Premier Miton Group (LSE:PMI) — Full Year Results

0:01 Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the PREMIER MITON GROUP PLC full year results investor presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. 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 we'll publish our responses where it's appropriate to do so on the investor meet company platform. Before we begin, we

0:31 would just like to submit the following poll. And if you could give that your kind attention, I'm sure the company would be most grateful. And I would now like to hand you over to the executive management team from PREMIER MITON GROUP PLC. Mike, good afternoon, sir. Good afternoon. Thanks, Jake. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you very much indeed for joining our full year results presentation for PREMIER MITON GROUP. I'm Mike O'Shea. I'm the chief executive officer, and I'm joined today by Piers Harrison, our CFO. We very much appreciate your ongoing support and interest in PREMIER MITON, especially in a year that has tested the whole industry. We value the opportunity to update you on our recent developments, the challenges that we faced, and our outlook for the business and of course to answer any questions that you may have.

1:18 So let me start with the key headlines for the year ended 09/30/2025. We closed the year with $10,300,000,000 of assets under management and whilst this figure has reduced to $9,700,000,000 by the end of November primarily due to outflows from our US and European equity strategies, this reflects short term market dynamics rather than any structural weakness in our business. This is a pattern that we have seen across the industry and we are confident in our ability to respond and adapt. Our diversified platform is working as intended, strong inflows and momentum in our fixed income and absolute return franchises for example are helping to partially offset these headwinds.

2:09 We are well positioned for a market recovery. I think historically, of concentrated market leadership such as we are seeing in US equities, for example, have rotated and that creates renewed opportunities for active managers. So while we can't predict exactly when market conditions will turn, our experience tells us that cycles do change and our conviction led approach means we are ready to benefit when this happens. In summary, while short term outflows reflect broader market trends, our strategic actions and diversified business model give us confidence in our ability to deliver long term value for our shareholders, and we are well placed to rebound as market conditions evolve.

2:56 In the meantime, we are taking proactive steps. We've strengthened the management of our investment teams, we've enhanced our product pipeline, and we've expanded our distribution into selected international markets. Our balance sheet remains robust, and we continue to invest in operational efficiency and growth initiatives, ensuring we're ready to capture upside when market conditions improve. Our adjusted profit before tax for the year was 11,500,000 and we've delivered 3,000,000 of annual run rate savings this year with a further 2,000,000 identified and on track to be delivered by September 2026. We remain focused on making our platform as efficient as possible, delivering further cost savings where these can be achieved without restricting our ability to flourish as conditions improve.

3:51 We have a strategic focus on adding to our long short capabilities, building on the success of the Telworth team, and we have several interesting opportunities developing in this area. Elsewhere, we have a strong pipeline developing across fixed income, absolute return, infrastructure, and thematic multi asset funds. We are proposing a final dividend of 3p per share, which will bring the total for this year to 6p. And finally, I'm delighted to confirm that Christopher Williams joined the board today and will take over as chair following the conclusion of the AGM in February 2026 when Rob Colthorpe will have completed nine years as a nonexecutive director at the firm.

4:42 So despite the market backdrop, PREMIER MITON does remain resilient. As I've mentioned, closing AUM was 10,300,000,000 with average AUM slightly up year on year. Net outflows for the year were $618,000,000 reflecting continued pressure on our equity strategies in US and Europe. However, we did see decent inflows into our fixed income and absolute return franchises, and we have largely stabilized outflows in our UK equity business and in our multi asset business. Adjusted profit before tax was 11,500,000, and we ended the year with a robust cash position of 31,300,000. Our diversified product mix not only provides us with stability in more challenging times, but it also enables us to maintain an attractive dividend policy reflecting our commitment to delivering consistent value to shareholders.

5:42 We're proposing a final dividend of 3p per share, bringing the total for the year to 6p. I know how important this dividend is to many of you, and it's a decision we've made carefully, balancing prudence with our commitment to rewarding your trust in us even as we work through these near term challenges. Since 2017, we have now paid out nearly £100,000,000 in dividend in dividends, demonstrating our focus on shareholder returns. This compares to our current market capitalization of approximately £90,000,000. But it is important to be open about the challenges that we faced. We know it has been a difficult period not just for PREMIER MITON, but for many of you as shareholders and as clients who hold our funds.

6:35 Our contrarian high conviction approach in equities has served us well over the long term, and we remain committed to it. But in the current highly concentrated market, it has struggled, and we're not immune to these pressures, and I want to acknowledge the frustration that can come with short term underperformance. As you can see from the chart on the left, concentration levels in The US equity market are now at historic highs. A small number of mega cap stocks have driven much of the market's returns, making it a particularly challenging environment for active high conviction managers like ourselves. Our approach is built on diversification and on seeking value across a broader opportunity set.

7:22 But in periods where market leadership is so narrowly focused, strategies that differ from the index can experience short term headwinds. And whilst this has impacted our US and European equity strategies recently, history shows that such periods of concentration are rarely permanent. And when market leadership broadens, our conviction led approach is well positioned to capture the resulting opportunities. Several high value clients of ours have capitulated in the face of relative underperformance against the index, and that has impacted both our assets under management and our revenues. At the same time, UK equity markets remain out of favor and industry industry wide retail flows have been affected by budget speculation and the ongoing US exceptionalism trade, which continues to favor passive over active management.

8:18 Now we recognize that rebuilding these strategies will take time, but we remain confident in their long term prospects. And when market conditions change in equity markets, we are very well placed to capture market share with a strong lineup of independent minded investment teams that can deliver good returns for investors. And there are grounds for confidence. Looking ahead, I genuinely believe that there are reasons to be optimistic. We've made some tough decisions and important changes in our investment teams. And whilst it's early days, we are already seeing some encouraging signs. These improvements don't happen overnight, but I'm confident that our renewed focus will deliver results.

9:03 So we have introduced leadership changes across our UK and global investment teams and those sharpened our focus on performance outcomes. And as I say, we're already seeing some early signs of improvement. Looking forwards, the interest rate environment is likely to be more favorable over the next twelve months for equities. And at the same time, our fixed income absolute return and certain multi asset funds continue to perform strongly with a healthy pipeline developing. We are launching new products, including plans to have a contingent convertibles fund in Dublin to meet client demand, and we are progressing well with our plans to add a new long short capability to our investment team. Our offshore fund platform is now above a 100,000,000 in assets under management, and we are broadening distribution channels including South Africa, Ireland, The Channel Islands, and now Switzerland.

9:59 We have strong demand for our global dynamic credit strategy, which has now raised over a $100,000,000 since launch in February this year. Our outflows from The UK equity strategies have noticeably slowed and we are actively pursuing inorganic growth opportunities which of course will be supported by our new chair's m and a expertise.

10:24 So our platform remains well balanced. At year end, our assets under management were split across UK equities at 17%, international equities at 23%, multi asset at 26%, absolute return at 10%, and fixed income at 24. This diversification provides us with a far more stable revenue base than a business that, for example, solely focused on equities. The successful integration of the Telworth acquisition has grown our absolute return assets to over 1,000,000,000 sterling, and our fixed income team now manages 2,500,000,000 and has significant momentum positioning us well to capture demand across key credit pools.

11:11 We do run high active share portfolios, and we remain committed to running genuinely active portfolios. Our open ended equity funds have an average active share of nearly 87% and a tracking error of 6.4. This conviction driven approach means we're not afraid to be different from the benchmark, and we believe that this will deliver superior long term returns as market leadership broadens. But it has been painful, particularly as our US and European strategies, which both have a quality growth focus, have struggled relative to their comparator indices. But we stand by our convictions, and we believe that in the long run, this is the correct approach.

11:59 I just wanna spend a couple of minutes on on one or two of our our strategies. Our fixed income team are delivering really good investment outcomes and I think represent a strong long term growth opportunity for us. We now manage, as I've said, 2,500,000,000 in fixed income assets across five actively managed funds run by an experienced team. The PREMIER MITON strategic monthly income bond fund, for example, has outperformed its sector and ranks in the top quartile over one, three, and five years, and its risk adjusted numbers are amongst the best in the sector.

12:37 Our Dublin platform, as I've mentioned, is expanding to capture offshore demand, and our recently launched global dynamic credit fund, which is a mirror of our strategic bond fund, is proving popular with investors, and that gives us confidence that we will see further growth from offshore markets into our fixed income strategies, as we move through 2026. In absolute return, we're gaining momentum and our strategies are performing well. The Telworth UK Select Fund has delivered steady returns since inception with a low correlation to traditional bond and equity markets. This is a market neutral long short strategy, and it's resonating with investors seeking diversification and lower volatility.

13:23 In addition to almost £400,000,000 that we've raised for this fund during the last year, we've also added over a 150,000,000 in segregated mandates and are on track to build on this as we move into 2026. And we are strategically focused on building out more long short investment capabilities and are making good progress with adding additional capacity in this space. And I wanted to just touch on our US, opportunities fund. It stands out in its sector for its differentiated high conviction approach. The fund is an actively managed multi cap quality growth strategy with 35 to 45 holdings across all industry sectors and a clear focus on bottom up analysis and a rigorous valuation discipline.

14:15 It has a strong long term performance record against peers, but has seen significant underperformance between April and October this year. We've highlighted above the huge concentration that has taken place in The US market and our fund has very much struggled against this backdrop. In turn, this has led to several high value clients reducing or selling their holdings in favor of more index aligned portfolios and this has been a significant headwind for us. On the positive side, we do take comfort from the fund's strong long term performance record, and we know that despite the challenging period it experienced between April and October this year, it has actually delivered outperformance against the S and P 500 of 3% in November alone as the market has rotated.

15:07 Our sector allocation is much more balanced than the index with significant weights in industrials, financials, and health care. And in the era of the dominance of mega cap tech stocks in The S and if that era changes, then the fund is very well placed to recover significant lost ground and hopefully to return to net positive inflows. We actually think the interest rate environment in The US as we move through 2026 will be very beneficial for the portfolio of stocks that we hold in this fund. We also continue to pursue selective m and a to enhance our platform. Our approach is disciplined. We look for opportunities that bring scale to existing capabilities that can introduce new products or open access to new client segments.

15:57 The Telworth acquisition is a case in point and was fully integrated within five months of acquisition. It has now added over 1,000,000,000 in assets under management, and it has very much broadened our distribution channels. It has also created a platform on which we can build further investment capabilities. And we believe that our platform, our culture, and the experienced management team that we have here make us an attractive partner for talented managers and for teams to join us. So I think when we look at the Telworth acquisition, our long short capabilities are particularly attractive in the current environment. These are high margin products often with limited capacity and which generate performance fees for the firm when they perform.

16:46 The current interest rate outlook, as I've said, will favor the return of these types of products within investors portfolios and actually changes to the cash ISO limit may also help the general backdrop for risk controlled low volatility products such as these as well. Overall, this acquisition has broadened our distribution including wholesale and institutional channels, and provides us with a platform for additional hires and teams. These are exactly the type of opportunities that we are actively seeking in the market today. I would now like to hand over to Piers to take you through the financials for FY 2025. Thanks, Mike. Afternoon, everyone.

17:32 I mean, in summary, we closed the year with assets under management, or AUM as we like of £10,300,000,000 We had a net management fee margin of 56.7 basis points and a resulting adjusted profit before tax of 11,500,000

17:49 Now, the group's revenue continues to be that of management fee income, which is generated based on the level of assets being managed across our investment teams, and as Mike has mentioned, performance fees can also be generated on some of our strategies. There was continued demand for our fixed income and absolute return products and we saw AUM in these asset classes increase by 1987% over the year to end at 2,500,000,000 and 1,100,000,000 respectively. We saw net outflows for the year totalling GBP618 million and these were partially offset by positive market and investment performance of GBP261 million, resulting in the AUM ending the year 3% lower than the opening position at £10,300,000,000 The group's average AUM for the year was broadly flat on last year at £10,400,000,000 If we look at the summary income statement, whilst the average AUM was unchanged, the blended net management fee margin decreased by 4% to 56.7 basis points.

18:53 Now, as noted at our interim results, the decrease continues to be primarily driven by changes in the group's product mix and as I've already mentioned specifically the strong traction in the fixed income assets which is at a lower pricing point. The resulting net management fees for the year were 2% lower than the previous year at 59,400,000. Performance fees totalling £2,300,000 were generated, resulting in a gross profit of £61,700,000 again marginally lower than in 2024. Administration expenses increased by 3% and I'll provide some more detail on these shortly. The adjusted profit before tax was representing a decline of 6% on the comparative period.

19:40 Now the amortization charge was broadly flat at and this relates to the unwinding of the Group's intangible assets, the largest of which becomes fully amortized in November 2026, which will reduce the annual charge by in the financial year 2027. Share based payments fell by 41% to £2,000,000 really reflecting the rolling off investing of new cost contingent share rights. Non recurring items totalled £1,900,000 and the majority of which related to employment restructuring costs associated with the operational efficiency initiatives completed in the year and the resulting profit before tax decreased to £2,400,000 from £3,200,000 Now turning to the cost base, these totalled 52,700,000 for the year, and when adjusting for the non recurring items I've just mentioned, they were actually flat on the previous year at 50,800,000.

20:37 Fixed staff costs were unchanged at 21,900,000 and the average headcount increased to 157, really reflecting the full year of the Telworth team which was then offset by headcount reductions completed in the second half of the year and a closing headcount of 150.

20:55 Variable staff costs decreased by 7% to 8,000,000, reflecting the lower net revenues and underlying profitability of the group when we compare it to the last year. Overheads and other costs increased by 4% to 20,200,000. Now this predominantly related to increased marketing activities and the launch of the group's new visual identity in February with the associated advertising costs, and also along with a full year of Telworth related costs when we compare it to 2024.

21:25 At the half year we announced that we completed a comprehensive review of our operating model and identified efficiencies that we are expected to reduce our annual run rate costs by approximately 3,000,000 whilst maintaining a resilient and scalable platform. The majority of these have now been delivered. A key focus was on our products, and we successfully closed two subscale funds and completed one merger whilst incorporating a restructuring of our global equities investment team. Across our operations, we have driven simplification by eliminating internal processing and increasingly leveraging third party platforms and outsourced capabilities. We've completed changes to the COO organizational structure, strengthening accountability and delivering efficiencies across headcount, operational effectiveness and governance.

22:12 And we continue to seek savings by leveraging relationships with existing strategic suppliers and where appropriate, moving to new more disruptive suppliers where it's advantageous to do so for our business model. Now building on these efficiencies already delivered, we have announced a further 2,000,000 of annualized savings to be realized in the 2026 financial year.

22:33 These savings will be driven primarily by optimizing our office footprint through the closure of the regional office, alongside continued operational enhancements that will deliver both scale and cost efficiency, and we will provide further detail at this when we do our interim update.

22:50 Turning to the dividend. As Mike has already mentioned, the board has proposed a final dividend of 3p per share, and this is unchanged from the final dividend last year. When added to the interim dividend, this brings the total for 2025 to 6p per share, again unchanged from last year. Now this represents a payout ratio of approximately 110 of the adjusted profit after tax. And as noted in previous updates, the Board continues to take a pragmatic approach to the level of dividends considering balance sheet strength, regulatory capital requirements, the market outlook and returns to stakeholders. At the September 30, the Group had 31,300,000 in cash, and after the proposed dividend the Group had surplus regulatory capital of £11,400,000 And I'll now hand back to Mike for the summary.

23:42 Brilliant. Thanks, Piers. Let me close with our outlook. I think we are positioned for growth and a return to positive flows with ample capacity across a well diversified fund range. We have clear momentum in our fixed income and absolute return areas, and our culture of thinking differently continues to attract talented individuals. We also have a meaningful opportunity in the retirement income market with several high performing multi asset income funds well placed to capture

24:14 market share as this sector grows in popularity with advisers and their clients. The cash ISA changes will, we believe at the margin, also be of assistance in supporting demand for these types of strategies. We have, as Piers has highlighted, a robust balance sheet. We have proven operational gearing and an experienced team ready for significant m and a opportunities. We are excited about the opportunities ahead, and we remain committed to delivering long term value for all of our shareholders. And behind every fund and every number are teams who care deeply about delivering for our clients. Their resilience and their commitment give me confidence in our future.

25:01 Thank you again for your continued support and for joining us today. I hope this update has been helpful and transparent on both the challenges we have faced and the opportunities that we see ahead. Please don't hesitate to ask any questions or share your thoughts as your feedback is always very helpful to us. So I'll now hand back to Jake. Perfect. Mike Pearce, that's great. And thank you very much indeed for your presentation this afternoon. I'll just bring back up your cameras for the q and a. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions just by using the q and a tab that's situated on the right hand corner of your screen. But just while the team take a few moments to review those questions that have been submitted already, I'd 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 dashboards.

25:49 Guys, as you can see there, we have received a number of questions throughout your presentation this afternoon. And thank you to all of those on the call for taking the time to submit their questions. But Mike appears at this stage, if I may just hand back to you to read out those questions and give your responses where it's appropriate to do so. And if I pick up from you at the end, that'd be great. Thank you. Will do. Thanks, Jake. That's great. Okay. So the I'll work from the top down. We'll try and get through as many of these as we can. So in terms of first question. In terms of variable staff costs, how do you balance retaining and motivating staff when performance is challenging? Do you want to take that one, Piz, or shall I take that one? Well, why do you take that one? I'll take the one. Okay. You'll take regulatory You'll take the regulatory Okay. I'll take that one. Yeah. I mean, it it it is difficult. I mean, you know, obviously, the business has been through a challenging time over the last twelve months.

26:39 AUM is down. I mean, profits were were broadly flat year on year. But, yeah, it it is tough. I mean, it we have to strike a balance here between, you know, returns to shareholders, but we are a people business. So we do need to work hard at ensuring that our people are are well looked after. And part of that clearly is financial, but also part of that is cultural. And I think the culture here is strong in terms of being collaborative, in terms of being collegiate. I think it's an environment that people actually quite enjoy working within by and large. And I think, you know, that is helpful. And I think, you know, we do a lot from an HR perspective to make PREMIER MITON a a great place to to work.

27:25 And I think, you know, during periods when investment performance is is challenging, I think being part of a a a team that has lots of different perspectives, whether that's from fixed income or long short and US equities, European equities, UK equities, and so on. I think being part of a team where as a manager, you can challenge or be challenged by other members of the teams around you is actually helpful and supportive and does give you an environment within which you can think about what you're doing and challenge yourself. Are you making the right decisions from an investment performance standpoint? So there's a whole suite of things that we do. You know, clearly financial is part of it, but also I think the cultural aspect has a has a decent role to play when performance is is challenging as it as it has been of late.

28:17 And then we have another question. Can you explain why the regulatory capital requirement increased from 13,300,000 to 13,800,000 even though average AUM was only up 1% year on year? That's a good question. I'm glad you're taking this one, Peter. Right. Yes is the answer to that. Regulatory capital requirement is driven really from something called the ICARA process, which is an exercise that we go through once we've completed the year end financial statements and once that audited. The first starting point is you work from your sort of fixed overhead requirement, which is basically, you know, sort of the amount of fixed cost you've got in your group and that's your sort of starting point. And then you build out various different scenarios and work out well, you know, what would it cost to wind down the group, what are your risks of ongoing harms? And it sort of builds up from there. And actually, if we look back at this, this is based on our our effectively our 2024 results where the AUM actually was was higher.

29:25 So we had a where the AUM opened in 2024 at nine point eight and it grew to 10.7. In that year, you would expect it to effectively increase where you've got more assets under management. You have a bigger business. We actually had three regulated businesses within the group during that year where we obviously acquired the Telworth business, which was a regulated entity in its own right. And since then, we've obviously simplified the group. And one would expect it probably to pull back a little bit as we go through the ICARA process over the January period this year. If there was a material change to our business then we would revisit the ICARA and actually recalculate at that point in time. So the short and long is we expect that that may come down a little as we do I would anticipate it come down a little bit from there. Yeah. Fantastic.

30:16 Thanks, Piers. And this looks like another question with finance and all over it. You've identified another 2,000,000 of annualized cost savings. But given an administration cost base of more than 50,000,000 and underlying cost inflation, is it the case that your costs in f y twenty six will still be higher year on year, or are you expecting a fall in nominal costs compared to FY twenty five? We are expecting a fall in nominal costs. So in FY twenty five we had a total of sort of where it's just over 50,000,000 of costs. We're expecting that to pull back where we delivered the 3,000,000 of run rate savings in FY '25, but obviously it wasn't baked into the FY '25 numbers because it will take time to come through. Was only partially realized in the year, so we're expecting that full effect to come through in FY '26 and indeed the some of the additional 2,000,000 will come through in FY '26 as well. So we're looking forward out into '27. One could assume that actually that all full of the the full 2,000,000 of the FY '26 savings will come through which should hopefully negate inflationary increases into FY '27 so you could assume that maybe the '27 cost base remains pretty much at the same as the '26 level.

31:33 Okay. Next question. Our statement makes a number of references to m and a with a regulatory capital server surplus of 11,800,000 though. Presumably, you're only able to spend single digit millions on m and a. Why not use that money to buy back your own shares instead? And I I I think that I mean, that's a good question. And, you know, we as a board do discuss how we allocate capital. I mean, clearly, in the current year, we have used a little bit of our capital, not not a lot, maybe 800,000 or so to support the dividend whilst we're going through this downturn. And I think the buying back the shares reduces our regulatory capital surplus. It would leave us with less flexibility in terms of things like doing the dividend.

32:23 It would lose leave us with less flexibility in terms of doing things like m and a. So the acquisition of Telworth, for example, was completed with a combination of cash and shares. And I think if we were to buy our shares back, we wouldn't have been able to use our cash to to make that acquisition. As you've seen, that acquisition has been a a positive one for the for the value of the business and for shareholders. So I think, you know, we we like to have a bit of a buffer over and above. I think from an m and a perspective, we wanna have that flexibility to use our shares and some cash in order to do transactions. So I think, you know, with the sort of bolt on deals that we've been looking at, like Telworth and some others that we are currently chatting to, I think that that having that flexibility is really, really helpful. So the next question, what is your view of the m and a market, and what opportunities are there for equity value enhancement through a sale?

33:24 Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of capacity. That's a good another great question. I think there's a lot of capacity in The UK market. And, you know, we've seen data this morning from Callistone. I think it's been mentioned in the press about outflows from the industry, both active and passive, in the run up to the budget and the challenges that we've been facing in the retail and wealth management space here in The UK. And I think, you know, m and a is a natural part, I think, of the that difficult environment and need to reduce capacity and consolidate. I think, you know, we have tried extremely hard to do m and a, both smaller and larger. I mean, we looked at a transaction last year in quite some detail, well, quite close to it, actually.

34:17 But since we didn't buy it, its assets under management are down by about 40%. So, you know, sometimes not doing m and a is the right thing to do.

34:26 But I think, you know, these are people businesses. And, you know, whilst we would be very happy to to take on a larger transaction, you know, they are people businesses, and you need to make you need to to undertake them when the stars are aligned in in terms of being able to deal with the people issues. And, of course, you know, in the same way that we look at larger businesses and identify that there are significant synergies to be achieved by bringing businesses together. Other people will be looking at our business and and thinking the same thing. So I think, you know, the answer to that is that, you know, we will either undertake you know, we will either do m and a or m and a will be done to us. And I think that is a natural progression over the next two or three years given the overcapacity in the in the sector.

35:18 So, you know, we are open minded to anything as a board to anything that can deliver shareholder value.

35:27 So a question from Brendan. Do you have any passive products? Is passive m and a a part of your growth strategy? No. We don't have any passive products, and we're not actually looking at at passive as part of any of our m and a activity. Think, you know, to be in passive, it's a massive scale game. We don't have that scale. It's not quite a duopoly, but it's almost a duopoly. And the incumbents have such vast pricing power and such vast scale that it's very, very difficult for others to break in. So, no, that's not an area we're looking at. We are clearly focused on the the the active market and and very much at the the high end of the active market.

36:13 And then we have another question. How optimistic are we about the Mansion House Accords? And do you expect to benefit from pension funds investing in The UK market attracting some of these some of these potential funds? Yeah. We'd love to think that that that will be the case. I mean, the you know, ironically, have seen non UK investors investing in The UK, so money coming in from The US and from Europe. We were with a bank this morning who told us they've seen, you know, some significant flows into UK equities from European institutions. Unfortunately, put on hold by the recent sort of budget delays and shenanigans. But, you know, I think that there there's a lot for The UK. You know, there's been a lot of selling from UK domestic.

37:01 They've been buying, by and large, US equities. And the government and the regulator and others have all been working hard to try and encourage investment into The UK. And I it would be great to think that now we've got this budget out of the way, as interest rates look like they start to come down next year, that we will see some renewed interest in UK equities. And we have a very strong bench in UK equities. You know, we do value. We do growth. We do income. We do multi cap. We do small cap. You know, we really do have a strong bench in that space. The challenge has been that no matter how good our performance has been, we haven't been able to attract assets because all we've seen for the last, well, almost ten years is outflows virtually every month from UK equities. So it's been very challenging.

37:50 And then we have a a question here with regards to EU companies and the poor performance of the equities. Could we please have your thoughts on setting up an ESG focused fund and focus on ESG focused companies? Yeah. We do I mean, the whole ESG area is an interesting one. Obviously, it was hugely popular from sort of 1718, 1920. It's it's struggled, I think, over the last two or three years really as a function of performance. I think, you know, the the the whole sort of sustainable area has struggled whilst we've had this very high concentration, in US equities and and this big move into passive. I think, you know, the political, will in The US has obviously changed with regards to sustainability.

38:40 And I think the you know, we need to see a period of strong performance from sustainable strategies. We do have sustainable strategies. And obviously, we build ESG into all of our strategies, but we don't have we only have two, I think, pure sustainable strategies. And I think we really need to see them come through with some strong performance and for the industry to see strong performance from those funds to reignite, if you like, customer demand for those ESG focused funds. And then we've got a follow-up question. Yeah. This is on ESG on on our European mid cap. I mean, we have, obviously, a European mid cap fund. We did launch a sustainable version of that fund, but it failed to gain traction with investors for the reasons that I've outlined.

39:31 Okay. Exactly And the right time to buy. Yeah. So then we've got yeah. You're right. The gentleman who was asking about ASG was saying it's exactly the right time to buy, and he's probably right there. So and then another question here. If the bubble bursts, as many as are increasingly predicting, how will this affect your returns? I think and when the bubble bursts, what is the likely relative impact on your business? And I I'm assuming from that question that they ask the the questioner means if the bubble burst in this sort of whole AI and technology area. And I think the, you know, the the answer to that is it it depends. I think if if the overvalue or if the very high valuations in sort of the tech sector deflate slowly, then I think that will be very beneficial for us because I think our funds with their broader exposure will perform very well in that environment, and we will benefit as investors look to reallocate away from those very tech heavy indices into more diversified strategies.

40:44 I think a sudden collapse, given how much wealth, US household wealth, is invested in stock markets, I think that would be negative for The US economy, and I think that would have a negative knock on, really around the world. So I think, you know, what one would hope for is, you know, a sideways period or or or a slowdown period. I think a massive collapse would be unhelpful for all of the reasons that these massive collapses always are, that they damage confidence, they have a knock on on economic growth, you know, they have a knock on in terms of liquidity. And as we saw in 2007, 2008, you know, that those sort of liquidity driven corrections are really, really difficult to get through.

41:33 So I think, you know, from our perspective, we would far prefer to see a sort of slow deflating of that kind of US exceptionalism trade rather than a massive collapse. And actually and I think in some ways, you know, we are sort of seeing that. We're seeing people buying the dips. The highs are not quite being hit again. Markets are drifting off again. That sort of gentle decline of those highly rated stocks would would suit us very well indeed, I think. So I think hang on. Let me just scroll down, see if we've got any other questions. Okay. And then I there's a question final well, actually, another question here. Are we using AI queries or agents yourselves yet?

42:23 Do you worry about end users using them for self directed investments? So two questions there. We are using AI a lot. We have an AI committee, which is headed up by one of our IT team, And we're using that as a forum through which to share AI ideas. So where people are using AI, where people are seeing interesting opportunities, where people are using it to improve efficiency, to improve productivity, to ensure that that gets disseminated around the group. Clearly, we worry about data transfer on the use of AI. We use Copilot extensively within the organization, we're finding that hugely beneficial in terms of processing information, processing data.

43:15 And we're also using forgive me, I can't remember the exact names of them, but we are using a couple of large language models that are specifically targeted at investment research. And I know that the investment teams are using them to to process research and to to download and assimilate information. And I know that's going down very well with the teams as well. I can't remember the name of what we're using, but anyway. So so, yes, we are increasingly using AI. Is it gonna drive huge efficiencies in our business? I think it will help in terms of things like processing transactions and so on. I think that will be helpful. We've used AI to investigate sort of market reporting and so on, and that speeded up some processes.

44:05 I think it will allow us to do more. Will it allow us to deliver cost benefits? I'm less certain about that, but I think it will allow us to be more efficient and more effective. So that's AI. And then we have another question here. Okay. I'm sorry. Yeah. There there was a question we may have missed earlier. What's our normalized effective tax rate, please? It was very high in f y twenty twenty five at around 50%. Yes. It yes. It was. That that is due to a function of the the share based payments and the charge. So the meal cost options, the fair value that goes through the profit and loss is based on the share price at the the time of the award.

44:51 And what you're seeing is a sort of a higher share price when when they're awarded and actually what the tax deduction that we get for them is is the effectively the exercise price when when those when those shares are are exercised. And so that's why it's been effectively higher. If you look at the adjusted profit, the tax rate in there is actually 25%. So I would expect the tax rate to normalize as as those share awards have rolled off. So our normal our normalized rate will be 25%. That's where you'll go to. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And I think sorry. I'm not moving it up. Who's using the mouse here? That's it. Those are all the questions that that we've had. So let me hand back to Jake. Absolutely, guys. And thank you very much indeed for being so generous your time then addressing all of those questions that came in for investors this afternoon.

45:40 And, of course, if there are any further questions that do come through, we'll make these available to you after the presentation. But, Mike, perhaps before really now just looking to redirect those on the call 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 just to wrap up with, that'd be great. Yeah. So well, thank you everybody for spending time with us today. We really appreciate it. Thanks for your questions. Incredibly helpful. It it has been a tough year and a tough environment. I think, you know, we've done as as well as we can in terms of diversifying the business so that we're not overexposed in any one area. We've got quite a few reasons for optimism. There's some exciting projects coming down the pipe as we move into 2026.

46:27 But, you know, we recognize it has been a challenging time for our shareholders, but we can assure you we're doing our best to get ourselves back on the front foot and to deliver as much shareholder return as we possibly can. But thank you once again for joining us, I look forward to updating you at the half year stage. That's great. Mike, Pearce, thank you once again for updating investors this afternoon. Could I please ask investors not to close this session as you will now be automatically redirected for the opportunity to provide your feedback in order the management team can really better understand your views and expectations. This will only take a few moments to complete, but I'm sure it'll be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of PREMIER MITON GROUP PLC, we would like to thank you for attending today's presentation.

47:14 That now concludes today's session. So good afternoon to you all.