Janus Henderson Group PLC at Barclays Global Financial Services Conference Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Ben Budish - Barclays Capital Inc. - Analyst : Maybe just to start, so for some context, you joined the firm as CEO about two years ago. Maybe walk us through some of your strategic priorities since then. How have these materialized so far? What is your longer-term outlook and focus for the company at the moment?

Question: Ben Budish - Barclays Capital Inc. - Analyst : Perhaps before digging a bit deeper into the company, maybe just talk about what you're currently seeing in the broader macro environment. With rate cuts on the horizon, an upcoming election, heightened geopolitical risks, how could this impact the economy, your business, how are investors thinking about it? What does it mean for flows, asset classes, et cetera?

Question: Ben Budish - Barclays Capital Inc. - Analyst : Okay, digging more into Janus. When you talk about three strategic pillars that help guide the strategy, protect and grow the core, amplify the strengths and diversify. So I want to dive into each a little bit. But on which pillar are you most focused what is expected to be the most significant driver of growth for the company over time?

Question: Ben Budish - Barclays Capital Inc. - Analyst : Right. You mentioned the intermediary business that accounts for a little over 50% of your AUM. How is that business performing currently? Where else are you seeing success there besides the EPF franchise?

Question: Ben Budish - Barclays Capital Inc. - Analyst : Speaking of geographic expansion, you recently closed on the acquisition of in Tabula Investment Management, a leading European ETF provider. So maybe touch on what your growth plans are in and outside the US, particularly outside the US with this acquisition, similarly, in terms of growth, you've talked about launching a number of new active products in the back half of this year. I guess kind of two questions, one, but on the active side, what are those kind of look like what kind of products we would be expecting.

Question: Ben Budish - Barclays Capital Inc. - Analyst : Got it. Can you talk a little bit about your institutional channel. It's about 20% of AUM. Can you give an update on the current pipeline? What the region's strategies are seeing sort of the most strength right now? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. SEPTEMBER 09, 2024 / 2:30PM, JHG.N - Janus Henderson Group PLC at Barclays Global Financial Services Conference

Question: Ben Budish - Barclays Capital Inc. - Analyst : Great. Maybe that kind of last pillar of the three diversified. You recently entered into an agreement to acquire Victory Park Capital with Global Private Asset Manager. Can you give a little background on that deal? Why is that a good strategic fit? How did the deal come about? And maybe talk a little bit about more what that company looks like.

Question: Ben Budish - Barclays Capital Inc. - Analyst : Great. Same kind of topic. Can you give us an update on private core? You mentioned your kind of democratized vehicle. Probably one of the biggest topics across the pure-play alternative asset managers is democratized private wealth products. So can you give us an update what does that business look like currently? And how do you think about how it evolves over the next few years?

Question: Ben Budish - Barclays Capital Inc. - Analyst : Great. Maybe coming back to -- we talked earlier a little bit about Janus' on M&A. Again, on the August call, you noted the pipeline remains quite active. So how are you thinking about the go-forward M&A strategy? What types of opportunities are you looking for? We talked about active ETFs. We talked about private markets. And how would you kind of characterize what you're looking at right now?

Question: Ben Budish - Barclays Capital Inc. - Analyst : Similar topic. How do you think about balancing capital return, especially your buyback with further M&A. So will the agreement to acquire Victory Park, will that impact the buyback strategy? And then just a higher-level kind of the order of priorities in terms of M&A, capital return use.

Question: Ben Budish - Barclays Capital Inc. - Analyst : Great. A few more like financial questions. You showed some pretty nice operating leverage in your Q2 results. How are you able to achieve this? Do you think it's sustainable? And how do you think about driving margin expansion over a longer-term period of time?

Question: Ben Budish - Barclays Capital Inc. - Analyst : Why don't we unpack that a little bit more then. You've been able to sustain a relatively stable blended fee rate despite kind of industry-wide pressure. So what are the kind of the drivers there? How do you think this kind of continues? You talked earlier about the need for active ETFs or kind of demand there relative to passive. So how do you see that playing out in the medium term?

Question: Ben Budish - Barclays Capital Inc. - Analyst : Understood. I wanted to ask you some more kind of tactical questions on flows. But just since you mentioned AI and we were chatting earlier about other like big themes across the conference. The AI has come up quite frequently. How do you think about the use of AI in the business either in the research process and the optimization process? Is it the cost saver? Is it a top line grower? Where are you currently with that?

Question: Ben Budish - Barclays Capital Inc. - Analyst : Great. So maybe a couple more like tactical questions on flows. Just thinking about the third quarter, any update you can provide on what you're seeing quarter to date? I know we're not that far into it, but what sort of is on the come? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. SEPTEMBER 09, 2024 / 2:30PM, JHG.N - Janus Henderson Group PLC at Barclays Global Financial Services Conference

Question: Ben Budish - Barclays Capital Inc. - Analyst : What about in terms of the potential impact of rate cuts. Where do you think the buildup of money market fund balances over the last several years ends up? Is it kind of flow back into fixed income into a riskier asset? Is this a similar magnitude as the several trillion-dollar build that we've seen over the last few years? What are your thoughts there?

Question: Ben Budish - Barclays Capital Inc. - Analyst : And you mentioned earlier, you think -- and maybe this is a Janus investment view, but a view around demographics and slowing population growth in the US. Do you think that has something to do with it? Is that a view share with your clients? Does it have anything to do with the dispersion of performance against (inaudible) and the rest of the SP 500? What are the other kind of drivers there that you think are going to result in sort of outperformance from a flow perspective of active. REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. SEPTEMBER 09, 2024 / 2:30PM, JHG.N - Janus Henderson Group PLC at Barclays Global Financial Services Conference

Question: Ben Budish - Barclays Capital Inc. - Analyst : Maybe one final question on the same topic. I mean how do you think about the launching of new strategies versus sort of the existing product suite across active? How do you feel like the current fleet stacks up to what you think client demand will look like for this sort of trend you're describing?

Question: Ben Budish - Barclays Capital Inc. - Analyst : Great. And with that, unfortunately, we're out of time. But Ali, thank you so much for being with us. Pleasure to have you. REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. SEPTEMBER 09, 2024 / 2:30PM, JHG.N - Janus Henderson Group PLC at Barclays Global Financial Services Conference