Federated Hermes - Earnings Call - Q3 2025

Executive Summary

• EPS $1.34, up 26% YoY and up 16% QoQ; revenue $469.4m, up 15% YoY and up 10% QoQ; both beat Wall Street consensus (EPS $1.12*, revenue $445.3m*) driven by higher average money market and equity assets; total AUM reached a record $871.2B.
• Money market fund assets hit a record $492.7B; revenue mix: 52% money markets, 29% equity, 11% fixed income, 6% alternatives/multi-asset, 2% other. Distribution expense rose with higher fund assets and “Other” expense increased on FX.
• Strategic actions: tokenized UCITS money market funds via Archax and participation in a BNY Mellon/Goldman blockchain initiative; definitive agreement to acquire 80% of FCP (U.S. real estate), expected close 1H26; ~$2.1B net institutional mandates yet to fund entering Q4.
• CFO flagged Q4 upward pressure in compensation and distribution expenses, ~$3m incremental professional fees (FCP closing costs), FX sensitivity, and planned resumption of share repurchases; Q3 effective tax rate was 24.4%.
• Potential stock catalysts: repeated beats, record AUM, MDT franchise momentum, alt expansion (FCP) and digital/tokenization initiatives; watchpoints include FX-driven variability, rising distribution expense, and alt AUM decline from UK property trust restructuring.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Record AUM ($871.2B) and record money market fund assets ($492.7B) with revenue +15% YoY and +10% QoQ on higher average assets.
• MDT strategies momentum: “MDT equity strategies had Q3 net sales of $2 billion,” with top-quartile performance across most MDT equity funds (1-, 3-, 5-, 10-year).
• Fixed income improved: Q3 fixed income net sales of $1.7B vs Q2 net redemptions of $2.4B; record fixed income AUM $101.8B.

What Went Wrong

• FX and “Other” expense headwinds: “Other” expense rose $14.3m QoQ on FX; CFO cited a $9.4m FX swing and $2.8m U.S. withholding tax matter impacting “Other.”
• Equity separate accounts outflows: Q3 equity net sales slightly negative ($130m) as strong fund inflows were offset by ~$1.5B SA redemptions (client moves to passive and plan mergers).
• Alternatives/private markets AUM down $1.7B QoQ on UK property trust restructuring and real estate SA redemptions; alt/private markets ended Q3 at $19.0B.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Greetings. Welcome to the Federated Hermes Q3 2025 analyst call and webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Ray Hanley, President of Federated Investors Management Company. You may begin.

Ray Hanley (President)

Good morning and welcome. Leading today's call will be J. Christopher Donahue, CEO and President of Federated Hermes, and Tom Donahue, Chief Financial Officer. Participating in the Q&A are Saker Nusseibeh, the CEO of Federated Hermes Limited, and Debbie Cunningham, our Chief Investment Officer for Money Markets. During today's call, we may make forward-looking statements, and we want to note that Federated Hermes' 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, and Federated Hermes assumes no duty to update any of these forward-looking statements. Chris?

John Donahue (CEO and President)

Thank you, Ray. Good morning. I will review Federated Hermes' business performance. Tom will comment on the financial results. We ended the third quarter with record assets under management of $871 billion, led by gains from our money market and equity strategies. Equity assets increased by $5.7 billion, or 6%, from the prior quarter, due mainly to market gains. Q3 equity net sales were slightly negative, $130 million, as solid net fund sales of $1.4 billion were offset by about $1.5 billion of separate account net redemptions driven by one client and all their CIT strategies moving to passive ETFs, and another client where pension funds were merged, and the surviving plan happens to use private strategies, passive strategies. Interestingly, we are also seeing other clients interested in moving from passives into our MDT strategies, which have had several RFPs come in from investors considering this switch.

The MDT fundamental quant strategies produced solid results again in the third quarter. MDT equity strategies had Q3 net sales of $2 billion. Looking at MDT fund performance rankings as of September 30. Seven of the eight MDT equity mutual fund strategies are in the top performance quartile of their Morningstar categories for the trailing one and three years, and all eight are top quartile for the trailing five and ten years. Four of these strategies are in the top decile for the trailing three years. We had net sales in 20 equity fund strategies during the third quarter, including, obviously, a variety of the MDT offerings and the Asia X Japan fund leading the pack. We are actively developing MDT distribution opportunities outside of the U.S. and are finding considerable interest from institutions, intermediaries, and others.

For example, the MDT US Equity UCITS fund, that means it's registered for us in Dublin, launched in June, is off to a great start. We are seeing strong demand from clients outside of the U.S. and have already had $340 million in net sales from inception through last week. Now, looking at our equity fund performance at the end of Q3 and using Morningstar data for trailing three years, 53% of our equity funds were beating peers, and 33% were in the top quartile of their category. For the fourth quarter through October 24th, combined equity funds and SMAs had net sales of $580 million. Now, turning to fixed income. Assets increased by $3.1 billion from the prior quarter, to reach a record high of $101.8 billion at the end of Q3.

Fixed income total net sales improved by $4.1 billion, as we had $1.7 billion of net sales in the third quarter, compared to net redemptions of $2.4 billion in the second quarter. Q3 net sales included about $1.4 billion from two large public entities that have regular sizable inflows and outflows. We had 24 fixed income funds with net sales in the third quarter, led by the three ultra-short funds with $579 million combined and the sustainable global investment-grade UCITS fund, about $240 million. Regarding performance at the end of the third quarter, using Morningstar data for the trailing three years, 44% of our equity and fixed income funds were beating peers, and 15% were in the top quartile of their category. For Q4 through October 24th, combined fixed income funds and SMAs had net redemptions of about $250 million.

This was occasioned by positives in ultra-shorts and total return bond fund that were overcome by negatives in high-yield bonds. In the alternative private markets category, assets decreased by about $1.7 billion from the prior quarter, mainly due to $1.1 billion in real estate fund transactions from that we have previously discussed, the restructuring of a UK property trust in the third quarter. This fund was successfully managed by us for many years. It was specifically designed for defined benefit clients. There are very few of these left. The liquidity was an important factor. The decision was made to move it to one of the last remaining managers of this type of DB fund, for which we received financial consideration that Tom will address.

Real estate also had net redemptions of $446 million from separate accounts in Q3, due mainly to property sales that were driven by a client's change to their asset composition. The MDT market-neutral alternative strategy had net sales of $173 million in Q3 and now stands with assets of about $1.7 billion. We are currently in the market with European Direct Lending III, the third vintage of our European Direct Lending Fund. Today, we've closed on about $680 million. For information, EDL raised $300 million, and EDL II raised about $640 million. We are also in the market with our Global Private Equity Co-Invest Fund, which is the sixth vintage of the PEC series. Today, we've closed on approximately $318 million, and PECs one through five raised approximately $400 million-$600 million in each fund.

We're also in the market with the European Real Estate Debt Fund, which is a new pooled debt equity fund. The marketing will continue here into 2026. We're also actively working on Energy Solutions product development plans following the Q2 acquisition of a majority interest in Rivington. Last week, we announced the agreement to purchase a controlling interest in FCP, a U.S.-based real estate investment manager with $3.8 billion of assets under management as of June 30. The acquisition will facilitate Federated Hermes' entrance into the U.S. real estate market at a time when the U.S. multifamily sector, where FCP concentrates its efforts, enjoys strong fundamentals and significant growth opportunities. FCP has a strong, experienced management team who have led the firm's growth through changing market conditions for over 25 years. We believe that FCP will be an excellent complement to our UK-based real estate business.

There, with more than 40 years of experience, our UK-based team has more than 55 professionals managing $5.5 billion as of the end of Q3. Now, back on FCP, we're planning to close the purchase around the end of the first quarter of 2026. Across our long-term investment platform, we began Q4 with about $2.1 billion in net institutional mandates yet to fund in both funds and separate accounts. Let's delve into that. Approximately $1.6 billion is expected to come into private market strategies, which include direct lending over $800 million, private equity a little over $650 million, and trade finance at $100 million. Equities are expected additions of $1.2 billion, with about $875 million into MDT and about $365 million into international and global equity strategies.

Fixed income is expected to have net redemptions of about $650 million, with wins of about $380 million in high yield and short duration, offset by a single $1 billion high-yield redemption. Moving on to money markets, we reached another record high at the end of Q3 for total money market assets, which increased by $18 billion to reach $653 billion. Money market fund assets increased by $24.7 billion, or 5%, in Q3 to reach a record high of $492.7 billion. Money market separate accounts decreased by $6.3 billion in Q3, reflecting seasonal patterns. Market conditions remain favorable for cash as an asset class. In addition to the appeal of the relative safety and periods of volatility, money market strategies present opportunities to earn attractive yields compared to alternatives like bank deposits, direct investments in T-bills, and commercial paper.

We're also developing money market funds and share classes available in tokenized form, working with parties on digital asset infrastructure. These efforts include a planned Genius Act-compliant money market fund designed to serve as collateral for stablecoins. Last week, we announced that we have made two of our UCITS money market funds, our Sterling Prime and U.S. Dollar Prime, available in tokenized form through Archax. Archax is a well-known digital assets operator in the UK, having launched in 2018 and become the first FCA-regulated digital securities exchange, broker-dealer, and custodian. This represents Federated Hermes' initial non-U.S. digital asset initiative. The Archax relationship complements our digital efforts, where we are the sub-advisor for the Super State Short Duration U.S. Government Securities Fund, a private tokenized fund with about $735 million in assets.

We will also participate in the launch of a collaborative initiative between BNY Mellon and Goldman Sachs that will use blockchain technology to maintain a record of their customers' ownership of select money market funds, a significant step towards enhancing the utility and transferability of existing money market fund shares. We are exploring numerous other additional digital asset opportunities. We are committed to the digital space, where we expect ongoing innovation and growth. Our estimate of money market mutual fund market share, including sub-advised funds, remained at about 7.11% at the end of the third quarter. Now, looking at recent asset totals as of a few days ago, managed assets were approximately $865 billion, including $645 billion in money markets, $96 billion in equities, $102 billion in fixed income, $19 billion in alternative private markets, and $3 billion in multi-asset. Money market mutual fund assets stood at $486 billion. Tom?

Tom Donahue (Director and CFO)

Thanks, Chris. For Q3, compared to the prior quarter, total revenue increased $44.6 million or 10%. Revenue from higher money market assets provided $17.6 million of this increase, while higher equity assets added $14.8 million. An extra day in the quarter added $4.9 million, higher performance fees added $2.4 million, and the Rivington acquisition added $1.2 million. Q3 revenue also included a termination fee of $4.6 million from the restructure of the UK property trust, and this was about one year of revenue from that mandate. Total Q3 carried interest and performance fees were $3.6 million compared to $1.4 million last quarter. Approximately $733,000 of the Q3 fees were offset by nearly the same amount of compensation expense. Q3 operating expenses increased by $32.2 million, or 10%, from the prior quarter, due mainly to higher distribution expense from higher fund assets of $14.2 million.

We had about $2 million in transaction costs from the FCP acquisition in Q3 in the professional service fees line. In other expense line items, FX and related expense increased by $9.4 million in Q3 compared to the prior quarter. These expenses were $3.7 million in Q3 compared to a credit of $5.7 million for Q2 as the pound weakened against the dollar in Q3. The other expense line item for Q3 also included $2.8 million related to a U.S. withholding tax matter on certain non-U.S. funds. The effective tax rate was 24.4%. The tax rate was impacted by $1.6 million related to R&D tax credits. At the end of Q3, cash and investments were $647 million. Cash and investments, excluding the portion attributable to non-controlling interest, were $610 million.

We expect to use about $216 million in cash and about $23 million in FHI Class B stock for the upfront purchase price of FCP controlling interest acquisition. During Q3, the company paused its open market share repurchase as we entered exclusive negotiations with FCP. We expect to be active again in Q4 and repurchase shares in the open market. Holly, we'd like to open the call up for questions now.

Operator (participant)

Certainly. At this time, we will be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys.

One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Your first question for today is from Ken Worthington with JPMorgan.

Michael Cohen (Managing Director)

Hi. Good morning, Kristen. This is Michael Choen for Ken. Thanks for taking my questions today. For my first question, I just want to touch on the MDT franchise. I mean, there's clearly some growing momentum there. You called out some new RFPs, a pretty sizable pipeline, as well as some initiatives to expand distribution, more notably outside the U.S. I mean, so how do we think we should kind of frame the potential sizing and maybe the pace of AUM or flows growth of the overall MDT franchise as you continue to scale and as the non-U.S. distribution starts to pull through? Just trying to get a sense of how we should frame that opportunity set.

John Donahue (CEO and President)

I think you should frame it with enthusiasm and optimism.

If you look at the sales to date through this timeframe, they're still running. Net sales up through October 24th of about $660 million. The pipeline continues. For us, the exciting thing is the fact that we were able to sell these mandates across the globe. If you look at where they're coming from, they're coming from different countries in different ways and in different of the mandates exactly on MDT. I can't get into exactly who the clients are, but in those pipeline numbers is a great variety of client types and geographies.

Michael Cohen (Managing Director)

Thanks. Understood. If I could just ask a quick follow-up on expenses, just broader over the year ahead. You have a number of initiatives. You called out a bunch today. Clearly, alternatives and the FCP acquisition is ahead.

You also have a number of things happening within money markets and blockchain, digital assets, and clearly kind of extension of some of your key franchises. If I just think about the expense base and over the next 12 months or so, how should we kind of think about the trajectory there as you continue to invest organically and inorganically across the business?

Tom Donahue (Director and CFO)

Thanks. The first thing, FCP, if we close that near the end of the first quarter, then, of course, those expenses will come in. We've kind of factored that in on last week's discussion about our view of after transaction costs. It would be an accretive thing. Also in 2027, much more accretive based on our estimates of what we think is going to happen there. Of course, revenue will go up and the expenses will go up.

In terms of you're calling out a few things, obviously the digital things and money market stuff and other expansions, I don't see outside expenses coming in here. If they do, we would fully expect them to come with revenue shortly thereafter. If you want me to go through the, not for the year, but for the next quarter, a few comments on the line items. I'd expect comp and related to go up, as sales are increasing and therefore incentive comp is going up, and investment management performance is causing us to increase the incentives there. On the corporate side, we're also increasing the incentive. These are all positive success items. On the distribution line item, we expect that to go up. As you look at average assets, distribution line item, another success item goes up.

On the professional service fees, looking at it today, we already said we'd expect some more FCP closing costs in Q4, but we had a couple of million, as I mentioned, in Q3. Maybe we'll have $3 million more as a change. The other line has FX in it, and that has that tax payment that we talked about. What's going to happen in FX, we will see. Those are all comments on a quarterly, not a yearly basis.

Michael Cohen (Managing Director)

Great, thank you.

Operator (participant)

Your next question for today is from Bill Katz with TD Cowen.

Robin Holby (Equity Research Associate Analyst)

Good morning. This is Robin Holbey on for Bill Katz, and thanks for taking the question. Heading into 2026, what are you hearing from your institutional investors on allocations? Where are you seeing opportunities, and how are you thinking about the pace of deployment for the institutional pipeline?

John Donahue (CEO and President)

The institutional pipeline, I tried to hint at this a few minutes ago, is very, very strong. As we told you, we've got over $2 billion in it. If you look into that, the pipeline is to see performance and different countries. I was a little more general the last time, but we have a Belgium all-cap core MDT big mandate that we've won. In Canada, it's an international leaders mandate that we've won. In the UK, a global equity mandate. In South Korea, a blended MDT. Another UK client came into the all-cap core MDT. We have an MDT win in the Mid East as well. It's across the board of performance-oriented activity. If you look at the style box purity of the various MDT offerings, you get a sense that people are looking at it that way.

I did hint that we are seeing some clients—this is not an avalanche, don't go writing big hairy articles—that people are looking at what they really own inside a passive or indexed situation and are thinking that maybe they need to look at some of the MDT mandates as alternatives.

Tom Donahue (Director and CFO)

Robin, on the terms of the pace of the funding of the pipeline, about two-thirds of it we expect to fund here in the fourth quarter. With the equity and fixed income equity inflows, fixed income outflows happening this quarter, and about half of the alt funding happening this quarter. The alts usually have a longer tail, so they will continue to fund through the first half of next year, Q1 and Q2, pretty evenly.

John Donahue (CEO and President)

Okay. Holly, we must go to the next question.

Operator (participant)

We have reached the end of the question and answer session, and I will now turn the call over to Ray for closing remarks.

Ray Hanley (President)

Thank you for joining us. That concludes our call.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. This concludes today's conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.