Brightsphere Investment Group PLC. (BSIG) Q4 2020 Earnings Call Transcript

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Brightsphere Investment Group PLC. (BSIG 0.13%)
Q4 2020 Earnings Call
Feb 4, 2021, 11:00 a.m. ET

Contents:

• Prepared Remarks
• Questions and Answers
• Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the BrightSphere Investment Group Earnings Conference Call and Webcast for the Fourth Quarter 2020. During the call, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. After the presentation we will conduct a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the meeting over to Elie Sugarman, Managing Director and Strategic Development.

Please go ahead Elie.

Elie Sugarman -- Investor Relations

Good morning and welcome to BrightSphere's conference call to discuss our results for the fourth quarter ended 31, 2020. Before we get started, please note that we may make forward-looking statements about our business and financial performance. Each forward-looking statement is subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. Additional information regarding these risks and uncertainties appears in our SEC filings, including the Form 8-K filed today containing the earnings release, our 2019 Form 10-K and our Form 10-Qs for the first, second and third quarters of 2020.

Any forward-looking statements that we make on this call are based on assumptions as of today and we undertake no obligation to update them as a result of new information or future events. We may also reference certain non-GAAP financial measures. Information about any non-GAAP measures referenced, including a reconciliation of those measures to GAAP measures can be found on our website along with the slides that we will use as part of today's discussion. Finally, nothing herein shall be deemed to be an offer or solicitation to buy any investment products. Suren Rana, our President and Chief Executive Officer will lead the call and now I'm pleased to turn it over to Suren. Suren?

Suren Rana -- Chief Executive Officer

Thanks Elie. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'll focus my initial remarks on the key highlights in the quarter laid out on slide 5 of the deck, and then we can switch to Q&A. We reported ENI per share of $0.47 for the quarter compared with $0.50 that we reported for the fourth quarter of 2019. The EPS decline compared with the year ago quarter, primarily reflects the impact of closing the sale of Barrow Hanley in the middle of the quarter and hence missing the earnings from that affiliate for the back half of the quarter.

And this was only partially offset by us achieving our target for expense reduction in our Corporate Center and our share buyback activity in the year. The ENI of $0.47 in the quarter is flat compared to the third quarter of this year, which was also $0.47, and this again reflects the Barrow Hanley disposition in the quarter which led to lower ENI in our Liquid Alpha. But the decline in Liquid Alpha segment relative to third quarter was offset by higher ENI in our Quant & Solutions segment driven by the continuing market recovery and higher ENI in our alternative segment driven by net inflows.

Our net client cash flows in the quarter on a pro forma basis that is excluding Barrow Hanley improved slightly to minus $0.3 billion compared to minus $0.5 billion that we had in the third quarter. The fourth quarter net outflows that $0.3 billion comprised net inflows of $0.6 billion in alternatives, reflecting continued fundraising and other flows and net inflows of $0.4 Billion in pro forma Liquid Alpha.

So, we'll combine $1 billion of net inflows from these two segments which was offset by net outflows of $1.3 billion in Quant & Solutions, resulting in the $0.3 billion of net outflows. Our investment performance remain generally stable and is similar to the third quarter. As I mentioned earlier in the fourth quarter, we reached our target ahead of schedule while reducing our annualized corporate venture costs by $20 million. Turning to capital management, we completed the sale of Barrow Hanley in the middle of the quarter and we used a part of the proceeds to fully pay off the remaining $80 million of borrowings on our corporate revolving facility.

We expect to use the rest of the proceeds reflected in our outsized cash position on the balance sheet to return more capital to the shareholders and potentially deleverage further. As you will note, our cash balance at the end of the fourth quarter was $403 million compared to $130 million at the end of the third quarter. Now, let me turn the call back to the operator and I'm happy to answer questions at this point. Thank you.

Questions and Answers:

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Craig Siegenthaler from Credit Suisse. Your line is open.

Craig Siegenthaler -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst

Good morning Suren, hope all is well.

Suren Rana -- Chief Executive Officer

Hi Craig, how are you?

Craig Siegenthaler -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst

I'm good. So, given the improving capital position but also the higher stock price, can you just remind us how we should think about the method in which you will return capital to shareholders this year?

Suren Rana -- Chief Executive Officer

Yes. Thanks Craig. We haven't made a specific decision yet. We continue to evaluate as to what the best use of capital is, but returning capital to shareholders remains our priority in the top view and then as I mentioned earlier, we're also looking into using some of the proceeds to potentially a little bit more deleveraging. So, a couple of ways we could do that now is repurchases, we're monitoring the market, there is a lot of volatility, so we will see what the right timing is maybe. We do have a bias toward using up the capital sooner rather than later. You could also consider one-time special dividend for example, we're thinking through that, so more to come in the next call it month or a couple of months on that, but essentially return of capital to shareholders, being the primary use and maybe a little bit more deleveraging.

Craig Siegenthaler -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst

Got it, and very helpful. Just as my follow-up I wanted to get your perspective on the potential timing of the next vintages of fundraising at Landmark and maybe you could just compare it in terms of sizing, when we think about the last fundraising cycle they experienced 2 to 3 years ago?

Suren Rana -- Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. No, we were still essentially as we have said that we are targeting and I guess I'm glad you've referenced the last fundraising because as we have always said, we're targeting essentially more or less the same amount as our last vintages, so in 2020, you would have noticed that we got it amdist COVID, and so we definitely have had an impact on the normal cadence of fundraising from COVID both logistical issues as well as this client being a little bit somewhat delaying things, if you will, but in 2020 having gotten it started, you would have noticed in our filings that we have about a $1 billion that we raised in 2020, just getting warmed up if you will, and that was in one of our strategies, which is infrastructure and we have an asset secondary strategy and then we would expect to get to our target essentially over the next couple of years this year and 2022, essentially and we probably expect north of $10 billion remaining to be raised, and that sort of compares to what we did in the last vintage.

Craig Siegenthaler -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst

Thank you Suren.

Suren Rana -- Chief Executive Officer

Thanks Craig.

Operator

Our next question is from Michael Cyprys with Morgan Stanley, your line is open.

Michael Cyprys -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Hey, thanks for taking the question, maybe if you could just dig in a little bit more on the capital management. I was just hoping you could just give us a little bit more color around how you might approach evaluating whether you'd shift a little bit more toward a special dividend versus the buyback? What factors are you going to be considering and that sort of analysis. And then similarly, as you think about sizing the debt pay down again, how are you thinking about sizing that and what are the factors you're going to be looking to take into consideration there?

Suren Rana -- Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, thanks Mike. Yeah, I guess, essentially just value accretion it remains our primary lens, if you will, in terms of just use of capital and it was that reason that we are not focused on acquisitions, for example as they've been consistent that we think that they would be EPS accretive, but for the value of those incremental earnings we don't consider them -- we wouldn't consider it high enough to warrant that capital yields. So, in terms of looking at it from here, essentially just returning the capital to shareholders there is some definitiveness to that in terms of what that value whereas in terms of delevering or repurchasing there is -- we have to take into account the market conditions, the timing and the size and how much you can actually get done.

So, those are things we're looking at, but I would say, those are all good options. It's a good problem to have in our way and I'm trying to figure out which one's the most optimal -- it could be a combination.

Michael Cyprys -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Great. And just maybe as a follow-up question, I was hoping if you could give a little bit of color on maybe the institutional pipeline here, how that stands today versus maybe last quarter and a year ago and any color you can share on the Quant related outflows in the quarter in particular -- how some of the managed small strategies are performing and holding up at Acadian, maybe you could remind us of where they stand from an AUM standpoint and how they contributed from a flow standpoint in the quarter?

Suren Rana -- Chief Executive Officer

Yeah certainly. I think on the institutional pipeline, things are starting to come back to more normal -- normal in the sense of remote and volume is normal -- in the sense that clients and consultants are all engaged and have got used to working remotely than doing diligence remotely and awarding mandates remotely that's becoming more normal, so even if it's not work from office for a while things are picking up in full swing and pipelines are building up too pre COVID environment, so that's encouraging going into 2021, but on the flip side as well there are times when clients are looking to do things moving into products that we don't have and so that's the flip side of it, but we expect to be losing more often than winning when new things come up, and in terms of performance yes, no Acadian has a pretty diverse of strategy and managed group of strategies is one of the larger ones, they are pretty diversified within that [Indecipherable] international other regions.

But as a group, the similarity there is that they generally have -- if you should need low beta securities as opposed to high beta the theme being that when peaked well using all the multiple factors, low beta strategies deliver just as much return as high data over longer periods, if not more. But during the specific set of circumstances during 2020, during COVID, you had a situation that low beta sold off as much as high beta and on the recovery, you have high beta stock, which will not be [Indecipherable] that's actually done twice and better. So you'd have periods like that, which is not to question the long-term academics -- the statistical power of the strategy, which is borne over time. But yeah, you would have periods like that when those strategies underperformed, and then yes certainly there could be -- those are focused on near-term, but the vast majority of our clients are focused on longer time periods. So yeah, we do see some pressures there on that set of strategies, but generally, it's a very diversified group of strategy we have managed small, we have a variety of international and non-US strategies across different cap ranges, non-US small cap, global equity so there are a lots of puts and takes and that's the main benefit of having a diversified business.

Michael Cyprys -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Great, thank you.

Operator

Our next question is from Kenneth Lee with RBC Capital. Your line is open.

Kenneth Lee -- RBC Capital -- Analyst

Hi, thanks for taking my question. Just one follow-up around capital management. Wondering whether you could share with us any preliminary thoughts about key considerations for future potential target leverage? Thanks.

Suren Rana -- Chief Executive Officer

Hi Ken. On leverage, we're glad to have fully paid off our revolvers, and now we have essentially the bonds outstanding, which are longer dated. We do generate a lot of cash flow sales right and we have that proceeds on our balance sheet sitting bidding. So first priority I said was returning capital to shareholders then we see that opportunities to deleverage further, but just given the growth in the earnings and cash flow generation, we would expect even if we were to keep our current level of gross debt, we would probably expect to end up with less than 2 times gross debt to EBITDA most times. We'd have generally as I mentioned in earlier calls particularly around 1Q, we have some seasonally, but that tapers off in the course of the following quarters. So, we probably expect as we get into second and third quarter and fourth quarter, we'd expect gross debt to EBITDA to generally be an investment to it.

Kenneth Lee -- RBC Capital -- Analyst

Got you. That's very helpful. And just one quick follow-up by, if I may. I wonder if you could share with us any thoughts around any potential need for reinvestments within the business over the near-term, either in technology platforms or other areas? Thanks.

Suren Rana -- Chief Executive Officer

Thanks Ken. We have been investing in our business, during normal course so now Acadian for example, we've been investing in the technology for multiple years, I'm trying to stay ahead of the curve in terms of data, but also adding the latest Investor reporting tools and while they're having the latest trading capability to both expand capacity and to help with Alpha generation, similarly at Landmark we've been investing in -- basically nearly all fronts, in terms of fundraising, deploying capital, investor reporting. So that's just already reflected in our if you will the run rate P&L the recurring investments that we do, but they also use the part of the capital to seed new strategies so that we continue to do across all three of our segments.

And the management teams -- we encourage the management teams to come up strategies where they can produce Alpha and where the market is big, so we'll continue to do that and we have enough in our seed capital pool that that's adequate as opposed to meeting more to support that new strategy development.

Kenneth Lee -- RBC Capital -- Analyst

Great, that's very helpful, thank you very much.

Suren Rana -- Chief Executive Officer

Thanks Ken.

Operator

Our next question is from Gayathri Ramakrishnan with Bank of America. Your line is open.

Gayathri Ramakrishnan -- Bank of America -- Analyst

Hi there. I was wondering about the expenses -- your guidance was definitely better compared to last quarter, and I was just curious in terms of what has changed and how to generally think about long-term margins?

Suren Rana -- Chief Executive Officer

Hi Gayathri. Yeah, there has been lots of ins and outs on the expense, particularly with the disposition, if you will, Barrow Hanley and Copper Rock earlier, and then there is the center expenses that we had guided to that we would achieve $20 million of reduction and so by 1Q 2021, but we were able to get there by this quarter. So, that's essentially on the expenses -- we also have -- there is some margin benefit we had on the T&E front that will normalize over time, but that was the expenses. So, going into 2021, we will stay disciplined on expenses. We'll continue to invest in growth particularly at Acadian and Landmark and then some T&E will normalize. So, the result of all that will probably stay -- they're more or less at the same place become moderate growth, but we would expect to, given the market recovery that has happened and the fundraising we're doing. So, the revenue growth we expect to outpace the expense growth so that will result be we expect some modest improvement on our margins.

Gayathri Ramakrishnan -- Bank of America -- Analyst

Got it. Thank you.

Operator

Our next question is from Chris Harris with Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

Chris Harris -- Wells Fargo -- Analyst

Great, thanks. So what are you hearing these days from your institutional customers with all the corporate level changes going on? I know that's not necessarily new development that's been happening for a bit of time. And is this -- are those changes do you think having an impact on the flows in anyway?

Suren Rana -- Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, that's from the perspective of institutional client growth. Yeah, no change is best from my perspective that definitely are given. But if there were to be changes, I think the multi-boutique model -- the benefit of that model is that at our affiliates -- the actual investment managers are fairly insulated from any changes in the sense that now are fully have always had full investment autonomy and operational autonomy, and with the changes that we announced in the second quarter of last year, that we went further ahead on autonomy and so much so that now Affiliates basically operate their businesses autonomously. So that helps because from a practical perspective, there is nothing that really impacts the underlying Investment Managers and hence their clients, so the question does come up from time to time as clients do their diligence. But most of the time, our managers are able to provide enough information, but now from a practical perspective the corporate changes don't impact what they do for the clients day to day and certainly doesn't impact the clients, but yeah, but it probably is something that not clients that read the headlines from time to time, but wanted to check the demand is, so whether it's something that impacts them.

Chris Harris -- Wells Fargo -- Analyst

Yeah, OK. And just to verify on the capital management, and thanks for all your comments on that. A big increase in the cash balance this quarter from the sale of Barrow Hanley. You've laid out the options, and it sounds like you want to make a decision about in a month or two, on you and the Board on what to do with that excess cash in the balance sheet? Is that a fair summary?

Suren Rana -- Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. That's a good summary and you said it better in [Indecipherable]

Chris Harris -- Wells Fargo -- Analyst

Okay, all right, thank you.

Operator

Our next question is from Glenn Schorr with Evercore ISI. Your line is open.

Glenn Schorr -- Evercore ISI -- Analyst

Excellent. So, so [Indecipherable] I imagine sorry but obviously missing some of those auctions in acquisitions to add to the strategy of higher demand Quant & Solutions and alternative strategies. Is it fair enough to assume that the organic growth will come from investments within [Indecipherable] landmark deal. And then as a follow up on that, in Japan is that self funded or parent company funded -- has that worked between self funding and parent company?

Suren Rana -- Chief Executive Officer

Hi Glenn. So, as I touched on earlier that our recurring P&L do have a good healthy amount that we need it technology investments for example at Acadian as well at Landmark where they're investing in proprietary technology that's helpful to their clients. So, we do that a fair bit and as well as the growth in head count to support investor relations, fund raising, that's already in there and runs through the P&L and then we provide fee capital at all of our businesses to support new strategy as well as to support fundraising and we have a few capital pool to support that.

So, essentially that is definitely one of the uses from a capital management perspective that we laid out in our new strategy in April of 2020 that essentially they the main uses are return of capital to shareholders one, deleveraging two, and third supporting our affiliate businesses, but we happen to have enough on the third item. We already have a carve out, if you will, in the P&L and in the fee capital pool that we have and we remain supportive of bolt on inorganic acquisition should our Affiliates find complementary strategies teams, or platforms and in that case we would support them with that capital.

So, but that's very much with our new approach. We've switched to more of an affiliate led approach on those issues because their ground level knowledge intelligence will be much better to underwrite a decision like that as opposed to our corporate making that decision.

Glenn Schorr -- Evercore ISI -- Analyst

Fair enough. If I could ask a related follow-up for Acadian clients I'm just curious on how this is balancing their business. Just want to see how will they fares the change in risk volatility and if they see changes coming down the pipe, at low have they navigate those markets with them.

Suren Rana -- Chief Executive Officer

Glenn, you broke up there a little bit. Would you mind restating or rephrasing the question?

Glenn Schorr -- Evercore ISI -- Analyst

Sorry about that, that's me. I guess I'm curious on how Acadian did during the January big retail volatility that was going on this time around, we were able to account for all that volatility and the safety key to changes in the marketplace [Indecipherable] continue to make to adapt or is it really just business as usual?

Suren Rana -- Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, it's more of the latter -- the business as usual in the sense that as I mentioned, our business is long only business even in strategies like managed volatility, it's basically just having low beta securities as opposed to having good options or short positions. We don't really have a long-short business, it's very tiny, so the volatility that you saw in specific securities in January did not affect us from that perspective, but one way these things can affect us to be candid would be -- if there were larger securities that just rise, and that would then have essentially an increase in the benchmark why because the way the benchmark return right so that's why it would be then under-performing -- the benchmark but the volatility in January had some impact on the benchmark but given those were -- I mean smaller portions of the security smaller portion of the benchmark it did not impact us. That much it was manageable but of course our Acadian as well as our other affiliates, they've stayed true to their discipline right, whether it's we are doing the multi-factor approach in the Acadian or value approach, and that will prove out and generally has proven out over time right, as opposed to dabbling in near-term momentum because we have a firm belief that it's an investment process that we stick to, that we adhere to and we haven't veered from that right.

There is -- if some investors retail investors are enjoying a hot-air balloon ride, if you will right now, we know that's not going to take them to the moon right when the year finishes then it could be a hard landing, so we will say true to our discipline essentially but acknowledging that we don't have any short positions and put options, but if the benchmarks get impacted then we'll miss out on the return that we would be just scratching our heads, how, something like that can happen. Does that answer your question?

Glenn Schorr -- Evercore ISI -- Analyst

Thanks a lot Suren. Yes actually, thank you.

Operator

Our next question is from Yogesh Modak with ClearBridge. Your line is open.

Yogesh Modak -- ClearBridge -- Analyst

Hey Suren, how are you? All my questions have been asked and answered. Thank you.

Suren Rana -- Chief Executive Officer

Hi. Okay, thanks.

Operator

Our next question is from Michael Cyprys with Morgan Stanley, your line is open.

Michael Cyprys -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Hey Suren, thanks for taking the follow-up. I just wanted to circle back on Landmark with the upcoming fundraising. I was just hoping you might be able to help quantify the impact of any step-down on the fees for predecessor funds as you raise the new funds and turn on fees for those. And then if you can provide any sort of color on how the existing set of landmark funds are performing in the marketplace. Maybe where they stand in terms of distributions back to LPs and just lastly, any sort of color around the GP commitment that's needed from BrightSphere versus Landmark itself versus the Affiliates just in terms of how that's going to be split up to be out to be paid for the GP commit?

Suren Rana -- Chief Executive Officer

Right. So if I miss anything Mike, feel free to ask again. But in terms of the track record, it's been one of the best and the longest track record where Landmark was the pioneer in the secondary business, so it's been -- it's been a consistent track record of returns including a very strong track record during the global financial prices, so that's why Landmark continues to be well regarded and a strong track record in the most recent vintages. So in terms of the last vintages that we raised and yes, a good question that essentially our fees are charged on committed capital and there was a period of time during rate work which remains uncommitted capital and it then it flips to investor capital and unless there are a lot of distributions or a lot of change generally when it flips to invested capital it should be more or less the same, but that would be coming up starting in 2022 there would be some changes from committed capital to the net asset value and that impact as we get closer to that date will provide more guidance on what that impact will be. But of course, and fortunately we're raising funds much ahead of that so some of that -- essentially, it will be way more than offset of course just given the last set of fundraises of about similar size but a step down -- it's much smaller in terms of the change from committed capital to now because these are very long dated funds, so not that much gets distributed out that would create that gap between committed capital and now. And the third part of the question, Mike if you could refresh if I missed it.

Michael Cyprys -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Just on the GP commitment -- how are you thinking about funding that and kind of splitting it between the parent versus Landmark itself and the employees?

Suren Rana -- Chief Executive Officer

Yes. So, essentially it's a split that we discussed with the team and on the last set of funds essentially that split was 60:40 we generally had provide 1% of GP commitment and 60% was funded by BSEG and 40% by the team and there will be split of carry the last sort of vintages. We basic -- we wanted the team to have that a majority of the carries of the team has about 85%, leasing has about 15% on the next set of vintages that we'll will be discussing that in terms of what that right split should but essentially, we provide some and we get some carried.

Michael Cyprys -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Great. And just, sorry to clarify, you mentioned so the step down taking place more in 2022, does that suggest that the fund will be raised or starting to be raised in 2021, but you wouldn't necessarily be charging fees on that until 2022?

Suren Rana -- Chief Executive Officer

No, the way our funds work in the secondary strategies is that now that essentially the fees is charged on committed capital, whether it's deployed or not, it of course get deployed relatively sooner compared to primary funds and that would -- that's one of the advantages of secondary. But the fees starts getting accrued from the time it's committed. So, when we have fund closes, that fees is accrued and you may recall that we also have this element of catch-up fees for subsequent closings for clients that come in later may pay fees going back to their first. Does that clarify?

Michael Cyprys -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

If that's the case how come the funds are not there -- earlier ones are not stepping down in 2021? I was just curious on that sort of dichotomy there.

Suren Rana -- Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, because we have different strategies and so the step downs are different for different strategies but essentially, we will see some step downs in 2022, but I don't understand the specific why you would expect some funds to be stepping down in 2021.

Michael Cyprys -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Got it, OK. We could take offline, that's OK, appreciate all the color here. Thanks so much.

Suren Rana -- Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

Operator

This concludes our question-and-answer session. Now I'd like to turn the conference call back over to you Suren Rana.

Suren Rana -- Chief Executive Officer

Great. Thank you everyone for joining us today and for asking us good questions. Hope that was helpful, wishing everyone a blissful 2021 and a healthy one. Thank you.

Duration: 37 minutes

Call participants:

Elie Sugarman -- Investor Relations

Suren Rana -- Chief Executive Officer

Craig Siegenthaler -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst

Michael Cyprys -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Kenneth Lee -- RBC Capital -- Analyst

Gayathri Ramakrishnan -- Bank of America -- Analyst

Chris Harris -- Wells Fargo -- Analyst

Glenn Schorr -- Evercore ISI -- Analyst

Yogesh Modak -- ClearBridge -- Analyst

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