Victory Capital Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:VCTR) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

David Brown: So for 2022 and for New Energy, I think it was a platform setting, so it was that business working in within our environment and getting themselves ready for a growth phase. We’re positive from a private market perspective and especially what they do, and especially with a team that does it, given their long track record and the space that they operate in. And when I look out, in the future in 2023 and beyond, I think for Victory New Energy was the first alternatives acquisition we’ve done. That’s a potential area of interest for us. And I think that that’s a really positive part of our business that is really just beginning and something that we’re very interested in and we’re spending a lot of time on.

Kenneth Worthington: Okay, great. Thank you very much.

Operator: Our final question comes from Michael Cyprys with Morgan Stanley.

Michael Cyprys: Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the question. Maybe just on M&A, you guys have been quite active over the years. Markets have been quite volatile, though financing costs have gotten a bit higher and bit that spreads have widen out. So just hoping you could maybe help update us on how you see the M&A backdrop today for Victory, how your conversations are evolving? Any color on what that pipeline looks like, size, magnitude, types of deals, and how those conversations have evolved in the past 12 months?

David Brown: Hi, Mike. So as I said in the script, we are very patient and selective as we’ve always been. As a public company, we’ve done four acquisitions in five years, so we’ve been really active. I think in those four acquisitions, I think we’ve done about $1.5 billion in capital. So we have, we’ve done very sizable deals in comparison to our size. And the way we see the market today is there’s a lot of discussions. There’s a lot of things happening and — but doesn’t mean that there are a lot of good companies that are for sale. It doesn’t mean there are a lot of companies that fit with us. So we’re just continuing to move forward. It is part of our strategy. It’s not the only part of our strategy. And as I look at the environment with pricing, with cost of, with financing costs, we’re well positioned if we find something that works to execute on it with our balance sheet, with our history of the debt that we’ve used and then also with our structure, we feel really good, but if we find something we’ll do it.

Michael Cyprys: Great. And just on some of the more recent acquisitions that you’ve done with WestEnd, THB, NEC, can you maybe just help quantify how much of flows each of those three individually contributed in 2022? And could you elaborate on some of the distribution synergies you’ve been able to realize so far? So with WestEnd, I know part of the ambition was about selling to more advisors. How many more advisors are you guys selling to today? How many new platforms have you added that they’re selling onto? Thank you.