Earnings Labs

Westwood Holdings Group, Inc. (WHG)

Q2 2014 Earnings Call· Thu, Jul 31, 2014

$17.24

+3.67%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Thank you all for holding and welcome to the Westwood Holdings Group Second Quarter 2014 Earnings Conference Call. Today’s call will begin with a presentation followed by a question-and-answer session. Instructions on that feature will begin later in the program. (Operator Instructions) I would now like to turn the call over to your host for today’s conference; Sylvia Fry, Chief Compliance Officer. Ms. Fry, your line is now open.

Sylvia Fry

Management

Thank you. Good afternoon and welcome to our second quarter earnings conference call. Today I’d like to start by reading our forward-looking statements disclaimer. The following discussion will include forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause actual results to be materially different from those contemplated by the forward-looking statements. Additional information concerning the factors that could cause such a difference is included in our press release issued earlier today as well as in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2013, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. In addition, in accordance with SEC rules concerning non-GAAP financial measures, the reconciliation of our economic earnings and economic earnings per share to the most comparable GAAP measures is included at the end of our press release issued earlier today. On our call today we will have Brian Casey, our President and Chief Executive Officer; and Bill Hardcastle, our Chief Financial Officer. I will now turn the call over to Brian Casey, our CEO.

Brian Casey

Management

Good afternoon everyone and thank you taking the time to join our call today. Well, there’s never a shortage of work for us to do or goals for us to reach which is how we like it to be. It's the time of the year that pause to reflect on the fact that it was 12 years ago that we decided to become a public company. And thinking about that makes us profoundly grateful and we want to thank you our shareholders for the invaluable part that you’ve played and continue to play in the success of Westwood. At the time of Westwood’s spin off, only a small handful of asset management companies were public. The asset management industry had not yet been embraced the public form of ownership as an advisable move to make. We felt like the ability to share ownership with all of the people that work at Westwood on behalf of our clients provided profitable alignment. We felt that a daily mark-to-market provided strong motivation to do our best for clients at all times and that the transparency that comes with being public to be an unbiased measure of our progress. Finally being public allows us to run our business like the businesses that we’ve admired over more than 31 years. Mainly those companies that have supportive balance sheets that generate strong free cash flow, that share dividends with their shareholders in a meaningful way, that have long tendered employees and stable management, that has incidences of insider of ownership, that are disciplined with shareholder capital and are ethical beyond reproach. These are characteristics that are top of mind at all times at Westwood and we want to express our deep appreciation to those shareholders who’ve been with us from the beginning. We simply would not…

Bill Hardcastle

Management

Thanks, Brian. Good afternoon everyone. Today we reported strong financial results for the second quarter 2014. Our total revenues for the quarter were $30.9 million, a 32% increase compared to $23.5 million in the second quarter of 2013. Comparing second quarter revenue in 2014 versus 2013, asset based advisory fees increased by 34%, performance based fees exclusively in our MLP strategies increased by 36% and trust fees increased by 13%. GAAP net income was $8.8 million, an 81% increase compare to $4.9 million for the second quarter 2013. GAAP EPS was a $1.14 per diluted share versus $0.65 for the second quarter 2013. Economic earnings were $11.6 million, compare to $8 million for the second quarter of 2013 and economic EPS was $1.50 per diluted share versus $1.7 in the prior year quarter. Non-GAAP performance measures, economic earnings and economic EPS are defined and reconcile with the most comparable GAAP financial measures and tables included at the end of our earnings release. Total expenses for the quarter were $17.2 million a 9% increase compared to $15.7 million for the second quarter a year ago. Firm wide assets under management were $20.1 billion as of June 30 2014, an increase of 27% over the prior year. Institutional assets at quarter end were $12.7 billion, representing 63% of total AUM, private wealth now stands at $4.1 billion or 21% of the total and mutual funds total $3.3billion or 16% of total AUM. Included in this numbers Westwood International strategies now comprise 15% of our total AUM. Our Board of Directors has approved a quarterly cash dividend of $0.44 per share, payable on October 1, 2014 to stockholders of record on September 15, 2014. This represents an annualized yield of 3.4% at yesterday’s closing price. We have posted a presentation on the Inventor Relations session of our Web site at westwoodgroup.com that I encourage you to review. The slides reflect second quarter financial highlights as well as longer term trends and the growth of our AUM revenue, earnings and dividends. I’ll also note that we are filing our 10Q later this afternoon. If you have any questions after reviewing any of this information feel free to give me a call at the phone number listed on our website. That concludes my discussion of our financials and I’ll turn the call back over to Brian.

Brian Casey

Management

Great, Bill. Thanks. If anybody has any questions press pound.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) And our first question comes from the line of Mac Sykes from Gabelli. Your line is now open. Mac Sykes – Gabelli: On a compensation line it was unchanged on a sequential quarter. So really nice leverage there. Were there any unusual items there or is that -- was it just the benefit of the higher AUM?

Brian Casey

Management

Any unusual items in the comp [ph] line?

Mac Sykes - Gabelli

Analyst

Right. Was anything affecting that or is that…

Brian Casey

Management

No, no Mac. That wouldn’t be tied to the AUM. [Indiscernible] to answer your question.

Mac Sykes - Gabelli

Analyst

Okay. Just moving on here, usage assets are really growing nicely and I'm assuming that the fee rates in that is additive to the complex just giving [ph] results. I was wondering if you can just give a little more color on that.

Brian Casey

Management

Well, sure I think we’ve posted before what our average fee is, pretty simple to figure out, take the revenue divided by the assets. But the great thing that’s happening with all of our newer products carry a fee that’s higher than our average fee and any of the outflows that we’re experiencing tend to be in products that have a much lower fee. So while year-to-date, our flows have been mixed, the mix itself has improved quite a bit. And in fact the trade-off is in that positive in terms of revenues. Does that answer your question?

Brian Casey

Management

Thanks, Matt. (Operator Instructions). Any other questions?

Operator

Operator

And I am showing now further questions on the phone lines at this time.

Brian Casey

Management

Well, great. Well we appreciate your time. If you have any further questions, please call Bill or I directly, visit our website at westwoodgroup.com and again many thanks for being a shareholder for 12 years. It’s awesome. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today’s conference. This does conclude the program and you may all disconnect. Have a great day everyone.