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spk11: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the SS&C Technologies fourth quarter 2022 earnings conference call. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press the star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. It is now my pleasure to turn today's call over to Justine Stone, Head of Investor Relations, please go ahead.
spk10: Hi, everyone. Welcome, and thank you for joining us for our fourth quarter 2022 earnings call. I'm Justine Stone, Investor Relations for SSNC Technologies. With me today is Bill Stone, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Bahul Kanwar, President and Chief Operating Officer, and Patrick Pedanti, our Chief Financial Officer. Before we get started, we need to review the state's harbor statement. Please note the various remarks we make today about future expectations, plans, and prospects, including the financial outlets we provide constitute forward-looking state provisions under the Private Security Litigations Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including those discussed in the risk factor section of our most recent annual report on Form 10-K, which is on file with the SEC and can also be accessed on our website. These forward-looking statements represent our expectations only as of today, February 7, 2023. While the company may elect to update these forward-looking statements, it specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. During today's call, we will be referring to certain non-GAAP financial measures, reconciliation of these non-GAAP financials to comparable GAAP financial measures is included in today's earnings release, which is located in the investor relations section of our website at www.ssctech.com.
spk04: I will now turn the call over to Bill. Thanks, Justine, and thanks, everyone, for joining.
spk05: Our results for the fourth quarter are $1.339 billion Dollars in adjusted revenue up 3.3%, and our adjusted diluted earnings per share were $1.16, down 9.4. Adjusted consolidated EBITDA was $518.6 million, third highest in our history, and our EBITDA margin was 38.7%. Our fourth quarter adjusted organic revenue was flat in line with our expectations.
spk03: For the year, total organic growth was 2%. While our financial services organic growth, which is 94% of our revenue, was 3.7.
spk05: 2022 was a challenging operating environment for SS&C, but we were pleased that with the revenue performance from our software businesses, including Advent Investment and Institutional Management and EZ, and the resiliency of our Alternative Fund Administration and Interlinks business, In 2022, S&C generated net cash from operating activities of $1.134 billion, including $67 million in deal-related expenses. We paid down $166 million in debt in Q4, bringing our consolidated net leverage ratio to 3.4 and our net secured leverage ratio to 2.4, 2.4 times consolidated EBITDA. This past January, as we were in our quarterly blackout period for stock buybacks, we paid down debt an additional 101 million. In Q4, we bought back 1.8 million shares for 90.7 million at an average price of $50.14. For the year, we had stock buybacks of 476 million for purchases of 7.8 million shares at an average price of $61 and a penny. We will continue to allocate about 50% of our cash flow to stock buybacks, and about 50% to debt pay down. In December, we acquired Complete Financial Ops, a specialized Colorado-based fund administrator that focuses on private equity and family offices. CFO fund services will augment assistance capabilities in servicing venture capital. In family office funds, CFO clients will enjoy the same outstanding service back to by SMC size, scale, and comprehensive solutions. We remain methodically opportunistic in our acquisition strategy. Valuations have come down more in line with our discipline strategy, and we are evaluating several opportunities. We remain very bullish on our Blue Prism acquisition, and we are ramping our digital workers' deployment throughout our business. I'll now turn it over to Rahul to discuss the quarter in more detail.
spk14: Thanks, Bill. Q4 results demonstrate the strength of our business amidst a challenging operating environment and highlight our ability to drive margins despite inflationary pressures. We exited 2022 with 38.7% EBITDA margins, up 330 basis points from the low point in Q2. Cost controls, facilities reduction, and productivity improvements enabled this quick turnaround. While labor markets remain volatile, we believe Blue Prism's intelligent automation technology will be an important means to harnessing the productivity of our workforce in 2023 and beyond. As a business unit, Blue Prism continues to grow nicely and exit at 2022 with 20% EBITDA margins. We continue to see opportunity in the private credit market, where we're investing in a highly scalable offering, combining the strengths of advanced software products and global services capabilities. A key component will be the build-out of a robust data platform that integrates multiple SSNC technologies, including Geneva, TNR, Precision LM, and others. Private credit represents the latest example of SSNC developing technology, expertise, and services to address the needs of a very specialized and complex set of fund managers. This is a strategy we have employed effectively and repeatedly as we have built the world's largest alternatives administration business. I will mention some key deals for Q4. Three existing SS&C clients upgraded to our newest platform, Aloha. We currently have over 30 clients live on Aloha. A $13 billion asset manager partnered with SS&C for fund accounting and reporting functions on their real assets portfolio. This partnership includes lifting out 60 employees in Texas. One of DSC's largest clients expanded their relationship to include more transfer agency operations. A Canadian alternative asset manager chose SS&C for a suite of private equity administration services, including regulatory reporting, treasury services, and investor vision, citing their need for Canadian and international expertise, as well as scale for future growth. A $75 billion hedge fund chose Geneva for its superior functionality around loan processing and accounting. A Hong Kong-based asset manager chose EMSOMS. as it needed greater asset class coverage, flexibility, third-party integration, and compliance functionality. MindSuper, managing $12 billion in assets on behalf of 55,000 members, became SS&C's first Australian superannuation client. The partnership will deliver superior digital experiences for members, driving greater member engagement and stronger retirement outcomes. I will now turn it over to Patrick to run through the financials.
spk06: Thanks. The results for the fourth quarter of 2022 were gap revenues of $1,338,000,000, gap net income of $207.5 million, and diluted EPS of $0.81. Adjusted revenues were $1,339,000,000. Adjusted revenue was up 3.3%. Adjusted operating income decreased 1.1%. and adjusted diluted EPS was $1.16, a 9.4 percent decrease from Q4 2021. Overall, adjusted revenue increased 42.9 million or 3.3 percent from Q4 2021. Our acquisitions contributed 72.5 million. Foreign exchange had an unfavorable impact of 28.7 million or 2.2 percent in the quarter. Adjusted organic revenue was flat on a constant currency basis. We had strength in several product lines, including alternatives, institutional investment management, and the interlinks business. That strength was impacted by weakness in our goods transfer agency business and healthcare business. Adjusted operating income in the fourth quarter was $502.1 million, a decrease of $5.4 million, or 1.1% in 2024-21. Adjusted operating margins were 37.5% in the fourth quarter of 22 compared to 39.2 in the fourth quarter of 2021. Excluding acquisitions, expenses increased 2.6% on a constant currency basis. Acquisitions added 56.7 million in expenses, and foreign currency decreased costs by 27.9 million. Our cost structure has been impacted by wage inflation and higher staffing to support our business. Adjusted consolidated EBITDA defined in Note 3 of our earnings release was $518.6 million or 38.7% of adjusted revenue, a decrease of $4.3 million or 0.8% from 2-4-21. Net interest expense for the quarter was $104.9 million and includes $3.7 million of non-cash amortized financing costs and OID. The average interest rate in the quarter for our amended credit facility, including the senior notes, was 5.64% compared to 3.09% in the fourth quarter of 2021. Adjusted net income was $296.6 million and adjusted EPS was $1.16. And the effective tax rate used for adjusted net income was 26%. Diluted shares decreased to $256.4 million from $260.9 million in Q3. Share repurchases and the lower average stock price during the quarter led to the decrease. In the fourth quarter of 2022, we reported two GAAP fair value unrealized gains totaling $68.8 million for investments we made in 2020 and 2021. These gains are excluded from our adjusted financial results. On the balance sheet, we ended the quarter with $440 million in cash and cash equivalents. and $7.1 billion of gross debt. SS&C net debt, which excludes the cash of $134 million at Domani Rx, was $6.8 billion as of December 31st. Operating cash flow for the 12 months ended December 2022 was $1,134,000,000. It includes the impact of $67 million of Blue Prism post-acquisition transaction costs. Adjusted for the transaction costs, cash flow was $1,201,000,000, or a decrease of $227,000,000, or 15.9% compared to 2021. Cash flow was impacted by higher interest rates, lower EBITDA, and an increase in receivables DSO. During the three months ended December 31st, we paid down $166 million of debt and purchased $90.7 million of stock buyback. Highlights for 12 months on the cash flow, we paid $1,636,000,000 for acquisitions, including Blue Prism, HubWise, MineralWare, O'Shares, Tier 1, and Complete Financial Ops, net of cash acquired. Treasury stock buybacks totaled $476 million, for purchase of 7.8 million shares as an average price of $61.01, compared to 487.9 million of Treasury stock buyback in 2021. In July, the Board authorized the new stock purchase program up to $1 billion. Program to date, stock buybacks totaled 305.2 million for purchases of 5.5 million shares. at an average price of $55.17. For the year, we declared and paid dividends of $203 million compared to $174 million last year, an increase of 16.7%. In 2021-2022, we paid interest of $298 million compared to $192.5 million in 2021. Income taxes paid this year totaled $281 million compared to $310 million in 2021. Our accounts receivable DSO was 52.3 days as of December 22, and that compares to 51.8 as of September 22 and 49.5 as of December 2021. Capital expenditures and capitalized software totaled $208 million or 3.9% of adjusted revenue compared to approximately $137 million in 2021. The spending is predominantly for capitalized software and IT infrastructure. Our LTM consolidated EBITDA, which we used for covenant compliance, was $2 billion and $10 million as of December 22. And based on the net debt of $6.8 billion, our total leverage was 3.4 times and our secured leverage was 2.4 times as of December 31st. On outlook for 2023, I'll cover a few assumptions first. We'll continue to focus on clients' services, and we expect our retention rates to continue a range of most recent results. We have assumed foreign currency exchange at the year-end 2022 levels. As a result, adjusted organic growth for the year will be between 2% and 6%. And adjusted organic growth for Q1 will be in the range of negative 0.5% to positive 2.5%. We've assumed interest rates will average approximately 6.35% for the year for our credit facility and senior notes. We expect staff productivity to improve by approximately 5%, and we'll manage expenses during this period by controlling variable costs to improve our operating margins in the rate of 50 to 150 basis points compared to 2022. We'll continue investing in our business long-term in the areas of capital expenditures, product development, and sales and marketing. And we'll continue allocating free cash flow both to pay down debt and buy back stock. And we've assumed that the tax rate will be approximately 26%. So for the first quarter of 2023, we expect revenue in the range of $1,332,000,000 to $1,372,000,000. Adjusted net income in the range of $282,000,000 to $299,000,000. And diluted shares in the range of $156,000,000 to $157,000,000. For the full year of 23, we expect revenue in the range of $5,455,000,000 to $5,655,000,000. Adjusted net income in the range of $1,190,000,000 to $1,285,000,000. And diluted shares in the range of $255,000,000 to $258.5 million. And for the full year, we expect cash from operating activities to be in the range of $1,275,000,000 to $1,375,000,000. And I'll turn it over to Bill for final comments.
spk05: Thanks, Patrick. 2023's improved operating environment will present more growth opportunities for SSMC. We look forward to capitalizing on these opportunities and delivering superior results to our shareholders.
spk03: I'll now open it up to questions.
spk11: At this time, I would like to remind everyone, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Your first question comes from the line of Surrender Thined with Jefferies. Your line is open.
spk08: Thank you. I'd like to start with a question or two around productivity. Can you maybe talk a little bit about just the digital workers and kind of the efficiencies that you're seeing there? So when you give metrics such as there's 180 digital workers, does that replace a certain amount of employee hours or how should we think about that? And maybe just the kind of the targets that you have for the full year that you laid out relative to last quarter.
spk03: Yeah, we expect on average
spk05: conservatively that a digital worker will probably save us $50,000 per digital worker deployed. We're not replacing personnel on a one-for-one basis with digital workers. What we're doing is allowing ourselves to hire less and get more productivity through the deployment of digital workers and then also perhaps not to have to hire for some of the attrition. So we look at this as a win-win for our employees. The digital worker tends to take over repetitive tasks, which gives our employees a more interesting job. And then it also is obviously a cost savings and efficiency process for us. And we would hope to deploy, I believe, somewhere around 1,500 to, I think, 1,350 to 2,700 digital workers in 2023.
spk08: Got it. And then in terms of just what that means for the expense line item, the comment around a 5% improvement in productivity, also, So in terms of when we think about the revenue guide, does that mean expenses should be relatively flat year over year, just in absolute terms?
spk05: I think that is what it implies, you know, and I think, you know, obviously we have to manage, you know, and we're subject to every other, just as every other company, depending on, you know, what inflation is and what's happening in the waiver markets. But other than that, you know, the productivity we expect out of the deployment of digital workers should offset, you know, some of the expenses that we would pay for higher salaries and other expenses.
spk08: Got it. And then just one quick follow-up. In terms of the commentary around the M&A, Any additional color that you can provide there in terms of the types of opportunities you're looking at or the scale of opportunities? Any color there would be helpful.
spk05: Yeah, we see a number of dislocations in the FinTech space, so there's going to be opportunities both large and small. And as always, S&C is a disciplined acquirer. We're also somewhat of a... reasonably voracious acquirer when prices are in our discipline strategy. And that's not 10 times revenue. So we think that the market is moving to where we are. We think that we have lots of productivity opportunities, and we think we'll be a good home for different types of companies we could acquire.
spk03: Thank you, Bill.
spk11: Your next question comes from the line of Alex Cram with UBS. Please go ahead.
spk01: Yeah, hey. Good evening, anyone. Just to follow up on the, I guess, cost and margin question, I think Patrick specifically said 50 to 150 basis point margin expansion. Maybe I didn't hear that right, but if that's the case, I guess... Yeah, so I think it gets you in EBITDA terms to around 39 at the midpoint. Is the cadence of that, and I guess we came back into the first quarter, but can you maybe just lay out any sort of seasonality also if you're taking measures still this year? Is that a glide higher with revenue growth, or how should we be thinking about the cadence of margins if you think about the four quarters?
spk03: Yeah, I think, you know, we...
spk05: We will have had blue prism for a year in the middle of March, and we're rapidly deploying digital workers. But, you know, the ramp up will will be obviously higher as each quarter goes. And and the savings that we will we will incur, you know, will be, you know, heavily weighted probably to Q3, Q4, just as as the use of those digital workers will be full-time in those quarters and less so as much in Q1 and Q2.
spk01: Okay, fair enough. And then flipping to the revenue side, I think 2% to 6% organic, that's an acceleration clearly from where we were in 2022. So, I mean, any things to point out, any puts and takes, but in particular, I mean, healthcare obviously was a big detractor in 22. So is this now all in the run rate, or is it actually a little bit more bleeding, or should that business actually start growing again? And then since you just mentioned Blue Prism, I think last quarter you actually gave the growth rate, and now that it's flipping organic, it would be very helpful to see how that business is doing on an external perspective.
spk02: So any other comments on organic would be helpful. Thanks.
spk03: Yeah, well, again, I think we've... Go ahead, Patrick.
spk06: Well, just to answer a few of your questions, I think, you know, Blue Prism turns organic in mid-March, right, of 23. But if you calculate their revenue growth this past year organically, I think they've averaged in the mid-teens, maybe a little bit higher, and they were about 13% in Q4. And we expect them to be in
spk03: around mid-teens in 2023.
spk01: And then on the healthcare side, sorry, again, since that was the biggest area of weakness, is that behind us?
spk06: I think on the healthcare side, there'll be a little bit of reduction in the revenue reduction. So I think they were down about 20%. in 2022 and might be down about 10% in 2023, especially in the first half of the year with the comparables.
spk01: Okay. So that's still new client losses and should we just expect that that business doesn't really grow organically until Domani Rx really kicks in or is it just a holding pattern that clients are in or how are you thinking about healthcare in general, what's going on under the hood?
spk05: But we have done a lot of things in health care, and I think that we have a lot of opportunity. The question is, obviously, you have to hit those health care systems on renewal dates. So we're cautiously optimistic that Damani is progressing well, and we have some talented people working on that. And I think that there is not gigantic optimism for 2023, but we think there's a pretty good ramp we can get to in 2024.
spk02: Excellent. Thank you very much, guys.
spk11: Your next question comes from the line of Jeff Smith with William Blair.
spk12: Hi. Thank you. Alternatives organic growth is holding up fairly well, 4.5% in the quarter. But it looks like private markets growing in the high teens. So I presume the hedge fund business, is it negative growth? And maybe if you could speak to the disparity in growth in those two businesses.
spk03: Rahul, you want to take that? Sure.
spk14: You know, I actually think the hedge fund business is slightly positive. You're correct that it's not, you know, it's nowhere near positive. private markets growth but we're probably assuming you know in 2023 in our plan two to three percent growth in the hedge fund side of it and mid-teens or higher in the private markets and that's what kind of makes you know the sum of the two i would say in commentary and specific on the hedge fund side is our sales performance continues to be strong i think we've uh you know continued to see demand for middle office services and some of the additional modules and and things that we have rolled out including go central We're obviously not benefiting from a ton of inflows in hedge funds now, but as that turns around, we think we'll be well positioned because we are taking market share. And in the meantime, the private markets and private credit businesses continue to become bigger parts of this, and so move the growth algorithm higher.
spk12: Okay. And then a question on the healthcare business. It seems like it's the medical business that is sort of you're downsizing And I think that's a lower margin business relative to the pharmacy. But I guess my question is, with that sort of going down, is it big enough? Is it having a positive impact on overall margins? Or how big is the margin disparity there, I guess?
spk03: But I think health care runs in the high 20s, you know, and the rest of the business is running in the high 30s. Is that about right, Rahul? That's about right, Bill.
spk05: And it's about, I guess, about a $280, $90 million business. So it's still a substantial business with substantial opportunity. And I just think it's execution and attention. And I think we're putting execution and attention into that space.
spk03: Okay. Thank you.
spk11: Your next question comes from the line of Peter Heckman with DA Davison.
spk16: Hey, good evening. I had just a couple of follow-ups. There were a couple of larger customers that we talked about through last year. Can you talk about when you expect them to go live this year? And then in terms of the couple of lift-outs, you talked about the one in Texas, not sure if you talked about the others, but when we should see some of the bigger customers in the conversion backlog hitting and starting to contribute to organic?
spk05: Yeah, a number of them we think are in the first quarter at the end, I think primarily in March. Then we have a number of other ones that we would expect to be in the second quarter. And then hopefully we'll be able to, you know, with everything that started off in, you know, had been signed and closed in 2022, that we would be able to pretty much have them live again. you know, by the end of the third quarter. So there's still substantial amounts of sold revenue that we have not recognized yet.
spk03: And I don't know, Rahul, if you have any more comment on that.
spk14: No, Bill, I think that's exactly right. It's throughout the course of the year, some in Q1 and Q2, and, you know, we get pretty close to full towards the latter half of the year.
spk16: Okay. And then, you know, I think you covered it in part, but I guess how would you characterize the – the environment for new business in the fourth quarter? Was it basically in line with your expectations, better, worse? And then how do you find customers' kind of decision-making, their willingness to make decisions here in the first half of 23, given some of the uncertainties?
spk05: Well, I think, you know, Pete, that's right on, right? I mean, you know, I think there's people that need to get efficiencies. You know, as Rahul said earlier, there's an awful lot of opportunities in middle office. And I think there's a lot of pressure on our customers to get more efficient. And I think they're finding that maintaining software systems and large staffs of operations and accounting people is not necessarily their core competencies. And that's really our opportunity. And we think we're taking advantage of it. And we believe we have the best sales force and that they're
spk03: They're executing at a pretty high level. All right. Thank you.
spk04: Your next question comes from the line of Andrew Smith with Citi.
spk18: Hey, guys. Good evening. Thanks for taking my questions.
spk00: It's kind of just drilled down in organic growth. This has been asked a few different ways, but You know, if you could just talk about your visibility in terms of the acceleration and growth as the year progresses. Part of it is obviously boot prism coming to the mix, and then some of it is goal-wise, which you have a pretty good sense, perhaps even a better sense now that implementation resources are a little bit more stable. But maybe talk through if there's any other drivers we should think about in terms of your confidence for achieving
spk05: organic growth outlook for this year and then you know anything about just embedded macro assumptions goes back to other questions that have been asked but any other color there will be helpful thank you yeah you know we've been implementing price increases over the last couple of years and that's beginning to bring uh fruition to us and you know we would hope that uh you know those price price increases start to approach two percent overall for the for the whole business And so that gives us some confidence and some lift. And we continue to bring out, you know, new systems and new services and, you know, successful new products like Aloha and Singularity and Go Central are all positive things that drive the business forward and packages of products of ours that we sell like our trust system, you know, combined with our wealth management. product, but Diamond has been pretty effective, and we think it will continue to be.
spk18: Got it. That's helpful.
spk00: And then, you know, last year, obviously, with the labor pressure, there was some, you know, pressure on implementation timelines and things like that. Is that now stabilized in terms of client implementation timeframes and what you're seeing with the retention, with the implementation workforce. Anything to call out there?
spk03: Thanks a lot.
spk05: Well, we all work here, so we're focusing on it, and we have talented people that have hired more talented people, and that group of people is focused on it, and we're executing in an increasingly higher level. But these are big, complex implementations, and And, you know, you have a, you know, still have some work from home issues and other things that cause collaboration to be a little bit more difficult and stretch out some timelines. But I would say that we're optimistic that we're getting increasingly better and that hopefully those results will start showing up, you know, in our quarterly finances.
spk03: Perfect. Thank you very much, Bill.
spk11: Your next question comes from the line of Kevin McVey with Credit Suisse.
spk13: Great, thanks so much. Again, nice acceleration on the organic growth in 23. Beyond Blue Prism, is there any way to disaggregate the components that get to the two to six in terms of some of that's Blue Prism, some of that's pricing, some of it's retention? Is there any way to maybe just
spk05: ring fence those numbers a little bit well i think we've talked about it i think you know you're going to allocate it probably to four buckets and you know you can put it you know one to two to three percent in each one of the buckets you know but i think it is price increases it's new business sold it's it's uh clearing the backlog uh and it's new products and and services that we're bringing to the market so You know, we're saying two to six, and, you know, we would love to guide you to just six, but, you know, we want to be, you know, cautiously optimistic. And there's still a lot of things happening in the world, whether it's the war in Ukraine, it's inflation in the United States, it's labor issues here in the United States, there's weakness in Europe and in the UK. And so, you know, there's a lot of things. And, you know, we're trying to give you as much color as we can.
spk03: without trying to act like we have a crystal ball, because we do not.
spk13: That's helpful, Bill. And then maybe just, it sounds like Blue Prism, you exited 2022 at 20% EBITDA. Any sense of how that should scale over the course of 23?
spk05: I think we've said over the last year that we would expect Blue Prism to to increase their margins in the 500 to 1,000 basis points in 2023. I don't know if Rahul has more color than that. I think that's what we're looking for.
spk14: No, I agree with that. I think a goal for us at the end of 23 would be to exit at about a 30% margin. So that's obviously the upper end of what Bill just said.
spk03: Thank you.
spk11: Your next question comes from the line of Terry Tillman with Truro Securities.
spk17: Yeah, thanks for taking my questions. I guess the first one, Patrick, for you in terms of, I was trying to write this information down at a fast pace, but I may have missed some of it. The 3.7% organic growth for financial services, was that 4Q for the full year?
spk06: I think that was the full year.
spk03: Could you tell me, Patrick, or give me a sense how it was in 4Q?
spk06: I'd have to look it up. Let me look it up if you've got another question.
spk17: I do. Okay, thanks for that. Hey, Bill, nice to talk to you again. I was curious about the private credit opportunity. You all called that out in the prepared remarks. Is there anything you can share with us in terms of important technology milestones in 2023? And what about selling? And could this start to become a monetizable thing in a meaningful way in 23? And just what's that market like from just a size or a scale perspective?
spk05: Well, welcome back, Terry. We haven't heard from you in a while. Welcome to Truist. And I would just say that private credit is really, you look around the world and you have companies, you know, like Apollo that has 550 billion under management and they also own the theme with another 330 billion, you know, and, and, and, you know, the other large scale private equity firms and, and, and the deals getting done like the, you know, I think the recent deal out of, um, it was Emerson electric or, or somebody where, where Blackstone did a completely private, um, spin out of a big division. And I just think the private markets are becoming, you know, to rival the public markets. So, you know, there's a lot of stuff that we've done. And Rahul talked about it in his remarks about tying a bunch of our pieces of technology together and really, you know, distancing ourselves from our competitors with what our capabilities are. And I think that's why you see that growing as nicely as it is. And I think that there's a number of funds that are pivoting towards, you know, private credit and other private, you know, fund-type investments, and I think that's going to continue.
spk17: Yep, got it. And maybe just one more. Well, yeah, I had Patrick off on a goose chase.
spk07: I got the number for you, Terrence. So the number for Q4 for the financial services, including health care, organic growth was 1.3%.
spk17: Wonderful. Okay. Thank you all very much.
spk11: Your next question comes from the line of James Fawcett with Morgan Stanley.
spk15: Great. Thank you so much. You guys, Bill, you mentioned that you're seeing – You want to be acquisitive and you're seeing some dislocations in the FinTech space. I'm wondering if you can talk about a little how you're thinking about potential structure of those deals financially, especially since the cost of capital now is obviously higher than has been at least pre-pandemic, etc. Just wondering if that changes the way that you have to approach those deals, what kind of companies you can look for and what would be a targeted structure for you there?
spk03: Yeah, you know, I think that there's still money to be had out there.
spk05: And I don't think that, you know, you have to get too cute with these structures. And, you know, we like to have a capital structure that is, you know, pretty easy to understand. And, you know, we have operated under quite a bit higher interest rates than what we're seeing today. even though interest rates today are quite a bit higher than they have been for the last five to 10 years. And so I don't think that we would structure them very different. We might have a partner or we might have a large scale private fund or a large scale pension, be a big supplier of credit to us or even some equity if we can get it at the right price.
spk03: which wouldn't be where we are now.
spk15: Got it. Okay, that's really helpful. And then you mentioned that you felt like you were taking some share in the hedge fund space. Is this via EZ? And I guess kind of what I'm looking at is one of your primary competitors, at least in the hedge fund launches, has been going through some management transitions. How much of an opportunity has that presented? And has that been a chance for investors as Eclipse to grab some share in business?
spk03: Well, we think we have very stuffed pipelines.
spk05: You know, the question is obviously closing them. And as you well know, right, when the markets are as choppy as they have been for the last couple of quarters, you don't have nearly as many fun launches as you have had in the past. So, you know, we're cautiously optimistic that we can ramp you know, our Eclipse product and then also tie it in with our funds administration capabilities. And so, yeah, we're optimistic about that. And, yeah, that's just one other fintech company that has a few challenges.
spk16: Great. Hey, appreciate that color, Bill. Thanks.
spk11: There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Bill Stones.
spk05: Yeah, we really appreciate everybody getting on the call today. You know, I would like to recommend that you recognize that the $518 million in the Justin Bieber doll is the third largest in our history, which is 36 years. So we're pretty proud of that. We think we're doing the right things. We're thinking we're keeping our nose to grindstone and getting stuff done. And, you know, I appreciate, you know, the 27,000 people that work with us and make things happen. And we're optimistic that, um, You know, when we talk to you at the end of Q1, that hopefully we have a positive story to tell.
spk03: Thanks again.
spk04: This concludes today's call. You may now disconnect.
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