B. Riley Financial Inc (RILY) Q4 2018 Earnings Conference Call Transcript
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B. Riley Financial Inc (NASDAQ: RILY)
Q4 2018 Earnings Conference Call
March 05, 2019, 4:30 p.m. ET

Contents:

  • Prepared Remarks

  • Questions and Answers

  • Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good afternoon, and welcome to B. Riley Financial's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2018 Earnings Call. My name is Hector, and I will be your conference operator.

Earlier today, B. Riley Financial issued a press release with its financial results. A copy can be found in the Investor section of the company's website at ir.brileyfin.com. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. A replay of today's call will also be made available on the company's website.

Joining us today are Bryant Riley, Chairman and Co-CEO; Tom Kelleher, co-CEO; and Phillip Ahn, CFO and COO. After management's remarks, we will open the line for question. And 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. Mr. Riley, please proceed.

Bryant Riley -- Chairman & Co-Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, and welcome, everyone. Thank you for joining us on today's call.

2018 was another year of substantial growth for B. Riley Financial. Throughout 2018, we focused on finding ways to better leverage our expanding resources and capabilities to drive new opportunities across the entire B. Riley platform. We also completed several important acquisitions during the year, including the acquisition of GlassRatner and magicJack which we expect will be meaningful contributors to the future of both the Capital Markets business and Principal Investments business respectfully. We believe that our overall results for the year speak to continued momentum across our businesses and also to the unique ability that we have to successfully capitalize on the opportunities our growth has created for us.

As it relates to our fourth quarter, the revenue growth we achieved in our Liquidation, Appraisals and Principal Investments segments was offset by trading losses in our investment account under our Capital Markets segment results. The losses were due to declines in the portfolio value at year-end, which were in line with the performance of the broader markets in December and have since been recovered in the first quarter rebound.

To be clear, we were comfortable with the investments we made in spite of the uncharacteristic losses. This activity is core to our business. We take position in the companies and we believe to be undervalued and take advantage of dislocations in the market. Our platform is very unique.