Good morning. My name is Zeb, and I will be your conference facilitator today. Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Janus Henderson Group first quarter 2022 results briefing. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer period. In the interest of time, questions will be limited to one initial and one follow-up question. In today's conference call, certain matters discussed may constitute forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in forward-looking statements due to a number of factors including, but not limited to, those described in the forward-looking statements and risk factors sections of the company's most recent Form 10-K and other more recent filings made with the SEC. Janus Henderson assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements made during the call. Thank you.
Now it is my pleasure to introduce Roger Thompson, Interim Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer of Janus Henderson. Mr. Thompson, you may begin your conference.
Good morning, and welcome everyone to the first quarter 2022 earnings call for Janus Henderson Group. I'm Roger Thompson, CFO and Interim CEO. Before I discuss our quarterly results, I'd like to start by giving a few updates. First, as we announced back in late March, we're extremely pleased that Ali Dibadj has been named as the next CEO of Janus Henderson. Ali is highly regarded and well-respected in the asset management industry, and the feedback we've received both internally and externally has been overwhelmingly enthusiastic and positive. I've had the chance myself to meet with Ali, and I echo that feedback. I, along with the rest of the executive committee, am excited to work with Ali, and we look forward to meeting with clients and shareholders and employees when he begins as CEO next month.
As we transition to a new CEO, it's important to emphasize that in the interim, the firm continues to operate as business as usual, and we continue to make progress in delivering our strategic initiatives. In that context, I'm pleased to announce that we have completed the previously announced sale of Intech as of the 31st March . The closing of the transaction was a culmination of the efforts by dedicated teams on both sides, and we wish Intech all the very best for the future. We also continue to grow our active ETF franchise with assets now exceeding $5 billion. During the quarter, we launched two ETFs, a BBB CLO ETF in the US, further capitalizing on the back of the success of our AAA CLO ETF, which raised $800 million in the first quarter and now has $1.1 billion of AUM.
In Australia, we launched a Net Zero Transition Resources ETF, which was also one of the five US sustainable ETFs that we launched in September 2021. With that, let me turn you to the quarterly results starting on slide three. Our investment performance remains solid with 62% of our assets beating their respective benchmarks over three years, which is up compared to 58% of assets last quarter. Assets under management are down due to the closing of the Intech transaction at the end of March, the effects of markets, and net outflows. Excluding Intech, net outflows were disappointing at $6.2 billion, driven primarily by outflows in equities and the institutional redemption in the Balanced strategy that we communicated to you all in the last quarter's earnings call.
Our financial results remain solid, but are down compared to the prior quarter, primarily from weaker markets and lower performance fees. Finally, we remain committed to returning excess cash to shareholders. In the quarter, we completed $43 million of share buybacks, and the board has authorized a new buyback of $200 million to be completed prior to the 2023 AGM. Additionally, given strong earnings growth in 2021 and our progressive dividend policy, we are pleased to announce a $0.01 increase in the quarterly dividend to $0.39 per share. Moving to slide four and a look at investment performance. While one year investment performance reflects the very challenging environment, long-term investment performance remains solid with 62% and 74% of assets beating their respective benchmarks over a three year and five year time period as of 31st March .
Performance of multi-asset and alternatives is excellent across all time periods. Equity is more mixed, but with continued improvement in strategies such as US midcap growth, which is now above benchmark over all periods presented. Fixed income investment performance is doing well despite an extremely challenging quarter for bonds in the first quarter. Switching to relative investment performance compared to peers, this remains solid with over 60% of AUM represented in the top two Morningstar quartiles over all periods. Slide five shows company flows excluding Intech. For the quarter, net outflows excluding Intech were $6.2 billion compared to $1 billion last quarter. Over the next few slides, I'll provide insight into the outflows, but in summary, the quarter saw continued outflows in equities coupled with the outflow in the multi-asset capability previously disclosed.
Let's turn to slide six, which shows the breakdown of flows by client type. Net outflows for intermediary were $1.7 billion. By region, intermediary flows were negative in the U.S., India, and Latin America, and positive in Asia Pacific. In the U.S., the outflows were dominated by our U.S. SMID and mid-cap growth strategies due to the performance challenges we saw in 2020. With the strongly improving performance that I previously mentioned, we're optimistic that we're beginning to see the pace of outflows slowing. In looking at the first quarter highlights in the U.S. intermediary channel, the SMA channel had $800 million of net inflows, coming primarily from the Concentrated Growth strategy. Net inflows into ETFs were $800 million, with the majority coming from the triple-A CLO product.
As I mentioned, our ETF business is now over $5 billion in assets, and we're well-positioned with our triple-A and triple-B CLO strategies in a rising rate environment. Similar to trends across the industry, EMEA growth inflows slowed compared to the fourth quarter due to a risk-off sentiment caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, inflation, and tightening monetary policy. Institutional outflows were $3.6 billion, which was primarily the result of the $2.2 billion redemption of the Balanced strategy. The pipeline has broad and diverse range of opportunities, but results will be lumpy quarter to quarter, as we saw this quarter. Finally, net outflows for the self-directed channel, which includes direct and supermarket investors, was $900 million. Slide seven shows the breakdown of flows in the quarter by capability.
Equity net outflows for the first quarter were $3.8 billion compared to $3.2 billion in the prior quarter. The outflows were primarily driven by U.S. small- and mid-cap growth strategies in U.S. retail and institutional. Areas of flow strength included U.S. Concentrated Growth, Global Equity Income, and the Biotech Innovation Fund. Flows into fixed income were flat in the quarter, which is a good result against a tough backdrop for bonds during the quarter. In the U.S., our fixed income strategies captured retail market share and were led by inflows into the fixed income ETF strategies. Total net outflows for multi-asset were $2.2 billion, entirely made up by the one-off redemption in the Balanced strategy that I told you about in the last quarter. Alternative flows were negative $200 million for the quarter.
Before moving on, I do want to call out two redemptions that will impact 2022 flows. First, a long-standing European insurance client has made the decision to bring the management of a sterling buy and maintain credit mandate in-house. This was unrelated to either Janus Henderson's investment performance or client service and due to an internal decision to build their own investment management capabilities to support their growth. The mandate was low fee with total AUM of approximately $7.3 billion, and $2 billion has already been redeemed in April. The balance will redeem over the remainder of 2022 in tranches yet to be confirmed. Secondly, we recently announced the sale of our UK property funds, which will result in an estimated $1.4 billion outflow in the second quarter.
Moving on to the financials, slide eight is our standard presentation of the U.S. GAAP statement of income. Slide nine is a look at the summary financial results. Before diving into the financial results, note that the sale of Intech closed on the thirty-first of March. Therefore, Intech's financials are included in the entire quarter. However, as I stated last quarter, Intech's impact to the consolidated results is not meaningful. Adjusted first quarter financial results are down compared to the prior quarter and prior year, primarily from lower average AUM and performance fees. Adjusted revenue in the quarter decreased 13% compared to the prior quarter due to lower average AUM, performance fees, and fewer calendar days. Adjusted operating income in the first quarter of $180 million was down 25% over the prior quarter, principally driven by lower revenue.
First quarter adjusted operating margin was 37.4%. Before moving on, I wanted to clarify the difference this quarter between US GAAP and adjusted diluted EPS. The primary difference was a $33 million non-cash tax adjustment on the impairment of goodwill that we recognized in 2020. With other small adjustments, including the loss on the sale of Intech and LTI accelerations to departed executives. On slide 10, we've outlined the revenue drivers for the quarter. Net management fee margin for the first quarter declined to 46.8 basis points compared to 47 basis points in the prior quarter. However, it's flat to a year ago, highlighting the strength and stability of our fee rate. The quarterly decline is due to the mix shift resulting from weaker markets. Excluding Intech, the net management fee margin for the first quarter was 49.4 basis points.
First quarter performance fees were lower compared to the prior quarter due to U.S. mutual funds and seasonally higher performance fees from segregated mandates in the fourth quarter. Regarding the U.S. mutual fund performance fees, the first quarter was -$14 million compared to -$7.7 million in the prior quarter. Looking at 2022 performance fee revenue, based on current investment performance, we expect full year performance fees to be negative in aggregate. U.S. mutual fund performance fees are projected to be approximately -$60 million if we assume benchmark performance for the rest of 2022. Based on current investment performance, these negative fees would only be partially offset by performance fees generated from segregated mandates, ICAVs, UK OEICs, and investment trusts. Turning to operating expenses on slide 11.
Adjusted operating expenses in the first quarter were $299 million, down 3% from the prior quarter. Adjusted employee compensation, which includes fixed and variable costs, was up 3% compared to the prior quarter, primarily as a result of annual merit increases and seasonally higher payroll and retirement costs, which were partially offset by lower variable costs, given the lower pre-bonus profit.
Adjusted LTI was down 10% from the fourth quarter, mostly due to mark-to-market. In the appendix, we've provided the usual table on the expected future amortization of existing grants for you to use in your models. The adjusted comp to revenue ratio was 42.5%, which is in line with the guidance we've given and less than the 44.2% ratio in the first quarter of last year. For the full year, we anticipate a comp ratio in the low forties. Adjusted non-comp operating expenses were down 10% from the prior quarter, primarily from marketing and general and administrative expenses. For 2022, the expectation of non-comp operating expense growth in the low teens remains unchanged. Finally, our recurring effective tax rate for the first quarter was 26.1%.
For the full year, the firm's statutory tax rate is still expected to be in the range of 23%-25%. Finally, slide 12 takes a look at our liquidity. Cash and cash equivalents were $782 million as at the 31st March, a decrease of approximately $324 million, resulting primarily from the payments of annual variable compensation. The first quarter cash position is typically our lowest given seasonal cash needs. We returned $107 million to shareholders via the dividend and share buybacks. We purchased 1.3 million shares of our stock for $43 million. We paid $64 million in dividends. As I previously mentioned, the board has approved a 3% increase in the quarterly dividends to $0.39 per share.
This increase aligns with our capital philosophy of paying a progressive dividend that grows with profits. Finally, the board has approved an accretive share buyback authorization of $200 million to be completed prior to 2023 AGM. I look forward to Janus Henderson continuing on its journey of organic growth in Q2 and by being joined by Ali in our Q2 earnings call in late July. Now I'll open things up for Q&A. Operator.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad now. If you change your mind and wish to withdraw your question, please press star two. In the interest of time, questions will be limited to one initial and then one follow-up question. Our first question today comes from Dan Fannon at Jefferies. Dan, please go ahead.
Thanks. Good morning. I guess just wanted to follow up on flows. You mentioned a broad range of opportunities within kind of the institutional pipeline. Just hoping you could expand upon that. If you could clarify just the timing of the redemptions, just so I understand it. I think $2 billion's already left in April on the total of $73 billion, but the timing of the property fund. I guess just in general, in the context of consultants, asset allocator, and kinda intermediary conversations, you know, how has the change within the ranks of the management team at Janus, as well as having an activist, potentially impacted those conversations, if at all? Sorry for the multi-part question, but wanted to get some broader context.
Thanks, Dan. That I think covers quite a few things. But let me take them sort of one at a time and see where we get to. First one is the buy and maintain mandate in the UK. First, as I said, that's a GBP 7.3 billion mandate. It's very low fee, but that will come out in the course of it all during 2022. Just over $2 billion came out in April, and we're working with the clients as they insource that money. But we don't have the you know the full details of when the remainder will come out.
That will be $7 billion coming out over the remaining three quarters of the year, starting with $2 billion in April. The real estate transaction we completed or rather exchanged last week, very pleasing to get that done. It's at a small premium to the NAV. You know, given the ongoing changes and review by the FCA of open-ended real estate funds, we believe that is a very good outcome for investors. That will happen over the next month. Again, that will be within our Q2 results.
In terms of the pipeline, there are a number of things in there that have taken a little bit longer to fund than we wanted or expected. They're things we're working through with clients, mainly on clients' ability, you know, or the need for clients to be able to do their reporting and regulatory returns. Some of these things are quite complicated and taking a little bit longer than originally thought by the client. We're pleased to be working through those. It's a range of things, and it's a range of fee rates as well.
Again, we've got some higher fee products that have lower assets and some bigger things at lower fee. I recognize that, you know, I've been talking about this pipeline for a number of quarters now, and we've got to deliver it. That's something that, you know, I recognize hasn't come through in the last quarters. You know, it will be bumpy and this outflow from buy and maintain will sort of dominate the flow picture in institutional. Again, it's more important to look at revenues rather than flows. We'll see that coming through over the next few quarters.
Then finally, in terms of, you know, the feedback we've received on Ali's arrival has been sort of universally positive, both internally and externally. You know, he's a very well-respected investment professional, you know, with a background at AllianceBernstein as a portfolio manager and then in strategy and CFO. Those who've worked with him, you know, have very strong feedback and in either directly working with him or in a professional capacity across different firms. So that is, you know. Ali joins us next month, as I said. So that's gonna be, you know, that's gonna be very soon. Yeah, client feedback has been very positive so far.
I don't think there's anything that's changed in terms of our outlook. If anything, I'd say hopefully it's gonna be positive rather than negative in terms of you know, client reaction. We look forward to getting Ali on the road you know, seeing shareholders, analysts, clients and staff you know, as soon as he joins as I say, in late June. I think I've covered. Oh, sorry, you mentioned Trian. There's no change there. You know, Trian have been investors in Janus Henderson for almost two years now. I think that you know, that's an ongoing relationship, which again, I think that's settled down quite nicely.
You've asked one question, Dan. I guess you're allowed a second one. I'm not sure whether that was really one or four. Any follow-ups?
Yeah, no, I'll take that. Appreciate all the long and detailed response. Thank you.
Thanks, Dan.
Our next question is from Elizabeth Miliatis from Jarden. Liz, please go ahead.
Good morning, your time, and thanks for taking my questions. I might just start on the cost management and capital management side of things. Obviously, you've maintained your guidance on the cost side and have announced another buyback. I suppose it is early days with Ali. He hasn't officially landed yet. Is there any sort of anticipation that he might sort of reassess those targets at all, or do you think that it might be quite a steady ship going forward?
I think you have two quite separate things there. One is around our capital management philosophy, which I think is settled in terms of, you know, a regular progressive dividend, which we've increased by $0.01 this quarter, and a consistent buyback. You know, if we have true excess cash, so the buyback of $200 million that we've announced today, you know, is pretty consistent with what we've done over the prior years. We did a little bit more last year. So that's a consistent philosophy around capital. You know, again, that's really a board decision.
Again, hopefully that's well understood in terms of capital. In terms of costs, you know, we're gonna have to look at the year as it plays out. You know, we've been investing in the business. We're excited about the future. You know, we always manage the business as tightly as we can from a cost point of view. You know, I am guiding to higher non-comp costs this year. Again, you know, as we talked about in Q1 results, that's a combination of three things. That is, you know, a return to normal in areas such as T&E and marketing, which were low in 2020 and 2021.
A return to normal and maximizing some of the opportunities we've got in marketing by increasing marketing spend. Again, that was low in 2020 and 2021 with COVID. We have a number of major infrastructure upgrades that we've been working on for the last few years. A couple of those will go live in 2022, which is great news. That means we start to amortize the work that's been done over the last couple of years. There is inflation. There is inflation obviously in the system. We will continue to manage that. There are, you know, dials to turn. We'll continue to be as efficient as we can.
I guess I'll come back to you in Q2 results, should any of that guidance change.
Okay, got it. Just quickly also on the investment gains and losses. I mean, obviously it's really hard to sort of help us out with that, but that number tends to sort of bounce around quite significantly just in relation to the seed assets. Is there any way to think about that in a better way to get that number right because it does sort of have a fairly meaningful impact to the bottom line?
Yeah. There's an accounting piece in there. You've got to look at it net of NCI, the non-controlling interest part. You net those two numbers. We have to show it gross. In a quarter where you know seed and therefore consolidated seed has you know gone down with the market, there will be losses, but those losses are offset in NCI. That's the first piece. Obviously we don't hedge the client positions which we need to consolidate in that line. That this quarter will still results in a relatively significant loss. We hedge what we can efficiently in our seed book.
There are certain seeded instruments that we don't hedge. We don't hedge or we can't hedge as efficiently as we'd like. This quarter there is a net seed loss of around $10 million.
Mm-hmm.
Which is a bigger gross number, offset by a hedge, but the hedge is not perfect. We'll continue to look at that. That number, you know, I'd like to be as little as possible. It obviously includes Alpha as well. But where we've got things like, you know, hedge funds, they are unhedged in terms of those results. Hopefully that helps, Liz. We're happy to take that offline, take you through that as well.
Okay. Thank you so much.
Our next question comes from Ken Worthington at JP Morgan. Ken, please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. Maybe following up on Dan's question on the institutional business. How do we think about the institutional franchise? I recall that Intech was the single biggest part of the U.S. institutional business. Does that divestiture impact, you know, your broader franchise overall? You were more scaled with Intech, you're now less scaled without Intech. You had big outflows this quarter, even without the balanced one. There's bigger redemptions to come. I assume that $7.3 billion is also bucketed as institutional. What does this shrinkage mean for the outlook for that franchise? Can you further flesh out the steps that you're taking to stabilize the platform and really right the ship?
Yeah. Thanks, Ken. It's a good series of questions. First of all, our institutional business ex Intech is $82 billion. So it's a sizable book, and that is global. And it's well diversified. It is an area that we've been investing in, making sure that we've got the right products, the right people, you know, building the client relationships. We've talked a little bit in the past about the investments we've made. You know, new consultant relations team, which is working really well. Again, these things do take time.
The team underneath Richard Graham, who joined last year, I think really establishing much better relationships with consultants globally. The institutional team in the US, we've upgraded that team over the last couple of years. We've got products around the world, which we believe is of interest to institutions. We are having a lot of good conversations. I talked a little bit about the pipeline, and like I say, I realize that I've been talking about that for the last few quarters, and we need to deliver that. You know, that's obviously the intention there. We believe we're seeing some good results. You're right.
The large buy and maintain mandate that I've just told you about is in the institutional book. That will be a sort of headline loss from an AUM point of view. Again, I'd continue to point you towards revenue rather than just assets. Some of the business, you know, that is in that pipeline is significantly higher fee product. It's a mix. We'd like to say we've got some bigger mandates which we hope and expect to fund at the lower end. We've got some business which again, we hope and expect to fund at higher fee. No, the institutional business is very important to us. It's been successful.
You know, we've seen success in various areas. Our Australian institutional business has done very well over the last couple of years. You know, we've got a growing business in the Middle East. We've got some great relationships on the continent of Europe. We've got an established UK business. The US is where we've consistently, you know, both before the merger and post the merger, our institutional business, you know, is too small for the size of Janus Henderson. That's something, as I say, we've made a number of investments there, and we'll continue to push there, and hope and expect that to continue to grow over time.
Okay. Okay, I think that's fair. Just maybe to follow up, you know, to call it out, I don't think the results were all that impressive and the outlook is sort of more challenging here. You've got a 20% owner. I assume the pressure is gonna be going up meaningfully. You have plenty of cash. You announced the $200 million authorization. You sort of called out that that's sort of the authorization level that you guys have been looking at for the last couple of years. Given the weakness in the business, and the downturn that we're seeing in the stock, I'm sure you anticipated that. Why not go bigger than the $200 million authorization? You've got plenty of cash. You've got a clean balance sheet.
It would seem like you're in a very powerful position to take advantage of sort of near-term inefficiencies. You know, why not substantially bigger than the authorization that was made here?
Again, I think that's yeah, that's part of our conservative. You know, we are conservative in our balance sheet. We recognize that and that has been, you know, that is deliberately cautious. You know, we see opportunities for the business going forward. We want to maintain that ability to act. We're not looking to leverage up the balance sheet in any way. As you've seen in this quarter, there is a lot of beta in this industry and a lot of, you know, and Janus Henderson is a high beta stock. We don't wanna be over-leveraged.
The $200 million authorization is something that, you know, we could work through and, you know, should we be confident we've got true excess cash going forward, we can add to that in the future. That doesn't mean that's the only thing we do this year. Equally, you know, we may find other opportunities over the year and spend the money the other way. Our expectation would be to do that $200 million buyback. When you look at that's really, you know, the increased dividends and the $200 million buyback would represent around, you know, the vast majority of this year's earnings. We're paying out, you know, our expectation is to pay out this year's earnings.
You're right, we're well covered on our starting position. Like I say, that is a deliberately conservative policy.
Okay, great. Thank you so much.
Great.
Our next question comes from Alexander Blostein from Goldman Sachs. Alex, please go ahead.
Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for the question. A little bit of a bigger picture question as well, and not sure if you're able to answer before Ali ultimately starts, but how do you think the firm's strategy could broadly change over the next year or so? What will be the same? What will be different? And I guess, what is sort of, kind of like the near term plans for the company in the interim as he joins and kind of gets his feet wet in terms of what he wants to do?
I think that, you know, that will evolve over time. You know, what will not change is our focus on delivering, you know, consistently strong investment performance and client service for clients. That is the bedrock of what we look to do. You know, we've made a lot of progress over five years in delivering, you know, a combined business and, you know, an improved chassis, if you like, on the car. We've made some, you know, what we would say is some real tangible progress there, but I accept it's not really come through yet in the financial results.
Obviously we're gonna be working, you know, closely, and particularly me working closely with Ali as to what that, what that looks like, and how that evolves over time. Strategy that we've been on has been the right strategy, but no doubt that will evolve with a new CEO on board. I think that's probably an evolution rather than a revolution. You know, Ali joins in a month. You know, he's met quite a few people over the last couple of months just to say hello. That just gives him a great start and be able to be off, up and running as quickly as he can when he gets here, as opposed to putting names to faces.
You know, yeah, I think he's off to a great start. He's gone down very well with the people he's met. Obviously, you know, we'll come back to you, over the course of the next few earnings calls as we evolve the strategy and push the business forward.
Got it. Great. Quick question on the numbers. The management fee rate of the net fee rate margin, the way you guys describe it, I think it was 46.8 bps. It's quartered down a little bit. It's like due to mix. A number of moving pieces happening here, obviously with Intech out of the run rate. This large insurance mandate, albeit it sounds like it's a very low fee rate business, but also equity markets are coming down and it's a high business. Any way to frame the jumping off point for the second quarter on this net management fee margin?
Yeah. Ex Intech, the jump off point is 49.4 basis points. As you say, it's higher ex Intech. You've got all the pieces there, Alex. You know, our fee rate will be influenced by equity markets given that equity fees are higher. Should equity markets continue to fall, then you know, our fee rate will come down a little bit with that just because of mix. The buy and maintain mandate, yes, as I said, is large assets, very low fee. That will actually improve the fee rate. Yeah, you know, we're starting to see some improvements coming through in.
You know, we've seen some sizable outflows in U.S. mid and SMID over the last couple of years, as you've seen. You know, the performance of, you know, particularly the Enterprise Fund, which is the midcap fund, has been excellent, really excellent over the last, I guess, you know, all of 2021, the first four months of this year. We're starting to see those flows turn. Again, that's high fee business. That's an important one to come back. European, the European intermediary business, also high fee business that did slow in Q1, as I said. You know, gross flows slowed on the back of, you know, a multitude of reasons, as I said. That's an industry phenomenon. You know, it.
Yeah, should that continue, then you know we don't get the kicker from a higher fee European intermediary business. Again, that's been a real strength over the last year or two. You know, hopefully things settle down and we start to see positive flows again coming out of European intermediary.
Very good. All right. Thanks, guys.
Our next question comes from Robert Lee from KBW. Robert, please go ahead.
Great. Thanks for taking my questions. You know, maybe just a little bit on first one on your the expense guidance and the comp ratio. You know, when we think about you know what's this quarter year to date quarter to date returns you know the comp ratio guidance still in that kind of low 40s range. You know how much flexibility do you really have in that? Obviously, there's variable comp related to profitability and performance. You know should we really be expecting that you know the pressure just stays that we've had so far that comp ratio is gonna you know at the least will be towards the high end of that low 40s?
Should we really think that there's, you know, this continues, you know, it's gonna really get to more towards mid-forties? Just trying to how you guys think about the real flexibility you have in managing that.
Yeah. You're right. You know, a significant part of our comp cost is variable. About 40% of our total cost base is variable comp. That naturally flexes. You know, that piece sort of looks after itself. In Q1, you have to remember that there are some lumpy pieces, you know, U.S. payroll taxes, stock vesting. Q1 is always a higher fixed cost base, and that works itself through to the other three quarters. I think we're at 44% last year, we're at 42% this year.
The guidance at 42% comp ratio, you know, given where we are with markets and what I've talked about, yeah, I'm pretty confident with that as a comp ratio. You know, we'll continue to manage the business tightly so that comp ratio does stay. On non-comp, as I said, you know, Q1 was the other way around. Q1 was actually a relatively light quarter. We do expect to see increased non-comp in the remaining three quarters. Again, we will be reviewing that and being careful with it. There are things that we want and expect to come through in the remaining three quarters.
Okay, great. My other questions were asked already, so thank you.
Okay. Thanks, Robert.
Our next question is from Ed Henning at CLSA. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. Just first one. Look, you've talked about a strong balance sheet today. You've also talked about, you know, reducing scale of the institutional business. Can you just talk about the appetite for acquisitions to accelerate growth, you know, and gain some more scale in your institutional business? I know you've obviously been growing ETFs and growing organically, but just interested to start with just about acquisition appetite.
Okay. Thanks, Ed. I guess the first piece is, you know, the most important thing for us is maximizing the value of what we've put together and what we've been building over the last five years. We haven't fully done that obviously yet. You know, we are a truly global firm and have the right geographic footprint in all client channels. I guess you were asking specifically around the institutional channel. You know, we've got an institutional business which is established around the world, and we've been investing in that over the last five years. We're not short of capabilities or products.
We've got some really strong performing capabilities and products. We talked about this in Q3, I think it was. There are areas that you know we continue to look at. You know you shouldn't be too surprised if over time, you know, we do more in those areas. But they're more in the investment capabilities rather than in distribution. You know, we've talked about you know potentially some other areas in fixed income that we're not fully in yet. We've talked about, you know, some other, you know, moving into some areas around in alts.
You know, again, that's all, you know, as Alex asked earlier, I think, you know, that's all gonna be part of an ongoing strategy. I think the most important thing for now is it's very much business as usual. You know, we're always looking at things. You know, we look at a lot of opportunities. There are very few that are very, very good, and we only wanna do the very, very good ones. You know, it's business as usual. We're looking at things as we always are now.
We'll continue to look at them in a month. Like you say, you know, the most important thing is maximizing the value of what we've got, and we're continuing on that road.
Okay. Thank you. Just some mechanical questions just on the numbers. You talked about performance fees likely down year-on-year. Will that likely just trend through each quarter, or is there a lump that potentially comes through in performance fees if it status quo stays as is?
Yeah. We had a very strong Q2 last year. That was, you know, that's. You know, again, you know, it's difficult to project forward, you know, performance. Obviously it depends on what performance is in the time period. Given, you know, what we see today, if we cut that today, Q2 would be a significantly weaker performance fee quarter than we had last year. There's two pieces in that. The first is the fulcrum fees we have on the U.S. mutual funds. As I said, we've got a couple of. Again, you can calculate this straight through and, you know, we can talk them through it.
Mm-hmm. Yep.
We would expect that to be given current performance, if there was zero alpha between now and the end of the year, the fulcrum fees would be $60 million negative. As I say, you know, again, just looking at what we see now in terms of performance fees, again, if we cut them today, the positive performance fees from our segregated accounts, from our CCaps, which were very strong in Q2 last year, from our absolute return funds, from our OEICs, would not fully offset that $60 million. Again, it'll be what it'll be. Hopefully performance is very strong over the rest of the year, and those numbers are a little bit better.
That's the, you know, that's what we can see given performance of where we are today and just saying if there was no alpha between now and the end of the year.
Yeah. That's saying absolute number of the dollar of performance fees is negative, not just down year-over-year.
Correct.
Yep. Okay. No. Thank you for clarifying.
Our next question comes from Patrick Davitt from Autonomous Research. Patrick, please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. One more on the expense. As we look kind of beyond this year, is there an opportunity for that to then step down when some of these big infrastructure build-outs are finished, or is that kind of the new run rate once we get to the end of the year?
You always want that. Yeah, there are things we're certainly turning off. As we modernize our infrastructure, you know, there are systems that we're able to turn off, and there are savings there. The truth is, you know, there is more you need. There is more data. There is more, you know, cloud costs. You know, this is really around leverage. As I said, we will continue to try and squeeze where we can and be as efficient as we can, turn things off, et cetera.
I think really we're talking about, you know, you know, this being the run rate. And therefore that's why it's so critical for us to grow this business organically, because this is about leverage.
Got it. Thanks. In the $82 billion institution number you gave, are there a lot of these kind of 5 billion+ mandates in that number? Just trying to frame, you know, the risk of this if it becomes a more common theme.
No, that's probably one of the biggest ones.
Okay.
I think, you know, we do have a sort of barbelled institutional business. We have a number of larger clients, this being one of them, like I say, probably one of the biggest. We have a very long tail of small mandates. One of the things we're looking at is trying to make sure that we're filling the piece in the middle as well. Yeah, you know, this will be one of the biggest. There's probably a couple of others, you know, in the five category, but with a very long tail.
Thanks. That's helpful. Thanks.
Our next question comes from Nigel Pittaway from Citi. Nigel, please go ahead.
Thanks so much. Hi, Roger. Just first of all, maybe just delving a little bit more into SMID . You partly answered this already, but what was the quantum of outflows from those two strategies in the first quarter? With the sort of mid-cap turning, I think, positive in the month of March, I mean, you know, how confident are you now that those sort of flows are going to improve? Because it's something you've said before, but obviously it's taking a while. Can we just sort of maybe delve into sort of the level of confidence as to where you're at with those two strategies?
Thanks, Nigel. Yeah, we've seen some sizable outflows over the last five quarters. I think probably it's when those outflows started, the beginning of 2021, probably. I think in Q1 it's about $2 billion of outflows across mid and SMID. That is, and like I say, you know, that was a tough performance period in 2020. You know, the team have made that back and a bit more, particularly on Enterprise. The numbers are very strong. You know, we're now into positive territory over all time periods. Yeah, we're starting to have some. You're always still concerned, but that is a great franchise.
It's starting to look really interesting for clients. You know, you gotta slow the outflows before you get to inflows. You gotta go through zero. That's something that hopefully will happen, you know, in the short run. Now, yeah, the team are working hard on that, both the client relationship teams as well as Brian and Jonathan and the teams working on the investment side of that, who, like I say, have delivered some fantastic numbers over the last five quarters. We're pretty confident that's been a painful outflow over the last year or so.
I think we're seeing light at the end of the tunnel.
Okay. Thank you. You know, it's been a common topic over the Q&A, but just back on the expenses. I mean, you know, obviously, you know, you've got lower expenses first quarter, so as you highlighted, there's a fair bit of catch up in the last three quarters. Yet obviously there's sort of mild average AUM headwinds and the markets are down, you know, a fair bit already in 2Q. At what point do you actually have to reassess that and say, "We really can't invest so much this year given, you know, what's happening on the revenue line?
Yeah, I think there's two sides of investment. There are things that we really need to do and want to do to ensure that we've got the best business going forward. There are things which are a little bit more discretionary. You know, the discretionary pieces are things that we'll look at much quicker. You know, are there opportunities for us to be winning business? If the market environment is such that the opportunities are less, then we will spend less money on those discretionary pieces. We take a long-term view of the business. You know, a short-term market change, you know, we will look at it. We will look at things tactically.
If we believe that this was very strategically longer term, then, you know, we'd be taking a longer and deeper look.
All right. Thank you very much.
Sorry, that's worth saying. You know, we'll update that over the next quarter's call.
Mm-hmm. Okay. Great. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you.
Our next question is from Brian Bedell from Deutsche Bank. Brian, please go ahead.
Great. Thanks very much. Thanks, appreciate you going through all of this stuff, so Roger. Maybe just a couple questions. I'll try to keep it on the quicker side. Just back on the conversations with distribution partners. I mean, your intermediary sales did hold up really well in Q1. Just trying to get a sense of, is sort of there a risk to that sales number as we move into 2Q ahead of, you know, when Ali comes on board? Maybe what are those conversations, you know, how are those conversations going? Or do you think it might be just maybe, you know, coming into 2Q, we may have just a headwind on the growth to value rotation in the market generally?
Yeah, I mean, the conversations with clients are very good. You know, the depth of relationship is very strong, particularly around, you know, our key and larger clients, and the sort of focus list of products. You know, I don't think there's any concerns there. As you say, you know, we're pretty pleased. You know, it. Yeah. This is a large outflow quarter. You know, it's painful, but there are areas where, you know, we're relatively pleased. Our fixed income franchise being flat in the first quarter, you know, is pretty strong. You know, Europe has slowed down its gross flows, and that's a market impact.
If we can turn around US mid and SMID, then that will be a strong answer going forward. You know, I think the conversations we're having with clients about the firm and Ali joining are actually all very positive and gives us opportunity to talk to people. We're starting to see some conversations which were defensive conversations. You know, you're concerned about losing something, and that conversation ends up with more money coming through the door. Again, that's you know. I'm picking the positives obviously there. As I said, it's been a painful quarter. You know, we're continuing talking to our clients. That's the most important thing.
Delivering investment performance. You know, I don't think there's any change. Yeah, obviously, you know, we are very cognizant of the market environment, and investor sentiment. We are, you know, that obviously has a significant impact on our ability to deliver positive flows.
Okay. Yeah, that's great color. Thank you. Just on maybe just on growth initiatives. You mentioned obviously the active ETF franchise continues to ramp up over $5 billion. Can you talk a little bit about. I know you've also been growing your sustainable products. Can you just give us an update on the ESG dedicated product lineup? Any other organic growth initiatives. As you said, everything is sort of you know continue to the same playbook, obviously, as you wait for Ali to join. Maybe if you could just talk about any other major organic product development growth initiatives as well as the sustainable products.
I think it's yeah on the second page first, you know, we launched a lot of products in 2021. As that matures, you know, that's the real growth opportunity for 2022 is things we launched in 2021. We launched, you know, a suite of sustainable ETFs. You know, we launched things like, you know, AAA and now a BBB CLO. You know, that's AAA is now a billion and one. It raised $800 million in the first quarter. BBB launched in March, something like that, in Q1. You know, it's seeing inflow. There's some good areas there. We'll continue to look at that product pipeline.
There are things we'd like to continue to do in 2022. I think we launched 21 new products in 2021. We got a lot of things which, you know, are starting to mature. On sustainable, you know, we're doing a lot of work there. We're investing pretty heavily in our investment team. The core group around ESG has gone from four people to 15. In terms of product, we've got about 50. You know, but that's still driven by Europe. Although we are seeing, you know, some.
You know, we're seeing regulatory change in ESG is probably the fastest area of change at the moment, and you're working in some uncertain or moving regulatory environments. You know, sort of level two pieces in Europe, which will need to be embedded by the end of the year. You know, the actual rules are not gonna come out until the end of June. You know, it's. There's a lot of work going on. We've launched a number of Article 8 and Article 9 funds in Europe, and expect to launch or convert some more over the remainder of the year.
About 55% of our SICAV coverage in Luxembourg is now either Article 8 or Article 9. Again, we've been pretty cautious on this. As you'd expect from Janus Henderson, we wanna do this right, and make sure that we've got the infrastructure and the reporting behind it to make sure that that we're really confident that you know in exactly what we say we're doing, we are doing. We have seen a couple of people being caught out on that, and I think the rules will continue to move, and we wanna make sure that we're doing the right thing.
We're being cautious, but we're making some pretty significant investment in the teams and in the data and in the systems and reporting to make sure that our sustainable products are there. It's obviously a growth area. You know, we've got a very long-term track record in that. We've got a global sustainable product which celebrated its 30th anniversary last year. Global Sustainable Equity, we launched that as a US fund over the last couple of years, and in Australia last year. It's now about $3.8 billion. That's doubled over the last 18 months probably. We see you know that obviously is a you know a specific strategy around ESG.
We're looking to make sure that we're doing the right thing across a broader range as well.
Great. That's great, Roger. Thanks so much for all the detail.
Our final question today comes from John Dunn from Evercore. John, please go ahead.
Thanks. Maybe just a quick check-in on the strategy for growing alts specifically. You know, earlier you talked about maybe some inorganic ways to do it. Maybe just potential areas of interest and maybe how the competitive environment for winning those is currently.
Yeah, there's certainly things that we do. We're seeing some real success in a couple of areas I'd call out. Our Biotech Innovation Fund is growing pretty significantly over the last year or so since it was launched. Our multi-strat product is one of those ones, which, you know, is not gonna offset in AUM terms that buy and maintain mandate I told you about. But in revenue terms, it's a, you know, it's a very different pricing point. Winning $50 million and $100 million tickets in multi-strat is something that moves the dial on the revenue side. We've got alts capabilities.
We've got a, you know, a long tenured and successful absolute return fund range in Europe as well that is continuing to do what it's supposed to do. Again, you know, we hope and expect that to gather assets over time. We've got an alts business. There are areas, you know, that we continue to look at where we may add to that over time. You know, nothing specific to talk about here. We're not about to close anything.
you know, there's always interesting things to look at, you know, particularly probably in the less liquid end of fixed income.
Thanks very much.
Okay. Well, thank you all for your time today and for the questions. If there's any follow-ups, then please do let me or the IR team know. Good to talk to you today. I very much look forward to doing this call with you with Ali in three months' time. Thank you.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you all very much for joining. You may now disconnect.