Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Westwood Holdings Group Q1 2017 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session, and instructions will follow at that time. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference, Ms. Julie Gerron, General Counsel. Ma'am?

Thank you. Good afternoon, and welcome to our first quarter 2017 earnings conference call. The following discussion will include forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors which may cause actual results to be materially different from those contemplated by the forward-looking statements. Additional information concerning the factors that could cause such a difference is included in our press release issued earlier today, as well as in our Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2017, which was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. In addition, in accordance with SEC rules concerning non-GAAP financial measures, the reconciliation of our economic earnings and economic earnings per share to the most comparable GAAP measures is included at the end of our press release issued earlier today. On the call today, we will have Brian Casey, our President and Chief Executive Officer; and Tiffany Kice, our Chief Financial Officer. I will now turn the call over to Brian Casey, our CEO.

Thanks Julie, and thanks to all of you for taking the time to listen to our first quarter earnings call. We celebrated our 34th anniversary this month, and I want to thank our long-term shareholders for their support of Westwood over the years, and all my colleagues for their commitment to our clients and for making Westwood a great place to work. We held our 15th annual shareholders' meeting this morning, and I'm pleased to report that all six of our proposals were approved by shareholders today. We appreciate your support, and we will endeavor to continue to deliver positive results in the year ahead. Today, I'll begin with comment from our three distinct investment teams, discuss our sales and service effort, and include updates from our trust and mutual fund businesses. Markets again moved higher in the first quarter as larger cap stocks outperformed smaller cap stocks, and higher quality securities took the lead. Attention seemed to shift away from an investment environment driven by monetary policy and multiple expansion to one focused on earnings growth. This type of environment is supportive of active management and Westwood's investment style. Not surprisingly, our U.S. value equity strategies beat their value benchmarks for the quarter, and we were particularly pleased that our SMidCap strategy continued to improve, while exhibiting good downside capture in March, as the Russell 2500 Value Index retraced some of last year's gains. Our multi-asset strategies, income opportunity, and world-wide income opportunity, and our MLP strategies produced positive absolute gains, and outperformance relative to their benchmarks. The income opportunity strategy continues to resonate well with both individuals and institutions looking for income and downside protection. Our large cap strategy reached its 30-year anniversary this quarter. And while it's sometimes hard to remember all of the ups and downs…

Thanks, Brian, and good afternoon everyone. Today we reported total revenues of $32.6 million for the first quarter of 2017 compared to $29.1 million in the prior year's first quarter and $31.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2016. The increase was primarily driven by higher average assets under management for the period and performance fees of approximately 400,000 earned in the first quarter of 2017. Net income was $6.1 million or $0.73 per share compared to $3.5 million to $0.44 per share and the prior first quarter and $7.6 million or $0.92 per share in the fourth quarter of 2016. The increase from the first quarter of 2016 primarily up to the increase in revenues partially offset by a $1.2 million increase in employee compensation and benefit relate the higher compensation and additional headcount. To decrease immediately preceding quarter is primarily related seasonal payroll tax and benefit plan matching expenses from cash bonuses paid in the first quarter of 2017 and to a lesser extent, higher estimated incentive compensation for 2017 and salary increases. This is partially offset by the increase in revenues. Additionally, our first quarter 2017 income tax expense positively impacted by $1 million tax benefit related to the adoption of accounting guidance to related stock based compensation awards reducing our effective tax rates to 22% about the adjustment our effective tax rate would have been 34.2%. Economic earnings and non-GAAP metric was $10.6 million or a $1.28 per share compared to $8.1 million and $1.01 one per share in the prior year first quarter and $12 million for $1.45 per share in the fourth quarter of 2016. Firm-wide assets under management totaled $22.1 billion at quarter-end and consisted of institutional of $12.4 billion or 56% of total private wealth assets of $5.7 billion or 26% of the total and mutual fund assets of $4 billion or 18%, I'm sorry that 26% of total in mutual fund assets are $4 billion or 18% of the total. We experienced market appreciation of $1.1 billion for the quarter partially offset by net outflows of $295 million. Our financial position continues to be very solid, with cash and investments at quarter-end totaling $75.4 million and a debt-free balance sheet. We are pleased to announce that our Board of Directors approved a quarterly cash dividend of $0.62 per share. The dividend will be payable on July 3, 2017 to stockholders of record on June 9, 2017. This represents an annualized dividend yield of 4.4% at yesterday's closing price. That brings our prepared comments to a close. We encourage you to review our investor presentation we posted on our Web site reflecting first quarter 2017 highlights as well as a discussion of our business, product development, and longer term trends in revenues, earnings, and dividends. We thank you all for your interest in our company. And we'll open up the lines for questions now.

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Mac Sykes of Gabelli. Your line is open.

Good evening everyone, and thanks for taking my questions. Brain, you gave a number of data points on RIA; overall though, as the quarter progressed and the strong performance that was put up, are you getting a sense that there is now increased appetite for RIA [ph] and International strategies? And also, is the perception around growth internationally helping as well?

Hi, Mac. Yes, thanks for your question. Definitely I'm seeing an uptick in interest. I had a really good onsite. Recently we've got another one scheduled. We've got an existing client that's going to put another $150 million in before the end of the quarter. We also, and I don't know this, but we could end up being a beneficiary of some of the M&A activity that's going on with some of our competitors in the EM space. So I anticipate that we will have further opportunities as the year progresses.

And then could you just remind me about the AUA, what strategies that encompasses, and how that's marketed?

Sure. The bulk of the AUA is the Aviva relationship, which has been a long process in moving from a sub advisory type situation or moving to a sub-advisory situation, which they refer to as sub delegation. We hope to have that done by the end of this quarter. And if we are able to get that done then you'll see that move from AUA to AUM. But it has been a much longer process than we would've thought when we started. Good news is we continue to manage the money; it's simply a matter of which bucket it goes into.

Great. Thanks for the update.

Sure. Thanks for your question.

[Operator Instructions] I see no other questions in queue. I'll turn it back to Mr. Casey for any closing remarks.

All right, well thanks very much. We appreciate you taking the time to listen to our call, and for being a Westwood shareholder or being a prospective Westwood shareholder. And if you have any further questions please feel free to call me or Tiffany Kice, or visit our Web site at westwoodgroup.com. Thanks again for your time.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation in today's conference. This concludes your program. You may now disconnect. Everyone have a great day.