WisdomTree, Inc. Q3 FY2025 Earnings Call

Good afternoon. Before we begin, I would like to reference our legal disclaimer available in today's presentation. This presentation may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including, but not limited to, statements about our ability to achieve our financial and business plans, goals and objectives and drive stockholder value. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, the risks set forth in this presentation in the Risk Factors section of the WisdomTree annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2024, and in subsequent reports filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission. WisdomTree assumes no duty and does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements. Now it is my pleasure to turn the call over to WisdomTree's CFO, Bryan Edmiston.

Thank you, Jessica, and good morning, everyone. I'll begin by covering our third quarter results, along with updates to our forward-looking guidance before turning the call over to Jarrett and Jono for additional updates on our business. We ended the third quarter with record global AUM of $137.2 billion, driven by strong organic growth and favorable market conditions. This includes record U.S. AUM of $88.3 billion, record European AUM of $48.3 billion and digital AUM of almost $600 million. In the third quarter, we generated $2.2 billion of global net inflows, bringing year-to-date inflows through September 30 to $8.8 billion, and an annualized organic growth pace of 11%. These flows have been broad and diverse across our global product suite with contributions from every region. Year-to-date inflows include $2.5 billion in the U.S., $5.8 billion in Europe and roughly $550 million in digital assets. Significant contributors during the third quarter included meaningful flows into our European gold and cryptocurrency products as well as our European defense fund and our digital money market fund. We also reached a major milestone in early October with the closing of the Ceres acquisition. This transaction immediately increases our revenue capture and operating margins by more than 200 basis points while further diversifying our AUM mix by introducing farmland as a negatively correlated asset class. Ceres also opens the door to incremental revenue opportunities stemming from alternative uses of farmland, including solar projects and AI data centers. Backed by strong organic growth, disciplined execution and strategic capital deployment, we are operating from a position of strength, well positioned to deliver sustainable growth and long-term shareholder value. Adjusted revenues were $125.6 million during the quarter, an increase of 11.5% from the second quarter and up approximately 14.7% versus the prior year quarter, driven by higher average AUM. Our other revenues increased to $11 million this quarter versus $8 million to $9 million in previous quarters. As a reminder, other revenues comprise both asset-based and transaction-based fees on our European listed products, of which approximately 70% of these revenues are asset-based. While difficult to forecast, we would suggest the magnitude of other revenue generated in this most recent quarter serves as a fair approximation of what we could expect going forward, assuming current European AUM levels. On a year-to-date basis, our adjusted revenues have grown 10.7%, driven by higher average AUM and higher other revenues attributable to our European listed products, partly offset by a lower average fee capture. Our adjusted net income for the quarter was $34.5 million or $0.23 per share. Our adjusted net income excludes the loss on extinguishment of convertible notes of $13 million, acquisition-related costs of $2.4 million and other miscellaneous items. Now a few comments on our forecasted guidance. We have no changes to our previously reported compensation and discretionary expense guidance. We reported a gross margin of 82.2% in the third quarter, an increase of over 100 basis points versus the second quarter due to higher AUM levels. We anticipate our gross margin increasing to 83% in the fourth quarter when factoring in the incremental revenue arising from the Ceres acquisition, resulting in an overall gross margin of about 82% for the full year. We reported $8 million of adjusted interest expense in the third quarter, an increase from $5 million in previous quarters due to convertible notes we issued in mid-August to facilitate the Ceres acquisition. We anticipate our adjusted interest expense to be approximately $11 million in the fourth quarter, taking into consideration the full quarter impact of this recently completed financing. During the third quarter, we reported $4 million of interest income, higher than our previous run rate of approximately $2 million per quarter due to temporarily investing the capital raised from our convertible note issuance to facilitate the Ceres acquisition. We anticipate interest income in the fourth quarter reverting back to earlier levels of approximately $2 million to $3 million. And our weighted average diluted shares were 150.7 million during the third quarter, which included 5.8 million of incremental shares related to our convertible notes partly offset by the weighted average effect of repurchasing 6.8 million shares of common stock in connection with our recently completed convertible note issuance. We anticipate our weighted average diluted shares to be 146 million to 149 million in the fourth quarter, taking into consideration the full quarter impact of the 6.8 million shares we repurchased in August. This also contemplates approximately 5 million to 7 million incremental shares associated with our convertible notes, assuming a stock price approximating recent levels. As a reminder, an illustration is included within our earnings presentation to assist in quantifying the incremental shares associated with our convertible notes going forward. With respect to the Ceres acquisition, our overall expense guidance for the year remains largely unchanged. Ceres' estimated annualized operating expenses are approximately $15 million, of which roughly 80% is related to compensation. Approximately 1/4 of this expense should impact us in the fourth quarter. While we generally don't provide revenue guidance, Ceres' trailing 12-month historical revenues were approximately $40 million, which should be informative for establishing a baseline revenue expectation for your models. Revenue is comprised of both a base fee of approximately 1% on AUM and a 20% performance fee. Performance fees generated will ultimately be driven by the underlying returns of the farmland managed by Ceres, and therefore, recent historical actual revenues earned are not indicative of revenue that may be earned in the future. That's all I have. I will now turn the call over to Jarrett.

Thanks, Bryan. This was another solid quarter for WisdomTree, highlighted by record firm-wide AUM, strong net inflows and continued execution across all areas of our business. We ended the quarter with over $137 billion in AUM, setting a new high watermark, not just for the firm overall, but for every one of our business lines individually. Net inflows exceeded $2.2 billion for the quarter, driven by broad-based strength across our product lineup with nearly twice as many funds seeing inflows versus outflows and that breadth of performance underscores the depth and resilience of our platform and the consistent execution of our strategies across regions, products and channels. Since quarter end, we closed on our acquisition of Ceres Partners, bringing our total AUM to over $140 billion for the first time in our history, an important milestone that also marks our entry into private assets, an exciting new growth vector for WisdomTree. Gold also continues to be a standout. Our physical gold and gold overlay strategies now exceed $22 billion in AUM, reflecting 57% growth year-to-date. These strategies brought in over $1 billion of net inflows in the quarter alone, highlighting both the strength of our offering and the trust we've earned from clients seeking real asset exposure in today's environment. And importantly, we're not just growing AUM, we're also deepening client relationships. The number of clients using WisdomTree products grew meaningfully during the quarter and the average number of WisdomTree solutions used per client also increased. And that combination, wider reach and deeper wallet share, that's the foundation of sustainable organic growth, and we're seeing it at work. Turning to models. This continues to be one of our fastest-growing areas. Model AUM grew to approximately $5.85 billion, up more than 50% year-to-date. Adviser adoption remains strong with the number of advisers using our models now up sharply from the start of the year. Custom models were again a key driver in the quarter. We onboarded 13 new custom model clients, reinforcing our ability to meet advisers where they are. With an $18 trillion opportunity across 85,000 advisers, we're still in the early innings, but our traction is real and growing. In digital assets, we continue to also see meaningful progress, particularly within our WisdomTree Connect platform, while WisdomTree Prime is now live with on-chain transfer capabilities. We exited the quarter with around $600 million in AUM with peak levels near $900 million, driven largely by flows into our blockchain-enabled money market fund. Two core client segments are leading adoption, stablecoin issuers using the fund for reserves and on-chain native businesses using it for corporate treasury. Our ability to make redemption as seamless as funding has proven to be a real differentiator. And based on client feedback that ease of use is not a given with competing products. It's exactly the kind of frictionless experience that builds trust and wallet share over time. While digital asset flows can fluctuate week-to-week, the trend is clear. We have strong traction year-to-date and an even stronger pipeline ahead. Operationally, we remain focused on what we can control, managing expenses with discipline, maintaining efficiency and leveraging the scale of our platform. Our business model continues to demonstrate tremendous operating leverage. And as we grow, we see substantial margin expansion ahead. Back in February, we laid out our 2025 strategic priorities, and we're executing on all facets of this plan. We're doing what we said we would do, and we're doing it with consistency, focus and discipline. In summary, we have strong momentum. And as we look ahead, our foundation has never been stronger, a diversified, scalable platform that continues to perform across market cycles and positions WisdomTree for long-term success. And with that, let me now turn it over to Jono.

Thank you, Jarrett. Hello, everyone. Today, I'll be brief. It was a strong and straightforward quarter. Everything Bryan and Jarrett shared today reinforces that when sound strategy meets disciplined execution, strong results follow. WisdomTree is the strongest we've ever been. We've achieved a new level of scale. We've achieved a new level of diversification, diversification of asset class, client type and geography. Our scale, stability and growth initiatives have positioned WisdomTree to thrive in the years ahead. Now I'd like to turn the call back to the operator for questions.

Nice results. So Europe has obviously been the star with 2x the amount of flows that the U.S. has seen. Can you just give us a kind of 3- to 5-year vision of what you would expect to see there in terms of flows, U.S. versus rest of world?

Thank you for your question, George. Europe is currently a few years behind the U.S. when it comes to ETF adoption. However, we believe there is significant underlying growth potential in Europe. We have already achieved nearly $50 billion in assets under management along with strong revenue generation, establishing a solid presence in that market. I anticipate continued robust growth going forward. While it’s difficult to predict specific numbers over the next five years, the fundamentals of our European business are very promising. We are also witnessing synergy between our U.S. and European operations, with a beneficial exchange of ideas. Additionally, Europe serves as a gateway for global investors, which is advantageous for WisdomTree. Jarrett, do you have anything to add?

Yes. The only thing I'd add is really what is, I think, exciting for us is our global product suite. We now really have such breadth and depth that no matter what the markets are doing, we have a set of our products that are going to play well in that market. And you're seeing that on display, I think, this year. We've had still nice positive flows in the U.S. But as you pointed out, Europe has been great. But then as Jono also pointed out, some of the global launches now are also paying dividends. So I think it's really the global product suite that is on display here.

I wanted to focus a bit more on the digital asset side. You have developed a tech stack over several years that is now being recognized as highly valuable by the market. For instance, securitized recently went public via SPAC for $1 billion, which I believe represents just a fraction of your tech stack's value. I'm curious when you think the market will start to recognize this. Have you thought about offering tokenization as a service? I'm just wondering if that could be a direction for you.

Thank you for the question. I did see the news and review their presentation. The short answer is yes, and we are actively discussing tokenization as a business concept. Looking at the technology stack you mentioned, we currently compete with securitized products. We differentiate ourselves from our competitors by offering highly regulated structures with the most functionality. Our tech stack includes an asset management platform, which is WisdomTree's primary function. We also have a token issuance platform, which we refer to as TIP, and we manage stablecoin orchestration, similar to a zero hash that has been in the news lately. We incorporate all three of these elements in our stack. The synergies from this setup enable us to tailor solutions for our clients, helping us secure business opportunities. Moving forward, we plan to introduce features like trading and 24/7 instant liquidity to enhance these offerings, making them feel increasingly like a crypto-native business. We are enthusiastic about these developments and expect to share more updates soon. Overall, we are confident in our market position, and we hope the market continues to recognize our value as we pursue future business growth.

George, let me just throw one thing in. I don't know whether securitized actually goes public with a valuation of $1 billion. But if it does, you would literally have a public direct value comparison to a part of our digital asset business to put in your sort of sum of the parts analysis of WisdomTree. And I would expect that if such a thing were to take place, WisdomTree would trade higher.

Great. One other question, if I could. You mentioned relative to Ceres and the fact that you now have entered the private asset market. When you say we have just now entered the private asset market, are you contemplating other moves there? And I'm just curious how that would be done.

We are very disciplined in our acquisitions, and this recent transaction has positioned us as a leader in a unique and exciting asset class. This is just the start for us. For those familiar with WisdomTree's journey, you'll recall that our first investment in Europe was nearly 11 years ago when we invested in Boost, which we have successfully expanded over the years. We are certainly concentrating on private investments and see significant opportunities ahead. While I can't provide specific details on our execution plans, I can assure you that we are committed to this direction, and you can expect more developments in the future.

Two questions. One, looking at Slide 13, the digital asset metrics, the $592 million that's just grown like a weed. Can you talk in a little bit more detail the underlying drivers of that? You mentioned stablecoin issuers. And what customers, whether it's institutional or retail, are buying those funds? I think if you break that down, it would be helpful.

Yes, happy to take the question. So in the deck, $590 million. I think as of today's close, it should be about $680 million. So yes, it's grown very quickly quarter-over-quarter, I mean, up from $30 million at the start of the year. So that's exactly right. I mean we see a lot of success with stablecoin issuers. So these are businesses that are whether in a regulated construct or kind of in other constructs issuing stablecoins and they invest in WTGXX as a reserve asset that backs their stablecoin. So that's kind of one primary market segment. We also see, as Jarrett referenced, so businesses that are crypto native or blockchain native that use stablecoin as part of their treasury management. They're looking for a kind of a treasury asset that's yield bearing that kind of fits within their workflows. And that's where the WTGXX, the money market fund has great kind of product market fit as well. I expect as more and more businesses in the U.S. adopt stablecoins, the addressable market for that is going to grow even more. And then beyond that, there's kind of different collateral management use cases that we're seeing as well, both in the kind of a crypto-native construct, but also with traditional businesses as well. So those are the 3 types of businesses that we're seeing success on the institutional side. On retail, where we see the most applicability going forward is with kind of on-chain native customers. We call them on-chain experts. So these are people that participate in DeFi, invest in DeFi, do things like yield farming. They're looking for traditional exposures that they can use as part of their strategies. So like just by way of example, we launched yesterday all 14 of our products on the Ploom blockchain. Maybe it sounds in the weeds, but it's a blockchain that's focused on real-world asset exposures, got a $10 million seed investment as part of that. And you can just see in the community after that announcement, the excitement around having assets that yield something like north of 10% that they can use as part of their exposures. So those are the types of customers that we're seeing that's driving that AUM higher.

Will, could you also talk about our public filing for the money market fund that we're waiting for the SEC to reopen?

Yes, I mentioned this earlier, but for these exposures, we aim for them to be traded in the secondary market with immediate liquidity, available 24/7. This capability is a significant advantage of blockchain, similar to what we've seen with tokens and Bitcoin, which allows for continuous peer-to-peer transfer and active markets. We are currently focused on enhancing the WisdomTree money market fund, WTGXX, to provide functionality that goes beyond what is currently available in the traditional financial space. This aligns well with the needs of our clients, as it will allow for both on-chain functionality and orders, along with the instant capability to sell for stablecoins, adding a new dimension that isn't possible today. We're working on this and there's a public filing you can check out with the SEC, and we hope to advance this initiative soon.

Jono, what would you say are the top 2 priorities for 2026 as you're sitting here today?

I would say faster revenue growth and higher revenue capture.

Maybe just sticking with the digital assets topic. Can you just talk a little bit about some of the steps you're looking to take over the next 12, 24 months to expand distribution access to build more customers, more assets in these funds. I think most of the traction has been on the money market fund, but you have a whole host of them. I think you mentioned 13. You have the treasury one. You have a gold one that's been out there for a bit. Remind us which blockchain they're on? How are you thinking about expanding access? What's the scope of partnering with some folks out there like Coinbase, Gemini and others?

I'm happy to address this. We are currently active on seven public blockchains: Ethereum, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Base, Optimism, Stellar, and Ploom. Our goal is to meet clients where they are. When we identify commercial opportunities and organic adoption on a specific blockchain for a particular use case, we aim to introduce our products there, taking into account various technical and risk considerations. At present, we have two platforms for onboarding. U.S. retail clients can access WisdomTree Prime, which resembles a traditional neobank or neobroker experience, although it requires downloading an app and completing the sign-up process. We also have WisdomTree Connect for businesses, which involves a typical business onboarding procedure. Once businesses are onboarded, we tag the wallets they whitelist, allowing them to engage with our products and services. There is significant potential to broaden our onboarding methods beyond these two avenues. One possibility we've discussed previously is collaborating with appropriate fintech partners to implement a B2B2C model, enabling WisdomTree's product transactions through other apps. Additionally, there are intriguing prospects for onboarding in a decentralized manner, allowing users to connect their wallets by completing a web form, although this is still in the conceptual phase. A primary focus for our digital assets over the next 12 months is improving how we facilitate trading within a crypto-native framework while increasing the number of users who can access our products and services in a regulatory compliant manner. That summarizes my thoughts on the topic. I hope this answers your question.

Great. And then more broadly on tokenization with the Ceres acquisition that brings you into the private space. I guess, how do you think about the opportunity for tokenizing real-world assets, including farmland? Where is that on the priority stack? How might you go about that? And what might the steps you need to take in order to bring that to fruition?

I believe there are certainly aspects of tokenization that make complete sense, but farmland isn't one of them. It isn't the most appropriate option for us. We have a successful model in farmland with excellent returns and it's an uncorrelated asset. Additionally, we see beneficial synergies with our distribution team. Our plan is to effectively manage that business with our current team while also exploring how to better utilize our infrastructure to improve returns.

Mike, I want to add that we are in the early stages, and the '40 Act ETFs allow for up to 15% of the portfolio to be in private investments. I expect this will evolve within the industry, and for WisdomTree specifically, we see a significant opportunity to integrate private and public investments in a seamless manner. We will provide more updates on this in the upcoming quarters.

Guys, just a basic question as we think about modeling the business, the Ceres business you guys acquired here. And I understand these are private assets and they're not priced every day like ETFs. But how would we expect to find like the AUM for this on a regular basis? Or would we? We'll just get it at the beginning of the quarter or the end of the quarter?

Yes, it's going to be the latter. The AUM for Ceres will be reported at the end of the quarter.

Okay. And then the performance-based fees, is there any indicators that we can look at that we might be able to try to estimate what the performance-based fees might be?

Yes, of course. Let's go through the assets under management walk. We're starting with assets of approximately $1.7 billion to $1.8 billion today. You can make your own flow assumptions. However, as a reminder, we previously mentioned a target of around $750 million in assets allocated to farmland-based strategies over the next five years. The initial year will see lower numbers as we integrate the business, but it should increase over that period. We also need to consider what mark we will apply to our assets. I would estimate a mark of about 7% to 8% on Ceres' assets, along with any flow assumptions we make. This mark seems reasonable when considering rental yields and long-term historical returns from farmland, balanced against fund expenses and fees. This mark assumption serves as a baseline, and opportunities in solar and data centers could potentially increase it. However, a challenging market could also result in a lower mark. The performance fee is approximately 15% of the mark on a net basis. Therefore, if I were to outline this, it would be Ceres' starting assets plus your flow assumption multiplied by your mark assumption and then by 15%, which should give you an estimate of our performance fee. Regarding management fees, they are 1% of average assets, and we have also provided some insight into expenses in our prepared remarks.

Great. I appreciate that. In terms of the digital strategy, I know there's a lot going on there. I can appreciate it, but I may not be able to understand all the complexities there. But if I think about what the impact is today to the income statement, I guess, what kind of impact are we talking about today? I'm sure it's not that great, but maybe you can verify for me. And then does today's performance justify increased investment or maintaining where you're at and just continuing down that path?

So on the revenue side, right now, we have, as Will had indicated earlier, $650 million of AUM. That's roughly at a, call it, 25 basis point fee capture. And that's our primary driver with respect to revenue today on the digital platform. And the expenses and our net operating loss is in the neighborhood of what we've communicated previously. It's mid-20s is kind of where we're at, at this point in time.

Let me also just add that we strongly believe there is a structural shift occurring. We are prepared for it, and the trend is significantly increasing. In fact, we believe that eventually, almost everything will be on-chain. The tokenization of real-world assets over time will transform financial services. So far this year, we have progressed from nearly zero to over $600 million, and we are at the forefront of developments in real-world assets. Therefore, we are very optimistic about it.

Yes, most of mine have been answered. But I was just wondering the $2.4 billion in outflows post the quarter, it seems like it was like in commodities and USFR on like 2 or 3 days that just look kind of like not your normal flows. I was wondering if there's any explanation you have for that?

It's great to connect with you. At the beginning of the year, our commodities assets under management were $22 billion, and they have now increased to $32 billion, reflecting a 50% to 60% rise in some prices like gold. Following the significant price surge, there was some profit-taking, but most investors are seeing their positions up by 50% this year, which is a natural outcome. We also observed some shifts in allocations around the recent Federal Reserve meeting and discussions about interest rates. Some investors decided to invest more of their cash into different opportunities due to the strong market performance. Meanwhile, as USFR faced redemptions, Japan, which had previously been experiencing outflows, saw a reduction of $300 million to $400 million. Some of this could be a sign of reallocation to invest cash. Additionally, we've continued to see strong inflows earlier this year, indicating a lot of underlying energy in various new themes. For instance, themes such as nuclear energy, rare earth elements, and quantum computing have quickly reached $100 million in our European market. Overall, as Jarrett mentioned earlier, there's a lot of positive momentum building beneath the surface.

Yes. Just I want to jump in there, too, and underlying some of the things that Jerry said. I mean some of these you never like to see outflows, but some profit taking in gold when you've seen the move that gold has had is pretty reasonable. With USFR, really, that was down to 1 or 2 clients that were rotating into other names, as Jerry also mentioned. And actually, in one case, and the largest piece of that rotated into something with actually a higher fee. So while AUM was down, the net revenue of that rotation was up. But the biggest point I'd make is you can get caught up in some of the noise of some short-term moves. But what I'm always looking at are more of the fundamentals. And we continue to do the things that are precursors for continued growth, and that is growing the number of our clients, but also growing the numbers of products per client, and that continues, and that is the recipe for growth. And really, the rest of it in my book is short-term noise, but the long-term fundamentals for growth continue to be with us in a strong way.

I just want to thank all of you for your time and attention, and we'll speak to you next quarter. Thank you, everybody. Have a good day.

Thank you. This concludes today's call. All parties may disconnect. Have a good day.