Welcome back to Evercore ISI's Eighth Annual Payments and Fintech Innovators Forum. I'm David Togut. I research the payments and processing industry for Evercore ISI. Really delighted to kick off our fireside chat with Broadridge Management. Joining us from Broadridge is Edmund Reese, Chief Financial Officer. We also have the IR team here, led by Edings Thibault and joined by Greg Fischel. Thanks so much for being with us here today. We greatly appreciate it. Thank you, David. Thanks for having us. Good morning to everyone else. So since some investors may be new to Broadridge, if you could start by giving an overview of your three growth franchises across governance, capital markets, wealth, and international, as well as a discussion of TAMs and growth opportunities. I do think it's important to give an overview from Broadridge. Broadridge is a leading global fintech company. We provide technology solutions in a very complex and highly regulated financial services industry, where a $24 billion market cap, we generate $6 billion in revenue. You look over the last 10 years, and we've had strong top line and bottom line growth. Recurring revenue has grown over the last 10 years at 10%. It's now over $4 billion. Our earnings growth has been 14% to over $7 per share in fiscal year 2023. Over that same time period, we've increased our dividend, resulting in an average dividend yield of 2%. When you combine the revenue and earnings growth with consistent capital return, it results in a high compounding TSR business. Our total annualized total shareholder returns has been 22%. That far outpaces the S&P 500 over that time period. Our business is really split, to the question that you just asked, in the three growing franchise businesses: one that provides critical investor communications, the second trading technology, and the third technology for wealth advisors. So first is that governance or investor communications business. That's a $2.5 billion recurring revenue business. It's been growing at 9% over the last five years. And core to that business is our position in the center of a network that's linking public companies and linking funds to the banks and brokers that hold their positions, and eventually to the underlying retail and institutional investors that own those positions. Over the last 10 years, the growth in that communications business has been driven by increasing investor demand. And that really manifests itself in equity fund and equity and fund position growth. If you look over the last decade, population growth in new more people investing has driven 2-4 points of recurring revenue growth. As we look over the long term, we expect mid- to high-single-digit growth because those new investors are coming on and opening up more accounts and holding more positions per account. Additionally, we use our position at the center of that network to drive digital solutions for the funds. We use our position to really drive other digital delivery of communications as well. We think to maintain that leadership position in investor communications really is going to require that we innovate to increase investor engagement and digital communication. So that's the ICS business for us. The second that I just mentioned is our capital markets business. That's a $965 million business. It's been growing at 14% over the last 5 years from a recurring revenue growth standpoint. We view ourselves as a leading capital markets technology provider, processing over $10 trillion in equity and fixed income trades per day with technology that cuts across the entire trade lifecycle. Capital market companies are facing pressure: faster settlement cycles, pressure on the trading economics, risk from fragmented legacy systems. We look to capitalize on that market opportunity, which we size at $24 billion by U.S., about the TAM. We size that at $24 billion. We look to capitalize on that. Our growth strategy is to land and expand with those clients and deliver modular solutions that we think help simplify trading and connectivity while innovating to drive efficiency with new capabilities like distributed ledger or like AI. That's the capital markets franchise. The final one is the wealth franchise. That's a $560 million recurring revenue business. It's been growing at 10% over the last five years. Again, we view ourselves as a leading wealth tech provider. We have relationships with 14 of the 15 largest U.S. wealth management firms. We have relationships with five of the six top Canadian banks. That's a $12 billion market opportunity. Wealth management companies are spending really to differentiate their offering, to attract and retain advisors, and to transform their operations and technology. We have built to attack that opportunity and address those needs. We've built a next-gen platform, as I know you're well aware of, that really enables wealth managers to enhance the investor experience, to enhance advisor productivity, and to digitize their operations. So those are the three growing businesses. And I would say they're underpinned by a simple financial model that is anchored in sustainable long-term growth. And that model really starts with organic recurring revenue growth. And we supplement that recurring revenue growth with M&A that meets our strategic and financial criteria to drive 7%-9% recurring revenue growth per year. On top of that, we are focused on margin expansion. And the operating leverage in our business, our disciplined expense management, our move to higher margin digital products, that really allows us to generate 80-120 basis points of margin expansion per year. That means that we can deliver 50 basis points of margin expansion, create capacity for investments, and still deliver on our overall earnings objectives. So that's a pretty good place to be in. We take those earnings, 8%-12% earnings, and convert 100% of that into free cash flow. That really allows us to have a capital allocation model that balances growth for investment with capital return to shareholders. We're focused and committed to a growing dividend. We look at M&A when it's the right fit for us and meets our criteria. We return all excess capital back in share repurchases if we don't have the M&A opportunity. That's the financial model. We've been executing it. Through the first six months of fiscal year 2024, right on track to have a strong year of recurring revenue growth, a strong year of Adjusted EPS growth. Free cash flow has been strong through the first six months. This year, we just communicated that we expect to deliver $700 million-$800 million in dividends and share repurchases. That's a good place to be in. Finally, so I'll just sum that up by saying, what you heard was that we have a long history of delivering very strong shareholder returns, that we have three, to your point, David, growing franchise businesses with a clear path for continued growth, that we have a financial model that generates high free cash flow and balances investment for growth with capital return. We are at a good place in fiscal 2024, right on track to have another strong year here. I think that's an overview of the company, the growth businesses, the model, and where we are this year. Thank you so much, Edmund. Appreciate the comprehensive answer. As part of your new three-year guide, you've highlighted $3 billion of capital available for M&A and share repurchase after paying your annual dividend, which is pegged to a 45% payout ratio. How do you weigh M&A against share repurchase? And how are you approaching acquisition opportunities, both strategically and financially? Yeah. The first point to make on that is that we said it just a moment ago. We are an organic growth company. So our growth is primarily driven by sales and our ability to retain our existing clients, which, as you know, over the last 10 years, we've been able to do at 98% of our existing client revenue. And there's a long runway to continue to be an organic growth company when you think about $4 billion in recurring revenue in a $60 billion market opportunity. So that's the first important point. We see M&A as an adjunct to supplement that growth. And over the three-year objectives, 2024-2026, we said that M&A can contribute 0-2 points to our overall recurring revenue growth, so an organic growth company with M&A as an adjunct. To your specific question, when we think about evaluating M&A and we spend a lot of time on this internally, it is a question about, is it build or buy? Are we the right owner for the strategic asset? And very importantly, particularly sitting in the CFO seat, does it meet our strategic criteria and financial hurdles, particularly ROIC levels above our cost of capital at a certain time, IRR? It's important to note to you, David, that we've now been a public company, independent public company, since 2007. We've done 40 acquisitions since that time, $4.7 billion. And when I look across those acquisitions, because we do go back every year and see how they're performing, they've been accretive to the recurring revenue growth. And they have helped the company move to a mid- to high-teen return on invested capital. M&A is a valuable part of our overall portfolio. The third and final point that I'd make on it is the fact it's a point I just made a moment ago that we think about our capital in balancing investments, both organic and inorganic investments, relative to capital return. In the environment that we're in right now and where we are in our fiscal year, I guess four and a half months left at this point, we'll probably have modest M&A in fiscal year 2024. We'll be more weighted towards share repurchases. We did $150 million in share repurchases in our Q1. I'd expect or I anticipate that if the assumption on M&A holds, you could see another $200 million-$300 million in share repurchases for fiscal 2024. Look, I think that capital that has been our capital allocation policy. We've executed that. When I look back on the results over the past years, I think that has fared well for shareholders. Well, maybe just to double-click on M&A a bit. So I think your largest acquisition ever was Itiviti, about $2.5 billion 3-4 years ago. How is Itiviti performing relative to the acquisition proformas? And is this sort of the model for the type of acquisition you would do going forward? Or would you go smaller, which has been more the historical pattern? Smaller has been the historical double-click into your number. I said $4.7 billion ago. Subtract $2.5 billion and divide that by 39 acquisitions. You see that the average acquisition price is $55 million. So it is targeted tuck-in M&A that has been our policy. There was a unique opportunity in capital markets, one of the places where we had been doing less external acquisition. Itiviti, at the time, held by a private equity company that was coming to its holding period on that, really was a great strategic opportunity for us to move into the European markets, to move into the international markets, and bolster our front office capabilities. And I would say we're just very pleased with the performance, financial, and strategic relative to the business case and the thesis on that. We were focused on three things, really taking market share, particularly in the international markets. I know you know well that there were two players in that market that held 50% of the vendor share. We have had significant, real, tangible wins competing with those vendors in the international market, so progressing nicely on that goal. Coming into the North America markets, where Broadridge had clients and back office capability, introducing these Itiviti capabilities, we've had success, particularly to double-click on it, with fixed income. Right now, I'd say we are very focused on investing in exchange-traded derivatives as well. That is resonating for us in North America. A big part of the thesis was our existing post-trade capability in capital markets combined with the front office capability in Itiviti in building front-to-back capabilities. There are many conversations with clients right now who are using many fragmented vendors externally who are interested in having a solution with the scale and the breadth that we provide, having both of those capabilities in there. You think about those three goals and our progress against it. You think about the financial objectives. Double-digit recurring revenue growth accreted to Broadridge. Margins that were over 30%, again, accreted to Broadridge. We're quite pleased with the performance thus far and the strategic synergies with the rest of our capital markets business. That's great. Thank you so much for that. Just going back a bit to margin expansion, which you touched on in your introductory comments. So within the three-year guide, you've highlighted 50 basis points of average annual adjusted operating margin expansion. What are some of the biggest drivers of operating leverage? And then what are some of the additional operating efficiencies you've embedded in the guide? Yeah. That was one of the most important points that I wanted to make during Investor Day. So I spent a lot of time on putting the slides together for that. And the point, the reason was, we've had such a strong history. I wanted to demonstrate the confidence that we have in our ability to be able to continue to drive 50 basis points of average annual margin expansion. And when I think about the things that drive that, first is the fact that we have typically generated 50-70 basis points of margin expansion from the natural scale in our business, both our ICS and our GTO businesses. We bring on incremental sales. We bring them on at higher incremental margins. And we've typically had that result. And there's a long runway for that. The second area is, in addition to the 50-70 basis points from the natural scale, I think we can continue to drive 20-30 basis points per year, moving to higher margin digital revenues in both our customer communications business and our regulatory business as well. And we've seen that. And then finally, 10-20 basis points. And this gets a little bit to your specific question about other things that are embedded in it. I've seen 10-20 basis points from the disciplined expense management that we have, the things that we do that drive efficiency and productivity. If you think over the last three years, we've had benefit from reducing our real estate footprint, from realigning our businesses and our management teams. Going forward, if I use as a great example that was a recent conversation I had yesterday with our Chief Technology Officer, he thinks that there's opportunity in productivity that comes from AI with his engineers and the code development that they're doing and thinking about putting in tangible opportunities with that. So again, my point there is that I think there's a long runway for continued 50 basis points of margin expansion, capacity for investment, and still delivering on the earnings objectives that we have of 8%-12%. That's great. Since you raised GenAI, which is a very important topic among investors, how would you frame the opportunity more broadly when you think of so you talked, I think, about operating efficiencies and faster code development. If you kind of look at new revenue opportunities, looking at Broadridge's product portfolio, I know you have some GenAI-tied products and then operating efficiencies. Are there operating efficiencies beyond code development, maybe in areas like customer service? Yeah. I think first, even just backing up before you first thing for us, given all the data that we have and the importance of that, is security, data security when it comes to AI. And we've been very focused on creating an environment where our product and technology folks can innovate without compromising the client data. That's the first thing in my mind. Getting to your more specific question, look, I think AI is going to be table stakes over the next few years here. So we are really focused on embedding it in all of our products and doing that where we think we have a unique data set, because I think that's how companies will differentiate themselves when there's a unique data set. And I think we have a unique data set in our governance business. I think we have a unique data set in our GTO, capital markets business, as well. And to the point that you just raised, we have been successful launching products like our BondGPT product, which helps with liquidity in the bond trading market, or our OpsGPT or DistributionAI. Those are examples of products that have AI embedded in them that we've launched. And I think the interesting thing about that is the time that we can move from idea to production. It's been quite quick. I've been impressed with what I've seen with the technology teams. But beyond that, to your broader point, I think there's an opportunity for not just the products, but productivity and efficiency as well in areas like code development, in areas like customer service, but also in some of the functional areas like IR or finance and other parts of finance and legal as well. We're super focused on that. I think it's too early to quantify what the exact dollar amount is going to be impacted, what the exact dollar impact is going to be associated with that. But we're super focused on it, embedding it in our products, and using it to drive productivity and efficiency in the areas that I just mentioned. Appreciate that. Thank you, Edmund. So if we could talk about UBS Wealth Management contract. Spending on that has come down a lot. You're kind of on the road to $70 million a year in annual revenue. Free cash flow has improved. So a lot of good things in the last year and a half. But sort of where do we go from here in terms of marketing the capability you developed for UBS to the broader wealth management community? I smile, because you said spending has come down a little bit. To be clear, I'm very excited about the fact that we have completed the platform spend, that we've had a successful go live associated with them, and that we have now, to your broader question, focused on pivoting to sales. And I'll come to that in a moment. I think you just mentioned the revenue. What we said is, in fiscal 2024, we expect approximately $75 million in revenue. That was anchored in contracts. So that's right on track with what we expected. I feel good about that as well. To your broader point, wealth management, I just mentioned, is a $12 billion market opportunity. I think about the strong sales that we've had through our first six months. And wealth is contributing to that. Through the first six months, it's almost doubled what it was last year. And you heard Tom Carey, the leader of our wealth business, just talk about a pipeline that's north of $200 million right now for wealth. So I think the opportunity is out there. And I think we're in a very good place to capitalize on it. Where we go from here is, if you think about our tangible sales plan, action-oriented sales plan, it goes beyond just the demos and the workshops. Clients are actually embedding their data into the tool and testing the applications themselves. And the good news is, I think there are some industry-leading capabilities out there. Remember, it was over 30 different solutions and modules out there. Things like our client onboarding, things like the Ops Console to help operations managers are resonating as best in industry modules, and resonating even, I would say, with some of the particularly with the top Canadian banks as well. So I would say we are seeing the modules resonate with the tier ones, with the RIAs and independent banks as well. So we are focused on looking to monetize that and still feel very confident in what we've said before, $20 million-$30 million in incremental sales in that business. That's where we're focused and feeling very good about the progress thus far. Great. Thank you so much for that. Since activism has recently increased, specifically Trian's proxy contest against Disney, and you've guided for above-trend event-driven revenue in the back half of this fiscal year, what are some of the key milestones we should be watching for, in particular on the Disney proxy contest, to understand how big this might be from a revenue standpoint to Broadridge? Sure. Well, first, it would fall into our event-driven revenue. And you know, David, that event is an important part of our offering as we service funds and service public issuers. It is, though, less than 5% of our overall recurring revenue. And I've had to correct some investors over the past couple of months on the thing that has been driving event to date through the first six months is not the contests and proxy battles that you're talking about, but the mutual fund proxy Itiviti, which was more modest in fiscal 2023 and now becoming more normalized. As we look out into the back half of the year, I think there is, particularly in the news, a lot of discussion on these proxy contests. I know you know well that they don't always turn into a proxy battle. Many times, they settle. But it does look like many of these are moving forward. The milestones, to answer your question specifically, that we, of course, look at, because what matters and what drives sort of the revenue associated with that is the number of communications and the population to whom you're communicating. So are you communicating to the folks that have 200 shares, 1,000 shares, whatever it is, the number of communications and the population? That can vary. I've gone back and looked at the history of the contests. Even for companies that have the same amount of shareholders, depending upon how tough the fight is, the number of communications and to whom you're communicating can vary and change the level of revenue associated with it. To your point, we do expect event-driven revenue in fiscal 2024 to be above the historical levels that we've seen, partially driven by the contest activity. The good news is that, given our outlook on the performance of the overall company for the year, we prudently, I would say, decided to drive investments, more investments in Q2. I talked about that on the earnings call. We'll continue to invest throughout the year, because I think we can do that. That helps us for the medium and long term while still allowing us to hit sort of the 8%-12% objective that we have right now. That was a little bit more than what you asked. That was the milestones. That gave you some context on the overall event, but how we're thinking about using that incremental revenue to continue to drive sustainable long-term growth. That's great. You mentioned proxy contests. I guess beyond Disney, are there others that we should be tracking of note? I don't normally talk about the individual companies out there that are looking at these, because there's a lot in the news. But as I said, they don't necessarily turn into proxy battles. So there isn't anything significant that changes the outlook that we have on the overall performance for the company in fiscal year 2024 at this point. You will see events higher than historical levels. I think we have a good line of sight to what the overall performance of the company is. And so I think the key point is where we expect to land. Great. So Broadridge partners with some of the largest asset managers for ETF Pass-Through Voting. How are you thinking about the future financial impact from ETF Pass-Through Voting? Yeah. That's a very important topic, because voter choice is an important thing for the fund companies right now. And we obviously have relationships and then conversations with all of the passive providers right now. I think the thing, to answer your question, is the structure by which they allow voting choice. Is it going to be sampling? Is it going to be surveying? Is it going to be you pick the topics as an investor that you want to have voting choice on? That's still in the early stages right now. So they're still figuring out the structures. And I would say it varies. So therefore, the financial structure, the economic model associated with that is still in the early stages. We are seeing benefit from it. It's modest right now and captured in our overall recurring guidance. But I still think it's early days to see exactly how it plays out. The key point about the pass-through voting and the ETF is the fact that it, again, reinforces the importance of investor engagement. I think it's another long-term tailwind for Broadridge in that it drives that investor engagement, which is good for us. And we're in a great position to help support our clients, the fund companies, as they implement the structures that they want. What do you expect the financial impact from Tailored Shareholder Reports to be? Yeah. You know about tailored shareholder reports well. But just to back up on that for a moment, what that is, is the semiannual and annual reports that investors receive from fund companies. The SEC has now required, I think, later this year in July, that that report be summarized into a two- to three-page report versus the link to a very long, informed report associated with that. And so that's what tailored shareholder reports are. There was obviously a notification to go to that link and look at your report. We talked externally about that being roughly a $30 million recurring revenue impact to us. That notification will no longer need to happen. And therefore, we'll have a headwind associated with that $30 million revenue. What we said is that we were implementing solutions and had the relationships in place to largely offset that. When I think about our sales through the first six months and what we expect for the back half of the year, I actually think that we'll more than offset that $30 million in revenue in fiscal 2025 and have a slight positive associated with it. And so again, that just shows how encouraged we are by the sales and our ability to put new products in place to meet regulatory needs that come out. Any callouts in terms of what some of those new products are? Well, I mean, it's primarily helping with both the communication, both on the printing side and helping with composition as well, as we think about how the funds want to communicate. They're seeing this as an opportunity to really almost as a marketing opportunity with their customers. And so we have good insight on how you can deliver the required information in a way that's efficient for customers as well. Great. So in the last few years, Broadridge has expanded its international management team. What are some of the most important growth opportunities you see internationally? You referenced Itiviti earlier, that being a key part of the buy case. And you're gaining share there. But I mean, how do international markets across your three growth franchises compare to the U.S. in terms of opportunity set? Yeah. I like to point out that the international business for us over the last five years has had double-digit recurring revenue growth. It's been a creative growth driver for Broadridge. It's obviously smaller. But it's been growing at a very nice clip. And I think about the opportunities both in the governance, primarily in the governance and capital market space. In our wealth franchise, we're more focused on North America, for sure, so the opportunities in the capital markets and the franchise space. And what's happening is you have U.S. banks who are expanding into global markets and want to simplify their operations across asset classes and across geographies. That's an opportunity for us in the capital markets business. You have the local regional banks who are looking to drive down cost in their operations and technology. And clearly, we play a role there. And then you have the increased regulation, particularly in the European markets, that helps drive some of the governance business. So to the point that you just raised, activity has been the acquisition of Itiviti now in BTCS has been an important component and will be an important component of our growth moving forward in the international markets, again, particularly in the European markets and some of the Asia-Pacific markets. And the regulatory changes that are happening, particularly in those European markets, help drive the governance business as well. I think it's those two things that are in our plans for continued growth in international. Great. Let me just pause a minute to see if there are any questions from investors in the room. Hi. Thanks so much for your time. We appreciate it. One of the things I find most interesting about Broadridge, particularly recently, is what I would call structurally higher positions growth, which I think has been really strong for Broadridge. There's been a debate around whether or not that's sustainable. I think that there's good reason to believe that it is. But would love to hear kind of your input on what the drivers of that are and whether or not you expect those to continue. Yeah. So one of the most important drivers is we think about our recurring revenue growth, right, as I mentioned before, sales and then the internal growth, of which position growth is a strong component to that. If I think throughout the COVID time period through fiscal year 2022, we've seen elevated position growth. We have taken some time to look back and tried to decompose the drivers of position growth. I may have called this out earlier. There's sort of 4 components in my mind that have been driving it. One is just growth in the population. So population growth is a secular sort of tailwind, I would say, that helps drive that position growth. Second, what we are seeing is more people investing. I think that is one of the big drivers, particularly at lower demographic areas, so younger investors where it's easier to invest because they have digital communications, because they have a mobile phone, more discretionary income, I think, have brought in more investors. I think the third thing is that those new investors coming in are opening up more accounts. So you have your account with your managed advisor, managed portfolio advisor. You have your own or at least I have my own self-directed accounts as well. So there are more accounts that are opening up as those new investors come in. And particularly over time, we see the number of positions per account increasing as well. So population growth, more people investing, more accounts per investor, and more positions per account. That has typically, over the last decade, driven 2-4 points of position growth. When you think about things like direct indexing and pass-through voting, these things that are driving investor engagement and more solutions for securities, I think there's a continued runway to see sort of mid- to high single-digit growth. You're right that there was a big uptick in position growth. I think we'll continue to see sort of mid- to high single-digit growth off this new level. That's the important thing for us. I think that's a long-term tailwind for our overall recurring revenue growth. Terrific. Thanks. Yeah. Any other questions from the audience? Great. So what do you see as the most important business risks facing Broadridge that you're actually monitoring and then working to mitigate? It's hard to be a fintech company right now and not be focused on cybersecurity. I think we're all aware of recent events, actually, in financial technology. So we have always had that as a priority. And I would say we continue to double down on that. We are sitting where we sit in this regulated financial industry. We're audited by our clients over 200 audits per year. We do the SOC 1 and SOC 2 tests. We have the highest certifications, ISO 27001, the CSA Level 2 certification. I'd say we're in good company when you think about the companies who have that level of certification. But I don't think you ever get to a point to where you fully mitigate that risk. And I think most companies would agree with me. We learn a lot being in this position that we're in, hearing from regulators who view us as a critical fintech provider, hearing from the companies that audit for us. We take those learnings and invest in our products and then invest in our overall data technology architecture to mitigate and protect against that risk. But I think that's an ongoing focus of ours and then an ongoing investment for us. So very, very focused on that. I play a big role, in addition to being the CFO, on our risk committees. And that's a big focus for us. What do you see as the most underappreciated strengths of Broadridge? I've now been here just over three years. I've had a lot of conversations with investors. Eventually, we get to the strength. But we spend a lot of time on what I call the noise, like the quarterly fluctuations in position growth or event-driven. The strength of Broadridge is the fact that the drivers of growth, both on an annual basis and on a long-term basis, are stable. We just need to execute, converting the backlog of sales into revenue, expecting mid- to high single-digit position growth, and driving the margin expansion. We will continue to have the type of performance that we've had for shareholders, a high compounding TSR business. Once you set aside the noise, that's the company that we are. I think helping investors understand that, that the drivers of growth are so stable both on an annual and long-term basis, is where I spend a lot of my time. Great. Just in closing, what questions do you not get from investors or that I haven't asked you today that you think are important to focus on in terms of understanding Broadridge's fundamental prospects? Yeah. Investors will often focus. I appreciate what you did at the beginning of the conversation here because you really incorporated the opportunity in all three of our franchises, right? I think that we have three strong growing franchises. And some investors will either be focused on the BTCS acquisition or the wealth management platform build. The beauty in this business is the diversity of it across each of those franchises, the fact that we're operating in multiple economic environments, and can, again, have that consistency and steady earnings growth that we have. And investors understanding that all three of those things are connected, our position and therefore our clients and our relationships, is an important thing that I think I'm not often asked. And I have to bring up and remind folks. Great. Well, Edmund, thanks so much for being with us here today. Really appreciate the opportunity to dig into Broadridge with you. And also want to thank the IR team, Edings Thibault and Greg Fische. Thank you so much as well. We appreciate your participation on our conversation. Thank you, David. Very thoughtful questions. I thank you for the coverage and the company. Thank you, Edward. Thank you.