SEI Investments Company

Hello, and welcome to SCI first quarter 2025 conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask the question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. I would now like to turn the conference over to Brad Burke. You may begin.

Thank you and welcome, everyone. We appreciate you joining us today for our first quarter 2025 earnings call. On the call, we have Brian Hickey, SEI's Chief Executive Officer, Sean Denim, Chief Financial Officer, and Chief Operating Officer, and members of our Executive Management Team, Jay Cipriano, Sandy Ewing, Paul Clotter, Michael Lane, Phil McCabe, Mike Peterson, Sneha Shah, and Sanjay Sharma. Before we begin, I would like to point out that our earnings press release and the presentation that will accompany today's call can be found under the investor relations section of our website at seic.com. This call is being webcast live and a replay will be available on the events and webcast page of our website. We would like to remind you that during today's presentation and in our responses to your questions, we have and will make certain forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially. Please refer to our notices regarding forward-looking statements that appear in today's presentation slides and in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We do not undertake to update any of our forward-looking statements. With that, please turn to slide three as I turn the call to our CEO, Ryan Hickey. Ryan?

Thank you, Brad, and good afternoon, everyone. Last quarter, I shared our expectation that SEI would build upon the strong momentum we achieved in the second half of 2024. Not only did that momentum continue, but it accelerated. As I've said before, we are running SEI differently. We are showing up in the market differently. We are fundamentally reshaping our operating model, deepening client engagement and relationships, strengthening our talent, and sharpening our strategic vision. The results of these efforts are evident in our performance over the last several quarters. As part of our enterprise mindset, we held our first ever global client symposium in March, where we brought together clients from across all of our business lines. It was unbelievable, energizing, and humbling. It gave us a forum and a platform to not only connect industry leaders, but to also help our clients learn about the breadth of SEI's capabilities through each other. We could see people's perceptions of SEI change in real time. as they became increasingly aware of the size of our client network and the intersection of solutions and industries. In the first quarter of 2025, SEI delivered earnings per share of $1.17, an 18% increase year over year. All business segments contributed to this growth, each posting higher operating profits and expanded margins. Despite tumultuous capital markets, we saw modest growth in client assets under management and administration, demonstrating the breadth of SEI's diversification across product types and geography. Most notably, SEI achieved a record-breaking $47 million in net sales events in Q1. $37 million of those are recurring, a new high, surpassing our previous record from Q3 2024. This success spanned multiple clients and business lines, both domestically and internationally, and reflects the strength of our enterprise mindset and evolving go-to-market strategy. By offering a comprehensive suite of solutions, SEI is uniquely positioned to serve the world's most sophisticated institutional, wealth, and asset management organizations. During the quarter, we also announced the sale of our family office services business. While a strong business, relative to other strategic choices we have, we felt this asset had a greater growth opportunity outside of SEI. We believe the acquirer, Aqualine, is positioned to accelerate the growth and adoption of this platform, and we're pleased that the sale will deliver a strong return for shareholders, exceeding our initial investment in 2017. In summary, Q1 was a standout quarter for SEI. We are immensely proud of these results, but our focus, as always, remains on the road ahead. a path that currently presents an unusually high degree of market uncertainty, but equally presents opportunity as organizations rethink their operating model and capital deployment strategies. SEI has historically been successful in how we have navigated challenging environments. Our diversified business model, coupled with a fortress balance sheet and an amazing workforce, has been at the core of this success and something that we believe positions us exceptionally well to address the current conditions. Growth-focused firms are actively advancing their shift to outsourcing, particularly for technology and operational platforms. Our sales pipelines are strong, with discussions remaining proactive and optimistic. Our investment manager clients report stable redemption activity and capital deployment trends that align with expectations. That said, the recent wave of market uncertainty and the evolving macroeconomic dynamics introduced variables that could influence the broader economy and potentially our pipeline activity. As Yogi Berra famously said, it's tough to make predictions, especially about the future. While the full impact of these developments is yet to unfold, we are closely monitoring the situation, but we remain focused on controlling what can be controlled, notably our talent, our client focus, and our strategic investments. Looking forward, I am confident in SEI's strong foundation and our ability to deliver sustained long-term growth. We are actively pursuing both organic and inorganic opportunities to accelerate our strategic progress, ensuring we continue to create value for our clients and shareholders. Before I hand the call over to Sean, I want to highlight his expanded role as SEI's Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer. In a short time, Sean has driven significant value, relentlessly pursuing higher returns on invested capital and unlocking SEI's growth potential. He has also been a terrific cultural addition to the team. With that, I'll turn it over to Sean.