Horizon Kinetics Holding Corporation ($HKHC)

Good afternoon, everyone. Apologies for the delay on Strange. Thank you for joining us today. My name is Mark Herndon, Chief Financial Officer of Horizon Kinetics. We're pleased to have you joining us today for our call that will cover the results of our first quarter of 2026. Today's discussion of our first quarter will include comments from Steven Bregman and Peter Doyle, Horizon Kinetics Co-Chief Executive Officers. I will also be available to answer some questions and we'll moderate the questions. The first, a reminder that today's presentation may include forward-looking statements. Reliance on forward-looking statements involve certain risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, uncertainty about the future security valuations or our performance. During the course of today's call, words such as expect, anticipate, believe and intend may be used in our discussion of our goals or events in the future. Management cannot provide any assurance that future results will be described will be as described in our forward-looking statements. Furthermore, the statements made on this call apply only as of today. The information on this call should not be construed to be a recommendation to purchase or sell any particular security or investment fund. The opinions referenced on this call today are not intended to be a forecast of future events or a guarantee of future results. It should not be assumed that any of the security transactions referenced today have been or will prove to be profitable or that future investment decisions will be profitable will equal or exceed the past performance of the investments. We encourage you to read our filings with the SEC on our Form 10-K as well as our other quarterly filings, which describe the risks and uncertainties associated with managing our business. The company does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements made today. These filings can also be found at the OTC Markets website and our press releases or other information is at our corporate website at www.hkholdingco.com. If you would like to ask a question, you will need to be logged into the GoToMeeting platform. Those of you on the telephone connection will be in listen-only mode. Again, for those of you that are on the GoToMeeting platform, you can submit the questions via the chat function. Please direct those questions to the presenters where I will summarize and relay as best I can, so that we can address as many questions as possible. To begin, of course, we want to first acknowledge the recent tragic and unexpected passing of [indiscernible].

Thank you, Mark, and good afternoon to everyone. As Mark pointed out, 6 weeks ago today, almost to the minute Murray passed away. So I think in previous calls that we've had in other related businesses, we've been accused of maybe doing too much or too little, but I think it would be a mistake if we didn't acknowledge his impact. So for 2/3 of my life, for 41 years, Murray stood as a guiding light, he was generous with his time and his vast intellect. He was dedicated to sharing wisdom that truly mattered. Murray just teach, he equipped me, Steve and the entire Horizon Connect family with mental toolkits for navigating not just investments, but life's complexities. He had a unique ability of the century's worth of knowledge into practical timeless wisdom. Murray showed us that real success comes from consistency, systems and intellectual humility. In our new roles as co-CEOs, Steve and I are responsible for shaping Horizon Kinetics strategy and to ensure that the operational aspects of the business support that strategy. Investors will be happy to hear that Steve and I have found very little to change thus far. Our unique value-oriented eclectic investment style will live on and the nontraditional opportunities that we have always presented to investors will continue unabated. Steve and I have known each other for 4 years as well. I believe that Murray, Steve and I a self-selected over our willingness to think long term. That view is embedded throughout our company, 80 or so employees. There is a new level of enthusiasm among our staff to maintain and to build on an organization that would make Murray proud. I would like to thank our clients and shareholders for their heartfelt condolences and empathy over Murray's passing. At the time of Murray's passing, he was probably the most optimistic I've ever seen him as it pertains to our underlying investments and business. Steve and I share that enthusiasm, and we possess the disciplined fortitude and patience to let our to let our investments flourish. In closing, I would also like to thank Steve for taking on the added responsibility of being Chairman of the Board. Steve?

Thank you, Peter. I was want to lean forward toward the mic because I have a habit of meaning back in my chair and coming away from the microphone, I don't have any prepared remarks. So we'll say it's not as well structured as it might be. It's more impressionistic because we've been kind of busy, but I'll call it constructively busy, happily busy. Yes. In terms of our association with Murray, not only has it been 4-odd years, but we first each of us in our turn began working with him at Bankers Trust. Company in the most formative period of our investment careers. We weren't yet officers -- and Murray already ran what was called the growth fund at Banco Trust. And like mine, like philosophy, like inclinations we found ourselves working together with them more and more, even though we had to cross official corporate lanes to do so, and it wasn't always approved of. And yet we even then came up with productive investment products for the bank. Sometimes against their initial will. Interestingly, I'm going to talk a little bit about our personal history because I presume that that qualitative aspect is important to many investors in HAHC because the numbers at least on a snapshot basis and what the numbers are. Anybody can evaluate those. You've got so much in assets to their management. You've got so much in cash on the balance sheet. But contextually, that doesn't say much. I will say that none of us include Tom Ewing and John Meditz original filing dispose really have had any fights in the last 40 years, no serious is agreements, which is kind of remarkable, I suppose. Well, with the 1 exception last week, if I might share this, Peter, over a selection of furniture. -- our new offices, which I might mention a little further. Not the fight, but the offices were changing. And I describe it to this. None of us want anything that's not ours. We're just by luck of the draw, we're honest people. And on an intellectual basis, -- if 1 of us -- let's just take Murray for the moment, he tried to say, I think this thing is a good idea. It could be a stock investment, it could be a different kind of idea. And if we weren't quite convinced his attitude was and it happened in reverse as well. Well, maybe I didn't explain it well enough. Let me try again. And he might have some success and an occasional not, -- and then he thinks, well, maybe I need to refi this and try again next week, and he would, and he might convince a sure if not. And if not, the attitude would be well. Maybe it's just not that good an idea. And so that's the way we've always done things. So in terms of our -- if I say, something about our most general kind of sense about our position as a business. We've got -- we're in the strongest position on a number of fronts we've ever been in. So in terms of our foundation. So balance sheet we have a liquid balance sheet. We have low debt -- and on that front, that idea of accumulating earnings on the balance sheet, not passing it out as is more or less the rule for partnerships of all sorts, whether it's a law partnership or a medical partnership, investment partnership is that they don't really have staying power in the organization, and we wanted to have that for a variety of strategic reasons, not least of which we are in a very cyclical business, and we want to be able to withstand any pressures from cyclical downturns. And not be forced into making investment decisions or business decisions that we wouldn't otherwise want to make. So the idea of establishing that kind of staying power and strategic flexibility. That actually started before we even opened our doors in 1994. That was our intent. That should we ever actually be fortunate enough to actually have enough clients and assets under management to actually have a business that could reach some critical mass that once we got that far, we would endeavor to make sure we could build that position up. So I don't think anybody needs to have any concerns on that front. With respect to the merger in 2024 with Scott's Liquid Gold that Murray led us toward and to is public. We now have an external Board that fashion we didn't have before, that also provides us with regular advice, and they have expertise in various ways that we don't have an experience, and they're really quite qualified. And -- they've been supportive, and we've learned we can count on them as a resource. And I'm not afraid to say we can, at least I can use all the help we can get. I don't consider that a negative. And in fact, we have it. So we have it in the Board. We have it in our employees. The -- everyone here pretty much has raised their hand to help out and do what they can. And those who haven't raised their hands have just done it. It's been really quite remarkable from my point of view. And all the employees are actually passionate about it, which actually took me back how much so. So that's an asset for us. So 1 of the things we've been doing is we've both been in a strange way, at the same time, dividing responsibilities and also joining them. So on the 1 hand, we now have a in terms of division of labor and attention, the Chairman, myself, I guess, of the HKHC Board. We now have a board seat on Texas Pacific LandCorp, now Peter Doyle. We now have a worse replacement that Minneapolis -- excuse me, at Miami International Holdings, which is Eric Sites. Behind the scenes, at least from the perspective of HKHC shareholder, but I wouldn't have known otherwise. He's been working quietly aside from it research reports working with Murray for years on the ground in let's call it, other strategic relationships. So he's been talking and working with MIAX for a decade. And they were very, very pleased to invite them along. They really know it. So that's a form of division. But in terms of joining, we now have code shares of the investment committee meeting that's kind of important to us because investment research, investment ideas, seeing the world in the right way is what the engine of everything here. We have co-CEOs. We have all sorts of teams from within that are on the job. So that is -- it's hearing everything is working the way it should. As far as our portfolios, our investment positioning, separate from the balance sheet, but our actual business of investing, we are stronger than we've ever been before. And how best to talk about that. So when Peter says Murray was more optimistic than he's almost ever seen him in recent months, in the past year or so. One can see why, if you're in our -- if you're working with us on a day-to-day basis, you'd see why because we are now replete both in account portfolios and on our own balance sheet and in our relationships outside of our 4 walls. We were pleased with strategic investments as opposed to the traditional plan-owned investments. Now plan-owned investments can be wonderful things. Traditionally for ourselves, as you go back, let's say, a decade or 2 ago. What was our job? Our job is to look for, but wait for in a passive kind of way, value or opportunities. An example might be a certain portion of the market that was suddenly disrupted and it's down, and we like the quality, and it's cheap, and it will be a great investment, and then you buy it and then you wait. But as opposed to waiting for value, let's say, we've now graduated lawyers direction and the efforts of the approach to being part of helping create value. And that's a very different place to be. So in terms of our portfolio positioning, we now have more representative of our portfolios than not. They're filled with what I'll call strategic investments. And in a way that couldn't have happened, say, 10 or 20 years ago. So -- for instance, how rare is it? What is the strategic investment a really superior investment. I'm going to -- this might be too narrow. I think it is too narrow. It's too narrow for this call, but I'm going to do it anyway because I think it might be a lessor. So -- we own a particular recovering utility company. And it's a really superior, I think, value investment, classic value investment that should provide a very nice return over the next several years. It's too cheap or what it is. The risk is very low. We can afford therefore, to put more capital at risk and make it a large position. And it will have -- if things work out as the way I would expect a very nice impact on the portfolio over several years. But several years from now, -- it won't be a recovering utility that is far too cheap. It will become a regular utility. And at that point, the then future expected returns are going to be fairly innocuous. And it will be time to find a better place to allocate that capital. We'll take our capital gains and go forward. But what if 1 can find a business that to one's best ability to assess should compound financially. I'm not talking about the stock price, but financially, without disruption from regulation or competition or cyclicality or balance sheet issues should be able to compound financially for decades that something can actually grow on a financial basis. 15% a year for decades, is a very, very powerful play and very, very few people exceedingly few to the point of being vanishingly small. Investors, whether retail or institutional, ever hold anything long enough to have that happen, but it's also exceedingly difficult to find because how many businesses are that well protected. Well, our portfolios, depending on the strategy, of course, are now represented by that kind of security. It could be people are familiar with our portfolios to understand what they are, a royalty company. Like a metals royalty company, or Texas Pacific Land Corp, which is oil and natural gas and more recently, plus water and perhaps additional attributes. There's hardly any cost to a pure royalty company. It doesn't have to have much in the way of employees. They might have 90% pretax profit margins -- you could have a $60 billion market cap royalty company that might have a couple of dozen employees. It's extra. They're not found in indexes, they're not conventional business models, but they're strategic assets because you can compound them for a long time. And securities exchanges in their ways are like that, too. These are the longest lived businesses as a group in the world, they go back hundreds of years. They're just a necessary and additive vector in any developed economy. So -- the thing is we couldn't even have had that 20 years ago because the royalty companies or hardly any royalty companies public 4 years ago. There are hardly any secure exchanges public, years ago for people who might have forgotten, New York Stock Exchange had to deneutralize. London Stock Exchange had to be neutralized and so forth and so on. So we have those in our portfolios. And as Peter joked to me once, but it wasn't all that in probable, portfolios like that could probably be left alone a few years, and they'll do just fine, right? But there's a different character of strategic investment we have now, which is businesses like that perhaps, which -- in which we have a direct engagement like Texas Pacific Land Corp were like by international holdings like Landbridge perhaps. And because we then we're engaged with those parties. And when you engage strategically with somebody else like that, you've learned more than you might otherwise. You make different connections and different relationships. And you're now in the flow of not only new ideas, but helping to develop it. New vectors of engagement. And one can actually assist them in their development. Anybody asks, we are not activist investors. It's not in our bones. We don't even think it's well, for us, at least, you have to stay within your certain competence. We're just investors with a long-term point of view. We'd like to find others who share that. And in a sense, we've now arrived at a level that strategically Murray has been after, which is that we're in a place now where we can look even further around corners before things happen and be part of that before things happen in the public sphere, right? So we've got those as well. And there's no shortage of interesting new developments here. We're actually quite busy processing them and thinking about how to make use of them for our clients. And it's it's been very engaging. And I will say that one of Peter's comments about Murray helping shape his outlook and philosophy and views of things. Apparently, it was you get a group of people who work with very closely for any period of time, including people outside of Horizon, they all say kind of the same thing. We gave them a different outlook on something in particular, and that's useful. And for me, I think for Peter also One of them was he engaged me in -- I mentioned to him once I thought a weakness in my own personal education was history because I tuned out in the history class, right, the textbooks are like, and they're about facts and figures and tests, and there's hardly any context there, it's boring as we get out to many students. And he said, "Well, he was talking about it in kind like he says, well, like talk, I thought I had certain big gaps, which were troubling me. So like what interest you, what do you like? And you like like were you like like spies and they said spie. Yes, that would be pretty good. And so we suggested to me a couple of books to start off with, which were like bite-sized autobiography or member and one was called Take9 spies. That was the first one. Biella, had himself been a spy for the British ultimately, remember parliament. And each chapter was about a famous spy, double agent triple agent. And there's not normally much information about them because their job was not to be known. But some of those stories in there of someone who's being questioned by the Russian secret police and he was the aspect of being a triple agent and listening to an account of that interview, reading the candidate view. It was so hair easy. It was so exciting in a scary way. It's not a single time cruise move that comes even close. Or even was he turned beyond to that the idea that learning in a granular level aspects of history, politics, war, whatever stick you want, you can find through them more. So -- you're going to learn about how people cheat and steal and get away with stuff. I can think off hand of 2 books that I read that he suggested to me, 2 different errors, but -- and now I'm thinking of the third and the fourth. But one was remember the movie Catch Me If You Can, by Frank Avigal, Jr. Well, it was a book first. and the book was way more exciting than movie and the movie didn't do him justice not by a long shot. And then PT Barnam itself wrote a book called Hub bugs of the world, which is every which way people cheap deceive. And Frank Abener, another book actually also called -- I think it's called not steal this book. But basically, -- it was also a similar book ways you can protect yourself from guys like him. So he kind of opened the world to me. And once I was started, like you can give a guy a fish to be somebody or you can teach a hatterfish. That's what Murray did with one person after other. Anyway, enough of that, I want to give you a little bit of a feel for us it's helpful. And I go back to Mr. Herndon, it's much more structured maybe a little more boring.

But thank you, Steve. Thank you, Peter. As we turn to the results of our first quarter, I can say again that the company continues to perform favorably for the HKHC shareholders. For the first quarter of 2026, the company reported GAAP revenues of $18.3 million, and the company resulted in $72.5 million or $3.89 per share of net income attributable to the HKHC shareholders. The company's AUM was $11.4 billion as of March 31, which is up from $9.6 billion at December 31, 2025. Those results were driven by a couple of key and positive developments, including the following: one, the company reported performance incentive fees of another $18 million, which are in addition to the GAAP revenues of $18.3 million. So as we've discussed previously, these incentive fees are part of the determination of the allocation of total net income to net income attributable to redeemable noncontrolling interest on our primary GAAP presentation. That's a mouthful, and we try to simplify that presentation a bit for you with our supplemental adviser-only presentation, which you can find in the press release. That document shows these fees as part of management and advisory fee revenue. These incentive fees were the result of certain trading restrictions expiring that were associated with our clients' investments in Miami International Holdings or Miax. Second, shareholders benefited in a variety of ways this quarter from TPL's 65% share price appreciation during the first quarter. Most directly is the $36 million increase in the fair value of the shares held directly by HKHC, which is presented as unrealized gains on investments net in both our GAAP and our adviser only presentation. TPL's impact was also notable contributor to the extent it was held within the private funds where HKHC has an interest, which is presented at approximately $46 million of equity and earnings of private funds net in the adviser only presentation of the press release. And of course, to the extent that our mutual fund, ETFs or client accounts hold that entity, the positive impact to AUM provides a higher base of management and fee revenue. I should also note for you that the company's operating expenses for the quarter were $22.6 million. However, that value included incremental commissions and bonuses and other costs of $6.1 million associated with that $18 million incentive fee earned during the quarter. So as a result, when comparing to the first quarter of 2026 to the first quarter of 2025 total operating expenses were slightly lower on a comparable basis. These results led us to a GAAP operating loss of $4.3 million for the quarter. But again, that includes the $6.1 million of incremental expenses that are related solely to that $18 million of incentive fees that are excluded from the revenue in our GAAP presentation. Our supplemental adviser-only presentation includes both of those financial impacts and the resulting operating income is $17.1 million. We believe these results illustrate the consistent earnings potential of our core asset management business. I should once again emphasize that our GAAP net income or loss will often be impacted by swings in unrealized gains or losses associated with certain investments, including digital assets. And as we also expect that from time to time, our results will be impacted by incentive fees like we've seen this quarter or more typically in the fourth quarter, which is when we typically measure any performance fee associated with our private funds. As an example, the company reported a record number of over $50 million of incentive fees in the fourth quarter of 2024. And while we can't expect that kind of result every year, we will expect to see some volatility in from quarter-to-quarter and year-to-year due to incentives and unrealized gains in our overall results. From a balance sheet perspective, -- the company continues to maintain a substantial amount of cash, $36.7 million at quarter end. The company also has an investment portfolio of $113 million, digital assets of $10 million and approximately $200 million of interest in various private funds, which are consolidated. And the company also has various other private investments. And the company continues to have no third-party debt. Our long-term liabilities are limited to various long-term office space leases -- you will notice an increase in our overall operating lease liability next quarter as we expect to commence the use of a couple of locations where we have recently signed long-term leases. We'll discuss that impact a bit more next quarter. And lastly, with respect to the quarterly dividend, the Board of Directors declared a $12.17 per share dividend to be paid on June 17, 2016, to shareholders of record as of May 27, 2026 -- that brings our trailing 12 months dividend declarations to about -- to exactly $43.04 per share. And with that, I'm going to turn it back to Peter and -- see for some Q&A. We can discuss any questions that are coming in over the webcast. And I would like to repeat to you that if you would like to ask a question, you do need to be logged into the GoToMeeting platform -- those of you that are on the telephone connection are still in listen-only mode. And again, for those of you that are on the platform, you can submit the questions via the chat function -- and please direct those questions to the presenters where I will summarize and relay to Stephen Peter, and we can address whatever questions you may have. We do have questions coming in.

You mentioned earlier the roles of Investment Officer. -- and that cuts across a lot of different aspects of the firm. The question is specific to mutual funds and the EPS, this 1 is specific to the Renton about how investment decisions are made for the fund, Peter?

So very similar to all our managed accounts. We a research group and the assessment of the risk reward, as Steve pointed out, in the case of the utility that has a high margin of safety and the probability of an erosion of capital on a permanent basis is, in our opinion, very low. The upside is very substantial, but it's not a strategic asset, as Steve also pointed out. And then it's just a question of sizing. And both Steve and I differ somewhat with Murray in the sense that we tend to want our portfolios to undiversify a little bit faster. Murray would take many times smaller initial positions even though we might have had strong convictions. Steve and I tend to size them a little bit, at least initially larger -- and then we all have the same kind of long-term time horizon to leave it alone. So those investments are going to be selected within the Red on the same way they're selected in the Kinetics Mutual funds, the same way in our managed accounts -- so there's a process and there's a determination of how much capital we would like to risk and what is the benefit of that security in terms of the type of diversification you might bring to the portfolio. Do you have anything to add that?

Albeit, not to misunderstand, we do very much believe and has given about in the past the concept of time diversification when you start an investment -- but Murray was quite happy. It might be a slight exaggeration, but sometimes not to buy a couple of shares a day of certain security, but every single day. And what he was after was the harmonic mean because the moment you decide finally to buy something, maybe maybe you bought it 2 or 3 weeks or 4 weeks or a month later than you thought you would because you kept carrying the certain documents around with you in your briefcase until you finally evaluated them. And because of that, the stock price was quite a bit higher and you bid on that particular day, that's when you commit your capital, they can pretty strongly impact your annualized return over the coming years relative to a lower starting point. And that's just an accident of time. So we believe in time diversification. And quite recently, as I was reviewing an account with a -- that Murray used to manage. And I was looking at the history of the tax loss on some large investments, comparing it with 1 that I manage. Even mine, going back to ownership of some core positions 10 years ago, 12 years ago like TPL and perfect precious metals. I saw that even then that could take 6 months to a year to establish the position just I did it in larger larger bites than Murray did. And wouldn't you know it, give or take, depending which security look at the last purchase price might be lower than the first purchase price. So we do practice that. But Peter and I don't quite have the temperament to buy a couple of shares a day. usual.

Okay. Next question is related to a company called Urbana Corporation. And I think we've made in past presentations, references to Revana. So the question is really just if you can just expand on that relationship and how that entity interacts with Horizon?

Sure. The Revana is run by the Caldwell family. And the Caldwell family and Horizon Kinetics are probably the 2 leading firms focused on exchanges. And I think we're very unique in that. They've been based in Canada, us here in the United States. And the security itself is tremendously undervalued, something that we've added to over the many years. and you get a portfolio of private investments for essentially free and it trades at that discount. So we did a collaboration where we have a product together, and we jointly market that product and we're getting our shareholders access to companies that they would not likely get because many of these are going to be private exchanges, private clearing houses, et cetera. And if you've been a long-term follower of us, you know that between the Minneapolis Grain Exchange, the Bermuda Stock Exchange merging into the MYC and how well that's done we think that the that product will have similar success over an extended period of time.

That right there is an example, 1 example of the kind of strategic relationships we have, right? We're working familiarity with someone else in a given section allows us to do things we would otherwise have done. And they're very productive relationships.

Okay. I don't have any other questions in the queue, so I'll emphasize turning on the webcast. If you do a question, please go ahead and submit that to us now via the chat function. And as quick as I say that, what everything comes in. So just 1 second here. That's it. A lot of questions just to comment for us. Is there a comment you can read or is it share? Would you explore it yes -- just to thank you. Okay. Well, I appreciate it. So I don't have any other questions that are preprepared if you guys want to say anything in closing?

Yes. So I'm going to -- I think Steve and I are going to adopt the Warren Buffett method criticized in general, praise in specific, and I could select 1 of 20, 30 different employees, maybe as many as 80 employees and say really nice things, but I would like to just give a shout out to Mark all your help in helping Steve and I get up to speed, Alan Williams, also on the operational side, and Jay Kessler and Russ on the legal/compliance side, I think it's been a big value to us. And again, I could say many, many more employees, I hate to kind of do that because I feel like I'm cutting off people. But again, the staff has been very enthusiastic, very helpful. And Steve and I have been doing a lot, but they -- I also realize that the train is on the right track. There's a proper Japanese proper. If you're on the wrong train, get off the next stop, we're on the right trade and it's going down the track in a nice fashion.

Oh, you've stuck some thoughts. Yes. So indeed, all of our employees pretty much -- they've been a force multiplier for us. We've got a lot to reorganize processes and wrap our heads around, and they've allowed us to do that by organizing things for us and keeping us on track. There's another expression, Peter, but that doesn't really apply so much. Churchill said what if you're going through hell keep going. So we're keeping going. We're doing fine. Okay. That concludes our call. Thank you again for joining us, and we look forward to talking to you next quarter. Thank you all.

Thank you.