Cohen & Steers Inc

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Cohen & Steers second quarter 2025 earnings conference call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. 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 Friday, July 18, 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 Second Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. Joining me are Joe Harvey, our Chief Executive Officer, Raja Dhikori, our Chief Financial Officer, Shea, 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 second quarter earnings release and presentation, our most recent annual report on Form 10-K, and our other SEC files 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 securities of any fund or other investment vehicle. Our presentation also contains non-GAAP financial measures referred to as 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 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.cohenandsteers.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 material. Yesterday, we reported earnings of 73 cents per share compared to 75 cents sequentially. Revenue for Q2 increased 1.1% from the prior quarter to $135 million. The change in revenue from the prior quarter was driven by a few items, including higher average AUM and day count. Our effective fee rate was 59 basis points, which was in line with the prior quarter. Our operating margin was 33.6% compared to 34.7% in the prior quarter. As noted, we experienced higher average AUM compared to the prior quarter. In addition, ending AUM increased compared to Q1. Ending AUM was 88.9 billion as of Q2 compared to 87.6 billion at prior quarter end. Ended period AUM was positively impacted by market appreciation during the quarter. It is worth noting that the market events of April negatively impacted our average AUM during the quarter. However, AUM more than recovered by the end of Q2. Net inflows into our open-end funds were offset by institutional net outflows. Our open-end funds have experienced positive net flows in the last four consecutive quarters. Joe Harvey will provide additional insights regarding our flows and pipeline. Total expenses during Q2 were 2.9% higher than the prior quarter due to a number of drivers. Compensation and benefits increased during the quarter. The change in comp and benefits was in line with the sequential increase in our revenue. As a result, the compensation ratio for the quarter remained at 40.5%. Distribution and service fees were impacted by higher average AUM in our open-end funds. G&A expense levels increased versus the prior quarter. G&A was impacted by travel and other business development activities, including, for example, the launch of our active ETFs. This activity is consistent with our focus on sales and distribution. As a result of our efforts, we generated a meaningful increase in our one but unfunded pipeline as of quarter end. We will detail this later in the call. In addition, regarding expenses, we experienced higher levels of talent acquisition costs during the quarter. The primary driver was recruiting for our sales and distribution functions. Regarding taxes, our effective rate was 25.3% for the quarter. Our earnings material presents liquidity at the end of Q2 and prior quarters. Our liquidity totaled $323 million at quarter end, which compares positively to $295 million in the prior quarter. Let me now touch on a few items regarding 2025 guidance. With respect to comp and benefits for 2025, we expect our compensation ratio to remain at 40.5%, in line with our prior guidance. We expect full-year G&A to increase in the 7% to 8% range as compared to full-year 2024. The change in G&A is primarily driven by talent acquisition costs during 2025, as well as travel and other business development activities. Also impacting G&A are expenses related to our active ETF launch. Other drivers of G&A include infrastructure investments such as our foreign office upgrades. During Q2, we moved into our new Hong Kong office. This relocation represents the last of our planned foreign office upgrades. We remain focused on expense management and will be disciplined while continuing to make selective investments in our business. After this year, we expect annual G&A changes to moderate from 2025 growth levels to being in the mid single digit percentage range. Lastly, we expect our effective tax rate to remain at 25.3% on an as-adjusted basis for 2025. I'll now turn it over to John Che, who will discuss investment performance.