Bridgepoint Group plc (BPT) Earnings Call Transcript

Hello again, everybody. I'm Raoul, Bridgepoint's Chief Executive, and I'm here today with Ruth. Given it's only a couple of weeks since we announced the acquisition of Kayne Anderson Real Estate, when we gave a fulsome update on where we are as a firm, we thought we'd do it a bit differently for this year's interim results and post a short video presentation along with the RNS. In light of that very recent and detailed update, we'll keep this presentation this morning short with a focus on what has changed since we last spoke. In summary, the business continues to fire on all cylinders. The agreement to acquire Kayne has been very well received. Ruth and I have met whole of the team since then, and I'm really pleased to say the transaction has gone down very well at both Kayne and Bridgepoint and importantly, also with our fund investors. We're all very excited about getting going together. At the time of the announcement, we said that first half results will be good, and we've come in even better than expected, thanks to strong progress with fundraising and earlier-than-expected recognition of PRE. This has led to a 78% increase in EBITDA compared to the first half of 2025 at a margin of 61%. Now turning to fundraising. At the time of announcement, we increased our fundraising target to EUR 28 billion, and I'm pleased to say we've seen further positive progress in the last couple of weeks. I'll come back to in a minute. But first, the financials. The first half is a story of strong growth and even better performance in the top end of the expectations we talked about the other week. Pro forma for Kayne, total group AUM increased by 38% to $120 billion. Excluding Kayne, AUM for the current group increased by 12%. Management fees grew by 23%, including catch-up fees with FRE increasing by 42%. Combining the growth in FRE with the earlier and greater-than-expected strength in PRE, our EBITDA increased by a tremendous 78% compared to the same period a year ago. And so back to fundraising. We have raised EUR 2.5 billion of further commitments since the Kayne announcement. BE VIII has held a further close and now stands at over EUR 7 billion has exceeded the size of its predecessor fund. ECP VI has raised $7 billion. And with the recent agreement of its fund investors, the hard cap has been increased from $7.5 billion to $7.8 billion of external money. And this has been done to accommodate LPs who would otherwise have missed out on an allocation. When the GP commitment is included, this means that we are now highly confident of a fund of greater than $8 billion. And finally, BDL IV held its final close early this month at EUR 5.1 billion of investable capital. Great progress heading into the finishing strike before the year-end. And now I'll hand over to Ruth to talk you through the numbers in more detail.

Thank you, Raoul. I'm going to take you through a really strong first half performance, which has helped derisk the full year numbers. Successful fundraising in the first half helped deliver a 16% increase in management fees, excluding catch-up fees, which is bang in line with guidance. And as you heard Raoul say, we're increasingly confident of achieving our recently revised fundraising target. The standout performance today is in the PRE line, where GBP 121 million of carry recognition from co-investment gains delivered 2/3 of the PRE expected for the full year. Combined, FRE and PRE resulted in underlying EBITDA of GBP 227 million, a margin of 61%, which is slightly above the top end of guidance. And finally, our liquidity has continued to improve at 3.3x last year's average daily traded volume in the first half. With the final IPO lockup expiry later this month, the free float will increase, and this will be reflected in FTSE Russell Index weightings at the next rebalancing in September. The flywheel of capital deployment and exit continues to turn in the middle market. In line with our consistent temper deployment, we have made 7 new platform investments in private equity. And in infrastructure, we have invested in the largest service provider to the nuclear power industry in North America. Capital invested in the last 6 months totaled EUR 3.6 billion. BE VII has made its final investment and BE VIII has announced since first. Along with further investments in the pipeline, we expect to deploy approximately another EUR 2 billion in the very short term. Moving on to capital return. We have set a new record of EUR 16.6 billion sent back to fund investors, thanks in no small part to the closing of the Calpine transaction. Excluding Calpine, capital returns of around EUR 4 billion in the first half would still compare favorably to prior periods and the consistency of capital returns remains a key point of differentiation for us with our LPs. Returns in infrastructure have been nothing short of extraordinary. We Symmetry, Calpine and Cornerstone all achieving money multiples of between 4.4 and 6.4x. And this has contributed to the strength in PRE we are reporting today. And encouragingly, the pipeline for both deployment and exiting remained strong for the second half of the year and beyond. Let us take a little time now on both AUM bridges as there were a number of moving parts in the first half, including a particularly positive increase in fee-paying AUM of 28%. Starting with AUM since year-end, fundraising added $3.2 billion and Newbury Bridgepoint added $3.9 billion. Divestments totaled $17.9 billion. And of that total, around $14 billion was from the Calpine exit. This includes both the cash received on closing and the investors have chosen to take their capital in specie. That is to say they have taken locked up shares in Constellation rather than waiting for cash proceeds. Value progression in the funds added $5.2 billion and FX was a headwind of $1.3 billion. On the fee-paying AUM side, successful fundraising added $11.3 billion, while the addition of Newbury Bridgepoint added $3.5 billion and deployment in credit funds added a further $0.7 billion. Realizations totaled $1.3 billion, while step-downs accounted for $0.6 billion. The significant difference between the fund divestment movements in AUM and the realizations and step-downs in fee-paying AUM is due to the quantum of co-investment, which was required alongside fund capital to fund the Calpine transaction at the asset. The co-investment for Calpine was not fee-paying and therefore, not included in fee-paying AUM. And lastly, on fee-paying AUM, FX was a headwind of $0.8 billion. With new flagship funds being raised in private equity and infrastructure, the group management fee remains broadly flat at 1.17%. In PRE, the GBP 120.7 million recorded in the first half leaves us well positioned to reach our guidance of around 25% of total income for the full year. Due to the strength of PRE in the first half, our EBITDA margin reached 61%. With 2/3 of the PRE expected for the full year recorded in the first half, the EBITDA margin for the full year is likely to be a little lower, while still comfortably within the guided range of 55% to 60%. So you have everything in one place. Here is a reminder of the guidance for Kayne. With nothing having changed in the last 2 weeks, I'll move straight on to the next slide, which is guidance for the group prior to the acquisition of Kayne. A handful of things have changed since we last spoke on the 29th of June and are shown here in black and red font. BE VIII has now raised EUR 7 billion with the final close expected in Q1 2027 of between EUR 8 billion and EUR 8.5 billion and has begun to pay fees sooner than originally expected in early June. BDL IV held its final close at EUR 5.1 billion of investable capital, and ECP VI held a further large close on the 30th of June to reach $7 billion, meaning that fees on that additional capital were payable in the first half, as I flagged as possible in my comments 2 weeks ago. All of the guidance shown in gray is unchanged since we last spoke. And with that, I'll hand back to Raoul.

Great. Thanks, Ruth. My summary performance in the first half is simple. The business is firing on all cylinders and making really positive progress. With the pending acquisition of Kayne, the group will be stronger, more diversified and more resilient, equally balanced across Europe and the U.S. and with 50% of AUM in real asset investing and a group that is uniquely positioned to capture the opportunities we see across the alternatives landscape. Financial performance for shareholders remains compelling. Our earnings are growing materially while becoming increasingly FRE-centric with greater cash generation and our EBITDA margin continues to trend above 60%. We are building the platform we said we would build, growing in line with a clear strategy and doing so while preserving the high-performing and entrepreneurial culture that has underpinned our success from the beginning. Our middle market positioning and focus on alpha-driven investing continues to differentiate us. And across every one of our asset classes, we now have category-killing products each benefiting from powerful structural tailwinds, whether the surge in demand for power and AI infrastructure, long-term demographic change or the growth in the fastest moving parts of the European economy. And in market where liquidity remains a key focus for LPs, that combination of strong value-added returns and cash back is proving highly valuable. The largest institutional investors in the world recognize this and continue to invest in our almost exclusively closed-end funds in increasing numbers. And that concludes this morning's presentation. Thank you very much for watching.