Importantly, when you think about repurchases, we finished 2022 with about $475 million of repurchases and then we announced the $225 million accelerated share repurchase program. So, really the right way to interpret the ASR is, call it, $25 million of that gets us to our $500 million full year guidance number for 2022, and then, we really prefunded $200 million of what we plan to do in 2023. So, as you heard in my prepared remarks, for 2023, we used at least $425 million of repurchases as a good baseline number, which includes the totality of that $225 million ASR that’s going to be executed in the first half of the year, and then another $200 million in the second half of the year. But we also have meaningful capacity beyond that to invest for growth in all the areas that Jay was talking about; call it, approximately $400 million of balance sheet cash that we’ve sort of earmarked for growth this year.
And that’s really even before thinking about using our revolver or taking up our leverage levels, that’s just at a consistent leverage level with the liquidity that we have available to us today. Of course, if those investments don’t materialize, we’ll likely return more capital to shareholders per our capital allocation strategy and framework. So, you should really consider the overall earnings power that comes along with that $400 million of incremental capital that we have to put to work, whether it goes toward growth investments or whether it ends up being a return of capital via repurchases over time. Now, importantly, the goal is not to push all that capital out the door in any single quarter or calendar year, but really to ensure that we have the capital when we need it, when the highest quality opportunities become available, and that’s really the way that we’re managing our balance sheet and it’s the focus of our overall capital allocation strategy.
Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Craig Siegenthaler with Bank of America. Please proceed with your question.
Craig Siegenthaler: Hey, good morning, Jay, Tom. Hope you and the team are doing well.
Jay Horgen: Yes, good morning, Craig.
Craig Siegenthaler: So, I wanted to follow-up on Alex’s question and just focus more on the investment side. Sometimes it takes the sellers time to digest lower valuations or bids. So, in the meantime, are firms generally willing to do transactions at lower valuations now? And are you seeing maybe some great businesses inside of a larger financial firm or another situation where the owner may need to sell over the near term maybe something more on the distressed side?
Jay Horgen: Yes. Thanks, Craig. That’s a good question. So, one of the things that drives our partnerships over the longest period, the last three decades, is just demographics itself. So that — there’s only so much that firms can do around succession on their own. We think that AMG is the market leader in succession planning with independent firms. And so, demographically-driven transactions for us is a ongoing supply of new prospects in really any period. And then, to your specific question on valuations, look, valuations have come down. They’ve been down for several quarters now. And I think the prospect of them going back up is relatively low. So, I do think that there is a — I guess, this may be more of a acknowledgment that valuations in the sort of growth era that came to an end with the tightening or kind of in the rear view mirror.
