Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the BrightSphere Investment Group Earnings Conference Call and Webcast for the Second Quarter 2022. During the call, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. After the presentation, we’ll conduct a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this call is being recorded today, Thursday, July 28, 2022, at 11:00 AM Eastern Time. I’d now like to turn the meeting over to Elie Sugarman, Head of Strategy and Corporate Development. Please go ahead, Elie.

Good morning, and welcome to BrightSphere’s conference call to discuss our results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2022. Before we get started, please note that we may make forward-looking statements about our business and financial performance. Each forward-looking statement is subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. Additional information regarding these risks and uncertainties appears in our SEC filings, including the Form 8-K filed today containing the earnings release, our 2021 Form 10-K and our Form 10-Q for the first quarter of 2022. Any forward-looking statements that we make on this call are based on assumptions as of today, and we undertake no obligation to update them as a result of new information or future events. We may also reference certain non-GAAP financial measures. Information about any non-GAAP measures referenced, including a reconciliation of those measures to GAAP measures, can be found on our website along with the slides that we will use as part of today’s discussion. Finally, nothing herein shall be deemed to be an offer or solicitation to buy any investment products. Suren Rana, our President and Chief Executive Officer will lead the call. And now I’m pleased to turn the call over to Suren. Suren?

Thanks, Elie. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. As usual, I’ll start off with the financial highlights on Slide 5 of the deck. We reported ENI per share of $0.41 for the second quarter, 3% higher, compared to $0.40 that we reported for the second quarter of 2021. The EPS for second quarter of 2021 included about $0.07 of contribution from a couple of affiliates: ICM and Campbell Global, both of which have since been divested. Excluding the $0.07, EPS for 2Q 2021 would have been $0.33. And so on an apples-to-apples basis, the EPS of $0.41 for 2Q 2022 is 24% higher than 2Q 2021. The adjusted EBITDA for our sole operating business Acadian decreased by 26.9% to $38.8 million in the second quarter of 2022, compared to $53.1 million in the second quarter of 2021, primarily because Acadian’s AUM declined 23% due to the depreciation and in equity markets globally in 2022 and also a stronger U.S. dollar given a substantial portion of our AUM is invested outside the U.S. However, our sizeable share buybacks over the last several quarters more than offset this decline in EBITDA and earnings to drive EPS higher year-over-year. And I’ll get into this in more detail later, but let me also quickly touch on two important initiatives that we’re investing in to support our long-term organic growth. First, Acadian announced launch of an effort to expand into the large credit market where systematic credit strategies are currently nascent but poised to grow well as industry dynamics become more and more conducive. Second, in Q4 of this year, we will be seeding Acadian’s multi-strategy equity alternative platform, which will house several equity alternative strategies that are uncorrelated to the broader markets. Our investment performance continues to be strong through…

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Kenneth Lee from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Wondering if you could just provide any update around potential discussions around value-enhancing transactions. And I wonder if you could also just talk about whether the pause in share repurchases would be due to the state of discussions? Thanks.

Hey, Ken. Yes. And as we’ve said, we’ve been consistent that we’re focused on maximizing shareholder value and remain open to all possible ways in which that can be accomplished. And our capital deployment is an example of that in terms of using it in the places where it’s best used either repurchases or leading our organic growth strategies because that will ultimately help generate a better multiple, whether it’s public markets multiple or an acquisition multiple, and we remain open to strategic discussions as and when as they would happen. And the repurchases, we definitely find them to be accretive, but we may not necessarily do them every quarter. It’s not that large in amount compared to what we used to have where we were almost needed to do the tender and there was no other way to deploy that much capital. But now with the amount of capital we have, we could always catch up in any quarter. And yes, there are times when we are right out the windows, whether related to earnings calls or conversations, et cetera, when we cannot be in the market.

Got you. Very helpful there. Just one follow-up if I may. You talked about a priority for free cash flow to support organic growth, and you mentioned the systematic credit and equity alternatives platform. Wonder if you could just quantify how much capital would be needed to help build out those capabilities? Thanks.

It’s only about – for those two combined, we would probably expect about $15 million to $25 million per year for the next, call it, three years. So about $15 million to $20 million this year, another $20 million to $25 million next year and then in 2023 and then maybe another $20 million or so in 2024.

Got you. Very helpful there. Thanks, again.

Thank you, Ken.

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I’d like to turn the conference call back over to Suren Rana.

Thank you, operator. If there are no more questions, we thank everyone for joining us today. We understand it’s a busy day for earnings calls. So thank you, everyone.