speaker
Operator

Thank you for standing by. My name is John and I'll be your conference operator for today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the SS&C Technologies third quarter 2024 earnings call. All lights have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. 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 star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star one again. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Justine Stone, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

speaker
Justine Stone

Hi, everyone. Welcome, and thank you for joining us for our Q3 2024 earnings call. I'm Justine Stone, Investor Relations for SS&C Technologies. With me today is Bill Stone, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Rahul Kanwar, President and Chief Operating Officer, and Brian Schell, our Chief Financial Officer. Before we get started, we need to review the Safe Harbor Statement, Please note the various remarks we make today about future expectations, plans, and prospects, including the financial outlook we provide constitute correlating statements for the purposes of the Safe Harbor provisions under the Private Security Litigation 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 factors 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, October 24th, 2024. 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 financial measures 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. I will now turn the call over to Bill.

speaker
Bill

Thanks, Justine, and welcome, everyone. Our third quarter results are record adjusted revenue of $1,466,800,000, up 7.3%. Our adjusted diluted earnings per share were $1.29, up 10.3%. We also reported record adjusted consolidated EBITDA of $566.2 million with 38.6% EBITDA margins. Our third quarter adjusted organic revenue growth was 6.4%. This growth was driven by strength in our alternatives, GIDS, WIT, and interlinks businesses. The surprise upside came largely in our GIDS and WIT businesses. accelerated license revenue in the wealth and investment technologies business, and non-recurring professional services fees in the global investor and distribution solutions business. Global investor distribution services business drove the outperformance. Our recurring revenue growth rate for financial services was 7.2%, which includes all software-enabled services and maintenance revenue. Third quarter cash from operating activities was $336.6 million, up 39% from Q3 2023. Our cash flow conversion percentage for the quarter was 103%. We bought back 1.2 million shares for $89.4 million, an average price of $72.72 per share. Absent high-quality acquisitions, we continue to believe share repurchases are the best capital use. In September, we closed the $670 million Batea Class Action Services acquisition. Batea meets our financial criteria, about $95 million in annual revenue, growing high single digits, and 45% plus EBITDA margins. This acquisition will immediately be accreted to earnings. Natalia's offering is synergistic with our fund administration business, and we're already making progress cross-selling. I'll now turn this call over to Rahul to discuss the quarter and more Natalia.

speaker
Justine

Thanks, Bill. We had another strong quarter with organic revenue growth of 6.4%. The wealth and investment technology business unit grew 10.9% for the quarter. The reorganization from earlier in 2024 has brought development teams together, and we're currently integrating the capabilities of our Aloha solution into the new Genesys platform. This will accelerate our ability to deliver the deepest set of cloud-native front-to-back technology to the investment management market. The Black Diamond wealth platform has reached a major milestone with the rollout of advanced grouping functionality. This initiative enables Black Diamond advisors to further personalize their client reporting and compete effectively in the alternative asset reporting space for RIAs and family offices. Our global investor and distribution solution business had another strong quarter, and in addition to new business wins, we have brought in additional revenue through special projects at our largest clients. The healthcare industry is facing higher than expected utilization and rising costs for Medicare and Medicare Advantage. SS&C is poised to support our healthcare clients and prospects through these headwinds. With the integration of our DomaniRx platform, automation opportunities, and liftouts, we can reduce operating costs for health insurers over time. Q4 is off to a strong start for SS&C Health. We signed two large license deals for about $8 million in revenue. at the beginning of October that will push from Q3. Our internal automation efforts are progressing as well. Since acquiring Blue Prism in 2022, our total revenue has grown about $600 million, and our headcount is down. For 2024 year to date, we estimate a benefit of approximately 1,050 full-time equivalents thus far in the year because of rolling out Blue Prism digital workers as well as automating and optimizing the existing processes. We'll now turn it over to Brian to run through the financials.

speaker
Brian

Thanks, Erhol, and good day, everyone. As noted in our press release, our Q3 24 GAAP results reflect revenues of $1.466 billion, net income of $164 million, and diluted earnings per share of 65 cents. Our adjusted non-GAAP results include revenues of $1.467 billion, an increase of 7.3% over Q3 23, and adjusted diluted EPS of $1.29, a 10.3% increase over Q3 23. The adjusted revenue increase of $100 million over Q3 23 was primarily driven by incremental revenue contributions from the WIT, Alternatives, GIDS, and Interlink businesses. Acquisitions contributed $8 million, with about $4 million attributable to Bethea, and foreign exchange had a favorable impact of approximately $5 million. As a result, adjusted organic revenue growth on a constant currency basis was 6.4%. Our core expenses increased 6.8%, or $58 million, excluding acquisitions and on a constant currency basis. Adjusted Consolidated Bajau was $566 million, or 38.6% of adjusted revenue, an increase of $32 million, or 6% from Q3-23. Net interest expense for the third quarter of 24 was $110 million, a decrease of $11 million from Q3-23. Adjusted net income was $327 million, up 10%, and adjusted diluted EPS was $1.29, an increase of 10.3%. The effective tax rate used for adjusted net income was 26%. An increase in the average share price drove the diluted share count up to $254.1 million from $252.3 million at Q2 of 24. The SEC entered the third quarter with $694.7 million in cash and cash equivalent and $7.2 billion in gross debt. The higher than normal cash balance reflects opportunistic borrowing that will be deployed during the fourth quarter. SSMC's net debt, as defined in our credit agreement, which excludes cash and cash equivalents of $159 million held at Damani RX, was $6.7 billion. Our last 12-month consolidated EBITDA used for covenant compliance was $2.279 billion. Based on net debt of approximately $6.7 billion, our total leverage ratio was 2.9 times. As we look forward to the fourth quarter and the remainder of the year with respect to guidance, note that we will continue to focus on client service and assume that retention rates will remain in the range of our most recent results. We will continue to manage our expenses with a cost-discipline approach by controlling and aligning variable expenses to ensure efficiency, increasing productivity, improve our operating margins, and leverage our scale and create capacity, and effectively investing in the business through marketing and sales and R&D to take advantage of future growth opportunities. Specifically, we have assumed foreign currency exchange and interest rates to remain at current levels. Tax rate of approximately 26% on an adjusted basis, which is unchanged from prior guidance. Capital expenditures to be 4.1% to 4.5% of revenues, which is also unchanged from prior guidance. And a stronger weighting to share repurchases versus debt reduction, subject to changes in market conditions or financing needs. For the fourth quarter of 24, we expect revenue to be in the range of $1.46 to $1.5 billion and 2.4% organic revenue growth at the midpoint. Adjusted net income in the range of $329 to $345 million. Interest expense excluding amortization of deferred financing costs and original issue discount in the range of $110 to $112 million. diluted shares in the range of $254.6 to $255.6 million, and adjusted diluted EPS in the range of $1.29 to $1.35. For the full year 2024, we expect revenue to be in the range of $5.815 to $5.855 billion and 4.9% organic revenue growth at the midpoint. Adjusted net income in the range of $1.299 to $1.315 billion. Diluted shares in the range of $253.6 to $253.8 million. Adjusted diluted EPS in the range of $5.12 to $5.18. And cash from operating activities to be in the range of $1.33 to $1.37 billion. And now, back to Bill.

speaker
Bill

Thanks, Brian. We feel our business is strengthening, and we were able to expand our horizons. The Bethea purchase is already showing very positive signs. Our deliver client conference was a great success, and I would like to thank David Rubenstein for being our keynote speaker. I will now open it up for questions.

speaker
Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin our question and answer session. If you are dialed in and would like to ask a question, please press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press star one again. If you are called upon to ask your question and are listening via loudspeaker on your device, please pick up your handset and ensure that your phone is not on mute when asking your question. As a reminder, please commit yourself to one question and one follow-up only. You may rejoin the queue if you have any additional questions. Your first question comes from the line of Jeff Smith from William Blair. Please go ahead.

speaker
Jeff Smith

Thank you. Could you discuss the market opportunity for DominiRx? Just because I think the top three players in that space handle, you know, maybe 70 or 80% of prescription claims, I think. And you've just mentioned before, you don't plan on kind of focusing on that group that much. So how big is sort of the remaining market opportunity from a revenue perspective? And then, you know, how are kind of those early conversations going?

speaker
Bill

Yeah, well, we would say you're right. It's probably about 70, 80% is what the UnitedHealthcare, Aetna, CVS, and Cigna Express Script process. I think there's something like 5 to 6 billion scripts a year in the United States. So if you take 20% of 6 billion, you got 1.2 billion. And if you take 30%, you got 1.8. So that's a lot of scripts. So we think we have a lot of run room. We also think that we can license our technology, maybe to one of those three or maybe more. And we also have a large number of others that are like us, or like the big three, but a lot smaller. So they might do two, three hundred million scripts rather than the one and a half billion scripts. You know, we think there's plenty of run room. We think there's a lot of things in healthcare that need help with. And so pharmacy claims is one, but there are other things like medical claims and other things that we think we're well positioned to be able to help the healthcare industry.

speaker
Jeff Smith

Okay, great. And then just on the trust suite business, I think you'd mentioned it last quarter, but it's the in a trust combination. Could you discuss kind of the size of that business and the type of growth you're seeing there? How does that stack up versus competitors like an FDI product?

speaker
Bill

Yeah, I think, you know, the TrustSuite product really does take, you know, the InterTrust product and Black Diamond and really creates a very pleasing user interface and a lot of capability with technology that is, you know, pretty state-of-the-art. Most of the trust systems out in the marketplace today are multi-decade old, and we think that we have a lot of run room, and we've been pretty pleased with the acceptance rate of TrustSuite.

speaker
Jeff Smith

Any sense just on the size of that business today from a revenue perspective or in the growth?

speaker
Bill

Well, you know, it's still a little nascent, but we would expect it to do probably in 2024, you know, upwards to $10 million in revenue. And then in 2025, we would expect to see perhaps a multiple of that.

speaker
Jeff Smith

Got it. Okay. Thank you.

speaker
Operator

Your next question comes from the line of surrender, Tind, from Jeffries. Please go ahead.

speaker
Dewanti Rx

Thank you. Bill, can you provide maybe any color on the outlook for 4Q in terms of the slowdown in the organic growth rate that's implied? And then is there some maybe some licensing noise or licensing deals and things like that? Or how should we think about 4Q numbers?

speaker
Bill

Yeah, I think the major thing with Q4 in 24 compared to 23 is before 23 was substantially better than any of the other quarters in 23. So we're kind of getting a little bit of comp challenge to us. And we have a big pipeline. We have a lot of stuff going on. We're always cautious. three or four pretty good quarters in a row, and we expect Q4 to be a pretty good quarter too.

speaker
Dewanti Rx

Got it. And then in terms of the follow-up, just obviously a lot of news in the healthcare space with potentially Cigna and Humana back in merger talks, some weak results out at Elevance and some other things. What's the potential impact, or is there any read-through there, or something that we should be aware of related to DemaniRx?

speaker
Bill

I think, as Rahul spoke earlier, we got a pretty big uplift in revenue for healthcare in October, stuff that it pushed from September. I still think we have a great opportunity here, DemaniRx's really new technology, that there's nothing like it out in the marketplace that can handle scale. You know, a lot of people that used our RxNOVA system considered it the gold standard for Medicare and Medicare Advantage already, and Dewanti Rx is far exceeding RxNOVA's capabilities.

speaker
Dewanti Rx

So, Bill, I guess just to clarify, is the commentary there that there shouldn't be any strategic impact on the relationship there that you have? Or I guess that's what I was trying to get at, rather than the actual near-term business.

speaker
Bill

You mean Humana and Cigna?

speaker
Dewanti Rx

That is correct, yes.

speaker
Bill

You know, that's certainly... a rumor at the present and I think there's opportunity no matter what happens. We've had Humana as a client for a long time. Cigna was our biggest healthcare client when we acquired DST. Obviously they spent $60 billion or $70 billion by an ESI so we didn't think they'd keep using us as you could imagine. We think there's plenty of opportunity for us Bill Meyer- Whatever happens with the Q man as signal, we think it'll be positive towards us and lots of stuff is happening in healthcare is. Bill Meyer- As Robo had alluded to before, and we just have to have to play it out, but everybody's concerned about their health, people are not going to stop spending money on their health and we think it's a very good spot for us to be in.

speaker
Dewanti Rx

Thank you bill that's helpful.

speaker
Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Andrew Schmidt from Citi. Please go ahead.

speaker
Andrew Schmidt

Hey, Bill. Hey, Raul. Hey, Brian. Thanks for taking my questions this evening. I wanted to just maybe ask a question on 25. I know it's a little bit early, but you do have the 48% medium-term organic growth outlook out there. Wondering if 25% you know, if you think about it within the context of that, if it's shaping up similar to the medium term. And then, you know, if you could just talk about maybe the pipeline or the sales cycles accordingly, because I know obviously, you know, there's a lot of work that's done in advance to hit those targets. So if you could comment on just your visibility there in terms of what you're seeing in the pipe, that'd be great. Thanks a lot.

speaker
Bill

Yeah, I think that we have... You know, I think our sales force is the strongest it's been. So we have a lot of people out there banging on doors, and we have a lot of capable people. We have a tremendous number of opportunities all over the world. You know, you've got to win, right? And then you've got to get them live so the revenue streams in. But I would say that we're, you know, pretty bullish on 2025. You know, we have the resources, we have the cash, we have the access to markets. We're really excited about the cross-sell opportunities with Patea. I think that we have an opportunity to surprise you positively.

speaker
Andrew Schmidt

Got it. That's great to hear, Bill. Very constructive. And then if I could just ask about R&D. I think one of the highlights of the analyst day is was just the breadth of the product pipeline. It's bigger than I've seen in some time. Has there been a shift towards more spend on organic R&D? Obviously, with the step down in M&A and more focus on organic growth, it would make sense. But I'm just curious about just the philosophy in terms of new product R&D spend. Thank you very much.

speaker
Bill

Yeah, why don't I give you a little answer, and I'll let Rahul kind of getting a little deeper, but if you notice on our percentage of CapEx, we're at 4.1 to 4.5. Historically, we've been at 3, 3.5. So we have poured a lot more money into R&D, and our CTO, Anthony Caioffa, he's gotten a little older. He's 38, so he knows how to spend faster. So we think that that will probably continue.

speaker
Justine

The thing I would add to that is we have organized our business increasingly effectively and had more and more products and services pointed at specific segments of the market or specific types of customers. What we need to build has become increasingly clearer. So we get a lot of good feedback from our sales force. We get a lot of good feedback from the folks covering those accounts. And a lot of times we can get anchor clients and folks that want to partner with us on funded development which then results in revenue a lot faster. So it's easier to back those kinds of things. And that's part of the positive dynamic that's going on.

speaker
Jeff Smith

Got it. Thank you very much.

speaker
Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Dan Perlin from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

speaker
Dan Perlin

Thanks. Good evening. I just want to revisit the fourth quarter organic number again. Sorry, maybe to beat a dead horse here, but like, The 2.4 versus the 6.4 you did this quarter, and I went back and just was looking at your comps. So it's definitely easier across some of them, but by no means all of them. So at 400 basis point deceleration, is there any way you can just help kind of contextualize maybe the areas where we should be focused on that as we think about modeling across those segments? And then in that same kind of question, Bill, I thought I heard you say there was maybe some bigger license fees that you pulled in. into this quarter around wealth and investment, and did that influence maybe this kind of fourth quarter, I guess, guidance around the organic number as well? Thanks.

speaker
Bill

Yeah, again, I'll give you a little of Dan, and I'll have Rahul get maybe a little bit more for Brian. We need to have a really good Q3 for wealth and investment technology and the global investor and distribution services business, so we're not quite ready to to see if they can repeat that in Q4, although we're optimistic they'll have good quarters. So I think that's a little bit, and then as I said before, I think the comp is a little more difficult in Q4 than it was in Q3.

speaker
Justine

Yeah, and I would, Bill, I would just, you know, just add on that last point on comp. If you look at the 2023 by quarter, You know, first three quarters, we did about $1.3 billion in each quarter, right, approximately. And in Q4, we did $1.4 billion. So Q4 was $45 to $50 million higher than the other three quarters, and that's really what you're seeing. If you kind of look at our Q4 guidance in absolute numbers, you know, we're ahead of any other quarter this year. Our low point is $40 million ahead of our low point the prior quarter. So we feel good about where we are. Most of this is accomplished.

speaker
Dan Perlin

Got it. Okay, no, that's really helpful. That's really helpful. Thank you. Just on Blue Prism for the moment in terms of cost opportunities, and I think you said you're like a, I don't know, a little over 1,050 maybe kind of automated employees. How much further can we go with that? Are you expecting that to continue to be a meaningful contributor to the ability to have a more efficient cost structure as you go into next year, or are we kind of top-ticking that a little bit for the organization? Thank you.

speaker
Bill

Yeah, Dan, I think that's a great question, and I think we are pretty enthusiastic about where we can go with our Blue Prism digital workers. You know, if Brian could get into it more deeply, but, you know, we've done an awful lot of acquisitions, so we have an awful lot of systems, and we'd like to have fewer systems and more digital workers, and I know we have plans to do that throughout throughout accounting and finance and, you know, Nick Wright in the global investor and distribution services business that has done a great job of deploying digital workers and Vagesh Maldi in our fund administration businesses as well as many others. And so we're pretty optimistic, I think, on Blue Prism's capabilities.

speaker
Dan Perlin

That's great. Thank you very much.

speaker
Brian

I was just going to add to that that I just across I'll call it more infrastructure to Bill's point right so we don't want to create you know the digital worker for you know 10 different systems and then be able to have to rebuild so we're leveraging that the broader consolidated system and so to echo Bill's point we are pretty enthusiastic about what we're going to be able to leverage and then the other point that we've made on prior phone calls or is that I think the level of sophistication continues to increase over time as well about the impact that some of the digital workers can have as we mature as an organization and our learnings continue to increase about how to utilize the digital workers.

speaker
Bill

We also are integrating AI into this too. So large language models and other things are also enhancing Blue Prism's capabilities.

speaker
Dan Perlin

All right, I'm going to say thank you for the last time, but I never really want to cut you off. That was my mistake, so I apologize.

speaker
Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Kevin McVeigh from UBS. Please go ahead.

speaker
Kevin McVeigh

Great, thank you. Brian, I think you may have mentioned that you were carrying a higher than expected cash balance that you expect to deploy in Q4. Would that be kind of capital return, M&A, just any thoughts around that?

speaker
Brian

Yeah, I wouldn't necessarily assume M&A and any material size for Q4 as far as anything around that purposes. But we are, like I said, we took an opportunistic point of view on the funding given where rates were and what we're able to raise that at versus our current cost structure. So we're looking to, again, effectively deploy that share repurchase in combination with the rest of our operating cash flow and further debt reduction, again, utilizing that lower cost of funds we'll have executed that in Q4.

speaker
Kevin McVeigh

Got it. And then just obviously the organic growth was really strong, but it sounds like there were, was it 8 million in total health care licenses that were pushed? So is there a way to think about it would have been that much stronger if that was in there and now that could shift it to Q4? Is that right? That's right. Thank you.

speaker
Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Peter Heckman from DA Davidson. Please go ahead.

speaker
Peter Heckman

Hi. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the questions. As regards to Bethea, I understand, or at least I inferred from a comment you made at the investor day, that revenue can be somewhat project-oriented. I guess, how should we think about modeling that? Is there... something to think about in terms of seasonality? Or is it just to kind of look to you guys in terms of one quarter out in terms of how you expect that business to contribute?

speaker
Bill

Yeah, I think, first of all, it's interesting you call class action lawsuits projects. We would tend to call them lawsuits. And so you've got the vagaries of the court system. I think traditionally that there is some seasonality in Bethea, and Q4 tends to be the largest quarter of the four quarters. And there's a bunch of court cases that have already been adjudicated. The courts have to release the payments on the class actions, and that's when we get paid. But we're, you know, we would say that you know, we're going to try to give you, you all as much, um, you know, insight into potato as we can, you know, they have 900 clients. We have 22,000. We think there's an opportunity for a lot of, uh, a lot of extension in, in, in the pay as business.

speaker
Peter Heckman

Okay. That's fair. That's fair. And then just in terms of thinking about the, uh, the fund shareholder record keeping business and to the acceleration, I guess I had speculated just looking at money market flows that the industry may have gotten a number of several million accounts just from flows back into money market accounts. Do you think that affected the GIDS organic revenue? And if so, is there a way to quantify it?

speaker
Justine

I think most of our strength in the GIDS organic revenue is really just coming from as we're building technology, we're attracting more and more customers, and maybe customers that are in slightly different segments. So we have many more wealth management firms, which some of our biggest clients are wealth management firms, but we've got a number of new prospects. And as we continue to build out our call center capabilities and BPO capabilities, more and more of these customers are willing to lift out internal functions and give them to us. And that's a part of it. So, you know, while the macro trends in the market may have had some impact, most of it is just us expanding our product suite.

speaker
Bill

It also, too, I think, would be important for people to understand that an awful lot of the large-scale financial firms in the United States and more so even around the world, you know, have a very difficult time deploying large-scale new systems. So their choices are to try to build a great big system, maybe go to a body shop, Indian body shop, like a Tata or an HCL or an Infosys or one of the other ones. That is fraught with challenges. And an increasingly attractive solution for them is to lifted out to us. And, you know, we have world-class data centers. We have world-class developers. We have world-class processes. And I think as they see it, they get increasingly intrigued.

speaker
Peter Heckman

Okay. That's helpful. I appreciate the color.

speaker
Operator

Your next question comes from the line of James Fawcett from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

speaker
James Fawcett

Hey, it's Michael in Fontana for James. Thanks for taking our question. Just wanted to follow up on some of the comp commentary again. There's obviously a wealth of variance factors as we think about 25 organic growth, but given the comps will get progressively tougher, at least relative to the 4Q23 comp as we progress throughout the year, how should we be thinking about some of the drivers that can push you to the midpoint or beyond next year? Thanks.

speaker
Justine

In general, I think I would just come back to, we feel like our business is strengthening, right? So we do have, we haven't been through the 2025 revenue planning and budgeting processes yet. But we do feel like, you know, you can kind of look at our recurring revenue financial services as a sort of a leading indicator that the stable reoccurring and recurring revenue base is, you know, continually growing. And that ought to help us in 2025.

speaker
Bill

The other thing is if you look at Q3 of 24 compared to Q3 of 23, we added $100 million in revenue. So people look at these fintech companies and talk about them. They do $200 million in revenue for a year. We added $100 million in Q3. And I think we're not saying that our business is strengthening because we think we're going to slow down. we think we're going to accelerate. Look, the deals are bigger, the size of the organizations are bigger, the size of the number of people that we would absorb are higher. So with all of that becomes some increased analysis, increased negotiation on contracts, And so we're being cautiously optimistic, but we're not backing away from, you know, the midterm 4 to 8.

speaker
James Fawcett

That's clear. Maybe just on Blue Prism, obviously a lot of internal expense savings in the form of lower headcount. But I'd be curious to hear just how you're thinking about how the net new opportunity for Blue Prism has evolved of late. and some of the initiatives that you have in place to return that business to double digit growth next year? Thanks.

speaker
Bill

Yeah, we think that's a great question. You know, we are doing a lot internally here. We have some management changes we've done. We're accelerating our amount of money that we were pouring into Blue Prism. We've moved some really top technologists that Anthony had brought in. So we're excited about what we can do with Blue Prism and re-accelerating the growth. Again, we're still getting magic quadrants when people analyze it. And I think the addition of AI and the large language models and then obviously open AI is going to be all the more change in the world. But you've got to be on top of it. And I think we've done a pretty good job of really, you know, maximizing the potential internally on Blue Prism. And then, you know, we're going to redouble our focus on the external opportunities.

speaker
James Fawcett

Thanks, Bill.

speaker
Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Alexey Gogolev from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

speaker
Alexey Gogolev

Hi, this is Ella Smith from Alexey's team. Thanks so much for taking our question. So first, I was hoping you could speak to the strong growth in alternatives AUM. Can you remind us what's driving that strong growth year to date and how do you think about the forward growth of alternatives?

speaker
Bill

We think primarily that strong growth in alternatives is based on brilliant management. Other people might think it's the market's pretty strong, right? So in the hedge fund industry traditionally has a pretty good risk-adjusted return levels. And I think as you look at our client base, almost all the large-scale platforms are SS&C clients. And over the last several years, they have gotten the lion's share of all the new capital that have flowed into hedge funds. Same with private equity funds and now private credit. So we think we're well-positioned to continue to be a beneficiary of our client's success. And so we have a lot of focus on making sure that we're adding value, bringing out new technologies, new capabilities, new processes, and then being able to really help our international clients as they move to T plus one. In the US, we're gonna move to shorter than T plus one. When you look at the Gen Xers, they're used to Venmo. I don't think moving money takes 24 hours, right? So I think those kinds of things are going to shorten. Obviously, that takes a lot of the risk out of the system, but systems that process that have to be really locked and loaded, and that's something we're pretty good at.

speaker
Alexey Gogolev

That makes a lot of sense, Bill. Thank you. And for my follow-up, I'm sorry if I missed this, but I noticed a strong step up in organic growth for wealth and investment technologies. Could you please remind us what drove that? Was there a big deal or two signed there?

speaker
Bill

Really big, you know. No, we did have a strong wealth in investment technology. We're up 10.9%, I believe. And, you know, we got a couple of large license deals in Q3, and that really helped drive the organic revenue growth.

speaker
Alexey Gogolev

Got it. Makes sense. Thank you all so much.

speaker
Operator

As there are no further questions at the queue at this time, I would now like to turn the call back over to Bill Stone for closing remarks.

speaker
Bill

Again, thank all of you for being on the call, and thank the analysts for asking really poignant questions, which we appreciate. I do think that we're pretty optimistic about where our business sits and that we hope to talk to you again in 2025 and surprise you positively. Thanks.

speaker
Operator

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

Disclaimer

This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.

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