Abacus Global Management, Inc.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Abacus Global Management's fourth quarter and full year 2025 earnings conference call. All participants will be in 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. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would 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.

Thank you, Operator, and thank you, everyone, for joining Abacus Global Management's fourth quarter and full year 2025 earnings call. Here with me today are Jay Jackson, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Elena Plesko, Chief Capital Officer, and Bill McCauley, Chief Financial Officer. This afternoon at 4.15 p.m. Eastern Time, Abacus Global Management released its fourth quarter and full year 2025 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, investor information, and filings with the SEC for a discussion of the risks that can affect the business. Abacus Global Management specifically refers participants to the presentation furnished today on Form 8K 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. 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 Jake Jackson, Chief Executive Officer.

Thank you, Rob, and good afternoon, everyone. Abacus closed the year by delivering another exceptional quarter. our 11th consecutive quarter of beating consensus. Today, I want to walk you through how we are executing against our vision and what the path forward looks like, grounded, not in projections, but in what I'd call our proof point, a track record of consistent, measurable outperformance. 11 quarters ago, we made specific commitments to our shareholders about how we would scale the business. Every quarter since, we have delivered. Let me put that in concrete terms. We have exceeded guidance and beaten consensus every single quarter. Over that span, we have tripled adjusted net income and adjusted EBITDA, expanded margins from 48% to 60%, and grown our asset base more than 35-fold, from under $100 million to nearly $3.6 billion. We have executed disciplined capital allocation with ROE and ROIC consistently at 20% or higher. These are not aspirational figures. They are results, consistently delivered, independently verified, and compounding quarter after quarter. That track record is precisely why you should have confidence in what comes next. Today, we are initiating our full year 2026 outlook for adjusted net income of $96 million to $104 million. This range implies another year of exceptional double-digit growth, up to 22%, compared to full year 2025 adjusted net income of $85.7 million. This guidance is built on the same execution discipline that has defined every quarter of our public history. Before I walk through our next set of goals, I want to ground this discussion in what makes the Abacus business model fundamentally differentiated. First, our assets are mortality-driven and completely uncorrelated to macro markets. They exhibit what we call positive theta, positive accretion over time. As the insured ages and mortality probability increases, asset value naturally appreciates. There is no interest rate sensitivity, no credit cycle dependency, and no reliance on market sentiment. Second, Abacus is a data-driven business that is insulated from AI disruption and, in fact, positioned to benefit from it. We own proprietary mortality data that AI platforms need to source. As AI adoption accelerates, we become a more valuable data provider, not a displaced one. Third, our assets are backed by regulated, A-rated insurance carriers, providing certainty of payment upon maturity. These are contractual obligations from some of the most creditworthy institutions in the financial system. Fourth, they are self-liquidating. Unlike real estate and private equity, we do not need to find a buyer or manufacture an exit. The asset matures by design. Fifth, Typical unlevered, uncorrelated returns range from 8% to 12% with limited downside risk, a profile that is exceptionally rare in today's environment. This is why institutional capital continues to flow into the space. The return profile is predictable, durable, and genuinely diversifying. During periods of market uncertainty, our origination business actually accelerates. Because we provide liquidity to policyholders when they need it most. In 2025 alone, Abacus paid nearly a quarter of a billion dollars to policyholders. Here is the broader reality. There is approximately $5 trillion in permanent life insurance outstanding in the United States today. Roughly 75% of policies held by individuals over 65 lapse without ever paying a claim. Most policyholders do not realize that life insurance is personal property with meaningful market value, often worth significantly more than surrender value. Millions of Americans unknowingly walk away from six- and seven-figure assets simply because they don't know an active secondary market exists. That is a massive, structurally underserved, addressable market, and that is exactly what Abacus was built to capture. So where are we going? Today, I'm laying out the path from where we are now, a company that has tripled its revenue over the last two years to become a mid-cap company, specifically a business operating at approximately $450 million in EBITDA with 70% recurring revenue over the next five years. For those newer to the Abacus story, our strategy is built on four integrated verticals. each one feeding and strengthening the others, creating a flywheel where we control the entire asset value chain. Vertical one, Abacus Life Solutions, the foundation. Abacus Life Solutions is our origination engine and foundation of the entire platform. In a highly regulated industry, we have established ourselves as a clear market leader. In Q4 alone, we deployed a record $230 million of capital, bringing our full year 2025 deployment to over $580 million. Working with 78-plus institutional partners and over 30,000 financial advisors, we expect this momentum to continue accelerating in 2026. This segment delivers consistent, realized earnings while feeding the asset pipeline across all four verticals. Critically, it also generates approximately 10,000 excess leads per month. Individuals seeking insurance-related advice who don't qualify for our core business, but represent significant wealth management opportunities. That organic lead flow is the engine powering our private wealth vertical without the expensive customer acquisition costs typical of the industry. Vertical two, Abacus Asset Group, the growth engine. Our asset group is the primary growth engine. We now manage over $3 billion in fee-paying AUM across our longevity funds and ETFs. In 2025, we generated nearly $34 million in management fees, and our longevity funds alone have attracted $630 million in capital inflows. Our new longevity interval fund, which we expect to launch this year, along with our asset-based finance strategy, are creating clear, executable pathways to reach $5 billion in fee-paying AUM by year-end 2026. This is not a stretch target. It is a natural extension of the institutional demand we are already seeing. Vertical three, data and technology are competitive moat. Our data and technology division, now operating as Abacus Intel, continues to grow at strong multiples, adding another durable leg to our recurring revenue strategy. Our flagship product, mVerify, has achieved 4x growth and now tracks nearly 3 million lives, an over 300% year-over-year increase across 100-plus institutional systems, delivering 97% coverage with less than 1% error rate. To put this in perspective, government mortality systems such as Social Security can lag by up to nine months and carry lower accuracy. Our system identifies mortality events in approximately 48 hours with near complete accuracy. That data advantage is a genuine competitive mode. It enhances our underwriting, asset management, and wealth management capabilities simultaneously. Let me be clear how we leverage AI. We are not using AI to manage portfolios. We are using AI and large language models to aggregate, structure, and interpret health and medical data from policyholders and direct consumers. The result, broader data sets delivered in usable summary formats that accelerate underwriting, enhance fraud prevention, and optimize pension liability analysis faster than traditional methods. We are targeting over $3 million in technology revenue for 2026, with significant M&A upside as we expand into insurance, pension, and mortgage verticals. Today, we are already monetizing this data externally, packaging mortality analytics for state pension funds and generating recurring SaaS-like revenue streams. Vertical 4. Abacus Wealth Advisors is our client-facing distribution channel and we expect dramatic acceleration in 2026. Our team build-out and acquisition strategy are ahead of schedule. Over time, we expect private wealth to represent approximately 30% of our recurring revenue mix, supported by organic lead flow from our core business, not expensive external acquisition. And we're already putting that strategy into action. In a recent development, Abacus Global Management has agreed to deploy approximately $50 million to acquire a minority position in Manning and Napier, a proven wealth advisory platform with over $18 billion in AUM, more than 50 years of trusted investment management, and historical EBITDA in excess of $25 million. This investment creates compelling, mutually reinforcing synergies across three dimensions – Converting Abacus existing policyholder relationships into managed wealth accounts in the Manning and Napier platform. Sourcing new life insurance policies through Manning and Napier's advisor network and accelerating distribution of Abacus-related alternative investment products to Manning and Napier's client base. This investment represents a defining moment in Abacus's evolution from a life solutions originator to a fully integrated, longevity-focused alternative asset management platform. Combined with our proprietary life arc data and actuarial capabilities, the partnership completes the Abacus flywheel, connecting our life solutions origination engine, our growing asset group, and now a dedicated wealth distribution channel. We are not simply acquiring a minority stake. We are building a longevity-focused wealth ecosystem that we believe will generate significant and durable value for our shareholders. With all four verticals now in place and executing, let me walk you through what the long-term financial picture looks like. This is illustrative, but it is grounded in the same execution discipline that has defined the past 11 quarters. Here's the pathway. Our 2028 milestones are targeting EBITDA growth to $250 million while maintaining approximately 50% margins, supported by $30 billion in total AUM, recurring revenue divisions from 16% of revenue today to 60% of our total revenue mix. As we execute this shift, we align significantly closer to a peer set that commands materially higher valuations, and we expect that valuation gap to narrow accordingly. Our 2030 milestones, EBITDA approaches 450 million, supported by 50 billion in AUM. Recurring revenue divisions represent 70% of total revenue. That is an approximate 14x increase in AUM and a 3.5x increase in EBITDA from today, while maintaining approximately 50% EBITDA margins throughout. Our long-term goal is to extend this trajectory. And we are looking at approximately $2.5 billion in revenue, $1.5 billion in EBITDA, and roughly $150 billion in assets under management. These targets are not aspirational. They are backed by live pipelines, executed contracts, and the same underwriting discipline this team has demonstrated for two decades. Before I turn it over to Elena, I want to touch on capital allocation because it is central to how we create shareholder value. We deploy capital where risk-adjusted returns are highest, whether it is acquiring policies, funding asset management growth, or repurchasing shares. Following our Q3 earnings, we announced a $10 million buyback program. Most recently, we authorized an additional $20 million share repurchase program on top of that, in addition to paying a dividend derived from our recurring net income. This capital return to shareholders through both dividends and share repurchases reflects our continued confidence in the trajectory of this business. When the market presents opportunities to buy our own stock at what we believe is a significant discount to intrinsic value, we act. When policy acquisition spreads are attractive, we deploy there. It is dynamic, it is disciplined, and it is designed to maximize long-term shareholder value. I also want to address our securitization strategy because it represents an important lever for scaling capital efficiency. In October, we launched our inaugural securitization. That transaction was fundamentally about education getting institutions, rating agencies, and market participants comfortable with the asset class and its structural characteristics. The underlying asset in our securitizations is a life insurance policy issued by a rated carrier that is cash-reserved with a default ratio of near zero. This is a consistent, high-quality asset that institutions want to own. And critically, the yield is uncorrelated, mortality-driven, not debt-driven, like traditional private credit. That uncorrelated return profile is exactly what institutional portfolios are seeking in today's environment of elevated rates and credit uncertainty. Securitization creates additional financing and distribution channels, particularly with banks and insurance companies, while improving our capital efficiency and scalability. We expect this pattern to grow into a meaningful and recurring channel going forward. With that, I'll turn it over to Alana to walk through our investment performance and detailed KPIs, and then over to Bill on the financials.

Thanks, Jay. I want to use my time today to walk through the current investment environment, how our balance sheet performed, and how we're continuing to build Abacus as a durable, scalable investment platform with growing field-related earnings, one where we see a clear path for recurring revenue to grow from approximately 16% of total revenue today to 70% over the next five years. We ended 2025 in an environment that reinforces the core thesis behind everything we do at Abacus. Traditional asset classes, equities and fixed income have become increasingly correlated. As a result, institutional allocators are actively searching for return streams that behave differently. That search is structural, not cyclical. It's driven by pension funds, insurance companies, and endowments that need to meet long-duration liabilities with assets that aren't tied to the same macro forces. Longevity-linked and asset-backed strategies fit squarely in that gap. Our returns are driven by actuarial outcomes and contractual cash flows, not by market sentiment or broader economic cycles. And it's why institutional demand for our strategies continues to grow. Turning to the performance of our balance sheet, for Q4, our annualized portfolio turnover was 2.6 times above our long-term target of 1.5 to 2 times, driven by meaningful capital inflows into our longevity-based funds and execution of our first securitization. What matters most is what that number represents, a disciplined, repeatable cycle of originating at attractive cost basis, adding value through underwriting and seasoning, and monetizing at the right time. During Q4, the policies we sold were held for an average of 116 days compared to 269 days for policies still on our balance sheet. Over the last two quarters, we have acquired a larger than usual number of policies referencing an older insured population. We did not deem those assets to need incremental seasoning. Thus, a portion were also sold last quarter. The economics support that. Our average realized gain was 27% for the quarter and 32% for the full year. These margins reflect rigorous origination, accurate actuarial targets, and patience. while exceeding our target of 20 percent. Portfolio quality continues to be strong. Asset season beyond 365 days had a weighted average life expectancy of 45 months and a weighted average insured age of 88 years versus 49 months and 86 years for last quarter, respectively. These positions reflect conviction in our underwriting, and we expect them to generate attractive returns as they continue to season. During Q4, we deployed 230.7 million in capital off our balance sheet, bringing full-year deployment to 580.8 million, up 82% year-over-year. Our origination platform reviewed more than 10,000 qualified policies during the year, and we remain highly selective. Our close rate of 12% vis-a-vis qualified policies reflects the selectivity we apply at the front end, which is ultimately what protects margins over time. As we enter 2026, our capital deployment pipeline is robust. Our longevity business remains the foundation of Abacus. At the same time, one of my priorities since joining has been to expand on that foundation in ways that are deliberate and additive. We launched our asset-based finance strategy, which I co-lead with Monty Cook, our head of private credit. Monty and I have partnered on strategies like this for over a decade. And we designed our ABF strategy specifically to leverage what Abacus already does well. Asset-based finance involves lending against or investing in pools of tangible and financial assets, insurance-related structures, equipment, receivables, consumer credit, and other contractual cash flows. These investments generate current income, offer structural downside protection, and exhibit low correlation to traditional markets. What makes our positioning distinct is the intersection of three things. First, Our long-standing relationships with insurance carriers and institutional investors are both clients of our longevity platform and natural allocators to asset-backed strategies. Second, over two decades of experience structuring and managing complex data-driven asset pools, where performance depends on granular analytics and disciplined risk selection. And third, our proprietary technology. including the actuarial modeling and insurance analytics infrastructure we've built through Abacus Intel, which gives us differentiated risk assessment framework we intend to bring to ABF from day one. This is not a departure from our strategy. It is an extension of the same origination philosophy. identifying contractual asset-based cash flows where we have a structural or informational edge applied to a broader opportunity set. Asset-based finance is a $22 trillion market, and we believe this strategy will be a critical part of our AUM expansion story. When I step back and look at the business today, the story is straightforward. We have a core origination engine in Life Solutions that continues to perform at a high level, supported by disciplined underwriting and consistent monetization. On top of that, we're developing a scalable asset management platform designed to generate growing fee-related earnings for our longevity funds, ETFs, the ABF strategy, and continued expansion of our distribution capabilities. As of year end, fee-paying AUM was approximately $3.3 billion, and management fee revenue was $33.8 million. We're targeting more than $5 billion in fee-paying AUM by the end of 2026, and we see a path to $50 billion by 2030. That trajectory is driven by three things. continued expansion of our existing strategies, the launch of new strategies like asset-based finance, and the strategic expansion of our wealth management and advisory capabilities. Growing future-weighted earnings is a central priority, and it goes hand-in-hand with growing AUM. As we scale fee-paying assets across our strategies, we generate contractual high margin management fee income without requiring additional balance sheet capital. I mentioned at the top we see recurring revenue growing to 70% of total revenue over the next five years. That shift is intentional and it is the single most important strategic objective for the company. It's about building a fewer weighted earnings base on top of a proven origination engine and positioning abacus to be evaluated the way other scaled alternative asset managers are evaluated. We're executing on this deliberately, step by step, with a long-term perspective, and we believe that approach will continue to create value for our shareholders. With that, I'll turn it over to Bill.

Thank you, Elena. And hello, everyone. As Jay mentioned, we closed out 2025 with another exceptional quarter of revenue growth and profitability. Our performance continues to be driven by the strength of our highly efficient origination platform, while we also remain focused on expanding our verticals that we believe will contribute significant earnings growth over time. In the fourth quarter of 2025, capital deployed increased 82% to $230.7 million compared to $126.5 million in the prior year. As of December 31, 2025, supported by continued policy origination and capital deployment, Abacus holds 804 policies with a balance sheet value of $469.8 million. Total revenue in the fourth quarter grew 116% to $71.9 million, compared to $33.2 million in the prior year period. Our growth was primarily driven by strong performance and life solutions, higher asset management fees, and contributions from our technology services business. We continue to see substantial growth from within our asset management segment as we expand our product offerings and the demand for uncorrelated assets increases. For the full year 2025, revenue increased 110% to $235.2 million compared to $111.9 million in the prior year. Our life solutions segment continues to generate revenue growth at an impressive rate while we focus on diversifying our revenue mix moving forward into 2026 and beyond. Turning to expenses, total operating expenses excluding unrealized and realized gains and losses from changes in the fair value of debt were approximately 41.1 million for the fourth quarter of 2025, compared to 45.5 million in the prior year. The year-over-year decrease was primarily driven by a drop in non-cash stock-based compensation, partially offset by an increase in SG&A expenses. The increase in SG&A expenses is related to the acquisitions at the end of 2024 and in mid-2025, along with increased marketing spend to strengthen our growth profile. 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 2025 grew 71% to $23 million compared to $13.4 million in the prior year. For the full year of 2025, adjusted net income grew 84% to $85.7 million compared to $46.5 million in the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter grew 132% to $38.6 million compared to $16.6 million in the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 54% for the quarter compared to 50% in the prior year. And for the full year 2025, adjusted EBITDA increased 115% to 132.6 million compared to 61.6 million for the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA margin for 2025 was 56% compared to 55% for the prior year. We are committed to growing the business responsibly which has demonstrated in our ability to grow both revenue and EBITDA by over 100% while maintaining our EBITDA margins. Gap net income attributable to stockholders for the quarter was $7.2 million compared to a net loss of $18.3 million in the prior year, primarily driven by the increase in revenue from our life solutions and asset management segments, along with a decrease in SG&A expenses. Turning to our balance sheet metrics, for the full year 2025, adjusted return on equity and adjusted return on invested capital were both at 20%, underscoring our highly profitable business model. As of December 31st, 2025, the company had cash and cash equivalents of $38.1 million, balance sheet policy assets of $469.8 million, and outstanding long-term debt of $405.8 million. As Jay mentioned in his remarks, in an effort to provide more insight into our business, we're initiating our full year 2026 outlook for adjusted net income to be between $96 million and $104 million. This range implies growth of up to 22% compared to full year 2025 adjusted net income of $85.7 million. In summary, we are very pleased with our strong performance in 2025 as we delivered exceptional top-line growth and significantly expanded profitability on an adjusted basis and maintained our EBITDA margin. We remain highly enthusiastic about the growth opportunities ahead and are well-positioned to execute on our long-term plans. With that, I will now turn it back to our CEO, Jay Jackson, for closing comments.

Thanks, Bill. Let me close with this.

We have conviction in our business model. We have confidence in our execution, and we have clarity on the path forward. The current market environment is playing directly to our strengths. In 11 consecutive quarters of outperformance of the proof, we recognize the disconnect between our fundamentals and our current valuation, but we also view it as one of the most compelling opportunities in front of us. As we have discussed with our investors over the past several months, the challenge is not performance, it is perception. The real opportunity lies in helping the investment community fully understand what Abacus is today, a data-driven platform operating across life insurance, asset management, technology, and wealth management, with a recurring revenue model, institutional-grade assets, and a track record that stands on its own. We are addressing that gap as it continues to close through transparent communication, proactive investor engagement, and relentless execution across every vertical of our business. That is our mandate for the next two to three years. Continue delivering results while closing the education gap and the broader investment community. We are confident that as understanding deepens, the valuation will follow. Our dividend and expanded share repurchase programs send an unambiguous message. We have the financial strength, the cash flow generation, and the conviction to invest aggressively in growth while simultaneously returning meaningful capital to our shareholders. We do not ask investors to choose between growth and returns. We are delivering both. As we look ahead, our priorities remain clear and unchanged. Deliver strong, consistent financial performance, deepen institutional adoption of longevity-based assets, educate the market on the massive, structurally underserved opportunity in front of us, and create enduring, compounding value for every shareholder. I'm proud of what this team has built. The results speak for themselves. Our job now is to keep delivering.

With that, we will now open the call for questions.

Thank you. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you'd like to withdraw your question, please press star then 2. The first question comes from Patrick DeWitt with Autonomous Research. Please go ahead.

Hey, good afternoon, everyone. You mentioned in the deck that you expect to do another securitization in the first half, and I think you said last quarter you could have done a bigger one. So could you expand on how the investor demand side of the equation has evolved since then and what that could mean for the size and frequency of these going forward? Thank you.

Sure. Thank you, Patrick. You know, the demand has continued to be there and, in fact, increase. And we are in, you know, process in Q1 of measuring that demand against, you know, building another product to put out via a securitization. And, you know, within that process, I think the demand has met or exceeded our expectations. And particularly in this market, right? Like, one of the things we found really interesting is that with some of the recent volatility in the markets, the underlying asset that we have is actually increased in demand. But to couple that or to go with that, it's interesting too, we've seen uptick in origination as well. So as individuals may seek capital from their life insurance policies, we're kind of seeing a positive response to both. So I think with the markets as they are today, relatively around some uncertainty and some volatility, that has presented I think more opportunity for us to potentially do something even more sizable. We're still targeting first half versus Q1, but we feel pretty good about the outcome there.

Is it fair to assume it could be bigger than the first one, just based on what you said last quarter or too early to say?

Yes, I think that's certainly the goal and the target would be bigger. The first one was $50 million, and as we look forward, whether that's $100 or larger, those are some of the areas that we're targeting, and the demand is certainly there. I would add one thing as well. Whether it's in the securitization, which is great, Overall, I like to point you to the fund flow. If we look at the new inflows for Q4 that we reported, north of over $400 million, should also give you a pretty good indication of the demand that we're seeing for the underlying asset.

As a follow-up, I have a question on capital. I think you might have answered this in point two on slide seven, but Wanted to hear it from you. Before the stock sell-off last year, episodic equity raises were a more consistent part of the growth algorithm. So now that your stock price has recovered, is that something we should keep in mind? Or do you think that the organic capital generation has kind of reached an escape velocity in terms of being able to address the life solutions growth without equity raises?

Yeah. we don't have any intent to put out more equity to fund balance sheet purchases related to policy purchases. You know, for us, you know, we are, we are meeting that velocity and again, driven by the demand for the asset from our own funds as well. So, you know, we're in a really good spot here and, you know, expect that to continue. And that's why when we put out our guidance for 26, we're what we believe to be very optimistic. The, And so we expect that to continue. And from a fund flow perspective and what drives those capital needs, we think that we're in a great spot here and there's not any need to go to equity markets.

Thank you. Sure.

The next question comes from Crispin Love with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Appreciate you taking my question. So on capital deploy, definitely a big quarter there, $230 million. I think that's 125% plus growth versus just last quarter. And while Life Solutions revenue was strong, it, of course, didn't match that growth too. Can you walk through that a little bit? Did it come at a lower margin? And how was that capital deploy different than past quarters? Just curious if there's any major differences.

Right. No, there wasn't anything different. Now, when we look at that gross capital number, there was $408 million total of gross inflows. One thing that, yeah, you're right to pick up on, at least from how we break that down, there was a little over $100 million that was just in on the ETF side. So that would contribute to typically those ETFs have a lower management fee as well as additional recurring revenue fees just in general. And so then when we then look at just the longevity market asset, uh, or, or, um, inflows, you know, those were higher than Q3. Um, and just in general, uh, you know, I think what we saw there was, was that it's some of it's just allocating that capital during the quarter. Right. And so you did see that we also had some excess cash there as we were, you know, finishing out the quarter. And so I think that, you know, those will kind of, uh, couple themselves together again a little more closely as we get into, you know, first half of this year, Q1, Q2. But otherwise, you know, it was really successful. We were able to put a large piece of that capital to work, you know, effectively right away. We are meeting certainly the demand that we have with our origination, and you saw a pretty significant uptick in capital deployed as well, which we were, you know, I think one of the highlights of the quarter is when you look at the capital deployed number of over 230 million.

Great. Thank you, Jayden. That makes a lot of sense on the ETF side. And then you talked about a five-year path to $450 million adjusted EBITDA. I think you had a little over $130 million in 2025. So if I'm doing the math right, I think that's compounding at just even about 28% per year. Can you just discuss how you expect to get there? Is that all organic? Are there acquisitions involved? And then is asset management the overwhelming driver of that growth?

For sure. And I'm glad you asked that because, you know, one of the things we highlighted in the call here was that if you look back over the last three years, and I sat back with most of our shareholders and said, we expect a 3X growth top and bottom line, you probably would not have taken us very seriously. And yet here we are again, looking forward three and five years out with similar aspirations. And that's why we put that illustrative target out there. And partly driven by a couple of things. One, let's not forget, we do have a massive addressable market with the underlying life solutions business. But even beyond that, when you look at some of the key drivers there, absolutely, it's driven by asset management. It's driven by wealth management. And, you know, there is a blend of organic as well as acquisition. And when I think about the acquisition piece, you know, we highlighted a minority investment in just a terrific firm, 50-year firm in Manning and Napier. where culturally we see things a lot of the same way. And that's a first entry point for us. And I think when you start to look at the synergies that we have with that firm already and some of the things I believe we're going to be able to do to jointly grow together, things like increasing assets under management for both parties by having both a distribution agreement and being able to monetize the lead gen that we're able to generate from our platform. through Manning is incredibly exciting. And I think when you look then at the growth of our business and how we're able to achieve these growth numbers, it's what we're doing really well going forward is capitalizing on the life cycle of our clients. And we're generating significant value for them in both policy purchases and policy payouts. And now we're going to monetize that over time. And so, you know, the growth of this asset driven by our data, specifically longevity and lifespan data and how that applies to financial planning. Yes, we are very excited about how that growth is going to continue. And now looking forward, I also think that, you know, it's, as I said in prior calls, we saw both ways from a build it and buy it. And so I think we'll see some of that happen internally. And then in addition to that, you know, finding phenomenal companies that we can invest in, such as Manning and Napier, and continue that growth.

Great. Thank you, Jay. I appreciate you taking my questions. Sure.

The next question comes from Andrew Kogerman with TD Cohen. Please go ahead.

Hey, good afternoon, everyone. So maybe kind of Further to the earlier capital question, in terms of equity issuance, would the founding holders have any appetite to do it this year, or do they have more of a sense that they want to wait and see if the price stabilizes? What's the thinking there? And just further elaborating on that question as well. In terms of capital demands, it sounds like you did a really interesting acquisition with Manning. What's the pipeline like there? Is there any way, Jay, that you could kind of size it to get a sense that maybe you might need to issue equity to do some of the deals? It sounds like they've all been very impactful.

Sure. Thank you for that. Good questions. We'll start with the initial question related to, you know, we are predominantly insider owned and still remain that way. Myself and three other partners and as well as a large shareholder, the five of us can own about 58, almost 60 percent of the outstanding shares. I think that I think it's a fair question. You know, just because we've seen a recent performance in the stock price, I would just like to highlight that. when you look at the valuation of our business, it's why we're buying back our stock, because we still feel it's dramatically undervalued on a comparative basis. I mean, when you look at businesses on an equivalent basis that have put up these types of numbers in 25, they don't trade at single-digit multiples, yet here we are. And I think that when you look at this from a perspective of how we feel about the stock, just look at the numbers we put out, some of these targets for 2028, again, they're illustrative, but we're talking about a effectively 2x over the next three years just in EBITDA while maintaining similar margins. So I think, you know, over time, you know, we have got a business here where some of the founding members have held their shares for 22 years. And I think that as, you know, on a thoughtful basis, if we were to ever do anything, it would be something that would be to meet excess demand for the stock. And if that were to happen, we would certainly consider that as those folks are thinking about things like retirement and other things. And this happens in all companies, right? As people kind of age up, you want to be able to do this in an organized way. What I can assure you is that if there were to be a consideration related to some, some, some equity being sold by insiders, it would be in a controlled fashion. It would be in an organized fashion. Uh, and, but to highlight even more, so let's look at the numbers where we are today. There's not a huge incentive for us to do that. Right. Like, you know, we see a lot of run room left here and, and we think that we should be taking advantage of that. Um, the second part of your question, um, was, uh, what our pipeline looked like. And, you know, you bring up an interesting point. As we evaluate, and we have spoken about this for a year, about opportunities that we think would be really good fits, both culturally and financially, for abacus, where you can find true synergies, right? Like, let's take a quick look at the Manning and the Peer opportunity. This is a strategic alliance where we're going to help generate new private wealth clients through our own client base. Secondly, we're going to source new policies from their current client base. So that feeds the origination machine, right? And then we're looking at our own asset management portfolios. These are terrific alternative asset management funds that are now going to be available to Manning clients. Those are the types of successes that we want to point to and why these synergies we think would be very appealing. In addition to that, are there other firms that might meet that type of description? Of course there are. And You know, we are engaged in those kinds of conversations, but it's got to be a creative to shareholders, right? Both financially as well as synergies. And, you know, there are firms out there. We're just very, very patient, very diligent. But I can tell you that there is a pipeline and we're excited about it. How would we use capital to best fill that pipeline or to work through that pipeline? I think that, you know, we would use the best resources possible to us. If it were equity, I think it would be a blend of equity and really smart debt structuring. But there's a lot of options open to us. Let's keep in mind, we have a very profitable balance sheet. And we can utilize that capital in the most strategic way that we can, which we think will drive long-term returns. And that's what we were saying earlier, right? We want to use the capital in the best way possible, whether that's buybacks, whether that's buying policies or whether that's acquisitions or investments. And I think that, you know, Q4 and 25 and what we're putting out for 26 demonstrates that.

That was helpful, Jay. And then on the KPIs, I mean, the turnover ratio at 2.6, terrific. Number of days till policy hold held 116, terrific. Again, I mean, really good changes there. Kind of curious on the days held 269, which upticked a little bit, what's kind of the backdrop to that? Why holding those policies a little bit longer?

Yeah. And if you compare it to the prior quarter, we had held some policies a little bit longer to maximize revenue. And for us, it's simply about managing the best opportunistic return that we can. And so many times when you see that movement a little bit, whether it's held a slightly longer or not, it's a smaller percentage of the book, but that's an aging part of the book and you want to maximize returns. I think that you can look in the queue this quarter and even the K and you'll see things like maturations. And these are matured contracts where we were able to effectively collect on the entire claim. And in those circumstances, those returns are substantially higher. So Some of those contracts are best seasoning, whether that's an additional quarter or not, and some are best to be optimized within that quarter. So it's a very thoughtful strategy of looking at it going, do I pick up an ROE of, let's say, 20, or do I hold this for maybe something larger another quarter? And in Q3, what you saw was those trade spreads went up pretty high. That was one of the KPIs that you hadn't mentioned yet, but the KPI was 37%. in Q3 and then, you know, 26% in Q4. And I think that, you know, you're going to see some of that. And that's part of just being really good stewards of capital and maximizing returns.

Got it. That was helpful. Thank you.

Sure.

The next question comes from Timothy D'Agostino with V-Rally Securities. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thanks for taking the question, and congrats on the year. I guess focusing on Abacus Intel quickly, you had mentioned your prepared remarks about how governments are using the data, and on slide 19, you kind of lay out 100-plus governments and union systems. But you also talked about, and I can see in the slide, you know, the market opportunities, whether that be TPA, pension funds, insurance, mortgage lenders. I guess what I'm trying to understand is, you know, With this data and Abacus, how do you provide value to those different opportunities and why they would want to partner with you? I guess trying to get an overall kind of high-level understanding of why Abacus Intel can provide value to these opportunities.

Sure. I mean, at a high level, when you look at pension funds, for example, one of the resources that abacus provides is called m verify or mortality verification and we're able to verify when a mortality occurs in the united states within 48 hours with nearly 100 accuracy around 97 and that is incredibly valuable data for a pension fund so they no longer continue to make those pension fund payments uh therefore What that really helps is them manage their own balance sheet much stronger because they don't have money going out that's really hard to reclaim. And then you can apply that against different types of agencies, right? To have a better understanding from an insurance company point of view, how their mortality curves might adjust based on real-time mortality information. the reason why that's so valuable is, is that you, it's really hard to get that information from other sources, even the social security administration, you know, that, that can take months, if not years to get that data. And most of the time it's, it's not very accurate. It's in, you know, it's half as accurate. So, you know, that's where those sources of demand are. Um, you know, we've been speaking to even larger institutions and, and as we look into 26, we, we expect, um, the advocates Intel business to continue to grow. Uh, I would add one piece that's really valuable. We use that data, right? It helps us build better prediction models around our own investments. So, you know, being able to capitalize and understand how longevity, and how that life arc of an individual is managed, right? One of the things we started saying is that lifespan is not a straight line. It's an arc of possibilities. We have a program coming out called life arc, which that life arc program will help us better understand what someone's mortality distribution curve looks like. And we're going to apply that life arc to financial services, right? If the number one fear is running out of money in retirement, shouldn't people have a better understanding of how long they're going to be in retirement and capitalizing on that longevity and health data? And that's the type of data that I think in a much larger scale that we're going to, that Abacus Intel is going to play a major part in.

Okay, great. Thank you so much for the call. It's super helpful. And then I guess a quick second question for me. In the third quarter earnings presentation for the Advocates Asset Group, you've laid out $4 billion-plus in fee-paying AUM by year-end 26. That number is obviously your guide has increased to $5 billion for year-end 26. Is that primarily due to the capital inflows you saw in 4Q25, that $275 million, or was there something else? I'm trying to understand what gives you confidence in increasing that number between the earnings calls. Thank you.

sure yeah thank you for asking and and yes it is driven by what we deem to be visible demand um and and so when we see the type of demand that we saw in q4 and then we're looking at the demand in q6 and our excuse me 2026 and and and matching that with you know a a keen understanding that when you have volatile markets demand increases for this kind of asset um gave us a lot of comfort around increasing that number and and then you tie into not just new funds products and the rollout of additional potential securitizations, we feel comfortable around that number.

Okay, great. Thank you so much, and congrats on the year again. Thank you.

The next question comes from Mike Grondahl with Northland Securities. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Congratulations. And just wanted to circle back to the capital deployed, $230 million. I think you did that securitization late October. Was any of the $230 million for the securitization you've already done, and is any of that can be broken out for a future securitization? Any way to think about that?

In the second part of that question, sorry, Mike, you cut out a little bit on my line.

Okay. Any of the 230 that can be used in a future securitization, are you able to bifurcate it in that way?

Yeah. No, the way to look at it is that, yes, in Q4, when we're looking at total capital deployed, that would include the $50 million that we had in the securitization. But in addition to that, it was still a record quarter for us. And I think that's part of the power of the securitization. You just kind of have this really consistent model that you can deploy capital with. at a very effective and cost-effective structure. As far as bifurcating that capital deployed into additional securitizations, I would just kind of point to our balance sheet at this point, which is north of $450 million of policies on the balance sheet, and we have excess capacity to do additional securitizations. So I think that we're really well positioned as we look forward to additional securitizations. We already have the inventory built up on our balance sheet for that.

Got it. Great. And then just one more. With Manning and Napier, does that sort of replace your ABX wealth advisor strategy? There was some thought that you'd be hiring some of your own advisors and grow it out that way. How do we think about it now?

Yeah, I think it certainly complements everything that we thought we were going to do. And I think just one big takeaway here is that We definitely walked before we ran here. We made, I feel like, a very thoughtful, intelligent, conservative investment into a well-established firm to really take a moment and demonstrate that the model that we're putting together for our wealth management division is executable. I think that's just so valuable in this way that we structured this initially. So this investment makes a ton of sense for us. How we might move forward with our own advisors within that platform, I think it makes sense for us at this point to focus on the investment that we made and prove that that is successful and show some wins and successes, and then we'll continue to build the platform from there. But make no mistake, this is going to be an important platform for us on a go-forward basis because if you think about it, it feeds so many other things, right? It feeds origination. It feeds asset management. It feeds the abacus intel from the longevity data. So I think it's a really important stage for our growth, and this is just the first step.

Perfect.

Thanks a lot, guys. Good luck in 2020.

Sure. Thank you, Mike.

This concludes the question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Jay Jackson for any closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Well, thank you to all of our shareholders. 2025 was a year in which I believe that we solidified our shareholder base, solidified our story and our communication, and solidified our growth. And we are in a position where, looking forward, as great the last two and three years have been. We are excited about the next three years. And we hope that when you start to see these numbers and see the direction of where this company is headed and where we can achieve with the foundation of our business, we're excited about what the next three years can bring to us and our shareholders as well. So thank you all. We look forward to answering any additional questions. Please feel free to reach out to our IR department if you have any additional questions. and we look forward to another great quarter.

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.