Wendel ($MF)

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Wendel's Q1 2026 Trading Update Conference Call and Webcast. [Operator Instructions]. Olivier Allot, Director of Financial Communication and Data Intelligence, will read them. I must advise you that this conference is being recorded today. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Mr. Jerome Michel, Wendel Executive Vice President. Please go ahead, sir.

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Wendel's Q1 2026 Trading Update. Thank you for joining us today. Over the next 15 minutes or so, Cyril and I will walk you through our key financial highlights for the quarter, the major strategic developments that occurred and what they imply for the rest of 2026. We will then take as many questions as you have, and Benoit, our CFO, will help us answer them. At a high level, this quarter reflects continued momentum in our asset management platform and steady operating trends in principal investments, while valuations were impacted by market multiples at the end of the period, which was a low point. Let's turn now to the quarter's headline figures. This slide summarizes Wendel's Q1 2026 key financials across asset management and principal investments as well as the net asset value. On the asset management side, Wendel Investment Managers continues to scale with assets under management of EUR 41.8 billion and fee-paying assets under management of EUR 32 billion. The acquisition and integration of committed advisers closed yesterday further expands the platform to close to EUR 50 billion of AUM. Management fees and other revenues came in at EUR 106 million over Q1, reflecting a very strong growth of 130%, driven by both organic growth, 8% and scope effects. On the principal investment side, the only items to report are the inclusion of the price of the offer on IHS and as I said, the impact of valuation multiples as of the end of the quarter. On the net asset value now, the end of March figure stands at EUR 158.4 per share. This level reflects the impact of multiple compression in public markets at the end of the quarter, which mechanically flows through to our NAV, as you know. Importantly, share buybacks have resulted in a strong accretive effect over the quarter and have helped cushion per share metrics at the end of March with a sequential decrease of our NAV limited to 3.6%. Let's now look more specifically to the driver of the evolution of our net asset value as of the end of March on Slide 5. As you can see, fully diluted NAV per share was impacted by market multiples at the end of the quarter. The total adds up to EUR 9 per share across investment -- Bel Investment Managers and principal investments. That's partially compensated by the positive impact, as I said, of close to EUR 4 per share from share buybacks. Pursuant to our capital allocation strategy announcement, we bought back 4.7% of our share capital over the quarter, which is the highest level for any member company of the SBF 120 Index. Coming back to the valuation impact, as you have seen, public markets were strongly depressed at the end of March following the situation in the Middle East, which has translated into a negative impact as of the date of calculation of our Q1 NAV. But what I want to emphasize is that the market rebound that has taken place since then is not reflected in the valuation marks shown here. So the NAV movement in the quarter should be interpreted in the context of timing. Our valuation updates are anchored to quarter end assumptions, while public markets have moved quickly afterwards. So if we were to redo a net asset value calculation as of today, we would be looking at about EUR 5 more, close to EUR 164 per share. In a nutshell, the message is certainly not a deterioration in the underlying portfolio quality or trends, but rather a mechanical effect of the timing of valuation multiples on our NAV at the end of the quarter. Let me now double-click on capital allocation, which is, as you know, foundational to our strategy and transformation journey. As you know, we have already made significant progress against the EUR 7 billion strategy announced in December 2025. Two major transactions have enabled this, the sale of Stahl, which will be generating EUR 1.2 billion in proceeds to Wendel and the sale of IHS generating $535 million in proceeds. This represented meaningful steps forward in our asset rotation plan and support both balance sheet flexibility and shareholder return with a strong acceleration in terms of dividend distribution and share buybacks. Adjusting for these announced disposals, the acquisition of committed advisers and the -- sorry, the EUR 340 million share buyback in full, our pro forma loan-to-value is at 7.8%, reflecting a conservative leverage position. And importantly, more than 27% of the asset rotation expected by 2030 will already have been achieved on the back of the transaction announced. Combined with this strong financial position, this positions us well to execute the remainder of the capital allocation road map with discipline. I now hand it over to Cyril for the update on Wendel.

Thank you, Jerome. So let's start with a brief update on the strategy before we move to the Q1 update. So we have announced yesterday the acquisition of committed Advisor. At the closing, we have announced the signing 4, 5 months ago. Closing is very important. It's not a detail because between the announcement and now, we went through the client consent, and it went very well, and you will see that it's very important because it paved the way for future fundraising for committed advisers. So it's done now, it's behind us. We have now this platform announced in October, November with close to EUR 50 billion of assets and EUR 200 million of FRE. Keep in mind that our business is mainly an FRE business and more than 90% of our profitability is coming from FRE, which is very important when you value our business. The other important strategic element is the announcement of the reinforcement of the partnership with BNP Paribas Asset Management alternative. In fact, behind this, you have 2 very important partner for us, BNP Paribas and AXA. They are really partner, meaning that they commit money in our funds and also they are a distributor of our products. So for us, we do believe it's really a reinforcement of our ability to grow our business. So that's for the strategic part of the announcement today. Then let's move to the next page, Q1 activity. As Jerome said, the growth momentum has been maintained during this very specific quarter for private assets, let's say. Fee-paying AUM, I think it's a good summary of the dynamic of our business, 13%. I've seen some announcement today. So 13% is well positioned compared to our peers. Over the quarter, the growth is 3% even during Q1 '26, 3%, I think it's a strong achievement. If now we look at this in more detail, fundraising, new money coming from clients 1.5 billion this quarter, EUR 1.2 billion for secondary strategies for committed advisers. So you see we have announced the deal. We have closed the transaction and clients trust us, trust our model, and they have invested EUR 1.2 billion in the secondary transaction of committed adviser over the quarter during the transaction. I think it's a strong signal for us. The other strong signal is EUR 0.5 billion of new money for private credit strategies for Monroe. It's also -- it's less than what we saw in the previous quarter. But as we know, we went through a difficult quarter, and I think the EUR 0.5 billion is a very strong signal. If now we move to the retail, the evergreen vehicles, what we call the BDC Monroe Capital permanent vehicle MCIP. It's main nontradable BDC that account for 20% of the total AUM. We saw limited redemptions well below our peers. And on top of that, the key message is that we have been in a position to satisfy all the request with the cash flows. When I say cash flows, it's net flows plus the reinvestment of the coupon. So no impact on the structure of the BDC. I think it's a very important message. Then AUM, so close to EUR 50 billion, including committed adviser. If we take out committed adviser, we look at IK and just Monroe, 13% versus Q1 last year and 3% over the quarter. I think it's very interesting. And then revenues, for sure, the actual numbers are very high, but what is more interesting is the organic growth at 8% at constant dollar because, as you know, over the year, the dollar was negative for us. So that's the key figures for the quarter, it shows even if it was a difficult quarter, we had less fundraising, but it was a good quarter globally in terms of growth. What you have on the following page is the same thing, and you see the bridge in terms of AUM for the quarter from EUR 41 billion to EUR 42 billion in terms of AUM. You see the 3% in terms of heating. Those numbers are excluding committed adviser. Now if you add committed adviser, you have the scope effect and you have the fundraising over the quarter. And here, it's exactly in line with what we said in December during our Capital Market Day with committed adviser, we add a new engine of growth. And this new engine of growth provides diversification because if you had the growth of fundraising in Q1, you see that we are above 13%. And the more we had engine of growth, the more we'll have a more resilient growth quarter after quarter for this type of -- then what we wanted to do after this Q1 '26 is to convey some messages around private credit. So Page 10, you have our view of what is direct senior lending for us and why we do believe that it's an attractive risk-adjusted investment for our clients. I will not comment on the pyramid because you know this, but I want to reiterate that what we do is direct senior lending. We are at the top of the capital stack for the financing of the economy. I think it's very important to reiterate this message. Monroe, they do only the light blue part of the pyramid at the top senior secured with first lien when they do loan. I think it's very important. Monroe Capital -- they are a leader in a very specific segment. Private credit is a very large asset class. What they do is very specific. They do it in the U.S. I will come back to that. And they do it for the lower mid-market. We think it's a very interesting risk reward solution for investors. Why? First, risk protection. They focus on the U.S. economy, which is the largest economy in the world, you know this. It's -- and if you look at the middle market, it's 200,000 companies. With that, what you get, you get growth. Last year, the EBITDA growth was 10% for the underlying companies of Monroe. You have the ability to be very selective. You can get high diversification. It's very -- by sector and by company, it's very important for the portfolio. Second thing, as we see it in the PR, you have equity protection. Monroe are very strict. Debt-to-EDA below 4%, LTV 40% first collateral, very important. Third point, direct senior lending, 100% is floating rates. It means that you have embedded in the product, sorry, protection against inflation, protection against rate fluctuation is very important. And last thing, which is also very important, when you do direct lending and as monroe capital does, they are very active. They are agent in 80% of their deal, meaning that they are not buying BSL in the market. They are very active. They have access to information. They have access to management. They can be very reactive in case of difficulties, and I think it's a key element of differentiation. And in front of that, you have the reward. What is the reward is 500 basis points above the risk-free rate, and it's true in 5 years, 10 years, 20 years. I think it's very important. You have regular cash yield relatively short duration in terms of if you look at the average duration of a loan, meaning that you have regular cash coming back in the vehicles. And lastly, you have diversification. So we do believe that this product is a very interesting risk reward solution for investors. The second message I would like to convey today, it's client demand. We have seen a lot of questions around that. So the quarter for sure, it's -- you have 2 different situations. On the institutional side, Q1 '26 was a very good quarter, as you can see the PDI survey here. It was one of the best Q1 quarter ever for the asset class. So it's -- I think it's very interesting to see that because it's a large part of our franchise. And also, they are very sophisticated investors. So far, they have maintained their allocation, and we see no reduction of the allocation coming from client demand. And it's true for dollar product for U.S. clients, but also for international clients investing in dollar. And we see the same dynamic for Monroe. On the other side, as you know, it grabs the headlines, there was significant redemption for the evergreen vehicle. Here, we use the nontradable BDC as a proxy of the retail and wealth market. For sure, it's broader than that, but it's a good summary. There was a lot of demand Monroe was less impacted than the industry. We have been in a position to make all the redemption requests, and we are very cautious in the way we manage our vehicle. We are increasing the cash component in the vehicle in order to see and to manage the evolution of the demand of our investors. The last thing we would like to convey today, it's -- we talk about the private credit, the client demand. It's why we consider that Monroe Capital as an edge. The first thing is the experience in this type of environment. Monroe was created a long time ago. And if you look at this industry, which is for sure quite new, you will see that less than 5% of all the private credit managers have more than 20 years of experience. It's the case of Monroe. They went through different business cycle, and they have the experience to go through that. I think it's very important for the client. The second element, which is also very important, is a proprietary sourcing network. So they manage the origination. They have 8 office in the U.S. They work with 200 sponsors everywhere in the U.S., and they have sector specialists. To do this business and to do it the right way, you need to have a deep asset management infrastructure. It's very expensive. We have 300 FTE at Monroe, 115 investment professionals. It's very important. Security, second thing. The way we manage the business, we are focused on performance. We are not chasing AUM. It's key. We have a dry powder of EUR 6.5 billion. It was EUR 6.7 billion at the end of December, meaning that we don't deploy money just to deploy money. We do it when it's a good risk reward. We will not come back to the EBITDA multiple. They have also a very strong investment process. One of the key elements of their investment process is that you have the origination locally and you have the centralized underwriting and monitoring teams at the headquarter, and they are very independent and it creates, I think, a good check and balance when you have to deploy capital. The last thing, consistency, they have a very strong workout team. The private credit business is not a risk-free business. You have a premium, 500 basis points. So you have to manage default and you have to manage it well. They have a very seasoned workout team. It's very important this type and the last 2 things that are also very important and maybe it's part of some issues, they have a first-class LP base. It's not a pure retail business, meaning that they have on their back every day, very sophisticated institutional investors on the U.S. and outside. And I think it's a very important part of the way they manage the business. And the last thing, which is also very important, is the alignment of interest between Monroe, the employees and the LPs. And with that, you gain something very strong in order to deliver the value proposition to clients.

Okay. Let's now look at the performance about the quarter from our principal investments. Well, what we see in general is that our companies have registered steady revenue growth on average for the quarter. Let's start with Bureau Veritas, which posted 4.5% organic growth, underpinned by strong growth in most parts of the business and some headwind related to the situation in the Middle East. The group is further accelerating its portfolio transition with an in-depth review of the terms of an exit from the Government Services subsegment, all of which has been taken into consideration in the 2026 full year outlook. At Sccalan, the transformation of the company is accelerating under the leadership of the new CEO, William Ross, with encouraging results in terms of margin improvement and cash generation. Whilst the market remains difficult, as you can see, the company is focused on accelerating its commercial pipeline. CPI has seen pretty strong performance in the international part of its business, but is still facing some headwinds in its core market in the U.S., having resulted in flat sales. This is related to continued federal oversight and funding uncertainty across CPI's customers and markets. In this context, Andy, CPI's CEO, is energetically leading an effort to strengthen the company's management and commercial organization. ACAMS and Global Educate have posted strong organic growth performance of 5% and 6.3%, respectively. In line with our investment thesis, Global Educate has accelerated its growth through M&A with 7.2% impact from scope over the quarter. I think this quarter reflects continued operational momentum across the portfolio, which is really the focus everywhere. Turning to financing now. The situation is very strong. Wendel is financed with an average cost of 2.8% with a well-structured maturity profile of 6.3 years when allowing for the upcoming repayment of our April 2026 bond. The balance sheet remains conservative with cash of EUR 1.3 billion before the repayment of our April 2026 bond, plus additional committed facilities supporting a strong liquidity position. Note that we have significantly reduced our gross debt with the repayment of our exchangeable bond into Bureau Veritas in March, which will leave us with EUR 1.4 billion of gross debt after the repayment of our April 2026 maturity. Loan-to-value is also low at 7.8% on a pro forma basis and the maturity ladder is spread out over multiple years, which reduces refinancing concentration risk. So you can see resilience, flexibility. We have room to invest, room to rotate assets and capacity to return capital while maintaining a prudent leverage profile, all of which will support our capital allocation strategy through to 2030. So what are the key takeaways now on Slide 16. Let me summarize them as follows: WIM had a good start of the year, and we confirm the 2026 ambition, supported by strong fee momentum and the scaling of the platform. Principal Investments delivered steady revenue growth on average and numerous operational initiatives are being implemented, which will drive future value creation. Third, our net asset value was impacted by market multiples as of the end of March, but the post-quarter market rebound should be considered when looking at the NAV today. Overall, we remain laser-focused on executing our capital allocation strategy and building long-term value through both platform scaling and disciplined portfolio management. Time for questions. Thank.

[Operator Instructions]. We're going to take our first question and it comes from the line of Arnaud Palliez from CIC-CIB.

I have 2 questions. First on Investment Management. The first one is regarding the transaction with BNP AM. I would like to know if it is made on the same valuation basis for committed advisers than the one at which Wendel took a stake. Can you also remind me what is the partnership with AXA you mentioned during the call? I think it's for a different manager. But in this case, does it mean that the partnerships on distribution only applies on one investment strategy or asset class? Or is it -- or BNP is going, for example, to also distribute the funds from IK Partners or Monroe Capital. So that's the first question. And the second one is more on the principal investments. It's regarding Scalian. In the press release, you say that there are some signs of a rebound. So I would like to know if you can be more specific about this rebound indications. and when it is supposed to take place?

Thank you for the question. So in terms of the transaction, exactly the same. So we -- initially, we had in mind to buy 56. They are buying 5.9 at exactly the same term for us. Regarding the strategic question, so we started this partnership with AXA. And as you know, AXA IM was bought by BNP. And in fact, we decided to pursue and we still believe that the former AXA Prime now BNP and Prime remains for us an interesting partner and we have extended the partnership initially, as you said, it was only Monroe Capital for Monroe -- for private credit. But they consider that also secondary transaction are interested for them. So we decided to extend the partnership with BNP. But in fact, this entity, now branded BNP works for AXA and BNP. So in fact, it's for both.

Okay. Okay. That's clear. And are they going to have the same kind of partnerships for IK partners or it's different.

No. So far, to be clear, it's GP by GP. So it's only for Monroe and committed adviser.

So on your question on Scalian, yes, I alluded to this sort of early signs of a gradual recovery. We see that from a commercial perspective. We see the pipeline increasing. We are also -- William and the team at Scalian are spending a lot of time improving the sales pipeline. So they are having much more discussions with potential customers trying to develop dialogue with new customers. So we see this pipeline building up. And what is positive is that the win rate is also improving, meaning that we have good performance from this point of view. Now projects in this business are then to be converted in revenue, and this can take some time because if you win a frame agreement with a customer, it does not necessarily mean that you will start immediately to generate revenue. It will depend on the customer's own project. But it's fair to say that we see in some parts of the business, some early signs of a gradual recovery and sustained commercial dialogue. So bear with us, and I hope we'll be able to report in the next quarters some momentum there. But what is also very positive, as I said, is that we see an improvement in the efficiency of the model and the initiatives that have been launched to I would say, improved profitability are bearing fruit, and we see the first signs of that being converted in the business. So that's pretty encouraging.

Okay. And can we expect some stabilization in the review for the full year? Or is there any guidance given by Scalian as well?

No. As you know, A, we are not giving any guidance for private companies. So I'm not able to give you any indication of that. But what is clear is that management is very focused both on top line commercial leads and improving the top line and improving the profitability. And there is a lot of energy and already some results. So I hope we will be able to report on an improved situation at the end of the year.

Now we'll take our next question. And the question comes from the line of Geoffroy Michel from ODDO BHF...

I got 3. The first one is on the commitments in the funds that you sold commitments that were not drawn. Was it purely LTV driven? Why not keeping them? Was there a specific rationale or, let's say, a change in your allocation strategy? That was the first question. The second question has to do with CPI. Can you maybe elaborate a bit of the initiatives that you are taking to remit the growth? And when do you think you could see the first effect? And the third question is on Bureau Veritas, which is trading at EUR 26. Do you think it could be an idea to seize this opportunity to issue maybe an exchangeable bond...

Okay. So, regarding the sponsoring program policy globally, for sure, we manage this carefully, the LTV with the finance team, and we take into account this constraint. But since the beginning, we said that we will have a very active sponsoring program, meaning that when we believe that for a specific product, there is a demand, as you know, IK, for example, is closed-end funds. So between 2 fundraising, you have no product to sell. So here, for the recent sale, in fact, some clients were interested by investing in the IT strategies. There are new LPs. So I think it's very interesting because we enlarge the franchise of the business and at the same time, it reduced the LTV. We did it mainly for commercial reason. At the same time, we have a permanent discussion with the finance team in order to manage the LTV. But the main reason to sell, you need to have buyer and you need to have a commercial discussion with LPs. It was not a sale to secondary managers. It was a sale to a new LPs in the fund, which is totally different in terms of dynamic.

Regarding your question on CPI, well, what is, I think, the focus here and the intent is to improve the go-to-market. So it's about optimizing the sales team organization and the performance. It's about improving the metrics there, implement a framework for the enterprise accounts accelerate the growth of online leads conversion, et cetera. So really implement modern tools, modernize the way the business is done to improve the business with the existing customers, but also go after new customers in new verticals. As you know, CPI is very well entrenched in the health care and education businesses, but we think there is a good growth to target in -- outside of those sectors, especially in the enterprise sector, but also in terms of what products we can offer and the digitization also of the business to deliver -- should deliver superior growth. So our team and the team at CPI are working on this, and we should see improvement there, hopefully, in the next quarters. Regarding your question on Bureau Veritas, well, I think -- and I hope you do as well that, obviously, the share price is not reflecting the fair value of Bureau Veritas at EUR 26. It's been under pressure yesterday following the announcement of the Q1, but I think this is unwarranted. Does it create some idea at Wendel? Well, we are not trading our position. We are -- we've been a long-term holder of Bureau Veritas. So no, we are not minded to buy more to make a profit there. we are really disciplined in our capital allocation strategy. And I think the quarter shows that disposals of Stahl, IHS, committed advisers, share buyback, increasing dividend, that these are really -- I mean, the capital allocation strategy is really -- these are the pillars of what we want to do. So yes, there is some noise on the valuation of BV, but that's the way it is, and it's not enough for us to change our course and do some opportunistic approach there.

Dear speakers, at this moment, we do not have further audio questions. And now I would like to hand over to Olivier Allot for any written questions.

We have a question from Izabel Eric. Can you talk about the demand you are seeing from investors for U.S. private credit and the difference between retail and institutional. Fundraising seem to slow for the quarter at plus EUR 0.5 billion versus plus EUR 3.8 billion, implying quarterly run rate of EUR 0.95 billion in 2025.

Thank you. I think we had a slide for this. As I said, you have seen the client demand on the institutional side, and it's a very large part of the market and because the nontradable BDC, it's less than 20% of the market. But for the institutional market, -- the demand remains very strong, as you can see with the PTI survey. And as I said, it's not only the U.S. investors internationally, it's also international investors. It could evolve. But so far in Q1 and when we look at the pipeline of development for Monro, the pipeline remains strong. As you have seen in the slide, it's totally different for retail now. So we have to manage this. I think that it's a good test for the quality of the Evergreen structure to give access to retail client to private credit. So we have to manage this carefully and the Monroe team is on it every day in order to make redemption if we have additional redemptions. But -- so I think it covered the point.

Thank you. We have 3 questions from David S. On a pro forma basis, including committed advisers, what is the fee-paying AUM...

I think the -- so you have the fee-paying AUM for -- before committed adviser, I think the fee-paying AUM are around EUR 7 billion. I don't have the figure with me. We can give it to you offline, but you should add EUR 7 billion to the fee-paying AUM of IK and Monroe Capital.

Thank you. Can you update us on the credit default rate for Monro since 2025?

So yes. So default rates remains very low. What -- and it's very small, but the default is the last stage of the -- so the way we monitor this, I think what is important in your question is the nonaccrual. So if we look at the 400-plus loans of Monro and it's below 2.5% of the loan, the loans that are not in line with the initial business plan, it remains very low at this stage. For sure, it's tied to the U.S. economy. But when we look at the dynamic revenue growth, EBITDA growth of the other companies, so far, we don't see an acceleration of the default rate.

Thank you. Now it's a question about the net asset value. By how much do you think peers multiples have rebounded since April regarding WIM?

I've not made the calculation today, but it's higher than at the end of March, but lower than at the end of December.

Thank you. Another question from [indiscernible] about asset management. Should we expect management fees to remain stable at circa 130 basis points in 2026 across IK and Monroe? How should we think about AUM growth in the coming quarters for IK and Monroe and in terms of fundraising and distribution?

Okay. So let's start with the growth. So the growth, as we presented in December, this year will come from Monroe and committed adviser because IK is not raising fund this year. It was last year and it will be in '27. For sure, as I said, the dynamic on retail is lower for Monroe, but they have various engines. The quality of this firm is that they don't do only closed-end fund or BDC. They have also CLOs, SMAs in the U.S. and internationally. So we will -- we are in line with our expectation in terms of growth and committed adviser will be also a very important contributor of the growth of the platform this year, '26 and as you have seen in terms of fundraising. Regarding the margin in business margin compared to, for example, traditional asset managers, fees by product will not change quarter after quarter. The mix could have an impact. So if we do a bit more of private credit and secondary, the fees are a bit lower than IK, but will not be very far from 120, 130.

Thank you. I have no more questions on the web. I think there is an additional question by phone.

Now we'll go and take the question and it comes from the line of Arnaud Palliez from CIC-CIB.

I have one follow-up question on IK Partners. Can you just give us an update on future vintages? And when can we expect a new phase of fundraising for IK Partners?

Thank you. So you have the, let's say, the detail in the Capital Market Day. So IK will -- so as you know, they have done the fundraising in '24 and a bit in '25, the previous vintage, EUR 6 billion with the 2 strategies, mid-cap and small cap. They have in mind to restart the fundraising the second part of '27 and '28. I will not give you the expected growth, but it will be significantly more than the EUR 6 billion of the previous vintage. So because in between, they have to invest FundX. And I think we'll be in a position to give you some update on this in the second part of the year and also to return capital of Fund IX. So once it will be done, they will start the fundraising in '27 and '28. -- which is a natural pace of investment for our closed-end fund on.

Okay. No, it was just the need for an eventual update, but there is no change compared to the capital?

No, no.

Dear speakers, there are no further questions from audio lines.

Thank you. Thank you very much. And the next event will be our General meeting. Thank you very much.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now all disconnect. Have a nice day.