Mark R. Fetting: The more one becomes more vulnerable for some short-time pressure, it could impact flows. So the short answer is yes, if there has probably been some pickup as you would expect with Western in that number, but other equity managers are part of it. It has been our experience that retaining out that with institutional clients across our managers has been better because of the relationships we have, the understanding they have around the philosophy process that we have and generally being alpha managers. As the underperformance extends, it does become more problematic, and that is a general overview. We do not break that out individually. Relative to pipeline, our leading institutional managers such as Western, you would expect that with the performance issues, there would be some impact, and that has been the case. Having said that they continue to be active in the markets, winning mandates and it is too soon to predict how quickly that can turn back up to their normal level that they have been making good progress when you consider both the market challenges, and some of their individual issues.
Michael Hecht (Banc of America Securities): Could you break out the equity outflows of $17 billion?
Mark R. Fetting: We do not give that specific detail on the manager assets but relative to the out-flows, I was trying to be helpful in terms of acknowledging that the three principal contributors would be who you would expect, which would be Capital Management, ClearBridge and PCM. In Capital Management, you can get more visibility through your own sources on the fund side and then on the institutional side but those have been contributing. On Clear Bride, you have visibility on the fund side and then the retailer’s side less so both is in outflows but there has been some improvement in the rate of outflow relative to the fund side at ClearBridge in light of some of those performance improvements.
Michael Hecht (Banc of America Securities): You are seeing softer trends in Royce and Batterymarch and Brandywine. Where the assets for some of the managers particularly like ClearBridge and Private Capital entered the quarter?
Mark R. Fetting: If you look at Brandywine, you look at Batterymarch, you look at Royce, solid situation, a good performance and decent growth.
Michael Hecht (Banc of America Securities): Could you give any color on outlook for acquisition whether you continue to look for international equity manager, what the pricing environment looks like and whether this capital raise suggests you are closer to something?
Mark R. Fetting: We do not have anything imminent and no immediate use. We do remain active in looking in a targeted and kind of wanting to as we spoke in more publicly in kind of our general goal here than we have on any other situation, it would be helpful to get further resolution on the SIV stuff and this raise helps us have that optionality because there is a combination of events that could allow us to move much more quickly, and we would be poised to do so.
Marc Irizarry (Goldman Sachs): What your balance sheet SIV exposure is?
F. Barry Bilson: We have about 150 million of securities and then we have exposure through a total return swap of about 890 million.
Marc Irizarry (Goldman Sachs): There is a $525 million in other loss, and did you say that the SIV portion of that, the support, was $517 million?
F. Barry Bilson: That is correct.
Marc Irizarry (Goldman Sachs): Was there anything in that line item that was marked up or what the balance sheet investments are there?
F. Barry Bilson: You have seen this sort of across the board and the mark-to-market investments did not look as bad as some others. That is a composite of two major pieces. One is - are these funded deferred compensation plans that we have. Certainly Western Asset being one of their larger or the largest subsidiary with a vintage plan got substantial assets as to our number of the other managers, would they balance between spread cash bonds and equities. The impact this quarter was not as great as it was last quarter. Additionally we have seed moneys in a number of different products and I have got the number of nearly 150 million or something, but you are talking literally dozens of different products that we have seed money in. They have faired up well. There is also a miscellaneous other pieces of other non-operating but there are hundreds of thousands, not millions. It is a 50-50 split between these funded for comp plans and seed investments. They run the gamut between the funds investments, fixed income investments, equity investments.
Marc Irizarry (Goldman Sachs): Can you give color around the gross sales trends in the quarter and how they have been tracking so far in April versus the redemption rates for equities?
Mark R. Fetting: This would be general but it is a good question. We have seen in areas where there has been sustained underperformance, a sales falloff more of an issue than a redemption ratio pick-up. The outflow is more a function of that lost opportunity on the sales and necessarily a surge in redemption. We have seen the flip side and in fact keep urging that distribution focus to delivery has been more. But if you take a thing like community product where Joe Deane and his team are delivering strong performance, we see a pick up in gross sales and a good traction in channels. I think that goes back to this where our model will prove itself is when we have this combination of performance and distribution traction aligning the expertise of the manager and Legg Mason to deliver market share gains.
Marc Irizarry (Goldman Sachs): You mentioned the sovereign wealth financial specialty mandate that Bill won. When is that funding?
Mark R. Fetting: It has not funded yet but that is just as far as I can take that one.
Roger Smith (Fox -Pitt Kelton): You said there is $5 million impairment charge that is going to impact the cash earnings number on a quarterly basis. Could you expand on that?
Mark R. Fetting: As a result of the $151 million mark down, the quarter-to-quarter impact or our quarter-to-quarter expense will then reduce by up to $4-$5 million.
Roger Smith (Fox -Pitt Kelton): Does that charge determine based on where you were at the end of March 31st or is there some kind for further impairment that can potentially happen with further outflows and how do you think about the markets and flows in relation to the future cash charge impacts? |