Manning & Napier [profile] reported second quarter economic income and economic net income of $44 million and $27.2 million, or $0.30 per adjusted share. Its revenue came in at $93 million, an increase of 14 percent from last year, beating analyst expectations of $92.78 million, according to Wall Street Cheat Sheet. Manning & Napier's AUM was $46.3 billion, down from $48 billion in the first quarter.

Three interesting points stand out when looking at Seeking Alpha's transcript of the second quarter earnings call on Thursday:

POINT 1: The competition for high net worth individuals' business is tough, and ETFs are a driving force.

POINT 2: Net new assets are down, so sales commissions are down.

POINT 3: The firm is hiring in the West Coast to expand their reach.

POINT 1: The competition for high net worth individuals' business is tough, and ETFs are a driving force.

Sandler O' Neill's Michael Kim asked Manning & Napier CEO Patrick Cunningham what trends he has seen in the competitive high net worth business.

Kim: Okay, then just finally, could you talk about some of the trends you are seeing across the high net worth business in terms of the competitive landscape around pricing and asset gathering trends more broadly? It seems like smaller independent firms continue to gain market share from the bigger wirehouses, so just wondering if you are seeing that trend play out as well?

Cunningham: I think there is -- the high net worth space has now become a space that -- it seems like every financial services organization is concentrating on. So there has always been competition, there will always be competition. Our experience though is that, it's a relationship business. So it's getting referrals from one high net worth person to another. It's providing outstanding service, and good long term results that will drive that business. But it is a -- I think the bigger trend that I see is the fact that the advisor channel is using ETFs more and more than they have in the past. That's a trend that we have seen over the last several years, as returns have become relatively slow, the returns in the market have been relatively meager in the last 10-15 years, how does the advisor add value? Well, if they can use ETFs and put [their fee] on top of it, that's one way to do it in a lower fee basis. But, we think that there will always be intense competition in the high net worth space.

POINT 2: Net new assets are down, so sales commissions are down.

KBW's Robert Lee asked Cunningham asked about sales volume.

Lee: Great, and I appreciate your patience with all the questions. one last one, just on comp. Understanding your comp (inaudible), was around with no trailing performance in sales. Was it possible to get a feel for, we think the sequential decline, maybe how much of that was kind of driven by changes in sales volume, versus changes in analyst comps or if there is anything else and they have played in like a reversal, prior accruals, or something?

Cunningham: No reversals or prior accruals, really, you hit the two. It's the analysts and sales. To be honest with you, the analyst bonuses, given our performance on the shorter term, on an absolute and relative basis, and the year-over-year performance and growth in assets. The analyst bonuses has remained fairly strong and probably ahead of where they were. It has been the sales side without a lot of net new asset coming in, where we have had lower sales commissions as a result.

POINT 3: The firm is hiring in the West Coast to expand their reach.

J.P. Morgan's Ken Worthington asked Cunningham about new hires.

Worthington: Hi good morning. May be can you first talk about the seasonsing of the new hires and distribution, and maybe to what extent are they seeing success, bringing on new clients thus far? And maybe as a way to frame it, maybe what portion of gross sales are coming from relationships that are less than a year old today? Where might that have been in the past, like just a good reference point, and then how do you think that looks over the next two to three years?

Cunningham: Let me start by answering the question about the product. I think you asked about the productivity of the new hires, right?

Worthing: Yes.

Cunningham: Just to give some color to that. We have hired -- we have really three areas in our direct distribution. One is the, what we call the multistate or sort of institutional representatives. Another is what we call regional, which are people who live in a community like Cleveland or Rochester or Dallas, and they get to know the accountancy attorneys and their generalists, and they look for the small policy health businesses, endowments and just work that territory pretty hard.

The people who are territorial, who do high net worth and who do small businesses, they tend to have shorter sales cycle, and therefore, tend to close business and to bring in revenue faster than most people who are the large institutional salesmen, who are longer sales cycle, could be quarters, even years before a close is made. So we are pretty much on track. We are pleased with the hires, the productivity is what we would expect, given the timeframe that they have been here, and lastly we have a tax (inaudible) group. We hired a gentleman who is working the tax (inaudible) on the West Coast, where we primarily have exposure in the Midwest and the East Coast, and he has become productive very quickly, based upon the relationships that he brought to the table.

See the transcript of Manning & Napier's earnings call and the earnings release for more on how Manning & Napier is doing.  

Stay ahead of the news ... Sign up for our email alerts now
CLICK HERE