Fintel (LSE:FNTL) — Full Year Results

0:00 Good afternoon, and welcome to the FINTEL PLC investor presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged and can be submitted at any time via 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 received 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 then I'd like to hand you over to Matt Timmons, CEO. Good afternoon, sir. Good afternoon, and thank you for the kind introduction, and good afternoon to everyone watching. I'm joint CEO of FINTEL, Matt Timmons, and I'm delighted today to be joined by CFO David Thompson. Over the next sort of thirty minutes or so, David and I will run through the results for the full year 2024, and we will also be around and pleased to answer your questions. So submit them by the usual route, and we'll get on to those as soon as we finish the presentation.

1:01 So first and foremost, for those of you

1:04 who are unfamiliar with FINTEL, we operate in the world of UK retail financial services, And we believe this is a fantastic market in which to operate where consumers have access to thousands of different financial products, everything from banking through to general insurance and, asset management. And so lots of products, thousands of different options in the market, and they are provided by hundreds of well run and well capitalized manufacturers. So we've got a great supply into UK retail financial services. The difficulty for consumers is how do they choose, which is the right product for them, which is the most appropriate for them. And in most cases, in the market in which we operate, around 80% of decisions made by consumers on investments and on mortgages go through a financial intermediary of some description.

2:00 So that would be an IFA, a mortgage broker, a wealth manager, or a direct to consumer channel. So we operate, as I said, right at the center of this market. It's a tough market in which to operate. So everyone, whether your product providers or intermediaries operating in this market, they have a tough job to do, and that's because the market's heavily regulated and it's highly fragmented. So there are thousands and thousands of advisers all across the country operating and seeing their clients in their local community. So reaching those clients for a product provider is very difficult. It's very difficult for those very often small and medium sized businesses to operate in a heavily regulated market.

2:49 And there's a lack of quality data in this market and a lot of different fintech solutions being used. So the average intermediary business uses nine different pieces of technology in order to give advice to their clients. So all of the participants in the market, whether you're a big firm or a small firm, they all have a participant common and binding need for compliance and regulatory support, for data and technology, and for in-depth knowledge on the products in which they're recommending. So if you think of retail financial services, this big ecosystem with loads of different products available, consumers having a tough choice to choose which one is the most appropriate, lots of intermediary firms available to give advice to consumers, but operating in a really fragmented and and very difficult market.

3:39 And that's just where FINTEL come in. So we serve three different types of consumers or three different customer groups, sorry, should I say. So we serve product manufacturers, financial intermediaries, and consumers. And, ultimately, what we're trying to do is to help product providers to distribute their products effectively across this fragmented market and to design and develop products that, consumers want to buy. For financial intermediaries, we want to help them to be able to give advice in a compliant and professional manner and to serve more clients more effectively. And for consumers, we want to help them make smarter financial decisions by researching and rating all of the products that are available in the market.

4:25 So in order to do that, we've got a large intermediary business sitting right at the center providing compliance and regulatory support to over 4,000 individual firms and 10,000 advisers. So this is a membership model where IFA firms, wealth managers, and mortgage brokers pay us a monthly subscription for access to compliance and regulatory support to help them run their business effectively and compliantly. In addition to that, they also get access to discounted technology, enabling them to run client workflow and client decisioning, technology at a fraction of the price of what it would be if they bought it out there in the market. For product manufacturers, we provide them with data on products in the market so they can dive into our matrix products and help them understand what their competitors are offering and help them understand the underlying components of all the products that are available in the market. So they can benchmark their products against their peers, and they can also look for areas where they can sort of command the niche in the market.

5:38 We then help those product manufacturers by providing them with, aggregated feedback on what clients are buying and why. So by a behavior data, helping them understand, the adviser's advice process and what consumers ultimately are demanding from their adviser. And then we help those product providers get in front of this fragmented intermediary distribution group by essentially running outsourced marketing campaigns for the product manufacturers. So we have three three year end customer groups. Two of those pay us for services, which is product providers and intermediaries, and the third one is consumers who are the beneficiary of our de facto ratings product.

6:25 In terms of the last twelve months in f y twenty four, we delivered 22% core revenue growth, 17% growth in our SaaS and subscriptions. So the vast majority of, our revenue here at FINTEL comes from software sales and from monthly subscriptions for compliance and regulatory support. Outside of the mechanically recurring income that we get, the rest of the business is pretty much made up of annually repeating contracts or repeating income off the back of a sale of a a financial product. We delivered adjusted core EBITDA growth of 6% at a at a 31% margin across the entire group and increased the dividend by 6% on the prior year.

7:16 As well as a strong financial performance, we invested heavily back into the business. We spent £5,400,000 on product development, primarily two key products. One of those products is a database of general insurance products that we sell to the GI market and the price comparison websites. And the other part of the investment went into a product called Matrix sorry, called the Factor Engage, which is a workflow and financial planning tool used by eight and a half thousand intermediaries. We completed five acquisitions in the year of some great businesses that have added real strengths in terms of technology and scale. The most notable one of those was the acquisition of one of our key competitors, a business called three sixty, which added over 10,000 advisers to the FINTEL platform in one acquisition. So we're delighted with the acquisition of that business and the other four companies that joined the FINTEL PLC during the year.

8:21 We created new partnership wins with the likes of Timeline and The Times and Towergate, so companies that are working with us to help them better understand how to distribute their products across the intermediary landscape. As we look forward to 2025 and beyond, we are very confident of the performance of the business. We have spent the last eighteen months acquiring the software and services capability that we believe will enable us to win in this challenging market. I'll talk about that in a little more little bit more detail in the slides time. As I said, we've got high level of recurring quality income, 64% of all revenues coming from SaaS and subscriptions, and the balance coming from annually repeating contracts or product fees.

9:13 We have unrivalled scale, size, and reach in this market. We have we operate the largest intermediary businesses in The UK in terms of support services, and we operate the largest product database in The UK as well, researching and rating over 43,000 financial products and over 4,000,000 individual data points across those products. So big scale, big size, and reach. We also operate our de facto brand, which has around 80% consumer recognition. So we're also well known in the market as well. Onto the next slide. Here, I'd like to describe the acquisitions that we've made during the last eighteen months and how they fit into the business.

10:03 So this diagram here depicts what an intermediary firm the process an intermediary firm has to go through to give advice to their clients. So it doesn't matter whether you've got one adviser in your business or, yeah, 10,000 advisers in your business. The process that you go through to give advice to clients is the same. So you have to keep accurate data on your clients through a recognized CRM of some description. You've got to be able to comply with the regulation and with things like consumer duty. You have to record ongoing learning and CPD, 35 per adviser per year. You have to be able to demonstrate that you can give your clients access to their investments via a portal of some description.

10:50 And then when you've done all that and you're ready to sit in front of a client and start to give advice, you need to have a workflow and cash workflow and financial planning tool, cash flow modeling. You need to consider pension switching and alternative investments, and then be able to place investments and financial products via a platform with some description for your clients. So quite a difficult task, and it requires a lot of different systems and technologies to give that advice. As I said, the average intermediary firm uses nine different technology systems just to complete the the picture that's in front of you. What we've spent the last eighteen months doing is going out and acquiring the best businesses in the sector to knit those businesses together and offer out a connected platform for intermediaries, which will mean that in the future, those intermediaries can log in to one proposition.

11:50 And in that proposition, can access several different modules of the same technology stack to enable them to give advice to their clients without having to buy nine different products. This, we believe, is the the strategy of the future for the business where we can improve in we can improve efficiencies for intermediary businesses. We can help large scale financial businesses understand where the risks and opportunities are in their business, and we can enable an easier and better client advice journey through the provision of software from FINTEL in one connected platform rather than buying nine different pieces of technology. So that's the strategy that the business has embarked on and the reason for the acquisitions.

12:37 We bought some great businesses, some market leaders, and the challenge now for, FINTEL is to connect those businesses together using two way API integrations and a common identity layer to enable firms to access everything they need through the the the FINTEL stable. With that, I'll hand over to David who will take you through the financial results for f y twenty four in a bit more detail, and then I'll come and cover off the last couple of slides on the outlook for the business before taking questions. So over to you, David. Thanks, Matt, and good afternoon, everyone. So as as Matt said, there's been a lot of activity over the last eighteen months. If you think about, you know, acquiring nine businesses, making minority investments into two others, so there's 11 transactions to build into the business, and you can see on that previous slide how it all fits together.

13:35 But the three key metrics of performance in the business remain unchanged, and those are core revenue growth, which we set at 5% to 7%. You can see 22% growth there, but that's clearly with the added tailwind of inorganic acquisitions that have come in. We're going to talk about what the organic rate is in in the next slide. Adjusted EBITDA, we look to have a a 35% margin. So it's growing by 6%. And, again, you'll see the dilutive effect of that portfolio of acquisitions, but but at 31% after the acquisition. So we, you know, firmly believe that we'll be back above 35% in in that medium term target in the next two years. And SaaS and subs is the is the quality of that revenue. So have a target where two thirds of our core revenue will stem from SaaS and subscription revenue. So monthly memberships, direct debits, payments in advance for software licenses, etcetera. So we've got great visibility of our future cash flows, and that statistic currently sits at 64%.

14:39 So, again, in a year of, you know, significant acquisitions, significant,

14:44 know, programmatic m and a coming to a combination are still, you know, well on the path to achieving those longer term targets. So if we look at revenue growth, first, you can see the the the first block there is 56.6, and that was the core revenue from last financial year. And we've split organic and inorganic into basically, organic is the simply business and the fact of legacy business without any of the transactions, m and a. And the inorganic is basically all the acquisitions and m and a in one bucket. And we've done that so that you can see the contribution for shareholder funds invested in that strategic portfolio basket of m and a rather than having four in one column and four in another. It's hard to track the the true ROI on on the individual companies we bought. So you can see all of the the revenue from acquisitions goes into the inorganic call.

15:41 And and you can see that spot there is 2% underlying organic growth, but the the four constituent parts of that, we've got the facto and the marketing services business. They're both growing at the upper end of the organic range at 7%. You've got the the third of the four is mortgages and protection, and that's been flat. That that basically is a derivative of the mortgage market where we'll get a a bit share of a mortgage adviser's procuration fee for placing a mortgage, and then another bit share through agency of the the the life insurance policy that I at the same time, for example. And those are those critical illness, etcetera, but that's that's the mainstay. So that's been flat at 6,800,000 year on year. And then the core membership fees we saw with the effect of consumer duty and consolidation across 2324, that that was down 600,000 or or or 5%.

16:39 So that that blended rate, you you can see is 2%. So, again, de facto and and distribution services are still at the top end of the range. Mortgages, we really believe, will come back this year because 2025 is gonna be a large cessation year. So people that took a five year fixed in COVID, we're obviously in the fifth anniversary of of that. And people that took a a two year fixed, at the time of the money budget under all those trusts were at 6%. Those mortgages are fixed terms are coming to an end. So 2025 is gonna be a large year for cessation or those products timing out and have people having to do something else, get another mortgage, etcetera, going to standard variable rate. So, again, we think we're really well positioned, going forward for continued organic growth.

17:30 If so, again, the reason why we've split organic and inorganic, you can see that that's the portfolio of businesses that we acquired in the last eighteen months. And we're, you know, able to demonstrate having spent 31,700,000 of shareholders funds in terms of total consideration. The boxes of the companies that we bought individually are contributing 2,700,000 EBITDA. So again, before truly embedding them in, getting revenue synergies, cross sell and upsell on their own right under our stewardship in the last financial year. They've they've paid back an 11.7 times EV EBITDA multiple. And and what that's lower than what we're trading at just now as the PLC as a whole. So, you know, we like to think that those acquisitions have been value accretive in technical terms anyway before the the taking advantage of the excellent positioning that it offers us going forward.

18:26 Again, if you look at the revenue stack, you'll see there that the green section, that's the foundation layer. That's the SaaS subscriptions of of of our total revenue, and that's consistently around just two thirds, just under two thirds in line with our medium term target. The reason that there's a two percentage points reduction is really the improvement in the middle section there, which is the repeating, not not structurally recurring. And we bought two ratings businesses and an events business. And, you know, gate businesses in their own right, but they are structurally not SaaS and subscription businesses, and that has just slightly altered the mix. But the main driver of value economically is the increase in 17% of the green section near which 37.6 up to 44,100,000.

19:17 So that's with visibility of 44,100,000 of cash flows over the next year. How that splits into the segments? We've got three segments, so intermediary services, distribution channels and fintech and research, which is ostensibly the de facto business that we acquired in 2019. Intermediary services, just think that's 4,000 IFE forms and 10,000 plus advisers paying as a monthly membership fee fee, and you've got additional, services as well of about 7,000,000 in there. So that's additional field reviews, audit quality visits, help with FCA, help help with any compliance issues that there was an additional charge for. So that's us supporting those 4,000 IFE forms, and that generated 28,100,000 of of high visibility recurring membership revenue.

20:12 If you think about that 4,000 IFE forms, I I like to call that the largest asset that I don't have on my balance sheet because that is a really attractive distribution mechanism for the product manufacturers. And if you look at the center segment, their distribution channels, we get 14,400,000 of revenue from mortgage procuration fees that come from a mortgage club that we run. So we get we get buying power and support with the main UK lenders. And that comes from all the mortgage advisers that we support in the in the intermediary services segment. Also get a share of the commission on life insurance products, critical illness products, other protection products. And, again, we get reciprocal a sort of buying power arrangement there because we've got all of our members in flowing their their buying decisions on behalf of their clients through that that one agency that we have. And the third part is marketing services. So for example, should Aviva or Taten or shoulders or whomever want to want your new fund or get in front of IFAs, we can give them really great ROI on the marketing spend by getting a 100 IFAs into a hotel room or virtually online and the the giving the the product manufacturers an opportunity to, you know, a half hour slot, for example, to address a really targeted room full of individuals that

21:43 are ready to buy or recommend or or or or whatever with the services. And we generate about £5,000,000 of marketing revenue. So, again, you can see that that intermediary services was 4,000 firms drive a lot of additional revenue beyond the the membership fees and additional services. And, again, you can see the see the growth there. And fintech and research is really it's not quite, but if if you just think about it as two halves for for ease of explanation, one half of that business supports intermediaries with the a technical, wealth advice journey. So, the product's called the facto engage and that, you know, the an IFA would take client's details, their needs, their risk assessment, their investment horizon, what, you know, when they're gonna retire, etcetera, any any cash requirements and flow that through a financial modeling tool, which is the fact to engage. And then that also recommends funds that are linked to the risk rating, and you end up with a a suitability report for for investing in your client's funds. So that's a an end to end proposition that that most of our members use.

22:52 And the other half is the ratings business. And we every product in general insurance in The UK, car insurance policies, travel policies, wedding cover, pay, you you name it. We we we every insurance product in in in the land, and we provide that data to aggregators, so money supermarket, confused.com, computer market, etcetera. So you'll you'll have seen, I'm sure, this is a de facto five star rated insurance product, and then we get a a variety of repeating or recurring revenues on strength of that rating and analysis. If you look at the balance sheet now, so we set we IPO ed in 2018. We borrowed about 35,000,000 and raised about 35,000,000 of equity to acquire the factor in 2019.

23:45 And the focus of the business became delevering that debt and and getting ourselves into a cash position and integrating the facto well and maximizing the opportunity that business. So you can see that over the the following three financial years since acquisition of the facto, You know, we we doubled the EBITDA from 5,500,000 to 11,000,000, and we paid down all of the debt and ended up at the end of twenty twenty two in a a gross cash position. And the that that that was the the the pivot point for deciding to invest in the the one stop shop that Matt showed you in the previous slide, which is all the the boxes around the the square of all the service offerings that we can make to the consolidators and larger IFE and wealth funds. Again, in light of consumer duty that was coming in, in July 2023, and we set about investing for growth. And you can see there that at the end of this financial year, we've ended up at 1.1 tonne of leverage that we think is very, very manageable.

24:48 The leverage will peak in the middle of FY 'twenty five, about 1.5 tonnes, and then it will delever quickly just following the same progression as that side we're looking at now. And we we look it to be debt free at some point in 2028 again. So and that the reduced interest cost. And if you think about the fact that we've been acquired in software businesses and there's a high amortization charge, that will deplete over the next three years as well, and that's where we'll see earnings per share growth coming through behind that. So we get the EBITDA growth and the revenue growth, but the the interest and amortization still suppresses then as per share over the next couple of years, but that will start to come back to us in '27 and 2028 as well.

25:36 In fact, I like to include this slide. It's a a sources and uses, if you like, of the cash flow statement. So put simply, we started off the year with 12,700,000, cash and funds. We generated 20,900,000 from operations, and we borrowed 19,000,000 from the bank. And ostensibly, we reinvested GBP 30,000,000 of that through acquisitions, deferred consideration, investing internally in our own products, primarily Matrix three sixty and De Facto Engage, as Matt said earlier. And, you know, we've got 4,000,000 of return to shareholders by way of dividend. We've got a small but progressive dividend policy. Again, it tracks largely in line with EBITDA growth and profitability. So we're sharing that growth back to shareholders whilst retaining most of the funds for reinvestment.

26:25 And then we've got tax and debt service cost by way of interest. And that leaves us with GBP 6,300,000 of funds at the end of the year. So hopefully, you can see that we're reinvesting the bulk of the the the cash flow generated into the business for for growth. And finally, cash conversion. So we use, operating cash flow conversion. That motivates the team in terms of controlling spend on investment and controlling working capital and and leaving tax and and trust and lease payments, etcetera, to the to the central finance team. So we 78% is down 10 percentage points from last year, but you can see that the two middle sections there are the key drivers of that.

27:10 We've got a 1,200,000 outflow in relation to working capital, and that's certainly the culmination of acquiring all the the basket of companies, over the last year or so. And then we've invested, 5,700,000 or another 800,000 in terms of our internal dev ex, so Matrix three sixty and Engage. That's that's peaked now. And and we in the second bullet point there, we give guidance that we expect that to be around 4,000,000 for this year, and then it will reduce over time. So at at at peak working capital outflow and at peak dev ex investment, which is, you know, a fifth of the EBITDA number, frankly, we're still at 78% cash conversion. So, you know, that that will keep over the next couple of years back up towards a 100%, which is the the the medium term expectation that we have. And we include other percentages there for whatever you want to to to draw the line and and make the comparison with other other businesses.

28:13 So and somebody from me, again, I think we've done really great and resilient financial performance in 2024. We've increased the revenue quality in the core business up to £44,100,000, up up 17%. You can just see the strong cash generation within this business is highly cash generative. We're deploying it at the moment, and have done over the last eighteen months. You can see nine acquisitions and two minority investments.

28:41 But that's that's all to to have a greater, growth engine, and we're we're comfortable about the medium term outlook going forward. And and finally, we've put the dividend up to 3.65p for the the full year, and that's payable at the start of June. And with that, I'll pass back to Matt. Thank you, David. I'll cover off a couple of slides now on the outlook for the business, and then we'll move on to q and a. So I think, first and foremost, what gives us confidence as we look forward? Well, we're we're a business with over a twenty year track record. So our intermediary business in particular, Simply Business, has been operating for over twenty years and three sixty for around twenty years as well. Our de facto business has been operating for thirty years, so we are tried and test tested in this market.

29:35 We're built on a deep understanding of regulation providing around a third of the the the market with compliance and regulatory support, really knowing and understanding how regulation drives demand in our market and how regulation affects intermediary businesses. We've got, strong technology and data capabilities enabling us to provide fintech solutions for small to medium sized businesses as well as a comprehensive platform of tech solutions to larger, intermediary businesses. As David said, we're underpinned by, really good cash flow and recurring income, so we're able to look ahead. We understand where the revenues are coming from. We're able to budget effectively and to put that cash to good use in terms of acquisitions and also reinvestment back into core technology.

30:34 We are operating in a really important market that is growing in terms of the number of larger firms enabling us to provide a platform solution to those large businesses. This market is consolidating, and many of the large consolidators are looking for a a tried and trusted technology partner that they can work with over the medium and long term. Also, question actually that that came up on the poll from Rob around the increase in recurring income and how does the regulatory landscape help help us. Well, increasing regulation drives demand for our business. So we're an outsourced provider to small and medium sized businesses in the main. And if you operate a relatively small intermediary business and you have to deal with the daily burden of regulation and understanding regulation as well as understanding all the different products available in the market, It's quite a complex and time consuming job, and, you know, you don't you don't get paid for doing that. You get paid for sitting in front of in front of clients and giving advice.

31:43 So if you can possibly outsource that to a professional business for a few £100 a month, then we believe it's a it's a really good trade. And so as regulation increases, more and more companies who haven't outsourced in the past will look to simply Pearson three sixty and Compliance First, our intermediary businesses for support. So regulation increases the demand for our business. On top of that, you've got consumer duty, and consumer duty is a new piece of regulation that came in last year. And we're helping firms navigate that landscape, and particularly with the acquisition of our vouch for business. We're able to provide the the tools that firms need to use to go out and research their client back and demonstrate to the regulator that their clients understand what they're paying for and are happy with the level of service that they're receiving.

32:39 So consumer duty has been another one of those pieces in regulation that have driven demand for businesses within the FINTEL group. And we think there are strong drivers for increased demand in financial planning and and mortgages. So as the government make changes to the taxation system in The UK, people look to financial advisers, to professionals, to help them to protect their wealth, to protect their families, and to invest in the future. So we believe the drivers for advice are strong. It is a sector where there is more demand than there is supply, and we believe that the financial markets the financial intermediary market is in really good health for the future. In terms of the business specifically and looking at the drivers for growth over the course of the next twelve, eighteen months, Then our investment into Matrix three sixty is starting to pay off. We finished the first phase of investment at the end of last year. So we've gone live with the new products in January.

33:47 And so far, six out of six clients have signed from Matrix to Matrix three sixty with an average price increase of 25%. So we are taking what is currently a £2,100,000 revenue stream, and we are expecting the clients to upgrade to our latest version of Matrix. And with that, there'll be an increase in in price. We have FINTEL IQ, which is our connected platform that we're currently offering out to large intermediary businesses. And we have the acquisition of three sixty, which brings a thousand new sorry, 10,000 new, intermediaries and 1,000 new businesses into the the FINTEL family.

34:33 So the combination of of those three things, the investment into Matrix, the growing and developing of our platform, and the acquisition of a huge scale business, we believe, sets us up for 2025 and beyond. So thank you for dialing into the the webinar. It's been a pleasure to update you on the financial results for f y twenty four and also to give you, hopefully, a more rounded overview of of the business. I'll now turn to the q and a poll, and David and I will do our best to answer as as many questions as we can inside the next sort of twenty five minutes or so. So the first question comes in from Peter, and Peter asks, what is the long term SaaS target per IFA?

35:21 And I think it's a great question, Peter, and we've been busy acquiring lots of different fintech businesses over the course of the last eighteen months because we believe that the sort of total addressable market here is around about £2,000 per month per adviser in terms of what our adviser's spending on technology and outsource regulatory support. So we haven't yet published what we believe our target should be or our share of that market, but we now have the all of the business and the capability required to provide all of that to an intermediary business. Now, clearly, we're not gonna win on every front, so we need to go away and and and work out what we think is a sensible target for the business. But to give you an idea of size and scope, the total addressable market, we think, is about £2,000 per adviser per month.

36:20 Rob asks what's driving the increase in recurring revenue, and how does the regulatory landscape help you? And I think we covered that just in the outlook section. And the summary of that, Rob, is that the, you know, the more regulation bites, the more firms look to outsource to businesses like Simply Version three sixty. Lee asks, would you look to expand into additional territories, or is the primary focus on consolidating The UK? Yeah. So exactly that, Lee. We're gonna concentrate on UK retail financial services. So we would consider going abroad if we found the right partner. I don't think it is the right thing for our business to do to put boots on the ground into a new territory that we're unfamiliar with because the regulatory landscapes will be different.

37:08 If we can find the right kind of partner, then I think our technology has a capability to transcend borders, and I can very much foresee in the future us having partnerships in businesses outside of The UK. But in terms of putting our our sort of boots on the ground, if you if you like, then, no, we won't be doing that. We'll be focusing fundamentally on on The UK market. Another question coming from Peter H. Do you think the talk about the FCA being asked by the government to focus on growth and reduce regulation will result in any material changes?

37:45 No. I don't think it will. I think if you're asking a regulator to regulate less or to be more light touch, I don't believe for one minute the regulator will will turn around and and take that on board. You've only got a point to the, you know, the financial crash where, I think if we ask the regulator to provide light touch regulation, they would turn around and say, well, this is probably what will happen if we do that. I I can't see that materially changing the approach of the regulator. Lee, where is the sweet spot for acquisitions? Are there any larger opportunities you see available? I think I'll throw that one over the fence to David to talk about the sweet spot for acquisitions, what we're looking for in terms of recurring revenue, what we're looking for in terms of capabilities, and any opportunities that we we see on the horizon. So over to you, David.

38:44 Thanks, Matt, and thanks, Lee. So, again, we've got about 50,000,000 of, capacity in the revolving credit facility, although that does take us about two and a half tons of leverage. But, again, the business delivers quickly, and it's highly cash generative. So, again, you know, that all all comes back to the bolts, risk appetite for for for leverage. But we do have a lot of firepower for larger acquisitions. It's not not not just the the smaller end of the scale that we're looking at. The if you think about the customer sets, we've got the wealth and IFE forms really well catered for, and we've we've, you know, completed ostensibly the acquisition trail to support IFAs.

39:31 We've invested organically and supporting the general insurers through Matrix three sixty. There are complementary businesses that support the Matrix three sixty revenue stream. So there could be some targets with specific datasets that we would want. And and, again, you know, acquiring more data in this sort of AI driven model is is is, again, of of great interest to us, but but at at sensible prices as well, we'd be pleased to hear. But the main m and a in front of us is with the mortgage being business, and we acquired 6% of that last year for £1,500,000, which give us an enterprise value of about 30,000,000.

40:16 And we've got a call option over the remaining 94% of that in second quarter of twenty twenty six. Now that that business continues to grow. So one would expect that the acquisition of mortgage payment will be north of 30,000,000, and and that is something that we're, main to to acquire. What that will do for us because currently in the mortgage adviser market, we support the mortgage advisers with the foundational compliance layer and help them run their business efficiently and effectively and and and within the regulations.

40:53 And then we're pretty hands off until the mortgage is actually written and the individual customer buys their home, frankly, and then we get a small basis point share of of of that mortgage that's written. And what the mortgage bill will do is fill in the gap in between. So that's the CRM system and the sourcing system. So that's the the the software tool that you collect all your clients' details, the the earnings, the affordability, etcetera, and then the sourcing's where it matches up to advisers, lenders, and and products. So take someone at a 60% LTV that wants to get a rate with Santander for a five year fixed.

41:40 The CRM and sourcing tool that Mortgage Brain have completes that end to end journey. So the acquisition of Mortgage Brain would see us have the same one stop shop for mortgage advisers that we do for IFE's. And that that that would session is really, really well and at the heart of any retail financial services, decision that's made in The UK because we've got the the wealth journey, the mortgage journey, the protection journey, and the the general insurance journey. So that that that that would really position us well going forward. So that's the that's the main m and a that we have in our sites. But the the programmatic m and a is is ostensibly complete as as we and and it's focusing on integrating those and and creating the products for the IFAs and the consolidators.

42:32 Matt, David, thank you for answering all those questions 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 you know is particularly important to the company, Matt, could I please just ask you for a few closing comments? Yeah. Thank you very much, and and a huge thank you to taking the time out today to watch this presentation. I think in a, you know, in a brief summary, the business traded well in f y twenty four financially. But more importantly than that, we made some real key acquisitions that we believe are gonna be absolutely seminal for the business. We've acquired all the technology that we need to roll out to the intermediary market. We've increased the size and scale of the business massively with the acquisition of three sixty.

43:21 We've invested into our core products in the GI and banking market to really accelerate that part of the business. So we feel as we look forward into f y twenty five and beyond that we're in a great position to accelerate the growth going forward, a great position to attract new clients, and the right position to be in to win large enterprise sales of technology in this important intermediary sector. So thanks to everyone again for for watching, and we'll see you again hopefully in six months time with the next sale results. Thank you. Matt, David, thank you for updating investors today. Can I please ask investors not to close this 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?

44:07 This may 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 FINTEL PLC, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good afternoon to you all.