HarbourVest Global Private Equity Ltd.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the HarbourVest Global Private Equity Limited investor presentation. Throughout today's recorded meeting, attendees will be in listen-only mode. Questions are encouraged and can be submitted at any time just using the Q&A tab situated on the right-hand corner of your screen. Please simply type in your questions at any time and press send. Due to the attendance on today's call, the company will not be able to answer every question it receives during today's meeting. However, the company can review all questions submitted today and we'll publish those responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, we'd like to submit the following poll and I'm sure the company would be most grateful for your participation. I'd now like to hand over to Stephanie Hocking, Head of Investor Relations. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much for joining our HVP update call. I'm joined today by Richard Hickman, Managing Director of HVP and Ed Warner, Chair of HVP. We're going to focus in this session predominantly on the annual results which were released at the end of May and hopefully you've seen those and had some time to digest those but also provide a little bit of an update more generally in terms of the market and where we're seeing things now. I will pass over to Ed to say a few brief words in terms of introduction, and then Richard will talk us through the presentation that we have prepared for you. And we will, at the end, have some time for Q&A. As Mark mentioned, there's the chat function on the right-hand side of the screen. Please do type away as we're leaving plenty of times for Q&A. Ed, I'll pass over to you.

Thank you, Stephanie, and good afternoon, everybody. Thank you very much for showing an interest in HVPE, whether you're a shareholder or just curious in following the company or possibly thinking about investing in the shares. I'm going to leave nearly everything today to Richard to take you through, as Stephanie said, the year gone by, but also current circumstances and conditions in the private equity world. But first of all, I just wanted to make a couple of comments about corporate governance. and in particular, the three initiatives which we announced at the end of January. As if you followed the company, you'll be aware we are committed to the highest possible standards of good corporate governance. In my few years as chair of HVPE, we've moved to a fully independent board, and I think that stands as evidence of our commitment to good governance standards. But we spent a lot of time at the back end of 2024 and into 2025 talking extensively to our shareholders to understand how it was they wanted us to respond to the wide discount to net asset value per share that our shares were trading at. And we've come up with three initiatives, which I think put us at the cutting edge or the forefront amongst our peer group of corporate governance and capital allocation matters. And they are firstly, that our existing distribution pool, which you may remember, takes 15% of gross flows coming from our underlying companies and recycles them into returns to shareholders at the moment, principally through or exclusively through share buybacks. Secondly, that and sorry, we doubled that from 15 percent to 30 percent. So we would expect HVPE to be the biggest buyer back of shares amongst the listed private equity sector. Secondly, we've simplified the structure of HVPE. All our new investments going forward will be into what's known as an SMA, a separately managed account. Richard will give you a little flavor of the detail of that. But it effectively de-layers the company, enables us to be more nimble, more flexible and more tactical in dealing with the vagaries, the ups and downs of the private equity world and indeed listed markets. And thirdly, we are very committed to democracy for our shareholders. And so we're the first listed private equity trust to introduce a continuation vote, which is going to take place in about a year's time at the July 2026 AGM. That'll be a very simple vote. 50% majority is required of those voting at the AGM to enable you as shareholders, if you are shareholders, to decide whether you want the company to continue in its present form or not. We very much hope that you do. And as directors, we're shareholders and we'll be committing ourselves, I'm sure, to wanting the company to continue. But it's only right particularly when the discount's been as wide as it has been, that you have a chance to express your voice, however big a shareholder you are. I think that's right. I'm surprised, actually, that you don't have continuation votes right across the investment company world. There are a minority of trusts that have them. I think in time, everyone will. And we wanted to be one of the first, certainly the first in our subsector, to give you as investors the opportunity to have that say at an AGM. I think if you take those three together as a package, I hope you'll recognize that they are bold. They are very shareholder friendly. And I do believe over time, particularly as markets improve and the private equity world improves, that they will be a key component of the discount narrowing and our shares more accurately reflecting the excellence of the portfolio and the companies that we're invested in.