Cohen & Steers, Inc. (NYSE:CNS) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Joe Harvey: I would just add a perspective on that, John, from the wealth channel, which is that with the adoption of private strategies in the wealth channel, we have a new competitor. So while we have done extraordinarily well versus our active peers and open-end funds in the wealth channel. And we have also had to compete against passive strategies, which are gaining share versus active, as you know. We are now competing with the private equity firms who are offering private or semi-private real estate solutions and wealth channels. So that is a big part of our impetus for us to create a vehicle in private real estate for the wealth channel and a vehicle that is a little differentiated, but it’s to help take advantage of the opportunity that we see to help advisors optimize their portfolios.

And the private equity firms aren’t going to do that, right? They are going to try to optimize their private allocations. They are not going to help advisors add listed allocations to that. So for us, it’s, on one hand, a competitive challenge, on the other hand, it’s a great business opportunity, investment opportunity for the wealth channel.

John Dunn: Okay. So just last one, maybe more big picture. When I think about companies over the last phase, I think of you guys broadening in the strategy you want to be in, getting deeper in the wealth management channel, revamping U.S. advisory and adding private real estate. Now that you are driving, Joe, what’s your vision for the next few years?

Joe Harvey: Starts with creating investment performance and then maximizing all of the investments that we have made in distribution and capitalizing on just the overall position of us as a real asset provider and looking backward, we have mentioned our multi-strategy real assets portfolio a couple of times, because inflation hasn’t been a thing, that hadn’t met its full potential. But when I look at how we are positioned today, we have invested in distribution, in vehicles and I think that’s our time to maximize our market share of the potential real assets in the investor portfolio as well adding private real estate in that.

John Dunn: Great. Thank you very much. Much appreciate it.

Operator: We have no further questions in queue. I would like to turn the call over to Joe Harvey, Chief Executive Officer of Cohen & Steers for closing remarks.

Joe Harvey: Great. Well, thank you, everyone, for your time this morning. We look forward to speaking with you next in April when we release our first quarter results. Have a great day.

Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.