Investec plc

It's a pleasure to welcome you to this results presentation. We're coming to you today from London offices and we're really looking forward to presenting our business to you. Just as I start, it is clear that we are operating in a very challenged environment. geopolitics has dominated markets for quite some time. We also know that we are in a period where there is substantial change that is occasioned by artificial intelligence. we see great volatility and yet our business has been able to produce resilient results. So I'm really grateful to my colleagues for the work that they have done over the last period. In terms of volatility, it is important that we hold high levels of capital and high levels of liquidity. Liquidity may be expensive, but it is important that we continue to be conservative in our positioning. This enables us, firstly, to continue to support our clients, but also to reinvest in the business. As indicated from last year, we are in a heightened investment period, choosing to have faith in the future by investing today for a larger, better business for our clients. So we've been making steady progress on our investment program and later today we will give you a peek into our private lines business and importantly we also will give you a brief update on our corporate mid-market business and the progress we have made since we made the announcement last year. We look forward to do that in the second half of the day. As we indicated in our announcement, we're very confident that from 2028, the investment program will begin to show very positive results, and that will result in an inflection in our growth and an inflection in our returns. to shareholders. As we announced last year and the year before, we remain committed to reaching ROEs of 16% by financial year 2030 and 18% ROTE by that time. These are returns that we're committed to, we're on track to achieving, but importantly, these returns are a consequence of what we do for our clients. It is really important for us in the business not to lose sight of what we mean to our clients, how we serve them, how we support them through very difficult times, and how we continue to be their trusted partner throughout their life cycles. Now turning to the results, we see adjusted earnings per share increasing by 4.8%, as I said, in a very challenged environment. We have seen, if you look at key drivers of performance, a double digit growth. in funds under management. That really is pleasing in an environment that is so volatile and quite tough. We also see a high teens increase in loans and advances and similarly a high teens increase in deposits. That tells us that our clients continue to trust us and continue to see us as a preferred provider to them. If you look at the third block, in terms of our net asset value, that has increased over the prior year by 8.3%. That means we're generating substantial capital that allows us, as I said earlier, to reinvest in our business, but also to reward the providers of capital. Looking at the last graphic on this chart, we see that return on equity is at 13.6%. And if you look at that graph, it looks flat. But I have to remind you that in September 2023, we concluded a combination of our IW&I business with Rathbones, and that increased our capital base. So the return that you see there on a like-for-like basis is 1.2 percent higher compared to the 23 and 24 number that you see there. So steady progress in delivery of returns to our shareholders. Nicholin will unpack the numbers much more a little later. Just a number of comments on this slide. We see our cost-to-income ratio being at 52.9, which is in the middle of our 52 to 54 percent guided range. Cost discipline continues, although I must point out that because we're making significant investments and we are capitalizing a very small portion of that investment, clearly there is an impact on our profitability. As I said earlier, we are focused on the future and we will take the pain in the short term. We see our credit loss ratio improving slightly from 38 basis points to 36 basis points, so credit quality continues to be good. Clearly, interest rates have not come down to the extent we had expected. And if we do get to that period, which at the moment looks a bit far given the impact of the closure of the state of Hormuz and the war in the Middle East, inflation may be higher for longer. So we may not see the expected reduction in interest rates, but very pleased with the credit loss ratio and asset quality in general. If you look at our tangible net asset value at 553.1p, that is an increase of 9.2% relative to the prior year. So very happy with the performance of the business in that regard. The board declared a final dividend. That takes our total dividend for the year to 38.5p, representing an increase of 5.5% over the prior period. We're also pleased that we've completed the share buyback that we announced at this time last year, that we would return to our shareholders about 110 million pounds or 2.5 billion rand per share. in terms of the buyback. So really pleased that that has been completed. We always manage our capital dynamically. The first call is to reinvest in the business. Obviously to the extent that we do not have enough investment, we would then return capital in special dividends. Our dividend policy remains unchanged, so we continue to be quite predictable in terms of returning capital to our shareholders. We also have indicated that we remain open to potential opportunities, particularly in the wealth space where we would like to continue to make inroads and to increase the share of our capitalized revenues. Later today, we will talk about our private land business as I've said, and you will see what plans we have to boost the revenues that come from that segment of our client franchises. Moving along, while we obviously pursue profits as we do, and we do so in service of our clients, we also are very mindful of our responsibility to make sure that we are a positive contributor, both to society and that we also do make sure that we reduce our impact on the environment. So we've continued to meet our fossil fuel requirements and commitments. We also are driving quite hard throughout the businesses our targets and activities related to sustainable and transition finance. We last year announced a target of 18 billion pounds or so, we were able to achieve our first year target of over 3 billion pounds. We continue to do a lot of work in helping our clients, firstly, to understand what is required in terms of transition and climate, and obviously then advocating and helping them to have their own plans. So as we continue to report on our scope three, emissions, this is quite important, the advocacy, helping our clients and making them really come along the journey, as it were, over time. So we continue to be very pleased with our progress towards our commitments to net zero by 2050. On that note, I'm going to ask Nishlin to go a little deeper into the numbers. Nish?

Thanks, Fani. It's always a privilege to stand up in front of you. So if I get into the numbers, I think just a little bit on the context. The macroeconomic environment actually in this period that we're reporting was improving from a year-to-year perspective, and we've seen GDP growth improvement in both markets that we operate in, and in fact across the geographies that we do. You do see an outlook there, which seems to indicate that there might be a bit of tempering, and from a South African perspective, possibly higher achievement. However, that's at risk. I think if we look at the impacts that have come through in the first quarter, and to some extent, the fact that inflation and the impact of inflation is still in the system, and the constraints of supply are still in the system. So I think at the end of the day, let's hope we can get there. From an interest rate perspective, again, we were in this period in a reducing interest rate cycle, and we've seen average interest rates drop over the period from South Africa from about 11.5% to 10.5%, and from a PLC perspective from 4.95% to 4.04%. To some extent, we will continue to see the drop-off as that average in effect comes out of the system. However, the outlook for interest rates is definitely changing. So to an extent, our economic outlook was for interest rates to actually reduce by about 50 to 75 basis points over this financial year. The reality is we see these rates remaining at least steady for most of this financial year with some risk to the extent that you may see some lift up depending on inflation outlook. From a market's perspective, we do report in sterling. And the contribution from the South African balance sheet is stronger in this period, given the fact that the closing exchange rate has actually improved by just over 4%, well, close to 5%. Interestingly enough, the average exchange rate for the period is actually identical year on year. So there's very little income statement noise. And similarly, from market's perspective, I mean, if you look at this chart, we probably think the world is pretty rosy out there because markets have improved quite strongly. Actually, in April 25, we did see quite a sharp drop off. And to some extent, that influenced AUM as well as fees in the first quarter of this financial year, but quite a sharp recovery as we looked forward. I think as we get into March, markets have reacted to the war, have reacted to some of the constraints at play, but not significantly overall. And that brings us to the drivers, and I think I'm quite pleased for reports. I mean, growth of 15.4% or 10.5% in neutral currency of FUM with very strong net inflows. We also did have an acquisition in this period bolstering our activity in Switzerland, which has added just over 300 million pounds. of AUM and net inflows of around about 23 billion rand into our discretionary portfolio in South Africa. Similarly, we've seen core loans grow by 9.6% and in fact in our private client portfolios in both South Africa and in the UK, we saw growth of over 10% in terms of lending activity. Not all of that is beneficial to the same extent to the bottom line because in a highly competitive environment, margins continue to be under pressure. Now, if we look at the group performance, the blank pages so that I can introduce an income statement in a way that we can just follow the dots, okay, so bear with me. At the very bottom, we had adjusted operating profit growing by 3.4% in the period from 920 to 951 million pounds, with total revenue growing by 4.2% over the period. Net interest income reduced by 1.6%, and for our business, lower interest rates results in lower earnings for our endowment capital. We have very little impact on structural hedges, but that has had some impact in terms of protecting margin from a UK perspective. But we continue to improve the cost of money and the cost of deposits by continuing to focus on the growth of our retail deposit base, as well as the strong growth in our loan books, which has helped to effectively neutralize the impact of low interest rates. Not interest income grew strongly over the period, growing by 13.6%, supported across the business by increased activity with our clients, by realizations of some of our exposures in a positive manner, and at the end of the day, really driven by core activity driving fees across the business. Our expected credit loss, as Fani had indicated, remained at about 36 basis points. It's, in fact, fairly comparable year on year. To some extent, we had lower recoveries, and therefore that does mask the fact that actually there was actually a better improvement in the overall experience in terms of credit loss ratio. But you would see from an asset quality perspective pretty much comparable year on year. And then operating costs did increase by 4.7%. And in fact, fixed costs are up over inflation in both geographies. And I'll unpack some of the investment activity that's going through the income statement as we look forward. Cost to income ratio at 52.9%, again, within the 52% to 54% guidance that we have provided. Now, if we get into some of the aspects, if I look at, in particular, IT spend, that remains at about 20% of our overall cost base with total expenditure in this period of 246 million pounds. But what I will draw to your attention is the bar chart on the right-hand side, where you see within this financial year, we actually spent around about 50% of that on areas of growth and enhancing our platforms. And that includes implementation of new age technology into the organization, as well as modernization of our platforms. Some of those are still in play, but we do have delivery that comes online within the next year and the following financial year, which is going to bring significant change. You know, I think, like all of us did see with Mythos coming out three weeks ago, we are not in a static world. AI continues to develop at a pace and continues to have an influence. And in fact, if any of you have picked up our analyst booklet, that booklet was reviewed by one of our agents. And if you pick up an error, please ask the computer, OK? So if you look at our organization, we have 7,777 permanent employees in the organization, but we also have 800 agents that are now running deeply into the organization. And to some extent, we're starting to see benefit, but it is still early to measure where that leads to. I think our commitment to you is that we see ourselves continuing to operate within our cost-to-income ratios of 52 to 54, because on the flip side, there is a cost to implementing technology, and from our organization perspective, we will continue to stay as close as possible to development. I think from a cyber perspective, we remain highly vigilant. We are close to new age development and have access in the right places, which we will continue to develop. But our responsibility is also to make sure that we have the right ways to deploy. And at the end of the day, you are going to need to be able to check and understand what has been deployed. So it's not just easy accepting code because it's been written. by a machine, you have the responsibility to make sure that that code is actually deployed correctly. Now, on the very bottom right-hand side, our cloud modernization, when we first start speaking to you guys, that was at about 8%. Last year, we reported it at 48%, and this year, we're at 58%, and we expect that to continue to increase dramatically. And why that is fundamental is because we shift into, again, the new age world where, at the end of the day, we leverage the capability that is out there rather than simply sitting with the capability being developed internally. All of this is done with protecting our balance sheet. So to date, we have capitalized 20.5 million pounds of software relative to a significant balance sheet that remains insignificant overall. In fact, in the next sheet, you will see that since 2025 into 2028, we actually deploying around about 282 million pounds in investing in our platforms. Now, this will include capability that humans bring into play as well as software capability, but that influences our mid-market strategy, it influences our private client strategies. as well as new platforms that we're bringing into play. In fact, some of the technology that we've seen on the deployment of our new finance platforms and the built-in capability that is coming from our service providers is hell of exciting because we can see the transformation. And in some places, some of our research teams tells us that implementations that took months are now being measured in days and weeks because of what's been deployed. Part of what we've got to do is to make sure that we drive it deeply into the organization. And that's really where the effort is right now. But this investment is significant. It's 282 million pounds. And for South Africans, that's 6.3 billion rand. And if you look at this chart, you will see that the majority of that cost on an annual basis is expensed and carried in our income statement with a small element that is capitalized as we see it come through. The majority of this on early stage is actually operating on a cost-to-income ratio greater than 100%. So when we get to a later stage, this will bring in and come into our 52% to 54% as revenue starts kicking in. And we see that really happening from FY28. So if I get into our divisional reviews, from a UK perspective, overall operating profit increased by 1.3% to 462.7%. The contribution from Walton Investments, so that's our share of Rathbones' earnings, actually grew by 17%. In the year to December, Rathbones reported a growth in earnings of just over 4%. And some of that differential is that we actually accruing at 43 rather than 41.25%, given the level of treasury stock that is held within that particular business. Our banking business reported just over 400 million or close to 402 million pounds from 410 million pounds, absorbing lower interest rates and greater activity countering that. Group investments is really our return on our investment in 91, which sits at about 9.2%. following their combination activity with Sunlum, and that's really dividend flow that comes in, giving us a return on equity of about 18% on that investment. Group investments, I mean group costs, we continue to manage tightly. Looking at the mix of earnings, I think I've covered this in some detail. Some weakness in NII really absorbing lower interest and a highly competitive market offset by book growth and strong fee generation and other non-interest revenue growth in the period. The cost-to-income ratio at 54%, again, is influenced by some of those investments that I've indicated that has been charged through the income statement. But cost-to-income is a function of revenue and costs, and I've unpacked some of that detail. Now, if we look at impairments, again, the overall credit loss ratio improving from 60 basis points to 57 basis points, but still at the high end of our guided credit loss ratio. With interest rates having come down to some extent, and us seeing that it may plateau at these levels at this stage, we don't necessarily see a let up in this area in the short term, but our overall guided levels we still remain pretty comfortable with. I think if we look at the staging and the quality of the book, there is nothing to call out. We see no deteriorating trends in any of our portfolios. Obviously, we will continue to pursue recoveries where we can. But at the end of the day, the trending between stage one and stage three, we remain pretty comfortable with. While an investment from a UK perspective is purely a story of rat bones, and I think they've provided a coarsely update to the end of March reporting AUM of 113.6 billion pounds, rat bones remains committed to enhancing the operating margin to 30%, having reported a margin in total for the period of 25.2%, closer to 20% towards the end of the year. Their view is that they anticipate getting to a 30 percent margin by the end of the quarter of the financial year ended 31 December 2026. I think there's been strong implementation of combining these businesses. There's a lot of complexity in bringing together these business platforms. And at the end of the day, delivering 76 million pounds of achieved synergies is well ahead of what was communicated at the time of the execution of the transaction. Shifting to South Africa, operating profit increased by 5.2% with our wealth and investment business generating an 8.2% growth in operating profit. The banking business, 6%. Group investments will continue to reduce. It may remain volatile because there are some elements that are held at fair value. but we continue to realize these portfolios for value, and therefore that line will continue to become less relevant. Again, group costs are up in the period, but as you would see from a combined group perspective, well-managed. Again, looking at the split of earnings, in South Africa, we did see NRI grow, and that's notwithstanding lower interest rates. Obviously, the base is very different from a UK and a South African perspective. And again, growing our retail deposit base and enhancing our margin through the cost of funding, noting that our business and commercial banking elements still has very little influence in the overall cost of money in both jurisdictions. Again, NIR up by 11.3% in the period, strongly supported by growth in fees. The overall cost-to-income ratio for the specialist bank at 48.6%, I think, is a strong base, and the costs are well managed across the business. I think across both South Africa and the UK, we saw headcount increase by 2.8%, but that has been very specifically focused on areas of growth. We look at the credit loss ratio in South Africa. It's 14 basis points. Last year, it was 15 basis points. And again, there's nothing much to call out in terms of changes to the book and behavior of the overall book itself. Obviously, in both South Africa and the UK, to the extent that we reached the end of March, some of the economic outlook did worsen. To an extent, we picked up about 9 million pounds of impairments across South Africa and UK for the change that we had to absorb given the conflict and the constrained environment. Looking at wealth and investment, I think Hubert is sitting here and smiling because these numbers are strong. AUM or FOM growing by 9.8% to $609.6 billion. This business did replatform its underlying platform and has implemented new systems with significant capability for internationally active clients. And all of that had gone live in April and to a great extent has been absolutely successful. Operating margin at 29.6%. Again, given the nature of the business, I think that is hell of a strong. And that brings us to the overall picture for the group. I'm not going to repeat the numbers. I think we've got a lot of the detail across and our returns on equity achieved in the period. I think it's worth noting that that return on equity is also absorbing growth in capital that had to be deployed in the period. This is in particular for Chris Stewart because he did ask me to please explain how does 3.5% result in 4.7% growth in adjusted earnings. And there's a couple of other things that move other than the profitability. Number one is the cost of additional capital instruments, our AT1 and perpetual preference shares. And in fact, in this period, that cost reduced by 6.9% as we had some pre-issued instruments, the older instruments, falling off over the period. And some of that double count is now out of the system. We also managed to issue instruments at better pricing in this period. Taxes obviously followed profitability, and the impact of buybacks is to reduce revenue as we lose the interest on that capital, but the ultimate benefit coming through with lower weighted average number of shares in issue. which closed at 850.3 million shares. And in fact, if we fast forward to the next year, that full weighting should take that number on an equalized basis down to about 840 million shares. I've spoken about our return on equity and where we are right now. This sheet also gives you some idea of where the capital is deployed across the group, noting that from a UK perspective, a large portion is deployed in our investment in rat bones and therefore the differential between tangible and intangible. A recon of our net asset value will indicate a period in which it's really driven by profitability, net of distributions, including buybacks that were executed, as well as a stronger RAND, to some extent, positively contributing. The difference between net asset value and tangible net asset value is really the goodwill and intangibles that arises on our investment in the world business. And in fact, if I strip that out, the tangible net asset value is actually around about 625 million pounds. Looking at capital and liquidity, we remain fairly defensive from a balance sheet perspective and will continue to do so. So you see high levels of cash and near cash. Overall CET1 ratios are strong at 13% from a UK perspective. Now, to some extent, you see South Africa dropping from 14.8 to 13.6. That's absolutely expected. And the drivers for that is, to some extent, the buyback has been skewed to South Africa, as well as the fact that a capital flaw has now come into play, which means that when we calculate risk-weighted assets, we are actually calculating and carrying capital at a higher level because there's a capital flaw which in our book limits some of the benefit of a much higher collateralized and lower risk book itself. That will introduce another shock absorber and another buffer into the capital ratio, specifically pointed at credit risk-weighted assets. Mr. Titi, it's over to you.

Thank you, Nish. I think Nish gave us a really good feel of how the numbers come together over this period. I'm not going to look ahead a little bit. And as I do so, let me just say that our client franchises are very defensive within an environment that is very volatile. We have private clients that are generally more resilient than normal retail clients. And in bet times, like the times we're in where uncertainty is high, volatility can be unnerving, these clients are durable. Whether you talk about our world's clients, our private banking clients, and obviously we do serve corporate clients that have a level of resilience as well. So this gives us the confidence that over varying environments and economic cycles our business model should remain resilient. We also have very deep client relationships that help us in times of difficulty that we can be close to our clients, we can support them, help them through these times. So they continue to lean on us quite heavily because our view is that of being a long-term partner to our clients. We are less transactional, we are more relationship-based in the long term. And as I said, we are also making investments that will support our ability to expand our client ecosystems and client franchises, do more for our clients, and as a consequence, get more from them, but in a win-win situation. So while the environment looks tight, we remain comfortable that our model is resilient in the long term. That's why we are happy to again commit and tell you that we are on track to reaching our 2030 targets. Nishal gave you a sense of the quantum of the investments We have been making it. We are pleased that we are now getting this year, this financial year, to the peak of that investment cycle. He also indicated that we expense a large portion of those investments. So a combination of a peaking of investment and the starting of revenues coming through makes a big difference for us. In 2028, we indicate that our corporate mid-market proposition in South Africa should meaningfully impact on our earnings. So we do see an inflection point in our return from 28. And the other investments in the UK, both in corporate mid-market and private client, and the expanded offering in private lines in South Africa should lead to a much more enhanced set of returns for us in 2030. So because 2030 is a bit far, we thought to give the market a sense of what we think the path towards 2030 is. That's why we have given you a mid-term report about our expectations in 2028. Again, as a consequence of the success of the investment we have made in the afternoon, we will give you a bit more color on the delta that we expect from our private lines businesses. Last year we gave you a sense of the delta in profits and returns that we expect from our corporate mid-market business. So in the Immediate term volatility is high in particular in the UK where you also have a political Situation that is uncertain while we have seen our clients do more for instance in the last quarter of the year the first quarter of the calendar year We were participant alongside our clients in some of the larger capital raises in the UK. But the environment is such that decisions are now being delayed a bit because there is a level of volatility. Who comes in as prime minister and when do they come in? What type of policies will they have? So short term a bit more. uncertain in the UK, so we're guiding for next year that we expect ROE of between 13 and 14%, largely in line with where we are this year, and from 2028, 13.8 to 14.2%, picking up to our long-term outlook. We're also guiding that South African business will continue to be at the top end of its performance range. Obviously, the bank continues to perform well there. And you saw the strong numbers from our wealth and investment So we are getting returns at the top end of the market if you look at South African operations. Again, this underlines the fact that our clients are resilient. They continue to be opportunity focused even in tough markets. And it really is important to choose your clients carefully because if you get that right and you can get the service model right and the relationships are long-term, you are likely to do better in the long-term. In the UK, given the fact that the short-term has a higher level of... of uncertainty, Nish showed you the retention of capital within our UK business. And as we said, we continue to invest. We see returns at the lower end through the cycle, a range of 13% to 17%. But again there, we are quite comfortable and confident that the investments we are making will bear fruit. initially indicated that we're comfortable with asset quality of our business. So as we look forward, we see the credit loss ratio being within the target range that we have indicated, 25 to 45 bps. We came in at the center of that at 36 this year. Asset quality, as I say, remains particularly positive. So as we look out in terms of our businesses, we have people that are quite passionate about our clients, a commitment to those clients, and we can only be thankful for the quality of clients we have and for the support that they have given us. The markets are competitive, particularly in low growth scenarios, the fight for clients is quite fierce. And that we have been able to continue to depend on the custom of our clients is really particularly pleasing. So as we look forward, Our business remains focused. We do fewer things for the people that we have chosen to work for in terms of our client pools. Our business continues to enhance scale. And with scale comes a level of efficiency. And we remain particularly relevant to our clients. If we are not relevant to clients, we generally do pack our bags because we are really not adding much to them. We don't want to be a price taker. As such, we want to be a value-adding partner to our client and to be rewarded accordingly for the value that we add. So scale and relevance are important. Strongly capitalized, as Nish indicated, despite the flaws reducing a little bit our capital levels in South Africa. Liquidity remains high. These are uncertain times, so we have to be conservatively capitalized and liquidity has to be conservative as well. Because we generate strong capital, we are able to reinvest in the business. We are able to continue to reward our shareholders with steady dividends in terms of our dividend policy. And where we have excess capital, we do return that capital to our shareholders as such. The opportunities for growth are significant. Ours is a of well-defined opportunities on which we are executing. I've given you a sense of the progress we're making in South Africa. I've given you a sense that we are hiring in the UK for our corporate mid-market this afternoon. We'll give you, or later this morning, we'll give you a sense of the scale of the opportunity, but the credibility of our ability to deliver into those opportunities. So we look forward with confidence. And as I said earlier today, we are up. dedicated to making sure that we deliver enduring worth to our clients, to our colleagues inside of our business. If our colleagues are happy and looked after internally, they are in a much better position to continue to support our clients. We are a positive contributor to society where we do operate. I live in South Africa, as most people will know, but when I'm here and Ruth takes us through a lot of the work that we do, in our communities, we are filled with pride that we are a positive contributor to society. We talked about our sustainability targets, and we continue to be a responsible corporate citizen, and making sure that the endowment we have in our planet, we can hand over to the next generations, and we have not been a negative impact to those. At this juncture, then, we will go into questions. I don't even remember how we go into it. We start in the room. Thank you. The order is always important. Any questions from inside this room? Okay, no questions. I'm sure Stephen Kossoff is listening in from Sydney. He says if you don't get questions, just move on. So I will move on to Johannesburg. I've got Donald with a big smile. Danny? We have an echo. If we could fix the echo, please.

Morning, Fani. No questions in the room, but we do have a couple of questions online.

Thank you.

The first question is from from Matrix Fund Managers. Well done on a strong, solid set of results. Credit losses in South Africa remain exceptionally low. To what extent is that driven by the quality of the book versus a deliberately conservative risk culture? Put differently, is there a risk that the group is leaving growth and profitability on the table?

We do get this question from time to time. As I said, we choose the client pools we serve quite carefully. That is what gives us the resilience that we have reported. I mean, obviously, as we go forward, we have indicated that we will go into some segments that are likely to push that credit loss ratio up. In the business and commercial banking sector in South Africa, we would expect that we would have a credit loss ratio that is higher than the private banking and the CIB, private clients and CIB credit loss ratio. So we will be taking more risk, but again, we will choose our clients carefully there. I think we did indicate that the sweet spot will be at the upper end of the business and commercial banking market. probably between 100 million rand of revenue to 300 million of revenue, even though the overall the overall revenue qualifiers that's lower at 30 million. So choice of clients, how we serve them, do we understand their needs carefully, and do we structure as we do? But we are conservative by nature, so I understand the question, but we will be taking more risk as we build our ecosystem a lot wider. The same can be said about the UK. We have a mid-market a corporate positioning in the UK. So our credit loss ratio is higher. Through the cycle target, here is 35 to 55% to give you an indication of the nature of client that we target in the corporate mid-market. And we're comfortable with that. As indicated, we will be investing much deeper into the corporate banking part of that business. In the UK, our credit loss experience in the private client space is next to nothing really, because again, that is the type of client that we service there. So, comfortable with asset quality, comfortable with the nature of clients we serve, but also committed to investing further. And we will see some increase in the credit loss ratio, but I do not expect that to be substantially worse than where we are today, given the choice of client. But I appreciate the positive comment from, was it Sipelele?

Thanks, Fani. The next question is from Harry of Bank of America. What are your expectations for loan growth in FY27 in both SA and the UK?

Look, we showed you loan growth of upwards of 5%, I think, in neutral currency, around 6%, 7% or so. As Nicholin indicated, in the UK in the short term, the environment is constrained, but people are quite excited about the challenge to continue to see significant loan growth. Ruth and the team were talking last evening about the ambition that they have for loan growth. So we continue to see that level of loan growth, but the environment in the short term, as I said, is quite constrained. In South Africa, we've seen higher loan growth rates. As Nichelin indicated, the environment improved, but we are now at a point where commentaries that interest rates may rise, given the geopolitical situation in particular, the impact of oil prices on economies. So even in that environment, we will still see good loan growth but I don't want to commit to numbers when there is in the short term such a significant level of uncertainty. Our people are positive people and we have taken that approach into a financial year 2027.

The next question is from Sharada Patel of Citi. What specifically drove an increase in stage two and three ratios in the UK corporate lending book? And what trends are you seeing in the UK?

Thank you. I was just about to call initially. Now I'm going to call Ruth to come to the floor. Ruth, do you want to come through? We have people in South Africa and across. So I'd rather you took the stage.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. I'd like to answer a different question, but happy to answer about exposures into stage two and stage three. Really no trend deterioration in terms of what we're seeing. Usual movements that you would see across a large diversified book that we have. In fact, movements into stage three have actually slowed relative to previous periods. So overall, a solid and resilient asset quality performance and the credit loss ratio reducing slightly over the period.

Thank you, Ruth. Was there another question? Because I thought that was the only question.

We have a question from Chris Stewart of 91. Please could Fani unpack his comments regarding potential inorganic initiatives to grow non-margin revenues in private client businesses? which geographies, size, bolt-on, or transformational, noting the market's aversion to the payment of goodwill and share issuances.

Hi, Chris. I hope you were pleased to see that slide that Nislin put up, reconciling growth in adjusted EPS. operating profit and adjusted EPS. So at least let's start there. With respect to inorganic activity, I think this team has been very disciplined around capital allocation. If you look at the first five years of our tenure as a team, we were able to lift returns both in terms of ROE and ROTE by about 200 basis points and it was largely a capital allocation disciplined exercise and we committed that we will always look at returns above our cost of equity. I mean, obviously you have a different cost of equity in each of the large markets that we operate in in South Africa and in the UK. That discipline will continue to the extent we have an opportunity to make an acquisition. But again, our pecking order in terms of use of capital obviously is reinvest. Firstly, have capital that is above board-said minima so that you are conservatively positioned with respect to absorbing risk in an uncertain and volatile market. That's one. Two, make sure that we have capital to reinvest in the business, and I think we have proven and demonstrated the investment that we are making. And then... to the extent that there are accretive opportunities. And we talked about an acquisition in wealth in Switzerland that Nislin talked about where we showed you an increase in funds under management, a delta of 333 million pounds. So we have been quite disciplined in what we do. So bolt-ons will be interesting to always look at because you're able to to add to capacity quite quickly. And where we do look at possibilities of inorganic activity, we will be very disciplined. We are not a reckless bunch by any stretch of the imagination. I have said last year that we desire contribution from capital light businesses, particularly wealth businesses, to be at least a third of our earnings. So we will pursue that over time, but within the constraints of capital allocation discipline. So we are aligned with shareholders in terms of their concern on this one. So Chris, I have no sleepless nights thinking about that issue.

Thanks, Fani. We have two more questions online. The first is a follow-up from Chris Stewart of 91. noting the ROE target of 13.8 to 14.6 in FY28, and the target of 16% for FY30. Does this imply a 14.6 to 16% range for FY29, with FY29 being the end of most analysts' three-year forecast time horizon?

Chris, I will say you're pushing it, right? We've given the market a view around medium-term ambition in terms of ROE of 16% by 2030 and ROTE of 18% by 2030. We acknowledge that that horizon is a bit long. So what we have done is we've given you a 28 signpost. I think it would be irresponsible of me to give 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32. So, Chris, you've pushed it, but I'm afraid I'm not falling into that trap. Thank you, though.

Thanks, Fani. The last question is from Jared from Allweather. Please explain why there was no change in the discretionary motor finance provision in light of what has happened elsewhere in the sector.

Thank you for that question. Firstly, I think we were at pains over the last 12 months or so to indicate that our exposure to this sector was very small. We came into it very late and our practices have been particularly conservative. We took a number of assumptions when we made the initial provision. Those assumptions ranged from who's in the net, what level of take-up of a redress scheme would be likely, so on and so forth. And we also had assumptions around the rate of interest that may have to be paid on the redress amount. So a combination of those those conservative assumptions made it such that when the final redress scheme was announced and we ran the scenarios again and the computations, we were comfortable that we remain adequately provided. I suppose I can go back to Sipelili's question. Sometimes we can be a bit risk-averse and conservative, but I guess that's a good thing. So comfortable with... with the provision, not a big issue in our lives, and we continue to invest in the business and we continue to serve our clients. Thanks, Ronald.

Thanks, Fani. One more comment, rather, from Chris Stewart of 91. He just mentioned that... Sounds like Steve Jobs.

One more thing.

He thinks the absolute and relative share price performance over the past five years has been reflective of the capital discipline that has been exhibited. And as investors, we should not forget that.

We should not?

So he says, please don't let us forget that.

Oh, forget it. Okay, thanks, Donald. Chris, thank you for that comment. I mean, clearly, we have a task ahead, an ambition that we have laid out, execution. Discipline is really important as we go forward. I'm grateful that our board supported us in taking pretty tough decisions around capital allocation. You may remember that we resized the infrastructure here in the UK bank, that we exited certain of the geographies where we did not have scale and critical mass. So it's been a painful period and necessary set of decisions that we took. and the discipline to look to generate returns above the cost of capital remains the guiding principle. But beyond capital allocation, our ability to serve clients distinctively will determine our long-term success. So appreciative of the comment, and I want to thank everyone for participating in the results presentation. Thank you so much, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you. Good morning again, ladies and gentlemen. We're ready to start. I'm going to be joined by our youngsters in presenting this section of our morning. So I hope I'm not too long in making our introductory comments. And I'm going to start where Chris Stewart ended in the last section of the results. Chris talked about the capital discipline of the period 2019 to 2024, where we saw a 200 points increase in return. So thank you for that last comment, Chris, because it makes This slide, very easy to talk to. But today is not about looking back. We are looking forward. And when we talk about private clients at Investec, this is something really close to our hearts. This is where we cut our teeth 50 years ago from the dusty streets of Johannesburg, small, coming into a crowded market where you had banks with critical mass, big balance sheets, so on and so forth. And at that time, what made the difference was that we could understand the needs of clients very, very, very finely. We would be flexible in addressing those needs. And we would accompany that with unmatched levels of service. So that's the origin of Investec. And over time, this dedication to clients unmatched service levels led to a brand that was associated with levels of service that are comparative. Our brand in most markets we serve is known to be a brand that signifies passion, signifies optimism, signifies Service signifies partnership, signifies long-term relationships. If you look at our senior management teams, generally your average tenure goes towards two decades. But that is just an artifact of this approach of looking long-term at relationships, particularly around clients, and this comes specifically from the traditions that we build around our private client business. So when we go down this journey of increasing our client ecosystems and doing more, it is really about enhancing what we do as opposed to a reaction of a negative kind. We already have significant client pools that a lot of our competitors would like to access. The returns that we are getting are competitive. In South Africa, as indicated there, we are at the top end of that market. In fact, this graph indicates overall business as opposed to South African returns. If you look at South African returns, our advantage there widens quite significantly. In the UK, as indicated there, we are in line with our UK pair. So what we're going to present to you today represents a leveraging of an already competitive foundation. It also will give you a sense of why we think the contribution will be significant as we go forward. And I'm not going to repeat some of the themes we covered earlier in the day. So to give you just a brief update on our corporate mid-market, which is the one element that we covered a year ago, again, as I said in the results, we're seeing a client acquisition momentum in SA. We are almost at the end of capability building to get us to a point where that offering will be as pristine and as valued as our private banking offering and private client offering that we offer to our clients. As indicated, we are hiring within the UK corporate mid-market and we are looking to launch a fully functional service comparative in H2 2027. This is very synergistic and complementary to the work we do across the corporate mid-market. A number of these clients we will be doing a lot of TRS services towards helping them hedge in a volatile market. I think Nicelyn indicated that in this volatile market, we did particularly well with client flow in our results. So just complementing what we're doing there with transactional day-to-day banking will be important for us. We talked about our tech investment. Nicheline gave us a bit of a feel about what we're doing there. So the portion of that overall program that deals with our finance organization and our P&O organization will be delivered fully by March 27. There are other elements of that that we will continue to deliver. So when you go into these big tech investments, in some cases, you take a lot of risk. That's why I'm particularly pleased that we're beginning to deliver units of the tech platform investment. And I'm not going to talk about capital optimization and capital allocation. We covered that in depth. So as I said in my opening remarks, we regard Private Client as a heritage franchise for us. This is where we have developed to be who we are. So we have a strong foundation already. This contributes a third of our operating profit. So it's not something that is new. We have a great foundation and we're looking to increase scale. First and foremost, we're looking to grow our client basis and we will tell you why. The growth numbers we are targeting are ambitious but credible and executable. That's what we will do as we go forward. And there is a high degree of annuity in what we do in this business, not only with respect to wealth and investment as Jube will present, but generally in the nature of the business that we do. So very excited about what this particular client franchise represent to us. So as you go forward, scale, growth, and capital latch. Those are the three vectors that we are pursuing. And when you talk about private clients, I think it is really important to understand that we are not product pushers. We are relationship based and we lead with advice so that we can do what's appropriate for the client. That's why we don't worry much about consumer duty when we deal with this particular sector of the market, because we are advised, we have colleagues that are experienced, that care deeply about clients, and we are long-term in our approach, so we will not be transactional and just sell products, put them down the throat. Anyway, our clients are very choosy. They wouldn't accept it anyway, even if we tried. So, being adversarial is really important. Being high touch, human first, but equally being supported by competitive digital platforms. That really is important. And the third level of how we do this is that we offer seamless experience in banking and wealth. And that really is important. And we do so on an international basis. So that's why, if you look at our South African competitors, it is really hard for them to serve our high net worth clients the way we do, just given the seamless integration of bank and wealth, our international presence. We talked about Switzerland, Channel Islands. now Dubai, the UK, of course. So very competitive in how we serve our clients. So I'm going to try to sketch for you the opportunity as we see it on one slide, so that you get a sense of what it is we're trying to do. As I said, we have a proven franchise. We're looking to grow in specific segments, and we have the experience to do it. So firstly, if you look at our South African business, we have about 128,000 clients in an addressable market of one million. I mean, that one million, as it happens, is really tiny because it represents a small sliver of 42 million employed individuals in South Africa. So one million. And within that one million, we only have about 128,000 clients. So our ambition would be to double that client base to about 250,000. thousand clients. So that's the ambition of an addressable market of one million. So while we will continue to lead the market in ultra high net worth and high net worth private client offering, we will also now go much harder at the affluent sector. So continuing to leverage our strengths in the ultra high net worth and high net worth, but now putting a lot more refined proposition and service model at the affluent segment of the market. And we will be going at it, and we've been going at it through enhanced digital platforms. And we're also doing more about invest and insure. In other words, savings products and investment products that are tailored to the affluent segment. When we use our data analytics, we find that there is a substantial amount of flow out of our client's account both from an investment perspective and insurance perspective into other providers. Just mining what we already know is a need and then continuing to acquire more and more clients. What do we expect out of this? We generate at the moment $3.5 billion rent of profit in this segment. We are aiming to get to $6.5 billion by the end of March. 2030. So that's the delta that we are pursuing through this particular strategy. Looking at the UK market, we are looking at an addressable market of 95,000 clients and Ryan will talk about how we choose these clients. We have 8.2 thousands of these clients and we will be looking at to add about 5,000 to these clients. In the longer term, we gave you a number of getting to about 18,000. I think in the shorter term, we would like to do more with a smaller number of clients to reach our goals. There, we want to move from 32 million pounds of operating profit to 57 million pounds of operating profit. That's what we see. as the opportunity. On the wealth and investment side, we have the 27,000 clients. The new push is around internationalization of our offering as we go forward. So scaling, and we're also looking at inorganic opportunities. Jube has a number of Bolton opportunities he has seen over time. We've taken advantage of some of those. So internationalization, Bolton acquisitions, and of course in some select situations we will look for more than that. So that's the opportunity that we see. The challenge will then be how we execute on this. So what is the thesis behind what we're doing? Obviously, we're widening and deepening our client ecosystem so that we can do more with existing clients and we can entrench them much more effectively and competitively. As we scale up what we do with our clients, we are seeing operational efficiencies initially talked about how we are adopting newer technologies, particularly AI, while widely spread in terms of use, the industrialization of AI adoption will happen as we go forward. And when we are ready, we will tell you about it. The way we see it, by the way, is that we will continue to be human first, supported by digital and AI technology, that we will probably see not a retention of people, but probably a slowing in hiring as we adopt more and more of AI. So operational efficiencies and enhanced banking capability, transactional banking as we go forward, both with respect to the UK corporate sector mid-market, the SA corporate mid-market, and the enhanced transactional capability in the UK means we now can do day-to-day work with our clients, better data around our clients, and we can gather deposits. So in the long term, we intend to address our cost of funding through the investments that we are making and talking to you about today. So if you look at our business, what makes us different and distinctive? I'll give you just six pointers. The slide is busy, so I'm not going to go through all of it. We have deep specializations. At Investec, you ought to be good at what you do to get around the table. So when Jube talks to you about our wealth offering, we have specialists that do what they do. But these specialists work in an integrated manner. with other colleagues around client needs. As I said, we are advice-led and not product-led. So deep specializations, a level of integration. We have strong human relationships, as I have indicated. And those strong human relationships, deep levels of trust are complemented by digital platforms. And I've said we are international in our outlook and in our offering. We have a service ethic That is in our heritage, and we obsess about our culture and our service ethic. So these are the things that make Investec distinctive. As an example, we have a global client support center, the so-called CSC. That services our clients around the globe. Our standard is that if a client calls in, the phone should not ring for more than three rings. That just gives you a sense of how we obsess about service to clients. Equally, when our colleague talks to a client, we now have the capability that some of the more menial tasks can be done by agents while a colleague tries to resolve an issue that our clients may have. So that's what... makes us very, very, very, very different to anyone else. And our colleagues will go into this as we go forward. So whether you talk about private bankers, you talk about financial advisors, and you talk about wealth managers, these distinctive characteristics are what determine the day-to-day experience of our clients. I've given you a sense of the profitability expectations of what we're doing today and how that will contribute to our targets as we go forward. So this slide just gives you a sense of where we are today. The activities that we have talked to you last year about in terms of the corporate mid-market, in terms of the optimal use of capital, in terms of leveraging our existing client franchises and looking for opportunities to deploy excess capital, including return of that capital. And so today we will focus a lot more on private clients. And with that, we have the confidence that we can reach 2020. 30 targets. Having spoken for such a long time today, I'm sure you're tired of hearing my voice. It is now my pleasure to introduce the youngsters, starting off with Itu Mirafe, who heads our private banking business in South Africa. Itu, over to you.

Thank you, Fanny. Good morning, everybody. As Fanny mentioned, my name is Itumeleng Merrafe, and I have the distinct privilege of taking you through a part of our business that is not only well established and well known, but one with significant opportunity for growth. The private bank in South Africa has been a consistent driver of value to the group. And this consistency has been recognized with us winning for 13 years in a row the Financial Times of London's best private bank and wealth manager in South Africa. This award we've won alongside our colleagues in wealth and investments. Now for us to do this has been through significant and focused dedication to strategic execution. This execution has led us to having the number one market share of high value home loans in the South African market. And importantly, we currently bank over one in three of every high net worth individuals within our market. The results are very clear. Over three billion rand in operating profit, but in the period under review, we've seen an over 60% growth in our core client base. Historically, the private bank has had two core franchises, our banking business, as well as our structured property finance business. The latter continues to be an incredibly important and integral part of our private client offering, where we partner with high net worth property investors, developers, and entrepreneurs, as well as unlisted property funds, and offer bespoke funding solution. Now, this part of the business did face some significant headwinds coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, but I can proudly stand here today and say even through that period, we've been able to grow this business and maintain our operating profit. But the focus of today's discussion is our banking business, a business that through very specific acquisition strategies and intentional entrenchment targets, we've been able to double operating profit in the period under review. We've continued to invest in this business, and what I will talk to you in a little bit is our invest and ensure offering, which is deepening our client value proposition and allowing us to win greater market share. As Fanny spoke earlier, in its broadest definition, the addressable banking market in South Africa is just over 40 million individuals. But Investec continues to serve a highly targeted, high-value segment of this market that comprises of a million individuals earning 800,000 rand or more. We further segment this further within our ecosystem to ensure that we've got appropriate focus and a specified value proposition for each part of this. And so if you look at the high net worth market, where almost over 40% of all high net worth clients, those earning over five million rand in South Africa bank with Investec, These clients are served by experienced specialist high net worth bankers who work in very close collaboration with our wealth managers and these clients have access to the structuring capabilities in our tax and fiduciary team. They also have access to our international platform, the star of which is our Swiss banking platform. We continue to be the only South African bank with a fully fledged banking license in Switzerland. For our high-income clients, these clients are served by dedicated, experienced private bankers who partner with our financial advisors to ensure that we are advice-led in a deeply personalized manner. Relationships are key because banking is an emotive thing. These two parts of our business are absolutely critical in driving value, and we continue to invest in our CVP to enhance our market-leading position. The third part of this addressable market for us is where we see significant opportunity for growth. With a 7% market share, our view is that we are underrepresented in the affluent part of the South African market. This is the market with individuals who are earning 800,000 to 1.5 million rand. What is important to note is that this is not a market that is new to us. What we have is a strong position in core professions that give us a stable footing to build from. So historically, we've been incredibly targeted in the affluent market. And what we're doing is taking the lessons learned from that strategy and broadening it into the affluent market. What is important to take from this slide is that when we have strategic focus combined with our capabilities and focus on a particular market, our right to win is clear. We've been able to execute. And so as we put these targets forward, they are credible because they're based in what we have achieved before. Now, being the client-centric organization that we are, before I get into our route to market and what our value proposition enhancements have been, we believe it is critically important to first define who is this affluent client that we're looking to bring on. This affluent client are established professionals, entrepreneurs, senior managers with rising income and wealth needs. They are often underserved in a fragmented manner, and their needs are typically more sophisticated than traditional retail banking, but they haven't always had the full access to private banking. What they require is a financial partner, not a product pusher. And that talks to the ethos of who we are as Investec Private Bank. Our intention is to partner with these affluent clients through their financial journey and ensure that we can convert financial uncertainty and anxiety into confidence, peace of mind, and trust. The timing and our ability to do this is opportune at the moment. Over the last while, we have invested specifically in our digital platforms. What has always been important to us is to ensure that as we build scale, we do so in an appropriate manner without for once dropping the service excellence that Investec is known for. Our digital track record is proven and has been externally recognized. And we now recognize that our digital platforms are the primary contact point between ourselves and our clients, with 87% of our core clients being digitally active. What is critical as we continue to invest here is ensuring that we have AI-enabled intuitive acquisition journeys that can allow us to turbo boost our acquisition targets. The reason I emphasize the acquisition is that what is incredibly clear to us is as soon as a client banks with us at Investec Private Bank and experiences our high service value and has access to the expertise of our bankers and financial advisors, they seldom leave. They partner with us for the long term. And so our ability to build scale and our ability to grow is predicated on us increasing our acquisition capability. Now, investing in digital platforms alone will not make clients come and bank with us. It will not make them come to us. So what will? And this is the part that's really important. Because you may ask yourself, so what is different? As you go and try and capture a much broader market opportunity, what are you doing differently? Important to note that into the affluent market historically, how we got clients into the investing ecosystem was through our banking offering. That was the only line in the water that we had. And over the last while, we have intentionally invested in our invest and insure. And so if I take you through that a little bit. From an investor perspective, our My Investment platform, in partnership with our wealth and investments team, is our way of bringing the absolute best of our capabilities and products from a wealth and investment perspective into the affluent market, giving client access to investment products that they ordinarily wouldn't have access to. Secondly, it allows us to scale our retirement offering, which ensures long-term prosperity for our affluent clients. And as a true partner, this matters significantly to us. Secondly, we have invested in our Investec Life Proposition, which allows us to roll out our proven insurance proposition, not only into our existing market, where we've got significant market share, we can entrench those clients deeper, but it allows us to acquire clients through different avenues. And so historically, we only had banking to bring clients into the Investec ecosystem. What we have now is bank, invest, and insure. It allows us to be advice-led in picking the right product and the right avenue for clients to join the Investec ecosystem. And as these clients are in our ecosystem, we will be data-led in how we entrench them. The flywheel is truly turning, as you can see from the significant CAGRs in this business over the last while. And so what will this mean? What do the results of executing on the strategy imply? Our 2030 targets are ambitious, they're clear, they're measurable, but we believe executable. And so the goal is to add over three billion rand in operating profit, to grow our loan books by just shy of 100 billion rand, and to have our client numbers exceed 250,000 clients. Our assets under management on our MyInvestment platform will grow from 5 billion rand to 29 billion rand, and our total insurance policies that are currently just under 27,000 will grow to over 50,000. We will achieve this by executing on our strategic priorities, that of simplifying our operating model in banking, our digital transformation for scale will continue, We will execute on our new wave strategy and our structured property finance. We will be partnering with the new wave of property entrepreneurs, as well as working very closely with our business and commercial banking team to bring our property expertise into that mid-market. And lastly, we will continue to turbocharge our investments in our invest and insure to ensure that we can meet our clients' needs appropriately. As I conclude, Our strong execution discipline is bearing fruit. This is not something we're looking to do in the future. We are in execution mode. We are deepening our proposition for our high net worth and high income clients to ensure that we have a differentiated and market leading proposition. We are scaling profitably in a part of the market where we are currently underrepresented and our new and simplified operating model will unlock scale. we will have targeted investment to ensure digital enablement, client acquisition, and invest and ensure business growth. And all of this will lead to accelerated growth. We have clear line of sight for delivery and are confident in our capability to deliver our 2030 targets. Thank you very much, and I'll call on Jubehe.

Good morning. My name is Hubert Hay, and I will present the wealth and investment business to you. And I'm standing here on behalf of 600-odd colleagues in this business. And I'm sure many of them would have liked to stand up here presenting, because we are both proud of the business we have built, and we are very excited about what the future holds for us. You would hear a number of themes that is consistently repeated by first Farnie to myself and Ryan after this, because this is a very integrated business. If you look at this first slide, the numbers tells us a story. It tells the story of a business that has been built over many years. This is a capitalized business contributing stable annuity and consistently growing income stream to the group. All of the metrics on there has been doubled over the last six years. But more importantly, this growing asset base, as Fanny has also mentioned, tells us a more important story, a story of trust that our clients has put in us. They have appointed us as the stewards of their investments. Key in building these relationships is the long-term nature of it. Individual relationships, are fostered and built in literally last decades. These relationships are around client-centric together with private bank, and it is a business that is focused on the high-net-width and the ultra-high-net-width clients. Over the last six years, we have also expanded our footprint out of South Africa into Switzerland, into London, Mauritius, and Latin America. We have a clear North Star. We are building an international private client wealth and investment business. And to offer our clients with the best, we have structured ourselves into three core specializations. Holistic wealth management, a global asset manager, and an investment platform on which all of this is delivered to our clients. Holistic wealth management brings to our clients all forms of advice. It includes financial planning, investment advice, for example, through asset allocation, structuring, tax fiduciary, philanthropy, and intergenerational planning. But because of the deep relationships that we have with our clients, we offer this in a truly human way. We go beyond the traditional risk profiles and financial benchmarks to gain a deeper understanding of our clients' needs, of their goals, and their values. So to create a wealth management solution that provides them with a sense of safety, a life of prosperity, and a meaningful legacy. I will go into more detail about our asset management capability on the next slide. We have recently, and I think Nicheline or Fanny has mentioned it, we have recently in South Africa launched an investment platform. This enables our clients through the opening of one account to have access to invest globally. This investment platform is built on modern technology and incorporate AI. This is a first and only in South Africa and brings us in line with our global peers. Our asset management capability has been established more than 20 years ago. And it is on the same principle of longevity and trust that we have built with our clients. We have a clear investment philosophy. It is about long term. It is about active management of assets, and it is about concentrated portfolios. And we have embedded in all our processes, in all our mandates, the principles of responsible investing. Our scale allows us to cover the breadth of the different asset classes, and today we manage about two-thirds of our clients' assets in international portfolios. For example, our UCEDD fund range that is domiciled in Luxembourg currently exceeds $8.7 billion. We offer this to our clients through a segmented approach, as each two have mentioned already, and we align very closely to them. For example, Together with private bankers, we service the high net worth and the ultra-high net worth on a high-touch basis through dedicated wealth managers. The affluent or high-income clients are serviced through an omnichannel approach via the MyInvestments platform, as has been shown on the previous slides. And then internationally, we also distribute via a network of IFAs, for example, through the joint venture that we have in Latin America. But all of the above is about people. It is about attracting and retaining the best to provide excellence and the consistency that our clients expect. One of our great successes over the last few years is the true partnership that we have built with Private Bank, ensuring that we bring the best of Investec to all our clients, and that we truly trench them in our one ecosystem. And you can see the progress that we've made there, moving the overlap from 48 to 56% over these years. But on the right-hand side is our commitment to continue doing this. It is leadership-led. We build relationships at the right levels. We use various operating mechanisms, for example, the strategic use of data, marketing, client events, and we also, where our CVPs overlap, have integrated teams, for example, our tax and fiduciary team. Looking forward, Three focus areas. Number one is we continue to build this core business. Everything I've spoken to you today is inside our core business. All our people are focused on building our core business. Secondly, we have to be cost leaders, and it's about leveraging people, technology, bringing AI. It is all about disciplined decision-making and execution. And thirdly, we are actively pursuing some new growth opportunities. These will be in the forms of acquisitions, and initially as mentioned to the one we have done, completed in Switzerland, that is now in the implementation integration phase, and we are looking at new jurisdictions and revenue streams. We are confident that our core business can deliver 12 to 13% growth through the market cycles. And in addition, through very targeted initiatives, we want to add another 3 to 4% of growth. We have grown our business by 13% over the last five years. We are confident that we can do it by 16 to 17% over the next four years. Some takeaways, in a sense, Fani, you have mentioned all of them. This is a business that has been built that delivers strong, high-quality annuity earnings. We are consistent, that's all. Our business is all about trust, and it's all about long-term relations with our clients, and we believe we have these people, the right people, to service them. We operate in a closely One Investec ecosystem, so that we can bring the breadth of Investec to our clients. And we are expanding our international footprint, both to give our current clients a better service, but also to provide new growth opportunities. So through this disciplined growth, we are confident that we can achieve the outcomes towards 2030. And I call on Ryan to speak to you about the UK private client.

Good morning, everyone. My name is Ryan Thole. It is my pleasure to present to you today the UK private client business and its evolution to date. There is an exciting new strategy that we're embarking upon here, and it's wonderful to be able to share that now in a confident fashion as we move forward over the next few years. I think the best place to start is to set the scene. Much as like my colleagues have done, our track record in this space is very, very strong. The last few years have been characterized by robust growth in our UK high net worth client numbers, and this has been coupled to double digit compound growth in the lending book that's attached to these high quality clients. All of this has resulted in a business that today delivers both a strong operating profit and a positive ROE. And importantly, the clients on book that we've accumulated to date deliver us an unbelievable leverage opportunity across the group. Just in the last financial year, 2026, we have taken 1,000 plus referrals from our client base to the rest of the bank and the rest of the group, cross group, intergroup, interbank, and everywhere else that has resulted in many, many, many opportunities in our corporate investment banking space and, of course, in our wealth offerings to those clients. And I think what this does is it reinforces, again, the strength of a client base of this type, the value of this client base as a franchise and a go forward. And our ambition now is to take this client franchise even further and to do that even faster. And that will be done by increasing our relevance to those clients and deepening our relationships with them. If we look next to the market opportunity and sizing, we have what I think is a relatively small market share of what is actually a relatively large market niche. We have a proven capability to acquire and then retain these clients, and this has been further, much further strengthened actually in our go-forward strategy through the delivery of an enhanced proposition that is integrated and is holistic in its outcome. And importantly, we continue to focus on clients that deliver both that value, both what we offer, but more importantly, how we offer it. And we bring sectoral and other expertise to those client bases as we move forward. Our current client base comfortably also exceeds our minimum criteria. And that, I think, reflects both the quality of the book and the inherent latent opportunity in this base for us to deliver further value and relevance to them as we move forward over the next few years. So this brings us to probably the changes powering the bulk of this strategy. I think to understand this, you have to look at our evolution from pre-2016 to where we are today, which reflects probably the biggest shift at that time in the model of a product-led approach to something more specialist lending coupled to basic banking capabilities. That's what's got us here today. The next steps from 2026 to 2030 involve a substantial shift again, but arguably will be even more impactful. And this is really the private client business driving three critical vectors. The first is we are expanding substantially. our scope and quality of the proposition and the integration of all of the various pieces that now will result. The second is shifting our people from being focused principally on lending to placing them at the center of this new expanded proposition and delivering more of Investec, more of the time, but importantly, at the right time. And finally, ensuring that at... that all our dealings with clients are centered around holistic advice that will anchor those relationships on the go forward. And it's these three shifts that we believe will allow us to position Investec for the first time here in the UK as a primary... That should allow us to grow our market share significantly to circa 14% over the four years ahead. And importantly, we maintain both the quality and also the relevance of the space in line with our group ambitions to deliver a truly integrated, seamless private client ecosystem. Onto the transactional banking piece, which I assume is going to be the subject of a lot of discussion today. We have a new, improved, and comprehensive transactional banking proposition that is going to underpin this move from secondary to primary banking. The offering will include a private client current account that is significantly enhanced. This will be coupled to a fully functional and multi-currency debit card. A new credit card will be launched by us, which is a first for Investec here in the UK. And all of this will be surrounded by a market, competitive and relevant rewards and benefits platform that are linked to the breadth and depth of clients and their relationship with us in Investec's private client ecosystem. And importantly, all of this is being delivered in a digital-first manner, incorporating still, though, our world-class bankers and the CSC, in line with our mantra of truly high-tech and high-touch, which remains, as we've seen from our colleagues, our ongoing USP. So this offering will be a key driver of deepening the engagement and interaction with clients, growing our liability base and unlocking new areas of value for us, broadening the relationship with these clients for higher loyalty and retention, and allowing insights and relevance that were previously unavailable through a primarily lending-led offering. That said, even though we are excited about transactional banking, we're not standing still on our lending proposition either. Strategic initiatives here include the continued build of a fully digital mortgage and property finance offering that will increase our appeal to the direct-to-client and indirect-to-broker target client bases here in the UK. It's modernizing our offering and, importantly, building operating leverage through scale allowing us to increase the lending book by circa 50% over these coming four years. In addition, we're taking active steps through both funding mechanisms and capital efficiencies to ensure we remain competitive, and we will still build on our core strength of flexible and bespoke lending solutions tailored for individuals much better than the competition. Finally, our shift from this mortgage banker to relationship manager enables a greater offering at the source of any lending transaction, thereby increasing our relevance and retention and helping us drive that market share. As we approach the three-year mark of the combination of IW&I UK and Rathbones, it's important to recognize the strong and valuable partnership we've built with them over the years, resulting in great client experiences for those in the arrangement. That said, we are now evolving our relationship of the strategic partnership even further. And we'll be moving from a referral-based system to an integrated assets under advice model, with Investec now leading the client relationship and all the advice. Alongside that, Rathbones will now provide underlying investment capabilities together with IW&I International, and this is in line with the group's strategy to deliver a unified banking and wealth proposition across borders via a single Investec platform and enabled by holistic advice. All of this will be underpinned by seamless and professional digital delivery, and the private bank in the UK will continue to originate and source clients in this model. That will be onshore, and our Channel Islands business will continue to source and originate clients offshore, thereby providing the power to this. It positions our existing wealth and investment international infrastructure, as well as IPSEC, alongside Rathbones as three key capability engines powering this strategy and approach. And overall, this strategic evolution, we believe, gives us a strong foundation to continue working together with Rathbones in partnership, while simultaneously also delivering on the group strategy of a one investor private client relationship. Bringing the strategy to life and connecting the enhanced proposition and its integration is a recognition that client value increases exponentially across two axes. The first is relationships broaden across product utilization. And secondly, relationships deepen over extended periods of time. Now, given lending often creates the entry point for us, the enhanced proposition allows an immediate shift to relevant multi-product offerings at source, and then the ability to provide an advice-led relationship from the outset, thereby deepening the client relationship and increasing tenure. This value, across two dimensions and over time, we believe strategically affords us the ability to manage clients into a long, tenured, integrated and holistic relationship, where Investec is the first port of call and the preferred choice of product. It creates strong annuity flows for us and a disproportionately high share of client interactions, engagements, and transactions. All of this drives trust and loyalty, exactly what Investec is known for. Ultimately, when the strategy continues delivering, it drives three key metrics of firstly, enhanced operating profit, increasing by circa 25 million pounds out to 2030, an expanded high-quality loan book, increasing by circa 3.3 billion out to 2030, a larger client base of circa 13,000 by 2030 that are more deeply entrenched in the private client ecosystem and enabled to utilize more of the corporate and investment banking services of the group. And the success of the strategy is underpinned by four key strategic initiatives that are ongoing. The first is the launch and embedding of our transactional banking platform. The second is the build-out continually of our digitally-enabled lending platform. The third is the evolution of our competitive lendering offering as part of the enhanced proposition. And finally, the drive towards a trusted advisor relationship manager approach as the center point of client engagement in our OneInvestec ecosystem. We believe this allows us to deliver a compound annual growth rate of 15%, with this platform then delivering growth from 2030 strongly beyond and even into the future there. In closing. We have a strong record of delivery, coupled to disciplined and time-less execution, and all resulting in a scaled-up private client franchise generating improving profitability each year. We've demonstrated a right to win in the UK space, and with a now enhanced proposition that is tightly integrated and more relevant, the opportunity to take a relatively small market share into a sizable and valuable client franchise is palpable. The exciting piece for both our clients and our people is the significant opportunity to significantly increase our primacy and to build deep tenured relationships. Our targeted investment in the four key areas that we've spoken about are assisting us in unlocking operational leverage and driving this ecosystem growth that we're after. And finally, notwithstanding current market headwinds, we have strong momentum in the business today. and an unshakable confidence that we will be able to deliver this by 2030 and beyond. Thank you very much. Fani, I call on you.

Thank you, Ryan. Thank you, Jube and Anitu. It really is wonderful that over the last two set of results, you have seen a number of our colleagues who normally don't share this stage to see the quality of people that we have. In November, You heard from Nick Riley, and you also heard from Andy. Andy's sitting at the back there, just enjoying seeing the other youngsters present. I think what you heard through the presentations is a consistent message about how we obsess about our clients and how we go... out of the way to try to firstly understand our clients, to provide them solutions, and more importantly, to partner with them over the long term. That provision is integrated, and from a South African perspective, very international. And that we have been investing significantly in our digital platforms to underpin our ability to continue to serve our clients. So the benefit of scaling over the next number of years will be seen, as I said, in operating leverage, will be seen in the level of entrenchment that we get from these clients and overall in the profits that we want to derive. I'm going to just scroll through. two slides that I'm not going to talk to because they repeat what we have been saying, an integrated One Investec offering to our clients and, of course, a lifelong commitment to these clients as we go forward. So on that note, I'm going to close this particular presentation. And I'm really glad that the youngsters came through. You normally hear from Quimesh. You normally hear from Ruth. In fact, Ruth says she was a bit disappointed to get a question on staging after all the preparation she did over the last number of days. Ruth, take what you get, all right? So very glad. We're going to open it up to questions. And I know it's been a pretty long morning. I apologize for that. Q asked me not to offer another deep dive in the next set of results. So, Q, am I going to listen or not? Shall we take questions? Are there questions from this room? Now, shall we move to Donald in Johannesburg? I know it's been a long day, so you may choose to talk to us directly. Donald?

Fani, we do not have any questions in the room, but we do have quite a few questions online. Thank you.

All right, let's go.

So we have a couple of questions from Chris Stewart for each of the presenters this morning. So we'll just start with a question for Edu. Are you confident that affluent and high income clients can be serviced profitably under the high touch service model that has been behind the success of the high net worth offering? And can customer numbers be doubled without diluting service levels to existing clients?

Thank you, Edu.

Thanks for the question, Chris. I think it's important to note a few pointers. The first is the number of clients that we have today has been a 60% growth on where we were five years ago, and our service offering has not diluted. And so what we mentioned around our ability to invest in our digital platforms allows us to continue to have a high service quality for a couple of reasons. The first one is through our platforms, our clients will be able to self-serve on many things that before they couldn't. And to Nishlin's point around speaking about how we're using AI agents in the organizations, certain things that clients often would call that sort of predicated that three rings will be able to do in other ways. And so we are investing in our ability to service our clients so that what our bankers can truly get to are the things that require empathy and a level of complexity in dealing with our clients. So we are very confident that we will maintain that.

We have a follow-up question for Edu from Daniel Masfosfere of Ashburton Investments. For the SA Private Bank, how does the profitability of high net worth clients compare to affluent clients, and what does this mixed evolution where you will grow more affluent clients imply for the ROE, which is currently at 15.9%?

Do you want to go through all questions for E2 while he's here, if there is any other?

That was the last question for E2, finally.

Thank you, E2. I want you to get to rest at some point. Thank you very much.

I guess in response to that question, the profitability is driven by different things. And so part of what we've done in investing in our platforms is to ensure that our cost to serve in the affluent market is a very different number for that in the high net worth market. So it is important not just to look at what the revenue drivers are for our different segments, but we're intentionally segmented our clients to ensure that our cost to serve is differently so that we can scale profitably. I guess the short way to answer your question, though, is that we expect that through our scale, it'll still be accretive in terms of returns and profitability.

Thanks, E.T. Donald, how many more? Let's keep betting.

We have about six more questions for you. The next two are directed at Jubay from Chris Stewart of 91. Given the offshore platform and Swiss banking license, does Rathbones any longer provide necessary services to Wealth and Investment International as IW&I used to add to IW&ISA?

Keep going.

And the second question for Jube. Will 16% to 17% earnings growth be partly delivered by increased operating leverage, or will it merely be a function of higher revenue growth and a static margin of circa 30%?

Yeah, anything else for Jubeir?

Those were the two questions for Jubeir Fani.

Thank you. Jibir, do you want to come through? I think on Rathbones, Ryan indicated that we're changing the service model in the relationship. So we now have them as a capability provider to us. We take over the primary relationship in a seamless way between banking and wealth, and there will be a capability provider alongside Switzerland, alongside IWNI International. So that is an evolution, but our partnership continues as we go forward. And then you can take the other one. I decided to take Rathbone's first. You go. I might want to add to that. Of course.

I do think we just need to understand that the Rathbones and the answer you gave is very specific to the UK. Our agreement with Rathbones has always been that South Africa and international is outside of this agreement, both for their side and from our side. They can operate internationally where they want to and how they want to. as well as we can. So that agreement is not changing. This piece that you have explained, and Ryan has explained earlier, specifically as to our relationship and evolving that partnership within the UK. The first question, or that's probably a lot easier to answer, is around our... leverage ratio and how that will change. So in South Africa, our target is to keep our cost-to-income ratio between 67% and 70%, or the inverse if you want to do it as a margin. In South Africa, we are already at the bottom end of that, and we expect that to stay there, so closer to the 67%. The reason why it's closer to 70% is because of Switzerland and investments we have made there to be able to acquire, for example, the acquisition we've done, and to scale up that business to deliver better into South Africa. So their cost-to-income ratio is higher than 70. We expect that to come down all the way, and we will hope to trade at the lower end of our 67% to 70% over time.

Good news. Jivert? As you know, we measure these commitments. I'm glad you don't make them only to us. You're making it to the whole market now. Donald?

Funny, we have three questions for Ryan. The first question is from Chris Stewart of 91. How important to your private client offering is the success of a complementary wealth offering? Can this level of integration really be achieved by a strategic partnership where you lack control or only have a minority stake?

I think Fani has really partially answered the question and I would add to that by saying that we focus on three things in our strategy which research tells us how net worth clients want. The first thing they want is an integrated bank and wealth offering with advice at the center. The second thing they want is a digital journey that allows a high level of self-service coupled to moments of magic where the individual and the relationship really makes a difference. And the third thing that clients want is access to unique opportunities. So when someone asks, is it critical to our journey, it is absolutely essential. Our whole shift is moving the relationship from a product-led relationship to advice at the center. And to do so, we've needed to add wealth in a much different fashion, much closer fashion, in an Investec integrated ecosystem to be able to deliver that. As Fani mentioned, it's similar to what we already do in South Africa through OnePlace, where a client can work with wealth and bank interchangeably across a digital platform and those two people are united in a joint-up proposition. We are striving for the same thing here in the UK and have a high belief that we can achieve that in the structure that we've come up with while still respecting the Rathbones partnership and using them as a key capability engine. So that's the first question. There was another, I think, Don?

Yes, the next question is from Jared from Allweather. How does the UK private client strategy provide an integrated wealth offering and control the client journey with Rathbone sitting outside of the group in a separate listed entity?

I think I've partially answered that in the previous question now, and I think the example is there to see. So Jared is welcome to contact us afterwards if he wants more detail on that.

Thank you, Ryan. The last question for you is from Daniel Masfosferi of Ashburton Investments. On UK private bank, is your sense that this remains an underserved segment of the market which you have identified for a high touch service with larger banks in the UK focused on high net worth clients above the 3 million pound NAV and service levels naturally not as high touch in the bracket you are targeting? Daniel also knows that the UK is a low growth environment and asks, is there anything preventing larger peers from increasingly focusing on your target segment as they look for growth?

Okay, to best understand why we would win here, it's important to understand Investec. And Investec is one of the only institutions in the UK that can bring together both bank and wealth, corporate and investment banking services in an integrated fashion. So many of the clients that choose to work with us don't just choose one of the quadrants to work with us in, they choose us because we can seamlessly move them around the entire proposition in an integrated way. So we do believe it is actually an underserved segment. There are obviously 95,000 clients to go for, of which we currently have 8,200, and we'll be targeting very selectively those clients who need Investec in this form and in the way that we deliver that service. So we absolutely believe we have a right to win, and we've demonstrated that capability, I think quite ably, over the last couple of years. There was a second part to the question, Don, that I can't remember now what was asked. Do you mind just repeating it, please?

So he says that the UK, a low growth environment, is there anything preventing larger peers from increasingly focusing on your targeted segment as they look for growth?

So, unfortunately, the Gini coefficient tells us that wealth is growing while the rest of society isn't. And it's one of the reasons why we are so focused on creating enduring worth. And we believe that by focusing on this ever-growing UK segment, in spite of the fact that UK GDP is not growing and many of our sectors are in some sort of flux, we do believe that we can grow positively and continue to move into that client base and obviously create some impact to society off the back of that as these entrepreneurs in many cases or key captains of industry are seeking to change their worlds and the societies they work in as well. So we're quite confident that we can do that and do it regularly and in an Investec fashion which will make us different.

Thank you, Fanny. We have one more question that's come in for Iddu.

You've been muted, John. Okay. Thank you, Don. Well done. I think just in closing, look at that smile. Just in closing, we've presented to you some plans about what we are doing in the private client space. We also have given you our plans last year about what we're doing on the corporate mid-market and generally how we want to leverage and scale even further the propositions and capabilities that we have. I know that You have seen the quality of the people that have spoken to you this time around and the last time around. The objectives are ambitious for our business. The market has a level of uncertainty to it. So as we go forward, we have three clear responsibilities. The first is execution, so is the second, and so is the third. So for my colleagues, we have to have the discipline to execute on the plans that we have laid before the market. And at the center of that, as always for Investec, is our clients. And for the leaders in the business, at the center of that commitment is our people. And obviously, as we go forward, we have excitement about what we need to do, but we have to have the discipline on both accounts. So on that basis, I would like to thank you for attending. I know it's been a long morning. We thank you for your interest to our shareholders, our investors, and our analysts. We thank you for Your interest, we know that when we go around, you will probe a lot deeper into these plans, and we welcome that probing, and we welcome from time to time the advice that you offer us as we interact with you. We'll see you again in... about five, six months. And I'm sure you will have a number of other young colleagues talk to you. I'm really excited about these youngsters being presented to the market. Thank you so much. And to my colleagues, thank you for your contribution to this result. Thank you for the way you serve our clients and you look after your colleagues. Thank you. That's the end of the presentation.