Janus Henderson Group plc (JHG) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Janus Henderson 2024 Annual General Meeting. I am John Cassaday, Chair of Janus Henderson Group plc. And joining me today are the members of your Board of Directors. A quorum is present, so we can open the annual meeting. Certain matters discussed at today's meeting may constitute forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements due to a number of factors, including, but not limited to those described in the forward-looking statements and Risk Factors section of the company's most recent Form 10-K, Form 10-Q and other filings with the SEC. Janus Henderson assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements made during the meeting. Before we get to the formal items of the meeting, we would like to briefly touch on our company performance and progress over the past year. The headway we made in 2022 repositioning the firm for future growth, including refreshing our leadership, renewing our strategy and simplifying our operating model, laid the foundation for the significant progress we made in 2023. During 2023, we executed on our strategy, implemented cost efficiencies to facilitate reinvestment in the business, simplified our operating model and reinforced our culture through articulating our MVP or mission values and purpose. We invite you to read more about our MVP in my letter to shareholders in our 2024 proxy statement where we highlight our core values and provide examples of how our colleagues living these values have helped us to succeed and achieve our purpose of investing in a brighter future together with our clients and their clients. We are seeing the results of our efforts. In addition to the significant year-over-year improvement in net flows in 2023, our company delivered solid financial results, maintained a strong balance sheet and generated healthy cash flows from operations of over $440 million, enabling us to return over $320 million to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. To date, in 2024, our 90th anniversary year, robust equity markets have provided industry tailwinds, yet the outlook for global markets remains uncertain, given geopolitical and macroeconomic concerns. In these challenging times, we believe we can further differentiate ourselves from our competitors through our superb investment discipline and collaborative innovative thinking, which can deliver superior outcomes to our clients and all of our stakeholders. In conclusion, our business fundamentals remain solid. Our financial position is strong. We continue to return capital to shareholders, and we are making progress towards our long-term strategic objectives. We understand there is still work to be done, but our focus remains the same. We will control what we can control and continue to position Janus Henderson for growth. On behalf of the Board, we commend our employees for their continued hard work and dedication and express our gratitude to our shareholders and clients for their continued support. We would also like to take this opportunity to thank Ed Garden, who stepped down from the Board in June of last year for his contributions and insight, and we would like to welcome Josh Frank and Leslie Seidman, who were appointed to the Board in June 2023. We appreciate the breadth and depth of their experience in assisting the Board in positioning Janus Henderson for future success. Now to the formal items of business. I remind you of the votes needed to pass the proposals as required by our articles. Proposal 1, 2 and 4 as ordinary proposals require votes in favor, more than 50% of the votes cast. Proposal 3, as a special proposal requires votes in favor of at least 2/3. I will proceed now and begin with the first proposal. Proposal 1.1 approves the election of Mr. Baldwin as a director. Proposal 1.2 approved the election of Mr. Cassaday. Proposal 1.3 approves the election of Ms. Desai. Proposal 1.4 approves the election of Mr. Dibadj. Proposal 1.5 approves the election of Mr. Dolan. Proposal 1.6 approves the election of Mr. Flood Jr. Proposal 1.7 approves the election of Mr. Frank. Proposal 1.8 approves the election of Ms. Quirk. Proposal 1.9 approves the election of Ms. Seidman, Proposal 1.10 approves the election of Ms. Seymour-Jackson, and Proposal 1.11 approves the election of Ms. Sheehan. Proposal 2 is an advisory proposal to approve the company's executive compensation as disclosed in the proxy statement. This is called a say-on-pay vote. Proposal 3 authorizes the company to purchase its own shares to a limited extent, and Proposal 4 approves the reappointment of PwC as auditors of the company and renews the Audit Committee's authority to agree to their remuneration. That completes the summary of the proposals, and we will now conduct the polls for these proposals included in the company's notice of Annual General Meeting and proxy statement. I appoint Kathy Heagerty of Computershare as the Inspector of Elections for the conduct of the polls. If there are shareholders present in Denver who have not submitted their voting cards yet, please do so now. I now direct the Inspector of Election to count the votes and to report the results to me. [Voting]

The Inspector of Election has provided me with her preliminary report on the voting. All proposals have received sufficient votes to pass and are therefore adopted. Final voting results will be announced to the New York Stock Exchange will be disclosed in a Form 8-K to be filed with the SEC and will also be published on our website. This concludes the formal business of the AGM, and I declare the meeting closed. We thank you for being loyal shareholders of Janus Henderson, and we look forward to welcome you to the AGM next year.