SEI Investments Company (NASDAQ:SEIC) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Ryan Hicke: And Jeff, this is Ryan. I think the other kind of extension to your question is when we’re going to that market, especially in that regional community bank space Sanjay and the team, we certainly expect and we are positioning certainly a premium from a cost perspective and a revenue perspective. But one thing that has certainly changed over the last 12 to 15 months is we’re also thinking outside of those lanes in terms of other enterprise capabilities that we can bring to bear across those segments. So whether that be SEI Sphere, whether that be more asset management capabilities more focused on the alternative space. So on a like for like basis, if somebody is just moving investment processing, we certainly would expect a premium.

What is more interesting to us is the firms that seem to really be gravitating towards Sanjay and the team in that segment have really clear growth agendas across their entire wealth management landscape and more of our capabilities are definitely resonating there.

Sanjay Sharma: And Ryan, if I could add further to this. We are also looking at multiple operating models, and traditionally we were focused for SWP for business models outsourcing to SEI. But with the U.S. bank implementation, we have matured significantly in software, the service model as well. So SWP go-to-market strategy is now another operating model.

Jeff Schmitt: Okay. Okay, that’s helpful. And then looking at the overall operating margin I think it was 23% versus sort of mid to high-20s historically. It appears just wage and service inflation continued to drive some of that weakness. Those have come down in the economy, but I was just curious what those are running at both of those items for you internally?

Dennis McGonigle: We’re not seeing the same level of wage inflation that we saw in 2021, 2022 this year. And as part of our kind of focus on expenses, we’re also been very, I’d say, diligent in our hiring practices and our onboarding of talent. That being said, we want to make sure that we are competitive in our markets for talent. So compensation is a key element of maintaining that competitiveness. I think the attractiveness of working for SEI goes beyond that element of competitiveness to our growth orientation and the type of company we are and our culture. But we are still – yes, so wage market competitiveness is still there, but it’s definitely cooled off from the past couple of years. So as we get top line growth, particularly as our asset management businesses continue to show top line growth with markets in a better position today than they were coming into the year, a lot of our margin deterioration was really asset management revenues flowing out, which is high-margin revenue and the ability for – and as that starts to come back in with what we expect to see higher net cash flow activity, that will go a long way to move in the margins back up.

Jeff Schmitt: Okay. That makes sense. Thank you for the answers.

Operator: The next question is from Owen Lau of Oppenheimer. Your line is now open.

Owen Lau: Good afternoon and thank you for taking my questions. So Ryan, you just mentioned – you mentioned you just hiring new business ventures. Could you please add more color about your vision in these ventures and how you expect this venture can help SEI longer term? Thanks.