Acadian Asset Management Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
May 1, 2025

There are 6 speakers on the call.

Operator

Please note that this call is being recorded today, Thursday, 05/01/2025 at eleven a. M. Eastern Time. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Melody Wong, SVP, Director of Finance and Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Melody.

Speaker 1

Good morning, and welcome to Acadian Asset Management Inc. Conference call to discuss our results for the first quarter ended 03/31/2025. Before we begin the presentation, please note that we may make forward looking statements about our business and financial performance. Each forward looking statement is subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. Additional information regarding these risks and uncertainties appear in our SEC filings, including the Form eight ks filed today containing the earnings release and our 2024 Form 10 ks.

Speaker 1

Any forward looking statements that we make on this call are based on assumptions as of today, and we undertake no obligation to update them as a result of new information or future events. We may also reference certain non GAAP financial measures. Information about any non GAAP measures referenced, including a reconciliation of those measures to GAAP measures can be found on our website along with the slides that we will use as part of today's discussion. Finally, nothing herein shall be deemed as an offer of solicitation to buy any investment products. Kelly Young, our President and Chief Executive Officer, will lead the call.

Speaker 1

And now I'm pleased to turn the call over to Kelly.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Melody. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. We're very pleased with the path Acadian is on in 2025, and I'm excited to share our results for the first quarter with you. Acadian is the only pure play publicly traded systematic manager. Founded in 1986, Acadian has pioneered systematic investing and we continue to lead the sector through constant innovation.

Speaker 2

We've delivered sustained outperformance across various investment strategies and through numerous market cycles. We manage a $121,900,000,000 of AUM and Academ is a pure systematic manager applying data and technology to the evaluation of global stocks and corporate bonds. 94% of our strategies by revenue are outperforming benchmark over a five year period with 4.4% annualized excess return. Our competitive edge comes from the convergence of talented people, rich data and powerful tools, and we have a 120 person investment team with over 100 advanced analytics degrees. We're implementing product and distribution initiatives to drive sustainable growth.

Speaker 2

Slide four showcases Acadian's Q1 twenty twenty five strong performance. Our net income attributable to controlling interest is up 38% compared to prior year and U. S. GAAP EPS is up 46%. ENI deleted EPS of $0.54 per share is up 23% with adjusted EBITDA up 10%.

Speaker 2

We delivered 3,800,000,000 of positive net flows, our strongest quarter in nineteen years and finished with AUM of $121,900,000,000 as of the 03/31/2025. Acadian's investment performance track record remains strong despite the market volatility. We have five major implementations which comprise the majority of our assets. As of 03/31/2025, global equity, emerging markets equity, non US equity, small cap equity and our enhanced equity strategy have 100% of assets outperforming benchmarks across three, five and ten year periods with one minor variation. In Q1 of twenty twenty five, global equity markets experienced significant volatility amid a complex macroeconomic backdrop.

Speaker 2

While US equities fell, European markets and emerging markets both rose partly driven by dollar weakening and investments outside of The US provided significant diversification benefits for our clients' portfolios. Our disciplined systematic investment process has generated meaningful long term alpha for our clients. Our revenue weighted five year annualized returns in excess of benchmark was 4.4% as of the end of Q1 of twenty twenty five on a consolidated firm wide basis. Our asset weighted five year annualized return in excess of benchmark was 3.5% as at the end of Q1. By revenue weight, more than 94% of Acadian strategies outperformed their respective benchmarks across three, five and ten year periods as of the March 2025.

Speaker 2

And by asset weight, more than 90% of Acadian strategies outperformed their respective benchmarks across three, five, and ten year periods. Next, I'd like to focus on Acadian's extensive global distribution platform, which has helped us achieve strong gross sales and will be a major driver of growth in the years ahead. For many years, Acadian has had a strong global presence with four offices in Boston, London, Sydney, and Singapore. We have continued to expand our client and distribution team with over 90 experienced professionals serving more than a thousand client accounts in 40 countries. The team has established strong, deep relationships with many institutional clients and our average relationship length with our top 50 clients is over ten years.

Speaker 2

We work with over 40 investment consultants across market segments and geographies, leading to a diverse client base invested across multiple strategies. We had approximately $9,000,000,000 of gross sales in the first quarter of twenty twenty five after achieving record annual sales of $21,000,000,000 in 2024. In tandem with expanding our distribution capability, Acadian's business and product development team have been focused on increasing our strategy and vehicle offerings in high demand and growing areas, where Acadian's systematic approach is particularly well suited and our current pipeline is very robust. The success of Acadian as a highly regarded institutional investment manager is testament to our proven investment process as well as Acadian's world class investment and distribution team. We have six clients among the top 20 global asset owners and 27 clients among the top 50 US retirement plans.

Speaker 2

Over 50% of our assets are from clients invested in multiple Acadian strategies. Our client base is diverse with 37% of assets managed for clients outside of The US. We offer over 80 institutional quality funds for investors and achieved $8,800,000,000 of gross sales in Q1 of twenty twenty five, reaching $121,900,000,000 of assets under management as of the 03/31/2025. The next slide highlights the positive trend in Acadian's net flows, showing a significant increase from a negative $2,300,000,000 in the full year of 2023 to the positive $1,800,000,000 in the full year for 2024 and reaching 3,800,000,000 in Q1 of this year. This was the highest quarterly MCCF that we've generated in nineteen years.

Speaker 2

Our core strategies such as global, non US, and EM equities saw robust net inflows and our newer strategies such as enhanced equity and extension equity strategies had meaningful positive flows in the first quarter of the year. As we discussed in our last earnings call, there are four key product initiatives in addition to our core strategies that we expect will drive Acadian's future growth. These are enhanced equity, extension equity, systematic credit and equity alternatives, and we continue to make strong progress in these endeavors. Our enhanced equity strategies underscore the potential for strong future growth as the market opportunity is vast. Enhanced equity is one of Acadian's key product initiatives to drive long term growth.

Speaker 2

Recent flows have been robust with end of q one twenty twenty five AUM of 12,000,000,000, doubling from the prior year and expected to continue meaningful growth in the future. Enhanced equity strategies addressed investors increasing demands for consistent, low risk alpha at fees below those of fully active strategies. These strategies appealed to a number of investors, including investors in the $16,000,000,000,000 global passive equity market who are seeking improved performance with modest incremental risk. Our enhanced equity strategies repackage Acadian's alpha in a lower risk manner to meet market demand. These strategies leverage Acadian's proprietary investment process to invest in benchmark stocks and deliver attractive risk adjusted returns with lower tracking error.

Speaker 2

And current notable implementations include the Russell one thousand, MSCI ACWI, and the MSCI Emerging Markets indexes. Results have been robust as shown on Slide 13. Our enhanced equity targets stable alpha with low active risk and has produced consistent outperformance versus benchmark. In the chart below, we highlight the relationship between the monthly three year annualized return of Acadian's enhanced global equity strategy versus that of the MSCI ACWI Index's monthly three year annualized return. We track the rolling return at each month's end from enhanced stable equity reception date of September 2012 to the end of twenty twenty four.

Speaker 2

The solid line represents the index's return. The dots representing the strategy returns are consistently close to or above the benchmark line, noting the outperformance since inception of the strategy at lower levels of tracking errors and core strategies. Our enhanced equity strategies offer attractive risk adjusted returns and can satisfy broader investment demand for lower fee and more consistent return characteristics. I'm now going to turn the call over to Melody to provide you with an update on capital allocation.

Speaker 1

Thanks Kelly. Acadian has low leverage ratios with high liquidity position. At the end of the first quarter twenty twenty five, we have $119,600,000 in cash and $91,500,000 in fee investments. Debt including outstanding balance on revolving credit facility of 80,000,000 reflects jaws to support first quarter seasonal needs and is expected to be fully paid down by year end. Our debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio was two times as of 03/31/2025 and our net leverage ratio was just 1.3 times as of end of Q1 twenty twenty five.

Speaker 1

A and my board declared an interim dividend of $01 per share to be paid on 06/27/2025. Our balance sheet provides liquidity and financial flexibility to execute our growth strategy and to enhance shareholder value. We have demonstrated a track record of creating significant value through buybacks to our shareholders. Outstanding diluted share went down 57% from $86,000,000 in Q4 twenty nineteen to 37,000,000 shares in Q1 twenty twenty five. '1 point '4 billion in excess capital was returned to shareholders over the last five years through share buybacks and dividends.

Speaker 1

During the first quarter of twenty twenty five, we repurchased 800,000.0 shares of common stock or 2% of total outstanding shares for an aggregate total of 19,400,000.0. We expect to continue generating strong free cash and deploying excess capital towards supporting organic growth and share buybacks. Now I'm going to turn the call back to Kelly. Thanks, Melody.

Speaker 2

Slide 16 highlights that Acadian is positioning for multiple expansion and value creation. The AMI stock PE multiple based on last twelve months earning is around nine times. Our peer asset managers average is higher at around 12 times, indicating a 33% premium. Acadian Asset Management Inc. Stock price is at $26.69 as of the 04/29/2025.

Speaker 2

If we apply that 33% increase to get our stock to the same 12x as our peers' average multiple, the implied price would be $35.5 This presents a compelling investment opportunity in AAMI given our strong growth potential. Before going into Q and A, I'd like to recap the key points in this presentation. We're the only pure play publicly traded systematic manager. We have a nearly forty year track record with competitive edge in systematic investing And Acadian's investment performance track record remained strong with more than 90% of strategy by revenue, outperforming over three, five and ten year periods. We started 2025 with outstanding performance.

Speaker 2

Q1 twenty five ENI EPS is up 23% from Q1 of twenty twenty four. We delivered positive Q1 NCCF of $3,800,000,000 our best quarterly flows in nineteen years. We will continue to drive growth through targeted distribution initiatives and accelerate growth through key product initiatives such as enhanced equity. Acadian Asset Management Inc. Stock is trading at a modest PE multiple of nine times compared to our peer average of 12 times.

Speaker 2

Acadian is well positioned to generate value for shareholders. Our team's focus, talent and hard work have been instrumental in achieving these milestones, and I look forward to building on this momentum and driving further growth and innovation. This concludes my prepared remarks. And at this point, I'd be delighted to take your questions.

Operator

Our first question comes from Michael Cyrus from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Speaker 3

Hi, Kelly, Melody, good morning. Thanks for taking the question and congratulations on the strong flows here, the best in nineteen years. That's great to see. Nearly $9,000,000,000 gross sales, nearly $4,000,000,000 of net inflows. Maybe you could just unpack some of the key strategies that you saw contributing?

Speaker 3

And can you just remind us what the revenue impact was of those flows as we think about the organic base fee impact, stemming from the strong flows in the quarter?

Speaker 2

Morning, Mike. Nice to speak to you again. Yes. So it was so, flows in Q1 were really pretty diversified in terms of, where we've seen those asset raising efforts. Particularly, we've seen, as I noted in in my prepared remarks, a huge interest in our enhanced equity strategies and those different implementations, particularly, I'd say, across global and and sort of broader equity and emerging markets implementation.

Speaker 2

So continuing to see, real interest and momentum there as well as in our extensions, strategies, which, again, as you know, as we noted, there are there are two of our sort of key initiatives. So very excited to see to see the growth there. You know, other areas of conversation that we're having with investors and where we're seeing interest is sort of broadly, I would say, in non US strategies. And I think that's sort of some momentum and a bit of a pivot that we've seen, you know, through this quarter, sort of after last year where there was there tended to be quite a US centric bias. So certainly, I'd say kind of broad across the, you know, across the spectrum of our newer initiatives as well as some of our some of our core strategies.

Speaker 2

In terms of overall fee impact, so our blended rate remains around 38 basis points. Obviously, you know, the the in the near term, we don't expect that to change. Obviously, over the longer term, you know, things like enhanced tend to attract a lower fee as the sort of lower risk, lower return expectations on those strategies. But, obviously, where we're seeing on the other side interest in areas like extensions, small cap, you know, those those attract higher fees, they're limited capacity in some cases. And so, certainly, over the near term, you know, we don't expect to change to that blended rate.

Speaker 2

But, obviously, over the longer term, you know, market dynamics, you know, flows into different areas, it may have an impact sort of medium to longer term.

Speaker 3

Great. And then just a follow-up question on the pipeline. Maybe you could just help unpack how the composition of that looks today, size, magnitude, types of strategies in there, how that compares versus last quarter? And clearly, strong, quite impressive investment performance. Just curious how that is evolving here in April given the volatile market backdrop.

Speaker 2

Yes, sure. So yes, in terms of pipeline, as I said, the momentum continues to build in those two of those key initiatives in the near term in both enhanced and extensions. So I expect those to continue to be a theme in terms of pipeline and asset raising through through this year. And as I say, Michael, we're having kind of more conversations now than non US nature or sort of broader in terms of global, and so some, I'd say, some resurgence of interest in emerging markets. So so pretty broad in terms of pipeline.

Speaker 2

Obviously, q one, very strong year very strong quarter in terms of gross sales. The pipeline remains very robust. So again, we're we're obviously looking to continue to build on that momentum and and feel pretty positive about where we are now going into q two and q three. Perhaps, yeah, maybe I'll just comment a little bit on performance. Q1 saw some mixed performance across some of the strategies.

Speaker 2

I think the benefit of being long term investors are, you know, we're steadfast and committed to our process. And as we mentioned in the presentation, our long term returns obviously remain very strong. There's obviously been some very sharp swings in the market since early April. And I think, you know, this is where I think it's important to emphasize that Acadian's process adapts systematically and not emotionally to these types of environment. The process we've built is continually, you know, integrating new new data and allowing us to respond, I'd say objectively and systematically to evolving risks.

Speaker 2

So, you know, I always think it's a good reminder that we we find opportunities in periods of dislocation, and periods of stress often lead to lead to mispricings. And so for a process like ours, again, this is when we can find, you know, particularly attractive opportunities, particularly in less efficient markets. But certainly, the the macro backdrop has has obviously been, you know, a little more challenging than perhaps 2024 was. But again, still with, you know, some some good areas and bright spots of performance for us and, as things we hope sort of start to settle down in Q2, again, I think we've we're well positioned for some good performance this year.

Speaker 3

Great. Thanks so much.

Operator

Our next question comes from Kenneth Lee from RBC. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Just one on capital management. Wondering if you could share any updated thoughts around outlook for share repurchases for the rest of the year? And perhaps just remind us again what's remaining in terms of the share repurchase authorization at this point?

Speaker 4

Thanks.

Speaker 2

Morning, Ken. Nice to speak to you again. Yes, as we've previously disclosed over a number of quarters, one of our key objectives is obviously to return capital to shareholders through stock buybacks. So in Q1, as we noted, we bought back 800,000.0 shares or $19,000,000 in total. The most recent authorization has approximately $61,000,000 remaining on it as of the end of the quarter.

Speaker 2

But I maybe just to be clear on that, any actual buyback activity is obviously subject to, you know, a number of factors that's obviously the company's stock price, the capital needs of the business, the economic backdrop, market conditions. So, you know, the board does refresh the amount of that authorization from time to time when we think it's prudent to do so. But we don't have a specific time frame in mind to sort of finish those buybacks under that under that current authorization, Ken. And as I say, again, that's gonna depend a variety of factors such as stock price being one of them, but there is CHF 61,000,000 remaining on the current authorization.

Speaker 4

Okay, great. Very helpful there. And just one follow-up, if I may. Looking through the slide, it looks as if the various expense ratios, the outlooks there are unchanged from last quarter. I wonder if you could just talk a little bit more about potential levers Canadian might have for further expense reductions if needed if market volatility were to continue, for example, for a longer period of time?

Speaker 4

Thanks.

Speaker 1

Hi, Ken. Good morning. This is Melody. Yes. Our expenses, operating expenses and variable comp ratio remain the same.

Speaker 1

I think we are going to be continue laser focus on expense management. And in turn of the market volatility, we will manage our expenses, make sure that we continue to achieve the similar margin. That's currently the expenses ratio for the full year remain unchanged. Yes.

Speaker 2

And we generate very strong free cash flow, as you know, Ken. So I think we remain very well positioned today to support growth, to return capital to shareholders. But to Melody's point, we obviously remain laser focused on expenses and being efficient. And again, I think, one of the many benefits of being a systematic manager is the ability to raise assets and not necessarily have to scale costs in a linear fashion.

Speaker 4

Got you. Very helpful there. Thanks again.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from John Dunn from Evercore.

Speaker 5

Hi, Kelly. Hi, Melody. I wonder just with the market moves we've had so far in 2Q, maybe could you give us a little color on what of your strategies is seeing demand in April? And particularly managed well, which I think had been out of favor for a while and maybe this might be a more constructive environment for it.

Speaker 2

Sure. Yes. Good morning, John. Yes. No.

Speaker 2

So in I mean, April has sort of been a a similar theme, I would say, to to what we saw in in sort of q one, the back half of q one. The areas of interest have really tended to be, you know, our broader strategy, so sort of global and equity implementations, things that are not perhaps as focused on just The US. Enhanced, again, I think there's sort of lower risk, more consistent return profiles that are proving to be pretty popular and resonating with, you know, with clients. As you know, you know, managed goal has been a bit of a headwind for us in in, you know, the most recent few quarters. But, you know, it's as you know, it's a strategy, I think, that's recently had an opportunity to kind of reassert its value, you know, in this type of market environment.

Speaker 2

And we've certainly sort of seen that in, yeah, I'd say, the first four months of this year. I don't imagine that we're going to see a strong tailwind in terms of asset raising in that strategy, you in the next few quarters, but I do believe that investors that are that remain in those types of strategies will be pleased, you know, with their decision to keep those allocations, given the current market environment. So again, not necessarily a strong tailwind and expecting to see huge growth in manageable, but, I suspect it's going to be less of a headwind as those strategies kind of prove their worth in this type of environment.

Speaker 5

Got it. And you just noted demand for non U. S. Strategies. Maybe have any thoughts on the potential for even greater demand for non U.

Speaker 5

S. Strategies as people potentially look to put more money outside The U. S?

Speaker 2

Yeah. I think it's gonna be a theme in our pie it's a theme in our pipeline. I think it's gonna be a theme in as we as we actually move to to fund those mandates. Certainly, last year, there was, you know, a lot of focus and interest in in sort of US domestic strategies. We are seeing, I think, a number of investors think more more carefully about their strategic asset allocation and, you know, perhaps adjusting those to to either kind of broader broader developed markets mandates.

Speaker 2

So obviously, that includes US, you know, in in the global implementation, but also a lot of kind of, you know, aqui ex US, EFI type mandates. So I agree with you. There has, I think, been a been a shift over the last two or three months in terms of investor focus and attention on those sort of broader implementations and things perhaps of more of an ex US nature.

Operator

Thank you. Thanks. That concludes our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the conference call back over to Kellen Young.

Speaker 2

I'd just like to thank everyone for joining us today, and I wish you all a great day. Thank you.

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Acadian Asset Management Q1 2025
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