B.P. Marsh & Partners (LSE:BPM) — Half-Year Results

0:02 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the BPMARSH and PARTNERS PLC Half Year Results Investor Presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged and can be submitted at any time via the Q and A tab that's just situated on the right hand corner of your screen. Please just simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company will review all of the questions that are submitted today and publish responses where it is appropriate to do

0:32 so. Before we begin, I would like to submit the following poll. And if you could give that your kind attention, I'm sure the company would be most grateful. I'd now like to hand you over to chief investment officer, Dan Topping. Good morning, sir. Morning. Thanks for the intro. Morning, all. Many thanks for joining John Newman and me for this BPMARSH and PARTNERS investor presentation. I'll be talking as to the background of the company, the investment approach and ethos, and then segue into our current portfolio followed by realization highlights and then pipeline and outlook pipeline and outlook. I'll then hand over to John Newman, our CFO, who will talk us to the financial performance metrics that the management and the portfolio delivered, which should hopefully lead you to a positive conclusion about the company in general, but its shares in particular. Given the time constraints, I won't be addressing each side individually and jump between them somewhat in order to provide as helpful an overview as possible drawing out what we feel are the salient points.

1:27 Moving to the presentation, slide two provides a high level summary of what we do, and we go into that greater detail leading on from here. In terms of background of the company, the the genesis of the business was always our eponymous executive chairman Brian Marsh. He's one of the first in the financial services industries to obtain private equity backing for his insurance broking business of our Chart House Development Capital. This partnership was successful, his firm ultimately sold to what is now Citigroup. The capital Brian raised personally from this sale provided the seed capital for BPMarch. Since inception, we followed a similar path of backing people or businesses who we think of the entrepreneurial spirit to grow their business with our support. The growth of BPMash has been built on these investments with the proceeds of successful realizations plowed back into business free investments.

2:12 This continued until the IPO of the business in 2006 at a price of £1.44 per share. The team, as is now, has been together by and large as a unit since 2011 with one or two additions and one or two departures. We believe we have a strong team that has a great deal of faith in the business, what it does and in delivering a meaningful share price alongside dividend growth to our shareholders. As you'll note from Slide nine, we paid an aggregate dividend of nearly GBP 33 or per GBP 10,600,000. And since float, we've returned an equivalent of GBP 23.5% of the float price per share. We have three key areas of focus as regards our share price and the growth of the business, NAV growth, share price growth, and a continuing dividend yield.

3:00 I believe slides seven, eight, and nine speak volumes as to what we've achieved since the start of BPMARSH generally, but specifically over the last ten years. The stability, experience, skill set of the team has allowed the company to get to where it is today and also, I believe, puts us in a great position looking to the future. Moving from the team to investment approach, whilst we have a general focus on the financial services sector, we've unashamedly focused on the insurance intermediary space where we feel we have a real niche that is only further by approach. At this point, I think it makes sense to reverse slightly and look at slides four, five and six

3:36 regarding our investment approach process and the gap we fill. We fill our long term minority investment approach makes us unique in what we do, in particular, as regards to the size of investment we look at. As you'll see when we look at the portfolio in greater detail, our flexibility has allowed us to make investments that no one other than an angel investor could make. And whilst we see a role for angel investors, we see ourselves as distinct from this with a rigorous but informed investment approach as we seek to partner with our investments as they move up the ladder in the SME scale. Our flexibility specialist long term approach has allowed us to invest in people and companies that the wider investment market cannot do, and we certainly see ourselves as the first port of call for these businesses looking for capital. I think that's dealt with somewhat better than I can explain on Slide six, which we've titled Bridging the Gap, which hopefully gives an indication of where BPMARSH sits, Germain, to rest the wider investment community.

4:32 In terms of the current portfolio, turning to slides twelve, thirteen and fourteen, you'll see that it is presently broken into three areas, underwriting agency investments, insurance breaking investments, and fund and a financial or Biogen investments. I'll try and draw out examples from within the portfolio that demonstrates both our approach and how effective that has been. In discussing the portfolio, I'll try and touch upon two areas. The sum of the parts, which from insurance investments is is alluded to in slides twelve and thirteen. And as you will note from Slide 15, our insurance investments handles circa 1,490,000,000 in insurance premium across a variety of product areas jurisdictions with slide 11 detailing, the locations of each investment.

5:19 Whilst we're very specific in terms of target investments, we do feel that the portfolio spread provides inherent security as evidenced by its long term performance. Moving from the overall portfolio, looking at specific investments, and in particular, looking at our largest investment, Kentro, on slide 16, I think it provides a pretty good example of of how we can approach investments. Certainly, it shows our unique ability to structure bespoke positions in financial services businesses. As you'll note, we provided 1,500,000 for 5% preferred equity in 2014 when the business had a equity value of circa 30,000,000. Since then, it's grown significantly alongside our holding such that we now own 19% shareholding at an acquired value of 51,000,000.

6:06 We were able to enter with a shareholder few others could achieve. Normal mid market private equity wouldn't have been able to buy a a 5% shareholding at 1,500,000. And by building a partnership with the management team and other shareholders, we've clearly increased our exposure whilst the business has grown. And I I think that the the slide pretty much evidence how it's grown in terms of organic, but also a targeted approach to m and a, which we've supported with with our investment, which has got we've provided an aggregate of circa £15,000,000. Moving from Kentro, the largest kind of investments, I thought it made sense to actually look at Stuart Specialty Risk on slide 20. As you'll note, the initial equity investment was was £19, although it was alongside a loan facility of circa £275,000.

6:56 So it's not quite as stark as a £19 investment, but they have repaid that loan. We backed the CEO, Steven Stewart, as a one man start up, and you can see what this business achieved since we invested in 2017 such that we now value our stake at 11,500,000, which is a significant internal rate of return and the business has grown significantly anchored around the entrepreneurial skill set of Stephen Stewart. I think it's also useful to talk about our network, which we believe is also key to our success. We like to view ourselves as the preeminent capital provider in the specialist insurance intermediary space centered around Lloyd's and the London market. In trying to support this assertion, point to the two previously mentioned investee companies that both came to BPMARSH for our network, either from long standing personal contacts in the case of Kentro or other ties with other non BPMARSH investee companies, but still key players in the market with Stuart Specialty Risk coming from a referral at Aon Benfield or what is now Aon.

8:02 Aon Benfield in previous times would have been the seed investor alongside the broker for SSRU. This isn't something that they can do, and therefore, they saw BPMARSH without having the requirement for any commercial arrangement, either placing of SSRUs facilities into London as a competitor, and they were quite happy to to refer SSRUs to us, which isn't often the case. We've provided one or two other case studies in the presentation, and I'm happy to deal with any other questions that may form part of that or on SSRU or Kentro. I also thought it might make sense to to touch upon slide 21, which is EC three brokers, a large investment for BPMARSH, which, unfortunately, we've written down to zero. The business was materially impacted by COVID in terms of it had a significant book of events cancellation business that was closed down and ultimately was poached by a rival broker.

8:57 The business continues to trade. We've supported it through these challenges, but ultimately, you know, it has suffered from, you know, the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune. And they're now in a position whereby they're going to have to significantly pivot their strategy to return to a profitable sustainable level of profitability. That can be achieved, and we we've done it in other investments. But our valuation approach is based on a real time methodology. And we took the sensible, we feel, approach to write it down to zero so that we don't have any shocks going forward. And, obviously, anything that the management team were able to do with our support can only be upside, but there's no further downside. In terms of realizations, that's dealt with on slide 22.

9:46 I think the one that I would draw out is dealt with on slide 23, which is MB Prestige Holdings. Clearly, the numbers speak for themselves in terms of a 29% internal rate of return and a nine times multiple on equity invested, a tremendous investment, clearly. That being said, think separate to the quantitative side of this investment is is the qualitative in terms of what we brought to the table by our approach and our partner in position. We were introduced to MB by a long standing business contact in Australia, who was the nonexec chairman of MB. MB, prior to our involvement, were majority owned by an Australian private equity company, Ironbridge, and formed part of a larger cluster group of underwriting agencies. They had been sold off piecemeal by Ironbridge, and MB was alone as it fell below, the minimum value Ironbridge could could invest in, and therefore, they needed to dispose of their stake.

10:41 At the same time, management didn't favor being owned by another business and were therefore looking to have a an investor in the business that wouldn't take control, and would allow them to go forward in what they wanted to do. But this was countered by Ironbridge's position, a stalemate had started to form. As such, we were able to step in, structure a buyout for Ironbridge, whereby we provided all the capital for the buyout, but took a minority position with preferred shares and management taking control of the business. We're able to recognize the value of the management team and also had an appreciation of the Australian motor insurance market intricacies that made us appealing as an investor to the management team. Ultimately, this culminated in a successful partnership, which ended by way of our introduction to another BPMARS portfolio company, ATC, a Melbourne based agency, significantly larger and on perhaps a more expansive growth trajectory than MB.

11:37 ATC, since our investment in 2018, doubled in size, they've got a plan to take them to even larger growth to sort of further double and triple in size. Looking at MB, the shareholder base had probably reached its natural end point with retiring shareholders seeking cash value. And B. P. MARSH and the incumbent MD, Daniel McNamara, looking to move forward. We thought it was a good marriage to to move MB into ATC, and it was a mutually agreeable part cash, part share transaction that I think both sides and all involved were comfortable with, which ultimately let BPMOSH end up with a 25% shareholding, one of the largest independent underwriting agencies in Australasia, with a committed and focused management team looking to drive significant equity value.

12:25 Slides '24 25 deal with our other two most recent successful disposals, which, again, should anyone have any questions here, we'll be more than happy to try and address. Addition to realizations, I I would make the comment that the existing portfolio continues to generate significant interest from outside acquirers that we constantly discuss with the management given they control their own destiny in these in the respective portfolio companies.

12:51 But, ultimately, our position is all our portfolio companies are for sale, subject to price. And, when realizations come along, as you hopefully demonstrated, we try and strike a balance between retaining sufficient funds within the business to support the existing portfolio and for new investments and to provide for an ongoing dividend stream to augment that provided for by operating profits, which, yeah, I think we touched on Slide nine. In terms of pipeline and new business, we've given a high level overview on Slide 26. As you see, we've done a 30% increase for the for the period, for a half year period over the same period in 2021. Personally, in this sort of sixteen years I've been at BPMARSH and the ten or so that I've been a director, I think we've got the the best pipeline of new business opportunities I I've seen, and it's encouraging that we continue to to see them. And, also, we do consider that we're the preferred party for these small or start up enterprises.

13:54 And, you know, it's encouraging that that we're seeing that. And I think with a fair wind and subject to our own decision making, I think that it's more than likely that we could see two or three new investments over the coming months.

14:10 To an extent, we're in we put ourselves in the right position, but we've also benefited by larger market factors. And there's a prolonged period of consolidation in the insurance broking sector with with basically the mid market being swallowed up and consolidated by one or two of the larger players. Given it's it's a people business, by and large, you you can't please everybody, and and these consolidations has led to departures and exits for people within the sector who've now come to us given we've got the the the capital and the expertise, and we've got the demonstrable track record of backing start ups successfully and delivering meaningful equity returns to the management team, which makes us very appealing.

14:56 In terms of the wider insurance sector and what it's looking at, at the moment in terms of pricing on Slide 27, we've given a somewhat high level overview of where insurance pricing has been over recent times. As you'll see, pricing continues to increase, but a slightly lower level of increase. And I think the expectation was that it would start to tail off and and insurance pricing would would perhaps start to meander down. I think that comment would have been true prior to hurricane Ian in Florida, but that's looking like estimated a total loss of between 50,000,000,000 and 75,000,000,000, which will impact on insurance pricing. Think as a for example, the modeling firm, Karen Clark and company have set aside or set a a total loss to the insurance sector of 63,000,000,000.

15:47 Within that is 13,000,000,000 of insurance litigation claims against insurers for settlement of claims. I think that's a function of it being in Florida and the intricacies of the the legal system in Dade County. That alongside the property and the other losses, these litigation claims will will will will fund claims within the financial and professional areas of insurance such that where before Ian and what's going on in Ukraine and other areas, pricing would perhaps continue to tail off. I think it's not unlikely that pricing will continue to increase for, you know, another twelve, twenty four, potentially thirty six months. Before handing over to John, I'll finish by emphasizing that we here at BPMARSH are very passionate about what we do, which are continuation of the business model, which is what we've already achieved, namely a long term specialist approach with demonstrable returns alongside a robust growing portfolio and an attractive new business pipeline.

16:51 The key focus of the team here is to deliver shareholder value and the same as we would expect from our portfolio companies. And at that point, I can now close out my section and hand over to John Newman. Thank you, Dan. Well, I'm pleased to present the key financial highlights for the six months to July 31. So as you'll see, overall, our net asset value increased by 13,200,000 or 7.9% for the six months to 179,800,000. So that's equivalent to 499p per share undiluted and $4.90.8 pence diluted. And that equates to a total shareholder return of eight and a half percent for the six month period, including the million of dividend paid in July.

17:40 Quick point on the dilution. There are about 1,400,000 shares within a employee benefit trust for the benefit of the employee participants. They benefit in any increase in the share price over, 313p per share. So, we're obviously all aligned in getting that share price increased. And for as long as those shares remain within the, EBT, they're nonvoting, and they don't participate in the dividend. So, therefore, they're not included within the overall NAV per share. But were they to be sold from out of there, then the overall NAV per share would dilute down to $4.90.8 pence.

18:27 So overall, the group delivered consolidated profit before tax of 17,000,000 for the period. That's up 10,800,000 over the first half results in 2021.

18:37 The majority of that profit relates to the increase in valuation of the investments with the equity portfolio itself rising by 11.4%. That's adjusting for additions and realizations. And the equity portfolio now stands at a 160,400,000. Over the last twelve months to July, the overall equity portfolio rose by just over 23. And we did benefit from the pound weakening over the period with 5,800,000 of our 13,200,000 growth due to foreign exchange gains. By value, 43% of our equity investment portfolio is overseas versus 57% in The UK. However, on a look through basis, we estimate about 62% of all of the businesses conducted by our investment portfolio overseas.

19:24 For those who follow us closely, one of our core strategies is to seek seek to ensure that the yield from our portfolio covers our operating expenses so that our investment cash doesn't get depleted by working capital. On an underlying basis, the profit was 700,000 for the period, which is slightly lower than the 0.9 generated in h one twenty twenty one. However, that's just a direct relationship between the fact that we sold our investments in Woolsey and the summer and have got lower income as a consequence of that. The higher profits generated by the end of last year were due to the fact that we had the successful sales in MB and Walsingham that generated the additional profits, as you can see. As I mentioned, we paid a final dividend of 2.78p per share or a million in July, which was an increase of 14% over the previous year.

20:14 We have set out an intention to distribute at least that same level of dividend over the next two years, and we will review that pending further sex successful realizations. On to the next slide. Since flotation, the group has achieved a compound growth of 8.6% per annum and 11.7 since inception. That's after all costs, tax, and all distributions and excluding any of the capital we've raised on AIM. We've invested 2,900,000 equity in this period compared with just 200,000 in the first half of twenty twenty one. The majority of that was 2,800,000 into follow on funding into XPT in America and 100,000 into new start up investment, Tennyson and Partners in The UK. We also completed on summer delivering net equity proceeds of 8,100,000.

21:04 The loan book stood at 9,200,000 at July 31 compared with 10,400,000 at January 22 and 16,700,000 at July 2021. So 1,500,000 of loans were repaid during the period, but that was due to the successful completion of the Sound of Summa. And we also have granted some small working capital loans to a couple of our smaller investment portfolios to give a net 1,300,000 repaid. Adjusting for slight FX movement, we've got 9,200,000 at July 31. Just on the, the loan book to give a bit more color to those who may be new to us, Given that we don't set exit clauses in a medium to long term investor, we often structure our deals as a mixture of debt and equity, although not just debt.

21:51 So this enables a yield to be received on the investment to cover operating costs, and debt repayments help to replenish our capital funds rather than having potentially our capital funds tied up until an eventual exit. I think they're all set out in a on the loan book slide in the appendices on '34. But just to confirm that they're everyone is listed. They're all up to date with both capital and interest repayments, and we value all of our loan book at par. Average interest rate for the charge for the period on the loan book is about 7.3%. That's up from about 6.9 in the year to January 31. Based on current interest rates, it's about 7.7%. At the period end, we had 14,100,000 in cash, which was, considerably up from 8,600,000 at the year end.

22:41 That's due to the receipt of funds from the sale of summer, less the XBT and Denison investments and the million dividend we paid in July. Post period end,

22:54 we've lent 700,000 to AgGuard in Australia, 200,000 to Lily Plummer, 200,000 to Denison. And our cash now stands, adjusting for working capital movement, 12,700,000. We've obviously considerably enhanced our cash position over the last twelve months where we were effectively you had a million in the bank, had a a million warrants. We were at net nil position. We're now 12,700,000 and debt free. And based upon the current share price of, 304p per share, we're clearly at a current discount to diluted NAV of 38%. The next slide, really sort of a summary, why invest in BPMOSH?

23:39 So as Dan covered, we're a leading specialist insurer, in sorry, insurance intermediary investor and into the wider financial services with an excellent track record and a team with a wealth of experience. Although we do specialize within the financial service business within insurance intermediaries, our portfolio is diversified. That's both in terms of product lines and geographically, which mitigates risks somewhat.

24:07 And as Dan has mentioned, the insurance intermediary space specifically continues to offer excellent returns for savvy investors. Clearly, our overall compound results of 8.6% since flotation, 11.7% since inception, demonstrates how we can grow the NAV and add value and return, as demonstrated by getting the NAV to just under a 180,000,000 despite, macroeconomic challenges that we face in the world. Our liquidity is clearly very strong now having increased it from sort of the net nil position a year ago. We've demonstrated that we can successfully realize investments as set out on slide 22 earlier. And I think the clear point from that is to demonstrate that we can realize them at or above our last valuation.

25:02 And, hopefully, that gives confidence to the market and our investors that our valuations are on the conservative side. We've obviously had strong exit performance loan repayments over the last year, and we've got cash available to invest both in new and existing opportunities. We obviously consider the current discount to NAV of 38% to be unwarranted. So that concludes our formal presentation. I think we now move over to q and a session. John, absolutely. And Dan as well, thank you very much indeed for your presentation this morning. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions just by using the Q and A tab that's situated on the top right hand corner of your screen.

25:48 Just while the team take a few moments to review those questions that were submitted already, I would like to remind you that a recording of this presentation along with a copy of the slides and the published Q and A can be accessed via your investor dashboard. John, Dan, as you can see, we have received a number of questions throughout today's presentation. So thank you to all of those on the call for taking the time to submit their questions. Tim, perhaps I could just hand back to you to run through the Q and A tab with the team, address any questions where it's appropriate to do so, and then I'll pick up from you at the end. Thank you. Thanks, Jake. So we've had a number of questions regarding share buybacks and the discount to NAV and what the Marsh's approach at the moment to share buybacks. I know we've spoken about this before, but is there any update on that?

26:36 I'll I'll kick off, and then John can add his improvements and what I say. I think, certainly, the the the discount is is not where we feel it should be. I think where the market is more widely, I think that sort of 35 to 40% discount on these kind of investment vehicles that are listed seems to be about par. But, again, as I said, it's it's not where we want it to be. I think from a standpoint of the board, we were we were always keep the discount under review and mechanisms to improve or reduce the discount. We've clearly just released our interims. We've had a a, I think, a positive response to them for an exceptional set of numbers that we produced for the last six months. I think now we're out of that reporting cycle. I think the board will, you know, re refocus its efforts in terms of looking at the discount. I think one thing that had previously been considered is clearly was somewhat encumbered by our chairman Brian Marsh's holding in terms of availability or ability to conduct share buybacks. One way of circumventing that is by conducting a whitewash procedure, which obviously isn't without cost.

27:46 I think given the liquidity of the business where it is now, germane to the cost of a whitewash exercise, that's something the board will probably actively look at without giving any forward looking guidance. If that were to occur previously when we've conducted, you know, low level set the floor share buybacks, the the share price has responded quite positively to that if looking at the at least the correlation between when we were conducting share buybacks at a low level and the performance of the share price. And if, for example, that was reintroduced, I would personally hope that that would then move the share price or reduce the discount to something approaching that sort of 15 to 25% discount to NAV, which I feel is is more appropriate for BPMARSH given its, you know, track record and current portfolio.

28:36 Thanks, Dan. We had a question about what benefits does the acquisition of Denison bring to the group, and are the key personnel at Denison locked in? Sure. Yes. The key personnel are locked in. We're we're a minority investor. The management owns the majority of that business. Well, I I suppose why it's attractive to us. It's a specialist startup Lloyd's broker in an area that we understand of an individual that previously had success at a Lloyd's broker called BPMs, previously ran the the fresh nonfinancial risk division there, had his own p and l, was success successfully sold that to Preservation Capital alongside other BMS shareholders. And after that experience of being part of the management team, being bought by private equity, saw an opportunity to to establish a business independently run by him, which is what we should be investing in.

29:34 And it also parallel with that shows other people in the market that actually if you got a your own book of business, BPMARSH with a million pounds or so of investments in this track record experience and skill set to to assist in establishing a a a insurance broker shows that it's replicable to other people who might be going through the same the same position, of which there are are quite a few in the market that if you come to BPMARSH, we can provide the capital and the experience to allow you to go and set up your own business in in a in circumstance or at a time when market counterparties in The US or internationally want more choice of who they deal with at Lloyd's as their London market broker as opposed to less.

30:20 The establishment of these new start brokers growing to medium start bro medium side brokers is what market counterparties want. So hopefully, that adequately addresses that question. Yeah. Thanks, Dan. Another question. Is the current economic political situation likely to affect the business? Well, I think we can't we can't ignore it. Clearly, just by looking at our performance of the performance of the BPMAR share price, know, to most of the other indices, we're more of a defensive stock in times of turmoil. Our our reduction in share price prior to our results was was was pretty much less than every other exchange other than the FTSE one hundred. Insurance, I think we learned through COVID. Insurance is one of the most nondiscretionary spends a business can have. We don't look at we're not a big actually, no real exposure to personal lines insurance.

31:15 So from a commercial buyer of insurance, it's a nondiscretionary spend. And with pricing going up, it is proved beneficial to to our portfolio. I think in terms of the major issues the world's faced with at the moment, clearly, Russia and The Ukraine are exposed to that. It's not not zero, but very minimal. Some of, nexus on its, marine side ensured some yachts that due to global sanctions, it it wasn't able to quote on, but there are two or three policies that weren't very large compared to Nexus' $600,000,000 of premium income. So in terms of we can't avoid the wider impact of the, of macroeconomic climate on BPMRs, but we believe we're relatively well set in terms of borrowing.

32:08 Loans are priced at bank base rate plus. So if if base rates go up, our interest income will go up, and the the the leverage within the portfolio is is at pretty low level. Either it's provided by BPMARSH or in the case of XBT and KENTRO, it's a a modest debt to EBITDA level. Sort of about two and a half to three times EBITDA to debt multiple, whereas some of the market counterparties that significantly leveraged up, but not sort of six to 10 times could theoretically be significantly impacted if, base rate went, up significantly in terms of their ability to service the debt. And given our liquidity, we can always assist our portfolio companies in in times of, you know, increased interest rates.

33:04 Thanks, Dan. The question, I think, for you, John. I'm not sure if you have these numbers hand, but we can always write them down afterwards. Roughly, what are the exchange rates used to value the investments based abroad? Oh, the significant investments overseas as at July 31. We're in America where the dollar rate was 1.217 at July 31. The Aussie dollar was about 1.74, 1.75, and the Canadian dollar was about 1.56. So in terms of that, I mean, I I I know the the Aussie dollar pound has strengthened a little bit against that. So I suppose it's mainly against the the US dollar that we've seen a lot of of movement. But the the current exchange rate on that, you know, it's what is is about just less than 1.12 at the moment, but, obviously, it's been, I suppose, extremely volatile on that. So, yes, we've we've got an extra gain at the moment overall.

34:15 But as to where we'll be at January 31, I mean, it it rather depends on how well the The UK economy copes and and whether or not we have a strong government, and the markets react to that. So, yeah, at this point in time, there's some additional gains in there. Hopefully, that answers that question. Thanks, John. And I think that's it for questions for the time being. Tim, that's great. And Dan and John as well, thank you very much indeed for addressing all of those questions where it's appropriate to do so this morning. And, of course, if any further questions do come through, we'll make these available to you immediately after the presentation has ended for you to review and then add any additional responses where it's appropriate to do so. Dan, perhaps before redirecting those on the call to provide you with their feedback, which I know is particularly important to yourself and the company, if I could please just ask you for a few closing comments to wrap up with, that'd be great.

35:11 Sure. Well, firstly, thanks, everybody, for taking the time to come and listen to me and John talk about something that we're very passionate about in terms of BPMARSH as an equity position. We think we're, you know, very well set in terms of where the portfolio is for for organic growth within that exceptional new business pipeline and the liquidity within the balance sheet to take advantage of that such that we see a huge opportunity for BPMARS to continue on its growth trajectory and ongoing continuation of good performance over priors to expand and continue into the future. Dan, that's great. And John as well, thank you once again for taking the time to update investors today. Could I please ask investors not to close this session as you'll now be automatically redirected for the opportunity to provide your feedback order that the management team can better understand your views and expectations.

36:03 This may take a few moments to complete, but I'm sure it'll be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of BPMARSH and PARTNERS PLC, we would like to thank you for attending today's presentation. That now concludes today's session. So good morning to you all. Thank you, everyone. Cheers. Yeah. Thanks.