Liontrust Asset Management (LSE:LIO) — Investor Presentation

0:00 Good morning, and welcome to the LIONTRUST ASSET MANAGEMENT PLC investor presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged and could be submitted at any time by the q and a tab situated in the right hand corner of your screen. Just 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, company will review your 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 CFO, Vinay Abrol, and CEO, John Iins. Good morning to you both.

0:31 Good morning. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks for giving us your your time this morning to explain a little bit about LIONTRUST, where we are. I just will briefly at the start give an overview of what is LIONTRUST, what makes us different, where we believe our strengths are, and then post our half year results, we'll go through some of the financials for you. So for those of you who don't know, LIONTRUST is a specialist fund management company. I've been chief executive for the last thirteen years. And over that period of time, you know, we've seen strong growth in assets. Assets have taken from 1,000,000,000 to 33,500,000,000 at our last published number, and with our constituent of the FTSE two fifty.

1:27 We we focus on, you know, the areas that we feel that we can add value to. So we've got eight investment teams onto those in a minute. And really, our assets are split predominantly in the retail segments part of the marketplace, but we're also expanding simply with the recent acquisition of Mjedi into the institutional space and looking to expand our European footprint where we have half a dozen people living there. I suppose the core to LIONTRUST is that we've to make things as simple as possible. The base tenet of the business is if you've got a good strong investment process, you're free to manage the money you want to. We obviously run all the checks and balances against that, but what we're trying to do is by not having a chief investment officer to allow talented individuals to manage money in the way that we think is best and appropriate for that. So we drill down very much on process, a lot of discipline in there from buy, sell, size, foundations to being able to take that long term approach, not being, I suppose affected by a house view or having, you know, through risk, and is having to come back more towards, you know, index performance. So we're very much looking to add value as alpha managers.

2:55 And I think that in a difficult year that we have had, I think that becomes more and more important because, when you've got a lot of noise in a market and a lot of volatility going around, it's highly important that you have that sort of process and and and anchor to come back to. You get a lot of short term movements in stocks, but if you look at the underlying performance of those stocks, you know, you can go back and check, you know, the reason we bought them, is it still the same in there? And having that ability and confidence to stick with those investments for the long term, as you can see in our results, produces good returns. The other side of that equation is, well, if you've got a good strong investment process, we provide a route to market for what you do.

3:47 Legs are on, we'll go into a little bit of the strength of our distribution and the brand. So our rate investment teams are on on I two, and it's a piece there. The largest one's sustainable and the economic advantage team, which is a UK equity mandate. UK equities, whilst they have been very much out of favor over the last five years, that is a team that is, you know, that's a bucket of trying to raise assets through that period and has produced very strong performance across that sort of mid small cap parts of the marketplace. Sustainable team, we acquired just over five years ago when we bought the LIONTRUST business. That was a team that had it has now got a twenty one year track record. When we acquired them, it had about 2,300,000,000 of assets under management, and that's grown now to over 11,000,000,000.

4:49 With with the sustainable side is that if you're looking for areas of differentiation and looking to move forward, this is an industry which historically has decided to either compete on price or performance, neither of which I know of you are particularly strong as a competitive advantage because price is only as good until somebody is cheaper and performance is there until somebody performs better. And I think with the sustainable side and what people have seen, and with demand for assets there, is that this is very much driven from requirements from clients. We know from our own engagement with clients that we'd probably get four or five times the level of engagement with investors on the sustainable side than we do with the all straightforward equity funds.

5:40 And that's very much based around if I write to you about the shape of the yield curve, the end risk investor will tend to switch off. If I write to you about a transition to cleaner, greener energy, urbanization, social mobility, they're all things that investors are interested in, and I think that's quite important in this industry where historically it's been well, it's lacked transparency, it's been very opaque, it tends to use a language, you know, which is a barrier to people engaging. And if you think about the industry as a whole, everybody of a working age has a pension. And so we've got, you know, product penetration across the country, yet we've got an industry which has got very low trust in it.

6:32 I think, you know, what you see from what we try to do on distribution side and definitely with the brand is, you know, find ways in which we can build that trust through clear communication about things that people are involved in. And after all, these are people's savings, people are working hard to keep in esports, they want to be able to understand better what's going on and where they are. Slide three shows you, you know, the growth of the business. Really, our growth strategy has was been along a three pronged approach. The things that Alf and the management team and the people inside LIONTRUST, you know, can affect on a day to day basis is organic growth. The first and foremost, that's the most important, it's the most profitable way for us to grow our business. And if you look at, you know, at three there, you will see, you know, that those strong net flows that have come through the business.

7:32 The other side is through what I would call talent acquisition or hiring of new teams. That is, you know, where we can see managers or identify them externally that we think can add value and fit in with an island which we manage money. But there is one sort of all back to that is that a lot of at the time, when you take people on day one, they have, you know, zero assets and no track record, behind them. So it takes three years to get a track record, that's fairly easy to say, and also you've got a nickel and dime in the short term to raise sort of critical, asset levels to be able to engage with larger clients.

8:22 And that sort of brings in, I suppose, our third prong, which is strategic acquisitions. And we use acquisitions not bolster assets. I think, you know, buying assets just to fill silos is a relatively unprofitable way to grow your business. But what we do use them for is to fast forward that grow your own, like so. We said the JD acquisition was to give us a broader exposure in both investment trust world and in an institutional space. And you'll see some of our other ones where we're adding either manufacturing, iFund management, investment management capability, or distribution strength.

9:09 And then from there, we're looking at how we can improve those businesses, take them forward and grow.

9:15 The most as well example of that could be, as I said earlier, with the growth of the sustainable team from 2,300,000,000 to over 11,000,000,000 in the last five years. Around that, it is, you know, very we're very much a business that puts the client at the center of what we do. Therefore, brand is very important to us. We grow that. And also the way in which we service our our clients. I think, you know, on that side, on the distribution side, you know, we have a high level of engagement across all the teams with clients. Before last, we had 900 people on a, just stood on sustainable conference, and on the same day, we would have had two or three other presentations going on with the other teams. Now we can put out a lot of output, but the key to a lot of that is the level of engagement you get on the other side.

10:16 So those are some factors we look at to see what we're sending out, is it being received, has it been opened through emails, has it directed traffic through our website, so we can tailor and focus the quality of the information that we send out to people to serve them in the best way because, DeRaul, you know, we're competing with an awful lot of other fund management groups, and the last thing we want to do is fill in up people's inboxes or waste people's time. But it's very much clearly focused on making sure that we understand where our clients' needs are. We spend a lot of time positioning products for the right types of clients along that way, and I think that it also demonstrated where the sales success is.

11:10 I I I have five, but it shows you that where we are, you know, presumably, you know, lot of output and how is that recognized. Fund Management Group of the Year, last year, we were Institutional Management Group of the Year with Financial News as well, so plenty of awards across the group. We're moving to slide six. It will show you that in terms of where we are on competition, we sit in the top 10 of gross sales, I think some 30,000,000 behind Schroders in in q three. But if you think about the relative sizes of the infrastructures, as if we're clearly delivering on that engagement level and we have products that are appealing and attractive to clients.

12:10 And again, more likely, you know, where we are seen by intermediaries voted best by financial advisers on the sustainable side, and high scores in terms of recognition, and eight eighth in terms of brand of asset managers. I've mentioned earlier acquisitions, and I've talked about the sustainable well, I think maybe if I look at two of those acquisitions there, Neptune and Virginie, both in a sort of similar requirements point of view. Neptune is very much Austrian, global product offering, Majady bringing its manufacturing strengths you know, in the institutional world.

13:07 But JD had a very strong amongst its client base sustainability, responsible capitalism, and that is something that we very much wanted to sort of pivot towards in that institutional marketplace, having a very strong sustainable brand in the retail marketplace, But looking at how we could take that where there is still huge demand for sustainable unmanagement and not an awful lot of successful supplies of it. And therefore, the opportunity set for us was to to grow to grow more out. But it does show you the difficulty, you know, where you if I look at Neptune, that was a business that we bought which was in outflows of about, I'm sure, 80,000,000 a month, and we were able to turn, you know, those outflows over the next eighteen months into inflows and and to grow that business going forward.

14:12 We're obviously able to do that against a sort of benign, you know, market background. You know, with JLEA, I don't it was probably a slightly better run business when we acquired it, but it does show you the fragile nature when you have much more volatility in the market behind. And so a lot of it is very much how we structure that business and position it going forward and having very much an eye on what we're trying to achieve in the medium to long term. You know, one of the things we look at very much on a day to day basis is that

14:49 I can't tell you in the short term where net flows will be, and I can't tell you where market levels will be. What I can do is if we do our hope correctly, we will come through, as we did through COVID, with a stronger market share and a and a business in a a strong position, to gain from, you know, an answer and an an upturn in sentiment. So very much when you have a year where you have a lot of lot of risk aversion, you have clients looking at how, you know, flows and looking at how they shore up their own balance sheets and a degree of uncertainty. For us, it's very much about focusing on the strengths, making sure that we have strength of our conviction to to focus, you know, and to maintain our, you know, outlook on and process to make sure that we're well positioned, you know, for a change in fortunes going forward.

15:43 And at that point, it's concluded for me to pause and pass over to Vinay. Hi there. Hi. So maybe I'll just spend a few minutes going through our half year results for the six months that ended thirty fourth September, which we released to the market a couple of weeks ago. So in terms of the headline number, in terms of if look at the P and L, in terms of revenues, what is the income that we're generating from management fees? Half year on half year, so comparing the half year just gone with the equivalent period last year, our revenues were broadly in line. So just up a small amount, about 0.2%, so just under $109,000,000 from $108,000,000 $108,000,000 $100,500,000 last year. So revenue is broadly in line with the equivalent period last year, so very much on track compared to last year, which is very strong.

16:41 That actually translated into an adjusted profit before tax. So maybe I'll spend a minute or two on what the adjustments are, but an adjusted profit before tax of four just under £43,000,000.42800000 up 9% compared to last year. So what that tells you is that we've had good, strong cost controls in our business when you compare on a like for like basis compared to last year. We like to use the adjusted profit number rather than the statutory profit number because that strips out some of the exceptional costs that we have, in particular in relation to acquisitions and the cost for accounting for acquisitions. I'll maybe talk about that in a little bit in a moment as well. So 0.2 up in revenues translated into a 9% increase in adjusted profit and a 4% increase in our adjusted diluted EPS, the earnings per share, at just under £0.54 share of earnings for the half year. Again, slightly less than a profit number, and that's just reflecting the fact that the Magendie acquisition completed on the April 1, and we issued 3,700,000 shares. So although the profit number has gone up 9% because you've got a bigger number of shares to spread that profit over when you work out your EPS, it gives you a slightly lower increase in adjusted EPS.

18:02 Operating margin up to 39.4%, so up strongly compared to the equivalent period last year and a little bit less than our full year operating margin, which was 41.7%. The full year, if you know us, you know in our second half we tend to have the opportunity to run performance fees and that does help operating margins. So the guidance of the market is very much that we want to keep that operating margin around 40%. We see operating margin as a key measure of our success in managing our business efficiently. And if you look back over time, you'll see that we've as our revenues have grown over the last five years, we've seen operating margin increase. So what does that tell you? That tells you that actually that we're running a fund management business properly. We are having growing our profits faster than we're growing our revenues. So we're not sucking more expense or cutting our fees while growing our profits.

19:04 So that's why I think you want to see in a good business as revenues increase, you'd expect economies of scale and operating margin to increase, and that's what you've seen with us. That has translated into a first interim dividend. We pay two dividends a year. First interim dividend, 22p per share. So broadly, well, in line with

19:24 the dividend that we paid at the same point last year. The Board has confidence. We've guided the even though the outlook for the full year is, in terms of the market estimates are for a lower profit number than last year, I'll talk about that in a second as well. We've held the interim dividend at 22p. The market is forecasting 72p dividend for the full year, so a final dividend of 50p per share which we payable in August declared in June when we do our full year results. So again, we have a well covered dividend. So whatever have been conservative in dividend policy. We've in terms of our adjusted earnings, our adjusted EPS, we'd be last year, we paid out 60% of our EPS. Now again, the second half is going be a tougher half because we're starting at a lower point in terms of AUM we started the financial year.

20:22 But we have got scope to ensure that our earnings are not going to be anywhere near where our dividend is. So our dividend is well covered and well supported and pretty solid. Some of the more details or measures that you need to look at. Average AUM up 3%. So our average AUM was £35,100,000,000 over the year. And obviously, was quite a volatile year. We started the year with the Magellan acquisition, which took us to just over $38,000,000,000 and on the April 1, and we finished the half year at $31,700,000,000 So you can see that the AUM has fallen in line with the market and flows strong average of 35.1%, but you can't get away from the fact that we're starting the second half at 31.7 percent. So we expect the second half to be much tougher in terms of revenues. And you see that market forecast.

21:20 The good news is that we've seen a stronger AUM number that we published mid November when we published our results at 33.5. And again, you look at the market expectations, a lot of people have that number as a year end end of March number, end of March twenty three number. So who knows what's going happen to the market in terms of ups and downs. But we're

21:46 starting at a low number on October 1, but we're in not a bad place, albeit even 33.5% is below the average for the first half. So it will be more challenging, yes. The revenue margin, again, a very key measure. Are we maintaining revenues by just cutting our fee margin? So are we just trying to get more revenues, but we're not seeing revenue grow in line with AUM. So we saw our revenue just tick down a little bit from 64 basis points or 64.64% to 0.62%. That is revenue mix rather than revenue erosion in terms of us cutting fees. When we did the MEGEMENT acquisition, we told the market the average margin on the MEGEMENT business was 0.5%, especially lower than our margin on our legacy

22:38 on the LIONTRUST business, which has a focus towards retail. So you'd expect that margin to come down you've got as you add AUM that's at 50 basis points, 0.5% rather than a higher margin. So we're pleased and you should be reassured that we are maintaining our revenue margin in that sort of low 60 basis point level. I'll touch on the impairment charge. Some people pick that up. If you look at the big difference between our adjusted number and the statutory number, we took a total amortization charge of just over £20,000,000 £20,500,000 for the half year. A lot and this is non cash, so this is not cash paid out. It's just accounting for acquisitions.

23:27 So of that $20,500,000 just under $8,000,000 is the regular amortization charge that we take for the acquisitions that we've done. A very quick recap, acquisition accounting is quite complex, but basically when you buy a business, you look at the cash flows that business is going to give you and you discount that back to a current value and that's your intangible asset that you've acquired. And the balance between what you pay for it and that is goodwill, which goes on the balance sheet. Both go on the balance sheet, intangible is then amortized, I. E, spread out over ten years.

24:01 That $8,000,000 is that amortization charge for the acquisitions that we've done in recent times. We've taken an impairment charge of 12,800,000 And that is really just a retest at the balance sheet date to see whether the assumptions that we made at the time of the acquisitions, how they changed now for us to test the value of that asset on our balance sheet. So we've done that. Obviously, discount rates have increased and our original projections on flows and AUM have been a lot stronger than we've seen in reality. So we've taken effectively an earlier charge than we would have done. So some of the charge that would have come out over the next ten years, we have taken now. So it's more timing, not cash. It is some of the peculiarities of acquisition accounting.

24:56 So it's and I think you'll see that happening in a number of asset management businesses that have done acquisitions in recent times. I'm looking at the value of those assets that they hold on the balance sheet. So balance sheet, the largest balance sheet remains very strong. We have GBP 110,000,000 of cash on the balance sheet, real cash. So we're in a healthy position.

25:28 If you're familiar with asset managers, we have a requirement to hold regulated capital. So the regulator wants to ensure that we are operating with sufficient capital to run our business and they've got various parameters. On average, it tends to work across the industry around 0.1% to 0.09%. So our regulated capital is around $30,000,000 So that's what we have to have to run the business. So we have a nice we have a big surplus in terms of cash, which is a good proxy for the regulated capital that you've got. The business in terms of where we are is in a healthy position. We are paying out dividends. Those dividends are very affordable for us. We have been conservative in our dividend policy, I think that's put us in good stead now.

26:17 So there's no real threat unless there's a major, major market correction. Our dividend is pretty secure. So the business is performing well. You can see that with the operating margin. And we will have a tougher second half just because where the markets are and where our AUM is. But we know that the dividend is there, dividend is secure, you know, around the current, know, with the marks around those levels. So that's me from the finance point of really. There was John talk about strategy outlook. I think I don't want too much here, but obviously, the six sort of pillars or the principles, you know, behind line perception there.

27:07 PLAYS, you behind PLAYS, PLAYS, PLAYS, IN THE PLAYS, LIONTRUST ASSET IN we deploy the capital that allows it on me to function in its broadest sense. And as investors in companies, we're in a position to create change and improvement in those businesses. You know, that's core to our beliefs. We think we've created the right environment for fund managers not to be, you know, drawn by or distracted by sort of short term volatility and very much to stick to, you know, long term investment and the but, you know, you know, good returns from that. After all, at the end of the day, that is what we stand up for on in our output.

28:00 We continue to broad want to broaden the distribution, both of those into institutional and further into Europe and distribution agreements with ABN AMRO and Europe, with SEB in Scandinavia and the two others. Those are areas that we look to support future growth in the business, acquisitions, and there is one of the questions on there. I didn't see a pop up about consolidation in the asset management industry. Will we be a part of it? Obviously, we spend a lot of time looking at businesses. I've looked at a lot of asset managers over the last twenty years. You know, they change size, they change shape, and but it's a question of whether they become more attractive to us. Think, you know, from my point of view, we have a very clear sort of focus on on what we're looking for, what what will add value to our business.

29:06 It has to have, you know, a strategic purpose. If you look at some of the consolidation that's gone on in the industry and in the areas where it hasn't worked, it's been very much driven by cost. If we put two businesses together, we get £100,000,000 of cost cutting out of it. If I put a 30 multiple on that, I've created more than a billion pounds of market cap. But if you lead with cost and not strategy and focus, you just whittle that away over the future by having that lack of focus. So for us, it's very much more the strategic rationale behind deals. I think you will see more consolidation in the industry. It's something that's been talked about for years, but I think what's slightly different this time around is that in the past markets, you know, where you get periods where markets go down, companies start to struggle a bit more just at the point where you think capitulation will come in, markets go back up, and everybody thinks their business plan is working as revenues pick up again. I think this time around, we will have a longer, more protracted and I you know, but I do I see that as an opportunity. I think if you've got the right business model, your business model is current and just the way to go, it's generally, you know, at times of flux where it's it's, you know, easier

30:38 well, it's not easier, but you can gain more market share from things. So I look at, you know, times of challenges, more opportunity for well run, well managed businesses, you know, to move forward with. Branding and communication are obviously very key key to us. An awful lot of investment going forward. Business is looking at at how we engage better and how how we provide relevant information and to and to target that to the right investors with the right type of content, and so digitalization of our business will be one of the areas that we look, you know, to grow more over the years ahead. And obviously, behind all of that is to have a very strong operating platform, and we have that now with Bank of New York that provide, if you like, the infrastructure that business sits on. And that's, you know, very key e to us because when you make acquisitions, it's about the speed at which you could execute and to get them right and to have, you know, powerful infrastructure like that behind us enables us to make make those changes quickly and to get very much on, you know, on with how we go forward and where the focus of the business is and not to get caught up, you know, spending two years trying to consolidate bits and businesses together

32:09 while you lose that direction. I think, you know, at that point, maybe we throw it over to questions. Okay. So you've answered a couple of them on consolidation. Do you want to talk a little about why LIONTRUST will come out stronger, will win or the winners of the sector? I think the winners will be is that have a, you know, defined plan that they can exit you know, they can execute. I think you've got to be able to create that, attract the best talent. I wish I had a magic wand for, you know, another way in which you do things, but literally it's about, you know, you get the edge by doing the day job, day in, day out as best you can, being able to attract the right talent and having a clear goal and focus on what you're looking to achieve. And I think a lot of that, you know, you can see through the strength of the brand and the distribution, purchase way above our weight shows you how we execute that. And I think going forward, how you communicate with clients and how you build up that trust from what is a low base to the industry will put us in very good stead.

33:37 Then we've had a question about buybacks, whether we would consider that. Yeah. I mean, we we look at, you know, as part of our capital management program, we look at as our cash above our rate cap grows, we do look at share buybacks, we do look at special dividends. To be honest, even though LIONTRUST is in the FTSE two fifty, one of the largest three fifty listed companies in The UK, we still have sort of we can still be a little bit illiquid at times for larger investors. So we were quite wary of using our cash to sort of make us more liquid actually.

34:25 So I wouldn't rule it out. We've if you look back to our accounts, you'll see our EBT has been acquiring shares, which is a sort of buyback, but not quite a buyback. To limit future dilution on any share option issuance. But it's something that we do look at, and we do know there are firms out there who've been very successful in using buybacks to increase earnings per share and the share price like MANAGEMENT, for example, although they are significantly larger than us. So, yes, it's definitely on the agenda in terms of support. I think it's something the Board will consider our capital resource and cash grows. But there's no formal plans to do any buybacks at the moment. We have the authority. We take the authority every year at our AGM to to allow buybacks. So if we want to do it, we could do it, but no intention at the moment.

35:22 And we've had questions about investment trusts. We've obviously inherited a couple of investment trusts in our strategy as well. Yeah. Yes. So just on on the investment trust, we have we had a specific question about Magedi investment trust. So we have got two investment trusts at the moment. Edinburgh Investment Trust, which is a billion pounds investment trust where we are the AFEM. So we have a, you know, we have responsibility certain responsibilities as said and regulation as the AFEM. And we have Magendie Investment Trust, which is smaller, a 100,000,000 plus investment trust, which we are not the AFEM for that. We are just an investment manager appointed by the board who take take take discussions decisions themselves. And that board has decided, you know, to to they've got a tender. It's all in the public domain, and they are moving to another smaller £400,000,000 asset manager and taking a stake in that asset manager. So our role with Magellan Investment Trust is purely as an investment manager.

36:22 So we have no we have no direct influence over what the trust what we can recommend to the trust or the trust board. So that's a decision they take taken. I think the question is, would it not be more sensible for that trust to to to merge with a larger trust like any investment trust? I think that's that's something the board should the board the investment trust should consider. We we did engage with them, and we talked to them, and we had suggestions for them, but they have decided on a on a different route. So a question really for them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And with the Edinburgh Investment Trust, obviously, much more of a flagship, you know, a billion size investment trust, you know, the last year winning, and very much something that, you know, the investment trust space is and as we've tried to get it into over the previous, maybe five years, great to have to break into that space without an investment trust or the perception of you. So now having things there, it is an area that we will look to, you know, to grow more in. Yeah. And and Simon, who's our chief marketing officer, actually has done a lot of work with the Edinburgh Trust Trust Investment Board in in brand in building their own brand and doing exactly what reducing discount and promotions.

37:45 We have a very happy investment trust board there. There'll be a lot of promotion of that Edinburgh Investment Trust next year. So question about kind of the, I suppose, the teams really in terms of liquidity and opportunities that the investment teams are finding at the moment. Think liquidity varies. I mean, obviously, they run up to Christmas. It'll be nonexistent. But I think there are opportunities around. You know, we're seeing, you know, that interest both more is, you know, we see companies that have been bid for it's not quite as much seen as much as earlier in the year, but it will come back where private equity will, you know, try and, yeah, suppose steel businesses in a way from the market of evaluations.

38:36 What we we do find is we've got a bit of a very good dealing team on board, very knowledgeable, all plugged in. So either way, whether we're buyers or sellers, liquidity hasn't, the date, poses any issues. And Asia Lee does create opportunities, you know, a buyer side for us to take, positions certainly in smaller caps, which may have taken us longer to pick up. Yes. Mean, I think if you look at the product range of LIONTRUST, we have got a very strong position in UK small cap in terms of size of our funds. And we have, as John mentioned, I think we've got a top quality, award winning, they keep telling me, trading team who know the market really well. So we've the cross has been running that UK small cap fund for over twenty years, nearly twenty five years. So, you know and and actually and and if you look at the way he runs his funds, he he always carries, you know, circa, you know, you know, eight you know, between 510% cash, a, to help liquidity in terms of investors redeeming, but also if there are opportunities to take advantage of liquidity in the companies he holds, he's got that cash to be able to do that.

40:02 So, you know, so it has always it has always been, you know, trade trading small cap is always tricky. And but that is something that we are very experienced at and that been for a very long time. So I think we you know, so I think we're we're we're we are very content in that space. Thank you very much for all the questions. I think that brings the Q and A part of this presentation to an end. John, Vinay, Simon, thank you very much for that. And I think you've addressed those questions from investors. And of course, company will review all those questions submitted today and will publish those responses on the Investor Meet company platform. But just before we direct investors to provide you with their feedback, which you know is particularly important to the company, John, could I just ask you for a few closing comments? As you said, we feel that the business is is continues to be very well positioned.

40:55 It's as I said, it's been a more challenging year, but I think, you know, the pride of all that I get from that is if I go back and I talk to each of the fund management teams, which are the basis, you know, bruised performance wise, but very much looking at an opportunity set ahead. There's very clear focus on what they're doing and strong beliefs that outcomes will be there. I think the engagement side of the business is strong. Distribution, and on the post sales is still high, so we've got audit that is quite an abrupt to where invested demand is. We look at the opportunity set going forward to grow and expand the business over so it's obvious, you know, it is very strong.

41:50 John, Vinay, Simon, thanks once again for updating investors today. Could 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, but I'm sure will be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of LIONTRUST ASSET MANAGEMENT PLC, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good morning to you all. Thank you very much. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Have a good day.