Yahoo Finance Waddell & Reed Financial Inc (WDR) Q2 2019 Earnings Call Transcript
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Waddell & Reed Financial Inc (NYSE: WDR)
Q2 2019 Earnings Call
Jul 30, 2019, 10:00 a.m. ET
Contents:
Prepared Remarks
Questions and Answers
Call Participants
Prepared Remarks:
Operator
Good morning everyone and welcome to Waddell & Reed Financial Incorporated Second Quarter 2019 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] At this time, I'd like to turn the conference call over to Mr. Mike Daly, Vice President, Corporate Controller and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Mike Daley -- Vice President, Corporate Controller & Investor Relations
Thank you. On behalf of our management team I would like to welcome you to our quarterly earnings conference call. Joining me on our call today are Phil Sanders, our CEO; Ben Clouse, our CFO; Brent Bloss, our COO; Dan Hanson our CIO; Shawn Mihal, President of our Retail Wealth Management Business Waddell & Reed Inc.; and Amy Scupham, President of Ivy Distributors Inc.
Before we begin I would like to remind you that some of our comments and responses may include forward-looking statements. While we believe these statements to be reasonable based on information that is currently available to us, actual results could materially differ from those expressed or implied due to a number of factors that we reference in our public filings with the SEC. We assume no duty to update any forward-looking statements. Materials relevant to today's call including a copy of the press release and supplemental schedules have been posted on the Investor Relations section of our website at ir.waddell.com.
I would now like to turn the call over to Phil.
Philip J. Sanders -- Chief Executive Officer
Thank you. Good morning and thanks for joining us. The first half of the year has been noteworthy for our Company as we continue to take significant strategic steps to accelerate our business model transformation and improve our long-term agility and effectiveness. We continue to focus on long-term foundational improvements that will strengthen our investment management capabilities, improve our distribution operations and position our wealth manager to capitalize on its long-term growth potential, all while maintaining operational efficiency and returning significant capital to shareholders. We know this is an ongoing endeavor, but we will be persistent and disciplined in our approach.
In a few minutes I will high highlight several specific actions we took during the quarter. Then we'll follow with the financial details, but at a high level, we reported net income of $34 million or $0.45 per share for the second quarter compared to $32 million or $0.42 per share during the prior quarter. Despite some bouts of volatility associated with the ongoing trade tensions in fears of a global economic slowdown, equity markets generally posted another solid quarter of performance. In fact, US stocks at record highs during the period propelling the S&P 500 index to its best first half performance since 1997.
With trade talks back on the table in the lack of inflation providing plenty of breathing room for global central banks to maintain their accommodative monetary policies, equity markets have remained relatively buoyant this year. Questions linger, however, about the strength of the global growth outlook. Sluggish economic indicators, uncertainties around trade policy and geo-political considerations have also suppressed bond yields, resulting in a favorable backdrop for fixed-income assets as well. Then we'll cover the asset flows in detail, but I would note that flows remain challenged during the quarter, although redemptions were in line with the first quarter and a moderated compared to the second half of 2018.
Given the uncertainties associated with progress on the trade front and the strength of the global growth outlook that I noted earlier, flows across the industry have been substantially weighted toward fixed income products at the expense of active equity products. Investment performance during the quarter resulted in trailing one year performance holding relatively steady across the complex. On a three-year basis performance continues to steadily improve for the past year, the majority of both of our funds and total assets under management now rank in the top half of their respective peer groups. For the trailing one and three-year periods, the majority of total AUM is now ranked in the top half of their peer groups. We're now improving shorter-term performance trends, lay the groundwork for longer-term performance improvements. Overall, we are encouraged to see that investments we have made over the past few years in our research staff portfolio management teams, technology and risk management capability is paying off.
I mentioned previously that I would highlight several key actions we undertook this quarter to move our organization forward. First, as most of you know, we recently named industry veteran Dan Hanson as our new Chief Investment Officer. Dan fully embraces our strong investment culture, while bringing diverse and direct experience that will both complement and elevate the work of our broad investment team. First and foremost, Dan is a firm believer and fundamental active management and has a long track record of strong investment performance. He also has extensive experience in ESG investing and served as a founding member of the Board of Directors of the sustainable Accounting Standards Board from 2011 to 2016. Dan's approach the ESG integration is a natural complement to our culture and heritage of identifying strong sustainable business models. Overall has extensive experience in product development and commitment to proprietary research and sustainable investing aligned with our strategic efforts in our values based culture. We remain committed to acquiring and developing top level investment talent and we couldn't be more excited to have Dan on board.
Secondly, during the quarter, we announced a couple of important corporate initiatives beginning with our intent to outsource the transactional processing operations of our internal transfer agency to one of our long-standing technology partners. We expect the change to be seamless for our funds shareholders, financial advisors and business partners. Savings generated from this move will help to reduce expenses to our mutual fund shareholders. This action creates a more agile operational structure to better position the Company to achieve its long-term growth plans. Also, we announced that we have undertaken a comprehensive review of our future real estate needs and are currently evaluating options for a new corporate headquarters within the Kansas City Metro Area. Our search process is ongoing and we look forward to sharing more information as we progressed.
And lastly, within our Wealth Management Business, we continue to build on our value proposition to financial advisors through technology products in a leading service model. As part of our technology initiatives, we were excited to introduce Waddell One this quarter, which coincided well with our National Advisor Conference. Waddell One is a centralized advisor desktop platform available to all financial advisors and associates, providing direct connectivity to several of the firm's existing technology partners.
Waddell One is a key part of an incremental series of enhancements to Wealth Management business is implementing over the next year as part of its business administration program. Additional components will include enhanced reporting, improved data analytics in a simplified business processing model. We also broadened the range of asset managers available within our advisory programs and added additional portfolio construction and planning services this quarter. Each of these actions represent progress toward realizing the long-term value of our Wealth Management franchise. So as you can tell, it was a busy quarter and we're excited to see the results of each of these initiatives over the long term as they play -- as they each play an integral part of our overall transformation strategy.
I will now turn it over to Ben to discuss the quarterly results.
Benjamin R. Clouse -- Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer
Thank you, Phil, and good morning, everyone. As Phil noted, we reported net income of $33.9 million or $0.45 per share, compared to $32.1 million or $0.42 per share during the prior quarter. As we highlighted in this morning's release both the first and second quarter included a $0.06 benefit in investment and other income from unrealized gains on our seed and corporate investment portfolios as we benefited from strong markets in both periods.
I will start by covering asset flows in more detail and then review our operating results for the quarter. Assets under management ended the quarter at $71.9 billion, fairly consistent with the prior quarter, while average assets under management of $71.4 billion increased nearly 2%. Net outflows of $2.4 billion were higher than the prior quarter, but improved compared to the same period last year. Within our unaffiliated and wealth management distribution channels, net outflows were $800 million and $1.1 billion respectively. Increased volatility in the equity markets during the quarter contributed to slower sales in key products as investors preferred lower risk, fixed income and money market funds compared to our more equity-focused product set.
The sales slowdown was present across both our unaffiliated distribution channel and our wealth management channel. Redemptions also increased slightly compared to the first quarter. From a product perspective, after experiencing net inflows for the first six months last year, our international core equity fund was particularly challenged during the second quarter of 2019, due to changing investor demand patterns and some performance headwinds. The impact of broad market sentiment on net flows is notable in the year-over-year comparison as the foreign large blend category experienced positive flows through the first six months of 2018, but has now shifted to net outflows. Although performance for our emerging market equity strategy has remained solid, we have seen a similar flow dynamic, where it has shifted from positive to negative net flows over the past year.
We have well established teams in both of these strategies, however, and we are confident in their long-term prospects. We remain committed to strengthening and growing our non-US equity franchise and over the past year have added dedicated resources to our international global and emerging market equity strategies. While it was a tough quarter from a flow perspective, we are confident that the combined impact of improving investment performance and foundational improvements in our sales infrastructure will significantly improve our asset flow trends in the future. Within the institutional channel, net outflows were $361 million. We highlighted $500 million of known redemptions last quarter, of which $300 million occurred. The balance of that known amount is expected to remain with us until later in the year. We are focused on future opportunities within our institutional channel, but understand it will take some time to reestablish our presence here. Wealth management assets under administration ended the quarter at $57.4 billion, increasing 2% compared to the first quarter, primarily due to market appreciation.
As planned the pace of advisor attrition continues to slow and we ended the quarter with 1,347 advisors and advisor associates. We are making steady progress on building out our full recruiting capabilities as we drive toward the inflection point for advisor growth. At the same time, we continue to hit new highs in advisor productivity each quarter and ended the second quarter with average productivity of $408,000 for the trailing 12 months, a 30% increase compared to the second quarter of last year.
Turning now to the operating results. Operating income increased $5.8 million as revenues increased 4% on stronger average assets and one additional day in the quarter. The effective investment management fee rate was 63.4 basis points and was relatively consistent with the prior quarter. Simply reflecting mix dynamics within our asset base. In addition to the asset lift and additional day, underwriting and distribution fees benefited from a seasonal increase in commissionable sales.
On the expense side, operating expenses were higher by $5 million entirely due to higher distribution costs of $6.7 million related to the revenue increase. We had another quarter of strong expense management within the controllable expense categories of compensation, G&A, technology, occupancy and marketing and advertising, which totaled $103.5 million for the quarter, a decrease of $1.1 million from an already low first quarter. Improvements and compensation costs from lower equity compensation and a seasonal decrease in payroll taxes were the main drivers of the lower expense.
In addition, while G&A and technology costs were higher than the first quarter, the expected implementation costs from our technology initiatives will not be incurred evenly throughout the year and we continue to expect elevated expenses from those efforts in the back half of the year. Given all these factors, our expectation is that controllable expenses will be in the range of $106 million to $108 million per quarter for the remaining two quarters. As Phil previously mentioned, we announced last month, our intent to outsource the transactional processing operations of our transfer agency.
We expect the transition will impact approximately 150 employees and will be substantially completed by the fourth quarter of 2019. We also expect to record a pre-tax restructuring charge in the range of $4 million to $6 million, which will be spread across the third and fourth quarters of 2019. Income tax expense for this quarter included the previously disclosed charge of $2.4 million or $0.03 related to the shortfall from the vesting of restricted shares. This item drove the effective income tax rate higher for the quarter, but we continue to expect the tax run rate to be in the range of 23% to 25%, excluding the impact of any additional non-recurring or discrete items.
Finally, we ended the quarter with a consistent level of cash and investments compared to last quarter. We made further progress toward our goal of $250 million in share buybacks by the end of 2019 and ended the quarter at 93% complete against that target. Notably since the beginning of 2018, we have reduced outstanding shares by almost 11%. As we shared last quarter, we have been pleased with the flexibility of our current capital return program between the sustainable dividend level and an opportunistic share buyback plan.
I will reiterate that we plan to continue our current practice of tightly managing cash balances at or below their current levels, while maintaining the flexibility our balance sheet affords us to pursue our organic growth plans as well as attractive inorganic opportunities, should they become available in both the Asset Management and Wealth Management spaces. Recall that we have an open share repurchase authorization, which allows a seamless transition as we complete the previously announced $250 million buyback target and look to allocate capital in the future. We are firmly focused on continuing an active capital return program, while maintaining options related to organic and inorganic growth opportunities.
Operator, we would now like to open the call for questions.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
[Operator Instructions] Our first question today comes from Michael Carrier from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead with your question.
Michael Carrier -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
Good morning and thanks for taking the questions. Maybe first one, just on the sales and the flows in terms of the outlook, Phil, you mentioned, like the one and three-year performance showing more improvement, I guess just from like a product standpoint, are you seeing any areas where you're starting to see some renewed interest that eventually could maybe offset some of the redemptions? And I understand what you're saying on like the industry factors being more of a headwind in this environment, but anything on the product side where you are seeing some early -- early signs given the improvement in the performance?
Philip J. Sanders -- Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. Hey Mike. Good morning. Maybe I'll just make a couple of broader comments and I'll let Amy follow up. I'd say in general, if I look back over the last couple of years and I think about a lot of the progress we've made across the organization with respect to institutionalizing a lot of the investment approaches and risk management and kind of the reestablishing our foothold in the marketplace and the sales infrastructure investments and that type of thing, combined with improving performance, we're getting more -- more opportunities to engage with people on a quality basis. Obviously, we've got some strong pockets of performance with respect to the small and mid-cap franchise, large cap growth, science and tech and asset strategy has made significant turnarounds, and we've established credibility on the international side as well, high income and other things. So I'd say in a broad sense, we're having better conversations and we're getting more engaged, but as you know, this is a process and maybe I'll let Amy talk about maybe any specific areas or any additional thought she has on this.
Amy J. Scupham -- Senior Vice President, Distribution
Yeah. Good morning, Michael. I think that all that I would really add to that is when we -- when we look at the first half of this year, we're seeing opportunities to compete for business that we weren't seeing a year ago. And as you recall, a couple of quarters ago I discussed new leadership in the IV channel and then as well as new coverage a new coverage model. So we see some channels having early signs of success, our RIA channel is very well established, doing very well across our emerging market, equity franchise and then our insurance group is really reestablishing the partnerships out in the field and doing very well year-to-date as it relates 2% [Phonetic] to goal. So we're seeing some nice early feedback. The changes that we've made and the evolutions that we've made across the firm have been well received by our clients and by our partners and we're committed to doing this in the right way and taking a long-term approach and we're just excited about what we're seeing. I think Phil mentioned improving performance and asset strategy, strong performance in large cap growth getting some of these larger asset classes, moving in the right direction from a sales standpoint can meaningfully help us as we look forward into the last half of the year.
Michael Carrier -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
Okay, thanks. And then, Ben just two kind of clarifying things on the expense side, I think you mentioned the $106 million to $108 million per quarter in the second half on the discretionary side, but I think you mentioned the outsourcing including some charges during those quarters. So I just want to understand like maybe where those are going to be and then given those moves, I think, you said, you looked at 2020 the discretionary with somewhere around like the [Indecipherable] plus some tech spend, it would be maybe [Indecipherable], but just any change in the longer-term outlook for the discretionary level?
Benjamin R. Clouse -- Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer
Sure, Mike. In regard to the controllable correct I expect $106 million to $108 million for the -- for Q3 and Q4. Incremental to that will be some restructuring charges that we at CADE [Phonetic] here a few weeks ago and gave a range of $4 million to $6 million [Phonetic], those will be spread through that period relatively evenly, I think between Q3 and Q4. In regard to 2020, of course the further out we look, the less precise, I can be. I think inflation is probably a very good proxy for what we would expect in our expense growth, although we'll continue to look to offset that as much as we can through ongoing review of our cost structure. I know I previously talked about, I don't expect a significant long-term increase in technology, once we get through some of the transitions that we are making, that transition cost is probably the most significant variable there in our expense base, as we'll incur that here a bit in the end of 2019 as I mentioned and into 2020 as well. Hopefully that helps.
Michael Carrier -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
Yeah, that's good. Thanks a lot
Benjamin R. Clouse -- Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer
You're welcome.
Operator
Our next question comes from Bill Katz from Citigroup. Please go ahead with your question.
William Katz -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Okay, thank you very much for taking it. So starting with the flows for a moment, I'm seeing some nice growth in the advisory business and then just some continued outflows, I guess, in the non-advisory business. Can you sort of walk me through what kind of inflows are related to the assets coming in the door versus those going out the door and how that might evolve as you look out over the next several quarters if you will?
Shawn M. Mihal -- Senior Vice President, Wealth Management
Yeah. Good morning, Bill. This is Shawn Mihal. I think when you're talking about the flows on the advisory and non-advisory business, you're really focused on the wealth management side, so if, if I'm wrong, just correct me there. But we've been continuing to see over the course of the last few years this migration to the advisory side of the business. I think following within expectations that we're going to continue to see that area of growth and which we've been building out our overarching product platform on the advisory side opening up more of the channel within that advisory business to a variety of different platforms. And inclusive in this year, we've launched a couple of new advisory products. On that advisory side, our guide and investment strategies launched in January. In this past June, we also launched our map direct program. So, opening up the architecture and expanding out that side of the business, which is resulting in that increase in the advisory side of business.
William Katz -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Okay. And then just in terms of the relocation, I guess two-part question here as well. First is any sort of update on timing associated with that and then, b, is that influencing your guidance in any way as you think about preliminary via 2020 sort of inflation plus or minus ongoing review?
Benjamin R. Clouse -- Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer
Good morning, Bill. In regard to timing really all I can share is that we are working through the process to assess what our options might be. We don't have any better indication on that at the moment. In regard to expense guidance, I don't expect anything of significance through '19 and '20 and again related to my comments on the timing, we'll certainly incorporate anything we learn there, but I expect it to be in the longer term.
William Katz -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Okay, that's helpful. Thank you.
Benjamin R. Clouse -- Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer
You're welcome.
Operator
Our next question comes from Dan Fannon from Jefferies & Company. Please go ahead with your question.
Daniel Fannon -- Jefferies & Company -- Analyst
Thanks. So just a question on capital and M&A. In your prepared remarks and I think last quarter also, you highlighted the potential for both wealth management and/or across those two segments, potential M&A. So just curious how if those are nice to have or kind of how focused you are on potentially inorganic growth at this point given where you sit with your core business.
Philip J. Sanders -- Chief Executive Officer
Well, I think we're definitely focused on and those opportunities as they come about. One of the strengths of our Company over the last couple of years has been the balance sheet and I feel like, I look back and we've made a significant transformation in our Company on a much better positioned today to execute on acquisitions or inorganic growth opportunities than we could have been a couple of years ago. We've done all this while controlling the cash and again accumulating that. Now we have a lot of financial flexibility. So I think you can see, we've been pretty vocal about it. I think we -- our intent is to grow our wealth manager as well as look for opportunities within the asset management to expand capabilities.
You can see the potential benefits of diversifying and broadening the revenue stream across our organization and reducing the volatility of the operating model. And I think it could just highlight a lot of potential opportunities down the road, but it is something where we're actively looking at, but obviously you know as we said in the past, it's not something we're going to do just for the sake of doing, we're going to be prudent, we're going to be pragmatic about it and disciplined in our approach and be mindful of our culture. But I think we have a lot of flexibility in an industry that's seeing a lot of disruption. We're in a position to take advantage of that hopefully.
Daniel Fannon -- Jefferies & Company -- Analyst
Got it. And then the follow-up on pricing. You guys changed pricing a little while back in terms of trying to get more competitive in certain products. So I wanted to see where -- how do you think that's impacted gross sales or you've seen the desired effect and then also going forward, if that's a tool, you might be using more proactively on a go-forward basis?
Philip J. Sanders -- Chief Executive Officer
I might start with an overarching comment. I'll let Amy talk about maybe the specifics. I'd say, in general, it is something we'll review on an ongoing basis, recall we made those broader changes about a year ago or so. My expectation is going forward, they would be a little bit more strategic and kind of ongoing and probably incremental in nature based on the product and opportunities in that type of thing. But obviously, we know in this industry, you've got to have, not only have stronger performance in a properly resourced products, strong risk management, you have to have a product that is competitively priced and so we're committed to doing that as well. So I think that the go forward options will be more incremental, but on an ongoing basis. Maybe Amy, you can address and see what your -- the feedback in the marketplace has been.
Amy J. Scupham -- Senior Vice President, Distribution
The feedback in the market place obviously has been very positive as it relates to how it's impacted sales. It's a little early to tell, but we have a bit of a mixed bag today. So, some products have seen a quick pick up, some have seen less so. And of course, there are so many things that play into it in addition to price, it's hard for us to really tell from that standpoint. I mean, I think a point that I would make is, as we look to really -- to increase the competitiveness of our pricing and our products in the marketplace, we've made a lot of progress in the moves that we made last year and a substantial amount of our asset sits at an average price or lower than average price standpoint.
Daniel Fannon -- Jefferies & Company -- Analyst
Great, thank you.
Operator
Our next question comes from Kenneth Lee from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead with your question.
Kenneth Lee -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Hi, thanks for taking my question. Just a one on the recent appointment of Dan Hanson as the CIO and I think you touched upon this in the prepared remarks regarding ESG, but wondering if you could outline any specifics in terms of potential changes to the investment process that you envision and perhaps product development efforts as well? Thanks.
Philip J. Sanders -- Chief Executive Officer
Sure. I'd say it's a little too soon to get into specifics, but obviously Dan's background in ESG is something that was attractive, but more importantly, it's been as approach to ESG investing. He's got a lot of experience in managing money in the real world and has an over a decade worth of top level performance in integrating ESG and fundamental research. So I think as we sought out disposition, it was really somebody you could come and bring a new level of -- new perspectives, new capabilities. Look we know ESG is something that's on the minds of our clients and other investors and that's something that we -- we want to be able to offer products to. I don't think it will result in a significant change to our investment process across our organization. That's one of the beauties of Dan's background.
Now let him maybe just chime in here in a second. But as we had conversations along the way, it's clear first and foremost, as we've indicated, he is a fundamental Investor and his approach is something that's very pragmatic and one where I think we'll see a framework type of approach that can be implemented in different ways across our product suite. So a lot more to say on specifics, but, Dan, I don't know if there's anything you want to add in terms of how you think about it?
Daniel P. Hanson -- Senior Vice President and Chief Investment Officer
Yeah. Well, thanks for the question Kenneth and I guess just quickly in terms of changes to the investment process. My attitude and our attitude is we're fundamental investors. So we really believe it's hard to separate business analysis of sustainability issues from just sort of core bottom up fundamental analysis. So to the [Indecipherable] issues are part of the material investment case that's something that any fundamental analyst is integrating. We think there is an opportunity to be relevant to the market to serve clients, but overwhelmingly we would take a view of pragmatic approach, not a dogmatic formulaic approach. We will be looking more at ways we can serve clients in a way that's authentic to our approach and certainly have more to share in the future.
Kenneth Lee -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Great. Just one follow-up on the wealth management side, and I think it touched upon this briefly in the prepared remarks as well, but I wonder if you could just comment on the current recruiting environment for experienced advisors? Thank you.
Shawn M. Mihal -- Senior Vice President, Wealth Management
Good morning, Kenneth. This is Shawn Mihal and -- the recruiting aspect, we've been working through over the course of the last several months, really building out our platform for the future and inclusive inside that has been building out a more robust recruiting department as we really changed the structure of how we recruited and recruit advisors. So certainly in the past, we were more focused on bringing in significant numbers of advisors that were newer to the industry. Going forward, we are changing our approach and attention to those more higher producing, higher performing advisors. So as we've been working in setting the foundation and getting these recruiting positions filled, our pipeline is starting to become a little bit more robust as we've gained additional attention from prospective advisors as we've worked to introduce ourselves out there with regard to a lot of the changes that we made over the last 18 months. So we are seeing an uptick in the activity. We do expect that it's going to take a little bit more time to the second half of the year into 2020 as we really get the recruiting resources working together as a team and get them all in place here over the course of the next couple of months. So more to report back as we continue to stand that up.
Daniel P. Hanson -- Senior Vice President and Chief Investment Officer
Kenneth, I would add just to what Sean said, as a reminder, we also augmented our advisor payout grid, the beginning of this year, which just contributes to our overall environment of being an attractive wealth manager for that talent.
Kenneth Lee -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Got you. Very helpful. Thank you very much.
Operator
Our next question comes from Robert Lee from KBW. Please go ahead with your question.
Robert Lee -- Keefe, Bruyette & Woods -- Analyst
Great, thanks. Good morning, thanks for taking my question. The first one, I guess, maybe a little bit of a modeling question and this is just trying to better grasp the change in the transfer agency on the financials. So can you -- obviously, I assume there is some shareholder services revenue that goes away and you did mention that there is some affected employees too. So should we be thinking this in the no kind of bottom line impact, but could you help us kind of think about the moving pieces and I'm assuming that's incorporated within your $106 million to $108 million expense guidance?
Benjamin R. Clouse -- Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer
Rob, that's correct. The first part of your statement, there really won't be a significant bottom line impact. Again, the savings created there, we are passing on to fund shareholders ultimately for their benefit. There will be some movement in our P&L, essentially there is a revenue and expense gross up that we'll see move a little bit in 2020. But again, the bottom line really won't move with any significance.
Robert Lee -- Keefe, Bruyette & Woods -- Analyst
Okay, great. And just -- if I think of -- in the wealth management channel, can you maybe just update us if we were to think of total product sales, I mean, what is going to a fee-based account or more traditional type fund sales [Indecipherable] still occur. Can you maybe just update us on how much of that are you kind of, although as you capturing into Waddell managed products today and are you -- do you feel like you're at kind of a stable level of that or is there any reason you would expect that to improve or worsen from here?
Shawn M. Mihal -- Senior Vice President, Wealth Management
Yeah. Robert, this is Shawn and maybe I'll take this and if anyone else, Ben wants to add some additional color comments to it. We've been opening this product platform quite a bit over the course of the last year and a half to two years and obviously with launching of some of the advisory programs in mid '17 was really the initiation of that and forecasting kind of the flows have been inside expectations of what we've seen migrating from the affiliated funds over to these other advisory programs and rationalizing into other investment products. When we look across the entirety of the wealth management side of the business, we've been maintaining in that low 70% range and think at the end of the quarter at about 70.4% concentration ratio of the affiliated funds inside that channel. As we reported before, we do expect that to moderate slightly over time as new sales are really flowing into a broader product spectrum. So we are seeing -- as we've opened these platforms, the additional competition with other investment products that are available inside those platforms.
So we are starting to see a little bit of moderation of that overall concentration, but again, slightly we saw some, a little bit more accelerated when we first launched the programs and now it's the pace is really resumed to a point where we're seeing this go forward investments going into the advisory side, really rationalizing out to a much more reasonable allocation of affiliated funds to unaffiliated funds. So we do expect it to stay inside those expectations, inside the advisory programs that we launched. There are still [Phonetic] exposure to affiliated funds and we're seeing depending on programs, anywhere from the single-digit type allocation all the way up into the double-digit 20% range allocations into affiliated funds depending on the programs that have more open architecture associated with them. So we'll continue to monitor that, but we are, as I mentioned, staying inside expectations.
Robert Lee -- Keefe, Bruyette & Woods -- Analyst
OK, thank you for taking my questions.
Operator
Our next question comes from Glenn Schorr from Evercore. Please go ahead with your question.
Glenn Schorr -- Evercore ISI -- Analyst
Thanks. Kind of follow-up on some of the questions and one of your comments. When you noted this type of environment that's people are putting more money into the lower risk products, fixed income money market, if you look at your product set it impacts you and I'm sure a lot of people love the big dividend and the huge share count shrinkage. But how do you balance that capital return with having enough product to endure these type of product preference cycles and have a more durable and steadier flow stream. So I guess that's a long-winded question of asking do you have enough product and what new products do you have on the [Indecipherable]?
Philip J. Sanders -- Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, Glenn, that's something obviously we think about and I think I tried to touch on this a little bit earlier. I do think there are some real opportunities in long-term benefits by broadening and diversifying our product mix. Within the asset manager obviously, we're under indexed to fixed income capabilities and so I think there is an opportunity there for us to be acquiring some talent or our new capabilities.
I think it generally -- international has been an area we've kind of grown organically and been reasonably successful at it, but there is also one that I expect to see growing long-term demand, so that would be an opportunity. Multi-asset, we have some good history in that type of thing. So I do think there are opportunities to broaden the product set, diversify, a little bit and get into some more of them uncorrelated to US domestic equity.
Also, as you know we are looking at internal product development as well with respect to potentially some concentrated versions of existing strategy. So that's a real opportunity. In other way to diversify and broaden the revenue stream and reduce the volatility of the operating model is to grow the wealth manager and that's -- obviously that's something else we're focused on as well.
So I think you make a good point. Certainly, we have the flexibility in terms of the strong capital position to take advantage of these opportunities. I don't think it's necessarily mutually exclusive, whether we have a strong capital return program and also the ability to do niche acquisitions or complementary acquisition. So -- it is something we're focused on in this environment for sure.
Glenn Schorr -- Evercore ISI -- Analyst
Maybe the related follow-up. It has to do with the marketing dollars. Maybe you could talk a little bit about what you feel is working where the best dollars are spent right now?
Amy J. Scupham -- Senior Vice President, Distribution
Glenn, are you asking from like a distribution standpoint, our best partnerships, is that where you're going with that question?
Glenn Schorr -- Evercore ISI -- Analyst
I actually less it open on purpose to see where you go with it. Whether it be certain distribution channels or specific products that you think has the right performance profile right now that, that could sell?
Amy J. Scupham -- Senior Vice President, Distribution
Yeah. Okay, so I'll talk a little bit about that and if anybody wants to add anything else as it relates to the other parts of the business, certainly can. We have some strong distribution partnerships that we put dollars into. Inside of those, we've been able to be highlighted in products such as mid-cap income opportunities, which is an income-oriented version of our mid-cap strategies that -- a lot of our partners have either highlighted it in a newsletter or as a top fund for a quarter or whatever. And so we've done a lot around that. We have put money from a distribution standpoint back into the hands of our sales force really to have them, have those dollars in their hands to be able to drive the business in their individual channels. We went through a restructure that created a scenario, where our national channel wholesale force has approximately a 50% inherited rate of new advisors in each of their territories. So what are different ways that we can get our investment capabilities in our investment people out in front of groups of advisors to showcase the evolution that we've done. So we've put dollars there this year and we're seeing good returns on that as well.
Philip J. Sanders -- Chief Executive Officer
I might just add that, from a broader perspective it needs to be clear and follow up from Amy's points. I think if you look at our sales mixes, historically, it was very wirehouse [Phonetic] centric and as Amy indicated that we've made some meaningful investments in our sales infrastructure in developing different channels to make sure our products are hitting all available distribution channels and getting to the right opportunities and having a broader, more comprehensive sales approach.
Amy J. Scupham -- Senior Vice President, Distribution
Yeah, I would agree with that. I think, we spent the bulk of 2018 really building out our professional buyer group, which would -- I would refer to as our institutional and institutional like channels, and so that was in progress throughout 2018. It's a fully staffed group today and they're out reintroducing Ivy in most parts of the marketplaces. So there is some dollars being spent there. In addition to that -- to kind of go back to your first question, Glenn, I think, in addition to any kind of product development or other new products to go to the marketplace with one thing that we've really tried to focus on is what is the vehicle that's necessary or how are people consuming the investment strategies that we do have. So the opening of model delivery portfolios. I think is substantially important as in a lot of long only equity products, that is a major way of consumption for a lot of our advisor force
Glenn Schorr -- Evercore ISI -- Analyst
I appreciate all that. Thanks.
Operator
Our next question comes from Michael Cyprys from Morgan Stanley. Please go with your question.
Michael Cyprys -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst
Hey, good morning. Can you guys mentioned that you are open to inorganic growth with your wealth manager. I was just hoping you could elaborate on your framework and criteria there for M&A on the wealth management side? Is this more about scale and expanding the number of advisors or more about technology capabilities? Just curious how you're thinking about that and how you prioritize inorganic growth on the wealth management side versus the asset management side?
Shawn M. Mihal -- Senior Vice President, Wealth Management
Yeah, Michael, this is Shawn. I'll take the first portion of that and then some others may fill-in on the wealth management side of the business from an inorganic growth perspective. We've been doing a number of transitionary projects related to technology and we're continuing to invest in technology. And I think Ben provided some commentary with respect to our technology initiatives. So we're continuing those efforts. So this is in purely focused on the technology side of things as we have been doing a significant amount of innovation inside that space. But from an overall scale and growth perspective, we're really looking at the foundation that we've been building inside the wealth management side of the business with the technology, the payout grid, the support services model to really be a scalable business model and looking across the recruiting capabilities as well as other opportunities outside of that from an acquisition standpoint. It's really presenting that opportunity to bring in a set of advisors and a more mass scale that are more aligned to the productivity of our existing advisors, really focusing on more of those higher performing advisors to scale that line of business, specifically from a growth perspective.
Michael Cyprys -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst
Okay, great. And then are you also able to provide an update on flows for July?
Amy J. Scupham -- Senior Vice President, Distribution
Yeah, I mean, I think flows for July look very similar to what you've seen as we've moved through the year. So sales are still slightly depressed, but redemptions are also down slightly year-over-year. So it's much of the same.
Michael Cyprys -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst
Okay, thank you.
Operator
And our next question comes from Mac Sykes from Gabelli. Please go ahead with your question.
Mac Sykes -- Gabelli & Co. -- Analyst
Hello. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for taking my questions. Just a quick one. I'm sorry if I missed this, but could you just remind us about the repurchase program metrics and timing, and whether at this point, it makes more sense to be more opportunistic just given your capital position?
Benjamin R. Clouse -- Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer
Sure. Good morning, Mac. As a reminder about the framework, in October of '17, we announced a $250 million buyback target as I said in my prepared comments, through June 30, we were about 93% complete toward that target and expect we'll complete that here in the latter half of 2019. In regard to going forward, we continue to be opportunistic with share buybacks as potentially adjusted for inorganic opportunities that we may pursue. As a reminder, we do have an open authorization, which will continue to operate under, at whatever point we complete our $250 million target. We continue to intend to manage our cash balance at/or below its current level.
Michael Cyprys -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst
Great. Phil, you did a nice job improving both the asset management and wealth management kind of individually in some respects. And we've seen some recent transactions in the marketplace where those segments were sold off individually. Could you just update us kind of on the total platform and the importance of having both of those segments for the Waddell?
Philip J. Sanders -- Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, well, I think for us, obviously we're a little bit unique in the marketplace, given our heritage and on the heavy proprietary exposure of Ivy Funds within our -- within our wealth manager. So that provide some unique opportunities and challenges for our Company. But we're committed really to both of these businesses and we see real opportunities to grow the Company overall. And I think the wealth managers are little bit of an under-appreciated in our eyes and we've made a lot of improvements we think in over the last couple of years.
As Shawn as indicated on a lot of these calls, it's -- this is a grind. I mean it's gradually opening up the architecture. We're providing better technology, better services, better opportunities, more choices for advisors and clients. So we're at the point now where we think this is an opportunity to actually grow this business. And so we're kind of excited about the longer-term potential. We spent a lot of the last two years establishing in getting us in this position. So I think for us it makes strategic sense to keep -- to hold on to these businesses and grow them and develop them and we see real opportunities together.
Michael Cyprys -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst
Great. Thank you.
Philip J. Sanders -- Chief Executive Officer
Yeah.
Operator
[Operator Instruction] Our next question is a follow-up from Bill Katz from Citigroup. Please go ahead with your question.
William Katz -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Okay, thank you very much. Couple of maybe questions inside it. Just in terms of the balance sheet, I appreciate to accommodate this discussion about sort of incremental buybacks from here and sort of cash levels. We are seeing a lot of investments, what's the latest thinking in terms of -- sort of sustainable seed capital and how much working capital do you think you need to maintain to the extent that the inorganic opportunities when they start to present themselves?
Benjamin R. Clouse -- Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer
Good morning, Bill. In regard to seed, we currently have a seed portfolio around $350 million of our balance sheet of our investment balance. I don't expect, we would see significant change in that, in particular in the near term as we think about product development, in regard to I apologize, I forgot the second part of your question.
William Katz -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Woking Capital?
Benjamin R. Clouse -- Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer
Oh, thank you. Sorry. In regard to working capital, we generate significant free cash flow. As you know, our primary need for working capital is product development and in the seed portfolio, so we don't have a particular need for a significant amount of working capital beyond that and consider that capital available for investment or growth beyond our seed.
William Katz -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Okay. And just one last one. Thanks for patience this morning. When you think about the new FAs [Phonetic] that are coming in. How do you sort of triangulate about what do you think the effective advisory fee rate might be versus the incremental margin of those assets coming on?
Shawn M. Mihal -- Senior Vice President, Wealth Management
Bill, this is Shawn. Maybe just to clarify the question, asking on the effective fee rate. Are you talking about on the advisory programs or are you talking about payout grid?
William Katz -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Advisory, correct.
Shawn M. Mihal -- Senior Vice President, Wealth Management
Yeah, the effective fee rate, I think it's typically been in about the 110 basis points range, which is fairly consistent with the data that we look at across the industry averages that we pulled down from some of the providers out there -- so and certain programs might be a little lower, some might be a little bit higher, but certainly tracking to that average. So as we look to bring on existing advisors, I don't anticipate seeing or bringing on new advisors into the program with new assets. I don't anticipate seeing a substantial change in those effective fee rates since we're tracking pretty much to the average.
William Katz -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Okay, thank you.
Operator
And our next question is a follow up from Robert Lee from KBW.
Robert Lee -- Keefe, Bruyette & Woods -- Analyst
Great, thanks for taking my follow-up. Maybe this is a little bit of a left field kind of question. But on the inorganic growth, I mean, in the wealth management channel, clearly, you've seen over the years different types of broker dealers, wealth managers decided they needed to offer banking products to be competitive and [Indecipherable] complete product set to their customers. So, I mean do you view that is necessary and does that inform your inorganic, how, what you look for inorganically, which maybe includes a tiny bank or something to capture banking products?
Shawn M. Mihal -- Senior Vice President, Wealth Management
So let me -- this is Shawn. Let me touch on the first part of that, but from the inorganic growth perspective in the product set, as you are likely aware, we clear through purging, which has a number of different products available and services available, particularly as it relates to more of the high net worth type clients. And we've expanded out that product set and it's not just over the last two years, we've had a number of different initiatives and products and services that we've introduced through purging over the last several years and we're continuing to expand out, as purging continues to evolve its product set.
So providing a holistic competitive platform all the way from -- as we talked about before -- early accumulators or with the high net worth investors. So making certain services, loan advance type programs, trust services, even some private banking services and things like that through that platform is really where we've expanded out those product sets and we're continuing to evaluate to fill in any areas of gaps where we feel that we really need to compete in that space. So that is something that we'll continue to evolve over time, but we have made significant progress in bringing in a variety of different services for those high net worth clients in that space.
Robert Lee -- Keefe, Bruyette & Woods -- Analyst
Great, thank you.
Operator
And ladies and gentlemen with that will end today's question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the conference call back over to management for any closing remarks.
Mike Daley -- Vice President, Corporate Controller & Investor Relations
Just want to thank everybody for joining us today. We look forward to catching up to you in a few months. Thank you very much. Have a great day.
Operator
[Operator Closing Remarks]
Duration: 58 minutes
Call participants:
Mike Daley -- Vice President, Corporate Controller & Investor Relations
Philip J. Sanders -- Chief Executive Officer
Benjamin R. Clouse -- Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer
Amy J. Scupham -- Senior Vice President, Distribution
Shawn M. Mihal -- Senior Vice President, Wealth Management
Daniel P. Hanson -- Senior Vice President and Chief Investment Officer
Michael Carrier -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
William Katz -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Daniel Fannon -- Jefferies & Company -- Analyst
Kenneth Lee -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Robert Lee -- Keefe, Bruyette & Woods -- Analyst
Glenn Schorr -- Evercore ISI -- Analyst
Michael Cyprys -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst
Mac Sykes -- Gabelli & Co. -- Analyst
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