Janus Henderson Group plc Ordinary Shares

Good morning. My name is Lucy and I will be your conference facilitator today. Thank you for standing by and welcome to the Janice Henderson Group second quarter 2025 results briefing. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers remarks there'll be a question and answer period. In the interest of time questions will be limited to one initial and one follow-up question. In today's conference call certain matters discussed may constitute forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements due to a number of factors including but not limited to those described in the forward-looking statements and risk factors sections of the company's most recent form 10k and other more recent filings made with the SEC. Janice Henderson assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements made during the call. Thank you. Now it is my pleasure to introduce Ali Dabaj, Chief Executive Officer of Janice Henderson. Mr. Dabaj, you may begin your conference.

Welcome everyone and thank you for joining us today on Janice Henderson's second quarter 2025 earnings call. I'm Ali Dabaj. I'm joined by our CFO Roger Thompson. In today's call I'll start with some thoughts on the quarter before handing it over to Roger to run through the quarterly results in more detail. After Roger's comments I'll provide an update on our strategic progress and how our client approach has evolved leading to deeper collaborative relationships which has become the foundation of our new brand efforts. We'll then take your questions following our prepared remarks. Turning to slide two, despite its tumultuous few months and the incredible market volatility we saw through much of April business trends appear to have stabilized for now and strong alpha generation provided by world-class investment teams, the exceptional service provided by our client teams, and the productivity and execution of our operations, technology, and support teams enabled Janice Henderson to deliver a good set of quarterly results. In investment performance there was meaningful improvement in the one-year number. In investment performance is consistently solid with at least two-thirds of assets beating respective benchmarks on a one, three, five, and ten-year basis. Against peers investment performance is even stronger with over 70 percent of AUM in the top two Morningstar quartiles across all time periods. At the end of June we completed the previously announced transaction with Guardian. We are extremely excited for this multifaceted strategic partnership. This significant milestone further expands our insurance presence and institutional reach and we are pleased to bring to bear our strengths in fixed income, multi-asset solutions, and model portfolios to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes for clients, policyholders, and shareholders alike. Janice Henderson is now managing $46.5 billion of largely but not exclusively investment-grade public fixed income assets for Guardian's general account which is even more than the previously communicated $45 billion, demonstrating Guardian's growth trajectory and the potential of our partnership. This expands Janice Henderson fixed income AUM to $142 billion which is now over 30 percent of company-wide AUM. In addition, Guardian is committing up to $400 million of seed capital to help accelerate our continued innovation in secure types credit and high quality active fixed income products including ETFs. Pleasingly, a portion of this seed commitment has recently been utilized demonstrating quick progress from our partnership. Guardian has provided $100 million of seed to our asset-backed securities ETF, -B-S or JABS, which was launched last week. JABS is intended to provide investors access to short duration, high quality, predominantly fixed rate securitized assets and complements Janice Henderson's industry-leading CLO ETF, -A-A, which is predominantly a floating rate. JABS expands Janice Henderson's offerings to meet client demand including and especially insurance companies. Switching to AUM, where the addition of the Guardian AUM coupled with market gains and favorable currency adjustments due to weakening US dollar enabled assets under management to increase 23 percent to $457.3 billion, which is our highest quarterly AUM ever. Turning to flows, the second quarter marked our fifth consecutive quarter of positive net flows. While Guardian contributed to our strong quarterly net flow results, we're pleased that net flows excluding the Guardian general account were also positive, even the difficult flow environment created by April's drawdown. The positive net flow results demonstrate our truly global distribution footprint and the broad range of strategies and vehicles we offer. Said another way, all our businesses may not fire on all cylinders at the same time. However, our strategically developed broad breadth of businesses are capable of delivering more and more consistent growth for us over time, and this quarter was an instance of that. I want to quickly highlight a few examples of our diversified breadth of flows in the second quarter. There were 15 strategies, including 4ETS, that each had at least $100 million of net inflows. The fully tokenized Janice Henderson Anamoy Treasury Fund had over $400 million of net inflows. Net flows into our CIT and hedge fund strategies were positive. And finally, Privacor has advised on several hundred million dollars raised for CO2 CTECH funds in the wealth channel, which you might have read about in the media. Additionally, our institutional channel performed very well, offsetting retail net outflows, which were impacted by market volatility, especially during a few weeks in April. As we stated previously, delivering positive active flows is a key differentiator for Janice Henderson in an industry with well documented active flow headwinds, including during the second quarter for many of our peers. Moving to our financial results, which remains solid, adjusted diluted EPS of 90 cents is a 6% increase compared to the same period a year ago. Our financial performance and strong balance sheet continue to provide us the flexibility to invest in the business, both organically and inorganically and return cash to shareholders. In summary, our investment performance is solid. Our net flows are positive. We continue to execute our strategy, including the Guardian Partnership. Financial results are good. We continue to be disciplined and ROI focused on expenses. We have strong and stable balance sheet and our truly global footprint and expanding breadth of product positions as well for the future. I'll now turn the call over to Roger to run you through the detail of the financial results.

Thanks, Ali, and thank you for joining us on today's call. Starting on slide three, an investment performance. As Ali mentioned, we saw a significant improvement in our short-term investment performance versus benchmark during the quarter and now have at least two-thirds of AUM meeting their respective benchmarks over the one, three, five and 10-year time periods. Looking in further detail, at least half of each of the capabilities AUM is ahead of benchmarks over all time periods, reflecting consistent investment performance across time periods and capabilities. Overall investment performance compared to peers continues to be competitively strong with at least 72% of AUM in the top two Morningstar quartiles over all time periods presented. Slide four shows total company flows by quarter. Net inflows for the quarter are $46.7 billion, which includes the $46.5 billion from Guardian's general account. While the Guardian mandate will quite rightly take the headlines, we're pleased with Positive Net Flows ex-Guardians general account from a quarter of extreme market volatility and it highlights our truly global footprint and the breadth of product solutions we bring to clients. Excluding the Guardian general account, our gross sales increased for the third consecutive quarter and improved by 40% compared to the second quarter of last year. All three channels saw an increase in gross sales compared to the prior year across a broad range of capabilities, including ETFs, US concentrated growth, our tokenized treasury fund, US mid-cap growth, US buy and maintain credit, and asset-backed opportunistic credit from VPC. Turning to slide five and flows by client type. As a reminder, beginning with the first quarter of 2025, ETF gross flow activity is reflected in the applicable client type that generated the activity. Access to improved data transparency enabled us to make this change. For periods prior to 2025, all ETF flow activity is shown in the intermediary channel. Intermediary channel net flows were negative $1.2 billion, reflecting the challenging flow environment during the first quarter of the April drawdown. In the second quarter, net flows were positive in the US with net outflows in EMEA, Latam, and Asia Pacific. In the US, the net flows were positive for the eighth consecutive quarter. Despite a challenging April for our active ETFs, once the extreme market dislocation abated and market stabilized, JAAA quickly returned to net inflows, resulting in positive net flows for our active ETFs in the quarter. In addition to our active ETFs, other areas contributing net flows in the second quarter included US mid-cap growth, international alpha equity, our biotech hedge fund, and the Privacore revised assets raised for CO2. US intermediary is a key initiative under our protect and growth strategic pillar, and we're pleased that we continue to gain market share against a volatile market backdrop. Under our amplify strategic pillar, we've talked about amplifying our investment and client service strengths using various means, including vehicles through which we deliver our products. In addition to active ETFs, flows into CITs, SMAs, and hedge funds in this channel were positive in the second quarter. In EMEA, continental Europe delivered net inflows, while the UK had net outflows, primarily driven by investment trusts and the global strategic total bond strategy. Institutional net inflows were $49 billion compared to net inflows of $800 million in the prior quarter, marking the third consecutive quarter of positive flows. During the quarter, we were pleased to see our broad distribution footprint demonstrated, as our institutional channel performed well, while retail was adversely impacted by the market uncertainty in the early part of the quarter. Excluding the Guardian general account, institutional growth sales were the best result in over two years, and reflect fundings in fixed income and equities across corporates, pensions, and insurance clients. We're continuing to work to create a sustainable pipeline, and we're encouraged by the second quarter results, leading indicators, and the increasing number of opportunities across our regions. Net outflows for the self-directed channel, which includes direct and quarter, includes approximately $100 million of ETF net outflows from our supermarket clients. Excluding ETFs, self-directed net outflows were roughly flat for the prior quarter and the prior year. Slide six shows our flows in the quarter by capability. Equity flows were negative $2.6 billion compared to $4.2 billion of net outflows in the prior quarter. The environment remains challenging for active equities across all regions. Whilst negative in net flows, our equity capability had its best gross sale quarter in two years, demonstrating increased client demand for equities. Second quarter net inflows for fixed income were $49.7 billion compared to $5.6 billion of net inflows in the prior quarter. Outside of the Guardian general account net flows, several strategies contributed to positive fixed income flows. Active fixed income ETFs delivered net inflows of a billion dollars in the quarter, and as Ali mentioned, included four active ETFs with at least $100 million of net inflows, including JAAA, JNBS, Vanilla, and JSI. Other strategies contributing to positive flows were US buy and maintain credit, our tokenized treasury fund, Core Plus, and Australian sustainable credit. Net outflows for the multi-asset capability were $1.1 billion, primarily due to net outflows in the balance strategy. And finally, net inflows in the alternatives capability were $700 million, driven primarily by the biotech hedge fund, VPC's asset-backed opportunistic credit strategy, and Privacore. Moving on to the financials. Slide seven is our US gap statement of income, and on slide eight we explain the adjusted financial results. Adjusted operating results improved compared to the prior quarter and the prior year. Compared to the prior quarter, the improvement is primarily from higher performance fees, versus the same period a year ago, the improvement was primarily from strong investment performance delivering higher performance fees and higher average AUM. These were partially offset by increased expenses from acquisitions, strategic investments in the business, and a weaker US dollar. Looking at the detail. Adjusted revenue increased 2% compared to the prior quarter, primarily due to higher seasonal performance fees, and increased 9% compared to the prior year, primarily due to higher management fees on higher average AUM, and the improved US mutual fund performance fees. Net management fee margin was 47.5 basis points in the second quarter. The decline in the prior quarter was primarily a result of mix shift caused by the April drawdown, as well as some one-time adjustments which will not repeat. With the 46.5 billion dollar predominantly investment grade fixed income portfolio we now manage for Guardian's general account, we expect that our aggregate net management fee rate will be approximately 4.5 basis points lower than the second quarter average net fee rate of 47.5 basis points, which compares to previous guidance of 5 to 6 basis points lower. Second quarter performance fees of positive 15 million dollars primarily consist of seasonal CCAV, UK OIC, and investment trust performance fees. Our US mutual fund performance fees were also positive this quarter at a million dollars, which is the first positive result in over 10 years. US mutual fund performance fees have continued to improve, reflected by the positive 1 million dollars this quarter compared to negative 11 million dollars a year ago. Continuing on to expenses. Adjusted operating expenses for the second quarter were 331 million dollars compared to 330 million dollars in the prior quarter. Adjusted LTI decreased 12 percent compared to the prior quarter, largely due to seasonal payroll taxes triggered by annual vestings in the prior quarter. In the appendix we've provided the usual table on the expected future amortization of existing grants for you to use in your models. The second quarter adjusted comp to revenue ratio declined to 43.2 percent for 45.8 percent in the seasonally higher first quarter. Adjusted non-compic operating expenses increased 8 percent compared to the first quarter, primarily from higher marketing and G&A expenses. With respect to full year 2025 expense expectations, our previously stated expected compensation ratio in 2025 remains unchanged at 43 to 44 percent, assuming 30 June AUM and a zero market assumption for the second half of the year. For non-compensation guidance, we expect high single digit percentage growth in non-comp expenses compared to 2024, reflecting investments supporting our ongoing strategic initiatives and operational efficiencies, inflation and the full year impact of the G&A. This update to the high end of our previous range is solely as a result of the FX impact from a further weakening US dollar in the first half of 2025. We remain committed to strong cost discipline, ensuring that we manage our cost base while continuing to support the long-term growth objectives of the business. Finally, our expectation of the firm's tax rate on adjusted net income attributable to GHG remains unchanged in the range of 23 to 25 percent. Our second quarter adjusted operating margin was 33.5 percent and finally adjusted diluted EPS was 90 cents, up six percent from the comparable second quarter 2024 period. Skipping over slide nine and moving to slide 10 on a look at our liquidity profile, our balance sheet remains strong and stable. Cash and cash equivalents were 900 million dollars as of the 30th of June, which is lower from the end of the first quarter primarily due to share buybacks related to our corporate and compensation repurchase schemes, as well as net investments made in seed capital. During the quarter, we funded our quarterly dividend and repurchased 1.3 million shares as part of our corporate buyback program for 50 million dollars. The board has also declared a 40 cent per share dividend to be paid on the 28th of August to shareholders of record as at the 11th of August. Slide 11 looks in more detail at our consistent return of capital to shareholders. We've maintained a healthy quarterly dividend and have reduced shares outstanding by over 22 percent since 2018. During the first half of 2025, we returned 202 million dollars including 76 million dollars via share repurchases. The buyback program and dividends do not alter our ability to invest in the business organically or inorganically as well as return cash to shareholders. Currently, our liquidity profile allows us to do both. Our return of excess cash is consistent with our capital allocation framework and will continue to look to return capital to shareholders where there isn't an immediately more compelling investment in the business. With that, I'd like to turn it back over to Ali to give an update on our strategic progress.

Thanks Roger. Turning to slide 12, a reminder of our three strategic pillars of protecting grow our core businesses, amplify our strengths not fully leveraged, and diversify where clients give us the right to win. We are in the execution phase and we believe this strategic vision has us on the path to over time deliver organic growth consistently. In protect and grow, we've talked previously about the importance of protecting and growing our U.S. intermediary business and the progress we've made in capturing market share. We also delivered another quarter of positive net flows in U.S. intermediary despite a challenging flow environment marking eight straight quarters of net flows. Within amplify, we've talked about our institutional business and our product development and expansion efforts such as our build out of active ETFs in the U.S. and now outside the U.S. with the acquisition of Tabula. Year to date, we've launched eight ETFs globally with more planned in the second half of the year. Janice Henderson is now the eighth largest provider of active ETFs in the world and second largest provider of active fixed income ETFs in the world. Our partnership with reflects the firm's commitment to digital assets and our desire to embrace disruptive financial technologies. The partnership has already begun to demonstrate success. As I mentioned earlier, the fully on-chain Janice Henderson Anomoi Treasury Fund delivered over $400 million of net inflows in the second quarter. Finally, the recently completed strategic partnership with Guardian will amplify our insurance, institutional, and fixed income businesses through the management their general account mostly in the investment grade public fixed income portfolio, acceleration of product innovation with Guardian's commitment of seed capital, and the strategic initiative to co-develop proprietary multi-asset solution model portfolios for Guardian's duly registered broker dealer and registered investment advisor Park Avenue Securities. Under diversify, we've addressed both the public and private market in emerging market debt with NBK Capital Partners in a private space. On the public side, we brought on a well-respected emerging market debt team. We expanded into differentiated private market capabilities for clients with the acquisition of pioneering asset-backed lending firm Victory Park Capital, and we established our joint venture Privicor, focused on the democratization of alternatives in partnership with the wealth channel, which is starting to bear fruit as I mentioned earlier. In addition to implementing and executing on a new strategic direction, Janice Henderson has gone through many other changes over the last several years. These changes are all being done with the explicit objective of improving the client experience. This includes how we have evolved our client approach. Now moving to slide 13. We've been intentional about how we interact and importantly partner with our clients. We strongly believe that strategically partnering with clients delivers better outcomes for all parties. The first and most important of our five firm values is clients come first always, and we are humbled and honored that approximately 60 million people globally rely directly or indirectly on Janice Henderson for their financial well-being. That is at our core, and clients coming first will not change. In fact, we're trying to push that further forward with elevating partnerships with clients. What that means for us tactically and thoughtfully is working to deepen client relationships. The client relationship is no longer transactional. It's about -to-peer relationships and really working to increase nodes of connectivity between Janice Henderson and our clients. It's evolving from regional accountability to global accountability. Again, it's not about sales accounts, but having franchise partnerships and franchise clients. That's what we want to continue to do, and we believe our clients are seeing those intentional actions and improvements from us already. There are several ways we can elevate partnerships with clients and increase those nodes of connectivity. Of course, those ways include delivering investment performance in the right vehicles with world-class client service. It also means leading with insight and sharing our knowledge base with clients. For example, we've had Janice Henderson colleagues lead strategic off-sites for some of our clients. Our chief technology officer has had discussions with clients on AI, and we've held educational sessions with U.S. financial advisors on investor psychology, behavioral finance, and succession planning. Those are just a few of the many examples of bringing the whole firm to our clients. Elsewhere, we've conducted several client conferences in the U.S., the U.K., Connell Europe, Asia, and Australia, where clients give their scarce time to hear from us with several trillion dollars of AUM and millions of people's retirements and savings represented at these conferences. The intent of these events is to bring the whole firm to our clients and develop shared experiences. Slide 14 looks at how this evolved approach to client partnerships is now embedded in our updated branding. First, I'm pleased to report that a few recent external surveys seem to confirm that Janice Henderson is making progress in strengthening its brand profile, and brand matters. Clients who start off knowing a brand are much more likely to partner with it than if they don't know the brand. The Broadridge Fund Brand 50 is a global survey of asset manager brand strength in the intermediary channel. Over the last two years, we've seen both U.S. and European intermediary brand strength improve. Next, specific to our institutional business, is the Global Institutional NMG Consulting Report. Here we moved up 32 spots from two years ago to a global brand rank of 37. I want to thank my colleagues from across the firm for their individual and collective efforts around strengthening our brand profile. Second, our strengthening brand profile and updated global branding reflect our commitment to investing in a brighter future together. Some of you may have noticed that Janice Henderson Ampersand appearing in targeted advertising around you. We believe that our Ampersand symbolizes the deepening connection with clients and captures who we are and the journey we actively choose to go on every day with our clients. We surveyed and interviewed clients, hearing from them that one important thing Janice Henderson does that is unique is connect with them. We want clients to think about Janice Henderson and its connection with them when they see that Ampersand. Client goals and our solution, client visions and our mission, client successes, and our pride in delivering on our objective of differentiated insights, disciplined investments, and world-class service. This new brand campaign was launched globally in April, including campaigns in North America, Europe, and Asia. We believe that our new branding, including the Ampersand, uniquely demonstrates our partnership-centered approach and shared connections with clients. Turning to slide 15, and a reminder that although we are changing and improving as a firm, our mission, values, and purpose, our MVP, will never change. Indeed, our evolved approach to client partnerships is born out of our MVP, which was first introduced in 2023 and continues to enhance our culture. Since then, Janice Henderson has gone and will continue to go through a lot of positive change and transformation. These changes were made to improve ourselves for our clients. As I mentioned, one thing which will not change is our mission, values, and purpose. That is immutable. Our purpose, remember, is investing in our brighter future together. That's what we do. We're investors. We do together with our clients. We aim to deliver brighter futures for our clients and their clients, the 60 million people around the world who rely on Janice Henderson directly or indirectly for their financial health. Our goal is to do this in partnership with our clients, as shared connectivity and collaboration with them. Wrapping up on slide 16, we're making meaningful progress across the business. We are executing against our strategic objectives, including our multifaceted strategic partnership with Guardian, for which we are already starting to see benefits. Investment performance is solid across all time periods versus benchmarks and peers. Net inflows were positive $46.7 billion, marking our fifth consecutive quarter of net inflows. Even excluding the Guardian general account flow, net flows remained positive and reflect a 40% increase in gross sales compared to the prior year, and that's during quarter with heightened market volatility. Our financial performance and strong balance sheet allows us to continue returning cash to shareholders through dividends and share buybacks, while reinvesting in the business for growth. Our focus continues to be helping clients define and achieve superior financial outcomes and to deliver desired results for clients, shareholders, employees, and all our stakeholders. Let me turn the call back over to the operator to take your questions.

Thank you. If you ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad now. If you change your mind, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your device is unmuted locally. In the interest of time, questions will be limited to one initial and one follow-up question. The first comes from Ken Worthington of JPMorgan. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking the question. Maybe first on the institutional channel, as you guys mentioned, the third consecutive quarter of positive net sales, even excluding Guardian, and the results are an indication of the success your strategy has had thus far. Are there next priorities on the institutional side, or do you feel that Janus is appropriately positioned in the institutional channel at this point?

Hey, Kenneth, Ali. Thanks for the question. You're right. We're pleased with the three consecutive quarters of institutional net flows, again, this quarter, about $49 billion of net flows in the quarter of which $46.5 billion is from the Guardian general account. We're also pleased, by the way, that the $46.5 billion from Guardian is better than the $45 billion that we anticipated earlier on, which again is a symbol of their growth. We've been excited to partner with them. We've seen their growth. We hope that their growth can continue. We also saw flows excluding the Guardian general account in institutional quite broadly across equities and fixed income. That was across corporates, across pensions, across insurance. Even if you desegregate that a little bit further, there were 10 fundings of greater than $100 million in the institutional side of things. It feels like we're broadening. It feels like we are getting on the radar screen of these institutional players. It feels like, again, leading indicators in terms of meetings and everything are looking pretty good. We're not there yet in my mind, perhaps subtext or question, Ken, to say that we are always going to deliver positive flow from institutional and we have a sustainable outcome. But it certainly feels like we're on the right track. Part of what we're doing, obviously, with this branding campaign is to make sure that people put us in their consideration set. That is both the client on the institutional side as well as the consultant with whom we're building closer and closer relationships with, with whom we're really putting into play, as we mentioned in the prepared remarks, the much more aligned and partnership mindset that we have to bear. We're clearly broadening ourselves. We're pleased with the outcome so far. We certainly have more to go, but the pace is picking up here and we feel okay.

Thank you. Maybe turning to retail equities, it's a good, it's not a great environment for retail

investors

are making money in equities, they're putting more money in their brokerage accounts, but active equities remain in outflows and the structure is out of favor. See a solution to the persistent outflows in your retail equity business. You're successfully around the core, but this part of the core seems to be sort of in persistent redemptions. Is there an eventual fix here or is it something that we should just learn to live with and turn our attention to the success you're having around this core part of

the equity business? We've been very strongly in our equities franchise and franchises around the world and we very much have put that into our execution of our strategy. So if you remember our strategy, it starts first and foremost with protecting and growing our core businesses. Those are disproportionately the equity franchises that we have in whatever vehicle that may be in, in the intermediary channel. So our focus is very much first and foremost protecting growing before we amplify and diversify. We do believe very much as you described it Ken that there is a very strong interest right now in active equities, active investing more broadly, but active equities. The world is a very complex place. The second quarter was an example of that, not just in a three week period, but beyond that and that's probably going to persist. The cost of capital is much higher so good companies and bad companies will deliver differential performance and certainly there are lots of kind of dispersion in stock just from drivers in thematic areas like healthcare, like innovation more broadly in technology and other places. We believe very strongly and our track record shows it frankly over 91 years, but certainly over the next or the past one, three, five, ten years you see it, our track record shows it that we can actually deliver alpha for our client base through equities and of course elsewhere in our business. So we look first and foremost to gain market share and we do that by delivering outstanding investment performance with the fantastic equities, for example investment teams that we have, but even beyond that your point of fixed income and in alternatives business as we grow that as well.

Okay great thank you.

Can I just add to that?

Ken if I can just add to that, you know we have we have 62 strategies that are now over a billion dollars and within that you know there is a lot of equity and there are six or seven that are positive in Q2. So you know we've shown that we can do that and they're both really existing strategies, US concentrated growth, US mid-cap growth, global equity, international alpha, as well as new things and we talked last time about global small cap, you know another 170 million dollars so up through up through a billion dollars of global small cap as well. So it's both the existing products that yes we believe given the performance we've got and that client relationship that Ali's been talking about we can grow in what is a tough environment you're right, but also developing things that are specific from from Janice Henderson like global small cap that we've delivered said that we've built out over the last few years that now is a billion dollars in itself.

Great thank you Roger, thank you Ali.

The next question comes from Bill Katz of TD Securities. Bill your line is now open please go ahead.

Good morning this is Roger holding up the phone. I was wondering if you could take a moment to please John how you think the available market for the JABs use to have the best products with the -B-B or any other things and products that I have in my phone.

Sure thanks for the question you're a little muffled but I think the question was about JABs. Look it's a it's a great example JABs is a great example of the client-led innovation that we are creating here now at Janice Henderson. We're just starting to do this more and more as we build or attempt to build the asset management company of the future for client needs of the future. So there's a clear need that we had heard from our clients around short duration, high quality, fixed rate securitized assets very much to complement as you're describing the -A-A and other ETFs that we have in the active fixed income area. -A-A's floating rate and we heard that need among a broad range of clients but particularly around insurance clients like Guardian. So with this partnership that we have with Guardian which as I mentioned before is going extraordinarily well as well or better than we had planned. We made quick work of that given their $400 million commitment to seed things that are ripe for their general account they seeded $100 million for JABs and we now have that in the market as of the other day and we have quite high aspirations for that business. Remember you know everyone talks about -A-A and certainly takes a lot of the headlines but we have four ETFs in Q2 that are above a billion dollars. We're second globally in active fixed income ETFs, eighth globally in any active ETF period around the world. So we do have high aspirations for JABs because again we're bringing client-led innovation to deliver for our client's needs and our skill sets.

Thank you and then as a follow-up on investment performance, could you speak to what's driving the strong improvement in investment performance and how performance might be translating to sales or maybe some of the leading indicators in the pipeline that you mentioned previously?

Yeah hi Bill, it's Roger. Yeah we're really pleased to see and we've had good consistent medium and long-term investment performance for a long time and the one year number was a little bit weaker last quarter so it was really pleasing to see that bounce back so that we now have at least 72 percent ahead of benchmark overall time periods and the the Morningstar quartiles are a little bit stronger than that with up to 88 percent ahead of or in the top two quartiles. What drove it was a lot of our US and global equity products so US concentrated growth, US research, global tech and innovation, US growth and income, global equity income, US opportunistic alpha which were all slightly behind bench on the one year time period at the end of March are all now above and in some cases quite strongly above benchmark over one year at the end of the second quarter and that just you know that that obviously just followed through into the into the three, five and ten but to a much more dampened effect so it was just that one year number that was a little bit weaker at the consistently strong investment performance.

Thank you very much.

The next question comes from Dan Fannin of Jeffreys. Dan your line is now open please go ahead.

Thanks I guess just sticking with performance you know looking at multi-asset you know the strong basically one period over the last several you know on a one, three, five, ten year number but the flows just haven't been that consistent so can you talk about the opportunity you see there given some of the performance you have in that you know kind of asset class and where the appetite sits within that context?

Sure Dan thanks for the question. I'll start and Roger can chime in and edit as well. So as you know that asset class as we reported is disproportionately related to the balanced fund that we have one of our largest most successful most storied funds out there. We do believe the time for balanced has come in a world of complexity and having to choose good company from bad company the equity sleeve of balance delivers that and the performance there is very very strong as you note it has consistently done that for decades and at the same time fixed income actually has a yield now and there too differentiation between a good security and bad security plays into space so you can actually with balanced if you are an investor have the ballast of fixed income and the yield of fixed income plus the growth of the equity sleeve to it so we are big believers in balanced. The flows to your point have not been there at point as much as we would like it to be in balance per se but we are finding starting interest there certainly in the US but we are finding it in particular in Europe and in Asia and we are expecting to see a little bit more of an improvement on those numbers as well. Now multi-asset I said is disproportionately that but it is not only that. In that sleeve is a lot of solutions as well and we are really picking up the pace on growth from a solutions business as well so this is where clients want outcomes clients want things are more sophisticated I will give you a few examples. We do a lot of work with large sovereign wealth funds in what we call the adaptive strategy so that is some place where we go in and they want to use signals to understand when there is regime change in the markets and so they can adjust their asset allocation that has been quite successful recently. So again these are areas within multi-asset that number one are well established like balance which we think are coming into people's focus areas and number two areas where we are growing so call that protecting grow and then areas that we are growing where we have extraordinarily strong skill sets that we want to amplify and bring to them. So we would expect improved over time not overnight growth in that segment but again as you point out all has to be based on performance which gladly is well established.

Okay just adding to that a little bit. Sorry sorry that was just to add to it a little bit balanced is a 49 billion dollar fund you know we sell around the world particularly in the US across a multitude of different client areas our direct book Interreduy book as well as an institutional we also sell it around the world you know and there are new opportunities for us there as well so we're pretty excited about it about a new launch that we've got for balanced in the second half of this year. So yes it's in outflow it's about two percent if you look at it of outflow in the second quarter but we've got a lot of a lot of plans for that and then as Ali said you know there are plans outside of balanced in the multi-asset channel with things like adaptive.

Great I guess then just to follow up on that is the plan is more institutional SMA driven I guess when you talk about offshoots of it is that what is that what are the versions that are

coming? Thanks Roger so on the balanced side it's disproportionately on the intermediary side at this point from the solutions element i.e. things like adaptive that's more an SMA form or relay form for institutional.

Got it and then just just as a follow-up here Roger just in terms of the expense guidance and the outlook knowing that performance fees are very hard to predict I was hoping you could kind of maybe set the frame for what you're assuming for the comp ratio guidance for performance fees this year or potentially how where you sit today with performance fee eligible AUM versus a year ago and how you potentially could bracket the second half opportunity.

Yeah thanks then you know it's too early to predict performance fees for the second half of the year we have a little bit in Q3 but the vast majority of our segregated accounts are Q4 and there's obviously still a long way to go. In terms of the amount of assets eligible for performance fees that's probably broadly similar to where we were this time last year. Second half of last year we had some very strong performance fees as you as you will remember from our biotech innovation fund you know that's a little bit behind as we sit here today so we're unlikely to see those although those numbers can move very strongly very quickly but as you know as you're predicting today you predict a lower number there but we're seeing some other stronger numbers so yeah there's a blend of things that come in there that leads into a comp ratio you know we've guided to a comp ratio of 43 to 44 percent and that includes some performance fees in the second half.

Thank

you. As a reminder to ask a question please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad now. The next question comes from John Dunn of Evercore. John your line is now open please go ahead.

Thank you. You talked about your reputation improving for intermediary overseas maybe could you just give us kind of a some color on the different regions and what strategies and vehicles you know are in demand and maybe just outlook for back half of the year?

Sure so look as you anticipate John we don't give outlook from a flow perspective because there's so many things that could change in the world and we're only going to control we can control but to your point we feel like we're controlling what we control from a delivery of investment performance perspective you see the numbers that's quite attractive obviously to a client. We're controlling we control from a client service perspective as well that includes different vehicles and we'll talk about that and as well as we're controlling we control from delivering infrastructure that delivers on clients expectations so legal compliance technology operations everybody that that works here and pulls all that together for them so so we're going to be very focused on delivering on that to your point. We're having conversations that I would posit we've never really had before with intermediary clients around the world. I would argue we're well established obviously in the U.S. although there too we continue to grow and develop and eight consecutive quarters of U.S. intermediate growth would suggest we have a lot more room to go but you're starting to see as we've talked before the lifting and shifting of the way we sell the way we build relationships with intermediary clients actually applying outside of the U.S. exclude the U.K. for a second if you talk about EMEA we're seeing a lot of interesting opportunities and growth there that are developing intermediaries usually starts up slow and then starts to grow but we're getting preferred mandates quote unquote on a lot of intermediary platforms where we never have had those before in EMEA. Now that's kind of all Europe but that's also in the Middle East where the wealth channel as you know is burgeoning quite quite strongly you know we have a big business in the Middle East on the institutional side that's been translating reputationally to the intermediary side as well on the private wealth channel that as I mentioned is just nascent and growing there and of course in Asia broadly that includes in Japan where we're signing up new clients just over the past few months we've signed up new clients that we've never served before in Japan in Asia so Hong Kong Singapore other areas in Asia we're for the first time having conversations launching products with those intermediary partners there and same thing in Australia where we've been present for a number of years and we certainly look to grow with consultant support there it's a little bit different in the Australian market with consultant support and partnership and then grow so we feel like we're making strides I will let you know that we don't feel like we're there yet in the U.K. if you think about our overall intermediary business if you look at APAC plus North America plus EMEA ex-UK that would have been a much better result from a growth perspective if you on intermediary if you layer in UK pro-credit investment trust in the UK area that's what takes us negative so we have more work to do we're not firing all cylinders but your question with feeling that our reputation our brand our performance the support teams from a client service and broader perspective is certainly allowing us to have conversations and grow businesses in areas and with acceleration we've never seen before

got it and then you uh you alluded to institutional investors like insurers using ETFs it seems like you're seeing that utilization increase you know how are they using them like and what are maybe some of the other types of strategies they're gravitating to and is it is that just limited to insurance companies

so it's a great question it is not just limited to insurance companies but let me disaggregate that a little bit and Roger can chime in as well what we found in our ETF business which is still predominantly a fixed income active ETF business in the U.S. is that there were a few trendsetters I guess so to speak in the institutional side in fact one of our large ETFs was seeded by a large state pension plan and you know that then evolved to go into RIAs who are looking at securitize as an example to put on their platforms and get institutional quality security selection and securitize world to their clients then wirehouses start to take it on board and then models start to take it on board particularly in the intermediary side of and then institutions more broadly start to pick this up because what they were saying to themselves is gosh I'm big but your ETF has ETFs now for them over a billion dollars have liquidity and they're at a cheaper price than if I were to go into some other means of delivering this return stream and so it's not institutional really take off and that's mainly in the U.S. in the past just a couple years on ETFs again they're in all the ETFs from a fixed income segment that you'd see but disproportionately if your insurance you're more in the AAA kind of investment grade stuff if you're less insurance and you're more in the kind of pension plans or what have you you want higher returns you might go to the triple b's and other areas of our of our portfolio now in the U.S. in the rest of the world the disproportionate users of our ETFs remember the tabular acquisition that we brought on board that's you know around about eight or nine hundred million dollars right now global ETFs that we have including everywhere -U.S. but disproportionately that's already in its institutional channels so institutions are already using that to get return streams that the ETFs describe we have you know triple a clos in in Europe for example that are being used by pension plans insurance companies as well so you are seeing institutional players catch on in the U.S. but be leaders I'd say outside the U.S. particularly in continental Europe rogers are more to add there

yeah I think again it's just the breadth which I think is important you talked a lot about a bit there about the the breadth of client type which which was John's question I think the other thing is you know is the breadth of ETFs you know JAAA takes the takes the the headlines at the end of June it's a 23 billion dollar ETF as of today it's 23 but you know we have 34 billion dollars of ETFs we've launched eight this year and we've talked about diversifying both in the U.S. and and as Ali mentioned with with with tabula bringing use its ETFs that we can sell in Europe and around the world and we've we've launched a number of things in Europe and it's still early days but you know something like the European see a triple a clo what we call JCL zero you know is a few hundred million dollars but that's the fastest growing ETF of all of them so far I'm not saying he'll get to 23 billion dollars immediately or perhaps ever but we're really growing fast and we're seeing a lot of interest in Europe and and around the world and we'll continue to launch things in the U.S. with things like JABs launching last week so yeah we're excited about about the interest there and there's a lot more to do.

Thanks very much.

The next question comes from Bill Katz of TD TD Securities. Bill your line is now open please go ahead.

Hi this is Robin Holdey on for Bill Katz again and thank you for the follow-up. We wanted to ask if you could spend a moment on your tokenized fund strategy what type of clients are showing interest in these products and why are they interested and how do you see the strategy evolving with other products and client types going forward?

Hey Robin thanks for jumping back in on the follow-up. You know this is this is another example of us being client-led in innovation and thinking about how we can be client-led in the way we deliver the asset management company of the future and look in tokenization broadly and disruptive financial technologies broadly as we call them we want to be ahead of the vast majority of our peers and I think I think we are. The main client base to your core question so far is on token purely on chain clients and we've seen that across the board so if you think about the first tokenized fund that we did is with Animoid Centrifuge, tokenized treasury, JTRSY so J treasury that took in about 400 million dollars in Q2 from on chain clients for the most part. Most part for that one are folks who are sitting in stablecoin and you know that's fine when there's no yield but when there is a yield they want to get some yield and not just to sit in zero yielding product and so on chain tokenized JTRSY is where they've gone and that's the first one that we launched. We then followed up with a tokenized version of JAAA that's with Animoid Centrifuge and also Grove. I don't know if people know Grove but Grove is part of the Sky ecosystem which you may know better by the MakerDAO brand that was their old brand and it's the owner of or the is I think the second or third largest stablecoin and so similarly people were in stablecoin not getting all yield they could go to treasury and JAAA gives them another opportunity in a tokenized fully on chain manner to go there. So we're seeing again nascent interest from folks outside of the purely on chain clients but we're in particular seeing a lot of interest for folks who are sitting stablecoin and walk better yields from those. We will continue to evolve as our client base evolves and as our client needs are there but again this is something that puts I think Janice Henderson ahead of the peer group in terms of being innovative thinking differently and delivering on a client need.

Thank you very much.

We currently have no further questions so I'll hand back to Ali for any closing remarks.

Okay look thanks Lucy thanks to all our listeners today of course including our investors and analysts and also our many colleagues who I know are joining from Janice Henderson. You have all helped deliver another clear step forward this quarter in the transformation of Janice Henderson on behalf of our clients. Thank you all thank you all for listening and we'll talk to you next quarter.

This concludes today's call thank you for joining you may now disconnect your lines.