Yesterday, we reported record earnings of $0.94 per share compared with $0.54 in the prior year's quarter and $0.79 sequentially.
Revenue was a record $144.4 million for the quarter compared with $94 million in the prior year's quarter and $125.8 million sequentially.
Our implied effective fee rate was 58 basis points in the second quarter compared with 57.3 basis points in the first quarter.
Excluding performance fees, our second quarter implied effective fee rate would have been 57 basis points.
Operating income was a record $62.6 million in the quarter compared with $35.5 million in the prior year's quarter and $53.2 million sequentially.
Our operating margin increased to 43.4% from 42.3% last quarter.
Expenses increased 12.6% compared with the first quarter, primarily due to higher compensation and benefits, distribution and service fees and G&A.
The compensation to revenue ratio, which included the just mentioned cumulative adjustments to lower the incentive compensation accrual, was 35.03% for the second quarter and is now 35.25% for the six months ended.
Our effective tax rate, which also included a cumulative adjustment, was 26.51% for the second quarter and is now 26.85% for the six months ended.
Our firm liquidity totaled $185.6 million at quarter-end compared with $124.3 million last quarter.
Total assets under management was a record $96.2 billion at June 30th, an increase of $9.2 billion or 11% from March 31st.
The increase was due to net inflows of $2.6 billion and market appreciation of $7.4 billion, partially offset by distributions of $769 million.
Advisory accounts, which ended the quarter with a record $23.1 billion of assets under management, had net inflows of $1 billion during the quarter.
We recorded $300 million of inflows from five new mandates and a record $1.2 billion of inflows from existing accounts.
Partially offsetting these inflows were $493 million of outflows resulting from client rebalancing.
Japan Subadvisory had net outflows of $272 million during the quarter, compared with net outflows of $204 million during the first quarter.
Subadvisory excluding Japan had net outflows of $375 million primarily from a single client who decided to bring the portfolio management for a portion of the assets we manage for them in-house.
Open-end funds, which ended the quarter with record assets under management of $43.5 billion, had net inflows of $2.1 billion during the quarter.
This marks the 10th straight quarter of net inflows into open-end funds, and the first time we have recorded net inflows into each of our 11 US mutual funds.
Distributions totaled $312 million, $260 million of which was reinvested.
As a result, we reduced the compensation to revenue ratio by 25 basis points to 35.25% for the six months ended, and we expect that our compensation to revenue ratio will remain at 35.25%.
As we resume certain business activities that have been restricted during the worst of the pandemic, we expect G&A will increase by about 12% from the $42.6 million we recorded in 2020, but only by about 3% from the $46 million we recorded in 2019.
We expect that our effective tax rate will remain at 26.85%.
A good portion of our AUM did better than the S&P 500, which was up 8.6%.
For the last 12 months, all nine core strategies outperformed.
99% of our AUM is outperforming benchmarks on a one-year basis compared with 93% last quarter, driven by improvements in global listed infrastructure and certain global real estate portfolios.
On a three-year basis 100% of AUM is outperforming, and for five years 99% is outperforming, essentially the same as last quarter.
US REITs returned 12% in the quarter, lifting the year-to-date return to 21.3%.
We outperformed our benchmark in the quarter and for the last 12 months.
Global real estate returned 9.2% in the quarter compared with global stocks at 7.7%, lifting the year-to-date return to 15.5%.
For both the quarter and the last 12 months, we have outperformed in all three of our regional strategies as well as in our global and international strategies.
Global listed infrastructure returned 2.9% in the quarter, lifting the year-to-date return to 7%.
We outperformed for the quarter and for the last 12 months.
Preferred returned 2.9% in the quarter, helped by the 10-year treasury yield falling 30 basis points to 1.4%.
The year-to-date return is 2.4%.
We outperformed in the quarter and for the last 12 months in both our core and low duration preferred strategies.
Our real assets multi-strategy benchmark returned 8.5% in the quarter, lifting the year-to-date return to 14.5%.
We outperformed for both the quarter and the last 12 months, driven by excess returns in every strategy sleeve, real estate, infrastructure, commodities, resource equities, gold and high-grade low duration credit, and through top down asset allocation.
In the quarter commodities returned 13.3%, with 25 of the 27 commodities in the index producing positive spot price returns.
Real assets are the cheapest versus equities in nearly 20 years.
The setup that I've talked about before is how to achieve in a risk-managed fashion, a return bogey of 7% from a 60-40 blend of stocks and bonds.
For a long while now, the 40% in fixed income on a current basis has not been able to meet the return goal.
First off, it's great to be back at work in my office, and I'm 100% healthy.
We believe our strong brand and investment performance have put us in a unique position to capitalize on these trends as evidenced by our $2.6 billion in net inflows and the 12% organic growth in this latest quarter.
Last quarter's net flows in the wealth channel were a near-record $2.1 billion, and just shy of the first quarter record of $2.2 billion.
The organic growth rate in this, our largest channel was 22%.
DCIO also delivered a $163 million of net inflows, which marks the 12th consecutive quarter of positive net flows for this vertical.
The preferred securities fund led the way with $665 million of net inflows, and our low duration preferred securities fund also generated $205 million of net inflows.
Consistent with the growing interest in real estate, our global real estate securities fund achieved a record $370 million of net inflows in the quarter, and year-to-date has generated a 62% organic growth rate.
Net flows into our three US real estate funds were strong as well at $390 million.
Our non-US funds experienced $61 million of net inflows, which marks the fourth consecutive quarter of positive inflows.
The advisory channel delivered a solid $1 billion of net inflows in the quarter, also with strong demand across a range of strategies.
US real estate led the way with $443 million of net inflows, followed by preferred securities at $314 million.
Global real estate and global infrastructure also experienced net inflows of $227 million and $162 million, respectively.
$860 million of the $1.4 billion beginning institutional pipeline was funded during the quarter.
In addition, $479 million of new mandates was both won and funded in the quarter, and thus, never even made it into the pipeline.
Our end of quarter pipeline stands at $925 million.
The subadvisory channel had net outflows of $375 million, which was attributable to one client who took $381 million of US and global real estate mandates in-house as a cost-saving measure.
Similarly, Japan subadvisory saw $272 million of net outflows, and $309 million of distributions, which reflect the continuing effects of a distribution cut in a large US REIT fund.
And this, together with our listed and unlisted capabilities, will position us at the intersection of what is now for us a $16 trillion real estate universe.

Summary:
Yesterday, we reported record earnings of $0.94 per share compared with $0.54 in the prior year's quarter and $0.79 sequentially.
Total assets under management was a record $96.2 billion at June 30th, an increase of $9.2 billion or 11% from March 31st.
The increase was due to net inflows of $2.6 billion and market appreciation of $7.4 billion, partially offset by distributions of $769 million.
We believe our strong brand and investment performance have put us in a unique position to capitalize on these trends as evidenced by our $2.6 billion in net inflows and the 12% organic growth in this latest quarter.