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Federated Investors Inc (FHI -0.69%)
Q3 2018 Earnings Conference Call
Oct. 26, 2018, 9:00 a.m. ET
Contents:
- Prepared Remarks
- Questions and Answers
- Call Participants
Prepared Remarks:
Operator
Greetings, and welcome to Federated Investors Third Quarter 2018 Analyst Call and Webcast. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.
I'd now like to turn the conference over to Ray Hanley, President, Federated Investors Management Company. Please go ahead, Mr. Hanley.
Raymond J. Hanley -- President, Federated Investors Management Company
Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to our call. Leading today's call will be Chris Donahue, Federated's CEO and President; Tom Donahue, Chief Financial Officer; and joining us for the Q&A are Saker Nusseibeh, the CEO of Hermes; and Debbie Cunningham, our Chief Investment Officer for money markets.
During today's call, we may make forward-looking statements, and we want to note that Federated's actual results may be materially different than the results implied by such statements. We invite you to review the risk disclosures in our SEC filings. No assurance can be given as to future results, and Federated assumes no duty to update any of these forward-looking statements. Chris?
John Christopher Donahue -- President, Chief Executive Officer & Chairman
Thank you, Ray, and good morning. I will briefly review Federated's business performance, and Tom will comment on our financial results. With the Hermes acquisition effective July 1, our Q3 results include a full quarter of Hermes impact. We have modified our asset and flow reporting by moving multi-asset and alternative strategies out of equities into their own categories. The addition of $47 billion in Hermes assets boosted our total long-term assets to $173 billion and our total managed assets to $437 billion at the end of the quarter.
Now, turning first to equities. We closed the quarter with $84 billion of assets, up from $58 billion at the end of Q2, reflecting the addition of about $25 billion from Hermes and market gains of $3 billion, partially offset by a $1.5 billion of net redemptions, parenthetically, which were down from $2.3 billion in the second quarter.
We had 17 equity funds with positive net sales in the third quarter. Our Small Cap funds continue to show strong performance and solid flows, highlighted by the Kaufmann Small Cap Growth Fund with top decile performance in its Morningstar category for the trailing 1, 3, 5 and 10 years at the end of the third quarter, and net sales of over $150 million to reach $1.7 billion in assets at quarter-end.
MDT Small Cap Core with its top 1% Morningstar category ranking for the trailing three and five years at the end of the third quarter, and net sales of almost $175 million to reach just under $1 billion in assets at quarter-end. MDT Small Cap Growth with top decile performance for the trailing three and five years at the end of the third quarter and net sales of a little over $100 million to reach $668 million in assets at quarter-end.
Several Hermes Fund achieved positive net sales in the third quarter, including the SDG Engagement Equity Funds, Global Equity ESG Fund, Impact Opportunities Equity Funds, European Ex-U.K. Fund, and the Global Small-Cap Fund. Other equity funds with positive net sales in the third quarter included MDT Mid Cap Growth, MDT All Cap Core and Muni and Stock Advantage.
Using Morningstar data for the trailing three years at the end of the third quarter, nearly half of our funds, about 11 -- exactly 11 out of 23 were in the top decile. 15 funds, just about two-thirds, were in the top quartile, and 17 funds or almost three-fourth, were in the top half.
Looking at Strategic Value Dividend strategy, its objective is to provide a high and growing dividend income stream from high-quality companies. The domestic fund's 12 month distribution yield of 3.54% ranked in the second percentile of its Morningstar category at the end of the third quarter. The domestic strategic value dividend strategy had combined mutual fund and SMA outflows of $1.5 billion in the third quarter, compared to $2.3 billion of outflows in the second quarter.
Looking at early fourth quarter results, combined fund and SMA net redemptions were about $190 million through the first three weeks of October. For all equity funds, which obviously includes Federated and Hermes, in the first couple weeks of October, net redemptions were approximately $69 million and equity SMA net redemptions were about $33 million. Please note that these numbers include three weeks of Federated Funds and two weeks of Hermes Funds.
Turning to fixed income. Assets increased by about $4 billion in the third quarter to $65.4 billion due to the Hermes acquisition, to up about $2.7 billion. Net inflows were about $745 million and market gains about $455 million. Institutional separate accounts in the multi-sector area drove inflows. We also saw modest inflows in Total Return Bond Fund and in various short duration strategies, while high-yield had slight net redemptions.
Our fixed income business had a variety of strategies that are performing well. At quarter-end, using Morningstar data for the trailing three years, we had 11 funds in the top quartile, including Total Return Bond, Institutional High Yield, and Hermes multi-strategy credit, and 21 funds in the top half. Fixed Income Fund net sales are negative early in the fourth quarter, due mainly to high yield redemptions. We have seen net sales in Total Return Bond Fund for the first three weeks of October.
In the Alternatives category, assets at quarter-end were $18.5 billion, with most of that coming from the Hermes acquisition. Highlights in the quarter include the newly launched Hermes Unconstrained Credit Fund, adding about $122 million in net sales and the Prudent Bear Fund with about $30 million in net sales.
Now looking at Money Markets. Total Money Market assets increased approximately $9 billion with funds up $10 billion and separate accounts down about a $1 billion, mainly from seasonality. We had positive Money Market fund flows from a variety of Institutional and intermediary clients in the third quarter. Our average investment advisory fee rates for Money Market funds was the same as it was in the prior quarter. Prime money market fund assets increased about $6 billion or 18% in the third quarter from $32 billion to $38 billion. Our Money Market mutual fund market share at the end of the quarter was 7.3%, up from Q2's 7%.
Taking a look now at our most recent available asset totals, and once again Federated as of October 24 and Hermes as of October 12. Managed assets were approximately $436 billion, including $269 billion in Money Markets, $79 billion in equities, $65 billion in fixed income, $18.5 billion in alternative, and $4.5 billion in multi-assets. Money Market mutual fund assets were $187 billion.
In the institutional channel, RFP and related activity continues to be solid with diversified interest in MDT, EFA and Kaufmann for equities and trade finance, floating rate and short duration for fixed income. We began the fourth quarter with about $300 million in net fixed income institutional additions that are yet to fund.
On the international side, with the addition of Hermes business, Federated's total assets in the international market reached $62 billion at the end of the third quarter. We are working closely with Hermes to develop and begin implementation of a global growth strategy, driven by Hermes leading ESG integrated investment strategies and Federated's strong investment capabilities, backed by our respective distribution strengths.
We have just launched efforts to present certain Hermes' strategies, like Federated Global Equity and Global Small Cap in the US institutional market and are planning to register mutual funds to offer some of Hermes best investment ideas to our customers in 2019. We are looking at ways to grow the successful Hermes EOS business that features leading ESG stewardship and engagement services to institutional asset owners and pension funds and are working with Hermes to develop opportunities for them to offer Federated strategies to their clients.
Hermes managed assets at 9/30 were approximately $47 billion, up slightly from the second quarter. Third-party assets were $31.9 billion, up from $31.0 billion at the end of the second quarter. BTPS, the pension scheme's assets were $15 billion, in dollars, down from $15.5 billion at the end of the second quarter, consistent with previous notice. Hermes net sales from third-parties were $472 million, partially offset by the planned BTPS net outflows of $397 million.
Hermes highlights from Q3 include progress and the development and growth of a world-class multi-asset credit platform, modeling successful third-party seed commitments into both the Hermes Unconstrained Credit Fund, which has since grown to $371 million and the Hermes European Direct Lending Fund, which has commitments of over $100 million. In addition, through efforts with Hermes, we continue our business development in the Asia-Pac region with a focus on opportunities in Greater China, Korea and Japan. And are actively working to establish strategic relationships with select financial institutions to add regional distribution of Federated investment strategies. This effort complements Federated's European, UK and Canadian operations. Managed assets, excluding Hermes in these markets, totaled about $15 billion at quarter end. We also continue to seek additional alliances and acquisitions to advance our business. Tom?
Thomas Robert Donahue -- VP, Treasurer, CFO
As Chris noted, our Q3 results include a full quarter of Hermes impact. Total revenue increased by $52.6 million from the prior quarter, due mainly to the addition of Hermes revenue, which was $49.7 million (ph), an additional day, about $3 million, and higher average money market assets, which brought about $1.5 million. Revenue was up $30 million compared to Q3 of last year, due mainly to Hermes, partially offset by the impact of the adoption of the revenue recognition standard, about $9 million, higher waivers, primarily from money market funds, about $5 million, and changes in asset mix of average money market assets also impacted the revenue by about $2 million.
Operating expenses increased $51.5 million compared to the prior quarter and $37.1 million from Q3 of '17. The increase from the prior quarter was due to Hermes $44.7 million and Hermes transaction-related expenses about $8.6 million. The increase from Q3 of 2017 was due primarily to Hermes and Hermes transaction-related expenses of about $10 million and the adoption of the revenue recognition standard, which reduced distribution expense by $7 million and reduced other expense by $1.6 million. Q3 comp was $103 million. This included a number of Hermes-related items, and normalized comp number was about $105 million (ph) and an early estimate of Q4 comp and related expense is $106 million.
In July, we estimated that we would incur $19 million in Hermes transaction-related operating expenses during 2018. We have incurred $12.7 million in operating expenses year-to-date with $9.9 million recorded in Q3. The $9.9 million in Q3 was included in the following line items. Comp and related $3.8 million, professional services fees $4.1 million, Travel and related $400,000 and other $1.6 million.
For Q4, we estimate that we will incur about another $1 million in transaction related costs for a total of approximately $13.7 million in 2018 transaction related operating expenses. We expect to incur additional expenses in '19 related to the implementation of growth strategies with Hermes, as Chris mentioned. We view these as ongoing investments and not transaction expenses.
Amortization expense related to the Hermes transaction was approximately $2.7 million in the third quarter. We expect Hermes deal-related amortization to be about $11 million in 2019. We repurchased 277,000 shares in the third quarter. At quarter end, cash and investments were $157 million, of which about $106 million was available to us.
Rob, we would like to open the call up now for questions.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Our first question is coming from the line of Michael Carrier with Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please proceed with your questions.
Michael Carrier -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
Thanks a lot. The first question. Just with Hermes on board, I think Chris, you were talking about some of the growth strategies as you get into '19 and beyond. When you think about maybe the distribution channels and the distribution team in the US, I mean where you've kind of been seeing certain demand, whether it's on the ESG side, just wanted to get some context on where you see most of those opportunities on the growth side with Hermes on board?
John Christopher Donahue -- President, Chief Executive Officer & Chairman
Thank you, Michael. The four funds and things that we're looking at, two of them are in the -- one is an absolute return credit strategy and one is an unconstrained bond strategy, which we think are going to be very strongly received by the client base. The other two would be a global equity and a small cap global mandate. There are also other things that we are thinking about, an EP approach and others that are in registration that I am not allowed to say what they are.
Michael Carrier -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
Okay, thanks for that. And then Tom, maybe just on the expenses, you gave the guidance on the comp. I guess, just when you look at with Hermes on and some of the guidance that you guys gave when the deal was announced versus today, I know there's a lot of moving parts, so it's a little bit tough, but just when you think about the accretion, are things heading like roughly as expected, has it been a little bit better, a little bit worse. Just want to -- trying to get a sense on how you think things are trending on the financial side?
Thomas Robert Donahue -- VP, Treasurer, CFO
Sure, Mike. There are a lot of moving parts and that's why I took you through the comp number. And if you remember, I said there are a lot of Hermes related items and they move, some of them move up, some of them move down. We closed earlier than we thought when we talked about when we were going to close. So we actually closed on July 1, we did all our modeling to close on August 1. So that brought in higher earnings to us. We had less expenses, as you've seen, we take you through each time in April, and then in July, and today, our closing costs have gone down from what we expected, each time. That's partly because we closed earlier. We didn't have to address a lot of things that we thought we're going to have to address.
The amortization expense, which we told you what it was, came in lower than what we thought. A couple of the moving items that are in comp are, we had -- Hermes had accrued, for Q1 and Q2, their regular incentive comp and then when we closed, management decided to take some of that comp and deferred over a three-year program. So that's why we had a -- basically a reversal of an accrual, so that sent comp higher. We didn't have that in our numbers. Some of the upfront payments that Federated has made to the pension scheme and to the employees, the part that they owned, management took a part of that payment and actually put it in a deferred remuneration plan, and that actually sends expenses lower.
So I'm only given you five of the items that changed. And if you forced me to answer (inaudible) back in April, it probably looked better than we thought. But that's not addressing where are assets now, where are the markets, the last couple of weeks in the markets, and it's not addressing a whole lot of other things. So it's not really something I want to get into any more than that.
Michael Carrier -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
Yes, no problem. That's -- it's helpful color though. Thanks a lot.
Operator
Next question comes from the line of Ken Worthington with JPMorgan. Please proceed with your questions.
Kenneth Brooks Worthington -- JP Morgan Chase & Co. -- Analyst
Hi. Good morning. Maybe start on the deal. What is the right tax rate? And I guess as the deal related costs fall off, how should we expect that tax rate to evolve going forward?
Thomas Robert Donahue -- VP, Treasurer, CFO
So in the future, we're still looking at 24% to 25% -- the tax rate I think was 26%, yes.
Kenneth Brooks Worthington -- JP Morgan Chase & Co. -- Analyst
Okay, so came in a little bit above, but still --
Thomas Robert Donahue -- VP, Treasurer, CFO
That changes with us, there are other variables there, including Federated's stock price, which is interesting. If our stock price is higher, our tax rate changes, because of the way we go through with our restricted stock and how that gets dealt with.
Kenneth Brooks Worthington -- JP Morgan Chase & Co. -- Analyst
Okay, great. And then maybe for Debbie. Debbie, what are you seeing in the Money Market Fund business? Maybe to what extent, if at all, are you seeing a movement back to funds from bank balance sheets? And I would love it if you could maybe comment retail versus institutional and any color on the broker dealer versus the bank trust channels?
Deborah Ann Cunningham -- Executive Vice President, Chief Information Officer of Global Money Markets
Sure. We are definitely seeing a movement back into money market funds. Our assets are higher, the industry's assets are higher, and I think this is probably reflective of both investors getting comfortable with the regulatory changes that went through in 2016, at this point. But in addition, just higher interest rates in general.
From an retail versus institutional perspective, on the retail side, it's been a lights out positive from a business perspective. Traditionally, that business was in the prime sector. After money market reform, it moved into the government sector. It is now moving in a large fashion into retail again, not with money coming out of the government side of it, but more ticket trades that are new business that presumably are coming out of some sort of a bank product, some other type of liquidity products and going into the prime products.
From a sweep perspective, there is still not much on the retail side that is set up with prime products. There are few intermediaries that are able to do that, but for the most part, sweep products continue to be through government funds and prime products are generally on the retail side, generating business from a ticket trade perspective. On the muni side also, we are seeing quite a few flows on the retail side. That's in our position to the industry, the industry itself is fairly flat on the muni side, we're actually experiencing quite healthy flows in our municipal products, both the national as well as the state specific.
Switching to Institutional, we're seeing -- on our government funds a lot of growth that came basically in chunks from what would be M&A activity, there has been a huge amount of M&A activity that's taken place year-to-date 2018. Also, from a repatriation trade perspective, much of that cash, which is again chunky, goes into the government funds, mainly because it doesn't stay there for too long, it goes back out again once either the deal closes on the M&A side or the intended use of the repatriated funds are then put into their final forum.
On the prime side, we've seen a lot of corporate customers. Similar on the municipal side, we've seen corporations going back into those products. So, definitely we're seeing an uptick in flows, and it doesn't seem to be between sectors, but rather coming from outside sectors. I think post money market reform, the assets in the industry, we're at about $2.6 trillion, and we're now just under $3 trillion.
Kenneth Brooks Worthington -- JP Morgan Chase & Co. -- Analyst
Okay, great, thanks. I'm going to steal one more, because I was confused. Just Tom on your guidance for deal-related costs, is it $1 million for the fourth quarter or $1 million more than we saw in 3Q for the fourth quarter?
Thomas Robert Donahue -- VP, Treasurer, CFO
$1 million for the fourth quarter.
Kenneth Brooks Worthington -- JP Morgan Chase & Co. -- Analyst
Okay, thank you.
Operator
Next question is from the line of Bill Katz of Citi Please proceed with your questions.
William R. Katz -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Okay. Thank you very much for taking the questions this morning. So just staying with the Hermes platform for a moment. Appreciate the extra detail in terms of where the assets are, and then the split between the pension and then the third-party. Can you sort of remind us of the outlook for the pension side of the equation and how does fee rate incrementally tracking as the third-party grows relative to the pension plan?
John Christopher Donahue -- President, Chief Executive Officer & Chairman
You have just asked Saker his first question of the day.
Saker Anwar Nusseibeh -- Chief Executive Officer, Chief Information Officer and Head of Investment
Thank you. So the answer is that when the deal was done, we had a pre-agreed flight path for the pension scheme. So we know how much (inaudible) the assets, and that explains it. If you look at our third-party business, the net flows were very strong, and continue to be very strong. Now, a third-party business by definition is high margin business. So that increases our margin the more that we create third-party, and if you look at revenues, which is what we look at within the Hermes business, some 74% (ph) of our revenue now comes from third-party, which is quite substantial.
William R. Katz -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Okay. Is it same expectation that will-- that the BT side will bleed down over the next several years, I was just trying to get an update on that glide path?
Saker Anwar Nusseibeh -- Chief Executive Officer, Chief Information Officer and Head of Investment
I mean, there is a glide path that we think is there. Now the thing is with the fact that we are now part of Federated, there may be opportunities for stuff that the BT pension scheme might want to be interested in that Federated offers. So there's possibility that there might be additional or reversal of the BT flight path, but there wasn't a good BT path at the beginning, which was well within the numbers, and our profitability in fact gets enhanced because our margins get enhanced the more that we build up that part of business.
William R. Katz -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Okay, thank you. And then just a follow-up question, Tom. Thank you for the guidance on the compensation side. Stripping off the distribution side, as we look at the remainder of the business and stripping as well the amortization as well as the charges, is the rest of the non-comp, if you will, is that a reasonable start point? And you had mentioned that you're going to spend a little bit to enhance growth. Could you quantify what that might look like and the timing of that growth -- spend, excuse me? Thank you.
Thomas Robert Donahue -- VP, Treasurer, CFO
Okay. The reason why I pulled out the comp and list that is, because that's what I see as something that I can grab hold of. I have to put it in order to do our filings for the quarterly reports. And that's kind of the biggest standout number. If I go through all the expense categories, some of them change up, some of them change down, Hermes spends money in the fourth quarter, they don't spend in the third quarter, we spend money In the third quarter, not on the fourth quarter. And so, they're -- I'm not going to go through at line item this went up, this went down and I think it's OK to look and say, hey, we're saying we expect about $3 million more in expenses and that's kind of an overall biggest item.
In terms of -- that's for 2018 or for Q4. In terms of future expenses for our growth, when we were using the $19 million in closing cost, some of the closing costs we were talking about in terms of really building distribution -- or not building distribution, but building the growth plan. And so we're just trying to get out of talking about that and going to be saying that hey, that's part of the normal cost. We had a $4 million number in there and that's when you take $19 million and if we're at $14 million and we're going to expect to spend another $1 million in Q4 and that $4 million, but that was -- that's an estimate that we don't know exactly what the numbers are going to be, and that's about as far as I can go. I have already talked enough about it.
William R. Katz -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Okay, thank you.
Operator
The next question is from the line of Patrick Davitt with Autonomous Research.
Patrick Davitt -- Autonomous Research -- Analyst
Thank you, guys. To follow up on Bill's question in a different way, if you can I guess, assuming that BT doesn't reinvest in some other products like you said, is that kind of $300 million to $400 million out the quarter that you talked about the right glide path to think about as we model this?
Saker Anwar Nusseibeh -- Chief Executive Officer, Chief Information Officer and Head of Investment
So I don't think it's appropriate that I share with you what a client has agreed with us, because BT is also our client. What I can say to you is that our business plan and the models that we used within building business plan when Federated acquired a majority stake, assumes a glide path as was agreed with BT and they have stuck to that and we don't expect them to deviate from it. Like I said, if anything there might be actually a positive side to it, if we manage to show them some Federated stuff. Now within that, the only thing I can say to you is that the growth of our third-party assets has consistently meant that we have been able to not only grow our top line, but also grow our margin and our profits. And that does not look as of the end of last quarter to be off track, that remains on track.
Patrick Davitt -- Autonomous Research -- Analyst
Fair enough, thank you. A bigger picture question on kind of the money fund flow dynamics. I think if we exclude that big win you had in 4Q17, it looks like on a run rate basis you had been fairly consistently losing money market flow share for a year or two, but then suddenly this quarter and it looks like now in the fourth quarter as well, you're taking almost all of the flow. So I'm wondering if there's anything that changed about the nature of the broader market flows or your business that kind of changed that dynamic in terms of the flow share you're seeing?
John Christopher Donahue -- President, Chief Executive Officer & Chairman
One of the elements of that dynamic was the money that went out to broker dealer sweep into their own deposit bank deal and this was when rates were low, and now people realize that rates are rising, and you can get 2% on a money fund. And so that big bunch of money that left for that reason. And it was a combination, because the stage was set when the new regs came in and it really wasn't appropriate for accounting, for mechanics, for operations, for all those broker dealers to use their money fund for a sweep vehicle and that was one of the big questions. So when you have that and then you had the prog (ph) relative profitability to the client broker dealer that moved a bunch of money out and that has slowed down, abated, diminished. And then as Debbie said, the flip side of that is now occurring, where you're seeing more money coming in prime, muni, and gove (ph), both institutional and retail. The end.
Operator
Next question is from the line of Ari Ghosh with Credit Suisse.
Ari Ghosh -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst
Hey, good morning everyone. So just a quick one on the alts and multi-asset segments. So if you look at flow trends over the past 12 months and what you are projecting for 2019, is this something that -- is this a business that you're looking to grow organically? Do you think there's enough capacity out there that you can do that, or is this something that you might be looking at opportunistic bolt-on deals to try and get scale here to kind of have to account for a bigger piece of the pie, if you look at it over the next couple of years?
John Christopher Donahue -- President, Chief Executive Officer & Chairman
Short answer, yes we see it as a growth opportunity. Long answer, it's now Saker's turn.
Saker Anwar Nusseibeh -- Chief Executive Officer, Chief Information Officer and Head of Investment
So I didn't get the beginning of that question, so say it -- repeat it to me again and I will answer you.
Ari Ghosh -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst
Yes. So if you look at the alts and the multi-asset segments, is there something when you look at the next -- the business plan for the next 12 to 24 months, do you think you can see some meaningful organic growth from this business via the plans that you have in place or is there something that you need to look at maybe more on the opportunistic bolt-on and M&A side to try and gain scale here?
Saker Anwar Nusseibeh -- Chief Executive Officer, Chief Information Officer and Head of Investment
So no, we think that we have opportunities to grow it organically. We had already built, by the time we were acquired by Federated, a first-class capability to be able to do this and in fact almost ready for launch, by the time we were acquired. And I can say that of the new funds that we've raised within this, it is a notice that in the last quarter, and given the deal closed in the last quarter, on the 1st July, we continue to have clients actually seed parts of our strategies to help us grow them and that tells you the strong demand that we have. So I think it's a strong organic growth. Now, will they be opportunities in future for M&A activity, one sees. but there is strong organic growth as it is within our plan.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Brian Bedell with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed with your questions.
Brian Bedell -- Deutsche Bank -- Analyst
Great, thanks very much. Maybe just one more on the money market side for Debbie or Chris. Do you have a sense of what the sweep assets or sweep deposits, rather, would total in your broker dealer and wealth management channels, in terms of an opportunity for market share gains versus (inaudible) if we continue to see the yield seeking behavior of the sweep deposit clients move to money markets?
John Christopher Donahue -- President, Chief Executive Officer & Chairman
Brian, are you asking about the total opportunity beyond what we have in sweep, so is that the question?
Brian Bedell -- Deutsche Bank -- Analyst
Yes, but like when you are an outsourced version of your money market within those clients as broker dealer clients, and I guess to the extent wealth management, bank trust departments, your sense of what the deposit levels are within this bank sweeps that could eventually migrate to money market funds (multiple speakers)?
John Christopher Donahue -- President, Chief Executive Officer & Chairman
If you were to ask, and this would be an impressionistic number, if you were to ask the sales individuals here who have those relationships on the broker dealer side for those broker dealer sweeps, they would contend that they -- that $20 billion has moved out or some number like that. And so if you said, what's the opportunity, well, maybe a bunch of that comes back. But you cannot look at that as a catalyst or oh boy, now that money is coming rolling back, because some of those clients have either put the money market fund into a transaction-oriented mechanic versus an automatic mechanic and some of those clients have simply taken the money fund off of the list. So that it's even one step more than a transaction. So that would be how I would scope what was lost, and look at earning it back, but it will not be a catalyst or a quick deal.
Brian Bedell -- Deutsche Bank -- Analyst
Right, yes. I was trying to get a sense of bank to money market funds. I mean, we are seeing this in the online brokers where clients are moving to purchased money market funds, say, a swap for example, from the bank sweep. So trying to see what your future opportunity is from that dynamic, given that obviously the yields are very competitive with your fund. Okay, then maybe just a question on the -- maybe this will be for Chris and Saker, just what the sentiment is for your sales -- from your sales distribution partners in the last week or so, given the pullback in the environment and are they generally looking at this as a buying opportunity, are they more frozen? And then I just have one follow-up on distribution costs for Tom after that.
Saker Anwar Nusseibeh -- Chief Executive Officer, Chief Information Officer and Head of Investment
Chris, do you want me to take this first?
John Christopher Donahue -- President, Chief Executive Officer & Chairman
Yes, please.
Saker Anwar Nusseibeh -- Chief Executive Officer, Chief Information Officer and Head of Investment
Okay. So what we see is the pipeline for strategies remain strong, and we have continued to see inflows into our funds, including in emerging markets in the last quarter, which is quite interesting. And so people are taking this as a buying opportunity. Over the last week. I've also been talking to some clients in the United States, and in fact I'm joining this call from our offices in Boston. And it remains positive in terms of people seeing this as still positive despite the market come back. Particularly in what we offer, because essentially what we offer is higher (technical difficulty) high alpha and we incorporate ESG in everything we do and we have a very strong track record. Generally speaking, the kind of buzz, including wholesale or if you (inaudible) tend to be with us despite the dips and we talk to people about the dips and we in fact told them that there would be something like a correction coming in, and as it came through people have followed through and continue to invest with us. I mean, you can never dismiss pocket comebacks, but in terms of flows, it still remains positive.
John Christopher Donahue -- President, Chief Executive Officer & Chairman
Yes, the thing I would add to that Brian, you used the word frozen, and there's nothing I know of in the life of a PM team about the word frozen or in our clients, and so you do have some variety depending on which mandates as to what people are doing. But if you were to talk to the Head of Equities in New York, he would retain his positive stance, much the same as Saker said about expecting a correction, and many of the PMs buying on the dips.
Brian Bedell -- Deutsche Bank -- Analyst
And a matter (ph) of like the broker dealers that you're selling to you in the warehouses, are they -- just their sentiment, I guess, or are they viewing it as a buying opportunity, or are there clients sort of on the sidelines for this?
John Christopher Donahue -- President, Chief Executive Officer & Chairman
It would be almost an unnatural act at this point to try and characterize them all with one way or the other, and I for one haven't run the traps that quickly enough to be able to give you an honest pulse on how the wirehouse community thinks. So I have to demur.
Brian Bedell -- Deutsche Bank -- Analyst
Okay. No, that's fine. And then just one follow-up on distribution. Tom, just wanted to see if the third quarter run rate now with Hermes in there, the distribution expense of $72 million, if that's the reasonable run rate on a go-forward basis, or are there significant -- substantial deviations from that potentially going forward?
Thomas Robert Donahue -- VP, Treasurer, CFO
So getting into one other line item, I would say that that number, based on what we see, could be a similar number.
Brian Bedell -- Deutsche Bank -- Analyst
Okay, fair enough. Thank you.
Operator
Our next question is from the line of Kenneth Lee with RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.
Kenneth S. Lee -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Hi, thanks for taking my question. Wondering if you could give us a sense of what the recent flow trends and current client demand for the alternative products within Hermes, specifically the real estate private equity infrastructure? Thanks.
Saker Anwar Nusseibeh -- Chief Executive Officer, Chief Information Officer and Head of Investment
So I'll take that. (Multiple speakers) Thank you. So we've seen a steady growth of demand for -- particularly unconstrained credits, which is part of our private market in our direct lending, which has been very strong. With property, we continue to see demand for our property products as well. So that's again been pretty strong. And as you know, things like private equity and infrastructure tend to be long-term, gathering momentum, meaning we go out to the market, we talk to our clients and normally it goes onto a long cycle and the cycle is there, and I think there is still conclusion of all of that is that demand for our private markets business remains very, very robust. If you want me to highlight one area, I'd say the multi-credit and the unconstrained seems to be accelerating, and I would say that private equity infrastructure and property seems to be going as normal with no slowdown. So that's how I would characterize it.
Kenneth S. Lee -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Okay, great. And just as a follow-up, could you give us a sense of the average yields you're getting for these alternative products?
Saker Anwar Nusseibeh -- Chief Executive Officer, Chief Information Officer and Head of Investment
So that we need to take offline, because it has obviously quite a lot of impact on a lot of clients.
Kenneth S. Lee -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Okay, thanks.
Operator
Next question is from the line of Robert Lee with KBW. Please proceed with your question.
Robert Andrew Lee -- Keefe, Bruyette, & Woods, Inc., Research Division -- Analyst
Hi, thanks and thanks for taking my questions. It's really I guess for Debbie or maybe Chris if you'd like to answer it. On the Money Fund business, I guess maybe a little bit bigger picture, I mean as you mentioned, clearly, you're seeing some increased demand for prime funds, but if we look at the overall industry, two things. Number one, one of your large competitors has taken to describing the Money Fund business is increasingly a technology-driven business, and made some type of acquisition, I guess of a portal or some type of technology. Would you agree with that assessment and do you feel that you have the right infrastructure connectivity to really, fully -- I mean obviously you're benefiting from increased demand, but to really kind of fully maintain or pick up share over time?
John Christopher Donahue -- President, Chief Executive Officer & Chairman
We believe that we have the technology to be able to service these clients as well as anybody in the world. And you can always characterize this, we try to characterize the whole business as a technology business in order to try and get the P/E up, so that you'd see this was a technology business. There have been others in the business, not the one you're referring to, who have been able to push that income into technology. So it's nomenclature, but what the clients see is the investment management expertise and the need for the underlying product. And the one other thing that I would add on this bigger picture score is that we and many, many others including issuers and the marketplace have been working on a Senate Bill S-1117, which basically restores money market funds in the prime area and in the muni area to $1 net asset value, and this would be a great boom to the marketplace to restore the pricing that the capital markets have on exactly these products, right at that point of the short-term area of the curve, and we're still working on this. Others in the industry seem to not be as enthusiastic about this. Debbie also has some comments on this subject.
Deborah Ann Cunningham -- Executive Vice President, Chief Information Officer of Global Money Markets
Certainly, if you look at -- just from a history lesson standpoint, when the financial crisis happened back in 2008, at that point in time deposit products and money market mutual funds were both around $4 trillion. And since that time, because of deposit insurance, because of the zero interest rate environment, because of the concerns in the marketplace, money fund assets went down to $2.6 trillion, they are now about $3 trillion and deposits soared to -- depending on what deposits you're looking at -- anywhere between $10 trillion and $13 trillion. The fact is, though, that those assets have stagnated in the context of their growth, they're growing 2%-ish on an annual basis and that's compared to more or like double-digit, just barely double-digit growth, 10%-ish type growth in the money market mutual funds marketplace.
I think there were moves that were made by the broker dealer clients that we've talked about that, make it a more difficult path to reverse. Nonetheless, I think economics went out and with a continuing rising rate environment, which we would expect to see in 2019, we don't see any reason why the product should lose its momentum. Does it get prime back to the peak of $1.7 trillion, probably not, at least not in the immediate future, maybe with Senate Bill 1117 it does, time will tell on that one, but it certainly -- because of technology, because of investment expertise, because of client driven relationships and the business that we -- the provision of information that we provide to them on a pretty easy basis instantaneously, we have a very positive outlook for the future.
Robert Andrew Lee -- Keefe, Bruyette, & Woods, Inc., Research Division -- Analyst
Great. And then maybe a follow-up on pricing in the money fund business. Is it fair to think that -- I understand that your fee rates are relatively stable sequentially, but is it fair to say that fee competition kind of in the government fund side of the business is possibly more intense than on the prime side, simply because maybe it's harder to differentiate yourselves in Treasury and government funds versus prime where credit skills and whatnot play a bigger role?
Deborah Ann Cunningham -- Executive Vice President, Chief Information Officer of Global Money Markets
I think the part of the government fund fee discussion had to do with the point in time when there was a lot of the asset gathering occurring into that sector, not necessarily from an industry standpoint, but into that sector. So switching out of prime and muni and into government from a sector perspective, the $1 trillion that moved in 2016. There were fee waivers that were done to capture market share at that point, and I won't say that it set a new standard. Certainly once that movement occurred, fees began to normalize, although not back to the pre-financial or pre-reform levels. You might see something like that occur again, if in fact if we had the bills passed and the restoration of the $1 NAV for prime and muni, so you could see it on those particular products. And again, it would be in an attempt to capture market share in that asset gathering or asset movement time period. But that's again something that's really pretty hard to predict at this point.
Robert Andrew Lee -- Keefe, Bruyette, & Woods, Inc., Research Division -- Analyst
Great. And then I appreciate your patience, just one more follow-up question, maybe for Tom or Ray if he's on and maybe this is something we could do offline afterwards. But is it possible to get an update, given the changes in your AUM disclosure and reallocation, get a sense of kind of fee rates by bucket, so to speak, so we can obviously better model in kind of the changing pattern of assets and flows?
Raymond J. Hanley -- President, Federated Investors Management Company
Hey Rob, it's Ray. Yes, I can help you with that, that probably would be better offline, though.
Robert Andrew Lee -- Keefe, Bruyette, & Woods, Inc., Research Division -- Analyst
Okay, great, thanks guys.
Operator
Our next question is a follow-up from Patrick Davitt with Autonomous Research.
Patrick Davitt -- Autonomous Research -- Analyst
Thanks for the follow-up. Segments in the quarter-to-date strategic value flows, which appear to be a continuation of the improvement we saw last quarter, the performance has been a lot better, obviously, and there appears to be a shift from growth to value. So have you started to notice a change in the behavior of your clients of that fund, maybe people that were thinking about redeeming not anymore. Just curious about the dynamics and how they've evolved as the performance has gotten better and the growth value dynamic has changed.
John Christopher Donahue -- President, Chief Executive Officer & Chairman
The answer is a hopeful yes. As you point out, the numbers of -- the size of the redemptions month-to-month has been going down and the amount of sales is sort of hanging in there. We noticed that the fund was ranked in the first percentile month-to-date. So don't get all that excited, through October 24, which just restores the comments we've made here many times that that fund is either a leader of the pack or back in the pack, but still always doing that which it says it wants to do, which is pay a good dividend and own big good companies that have increasing dividends. So what we have seen is there is a diminishment in the amount of angst inside that marketplace, so that we could have more positive calls on the subject of the fund, but it's very difficult to say that the down slope is over. But certainly seeing it on this kind of a slope is a much improvement, coupled with the performance in that bucket, which is as I've said before, not exactly the way to evaluate that fund.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question is a follow-up from Ken Worthington of JPMorgan. Please proceed with your questions.
Ken Worthington -- JPMorgan -- Analyst
Hi, thank you for taking this. Sorry Tom, just on the compensation, maybe help me here, so $103 million in 3Q. I think you said ex deferrals it should be around $105 million. But that includes $3.8 million of the deal related costs this quarter. So the right number might be something like $101.2 million. Your guidance is for something like $106 million. As we think about the right place to be for 2019, is it the $1.2 million (ph) or is it $106 million and why is there such a big variance between between those two?
Thomas Robert Donahue -- VP, Treasurer, CFO
Sure, Ken. I wouldn't use the $101 million like you're saying. If you remember, I kind of took through my -- in answering the accretion question that Hermes was accruing their bonuses, Q1, Q2, Q3, as though they were going to be paid in 2018. After we acquired them, management decided to defer a portion of those bonuses into 2019, 2020, 2021, and so that was a significant number. That's why -- the run rate actually should have gone the other way and that's why I'm saying that the $103 million on a normalized basis would be $105 million and I'm including in that the deal-related incentive comp that was paid. And so the best I can give you is $106 million for Q4 and '19, I don't have a comment on it.
Ken Worthington -- JPMorgan -- Analyst
Okay. You answered it, the $105 million actually includes the deal related costs. That's the part that I missed. Okay, thank you so much. I apologize, do that online.
Operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we've reached the end of our question-and-answer session. And I would now like to turn the call back to Ray Hanley for his closing remarks.
Raymond J. Hanley -- President, Federated Investors Management Company
That concludes our call and we thank you for joining us today.
Operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, you may disconnect your lines at this time, and thank you for your participation.
Duration: 58 minutes
Call participants:
Raymond J. Hanley -- President, Federated Investors Management Company
John Christopher Donahue -- President, Chief Executive Officer & Chairman
Thomas Robert Donahue -- VP, Treasurer, CFO
Michael Carrier -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
Kenneth Brooks Worthington -- JP Morgan Chase & Co. -- Analyst
Deborah Ann Cunningham -- Executive Vice President, Chief Information Officer of Global Money Markets
William R. Katz -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Saker Anwar Nusseibeh -- Chief Executive Officer, Chief Information Officer and Head of Investment
Patrick Davitt -- Autonomous Research -- Analyst
Ari Ghosh -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst
Brian Bedell -- Deutsche Bank -- Analyst
Kenneth S. Lee -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Robert Andrew Lee -- Keefe, Bruyette, & Woods, Inc., Research Division -- Analyst
Ken Worthington -- JPMorgan -- Analyst
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