Good morning. My name is Lucy, and I will be your conference facilitator today. Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Janus Henderson Group First Quarter 2025 Results Briefing. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will 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 10-K and other more recent filings made with the SEC. Janus Henderson assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements made during the call. Thank you. Now it is my pleasure to introduce Ali Dibadj, Chief Executive Officer of Janus Henderson. Mr. Dibadj you may begin your conference.

Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us today on Janus Henderson's first quarter 2025 earnings call. I'm Ali Dibadj. 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 quarterly results in more detail. After Roger's comments, I'll provide an update on our strategic progress, including our recently announced multifaceted strategic partnership with the Guardian Life Insurance Company, which we are excited about and believe will deliver value for our clients and shareholders and Guardian and its policyholders. And then we'll take your questions following those prepared remarks. Turning to Slide 2. Market conditions continue to be tumultuous as changing monetary and fiscal policies, US recession fears and global trade uncertainty dampen investor sentiment. While Janus Henderson is not immune to the current market conditions, we believe we can navigate this period of market uncertainty given our truly global footprint. We have a diverse and global client base, which we are proactively engaging and supporting. It's during challenging times like these, our clients and their clients need our differentiated insights, investment discipline and world-class service the most. Turning to the first quarter, even amidst these significant market challenges, we were resilient and able to deliver a good set of results. Assets under management decreased only 1% to $373.2 billion as market declines were partially offset by $2 billion of positive net flows and favorable currency adjustments due to a weakening US dollar. We delivered our fourth consecutive quarter of positive net flows. The net inflow results reflect a 44% increase in year-over-year gross sales, positive net flows again in both of our intermediary and institutional channels, and we continue to maintain and capture market share in several key intermediary markets. As we…

Thanks, Ali, and thank you everyone for joining us on today's call. Starting on Slide 3, an investment performance. As Ali mentioned, despite some short-term volatility, our medium and long-term investment performance versus benchmark remained solid with at least 65% of AUM beating their respective benchmarks over the three, five and 10-year time periods. Overall investment compared to peers continues to be competitively strong with at least 70% of AUM in the top 2 Morningstar quartiles over all-time periods presented. Active management in portfolios is essential during times of disruption, times such as these and our over 350 investment professionals are intensely focused on differentiating between the good and the bad companies, separating the wheat from the chaffs and positioning us to deliver the best possible investment outcomes for our clients and their clients over the long-term. Slide 4 shows total company flows by quarter. Net inflows for the quarter were $2 billion compared to net inflows of $3.3 billion last quarter and a significant improvement over net outflows of $3 billion a year-ago. The year-over-year improvement was primarily driven by a 44% increase in gross sales and marked the best quarterly gross sales result in over four years. The increase in gross sales compared to the prior year is across a broad range of regions and strategies, including ETFs, absolute return on equity, our biotech hedge fund, US mid-cap growth, balanced global small-cap, multi-sector credit and asset-backed securities. Turning to Slide 5 and flows by client type. Please note that beginning in 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. This…

Thanks, Roger. Turning to Slide 11, and a reminder of our three strategic pillars of protect and 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 US intermediary business and the progress we've made in capturing market share. Within amplify, we've talked about our institutional business, our product development and expansion efforts, the acquisition of Tabula, and the partnership with Anemoy and Centrifuge. We also recently announced our partnership with Guardian Life, which I'll discuss in more detail later in the presentation. Under diversify, we expanded into differentiated private market capabilities for clients with the acquisitions of NBK Capital Partners and Victory Park Capital, and we established our joint venture Privacore focused on the democratization of alternatives. We've spoken about M&A quite a bit. So how does M&A and partnerships fit into our strategy? Recall that for us at least, M&A is a lever to deliver all three elements of our strategy and not a strategy unto itself. On Slide 12, we outline how M&A and strategic partnerships are contributing to our strategic vision, not yet to Protect & Grow, but so far to Amplify and Diversify the business. We followed a targeted approach. We won't be all things to all people, but have placed measured bets on growth vectors that have the potential for significantly higher growth rates over the long term compared to our existing business. As I said previously, we want to skate to where the puck is going on behalf of clients and shareholders, and we…

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Ken Worthington of JPMorgan. Ken, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. Maybe first, I wanted to dig into CLO ETF capacity. Given the size of money coming in over a short period and the risk that in poor market conditions, money might be possibly flowing out as quickly, how are you thinking about the ETF franchise's ability to navigate CEO liquidity, particularly in times of stress? And are there any lessons maybe you've learned in April that sort of confirm or alter your views on the build out of this product suite?

Hey, Ken. Thanks for the question. So we've been quite fortunate with the CLO franchises that we've created, obviously in ETF form preferentially for clients. In fact, year-to-date flows are positive $3 billion, which is more than peers combined. So effectively, we are the category. We're about 80% of the market share in this category and we've created this category. So effectively, we are the market. And what we've seen mostly is that investors in this ETF and the franchises that we brought on board even on ETF are medium to long-term type investors. Sometimes that does mean some investors have taken it from a shorter-term perspective, and that's where you get the uncertainty in the marketplace create the volatility that you're exactly asking about. We were watching this very, very closely, as you can imagine. And what we've seen consistently, particularly in a quite volatile time in the early couple of weeks of April, since then it's been pretty stable, but in the early couple of weeks of April, that the redemptions have been absorbed completely as expected, very little impact on the CLO market, on the portfolio. Again, these are underlyingly quite liquid. There's an in-kind element, obviously, given the ETF piece to it as well. So we've seen no dislocations, no surprises. In fact, we are quite pleased with how the market reacted in a very measured and disciplined manner, again, exactly as we'd expected even given our size.

Okay. Perfect. Thank you for that. And then just maybe quickly on the institutional channel, second consecutive quarter of positive flows. That part of the franchise continues to perform better. Can you talk about next steps in terms of where you're going to drive better results from here going forward? What's sort of next in the pecking order priorities to continue to drive even better results as we look forward?

On institutional specifically, Ken?

Institutional specifically.

Yeah. So, look, you're right, it's now a couple of consecutive quarters of positive flows. You've seen some in the past, but we're starting to get a little bit more steady in that way. And the pipeline is building. Set aside the one not funded $45 billion from Guardian, that's obviously a big pipeline win that we're very proud about, but if you think about some of the leading indicators, for example, in the US, we're seeing an RFP activity that's up about 100% quarter-on-quarter or I should say Q1 '24 to Q1 '25. We've gotten more and more consultant support across the board. In fact, we had a very big firm watch flag that was on us for many years, removed from us just this past quarter, which opens up, as you'd imagine, many more doors globally. We're continuing to see opportunities up and being in kind of late-stage opportunities and finals and all this sort of stuff in the kind of 20% to 30% range year-on-year again in the US. And EMEA and the rest of the world is the same thing. There we're seeing opportunities increase by around 60%. So things are, as we've said, it would take some time, but playing out as planned as we'd expected. And part of that is not just because of the products that we're certainly bringing to bear already, but also some of the new products we brought to bear, whether it be emerging market debt or NBK or Victory Park Capital or things like that we can do with Guardian. So we are seeing a broad-based interest with the products that we already have and we've had for quite some time. We're seeing a lot of interest in some, what we'd call them, immutable thematics like tech and healthcare and smaller cap equities where there's opportunities and absolute return equities and high-conviction equities in Europe. We've recently seen a lot more interest and investments, I think, given all the headlines around investing in Europe. And gladly, we are a truly global firm and can offer great European investments and global investments. Multi-asset is coming up on the radar screen, securitize obviously. Our balanced fund is showing some progress because people want the balance of fixed income and the yield of fixed income with the upside potential of equities. So I don't want to give you a big laundry list, I kind of did, but it's a broad gamut of areas where people are really looking to us uninstitutional and the consultant environment is becoming much more benign towards us as well.

That's excellent. Thank you so much.

Our next question comes from Bill Katz of TD Cowen. Bill, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Great. Thank you very much. Good morning and congrats again on the Guardian transaction. Maybe starting there, it seems like a very intriguing deal on a lot of vectors from my perspective. Can you talk a little bit about where you see the greatest opportunity for incremental growth maybe just with the Guardian itself? I think you mentioned that business has grown about 7% annually, but also in terms of their incremental distribution platform, what kind of products might you see the early opportunities for wins? Thank you.

Hey, Bill. Thanks very much for the question on Guardian. As you can probably tell, we're pretty energized about this partnership, and it starts with really sharing the same client-focused values, policyholder values, really sharing complementary strengths, and I'll get to some of that on distribution side for sure, and a very important realignment for mutual growth from an economics perspective. We think we can certainly enhance Guardian's both investment in solutions capabilities and benefiting its policyholders and its clients. We're very pleased that this partnership ends up developing a $100 billion global insurance asset manager like us. That's the number for us. That puts us into the top 15 realm. And we think that there is, point number one, really great growth potential to amplify some of the insurance relationships that we can have with others. Indeed, we've had several phone calls and outreaches from other insurance companies really intrigued by this deal, want to learn more about this deal and trying to understand why the -- some of the most sophisticated assets in the world trust us and want to come to us and we think that's -- we're becoming a true global contender to get more insurance assets to your growth question. And we think we can amplify that. Still in the amplify realm, not only in insurance, but beyond that, we think we have the opportunity to, again, bring to bear the winning opportunity of getting these great assets with other institutional clients as well. And again, there too, we're getting some more intriguing phone calls and outreaches about what other partnerships we can create. We clearly have the seed opportunity of $400 million that we can bring to bear. And I think we've -- the team here has shown a track record of growing products.…

Great. Thank you. And then just as a follow-up, I think you mentioned a couple of times in the commentary just around the pipeline for M&A. Can you talk a little bit about where incrementally you might be interested on -- interested in, excuse me? And then as you think about maybe the expectation between the bid and the ask, where does that sit, particularly after such a turbulent year-to-date market backdrop? Thank you.

Thanks for the question. It's a very, very active M&A environment right now. We will, as always and as you've seen, as -- and I think Page 12 of our presentation, that kind of additional page, would support the view that we're always going to be client-led. We're always going to be market-led. And so we continue to look at opportunities to buy, build or partner across the board. Our balance sheet and cash flow allows us to be a safe harbor, I guess, in these tumultuous times. There is significant interest out there in speaking with us. I wouldn't say, Bill, that on the valuation point, there is capitulation in any sort, but there's certainly curiosity given the volatility in the marketplace and joining forces with a firm that has shown a pretty steady not just revenue growth, but organic revenue growth, pretty steady execution on its strategy, pretty steady growth of businesses that we brought on board already and want to continue to do that. But we'll continue to be very disciplined on that front across-the-board. But we see a lot of activity out there, I think you're right. And I would say that the bid-ask spread has come down a little bit, but I'm not sure you're capitulating yet and some of our peers.

Thank you for taking the questions.

Thank you. Our next question is from Craig Siegenthaler of Bank of America. Craig, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Good morning, Ali. Hope everyone is doing well, and congrats on the Guardian Life [IAM] (ph) agreement signing. We actually have a follow-up to Bill's question. And I heard your comments on the $45 billion AUM and the net 5 basis point to 6 basis point management fee rate. But my question is on the organic growth rate. What do you see as the flow trajectory on this $45 billion AUM base going forward? Or should we essentially assume it's sort of stable at $45 billion at the 5 basis point to 6 basis point fee rate?

So Guardian had a great growth trajectory historically. One of the reasons that we partnered with them is the like-mindedness about continuing to grow. We certainly would expect and hope and continue to see growth in that $45 billion given they're such a successful company, and we're both aligned with growing that business.

Thanks, Ali. And just for a follow-up, when we take a step back and look at the entire $100 billion plus AUM insurance client business, there's lots of partnerships now formed between insurance companies and asset managers, especially the annuity business. Is there a lot more AUM up for grabs or is most of it tied-up now either with third-party asset managers or internal CIU divisions where they're really not looking for a partner?

There's plenty of room out there actually. And look, I want to underline the obvious here perhaps is that this partnership with Guardian was hard fought, and it does suggest that we are a great home for the most sophisticated assets in the world. And really true global contender relative to a lot of others who were buying for those assets. Again, we're number 15 now in the world with the real aspiration, Craig, to your question, to continue to garner assets from the insurance clients. That is a growing client base and a growing asset-base as a category. So again, as Page 12 would suggest, we expect growth not only organically, but for us inorganically there. And there are many more opportunities in the insurance world globally, remember for us. If you think about it, $45 billion is half that $100 billion roughly. There's another $55 billion elsewhere in the world that we also think has opportunity. So we think there's quite a lot of opportunity out there, and partnering with a similar culture with a growth trajectory and with the services and investment skill-sets and client service that we bring to bear to insurance clients, we see enormous opportunity there to continue to grow that business.

Thanks, Ali.

[Operator Instructions] We have a question from Michael Cyprys of Morgan Stanley. Michael, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey, this is Annalei Davis on for Mike. You guys talked a little bit about the setup for asset management in 2025. Just curious if you could talk a little bit more about how you see the opportunity set just given continued uncertainty. And also what steps you guys taking to help your investment teams best capture this? Thanks.

Annalei, thanks for the question. So let me maybe divide it into two buckets. Talking about the current environment and talking about the kind of what we're hearing from clients in that context. Look, clearly, there's a dislocation in the marketplace. It happened all of a sudden, it happened quite quickly. It certainly feels like it's stabilizing now. We don't really ever know, but it feels like it's stabilizing now. And certainly a dislocation may impact some of the short-term flows and investment performance, and certainly I'll get to that in a second, but also really importantly, particularly for us, offers real great opportunities. We are an active investing shop. We have 350 investors around the world who spent all of their time, as Roger said in the prepared remarks, separating wheat from chaff, finding the good company for the bad company. And now more than ever, our clients need that help, need that help to not just assume an index is going to drive everything, particularly if it's focused on seven stocks that are lagging a little bit. And our clients need that help to figure out geographically where they can distribute their AUM. And that is perfectly falling in our lap. Again, not just with the 350 investors we have around the world, but with the roughly 600 marketing and client service people we have around the world who support that client base. So candidly, dislocation in the short-term might cause pause for some others for us across the floors, across our offices around the world, we see enormous opportunity to serve clients better given who we are and what we do. Again, an active asset management shop with great client service and a focus on delivering together for our clients. Now from -- the second part of…

Yeah, that's perfect. Thanks so much. That's all from me.

Thank you. Our next question is from John Dunn of Evercore ISI. John, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Could you maybe talk a little bit about the geographic -- looking across regions, the kind of a little color on the different demand, flow demands regionally in the intermediary channel and then separately in the institutional channel?

Sure. Just in terms of what products people are looking for?

The products, but also just like the temperature of kind of demand. Any differences between the regions?

Yeah. So look, we've seen similar concern in the intermediary channels in particular. Again, that's not atypical. That's quite unfortunately for the end client, it is something that often happens when there is a gyration in the market, people seem to kind of freeze and pull money out. I think that certainly happened in the first half of April. Again, things seem to stabilized right now. But I'd say that was broad-based, certainly in EMEA, UK and the US. I think Asia still continued to be quite strong and Latin America still continues to be quite strong. So our folks have perhaps a little bit more of a longer-term growth-oriented view of intermediary channels seemed fine there. Institutional is typical. It's a little bit more stable. It's a little more longer-term focused across the board. We've seen a little bit more stability there and not a lot of gyration in that market, John.

Great. Thank you very much.

We currently have no further questions. So, I'll hand back to Ali Dibadj for closing remarks.

Thanks, Lucy. Thanks everyone for listening, including our clients, of course, our shareholders, and very importantly, our employees and my colleagues at Janus Henderson who hopefully feel that they're individually and collectively, across all departments, improving the firm. The firm is clearly living its vision of investing in a brighter future together. And I thank my colleagues for their hard work and hopefully continued success. Thanks, everybody.

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