Record (LSE:REC) — Half Year Results

0:01 Good morning and welcome to the RECORD PLC Half Year Results Investor Presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged and can be submitted at any time by the Q and A tab situated on the right hand corner of your screen. Just simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company 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 Leslie Hill, CEO. Good morning.

0:31 Good morning. Thank you very much. Good morning, everybody. And thank you all for joining us again. And for those of you who are new to this, welcome. Hopefully, we're going to show you some interesting things and be delighted to answer as many of your questions as we can. We have some pre submitted questions, which we will be addressing as we work through the material as they link into some of the slides that we'll be showing. I think without more ado, we would go straight to the introduction. And we're going to go through again in a in a bit of detail our strategy and the progress we're making with it. And then, obviously, we're going to look at the numbers and also give you a little bit of background on investment performance.

1:18 So the first page is something which has been available for a little while now. It is a three year plan with the highlights of that that we set out earlier in the year, and we are on target. It's very early days. And, of course, these things never come in quite neat little straight line. But as you can see from the left hand boxes on the slide,

1:47 we are showing some good trajectory in the right direction with an increase in revenue, as you can see, with an improvement in margins and all the things that we had hoped we could do, we are starting to do and intend to continue. We are on target for where we would like to be. We cannot give you at the moment quite as much detail as I'm sure you are hungry for, and it was indeed one of the questions we were asked, which was could you give us more details? I'll read it. Any more details you can give on your new products and pipeline and the scale and timing at which they might start to meaningfully contribute to results. At the moment, they are only just starting to contribute to results. I'm not sure I would call it quite yet meaningful.

2:37 A lot of the growth we're seeing is still in currency, although there is some from other products.

2:44 And we are rolling out these over the course of the next six months to a year. So I think there'll be a lot more information that we can give you now. I don't know if you can explain it. Yes. Go ahead, Steve. I was hoping you would jump in. Yeah. No. I just I was just going to add that I think a lot of the progress in the new products and strategies,

3:05 obviously, there are very step various steps that we need to go through to achieve that. And and some of those steps are actually on the slide. So achieving the license allows us further scope in in in in Germany. And also, obviously, the getting the the Lux the Luxembourg fund structure in place is is an important step in in allowing us to progress some of the the plans that we've got on on on the new products as well. So these things are obviously, there's various steps that we need to go through. What we're showing here is that, you know, some important steps have have been taken now, and we would expect

3:43 we would expect sort of traction and and and new product launches certainly in in the next financial year. Timing is never never quite known with with with ultimate certainty, but we would certainly expect some traction on those new products, hopefully, early in the new year. One of the other questions we received, it was actually the fourth question. In the interims, you say we are seeking growth in revenue and profits broadly in line with expectations. What expectations are you referring to here? Because the analyst expectation for f y twenty three and company expectations of 60,000,000 in revenue in f y twenty five, or is there something else? And just to confirm, our expectations are linked always to the three year plan we have now published.

4:33 So when we say we are seeing growth in line with expectations, we're referring to that plan. Hopefully, that answers that question. Unless And and and well, sorry. Sorry to that. There you go. Keep butting. Yeah. Keep butting in, Leslie. But I I think it's just just just to add to that that the analyst expectations are are set broadly sort of in mind based on sort of current position and and run rates. And until we're able to give a little bit more color on the new products and timings and maybe, you know, some of the sizes of these new new projects. The the analysts rightly, you know, can't really hang any numbers to that. So I think the the plan is for us to certainly give more more color early in the New Year. We have a capital markets event date dated February 9.

5:26 And that at that point, we will hopefully be able to give more information on on certainly certainly two or three of those new projects, where we are, what they look like, size, timings, in order that the analyst can then start to put some numbers into their into their models. And we there's an expectation then that we should start seeing the upward trajectory reflected in the analyst numbers as well as our own internal numbers. That makes sense. There may be a question on that. And if there is, we will see it in the box, won't we? And why don't we move in the absence of another question, why don't we move on to the next page, which in a sense is simply a summary of what we've just said. I will work through these bullet points quickly, just to make sure everyone has got the information they want and that we are methodically approaching the material.

6:19 So, as I've said, we are progressing both in terms of our diversification, in terms of the growth, in revenue and profits. Our modernization plan is very much on budget and on target, which I think is a big success. And we're working very hard, continue to work on our succession plan, which is rolling out very nicely. We have a good platform. We have a very clear vision. We know exactly, I believe, how to get to where we want to be at the end of our plan, which, of course, is not the end of time. We have plans beyond that as well, but this will these will evolve and be revealed, if you like, in the coming months and years.

7:03 One of the key points is to diversify away from pure currency, not abandoning currency, but recognizing it's not enough alone to make us into a really material business. It's a bit of a niche business. We can live and survive and, in some measure, prosper with currency, but we can prosper a great deal more with much more diversification.

7:26 And the diversification means we need to improve our, skill sets, which we're doing with, new investment management skills, with new distribution agreements and partnerships, and new ability to manage, new instruments and derivatives. As Steve mentioned, we have now got our Buffin license and our Luxembourg RACE structure are in Luxembourg is nearly done. We're just putting all that together, and there are a number of projects waiting to go once that is, available for investment. These projects could come in the form of a client asking for a specific fund or a group of clients asking for us to build them a specific fund, or it could come from a partner of ours, potentially someone like mentioned in the next bullet point, AGL, The US based syndicated loan manager with whom we've partnered, who would like us to build funds for Europe.

8:21 And that is also true for, the V Team group who we've worked with for a number of years now who are a large supply chain finance platform of some twenty years standing. So we combine the ability to distribute products, build funds, manage funds with the ability to build new combinations of investment ideas. The digital economy, we've spent the last two years thinking very hard about how to approach this, whether to, and how to. And we've now just started to make investments in three areas. One is small, with some of our spare cash venture capital investments that give us three opportunities. Number one, a seat at the table with some very interesting people who are doing good work in this area. Number two, an enhancement to the return on our loose cash to justify, the fact that we have this cash above and beyond our regulatory cash. We shouldn't keep it unless we can use it.

9:26 And thirdly, to learn about this area, which is evolving so quickly. I see a question from Peter b. Does the proposed investment of excess capital intervention capital signal the end of special dividends? No. We hope not. The special dividends are declared when we can. We're not intending to increase our cash pot at the moment. We might decide we need more more, but we are a cash generative business, so we could hold back a little bit more. Later on, we will be talking about our dividend policy, and perhaps we can give you a little bit more information on that. Actually, you know what? I can't quite keep up with the questions. You're all very you're all very wide awake this morning. Hold on. It seems like an unnecessary distraction and risk to venture into something like venture capital. Alright.

10:15 Let me just address that. I I don't want to be distracted away from the summary, but I think it's a really good question. The reason we're doing it is the following. As a currency company, we want to cover the spectrum of all kinds of currencies, everything from developed frontier and cryptocurrency. But we want to do it in a sensible and organized way. We want to be mister and missus sensible in this space, and there is definitely a need for this kind of help, for our clients who are very intrigued by not only the world of cryptocurrency, which is only one piece of the whole digital and blockchain environment, but, but also the evolutions in technology and the way it's changing, the way assets are managed and approached.

11:04 So we don't think it's a distraction because, clearly, we want to be diversified, but we do think we need to be very carefully focused. In that respect, Peter, you're quite right. I would say that

11:17 taking two years as we have to think very hard about it, looking at lots of opportunities at the risk of being frivolous. We've had to kiss a lot of frogs. I would say probably for every eight opportunities we've looked at, we're really only going with one, one out of eight, something like that.

11:34 And it is part of our integrated asset management strategy. It isn't outside of it. I am going to make very sure that no one piece of our diversification strategy can ever overwhelm the other pieces. So we don't want it to be a damaging distraction. We want it to be an additive activity, and I believe it can be. And, firstly, it's it's I think it's it's I think it's sorry. I think it's worth noting as well that, you know, this is this is this is this is us as a business trying to make sure that we keep up to speed with the future changes in finance. So the the world of finance is changing rapidly. And, you know, as a business, it's it's our it's our job to stay up to speed with those developments.

12:23 And and and this isn't just focused on any one part, the sort of cryptocurrencies, or it's it's it's it's a broad base across the board in terms of the the digital asset space. And it's, you know, it's it's it's I think it's an absolute necessity that as a business, we we we keep up to speed, and we we use the technology, and we understand the technology. And and, you know, we can we can come we can give our clients products and services that use the technology going forward. And and this is the first step in us sort of understanding that and and knowing how it all fits together and works.

12:57 Exactly. I think there's a really relevant question here from Joseph who says, I appreciate you can't give us any details, but is there any chance you could give us a sense for whether achieving the targets will be the result of many small wins or or or one or two large ones? And how much of the of pitching would be involved in getting to the target versus mandates that already won and scaling?

13:21 What kind of win rate do you assume? So I would say that the diversification strategy involves a number of quite large targeted project develop project evolution strands, not lots of small wins. There are some quite large client very large clients that we're working very closely with. Most of them, not all of them, most of them are at the stage of final negotiation or in the case of what I suppose you would call pitching, we're doing due diligence. So we're getting along very well. We did not base 60,000,000 on some kind of pie in the sky, finger in the air number. We had a very clear picture. What I would also say is obviously not every project is hugely successful.

14:07 So we need more opportunities and strands we're working on in order to be certain that the 60,000,000 and more, hopefully, in the future is is achievable. We don't we don't interestingly enough, we don't have to do a lot of RFP type pitches for this sort of business, which is very attractive to us. So it's where we are working with either existing clients to develop something to order or working with a partner, external partner to build a fund for the clients that they're bringing to us. So it it's quite a nice way to build business. We're not in the let's do 10 RFPs and see if we win one. It's much more of a partnership with our clients. It goes back to what I said at the beginning, listening several years ago. Listening to the clients, they'll tell you what they want if they like you, and many of them have been with us many years, and they will work with you to evolve a product range which can then be marketed.

15:07 I appreciate Joseph also says he knows we can't give him any details, but he would like to know what asset markets, equity, fixed income, etcetera, do you need to add to hit the 60,000,000 target? I would say we need currency. We need broadly based derivatives. We need fixed income, which we're already building. We also have aspirations to move into the infrastructure space, not as experts, but as fund builders for other experts. We have a Sharia compliant component that we're building and very close to seeding. And we have which you always see is not an asset class in itself, but it's a particular strand of revenue. And then we have the whole digital project, which is just starting to get off the ground.

15:53 How much, if any, natural inflow is there into your existing AUM for your mandatory pension contributions? The way we get inflows is indeed when the pension fund does our pension funds or our clients do new investment strategies. But I would say we don't really see inflows when directly in the way you described. So pension funds might increase in size because of contributions, and they might then come to us and reallocate, but we aren't it's not usually transparent to us.

16:29 Are there negatives related to diversification into new funds? And the reason I'm taking all these questions, guys, is because they're very relevant to the summary and outlook. So I'm trying to although Joseph is giving me a lot of questions here. Joseph's laid down. I can't keep up. Are there any negatives related to diversification into new funds? Might asset stickiness be reduced? It's a really good question. Particularly for things like our infrastructure project, I think potentially for the first time, we may find ourselves in a position where we have excuse me. I'm just gonna hey, guys. Could you just sorry. I'm getting a lot of noise in the background. As asset stickiness, I think, will increase with the diversification into some of the new funds that we're contemplating. It won't be every strand, but certainly something like the infrastructure project would have something we've never seen before, which is much more locked in fee structures, which is and also attractive fee structures. So I think that's a positive for us.

17:30 Now where are we here? Have we done let me just see. There's one more question from Joseph that I can see here. You mentioned growth in the pipeline of opportunities in new and existing products. Is this beyond your expectation? Is it beyond what is needed to get to 60,000,000? Well, we have been conservative in our 60,000,000 plan, which doesn't mean that we have been, should we say, too conservative, but I would hope that we can do certainly get to the 60,000,000, and I think I know exactly how to do that. So perhaps we can do more. Let's just see. You will note we've returned to earning performance fees, which are episodic and not quite of the same quality of earnings as management fees. And those cannot always be relied on, but can provide a nice positive surprise from time to time.

18:20 Does the recruitment of experienced hires bring clients and funds with them, or is it more speculative? Are there costs already embedded in the income statement with little revenue attached? Recruitment of experienced hires will bring clients, I believe, and funds. Our European team are the ones who brought us the infrastructure opportunity. There aren't really, costs embedded without revenue attached except in as much. And the question says, are there costs already embedded in the income statement with little revenue attached? I would simply say that the cost of our modernization project, which is on target and on budget,

18:59 doesn't bring naturally revenue attached from the day from day one, but does allow us to scale our existing business, particularly currency where fees are always under pressure. And therefore, I would say it does link to revenue, but not necessarily on day one. Oh, Joseph, I've got an opportunity for Steve's question here, which is probably we'll hold it till we get to the financial results because it's about the tax rate. So we were nearly at the bottom of our summary and outlook. There were two Mhmm. Two bullet points. I'm I'm clinging on to it. I'm clinging on here. A strong capital position committed strategy. I think you all can understand that. I think I've given you some of that. And, obviously, the interim dividend, which we announced, which is very much in line with our existing dividend policy.

19:50 So let's see here. We've got a few more questions, but they seem to be starting to relate to investment performance, which is probably opportune. What comes next, Steve, on our slide pack that you think? We've we have we have got a small section on product investment performance, so we can we can run through those, Leslie, quickly. So Patrick has given us a question about performance fees. Patrick, I'm going to take that one in the next slide, not this one because that's where the performance fees arrive. This is just a quick example, and I don't want to get into so much detail that everyone gets exhausted, but, we have long standing US dynamic hedging clients. Our dynamic hedging product has been running, believe it or not, since 1983 and was invented by our founder, Neil Record, and it's still running today. It's evolved, but it still runs.

20:41 If you're an American client, you are receiving from RECORD the bright blue line. We generate positive returns for you when the dollar rises, and we all know it has

20:50 risen precipitously this year, and we've delivered results accordingly. I just want you to understand that this product, the results are episodic. I don't need to tell you that. You can see it from the line. They deliver the the product delivers what it says on the can. It it earns money for our clients when the dollar rises, and this is incredibly important for those people who've invested overseas and wish to protect themselves. Just one sec. Hey, guys.

21:30 It's the disadvantages of having to make a call from home, but I managed to shut them all up now. So we'll go on. Right. Dynamic hedging, I think, covered. We've had these clients a long time. They're quite hard to win because the results are episodic and the programs have to be big. But when they deliver, the clients are very happy as indeed they are at the moment.

21:52 I think there was nothing about that particular product in the question. So shall we move on to the one relating to forward fees? So we have a hedging product we employ we deploy in Europe where we keep the hedge ratios constant, but we vary the tenants, the horizon of the hedges against a one month benchmark, which is the classic one of the classic benchmarks clients can use. And we can earn performance fees, for improving the performance of the hedges vis

22:21 a vis the benchmark. And indeed, for a number of years, we did earn performance fees. Through COVID, we actually lost money, and we have a permanent high watermark for these clients. We have now returned to health. Steve, you'll be able to remind me exactly how much we have earned so far in performance fees since they came back. But Patrick's question is, can you give us some color as to the length of typical measurement period, quarterly or annual? And if, for example, the performance fees earned on the last day of a quarter, when would it be recognized? So I think this is a timely question, Steve, for us to address. Yes. I mean, performance fee it the performance fee sort of wind measurement window is is can vary, and it depends on the client, to be quite honest. We we have clients with twelve month measurement windows, quarterly measurement windows, six monthly measurement windows. It it really does depend on the client. But I think from our perspective, the fact that we've got different sort of window windows in place will hopefully potentially give us more of a steady flow of performance fees in the future rather than just once, you know, same window for every client a year. So, yeah, it it typically depends on on the on the client requirements.

23:36 If a performance fee is earned on the last day of a quarter and it's on a quarterly measurement, then we will recognize it in that quarter. Otherwise, you know, if it's on a six monthly, we might have to wait another quarter. So it really does it it really does depend when it crystallizes and where it is within that client's sort of measurement measurement window.

23:56 Thank you. Hopefully that hopefully that makes sense. Joseph is back, and he has asked me asked if if you succeed in hitting the 60,000,000 target, does it make it theoretically easier to keep building the business? I do bigger funds and a broader portfolio lead to more scale and more opportunity? Yes.

24:18 Definitely. There's no doubt about that as long as the products and sales are scalable, obviously. Let's see. There is a partnership with AGL, and Vivek has asked, with respect to the partnership with AGL, can you talk a little bit about the scope of the relationship? This is a very good question. Is RECORD acting as a third party manager, European affiliate, feeder into the AUM? Sorry. Oh, says, I'm speculating. Let me let you answer. Right. So the answer there in the respect of AGL and many of we have several partners, and we may have a few more in the future. They have different requirements. In the respect in respect of AGL, they needed two things from us. They wanted us to help open up the European markets for them, which was not a market they were familiar with, wanted to guide them through the regulatory, issues and hurdles, and they wanted us to build some funds for them in Luxembourg that they could use to market their products. And they were also interested in combining their product,

25:21 for example, with those of our some of our other partners so as to produce, let's say, multi asset funds. So they've asked us to do a number of different things. And that relationship has built and evolved and grown, and we are now working with them in an environment, the Sharia compliant environment, which we were able to build for them with another partner. So we do a lot of different things. Joseph. Oh my goodness. Joseph is paying his compliment. Am I allowed to read a compliment? I think I am. Thank you ever so much from a delighted shareholder in Windsor. That's great. What I would say, Joseph, is I really do believe there's tremendous opportunity here. We could go so much further with this. We're really at the beginning. I know it doesn't feel like we're at the beginning because we've been talking to you for a little while, and we're a 40 year old company.

26:11 But we're almost a 40 old start up in a strange way. As long as we can keep the business we've got steady and building gradually the way it does, manage the fee compression with modernization and efficiencies, and then build the diversifying structures around it, and never let one structure overwhelm any other. So all these strands must be managed in such a way as to create, as you rightly say, a portfolio approach. That is the challenge. It is entirely possible for things like the digital opportunity to generate fees that are much, much higher than anything we would see from traditional currency. So we need to balance that so that it doesn't get overwhelming. There is a tax question, Steve, which we'll probably have to take at some point, but I think maybe we'll wait till we get to the financials there.

27:00 Sure. Okay. Now what's next? Oh, we have a bit I would pass over the MultiStripe, is small, but I would hit on to the EMSF, I think, in giving the interest of time. So some of you may remember we launched a product with UBS Wealth in Switzerland over a year ago, which was the record emerging market sustainable finance fund built to their order. We can market it to other people, and we'll be doing so next year. But so far, it's only been their money. As you will see right hand side, that's the NAV. That's the growth of funds. They put in $707,150, a bit more than that million to start with. They then added another slug later in the year. And since then, it's the NAV has reduced, which is not because of their their losing faith with the process or the the fund, which has performed well as you can see on the left hand side of your screen. But it's principally because we're part of a portfolio of sustainable finance opportunities. And when the equity one falls, they rebalance all of them. So we are affected by that. Having said that, the emerging market sustainable finance fund is invested in EM debt, impact bonds, green bonds, and frontier and EM currency.

28:21 So it hasn't been a particularly good space. If you look at how the indices have performed and indeed how some of our peers have performed, it's been a horrible period. So our performance, whilst I wouldn't say exciting in nectar in real sort of nominal terms, has been good relative to our peers. And we believe that in the coming year, we're going to invest more time and effort in this because I think we can garner some more funds from potentially other entities beyond UBS. And I do believe UBS will come in with some more funds from their advisory group in the course of the year. We would have expected it to happen by now, but the uncertain international situation has not helped. And all the things that we've seen, know, this has been a very disruptive time and continues to be. So it's not easy.

29:11 But I think UBS is very committed. They're very happy with how we perform relative to the benchmark, and I think we can do more of this with them. So that's enough on performance, I think, unless, of course, Joseph has a question because Joseph has a question on everything. But if he doesn't and nobody else does, I think we'll move on to the next bit. What's what have we got next, Steve? Oh, hello. Just, yeah, just a little bit of a a deeper dive on on some of the headline financials. I I think first and foremost, we're we're we are pleased with the way things are going. You know, we've we've had some strong results for the six months. If you look at our revenue, we've had 35% increase versus this time last year in in in our in our revenue.

29:55 That does include the performance fees of 2,800,000. But if even if you take those out, we're still 19% up in terms of management fees versus the same time last year. So we you know, we're we're very happy with the progress on on on the revenue side. Operating margin increased to 34% versus 32% this time last year. So we are starting starting to see a little bit of improvement in the operating margin despite some fairly difficult

30:28 Headwinds. We'll call it Headwinds, I think, in terms of inflation and and, obviously, some some some some sort of increases in costs across the board. But, you know, that's pretty much every business at at at the moment. So we're we're we're pleased with the slight increase in the margin. Sorry, Leslie. No. No. I interrupted you, Steve. I think it's probably worth everybody understanding here that for us,

30:50 having the right staff in the right jobs and keeping them happy is unbelievably important. It's probably the most important thing I do, really. And in order to help them with the impact of inflation, we did do a one off inflation payment, should we say, cost of living payment. We did £3,000 to every member of staff excluding the board, which obviously has much more impact on a junior analyst or a young developer who's just joined us or a secretary than it would have on a

31:21 director at RECORD. And we did it as a flat payment in order to be able to contain, obviously, the cost of doing it, but most importantly, so that the people who need the help most get most help relative to their overall salary from RECORD. And it was well received. We'd like not to have to do another one. There's no guarantees, of course, but we have noted inflation appears to perhaps be peaking in The US, so let's just keep an eye on that. But as Steve said, it does affect it makes it hard for us to keep growing our margins, but we are managing to do that. And we are on target to get to

31:57 much closer to 40% margins than we have at the moment, which, of course, makes us look a bit more like other successful asset managers. Yeah. And and and, again, I think just to follow on from that, I think the hopefully, you know, going forward, the efficiencies that we we hope to see from the the investment that we're making in sort of the technology side of the business,

32:17 plus the, you know, some of the new products coming online with much higher revenue margins, we would expect sort of the kicker, if you like, in the in the in the operating margin. Certainly, hopefully, to see something in the next financial year on that. Notwithstanding that, we've seen an increase of 46% in the profit before tax for the half year. Earnings up 57% versus same period last year, and that's fed through to the interim dividend, which we've increased by 14 versus the same time last year. So, you know, we we feel that we've got a good set of results. We're very pleased with the way things are going, And, you know, we hope to see more of the same certainly in the second half and and and next financial year as well.

33:03 I've got a question here, Steve, which is probably appropriate, although it doesn't link directly to the financial slides you're showing. Could you please talk us through the current competitive dynamics of the currency for return market? REC enjoyed immense, success here before the GFC, but the reemergence of material interest rate divergence has not led to similar success. Why is this? I have to say that the currency for return market is a really patchy market. If you look back over history, it's really hard to find people who have succeeded for longer than three to five years in this market. There's a lot of what I suppose I would call amateur no. Well, amateur's wrong. Let's say enthusiastic punting around of currencies, which has rarely any long term robust success. Any kind of any kind of information ratio of better than point five, in other words, something that looks like an active return is extremely hard to maintain.

34:07 It is one of the reasons why we chose to diversify because we recognize how hard it is to make sustained robust money in this market in a way that really allows you to compete not just with other people doing it, but with other asset classes that are available. For example, those that have emerged through the digital economy.

34:28 So I think it's it's extremely hard to predict currency. Somebody, I think it was Martin Wolf from the Feet once said, to predict currency, you have to predict what seven and a half billion people are going to do every day, which in some it sounds a bit flippant. But in some respect, I I get it. You know, I can see what you were saying, and we understand that. So many of our products are based on hedging strategies, which link to underlying assets like the dynamic hedging project I showed you and the tenant management project I showed you. And that is a way you can make sustained money at slightly lower information ratios generally than point five, and it links into an overall portfolio the client is managing. So you you you fit within their world, if you like. Currency for return hasn't really been able to create its own genuine asset class.

35:20 We're always keen to find anyone who thinks they can manage currencies over longer than five years successfully at better than point five as the information ratio. It's hard to find. The material the rate divergence issue is an interesting one. I think I think there's so much uncertainty at the moment, which is not really anybody's friend in investment terms. It's extremely hard to predict quite how high interest rates should go as opposed to how high they can go if you look at, developed market economies who've borrowed a lot of money and can ill afford to see higher rates. So I think that has caused given people pause for thought. They haven't all piled in to follow the rate divergence as enthusiastically as they might have done a decade ago.

36:09 I hope that helps a little bit. There's no easy answer to that question. No. But I think, Leslie, the interest rate divergence does give us more opportunities on the to earn performance fees on the tenant management side, doesn't it? It does. It does. You have to structure your currency business very carefully. Passive doesn't earn you a lot of fees, but generates operational risk. Hedging has decent fees, but they're not hugely exciting. The programs, however, are large or can be large. Currency for return has patchy results for us and others, and it's not easy. And I have seen some other hedge funds, currency hedge funds, actually even turning to start doing hedging to, let's say, diversify their activities. I believe diversification needs to be broader than that to really make a success of your business, and that's what we're doing.

36:59 Right. What else we got here? Is there anything else that we need to has anybody else come back with a question? I quite like this question. There's another question from Vivek. Leslie, should Brilliant. Do you want me to take it? I do if you know what the answer is. Great. Yeah. I'll give it I'll give it a go. The question is, have compensation costs been accrued in line with the higher performance fees recognized?

37:22 And is the group bonus scheme independent of the revenue composition, composition, or will this change as the business diversifies its product suite? I think I think the first half of that question, the answer is yes. The group bonus scheme is directly linked to the pre bonus operating profit of the business. So performance fees do impact the size of the the bonus pool. Is the group bonus scheme independent of revenue composition? So no is the answer to that. It's none of the current none of this point in time. It's not there aren't any plans to change that at this at this point in time. That's not to say that, you know, in the future, we won't change things. But certainly, at this point in time, let's see. The the bonus scheme is linked to sort of the the group operating profit including performance fees.

38:14 What I do like and what we are doing quite a bit of and trying to more of is to encourage particularly those people who identified as future leaders of the business to take bonuses as in shares as much as they are able and willing to do it, grant them options. We now have an LTIP scheme and a JSOP scheme. All of these schemes are rather complicated, but allow people to be granted the opportunity to accrue shares. That for me is one of the most important pieces of our succession plan. I know this is not a direct answer to your question, Vivek, but compensation in the round, I think, is very important, both keeping our salaries competitive, reflecting people's performance in their bonus, and particularly sales and investment team to deliver revenue or deliver investment performance and allowing people to accrue shares and become owners in a way that's meaningful to them. I'd like to feel that people could build up a stake that is equivalent to the other largest investment they might have in their portfolio, whether it's their home or an investment portfolio or other thing.

39:24 It needs to be really matter to them because then their behaviors are very much the way we wish them to be. Now, there's a question from James about the dividend policy and also a question about how much we committed on digital assets. The digital one's quite quick. As you all know, we have quite a lot of cash in excess of our regulatory cash to date. We have, committed, we're ready to commit up to 2,000,000 in the digital asset venture capital investment. This represents five investments at the moment. And we've committed 1,000,000 of our loose cash, you can call it that, to our cryptocurrency project with a gentleman who's been trading cryptos now for six years and who is going to be a very exciting partner for us if we're successful in finalizing our negotiations with him and launching a fund for him, which is what he'd like us to do.

40:18 I think so far, we've committed about one we've invested one and a half and committed two, I think. Is that right, Steve, or are we not Yeah. That's that's probably right. Yeah. Yeah. Dividend policy. So it's a small piece, but I'm hoping it can grow both in terms of its value, but also what it means for us and in terms of what we learn and how we, evolve as as a business in this area. As I've said, I want to be mister and missus sensible here. I think everyone should have one or 2% of their assets devoted to this exciting new area, but you don't want to be defrauded. You want to go to someone who understands governance, who has a long history of experience in the world of currencies, who understands how to manage carefully a risk diversified portfolio.

41:03 And we think maybe we can be those people or one of them, and that will be a very opportunist there'll be great opportunities for that us in that area. Now Steve has turned to the dividend policy because Jamie has asked a question, and he says, are you going to talk about dividend policy and specials and how they relate to core earnings and performance fees, which can be lumpy and variable. Correct. Right. Steven? Yes. So the the dividend policy was changed slightly at the end of last financial year where we we decided to give give more of a an idea to shareholders on on what the ordinary payout ratio might look like going forward. So we we put in sort of a payout ratio, a target payout ratio of between 70 to 90% of earnings.

41:51 We don't feel at this point in time that we need need to build the balance sheet at all. We we've we've we've got a very cash generative business model. So what we want to do is to show sort of progressive and sustainable dividend growth in line with the plans for increased profitability. So we we've gone from sort of 1.15 interims in 2021 to 1.8 last year to 2.05 this year. So we are seeing a gradual and sustained dividend growth in line with the with those profits. The split between the sort of ordinary and special is is is exactly, Jamie, I think, what you spotted in or what you've asked in your question. We wanna leave ourselves the flexibility whilst having a setting a a progressive ordinary dividend policy to to be able to pay specials.

42:44 It's sort of linked linked to the performance fees as well as as within the business. So setting the ordinary level that sort of if if we strip out the performance fee element of the earnings per share, I think the 2.05p broadly equates to about 80% of the nonperformance EPS, if you like. So, again, we're we're we're almost smack bang in the middle of the 70 to 90%. And that's kind of the the way I view it certainly going forward is that we want to we want to allow ourselves the flexibility if we need a little bit more to come down slightly to the lower end of the 70%. But but if we don't need the cash, I think, you know, the feeling is we're we're we're happy to return that to shareholders. It's not it's not our money after all. So you're right. The variability of earnings with performance fees, we we sort of we want the core ordinary dividends to show progressive steady growth and the the sort of the the the the the top layer of the cake, if you like, which is the performance fees, we we will have the the ability to pay out or or or maybe, you know, retain some if we need some for a special project or or or further investment. But there are no plans for that at this point in time.

44:01 Graham e has asked, could you give us an update on your succession plans? So in the course of the last couple of yes. We can. In the course of the last couple of years, we've had quite a few changes at the top of the business. Obviously, myself as CEO, we've had a new CIO. We have a new CTO. And the top level was really where we needed to make some changes because just like me, there were people who've been in the business for a very long time. And I think it was holding us back from evolving the business because they had very clear ways of working and and things that they wanted to do. And it it didn't really include the sorts of things I think we needed to do to make us a more successful business.

44:48 The succession the the change of the changes at the top gave us the opportunity to bring in a number of new people. And those new people, they weren't necessarily new to RECORD, but they were new in their roles. They have definitely, proved themselves and have demonstrated that they can take the business in a very exciting, dynamic, new direction, can help with modernization, can build our revenue base. I want more of that. I don't think a couple or three or four of them is enough. We need more. We they can't and not everyone can be in that position, but we definitely are on the hunt for more talent all the time and are finding it. And then my job is to keep it, to manage the people in such a way that they are in the right jobs and are happy and they stay with RECORD and make RECORD their career.

45:38 That is my plan. And if we are successful in doing that, then the succession plans will be self evident, I think. We've had more promotions in the last couple of years than we've had in the preceding ten. I think that was the number that my HR director told me. Now on the one hand, that's quite disruptive because, clearly, business as usual is steady, conservative, stable. You kind of know what to expect. But the people are rising to the challenge. They're really enjoying it, I think, most of them. There are a few who want the change in terms of the remuneration but find it difficult to cope with change. And so what they really like is more money but no change. And that's quite difficult to achieve, but they are coming around, and people take a while to get used to change. Some people embrace it enthusiastically.

46:25 I'm one of the ones that does. I find that quite easy and enjoyable and always have, but not everyone's the same. So some people choose not to stay. Some of the senior people who left were we're still good friends with them. They still act as advisers to us, but the way we were going was not for them. And that's absolutely fine if you've been in the business longer than twenty years and you're approaching your, you know, seventh decade, shall we say. So are there any other updates? I think not. We will continue to do what we're doing, searching for new talent, promoting from within, giving new people opportunities to show us what they can do, bringing in a few selected partners from outside. I plan to stay definitely, probably a little bit beyond the three year plan, although I did promise the board I would stay that long.

47:15 I've got past the horrible bit, was which where the house is all dirty and messy and you're kinda cleaning it and you're putting in the new plumbing and the new wiring, and it's all a disaster. And now it's starting to be a lot more fun because now it's about building and calibrating and refining and building on success, which I think we can do really well. So I'm very happy to be doing it, and I'm enjoying it. And I would like to keep doing it for a bit if I can. Hopefully, that answers that one. Is there anything else is there anything else we need to talk about today? Oh, how much time are we supposed to spend? I forget. We've got another sort of twelve minutes or so, I think. Alright. So I don't know if there's any other the moment, there are no more questions. Questions? Sorry. So oh, there was one further back, which I didn't know the answer to, Steve. Are we allowed to invite people to Capital Markets Days if they're not an institution?

48:09 I wonder Yeah. Yes. I think that's a question from about the capital markets event on the February 9. I think I think the answer is yes, Alistair. We will try and make sure that there's an opportunity for people to join via remotely, hopefully. That's that's not confirmed as yet, but I think the plan is to have as many people able to attend as as possible. But we will certainly put some information out on that nearer the time. Absolutely. Peter b has come in with a question. I admire the intention to be mister and missus sensible in the digital space, but surely investment in the VC digital crypto space carries higher risk with the potential for possible future provisions. Right?

48:54 So, there are two answers to that question because it's a very sensible one. The first is we would never allow too much of our investment or our loose cash to be drawn into this area in a sort of get rich quick type of approach. We are using only a very small amount of money, so we would always ring fence the risks to the business. So we would not need to make future provisions against this. I mean and to be honest with you, even if we lost some money of the 2,000,000, and yet overall the project was successful, I would be fine with that. I I don't mean losing it through fraud in the way that we've seen recently with the index of collapse, But clearly, every venture capital investment has its risks.

49:39 And people like Brock Scholes, who are doing really well, which is one of our investments, or Fasanara, or indeed Lake Pareem. They're early stage, so things can go wrong. But, nonetheless, I don't think we'll need to worry about provisions. What I would also say is remember that the investment in this area, together with the risks, assuming you can ring fence them and manage them, carries very much higher fees. So for example, if we launch a cryptocurrency fund, which we can very carefully manage access to and we can very carefully manage the size of, If you imagine that on passive hedging, we won we are one, two, three basis points. In something like cryptocurrency fund, it looks more like two and twenty. It looks like a hedge fund. And if the results are good and our partners, the ones we're looking at, have had excellent results over many years, not just one or two years, then, obviously, it gives us a really nice diversification of fee structure where we get higher fees on smaller amounts for, as you say, a more volatile asset, but not beyond the management potential for us to risk manage.

50:47 Juxtaposed with long standing management fees for things like infrastructure, which are nice and sticky and and and quite high fees, but obviously not as high as the digital environment, and then a bedrock of lower fees on the traditional business that we continue to manage in currency. And that together is a really attractive proposition. We don't want any one piece to overwhelm, Peter, any other piece. That's the point. But it doesn't mean just because it carries higher risk and higher returns and higher fees doesn't mean you should stay away from it completely. It just means you should be very clear on your intentions, very clear on your commitments, the limits of your commitments, and any contagion risk. So I think it's worth the risk so long as we do it sensibly and properly.

51:33 And I believe that amongst a lot of people who might look at this, we're very well equipped to do this. And if any of you are able to join our Capital Markets Day, you will meet our chief technology officer who is masterminding this project with me, and she will answer some questions in such a way that I hope she will give you a lot of confidence in our abilities to navigate this space. Leslie Leslie, can you still hear me? I can. I can't see you. Yes. No. Apologies. For some reason, the the camera has decided to switch itself off. So apologies. We need to address, do you think? I I can't think of anything particular. You've done the overall highlights of of the finances.

52:18 We've answered the questions, I think, on oh, the tax. There was a tax question. Do you remember that? That was the last one, wasn't it? Yes. A tax question from Joseph. The tax rate, are there any opportunities you have to offset the increase to 25% to the 25% tax rate? It's a good question. I mean, we we do as much as we can, Joseph. We we have a research and development sort of team that helps us with on on the r and d side. There aren't I don't there aren't any opportunities at this current point in time that I can think of that we can offset the 25% tax rate with other than things like r and d, which we're already doing. But we'll certainly we'll certainly be liaising with our tax advisers to make sure that we we're we're we're we're maximizing any any any potential offsets that we can.

53:10 And to be fair, I mean, it is our job to maximize shareholder return, and therefore, obviously, we would always be looking for ways to minimize the tax. But, also, we're members of the society. And in this society, we're all in this together. And the tax burden is there for a reason. We know there's been things that have happened that were untoward, you know, inflation, COVID, the war, etcetera. So we want to be good citizens, and we want to pay our way and obviously. And at the same time, be as fair as we can be to shareholders. So we're kind of trying to juxtapose the two. I don't want to pay higher taxes. I know I'm going to, and I don't want RECORD to, and I know we're going to. But I also understand the reason. And as long as the government uses our money wisely, which is a whole other debate, then I'm willing to do my bit.

54:00 And I think we probably do well. Yeah. Perfect. Open up of all of that. Are we done? Do we think, gentlemen? Well Gentlemen? I think you've addressed most of those questions, if not all of them. And, obviously, the company will review all the questions submitted today, and we'll publish those response on the investor meet company platform. But just before redirecting investors to provide you with their feedback, you know is particularly important to you both, Leslie, could I just ask you for a few closing comments? Of course. Well, we're on a journey here. As I think I mentioned, we've been around for forty years, but we're in some respects a bit like a start up with a nice strong capital base. So this is a journey, guys, and I'm I'm glad you some of you are on it with us, and I think there's a lot further to go. We can do some really good stuff, with the support of our shareholders and our staff and our clients.

54:50 I have mentioned clients. We have had fantastic support from our clients who are trying new things with us and really building our future with us, which is very, very exciting. So thank you for attending today, and, I think there's a lot more we can do. And I hope you will all be interested to follow it with us. Leslie, Steve, thanks once again 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. It will. On behalf of the management team of RECORD PLC, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good morning to you all. Thank you, everyone.