Looking at, in fixed income, our fixed-income transactional revenue totaled $308 million as our rates business began to rebound from weaknesses tied to the bank failures, higher interest rates, and an inverted yield curve. Stifel Fixed Income Capital Markets ranked as the number one non-bulge bracket firm in Institutional Investor's 2023 All-American survey, and we completed the acquisition of Sierra Pacific Securities, an Algo-trading-focused fixed-income market-making firm. Once again, our public finance group was the nation's leading municipal bond underwriter, finishing the year with a market share, in terms of number of negotiated transactions, of nearly 15%. Simply put, Stifel is invested in the infrastructure of America. We're committed to helping states, municipalities, schools, hospitals, and more with their capital needs. Strategically, we've introduced the concept of One Stifel. Over the past 27 years, Stifel's gone from a small regional brokerage with little over $100 million in annual revenue and a market cap of approximately $50 million, into a premier global wealth management and middle-market investment bank with nearly $5 billion in revenue and $8 billion in market capitalization. Growth, we've developed a vision for One Stifel. For Stifel to be its best, we must think of all of our offerings and capabilities across all of our brands as one. A client may get a loan from one brand and may engage another for restructuring services, funding local infrastructure, or taking a company on a roadshow abroad. Without question, Stifel is stronger for the individual cultures, traditions, and integrity of our client-facing brands, including KBW, 1919 Investment Counsel, Eaton Partners, Miller Buckfire, just to name a few. Yet we must avoid the creation of bureaucratic silos. We are all part of one firm. Stifel has one stock. We pay one dividend. We report results as one business, and we try to ensure that everyone has ownership in that one company, Stifel. When we talk to clients, we must talk about the full firm and all of its capabilities, because our success is measured as a whole. One Stifel joins where success meets success as mantras, reflecting Stifel's growth into a singular hub of success-minded people. When successful entrepreneurs seek out a place that reflects their own drive and value as clients, associates, or investors, they will feel home at Stifel. They will experience it as a consistent network of success across all of our brands and offerings. This also joins our foundational of-choice business plan, which remains unchanged, as it has for the 27 years since I joined Stifel as CEO. As always, the thought process behind that plan starts with our clients. How can we best meet the needs of a diverse and growing set of investors, companies, and institutions? The answer is simple but not easy: Attract the best people to work with us. To become the advisor of choice for clients, we need to be the firm of choice for associates. As we have and continue to achieve those goals, our stock price will take care of itself, and we will naturally be an investment of choice for investors. This simple, self-reinforcing cycle was the foundation of our of choice business plan from the beginning and has remained the core of our philosophy and culture ever since. As evidenced by our remarkable growth, Stifel is not a place that risks either complacency or bureaucracy or accepts the status quo. Much of our success can be attributed to two main factors: the quality of our people and our willingness to adapt, consistently thinking like a growth company, even though our history dates to 1890. Opportunities will always exist here for colleagues who want to grow, learn, and lead, and for newcomers who provide fresh perspective. We are One Stifel of choice, and where success meets success. Reflecting on the economy for a moment, the Federal Reserve finds itself in a precarious position, navigating the tightrope between controlling inflation and preventing recession. Not an easy task. We, at Stifel, have been consistent since the beginning of the year in stating that we do not believe the Fed should be reducing rates this year, and up to this point, we've been proven correct. This is because the Fed's unprecedented series of rate hikes in 2022 were successful at slowing inflation that reached 40-year highs. However, we believe that inflation will prove sticky, and cutting rates too soon may reignite inflationary pressures, undoing the progress made so far. Simply, ensuring that inflation is at or near the Fed's stated target of 2% is more important than trying to ensure a soft landing for the economy. The Fed has plenty of rate flexibility if the economy slows significantly, and in our opinion, to not attempt preemptive rate cuts at the risk of re-invigorating inflation. Looking at our artificial intelligence or AI, there's no question that AI is gonna disrupt a wide range of industries. We are enthusiastic about AI's potential to improve how we serve clients and operate as a firm. Just as personal computers revolutionized the way professionals worked in the early 1980s, AI will be a massive lever for those who know how to use it. With its ability to analyze vast amounts of data and make intelligent decisions, AI can automate routine tasks, freeing up valuable time for individuals to focus on more complex and creative endeavors. AI-powered tools, such as virtual assistants and chatbots, can handle administrative and repetitive, allowing individuals to prioritize strategic thinking and problem-solving. What will this mean for workers and businesses? As an extremely powerful productivity tool, AI will allow, for illustration, two weeks of historical productivity to be accomplished in one. A debate exists as whether this should lead to a shorter week--work week, or whether this will replace human labor. The fact is, in a competitive environment, the entrepreneurs who use these tools to the fullest will simply out-compete those who use them to scale back time spent at work. As for replacing human labor, well, I don't believe many jobs will be lost directly to AI, but they may be lost to someone else who knows how to use AI to enhance their productivity. AI excels at specific tasks and data analysis, but it currently lacks the general intelligence, creativity, adaptability, and especially the emotional quotient that defines human cognition. While advancements in AI are undeniably impressive, achieving human-level intelligence by the end of 2025, as some predict, remains highly speculative, not least because the level of human intelligence is a moving target. Our own ability rises with the availability of new tools and technologies, including AI-based ones. I am still betting on people using the technology over the technology alone. Time will tell. Looking at the world order, simply, it's in flux. From the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and the heartbreaking war in Ukraine to the rise of terrorism and heightened geopolitical tensions, particularly with China, the year has shown that the world is increasingly fraught. In the sweep of history, the relative peace and economic prosperity experienced since 1945 is unprecedented. The world order over the last 80 years, defined by the emergence of global trade and democracy, has been catalyzed by the United States' trade policies and undergirded by its promise of security and stability. This arrangement has, without a doubt, been a net benefit to the United States. The collapse of the Soviet Union, really more of an economic phenomenon than a military one, left the United States as a dominant economic power and owner of the reserve currency of the world. Today, several factors challenge this world order as it has existed for nearly eight decades. First is the emergence of China as a major economic and military rival. While the Soviet Union was, and Russia still is, a military rival, it never matched the U.S. in economic terms. China, with potential allies, including Russia and Iran, would like nothing more than to undermine U.S., the U.S. world order in all dimensions. Second, to me, as an issue, is the diminished resolve of the U.S. to provide security to our allies or to thwart aggression. Look no further than the current debate surrounding the economic aid to Ukraine. To me, to back away from our traditional role defending freedom and free trade invites Chinese aggression, potentially against Taiwan. Again, our economic prosperity is rooted in the post-World War II world order. We must protect this position. So looking forward, while challenges and uncertainty are omnipresent, these same factors are the seeds of opportunity. Stifel is well positioned to continue to grow and exploit opportunity wherever it may arise, and our entrepreneurial spirit and culture will provide an ability to continually adapt. We are excited about our next milestones for growth and are confident in our ability to deliver to our shareholders, associates, and communities. As always, we thank our shareholders and clients for their support, as well as our nearly 10,000 associates for their commitment to excellence and success. So thank you for listening to that presentation. I now ask the secretary to read any questions that have been asked of me or the representatives of Ernst & Young. Mr. Chairman, there were no questions. Thank you. I now ask the secretary to report on balloting and to state whether any other business is properly before this meeting. Mr. Chairman, each of the following has received a majority of votes cast to serve as a director of the company for a one-year term or until a successor has been duly elected and qualified: Adam Berlew, Marianne Brown, Michael Brown, Lisa Carnoy, Bob Grady, James Kavanaugh, Ron Kruszewski, Danny Ludeman, Maura Markus, Dave Peacock, Tom Weisel, and Michael Zimmerman. The proposal contained in item two, which approves the advisory resolution on executive compensation, sometimes referred to as Say on Pay, has received a majority of votes cast and has been approved. Item three: the resolution ratifying the appointment of Ernst & Young as our independent registered public accounting firm for the year ending December 31, 2024, has received a majority of votes cast and has been approved. Mr. Chairman, I'm aware of no other business properly before the meeting and know of no reason why this meeting may not now be duly adjourned. Mr. Fisher, thank you. And that being so, I declare the meeting adjourned. Thank you to all our shareholders. This concludes the meeting. You may now disconnect.