SS&C Technologies Holdings (SSNC) Q2 2026 earnings call transcript

I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker, Justine Stone, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Hi, everyone. Welcome and thank you for joining us for our Q2 2026 earnings call. I'm Justine Stone, Investor Relations for SS&C. With me today is Bill Stone, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Rahul Kanwar, President and Chief Operating Officer, and Brian Schell, our Chief Financial Officer. Before we get started, we'll need to review the Safe Harbor Statement. Please note that various remarks we make today about future expectations, plans, and prospects, including the financial outlook we provide, constitute forward-looking statements for the purposes of the Safe Harbor provision under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including those discussed in the risk factors section of our most recent annual report on Form 10 , which is on file with the SEC and can also be accessed on our website.

These forward-looking statements represent our expectations only as of today, July 23, 2026. While the company may elect to update these forward-looking statements, it specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. During today's call, we'll be referring to certain non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to comparable GAAP financial measures is included in today's earnings relations. It's located in the investor relations section of our website at www. ssctech. com. I will now turn the call over to Bill.

Thanks, Justin, and welcome, everyone. Q2 was record-setting for SS&C. Our strong quarter resulted in setting quarterly records for second quarter in revenue, adjusted EBITDA, earnings per share, and shares repurchased. We continue to demonstrate success in an uncertain backdrop, underscoring the resilience of our diversified business model and the value clients place on our technology, expertise, and innovation. Our second quarter results were adjusted revenue of $1,696.9, up 10.3%, and adjusted diluted earnings per share of $1.76, an 18% increase. We delivered adjusted consolidated EBITDA of $670.7 million, up 12% or over $70 million, and an adjusted consolidated EBITDA margin of 39.5%. The dollar figures are all records. Adjusted organic revenue growth was 7.6%, with performance driven by our largest businesses, new business wins, strengthened multi-year renewals, and market and transaction tailwinds.

For the six months ended June 30, 2026, cash from operating activities was $716 million, up 11% year over year. This quarter, we returned $499 million to shareholders, which includes 6.4 million shares repurchased for $435.2 million, the highest quarterly buyback in our history. Primarily, a result of our repurchase program, diluted shares outstanding are down 4% over the last year.

Share repurchases remain our top capital allocation priority, as we are projected to earn $7.29 in operating cash per share for the year. We have lots of flexibility.

The acquisitions we completed at the end of 2025 are both tracking ahead of expectation. Carol has given us additional exposure in EMEA, and revenues are growing nicely. Calistone continues to perform ahead of expectations as well. We expect 2026 growth to be in the mid-teens, and we have added 431 clients to the network. Although through Calistone, we are investing in solutions to support the future of our clients, including digital investment markets. As interest in tokenized investment products continue to grow, our clients and prospects are looking forward towards the infrastructure needed to support digital transactions. Combining our servicing capabilities with Callstone Technologies, which already supports the issuance and distribution of tokenized funds, our innovation roadback now extends to the next stage of digital investment lifecycle.

The new capabilities will enable digital investment transactions to settle using regulated forms of digital cash, including stable coins and tokenized commercial bank deposits. This will help reduce settlement risk, improve operational efficiency, and simplify cross-border investment transactions. We look forward to capturing more market share. The highly anticipated Medicare GLP-1 bridge program launched on July 1. Since launch, nearly 3 million claims have been processed using SS&C's DomaniRx platform to support our client, Humana. We believe this demonstrates our technology's scale, reliability, and flexibility, and underscores the critical role DomaniRx plays in enabling innovative healthcare programs. We're proud to expand access to these important therapies for millions of Americans.

I'll now turn the call over to Rahul to discuss the quarter in more detail.

Thanks, Bill. Our second quarter results came in ahead of expectations with strong sales and renewal performance and continued margin expansion. We are on track to meet our margin objectives for the year. These results demonstrate the strength of SS&C's customer relationships and the criticality of our products and services. Outsourcing, co-sourcing, and lift-outs combined with industry-leading technology continue to enhance our revenue growth.

Rapid technological innovation is pushing customers towards SS&C as they look for a partner to help them take advantage of the latest technologies. Our front, middle, and back-office technology business, including Geneva, delivered a strong quarter. We are seeing momentum in multi-year technology license renewals across our client base, reflecting the confidence clients have in our platforms and long-term roadmap. Several of our largest pipeline opportunities are anchored by tech. Our global footprint remains a competitive advantage, with offerings spanning markets and asset classes worldwide, and we are seeing robust demand and healthy pipelines internationally as well as here in North America. We're deploying AI across our products and operations, and it is one of the drivers of the growth and margin expansion you see in these results.

Our approach is governance first and proven internally before it reaches customers. In one example we announced this morning, a global leader in risk, reinsurance, and capital chose our WorkHQ platform to scale agentic automation across its business.

This is one example of a trend we are seeing Established enterprises choosing SS to move their automation efforts to agentic AI With that I turn it over to Brian to walk through the financials Thanks Rahul and good day everyone Unless noted otherwise the quarterly comparisons are Q2 2025 As disclosed in our press release our Q2 2026 GAAP results reflect revenues of billion net income of million and diluted earnings per share of Bill noted at the beginning of our call our adjusted non-GAAP results set several records for SS&C including revenues of $1.697 billion, an increase of 10.3%, and adjusted diluted EPS of $1.76, an 18.1% increase. The adjusted revenue increase of $159 million is primarily driven by incremental revenue contributions from organic growth of $118 million, acquisitions of $36 million, and a favorable impact in foreign exchange of approximately $5 million.

As a result, adjusted organic revenue growth on a constant currency basis was 7.6%, and our core expenses increased 6.1%, or $58 million, which also excludes acquisitions and impact of FX. Adjusted consolidated EBITDA, also a record, was $671 million, reflecting an increase of $70 million, or 11.7%, and a margin of 39.5%, a 50 basis point expansion. Net interest expense for the second quarter was $107 million, an increase of $1 million year over year. Record adjusted net income was $426 million, up 13.3%, and adjusted delivered EPS of $1.76 was up 18.1%. Our affected non-GAAP tax rate was 22.5% this quarter. Note, for comparison purposes, we have recast the 2025 adjusted net income to reflect the full year effective tax rate of 22%.

Also note the diluted share count is down to $242 million from $252.2 million year over year, primarily due to the size and continued impact of share repurchases and, to a lesser extent, lower diluted shares. Cash flow from operating activities grew 11.1%, driven by growth and earnings. SS&C ended the second quarter with $435 million in cash and cash equivalents and $7.6 billion in gross debt. SS&C's net debt was $7.2 billion, and our last 12 months consolidated EBITDA was $2.6 billion. Resulting net leverage ratio is 2.75 times. In addition, we are actively exploring refinancing opportunities for our bonds, maturing in 2027 to further optimize our capital structure. As we look forward to the third quarter in the full year, 2026, with respect to guidance, we will continue to focus on client service and expect that retention rates will be in the range of our most recent results.

We will continue to manage our business, support our long-term growth, and manage our expenses by controlling and aligning variable expenses, increasing productivity and leveraging technology and AI tools to improve our operating margins, and strategically investing in the business, especially with respect to R&D, sales, and marketing. Specifically, we have assumed short-term interest rates remain at current levels, an effective tax rate of approximately 22.5% on an adjusted basis, capital expenditures to be 4.4% to 4.8% of revenues, and a stronger weight in the share repurchases versus debt reduction. In the third quarter of 26, we expect revenue to be in the range of $1.657 to $1.697 billion and 5% organic revenue growth at the midpoint. Adjust the net income in the range of $413 to $429 million.

Interest expense, excluding amortization, deferred financing costs, and original issue discounts in the range of $103 to $105 million. And adjusted diluted EPS in the range of $1.73 to $1.79. For the full year of 2026, we increased our expectations to revenue to be in the range of $6.672 to $6.832 billion and 5.5% organic revenue growth at the midpoint. Targeted EBITDA growth of 9.3%, EBITDA margin expansion of 50 basis points with a goal of a 40% margin in Q4. Cash from operating activities in the range of $1.717 to $1.817 billion. Adjusted net income in the range of $1.67 to $1.77 billion. Adjusted diluted EPS in the range of $6.93 to $7.25, reflecting approximately 15.5% growth at the midpoint.

And now, back to Bill. Thanks Brian. We believe our results speak to the strength of our business and consistency of our execution. Our clients continue to invest in SS&C and expand their relationships with us. We remain disciplined in how we operate, invest, and allocate capital in ways that create long-term shareholder value. In September, we look forward to welcoming our clients at our Deliver conference in Orlando, Florida. We have a lot of great sessions, demos, and speakers lined up, and in partnership with NASDAQ, we will be hosting a remote opening bell ringing during our time there.

With that, I will now open it up to questions.

Well, Ben, you know, we get those license renewals when the contract runs out, right? So if we have a seven-year contract and it runs out, generally when they renew, they want to renew for another seven years. So then, you know, obviously with the accounting pronouncements of 606, that creates somewhat of a rush on revenue. So it depends when these things hit. I think one hit in June this year, and so I just think that that's a little bit of the lumpiness of the business.

But as we get larger, we have more and more of these big clients with big renewals, and so in some ways it kind of smooths out. But we did have a couple of big renewals in Q2 and that why organic revenue was up a couple hundred extra basis points Got it And then just a quick follow also I guess in the context of organic growth you mentioned kind of market and maybe some transactional activity but I really thinking more market and maybe it probably falls heavy in the globe op I think But, you know, can you just remind us, like, market volatility, directional moves in the market, strength or otherwise, and how much that can play into any one given quarter?

Obviously, you don't predict that into your guidance, but just trying to understand directionally how that might have impacted your organic growth as well. Thank you.

Yeah, so we produce our capital movement index and our performance index for our hedge fund business every month. And this past month, the redemption index was at 135, which is about the lowest we've had in the history of having this thing. We've done it since, I think, 2009. So I think that's indicative of how strong that hedge fund business is and the strength of that kind of asset manager type. They have a lot of flexibility. They're very good risk managers, and they have the full range of product capabilities. You know, if you look at our assets under administration in our fund administration business, over the last two years, it's up $581 billion. I think that's pretty indicative of the strength that we have in that space.

Excellent. Thank you.

I do think that that's a big part of what's happening. At a baseline, we've got strong demand just because we're tech forward and we're the biggest player in this business and we have a lot of referenceability. But then the other kind of thing that's happening is customers are looking around and they want to take advantage of AI. They want to take advantage of some of the agent capabilities we have. And rather than try to put that all internally and build it from scratch, the fact that we can deploy it in a very scalable way has been positive for us.

Well, certainly, ultimately, they are very accretive. At the same time, it's competitive. We have to win, and we have to deliver a great service, which we have been doing. But, hey, these are large, sophisticated organizations that require a lot of attention, and we give them that attention. So I think we have a great pipeline in our global investor and distribution services business, and I think that will continue. Once again, I think one of our prospects is, well, you guys have 65% market share. I'm pretty certain you can probably handle us. And I think that, again, that goes to the strength and size of our business and that we win mandates from Australia and we win mandates in Europe and we win mandates in North America.

I just think we have a very powerful business model.

It's still in excess of five. Okay, great. Thank you.

Yeah, we get in excess of double of the 20 cents, but I think this is a trial program of the government, but it so far has been very popular, and we'll see. It's a six-month program, Kevin, so knock on wood, it's the government, so will they stick with a very successful program? That's probably 50-50, but we do believe that there's a lot of great collaboration between us and Humana and the CMS that manages Medicare and Medicaid. So we're optimistic, and again, it's a reason why we're in healthcare. When it comes, it'll come in large waves, and if we can deliver a great service and the government likes what we do, it seems to me they spend a lot of money.

We just want our fair share.

Well, again, Kevin, we made the upfront investment. We bought Blue Prism that had AI and had ML and had RPA and had natural language processing. We made the investment, spent a billion six. Same thing as you read about tokenization and about some other fintech companies that are getting into tokenization. Well, we spent a billion dollars, and we bought Callstone. And we didn't buy Callstone so that we could be an also-ran. We bought Callstone so that we can be a leader in technologies that our customers want. And I think that's been our attitude the whole time, is that, look, we don't want to dabble. We don't want to have three licenses of automation anywhere or UI, whatever it is.

So it is something where we got 1,400 people when we got Blue Prism, and we got another 250 and probably added another 25 with Callstone. So we're optimistic about where we're putting our investments, how we're using it, why we focus on governance and protection for our customers, because they're in highly regulated businesses, and black eyes in highly regulated businesses are not good.

Our pipeline is full of opportunities. There are some renewals coming up as well. So we have opportunities to outperform. We're being our consistent self of great revenue growth, great earnings, and not getting ahead of our skis. So that's the same thing we're going to do for Q3 and Q4, but we're not going to pre-beat the drum. We'll let the drum beat itself.

Kevin? You know, we brought out a number of new systems. We brought out Genesis and asset management. You know, we have a new release of Eclipse. We brought out a new release of DVC. We brought out Domani RX, and we're bringing out a new release of our medical claims. We brought out, like you said, Work HQ and our guide rails, our AI guardrails product that we have brought out as well.

And I think there's a number of other initiatives that we're doing, building out our private cloud, you know, and making sure that our cybersecurity is, you know, is very redundant. So I think we're going to have similar capitalized software and investment in R&D, but at the same time, I think we're going to have some very material ways to improve our margins through adaptation of AI agents and other technologies that are available today.

We're having some success in terms of – so the metrics we track, you know, whether that's the opportunities that we have in our pipeline or those opportunities getting converted into bookings and then eventually those bookings getting converted into revenue, all of those things are positive. So, you know, the comps only work if you can improve on the comps, right? And so I think that's what we are doing. We are seeing the business strengthening, and we expect that to continue through the remainder of the year.

There's two big components to that interlinks business. It's the virtual data rooms, and we've been having success, and that's a little more linked to the M&A markets. But then there's the alternatives LP communication part of that business, and that's been growing steadily throughout.

Well, as you know, at Morgan Stanley and other organizations of your size and complexity, you're constantly looking at upgrading your infrastructure, and we are proud to have Morgan Stanley as a client. And, you know, the AI is something that's on everyone's tip of their tongue, right? And you're bored, right? So all your executives are very attuned into what are we doing with AI? And I think our approach has been very effective in showing people that our technology is better, the way we're rolling it out is better, the more protected you are, and the more that we are really a partner in making sure that your transition from, you know, traditional software products, to then, you know, RPA products where you have bots helping you do pretty simple processes, but things that take a lot of time, cost a lot of money, and now you can have a bot do, you know, whether it's statement review or other things like that.

And now there's, you know, now there's agendic agents that can do more complex tasks, that can make some decisions. And you have to have the guardrails around what those decisions are. But if you can get real processes and build an orchestration layer like we have, then you can get very sophisticated workflows that are not people intensive. And that's our approach, and it's been pretty effective.

Again, we appreciate everybody on this call, and we appreciate you owning our shares or following our shares. At the same time, we work hard for our shareholders, and we will continue to do so. And we look forward to seeing you at the end of next quarter, or this quarter, I guess. Thanks.