Good morning and welcome, everyone, to the UBS Financial Services Conference. Many of you have been here for three days or even more enjoying Miami. This morning we're very pleased to have a fireside chat with Roger Thompson, CFO of Janus Henderson Group. Welcome, Roger.
Thank you. Delighted to be here. I'm a Brit, so I don't see sunshine in February, so, wonderful to be here.
Excellent. Excellent. That's good to hear. So it's interesting because the top leadership at Janus Henderson is a combination of Ali Dibadj, who came on two-three years ago, to lead the firm as CEO, and Roger, who, as CFO of Henderson, was present for the combination of the two firms, became, CFO of the joint company, Janus Henderson, and as such has seen kind of the history and the evolution of the firm. So I'm, I'm curious, Roger, Ali and, and you and the leadership team have brought in some new strategies, new approaches. Where do you feel you the firm is at with those? How far along are you, and, and what are the next challenges coming up?
You're always evolving. Ali's, I think, you know, I like talking about the merger. It was a long time ago.
Yes.
But you do go in different phases. And I think some of the, you know, broadly, I think we did the first part very well. We sort of lost our way a little bit in the middle. And Ali has brought a real kick and life to us going forward. And sometimes you need that catalyst. So, you know, there is a lot going on in the firm. And Ali, as those of you know him, is a ball of energy, which is exciting to work with. And I think, you know, 2,500 people are pretty excited about what we're doing. So, yeah, you're always on that journey. There's a lot of evolution there. You were just talking about the feel at the conference and the general positivity and excitement.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. That's pretty much what it feels like inside the firm, you know? And when you see success, and we're not there yet, you know. So, you know, we've gone from, you know, what was a pretty tough 2022 to a significantly improved 2023, but we're not yet growing. We're not organically growing. But that feels good. You go from -$31 billion of flows to basically flat last year. That's, you know, that means that people can see that we're moving in the right direction and therefore that excitement and that, you know, what Ali's and hopefully the rest of the management team and the broader 2,500 people are doing feels good. So we're on the journey. And that's a good place to be.
Yeah. Excellent. I wanted to ask about one of the highlights of, you know, the reinvigoration process so far, which is institutional flows, which a year ago for a couple quarters were extremely good. So a little bit, if I may, like, you know, Jesus with the apostles on the mountaintop. So here's your glimpse of heaven, and now strap on those sandals and get back out there. So where are you in that process? How important has it been for institutional prospects who may not have participated in the first round, if you will, you know, to see and hear about that success?
Yeah. So anyway, you referred to is the first half of last year; we saw some significant institutional fundings. Our institutional business went from overall in the year last year went from about $14 billion out in 2022 to $7 billion in 2023. And most of that was actually in the first half. And to be fair, some of that was pent-up demand. It's things that, you know, we've been working on for quite some time. And the institutional pipeline is long. And what we said, I guess, nine months ago now probably was, It's gonna take us time to rebuild that pipeline. And that's definitely true. It's not happening and we said it would take 12-18 months. It's certainly not quicker.
You know, we have not got a massive amount of late-stage pipeline that's about to fund.
Mm-hmm.
Sorry. That's just fact. But we said it would take time, and it does take time. What we are seeing is a number of things. We are having better conversations with better people. The activity level is higher. That early-stage pipeline, the pipe is fatter at this level. It takes time to come through. That doesn't mean there won't be some fundings coming through this year, but it's, you know, the bigger things are probably the back end of this year or 2025. And at the same time, on the other side of that, you know, you've got some things that, you know, things mature. Clients move into different areas. Clients.
Mm-hmm.
Clients profit-take. You know.
Unfortunately.
Yeah. It's never nice when that happens, but it does. You know, we should be happy for them. So, you know, that you're constantly, you know, there's constantly some things going out the other way. We'll balance that hopefully, you know, with some coming in the top. But that, you know, what we're building is still something which is, I wouldn't say it's over the horizon from where we are in our sandals. But it, you know, we're not there yet. We've still got work to do. Some of the conversations are also more complex. You know, we're moving more and more towards conversations, you know, which are more solutions-related. Those conversations take longer. They're very good conversations. We've got some really interesting things to talk about with clients.
but they take a little bit longer to come to fruition as well.
You went.
It's easier than a sorry. It's a longer than a product sell.
Right. And you went to exactly the point of my interest, which is better conversations with better people. So, and you gave some detail on that. In terms of better people, you know, how is it? Is it more senior people? Is it just the right people to have those conversations? Tell us about that.
It's a little bit of both. You know, there are clients that we haven't talked to for a long time, and we're building things. You know, we'll talk about brand probably on the intermediary space as well at some point, but branding what we do with insurers. Branding, you know, so, you know, next week, we've got our second-ever client event in Asia. We did one last year for the first time. We've got clients in there, you know, you know, some of the major sovereigns coming in for that. We've got an insurance summit that happens. So we're linking up clients much better. So they are better clients, and we're providing something which means that the decision-makers are coming and talking to us.
And so it is, I think it's a combination of both things. It's the right clients and the right place. And again, some of that flow is happening. They're just not the big ones yet.
Yep. Got it. Okay. One more on institutional. Just wondering, because of the, you know, level of fundings a year ago, how has sentiment changed? 'Cause a lot has changed since then. So how has sentiment changed amongst those clients who may have given a mandate to Janus Henderson and now they're, you know, maybe coming back for more or wanting something different? Or where's they at as a group, if you can generalize a little bit?
So I guess, yeah, a lot of that money came from a couple of places. There were some Middle Eastern sovereigns. There were some large insurers. Really, they were the two pieces, insurers around the world. And, you know, yeah, there is, you know, we have still a relatively small part of wallet on the, certainly on the sovereign side. On the insurers, that's something, yeah, that we're pretty excited by. You know, when you do, you know, when you sell Australian fixed income to a European insurer, that's interesting. When you sell the second one about two months later, that's really interesting. Because, well, now I've got a trend. So how many other European insurers are gonna be interested in Australian fixed income?
And that's where we've got, you know, we've got a fantastic, you know, suite of product there.
Excellent. Thank you. Switching to the active ETFs, which have been another point of early success, as you reinvigorate the firm, primarily in the fixed income area, just wanted to get your thoughts on, you know, who the buyers of that are and where you see, more importantly, you know, the addressable market. How fast could it grow, and how big could it grow?
Yeah. I, the addressable market is massive. I mean, even I was just saying, there's about $7 trillion of cash sitting on the sidelines at the moment. And what we've done is taken a product which was institutional. You know, there's been a CLO market for the institutional business for decades. But it was not accessible to the intermediary, to the retail marketplace, and by putting it in an ETF structure, we have totally opened up that market. And that's the exciting thing about this is, you know, we've created a massive opportunity yeah.
Clearly, there was.
We've opened a massive opportunity. So, yeah. I mean, it's been a wonderful success. We raised $6 billion last year. I was just saying a few minutes ago, you know, with $1 in every five that went into that went into active fixed income came to us. Now, that's, you know, we're now bigger than BlackRock. Now, it you know, those words you haven't heard me say that around other things.
Do you think anyone was bigger than BlackRock in anything?
We are bigger than BlackRock in Active Fixed Income.
Yeah.
We're taking the dollar in five. We've got a suite of products. And currently, it's only in the U.S. Now, anyone can buy it. Anyone can buy it, an ETF, but there's tax issues and things like that. But we've got a brand here. We've got something really quite special that has a very large capacity, and is, you know, it's actively managed. It's proper fee. It's lower than our average fee, yes. But it is, you know, we're talking about an actively managed ETF. And again, you know, so there is some, you know, you and I are getting to know each other. UBS has only recently picked up coverage, and thank you for that. But this industry obsesses by flow. It's the wrong thing to obsess about. It's about revenues.
Well, it's ultimately about profit.
Sure.
but yeah, we're growing a product which is now $12 billion at Active Fixed Income fees.
Are there other product areas where you would consider a similar vehicle, the balanced or equities?
So without a doubt, you know, the opportunities you know, having the right vehicle is the right answer. You know, so we need to provide what, you know, what the client wants. And if the client wants a CIT, or the client wants an SMA, or the client wants an ETF, and we think it's a sensible thing to do, and we can do it, why wouldn't we? There are things that we wouldn't do. There are still things around transparency. We, you know, we've been pretty clear. We won't just clone one. We'll do something in a different way. So, but there are. We've launched some equity ETFs. You know, we haven't seen much traction with that yet.
But again, the halo effect of the Janus Henderson ETF franchise is something that we're really quite excited by. You know, it's as I say, it's a US thing now. We've got some ETFs in Australia. Europe is, you know, again, we were chatting about this in my first one-to-one of the day. One-to-one with 12 people in the room. Thank you.
We overdelivered.
You overdelivered. But Europe is, you know, Europe's interesting. It's difficult. There's multiple regulators. There's X and Y. So it's a difficult thing to do. You can't just roll out what you do here.
Right.
But again, we've got something here. And whether that's, you know, obviously, the securitized fixed income suite of products is a natural place to start. But yeah, there's plenty of other things that, you know, will wrap as it will wrap in whatever the right vehicle is. So it's not just ETFs.
Mm-hmm.
You know, we're doing more in SMAs. We're doing more in CITs. That's something that we probably didn't, you know, we were pretty traditional in our vehicle structure for, for probably a little bit too long.
Yep, wanted to shift, in the context of the active ETFs and the momentum there, get your thoughts on passive ETFs where it's unlikely you'll be bigger than BlackRock. But how important is that, you know, as a product offering and in particular, and we're starting to bleed into the distribution angle, but how important is it for things like retirement solutions, and where does Janus stand on that?
I think it's a very important part of the market. It's not what we do. And it's a scale, it's a scale product. But, you know, we're about providing differentiated insights and, and alpha. We're not gonna deliver that through a passive product. So, you know, great business. Congratulations. Go and run it. Actually, I'm not sure it's a great business. Doing business at zero fees. And again, we're gonna go back to fees.
Mm-hmm.
Right? I, you know,
Aid is free now.
I-i-it yeah.
We're on.
Yeah. We will participate in the active part of the market. That's what we do. It's what we're very good at, and we're very proud of. We're a research-led firm. So yeah, big important part of the market and an important part of portfolios. But we massively believe in what we do, and we will back ourselves all the way around adding alpha.
Makes sense. Understood. Was, as I signaled a little bit, wanted to shift into distribution, particularly in the intermediary channel. You had basically flat flows in 4Q, which is not necessarily conducive to such. So that's, a you know, if not the size of the institutional, a notable achievement, in my view. So Janus, in the way that you describe it, breaks it into advisor delivery and then retirement. So maybe you could talk to each of those channels and the outlook for those.
Yeah. So, you know, we're talking here about the biggest part of our business, the US intermediary business is the biggest market to us and something that, you know, up until 2023, you know, for the last few years, we'd seen outflows. And more importantly, we'd lost some market share. And, you know, that's the most painful thing, is market share. And we've gone from losing market share to winning some market share. The biggest success has been in the Advisor Sales Group. We're still seeing some outflows from our retirement business. But so we've got an Advisor Sales Group that is now, you know, consistently in inflow. And again, you know, we talked about institutional.
That's gonna be a bit of a mopey road before we get to that consistent pot of gold.
Mm-hmm.
The ASG group in the U.S. is now consistently in inflow. That's, you know, and, you know, you can plot then. You can do this, and you do do this, I know. You can plot it. It's a nice-shaped curve. So we're seeing, you know, an increased flow into that group. We're seeing it inconsistently across the different geographies. We've made a lot of changes. So Michael Schweitzer joined us, what, a year and a half ago now, probably, and made a lot of changes, both in terms of people, but how we do things, how we address things, what we bring to markets.
Mm-hmm.
Also comes into the vehicle delivery that we just talked about. So the Advisor Sales Group is delivering very well. The retirement channel is still a little bit, you know, probably the next piece in the US. And then we've got the rest of the world. The detractor in the second half or most of 2023, all of 2023, was our European intermediary business. And, you know, that's part of the benefits and the costs of a diversified business. You know, Europe was fantastic. You said, I've been here for 10 years. Yeah, Europe was fantastic for a few years. You know, we have a great brand and a great reputation. But when Europe's, you know, European intermediary business last year was about 8% outflow. We were about 8% outflow.
You know, again, it's a market share game. I don't like not winning. But that's a tough tide to swim against.
Yes.
But if we can learn, and we can pick up what we've learned in the U.S., and take that to Europe as well, then we've got these next two pieces. So what are we doing in retirement, and what are we doing in Europe? Currently, we're about—again, public data—we're about flattening intermediary flows globally. Europe is doing better, but it's still outflows, or the U.K. definitely is. But the U.S. is, you know, the U.S. is in inflows. If we can get Europe up, now I've got the biggest part of our business at the highest fee, starting to hum again. So, you know, there's a process. We're working through a process. We're leveraging what we've done. We're learning from this, and we're applying to that.
We did a brand campaign here in the U.S. for the first time ever as Janus Henderson. We measured the hell out of it. You know, marketing people will always tell you about clicks and views and things like that. That, you know, you take with a pinch of salt. But we checked it. We tested it. We're doing this. We're doing that. We're not blanket, you know, we're doing things. We're doing things in markets. We'll take what we learned there. We're doing a little bit of that in Asia. We'll probably start something in Europe. Again, when it makes sense. We'll do a little bit in Europe this year. So again, we will carry on. I'm sure we get onto costs at some point.
You know, we'll carry on with the things that we did last year, learning from those. What worked, we'll leverage. We'll tweak. We'll change. But that was a success. So we're really pleased with that, and we'll roll that out, and we'll continue to do things. So yeah, advisor sales, great. Retirement, we've got more work to do. Europe, we've got even more work to do.
Keys for U.S. retirement, are there lessons learned, yes, as you talk about, from the advisor channel that can be, you know, ported over into retirement to invigorate that?
There are, but it is also a different market. So it's not one-for-one.
Yep. Okay. Yeah. Makes sense. Wanted to ask about the alternative business, a little bit of a tale of two cities, you know, with the Henderson and Janus franchises, and then more recently, your partnership with Privacore. You know, maybe the latest updates on that and how you're looking to target, you know, the market that they've, I guess, identified.
Yep. So I think there's a number of pieces here. We do we've got some very successful liquid alternatives of various sorts from, you know, an absolute return fund that's been very successful with, you know, for a very long time in Europe. We launched a biotech hedge fund, which has been incredibly successful over the last few years, off the back of the life sciences team. So we do things in the liquid space. We've got a multi, you know, a multi-strat hedge fund, which is actually what the Enhanced Index business that covers back into the insurance side.
Mm-hmm.
There are things we've got in the liquid space. We don't do things in the private space, and we've been very clear. That's an area when you look at our strategy, the three pieces, protect and grow, is very much the U.S. intermediary space. That's, that's our bread and butter. We have to get that right, and we are getting that right. We have to amplify things. That's that actually is some of the liquid alts pieces
And then there's a diversify where clients give us the right. That's the third part of our strategy. There are areas that we would like to have in-house that we haven't got. And we'll talk about Privacore in a moment, which was the one thing we did do last year.
Mm-hmm.
But, yeah, we would have liked to have got some deals done last year in the private space. But, you know, again, hopefully, you know, we very much will do the right deal at the right price. We're not gonna, we're not gonna do the wrong deal or at the wrong price. And price is different. You know, people have different views on pricing, and that's why market works. But, you know, we, we didn't find the right thing for us in 2023. We looked at a lot of deals, primarily in private credit. That's what we've been talking about. Again, that's where, the, the, the link that's the thing clients are asking us for. So, you know, you should expect us to do something in the private credit space in 2024.
Like I say, we would have liked to have done something in 2023, but we're not gonna do the wrong deal. Privacore is exciting. It's, you know, something that started from scratch. You know, it's now 30 people. This is, again, I talked about the ETFs being a democratization of a product. This is a democratization of the privates market.
Yep.
You know, the endowments and the institutionals people you know, the allocation is sort of 20-odd% to privates. In the private wealth space, it's about 3%. They want more access. And there are people, the Blackstones and the Apollos and the KKRs, you know, can do that. But the vast majority of the space cannot support the private wealth managers. So what we've done is something which we think is quite neat and quite exciting, which is build the middle, someone who is gonna support GPs, and link to the private wealth manager. You know, they're in market now. They've had the.
At the advisor wealth, by the way.
At the advisor.
Yeah.
So they're in market. They've got their first big private wealth manager signed up and their first GPs. They're in market. The first close will be in the next couple of months. That's exciting. And it, it's, you know, it's a name you'll know. So that is something that does two things. One, that could be a very big business. Again, well, like I say, we're starting from scratch. All I've got at the moment is 30 people spending money. And it's a JV. We own 49% of it. So that's early days. But it also gives us something. Then we are more attractive to privates who might want to become part of Janus Henderson.
Mm-hmm.
because this nirvana of retail sales is pretty unproven. But Privacore is something that yeah, like I say, it's early days. We'll hope to tell you more and more about it during 2024. But it's quite exciting.
Yeah. And right. It would sweeten the deal somewhat to have that established, up and running, and some momentum, and then potential partners would, would see that as attractive. Just wanna ask quickly because you mentioned, you know, the M&A environment. One of the things that some have observed over the past year is that the bid-ask spread is narrowing, and, and, you know, sellers are being somewhat more realistic. Have you seen that? Have you have you gone back to maybe folks that you talked to before?
You see both sides.
Mm-hmm.
So when we, you know, were talking in my first meeting about a deal that was done more recently that was, was it a massive multiple again. So, and again, I say, the price is right for the buyer. And that's fine. You know, we have, we have not seen that. You know, you have to believe you'll the only reason to do these deals for, for us is we believe that together, we can grow that business much faster than it can grow on its own. Otherwise, the multiples don't make sense. So you have to, you know, there has to be a significant cultural fit, and there has to be a financial construct that makes sense for both parties. You know, and again, we'll be very happy to share the upside if we grow in the way in that way.
But yes, some deals have been done at some big-ticket prices, and yeah, let's see if they're successful or not. You know, like I say, we're not in a rush to do a deal. We have got plenty of things to be working on. But yeah, we do wanna be in that space. We've got clients who want us to be in that space. That's the most important thing is, you know, we've got insurers who want to be working with us in a broader suite of products. And we think that makes sense, but we won't rush to do the wrong deal.
Since we're talking about M&A, I'll, I'll touch on capital a little bit. You started back with buybacks. And just wondering how, the management team and the board think about, buybacks in terms of, you know, on the one hand, level of excess cash, whatever that may mean, but also the, the share price and how that interacts.
Yeah. So, you know, we have a very strong balance sheet. You know, we're net cash, significantly net cash. And we have a very established capital framework. You know, we'll hold cash for and capital for, for regulatory reasons. We'll invest organically in the business. And, you know, these businesses are pretty simple. You know, when we talk about investing in a business, it's really seed capital.
Mm-hmm.
Because, you know, on the capital side, that's what it is. You know, the investments we're making through P&L, you know, that's over here, it's really it's really seed. And we've got a good seed book. There are things again, we're doing interesting things there. We're launching new products. You know, they require seed and, and, and quite often now, bigger seed than they ever have.
Mm-hmm.
to get onto platform. We do what we call ramp product to get them up to a size that a UBS is gonna want it on platform for. But we've got a good seed book. And then you come down to, you know, the other inorganic use is deals. Now, we've again, no secret, we'd like to do some deals. And we've got a balance sheet that will allow us to do that. You know, the bigger the deal, there will you know, some of it you know, smaller deal will be cash. Bigger deal could involve some debt or equity. Happy to do it in what makes sense.
At the bottom of that is if we haven't got a better use of capital, again, when you add all that up and you look at the value of it, we'll return it to shareholders. We've got a very healthy dividend.
Yes.
Yes, over the last what, 4, 4.5 years now, probably 5 years now, we have bought back 18.5%. Actually, probably more like 19.5% now, of our stock. You know, 'cause we don't dilute on the other side. We buy stock for any awards. And then the so the buyback is real. So we have reduced the share count probably by 19, 19.5% now. Since.
Right. And growth is similar to net. Right. Yeah. I'm.
That's absolutely.
Yeah.
It's 100%.
Yeah. Okay. You talked about over here investing P&L-wise. And I'll sort of start at the top of the P&L. There's been questions about fee rate where Janus has maintained, you know, much steadier than many peers. So that's an achievement. But just how you think of, you know, fee rate balancing versus sort of product profitability, which I know has been a focus of yours as well, and how you expect to manage that. And then we'll talk about expenses and investing.
Yeah. Again, it does come back to the fact that we're an active manager. So, you know, our fee rate is something which I think differentiates us from the competition. We are not, you know, you're obsessed by flows. I'm obsessed by revenue and profit. Now, it will change. You know, it moves because of markets, because we've got a big equity book, and equity's higher fee. And as markets go up, my fee rate will, my average fee, it will go up. Now, that's just math. What really matters is the mix of product you're selling. And again, we will sell; we have product which is, you know, hedge fund pricing. And we have product which is enhanced index for an institute, for a sovereign.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
They are very different prices. They are both, you know, but again, we've done the modeling. We know what, you know, they're both good businesses. They're different prices, but they're both good businesses. Now, if we sell a lot of Enhanced Index to sovereigns, if we sell a very significant amount of Active Fixed Income ETFs, you know, they're sort of 20-ish, you know, our average fee rate is 48. So it will come down. But on the other side, if we sell, you know, great to see our, you know, some of the real core equity in a really strong place, you know, the research fund.
Right.
You know, you know, it's got some fantastic numbers. You know, you know, the, you know, where we are in the things we're really known for, you know, small and mid-cap growth, technology, life sciences. You know, so we've got a balance of these things going on. So I can't tell you what the fee rate will be. What I can tell you is we're happy doing both because if we add to those, our profitability will go up and our margin will go up.
Right. Yeah. Yeah. So similar profitability at scale even with the lower fee rate.
Absolutely. At scale.
Got it.
Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. I'm going to—I have this question pad here. So I'm going to invite the audience to either you can scan the QR code and text your question, or you can just raise your hand and we'll bring a microphone to you. I'm looking past the lights.
The small world.
Yeah. Okay. Let's.
Let's see you, Adam, I think.
Let's talk about P&L investing. And you know, we talked sort of about product profitability, but you know, the firm is committed to reinvesting cost savings, which you've actually been increasing and ramping up, back into business growth. So, how should we think about expense growth broadly, you know, in terms of like a base comp and/or non-comp expenses, over the longer term? And then on margin, is there a point where if things were to be adverse, which they're kind of not right now, but is there a point where you would cut to defend the margin?
Let me start the back end 'cause that's the negative bit, and then we'll get to the positive bit. I'd rather end up talking on the positive bit.
There you go.
Yeah, there's a natural defense on the downside, which is variable comp. and.
Sure.
Again, that's obviously happened over the last couple of years. You know, that's not the, that's not the, you know, we don't wanna be doing that. But that's a very natural lever in there. Outside of that, we run the business and actually including in that, you know, we run the business for the long term. So we're not gonna yank things around just 'cause the markets have gone down. You know, so there is not a margin target. We've got a very supportive board. I've spent the last two days with the board talking about strategy for the next two years for the next few years. We're a very supportive board. So we don't have a margin target.
We don't have to meet something because the market if the market goes down, you know, that's a crazy thing to do, to change your strategy unless you believe that something has fundamentally changed for the very long term.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
you know, over the last couple of years, you know, we, you know, we have taken some things off the table because things haven't been; it hasn't been the right market to be investing in.
Mm-hmm.
You know, we did that brand campaign in the U.S. We didn't do it in Europe last year. Market was, you know, that would've, that wouldn't have made sense to be doing it. That wasn't the right market to be spending that money in. It might be now.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, we'll balance things on the downside. But the margin is not a fixed number. On the investment side, yeah, there are two sides to that. We are controlled around expenses. I think we've got a good reputation for that. There is always more to do. We are, you know, I don't think our industry is the most efficient. There is more that we can do, and we will continue to do more. What we wanna do is be more efficient and then reinvest that money in areas that we think we can grow faster in. We'll take money off the table here and reinvest it over here because at the end of the day, it is about growing revenue.
And again, these businesses are, you know, as I said earlier, they're gloriously simple. It's a leveraged business. If we can grow the revenue, we will grow profit, and ultimately, we'll move up the margin as well. So there are things that we will continue to do on costs. And there are things that are happening to us on cost. Inflation is real. You know, you know, our non-comp costs, particularly in the areas of market data and indices and facilities and cloud costs, you know, they're going up. Right? So you've gotta work out how to be efficient with that. And we're working really hard on that.
Is the rate of increase slowing in accordance with some of the headlines?
Yeah, I think it is. You know, what we saw in probably, you know, Q3 of last year was hopefully the peak of that. Yeah, so that is true. But it's real. On the other side, there are things that we really wanna do. There's investments we really wanna make in the business, whether that be people in particular areas, whether it's the work we're doing around AI. Janus Henderson doesn't shout about stuff. Right? And, you know, you and I get to know each other. We won't shout about stuff, but there's a lot of stuff going on in the background. You know, so, you know, there's some really interesting things going on in the tech space, you know, across the world. We're doing some really interesting things there.
We want to invest there. We want to invest in the areas where we think we can grow faster. We've got a great little business in Latin America. We will do more down there. We've got a business in Asia that is underleveraged. We will do more there. We've got a business that's now in inflow in this advisor group in the U.S. We need to feed it.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
We've got, you know, we've got a great ETF franchise in fixed income. What's the next one down the track? So there is product development going on. So yeah, there is, there are things we're doing, but that is and again, hopefully, that can be seen is it's very balanced in how do we try and keep those costs as under control as possible? We've got investment we wanna make. How can we do that in a way by being more efficient over here, to try and balance that down? I'd like to think we're doing a decent job there. There's always more to do.
Well, we'll stay tuned. The clock is at zero, so I'm not actually sure if we're still webcasting. I wanna thank everyone in the room for coming this morning. My very special thanks to Roger Thompson from Janus. Very much appreciated.
Thanks, Adam.
Thank you.