Cohen & Steers Inc

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by welcome to the Cohen and spheres first quarter 2025 earnings conference call. During the presentation all participants will be in a listen only mode and afterwards, we will conduct a question and answer session. At that time, if you have a question, please press the star followed by the one on your telephone if at any time during the conference, you need to reach an operator, please press star zero. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded Thursday, April 17th, 2025. I would now like to turn the conference over to Brian Heller, Senior Vice President and Deputy General Counsel of Cohen and Steers. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and welcome to the Cohen and Steers First Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. Joining me are Jill Harvey, our Chief Executive Officer, Raja Dhikori, our Chief Financial Officer, and John Che, our President and Chief Investment Officer. I want to remind you that some of our comments and answers to your questions may include forward-looking statements. We believe these statements are reasonable based on information currently available to us, but actual outcomes could differ materially due to a number of factors, including those described in our accompanying first quarter earnings release and presentation, our most recent annual report on Form 10-K, and our other SEC filings. We assume no duty to update any forward-looking statement. Further, none of our statements constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy the securities of any fund or other investment vehicle. Our presentation also contains non-GAAP financial measures referred to as adjusted financial measures that we believe are meaningful in evaluating our performance. These non-GAAP financial measures should be read in conjunction with our GAAP results. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures is included in the earnings release and presentation to the extent reasonably available. The earnings release and presentation, as well as links to our SEC filings, are available in the investor relations section of our website at www.cohenandsears.com. With that, I'll turn the call over to Raja.

Thank you, Brian, and good morning, everyone. My remarks today will focus on our as-adjusted results. A reconciliation of GAAP as-adjusted results can be found in the earnings release and presentation. Yesterday, we reported earnings of 75 cents per share compared to 78 cents sequentially. Revenue for Q1 decreased from the prior quarter to 133.8 million. The change in revenue from the prior quarter was driven by several items. The primary driver was lower average AUM during the quarter. Also impacting revenue was lower day count compared to the prior quarter. As a reminder, we had also recognized performance fees in Q4 related to certain institutional accounts. These items were partially offset by improvement in our effective fee rate. Our effective fee rate was 59 basis points, which was slightly higher than the prior quarter. The primary driver of this was mixed change in our average AUM. Our operating margin was 34.7%, compared to 35.5% in the prior quarter. As noted, we experienced lower average AUM as compared to the prior quarter. However, ending AUM increased compared to Q4. AUM was 87.6 billion as of Q1, compared to 85.8 billion at prior quarter end. The change in ending AUM was driven by a number of factors. We generated overall net inflows during Q1, primarily due to open-end funds. These open-end fund flows were partially offset by institutional outflows that were anticipated. This is the third consecutive quarter of net inflows. In terms of our strategies, global listed infrastructure experienced strong flows during the quarter. Lastly, end of period AUM was positively impacted by market appreciation during the quarter. Joe Harvey will provide additional insights regarding flows and pipeline. Total expenses were lower than the prior quarter, primarily due to a decrease in compensation and benefits. During the quarter, the change in compensation and benefits was in line with the sequential decrease in revenue. As a result, the compensation ratio for the quarter was 40.5%, consistent with our planning. To a lesser extent, expenses were also impacted by decreases in distribution and service fees, while G&A expense levels remained consistent with the prior quarter. Regarding taxes, our effective rate was 25.3% for the quarter. Our earnings material presents liquidity at the end of Q1 and prior quarters. Our liquidity totaled $295 million at quarter end, which represents a decrease versus the prior period. This quarterly change is in line with prior years and driven by our annual incentive compensation cycle. Let me now touch on a few items regarding rest of year guidance. With respect to COPN benefits, we would expect our compensation ratio to remain at 40.5% in line with Q1. We expect G&A to increase in the range of 6 to 7% as compared to the prior year. This is driven by continued infrastructure investments, including completion of our foreign office upgrades. Also impacting G&A are expenses related to our recent ETF rollout, as well as business development activities. Lastly, regarding 2025 guidance, we expect our effective tax rate to remain at 25.3% on an as-adjusted basis. I'll now turn over to John Che, who will discuss investment performance.