Ryan Specialty Holdings, Inc. Q2 FY2022 Earnings Call

Greetings, and welcome to the Ryan Specialty Second Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Noah Angeletti, Head of Investor Relations and Treasurer. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today for Ryan Specialty Holdings second quarter 2022 earnings conference call. In addition to this call, we filed a press release with the SEC earlier this afternoon, which has been posted to our website at ryansg.com. On today's call, management's prepared remarks and answers to your questions may contain forward-looking statements. Investors should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. These statements are based on management's current expectations and beliefs and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed today. We encourage listeners to review the more detailed discussion of these risk factors contained in the company's filings with the SEC. We assume no duty to update such forward-looking statements in the future except as required by law. Additionally, certain non-GAAP financial measures will be discussed on this call and should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the financial information presented in accordance with GAAP. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most closely comparable measures prepared in accordance with GAAP are included in our earnings release, which is filed with the SEC and available on the company's website. With that, I'd now like to turn the call over to the Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Ryan Specialty, Pat Ryan.

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us to discuss our second quarter results. Before diving into the quarter, I want to acknowledge the team's efforts since we went public one year ago. I am pleased with our strong results, and we continue to have a long runway ahead of us. We remain true to our values and are well-positioned to sustainably and profitably grow our business and believe that we will continue delivering long-term value for our shareholders. I'm also incredibly proud of our frontline. The producers, the underwriters and their teams who are out competing and winning head-to-head in the field by innovating with new products and solutions unrelentingly pursuing excellence and winning a substantial amount of new business. Our performance in the second quarter again demonstrated the strength of our business, continuing the track record of success we've established over the past 11 years. We grew total revenue by 26% led by outstanding organic revenue growth of 22%. We also achieved another quarter of double-digit growth in adjusted EBITDAC and adjusted net income on a year-over-year basis. Our three specialties all performed very well, each generating strong double-digit growth for the quarter. Overall, I'm immensely pleased with our differentiated platform, which continues to prove that it's truly best-in-class, providing our clients and trading partners with the value and service they deserve. Throughout the second quarter, the E&S marketplace remained robust. In fact, the overall flow of business into our E&S lines is still at historically high levels. As we previously noted, we've invested significantly in those lines, where we see clear opportunities to grow in addition to bolstering the lines of business where we have a leadership position. Through Q2, we remain in the prolonged stages of historically hard market. Broadly speaking, rates remained firm in nearly all of our lines of business, or rates moderated in certain lines. We saw continued upward rate movement in other lines. In addition to the standard or a bit of a carrier competition, we observed on the periphery and which we flagged in prior earnings calls has yet to meaningfully impact rate or flow in the aggregate. We continue to invest in our intellectual capital throughout the quarter, adding to our already strong team and deep bench, again proving out that we are a destination of choice for the best talent in the industry. Here are a few of the many examples. We've added accomplished teammates within our renewable energy line and to our data and analytics and technology teams. We are also making significant valuable additions in many of our lines of business expanding new industry verticals. The exceptional talent we've assembled since our founding, including recent additions over the last year has been hard at work developing new programs and introducing new products in our MGAs and MGUs, bringing new and existing capital in addition to arranging alternative capital to support our clients. We are also pleased to note that productivity among our brokers continues to improve and accelerate and is reflected in our strong Q2 earnings performance. This September will mark the two-year anniversary of our acquisition of All Risks, which has exceeded our expectations in all facets. All Risks is further proof that our business model provides a powerful platform for those looking to join Ryan Specialty and validates our M&A thesis that we make strong businesses even better. As we look ahead to the rest of 2022, we are mindful of the elevated uncertainty in the global economy and in the geopolitical environment. That said, we believe we remain well-positioned and expect favorable specialty insurance market dynamics to persist. We also continue to invest in our various strategies to take advantage of the resilient, increasing flow into the E&S market and further expand our market share by building what we believe to be the most differentiated platform and deep expansion in the industry. We have benefited from a flight to quality and believe we have positioned ourselves to outperform our competition through the cycle. Moreover, we maintain a highly active M&A pipeline as we look for additional opportunities both tuck-ins and large acquisitions to enhance and differentiate our platform and capabilities. We are working from a position of strength given our strong balance sheet and ample capacity, which enables us to act when we find the right opportunities. As I've said before, we remain disciplined in our pursuit of acquisitions. Any deal we consider must meet our criteria; a strong cultural fit, strategic and accretive to our returns. Our M&A strategy is and will remain supplemental to our organic growth story. We are not a roll-up and we do not require acquisitions to achieve our growth targets. In summary, it was another team effort at Ryan Specialty that contributed to a fantastic second quarter and first half of 2022. With that, I'll now turn the call over to our President, Tim Turner.

Thank you very much, Pat. As Pat highlighted, it was another outstanding quarter across all three of our specialties. In May, for the first time in three years, we hosted our annual Ryan Specialty Broker and Underwriting Management conferences with over 800 of our teammates in attendance. It was incredibly exciting to bring the team together again. The event led by Pat and myself exemplified our culture of collaboration and you could feel the tremendous energy generated by the many talented and driven underwriters, producers and corporate leaders all in one place. Diving into our specialties, our wholesale brokerage specialty continued to achieve excellent growth across all property and casualty lines of business. In particular, cat property including wind, flood, and fire has been the strongest driver of new business into the non-admitted market today and an absolute stalwart for us. As we noted on our last call, admitted markets faced pressure from reinsurers de-risking their portfolios, which pushes more business into the E&S market. During the quarter, we saw an acceleration of this trend driven by one of the most challenging reinsurance renewal cycles in a number of years. To that end, we've continued to develop innovative products and solutions in our brokerage MGA and MGU business in these high-hazard niches. Cyber continues to grow in importance due to its complexity. We believe the majority of cyber risks in America will flow into the E&S channel. We are seeing solid double-digit increases in submissions and expect that to continue. We complement our brokers with capacity from our cyber MGAs and MGUs. Construction is another class where we continue to see significant increases in flow. Our industry-leading team with its depth and breadth in the channel is seeing solid double-digit increases in submissions for both infrastructure projects and habitational construction. We don't see this slowing down and the pipeline for these classes remains at historic highs. Our transportation practice continues to grow nicely. Trucking in particular has remained very challenging and the class of business is very risky. And as a result, that business is increasingly being directed into the E&S market. We added Crouse and Associates at the perfect time, and we remain well-positioned to capitalize on the growth opportunities in this line. Our healthcare practice continues to grow with the addition of wholesale brokers and the development of products in our delegated underwriting authority specialties. In our Binding Authority specialty, we continue to experience solid growth in our small commercial lines. We have made additional progress hiring industry-leading talent and we expect to continue to invest significantly in the specialty to drive organic growth. We are keeping a close eye on opportunities in the delegated authority market to consolidate into Ryan Specialty, and we continue on the path toward creating the first truly 50-state Binding Authority operation. Our Underwriting Management specialty posted another strong quarter, while continuing to deliver solid underwriting results for our carrier trading partners. We are excited by the recent additions to our renewable energy MGU and the recent launch of new products. In addition, our Harleysville New York arrangement with Nationwide is beginning to bear fruit. AXSAL, our alternative risk de novo MGU and Emerald, our excess general liability MGU are both gaining traction and actively quoting and binding accounts. In terms of the E&S market, as Pat mentioned, the environment remains very resilient and strong. Pricing remains firm in nearly all classes of business and we're seeing material firming in some niche lines. After multiple years of significant rate increases, we are seeing rate decreases in public company D&O. But as Pat noted, other lines such as cyber are still firming and flow remains solid. And thus the overall E&S market is still growing at a healthy rate. As we've said before, we expect the increasing flow of business into the non-admitted market to continue to be a significant driver of Ryan Specialty's growth, more so than rate. With that, I will now turn the call over to our Chief Financial Officer, Jeremiah Bickham, who will give you more detail on the financial results of our second quarter. Thank you.

Thank you, Tim. In Q2, we grew total revenue by 26% period-over-period to $491 million, which was fueled by another excellent quarter of organic revenue growth coming in at 22.3% for the quarter, which reflects the continued tailwinds we're seeing in the E&S market, and as Pat and Tim noted, winning a substantial amount of new business. Net income for Q2 '22 was $70 million or $0.22 per diluted share. Adjusted net income for the quarter, which excludes IPO-related and other unusual items, increased 15% period-over-period to $106 million or $0.39 per diluted share. Adjusted EBITDAC for the second quarter grew 18% period-over-period to $166 million, while adjusted EBITDAC margin declined 220 basis points to 33.8%. Our margin was impacted by continued investments in the business, public company cost, as we were private in Q2 of 2021 and T&E continuing to return to normalized levels. It should be noted that relative to Q2 of 2019, which had a full run rate load of T&E expense, our margin was up 640 basis points this quarter. In addition, we completed our restructuring plan on schedule and are pleased to report that we have achieved $29 million of run rate savings, exceeding our initial goal of $25 million. As Pat and Tim noted, the current environment presents a unique and very exciting opportunity to hire A+ level underwriters and brokers and we expect to capitalize on this opportunity in future quarters to pursue and onboard top-tier talent. We fully intend to continue investing in our platform which allows us to generate sustainable margins while producing industry-leading organic growth. Furthermore, our balance sheet remains fortified with $867 million of cash and cash equivalents at June 30 and our undrawn $600 million revolving credit facilities. Based on the current forward curve projections for SOFR, we expect to record GAAP interest expense, which is net of interest income on our operating funds and includes amortization on our interest rate cap of approximately $30 million in Q3 and $31 million in Q4. It is important to be mindful that this increase is partially offset by the natural hedge in our fiduciary balances, which benefit from the rising rate environment. Given our strong execution through the first half of 2022 and the resilient E&S environment, we have raised our full-year 2022 outlook for organic revenue growth and adjusted EBITDAC margin as follows. We are now guiding organic revenue growth rate for the full year 2022 to be between 16.5% and 18.0%, which is up from the previous guide range of 13.5% to 15.5%. We are now guiding that our adjusted EBITDAC margin for the full year '22 to be between 29.0% and 30.0%, up from the previous guide range of 28.5% to 30.0%. Our business is clearly capable of exceptional growth rates, but it's important to keep in mind that our updated guidance prudently assumes less favorable external conditions than we saw in H1 of this year. In summary, we are very pleased with our performance, particularly given the challenging macro environment. And we remain very excited about the path ahead for Ryan Specialty. With that, we thank you for your time, and we'd like to open up the call for Q&A.

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. Your first question comes from Elyse Greenspan with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks. Good evening. My first question is just starting with the M&A outlook, you mentioned bolt-on as well as larger deals. Can you just give us a sense of what's in the pipeline? And how that's changed over the past quarter? I know on last quarter's call I walked away thinking you guys had an active pipeline and maybe close to something and we haven't seen anything get announced. Has something happened with multiples, or is it just taking a while to close transactions in this environment?

Well, the explanation of larger and tuck-ins was very specific because there are some opportunities that are larger. And when you have larger acquisition potentials, there's a lot of work to do in terms of when they're ready to sell. Sometimes it's a little bit earlier than they planned and sometimes it takes longer to get to the value that they want. They identify us as a place they'd like to join, but we have to see more evidence of their projections. So, there are lots of variables. Tuck-ins we looked at many, at several. And either after examination through due diligence, we found that it wasn't exactly what we felt was a good fit for either cultural reasons or financial reasons. So, you're right we haven't closed any, but we're discrete. We only want acquisitions that will fit our culture and be strategic. And most importantly, will be, very importantly, accretive. And as we all know, there's a lot of competition, but we don't usually compete like a lot of people do in this field about field of acquisitions. And that for the majority of the people that join us we were their destination of choice. And so we are working with people who would like to join us and we'd like to have them join us. We haven't reached conclusions yet.

Okay. And then my second question is on just your organic outlook as well as what you're seeing in the E&S market. It sounds like you're seeing no slowdown or just new business coming to the E&S market from the standard market, yet your second half of year guidance does imply a slowdown relative to the first half. Is that just conservatism? And are you expecting any slowdown to emerge in the second half of this year?

Hi Elyse. The outlook for the rest of the year reflects our usual cautious perspective and takes into account the uncertainty of forecasts. Importantly, as we have mentioned in previous calls, predicting the factors that lead to a 20% organic growth quarter is quite challenging. Even if the visibility seems good, we question the prudence of including that in our guidance. Tim can provide additional insights if needed, but he has already shared valuable information about the current health of the market and our performance over the last several quarters. Whenever opportunities arise, we have managed to significantly exceed expectations, which is always our aim. However, the anticipated performance in the second half remains strong, projected in the double-digit range, indicating a solid conclusion to the year. We simply want to maintain caution in our guidance.

Okay, great. Thanks for the color.

Next question Weston Bloomer with UBS. Please go ahead.

Hey thanks for taking my question. My first one is just a follow-up to Elyse's question. So, if I'm interpreting the guidance right, is really the main change between kind of the first half and the second half just the amount of paper that could flow into the E&S channel, or is there some variability with potentially lower nominal GDP? Am I thinking about that correctly overall, or is there maybe more difficult comps from the back half of the year last year?

There's a comprehensive understanding of the market and the macro environment, including the associated uncertainties. Considering the implied range we're discussing and where we began the year, it aligns with our expectation of a strong finish. However, it's important to remember that we had previously set a baseline of double-digit growth, not 20%. While we've been fortunate to seize opportunities frequently lately, that does not establish a new baseline for our expectations.

I would add go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead.

I was going to switch to another question. So, if you want to follow-up there?

I would like to add that reaching a 20% growth, especially at the scale we have grown to, is a significant challenge in the insurance brokerage industry. Everything needs to be properly aligned for that to happen. It’s important not to assume that everything will be perfectly aligned. We've seen this alignment in seven out of the last nine quarters, and while we’re not saying it won't continue, we believe it’s unwise to predict or forecast it.

Understood. As a follow-up, you've mentioned the potential for increased competition due to more admitted riders transitioning to E&S. I know you're in the early stages of this. When do you anticipate this will begin to occur more significantly? Is it simply related to pricing in the admitted market dropping below loss cost, or could there be another factor I'm overlooking? Additionally, how would Ryan respond once they start facing more substantial competition in E&S?

Weston, the current conditions that we see indicate a 30%-plus growth in volume into the channel. And that comes right from the stamping offices. So we see no real let up on flow into the channel. What we do see in a few lines like public D&O are some premium decreases and some migration back to the standard market. And I think that's what you're looking for and referring to. And we do see some signs in that line. And then in excess casualty in some of the large shared and layered towers, some migration back into the standard market. But all of it is overshadowed by this increased flow of other E&S business into the channel led by cat property, cyber, healthcare, habitational, construction, transportation as an example. That flow continues to grow and we're perfectly aligned in our practice groups to capture that. So we see no letup in our ability to convert that new flow into the channel.

Great. Thanks for taking my questions.

Next question Tracy Benguigui with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Can you comment on what you're seeing with respect to increases in inflationary type of exposures? I'm not talking about unit economics more like higher insured values, higher gross sales, receipts et cetera. And I'm just wondering if you think inflationary type of exposure growth is going through some type of true-up right now, is it more episodic, or can this piece of premium growth maintain momentum?

Well, we clearly believe that inflation will drive up exposure growth. And so that's a proportional increase in premium. So that's pretty well-established. It depends on how you view the future of inflation in this country. But there's certainly a factor that's driving premiums up. In terms of our ability to adjust on the inflationary front, as you know, a significant majority of our operating expenses are variable. And so we have the benefit of that variability. I think you also know that we have a high percentage of our business are compulsory products. So they have to buy. And if the rates go up, they still have to buy. And so there's that inflationary pressure, but the demand is consistent. And so we're just raising those points. But we have to keep in mind that at some point people say the premium is too high. And so that will take on larger deductibles and things like that to adjust the cost of their premium. So the reality is that the insurers guided by good solid advice from the broker, both the retail broker in this case and the wholesale broker come to the right conclusion for that particular client. But at the end of the day, the client makes the choice.

Given the different flows between higher deductibles and higher inflationary exposures, was that a net driver of your organic revenue growth this quarter?

It's early in that but yes to a modest degree. But if it continues as it is, it will be a more significant driver.

Got it. I'm also wondering do you guys play in the personal line space because there is talk about some of the larger insurers wanting to push that risk more in their non-embedded arms? Is that somewhere that you transact?

It is Tracy. And specifically, it's the high net worth part of personal lines that we're active in. We have a practice group vertical. We have proprietary capacity in that space. And that really is a combination of our brokerage capabilities and our delegated underwriting authority expertise. So we're bringing more capital into that space. There is very significant high demand for solutions there due to global warming and its impact. So, it's a great opportunity space for us.

And how would you say, where you rank amongst peers on personal lines?

I'm not sure about that.

Well, I would say that there's no published data. But just intuitively what we see in the marketplace, we have a robust high net worth homeowners practice with some very exceptional talent. So, we're a significant player in that space.

Thank you.

Next question Robert Cox with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks for taking my question. I was just looking for an update on your thoughts regarding double-digit organic growth for the foreseeable future. It seems like your revenue base is a bit higher than what you might have anticipated. So, I wanted to know what kind of timeframe you're considering for that type of guidance. Are you thinking about the next couple of years, or could it extend further? Also, how much is it dependent on pricing increases?

I'm going to answer the first part and give Jeremiah the ball. They're higher than what we forecasted. But we've been optimistic that we had all of the talent and the resources to enjoy the market that has come. So, we're not shocked by how well we've done in that market. The market has just continued to improve as you know. Jeremiah, you pick up the rest of that please.

When we discuss our growth engine, we emphasize its design for double-digit organic growth in the foreseeable future. This term can mean different things to different people, but it's not wise to speculate too precisely beyond a couple of years. Our confidence for this timeframe stems from solid industry fundamentals and persistent tailwinds that have contributed to our success. These elements are not likely to change rapidly. Recently, aspects of our growth engine, like the excess and surplus market, have been experiencing a very high growth rate, which won’t continue indefinitely. We have communicated that while 20% is not our baseline, we can still achieve double-digit growth down to 10%, even without favorable rates. In fact, during years when rates were unfavorable, we still achieved comfortable double-digit organic growth. We believe that our growth foundation can sustain this for years ahead, but it's crucial to remember that double digits do not equate to 20%.

Okay. Thanks. That's great. And just in regard to the talent that you've hired this year or maybe even in the quarter, how does that compare to your history maybe as like a percentage of your employee base or something like that? Just trying to get a sense of how many people you've hired this year compared to historical levels.

Well compared to the historical normal levels because there are periods of early days when we hired large numbers of people off a small base. But directly to your question, this has been a fertile year for attracting talent, filling some retirement holes in terms of people that performed really well for us, but they're ready to retire and attracting really high-quality people to replace them. And also, to build depth and additional A players in several of our specialties. Additionally, we've been emphasizing data and analytics. And we've continued to add talent there to really put ourselves in a leadership position, as we go forward. So we've been using this period of talking about adding talent A-level talent. And we've done that, very satisfactorily for us, through the first two quarters.

Great. And if I could just ask, one more question. I know you had hired a leader for the employee benefits practice. So my question is, have you continued to invest in employee benefits in either talent or infrastructure despite no revenues at this point?

We have invested in talent, and particularly in infrastructure. We brought in some really A and A+ level of talent in that sector, actuarial leadership for example, executive leadership. And they're doing a fantastic job in our opinion, of analyzing the market identifying the targets, working with those targets. And frankly, just as we've added the P&C, M&A space, I think we're emerging as a destination of choice for people in the benefit side who are getting ready to anticipate a change in terms of joining with someone. And I think we're in quite a good position in that area because of the talent we've brought in, the commitment we've made, and the capital that we've shown we're willing to commit to it.

Thank you for your answers.

Next question Jimmy Bhullar with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Hi. Most of my questions were answered. Could you discuss the various factors contributing to your organic growth, particularly in the E&S market regarding exposure, pricing, and any shifts in market share? If possible, could you quantify or rank the main drivers of your growth over the past year or so?

I think the biggest driver of our growth is winning competitively in the marketplace because everybody's had the right factors and the exposure factors, but it's differentiated us. And there's been some data published on this, is that we're growing faster than our peers and than our competitors I should say. And that's because of our commitment to A-level talent. It's also our initial commitment and sustaining commitment to independence to no conflicts of our clients. You'll see a stark difference between the wholesale growth of our position as an independent and for those who own captive wholesalers. So I'm not going to get into any other detail on that, but it's public data. And so, yes, we're winning. The biggest driver is we're winning more in the market ahead. But we've been doing that all 11-plus years, and it's particularly strong right now.

And maybe another one, just on margins. Typically, with growth being strong you should see a lot of expansion in margins, but I'm assuming you intend to continue to invest in the business as long as you see this type of growth. So should we assume fairly stable margins at least in the near term, or should we assume that margins would expand commensurately with the growth in revenues?

I won't provide guidance beyond 2022, but we have consistently emphasized the importance of maintaining the right balance between investment and healthy margins. The healthy margins are represented by our guidance. Jimmy, you have observed our performance long enough to recognize that exceptional growth often results in scale, and we are committed to leveraging that growth most of the time. I have publicly stated that we expect to see margin improvement on a reported basis in most years. However, there are instances like this year where making investments is the best long-term decision for both organic growth and margins. Therefore, we will adhere to that plan.

Okay. And just lastly with all this business flowing from the standard to the E&S market, and then also I think there's been consolidation of like annual consolidation on part of the some of the retail brokers. Are you envisioning any changes in sort of commission or fee structures and commissions you share with the retail brokers up or down?

No, I think it's very stable. We have a very strong relationship with our clients. They use us because we bring value add. If they don't think we can bring value add, they don't use us. It's not over-commissioned; it's about whether they need us or not in their mind. And so fortunately, they continue to believe they need us and they do use us. We deliver. We talk about execution. Execution and outcomes for our clients drive everything we do.

Thank you.

Thanks for your questions.

We have one more question coming from Meyer Shields with KBW. Please go ahead.

Thanks. I have one real question and then just one repetition. Tim, you've talked frequently about building a 50-state binding authority operation. Other than acquisitions, can you talk about what's going on internally or organically to get there?

Well, historically, Meyer, these binding authority companies were very regionally oriented, and so they tended to give the underwriting authority out locally and not on a 50-state basis. So over the last several years, we've been able to get all of our trading partners to give us 50-state authority, which allows us to distribute binding authority in small commercial solutions more aggressively and to really have a strong opportunity to consolidate the small commercial business on a binding basis. Our electronic trading platform has been a big investment there. And so this platform that we have has created a 50-state solution-based ability that no one has ever had before. So we're bringing that to the market, and we're winning RFPs, and the increase in flow in small commercial continues to grow for us. So, great long runway ahead in that space.

Okay. Understood. That's helpful. And then Jeremiah, you gave sort of a definition of interest expense with regard to the third and the fourth quarter. And I'm not sure I got all the details. I was hoping to get you to repeat that please?

Yes. Our interest expense consists of three components. It includes the interest we pay on our term loan and our bond, the amortization of our interest rate cap, which we are pleased to have implemented earlier this year, and it is offset by the interest income from our operating cash. That’s why our financials reflect net interest expense. Given the current SOFR curve, we wanted to provide clarity for those modeling our financials by giving our best estimate for the next two quarters, assuming there are no significant mergers or acquisitions.

Okay. But the corresponding number in the second quarter that's at 248.

Yes.

Okay. Perfect. Thank you very much.

I would like to turn the floor over to Pat Ryan for closing remarks.

Thank you all for your excellent questions and your support. We enjoy the chance to explain our company to you and to be proud of our company and our results. And thank you for your continued support and have a good evening.

This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and thank you for your participation.