UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

 

 

FORM 10-K

 

 

☒ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

 

For the year ended December 31, 2017

 

☐TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

 

Commission file number 001-34835

 

 

Envestnet, Inc.

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

 

 

 

Registrant’s telephone number, including area code:

(312) 827-2800

 

 

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

 

 

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act:

None

 

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act.  Yes ☐  No ☒

 

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act.  Yes ☐  No ☒

 

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days.  Yes ☒ No ☐ 

 

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically and posted on its corporate Web site, if any, every Interactive Data File required to be submitted and posted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit and post such files).  Yes ☒  No ☐

 

Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to item 405 of Regulation S-K is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of the registrants knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K.  ☐

 

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer ," "smaller reporting company," and "emerging growth company" in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act. (Check one):

 

 

 

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. Yes ☐  No ☐ 

 

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Act).  Yes ☐  No ☒

 

Aggregate market value of registrant’s common stock held by non-affiliates of the registrant, based upon the closing price of a share of the registrant’s common stock on June 30, 2017 as reported on The New York Stock Exchange on that date: $1,174,950,058. For purposes of this calculation, shares of common stock held by (i) persons holding more than 5% of the outstanding shares of stock, and (ii) officers and directors of the registrant, as of June 30, 2017, are excluded in that such persons may be deemed to be affiliates. This determination is not necessarily conclusive of affiliate status.

 

As of February 23, 2018, 44,724,801 shares of the common stock with a par value of $0.005 per share were outstanding.

 

 

 

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

Forward‑Looking Statements

Unless the context requires otherwise, the words “Envestnet,” “the Company,” “we,” “us” and “our” are references to Envestnet, Inc. and its subsidiaries as a whole.

This annual report on Form 10‑K contains forward‑looking statements regarding future events and our future results within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward‑looking statements include, in particular, statements about our plans, strategies and prospects under the heading “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.” These statements are based on our current expectations and projections about future events and are identified by terminology such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “continue,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “expected,” “intend,” “will,” “may,” or “should” or the negative of those terms or variations of such words, and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward‑looking statements. In addition, any statements that refer to projections of our future financial performance, our anticipated growth and trends in our business and other characteristics of future events or circumstances are forward‑looking statements. Forward‑looking statements may include, among others, statements relating to:

In addition, there may be other factors of which we are presently unaware or that we currently deem immaterial that could cause our actual results to be materially different from the results referenced in the forward‑looking statements. All forward‑looking statements contained in this annual report and documents incorporated herein by reference are qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. Forward‑looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, and we do not intend to update or otherwise revise the forward‑looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this annual report or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as required by applicable law. If we do update one or more forward‑looking statements, no inference should be made that we will make additional updates with respect to those or other forward‑looking statements.

Although we believe that our plans, intentions and expectations are reasonable, we may not achieve our plans, intentions or expectations.

These forward‑looking statements involve risks and uncertainties. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward‑looking statements we make in this annual report are set forth in Part I under “Risk Factors”; accordingly, investors should not place undue reliance upon our forward‑looking statements.

You should read this annual report on Form 10‑K completely and with the understanding that our actual future results, levels of activity, performance and achievements may be different from what we expect and that these differences may be material. We qualify all of our forward‑looking statements by these cautionary statements.

The following discussion and analysis should also be read along with our consolidated financial statements and the related notes included elsewhere in this annual report. Except for the historical information contained herein, this discussion contains forward‑looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from those discussed below.

Except where we have otherwise indicated or the context otherwise requires, dollar amounts presented in this Form 10‑K are in thousands, except for Exhibits and per share amounts.

Item 1.  Business

General

Envestnet is a leading provider of intelligent systems for wealth management and financial wellness.  Envestnet’s unified technology enhances advisor productivity and strengthens the wealth management process. Envestnet empowers enterprises and advisors to more fully understand their clients and deliver better outcomes.

 

More than 2,900 companies, including 16 of the 20 largest U.S. banks, 39 of the 50 largest wealth management and brokerage firms, over 500 of the largest registered investment advisers (“RIA”), and hundreds of Internet services companies, leverage Envestnet technology and services. Envestnet solutions enhance knowledge of the client, accelerate client on-boarding, improve client digital experiences, and help drive better outcomes for enterprises, advisors, and their clients.

 

Founded in 1999, Envestnet has been a leader in helping transform wealth management, working towards its goal of building a holistic financial wellness network that supports enterprises, advisors and their clients.  

 

Through a combination of platform enhancements, partnerships and acquisitions, Envestnet uniquely provides a financial network connecting software, services and data, delivering better intelligence and enabling its customers to drive better outcomes.

 

Envestnet serves clients from its headquarters based in Chicago, Illinois, as well as other locations throughout the United States, India and other international locations.

Segments

 

Envestnet is organized around two primary, complementary business segments. Financial information about each business segment is contained in “Note 21  – Segment Information” to the notes to consolidated financial statements in Part II, Item 8. Our business segments are as follows:

Envestnet Segment

Envestnet empowers financial advisors at broker-dealers, banks, and RIAs with all the tools they require to deliver holistic wealth management to their end clients.  In addition, the firm provides advisors with practice management support so that they can grow their practices and operate more efficiently. At the end of 2017, Envestnet’s platform assets grew to approximately $1.4 trillion in nearly 7 million accounts overseen by nearly 60 thousand advisors. 

 

Services provided to advisors include:  financial planning, risk assessment and selection of investment strategies and solutions, asset allocation models, research and due diligence, portfolio construction, proposal generation and paperwork preparation, model management and account rebalancing, account monitoring, customized fee billing, overlay services covering asset allocation, tax management and socially responsible investing, aggregated multi‑custodian performance reporting and communication tools, plus data analytics.  Envestnet has access to a wide range of leading third‑party asset custodians.

 

We offer these solutions principally through the following product/services suites:

As the tables below indicate, Envestnet’s wealth management solutions have experienced steady and significant growth over the last several years. We believe this growth is attributable to secular trends in the wealth management industry, the uniqueness and comprehensiveness of our products, as well as acquisitions.

The following charts show growth in the number of advisors, accounts and assets supported by Envestnet:

Advisors with Assets Under Management or Administration & Subscription and Licensing

 

 

Accounts Under Management or Administration & Subscription and Licensing

(in thousands)

 

 

Assets Under Management or Administration & Subscription and Licensing

($ in billions)

Envestnet | Yodlee Segment

Envestnet | Yodlee is a leading data aggregation and data intelligence platform.  As a “big data” specialist, Envestnet | Yodlee gathers, refines and aggregates a massive set of end-user permissioned transaction level data, which it then provides to customers as data analytics solutions and market research services.

More than a thousand financial institutions, financial technology innovators and financial advisory firms, including 13 of the 20 largest U.S. banks, subscribe to the Envestnet | Yodlee platform to underpin personalized financial apps and services for over 21 million paid subscribers.

Envestnet | Yodlee serves two main customer groups:  financial institutions (“FI”) and financial technology innovators, which we refer to as Yodlee Interactive (“YI”) customers.

Both FI and YI channels benefit customers by improving end-user satisfaction and retention, accelerating speed to market, creating technology savings and enhancing their data analytics solutions and market research capabilities.  End users receive better access to their financial information and more control over their finances, leading to more informed and personalized decision making.  For customers who are members of the developer community, Yodlee solutions provide access to critical data and payments solutions, faster speed to market and enhanced distribution.

We believe that our brand leadership, innovative technology and intellectual property, large customer base, and unique data gathering and enrichment provide us with competitive advantages that have enabled us to generate strong growth.

Market Opportunity

The wealth management industry has experienced significant growth in terms of assets invested by retail investors in the past several years. According to the Federal Reserve, U.S. household financial assets approximated $79 trillion as of September 30, 2017, representing a sizeable wealth management opportunity.

 

A number of significant trends are impacting the wealth management industry. Market forces are converging to bring about changes in wealth management, including those described below:

 

 

These trends are impacting Envestnet’s business and creating a significant market opportunity for technology‑enabled investment solutions and services like ours.

 

A technological shift is also underway in the broader financial services industry. Outdated enterprise hardware and software is being replaced by cloud-driven solutions that are easier and less expensive to implement, update and manage.  Banks continue to spend heavily on IT in order to compete effectively in an increasingly competitive environment.  The addressable market opportunity is large.

 

As we continue to expand our presence in the markets outlined above, the number of potential end users who use our solutions increases dramatically.  Our potential end user base includes any consumer of financial services on the Internet—and this end user could be a paid user of Envestnet | Yodlee many times over across multiple customers and products. This multiplier effect greatly increases our addressable end user base.

 

Business Model

 

Envestnet’s business model lends itself to a high degree of recurring and predictable revenues.  Envestnet provides asset-based, subscription and licensing, and professional services on a business-to-business-to-consumer (“B2B2C”) basis to financial services clients, whereby customers offer solutions based on our platform to their end users.  On a business-to-business (“B2B”) basis, we deliver an open platform to customers and third-party developers through an open API framework. We believe that a number of characteristics contribute to the success of our business model, including:

 

 

Revenue is generated in three categories:

 

Assets under management or administration (“AUM/A”)  

 

AUM/A revenue is asset‑based, meaning it is derived from fees charged as a percentage of the assets that are managed or administered on our technology platforms by financial advisors. 

 

In over 90% of asset‑based fee arrangements, customers are billed at the beginning of each quarter based on the market value of customer assets on our wealth management platforms as of the end of the prior quarter, providing for a high degree of revenue visibility in the current quarter.  Revenue may fluctuate from quarter to quarter based on changes in asset values or fee rates on those asset values. 

 

Subscription and Licensing

 

The firm also generates revenue from recurring, contractual subscription and licensing fees for providing access to our technology platforms. 

 

Envestnet’s subscription and licensing fees are also highly predictable because they are generally established in multi‑year contracts providing longer‑term visibility regarding that portion of total revenues.

 

Subscription and licensing fees vary based on the scope of technology solutions and services being used, and are priced in a variety of constructs based on the size of the business, number of users or number of accounts, and in many cases can increase over time based on the growth of these factors.

 

Professional Services and Other

 

Envestnet also generates revenue from professional services for client onboarding, technology development and other project related work.

 

Growth Strategy

 

Envestnet intends to increase revenue and profitability by continuing to pursue the following strategies:

 

 

Technology Platforms

Our technology platforms feature a three‑tier architecture integrating a Web‑based user interface, an application tier that houses the business logic for all of the platforms’ functionality and a SQL Server databases. The application tier resides behind load balancers which distribute the workload demands across our servers. We believe our technology design allows for significant scalability.

Envestnet undergoes an annual SSAE 16 SOC 1 Type II audit to validate the continued operation of our internal controls on three of its main technology platforms; the Unified Managed Platform, the Unified Managed Platform (Institutional) and Tamarac platforms.  The SOC reports confirm design and operating effectiveness of internal controls. We maintain multiple redundancies, back up our databases and safeguard technologies and proprietary information consistent with industry best practices. We also maintain a comprehensive business continuity plan and company‑wide risk assessment program that is consistent with industry best practices and that complies with applicable regulatory requirements.

We have historically made significant investments in platform development in order to enhance and expand our technology platforms and expect to continue to make significant investments in the future. In the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015, we incurred technology development costs totaling approximately $40,800, $38,100 and $12,600, respectively. Of these costs, we capitalized approximately $12,600, $8,600 and $5,500, respectively, as internally developed software. We expect to continue focusing our technology development efforts principally on adding features to increase our market competitiveness, enhancements to improve operating efficiency, address regulatory demands and reduce risk, and client‑driven requests for new capabilities.

Our proprietary Web‑based platforms provide financial advisors with access to investment solutions and services that address, in one unified, centrally‑hosted platform, based on our knowledge of the industry, the widest range of front‑, middle‑ and back‑office needs in our industry. The “open architecture” design of our technology platforms provide financial advisors with flexibility in terms of the investment solutions and services they access, and configurability in the manner in which the financial advisors utilize particular investment solutions and services. The multi‑tenant platform architecture ensures that this level of flexibility and customization is achieved without requiring us to create unique applications for each client, thereby reducing the need for additional technology personnel and associated expenses. In addition, though our technology platforms are designed to deliver a breadth of functions, financial advisors are able to select from the various investment solutions and services we offer, without being required to subscribe to or purchase more than what they believe is necessary.

Our data aggregation platform collects a wide variety of end user-permissioned transaction-level data from over 16,000 sources and puts it in a common repository.  Envestnet | Yodlee developed robust proprietary technology and processes and established relationships that allow us to curate these data sources and expand our access to new data sources. Approximately 70% of this data is collected through structured feeds from our FI customers and other FIs. These structured feeds, which consist of either batch files pushed to us or real-time access, provide this critical data efficiently and at scale. Where we do not have direct connections, we capture data using our proprietary information-gathering techniques.

Beyond collecting data, our data aggregation platform performs a data refining process and augments the data with additional information from a variety of other sources.  We enrich the data with a proprietary twelve-step process, adding such elements as categorization and merchant identification for bank or credit card account data and security identification, classification and normalization for investment data.  As our platform usage grows and is exposed to more users and use cases, the system benefits from machine learning algorithms to better normalize, categorize and process large amounts of data, allowing our network to become more effective, efficient and valuable to our customers. Utilizing this enhanced data, including consolidated data from within our FI customers and account data regarding accounts at other FIs, our data intelligence organizes, analyzes, and presents it in a manner that helps our customers offer personalized solutions that enable their consumers to achieve better financial outcomes.

Our analytics platform provides a highly scalable cloud based environment that supports a cost effective and secure way of handling very large data sets, permitting us to develop and test new machine learning algorithms, transform these data sets using the resulting models. The results of the computations can be accessed interactively, as files, or via API access through our data aggregation platform.

Our money movement solutions facilitate payment flows. Our customers can debit and credit consumer and small business accounts in real time or in batches and route payments between accounts (funds transfer), to billers (bill pay), or to other individuals (peer to peer). Designed to be run as a service, our money movement solutions allow us to operate these functionalities in the cloud and quickly adapt to new payment systems. Our payment engine, which is a principal component of our money movement solutions, is a task-based payment processing platform that controls all payment activity across cobrands, originators, processors, and billers.

Customers

Sales and Marketing

Our sales teams are organized based on our customers.

Our marketing efforts are focused on initiatives to drive global company, brand and solutions awareness and significant lead generation and sales acceleration across our whole business. These initiatives include educating the market about our solutions, achieving recognition as the industry leader through awards, speaking engagements, thought leadership articles, data trends and metrics, and high profile interviews. We use advertising and public relations to communicate our message to our target markets.

To implement our marketing efforts, we generally employ paid print and online advertisements in a variety of industry publications, as well as promotions that include e‑blast campaigns and sponsored webinars for financial advisors. We also partner with independent broker‑dealers on direct mail campaigns targeting such firms’ financial advisors to describe the investment solutions and services that we offer, produce brochures and presentations for financial advisors to use with their clients and we create Internet pages or sites to promote our investment solutions and services. Envestnet | Yodlee employs a variety of integrated sales and marketing initiatives, including hosted demand generation webinars, sponsorship and partnership of key industry conferences, customer and developer-focused events and programs, incubator efforts, and other high-profile activities designed to demonstrate thought leadership and engage new audiences in actionable and measurable ways.  We employ many tools, including web and social properties, integrated creative campaigns consisting of online advertising, digital content marketing, direct mail, and blogs.  Envestnet | Yodlee also supports industry analyst relations and media relations activities.  In addition, our marketing efforts develop FI customer best practices tools to drive deeper consumer activity and engagement.

Competition

Within wealth management, Envestnet competes on the basis of several factors including:

 

Our competitors offer a variety of products and services that compete with one or more of the investment solutions and services provided through our technology platforms; although, based on our industry experience, we believe that none offers a more comprehensive set of products and services than Envestnet does.

 

Within digital financial services, we compete on the basis of several factors, including:

 

We believe that Envestnet competes favorably with respect to all of these factors. 

Regulation

Overview

The financial services industry is among the most extensively regulated industries in the United States. We operate investment advisory, broker-dealer and mutual fund advisory businesses, each of which is subject to a specific regulatory scheme, including regulation at the federal and state level, as well as regulation by self-regulatory

organizations and non-U.S. regulatory authorities. In addition, we are subject to numerous laws and regulations of general application.

Our subsidiaries Envestnet Asset Management, Inc. (“EAM”), Envestnet Portfolio Solutions, Inc. (“EPS”) and ERS operate investment advisory businesses. These subsidiaries are registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) as “investment advisers” under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, as amended (the “Advisers Act”), and are regulated thereunder. They may also provide fiduciary services as defined in Section 3(21)(A)(ii) of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”), including acting as an “investment manager” (as defined in Section 3(38) of ERISA). As described further below, many of our investment advisory programs are conducted pursuant to the non-exclusive safe harbor from the definition of an “investment company” provided for under Rule 3a-4 of the Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended (the “Investment Company Act”). If Rule 3a-4 were to cease to be available, or if the SEC were to modify the rule or its interpretation of how the rule is applied, it could have a substantial effect on our business. EAM serves as the investment adviser to two mutual funds. Mutual funds are registered as “investment companies” under the Investment Company Act. The Advisers Act, Investment Company Act and ERISA, together with related regulations and interpretations of the SEC, impose numerous obligations and restrictions on investment advisers and mutual funds, including recordkeeping requirements, limitations on advertising, disclosure and reporting obligations, prohibitions on fraudulent activities, and detailed operating requirements, including restrictions on transactions between an adviser and its clients, and between a mutual fund and its advisers and affiliates. The fiduciary obligations of investment advisers to their clients require advisers to, among other things, consider the suitability of the investment products and advice they provide, seek “best execution” for their clients’ securities transactions, conduct due diligence on third-party products offered to clients, consider the appropriateness of the adviser’s fees, and provide extensive and ongoing disclosure to clients. The application of these requirements to wrap fee programs is particularly complex and the SEC has in the past scrutinized firms’ compliance with these requirements. The SEC is authorized to institute proceedings and impose fines and sanctions for violations of the Advisers Act and the Investment Company Act and has the power to restrict or prohibit an investment adviser from carrying on its business in the event that it fails to comply with applicable laws and regulations. Although we believe we are in compliance in all material respects with the requirements of the Advisers Act and the Investment Company Act and the rules and interpretations promulgated thereunder, our failure to comply with such laws, rules and interpretations could have a material adverse effect on us.

Portfolio Brokerage Services, Inc., (“PBS”), our broker-dealer subsidiary, is registered as a broker-dealer with the SEC under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, (the “Exchange Act”), in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. In addition, PBS is a member of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”), the securities industry self-regulatory organization that supervises and regulates the conduct and activities of broker-dealers. Broker-dealers are subject to regulations that cover all aspects of their business, including sales practices, market making and trading among broker-dealers, use and safekeeping of customers’ funds and securities, capital structure, record-keeping and the conduct of directors, officers, employees, representatives and associated persons. FINRA and the SEC conduct periodic examinations of the operations of its members, including PBS. Violation of applicable regulations can result in the suspension or revocation of a broker-dealer’s registration, the imposition of censures or fines and the suspension or expulsion of the broker-dealer from FINRA. PBS is subject to minimum net capital requirements under the Exchange Act, SEC and FINRA rules and conducts its business pursuant to the exemption from the SEC’s customer protection rule provided by Rule 15c3-3(k)(2)(i) under the Exchange Act. As of December 31, 2017, PBS was required to maintain a minimum of $100 in net capital and its actual net capital was $1,238.

Envestnet | Yodlee is examined on a periodic basis by various regulatory agencies. For example, Envestnet | Yodlee is a supervised third-party technology service provider subject to multi-agency supervisory examinations in a wide variety of areas based on published guidance by the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council. These examinations include examinations of Envestnet | Yodlee’s management, acquisition and development activities, support and delivery, IT, and disaster preparedness and business recovery planning. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (the “OCC”) is the agency in charge of these examinations.

Either as a result of direct regulation or obligations under customer agreements, our subsidiaries are required to comply with certain provisions of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, related to the privacy of consumer information and may be subject to other privacy and data security laws because of the solutions we provide. In addition, numerous regulations have been proposed and are still being written to implement the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer

Protection Act of 2010 (the “Dodd-Frank Act”), for enhanced due diligence of the internal systems and processes of companies like ours by their financial institutions customers.

Our subsidiaries are subject to various federal and state laws and regulations that grant supervisory agencies, including the SEC and OCC, broad administrative powers. In the event of a failure to comply with these laws and regulations, the possible sanctions that may be imposed include the suspension of individual employees, limitations on the permissibility of our regulated subsidiaries and our other subsidiaries to engage in business for specified periods of time, censures, fines, and the revocation of registration as a broker-dealer or investment adviser, as applicable. Additionally, the securities laws and other regulations applicable to us and our subsidiaries provide for certain private rights of action that could give rise to civil litigation. Any litigation could have significant financial and non-financial consequences including monetary judgments and the requirement to take action or limit activities that could ultimately affect our business.

Many of the laws and regulations to which our subsidiaries are subject are evolving, unclear and inconsistent across various jurisdictions, and ensuring compliance with them is difficult and costly. We continually develop improvements to our existing products and services as well as new products and services.  Many of these improvements or new products and services may implicate regulations to which we may not already be subject or with which we may not have experience. New laws or regulations, or changes in existing laws or regulations or interpretations of existing laws and regulations, including those relating to the activities of our investment adviser, broker-dealer and financial institution clients, may occur that could increase our compliance and other costs of doing business, require significant changes to our systems or solutions or substantially change the way that our clients operate their businesses. Compliance with any new or revised regulatory requirements may divert internal resources, be expensive and time-consuming and may require increased investment in compliance functions or new technologies. Failure to comply with the laws and regulations to which we and our subsidiaries are subject could result in fines, penalties or limitations on our ability to conduct our business, or federal or state actions, any of which could significantly harm our reputation, and could materially and adversely affect our business, operating results and financial condition.

Investment Advisory Program Conducted Under Rule 3a-4

Under the Investment Company Act, an issuer that is engaged in the business of investing, reinvesting or trading in securities may be deemed an “investment company,” in which case the issuer may be subject to registration requirements and regulation as an investment company under the Investment Company Act. In order to provide assurance that certain discretionary investment advisory programs would not be considered investment companies, the SEC adopted Rule 3a-4 under the Investment Company Act, which provides a non-exclusive safe harbor from the definition of an investment company for programs that meet the requirements of the rule. We conduct the following programs pursuant to the Rule 3a-4 safe harbor:

We believe that, to the extent we exercise discretion over accounts in any of these programs, these programs qualify for the safe-harbor because all of the programs have the following characteristics, which are generally required in order for a program to be eligible for the Rule 3a-4 safe harbor:

Employees

As of December 31, 2017, we had 3,516 employees, including employees in operations, research and development, engineering and systems, executive and corporate functions, sales and marketing and investment management and research. Of these 3,516 employees, 1,263 were located in the United States, 2,241 were located in India and 12 were located in other international locations. None of our employees are represented by a labor union. We have never experienced a work stoppage and believe our relationship with our employees is positive.

Executive Officers of the Registrant

The following table summarizes information about each one of our executive officers.

 

Judson Bergman, Age 61. Mr. Bergman is the founder of our company and has served as our Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and a director since 1999. Prior to founding our company, Mr. Bergman was Managing Director at Nuveen Investments, Inc. (“Nuveen”), a diversified investment manager. Mr. Bergman received an MBA in finance and accounting from Columbia University and a BA from Wheaton College.

Anil Arora, Age 57. Mr. Arora has served as Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Envestnet | Yodlee since November 2015. Prior to then, he was President and Chief Executive Officer and was a member of the board of directors of Yodlee, Inc. since February 2000. Mr. Arora served as the Chairman of the board of directors of Yodlee, Inc. since March 2014. Prior to joining Yodlee, Mr. Arora served in various positions with Gateway, Inc.  Mr. Arora holds an M.B.A. from the University of Michigan, Stephen M. Ross School of Business, and a B.S. in business administration from Rockford College.

William Crager, Age 53. Mr. Crager has served as our President since 2002. Prior to joining us, Mr. Crager served as Managing Director of Marketing and Client Services at Rittenhouse Financial Services, Inc., an investment management firm affiliated with Nuveen. Mr. Crager received an MA from Boston University and a BA from Fairfield University, with a dual major in economics and English.

Peter D’Arrigo, Age 50. Mr. D’Arrigo has served as our Chief Financial Officer since 2008. Prior to joining us, Mr. D’Arrigo worked at Nuveen where he served as Treasurer since 1999, as well as holding a variety of other titles after joining them in 1990. Mr. D’Arrigo received an MBA from the Northwestern University Kellogg Graduate School of Management and an undergraduate degree in applied mathematics from Yale University.

Scott Grinis, Age 56. Mr. Grinis has served as our Chief Technology Officer since 2004. Prior to joining us, Mr. Grinis co‑founded Oberon Financial Technology, Inc., our subsidiary, prior to its acquisition by us. Mr. Grinis received a BS and an MS degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University.

Shelly O’Brien, Age 52. Ms. O’Brien has served as our Chief Legal Officer, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary since 2002. Prior to joining us, Ms. O’Brien was General Counsel and Director of Legal and Compliance for ING (U.S.) Securities, Futures & Options Inc., a broker‑dealer, and futures commission merchant. Ms. O’Brien received a degree in political science from Northwestern University, a JD from Hamline University School of Law, and an LLM in taxation from John Marshall Law School.

Brandon Thomas, Age 54. Mr. Thomas is a co‑founder of our company and has served as Chief Investment Officer and Managing Director of Portfolio Management Consultants, our internal investment management and portfolio consulting group, since 1999. Prior to joining us, Mr. Thomas was Director of Equity Funds for Nuveen. Mr. Thomas received an MBA from the University of Chicago, a JD from DePaul University and is a graduate of Brown University.

Josh Mayer, Age 44. Mr. Mayer was appointed Chief Operating Officer in April 2014. Previously, he served as Envestnet’s Executive Vice President and Director of Operations from January 2011 to April 2014, and as Envestnet’s Senior Vice President, Head of Operations from 2004 to January 2011. From 2000 to 2004, Mr. Mayer served as the Director of Operations for Oberon Financial Technology, which was acquired by Envestnet in 2004. Mr. Mayer holds a Bachelor of Arts and Sciences from Georgetown University.

Item 1A.  Risk Factors

An investment in any security involves risk. An investor or potential investor should consider the risks summarized in this section when making investment decisions regarding our securities offerings. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the risk factors set forth below. The risks and uncertainties described in this section are not the only ones we face. Additional risks and uncertainties not presently known to us or that we currently believe are immaterial may also affect our business. If any of these known or unknown risks or uncertainties actually occurs, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be materially adversely affected.

Risks Related to Our Business

We have experienced rapid revenue growth, which may be difficult to sustain and which may place significant demands on our administrative, operational and financial resources and any inability to maintain or manage our growth could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition or business.

Our revenues during the three years ended December 31, 2017 have grown at a compound annual growth rate of 27%. We expect our growth to continue, which could place additional demands on our resources and increase our expenses. Our future growth will depend on, among other things, our ability to successfully grow our total assets under management and administration and add additional clients. If we are unable to implement our growth strategy, develop new investment solutions and services and gain new clients, our results of operations, financial condition or business may be materially adversely affected.

Sustaining growth will also require us to commit additional management, operational and financial resources and to maintain appropriate operational and financial systems. In addition, continued growth increases the challenges involved in:

There can be no assurance that we will be able to maintain or accelerate our growth, and any failure to do so could adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition or business.

Our revenue can fluctuate from period to period, which could cause our share price to fluctuate.

Our revenue may fluctuate from period‑to‑period in the future due to a variety of factors, many of which are beyond our control. Factors relating to our business that may contribute to these fluctuations include the following events, as well as other factors described elsewhere in this document:

 

As a result of these and other factors, the results of operations for any quarterly or annual period may differ materially from the results of operations for any prior or future quarterly or annual period and should not be relied upon as indications of our future performance.

We operate in highly competitive industries, with many firms competing for business from financial advisors and financial institutions on the basis of a number of factors, including the quality and breadth of investment solutions and services, ability to innovate, reputation and the prices of services and this competition could hurt our financial performance.

We compete with many different types of companies that vary in size and scope, including custodians, turnkey asset management platforms, data and analytics providers, and other financial technology companies. Representative examples of competitors include Pershing LLC (a subsidiary of BNY Mellon Corporation), AssetMark, Inc., Advent Software (a subsidiary of SS&C Technologies Holdings, Inc.), Orion Advisor Services, and Quovo, Inc. Competition is discussed in greater detail under “Business—Competition” included in this Form 10‑K. In addition, some of our clients have developed or may develop the in‑house capability to provide the technology and/or investment advisory services they have retained us to perform. These clients may also offer internally developed services to their financial advisors, obviating the need to hire us, and they may offer these services to third‑party financial advisors or financial institutions, thereby competing directly with us for that business.

Many of our competitors have significantly greater resources than we do. These resources may allow our competitors to respond more quickly to changes in demand for investment solutions and services, to devote greater resources to developing and promoting their services and to make more attractive offers to potential clients and strategic partners, which could hurt our financial performance.

We may lose clients as a result of the sale or merger of a client, a change in a client’s senior management, competition from other financial advisors and financial institutions and for other reasons. We also face increased competition due to the current trend of industry consolidation. If large financial institutions that are not our clients are able to attract assets from our clients, our ability to grow revenues and earnings may be adversely affected.

Our Envestnet | PMC group competes with other providers of investment solutions and products. These competitors may offer broader solutions and/or products and their solutions and/or products may have better investment returns during one or more periods. If the investment returns on our investment products are not perceived to be competitive, we could experience outflows of assets from these products and face difficulty attracting new assets to these products.

We compete with many companies that have greater name recognition, substantially greater financial, technical, marketing and other resources, the ability to devote greater resources to the promotion, sale and support of their solutions, more extensive customer bases and broader customer relationships, and longer operating histories than we have.

Our failure to successfully compete in any of the above‑mentioned areas could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition or business. Competition could also affect the revenue mix of services we provide, resulting in decreased revenues in lines of business with higher profit margins.

We derive a substantial portion of our revenues from the delivery of investment solutions and services to clients in the financial advisory industry and our revenue could suffer if that industry experiences a downturn.

A substantial portion of our revenues are derived from clients in the financial advisory industry. A decline or lack of growth in demand for financial advisory services would adversely affect our clients and, in turn, our results of operations, financial condition and business. For example, the availability of free or low‑cost investment information and resources, including research and information relating to publicly traded companies and mutual funds available on the Internet or on company websites, could lead to lower demand by investors for the services provided by financial

advisors. In addition, demand for our investment solutions and services among financial advisors could decline for many reasons. Consolidation or limited growth in the financial advisory industry could reduce the number of our clients and potential clients. Events that adversely affect our clients’ businesses, rates of growth or the numbers of customers they serve, including decreased demand for our clients’ products and services, adverse conditions in our clients’ markets or adverse economic conditions generally, could decrease demand for our investment solutions and services and thereby decrease our revenues. Any of the foregoing could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition or business.

Because some of our sales efforts are targeted at large financial institutions and large Internet services companies, we face prolonged sales cycles, substantial upfront sales costs and less predictability in completing some of our sales. If our sales cycle lengthens, or if our upfront sales investments do not result in sufficient revenue, our operating results may be harmed.

We target a portion of our sales efforts at large financial institutions and large Internet services companies, which presents challenges that are different from those we encounter with smaller customers. Because our large customers are often making an enterprise-wide decision to deploy our solutions, we face longer sales cycles, complex customer requirements, substantial upfront sales costs, significant contract negotiations and less predictability in completing sales with these customers. Our sales cycle can often last one year or more with our largest customers, who often undertake an extended evaluation process, but is variable and difficult to predict. We anticipate that we will experience even longer sales cycles, more complex customer needs, higher upfront sales costs and less predictability in completing sales with customers located outside of the United States. If our sales cycle lengthens or our upfront sales investments do not generate sufficient revenue to justify our investments in our sales efforts, our operating results may be harmed.

Failure of our customers to deploy our solutions in a timely and successful manner could negatively affect our revenue and operating results.

The timing of revenue from our customers depends on a number of factors outside of our control and may vary from period to period. Our customers may request customization of our solutions for their systems or engage in a prolonged, internal decision making process regarding the deployment of our solutions. Among our larger customers, deployment of our solutions can be a complex and prolonged process and requires integration into the existing platform on our customers’ systems. Any delay during the deployment process related to technical difficulties experienced by our customers or us in integrating our solutions into our customers’ systems could further lengthen the deployment period and create additional costs or customer dissatisfaction. During the deployment period, we expend substantial time, effort, and financial resources to assist our customers with the deployment. We generally are not able to recognize the full potential value of our customer contracts until our customers actually deploy our solutions. Cancellation of any deployment after it has begun could result in lost time, effort, and expenses invested in the cancelled deployment process, and would adversely affect our ability to recognize revenue that we anticipated at the time of the execution of the related customer contract. If our customers do not timely and successfully deploy our solutions, our future revenue and operating results could be negatively impacted.

A limited number of clients account for a material portion of our revenue. Termination of our contracts with any of these clients could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition or business.

For the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015, revenues associated with our relationship with our single largest client, FMR LLC, an affiliate of FMR Corp., or Fidelity, accounted for 17%, 15% and 18% respectively, of our total revenues and our ten largest clients accounted for 37%, 36% and 42%, respectively, of our total revenues. Our license agreements with large financial institutions are generally multi-year contracts that may be terminated upon the expiration of the contract term or prior to such time for cause, which may include breach of contract, bankruptcy, insolvency and other reasons. A substantial majority of our revenues associated with Fidelity is derived from ongoing platform service fees paid by firms, advisors or advisors’ clients obtained through the Fidelity relationship based upon asset-based fees. A majority of our agreements with financial advisors generally provide for termination at any time. The license agreement with Fidelity, which accounted for less than 1% of our revenue in the year ended December 31, 2017, is subject to renewal on an annual basis. If Fidelity or a significant number of our most important clients were to terminate their contracts with us and we were unable to obtain a significant number of new clients, our results of operations, financial condition or business could be materially adversely affected. 

Our investment advisory clients that pay us an asset‑based fee may seek to negotiate a lower fee percentage or may cease using our services, which could limit the growth of, or decrease, our revenues.

A significant portion of our revenues are derived from asset‑based fees. Our investment advisory clients may, for a number of reasons, seek to negotiate a lower asset‑based fee percentage. For example, an increase in the use of index‑linked investment products by the clients of our financial advisor clients may result in lower fees being paid to our clients, and our clients may in turn seek to negotiate lower asset‑based fee percentages for our services. In addition, as competition among our clients increases, they may be required to lower the fees they charge to their clients, which could cause them to seek to decrease our fees accordingly. Any of these factors could result in fluctuation or a decline in our asset‑based fees, which would have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition or business.

Changes in market and economic conditions could lower the value of assets on which we earn revenues and could decrease the demand for our investment solutions and services.

Asset‑based fees make up a significant portion of our revenues. Asset‑based fees represented 60%, 61% and 79% of our total revenues for the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015, respectively. We expect that asset‑based fees will continue to represent a significant percentage of our total revenues in the future. Significant fluctuations in securities prices may materially affect the value of the assets managed by our clients and may also influence financial advisor and investor decisions regarding whether to invest in, or maintain an investment in, a mutual fund or other investment solution. If such market fluctuation led to less investment in the securities markets, our revenues and earnings derived from asset‑based fees could be materially adversely affected. 

We provide our investment solutions and services to the financial services industry. The financial markets, and in turn the financial services industry, are affected by many factors, such as U.S. and foreign economic conditions and general trends in business and finance that are beyond our control. In the event that the U.S. or international financial markets suffer a severe or prolonged downturn, investors may choose to withdraw assets from financial advisors, which we refer to as “redemptions”, and transfer them to investments that are perceived to be more secure, such as bank deposits and Treasury securities. For example, in late 2007 and through the first quarter of 2009, the financial markets experienced a broad and prolonged downturn, our redemption rates were higher than our historical average, and our results of operations, financial condition and business were materially adversely affected. Any prolonged downturn in financial markets or increased levels of asset withdrawals could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition or business.

Investors’ decisions regarding their investment assets are affected by many factors and investors may redeem or withdraw their investment assets generally at any time. Significant changes in investing patterns or large‑scale withdrawal of investment funds could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition or business.

The clients of our financial advisors are generally free to change financial advisors, forgo the advice and other services provided by financial advisors or withdraw the funds they have invested with financial advisors. These clients of financial advisors may elect to change their investment strategies, by moving their assets away from equity securities to fixed income or other investment options, or by withdrawing all or a portion of their assets from their accounts to avoid all securities markets‑related risks. These actions by investors are outside of our control and could materially adversely affect the market value of the investment assets that our clients manage, which could materially adversely affect the asset‑based fees we receive from our clients.

Our hosting, collection, use and storage of customer information and data require the implementation of effective security controls, and a data security breach could disrupt our business, result in the disclosure of confidential information, expose us to liability and protracted and costly litigation, adversely affect our reputation and revenue and cause losses.

We, and our customers through which our solutions are made available to end users, collect, use, transmit and store confidential financial information such as bank account numbers, social security numbers, non-public personally identifiable information, portfolio holdings, credit card data and outstanding debts and bills. The measures we take to provide security for collection, use, storage, processing and transmission of confidential end user information may not be effective to protect against data security breaches by third parties. We use commercially available security technologies, including hardware and software data encryption techniques and multi-layer network security measures, to protect transactions and information. Although we encrypt data fields that typically include sensitive, confidential information, other unencrypted data fields may include similar information that could be accessible in the event of a security breach. We use security and business controls to limit access and use of confidential end user information. Although we require our customers and third-party suppliers to implement controls similar to ours, the technologies and practices of our customers and third-party suppliers may not meet all of the requirements we include in our contracts and we may not have the ability to effectively monitor the implementation of security measures of our customers and third-party suppliers. In a number of cases, our customers build and host their own web applications and access our solutions through our APIs. In these cases, additional risks reside in the customer’s system with respect to security and preventive controls. As a result, inadequacies of our customers’ and third-party suppliers’ security technologies and practices may only be detected after a security breach has occurred. Errors in the collection, use, storage or transmission of confidential end user information may result in a breach of privacy or theft of assets.

The risk of unauthorized circumvention of our security measures has been heightened by advances in computer capabilities and the increasing sophistication of hackers. Criminals are using increasingly sophisticated techniques to engage in illegal activities involving solutions such as ours or involving end user information, such as counterfeiting, fraudulent payment and identity theft. Because the techniques used by hackers change frequently and generally are not recognized until launched against a target, we may be unable to anticipate these techniques or to implement adequate preventive measures. In addition to hackers, it is possible that a customer could gain unauthorized access to our database through the use of our solutions. Improper access to our systems or databases by hackers or customers intending to commit criminal activities could result in the theft, publication, deletion or modification of confidential end user information. An actual or perceived breach of our security may require notification under applicable data privacy regulations.

A data security breach of the systems on which sensitive user data and account information are stored could lead to claims, industry fines, or regulatory actions against us. If we are sued in connection with any data security breach, we could be involved in protracted and costly litigation. If unsuccessful in defending that litigation, we might be forced to pay damages and/or change our business practices or pricing structure, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our revenue and profitability. Our customer contracts typically include security standards that must be complied with by us and our customers. If a data security breach occurs and we have not been in compliance with the security standards included in our applicable contracts, we could be liable for breach of contract claims brought by our customers.

We could also be required to indemnify our customers for third-party claims, fines, penalties and/or other assessments imposed on our customers as a result of any data security breach and our liability could exceed our insurance coverage or ability to pay.  Envestnet’s Registered Investment Advisers and Broker-Dealer may face SEC, FINRA and state enforcement actions, including monetary fines, if it is determined that Envestnet had inadequate data security measures in place to prevent such theft.

Our security procedures and technologies are regularly audited by independent security auditors engaged by us, and many of our prospective and current customers conduct their own audits or review the results of such independent security audits as part of their evaluation of our solutions. We are also periodically audited by regulatory agencies to which our operations or our customers are subject. Adverse findings in these audits or examinations, even if not accompanied by any data security breach, could adversely affect our ability to maintain our existing customer relationships and establish new customer relationships.

Data security breaches, acts of fraud involving our solutions, or adverse findings in security audits or examinations, could result in reputational damage to us, which could reduce the use and acceptance of our solutions, cause our customers to cease doing business with us and/or have a significant adverse impact on our revenue and future growth prospects. Further, any of these events could lead to additional regulation and oversight by federal and state agencies, which could impose new and costly compliance obligations and may lead to the loss of our ability to make our solutions available.

We could incur significant costs protecting the personal information we store on our technology platforms.

Users of our investment solutions and services are located in the United States and around the world. As a result, we collect and store the personal information of individuals who live in many different countries. Privacy regulators in some of those countries have publicly stated that foreign entities (including entities based in the United States) may render themselves subject to those countries’ privacy laws and the jurisdiction of such regulators by collecting or storing the personal data of those countries’ residents, even if such entities have no physical or legal presence there. Consequently, we may be obligated to comply with the privacy and data security laws of such foreign countries, including the European Union's (“EU”) General Data Protection Regulation which comes into effect on May 25, 2018 and requires businesses operating in the EU or foreign business dealing with EU customers to store and process all personal data within the EU borders. Our exposure to foreign countries’ privacy and data security laws impacts our ability to collect and use personal information, increases our legal compliance costs and may expose us to liability.

We have incurred, and will continue to incur, expenses to comply with privacy and security standards and protocols imposed by law, regulation, industry standards or contractual obligations. Increased domestic or international regulation of data utilization and distribution practices could require us to modify our operations and incur significant additional expense, which could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition or business. Furthermore, even if not directed at us specifically, attacks on other financial institutions could disrupt the overall functioning of the financial system.

Privacy concerns could have an adverse impact on our revenue and harm our reputation and may require us to modify our operations.

As part of our business, we use, transmit and store end user-permissioned, non-identified transaction data elements. We are subject to laws, rules and regulations relating to the collection, use, and security of end user data. For privacy or security reasons, privacy groups, governmental agencies and individuals may seek to restrict or prevent our use of this data. New laws in this area have been passed by several jurisdictions, and other jurisdictions are considering imposing additional restrictions. These new laws may be interpreted and applied inconsistently from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and our current data protection policies and practices may not be consistent with those interpretations and applications. In addition, the ability to execute transactions and the possession and use of personal information and data in conducting our business subjects us to legislative and regulatory burdens that may require notification to customers or employees of a security breach, restrict our use of personal information, hinder our ability to acquire new customers or market to existing customers, require us to modify our operations and have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and operating results. We have incurred, and will continue to incur, significant expenses to comply with

privacy and security standards and protocols imposed by law, regulation, industry standards or contractual obligations. As our business continues to expand to new industry segments that may be more highly regulated for privacy and data security, and to countries outside the United States that have more strict data protection laws, our compliance requirements and costs may increase.

We have a significant amount of debt and servicing our debt requires a significant amount of cash, and we may not have sufficient cash flow from our business to service our debt.

As of December 31, 2017, we had $81,168 of borrowings outstanding under our revolving credit facility (the “Second Amended and Restated Credit Agreement”) and $172,500 of outstanding 1.75% convertible notes due in 2019 (the “Convertible Notes”). As of December 31, 2017, we had an additional $268,832 available under our Amended and Restated Credit Agreement. This indebtedness could, among other things:

We are subject to liability for losses that result from a breach of our fiduciary duties.

Our investment advisory services involve fiduciary obligations that require us to act in the best interests of our clients, and we may be sued and face liabilities for actual or claimed breaches of our fiduciary duties. Because we provide investment advisory services, both directly and indirectly, with respect to substantial assets we could face substantial liability if it is determined that we have breached our fiduciary duties. In certain circumstances, which generally depend on the types of investment solutions and services we are providing, we may enter into client agreements jointly with advisors and retain third‑party investment money managers on behalf of clients. As a result, we may be included as a defendant in lawsuits against financial advisors and third‑party investment money managers that involve claims of breaches of the duties of such persons, and we may face liabilities for the improper actions and/or omissions of such advisors and third‑party investment money managers. In addition, we may face claims based on the results of our investment advisory recommendations, even in the absence of a breach of our fiduciary duty. Such claims and liabilities could therefore have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition or business.

We are subject to liability for losses that result from potential, perceived or actual conflicts of interest.

Potential, perceived and actual conflicts of interest are inherent in our existing and future business activities and could give rise to client dissatisfaction, litigation or regulatory enforcement actions. In particular, we pay varying fees to third‑party asset managers and custodians and our financial advisor customers, or their clients, could accuse us of directing them toward those asset managers or custodians that charge us the lowest fees and therefore provide us with a greater financial advantage. In addition, we offer proprietary mutual funds and portfolios of mutual funds through our internal investment management and portfolio consulting group, and financial advisors or their clients could conclude that we favor our proprietary investment products because of their belief that we earn higher fees when our proprietary investment products are used. Adequately addressing conflicts of interest is complex and difficult. If we fail, or appear to fail, to adequately address potential, perceived or actual conflicts of interest, the resulting negative public perception and reputational harm could materially adversely affect our client relations or ability to enter into contracts with new clients and, consequently, our results of operations, financial condition and business.

If our reputation is harmed, our results of operations, financial condition or business could be materially adversely affected.

Our reputation, which depends on earning and maintaining the trust and confidence of our clients and end users, is critical to our business. Our reputation is vulnerable to many threats that can be difficult or impossible to control, and costly or impossible to remediate. Regulatory inquiries or investigations, data security breaches, lawsuits initiated by our clients or stockholders, employee misconduct, perceptions of conflicts of interest and rumors, among other developments, could substantially damage our reputation, even if they are baseless or satisfactorily addressed. In addition, any perception that the quality of our solutions and services may not be the same or better than that of other providers, can also damage our reputation. Any damage to our reputation could harm our ability to attract and retain clients, which would materially adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition and business.  Attempts to repair our reputation, if damaged may be costly and time consuming, and such efforts may not ultimately be successful.

If our investment solutions and services fail to perform properly due to undetected errors or similar problems, our results of operations, financial condition and business could be materially adversely affected.

Investment solutions and services we develop or license may contain undetected errors or defects despite testing. Such errors can exist at any point in the life cycle of our investment solutions or services, but are frequently found after introduction of new investment solutions and services or enhancements to existing investment solutions or services. We continually introduce new investment solutions and services and new versions of our investment solutions and services. Despite internal testing and testing by current and potential clients, our current and future investment solutions and services may contain serious defects or malfunctions. If we detect any errors before release, we might be required to delay the release of the investment solution or service for an extended period of time while we address the problem. We might not discover errors that affect our new or current investment solutions, services or enhancements until after they are deployed, and we may need to provide enhancements to correct such errors. Errors may occur that could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition or business and could result in harm to our reputation, lost sales, delays in commercial release, third‑party claims, regulatory actions, contractual disputes, contract terminations or renegotiations, or unexpected expenses and diversion of management and other resources to remedy errors. In addition, negative public perception and reputational damage caused by such claims would adversely affect our client relationships and our ability to enter into new contracts. Any of these problems could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition and business.

We could face liability or incur costs to remediate operational errors or to address possible customer dissatisfaction.

Operational risk generally refers to the risk of loss resulting from our operations, including, but not limited to, improper or unauthorized execution and processing of transactions, deficiencies in our operating systems, business disruptions and inadequacies or breaches in our internal control processes. The success of our business depends on our ability to mitigate those operational risks and deliver time-sensitive services.  We operate in diverse markets and are reliant on the ability of our employees and systems to process large volumes of transactions often within short time frames. Our operations and those of third parties on whom we rely for information and transaction processing services are vulnerable to interruption by technical breakdowns, computer hardware and software malfunctions, software viruses, infrastructure failures, fire, earthquake, power loss, telecommunications failure, terrorist attacks, wars, Internet failures and other events beyond our control.  In the event of any such interruptions or improper operation of systems, human error or improper action by employees, we could suffer financial loss, regulatory sanctions or damage to our reputation.

In addition, our contracts with our customers often include stringent requirements for us to maintain certain levels of performance and service availability. Failure by us to meet these contractual requirements could result in a claim for substantial damages against us, regardless of whether we are responsible for that failure. Our customers may also delay or withhold payment to us, elect to terminate or not to renew their contracts with us, or refuse to integrate our solutions into their online offerings, or we could lose future sales to new customers as a result of damage to our reputation due to such service downtime or interruptions. If we suffer a significant database or network facility outage, our business could experience disruption until we fully implement our back-up systems. The occurrence of any such disruptions in our solutions could materially and adversely affect our business.

Furthermore, there may be circumstances when our customers are dissatisfied with our investment solutions and services, even in the absence of an operational error. In such circumstances, we may elect to make payments or otherwise incur increased costs or lower revenues in order to maintain a strong customer relationship. In any of the forgoing circumstances, our results of operations, financial condition or business could be materially adversely affected.

We may become subject to liability based on the use of our investment solutions and services by our clients.

Our investment solutions and services support the investment processes of our clients, which, in the aggregate, manage billions of dollars of assets. Our client agreements have provisions designed to limit our exposure to potential liability claims brought by our clients or third parties based on the use of our investment solutions and services. However, these provisions have certain exceptions and could be invalidated by unfavorable judicial decisions or by federal, state, foreign or local laws. Use of our products as part of the investment process creates the risk that clients, or the parties whose assets are managed by our clients, may pursue claims against us for very significant dollar amounts. Any such claim, even if the outcome were to be ultimately favorable to us, would involve a significant commitment of our management, personnel, financial and other resources and could have a negative impact on our reputation. Such claims and lawsuits could therefore have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition or business.

Furthermore, our clients may use our investment solutions and services together with software, data or products from other companies. As a result, when problems occur, it might be difficult to identify the source of the problem. Even when our investment solutions and services do not cause these problems, the existence of these errors might cause us to incur significant costs and divert the attention of our management and technical personnel, any of which could materially adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition or business.

Our business relies heavily on computer equipment, electronic delivery systems and the Internet. Any failures or disruptions in such technologies could result in reduced revenues, increased costs and the loss of customers.

Our business relies heavily on our computer equipment (including our servers), electronic delivery systems and the Internet, but these technologies are vulnerable to disruptions, failures or slowdowns caused by fire, earthquake, power loss, telecommunications failure, terrorist attacks, wars, Internet failures, computer viruses and other events beyond our control. We derive our subscription revenue from licenses to a single software platform, and related support and professional services.  As such, any factor adversely affecting subscriptions to that single software platform, including those described elsewhere under “Risk Factors” or in other portions of this Form 10-K, would harm our business and operating results.  Furthermore, we rely on agreements with our suppliers, such as our current data hosting and service provider, to provide us with access to certain computer equipment, electric delivery systems and the Internet. We are unable to predict whether a future contractual dispute may arise with one of our suppliers that could cause a disruption in service, or whether our agreements with our suppliers can be obtained or renewed on acceptable terms, or at all. An unanticipated disruption, failure or slowdown affecting our key technologies or facilities may have significant ramifications, such as data‑loss, data corruption, damaged software codes or inaccurate processing of transactions. We maintain off‑ site back‑up facilities for our electronic information and computer equipment, but these facilities could be subject to the same interruptions that may affect our primary facilities. Any significant disruptions, failures, slowdowns, data‑loss or data corruption could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition or business and result in the loss of customers.

Our insurance coverage and contractual liability limitations may fail to provide adequate protections.

We maintain general liability insurance coverage, including coverage for errors or omissions; however, this coverage may not continue to be available on reasonable terms or may be insufficient to cover one or more large claims. An insurer might disclaim coverage as to any future claim. A successful assertion of one or more large claims against us that exceeds our available insurance coverage or changes in our insurance policies, including premium increases or the imposition of a large deductible or co-insurance requirement, could harm our operating results and financial condition.  Additionally, although we attempt to limit our contractual liability in delivering our solutions, these limitations on liability may be unenforceable in some cases, or may be insufficient to protect us from liability for damages.

If we fail to process transactions effectively or fail to adequately protect against disputed or potential fraudulent activities, our revenue and earnings may be harmed.

Envestnet | Yodlee processes a significant volume and dollar value of transactions on a daily basis using its money movement solutions. Effective processing systems and controls are essential to ensure that transactions are handled appropriately. Despite our efforts, it is possible that we may make errors or that funds may be misappropriated due to fraud. If we are unable to effectively manage our systems and processes we may be unable to process money movement transactions in an accurate, reliable and timely manner, which may harm our business. In addition, if we do not detect suspected fraudulent or non-sufficient fund transactions within agreed-upon timelines, we may be required to reimburse our customers for the transactions and such reimbursements may exceed the amount of the reserves we have established to make such payments.

The online payments industry has been experiencing an increasing amount of fraudulent activities by third parties. Although we do not believe that any of this activity is uniquely targeted at our business, this type of fraudulent activity may adversely impact us. In addition to any direct damages and potential fines that may result from such fraud, which may be substantial, a loss of confidence in our controls may seriously harm our business and damage our reputation. We may implement risk control mechanisms that could make it more difficult for legitimate end users to use our solutions, which could result in lost revenue and negatively impact our operating results.

If we are unable to maintain our payment network with third-party service providers, or if our disbursement partners encounter business difficulties, our business could be harmed.

Envestnet | Yodlee’s payment network consists of a single Originating Deposit Financial Institution (“ODFI”), and a small number of bill payment processors. Our ODFI clears and processes the funds from the customer. In the instance of funds transfers, the ODFI also processes funds to the end user’s destination institution. For bill payment, funds are sent to the bill pay processors for disbursement to biller sites.

While we have entered into an agreement with our ODFI and each of our bill payment processors, these partners could choose to terminate or not renew their agreements with us. If we are unable to maintain our agreements with our current partners, or our current partners are unable to handle increased transaction volumes, our ability to disburse transactions and our revenue and business may be harmed. If we are unable to sign new payment processors and/or ODFIs under terms consistent with, or better than, those currently in place, our revenue and business may be harmed.

Payment processors and ODFI partners also engage in a variety of activities in addition to providing our services and may encounter business difficulties unrelated to our services. Such activities or difficulties could cause the affected partner to reduce the services provided, cease to do business with us, or cease doing business altogether. This could lead to our inability to move funds on a timely basis as required to settle transactions. In addition, because we offer next day automated clearing house transactions in certain cases, if a disbursement partner experiences insufficient liquidity or ceases to do business, we may not be able to recover funds that are held with that disbursement partner which could harm our financial condition and operating results.

We may also be forced to cease doing business with payment processors and/or ODFIs if rules governing electronic funds transfers change or are reinterpreted to make it difficult or impossible for us to operate our money movement solutions.

If sources from which we obtain information limit our access to such information or charge us fees for accessing such information, our business could be materially and adversely harmed.

Our Envestnet | Yodlee data aggregation solutions require certain data that we obtain from thousands of sources, including banks, other financial institutions, retail businesses and other organizations, some of which are not our current customers. As of December 31, 2017, we receive approximately 70% of this data through structured data feeds that are provided under the terms of our contracts with most of our financial institution, or FI, customers. Although all of the information we currently gather is end user-permissioned, non-identified data and, currently, we generally have free,

unrestricted access to, or ability to use, such information, one or more of our current customers could decide to limit or block our access to the data feeds we currently have in place with these customers due to factors outside of our control such as more burdensome regulation of our or our customers’ industry, increased compliance requirements or changes in business strategy. If the sources from which we obtain information that is important to our solutions limit or restrict our ability to access or use such information, we may be required to attempt to obtain the information, if at all, through end user-permissioned data scraping or other means that could be more costly and time-consuming, and less effective or efficient. In the past, a limited number of third parties, primarily airline and international sites, have either blocked our access to their websites or requested that we cease employing data scraping of their websites to gather information, and we could receive similar, additional requests in the future. Any such limitation or restriction may also preclude us from providing our solutions on a timely basis, if at all. In addition, if in the future one or more third parties challenge our right to access information from these sources, we may be required to negotiate with these sources for access to their information or to discontinue certain services currently provided by our solutions. The legal environment surrounding data scraping and similar means of obtaining access to information on third-party websites is not completely clear and is evolving, and one or more third parties could assert claims against us seeking damages or to prevent us from accessing information in that manner. In the event sources from which we obtain this information begin to charge us fees for accessing such information, we may be forced to increase the fees that we charge our customers, which could make our solutions less attractive, or our gross margins and other financial results could suffer.

Failure by our customers to obtain proper permissions and waivers might result in claims against us or may limit or prevent our use of data, which could harm our business.

For some of our solutions we require our customers to provide necessary notices and to obtain necessary permissions and waivers for use and disclosure of information through our solutions. Our contracts with our customers for these services include assurances from them that they have done so and will do so, but we do not audit our customers to ensure that they have acted, and continue to act, consistent with such assurances. If, despite these requirements and contractual obligations, our customers do not obtain necessary permissions and waivers, then our use and disclosure of information that we receive from them or on their behalf might be limited or prohibited by federal, state or foreign privacy laws or other laws. Such a failure to obtain proper permissions and waivers could impair our functions, processes and databases that reflect, contain, or are based upon such data and might prevent use of such data. In addition, such a failure could interfere with, or prevent creation or use of, rules, analyses, or other data-driven activities that benefit us and our business. Moreover, we might be subject to claims or liability for use or disclosure of information by reason of lack of valid notices, agreements, permissions or waivers. These claims or liabilities could subject us to unexpected costs and adversely affect our operating results.

We could face liability for certain information we provide, including information based on data we obtain from other parties.

We may be subject to claims for securities law violations, negligence, breach of fiduciary duties or other claims relating to the information we provide. For example, individuals may take legal action against us if they rely on information we have provided and it contains an error. In addition, we could be subject to claims based upon the content that is accessible from our website through links to other websites. Moreover, we could face liability based on inaccurate information provided to us by others. Defending any such claims could be expensive and time‑consuming, and any such claim could materially adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition or business.

We depend on our senior management team and other key personnel and the loss of their services could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition or business.

We depend on the efforts, relationships and reputations of our senior management team and other key personnel, including Judson Bergman, our Chief Executive Officer, William Crager, our President, Anil Arora, Vice Chairman, and Scott Grinis, our Chief Technology Officer, in order to successfully manage our business. We believe that success in our business will continue to be based upon the strength of our intellectual capital. The loss of the services of any member of our senior management team or of other key personnel could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition or business.

Our operations are subject to extensive government regulation, and compliance failures or regulatory action against us could adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition or business.

The financial services industry is among the most extensively regulated industries in the United States. We operate investment advisory, broker‑dealer, and mutual fund lines of business, each of which is subject to a specific and extensive regulatory scheme. In addition, we are subject to numerous laws and regulations of general application. It is very difficult to predict the future impact of the legislative and regulatory requirements affecting our business and our clients’ businesses.

Certain of our subsidiaries are registered as “investment advisers” with the SEC under the Advisers Act and are regulated thereunder. In addition, many of our investment advisory services are conducted pursuant to the non‑exclusive safe harbor from the definition of an “investment company” provided under Rule 3a‑4 under the Investment Company Act. If Rule 3a‑4 were to cease to be available, or if the SEC were to modify the rule or its interpretation of how the rule is applied, our business could be adversely affected. Certain of our registered investment adviser subsidiaries provide advice to mutual fund clients. Mutual funds are registered as “investment companies” under the Investment Company Act. Our advisory subsidiaries provide advice on assets subject to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”). The Advisers Act, Investment Company Act and ERISA, together with related regulations and interpretations of the SEC and the Department of Labor, impose numerous obligations and restrictions on investment advisers and mutual funds, including requirements relating to the safekeeping of client funds and securities, limitations on advertising, disclosure and reporting obligations, prohibitions on fraudulent activities, restrictions on transactions between an adviser and its clients, and between a mutual fund and its advisers and affiliates, and other detailed operating requirements, as well as general fiduciary obligations.

In addition, PBS, our broker‑dealer subsidiary, is registered as a broker‑dealer with the SEC and with all 50 states and the District of Columbia, and is a member of FINRA, a securities industry self‑regulatory organization that supervises and regulates the conduct and activities of its members. Broker‑dealers are subject to regulations that cover all aspects of their business, including sales practices, market making and trading among broker‑dealers, use and safekeeping of customer funds and securities, capital structure, recordkeeping and the conduct of directors, officers, employees, representatives and associated persons. FINRA conducts periodic examinations of the operations of its members, including PBS. As a broker‑dealer, PBS is also subject to certain minimum net capital requirements under SEC and FINRA rules. Compliance with the net capital rules may limit our ability to withdraw capital from PBS.

Envestnet | Yodlee is examined on a periodic basis by various regulatory agencies. For example, it is a supervised third-party technology service provider subject to multi-agency supervisory examinations in a wide variety of areas based on published guidance by the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council. These examinations include examinations of our management, acquisition and development activities, support and delivery, IT, and disaster preparedness and business recovery planning. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (the “OCC”) is the agency in charge of these examinations. If deficiencies are identified, customers may choose to terminate or reduce their relationships with us.

Either as a result of direct regulation or obligations under customer agreements, many of our subsidiaries are required to comply with certain provisions of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (“GLBA”), related to the privacy of consumer information and may be subject to other privacy and data security laws because of the solutions we provide. In addition, numerous regulations have been proposed and are still being written to implement the Dodd-Frank Act for enhanced due diligence of the internal systems and processes of companies like ours by their regulated customers. If we are required to make changes to our internal processes and solutions as result of this heightened scrutiny, we could be required to invest substantial additional time and funds and divert time and resources from other corporate purposes to remedy any identified deficiency.

All of the foregoing laws and regulations are complex, evolving, unclear and inconsistent across various jurisdictions and we are required to expend significant resources in order to maintain our monitoring of, and compliance with, such laws and regulations. We continually develop improvements to our existing products and services as well as new products and services.  Many of these improvements or new products and services may implicate regulations to which we may not already be subject or with which we may not have experience.  Any failure on our part to comply with

these and other applicable laws and regulations could result in decreasing the demand for these products and services, increasing our potential liability or increase or costs, regulatory fines, suspensions of personnel or other sanctions, including revocation of our subsidiaries as an investment adviser or broker‑dealer, as the case may be, which could, among other things, require changes to our business practices and scope of operations or harm our reputation. Any of the foregoing could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition or business.

Changes to the laws or regulations applicable to us or to our clients could adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition or business.

We may be adversely affected as a result of new or revised legislation or regulations imposed by the SEC or other U.S. or foreign governmental regulatory authorities or self‑regulatory organizations that supervise the financial markets around the world. In addition, we may be adversely affected by changes in the interpretation or enforcement of existing laws and rules by these governmental authorities and self‑regulatory organizations. It is impossible to determine the extent of the impact of any new laws, regulations or initiatives that may be proposed, or whether any current proposals will become law, and it is difficult to predict how any changes or potential changes could affect our business. Changes to laws or regulations could increase our potential liability in connection with the investment solutions and other services that we provide. The introduction of any new laws or regulations could make our ability to comply with applicable laws and regulations more difficult and expensive. Any of the foregoing could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition or business.

A deemed “change of control” of our company could require us to obtain the consent of our clients and a failure to do so properly could adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition or business.

Under the Advisers Act, the investment advisory agreements entered into by our investment adviser subsidiaries may not be assigned without the client’s consent. Under the Investment Company Act, advisory agreements with registered funds terminate automatically upon assignment and, any assignment of an advisory agreement must be approved by the board of directors and the shareholders of the registered fund. Under the Advisers Act and the Investment Company Act, such an assignment may be deemed to occur upon a change of control of the Company. A change of control includes either gaining or losing a “controlling person.” Whether someone is a controlling person for these purposes depends significantly on the specific facts and circumstances. There can be no assurance that if we undergo a change of control, we would be successful in obtaining all necessary consents or that the method by which we obtain such consents could not be challenged at a later time. If we are unable to obtain all necessary consents or if such a challenge were to be successful it could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition or business.

We rely on exemptions from certain laws and if for any reason these exemptions were to become unavailable to us, we could become subject to regulatory action or third‑party claims and our business could be materially and adversely affected.

We regularly rely on exemptions from various requirements of the Exchange Act, the Advisers Act, the Investment Company Act and ERISA in conducting our activities. These exemptions are sometimes highly complex and may in certain circumstances depend on compliance by third parties whom we do not control. If for any reason these exemptions were to become unavailable to us, we could become subject to regulatory action or third‑party claims and our business could be materially and adversely affected.

If government regulation of the Internet or other areas of our business changes, or if consumer attitudes toward use of the Internet change, we may need to change the manner in which we conduct our business or incur greater operating expenses.

The adoption, modification or interpretation of laws or regulations relating to the Internet or other areas of our business could adversely affect the manner in which we conduct our business. Such laws and regulations may cover sales practices, taxes, user privacy, data protection, pricing, content, copyrights, distribution, electronic contracts, consumer protection, broadband residential Internet access and the characteristics and quality of services. Moreover, it is not clear how existing laws governing these matters apply to the Internet. If we are required to comply with new regulations or

legislation or new interpretations of existing regulations or legislation, we may be required to incur additional expenses or alter our business model, either of which could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition or business.

We are substantially dependent on our intellectual property rights, and a failure to protect these rights could adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition or business.

We have made substantial investments in software and other intellectual property on which our business is highly dependent. We rely on a combination of patent, trade secret, trademark and copyright laws, confidentiality and nondisclosure agreements and other contractual and technical security measures to protect our proprietary technology, all of which provide only limited protection. As of December 31, 2017, we had approximately 80 issued patents in the U.S. and foreign jurisdictions as well as additional pending patent applications in the U.S. and foreign jurisdictions. Some of these patents relate to technology that is included in our data aggregation platform and expire beginning in 2018. Any loss of our intellectual property rights, or any significant claim of infringement or indemnity for violation of the intellectual property rights of others, could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition or business.

Many of our key technologies, investment solutions or services are not covered by any copyright registration, issued patent or patent application. We are the owner of certain patent rights, registered trademarks in the United States, including “ENVESTNET,” and we claim common law rights in other trademarks that are not registered. We cannot guarantee that:

We are also a party to a number of third‑party intellectual property license agreements. Some of these license agreements require us to make one‑time payments or ongoing subscription payments. We cannot guarantee that the third‑party intellectual property we license will not be licensed to our competitors or others in our industry. In the future, we may need to obtain additional licenses or renew existing license agreements. We are unable to predict whether these license agreements can be obtained or renewed on acceptable terms, or at all. In addition, we have granted our customers certain rights to use our intellectual property in the ordinary course of our business. Some of our customer agreements restrict our ability to license or develop certain customized technology or services within certain markets or to certain competitors of our customers. For example, our agreement with Fidelity restricts our ability to develop an enterprise‑level integration or combination of products and services substantially similar to the technology platform we have developed for Fidelity. Some of our customer agreements grant our customers ownership rights with respect to the portion of the intellectual property we have developed or customized for our customers. In addition, some of our customer agreements require us to deposit the source code to the customized technology and investment solutions with a source code escrow agent, which source code may be released in the event we enter into bankruptcy or are unable to provide support and maintenance of the technology or investment solutions we have licensed to our customers. These provisions in our agreements may limit our ability to grow our business in the future.

Third parties may sue us for intellectual property infringement or misappropriation which, if successful, could require us to pay significant damages or make changes to the investment solutions or services that we offer.

We cannot be certain that our internally developed or acquired technologies, investment solutions or services do not and will not infringe the intellectual property rights of others. In addition, we license content, software and other intellectual property rights from third parties and may be subject to claims of infringement if such parties do not possess the necessary intellectual property rights to the products they license to us. The risk of infringement claims against us will increase if more of our competitors are able to obtain patents for investment solutions or services or business processes. In addition, we face additional risk of infringement or misappropriation claims if we hire an employee who possesses third party proprietary information who decides to use such information in connection with our investment solutions, services or business processes without such third‑party’s authorization. We have in the past been and may in the future be subject to legal proceedings and claims that we have infringed or misappropriated the intellectual property rights of a third party. These claims sometimes involve patent holding companies who have no relevant product revenues and against whom our own proprietary technology may therefore provide little or no deterrence. In addition, third parties may in the future assert intellectual property infringement claims against our customers, which, in certain circumstances, we have agreed to indemnify. Any intellectual property related infringement or misappropriation claims, whether or not meritorious, could result in costly litigation and could divert management resources and attention. Moreover, should we be found liable for infringement or misappropriation, we may be required to enter into licensing agreements, if available on acceptable terms or at all, pay substantial damages or make changes to the investment solutions and services that we offer. Any of the foregoing could prevent us from competing effectively, result in substantial costs to us, divert management’s attention and our resources away from our operations and otherwise harm our reputation.

If our intellectual property and proprietary technology are not adequately protected to prevent use or appropriation by our competitors, our business and competitive position would suffer.

Our future success and competitive position depend in part on our ability to protect our intellectual property rights. The steps we have taken to protect our intellectual property rights may be inadequate to prevent the misappropriation of our proprietary technology. There can be no assurance that others will not develop or patent similar or superior technologies, investment solutions or services. Unauthorized copying or other misappropriation of our proprietary technologies could enable third parties to benefit from our intellectual property rights without paying us for doing so, which could harm our business. Policing unauthorized use of proprietary technology is difficult and expensive and our monitoring and policing activities may not be sufficient to identify any misappropriation and protect our proprietary technology. In addition, third parties may knowingly or unknowingly infringe our trademarks and other intellectual property rights, and litigation may be necessary to protect and enforce our intellectual property rights. If litigation is necessary to protect and enforce our intellectual property rights, any such litigation could be very costly and could divert management attention and resources.  If we are unable to protect our intellectual property rights or if third parties independently develop or gain access to our or similar technologies, investment solutions or services, our results of operations, financial condition and business could be materially adversely affected.

The use of “open source code” in investment solutions may expose us to additional risks and harm our intellectual property rights.

To a limited extent, we rely on open source code to develop our platform, investment and other solutions and support for our internal systems and infrastructure. While we monitor our use of open source code to attempt to avoid subjecting our solutions to conditions we do not intend, such use could inadvertently occur. Additionally, if a third‑party software provider has incorporated certain types of open source code into software we license from such third party for our solutions, we could, under certain circumstances, be required to disclose the source code for our solutions. This could harm our intellectual property position and have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition and business.

Confidentiality agreements with employees, consultants and others may not adequately prevent disclosure of trade secrets and other proprietary information.

We have devoted substantial resources to the development of our proprietary technologies, investment solutions and services. In order to protect our proprietary rights, we enter into confidentiality agreements with our employees, consultants and independent contractors. These agreements may not effectively prevent unauthorized disclosure of confidential information or unauthorized parties from copying aspects of our technologies, investment solutions or products or obtaining and using information that we regard as proprietary. Moreover, these agreements may not provide an adequate remedy in the event of such unauthorized disclosures of confidential information and we cannot assure you that our rights under such agreements will be enforceable. In addition, others may independently discover trade secrets and proprietary information, and in such cases we could not assert any trade secret rights against such parties. Costly and time‑consuming litigation could be necessary to enforce and determine the scope of our proprietary rights, and failure to obtain or maintain trade secret protection could reduce any competitive advantage we have developed and cause us to lose customers or otherwise harm our business.

Our failure to successfully integrate acquisitions could strain our resources. In addition, there are significant risks associated with growth through acquisitions, which may materially adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition or business.

We expect to grow our business by, among other things, making acquisitions. Over the past four years we have completed five significant acquisitions. Acquisitions involve a number of risks. They can be time‑consuming and may divert management’s attention from day‑to‑day operations. Financing an acquisition could result in dilution from issuing equity securities or a weaker balance sheet from using cash or incurring debt. Acquisitions might also result in losing key employees. In addition, we may fail to successfully integrate acquisitions. We may also fail to generate enough revenues or profits from an acquisition to earn a return on the associated purchase price.

To the extent we grow our business through acquisitions, any such future acquisitions could present a number of other risks, including:

In addition, if we are unsuccessful in completing acquisitions of other businesses, operations or assets or if such opportunities for expansion do not arise, our results of operations, financial condition or business could be materially adversely affected.

Our failure to successfully execute the conversion of our clients’ assets from their technology platform to our platforms in a timely and accurate manner could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition or business.

When we begin working with a new client, or acquire new client assets through an acquisition or other transaction, we are often required to convert all or a significant portion of assets from the clients’ technology platform to our technology platforms. These conversions present significant technological and operational challenges that can be time‑consuming and may divert management’s attention from other operational activities. If we fail to successfully complete our conversions in a timely and accurate manner, we may be required to expend more time and resources than anticipated, which could erode the profitability of the client relationship. In addition, any such failure may harm our reputation and may make it less likely that prospective clients will commit to working with us. Any of these risks could materially adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition or business.

Our business will suffer if we do not keep up with rapid technological change, evolving industry standards or changing requirements of clients.

We expect technological developments to continue at a rapid pace in our industry. Our success will depend, in part, on our ability to:

We must accomplish these tasks in a timely and cost‑effective manner and our failure to do so could materially adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition or business.

We must continue to introduce new investment solutions and services and investment solution and service enhancements to address our clients’ changing needs, market changes, regulations, and technological developments and failure to do so could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition or business.

The market for our investment solutions and services is characterized by shifting client demands, evolving market practices, new and evolving regulations, and for some of our investment solutions and services, rapid technological change. Changing client demands, new market rules and practices, or new technologies can render existing investment solutions and services obsolete and unmarketable. As a result, our future success will continue to depend upon our ability to develop new investment solutions and services and investment solution and service enhancements that address the future needs of our target markets and respond to technological and market changes. We incurred technology development costs of approximately $40,800, $38,100 and $12,600 in the years ended December, 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015, respectively. We expect that our technology development costs will continue at this level or they may increase in the future. We may not be able to accurately estimate the impact of new investment solutions and services on our business or how their benefits will be perceived by our clients. Further, we may not be successful in developing, introducing, marketing and licensing our new investment solutions or services or investment solution or service

enhancements on a timely and cost effective basis, or at all, and our new investment solutions and services and enhancements may not adequately meet the requirements of the marketplace or achieve market acceptance. In addition, clients may delay purchases in anticipation of new investment solutions or services or enhancements. Any of these factors could materially adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition or business.

We are a multinational organization faced with increasingly complex tax issues in several jurisdictions, and we could be obligated to pay additional taxes in various jurisdictions.

As a multinational organization, we may be subject to taxation in several jurisdictions around the world with increasingly complex tax laws, the application of which can be uncertain. The amount of taxes we pay in these jurisdictions could increase substantially as a result of changes in the applicable tax principles, including increased tax rates, new tax laws or revised interpretations of existing tax laws and precedents, which could have a material adverse effect on our liquidity and operating results. In addition, the authorities in these jurisdictions could review our tax returns and impose additional tax, interest and penalties, and the authorities could claim that various withholding requirements apply to us or our subsidiaries or assert that benefits of tax treaties are not available to us or our subsidiaries, any of which could have a material impact on us and the results of our operations. For example, the taxing authorities of India and other jurisdictions in which we operate may challenge our methodologies for allocating income and expense under our intercompany arrangements, including our transfer pricing, or determine that the manner in which we operate our business is not consistent with the manner in which we report our income to the jurisdictions. If such a disagreement were to occur, and our positions were not sustained, we could be required to pay additional taxes, interest and penalties, resulting in higher effective tax rates, reduced cash flows and higher expenses.

Changes in tax law could adversely affect an investment in our shares.

New U.S. federal tax law was recently enacted containing significant changes. The new law is complex and lacks developed administrative guidance; thus, the full impact to us or our stockholders is currently unclear. This new law or future tax law changes, administrative guidance or U.S. court decisions regarding tax law could have an adverse impact on us or our stockholders.

We face exposure to foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations.

We have costs denominated in foreign currencies, primarily the Indian Rupee, and our revenue is primarily denominated in the U.S. dollar. This exposes us to the risk of fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates. Accordingly, changes in exchange rates, and in particular a weakening of the U.S. dollar, would negatively affect our expenses and other operating results as expressed in U.S. dollars.

If we are unable to effectively manage certain risks and challenges related to our India operations, our business could be harmed.

Our India operations are a key factor to our success. We believe that our significant presence in India provides certain important advantages for our business, such as direct access to a large pool of skilled professionals and assistance in growing our business internationally. However, it also creates certain risks that we must effectively manage. As of December 31, 2017, approximately 2,200 of our total employees were based in India. Wage costs in India for skilled professionals are currently lower than in the United States for comparably skilled professionals. However, wages in India are increasing at a faster rate than in the United States, which could result in us incurring increased costs for technical professionals and reduced margins. There is intense competition in India for skilled technical professionals, and we expect such competition to increase. As a result, we may be unable to cost-effectively retain our current employee base in India or hire additional new talent. In addition, India has experienced significant inflation, low growth in gross domestic product and shortages of foreign exchange. India also has experienced civil unrest and terrorism and, in the past, has been involved in conflicts with neighboring countries. The occurrence of any of these circumstances could result in disruptions to our India operations, which, if continued for an extended period of time, could have a material adverse effect on our business. If we are unable to effectively manage any of the foregoing risks related to our India operations, our development efforts could be impaired, our growth could be slowed, and our operating results could be negatively impacted.

As a global organization, our business is susceptible to risks associated with our international operations and sales.

We currently maintain international operations in India, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, lease space in other jurisdictions outside of the United States for the purpose of gathering data, and have customers located around the globe. Managing a global organization and conducting sales outside of the United States is difficult and time-consuming and introduces risks that we may not face with our operations and sales in the United States. These risks include:

Operating in international markets also requires significant management attention and financial resources. A component of our growth strategy involves the further expansion of our operations and the development of new customer relationships internationally. As we seek to expand internationally, we will need to develop relationships with additional partners and add internal capabilities to effectively manage the operational, financial, legal and regulatory requirements and risks associated with our international operations. The investment we make and additional resources we use to expand our operations, target new international customers, expand our presence globally within our existing customers

and manage operational and sales growth in other countries may not produce desired levels of revenue or profitability, which could adversely affect our business and operating results.

Certain provisions in our charter documents and agreements and Delaware law may inhibit potential acquisition bids for our company and prevent changes in our management.

Our certificate of incorporation and bylaws contains provisions that could depress the trading price of our common stock by acting to discourage, delay or prevent a change of control of our company or changes in management that our stockholders might deem advantageous. As a result of these provisions in our certificate of incorporation, the price investors may be willing to pay for shares of our common stock may be limited.

In addition, we are subject to Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law, which imposes certain restrictions on mergers and other business combinations between us and any holder of 15% or more of our common stock.

We do not currently intend to pay dividends on our common stock for the foreseeable future and, consequently, your ability to achieve a return on your investment will depend on appreciation in the price of our common stock.

We do not anticipate paying any cash dividends to holders of our common stock in the foreseeable future. Consequently, investors must rely on sales of their common stock after price appreciation, which may never occur, as the only way to realize any gains on their investment. Investors seeking cash dividends should not purchase our common stock.

The conditional conversion feature of our Convertible Notes, if triggered, may adversely affect our financial condition and operating results.

In the event the conditional conversion feature of our $172,500 of outstanding Convertible Notes is triggered, holders of the Convertible Notes will be entitled to convert their Convertible Notes at any time during specified periods at their option. We may elect to satisfy our conversion obligation in cash, in shares of our common stock or in a combination of cash and shares of our common stock. If one or more holders elect to convert their Convertible Notes, unless we satisfy our conversion obligation by delivering solely shares of our common stock (other than cash in lieu of any fractional share), we would be required to settle all or a portion of our conversion obligation through the payment of cash, which could adversely affect our liquidity. Furthermore, even if holders do not elect to convert their Convertible Notes, we could be required under applicable accounting rules to reclassify all or a portion of the outstanding principal of the Convertible Notes as a current rather than long‑term liability, which would result in a material reduction of our net working capital.

We may not have the ability to raise the funds necessary to settle conversions of the Convertible Notes or purchase the Convertible Notes as required upon a fundamental change, and our existing debt contains, and our future debt may contain, limitations on our ability to pay cash upon conversion or purchase of the Convertible Notes.

Following a fundamental change, holders of Convertible Notes will have the right to require us to purchase their Convertible Notes for cash. A fundamental change may also constitute an event of default or prepayment under, and result in the acceleration of the maturity of, our then‑existing indebtedness. In addition, upon conversion of the Convertible Notes, unless we settle our conversion obligation solely in shares of our common stock (other than cash in lieu of any fractional share), we will be required to make cash payments in respect of the Convertible Notes being surrendered for conversion. We may not have sufficient financial resources, or will be able to arrange financing, to pay the fundamental change purchase price in cash with respect to any Convertible Notes surrendered by holders for purchase upon a fundamental change or make cash payments upon conversions. In addition, restrictions in our Credit Agreement or future credit facilities or other indebtedness, if any, may not allow us to purchase the Convertible Notes upon a fundamental change or make cash payments upon conversions of the Convertible Notes. Our failure to purchase the Convertible Notes upon a fundamental change or make cash payments upon conversions thereof when required would result in an event of default with respect to the Convertible Notes which could, in turn, constitute a default under the terms of our other indebtedness, if any. If the repayment of the related indebtedness were to be accelerated after any

applicable notice or grace periods, we may not have sufficient funds to repay the indebtedness and purchase the Convertible Notes or make cash payments upon conversions thereof.

Due to uncertainty in the application and interpretation of applicable state sales and use tax laws, we may be subject to additional tax liability. 

We and our customers are subject to a variety of sales, use and other tax laws in the various states and cities in which we and they do business.  These laws and their interpretations change from time to time and often do not address with clarity their applicability to the types of products and services we and our subsidiaries provide.  Vendors, like us, are typically held responsible by taxing authorities for the collection and payment of any applicable sales and use taxes, even when owed by the end user.  If one or more taxing authorities determines that taxes should have, but have not, been paid with respect to our products or services, we might be liable for past taxes in addition to taxes going forward. Liability for past taxes might also include interest and penalty charges. We are often entitled to seek reimbursement from our customers for any sales and use taxes we pay either under the terms of our customer contracts or under applicable law or legal principles. Nevertheless, our customers might be reluctant to pay back taxes and might refuse responsibility for interest or penalties associated with those taxes. If we are required to collect and pay back taxes and any associated interest and penalties, and if our clients do not reimburse us for all or a portion of these amounts, we will incur unplanned expenses that may be substantial. Moreover, imposition of such taxes on us going forward will effectively increase the cost of our products and services to our customers and might adversely affect our ability to retain existing customers or to gain new customers in the areas in which such taxes are imposed.

During 2017 and 2016, the Company estimated that a sales and use tax liability of $8,522 and $10,108 was probable related to a number of taxing jurisdictions with respect to revenues in the respective years ended December 31, and prior years. For the year ended December 31, 2017 and 2016, we recognized net sales and use tax expense of  $345 and $6,229, including interest of approximately $244 and $914, respectively. In addition, we determined an estimated sales tax receivable of $2,705 and $3,879 as of December 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively, related to estimated recoverability of amounts due from customers. Additional future information obtained from the applicable jurisdictions or audits by one or more taxing authorities may affect our estimate of our sales and use tax liability. There can be no assurance that we will not be subject to sales and use taxes or related penalties for past sales in jurisdictions where we currently believe no such taxes are required. 

Item 1B.  Unresolved Staff Comments

None.

Item 2.  Properties

Our headquarters are located in Chicago, Illinois.  Office space is also leased for the Envestnet segment in Denver, Colorado; New York, New York; San Jose, California; Boston, Massachusetts; Seattle, Washington; Raleigh, North Carolina; Plano, Texas; Tucson, Arizona; Berwyn, Pennsylvania; and Trivandrum, India. Office space is leased for the Envestnet | Yodlee segment in Redwood City, California; West Chester, Pennsylvania and Bangalore, India. We believe that our office facilities are adequate for our immediate needs and that additional or substitute space is available if needed to accommodate the foreseeable growth of our operations.

Item 3.  Legal Proceedings

The Company is involved in legal proceedings arising in the ordinary course of its business.  Legal fees and other costs associated with such actions are expensed as incurred. The Company will record a provision for these claims when it is both probable that a liability has been incurred and the amount of the loss, or a range of the potential loss, can be reasonably estimated. These provisions are reviewed regularly and adjusted to reflect the impacts of negotiations, settlements, rulings, advice of legal counsel, and other information or events pertaining to a particular case. Legal proceedings accruals are recorded when and if it is determined that a loss is both probable and reasonably estimable. For legal proceedings matters where a loss may be reasonably possible, but not probable, or is probable but not reasonably estimable, no accrual is established, but if the matter is material, it is subject to disclosures. The Company believes that liabilities associated with any claims, while possible, are not probable, and therefore has not recorded any accrual for any claims as of December 31, 2017.  Further, while any possible range of loss cannot be reasonably estimated at this time, the Company does not believe that the outcome of any of these proceedings, individually or in the aggregate, would, if determined adversely to it, have a material adverse effect on its financial condition or business, although an adverse resolution of legal proceedings could have a material adverse effect on Envestnet’s results of operations or cash flow in a particular quarter or year.

Item 4.  Mine Safety Disclosures

This section is not applicable.

PART II

Item 5.  Market for Registrant’s Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities

Our common stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol (ENV).

The following table sets forth, for the periods indicated, the high and low closing sale prices of our common stock, for each of the periods presented below as reported in the consolidated reporting system for the New York Stock Exchange Composite Transactions.

 

 

 

The approximate number of holders of record of our common stock was 518 as of February 23, 2018.

We have not paid dividends for the most recent two years.

Common Stock

As of December 31, 2017, we had 500,000,000 common shares authorized at a par value of $0.005, of which 44,700,641 shares were outstanding.

Preferred Stock

As of December 31, 2017, we had 50,000,000 preferred shares authorized at a par value of $0.005, of which no shares were outstanding.

For a description of securities authorized under our equity compensation plans, see “Note 15 – Stockholders’ Equity” to the consolidated financial statements in Part II, Item 8.

The following graph compares the cumulative return to stockholders for $100 invested in our common stock relative to the cumulative total returns of the Russell® 2000 Index and The S&P North American Technology Sector Index for each of the last five fiscal years. In calculating total annual stockholder return, reinvestment of dividends, if any, is assumed. The indices are included for comparative purposes only. This graph is not “soliciting material,” is not deemed filed with the SEC and is not to be incorporated by reference in any of our filings under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or the Exchange Act, as amended, whether made before or after the date hereof and irrespective of any general incorporation language in any such filing.

5 YEAR STOCK PERFORMANCE GRAPH

The stock price performance included in the graph above is not necessarily indicative of future stock price performance.

None

 

 

 

Item 6.  Selected Financial Data

Consolidated Statements of Operations

 

Consolidated Balance Sheet Data

 

Item 7.  Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations

Except where we have otherwise indicated or the context otherwise requires, dollar amounts presented in this Form 10‑K are in thousands, except for Exhibits and per share amounts.

Overview

Envestnet, Inc. (“Envestnet”) is a leading provider of intelligent systems for wealth management and financial wellness.  Envestnet’s unified technology enhances advisor productivity and strengthens the wealth management process. Envestnet empowers enterprises and advisors to more fully understand their clients and deliver better outcomes.

 

More than 2,900 companies, including 16 of the 20 largest U.S. banks, 39 of the 50 largest wealth management and brokerage firms, over 500 of the largest registered investment advisers (“RIA”), and hundreds of Internet services companies, leverage Envestnet technology and services. Envestnet solutions enhance knowledge of the client, accelerate client on-boarding, improve client digital experiences, and help drive better outcomes for enterprises, advisors, and their clients.

 

Founded in 1999, Envestnet has been a leader in helping transform wealth management, working towards its goal of building a holistic financial wellness network that supports enterprises, advisors and their clients. 

 

Through a combination of platform enhancements, partnerships and acquisitions, Envestnet uniquely provides a financial network connecting software, services and data, delivering better intelligence and enabling its customers to drive better outcomes.

 

We believe that our business model results in a high degree of recurring and predictable financial results.

Recent Developments

FolioDynamix

On January 2, 2018, pursuant to an agreement and plan of merger (the “Merger Agreement”), dated as of September 25, 2017, between Envestnet, Inc., Folio Dynamics Holdings, Inc., a Delaware corporation (“FolioDynamix”), FCD Merger Sub, Inc., a Delaware corporation and a wholly owned subsidiary of Envestnet (“Merger Sub”), and Actua USA Corporation, a Delaware corporation, solely in its capacity as the representative of the stockholders of FolioDynamix, Envestnet completed the merger of Merger Sub with and into FolioDynamix, with FolioDynamix continuing as the surviving corporation (the “Acquisition”) and a wholly owned subsidiary of Envestnet. The completion of the Acquisition on January 2, 2018 followed the receipt of all necessary regulatory approvals and third party consents.

In connection with the Acquisition, Envestnet paid $195,000 in cash for all the outstanding shares of FolioDynamix, subject to certain closing and post-closing adjustments.  Envestnet funded the Acquisition price with a combination of cash on the Company’s balance sheet and with borrowings under its revolving credit facility.

FolioDynamix provides financial institutions, registered investment advisors, and other wealth management clients with an end-to-end technology solution paired with a suite of advisory tools including model portfolios, research, and overlay management services.

The acquisition of FolioDynamix added complementary trading tools as well as commission and brokerage support to Envestnet’s existing suite of offerings. The Company expects to integrate the technology and operations of FolioDynamix into the Company’s wealth management business, enabling the Company to further leverage its operating scale and data analytics capabilities.

Key Metrics

Envestnet Segment

The following table provides information regarding the amount of assets utilizing our platform technology, investor accounts and financial advisors in the periods indicated.

 

The following table provides information regarding the degree to which gross sales, redemptions, net flows and changes in the market values of assets contributed to changes in AUM or AUA in the periods indicated.

 

The above AUM/A gross sales figures include $49.6 billion in new client conversions. The Company onboarded an additional $57.1 billion in subscription and licensing conversions during 2017, bringing total conversions for the year to $106.7 billion.