If you’ve been following along, you know we had a record third quarter. Revenue grew 124% year-over-year, adjusted net income was up 60%, and we hit our 10th consecutive quarter of beating earnings expectations. We also raised our full-year adjusted net income guidance to $80-84 million, which represents 72-81% year-over-year growth.

These numbers represent real, sustainable momentum. But they didn’t happen overnight. They’re the result of 20+ years of deliberate choices about how we build, lead, and communicate.

Lesson One: Build a Team of Owners, Not Employees

Nearly 80% of our employees are shareholders—not because they have to be, but because they believe in what we’re building. This wasn’t an accident. It was a deliberate strategy from the beginning.

Employee ownership isn’t about a feel-good management theory. It’s about alignment. If you want people to make decisions like owners, they need to actually be owners. They need skin in the game. That ownership mentality drives everything we do. When your team thinks like owners, you get better decisions, more accountability, and a shared commitment to building something that lasts. You also get people who stay—not because they’re afraid to leave, but because they’re building something they believe in.

Lesson Two: Think in Decades, Not Quarters

Building our flywheel took years of patient, deliberate work. We started with Life Solutions—the origination engine where we source, price, and manage life insurance assets using deep industry expertise and proprietary technology.

Then we built the Asset Group to package those assets into longevity funds delivering uncorrelated, risk-adjusted returns. Then came ABL Tech, which now serves over 100 pension funds and institutional clients with data-driven mortality verification services. Finally, Abacus Wealth Advisors became our distribution channel, offering personalized financial planning based on longevity insights.

The market rewards short-term thinking, until it doesn’t. Building something that compounds requires patience. It means saying no to quick wins that would compromise the long-term vision. It means investing in infrastructure before you need it. It means making decisions today that won’t pay off for years.

This vertical integration now means we control the entire value chain and create multiple revenue streams: origination gains, management fees, servicing fees, and advisory income. But it required years of building when the payoff wasn’t obvious.

Lesson Three: Transparency Builds Trust

Let me be direct about something investors rightly care about: how much of our earnings are recurring versus transactional.

Today, fee-related earnings—things like management fees, servicing fees, and other recurring income—represent about 15% of our total revenue. Our target is 70% over time, with significant growth coming from our two younger divisions: ABL Tech and Wealth Advisors.

We’re making real progress on recurring revenue. Assets under management have grown to $3.33 billion, up from $2.96 billion at the start of the year. As we scale AUM, the fee stream grows proportionally and predictably. Throughout 2025, we significantly expanded our investor outreach. We attended eight conferences, presented at multiple investor days, and hosted more one-on-one meetings than ever before. But more importantly, we’ve been direct about both our strengths and our gaps.

Our retail shareholders matter enormously to us. Many of you were early believers in Abacus, and we don’t take that trust for granted. We’re committed to communicating with the same transparency and accessibility regardless of whether you own 100 shares or 100,000.

Lesson Four: Distribution Is Strategy

One of our most important accomplishments this year was completing a $50 million investment grade securitized note backed by life insurance assets.

This wasn’t just a financing transaction. It was a distribution strategy.

Early in my career, I learned that having a great product isn’t enough. You need access to capital. You need relationships with the people who deploy capital. You need multiple channels to reach different types of investors.

This securitization expands our institutional distribution by introducing Abacus to banks, insurance companies, and fixed income investors seeking non-correlated yield. It validates the strength of our underwriting, actuarial processes, and portfolio construction. It establishes a repeatable funding mechanism that lowers our cost of capital. And it converts balance sheet assets into ongoing servicing income.

The key detail: Abacus remains the servicer of the securitized assets. We’re not just selling and walking away. We’re building relationships and recurring revenue streams.

This is a template for future transactions. Securitized products will become a consistent component of our long-term funding strategy, alongside sales to third parties and in-house managed funds.

Lesson Five: Adjacent Markets Compound Your Advantages

In 2026, we’re launching an asset-based finance (ABF) strategy within Abacus Asset Group to continue accelerating our AUM and fee-related earnings growth.

This strategy will deploy third-party limited partner capital into asset-backed lending, structured credit, and corporate asset-based credit across sectors like consumer credit, commercial finance, and intellectual property. We’ll have differentiated expertise in insurance-related assets, including specialty insurance solutions, policy-backed lending, and insurance carrier financing.

This isn’t a random diversification. It’s a deliberate move into an adjacent market where our existing capabilities—actuarial expertise, ABL Tech’s data analytics, and deep relationships with insurance carriers—provide durable competitive advantages.

The asset-based finance market represents a $20 trillion-plus opportunity. But we’re not going after it broadly. We’re focused on the specific areas where we already have an edge.

That’s been true of every expansion. When we acquired AccuQuote in 2025, it wasn’t because we wanted to be in the lead generation business. It was because AccuQuote adds a digital origination funnel that feeds directly into our existing flywheel—future policyholders who may eventually seek liquidity solutions, or younger consumers who need new policy coverage or annuity solutions today.

Lesson Six: Symbols Matter

As 2025 came to a close, we debuted on the New York Stock Exchange under symbol ABX on December 30th. This move reflects our evolution as a scaled alternative asset manager and aligns Abacus with an exchange known for deep liquidity and a strong institutional investor base.

Our NYSE listing is further enhanced by Citadel Securities serving as our Designated Market Maker—the largest and most active liquidity provider on the Exchange.

The transition from ABL to ABX is more than a change of letters. It signals our broader transformation. While ABL served us well, ABX better represents who we’ve become: a diversified alternative asset manager whose business now extends well beyond longevity assets into structured products, asset management, technology services, and private wealth.

Early in my career, I might have dismissed this as superficial. But I’ve learned that symbols matter. Where you list matters. What you call yourself matters. These aren’t just marketing decisions—they’re signals about who you are and where you’re going.

What’s Next

2025 was a defining year for Abacus. But as proud as I am of what we accomplished, I’m even more excited about what lies ahead. The foundation is set. The flywheel is turning. And the opportunity in front of us is larger than it has ever been.

These lessons—building ownership culture, thinking in decades, embracing transparency, treating distribution as strategy, expanding into adjacent markets, and understanding that symbols matter—didn’t come easy. Two decades of entrepreneurial journey—each venture teaching lessons that shaped the next.