Nate Dalton
Analyst · KBW. Please proceed with your question.
Thanks for the question. So we talked a little bit, I think, on our last call about this. How do we -- what do we mean by when we say high quality and I think you've captured many of the elements, which are, we're looking for firms that we think have the ability to grow in this environment and the environments we expect to come. Some of that is the orientation of the principles of the firm, right, what are they trying to achieve. Some of it is, what can they achieve on their own, and some of it is what can we do together. And so, I think it is, we are looking for more complete firms, I'll say it that way, in terms of orientation to grow and evolve the capability set that allow them to grow and evolve. But we're also still attracted to firms that are really doing one thing, they're doing it very, very well, but we have the opportunity, and this is the part that I think has evolved a bit over the past couple of years. We have the ability to work with that firm in ways that are additive to the whole. And so, I think we talk about high quality as either that kind of more complete firm or something that together we can grow and evolve and it's additive to the whole, whether it's client dialog or what have you as well. And so, I think this also relates a bit to the prior question, which is, well, how does that manifest, or what does that mean. And so we have a set of proprietary relationships. Our pipeline includes conversations that we've been having. In some cases, the better part of a quarter century. And we're building relationships, maintaining relationships, evaluating these firms, and we're looking at them through the screen of the evolving landscape that we're seeing. One other point that I'll make here is, as we've been growing our distribution platforms, as we've been having dialogs with intermediaries and clients who are already, or might use multiple affiliates, we're getting better and better at certainly the near side of the demand characteristics we should be looking for. But we think also strategically understanding what these intermediaries, or what these end-users are looking for as they're trying to solve their evolving challenges over time, and that just makes us better as we're looking on the front end for prospective new affiliates and this is something that we're still in the early stages of, but we are getting better and better at all the time. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Brian Bedell with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed with your question.