AFFILIATED MANAGERS GROUP, INC. (AMG): what the price requires

At today's price, AFFILIATED MANAGERS GROUP, INC. (AMG) is priced for +4.3% earnings growth. boothcheck doesn't publish a fair value or a price target; it shows what the price assumes, so you can judge whether that bar is too high.

Generated: 2026-07-19 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/AMG

Headline

FieldValue
TickerAMG
CompanyAFFILIATED MANAGERS GROUP, INC.
Current price$359.03/sh

What The Price Requires (Inversion)

The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.

FieldValue
Inversion basisfee-financial
Implied earnings growth4.3%
Price-to-earnings14.1x
Earnings yield7.1%

Solve inputs: computed at a 11.5% cost of equity with 4% terminal growth over a 5-year stage, on a 5-year median GAAP earnings base; each 1pp of cost of equity moves the implied earnings growth ~3.2pp.

Reconcile: at the x-ray's 9.3% required return this reads ~-3.6%/yr; the models below use their own rates.

How unusual the bet is: within-range

ReferenceValue
vs own history-0.50σ
cohort percentile (of 49 peers)16
implied end-window share0%

Valuation X-Ray

The price is supported by asset-based and earnings-power and relative-multiple and growth-DCF value. A value/asset-supported name, not a pure growth bet.

How the valuation models price the stock relative to the market price. Price/FV above 1.0 means the market pays more than that lens defends (expensive); at or below 1.0 the lens can defend the price.

FamilyMedian price/FVModelsReads
Asset1.04x4expensive
Earnings1.24x4expensive
Relative0.73x4justifies
Growth0.88x2justifies

Families that justify the price: Asset, Earnings, Relative, Growth

The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 8.0%); the inversion above states its own rate.

Per-Model Detail (n=14)

ModelFamilyFVPrice/FVApplicableMethodology
DCF Perpetual GrowthGrowth$860.430.42xyesFCF base $1.1B, growth 4% (input: historical growth), terminal g 4.0%, WACC 8.0%, 5yr projection
DCF Exit MultipleGrowth$0.00—noNegative/zero FCF or EBITDA — equity value floored at $0
Relative ValuationRelative$343.081.05xyesP/E 12x (static sector reference · 2026-04), scenarios: 10.1x / 12.0x / 13.9x (bear / base = reference held flat / bull), EV/EBITDA N/Ax
Simple DDMGrowth——no—
Two-Stage DDMGrowth——no—
Simple Excess ReturnAsset$296.651.21xyesBV/sh $144.87, ROE (TTM) 18.9%, ke 9.3%
Two-Stage Excess ReturnAsset$419.490.86xyes5yr excess ROE then converge to ke=9.3%
Discounted Future Market CapGrowth$266.851.35xyesRev $2.1B, growth 4% (input: historical growth; tapered), Terminal P/S: 3.9x / 4.7x / 5.4x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull, cap 8x)
Peter Lynch Fair ValueRelative$853.300.42xyesEPS $24.38, growth 35% (input: historical EPS growth), PEG=0.37 (Undervalued)
Margin TrajectoryGrowth——no—
Earnings Power ValueEarnings——no—
Residual IncomeAsset$411.820.87xyesBV $144.87 + 5yr PV of (ROE (TTM) 18.9% − Kₑ 9.3%) × BV; BV grows 8.8%/yr
Graham NumberAsset$281.901.27xyes√(22.5 × EPS $24.38 × BVPS $144.87) — Graham's conservative floor
EV/EBITDA RelativeRelative——no—
FCF YieldEarnings$322.411.11xyesFCF $1055.3M / Kₑ 9.3% — zero-growth perpetuity
SBC-Adj FCF YieldEarnings$235.451.52xyesSBC-adj FCF $0.83B (FCF $1.06B − SBC $0.22B) capitalized at Kₑ
Ben Graham FormulaEarnings$786.660.46xyesEPS $24.38 × (8.5 + 2×15.0%) × (4.4 / 5.3%)
ROIC-Justified P/BAsset——no—
P/Sales SectorRelative$231.571.55xyesRevenue $2.12B × sector P/S 3.0x
PEG Fair ValueRelative$914.250.39xyesEPS $24.38 × (PEG 1.5 × growth 25.0% (input: historical EPS growth)) → PE 37.5x
Earnings YieldEarnings$263.571.36xyesEPS $24.38 / required return 9.3% (Rf 4.3% + ERP 5.0%)
Funds From Operations MultipleRelative——no—
Clinical Phase NPVGrowth——no—
MertonAsset——no—
V5 Mechanical———no—

Solvency

FieldValue
Share count CAGR (buyback)-12.5%

Corporate solvency inputs do not resolve from the filings for this fee business (operating income or debt concepts are untagged), so net-debt and coverage lenses are suppressed rather than rendered from artifacts. Share-count CAGR is kept.

Bullet Takeaways

Bull Case

The recent earnings trajectory is the cleanest argument here, because it shows the business model working in the direction management has been pointing it. Aggregate fees across the Affiliates were $6,167.5 million in 2025, an increase of $931.5 million or 18% over 2024, and the 10-K is explicit that the growth came from net client cash inflows "and the addition of assets associated with new partnerships with Affiliates operating in growing areas within alternative strategies." Average assets under management reached a record level, and the most recent quarter carried record net client cash flows of $22.5 billion, concentrated in alternatives. The shape of that growth matters more than the level. Alternatives carry higher and stickier fee rates than long-only equities, so a dollar of new alternatives AUM is worth more in fee earnings than a dollar lost in equities, which is why fees can rise 18% in a year that equities are shedding assets.

The structure is the durable part. AMG owns economic participation in each Affiliate through, in its own description, a "structured partnership interest." It is a holding company that buys revenue-share or profit-share stakes in independent boutiques and lets them keep their own brand, autonomy, and incentives. That design spreads the firm across dozens of strategies and management teams, so no single Affiliate's bad year sinks the consolidated result, and it lets AMG keep adding new partnerships in the corners of the market where money is actually flowing. Most of the fee stream runs through Affiliates accounted for under the equity method, which keeps the parent capital-light: it collects fee streams without consolidating the full cost base of the underlying firms.

Capital allocation is where the bull case turns from steady to compelling. The share count has fallen at roughly 12.5% a year, which is buyback deployment showing up where it cannot be faked, and the firm has continued repurchasing stock through the equity-outflow stretch. At about 14 times earnings, every dollar spent retiring shares buys more earnings power than it would at a richer multiple, so the capital-light fee engine is being funneled into shrinking the share base while the alternatives mix compounds. The earnings-power and asset-value methods both read the price as supported rather than stretched, which means the buyback is being run against a price the fundamentals already defend.

Bear Case

The bear case lives inside one assumption baked into the price: that the fee base keeps growing at all. Today's price implies the firm compounds its fee earnings at roughly 4% a year, which is within what AMG has delivered and modest by the standards of an asset manager, but it is not zero, and the most fragile piece of the mix is the one shrinking. The most recent quarter carried about $9 billion of net outflows in long-only equities even as alternatives drew record inflows. The 4% the price embeds is a net number, and it requires the alternatives engine to keep outrunning the equities drain. If the equity bleed accelerates or alternatives demand cools, the net flow turns and the modest growth the price assumes stops being a floor.

The revenue itself is leveraged to things AMG does not control. Because so much of the fee stream runs through equity-method Affiliates, the consolidated result swings with "average assets under management and the composition of these assets across our equity method Affiliates' investment strategies with different asset-based fee ratios and performance-based fees." Market levels, relative performance, and redemptions all move AUM, and the firm has already taken impairments where "the decline in the fair value was a result of current and projected declines in assets under management that decreased the forecasted revenue associated with the assets." That is the bear in the company's own words: when AUM forecasts fall, the carrying value of the very stakes that generate the fees gets written down. A market drawdown does not just dent a quarter, it lowers the base the whole structure is valued on.

The balance sheet is the constraint that keeps the buyback honest. AMG runs about $2.5 billion of net debt, roughly 2.3 times trailing operating income, and interest expense is not separately broken out, so coverage cannot be read cleanly off the filings. That leverage is manageable while fees grow, but it is the reason the firm cannot simply buy back its way through a prolonged outflow cycle. The capital that retires shares is the same capital that services debt and seeds new Affiliate partnerships, and in a year where equities outflows overwhelm alternatives inflows, those three claims on cash start to compete.

Valuation

Start with what the price is paying for, because it is unusually undemanding for an asset manager. At about 14 times earnings, a 7.2% earnings yield, the price implies the firm grows its fee earnings around 4% a year. Measured against AMG's own record, that pace sits within what it has delivered, and against its fee-financial peers it lands in the lower half of the group on price-to-earnings. The market is not asking this business to accelerate. It is asking it to roughly hold serve.

The methods we use to triangulate agree more than they usually do, which is the signal worth naming. The asset-value lens, built off book value of $144.87 per share and a trailing return on equity near 19%, lands almost exactly at the price. The earnings-power methods, which capitalize the firm's free cash flow, read the price as if there is still room beneath it. Only the relative-multiple lens, pinning AMG to a sector P/E around 12 times, places the price somewhat above where peers trade, and that gap is the closest thing to a caution flag in the spread. Taken together, the price is supported by asset value, earnings power, and growth-discounted cash flow at once; this is a value-and-asset-supported name, not a growth bet riding on a single optimistic method.

Solvency bounds the downside and sharpens the read. AMG carries about $2.5 billion of net debt, roughly 2.3 times trailing operating income, modest enough that leverage is not the story but real enough that it caps how aggressively the firm can lean on buybacks in a bad flow year. The share count has fallen at about 12.5% a year, direct evidence that free cash is being returned rather than hoarded. The decisive fact is the mix: the price assumes 4% net fee growth, and whether the firm clears that bar comes down to alternatives inflows outrunning the long-only equity outflows the most recent quarter put at roughly $9 billion.

Catalysts

The first-quarter 2026 print, reported May 1, is the most relevant recent event and it set records on both sides of the story. Reported diluted EPS came in at $3.84, assets under management reached a record $882 billion, and net client cash flows were a record positive $22.5 billion, led by alternative strategies. Inside that record, long-only equities still shed roughly $9 billion, which is the tension the next several quarters will resolve. Management framed the long-only equity outflows as likely to moderate over the next twelve months, which would improve the overall net flow profile if it holds.

Capital return remains the steadiest catalyst. The firm repurchased about $186 million of stock in the quarter and has targeted roughly $500 million of buybacks for 2026, alongside continued investment in new Affiliate partnerships in growing alternatives strategies. The watch item is straightforward: each subsequent flow report tells you whether alternatives demand is still outrunning the equities drain, and the buyback pace tells you how management is weighing share repurchase against seeding the next generation of Affiliates.

Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)

Core business (reported)

Methodology Note

Fundamentals sourced from SEC EDGAR filings. Current price from Databento. The priced-in inversion and valuation x-ray are computed by the boothcheck engine; narrative composed by AI from the structured data.

Sources

AMG Q1 2026 earnings release, May 1, 2026 · AMG Q1 2026 earnings call, May 1, 2026

View the full interactive AMG report on boothcheck