Fidelity European Trust PLC (FEV) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

So good morning. I said I had a loud voice. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It's now 11:00 a.m., and as a quorum is present, I am delighted to declare the Fidelity European Trust 2025 Annual General Meeting open. And I'm very pleased to welcome you as shareholders, both here physically and, of course, those of you attending it electronically via the Lumi platform. I hope the time difference from last year, we're 1 hour earlier this year, hasn't caused too much in the way of travel problems for you. So it's particularly good to see you here. One other thing, of course, this is a very auspicious day. It's Victory in Europe Day, and so particularly poignant given that the business of our trust is very much Europe taken together. And Europe together is hopefully a message that we can take forward in the future because it makes investment like this possible. So I will now go on to introduce the other members of your Board. Starting on my immediate right, is Davina Walter, our new Nonexecutive Director. And next to Davina is Paul Yates, our Senior Independent Director. And next to Paul is Fleur Meijs, who is Chair of the Audit Committee. Then we have Milyae Park. And finally, but not leastly, Sir Ivan Rogers, at the end of the table. To my immediate left is Smita Amin, our Company Secretary. And next to her is Claire Dwyer, who is Head of Investment Companies at Fidelity. As you probably know, I should be retiring from the Board at the end of this AGM. Having served on it since December 2015, first as a Nonexecutive Director and then as Chairman of the Board since May 2016. And I'm grateful for your tolerance of me over those 9 years. It has been my privilege to serve on your Board and be part of a great team of nonexecutive directors and managers past and present. I would like to thank all of you, our loyal shareholders for investing in the company, and also my fellow Directors and the Fidelity team for all of their support over my time on the Board. Replacing me as Chairman will be Davina, who joined the Board on 1st of November 2024. She is a highly experienced investment company nonexecutive director and has plenty of experience as chair elsewhere with a professional career background in investment management. So she comes with ideal credentials to follow me, and I have every confidence that she will do an excellent job over the ensuing years. And I would encourage those of you who are physically here today to meet with Davina, who will say a few words right at the end of this meeting, along with the rest of the Board, hopefully. I'm confident that I leave the company in the hands of an excellent team of nonexecutive directors more generally, who will continue to work hard, and I'm sure, very effectively, on your behalf. So before we hear from the portfolio managers, Sam Morse and Marcel Stötzel, just here, about performance over the last year and the outlook, I will first explain how to submit a question for those of you at the meeting in person and for those of you who are attending remotely. [Operator Instructions] For those shareholders here physically, we'll be using roving microphones. So when the time comes, please raise your hand if you'd like to ask a question, and I will then invite you to do so. And [ Anasha ] will come to you with a microphone. The Notice of Meeting has been made available to all shareholders. And if there are no objections, I propose to take the Notice of Meeting as read. Thank you. Our voting procedure today will be by way of a poll in accordance with the company's Articles of Association. The poll will be conducted using poll cards for those of you attending physically, and by using the voting functionality on the electronic platform for those of you attending remotely. And I just wonder whether we can owe our excellent physical presence to terror of the technology involved, if you attend remotely, but maybe that would be ascribing very base motives to people who are supporting us so nobly. If you have submitted your vote before the meeting via proxy, you do not need to re-vote on the poll card or vote electronically unless you wish to change your proxy vote, which, of course, you're at liberty to do. And for those of you who are attending in person today, you will have been given a poll card upon registration by MUFG Corporate Markets, who are aiding us today. If you're entitled to vote as a shareholder, as a proxy or as a corporate representative, but do not have a poll card, please raise your hand. Nope? All good to go. So I will now take a few moments to explain the voting procedure that we will use today. You can vote at any time during the proceedings until I declare the voting closed. I will close the voting when we have finished answering questions, and I will give you a clear prompt later in the meeting to warn of the close in voting. And we'll be looking to wrap up around about 12:00 noon so that we can observe the 2-minute silence, which will be observed nationally. If anyone present in the room has any issue with the poll card, please raise your hand, and a representative from our registrar will come to assist you. And for those shareholders who are attending online using the online meeting platform, the voting icon will appear on the navigation bar. Once you click on this, the resolutions will appear on your screen along with the for, against and abstain voting options. Online, you can change your vote as many times as you wish up until the close of the poll. And your vote has been submitted when "The vote received" message is received. There is no submit button. So again, the voting icon appears on the navigation bar. Once you click on this, the resolutions appear on your screen along with the for, against and abstain voting options. And you can change your vote as many times as you wish up until the close of the poll. And when "The vote received" message is received or is displayed, your vote has been submitted. I now propose that each of the resolutions, as set out in the Notice of Meeting, is put to the meeting. Resolutions 12, 13 and 15 are proposed as special resolutions, and all the other resolutions are ordinary. And I have pleasure in declaring that voting on the resolutions is now open. Voting will remain open throughout Sam and Marcel's presentation and the question-and-answer session that follows it. And we'll close upon my instruction later in the meeting. I will, of course, give all shareholders a warning when the poll is about to close. I would now like to invite Sam and Marcel to give their presentation. After the presentation, Sam and Marcel will answer any questions you may have.

Thank you, Chairman, and good morning to everyone. As in life, in investing, we often have great expectations, but things don't necessarily turn out the way we expect. So yes, there is a bit of a literary theme to today's presentation. But I have to say this is not a great work of literature, this slide. But unfortunately, it must be read. So I will give you a minute or 2 to do so. Okay. Moving swiftly on. So this is the agenda today, and you may already be worrying, I haven't read that book, what's happened to your company? That's a bit that I'm going to do, the more prosaic section, which will be reviewing the performance to 2024 and how things have gone year-to-date for your company, the Fidelity European Trust. Then I'll hand over to Marcel, who will do the more literary section, looking at the outlook and also our conclusion. Before I do that, let me just reintroduce you to the team that are running this trust. I think you know myself and Marcel well by now. I'd like to introduce you to Natalie Briggs, who is our Investment Director and has been very helpful in putting together this presentation. It's fantastic having an Investment Director like Natalie because she really takes care of everything that is not investment related to do with the fund. And that frees up Marcel and I to maximize our time on investment decision-making. The other box that I'd like to draw attention to here, a key ingredient in terms of running this fund, is the Equity Research Group. This is our in-house research group, of in-house analysts covering pan-European sectors. And we have currently 33 analysts doing so, which I think is one of the largest resources in the city. So that is the team. Now we're going to have a look at what's happened to your company over 2024 and year-to-date. First off, I think it's important to always put performance in a longer-term context. As you may know, our investment objective is to outperform the benchmark by 1% to 2% per annum post-fees and to do so consistently. And during my tenure, that is very much what we've achieved, over the 15 years or plus that we've been running this trust. And you can see that from the boxes at the top. The index return over that period has been around 8%. The NAV return, 2% higher than that. Post-fees is around 10% per annum. And the share price return, because the discount has narrowed over that full period, has been even better than that, around 12% per annum. And I think there are 2 key reasons for that. Number one, the in-house research team, which is a big differentiator from other funds. Only we can access that. And I think the other reason has been that we followed a consistent investment approach, focused on dividend growth. And Marcel will talk a little bit more about that in his section. But right now, I want to focus on 2024 and 2025 year-to-date, which is highlighted in the boxes -- or the box on the right. So what happened to your company in 2024? Well, I have to say it was a disappointing year, both in absolute and in relative terms. What we've done here is showed the NAV return at 0.5% for the year. That compared to index return in sterling at 3%. Then we've broken down the NAV return on the right-hand side of this chart. You can see that, actually, in euro terms, the index had an okay year. It was up almost 9%. But sterling was very strong, so that whittled away the return in sterling terms. So the index in sterling, as we said on the left-hand side, was up around 3%. Gearing, which typically we hold between 10% and 15%, will have helped given that the index was up in euro terms. But our stock selection was negative during the year. And there are many reasons for that, which are covered largely in the Annual Report. As always, we had some good winners like 3i, but also some companies that gave weaker performance during the year, like L'Oréal, Nestlé and Dassault Systèmes. So that added up to a total NAV return, as I said before, of 0.5%, which lagged the index by 2.5%. So have things got better year-to-date? Well, they certainly got better both in terms of the index performance and in terms of the share price performance. Last year, we saw the discount widen so the share price was actually even worse than the index. This year, I think with Europe back in fashion, we've actually seen that discount narrow quite dramatically. So the share price is actually up 10% year-to-date. Having said that, the benchmark return is less than that, up around 8%, and our NAV return is still lagging that increase in the benchmark. So up until the end of the first quarter, we had underperformed by about 1.5% -- a bit more than 1.5%. Again, we've broken down the NAV return on the right-hand side, but I won't go through that in great detail. So it's been a difficult period last year and first quarter to date, some of that is because it's been an unusual period where post-COVID has mattered. Quite often when I presented to you in the past, I've mentioned that we try to keep a balance in the portfolio, and we tend to do that by sector weightings. So we tend to keep the large sector groupings, our position in the fund within plus or minus 5% of those large positions in the benchmark. But what we haven't tended to do is control the portfolio on a country-by-country basis. So over time, we've actually built up quite an overweight position in France because we've had many long-term winners there, companies like LVMH, L'Oréal, Essilor, et cetera. And we've tended to be quite underweight Germany. We tended not to own the big industrial conglomerates, so companies like Siemens, BASF or Bayer. And this has hurt us both last year and this year. Last year, with all the turmoil, political turmoil in France, when Macron called the parliamentary elections unexpectedly following a poor performance in the European parliamentary elections, we saw quite a big sell-off in France across the board, as people worried that corporate taxes were going to rise and also the sovereign bond yield and the spread with Germany rose. And so our overweight position in France certainly hurt us last year. And this year to date, and we'll come on to this and Marcel will talk about this, there's some great expectations for -- given changes that we've seen in Germany with the new government there. So the German stock market has performed very well year-to-date. And generally, we're underweight there. So it's been an unusual period -- where the companies are headquartered has actually had quite an impact on the performance of the fund. So I'm going to hand over now to Marcel to talk a little bit more about what's going on within Europe.

Thank you very much, Sam, and thank you, everybody, for coming. Great to see a lot of familiar faces again. So I'm going to talk about the outlook for Europe and where things are. And I think as opposed to begin, we need to look at valuations clearly, because starting points and where we are really matters when it comes to investing. And after many years of U.S. being the only game in town and S&P 500 strongly outperforming Europe, we get to a world where we believe strongly the valuation disconnect between Europe and U.S. is quite stark. And this chart quite paints that picture. So what you can firstly see is the range of where various markets are. So that's the kind of horizontal square, the blue square on its side versus the square in the middle. You can see U.S. versus history is very expensive, relative to Europe versus history, which is not as expensive. But then even going further and adjusting the Europe, stripping out big tech and trying to look at it more on an apples-to-apples basis, Europe ex the famous granolas, et cetera, we still get a world that, no matter how we slice and dice it, Europe looks attractively valued versus the U.S. Now somebody is probably going to say to me, yes, but this has been the case for 20 years. You could have made a similar argument, and it hasn't really made a difference. So what's different now? Is there a catalyst that means that this valuation gap could somewhat close over the next 3 to 5 years, which is obviously more important to us than what's happened over the last 20 years? And here, it's not quite literally a quote at the level of which Sam was alluding to, but one of my favorite quotes, is "A kick in the backside still moves you forward." And the kicks in the backside that Europe has received from the U.S. administration are twofold. Firstly, the withdrawal of the security umbrella, somewhat withdrawal, partial withdrawal at least. And secondly, tariffs. And we'll talk at each of these and the impacts of those. But firstly, I think both of those kicks in the backside have the opportunity to move Europe quite far forward over the 3- to 5-year period. I listed 5 of the silver linings there that have come. Each of those on their own, if I was presenting this slide 6 months ago, I would have said, have a very, very low probability of happening. Lo and behold, 2 of them have already happened. Germany has lifted its fiscal debt break. Self-imposed austerity that's been in place for many, many years has now been lifted. And related to that, European defense spending now looks finally to meet the 2% of GDP level that NATO requires. Germany will probably increase to more like 3%. These were pretty much unthinkable 6 months ago, certainly on such a compressed time line as that happened. And both of those -- the German infrastructure stimulus is at a level equivalent adjusted for inflation to the Marshall Plan, fittingly today on VE Day post-World War 2, so we're talking very big numbers clearly. And the defense spending across Europe, I think, is going from -- countries going from 1.5% -- or on Europe as a whole, 1.5% of GDP to 2% of GDP will really be a big boost to the German and European defense industries and, more importantly, to European security. Then the other 3 points remain kind of more aspirational, but I would say they're closer to be realized than ever. Is that 50%, 80%? I don't know. But it's not the 0% to 10% that it was. And the first one is the Draghi Report. Mario Draghi published a famous report outlining the issues that have held Europe back: bureaucracy, red tape, interstate kind of barriers. To put it in context and I think to kind of outline the scale of the opportunity, you can -- we can look at the chart on the right. And this is basically outlining the difference between the GDP per capita in the U.S. and GDP per capita in the EU. Twenty years ago, those were both pretty similar. Now U.S. is around double Europe. And we can split it down into 2 factors. Firstly, around 30% of that difference is Americans work longer hours than Europeans. That's probably not likely to change, I think, is a good base case assumption. But 70% of the difference is pure productivity. So i.e., for every hour worked, the average American worker outputs 70% more output than the average European does. And last time I checked, there's no secrets, there's no magic. Americans aren't in possession of some alien technology that Europeans don't have. There's no super brain, IQ levels that we can't match in Europe. It's purely a function of the environment. And the function that it's the United States of America with everything that goes with that, rather than Europe which remains somewhat a disparate selection of states. So let's see, it remains to be seen. But if Europe can integrate tighter, can remove the bureaucracy, can remove the red tape, can mobilize their savings rates -- European save way more than Americans do. And by save, I mean, keeping things like fixed deposits, bonds, property, that kind of thing, rather than in equities or private equity or venture capital, which then gets recycled back into productive uses. Any of these factors would go a long way to closing that productivity gap between Europe and the U.S. Now full disclosure, we've seen Europe grasp defeat from the jaws of victory before, so I'm not standing here telling you that I have 100% confidence that all 5 of these will come to fruition. But it is something, as Sam touched on, that has elevated the expectation level in Europe, somewhat rightly, somewhat -- perhaps, in some instances -- overly high expectations, but it's definitely something that we think could be a game changer if it comes to fruition. But then the fly in the ointment, tariffs. You can see there -- this is our Fidelity in-house macro team has put together where we are pre-April 2, where we are post -- where we would be, should I say, if the post-Liberation Day announcement stuck, and then their kind of baseline scenario of where they think end tariffs will settle down at. But needless to say, if we take Trump at his words, that 10% is kind of the baseline, which I think it probably is, that's a materially higher level of tariffs than we've seen for 50 years. And higher than that, it will be a higher level than we've seen in 100 years. And given Europe is obviously an export-driven economy, not just to the U.S. but also to Asia, given that around 1/3 of MSCI Europe's revenues come from the U.S., what happens with Trump and tariffs and announcements of the like are clearly very, very important to Europe. And not just the first-order impact, but even the second-order impact of U.S.-China relations deteriorating will result in -- resulting in kind of Chinese growth slowing, will have a knock-on effect on Europe. So we have a world where the next 1 to 2 years are very uncertain in terms of tariffs, in terms of global impact of potentially recession. But then on a 3- to 5-year view, if some of those kind of new silver linings in Europe emerge, things could look a lot better. And balancing those 2 factors of the short-term headwinds versus long-term potential gains is extremely difficult. So Sam and I stick to our knitting. We make sure, Sam touched on, that we broadly balanced U.S. exposure versus European exposure versus emerging markets exposure and focus instead on our core stock-picking capabilities. But it is something that we're monitoring very closely and could see ourselves shifting, for example, more to domestic European players in the future. So what do we do? This is, in many ways, the most important slide in the deck because it just reminds everybody what it is that we're trying to do. If you look at the blue bar on the right, the 5-year bar, there are 56 companies in our index, MSCI Europe ex U.K., that have consistently grown their dividends year in, year out over the last 5 years. And the orange bar, there are 263 companies that at some point over the last 5 years have cut or held their dividends. And you can see the magnitude of that outperformance between those 2 bars. I mean there's almost that 30% or so outperformance between the 2. And we've seen this, sliced and diced this data a million which ways, different time periods, and the same conclusion always holds. Companies that grow their dividend consistently over time outperform those that don't. And the secret sauce for us is trying to figure out what the companies in the blue bar are going to be over the next 5 years. Because if there's one thing I know for sure, it's not going to be the exact same 56 that it was over the last 5 years. And we do that by looking at all the attributes on the left, things like positive fundamentals, structural growth, proven business models, cash generative, strong balance sheets. It's not illegal to pay a dividend out of a weak balance sheet, but it's probably not sustainable over a 3- to 5-year time horizon. And then lastly, that -- and over there, it's at dividend growth at an attractive valuation. We're not going to go out and buy any multiple for dividend growth. Because if we do our job correctly on playing those blue bars, the only way we could still mess it up is if we overpay on entry. And we're very much aware of that and monitor our entry multiples and multiples of holdings that we own. So Roche is, in many ways, a great example of the type of stock that we look for, have owned for a while and continue to like. So Roche, for those that don't know, is a Swiss pharmaceutical company. Has had a tough few years as they've had a number of headwinds in recent times. The first of which is their biosimilar headwind in a number of their products. So a number of their cancer drugs, the likes of Avastin and others, have come off patent and have had biosimilar competition, really pushing the price down and taking market share from them. The second headwind that they faced is the post-COVID normalization. They have a very big diagnostics business and also offered a number of drugs to kind of help treat patients that had COVID. And then as a result of that, they faced a declining top line or pressure on the top line for a number of years, and the stock has sold off and is now pricing as if it's pretty much a patent cliff stock. It's on 14x earnings, 4% dividend yield. But importantly, we think both of those headwinds are now coming towards an end. And actually, there's a very underappreciated pipeline. Roche has gone from -- in 2021, Masa Son, the famous/infamous SoftBank, tech founder, bought a $5 billion stake in Roche. Saying it was the most innovative company in the world -- pharma company in the world, and that their Genentech subsidiary out on the West Coast was going to do wonders in terms of drug development. Fast forward a few years and a few pipeline misses and now the consensus is Roche kind of produced a drug for the love of it. We think this is far too simplistic. One of the things we really see -- or the -- one of the few things that we see, one of the few shots on goals that they have, for example, is trontinemab, their Alzheimer's drug. Alzheimer's is, obviously, one of the biggest kind of issues for society at large these days, and making progress in that would be a fantastic opportunity for them as well as society as a whole. But they also have other shots on goal. They have drugs for hypertension, they have drugs that will help with obesity, GLP-1s. And they really have a few nice shots ongoing. And as with ever with pharma companies, they will not score every shot on goal, but we strongly believe that they have enough to make a quite attractive pipeline. So that's at a strong balance sheet level of 0.7x net debt to EBITDA and cash flow returns and cash invested being very high, very high cash conversion. All for a company that in Swiss francs, despite the Swiss franc appreciating, has grown its dividend for 4 decades almost. And we're strongly of the view that, that should be able to continue for the foreseeable future. So we really like Roche for its kind of consistent track record of dividend growth and for what we believe will be able to continue, even more importantly, for the foreseeable future. Some of you may remember this slide from last year, I referred to it as a beautiful slide. And despite my best efforts, it's still not hanging up in the Louvre. But why did I say it was a beautiful slide? And I'll talk to you why I think, in many ways, it's even more of a beautiful site now. So the reason why I said it was beautiful was, firstly, if you look in the top -- bottom right-hand corner, apologies, you'll see the index, MSCI Europe ex U.K., 9.1%, and MSCI World, 9.1%, per annum CAGR over 35 years, 34 years. So let's call it a draw. What does that mean? The MSCI Europe, so Continental Europe ex U.K., has grown in line with the world over that time period, over the last 30, 40 years. I think this is a good pop quiz question that many people, I don't think, would get. Because if you said to a normal person, if you said to anybody in this room what's happened to the world over the last 30, 40 years, they would have amazing things to say, most likely. They would say we've pulled 1 billion people out of poverty. China has emerged. India has emerged. The S&P 500 and the U.S. has gone from strength to strength. You can see it there in the blue bar, 11.5%. And you would have all kinds of very positive things to say about what's happened to the world over the last 30, 40 years. And if I said what's happened to Continental Europe over 30, 40 years, you probably have a number of things that end in a word crisis to tell me. You'd say migrant crisis, debt crisis, eurozone crisis. There was a Brexit at one point. There was almost a Brexit at one point. All kinds of negative things to say. And yet humble Europe has kept up pace with the world. How can that be? And that's by virtue of the fact that only 1/3 of MSCI Europe ex U.K.'s revenues come from Europe. Two-thirds of our indexes revenues come from outside Europe. And as I touched on, a place like America being almost as important to Europe as it is to Europe itself. And we've listed a number of stocks there on the slide that have benefited, multinationals. I can make an argument that LVMH has benefited from a share price market cap point of view more from the rise of China than almost any Chinese company. And I can make an argument that Novo Nordisk has benefited more from the rise of U.S. health care than almost any American company. SAP benefited more from the rise of U.S. tech than almost any U.S. software company. And I could go on and on and on. And that's why we've been able to, over time, in this -- in your trust, deliver even S&P 500 beating returns of 13.2% over that time period. Because Europe is not a graveyard index and actually is a very fertile ground for stock picking. Why do I say I like this slide even more than ever? That 9.1% has essentially been able to do 9.1% return only relying or largely relying on that 2/3. So i.e., the 2/3 of revenues that come from outside Europe has done almost all of the legwork over that time period. What if the 1/3 also came to the party? What if Europe finally got it back together and that 1/3 of domestic-focused, Europe-focused revenues also started contributing? I think that could be a very nice tailwind. Now Sam and I will continue to remain bottom-up stock pickers, and we'll continue to try and generate returns through that as we have done through focusing on companies that consistently grow their dividends. But it would be nice to get a bit of support from that 1/3, too. And with that, I'll hand over to questions.

If I may, thank you very much, Sam and Marcel. As ever, that was concise and really sort of expressed the fundamental philosophy of the fund, which is the trust, which has done so well under your guidance over the last 10 years or so. And clearly, for me, potentially, there'd be questions. So the Board and portfolio managers will now take questions. You can ask either about the investments or ask questions of governance as you wish. For those shareholders asking a question remotely, your questions will be put to the meeting by Claire Dwyer here. And questions of a similar nature will be grouped together -- these are the online questions, that is -- to avoid repetition and to ensure that we answer as many questions as possible. For any questions that we're not able to answer today, a personal response will be provided in writing after the meeting.

So now I will start by taking the first question from the floor. And if you have a question, please raise your hand. And when invited to speak, clearly state your name and, if relevant, the name of the organization you represent, before asking your question. Sir?

I'm an ordinary shareholder, small shareholder. I looked at your presentation yesterday, Marcel, on the Internet. You were extolling the virtues of Ryanair. And the second point -- why? And the second point I was going to ask about was Novo Nordisk. That's a big holding of yours, but it's fallen a lot this year. Are you still holding that? Increasing it? Decreasing it? What are you going to do with that?

Yes, yes. Sure. So I'll tackle Ryanair and then Sam will tackle Novo. So everybody here has probably had some kind of an experience with Ryanair, and then I won't solicit feedback on how good it's been because I probably won't like your answers. But to be honest, that's part of the secret sauce of what they're trying to do. So let me explain. Ryanair has a kind of obsessive, almost religious focus on costs, to the extent that, that's almost everything that matters, together with safety, obviously, and timeliness of getting to people on time. And when you're in a commodity -- in commoditized industry, that kind of focus on cost, and that's being right at the bottom of the cost curve, actually has tremendous advantages. So what do I mean by that? You get on a BA flight. And you don't get a bottle of water, and you don't get a biscuit on your short-haul flight, and you're up in arms because this is outrageous. You get on a Ryanair flight. You arrive in your destination on time, and nothing outrageous happens on the flight, and you kind of have positive -- you look back at that as a positive experience. And the brand and the kind of way that Ryanair delivers its low-frills, low-cost services enable them to do that in a way that's so low-cost that no competitor, like BA in my example, would ever be able to match. And then things like efficiency, turnaround times, all these kind of issues really cement them at the bottom of the cost curve. And short-haul flying is a commodity for the vast majority of people. I know it is for me. I'd rather fly -- pay GBP 100 less and fly Ryanair than to pay GBP 100 more and fly BA for a short-haul flight. So that's the first part, Ryanair being the lowest part of the cost curve. Then the second part is, for a commoditized industry, what matters, obviously, is supply and demand. And supply and demand in airlines in Europe is extremely out of balance. The reason being that over the last 5 years, demand has continued to increase, more people want to travel, people still want to fly. And Europe -- Eastern Europe, for example, has continued to increase their propensity to travel, et cetera. So demand has continued to go up. But supply is pretty much flat on where it was pre-COVID. So the number of seats, the number of planes, however you want to cut it, is almost at the same level as 2019 despite the fact we're 6 years later. So what that means is you've had the demand curve go like this, the supply curve stayed flat. And if I can remember my economics from back in the day, when that happens, that leads to prices going up. And that's why if any of you have booked your flights recently, you'll notice they're probably 20%, 30%, 40% more expensive than pre-COVID. And that is just a function of the fact that Airbus and Boeing laid off so many people, and the whole supply chain laid off so many people during COVID that ramping back up is really tough. So long story short, in an industry that we think is going to be very positively sitting on a supply-demand imbalance, and then Ryanair is at the lowest end of the cost curve means that if pricing holds up they will continue to make bucket loads of money, will continue to grow the dividend from here pretty attractively plus buybacks, et cetera, all for what we think is a very reasonable 13, 14x earnings for what we think could be high single-digits, low double-digits earnings growth.

Yes. Thanks, Marcel. In terms of Novo Nordisk, I mean, we've got it on this slide because it's important to remember that it's been a huge contributor to the long-term performance of this company. But as you say, it's fallen very hard in the last year or so, down probably as much as, well, maybe more than 50%. That has really all been a derating. The stock had got very expensive this time last year on excitement that it had broken through with new medications in the obesity market, in particular. And it's -- Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, in a sense, are a duopoly in that area. And you'll -- anybody who knows Eli Lilly will have seen that, that share had done very well previously, and they got very expensive as well. So what has caused the derating? A couple of things. So the main molecule that is used in these drugs is semaglutide. And this will go off patent in the early '30s. And there was hope that Novo Nordisk was developing a follow-on drug, and they'd be able to move the current population onto this new drug in the early '30s, called CagriSema. And some clinical data came out on CagriSema that was disappointing and which suggested that it's less likely that they'll be able to avoid that sharp fall post the patent expiry of semaglutide, and they will struggle to move existing customers onto that new medicine at that point in time. So in a sense, we went from valuing it as a growth stock in perpetuity, to saying, "Look, this is a stock that will grow its earnings very handsomely over the next 4 to 5 years, but then it faces a cliff when that patent expires." The other thing that I think has changed is that a number of other companies are now targeting the obesity market as competitors. And although it's only Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk that are really powering on there at the moment, we have Roche, as we mentioned before, saying they want to get into this market. AstraZeneca trying to get into this market. So there are a number of other players. And I think the market has got quite concerned about the competitive outlook and the future competitive rivalry in the obesity market. So I think those are the 2 reasons why the stock is derated heavily. What are we doing now? Well, just as we were trimming, not enough, obviously, at the top, we are actually now beginning gingerly to add at these levels because we think the current share price more than discounts what will happen going forward. And we actually still have some expectation that they will be able to develop a follow-on product to semaglutide, as they did very successfully when liraglutide went off patent, went from liraglutide to semaglutide. So we still remain confident in the stock. But as you say, it's been quite a big hit to the portfolio over the last year or so, yes.

Thank you, Sam. I'm now going to invite Claire to submit an online question, if we have one.

So we actually got 2 questions, which I'm going to put to the managers. So the first question is when you speak to the C-suite of companies, how would you describe the mood music at the moment, as you're out on the road clearly a lot?

Yes, I mean -- well, I think the short answer would be, right now, we're going through the Q1 report. So I think about 60% of European companies have delivered their Q1 earnings. Generally, the earnings are actually okay and slightly better than expected. But the guidance and the commentary from management is very cautious because we're living in a very uncertain world. Obviously, the tariffs have been paused for 90 days, but what happens beyond that? I think people are -- it's an uncertain environment. So they're reining in expectations in terms of capital expenditure, and in terms of investment, generally. So I would say, yes, the mood music is certainly cautious in terms of the outlook. I don't know how you feel.

Yes, yes. I think in -- we see it also in the soft data. So it's interesting, if you look at hard data, i.e., what's actually happened in terms of sales or backward-looking kind of information, it's all holding up pretty well. But if we look at the soft data, i.e., forward-looking, like people's confidence surveys or CapEx intentions or any of these, they're sitting almost as low as they've been over the last 20 years. So, so far, what CEOs are seeing is the same thing, is that contradiction between Q1, as Sam touched on, and what Q2 and Q3 and Q4 on a forward-looking basis look like there might be.

I know there's a second question, which I might put to the managers. So we hear all about artificial intelligence. He's put this to 2 parts that this gentleman's broken this question into. The first is how is it impacting your own investment process? But then he also asks about the impact on underlying companies and what you're seeing there.

Do you want to take that?

Yes, yes. So for us, internally, we're still at the early foothills of adopting this. So we have Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT and various of these kind of tools that we use and are helpful for kind of asking questions or doing a first kind of glance of what a company does, and these kind of reports that can be created just using public information -- publicly available information. So I would say we -- that's where we are. There's obviously much more we can do in terms of bringing artificial intelligence more into the investment process. I'm still skeptical that it will ever be able to replace a fund manager outright, but of course, I would say that. But there definitely is more that can be done and that we can incorporate in terms of data collection, data analysis, data presentation, all of those kind of things. I think with that, we can -- we're starting to do and can do more of. Then in terms of how is it impacting stocks in our fund, I think about this in 3 different ways. So I think about it, first, as kind of the most direct beneficiaries, right? So here, I'm thinking of NVIDIA that makes the chips that go into GPUs that power AI. I'm thinking about Microsoft that owns OpenAI or a chunk of it that makes ChatGPT. Unfortunately, in Europe, we don't have many of the really direct beneficiaries, but what we have is the picks and shovels. So as an example, we have ASML, which sells the equipment that then gets used to make kind of GPUs or chips that can go into GPUs. We have the likes of Legrand, which we -- which makes products that goes into data centers, switches, fuses, transformers, power distribution units, all that kind of thing that goes into a data center. They reported a few days ago, that business is growing high teens and is now 20% of the business, so a very nice kind of tailwind there. And then the last bit is the beneficiaries. And I would say this, we haven't yet seen really in many industries outside of maybe software development and kind of coding where AI has had a big impact so far. But an area like banks, I think, could be massive beneficiaries. And European banks, too, banks everywhere, of really using AI to kind of bring insights and bring realizations to their customers. I mean if you think there's no one that knows more about you, in theory, than your bank. They have what you spend money on. They have where you spend it. They have how much you earn. They have all of this information. And if they could package that into a product that says, "We've seen that you are buying a lot of diapers. What do you think about a junior ISA?" I mean that doesn't sound revolutionary, but banks are so far behind on that journey, and AI could potentially give them a chance to jump forward and properly utilize their data as well as cut costs. So yes.

So I'm now going to return to questions from the floor. We have a number of hands up. Should we start with the gentleman on the right, and then we'll come across to both of you, gentlemen, after that.

I'm Andrew, a retail shareholder. Got a question about boycotts of U.S. products and brands, consumer boycotts. So we hear a bit anecdotally about -- reading that Coca-Cola sales have dropped off in Mexico and Denmark, and Tesla sales have gone off a cliff face in Europe. And you have radio phone-ins where people are saying they're going to cancel Netflix, and they're going to drink San Pellegrino instead of Pepsi. How real and how significant is that? And is it happening? Is it a real thing in the consumer world? Is it happening in the B2B world? And do you see it as an opportunity or a threat for this investment trust?

I can take the first one that's kind of most obviously jumped into my head, and then I'll let Sam add if he's got anything to add. So the most obvious one that I've seen so far is in the travel space. So basically, particularly Canadians, but also Europeans, kind of much less being willing to go on holiday to the U.S. And I think that's probably partly a function of what you touched on, partly a function of news stories of Europeans being deported back to Germany while they're on their holiday in the U.S. But yes, I would say that's the one, we've most clearly seen it in the data. You can see, for example, Canadian travel inbound into the U.S. and European travel inbound into the U.S. down kind of. I know Europe, for example, is down around 10%, 20% year-on-year, whereas usually it grows kind of 4%, 5% year-on-year. And so that's the one we've most clearly seen it in the hard data already. But for the -- I guess, the quick, banked question is, what's the impact on the stocks that we own? I think actually the impact of that is positive. If you think that people are not going to cancel their holiday and just are not going to cancel their trip to Florida and just stay in London. They're going to cancel their trip to Florida or not book it and instead go to the Caribbean or South of France or Europe or whatever. So given our companies like Ryanair and even Amadeus, for example, have much more of a European slant, as long as that gets rerouted, it's not the end of the world. Are there any other areas that you see?

Well, it's more tangential, more to do with tariffs, but I think this whole rerouting question is an interesting one. And actually one company in the portfolio that's performed very well, very lately, is 3i Group. And the theory there is that because China won't be able to export as much to the U.S. in terms of consumer goods, et cetera, it's going to dump a lot of stuff on Europe, which generally is not great for our European companies because there will be price deflation, but it's good for a retailer like Action because they'll be able to purchase stuff that we might want to buy in the stores at a much cheaper price and make a better margin. So there are all sorts of impacts that we potentially see. I mean I was thinking about your boycott question, I guess that would have an impact on Tesla potentially. Certainly, Tesla's -- interest in Tesla products in Europe has fallen quite dramatically. But that wouldn't necessarily lead to us rushing out to buy Volkswagen, say, because they're certainly facing their own issues as well. So yes, I mean, it's just a question of working through this on a stock-by-stock basis and seeing where the opportunities are. Yes.

My name's [ Phil Clarke ]. I'm a retail shareholder. I've got 2 questions, please, one for the manager and one for the Board. For the manager. Yes, thank you for the presentation. I really liked your slide on dividend growth as well. That was -- I think that was very powerful. Of course, the other side to dividend growth is valuation. And so can I ask you about 2 of your stocks, please, being 3i and SAP? Because 3i have had an amazing run with Action. It's got to the point now where Action is valued similarly to Tesco on the 3i balance sheet. And the shares are still trading to a massive premium to that, which is quite astonishing if you think about it. And of course, SAP has had an immense run, and they're sat on top of the DAX. So do you see any future in those? Or is now the time just to be easing back on them? Can I give the question to the Board as well whilst I'm here? It's really for our new Chair, please. It's -- I'm old and nerdy. I do like having a cash flow statement in the accounts. So do you think you could have a think about reintroducing it? Because it -- we don't have one at the moment.

Yes. Maybe I'll touch on 3i first. And I mean 3i has been a huge contributor to the performance of the portfolio and actually has continued to do very well despite the fact that we've generally underperformed over the last year or so. I mean they value at 18.5x EV/EBITDA when they come up with their NAV. They base that off various peer group companies, and you can argue whether it's a sensible peer group or not. I've always felt that 18.5x was a little bit punchy. So hark back to your comments, you could say that it's sort of premium to NAV and that NAV is a little bit punchy as well. Having said that, we just feel fundamentally that's a very strong and long period of growth for this business. I mean just if you look at the countries in which they operate, they've been in Benelux for many, many years, they're still growing nicely like-for-likes there. And France and Germany are still quite immature, so there's a lot of space for growth there. And then they have all these new countries that they're adding within Europe. You have potentially other markets like the U.S. they haven't even touched, U.K. haven't even touched yet. So I understand your point about valuation, and I think we need to be cautious, and we have been trimming. But we still think that there's -- fundamentally, there's a very long runway for growth at this company. But you're absolutely right, 3i has, in a sense, become Action. I mean it now represents probably 75%, 80% of the value of the business. So -- and I'll -- I slightly laugh because a few years ago, we always used to say to the company, "Aren't you worried about concentration risk? Aren't you worried that Action has become too big in the portfolio?" And they always just smiled and bought more shares in the company. So -- and they've been absolutely right. So yes, I mean, one's always nervous as an investor, but we're still confident on that one. Yes, yes.

So yes, I'll take the long route then to answer that question, if that's okay. So when I joined Fidelity 12 years ago or so, SAP was the first stock that I initiated on. I used to be the European software analyst. And it was on 20x earnings back then. And Dassault Systèmes, which we own, was on 35, 40x earnings. And now fast forward and those 2 have entirely inflected. And SAP is now on 40x earnings and Dassault is more like 25x. And the reason why that's happened is because they have this product called S/4HANA that's going to be the new ERP suite. And I remember, I think, in 2014, that this product was probably immature and wasn't yet ready. And fast forward to 12 years later, and I think it finally is ready. I mean 12 years is an eternity for a software product. I mean imagine if Microsoft only released Windows every 12 years. But ERP suites are big and complex, and companies take a long time to migrate. And also, probably not inconsequentially, SAP has taken out the stick as well as the carrot, and said, "Anybody that hasn't migrated by 2030, we're going to switch off," which, at that point, will have been 15 years. If you haven't migrated up to 15 years, I think SAP is probably within their rights to say we're not going to maintain a 15-year-old product. So the combination of the product finally becoming mature with new functionality like AI, et cetera, plus the stick, has meant that we probably be -- over this next 5-year period, going to get 20% plus earnings growth. So long story short, I can understand why it's become more expensive, but -- and we have been trimming, but I think it is somewhat justified.

And very briefly, thank you for my first question. Claire, do...

I will, and I will do and try to answer it before the clock hits 12:00. The company is exempt for producing a cash flow statement because of the highly liquid nature of the securities that we invest in. I'd be very interested to talk at lunch what you see in it. I think it will be -- it's very beneficial when you're looking at an operating company. I think the nature of our company, it might be less insightful. But I'm interested to hear your views on that, and we can discuss that later. Thank you.

So ladies and gentlemen -- do you want to say a very brief word or not? Are you happy? So ladies and gentlemen, we'll now break off for a 2-minute silence. We'll resume questions afterwards. And we will all, I'm sure, reflect during that time on the immense sacrifices that were made. 80 years of peace in Europe interrupted by you know who. We will remember all those who died in the course of the war, and the sacrifices they made. Now returning to questions. I'm afraid you had to be patient, sir, but -- just over here.

I've got 2 questions -- sorry. My name is Harsha Kotecha. I'm an investor. Two questions, one for the managers and one for the Board. So first all, for the managers. I noticed that you don't have -- as core holdings, financials or, in particular, banks as core holdings. I know you've got a little bit smaller holdings. I was just wondering whether there was any reason to avoid that sector. And for the Board, I don't know if you've discussed competition in this sector, Europe large caps, because in particular, JPMorgan has been doing really well. Their management fees are only 66 basis points. And over the last 5 years, they've actually performed better than this trust. And even their dividends are more than double this one, so over 4%. So I don't know if the Board discusses issues like that. So...

Could you repeat your question please?

Yes. So would you like to just repeat the question? Have you got the microphone? Yes.

Okay. Yes. Shall I repeat both the questions?

Please.

So the first one is for the managers that -- why have they avoided financials or, in particular, banks as large core holdings? I would have thought that in this tariff, that would have provided some protection against tariffs. And the second one, for the Board, is whether they discuss competition in this sector, Europe large caps. And in particular, JPMorgan Growth & Income Trust (sic) [ JPMorgan Global Growth & Income Investment Trust ] has done really well with lower management fees at only 66 basis points and over 4% dividend. They've performed really well over the last 5 years.

Did you catch the questions this time?

All of a sudden, I'm determined.

So the first question related to banks and our position in banks. And the second related to the fact that are we aware of the competition. And in particular, the gentleman mentioned JPMorgan, which has got a good record over the last 5 years. So we'll take the question about banks.

Yes. Thanks. I will. On financials, this is a chart on the left-hand side that basically gives up our positioning in terms of sectors the large sector groupings, and actually financials is 25% of the weight to the portfolio. And we are -- it is our largest overweight amongst all sectors. So we're about 3% or 4% overweight. I have to admit that, that's partly -- there are 2 stocks that are big positions, that are sort of semi-financials, the 3i Group that we already touched on and Deutsche Börse, the exchange business. So they're not banks, but they are classified as financials. On banks, specifically -- but I don't think we have a chart on this -- we are pretty much in line to slightly overweight the bank sector. And I would agree with you and your comment about tariffs. And given Marcel's earlier comments about how we might see relatively a better picture from Europe in terms of the economy, I think banks are quite a nice way to play that improvement in the domestic economy in a more diversified sense. Because if the European economy is going to do better than local domestic banks, local champions like Intesa, like Bankinter, which we own, we'll do better in that environment. Currently, banks are making tremendous earnings, profits, generating a lot of capital, which means that they're paying out very high dividends and growing those dividends, which is partly what attracts us to them. Obviously, you need to be a little bit cautious because interest rates are likely to continue to come down in Europe because tariffs, although inflationary for the U.S. might well be deflationary for Europe, so that will put pressure on net interest income. And in addition to that, if the global economy weakens as a result of tariffs, then you have to start worrying about credit quality as well. So we won't -- don't want to be too full in the banks because, right now, it's probably as good as it gets. But we agree with you that financials generally is an attractive area, and that's why we're overweight.

And now your second question, which was relating to the competition within the sector. I may say, as your departing Chair, I like to see other investment trusts specializing in Europe doing well because it suggests that we aren't talking about one trust doing well in a bad sector. We're talking about a sector that really is worth investing in. And we recognize that you have a choice, as I think one travel company wants you to say. And as far as the record is concerned, one must congratulate JPMorgan on doing an extremely good job, even better than us, over the last 5 years. But things change. A year or 2 ago, the name you might have come up with was BlackRock Greater Europe. They happen -- hopefully, temporarily -- to have fallen by the wayside, and someone else has taken up the slack. What I think you'll notice is that our own trust, your own trust, Fidelity European Trust, is a doughty competitor throughout. I may say also that it would be a great mistake to try and concentrate on what other people are doing because we're going to stick what we're doing. We know it works. We know that it's a very durable investment philosophy, which has worked well over time. But if it helps us to avoid being complacent, then so much the better. I think tough competition is always welcome. And the other thing you mentioned was the lower management fees. Now of course, fees are not the only expense that an investment trust faces, which is why the ongoing charges is the measure by which the broader total costs are looked at. And on that basis, in fact, you'll see that JPMorgan and ourselves are virtually the same. So there are a number of other costs which can arise, and it's the job of the -- we are very keen on as low -- as a Board, of lowest fee as possible, because that is to the benefit of shareholders. You can be sure that there are always robust conversations between ourselves and Fidelity on that front. And everything's relative. So you can tell that over the last 9 years, for example, since I became Chair, the fees have reduced quite considerably. And just before my time, there used to be a performance fee, which has now disappeared. So we have always got our eyes on the interests of shareholders, and I would like to reassure you that we will do everything in our power to be competitive on every front, not just performance net of fees, as Sam mentioned, because it's always the net-of-fee figure that you don't want to concentrate on, but on all elements of costs, which can detract from gross performance over time. Does that answer your question?

It -- yes. Well, this one is actually the largest trust.

Sorry?

This is the largest one.

So this trust is...

In the sector?

Yes, in the sector. So no, we're the largest.

We're the largest.

That's what I'm saying. Just -- that's what I'm saying.

Yes. All right. Okay. Okay. Sorry, I beg your pardon.

So what -- so that, I mean...

So it's generally up to us, yes.

Generally, when you have a very large -- I think it's about EUR 1.8 billion size, then you have lower fees, like compared to JPMorgan, which is about 30% of the size. So if the costs, as you say, are very similar, then, I mean, you'd expect this one to be a lower cost in percentage terms.

You're absolutely right, but that presents us with a tremendous negotiating advantage. And that is why you will notice that there are lower fees at a higher amount of funds under management. So our growth has indeed benefited the total costs, which have gradually been reducing. And we shall continue to negotiate very hard on fees. And I know that my successor, Davina, is equally eagle-eyed on that. But as we stand, overall costs are pretty similar between us and JPMorgan. And if we can get those down further, we shall not relent. So I'm going to take the question over there from that gentleman and then you, sir.

My name is [ Richard Dennis ], a private shareholder. Given that defense budgets are going to be rising, not just across Europe, but I'd imagine across the world, is the company able to either buy directly into companies that will be meeting that demand or, indeed, possibly those that supply defense manufacturers?

Yes, I'll take that one. So yes, we are able to own defense companies as well as defense suppliers. The only exception, as I'm sure you won't be surprised to hear, is kind of cluster munition manufacturers, chemical, gases, and these kind of U.N.-banned products. But for the vast majority of defense manufacturers, we are able to own them. We do own exposure through MTU, which is the German aerospace manufacturer, that has around 20% of their business in defense, largely in areas -- in the kind of -- in that -- Eurofighter is the word I was looking for, in the Eurofighter planes. So they provide the engines to Eurofighters. Germany is likely to order many more Eurofighters as part of their kind of increased defense budget increase. So MTU will be a direct beneficiary of that. The question might then be, why don't you own more defense? Or why don't you own any defense companies that are 100% defense companies? And for -- the one main thing that holds me back is just balancing, as with Europe, that kind of short-term issues around tariffs, around recessions and the need to raise kind of defense budgets. So Germany has enshrined in their constitution that defense budgets are going to be carved out and they have fiscal headroom to do so. Places like France and Britain and Italy and others don't have that same level of fiscal headroom to really raise defense spending. So if we do get a recession and if funding becomes scarce and if needs for spending for social needs rises, I could see a world where some of those commitments outside of Germany -- and also coincidentally in countries like the U.K. that are further from the front lines, obviously, I could see a world where those commitments, unfortunately, get rolled back if the kind of needs must environment prevails. Meanwhile, kind of defense stocks have all done very well, and up kind of 50% to 100% or more in the expectation that budgets, defense budgets in Europe will go up. So that's the kind of setup that leaves us a bit uneasy. Germany, yes, and we have exposure to the German defense budget. But the rest of Europe, there's a scenario where, unfortunately, budgets might not go up to meet the levels that U.S. and others are demanding.

I'm just going to check, do we have any further questions online? So if I may, unless there are further burning questions, can we make this gentleman's question the last one before we proceed to continue formal business?

[ Jon Berg ], private shareholder.

Sorry. Catch the name again?

Sorry?

Could I just catch the name again?

Your name, sir.

Your name, sir.

My -- I gave you my name.

Yes, I hadn't heard that. I...

All right. Okay. Do you want the question now?

Could I have your name again? Because I didn't hear it, but I'd like to know your name.

The level -- is my level good or not?

Yes, it's good.

Yes, yes. Now it's great.

My level's good. Yes, that's fine. [ Jon Berg ], private shareholder, a former foreign correspondent. First of all, commendable, the Chairman calls himself Chairman and not Chair, and you're all wearing ties. My question is this -- well, all the gentlemen are wearing ties. My question is -- it was partly answered by the gentleman there about 2 minutes ago. But perhaps the managers who weren't around at the time looked at the history of the European stock exchanges between 1936 and 1946.

Thank you for that question. And obviously, that covers the period which we have been commemorating with our 2-minute silence. And war is, of course, always detrimental to returns. I think I answered a similar question possibly from you, sir, last year about were the banks closed on the 3rd of September 1939. It's a very important question that you asked, and this is sort of another variant of it. I won't go through my answer then because I'll pass over to the managers. But I do want to say one thing, which is that -- which has probably been, certainly, so far, since last year, reinforced, is that it doesn't generally pay to bet on Armageddon. So we have a sequence in which markets fall and markets recover. But over the long term, with considerable fluctuations, you get this upward move. And that evened the poor performance, so between 1936 and 1946, is just a blip on the long-term screen. But it can seem quite significant at the time. With that in mind, I'm going to invite the managers to say anything further of a specific kind relating to the stocks, which they might like to add to the equation.

No, our answer is going to be very short, which is that no, we haven't looked at that period, and I'm sure we should have. So we're going to come and find you afterwards, and you can tell us about it. And we always love to learn, so thank you.

So we'll take a very, very final question from you, sir.

Yes. I noticed you've got contracts for difference out on 4 stocks. Is that -- they're all standing at negative value according to your report and accounts on the 31st of December. Are these the stocks you're most bullish about? Or how does that work?

Yes. In a -- no, I mean, so we use contracts with difference to get the leverage in the portfolio, to get that gearing of 10% to 15%. And it's not necessarily correlated that the stocks that we're using for CFDs are the ones that we're most bullish on. It's a function of, firstly, stocks that are more large cap because then the CFDs will be cheaper. And then it's a function of stocks that are euro-based because we'd like to kind of keep the base currency as euro for what we do to the CFD, so we don't want to kind of confuse it and have some SEK, some pounds, et cetera. And then the third one is just sometimes there are opportunities where CFDs are much more attractive than owning the equity. So Ryanair is a great example. Up until recently, the ADRs, which you would have to buy if you were a non-continental European investor, as we are, because post-Brexit, U.K. is not part of Europe anymore. So U.K. investors had to buy the ADR listed in North America because the European Union has a rule that the airlines cannot be more than 50% owned by foreigners. So basically, the ADR was trading at a big premium. And so we could use CFDs to access the ordinaries at a big discount. Which when that premium collapsed, as it did when they worked through that regulation, was a big benefit to your trust that we did use CFDs there. So it's not necessarily correlated. A name like Ryanair, we own as much as we would have owned in the odds, but in the CFDs, so -- and then we'll just own something else to kind of offset that. So I wouldn't necessarily correlate using CFDs or not with what we're most bullish on.

I would just like to conclude the question-and-answer session by saying thank you for your questions, which have been, I think, very interesting and very much to the point. And so thank you. The formal business has now concluded, and the poll is therefore now also closed. For those of you in the room, your poll cards will now be collected. And that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes the formal business of this Annual General Meeting. The proxy votes submitted in advance will shortly be shown on the screen and are available from Company Secretary, Smita, on my left. The final voting results will be posted on our website as soon as possible after being scrutinized by our agents, MUFG Corporate Markets. Thank you for attending today's AGM. And as ever, and this is very important, for your continued support, we couldn't do what we do on your behalf without that support, and we hugely appreciate it. Before I invite you to join the Board and the Fidelity team for some refreshments, I will just pass the microphone over to Davina, my successor.

Thank you, Vivian. Well, I don't want to stand in the way of the drinks, but please, can I take this opportunity to thank you, Vivian, very much for everything? On behalf of shareholders, the Board and the team at Fidelity, your experience, leadership and wise counsel, especially as we've heard today, will be very much missed by us all. But I hope to see you at future AGMs and no doubt asking us some questions. So anyway, thank you. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, your new Chair.