Artisan Partners Asset Management - Earnings Call - Q3 2015

Transcript

Speaker 0

Hello, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Artesyn Partners Asset Management Third Quarter Earnings Conference Call. My name is Rocco, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the prepared remarks, management will conduct a question and answer session and conference participants will be given instructions at that time.

As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. At this time, I will turn the call over to Mikaela Taiphorne with Artisan Partners.

Speaker 1

Thanks. Before Eric begins, 'd like to remind you that our third quarter earnings release and the related presentation materials are available on the Investor Relations section of our website. Also, made on today's call and some of our responses to your questions may deal with forward looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties. Factors that may cause our actual results to differ from expectations are presented in our earnings release and are detailed in our filings with the SEC. We undertake no obligation to revise these statements following the date of this conference call.

And in addition, some of our remarks made today include references to non GAAP financial measures. You can find reconciliations of those measures to the most comparable GAAP measures in the earnings release. Release. And I will now turn the call over to Eric Colson.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Mikaela. Welcome to the Artisan Partners Asset Management business update and quarterly earnings call. I'm Eric Colson, CEO and I'm joined by C. J. Daley, CFO.

Markets continue to reflect short term uncertainty. I expect market volatility to persist producing long term opportunities for high value added investment firms like Artisan Partners. We have thoughtfully designed our firm and we diligently execute our strategy including communication to minimize uncertainty about who we are and how we will behave in these market environments. On this call, I want to discuss the quarter in relation to our long term strategy. This quarter I'll focus on thoughtful growth.

If we create stability and build business value through volatile periods, we believe that our economic value will increase over time. Once I'm done, CJ will take the lead and discuss our financial stability despite volatile markets. On Slide two, you'll see that we finished the quarter with $97,000,000,000 in AUM, our lowest quarter end AUM since the 2013. The decline during this past quarter was due to declines in equity markets worldwide and $1,300,000,000 in net client cash outflows. During the quarter, net outflows from the strategies managed by our U.

S. Value team continued to offset positive net flows from the rest of our business. We saw $1,600,000,000 of net outflows from the U. S. Value team strategies during the quarter as the team's performance continue to lag indices and peers.

We expect to continue to see attrition from the U. S. Value team strategies. However, the team's approach to building a better, safer, cheaper portfolio has generated strong outperformance in prior periods. We don't want the team to sacrifice the integrity of its investment philosophy and process in order to chase short term returns nor do we want to make any abrupt changes that would surprise the team or clients.

Before leaving this slide, I want to make a more general point. While our total AUM may be at about the same level as it was two years ago, Artisan is stronger and better positioned today. We have made significant investments in new and existing talent and we have expanded degrees of investment freedom. If you set aside the U. S.

Value teams flows over the last twenty four months, our other teams have generated $8,300,000,000 in positive net flows for an annualized organic growth rate of more than 5%. I think that's strong evidence that there remains and will remain a very significant place for high value added active management within sophisticated clients and investors asset allocations. On Slide three, we plotted the closing prices of the Acqui and VIX indices each over the last ten years. As you can see, there's a lot of uncertainty in the market today. The uncertainty results from a number of factors including macro events, changing investor behavior and increasingly popular forms of investing such as high frequency trading, liquid alternatives and ETFs.

In this environment, we remain focused on who we are as a firm and continue to make long term investments in our business. Our variable cost financial model, which CJ will discuss, allows us to remain focused on identifying long term opportunities and executing on those that are consistent with who we are. The launch of our Developing World strategy is an example of our approach. Despite uncertainty in emerging markets, at the 2015, we hired an experienced portfolio manager with a history of delivering strong results and a mindset consistent with Artisan's values. We launched the Developing World strategy at the July when the team was ready.

We weren't trying to time markets or secular industry trends. While the third quarter proved to be the worst quarter for emerging markets in four years, the creation of the Developing World team and the launch of Developing World strategy are positive investments in Artisan's long term business value that we made despite market uncertainty. While the upfront investment we made in the new team runs through our P and L, we view the upfront expenses as an investment in the long term value of our business and we expect to reap the benefits over the longer term. On Slide four, you can see our long term performance. As you know, we look for faithfulness to the stated investment process, solid absolute performance and outperformance compared to peers and the index.

As of September 30, eight of our 12 investment strategies that have a five year track record have added value relative to their broad performance benchmarks over the trailing five years. Six of our eight strategies with a ten year track record have added value over the trailing ten year period. All of our investment teams remain focused and committed to delivering Alpha based on their individual investment processes. Slide five is our standard business philosophy and approach slide that defines who we are. We are a high value added investment firm designed for investment talent to thrive in a growth oriented culture.

Today, I want to discuss how our commitment to thoughtful growth is reflected in the way we manage our business. Given who we are, we're not structured to nor do we have experience in rolling out high volume scale businesses like passive products or smart beta offerings. We also don't consider ourselves a distribution firm focusing on vehicle management such as ETFs or liquid alt mutual funds. We focus on differentiated investment strategies that are well suited for sophisticated clients and investors. Our new investment strategies remain rooted in fundamental analysis, but broaden the investable universe or allow for the use of additional security types providing our portfolio managers with more tools to produce an outcome or risk profile.

These strategies fit well within outcome and risk based asset allocations are natural fits with our business model and allow for a high value added results differentiated from exposure oriented strategies. Turning to Slide six. On this slide, we have unpacked Artisan's revenue equation to help you understand how we think about growth. The equation is simple, revenue equals units for us AUM multiplied by price for us fee rate. The simplicity of the equation can lead to a preoccupation with AUM growth, in particular a preoccupation with client cash flows.

Positive net flows are critical over the long term, but we've always shied away from placing importance on short term flow results, whether the flows are good or bad. We've always said flows will be lumpy. We believe that focusing too much on short term net flows can lead to product launches that don't make sense, disregard existing clients and talent and unsustainable distribution strategies. To generate long term sustainable net flows, we stay focused on the levers listed on this slide. Keep in mind that these levers work together and influence one another.

For instance, talent produces alpha, which generates and sustains client demand. We then manage capacity to protect our team's ability to generate alpha and preserve client trust, which we believe increases the longevity of our existing AUM and makes it easier to raise additional AUM when the time is right. One thing we can't control is the market. Obviously, it has a significant impact on our overall AUM. So we've included it on this page.

Because we can't control markets, we believe it is critical that we remain true to who we are. As our clients, investors and employees are impacted by shifting markets, it is important that they trust us to faithfully execute our stated investment strategies and business plan. Slide seven highlights our approach to talent. Our growth is a product of talent and driven by talent both existing and new. In the last two years, we've added two new teams managers.

Brian Krug founded the credit team, which launched the high income strategy over a year ago. Some may have thought that a period of historical and persistently low interest rates was an inauspicious time to launch our first fixed income strategy. That's not how we thought about it. We found a talented investor with a mindset that was consistent with Artisan's values. Like the Developing World strategy, we launched the high income strategy when Brian and his team were ready.

Since the strategy's inception in April 2014, its benchmark index has returned negative 2%. The Artisan high income strategy which is differentiated from the benchmark has returned positive 3.42% on a gross of fee basis. When I think about the high income and developing world strategies, I think about our development of the global value, global opportunities and global equity strategies over the last ten years. We designed and built those strategies in response to the increasing irrelevance of issuers corporate domicile and to sophisticated clients' demands for global strategies. Now those strategies are firing on all cylinders and the global equity and global opportunity strategies represents the core of our realizable capacity.

With the high income and developing world strategies, we have continued to expand degrees of freedom and provide the teams with tools and flexibility to manage risk and outcomes. We will be patient and protective of Alpha, but in a few years, I expect that those strategies will have transitioned into their full growth potential. Slide eight is one of our standard performance slides. As a high value added active manager, outperforming indices and peers is critical to our growth. Data on this page shows the long term success of our talent and business model.

At the end of the quarter, 87% or more of our AUM was in strategies generating alpha over the trailing three, five and ten year periods and since inception. For the one year period, our non U. S. Growth strategy trailed the MSCI EP benchmark by four basis points, which explains the lower percentage outperforming for the one year period. While we don't focus on short term performance, it's worth noting that consistent with the strategies investment guidelines about 13% of the non U.

S. Growth portfolio is allocated to emerging markets compared to no EM exposure for the MSCI EAFE Index. Compared to the ACWI ex U. S. Index, which does include emerging markets, the non U.

S. Growth strategy has outperformed by three forty six basis points over the trailing one year period. The data on this page supports our high value added proposition. If we continue to deliver value, we believe asset flows will follow. It will be lumpy and market uncertainty and industry trends may work against us for the short term periods, but over long term asset growth should follow our long term investment results.

Slide nine shows the AUM history of our non U. S. Growth and global value strategies. When we think about capacity, we focus as much on managing the asset levels in our existing strategies as we do on launching new strategies. Managing capacity protects alpha generation potential, supports investment talent and builds client trust, each of which is critical to long term sustainable growth.

In September, we announced that we were closing the Non U. S. Growth strategy in phases beginning in February 2016. The stage approach works for the investment team and allows us to work with clients, consultants and intermediaries to slow the pipeline and close the strategy in a non disruptive way. Closing the Non U.

S. Growth strategy should also allow the global equity strategy to continue to grow its assets base without impacting the performance of either strategy. The two strategies have a number of cross holdings. So the exciting growth prospects of the global equity strategy were an important factor in our decision to begin closing non U. S.

Growth. This is similar to how we manage the stage closing of our non U. S. Value strategy back in 2010 and 2011. We began to limit flows into the non U.

S. Value strategy in order to allow global value the runway to grow without hindering the performance of either strategy. Less than two years after we completed the non U. S. Value closing process, the global value strategy surpassed $9,000,000,000 in assets.

Managing capacity at the team level and not just the strategy level helps protect Alpha by allowing for appropriate asset growth. The non U. S. Growth closing process will impact flows. So will other factors like market uncertainty and performance.

We don't know with any precision what the results on short term net flows will be. We're not managing to that. At the same time that we announced the non U. S. Growth closing process, we announced the reopening of the global value strategy across pooled vehicles.

The Global Value strategy went through a stage closing process in 2013 and 2014. Over the past year, the market environment has presented increased investment opportunities meeting the global value teams criteria and the team was comfortable reopening to pooled vehicles. Reopening to pooled vehicles exclusively will help smooth the lumpiness of flows that is more common with separate accounts. That also means that we don't expect the reopening to result in large inflows that would significantly grow the strategy's total AUM. Managing capacity the way we do may negatively impact short term growth.

That's acceptable to us because we strongly believe that doing what's best for clients and investment talent will result in long term sustainable growth. Turning to Slide 10, you'll see the diversification of our AUM. As with talent, alpha and capacity management, these distribution outcomes result from our deliberate and patient approach. Take for instance, our approach to distribution outside of The United States. Over the past two years, non U.

S. AUM has grown from 11% of our total to 14. More importantly, over the last two years, we have nearly doubled our number of non U. S. Relationships.

We have expanded our efforts in EMEA, Australia, Asia and Canada one step at a time. Non U. S. Markets remain a very significant opportunity for us. We believe we are well positioned both from a product and distribution standpoint to continue to grow outside of The US and to do so consistently with who we are.

Another long term opportunity for us is the defined contribution marketplace. In the short term, the opening up and reconfiguration of DC plans has worked against us because over time some of our strategies had grown to the point where any comprehensive reallocation would cut against us. The long term opening up of these plans to best of breed managers should work in our favor. Similarly, we're often asked about the currently proposed DOL rule expanding the application of fiduciary status. The proposed rule would not directly affect us.

We already serve in a fiduciary capacity and we have always embraced our fiduciary responsibilities. But I won't comment on the specifics of the current proposal, we believe that changes that pushes financial advisors and broker dealers further in the direction of acting in their clients' interest will increase the chances that our strategies are included in client portfolios. I will now turn it over to CJ to discuss our financial results.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Eric. Good morning, everyone. During the quarter, global equity markets experienced significant declines in market values. The benchmark indices for the bulk of the AUM that we manage experienced declines ranging from 8% in The U. S.

Mid cap space to 10% in the EFI space. The AUM we manage was not immune to these declines as we ended the quarter with assets under management of $97,000,000,000 down from $109,000,000,000 at the beginning of the quarter. Given the significance of declines in the global equity markets this quarter and the impact on our financial results, I thought it would be a good exercise to review how our model performed in this significant down market. The five key elements of our financial philosophy are listed on Slide 11 of the deck. I want to focus primarily on three of them in order of importance to our results this quarter.

First is the highly variable cost structure built into our P and L. Over 60% of our expenses are variable in nature. These include, but are not limited to, incentive compensation revenue sharing arrangements for our investment and distribution professionals as well as third party distribution payments to intermediaries. In a market downturn such as we experienced this quarter, most of those expenses automatically adjust with declining revenues and this allows us to maintain healthy margins. Second, with the discipline that is built into our P and L, we are able to maintain strong cash flows and a conservative and healthy balance sheet.

We aren't forced to alter our execution of long term business goals because of short term market declines. Finally, with high employee ownership and a practice of paying out a majority, if not all of our adjusted earnings in the form of quarterly and special annual dividends, our key professionals are aligned both economically and strategically with our other stakeholders during periods of growth as well as during periods of market decline. Because of our financial philosophy, despite uncertain market conditions, we have continued to invest for the long term with the addition of our seventh investment team, the Developing World team and have continued to the build out of our credit team, which now manages over $900,000,000 only a year and a half since launch of its first strategy. With that backdrop, I'll move on to Slide 12 and our September 2015 financial results. For the quarter, ending AUM decreased 11% to $97,000,000,000 The decline was primarily driven by the declines in global markets I've referenced as well as net client cash outflows of $1,300,000,000 Average AUM decreased 6% quarter over quarter.

Revenues for the September were $198,400,000 down 6% from revenues in the preceding June 2015 and in line with our decline in average AUM. Our adjusted operating margin for the September was 40.9% and consistent with our expectation given the decrease in revenues we experienced during the quarter and the variable nature of our expense base. Net income per share on an adjusted basis was quarter. Zero For the nine months ended September 3035, revenues were $613,500,000 down 1% from revenues of $622,700,000 for the corresponding nine months ended September 2014. Our adjusted operating margin was 40.5% for the nine months ended September 30, compared to 45.2% for the prior year period.

On October 21, our Board of Directors declared a regular quarterly dividend of $0.60 per share of Class A common stock. This is our fourth quarterly dividend of $0.60 in 2015 and represents the distribution of a portion of our year to date adjusted earnings. Slide 13 is a review of our AUM. As Eric discussed, during the quarter, the strategies managed by our U. S.

Value team experienced $1,600,000,000 in net client cash outflows, primarily from our U. S. Mid cap value strategy and mostly from the Artesyn mid cap value mutual fund. Setting aside those net outflows, net client cash flows were generally positive, though modest across our open strategies. Our global value team strategies, both of which were closed to most new investors throughout the quarter, experienced a little more than $300,000,000 of total net outflows despite strong one, three and five year performance.

As Eric discussed on October 1, we reopened the Global Value strategy to most new investors through pooled vehicles. Our mid cap growth strategy, which is also closed to most new investors experienced about $300,000,000 in net outflows despite continued strong performance. As a reminder, in November, the Artisan funds will make their annual income and capital gains distribution. Last year, those distributions resulted in about $650,000,000 of net client cash outflows from investors who chose not to reinvest their dividends. Based on our current estimates, we expect this year's distributions to have a similar aggregate result.

On slide 14, you will see that our non U. S. AUM was $13,000,000,000 down close to 8% from $14,200,000,000 last quarter and in line with AUM a year ago. The decrease in September was due to market depreciation offset slightly by net client cash inflows. Non U.

S. AUM represented 14% of our total assets under management. Looking ahead, we continue to be encouraged by interest in our global equity strategy managed by our non strategies managed by our growth team. In addition, our two newest teams are off to strong starts as they build their performance track records. The credit team, which launched its high income strategy in April 2014, now manages over $900,000,000 Our newest strategy Developing World launched in July 2015 and has surpassed $100,000,000 in AUM in just a few months.

This level of AUM is encouraging, but our primary focus has been on supporting the team as they work to develop a strong performance record. Our financial results highlight begin on Slide 15. During the September, our revenues decreased 6% to $198,400,000 consistent with the 6% decrease in average AUM. Our average management fee rate for the quarter was 75 basis points, down just slightly from the June 2015 quarter. For the nine months ended September 3035, revenues were $613,500,000 on average AUM of $108,200,000,000 which is down 1.5% from revenues of 622,700,000 on the same average AUM for the nine months ended September 2014.

Asset mix has shifted slightly away from pooled vehicles resulting in a lower weighted average fee rate for the recent nine month period by a little over a basis point. Slide 16 is our adjusted operating margin, which excludes pre offering share based compensation expense and was 40.9% for the current September compared to 42.1% in the June and 44% in the September. Margin was negatively impacted primarily by decreased revenues, offset in part by lower operating expenses, primarily those that are variable and adjust with revenues. Adjusted net income for the September was $49,200,000 or $0.67 per adjusted share, which is down 9% from the preceding June. For the nine months ended September 3035, our adjusted operating margin was 40.5%, down from 45.2% for the nine months ended September 3034.

The decline in margin was largely driven by our investments in existing talent through equity compensation and our investment in the new Developing World team in the March, offset in part by a decrease in third party distribution expense. This translated into adjusted earnings per adjusted share of $2.06 down 15% from $2.41 for the nine months ended September 3034. A breakout of compensation expense is on Slide 17. This quarter, we have separately broken out salaries and cash incentive compensation. This should help demonstrate the variable nature of our largest expense incentive compensation.

As you can see, incentive compensation was down for the September and as a percentage of revenue was just slightly higher, reflecting the fact that a majority, but not all of our incentive compensation varies directly with revenues. Equity based compensation expense, which we've also broken out, increased in the September compared to the June due to the annual true up of our estimated expected forfeitures. As a reminder, our current equity compensation expense represents the amortization of employee equity grants that we have made since our IPO. These awards, which we view as an investment in our business, will continue to amortize over the remainder of the amortization period, which is generally five years from the original grant date. We expect to make additional annual grants of equity in January of each approval.

Lastly, our compensation expense continues to include the amortization of pre IPO equity compensation, which we adjust out of expenses when calculating our adjusted operating margin and adjusted earnings per adjusted share. Slide 18 shows our balance sheet highlights. Our balance sheet remains strong with a healthy cash balance and modest leverage. Borrowings of $200,000,000 are supported by strong earnings and cash flows and our leverage metrics remain very strong. The last slide summarizes the quarterly dividends we've paid since our IPO in March 2013.

On October 21, our Board of Directors declared a regularly quarterly dividend of $0.60 per share of Class A common stock payable on November 3035 to shareholders of record on November 16. Consistent with our dividend policy, after the end of this year, we expect our Board will consider paying a special dividend taking into consideration our annual adjusted earnings, business conditions and the amount of cash we want to retain at that time. The financial philosophy we follow today is much the same as the philosophy instituted upon the founding of the firm in 1994. During periods of volatility like the quarter we just experienced, we strive to reduce the impact of volatility results and our stakeholders. While we cannot control markets, we can and do attempt to run a business and financial model that will yield predictable outcomes.

As Eric stated earlier, in times of uncertainty, our clients, talent and investors should know that we remain committed to our business and financial philosophy. We look forward to your questions, and I will now turn the call back to the operator.

Speaker 0

Thank you. And our first question comes from Michael Carrier from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Hi, thanks a lot. Eric, just one question on, I guess, it's a combination of flows and distribution, something that you hit on your prepared remarks. So when you look at the net flows for the quarter, particularly ex the value products, it still held up relatively well despite a pretty tough backdrop for the industry. And just wanted to get a sense of where you're seeing the demand for those products, meaning by distribution channel. And when you look at outside The U.

S, you mentioned expanding the distribution there. Is the interest in these types of products, do you see any more interest versus in The U. S? Or is it pretty similar just more opportunity just given that you're relatively small in those channels?

Speaker 2

Yes, sure, Michael. Has been a tough environment for active managers. And I think ex the US value team, we've held up very well as you mentioned with positive flows across the other teams. I'll go in reverse order a little bit. Outside The US has been strong for us, particularly because of the comments I made about our global strategies.

The global opportunity strategy and the global equity strategies are in our mind right in the realizable capacity or realizable flow, which means they're clicking on the criteria for institutional clients of a proven track record, having a minimum asset threshold, having a stable team, reside in a strong organization that has a good operation. So we would I think continue to see strong interest in our global strategies and with the reopening of global value and pooled vehicles that just enhances our position overseas. In The U. S, we're still waiting to see that the switch from the strong trade in non U. S.

Strategies or EFI oriented strategies to global. We have good capacity as I mentioned in global, but the transition has been a little bit slower than we've anticipated of going to EFI to global. And with regards to The U. S, the broker dealer and financial advisor that what we call the intermediary channel has still seen flows to the non U. S.

And has been an attractive area for us.

Speaker 4

Okay, that's helpful. And then just as a follow-up, CJ, just on the expense side, I think you were pretty clear on just the variable in nature. Some of the investments that have been made on some of the new teams, just wanted to get

Speaker 5

a

Speaker 4

sense, is the run rate pretty accurate right now? And then if we're in 2016 and you we're still seeing outflows and markets are still pretty volatile. Where are the levers that you can look to try to manage through some volatility?

Speaker 3

Yes. Thanks, Michael. With respect to the expenses, yes, this quarter we have a full run rate of investments in our new teams. I think I initially gave guidance when we brought on the developing world that it'd be somewhere around 1.25 to $1.5 a quarter. And that's been fully baked in the last two quarters.

The beauty of our operating model is that the levers are really built into the model. The arrangements with the investment teams and our distribution compensation is formulaic and adjusts with revenues, as I mentioned. And then some of our other expenses, discretionary bonuses, we do have levers there, but they're not nearly as meaningful. And then on our fixed expenses, such as headcount and our technology spend, we're committed to continuing to invest in those areas for the long term. But just to reiterate, the major drivers are the ones that are built into our model.

Speaker 4

Okay. Thanks a lot.

Speaker 0

And our next question comes from Bill Katz with Citi. Please go ahead.

Speaker 6

Hi. This is actually Ryan Bailey filling in for Bill. I guess one of our questions that we had was what sort of products or teams are you looking to add to the platform over the near term? Is there anything that you're looking at in particular and then what sort of conversations you're having right now?

Speaker 2

Hey, Ryan, it's Eric. The products and teams that we look at are heavily dependent on the talent that we find in the marketplace. So as we said in past calls that we don't have a predetermined view that we need to bring on a asset allocation product or need to bring on a long short strategy or an event driven or a core plus fixed income. There's a whole slew of strategies that we'd be open to. I think in general, the strategies that we've launched with high income and with developing world are the type of strategies we're looking for.

And those types would have a much broader definition of an initial universe of ideas, not wedded to an index. So something like the developing world that's redefining what emerging markets universes look like instead of being beholden to the MSCI Emerging Markets Index. The developing world is looking at companies that have revenue tied to the emerging markets story or as we said in the strategy that's tied to domestic demand in emerging markets. We're on the back end of the strategy of having a much broader use of various security types as opposed to just being wedded to a high yield bonds or corporate bonds. Our high income strategy utilizes an array of securities, whether it's bank loans, bridge loans, revolvers, credit default swaps that you have an array of securities to help manage either or an outcome.

And those are the type of strategies that are appealing to us because they're high value added, they're capacity constraints, they're not competing on price or volume. And those are the areas that we're most interested in.

Speaker 6

Got it. And then just one quick question for our model. How should we think about G and A expense going forward? It seems like you could have flexed a little bit this last quarter. So just wondering how we should think about that, is it kind of a run rate level or?

Speaker 3

Yeah, I would say, you know, G and A fluctuates a little bit, Typically, summer months are low travel. We've been averaging around $6,700,000 a quarter. And I think that's for modeling purposes is accurate as a guess as we could give you.

Speaker 6

Got it. Great. Thank you very much.

Speaker 0

And our next question comes from Alex Blostein of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Speaker 7

Great. Good morning, everybody. Question for you guys around non U. S. Growth strategy.

So clearly, little bit of underperformance year to date as you highlighted. And just curious to hear what the reaction has been from various channels, given the fact that the track record is still clearly quite strong. But just trying to assess, any risk of redemptions for maybe some of the shorter term money that might be associated with that product?

Speaker 2

Sure, Alex. This is Eric. The returns in the non U. S. Growth strategy have been quite strong over the three five year and since inception.

So it's a good endpoint for the strategy. The current year has been underperforming EFI index. And I think on the prepared remarks talked about how it's performed versus the MSCI ACWI index ex U. S. We've outperformed.

So it's a little bit of a mixed bag. I wouldn't call it negative this year. And the bulk of the opportunities that we look at are in the institutional world or have an institutional process. They're looking at much longer time periods and various endpoints. The overall asset base has a little bit of retail in it that could be defined as short term money, but we haven't seen any negative in the asset base over the last few months.

Speaker 7

Got it. And the I guess just a follow-up to your point on the benchmarks, majority of clients that are in looking at results relative to Acquia ex U. S. Or MSCI EV?

Speaker 2

I think most of our clients know that we're a high value added manager, which means that we're active, which means that we design a strategy regardless of how an index is constructed. So most of our clients take a holistic view at our strategy versus an EFI strategy versus an MSCI ex U. S, which includes emerging markets. Some clients also use in the short term style oriented strategies to get a gauge how our strategy is positioned in the short run. But I think over longer time periods, your goal is to perform the broad market, whether it's EFI or MSCI ex U.

S. At the end of the day, if we don't outperform that over a long period, then we would be at risk.

Speaker 7

Okay, that's helpful. And then Suji, just a follow-up for you on the capital management strategy. Any thoughts around share repurchase here given a little bit of a creep from RCUs, but also obviously fairly attractive valuation and pretty big dividend yield. So just kind of curious how you're thinking about the trade off between the 100% payout that you typically try to achieve with a special dividend at the end of the year versus maybe using some of that for share buybacks?

Speaker 3

Yeah, Alex, I don't think our views have changed on that. We've historically paid out all of our earnings. It's been the primary return that a large group of our shareholders, our employee partners have realized over the years. And while the valuation is attractive, our employee partners still while we limitations on the amount of equity they can sell. So we're still 70 plus percent owners of what we owned at the IPO.

So there's a high employee ownership. So I would expect that we would continue the cash payout philosophy for the foreseeable future.

Speaker 7

Understood. Great. Thanks.

Speaker 0

And our next question comes from Surinder Thind of Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Speaker 8

Hi, guys. I'll start off with a question around the global value product and kind of the reopening of that fund. Kind of how do you guys think about the incremental capacity there? At least how does the team think about it in that sense that AUM levels aren't that really different from when the product was first closed or closed last time? And so is this simply more a matter of that the investment team sees a much bigger opportunity set at this point versus last time?

Speaker 2

Yes, sir. This is Eric. I mean, the global value team sees an opportunity a better opportunity in the marketplace. And so the discount in portfolio has widened to a more attractive entry point. And that attractive entry point is probably the primary driver.

We've also seen some attrition in the overall book there, given the strong performance, the stability of the team, the proven process. We feel that there's room to add a few clients, but not be disruptive. We have the same phenomenon in the mid cap growth strategy too. You see those two strategies have all the realizable capacity criteria and you're going to get a little bit of attrition there. And over the long run, if we maintain those key criteria for realizable capacity, we'll have opportunities to position this correctly.

And this just happens to be a moment for the global value team to provide an opportunity to get back into the marketplace for a little bit. If we see the gap close and the discount of the portfolio or sudden change in assets that would be disruptive, we'll continue to manage capacity in the best interest of clients and performance.

Speaker 8

Okay, that's helpful. And then quick question for CJ here. Just kind of on fee rate, You did provide some color around kind of the step down. But if we kind of break down the fee rate into just looking at the separately managed accounts, there was like a meaningful step down in 3Q of last year. And again, there was a meaningful step down this quarter as well.

Now is that simply a mix issue given that SMA accounts are more heavily weighted towards like international markets which underperformed during those periods? Or is there something else that ongoing fee negotiations or anything else that we should be thinking about?

Speaker 3

Yes, we also there is an opportunity for performance fee in the second quarter. So if you're looking second quarter to third quarter, there's a slight performance fee in there. Other than that, it's really just it's fee mix. It's AUM mix.

Speaker 8

Okay, thank you.

Speaker 0

And our next question comes from Eric Berg of RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Speaker 9

Hi. This is actually Rosa Hanskeny in for Eric Berg. Thank you for taking our questions. Our first one is related to the global value strategy, which has continued to produce solid returns against benchmarks, yet it continues to be in outflow mode for five consecutive quarters now. Eric, you mentioned that this was the result of institutional rebalancing during your June call.

Does that continue to be the case? And what is your outlook for the global value business?

Speaker 2

Yes, this is Eric. We definitely would see that as rebalancing of institutional accounts. We would continue to see some rebalancing, but given that we've opened up the strategy to pool vehicles, our expectation is that we would mitigate some of that rebalancing over the near term. But the main reason for reopening, I would reiterate is because of the discount in the portfolio.

Speaker 9

Got it. Okay. That's helpful. And then our next one is related to your U. S.

Value business. While we understand that you take a long term orientation in your investment approach, we also know that the market does demand that fund managers produce good performance numbers over the short term as well. So can you just provide some more details on top of your opening remarks as to your outlook and what steps are being taken to potentially engineer a turnaround in this business?

Speaker 2

Sure. It's very hard to engineer a people business. I know many people think of asset management as a manufacturing and distribution business. And by no means do we think of our people business as a manufacturing business that can be engineered in a short term period. The investment team has a very deep rooted philosophy looking for fear and uncertainty in the marketplace and they've designed a portfolio that's better, safer and cheaper.

And in various time periods, this strategy has performed exceptionally well. And there's also periods such as now as similar to the TMT bubble back in the late 90s that create an endpoint that questions the viability of this strategy. But the strategy is very well rooted in value investing and has a proven record. Our goal as a firm is to properly resource this group, reinforce the discipline so that we become highly predictable to our clients and not surprise them. And at this point in time, the momentum factor has been so dominant over the last one year and three year.

Just to give you an example on the one year period in Russell MidCap Index, if you took the top quintile versus the bottom quintile of the Russell MidCap, the spread of return there is about 78. So the bottom quintile produced a negative 42% and the top quintile produced a positive 36%. If you're skewed towards fear and uncertainty, then you're going to have a pretty extreme outcome on the negative. And these factors and cycles rotate over time and we fully expect that to rotate as long as we stay disciplined, we won't be whipsawed. So we are working with our investment team quite heavily.

But unfortunately engineering a short term outcome is not in the cards for the current period.

Speaker 9

Great, got it. Thanks very much.

Speaker 0

And our next question comes from Michael Kim of Sandler O'Neill. Please go ahead.

Speaker 10

Hey, guys. Good morning. First, just to follow-up on the discussion on increasingly penetrating the Non U. S. Institutional channel.

Just curious to get your thoughts on more recent flow trends for global equities in light of some of the moves from select sovereign wealth funds and whether you view the current shift as maybe more of an opportunity from a manager replacement standpoint, if you will, over time?

Speaker 2

Sure, Michael. This is Eric. There has been news obviously out there that sovereign wealth funds have been pulling back some of their equity exposure in the marketplace. I think there's two or three that I've read. I don't think that's impacting the flow trend in the marketplace that we see.

We continue to see good interest in demand for our global strategies. Unfortunately, remains in that larger asset category or large mandate category, which creates concentration in specific strategies and also creates pressure on fees as well. So we're going to be selective looking for the right clients on the right terms that fit our model, but the interest remains high in what we've seen.

Speaker 10

Okay. And then just to follow-up, I know each situation is a bit different, but just wondering if historically you've seen any correlation between maybe market volatility and the availability of investment talent? And related to that, if you could maybe just update us on what you're seeing in terms of the environment and in terms of availability? Thanks.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I don't have any historical data to look at pure market volatility and talent. I think our premise is there's always dysfunctionality in the marketplace somewhere with various firms, whether volatility is in place or not. There's a behavioral trend that occurs that allows us to capitalize on talent availability. But I wouldn't link it directly to market volatility. And currently, the asset management business is quite healthy.

There is a little bit of volatility, but if there was a major downturn, think there you do see some talent percolate up. We saw that during the 02/1929 period. Had a lot of discussions. But I don't know if it's tied purely to volatility.

Speaker 10

Got it. Okay, fair enough. Thanks for taking my questions.

Speaker 0

And our next question comes from Chris Shutler of William Blair. Please go ahead.

Speaker 11

Hey, guys. Good

Speaker 3

morning. Good morning.

Speaker 11

On the global equity strategy, it seems like a very good opportunity there given the performance and you alluded to the success that you had in global value after you closed non U. S. Value several years back. Maybe just Eric compare and contrast those two situations And I ask frankly because the global equity team has had very good performance for a while.

I know there were some there was a turnover issue there a couple of years back, but I think we've seen less than $100,000,000 of flows over the last twelve months and it's a really competitive category. So just help us compare and contrast those two situations. Thanks.

Speaker 2

Yes. Sure, Chris. Each team is slightly different and each point in time is different. We've seen that over the years of how our teams have evolved. The global value and international value team came on when the wealth platforms were changing from more of a commission based to a fee based.

And so that they have a skewed asset base towards the intermediary channel, say, versus our growth team came online when open architecture inside of DC plans were occurring in the early 2000s. So it's there's a combination of what's going on in the marketplace and the type of strategy. The global equity strategy just hit its five year record. I don't expect the same outcome as global value where once we closed international value, the pickup in demand just moved to right to global value. I think that was a fortunate outcome for us.

Our expectation is that the international equity strategy has been predominantly a U. S. Oriented story in the intermediary space. We don't see the intermediaries gravitating to the global equity in a direct way. So I think we're just going to be out there with institutional consultants and positioning the strategy with clients overseas.

But we don't have the same expectation that happened in global value. If it does occur, we're fortunate. But I think that was just a point in time.

Speaker 0

And our next question comes from Robert Lee of KBW. Please go ahead.

Speaker 12

I guess my first question would be understanding Eric that, meaning that kind of a distribution oriented firm and not trying to kind of bring out the hot product of the day or quarter. But that being said, you've added a credit team, you have more capabilities within your group of managers. I mean, there any potential or thought to how can start maybe combining strategies from different teams into well constructed products that you think would could be receptive? And if so, how do you kind of manage that in house?

Speaker 2

Rob, we've over the years we've thought about how we could combine various strategies and create an outcome. But as we get out into the marketplace and see where clients are moving towards a solution based or outcome based approach, we think it's best that that specific client or consultant design the outcome and we'll provide the investment strategy and its purity as opposed to manufacturing a solution. And so I think it's best to put that in the end client or the firm that is best designed to create a solution. I think we're best designed to find talent, how that talent and resource them to pursue the results as opposed to packaging a solution. And so we're very much attentive to what we're best at and how we can compete.

And that leads me back to some of the trends. If we're not organized and structured to compete in a volume business or in a competitive fee environment or a solution, this marketplace is way too competitive just to do it to get exposure in the marketplace. So we definitely see that that should be put on to other solution providers.

Speaker 12

Okay. And I know you commented earlier on kind of the environment for new teams. I'm just curious as you think about and with the I guess the premise that you don't want to add teams that duplicate other teams. I mean, as you think about adding types of asset classes or strategies that you would like to over time if the right team or person is available, can you maybe update us on your thoughts there? And I guess I'm specifically curious, would you ever consider going down more of a quantitatively oriented investment strategies and teams versus kind of the more fundamental orientation of all your teams?

Speaker 2

Yes, certainly. I think with our exposure overseas and our name getting out more and more overseas, we're starting to see investment teams in different geographies. And we're very much open to a variety of strategies. I think there's quite a few quantitative strategies that are well rooted in fundamental analysis to provide a high value added outcome. We certainly have met with teams in the past and continue to meet with teams that would have a quantitative orientation.

And so we would definitely be open to those strategies.

Speaker 12

And I appreciate you taking my questions. Just one last one, again understanding kind of you're not looking to roll out the next gimmicky product or anything, but just kind of curious on your take. Some of your peers have agreed to license the assuming it gets up and running and some acceptance, Eaton Vance, eTMF structure and given what they maintain, it can deliver for active managers in terms of lower costs, less whatever it may be. Just kind of curious your take on that structure and if you think that is ultimately something that has would have some interest for your managers or do you not think that it's perspective benefits that are really what it may be cracked up to be?

Speaker 2

We're open to a variety of vehicles. Obviously, we have mutual funds, usage, collective investment trusts. If there's a demand occurs in the ETFs or the next share platform, whatever vehicle that comes into the interest of sophisticated institutional clients and there's demand and clients asking us to provide it in that structure, we'll certainly provide that. And I think there will be in the future. It remains to be seen there if that's what clients really want in their active management strategies.

Speaker 12

Great. Thanks for taking my questions.

Speaker 0

And our last questioner is Ryan Sullivan with Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.

Speaker 10

Hey, guys. Good morning. Thank you for taking the question.

Speaker 5

First question I have is, I know you said you don't plan to make any changes to the value strategy in order to kind of preserve the process and you don't want to surprise clients. But are you making any have you started conversations on having concessions on fees or any other areas to keep the clients engaged? And the follow-up to that is, has the funds been put on any strategy watch lists due to the poor performance near term? Thank you.

Speaker 2

Sure, Ryan. On fees, we've remained disciplined. It's a very slippery slope going to fee concessions related to short term performance. This clearly is an endpoint driven return pattern with some dominant factors in the marketplace. So we haven't made fee concessions and we certainly have been put on watch list given the outflows we've seen clients have made determinations to find other alternatives which we've seen with the $1,600,000,000 in outflows this last quarter.

And with that, you're on watch list with various platforms and clients. Some of those are just strictly mechanical, that there's written rules in their investment policy statements that automatically put you on watch list and then there's a subjective overlay. And our main focus is the client service and setting proper expectations of those clients, so they understand where we're at in our performance cycle. But I fully expect to be on most watch list given the performance.

Speaker 5

Okay, great. And then just one quick follow-up to kind of go the other direction here. I think you, Eric, you threw out a figure earlier in the call that the some of the other strategies ex U. S. Value were growing at a 5% annual organic growth rate.

I'm not sure if I heard that correctly, but that's pretty impressive given the industry backdrop. And what I'm really trying to do is isolate the strategies with realizable capacity. So I know you've given some color in the past based on that metric. Can you give us some color there in terms of organic growth rate and how you view realizable capacity and some of the growing funds? Thanks.

Speaker 2

Yes, sure. We had a 5% over the last twenty four months in the other strategies and with regards to realizable capacity, that's where we look at that criteria, what strategies have a five year track record, which one have a minimum asset threshold to be included in the majority of searches, which ones have stability of the investment team and a proven process. And then when you use that criteria that high hurdle rate, which we like to get into institutional clients or sophisticated clients, it provides a longer duration asset to our business as opposed to the hot short term money. And using that realizable criteria, certainly global opportunities is one of our key strategies in the marketplace. The non US growth strategy is in that sweet spot right now, but we're obviously managing flows over the next year.

Global value would clearly be in that list there in a pooled vehicle capacity. The global equity strategy just hit the five year record, it has about a little over $700,000,000 in the strategy. For larger mandates that 700,000,000 may not meet the asset threshold for a search, but it's getting into that realizable capacity on a broad basis probably over the next year. And I think closing of the non US growth strategy will help that strategy, the global equity strategy as a whole. And then the earlier ones coming online, which is developing world and high income are in their infancy stages.

So you're getting the new adopter money as opposed to the realizable capacity because obviously they don't have a three year record or that minimum asset or that proven history with the firm. But a year or two both those will come online into that realizable capacity if we can continue the excess return.

Speaker 5

Got it. And given I mean given Brian and Lewis' tenure in the investment community, do you see any institutional pickup interest from consultants on those strategies or do you think you need to wait for the three year threshold?

Speaker 2

For true realizable capacity, you have to wait for the criteria. The unknown is the level of or the number of early adopters that would come in because of Lewis' and Brian's history and track record in the marketplace. We don't predict that or assume what that number will be. I think it could have been a little higher for the developing world if you didn't have a negative 17%, 18% in emerging markets for the quarter.

Speaker 5

Great, thanks a lot.

Speaker 0

And this concludes our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the call back over to our leaders for any final remarks.

Speaker 2

Again, great. I thank you everybody for your time. As we always said, I know time is a valuable asset. And clearly, with the volatility and with the demand on all of our businesses that we have to make choices on time and appreciate everybody dialing in this quarter. Thank you.

Speaker 0

And thank you, sir. Today's conference has now concluded and we thank you all for attending today's presentation.

Speaker 2

You may

Speaker 3

now

Speaker 0

disconnect.