Earnings call transcript: Virtus Q4 2024 EPS misses, stock falls 5.54%

Looking forward, Virtus anticipates an average fee rate of 41-42 basis points and expects employment expenses to comprise 49-51% of revenues. The company remains focused on strategic product introductions and is exploring potential mergers and acquisitions, particularly in private market capabilities. InvestingPro data reveals the company’s strong financial health with a solid return on equity of 14% and robust revenue growth of 7.3% over the last twelve months. Analysts maintain a positive outlook, with consensus forecasts predicting continued profitability in the coming year. InvestingPro data reveals the company’s strong financial health with a solid return on equity of 14% and robust revenue growth of 7.3% over the last twelve months. Analysts maintain a positive outlook, with consensus forecasts predicting continued profitability in the coming year.

Key Takeaways

• Virtus reported a 5% sequential decline in total assets under management.
• The company launched new ETFs, doubling ETF assets to $3.1 billion over the past year.
• Operating margin reached its highest level since Q2 2022 at 35.1%.
• Stock price declined 5.54% in aftermarket trading.

Company Performance

Virtus Investment Partners (NYSE:VRTS) experienced a mixed performance in Q4 2024. The company saw a decline in total assets under management to $175 billion, a 5% decrease from the previous quarter. Despite the challenges, Virtus continued to innovate, launching four global funds and new ETFs, which significantly contributed to doubling its ETF assets over the year.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $223.5 million, exceeding the forecast of $214.06 million.
• Earnings per share: $7.50, an 8% increase from the previous quarter.
• Operating margin: 35.1%, the highest since Q2 2022.
• Total (EPA:TTEF) sales: $6.4 billion, down from $6.6 billion in Q3.

Earnings vs. Forecast

Virtus reported an EPS of $7.50, missing the forecast by $0.12, a modest shortfall that contrasts with the company’s historical trend of meeting or exceeding expectations. However, the revenue of $223.5 million beat the forecast by a significant margin, showcasing strong sales performance despite the EPS miss.

Market Reaction

Looking forward, Virtus anticipates an average fee rate of 41-42 basis points and expects employment expenses to comprise 49-51% of revenues. The company remains focused on strategic product introductions and is exploring potential mergers and acquisitions, particularly in private market capabilities. InvestingPro data reveals the company’s strong financial health with a solid return on equity of 14% and robust revenue growth of 7.3% over the last twelve months. Analysts maintain a positive outlook, with consensus forecasts predicting continued profitability in the coming year.

Outlook & Guidance

Looking forward, Virtus anticipates an average fee rate of 41-42 basis points and expects employment expenses to comprise 49-51% of revenues. The company remains focused on strategic product introductions and is exploring potential mergers and acquisitions, particularly in private market capabilities.

Executive Commentary

CEO George Elward emphasized the company’s active approach to exploring opportunities, stating, "We continue to be very active in terms of evaluating opportunities." Elward also highlighted the company’s commitment to meeting market demand, saying, "Our goal is wherever the preferences are to make sure that we’re meeting demand."

Risks and Challenges

• Declining assets under management could impact future earnings.
• Increased competition in the ETF market may pressure margins.
• Macroeconomic uncertainties could affect investment flows.
• Rising employment expenses could constrain profitability.
• Potential integration challenges from future M&A activities.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the company’s strategy in fixed income and ETF markets. Virtus expressed optimism in these areas, highlighting positive flows and continued interest. Questions also focused on the company’s exploration of AI and data science applications, which Virtus is actively evaluating for future growth.

Full transcript - Virtus Investment Partners Inc (VRTS) Q4 2024:

Didi, Conference Operator: Good morning. My name is Didi, and I will be your conference operator today. I would like to welcome everyone to the Virtus Investment Partners Quarterly Conference Call. The slide presentation for this call is available in the Investor Relations section of the Virtus website, www.virtus.com. This call is being recorded and will be available for replay on the Virtus website.

At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speakers’ remarks, there will be a question and answer period and instructions will follow at that time. I will now turn the conference to your host, Sean Wirk.

George Elward, President and CEO, Virtus Investment Partners: Thank you, and good morning, everyone.

Sean Wirk, Unknown, Virtus Investment Partners: On behalf of Virtis Investment Partners, I’d like to welcome you to a discussion of our operating and financial results for the Q4 of 2024. Our speakers today are George Elward, President and CEO and Mike Angertal, Chief Financial Officer. Following their prepared remarks, we will have a Q and A period. Before we begin, please note the disclosures on Page 2 of the slide presentation. Certain matters discussed on this call may contain forward looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and as such are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties, including but not limited to those factors set forth in today’s news release and discussed in our SEC filings.

These risks and uncertainties may cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed in the statements. In addition to results presented on a GAAP basis, we use certain non GAAP measures to evaluate our financial results. Our non GAAP financial measures are not substitutes for GAAP financial results and should be read in conjunction with the GAAP results. Reconciliations of these non GAAP financial measures to the applicable GAAP measures are included in today’s news release and financial supplement, which are available on the website. Now, I’d like to turn the call over to George.

George? Thank you, Sean,

George Elward, President and CEO, Virtus Investment Partners: and good morning, everyone. I’ll start with an overview of the results we reported this morning, and then I’ll turn it over to Mike for more detail. We continued to deliver strong financial and operating performance in the 4th quarter, though our results did include net outflows, largely due to a partial institutional redemption. Key highlights of the quarter included positive net flows in focus areas, including ETFs, global funds and retail separate accounts, attractive investment performance across strategies, an operating margin at the highest level in 2.5 years, ongoing introduction of new products, and we ended the year in a net cash position with significant financial flexibility, while continuing to return capital through share repurchases and our dividend. As it relates to new product introductions, we remained active during the quarter in our focus areas.

In ETFs, following the launches earlier in the year of newly actively managed ETFs from Kayne Anderson Rudnick and Alpha Simplex, in December we introduced a new ETF from Sykes and have several others in development. The newest ETF invests in private credit collateralized loan obligations, which Sykes is well positioned for as it currently manages 9 CLOs with over $3,000,000,000 in assets and has over 2 decades of CLO experience. We now offer 20 ETFs across strategies and managers and have seen significant growth. While ETFs are currently a smaller part of our business at $3,100,000,000 they have doubled in size over the past year with consistent organic growth and have generated over $500,000,000 of sales in the Q4 alone. In addition to ETF introductions, during the year we launched 4 global funds adding to our lineup that continues to generate positive flows.

And for SMAs, we’ve developed a number of offerings across a variety of asset classes, including more solution oriented multi strategy products. We continue to prioritize increasing the availability of our ETFs global funds and SMAs through intermediaries. Turning now to the results, total assets under management of $175,000,000,000 at December 31 decreased sequentially from $183,700,000 due to net outflows in institutional accounts and U. S. Retail funds, partially offset by the positive net flows in ETFs, global funds and retail separate accounts.

Sales of $6,400,000,000 compared with $6,600,000,000 in the 3rd quarter as higher institutional sales led by global equity and alternative strategies were offset by lower sales of U. S. Retail funds. For the full year, total sales increased 3% to $26,800,000,000 Total net outflows of $4,800,000,000 included the partial institutional redemption, excluding which net outflows were $1,500,000,000 and compared with $1,700,000,000 in the prior quarter. Reviewing by product and institutional, the net outflows of $3,800,000,000 were largely due to a $3,300,000,000 lower fee partial redemption of a multi manager mandate, which the client added an additional sub advisor resulting in reallocation from current sub advisors.

Excluding the partial redemption, which was implemented and completed in the Q4, institutional net outflows were $500,000,000 Retail separate accounts generated positive net flows of $100,000,000 and delivered 4% organic growth over the past year with consistent positive net flows in the intermediary sold channel and in our $9,000,000,000 wealth management business. Open end fund net outflows of $1,100,000,000 were essentially unchanged sequentially. Consistent with market trends, U. S. Retail fund net outflows were driven by equity strategies partially offset by positive net flows in fixed income, while ETFs and global funds generated $400,000,000 $100,000,000 in positive net flows respectively.

In terms of what we’re seeing in January, U. S. Retail fund flows are tracking similarly for the Q4, including continued positive net flows in fixed income and ETFs are actually running ahead of the average monthly flows of the 4th quarter. For institutional known redemptions for the Q1 modestly exceed known wins with the wins representing several different managers and strategies. In terms of our financial results, we delivered strong earnings and margin growth for the quarter and for the full year on higher average AUM levels and ongoing expense management.

With higher revenues and discipline around discretionary spending, which resulted in a reduction in other operating expenses for the full year, the operating margin of 35.1 reached its highest level since the Q2 of 2022 and was up sequentially from 34.4. Earnings per share as adjusted of $7.50 increased 8% in the 3rd quarter to the highest level since the Q1 of 2022 and for the full year earnings per share grew 20%. Turning now to capital, we ended the year with a solid balance sheet including a net cash position of $30,000,000 while having consistently returned capital to shareholders and invested in the growth of the business. During the year, we repurchased or net settled over 250,000 shares for $57,000,000 and raised the quarterly dividend by 18%, representing the 7th consecutive annual dividend increase. And with that, I’ll turn the call over to Mike.

Mike?

Mike Angertal, Chief Financial Officer, Virtus Investment Partners: Thank you, George. Good to be

George Elward, President and CEO, Virtus Investment Partners: with you all this morning.

Mike Angertal, Chief Financial Officer, Virtus Investment Partners: Starting with our results on Slide 7, assets under management. Our total assets under management declined 5 Our total assets under management declined 5% sequentially to $175,000,000,000 at December 31 due to net outflows and negative market performance. Average assets under management increased 3% to $182,100,000,000 with ending assets 4% below the quarter’s average. Compared with the prior year period, AUM increased $2,700,000,000 or 2% due to market performance. Our assets under management represent a broad range of products and asset classes.

By product, institutional is our largest category at 34% of AUM. Retail separate accounts including wealth management at 28% and U. S. Retail funds at 27%. The remaining 11% comprises closed end funds, global funds and ETFs.

We are also diversified within asset classes, in equities between international and domestic and within domestic well represented amongst mid, small and large cap strategies. And fixed income is well diversified across duration, credit quality and geography. We continue to have compelling long term relative investment performance across products and strategies. As of December 31, 72 percent of rated retail fund assets and 32 funds had 4 or 5 stars and 90% were in 3, 4 or 5 star funds. In addition, 64% of fund AUM outperformed the median of their peer groups over the 5 year period and 84% of retail separate account assets have beaten benchmarks over the same 5 year period.

ETFs have also had strong performance with 91% of ETF assets exceeding median peer performance for the 3 year period and 10 of our 14 rated ETFs were rated 3, 4 or 5 stars. Across all products, 58% of AUM at December 31 were beating their benchmarks over the 5 year period. Turning to Slide 8, asset flows. Total sales of $6,400,000,000 were down modestly from $6,600,000,000 in the prior quarter as higher institutional sales were offset by lower sales of retail separate accounts. Institutional sales of $1,600,000,000 increased from $1,200,000,000 driven by higher sales of global equity and alternative strategies.

Retail separate account sales of $1,800,000,000 declined sequentially from $2,300,000,000 as higher sales in the wealth management business were more than offset by lower intermediary sold sales, particularly in certain SMID cap equity offerings, which were soft closed in the prior quarter. Open end fund sales of $3,000,000,000 were essentially unchanged with higher ETF sales offset by lower sales of U. S. Retail funds. For ETFs, sales of $500,000,000 increased 13% sequentially and were up significantly from $100,000,000 in the prior year period with particularly strong sales of our preferred stock, utilities and senior loan ETFs.

We continue to prioritize further availability of our ETFs through intermediaries. Global Fund sales of $275,000,000 were relatively unchanged sequentially and up 40% from the prior year period led by domestic equity strategies. Total net outflows of $4,800,000,000 compared with $1,700,000,000 last quarter and were in large part due to the partial institutional redemption, excluding which net outflows were 1,500,000,000 dollars Net flows continued to be positive in ETFs, global funds and retail separate accounts. Reviewing by product, institutional net outflows of 3,800,000,000 were largely due to the $3,300,000,000 lower fee partial redemption. Excluding that redemption, institutional net outflows were $500,000,000 which compared with $1,100,000,000 in the prior quarter.

By strategy within institutional, we had positive net flows in international equity and alternatives. As always, institutional flows will fluctuate depending on the timing of client actions. Retail separate accounts continue to generate positive net flows in both the intermediary sold channel and in our wealth management business totaling $100,000,000 in the quarter and with a full year organic growth rate of 3.9%. For open end funds, net outflows of $1,100,000,000 were at essentially the same level as the prior quarter with positive net flows in fixed income and SMID cap equity. Within open end funds, ETFs and global funds continued to generate double digit organic growth rates.

ETF positive net flows of $400,000,000 represented the highest quarterly level with an organic growth rate of 67%. Over the past year ETF AUM has doubled $3,100,000,000 with an organic growth rate of 84%. Global Fund net flows of $100,000,000 represented organic growth of 10% for the quarter and for the full year generated an organic growth rate of 9%. I would also note that for fixed income offerings in total, net flows continued to be positive in the quarter as well as for the full year. Turning to Slide 9, investment management fees as adjusted of 192,200,000 increased $6,700,000 or 4 percent reflecting the increase in average assets under management and a stable fee rate.

The average fee rate of 42 basis points was unchanged from 41.9 basis points in the prior quarter. Excluding performance fees, which totals $1,600,000 the average fee rate was 41.7 basis points, also essentially unchanged sequentially. Looking ahead, we believe an average fee rate in the range of 41 basis points to 42 basis points is reasonable for modeling purposes with performance fees of $3,000,000 to $5,000,000 per year incremental to that range. As always, the fee rate will be impacted by markets and the mix of assets. Slide 10 shows the 5 quarter trend in employment expenses.

Total employment expenses as adjusted of $104,300,000 increased 2% sequentially due to higher profit based variable incentive compensation and as a percentage of revenues they were 49.2%, down 80 basis points. Looking ahead, it would be reasonable to anticipate employment expenses to continue to be in a range of 49% to 51% of revenues. As always, it will be variable based on market performance in particular as well as profits and sales. For modeling purposes, the Q1 will also include seasonal employment expenses which are incremental to this outlook. Turning to Slide 11.

Other operating expenses as adjusted continued to be in a relatively stable range as we have offset increasing costs with expense management. For the quarter, other operating expenses were $31,000,000 up from $29,800,000 reflecting higher facility costs and a seasonal increase in distribution related travel activities. For the full year, other operating expenses declined modestly even with the 1st full year impact of an additional manager. As a percentage of 4th quarter revenues, other operating expenses were 14.6% essentially unchanged from the Q3 and down from 16.1% in the prior year period. Looking ahead, a quarterly range of $30,000,000 to $32,000,000 is reasonable for modeling purposes, all else being equal.

Slide 12 illustrates the trend in earnings. Operating income as adjusted of $74,500,000 increased $4,000,000 or 6% sequentially due to higher average assets under management. The operating margin as adjusted of 35.1% increased from 34.4% in the 3rd quarter with an incremental margin of 58%. On a full year basis, the operating margin increased 100 basis points over the prior year period. With respect to non operating items, interest and dividend income increased by $1,000,000 primarily reflecting higher CLO interest income.

For modeling purposes, the 4th quarter level of interest and dividend income is reasonable going forward. Interest expense declined by $800,000 reflecting a lower effective interest rate on our term loan. Non controlling interests, which reflect minority interest in one of our managers were lower sequentially by $500,000 primarily due to the increase in our ownership of the manager during the prior quarter. Net income as adjusted of $7.50 per diluted share increased 8% from $6.92 in the 3rd quarter. For the full year, diluted earnings per share increased 20%.

In terms of GAAP results, net income per share of $4.66 decreased from $5.71 per share in the 3rd quarter and included $0.72 of expense related to the increase in fair value of minority interests, $0.41 of realized and unrealized losses on investments, dollars 0.27 of CLO expenses and $0.17 of expense related to fair value adjustments of contingent consideration. Slide 13 shows the trend of our capital liquidity and select balance sheet items. Cash and equivalents increased sequentially to $265,900,000 from $195,500,000 at September 30. In addition, we had $140,000,000 of seed capital investments to support growth initiatives and $142,000,000 of other investments primarily in our managed CLOs. Working capital was 134,500,000 up 24% from $108,500,000 as cash generated more than offset return of capital to shareholders and debt repayment.

During the Q4, we repurchased 52,176 shares of common stock for $12,500,000 We also made a $5,700,000 payment on our term loan. At December 31, gross debt to EBITDA was 0.7 times and we ended the year in a net cash position of $29,800,000 We generated $88,000,000 of EBITDA in the 4th quarter, up 5% sequentially due to higher average AUM and up 14% from the prior year level. We have adequate levels of working capital and modest leverage, providing financial flexibility to continue to invest in the business, return capital and repay debt. In terms of cash balances, in the Q1 we will make our annual incentive payments, typically our highest cash usage of the year and we will also make the annual revenue participation payment, which we expect will be similar to last year’s level of 24,000,000 dollars The bulk of the remaining revenue participation obligation will be paid in the Q1 of next year. I would also note that our intangible assets continue to provide a cash tax benefit, which is not included in our earnings per share as adjusted.

The net present value of the tax asset is approximately $114,000,000 or $16 on a per share basis. And with that, let me turn the call back over to George. George? Thank you, Mike. So we will now take your questions.

D. V, can

George Elward, President and CEO, Virtus Investment Partners: you open up the lines, please?

Didi, Conference Operator: And our first question comes from Ben Budish of Barclays (LON:BARC). Your line is open.

Ben Budish, Analyst, Barclays: Hi, good morning and thanks for taking the question. Maybe just to kick it off, can you talk a little bit how you’re thinking about how the year may unfold? I know the last couple of years has been very strong S and P performance. I know you guys tend to say you tend to see things shake out a little bit better in your non correlated strategies when the markets are a little frothier. I know you indicated January, I think, flows looking similar to Q4.

Where do you see yourself as sort of best positioned for the year? You kind of gave us some color on ETFs, retail, SMAs, but maybe from a sort of strategic or asset class perspective, how are you thinking about the best opportunities in 2025?

George Elward, President and CEO, Virtus Investment Partners: Yes. No, it’s a great question. And predicting how 2025 is going to play out in the markets, as you know, it’s going to be quite a challenge. So I think as we’ve kind of looked through it, part of the purpose of our strategy is to have those diversified offerings. So whether there is an opportunity to go to certain of the risk assets in terms of equities, again, we have good offerings or if there’s searches for other income and fixed income strategies outside of cash, we have the fixed income.

So again, fundamentally, we want to be able to try to take advantage of whichever way that goes. What we’re currently seeing and we sort of referenced the continued positive flows in fixed income and I think that’s continuing on and right now all else being equal, we continue to see those as the opportunities where we’re having the most conversations and even seeing some mandates into some of the fixed income asset classes that were previously out of favor. So that could certainly be an interesting area where we’d love to see that emerge because we have some really interesting offerings. So it’s good to see the positive flows we’ve had in fixed income. It would be nice to see them broaden out and particularly in other areas such as the global funds as well as some of those institutional mandates.

So again, our goal is wherever the preferences are to make sure that we’re meeting demand and that’s really where we see a lot of the new product introductions is we’re really trying to introduce strategies into those structures that people are gravitating towards, which again leads you to the ETFs and for us the global funds and more of the institutional offerings and obviously seeing less of the demand for the traditional open end fund structure.

Ben Budish, Analyst, Barclays: Understood. And maybe just one follow-up. How are you thinking about use of capital this year? Clearly, we’ve seen a pretty fairly steady pace of stock repurchase. Your dividend increase has been quite robust.

The M and A question is sort of always out there. So I guess the things that are sort of like the known knowns, seed capital for new products, things like that and then any color on what may be in the M and A pipeline?

George Elward, President and CEO, Virtus Investment Partners: Yes. So on the whole capital, again, we’ll continue to since we generate a nice level of cash earnings and we currently have lower levels of leverage, we have the flexibility to continue to look at things like returning capital as well as to your point investing in the growth of the business, which really does really get down to the seed. Generally, we have been very good in terms of managing and recycling our seed, but as those opportunities for future products arise, that is one of the utilizations we would consider in terms of using some of the cash if we were to offer a product that needed seed for a period of time. But again, I do think we have the flexibility to manage all of those areas. And again, we’ve been I think we’ve shown that we believe fundamentally that return of capital is an important part of our strategy.

Going to the M and A, and it has been a period of time since our last transaction, I think as we’ve said before, we continue to be very active in terms of evaluating opportunities. We do think there are things that could be additive to our business. We generally look at M and A in terms of only those things which we believe have a high value strategically to enhance the value of the business. So we don’t we will not do M and A for the sake of doing M and A. We do think there are interesting opportunities out there and we’ll continue to evaluate those.

Ben Budish, Analyst, Barclays: Understood. Thanks so much for taking my questions.

George Elward, President and CEO, Virtus Investment Partners: Yes, you’re welcome. Thank you.

Didi, Conference Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Crispin Love of Piper Sandler. Your line is open.

Crispin Love, Analyst, Piper Sandler: Thank you. Good morning. I heard some of your comments on January flows to date on retail, ETFs and institutional. And I know it’s early in the quarter, but can you just put a finer point on your comments excluding the partial redemption in the 4th quarter, are flows better than January compared to the 4th quarter?

George Elward, President and CEO, Virtus Investment Partners: Yes. And again, as you stated, January is only 1 month and who knows how the rest the quarter will shape out. But yes, the retail funds are kind of looking very similar to what we’ve seen. We’re happy that the ETFs, which really had a strong quarter, are actually running ahead. Our ETFs, which were $3,100,000,000 at the end of the year, I believe as of yesterday, they were $3,400,000,000 So we’re happy that that has continued.

We hope it continues through the rest of the quarter. And then again, the trajectory that we’ve seen, we’ve continuously had generally positive flows in retail separate accounts, global funds that has not changed. And institutional, I think the indication we gave you is from what’s known, it’s modestly more outflows than inflows. So yes, that would be better obviously than the Q4. But a lot of the Q4 was that one part large partial redemption and I think it’s important to look at that as an isolated incident given the backdrop of that, which was really a multi manager product where they added a advisor and then had to reallocate from the other remaining advisors, which was one of them was ours.

Crispin Love, Analyst, Piper Sandler: Thanks, George. Appreciate that. On the $3,300,000,000 partial redemption institutional, it was partial. So can you provide how much is the whole relationship and your confidence that this is just a one time redemption here?

George Elward, President and CEO, Virtus Investment Partners: Well, I mean, it’s a big and it’s an important relationship. And again, as we indicated in our remarks, it was as a result of an additional manager into the existing multi manager. So we and all of the other managers therefore had reduced amounts of assets. We continue to view it as a good relationship where it’s been a significant grower of assets for us over the period of time. So I’m not reading anything into the reallocation to an additional manager into the future of that relationship.

It’s a really good relationship.

Crispin Love, Analyst, Piper Sandler: Thank you, George. I appreciate you taking my questions this morning.

Bradley Hayes, Analyst, TD Cowen: Yes. Thank you.

Didi, Conference Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Bradley Hayes of TD Cowen. Your line is open.

Bradley Hayes, Analyst, TD Cowen: Hi, good morning. It’s Bradley Hayes on for Bill Katz. Has there been any change around your thinking for tax reporting in particular? Is there potential to adjust your non GAAP EPS to incorporate the tax shield rather than displaying it separately? If so, what are some of the key considerations?

George Elward, President and CEO, Virtus Investment Partners: No, and that’s a really good question. And I think as you heard in our comments, Mike was again reminding people about those the tax attributes and we firmly believe there is economic value in those and that’s why we do try to make sure that we provide the transparency of what that value is in terms of the gross level and even if you wanted to think about it on a per share basis per se. And as we indicated, it is not currently something we adjust for in our non GAAP measures. We do periodically reevaluate our non GAAP measures. And I think we have 1 or 2 peers that may include that in their measure.

So we continue to evaluate that. Again, our goal is to make sure we provide our results and our operations in the best way we can to make it as transparent and clear. And again, that is something that has true economic value to shareholders. So we will continue to at a minimum to highlight that and point that out. Mike, do you think?

Mike Angertal, Chief Financial Officer, Virtus Investment Partners: I think as George indicated, we did and have in the past disclosed a value ascribed to the tax assets, which is important given its benefit on a cash flow generation perspective. I think anytime you evaluate the non GAAP and as George alluded to, there’s some divergence in practice, but any adjustments that come across to GAAP versus non GAAP, you want to make sure that there’s transparency in that and that adjustments are appropriate. So we’ll continue to evaluate it. But at this point, it’s just reiterating that the value is there and that we’re that investors are well aware of that element of value in the stock. I’d appreciate that.

Bradley Hayes, Analyst, TD Cowen: Okay, great. Thank you. And then one follow-up, following on a prior question, could you perhaps dig in a bit more on the M and A side, particularly for illiquid alts? Generally speaking, what are you seeing in the markets in terms of deal opportunities and multiple expectations and where that may differ?

George Elward, President and CEO, Virtus Investment Partners: Yes. In terms of the kinds of areas that are interesting and I think as we’ve previously kind of indicated, we have a really good collection of traditional public market managers in terms of equity and fixed income and we continue to believe that clients will benefit from access to more of the private market capabilities. So that is an area that we believe is very good fit for us in terms of bringing those types of capabilities and strategies to market. Obviously, that is very similar to others in the industry who are all interested in looking for ways to optimize that. So that continues to be a high area of interest.

And again, some of those capabilities in terms of multiples, the valuations that people attribute to some of the traditional long only strategies are lower than the multiples that are currently being attributed to some of those private market strategies. So again, as we evaluate our opportunities, we think through that and ultimately with the goal of enhancing our own long term valuation and our own trading multiple.

Bradley Hayes, Analyst, TD Cowen: Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you.

Didi, Conference Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Annalee Davis of Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS). Your line is open.

George Elward, President and CEO, Virtus Investment Partners: Hello.

Didi, Conference Operator: Annalee, your line is open.

Mike Cyprys, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Hey, it’s Mike Cyprys, Morgan Stanley. Can you guys hear me okay?

Didi, Conference Operator: We can hear you now.

George Elward, President and CEO, Virtus Investment Partners: Yes, we can.

Mike Cyprys, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Great. Thank you so much. Just a question on M and A. Just curious how much time you guys are spending on that now versus say 3 to 6 months ago? And maybe you can give a little perspective on the pipeline, what that looks like?

How you’re thinking about acquisitions versus partnership versus JVs? Where you think these strategic opportunities might be most additive to the platform? And as you think about the financial flexibility, you guys are under one turn of gross leverage. How comfortable would you be taking that above two turns or said another way, how high would you be comfortable taking that in a hypothetical transaction?

George Elward, President and CEO, Virtus Investment Partners: Great. No. And you had a bunch in there. So I’m going to try to hit each of those and please circle back if I miss an element of that. In terms of how active we’ve been, which is kind of interesting and I think I did comment it’s been a while since we’ve actually closed and announced the transaction.

But I would say we have been just as active in terms of conversations and evaluations as we have ever been. And in fact, some ways maybe even slightly more. I think like everyone, we’re being very thoughtful in how we consider what types of transactions we want to do, particularly for those that might be related to leveraging private market types of capabilities. Again, I think there’s been a lot of that activity. Some of it has been successful.

Some of it has been less successful. So we do want to make sure we approach it in a way that makes sense. In terms of how we look at that, as we’ve always said is we’re flexible in our approach to partnering. Our goal will be to find the right partner. And if that right partner is the transaction structure is an acquisition of a majority or minority or whether it’s a JV, we evaluate all of those different types of structures because in some cases the best relationship structure for the best offering maybe more of a JV or minority as opposed to a majority interest, particularly with some of the types of capabilities that you see out in the private markets.

So I think we keep ourselves flexible to that. And in terms of our current levels of leverage, again, we’ve managed our balance sheet specifically to not only protect the business, but to give us that flexibility when those opportunities come. And I think currently right now our churn we’re below 1 and we have net cash at this point. For the right as we evaluate a transaction, we would look at it in terms of what is the long term value that it creates And generally, that would mean that there could be at the initiation of a transaction being at the higher end of a leverage multiple, which again, I don’t think we’ve been at probably for 5 or 6 years or even more than that. Did I get all your points?

Mike Cyprys, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: You did. And I would just ask a follow-up if I could on that. Just curious as you think about a sense of likelihood for something to materialize over the next 12 months. And if so, as you think about that, where do you feel more confident on that materializing?

George Elward, President and CEO, Virtus Investment Partners: Yes, I can’t give any indication of that. Again, like a lot of people, there’s lots of conversations going on. There’s lots of opportunities. A lot of people are having those conversations. Many of them will get generally won’t go anywhere or they’ll materialize.

So yes, I’m not giving any specifics around my expectations of when we’ll have something again. We’ll only consider doing a transaction if we include that one is the right thing and the right fit for us and the right way to create shareholder value.

Mike Cyprys, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Understood. So I’ll maybe ask a different follow-up instead since we didn’t answer that one. Just given broader advances in data science and AI, I was hoping maybe you could talk a little bit about how you’re investing in technology to enhance the investment engines across the organization and support Alpha Generation. How do you see that evolving in the near term versus the long term and as a sort of multi affiliate boutique firm, how do you sort of best harness that? Is it some sort of shared services at the center?

Or do you think about it at each and every individual franchise sort of going about it in their own unique manner?

George Elward, President and CEO, Virtus Investment Partners: Well, on the first part, again, I think there are potentially incredible opportunities utilizing some of these technologies that have developed. And I think like a lot of people, we’re being very thoughtful in terms of how we evaluate and do research in that area. And each of our managers is a little different. So getting to the second part of your question, we generally we provide from an infrastructure standpoint a lot of the information technology capabilities and tools and assets, but each of the managers manages their strategies in different ways. So we do currently have managers that are utilizing very sophisticated types of quantitative and strategies that are in that range.

So each of the managers may employ them in a slightly different way and several of them are currently doing some evaluations of different things. But before we introduce anything into an investment process, obviously as you would expect, we’re going to want to make sure that there’s been a lot of thought and work put behind that. But each of them could be applied slightly differently depending upon the nature of our of a specific manager or strategy.

Bradley Hayes, Analyst, TD Cowen: Okay, thanks.

George Elward, President and CEO, Virtus Investment Partners: Okay, thank you.

Didi, Conference Operator: Thank you. This concludes our question and answer session. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Aylward.

George Elward, President and CEO, Virtus Investment Partners: Thank you, Didi. And I want to thank everyone for joining us today and obviously certainly encourage you to reach out if you have any further questions. Thank you.

Didi, Conference Operator: That concludes today’s call. Thank you for participating and you may now disconnect.

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