Janus Henderson Group - Earnings Call - Q2 2019

Transcript

Speaker 0

Good morning. My name is Nicole, and I will be your conference facilitator today. Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Janus Henderson Group Second Quarter twenty nineteen Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer period.

In the interest of time, questions will be limited to one initial and one follow-up question. In today's conference call, certain matters discussed may constitute forward looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward looking statements due to a number of factors, including, but not limited to, those described in the forward looking statement and risk factors section of the company's most recent Form 10 ks and other more recent filings made with the SEC. Janice Henderson assumes no obligation to update any forward looking statements made during the call. Thank you.

And now it is my pleasure to introduce Dick Weil, Chief Executive Officer of Janus Henderson. Mr. Weil, you may begin your conference.

Speaker 1

Welcome, everyone, to the second quarter twenty nineteen earnings call for Janus Henderson Group. I'm joined by Roger Thompson, our CFO. As we've said on previous calls and in line with taking a longer term view of our business, we are using the second quarter call to run through a more robust discussion on the business and our strategy as well as the usual updates on quarterly flow, performance, and financial results. In today's presentation, Roger will review the quarterly results and the current challenges and opportunities facing our business. I will try to give you a deeper look at our five strategic priorities that we have laid out.

Following our prepared remarks, we'll be happy to take your questions as always. Before turning it over to Roger, I wanted to provide my thoughts on the quarter as there are a few important insights I think to highlight. The story for our quarter in my mind has three parts. First, investment performance remained strong. 7280% of the assets are beating their respective benchmarks over three and five year time periods, which is an improvement from the prior quarter and a very strong result.

Second, net outflows of $9,800,000,000 are disappointing. However, with strong markets, our AUM ended up increasing 1%. Third, the financial results in aggregate are better than prior quarter with EPS of $0.61 compared to $0.56 a quarter ago. Looking a bit deeper at the net flow result, there are a few important trends I'd like to highlight. The first one is that the quarterly result reflects 8,400,000,000 of outflows from the four areas that we have previously called to your attention as challenged areas at risk for us, which are in tech, core plus fixed income, European equity strategies, along with our global emerging market strategy following the announcement of that team's departure.

So we expected to see challenging results, in these four areas. We tried to call your attention to it, and indeed these results are disappointing and challenging. The second trend is one that I think you have to look closer to see. Outside of those four areas that I just highlighted, we had 1,400,000,000 of net outflows in the quarter, which is a significant improvement from the result in the first and fourth quarters. This is a very important point, because this area of our business, outside of these four challenge areas, accounts for 80% of the firm's total AUM.

In other words, 80% of the business is strengthening. Now we're absolutely accountable for the full 100% result. And by breaking it out in this way, I don't mean to distract you from that accountability. But I do think it's important to look at the composition of the flows. The current concentration of outflows is masking some really, really great work that's being done, and 80% of our business is improving, and we look forward to seeing that continue.

There are no quick solutions to the flow challenges that we face. We're committed to improving each of our challenged areas, but it's important to be aware that the business has many other elements that we're very optimistic about. With that said, I'll turn it over to Roger here to walk through the quarter's results.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Dick, and thank you everyone for joining us. Dick's giving you the summary of the results. My comments on the details start on slide three with investment performance. Overall investment performance relative to benchmarks for the quarter was strong with all time periods presented showing improved metrics compared to the prior quarter. We saw continued strength in performance of our equity and multi asset capabilities across the one, three, and five year time periods, and short term improvements in our fixed income and in tech capabilities.

Year to date performance of in tech has been encouraging, but the weakness in longer term performance means we still have business at risk. The other notable movement was in alternatives. The UK absolute return strategy had some very strong outperformance from 2018 rollout of the one year measurement period, resulting in a switch to underperformance on a one year basis during the quarter. However, year to date performance remains good. On the right hand side of the slide, you can see that relative performance compared to peers is very strong, with more than two thirds of AUM represented in the top two Morningstar quartiles on a one, three, and five year basis.

85% of equity AUM, our largest capability, is in the top two quartiles on a one year basis, 55% of which is in the first quartile, which is just an outstanding result. Now turning to total company flows. For the quarter, net outflows, as Dick said, were 9,800,000,000 compared to 7,400,000,000.0 last quarter. The increase in net outflows was driven by higher gross redemptions primarily from INTECH and our emerging market strategies, which were partially offset by improved redemptions in fixed income. Normally, next slide looks at flows by capability.

However, this quarter, we've moved that slide to the appendix and wanted to spend a few minutes breaking down the flow results between the known areas of concern, as Dick's just spoken about, and the remaining areas of the business. On the first quarter call, we spoke about three specific areas of investment performance weakness that we were concerned about, which included the INTECH, core plus fixed income, and European equity strategies. In addition to those areas, we also said that we expected all of the AUM in our global emerging market strategy to be at high risk following the announcement of the team's departure. This quarter's flow result is a reflection of those concerns. First, in looking at the four areas previously highlighted as concerns, Intech.

Intech had net outflows of $4,100,000,000 driven by longer term performance weakness as well as client decisions to change portfolio positioning and allocations away from the strategies that INTECH offers. Improving longer term performance is the top priority, and to that end, performance for the first half of twenty nineteen has been strong. However, we recognize that six months is too short a time period, and the strong performance needs to be sustained for a longer time period before we can gain clients' attention. We remain confident in Intech's investment process and their proactive communication with clients. However, this area of the business does remain a key area of concern as we head into the second half of the year.

Global emerging market outflows totaled $2,500,000,000 for the second quarter. And as of the June 30, assets under management for the strategies were $2,700,000,000 all of which remains at high risk for redemption most likely during the third quarter. So far, we've received notification of $800,000,000 third quarter redemptions in the strategy. We remain fully committed to the emerging markets asset class and are actively pursuing options to build out our global emerging markets business. Outflows for core plus fixed income, which includes the flexible bond funds, were $1,000,000,000 in the quarter compared to $1,600,000,000 in the first quarter.

Despite a poor start in 2019 for flows, the outflow trend has has improved as the year progressed, and performance year to date has improved modestly. Finally, European equity outflows reduced to $800,000,000 in the second quarter compared to $1,200,000,000 in the first quarter and $1,600,000,000 in the fourth quarter of twenty eighteen. While still negative, this represents significant improvements in this area of the business. One year investment performance across these strategies has improved, and whilst most are still modestly behind benchmark, relative to peers, the strategies are generally in the second quartile over this time period. We remain very confident in this team and their ability to continue to improve their investment performance.

Outside of the four areas I've just highlighted, we're seeing an improving trend across the rest of the business. As Dick said, this is important to highlight, as this area of the business accounts for 80% of the firm's total AUM. As you can see in the second bar chart we've included on this slide, in the second quarter, this area of the business had $1,400,000,000 of outflows, which represents $4,000,000,000 improvement from what we saw in the fourth quarter. While this level of outflow is still below where we aspire to be, we're pleased with this improvement. The improvement over the last three quarters has come across a number of areas, which include good flows into fixed income strategies in EMEA and Australia, along with strong flows into a multisector and developed world bond funds in The US.

From a continued improvement among intermediary clients in Continental Europe and Latin America, with June marking the first month of positive flows in these regions in more than eighteen months improvements in a number of U. S. Equity funds where we've seen redemptions decline meaningfully, for example, international ops And finally, in The US retail market, we're continuing to gain market share. Over the last year, we've seen a significant increase in the number of financial advisers doing more business with us, and importantly, they're growing the number of products they're investing across. And in the RIA segment, we're seeing outpaced growth in the business relative to our competitors.

As Dick said, there's no quick solutions for the areas where we're experiencing challenges, but the business has many elements to be optimistic about, which can get washed out in the short run by some of the more concentrated outflows that we're experiencing. Slide six is our standard presentation of The US GAAP statements of income. Moving to slide seven, we'll look at the summary financial results. Adjusted second quarter results compare favorably versus last quarter, primarily from higher revenue. Average AUM in the second quarter increased 2% over the first quarter as market gains more than offset outflows and a slightly negative FX impact.

Total adjusted revenues in the quarter increased 4% compared to the prior quarter due to the higher average AUM, better performance fees, and additional calendar day. Adjusted operating income in the second quarter of $152,000,000 was up 6% over the prior quarter, driven by higher revenue. Second quarter adjusted operating margin was 35% compared to 34.4% in the prior quarter and 40.1% a year ago, when we had higher AUM and stronger performance fees. Finishing up the financial results, adjusted diluted EPS was $0.61 for the second quarter compared to $0.56 for the prior quarter and $0.74 a year ago. On slide eight, we've outlined the revenue drivers for the quarter.

Management fees increased 1% from the prior quarter. Net management fee margin for the quarter was 42.2 basis points, which was down compared to the first quarter, driven by mix shift in the business primarily from outflows in higher fee equity products. Performance fees were the biggest driver of the quarterly change in adjusted total revenue. Second quarter fees were $4,000,000 compared to a negative $6,000,000 in the first quarter. The second quarter has got the largest pool of AUM eligible to earn a performance fee.

However, performance in our large performance fee paying strategies, whilst improving, was below benchmark at the crystallization date, resulting in a very limited performance fee payout during the quarter. Whilst there's an increase in performance fees over the first quarter, dollars 4,000,000 of performance fees realized in the second quarter of twenty nineteen was lower than the $14,000,000 recognized during the same period of 2018 and was significantly below the $52,000,000 recognized in 2017. Regarding mutual fund performance fees, the second quarter improved to a negative $4,000,000 from a negative $9,000,000 in the prior quarter, and strong performance in the second quarter replaced weak performance from the second quarter of twenty sixteen. If we're successful in continuing to outperform benchmarks in the second half twenty nineteen, we will see further improvements in these performance fees. And under reasonable outperformance scenarios, we can exit the year with positive performance fees in this area.

Turning to operating expenses on slide nine. Adjusted operating expenses in the second quarter were $282,000,000 which is up 3% from the prior quarter. Adjusted employee compensation, which includes fixed and variable staff costs, was up 2% compared to the first quarter, driven by higher variable costs on a higher pretax profit. Adjusted LTI was also up 2% from the prior quarter, largely due to social security taxes on vestings in The UK. In the appendix, we provided further detail on the expected future amortization of existing grants, which hasn't changed significantly compared to the prior quarter.

The second quarter adjusted comp to revenue ratio was 44.4%. For the full year, we still anticipate a total comp ratio which is in the low 40s, but given the lower performance fees I just talked about in the second quarter, we'd expect to be in the higher end of that range. Adjusted non comp operating expenses increased 6% quarter over quarter. The main driver of the increase was G and A costs, some of which was one off. We're maintaining the guidance on 2019 noncomp expenses, which is that excluding the $12,000,000 legal outcome in 2018, we'd expect to see noncomp expenses flat year over year.

The first half twenty nineteen results are on track towards that expectation. Finally, the firm's recurring effective tax rate for the second quarter was 23.7%. For the full year, the firm's effective tax rate is still expected to be between 2325%. Lastly, slide 10 is a look at our capital management. As we said previously, we remain committed to returning excess cash to our shareholders.

During the second quarter, we paid approximately $69,000,000 in dividends to shareholders and declared a $0.36 per share dividend to be paid on the August 28 to shareholders of record on the August 12. And we purchased 3 and a half million shares of our stock for $75,000,000 in the second quarter. That takes our year to date accretive share repurchase total to a $106,000,000 or 4,800,000.0 shares. We anticipate the remaining $94,000,000 of the $200,000,000 authorized to be completed in the second half of twenty nineteen. With that, I'll turn it back over to Dick.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Roger. In February, I presented our five strategic priorities. And today, I would like to provide you with some additional color around each of those. First, our number one priority is producing excellent and dependable investment outcomes for our clients. We do this through a combination of attracting and retaining the best talent, consistently delivering on clear, defined client promises, as well as investing in technology and infrastructure that enhances our ability both to deliver alpha and to construct portfolios with strong risk management around the clear promises that we have made.

Second, we must drive consistent and continuous improvement in our client experience. This will help us deliver industry leading client experiences that drive stronger long term relationships and lead to deeper engagement with our clients. Ultimately, this will lead to longer duration of assets and continued improvement of market share. Third, we need to focus our efforts across all that we do. This means looking closely at our product set, standardizing our global operating model, and streamlining and reducing our complexities.

Fourth, we have to embed continuous learning and feedback loops in our risk and control environment. Finally, we need to develop new growth initiatives, building the businesses of tomorrow. For us, this comes in several different areas and is in addition to the execution I've been talking about around our core business. By delivering dependable excellence in these five areas, we will be winning for our clients. We will be gaining market share in our business, and we'll be generating very good returns for our shareholders.

Now let's look at each of those pillars individually. Turning to Slide 13 and taking a deeper look at what dependable investment outcomes entails for us. Today, we have a legacy of exceptional asset management, diversified across asset classes, across investment styles and geographies. Our goal is to build on this strength to ensure dependable delivery of risk adjusted returns. We believe high quality and dependable risk adjusted returns are built on five basic principles: an investment team that is highly intelligent, dedicated, and stable clearly articulated investment objectives achieved by establishing transparent investment policy statements for all of our portfolio building a modern infrastructure with strong risk management tools that allows us to constantly monitor risk and take risk intelligently, good portfolio analytics, and a culture of partnership and collaboration.

I'm pleased to say that we're seeing early signs of very encouraging results where these principles are being applied within our organization. Turning to slide 14, let's look at how we're developing our client experience. We're in the early stages of a multiyear journey of weaving client experience into the very fabric of our organization, focusing on embedding a client centric culture into every aspect of the firm. And again, it's a multiyear journey because this really is about cultural change. We're working hard to enhance and redesign our most important client journeys and to improve the feedback loops and measurement that will drive market leading experience.

We are developing robust client feedback tools and a measurement approach to be sure we're tracking our progress. This will take time and is a considerable effort involving our entire firm. We're committed to developing our industry leading client experience. Done well, we're confident this approach will produce more sustainable relationships, will increase our market share, and will lengthen the duration of our client asset. Turning to Slide 15, we will cover our third and fourth strategic priorities.

As you can see by the title, these two pillars are all about focus. Across our product portfolio and our global operating model, we have to become more focused in all that we are doing. What do we mean by that? First, with our product portfolio, we've got to ask whether we're allocating our efforts and resources on the right areas. We've got to continue to standardize our global operating model and system.

We're working on consolidating to a strategic data architecture. We need to, every day, continue to streamline and reduce our operational complexities. We are working very hard to refine and improve and further develop a proactive risk and control environment. By this, we mean building strong relationships with our global regulators and working on our firm wide culture of risk management, transparency, and urgency. These two areas may not be exciting for everyone, but they are absolutely imperative to our future success.

Slide 16 gives you some insight into the new growth initiatives we're developing. The growth areas we've laid out previously are multi asset, ETF, and Asia Pacific. In multi asset and alternatives, doctor Michael Ho, who joined the firm in January, is spearheading our activities to develop our existing capabilities and develop new capabilities as well. Today, this area of our business represents only 13% of our AUM, and it must be much more. We're supporting our growing ETF business where we have seen positive momentum already in such areas as active fixed income.

We've seen more than 1,000,000,000 in flows from Vanilla, VNLA, as well as our JMBS ETF, with JMBS recently crossing the $100,000,000 mark less than a year after launch. Finally, we're committed to expanding our presence in Asia Pacific region, building out our teams to best service our clients and deliver on the opportunities that are growing in that region. It's very early days across each of these initiatives, but we're busy building the foundations for future growth. Finally, turning to Slide 17. As I mentioned at the beginning of the call, there are many areas of our business that are doing well.

So let me run you through those things that I'm most excited about. First, obviously, it's investment performance. Our total company investment performance is strong with 66%, 72%, and 80% of our AUM outperforming benchmarks over one, three, and five years, respectively. This remains the best leading indicator for our future success, and we're very proud of this result. Thank you to all of our excellent teams for their great work.

Second, we're winning new business. Despite incredibly tough and competitive environment, we're gaining market share in our biggest business, U. S. Equities in the retail channel. Our multi asset capability is growing at an annualized rate of 7% led by our balanced fund, which has seen strong and consistent investment performance ranking in the top decile on a one, three, and five year basis.

We're also seeing positive flows in a number of fixed income strategies in EMEA and Australia along with strong flows into our multi sector and developed world bond funds in The US. Third, it's about people. We're excited about the outstanding talent we have working at this company, and we've been successful in adding to it. We recently hired Suzanne Cain to head up our global distribution teams. Suzanne comes with a strong background in institutional sales.

I already mentioned Doctor. Michael Ho, who's leading our multi asset and alternatives business. Both Suzanne and Michael join a strong and stable executive committee and firm wide leadership team, and we're thrilled to have them. Finally, we continue to generate very strong cash flow. This is supporting ongoing investments in the business, and we continue to return excess cash to shareholders via both dividend and substantial share buyback.

So in conclusion, we remain focused on healing the areas where we are experiencing the most significant outflows, but the concentration of outflows is masking much of the progress that we're making elsewhere in our business. Our leadership team remains committed to the strategic agenda we've laid out, producing excellent and dependable investment outcomes while delivering industry leading client service. I'm confident that by continuing to successfully execute on these initiatives, we'll deliver a stronger and more diverse firm, winning business for our core markets as well as delivering strong long term results for our shareholders. With that said, I'd like to take your questions and turn it back over to the operator.

Speaker 0

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will conduct the question and answer session. In the interest of time, questions will be limited to one initial and one follow-up question. Question. And we'll take our first question from Dan Fannon with Jefferies.

Speaker 3

Hi, good morning. This is actually James Steele filling in for Dan. I just wanted to know if you guys could maybe provide some idea as to what the fee rate is on the at risk revenue. I understand that the quant stuff is cheap and then the EM sounds like a big mandate. So just kind of any guidance there?

Speaker 2

Hi, James. It's Roger. The like you say, it's a mix of of higher and fee higher and lower. Actually, on average, the total comes out pretty much exactly the same as our average fee rate.

Speaker 3

Understood. Thank you.

Speaker 0

And we'll move on to our next question from Ken Worthington with JPMorgan.

Speaker 4

Hi, good morning. I'll wrap all my question, my follow-up into one on in tech. So gross sales essentially nonexistent this quarter, gross redemptions were elevated. I guess maybe first, how concentrated were the in tech outflows this quarter? Was it sort of one customer, two customers or was it more broad based?

Maybe part two, can you give us asset levels for the biggest in tech strategies to kind of help us level set where things are? And then the ultimate question, does this indicate that the wheels are finally falling off at in tech? Are the limited sales and big redemptions indications that there's really more bad news to come? And maybe how would you gauge the risk of elevated gross outflows as we look to the second half of the year?

Speaker 1

Thanks. That's quite a set of questions. I'll do my best. In terms of the composition of the outflows, just over half the flows came from The US ENHANZE plus strategy, with the remaining outflows spread across a number of different strategies. I don't have it on

Speaker 2

a client by client basis, I have it

Speaker 1

on a strategy basis for you. In terms of INTECH's concentration of business, which I think was underlying some of your other questions, the five largest strategies at INTECH make up about 60% of its business. And it does have really large individual clients who with single decisions can move a whole lot of AUM. Those tend to be lower revenue products, but they certainly can make a huge splash on the AUM change line. In terms of whether this is some indication that in some fundamental way the wheels are off the cart at INTECH, I think it's less grand than that.

You know, we've been transparent with you all on a quarterly basis about the performance challenges and the volatility they've experienced. And we've been trying to call your attention to the fact that we think that that volatility has generated risk across this client base. And because of the nature of their clients where small numbers of decision makers can move large amounts of you know, we've tried to call your attention to the fact that quarters like this, you know, they are possible. On the other hand, INTECH has put up year to date better investment performance. They continue to do what they do.

They're learning from their experience and improving over time. They have a multi decade track record that shows that what they do is really, good and valuable. They're smart, very professional people doing a good job on the portfolio management side and on the client communication side. So I don't see any reason to believe that somehow this is a fundamental issue of wheels coming off the cart. But I do think their business is challenged by the performance record they've put up in the last few years.

It's challenged by a client base in institutional space that is, you know, that has been heavily moving towards passive as opposed to active. And, you know, they're going through a tough period. And looking ahead, you know, I don't think they're out of the tough period. Their positive performance is not yet long standing enough to heal the risk that we've called your attention to, as Roger said earlier. But no, I don't agree with the characterization that the wheels are off the cart.

These guys have been doing this very successfully for a long period of time, and they'll come back around. But it's a tough period. And it's really hard to project exactly on a quarter by quarter basis what the flows are gonna look like. But I think you can say that they need continued good performance to heal from here.

Speaker 0

And we'll take our next question from Nigel Pitoway from Citi.

Speaker 5

Hi, guys. Couple of questions. First of all, just just trying to understand the equities flows. When we went through first quarter, there were a few one offs that were enunciated there, like the initial emerging markets and the closure of the Australian business. You're talking about U.

S. Equity market share improving, European equity flows outflows falling, and yet there still seems to be a deteriorating trend in those equities flows quarter on quarter. So where's the missing bit of the jigsaw there in terms of, what's going worse? I mean, obviously, there's a 2.5 emerging markets, but that doesn't explain explain it completely.

Speaker 2

Hi, Andrew. It's Roger. So, yeah, as you say, the biggest part of is we have about 6,000,000,000 of outflows in in in equities in the quarter, of which we said about two and a half is is GEMs, so there's about three and a half, elsewhere. 800 is in Europe, which as we said is improving. The rest is sort of yeah.

It's a bit of a mix. A bit of resources in Australia, as you know. Yeah. One larger client in The US. But it's a, yeah, it's a blend across the across the rest of the business.

Speaker 5

Alright. Okay. So there's a lot large client outflow in The US, which which is a big component. All right. And then moving on, just on your comments on the compensation ratio.

I think you said you're still targeting the low 40s, but it will be at the higher end of the range. What range is that that you're actually talking about? Just in other words, what number would constitute the high end of that range? The highest end of that range? Right.

Speaker 2

It's the comp ratio is a little high this quarter at 44.4, and we were 45.4 in the first quarter. I do want to address that. So why is this? So I think there's a couple of reasons in there. The first is LTI.

In the first quarter and the second quarter, you've got seasonal costs of vestings. You've also got mark to market on the awards as markets have gone up, which as we've said is largely offset in the investment gains line, which doesn't drop into the comp ratio. So LTI the first quarter was 48 and the second quarter is 49. But on slide 41, we've given you the full year estimate of that. That's 186, which means the second half we're expecting to be 88,000,000 or 44,000,000 a quarter.

A $44,000,000 quarter puts the comp ratio, all other things being equal, at about 43%. The second part is sort of the denominator. We've got lower P fees in the second quarter, as we've talked about, and and we and that that will affect the full year, obviously, the second quarter being a being a quarter where, you know, we have a we have a large opportunity to earn Pfeas. So without the increase in in in performance fees, you'd expect, as I say, that the comp ratio to be at the higher end of that low forties. And I guess that, you know, I'm calling that out to be, say, 42 to 44.

And as I said, once you strip out the LTI piece, we're at 43 in the second quarter. I want to be very clear. We have not taken our eye off the costs in any way at all. We've got a business we're managing on an ongoing basis. That means investing in it.

It also means continuing to drive efficiency in it. But that's the answer on the comp ratio. I guess the narrow answer to your question is 42 to 44.

Speaker 0

We'll take our next question from Mike Carrier with Bank of America.

Speaker 3

Hi, guys. This is actually Sean Cowan on for Mike. So we understand the in tech and EM challenges, but in the other core areas, you're still seeing some outflows. So we're just wondering how you're planning on turning these around going forward.

Speaker 1

Yeah. Hi. Thanks. So you understand GM. You understand in tech we've talked about.

You know, the next piece is we've had some underperformance we've talked about in some of our largest fixed income strategies, the core plus fixed income strategy. It hasn't been terrible performance by any means, but it's been sort of modestly challenged compared to peers and sometimes compared to index for a bit of an extended period. And it's it's weighed on its client confidence, and we've seen significant outflows in that area. So we're working with that team to make sure that we're doing everything we can do to support the return of their investment results to stronger numbers. There isn't an easy quick fix to something like that.

But, you know, as we also called out in our comments, a lot of the really smaller products in fixed income are starting to gather momentum. So what's the plan to help there is is get some better performance out of that core plus team and stabilize that product and then capture growth in a lot of those smaller pieces. And working with those managers and that leadership, Jim Silinski, our CIO of fixed income, is working towards that result. But there's no magic switch or solution for that. It's working with that portfolio management team to make sure we're doing everything we can to support their work.

I don't know what else I can say that would be responsive to to your question. Roger, anything you wanna

Speaker 2

Just the other the other things that we you know, that that again, I just wanna make sure you picked up. You know, we've got a number of areas which we're pretty excited about. And whether that's whether that's things that that look like they're starting to turn, and that's obviously always a dangerous thing to say, but, you know, it flows in our continental European business, as we said, markedly markedly improved, and and June was the first positive month for eighteen months. If you go down individual product lines, you know, the overall performance, you know, just look at there's a slide in there of our top 20 funds. 17 are in the top two quartiles.

I think 12 of those 17 are in the top quartile. You know, that makes some things pretty exciting. You know, the 40 fund. You know, that can be very big, and we're getting back on the front foot. Areas like you know, we continue to call out around health care, technology, the balanced funds selling all the way around the world.

So there are areas which we're pretty pleased with, and we're wanting to see it run further and run faster.

Speaker 0

And we'll take our next question from Andrei Savnakh with Morgan Stanley.

Speaker 6

Good morning. Can you hear me okay?

Speaker 2

Yes. We got you. Thanks.

Speaker 6

Fantastic. The first question, just wanted to ask about the ETF strategy. Can you explain a little bit more about, you know, how you're planning to compete compete here? Because, you know, in passive, it seems, you know, scale is very important. So, you know, how much, you know, you know, how much confidence do you have in your passive ETF strategy versus your active ETF strategy?

Speaker 1

Yeah. We're really not shooting for a passive ETF strategy at all. We're really focused on active. We've we've tried some things in smart beta, which, you know, reasonable people can argue about how active or passive that is. But fundamentally, we're an active manager, and we're focusing on active management in our ETFs.

We we have launched this year our JMBS ETF. It's crossed over $100,000,000 We see what competitors are doing in that space, and we actually think our product is significantly better. And we need to make more progress and grow that. Vanilla continues to grow. We have a plan to launch some ETFs in Australia.

So we're not going to be a colossal ETF, you know, very broad, very complete platform anytime soon. But we see the opportunity to offer good products that make a material difference for our clients and grow, meaningful amounts of assets and revenues, but not probably double digit billions. I mean, small numbers of billions certainly possible. We do not let me just be extra clear. We do not have an intent to enter the passive space.

Speaker 6

Thank you. Look. And my my second question, you know, one of wanted to follow-up follow-up on cost in particular. You know, what kind of further cost opportunities or, you know, maybe I'm taking a second taking a step back. You know, do you see opportunities for further cost efficiencies given what you've just outlined, you know, by simplification being one of the five priorities?

And also in the light where, just looking very simplistically to quarter 'nineteen versus to quarter 'eighteen, revenues are down around 10%, but costs are largely unchanged. And that's despite the synergies of the merger coming through a more meaningful way. So as a you know, in in from that point of view, you know, are you remaining confident that you can deliver more efficiency and simplification?

Speaker 2

Yeah. I'll take out a couple of pieces, Andre. Year on year, as I said, we're flat non comp once you strip out that $12,000,000 legal fee in the in the first half of in q two last year, which, yeah, which we called out at the time. So we're flat year on year, yeah, despite continuing to invest in the business. And our and our our fixed and our our staff cost fixed and variable, is, yeah, low single digit growth.

And and, again, we're investing in the business, and we're finding efficiency safe. So, yeah, we are we are, yeah, tight on the costs. I continue to be an unpopular CFO internally. The the other piece is, you know, are there more efficiencies defined? And the answer is yes.

And, again, there's there's nothing changed here, whether that be in in in, in how we work with, you know, our our service providers and and continuing to to, make that as efficient and as as possible. Like you say around focus around products, you've seen us You've seen, you know, the the actions that we've taken there and continue to take, you know, the most obvious ones being around closing, you know, closing non, noneconomic areas, but also opening things. So we we continue to we continue to, you know, to to seek the efficiency in the business and growing them at growing the important areas. You know, that focus, as Dick's talked about, is something that it's not just around product areas. It's around everything that we do.

But, yeah, there are there are things there are things that we will continue to do in the long run. Again, you know, we don't react to things on a on a very short term basis. We're running a long term business, and don't don't a bit like our our capital philosophy, you know, we will do things. We won't make that big a noise about it. But if we say we're gonna reduce costs, we'll reduce them, and they won't pop up somewhere else.

So I reiterate the guidance. Flat non comp year on year, and comp guidance I've given you, which you can work back into, is exactly what we said, which is very low single digit growth.

Speaker 0

We will take our next question from Alex Blostein with Goldman Sachs.

Speaker 7

Hey, good morning guys. Thanks for taking the question. So just building on that last point and maybe we can expand this conversation kind of a little bit beyond 2019. Dick, you've outlined a number of kind of growth initiatives and things you guys are doing to reinvigorate growth in the core franchise. Presumably, that will take some investment.

So maybe help us think about what the kind of underlying core expense base could grow over the next couple of years for you to achieve these investment goals. And obviously, the constructive equity market backdrop has been helpful. But if equity markets get a little softer, what are some of the areas where you could pull back on? Thanks.

Speaker 1

The growth areas that we've laid out don't require huge investments out of line with sort of normal reinvestment in the business. The stuff that really takes significant longer term investment is sometimes systems and infrastructure. But a lot of that expense is amortized, and so it's spread out over a long period of time. So at the moment, as we think through the plans, we don't see a big bubble in expense coming. And as Roger pointed out, we're working very hard to avoid such a thing and try and keep it under tight control as possible.

But we're not in a position to give guidance beyond the period that Roger's already given. So, I I guess the most helpful thing I can say is we're not planning for some some large bubble, and and we've given you our best guidance for for the period we can.

Speaker 0

And we'll take our last question from Ed Henning from CLSA.

Speaker 8

Thank you. Just a quick question for me and a follow-up back on Intech. You talked about before allocation away from the strategy. Can you just expand on that a little bit? Is this a major concern for you guys, the headwind going forward, or just something eating away at the strategy, with the soft performance?

Speaker 1

Good question. You know, the the characterization of a major concern is a little hard to turn into math or numbers. You know, this quarter is a disappointing quarter for INTECH. It's not what we were hoping for. Could it happen again?

I suppose it could. But, you know, what we really need for that we're not very good at predicting their flows because of the lumpy nature of their client base. What I think we all recognize is they are putting on some significantly improved investment performance results. And for them to get back to where we need them to be, that has to continue. And if that doesn't continue, they'll continue to be a, you know, a story of risk and concern.

You know, that that's kind of how we think about it. And their asset base is $4,948,000,000,000. I got it wrong. Apologies. 48,000,000,000.

That's a really, you know, that's a very important piece of our business. And so we care a lot about that. And certainly this quarterly flow out of over $4,000,000,000 was disappointing, as we've said. We're not shirking that message either. So, you know, it depends what they do from here.

They put on better returns. We need that to continue. Otherwise, we'll continue to see some, you know, material outflows from them that we don't wanna see. That's the reality. At a higher level, they do stuff very well.

And they have done it for decades. They communicate it very well. They're a super high quality group of folks. And we expect that they will win in time. But obviously we're sitting on the edge of our seats saying, you know, let's not win in time, let's win now.

And nobody wants it more than they do. Nobody's more dedicated to that outcome than they are. You know, it's a tough spot they're in. They're digging their way out, and and that's probably all we can say.

Speaker 8

Just maybe expanding on that a little bit. If you look at competitors around with similar strategies, you know, are are you seeing outflows from them comparing to to yourselves?

Speaker 1

Well, it's always a little tough to compare quantitative strategies. I don't wanna pretend I know more about the guts of some of these other quantitative processes than I do. But certainly, it's noticeable that AQR had, you know, difficult returns and and difficult flows. And, you know, they've previously been a super high quality competitor, and there are others out there who have had similar results. So, yeah, I think the class of investing they do has been challenged.

They're certainly not the only ones. But frankly, I care a lot less about those other people than I do about Intech. So I tend to focus more narrowly on Intech. And they have the capability of delivering excellent returns. They just need to keep going.

And I think they will.

Speaker 0

And we have no further questions in the queue at this time. I would like to turn the conference back over to Dick Weil for any closing remarks.

Speaker 1

Well, thank you everybody for your time. I hope our messages have been clear. You know, we tried very hard to break down the net flow number for your benefit, not because we are trying to distract you from the overall number, but because I think underneath the covers, there's a lot good going on that we look at internally, and that, drives how we feel about the result. But clearly, the headline is a disappointing number and we look forward to improving that for our clients, for our owners, as well. So thanks for your time and attention.

We'll talk to you next quarter.

Speaker 0

And once again, ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude today's conference. We appreciate your participation today.