Affiliated Managers Group Inc Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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

Question: Dan Fannon - Jefferies - Analyst : Oh great. Thanks. Good morning. Jay, you mentioned the contribution from EBITDA from AQR and Pantheon this year, I think, being in double digits. So I was hoping to get some context around that in terms of what that's been, say, a year ago. And then as you think about management fees versus the potential for performance fees, what does that incorporate? Or what is that mix?

Question: Alexander Blostein - Goldman Sachs Group Inc - Analyst : Oh hi, thanks. Good morning. I wanted to build on that AQR discussion for a couple of more minutes, and thank you for all the incremental color. Obviously, it's an important part of the story. When you think about the $30 billion in tax-advantaged strategies, and I heard you talk about capacity bid, maybe walk us through in a bit more detail how you're thinking about capacity constraints for something that's growing so quickly. And while I totally agree that the end market demand for a product like this appears quite robust, I was wondering if you could also speak to the competitive advantage AQR might have in this area that could sort of help them sustain their moat, so to speak, in this business relative to other potential incoming competitors.

Question: William Katz - TD Cowen - Analyst : Thank you for taking the questions. Maybe just some big picture kind of questions maybe integrated to each other. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about just like portfolio management now as you continue to scale your Affiliates, and I appreciate you continue to migrate into the faster growth area of alternatives. Is there an opportunity to accelerate that by potentially disposing of anything on the traditional side, where I think lead indicates they're probably not good just relative to the alts platform? And then as you just think about buyback, your share count is getting rather small rather quickly. Is there any sort of natural limit here in terms of how low you want to let that go? Thank you.

Question: Brian Bedell - Deutsche Bank AG - Analyst : Great, thanks. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Great. Maybe just to go to the private market fundraising side, a really strong quarter. I know this area can be more volatile in terms of its magnitude of fundraising. So can you maybe talk about any conviction around the fundraising levels being -- having, I guess, more consistency over time as your portfolios mature? You have now $150 billion of AUM. And then maybe some color around the composition of the fundraising in the quarter between assets moving into fee-paying AUM like as deployed, for example, or absolute fundraising.

Question: Patrick Davitt - Autonomous Research - Analyst : Hey, good morning guys. Most of my specific questions have been asked, so I have a higher-level question just on client discussions and allocations. Obviously, the chatter on this has died down since April, but still hearing large European institutions talk about reallocating to European managers from US managers or simply cutting US exposure, either because of concerns around commitments to ESG and, or frustration with the administration's policies. Did you see any of that in your 2Q flow trends? And, or are you hearing more of that in your discussions with European clients?