Abacus Life Q4 2024 Earnings Report

Abacus Life EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.16
• Consensus EPS: $0.13
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.03
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Abacus Life Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $33.21 million
• Expected Revenue: $28.76 million
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$4.45 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Abacus Life Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q4 2024
• Date: 3/27/2025
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, March 27, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 5:00PM ET

Abacus Life (NASDAQ:ABL) operates as an alternative asset manager specializing in life insurance products. It purchases life insurance policies from consumers seeking liquidity and manages policies over time via trading, holding, and/or servicing. The company was founded in 2004 and is based in Orlando, Florida.

Abacus Life Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Q4 revenue grew 40% to $33.2 M and adjusted net income soared 126% to $13.4 M, while full-year 2024 revenue increased 69% to $111.9 M and adjusted net income rose 58% to $46.5 M.
• Acquired Carlisle Management and FCF Advisors, adding approximately $2.6 B of assets under management, expanding global life settlement capabilities and launching the Abacus FCF Small Cap Leaders ETF (ABLS).
• Strengthened capital structure by raising $181.7 M of equity and securing a $150 M debt facility, achieving capital self-sufficiency and ending 2024 with $128.8 M in cash.
• Rebranded to Abacus Global Management and organized into four segments—Life Solutions, Asset Group, ABL Wealth, and ABL Tech—to offer integrated, technology-driven financial solutions.
• Issued 2025 guidance of $70 M–$78 M in adjusted net income, implying 51%–68% growth driven by policy originations, capital deployment, and expanded asset management.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Abacus Global Management's Fourth Quarter twenty twenty four 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 event is being recorded.

[Operator]

I'd now like to turn the call over to Robert Phillips, Abacus Global Management's Senior Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Affairs. Please go ahead.

[Robert Phillips, Senior VP of Investor Relations & Corporate Affairs at Abacus Life]

Thank you, operator, and thank you everyone for joining Abacus Global Management's fourth quarter and full year twenty twenty four earnings call. Here with me today are Jay Jackson, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer and Bill Macaulay, Chief Financial Officer. This afternoon at 04:15PM Eastern Time, Abacus Global Management released its fourth quarter twenty twenty four results. This afternoon's call will allow participants to ask questions about our results. Before we begin, Abacus Global Management refers participants on this call to the investor webpage, ir.abacusgm.com, for the press release, the investor information and filings with the SEC for a discussion of the risks that can affect the business.

[Robert Phillips, Senior VP of Investor Relations & Corporate Affairs at Abacus Life]

Abacus Global Management specifically refers participants to the presentation furnished today on Form eight ks with the Securities and Exchange Commission and to remind listeners that some of the comments today may contain forward looking statements and as such will be subject to risks and uncertainties, which, if they materialize, could materially affect results. For more information on the risks, uncertainties and assumptions relating to forward looking statements, please refer to Abacus Global Management's public filings. During the call, we will reference certain non GAAP financial measures. Although we believe these measures provide useful supplemental information about our financial performance, they are not recognized measures and do not have standardized meanings under U. S.

[Robert Phillips, Senior VP of Investor Relations & Corporate Affairs at Abacus Life]

Generally Accepted Accounting Principles or GAAP. Please see our public filings for additional information regarding our non GAAP financial measures, including references to comparable GAAP measures. With that, I'd now like to turn the call over to Jay Jackson, Chief Executive Officer.

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

Thanks, Rob, and thank you to everyone joining us today for your interest in Abacus Global Management, and welcome to our fourth quarter twenty twenty four earnings call. After Bill and I conclude our prepared remarks, we'll open it up to your questions. We closed 2024 with another outstanding quarter of profitable growth and achieving significant milestones, capping off a record year for Abacus. In addition to our strong financial results, we effectively executed on a number of strategic initiatives that have meaningfully expanded our business. In 2024 alone, we strengthened our executive team through key hires, successfully raised substantial additional capital to fuel our growth initiatives, achieved capital self sufficiency on our balance sheet, completed two strategic acquisitions that have significantly expanded our capabilities and market reach, and dramatically grew both the scope and scale of our operations across multiple business lines.

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

First, in term of our results, for the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four, we grew total revenue by 40% year over year to $33,200,000 and recorded strong adjusted earnings, growing adjusted net income by 126% to $13,400,000 and adjusted EBITDA by 51% year over year to $16,600,000 Q4 was one of the many highlights in what proved to be an exceptional fiscal year 2024 for Abacus. For the full year, we increased total revenue by 69% to $111,900,000 grew adjusted net income by 58% year over year to $46,500,000 and adjusted EBITDA 57% to $61,600,000 Additionally, we increased our policy originations by 63% to ten thirty four in 2024 and deployed over $344,000,000 in capital. Much of our growth was driven by our continued marketing efforts, successful capital deployment, increased assets under management and our expanding institutional relationships. And we're well positioned for a strong 2025. We've initiated our full year 2025 outlook for adjusted net income to be between $70,000,000 and $78,000,000 which implies another strong year of growth between 51% to 68%.

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

Bill will be along shortly to discuss our fourth quarter and full year financial performance in further detail. The fourth quarter saw us make considerable progress in expanding our business operations meaningfully through thoughtful strategic investments, both organic and inorganic. During the quarter, we successfully completed the acquisitions of Carlisle Management Company SCA and FCF Advisors, asset managers which together added approximately $2,600,000,000 in assets under management to our portfolio. These strategic acquisitions seamlessly integrate with our long term vision of providing clients with holistic and tailored financial solutions. Carlyle significantly expands our international footprint and enhances our offerings to institutional investors seeking attractive risk adjusted returns with low correlation to other asset classes.

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

Their track record as a fund manager within the life settlement industry is unmatched. Their investment portfolio is truly differentiated and we could not be more thrilled to welcome Jose Garcia and the expert Carlyle team to the Abacus family. Meanwhile, FCF Advisors brings to Abacus innovative and specialized free cash flow focused ETF investment strategies. Their pioneering free cash flow quality model seeks free cash flow leaders in their industry while maintaining a high return on invested capital. This combination of free cash flow in ROIC allows our investors to capture the leading most profitable companies in each category with one symbol.

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

We rebranded the company to Abacus FCF Advisors and in concert with the rebrand, we launched the new Abacus FCF Small Cap Leaders ETF, which carries the ticker ABLS. We also announced management fee reductions of five to 10 basis points across all of our ETFs and an 18 fee waiver of 20 basis points on four of the ETFs. We have already integrated Carlyle and FCF into our organization. It was the ideal time to rebrand our company to Abacus Global Management, which better reflects our evolution and global market presence. Our evolution to Abacus Global Management represents a significant milestone in our company's journey to revolutionize financial services through expert asset management and by leveraging advanced technology to deliver personalized, lifespan based financial solutions.

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

As a result of these investments, we are thrilled to provide our expanded offerings and solutions to our clients through our four distinct yet complementary business segments, which we will elaborate on further in the weeks and months ahead. Abacus Life Solutions provides premium liquidity solutions for life insurance assets, helping thousands of clients maximize the value of their life insurance assets. Abacus Asset Group serves institutional investors and select private clients with specialized uncorrelated and longevity based assets and investment strategies. ABL Wealth redefines wealth management through our proprietary data and algorithms that create truly customized financial plans based on health, longevity and overall financial well-being. And ABL Tech leverages our decades of experience in proprietary data to revolutionize the life planning industry through innovative technology solutions serving pensions, insurance companies and asset managers.

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

We also took a number of key steps during 2024 in terms of enhancing our balance sheet. And as a result, our liquidity position has never been stronger. In addition to our strong free cash generating business, we successfully raised $181,700,000 in additional equity in two oversubscribed offerings, including the Green Shoe, in order to fuel our growth initiatives. Then in December, we further enhanced our capital structure by securing a new private 150,000,000 debt financing facility with Cigar and Varde Partners, two premier financial institutions which ensures that we will continue growing our capabilities in 2025 and beyond without the need for additional equity raises. In 2024, we also added an additional $73,000,000 of assets under management in our private placement LMA Income Fund II with more updates to come in our Q1 twenty twenty five call.

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

Additionally, in an effort to further simplify our capital structure, subsequent to year end, we entered into private warrant exchange agreements in which we exchanged just under 5,000,000 public warrants for an aggregate of over 1,100,000.0 shares of newly issued common stock, representing a ratio of 0.23 shares per warrant. Looking ahead, we're off to a great start in 2025 as we expect to once again grow our full year adjusted net income by over 50%. And we're committed to maintaining our momentum to firmly solidify Abacus as a leader in the alternative asset manager space. Our expanding business verticals, proprietary technology and wealth of data provides us with clear competitive advantages to capture the vast opportunities before us. With that, I'll now hand it over to our CFO, Bill McCauley to discuss the specifics of our fourth quarter and full year results.

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

Thanks, Jay, and hello, everyone.

[William McCauley, Chief Financial Officer at Abacus Life]

As Jay mentioned, we closed out 2024 with another solid quarter of top line growth and profitability. The key driver of our business performance continues to be our highly efficient origination platform, while we continue to grow our expanded verticals that will contribute meaningfully to our future earnings. In fourth quarter twenty twenty four, capital deployed increased 41% to $96,600,000 compared to $68,300,000 in the prior year, while we grew policies originated to $214,000,000 With the continued policy origination and capital deployment, as of 12/31/2024, Abacus holds seven nineteen policies with a value of $371,400,000 on the balance sheet. Total revenue in the fourth quarter twenty twenty four grew by 40% to $33,200,000 compared to $23,600,000 in the prior year. The increase was primarily due to higher active management revenue.

[William McCauley, Chief Financial Officer at Abacus Life]

For the full year 2024, revenue increased 69% to $111,900,000 compared to $66,400,000 in the prior year. Revenue increases were primarily driven by higher active management revenue due to increased capital deployed and more policies sold directly to third parties. Turning to expenses, total operating expenses excluding unrealized and realized gains and losses and the change in fair value of debt for the fourth quarter twenty twenty four were approximately $45,500,000 compared to $18,900,000 in the prior year. The increase from the prior year period was primarily due to non cash stock based compensation, higher investments in SG and A, notably we increased our total employee headcount to support our growth initiatives through policy acquisition and active management along with increased marketing to support our growth profile. The company typically realizes the benefit of marketing spend within ninety to one hundred and twenty days.

[William McCauley, Chief Financial Officer at Abacus Life]

On an adjusted basis, excluding non cash stock compensation, business acquisition costs, amortization and change in fair value of warrant liability, net income for the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four grew 126% to $13,400,000 compared to $5,900,000 in the prior year. For the full year 2024, adjusted net income grew 58% to $46,500,000 compared to twenty nine point four million dollars in the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter grew 51% to $16,600,000 compared to $11,100,000 in the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 50% for the quarter compared to 47% in the prior year. And for the full year 2024, adjusted EBITDA increased 57% to $61,600,000 compared to $39,300,000 for the prior year.

[William McCauley, Chief Financial Officer at Abacus Life]

Adjusted EBITDA margin for 2024 was 55% compared to 59 for the prior year. GAAP net loss attributable to stockholders the quarter was $18,300,000 compared to a net loss of $6,200,000 in the prior year, primarily driven by $24,800,000 of non cash stock based compensation as well as non recurring expenses related to our acquisitions. Now turning to our balance sheet metrics. For the full year 2024 adjusted return on equity was 17% and adjusted return on invested capital was 15%, both reflecting our highly profitable business model. As of 12/31/2024, the company had cash and cash equivalents of $128,800,000 balance sheet policy assets of $371,500,000 and outstanding long term debt of $342,400,000 As Jay mentioned in his remarks, in an effort to provide more insight into our business, we're initiating our full year 2025 outlook for adjusted net income to be between $70,000,000 and $78,000,000 The range implies growth of between 5168% compared to full year 2024 adjusted net income of $46,500,000 dollars In summary, we are pleased with our extremely strong performance in 2024 as we delivered strong double digit growth on our top line as well as significantly growing profitability on an adjusted basis.

[William McCauley, Chief Financial Officer at Abacus Life]

We remain very excited about the growth opportunities ahead and are well positioned to execute on our long term plans. I will now turn it back to our CEO, Jay Jackson for our closing comments.

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

Thanks, Bill. In conclusion, I'm proud of all the accomplishments and milestones we achieved in 2024, in particular, the significant expansion of our capabilities. We remain very excited about the vast market opportunity in front of us and we're committed to building on our two decade track record of financial success to deliver long term profitable growth. Again, thank you all for joining us today and we appreciate your interest in Abacus Global Management. With that said, we look forward to your questions.

[Operator]

Thank And our first question comes from the line of Patrick Davitt with Autonomous Research. Please proceed.

[Patrick Davitt, Partner at Autonomous Research]

Hi, good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for having me.

[Patrick Davitt, Partner at Autonomous Research]

Really appreciate the guidance range. Could you give us some color on the key swing factors in your assumptions between the high and low end? And within that, does the high end assume a full draw in deployment of the $50,000,000 remaining on the revolver? Or would that be incremental?

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

Thank you.

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

Hey, Patrick, thank you for the question. And the kind of key swing factors there is first and foremost to answer the $50,000,000 no, it's not dependent on that $50,000,000 additional draw. We're really well positioned in how we look at $25,000,000 Our origination is one key driver. We're also looking at as we have integrated some of our asset management and having that roll into some of the balance sheet is also impacting that. And we put the range there because we also what we believe we see is also some significant upside to things that can continue to go well as we continue to integrate our businesses, raise more capital under our Abacus asset group through both our Carlyle acquisition, our ETFs and other strategies that we have coming out in 2025.

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

It's interesting to see the additional $50,000,000 what impact that could have and where we could and that would be incremental.

[Patrick Davitt, Partner at Autonomous Research]

Great. And then higher level, I guess, I think you paused advertising around the election. So maybe update us on how the direct channel metrics have been tracking since you started that back up?

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

Sure.

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

In relationship to advertising and one thing I'll correct you on brisk quickly is that we didn't pause total advertising. What we did was we moved advertising to non swing states and where those dollars could be could go further in the non swing states. So we were still advertising, we were just doing it in a little more targeted way. And we're continuing our advertising campaign. We continue to see the success of that campaign.

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

And as we track out our cost of spend on the advertising, it's still positive, meaning that it's still very accretive in relationship to the amount of spend that we have and in relationship to the amount of policies and impact we ultimately have on those consumers. And what I like to talk about too is that we're having an impact in spreading the word related to our financial advisors and agents. We receive many calls from them saying, hey, we saw the ad, we're also interested in, we have a client that's interested in well as well. So our targeted advertising is continuing to grow. We expect that to continue through 2025 because its impact has been positive.

[Patrick Davitt, Partner at Autonomous Research]

Thank you.

[Operator]

And the next question comes from the line of Crispin Love with Piper Sandler. Please proceed.

[Crispin Love, Director at Piper Sandler Companies]

Thank you. I appreciate you taking my questions. Coming off of the November equity capital raise and the debt offering in December, how much of that was deployed in the fourth quarter and the first quarter to date? And when would you expect to be fully deployed?

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

Sure. There's two responses to that. First, we had a very successful year end and we were able to deploy that capital. And I think if you look at what we reported in the press release and K coming out is that you'll see that the cash is still a very decent sized cash position at the end of twenty twenty four showing around $131,000,000 of cash. So we did get a significant amount of that deployed even though it happened so late, right?

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

It was just I think the December and shortly right around then. So we felt really good about the deployment then. It had an impact to Q4, which we were happy about. But what I am most excited about is that we've got we're in a great position with capital coming into Q1. And so as we're deploying that capital through Q1 at or better than results than we have in even prior quarters.

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

That's why we felt comfortable putting out the guidance. And the guidance we put out was the low range of the guidance was above consensus and of course the top range was almost I think around 12% higher over what the low end of that range was. So because of that in deploying that capital, we think we're in a great position. And I said it earlier where I highlighted as we're continuing to recycle the contracts on our book, remember, we're booking realized gains as a portion of all these revenues. And as that continues to occur, we feel very confident about the guidance that we put out and the capital that we have on the balance sheet we can recycle and put to work in buying more policies.

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

And again, I think what we'll see in Q1 too is, we will spend more time on the asset management group as well. And we've been able to launch and really extend additional offerings that we had. And so now we have additional offerings within GPLP products as well as the success of Carlisle in their raising capital efforts. So it puts us in a really strong position where I think the broader question is, is there an expectation for us to come back out to the equity markets for more equity or capital? And like I said, as I said earlier in the call, I don't think that's the case.

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

So we're just in a really strong position for 2025 with the cash that we had coming in and we were able to deploy some in December too.

[Crispin Love, Director at Piper Sandler Companies]

Great, Jay. I appreciate that. And then can you just discuss your strategy of holding policies on balance sheet? Are there any changes there holding for more months or anything like that? I see you had $370,000,000 plus as of year end versus around $270,000,000 last quarter.

[Crispin Love, Director at Piper Sandler Companies]

So should that just naturally trend higher as you grow or is there anything worth calling out on the strategy?

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

Yes, I think that what we'll typically see is that as we got into the last really month of that quarter in Q4, we were buying more than we were selling and we're now we're transacting in Q1. So what I've long said about the way to think about the policies on the balance sheet is that we're targeting two turns per year on average. And so the average time on the balance sheet historically has been anywhere between four to six months. And I would expect that kind of to continue. And the point being though is that let's assume that we sell $100,000,000 of that at some point in any given quarter, well, we're going to buy more policies, right?

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

So as you start to think about what the balance sheet amount will be, you'll start to see that consistently hover whether it's $3.70 to $4.50 because even though we sell policies, we're replacing them with policies. So you'll constantly see that kind of hover around that number as we have capital to deploy with the ROIC and ROEs that we've historically earned, we think that's the best place for a majority of our capital.

[Crispin Love, Director at Piper Sandler Companies]

Great. Thank you, Jay, and appreciate taking my questions.

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

Sure. Thanks, Chris.

[Operator]

The next question comes from the line of Randy Binner with B. Riley Securities. Please proceed.

[Randy Binner, Managing Director at B.Riley Securities]

Hey, thanks. I haven't seen the 10 ks yet, but can you provide an update on

[Randy Binner, Managing Director at B.Riley Securities]

the carrier buyback program both in the fourth quarter and how you see that moving forward throughout 2025?

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

Sure. And the carrier buyback program continues to expand for us and it's beyond carriers and having conversations with reinsurers and others. But the program itself, these are very large entities and thinking about structure and the best way to structure those transactions as they continue to grow in size. We had a successful 24 in that program and we anticipate a successful 25 by broadening out additional relationships as we're working through a large relationship now and we're just kind of finalizing how that structure of cash deployment happens from that carrier. So those transactions though tend to be a little lumpy in nature.

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

And so when you think about those, you tend to see them in any one quarter or another that might be more versus less than in any single quarter just depending on how much that carrier might be particularly purchasing during that time period. So we're still very positive on that segment of our business. We're consistently working on and developing new structures so that they could potentially either buy more or add more carriers and reinsurers to that program. So we're quite positive about it and think it will continue to grow over time.

[Randy Binner, Managing Director at B.Riley Securities]

That's great. Thank you for that. And we'll look

[Randy Binner, Managing Director at B.Riley Securities]

to the 10 K for further details. The other one I had and it's really in response to questions we're getting from investors is, are you seeing any change in behavior from individuals who are life settling the policies with you. I mean, I know that you shifted advertising a little bit, but the question is more is, is the current economic environment changing the propensity of individuals to move forward or is there no effect, is it totally uncorrelated because this is a question that comes up a lot.

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

Sure. And it's a fair question. I think that whenever you have volatility in the markets, right, we see this in twofold. One, there are individuals particularly driven from their financial advisors where they might be looking for other sources of capital to bring into their portfolio and they may just may not realize that their life insurance policy has liquidity in this way. And so I think in volatile markets, just on both sides is typically can be pretty positive for us where you have uncertainty and through that uncertainty that can increase origination interest as people are seeking additional liquidity sources in their own portfolio.

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

And then a second piece of that is through the investor side, right? Like as investors are also seeking unique assets, maybe alternative assets that that are typically less correlated than other markets. It's also a very interesting asset to invest in. And so what we have been, I think, been fortunate on and not only completing the acquisition with Carlyle, but also launching some other funds, some other not launching, but rather continuing the offering on some of our other products where we're on our fourth and fifth offering on some of these. Those products have a very high level of interest, GPLP type funds from traditional registered investment advisors who have clients who are looking for different types of yield than they might normally expect in these kinds of volatile markets.

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

So the answer to your question is that we're really well positioned of market going forward, right? And in a volatile market, yes, we tend to see some interest in relationship to consumers or more importantly their advisors seeking liquidity or additional capital for further accounts. And then the second piece of that is on an investor basis, we tend to see an uptick in investors seeking out the asset to invest in.

[Randy Binner, Managing Director at B.Riley Securities]

Okay, great. Thanks. Appreciate it.

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

Sure.

[Operator]

And the next question comes from the line of Mike Grondahl with Northland Securities. Please proceed.

[Mike Grondahl, Head of Equities & Director of Research at Northland Capital Markets]

Hey guys, good evening. A question kind of year end AUM at Carlisle and FCS. And I don't know if you can update us for roughly AUM today and just what do you think that growth rate is over 25 with some of these new offerings?

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

Yes, fair question, Mike. I can't put out non public information that isn't out yet for Q1 for both of those entities. But what I can tell you is that the response has been incredibly positive to the partner to the acquisition that Abacus had of both of those entities. We'll start with the Carlyle Group as they're working through a rebrand as well as part of the Abacus global management umbrella. And we have met with and done meetings, our staff at Abacus as well as in partnership with the teams at Carlyle traveled globally all over the world to Asia and Europe to speak to their investors.

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

And I think the sentiment is incredibly positive. I think that when we were looking at their book of assets, we had very conservative estimates as to new capital raises. And I think that as we look at 25, I believe that we'll hit those. So we've already got significant interest. And honestly, Mike, this market is favorable for that, right?

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

Just as I highlighted in the other question, Mike. So we're bullish on what the AUM could look like over time when it comes to whether it's Carlyle or our own funds and believe that this will have a positive impact. And again, that's why we put out an adjusted net income number that I think was quite bullish on our company. In relationship to FCF Advisors, that rebranding and integration took place right away. And we did announce that publicly to where it was rebranded as Abacus FCF Advisors and also changed the name of their funds to leaders, meaning that they were primarily focused on the top equity leaders in free cash flow and Relic along with a couple of other additions to each portfolio.

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

And what we have seen in this type of market and a bottom up approach like that where you're simply looking for the top and 50 most profitable businesses and technology or real assets are small cap, we've had a huge interest in those APFs, where people are looking for maybe more of a consolidated type ETF portfolio. As we continue to evolve that brand, this is going to what I believe evolving also into a brand of lifespan based target date funds. And we're also working on that and incorporating those models into that product. So, more to come on that. We certainly had positive outcomes on both of those entities and that we'll be reporting in Q1 speaking about increased assets under management in both Carlisle FCF as well as Abacus' proprietary funds.

[Mike Grondahl, Head of Equities & Director of Research at Northland Capital Markets]

Got it. And then just lastly, as part of the integration of FCF, have you been able to get your leads off the website over to FCF? Has that been completed yet?

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

Yes. So that's a broader strategy. To answer your question specifically, we have not integrated our lead process into the ETFs, but I would tell you that's a not yet. That's something that we are in the process of integrating. And you heard me talk briefly earlier about one of our business lines that we're proud of and that we believe is going to have a significant impact on the market called ABL Wealth, which is our financial advisor division.

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

And as that division continues to build and grow, we believe that will create significant opportunity to help manage some of the inquiries that we receive from broadly consumers with a variety of different financial needs that maybe don't qualify to sell their policy that we could certainly utilize in those ETF products as well as offer financial advice to in a more broader lifecycle.

[Mike Grondahl, Head of Equities & Director of Research at Northland Capital Markets]

Got it. Okay. Thank you.

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

Sure. Thanks, Mike.

[Operator]

And the next question will come from the line of Andrew Kligerman with TD Securities. Please proceed.

[Andrew Kligerman, Managing Director at TD Securities]

Hey, good evening guys. So first question is hey, so the first question is around EBITDA margin. So I think you came in at 55% this quarter. How should we think about it going into 2025?

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

Yes. I've historically said on other calls and publicly that we were always trying to target EBITDA margins greater than 50, which would put us in a very elite category of businesses that run very high margin profitable businesses. And so within any given quarter, you might see it go from 50 all the way up to nearly 60, which is what we had happen from Q3. But part of that could be driven by the fact of are we buying more policies, are we putting more asset management fees to work. What I think you'll start to see here over time, Andrew, is more consistency, right?

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

And what I mean by that is our business is starting to really shift towards a true recognizable fee related earnings and driven by asset management, driven by servicing fees and valuation fees, driven by our ABL tech fees that earns those are five year monthly paid contracts, so are three and five years. So as more and more of the business is now shifting in that direction, I think that while still maintaining a very high EBITDA margin, you'll see more consistency in it long term.

[Andrew Kligerman, Managing Director at TD Securities]

Got it. Makes sense. And then maybe taking the smallest line item technology services at $33,000 How do you see that playing out? How do you see the growth coming in this year?

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

Sure. So when we think about the ABL tech division, they provide mortality verification services to pension funds and life insurance companies and carriers as a primary source of their business. They also do valuation work and lifespan data work and aggregate that data. What I like about that business is the upside, right? Like we just launched that business effectively to third party clients in March of last year.

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

So effectively just one year old and now we're moved to a point to where we are right at the point of profitability. We've gone from effectively zero revenue to a point now to where we have revenue and we'll be reporting that revenue as a separate line item. So those tech services are going to continue to expand. And I believe I said on a call, Josh, last summer where I talked about that being material to our earnings in two years. And I think we're on track for that.

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

So it'd be summer of twenty twenty six, I think that we can be material there.

[Andrew Kligerman, Managing Director at TD Securities]

Got it. And then just one last one on the capital deployed came in around $97,000,000

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

To

[Andrew Kligerman, Managing Director at TD Securities]

kind of make your guidance, does that kind of stay steady and it's all the other areas that are driving the upside to the adjusted net income?

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

Andrew, I think that's the right way to think about it. And that's why we felt so comfortable about that guidance. As we think about the capital deployed, we felt we were incredibly well positioned for that. And then upside was these additional areas that we're already recognizing integrated and strategic revenue from. So we think that again, we're in a great position looking into 2025 and feel good about where we're at.

[Andrew Kligerman, Managing Director at TD Securities]

Thanks. Thanks a lot.

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. And I'd like to turn the call back to Jay Jackson for closing remarks.

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

Great. Thank you, everyone. And as we've said, we are looking forward to 2025. '20 '20 '4 was a terrific year for us, in fact, a historical year and where we saw increase year over year of from 23% to 24%, which 23% was a record year of 50 plus percent. And now with our guidance in 25%, we're talking about a 51% to 68% increase.

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

I think that based upon the fundamentals of our company and the profitability of our business, we believe that our company and our business is in the right place and that we along with you as shareholders, we are incredibly grateful for you. And we are going to work very, very hard this year to ensure that we get our story out and attending conferences and telling the message because I think that's one area that we could be better at is making sure that investors and others really understand our story. Because what I know about markets in general is over the long term, they are efficient. And being that they're efficient and you look at the fundamentals of our stock, if we can continue now to tell that story and have people continue to understand and be better at that, I believe that that will be recognized in value to our shareholders. So we are grateful for you and look forward to this year and many years to come.

[Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman at Abacus Life]

Thank you.

[Operator]

This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time and enjoy the rest of your day.

Participants

Executives

• Robert Phillips, Senior VP of Investor Relations & Corporate Affairs
• Jay Jackson, CEO, President & Chairman
• William McCauley, Chief Financial Officer

Analysts

• Patrick Davitt, Partner at Autonomous Research
• Crispin Love, Director at Piper Sandler Companies
• Randy Binner, Managing Director at B.Riley Securities
• Mike Grondahl, Head of Equities & Director of Research at Northland Capital Markets
• Andrew Kligerman, Managing Director at TD Securities