Litigation Capital Management Limited

The results that we've achieved during this interim period have been really good in a really disruptive period for our business. Whilst everyone has suffered disruption through COVID, LCM's business has been most particularly disrupted during this six month period. If we look at the regions through Australia, through Singapore, through the Middle East and up to London, there's been periods during that and significant periods where offices have been completely locked down, the communities have been completely locked down. Notwithstanding that absolute disruption, we have achieved a great deal both in respect of funds management, our revenue lines, and in the generation of new business. So starting with our funds management business, LCM in this last period has achieved a total commitment in respect of its first fund, 150 million US, and we've had a first close in respect of our second fund. So in terms of opportunities moving forward, we are closing off fund one and moving into fund two, which really gives us a solid footing in terms of establishing our funds management and asset management business. In terms of revenue that generated during the interim period, very strong in comparison to the previous period. The gross revenue of $19.3 million, and that predominantly relates almost exclusively to direct investments on LCM's balance sheet. Applications were slightly down over the period, 26%, but really encouragingly, those application numbers have bounced back up in the first two months of this calendar year. Total capital invested was also down during the period, but that is naturally reflective of the fact that we are shifting from an entirely balance sheet investment model, direct investments, through to a co-invest model. So one would expect there to be a slight decrease in respect of those numbers. Management update. We'll deal with this in slightly more detail. In terms of the financial performance of the investments which resolve themselves during the interim period, we've actually improved our running performance metrics from the 10 year mark to the 10 and a half year mark. So we are now operating in terms of all of our investments inclusive of losses. We've increased our internal rate of return to 79%. and we have a cumulative return on invested capital now of 162%. So we've been very pleased to be able to maintain a really high standard of investment performance over a very disrupted period.

Before touching upon the numbers for the period just gone, it's important to remember that revenue related to the investments that we make flows through at regular intervals. That being said, we had a strong set of results for the period with revenue up 149% to $19.2 million. Revenue was up primarily due to the previously announced investment, which generated strong returns with a ROIC of 2.62% and an IRR of 199%. That, coupled with disciplined cost management, yielded a profit of $7.4 million on an adjusted basis and $4.3 million after interest expenses of $2.2 million and non-operating costs of $0.9 million. Cash was up 422% at $30.3 million compared to $5.8 million in the prior period. We expect to see cash generation continue as direct balance sheet investments start to resolve with maturing portfolio. Invested capital was down to $13.9 million but that just demonstrates the shift away from direct balance sheet investments where we're funding 100% of the investment to our co-funding model where we're investing 25% alongside our third-party investors.

So I've now relocated to London and that move has been a long time coming. For obvious reasons, the disruption through COVID has really prevented me from relocating with my family across to live in London. And that move to London is really important in terms of LCM operating far more efficiently. We've now got our executive team all in place in the one office, head office here in London. And that really allows us to spearhead growth through this region. In a more recent development Mary Gangemi our CFO has joined as a board member and now operates as an executive as part of the executive team from the London office. That allows us to work far more efficiently in the same time zone to spearhead growth. In the year ahead, shareholders should really see LCM capitalise on the opportunities which lie ahead. LCM now has a greater access to capital than it's ever had. It operates a business which does not necessarily is affected in the same way as other businesses in terms of instability and uncertainty. We tend to see more opportunities and we tend to see more demand for our capital when economies are operating with uncertainty. LCM's business has really reached a juncture where we're wholly focused now upon expanding our origination platform. So we've gone from a situation where historically we have built up the intellectual property inside LCM to undertake a really rigorous due diligence and risk management process on these investments and our track record would suggest that we are good at that. Secondly, we've built the access to capital through our asset management business, which will give us access to the capital we need. And we're now wholly focused on building out our platform for origination and really getting access to the best quality investments globally. In terms of the market conditions, what we see at LCM now is instability in global markets, both from the back end of the COVID pandemic, but also through political instability, particularly in Europe. In those conditions, we tend to see an increased demand for using an external source of capital to fund your disputes, which really operates well and encouragingly for LCM's business. In terms of insolvency and other related restructuring and bankruptcy opportunities, we're starting to see an increase in the number of applications which are coming out of that sector. We're secondly seeing governments in those jurisdictions in which we primarily operate lift monitoriums on the winding up of companies, which will give us access to more of those opportunities. Those opportunities may not come immediately, but we are seeing an increase, but we'll see those opportunities running right through for probably the next six to eight years. In terms of LCM's overall portfolio of investments, we're seeing a lot of those investments reaching a period of maturity based upon our historic life of these investments or time to completion. We're also seeing a number of these investments be the subject of a favourable adjudication, which haven't yet been taken up in LCM's conservative accounting practices. So we'll see those materialise in the next period, which will add to our revenue for the second half of the financial period. With the growth of LCM's asset management business, it gives us far greater access to capital. And with market conditions as they are and presenting in terms of uncertainty and political uncertainty, that will drive demand for LCM's capital and it will present us with a greater number of potential investments, which LCM has particular expertise in. With all that in mind, we're feeling really positive about the year ahead.