Jay Horgen: Yes, so, I think you’re right in the summary. But I’ll summarize it to by saying, we ultimately think long-term flows are an output of our strategy and our strategy is to invest in areas of secular growth, and to the extent that we’re correct, then we will see flows turned, whether that happened this quarter, it happens some other quarter, it seems to us as long as we have conviction and execution on that strategy, we will see positive flows in the future as – in aggregate. What we faced recently is just the cross currents of the traditional business versus the alternatives business, which is fast-growing and we’re at kind of 50-50, now. So, I think that is the summary statement there. Maybe, I’ll turn it to Tom to talk about what we’re seeing on the distribution side.
Thomas Wojcik: Yes. If you kind of take a look at our distribution, Brian, at a high level, we do really two primary things, on the global institutional side, we look to magnify the efforts that our existing Affiliates already have today, helping them get into new geographies and meet with new clients that they haven’t had access to historically, that’s been a long-term part of our business. We’ve raised more than $100 billion for our Affiliates over the course of time and I think continues to be a really good opportunity for us. The one where we’re seeing a real sort of change in the pace of growth is on the U.S. wealth side and I mentioned some of this earlier. We have about a $40 billion U.S. wealth platform comprised of a combination of mutual funds, separately managed accounts, and increasingly limited liquidity vehicles on the private market side.
And we’ve really been leaning in over the course of the past 18 months or so, toward new opportunities on that limited liquidity front. So, we see that as an important opportunity for two reasons. One, it’s the single largest growth market in the world, it is the alternatives market in the U.S. wealth space. And two, as I mentioned earlier, it not only helps us to drive growth at existing Affiliates, similar to the success that we’ve seen with the AMG Pantheon Fund, which is now approaching $3 billion, but it also helps us to attract the next new Affiliate, who is looking to break into that area, and really doesn’t have the scale or the ability to do it on their own. So we think AMG distribution and what we do broadly in capital formation, including thinking about product strategy and really working with our Affiliates on how to launch the right new product in the right wrapper into the right geography, is going to be an increasingly differentiating part of our value proposition.
It’s something we’ve had a lot of success on over the long-term, but we also do see it as an accelerant, as we shift the strategy now more and more toward alternatives.
Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Patrick Davitt with Autonomous Research. Please proceed with your question.
Patrick Davitt: Hi, good morning. Thank you. I have a follow-up on that in the liquid all. So, I know, you don’t like to talk about specific strategies, but maybe looking over the fundraising calendars of all your liquid alts managers layering on the plan, limited liquidity wealth products to the point you just made, could you maybe at a higher level try to frame how the volume of the liquid flows is looking versus what we’ve seen, maybe last year or the year before? Thank you.
Thomas Wojcik: Yes. Patrick, thanks for your question. We certainly aren’t going to project flows for a specific part of the business, but I think if you think about the overall shape, you know, as Jay mentioned on a pro-forma basis last year for the new investments that we made in both Ara Partners and Forbion, we’re at about $16 billion, $17 billion of fundraising for the full year and we’re continuing to add to the diversification and the overall group of Affiliates. I mentioned in some of my prepared remarks, we’re now partnered with eight private markets Affiliates, cross about $115 billion of AUM, with the big buckets being infrastructure, private market solutions, private credit, and then a variety of really specialized in exciting areas.
So one of the things that, I think that I think set us apart in a very difficult fundraising environment in 2023 was the fact that we are – we have a series of managers, who have highly in-demand products that are not necessarily the big mainstream large-cap LBO-type products. And that’s enabled us to find places in client portfolios where we can really add value, and where there is a scarcity value to a lot of what we do. I think that the outlook for us going forward will be a function of a couple of things, right One, the existing Affiliates we have today and what they’re doing in their flagship products and new adjacencies that they’re working to launch. Two, to your point, the efforts that we’re putting forth in the U.S. wealth space, which is really opening up an entirely new client channel, a new leg of the stool if you will, for a number of these Affiliates.
And then all of that great news, helping us to partner with the next new Affiliate. So, we think the long-term trajectory in terms of the flows on the private market side continues to be very positive for us and we’re looking to continue to add to that in a number of different ways.
Jay Horgen: Yes. I’ll just round out alternatives by just talking about liquid alts as well. Look, we have really good performance in liquid alts. It’s just an obvious statement is the performance has led to higher asset levels, has led to above-high watermarks has led to more ability, I guess to greater ability to generate performance fees. But it also has attracted more inquiry, more interest by large pools of capital, and adding those to the portfolio. I already mentioned AQR and it’s sort of positive momentum, and in particular in its liquid alternative strategies, we have a number of sizable Affiliates in liquid alts that can really generate organic growth over time. So, we see growth both on the private market side as well as the liquid alts side in part because the performance is just so good.
Operator: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our question-and-answer session. I’ll turn the floor back to Mr. Horgen for any final comments.
Jay Horgen: Thank you all again for joining us this morning. We look forward to speaking with you next quarter. Thanks.
Operator: Thank you. This concludes today’s conference call. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.
