Reservoir Media, Inc. Common Stock 2027 Q1 Earnings Call

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for participating in today's earnings call. Reservoir issued a press release with results for its first quarter of fiscal year 2027, ended June 30th, 2026, earlier this morning. If you did not receive a copy of our earnings press release, you may access it from the investor relations section of our website at investors.reservoir-media.com. With me on today's call are Golnar Khosrowshahi, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, and Jim Heindlmeyer, Chief Financial Officer. As a reminder, this call is being simultaneously webcast and will be recorded and archived on the investor relations section of our website. Before I turn the call over to Golnar and Jim, I'd like to note that today's discussion will contain forward-looking statements that reflect the current views of Reservoir Media about our business, financial performance, and future events, and as such, involve certain risks and uncertainties.

Our expectations, beliefs, and projections are expressed in good faith, and we believe there is a reasonable basis for them. However, there can be no assurance that our expectations, beliefs, and projections will result or be achieved. Please refer to our earnings press release and our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for more information on the specific risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from our expectations, beliefs, and projections described in today's discussion. Any forward-looking statements that we make on this call or in our earnings press release are as of today, and we undertake no obligation to update these statements as a result of new information or future events, except to the extent required by applicable law.

In addition to the financial results presented in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, we plan to present during this call certain financial measures that do not conform to U.S. GAAP if we believe they are useful to investors or if we believe they will help investors to better understand our performance or business trends. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the nearest comparable GAAP measures are included in our earnings press release. I would now like to turn the call over to Golnar.

Thank you, Jackie. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. We reported another quarter of consistent top-line growth as we began fiscal 2027. Our first quarter results reflect the continued execution of our long-term strategy, expanding our catalog with high-quality assets, investing in exceptional creative talent, strengthening our recorded music business, and deepening our presence in high-growth markets around the world. Together, these initiatives continue to enhance the quality and diversity of our portfolio while positioning Reservoir to deliver sustainable long-term value for all of our shareholders. This quarter, we delivered top-line growth of 12%, including 6% organic growth, and continued to see healthy demand for our portfolio across both our music publishing and recorded music businesses, both of which grew year-over-year.

Our performance was driven by contributions from recent acquisitions, success from our active roster, continued price increases across streaming services, and subscriber growth in many of the international markets where we have strategically invested. The broader global music industry continues to demonstrate its resilience and attractive long-term growth profile as evidenced by healthy industry deal flow, increased global consumption, strong momentum in emerging markets. Latin America, in particular, remains one of the industry's fastest-growing markets. According to the IFPI, in 2025, the region achieved the highest revenue growth rate worldwide of 17.1%, marking its 16th consecutive year of growth. Latin music has firmly established itself as a global commercial force, transcending physical borders and language barriers to produce global hits by artists reaching listeners around the world.

Our most recent investments in Latin music come through two new complementary strategic partnerships designed to strengthen both our existing catalog and our future pipeline. In June, we announced a joint venture with TU Publishing, a creator-first company focused on discovering and developing the next generation of Latin songwriters and producers. Under this partnership, Reservoir is the publisher for all current and future writers signed to TU Publishing, creating a platform for long-term creative collaboration and songwriter development. Reservoir and TU Publishing have also joined forces to co-sponsor a series of writing camps designed to cultivate opportunities for emerging and established artists, songwriters, and producers to collaborate and create commercially competitive music for today's global Latin audience. A few weeks ago, we acquired the catalogs of independent Latin music label, Nacional Records, and its publishing arm, Canciones Nacionales.

We additionally entered a joint venture to sign and develop recording artists and songwriters. Founded in 2005 by Tomas Cookman, Nacional has become one of the leading independent labels in Latin music, developing artists across various Spanish-speaking markets and genres, with the *Los Angeles Times* dubbing Nacional as the defining voice of Latin alternative in the U.S. just last year. These partnerships with Nacional and TU combine valuable, established catalogs with active creative platforms led by highly respected local partners, allowing us to participate in everything from talent discovery and development to long-term catalog ownership. We believe that Latin music is not a regional story, but a global one, and Reservoir is committed to being at the center of it.

Our relationship-driven approach to investing was also evident with our recorded music business as we completed a key venture with U.K. A&R executive Ollie Hodge to bring his nascent record label, Some Action, to Reservoir Media, further expanding Reservoir Media's frontline capabilities and artist development. Ollie is a seasoned A&R executive who has worked with Mumford & Sons, Glass Animals, and George Ezra, just to name a few. He and his team are based out of the Reservoir Media and Chrysalis Records London office, facilitating organic synergies across our label platform. To date, the label has signed McGrath, JP O'Grady, and L Devine, three artists who represent a strong foundation in line with Some Action and Reservoir Media's broader vision for artist development.

Across each of these deals, we consistently maintain our objective of partnering with people or companies excelling in their verticals, championing independent music across the globe, and strengthening the long-term value of our business. Beyond these notable strategic transactions, we also continued to grow our publishing roster with outstanding creative talent. We announced a partnership with multi-platinum and Grammy Award-winning hip-hop icon T.I. in a deal that spans his entire publishing catalog and future works, including his new album, "Kill the King", which debuted in the top 10 on Billboard's top R&B hip-hop albums, marking T.I.'s 13th top 10 album on that chart. We also welcomed multi-platinum global pop songwriter and producer Adam Kapes, songwriter, U.K. producer, and multi-instrumentalist Fretworm, and singer-songwriter Jarrett Doherty, the frontman of alt-pop rock duo Jady.

The deal with Doherty also marks the launch of a joint venture with Tinman, a publishing company founded by Reservoir Media writer Sam Tinnesz, further expanding our relationship with him. As Jim will discuss in greater detail, our business continues to generate healthy, predictable revenue and cash flows that give us the flexibility and the resources to invest in our people, our operations, our ever-growing community of creators across the globe, and myriad strategic opportunities across business verticals, all while maintaining financial discipline. Before turning to our financial performance, I'd like to briefly address the previously disclosed non-binding and unsolicited acquisition proposals received by the company. In March 2026, the board formed a special committee of independent and disinterested directors to evaluate the proposals, and the special committee engaged Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC as its financial advisor and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz as its legal counsel.

Beyond that, we have no additional updates to share today and will provide further information as appropriate. I will now turn the call over to Jim to discuss our fiscal first quarter financial performance.

Jim? Thank you, Golnar, and good morning, everyone.

Our first fiscal quarter results were in line with our expectations for another strong quarter and as a direct result of our diverse portfolio of quality assets and our ability to easily integrate new talent into our existing infrastructure. Revenue for the first fiscal quarter was $41.5 million, a 6% year-over-year improvement on an organic basis, and a 12% increase when including acquisitions. This was led by the 35% growth in our recorded music segment and the 6% increase we had in music publishing. Turning to our operating expenses, the total cost of revenue increased 12% compared to the prior year quarter, while our administration expenses and amortization and depreciation costs grew 16% and 13%, respectively, versus the prior year.