Frenkel Topping Group (LSE:FEN) — Preliminary Results for the year ended 31 December 2020

0:02 Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the FRENKEL TOPPING GROUP PLC Preliminary Results for the Year Ending 12/31/2020 Investor Presentation. Throughout this presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged and can be submitted at any time using the Q and A tab situated on the right hand corner of your screen. Just please simply type in your question and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company review all questions submitted today and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. These will

0:34 be available to you via your investment company dashboard, and we will email you when they are ready for your review. I'd also like to remind you that this presentation is being recorded. Before we begin, we would like to submit the following poll. And if you could give that to your attention, we'd be most grateful. And I'd now like to hand over to Elaine Cullen Grant, CFO and Richard Fraser, CEO from FRENKEL TOPPING GROUP. Good afternoon to you both. Good afternoon, Mark, and thank you for that introduction, and thank you for everybody attending this seminar this afternoon, this webinar. Before I go into the presentation for the last year, I will just give you spend ten minutes just giving you some background to the business case you don't know who we are. FRENKEL TOPPING originated in Manchester forty years ago in 1979 as chartered accountant.

1:23 So John Franklin and Mike TOPPING set the practice up. And they specialize in forensic accountancy, so that was providing support to litigation lawyers who were dealing with high value, either personal injury cases, so that's road traffic accidents, employers liability cases, or clinical negligence cases. And I and I will reiterate this stage, we are not, the bottom end of the market dealing with what we would class slippers and trippers. We are the high value catastrophic end dealing with very serious injuries to people. We we set up FENKEL TOPPING IFA in the mid eighties. And as an independent financial adviser, for the last thirty years, we've been acting in two capacities with lawyers.

2:10 So we act pre settlement as a financial expert to the court. So what the law in The United Kingdom says is that if you have an accident, you will be put back in the same financial position you would have been booked for that accident. We do not have large pecuniary losses like we do in America where you get somebody getting $12,000,000 because they've had coffee spilled on them in McDonald's. So if you have an accident and you can never work again, then you've lost earnings for the rest of your life. And de facto, because of auto enrollment, you've got a pension loss. So we would be instructed by the lawyer to present a financial report for the court, and we are experts to the court. We get involved even before that in that, we have four people in our welfare benefit team because if you have a catastrophic injury, then the first thing that often goes is income. So we help people, go through the myriad of benefits. And in fact, last year, we recovered over £2,000,000 additional benefits for our clients to help them in the most difficult time possible.

3:09 We also the as the case settles, we will do a report for the court again on the best way to take the financial settlement for the claimant. The whole point of everything that we've been doing pre settlement is so that when the client gets their damages, we will we have become their trusted adviser, and they appoint us as an independent financial adviser to look after their or to give them advice for the rest of their life. And in the presentation, we'll see where we've got to on the assets that we now manage for clients. We floated the business in 2004. We we basically brought John FENKEL out to the business at that stage, and he no longer has anything to do with the business or his forensic accountancy practices no longer have anything to do with the business. Six years ago, we bought a discretionary fund management business, so we have that discretionary, capability within the group.

4:02 We then so a couple of years ago, the shareholders challenged us, the executives, to how we could scale the business up and how we could move forward. And, we looked at a consolidation piece in the IFA marketplace, maybe going out and buying other IFAs, decided that was too expensive and and also because of the defined benefits issue too risky. And we thought, well, actually, we've known personal injury and clinical negligence for forty years. Why do we not focus on that? And we so last year in the summer, we raised £13,000,000 in equity, and we started a an m and a strategy. And I think the easiest way for me to describe the legal services vertical, and you'll see what this looks like in a minute when I go into the presentation, the services that go into lawyers who are dealing with these large cases is a multibillion pound cottage industry. It's very, very fragmented, and what we're trying to do is consolidate this.

4:58 So last year, we went back to our roots and we actually bought a forensic accountancy practice called Forts Forensics. They're based in Leeds. We've known Richard Forts and his team for many, many years. It was a good fit for us. We then looked at the end of last year. We made an offer to buy a national accident helpline. We didn't want national accident helpline. What we wanted was Bush and Co within the group, which was the care and case management business. It didn't happen, for various reasons. We decided it wasn't for us and walked away, as friends in December. But in the meantime, we also got the transaction going through, which happened in January of this year, where we bought bought two cost lawyer firms, partners in costs and A and M Bacon. And I will explain to you how that works when, when we go through the presentation.

5:47 I'm now gonna go actually, in the presentation, I'm gonna switch switch my camera off so we can focus on that. So if I go into this first slide, you can see what we're trying to achieve here within the group. This is our brand. So that first vertical is the expert witness stroke cost lawyer section. This is the bit where we're providing advice and expertise into the lawyers dealing with these large personal injury clinical negligence cases. And we've actually been working through our product

6:17 offering there, and we're going to rebrand that professional services pillar as working in partnership and look to put in a partnership program with all the lawyers that we work for. The point of this, which will hopefully come out during the presentation, show you all the different touch points that we now have with both the lawyers and the claimants during the litigation process. The whole point of this is to hopefully win the mandate to become their IFA. So we become the trusted adviser during the process, we then become their independent financial adviser. You will notice there's two brands there. There's FRENKEL TOPPING, which is the core business. We've also got over to wealth management. Now when a judge gives his or or drafts his order at the end of the case, he will do something called an obitur dictum.

7:05 An obitur dictum is Latin for an addition

7:08 to. And we set OBITA up because we were often getting asked by the lawyers, partners, law firms to to look after their own financial affairs. And we wanted to keep that separate from the personal injury and clinical negligence business. So OBITA is smaller business, and it's set up on the the main clients. But it's still around the legal marketplace, still not acting for barristers and lawyers who work within PI and Clinique. The third brand there is Asensia. That's our discretionary fund management business, and that is a directly authorized, fund management business with the FCA. It is not an appointed representative of the of of the IFA business. It is completely separate. We've got our fourth pillar, which is client care and how we look after our, our clients, and Elaine will touch upon that in a minute as to how important that is.

7:57 But now we've got the accountancy practice in there for us. We can offer our clients to do their tax returns and to do their court of protection returns. For those of you who do not don't know what the court of protection is, if you've got an acquired brain injury or you've got a wrongful baby birth born with cerebral palsy and you are incapable of managing your own financial affairs, then the court of protection will step in to do that and appoint what's called a professional deputy to do that. You may have heard of the court in connection with Alzheimer's or dementia because it very often steps in for family members who have got, degenerative brain diseases. We then got our our talent, and you'll notice on both the first pillar and the fifth pillar, we've got something called the knowledge hub.

8:42 Knowledge hub, this is how we train both our staff internally, but we also use it for business development. And in the last two weeks, we through webinars, we've, we've presented to over 500 lawyers on a whole range of subjects from welfare benefits to loss of earnings to what the future of the legal marketplace holds. And it's a great way for us to get our our messaging out into the marketplace, build our brand. We we're qualified by the law society for CPD, and the the professionals need to keep up their CPD points. So it's a great way to get our message across. Internally, we run a graduate and an apprenticeship program, and that's the knowledge of, again, is how we run and how we train our, our apprenticeships, our graduates.

9:28 It's been a fantastic source of talent for us. Know young people tend to get a bad reputation for being millennials. What we've seen is highly talented, hardworking, ambitious young people who want to have a future and a career, and we're able to give them that. And then lastly, we've got the charitable foundation, and I'll touch upon that in a little while through the presentation. And now I'm gonna just pass over to Elaine, who is now going to just run through our numbers for last year. So these are our financial and operational highlights for 2020, which despite COVID, we're really pleased that we were were in line with expectations, and we've delivered what we hope to achieve. So our revenue is up 19% on the prior year. Our gross profit's up 10%.

10:13 We've got an adjusted EBITDA of 2,500,000, which is a 25% increase in the prior year. And our pretax profit's again all up. So, again, we've had we've we've maintained a strong balance sheet. We had cash on the balance sheet of 12,000,000, which is obviously post the capital raise. Prior to in the first part of this year, we have purchased a pick in A and M bacon for 5,000,000, but we're still still holding on to cash on the balance sheet. We've increased our dividend by 1%, so we've paid and proposed dividend of 1.36 per share. So we're really pleased with those results. For us operationally, these are the some really key results. Our twelfth year of high client retention, 99%. Keeping on retaining our client, providing that great customer service is what is what we do best and what we wanna continue to be known for in the market.

11:02 Our assets under management have passed the billion mark, and our assets on a discretionary mandate, and they are past the 500,000,000 mark. So if all in all, 2020 was a good year for us. Thank you, Thanks, and, I mean, just to just to make the point as we move on that the numbers for last year 2020, do not take any account of the acquisitions. Fourth was done towards the end of last year. And if if our brokers are FENKEL TOPPING GROUP PLC's website, you'll see their research note which gives the what they feel and where we can get to this year, next year, and the year after. And and you'll see how the impact of the or what the impact of the acquisitions will make on our numbers going forward.

11:48 So the because if I how the key performance indicators for us are the assets under management, keeping the clients assets in a discretionary basis and with client retention. And and the and it's quite simple strategy. We work in the professional services vertical. We provide as many services as we can to the lawyers. We become the trusted adviser that gets us hopefully to the client to become their independent financial adviser, and then we drive that into our asset management business. So this is a a summary I'm gonna go into a little bit more detail in the next few slides, but it sort of shows you the the flow of what happens from somebody having an accident, liability being established, the lawyer assessing, gathering evidence to support the claim, which they must do.

12:35 What happens at the settlement? There's a settlement negotiation or even a court case, and then there's the financial planning afterwards and the ongoing investment advice. So that's a summary. This goes into a little bit more detail and really just to demonstrate how many touch points we now have, with both the claimant and the claimant's lawyer. The index event, that's that's the term used for somebody when they've had an accident. But you can see right at the beginning, partners in cost, PIC, they're explaining solicitors fees to injured parties, drafting health checks with them looking at retainers, and we're there as well giving the welfare benefits benefits advice. So we're involved right at the early stage building up our relationship. I think if you move to the the building the case proceeding, it's very important, this bit, and just to to make to to understand what happens here.

13:26 About six years ago, we had the Rupes and Rupert Jackson reforms in the PI and CLINNKEL marketplace, and this was all to do with how costs and how lawyers instruct their experts in order to try and control the costs of litigation, which which are significant. So at the beginning of a case, once liability has been admitted, the lawyer has to go through and work out every single expert that they need to instruct. That'll be all the the potential consultants for medical prognosis, pain management, life expectation, care reports for what care is required, occupational therapy, physio, IT, equipment, accommodation, adapted, and then the financial reports that we're involved in. It's vitally important that the lawyer gets this right at the beginning because he has to he or she has to go in front of a cost judge, and the the cost judge approves what's called the precedent h form, which details all the experts they want to instruct.

14:25 If halfway through the case, they suddenly decide they want another medical expert or another care report and they've not put it on their precedent form h, then ultimately, the claimant has to pay those costs and not the defendant. So this part of the process is vitally important to the lawyers, and this is where partners in cost and a and m bacon do come in because that's what they do. They are cost lawyers who assist the litigation lawyers to put together these cost budgets. So, again, we're we're involved right at the beginning. We know what the size of the case is, the severity of the case, which lawyers dealing with it, which then helps with our business development and marketing function to to really direct that to the right firms at the right time. As we continue to go through the litigation, we'll see that, the middle bit, that joint at settlement hearing, again, crucial for us all. It's a big opportunity for conversion. You very often will spend three to four, five hours in a in a room in barrister's chambers as the sides try and agree a settlement prior to the case going in front of a a judge.

15:32 That gives you a great opportunity to build and continue to build a relationship with the family. And if we were involved in the joint settlement hearing, then we, we very rarely don't then get asked to to go and pitch for the work post settlement. As you continue to move through, we then looks looks at post settlement one to twelve months to twelve months plus, and it's just continuing, this relationship. So one of the things that so when the cost protection appoints a professional deputy to look after the claim of the brain damaged individual, this 99% of the time is a lawyer. Again, that lawyer has to have their bill of costs approved by a cost judge in London, and this is a and m bacon specialty. They prepare the bill of costs for that, the breakdown.

16:22 So, again, what it gives us, the opportunity gives us the market data to know which of the lawyers who professional deputies will very often sit in the private client department of law firms.

16:32 So it it will again tell us which private client departments in the law firms are dealing with these as a professional deputy. And even if we've not been involved in the expert witness pre settlement, we can very often get instructed post settlement by, a professional deputy. So, again, a crucial part of the whole process.

16:54 So our priorities for 2021 are, our people plan. We've now got over 200 people in the group. So making sure that everybody understands when we call this our just cause, we look after some of the, in our opinion, some of most vulnerable people in society who've been leading a normal life of a catastrophic injury, and then suddenly they have to be cared for. They've often got multimillion pound settlements, never seen money, or the family's never seen money of their That cash has to last them for the last rest of their life. So it's vitally important that the cash flow modeling we do, how we set all this out, the risk that we take is is crucial. So just making sure everyone in the group understands who we're acting for and and what we're trying to achieve. The group CRMs client management system is is crucial. So each individual business has their own direct client management CRM system for the the clients or the solicitors.

17:47 What we need is a group one. We've now got 35 people who are out talking to solicitors, building relationships, and it's inviting important that we all know what we're saying so that we have a coordinated approach. So we need a group CRM system that's that goes with umbrella across the group in order to keep everybody communicated and updated. And we do have a lot of opportunities at the minute. And that's then help gonna help us position and promote our full service offering, which comes down to the business development and the marketing to maximize every opportunity that's presented through the enlarged group, and there are many.

18:25 Lane, I'll hand over to you for the the slide. Yeah. So an integration of the three acquisitions we've made since we started this process, we've received we've achieved full financial control over them all. So we have control of their banking or management accounts, management reporting so that we can produce full group management accounts so we can see exactly what's going on. So we've got, like, control of those businesses. We've also achieved integration for HR. So our group HR directors now overseeing all those functions, we've brought them all together. We've recently implemented a new HR software system, which is gonna really drive efficiencies. I mean, we can manage those stuff without adding additional cost into the into the business. As Richard mentioned, the the sort of challenge ahead is the group CRM system.

19:13 We need to ensure that's correct to make sure we can maximize all these opportunities that each of the individual business units that their individual CRM systems that the one they use to run their business can feed the relevant information in, and we can use that as a business development tool to make sure we're getting everything out of it we can.

19:28 And, again, as Richard alluded to, the just cause of the group, making sure that everyone understands exactly what it is we're trying to achieve and who it is that we try and support. Thanks, Elaine. So I mentioned Charitable Foundation before. We set this up in 2015, and it is it's been set up to help individuals who've had a catastrophic event but haven't got a compensation claim. And just I mean, even this morning, we just had an application for one of the spinal charities for a young lady who's broken her neck and is a tetraplegic, and she needs a thousand pounds for specialist equipment that will allow allow her to access a laptop and phone because her hands don't

20:05 work. So we those are the type of grants we give out. And it it just it gives us in the it might shows the marketplace where we're coming from, what our thought process is, and that, you know, we will do everything we can to help individuals who need that help just sets the bona fides for the group. So what's the outlook for 2021? Well, we want to continue to develop on the strategy post capital raise. We do have a very healthy pipeline for further acquisitions. The one area particularly that we're very keen on is I think I mentioned during the first part about the expert witness reports and particularly the care report. The care report is very often the biggest report because it covers not only the claimant's care requirements going forward, but it will also cover up all the therapies, physiotherapy, occupational therapy.

20:54 It will cover off IT requirements. It will cover off equipment requirements. So it

20:59 it it tends to be the the biggest report, and and that is something that we are looking at the moment. And we've got a number of opportunities in there, including a potential joint venture with a with a firm business where we would have a control of interest, but wouldn't we wouldn't have to spend a lot of money on an acquisition. It would be more of a working capital requirement. So that is that's gonna be very interesting.

21:22 We've had a really strong start to the first quarter of this year, across the whole group. Every business has performed extremely well and carried on the momentum through from last year into this year. We did eight PLC pounds in Kostya and Bacon in January, and as Elaine said, that's all going well. I think the other very good tailwind, positive thing for us is our discretionary fund management business, Ascensia. Last year so so we view investments with a conservative with a big c because if a client recovers all their damages, all we need to do is just be inflation or match inflation inflation plus. We don't need to take big risks. So we took risk off in January last year, pre COVID, nothing to do with COVID, but served us very well as the world went into lockdown.

22:14 But any client who invested virus, virus center last year, either pre March or post March had a positive return, which we're very proud

22:23 of. And it's something that the that we've been actively marking out to our professional deputies to show how we look after clients' money or or how we view clients' assets. We are not here to make rich people richer when investing in these damages. We're here to protect capital and deliver the drawdown because, effectively, these clients go into drawdown once the personal injury or clinical evidence case is settled and managing that drawdown through their life, what a life expectation that nobody knows when that's going to be is is vital.

22:55 And from our point, as I mentioned earlier, we've got a lot of opportunities. And the key one is integration with the lawyers, integrating with them to make to get preferred supplier arrangements in place to, work with them. One of the problems that, the law firms have, particularly in PI, personal injury and clinical negligence, is cash. Don't have a lot of their cash is taken up in funding the the the case. We do have cash, so we're in a position to maybe look at marketing support for them if they agreed to us becoming the preferred supplier for their cost work and expert witness work and leading on to the the, works IFA. So there's many things that we're looking at to to integrate more with the law firms. Now we've got the, added services within the group.

23:46 And just to finish off, I won't go into all the financial statements, but just the board of directors. I think it's just worth pointing that we've got a very strong non exec team, with Tim Linacre, was, the CEO of Panmure Gordon for many years. Christopher Mills, some of you may or may not know Christopher, but he through his private office, Howard Capital, has a lot of experience investing in companies of our size. He he has delivered many, many m and a strategies throughout his year by by growth strategies, and he's

24:15 lot of support to us helping with that. And then this year, we've had the the right honorable Mark Field join as a nonexec director and Zoe Holland. Mark brings his experience of governments to to the business, and and Zoe is an ex clinical negligence lawyer who, has now got her own consultancy business. She does a lot of work for the bank. So when the law firm is looking to renew or increase its overdraft facility, Zoe will be instructed by the banks to do due diligence on that law firm. So she gives us a lot of inside knowledge

24:47 on on the law firms out there, the strength of them, and and who we should be dealing with or or not as the case may be. So the executives, myself, Mark, Elaine, we've got the support of a very strong team of nonexecs. So, Mark, that's a run through of the presentation. That's brilliant, Richard. Thank you. Thank you very, very much indeed. Well, look, just whilst I give you guys a small breather, ladies and gentlemen, please, can I ask you to continue to submit your questions using the Q and A tab situated on the right hand corner of your screen?

25:18 I just want the company to take a few moments to review investor questions submitted already. I'd 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 Meet company dashboard, and we will send you an e mail once again to let you know when that's ready. I'd also like to remind you that your feedback is important to the company. And immediately after the presentation has ended, you'll be redirected for the

25:45 Richard and Elaine, obviously investors had the ability to pre submit questions. We received three. I'm just going to remove the slides just to make you guys slightly bigger on the screen. And of course, if you need those brought back up, just let me know and I'll I'll I'll bring them up. Yeah. The first question is, what has been the main drivers behind the significant number of new mandates being won?

26:05 I think there's there's a number there, Mark. The spray off to all these large cases, there will be a beauty parade. The professional deputies feels that they need to bring one or two or three wealth managers together, which is absolutely fine. Because we've now, got an increased number of services. So so typically how this would work is that we would go into a beauty parade, and, the court of protection insist that every year, the professional deputy reviews the welfare benefits of the claimant. So if we go into the Butte frayed and the claimant has given us more than a million pounds to invest, we will save the claimant. We we can look after your welfare benefits review, mister deputy, mister claimant, or mister deputy, missus claimant. But, we won't charge you for that. That's an added value service from us. We can do the IFA piece, the risk profile, and the cash flow modeling. We've got a very strong investment arm through our risk modeled,

27:04 essential DFM. You also have to do a tax return, and you also have to do a cost protection return. And because we've got the accountancy function now, again, if the client gives us a million pounds, we'll do the tax return, the cost protection as part of the service. We won't charge for that. So when we compete against you, the wealth managers, they can't offer those additional services. So last year, I think out of all the beauty brands, we only lost one. So we've improved our success rate because of what we've been doing within

27:39 within just the ordinary course of events of business. We've improved our conversion ratios of expert witness work to AUM, so we work very hard as a case settles, transferring that into the IFA business. Now bear in mind, this was done before we really had force on behalf of partners in cost of a and m. So now because the relationships that we've got through force, part of cost of a and m, that opportunity just increases. So, last year, was improving our our offering, improving the the the, the way we present. And now because of the relationships with the other parts of the group, we've got we've, know, I say the opportunity to improve improve that AUM has has gone up again.

28:28 That's brilliant. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed. The second question that we received was around m and a. I know you did touch on this in the presentation, but it reads as follows. What does the future hold in terms of future m and a? And are there any business segments that you would consider expanding into?

28:44 Yeah. So I think I mentioned in the presentation about the care element, the care report, that that is that is crucial. That is certainly something we're looking at. One of the other areas is there's quite a number of architectural property consultants out there that that advise adaptations to properties from people in wheelchairs, hoist, etcetera. And they're quite a crucial part of the litigation process, so that's quite interesting. Post settlement, very often in large cases, they will have something what's called a case manager. And a case manager is is a bit like a gatekeeper. So the case manager will work with the lawyer and with the family to to make sure they've got the right care team in there, to get in the right therapies, physiotherapy, the right equipment.

29:31 So they've got a very strong relationship again with the claimant post settlement, so that's of interest to us. We wouldn't go into the we wouldn't ever, you know, look to the doctors and consultants because they do tend to work on their own. But certainly within those three three verticals, there's a lot of opportunity for us to continue to consolidate this marketplace. Thank you very much indeed. I know you touched on the strength of the balance sheet, but the final question that we had was, do you see the need for future capital raising? Laida, you take that one. So at the moment, as we said, we've got we've got cash in the balance sheet to certainly look at the next few acquisitions. So at the moment, we're we're comfortable where we are, obviously. Time will tell, but at the moment, we feel that we can support the next few.

30:18 And I'll let you say can just start there. I mean, we we do not I've been doing our investor presentations this this week and that if if a larger transaction did come across, there's certainly we've been told there is support for us in our strategy in the marketplace. But as Elaine says, we don't need it at the moment. That's great. Thank you very much indeed. But look, that takes care of those questions that were pre submitted. On the right hand side of your screen, Rich and Elaine, obviously, have your Q and a tab. There are a number of questions that have been submitted during the meeting. If it's possible, could I ask you please to read out the question and then give a response where it's appropriate, and then I'll pick up from you at the end. Yeah. My my Samark, I've got nothing on my side. Can you see them, Elaine? Yeah. So Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. I've got them. Yeah. He's just on the chat. There's one from do you want me to read the net? Yeah. Feel free, Elaine. Who it's from? The question, that'd be great. And then perhaps Richard can respond or you can respond where it's appropriate. Thanks a lot. Ryan, can you expand on the side of business in terms of number of employees, office locations, and how post COVID that might change? I working from home.

31:25 I think head office is based in Manchester, It's where we are. We've got a number of office buildings, a lot of admin staff. We've predominantly had our Salesforce office even out on the road from a long time. We've got about 200 employees now. Post COVID, which now has been on this has changed. I think we're gonna see more flexibility. It's been really efficient. That gives us the better opportunity to grow without necessarily adding more overheads in terms of business offices. Yeah. I think just add on to that. So Force is in forensics in Leeds. Partners in Cost is in, Doncaster and A and M based in Bristol. So with those businesses, now we do have some, geographical exposure, but totally agree with Elaine. COVID has taught us that you can have flexible working and still perform as a business.

32:13 So, you know, we will we are reviewing that at the moment with all our staff to give them that ability to have a full far more flexible working life. Okay. So, from Jason s, would you prefer to acquire one big firm or lots of small ones? Should I take that? I think so. I think what we found is this the small so so PLC and AM and bacon and and four. So, you know, the the the range between a 2 to 3 to 4,000,000 turnover, we found those really easy to integrate as businesses. And the way it's worked for us has been really, really well, not easy because that is always teething problems, but we've it's been certainly smoother than we thought. I think that's fair to say, Elaine, isn't it? Yeah. One of the things that did did a little bit on on the certainly, the Bush National Action Helpline was the size and the of the integration of a of a larger unit.

33:09 Having said that, I think now we've had the experience of doing three smaller ones and understanding exactly what's required. I don't think we'd be frightened of a larger one now, Elaine, would we? No. If it's the right one, I think that's the crucial thing for us. It's the right one that provides what we see, you know, the when we do this sort of due diligence, we've got the right mix of people. I think if it gives us the right opportunities yet, no, I don't think we would be put off by it. And I think that's the crucial bit. You know, we've got people who believe the same vision as those, same work work ethic. You know, we've got at the top now with the leaders of the different businesses coming together, a very strong team. You know, culturally, it works, and and that's the most important things if if we can get because very often these things fall down on the people, don't they? And and we found that's because we've done our due diligence, we know them, we know their reputation. It's worked really well for us.

34:01 Mhmm. So, Richard, another one for you, I think. Can you tell us about the competition and the market dynamics? What market strategy have and how do you look to increase this? Yeah. So split very much into two different parts. So pre settlement, it is very fragmented, and it is other friends so the a lot of the big six accountancy practices will have a forensic department within the the the accountancy practice. You will have some of the barristers themselves trying to do some of the finance reports not very well, but they do try and do them. There are a couple of smaller IFAs, independent financial advisers that do do this work, but they are a lot smaller than ours and and tend to be one or two month bands. So pre settlement is very fragmented.

34:50 And we are now where we've got to definitely the biggest player in this pre settlement marketplace with the largest group in the pre settlement marketplace. And and and I think there's a good opportunity for us to increase, the the the market our market size. Post settlement, it tends to be the larger wealth managers. So you'll get the likes of Brown Shipley, Tilney, Brooks McDonald, Ruffbones, Ruffers in there. And I and I made the point during the presentation that a lot of the professional deputies sit in the private client department of law firms. And because of the other work that they do, whether that's the private offices, charities, or the businesses, they will have relationships with these bigger wealth managers. They do not do the expert witness work as we do, but they will get in because of their reputation and size. And again, it's very fragmented.

35:39 In the marketplace, the whole is is 4,000,000,000 circa paid out in damages with the actual professional fees paid out somewhere between 1 and 2,000,000,000. You know, so you can see from, you know, our turnover, there's a big marketplace to guide us at the moment, and it's still very, very fragmented. Mhmm. Another one, the view on the balance between future dividends, possible share buybacks, and or new acquisitions. So I think from our perspective, we're currently maintaining our dividend policy. Obviously, that's a we feel that's really appropriate at the moment from what we're doing. As that changes, maybe our view will change, but the moment the dividend policy is certainly there. That new acquisitions, I mean, we we're looking for the right ones. We've still got cash in the balance sheet. We've got a strong balance sheet.

36:26 It's all equity. There's no debt on there at the moment. So we're in a really strong position to continue our m and a strategy. I don't think I mean, the the share the most share buyback there, Elaine? Yeah. Yeah. We've got no plans for a share buyback at the moment. Sorry. I'm just Yeah. And then last one, sort of a mix between recurring revenues and one off revenues is currently running at circa fifty fifty. Do you have a target or limit on what the ratio should be? Or, actually, recurring income's slightly more than that, based on the current results. It's running around sort of the 70 odd percent this year. Previously, it's been about 80%. Obviously, it's very cash generative. New business income generates opportunities for us to develop leads as we've talked, which is a whole strategy. So the more sort of new business eventually will get more AUM and DF and and recurring income that way. So we know how we don't have a target on that at the moment.

37:19 We're comfortable with the way the business is growing. We're comfortable with the got the cash resources to support the business growth from a working capital perspective. That's brilliant. Richard, Elaine, I think you've been very generous with your time. I think you've taken every question that investors have sent through to you both ahead of the event and during the event. Perhaps, Richard, ahead of diverting investors to provide you feedback, I could just hand back to you for a few closing comments, and then I will end the session. Yes. Thank you. Thanks. And just to say thank you for attending everybody and listening to where we've got to. We feel very positive about where we've got to and and executing our strategy going forward. We it is a big marketplace, and we do have the opportunity to consent this consolidation and continue to increase the mandates that we're winning for AUM.

38:09 So, like I said, strong start to the year, and we're confident that will continue through this year into next year. And again, just thank you for attending. Richard, Elaine, thank you once again. Can I please ask investors not to close this session as you'll now be automatically redirected for the opportunity to provide your feedback, which I'm sure will be greatly appreciated by the company? On behalf of the management team of FRENKEL TOPPING GROUP, I'd like to thank you very much for attending today's presentation. That now concludes today's session, and good afternoon to you all. Thank you once again.