Hello, and thank you for standing by. At this time, I would like to welcome you to the Third Quarter 2024 Westwood Holdings Group, Inc. Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker remarks, there’ll be a question and answer session. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Jill Meyer. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and welcome to our third quarter 2024 earnings conference call. The following discussion will include forward-looking statements that are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may cause actual results to be materially different from those contemplated by the forward-looking statements. Additional information concerning the factors that could cause such a difference is included in our press release issued earlier today as well as in our Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2024, that will be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. In addition, in accordance with SEC rules concerning non-GAAP financial measures, the reconciliation of our economic earnings and economic earnings per share to the most comparable GAAP measure is included at the end of our press release issued earlier today. On the call today, we have Brian Casey, our Chief Executive Officer; and Terry Forbes, our Chief Financial Officer. I will now turn the call over to Brian Casey.

Good afternoon, and thanks for joining us for Westwood's Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Call. I'm very pleased to share our results and key developments from the past quarter as well as share our outlook for the rest of the year. Before we dive into the details, just a few key highlights from the quarter. Total assets under management reached $17.7 billion, up 5% from the prior quarter, marking our highest level in six years. We continue to execute our share repurchase program, returning approximately $273,000 to shareholders by buying back 21,879 shares. Our sales teams achieved strong institutional gross flows over $1 billion year-to-date, and our current pipeline has increased to nearly $2 billion. Successful launch and growth of two energy ETFs with MDST crossing $50 million in AUM, passing a critical trading volume threshold. We formed a joint venture partnership, Westwood Engineered Beta, or WEBs to expand our platform with innovative defined volatility ETFs. We have lots of exciting news to share, so let me start off by highlighting our long-term performance. The Fed cut its benchmark rate by 0.5 point on September 18, citing progress on fighting inflation and noting slowing job gains. This led to a significant drop in yields with the 10-year treasury yield falling from 4.4% to 3.78%, while the two-year treasury dropped from 4.75% to 3.64%. After being inverted for two years, the treasury yield curve has now returned to its typical upward slope. Investment-grade corporate credit outperformed high yield, while government bonds and municipal issues trailed. The U.S. stock market continued on its upward trend in the third quarter with domestic equity indices reaching new all-time highs. The market broadened out with small and mid-cap stocks outperforming large caps and value stocks outperforming growth. The shift in market dynamics aligns well with our…

Thanks, Brian, and good afternoon, everyone. Today, we reported total revenues of $23.7 million for the third quarter of 2024 compared to $22.7 million in the second quarter and $21.9 million in the prior year's third quarter. Revenues increased from both periods, principally due to higher average assets under management. Our third quarter comprehensive income of $0.1 million or $0.01 per share, paired with a loss of $2.2 million or $0.27 per share in the second quarter on higher revenues and changes in the fair value of contingent consideration, offset by higher income taxes. Non-GAAP economic earnings were $1.1 million or $0.13 per share in the current quarter versus losses of $0.5 million or $0.06 per share in the second quarter. Our third quarter comprehensive income was $0.1 million or $0.01 per share compared with last year's third quarter of $3.4 million or $0.41 per share due to higher revenues and changes in the fair value of contingent consideration, offset by higher employee compensation and benefits expense and receipt of life insurance proceeds in 2023. Economic earnings for the quarter were $1.1 million or $0.13 per share compared with $6.5 million or $0.80 per share in the third quarter of 2023. Firm-wide assets under management and advisement totaled $17.7 billion at quarter end, consisting of assets under management of $16.8 billion and assets under advisement of $1 billion. Assets under management consisted of institutional assets of $8.5 billion or 51% of the total, wealth management assets of $4.4 billion or 26% of the total and mutual fund assets of $3.9 billion or 23% of the total. Over the quarter, our assets under management experienced market appreciation of $1.1 billion and net outflows of $0.1 billion and our assets under advisement experienced market appreciation of $39 million and net outflows of $66 million. Our financial position continues to be very solid with cash and short-term investments at quarter end totaling $48.3 million and a debt-free balance sheet. I'm happy to announce that our Board of Directors approved a regular cash dividend of $0.15 per common share payable on January 3, 2025 to stockholders of record on December 2, 2024. That brings our prepared comments to a close. We encourage you to review our investor presentation we have posted on our website reflecting quarterly highlights as well as a discussion of our business, product development and longer-term trends in revenues and earnings. We thank you for your interest in our company, and we'll open the line to questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Macrae Sykes from GAMCO. Your line is now open.

Good afternoon, gentlemen. Thanks for taking my question. I was wondering if you could just unpack the organic pipeline a little bit. You have a number of moving pieces there, whether it's MIS, the new ETF initiative on the $2 billion pipeline. Just if you could just give us a little more color on maybe over the next 6 months, how you see some of those elements materializing in terms of the organic flows and what number would be kind of good for your expectations in terms of some of the things you have in place now to grow?

Mac, thanks for your question. I would say that primarily the pipeline consists of U.S. value opportunities in the mid- and small-cap space. And while I'd love to guess as to what levels of that will come in, I think that's pretty tough to do. I would just say that the marketplace has really embraced the CITs that we created a few years ago. They have embraced separate accounts and we have a lot of good opportunities in the pipeline. We have been top rated by one of the consulting firms recently that we've been trying to get in for a long time. So that's great news. And then we are on the preferred list of a couple of other consultants. So we continue to see a really good pipeline of opportunities from a number of the top-tier consultants.

Great. Just 1 follow-up. You have about $50 million on your balance sheet. And you obviously see the value of growing your ETF franchise in terms of having enough assets in there to reach certain levels. I was just curious with this new initiative with Mr. Fulton, is that going to require some more substantial seeding capital? And do you feel like you have enough to manage that?

Yes. We have -- we're in touch with a lot of good opportunities for seed capital from some of the people that Ben has worked with for a long time. So at this point, it's not a concern. Anything else, Mac.

No that's it.

Okay. Thanks for your question.

[Operator Instructions] There are no further questions at this time. Brian Casey, I turn the call back over to you.

Thank you. I'd just say in closing, we're excited about the pipeline in our traditional business, which is, as I said, nearly $2 billion in size. And our U.S. value SMid and small-cap products are in high demand, and we're seeing robust search activity. We believe we have a good shot at closing a high percentage of this pipeline. We've made commitments to two of the highest growth segments within asset management. One is custom index solutions, which is one of the fastest growers in the industry, our team is fully staffed in Chicago, and we're working hard to get our first client. And then secondly, the ETF universe recently hit $10 trillion in size in the U.S., and we've just partnered with one of the founders of the ETF industry, Ben Fulton. We're excited to work with Ben and to have his colleague of 10 years Chris Doran, leading our ETF and national account sales efforts. So we're very excited about where we are. We appreciate your interest in Westwood. Please contact me or Terry directly or check our website, westwoodgroup.com for all of our filings or to learn more about us. Thanks for your time.

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.