Investec plc

Okay, good morning. We have a pretty exciting presentation today, so I propose that we start. I'd like first to welcome our colleagues in London. Today, the A-Team will present from London. I have in London joining the presentation later today, Nishlin Samuj, our group finance director, he will go through a bit of detail of the group performance, and then we will have Ruth Lees give us a bit more detail of color on our UK business. As you can see in these results, we've seen significant growth in profits and really impressive performance from our UK business. And Ruth will be followed by Kumesh Mudlia, our new chief executive of our South African business. Again, that business has performed pretty impressively in a very difficult market. So excited to be joined by this A team coming in from London. So I'll go straight into the presentation. As you all know, this year marks 50 years of our existence as a business. In 1974, In one small office here in Johannesburg, 18 people gathered and decided to start what would become the Investec of today. 50 years later, we are in 11 countries. In fact, we were in more five, six years ago, and we have 7,500 colleagues around the world. And in fact, as we report today, you will see that we will be reporting revenues of over 2 billion pounds. For a little startup in the southern tip of africa that really is an impressive feat to achieve over the time in 1986 we listed in on the johannesburg stock exchange and in 2002 and i still remember the tears in stephen's eyes when we got permission to list uh I'll talk about 91, which we demerged a few years ago. And in doing so, we released significant value to our shareholders, approximately 780 million pounds. Recently, we deconsolidated Burrstone, again, a really high-quality international-type business. Very recently, we bolstered our position within the UK market with the very strategically exciting combination of Investec Wealth and Investment UK and Rathbones. That transaction brought about the UK's largest investment. DFM with over £108 billion, around £100 billion of assets under management and administration. And that really strengthens our position going forward within the UK market. Obviously, when you get to a moment like 50 years of existence and you celebrate it, we have to again say how grateful we are to our founders for founding this most incredible business that is Investec. And we also want to appreciate everyone. who has been a part of Investec, our colleagues, our clients, so on and so forth. The magic of Zebra and out of the ordinary would not have been possible but for the contribution of everyone that has been here at Investec that has made a contribution. In 2018, as you know, we had a fundamental change in the business in that the business transitioned from the founders. I know there were risks at that time about whether we would sustain the business. The transition was smooth. While the founders are gone, our commitment to our clients, our commitment to our entrepreneurial culture, our commitment to playing a positive role in society remains undiminished. And following on the transition in 2019, we looked to review the business as a whole and to chart a path forward that would lead to better sustainability for the business and, in fact, that would lead us to achieving the returns on capital that we require. As a consequence of that, we de-merged IAM, now called 91. In fact, last night Hendrik sent me a congratulatory message. That was really lovely of him to do around this set of results. And following on that, as you know, we have executed a share buyback that has returned approximately 7 billion rand to to our shareholders. Later in the presentation, I will touch on some of the achievements we have made against the commitments we made in 2019 in Cape Town. We now stand after 50 years at a point where we are well positioned to execute a strategy for sustainable growth over the next coming years. We stand here with humility, yet with confidence in our people and in our clients. We can justifiably be proud, but as I say, remain humble. Moving on to the next slide, I'm going to have a high level view of the numbers. As you can see on this slide, the momentum in earnings as represented by earnings per share, adjusted earnings per share, has continued. But this is really a consequence of what we do for our clients. We don't chase profits for the sake of profits. We chase service to our clients, and as a consequence, we are successful. So I'm grateful to all our colleagues for serving our clients as they have over the last year. There also has been very pleasing growth in the fundamental drivers of our business. These are... core loans and advances and you can see the growth over between 2020 and now and you can see in the funds and the management similarly very pleasing growth and you can see in deposits that we have seen significant progress as we go forward we will continue to redouble our efforts to get a deposit franchise that is deeper particularly in non-wholesale deposit taking. That is really important for our strategy as we go forward. Again, when we started off in 2019, we said we wanted to achieve returns above our cost of capital. And I'm really pleased that we are now at the top end of our previously guided ROE range. Why are we so persistent about getting the likes, the returns that are as high as we do? we do so because higher returns allow us to serve our clients better they allow us to reinvest in the business they allow us to invest in our people higher returns also allow us to play a more meaningful role in society and in fact they allow us to reward Those who have given us capital, rest their capital behind us. So we reward our shareholders through distribution. So I'm really pleased that we could get this level of return. 14.6% return in pounds. This return has been diluted. by the effects of the combination with Rathbones, I think there's a 60 basis points or so dilution, meaning that the undiluted return or the return pre, the combination would have been 15.2%, an amazing return for a pound denominated business. If we go into the next slide, initially we'll go into the numbers quite in detail, so I won't spend much time on this. I'll just highlight two or three numbers. The growth in adjusted earnings per share of 13.4% against the backdrop of uncertainty in the markets, volatile markets, high interest rates, pressure on clients. We think it's a creditable performance. For our South African shareholders, The increase in rents is 30.8%, a really fantastic performance from our business. The cost discipline that we committed to in 2019 continues. As you can see, the cost to income ratio remains well within target. We continue to manage the business quite conservatively with respect to risk consciousness and risk management, and I've spoken, obviously, about the return on equity. With these improvements, we are at a point where we have announced A recalibration upwards of our targets by 200 basis points at a group level, a significant acknowledgement and testament of the progress that has been made. I also would like to point out the increase of 11.2% in net asset value. Our business has a great capacity to generate capital, and that you see in that number that is there. Just looking at the geographic picture, again, as I said earlier, Ruth and Quimesh will go through the detailed numbers. In each of these geographies, we have scale, we have relevance, and we are seeing momentum. in everything that matters. If you look at the underlying loan books, in home currency, impressive growth given the environment, deposits, significant growth in home currency given the environment, and of course, funds under management. In the UK, we report the Funds under management from Rathbones, our associate there. And of course, in South Africa, the net inflows in this period have been absolutely fantastic, thanks to the team in IWNI International. And if you look at the UK, you look at an ROTE of 15.7, really at the higher end of what businesses like ours produce in the UK. In the UK, we concentrate on ROTE. because that market reports ROTE in terms of performance, and to the mix of our business with Rathbones, post-Rathbones, is such that it makes sense for us to report ROTE. We will continue, obviously, to publish ROE for our UK business in South Africa. We are pleased to report ROTE. the 17.3% ROE for our business in pounds, not rands. In rands, obviously, that performance is much more significant. In closing in this first section, we continue to run our business with a great commitment towards sustainability, and in particular, net zero. We've made our commitments in terms of fossil fuel exposure, and you can see at the bottom of this slide the commitments we have made. We continue to track quite positively against those commitments. Over the last number of months, we have been refining our sustainable finance framework And we have increased and we are driving activities across the group in trying to contribute more in terms of sustainable finance. And of course, as a bank, we have clients, we have suppliers, and we have taken a role of advocacy to work in partnership to assist our suppliers and our clients. as we commit ourselves to a faster pace of decarbonization. So great profits reported, but an even greater commitment to making sure that we can run a business that is sustainable. I'm now going to hand over the presentation to Ruth Lees to give us a bit more depth and color on our UK business. Ruth, over to you. Or is it Nish, Lynn? I'm sorry.

Sorry to disappoint you.

Sorry, Nish. I'm so excited to hear that I skipped you. Nish will give his analysis of... I even wore a color-coded tie. Thanks, Nish. Over to you. Sorry.

Anyway. Thanks, Fani. It's really great to be in our office in London. In fact, we are a bit stressed about the noise upstairs because this building has been prepared for rat bones to come in. But let me just give you some of the backdrop. You know, when Fani talks about a difficult economic backdrop, you can see that in terms of both the inflationary pressures that remain pretty stubborn in the system, but albeit that we have seen some good signs that it's now coming under control, economic growth in both South Africa and the U.K., markets remain in challenge, but again, positive signs that we are seeing some momentum come into the system as we look forward. You know, challenges such as the cost of living, still a reality in the markets that we operate in, given the inflationary backdrop. But again, we are moving forward in time. In terms of markets, we've seen volatile markets across, and you can see this with the JSC closing around about 2.1% lower than its close in March 23, at March 24, but at the same time, the average movement in terms of valuations was actually 4.75%, 4.7% ahead of the prior year. Similar volatility seen in the FTSE, albeit in a positive direction. The RAND exchange rate has continued to weaken. We are in an election period and we're about a week to go to the formalities of those elections. And yesterday we learned that the Fourth of July has meaning in this market. But from a RAND perspective, a 9.2% decrease in the overall RAND value does have an impact. And you will see that we've had actually positive momentum in terms of growth of our loan books and deposit books, but in sterling terms, a lot more muted. And similarly, from an income statement perspective, for a business that operates within a A cost-to-income ratio of 53%, a weakening RAN obviously has a negative impact on the bottom line with the RAN weakening by about 14.8% over the period. Global interest rates, I think the good news is that we've seen a peak in global rates around about the third quarter of 2023. The key question is when do rates start coming down? And I think depending on the day that you read the news, it's sometime in 2024. I think it's always good to just reflect on the rate environments in both geographies. Obviously, that long period of very, very subdued rates following the global financial crisis, that period is now over and the cost of money is really into the system. And we saw quite a rapid increase over the last financial year. And I think noting that we've also seen it from an average perspective. So, for example, the UK base rate on average at 2.3% in the prior year and 5% in the current year, and South Africa at 9.4% and 11.7% in the current year. As we look forward, obviously that momentum will stop. I think when you look at our results, a lot has gone on in these results, and it's for this reason that we've prepared a pro forma set of income statements so that you actually can compare on a like-for-like basis. Just to give you some insights into that, we are extremely excited about the platform that's been created with a combination of wealth and investment with Rathbones. a platform that has now reported AUM of £107.6 billion at the end of March, and a platform that still has a lot of execution in front of it to deliver the value. Similarly for Investec and Rathbones itself. Now, prior to the end of September, we reflected our business, Walton Investment UK, in terms of being consolidated, and post that period, we reflect an associate in Rathbones. Birthstone, I think you saw a good set of results being released just the other day. And the internalization of the property management companies to that platform has really given it the completeness that is required. Again, we consolidated this vehicle, and now we carry it at fair value through profit and loss. The distribution of 91 took place fairly early on in the prior year, but obviously has some impact in terms of comparability. And then the execution of the buyback. So when you look at things like the net interest income in South Africa, whilst we report growth, to some extent that growth is subdued because of the execution of the buybacks, yet you see the positive momentum at the bottom line. In terms of earnings drivers, you know, farm up by 14.2% in neutral currency with net gross discretionary flows of about 16.6 billion rand in the current period, again, underpinning a strong base. Net core loans and advances growing by 6.1% in neutral currency and our deposits growing by 4.4% in neutral currency, particularly in our retail deposit base. The diversification of the book, I would leave that to both Ruth and to Kamesh to unpack as they go through the geographic detail. Now, if we look at the group results, let's start with net interest income. I think, again, we've seen a growth of about 5.6%. Note that some strategic action has had impact, but we've seen positive momentum here. given the backdrop of book growth in both geographies, as well as higher average interest rates over the period. I think in terms of net interest margin, PLC reporting net interest margin of about 3.1% and South Africa around about 2.8%. Non-interest revenue growth was encouraging in this period. really been underpinned by the fact that we have grown our client bases and we've continued to see some activity, particularly a return to some of our M&A and corporate activity in the markets. Our ECL charge, on the income statement, it's a little lower, from 81 million pounds to 79 million pounds. But it is a little higher in terms of core loans and advances. And we printed a credit loss ratio of about 28 basis points. That's reflective of a net recovery of about four basis points in South Africa and a credit loss ratio of 58 basis points in the PLC. And looking at operating costs, operating costs are up 3.2%, but really flat if you recognize the fact that we have provided around about 30 million pounds for what we currently estimate as the total cost associated with the motor vehicle finance industry-wide review that has been undertaken. This slide is just a reflection on the fact that when you look at our cost to income ratio, we have a run rate in terms of IT spend that is built into the cost to income ratio across both South Africa and the UK. We've continued to effectively mold our IT spend to focus on both business investment as well as the run rate Obviously, protecting the business, so areas such as cybersecurity and dealing with AI, both as a business incorporating new technology and also dealing with the threats that come through these new channels, are all incorporated into the run rate that we reflect, with overall IT spend at just over 200-odd million pounds in the current period. Now bringing the picture into totality, South Africa growing by 13% in the current period. So operating profits for the group growing by 8% and on a pre-impairments basis growing by 7.1% to 963.6 million pounds for the combined group. The UK business reporting a growth of 21%. If we focus on some of the red lines, In South Africa, the banking business actually grew by 10% in Rand terms, down 5% in Sterling terms. But again, a lot of the strategic actions, particularly the buybacks, also influencing that outcome. The world business in South Africa growing operating profit by 30% in this period, supported by good inflows as well as positive momentum on the international strategy. Group investments in both South Africa and the UK impacted by strategic actions over the period. The specialist bank in the UK reporting growth of 34% over the period. And again, Ruth will unpack that detail. While an investment reporting a 10% drop in contribution to group profitability is as expected, It's about six months into the execution of the rat bones combination. It's still very early days. But again, the business has reported around about a run rate of 10.6 million pounds of synergies that have been achieved in this period and a commitment to actually getting the business to an operating margin close to 30% by 2026. Now, as we had committed back in 2019, group investments becomes less relevant in terms of the overall contribution, but this area prints in an ROE contribution of 4.9% in the period. The key investments being 91, which generates, in terms of dividend flows to the group, an ROE of close to 20%. Our investment in the Budd Group, we stopped equity accounting about a year ago, so subdued returns from that portfolio, but we continue to realize the assets relative to its carrying value. And the Burnstone Group, we do fair value, so there is a bit of volatility in the valuation, but underpinned by underlying dividend flows that come through. Now bringing the picture together in terms of ROE, The group printed an ROE of 14.6% in the period. I think what's worth noting is you see that the average equity for UK and other at about 2.7 billion. That incorporates a gain of around about 358 million pounds as we carry the new investment in rat bones at a market price based on the 30th of September. deal that was executed. So that does bloat capital a bit and to some extent there is a drag of about 1% in the UK and other segments and that will be around about 2% next year and in South Africa around about 1.2% next year as we have the full year effect of the increase in capital. So notwithstanding that, you still see a strong print of ROE at 14.6% and return on tangible equity at 16.5% for the combined group. In terms of net asset value, you see net asset value increasing from 507p to 564 pence, and that's really underpinned by profitability, net of dividend flow, and notwithstanding the negative movement in terms of the RAND, again, a very strong print. We have elected to reflect the intangibles as incorporated in the rat bones carrying value as part as intangible, because that's the basis on which you would reflect it on a consolidated basis, so to keep that consistent. And there's about 77 pence that is really the differential between what would be a pre-intangible value. In terms of capital and liquidity, overall cash and near cash remaining defensive at 16.4 billion pounds for the group. Leverage ratios in both South Africa and in the PLC remaining strong. Capital ratios, I think just to remind ourselves that in South Africa we report under ARB, and we have a targeted range of 11.5% to 12.5% for that particular balance sheet. Again, printing strong capital ratios. The reduction from the prior year, really the buyback processes and some of the execution of strategic actions. And from a PLC perspective, reporting under standardized, a CT1 ratio of 12.4%, again, well-positioned to support growth in that market. So I think now, Ruth, it's your turn.

Thanks, Nate. Morning. Morning. Welcome everybody to our London offices and very warm welcome to everyone in Johannesburg as well. I'll be giving a high level overview of the performance of Investec PLC starting with our strategic positioning and then moving to some detail around the performance of our specialist bank and lastly focusing on where we are investing for growth and our growth opportunities going forward. Just a reminder or really a recap of what we spoke about back at our interim results in November is that we have created a space for ourselves where we have a unique breadth of capabilities in the mid-market, in UK and Europe and in the other geographies in which we operate. So we have very significant competitors in each of the activities in which we engage But there is not one single competitor in the UK space who brings a breadth of capabilities and diversified activities that we do across lending, advisory, hedging, transactional banking, and deposits. And as Fani mentioned earlier, the entrepreneurial approach of Investec really seeded by our founders 50 years ago and growing strongly and delivering through our exceptional client service here in all markets in which we operate today. and leveraging our connected client ecosystems. This is something we've worked very hard at in the last few years, is truly putting the client at the center of everything we do. It truly is one Investec, one leadership team, and we've created ourselves around client groups, private clients, private companies, private equity and listed companies, all performing activities in the corporate and investment banking space and the private banking space together. So we are meeting both the personal needs and the business needs of our clients, and at the same time building scale and relevance in everything that we do. We continue to have a relatively small market share in the markets in which we operate, which gives us a tremendous runway for growth, and you've seen that growth really picking up significantly over the past few years. calling out certain of the figures for Investec PLC, our revenue up 15.8%, against the prior year at £1.188 billion and a return on tangible equity of 15.7%. Our cost to income ratio has reduced from 56.7% to 54.4% with costs at £645.3 million and I'll unpack that for you in more detail as I go through the rest of the slides. A credit loss ratio of 58 basis points in line with the guidance we gave earlier. at the November results and adjusted operating profit up 20.6% at 455.5 million. To point out the last line at the bottom of the slide, pre-provision adjusted operating profit increased 21.8% to 541.6 million pounds and we're particularly proud to be over that 500 million mark or half a billion pounds at this point in our journey. Just to contextualise for you where specialist banking fits in within this, if you look at the second line in this table here, you will see that specialist banking increased 33.9% from £303.4 million at March 23 to £406.2 million at March 24. And I'll take you through the detail of what's behind generating that increase in profitability. Looking first at loan growth, net core loans grew by 6.4% to 16.6 billion pounds. Underlying that are corporate lending, which is diversified across multiple areas, including energy and infrastructure finance, direct lending, asset finance, aviation finance, real estate finance, et cetera, grew at 8.6%. and our high net worth mortgage lending reported growth of 4.3%. Clearly, the mortgage market has seen reduced demand industry-wide as interest rates have increased. What we've also seen is that redemptions are high, particularly for a client base like ours where we deal with high net worth individuals who have sought to pay down their mortgages early when interest rates are high. Nevertheless, we have achieved growth of 4.3% and the pipeline is building very nicely. We've also seen high redemptions in our corporate lending areas. So actually to stay still is an achievement, and we've actually been able to grow relative to market, and that is a signal or a function of us continuing to gain market share. We, of course, have not reduced our underwriting standards and are behaving even more selectively than we have in the past with interest rates at the level at which they have risen to. Nevertheless, we have been able to grow strongly at overall loan growth of 6.4%. Our customer deposits also growing strongly to 8.7% to a total of 20.8 billion pounds, a reminder that we are substantially retail funded in the market. We have seen growth in number of clients in our deposit, our retail deposit channels of the order of about 17 to 18% of new clients in those deposit channels. We continue to maintain very diversified funding channels and always cautious around our liquidity. It's important to look at our diversified revenue streams. As a leadership team, this is what we've been very much focused on, which is stable, repeatable, recurring income streams, which we believe ultimately results in a strong multiple. You can see here that net interest income grew by 13.2%. This is based on the larger books that we have built over the last few years, our diversified lending books and of course higher interest rates. And it also stems from our cautious positioning from a liquidity and cash perspective where we always run a very long cash position. If we look at non-interest revenue, you'll see that that increased 36.5%, predominantly from our capital light activities. We are very pleased to see that we have had higher net fee and commission income, part of this off the back of our increased lending activity. We've also seen increased activity relative to last year in our PLC advisory activities, and also relating to our first-time consolidation of Capital Mind. Last year, we took a majority stake in Capital Mind M&A activities in Europe, giving us an on-the-ground presence across selective countries in Europe, and we're pleased to see this consolidated into our results today. So overall, when you look at the fee income line, we are seeing an increase relative to last year. And we've seen a positive contribution from trading income, from customer flow, There has been less volatility in FX markets, making that area of the business challenging, but we have seen good flows in terms of our treasury risk solutions, hedging activities, and also positive contributions from the conservative risk management of our significantly reduced financial product book. Looking at the cost-to-income ratio, this is reduced from March 23 at 60.4% to 55.6%. You'll see that overall operating costs have increased by 9.3%, reflecting an increase in variable remuneration in line with our performance. And this also includes a £30 million provision from the industry-wide FCA Motor Finance Review. If we exclude this provision and we exclude the first-time consolidation of the costs of capital mined, our fixed costs grew only 2.9%, well below the average UK inflation rate, and we can see that we continue to exercise cost discipline and are constantly looking to increase our efficiencies in terms of our delivery. I'll just spend a minute or two on the motor finance provision. We started our business in the motor finance industry around the middle of 2015. In early 2016, the book was only 11 million pounds. We're talking about 1% of market share, so a very small market share in a very highly banked industry and highly banked market, very small player. And this exposure grew to around 555 million in March 21. The period of the review is until January 2021, Of course, we believe we were in line with all regulations and legal requirements up to this date. Nevertheless, we feel that it is prudent to take a provision. We are able to do so given the relatively short period we've been engaged in this market. We have accurate data across this full period. We've applied a number of assumptions, various scenarios to come up with this figure, which will cover both litigation costs, operational costs, legal costs, and also some estimation of potential redress. We acknowledge very clearly that there is significant uncertainty around this estimation and we will need to wait to see the outcome of the review later this year to see where the FCA lands on it and of course welcome the review also in the context of overall consumer duty where we feel always strongly around protecting the interests of our consumers. Looking at the credit loss ratio, we guided at the November interim results that we'd expect to see the credit loss ratio in a similar area to what we saw in the first half, and this is in line with our guidance. We've come through at 58 basis points, which is up from March 23 at 37 basis points. What we are seeing is selective or idiosyncratic stresses. across the book in various areas, but no evidence of trend deterioration, and the overall credit quality of the books remains strong. It is usual to expect an increase in level of defaults after you have seen significant increases of interest rates in a very short space of time, and as you can see from the following slide, we feel very well covered in terms of our coverage levels against these defaults. Bear in mind that Investec undertakes only secured lending. There's no naked lending undertaken here. And we are very focused as a business always on collateral and loss given default. So we need to look into that when we look at our coverage levels and see that they are prudently provided. Nishalyn spoke to Investec Wealth and Investment, which as we all know, combined with Rathbones towards the end of last year. We're very pleased with how our strategic partnership is going together, mainly between our private client business and Rathbones. and that partnership continues to grow from strength to strength with a number of referrals from private client area of Investec through to Rathbones and also working on referrals back from Rathbones to Investec. We look forward to delivering significant value creation through the extraction of synergies in that business, which will be undertaken by Rathbones, and you will have seen in Rathbones' recent reporting to 31 March 24 that they have reported run rate synergies so far of 10.6 million pounds. It is early days in the stages of that transaction. So most importantly and excitingly, where are we investing for growth? You can see from the business and from the delivery that we are firmly on the front foot and delivering for growth and focused on growth. And this is against a very challenging macroeconomic backdrop. I don't have to tell. everyone in the room how hard it has been to operate against a backdrop of very slow economic growth and uncertainty both geopolitical uncertainty and of course political uncertainty which has gone on for a very long time here in the UK so we do welcome the certainty or some level of certainty that we will get you know post the 4th of July with a move forward there. So As we sit today looking at inflation printing at 2.3%, we feel that is actually a very positive print at that level of inflation at this point, and it certainly looks that the next move in interest rates is downwards. We really are looking forward to that because we believe that that will bring a positive improvement in sentiment. Even if it's only a 25 basis point move downwards, we expect that levels of activity should increase around that and then further enable us to increase our market share of our very established, diversified client franchises. I explained at the beginning our unique positioning and our unique breadth of mid-market capabilities, and as explained earlier, a large runway to grow. We've been able to grow against a backdrop of slow growth, so having wind in our sails from GDP growth in the UK, in Europe, in the US, the Channel Islands, and in India, some more wind in our sails from growth will certainly enable us to grow very strongly organically. We continue to focus on our growth in continental Europe. We've been well established in that part of the world for some time. Around 40% to 50% of our direct lending and fund solutions activity already takes place in Europe, and we have had a business in Ireland for over 20 years, currently undertaking FX and various hedging-style transactions. We've recently hired some people on the ground in... are hiring people in the ground in the Netherlands to continue that level of activity and of course Capital Mind with its presence and advisory activity on the continent will enable us to take forward a proven track record operating selectively in Europe. We continue to focus on our alternative investment funds. We've mentioned a number of times that we are able to generate more risk than we can take on balance sheet. We distribute a very large amount of risk every year. That is partly because of our risk diversification strategy of keeping our books well diversified, but also our clients grow stronger and bigger quite quickly, which leads to a point in time that we can't service them. at a very, very much larger stake. And we would be very interested in bringing in external capital into what is a very attractive market space of private credit, which we've been operating in very successfully for many years. We have large teams in these businesses. We have the experience of not only selecting the credit, but also working through various cycles and being able to restructure and rejuvenate businesses. opportunities and exposures through the cycle. So we continue to focus on that. Those are long germination businesses, but exciting times ahead in that space. And then lastly, as mentioned earlier, focused on being one of the leading discretionary wealth managers in the UK and very much focused on the enhanced client proposition of both Investec and Rathbones as we go forward. I'd now like to call on Kamesh to continue.

Morning, everyone. Really a privilege to present these results today. I stand up here today representing close to 5,000 of my South African colleagues. And also, in many ways, I stand up here representing my predecessor, Richard Wainwright. I look at these results. And the year to March 24 really represents significant effort under Richard's stewardship in the SA business and overall in the group as a whole. So Richard, just an acknowledgement of the role that you've played and also similarly the growth mindset that Richard has embedded in our business in the group in South Africa and I think also internationally. And on that note, also just talking about some of our outgoing DLC members, I'd also just want to acknowledge the role that Kieran Whelan played in leading the Rathbones combination for us. So I think for us, standing up here, for Ruth and myself, standing up here and talking to these results, we represent the efforts and input and strong work of many, many of our colleagues across both geographies. If I turn to the South African business now... I think we have a very mature franchise across two core client segments, corporate and private client. In saying that though, what we have continued to do is look at new opportunities, new segments to operate in, and apply alternative ways to continue to grow our presence in the South African market. Similarly, across our wealth and investment business, our efforts to continue to grow our business in country, but also to continue to internationalize our presence in support of our domestic clients' aspirations is a key part of that growth strategy. If I talk to the specialist banking business across both our corporate business, our investment bank, and our private bank business, a key focus has been client acquisition. And notwithstanding a very difficult macroeconomic environment in South Africa, I think Ruth alluded to some of the broader global macroeconomic factors like low GDP growth, high interest rate environment, I think South Africa's also been beset by other macroeconomic challenges, particularly around the energy crisis, around transport and logistics, and a number of other factors. We, as you all know, we're less than a week away, or just over a week away, under a week away from an election, which will hopefully settle and create a greater level of confidence going forward. So as we enter this period, the key part of our strategy has been to put in place foundational growth platforms across all of our businesses. I'll chat to the numbers in greater detail. Nishan has covered a fair bit of the detail. I think at a high level, just looking at the revenue numbers and talking to our revenue, and I'm talking in South African RANs, It's a bit more comfortable when your currency is depreciated by close to 15% to remain in your domestic currency. So otherwise, you know, it just becomes a very difficult geographical comparison. So I think from a revenue perspective, just what's really been positive is revenue 7.7% ahead of prior year. Our operating costs have ticked up slightly at 8.3% ahead of the prior year. which has had a slight impact on our cost to income ratio at 53%. Just bearing in mind that these numbers are reflective of the full South African business, and I will drill into the detail of both the bank and wealth businesses a bit further into this presentation. The credit loss ratio actually at minus four basis points reflects significant recoveries we've had in the year under review. On a gross basis, our credit loss ratio would be at nine basis points. So I think it's still a very positive outcome given the tough macroeconomic environment and I think shows a level of conservatism within the business and the way we've managed our lending books over this period. Adjusted operating profit at 10.1 billion rand is 12.5% ahead of the prior year. And also I think for the first time we've actually broken through the 10 billion rand barrier. So I think similar to Ruth when she spoke about going through the 500 million pound mark, it's also a positive progress from our South African business. ROE for us I think has really been a key, key factor for us to consider in the year under review at 17.3%. talk to further detail on that. And I think what's important to note has been the positive impact of the share buyback and how that's impacted our ROE. And similarly, looking to the underlying franchises in the SA business, we look at the specialist bank having an ROE of 19.2%. We can go into some further detail on the underlying businesses within the specialist bank franchises, and you can see that the ROEs of those businesses have been performing very, very well, many in line with peer group and substantially above in some areas. So a positive outcome in many respects for the business. And if we take the pre-provision adjusted operating profit, it's increased by 7.2% to 9.9 billion. Looking at a breakdown across our various business units, I think just highlighting our wealth and investment business, which has shown increased in operating profit of 29.6%. Certainly some of that has been off the back of the currency depreciation, given that over 65% of the assets under management are domiciled in hard currency. notwithstanding that one of the, and I think Nishan's alluded to it also in his update, was the positive assets under management inflows of discretionary assets of just under R17 billion. So showing continuing growth in that market and continuing client acquisition, and also the leverage and benefit we're now starting to achieve from our private client strategy across the group. So I think a significant uptick for us. Similarly, looking at the specialist banking business, 9.8% up on the prior year at 9.5 billion rand, group investments at 63 million rand, and then group costs at 353. So I think just a key factor in talking to some of the growth across the business would be looking at core loan growth and looking a total core loan growth of 5.7% to R343.7 billion. If I can just give some more color to that, I think growth in our corporate lending business, notwithstanding the tough macroeconomic environment, has been fairly positive, or positive at 6.7%. Private client loan book has grown at about 5.6%. What's been very interesting in that private client loan book growth has been the growth in our mortgage book of just over 7.6%. So I think what's key for me is looking at our book growth is saying the level of diversification coming through the underlying book growth, which talks to some of the growth strategies starting to pay dividends and also sets up the business, we believe, on the right platform for a go-forward view. Similarly on deposits, up 0.4%. But the number for me to really highlight, and I think which is very important for us, is the increase in non-wholesale deposits by 14.1%. So that's our retail deposit book. And again, talking to increasing diversification across our business, both on the loan book side and then on the deposit book side. As we look at the continuing momentum from our client franchises, just looking across our various income lines, across deal and other fees, investment and associate income, a couple of the factors that we look at is also net interest income increased by 9.2%. driven by higher average earning of interest on assets, and similarly elevated interest rate environment. The non-interest revenue declined by 1.4%, and some of that's on the back of low activity levels that you've seen across some of the franchises. We've still seen a positive contribution from investment income, particularly from our corporate and institutional bank in South Africa. Trading income from the balance sheet management reflects non-repeat from a prior period, market-to-market losses in respect of that. This is really offset also by a decrease in trading income from customer flow due to lower interest rate derivative trading volume. So again, a function of where the market is and where we would see an uptick, hopefully, if the macroeconomic environment improves in the coming period. One of the key aspects has obviously also been how we manage our cost-to-income ratio, and if you look at it at the specialist banking level, at well under 50%, at 48.4%, but slightly up on prior year, which was 47.8%. This has largely been driven by increased personnel cost and also additional regulatory costs. The variable remuneration has also increased in line with performance within various areas of our business. So again, we're still an item that we would continue to manage very carefully, but well within our target range. And I think also symbolic of the fact that in certain areas of our business, we've continued to grow a headcount where we see growth opportunity. And we've also similarly continued to invest on that. I think I have unpacked the credit loss ratio in detail earlier. So I'll move on to just our next slide, which similarly covers our ECL provisions. And similar to Ruth, majority of our lending reflected here is collateralized lending. And we've seen a stark improvement in stage three. So I think, again, overall positive trend for us in many respects. and an easing interest rate environment will obviously hopefully improve all of those specific metrics. If I turn to our wealth and investment business, which I touched on earlier, one of the key facts for us has also been to see how the business has strategically grown. So outside of just talking to the absolute numbers here, the focus on the internationalization of the business, the key opportunity that the team identified in Switzerland and how we build that platform to support high-net-worth South Africans and also other international clients, and a continued focus on not just internationalisation for our clients, but also adding a number of other value-added services like tax and fiduciary services, all of which can support our overall client base and deepen entrenchment. The funds under management in the period increased by 15.2% to just over R500 billion, And similarly, we've seen adjusted operating profit up by 29.6%. So I think if we look at the overall performance of that as franchise and post-Ereth Pons combination, you're seeing this as still a significant growth arm for our business and also a significant capital-light revenue stream for our group. So a positive outcome from that engagement and also what we have seen is a number of other strategic steps taken by our wealth and investment business which we'll update in further detail on later. If I can turn to some of the growth opportunities and just to really talk to not just an improving macroeconomic environment, but where do we believe we've got an opportunity to grow our specialist offering and into the segments that we believe we can focus on. So I think under Richard's watch, we had started a very significant drive to increase private banking client core customer acquisition in our private banking business. In the year under review, our core client acquisition grew by just under, net core clients in private banking grew by just under 9%. We will continue to scale that. And as the economy improves, we believe that those numbers will also improve significantly. I've already touched on the continuing and evolving deepening of our international proposition for our SA clients and what we're referring to now as our SA international clients, which will also support a broader Investec ecosystem across both SA, UK, Channel Islands, Mauritius and Switzerland. So the full ecosystem of Investec coming together for those internationalizing clients from an SA perspective. The third aspect has been, and I think Fani alluded to that in his opening, was about deepening and growing our business banking proposition, which is really focusing on our mid-market segment and the opportunity to grow what we're doing within that space. We've already internally taken a number of significant steps to target our teams in a more integrating way across all of our various banking areas in SA, so both the corporate institutional bank the investment bank, and the private bank, and making sure that we have integrating teams focusing on the mid-market segment with our business banking proposition being the golden thread that hangs together within that segment. Similarly, we've looked at the potential opportunity in that space, and we believe that we can grow our share of wallet over the coming period of time. As we look to some of the structural challenges in South Africa, what we've also seen has been the significant opportunity to grow and continue to grow the work of our energy and infrastructure finance team and the ability for us to support many clients in respect of their renewable energy and infrastructure needs. Already our team has significant deal flow and are playing a role not just in South Africa but also across the broader continent. And I think that's probably also an opportune time to talk to us looking at how we would look at growing our rest of Africa strategy in line with our existing strategy, and we've already put in place certain key metrics to look at how we could grow our global markets presence, our trade finance, and our energy and infrastructure finance teams into that. We do believe there's a significant opportunity in the rest of the continent, and it's more about how do we take a lot of our existing franchise value into those areas with a similar risk discipline and mindset. Thanks, and I'll hand over to Fonny in Johannesburg for Q&A. Thanks, Fonny.

Thanks, Kamesh. Still have some closing to do before Q&A. I'm sure you can see why I'm excited about this team that we have. I thought Nichlin was good. And giving you a broad view of the whole group, I thought the granularity and texture that Ruth could give about the UK business and our unique positioning there was important. And Henry tells me that QMESH is so easy and comfortable, given that this is his first presentation, you can see. in a market that is very mature how we are attacking that market for growth as we go forward. So a fantastic A team. Obviously getting tempted to have them present the next results on their own. Just taking it home, I had referred to the Capital Markets Day in 2019. And I'm just going to wrap it up quite quickly. We can see that over the last five years or so, we have seen significant growth in earnings. As we go forward, The emphasis is on sustaining performance, and you can see over the last three years that has been the case, and we're quite excited that our interaction with clients continues to be very deep, as you heard from both Ruth and Kumesh. We also had indicated that we will be very much minded to manage our costs and have the discipline to do so as we go through. And you've seen some of the actions we have taken. As we go forward, I'm really relaxed about the ability of the business to manage costs. I know some people have said, why haven't you been more aggressive on your cost-to-income targets? We want to invest, and we also have the capability and the track record, I think, in managing our costs. You can see those costs remaining almost constant from 2020 to now. from 1.186 billion to 1.120 billion. I mean, good cost control overall. We've talked in both markets about how we think about risk management and how there's a higher degree of risk consciousness and ownership, and you can see that in your impairment experience over time. We are at the top of a cycle of high interest rates. From here, we would expect that there would be a level of normalization and in each of the markets we're comfortable with a risk management experience as such. So the quality of our asset books really looks fantastic. We also talked five years ago about capital allocation discipline. One of the elements of it was that we would return capital to shareholders that is in excess of our requirements. We had looked at a particular level of loan growth both in the UK and SA, but we also had said we will restrict the issuing of shares that shareholders were concerned about in terms of dilution. So you can see on your weighted average number of shares outstanding, you will see that we were at 946 million. In 2020, we are now at 848.8, and that is a consequence, obviously, of the buyback on the one hand, and on the other, the fact that we are not issuing shares into the market. And we've talked about the ROE improvements over the period due to a strong trend CAPITAL GENERATION THAT WE SEE INSIDE OF THE BUSINESS. THIS IMPROVEMENT OVER TIME ON THE BACK OF SIGNIFICANT STRATEGIC EXECUTION HAS LED US TO REVISE OUR TARGETS UPWARDS. BEFORE I TALK ABOUT THAT REVISION, NICHELIN HAS SPOKEN ABOUT THE DILUTERARY EFFECT ON OUR ROEs OF THE RATHBOWS TRANSACTION GIVEN THAT THERE HAS BEEN AN UPTICK IN OUR capital of about 380. So that leads to a dilution on our targets of 1%. So we had an original target of 12 to 16% of ROE on ROE at the group level adjusted technically just for the combination of Rathbones that adjust to 11 to 15%. And off that base, We are pleased to confirm that we will be targeting returns between 13% and 17% in ROE terms and in ROTE terms between 14% and 18%. Again, I repeat that the UK and the US market report performance largely on ROTE. So we will focus on that a little bit, and our UK business will be reported that way to compare it easier with our UK colleagues, but we will continue to publish. ROE for the UK. Our cost to income ratio, this is through the cycle. We expect that to be less than 57%. We were at about 54% or so this year. So that cost to income ratio is for through the cycle. And we are comfortable that the discipline is there. So I know some people have commented on that as a potential area of concern. On the credit loss ratio, we have expanded a little bit our credit loss ratios to a range of 20 BIPs. So we now will have a credit loss ratio target range of between 25 BIPs to 45 BIPs. In SA, given QMESH presentation, we are looking, as I said, at 15 to 25. In the UK, given the positioning of that business in the mid-market, we are looking at a range of 30 to 50, as Ruth talked about. The near term, we obviously will give you a sense of what we expect. We have lifted our dividend payout ratio from 30 to 50 to 35% to 50%. So the work done over the last five years has been substantial. The benefits are plain for all to see. More importantly, we have a base from which we can grow the business sustainably over the long term. Our duty is to serve our clients and to play a meaningful and impactful role in society, and we're committed, in line with our purpose of creating enduring worth, to do the same. Looking near term at the financial year 2025, March 2025, we obviously recognize that there remains a significant level of volatility in the market and uncertainty. We have an election next week here. We have an election in the UK in July, July 4th. We have an election in the US in November. And there's a rolling election in India already. So there's a level of uncertainty. And geopolitically, we have the challenges that we have. Despite that challenging environment, as I said earlier, When I looked at the 50 years, we remain confident in our position as a business. We have deep franchises. We remain confident in the entrepreneurial culture that drives and binds our people. And we have... very unique positions in each of the markets that we operate. I hope you got a sense of where we will be looking for growth in SA. You have a sense equally where we'll be looking for growth in the UK and Europe. So based on our positioning, despite the difficult backdrop We expect revenue momentum to continue supported largely by book growth. You have seen the growth in our books, and that historic growth will obviously benefit us as we go forward. We expect rates to start to moderate in the current year. That moderation we would expect to be quite muted. The expectations obviously in the UK will be different to expectations in SA. We think SA will be slower. than the UK, just given the fact that our inflation is still much higher than the midpoint of the range of 4.5%. Our governor would like to see inflation rates there and lower. So given those expectations, we see muted influence on our net interest income, but obviously there will be an impact. Given that environment where we continue to acquire clients, where we see a level of activity given in South Africa, the high quality of our private clients and the larger corporates that we serve, and also given the fact that post-election, hopefully, there isn't a significant instability around economic policy, we see at the moment that there appears to be a consensus that you may have an outcome, if you look at the latest polls, for the ANC of around 45 and potentially a stable either ANC government on their own or coalition government. So if you have that sense of stability, we think there may well be some pickup there. in economic activity. We've seen improvements in energy. The energy availability factor recently has been at about 70%, which is quite important. Some people think that may be some chicanery around elections, but I do trust the chairman of that board, of ESCOM, and the chief executive. We've seen some turnaround around Transnet. Again, the participation and collaboration between business and government seems to be yielding some positive momentum. In the UK, our position is so unique and our market shares are so small and the breadth of services is so impressive that we think even in a slightly tougher environment, we can do better. As Ruth indicated, if rates start to come down, even if it's only 25 bps, That feeds into confidence and sentiment. And in that environment, we would expect that our group ROE should come out at about 14%. And Ruth wanted me to explain that circle means it could be slightly up or slightly down. So I'll give Ruth a 1% range, half a percent each way. Ruth, that's for you, okay? Okay. ROTE of circa 16%. For the South African business, we're looking at an ROE of 18.5%. And this is in pounds, by the way, because we report in pounds. So a phenomenal report. achievement if we can reach it. In the UK, we're looking at return on tangible equity of circa 14% of cost to income ratio. Under 57%, as I said, I'm not worried about our ability to continue to manage costs. So I wouldn't expect any significant deterioration in our cost to income ratio. Credit loss ratio to be within the target. Our business is well positioned. We are an optimistic bunch, the 7,500 people of Investec. We have a culture that looks for opportunity, even in difficult environments. So we look forward with a degree of confidence, and we have the pleasure and the pride of the last 50 years, but we remain cognizant that the market is tough. There is competition out there. but we will beg this team to do well in this environment. I loved the team that we have in London. As I say, I'm tempted to have them present on their own. On that note, I'm going to ask for questions. I apologize the presentation has been rather long. I really believed it was important for you to hear from both Ruth and Kumesh as they go into the detail of their businesses. Questions? Where do we start? Do we start in Johannesburg or elsewhere?

We're going to start in the UK.

We're starting in London. I have to apologize. I can see you're keen to ask. Any questions in the UK?

Yes, we have a question.

Yeah, please go ahead.

Morning. I just have three questions, if I may. Firstly, on NII, is there any updated guidance in terms of sensitivity to rate routes, both in the UK and South Africa? Second question, on the FCA mode of finance review, you mentioned you expect an outcome at the end of this year. What's the process between now and then to get us there? What are the key milestones along the way? And then lastly, just on the Rathbones deal, I know it's still early stages, but in terms of synergies between Rathbones and the private bank in the UK, what are the sort of things you're starting to think about in that area?

Thanks. Thanks, Alex. Give you one chance, you take three, right? So I'm going to ask my team there in the UK to address those questions. NII guidance. We've published a book where we give sensitivity for each of the regions, but I'll ask Nicheline to just cover that briefly. And Nicheline, you can talk about Rathbones. Ruth sits on the board of Rathbones, so we prefer for her not to answer any questions relating to Rathbones. So Nicheline will take that question. I don't remember the third question, but I'm sure the team will remember.

You might... Sorry. You might need to just remind me of the second and third question. But let's just deal with the interest rates. I thought I was the only person here. Interest rate sensitivity for the UK at around about 25 basis point movement is between 7 to 8 million quid. From a South African perspective, I'm looking at Rich and I'm looking at Kumesh. Both have their heads down. So we'll take a flyer for that number around about 50 million for 25 basis points.

Alex, if you don't mind, just remind us of the second and third. Sure. The second one was about mode of finance. So the FCA review is ongoing. Yeah. I think you expect an outcome in the year. In terms, I guess, the process between now and then, what's expected to happen?

Well, obviously, we've got to follow the unfold in terms of the FCA's process. I think there are some timelines associated with that. There's a lot of work going on around getting the data getting to a level that I think is appropriate. We've used all of the guidelines that's available. We've used all of the data points that we can get our hands on. I think what was very important from Ruth's conversation is really the size of book in terms of the review period that we referred to. So we're quite confident in terms of our measurement, but I don't think we can give you much more detail around that.

And then the last one was just about the Rathbones merger and potential synergy ideas between the private bank and Investec and Rathbones.

I think all of the synergy ideas remain consistent to what was discussed at the time of the execution of the transaction. So the first that we spoke about was bringing the entire business onto a banking platform. And that really enhances the treasury management. And you've seen some of that execution already come through in terms of the chief 10.6 million pounds. The other is the platform and, to an extent, the transition of Investec, Walton Investment, onto the Rackbones platform itself. And then the third is obviously to do with the client pools on both ends of the businesses. And that will come over time. Now, I think what's key is that when you look at Rackbones' March 2021, and December trading update, they've committed to getting towards an operating margin towards 30%, and that's by September 2026, which really incorporates the expected timelines around synergistic outcomes. I think the positive note that came through in March is that the building that Rathbone's in has been released. And if you were here earlier on, you would have heard some of the work going on upstairs.

Thank you. I can confirm that Nishlin was right. The interest rate sensitivity in SA for a 25 bps move is 51 million. I think he said 50 million rand. So I think that that's about right. Thanks, Nish. Any further questions in the UK? No further questions, Farley. Thank you. We've come to a say.

Good morning. Thank you, Fani and team. Just two questions, please. Regarding the updated ROE target range, then the guidance for 2025, you're going to be within that range. Can you give us a sense of how you move up that range? This is mostly about earnings growth. Considering the CT1 ratios at the moment, do you see opportunity to return more capital as well? And then can you give us some updates on the outlook for revenue growth in the UK as well, please? Maybe just unpacking some of the areas where you see momentum and I guess the growth in the private client business as well, please.

Okay, I'll ask Ruth later on to talk to how we see revenue growth within the UK environment. I think as we look at these targets from a South African perspective, we generate capital ahead of our usage, given where the environment is. We've indicated that we have a a capital ratio of about 13.6% or so. Our overall guidance around set one is 11.5% to 12.5%. We would like to see how the environment unfolds over the next six to 12 months post the election. To the extent that we cannot grow our economy assets at a much faster rate because the environment is constrained. Economic and political policy remains unsupportive of business. Obviously, at a point, we will have to review the excess capital that we generate. So it's not a tomorrow consideration, but it's a consideration we will make in the in the near future. From a UK perspective, we are growing at a pretty fast rate. Obviously, in this particular period, with rates as high as they have been, the growth has not been as we have had it over the last two or so years. I would expect that business to continue to to generate capital but to reinvest in the business. So I wouldn't see necessarily excess capital coming out of that leading to us returning capital from that base. Obviously we return capital through dividends and the UK bank participates in the dividends that we do declare. A lot more growth we see within that environment. South Africa, it will depend on what happens economically over the next year or so. Ruth, do you just want to cover how you see revenue growth over the next 12 months or so?

Yeah, sure. Thanks for the question. If we look back at revenue growth this year, I would say that it's been strong but mixed. Certain areas have grown very strongly. Others have just maintained where they were at last year. We saw strong growth in energy and infrastructure finance, particularly in the US, but also in our UK business. We've seen growth in our aviation business. We've seen growth in asset finance. We've also seen our lending books in direct lending and fund solutions keep up with where they're at, even though they've been a very high level of redemptions. So it's against a very low growth backdrop. So with rates coming down and higher activity levels, we do expect lending activity to increase as we go forward. On the private client side, as I said earlier, we saw mortgage growth of only 4% last year, which is a slower run rate than we've seen in prior years, but much faster than market, and we see those pipelines building very strongly as we go into a reducing rate environment. One thing that has been quite elusive has been IPOs, and we would expect as activity levels increase, we should see greater possibility of fees coming on both the PLC advisory side and M&A advisory side, and certainly from a UK perspective, are very much looking forward to the days when IPOs will be back. It seems like with the way the capital structures are, with debt being so expensive, that it should be the time for equity again, and certainly we've seen interest coming into the UK space, or certainly the London market looking very, very cheap, and investor interest coming in. Thanks, Bonnie.

We've already spoken about revenues from a banking perspective. From a wealth perspective, we would expect that over the next 12 months, Paul Stockton and his team will be able to make the progress that they have signaled to the market with respect to synergies. So we look forward to that. To the extent that interest rates come down, market-facing businesses, asset management businesses, wealth management businesses, potentially could do better, particularly if sentiment and confidence amongst private clients improves in South Africa. We continue to serve the high end of the market, and as Kumesh indicated, we are internationalizing our offering. There will be a lot more focus on what we can do through Switzerland. And I'm sure you may have seen also that that business has struck a distribution type relationship to simplify it in Latin America. So that business is really quite positively looking at avenues for further growth. So both from a banking perspective and from a wealth perspective, we remain encouraged. that there are pockets of growth that we can execute on. Thank you. Any further questions in Johannesburg? Yeah, please. Barry, there's a mic coming to you.

Good day. My name is Barry. I just wish to know, you've got wealth and investment and Rathbones, neither of which are totally wholly owned, and now they're going on the same platform. Do you intend to combine them, or how do you allocate customers per company, per administration?

Just to be very clear, we own 100% of Investec Wealth and Investment South Africa, which we now call Wealth and Investment International. Rathbones is a UK domestic fund manager, discretionary fund manager. So for the UK, clients... that come out of the UK will go into Rathbones. So it's pretty clear. Outside of the UK market, we have a strategy to grow internationally. And we will do that in particular through the Swiss platform. That's why I mentioned the Swiss platform. So the decisions are quite easy, and there will be a set of clients that pre the transaction are South African clients that will continue to be managed in partnership with Rathbone. So we've thought quite clearly about the opportunity. We think in a UK context, given some of the changes in rules around pension funds, that the opportunity for a a player like Rathbones, clearly the largest in its segment, will be able to grow. For our people, that platform gives us an opportunity for growth. We can increase capability within the UK environment, so we're quite excited about it. the UK domestic opportunity. Outside of that, our business has grown particularly strongly. You saw about a 30% increase in profits. You saw in WNI International, you saw 16 billion of inflows, discretionary inflows. So we're quite excited about that wealth opportunity.

Next question. Your share buybacks, do you intend to continue it? I haven't read the documents. And if so, are you biased to buying more South Africa or more buying the UK listed?

We've largely come to the end of the $7 billion. I think the number that we reported last time was about 6.8 billion or so. So we've got about 200 or so to go. As I answered the previous question, the buildup of excess capital, we will review over time. So in the near term, we are not looking to launch any significant buyback program. But as I said, we do generate excess capital within a South African environment. Any further question in Johannesburg?

Do we have anything from the... Yes, we have something from the webcast. Just hold a second. This is from Risk Insights. We rate Investec on ESG and we've noticed that your Scope 3 emissions as a percentage of total emissions is quite low. We've seen this pattern with other listed companies in SA as well. Typically Scope 3 accounts for more than 80% of total emissions. Is there a plan to competitively position Investec by measuring Scope 3 more effectively?

We obviously have done as much work as we can do in this area. One of the areas of progress is in standardizing data, that when you look at Investec and Standard Bank and Buckley's or you look at J.P. Morgan, that the data you see is credible and comparable. So a number of standards are being developed and they're becoming more commonplace. more acceptable standards. For instance, we use PCAF in certain instances. And when you get to scope three, there have been a number of developments in data integrity. So until we have a level of a higher confidence in data integrity, the work we do will always be work in progress. And we do report quite extensively our emissions. But yeah, this area requires a lot more development in the quality of the data, not just for Investec, but industry-wide and globally. But we remain committed to doing our best in terms of decarbonization.

Is that it? That's it. No more questions.

Okay, I think we've come to the end of the presentation. Thank you for your attendance. We will talk to you again in six months and wishing you well for those who will be going to elections next week and for our UK colleagues, wishing you a good summer. Thank you very much.