Artisan Partners Asset Management Q1 2026 Earnings Call - Record AUM Recovery Masks Equity Attrition as Credit and Alternatives Surge

Operator: Welcome to the Artisan Partners Asset Management business update and earnings call. Today’s call will include remarks from Jason Gottlieb, CEO, and C.J. Daley, CFO. Following these remarks, we will open the line for questions. Our latest results and investor presentation are available on the investor relations section of our website. Before we begin today, I would like to remind you that comments made during today’s call including responses to questions may include forward-looking statements. These are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, the factors set forth in our earnings release and detailed in our SEC filings. These risks and uncertainties may cause actual results to differ materially from those disclosed in the statement, and we assume no obligation to update or revise any of these statements following the presentation.

In addition, some of our remarks today will include references to non-GAAP financial measures. You can find reconciliations of these measures to the most comparable GAAP measures in the earnings release and supplemental materials, which can be found on our investor relations website. Also, please note that nothing on this call constitutes an offer or solicitation to purchase or sell an interest in any Artisan in-investment product or a recommendation for any investment service. I will now turn the call over to Jason.

Welcome to the Artisan Partners Asset Management business update and earnings call. Today’s call will include remarks from Jason Gottlieb, CEO, and C.J. Daley, CFO. Following these remarks, we will open the line for questions. Our latest results and investor presentation are available on the investor relations section of our website. Before we begin today, I would like to remind you that comments made during today’s call, including responses to questions, may include forward-looking statements. These are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, the factors set forth in our earnings release and detailed in our SEC filings. These risks and uncertainties may cause actual results to differ materially from those disclosed in the statements. We assume no obligation to update or revise any of these statements following the presentation.

In addition, some of our remarks today will include references to non-GAAP financial measures. You can find reconciliations of these measures to the most comparable GAAP measures in the earnings release and supplemental materials, which can be found on our investor relations website. Please note that nothing on this call constitutes an offer or solicitation to purchase or sell an interest in any Artisan investment product or a recommendation for any investment service. I will now turn it over to Jason.

Jason Gottlieb, Chief Executive Officer, Artisan Partners Asset Management: Thank you for joining the call today. At Artisan Partners, our purpose is to generate and compound wealth for our clients over the long term. We do so by maintaining an ideal home for investment talent, providing a unique combination of autonomy, degrees of freedom, resources, and support. Our model has proven repeatable over time as we have steadily expanded our capabilities across equities, credit, and alternatives. Across a wide range of market environments, we have maintained our focus on high value-added investing, driving positive outcomes for both our clients and our shareholders. Long-term investment performance remains strong across our platform, with 74% of our AUM outperforming their benchmarks over 3 years, 76% over 5 years, and 99% over 10 years gross of fees. All 12 Artisan strategies with track records over 10 years have outperformed their benchmarks since inception net of fees.

These 12 strategies have compounded capital at average annual rates between 6% to nearly 13% and have exceeded their benchmarks by an average of 202 basis points annually net of fees. Highlighting our track record of positive long-term investment outcomes, two of our investment teams were recently recognized by Morningstar and Lipper for investment excellence. Morningstar nominated the global value team’s Dan O’Keefe for the 2026 Morningstar Award for Investing Excellence, Outstanding Equity Portfolio Manager. Lipper named the team’s Artisan Global Value Fund, Institutional Class the best fund in its global large cap value funds category for the 3, 5, and 10-year periods ended December 31st, 2025. Lipper also named Artisan Select Equity Fund, Institutional Class the best fund in its global multi-cap value funds category for the trailing 3-year period ended December 31st, 2025.

Lipper also named the EMsights Capital Group’s Artisan Global Unconstrained Fund, Institutional Class as the best fund in its global income funds category over the trailing three-year period ending December 31, 2025. External recognition is not our goal, but the consistency with which Artisan Partners has earned accolades like these across time, teams, and asset classes validates the quality of our platform and the repeatability of our business model for both talent and clients. Congratulations to the Global Value Team and the EMsights Capital Group on these recent recognitions. Shorter-term trailing one-year performance has been weighed down by underperformance in a couple of our largest equity strategies, all of which have strong long-term track records. Turning to slide 4, firm-wide net outflows in the first quarter were $3.1 billion.

Outflows were concentrated in a few equity strategies where we saw clients de-risking, reallocating after periods of asset class outperformance and some shifting to passive alternatives. Those outflows mask positive business developments across many parts of the platform. Year to date, we have net inflows in 13 of our investment strategies. The sustainable emerging market strategy raised $250 million in the first quarter, and assets under management are nearing $3 billion. We have continued our multi-year success in growing our credit businesses with $800 million of net inflows in the first quarter. This was our fifteenth consecutive quarter of positive credit flows. In alternatives, we raised $300 million in the first quarter, primarily in the global unconstrained strategy, where we continue to build a realizable pipeline.

We expect to see continued strong business development in credit and alternatives, while the backdrop in equities is more challenging and difficult to predict. Our teams have been operating efficiently during a recent market volatility. At the end of last week, our AUM was back up to nearly $184 billion, near an all-time high that we achieved in late February. Our business and financial model allows us to remain focused on delivering high value-added investment outcomes for clients, servicing our existing clients, while actively developing new client opportunities across channels globally. Slide 5 highlights our methodical approach to expanding our platform with new talent and investment capabilities. In the first quarter, we onboarded Grandview Property Partners, a real estate private equity investment firm specializing in U.S. middle market assets, and laid the groundwork to launch the team’s next flagship fund later this year.

We also added key distribution talent in EMEA and the intermediate wealth channel and filed an exemptive relief application with the SEC to offer ETF share classes of Artisan Mutual Funds. These investments build on success we are seeing with additional distribution resources accessing the intermediate wealth channel in particular, and the broadening and modernizing of our investment vehicle capabilities with custom credit solutions and model delivery. The asset management landscape remains dynamic, and we are actively exploring opportunities to expand the breadth of our platform. We are looking at a full range of opportunities from individual lift outs to larger acquisitions. Our platform remains differentiated and compelling for great investment talent, and we have more ways to access, resource, support talent than ever before. I will now turn it over to CJ to review our recent financial results.

C.J. Daley, Chief Financial Officer, Artisan Partners Asset Management: Thanks, Jason. Our complete GAAP and adjusted results are detailed in our earnings release. We exited 2025 with record assets under management, a new all-time high in quarterly revenue, and our second highest annual revenues and earnings. As of March 31, 2026, assets under management were $173 billion, down 4% from the December quarter and up 7% year-over-year. Average AUM was $182 billion, up 1% sequentially and up 9% compared to the prior year quarter. While AUM declined sharply in March due to market conditions, it has largely recovered in April, as Jason mentioned. Revenues were $303 million, down 10% from the December quarter and up 9% compared to the prior year quarter.

The sequential decline was primarily due to the expected absence of performance fees as the December quarter included $29 million performance fees realized across 6 strategies, with the majority of our performance fee opportunities measured and realized annually in that period. Approximately $6 million of the sequential decrease in revenue was due to 2 fewer days in the first quarter of 2026. Our weighted average fee rate for the quarter was 67 basis points, down from the December quarter due to the absence of performance fees. Adjusted operating expenses increased 4% compared to the December quarter, primarily due to the addition of expenses of Grandview Property Partners, seasonal expenses, and the impact of long-term compensation expense. Our full year 2026 expense guidance remains unchanged, excluding approximately $20 million of incremental fixed expenses related to long-term incentive compensation and Grandview.

We continue to expect fixed expenses to increase at low single-digit rate in 2026. Compared to the prior year quarter, adjusted operating expenses increased 11%, driven primarily by higher variable incentive compensation associated with increased revenues. As a result, adjusted operating income decreased 30% sequentially and increased 6% year-over-year. The decline in margin compared to the prior year quarter was primarily a result of the addition of Grandview results. Adjusted net income per adjusted share declined 31% from the December quarter and increased 5% compared to the prior year quarter, consistent with operating income trends. In our non-GAAP measures, non-operating income includes only interest income and expense. While valuation changes in our seed investments impact shareholder economics, we exclude these changes from adjusted results to provide greater transparency into our core operating performance.

Our balance sheet remains strong with $271 million in cash. During the first quarter, we redeemed approximately $50 million of seed capital, reducing seed investments on the balance sheet to $110 million. Proceeds from seed capital redemptions are included in cash available for corporate purposes, reinvestment, or potential return to shareholders through our year-end special dividend. Consistent with our dividend policy, our board of directors declared a quarterly dividend of $0.77 per share for the March 2026 quarter, representing a 24% decrease from the prior quarter and a 13% increase year-over-year. The sequential decline reflects lower cash generation due primarily to the absence of performance fees and seasonal expense patterns in the first quarter.

After funding the quarterly dividend, we retain approximately $150 million of excess capital to support organic growth initiatives, evaluate potential M&A opportunities or return to shareholders. That concludes my prepared remarks. I will now turn the call back to the operator.

Operator: Our first question today comes from Bill Katz from TD Cowen. Please go ahead with your question.

Bill Katz, Analyst, TD Cowen: Okay, thank you very much for taking the questions. First question, I guess in your prepared comments was also in the commentary yesterday with the release. You mentioned the equity attrition. I was wondering, where do you think we stand in terms of that reallocation? Within the $184 billion, excuse me, that you cited to last week, frame what you’re seeing in terms of that equity attrition. The broader question on the institutional pipeline at large is, talk about how that has been reshaped between EM and credit versus what you might know on the equity side. Thank you.

Jason Gottlieb, Chief Executive Officer, Artisan Partners Asset Management: Hey, Bill. I’ll just talk about the equity business for a second. You know, there were 2 really primary drivers. The first 1 was just the rebalancing that we experienced across the international strategies that we have, given the strength in the EAFE market being up 30% relative to, you know, a relatively strong U.S. market. You know, we experienced it across a number of teams and within our international value franchise in particular, just given the size and the nature of their business. As you know, you know, David and the international value team have been, you know, soft closed for quite a long time.

He’s always been able to manage the capacity and just the flow dynamics to sort of a neutral to a slight forward lean. We would expect that to remain in place. Everything that we have seen in that book of business has been very much rebalance-oriented. There hasn’t been any, you know, any termination activity. The other piece of it is coming from our growth business, which is another obviously large component of our AUM. When you look at that, there’s, you know, a lot of underlying dynamics that are occurring. The first one is our global opportunity strategy remains a little bit challenged when it comes to some shorter and intermediate term performance.

That is causing some headwinds and challenges with some of our institutional relationships globally. I would, I would point out that there’s actually a lot of interesting and important positive developments that are occurring inside of that business. First and foremost, the franchise fund that we launched about a year or so ago, raised net $400 million in flows in the quarter from a global client. That’s getting us pretty close to $1 billion in AUM there. The midcap growth strategy, which is another large strategy on that team, has seen a very meaningful performance turnaround that began in late 2024, really started accelerating into 2025, and we’re continuing to see it in 2026, that we think will, you know, continue to help bolster that.

Global Discovery, which is another meaningful opportunity within that franchise, is also seeing really good pipeline activity given their stable and good long-term performance. You know, that’s really what we’re seeing from an equity perspective. It’s been primarily institutionally focused given the rebalance and some of the challenges coming from global opportunities. When you look at Emerging Markets, we’re actually seeing really good opportunities. This is, as you, as you all know, you know, this was an asset class that was left for dead up until 2025. We’ve seen some really good performance coming from not only the asset class, but importantly from our teams, Sustainable Emerging Markets in particular.

The, you know, $250 million flow that we saw for the quarter, is really, I think is the beginning of what should be a, you know, a good path to being able to, crystallize the, the great performance that the team has been able to put up, over the course of the last several quarters. You know, we would continue to believe that that’ll be a good opportunity for us, as we, as we look out, as it relates to the pipeline.

Bill Katz, Analyst, TD Cowen: Okay. Thank you for that. As a follow-up, sort of what we ended the commentary just in terms of the maybe the pipeline for team lift outs and acquisitions. Appreciate you just sort of, you know, working on Grandview right now. How does that look today? Maybe where you were either a year ago or even last quarter in terms of the nature of the pipeline, where it is seasoned, and where you’re sort of leaning into in terms of incremental opportunity. Thank you.

Jason Gottlieb, Chief Executive Officer, Artisan Partners Asset Management: Yeah. As I’d mentioned in previous calls, our investment strategy group and the broader management team is operating extremely efficiently, not only with the existing platform and franchises, but certainly we’ve been working aggressively with the external opportunity set. You know, there’s really two areas in particular that we’re focused on. It’s something that we’ve talked about for a little while, which is the ability to expand our credit business and our ability to expand our alternatives platform. There’s really good opportunities that we’re seeing to expand more traditional credit globally. So much so that we think, you know, there’s a strong possibility that we could get something done by the end of the year. We’re pretty excited about that.

As I’ve said in the past, you know, you never say it’s done until it’s done. We see strange behavior and activity always happens near the end of the end of the road when we cross that Rubicon. We still feel very good about where we’re at, and, you know, we think this will be a big opportunity for our platform. When you look at the M&A landscape, again, we’re seeing a really robust pipeline. It’s coming in, you know, all the areas that we had talked about, differentiated credit, secondaries in both private equity as well as real asset. Private credit, not surprisingly, is becoming incrementally a little bit more interesting.

It’s an area that, you know, we’ve sort of shied away from given the lack of what we’ve seen from a cycle perspective. It’s hard to tell whether, you know, what we’re hearing and seeing is truly a cycle or if it’s just idiosyncratic situations happening. We’re, you know, we’re very focused on having good conversations there. In terms of where the pipeline looks and how it feels relative to past, I think it’s incrementally gotten a little bit stronger. Clearly, you know, we feel very good about the forward lean with this opportunity to get something done to globalize credit.

You know, it’s also important to point out that, you know, we’re constantly evaluating and doing a lot of R&D opportunities with our existing businesses, and there are incremental opportunities. There’s, you know, 2 in particular that we’re working through, and if they come to fruition, we think they could be very meaningful and interesting opportunities. They’re, you know, still it’s in the R&D phase, so it’s a little early to discuss those.

Bill Katz, Analyst, TD Cowen: Thank you very much.

Operator: Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and one. To remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Our next question comes from John Dunn from Evercore ISI. Please go ahead with your question.

John Dunn, Analyst, Evercore ISI: Thank you. I just was wondering, are there any institutional client segments that, you know, historically you hadn’t done much with that you’re targeting now that you have a bunch of newer strategy areas?

Jason Gottlieb, Chief Executive Officer, Artisan Partners Asset Management: I don’t think institutionally, John, there’s any new client segment that hasn’t been tapped or we don’t have a really good handle on. I think the majority of where we’re seeing opportunity is in the intermediate wealth space. You know, we’ve built out the platform in terms of the people, the capabilities, both in the U.S. and, you know, more recently we’ve done some recruiting and hiring and onboarding in both the U.K. market as well as the European market as well as in EMEA, that we think will and is frankly even over the short term, starting to yield some interesting results. The intermediate wealth platform being able to have a slight positive flow for the quarter, I think is a really good indication.

You sort of break the flow pattern down a little bit between gross in and gross out. It was our second-best gross inflow quarter dating back to, I think, you know, the first or second quarter of 2021 when there was a lot of equity activity. We feel good that there’s a, you know, a correlation between the quality and the talent that we’ve brought on and the outcome that we’re seeing. From an inflow perspective, we obviously have to work through a few of the equity strategies that we talked about from a re-rebalancing as well as from a performance perspective. You know, what we’re seeing is from an intermediate wealth perspective, feels very good.

You know, institutionally, we just have to continue to block and tackle with some of our larger relationships.

John Dunn, Analyst, Evercore ISI: Got it. Then maybe just on that, is there anything you can point to as far as like line of sight to any larger mandates that might be, you know, looking to exit? Just maybe a wrap around of the regionally, how the institutional side, you know, the things impacting demand in the different regions.

Jason Gottlieb, Chief Executive Officer, Artisan Partners Asset Management: I don’t have a strong perspective when it comes to, you know, line of sight. We’re heavily engaged with all of our institutional relationships. The teams that sit alongside our investment franchises that service are certainly well equipped to handle and provide us with a little intel and, you know. We just don’t see any, you know, direct line of sight when it comes to, you know, massive outflows or massive inflows. I think it’s been just this steady state of, let’s make sure that we stay close to clients, certainly when performance is a little bit more challenging and, you know, continue to build on that on that relationship, recognizing that we have work to do.

Where we have, you know, good, strong, forward lean when it comes to performance, we’re doing our best to lean in there. We are seeing some green shoots in those areas. You know, it could be a bit of an exchange of kicks where, you know, we’ll have some attrition in areas where we have some weaker performance. You know, as I’d mentioned on my initial commentary, we have some really great capabilities. I’d mentioned Global Value. I’m sure you’ve seen some of the performance that’s coming out of Mark Yockey’s group and the Global Equity Team, both international and global. Our sustainable emerging markets franchise that’s, you know, getting a lot of looks institutionally as well.

We feel, you know, we feel good about the positioning, recognizing that inevitably you’re always gonna have, you know, a strategy or two that’s got a little bit of a challenge. We’re, you know, we’re doing our best to, you know, maintain our discipline around those strategies.

John Dunn, Analyst, Evercore ISI: Thanks very much.

Operator: With that, we’ll be concluding today’s question and answer session, as well as today’s conference call. We do thank everyone for attending. Have a pleasant day. You may now disconnect your lines.