S&U (LSE:SUS) — Full Year Results

0:00 Good afternoon, and welcome to the S and U PLC Investor Presentation. The The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company can review all questions submitted today and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I'd like to submit the following poll. And I'd now like to hand you over to Anthony Coombs, chairman. Good morning, sir.

0:32 Good morning, Lily, and, welcome to IMC. We regard IMC as a very important way of communicating with particularly retail investors, but also other investors who we may not be regularly in contact with. Can I just briefly introduce our team here? Because people may not be totally familiar with all of them. Certainly, one of them, they won't be. Myself is chairman. My brother is deputy chairman. Chris Redford is our group finance director, who everybody will know. Carl Verner, who is the chief executive of of Vantage Finance, our modifiers subsidiary. Ed Aaron, who is the chief executive of Aspen Bridging, which does our property finance, and new to the team, Chris Reckleton, who is our chief financial officer.

1:23 So with with those brief introductions, can I welcome you all and say that we will be going through the slides on our presentation? So for for those of you who may not know the company as well as as some of the others, Let me just start by saying that this has been interesting year, I think, both macroeconomically and for the finance business. And obviously, there have been the challenges which reflected in the results, particularly in Advantage, not not at Aspen. And but that doesn't mean that we view the the the future with anything else but enormous confidence.

2:10 Why, you may ask, given the given what's been happening this this year? Well, the reasons are that our engagement with the regulators in in advantage, the finance, was part of the one six six process, which is now cleared and is now behind us. And we have a very good relationship with the regulators, We're regularly in touch with them. And and as a result of the process, we've learned a lot. We've become more efficient. And already, that is being reflected in an upturn in business, for the current '25, '26, financial year.

2:57 So so so that is good. The Aspen business, the property bridging business, continues to do to do very well indeed and produce record results, and we see no reason why that would not change in the in in the coming year. Obviously, there are certain things that still overlay the mode of finance, indeed, the financing as your rule, which I'm sure that people on the call will be very much aware of. The main one of which is the the Supreme Court decision, which is scheduled now, having had the hearing about a week ago, scheduled for the end of June, July, and

3:43 we we await that with some optimism. The reason why we we we wait for this in optimism is because there's no doubt about it that the supreme court is aware of the importance, particularly in the time of poor consumer confidence in The UK economy generally and actually, poor business confidence. They're aware of the importance of access to credit, particularly to the sections of the population that we that we have traditionally served. You know, they deserve finance the same as everybody else, to buy cars, to go to work, and to take the children to school, and that's precisely what we are are proud of having provided over a twenty six year period. And in fact, that's why if you look at these slides on page two, which is the one before my introduction, it we do start off by talking about our wonderful customers and staff because, ultimately, at the end of the day, it's the people we serve and the people who serve them that actually make a difference between a successful business and otherwise, and it's one of the reasons why which has underpinned our success over the last, twenty five, twenty six years, and indeed, for the S and U group as a whole over the past eighty eight years.

5:05 And on the highlights, and most of the people who see them, obviously, for the group, there has been an impact in terms of the regulation, and all that has been the uncertainty that's caused in terms of the group profit. But but we expect that to rebound this year, which is why we're calling the slide presentation ready for the rebound, and we are, as I've as I've just said. Most of that is is made up or a large portion of that, £11,000,000 in the group impairment charge, which our, our finance, our group financial director and our CFO, will explain as we go as we go through. What we are doing, though, if you look at the highlights, is maintaining the dividend because we've always felt that our our shareholders have been with us for a long time. We owe them a sustainable and consistent return on their investment, And that is why, the profits are down compared to last year, we we are gonna nearly maintain the dividend at 40 p subject to the green to our shareholders at the AGM in June, which I anticipate will come through.

6:23 The final point that I would make on my if we're gonna go forward with confidence and strength, then you need just a firm base. And S and U has had and always will have a very strong financial base.

6:39 And, you know, we have we have a large amount of equity, invested in the business. Overall, we're we're the the gearing for the business has fallen this year to about 80%, from slightly higher last year. And our group facilities and the headroom they give, 280,000,000 on a medium term basis. And at the moment, I can tell I can tell the audience that that gives us a £100,000,000 worth of headroom to to, first of all, for growth, and secondly, to offset any judgment that may be received from the Supreme Court. So with those optimistic but nevertheless realistic thoughts, I'd like to go on to the group financials and over to Chris Redford.

7:29 Good morning, everybody, and thank you, Anthony. The income statement, I've tried to pick out a few highlights on here. So you can see strong growth in Aspen revenue on the bridging side and also in Aspen profit. You can see that's risen from $4,800,000 up 7,200,000, so a 50% increase, which we're very pleased with. We go into the new financial year as well with increased book debt at Aspen, which all goes well, we hope for the future. On advantage, more of a a year of consolidation while the regulatory investigation one six six

8:01 was going on. Fortunately, with help from Carl and the team and a lot of hard work, that is now behind us, and we think we'll we'll get some more focused on business and increasing lending and concentrating on collections going forward. But for this particular year that we're looking at here, that has led to an increase in impairment of, as Anthony said, eleven million. Most of that impairment number is also due to the advantage, very little impairment in Aspen, and and that's hit the group profits for the year ended January 25. You will also see another couple of items in the income statement that I should point out. One is finance costs. They've gone up by $3,000,000 That was largely to do with average borrowings being higher in h one this year and also average Sony rate being higher in h one. So now we have slightly lower average borrowings going into the new year, so the trend should be slightly different. And obviously, on the Sony rate as well, recent Bank of England base rate decreases puts in a slightly better place.

9:04 There's an unusual item for us. There's an exceptional item in the income statement, and that's to do with something that I've had in contingent liabilities for last the year. It's now crystallized, so we've agreed with the FCA and the skilled person that there were some collection charges historically, levied on on customers that we need to remediate. The amount of that in total for advantage is 2,300,000. The reason it's 2,700,000 exceptional items is that we've got about 400 programming costs there as well. So that just explains that figure, and it is an unusual item for us. Bottom line, therefore, 4,000,000 versus 33,600,000 last year. If we go to now the group balance sheet on Page six, please.

9:52 Again, very simple balance sheet. It's all about receivables, borrowings and equity. You can see we split down the net receivables. So you can see that notes of finance in the year of consolidation and lending portion has decreased from 332,000,000 down to 283,000,000, and we hope to get that increasing again soon, and there are signs of that in the early months of the new financial year. Aspen carrying on growing as as they were in previous years as well. So growth of $130,000,000 up to $152,000,000 which is what I mentioned earlier, gives us a bit of confidence going into the new year as well, which I will talk more about in his slides later. On the borrowing side, you can see $197,500,000.02 23,000,000 We actually also have $5,200,000 cash in hand at the January 31. So that means our net borrowings were about $192,000,000

10:46 at that stage, to committed facilities of $2.02 80,000,000. So without further ado, I'll hand you over to our new group Chief Financial Officer, Chris Freckleton, and he will talk through that funding piece in a bit more detail. Thanks, Chris, and good morning, everyone. So if you turn over to Page

11:10 So impact of COVID-nineteen COVID-nineteen repayments and then also expenses. So you'll we're note going in the current year, borrowings across the group have reduced from $224,000,000 to 192,000,000, with advantage reducing from 177,000,000 to 130,000,000 over that time due to, as already been mentioned, cautious lending and lower repayments. Meanwhile, Aspen has had the opposite effects increasing from GBP 120,000,000 to GBP 138,000,000 at January 2025, and that's driven by receivables growth during the year. If we then move on to the next slide around the treasury and funding position for the group. So as Anthony mentioned, our current borrowings of GBP 192,000,000 sit comfortably within our committed facilities of $280,000,000 And during the year, we've managed to

12:12 enhance the maturity on the three year club for another year to May 2027. And since year end, our borrowings have reduced slightly further to 180,000,000, providing GBP 100,000,000 of headroom against our current facilities. So I'll now pass it on to Karl Vern, the CEO of Vantage, to talk you through performance. Thanks, Chris. Welcome. On to slide 10. I'll just unpack a few key elements. This is about lending. So during the period, as you see, the last twelve months, going through a managed reduction during both that regularly entry engagement as well as some retooling as far as our appetite is concerned. We've heard the talk at the half year and prior to that, our desire to lean into the higher quality tiers, which we have done,

13:01 put those new elements in place with regards to the platform, and also concluded our discussions with the regulator. So we're sort of back to throttle on, really, and you'll just see the first hint of that in the final month of the financial year with that gathering pace as we get into the new financial year. So if there is a move to quality, certainly very firmly right in the middle of the non prime market and looking after these underserved, underrepresented customers in a strong position with the right quality and the growth and average advance to grow advances sustainably and considerably in the year ahead. If we turn from the front of the business sort of more to the rear of collections on slide 11, what I'll highlight here is, of course, we've had a difficult twelve months as has so many others of our peers in this market over the last twelve months that you've seen.

14:00 Much stronger recent improvements over the last three months. The phrase I like to highlight when unpacking this here a little bit is that abundance caution that you'll see in the slide on the top left. But also, pleasingly, you're seeing the tick up as the year draws to a close. Although, our regulatory engagement limitations were concluded and lifted, in a much better position. Latter results over this last quarter have been much stronger off the back of, as I say, a greater investment in the collections platform.

14:36 Turning once more to regulation on slide 12. I'm gonna pick out a couple of highlights here. And the key message really for me is where we have control, we're in an exceptionally good position. Consumer duty exceptionally good good good spot. The borrowers and financial difficulty review concluded successfully. Affordability and sustainable lending reviews all concluded. We don't have any discretionary commission exposure. Although, of course, there's elements outside of our control in court judgment and the SCA direction that will follow thereafter. You you know, we wait as we as we all do for that in the summer. And then on the other side, it's always good to highlight. I think as you've heard mentioned previously, you know, our focus on customer care and looking after our customers as we have for over twenty five years is evidenced very clearly with the metric from the financial management services. We continue to be a a top table provider.

15:41 One last piece of summary on the next slide as far as the last twelve months, and it's important for us to really reference, you know, that we're gonna get value from that engagement and that year of consolidation.

15:53 A large investment both in people, competency, technology, and our digital tooling, and you see some of those listed here. I'd probably out of all of them, new telephone systems, new premises, new 365 platform, is to underline the strategic USP we have with, you know, being in charge of our IT development with an in house team almost entirely, which enables us to bring to market quite quickly a a great sizable platform upgrade or for our customer portal, which had 30% customer engagement in the first few weeks, allowing twenty four seven engagement with their agreement and repayment if necessary. And then lastly, turning to the future, what we're thinking what am I highlighting to you for the next twelve months?

16:42 Takeaways are we return much more to a business of productivity rather than reactivity, focused on building our performance much stronger sustainably whilst maintaining that clear clear focus on offering a vital service to our customers with a few highlights there in the bullets as to our areas of focus, credit risk technology, dynamic pricing, looking at adjacent distribution channels and asset classes, and making much better use of MI and the data and the the new world of AI in the future. And with that, I'll hand back to Chris. Thank you, Carl, for an excellent update on Advantage. There are four metric slides to follow now that we show you every year just to give you an update on how advantage metrics are evolving.

17:33 You can see on slide 15 that the average advances tick up further to 8,600.

17:41 Interest rate has gone down slightly, and the average customer score has gone up slightly. Again, that's all about the the tier mix that Carl said when we're attracting slightly higher quality customers so they don't pay quite as higher rate, and they also tend to take slightly bigger advances. You'll also see on the number of loans, 12,703. That reflects the caution that we talked about earlier. So to page 16,

18:06 this is again a chart that would just give you an update on every year. So the historically, there's been a very good correlation between the way customers make their first payment and the end outcome in terms of bad debt percentage after years, which is the inverse axis on the right hand side. So the blue line is the way customers make their first payment, and you can see that going back right up to 2003. And the red line is what the end outcome was for that business after five five years. Years. Since about five years ago, the

18:36 red line becomes a dotted line because it isn't finished yet. So you can see there's still some sort of correlation. We've been through a difficult year, so some of that red dotted line is still ahead of us in terms of if you get to the right hand side of the chart, But we still think there will very much be a correlation, and it's quite pleasing to see the uptick in the blue line, the first payment recently received. You can see right to the right of the chart. So I hope that is a helpful update. So that information, I'll hand back to Chris Freckleton to talk you through a couple more metrics like for Advantage. Thanks, Chris. So this slide is just a simple payback chart of the investment by Advantage in

19:28 we're the green line. So collections are very largely complete for January 18 to January 2020 cohorts with future years forecasted collections based on historical analysis. And you'll probably note that the Jan 'twenty three origination year is slightly lower than last year in respect to the forecast, and that's due to the higher cost of sales when we originally wrote that business, but also the challenges we mentioned around the collections performance this year. If we then move on to the next slide. So this is an analysis of the book at January 25 versus January 24 based on arrears status. So from up to date to six plus in arrears.

20:17 And for the reasons we've already discussed around lower repayments,

20:21 we have more debt in the six plus category this year at 9.3% in comparison to this time last year at 3.2. And that combined with the lower advances that Chris alluded to earlier, means that we also have a smaller proportion in up to date at 64.5% versus 74% this time last year, albeit these metrics have improved post year end.

20:49 I'll now hand you over to Ed Arons, the CEO of Aspen, to talk you through their FY 2025 performance. Thanks, Chris, and hello, everybody. As both Anthony and Chris have said, strong performance for Aspen for the year. Steady and consistent on new lending through the year as well as the same on repayments on a quality book. That's led to a new record in terms of profits at $7,200,000 We see the trends through the year as being positive, And our outlook for the future is expect growth in this market this year and for our business. Turning to Page 21.

21:36 This is a slide we've talked through before. We look at the performance of the business over the years,

21:43 and we've made some good progress on some key factors. So you can see at the top line, steady growth of the new loans on a year on year basis. We're in a good position on average loan sizes at nine forty for the year. That's broadly at the level it is for the average in the market. We've continued to improve our cost of sales. You can see that over the last few years, 1.1% for last year, percent partly driven by more direct business and also partly driven by returning customers to the business as well as a wider broker distribution network.

22:24 In terms of activities, we've been consistent for many, many years at around 70%, 71 for last year, very consistent there. And we're working to manage and improve our blended margin rate. You can see that for the year for last year. And steady on all other sort of key factors for the business. If turn to Page 22,

22:48 just in terms of the bridging market and sharing some thoughts from others in terms of how they see it. We'll be members of the BDLA now for Gladys since we launched, and they've been seeing consistent growth in the market for bridging over those years and broken through some new records for last year. And they can see from the pipeline of business from lender members of the BDLA that they're expecting growth through for this year as we are as well. In terms of the wider market, Mintel talks about growth over the next five years. That remains our outlook view as well. Market values and house values, we see that there's going to be expect a growth over the next few years of that, albeit at a relatively modest pace, which is fine from our perspective.

23:49 Conditions are favorable. And rates from a wider market and refinance have been coming down and thus making it easier for refinances and helping with transactions that have more recently been going on on the web. We can move to Page 23. Lots to focus on for this year. I mean in terms of returning customers and direct business, those are strong areas for us and obviously widening our product capability with slightly longer terms and new facility arrangements and basically exploring new markets in terms of broker channels. And expect that to be underpinned by our investment in our staff, in our people as well as improving our efficiency of the operation.

24:43 And we expect from well, from our perspective, we see a very bright future for the business. Good. Well, thank you very much indeed, Chris. I don't think anybody underestimates the challenges that the business, particularly obviously Vantage, have faced over the last over the last year. And but the important thing is not not the the challenges, but how you react to them and what they look what they imply for the future.

25:14 And I must say that I'm very confident that we will get the rebound that we've highlighted this pack with next year, both for advantage and for further record results from. Obviously, a lot depends upon the general macroeconomic environment in which we operate. And, obviously, tariffs and government policy impact that. But I'm overall rather confident about that because I think everybody's got an interest in improving the growth rate of the economy, which hasn't moved very much over the last fifteen years. The Supreme Court decision is obviously a a something that the whole of the financial market, not just the finance market, is gonna have to take into to account.

26:08 But, again, I'm optimistic about that because certainly reading the, the the transcripts of the of the proceedings so far of the supreme court does indicate that there's a sense of realism and the importance of access to credit if the if our customers and the customers generally are able to finance the purchase that they want to, which is gonna have good overall macroeconomic effects in any way. So, overall, extremely confident as to what's gonna happen, but I'm looking forward now to answering your your questions. Lily, are you ready to to to read them to us? Yeah. Thank you very much for your presentation this afternoon. Ladies and gentlemen, as you can see, please do continue to submit your questions just by using the q and a tab situated on the top right hand corner of your screen.

26:56 As you can see, we received a number of questions throughout today's presentation. And perhaps if we dive straight into it, the first question we have here reads as follows. Have you seen HMG's pro growth agenda feeding through how the FCA interacts, and can we expect a more balanced field of play? Carl? Sure answer would would be yes. There is a sense in engaging with all regulators, I would say, that they are obviously very cognizant of the government's growth agenda and where they would like to focus their efforts. So really good question, but, yeah, fairly generally, I'm afraid. But have we seen it in our discussions? I would say most definitely, yes. Perfect. Thank you. The next question here reads, is is SNU exposed to DIC commission, or would it just be a secret or semi secret exclusion exposure?

27:49 It it is not exposed to DIC often referred to as DCA in some of the publications you'll be reviewing on this issue, which is which is obviously very, very positive. Disclosure or the judicial review or sort of the the judicial process happening at Supreme Court. Every lender that lends through an intermediary has a, you know, has has an element of interest in that particular case, ourselves included as well as asset finance and other types of regulated firms that deal through intermediaries. That's super super broad on the Supreme Court side. DCA much more limited to those that operated that practice in years gone by, including up to when it was out rolling 2021.

28:35 Thank you. Just moving on here. Of your introducers, how many Emota dealers acting as brokers versus pure finance brokers? Has this ratio changed in recent years? It hasn't. It's sort of single digit or percentage perspective. Any any dealer that refers proposals to a a lender, finance lender who's a is also a broker, as you'll know. So dealers that aren't regulated in that way won't be referring business to lenders in that manner. But it's it's, you know, a single digit number. The majority of our business comes from, you know, the brokers that have operated the market for some, you know, very well established over some significant period of time.

29:22 Thank you. The next question him he we have here reads, on the demand side for businesses, what are you seeing on the credit quality there? Do you see opportunities to cover gaps or better credit quality demand that other players cannot fill? That's for advantage, I'll say most definitely yes. It's a very, very wise sort of question. The, you know, the the modern technology, let alone what AI may well do, is moving us much more progressively through what those in the critical circles called risk singularity, which rather than try to cohort your population into three, four, five, six, 10 tiers, you can get much more granular with the risk weighting. I'm I'm not not saying almost on a per customer basis, but on a much more granular and meaningful and bespoke basis to that customer. So there is always upside to that. What you are looking for is the meaningful profit pools within those gaps where your repayment estimate is accurate within your credit risk appetite and, you know, makes for a good sustainable lend going forward. So to the question, yes, that there'll be a lot of upside as this tooling comes on stream in the weeks and months ahead.

30:37 And I think it's worth what I was saying there, and it really entirely with the with Carl, that advantages approach has always been that fairly broad in terms of the kind of customers it was taking on board, and the results have reflected that. Obviously, over the last year, we've pivoted more towards higher end customers, those higher tier customers, customers who haven't had so many or as many problems with their credit in the past. But that doesn't mean that we don't feel that we're able to deal with people who have had problems in the past. And that's the whole point about access to credit. And as as Carl said, you know, if we can use AI, which we are now embarking on, to identify individuals rather than sectors of individuals who look as though they get likely to be able to to pay the golden golden nuggets, as we call them, then, yes, we'll certainly do that.

31:38 Thank you. The next question we we have here is around Aspen. Can you please elaborate more on the strategy of going for the Duke community credit? As a shareholder, I see it as an increased risk in the portfolio because of the structure of this kind of business seems more like investing on equity rather than credit. I'll obviously take that. Yes. So, I mean, we've seen a demand for that product. And what we've done is we've created the structure that supports that product in in the community, adapting the hedge risk agreement. We see that as being both an opportunity, but also as a low risk lending situation partly due to examples, you know, of borrowing that we can see from cases, but also in the way we structure that.

32:34 I think I think it's worth saying that there's a risk of the people who may not be aware of it is orientated towards the Orthodox Jewish community. And one of the great advantages of of the Jewish community generally, with the Orthodox Jewish community, is that, they are extremely responsible in terms of how they look at look at debt. And there's obviously a huge amount of, social pressure within the community to ensure that their credit ratings are are strong, and we would anticipate that as a result, this will be extremely successful product. Thank you. The next question we have here reads, well done on the extended maturity of the debt, but do you have any plans to fix the coupon on a portion of your borrowings?

33:24 I think I'll just start off and then hand it over to the team. We are obviously I'm always cognizant of both the cost and the scope of our borrowing. I wouldn't wanna say more than that, but we always keep it under review. If it if it seems right to us that we should fix our borrowings in order to improve their scope and improve the improve the cost of them, then we'll do it. But I wouldn't wanna say more than that at the moment. We are always reviewing it. In fact, we always we we have actually got a lot of the review at the present time. Thank you. Just moving on here. Today's statement refers to 70% of new loans being given to high tier customers. How does management see that percentage moving in the years ahead given the new forbidden regime?

34:12 And why can't Advantage simply drop tier d slash e borrowers, although altogether given the apparent greater risk of losses from this subsection? That's a great question. I think that's really something else. So so thank you for that. It's 70% to the higher higher tier. I mean, you're talking any across five tiers that follow that that cross the full gamut. So it's it's probably the top half, two thirds. Could it broadly stay in that particular area? The answer would probably be yes. But with the better credit risk capabilities that we're bringing on stream very shortly, I do think there's a good return and a more limited appetite into those higher risk tiers.

35:02 And we're always very conscious of the fact that, you know, we're there to be the the champion of the underserved market and to provide a a a service and a facility and the access to credit. But it has to as we rightly alluded to there, it has to stack from a financial term and an acceptable credit risk and regulatory risk perspective. So I think we're actually in a pretty good space right now, but I think we're gonna be have an opportunity to be a lot more focused on that in the future. Thank you. And I think the last question we have here reads, how many customers were advisedly affected by the advantages previous practices that led to the exceptional item? You want to touch on that? It's a it's a it's a minority.

35:51 I would be comfortable in saying you have to remember that this particular review focused on forbearance. So therefore, you know, by by definition, a customer cohort that had an arrears experience with us, and, obviously, the vast majority of our customers don't. So that should give you an indication as to as to actually, you know, individual customer numbers that impacted specifically for that. So think in terms of it's only for the arrears bit, so that's already the minority, and then an awful lot of activity that wasn't subject to that particular finding. So you you you weigh your way down the numbers accordingly. Thank you all for answering those questions you can from investors. And, of course, the company can review all questions submitted today, and we'll publish those responses on the investment company platform.

36:43 Just before redirecting investors to provide you with their feedback, which I know is particularly important to the company, Anthony, could I please just ask you for a few closing comments? Yeah. Just before you go, Lily, I think there are there is another question from May now, which we haven't answered, which I think you I'd like you to read and see we can we can there's two more questions for us, isn't it? Three. Three more questions. And and and, you know, given the fact that we have time, I think I'd like to to go through them. So could you could you please them out? Perf. Yeah. Sure. Today's statement said advantage offers of motor finance mainly through independent credit broker intermediaries, and only 10% of transactions were written by motor dealers acting as credit brokers.

37:28 It seems management believes only transactions written directly by dealers and not by dealer through intermediary are subject to the supreme court decision. Is that the case? And, also, there's some addition, wasn't there? Also, can management specify how the remaining 90% of transactions are written? Presumably, the 90% is mostly independent broker intermediaries supplying loans through motor dealers at the point of sale, or are there numbers of transactions undertaken by borrowers without any involvement of a motor dealer? Okay. So great question here. As far as, you know, the the scenarios being looked at, you would have seen in the results of of other lenders.

38:14 You know, there's a there's a large question over whether the Supreme Court is relevant to, as you rightly call them, sort of dealers rather than finance brokers, which operate both by dealerships and also on a d to c direct to customer basis. So our leanings and thoughts around that are formed by some of those more recent opinions, and I'll I'll review of that as to whether that may well be the case. Although I do underline, and we all underline, you know, we are subject to seeing much more detail around the judgment in in July. So that that's to the first part of of that question. But both the supreme court and the foes are sorry. The SCN are aware of that particular perspective. Secondly, the split of business introduced to us is, as I say, roughly sort of five ish percent retention, current customers, five, six, 7%, something around that, motor dealers, and the rest are dedicated finance brokers. And they operate both from providing a financial offer service via dealerships or direct to customers and sourcing vehicles.

39:24 So you'll you'll be aware of those two broker models. That is sort of approaching 90% of our business comes from the broker market. Could I just ask you to go to Matt G's question on last one? Because he's asked an interesting one. Yeah. Sure. Could you discuss client concentration at Aspen, specifically how much of the loan book is with the top five clients? I think it would be fair to say that we've got, obviously, a range of values. 10% and also of the portfolio is above 2,000,000, but our range range is obviously, you know, from from $2.50.

40:10 You're talking about brokers. What concentrations? Customer concentration. Customers. Yes. That's what I believe. That's yeah. Oh, it's something very good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Did you get that? So the most of the majority, 90% is below 2,000,000, basically, out of the book. Right. And customer concentration, I mean, obviously, you you deal with a wide variety of customers, which which hasn't changed much over the last three years, is it? I mean, exactly, more business with smaller. Smaller number of larger, but the majority are below 2,000,000 in terms of loan starts. Yeah. Okay. I think can we take main RRP's question? I think it's quite an important one.

40:56 On following the FCA submission to the Supreme Court, how can management reassure shareholders the group is acting on advances behalf, have always complied with the rules? Okay, Thank you. I guess some really good detailed questions here. I'm just I'm saying, tell you at the screen not to try and see you. I'm just trying to make sure I'm reading the question correctly. Thought Shannon sort of wrote it out. So can management reassure shareholders or brokers on our behalf of dear to conk? But we have a few things to bear in mind. The brokers that we deal with are all, you know, directly regulated review and oversight from the relevant regulator, which is the FCA themselves.

41:46 So there are certain tests and metrics you have to meet to be regulated as a broker. So in many ways, the FCA provide that. Or the fact that regulators provide that assurance. But we also have our own oversight processes, which have been augmented somewhat over the last twelve months also and will continue to be so, but but give us some higher degree of assurance that all of our introducers, whether they be brokers or dealers, are adhering to the relevant regulations. So I hope that gives you the answer. Obviously, they're third parties. They're regulated. We have oversight. The great thing as far as advanced is concerned is we've done with them for a considerable length of time, and they are very well established names in their own right and enterprises.

42:38 So that really is what combines to give you the the best degree of comfort you can get for the third party intermediaries abiding by the regulations that we all adhere to. Good. Thank you, Carl. Should we just I mean, Edward G has has has asked why we've been replying to main RP. So so let's may not pay to another. So Edward G, from which date did Advantage Finance begin disclosing the amount of commission, not just its existence to customers? And was that over ever a time when you didn't disclose it at all? Good afternoon, Edward. Second part of your question first, I mean, Advance has been in, you know, running lending since 1999.

43:27 So there would have been a time in the past, forgive me for not knowing the year, that there wouldn't have been the existence of commission disclosure sort of way back when. As far as disclosing the amount, Advantage made the same change as the entire industry, and that was in October 2024. Our disclosures prior to that had the benefit of being quite explicit as far as on document as well as direct to the customer, unusually. And that was existence and nature, which was the regulation at the time, which all lenders adhere to and had somewhat perplexed as to the court of appeal decision to suggest that wasn't good enough.

44:17 So it helps, but we've been doing the existence nature as per the regulation for a considerable period of time. The amount along with all lenders was coded in and disclosed in October. Right. Just one final one maybe from main RP main RP. Can I clarify the fixed fee commission model? Are the commissions paid as a fixed percentage of the loan value or simply a fixed amount regardless of loan value? And could some finance broke and and could some brokers into fixed commissions are greater than commissions paid by competitors.

45:11 Got it. So let me pick that apart one at a time. On the whole, vast, vast, vast majority is fixed sum commission. Both are, you know, quite common as in a fixed percentage of the advance or a pound note figure regardless of advance. We're much more the latter. One's not any particularly more sort of has regulatory approval or against to the judgment anymore than the other, but that's just as a sort of point of fact, a more fixed fee. And this could, intermediaries, be led by the amount of commission. Well, maybe, but I mean, the customer rate is uniform as is the terms of acceptance. And also, the best way outcome is, you know, where the regulation is in most cases where there is multiple acceptances.

46:03 So commission is a is a factor, but it's a lot more neutral as far as this business is concerned. And the vast, vast majority, there will be one or two perhaps very small percentage cases where fixed pound note fee figures in advantage's case. Good. Well, thank you very much, Carl. I hope you found that interesting, reassuring, and and and enlightening. And thank you very much for your for your attendance. I would just say, as I did at the beginning, that we are extremely confident as to what the new financial year is and will bring because we've we've overcome a number of challenges in the last year, and we see rewards for our investments in doing so and continued investment in the business being strong for 2526.

47:02 So I I hope that's been helpful to everybody. Thank you to IMC and to the for providing us with the opportunity of talking to our valued shareholders. Thank you. Thank you all for updating investors today. Can I please ask investors not to close the session as you'll now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback in order that the management team could better understand your views and expectations? This may only take a few moments to complete, and I'm sure it'll be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of S and U PLC, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good afternoon to you all.