Federated Hermes, Inc. (NYSE:FHI) Q1 2023 Earnings Conference Call April 28, 2023 9:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Ray Hanley - President, Federated Investors Management Company

Chris Donahue - President and CEO

Tom Donahue - VP, CFO and Treasurer

Debbie Cunningham - CIO of Money Markets

Saker Nusseibeh - CEO, Federated Hermes Limited

Conference Call Participants

Ken Worthington - JPMorgan

Patrick Davitt - Autonomous Research

Daniel Fannon - Jefferies

Kenneth Lee - RBC Capital Markets

John Dunn - Evercore ISI

Mike Brown - KBW

Brian Bedell - Deutsche Bank

Patrick Davitt - Autonomous Research

Operator

Greetings. Welcome to the Federated Hermes Q1 2023 Analyst Call and Webcast. [Operator Instructions] Please note this conference is being recorded.

I will now turn the conference over to your host, Ray Hanley, President of Federated Investors Management Company. You may begin.

Ray Hanley

Thank you, Holly. Good morning and welcome. Leading today's call are Chris Donahue, CEO and President of Federated Hermes; and Tom Donahue, Chief Financial Officer and joining for the Q&A are Saker Nusseibeh, CEO of Federated Hermes Limited, our international business and Debbie Cunningham the Chief Investment Officer for the Money Markets.

During today's call, we may make forward-looking statements. Federated Hermes' actual results may be materially different than the results implied by such statements. Please review the risk disclosures in our SEC filings, No assurance can be given as to future results and Federated Hermes assumes no duty to update these forward-looking statements. Chris?

Chris Donahue

Thank you, Ray and good morning.

I will review Federated Hermes business performance. Tom will comment on our financial results. In a quarter that saw considerable market fluctuations and uncertainty, Federated Hermes ended the first quarter with record total assets under management of $701 billion driven by Q1 growth of $29 billion in money market assets to a record high of $506 billion.

Turning to equities, assets increased by about $2.1 billion to $83.6 billion which includes market gains of $1 billion and net positive sales of $900 million. The strategic value dividend strategy continued to produce solid net sales with $678 million in the first quarter. The U.S. Strategic Value Dividend ETF which was launched in mid-November now has $51 million in assets.

We saw Q1 positive net sales in 25 equity strategies including Global Emerging Markets, international leaders, Asia ex-Japan, MDT Large Cap MDT, Mid Cap and MDT All Cap Core. Our equity performance compared to peers remains solid.