Envestnet (ENV) Q4 2021 Earnings Call Transcript

Envestnet (ENV 1.78%)
Q4 2021 Earnings Call
Feb 24, 2022, 5:00 p.m. ET

Contents:

• Prepared Remarks
• Questions and Answers
• Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to the Envestnet fourth quarter 2021 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator instructions].

As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Mr. Brian Shipman, head of investor relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Brian Shipman -- Head of Investor Relations

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us on today's fourth quarter and full year 2021 earnings call. Before we begin, I would like to point out that our earnings press release, supplemental presentation, and associated Form 10-K can be found under the investor relations section of our website at envestnet.com. This call is being webcast live, and a replay will be available for one month on our website.

During the call, we will be discussing certain forward-looking information. This information is based on our current expectations and is not a guarantee of future performance. I encourage you to review the cautionary statement on Slide 2 and 3 for potential risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ from those expressed by the forward-looking statements. Further information can be found in our regular SEC filings.

During this call, we will be referring to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to our appendix in our presentation for a reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures. The presentation is also posted to the Envestnet investor relations website. Joining me on today's call are Bill Crager, Envestnet's chief executive officer; and Pete D'Arrigo, the company's chief financial officer.

Bill and Pete will provide a company update, as well as an overview of the company's fourth quarter and full year 2021 results. After our prepared remarks, we will open the call to questions. During the Q&A, please limit yourself to one question plus one follow-up. We may get back into the queue if you have additional questions.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Bill. 

Bill Crager -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Brian. I want to thank everybody for joining us today. I'm excited to report our fourth quarter and 2021 full year results. Last year at this time, we introduced a strategy to deliver on a vision that Envestnet is uniquely positioned to achieve.

We have a formidable market position and are tightly connecting our industry-leading capabilities which is a distinct competitive advantage that Envestnet will leverage for sustained growth and profitability over the years ahead. We're executing on the plan we introduced last year, and the results we posted speak to the significant progress that we are making. I'd like to call out a few tangible achievements for 2021. First, we doubled our net asset flow in AUM&A to $54 billion, excluding conversions, as we began to focus on opportunities in our current account base.

We also advanced digital connectivity to our clients, delivering 11 million insights today that enable our advisors to take actionable steps based on their clients' unique needs. We also signed with 291 new firms, RIAs, banks, fintech companies, enterprises, and embedded environments, connecting them to the power of the Envestnet ecosystem. We made impressive progress last year. And as we look ahead, we are on track to deliver accelerated revenue growth and hit the $2 billion in revenue we forecasted by 2025.

We're also on track to generate 1 billion insights a day for our network by 2026. And we're lastly on track to deliver a modernized connected digital environment that uses data to scale a fuller range of financial wellness capabilities. Our guidance, as we look ahead, reflects the relevance of our strategy and the rigor and focus on execution that we've applied. The pieces are in place.

We have strong momentum, and we're delivering. Pete will provide thoughts on 2022 in a moment. But as you know, we've been speaking about a growth strategy for the last several quarters, and I want to share with you how we're doing. First, we're capturing more of the addressable market.

With over 108,000 financial advisors that manage $5.7 trillion in assets on our platform, we've been focused on going deeper, our process is powerful. We are able to pinpoint opportunities for advisors to introduce value-added services to their clients, and they are having success engaging with them. Here's what I mean by this. I mentioned earlier that we had doubled our net flows year over year.

And within these net flows, the mix coming from assets under management was much higher last year. at 70%, up from 49% the year prior. This was an intentional concerted effort for us. AUM flows typically generate higher fee rates for the higher value services that we provide and have a positive revenue growth benefit.

Within AUM flows, our personalized investing capabilities continue to grow at an accelerated clip reaching $61 billion in total assets under management. This is happening across the board with these services. For instance, assets utilizing our overlay services grew by 57% last year. The number of advisors using direct indexing solutions expanded by more than 50%.

And flows in our sustainable investing strategies doubled year over year. These early results are encouraging, but what's more important is that the structure and approach we have put in place is highly leverageable, and we believe will drive accelerated success in the quarters that lie ahead. Next, we've been focused on modernizing the digital engagement marketplace, providing our clients with a full set of market-leading technology. 2022 is a year of execution for us.

You see we are moving from build mode to delivery mode on several key initiatives. We've already gotten started. Our next-generation proposal tool is rolling out to our clients. And today, more than 1,200 firms have access to it.

This tool creates greater productivity for the advisor while connecting them to the broader set of Envestnet solutions. We have developed a new best-in-class client portal and the feedback from early users has been nothing short of extraordinary. We're beginning phased rollouts of this client portal this coming April. Also, Envestnet is driving scaled connectivity for our clients.

Yodlee U.S. open banking APIs went live midyear last year. And in a very short time, we've enabled many of our largest clients to connect better with their clients. We're projecting by year-end 2022, we will manage 80% of Yodlee data requests through these APIs.

This modernizes the data offering enables us to add value in new ways to these clients. And finally, the last pillar of our growth strategy, we're opening our platform to the ecosystem. The Envestnet marketplace is extremely valuable digital real estate. And by connecting more and more solution providers, we centralize, and we concentrate industry experience and drive more benefits for our clients.

Here are some examples. The Yodlee developer portal makes it easier for our fintech clients to onboard and integrate their solutions. Over the last two years, we have seen usage in this portal up over 80-fold. We launched last year API developer environments for both all of Envestnet and for MoneyGuide.

Our clients are using these environments to customize their Envestnet experience, and importantly, third parties can directly connect their offerings to the ecosystem, resulting in more options for our clients. What's coming ahead is even more exciting. This year, we will combine all of our developer portals into a unified experience creating a single-entry point to the entirety of the Envestnet ecosystem. This breaks new ground for our industry and is a one of a kind for our marketplace.

And then finally, we're growing the number of solutions on our platform. We continue to expand the choices that clients have. We've announced partnerships with UBS and iCapital for a full suite of alternative investments. We've partnered with YieldX for greater fixed income solutions, and we partnered with SIMON for commission-based annuity products, as well as structured notes.

Each of these builds upon the market-leading platform of solutions that Envestnet offers our clients. We're executing on our strategy and by pulling the pieces of investment together, we are aligning and enabling the future for our clients. One recently noting to me, you weren't just hitting the bull's eye. You're in the exact center of the bull's eye for us.

This is great news and tremendous progress, but we are not taking our foot off the gas. I'm very excited about the year ahead for Envestnet. Let me highlight some of the capabilities that you will hear more and more about over the quarters ahead. Our data and analytics business is helping our clients more deeply engage the 30 million small business owners in the U.S.

by building a powerful aggregated environment for SMBs to connect the disconnected parts of their business. This is a huge opportunity for our data business that we're very excited about. Our cloud-based data management solution aggregates, reconciles enriches, and publishes data for our clients. It provides data insights and recommendation.

It powers next-gen business intelligence, and it fuels all of our network's technology capabilities. You will hear us talking more and more about this offering over the rest of this year. At the Advisor Summit, which we will be hosting in-person this coming May, you'll see how all of these parts come together into an exciting multidimensional experience for our marketplace, connecting from end consumer to the advisor to the advisor's business to the home office and enterprises to the network of solution providers that our ecosystem offers, networking all of Envestnet and our partners into a fluid leverageable engine that powers the future, and the future is the intelligent financial life. We're using our market position and our full range of capabilities to grow our footprint and serve our clients more deeply as we drive faster growth and ultimately drive more profitability for our business.

Now let me hand it over to Pete, who will take you through our financial results and our outlook for 2022.

Pete D'Arrigo -- Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Bill, and good afternoon, everyone. Our fourth quarter results continue to demonstrate the strengths in our business model. We expect the momentum from the last few months of 2021 to carry through into 2022. Adjusted revenues for the fourth quarter of 2021 grew 21% to $320 million compared to the fourth quarter of 2020.

Adjusted EBITDA was $56 million, slightly ahead of our guidance range and this reflects the expected progression of investments we announced last February. Adjusted earnings per share for the quarter was $0.50. Our complete guidance is laid out in the earnings release and in the earnings supplemental presentation, but I want to highlight a couple of items. In 2022, we expect adjusted revenues to be between $1.360 billion and $1.385 billion, up approximately 15% to 17% compared to 2021.

Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be between $270 million and $280 million. Consistent with our past practice, our guidance is based on asset levels as of year-end 2021. Most sell-side analysts' current published estimates include contribution to revenue and EBITDA as a result of market appreciation. For clarity, on a like-for-like basis, our guidance is in line with consensus.

Adding some detail about our revenue outlook for 2022. First, our wealth business performed well in 2021. As Bill mentioned, record net flows during the year are a substantial driver of organic growth and the revenue from these assets will contribute a full year benefit in 2022. Second, our subscription business continues to grow steadily in both segments with accelerating recurring revenue growth in the data and analytics segment from around 2% in 2021 into the high single digits in 2022.

For expenses, pandemic-related circumstances again suppressed our 2021 adjusted operating expenses, which we believe is unsustainable longer term, around $15 million to $20 million of operating expense favorability compared to pre-pandemic levels can be attributed solely to an operating environment that limited travel, in-person advisor and client support and other activities. This is important context as we consider our outlook for 2022. We are actively managing our expenses as we are moving into the second year of our accelerated investment initiatives. Among the areas on which we are focused, our first, what I would call, normal expense growth to support the needs of the business today, including supporting additional customer activity as the business grows.

Second, a partial restoration of normal spending levels that we experienced prior to the pandemic for certain items, in this category, we've assumed a broad resumption of business activity over the course of 2022, but still at levels below where they were in 2019, including, for example, the return of an in-person Advisor Summit. Finally, we continue to anticipate the accelerated investments announced last year to have a full year impact of $45 million to $50 million, as we have discussed on the past several earnings calls, which will affect adjusted operating expenses by $15 million to $20 million year over year. These expenses are primarily what is driving the progress Bill mentioned and laying the foundation for extended revenue growth and profitability. In the first quarter, we expect to have the full amount incorporated into our expense structure, and this will be the low point for our EBITDA margin.

We expect sequential quarterly EBITDA growth and margin as we turn the corner in 2022, accelerating into 2023. As we move through 2022, these components will become less separable becoming the core of our expense base. We are focused on maintaining reasonable expense growth relative to our revenue growth going forward. Briefly on the balance sheet, we ended December with approximately $430 million in cash and debt of $850 million, making our net leverage ratio at the end of December, about 1.6 times EBITDA.

Thank you again for your support of Envestnet, and Bill has some closing remarks.

Bill Crager -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Pete. We have clearly made a lot of progress, and we are enthusiastic about where it is leading. We're enthusiastic about what our work means for our clients and for our business. The work we have done is important and exceptional and will have a meaningful impact in the quarters ahead.

But today is a day where I think all of us are struck by the uncertainty of our world. Today is another reminder that life shifts in disruptive ways. Stasis cannot be the assumed state. Conditions change.

On some days for unimaginable reasons, the risk flash brighter and glare may compromise how you see opportunity. I would think many of you are feeling some sense of this today. And so are millions and millions of others who now suddenly have a deeper sense of insecurity. In a meaningful way, this connects to the work we do and the purpose that drives us.

Insecurity is felt when things happen outside people's control. One of those things should not be the money that people have. Our work is breaking down the walls of a person's financial life, creating greater clarity, much greater control and in the end, yielding far greater value from the money that they have. This drives a stronger sense of personal security and enables people to better weather the uncertainty that the world will inevitably cause.

It doesn't solve the things outside of people's control, but the work that we do helps our clients put more within a person's grasp. That is valuable, and it is essential. We are focused on delivering this to more and more people. The Envestnet team, this is the purpose that drives us.

It is important value for our clients. It drives important value and security for their clients, and it creates increasing value for our shareholders. Our thoughts and prayers today are with the people of Ukraine. I will now turn the call back to Hector who will moderate your questions.

Hector?

Questions & Answers:

Operator

Thank you. At this time, we'll be conducting a question-and-answer session. [Operator instructions] One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Our first question comes from Devin Ryan with JMP Securities.

Please proceed with your question.

Devin Ryan -- JMP Securities -- Analyst

Great. Good afternoon. Bill and Pete, how are you?

Bill Crager -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Good, Devin. How are you doing? Looking forward to seeing you.

Devin Ryan -- JMP Securities -- Analyst

I'm doing -- you as well. I'm doing great. I guess since I'm first in the queue here, and I'm sure this will come up, I'm not sure if you guys can shed any lighter perspective on some of the recent press articles just around private equity interest in the firm and a potential, I guess, process that's underway. And even if you can't get into any details, how a situation like that might affect strategy or kind of the next year or two for the firm? 

Bill Crager -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Devin. And just our policy in my -- been very consistent about not commenting on what's in the media or any rumors or speculations that are out there. And I know there's been a spate of articles, but at the end of the day, I'm not going to comment on any speculation. We are -- hopefully, it's clear in what our prepared remarks stated about how focused we are.

We are really been working hard to align the organization behind the strategy that gives our company a sustained competitive advantage and then we are making progress. And we have our head down on that, very focused on making that progress. The key now is really to connect our strategy to our clients so that they're receiving the benefit of all of Envestnet, networking more and more to more of the industry partners that we have and making sure the industry understands, as a whole, the important work that we're doing and how it meaningfully shifts the stage for the value of advice going forward. We're making investments and making sure that those investments are yielding progress, and they are, but I'm dead focused on that.

And at the end of the day, all of that is going to lead to something that we led off the call last February with was we want to drive faster -- sustained, faster revenue growth that has a lot of leverage and can drive more profitability for the business. That is what I'm focused on, period.

Devin Ryan -- JMP Securities -- Analyst

Yep. Got it. Well, thanks for indulging me there. And then, I guess, a follow-up and I guess to the last point you just made, Bill, I mean so seeing some even nice flow momentum in the fourth quarter.

And I know the expectation is that over time, that's going to accelerate based on the investments. Just to unpack that a little bit. You gave a little bit of detail in the prepared remarks around some of the drivers of the strong flows. But maybe just to kind of dig a little bit deeper.

Is there any seasonal benefits in there? Or kind of anything else that may not necessarily recur? And then just remind us on impact of market volatility. Clearly, this year has started in a much more volatile note than we saw throughout all of last year. So just any early indications from that as well

Bill Crager -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. And Ryan, if you -- I'm sure you follow the market today, if today is an indication, right? So no, there's no seasonality in that. What that reflects is a concerted focused effort of ours. And as we talked about this last February, we understood very well that there was a significant opportunity for our business in the $5.7 trillion that we serve in the millions of accounts that we serve.

And what we needed to do was get that focus, apply our data analytic tool to our account base so that we could pinpoint exact opportunities for advisors to add value to their clients. And so we organized around that. There are resources that are super focused to make sure that we're connecting those insights to advisors who are connecting that to their client. And you're seeing the results -- early results of that effort around a few use cases, and I spotlighted some of the growth rates in our overlay business, our direct index business,, as well as in our impact and sustainable assets.

We'll expand those use cases, utilizing our recommendations and the apparatus that we've put in place to drive more and more penetration of the current addressable market. That's leg one, Devin. What I'm getting excited about now is that as we're introducing some of the modernized technology into the market. And we've got a proposal tool that's reached the desktops of 1,200 firms who -- those 1,200 firms have thousands of advisors.

So we're touching a big group of the industry now with an essential piece of technology, but you've got the client portal, you have the trading tools, you have other capabilities that are making their way to market. What we will begin to see what will have anecdotal evidence of at the end of the year and then into '23, we'll see -- begin to see the early results of is our subs rate, our subs growth rate. And really driving our technology into the market and driving growth in the subs. And I call it the old one-two punch.

One is the AUM/A. Number two is going to be the subscription revenue that we'll be able to generate. And so I think we're setting ourselves up for a pretty sustained environment in which we're able to drive accelerated growth.

Pete D'Arrigo -- Chief Financial Officer

And Devin, I'll hit the sensitivity on the market because I know that's going to be a question, especially given today. When we think about this illustratively, the impact on our assets relative to the broader equity markets is about 60%. And so it might be a little higher, might be a little lower. But if you just use that as a proxy for the exposure to the equity markets and assume that on March 31, markets are 5% lower than they were on December 31.

So again, our guidance assumes December 31 asset levels with no market impact over the course of the year. If you assume the drop, the markets dropped 5%, the impact on our assets would be about 3%, and our impact -- the impact on our 2022 revenue would be right around $17 million. And the EBITDA impact, again, using the ratio of asset-based cost of revenue to asset-based revenue, Q4 was about 57%. That would translate to about $7 million or $8 million of EBITDA impact.

So the cost of revenue is variable along with the revenue, and that would be the difference between the two. 

Devin Ryan -- JMP Securities -- Analyst

OK, terrific. Well, appreciate the color, Pete and Bill. Thanks for the update as well. Good to see the momentum.

Bill Crager -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. Thanks, Devin. And we'll see you in a couple of weeks.

Operator

Our next question comes from Surinder Thind with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.

Pete D'Arrigo -- Chief Financial Officer

Hi, Surinder.

Surinder Thind -- Jefferies -- Analyst

Hey, guys. Congratulations on what looks like pretty good 4Q numbers. When I -- my question is about the guidance itself. Can you break the guidance down into its organic growth components in terms of what you're thinking for the Wealth Solutions business on the fee-based side, what you're thinking for Wealth Solutions on maybe the subscription licensing and then the data and analytics.

And then any color on the 1Q number for subscription licensing? It seems to be down pretty meaningfully quarter over quarter. 

Pete D'Arrigo -- Chief Financial Officer

Well, let's answer the first one first. So if you break the two segments down, the wealth business is growing a little faster than our overall. So -- but not a lot. I would say that's going to be maybe if we said $15 million to $17 million for the whole business, maybe $16 million to $18 million for the wealth business and then kind of high single digits on the overall revenue growth in the data and analytics segment, so call it 6% to 8% in that range.

And then the second question was about subs. 

Bill Crager -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Surinder, just -- I didn't follow your second question. I'm sorry around the --

Surinder Thind -- Jefferies -- Analyst

So unless I'm misreading the guidance, and I apologize, I was going through the numbers really quickly. The guidance for 1Q subscription licensing seems to be down quarter over quarter versus 4Q and like $4 million or so, $3 million to $4 million. Any color on that?

Pete D'Arrigo -- Chief Financial Officer

We'll take this one offline.

Surinder Thind -- Jefferies -- Analyst

OK.

Pete D'Arrigo -- Chief Financial Officer

Surinder, we'll follow up with you. That doesn't jibe in my -- but we'll follow up with you.

Surinder Thind -- Jefferies -- Analyst

My apologies. And then in terms of just strategically, obviously, the emphasis has been on the fee-based business. I've noticed over the last two years, the reclass activity has kind of between subscription, going from the fee-based business to -- the subscription licensing businesses is lower than it's been in prior years. Any color on that? Is that a strategic shift that you guys have made in terms of just waiting clients for making the switch, especially given how large the market moves have been if we were to compare market levels from two years ago? 

Bill Crager -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

No, Surinder. I mean we have utilized -- what we went through a process of was taking a pretty large sum of assets that, over time, the marketplace had transitioned from an asset-based product like Rep-as-PM and/or some of our performance reporting capabilities into more of a subs-based offering. And we -- we're converting those clients or transitioning those clients to more of a sub base for those solutions. I think where the opportunity fits, we'll move clients more into a sub base for those types of offerings, preserving asset-based pricing for the more value-added services, building on from the UMA up to things like our overlays and direct index product, as well as our sustainable platform.

But there's a mix there. I think it's episodic in that sometimes it's a client discussion, maybe a contract up for renegotiation -- but really, we're pushing our clients to a place where when there's a technology tool that's driving the majority of the function, we want it to be in a subs category and then when we are using our fiduciary infrastructure to help them make decisions, we're charging a fee basis. 

Surinder Thind -- Jefferies -- Analyst

Got it. OK. And then I apologize. So I double checked the numbers here.

Just for 1Q, it says on your guide, in your press release, subscription-based revenues are going to be in the range of $114 million to $115 million on a non-GAAP basis. And then when I look at the reported number this quarter, it's $118 million. So it's going to be down $3 million to $4 million quarter over quarter for subscription-based revenues. 

Pete D'Arrigo -- Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. Surinder, we'll take that offline with you.

Surinder Thind -- Jefferies -- Analyst

OK.

Operator

Our next question comes from Michael Young with Truist Securities. Please proceed with your question.

Bill Crager -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Hey, Michael.

Michael Young -- Truist Securities -- Analyst

Hey, how's it going?

Bill Crager -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Good. How are you?

Michael Young -- Truist Securities -- Analyst

I'm doing just fine. Thanks for taking the question. I wanted to start with kind of the shift in the growth in, I guess, Yodlee or the data analytics business. Can you talk about kind of what the drivers are that are moving that up from kind of that 2% growth to back to a more decent kind of growth trajectory at high single digits? And then as a follow-up, just if we could think about sort of the EBITDA margin profile of those incremental kind of revenues, is that accretive or significantly accretive to the overall margin? 

Bill Crager -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Yeag, Michael, so as you know, the Yodlee business has been something that we've been working hard to really vitalize and to restore growth in that business. It's been several quarters that we've been working hard to do it. Kudos to our Yodlee team as we believe that we've got building momentum in that business, and I'm very encouraged by it. A couple of dynamics to take note of, continue to be very competitive in the data ag space, whether that's on the fintech side or it's on the financial institution side of the business.

We have been very purposefully bringing down our professional services revenue and pretty much have worked through that decline in revenue, doing that to create more agility, more usage out of our developer kit so that we're not charging PS, and it's much easier to deploy the Yodlee product to big and small clients. So that's been a purposeful revenue decline. There was a bit of a hiatus in foreign or international revenue mostly created by the open banking rules in Australia and in the U.K. They've restored and are growing pretty well today.

And then finally, in the analytics business that on the hedge fund side, on the asset manager side, we're seeing kind of restored growth, interest in that marketplace. We're supplying some tremendous firms who are using that data and bringing that data to the market. So as our reseller, our partners there and, as well as contracts that we're winning in that space. So Michael, long and short of it is, we've been hard at work to kind of get all of those kind of leverage points for the business working in the right direction.

We've turned a corner, and I'm pretty enthusiastic about what lies ahead for that business. From a cost standpoint, we're investing here. And we believe that there's tremendous opportunity in certain areas, underserved areas of the business that a pure data platform like Yodlee can serve much more -- can serve very effectively. I noted the SMB offering, small business offering.

It's a very exciting product that will make its way to market in the second half of 2022, some investment to get that into market and make sure that we're properly distributed. That is going to be a really useful tool for commercial lenders, large banks, as well as our advisors who serve a lot of small business owners, helping them pull their business lives together. And also on the analytics side, we're seeing expansion from the asset manager space to policy areas, as well as ad tech and making some investments to enhance, continue to invest in the data set, adding data to the existing Yodlee data to make that data set even more competitive in the marketplace. So while it will be -- still be a very large EBITDA contributor, there are investments that we're making there.

Michael Young -- Truist Securities -- Analyst

OK. Thanks for that comprehensive rundown --

Pete D'Arrigo -- Chief Financial Officer

Sorry, Michael. Yeah, it's a good question on margins. It is higher margin, as Bill is talking about. I mean the -- it's not without cost.

We do have costs that support the platform, as more activity goes through, but it is closer to software tech type margins as opposed to some of the asset base, which carries higher levels of variable cost of revenue.

Michael Young -- Truist Securities -- Analyst

Thanks, Pete. Appreciate the cleanup there on that one. And then I guess my other question, Bill, would just be you've been more open in talking about potential monetization or partial monetization of that business. Just sort of curious, philosophically, if something like that were to come about, what would you do with that extra cash and capital? Are there specific projects or things that you would put that toward on the wealth side? Or would that be more of a return to shareholders? Just any thoughts you have there would be helpful.

Bill Crager -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. Thank you, Michael. And we've been really heads down and very, very focused on getting that business to restore its -- begin it would restore its growth, and we're going to let that run a little bit because I believe that creates tremendous value. In the meantime, we've been threading more and more our data set in throughout our wealth environment, and it's powering some amazing things.

I mean we made 11 million insights from recommendations that we shared with our advisor set a day as we ended last year, and we're on our way to $1 billion. That is a unique competitive offering that is going to get smarter and more powerful and drive more productivity across the board for us. Some of that IP or some of the brain share and our ability to do that comes from the Yodlee business. We've just kind of cross-bred it now across the organization.

We're using the data to power some next-gen business intelligence. And then the data is also powering some incredible FinApps, whether it's our MoneyGuide blocks or cash flow apps or financial planning or a whole host of other capabilities. So we spent the time not only to get -- restore the growth rate in the Yodlee business, we've been using that data set to power more and more of the wealth environment. All that said, we've maintained and we continue to manage that business in a separatable way, if strategically it made sense for our business to contemplate that.

So that's kind of where we're at. And I think it's really such a hypothesis at the moment as to what we would do with the capital that I don't -- I really wouldn't comment much further than what I've said. 

Michael Young -- Truist Securities -- Analyst

OK. I appreciate all the color. Thanks.

Operator

Our next question comes from Ryan Bailey with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your question.

Ryan Bailey -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst

Hi. Good afternoon, everyone.

Bill Crager -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Hey, Ryan.

Ryan Bailey -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst

Bill, we're about a year in since you announced the investments needed for the intelligent financial life. And I think beyond the benefit to Envestnet's revenues, I think you have a vision that it could impact the entire wealth management industry. So I guess, given how important this is, do you feel there's anything that's held you back over the past year from executing on the strategy, faster, bigger, or better than you've done? 

Bill Crager -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

No. Ryan, I mean, we kind of had a running start at it as we got going last year, and I'm really pleased with the progress we're making. And I would encourage investors, analysts to join us in Charlotte in May because what we'll be able to -- what we'll be introducing to the marketplace then is really the vision and how it's coming to life. And really, I think in my prepared remarks, I called it a multidimensional environment, and it truly is -- and it is creating more and more intelligence and insight to help people make more sense of their money.

I've been working on another addition of the white paper. And I refer to money as a technology and inefficient technologies are disrupted. That's what our industry is going to do. It is going to disrupt the way money has been kind of managed and experienced by people and connected in powerful ways.

We are at the tip of the spear there and we are leaned into making it happen. I'm really pleased with the progress we're making. More to do, but again, I encourage people to join us in Charlotte in May, if you can, as we get back together in person for our annual Advisor Summit because I think you'll get a very good understanding of how these pieces are driving that vision that we stated last year. It's coming to life.

Ryan Bailey -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst

Got it. That's really helpful. And this may have been a better question for Stuart, but I'm sure you'll have an opinion, too. For the data and analytics business, if you had more flexibility to invest more aggressively in that business.

Just given kind of what some of the industry competitors have been able to do with that, haven't had the focus as much on margins. What do you think you would have tackled there? Or what would you be tackling there if you could invest more aggressively? 

Bill Crager -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

On the data analytics business, particularly, Ryan? 

Ryan Bailey -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst

Yes. Yes, please. Yes. 

Bill Crager -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

I think we've really come a tremendous way in the quality of data that we are able to share with our clients and how they're using their clients to drive value for their investors. And then we're powering some of the prominent firms that are driving analytics to the same marketplace. And the power of those analytics are improving all the time. Where we're headed and what we see an opportunity in is a couple of other areas around analytics.

One is in the policy area, every municipality, every state, every government agency wants to think about people and what people are doing with their money and how people are earning and how they're earning their money. And you get a really great macro view of how the economy is growing and how the economy is evolving. And it's incredibly valuable analytics. So we're working on developing a product there, have partners that will take that product into the market.

Ad tech with cookies and other kind of hurdles that have been in regulation that has been put in place around web usage and the sharing of data, there is a -- ad tech is struggling to kind of put the pieces together, as well as they used to. We can add a perspective for some of these consumer companies on how they are messaging is how effective their messaging is hitting the market that they're trying to reach. And so that's an opportunity for us. The last one is around RegTech and just helping from an analytics standpoint, our clients understand some of the details on a continual basis around the regulations that they need to adhere to.

Ryan Bailey -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst

Got it. Thank you for the color, Bill.

Bill Crager -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Yes.

Operator

Our next question comes from Chris Donat with Piper Sandler. Please proceed with your question.

Chris Donat -- Piper Sandler -- Analyst

Hey, guys. Good afternoon. I wanted to go to the 2022 guidance with Pete. And just making sure I'm understanding what's going on with the growth in asset-based revenue that's implied if I look at the first quarter revenue number and then the full year number basically back into what the second quarter, third quarter, fourth quarter could be.

As I think about the growth in asset-based revenue that's implied for the remainder of 2022, is that more balances or fees or a combination? I'm just trying to get my arms around it.

Pete D'Arrigo -- Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, it's more of the same that we saw in 2021, so higher asset levels based on flows. And those flows weighted more heavily toward AUM business, which carries higher fees. So I think over the course of the year, we would expect to see higher flows and -- not dramatically different, but a slight increase in the fee rate quarter to quarter.

Chris Donat -- Piper Sandler -- Analyst

OK. That makes sense to me. And then just also then backing into the implied expenses from your revenue and EBITDA, it looks like that should be somewhat steady state for future quarters. Am I doing the math right there that it looks like sort of the implied cost would be similar?

Pete D'Arrigo -- Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. So tried to kind of talk about that a little bit in the prepared remarks, but the first quarter should be the low point in terms of EBITDA margin when you think about it that way. And so we should start to see the revenue growth ex market, outpace expense growth. And so we'll see that ramp kind of more like we saw before COVID, you go back to maybe 2019 and look at the progression we had -- over the course of those years, we always had Q1 a little bit lower and Q4 a little bit higher.

And I think we're kind of back on expecting to be more on that trend. 

Chris Donat -- Piper Sandler -- Analyst

OK. Got it. And you had mentioned your -- like sort of the partial recovery expense elements too. So there's still -- as we think about 2023, there's probably still some embedded expenses that -- or expenses that will likely go higher just assuming the world gets more normal, if you will. 

Pete D'Arrigo -- Chief Financial Officer

Yeah.

Chris Donat -- Piper Sandler -- Analyst

OK. Thanks very much.

Pete D'Arrigo -- Chief Financial Officer

You know, let's get out of 2023. But yeah, I think we're going to see margins accelerate through '22 into '23, yeah. 

Bill Crager -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, that's our intention, Chris. Yeah.

Chris Donat -- Piper Sandler -- Analyst

Yeah. And yeah, leaving 2022 at a higher rate than you began 2022?

Pete D'Arrigo -- Chief Financial Officer

Correct.

Chris Donat -- Piper Sandler -- Analyst

Gotcha. OK. Thanks very much.

Operator

Our next question comes from Alex Kramm with UBS. Please proceed with your question.

Alex Kramm -- UBS -- Analyst

Hey, everyone. My question may have the same uptick as some of the questions before, but I'm going to answer or ask it anyways. I think, Bill, like a year ago when you rolled out this investment plan, I think I basically told you on this call that you're acting like a private company and not a public company, given that you're crushing your EBITDA margins for a few years. So I guess, again, asking something that was asked somewhat before, but if we imagined you were a private company, I mean, do you see opportunities where you say like, hey, if I had an open checkbook for two, three years, I could really go after things? I haven't -- I can't go up after right now because I am a public company.

So would you be more excited and free to do things in your opinion that just as a public company just don't feel you can right now? 

Bill Crager -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Alex. And I'm just not going to speculate on the rumors that are out there. But no, I am we are very leaned in, and we've made, I think, very good use of our capital in an interim period of time to create tremendous value. And I think it was an important step for the company because what it really does is it solidifies an incredibly sustainable competitive distinction for our company.

And Alex, you've known us for a long time. But here are the areas that competitively Envestnet delivers to our clients that no other firm can. We have this tremendously deep data heritage and data set that we're creating more and more intelligent insights for our network to take advantage of these actionable opportunities that we're presenting to them and they're taking advantage of it. We're seeing them beginning to access it.

We have the leading market share in financial planning. We are the No. 1 leading market share as a turnkey asset management platform. We have built out and extended the types of products that we put in our solutions platform.

So those are like very significant ramp parts to try to compete with Envestnet. What the capital did for us is accelerate our ability to bring them together, Alex. And that has been kind of something -- we're down the path and what we made the decision is that we believe that by going faster we can lock in this competitive distinction in the market and create sustained growth. It's early days still, but I'm super pleased with the progress that we've made but where it's pointing us to.

And we've got a lot of work to do here, and we've been really hard at work. Hopefully, that's pretty evident to everybody. But the answer to me is there's never a open checkbook, one; number two, we've been really judicious about this incremental spend. And there's one more dynamic, if I could just highlight it that I think is important in the spend.

We are a center for R&D for our industry and the people that we've been recruiting have been very technology deep and very data deep. And those are competitive resources today in this market. And those resources are thrilled to be at Envestnet, guess why? Because we're investing to grow behind a purposeful mission that can change the marketplace and create sustained growth for our business. We're doing exciting things here.

And so those same talents aren't going to be the ones that are going to be able to put their hands up and say they're going to work at the local RIA or a midsize broker-dealer. No, they're coming to Envestnet because we are recreating a future for a marketplace, and we become kind of a concentrated or a centralized hub. Again, the capital judiciously that we've invested has created that force for us. And so again, I am head down on executing and thinking we're making very good progress.

There's more to come. And just, again, believe that we're making a lot of progress here.

Alex Kramm -- UBS -- Analyst

Fair enough. Thanks for the color. Maybe just a quick one for Pete then, and maybe this was asked as well. But you mentioned the T&E kind of like coming back this year.

Can you actually give us a number in terms of how much relative to 2021 is going to be incremental spending on travel, etc.? And then maybe how much you would still be below, let's say, like 2019 normalized level? Or where you think the company could eventually go back to? 

Pete D'Arrigo -- Chief Financial Officer

So I'm going to give you directional numbers. I don't want to be too specific about it, but in 2019, we probably spent between travel and I lumped in the Advisor Summit in there, high teens to maybe not quite $20 million. This year, we're -- '20 and '21, we spent virtually none of that and -- on travel and entertainment and the Summit, which was canceled both years. This year, in total, will be a little over half of that, maybe 50%, 60% in that range.

Alex Kramm -- UBS -- Analyst

OK, that's all I wanted to know. Fantastic. Thank you.

Bill Crager -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Alex. Have a good evening.

Operator

[Operator instructions] One moment while we poll for more questions. Our next question is a follow-up from Michael Young with Truist Securities. Please proceed with your question.

Bill Crager -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Hey, Michael.

Michael Young -- Truist Securities -- Analyst

Thanks for the follow-up. Just wanted to ask, and I understand I got a comment on rumors and stuff in the marketplace. But if we just think generally about kind of what the playbook would be for a private equity buyer, it would be something like coming in, cutting costs, and maybe even raising prices. So just -- and obviously, adding leverage to the balance sheet, I assume the latter is not going to happen.

But of those former two, are there any opportunities that you see within the business that you all could execute on in terms of particularly price increases near term and then maybe medium term, anything like the real estate footprint or other just cost-saving opportunities? 

Bill Crager -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. Michael, again, I'm not referring to any way -- in any way to any of the stuff that's out there. But I think we have been hard at work, understanding a couple of things here. Number one is where our investment dollars are going and what we're going to get from it.

And we're pleased with the progress that we're making. We've also had a nearly two-year period of COVID were coming up on two years in which you have the ability to assess workplaces and kind of where you want to put your capital and what sort of environment you want to create for your employees. So absolutely considering our real estate footprint. We also have been super focused on our go-to-market and how we're engaging and engaging in the marketplace in changing the way that we market out there.

And I think those are areas of investments that we're leaned into in other traditional ways that we may be leaning back on would be things like workplaces and things like those. So I don't know if one is more important in a private environment or a public environment, but as we've leaned in to create this environment for faster growth for the company, there's been a good, an exceptional amount of work done to how do we create the leverage and profitability that we think long term that this business can generate. And that, as we've said last year, and Pete just kind of hit on it a little bit, is as we get to the end of '22 and into '23, our intention is to start to drive bottom line growth and return for investors.

Michael Young -- Truist Securities -- Analyst

OK, fair enough. Thanks for taking the follow-up.

Bill Crager -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Yes. Absolutely.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of the question-and-answer session. And I would like to turn the call back to Mr. Bill Crager for closing remarks.

Bill Crager -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Hector. I want to thank my Envestnet colleagues for the extraordinary work that you do. I thank you to all of you for joining tonight and for your support of Envestnet. I look forward to speaking to everybody again next quarter.

Thank you and have a good evening.

Operator

[Operator signoff]

Duration: 61 minutes

Call participants:

Brian Shipman -- Head of Investor Relations

Bill Crager -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Pete D'Arrigo -- Chief Financial Officer

Devin Ryan -- JMP Securities -- Analyst

Surinder Thind -- Jefferies -- Analyst

Michael Young -- Truist Securities -- Analyst

Ryan Bailey -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst

Chris Donat -- Piper Sandler -- Analyst

Alex Kramm -- UBS -- Analyst

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