Ryan Specialty Group - Earnings Call - Q2 2021

Transcript

Speaker 0

Greetings. Welcome to the Ryan Specialty Group Second Quarter twenty twenty one Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. Please note this conference is being recorded.

I will now turn the conference over to your host, Noah Angeletti, Treasurer of Ryan Specialty Group. Thank you. You may begin.

Speaker 1

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, and welcome to Ryan Specialty Group Holdings second quarter twenty twenty one earnings call. This afternoon, the company released its financial results for the quarter ended 06/30/2021. The earnings release is available on the Investors section of the company's website at ryanrsg.com. I would like to remind everyone that certain statements made in the course of this call are not based on historical information and may constitute forward looking statements.

Any statements that refer to projections, forecasts or other characterizations of future plans, events or circumstances, including any underlying assumptions are forward looking statements. These statements are based on management's current expectations and beliefs and are subject to a number of trends and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward looking statements. I refer you to the company's filings made with the SEC for a more detailed discussion of the risks and factors that could cause actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to differ materially from those expressed or implied in any forward looking statements made today. The company undertakes no duty to update any forward looking statements that may be made during the course of this call, except as required by law. Additionally, certain non GAAP financial measures will be discussed on this call.

Our presentation of this information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the financial information presented in accordance with GAAP. Reconciliations of these non GAAP financial measures to the most closely comparable measures prepared in accordance with GAAP is included in our earnings release, which is available in the Investors section of the company's website at ryanshi.com. With that, I'd now like to turn the call over to the Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Ryan Specialty Group, Pat Ryan.

Speaker 2

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us on our second quarter twenty twenty one earnings conference call. And our first call is a public company. I'd also like to thank you for your interest in and support of Ron Specialty Group.

On today's call, I'll provide an overview of the strengths of our business model and our competitive advantages. And our president, Tim Turner, will give an update on what is happening at each of our three specialties. And finally, our Chief Financial Officer, Jeremiah Bickham, will walk you through the quarter in more detail, absent for share details since we were not yet a publicly traded company in the second quarter, and then we'll open it up for Q and A. Given that we're newly public, I wanna take a moment to speak to those of you who may be new to the Ryan Specialty Group story to provide some color on why I founded the company and what we've built and how we provide meaningful differentiated value to our clients and how we expect to continue to win in the future. As the name suggests, Prime Specialty Group is a specialty insurance solutions company.

We generally are not involved in placing more standardized insurance like typical auto or homeowners insurance. We facilitate for hard to place risks that require a different type of expertise in a specialized area of insurance. In a typical insurance transaction, a consumer will purchase insurance directly from an insurance company or will engage a retail broker that then will go direct to the insurer. But for more complex and harder to place risks, find specialty groups used as an intermediary between the retail broker and the insurer. We facilitate the placement of these specialty risks by assisting the insurer and the broker in various ways.

In 2010, it became clear to me that there was a growing and unmet need for specialty insurance solutions. The world was rapidly changing, and risks were becoming much larger and far more complex. In my view, there was no scaled specialty insurance platform that could assist retail brokers and carriers in fully addressing this growing universe of complex risks and also provide a place where the best and brightest talent in our industry could self optimize. As a lifetime sports fan, I'm partial to sports metaphors. The one that has always resonated with me is a quote from the greatest hockey player of all time, Wayne Gretzky.

When asked how he was such a prolific goal scorer, his response was simple. I skate to where the fuck is going to be, not to where it is. That's the perfect way in my mind to describe our thought process because I always believe in anticipating change, having the courage to take the necessary action to implement that change, and staying ahead of the curve with the change. This philosophy enables us to be a first mover, and I believe a real disruptor in our industry. When we started, we observed four clear trends in specialty insurance, trends that continue to this day in many cases, accelerating.

Risks were becoming larger and more complex. Expense and surplus for the E and S market was poised to significantly expand over time. Also, brokers were looking to use fewer wholesalers than they had been doing historically, which amplified the opportunity for a full service counterparty that had the necessary breadth and depth of specialty expertise. The same time, retail brokers were becoming larger through organic growth and the massive wave of consolidation. This was going to fuel the growth of well positioned wholesalers with the expertise to serve on their preferred wholesale broker panels.

And importantly, delegated authority was accelerating quickly. Carriers were outsourcing underwriting, administrative functions, and distribution. This delegated authority allows carriers to be more agile and significantly reduce their overall investment needs as well as to replace fixed costs with variable expenses. On the other hand, individual underwriters, many of whom would be dislocated by the consolidation of carriers, often were seeking to join entrepreneurial firms like Ryan Specialty where they could be empowered to innovate. With a clear long term opportunity in front of us, Lyme Specialty Group was founded to fill that important need and build a platform that both empowers our producers and our underwriters to innovate as well as to take calculated risks on behalf of their clients that ultimately best position them to succeed.

I think we've absolutely risen at the moment with regard to these opportunities. Since the founding of Ryan Specialty, we've grown rapidly, both organically and inorganically. We are now the second largest property and casualty insurance wholesale broker in The US and the third largest property casualty managing underwriter also in The US. I'm all very proud of each and every one of our nearly 3,400 teammates who joined us on this journey and who collectively work together to bring us to where we are today. We grew our revenue 20% organically in 2020, and we've continued our strong momentum in 2021, recording over 28% year over year organic revenue growth in the second quarter while generating attractive adjusted EBITDAC margins.

When we think about our company, the qualities that clearly set us apart from our peers are, first of all, our diverse areas of specialty. Secondly, our independence. We have no channeled conflicts with our retail insurance brokers. And most importantly, our expertise in specialty insurance. Taking a step back, we focused primarily on the rapidly growing E and S market.

It was $55,000,000,000 in direct written premium at year end 2019. We focus on complex policies, those that require specialized expertise to provide innovative solutions and procure the best available coverage options on behalf of insurers. There are a number of reasons for the rise in complexity, among them climate change, recent larger catastrophic events, growing cyber threats, larger jury verdicts, we call that social inflation, travel health risks, and many others. Moreover, admitted carriers are declining certain areas of coverage due to past generation of elevated losses. It's always that those more complex coverages have shifted into the E and S market, and the traditional market no longer provides a viable solution.

To that end, our independent full service model, scaled distribution platform, and expertise allow us to clearly differentiate our business, closer to our peers and to take advantage of these strong and evolving secular trends to offer our clients, insurance brokers and carriers, tailored and creative solutions to address their unique and complex risk profile. Through our platform, we support and collaborate with both insurance brokers and carriers, the broadest product access, underwriting knowledge and a comprehensive distribution network. This has enabled us to become a preferred and trusted partner for 97 of the top 100 retail insurance brokers in The US. As retail brokers continue to expand and have larger needs for the assistance of specialty insurance services and products, Prime Specialty remains well positioned to provide them with a one stop holistic solution. Critically, as I mentioned before, we have no retail insurance brokerage operations, ensuring we remain free of channel conflicts with our clients.

We are firmly committed, never competing with our retail broker clients. We cannot overemphasize how important we believe this is to our business. Our success is driven by our proven ability to make Ryan's specialty a destination of choice for producers and underwriters, and we believe enable, attract and retain the best talent in the industry. We believe we create a unique environment where our producers and underwriters are empowered to succeed. Innovation and empowerment are two of our defining attributes fundamental to our culture.

We want our professionals to take calculated risks where appropriate and to think like entrepreneurs and owners. We provide them with the tools and freedom to establish themselves, think outside the box, and create new ways of delivering best in class results for our clients. They also seek multiple perspectives to enable us to find the best solutions. As a result, in 2020, we retained 97% of our producers. We believe producers join Ryan's specialty for the incredible opportunity and culture that we foster, And they stay because they are rewarded and incented to succeed in the way that aligns them with each other and the company.

As we think about our path forward, we believe we're in a prime position to grow and prosper. We will continue to invest in our growth and ensure Orion Specialties remain a destination of choice for the industry's top tier talent. We will continue to lead with innovation to meet the ever changing needs of the market. We will expand and deepen our relationships with our current clients and continue to win new clients. We will continue to expand our organic growth capabilities into the future by executing on strategic M and A.

We're fond of saying that today's acquisitions are tomorrow's organic growth. Since inception, we have partnered with over 40 firms through acquisition. In summary, I'm tremendously proud of what we've created and developed at Ryan's specialty over the past decade. We've built a winning culture that emphasizes successful outcomes through our expertise, our skill and our unrelenting and passionate work ethic. We believe our value proposition is clearly resonating in the market, bolstered by our our talent and our trading partners in the insurance industry, without whom none of this would be possible.

I'm truly excited for our future and our ability to continue to deliver long term value for our shareholders. Now I'd like to turn it over to our very capable President, Tim Turner, to get into more detail. Tim?

Speaker 3

Thank you very much, Pat, and good afternoon, everyone. As Pat highlighted, at Ryan Specialty Group, we focus on partnering with our retail insurance brokers and agents to assess them with complex policies and hard to place risks. These complex risks are often placed in the E and S market, which represents approximately 17% of The U. S. Commercial insurance market, where there is significantly more freedom to underwrite bespoke, complex, larger or higher hazard risks.

Importantly, our trading partners know they will see no drop off in quality when they work with us as we act and execute as a seamless extension of their practice group specialties. Notably, the flexibility of the E and S market is perfectly aligned with today's global challenges and offers Ryan Specialty a tremendous opportunity for growth. For example, the COVID nineteen pandemic has forced the entire insurance industry to reconsider how it deals with contagious disease and the risk associated with it. Additionally, there is significant opportunity for us to grow our business in newer emerging sectors such as shared economy and livery, renewable energy, health care, cyber risks, where carriers may have less of an appetite given a myriad of legal and regulatory complexities. We have the ability to facilitate coverage in many cases that would otherwise be unattainable.

To that end, we believe all great businesses have a clear value proposition to their key constituents, and ours is no exception. For retail brokers, we help them become more efficient and are a force multiplier for seamless execution on behalf of their clients. We also provide access to insurance markets that might not otherwise be available to them because of the insurance company's chosen distribution model of utilizing a specialist, be it a wholesale broker, finding authority, or managing general underwriter. We specialize in the small area of their business to enable them to bring the same level of excellent service for every risk that comes across their desks while maintaining the quality that their clients, the insureds are accustomed to. For our employees, we attract and retain the best talent in the industry, in part by giving them access to over 15,000 retail agent and brokerage firms and their large platforms across the country.

This broad reach is an enormous competitive advantage. Talent thrives on having a myriad of opportunities to succeed. Our independence, scale, and entrepreneurial culture ensures that we have the most opportunities to prosper. Importantly, carriers rely on us for product expertise as well as distribution and administrative capabilities. We are a source of innovation and a critical filter in the underwriting process.

To provide a little more context, we offer retail brokers a comprehensive, full service solution through our three specialties. At our wholesale brokerage specialty, we distribute a wide range of diversified mix of specialty insurance products and solutions from the from insurance carriers to retail brokerage firms, such as specialty, p and c, professional lines, and workers' compensation. These typically involve the retail agents' most challenging risks. These policies are submitted on a brokerage basis, and it is up to the insurers to make the underwriting decision. Our binding authority specialty provides timely and secure access to our carrier trading partners and has delegated underwriting authority as well as critical administrative and distribution responsibilities to us through our in house binding agreements.

These policies are submitted on a bound basis and are generally more uniform in design. For example, builders risk and coastal properties. Our underwriting management specialty offers insurance carriers variable cost specialty expertise in distinct and complex market niches underserved in today's marketplace through 21 underwriting managers and 29 national programs. These carriers have provided us with the authority to design, underwrite, and bind coverage and administer policies for specific risks. These policies are submitted on a bound basis and generally have a higher level of underwriting complexity.

For example, reps and warranties, coverage for m and a, cyber coverage, and renewable energy. Looking ahead, we see multiple avenues for sustainable growth. We will continue to innovate and organically grow our top line, driven by broadening and deepening our retail brokerage firm relationships. It's worth highlighting that we have historically grown faster with our largest trading partners. In 2020, our growth with the top 100, the most coveted clients, who have the most E and S business as ranked by business insurance, exceeded our organic revenue growth of 20% for the same year.

Talent development and recruitment is also essential. We will continue to recruit the best talent in the industry as well as onboard new professionals into the industry through our heralded RSG University, our world class training and development program for the next generation. We also plan to continue our core competency of making select acquisitions where we see clear opportunities to partner with successful specialty firms that are aligned with our goals, our culture, and our values. As you know, we've acquired over 40 firms since our founding, most notably last year with AllRisks, our largest acquisition to date. With respect to the integration is proceeding very smoothly.

Producers at both companies are working together as one team out in the field. The acquisition of AllRisks, the number four largest wholesale distributor in The United States at the time of acquisition, gave us further scale in insurance markets where we previously had less reach, provided us a deeper and significant market segmentation, expanded our domestic footprint in a meaningful way and accelerated our vision with respect to the binding authority platform. It is rewarding to see that the combination is already yielding very positive results, and we expect it will be a major contributor to our long term success. We will also seek to expand into natural adjacencies. We recently hired an industry expert and proven leader, John Zurn, who is the former CEO of Global Health Solutions at Aon.

He brings to us over thirty years of health and risk strategy experience and will be developing our new employment benefits specialty, which will focus on wholesale benefits, brokerage and managing general underwriting capabilities to serve the needs of our retail brokers. In addition, we see a tremendous opportunity to comprehensively address the fragmented delegated authority market, which represented over 40% of the E and S premiums in 2019 and where both M and A and panel consolidation are in their very early stages. With all risks, we have the size and capabilities to build the first truly 50 state binding authority operation. We expect to provide updates on these initiatives and our continued progress at our specialties in the quarters ahead. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to our Chief Financial Officer, Jeremiah Bickham, who will give you more detail on our second quarter financials.

Thank you.

Speaker 4

Thank you, Tim, and hello, everyone. Let's go right into our second quarter results. So for the second quarter, we generated $390,000,000 of total revenue, which represents a 58% increase over the $246,000,000 in Q2 of last year. Our strong revenue growth for the quarter was attributable to both the acquisition of AllRisks, which we completed in September of twenty twenty, and organic revenue growth of 28.5%. This exceptional organic revenue growth was driven through a combination of new client wins, expanding relationships with existing clients, and a higher rate of growth in our total addressable market as risk continue to flow out of the admitted market and into the E and S market, which is where we place the majority of our business.

Further, multiple classes of risks realized year over year premium rate increases, which drives commission revenue growth, which is typically calculated as a percentage of total premium. At each of our three specialties, revenue growth was strong across the board, marked by solid organic revenue growth and contributions from acquisition. So breaking down total revenue by specialty, our wholesale brokerage business posted very solid results with net commission and fee revenue of 256,000,000, which is a 49% increase relative to the 172,000,000 in the same period last year. Net commission and fees at binding authority were also very strong as they grew 70% to 54,000,000 compared to the 32,000,000 in the prior period last year. Finally, underwriting management grew net commission and fees revenue to 80,000,000 this quarter, which is an 89% increase compared to the 42,000,000 in q two of last year.

Moving down the p and l, total operating expenses for the second quarter were 298,000,000 or a 58% increase compared to the same quarter last year. This was primarily due to compensation and benefits expense of 237,000,000, which is an increase of 51% from the prior year period. It's important to note that compensation and benefits expense is heavily correlated with revenue growth as many of our producers are compensated based on a percentage of the revenue that they generate for the company. We also saw an increase in both acquisition related long term compensation, which is primarily due to the All Risk acquisition, and noncash equity based compensation in the second quarter as well. Now I'm proud to report that our compensation and benefits expense ratio improved 300 basis points year over year to 60.7%, and our adjusted compensation and benefits expense ratio improved 460 basis points to 56.5%.

General and administrative expenses were up 9,000,000 or 40% period over period. This increase was driven by cost to support revenue growth and the all risk business flowing into the p and l as well as an uptick in travel and entertainment spending during the quarter as we saw COVID nineteen restrictions begin to relax. This increase was partially offset though by a decrease in our acquisition related expenses compared to the prior year period. Now our g and a expense ratio improved 100 basis points year over year to 7.9%. Our adjusted g and a expense ratio was 7.4% in q two this year compared to 7.1% in the same quarter last year.

The increase in this ratio was primarily due to increased travel and entertainment spend as pandemic restrictions began to relax. However, given the lingering and ongoing impact of the pandemic, we still have not yet returned to our pre COVID levels of quarterly T and E spending. Finally, amortization expense increased 18,000,000 period over period, primarily due to the amortization of acquired intangibles from the All Risk acquisition. Adjusted EBITDAC for the second quarter grew 79% year over year to $140,000,000 compared to $78,000,000 in the prior year period. Our adjusted EBITDAC margin increased four twenty basis points to 36% compared to 31.8% in the prior year quarter.

Now primary drivers included, one, our revenue growth driving scale in compensation and benefits expense and g and a, and two, the continued execution of the company's restructuring plan, which we initiated in 2020. When this plan is complete, we expect to achieve 25,000,000 in cumulative annualized savings, and we anticipate that the remaining actions of this plan will be executed by June thirty of next year. Now regarding our adjusted EBITDAC margin, historically, on a seasonal basis, the second and fourth quarters are the strongest in terms of margin, while the first and third quarters are typically lower. Additionally, we continue to invest in the long term growth of our business, including our previously mentioned wholesale employee benefit specialty as well as investments in our platform so we can continue working towards long term growth opportunities. Further, we also expect t and e costs to normalize to pre pandemic levels in the coming months ahead, and we now have additional material costs associated with being a public company.

As such, we are looking in the medium term to maintain margins that are relatively consistent with our current annual levels. Over the long term, we do expect that our exceptional growth will yield operating leverage, but we're not quantifying that at this point. Net income for the second quarter of twenty twenty one was 63,000,000, which is a 27% increase compared to the 50,000,000 in q two of last year. Net income margin was 16.3% this quarter compared to 20.3% in the prior year period. This change is due to the fact that operating income was partially offset by certain nonoperating charges taken in connection with the IPO, amortization of acquired intangible assets related to the All Risk acquisition, and an increase in interest expense from the debt used to fund the All Risk acquisition.

As we look ahead to the third quarter, we wanna point out that we expect to record a significant equity based compensation expense related to the IPO, which is, of course, onetime in nature. To provide additional visibility as well, we are providing a full year 2021 outlook for both organic revenue growth and adjusted EBITDAC margin as follows. Organic revenue growth rate for the year 2021, the full year 2021, is expected to be between 1820%. As a reminder, all risk will become part of the organic revenue growth calculation beginning in September of twenty twenty one. Adjusted EBITDAC margin for the full year 2021 is expected to be between 3030.5%.

With that, we thank you very much for your time and would now like to open up the call for Q and A. Operator?

Speaker 0

Thank you. 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.

Our first question is from Weston Blumer of UBS. Please state your question.

Speaker 5

Hi, good evening. My first question is on organic growth. I believe the outlook implies around 15 or 13% to 70 in the second half.

Speaker 4

I was hoping you can

Speaker 5

kind of expand on how we should think about that in the 3Q versus the 4Q and maybe also expand on how you're thinking about the pricing dynamics in E and S shaping out in the second half of the year and then thoughts around new client wins as well. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Thanks

Speaker 4

for your question, Weston. We are not giving guidance by quarter. But yes, your math for H2 is roughly correct. Q2 had exceptional organic growth, and we certainly don't plan for growth numbers like this every quarter. Our forecasts and the way we budget are, of course, prudent and achievable, and they don't factor in market dynamics that we're seeing right now, like the current pricing dynamic and the heavy flow into the E and S market.

So we view the overall guidance for 2021 of 18% to 20% as very achievable. And if the opportunity is there, we will, of course, you can see from this quarter and prior quarters that we're capable of exceeding that when the opportunity presents itself. Tim, did you want to add anything to the pricing dynamic part of the question?

Speaker 6

Sure. We don't always focus on the rate in our industry. It's more on the flow of business into the channel, the dumping and the shedding of business from a standard market, and that flow is continuing to rise. Our opportunities continue to increase in the E and S space. The percentage of non admitted business continues to grow.

Very, very modest rate deceleration that we see in one or two lines. But overall, growth and rate increases.

Speaker 5

That's great. Thank you. Just one more on pricing. It sounds like you're expecting a slight deceleration in the second half. Is there a way to think about that as we move into 2022?

And can you just talk through the different avenues for pricing strength as we move through the second half of the year and into next?

Speaker 6

There continues to be what we refer to as niche firming phenomenons, lines of business like cyber and health care and transportation and others that continue to firm and rates continue to increase substantially. So again, this talk about rate deceleration is very modest. We don't have a lot of data on that. Again, we measure the increase in flow and opportunities that come into our channel. That's really the governing factor for us.

Speaker 5

Got it. And then if I could sneak one more in on M and A. Just curious on what you're seeing in your pipeline, if that's changed at all since you've become a public company, if that's helped more people come to the or more targets come to the table and what you're seeing in terms of multiples and size of deals in your pipeline currently.

Speaker 2

Well, this is Pat. I'll answer the first part. There's been a strong flow across the board in transactional wholesale, finding opportunities, program opportunities and benefits. Are lots of different reasons why people are selling, some of them are probably tax motivated. But there's a lot of consolidation going on in the industry.

So we had to hold back, obviously, doing the IPO, but we've had discussions with people and we're very confident that the pipeline is strong and high quality, and we're expecting to be on our planner as we thought lending the S-one.

Speaker 5

Great. Thank you. Appreciate all the color.

Speaker 0

Our next question is from Elyse Greenspan of Wells Fargo. Please state your question.

Speaker 7

My first question, starting off on the organic side. So recognizing that you don't want to give guidance by quarter, but just as we think about, you know, the first half was 24%, and, you know, you are expecting, you know, somewhat of a slowdown in the second half. Can you just give us, you know, the components, whether it's you expect perhaps a little bit less business to come to the E and S market or just, you know, lower level of new business? I'm just trying to understand what might lead to that type of slowdown. And then if we look at the quarters of last year, the Q3 actually should represent your easiest comp.

So is there just some level of conservatism embedded within this within your organic growth guidance?

Speaker 4

It's we we we wouldn't call it conservatism, but definitely prudence. And we don't want to bake in, like I said, favorable market dynamics. You are right that in terms of comps, Q3 should Q3 is traditionally our smallest quarter, but the comp for Q3 is the easiest of the four. Q4 is certainly our hardest. And I'm glad you asked because the outlook for H2 is not meant to signal anything that we're seeing in the market in terms of a reversal of flow out of the E and S or a major whipsaw on the pricing side.

It's more a function of just how we forecast.

Speaker 7

And have you seen you know, recognizing, obviously, you know, we're into, you know, September at this point, have you guys seen any any slowdown in the third quarter to date, just given that we are two months into the quarter? I'd just say a slowdown in terms of revenue growth.

Speaker 4

No. We are tracking to our plan. I want to stop short of giving color on the quarter or going past Q2, but we are on track for Q3.

Speaker 7

Okay. And then in terms of your margin, can you just give us a sense like also, right, you guys will have the public company costs. You mentioned T and E normalizing and investing internally. Can you give us a sense which represents the larger pieces to the kind of margin in the second half, right? Because there is going to be some deceleration in the second half from where the margin was trending in the first half of the year.

Speaker 4

Yes. Well, I so Elyse, I think you correctly hit on all three buckets. So how we get from our, call it, H1 margin to the year end guidance is those three things. So seasonality, T and E and public company costs. So as a reminder, Q1 and Q3 are our weakest quarters in terms of revenue, and margin is highly correlated with Q2 and Q4 being the strongest.

In fact, often Q2 is our strongest margin quarter. So even under normal circumstances, we would expect Q2 to be well above our forecasted annual margin. And this year is no exception, although it has the boost of exceptional revenue growth. So seasonality, number one. Q2, likely our highest margin quarter.

The offset to that is Q3. It's historically well below the annual margin, with Q4 typically coming closer to our annual margin. Now additional context is COVID restrictions began to relax in Q2, but we're expecting that to continue increasing. And for us to not be at a full run rate by the end of the year, but perhaps by November or December be closer to pre COVID levels of spending. So that's going to be a drag on margin as well.

And then, of course, we went public in July, so there were no ongoing public costs represented in the P and L through Q2. That is going to be a material impact on margins for H2. And then, of course, looking into next year, we'll have the full year not only of public costs but T and E. So keep that in mind as you're tweaking your model.

Speaker 0

Our next question is from Tracy Benguigi of Barclays. Please state your question.

Speaker 8

Thank you. Not to rehash it too much, but is it fair to say in your outlook expectation that you're basically neutralizing any rate increases or agnostic to where rate is in those figures?

Speaker 6

No, we believe rates will continue to increase in most lines and specialty segments that we're in. Again, we really measure flow into the channel, the dumping and the shedding of business in the standard market, and that continues to increase measurably based on the surplus lines stamping offices that flow through our national organization, WSIA. So we see no slowdown in that at all.

Speaker 8

Okay. So the variability is on flow then, basically?

Speaker 6

It's it's a it's a stronger metric measurement for us than rate. And again, we see no slowdown in flow into our channel whatsoever.

Speaker 4

But, Tracy, the Okay. Go ahead.

Speaker 7

Go ahead.

Speaker 4

No. No, go ahead. We're fine.

Speaker 8

Okay. And out of your three segments, how would which ones would you characterize to have the largest organic revenue growth and margin potential?

Speaker 4

So we, Tracey, manage the business as a single operating segment. So we that's how we budget. We think of organic on a consolidated blended basis, so that's how we report. We do show revenue disaggregation by specialty in the financials, so hopefully that's helpful. But the important thing to remember is two things.

One, all three specialties are capable of double digit organic growth. They all benefit from the fundamental building blocks of our organic growth engine that allow us to capture double digit organic growth agnostic of pricing cycles. And the other thing is that they are firing they're all firing on all cylinders right now and all benefiting from current market conditions.

Speaker 7

Okay. Thank you.

Speaker 0

Our next question is from Meyer Shields of KBW. Please state your question.

Speaker 9

Great. Thanks. I'm going to take advantage of the fact that it's September also. How is the Delta variant impacting clients' assessment of exposure units?

Speaker 6

At this point, we saw a direct impact on small commercial and our binding authorities. And but that's recovered now. So there really hasn't been any material or measurable impact from the Delta variant surge. It's affected some of our meetings and our industry gatherings have slowed back down and we have some cancellations. But actually, we're more efficient, we're more productive, we're converting more opportunities.

So while it's a distraction and a minor setback at the moment, we're really making the best of it working remote. And we see small commercial recovering. Small businesses are opening. There's much more construction going on even in the small area. So things are moving along uninterrupted, really, in the E and S channel.

Speaker 9

Okay. Perfect. That's helpful. And I know we've talked about this a lot on the call. I apologize for bringing it up again.

But is the implicit organic growth guidance for the second half of the year, is that assuming no rate changes, no changes in the pace of rate increases? How should we think about that?

Speaker 4

Think of it as very little impact from additional rate increases. Again, we want to separate that from what we're seeing in the market. It's we just don't factor into our budgets the impact of, like, current market dynamics. They're really hard to predict. They can change unexpectedly.

But again, it's not meant to be a signal of what we're seeing in the market. As Tim said, the vital signs of the E and S market are very healthy.

Speaker 9

Okay. That's helpful. Is there any way of teasing out maybe what you think the market impact was in the first half of the year?

Speaker 7

I'm sorry?

Speaker 0

Hello?

Speaker 6

Would you like to repeat that question? I'm sorry.

Speaker 9

Yeah. I'm sorry. I I was asking, look, when we look at the first half of the year organic growth, is there any way of saying, this was the market impact from rate increases? Again, obviously not budgeted in, but just to give us a sense of how much of a contributor that was in the first half of the year.

Speaker 4

So, Mayor, I we are not going to break out the impact of rate specifically. It's hard to measure and even harder to interpret meaningfully. As Tim said, the more meaningful metric that we track is flow into the E and S market. So let's think of those as a bundle. Historically, we've been able to grow at least low double digits with no impact of heavy flow or rate increase, in fact, in several years where rates were going the opposite direction.

So it's not a perfect walk, but you can see the difference, you know, that current market dynamics are at least contributing to when you go from low teens to high teens or 20s. I mean, the important thing to remember is, Meyer, that our growth, even double digit organic growth, is not dependent on market dynamics like we're seeing now because these are not meant to last forever. But when the opportunities are there, we are market plus growers as this quarter and this whole year demonstrates.

Speaker 9

Perfect. Thank you. That was very helpful.

Speaker 0

Our next question is from Mike Zaremski of Wolfe Research. Please state your question.

Speaker 10

Hey, good afternoon. Thanks. Maybe switching gears for a second to the M and A environment. Kind of curious, is there a kind of a broad flavor of size of transactions we should you guys are looking at? Is it kind of mostly like smaller tuck ins?

Or is it going to be a mix of kind of larger transactions and tuck ins? Any color would be helpful.

Speaker 2

Meyer, we always look at acquisitions to improve our offering to our clients. Parallel to that, we look at acquisitions that are beneficial to our shareholders. And so it can be tuck in and have generally been tuck ins. But I would tell you that because you asked the current status, there's more activity in larger, not tuck in, but different specialty lines of expertise that can be managing underwriting, often aren't managing underwriting. There's a robust interest in delegated authority growth.

And so buyers are out there and that's attracted sellers. And so right now, I would say that the average deal that we're being exposed to is larger than the norm.

Speaker 10

Okay. That's helpful, Pat. Maybe moving back to organic growth, and I'm just going to focus on this quarter. I'm not trying to focus on the forward looking like a lot of the previous questions. But is there any flavor or context around some of the acceleration in growth that we should be thinking about?

Perhaps maybe there were some larger chunkier account placements that kind of came through? Anything kind of more might be kind of not one off, but just a more near term trend? Or is it just really what you guys have been saying, just everything's all the segments are hitting on all cylinders?

Speaker 6

It's more of the latter. It's real measurable increase in flow into the channel, and we're capturing a large share of that. So it's again, it's very difficult to pull out rate on new versus renewal. It's much more accurate for us to look at the percentage of non admitted business overall and how much of that flows into our world and how much we can capture. So it's all very specialized by discipline.

But as an example, construction. Construction is picking up again. We read about it every day. So infrastructure projects, residential construction, all of that is starting to really pick up and boom, and that's one of our top specialties. So and lots of other segments that we can see this increase in flow.

Speaker 10

Okay. Got it. And maybe I sneak one last one in. Is there going to be a potential difference between the cash tax rate and the GAAP tax rate going forward? And I guess for thinking about the Class A shareholders?

Speaker 4

So, Mike, the best way the best guidance I can give you, I won't go through the details of how an LL how taxes at an LLC show up or don't show up on the P and L versus a C corp because I know you understand that. The most comparable view of taxes for us is going to be in our adjusted net income walk where we show what's called adjusted tax expense. And that basically assumes that the C corp owns all of Ryan Specialty Group LLC. And so you see a consistent tax rate for the entire company. When in reality, right now, the PUBCO, the C Corp, only owns 42%, 43% of the LLC.

So as that changes over time, and in thinking about us relative to other C Corps, I think that adjusted income tax expense, which is basically a pro form a 25%, is the best calculation to use for your model. Because in reality, you know, the cash taxes that the C Corp that the PUBCO holding company C Corp pays to the government will be one piece of it. The cash taxes paid directly to the government on behalf of the C Corps that the LLC owns are going to be a small piece. And then there's tax distributions that go to all holders of the LLC, including the PUBCO C Corp. So the simplest, most comparable fair view is that adjusted income tax expense in the adjusted net income walk.

Speaker 10

Thank you.

Speaker 0

There are no more questions at this time. We have reached the end of the question and answer session. I will now turn the call back over to Pat Ryan for closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Thank you, operator, and thank you, ladies and gentlemen. In closing, I'd like to thank our entire team here at Ryan Specialty for their tremendous work and dedication to get us to this point and for always delivering the highest quality service to our clients. I really believe that our exceptional talent has us in a position to continue delivering well into the future. Thanks everyone for joining our inaugural quarterly earnings call and we look forward to speaking with you all next quarter. Thanks very much.

Have a good evening.

Speaker 0

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