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Q1 2025 Northern Trust Corp Earnings Call

In This Article:

Participants

Jennifer Childe; Senior Vice President, Director of Investor Relations; Northern Trust Corp

Michael O'Grady; Chairman of the Board, President, Chief Executive Officer; Northern Trust Corp

David Fox; Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President; Northern Trust Corp

Steven Chubak; Analyst; Wolfe Research

Betsy Graseck; Analyst; Morgan Stanley

Ken Usdin; Analyst; Autonomous Research

Mike Mayo; Analyst; Wells Fargo Securities

Ebrahim Poonawala; Analyst; Bank of America

Glenn Schorr; Analyst; Evercore ISI

Gerard Cassidy; Analyst; RBC

David Smith; Analyst; Truist Securities

Jim Mitchell; Analyst; Seaport Global Securities

Vivek Juneja; Analyst; JPMorgan

Alex Blostein; Analyst; Goldman Sachs

Presentation

Operator

Good day, and welcome to the Northern Trust Corporation First Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded.
At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Jennifer Childe, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Jennifer Childe

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Northern Trust Corporation's First Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. Joining me on our call this morning is Mike O'Grady, our Chairman and CEO; Dave Fox, our Chief Financial Officer; John Landers, our Controller; and Trace Stegeman from our Investor Relations team. Our first quarter earnings press release and financial trends report are both available on our website at northerntrust.com. Also on our website, you will find our quarterly earnings review presentation, which we will use to guide today's conference call.
This April 22 call is being webcast live on northerntrust.com. The only authorized rebroadcast of this call is the replay that will be made available on our website through May 21. Northern Trust disclaims any continuing accuracy of the information provided in this call after today. Please refer to our safe harbor statement regarding forward-looking statements on Page 12 of the accompanying presentation which will apply to our commentary on this call.
(Operator Instructions) Thank you again for joining us today. Let me turn the call over to Mike O'Grady.

Michael O'Grady

Thank you, Jennifer. Let me join in welcoming you to our first quarter 2025 earnings call. Our first quarter results demonstrate the strength and resilience of our business model. We generated our third consecutive quarter of positive operating leverage, driven by mid-single-digit growth in both trust fees and net interest income while managing expenses well. EPS, excluding notables, increased 13% and we generated a return on common equity of 13%, both while boosting capital levels meaningfully and returning $435 million to shareholders.
Our results benefited from strong underlying market performance and elevated volatility levels, which drove strong capital markets activity late in the quarter and extended into April. Our performance also reflects continued progress implementing our One Northern Trust strategy, our road map for becoming a consistently high-performing company and producing meaningful value for all stakeholders.
Let me give you an update on our progress. First, optimize growth. We entered 2025 with good momentum, continuing to embed collaboration between our business units, leveraging the capabilities of the entire firm. We advanced our enterprise-wide growth initiatives, which align with key client needs and opportunities, including alternative investment solutions, family office services and liquidity solutions. We also concentrated on core initiatives within each of our business units.
As it relates to alternatives, fundraising is particularly strong within our Asset Management segment and we are on track to nearly double our capital raise versus prior year averages. Within Asset Servicing, new business activity in the first quarter was brisk, particularly within private markets where our technology and operational expertise have been consistent differentiators. During the quarter, we were selected as the global outsourced private capital administration provider for Igneo Infrastructure Partners, a $20 billion alternative manager specializing in global infrastructure investments.
Expanding upon our long-standing relationship with private equity firm Alchemy Partners, we were awarded the asset servicing business for a new $1 billion special opportunities fund launch. Semi-liquid funds and the democratization of private markets globally remain an important area of focus, and we extended our leading market share in the quarter. Northern Trust is currently supporting over half of the approved long-term asset funds or LTAF in the UK with an additional 10 in the pipeline.
Building upon the strength of our upper tier wealth business, our Wealth Management segment formally rolled out a dedicated ultra high net worth segment, which we've named family office solutions, focusing on wealthy individuals and families with more than $100 million in net worth. Already, we've seen very good client traction. Performance in our Global Family Office also continues to be strong. New business activity remained robust, particularly within international markets. During the quarter, we onboarded several marquee relationships in EMEA, strengthening our position as one of the leading administrators of private investment office assets in Europe.
As it relates to liquidity, we've seen a healthy increase in deposit levels as a number of clients have taken a risk-off approach, reallocating portfolios and raising cash. In Asset Management, we generated positive liquidity flows in the first quarter, continuing the trend we've seen over the past 9 quarters. Beyond liquidity, our suite of actively managed offerings, which skew towards high-quality, low volatility and tax-efficient products tend to perform very well in the current environment, and we're seeing significant client interest.
We had $1.7 billion of inflows into our custom tax optimized SMAs, which are capitalizing on market volatility to deliver increased after-tax value. We're also broadening our ETF platform, having recently filed to launch 11 new fixed income ETFs later this year. Meaningful progress was also made against our other 2 strategic pillars: strengthening resiliency and managing risk and driving productivity. We continue on the multiyear effort to uplift our risk and control system, we transitioned from design to implementation of new capabilities that will better enable us to systematically anticipate, identify, manage and control risks across all areas of our organization.
We also advanced along our technology journey, driving towards a more stable, scalable, safe and secure environment for our stakeholders. Productivity initiatives for 2025 are well on track, fueling further critical investments in growth. Within the office of the COO, we're reengineering our operating model to enhance efficiency, standardized services and streamline processes. At the same time, we're making continued headway with workforce initiatives and third-party spend, including pursuing further vendor savings.
To wrap up, we're off to a solid start to the year. While we face a highly challenging macroeconomic and market backdrop, we enter the current environment well positioned to navigate a wide range of outcomes. Our balance sheet strength allow us to meet the evolving needs of our clients while pressing ahead with our strategic objectives.
And with that, I'll turn it over to Dave to review the financials. Dave?