B. Riley Financial, Inc. (NASDAQ:RILY) Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call February 29, 2024 4:30 PM ET

Company Participants

Bryant Riley - Chairman, Co-Founder & Co-Chief Executive Officer

Phillip Ahn - Chief Financial Officer & Chief Operating Officer

Tom Kelleher - Co-Founder and Co- Chief Executive Officer

Conference Call Participants

Steve Emerson - Emerson Investment Group

Sean Haydon - Charles Lane Capital

Operator

Good afternoon and welcome to the B. Riley Financial's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Earnings Call. My name is Jordan and I will be your call coordinator. Earlier today, B. Riley issued a press release and financial supplement detailing its results for the fourth quarter and full year 2023 which can be found on its Investor Relations website at ir.brileyfin.com.

Today's call includes prepared remarks from the company, followed by a question-and-answer session. 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. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this call is being recorded. An audio replay will be available on the company's Investor Relations website later today. And before we conclude today's call, I will provide the necessary cautions regarding forward-looking statements.

Now, I will turn the call over to Mr. Bryant Riley. Mr. Riley, please proceed.

Bryant Riley

Thank you for joining our call this afternoon. Before we get into our results, I want to thank everyone who attended our Investor Day in December and I want to encourage anyone looking to understand the complexities of our business to refer to our comprehensive presentation which is posted to our Investor Relations website. At that event, we also addressed the attention on B. Riley related to our role in taking Franchise Group private while Brian Kahn was CEO.

Given the current scrutiny surrounding this matter and the time and resources it has required to complete our review, our annual report on Form 10-K for the year will be delayed. This remains a focus for our team and we're working to complete it soon.

Now in terms of our results, 2023 was a strong year for the majority of our subsidiaries. However, the strength across our core business was masked by non-cash write-downs related to Targus and unrealized investment losses. Despite a choppy operating environment for certain of our core businesses, we delivered increased revenues of over 50% at $1.6 billion for the year and $368 million of operating EBITDA.