Schroders plc

Good morning everyone. I know it's a super busy morning for you, so I really appreciate you taking the time and I'm sorry if you're sat waiting for it to join us. Now, it's really hard to follow any video, but following that is quite hard because it's a short excerpt from our new Active Edge campaign. You're going to progressively see this over the next six months. As you know, Schroders were unashamedly active and that's the basis of this campaign. We're now in a world where changing economic and geopolitical events are creating perpetual uncertainty and some people are understandably worried. But within all that lies great opportunity for Schroders and our clients. I believe we're at a turning point with the focus returning to active management. Diversification isn't only back in favour, but it's a real requirement. Portfolio concentration is being challenged in a way we haven't seen for some time. Our 2025 Global Investor Insights survey underscores this. More than half of the respondents want more resilience in their portfolios, and 8% of global investors expect to increase their allocation to active management and further diversify over the next year. In this context, our active stance is a clear competitive advantage. So let's reflect on the half. I'm pleased with what we've got done. There is good early signs of momentum. We're ahead of where I'd hoped we would be when Megan and I spoke to you back in March. And we're presenting some really solid results. Against the backdrop of uncertainty, we have remained focused on what we can control, delivery of our three-year transformation programme. It's been an incredibly busy and challenging few months. We've made some difficult choices about where we invest our time and resources. We're focusing on the areas where we can see real competitive edge. We're focused on right-sizing our business, but with a keen eye on making sure that we'll be more efficient and effective in meeting our clients' needs. So in summary, we've been undaunted by taking difficult decisions, and we've been moving at pace. But before I get into the strategy of progress, Megan, why don't you actually take us through the results?

Yes, thanks, Richard. You will have all seen our results this morning, so I'll just pick up on a few key points. When I spoke to you in March, I said that although our AUM had grown in 2024, our operating profit had fallen. We said that this was not good enough. And I'm pleased to say that for the first half, while our AUM has been stable, our operating profit was up. which I hope gives you a sense of our strong focus on profitability. In terms of our results, our adjusted operating profit was up 7% to £316 million. That was because of good revenue growth, cost discipline, and a strong progress on our transformation. Our net operating revenue increased 2%, driven by good growth in Schroeder's capital and wealth. both up 9%, and our public market was resilient. We contained the increase in our adjusted OPEX to just 1%, with our transformation programme delivering reduction in costs of £21 million in the first half of the year. This is net of a reinvestment. For the full year, we now expect our in-year benefit to the P&L of £50 million, compared to the £40 million annualised savings we communicated in March. We achieved an adjusted cost to income ratio of 74%, which is down from the 75 at the end of last year. Profit before tax was down 29%, reflecting both the costs of our transformation and portfolio restructuring charges, which are non-cash items. These actions have simplified our business and allow us to focus our resources on our core strengths. I'll take you through the underlying drivers of our financial performance after Richard spends some time on how we're progressing on our strategy.

Great. Thanks, Megan. So I thought it was worth reminding us of the three financial targets we set out in March because that's our anchor. In public markets, our focus is on stabilising revenues, insurers' capital, the $20 billion of cumulative net new business, and in wealth management, we'll continue to generate net new business of 5% to 7% of AUM. We'll also achieve £150 million of annualised net cost savings by the end of 2027, while continuing to invest in the business. As a result, we expect our adjusted cost-to-income ratio to fall from 75% last year to below 70% for 2027, subject of course to normal market conditions. Taken together, these actions put us on a clear path to returning Schroders to profitable growth, while creating a more focused and resilient business for the future. Over the last few months, we've achieved a great deal. Firstly, on our cost savings target. As Megan's just pointed out, we've reduced our operating expenses by 21 million on a net basis so far and reinvested about 8 million back into our talent. Now, it's easy to say that quickly. But achieving this involves fundamental changes to how we run our business. We're focused on operating model efficiencies and leveraging our operating partnerships, which Megan will cover a little bit more in a second. But the consequence is that almost 7% of roles have been made redundant in the past three months. This exercise has been precise so that we don't damage our core business, with only a handful of redundant roles affecting our investors. We're committed to remaining the home for exceptional investors so our focus here is on promoting internal talent from an extraordinary bench to ensure that we're developing careers supplemented by selective external hires and we've already hired more than 25 people into our investment team so far this year. This is how we secure continued outperformance for our clients in the future We've always had strong employee retention and that continues. Our current voluntary turnover rate remains at less than 4%. In delivering these cost savings, we've incurred transformation costs that we told you about at £45 million. That's in line with the guidance we gave. On cost, we told you in March we expected to exit 2025 with £40 million of annualised cost savings. And I'm repeating this because I think it's really important, Megan, that we learn this, because now we're expecting to achieve net in-year cost savings close to £50 million during 2025. We also told you in March that we were going to simplify the business and focus on where we can scale and have an edge. So we've started. And as a result, we've closed our alternative risk premium capability. We've sold Schroders RF, a private credit business in Australia, We've closed our real estate business in Munich and we've written off our investment in a US-based credit originator. We've also restructured our Chinese wholly owned fund management company and our South Korean business by transferring the retail business to a local distributor. This allows us to focus on what we're really good at, in China allocating more capital deliberately across the individual business that we have, and in South Korea focusing exclusively on private markets. The consequence of this portfolio restructuring is that we've taken a charge of £56 million. While it's impacted our profits, I really want to stress that these restructuring charges relate to balance sheet items. They're non-cash and they've got very limited impact on capital. I want us to be relentlessly focused on clients. I hope I'm landing that message. That's why we've simplified the structure of our client group and enhanced the effectiveness of our global sales effort. We've set up dedicated teams for sales activation and delivery, and we've reshaped our marketing function. We've also made strides to simplify our product range, and we're working to close or merge 14.5% of that fund range with minimal impact on revenues. We're in the process of working through that rationalisation exercise so there is more to come. And by the way, even though we've driven a busy agenda, that is not at the expense of client focus. Client engagement is actually up 20% year on year. That makes me feel pretty confident as we head into the second half. We're also investing in our talent and hiring people into key strategic growth areas. We're continuing to build out dedicated specialty sales team for Shredders Capital We've got six new hires onboarded in the last few months, and we expect to have the full 40 strong team by the end of the year, helping us to accelerate our growth in private markets. We've also made changes to build strength and capacity in our leadership team. Our new CEO of Wealth Management, Oliver Gregson, joined us from JPMorgan a little under two months ago. He's already brought tremendous energy and has a real ambition for what our wealth management business can achieve in its next phase of growth. We have another key hire starting on Monday in Matt Uman, who will lead our client group. His significant experience leading global sales teams is going to bring fresh ideas and add momentum to the actions we took in the last few months. And I'm delighted that Corinne Stenberg is changing roles to assume responsibility for strategic partnerships, including our ventures with BOCOM and Axis. And this role underscores just how vital partnerships have become to the group's strategy. There's real momentum across the business, which is positioning us strongly for future growth. But let me turn now to new business and what we've written in the first half. So I'm really pleased to see the momentum that we're building alongside some strong client successes. We generated gross sales of 68 billion in the first six months, which is up 8% year on year. So going through this slide left to right, Public markets had a tougher Q1 but rebounded in Q2. This was driven by the 4 billion SJP mandate we told you about previously and a 3.3 billion sustainability mandate from a European pension scheme. So I'm going to take a little detour here in a moment to talk about our global equities capability, which delivered 6.9 billion of net new business for us. our global equity strategies remain top quartile over one, three and five years. Our focus on active management, the dedication to high quality research and our desire to be the home to exceptional investment teams has enabled the Schroders Global Equity Retail Fund to outperform its benchmark by nearly 200 basis points per annum since 2014. 200 basis points per annum since 2014. And just as a reminder, that's net of fees. Our recent global equities marketing campaign has resulted in a doubling of sales meetings compared to last year, and this showcases what we can really do when we focus our efforts. The nine leading market capabilities in public markets we spoke to about have collectively delivered positive net flows in the first half. Schroders Capital generated net new business of 2.3 billion so far this year, and that's 6 billion of fundraising, up 17%. Our fundraising reinforces where we think we have a competitive edge. We've closed the €2 billion junior infrastructure debt fund, the fourth vintage of this successful series, confirming Schroders Capital's ability to originate differentiated transactions. Our focus in the second half is to take this offering into the wealth market. And we also completed the first 500 million close of the UK Innovation Altaf, the first investment structure of its kind for UK venture capital. It joins a growing suite of Altafs offered by Shredders Capital and the joint venture Future Growth Capital, designed to enable UK pension scheme investors to support the Manchin House Accord and taking advantage of the robust returns and diversification benefits Shredders Capital provides. As previously indicated to you, our net new business target in private markets is weighted towards the outer years of our financial forecast, so we're on target. Turning to wealth, you can see that flows accelerated in the second quarter when we hit our 5% net new business target. The slower growth in Q1 reflected the usual impact of tax payments on client portfolios. Then on JVs, we've seen a bit of a rebound in Q2, driven by our Bocon venture, which recorded inflows of 1.6 billion, mainly as the demand for money market funds surged. In total, we generated positive net flows of 6.4 billion in Q2. So we're off to a good start, but there's lots more for us to do. We remain absolutely focused on execution. We're ready to launch our European active ETFs and we're going to continue to invest in those parts of our business where we can drive growth. For 2026, one thing to highlight is that we'll be setting out in more detail our strategy for wealth management. And finally, of course, our investment performance. As you can see, we continue to deliver strong long-term results for our clients. Our three-year number rebounded since the end of 2024 and now stands at 65%. While the one-year figure has dipped largely due to moves in the dollar on mandates with a sterling bias benchmark, our longer-term track record remains robust, with 76% outperforming over five years. The medium and longer-term outperformance is testament to the strength and consistency of our investment teams and approach. So everyone now really wants all the detail on the numbers, Megan, so back to you.

Thanks, Richard. In March, I said there were three things that we were focused on to deliver our strategic growth objective. One, cost savings to embed operating leverage as we grow profitably. Two, discipline in the allocation of our resources to ensure that we drive shareholder value through transformation. And three, injecting leadership, energy, and focus to inspire the cultural change that we need to allow us to deliver at pace and retain our top talent. Over the past four months, we've mobilized an extraordinary group-wide, focused effort on these three objectives. We've had to make some very tough decisions, and I recognize that we are only at the start of our three-year transformation journey, and there's a lot of hard work to do. But I'm pleased to say that as I talk you through the detail of the results today, you will see some of these benefits starting to come through in our numbers. So starting with our average AUM, which is a key driver of our revenues. Overall, our average AUM, excluding our associates and JVs, increased by 3% year-on-year to $662 billion. the growth was constrained by our currency movements. Without that impact, average AUM would have been $14 billion higher on a constant currency basis. Around two-thirds of our AUM, and therefore our revenue, is non-Sterling. So FX volatility, which is outside of our control, can materially change the performance of this business from one period to the next. Moving on to the movements in our net operating income between the half year 24 and the half year to date. A combination of markets, mix and investment performance added 42 million to our revenue. And I've already mentioned the impact of our FX on our results. A headwind from the prior year net outflows reduced the revenue by 5 million. However, given that the first half of 25 has had positive flows, excluding our JVs, this should reduce the impact in the second half. Performance fees and carry were up $6 million. This is largely driven due to the higher carried interest income from our private equity business. As ever, performance fees and carry are very hard to predict in any one period. So my best guide is that 25 will be in line with 24. The returns for our JVs and associates increased by $5 million. This was mainly due to the profitability of SPW following their focused restructuring on their business, which resulted in net revenue efficiencies but also lower third-party costs. This has been partially offset by the weaker performance of our BOCOM FNC venture. So overall, as a result of these movements, our adjusted net operating income was up 3%. And I'll take you through the segmental reporting, starting with asset management. In public markets, we showed resilience performance overall. Our revenue reduced by 2% because of the FX headwinds that I mentioned earlier, and as well as a mixed effect. Overall, as Richard and I mentioned, I'm pleased to see our nine leading capabilities were in net inflow. In equities, our net flows returned to positive territory, reflecting significant wins in the first half. Pleasingly, two of the largest inflows we've had are a direct result of our sustainability credentials. The table on the right presents our net operating revenue margins. As we told you at the year end, we have included exit margins on this table to give you a clear view of where we're ending the period. As you can see, the equity margin remained resilient. There's a slight softening to an exit rate of 44 basis points. This is due largely to the large institutional mandates and the mix from our client's appetite, which continues to be a move to global equity products, which are typically at a lower margin. In fixed income, our revenues were up 11%, and the average net operating margin improved to 33 basis points. This is principally due to outflows from our lower margin U.S. fixed income products and the demand from our clients of our higher margin Euro credit products. In multi-assets, revenue is reduced by 8%, principally driven by net outflows. The net operating revenue margin remains stable at 24 basis points. And in core solutions, our revenues increased 5%. This is due to the positive flows we generated over the past 12 months. The margin decreased to six basis points for the first half, again, largely driven due to the mixed effect of our net new business. Moving on to Schroders Capital. This business continues to demonstrate good growth, with revenues up 9% year-on-year, driven by a higher average AUM, as well as an increased carried interest, which I mentioned earlier. As you can see in the table on the left, fundraising was $6 billion. That's an annualized rate of 17% on our opening AUM, with good contributions across all four asset class pillars. After taking into account deployment, fund maturities and outflows, the funding converted to net new business of $2.3 billion. And as of the 30th of June, our non-fee earning dry powder remained broadly fat at $4 billion. The table on the right shows our net operating revenue margin at 56 basis points. Flats on the first half of the year, but one basis point lower than our 2024 exit. Next, wealth management. Wealth management performed well, and the net operating revenue was up 9%. Revenue in Casanova Capital and other wealth increased by 8%, reflecting the continued strong performance in the first half. As shown in the table on the right, the net operating revenue margin was 47 basis points. It reduced to 47 basis points, sorry, principally driven by lower transaction fees. Benchmark revenues were up 18%. As the business continues to grow its advisor footprint and make selective acquisitions, The net operating revenue margin was 21 basis points, up one basis point from the prior year. So that covers revenue. And now let me talk you through expenses. We limited the increase in our operating expenses to 1%. The benefit of our transformation actions, along with FX movements, helped us offset the impact of inflation. And as you can see from the bridge, we delivered net savings of £21 million, and those have already dropped to the bottom line in H1. And importantly, that is after taking into account £8 million that we've reinvested into our talent and into hiring. For the full year, I anticipate us being able to deliver net in-year P&L benefit of around £50 million. we remain committed to our target of $150 million annualized net savings to be delivered by the end of 2027. Continuing along the bridge, our currency movements resulted in a benefit to our expenses of $6 million. We had $5 million additional compensation payaways as a result of the $9 million additional carried interest we earned. And we had $4 million increase in costs linked to our higher average AUM. And finally, the impact of inflation was 30 million, in line with our expectations of around 3% of our total cost base. So overall, good progress on costs, which has led to our adjusted cost-to-income ratio improving to 74%, in line with our full-year guidance. And we expect to remain at that level for the full year, assuming stable markets. Now let's talk about our transformation program in a bit more detail. From a personal perspective, I'm really encouraged by the outcomes we have achieved. We've had to make difficult decisions affecting our people, our portfolio and our resource prioritisation. But we've moved at pace to ensure the right size, our cost base as we progress. I would place our transformation delivery into three categories. Firstly, operating model efficiencies. Whilst our transformation activity is a group-wide, The structured change is particularly evident across our group technology, operations, and client group, specifically our marketing functions. These changes are designed to optimize our internal operating model to drive efficiency, prioritize our client experience, and reduce duplication. Secondly, operating partnerships. In March, I spoke about leveraging our buying power and working more closely with our key operating partners. In the second quarter, we announced that we would be moving our technology and global operations activities to a strategic third party, UST, who we've worked with for the past 14 years. This will enable us to leverage UST's scale, their technology innovation, and their global location strategy. And in turn, it will increase our operating leverage over our business. This transition will happen in phases running through to the end of 2026. Thirdly, portfolio restructuring. Identifying and executing on opportunities to simplify our global portfolio of businesses has been an important step that we've focused on our strengths. Richard provided you with the specific examples that we've elected to sell, exit, and reshape our business where we've lacked scale or competitive advantage. As we move into 2026, the focus will be on those actions to drive long-term value and growth. We will continue to enhance the efficiency of our operating model, drive cost discipline, and accelerate our AI capabilities. We're confident that we can continue to deliver against our strategic ambitions, but as I mentioned, we've only just started. Both Richard and I, together with the executive team, know that there is a lot of hard work ahead. But what energizes me is the knowledge that the work we're doing will drive better outcomes for our clients, our shareholders, and our people going forward. Now moving on to capital. Our capital surplus increased to $896 million at the end of the first half. We set out a very clear framework for capital allocation in March. That framework remains unchanged. And as you know, there are a number of items that will draw on our capital resources over the next few years. As we deliver our transformation program, we expect net cash generation to be lower due to the associated costs incurred. However, it is crucial that we continue to allocate our capital to areas where we see the greatest opportunity for the future. In 2025, so far, we've approved an additional $70 million for co-investment and seed into Schroeder's capital. We've also approved an additional $200 million to seed funding the launches in our public markets of some of our innovative product strategies. We continue to invest in acquisitions in advisor networks and benchmark, and to assess selective inorganic opportunities within wealth more broadly. From a regulatory perspective, we have Basel 3.1 coming into effect on 1 January 2027. We're reviewing the LEEDS reforms and continue to work closely with the PRA to understand the potential impact this will have. Finally, let me take you through the rest of our financials. Adjusted operating profit was up 7%, resulted in adjusted operating earnings per share for the first half of 14.8 pence, up 8%. Profit before tax, however, was down 29%. That reflects the transformation costs of 45 million, in line with our expectations, and portfolio restructuring charges of 56 million. As Richard said, these are restructuring charges on non-cash and have limited impact on our capital. Overall, in light of these results and in line with our dividend policy, we've maintained an interim dividend of 6.5 pence per share. So before I hand back to Richard to conclude, I just wanted to leave you with my three key takeaways for the first half of the year. Firstly, we are progressing well against our cost targets. We've upgraded our expectations for the full year to around $50 million in-year net savings. Importantly, these are not just a cost-out story. We are also investing for growth. Secondly, good sales momentum. The first half of the year, we saw 68 billion of gross inflows, our highest gross inflows in three years. And finally, focus on profitable growth. We have taken decisive action to simplify our portfolio of businesses so that we can continue to channel our resources and our capital into the opportunities where we will drive future profitable growth. Richard, back to you.

Great, thanks. Great summary. As we look to the end of the year, I remain pretty confident in our strategy and the delivery of our transformation program, which, as you can see, is already gaining great momentum. The progress we're seeing, in particular, the encouraging growth flows in the first half and the quality of our current pipeline, reinforces my confidence that we're heading in the right direction. It is, of course, impossible to ignore the turbulence in world events and the continuing uncertainty in market conditions. That said, we are focused on what we can control. Through disciplined execution and a clear eye on our objectives, we're determined to return this business to profitable growth, as we have done in the first half. We are firmly committed to maintaining our position as a leading international active manager and as the top UK wealth franchise. I genuinely believe there is significant opportunity on the horizon and both strategically and operationally, we're well positioned to capture it. Above all, our focus is delivering for our clients. We do this by leaning into what we do best, active management, providing guidance and clarity for our clients during these uncertain times. So one thing to mention before we go to Q&A, we're planning to hold a capital markets event for Shredders Capital in the fourth quarter. We're really keen that you hear from the team to showcase our unique capabilities and how we compete in the private market space. Of course, we're going to provide more details in due course, but I really hope you're able to join us. Now, let's turn it over to you. We've got Katie from IR, which many of you will know, with us here in the studio. So she's manning the microphone and moderating. But please raise your hand. And over to you, Katie.

Thanks, Richard. So our first question is from Isabel Hetrick. Isabel, if you could please come off mute, restate your name and your company for the record, and if you could clarify who your question is directed to.

Good morning. It's Isabel Hetrick from Autonomous Research. I have two questions, please. I guess both for Richard. So first, you've had a couple of ESG mandate wins in the first half. And we are seeing some of your peers talk up the opportunity to increasingly win mandates, given the pullback in ESG from some of your US peers. So if you could just provide some colour about how you think Schroders is set up to compete in this area and any colour on future pipelines would be appreciated. And then my second question is on the LTAF business and the JV with Phoenix. So could you give us some colour, please, on how you expect this business to evolve over time and the increasing contribution it could make to Schroders Capital's net new business? Thank you.

Thanks, Isabel, and thanks for joining us this morning. So on the ESG mandate, yes, we were very pleased. Both that SJP mandate and the pension fund mandate that we talked about, our sustainability credentials were central to that. We are undaunted in our support for ESG and importantly ESG is built into what we do at Shredders. Every investor has information on their desktops to enable them to think about ESG items and how that may not be factored into market prices as they do research and make investment decisions. So actually showing our capabilities, showing the depth of data that our analysts have and our teams have is central to winning those mandates. Of course, we offer products which are specifically badged as ESG products, but actually it's built into what we do. It's part of active management, so it's why we exist as active managers. So I would concur with those who say that actually we have an opportunity, and I think we're really well positioned in that opportunity because of the investment that we've made in sustainability over a prolonged period of time as well. This isn't something you can switch on if it comes back into vogue. It requires an awful lot of dedication and investment. On the LTAF, it's a great question. joint venture with Phoenix, Future Growth Capital. When we set it up, the aim was to have flow coming from Phoenix. As you know, we were expecting several billion to arrive into Shredders Capital over the next couple of years from Phoenix. But we're also starting to see really good momentum and pipeline for clients more broadly. The one thing I'd note is the only product in the marketplace, the only UK-only LTAF, there are lots of owners in that, but is offered by FGC and that's what people who want to take advantage of their Mansion House Accord are going to have to use. So we've got the right product in the market at the right time. So we hope we get to see some increasing flows from third parties and not just Phoenix in the coming years.

Thanks very much, Isabel. Our next question is from Angeliki. Angeliki, if you could please come off mute, restate your name and company and who your question is directed to.

Yes, hi, good morning. It's Angeliki Baraktari from JP Morgan. Thank you so much for taking my questions. So, a couple of questions from me as well for Richard. In terms of the wealth business, we saw that the wealth flows have been much lower in the first half relative to last year as a percentage of AUM, but also in absolute terms. And I was wondering if you have been at all impacted by the changes in the non-DOM regime And also, what are you currently seeing in terms of client reaction ahead of the autumn budget, especially given all of the discussion around sort of, you know, higher taxes, et cetera? And then the second question on wealth, we saw earlier this year the announcement of the acquisition of CCLA by Jupiter. And I was just wondering whether that, you know, increases competition for you at all within the charity space, given that, you know, this has been a key growth area of the wealth business in the past. And perhaps one last question with regards to LTAFs. We heard in the Leeds reforms that LTAFs will now be included in stock and share ISAs from April 2026. What will be the impact for you? Thank you very much.

Thanks, Angeliki. I really appreciate you joining us. So let's go through them in order. So I think we're going to look at quarter-on-quarter in wealth and what really happens. So what we saw is a lower flow rate in the first quarter of a casino in particular as we – saw the impact of tax payments that occurred in January. So we had a slower start to the year than we had expected as a result of those tax payments. And pleasingly, coming into the second quarter, we saw the fundraising rate get back into the 5% to 7% target of AUM that we set for you. We feel pretty good about the pipeline in wealth today. So as we look forward, we think we'll be okay. Now, secondly, you asked about the non-DOM and whether that had an impact. Of course, we've seen some clients, as everyone has, leave the UK, but very fortunately the money has not moved with them. So it hasn't really had a significant impact on Casanova. When we look at the autumn statements and what might be coming up, Look, of course, I think there are people who are concerned about what may be in that statement and there's definitely people talking about how that may impact their portfolios, but we've not really seen any significant change in behaviours or people pre-empting those changes at the moment. On CCLA, obviously what we're doing in Cazenove is position ourselves for the larger charities. We have an astonishing, as you know, success rate in winning RFPs in charities. I think the CCLA, while it clearly does appeal to some large charities, has an offering that goes right away through the size spectrum and therefore in parts of the market where we are less focused. So we're not anticipating a huge impact on Casanova because of Jupiter's acquisition. On LTAFs into ISAs, you would have seen we're really supportive of that because I think the important thing is investors should be able to put a tax-free wrapper around any investment that they make, particularly if it's into the UK. We're very supportive of the government's efforts to drive more and more investments into both public and private markets here in the UK. So we're expecting, I think we're already expecting to be listed on one platform very shortly. and we're expecting to see some flow from certain aspects of our client base. It's obviously a product that's not suitable for everybody, but it's definitely suitable for some people, and we're delighted they can now go into those wrappers.

Thanks, Angeliki. Our next question is from Arno. Arno, if you could please come off mute, restate your name and your company, and clarify who your question is directed to. Thank you.

I've got three questions please. If we could come back again to LTF and widen the question maybe to LTFs. I'm just wondering how you're thinking about market sizing and whether or not you've got the right products to address the opportunity. Particularly I'm thinking about hybrid products, public-private. My second question is on private markets generally. Could you talk about the pipeline that you've got ahead? What launches should we be thinking about, particularly larger fund launches? And my third and final question is on... on wealth um clearly um there's the aging of financial advisors continues i think we're at 58 years old i'm just wondering how you're thinking there about adding adding capacity um to to a market that is needing in terms of there's a certain need for financial advisors thank you um so let's start with the um i think the question we broke up a little bit arno was around the ltafs and market sizing

And of course, in addition to the LTAFs, we have the LTIFs that we've actually also launched in Europe, so it's not just a UK question, it's much broader than that. Particularly when we think in the UK about pension reforms, by definition that's opening up an enormous market for LTAFs, as well as obviously, as I talked about, for it within wealth, for a population of wealth, they all fit nicely into portfolios and into ISAs. Have we got the right product? The LTAS haven't been around that long, right? And we're really pleased we had the first LTAS, the third LTAS. We've now effectively got the LTAS offered through Future Growth Capital, specifically targeting the UK market. So I'm not going to give you exact numbers, but we're really quite hopeful that with the offering that we've got across the spectrum of asset classes, that we're really well placed in that marketplace. On hybrid products, We're really focused on actually how we remain at the forefront of innovation. And I'm definitely talking to both Georg and Johanna about how we think, particularly in debt, around the right sort of hybrid product. So hopefully more to come on that as we go into the second half and beyond. Private markets, the future pipeline, what we really want to see grow, particularly in the second half, is our private debt capability. For us, this is really about taking the existing products that we've got and scaling them as opposed to launching a particularly new product. But we also continue to see new fundraisings as we look at green coat and the repositioning of the green coat business to give products at a higher return rate so more to come of what we've got rather than launching anything new and I think that ties back Arno into the point we've been making of let's get really good at the things that we know we're good at and scale those rather than launching new things and thirdly on wealth my wife always tells me age is a concept as opposed to a problem so look We're very blessed here to have a wealth business that covers all aspects of advice and the wealth experts in Kazanov. We've got a great team of financial advisors and I hope not many of them are rushing off to retire anytime soon. But when we look at... SPW we've been working really hard to replenish and actually have the very best advisors we can find in that business and we're not seeing any difficulty recruiting new people. We're training and education is an important part of making sure we've got the right advisor base and of course we continue to see advisor numbers grow across Benchmark. We're now over 1,000 advisors on the Benchmark platform so we're not really seeing an immediate problem from the from the seasoning of the advisor capabilities.

Thanks very much, Arno. If you could lower your hand and go back on mute, please. Thank you. Our next question is from Nicholas at Citi. Nick, if you could please come off mute, restate your name and company and who your question is directed to. Thank you.

Thanks, Katie. Morning, both. It's Nicholas Herman from Citi. I have one follow-up on that last question, and then I have three questions myself. So the quick follow-up on the private debt, you referenced scaling private debt. My impression here – so this is for Richard – My impression is that you were not well developed in your private debt capabilities. So I guess that scaling, would that include partnerships potentially with maybe even some of your shareholders? And then the three questions that I had then, two for Richard and one for Megan. So the first two for Richard, on your targets, I know your revenue targets and especially that for your public markets are based on a certain set of assumptions, namely that the shift to credit and to global strategies will continue. I think it's fair to say that those assumptions felt reasonable when you were formulating your plan last year. But I guess with what's happened this year, does that change your view of the world at all? Maybe not so much the shift from equity to credit, but maybe more relatively slower shift away from local towards global. The second question for Richard on the impact of your transformation on clients. I think you said that client engagement is up about 20% odd this year, and you've seen, I think it was 68 billion of gross inflows. I mean, that was obviously very strong despite all that change. It doesn't seem that we have seen any hesitancy from consultants and clients of yours as a result of all these changes on the investment platform. Is that a fair conclusion? And then the final question for me again is, So given that you are ahead of your transformation plan, and as you embed a culture of greater cost discipline, I appreciate you have reiterated the 150 cost-saving target, but would you say that you are now incrementally more optimistic of potentially exceeding that 150 as it stands, given that you are ahead of target? Thank you.

Nick, thanks for those questions. And thanks for asking Megan a question. It gives me a bit of a break, so I appreciate it. So let's take private debt because, again, I'm going to take us back a little bit to March. What we said was that we were well-developed in bits of private debt, and that's what we're going to focus on. particularly asset-backed, securitized debt. We have a great team covering that, ILS, cap bonds. So we're doing certain things and you're right, we don't have a capability that, for example, looks at direct lending. So where our growth is focused in our plans is on the things that we know we're good at. Now your broader question though is, are partnerships important to our business going forward as we think about filling in capability gaps? And, of course, they are. One of the reasons that we have asked Corrine to step up into that role is to help us be front-footed and deliberate in seeking out partners to help us be that across distribution, be that across product development. So we look not just in private debt but across the business at whether or not we can grow through different forms of collaboration. So on the targets, has our view changed on the assumptions? Not yet. So I know there's an awful lot of talk about movement in appetite and flows, and we can definitely see when we look at retail flows some movement. I think, just think about the institutional buying cycle. It takes quite a long time from flash to bang. We go through an RFP process that it takes a while to fund. So we've seen an increase in RFPs, but we actually haven't seen funds moving. So I think for the moment, whilst there are early signs of retail flows, they're generally a little bit hot to those flows anyway. We haven't seen a broader movement, so we're sticking with the assumptions that we've got. But don't worry, you'll be the first person we'll tell when we change them. and the client engagement and what that really means from a consultant perspective. So whenever you go through change in a business, consultants rightly, by the way, it's their job, come and ask us lots of questions about changes and what the impact will be on the business. And there have been, as we've moved through the last six months, some changes in recommendations. But what's really astonishing about Schroders, and I probably didn't understand this, Nick, when I joined, was that we're not a Hall of Fame organisation. This isn't about stars, it's about teams. And we've invested tremendously in this huge bench of capability. We have more than a thousand investors, most of them sat in this building actually. And they're awesome. And so when we see movement in teams, when we see changes in the environment, the one thing we do is we've got a great bench of people keeping strategies going, making sure they're consistent with what they say on the tin. And that's why I think we managed to retain the recommendations and keep the business side and keep those flows coming in through the year. So one thing I really want to land with you is that capability, that bench is really a protective defense for this business and a great asset for us.

Thanks. And then finally a question for me. Thanks for asking me a question, Nicholas. So on our transformation, I've mentioned it a few times, We're only three months in from when we went to market with our target. We've done exceptionally well relative to that target, but we're not restating it. We are aiming to hit that cost-to-income ratio exit of 70% at the end of 2027. Our target is still a net target, and we remain at that number of 150.

Very clear. Thank you both.

Thank you, Nicholas. We have two more questions on the line. So coming to Hubert first. Hubert, if you could please come off mute to restate your name and company and clarify who your question is directed to. Thank you.

Hi, it's Hubert Lam from Bank of America. Thank you for taking my questions. Sorry I joined the presentation late, so hopefully you haven't addressed these issues already. I guess questions could be for either of you. Firstly, on the flows, can you talk about the pipeline that you see? Obviously, you had some good wins recently. Any mandates you'd like to point out? I think previously you mentioned like a possible pipeline in Q3 and quant equities and core solutions. Just wanted to confirm if this is still the case. Secondly, associates and profits in wealth management was stronger than expected due to SPW. How should we think about this going forward? It seems like a pretty big step change in the half. Any one-offs there or is this kind of the run rate to think about going forward? and lastly just wanted to think about your thoughts on the opportunity in wealth management in targeted support um just wondering what you think about that um you know based on what the fca has said thank you um thanks human thanks for joining us we didn't cover any of those i know we've been double parked so i i appreciate appreciate you joining so on um on the flows

What I really don't want to get into too much is actually telling you what's in the pipeline because it moves around quite a lot in terms of when it funds. But I can tell you we sit here today feeling pretty good about what's not funded and actually what we can see in terms of possible sales over the second half. The only one that we've announced coming up in the second half is a win that we've had with Scottish Friendly. So that's out in the marketplace and we expect that to fund hopefully during Q3. On the associates, actually this is a really good story of actually the benefits coming through the things that we've done in the past. So we talked, I think, at these presentations in 23 and 24 about the restructuring efforts that we've undertaken in SPWE, the changing advisors, changing the investment proposition, and what you've actually seen in the first half of all of those benefits actually flowing through to that business. So you shouldn't really see that as a one-off. So on targeted support, I think, first of all, you know, the perennials for targeted support is relatively limited, but we think it's a huge option, opportunity for the industry. First of all, actually moving people away from feeling they're forced to take advice, but actually to seeking advice and people's propensity to buy and pay is always higher when they actually opt into something and not forced to take it. But actually in really focusing businesses on where they add most value to clients. So I know we will be pursuing... guidance and not just advice. We think they can sit nicely alongside each other, but it's a huge opportunity for the industry. And I think over time, Hubert, the real question is how far the perimeter goes on where we can provide targeted guidance.

Great. Thank you.

Thanks, Hubert. We actually have a couple more questions. So Bruce, coming to you first, please come off mute, restate your name and company and who your question is directed to. Thank you.

Hi there, morning. It's Bruce Hamilton from Morgan Stanley. Thank you for taking my questions. Thank you for the presentation. I've got two for Richard and one for Megan. So the first one, just on the sort of end client appetite for Europe, obviously there's been a fair bit of debate around sort of potential for shifts amongst Asia, Australia, other clients to look more to Europe and a bit less to the US. But has that faded or is that still real? So I'd be interested in the colour from client conversations there. Secondly, on pension reform, obviously you've talked a little bit about LTAF opportunities in the UK, but Looking a bit more broadly also at Europe as well as the U.K., what are you sort of advocating for? What do you think is most important? Is it around sort of auto-enrollment or tax incentivization of ISA funds? equivalents in Europe, what are the things that you think make the biggest difference and that we might get movement on? And then final question. Sorry, it's a slightly straightforward one for you, Megan, but congratulations on the delivery. On the 50 million savings in the year, was the previous target 40 million in the run rate? So actually it's quite a lot better, just to confirm. Thank you.

Thanks for the questions Bruce, good to hear from you. So on the client appetite for Europe and as it faded. I think the picture is a little bit more complicated than people try and gloss over it. As I said, what you can see is definitely retail funds moving and they move more quickly in response to headlines, so you have seen that. We haven't seen that shift so much in institutional clients yet, but we've got a larger number of RFPs coming in. I think for me, if I take a stand back, by the way, our team running European Echoes has done a phenomenal job, by the way, from a performance perspective. But the flows are still uncertain. We've actually seen... inflows into our large-cap U.S. products as well. So we can see the picture is very, very mixed depending on where you are in the world, what the appetite looks like. Asia, definitely we can see some orientation out of a U.S. focus into a more global focus, including Europe, so not just to Europe. So I think we can see with clients a broader global orientation you do have some wanting to take advantage of the rebound in the US markets. But it's kind of interesting, isn't it, Bruce? Going back to my point on diversification and the need for resilience. Almost all of the increase in the S&P since Liberation Day has been backed with the Mag7. So the concentration that we saw coming into the year and we saw reduce a little bit towards the end of March, has come back full force as we get into the second half of the half. So I think it really reinforces my point as clients look at resilience, and that's what they started talking about when we did the survey. They're going to want to see some more rebalancing to try and mitigate the concentration we've got. On pension reform, look, I think it's really – is different in different parts of Europe. So in the UK, you know, we signed up for the Mansion House Pledge. That's a really important thing that we've done. We encourage other people to do that because that's moving us away from seeing cost as the primary driver of where people put investment savings into actually what's the balance of value for money and the right return profile. So I think that's a really important step and what we're advocating for is more and more employers to sign up to that pledge to make sure that we're giving people the right return profile, frankly, to their employees and pensioners, because at the end of the day, giving those people more money is what it's all about. I think tax incentivisation is a really important point, certainly when we get into Europe. I think there's a broader debate to have on tax incentivisation here in the UK. You know, across ISAs and pensions we give a £70 billion tax rebate to people. Now that's more than the welfare tax bill and it's more than the defence costs for the UK and yet we see most of that invested overseas. So I think there's a really interesting angle for the Treasury to debate how tax incentives can sometimes increase saving but create perverse outcomes for economies. In Europe we definitely want to see better tax incentives in some countries. And actually allowing pension schemes, we're seeing this in France in particular where we want to see more access to private markets into pension schemes and how do they open that access. So those are the sorts of things that we're advocating for. And Megan?

Thanks, Bruce. Yes, and thank you for the focus on what we're delivering. It absolutely is $50 million out of our bottom line P&L this year. That's what our focus is on. We did guide in March to saying $40 million of annualized run rate savings, but this is $50 million out of the bottom line within the year. The key thing, Bruce, is that we focused on our cost-to-income ratio, and we guided to 74% for this year and getting down to 70% by the end of 27.

Thank you, Bruce. If you could lower your hand and go back on mute. Our next question is from Mike Werner. If you would come off mute, restate your name and company, and your question is directed to you. Thank you.

Thank you. Mike Werner here from UBS. Two questions, please. And again, apologies, I missed some of the beginnings, so I hope I'm not covering something you already did. But first, I think this is for Megan. You know, we saw, again, really good cost cutting. You guys are looking more positive there. Where should we expect, you know, the cost cuts as we go through the second half of this year? Do you expect it more on the comp side? Do you expect it on the non-comp side, whether it's operational or whether it's headcount? And then for Richard, I think the question I have is on the wealth management business. I think there was some discussion about potentially expanding that business geographically when you hosted your Strategy Day a couple of months ago. It's been three or four months since then, and I was just wondering if there's been any update on your thinking and any details would be helpful. Thank you.

Great. Thanks, Mike. So if we look at the second half of the year, you know, as we've guided, we'll get to $50 million. The cost savings there are really associated with the announcements we've made earlier this year of moving some of our technology and operations through to UST, so those start to flow through our operating model towards the second half of the year. We, you know, and importantly, you know, we really are focused on cost-to-income ratio rather than comp and non-comp. For that exact reason, in some instances, we're moving comp to non-comp as we move to external providers.

It's really given us a flexibility, isn't it, Megan, to run the business in a better way. Mike, thanks. Good to hear from you. Yes, our thinking has evolved. As I said, Oliver has been literally in the building for less than two months. So what we're going to do is let him get his thinking together, which he will be doing over the autumn. And so we'll back to you at some point after that with an update on what we're planning to do in wealth more broadly, not just geographically.

Thank you.

Thanks. We have one more question from Michael Sanderson. Mike, if you could come off mute to restate your name and company, your question is directed to you. Thanks very much.

Morning, Richard. Morning, Megan. Just Michael Sanderson, Barclays here. Just a couple of ones, please. First of all, the portfolio restructuring and the charge you took there, I'd be interested to know how far you are sort of through your view of how much portfolio restructuring you require. I mean, obviously you go hard early on and then assessed from there. So, it's interesting to know stability for people once you've made decisions around this and how much more there is to come there. Second one, I guess, more meagre, once again, on the cost piece. The $8 million of investment versus the $21 million of save is uh interesting dynamic i suppose if i'm thinking out to you 150 million of cost save how you characterize sort of ratios of your reinvestment versus um versus save and so what your actual gross cost save might have been uh as you set out the plan um color on those would be both interesting thank you thanks mike um so on portfolio restricting look at it take us back to what we said we're going to do what we need to do to focus the business

put our resources, both time, efforts, and financial resources in the places where we can really drive growth. So these were things that we took action on in the second quarter. We're going to continue looking at the business, right? So that isn't to say we've got a list of targets that we're going through, but we're going to be disciplined in thinking about the business over the next months and into 26 to make sure that we've got the portfolio we can really drive forward and give you the EPS growth. I know everyone on this call wants to see. Megan, on the costs?

Thanks, Mike. As I mentioned earlier on in the slides, we delivered a gross cost saving through transformation of 29 million for the first half of the year, so that 21 is a net number. Obviously, we see the 8 million rolling forward as we've invested in staff, as we mentioned, specifically in areas of growth, so in Australia's capital areas and in retention of top talent and investment. In terms of our ratios, we focused on the total cost to income ratio and getting to the 70% by the end of 27.

That's it for questions on the line.

Look, I just want to say an enormous thanks for everybody for joining us. I'm very conscious we were a double part this morning, and I appreciate the time. And maybe the final thing from both of us, we are certainly going on holiday towards the end of August for a well-earned break, so I hope you all manage to check out and get a break, and we'll see you back in the saddle in September. Thanks a lot, guys.

Thank you.