Federated Hermes - Earnings Call - Q1 2019

Transcript

Speaker 0

Greetings, and welcome to the Federated Investors First Quarter twenty nineteen Analyst Call and Webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Mr.

Ray Hanley, President of Federated Investors Management Company. Thank you. You may begin.

Speaker 1

Good morning and welcome. Leading our call today will be Chris Donahue, Federated's CEO and President and Tom Donahue, Chief Financial Officer. And joining us for the Q and A are Thacker Nisebe, the CEO of Hermes and Debbie Cunningham, the Chief Investment Officer for our Money Market Investment Operations. During today's call, we may make forward looking statements, and we want to note that Federated's actual results may be materially different than the results implied by such statements. Please review the risk disclosures in our SEC filings.

No assurance can be given as to future results. Federated assumes no duty to update any of these forward looking statements. Chris? Thank you, and good morning. I will briefly review Federated's business performance and Tom will comment on our financial results.

Looking first at equities, we closed the first quarter with $80,200,000,000 of assets, up from $72,500,000,000 at the 2018. Market related gains offset net redemptions, which decreased from the prior quarter. Equity mutual fund flows were positive by about 400,000,000 and equity SMA net redemptions decreased to $228,000,000 which is down from $884,000,000 in the fourth quarter. Higher gross sales and lower redemptions in the strategic value dividend strategy factored into the improvement in the equity fund and SMA results. Equity institutional accounts had about $970,000,000 in net redemptions in Q1 with about $750,000,000 due to BGPS making substantially all of their expected 2019 drawdowns from various Hermes accounts.

We had 16 equity funds with positive net sales in the first quarter led by Kaufman SmallCap, Hermes Global Emerging Markets Funds and several MDT Funds. Additional Hermes equity funds that achieved positive net sales in the first quarter included Global Emerging Markets SNP fund, Global Equity ESG fund and the Impact Opportunities fund. Using Morningstar data for the trailing three years at the end of the year, about onethree of our equity funds were in the top quartile and about twothree were in the top half. Five star equity funds at the end of the first quarter included MDT SmallCap Core, MidCap Growth and AllCap Core, the Kaufman small cap and Hermes global emerging markets. We had eleven four star equity funds, including various MDT Kaufman and Hermes strategies.

Looking at the strategic value dividend strategy, its objective is to provide a high and growing dividend income stream from high quality companies. The domestic funds twelve month distribution yield of 3.77 ranked in the first percentile of its Morningstar category at the end of the first quarter. Domestic strategic value dividend strategy had combined mutual fund and SMA outflows of $450,000,000 in Q1, down from $1,500,000,000 in Q4. Looking at early Q2 twenty nineteen results, combined fund and SMA net redemptions for this strategy were about 57,000,000 through the April. Overall, combined equity fund and SMA net sales for the April were positive at about $62,000,000 Now turning to fixed income.

Assets increased by about $1,000,000,000 in Q1 to $64,000,000,000 due mainly to market related gains of just about 2,000,000,000 partially offset by nearly $1,000,000,000 of net redemptions. On the fund side, net inflows of about $275,000,000 in total return bond and trade finance combined were offset by outflows of about $535,000,000 in high yield and multi strategy credit also combined. These outflows included about $200,000,000 from the planned redemptions of BTPS seed investments in certain Hermes funds. For fixed income separate accounts, net outflow was due largely to the net redemption of about $375,000,000 related to a large client's usage of cash. Our fixed income business has a variety of strategies that are performing well.

At quarter end, using Morningstar data for three years, we had eight funds, 25% in the top quartile, including total return bond and Hermes multi strategy credit and 23 funds, almost 75% in the top half. Fixed income fund and SMA net sales are positive early in Q2 at about $214,000,000 In the alternatives category, assets at quarter end were $17,900,000,000 down from $18,300,000,000 at year end. This decrease, however, was due to the success of various Hermes private market strategies that have been reflected as distributions of gains. Now looking at money markets. Total money market assets increased approximately $16,000,000,000 in Q1 with funds up about $6,000,000,000 and separate accounts up about $10,000,000,000 We saw positive money market fund flows from a variety of institutional and intermediary clients in Q1 as money market strategies continue to offer yields well in excess of average deposit rates.

Prime money fund assets increased nearly $8,000,000,000 or 18% in Q1 from about $45,000,000,000 in Q4 to almost $53,000,000,000 here in Q1. Our money market mutual fund market share, including sub advised funds at the end of the quarter was up slightly just below 8%. Taking a look at our most recent available asset totals, federated as of the twenty fourth and really Hermes as of the seventeenth, managed assets were approximately $490,000,000,000 including $321,000,000,000 in money markets, 82,000,000,000 in equities, 65,000,000,000 in fixed income, 18,000,000,000 in alternative, 4,000,000,000 in multi asset. Money market mutual fund assets were $215,000,000,000 Federated and Hermes RFP and related activity levels continue to be solid and diversified with interest in NBT, Kaufman and global emerging markets for equities and multi sector and short duration for fixed income. And we began the quarter with about $1,900,000,000 in net institutional mandates yet to fund with about $800,000,000 in fixed income and $1,000,000,000 in equities.

We expect these wins to fund over 2019 with about $1,700,000,000 into separate accounts and $200,000,000 into funds. Turning to the international side, we announced this week the launch of the next two Federated Hermes funds, the Federated Hermes Global Equity Fund and the Federated Hermes Global Small Cap Fund. Each fund follows the investment strategy of a similar Hermes fund, which combined have grown to nearly $4,000,000,000 We continue to move forward in registering additional U. S. Mutual funds to offer additional HERMES strategies to our customers.

We are also actively presenting HERMES strategies with our institutional clients and are working with HERMES to develop opportunities for them to offer federated strategies to their clients. We are continuing with plans for U. S. Expansion in 2019 of the Hermes EOS, Equity Ownership Services business that features leading ESG stewardship and engagement services to institutional asset owners and pension funds. Hermes EOS assets under administration reached $587,000,000,000 at the end of Q1, up from just under $500,000,000,000 at year end.

Hermes managed assets at year end were approximately 44,300,000,000 up from $42,600,000,000 at year end, with market gains offsetting net redemptions. Third party positive net sales of $263,000,000 were offset by BTPS' net redemptions of about $1,300,000,000 Hermes built on the successful Q4 launch of the global emerging market SMID strategy with more than $50,000,000 of new net sales to bring that fund to over $100,000,000 in assets. Hermes continues to progress in the development and growth of a world class multi asset credit platform featuring the Hermes Unconstrained Credit Fund and the Hermes European Direct Lending Fund, both launched during 2018. We also continue our business development in the Asia Pac region with a focus on opportunities in Greater China, Korea, Japan and are actively working to establish strategic relationships with select financial institutions to add regional distribution of Federated investment strategies. This effort complements Federated's European, UK and Canadian operations.

Tom? Thank you, Chris. Total revenue was down slightly from the prior quarter due mainly to fewer days, which reduced revenue by 7,600,000.0 and a $2,700,000 decrease in performance fees, which were $3,100,000 in Q1 compared to $5,800,000 in Q4. These decreases were partially offset by $10,800,000 in higher revenue from higher average money market assets. Revenue was up about $43,000,000 compared to Q1 of last year due mainly to the consolidation of Hermes revenue of $48,300,000 and higher money market revenue of $16,000,000 These revenue increases were partially offset by lower equity related revenue of $12,400,000 and lower fixed income related revenue of $3,300,000 The increase in operating expenses from the prior quarter of $16,900,000 was mainly due to higher incentive compensation and seasonally higher payroll taxes, seasonal bonus restricted stock expense and to higher distribution expense from higher average money market asset money market fund assets.

The increase from Q1 twenty eighteen of approximately 52,000,000 was due mainly to the consolidation of Hermes expense of $51,300,000 including the amortization of intangibles from expect the Hermes deal related amortization to be about $11,000,000 in 2019. At the end of Q1, cash and investments were $162,000,000 of which about $124,000,000 was available to us. Michelle, that concludes our prepared remarks, and we would like to open the call up for questions now.

Speaker 0

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. Our first question comes from the line of Ken Worthington with JPMorgan. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 2

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my Maybe first, Federated's money market fund business lost market share pretty consistently in the decade that followed the financial crisis and market share gains have actually been pronounced more recently. Can you talk about positioning of your funds and maybe what you attribute this transition from the more consistent market share losses to the more consistent market share gains that we've seen more recently?

Speaker 3

Ken, this is Debbie. And I think there was a massive amount of consolidation that occurred in the money market space after reform took place in 02/2016. And I think that to some degree is is part of it. We continue to offer a very full slate of money market funds that includes every type of government money market funds. So, yeah, that's the largest category.

It includes all types of both institutional as well as retail prime funds, which have been the on a percentage growth growth basis, the largest growers over the course of the last nine months. And, a full slate of both federally tax exempt as well as state tax exempt municipal products. So as interest rates continue to climb, but as the differentials between those various sectors sort of ebb and flow, we continue to offer a a a a very diversified group of products, which I think is not necessarily the case with many of our competitors at this point.

Speaker 1

There there are some additional factors, Ken, that it what Debbie talked about is a a commitment over decades that gets then reflected when you see the deposit numbers running up all during that time frame and then the yields on our funds being substantially higher than deposits today. So that if you keep your commitment when it's raining dollars, you are a beneficiary. The another factor is that it is important to keep the funds competitive. And back in the old days, it was just keep the funds at one basis point or something above zero. And now we have been very good in both the investment performance and in how we manage the business to keep those yields on a very, very competitive basis.

Speaker 2

Okay. And maybe just to press a little more, Prime would seem to be part of the share loss versus share gain. Do you agree there? And then maybe looking at your distribution channels, is there a channel that seems to be maybe outperforming for you in the money market fund area that may that we may or we should attribute maybe more of the market share gains to, versus the losses in the past?

Speaker 1

Prime is a little different because prime required people to look through the new rules on the NAVs and things like that. And and people are increasingly becoming more sanguine about going into these funds with four nines or four zeros behind the decimal point. And so that that is a a different overriding factor. The the reason people are in money funds is because they want daily liquidity at par, and they had to be absolutely certain that they would get that in the in the prime area.

Speaker 3

And just to give you a couple examples along those lines, and and and our prime products have grown both with regard to the retail distribution side and the the institutional distribution side. Our largest retail prime product at its peak pre reform was about 30,000,000,000 in assets went down to 2,000,000,000, now stands at 22,000,000,000. So it substantially has grown and it has not come out of our government funds. It's come from what Chris Chris was saying, the the the retail deposit basis. From an institutional perspective, our largest product historically hit close to 50,000,000,000 at its peak, went down to 800,000,000.

Yes. Less than a billion, 800,000,000 post reform and today stands just under 20,000,000,000. So, you know, the the the the strength and diversification of the growth in that prime product has has been, has been pretty pretty substantial. From a total distribution channel perspective, it spans the gamut. It's universities.

It's broker dealers. It's bank distributions. It's, you know, various types of of of large private offices. It's it's governmental entities. It's corporations.

It it it it spans the gamut, and, that that's the best kind of growth you can have because it continues to add to the diversification of the client base.

Speaker 2

Okay. And then just on compensation, I apologize if I missed this. Can you help us with an outlook here? The swing between 4Q and 1Q was substantial as I think most of us expected it to be. But how should we look at the rest of the year?

And how good is that 1Q number, compensation number as the run rate for the coming quarters?

Speaker 1

Yes, Ken, great question. If you remember last quarter, I kind of put up my hands and surrender on trying to predict this appropriate or the future. So I'm still surrendering on predicting the future. However, I will answer your questions because if you just we have to we have to put a number in in Q1 that we think is going to be the expense for the year. So this is our best estimate right now on it.

But we're also telling you there were some seasonal things in there, the payroll taxes and as I mentioned, the bonus restricted stock expense. We had about $05,000,000 of under accrued from that's in Q1 that wasn't in Q4 obviously. And the four zero one ks is a little heavier weighted to Q1. So I wouldn't change the number except for the seasonal items. Thank you very much.

Speaker 0

Our next question comes from the line of Michael Carrier with Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Speaker 4

Given a little more time with Hermes, can you provide an update on where you're seeing, some of the attractive distribution opportunities? And then just on the pension redemptions, and even the performance fees, I don't know if you guys can provide any more color on timing, meaning are the pension outflows typically going to be in 1Q or was this more unusual this year? And then same thing for the performance fees. Are there any quarters that tend to generate more performance fees versus less?

Speaker 1

Let let's try to do these questions in reverse. I'll I'll let Saker handle the question of BTPS and their redemptions, and then I will come back with the other opportunities, and Saker can add in other opportunity ideas as well. Saker?

Speaker 5

Thank you. So as you know, we have a very strong relationship with BTPS both

Speaker 1

as

Speaker 5

a minority owner and a large client of ours. And at the time of the deal, we had assumed that some of the growth assets, certainly the equity assets, would over time redeem at a given and pre agreed flight path. And the reason for that it's a mature direct benefit PB Fund. And as time passes by they just put more and more of the money in matching assets. Roughly speaking, we've got about EUR 13,000,000,000 of that assets, we're about EUR 9,000,000,000 in private market assets and about EUR 4,000,000,000 in global separate assets and these are the ones that come down over time.

This year it so happened that pretty much the amount of redemption that we were expecting throughout this year happened in the first quarter. Is this normally depends on what the use of cash is. So you can't say that therefore going forward it will only happen in the first quarter and not on a quarterly basis. What we are more comfortable with is that this is the level that we agreed at the time of the deal and that continues to be on track.

Speaker 1

Okay. In terms of your question on the opportunities, we see we had very good success with our initial road shows to American clients back at the end of last year. And that set the stage for launching the half a dozen or so funds that are either in registration or actually out on the field that I talked about in my remarks and that we made a press release earlier this week on. And what this involves is we think that all of those funds, each of those funds have a great opportunity for a retail presence. On the institutional side, both as a follow-up to the roadshow and responding to various RFPs, the institutional sales are going well.

But you're not gonna see anything immediately. That's a little longer sales cycle, and we are quite optimistic about what we can do there. And it's across the board on several of Hermes mandates. Down the road, we would see opportunities for us to bring the alternatives, infrastructure, and real estate ideas to The US, but that's a down the road deal. The other thing that we would talk about here would be the EOS, the equity ownership services, which we plan to start and develop here in The United States under Hermes auspices to continue the engagement success that they've had and to offer this service to asset owners in The United States.

Another picture of the opportunities though has to be what I've come to term a reverse transformational merger where we are most anxious to move from doing the way we've done business, which is analyzing governance and social factors, environmental factors, to becoming what would be labeled as aware of these to becoming integrated. And the way that happens is to allow the data from Hermes on both their investment analysis side and on the EO side to flow through to the investment platforms of our investment professionals. And that's another great opportunity that we see and how a lot of our clients in our funds can benefit from an entire operation that is integrated and using those factors to improve performance. And Mike, it's Ray. Just to reiterate some of the points that Saker made and that we made at other points during the call, The redemptions that BTPS had in Q1 included some seed money and distributions from private markets.

Obviously, distributions from private markets will be ongoing when and as they come. The seed money substantially has been drawn out. So that would not repeat. And as Safra mentioned, we're really talking about the roughly $4,000,000,000 in equity separate accounts being on a multiyear redemption pattern. And Mike, last question on timing of performance fees.

So certainly, were Q1 numbers and Q4 numbers. And I can't really tie that down. Zaker, you want to talk about your expectation of performance fees, how about it?

Speaker 5

So I'm afraid I can't tie it down either. It depends on I mean, we get performance fees from a variety of private markets all the way through from property to private equity and it depends on when the assets are sold and when the hurdles are met. And so it cannot be predicted. There is generally speaking an amount that we'd expect on a yearly basis, but again the distribution depends on how it comes through. So I'm afraid I can't be much help there.

I will go back on the previous question though. And I know that in previous discussions that you've had with Federated, we've always talked about AUM. In Hermes, we tend to talk about revenue because, of course, as we move our asset base around, it is logical to think that essentially our net revenues can increase. And that is quite substantial. So when we look at our flows coming through, one of the things that we look for is particularly in third party flows is how much net new revenue have we added on an annualized basis to the year And that is sort of the measure of future success, if you like.

So a redemption of assets is not always negative because in the long term, it might allow you to have higher fees.

Speaker 4

Right. Okay. No, that's helpful color. And Tom, just real quick on the comp, just for clarification. I know you don't want to predict it at this point, but do you have just the amount that was just the seasonal items?

That would just be helpful so we can try to

Speaker 6

figure out the run rate.

Speaker 1

Yes. The, payroll tax and four zero one ks items were about $3,300,000 The, bonus restricted stock expense was about 1,400,000.0

Speaker 4

Okay. Thanks a lot.

Speaker 0

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Bill Katz with Citi. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 7

Okay. Thank you very much for taking the questions. Just coming back to the pipeline of new mandates for them but not yet funded. So it seems like it's heavily skewed toward the more separate account institutional side. Can you give us a sense of how the fee rates on those product wins compared to legacy business?

Speaker 1

Bill, it's Ray. I would expect them to be comparable, but I don't have a summary of that to repurchase. That's something we could take a look at and follow-up on.

Speaker 7

Okay. And just my follow-up question then would be just on capital management. It does look like repurchase slowed for the second quarter in a row or relatively low compared to maybe prior run rates. I know there's been a lot going on in terms of funding the Hermes platform. And then can you sort of give us a sense of, as you look ahead, how you sort of see free cash flow usage priorities?

Speaker 1

Yes. Right. There is a lot going on. Chris mentioned a couple of products that we seeded and we expect more seeding in the future. And we did use up a pretty significant amount of cash in the Hermes deal.

And so we've been building that back up. We, of course, continue our dividend. And yes, we were repurchases light this quarter. We run our models on repurchases. And the price is going up, and we make our decisions daily on what we're going to do there.

And also, if you remember our history, when we've done deals and had M and A going on before and after, we have not purchased as many shares in the past. So would that continue in the future? Probably.

Speaker 7

Thank you.

Speaker 0

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Dan Fannon with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 6

Thanks. Just curious about the outlook for the growth in the alternatives kind of private market business. Is that something where we should see larger kind of fundraising cycles? Or would this be more piecemeal in terms of how that's

Speaker 8

going to grow?

Speaker 1

Saker, I'll let you address that from the European side because that is overwhelmingly a U. K, European effort at this point. And as I mentioned in my remarks, bringing it to The U. S. Is a longer term deal.

Saker?

Speaker 5

Yes. Thank you. So again, I'm afraid the answer is non, since that it depends which part of the private markets we're talking about. So if you're talking about something like our private equity, and typically speaking, that follows a cycle of raising assets for funds, which are then closed and put to work and that goes into a multi year cycle and that tends to work very well and we've had very strong success there. When it comes to property, it tends to be much more project by project related where we have a group of clients that we go to and that is generally speaking as much more substantial commitment for a much longer period of time.

And that tends to be much more lumpy just by the nature of the investment within the projects. And here, we're talking about long term development projects as opposed to simply managing assets over a five year horizon. So we're talking about a much longer term horizon than that. So in general, we go at funding on a normalized basis, on a continuing basis, but by definition, some of it, particularly the very large property ones can be lumpy, but the others are not. I hope that sort of helps answer your question.

Speaker 6

Sure. But just a follow-up then. So when was the last private equity fund you raised? And when do you think you might be coming to market again with another one?

Speaker 5

So we've just closed the last one. We've raised very successfully, and we have just launched the next one or we will be launching the next one as we speak, as we go forward.

Speaker 6

Okay. And then just a follow-up on compensation maybe with Hermes versus legacy versus Federated and thinking about the businesses, we talked about revenue versus asset growth. I guess, is there different compensation plans within the two entities versus how we might have thought about Federated historically versus now as we think about Hermes combined? Is it still are there different incentives and people paid off revenues versus profitability versus kind of various targets? Just curious about as we think about performance fees and different metrics we have today and then looking at legacy Federated and how the overall compensation pool might differ now.

Speaker 5

So one has to be careful here because we are, of course, part of the same group and therefore follow the same theory if you like. However, English law is different. And specifically within English law, you are not allowed to link compensation to sales as an example. You can link it to percent of revenue if you want to, we don't but you can. But you cannot incentivize people on sales.

In general, the way that we do it at Hermes is we link it to the overall profitability of the entirety of the firm and that's profitability of the entirety of the firm and we link it also to our revenue growth and to our long term performance and it's discretionary, which is a standard within The UK. Both the pot itself is discretionary and then the allocation of the pot is discretionary. You would expect us because we're such an alpha house in equity stage and we're so high active share, meaning we're very differentiated from the benchmark to put a large part of that discretion for the fund managers depending on long term risk adjusted returns after fees, which we do. So that will give you an idea of how we could just looking at the public record will give you an idea of how the compensation is going. By long term, mean five years.

And for our business development and for our operational platforms you'd expect us to link it to the growth of our business. I hope again that gives you color of how we do it. We also put a lot of emphasis on behaviors particularly within Hermes. I mean we are very specific firm and behaviors run very highly for us because we think it leads to looking after the client first and foremost more than other firms who have competed us here in The UK market. We think it leads to better cooperation between the teams and we think it leads to better cooperation between the business development and the teams on operations.

So behaviors are a large part of also the compensation requirement, but it's all discretionary.

Speaker 1

And if you're interested in the contrast, which I gathered from your question, you were, remember a couple of things at the beginning. The reason this transaction occurred successfully was because of a cultural connection, successful connection between Federated and Hermes. And that however you do it, way Saker just described or the way I'm gonna describe, we do a lot of our compensation here. It is based on performance, performance in the marketplace, performance in the office, etcetera. One of the strengths of how we did this this deal was to allow Hermes to flourish the way they had been flourishing before so that we are not imposing Federated method or the American method of compensation onto their their business.

On the other hand, if you talk to the head of HR here and the head of HR over there, you'll find a very, very, very similar approach to all of these different things. Now just to reflect what we've said on here before about how we do the compensation, the investment professionals are compensated primarily on the three year rolling performance of their mandates, and the salespeople are compensated on the basis of sales and net sales depending on which department and which area they're working on. And the executives are compensated on the basis of the overall performance of the entire enterprise. Now that will shortcut a lot of different things, but those you picked up the basics in these last few minutes.

Speaker 4

Great. Thank you.

Speaker 0

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Kenneth Lee with RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 8

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Just a follow-up on the alternative and private market AUM. Is there a way you could quantify the distribution of gains and perhaps give us a sense of what the flows were like excluding the distribution gains?

Speaker 5

So if you ask me, can I give you how much we've raised in third party, I will come back to that? I will certainly get it to you because we published the data and we can get that to you, absolutely.

Speaker 8

Okay. Great. Then perhaps just one on the Institutional Prime Money Market Fund. Sounds like there's good growth there. And in terms of the clients getting more warmed up to the product, just wondering how much of that could be due to more corporate customers getting either operational changes to be more accepting of the floating NAVs?

Just wondering what that change could be driven by. Thanks.

Speaker 3

Sure. I'll take that one, Kenneth. And ultimately, back in 2016, when customers chose to know, go in mass into government products, I'd say three quarters of them did not have to. From an operational perspective, maybe they were a little weary about their operations being able to process and accept a four digit NAV. Maybe they were a little bit concerned about what these gates and fees, you know, phenomenon might might provide for them or or, you know, put up as as as some sort of a hurdle for them.

And and, ultimately, I think many just didn't want to be sort of the the test guinea pigs, if you will, for what was an uncertainty on a product change basis for, you know, the packaging of the product. They understood the investment ideas, but they didn't understand the packaging changes. And, you know, that to me is is is, the types of customers that today have reviewed over the course of the last two and a half years what has happened from an NAB movement standpoint, are comfortable with their own systems at this point and have seen that no one's coming anywhere close to putting a fee or gate on any of these products. And so it's again, new cash coming into the market. They're still putting a lot into the government sector, but they're they're taking a portion of that and and, you know, voting with their feet, if you will, into the prime product.

The other difference, think, that is the, you know, the case now versus maybe back in 2016 is that there's a yield differential. As Chris mentioned, for the longest time when we were in a zero rate environment, it was a maintenance of a zero or one basis point that was kind of sustaining the market. And to the extent that we now are in a yield curve environment where there's twenty, twenty five basis point differential between government and prime, that also factors into the equation.

Speaker 8

Got you. Very helpful. Thank you very much.

Speaker 0

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Mac Sykes with Gabelli and Company. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 1

Good morning, everyone. Good morning. So just to ask two questions separate. Would it be fair to assume the money fund progress in 1Q was actually better just given some of the seasonality? If you could comment on that.

And then secondly, are you looking at the nontransparent ETF structure as a potential vehicle for the future? On on the money funds, you have a good insight there because, frankly, if you talk to our salespeople on that, they would have been happy to just hold serve during the first quarter. And the monies were actually up. So we withstood the normal amount of tax withdrawals and tax planning that goes on and still had enough quarters. So compared to what we normally see historically, yes, it was better.

Do you have additional color on that? Okay. What was your second question on the transparent? Non transparent. Non transparent ETF.

So, okay, so the SEC let one operation out of the cage. There are several others that are still being worked on there. And our comments on on this particular business is that when as and if we believe that the nontransparent ETF is a viable thing, then we start to look at it for it just adds any other package of our underlying mandates. And we've said on this call many times that we look at this business a lot, but we remain, as you know, and that's why you're asking the question, active alpha hunters, high active share as Saker likes to say. And so the the index portion of that has an interest us a lot.

Now in terms of which products may be able to to do this the earliest, we've talked before about perhaps there'd be some MDT mandates or others. But this is at the brainstorming stage here, and don't forget there are several other methodologies in line at the SEC, which many of the practitioners believe will be coming out soon. And there were those who were surprised that one group got out ahead of the others, but we'll see what happens. Great. Thank you.

Speaker 0

Thank you. Our next question is a follow-up from Bill Katz with Citi. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 7

Okay. Thank you very much for taking the extra ones. I just want to clarify the two sizable mandates you called out just in terms of the sort of the full year impact of BTPS coming out of Hermes and then on the fixed income side, the $3.75 or so you sort of suggested it was due to some, you know, ex exogenous items. Are those both in the separately managed account buckets? I'm just trying to verify that.

And then relative to the flows you gave quarter to date, could you bifurcate that between mutual funds and separately managed accounts?

Speaker 1

Bill, on the first part, yes, those were all in separate accounts. On on the the quarter to date flows, they would be weighted toward mutual funds. Just looking at the numbers, the SMA are are slightly positive quarter to date. And so literally by a couple million dollars, the rest would have been in

Speaker 7

funds. K. Thank you.

Speaker 0

Thank you. We have reached the end of our question and answer session. I would like to turn the call back over to management for any closing remarks.

Speaker 1

Well, that will conclude our call, and we thank you for joining us today.

Speaker 0

Thank you. This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation and have a wonderful day.