Silvercrest Asset Management Group - Earnings Call - Q4 2024

Executive Summary

• Q4 2024 delivered solid top-line growth: revenue $32.0M (+12.0% y/y) with GAAP diluted EPS $0.17 and adjusted diluted EPS $0.20; adjusted EBITDA margin improved to 15.9% from 9.0% y/y.
• AUM momentum accelerated: total AUM ended at $36.5B (vs. $35.1B in Q3, $33.3B y/y), supported by gross inflows of $2.2B and net client flows of +$0.9B; quarterly inflows were buoyed by a $1.3B seed into the new Global Value Equity strategy (CBUS).
• Expense mix showed investment posture: compensation accruals were managed higher in 2024 and are expected to continue in 2025; Q4 G&A rose 18.5% y/y while total expenses increased only 1.7% y/y, enabling margin uplift despite growth investments.
• 2025 catalysts: robust institutional pipeline ($1.6B), MAS license in Singapore, planned EU license, and new Atlanta market initiative position SAMG for additional organic flows; management sees medium-term operating leverage potential back toward high-20s+ EBITDA margins if investments normalize.
• Consensus estimates from S&P Global were unavailable at time of request; beat/miss vs. Street cannot be assessed. We will update estimate comparisons when S&P Global data is accessible.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Record organic business development: “The firm garnered $1.4 billion in the fourth quarter and $1.5 billion during 2024 in new client AUM inflows… the best year since 2015,” underpinned by the $1.3B CBUS seed into Global Value Equity.
• Sequential AUM growth and revenue acceleration: Q4 AUM $36.5B (+4.0% q/q) with revenue +12.0% y/y; discretionary AUM rose to $23.3B (+3.1% q/q) on net client inflows.
• Adjusted profitability improved: adjusted EBITDA $5.1M and margin 15.9% vs. 9.0% y/y, reflecting better revenue capture with controlled total expenses growth.

What Went Wrong

• Elevated operating costs: Q4 G&A +18.5% y/y (professional fees, portfolio/systems, office, recruiting) and continued investment-led pressure on compensation ratio into 2025.
• Mixed market backdrop within the quarter: discretionary AUM saw market depreciation of $0.2B (offset by net inflows), tempering flow-through to revenue vs. a pure market tailwind.
• Estimates unavailable: Street comparisons could not be performed due to an S&P Global data access issue during this analysis window; monitoring for resumption of access.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good morning and welcome to the Silvercrest Asset Management Group, Inc. Q4 and Full Year 2024 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note today's event is being recorded. Before we begin, let me remind you that during today's call, certain statements may be made regarding our future performance, our forward-looking statements. They are based on current expectations and projections, which are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause actual results to differ materially from the statements that are made. Those factors are disclosed in our filings with the SEC under the captioned risk factors. For all such forward-looking statements, we claim the protections provided by the Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

All forward-looking statements made on this call are made as of the date hereof, and Silvercrest assumes no obligation to update them. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Rick Hough, Chairman and CEO of Silvercrest. Please go ahead.

Richard Hough (Chairman and CEO)

Thank you and good morning. Welcome to our 1st Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. I will get to my business update for the quarter, but I wanted to highlight the nature of our high net worth and asset management firm strategically, given the amount of initiatives that we have underway that I referenced in my business update. Silvercrest is an independent wealth management firm, and we combine top quality asset management expertise with high levels of customer service. Our customer-facing investment professionals who provide that customized advice and service to our well over 600 ultra-high net worth individuals and institutions are strong, and we have consistently enjoyed annual customer retention rates of over 98%. Most of our revenue comes from recurring management fees, which we'll hear more about today.

We've built our investment capabilities to serve the complex needs of our clients who require sophisticated solutions across all public markets, private markets, private credit, as well as bespoke solutions for significant individual holdings. These capabilities support Silvercrest's leading market position, serving wealthy families and select institutions in a manner that generates industry-leading client retention and stable revenues. We've accomplished this with average assets under management of over $50 million per relationship, and that helps generate the profitability and cash flows that we enjoy as a firm and which we have been investing over the past year in future growth of the business. Importantly, the depth of our high-quality asset management and intellectual capital is proof of thesis to the wealthiest families globally, and we'll talk more about our ambitions as the firm is growing.

We concluded 2024 with strong net organic flows due to new strategic investments made over the past year that are already bearing fruit. The firm garnered $1.4 billion in the 4th quarter and $1.5 billion during 2024 in new client assets under management inflows, the best year for new organic client inflows since at least 2015. The 4th quarter was primarily bolstered by winning a successful seed investment in our global value equity strategy of $1.3 billion, which is AUD 2 billion in partnership with Cbus, one of Australia's largest superannuation funds. The increases during the quarter bode well for future revenue, and we remain highly optimistic about securing more significant organic flows over the course of 2025 to increase our return on invested capital. Total AUM as of year-end 2024 reached $36.5 billion as of December 31st, up 9.6% from $33.3 billion at year-end 2023.

Discretionary AUM, which drives our revenue, rose 6.4% to $23.3 billion from $21.9 billion. Overall, total asset flows and market increases were a net positive for the firm and will drive an increase in future revenue. Revenue for the year increased 5.3% to $123.7 million from $117.4 million, with Q4 revenue up 12% over Q4 2023 to $32 million from $28.5 million. Strategically, in addition to building the firm's new global value equity strategy from scratch, we have hired business development and market leads in Atlanta and Singapore. We have our full MAS license for doing business in Singapore and will be opening an office. With significant European assets and growth opportunities, we also will be pursuing more initiatives that better highlight Silvercrest in both the institutional and wealth markets.

The firm also has invested in talent across the firm to drive new growth and successfully transition the business toward the next generation. Silvercrest developed new and stronger institutional consulting relationships during 2024, with new investment opportunities to develop our strategies. Our pipeline remains robust. As a result, we are optimistic about securing significant new organic flows. Importantly, the firm's pipeline does not yet include mandates for our global value equity strategy, which is a high capacity for significant new assets. We have worked hard over the past year to build the infrastructure, team, and strategy while undertaking business development. As with our 3rd quarter call, we envision more positive AUM flows and resulting revenue increases. As I've discussed throughout the past year, Silvercrest has never had more business opportunities. Those initiatives are beginning to bear results. We have made and will continue to make investments to drive future growth.

We expect to make more hires to complement our outstanding professional team to drive that growth. Silvercrest continues to accrue a higher interim % of revenue for compensation for this purpose. As mentioned, we will continue to adjust compensation accruals to match these important investments in the business. We will keep you informed of our plans and the progress of these investments. Look forward to taking questions and talking about this this morning, and I'll turn it over to our CFO, Scott Gerard, for the financials, and then we'll get to that. Thank you.

Scott Gerard (CFO)

Great. Thanks, Rick. As disclosed in our earnings release for the 4th quarter, discretionary AUM as of December 31st, 2024, was $23.3 billion, and total AUM as of the end of 2024 was $36.5 billion. Revenue for the 4th quarter was $32 million, and reported consolidated net income for the quarter was $2.7 million. Revenue for the quarter increased year-over-year by $3.4 million, or 12%, primarily driven by increased discretionary AUM resulting from net client inflows, partially offset by market depreciation. Expenses for the quarter increased year-over-year by $0.5 million, or 1.7%, primarily driven by increased general and administrative expenses, partially offset by decreased compensation and benefits expense. Compensation and benefits expense for the quarter decreased year-over-year by $0.8 million, or 3.4%, primarily due to a decrease in the accrual for bonuses.

Based on the increased recurring cash compensation ratio over the past few years, due in part to the investment in the next generation of portfolio managers and other associates, we increased the amount of the interim variable compensation accrual during 2024 to narrow the adjustment in the 4th quarter. We intended to do the same accrual management in 2025. Also, compensation and benefits expense for the quarter increased year-over-year as a result of increases in salaries due to merit-based increases and newly hired staff. General and administrative expenses increased by $1.3 million, or approximately 18.5%, primarily due to increases in professional fees and portfolio and systems expense. Reported net income attributable to Silvercrest or the Class A shareholders for the 4th quarter was approximately $1.6 million, or $0.17 per basic and diluted Class A share.

Adjusted EBITDA, which we define as EBITDA without giving effect to equity-based compensation expense and non-core, non-recurring items, was approximately $5.1 million, or 15.9% of revenue for the quarter. Adjusted net income, which we define as net income without giving effect to non-core and non-recurring items and income tax expense assuming a corporate rate of 26%, was approximately $2.9 million for the quarter, or $0.21 and $0.20 per adjusted basic and diluted EPS, respectively. Adjusted EPS is equal to adjusted net income divided by the actual Class A and Class B shares outstanding as of the end of the reporting period for basic adjusted EPS. To the extent diluted, we add uninvested restricted stock units and non-qualified stock options to the total shares outstanding to compute diluted adjusted EPS.

Looking at the full year, revenue ended the full year 2024 as an increase year-over-year by $6.2 million, or 5.3%, primarily driven by increased discretionary AUM resulting from market appreciation, partially offset by net client outflows. Expenses increased year-over-year by $7.5 million, or 7.5%, primarily driven by increased compensation and benefits expense, and to a lesser extent, increased G&A expenses. Compensation and benefits increased year-over-year by $4 million, or 5.6%, primarily due to increases in equity-based compensation, salaries due to merit-based increases and newly hired staff, and the accrual for bonuses. G&A expenses increased by $3.4 million, or approximately 13.1%, primarily due to increases in professional fees, portfolio and systems expense, occupancy and related costs, and trade error expense. Reported net income attributable to Silvercrest for 2024 was $9.5 million, or $1 per basic and diluted Class A share.

Adjusted EBITDA was approximately $26.1 million, or 21.1% of revenue for all of 2024. Adjusted net income was approximately $15.8 million for 2024, or $1.15 and $1.10 per adjusted basic and diluted EPS, respectively. Quickly looking at the balance sheet, total assets were approximately $194.4 million as of the end of 2024, compared to $199.6 million as of the end of 2023. Cash and cash equivalents were approximately $68.6 million as of the end of 2024, compared to $70.3 million as of the end of 2023. There were no borrowings as of the end of 2024, and total Class A stockholders' equity was approximately $80.7 million at the end of last year. That concludes my remarks. I'll turn it over to Rick for Q&A.

Richard Hough (Chairman and CEO)

Thanks very much, Scott. We'll take questions and have some extended commentary, I think, this morning.

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we'll begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, you may press star and then one using a touch-tone telephone. To withdraw your questions, you may press star and two. If you are using a speakerphone, we do ask that you please pick up the handset prior to pressing the keys to ensure the best sound quality. Once again, that is star and then one to join the question queue. We'll pause momentarily to assemble the roster. Our first question today comes from Sandy Mehta from Evaluate Research. Please go ahead with your question.

Sandy Mehta (CEO & Founder)

Yes. Good morning. Congratulations on the strong organic inflows. Could you comment a little bit more on the pipeline amount that you're seeing currently? Also, an update on OCIO in terms of where you are in assets and the outlook there. I understand that your pipeline amount does not include global prospects. A little bit more commentary on, do you see global inflows this year, 2025, and what are the opportunities there this year and next year? Thank you.

Richard Hough (Chairman and CEO)

Great. Thank you. Appreciate it, Sandy. First of all, on the pipeline, I believe at the end of last year, we had a pipeline of $1.2 billion. That pipeline has now increased to $1.6 billion. That includes some wins out of the pipeline. The pipeline actually decreased due to some wins. Did not include the global team, but for example, our growth team in Milwaukee, which joined us in 2019, had some really nice inflows. I think about $68 million to their strategies, or $67 million net in the 4th quarter. We feel really good about that because we have got a transition and a leadership of that team, and performance in that particular strategy remains strong. With regards to the pipeline overall, it includes a significant OCIO mandate, and we are seeing increased OCIO opportunities to answer your question about that. OCIO now stands at $1.6 billion.

I definitely expect that to increase during 2025 based on what I'm seeing. I should comment, of course, that assumes steady markets, and as we know, markets have been down recently. On a steady-state basis where we stand today, I see a nice pipeline and an increase there. I have included only about $100 million in the pipeline for global value, which you just asked about. Part of that is because the nature of measuring our pipeline is becoming a lot more difficult and hard to measure. We tried to add something for global value into the pipeline, but most of this, as you noted in your question, is really about the traditional capabilities that we've had at the firm for some time. I'll get back to global, but let me talk about the pipeline for just a second, Sandy, because I think this is important.

For the past several years, or many years, we have defined the pipeline as either finals or semifinals in a search for the capability, or an invite-only search by an institution or consultants that we think is actionable in the next six months. If we get a win, it falls out of the pipeline. If we get a lose, it falls out of the pipeline. If something in terms of timing extends beyond the six months, it comes out of the pipeline. A couple of times over the past two or three years, we've seen searches take longer than they used to, and we've had the pipeline come down because it wasn't going to happen in the next six months. The problem with measuring the pipeline now is that we are seeing way less RFPs.

That used to be a very important part of the business, is filling out RFPs. It's just not being driven that way anymore. More typically, you present information to a consultant or institution. You don't know, really, to what extent they have a search or not, and you get the phone call that you won something. You don't necessarily even know you're in a finals or semifinals. It's just not working that way anymore. Despite the size of the pipeline, which I think is very strong and has increased largely according to those rules I gave you, it's becoming increasingly hard to measure, and therefore, it's going to be increasingly hard for us to give you apples-to-apples comparison to the past. I don't know how we're going to resolve that, to be honest.

I think we will start handicapping the opportunities we see and soft-circling numbers, but that becomes a little fuzzier and less concrete than what we've given you before. This is part of the reason, to get back to the global value equity team, this is part of the reason why we really haven't put the opportunity there into our pipeline. As you know, in the 3rd quarter call last year, I was very optimistic about inflows. In part, it's because I knew about the conversations we were having with potential seed investors for that capability, but I didn't think it would be realistic at that size of a seed and not knowing what kind of conclusion we'd come to to put it into the pipeline at that time. Sure enough, it worked out for that team. We built it from scratch.

We're really proud of having the quality of firm and infrastructure to attract the kind of talent that we did with no AUM on the payroll and then to get off to the races with that investment. As I said in the 3rd quarter, I think the opportunity for that team is in the billions-and-billions of dollars. When we can garner that over the course of 2025 and 2026 is a little up in the air, which is not why it's in the pipeline. Of course, our performance has to hang in there. I'm pleased to report that so far in 2025, our performance is very good in that strategy, in part helped by international markets doing quite well, as well as where that's in that portfolio have been placed. I expect significant new inflows for that capability this year.

I think we will get follow-on institutional investors from Europe and from Asia. I will say that to give you an idea of the pipeline, the number of meetings, requests for information has been very, very strong from people who can allocate very large sums of capital to the strategy. In addition, we have opened up new consulting relationships that have a much more global perspective that we have not had at the firm. That includes within consulting firms that were mostly focused on our domestic capabilities. Highly optimistic. Performance is strong. The potential is enormous, but it is a little hard for me to give you a figure. I think what happened in the 4th quarter is just a start, and I expect to capitalize that in 2025 and throughout 2026. I think I covered all the bases for you, Sandy, but feel free to follow up.

Sandy Mehta (CEO & Founder)

No, no. Great. Thanks. Thank you so much. Just one last question on my side. The expenses, compensation expense, G.E. expense, is this the level that we should expect going forward for both those categories? Thanks.

Richard Hough (Chairman and CEO)

I would expect it for the foreseeable future. We've tried to be very careful about adjusting that compensation ratio every quarter and to keep investors up to speed with how investments are panning out. We are taking a very close look at expenses elsewhere in the firm. I think I'll get into this later, but the innovations in technology and some of the productivity that we're seeing operationally eventually will help us lower that and fall to the bottom line. It's a little premature to say that at this time, but I'm absolutely astounded by the potential for productivity gains in the business over the medium term. By that, I mean through the end of 2026, 2027. I think for this year, we would be smart and prudent to conservatively say, "Yes, expect it at this level." Now, let's talk about investments in personnel.

The team that we brought on board and the infrastructure around it is expensive. That was, of course, a meaningful part of the increase in compensation, and we had no revenue to offset it until perhaps two weeks of the 4th quarter, end of December, two weeks. We will have a full year of revenue this year, and that team is now paying for itself. Obviously, that does not get us down to the compensation ratio that we would like to see yet, but in pretty short order, that will be a nicely profitable team at the firm. We are making other investments, as I pointed out. We are hiring other portfolio managers. It takes time for them to become highly profitable to the firm. We hired a market and business development lead in the high-net-worth space. We have never had a peer business development lead, interestingly.

To open our Atlanta office where we will be hiring PMs, we have added to Singapore to get that effort going. We have other initiatives across the firm, including institutional business development that we are going to be making that will continue, at least for the foreseeable future, to lead to higher compensation expenses. Obviously, I think this is money very well spent to increase our return on investment capital, and we are excited about those opportunities. You are seeing a lot of initiatives kind of in those numbers all at once.

Sandy Mehta (CEO & Founder)

Great. Thank you so much. All the best. Thank you.

Richard Hough (Chairman and CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Christopher Marinac from Janney Montgomery Scott. Please go ahead with your question.

[crosstalk]

Christopher Marinac (Director of Research)

Good morning.

Richard Hough (Chairman and CEO)

Hey, how are you?

Christopher Marinac (Director of Research)

I'm good. I wanted to ask you and Scott about expenses, just kind of continuing the conversation further. What's the thought about operating leverage in the big picture? It's not as much about a given quarter as it is kind of where you're going this year, next year, and as you execute on the pipeline. Do you still feel that you're going to get operating leverage on the sort of profitable throughput? I have a follow-up.

Richard Hough (Chairman and CEO)

I do. Chris, if I were to run the company in a steady state without making personnel investments, we would bump at least back up into the high 20s for an EBITDA margin. When we had really great bull markets for our assets ending at 2021 and performance fees, we hit an all-time high of around 32% EBITDA margin. Given the leverage in the institutional business that we're seeing and the new opportunities, getting back there is absolutely within the realm of possibility. It's just going to take some time. If I were to remove some folks who are not yet profitable for the firm where we've made investments and just sort of run it with where we are, we would pop back up. Medium-term target, it would be to get back there, assuming I cease investments and just ran a steady-state business.

That is not going to serve our growth in the medium term.

Christopher Marinac (Director of Research)

Got it. Is medium-term possible as a 2026 target? Not to get too specific, but just sort of thinking as we look at.

Richard Hough (Chairman and CEO)

Look, if everything falls into place, I think it is. Yes. I'm pretty careful, as you know, about forecasting what that looks like, especially the high-net-worth side. OCIO is a bit of a hybrid. It's a bit lumpy and hard to predict. I have actually more visibility into the institutional pipeline, but where we're headed directionally, that alone could start to get us there.

Christopher Marinac (Director of Research)

Great. Can you remind us about additional investments? Just thinking, I guess, out loud about the global fund. Do you have everything in place for that now with the launch, or is there additional hirings and therefore expense this year?

Richard Hough (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah. We have almost everything in place. There will be more expenses. We hired another analyst on that team after we brought over the initial team. There is business development needs there because there is just so much activity and coverage that we need to have in Europe, in Asia, in Australia. By that, I am not talking multiple hires here, but there is definitely a hire there. We have a need for more client relation support there. These are not big numbers at this stage. We hired a new trader for that team. I mentioned a client associate. We may need someone working on settlement in addition to that. They are not big needle movers, but there is more investment to be made.

Christopher Marinac (Director of Research)

Great. Last question for me just goes on. I guess sort of the big picture from geopolitical risk. It feels like it's been three years we've had this elevated geopolitical concern. Is that feeding more inquiries into Silvercrest and therefore more business opportunities, or is that just noise and you still have your business plan separate from that?

Richard Hough (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah. Great question. Obviously, the volatility globally increases some risk, but on balance, it has benefited the firm and driven assets and interest to us as a solution. You may recall this. We are working with a significant family—maybe families now, but at least one very significant family in Poland. That came about after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and concern about what was happening in Eastern Europe. That is an incredibly dynamic and growing economy of wealth. It is underserved by firms like ours. In fact, globally, the U.S. is well ahead of other places with regards to our fiduciary model for managing assets. On balance, it absolutely has a lot to do with our focus on serving other places. It was because of incoming inquiries and the fact that we have the tools to serve both these families as well as institutional investors.

I'm fairly optimistic, however, about the global scene in the medium to long term. A lot of it is noise. Obviously, I'm hoping for some peaceful resolution like anyone would with what we're seeing happening globally. At the end of the day, when people want to secure their assets and see them grow and have alternatives given whatever situation they're in in their countries, that's going to benefit the United States and benefit firms like ours. The new consultant relationships we're seeing, the new inquiries that we're seeing, the new conversations that we're having with families is all quite meaningful. In fact, I will be going likely to Poland myself, given the interest that we have there in early April. I will be in Asia at the end of April. Our business development team spent two weeks in Australia recently.

They will be spending at least a week, maybe two weeks in Europe given the opportunities there. We are highly likely to be pursuing a license in the European Union. Right now, we can only receive incoming inquiries. We'd like to be more aggressive and pursue opportunities. That is something we will be working hard on in 2025 as well. As I mentioned, we got our MAS license in Singapore. That took years. It's important for us to be in that time zone. We started building that and really didn't talk about it on any earnings calls because we wanted to get it done. We wanted to assess the opportunity before we put more capital into it. Honestly, I was a little concerned how that might be viewed by investors.

What is Silvercrest doing extending itself to the other side of the world given the nature of our business here in the United States? Of course, we did that with the knowledge that we had ambitions to be serving wealth in Southeast Asia as well as knowing that the pools of money available to us both on the wealth side and institutional side in Australia. Now it makes total sense given the length of those economies and the need to be in a time zone closer to Sydney and Melbourne, along with the talent there. That is now coming together and hangs together quite nicely for our future ambitions. I hope that thoroughly covers kind of what you're getting at.

Christopher Marinac (Director of Research)

No, it's great. Thanks a lot for the background and for hosting us all this morning.

Scott Gerard (CFO)

You're welcome.

Operator (participant)

Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and one. Our next question comes from Chris Sakai from Singular Research. Please go ahead with your question.

Chris Sakai (Senior Research Analyst)

Yes, hi. Good morning.

Richard Hough (Chairman and CEO)

Good morning.

Chris Sakai (Senior Research Analyst)

Just wanted to ask about, can you explain it? What sort of hurdles are you facing in this international expansion into these other countries? How is that adding to costs? Are you facing any regulation hurdles?

Richard Hough (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah. I want to be careful about how it's characterized. We're not aggressively expanding into other countries with regards to our infrastructure. Singapore is really the only one right now outside of the United States. We've always been quite prudent with when we decide to go somewhere and careful with our capital. We need to have a very compelling reason to physically be located somewhere. Really, when we're talking about this, we're talking about flows into our capabilities from these other places, which Silvercrest has always had. From day one, we've worked with very significant European clients, and that's only grown. I think I've mentioned before we have clients that are very meaningful to the firm in South America and the Netherlands. We work with a number of very large industrial families in Germany. That required zero infrastructure on the ground.

What we're reaching now is the need really for getting over the regulatory hurdles you just mentioned with regards to the appropriate licenses in order to solicit business in certain countries. It is certainly a barrier in Europe. At this stage, I do not necessarily need a physical location. I think there are going to be ways for us to do that. If we do do it, we are likely to do it in a very light way to start. We will do it because the opportunity presents itself to create a profitable business. Singapore is a very business-friendly place. Working with the regulators there was good. It just takes time. We have gotten through those hurdles without an issue. I think this firm is of a size and quality in terms of our operations that we do not have a difficult time surmounting those hurdles for getting licensing.

We do extremely well in operational due diligence across the board in terms of our controls and infrastructure. Consultants look at that very closely. That translates very well in terms of what the regulators look at as well. It is just a part of doing business, and I would not say that it is a headwind or significant a challenge for this firm. We just need to work through it.

Chris Sakai (Senior Research Analyst)

Great. Can you explain what are some of the things you're seeing in Atlanta that draws you there? Am I getting the sense that there's greater growth opportunities outside the U.S.? Is that a good way to think about it?

Scott Gerard (CFO)

Theres two ways to think about this, or three. Number one, yes, there are very significant growth opportunities outside the U.S. The United States has a very robust and mature wealth management and asset management business from banks to multiple very large RIAs serving the wealthy and others. That is good. It is a very competitive environment. We have succeeded well in one of the most competitive environments in the world. Wealth is growing globally, arguably at a faster rate than it necessarily is within the United States. Obviously, Europe is not growing particularly fast, but there are lots of places in the world that are. You combine the fact that places like Europe or Australia or Asia are underserved by what I will call the RIA model, that is opportunity for first movers who can bring capabilities like this firm to those places to garner assets to stand above others in the field.

In the United States, the economy is growing at 2%, let's just say, just around it. That typically means that wealth is growing at 2%. Now, it may be going in larger segments to the wealthier, as we know from wealth disparities. Generally speaking, you are moving business from one firm to another, very often big banks, to Silvercrest. We get our opportunities at new wealth, but those opportunities are just greater in number as we look out across the world. It is both growing wealth as well as a differentiated business model in places where wealth is emerging or that it is just lagging behind the United States with regards to kind of the way that firms like ours do business. It is a combination of those things. Next, to Atlanta and the United States.

In the United States, there's been a tremendous trend of rolling up, as you know, a lot of smaller RIAs backed by private equity that has pushed multiples up on firms. It makes it much harder to play the M&A game responsibly with investor capital. This firm has a history of being able to grow organically. We feel confident in our ability to do that. If we do do an acquisition, we are going to be very selective. It has to be a high-net-worth firm with compatible culture in a money-centered growing city in the United States that is a well-run business that we think can then grow organically after we have merged. It's not going to be a question of us just hoping for multiple accretion in doing an acquisition.

Atlanta and the Southeast is among, if not the fastest growing region in the United States for wealth. We really felt the need to be there. At the same time, in order to drive organic growth generally across a high-net-worth segment at Silvercrest, I felt we needed to get full-time business development for that and both to help our existing portfolio managers as well as to grow in a new region. If you're not there, it's harder to do in a referral business. Given our success and capabilities of what we have, we thought it was time to just go into one of those money-centered cities and do it ourselves. Much better use of investor capital, not to pay out tens and tens of millions of dollars potentially to be in a new city when we can make a much smaller investment and grow organically.

Yes, in the short term, that means hitting EBITDA on earnings. I've been talking about it for three years or two years before I even did it. Now we're executing on that plan.

Chris Sakai (Senior Research Analyst)

Okay. Great. Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, and showing no additional questions, I would like to turn the floor back over to Rick Hough for closing remarks.

Richard Hough (Chairman and CEO)

Great. Thank you so much. Thank you, everyone, for joining us. As you can tell from my comments, not unlike the 3rd quarter, I'm very enthusiastic about the initiatives we're taking and the potential for growth at the firm at an organic level. We have a large pipeline. We will continue to update you on how we're measuring that. I'm highly optimistic about what we can do with the global value equity team. Just the fact that we're getting traction is raising our visibility globally in a way that is very intentional. As I said in my very opening remarks, our strategy has always been to hire and build very strong intellectual capital at the firm that is proof of thesis to our very large families in OCIO and the wealth management business about the quality of the firm and what we're doing as an asset management firm.

It is allowing us to take new initiatives that should compound the organic growth and provide us over the medium term some very nice returns. I look forward to updating you on these initiatives as it works out over time. The patience of our investors with regards to investments is already starting to be borne out, which we greatly appreciate. I think it will be quite enlightening as we go through 2025 directionally. I think there is one more investor question, which I am happy to take. Sorry to interrupt my concluding remarks there.

Operator (participant)

Yes, sir. We do have Peter Katz from Herold & Lantern Investments. Please go ahead with your question.

Peter Katz (Investment Adviser and Broker)

Hi, Rick. Hi, Scott. Congratulations on the progress you're making. I am a long-term investor. I just find, just as a follow-up, your thoughts on dividend and buyback policy.

Richard Hough (Chairman and CEO)

Thanks, Peter. Yeah. I mean, we have no debt and a lot of cash. We have always felt in this business, especially at a small company like ours, that it's very important to return capital to our investors. We have a history of doing that. In the past, when I've been asked about our cash and dividends or buybacks, I have cautiously conveyed that there can be a use for cash that becomes very apparent if we were to do a deal. You may recall, as a long-time shareholder, we were going into 2019 with a significant amount of cash. That and some debt was used for our merger with Cortina, which was very good for the company and highly accretive. That possibility is always out there. I want to be careful about how we think about it.

We did feel it was appropriate once again to do a buyback. We are working through that in the markets. We think long-term that is a very, very good use of capital. We will continue to look at buybacks as we move along here, depending on what our alternative use of capital is. As you can imagine, we are in discussions. We have not talked about M&A in a while, but we are in discussions all the time with firms. That is a possibility and a possibility for the use of our cash. In the meantime, we are going to organically grow the company. If we are in a position where we feel we can continue to return capital that way, we will. I think it has been good, and we like it. I am not trying to say we are going to do more right now.

We're still working from what we announced previously, but it's always under consideration, number one. On the dividend, we think it's important to continually pay that out at a high level to make sure that this stock is providing a very good yield to our investors over the years. We want to do it in a prudent way. Our general goal, Peter, is to keep it high, which it is, and to increase it, but at a rate where we feel even with a dramatic downturn in markets and therefore revenue, we can still sustain it for a good period of time. I would say at this level, we can. The market could really fall off along with our revenue, and we would not have to change the dividend policy for an extended period of time.

We're comfortable with our payout ratio, but I hope that gives you some idea of how we're looking at it. Because I do think, given the small size of our company, the fact that it's a financial and it's a small-cap value stock, and we know how small-cap value in general has done compared to large-cap growth in other parts of the market, it's very important to return capital and pay a high dividend to our investors who are long-term investors like yourself.

Peter Katz (Investment Adviser and Broker)

Terrific. Thank you.

Richard Hough (Chairman and CEO)

You're welcome. Are there any other questions?

Operator (participant)

I am not showing any additional questions at this time.

Richard Hough (Chairman and CEO)

All right. Thank you. I think I made my concluding remarks. I just thank everyone for their time and attention this morning. I look forward to speaking with you in the next quarter.

Operator (participant)

With that, ladies and gentlemen, we will conclude today's conference call and presentation. We do thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.