SEI Investments Company

Hello, and welcome to SEI Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's 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, head of investor relations. You may begin.

Thank you and welcome, everyone. We appreciate you joining us today for SEI's second quarter 2025 earnings call. On the call, we have Ryan Hickey, SEI's chief executive officer, Sean Denham, 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 accompanying 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. to differ materially. Please refer to our notices regarding forward-looking statements that appear in today's earnings press release 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 over to our CEO, Brian Hickey. Brian?

Thanks, Brad, and good afternoon, everyone. We are thrilled to report another strong quarter for SDI. While Sean will dive into the financial details, I'll focus on our strategic momentum, key areas of progress, and where we're sharpening our execution to drive sustained performance. Transparency remains a cornerstone of our approach, and I'll be candid about where I think we're excelling and where we see opportunities for improvement. Let's start with what excites us most. Last week, we announced the transformative strategic investment in Stratos. a leader in the independent advisory space with a proven track record in organic growth, advisor recruitment, client experience, and M&A. Please refer to our Form 8K for more information. This partnership integrates the client-centric model of Stratos with SEI's modern technology, custody, and investment management capabilities, creating a powerful platform for advisors in a rapidly evolving wealth management landscape. This move is strategic and a strong cultural fit. Our deep relationship with Stratos' leadership enhances our ability to deliver unparalleled value across client segments while aligning with our disciplined capital allocation strategy. We believe it positions SEI to capture long-term shareholder value through the growing demand for advice-driven solutions. Additionally, this investment strengthens our ability to innovate across our asset management and administration platforms. leveraging direct insights into end investor needs to benefit our advisor, private banking, and investment manager clients globally. As part of SEI's broader transformation, we've also been evolving our leadership, starting at the top. Yesterday, we announced the appointments of Karen Risi and Tom Maratil to our board of directors. Karen led Vanguard's $2.5 trillion personal investor and wealth management businesses and was responsible for the design and launch of Vanguard's hybrid advisory platform. Tom led the global wealth management business at UBS, which oversees more than $2.8 trillion in assets. Their recent relevant experience and strategic insight will make us stronger as a leadership team. This is another clear signal of our commitment to long-term growth, innovation, and accountability. Now shifting to areas where we see progress but also opportunity. In the second quarter, SEI realized nearly $30 million in net sales events. led by strong momentum again in our investment manager segment. On a trailing 12-month basis, that's a new record for SBI. Absent some private banking delays caused by market volatility in April, we believe Q2 would have been even better, but timing is what it is. Our pipelines across all our businesses, including PV, remain strong. We're actively addressing outflow headwinds to drive sales and asset management, and that team is making tangible progress as evidenced by two quarters of improving net asset flows. Two years ago, $30 million in net sales would have been exceptional. Today, it's a solid baseline, reflecting how far we've come in the scale of our ambition. We're not yet where we want to be, but we're moving faster and with greater focus. The competitive landscape is also shifting in our favor. Firms are rethinking their operating models, and we're leaning into that opportunity. We are seeing increased interest in outsourcing from banks, large RIAs, and alternative asset managers, many of whom have historically managed operations and technology in-house. Last week in New York, I met with global alternative asset managers that are exploring strategic outsourcing partnerships. SEI is uniquely positioned to support their business transformation. Our focus remains on flawless execution to ensure client satisfaction and referenceability, which is why we're proactively investing in talent, technology, and platforms. As mentioned earlier, in our asset management businesses, we're seeing encouraging signs. The momentum is real. AUM net flows in the first half of 2025 were roughly flat against several billion of net outflows in the same period last year. And if you include growth across our broader platform, not just AUM, we're beginning to see early signs of modest net growth. That's meaningful progress. Much of this improvement is tied to our evolving strategy with focused client segmentation, pricing discipline, and a renewed sense of enthusiasm for our value proposition across the ecosystem. There's real energy in those businesses, and it's beginning to translate into results. Now let me address margins, an area where we're always watching closely. Margins stepped down in Q2, reflecting the investments we've been discussing with you over the last few quarters. We continue to make the necessary investments to support future growth and add talent. That impacts the income statement in the short term, but these investments are targeted and intentional, and we're tightening our focus in a few areas. We will remain surgical on hiring. We will reprioritize certain discretionary spend. And we'll continue to streamline internal processes to ensure we're allocating resources where they'll have the greatest impact. With Sean's leadership, we're pairing these investments with increased accountability, measurement, and leverage. Everyone in this room is responsible for delivering on the return on these investments. We will be disciplined while staying committed to our long-term growth strategy. Let me close with this. We are running the company to make sure SEI endures and thrives for the long term, not just quarter over quarter. With the adoption of Stratos and the addition, the growing strength of our foundation, the breadth and depth of our sales pipelines, the execution of our growth strategy, SEI has amazing potential over the next 12 months, the next decade, and beyond. Thank you, and with that, I'll turn it over to Sean.

Thank you, Ryan. Please turn to slide four. Our EPS of $1.78 includes significant one-time items. Notably, a gain from the June 30th sale of our family office services business and a gain from a longstanding vendor negotiation, totaling a $0.60 EPS impact. These were partially offset by $0.02 of choppier expenses hitting corporate overhead due to foreign currency losses and legal fees tied to the Stratos investment. Excluding these items, SEI would have realized EPS of $1.20. reflecting an increase from both the prior year and prior quarter. Slide five summarizes our business unit performance. Private banking revenue increased both year-over-year and sequentially, supported by a handful of larger clients going live in the quarter. Investment managers' revenue grew 8% year-over-year with double-digit growth in alternatives, offsetting a 1% decline in traditional revenue due to mark-to-market weakness. We expect this market-related drag to ease in the second half, subject to market conditions. Our advisor and institutional businesses realized flat, sequential revenue growth as market appreciation in May and June all set significant declines in April. With the exception of our investment managers business, all SEI businesses saw positive operating leverage when compared to the prior year. However, margins did decline on a sequential basis, which we'll discuss on slide six. Starting with investment managers, the decline in margins from the first quarter is primarily attributable to hiring ahead of expected new business, ensuring that we can execute quickly as we win new business. Additionally, the margin comparison against the first quarter is challenged due to first quarter delays in the hiring plans we had spoken about previously. With the hiring made in the second quarter, we now expect costs to layer on about as quickly as revenue, so we anticipate that margins will remain in this range as we staff for larger client conversions. Margins in our advisor business increased versus the prior year, driven by $21 million of revenue from our integrated cash program, up $11 million from Q2 of last year. The 2.2% point decline from the first quarter was driven by a handful of choppier items. For instance, An increased accrual from our SCI Lightfield earn-out drove a nearly $1 million increase in expense against Q1. We had nearly $500,000 in expenses associated with the onboarding a large RIA client, and the first quarter also benefited from just over $1 million of accrual reversal, which further impacts the comparison. Private banking margins improved against last year. but declined sequentially, as the growth-oriented investments Ryan mentioned began to ramp up in the second quarter. Institutional margins increased both year-over-year and sequentially, although the current quarter was aided by a $1 million earn-out reversal that won't repeat. Consolidated operating margins improved slightly year-over-year, but declined sequentially, impacted by the aforementioned one-time expenses and corporate overhead. Turning to our sales events activity on slide seven. Investment managers drove net sales events across SEI with a very balanced mix of wins across alternatives, traditional, and global. No one single client drove investment manager sales events in the quarter. Our pipeline in this business is extremely strong, driven by several large alternative managers. These managers are growing at a rapid pace, and they recognize they would benefit from a strategic partner to continue empowering their growth. The timing of realizing these wins remains fluid, but we anticipate the pace of wins to accelerate in the back half of the year. Private banking net sales events total just over $2 million, with timing slipping for a number of deals due to April's market volatility. Reiterating Ryan's comments, our private banking pipeline remains strong and balanced among regional, community, and large banks, as well as professional services across both new and existing SEI clients. The institutional and advisors businesses recorded a combined $1 million in net sales events in Q2 and $2 million year-to-date, a significant improvement from a negative $11 million in the first half of 2024. In summary, SEI sales pipeline remains strong and consistent with our messaging over the last couple of quarters. We will be investing in both talent and technology ahead of that growth to ensure outstanding execution for our clients. Turning to slide eight, SEI's AUM and AUA grew on both a sequential and year-over-year basis. AUM growth reflects positive market conditions and improving asset flows for SEI's advisor and institutional businesses. AUM net flows for these two businesses were negligible year-to-date, significantly improving from the first half of 2024. Traditional mutual fund outflows were largely offset with growth in models and custom portfolios. We expect this trend to continue, and we are shifting resources from traditional mutual funds and prioritizing the growing tax-sensitive ETF, SMA, and models business in conjunction with our evolved asset management strategy. We are in the early stages of our asset management journey of going upstream to work with larger advisors and growing the RIA business. The early progress is encouraging and happening at a faster pace than we had originally anticipated. Growth in AUA, both sequentially and year-over-year, reflects the continued demand for investment manager services in addition to the benefit of market appreciation. Outflows in our LSV investment were more than offset by market appreciation. Fund performance remained solid, with LSV realizing $5 million of incentive fees in Q2 at SEI share. Slide 9 summarizes our capital allocations. During the quarter, we continue to return significant capital to shareholders, with buybacks now exceeding $700 million on a trailing 12-month basis. Our recently announced Stratos investment is not reflected in Q2 figures and is expected to close later this year. We expect to fund the majority of Stratos with low-cost balance sheet cash, while continuing to return free cash flow to shareholders with share repurchases and dividends. We will maintain significant capacity for incremental investment in the Fortress balance sheet. Before concluding, I'd like to remind our audience about our Investor Day coming up in New York on September 18th. You should have received an invite to sign up from Brad. Please send us a note if he missed you. There's a lot of work happening at SEI, much more than we can unpack in a quarterly update. I think our analysts and investors will get a lot of value from hearing us dive deeper into our strategic priorities and anticipated outcomes. With that, operator, please open the line for questions.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder to ask the question, please press star 11 on your telephone, then wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Crispin Love with Piper Sandler. Your line is open.

Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. First, on investments in talent and technology, I know this is an area where you're always investing, but there were definitely multiple call-outs in the release and the call. So first, can you discuss some of the key investments you're most focused on today, and then are you able to size the incremental investment you expect in coming quarters in these areas?

Sure. Thanks for the question. I can take that. I'll give you one or two examples of where some of the investments are being made. So I mentioned in my prepared remarks that we're making investments in talent and technology. For instance, in IMS, we understand really well what our pipeline is, what expected sales will be moving forward, and as a result of that, we need to hire in advance of that to anticipate those sales. So that's on the people side, and I think that's pretty consistent really across the businesses, including PB to a certain extent. From a technology standpoint, we're investing for IMS, for instance, we're investing in technology to streamline our IMS systems for better scalability and cost efficiency. So that's going to set us up for future growth. Those two examples are pretty consistent with how we think about technology and our people. So, you know, in my comments, I had mentioned that we are continuing to look at what that sales pipeline looks like, how we are going to scale our technology and our platform for future growth.

Great.

Thank you. I appreciate that. I'm sorry. You had one more piece to that. And so the expectation for future margins, I think you – can expect kind of where we are in Q2 to be relatively consistent with what we're expecting in future quarters.

Perfect. Okay. That makes sense. And then just a second question for me on sales events. You called out temporary delays in private banking. Can you just give a little bit more detail there? What drove that and then just expectations going forward?

Yeah, Crispin, it's Ryan. I hope you're doing well. This one was really, I think, we'll blame April. And I'm being serious. April just kind of froze everything in a couple segments for a little while. But similar to the commentary we had almost a year ago when we talked about some things kind of leaking through that July 4th weekend, the pipeline is exactly what the pipeline was. So, you know, what we'd really like to see is kind of the strength and depth of that pipeline. Sanjay's sitting right next to me. Sanjay and I literally an hour ago went through the entire pipeline for the next 12 months. But it was just a product of things that were moving along at a certain path that we would have had a kind of gate three that would have naturally matriculated to gate four and closing. Just got pushed a bit to the right. And again, timing is what it is. So will that manifest itself in the next 90 days or next 180 days? I wish I had more control over that. But the pipeline in banking is really strong. Sanjay, you want to provide a little color commentary to what you're saying?

Yeah, certainly. It's a... The second quarter, I know that things slowed down a bit, but we used that time to further strengthen our pipeline and also building a relationship, continuously investing in our existing client base. So I strongly believe that our pipeline is strong. The other part I would highlight is that over several quarters, we have been talking about our focus and attention on regional and community space. But in parallel, we were also focusing on the small bank market as well as the large bank market. And I strongly believe that our pipeline is more balanced across those three segments.

Great. Thank you, Ryan and Sanjay. I appreciate you all taking my questions.

Please stand by for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Ryan Kinney with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. So first question on the Stratos acquisition. Can you give us some color on what differentiates the strategy at Stratos versus some of the other RIA aggregator models that are out there?

Yeah, 100%, Ryan. I hope you're doing well. Michael Lane's in the room. Feel free to chime in, Michael, as well. I think there are three fundamental things that really attracted us to Stratos that we saw as differentiated. One was the breadth and experience of their executive team. So this isn't just Jeff Concepcion, who is a phenomenal entrepreneur and leader. We spent a lot of time with this group. They just had a very professional management team, Ryan. They had a COO, a CFO, a head of acquisitions. They are built for the scale that they have actually grown, and we were really excited and energized by that. I think the second thing that differentiated Stratos and attracted us to us is that they have not adopted the strategy of let's go buy a whole bunch of advisors and then try to harmonize it later. They have a centralized investment platform. They have discipline around their value proposition when they bring new advisors on. They see a tremendous amount of value in what SEI can bring to the table with our capabilities around asset management administration. But they really do deserve, I think, a lot of accolades for the discipline in their value proposition and operating model that they drive through the organization. And then I think the third is so important to SCI is cultural fit. The team just really resonates in terms of the values that they hold, the integrity with which they operate. It does feel like they are already part of SCI and SCI and Stratos kind of have a lot of shared values, but specifically around their business model, right, I would say the first two things and one more kind of the qualitative side would just be the honesty, integrity, and client focus that they have really resonates.

Michael, what would you add? Yeah, I mean, everything Ryan said, plus I would add that one of the criteria that we were interested in was a group that actually was a hybrid. where they had both capabilities available, they could have 1099 as well as W2, because those 1099 advisors at some point are going to look for a succession plan, and then W2 environment provides that succession plan. And so that is another one of the things that was a key criteria for us that we were searching for when we were first introduced to Stratos. That was another box that was checked.

All right, great. That's clear. And then you mentioned that Stratos was interested in some of the asset management and servicing capabilities that SEI offers. Should we expect those best result in revenue synergies and any timing on when that could show up?

So, your question is if they have an interest in the asset management services. So, I don't believe that they have a interest necessarily as much in our IMS under Phil McCabe's business. But what they are very interested in is since they have a Stratus Investment Management Group, which provides direct indexing and SMA capability, they would like to further scale that and provide additional opportunities to grow that beyond their current mix. And that's where the combination of our scaled asset management, investment management arm, plus their investment management services arm, I think we'll be able to bring a tremendous amount of value to scaling that. And there could be opportunities in direct indexing or SMA servicing that we could do at some point in the future, but the primary will be adding additional services and capabilities to their existing Stratos investment management business.

Yeah, and I would add to that, I would actually say, like what I was having this conversation yesterday, In these scenarios, a lot of times synergy gets interpreted as to what cost are we going to rip out. That's absolutely not the focus. This is a long-term strategic investment by SEI. It's a footprint that we want to occupy in the ecosystem. They have a really great advisor experience and end client experience. Our capabilities, Ryan, will absolutely add value and augment that. But there is no rush or urgency to try to accelerate that potentially at the expense of a client experience until we really understand how we could deploy things that actually improve and augment their platform.

Particularly a business that has a 10% organic growth rate, the last thing you want to do is disrupt their organic growth. So our goal is to be as least disruptive and as most accretive to them as possible.

Thank you. That's clear. Thanks.

Thank you. Please stand by for our next question. As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, that's star 11 to ask the question. Our next question comes from the line of Owen Law with Oppenheimer. Your line is open.

Hi, good afternoon, and thank you for taking my question. So going back to the net sales environment, other than private banking, how would you characterize the sales cycle for other segments? You also called out IMS sales were quite strong. Could you please unpack a bit more on the drive of that strength? Thanks.

Owen, how are you, my friend? Let's take that in a couple stages. So let's raise it up and go back to the strategic themes for a second. We've been talking a lot the last couple years around macro trends that we believe we were positioned well and that we want to continue to exploit. So if you think about the appetite for outsourcing from alternative investment managers The demand for better technology and operations for regional community banks that want to compete in wealth and what the larger enterprise scale RIAs really need to operate as an institution in the future, we feel really strongly positioned there. And I think it harkens back a little bit to Crispin's question to Sean around investments in technology and talent. We are also making some more investments in front office talent, revenue generating talent, service talent, because there's just opportunity there. So the places that we have made bets over the last 24 to 36 months, we feel really well-positioned and those themes continue to resonate. I think it's always more effective when we talk about specific pipelines and segments to let the unit leads provide some of their color commentary. I mean, Phil, I mean, it's another great quarter for investment managers. To Owen's question there, you and I were just in New York last week. What are you seeing? What do you kind of see coming up the next few quarters?

Okay, thanks, Ryan. Oh, and normally I would say the pipeline is robust, or I would say it's very, very strong. But to give a little bit more color, at the end of the day, we're very strong in every single product in every single jurisdiction. So anything from retail alternatives to collective investment trusts to private assets in general, and especially on the alternative side of the business. As Ryan said in his opening remarks, some of the largest alternative managers are in market today looking for a strategic outsourcing partner. So we're in the middle of a lot of those conversations right now. We think a lot of those clients are first-time outsourcers, and we have a pretty large opportunity. We do really, really well in the high end of the market, and we expect to win more than our fair share. of those deals over the coming quarters.

And I think, oh, and the other thing, and then maybe Michael Lane, if you want to comment on kind of the sales environment. The other thing coming back to why we are calling out investments in tech and technology and talent, when Phil gives that example, when we're in these situations, those organizations call other organizations and ask them about the experience. And those calls are usually extremely positive when they call for FDI references. And we are going to make sure we protect that experience and referenceability at all costs over the next nine to 12 months because of what we see happening in the competitive environment.

And that's important because if we do a flawless conversion and we execute properly, we will get more and more, lots and lots of business from those clients over a longer period of time. So if we don't do it well in the beginning, it'll cost us, but we always do it well.

And if you look at the asset management business, you look at what was mentioned during the earlier comments about the change in sales events from first half of 24 to first half of 25, you look at the flow, which is also an important story of the first six months a billion in the first half of 2025. So flows have improved. We've had less losses in the institutional business. In the advisor business, our flows in the first half of 2024 were about $1 billion. In the first half of 2025, we're looking closer to $3 billion of flows. And so the flows have improved, but there's also a process to those flows. When you think about the story you were told about, you know, we're going upmarket, we're going to the larger REAs. Well, the process of how that money will hit will start with custody. It'll move into models. It'll move into all its overtime. So there's a process of how that flow hits. And so we'll be sharing more information as we go with platform-only versus monies moving into models and other types of investments from the RIAs.

Got it. Super helpful. And then maybe another longer-term question for capital return and leverage. Would SCI consider deploying capital to Stratus after closing the deal and use that as a vehicle to make RIA acquisition? And then maybe like after the closing of the partnership, do you have any target leverage or SCI plans to deliver back to zero debt afterwards? Thanks.

Hey, Owen. It's Sean. Nice speaking with you. So from a – I think your first question was, is there going to be a capital need with the Stratos partnership for funding future M&A activity? And I think that's your question. So the answer to that is yes. We see that as tens of millions, not hundreds of millions. So there will be funding that will be needed. And by the way, we want that to continue M&A activity. That's a big reason why we did this deal in partnership with Strato. So that's number one. What was your second question, Owen?

The second one was, do you have a target leverage ratio, or you want to just pay it on the debt afterwards?

Yeah, so right now we're about at negative one time, and so the expectation would be to improve that or go from negative one to something less than that. So I think where we're looking right now to eventually target is to bring some of those cash levels much lower, maybe a run rate of $300 million or so of staying there, using our free cash flow to continue to do stock buyback. That's been, obviously, as you know, a big part of what we've returned to our shareholders. and then dividends. So if you want to think free cash flow of $500 to $600 million, that's probably a good indicator, and we will unpack that further at Investor Day.

Sounds great. Thanks a lot.

Thank you. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, let's start 1-1 to ask the question. I'm showing no further questions in the queue. I would now like to turn the call back over to Ryan Hickey for closing remarks.

It must be summer with that few questions. Thank you so much for joining us today and actually for the questions and the continued engagement and energy that we get from everybody. We're really excited about the progress we're making, and we're confident in the path ahead. As always, we appreciate your continued interest in SEI. As Sean said, we look forward to sharing more of our details in the Investor Day in September. Hope everybody has a great evening and enjoys the rest of their summer.

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.