Earnings Labs

LPL Financial Holdings Inc. (LPLA)

Q1 2020 Earnings Call· Thu, Apr 30, 2020

$334.86

+1.35%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

+2.92%

1 Week

+7.51%

1 Month

+25.27%

vs S&P

+19.22%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon and thank you for joining the First Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call for LPL Financial Holdings Inc. Joining the call today are our President and Chief Executive Officer, Dan Arnold and Chief Financial Officer, Matt Audette. Dan and Matt will offer introductory remarks and then the call will be opened for questions. The company will appreciate if analysts would limit themselves to one question and one follow-up each. The company has posted its earnings press release and supplementary information on the Investor Relations section of the company's website investor.lpl.com. Today's call will include forward-looking statements, including statements about LPL Financial's future financial and operating results, outlook, business strategy and plans, as well as other opportunities and potential risks that management foresees. Such forward-looking statements reflect management's current estimates or beliefs and are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results or the timing of events to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such forward looking statements. The company refers listeners to the disclosures set forth under the caption Forward-Looking Statements in the earnings press release as well as the risk factors and other disclosures contained in the company's recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for information about such risk and uncertainties. During the call, the company will also discuss non-GAAP financial measures. For a reconciliation of such non-GAAP financial measures to the comparable GAAP figures, please refer to the company's earnings release, which can be found at investor.lpl.com. With that, I will now turn the call over to Mr. Arnold.

Dan Arnold

Management

Thank you, Josh and thanks to everyone for joining our call. Over the past quarter, the COVID-19 virus has altered both the economy and our daily lives. Given this, I first want to thank our employees for their remarkable hard work and commitment to supporting our advisors over the past few months. And I also want to thank our advisors for continuing to provide financial guidance to millions of Americans at a time when it is needed most. More broadly, after executing on our strategy over the past several years, we have built an organization that not only performs well in good environments, but also excels in challenging times to provide strength for advisors and their clients. As we look ahead, we envision an even greater number of advisors and their clients seeking not only advice, but also the capabilities and stability LPL can provide. We are well positioned to meet this growing need and increase our market leadership. In that spirit, today I'm going to focus our discussion on three areas; first, our position and momentum entering this climate; second, how we are executing our COVID-19 contingency plans and finally, how we are driving the business forward from here. Now, over the past several years with a focus on serving our advisors and their clients, we have built a robust and resilient operating platform, innovated on differentiated capabilities and enhanced our service experience. At the same time, we increased our balance sheet capacity and stability, which positions us to continue investing in a broad range of macro environments. This combination of business and financial strength has made our model more appealing in the marketplace and lead to positive momentum and higher levels of growth. We saw all of this reflected in our first quarter results. Organic growth continued to…

Matt Audette

Management

Alright, thank you, Dan and I'm glad to speak with everyone on today's call. Before I review our first quarter results, I'd like to highlight some of our progress over the past few years to enhance both our business and financial strength. We invested in capabilities, technology and service with a focus on improving the support and experience of our advisors and their clients. These investments are some of the key factors that led to our record growth in more than doubling of our EBITDA to over 1 billion last year. Additionally, our growth combined with disciplined expense management increased our operating margins from the low 30% range to nearly 50%. During the same period, we increase the stability and flexibility of our balance sheet through several debt refinancings, which resulted in lower interest expense, greater corporate liquidity, and longer term maturities, all while cutting our leverage ratio nearly in half. And perhaps most important of all, these steps positioned us to have an unwavering focus on supporting our advisors and their clients, which in turn, drove the highest level of organic growth in our history. And as we look ahead, while taking into account the impact of COVID-19 on the environment, we are even better positioned to drive long-term growth. With that, let's now turn to our first quarter results. At a high level, our Q1 results are another example of the resiliency of our business and financial model during volatile times. The combination of strong organic growth, natural hedges from client cash balances and trading and discipline expense management lead to EPS prior to intangibles of $2.06. This was up 7% from a year ago, and is the highest result in our history. Looking at our business results, we finished Q1 with total brokerage and advisory assets of…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Steven Chubak with Wolfe Research. You may proceed with your question.

Steven Chubak

Analyst

Hey, good afternoon. So Matt, I wanted to start off with just a question on the ICA. Now really appreciate the enhanced disclosure on Slide 16 including the maturity schedule for the ICA contracts. Now this quarter to be unique although I would say that there was a broader industry trend and then you saw material uplift in cash and given cash has remained elevated in April, as you noted, and just some of the pressures of the long end. You still have your same 50% to 75% fixed target, but what's your appetite to deploy some of those floating balances today into fixed rate just given some of the pressures on the curve?

Matt Audette

Management

Yeah, so I think there's a few factors at play there. I mean, I think first with our approach to long-term. I think our target of 50% to 75%, overtime, still holds and still makes sense. I think the key here is really about reducing our sensitivity to short-term movements and interest rates. And while we're subject of course to the interest rate environment, having that flow through our financials over a much longer period of time, I think helps us focus on our advisors what makes most sense for them from an investment standpoint. I think when you look at the market today, Steve and I'm with – to your point on the amount of cash that is on balance sheets right now. Things are much, much different than for an understatement of the call I suspect than just a few months ago with short-term rates zero and the 10 year to your point at about 50 basis points. And I think that combined with the amount of cash that's out there I think that just the demand in market for fixed rate contracts now, I think is pretty light. There's some demand in the kind of the short end of the fixed rate part of the curve, meaning in the one to two years zone, so that I think there might be tactical opportunities there. But I think broadly we're – for right now we're focused on really putting those balances more in floating contracts, but contracts with a spread. And on the – and I'm sure you saw it on the disclosure that you referred to it towards the end of the quarter, we put in place another $5 billion variable contract at a spread in the 20 to 25 basis point range, versus the kind of those overflow contracts that are kind of flat. So hopefully, that gives you a little bit of color about the environment right now, but I think the long-term strategy is really unchanged.

Steven Chubak

Analyst

Now thanks for that color Matt and maybe just switching over to question for Dan. I was hoping then that you could provide us with some updated thoughts or color on the M&A backdrop. You recently executed a deal. At the same time, we're also hearing just across the industry that a lot of the private players that employ much more leverage are feeling just increasing levels of stress and I was hoping you can give some context as to what – how the M&A opportunity is evolving for maybe some more transformational deals, and also how the perception of weaker balance sheets of your competitors is maybe enhancing your ability to recruit given some of the strong numbers that you saw in April.

Dan Arnold

Management

Yeah, Steven, so there's a lot there. If I don't hit it all on the first try. You can just redirect me, but let's start with the M&A piece perhaps and I'll start from the strategic place, which is as you guys know, M&A continues to stay on our strategic radar. As a reminder first priority is the use of our capital to drive organic growth and then we use M&A as a complement. One of those opportunities we do see is with M&A across the small BDs and RIA segment of the marketplace. As you said, the Lucia transaction is a great example of that opportunity where we can create value for both the principals and advisors of those practice as we transition their business onto our platform. So we do continue to see an opportunity there. In environments like this we're coming out of them, we would anticipate based on what history would tell us is that there would be demand and opportunity for continued consolidation within that segment of the marketplace. And so, as we said in our remarks, we continue to look at that segment of the marketplace for opportunity. I think with respect to the broader question you asked around transformational opportunities. I think that again, history would tell us that in times like this, where you've got a tougher macro conditions that potentially disrupt the overall economic drivers of firms. Yeah, add to that, perhaps leverage that they have, on their balance sheet creates tough conditions to have the capacity to continue to invest and thus drive those businesses in a meaningful way forward generating organic types of growth. And so I think we believe that with that as a backdrop, you will begin to see some potential conversations and dialogues about strategic pivots…

Steven Chubak

Analyst

Well, that's great Dan and thanks for indulging my three part follow up if you will.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Alex Blostein with Goldman Sachs. You may proceed with your question.

Alex Blostein

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. You may proceed with your question.

Hey guys, how are you. First question just around, I guess, organic growth. So in the past, we've seen a slowdown in net new asset growth during periods of market volatility. Obviously, your net new assets in March were really strong and comments about April also point to a much different – much more different picture than what we've seen in the past. I guess can you talk about sustainability of that growth, ability to convert the robust pipeline that you talked about into net new assets over the coming months and quarters. And I guess to what extent do you see your investments in tech and digital solutions as kind of a key differentiating factor at times of social distancing.

Dan Arnold

Management

Yeah, so it's a great question Alex. Let me take a stab at that. And again you're welcome to ask a follow on if I don't cover all of that. I think the – with respect to sustaining that type of NNA growth, I think that is certainly our aspiration and one of our primary areas of focus. And I think coming into the quarter, we had a good trajectory on that organic growth. And in Q1, we continued that trend. So that's certainly a nice jumping off point. I think as you look forward, we believe that capacity to invest, the investments we've made over the past three years, give us a real strong positioning from a competitive appeal, as we talked about. And again, our ability to continue to invest we think will continue to extend that differentiation and that competitive advantage. I think, you also then match that with the resiliency of our platform and the ability we've had to serve and support our advisors through what is a challenging and tough environment and you take that baseline, you add that to it, you add the ability to invest in it. And again, that combination creates an interesting opportunity for us as we think about sustaining that organic growth, both across new store sales, but also across same store sales and retention. And so I think we're pretty encouraged when we look at that package of options, alternatives and levers that we can continue to drive that that trajectory and trend with respect to our NNA over time. So short answer is, yeah, we feel pretty good about our continued focus on sustaining that and our competitive advantages, options, alternatives and tools in order to do that.

Alex Blostein

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. You may proceed with your question.

Thanks for that.

Dan Arnold

Management

Yeah, you had a second part. I don't think I got you.

Alex Blostein

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. You may proceed with your question.

No, I think you covered it pretty well. I think my second question was for Matt, also around ICA. I guess it was just hoping to get a little bit more color around, if there's any opportunity to expand the variable contract capacity to accommodate some of those overflow balances in order to pick up the 20 to 30 basis points spread.

Matt Audette

Management

Sure, I mean, I think if you just look at the additional disclosure we put in for the quarter, I think we've got most of them in there with a contract that we put in place at the end of this quarter of around 5 billion. So you've now got just under 3 billion in the overflow balances and I think that of course, we'll always look for opportunities. But I think over the long-term here, those balances are probably not going to be in cash for an extended period of time. So I think we feel pretty good between the fixed portfolio and the increase of the variable capacity by 5 billion this quarter. Again, there'll be tactical things that we're working on I think might improve that a little bit from here, but I think the bulk of it, we were happy to get done at the end of March.

Alex Blostein

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. You may proceed with your question.

Great, thanks very much.

Matt Audette

Management

You bet.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Craig Siegenthaler with Credit Suisse. You may proceed with your question.

Craig Siegenthaler

Analyst · Credit Suisse. You may proceed with your question.

Thanks. Good evening everyone and hope you're all staying healthy. I had a gal to Alex's first question on the impressive April credit assets. How are you actively recruiting new advisors without the ability to hold in person meetings? And it sounds like your business can survive pretty much using Zoom and Skype, probably better than your competitors.

Dan Arnold

Management

Yeah, well, I'll speak for us. Look, we obviously make a big investment in recruiting and see it as a nice lever of organic growth. And if you look at over the last year, we've recruited 36 billion in assets and we feel good about the progress that we're making there in that ongoing trajectory. There's a couple of key drivers to that. It's certainly continuing to invest in the model and creating differentiated capabilities that create that competitive appeal that I talked about earlier. We feel good about that continued trend and the opportunity with some of the new capabilities we're delivering to continue to create a distinction there. And I think the second part is the efficacy of our business development team and their ability to continue to take what is a competitive differentiated solution and go effectively take that to the marketplace. And as you said, I think in the midst of March where – or I guess, the full force of the pandemic hit, it was quite disruptive to the typical and traditional recruiting processes that many of them were done in person. And I think some of the work that we had done to automate and digitize a lot of the processes in the past were certainly the leverage points. But I think that that team's ability to really pull off and explore what were the options and alternatives and it'd be quite agile about different ways to solve where you couldn't travel or you couldn't have a home office visit or you couldn't go visit an office and bring them on board and help them transition into the platform. Then we created digitized tools to overcome those things so that we could continue our activities. And though, as we said March had an impact in terms of the overall recruiting. We did see some deals get pushed back into second quarter because of some of that complexity. We were able to mitigate some of those challenges with these digitized capabilities, and we'll continue to leverage them going forward. And they accentuate our opportunity set in April as we're seeing in some cases where we use a digitized means to onboard someone, creating a faster ramp up in assets than we've seen traditionally. So there's some cool possibilities there that we'll continue to work on, we'll refine, we still have things to learn. But it's all in the spirit of continuously getting better.

Craig Siegenthaler

Analyst · Credit Suisse. You may proceed with your question.

If we split that strong March net new asset number into same store sales and new store sales contribution, do you know the rough mix and was there any change in composition in March versus what you saw in January and February?

Dan Arnold

Management

Yeah, maybe I'll take a stab at that first. And I'll let Matt give you some additional color. I think if you if you look, interestingly at the trends, you would have seen some stronger new store sales at the beginning of the quarter, that had some impact in March as the pandemic sort of took and created a bigger impact. I think, contrary to that same store sales actually strengthened through the quarter as the value proposition of these advisors providing insight and perspective both when the engagement was good beginning of the quarter, but the sentiment was positive, as well as in March where sentiment had completely changed, but again the engagement was still strong as there was a lot to help clients with in terms of how they think about their financial futures and their life goals and dreams. And so, we actually saw same store sales build throughout the quarter. Do you want to put a higher capstone on that?

Matt Audette

Management

No, I was going to say same thing. So you summarized it well.

Craig Siegenthaler

Analyst · Credit Suisse. You may proceed with your question.

Great, thank you, guys.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Bill Katz with Citigroup. You may proceed with your question.

Bill Katz

Analyst · Citigroup. You may proceed with your question.

Okay, thank you very much and appreciate the extra disclosure, super helpful, but was doing okay. Maybe Dan, one for you perhaps just structurally and maybe it's too soon. You and your peers have seen just a tremendous spike in cash and like others you're sort of seeing a relatively steady state in April, despite the markets bouncing back. Do you think we've reached some kind of point where cash becomes a higher percentage of client assets all else being equal? What's your sense in your conversations in the field?

Dan Arnold

Management

Yeah, it's a really great question Bill. And it is early. We can look to history as a way to – as one source of data to think about that question. I think you can also look to human behavior and when you go through an impact like this, what sort of ongoing tail impact does it have on how people think about an allocation or even advisors allocations? My sense of it is this. I do believe you'll see cash in just more normalized market environments i.e. less volatility. You'll see more money get put back to work. Do we return to those 4% cash as a percentage of overall asset levels? I'm not sure, I think that's on the backs of a long sustained bull market and probably have more risk taking appetite than the one normally might. So as you think about the 4% range in assets that we jumped off of, to now it's roughly 7% of total assets. I think historically says you live in a five to six range and that may be a reasonable way to think about this over the long-term, acknowledging that there's lots of data to collect and more time to play out, but that might be a framework, at least of which to enrich your thinking.

Bill Katz

Analyst · Citigroup. You may proceed with your question.

Okay, thank you for that. And my second question, I'm going to heat to a little bit of two parter, a little bit desperate, so I apologize. Can you give us an update on business solutions and how those conversations may have been evolving, particularly with just sort of the acceleration of volatility in the second quarter – in the first quarter? And then Matt maybe one for you, just going back to your decision to sort of slow – pause the buyback, how much of that is truly from the macro versus building M&A pipeline? Thank you.

Dan Arnold

Management

Yeah. So I'll take the business solutions first Bill and then I'll turn it over to Matt. So look, it's just for everyone, as a reminder, the business solutions is really about providing access to expertise and affordable way to help advisors operate their businesses. And in Q1 we had good momentum to start the quarter. The fundamental value proposition continues to resonate with our advisors. And we saw our subscriber base grow to around 700 in the first quarter, which is up roughly 50 over fourth quarter, so that's all a good solid baseline and we feel good about that. Certainly when COVID arrived, we saw two things that maybe are worth noting. The first is the advisors who were in the pipeline to potentially set up a subscription and begin to use one of those services, that progress slowed as they rightfully shifted their focus over to serving and supporting their clients and not it's prioritizing sort of starting something new. And I think that creates some short-term headwind in terms of working through that. We also cancelled some conferences that we would have typically used as sales forums for business solutions. So we have to find other ways of which to consistently offer those types of solutions, which we do, but those are just sometimes centre pieces to how we offer those types of solutions in Q1. So that has a bit of a headwind as well. I think more on the favorable side of it, though the advisors that are using these services, given the complexity of the operating environment in the first quarter, the value of these solutions was magnified, whether it was the marketing solutions, not just helping them with lead generation, but helping them manage their client communications in a really intense time where the CFO solutions helping them with business stress testing or cash flow analysis and evaluations, the tech solutions where we actually came up with a really cool creative, turnkey remote office solution within literally two weeks, within the quarter to again, help advisors and working from home and making that simpler and easier. So it really does reinforce the value these solutions offered to the advisors. So, again, we were excited about the long-term opportunity set and the value they create. You just got some short-term headwinds that we've had to work through. Matt, you want to take the second part of it.

Matt Audette

Management

Yeah, I think Bill on the repurchase program pause, I mean, the thing I would emphasize most is when we look at our organic growth and our value proposition, having a strong balance sheet is just critical and supportive of that. So being able to manage through a downturn like this, while continuing to generate cash, to have low leverage ratios compared to others in the space, to not being a bank with the risks that come along with being a bank and needing capital to support it and having losses associated with loans. I could go on and on, right. So I think those things are really, really important. So when you look at continuing to do share purchases in an environment like this, we really balance that against being able to have that strong balance sheet and being able to support everything that we need, so I think it's out of an abundance of caution. I think kind of getting more clarity on where the macro goes from here I think we'll help on that front. So I think that's the primary thing. I think when you look at M&A, I think those opportunities are there and interesting. I think Dan described that well. The only thing I would add is just the reminder M&A, you've got a lot of clarity on the EBITDA that comes with that. And given our price discipline there, it's not – unless you're talking large, large deals. That's not typically a big user of leverage given our price discipline combined with the EBITDA that'll come along. So hopefully that helps you get a little perspective or color on our perspective.

Dan Arnold

Management

Thank you, Bill.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Gerry O'Hara with Jeffries. You may proceed with your question.

Gerry O'Hara

Analyst

Great, and thanks for taking my questions this afternoon or this evening potentially. The centrally managed portfolios, obviously a very strong NNA growth continues. Just trying to get a sense around sort of the adoption from advisors of this program and kind of where you might see it trending on a go forward basis. Is it sort of wholly adopted by the advisors at this point? Is it sort of still in an evolutionary stage or what is it that's continuing to drive this strong NNA growth going forward.

Dan Arnold

Management

Now, let me give you a little color on that. Again, Matt, if you want to add anything behind that. So look, if I took at a high level, I think you're in the earlier part of the nine innings game in terms of the adoption and utilization of centrally managed solutions. And I think the continued investment we make in the capabilities, the flexibility, the optionality we give the advisors, the improvement and user interfaces all will help support and drive the continued use of centrally managed platforms. I think we recognized there's more innovation out there for us to work on and add to those centrally managed solutions, such that you've got terrific investment options and strategies that help those advisors create and add value to their clients. You can do it in a highly simplified, digitized way that gives access to the advisor to kind of take their hands on and off the wheel is a really interesting appealing package of value to those advisors. As we continue to evolve our capabilities there, we think there's a correlation between the evolution of those capabilities and the utilization of the centrally managed platforms. What's driving it? I think advisors more and more recognize and look for that it can be a great leverage point their overall practice and as they try to either lower their costs or create more flexibility to reallocate their time to more valuable activities, I think this becomes a more and more appealing type of concept that they can use as a leverage point to their practices. So we create a really appealing solution. Their need for will only evolve and grow as they look for more leverage points in their practice, that's we think, a nice combination to drive a long sustainable trend, which is why we say it's in the early parts of the game. I don't know if Matt, you want to add anything to that?

Matt Audette

Management

No, I think that was well said.

Gerry O'Hara

Analyst

That's helpful and I guess one for Matt specifically and I apologies if I missed this or if there was a read through it is perhaps somewhat clear, but I guess intuitively promotional expenses would likely come in, in the current coming quarters, assuming all else equal with the current backdrop. But one, I guess, can you perhaps kind of confirm that statement? And then two, have you kind of thought about ways to perhaps – I don't know if this is impossible, but digitize if you will, that this sort of activity or if there's sort of virtual capabilities that will enable you to kind of continue down the road of certain promotional activities.

Matt Audette

Management

Yeah, sure, Gerry, I mean, I think on both of those the promotional expenses in Q2, we have very few, if any conferences, so they'll come down specific to the conference piece of that by about 10 million. So there's definitely a decline there. On the second part of your question, I'll just give a little bit of the financial ends and then Dan, if you want to jump in. But our national conference, our largest conference of the year is in Q3 and we have already decided to move that to a virtual conference. So we are in the planning stages of that. So I think to answer the question it's definitely possible. We are in the middle of working on that. And obviously, Dan's in a better spot to give some color on that than me.

Dan Arnold

Management

Yeah, so obviously, pulling together 8,000 to 9,000 people in July doesn't sound like a great risk to take given the backdrop and so we announced that we would shift this to a virtual conference. A lot of folks are working on that same concept. There's again, some interesting technologies and cool ways of which to share that content in a more digital platform. And so we're working through exactly how we would do that, the cost associated with doing that, working with sponsors to be a part of that overall program, so more to come on that. But I think Matt's right, as we think about third quarter and that being our largest conference. As we get through the other side of that and would expect you to see some shift or change in the overall economics around focus on our big conference.

Gerry O'Hara

Analyst

Okay. Great, thanks for taking my questions this afternoon.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Devin Ryan with JMP Securities. You may proceed with your question.

Devin Ryan

Analyst · JMP Securities. You may proceed with your question.

Hey, great, good evening, guys. First question here just on upfront contracts in the industry, obviously had seen kind of those scaling up in recent years just as there's quite a bit of competition and also your firms have the benefit of higher interest rates that was maybe supporting some of that spending or investment if you will. With interest rates and equity markets abruptly moving lower, I guess what are you guys seeing with upfront recruiting packages? I appreciate it's probably early. And whether you guys expect to hold the line, which would maybe further accelerate organic growth or potentially would you move that lower, which would make the recruiting economics even more attractive, assuming the organic growth remains strong to kind of think about how that may affect things moving forward?

Matt Audette

Management

Yeah, Devin, I mean, I think on the way we approach that is really a change. We changed, we adjusted our approach a couple of years ago, just underwrite to returns. We're continuing to underwrite those returns. We've never put into those models any sanguine view, if you will, on the macro, so we'll update based on the environment we're in that could buy things down a little bit, but I would – as a general rule, but each deal is individually underwritten dependent on the mix of that firm and what products and services they use, but we'll continue to underwrite returns, so no change there.

Devin Ryan

Analyst · JMP Securities. You may proceed with your question.

Got it, very helpful and then just to follow up on customer cash, appreciate all the detail in the presentation and the commentary on the ICA portfolio. With respect to the DCA piece, you guys updated the fee schedule. And just trying to think about whether there's more room to do that and kind of the inputs to do that, just trying to think whether there might be some additional opportunity for that piece as well kind of down the road here.

Matt Audette

Management

Yeah, I mean, I think when you think about that product, it's one word to fee per account. So the balances in there kind of – are the – drive the overall economics. So I think that the changes that we made that you referred to are based on where those balances are. And I think if that changes over the long-term that could impact things. But I think we feel like with the adjustments we've made that that product is in the right spot and a competitive spot for the clients that have investors in there.

Devin Ryan

Analyst · JMP Securities. You may proceed with your question.

Okay, great. Leave it there. Thanks, guys.

Dan Arnold

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Ken Worthington with JP Morgan. You may proceed with your question.

Ken Worthington

Analyst · JP Morgan. You may proceed with your question.

Hi, good evening. I'm just curious to hear your thoughts if you think there might be a longer term impact of COVID-19 on the wealth management business, either the way that advisors will manage their relationships or work from home or something else that really changes the efficiency of the advisor in their business.

Dan Arnold

Management

Yeah. So Ken, I think there's no doubt this will create some structural change across the market and the industry and I think probably history again tells us the magnitude that change will likely be driven by the desire of individual firms and how much they want to embrace and pull that change through. And we entered this environment with – as I said earlier, where we established some principles that drove how we think about this opportunity. And that starts with taking care of our advisors so they can take care of their clients and also at the same time protecting the health and safety of our employees. So those principles drove our thinking, our decision making through this and actually, given this significant change across both of those spectrums, there's a tremendous amount of learning opportunity that sits inside that change, right, which took us to the next place we went to in managing through this was our culture and our values. And one of our values is a commitment to learning and applying that learning to drive innovation in an agile way. And so in a climate like this, where we talked about this significant change, we believe it creates an incredible opportunity to learn and apply that learning going forward to drive real structural differences in the business. And I think you hit on in the spirit of brevity one of those examples, which would be how people think about a distributed workforce. And what does that mean as you apply that to 4,500 employees in our case or nearly 17,000 advisors and how we support engage with them or even as you said, how we – how they would engage in, in millions of their clients. And so we believe there's a real ripe opportunity…

Ken Worthington

Analyst · JP Morgan. You may proceed with your question.

Great, well, thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Chris Shutler with William Blair. You may proceed with your question.

Chris Shutler

Analyst · William Blair. You may proceed with your question.

Hey, guys, hope you're all doing well. To follow up on Devin's question from earlier. How does the change in the interest rate environment affect what you're willing to pay for advisory assets? Are you underwriting a much lower Fed funds rate today, given the environment or when you think about TA do you kind of structure it in the hopes that rates bounce back?

Matt Audette

Management

Yeah. Great, Chris. So we – I think I use my SAP word. We're not sanguine on the macro in the earlier answer. So we don't assume any improvement in macro. We underwrite to returns in the current environment that means the current interest rate environment. And then based on again, each deal is individually underwritten. And we say disciplined on that, I mean, undirected returns.

Chris Shutler

Analyst · William Blair. You may proceed with your question.

Okay, fair enough. And then just a second one, just a small question on the conferences, since you're going to be doing those virtually this year, I think you mentioned the $10 million reduction in conference expense from Q1 to Q2, anything you can say about the remainder of the year and how both revenue and expenses will be impacted?

Matt Audette

Management

Yeah, I think the Q2 reduction is really just based on the timing of conferences, which this year are planned primarily for Q1 and Q3. I think in Q3 where we have our focus conference that Dan talked about a little bit earlier, going virtual, I think just to give you a sense that conference is typically around 15 million in costs and around 5 million or 6 million in sponsor revenues. So I think as we approach moving to a virtual conference, I think we'll think through how those expenses evolve. You'll have obvious things like travel expenses, there won't be any rights that'll bring cost down, but at the same time, we're focused on investing in the virtual areas of the digital capabilities of that conference to make it something that's compelling and helpful, for the very reasons that we do that conference, right. So we're in the planning stages now. We'll give you an update next quarter in Q2, so you have a sense as to our best estimate as to what's coming in Q3 then.

Chris Shutler

Analyst · William Blair. You may proceed with your question.

Okay, thanks a lot.

Dan Arnold

Management

Thank you. And hey, thanks to everyone for taking the time to join us this afternoon and we look forward to speaking with you again next quarter, stay healthy.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.