Allfunds Group plc (ALLFG) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, and welcome to Allfunds 2025 Financial Results Presentation. Thank you for joining us today. This session is being broadcast live, and a replay will be available on our website later today. The presentation materials are already available on our corporate website. Without further delay, let me pass it on to our CEO, Annabel Spring. Annabel, over to you.

Thank you, Carlos, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for Allfunds' Preliminary 2025 Results Presentation. We are pleased to walk you through a strong year of delivery, one in which our AuA reached EUR 1.76 trillion and one in which we made clear strategic choices to refocus Allfunds on its core strengths. I'll start with a brief recap of the recommended transaction, a strategic context and the key highlights of the year, and Alvaro will then present the detailed financials. And we will conclude, as we always do, with Q&A. As you know, we've announced the Board recommended acquisition of Allfunds by Deutsche Börse with an offer in cash, shares and dividends as outlined at a substantial premium to our undisturbed share price. All of the transaction details and milestones are already publicly available, so I won't go through them in detail beyond a comment that the shareholder meeting and scheme vote is on the 12th of March, with the full information accessible in the announcement and scheme of arrangement documentation available on our website. To return to the strategic context, the strategic underpinning of our industry is unchanged. The core wealth industry remains structurally attractive, and we expect growth to accelerate, supported by aging populations, increasing savings and a steady expansion of the use of investment products. The rise of new wealth hubs in Asia and Latin America continues to be a significant force. Digitalization, however, is allowing both broader access and a more engaged retail investor base, now increasingly accelerated by AI and new models of data-driven distribution. We are optimistic also about the continued movement towards a European savings and investment product system. There's a clear opportunity for Allfunds to keep scaling, driven by the expansion of open architecture and increased outsourcing. Distributors are expected by their clients to have a broadest product shelf, seamless connectivity, scalable infrastructure and of course, by their shareholders, cost-efficient operating models. With more fast-moving and complicated products, mutual funds, ETFs, alternatives, the level of operational complexity is rising, reinforcing the value of platforms like Allfunds. Our takeaway is clear. Allfunds is extremely well positioned to help clients capture the full growth of the wealth management industry. But in 2025, we undertook a deeper strategic review within this growing ecosystem. We are a leading B2B multiproduct investment platform with global reach and a deeply embedded client set of relationships. It's an almost ideal positioning. Given the growing opportunity set for funds, we will become even more focused on what we do best, providing a world-class distribution and servicing platform, offering broad investment product suites. And this will particularly include alternatives and ETFs as we see substantial growth in these areas, which I will detail later. We're continuing deepening our strengths in developed markets while exploring opportunities in higher-growth regions such as Asia and Latin America, which together already represent 25% of migrations in 2025. And while we keep evolving to ensure we bring value to our clients in our value-added services, we recognize that we needed to become more targeted and ensure that those services are synergistic for our distribution clients and our fund houses that they're scalable and that they're sustainable. So importantly, where partnerships can help us scale faster, more efficiently or provide an enhanced service to our clients, we are going to pursue them with a combined focus on client service and of course, operational excellence. So talking about partnerships. After defining the business characteristics that truly fit our long-term ambition, we have made some deliberate portfolio choices. As a result, 3 business lines are being restructured or divested. This will allow us to concentrate fully where we can create the most value. Specifically, we have announced that we've partnered with MSCI to bring our combined best to our ESG data clients, and we have restructured our ESG advisory business. We've also announced that we've partnered with Waystone to provide for our Luxembourg and Dublin ManCo clients. Our current Manco clients will benefit from their specialized oversight and ManCo governance capabilities. While Waystone's clients gain access to Allfunds distribution network and technology. And finally, we're in the process of divesting our WebFG businesses that have proved to be more customized service that is sold to different elements of the wealth management value chain than we traditionally interact with, and it hasn't been a strong synergistic fit for us. This sharper focus ensures that our capital, our talent and our technology are fully aligned with our most value-accretive opportunities. We will also continue seeking partnerships that allow us to keep delivering exceptional products and services to our clients and our fund partners, leveraging our distribution strength and of course, our technology. This allows us to refocus more on our core funds businesses, and I spoke about alternatives before. Alternatives remains one of our strongest drivers of growth being an asset class with still significant growth potential. The industrial logic is clear, higher margins, lower market volatility, longer-dated product and growing investor demand and fund partner supply. On our platform, you can see from our results, we are already capturing that growth, with alternatives up 74% year-on-year. That's a remarkable number, and it reflects a genuine structural shift in allocations across Asia and the Middle East and increasingly in Europe. To put that scale in context, we now host 213 alternative asset managers with more than 390 distributors actively allocating to alternatives through Allfunds. And we expect this trend to continue and Allfunds is well positioned to capture further share. 2025 was also an important year for ETFs. We successfully completed the pilot testing phase announced in third quarter 2025. And since early 2026, have been operating in full production mode, which is a significant milestone for the business. Our priority for 2026 is to further enhance the platform's capabilities to address the full range of client needs. We have a strong pipeline of ETF issuers and a growing roster of distributors preparing to onboard. With former client onboarding beginning this year, revenue contribution will be modest, and the focus remains on building a complete scalable long-term capability for this important opportunity. The strategic review and its execution as well as the recommended DB transaction or Deutsche Börse transaction have not distracted us from what has been another strong performance in 2025, with Allfunds delivering on all commitments set out earlier in the year. Our key highlights include strong structural growth and continued positive net flows. AuA, as I said, reaching EUR 1.76 trillion, supported importantly by both existing client flows and new migrations. Revenues up 10% ex-NTI year-on-year, and adjusted EBITDA is up 4% with a margin of 65.2% and on a reported basis, which Alvaro will detail at 67.9%. We welcomed 64 new distributors and 90 new fund partners, broadening our product set and continuing to deliver operating leverage, all reinforcing the strength of our model. Now with that, let me hand over to Alvaro who will take you through the 2025 financials in detail.

Thank you, Annabel, and good morning to everyone. 2025 was a strong year for Allfunds; record AuA, double-digit flow growth, EPS up 12% and a capital position that allowed us to return EUR 160 million to our shareholders. I will now take you through the numbers behind that performance and share why we believe the momentum continues into 2026. One brief point on comparability before we get into the numbers. As Annabel noted, certain units have been classified as held for sale under IFRS 5. So for clarity, today's figures are presented on a constant perimeter basis, which means fully comparable with 2024. The bridge to reported figures is on Slide 19, if I recall correctly. And I will walk you through it shortly. So in 2025, we continued to deliver solid growth across key financial metrics. We reported net revenues of EUR 639.9 million that is a 5% year-on-year increase and a 10% excluding Net Treasury Income, adjusted EBITDA increased to EUR 417.3 million, a 4% growth compared to 2024. Adjusted profit after tax rose by 10%, reaching EUR 254.6 million, and adjusted EPS increased by 12%, reflecting our continued ability to convert operational strength into shareholder value. Sorry, Carlos, can you go one slide back, thank you. So as of December 2025, assets under administration reached a record level of EUR 1.8 trillion, representing a 17% increase since December 2024. This growth was driven by strong net flows of EUR 121 billion in platform services, representing an 18% increase versus last year and then 11% over beginning of the period AuA, approximately 54% originating from existing clients and 46% from new client migrations. This was further supported by a positive market performance of EUR 47 billion. We also delivered a strong year-on-year increase in AuA within our Dealing & Execution business, driven by both organic and market growth as well as the onboarding of a new client who contributed EUR 36 billion in Dealing & AuA, together with additional platform AuA noted during our H1 '25 results presentation. With that context in mind, let's take a closer look at our platform revenue margins. The overall platform margin declined in 2025 as expected, primarily due to lower Net Treasury Income resulting from the interest rate cuts across '24 and 2025. However, excluding Net Treasury Income, our underlying platform margin remained broadly stable. Let's now take a closer look at our revenue performance on Slide 15. We continue to deliver consistent and structural revenue growth throughout 2025. Commission and Transaction revenues grew at double-digit rate, highlighting the strength of our core business. This performance was supported by higher volumes and commercial activity, which helped offset the anticipated normalization of the Net Treasury Income. Despite the reduction in official interest rates shown on the previous slide, Net Treasury Income proved resilient, supported by higher average cash balances from increased activity and ongoing improvements in treasury management. Subscription revenues accounted for approximately 10% of our revenues and were broadly stable year-on-year. This was softer than what we had targeted reflecting both market conditions and the impact of the strategic review on certain units. The guiding principle of our 2025 strategic review is generating growth and created -- and create strong value for clients and shareholders by focusing on businesses that are truly synergistic, profitable, scalable and partnering with leading specialists whenever it helps us better offer solutions and services. As Annabel mentioned, the outcome is that we are realigning around what we do best, our core platform and distribution capabilities. Moving on to cost. Our adjusted cost base grew by 6.7% year-on-year in 2025. However, when compared to the first half of 2025, the increase was more modest, reflecting a more balanced cost trajectory. This growth reflects the combined effect of inflation, higher activity levels and our continued investments in the platform. So breaking it down, almost 40% of the increase relates to technology and operations enhancements across mutual funds, alternatives and ETF platform. A further 40% is driven by inflation and incremental activity, and the remaining 20% is associated with costs linked to the subscription business. As a result of these combined efforts, we achieved sustained and resilient EBITDA growth. Adjusted EBITDA reached EUR 417.3 million, so up from EUR 400.9 million in 2024, so representing a 4% growth year-on-year. Reported EBITDA increased to EUR 404.3 million, a 6% growth compared to last year. These results highlight the efficiency and scalability of our business model. Allfunds continues to show strong capital generation capacity. RWAs remained broadly stable even as the business expanded with a strong CET1 ratio of 33% proving a resilient capital buffer -- providing a resilient capital buffer. At the same time, we returned EUR 160 million to shareholders through both dividends and share buybacks, reinforcing our focus on disciplined capital allocation. This commitment carries forward with the proposed EUR 0.2 per share dividend to be distributed this year, obviously subject to approval at our next AGM. But before presenting the 2026 outlook, I would like to pause briefly on the next slide to provide a more detailed explanation of the financial impacts of the restructuring discussed earlier as well as the baseline from which the outlook should be assessed. So this slide presents the bridge from our 2025 P&L with a constant perimeter, remember, fully comparable with the 2024 income statement to the reported or statutory figures on the right-hand side, right? As highlighted earlier, Allfunds has decided to exit certain businesses, which, under IFRS 5, have been classified as noncurrent assets held for sale. In 2025, these businesses contributed EUR 18 million of revenue and roughly EUR 24 million in cost. So their disposal will, therefore, deliver a net positive EBITDA impact of EUR 4.7 million. And as a result, we'll raise our adjusted EBITDA margin to 67.9%. I want to be direct on one item. We have recognized an accounting impairment of EUR 135 million, predominantly related to goodwill and intangibles. Let me be clear on what this is and what it is not. This is a noncash accounting adjustment, a consequence of our strategic decision to focus the business. It does not affect our operations. It does not trigger any cash outflows and it will -- it fully preserves our dividend distribution capacity. Before we move into Q&A, let me share our outlook for 2026. As highlighted by Annabel, mutual funds offer strong growth potential, driven by demographics, macro trends and shifting investor preferences. And Allfunds is well positioned to capture flows across asset classes. With this in mind and assuming a flat market contribution for the remainder of the year, net flows remain the primary driver of our growth. And the outlook here remains strong. We expect platform service net flows between EUR 100 million and EUR 120 billion, representing double-digit growth relative to beginning of the period platform service AuA. And turning into the income statement. As mentioned earlier, our core business continues to show strong momentum. We expect total revenue growth in the mid- to high single-digit range and revenues growth, excluding Net Treasury Income of high single digit. We expect the adjusted EBITDA margin to improve versus the 2025 in constant perimeter and be broadly in line with the 2025 reported one. To close, the fundamentals of this business are strong. Our platform is growing. Our capital position is robust and we are executing a clear strategic plan with discipline. We are confident in our 2026 outlook and look forward to your questions. Once again, thank you for your attention. And with that, let's open the Q&A session, Carlos.

Thank you, Annabel. Thank you, Alvaro. We will now open the floor for Q&A. Before we do that, let me remind, please, and ask everyone to stick to a maximum of 2 questions on this call. Operator, can you please proceed with the first question, including name and company name of the caller.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Christiane Holstein from Bank of America.

I just had 2 of them. So my first one is on the net flow guidance for EUR 100 million to EUR 120 million. Just wondering why you're not expecting that to increase year-on-year? My second question was just on the new partnerships for the subscription services. Just wondering why you chose MSCI and whether that would be a potential competitor to Deutsche Börse's business?

I'll take the first question. So we believe that, that EUR 100 million to EUR 120 billion range is a very reasonable outlook for this year. As you saw last year, we managed to be at the higher end. But at the same time, we want to be prudent, as always, in our outlook. And hence, we believe it's the right range of postcode to think about -- for 2026.

And with respect to the partnership with MSCI, this is something we're really excited about. And our choice was really driven by the particular nature of the ESG data that we were looking at with respect to the partnership within our MainStreet business. However, as we do look at MSCI more broadly, there are many interesting data sources, and we partner with them and many other players in the market. And with respect to the conflict, what is important to remember is that -- or any potential conflict indeed, that between now and close, it's absolutely critical that Allfunds remains operating as a stand-alone business and makes our choices as if we are a stand-alone business without anticipation of any M&A. And in that case, we're very much operating along our strategic plan and is a business-as-usual methodology.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question is from Carlos Peixoto from CaixaBank BPI.

Just a question from my side, actually, I was wondering on the rationale behind the decision to exit WebFG and ManCo. What was the strategic pivot to decide to do these businesses? Well, just some color on the rationale there.

Inevitably, in a year like 2025, new CEO, first view of the strategy and the team, we really had to look at the whole portfolio and think very carefully around our commercial and our strategic decisions. And our guiding principle was to generate growth, obviously, and create strong value for clients and for shareholders and retain businesses that were truly synergistic, sustainable and scalable and partner with specialists where it helped us deliver better solutions and service. So as we looked at that and as we looked at our portfolios, in particular, looking at WebFG, it really focuses on a slightly different part of the wealth management value chain than the one that is the traditional focus of our business, and it talks to slightly different people in that wealth management chain. So it doesn't really take advantage of our distribution strength in the same way. And it's a little bit more customized. So it's a little bit less scalable in the global way that Allfunds needs to. That being said, it's good business, and it's a very interesting business and very much able to access the growth in wealth management on a stand-alone basis or with some -- with a different partner. With respect to ManCo, ManCo, as you know, is a business that really needs to scale. And when we look at our relative scale in Luxembourg and in Dublin, it's relatively small. We looked at our competitors and making sure that we were absolutely providing the best for our clients and particularly as the compliance standards increase and increase and the scalability requirements increase and increase. And we just thought, are we the best provider for our clients? Or are we better to partner with another provider who can provide that service for us, and we can provide distribution for them. And I think that's very much where we're thinking about how we operate in the wealth management ecosystem. It's just indeed like MSCI, how do we partner with somebody as we look across all of our businesses, how do we provide the best to our clients with respect to the particular services that we're operating in.

Thank you, Carlos. [Operator Instructions] We currently have no further questions, so I will hand back to Carlos for closing remarks.

No, there is no more questions on the web.

Right. That was the final question for today. So Carlos and the Investor Relations team remain at your disposal for any follow-up questions you may have, and thank you very much for your participation today. It was a pleasure to host you on this annual results presentation.