So hopefully with some of the correction we’ve seen in the first quarter, that is definitely lifting the baseline. We do see some activity around DB plans, around curtailments and annuitization which we’ve noted for quite some time.But part of the positive side is, we talked about in the comment that Ryan had, this combination of ECIO and OCIO is really taking some positive feedback from large institutional investors that want to delegate, but still want some sophisticated analytics and portfolio looked through.So we have four active deals that we’re currently working on that are all sizable that are still in-process, but we’re quite optimistic about those after coming off one that we won last year that’s still funding in the backlog. So hopefully that helps some additional commentary.Jeff Schmitt Yes, it does.
Thank you. And then going back to the margins in the private banks business. They jumped to close to 7% I guess despite kind of weaker topline growth. Was that mainly driven by amortization expense rolling off and so should we sort of think about 7% is kind of run-rate going forward? And what would it take to get above 10%.Ryan Hicke So, I think we’ve been really consistent. I think we’ve been very consistent on this. It’s a great question. So that was not amortization rolling off that drove that, that was real expense management around getting very focused on our R&D dollars and deployment aligned with where we believe we have opportunity.Sanjay and his team continued, Jeff, to be very focused on saying, where are we building new capabilities and investing in enhancements for markets that we believe we can repeatedly sell and generate a return.So I would say the margin improvement was a combination of three things, installing the backlog that we had available over the quarter, a couple of new name sales and some one-time revenues that Sanjay and his team generated and really, really thoughtful and deliberate expense management and you can expect all three of those things to persist.Jeff Schmitt Okay, great, thank you.Ryan Hicke Sanjay go ahead.Sanjay Sharma Yeah.
I think, Jeff, I mean our margin improvement that we’re really pay attention to is fourth quarter to first quarter. And that there the amortization expense in fourth quarter was comparable to the first quarter. So it would not have been amortization expense.Jeff Schmitt Okay. And what would it take to get above 10%. I mean, what is your path to that?Ryan Hicke So our path to that, as Sanjay touched on earlier, is installing that $40 million backlog. And that backlog is in a really good spot in terms of timing and delivery and being kind of screen status as we think about it, Jeff, in terms of the implementation. So install that $40 million, managed through the headwinds of a couple of the losses that we’ve talked about and Owen touched on in his question, but I think Dennis touched on this instead of Sanjay.One of the reasons we’re really encouraged about the sales pipeline is when we look at that sales pipeline, these are deals that we believe we can win and install that revenue will flow through to the bottom line and we can refresh and refill those pipelines pretty quickly.
And we need to evidence that. I understand that. But the first two things are right in our control in terms of installing the backlog of signed clients yet to be implemented and continue to be really diligent about expense management. Sanjay, do you want to touch on anything else there?Sanjay Sharma I think, Ryan, you are right. It’s a combination of disciplined expense management, stable client base. You saw that the re-contract — the focus re-contract effort on our part and then targeting sales pipeline efforts, which is — and the other thing which I would again call out is our improved capabilities and the efficiencies instilled in backlog delivery. And that’s something we will prove in the coming quarters.Ryan Hicke And I think Sanjay and the team will get upgraded to concierge key soon for as much as they have been on the road in front of clients and that’s been really paying off.Jeff Schmitt All right.
Great. Thank you. Thanks for the answers.Ryan Hicke You’re welcome.Operator Next, we’ll go to the line of Mike Brown with KBW. Please go ahead.Michael Brown Okay, great. Hey, Ryan, you highlighted some of the cross-selling success that you guys have been seeing recently, which is certainly encouraging to hear. Can you just explain where you think the — maybe the biggest opportunities are there as you’ve been certainly seemingly much more focused on that opportunity set? And then if you could also just touch on the SEI Sphere win that you mentioned in your prepared remarks. Can you just expand on how that opportunity came up and if you see future opportunities for that to play out with your existing client base, particularly for SEI Sphere?Ryan Hicke Yeah.
So, Mike, thanks for the question. I might answer those in reverse. And Phil, if you have any comments here. The SEI Sphere deal we talked about was an IMS prospect that we were engaged with in 2022 on an IMS platform sale for front-end technology and administration.But through the sales process, the IMS sales team introduced SEI Sphere, which was really attractive to that client. Due to some of the things that they were doing strategically with their fundraising, they wanted to put off the move to the IMS platform, but progress the agenda with Sphere.So not only did we pick-up a Sphere win in the first quarter, we remain actively engaged in the sales process on the IMS side. And Phil, if you want to comment. I think that we’re seeing an uptick in that activity, but gross traditional and alternative asset managers.Phil McCabe So that particular client has multiple entities.
So I think that Sphere win was just the first of a couple of different wins that could come in there. But to talk to your point on cross-selling, we’ve been teaching and educating the whole entire sales team on how to sell some of these other products that we have a lot of or getting better traction across — throughout — across not only IMS market, but across all of the market.Ryan Hicke That’s a great point, Phil. Mike, back to your earlier question, I think there’s kind of where do we see the opportunity and what are we doing about it? As Phil just touched on, there’s a lot more, what I would call kind of horizontal sales training and engagement across the company to make sure all of our client-facing representatives are aware of our capabilities can talk about our capabilities, but know who the subject matter experts are inside SEI and introduced inside of sales agenda.And I think when we look across the continuum, if you think again about SEI having three core pillars around technology, investment processing and asset management, as we extend into other large segments as Wayne and the team go into larger RIAs and we look at asset management distribution and the things that Sanjay is doing with the banking clients, especially our large enterprise clients.Honestly, Mike, I think we just see opportunity as firms look to consolidate vendors, to try to leverage our capabilities out of their strategic partners, we feel optimistic that our suite of capabilities really does resonate in many of those spaces.