Thank you for standing by and welcome to AllianceBernstein First Quarter 2014 Earnings Review. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session and I will give you instructions on how to ask questions at that time. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded and will be available for replay for one week. I would now like to turn the conference over to the host for this call, the Director of Investor Relations for AllianceBernstein, Ms. Andrea Prochniak. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Lisa [ph]. Hello and welcome to our first quarter 2014 earnings review. This conference call is being webcast and accompanied by a slide presentation that is posted in the Investor Relations section of our website. Our Chairman and CEO, Peter Kraus; CFO, John Weisenseel; and COO, Jim Gingrich will present our financial results and take questions after our prepared remarks. Some of the information we present today is forward-looking and subject to certain SEC rules and regulations regarding disclosure. So I’d like to point out the Safe Harbor language on Slide 1 of our presentation. You can also find our Safe Harbor language in the MD&A of our 2013 Form 10-K and in our first quarter 2014 Form 10-Q which we filed this morning. Under Regulation FD, management may only address questions of a material nature from the investment community in a public forum. So please ask all such questions during this call. We are also live tweeting today’s earnings call. You can follow us on Twitter using our handle @alliancebernstn. Now I’ll turn the call over to Peter.

Thanks, Andrea, and thank you all for joining us for our first quarter earnings call. Let me start with the firm-wide overview on Slide 3. I’ll get into more detail as I review our channel-specific results. But overall, I would say that our results for the quarter do not depict the strong underlying momentum we’re seeing across our businesses. Our institutional client activity levels were the highest and most diverse we’ve seen in years. Retail channel sales increased in most regions and private plant flows were at multi-year highs. Yet as you can see here, gross sales were flat with the prior quarter and down nearly $9 billion from last year’s first quarter, a time when we were still enjoying new record sales in Asia ex Japan’s retail fixed income. Net flows were negative $4.4 billion, mostly the result of two large institutional redemptions during the quarter. These outflows carried half the average realization rate of our overall firm. We finished the quarter with higher AUM as market appreciation of $8.1 billion more than offset outflows. The quarter also saw net new flows in areas like US taxable and taxes exempt fixed income alternatives and US active equities. Average AUM for the quarter was higher versus prior periods as well. Turning to Slide 4, you can see our quarterly flow trends across channels. I mentioned earlier that we had a couple of large institutional redemptions during the quarter – one fixed income and one low key passive service. These drove the $3.8 billion in outflows from the channel. In retail, our flows improved sequentially in the first quarter. Net outflows of $1.1 billion were less than one-third the prior quarter total, reflecting a very strong quarter in US retail as well as the success of our new product launches in…

Thank you, Peter. My remarks today will focus primarily on our adjusted results. As always, you can find our standard GAAP reporting in this presentation’s appendix, our press release and 10-Q. Let’s start with the highlights on Slide 14. First quarter adjusted revenues declined sequentially given the seasonal impact of our fourth quarter performance fees but increased versus the first quarter of 2013. Adjusted expenses increased both sequentially and versus the prior year quarter. Our adjusted operating margin was 21.9% in the first quarter compared to 29% in the fourth quarter and 21.9% in the first quarter of 2013. Adjusted earnings per unit were $0.39 for the quarter versus $0.60 in the fourth quarter and $0.38 in the prior year quarter. Now I’ll review the quarterly GAAP to adjusted operating metrics reconciliation on Slide 15. First quarter adjusted operating income was $1 million higher than GAAP operating income due to three items that we do not consider part of our core ongoing operations. First, we adjusted for the $2 million non-cash real estate charge we took in the first quarter which was including GAAP expenses. This charge primarily represents a new real estate charge-off resulting from the W.P. Stewart acquisition. Second, we excluded $1 million in acquisition related expenses, mainly severance, temporary services, professional fees related to the W.P. Stewart and CPH acquisitions which were included in GAAP expenses. Third, we excluded the $2 million of investment gains related to the 90% non-controlling interest and the venture capital fund from net revenues. Now we’ll turn to adjusted income statement on Slide 16. First quarter adjusted net revenues of $598 million were down 6% versus the fourth quarter and up 4% versus first quarter of 2013. Adjusted operating expenses of $467 million increased 3% sequentially and 4% year-on-year. As a result,…

(Operator instructions) Please limit your initial questions to two in order to provide all callers an opportunity to ask questions. You’re welcome to return to the queue to ask a follow up question. And our first question comes from Michael Kim from Sandler O’Neill. Your line is open. James Howley – Sandler O’Neill: Good morning, this is actually James Howley filling in for Michael this morning. I’m hoping you can give us a little bit more color on what’s underneath the digital channel because I think related outflow is actually picked up on a sequential basis at least [ph] could the MONY redemptions from the prior quarter, so I’m just curious as to the underlying driver there whether it’s performance or broader rebalancing trends?

Well, let me just comment. The quarter had a lower number of growth sales than we would normally have expected. We indicated that our month there, our quarter end pipeline was higher than it had been the previous quarter by about $2 billion. And we do see in April a resumption of a higher level of gross sales in the institutional space. So we think there was some timing at play in the quarter as to the level of sales activity in institutions. In terms of what’s happening for us in the mix of that product or that channel, we’ve also said pretty clearly that there’s been a shift in mixed to a more balanced set of services at AB. We had almost 90% of the pipeline activity in fixed income in previous quarters. And this quarter, it was substantially reduced I think in the 60s – low 60s. And a much better balance into other services across the firm. And we actually expect that that will continue. We think that that will ultimately look close to the balance of the firm’s assets, fixed income equities and alternatives over time. I think that we have substantial more activity in the institutional space which we also indicated or the activity and consultant-led activity. In the case of the consultant-led activity, actually a significant object in that communication and RFP activity that comes along with the rise in the consultant interaction. So for us, that looks like a positive trend. And on the redemption side I think as Peter mentioned in his remarks, we did have two large redemptions during the quarter that totaled just under $4 billion which largely explains the outflow for the quarter. James Howley – Sandler O’Neill: Right. And then I just wanted to follow up on the retail fixed income outflows in Asia. I appreciate the color you gave in the prepared remarks. But any color in the mix between the global high yield and the American income fund and then can you talk about if there’s been any progress in terms of recapturing some of those redemptions into other strategies as investors have sort of migrate into multi-asset or alternative and equity strategies?

Well, we did note that we have launched the multi-asset product in Taiwan and that and the other service that was launched raised about $600 million – or $400 million I think was the number. And that was actually quite a successful launch. And we feel good about recapturing some of that lost flow. We also launched a new share class in American income products to capture some of the more duration-sensitive money that has left the service and that seems to be working as well. And I would point out that, as I said in my remarks, that AIP and GHI had a very strong performance quarter. I think top decile performance if I’m not mistaken. I may not have that exactly right but I think it was. And, look, the track records – the long track records are absolutely outstanding. We had a challenging – relative to our really great track record last year, we’re returning that performance this year. And as I said, I think it takes time for investors to come back. Because some of the concern was not actually the performance, it was emerging market credit which concerned investors and duration. As those concerns lessened and those areas look attractive and its performance returns to its top decile, top quartile performance, we expect to see investors come back to the service. James Howley – Sandler O’Neill: Thanks, that’s helpful.

And our next question comes from the line of Bill Katz from Citi. Your line is open. Steve Fullerton – Citi Research: Hi, this is Steve Fullerton filling in for Bill Katz. I just want to get further detail into the recent acquisitions with CPH and W.P. Stewart, just kind of talk about what maybe your outlook is for those and how quick we might see some volume or some material effects from those acquisitions.

Well, the CPH acquisition we still think is on track to close here on the second quarter. That depends on regulatory approvals. So the specific timing is always tough to predict but it does feel like it is very much on track. We remain quite optimistic about what the long term prospects are in terms of our ability to raise assets in that strategy given where its position in its marketplace – where it’s positioned in the marketplace as well as its historical strong track record. In terms of W.P. Stewart, that closed at the end of December. The activity has so far been quite strong. I think they’ve done 70 plus client meetings in the first quarter. There are 12 RFPs that have been submitted or that are underway. So the level that s indicative I think in terms of the level of client interest in concentrated US, concentrated EBIT, concentrated global strategies. And we’re also putting in place or have put in place the appropriate retail vehicles as well. So in terms of how that quickly that translates into flows that’s always tough to predict, but in terms of early indications, we remain very positive on what both of those acquisitions promise to the firm over the long term. Steve Fullerton – Citi Research: Okay, great. And then the BRS pick up you guys saw with the increased client activity seemingly mostly international, can you talk about how that’s extended into the current quarter and how sustainable this level might be for the business?

Trading volumes are always a difficult thing to predict and they can change quite quickly. I think you’ve seen that – if you look at trading volumes be it in the US or outside the US, they’ve remained reasonably robust. So that business continues to percolate along. I think from a strategic standpoint, though, as we tried to indicate, we think it is very well positioned and is starting to harvest some of the long term investment that we’ve made in that business to expand it globally as well as to invest in our trading capabilities. And that’s some of what’s your seeing in the current quarter. And I think guessing trading volumes is just impossible but there is persistency to our market share gains and growth in Europe and Asia. And depending upon where the market – the trading volumes go in the world, we should continue to see growth in that business based upon the growth in Europe and Asia.

And this is John. And I would just add as well with regards to the US, the US was up both on a year-over-year basis slightly but it was up actually very robustly sequentially to the fourth quarter. Steve Fullerton – Citi Research: Okay, great. Thanks a lot.

And our next question comes from Cynthia Mayer from Bank of America. Your line is open. Cynthia Mayer – Bank of America Merrill Lynch: Hi, thanks a lot. So the question on fee rates I guess, it sounds like the mix of RFPs bodes really well for your average fee rate. At this quarter, it also looked like the average fee rate was a little bit lower. I’m wondering if you could maybe help us understand to what extent, too few [ph] or that is –- impacts your fee rate. And also just looking at Page 31, you guys had I think a 4% sequential drop in retail fees but a 5% sequential rise in private expense fees, so I’m wondering what’s driving that because it didn’t look like the AUM moved in either case that much. Thanks.

Okay. I was going to say the private clients fee rate is at some respects related to the mix of services that clients are exposed to in that channel. There are – that has shifted somewhat towards alternatives and equities which carry a higher fee rate. And in retail, that is also a function obviously of the mix of what we have and the outflows that we’ve seen in particular in GHY and AIP had an impact there.

And this is John, Cynthia. I would just add that you are correct that compared to the fourth quarter, the fee rate on the overall portfolio dips slightly. It was 0.2 Asia’s point, so we’re still above 40 at about 40.2. But again, I think the current pipeline, the fee rate associated with that as we’ve moved from fixed income into more higher price fee based products like multi-asset and alternatives, that’s in the pipeline now. And I think as that fund is going forward, hopefully we start to see that filter through into a higher fee rate on the total portfolio. But it will take some time. Cynthia Mayer – Bank of America Merrill Lynch: Yes. So I guess when you put in all the puts and takes, the retail pressure but the private client improvement and the RFPs, do you expect for now a stable fee rate?

That’s tough to call, Cynthia. I guess I would expect stability and over time if our strategy works, a slightly rising rate. But – Cynthia Mayer – Bank of America Merrill Lynch: Okay.

– hard to tell. Cynthia Mayer – Bank of America Merrill Lynch: Right. Hard to tell. And I’m sure the market impacts too. So I guess then just a question on the – I know your adjusted doesn’t look at distribution, it nets it out. But I also had a question because it looked like gross retail sales were up but the distribution revenues and expenses were down and so was the net distribution slightly. So I’m wondering what the dynamics of that are.

You’re asking what can I – Cynthia Mayer – Bank of America Merrill Lynch: And if you like I could take that offline if you want.

Well, I think if the question is what’s the change in the net between gross revenues that are distribution revenues and expenses that are distribution expenses, what’s going on in there which we net off? That’s your question? Cynthia Mayer – Bank of America Merrill Lynch: Well, why would sales be up but distribution down?

Well, that could be the channel in which we’re selling it. Not all retail channels have the same distribution expense associated with distribution revenues. I think it’s best to take it offline since – yes, we’ll follow up after the call. Cynthia Mayer – Bank of America Merrill Lynch: Okay. All right. Can I ask one big picture question then?

Sure. Cynthia Mayer – Bank of America Merrill Lynch: So, thanks. So just in terms of the build out of your liquid credit, you’re adding some really interesting stuff but can you give a sense of whether you think you’ll keep adding or there are other things that you want to add that? And also, what impact might we see on the income statement from that? Is there – will that cause expenses to take up in any way or how does the profitability of those products compare to what you have? Thanks.

So number one, are we going to add more things overtime? As the bank remediation becomes clearer and there are other places in the credit spectrum to originate assets and where we think the origination franchise that we can build is sustainable, we would add additional services. It’s not clear right now what that might be. And the areas we have – commercial mortgages, residential mortgages, middle market lending up and down the capital structure and the infrastructure space is a lot to get done. And there’s a lot of assets we can add there. So I think we’re pretty focused on that. And the middle market lending, you could be in buyout, you could be in just straight lending, you could be in a subordinated level of lending, you could be in a senior level of lending, there’s lots of places to go in that space. And that connected with our historical credit-sensitive – or credit-intensive investing where we have been in high yield, in emerging markets, in the US markets and have the capacity to actually build out that credit space more broadly, I think that we’ve got a lot of flexibility in the credit-sensitive part of fixed income all over the world and in all asset classes. So we could add more but we’ve got a lot to build. In terms of the P&L impact, when you add people and you’re not adding revenues, that does have a negative effect on P&L. I don’t expect it to be material but I do – I can tell you that we’re adding more revenues than expenses when we hire people. I think, Cynthia, one of the questions that maybe you or somebody else asked us in the last quarter was, why are we going to be a 50% comp to revenue this year – and we do think this is a unique opportunity to add this type of talent to our platform. And – but there is a cost this year to that, so I think we indicated last quarter. And this is consistent with what we’ve been doing for five years. We have been adding capability and people for five years and it’s investing in the business and that has cost money and that does keep the comp to revenue ratio a little higher than what it would otherwise be. But we think it’s paying off. Cynthia Mayer – Bank of America Merrill Lynch: Great, thanks a lot.

And our next question comes from Craig Siegenthaler from Credit Suisse. Your line is open. Craig Siegenthaler – Credit Suisse: Thanks, guys, good morning. I’m just looking on Slide 5 and I’m just wondering what specific equity products drove the significant rate of change increase in RFP activity?

Well, I think that starting from the top of our core services, consultant activity is actually increasing in the core space – growth and value. If you go from zero to something, that has a big change. So number one is there is actual consultant activity in those spaces. There is consultant activity in concentrated products or high active share products which we have basically all over the firm in the equity space. There’s also consultant activity focused on semantic [ph] investing. So those are the areas that we see and those are the areas that consultants are running searches in. Craig Siegenthaler – Credit Suisse: Got it. And then on the expense margin front, can you talk about your budget plans for the two key non-comp expense side of 2014? More specifically, I’m looking here at promotions, servicing and also G&A, how should you think about those two items progressing here in ‘14?

It’s John, Craig. I think in terms of – let’s talk about P&S first. And it came in at $48 million for the quarter. I think you can just expect us to bounce around this level plus or minus. The drivers here are marketing teenage rate execution. So to the extent that we have a quarter where BRS, the sell side has strong revenues, we could potentially have higher trade execution expense. As to the extent they have lower revenues, it could be lower. So I think where we are right now, I’d expect to bounce plus or minus around this area. The same thing on the G&A side, we’re at $107 million this quarter, $108 million, somewhere around there. Big drivers there are professional fees and it also contains things like foreign currency, fee valuation and trading errors. So again, I think that’s a good level. We could bounce around plus or minus, depends on what happens with some of these other factors. Craig Siegenthaler – Credit Suisse: All right, great. Thanks, guys.

And our next question comes from Andrew San Antonio [ph] from KBW. Your line is open. Andrew San Antonio [ph]: Hi guys, this is Andrew sitting in for Rob. Thanks for taking our questions. Just getting to getting back to flows by asset category, we noticed that the other category was roughly flat for the quarter when it had been running at solid inflow at least in 2013. Could you just comment on kind of what was going on within that category? I’m not sure, maybe I missed this if it was partially related to one of the two large institutional redemptions in the quarter. Anything you might have on that category would be great. Thank you.

You hit the nail on the head there, Andrew. There was some large outflows in institutional that affected the other category. That is the primary effect which Jim mentioned a couple of times in his comments. Andrew San Antonio [ph]: Okay. All right. Thank you. And then just a second question with the – you mentioned private equity like funds, private real estate like funds being raised, just kind of from a technical standpoint, we were wondering how exactly do those assets flow into AUM, meaning, once the funds are raised and the capital is committed, does that flow immediately into your AUM or is it more when the dollars are invested themselves that you see the assets there hit your AUM number?

This is John. It would be when the assets fund. That’s when they – we would pick them up in our AUM number.

So as they’re invested. Andrew San Antonio [ph]: Okay.

Not as committed. Andrew San Antonio [ph]: Okay. All right. Thanks for taking our questions, appreciate it.

(Operator instructions) And our next question comes from Marc Irizarry from Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Marc Irizarry – Goldman Sachs: Oh, great. Thanks. Peter, can you give us a sense of the size of your defined benefit, the client business across assets. And then, are you seeing some pressure or maybe, I don’t know, benefits from the pension moving into LDI, maybe your equity – your offerings on the equity side, maybe you’re taking some share there. But is LDI actually sort of helping your franchise?

I don’t have the number on the top of my head as to the total AUM we have with defined benefit plans. It is sizeable. I just, I don’t know the number. I think the trend in the defined benefit business is a little bit by geography. Europe, it is most challenged in terms of its growth driven largely by the UK deactivation of defined benefit plans which has been going on for some time. In the United States, it’s a similar trend offset by public plans which are still growing. But the corporate side of DB is definitely a slower growth to, in some cases, shrinking activity, not surprising those trends have been going on for some time. As those funds have gotten closer to fully funded and the public side, that’s less the case. In the corporate side, that’s more the case. And in Europe, it’s closer to the case for most of the funds. The fund sponsors have been moving to indemnify effectively the funds by buying long-term fixed income instruments. A couple of things are happening there that I think are actually interesting long-term trends. One is, in the current time period, that has increased the demand for long duration credit assets. So those assets have actually gotten more expensive. If you talk to UK’s plan sponsors, they’re actually – I’ll use the word desperate, that’s a little bit emotional, but certainly aggressive in trying to find assets that would fit that long duration characteristic. And that demand has driven down spreads for those kinds of assets. It’s part of the reason why the infrastructure business is interesting to us in Europe. In the United States, that demand is not quite as high and the supply of assets is larger. And so that’s a more achievable…

Sure. Well, buy versus build, we have done both. We have brought teams in in the commercial mortgage space and market space and we have built on the residential space. And in infrastructure, we’ve brought a team in there as well. We haven’t bought an existing team and business. They’re not necessarily so easy to find, number one. It’s because some of them – they actually may not exist. And number two is, I think we’re actually quite focused on the integration of these credit activities with our existing business. Because as I said in my comments, clients are increasingly asking us to allocate capital between illiquid activities and liquid activities. So that asset allocation activity is quite valuable to large plans who are not able to allocate that capital as quickly as they may want to, given their view of the changes in markets. So if you build a business, which we are doing, that is integrated, you actually can offer that service, that capital allocation service and you can offer with a track record and a pretty effective way of delivering it. so we like the fact that we’re bringing in talent that has historical experience and track records because that makes it easier for us to more readily modify that talent, but we also like the fact that it’s an integrated business where we’re giving clients the ability to allocate that capital across these different spaces. And lastly, building a franchise is what’s long lasting. The originations franchise is what’s long lasting in these activities. And as we build from the bottom up, we can adapt to existing market or changing market conditions to build those franchises. And there are significant changes going on in the market place. Banks are actually struggling with the regulatory environment and how to actually navigate that environment given their historical businesses. And that’s changing the way these origination systems and franchises can actually be built both in the region that they’re built, in the assets that they attract and in the people. So actually, having the ability to build these things at this particular time creates some flexibility that we think will pay well long term. Marc Irizarry – Goldman Sachs: Thank you.

We have no further questions in queue. I’ll turn the call back to Ms. Prochniak.