Liontrust Asset Management (LSE:LIO) — Half Year Results

0:01 Good morning, and welcome to the LIONTRUST ASSET MANAGEMENT PLC Half Year Results Investor Presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged and they can be submitted at any time just by using the Q and A tab situated in the right corner of your screen. Simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question that received in the meeting itself, but the company can review the questions submitted today and publish responses where it is appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I'd like to submit the following poll.

0:28 And now I'd like to hand you to CEO, John Irons. Good morning to you, sir. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We're here this morning to present the half year results for financial year '25. Myself, John Irons, chief financial officer, and marketing, Simon here. It's been a year of challenge and change within the industry and within LIONTRUST, continue to strive to be the best we can and stay true to our core beliefs of active management and excellence in brand and distribution. We've diversified our product range. We've broadened and strengthened our technological data and digital capability to ensure we continue to serve our clients to the best standards and the standards they expect.

1:21 The highlights or points for the financial with our financials. So net flows, the line flows of 2,100,000,000, AUM a little over 26,000,000,000, adjusted profit before tax of 25.8. Business Business still maintains a strong capital position and nearly 60,000,000 there, and we have maintained our financial half year dividend of of 22 p. And I guess talk maybe a touch there. The dividend at LIONTRUST is has become high as a percentage, getting up to 17%. That said, some commentary in the press and from analysts as to whether that dividend could be maintained through more trading periods.

2:11 The directors of management team were very keen to target a dividend of 72p for for the financial year. And if I just say that, we realize that that dividend may be slightly uncovered, maybe somewhere around 4 to £6,000,000 by the end of the year. If you look at the way our dividend is paid out, we have the interim now. We're looking at a a final year dividend of $50.50 p in the summer. This time, in a year's time, we'd be following through with the next interim. So, really, the any strain on the dividend is about twenty months away. And what we were keen to do by that is to give guidance that it gives us time to look at the underlying performance of the business.

2:59 We'll go into reasons why we're confident that that position is sustainable, But we wanted to move away from short term comments about does it need to be cut or not. So if you in reality, it's a twenty month period where we have to make that time, And the benefits of that to us is that we can continue to monitor the underlying core trends of the business, which we believe have, you know, where more grounds for optimism on. Alongside that, there'll be a small share back buyback. Again, a reflection of confidence in in the business and the fact that we think that the shares are trading at the wrong price currently.

3:47 Now on top of all of that, we're gonna be able to into a business transformation program, which will result in cost savings of around 4,500,000 going forward on an annualized basis. If I now go into where the market backdrop is, you know, asset management has been a bad neighborhood really for the last couple of years, especially in active management and which has led to of pressures on the industry. Organic growth has been scarce. We've had a tremendous rise of low cost of of passive alternative products and the dual challenge of higher expected returns from alternative products. Interest rates whilst coming down have not come down as quickly, and you can see from the high cash levels that are building up in banks that interest rates staying higher for longer has entered people's appetite or assisted people's appetite to to risk.

4:53 We still continue to have economic and geopolitical uncertainty, therefore, a little more leading towards the risk of trade. More specifically in The UK, having, you know, said at the time of of the election that a labor government coming in would be the could be the opportunity to provide stability and direction for The UK economy in the run up to The UK budget. So where there was much uncertainty, that uncertainty around tax, around how pensions would be treated, and specifically, aid stocks. That's for a very lackluster UK economy where significant amount of, you know, our assets sit in UK equities.

5:40 And so through October, we saw a higher level of redemptions predominantly from people taking cash free portions out of out of their pensions. That and if you think about that, the the investment profile of those investors, eligible to take the tax free lump sums of, you know, on an excess of 55 once you're 55, they've been invested in The UK for a longer period of time and at a disproportionate weighting towards The UK equity market. Since those elevated ends in the run up to the election, then we have seen a tail off in the in the outflows from that side. The US election is behind us now, and a lot more focus will be on the economic growth trajectory in The US, but probably a more domestic orientation towards that from Trump.

6:32 One of the others I've put down is the the consolidation of wealth managers and IFAs. It's both an opportunity and a threat. Inside of that consolidation, it means that you've got a smaller number of decision makers. We believe that's actually an opportunity for ourselves because those people are more more discerning or looking much more as to the underlying process investment process, particularly strong on a a LIONTRUST.

7:03 And so we look to benefit from where those or or amalgamating journey together to be able to to get a larger part of of of those savings. So, you know, that's where the headwinds are. The opportunity side is we believe the outlook for active managers is looking much better. '22, '23, we know we're very weak years of performance. But over the last ten years, if you look at the the my rate of the S and P, it worked 12% returns, compounding over that 10 period. And that has been that fundamental trade of innovation disruption combined with that sort of momentum trade of the rise in passives.

7:49 I think once you start to see that passive funds are now going equally weighting, that itself is an active decision. If you start to look at concentration and risk, we think we're more likely to be entering a period now where you will be rewarded for picking in the right stocks. Price discovery comes back into selection. And and recently, when I've been speaking at events, one more recently in Madrid, I thought of three of the sort of heads of the investment consultants around the world, the two things that they were looking most for was the search for alpha and how to allocate to the right active managers and delivering sustainability.

8:35 So I think, you know, the outlook is that attractive attractive valuations exist specifically in The UK. And and for with a savings rate that continues to be too low at 8%, you know, to be closer probably to 16, but there's still a lot of, you know, tailwinds behind industry. And if we go out to this sort of is also the last ten year period go going forward, I think there'll be plenty of opportunity for for discovery on prices. You know, LIONTRUST is very much is that dual discipline active management, best in class distribution. I've touched already there on where it should be is and the reasons behind those you know, the rise of passives there.

9:25 I think, you know, that concentration and growth, you know, it's a bit like I said that now that everybody has an NVIDIA chip, it is the companies that have those chips that once it will start to win and start to in well, be attractive for active managers where you can start to demonstrate where you can get alpha and not just index returns. So the outlook is more we're much more optimistic on having gone through difficult years. I'll hand over to Vinay now more for the financials. Okay. Right. Thank you, everyone, and good morning. Maybe I'll I'll I'll pick up a few key points from our financial results for the period to third in September.

10:11 I'll I'll start with maybe just spending a few minutes on our capital position given what Tom's talking about the dividend. The business remains in a very strong capital position. So our regulatory surplus capital is just under 60,000,000. And if you take into account the the dividend the first interim dividend paid payable in January, we still have just under 50,000,000 of surplus capital with the business. So we remain in a strong capital position with circa 90,000,000 of cash on the on the balance sheet. In terms of revenues, revenues were 81,000,000 for the half year, which is down from the equivalent period last year. But I just need to note, the equivalent period last year did have significant performance fees included, which were on a on a couple of funds, which which were sort of had redemptions in the company in relation to the team moves. So like for like, revenues are down, but that is a combination of reduced AUM and revenue margin, which I'll I'll touch on in a moment.

11:20 Overall, that has impacted our adjusted PBT. So adjusted PBT of 25,800,000, again, down compared to last year, but pretty much in in line with the the fall in in revenues and revenue margin. Operating margin, which is a a key measure that we used to see how well we're doing. Perhaps just under 31%. Again, you know, amongst our peer groups, an operating margin of, I don't know, over 30% is a strong operating margin. So it shows that we're running the business efficiently. Again, the the equivalent period last year and the full year number was around that 35 level. Again, last year's half year number and the full year number both impacted by performance fees, which we tend to add in the second half.

12:12 So so nothing really unusual there. Just, you know, the business will perform very well. The dividend John's touched on, 22p declared, and that'll be payable to shareholders on the twenty eighth on on the 01/08/2025 with shares going to the November 28. If you look at our adjusted profit, just a bit more detail here. I will I will just show you the reconciliation between the accounts and the the adjusted profit. Key point to point out here, federal services fees remain high. That is in relation to our business transformation program, which I'll I'll touch upon in a moment.

12:59 Intangible amortization is now 4,500,000, which is a k. It's it's a good number to look at a run rate going forward, impairments in this this half. On the next slide, we've got the detailed adjusted income statement. I I'm not gonna go through this line by line, but the key points here maybe are are to look at costs.

13:24 You know, we have been in an environment where revenues are down, but our costs, both staff costs and other admin expenses are both down circa 10%. So it shows, again, we are managing our costs well. And that's that's a credible performance in in a in a high inflation environment. So the inflation has been coming down. So cost management has been strong both in terms of staff costs and in terms of non non staff. The other thing I'll touch on is maybe the the revenue margin. So you'll see the revenue margin is 60.3 basis points, which compares to last year's full year of 62.

14:09 Again, it's come down. We tend to guide that revenue margin will come down about basis point or so, and this is really mostly related to revenue mix. So the mix last year, particularly in the first half, had some high margin products where we had a team team depart. But, you know, the so the the reduction to 60.3, is is as as expected. And we expect with revenue mix, you know, the guidance is that you will see around one basis point margin erosion on a year on year basis going going forward, and we, you we stick with that. Again, here, just just a bit more detail on the on the capital position for the business. Again, as as we as I mentioned earlier, we remain in a strong capital position with just under 60,000,000 of surplus capital at the end of September.

15:05 And even if you take into account the dividend, which is paid in January, I wish that we'd have four more months of profit being added to our capital, which is not shown here. We still have, you know, after this foreseeable dividend, strong capital position of £45,000,000. This slide just shows you our capital allocation framework. So for those of you you who've seen us present before, see that there's a new line in the in share buyback. But in terms of how we allocate our capital in the business, you know, obviously, top priority, organic investment, organic the organic business to run the business day to day and to expand that. That. That is key purpose of capital that we have in in the business. Then, obviously, dividends.

15:52 Then share buybacks. You know, we've instigated this share buyback program. I'll touch on it more in a moment. But, again, again, now that is a new addition to our capital allocation framework. So, you know, we are we have annually for many, many years taken the appropriate authority to buy share buybacks, but we haven't bought back any shares probably out of going fifteen years. So so share buybacks are now an important part of our capital allocation framework. And then, obviously, the last element is if there's any inorganic m and a or t higher type opportunities to to expand expand our product range or distribution, we would we would look at that by after we look at the, you know, organic dividend share buyback process. The business transformation program.

16:40 I will yeah. John's touched on this already. If you look at the elements of the business transformation program, the you know, there's a number of fund and product related changes that we've made in in particular about merging smaller funds, closing a number of funds. We closed four funds in October, which shows that we're managing our product range. But, also, we've we've decided to merge our global fixed income team into our multi asset team and for the multi asset team to use the skill set that have within the global fixed income team to allocate to, you know, allocate their fixed income exposure to the in house team, which now forms part of that team. And, again, that allows us to scale up our fixed income team.

17:28 Although revenue neutral would allow us to have larger, bigger fixed income funds to take out to the market. Another key element of our business transformation has been the the the transformation of the operating platform that we have. We've invested in both front office systems and data management, partnering with BlackRock's Latin business and also taking further outsourced services from BNY Bank of New York, which gives us much greater scalability and stability in that in that operating platform as well as having, you know, a cutting edge data platform, which will, over time, as AI strategies, for example, develop to make use of our data, you know, make use of AI in our data both in terms of operations distribution and fund management.

18:34 The other other elements of the business transformation program, which we started in this second half, is efficient management of the cost base. A lot of the work that we've done in terms of making the business more efficient in terms of that business transformation, reduce the product range, bringing it to make having more focus on that has allowed us to, you know, implement some cost cutting across the across the the cost base. We've we've outlined that we're we're gonna have a staff reduction of circa 25 people. Some of these were, you know, as a result of the business transformation that we've done as we've outsourced the functions, you know, rely more of BNY and other partners to do do the work. It allows us to reduce our our headcount and our cost.

19:24 And and also just a matter of fact, you know, smaller scale with its best products. So so the 4,500,000 cost saving that we've outlined is mostly staff related cost savings. There are lots of operational savings as well in there, but mostly 4.5. And hope to plan to implement this before the end of the financial year to see the full benefit of those savings in in the next financial next financial year.

19:54 So I'll just leave it now. Hand it back over to John to talk about performance. And performance. I touched on that earlier that, again, coming out of '21, but this was generating significant inflows. It went into a weaker years and a poor year in '22 in terms of performance in '23. And we had a heavy bias towards quality growth across our equity strategies, biased towards mid and small caps in The UK and exposed it obviously to the interest rates to set sensitive stocks, which had, you know, affected performance. But the point here is that '24 has been a much stronger year for us in performance. And And if if I the next slides where if we maybe drill down into some of the teams, standout performance of the the European dynamic from the cash flow solutions team, which also demonstrates the effectiveness of, you know, the power and the process and the ability to go on and gain assets there.

21:00 The fund has gone from, you know, 1,000,000,000 in size to over, you know, 2,000,000,000 now in the last eighteen months with with excellent performance behind it. It's the I think it's the only fund that is European in the top 10 growth selling funds in in quarter three in the industry. So you know, you have a good reason to be optimistic there for for growth in in the team. The global innovation team, innovation and disruption that I talked about earlier, and and how this is how to play away, you know, on fundamentals and away from just that concentration and the risk associated with the drive of passives in this space. Again, for the team, and it has, you know, over 800,000,000 now, many close to the 900,000,000 of us under management with strong process, a very, you

21:54 know, clear established track record that is that is going well. At the moment, first, under technology fund, also being first called either for one in three years. So there. A global equities team, if I'd gone back four, five years, and we would have had a much higher advice of our total assets in UK equities. One of the things we've tried to to aim with either to the global equities team and the global innovation team is to move more towards client demand for for glow global

22:29 offerings. And Mark Horton, who joined us from GAM, and his tech combined with, you know, the the experienced team that we had in place beforehand gives us, you know, a globe another global team with 1,400,000,000 under management across 10 funds that they they run. And, again, a strong performance through India, emerging markets, the balanced fund, and the global alpha trust.

22:59 Economic advantage team, you know, very much at the core, you know, much facing the headwinds of The UK equity market, but it to show that that even through the micro cap, small cap, special six all the way up to the large cap. If I look at, you know, the sharp ratio, how much return is do you gain for for risk taken, number one, in the sectors, and and also that truly active alpha generation showing the capture there. So even though The UK equity market still faces its challenges, there are certainly signs more in the last month or so that managers are now beginning to get rewarded for stock selection.

23:45 And then but what we do see is that that team still has an excellent long term track record, is very much at the heart of the, you know, the existing client banks that we have of UK asset holders and is still delivering against a very challenging background.

24:06 This just to sort of highlight where those valuation opportunities exist, very much in the mid and small cap areas. And all I think that is required is a small turn in in sentiment. And you can well see some of these significant discounts to market levels start to come back into more realistic level. So this is an opportunity. We managed one investment trust and Roan and its team around about one point 1,000,000,000 in size. It came from the acquisition. And, again, just to show the very strong share price returns in his more concentrated large cap portfolio, and that is has developed.

24:57 Multi asset. I think when I touched on sort of the Phil Melbourne and and Donald Phillips rates and credit, we'll be moving into that multi asset team. Currently, for the multi asset team, we have about 1,400,000,000 that sits in other people's mutual vehicles to give us our fixed interest exposure with with our own resource and team and the experienced managers that we have, that money will come back into being managed either directly or through through the vehicles that Phil and and Donald run, which will give us the ability to scale up some of that credit funds and that strategic bond proposition, which will make them more competitive certainly in in a in our European distribution where the fund selectors look for funds that are more than sort of €2,300,000,000 in size, but it will also give us

25:55 the benefit of adding that investment expertise and specialization into a a significant part of the of the managed funds. And with sustainable, I think, Alfred, with commentary and performance headwinds of the over the last couple of years, And you can see that very clearly demonstrated in the three year performance numbers. But, again, you can see the improvement and the turnaround in performance in the one year numbers going forward. I think that the long term case for growth in ESP remains strong with the rise in in performance and and appeal for for there. I think also the there's material scope to gain more further market share here.

26:49 FCA have put in are putting in place classifications at ESG to, you know, remove greenwashing, green hushing, blaming it. So the adoption of the labels from the FCA, and we hope to have ours in place by January or in January, will clearly, you know, cement the leading position that that this team has in that sustainable space and the opportunity set to become a sort of a core proposition for intermediaries wanting to offer sustainable solutions to investors. So I think with the changes we've made across the business, the strong brand that we have, the the the high levels of engagement, we had, I we had over a 103 events for intermediaries this year. A few weeks ago, we had over 350 wealth managers at the Science Museum for annual conference.

27:54 A few months ago, we had 60 or 70 of the top UK fund buyers an event of the house of commons. So we still, you know, have that excellent connectivity with the client base. The brand remains strong. It is fourth out of 120 asset managers for communication. It's for client servicing skills. And if we look at our LinkedIn profile, it has grown by nearly 40% this year. And videos we've done using our connection with London Zoo of about 5,000,000 views. So we still have an awful lot of connectivity. It's very important for us for a business that's got 90% of its investors in retail and 30% of its of the PLC investors in in retail as well. So that confidence in the brand, getting our message clearly out to our investors is is a key target for us alongside of our investment.

29:00 In summary, you know, so what we've got a very well established business. It's committed to true active fund management and best in class distribution. That strong brand, excellent client engagement,

29:14 and an impressive long term performance track record, and despite the headwinds of three years, the the the short term performance over the last year with the outlook for active managers improving strongly going forward, I think Butchers is well positioned to have the confidence where we are. I think the improvements we've made to the business generate even more efficiency both financially and in harnessing data to be able to deliver. The platform for the business is as strong and robust as ever. I think, you know, with fortunes, we think about to change more be more positive for two active managers that can deliver alpha companies with a clear identity, strong brand, aligned with strong distribution are well positioned to benefit from this. Thank you for your time.

30:09 Great. Thank you, John. Thank you, Vinay. If you would like to ask any questions, please do post them. We do have two or three questions already, so do post any others. John, you talked about the cost savings. You gave some of the details. Somebody's asked about the details, which I think Yeah. Covered. So follow-up follow-up question to that is how does that affect Nacho's ability to compete and to maintain profitability in the long term? I think if we look at where we were if we get back a year ago, probably eight months ago, this gap, we talked about and putting in place the right target operating model. That's been something we've been looking to do, and not a lot of the action in headcount has come from from from those efficiencies, building a more robust, scalable platform which could deal with all aspects of the business, enables us to use data in a better way. Other things we've done is to use outsourcing to to as best best degree as we can.

31:19 I e, the only things we want to take place inside of our buildings are the things that we can add value on. So simple things like outsourcing fact sheets to be able to get them, a, reduced to the lower per unit, but more efficiently and accurately delivered from from people who who who have better skills than that with us. So we've been able to reduce those costs. We've made some changes on the sales team, but we've brought in three four or four new people as well to, you know, enhance that dynamic and bring that forward. And I've been delighted with what what the sales team have have achieved, you know, despite a very difficult, you know, three year period, you know, for the business, the level of client engagement we have, the communication, and it is within that that sales team is strong.

32:12 On On the the fund management side, no real difference in terms of headcount come out out of the cost savings. Those of you that know us will know that the fund managers shall have a revenue share, and that revenue share is split between, you know, the members of the teams. So even if somebody was taken out of a fund management team, the the revenue revenue pool would remain the same. It's just distributed between the people there. Some of the costs come out from, you know, the we don't have a Bloomberg term or a lot of things like that. But in terms of the ability to operate the business going forward, I think we've got a much more robust a much clearer data to be able to handle data and digitalization and delivery, and a stronger app operating platform moving forward, one from it, and the ability to load load on on new new teams or or other areas as well. So the efficiencies have not come at the expense of the growth.

33:16 Yeah. I think I'll just add as well. Like, you know, we, yeah, we we we strongly feel that, yeah, as as we we grow from here, you know, we we will see more benefits from the model that we've got in place, and we'll have greater profitability, you know, going forward, you know, because of the steps that we've taken to make the business more efficient and on a stronger platform. Great. You talk you talk John, you talked about the market context. Can you do you wanna talk more about why our assets under management are falling? Is the question. The a our two largest of assets, in fact, would be the economic advantage team where, you know, there has been negative sentiments towards UK equities really over the last six or seven years of declining and the shrinking pool of assets.

34:10 Do into the well documented. I know probably more structural issues that need adopting and changing with The UK equity market. So in the face of the headwinds, despite having an excellent long term track record in that space, we've, you know, we've seen outflows as has all other major players in the marketplace in in UK equities. With sustainability, the interest rate sensitivity, maybe the more negative press on sustainability of the past couple of years has also led to the outflows there. Those would be if if the the big as the outflow. So based with sort of asset depreciation and outflows is is is to where we are, I think. When I look now, we have inflows in the cash flow team in Europe.

35:04 The pivot more the pivot more towards the global teams is helping. And I think, you know, a resurgence in the multi asset team as well. Again, given the performance of that team over the last year and a half has been stronger since we put the risk reward profiling tools in place. I think the recent changes in the budget will move things away from what a model portfolio services more towards the multi asset fund and business for tax reasons. So, again, you can be more optimistic on the opportunities for improvements in flows. But, you know, I've and and I also touched on, you know, the debate between active and passive. You know, there comes a time when that mispricing becomes, you know, absurd and managers that have the courage to deviate away from, you know, picking stocks that are rising because of, you know, weight of cash and capital allocation.

35:57 And I think the out the outlook going forward is significantly improved. Can you talk about what we're doing to enhance profit, voice profit and post tax profit? Yeah. No. Yeah. I I think, you know, you know, key elements of that business transformation program has been, you know, a greater efficiency in our our target operating model, which will help us keep our costs down. And we've seen some of that in in, you know, our costs here compared to the previous period last year. Lot of people costs coming down by, you know, by 10%. You know, the the headcount reduction, again, you know, you know, there's two levers you can pull to to increase your profit. One is to increase your revenues, and the other is to reduce your your costs. And, you know, and Jobs already talked about, you know, the the events and the efforts that we're putting in distribution to to increase, you know, our net flows, which in turn will increase our our revenues.

36:55 You know, you can see from against some of the some of the slides that we've shown earlier, you know, performance has been improving. We we had a challenging 2022. That's becoming more and more in the rearview mirror now. The one year numbers on our on a lot of our funds are are are looking looking pretty strong. So so the building blocks of returning to net flows and growth in revenues are are out there. So but, you know, we still need to, you know, we just we still need to have that positive environment to to get those flows. So so I think on the revenue side, you know, the engagement that we're doing, the changes we've made on on the distribution side to make it more focused, I think, will pay off in the in the short, medium, long term. On the cost side, again, know, we, you know, we're managing those costs. So, you know, we are we're not sitting here sort of, you know, not tooling our funds, but, you know, you know, we are we are taking proactive action.

37:51 That includes, you know, the you know, more focus in our product range. So, you know, we've closed smaller funds. You know? But all funds, you know, they they take they take resources to look after them, manage them, and and to do the admin that goes around that. So making sure that we have a a product range that is fit for purpose as this has been very, very important. So but it's not all about closing funds. You know, we've just launched free free funds for our innovation team in our Dublin range for marketing in Europe. So it's about closing funds that, you know, are subscale and don't have that view to, you know, that view to raising money money, but also launching funds where we we think that in the short, medium, and long term that we'll be able to raise money. And we think those global funds in Europe will have the opportunity to to raise raise raise cash. So so a combination of those, yeah, are, you know, our our efforts to to grow revenues, keep costs under control, and, ultimately, grow dividends, support the dividend, support our capital allocation policy and and to enable us to do buybacks.

38:59 Next question is is often asked, do you see scope for consolidation in the industry? Yes. In short, I think, you know, industry probably has too many providers, too many unambitious providers, and what I mean unambitious, look at the domain of some of the very large asset managers and choose companies that sort of run funds on a on on a cost plus basis. The corporate things of governance and risk bring them back closer to the to the index. I think if they're not delivering alpha and not delivering returns, as you have to move from, you know, defined benefit to defined contribution, where you have the individual owns their assets, and they will make more, you know, more of them will vote their feet.

39:51 It's always a a difficult thing to sort of see where and when it is, but definitely, with with the challenging periods of the last sort of couple of years, I think people are beginning to question some some of the of their business models, ones that aren't as repressed when talked about are still maintaining an operating margin over 30. Some of them, you know, are very much in the low teens. It's all questionable. Consolidation, it is for us, for where we make positions, it's part of, you know, what can if we can see something that will we can add value to and generate step up for, looking to just consolidate to take costs out of things. It's got to be things that fit into our own benefit either on the manufacturing side.

40:44 Is it stronger investment teams? Is it businesses with a a track record with a critical mass that we feel we can grow and develop like we did with when we took the sustainable team on board from from LIONTRUST. All businesses that bring us an enhanced or broader distribution opportunity. But I think, you know, The UK remains a very attractive marketplace to international investors. Still one of the largest pools of investment capital in there. And I think, you know, as the outlook improves, you will probably see more changes in the space. We've been asked what a large trust key competitor advantages and of our clients are in retail. We have an excellent strong a very very strong brand, and we have great connectivity on the on the distribution side.

41:44 We have a group of our size. We're in the top two or three on, you know, connectivity with platforms for distribution, much above our weight in terms of brand. And we're very clearly focused on the parts of the market we want to service. We combine that with positions of investment excellence, strong adherence to to process, creating the right environment to inject to to attract the best talent in the marketplace to deliver those, you know, alpha, you know, performance out to our clients, that's where, you know, the differentiation is. Everybody strives for it, but I think if you look at, you know, where the strength of the brand is, the connectivity with the distribution feedback we get, is there.

42:36 Great. Thank you both very much. That brings the q and a part of this presentation to your end. Perfect, John, Vinny, Simon. Thank you very much for answering those questions from investors. Of course, company can review all the questions submitted submitted today. Today, We will publish those responses out on the Investor Me company platform. Just before redirecting investors to provide you with their feedback, which is particularly important to the company, John, could I just ask you for a few closing comments? I think we covered as much of it as we can. If I could just say, I think, you know, it's been a challenging period, but I think, you know, the improvements we've made to the business on the operating platform, brand, strong distribution, and the improvement in the one year performance, I think looking at a move away from the relentless flows of passives, a little price discovery will suit our investment team as well. And I think, you know, LIONTRUST ASSET MANAGEMENT PLAYS OPPOSITION CAPITALIZE ON THOSE THOSE OPPOSITIONITIES AYED.

43:44 Perfect. Perfect. Thank Thank you you once again for updating investors today. Can I please ask investors not to close this session as you now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback in order that the management team can better understand your views and expectations? This will only take a few moments to complete, so I'm sure it'll be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of LIONTRUST ASSET MANAGEMENT PLC, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good morning to you all.