2025-02-10 Interactive Brokers Group, Inc. Presents at 2025 UBS Financial Services Conference
Brennan Hawken UBS Investment Bank
All right. Good afternoon. Thanks, everyone, for joining. I'm pleased to be joined by Paul Brody, CFO at Interactive Brokers.
各位，下午好。感谢大家参加会议。我很高兴与Interactive Brokers的首席财务官Paul Brody一同出席。
Brennan Hawken UBS Investment Bank
I'd love to dive right into growth actually. Last year, really tremendous growth at Interactive. It's 33% account growth, I want to say, 30% year-over-year -- 33% on client equity, actually, pardon me. So you look ahead this year, already started, what do you see as the key drivers of account growth? And are there any particular segments or innovations, product innovations that you think could have a meaningful impact?
我想直接谈谈增长。去年Interactive Brokers的增长非常惊人——账户增长33%，我想说，按同比计算是30%——实际上，客户权益增长33%，抱歉。展望今年，业务已经起步了，你认为账户增长的主要驱动因素是什么？有没有哪些特定的细分市场或产品创新，你认为能够产生显著影响？
Paul Brody CFO, Treasurer, Secretary & Director
Sure. Well, more of the same. We've been pretty successful at growing that client base on what is still a relatively low marketing and advertising spend. We've seen it pretty much across the board, particularly in the individual's account segment, but also in IBrokers, the introducing brokers. There's a steady pipeline of those IBrokers, and that brings us certain kinds of advantages.
当然。总体来说就是保持现有增长势头。我们在以相对较低的营销和广告支出情况下成功地扩大了客户基础。这种增长几乎在所有渠道都能看到，尤其是在个人账户细分市场中，同时在IBrokers——也就是引介经纪商领域——也有所体现。这些引介经纪商源源不断，为我们带来了一些独特优势。
We're not -- the IBrokers may bring us fully disclosed accounts, which means we put all the underlying accounts on our platform and service them like we would our direct customers, but some come in as omnibus. And as a result, they're doing a lot of the up-front work. They have client interface and maintaining accounts and so forth. And -- but we're getting all the same volume business, margin lending, et cetera. So we would expect more of that going forward, sure.
我们注意到，引介经纪商有时会为我们带来全披露账户，也就是说，我们会将所有基础账户纳入我们的平台并像对待直接客户那样服务；但也有一些账户以综合账户的形式出现。因此，他们承担了大量前期工作，包括客户界面管理、账户维护等。不过，我们获得的业务量，包括保证金贷款等，依然是相同的。因此，我们预期未来这种趋势将持续增加。
Brennan Hawken UBS Investment Bank
Yes. What is the pipeline on the entities? I mean, how many -- how does it compare today versus where it was, let's say, a year or 2 ago?
是的。那么引介经纪商的管道情况如何？也就是说，数量上今天与一两年前相比如何？
Paul Brody CFO, Treasurer, Secretary & Director
It's a steady stream. A year ago, we talked about a specific large international bank...
稳定不断。一年前，我们曾提到过一家特定的大型国际银行……
Brennan Hawken UBS Investment Bank
Yes, I remember.
是的，我记得。
Paul Brody CFO, Treasurer, Secretary & Director
[indiscernible], which naturally took longer than we would have hoped only because large international banks move a little bit more slowly than we do. So -- but it's more a steady stream of smaller than that IBrokers, and that's perfectly a productive activity for us.
【听不清】这自然比我们预期的要慢一些，仅仅因为大型国际银行的动作比我们要慢一些。不过，这更多的是一批规模较小的引介经纪商源源不断进入，这对我们来说完全是一项富有成效的活动。
Brennan Hawken UBS Investment Bank
Right. Okay. Margin loan growth has been really impressive, too. January, I want to say was like nearly 50% year-over-year. So have you -- this is sort of inherent in the question, right? Clearly, there's more risk appetite. So that's a reflection or an outcome of that. But is there any particular client behavior around the usage of margin that you've noticed that would suggest as a focus on a particular asset class or any increase in risk taking?
没错。好的。保证金贷款的增长也非常令人印象深刻。我想说，今年一月同比增长近50%。那么，你们有没有注意到有关保证金使用的特定客户行为，暗示他们在某一资产类别上有更高的风险偏好，或者风险承受能力有所增强？这也是问题的一部分，显然风险偏好有所上升，这是这种现象的反映或结果。
Paul Brody CFO, Treasurer, Secretary & Director
So we don't track it so much by asset class. We're happy to do margin lending with our own risk management methods. We have sophisticated risk management that is real time. That takes into account liquidity of markets and concentration of positions and inherent volatility in the underlying positions. And yes, it is largely, in the market, takes a risk on attitude, then we're the beneficiary of that.
我们并不会特别按资产类别跟踪保证金使用情况。我们很乐意采用自有的风险管理方法进行保证金贷款，我们拥有实时且复杂的风险管理系统，能够考虑到市场流动性、头寸集中度以及基础资产的内在波动性。确实，这在很大程度上反映了市场的风险偏好，我们正是这一现象的受益者。
And -- but it's also important to put it in the context that one way to look at it is our aggregate margin lending is about 11% of our customer equity, which is, from a historical perspective, actually a relatively low number. And so does that mean there's room to grow? Maybe from that measure. But most of this is coming from the market's take on risk on versus risk off.
另外，将其放在一个背景下考虑也很重要：我们整体的保证金贷款大约占客户权益的11%，从历史角度看，这其实是一个相对较低的数字。那么，这是否意味着还有增长空间？也许从这一指标来看是有的，但大部分增长还是取决于市场风险偏好的变化。
Brennan Hawken UBS Investment Bank
Sure. When you think about that metric because we track that, too, we've noticed it's sort of been coming down, right. It's sort of a range. But is there any change in the customer makeup or your client base that might suggest lower levels of margin vis-à-vis the client equity?
当然。因为我们也跟踪这一指标，我们注意到这个比例似乎有所下降，呈现出一定区间波动。但是否有客户构成或客户群体方面的变化，暗示着相对于客户权益而言，保证金水平更低？
Paul Brody CFO, Treasurer, Secretary & Director
We can't point to any -- there's no straight line connection between that. Margin lending is -- it is across -- an across-the-board activity. And there will always be some accounts in each segment that are utilizing it more and some less.
我们无法指出具体原因——两者之间没有直接线性关系。保证金贷款是一项普遍活动，各个细分市场中总会有一些账户使用较多，也会有一些使用较少。
Brennan Hawken UBS Investment Bank
Okay. Got it. Thinking about rate sensitivity since we're on the balance sheet, right. Are you able to increase the stability or durability of the NII in any way? Like maybe some kind of a hedging strategy or adjustment in the balance sheet that you might consider?
好的，明白了。考虑到这项业务会计入资产负债表，你们是否能够以某种方式提升净利息收入（NII）的稳定性或持久性？比如采用某种对冲策略或者调整资产负债表？
Paul Brody CFO, Treasurer, Secretary & Director
So it's important how you look at rate sensitivity. We have a built-in spread model that says that we will pay interest to our customers on a benchmark minus something. Say, in the U.S., it's Fed funds minus 50 basis points, and that's a locked-in spread. So as the benchmark goes up and down, that's a constant number and it fluctuates. It expands with expanding balances, which is exactly what we saw in the fourth quarter when rates came down, our balance has actually expanded more than that, and we were able to maintain that certain level.
所以，关键在于如何看待利率敏感性。我们有一个内置的利差模型，即我们会按照一个基准减去一定点数的方式向客户支付利息。比如，在美国，是联邦基金利率减50个基点，这个利差是固定的。随着基准利率的波动，这个固定数值会波动，同时随着余额的扩大而扩展——正如我们在第四季度看到的，当利率下降时，我们的余额实际上扩展得更多，并且我们能够维持在某一水平。
Where the sensitivity comes from is what we call fully sensitive balances, small balances in accounts, first $10,000, we don't pay interest on before we start to pay a good market level of interest. And we have house capital. That's all invested at current short-term rates. So that is, in fact, sensitive to rates going up and down.
利率敏感性主要来源于所谓的“完全敏感余额”，即账户中的小额余额，比如前1万美元，我们不会支付利息，直到开始支付符合市场水平的利息。另外，我们还有自有资本，全部按照当前短期利率投资。因此，这部分实际上对利率的波动非常敏感。
But quite frankly, the way to look at it is that we would expect our rate sensitivity to go up, and that's a good thing because it means that our customer balances are going up even more and raising the baseline from which that sensitivity comes from.
但坦率地说，我们预计我们的利率敏感性会提高，这是一件好事，因为这意味着我们的客户余额将进一步增加，从而提升产生敏感性的基数。
Brennan Hawken UBS Investment Bank
Right. Okay. Revenue from securities lending has been sort of in focus. You guys, I guess, put a new graphic in your investor presentation that helps with this, but I think it might be helpful to walk through for the audience and folks listening to the webcast.
好的。各位，下午好。证券借贷收入一直是大家关注的焦点。我想你们在投资者介绍中放了一个新的图表来说明这一点，但我觉得对现场观众和网络直播听众来说，详细讲解一下会更有帮助。
So number one, there's a slide to point to, which I thought was really instructive. And then could you maybe talk about what's going on there and why the securities lending revenue, when you consider it in total, is actually way more stable than it looks on a reported basis?
首先，有一张幻灯片，我认为非常具有启发性。接下来能否请您讲解一下那张幻灯片所展示的情况，以及为什么从总体来看，证券借贷收入实际上比财报上显示的要稳定得多？
Paul Brody CFO, Treasurer, Secretary & Director
Sure. And thanks very much for pointing to that presentation, that chart, and the -- the thanks go to Nancy Stuebe, our Director of Investor Relations, who came up with that because you all have been asking so many questions to gain an understanding of it, which we can appreciate.
当然。非常感谢您提到那份报告、那张图表，也感谢我们的投资者关系总监Nancy Stuebe设计了这个图表，因为大家一直在问许多问题以便更好地理解这一点，我们对此非常感激。
The basic way to look at it is this. So our securities lending revenue all in has been actually quite stable at between $150 million and $200 million a quarter. You have to put the components together and only 1 component for accounting purposes is reported as coming from securities lending. The basic transaction is that we lend out customer shares and take in cash collateral. Take the cash collateral and put it -- you invest it or deposit in bank somewhere. And it earns, let's just say, the benchmark rate.
基本原理是这样的。我们整体的证券借贷收入实际上每个季度都相当稳定，在1.5亿美元到2亿美元之间。各个组成部分加起来，按会计核算只有一部分被归为证券借贷收入。基本的交易流程是：我们借出客户的股票，同时收取现金担保；将这些现金担保进行投资或存入银行，并赚取——简单说，就是基准利率的收益。
When rates are low, the revenue from that transaction comes out in the securities lending side because you're earning very little on the other side. When rates are higher, as they have been 4%, 5%, you take the cash collateral, put it in an interest-bearing instrument, and now more of the revenue generated by the transaction is coming out on that side. All in, they add up to a fairly stable balance overall of revenue generated by that activity.
当利率较低时，这笔交易的收益主要体现在证券借贷收入上，因为另一边赚取的利息很少；而当利率较高，比如达到4%或5%时，你将现金担保存入产生利息的工具中，那么交易产生的更多收益就会体现在那一侧。总体来看，各部分加起来构成了这项活动产生的相当稳定的收入。
Brennan Hawken UBS Investment Bank
Right. When you consider the whole -- all the different component parts.
没错。当你把所有不同组成部分考虑在内时……
Paul Brody CFO, Treasurer, Secretary & Director
Yes. So we're happy with security lending revenue that grows as our customer base grows. And also, of course, we do the best to take advantage of stocks that become hot, short stocks with high lending rates. We'll lend out customer stocks and it generates revenue for us.
是的。所以我们对证券借贷收入感到满意，因为它随着客户群的增长而增长。当然，我们也尽力利用那些热门、空头率高的股票机会，借出客户股票，从而为我们带来收入。
Brennan Hawken UBS Investment Bank
Right. And the hard to borrows or specials, as they're called, have been pretty low. How much of that do you think -- and that's not just an interactive thing, that's an industry-wide because we cover a lot of companies that are involved in that business. How much do you think it's because we've had such a quiet banking? Like there's very little M&A. So there's not a lot of merger [ arm ]. The IPOs are limited. A lot of that can lead to more hard to borrow, right? Have you looked at how much you think maybe the slower banking is holding it back?
没错。而且所谓的“难借”股票或特殊股票数量一直很低。你认为这种情况有多大程度上是因为银行业总体处于低迷状态，比如并购非常少，没有多少并购活动（合并臂），IPO也有限。很多因素都可能导致难借股票数量增加，对吧？你们有没有分析过银行业低迷可能抑制了这一现象的程度？
Paul Brody CFO, Treasurer, Secretary & Director
Well, those are contributing factors to be sure if you can tell me what's going to happen in that environment with IPOs and mergers and acquisitions and so forth. I can tell you that at least there will be more opportunities because we will see more hard-to-borrow stocks come and go and they do have an impact. There are short-term impacts, but very high-rate stocks, so they definitely generate revenue.
嗯，这些无疑是促成因素，虽然很难预测在IPO、并购等环境中会发生什么。但我可以告诉你，至少会有更多机会，因为我们会看到更多难借股票的出现，它们确实会产生影响。短期内可能会有一些影响，但高借贷费率的股票确实能产生收益。
Brennan Hawken UBS Investment Bank
Right. Well, from my perspective, either M&A revenue is going to grow about 20% this year or some of these investment banks are way overvalued. So we'll see.
没错。从我的角度看，要么今年并购收入会增长大约20%，要么部分投资银行的估值已经大大偏高。我们拭目以待。
Operating margins were a pretty impressive 73%. Commentary on the call though suggested that, that was as much as we should expect from a margin expansion perspective. Maybe could you add some color on why that would be the case? And what factors could drive a little more operating leverage?
运营利润率相当令人印象深刻，达到了73%。电话会议上的评论表明，从保证金扩张角度来看，这可能就是我们应得的水平。能否请你解释一下为什么会是这种情况，以及哪些因素可能进一步推动经营杠杆？
Paul Brody CFO, Treasurer, Secretary & Director
Sure. I always consider this question. Not just what have you done for me lately, but what are you going to do for me in the next quarter? Yes, they're quite high because we -- our entire business model is to automate as much of the process as possible of trading and brokerage. We've been quite successful with that in creating technology and automation for that.
当然。我总是在思考这个问题。不仅仅是你最近为我做了什么，而是接下来一个季度你会为我做什么？是的，利润率之所以这么高，是因为我们的整个商业模式就是尽可能地自动化交易和经纪流程。我们在这方面创建技术和自动化系统已经取得了相当成功。
What could drive it higher? Hard to say. Thomas Peterffy has said, there's not that much space between 75% and 100%. One way to look at it is to the portion of our revenue that's generated by commissions, we talk about something we call growth transactional profit, which is the commission revenue less the strictly variable cost of executing and clearing trades. And that's contained in our reported line item called execution clearing and distribution.
什么能进一步推动利润率提高呢？很难说。正如Thomas Peterffy所言，75%到100%之间的空间并不大。一种看法是关注我们由佣金产生的收入部分，我们称之为增长交易利润，即佣金收入减去严格的交易执行和清算的可变成本，这部分包含在我们报告的“执行、清算与分销”这一项目中。
But what we do is we take out the distribution fees that are like market data fees and distill it down to, when you execute a trade, there's a commission component and there's a cost component. And what that shows us is that the margin on that activity is about 79%. So that's flowing to the bottom line.
但我们会剔除诸如市场数据费等分销费用，并归纳为：当你执行交易时，有佣金部分也有成本部分。数据显示，这项活动的利润率约为79%，这部分利润直接流向了净利润。
So to the extent that our commission revenue is 1/3 or more of our total, any expansion of that would drop to the bottom line. Any pullback in that would have similar downward effects. So yes.
因此，只要我们的佣金收入占总收入的三分之一或更多，任何这部分收入的扩展都将直接推动净利润；同样，任何回落也会产生相应的负面影响。是的。
Brennan Hawken UBS Investment Bank
So that's the volume-driven incremental margin. And then I would assume that NII is probably a bit higher margin. Is that fair? Or is it similar?
所以那就是以交易量为驱动的增量利润率。然后我会假设净利息收入的利润率可能更高一些。这样说合理吗？还是说差不多？
Paul Brody CFO, Treasurer, Secretary & Director
Well, it drops down with essentially no cost. We don't add people or expenses really just because we're lending more money.
嗯，这基本上是以零成本降低。仅仅因为我们借出更多资金，我们并不会增加人员或费用。
Brennan Hawken UBS Investment Bank
Right. Yes. Okay. So you guys have had a lot of traction with the hedge fund business as you've continued to tweak your approach, your come-to-market approach. How have your High Touch Prime Brokerage services been received? I mean it certainly seems like it's going well. But does this offer -- is this offering the key to driving a lot of that traction? And how is it working from a retention perspective, too?
对。是的。好的。那么随着你们不断调整策略和上市方式，你们在对冲基金业务上取得了很大进展。你们的高接触优质经纪服务反响如何？我的意思是，看起来确实进展顺利。但这个服务——是否是推动大量进展的关键？从客户留存的角度来看，它运作得如何？
Paul Brody CFO, Treasurer, Secretary & Director
Yes. So we're really pleased with how it's gone so far. It's in its infancy. We onboarded 30-something hedge fund accounts that had already been on our platform that we can now offer this much more inclusive service that really combines at least 3 different teams on our side between securities lending -- sorry, securities finance in general, client services, and we have a block trading desk. And so we give a higher level of service. It's gone well.
是的。所以到目前为止我们的表现令我们非常满意。现在还处于起步阶段。我们接纳了三十多个对冲基金账户，这些账户已经在我们的平台上，现在我们能够提供更加全面的服务，这项服务实际上整合了我们至少三个不同的团队，包括证券借贷——抱歉，一般来说是证券融资、客户服务，以及我们的区块交易台。所以我们提供了更高水平的服务。整体运作顺利。
Has that led to retention? We've been retaining these kinds of clients anyway. So we're just giving them a higher level of service. And then looking forward, the idea would be to develop that more into attracting new hedge fund clients who know that they can get this level of service, whereas before, the rest of what we offer is sometimes not enough for them.
这是否有助于客户留存？反正我们一直在留住这些客户。所以我们只是为他们提供更高水平的服务。展望未来，想法是进一步发展这一模式，吸引那些知道可以获得这种服务水平的新对冲基金客户，而在此之前，我们提供的其他服务有时对他们来说不足够。
Brennan Hawken UBS Investment Bank
And have you noticed any shift in your client like demographics as far as size and hedge fund that you've been attracting or just servicing?
你们是否注意到在吸引或服务的对冲基金客户在规模和类型上有任何变化？
Paul Brody CFO, Treasurer, Secretary & Director
Not in particular. I would say we're happy with our hedge fund client acquisition. We would love to push it more. They tend to be -- they are opportunistic in terms of things like corporate actions and positioning themselves and giving us opportunities for more securities financing, sometimes over short periods of time in hedged transactions. All of that makes us happy because we're good at providing that.
并没有特别的变化。我会说我们对获取对冲基金客户感到满意，并希望能进一步推动这一领域。他们通常在企业行为和自身定位上非常机动，给我们带来更多证券融资的机会，有时是在对冲交易中短时间内实现的。所有这些都让我们感到高兴，因为我们擅长提供这些服务。
And so to your earlier point, if there is more action in that marketplace, M&A style, that might bring back some more of those opportunities and hedge funds will come to us for that kind of financing.
因此，正如你之前所提到的，如果市场中出现更多类似并购的活动，可能会带来更多这样的机会，对冲基金也会因此向我们寻求这种融资。
Brennan Hawken UBS Investment Bank
Okay. Got it. You touched on the introducing broker before and a little on the pipeline and the fact that it seemed like generally towards maybe smaller introducing broker clients. So when -- but when we think about -- you have a few different ways that those clients can connect. When you think about the -- is there a difference in like profitability or how Interactive engages or monetizes those clients depending on how they connect, whether it's omnibus or thousands of accounts?
好的，明白了。你之前提到了介绍经纪商以及一些关于渠道的问题，并提到这似乎通常面向较小的介绍经纪商客户。那么当我们考虑到这些客户可以通过几种不同方式连接时，是否在盈利性或Interactive如何参与或货币化这些客户方面存在差异，无论是以总账户形式还是成千上万的账户？
Paul Brody CFO, Treasurer, Secretary & Director
So we don't treat them differently, but the components fit together differently, right? So as I mentioned before, if they bring us fully disclosed accounts, that's just like bringing direct accounts onto our system, we know what to do there.
所以我们对待他们没有不同对待，只是各组成部分的组合方式不同，对吧？正如我之前提到的，如果他们为我们带来完全披露的账户，那就相当于直接把账户带入我们的系统，我们知道该如何处理。
If they come in as an omnibus broker because they want to retain the direct relationship with their own clients, that's fine with us because they're absorbing some of the cost and the efforts that it takes to interface with those clients and maybe do handholding and any other services that they want to provide on their end. And as a result, it costs us less to support those kinds of accounts.
如果他们以总账户经纪商的身份进入，因为他们希望保留与自己客户的直接关系，这对我们来说也没有问题，因为他们承担了一部分与客户对接、提供支持和其他服务所需的成本和精力。因此，我们支持这类账户的成本较低。
And in return, the introducing broker will bring us high volume and get the benefit of our best tiered pricing, because they're coming in like one client. And so it's very much a mutually beneficial relationship because they're getting very good rates and they're taking over some of the work.
作为回报，介绍经纪商会为我们带来高交易量，并获得我们最优惠的阶梯定价的好处，因为他们就像一个客户一样进入。所以这是一种非常互利的关系，因为他们能获得非常好的费率，同时承担了一部分工作。
Brennan Hawken UBS Investment Bank
Right. Okay. You guys more recently in recent years, have built up some decent momentum with RIAs. Do you have visibility into the platforms that those advisers are joining from? And given that it's sort of more of an asset heavier rather than revenue heavier mix for you all, can you maybe walk through how you view this opportunity and the level of resources that you're dedicating to it?
对。好的。近年来你们在独立投资顾问（RIA）方面取得了相当可观的发展势头。你们是否能看到这些顾问所加入的平台来源？鉴于对你们来说这更多是资产密集型而非收入密集型，你能否介绍一下你们如何看待这一机会以及为之投入的资源水平？
Paul Brody CFO, Treasurer, Secretary & Director
So we have some visibility. In the U.S., there's a nice account transfer system that's automated, ACATS, that we can actually see where the accounts are coming from, like direct accounts as well. And suffice to say, we get the largest number of accounts from the largest brokers. It's fairly obvious.
我们对这些信息有一定了解。在美国，有一个自动化的账户转移系统ACATS，我们实际上可以看到账户的来源，包括直接账户。可以说，我们从最大的经纪商那里获得了最多的账户，这很明显。
And in terms of the service that we're offering, we've built out an awful lot for the RIAs to do flexible reporting and various things that they need. And we've seen some flow from other U.S. brokers. And when we get them outside the U.S., it's a little harder to track them, and it's a little less automated to take them on board. But we're -- they're quite happy once they get going.
在我们提供的服务方面，我们为独立投资顾问构建了大量灵活的报告功能和他们所需的各种工具。我们也看到了一些来自其他美国经纪商的账户流入。而当我们处理美国以外的账户时，跟踪起来稍显困难，且自动化程度较低，但一旦启动，他们都非常满意。
You had asked another question?
你还问了另一个问题吗？
Brennan Hawken UBS Investment Bank
Yes. Well, I was also actually going to ask a follow-up, but like sort of the resources that is required in order to service. But specifically, we saw in the past year or 2, there was a merger of a big provider for that market. Did you see maybe an increase in the amount of activity and the movement that happened on the back of that? It was -- it got a lot of attention in investor circles.
是的。嗯，我本来还想跟进问一下，为了提供服务所需要的资源情况。但具体来说，我们在过去一两年里看到该市场一个大型供应商的合并。你是否看到因此活动量和交易动向有所增加？这在投资者圈子里引起了很大关注。
Paul Brody CFO, Treasurer, Secretary & Director
Sure did. Well we didn't see as much activity as we had hoped for. I can't attribute that to any one factor. But one thing we can say is that we market the fact that we don't have any in-house advisers. It's not part of our model. We put a lot of efforts into supporting independent advisers. So there's no built-in conflict of interest between those 2 sets of advisers who may be competing with each other. And we'll continue with that because we think it's an important aspect of advisers migrating to us.
确实如此。虽然我们没有看到预期中那么多的活动。我不能把这种情况归咎于单一因素。但我们可以说的是，我们宣传自己没有内部顾问。这不是我们的模式的一部分。我们投入了大量精力支持独立顾问。因此，两组可能相互竞争的顾问之间不存在内在的利益冲突。我们将继续这一做法，因为我们认为这是吸引顾问转向我们的一个重要因素。
Brennan Hawken UBS Investment Bank
Yes. Yes. We hear that from some other folks who compete in that space, that it matters. We'd love to -- I have a few on capital, always something to discuss with you all. So you've got a pretty substantial equity base, about $17 billion. To say it exceeds your required capital is to put it lightly. How are you thinking about capital allocation today?
是的。是的。我们从其他在该领域竞争的人那里听说，这确实很重要。我们很乐意——我有一些关于资本的问题，总是有话题与大家讨论。所以你们拥有相当可观的股本，大约170亿美元。说它超过了你们所需的资本，是轻描淡写。你们今天如何考虑资本配置？
Paul Brody CFO, Treasurer, Secretary & Director
Sure. Well, we want to continue to support a robust balance sheet. There's no question that high-level clients and institutions and hedge funds want to be able to tell their clients, they're with Interactive Brokers without their clients saying "who?". And so it has a real impact.
当然。我们希望继续保持稳健的资产负债表。毫无疑问，高端客户、机构和对冲基金都希望能向他们的客户证明，他们选择的是Interactive Brokers，而不会被问到“那是谁？”这确实产生了实际影响。
With regard to excess, it's not as much as you think. It takes an awful lot of capital of your own capital to support the breadth of business that we do around the world, the number of markets, number of separate affiliates that we maintain in different regulatory jurisdictions, all of which have to maintain their own independent capital. They have to meet stress tests. And the more customer lending we do, that's as well a use of capital.
关于多余的资本，其实并没有你想象中的那么多。为了支持我们在全球开展的各项业务、覆盖的市场数量以及我们在不同监管辖区内维持的独立附属机构，都需要大量自有资本，这些机构必须通过压力测试。而且，我们进行的客户借贷业务同样需要占用资本。
So -- and then on top of that, you must maintain buffers in this business to be there when the activity hits and the market's in turmoil, it always requires an injection of house money into things like the clearing houses are calling for margin or settlement money or what have you. We've seen this happen multiple times in the past. And so you really must maintain that. So if we -- that excess is certainly only a fraction of our, say, $16.5 billion equity, it's probably more like 1/3 of that.
此外，在这种业务中，你必须保持缓冲资金，以便在市场活动激增或市场动荡时能够应对，因为这总是需要向诸如清算所要求的保证金或结算资金等项目注入自有资金。过去我们曾多次见证这种情况。因此，多余的资本只占我们约165亿美元股本的一小部分，可能更像是其中的三分之一。
Brennan Hawken UBS Investment Bank
It's more like what?
更像是多少？
Paul Brody CFO, Treasurer, Secretary & Director
It's more like 1/3. It's probably more like $6 billion-plus that we maintain for buffers after we look at everything devoted directly into the business.
大约是三分之一。扣除直接投入业务的资金后，我们大概会保留超过60亿美元的缓冲资金。
Brennan Hawken UBS Investment Bank
Okay. So the buffers that you think are appropriate just in case you see spikes in activity or whatever?
好的。那么你认为这些缓冲资金是为了应对活动激增或其他情况而准备的吗？
Paul Brody CFO, Treasurer, Secretary & Director
Sure. Yes. I mean that number is somewhat in excess of the buffers.
当然，是的。我的意思是那个数字实际上略高于所需的缓冲资金。
Brennan Hawken UBS Investment Bank
In excess of. Okay.
超过了。好的。
Paul Brody CFO, Treasurer, Secretary & Director
But it's nowhere near the entire capital. It's -- our capital is well deployed to actually supporting the client activity.
但这远非全部资本。我们的资本已被充分部署，以支持客户活动。
Brennan Hawken UBS Investment Bank
Yes. And one of the uses of capital you guys have spoken to recently has been M&A, but it's been challenging to find something that makes sense. So are you still actively looking? And what kind of deals would you be interested in beyond the obvious?
是的。你们最近谈到的资本用途之一是并购，但要找到合适的标的一直充满挑战。那么你们还在积极寻找吗？除了显而易见的之外，你们对哪类交易感兴趣？
Paul Brody CFO, Treasurer, Secretary & Director
Yes, it's a complex question. We've been talking about it for some time. We're not out in the marketplace actively hunting down targets, but rather, ideas are brought to us all the time. We take those up, we evaluate. We try to -- we spend our time on what might make sense. We haven't been able to get to a positive conclusion on these yet.
是的，这是个复杂的问题。我们讨论这个问题已有一段时间了。我们并没有在市场上主动寻找目标，而是不断有想法被提出给我们。我们采纳、评估，并花时间考虑哪些可能有意义。目前我们还未能得出积极的结论。
And what might make sense, that's also a complex question, right? The typical online broker that might have created its own software and system for interface with its customers and otherwise will probably be of less value to us because we have a better system for doing that ourselves than it would be to another kind of investor like private equity or so forth, where they're actually buying something of value that they don't have.
而什么才算有意义，这同样是个复杂的问题。典型的在线券商可能会自行开发软件和系统与客户互动，但对我们来说价值较低，因为我们拥有更好的系统来满足这一需求，而这对其他类型的投资者（例如私募股权等）来说可能更有价值，因为他们在购买某些他们本身不具备的价值。
So then it comes down to, well, does it make sense if we're just acquiring customers at that cost? Probably not because our customer acquisition rate is so high and our costs of doing that are low. We have low advertising, marketing expenditure. We get a tremendous amount of our client growth through word of mouth, about 40%.
所以问题归结到，如果我们仅仅以那样的成本获取客户是否划算？可能不划算，因为我们的客户获取率非常高，而相关成本却极低。我们的广告和营销费用都很低。我们大约有40%的客户增长来自口碑传播。
So what does that leave? Well, there can be firms that are either in the business where they maybe are specializing in a product set or a region or a country where we feel that we could do better and maybe at the right cost, it might make sense to take something like that over. It could be in other areas that we're not yet as proficient or expert as we would like to be.
那么剩下的呢？可能是那些专注于某一产品线、区域或国家的公司，我们认为在这些领域我们可以做得更好，而且如果成本合适，收购这类公司是有意义的。这也可能涉及到我们尚未足够精通或擅长的其他领域。
We've been experimenting with AI. There's a lot of firms out there who have smart people who are offering things at varying levels. What we've done so far has really to do with things like answering client inquiries. We have some software that is now developing responses that human beings look at before they actually get back to the client, but results are there are positive. But would an outside expert firm jumpstart that? Maybe. It has to be interesting to us and at the right cost. And that's a tough combination.
我们一直在尝试AI技术。市场上有许多拥有聪明人才的公司，他们在不同层面提供服务。到目前为止，我们主要在处理客户咨询方面取得了一些成果。我们有一些软件现在能生成回复，由人工审核后再回复客户，效果是积极的。但是否需要外部专家公司来加速这一进程？也许吧。这必须对我们有吸引力，且成本合适，而这两者兼顾确实是个艰难的组合。
非常清晰的回答。
Brennan Hawken UBS Investment Bank
Right. Yes. Right. Okay. The dividend. So the payout -- there's at least one now. For a while, there was none. So -- but the payout ratio, when you look at it as a percentage of earnings is low. It's teens, 13%. If -- are there any other priorities, maybe like reinvestment or buybacks to consider with the excess that you have?
对。是的。对。好的。关于股息。现在至少有一次派息了，曾经有一段时间没有派息。但从盈利的百分比来看，派息比率很低，大约在两位数，13%。如果——你们是否还有其他优先事项，比如考虑将多余资金用于再投资或股票回购？
Paul Brody CFO, Treasurer, Secretary & Director
We have no plans right now. Certainly, buyback would not necessarily be in our interest because our float being now 25%. We started years ago at 10% at our IPO. It's now gone up to 25%. Most investors would love to see it higher. So the buyback is working against that principle.
我们目前没有计划。当然，股票回购不一定符合我们的利益，因为我们的流通股比例现在为25%。我们在IPO时是10%，如今已上升到25%。大多数投资者都希望看到更高的比例，因此回购违背了这一原则。
And as far as the dividend is concerned, we have no immediate plans to increase that. Yes, the yield has diminished as the price has gone up, but that's a good problem to have. And so that's where we stand right now. And as I just got done explaining our uses of capital, we wouldn't have much reason to do a special dividend or anything that would simply reduce the capital level because we like where it is now.
至于股息，我们也没有立即提高的计划。是的，随着股价上涨，收益率有所下降，但这其实是个好问题。所以，这就是我们目前的状况。正如我刚才解释我们的资本用途后，我们没有太多理由进行特别派息或采取任何会简单降低资本水平的措施，因为我们满意现有状况。
Brennan Hawken UBS Investment Bank
Okay. Can take a moment and see if there's any questions in the audience. I haven't been having a high batting average on the audience questions today.
好的。我们可以花点时间看看现场是否有提问。今天观众提问的命中率不高。
Paul Brody CFO, Treasurer, Secretary & Director
No participation?
没有人参与吗？
Brennan Hawken UBS Investment Bank
They'd rather leave it to me. I got one in the back.
他们宁愿把问题留给我。我后面有人提问。
Unknown Attendee
So you were talking about your hedge fund business, you're trying to attract clients, new clients. The biggest challenge is basically access to long-term capital, especially for new managers. Is that something that you've thought about? I mean you have, as you mentioned, quite a bit of capital. Sprinkling some of that capital would go a long way to helping sort of what is kind of a nascent sort of market, since you bifurcated to gigantic hedge funds and a lot of the small hedge fund managers have kind of had a hard time sort of getting access to capital.
你刚才谈到了你们的对冲基金业务，试图吸引新客户。最大的挑战基本上是获得长期资本，尤其是对于新经理来说。你们是否考虑过这个问题？我的意思是，正如你所提到的，你们拥有相当多的资本。适量释放部分资本将极大地促进一个刚刚起步的市场，因为你们已经分化为巨型对冲基金，而许多小型对冲基金经理则难以获得资本。
Paul Brody CFO, Treasurer, Secretary & Director
Yes, good question. We have something we call a hedge fund marketplace where we do make capital introductions in a semi-automated fashion, which, of course, is more along the lines of the way we operate. And smaller hedge funds can get on there. They must be sort of vetted and certified and then they can show themselves. And so there's some of that activity.
是的，这是个好问题。我们有一个称为对冲基金市场的平台，通过半自动化方式进行资本引介，这与我们的运营模式非常契合。较小的对冲基金可以加入该平台，他们需要经过审查和认证，然后才可以展示自己，因此这方面确实有一些活动。
This is not a major activity for us. We would like to continue to expand on that. So we're going to put some efforts in there. We are not an investment bank. So we're not going to get to the level of all that that entails by any means. But we understand that there's a segment of the market that could do well if we could offer that in addition to everything else that we offer. So we're going to put more work in there.
不过，这并不是我们的主要业务。我们希望继续扩展这一领域，因此会投入更多精力。我们并非一家投资银行，所以绝不会全面涉足所有相关事务。但我们理解市场中有一部分如果能在现有服务之外再获得这种服务，将会表现得更好，因此我们会在这方面付出更多努力。
Unknown Attendee
Maybe as a follow-on is another sort of business. Have you considered having your own asset management arm?
作为后续，是否考虑过开展另一项业务，即建立你们自己的资产管理部门？
Paul Brody CFO, Treasurer, Secretary & Director
No. We spend all of our time and we have our hands very full with expanding our brokerage offering. And so while bigger deviations into new business lines are not rejected out of hand, they're simply not at the top of our priority list right now.
没有。我们所有的时间都投入在扩展经纪业务上。因此，虽然我们并不完全排斥进入新的业务领域，但目前这并非我们的首要任务。
Brennan Hawken UBS Investment Bank
Any more? I suppose I should quit while I'm ahead since that's like already, I'm above my average here. The last year, you had spoken a little bit about some new capabilities that you're excited about rolling out. Without asking to tip your hand competitively, but is there anything that you're able to speak to that you guys are working on? You guys are regularly rolling out new tools, new capabilities, new functionality. What's on the docket here for 2025?
还有吗？我想我应该趁热打铁，毕竟我今天的表现已经超出平均水平。去年你曾提到过一些你们正兴奋推出的新功能。虽然不想过于竞争性地透露信息，但能否谈谈你们正在开发的内容？你们经常推出新工具、新功能和新特性。那么，2025年的计划是什么？
Paul Brody CFO, Treasurer, Secretary & Director
Yes. Well, we don't -- you're right. We don't really talk about what we're working on right now for lots of reasons, competitive reasons amongst them. But happy to mention a few things that we have rolled out in the past 6 to 12 months. A new IBKR desktop, which is a new way for the clients to interface in a more intuitive way. And that seems to be getting a pretty good reception.
是的。嗯，你说得对。由于多种原因，尤其是竞争原因，我们并不常谈正在开发的项目，但我很乐意提及过去6到12个月内推出的几项产品：全新的IBKR桌面平台，为客户提供更直观的交互方式，反响相当不错。
We have regionally put our feet on the ground in Dubai. We open up a small office to -- primarily for sales. As well in the region, we opened up trading at the Saudi Exchange and stocks. So that's definitely an area of expansion for us. I would expect some of that to continue.
我们已在迪拜建立了区域据点，开设了一家主要负责销售的小型办事处。同样在该区域，我们还在沙特交易所启动了股票交易业务，这无疑是我们扩展的重要领域，我预计这一趋势将持续。
It's never easy getting started. But once you're started, you can launch more easily into other products and other services like that. So suffice to say that we will continue to work on all of these types of things, and we expect good things this year.
起步总是艰难，但一旦启动，就能更容易拓展到其他产品和服务。所以总的来说，我们将继续致力于这些领域，并期待今年能有好成绩。
Brennan Hawken UBS Investment Bank
Yes. One of the things that we hear regularly in dialogue with investors is how engaged the -- most retail investors are right now. When you look at your book of business and the folks that would represent individuals, where is the activity level today versus historical reference? Like are we already past mean level? Or like where is it?
是的。我们在与投资者对话时经常听到的一点是，大多数散户投资者目前都非常活跃。就你们的业务而言，个人投资者的活跃度相较于历史水平如何？我们是否已经超越了均值水平？还是目前处于什么位置？
Paul Brody CFO, Treasurer, Secretary & Director
Yes. Interesting question. We don't actually track activity by -- I mean, yes, we look at commissions, we look at equity held in each segment. The individuals are outpacing the other groups. It's our biggest group, obviously, by far to begin with. And as well, they're outpacing in most of those categories.
是的，这是个有趣的问题。我们实际上并不直接跟踪这种活跃度——当然，我们会关注佣金、不同业务板块的持股情况。从数据来看，个人投资者的活跃度超过了其他群体。个人投资者本来就是我们最大的一部分客户，而且他们在大多数类别中都领先于其他群体。
Professionals tend to be a little more heavy on margin lending. Introducing brokers are some mix of how they're managing their clients' funds. Some are small introducing brokers with 5 clients, and some might have 1,000. And, of course, introducing brokers -- I'm sorry, financial advisers, I meant. Introducing brokers also come in small and large sizes. And so yes, I mean the individuals have certainly been riding the wave of more interest in the markets, more optimism about the stock market. Just look at the prices. And that just translates into more activity for us. It's a very good thing.
专业投资者往往更倾向于使用保证金贷款，而引荐经纪商的客户资金管理方式各不相同。有些引荐经纪商可能只有5个客户，而有些可能有1000个。当然，引荐经纪商——哦，不好意思，我是指财务顾问。引荐经纪商也有大小之分。所以，是的，个人投资者确实受到了市场兴趣上升和对股市乐观情绪的推动。看看当前的股价就知道了。这种趋势直接转化为更高的交易活跃度，对我们来说是件好事。
Brennan Hawken UBS Investment Bank
Yes, without a doubt. So last one for me. And I feel like I got to -- I did it last year. I got to ask about it again. Thomas went on record in the last earnings call about the fact that he's not interested in selling. But previously, he had noted that he disliked the price, he was not happy with it. The stock was a beast. In the past year, it's been an outstanding stock. Do you have any idea about what his temperature is or thoughts around whittling down his stake at a reasonable pace or at least making progress?
是的，毫无疑问。那么最后一个问题。我去年问过这个问题，今年还得再问一遍。在上次的财报电话会议上，Thomas 明确表示他对出售不感兴趣。但此前他曾提到，他对股价不满意，不喜欢当前的价格。而这只股票表现非常强劲，在过去一年里取得了卓越的表现。你是否了解他的态度，或者他是否考虑以合理的节奏减持，或者至少做出一些进展？
Paul Brody CFO, Treasurer, Secretary & Director
I don't. But I'll freely admit that it's not a topic of conversation I have with him. I think that one important thing to investors is to understand that there's not a risk of the overhang. He's not ever looking to dump shares on the market. He has talked in the past about selling plans that actually, if they were to meet certain price targets and conditions, they would sort of dribble out small amounts of stock into the market. And other than that, no particular insights.
我不清楚。但我可以坦率地说，我并没有和他讨论过这个话题。我认为投资者需要了解的一点是，不存在“抛售风险”。他并不打算向市场抛售大量股票。他过去确实谈到过一些出售计划，如果达到某些价格目标和条件，他可能会逐步向市场释放少量股份。但除此之外，我没有更多的见解。
But he has talked about -- we think that it's -- so we're chasing the target a little bit because the better off we do from a financial performance standpoint, the more he -- he founded this company, he built this company, he believes so solidly in it. And clearly, most of his net worth is in it that he feels aligned with investors. And he has, in mind, probably a high-price target. And the better off we do, the higher that target probably gets.
不过，他确实提到过——我们可以说，我们似乎一直在追赶他的目标。因为我们的财务表现越好，他的态度似乎就越坚定。毕竟，他创立并建立了这家公司，对其充满信心。而且，他的大部分净资产都与这家公司挂钩，因此他的利益与投资者一致。他心里可能有一个很高的价格目标，而我们公司表现越好，这个目标可能就会变得更高。
Brennan Hawken UBS Investment Bank
Sure. Right. That's fair. And I -- why not finish on that high-price target, right? Thanks a lot for your time, Paul, really appreciate it.
当然，这很合理。而且，为什么不以这个高价目标作为结束呢？Paul，非常感谢你的时间，真的很感激。
Paul Brody CFO, Treasurer, Secretary & Director
Pleasure, Brennan. Thanks very much.
很高兴，Brennan。非常感谢。
Brennan Hawken UBS Investment Bank
Thank you.
谢谢。
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