B.P. Marsh & Partners (LSE:BPM) — Half Year Results for the year ended 31 July 2026

0:01 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the BPMARSH and PLC Half Year Results Investor Presentation. Questions are encouraged. They 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 can review all questions submitted today and will publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, we will decide to submit the following poll. And if you could give that your kind attention, I'm sure the company would be most grateful. I And would now

0:32 like to hand you over to CEO, Dan Topping. Dan, good morning, sir. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. For those I haven't met, I'm Dan Topping, Chief Executive of BPMARSH, and I'm joined by Fran Chappell, our CFO. Fran is currently on maternity leave having had a baby daughter around three months ago and have kindly taken some time out to present the results with me, which we're very grateful to her for. And obviously, we pass on her congratulations to Fran and her family. Because of that, we've prerecorded today's presentation and then I'll take your questions live afterwards on my own and any specific details that fall under Fran that I can't cover, Fran will follow-up on post. Moving to the results, the half year has delivered positive NAV growth. The portfolio has continued to grow. We've made three new investments and we paid £30,000,000 in dividends to shareholders.

1:24 We're pleased with our performance in the period and positive about the shape of both the portfolio and the balance sheet as we look ahead. The theme of today's presentation is converting portfolio value into shareholder returns. We've been doing that for some time, although perhaps we've not always been quite as good at talking about it as we have at doing it. We thought it deserved rather more prominence today. I'll start with the business in the portfolio before Fran takes you through our liquidity and capital allocation. I'll then come back to pull the threads together before we open up for questions. For those who know as well, the model will be familiar. We invest in insurance and financial services businesses, generally at a stage that is too early for traditional private equity, but where the management team have the experience and ambition to build something considerably larger. We focus on parts of the market that traditional funding sources tend to under serve across The UK, North America, Australia, Europe and Asia.

2:17 And we bring decades of sector experience and an extensive network to those markets. Our initial investment is typically up to £5,000,000 for a minority holding of between 2040%. We want the people running the business to retain a meaningful interest in what they are building. We see skin in the game is very important to our management teams. We bring patient, flexible capital, deep specialist knowledge of the sector and long standing relationships across the insurance market that few investors can match. Because this sector is our specialism, we understand these businesses in a way that generalist investors rarely can and we stay closely involved as they develop. Being a supportive partner sometimes means helping with an acquisition or senior hire, sometimes it means working through a problem. It certainly means rather more than turning up twice a year asking how things are going and hoping for the best. Although I appreciate that that would make life significantly easier for the team at BPMARSH.

3:10 That approach gives us access to opportunities through people who know us and understand how we work. Over time, we believe that this has delivered a considerable advantage. For our shareholders, the proposition is participation in that growth through a listed company with the opportunity to receive cash returns as value is realized. They're also backing a management team with a long and consistent track record of delivery, which the next slide illustrates. This slide puts the latest results into a longer term context. NAV now stands at £372,200,000 compared with £360,200,000 at the end of January. NAV per share is 10.48 and this slide shows compound annual growth rate of about 10.9% since flotation. For me, the important point about this chart is the consistency over time. We're not suggesting every year has been spectacular and anyone who's worked with BPMARSH for long enough will know we're not easily carried away.

4:07 But the cumulative result is one of which we can be quietly confident. Individual businesses develop at different speeds and realizations can make one period look rather different from another. But across the portfolio, the long term direction has been encouraging. That consistency is no accident. Compound growth of more than 10 a year since flotation is the product of a very consistent strategic approach, backing experienced management teams in the sector we know, investing on sensible terms and supporting those businesses over the long term. That strategy has not changed and it will remain the foundation of the future value we are confident of delivering. The chart also identifies the capital raised along the way, which is relevant when looking at the growth in absolute NAV. NAV per share is therefore an important part of the picture. We don't expect every six month period to look identical. We do expect to keep applying the same discipline to the businesses we back and to the price and terms with which we invest.

5:02 Turning to results themselves, NAV increased by £12,000,000 over the six months or 3.4% and is 6.5% higher than a year ago. The growth came alongside £13,000,000 of dividend distributions and shareholders therefore have received a meaningful amount of cash while the remaining net asset value has continued to increase. NAV per share rose by 3.8% over the six months and 9.7% over twelve months. On a fully diluted basis, it stood at £9.96 at the period end. The equity portfolio was valued at 296,500,000 after growth adjusted for additions and disposals was approximately 8.8% over six months and 16.2% over twelve months. We've invested in the aggregate £8,100,000 across three new businesses, comprising of £3,900,000 of equity and £4,200,000 of loan facilities, and ended the period with £37,400,000 of available capital.

6:00 Consolidated profit before tax for the six months was £22,800,000 The total shareholder return was 7% for the period and 10.2% over twelve months. Those are NAV based measures. The share price experience is a separate consideration, which we'll come back to later. One of the questions we quite reasonably get asked is how the portfolio valuations translate into cash. The eight highlighted disposals on the slide show £20,600,000 of invested against £178,000,000 of aggregate proceeds representing an 8.7 times multiple of invested capital. Looking at these investments, these are approximately over the last five years. So it's not cherry picking something over five, ten, fifteen or twenty years. These are recent realizations.

6:48 And I think that demonstrates what we've achieved and at what value and the strength and depth of portfolio in terms of when we bring it to market. SSRU is a good example. We backed the business in January 2017 with a nominal equity amount of just £19 alongside a loan facility of circa £500,000 We exited that business in December last year with proceeds of approximately £28,000,000 and an IRR of just under 90%. This business developed over an eight year relationship into one of Canada's leading underwriting platforms. CBC, another example of supporting management team through growth and ultimately to a sale. Total proceeds to BPMARSH were GBP62.7 million. This incorporated GBP18.7 million of deferred consideration, which led to an overall IRR of just under 49%.

7:39 Some transactions also include deferred consideration. So the cash receipts continue after the sale as was the case with CBC. LEBC, which we've discussed previously, haven't had the stellar returns of SSRU or CBC, but once deferred consideration is hopefully bundled in, it will be at or around 10%. It's delivered $10,900,000 in proceeds today, and we're expecting circa 7,000,000 perhaps more million in a final installment due in April of next year. I think it all looks at the way we approach things as a patient investor, but I suppose patience in of itself is not an investment strategy. In isolation, eventually the value has to turn into cash. These transactions demonstrate that it can and on terms which give us considerable confidence in the valuations and our model.

8:32 I think it's worth spending a moment on how we arrive at the valuations in the first place. We gather financial and operational information for the portfolio companies, consider market conditions, relevant transactions and external benchmarks. This is where being specialists really matters because we've spent decades investing in this sector. We understand what drives value in an MGA or a broker, the quality of underwriting, client retention, the strength of insurer relationships. We feel that means we can interpret the numbers in context, recognize what they are telling when they're telling a different story from the narrative around them and ask the right questions at the right time. Our four member valuation committee reviews each investment, submit their own conclusions to the committee, the committee discuss it, agrees the numbers and then submits it to the board for approval.

9:19 Throughout, we apply consistent, we think prudent approach in line with the industry guidelines. Clearly, the valuation is also subject to independent scrutiny. Our external auditors, RSM, review them as part of the full year audit. And we feel and I think they certainly feel they provide robust challenge and add quite an important additional layer of assurance for our shareholders in the wider market. In terms of how we look at valuations whilst we don't disclose them to avoid them being used against us when it comes to a transaction, you know, earnings multiples are commonly used, but the right method depends on the business and at what stage of developments it's at. You know, we give reference to cost, revenue multiples, DCF or imminent sale where we've got a value that we think is tangible.

10:06 Newer investments tend to be held conservatively until they've built a track record given it's not BPMarch's experience, but the wider market in terms of startups has a less than successful track record. So we don't want to put undue burden on our startup businesses when they're just, you know, at the beginning of their story. I think ultimately the best test of any valuation is what happens when a business is sold and again, moving back to SSRU, it's a good example. When we came to sell, the price we achieved was comfortably ahead of the valuation we've been carrying at and CBC was a similar story. There's obviously judgment involved as there is with any private company transaction and valuation, but the process gives the judgment a clear structure and our realizations give us confidence that the values we report hold up. In terms of new investments, we completed three new investments in the period, Nine Edge Wealth and Ventura Risk Partners in March, followed by Autonomy Investment Partners in June. These follow the eight new investments made in the previous financial year. So there is a substantial group of younger businesses within the portfolio alongside the more established holdings.

11:11 We reviewed 42 new opportunities during the six months, 60% came through referrals or introductions from our network. I'd that's as good an indication as any of the value of the relationships we've built up over the years of BPMash. 36% of the opportunities were international and 95% were insurance intermediaries, and we feel that that's, broadly speaking, what we like to see. Our origination remains firmly centered on the sector we know, while giving us opportunities across different markets. Of course, seeing an opportunity and investing in it are two different things. We need to be comfortable majoritarily with the people, that's fundamentally 99% of what we're doing, but also the business plan. Again, we can deploy our sector expertise to review business plans and where generalists probably can't, and we can keep it in house. But also as a final point that the terms, which is how we build out valuation growth.

12:06 The fact that we have capital available doesn't make every proposal a good investment. If anything, we've learned having money to spend is when discipline matters the most. Our patient model doesn't require us to deploy capital immediately as it might be with a fund set up. And our investment process has been refined and developed over the years. And the experience gives us real confidence that the decisions we make both on what we back and what we pass on are the right ones. The intention is to keep bringing promising businesses into the portfolio while supporting the ones we've already backed. Slide nine shows the breadth of the portfolio, 11 MJs, eight brokers and four other diversified financial businesses. Within insurance, those businesses operate across various different specialist product areas and geographies. The common feature is the expertise of their management teams and the opportunity to build valuable distribution businesses.

12:59 MGAs bring underwriting expertise and access to insurer capacity, brokers connect the clients with insurance markets, both can create considerable value and have a clear proposition and execute it well. To give a sense of scale, on 2026 budgets, our MJAs are writing approximately GBP $970,000,000 of GWP generating GBP 112,000,000 of commission income, And our brokers are placing around £1,600,000,000 of premium, generating around £155,000,000 of brokerage income. So it's sort of telling around £2,500,000,000 of premium across the portfolio, which whilst we're on the small side does give an indication of the heft of the BPMash portfolio. The non insurance investment give us exposure to, we think, our adjacent areas, financial advice through Nine Edge and specialist SME lending through IO partners. But again, it's the caliber of the management teams that we back that we hark back to in our understanding to review the business plan. Alongside in the case of IO Partners, another supportive shareholder in the guise of Janus Henderson.

14:00 On Gambit Re, our fully collateralized reinsurance vehicle, which provides capital to XPT, one of our larger brokers investment company underwriting arm, Platinum is its underwriting agency and Gambit supplies the part of the reinsurance capital to that alongside other rated insurance companies. Autonomy is our newest investment and it provides minority growth capital to insurance distribution businesses in The U. S. It's a similar model to BPMARSH, but with a bigger check size. We're a minority investment alongside senior management to XBT, but the majority owner is BARCAP PARTNERS out of New York and Connecticut, which is a multibillion pound fund management business, multibillion dollar private equity investor.

14:47 I think the breadth is useful, although it doesn't mean the portfolio is immune to changes in the insurance market, but we do remain specialist investors and we need to understand the conditions each business operates in. And on sort of market commentary, I think everybody's got an appreciation of where insurance premium is going at the moment. Given our focus on early stage start up businesses, the vagaries of a hardening or softening market apply less to us than most because it's very much the policy count, a new business that affects us as opposed to getting in and out on cyclical trends. Looking at the key holdings, Pantheon, XPT and ATC are our three largest holdings and together represent just over 57% of NAV. So it's worth looking at them in a little more detail.

15:32 The returns on those investments to date are just under 100% for Pantheon circa 25% for XBT and just over 36% for ATC. Our value of Pantheon is about 112,000,000, representing just over 30% of NAV. Our holdings increased in Pantheon from 39% to 41%. We bought shares from the management team to allow them to partially realize capital as opposed to looking at wider strategic reviews, which might have meant a liquidity event for management or BPMARSH. Management felt that they've got much greater bandwidth to grow the company and, you know, they've grown revenue at a striking rate since formation over the sort of first two and a half years. 2026 budget is strong at 27,000,000.

16:20 And it really reflected the scale that is built in such short time as one of the few independent mid market London specialty wholesale brokers that is management owned unencumbered by significant levels of third party debt and has, you know, a management team that is building for the future, whereas some of the larger brokers have got shorter term horizons or their peer group of mid market independents have been consolidated. So Pantheon is an attractive home for brokers to join. And the growth they've delivered has been organic as opposed to through acquisitions, and I think that's certainly management strategy going forward at Pantheon. Moving to XBT, about GBP 57,000,000 valuation or 15.3% of NAV.

17:07 This U. S. Insurance distribution platform is growing through both organic and M and A. The slide shows 45% compound annual growth rate in GWP since formation and budgeted GWP exceeding over $1,000,000,000 for 2026. So in the period, we've invested in our business. It's growing tremendously well and the management team continue to see great opportunities to continue to execute on their strategies. They've brought in greater firepower from variety of lenders to finance their m and a. We probably won't be supporting that in any material way, but we still maintain it sort of 26.5% shareholding that we think is material and see really good upside in XBT.

17:50 Turning to ATC, just over 44,500,000, 12% of our NAV. It's Australian, probably APAC's largest independent Lloyd's cover holder, diversified product base, premiums compounded at 20 since our investments and its financial year 2027, its budget exceeds $370,000,000 Aussie dollars of GWP, which, you know, is tremendous year on year in growth and we continue to support ATC

18:21 with their plan. And I think looking at it, the management team there and the Executive Chairman, Chris Anderson, has used the incremental targets over and above next year's budget sort of fall to 500,000,000 of premium or a billion of premium. I think what these businesses demonstrate is the scale that can develop from our minority approach. We don't claim we've built them ourselves. The management team deserve huge credit here. And where we've fallen into this is we our role has been to identify those teams, back them and help them grow and provide the structure in and around it, the governance, the the the focus on the day to day nitty gritty of budgets, cash flow forecasting, cash management, all the things that early stage can trip up early stage businesses, and that's what we focus on to allow the management teams to deploy their entrepreneurial vim and vigor to go out and grow the businesses, which they demonstrably have done.

19:17 The outcome gives us good reason to have confidence in that approach. I think this slide shows that. Looking at the wider portfolio composition here is the slide that we're looking at alongside the three largest holdings with businesses such as One Global and Sodalis as well as another of a number of other growing investments within the portfolio. A small percentage of NAV today tells you the current size of the holding. It doesn't necessarily tell you how much time we spend on it or what it might become. The larger investments also have to start somewhere and quite modest in many cases. And additionally, as demonstrated by transactions highlighted previously in the presentation, BPMRs can provide investment through a leverage structure where appropriate or follow on funding, equity release and a variety of ways and in ways that most private equity backed companies can't access it. So our ability to write more than one check, provide equity injections, which isn't good or loan facilities, allows us to provide an optionality of funding to our portfolio companies.

20:22 Now, it's our job to support the established businesses while giving the younger ones the opportunity to develop. We don't assume that every company follows the same path, but having businesses at different stages is an important part of sustaining the model. The equity portfolio accounts for approximately $296,500,000 of NAV with the balance of circa $75,700,000 or 20% of NAV held in cash or in the loan book within the portfolio. Fran will say more about how that is managed. At this juncture, I'll now hand over to Fran to take you through the liquidity position and how we're balancing investment with shareholder distributions. Thanks, Dan. At July 31, cash and treasury balances were GBP 37,400,000 compared with GBP 49,500,000 at the January year end.

21:09 That gives us capacity to support existing portfolio companies and consider new investments. The loan book stood at GBP 46,900,000 compared with GBP 38,700,000 at January. During the period, 18,100,000 of loans were granted and £10,100,000 was repaid. The average interest rate on the loan book is 8.3% and by the October 13, the loan book stood at £47,900,000 Loans are an important part of how we support the portfolio alongside equity. They allow us to provide funding as businesses develop and repayments can make capital available for further use. The loan book is not, however, the same as immediately available cash. On Treasury, our approach is deliberately conservative. The £37,400,000 is spread across Rothschild, Rathbones, GAM, Coutts and Lloyds, so we aren't reliant on any single institution.

22:02 The funds are held in a mix of cash deposits and investment grade corporate bonds, so they're readily available to draw in as required. Our priorities for cash and treasury are security and liquidity first, revealed after that. That's why the maximum deposit period is one month, as the cash needs to be there when a portfolio company or a new investment needs it. The portfolio is where we take investment risk, Treasury is not. Even so, the average return on Treasury funds over the period was 3.3%, which makes a useful contribution while the cash waits to be deployed. We therefore have both capital already working within the portfolio and liquidity available for the next opportunities. The purpose is to retain flexibility as well as support growth. Our capital allocation approach balances the funds needed to grow the portfolio with meaningful distributions to shareholders.

22:53 In July, we announced a new share buyback program. The revised authority permits purchases of up to 3,710,000 ordinary shares. That is an authority rather than a commitment to purchase the full amount. During the period, 120,000 shares were purchased for total expenditure of approximately £815,000 at an average price of £6.77 per share, well below diluted NAV per share of £9.96 Buying shares below NAV can increase NAV per share for the remaining shareholders. We consider that benefit alongside the capital required by our portfolio and the opportunities to make new investments. Dividends are the other important part of the equation. We paid GBP 13,000,000 during the period, and the Board intends to pay at least GBP 7,000,000 for the financial year end in January 2028.

23:44 The aim is to retain enough capital to keep building value while allowing shareholders to participate in the cash generated by successful investments. This chart shows how those distributions have developed over time and their relationship with realizations. The 13,000,000 paid during the period included the 8,000,000 special dividend in March following the sale of SSRU. By July, total dividends distributed to shareholders stood at GBP 37,700,000. That equates to GBP 107.1 per share, equivalent to 76.5% of the original flotation price of 140p. That comparison illustrates the cash returned over time alongside the value retained in the business. The additional £7,000,000 shown for the financial year ending January 2028 represents the Board's stated intention.

24:34 Realizations can lead to larger distributions in particular years. We therefore look at the dividend record over the time rather than assuming that every year's payment will follow the same line. The GBP 13,000,000 distribution comprised GBP 2,500,000 in February, the GBP 8,000,000 special dividend in March and a further GBP 2,500,000 in July. In total, that was GBP 36.29 per share. Earnings per share for the period was GBP 66. As Dan mentioned earlier, the NAV based return, including dividends, was 7% over six months and 10.2% over twelve months. The longer term chart compares the share price and NAV per share with the AIM indices. It's useful context, but those rebase series should be read separately from the NAV plus dividend return measure.

25:22 We recognize that shareholders also care about the price at which they can buy or sell their shares. Continuing to grow NAV, demonstrating realizations and returning cash are the parts of that proposition we can work on directly. I'll now hand back to Dan to conclude. Thanks, Franz. We've had another good year. I think just before I go into the concluding remarks, I think it's really important to thank each and every portfolio management team, the teams that sit below them, they're the key drivers for growth. Think it'd be remiss of us not to say thanks to them, and we really do have strong faith in their ability to continue their journey and deliver NAV growth to BPMash. I'd also like to thank the wider team at BPMash who aren't in this presentation, but put in a real shift across the year and delivering these results. So I just wanted to mark the card that there's a great degree of appreciation for myself and Fran and the Board of BPMARSH in terms of how these results have been delivered.

26:23 I appreciate I'm unlikely to surprise anyone by saying at the end of our own results, we've had a good year, but I do think the evidence supports it. The six months has been really good. NAV has increased to 372,200,000, the equity portfolio has grown by 8.8 over six months and 16.2% over twelve on an adjusted basis, and we delivered GBP 13,000,000 to shareholders in dividend, giving a total shareholder return of 7% for the six months and 10.2% over twelve months.

26:54 Halfway through the year, we remain in a strong position. There is no need to dress that up with extravagant predictions. The portfolio is doing what we want it to do, and our job is to keep supporting it. We've continued to grow NAV, support new and existing businesses, realize value at the appropriate time and return capital to shareholders. We enter the second half with capital available to deploy an active pipeline of opportunities and a portfolio that continues to perform well. We've added three new investments, following eight in the previous financial year, and with £37,000,000 or so of available capital to support the portfolio and pursue further opportunities to deliver shareholder returns. The larger holdings demonstrate what the model can produce as businesses develop scale, the younger investments give us the opportunity to keep the process that process going. Our realization record is also very important.

27:42 It gives shareholders in the wider market evidence that the value we report can translate into proceeds and that those proceeds can support both further investments and distributions. We remain confident in the opportunities within the portfolio and in the pipeline. That confidence comes from the progress of the businesses, the quality of the people running them and the evidence from realizations rather than from any assumptions that markets will always be kind to us, which you can't rely on. As ever, we will be selective about where we commit capital and realistic about the time it takes to build a business. As the slide says, we are farmers, not hunters. I suspect that's probably not the most fashionable description of an investment company, but I think it's fair when it comes to BPMash. We've got capable people stay involved as their businesses grow and make disciplined decisions about when to invest and when to realize value. We have done that for many years.

28:31 The results give us confidence in it, and we see plenty of scope to continue. Just like to say thank you for your time. And after this, I'll be taking questions. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions just by using the Q and A tab situated on the right hand corner of your screen. But just while the company take a few moments to review those questions that have been submitted already, just like to remind you that a recording of this presentation along with a copy of the slides and the published Q and A can all be accessed via your investor dashboard. Lira, at this stage, I may hand over to you to chair the q and a with Dan. And if I pick up from you at the end, that'd be great. Thank you. Thanks, Jake. We've had a few questions around Pantheon's valuation and how Pantheon now represents 30% of our NAV.

29:18 Dan, could you speak a little bit about how you view the weighting within our portfolio? Yeah. Thanks, Leah. I I I think if we deal with the the the valuation points, Dan, but valuation question first, I think someone said we appear to be valuing Pantheon at 10 times forecast 2026 revenue and then another one, Germane, to Pantheon's valuation. It won't... See, we don't publish our valuation methodology primarily so it isn't used against us by interested parties. But what we do do is have a very robust valuation committee and RSMR auditors obviously provide audit oversight on our valuation methodologies. That being said, in terms of wider market comparables that are publicly available, Marshberry, a corporate finance advisory firm that's US and UK based that specialize in financial services and a bit across a lot of insurance distribution transactions has got its mark in terms of precedent transactions at about 15 to 16 and a half times forecast EBITDA. So whilst we don't publish our valuation methodologies, we feel that we sit well within comparables and would consider ourselves somewhat conservative.

30:30 On the exposure to Pantheon, look, I I think in in some respects, it's a victim of its own success. Pantheon's only been investment coming up three years. It's growing very significantly, very quickly, and we're we're obviously very happy with it. We started at 25% for a £25 investment. We're now at 41% for a materially larger investment. We've acquired those shares from management

31:03 at valuation increase increments that's been substantiated by third party validation. And I feel like it sort of underpins our flexible approach and our management support first approach and as much as we wanted to participate in the growth of Pantheon. Every time we bought shares, it's then kicked on. We've allowed management to realize or partially realize some shares to take care of their own personal obligations, as opposed to looking at wider strategic potential, which again would limit our upside if we weren't able to do that. And I think it's the right balance that we've struck with Pantheon. And clearly, my expectation is that Pantheon should continue to grow. If it does continue to grow in line or about in terms of where it has done over the past three years, then it will always make up a meaningful percentage of our NAV. But again, going back to my first point, a victim of its own success. That being said, the wider portfolio and the newer investments are starting to really motor and kick on. So I do think there's that across the 26 companies, a really good breadth wider value, but there will always be hopefully successful outliers, which we have with, Pantheon, ATC and XPT.

32:19 Thanks, Dan. Another question from someone about XPT. XPT's value fell from £64,000,000 to £57,000,000 in the half while you received $12,100,000 back. Once that cash is added back, did XPT's value go up or down?

32:38 XPT's value did go up. So it went from that value at a just under 30% shareholding to that value that Leo just mentioned, 26% shareholding. So there was moderate increase in value whilst at the same time returning capital to us as part of reducing our overall aggregate shareholding percentage. Great. Another question through at a 30% discount to NAV, why not put more into buybacks rather than special dividends? I think we like to strike a balance. You know, we're a growth share and we pay dividends. We recognize what our shareholder base looks like and wants. We've made meaningful share buybacks over the past two years, much more materially than we ever have done since flotation. But that being said, we want to keep enough dry powder to take advantage of where the market's moving and, you know, in terms of returns, we think the portfolio has tremendous upside and the new business pipeline is very good. But, you know, I think it's striking a balance and look that the focus is on, you know, minimizing the discount to NAV and you know, it's at 30% now. I think that it's all well and good to say you're going to cut the discount by improving investor relations, but actually I think where we have got to that sort of 5% to 15% discount to NAV, it's on the back of new investments, realizations, a growing dividend policy and share buybacks. I

34:08 think as long as we continue to do that, broaden the shareholder base, then I'm pretty comfortable that we should have a meaningful impact on discount to NAV. Thanks Dan. A few more questions. Insurers are buying specialist MGAs. Are you getting more approaches for your holdings and are softer insurance prices pushing down the values you can sell at?

34:32 I think, yeah, it's fair to say that we're getting no less approaches regarding our MGAs. I think to put it into context of softer insurance prices or premiums going down, is that impacting our businesses generally? Because we focus on early stage companies as opposed to established ones that might have benefited from a three year period of hardening or increasing premiums, we're very much focusing on policy count, not premium value. We're to an extent insulated from softening prices within the portfolio. Our softening price putting valuation down, now I think we've seen certainly where you've got a fast growing profitable cash generative business, multiples still remain at the high end. Where there's been a significant degree of consolidation within the distribution market, you know, what's left will reflect the quality of the business where we've sold to consolidators, we've attached, you know, attracted relatively high multiples between sort of fifteen and twenty five times. Now we don't value our portfolio at that, but the way we structure our investments, we feel presents our assets in the best possible light when it comes to a management led sale process.

35:45 So now, and I would also say in a

35:48 softer market where there's more premium available at less prices, insurance carriers are looking to increase their distribution and access to that via MGAs is obviously one port of call. Thanks, Dan. How do your valuations, for example multiple of revenues or GWP, compare to peers? Well, I would obviously say conservatively as a starting point. But look, we provide a lot of comparable valuations to to the market by the nature of our transactions given our five or six exits over the the last five years or so. All have been, I'd say market leading. But that's not to say that we value our holdings that we carry forward on an exit multiple. We we don't. We we discount it back from minority positions and then have the the collateral from the advisory side of the the the industry to to be able to peg them. And then when we submit our valuation file to RSM, they they they they've got their own in house knowledge in terms of valuing investment trusts and investment companies, but we can also supply the collateral alongside that to justify where we peg things. Thanks, Dan.

37:02 One other question's come through. Which proportion of proposals do you accept? And is the competitive position for funding less favorable in The US and Canada compared with The UK? Are you seeing attractive opportunities for the deployment of your large cash holding? In terms of what we're seeing, the conversion rate is pretty low, I'd sort of say between zero and two and a half percent. If we see 80 or so per annum and look to do three to five, that 80, there's probably another 20 or 30 that we don't even register as inbound because it's so diametrically opposed to our appetite.

37:54 So it is on the low side. Look, you should put there we go. And is competitive position for funding less favorable?

38:03 No, I think what we offer is so unique as a minority investor in management owned and controlled businesses with a long term horizon that our offering continues to be attractive and with markets moving the way they are. I mean, with the underwriting agencies due to regulation, to the preference for new start syndicates at Lloyd's or insurance companies to be more generally to be meaningfully into the hundreds of millions of premium income, if not billions, it really removes an area that was there at Lloyd's in particular of people establishing, you know, specialist managing agency syndicates to write lines of business. That's now closed off, so the only real option for those entrepreneurial underwriters that want to focus on their area is to set up an MGA.

38:57 We're not the only provider of capital to support MJ's, we are the only provider of capital that only wants a minority position, wants management control and doesn't insist on exit triggers. So that offering is, you know, continues to grow and looking at the broker markets,

39:16 there's been a significant degree of consolidation. I suppose in some respects we've supported it by selling our assets to the consolidators, but we've gone through significant rounds of consolidation. I think with that, it's starting to throw off people who are disenfranchised, don't want to be consolidated again. Insurance is nothing if not history repeating itself. I think we're staring down the barrel of a period of quite a few new start brokers and whilst we're not the only game in town for those, our offering is unique, good or bad, but I would say it's also subjectively very compelling for these people who don't want to be part of a big corporate. Look to the likes of Pantheon and Lilly Plumber Risk and others in terms of what they've achieved and see BPMARSH as a very, you know, attractive home for them as an investor. Thanks Dan.

40:08 After your loan, autonomy and XPT commitments, how much of the 37,400,000 is actually free for new deals and buybacks?

40:17 As well as we've also set aside within that amount the twenty twenty eight financial year dividend. So it's probably more than half without wanting to split it out too much, but it's more than half. Thanks, Dan. Let me have a look at that one from... Yeah. For some of these successful investments, is it necessary to sell them or could you become longer term investors or at least retain a smaller stake? Are these sales driven by agreements with management?

41:10 Look, we're nothing if not flexible in our approach. We're not rigid. We aren't tracked by GPLP structure where it's, you know, deploy the capital in two years, return it over five to seven, and then that's it. So when you look at these investments, we can be flexible. When we were in Howden, we were initially expecting to exit when three I co invest came and invested. Management wanted the co investment and we took that through another stage of growth. And certainly, with some of the other portfolio companies more recently, One Global, which is majority owned by JC Flowers. We are only a smaller investor, but we feel like we've added value to that position and work with the management. Look, we we look for management driven sale processes because we think management's are the best observer of ultimate value.

42:00 We obviously impart our opinion on it and protect our position, but generally if you work in partnership with the management team, you should have an alignment of interest. So we like a management driven sales process, we're very flexible on exits and as we've got bigger in some of our portfolio companies have got bigger. It's certainly something that we look at to, you know, deliver long term shareholder value. Thanks for that, Dan.

42:26 I think we have time for one more question. One from Robert. I think I noticed another Pantheon investment that has been made more recently. If I am right, is it investing in another different part of the insurance market?

42:43 Well, no, Pantheon, I don't think Pantheon has. So Pantheon is very much focused on London market wholesale insurance broking. XPT has moved into certain other well, it's developing its footprint within the insurance broking sector by, you know, value added either acquisitions or investments. So XBT is sticking to its knitting in terms of what it's going do, but it is, you know, widening its footprint and where it wants to be. Great. Well, thank you so much Dan for your time. I think we'll hand back to Jake now. Perfect, guys. That's great. And thank you very much indeed for addressing all of those questions that came in from investors this morning. And of course, if there are any further questions that do come through, we'll make these available to you immediately after the presentation has ended.

43:33 But Dan, perhaps before really now, just looking to redirect 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. Firstly, many thanks for everybody attending. You know, we're delighted with these results. I think it's another continuation of, you know, what we said we do, we will do and we'll continue to do that. I think the team's well set, the portfolio is well set and the new business pipeline is very strong.

44:05 So there's a, you know, an air of quiet confidence with the BPMash that will continue to deliver on, you know, what we've achieved over the last five, ten, you know, fifteen, twenty years. But, you know, looking at over the last five, ten, whether the incumbent team really hit their straps, I think that's that's what we're looking to do. And just circling back to what... There was quite a a large degree of questions, there is limited time. We will... We'll get back to everybody on the questions, but I just wanted to say that. Perfect, Dan. That's great. Thank you once again for updating investors this morning. Could I please ask investors not to close this session as you'll now be automatically redirected for the opportunity to provide your feedback. On behalf of the management team, we would like to thank you for attending today's presentation. That now concludes today's session. So good morning to you all.