Good afternoon, and welcome to B. Riley Financial's first quarter 2022 earnings call. Earlier today, B. Riley issued a press release and presentation detailing its financial results for the first three months of 2022. Copies are available in the investors section of the company's website at ir.brileyfin.com. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. An audio replay will be available on the company's investor relations website later today. Joining us today from B. Riley are Bryant Riley, Chairman, Co-Founder, and Co-CEO, Tom Kelleher, Co-Founder and Co-CEO, and Phillip Ahn, CFO and COO. After management's remarks, we will open the line for questions. Before we conclude today's call, I will provide the necessary cautions regarding forward-looking statements. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Bryant Riley. Please proceed.
Thanks. Welcome, everyone. In many ways, our first quarter is personally as gratifying as any quarter we have reported since going public in 2014. To generate over $84 million in operating EBITDA in an environment in which our historically biggest profit drivers revenue were down almost 75%, I'm speaking of investment banking, which declined from $128 million to $34.2 million year-over-year in revenues, illustrates the steps we have taken over the last 10 years to insulate our overall business from large market volatility. Additionally, generating operating EBITDA of over $10 million in our brokerage business despite this large slowdown, while aggressively continuing our investment in M&A and fixed income personnel illustrates the commitment we have maintained towards expense management.
Given the slowdown in capital markets and the overall decline in equity markets, I thought it would make sense to reiterate our dividend and business strategy, and Tom and Phil will speak more specifically to the business units later in the call. As we have said before, we group our businesses into two categories, episodic and recurring. The episodic businesses are represented by B. Riley Securities, our brokerage, and B. Riley Retail Solutions, and can have large quarterly swings in profitability. The remaining businesses consisting of our wealth management, advisory, brands, asset management, and communications businesses are much more predictable and recurring in nature. These recurring businesses, along with the net margin from our loan book, generate enough cash flow to cover our dividend, tax, and interest requirements. Specifically, we estimate that the operating EBITDA required to cover these items is approximately $270 million per year.
To the extent that we have strong cash flows from our episodic businesses, we will review those cash flows and look to either invest further in our business or return capital to shareholders incremental to our regular dividend as we did last year in which we paid $10 in special dividends. In addition to these EBITDA generating assets, we have a diversified investment portfolio of approximately $1.3 billion that includes public and private equity in businesses where we have deep conviction in capital appreciation and return over time and almost always have deep board-level involvement. The returns from these investments are subject to being valued quarterly and can be volatile. We urge investors to take a long-term view of this portfolio, and as a reason we highlight our operating EBITDA as our primary measurement of the business.
While we saw a decline in this portfolio during the quarter, which has continued into the second quarter, we have historically generated outsized returns on our investment book and are confident that our proprietary platform will continue to enable us to generate strong results for our shareholders. Importantly, all of our investments are financed with internal cash and low covenant debt in which the vast majority does not mature for four years. This allows us to take a long-term view on these investments, and while the mark-to-market changes can be painful, they are mitigated by our strong capital base. We have found that we are able to create meaningful value during market declines like the one we are currently experiencing and will look to be opportunistic in our investment portfolio. With that, I will now speak to the first quarter.
Operating revenues were $274 million, while investment losses totaled $68 million, bringing our total revenues for the quarter to $206 million. Operating adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $84.2 million, while investment EBITDA loss was $43.5 million, bringing our total adjusted EBITDA for the quarter to $40.7 million. Within the capital markets segment, underwriting, SPAC issuance, and sales and trading saw declines in the quarter, while strength in capital markets came from ATM offerings, restructuring, interest from our loan book, securities lending, and our growing asset management activity. As mentioned, we have taken efforts over the last two years to broaden out our brokerage business, and in line with that strategy, we've continued to diversify our revenue mix with the integration of recent acquisitions of National Holdings within wealth management and FocalPoint Securities within our institutional broker-dealer.
Within our principal investments communication segment, we continue to build out the portfolio with our pending acquisitions of Lingo Management and BullsEye Telecom. Before synergies, the acquisition of Lingo and BullsEye are expected to contribute over $250 million in revenue and $30 million in EBITDA on an annualized basis. As I previously touched on, another source of strong recurring cash flow comes from our loan and receivables investment book. As of quarter end, we maintained approximately $500 million of corporate loans receivables, generating an average interest rate of approximately 10%. Furthermore, we acquired a portfolio of loans receivable from Badcock in late 2021, which had a principal balance of approximately $380 million at quarter end and has so far performed above expectations and is generating a meaningfully higher rate of return than the rest of the loan book.
Combined, these assets are a large contributor to our operating EBITDA, and we are seeing significant opportunities to continue to put capital to work at far higher rates given the lack of capital available in the equity markets.
With that, I'll now turn the call over to Phillip Ahn, our CFO and COO, who will provide more context around our quarterly metrics. Tom Kelleher, our Co-CEO, will discuss some highlights across our operating units. Over to you, Phil.
Thanks, Bryant. As Bryant noted, our first quarter results were impacted by a slowdown on the capital markets and losses incurred in the investment book due to current market conditions. For the first quarter, on a consolidated basis, B. Riley reported first quarter total revenues of $205.6 million, down 66% from the prior year period. Operating revenues were $274 million for the quarter, a year-over-year decrease of 18%, primarily related to lower investment banking activity. Total adjusted EBITDA in the first quarter was $40.7 million, and operating adjusted EBITDA was $84.2 million. Net loss available to common shareholders was $12.1 million or a $0.43 loss per diluted share.
Now turning to our reportable segments in the first quarter, starting with our Capital Markets segment, which includes operating results from investment banking, institutional brokerage, and fund management, as well as our results from our investment portfolio. Excluding investment losses, our Capital Markets segment operating revenues for the quarter totaled $130.5 million, which represents a decrease of 37% year-over-year. Segment operating income was $57.9 million, which was down 45% year-over-year, primarily due to lower investment banking revenues and was partially offset by strong activity under ATM offerings, sales and trading, and securities lending businesses. Wealth Management segment revenues increased 14% to $77.5 million, up from $67.9 million in the prior year period.
Segment loss in the first quarter was $10.1 million, driven primarily by reduced market activity, combined with the impact of a settlement charge related to litigation prior to B. Riley's acquisition of National Holdings in 2021. Auction and liquidation segment revenues were $3.4 million, and segment loss was $0.8 million. Results from this segment were impacted by a slow retail liquidation environment in the first quarter compared to the prior year period. As stated on prior calls, results from this segment tend to be variable due to the episodic nature of large retail liquidation engagements. Financial consulting segment revenues increased to $25.9 million, up from $21.4 million in the prior year period. Segment income increased to $4.9 million, up from $3.3 million in the prior year.
Increases in this segment were driven primarily by strong results in both our financial restructuring advisory business as well as our appraisal valuation business. Our principal investments communications companies, magicJack, United Online, and CREDO Mobile, contributed revenues of $32.7 million and segment income of $8.8 million. These companies continue to provide a steady stream of cash flows for our B. Riley platform. Lastly, our brand segment continues to make contributions to the overall B. Riley platform, having generated segment revenues of $4.6 million and segment income of $3.2 million. Note that this segment excludes the dividends and contributions from our investments in Hurley, Justice, and Bebe, which are picked up in our capital markets segment as well as other income. As a reminder, adjusted EBITDA and our metrics for operating investment results are non-GAAP financial measures.
Please refer to our earnings release for a definition of these terms and for a reconciliation to the nearest GAAP measures. Investors can also find additional details relating to these metrics and related reconciliations in the financial supplement on our investor relations website. Now turning to some highlights from our balance sheet. At March 31, B. Riley Financial had approximately $214 million in unrestricted cash and cash equivalents, $1.3 billion in net securities and other investments owned, and $882 million of loans receivable. At quarter end, we had total cash and investments balance of approximately $2.5 billion, which includes approximately $49 million in other investments reported in prepaid and other assets. Net of debt, B. Riley Financial's cash and investments totaled approximately $406 million at March 31.
Finally, our board of directors has approved a regular quarterly dividend of $1 per common share, which will be paid on or about May 20 to common stockholders as of record on May 11. That completes my financial summary. Now I'll turn the call over to our Co-CEO, Tom Kelleher. Tom?
Thanks, Phil. The first quarter presented challenging conditions for our capital markets business and investment book given lower activity levels as well as increased market volatility. As Bryant mentioned, these are headwinds faced by the entire industry, but ones that we were able to partially mitigate given our efforts to build a diversified platform complete with non-correlated assets that can help drive performance even during difficult times. While remaining active at looking at new opportunities, the firm strengthened our market position by continuing to build out previously announced initiatives as well as working to integrate recent acquisitions. Some highlights include the expansion of our fixed income division leadership team by adding longtime industry veteran Robert Hamill, who will work alongside our Head of Fixed Income, Tim Sullivan. The addition of Ji Pak and Mary Jo Collins also to our fixed income division.
Both are highly seasoned and great additions to the team and demonstrate the group's ability to attract top talent. All in, the group has added over two dozen professionals under Tim Sullivan's leadership. The addition of a compliance risk and resilience consulting practice to our advisory group. The continued integration of National Holdings with our legacy B. Riley Wealth division. Development of additional funds to be offered by 272 Capital. The addition of FocalPoint Securities, which significantly increases our M&A private capital markets capabilities. Now turning to some of our divisions. As Bryant noted, activity in investment banking decelerated during the quarter. However, ATM offerings, sales and trading, and securities lending businesses remained stable from the prior quarter. In addition, our direct lending activity and loan book continues to provide a steady stream of interest income and cash flow to the B. Riley platform.
In wealth management, we continue to integrate our legacy B. Riley Wealth Management and the recently acquired National Holdings with one goal in mind, to create one robust wealth management platform with the ability to scale while delivering outstanding differentiated services and investment opportunities to B. Riley clients. As with any large integration, there are its challenges, but we believe in the growth potential of this business and its ability to meaningfully contribute to both our steady and episodic cash flow profiles. In our auctions and liquidation segment, performance continued to be impacted by a historical slowdown in the retail liquidation market here in the United States. However, our strong client relationships continue to drive revenue despite reduced activity. In the first quarter, we completed several store closings, and in Europe we are pursuing an increasing number of opportunities.
As we have stated before on our earnings call, the retail liquidation business is episodic in nature and will vary from quarter to quarter. Our advisory services business, which includes our legacy GlassRatner and legacy Great American Group, continue to perform consistently and generate referral opportunities across the platform. GlassRatner delivered its best quarter ever from a revenue perspective. Overall, our financial restructuring business continues to gain market share in a difficult environment. Looking ahead, we're excited about the future contributions and prospects for this business as operating conditions normalize. Our principal investments business, including magicJack and United Online, continue to deliver strong performance and generate healthy cash flows. Also, we are making progress with the integration of our recent CREDO Mobile acquisition, and we are expecting to close our pending acquisitions of Lingo Management and BullsEye Telecom this summer.
We expect all of these businesses to contribute meaningful cash flow over the long term. Lastly, activity in our brand investment business is accelerating and volume levels have further recovered. Across the enterprise, brand investments delivered almost $40 million in recurring EBITDA and will remain an important contributor of cash flow over the coming years. Our enthusiasm for this space has only grown, and we believe our brands business will continue to deliver meaningful value to our shareholders. In closing, while the first quarter presented a number of industry-wide challenges, the benefits of our diversified platform and non-episodic businesses has never been clearer. Our ability to drive cash flow and provide direct returns to our shareholders remains intact, and we are confident our platform will drive accelerated growth as market conditions stabilize.
In the meantime, our teams will remain focused on capturing growth opportunities as well as delivering value to our clients. With that, we will now open the line for questions and then turn the call over to Bryant for closing remarks. Thanks.
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you may press star and one on your touch-tone telephone to join the question queue. You will hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. To remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star then two. If you would like to ask a question at this time, please press star and one. We will pause for a moment as callers join the queue. Our first question comes from Sean Haydon of Charles Lane Capital . Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. Congrats on a good quarter in a tough environment. First question here. On that and the wealth management section, can you quantify the settlement charge that you took there?
Phil, maybe you can get into more detail, but the biggest one was about $4 .5 million dollars. It was from an issue that happened long before we bought the business and actually before the current management team was there. That's the rough number.
Okay. Are we through most of that or should we expect, you know, anything else in the future?
Look, this is the wealth management business, you know, on the national side. It's tough biz. It's a lot of brokers. A lot of them are independent. There was a lot of noise in that business for a number of years, which have been cleaned up, I think, in terms of the quality of the brokers under the previous team. But there's just always going to be noise there. It's, you know, got a lot of benefits. We are working to consolidate those businesses. We're excited about the people that, you know, are remaining. We're looking at all the deals to make sure that they are beneficial to both the brokers and to us. But I couldn't tell you that everything is cleaned up there.
I mean, Sean, you know the enterprise value of that business when we bought it was roughly $19 million. We expected some continued cleanup. It's noisy. In the whole scheme of things, if we sit here two years from now, I think we're gonna be really happy we made that acquisition.
I hear you on that. It's good to see, you know, obviously the dividend's safe. No worries about that. Any thought to giving or to repurchasing shares kind of at an accelerated pace, given, you know, where the stock price is?
Look, I think you're always balancing out, you know, long-term benefit to the business with
You're buying your own business versus buying another business, and you have to do the math on all of those things. I think traditionally, we've been pretty aggressive about, you know, thinking through those. I would just say to you that, you know, last quarter, you saw meaningful insider buying at higher levels. Clearly, the markets sold off a bit, but I think from an operating side, anybody who bought internally then would say, "Boy, we're really excited about the resiliency of some of these kind of non-episodic businesses," and it's probably more excited than they were. The opportunities that we're seeing, including, you know, the Badcock receivable book, loans that we're putting out.
You know, we are putting out loans into public companies that are, you know, collateralized by not only the businesses, but also the ability to, you know, raise capital and through ATMs at, you know, 20% kind of IRRs, not always, but sometimes in helping a client. It's a balancing act, but we feel really good about the position we're in because, you know, while you'd love to have a super robust capital markets biz, if we're able to provide value to our clients at, you know, rates that they understand and maybe enable them not to have to sell common at what they think are distressed levels and can hold off on that, but in the meantime, we're getting good returns for our shareholders, that's really attractive.
That's a long way of saying we're not gonna be shy about actively managing our balance sheet, and obviously, buying back shares is one of the components we'll look at.
Great. Just another question here. On FocalPoint, I understand that it's very recent, but you know, when should we expect to kind of see some contribution from that in the numbers?
Yeah, you actually saw negative contribution this quarter, and often in M&A, especially one that's, you know, not as large as, you know, a Houlihan Lokey or Evercore, whatever, a lot of deals close at the end of the year, and we recognize that. They actually lost a little bit of money in Q1, but in terms of our enthusiasm and their win rate and the things that they're seeing, it's a 10. You will see that benefit starting in Q2, and I think really in Q3 and Q4. That acquisition and the integration of that and kind of the meshing of the teams has just been off the charts, and we've seen a lot of cross-referrals already. I think Q3, Q4 more than Q2, but you're gonna start to see some nice, you know, some nice revenue there.
Got it. All right, guys. Well, good quarter, and thanks for taking the questions.
All right. Thanks, Sean.
Our next question comes from Anthony Perala of Punch & Associates. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, gentlemen. Thanks for taking our question. First question is just on the fixed income build-out as you continue to add to the team there. If you could add a little bit of color, just kind of how you see earnings potential once the team's fully ramped up in relation to the capital markets business as a whole, that'd be great.
I would just to speak to how we're building it up. Then, you know, trying to budget in a capital markets business is something that we've never budgeted the upside to. Not the broker-dealer either. We've always budgeted to what is our break even, and then our incremental margins are in and around 50%. It's a really difficult thing to budget. I would say that the reason that we are adding that business is we found a leader that we, you know, has had a lot of success managing fixed income business for Imperial, and he was at other firms like Jefferies and was always in a leadership position, has a great reputation.
You know, if you look at our business, we are one of the, I think one of the biggest equity capital markets firms, particularly in small cap, out there, and we have very little, you know, debt business. We have baby bonds which, you know, ultimately, in a lot of ways resemble, you know, equity capital market side. But we do direct lending. We have unbelievable client relationships. We do appraisals on, you know, 1,000 companies. We touch a ton of other companies through, you know, our advisory business. We think that there's a lot of business out there for us when that gets up and running, and we're already seeing, you know, being added to some deals we wouldn't have been added to.
Obviously, we get a little bit of volatility, which we were hopeful for when we started this. It's been a pretty boring kind of fixed income environment, not a lot of distress, not a lot of volatility, and now all of a sudden that's changed, and I think we're gonna be really well-positioned to that. What I would say, the way to look at it, is this will be an investing year. You know, I would like to say we'll be profitable by the fourth quarter. We were not. You know, we did this operating EBITDA number. At the same time, you know, we lost money at FocalPoint because we just kinda got it started, and we've invested in fixed income and, you know, we're not making money there. We're continuing to invest.
I would just say that I think by Q4 or Q1, we will start to be profitable, and we'll have a, you know, we'll run it tight just like we do on the equity side. I can't give you a budget for what that looks like because it's just such a variable market. It's just hard to do.
That makes sense. Is it almost fair to characterize it too as an almost non-episodic business being added to the episodic earnings stream that should be less volatile on a quarter-to-quarter, year-to-year basis, or is that the wrong way to think about it?
I would stick it in the episodic bucket. I mean, you know, you don't control the revenues, right? You don't control issuance. You don't control, you know. I think that's actually going to be, you know, one of those businesses. Again, we're just making sure we're always making money, and we have high incremental margins, and we are there to benefit, you know, when the markets are, you know, enable high revenue. I think it's more of an episodic side that I would put that in. Now we talked about, you know, a couple small telecom businesses we acquired and are in the process of acquiring, BullsEye and Lingo. Those are, you know, slow growth.
You know, buying them for what we think will be ultimately 3.5-4 times great free cash flow, you know, synergistic with the infrastructure we've built on that side. That I would bucket into the, you know, into the recurring side. So far, we're hopeful we'll close at the end of July. Phil is, I think, the current thinking on both of those. You know, pre-synergy, you're talking about two businesses that should contribute $30 million, so far, you know, on an annualized basis. Lingo, which we have not closed because we haven't gotten approval, it looks like we're gonna get approval soon. We had just been collecting some. We had loaned them some money, and we're getting some interest income, probably about, you know, like an $8 million run rate.
That's a big pickup in the recurring side that you'll see, you know, this year as we progress later and close those deals.
That's great. Just last one. You mentioned, I think, about 24 hires so far. Any idea kind of what a percentage of the kind of full-scale size, how many more hires are needed to get to kind of full scale for you guys?
I think. Look, there's levels. I think that the smallest level is probably 30 or 40 people. But it's all gonna be around opportunities and, you know, the people that are, you know, look at this platform. I think if I was in fixed income, and I was at a bigger shop, I would look at this platform and go, "What a, you know, what an opportunity. I've got a. I get to get in. I don't know, we've been around 25 years. We've got a lot of established relationships, and I get in at ground floor of a fixed income business." Like, that to me is really exciting. But we'll see. We'll see. We're not gonna go and force the issue. We're not gonna go and build out people to build out people.
If you know, the market is really tight and people want too much, we'll wait. We'll be patient. What we have found is, you know, I do think it's resonating what I, you know, what I was just saying. I think it's resonating that we are a unique opportunity in the fixed income side. I think the leadership there has a lot of respect in the market and is really you know, leading some strong people to come over. You know, maybe I would look in the low end, 30, 40 on the high end. You know, we gotta get profitable, right? We'll build out as we get profitable.
Makes sense. That's all I had. Thanks for taking the questions.
All right. Appreciate it. Thank you.
Once again, if you have a question, please press star then one. Our next question comes from Brett Hendrickson of Nokomis. Please go ahead.
Hey, Brett.
Hey, Bryant. I think I just wanna make sure I heard you right. The press release talked about the Hurley and the Justice going into coming through as a dividend. Does all of the Hurley revenue come as a dividend, or does some of it come as a royalty in the brand segment?
It all comes as a dividend. Just think of that business, Brett, and it's frustrating to me that we have to allocate it that way, but it's just because of. We also have a valuation component of those because we own a piece of them. We have to get that asset evaluated every quarter. It gets stuck in the capital market side. Just think of the brand business as adding $35 million-$40 million of just incremental free EBITDA with no CapEx, obviously. That's kind of the run rate.
Sorry, how much?
$35 million-$40 million. If you add what we
Okay. Good.
You know what, if you add those up, I think it was $9 million, right, this quarter. That's $36 million in and around. It's been growing. Those guys at Bluestar Alliance, the management are doing a great job, and they're seeing more and more opportunities. Like Justice is just, you know, getting into Walmart. There's a lot more opportunities there.
Yeah. For what it's worth, I see Hurley at more places of retail, and I think of you guys every time.
I never, Brett, thought of you as, like, hanging out in the surf shop, so I just learned something new.
Wow. We're seeing it in some non-surfy places, so I haven't-
Yeah.
I haven't changed my ways. I'm just.
Okay. Got it.
The great expense leverage in capital markets. I did wanna. Someone else already asked the same question I had around the wealth management lawsuit, but I wanted to make sure. Sorry, this phone's going off. I wanted to make sure that I heard you right. Did you say $4.5 million was that lawsuit?
What was the exact number, Phil?
Well, we had a reserve, but the charge that we took for the quarter is roughly $4.1 million.
Yeah. Okay. I know you said that business. I forget how you described National. Maybe you said it's kind of messy sometimes, but so then is that to imply Wealth Management lost money in the quarter, even excluding the lawsuit, or am I missing something there?
The old Wunderlich business beyond wealth management has been nicely profitable, you know, $500-$1 million a month. National is gonna gyrate more. The answer is we lost a little bit of money, but I wouldn't read too much into it. It's just a little bit chunkier around events, and we haven't been able to merge the businesses. We have, you know, effectively two infrastructures and, you know, that doesn't mean we're. There's just an opportunity to save money in contracts and all those things that we have not done yet because we haven't merged those two businesses. I would say we lost a little more bit of money, but I would tell you I wouldn't read too much into that. The other side of it, though, Brett-
Okay.
You have to understand that the benefit that National also has is also sometimes it creeps to other parts of the businesses. There have been referrals of M&A that goes into capital markets. They have been, you know, participants in our deals that help our deals get done. There's another benefit that doesn't get picked up in the line item of the sub, but it's a big benefit.
Okay. Yeah, I'm aware of that synergy. That's good. Then kind of speaking of where stuff falls in your segments, Bryant, FocalPoint, does that some of that goes into financial consulting and some of that goes into capital markets? Or where is that revenue and EBITDA contribution gonna fall?
So that's-
Just for model.
Let me answer that in terms of the breakup.
I'm sorry. Can you say that again?
Oh, all of those revenues are gonna be in advisory, right? Is that where we're putting those?
No, that's in capital markets.
In capital markets.
Yeah. The advisory is our restructuring appraisal, real estate advisory, operations management advisory.
Okay. That's good. That should make capital markets a little less episodic or maybe episodic in a different way, going forward.
Yeah.
Just looking at my list, make sure we got everything. I think that's it.
Yeah. I'm sorry.
Thanks, guys, for your time.
Yeah, just one clarification. I'm sorry. What I was referring to, it's we call it advisory. It's we list it as our financial consulting segment, what I was referring to on the restructuring side.
Oh.
Long story short, yeah.
Yeah, I knew that. That's the old GlassRatner business is in the financial consulting side. Is that what?
Right. Correct. Yep.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
All of FocalPoint will stay in capital markets.
Correct.
Yes.
Okay. Great. Thanks for your time and insight, and keep up the hard work.
All right. Thanks, Brett.
This concludes our question and answer session. I'd now like to turn the call back over to Mr. Riley for his closing remarks.
I guess I would conclude with, I can't imagine being better positioned for a highly volatile market than we are. You know, thanks to all members of our team across our business. You know, as the numbers demonstrate, we obviously are gonna have big gyrations on our investment book and, you know, we made almost $400 million last year in that book and, you know, this first quarter, we lost some money and obviously as the markets continue to come in, we'll lose some money there. But the base business is incredibly strong, and I'm really excited about the cash flows that, you know, will be generated when we have both the recurring business and the episodic kicking at the same time, which we will. I
You know, you don't know when that's gonna happen, but it will. Feel really good about our balance sheet and the opportunities and look forward to reporting next quarter. Thank you everybody within B. Riley and our shareholders for the support, and we'll talk in 90 days. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Before we conclude today's call, I will provide B. Riley Financial's Safe Harbor statement, which includes important cautions regarding forward-looking statements made during this call. Statements made during this call about B. Riley Financial's future expectations, plans, and prospects, and any other statements regarding matters that are not historical facts may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Investors should be aware that any forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed here today. These risk factors include the unpredictable and ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as other risk factors explained in detail in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Please refer to these filings for a more detailed discussion of forward-looking statements and the risks and uncertainties of such statements.
All forward-looking statements are made as of today and except as required by law. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether because of new information, future events, or otherwise. Thank you for joining us for B. Riley Financial's first quarter 2022 earnings conference call. You may now disconnect.