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Intrinsic Value is all-important and is the only logical way to evaluate the relative attractiveness of investments and businesses.
Intrinsic Value is all-important and is the only logical way to evaluate the relative attractiveness of investments and businesses.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to RF Capital's Fourth Quarter and Year-End 2023 Earnings Conference Call.
I would now like to turn the meeting over to Mr. Tim Wilson, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead, Mr. Wilson.
Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to RF Capital's Fourth Quarter and Year-end 2023 Earnings Call. I'd like to remind you that our remarks may contain forward-looking information, and actual results could differ materially. Forward-looking information is subject to many risks and uncertainties. Certain factors or assumptions applied in the forward-looking information can be found in our latest AIF and MD&A. These documents are available on our website and at sedarplus.ca. Today, I am joined by our President and CEO, Kish Kapoor. Kish will share key takeaways from the quarter and I will cover our detailed financial results and our financial outlook. Kish will then end with closing remarks, following which, we will open the call to questions from analysts. If you have questions once this call is complete, please reach out to Investor Relations. Our contact information can be found at the end of our earnings release.
I'll now turn the call over to Kish.
Thanks, Tim. Good morning, everyone. 2023 marked the completion of our 3-year journey to transform our business and position ourselves to seize the opportunity in front of us as our industry rapidly expands, a transformation that included many milestones. One of the biggest milestones was the transition of our back office to Fidelity. While it was unquestionably challenging, I'm proud of our adviser teams and all those who support them work hard to adapt to change and help to build a highly scalable platform for the future. Their commitment, engagement and feedback helped us implement strategies to address gaps, enhance the overall experience and enable long-term growth in all areas of our business. We're seeing the benefits of these initiatives including in the quality of people we're beginning to attract.
Our new recruits last year included Rick Shrum, Scott Warnez, Karim Mohamed and Christopher Puma in Kitchener, Ontario; Mark Antaya and Ryan Raven in Ottawa; and Kate Murdoch, the Lalli Greco Wealth Management and IC Blue Heron Wealth Advisory Group in Victoria.
We're also fortunate to have Dave Kelly join Richardson Wealth as Chief Operating Officer at the beginning of 2024. Dave has over 25 years of experience in financial services, including leadership roles with TD and Gluskin Sheff. His mandate is to focus on our first strategic pillar, doubling down on adviser support. He is off to a quick start working closely with regional managers, Neil Bosch and James King and helping our advisers reach their full potential. He has joined us on this call and is going to be available for answering questions at the end of the call.
Turning to our financial results for 2023. We ended the year with AUA of $35.2 billion, up $288 million on the year. At a high level, the increase in AUA includes a pause in our recruitment activity as we focus on our transformation in the first half of 2023. AUA also reflects both new assets from existing clients and recruits, impact of adviser departures and gains from equity markets. I was delighted this morning to issue a press release that showed our assets were at $36.2 billion, up $1 billion from the end of last year.
Revenue was $351 million in 2023, adjusted EBITDA was $59.5 million, and free cash flow available for growth were $35.4 million. These results are relatively stable compared to 2022 and a good outcome considering our digital transformation, tough levels of activity in the capital markets and the impact of inflation on certain operating expenses.
With that, I will turn the call over to Tim to discuss the financial results in greater detail.
Thank you, Kish. For the fourth quarter of 2023, our capital reported $87 million in revenue, a decrease of 2% as compared to the fourth quarter of 2022. While Wealth Management revenue was up 1% from last year, partly due to higher average AUA and insurance revenue, which increased 45% to $4.9 million for the quarter, corporate finance revenue was impacted by loan new issue activity and interest revenue decreased due to a decline in Richardson Wealth's client cash and margin loan balances.
Adjusted EBITDA was $14.5 million in Q4 as compared to $17 million in Q4 of last year. This result reflects the decline in revenue that I just mentioned and flat operating expenses. Operating expenses were flat, even though they included $1.8 million of incremental mark-to-market expenses on RSUs and DSUs as compared to Q4 2022.
Turning to cash flow. Free cash flow available for growth is the cash flow that the company generates before any investments in growth or transformation initiatives. It is intended to provide an indication of the cash that we generate organically to fund our strategic plans. In the fourth quarter of 2023, we generated $8.3 million of cash flow available for growth down from $11 million last year, primarily due to the same factors that impacted adjusted EBITDA.
Free cash flow is the net cash flow that the company generates from its continuing operations after considering its recruitment, transformation and strategic investments. RF Capital used free cash flow of $9.6 million in Q4 2023 as compared to a usage of $4 million in Q4 2022. While capital expenditures for office build-outs decreased by $8.6 million from last year, this year, in Q4, we made $14 million of adviser loan payments and settled several legacy legal matters, both of which are reflected in free cash flow.
Turning to our outlook. As described in our MD&A, we are no longer providing an outlook for adjusted EBITDA. We believe this is consistent with industry practice. Furthermore, providing an outlook requires us to make assumptions for a number of factors for which economists are currently forecasting a broad range of outcomes and that are out of our control, such as equity market returns, bond yields and new issue activity. That being said, we can speak to some of the drivers of our revenue and profitability as we see them today.
In 2024, AUA will continue to be driven by growth in client assets and is expected to correlate highly with equity market returns and recruiting activity. And we are confident that we will see an uptick in recruiting activity this year. However, year-over-year growth in average AUA, which drives fee revenue will reflect the departure of advisers managing $2.5 billion of AUA in 2023.
With respect to interest revenue, economists expect 100 to 125 basis points of rate cuts this year, which means that we will earn a lower yield on our cash and our margin loans. Advisers were also likely to continue to be vigilant in finding near cash products for their clients to maximize returns. So balances should remain consistent with Q4, perhaps growing slightly with AUA.
Corporate finance activity continues to be muted. Although many market participants expect activity to rebound later in 2024 from the [ trough ] levels we experienced last year, Corporate finance revenue in the first half of the year is likely to remain below normalized levels.
Turning to operating expenses. We are committed to finding savings and efficiencies where we can and driving operating leverage from our platform, but inflation continues to impact certain core operating expenses. Furthermore, operating expenses will likely not benefit from the same degree of mark-to-market recoveries on the RSUs and DSUs that we saw in 2023.
Cash flow for growth will be driven by the factors just discussed and is primarily going to be deployed towards adding new advisers to the Richardson Wealth platform as capital expenditures continue to decline towards more normalized levels of $6 million to $8 million per year.
With that, I'll now pass the call back to Kish.
Thanks, Tim. As we conclude 3 years of massive and disruptive transformation, I'm confident we can now begin to unlock the long-term value of the investments we've made and fulfill our mission of being the branded choice we can with top advisers and their clients. That concludes our prepared remarks. Operator, please open the line up for questions.
[Operator Instructions] The first question is from Jim Byrne of Acumen Capital.
Just a question, Kish. Just on the insurance side. It's another decent result in the quarter. Just wanted to get a sense of your thoughts on the insurance revenue growth and momentum here for 2024? And is it kind of meeting expectations ahead? Are you still working on growing that portion of revenue?
Great question. A fundamental part of who we are and what we're trying to do is to provide more exposure to clients on financial plans. And through our advisers, we are increasingly using our software to do the plans themselves plus leveraging our internal expertise of our tax and state planning group to do plans for them. And a key component of that is to work with insurance specialists to identify opportunities to introduce insurance as a part of the overall Wealth Management strategy. I think that, that pace continues. We expect it to continue year after year. Lots of focus in that area. Many success stories in that year -- in that line of the business. So we're very optimistic as we continue to see more and more people access the advice of our insurance experts. Tim, do you want to add anything to that?
No. I'd just say we expect that to grow to be in the range of 5% to 7% of our overall revenue over the next few years. And -- so expect the number to get bigger in 2024.
Right.
Yes. No, that's great. And then obviously, 2023, lots of moving parts with back-office integration and transition 2024. What's your primary focus here in kind of the first 6 months, and maybe the last 6 months, can you just give us an overall view of the strategy for this year and really what the focus is for the company?
Yes, that's fantastic. We think we have a perfect opportunity to introduce you to Dave Kelly. Dave Kelly joined us on January [ 20 ], 2024. So he is here -- been here about 1.5 months. He's an extraordinary individual with extraordinary experience. He's going to take on the principal role of running the day-to-day operations of the firm and which that means providing extraordinary service to our advisers, that will then free up capacity for me and other people to focus more aggressively on recruiting and acquisitions. It's a perfect time for that. And I'm just going to turn the call over here to Dave, first and foremost, to introduce himself, and talk about why he chose our firm, what he's seen so far and what he looks forward to in the next 90 days in terms of priorities. And then I'll speak to you after he finishes about the priorities for the balance of the year. Dave?
Thanks, Kish. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for the time, for sure. I would say a couple of things. easy decision to join Richardson and highlight a couple of points, strategic clarity. I think both the strategy, the goals are clear, they're achievable and the path to getting there is well thought through. I think the business is really at an interesting juncture. I describe it as a lot of the tough work around laying the foundation that really drives scale as you start to acquire and add advisers is in place, primarily with the Fidelity platform, but also with the investment and investment. And so I think the opportunity to move forward quickly is better.
I would argue at Richardson than most of our competitors. And I think interestingly, the underlying fundamentals for the business that we're in are terrific as everybody knows. But I think there's also some underlying momentum in the independent space, both from a client perspective. I think clients are increasingly looking to have an independent wealth manager as either all or part of their portfolio. And I think the same trend is true on the adviser side. I think there's a lot of really, really great people, great advisers who are looking for a different place to serve their clients well.
And so the focus for myself will be just making sure that we are the destination of choice based on the experience that we provide, the tools that we provide and the culture that's in place. I would say, at Richardson, I think there are some early wins that are available to us, just base blocking and tacking on sales management, making sure we've got the right focus and discipline on growth. Understandably, but there's been lots of focus on transformation. And so I think it should be very achievable to see a nice pickup here in the organic growth from the existing adviser teams, and that will be the focus in the year ahead.
Well, thanks, Dave. So Jim, really with Dave looking after that, that side of it, which is really Pillar 1, it really gives us great added capacity now to focus squarely on Pillar 2 and Pillar 3. And the Pillar 2 is, of course, recruiting and Pillar 3 is the acquisition. So right, this is now the chance for us to turn and focus on unlocking the value of the investments we've made in our fundamental platform.
[Operator Instructions] The next question is from Jeff Fenwick of Cormark Securities.
So Kish, wanted to start my questions on the announcement of the next round of retention payments through 2026. Can you offer up any color there in terms of what percentage of the AUA in the business today would be covered off by that now? And I would imagine it's a relatively large proportion, but anything around there or the percentage of the IAs that took you up on that?
I would say -- I don't have the numbers at the top of my head -- might get here, but maybe, Tim, you do, but I would say that everyone at our firm today has either participated in that program or participate in a different program with respect to the recognition awards. You'll recall that many people that have just joined us in the last 2 years -- okay, let me rephrase that. The people -- the $15.2 million was really set aside as recognition awards for those people who were with us in 2020. Those people that are here -- that were there in 2020, all took their shares for -- of that $15.2 million, which will invest in 2026 and will be settled in cash. Others that are here with us today and have been recruited over the last 3 years, have their own recognition award they got at the time they joined us. So I would say we probably have coverage at 100% of all our advisers.
Okay. Great. That's great. And I was just trying to, I guess, just get a feel for you. You came through the end of that 3-year period. Some advisers choose to leave. You announced some new ads, which is great. I'm just trying to get a sense of the stability of the existing adviser base today. I think you're communicating that, obviously, by the -- by some of these metrics, but just maybe any thoughts on that at this point?
Well, here's a lot of great -- I mean, obviously disappointed that we lost a few adviser teams, good people that I think we lost last year and is always disappointing. But the good news side of the story is advisers that control approximately 91% of our assets -- that control 91% of our assets in 2020 -- October 2020, are still here with us today. And that, to me, is a very high level of confidence in all the things that we've been investing on their behalf, things that they actually access for and we'll be building them.
And then if I take a look at a survey that we did in September -- a Great Place to Work survey. It's an independent third party does that survey with our advisers, and 85% of our advisers that responded to that survey said that they are proud to call Richardson Wealth home. So when I look at those statistics, especially during a period of a lot of change, disruption, frustration, that's a strong vote of confidence about the things that we're doing to provide an outstanding service. And now with Dave Kelly here focusing squarely on enhancing that experience, I think we're just going to get better and better.
Okay. Great. And then maybe a follow-up -- sorry, go ahead.
The only other thing I would add is that the teams that we just joined our offices in Victoria in November and the one that we are expecting to join us here shortly are really high-quality teams. And almost all of them have said to us what appealed to them is the platform that we built that's for sure, a scalable platform that we know that while it was really painful, we're going to get to a destination that's going to provide an extraordinary experience to them, all the tools. I think Dave Kelly might want to comment on a few of those tools that he has now got a chance to look at and relative to what he's seen in the past. And I think those recruits also loved our culture, the name on the door. So I think [ all around ], it is a difficult 3-year journey to build that foundation, but that's behind us now. We're squarely focused on leveraging all of that platform. So Dave Kelly, if you can just give a perspective on what you see in terms of the [ expense ] of our platform.
Yes, for sure. And we've talked a little bit about Fidelity already, but I think unquestionably, that is the platform of the future for many firms in the space. I highlight for individuals, the investment that was made in the Envestnet platform, which is really the best tool that I've seen in the marketplace to support portfolio managers. We believe that's the highest area of growth in terms of the model that most advisers will gravitate towards, especially the large adviser teams and the investment platform can only be described as impressive.
But I would add to that, there's some organic applications that have been built over the years that -- I had no idea we're here, to be honest, and I would highlight things like the client statement capability, client reporting capability, the client portal that's been built in-house, I would say, are best-in-class. And so part of the story that I'm looking forward to telling in the community [ it large ], but definitely with some of the advisers at other institutions.
That's great color. And maybe one follow-up for Tim. Just in terms of the that new retention payment. And I guess there was maybe some that were paid through the end of the year. Can you just remind us of the actual cash flows of how that works going forward?
So going forward, there are 2 pieces to it. There's the accounting of the cash flow. We will not need to make any cash payments for that $15 million second recognition award until 2026. So it's only if advisers who are granted that award, remain with us in -- at the end of 2026, will they be eligible for payout. So $15 million is the max we will pay out at that time. But we will amortize that $15 million into income through the adviser loan amortization line over that 3-year period. So it's about a $5 million a year expense.
Okay. And then through Q4 '23, I guess, at the end of the 2020 3-year period, there was then the payout that happened in the fourth quarter, is that correct?
That's right. It dropped off at the end of October. And that actually ran $11 million a year in expense. So we're actually going to see a net drop and that decline year-over-year of $6 million in amortization related to those 2 tranches of loans.
Great. That's helpful. And then maybe one bigger picture here as well. Question would be markets did better through the end of the year. I think there's been a fair degree of commentary about clients that have been sitting on a lot of cash and maybe holding off on making some of those decisions to put more money into their accounts. Any sense, Kish, about where clients are sitting today and whether there's an opportunity there to maybe help on that organic AUA growth just from that sort of thing, if the market gets a bit better here?
So based on the data that we get to see and Tim, certainly feel free to jump in here. The data that we see our advisers has done an extraordinary job on rebalancing our client portfolios. They've got a lot of fixed income exposure now. They move from cash to fixed income. So we're not seeing in our books, a lot of cash sitting on the sidelines. In fact, we think in our books, cash is actually a declining balance for sort of flat lining balance with most portfolios having already been rebalanced into either the equity markets or fixed income. So Tim?
No, I think that's exactly right.
Okay. And maybe just one last one here. when you look at your longer-term goals here for growth, M&A is clearly a central component of that. How are you feeling as you enter the year? There's some commentary that you are having some ongoing conversations with various parties. But what's your sense about that in terms of the potential contribution for 2024?
Well, the acquisition journey always is an interesting one. We couldn't really aggressively pursue them until the foundation was built. And once our foundation was built last summer, we started expressing an interest to looking at targets. So a variety of investment banks, accounting firms that are representing some of the targets that we would be interested in, they started introducing us to those targets. We've started going into data rooms, we started looking at information and started evaluating whether that's a cultural fit with a strategic fit, whether they evaluation that makes sense to us. I would suspect that we're going to have to look a lot more before we find the one that really perfectly fits. So I think this is an early part of our journey, but we're actively engaged in that journey. It's really difficult to predict what might look like for 2024, and I don't want to -- the thing that I want to say to you is that really this is where I'm now devoting a lot of my time and energy is to sort thinking about all of those options. In fact, not only thinking we're actually doing analysis. We're in data rooms on at least a couple of occasions we've hired a couple of outsiders to help us assess those opportunities. But too early to tell where we may or may not find a fit.
There are no further questions registered at this time. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Mr. Kish Kapoor.
Thanks, everyone, for participating in today's call, and please feel free to contact us with any follow-up questions. Have a good weekend, everyone. Operator, you may end the call now.
Thank you. The conference has now ended. Please disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.