Emv Capital (LSE:EMVC) — Full Year Results

0:00 Good morning, and welcome to the NET Scientific PLC investor presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged and can be submitted at any time by the Q and A tab situated on the right hand 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 receives during the meeting itself. However, the company can review all questions submitted today and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I'd like to submit the following poll. And I'd now like to hand you over to Ilyan Ilyab, CEO. Good morning, sir.

0:31 Thank you very much, Lily, and welcome everybody to the this IMC presentation on NetScientific's 2023 results and an update since then. My name is Iliyev. I'm CEO of NetScientific. I'm also joined by, my colleague, Ed Cooper, who is an executive director at NetScientific and, general counsel. I will take you through the presentation. There's a lot to cover this morning, and, then I'm doing the q and a to be both myself and answering questions. Well, I think in terms of our audience, there'll be some of you that have been monitoring our development over the last few years, and there'll be others that are just joining the story or considering to join the story. So I'll tell you a little bit about ourselves.

1:16 So NetCentific is a deep tech and life sciences venture capital group. We have an international portfolio of innovative companies. Our business in its most basic form is to identify, invest in, build, and exit innovative companies in The UK and internationally and with a focus on companies in deep tech and life sciences. We have a high conviction and a a big vision. We are aiming to become a leading VC investor in deep tech and life sciences both in The UK and internationally. And as I go through the discussion, where we came from, where we are, where we're going, I hope you'll start understanding how we plan to implement our vision. There's a big moment for us now. We have now reached a 100,000,000 plus in assets under management with a mixture of direct equity and managed funds.

2:10 Our portfolio has grown to 70 companies in The UK and internationally. And we're looking to build a sustainable platform so that we can get to our next milestone of 200,000,000 assets under management. And as you've seen in the next slides, we are not a passive investor. We are proactive investor that manages our portfolio in a very, very active manner, thus driving investor returns. I want to recap again what our operating model is. We have been chiseling it and, improving it in practice working with our portfolio over the last few years, and we feel we have now something very special that has been proven with our portfolio, and we're now at the point where we can accelerate and scale significantly.

2:57 Core to our model is a capital what we call a capital efficient investment strategy. Efficient as opposed to inefficient, but fundamentally, we're looking at taking small utilizing our limited balance sheets either with cash or paper or indeed just the presence of a balance sheet, but then syndicating third party investments from our investor network and now our fund practice to support our portfolio and grow our portfolio. This is as opposed to using only balance sheet, which we find very expensive and very inefficient and not scalable. So this is something that we have developed over the last few, three years, and it's quite clear, and you'll see the numbers in a second. The next bit is that once we're inside the business, we don't stay still. We have a very proactive portfolio management approach where we look for value opportunities to deepen our stakes, to improve our position, and to protect our shareholders position.

3:54 Beyond that, we've taken a leaf from the private equity playbook whereby we provide value creation services to a subsection of our of our portfolio where we feel we have a big enough stake for it to matter, but also where the companies can benefit from our support. Importantly, we do this all all of this on a fee generating basis. We believe that we have to pay our way through life, and we want the our target is to have an evergreen model where the operational income covers the costs of the platform so that when entities are sold, investment returns come in, that is the upside. We'll show you how we have developed and achieved that. We've talked in the past about our ambition to to launch a fund management practice. We have now done that. And that will provide going forward further scale and growth for for our business, but also for PLC to provide opportunities to selectively take stakes and, of course, generate fee management fees to further support of the platform.

4:55 Around all of that, we are also proactive in driving our portfolio towards exits. We don't want to hold these companies forever. Ultimately, our objective is to to generate shareholder returns through to the realization of these companies. Through all of that, because we have a front seat in this theater, we have the opportunity of deepening our direct stakes, building stakes in our portfolio companies, in turn increasing the likelihood of capital returns in addition to the carried interest returns that we get from our fund management practice. We have built a tight, diversified, and effective team. Our board is supported by a broader team of people in the corporate finance space, investor relations, finance professionals, IP professionals, both people employed by us, venture partners, and advisers.

5:48 But all of that gives the scale for our tight board to do its job. I'm the CEO of the company. I was the founder of EMV CAPITAL, which was acquired by NET Scientific in 2020. I'm also a significant shareholder of the business, which makes it very much in my interest to make this a roaring success. And I've got experience broadly in deep tech that I'm bringing to this business as we move forward. My colleague, Egg, is an experienced professional both in the legal and corporate finance space. He's a he's a lawyer by training. He has twenty years of experience in m and a, fundraisings, IPO in The UK and internationally, and us together are, in a really good position to drive transactions and protect our businesses going forward.

6:36 On the non executive side, Charles doctor Charles Spicer is our chair. He is quite well known in the city. He previously headed health care at Nomura and Numis. And Jonathan Robinson, who is a material scientist by background, but he has also built and sold businesses successfully bringing his expertise to that. Finally, supported by Steven Crow, our CFO and experienced finance professional. We have a core portfolio group that is diversified both in terms of sectors and geographies. We have portfolio companies in the life sciences space, in the deep tech and sustainability space. And this range from publicly listed companies, the PDS Biotech, which was a university startup some time ago. It is now a company with multiple successful phase two trials looking at the phase three in the immuno oncology space.

7:30 But then we also have companies such as Deep Tech Recycling, bringing innovative solutions to the recycling of plastic waste, a massive global problem, or softened technologies, taking semiconductors in the satcom space, building what we believe will be a UK champion in satellite communications, a major growth area. We have gradually built and developed this portfolio. We know the companies quite well. We have a mixture of direct and indirect stakes giving significant exposure to to to returns. Now some of you might have noticed that post balance sheet, we announced the takeover of the fund management of market capital. That is an early stage VC fund, quite well known in the Cambridge community. It is really good at spotting companies in the early stage and then building stake into them. So they have now joined our family, and together, we are now a 70 plus portfolio company. Here is a subs a subset of the market capital portfolio businesses.

8:32 We're not going to be deeply involved in all of them, but it gives a much broader opportunity set for NetScientific in its investment model while market capital drives growth in these companies and indeed looks to expand its investment program. So really, a major major step change in our development. Now I'm going to turn to some of the numbers, the financial operational highlights for the year ended for December 31. Our total assets under management have increased to over 74,000,000. In 2022, there were 69,000,000. Now I must emphasize, it's venture winter out there. As as you know, the venture capital industry is experiencing most difficult period, certainly since 2008, perhaps since 2001.

9:21 But we believe in situations like this, significant growth is possible, and we've taken the opportunity. We've taken the bait, and and we have done a lot last year. Not everything is positive. The fair value of our direct holdings has decreased by 15% to 35,000,000 from '42. That is driven primarily by the declined value of our PDS biotech holdings. It is not found to be a small cap biotech company in The US, but we remain confident in PDS's underlying value. And you would have seen some results that were announced yesterday that continue to show the underlying strength of our business. However, with our broader model, and of course, we can make more impact in the private health companies, that has been offset offset by 15% increase in the fair value of our private health companies, which is now 31,000,000, a significant number.

10:11 Importantly, the fair value of the managed stakes, is where we look to get carried interest from third party investors when they exit, that has increased by 42% from 27,000,000 to 38,000,000. Significant numbers. It's a combination of both new investment and growth in the value of these companies. But again, it shows you the benefits of of this of this model. Now our capital efficient investment model has been at play. Our portfolio companies have raised roughly £54,000,000 last year in a difficult environment. Within that EMV CAPITAL has syndicated 6,200,000. And what I'll say in our model is that sometimes a little bit of money makes a big difference. A couple £100,000 can make the difference between having a broad around or not or helping the company, through a difficult spot. So we are quite, positive about what has happened last year.

11:02 Post balance sheet debt, total AUM has increased to over a 100,000,000. The portfolio is now 70,000,000, and a lot of this has been enabled by our FC authorization. We're now directly authorized, which has enabled us to launch our fund practice, both market capital and, an evergreen EIS fund that is now growing as well. So a lot has happened last year. It's been a really busy year. We're quite pleased. Looking at the p and l, group income has increased to 3,800,000, up for 1.8. Now before I wave the flag, it's important to note that this is affected by a one off noncash gain of 1,400,000 related to the growth in value of the name and the fundraising we brought into it where we dropped below 50%. So it's a deemed disposal of a subsidiary.

11:50 But underneath that, there is a really strong performance of the core group. EMV CAPITAL's revenues have increased to 1,600,000 from 1,200,000 last year, again, in a difficult year. We've made a profit. EMV CAPITAL's revenues have covered about 50% of the infrastructure costs of the core of NetScientific and EMV. We've also made a cash gain of 500,000 on portfolio exits of 1,400,000. So we are showing that we're able to exit not only to invest, but we're able to exit our companies. Now the group loss has decreased significantly to 2,900,000 from 3,700,000 in 2022. Within that, the core of net certificate EMV also has a lower loss of 1,100,000. This is in the context of growing our infrastructure. So, again, it's a it's positive.

12:37 And the portfolio subsidiaries, there is a loss of 1,800,000 there, down from 2.5. Important to flag that the portfolio subsidiaries are funded by third party investors. They are not a draw on our cash. This was not the case a few years back. Today, the portfolio companies are backed by external investors, which enables us to continue with this lean investment approach. Incidentally, that has enabled us not to not raise funds on the market since 06/02/2022. It is now two years since the last placement, and we think that shows the potential of our model. In terms of the direct fair value, we've we've spoken about these numbers. It is down to 35.6 from 41,000,000. It has grown three times since 2019.

13:25 The fair value has increased as a head flag. It has grown from nil in 2019, end of twenty nineteen, beginning of twenty twenty. So quite a transformation. Looking at group net assets, these have declined to 17,100,000 from '25. Clearly, no positive. However, a lot of that was driven by the decline of value in PDS biotech over this year and our stake in it. It is also important to flag that NAV, the way it is measured in accounting terms, does not take into account the full fair value of our subsidiaries. So glycotest, proaxies, and other things are not fully accounted here in the net net net asset value. And, of course, it also does not take into account the carried interest potential of that 70,000,000 out of of third party assets under management.

14:19 So these are important measures. We very much focus on them, but but it's worth remembering that it's not the full picture and it's important to to to do your own analysis.

14:30 Now if you look at at this pie chart a few years ago, you would have seen only several positions. And this really demonstrates the value and impact of our model. We now have a diversified portfolio, diversified in terms of sectors, in terms of portfolio companies, in terms of geographies, and also in terms of stages of development. This diversification both mean is good from a risk management perspective in terms of relative declines, but also from an opportunities perspective. We have a proactive approach where opportunities happen. We can take those. Having a broader opportunity set means more more shots on goal. Incidentally, this comes from data that you will find in the prelims at the end where there's a a detailed table both for the direct fair value and the third party fair value. So you can yours.

15:20 Another way to look at this is the composition of AUM between direct third party and funds. And you see at the end of the year, fair value was 35. It has now grown already towards the for the year to date. My god. It's almost half a year to 40,000,000. But in addition, you can see the impact here of the addition of the fan of of the funds practice commodity capital composing composing now the 102,000,000 in total assets under management. I'll talk a little bit about the market capital fund fund mandate. We're very excited, not only excited by the great spies of Cambridge and the architecture of King's College and even better the sound quality, but it is what this means.

16:06 Globally, Cambridge is seen as the one of the top three clusters where deep tech and life sciences companies are born. It is the birthplace of ARM, the birthplace of many other businesses that are impacting the world today, the birthplace of deep of DeepMind. And we have been working in that ecosystem for a long time, but what's, and also alongside market, but what attracted us was the opportunity of working with a specialist who that is all they do. The addition of market capital is really transformational to our ecosystem. It is not all about Cambridge. We'll talk about the future. But through that through through that transaction, we now have deep access to the Cambridge cluster and a specialized team that that is all they do. They spot early stage opportunities and build them up. It It has added 23,000,000 of funds under management.

16:58 It is adding additional carried interest, more shots on goal. It is also adding more opportunities for us as EMV CAPITAL and NET Scientific to identify companies to work directly with, to deepen our stake, to bring more money to them. But also from a sustainability perspective, it is adding a recurring annual management fee, sub 1,000,000, but a healthy sub 1,000,000, and and a broader team of really valued colleagues that are now that have now joined our team. Going forward, we'll continue to develop this portfolio, but we'll also look at launching a follow on investment practice around. Now it's important to flag that the way we structured this deal is it is nondilutive. No paper, no cash, or no significant cash.

17:43 This is really important to understand with our model. We're looking for good value additive opportunities for for our shareholder base and our limited balance sheet. And you'll hopefully, we'll see more of that in the future. I'm not gonna spend too much time on the portfolio highlights because I'll go through the morning, but it's worth flagging that each of these companies we have been now tracking over several years, we have deepened our in these businesses. With some of them, have realized some returns, but most of them have had significant improvements over the year. And they are in the growth sectors of today and tomorrow, oncology, industrials, construction tech, respiratory diagnostics, dealing with the plastic waste problem, deep tech recycling, maybe if I mentioned that. If you recall a year and a half ago, we acquired the assets of recycling technologies out of the administrator company that was close to an 80,000,000 IPO with a 40,000,000 fundraise for various reasons to didn't work out.

18:45 That company now is in the process of turnaround. We have raised money for it. We have first MOU signed and clients lined up. So this continuous value grown with these with these businesses. Ventev itself experienced in a 14 times increase in valuation in eighteen months and for the for the progress. So there's some really strong underlying growth in these companies. When you look at the RNSs that we released, you will see where we add fair value with these transactions continuing to diversify the source of future capital gains and derisking the portfolio. So turning to our outlook, we will continue to do what we're doing and we'll add a little bit more. First of all, our focus is on growing the value of our portfolio company holdings. We're not sitting on our laurels. This is not an investment trust.

19:34 We do that through the tools we've outlined, proactive management of the portfolio through through board seats. We through the venture partner and advisers panel, we're able to increase the number of board seats that we hold. Selectively engaging on the value creation services side to drive the ambitious roadmaps of these companies. We can't do it for all, but for a select few, we do it and and there's results. Importantly, because we are close to the action, we get to see when we can build the direct the further direct stakes, on good terms and over time how portfolio becomes more valuable. Secondly, we'll continue to scale the funds practice. I've talked a lot about monthly capital fund. There is a similar growth strategy around the Evergreen ES fund, and there is other fund initiatives underway.

20:23 What I will say on that is that we have an international outlook. It's really important we now have gained the foothold in Cambridge, but there's other clusters and areas of activity and our fund management strategies taking that into account. We're also looking at driving our portfolio companies towards exit. We want to do that at the time of our own choosing. It's not exits for their own sake. The right time for exits will differ between the companies. However, we're working with the companies to get them to think about these exits. Who are your potential acquirers? Who are your potential potential partners? How can we build that road towards successful m and a? Now we can't do everything, and that is why we're also building a panel of m and a advisers. It will not be the big names you're familiar with. It's boutique m and a advisers that think like like us, work like us, that we can work with them to build the knowledge of our portfolio so that when the opportunities come or we decide to drive companies towards an exit, that's that we have the right partners next to it. We have already flagged that we are planning to dispose of ProAxis, and there's a fair amount of work underway there, there's other similar opportunities that we are that we're building up.

21:35 Now our on our road map, the next point is 200,000,000 AUM. And to get there, have the components, but we will continue to build a resilient and high performance firm and team. We have a great team. We have a high quality team that is really hardworking, really motivated, has the right incentive structures, and and and a multidisciplinary skill set. We're not a pure play finance firm. We have a multidisciplinary skill set. That's what you need in this space. The combination of the IR skills, the value creation skills, and the back office skills. All of this is supporting our vision to become a leading VC investor in deep tech and life sciences. It's not just a numbers game. It's also what we do underneath it. Part of that is continuing to to drive towards financial sustainability and independence. With the results of this year, you you can see where it's going. It's in the positive direction, and we'll continue to drive in that direction.

22:27 Recurrent fees from board fees and from from fund management will certainly help that. And, of course, we're looking at exits for super returns. Last but not least, we are looking we're continuously looking at keeping the group structure tight, optimizing costs, optimizing operations, and risk management. There is an integration process ongoing with the market capital team that will make us stronger. And we're also looking to streamline the group's branding to create a single firm perception for the market when we have this different investment strategies. So in sum, look, it's been a remarkable year within a very difficult market environment, but our strategy is really showing in these difficult times how we can, make a difference. We believe we are on our way to build a sustainable business model. Importantly, we are taking advantage of the ongoing VC industry shift.

23:19 We're not sitting on our hands. We haven't locked ourselves in a dark room, wake us up when it's all over. On the contrary, the value of tomorrow is created today. We're taking these opportunities the market is giving us that perhaps others cannot. They're not as nimble. They're not as fast, and we're building what what happens next. So with that, I'll move to q and a. Eli and Ed, thank you very much for your presentation. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions just by using the Q and A tab situated on the right hand corner of your screen. Just while the company take a few moments to review those questions submitted today, I'd like to remind you that recording of this presentation along with a copy of the slides and the published Q and A can be accessed via investor dashboard. As you can see, we received a number of questions throughout today's presentation. Can I please ask you to read out the questions and give responses where appropriate to do so? And I'll pick up from you at the end.

24:08 Okay. Thank you very much. Well, I'll hand over to Ed for some of some of these questions, but perhaps the first one, market relationship is described as investment manager. Does this mean they can switch to another manager if they can choose?

24:27 Yeah. That's that's that's a great question and very, very simple, I guess, for us to answer. So we we have a minimum four year mandate to act as fund manager. We would expect to continue the mandates until we we completed the task. The task being to find an exit for for the model portfolio

24:53 within the the funds time frame. So we're we're expecting a minimum of four years that we're expecting really to be fund manager for for the duration of the the market funds. We we represent in the order of 10% of the market capital shareholder base. So we we have confidence in our connections with market capital, not only as a fund manager, but as a shareholder.

25:22 And I think it's also important to acknowledge that excitingly, we've taken over the the previous Maltford Capital fund management team who now sit with us. So it's been a very collaborative deal. And whilst, of course, the capital shareholders are free to do besides the fate of their their their manager, we would expect it to be a long term investment, and that's how we treat it. K. Thank you, Ed. I think I think another one around Panmure, which is from James, around the research coverage from Panmure and what we expect about their support.

26:12 So James, there's a research note coming up from Panmure. Naturally, our annual results are a really key step, and that enables them to provide a adequate picture of it. So I would say stay tuned.

26:33 Another question by James. Great results, but, not represented in the share price. What is your plan to get the share price up to a more realistic level compared to your asset value of approximately £2? And this question by James, there's several other questions that are touching on buybacks or relisting in The US and so on. So look, I mean, as you can imagine, you know, in the current market, any leadership and management of an a listed company is is looking at what is happening on the capital markets. I would say with our approach, we are able to remain autonomous and independent. We have not had a place in the last two years, which we think is quite important.

27:19 It will not have been fun to do so last year, and we're very much looking to to to growth. We believe ultimately in the strength of The UK capital markets. It's a contrarian thing to say today. I know. If you open the newspaper, everybody's criticizing what we have. But we have an international outlook, and we still believe that The UK capital markets are a good place to grow. We are, of course, continuously reviewing options, but at the moment, we feel comfortable where we are. There's an element also that we feel our story is now hopefully starting to shine through. And with the help of our colleagues at Pan Air and our PR, Belvedere will be reaching out to a much broader set of investors to tell the story.

28:07 Ultimately, it's for the market to reflect. Have my own views as an economist about how financial mark markets work. But ultimately, we believe the combination of consistent delivery of value, which we're doing, and delivering on an ambitious model has to be recognized by by the market.

28:32 There's a question by Neil. Do you have funds available for direct investment if the company is brought in by market? And if so, how much? So the specifics of the of the answer are are confidential. But we have a platform there that's the combination of what market capital has, the investor network around that, and the plans for a follow on funds, market two, we believe will give a long term a long term potential for the business. You know, the intention is for the company to continue to grow. Okay. There's another question. So a lot of questions around the AI market and its efficiency. You think the company's fair value to name, and have you looked at possible routes to to US listing?

29:29 Out of curiosity, have in the past, not in any serious way. Look. We are UK business, and we are built in that way. I think it's a number of companies have decided to take the jump. I think there's an element of minimum size and critical mass that's needed for that. Some of you know I'm on the board of a a Nasdaq company, so I have

29:55 I've seen how it operates there. I would say that operating on The US markets is very expensive very expensive and complex. So we feel comfortable with the current strategy, but, of course, we always keep things under under review.

30:16 A question by Colin. You highlight the proactive involvement in your companies is important. How can this be managed for 70 plus companies with proposed growth to 200,000,000? And there's a second point on carried interest. And maybe if I take the first one and you take the carried interest one. So, Colin, on the first point about focus, and and this is why we talk about platform. So once upon a time, we could only manage five. We have now shown that we can do 20, and we're now comfortable to get to the new to the next stage.

30:49 However, it requires people, infrastructure, playbooks. The way we're approaching this is that we are building a house, a house with its own style, with its own playbooks, with its own signature approach, and we have built those playbooks and a community of investor investor director types, venture partners that understand how we operate. So what we're doing right now is that we are adding from our panel of venture partners and advisers, people that have seen us operate, they're coming on board of these of these companies so that we can con do so we can monitor a broader number of businesses. But it's important to flag, you know, that we certainly don't intend to have this approach with 70 or indeed 100 companies.

31:38 Rather, this broader portfolio, it's giving us a funnel of deeply understood opportunities because of the market teams work that enables us to pick and choose where do we gain a deeper exposure. We keep talking about a platform. The platform's objective is exactly that, to scale the model that we have. This is what's going to drive a lot of value going forward, being able to scale in that approach. And the last point on this, that is why our next milestone is not 1,000,000,000. Our next milestone is 200,000,000. It's just about achievable. It requires some further tweaks to our infrastructures, some modest additions to our team to get there. But getting there, we believe, will enable us to double again while keeping the signature approach.

32:27 Ed, do you wanna take the carried interest question? Yes. So there there's a question asking about carried interest and and saying that we continually highlight this, but it seems to be a high profile target for any sort of future government. I I think it's probably just worth distinguishing what what we mean by carried interest. We're we're not looking at it as a receipt by individuals, but but rather as a receipt of NetScientific. And so any sort of tax consequences of that receipt would be corporation tax and not not on an individual level, which is probably,

33:04 therefore, not not so critical in terms of any future government plans and to tackle it on an individual level. What we're really looking at here is a contractual performance fee in the order of 15 to 20% above any upsides plus sometimes a hurdle upon the the the value invested by by the people these money we manage. So it's an exciting way to leverage our own direct portfolio. Often, have a both both a direct interest in a in a portfolio company as well as a managed interest, and and that really is not sort of the the essence of our capital efficient model. Thank you, Ed. There's a question by Simon and James on on an update, excuse me, on on glyco test.

33:59 And and the question is around the negotiations that that they had, where have they reached. Glucotest is at a very interesting point. They have completed, as as you know from our announcements, the collection of the samples and the analysis for the from the clinical trial.

34:20 That in itself is a very valuable asset. We believe Blacktest has the or one of the largest collections of liver cancer samples in the world. In and of itself, that's an amazing achievement, especially because the company was effectively its own CRO. Our CEO, Charles Swindell, has been absolutely incredible in terms of building up a network of KOLs and running those those those clinical trials, and we are where we are now. I don't want to comment on the on an ongoing negotiation, but it's something that is quite

34:58 technical and important to get right. Once or should those be completed, the company will will accelerate its strategy, and that will also require further fundraising support where we are looking to line up investors to support the future needs of of the company. There's also a question around around Raspberry Pi's IPO. Look, I think the Raspberry Pi IPO demonstrates so much as of what I have been saying. We've all been depressed about the state of the AI market and where things are and so on and so forth. But here is a great Cambridge story born and bred there. Totally different approach to to computing in terms of their open model.

35:50 It's been built. It's not a flash in the pan, you know, just like ARM. These are not flash in the pans. It's not I won't give examples of things that happened in the past. These are companies that have been built over many years with a lot of work, a lot of intellectual property involved in it, And this is a good this is the sort of good IPOs we want to see on EMV. The fact that Raspberry has had such a good uplift shows that there is appetite on the markets here for these sorts of stories. And it it it it is really very much supportive of our investment thesis about The UK being as a great place to build deep tech and life sciences companies. We're certainly medium term optimistic about IPOs as a route.

36:36 Perhaps the market needs a bit more time to to develop that. But, look, statistically, most of the exits come from m and a. That that's a fact. But because we are also a a named company, because we have good relationships with Panmure and other other brokers, it also means that we can speak to our companies and advise them not to do stupid things or when is the right time to think about such opportunities. So certainly medium to long term, we see IPOs in The UK and internationally as a route. Probably this year is a bit is a bit tricky. There's Okay. There's quite a few questions or a theme of questions relating to NAV and and the delta of NAV to our lower market share price and and queries about whether a a buyback program would be a useful way of closing that gap.

37:35 I guess just to sort of tackle a few of the themes within that buyback program would obviously needs a degree of disposable cash from from the company and and for the company to have distributable reserves. We take a a view that probably a a neater way of closing the gap between now is is is is actually why why not tackle it the other way around? We're we're we're all about trying to grow the value the the net asset value of the business, of our underlying portfolio companies. That that that's our primary focus here. We have great confidence in in the value of our portfolio, and we're we're always looking to grow that.

38:23 If we do grow that, then that that makes all to close the the gap. We can substantiate that growth with third party fundraisings, validating pricing. And, of course, the the proof is in the pudding where where we can find an exit for a portfolio company that that that crystallizes again and ought to have a direct impact on the delta too. In in terms of how we might better use our cash reserves, we we prefer to, right at the moment, given the current market conditions, protect our portfolio where we can by using cash judicially from the balance sheet, both both protecting existing portfolio companies and considering number of new opportunities at any one time.

39:17 Ilya and Ed, thank you for answering all those questions that you can from investors. And, of course, the company can review all questions submitted today, and we'll publish those responses on the investor meet company platform. Just before redirecting investors to provide you with their feedback, which I know is particularly important to the company, Ilyan, could I please ask you for a few closing comments? Thank you very much. Well, look, wanna thank those of you who have continued to support the business through difficult periods in the capital markets. You can see that we are not standing still. We are extremely motivated and driving this company towards a success. We see situations such as you have now in the markets, these sorts of market disjuncture opportunities, market breaks, whatever you wanna call them, as the as the times where new leaders are born. And for us, this is the most ex an incredibly exciting I was about to say the most the most exciting period, and it is. It is the most exciting period. We're seeing the tectonic shapes plates of the VC industry shift, and we're seeing we're right in the middle of it, and our model is the right one. We really believe that, and we're driving that with with our strategy.

40:24 We are committed to driving to to building a valuable business. It's not gonna take a few months. It is a multiyear approach. And in that sense, it's consistent with the areas we're focused on. Deep tech and life sciences take time to build value, but once they do, it changes the world. So we're very much focused in this area. We remain focused. We have a great team, and we hope to take you with us on this journey. Gillian, Ed, thanks for updating investors today. Can I please ask investors not to close the session as you'll 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, and I'm sure will be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of NET Scientific PLC, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good morning to you all.

41:13 Thank you.