Cohen & Steers Inc

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Cohen and Spears fourth quarter and full year 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 star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. 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, January 23rd, 2026. 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 Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Earnings Conference Call. Joining me are Joe Harvey, our Chief Executive Officer, Mike Donahue, 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 fourth quarter and full-year 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. 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 Mike.

Thank you, Brian, and good morning, everyone. My remarks today will focus on the as-adjusted results. Reconciliation of GAAP to as-adjusted results can be found in the earnings release and presentation. Yesterday reported earnings of 81 cents per share, which equaled EPS reported in the prior quarter. Earnings for the full year 2025 was $3.09 per share, compared to $2.93 in 2024. Key highlights for the quarter include Solid revenue growth driven by higher average AUM combined with a stable effective fee rate. We had another quarter of net inflows, which makes five out of six trailing quarters with net inflows. Operating income was higher than prior quarter and prior year. And our one but unfunded pipeline is again near multi-year highs. Now I'll provide some detail on our financial results. Revenue for Q4 increased 2% sequentially to $143.8 million. Revenues for the full year increased 6.9% versus the prior year to $554 million. The increase in revenue from the prior quarter was driven by higher average AUM and the recognition of $1.7 million in performance fees. Our effective fee rate during the quarter excluding performance fees was 59 basis points, which was consistent with the prior quarter. Operating income increased 3% to $52.4 million during the quarter. Operating income for the full year increased 6.3% to $195.1 million. And our operating margin was 36.4% as compared to 36.1% in the prior quarter. Ending AUM in Q4 was $90.5 billion, which was down slightly from the end of Q3. However, as noted earlier, we experienced higher average AUM during Q4 as compared to the prior quarter. Net inflows during Q4 were $1.2 billion, primarily related to advisory and closed-end funds, which was offset by market depreciation and distributions. Joe Harvey will provide additional insights regarding our flows and pipeline. Total expenses were higher compared to the prior quarter, primarily due to increased G&A expense. During the quarter, The increase in compensation of benefits was below the sequential increase in revenue to reflect actual incentive compensation to be paid. As a result, our compensation ratio for the quarter decreased to 39% and was 40% for the full year. This was just below the guidance we provided at the beginning of the year of 40.5%. The decrease in distribution and service fees during the quarter was due to reduced fees paid to intermediaries As investors shifted into lower fee-paying share classes, G&A expenses were higher during the quarter, primarily related to travel and other business development-related activities, as well as increased talent acquisition costs. Regarding taxes, our effective rate was 25.7% for the quarter and 25.3% for the year, which was consistent with 2024. Our earnings material presents liquidity at the end of Q4 and prior quarters. Our liquidity totaled $403 million at year end, which represents a $39 million increase versus the prior quarter end. As a reminder, our liquidity normally decreases during Q1 of each year due to our compensation cycle as year end bonuses are paid. Let me now touch on a few items for 2026. With respect to compensation of benefits, we would expect our compensation ratio to remain at 40%. We continue to maintain a disciplined approach to managing talent by balancing our business needs and strategic priorities with revenue growth. We expect annual G&A growth in 2026 to moderate from 2025 and are projecting it to be in the mid single digit percentage range. Lastly, regarding 2026 guidance, We expect our effective tax rate to be 25.4% on an as-adjusted basis. I will now turn it over to John Che, who will discuss our investment outlook.