Pollen Street Group Limited (POLN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to the 2023 Annual Results Presentation for Pollen Street. It's great to have so many of you with us in our offices today and also welcome to those who have joined on the video call. I'm Lindsey McMurray, CEO; and I'm joined with Julian Dale, CFO. Today, I will cover the key highlights and provide an overview of our investment strategies. Julian will cover the financial section and guidance. We've built strong foundations within the business, and we have exciting times ahead with a very attractive investment proposition. The execution throughout the year by the team has been exceptional. We are delivering strong AUM growth, capitalizing on the structural expansion across private capital markets. Our specialist investing approach provides us with a competitive edge. Through our recurring fee structure, we generate high-quality earnings from our asset manager, coupled with the financial strength of our balance sheet, enabling us to accelerate fund formation. Across the group, we benefit from attractive operational leverage, demonstrated by the strength of our team. Our seasoned team combines expertise with agility, ensuring efficiency and adaptability and a dynamic market landscape. We have proactively established a capital allocation framework and announced a share buyback program today, which will allow us to deliver very attractive returns for shareholders. Here, we present our financial results for 2023. These numbers reflect the momentum we've built and the opportunities that lie ahead. The financial performance for 2023 was ahead of target. And looking at the outlook, we're upgrading on the guidance, which will come later on in the presentation. So to the operating highlights, I'm pleased to share our strong performance in 2023, both financially and strategically. The group recorded strong performance across the board, significant progress against our fundraising targets and benefited from attractive deployment opportunities in both private equity and credit. Our 2023 results were underpinned by accelerated growth in the asset manager and consistent performance in the investment company. We have raised GBP 1.3 billion in private equity, including securing approximately half of the fundraising for private equity V. In private credit, we have closed a GBP 225 million separately managed account, and we anticipate the first close of Private Credit Fund IV imminently. Our fee-paying AUM grew by 36% in 2023, and this strong fundraising led to fund management EBITDA growing by 79% to GBP 15.2 million, demonstrating the strong operational leverage in the business, driving fund management EBITDA margin improvement of 8%. The investment company returned GBP 30.2 million of income, and we made progress retaining the balance sheet from predominantly holding direct investments to holding investments in Pollen Street funds. This shift enables us the investment company to benefit from returns generated from a diverse portfolio across private equity and credit while helping these funds reach scale and providing a catalyst for raising additional third-party capital, thereby driving higher management fee income for the group. Our solid fundraising grows this testament to the support for our clients in the last 3 years, our fee-paying AUM increased at a compound annual growth rate of 33%, followed by growth in deployment of funds and total assets under management is growing at 28%. We've delivered consistent growth in line with our guidance with especially strong growth in private equity. As we look to the future, we look to exceed the GBP 4 billion of fee-paying AUM in 2024 and to grow total AUM to greater than GBP 10 billion over 4 to 5 years. Our success in fundraising means that the asset manager now represents an increasing contribution to revenue, now over 60%. Overall, we delivered 23% AUM growth with total AUM rising to GBP 4.2 billion, up from GBP 3.4 billion in 2022. We closed 2023 with fee-paying AUM at GBP 3.4 billion, which is a 36% increase, and we're well on track to exceed GBP 4 billion during the year. All of this translated to a profit before tax of GBP 43.1 million, a 25% uplift over the previous year. We expect to maintain this momentum in fundraising with the first close of Private Credit IV imminently. Over the past 18 years, we've been building deep capabilities across financial and business services sector. Our approach has been aligned with the mega-trends that are shaping the future of the industry. Our sector focus is strategic and deliberate aimed at delivering high returns with low volatility. This approach has not only served us well in returns but contributed to a zero-loss track record across both strategies, an achievement that we are immensely proud of. We have carefully created a deep ecosystem, which consistently delivers a strong deal flow and strong execution. Approximately 80% of our investments are sourced internally and negotiated bilaterally across both strategies. And with this, we've delivered 29% gross IRR in private equity and 13% gross IRR in our latest Private Credit funds. We continue to enjoy strong support from our existing investors and build new ones. Our clients now span a range of geographies and investor type. Our focus is in fostering deep relationships that cater to the needs and objective of our partners on a recurring basis. So looking to our markets and where we operate, as is well documented, we operate in markets with strong structural tailwinds in private markets. This growth is greatest in our strategies of private equity and credit. In private equity, we're able to take a long-term perspective and commit capital to deliver strong operating performance over the longer term. Investors are increasingly allocating to specialist strategies, and we're positioned to benefit from this. In private credit, we see wider opportunity set emerging as traditional banking institutions continue to retransfer markets with rising interest rates, we are presented with an opportunity to achieve higher yields with low risk. Credit stands as a consistent and reliable income-producing asset class and asset-backed lending is positioned to benefit from the larger allocations in private credit. So in these strategies, what is it that we actually do? Our private equity strategy delivers high-quality earnings for the group. Our approach is focused on building tech-enabled customer-centric and data-driven organizations to create fast-growing market leaders. We make primarily controlled investments in mid-market financial and business services businesses with conservative leverage levels and revenue-led growth across the portfolio. We maintain a target of 3x gross return, and we're currently raising our flagship Fund V, targeting EUR 1 billion of commitments. This chart aims to outline our target market and why it's deep and powerful. In the horizontal access, we assess as businesses' capability to benefit from strong digital adoption. Of course, to win today and tomorrow, we look for businesses on the right side of the chart, progressive and well placed to take share. The vertical access is customer relationship and retention. Again, we aim to be at the top of theirs, with the businesses that have strong customer relationships and retention and positioned to take share to deliver strong operating performance. This enables us to grow businesses through different economic cycles. Our credit strategy is dedicated to asset-backed lending. We are one of the largest and best-established lenders in the sector in Europe, having invested more than GBP 3.5 billion across over 100 transactions since 2015. Our strategy is focused on providing senior loans to companies secured directly on diversified portfolios of assets that have real tangible value and whereas those assets that generate the cash flow and revenue for the borrower. This asset security combined by borrower guarantees means our lending has significant downside protection. Yet we're able to earn premium returns because the market is significantly underpenetrated in Europe, with barriers to entry from its fragmented nature and it's not well intermediated by advisers. This means we need a team to be able to originate, underwrite and structure our deals in-house. We have developed this over the last 10 years with one of the largest teams in Europe and a top-tier track record. These dynamics, combined with the vast size of the market and the shift in market share from banks to private capital means we're confident that we have significant long-term prospects for this strategy. Our next flagship fund is expected to close shortly, where we're targeting a total capital raise of GBP 1 billion. The assets we take security over can be either financial assets, loans and leases or hard assets, cars, and residential property. And while these address a wide range of assets, there are consistent themes of direct asset security, diversification, conservative loan to values, comprehensive covenants and corporate security are fundamental pillars of the strategy, meaning it should be resilient through market cycles. I will now hand over to Julian to present our financial results and outlook.

Thank you, Lindsey. I'm very pleased to present Pollen Street's financial results for 2023. It has been another successful year with the fundraising activity and deployment that Lindsey has described earlier in this presentation, leading to fund management income growing to GBP 49.2 million for 2023, which is up 32% from GBP 37.4 million in 2022. The high operating leverage of the business, combined with the disciplined cost management approach that we've taken has led to modest growth in fund management and administration costs, but considerable growth in fund management EBITDA. Fund Management EBITDA closed the year at GBP 15.2 million, which is a 79% increase on the GBP 8.5 million for 2022. This is equivalent to an EBITDA margin of 31% for 2023, up from 23% in the prior year. The margin is on track to exceed 50% in the long term, consistent with the guidance previously issued. The investment company has also performed very well, generating GBP 30.2 million of income. This is a 7% increase on the prior year. Overall, profit after tax was up 23% to GBP 40.4 million for 2023, which is equivalent to EPS of 63p per share. Finally, we've declared dividends of GBP 32 million in relation to the year, which is in line with target. The strong growth in the asset manager this year continues the longer-term track record. Average fee-paying AUM has grown at 27% per annum from 2021 to 2023. This is driven by fundraising across the strategies and deployment in private credit. We've maintained our fee rates across the products with fund management income growing at 20% per annum over the same period and a further contractual step-up in income that we'll recognize in 2024 as management fee revenue is recognized on the AUM raised in 2023. Fund Management EBITDA has grown by 47% over this period -- 47% per annum over this period, reflecting the high operational leverage of the business and the well investment -- invested cost base. The investment company has a stable and growing income stream with income increasing to GBP 30.3 million for 2023, up from GBP 28.3 million in 2022. The key drivers of this are the higher interest rate environment, the strong credit performance of the credit assets offset by slightly lower balance sheet deployment to create capacity to invest in our funds. We have more than doubled the investment company's commitment into our funds since the start of 2023 so that over GBP 120 million of the investment company's balance sheet is committed to support the fundraising efforts of the asset manager as of today. We have also created capacity for a commitment into the first close of Private Credit Fund IV. This reflects our plans to steadily grow the investment company's commitment in the asset manager to help accelerate growth. We expect the allocation to high-yielding equity assets to increase to approximately 30% over time. This capital should deliver higher returns in the investment company as it's deployed. The tangible NAV per share grew to 553p as at the end of 2023, up from 540p as at the end of 2022. We announced a capital allocation framework and share buyback program this morning. Under this framework, we'll allocate capital as follows: firstly, to invest in our funds to accelerate the growth of the asset manager, whilst also taking advantage of the attractive investment opportunities and aligning interest with our investors to grow AUM. Secondly, to support the dividend policy, which is to declare dividends of no lower than GBP 33 million in respect of 2024 and dividends growing progressively thereafter. Thirdly, to maintain strategic flexibility for inorganic options should they arise. Finally, at the current share price, a share buyback will create significant value for shareholders. We're planning on buying back approximately 2% to 5% per annum of the outstanding share capital of the group. We'll continue to maintain a proven balance sheet. The group's net debt to tangible equity ratio was 54% as at the end of 2023. This is lower than it has been historically to create capacity to make commitments to our funds, leaving significant flexibility to create shareholder value. Our financial results have met or exceeded each of our targets. For the asset manager, average fee-paying AUM was GBP 2.9 billion for 2023. This is in line with the target. Fund management income was GBP 49.2 million, fractionally ahead of target. Fund Management EBITDA was GBP 15.2 million, exceeding target. Turning to the investment company. The income on net investment assets was GBP 30.2 million, again, exceeding target. Having delivered on these targets, we're upgrading our financial guidance for the business, as Lindsey noted earlier. We had previously issued financial guidance that fee-paying AUM would be GBP 4 million to GBP 5 billion between 30th of September 2024 and 30th of September 2025. Fee-paying AUM was GBP 3.4 billion as at the end of 2023. We expect to exceed the GBP 4 billion threshold during 2024. We're, therefore, raising guidance to grow total AUM to GBP 10 billion within 4 to 5 years. We had previously issued guidance for the return on net investment assets to be circa 8% in the long term. Given the performance over 2023 and the outlook for the portfolio, we're now revising up the guidance for the return on net investment assets to rise to low double digits within 2 to 3 years. Our other guidance is maintained. So management fee rates are circa 1.25% to 1.5% of average fee-paying AUM. Performance fees are at circa 15% to 25% of total fund management income and fund management EBITDA margin is in excess of 50% in the long term. I'll now hand back to Lindsey to cover the outlook.

Thank you, Julian. So I'm pleased with the strong foundations we have built and by the excellent execution by the team to give us exciting opportunities ahead. AUM growth is strong. Our specialist investment approach is serving us well, allowing us to generate high-quality earnings through our asset manager, bolstered by a strong balance sheet that supports further fund formation. We have outlined our capital allocation framework and initiated a share buyback program. With 2023 surpassing expectations, we look to deliver GBP 4 billion of fee-paying AUM in 2024 and more than double total AUM to GBP 10 billion within the next 4 to 5 years. I would now like to open up to Q&A.

Jens Ehrenberg from Investec. A couple of questions from my side, if that's all right. Just firstly, on the private equity side, could you give us sort of some color on what you've seen in terms of exit environment? I mean it feels like fundraising was strong, deployment was good, but just on the exit side, how has that been in '23 and how has that been sort of into the new year? Secondly, on the new GBP 10 billion AUM target, could you give us any color in terms of broad split of where the AUM will come from sort of flagship funds versus new strategies? And then final one, just on the balance sheet portfolio. I appreciate you started sort of allocating capital to your own funds, which is great to see. If we think about the growth of that going forward alongside sort of your capital allocation framework, do you reckon that it's more likely to remain stable? Or do you think that will grow in absolute size going forward?

The balance sheet in absolute size?

Yes, which is a balance sheet portfolio, yes.

In exits, each of the funds in private equity have clear profile of exits and that we are confident that we can operate to that. So I think some other, there has been comments elsewhere about the overall market. Ours is more portfolio specific in terms of we have 7 assets in Fund III. We have a number of assets in Fund I. So we know precisely what our plan is, and we're confident that we can keep to those plans. So we're -- it's -- yes, we're somewhat confident there. On the GBP '10 billion AUM, we broadly -- we're 60-40 private equity today. We expect that GBP 10 billion to be more 50-50 across the strategies. It's with some potential extension on the private into the more -- on the credit side to more -- to widen the mandate from senior to more credit opportunities. So that's what we broadly see, but it broadly ends up being about 50-50. On the last question, we don't expect the balance sheet to grow in absolute size. We'll maintain the absolute size, it's in rotation and optimization of usage.

Andrew Shepherd-Barron from Peel Hunt. A follow-up on that AUM question, if I may, and maybe another question afterwards. So that GBP 10 billion. How much of that do you think would be fee-paying, just the same sort of ratio as we see today? And how are you -- is it supposed to be all organic? Or do you think there could be inorganic acquisitions included in that? And second question for me is you talked about being one of the largest operators in Europe, and I get that. Can you talk us through, let's say, sort of who are the biggest? Who's #1? Who's #2? And are they -- are you keeping market share against them because there seems to be a flight to size at the moment, generally across the space? Can you just say how that's how you...

Flight to size in -- for fundraising?

Generally, yes.

Or our position in the market?

No, fundraising.

Okay. So, fee-paying AUM, I'd say, between 70% and 80% will be fee-paying AUM of the GBP 10 billion.

It's broadly consistent with where we are today.

Inorganic. So the GBP 10 billion target is an organic target, and we will continue to be open to inorganic. There's nothing that we're considering right now. And we will be very disciplined and return based, and it's hard to see inorganic will compete with buying our own shares at this point in time. So we don't exclude it over time, but there's nothing that we're anticipating, the GBP 10 billion target comes from what we have today, but we don't exclude it over time. Largest in Europe. So how does it -- the fundraising environment is very mature and multifaceted. So there are -- we're all headlines and then there are other number of dimensions that sit underneath it. There have clearly -- in the credit side, there have clearly been a move into private credit. Now that those allocations, what's happened without getting too detailed, what's happened is a number of the managers there have very similar strategies. So the end LP investor ends up with very little diversification in their underlying portfolio. So the first stage is for them to go into the big mainstream names, but for them to get underlying diversification, they then need to mature their portfolio and build out the adjacent strategies. So we fit perfectly in the diversification of their core strategy and core credit, and that's what we're seeing. So for our strategy, we are hitting a sweet spot in many ways of a diversification now that the core private credit allocations have been made. So that's what I would say. On the private equity side, similarly, it is generally the three sectors -- yes, there are some large allocations, the large names, but there is also a move underlying that to take allocation to specialist strategies, the three specialist strategies in private equity that are seen to warrant appointing a specialist manager are tech, healthcare and financial services, and we fit within the European category of that. So yes, there is definitely a move to allocate to larger names. But within that, again, there are other some themes that are supportive of what we're doing.

So the question on the screen of what proportion of our operating expenses come from discretion -- from headcount increases versus discretionary remuneration and looking forward, what do we expect in the cost profile? So that's -- we haven't disclosed exactly the breakdown of that ratio, but it is broadly stable from one year to the next. And of course, with expenses grew by about 18% over -- from 2022 to 2023, and that's to support the AUM growth of the business. We'd expect a similar sort of profile going forward as the business continues to grow.

Any others? There's nothing on the screen. Well, I'd like to thank everyone, our investors, our shareholders for their support, and of course, the whole Pollen Street team for their efforts over the years, and their delivery. We are available for you to get in touch with any direct questions, and thank you all for coming. Thank you.