SS&C Technologies Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:SSNC) Q4 2015 Earnings Conference Call - Final Transcript

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the SS&C Technologies' Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2015 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded.

I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference, Ms. Justine Stone, Investor Relations for SS&C Technologies. Ma'am, you may begin.

Hi, everyone. Thank you for joining us for our Q4 and full year 2015 earnings call. I'm Justine Stone, Investor Relations for SS&C Technologies. On the call with me today is Bill Stone, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Norm Boulanger, President and Chief Operating Officer; Rahul Kanwar, Senior Vice President, Managing Director of Alternative Assets; and Patrick Pedonti, Chief Financial Officer.

Before we get started, we need to review the Safe Harbor statement. Please note that various remarks we make today about the future expectations, plans and prospects, including the financial outlook we provide, constitute forward-looking statements for the purposes of the Safe Harbor provisions 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-K, which is on file with the SEC and can also be accessed via our website. These forward-looking statements represent our expectations only as of today, February 11, 2016. 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 release, which is located in the Investor Relations section of our website at www.ssctech.com.

I'll now turn the call over to Bill.

Thanks, Justine, and thanks everyone for being with us on our fourth quarter and 2015 year-end conference call. We are just crossing our 30th year in business and I'm happy to report $1.056 billion in 2015 adjusted revenue. Our first year in 1986 we did $86,000 in revenue. This is a 38.4% compounded annual growth rate, a pretty good 29-year track record.

SS&C finished 2015, as I said, with over $1 billion in adjusted revenue, 42% EBITDA margins and we earned $2.66 in adjusted diluted earnings per share. Obviously, we had a strong year financially and we have become a dominant force in financial technology and fund services industries. We acquired four companies in the past 14 months and we are set to close Citi Alternative Investor Services in Q1. This will propel SS&C to being the second largest fund administrator in the world. And I'd remind you, we started in fund administration in 2002.

We believe technology ownership, size and scale are key elements of our strategy. We added game-changing projects through both acquisitions and our research and development efforts. Precision LM, our comprehensive loan origination and servicing system and Primatics EVOLV, an end-to-end loan risk and finance solution expanded