Charles J. Daley, Jr: We have little on balance sheet and any support that we provide is because we are making an election to do this and to provide support and to do it sufficiently.
Craig Siegenthaler: On the M&A front, is Legg Mason still looking at gaining global distribution or another distribution channel for product? And would that be a major priority and would delivering the value of the stock be an acquisition?
Charles J. Daley, Jr: We are mindful of those issues; we are keeping an eye on and actively working a pipeline of opportunities. And we are looking to grow by providing capital to existing affiliates on growth initiatives and acquisitions.
Cynthia Mayer: In terms of the flows, it looks like the category of assets which declined the fastest was wealth management. Can you update on performance there, and were you making an effort to build a service platform?
Mark R. Fetting: The wealth management piece is comprised of Private Capital, Permal and then LMIC are in counseling and in Trust Business. The biggest contributor would be the Private Capital. On building the service platforms, we remain committed to that.
Cynthia Mayer: What do you think about the lag time between performance and flows in the institutional fixed income channel? How quickly did you see that reaction to the core and core plus under performance and how quickly performance improves?
Mark R. Fetting: There are a diversified firm as a result of the strategies we and Western has been following. In April and May, Western''s out performance was strong. For the core fund, their best month was in April of 2008, where they added 284 basis points of out performance.
Cynthia Mayer: On price even if the realization rate were to pick up, would some of that cede into expenses?
Mark R. Fetting: That is correct.
Michael Hecht: On the money fund flow trends, are seeing the inflows coming? Is it more institutional versus retail, U.S. versus non-U.S.?
Mark R. Fetting: We are seeing at both international and U.S. And we would expect that to continue.
Michael Hecht: On Western, discuss the RFP backlog and then the weaker performance in core and core plus?
Mark R. Fetting: Western has had deep and active discussions with consultants. They have been keeping them posted. It is less of a watchlist situation than monitored situation in certain strategies.
Michael Hecht: Any color on RFP backlog?
Mark R. Fetting: The RFP backlogs being closer to normal than not, it is the win rate that would have some differences to it.
William R. Katz: On fixed income, did you say that fee waive were or were not part of some of the growth in the more recent money markets?
Mark R. Fetting: We were able to reduce some fee waivers.
William R. Katz: Fixed income flows might snap back, how much out performance will be necessary to rejuvenate those flows? But what kind of timeframe might we be thinking before decisive upturn in equity flows?
Mark R. Fetting: There is a rotation of market leadership towards valuation strategies. That might be the bigger driver than any individual and would be helpful to managers. And the diversity of contribution is pretty strong.
Robert Lee: About Private Capital Management and some others, it does not make sense to have these affiliates to rethink the relationship with them because same leverage points to growth going forward, can you elaborate on that? |