Yesterday, we reported record earnings of $0.76 per share compared with $0.74 in the prior year's quarter and $0.67 sequentially.
Revenue was a record $116.6 million for the quarter compared with $109.8 million in the prior year's quarter and $111.4 million sequentially.
Our implied effective fee rate was 57 basis points in the fourth quarter compared with 59 basis points in the third quarter.
Excluding performance fees, our fourth quarter implied effective fee rate would have been 56.3 basis points, and our third quarter implied effective fee rate would have been five point -- 56 basis points.
Operating income was a record $49.4 million in the quarter compared with $47.4 million in the prior year's quarter and $44.2 million sequentially.
Our operating margin increased to 42.4% from 39.6% last quarter.
And the compensation to revenue ratio for the fourth quarter was 35% lower than the guidance we provided on our last call.
For the year, the compensation to revenue ratio was 36.1%.
Our effective tax rate was 25.8% for the fourth quarter, which included an adjustment to bring the full year rate to 26.65%.
Our firm liquidity totaled $143 million at quarter end compared with $201.9 million last quarter.
Firm liquidity as of December 31 reflected the payment of approximately $60.2 million for costs associated with our new closed-end fund and a special cash dividend in December of approximately $47 million or $1 per share.
Over the past 11 years, we have paid a total of $14 per share in special dividends.
Assets under management totaled a record $79.9 billion at December 31, an increase of $9.4 billion or 13% from September 30.
The increase was due to net inflows of $3.9 billion and market appreciation of $6.4 billion, partially offset by distributions of $859 million.
With respect to compensation and benefits, we expect to balance anticipated revenue growth from year-end assets under management that exceeded our 2020 full year average assets under management by about 15%, with our focus on controlled investment in order to maintain our industry-leading performance, broaden our product offerings and expand our distribution efforts.
As a result, we expect that our compensation to revenue ratio will decline to 35.5% from the 36.1% recorded in 2020.
Continuing with the theme of investing in our business, we expect G&A to increase by about 6% from the $42.6 million we recorded in 2020.
After finishing last year 8% below 2019, which was largely driven by lower travel and entertainment and a reduction in hosted and sponsored conference costs as a result of COVID conditions, we intend to make incremental investments this year in technology, including the implementation of new systems, cloud migration and upgrades to our infrastructure and security as well as in global marketing, focused on hosting virtual conferences and expanding our digital footprint.
We expect that our effective tax rate will be 27.25% in 2021.
The macro environment in 2020 was unprecedented with the Fed's balance sheet increasing by over 75%, the budget deficit reaching the highest level since World War II, money supply growing 25% and negative yielding debt reaching $18 trillion globally.
For the last 12 months, six of nine core strategies outperformed.
As measured by AUM, 84% of our portfolios are outperforming on a 1-year basis, an improvement from 70% last quarter, mostly due to our preferred portfolios.
On a 1- and 3-year basis, 99% are outperforming, which was consistent with last quarter.
Preferreds returned 4.6% in the fourth quarter.
In the fourth quarter, infrastructure returned 8.4%, which lagged the global stock index return of 14.8%.
Assessing the infrastructure universe's sensitivity to the economic situation and pandemic, we believe that 9% benefits from secular trends, 50% is relatively unaffected by the economy and pandemic, 20% is directly sensitive to the economic recovery, and 21% will be reliant on successful penetration of the vaccine.
In the fourth quarter, U.S. real estate returned 8.1% compared with the S&P 500, which was up 12.1%, and global real estate returned 13.2%.
Overall, on most metrics, REITs are very cheap, as cheap as they were in the depths of the global financial crisis in 2009.
I also want to mention that our real assets multi-strategy portfolio had very good relative performance in 2020, outperforming by 200 basis -- 240 basis points for the year, which puts us in good position with investors who are looking for inflation protection.
While most active managers continued to battle the dual challenges of declining fees and net outflows, the equity markets offered them a reprieve with the S&P 500 and NASDAQ up 16.3% and 43.6%, respectively, last year.
As Joe noted, global and U.S. real estate securities indices actually declined by 9% and 5.1%, respectively, while global listed infrastructure indices also fell by 4.1%.
We ended the quarter with record assets, as Matt said, of $79.9 billion.
In the quarter, gross inflows were a record $7.3 billion and net inflows contributed $3.9 billion.
Our confidence in the new generation of closed-end funds paid off in the quarter, and we added $2.1 billion of net new assets through the IPO of our Tax-Advantaged Preferred Securities and Income Fund.
Although not a record, our open-end fund channel registered $1.7 billion of net inflows, driven mainly by preferred securities and U.S. real estate strategies.
Our non-U.S. open-end fund showed modest improvement, albeit from low levels, with net inflows of $41 million in the quarter.
Consistent with more recent trends, Japan subadvisory saw net inflows of $83 million before distributions and $293 million of net outflows after distributions.
And it was a quiet quarter for subadvisory ex Japan with $10 million of net inflows.
While the headline results for the advisory channel of $101 million of net outflows was disappointing, the underlying trends continue to be strong.
five new mandates totaling $297 million, combined with $282 million of inflows from existing clients, contributed $579 million of gross inflows.
Offsetting these inflows was an unexpected $301 million global real estate outflow, stemming from the termination of a relatively new institutional account, along with a global listed infrastructure termination totaling $299 million.
We do expect the balance of the terminated global real estate account of approximately $960 million to be withdrawn in the next quarter or 2.
Lastly, the quarter ended with a record-setting pipeline of $1 billion, but unfunded mandates of $1.7 billion.
The quarter began with a $1.2 billion pipeline.
$400 million was funded in the quarter, and another $280 million has been deferred due to funding uncertainties.
New awards totaled $1.1 billion.
For the full year, firmwide gross sales were $27.4 billion, which exceeded the prior record achieved in 2011 of $17 billion by 61%.
Open-end fund gross sales of $17.6 billion were 41% above the prior record, and closed-end fund sales of $2.7 billion similarly blew by the prior record by more than double.
Even in the transition year for us in the U.S. institutional market, our advisory channel recorded sales of $4.3 billion, which was more than 100% better than the prior -- the record set in 2018.
Net inflows last year also set a record at $10.8 billion.
In 2011, net inflows were $10.7 billion.
However, subadvisory inflows from Daiwa Asset Management contributed 81% of that amount in one single strategy.
In contrast, last year, six strategies across open-end funds, closed-end funds and advisory contributed $5.4 billion, $2.6 billion and $1.6 billion of net inflows, respectively, and each setting individual channel records and accounting for almost 90% of firmwide totals.

Summary:
Yesterday, we reported record earnings of $0.76 per share compared with $0.74 in the prior year's quarter and $0.67 sequentially.
Assets under management totaled a record $79.9 billion at December 31, an increase of $9.4 billion or 13% from September 30.
The increase was due to net inflows of $3.9 billion and market appreciation of $6.4 billion, partially offset by distributions of $859 million.
We ended the quarter with record assets, as Matt said, of $79.9 billion.
In the quarter, gross inflows were a record $7.3 billion and net inflows contributed $3.9 billion.