Public Policy Holding (LSE:PPHC) — Full Year Results

0:00 Welcome to the PUBLIC POLICY HOLDING COMPANY, INVESTOR PRESENTATION. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged and can be dismissed at any time by the Q and A tab situated in the right 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, the company will review all questions submitted today and publish responses when 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 Simon Lee, chairman. Good afternoon, sir.

0:28 Good afternoon, and good afternoon, everyone. As Alessandra said, my name is Simon Lee. It's my pleasure to be Chairman of PPHC, and I'm joined this afternoon by Stuart Hall, our CEO, and Thomas Gensimer, our chief strategy officer, both of whom some of you will already have met virtually. Before I hand over to them, and by way of a very brief introduction, I first became involved with PPHC just over two years ago as an adviser in the run up, to the IPO. And I was delighted to be invited to become, their chairman as I'm convinced that PPHC has a seriously sustainable business model that is capable and has the opportunity to produce growing and stable returns. Think of WPP or Omnicom in their early days.

1:20 I think the term lobbying sometimes has pejorative connotations in The UK. But in The US, as I have discovered, it's a hell highly regulated and transparent business, and it's one where people should be proud, I believe, to invest as indeed I am. And with that introduction, I'd like to hand you over to Stuart to to take you through the formal presentation. Very good. Thanks, Simon. Much appreciated. So just in a nutshell, you know, The US this is what makes PPHC's market possible. Our opportunity for growth, our sustainability and stability, three words Simon just used. If you look at US government spending alone on this axis, that has grown by a factor of nearly six times, since 1990.

2:12 So in a thirty year span, you could see just the amount of the US government spending. That is not

2:20 immune to other markets. I think, you know, you will look at Europe, The UK, others, you know, while they have different forms of fiscal discipline, certainly, you know, there has been a trend toward larger government in the Western developed world. Simultaneously, government has, been, much more active in regulating and intervening in areas of economy and and promulgating regulation such that, every corporation, their trade associations, and NGOs all see the need to manage their risk and opportunity in this space. Government is an omnipresent, force in business these days, and that trend line has not shown any possibility of breaking.

3:05 There have been six presidents over that time frame, that thirty year time frame, three Democrats, three Republicans in The United States. So this is a this is a bipartisan, trend, and, we don't see it again slowing down. Interestingly enough, in addition to the spin, if you look on this chart right here, you know, again, just talking about just risk, the risk side of the of the they of the equation, the number of politically of the economically significant regulations in The United States has gone up by a factor of six, just since the mid nineteen eighties, meaning that impactful, regulations that affect actually business in terms of their operations and profitability have increased six fold just like government spending.

3:50 So, again, there's risk and there is opportunity on the spending side. Someone has to execute, which brings a number of people into the space looking for opportunity to assist the government, you know, in carrying out various mandates. And that at the same time, you also see, that businesses recognize their risk. In the last decade, this was a recent the the top left hand right hand arrow on the left side, the chamber US Chamber of Commerce published a study just recently that showed that we've seen, again, a significant increase in the number of public companies and their filings identifying key risk factors, as, again, public policy, over the last decade. So, you know, these are now issues that affect CEOs.

4:35 They affect boards. These are no longer corporate marketing and branding situations or isolated things that can be handled by a select group of of lobbyists or lawyers in The United States. And instead, these are CEO level boardroom

4:48 problems, and that is leading us into greater and greater corporate spend to manage a very complex and difficult landscape, of risk and opportunity. Thomas? So, zooming out a bit. First, I'll I'll say, back to Simon's introduction and speak of our parallels to the early days of of Omnicom, WPP, and etcetera. We'll put our cards on the table. Stuart and I are both alums of acquisitions to WPP. He sold his lot his federal lobbying business earlier. What what year was it? 2002, Stuart? I think it was 05/05, but who's counting? Exactly. Right. And I sold a digital media business that specialized in campaigns to to them later on in 2011.

5:34 So we represent sort of two bookends of an acquisition spree in this space into what we're ad holding companies. And those assets largely don't exist nor these these entities active in m and a market that we will represent. But looking broadly from a US perspective, we're talking about a 17 ish billion dollar strategic comms market. It's a specialty comms market. It's not an ad led consumer brand driven marketer spend. It is more c suite, government risk, government relations, and and chief counsel spend within corporates. We mentioned, Simon, again, the the sort of strict definition of lobbying versus other forms of of specialized communications, you know, oriented towards government officials.

6:26 Here you see from the senate legislation that defines our quarterly and annual reporting standards, what lobbying and the tactics of lobbying imply. We'll call that sort of shoe leather lobbying with a nod to the past. The on the on the right side, that which is growing faster and is semi disclosed, we'll say, depending on the region, largely undisclosed, but moving towards more disclosure on reporting on is the broader stratcom's market oriented towards

6:58 towards these these efforts. You see tactically what some of the differences are, though you can also see how they're very much part of the same, you know, communications campaign arsenal. And as we look at these services abroad, particularly in The UK markets, Brussels, etcetera, these definitions evolve a bit. Most important on this slide is the logos, global Fortune 500, Fortune 1,000, and their related trade associations, as well as leading NGOs, academic institutions, hospital systems, and such. All are engaged in this and have been for decades with both full time staff in Washington for the big ones and a lot of agency related vendor managed providing of these services.

7:50 So PPHC, as it's currently constructed, is actually the largest and and very important point here, nonpartisan US government affairs and public policy group. As I showed you at that first chart, you know, our business is not cyclical, and we've ensured by to make it even less cyclical in our cases that, there is a diversity of political affiliation within all of our firms, both Republican and Democrat and US parlance. And, we don't really worry about election cycles. Instead, what we're concerned about as we built the platform is providing, again, a diversity of services and tools that our clients need, again, to manage that dispersed and complex space. And, part of that dispersion, which I'll mention in a second, is geography as well as tools and capabilities, as Thomas said, public affairs in addition to, again, the retail direct advocacy traditional government affairs practice in The United States.

8:45 So if you look, you'll see that, you know, from Crossroads Strategies or an Alpine Group, those are both which we would call true registered federal, disclosed lobbying firms. Most of their work, saying some advisory, is done again directly to policymakers and regulators on behalf of clients. In the case of a seven letter, that is a fully developed public affairs offering. And in The US, again, we're as I said say often, we're separated by a common language, US to UK, but we use the term public affairs. We really mean public relations oriented toward government policy work. So, Seven Letters is a strategic communications firm. They handle everything from earned media, which is traditional press management, to, again, digital targeting and spending, on behalf of clients and and campaign develop, meaning issue campaigns.

9:39 Again, very important point, we don't really do campaign and elections work. Again, very little cyclical subject. We're very we're not subject to the cyclical, spending the campaign cycles as a result. Really, what we cons we concern ourselves with is legislative and regulatory activity. And that activity has extended into The States and The United States because of our federal system, which allows a number of reserve powers for states, including taxation and regulation of all business enterprises. So O'Neill and Associates is in Boston. We purchased KP PUBLIC AFFRIERS after the IPO. They're one of the largest in Sacramento, California, both, and they operate both in the public affairs and and lobbying space.

10:24 California is the world's fifth largest economy. So if you're in The United States, and you're frustrated with Washington and you can't get a solution at the federal level, you go to Sacramento and you try to get a law enacted, which will immediately, ripple across The United States and be impactful in terms of what other states would do, and ultimately, the federal government, would have to address that. So, you know, large state markets are aspirational for us, and, we're gonna continue to look at them. And then if you look on the far right, we just acquired multistate associates. Multistate can actually provide contract lobbying services in any state in the union. And in addition, they provide a a very high end product dealing with risk and opportunity tracking that's customized by client in any given state or or local jurisdiction

11:13 in Canada. So, again, a diversified product lines, all of these tools that we can bring to bear, for a comprehensive solution for the client. Key to that is these are strategic acquisitions, not sort of overlap into the market. You know, these really can work together as well as manage, you know, the the conflict challenges across different brands, the Airbus and Boeing, the Coke and Pepsi. Getting to the to the a little bit a tighter definition on the lobbying world, essentially, there's more than 2,500 agencies or vendors that register quarterly with the federal government. This is all available on you'll see our our our our footnotes or a site called opensecrets.org, which is a sort of government transparency NGO. Here's the top 20 for the annual year 2022,

12:02 and you'll see ours highlighted. Our emphasis was how do we build, how do we build a sort of collective suite of services representing nonpartisan specialty, for these corporates and still manage a portfolio of brands. So you see when they come together, they're the largest in town, again, within 2,500. So it speaks to the fragmentation. I'll flash back to our WPP histories just a moment for context and say, fifteen years ago, the top ten, seven out of 10 were owned by either WPP or Omnicom. WPP had four, Omnicom had three. They sort of, though, because of the disclosure requirements, they they they get to between $2,030,000,000 dollars. And without adding additional services, that's where they tend to stay in this market. You'll see some large ones within law firms, slightly different, but this just gives context to the early m and a that we've done on pre IPO in these cases and then continue after.

13:07 So on the results, just a quick quick top line. And I think very you know, we're very pleased with these because when we went to market again in late twenty one, we were dealing with several years of pro form a results and to actually be able to actually perform to the expected level, when you're actually, you know, a listed company and no no longer operating on a set of pro form a books, is very, very gratifying. So, we came in on target on revenue for the year, 108,800,000, of which 6.6 of our percent of our growth was organic. We actually started from unexpectedly high base because of a very, very strong, second half of twenty one. So we're really pleased with that organic, and then the the rest of the growth was three months of KP public affairs edition.

13:56 In terms of EBITDA, again, you know, we were we were pretty much pegged right on the number of the outside expectations at 31.2. Ultimately, you know, our underlying net income, was after tax was 23,300,000. And as we had, said repeatedly, during, presentations in the road show, our intention was to try to get somewhere near 70% of profit after tax as a dividend payout. Simon? Yeah. At at the IPO, we said that the, the dividend policy was a payout ratio up to, 70%, which provides, we believe, an attractive return to investors, but also allows us gradually to build our balance sheet. So our final dividend of 9.5¢ gives rise to a full year dividend of 14¢, and that represented a payout ratio for last year of 67%.

14:53 And as our earnings grow with with this payout policy, it follows that our dividends will grow in line with that earnings growth. And whilst we would, our druthers would be and our preference would be a higher share price and thus a lower yield, the yield does represent a fundamental attraction to the stock and this investment at the moment. And I should add that today is our ex dividend date. Back to you, Stuart. Well, thank you. I'll hear with the we'll

15:25 get into some detailed finances, but as we as we look what this portfolio means or who what this portfolio represents, we're now over a thousand clients. On the reported year '22, which was before the last acquisition, which was multistate, we were at eight fifty or thereabouts. And these are, again, largely brands that you would know or their related trade associations, handful of NGOs, big academic institutions, and the like. We concentrate as we put the portfolio together, again, thinking of where these where these acquisitions are one plus one equal three and not just overlaps, spending on more than a $100,000. And that not a huge number, but when you think of a largely retained business, that's a good sweet spot for where we have either the lobbying or others.

16:11 And and that has grown considerably over over the years. You'll see here up the 11%. And the other important thing of that is most are held by more than one of our brands. So it's a lobbyist working with a research. It's it's a public affairs business working with, which is a really nice how the complementary assets come together. You'll see here, employee wise, we're at 244. Again, that was for the reported year over 300 today. I'm just getting I'm I'm lost in the there we go. 1.6 as a client concentration is something that I know in our previous, engagements here with Investor Meets company. We've, been questioned about a lot. This is client concentration. And for those of you invested in or or involved in other agency businesses or other sort of holding company businesses serving broad portfolios, this is always something that amazed me about the lobbying business, coming from the public affairs large global agency agency worlds.

17:09 1.6%, of the top that that's top contract from the 108,000,000. And in this case, it's held by three contracts. So it's an incredibly broad sticky portfolio, which then we just are adding more and more services to. Key to the IPO, the rationale to the IPO, this is a talent business. You know, whether whether it be in the in the lobbying lobbying world or in the strategic comms, these are senior client managers. These are issue experts. These are people with broad Rolodexes and deep skills. The equity allowed for broadened employee ownership. Our reason for an early IPO and the evolution of the business is to ensure that we have a broad enough platform for growth and to also use that equity instrument and that employee ownership in our acquisitions.

17:58 Stuart and I enjoyed cash only acquisitions. I say enjoyed because we were on the original cap tables. We didn't have a means to spread in in any efficient way beyond ordinary income the the benefits to the broader set of what is a client services business. We also pride ourselves. We are not

18:18 delivering by one expert. The come in the clients that come into our brands are are are owned by the brands, and and the each of the businesses sort of has a depth of offering and a breadth of expertise This is not sort of one one counselor have a desk somewhere. It's an important note of the nature of the business, versus up versus our peers.

18:44 So just a just a quick, you know, again, summary of the financials, and I I think, you know, we we we you can look at the details in these other charts. It'll be available to you or look at our annual report as well. But nonetheless, again, you know, over the years, we've enjoyed a really nice, blend of organic and and acquisitive growth. And, again, we maintained that last year. This year, obviously, we're anticipating, you know, a pretty significant bump from having made an acquisition in October of last year and then, of course, acquired MultiState in March of this year. So, again, you'll see that mix of organic, to, to acquisition growth change from year to year. But post IPO, obviously, we're very much in acquisition mode.

19:29 So, again, we expect that to be driving a good bit of our growth.

19:34 Frankly, just on the on the, just quickly on the, EBITDA numbers, If you look, you can see that we traditionally have run, you know, within about a 25 to 30% band on EBITDA, on a normalized basis. Again, we hit 28.7 this past year, again, operating, you know, as a real listed company. And we expect based on the mix of our companies, and it is important to note that that we are a mixed margin business. Strategic communications, while very, very profitable, does not run quite a lot the the margins of direct advocacy lobby do. And as a result, we always have to, you know, manage to the margins and the operational, requirements and cost of our companies. So there is a bit of a blend.

20:20 So when the company mix changes, you'll see those bounce a little up and down. But, generally, we work very hard to keep them in the 25 to 30 range. And as our CFO is fond of saying, we do not buy revenue for revenue's sake. So we always look at the underlying profitability of the company and see where it fits into our overall margin profiles and seek to maintain that discipline when doing transactions.

20:45 Go ahead. So we have some detailed financial slides here. Simon has touched on the declared dividend. We'll get a little bit of the outlook later. If it we can certainly refer to these detailed financials again that are available for you based on the results in q and a. But rather than going through, I'll go on to the m and a, overview because I see that's where some of the questions are. We can come back with the specifics on the finances for this. I'll say on the this is a buy and build strategy. We spoke of a fragmented market, particularly the lobbying space with the 2,500 registered lobbyists just as an example. As we look in the strategic comm space to someone's direct question, yes, it's very fragmented still. We're seeing more and more activity in it by way of, you know, mergers and some PE actions.

21:36 Holding companies of yesteryear, not so much. Their their battle with with ad tech and and and basically becoming, you know, full advertising platforms are not really playing in this slightly higher margin strategic comp space. This is this includes crisis communications. This includes you would know the shops. I won't name, but, you know, people that that sort of operate in that business financial world. There's plenty of them in London that have swung between duties in Whitehall and gone back to their agencies. So globally, we're seeing an incredibly fragmented business. Where we're focused on is, yes, the margin delivery, as Stuart points out, not buying revenue for revenue's sake,

22:17 and really the premium positioning in the market vis a vis issue expertise. If someone comes to me in Brussels or London that represents global Fortune one thousands and has a particular industry, you know, specialization, here you just see whether it's pharma, health care, defense, the ones that are really in this axis of government involvement. Or when we're looking domestically, and, yes, the domestic search does continue in key state capitals, we would define the key state capitals here for those, you know, fans of Americana. We have California on one side of both population size, tech corridor, etcetera, fifth largest economy in the world, and the most progressive place in the country from a from a legislative perspective versus other side, Florida,

23:07 very large from a from a population standpoint, politically relevant, but in a very different direction from an ideological perspective. So those are bookends of both big relevant markets to corporates, but also affect the nature of legislation in Washington. So all these things work together. That said, we are not looking for 50 state capitals. There is not the need. With multistate, we get a long way towards servicing a senior client's need to operate in a handful of states in an efficient way. But we are more aggressively looking abroad now that we've settled ourself in The US, at least by way of the largest federal portfolio and some key market drivers. Here we see the the the the map.

23:55 No one needs to remember no one needs to be reminded of how big this this country is, though I would bet few of

24:01 you fly to certain places of it. You know, it's anchored by its end both economically and and ideologically, and the corporate involvements across all sectors are there. When we look abroad, you'll all know there is not the same registration and disclosure regime for lobbying in Brussels and in London and Frankfurt and otherwise. That said, there are proxies we can use both to low level of activity and listening to, again, more than a thousand clients onto where their attention needs and budgets are are be are being are being spent.

24:39 And you'll see some some recognized regions. I've been to Brussels recently. We're in London. We're in London regularly. And those are the ports of call that our clients would need us first. We're in an era where policy is being made at at g 20 meetings and not within legislative actions. And so whether you're thinking big tech and privacy, you're thinking energy and green energy transition, or you're thinking defense in the war in Ukraine, you understand where the corporates are are both spending and and concerned by. If any of you happen to be involved in the sector and know of leads, I'm easily reached, and we welcome all comers.

25:23 So just quickly to walk you all through just just a couple of our, you recent acquisitions, I think. And I think, really, more importantly, to understand, again, kind of quickly the strategy. You know, again, purchasing KP, as Thomas indicated, in California is a recognition that it helps to have a branded entity in these very large, highly active state state markets that exist in places like Florida and California or New York. And KP, of course, was, again, thoroughly in that market and was one of the top three lobbying and and communication shops in Sacramento. And, again, all with the idea to across synergies. People, they'd be feeding things in from Washington, people feeding things in from California back into Washington.

26:08 Very important to remember that we, have very strong internal referral incentives, with our companies. So while we do, as Thomas said, use the holding company model to maintain a level of brand and management integrity for conflict mitigation When it comes to a diversity of services or location, we encourage absolutely encourage and reward collaboration between companies. So KP was an excellent, again, addition for us in terms of both the market they operate in, but also the ability, again, to cross sell, into, other other areas. And then, very quickly on multistate, again, you can see these are, again, diversified product lines for us. A multistate actually doesn't do any direct advocacy. They actually rent effectively lobbyists that they have a roster of that they have pre vetted in in all state capitals, all 50, and they do work in the Canadian provinces as well.

27:05 But that is actually was well, that was their original business line. They actually now, again, are providing compliance services for all of those 50 states in terms of following the disclosure regulations for, again, lobbying activities for the clients they actually find a lobbyist for. And then also, again, if you look at the tracking band, which is now 40% of their business, this is, almost a subscription type service, a very sticky relationship, high renewal rate, obviously, but it's a customized service they provide for clients in different sectors. Again, again, you can imagine, again, with 50 jurisdictions, in The United States, all with equal powers to do very bad things to your business or provide really good opportunities, there's a need to keep abreast of those things. And simple Google searches in the databases are not going to tell companies this. So, again, that is a very, very rapidly growing business line. And, again, one of which we again see great complementary ability to cross sell that to other trusted clients.

28:05 And you'll see here like you did with the KP slide before, biggest clients here are Apple, Google, you know, Quest Diagnostics, Capital One. I mean, these are not just, local zoning issues, right, that that happens in many states. These are significant, measures impacting corporate corporate leaders. And the key to all of this really, is where the demand is coming from. Evermore government intervention and government opportunity by way of spending leads more and more activity from corporates, and that's largely not marketing activity. That's largely sort of, again, c suite advisory, board level and investment decision makers attention. This is a recent mention from from a recent white paper from POLICCO who very much operates in this space. The POLICCO pro model as well as the people that read read POLICY HOLDING Also, Stuart mentioned on the first slide a recent study from the US Chamber of Commerce sort of showing key risk factors and this sort of government axis, local, state, global, is all very much on the radar of of corporate decision makers.

29:13 They're looking for safety too. So our scale as well as our our now public listing offers you know, you don't like to create more risk by trying to solve another problem. And in today's day, whether a a fire happens in a factory somewhere or an employee gets you know, these become global issues very quickly in an age of of of Twitter and otherwise. So you can see where the attention towards this expertise is sort of a nonbrand management, but much more about corporate reputation and corporate license to operate. And just quick conclusion. I I you know, I think most of this is should have come through in this presentation. We can certainly accentuate any of this in q and a, but we really are a business services platform. And every major corporation in the world who's operating in The United States and most in Europe as well are spending, again, to manage political risk and opportunity.

30:06 We operate largely on a retained basis. Our relationships are sticky and long lasting. We are not a, quote, bid and proposal type operation, both in our comms world and in our direct advocacy world. So that, you know, we have client relationships that renew at an enormously high rate, and a great deal of predictability and stability in our revenue base from year to year. And as a result, you know, we think we're in a great market. Our financials, you know, I think speak to that, and that, you know, the strength of of, you know, our rate card, so to speak, again, because, again, we're not, chasing a low end work to the to the lowest bidder. And, you know, again, we are much more of a c suite type adviser to the clients. And, again, as that market there is gets more complicated and more difficult to manage, more geographically dispersed, We wanna be there to provide those solutions because handling them in an ad hoc fashion as people did twenty, thirty years ago is is no longer a possibility.

31:05 So, you know, we see no end to our growth possibilities. You know, really, us, the mission is to, you know, rationally drive consolidation with complementary assets in the space, and we think we're executing on that. Thanks. We'll do some questions. Go ahead, Thomas. I see. Well, I'll just state this. Thank you for people from the past presentation that have reached out. We had a little snafu and some investor sign ups, but I think it's been resolved. I'll also say we've we've we've been working with the retail platforms to get us, you know, broader exposure. You'll see here where we are confirmed and where we are working. This is largely just due to our US base and and a technicality that is being worked through. But thank you for those who have found ways and and for those who have been in touch with us after the last presentation.

31:56 On the on the q and a, we've we've answered on on a few. So I'll start with David's to to to Simon and Stuart. This is a this is a good question, and you can imagine we get it in many investor meetings. It's great to see such a substantial dividend. Would it be more efficient to rebase this to a more normalized level to reduce and and add the equity element of m and a and to, future and therefore increase returns. So that is the push pool of dividend versus versus invest in the growth. I'll let I'll let Stuart take the first step. I would I would say, you know, and again, Thomas mentioned it earlier that when we IPO ed, one of the important things was is to make sure that you we use the equity instrument to essentially align our employees with our investors. And, listing in The UK, there was an investor expectation, I think, for good dividends.

32:45 In our case, obviously, we had some very highly compensated senior partners and and, key drivers to our business. And also, again, a talent, acquisition and retention issue that's always present in these types of businesses where people carry their clients and their clients build relationships with them. And, you know, again, as Thomas mentioned, he and I are sitting here for a reason because we did an all cash deal when we sold years ago. So the equity instrument is really a strong part of, you know, binding our our employees, And that dividend yield right now is serving a really good purpose in terms of, you know, both rewarding our outside investors and our employees, shareholders, as well, in terms of of cash yield. So for right now, we're content with it. You know, obviously, we're gonna always evaluate that. Certainly, it would be, good to have more growth capital out of our profits, to reinvest in more m and a, but you know? And we'll evaluate that on an ongoing basis. But, for right now, you know, at least at this early stage, first year and a half, we feel like that the alignment of the outside to the inside is very strong with that dividend yield, and, we're gonna stay there for right now. And if if if I can add, I think the board is comfortable both with this year's dividend and the payout policy, and there's certainly no indication that we're giving that that's that's going to change.

34:08 We actually think the strength of the business will become more and more visible over time, and that will translate into a significantly higher share price. And when that happens, obviously, future acquisitions where we do need to fund through equity rather than our cash resources or through debt will be will be that much less dilutive. And there have been one or two recent precedent transactions that sort of give us confidence that the value in our business has not yet been fully reflected in the share price. And that is where I see, some of the, the the the future strength and the future opportunities for us, to continue to build the business through m and a. Nick b asked further, can, can expand on how you would look to fund future acquisitions.

34:59 I think that's sort of covered in that. The reality is right now, particularly domestically, we are in in pit battle with private equity on some key on on some strategic comms assets. There's no surprise that they're they're they're actively playing in our space in a in a renewed effort. I think we we we think the equity instrument is differentiated and key to us finding the right partners that are looking to build onto the platform and not just exit to to you know, similar to what we did. I think it is a real screening mechanism. And in both cases of the acquisitions done post IPO, we've been able to use it for substantial portions of the pay and across the broad the broad set of leadership team.

35:46 So in both cases, there was a senior and junior set of partners, k p six total, multi state thirteen, that post acquisition are now all aligned through, yes, a dividend high equity, but about the few the the future growth of the of the integrated business. So it is a key part of the acquisitions. We did take first time debt, in in recent months to fund the cash portion of the multistate deal, upon IPO and all the transactions done to date have been debt free. There's other than the debt that was taken in March, there's no leverage on the business. So there's other opportunities there as the debt picture changes. Go ahead. I think, Thomas I think you've covered that. Well, Thomas is supposed to be the strategy officer, but he didn't Yeah. I'm I'm I'm Next item. Truly not much more to say. I'll say here, you know, Nick, you also asked about the stratcoms market. I I think we've touched on before.

36:44 Yes. Very fragmented. There's not the registration regime that that gives us the 2,500 plus numbers as in the federal lobbying space. If there were, you know, whether it be memberships to public affairs, associations, or other sort of global trades, we know there's lots. I think separating those that are that are either sort of individual founder run boutiques, dare dare I call them lifestyle businesses with love for lifestyle businesses, I say that, versus those that either have the senior connectivity into corporates and the breadth of portfolio that make them regularly profitable. I'll also say to domestic friends watching this and those sort of very involved in even UK politics, we do shy away from politics, not because we don't love it personally and not because we haven't done it personally.

37:31 The risk factors, particularly in The US settings on what are now very extremist, sides, means corporates need a a a a nonpartisan middle ground helping hand. And so while talent comes from Capitol Hill and talent can come from the White House and off of campaigns, we do shy away from that cyclical revenue, and the fact that it gets a little bit, too too close to to danger zone for corporates. We have to mind them through, the morass of our current politics versus versus, you know, engaging in ourselves. On the That was all the questions. I appreciate those who were repeat visitors. Yeah. Those that came back to see us again, appreciate it. You know, tell a friend.

38:19 We appreciate your eyes on the business. We will be more and more active on INC and more and more active in the m and a world. We're all enjoying our annual meeting in London in in some weeks, and you'll read we just posted our annual report. So do follow-up with any questions via this platform or us directly, and we look forward to continuing the conversation with you. Thank you for your time today. Thank you. Perfect. Stuart, Thomas, Simon, thank thank you very much for updating investors today. Could 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? 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 PUBLIC POLICY HOLDING COMPANY, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good afternoon to you all.