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spk12: Q&A. You can dial star 11.
spk14: Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to PATRA's fourth quarter and full year 2022 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you'll need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Josh Wood, Head of Shareholder Relations. Please go ahead.
spk04: Thank you.
spk20: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to PATRIA's fourth quarter and full year 2022 earnings call. Joining today are our Chief Executive Officer, Alex Saig, our Chief Financial Officer, Ana Russo, and our Chief Corporate Development Officer, Marco DiPolito. This morning, we issued a press release and earnings presentation detailing our results for the fourth quarter and full year 2022, which you can find posted on our investor relations website at ir.patria.com or on Form 6K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Any forward-looking statements made on this call are uncertain, do not guarantee future performance, and undue reliance should not be placed on them. PATRIA assumes no obligation and does not intend to update any such forward-looking statements. Such statements are based on current management expectations and involve inherent risks, including those discussed in the risk factors section of our latest Form 20F Annual Report. Also note that no statements on this call constitute an offer to sell or solicitation of an offer to purchase an interest in any PATRIA fund. As a foreign private issuer, PATRIA reports financial results using International Financial Reporting Standards, or IFRS, as opposed to U.S. GAAP. Additionally, we will report and refer to certain non-GAAP industry measures, which should not be considered an isolation from or as a substitute for measures prepared in accordance with IFRS. Reconciliations of these measures to the most comparable IFRS measures are included in our earnings presentation. On headline metrics, PATRIA generated fee-related earnings of $35.3 million and distributable earnings of $53.3 million, or 36 cents per share, for 4Q22. we declared a quarterly dividend of $0.308 per share payable on March 22 to shareholders of record as of March 1. For the full year 2022, fee-related earnings were $130 million, and distributable earnings were $147.1 million, or $1 per share, bringing cumulative dividends to shareholders to $0.85 per share for the full year. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Alex.
spk07: Thank you, Josh. And good morning to everyone joining today as we close out our second year as a public company. PATRA generated strong results in the fourth quarter of 2022 and again demonstrated our ability to deliver on our earnings guidance from the beginning of the year. In 2022, this required performing amid a backdrop of uncertainty and transition across the globe. and conditions that caused many companies to fall short or adjust expectations. We continue to execute on our growth plans and strategically position the firm to achieve our ambitions in the coming years. We generated $147 million of distributable earnings or $1 per share in 2022. The resulting $0.85 in dividends per share would give a shareholder who bought the stock at the beginning of the year a 5.2% annual yield. With fee-related earnings of $130 million, we delivered on our annual growth target of 50%, highlighting the resiliency and predictability of this earnings stream even in a challenging environment. We demonstrated real progress on the divestment of our mature drawdown fund portfolios. Our third generation infrastructure fund reached the threshold to crystallize performance fees, realizing $19 million net in Q4 following the exit transactions of Odata, our data center platform, and Entrevias, one of our toll roads in Brazil. While it was a challenging year across our industry on the fundraising front, we raised $3.1 billion and including acquisitions totaled $4.5 billion in overall inflows. While timelines have lengthened in areas like private equity, we are also seeing strength in areas like infrastructure, where we now see a larger first closing for the next flagship fund in early 2023 versus a smaller one at the end of 2022. We clearly shared our aim to grow the platform through M&A and following our major transaction with Moneda in late 2021, we have continued that effort in 2022 through our transactions with Kamado Ping in growth equity, VBI in real estate, and more recently, IGA in the venture capital space. We have also made great progress in our corporate areas, making systems and process improvements, hiring key talent, and creating a scalable framework that makes us a better public company, and also facilitates smooth M&A integration as we continue to grow. We close the year with our first PAX Investor Day event in December, where we gave a comprehensive showcase of our platform and people, as well as an update of our multi-year outlook. Namely, our targets include reaching 50 billion of AUM and 35 billion of fee earnings AUM by the end of 2025, driven by 20 billion of total new capital formation from 2022 through 2025. growing fee-related earnings to $200 to $225 million by 2025, and with significant realization of performance fees from our mature drawdown funds, we believe we can roughly double our equivalent distributable earnings per share over the next three years compared to the prior three years. Our accomplishments in 2022 provide a great start, and now we must continue to build momentum in 2023. As noted at our Investor Day, we anticipate fee-related earnings growing to $150 million in 2023. This year should also see the bulk of fundraising for our flagship drawdown funds as we continue to fundraise for private equity and look to raise a substantial portion of the next infrastructure development fund. We also expect meaningful contributions from new drawdown fund products like our infrastructure credit and growth equity funds and a host of perpetual products with continuous fundraising. Overall, we are aiming towards 5 to 6 billion of organic inflows this year, not including the potential inflows from M&A activity as we track towards the longer term capital formation target. Let me now spend a moment on the macro front and then give some color across the platform. Latin America navigated well through the distress in global financial markets last year. On top of better terms of trade, higher domestic interest rates, lower fiscal deficits, and reduced geopolitical risk, new long-term trends such as near-shoring or friendly shoring by U.S. and European firms led to larger net capital inflows to the region last year. In Brazil, it happened through traditional ways. A large trade surplus of $62 billion and robust foreign direct investment of $90 billion for approximately 4.8% of the Brazilian GDP. In Mexico, the region's second largest economy, it also took place through unconventional channels. Mexicans working abroad send a record $58 billion or approximately 4.1% of the Mexican GDP to their homeland. Latin American exchange rates generally strengthen in 2022. while most of global currencies depreciated against the U.S. dollar, and equities generally outperformed peers in emerging markets and advanced economies alike. The local dynamics have been a bit more complex in our region. The larger Latin American nations elected center-left administrations in their latest election cycles and Like in the US these days, these governments have ambitious ESG agendas that call for additional public spending. Because there is a commitment to preserve fiscal discipline, the only feasible way to deliver on the promises is to increase the tax burden, which, along with a more biting environmental regulation, should have adverse impacts on certain industries. But then the fundamental framework of solid institutions, independent central banks, and legislation that is friendly to private investments stands out in the region. It also helps that the elected legislatures are more conservative. maintaining a crucial check and balance to excesses of state activism by the executive branches. Assuming that the worst of the adjustment of economic policies in advanced economies is behind us, the external outlook bodes well for Latin America in 2023. Even expecting noise from government's domestic actions and thus some headwinds for economic growth this year, the combined scenarios should gradually become net positive and lead to larger capital flows to the region. Operating in any environment, PATRIA has an edge in the region because of our ability to attract top homegrown talent and the diversity of our platform. We now have more than 30 products across five asset classes, accessing a full spectrum of distribution channels, allowing us to be more opportunistic in our approach to both investing and raising capital. Now looking across our asset classes. In private equity. Our portfolio continues to perform well with the most recent vintage flagship funds, five and six, generating net IIRs of 21% and 15% respectively in US dollars. The portfolio remained very active in 2022, completely 29 M&A transactions, with 30% year-over-year organic EBITDA growth and 57% if you include the impact of acquisitions. The divestment cycle for our mature funds remain a major priority in 2023, and we have made some positive steps towards liquidity in several portfolio companies. Our next vintage flagship fund has been in the market during a difficult 2022, raising more than a billion dollars, which we have already started to invest. We are optimistic about gaining traction as the calendar rolls over to 2023 and expect to continue on the fundraising trail until the end of the year. This vertical has diversified into growth equity through Kamarupin, with our first fund together in the market now, and being seeded with four outstanding portfolio companies. And as we recently announced our acquisition of IGA, that very talented team will begin raising their fourth venture fund and our first together. during 2023. In infrastructure, the big story here was divested. As we announced exits for ODATA, our data center platform, and Entrevias, one of our toll roads in Brazil, in Q4, which will generate proceeds of more than $1.4 billion to fund investors. Both of these investments were made from infrastructure fund three. And as we announced previously, the recent exit activity moved this fund through the performance fee realizations threshold, allowing us to recognize $19 million of net realized performance fees in Q4. Fund three continues to perform well with a net IIR of 13% in U.S. dollars and a net performance fee accrual of $129 million, which, importantly, we can now continue to monetize with each subsequent exit event. Divestment activity like this one also gives a boost to our fundraising process for the next generation fund, which is approaching a first closing in the next few months. Our most recent fourth vintage fund is also showing great early performance with a net IIR of 17% in US dollars. And we continue to pursue expansion of our infrastructure core offering, where we now have both a listed and unlisted vehicle focus in Brazil. Our credit strategies had a strong 2022 performance, relatively to their respective benchmarks, with LATAM corporate high yield outperforming by 260 basis points and LATAM corporate local currency by more than 100 basis points. Most notably, our local currency credit strategies had positive returns in US dollars in a year that saw the Bloomberg Global Aggregate Index down more than 16%. It was a very challenging year for fund flows with the shift to higher policy rates around the globe, but we see macro headwinds diminishing As we move further into 2023 and historically high yield levels present an attractive opportunity to invest in Latin American credit. Our open and perpetual products are well positioned to capture increased client demand. And we also expect to see inflows from new drawdown fund products like our infrastructure credit fund. which has already secured backing from two institutional anchor investors. In public equities, investment performance was solid in 2022 and notably impressive in the Chilean small-cap strategy, where the Pionero Fund outperformed its benchmark by nearly 12% for the year. Despite great performance, some of the same forces impacted credit funds also drove Q4 outflows from Chilean investors in our public equities product. While these redemptions were related to the general reduction of allocation by domestic institutions to local funds, we believe investment performance will ultimately be the driver of flows as we look forward in 2023. Finally, in real estate, VBI, our platform in Brazil, generated more than $20 million of inflows in Q4, including the launch of a new unlisted real estate credit product, demonstrating their capacity to innovate and offer investment opportunities across the capital stack. Real estate continues to be an area where we have an attractive opportunity to expand, both organically and inorganically. All in all, we feel like the platform is well positioned to capture opportunity in each of these verticals, and we look to solidify our place as the gateway for alternatives in Latin America. Let me now turn the floor to Marco and Ana to cover the results in more detail, and I'll come back for some closing thoughts. Marco.
spk18: Thank you, Alex. As planned, we have transitioned the CFO role to Ana Russo, effective as of the beginning of this year. We will accordingly cover the 2022 results and then turn over to Ana for commentary as we look forward. Rest assured, you will continue to hear from me as I will remain highly involved with our shareholders' relations efforts from the executive level. We generated $35.3 million of fee-related earnings in Q4 2022, up 20% compared to Q4 2021, and $130 million for the full year 2022, up 51% from 2021 and reaching the guidance we've reiterated throughout the course of the year. Total fee revenues of $227.1 million were up 55% in 2022 compared to the prior year. Supported by 52% growth in management fee revenues, as well as higher transaction and other fee revenues. Of the 52% management fee growth, approximately 38% was generated by the addition of Moneda and VBI to our platform, with a reminder resulting from the organic growth driven primarily by deployment in our Drawdown Fund. Operating expenses increased 61% year-over-year, driven primarily by the addition of moneda and VDI, as well as increased costs related to public company functions. Our FRE margin remains in the 56% to 58% range for each quarter in 2022, slightly higher than our expectations, demonstrating our ability to maintain consistent margin levels following a major acquisition. We generated $19 million of performance related earnings in four quarter 22 and full year 2022 from the first realization of performance fees in our infrastructure fund three. While this compares to 58 million in 2021, it's worth noting the different circumstances. Our 2021 PRE came from the final exit and realization in our private equity fund tree, meaning no additional performance fees coming from that fund. In 2022, however, we are seeing just the beginning of the performance fee stream from the infrastructure fund tree, a fund with still $129 million in net accrued performance fees as of the year end. Now that we are through the phase of returning capital and hurdles, we would expect subsequent exit events for this fund to generate real-life performance fees for shareholders. Distributable earnings were $53.3 million, or $0.36 per share, for Q4 2022, up from $27.7 million, or $0.19 per share, in Q4 2021. for the full year 2022, distributable earnings of $147 million equate to $1 per share, closely in line with $1.02 per share we delivered last year. So overall, the year-over-year dynamics for DE are higher FRE in line with our guidance, offset by the lower performance fees and additional shares related to our transaction with Moneda. As Alex noted, the 2022 total dividend of $0.85 per share delivers a yield of more than 5% to an investor who bought our stock at the beginning of the year. For an investor in our IPO, the 2021 and 2022 dividends combined delivered a cumulative two-year yield of more than 10%. We believe a very nice income stream to compensate the headwind we've seen on valuation in our sector and across the equity market. Turning to AUM. Our total AUM of $27.2 billion is up 14% from one year ago, driven by the $4.5 billion of organic and inorganic inflows previously mentioned. Looking by asset class, private equity AUM increased 21% on the year, driven by the ongoing fundraising for our next fund. Infrastructure increased 15%, driven primarily by strong portfolio appreciation. And real estate grew by nearly $1 billion through the transaction with VBI. Fee earnings AUM ended the year at $19.2 billion, up 7% from one year ago, with inflows from drawdown funds, deployment, and M&A partially offset by the redemption pressure in credit and public equities, as well as the end of the contractual fee term in our second infrastructure fund. After delivering strong performance in a challenging year, I see our platform and business well-positioned to deliver on our multi-year goals. On that note, Let me now turn to Ana for some comments as she takes the CFO reins looking into 2023.
spk16: Good morning, everyone. I'm thankful for Marco and the team for onboarding me during this transition period. I'm looking forward to engaging with all of you. As we bring a successful 2022 to a close, we look forward to our task of executing on 2023 and the next few years as we discuss with you at our investor events. Our top-line outlook remains very strong, even in the current perspective of the world economy and challenges facing our sector, and our footprint and diversification position PATRE for attractive growth. As Alex noted, we are targeting to grow FRE to $150 million in 2023, while maintaining a similar margin to 2022 in the high 50% range. Much like 2022, we have at this point good fee revenue visibility based on where we begin the year and our expected deployment pace. We do expect the revenue and therefore the fee-related earnings to wrap over the course of the year in contrast to the more steady FRE results we saw over the four quarters of 2022. Given factors such as the holiday for the first closures in our new private equity fund, We expect FRA in the first quarter of 2023 to be similar to the run rate level we saw in 2022, excluding the impact of incentive fees in the Q4 and then ramping up through the rest of the year. As of December 31st, our net accrued performance fees stand at $462 million, up 33% from one year ago, and that's after realizing $19 million in the fourth quarter. At more than $3 per share, this accrual is predominantly supported by mature portfolios in Private Equity Fund 5 and Infrastructure Fund 3, with more than 80% of the accrual in those two funds. These funds are positioned to divestment, and we have already seen that in action for infrastructure at the end of the last year. We think of that performance fee realization over cycle, not individual years. As we noted at investor date, we would expect to realize 50% to 80% of the accrual in those two funds by the end of 2025. As we progress in integrating our recent M&A transactions, we are focusing on standardizing and automating back-office process, streamlining through systems, and ensuring efficiencies throughout the organization. This will be crucial as we pursue a high rate of growth and we will enable PATRA to mitigate inflationary pressure reinvest in the business, and maintain current margins with continued high standards of control environment. The future of For Patria is bright, and I'm thrilled to be part of the journey. Let me now turn back to Alice for some closing remarks.
spk07: Thanks, Ana. Altogether, we're very pleased with the firm's performance in 2022. While it was a year of headwinds in our industry and challenges across the globe, We believe the stability of our business model and talent of our people are the key drivers of our resilience and success. We have set ambitious goals over the next several years, and I'm confident we have the right team and resources in place to deliver on the targets. Delivering on 5 to 6 billion of fundraising and 150 million of fee-related earnings this year will have us well on the path to our 2025 goals, and we expect to continue to be active on the M&A front. We believe we are uniquely positioned to be the gateway for alternatives in Latin America, and with success in that endeavor, we can deliver significant value to all of our stakeholders.
spk08: We're now happy to take your questions. Thank you.
spk14: Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you'll need to press star 11 on your telephone. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please wait for your name to be announced. One moment for our first question. Our first question comes from the line of Mike Brown with KBW. Your line is now open.
spk02: Great. Hi. Good morning, everyone. Good morning, Mike. How are you?
spk03: Good. Thank you. I wanted to start on the fundraising commentary. I thought that was certainly positive that you guys are targeting $5 to $6 billion of inflows for 2023. You gave a lot of great commentary on the call. Could you just maybe dimensionalize that a little bit here? I know you don't have a crystal ball. There's a lot of moving pieces in the market, but what would be the you know, the main drivers there if you had to kind of split that organic info number up a bit.
spk08: Oh, hi there. This is Alex, and thanks for participating, and thanks for your question.
spk07: I think it's hard to give a specific detailed guideline. As you mentioned, we have several moving parts, and the market is adjusting itself What I would say in general terms that infrastructure and credit-related products are easier, if you can say that expression, to fundraise today. And I think all the equity-related products are harder to fundraise in this current environment. Of course, kind of obvious what I'm going to say now, the interest rate environment does affect specifically what I just mentioned, equity-related products are harder to fundraise, and fixed income, infrastructure-like products are easier to fundraise. So we're on the road, as you know, with... Infrastructure Fund 5 and private credit, infrastructure credit, and some other credit products. And those, I think, might be the big chunk of those $5 to $6 billion. Of course, we have a fantastic track record on the private equity. And as I mentioned, we feel confident that as we move into 2023, We're going to be able to reach our targets there, the flagship fund. We're also on the road with our venture capital fund and our growth equity fund, and we'll hit our internal targets there as well. But of course, it's taking more time, right, on the equity side in general and on the public equity side as well. So all of these moving parts, in the end, I think we'll get there on the drawdown funds, as mentioned, on the $5 billion to $6 billion target, but fixed income-related I think will be more of a chunk of the next fundraising and a lot of drawdown funds in that bucket, as mentioned, Infrastructure Fund 5, Private Credit Fund 2 for Brazilian investors, Infrastructure Credit Fund 1 also for international and Brazilian investors, a last-time private credit fund also that we are raising that targets Latin America as a whole on the private credit side, plus the real estate permanent capital vehicles and infrastructure permanent capital vehicles. So that's more of where we see things going. Again, I think when we look into the number, of no general 20 billion or total 20 billion dollar capital formation that we gave as a guideline in our PAC stay in December from 22 through 25 having raised organically and inorganically close to 4.5 last year and having another 5 to 6 billion this year puts us in a very, very good position to reach the 20 billion target capital formation by 2025. So I think we know we feel comfortable. Far from easy, as you know, but I think we feel very comfortable that we'll get there. But I think a different kind of profile of products. I hope I answered your question.
spk03: Yes, thank you, Alex. That was great. Thank you. If we could just maybe double-click in a little bit on the infrastructure side here. So, you know, clearly investor demand is very strong for that asset class. When we think about PACS, can you just help us understand a little better, how do you differentiate your infrastructure strategies versus some of your larger global peers that also invest in the LATAM region? How does PACS approach infrastructure differently?
spk07: Okay, and thanks for your question again. Within our infrastructure vertical, I think we have our flagship fund, As I mentioned, we're raising right now our infrastructure flagship number five. The strategy of the differentiator of that fund, the strategy that makes that fund or family of funds very different is the fact that we take on development risk. And we have dominated that, and I think that's why we do continue to perform extremely well as mentioned also during the call and also during some of our earlier calls late last year, the divestments of two great companies that we had in our infrastructure fund three. And what does it mean taking development risk here? Now, in the end, what we do is pretty easy to explain. I think it's harder to execute. We do win an auction or we buy an asset. we then take the risk that asset by taking the developments of that project and then we sell it. So now we buy the risk and sell and we did risk through mainly through development of that of that asset because it can be a greenfield now when you win a concession of a new power project for example or you can know we can buy a small brownfield and then develop that to create a larger asset. An example of the data-centered business that we just sold late last year, we started from scratch. We actually bought a piece of land. We constructed our first data center in the outskirts of Sao Paulo here in Brazil. And from there, we created a over 60 megahertz company with no potential to expand to 100 this year. And we have pent-up demand already signed contracts to bring this company to 400 mega And we sold it and we made over four times our money there in US dollars. So that's an example of beginning a thesis from scratch and taking on the development risk and then creating this platform and selling it. We did the same with toll roads that we just sold to an international global player, strategic global player toll road that we had here in Brazil. In this case, we won the concession. We took on the development risk that came with the concession of expanding, duplicating parts of the highway, creating new toll plazas, and blah, blah, blah. And two years later, we had the risk, the main portion of the CapEx needed to modernize that toll road, and then we sold a portion of that toll road to this international player. In this case, we're going to see a global player in the toll road space. And they're now actually representing their entrance in the toll road space in the Brazilian market. So taking that development risk that we do dominate makes us differentiate ourselves. I think most of the international players that you mentioned, they buy mature assets in the region that are already performing. We sold our data center company to another global data center company sponsored by a major infrastructure fund, and they are buying our mature assets already, and of course they're going to take it to a different level, but it's already a developed asset, already grown from scratch, as I just explained. The case of Van Sea, this international toll road player, the same. They're buying also a toll road in the state of Sao Paulo that, as I mentioned, we took on the development risk and gave and sold that toll road already as a quasi-mature asset. And that's what we do well. And I don't think the... I'm generalizing, but most of the infrastructure funds that do play Brazil, they take that development risk besides one or two players. So on the other strategies that we have within the vertical, we have also a core infrastructure product, and there we do, we don't take the development risk there, but of course we're focused more on the yield side, mostly for Brazilian investors up to now. We plan to also have these core infrastructure funds in other countries in Latin America, like Chile, Colombia, and Mexico. We also now have infrastructure credit which is a very interesting product that we have already anchored by two major institutional investors. But the flagship strategy differentiator is the development nature, development angle that I just explained. Again, I hope I answered your question there.
spk03: Yes, thank you for all of that, caller Alex. Appreciate it.
spk14: And Ricardo Bustiel with BTG Paxful. Your line is open.
spk21: So despite the performance fee bonus that you book in the quarter, given the realization of performance fee, we saw that all tax was still pretty much flat for the quarter, right? So can you please explain what happened with wine and if you should see the margins of related to FRE that should be similar in the following quarter? Thank you.
spk05: Ricardo, your voice came. Oh, this is Alex again here.
spk10: Yeah. Yeah. Marco, do you want to take this question?
spk18: Yeah, I'm not sure I got the full – just confirm to me if I got the full question because the voice came in a little bit broken up.
spk17: The question is about overall margins and also income tax. Is that what – those are the two components of the question?
spk21: No, sorry. We just saw that OPEX was pretty much flat despite the performance fee bonus bookings acquired. So, we're trying to understand what drove this better performance and exactly if you can normalize this level of tax for the following quarter. I'm not sure if you heard me now.
spk17: Okay.
spk18: So, let's first differentiate the two kinds of expenses, the expenses related to the carry you're going to find that below the FRE on the carry interest allocation and bonuses for the quarter, which is 10.2. So that ties to the 29.1 that you see for the quarter, which is completely different from the personal and admin expenses that you see on the top. The 58% margin is in sync with the overall margin for the year. It is slightly above what we have indicated throughout the quarters during the last year. We indicated in the mid-50s, and we are ending up slightly higher than that. We're gaining some margin on personal expenses throughout the year. And we're losing a little bit of margin on the admin expenses due to some of the fixed costs associated with the acquisition of Moneda that had a lower overall margin. But overall, we can say that we're happy with the margins and with the progress of the expenses in a year where, of course, inflation hit very strong.
spk19: Very clear. Thank you.
spk14: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Beatrice Abreu with Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open.
spk13: Hi, Alex, Marco, and Ana. Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. First question would be on the FRA guidance of $150 million for 2023. which implies a 15% increase from 2022. Could you tell us how much of that growth do you expect to come from organic growth versus how much coming from inorganic growth, if any? And a second question, if I may, would be on the real estate strategy. So this was a segment that you expected to grow the most in fee AUM by 2025, if I'm not mistaken. So if you could give us some color on the segment's outlook for 2023, and what kind of growth you were expecting, that would be great. Thank you.
spk08: Hi, Beatriz. This is Alex. Marco, do you want to take the first question, and I'll take the second?
spk07: Please.
spk18: Sure. So, Beatriz, we don't provide the distinction between what is the FRE organic and inorganic. I think what you can have as a reference, as Alex indicated in the call, is he guided on the $5 to $6 billion of accretion of capital, and that's all organic accretion, if you will. So this is not encompassing any sort of accretion that is coming from acquisitions. I confirm that we will remain active on acquisitions. And the other data point, if it's worth, is that last year, the accretion of fee-paying AUM in organic was in the vicinity of $1.4 billion out of the total $4.5 billion.
spk07: And going to your second question, and then I'll ask if we did answer both of them, Beatriz. This is Alex again. Yes, we're very excited with the whole real estate market. expansion of our product lines and, of course, our general AUM. More specifically, I think, in Brazil and countries like Chile and Colombia, where we're looking into this very closely. In Brazil, we did an acquisition, as you know, called VBI. There's, I think, a very interesting consolidation play on the REIT side, and we're looking into that very closely. PBI has been very active looking into that as well. We have, within the Brazilian context, a 220 billion reais REIT market, which are these listed Brazilian real estate trusts listed in the Brazilian Stock Exchange B3, as you know. And you have several listed REITs in the Brazilian Stock Exchange that are basically a single asset REIT or very few assets within that REIT. And that REIT trades very poorly in the secondary market because it's a single asset REIT, has very low liquidity, and investors are basically stuck with that REIT, having difficulty in selling their shares. So I think merging a group of those REITs to create a large one headed by our VBI partners is a great opportunity. Within VBI, we have three thematic REITs, one focused on corporate, the other one focused on logistics, the other one focused on credit-related instruments in the real estate market, what we call in Brazil the CRIs. And there I think we have so much to do on those fronts in consolidating other REITs in those themes that I just mentioned. So there's so much. We manage around 5 billion reais of REITs. in a 220 billion Reais market. So, you know, you can imagine what we can do there. We see the same in a lesser extent in Chile, but an interesting and significant market in Colombia and a very large market of these real estate REITs in Mexico. And if we are successful in Brazil, I think we can have the goal, the aim to do the same in these other countries that I just mentioned. I think on the development real estate product, which are now a drawdown in nature, what we call real estate private equity, to use the expression that we use in our industry here. Also very interesting to a product that targets, of course, higher returns, but takes on the development risk, contrary to the REITs that buy already mature assets. And I think there, I think there's a room for expansion as well as the economies in the region are back to their growth pattern. You saw Brazil growing around 3% and a little notch higher than that last year, 1.5% to 2-something percent this year. Same in Chile, same in Colombia, same in Mexico. Again, the whole need for these real estate investments. Now, if we, and emphasizing also the whole nearshoring and friendly shoring that I mentioned in my earnings call, Mexico on that front I think really stands out because it will need a lot of investments in logistics and also factories, whatever, and the real estate market in Mexico I think will be looking to take part of this nearshoring thesis. So we're very excited with this opportunity. We tripled our AOM in the real estate space in Brazil last year, mainly through the acquisition of VBI. And I think we know we really look forward to continue to expand the space. Lastly, as we do expand within the REIT market, it is a permanent capital structure product. So that also is extremely interesting for us because it's does give us predictability in our future earnings because of the permanent capital nature of the product. So I hope we answered your both questions, but please advise us if we missed anything.
spk11: No, that's very clear. Thank you.
spk14: Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you'll need to press star 1-1. I would now like to hand the conference back over to Mr. Alex Stein for closing remarks.
spk07: Well, thank you very much again for your participation in this call, your patience to go through this 50 minutes an hour with us. I think as all of us mentioned here, Anna, Marco, and Josh, myself, Alex, extremely pleased with 2022 results. I think we did manage to hit our targets and the targets that we actually designed for 2022 in late 21 when we had a different world environment and a different market for alternative assets. As we look into 23, I think we're confident that we're going to be able to deliver again on our $150 million guideline for FRE and hopefully be able also to... convert some of that performance fees into realizations throughout the next years we have over 400 million dollars as you know of inventory right of performance fees and some of our funds namely our infrastructure fund three already in the carry mode of carry status so thanks again and I also want to, again, congratulate here the team for an amazing year. Far from easy, but I think the team managed to perform. Now, we wouldn't be having this call here if it were not for the team, their competence, their dedication. And congratulate Anna as well here on her new CFO role. So, as we go through 2023, Anna will be taking more of a protagonist role here in our finance department as a CFO, as Marco heads to – leads our corporate development side and looks for additional exciting acquisition opportunities for Patria. Thanks again. Hope to see you soon. And, well, have a great week. Thank you.
spk14: This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a wonderful day. you Thank you. Thank you. I'm Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to PATRA's fourth quarter and full year 2022 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there'll be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you'll need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Josh Wood, Head of Shareholder Relations. Please go ahead.
spk04: Thank you.
spk20: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to PATRIA's fourth quarter and full year 2022 earnings call. Joining today are our Chief Executive Officer, Alex Saig, our Chief Financial Officer, Ana Russo, and our Chief Corporate Development Officer, Marco DiPolito. This morning, we issued a press release and earnings presentation detailing our results for the fourth quarter and full year 2022, which you can find posted on our investor relations website at ir.patria.com or on Form 6K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Any forward-looking statements made on this call are uncertain, do not guarantee future performance, and undue reliance should not be placed on them. PATRIA assumes no obligation and does not intend to update any such forward-looking statements. Such statements are based on current management expectations and involve inherent risks, including those discussed in the risk factors section of our latest Form 20F Annual Report. Also note that no statements on this call constitute an offer to sell or solicitation of an offer to purchase an interest in any PATRIA fund. As a foreign private issuer, PATRIA reports financial results using International Financial Reporting Standards, or IFRS, as opposed to U.S. GAAP. Additionally, we will report and refer to certain non-GAAP industry measures, which should not be considered an isolation from or as a substitute for measures prepared in accordance with IFRS. Reconciliations of these measures to the most comparable IFRS measures are included in our earnings presentation. On headline metrics, PATRIA generated fee-related earnings of $35.3 million and distributable earnings of $53.3 million, or $0.36 per share, for 4Q22. we declared a quarterly dividend of $0.308 per share payable on March 22 to shareholders of record as of March 1. For the full year 2022, fee-related earnings were $130 million, and distributable earnings were $147.1 million, or $1 per share, bringing cumulative dividends to shareholders to $0.85 per share for the full year. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Alex.
spk07: Thank you, Josh. And good morning to everyone joining today as we close out our second year as a public company. PATRA generated strong results in the fourth quarter of 2022 and again demonstrated our ability to deliver on our earnings guidance from the beginning of the year. In 2022, this required performing amid a backdrop of uncertainty and transition across the globe. and conditions that caused many companies to fall short or adjust expectations. We continue to execute on our growth plans and strategically position the firm to achieve our ambitions in the coming years. We generated $147 million of distributable earnings or $1 per share in 2022. The resulting $0.85 in dividends per share would give a shareholder who bought the stock at the beginning of the year a 5.2% annual yield. With fee-related earnings of $130 million, we delivered on our annual growth target of 50%, highlighting the resiliency and predictability of this earnings stream even in a challenging environment. We demonstrated real progress on the divestment of our mature drawdown fund portfolios. Our third generation infrastructure fund reached the threshold to crystallize performance fees, realizing $19 million net in Q4 following the exit transactions of Odata, our data center platform, and Entrevias, one of our toll roads in Brazil. While it was a challenging year across our industry on the fundraising front, we raised $3.1 billion and including acquisitions totaled $4.5 billion in overall inflows. While timelines have lengthened in areas like private equity, we are also seeing strength in areas like infrastructure, where we now see a larger first closing for the next flagship fund in early 2023 versus a smaller one at the end of 2022. We clearly shared our aim to grow the platform through M&A and following our major transaction with Moneda in late 2021, we have continued that effort in 2022 through our transactions with Kamado Ping in growth equity, VBI in real estate, and more recently, IGA in the venture capital space. We have also made great progress in our corporate areas, making systems and process improvements, hiring key talent, and creating a scalable framework that makes us a better public company, and also facilitates smooth M&A integration as we continue to grow. We close the year with our first PAX Investor Day event in December, where we gave a comprehensive showcase of our platform and people, as well as an update of our multi-year outlook. Namely, our targets include reaching 50 billion of AUM and 35 billion of fee earnings AUM by the end of 2025, driven by 20 billion of total new capital formation from 2022 through 2025. growing fee-related earnings to $200 to $225 million by 2025, and with significant realization of performance fees from our mature drawdown funds, we believe we can roughly double our equivalent distributable earnings per share over the next three years compared to the prior three years. Our accomplishments in 2022 provide a great start, and now we must continue to build momentum in 2023. As noted at our Investor Day, we anticipate fee-related earnings growing to $150 million in 2023. This year should also see the bulk of fundraising for our flagship drawdown funds as we continue to fundraise for private equity and look to raise a substantial portion of the next infrastructure development fund. We also expect meaningful contributions from new drawdown fund products like our infrastructure credit and growth equity funds and a host of perpetual products with continuous fundraising. Overall, we are aiming towards 5 to 6 billion of organic inflows this year, not including the potential inflows from M&A activity as we track towards the longer term capital formation target. Let me now spend a moment on the macro front and then give some color across the platform. Latin America navigated well through the distress in global financial markets last year. On top of better terms of trade, higher domestic interest rates, lower fiscal deficits, and reduced geopolitical risk, new long-term trends such as near-shoring or friendly shoring by U.S. and European firms led to larger net capital inflows to the region last year. In Brazil, it happened through traditional ways. A large trade surplus of $62 billion and robust foreign direct investment of $90 billion for approximately 4.8% of the Brazilian GDP. In Mexico, the region's second largest economy, it also took place through unconventional channels. Mexicans working abroad send a record $58 billion, or approximately 4.1% of the Mexican GDP, to their homeland. Latin American exchange rates generally strengthen in 2022, while most of global currencies depreciated against the US dollar, and equities generally outperformed peers in emerging markets and advanced economies alike. The local dynamics have been a bit more complex in our region. The larger Latin American nations elected center-left administrations in their latest election cycles and, Like in the US these days, these governments have ambitious ESG agendas that call for additional public spending. Because there is a commitment to preserve fiscal discipline, the only feasible way to deliver on the promises is to increase the tax burden, which, along with a more biting environmental regulation, should have adverse impacts on certain industries. But then the fundamental framework of solid institutions, independent central banks, and legislation that is friendly to private investments stands out in the region. It also helps that the elected legislatures are more conservative. maintaining a crucial check and balance to excesses of state activism by the executive branches. Assuming that the worst of the adjustment of economic policies in advanced economies is behind us, the external outlook bodes well for Latin America in 2023. Even expecting noise from government's domestic actions and thus some headwinds for economic growth this year, the combined scenarios should gradually become net positive and lead to larger capital flows to the region. Operating in any environment, PATRIA has an edge in the region because of our ability to attract top homegrown talent and the diversity of our platform. We now have more than 30 products across five asset classes, accessing a full spectrum of distribution channels, allowing us to be more opportunistic in our approach to both investing and raising capital. Now looking across our asset classes. In private equity, Our portfolio continues to perform well with the most recent vintage flagship funds, five and six, generating net IIRs of 21% and 15% respectively in US dollars. The portfolio remained very active in 2022, completely 29 M&A transactions, with 30% year-over-year organic EBITDA growth and 57% if you include the impact of acquisitions. The divestment cycle for our mature funds remain a major priority in 2023, and we have made some positive steps towards liquidity in several portfolio companies. Our next vintage flagship fund has been in the market during a difficult 2022, raising more than a billion dollars, which we have already started to invest. We are optimistic about gaining traction as the calendar rolls over to 2023 and expect to continue on the fundraising trail until the end of the year. This vertical has diversified into growth equity through Kamarupin, with our first fund together in the market now, and being seeded with four outstanding portfolio companies. And as we recently announced our acquisition of IGA, that very talented team will begin raising their fourth venture fund and our first together. during 2023. In infrastructure, the big story here was divested. As we announced exits for ODATA, our data center platform, and Entrevias, one of our toll roads in Brazil, in Q4, which will generate proceeds of more than $1.4 billion to fund investors. Both of these investments were made from infrastructure fund three. And as we announced previously, the recent exit activity moved this fund through the performance fee realizations threshold, allowing us to recognize $19 million of net realized performance fees in Q4. Fund three continues to perform well with a net IIR of 13% in U.S. dollars and a net performance fee accrual of $129 million, which, importantly, we can now continue to monetize with each subsequent exit event. Divestment activity like this one also gives a boost to our fundraising process for the next generation fund, which is approaching a first closing in the next few months. Our most recent fourth vintage fund is also showing great early performance with a net IIR of 17% in US dollars. And we continue to pursue expansion of our infrastructure core offering, where we now have both a listed and unlisted vehicle focus in Brazil. Our credit strategies had a strong 2022 performance, relatively to their respective benchmarks, with LATAM corporate high yield outperforming by 260 basis points and LATAM corporate local currency by more than 100 basis points. Most notably, our local currency credit strategies had positive returns in US dollars in a year that saw the Bloomberg Global Aggregate Index down more than 16%. It was a very challenging year for fund flows with the shift to higher policy rates around the globe, but we see macro headwinds diminishing As we move further into 2023 and historically high yield levels present an attractive opportunity to invest in Latin American credit. Our open and perpetual products are well positioned to capture increased client demand. And we also expect to see inflows from new drawdown fund products like our infrastructure credit fund. which has already secured backing from two institutional anchor investors. In public equities, investment performance was solid in 2022 and notably impressive in the Chilean small cap strategy, where the Pionero Fund outperformed its benchmark by nearly 12% for the year. Despite great performance, some of the same forces impacted credit funds also drove Q4 outflows from Chilean investors in our public equities product. While these redemptions were related to the general reduction of allocation by domestic institutions to local funds, we believe investment performance will ultimately be the driver of flows as we look forward in 2023. Finally, in real estate, VBI, our platform in Brazil, generated more than $20 million of inflows in Q4, including the launch of a new unlisted real estate credit product, demonstrating their capacity to innovate and offer investment opportunities across the capital stack. Real estate continues to be an area where we have an attractive opportunity to expand both organically and inorganically. All in all, we feel like the platform is well positioned to capture opportunity in each of these verticals and we look to solidify our place as the gateway for alternatives in Latin America. Let me now turn the floor to Marco and Ana to cover the results in more detail, and I'll come back for some closing thoughts. Marco.
spk18: Thank you, Alex. As planned, we have transitioned the CFO role to Ana Russo, effective as of the beginning of this year. We will accordingly cover the 2022 results and then turn over to Ana for commentary as we look forward. Rest assured, you will continue to hear from me as I will remain highly involved with our shareholders' relations efforts from the executive level. We generated $35.3 million of fee-related earnings in 4Q22, up 20% compared to 4Q21, and $130 million for the full year 2022, up 51% from 2021 and reaching the guidance we've reiterated throughout the course of the year. Total fee revenues of $227.1 million were up 55% in 2022 compared to the prior year. Supported by 52% growth in management fee revenues, as well as higher transaction and other fee revenues. Of the 52% management fee growth, approximately 38% was generated by the addition of Moneda and VBI to our platform, with a reminder resulting from the organic growth driven primarily by deployment in our Drawdown Fund. Operating expenses increased 61% year-over-year, driven primarily by the addition of moneda and VDI, as well as increased costs related to public company functions. Our FRE margin remains in the 56% to 58% range for each quarter in 2022, slightly higher than our expectations, demonstrating our ability to maintain consistent margin levels following a major acquisition. We generated $19 million of performance related earnings in four quarter 22 and full year 2022 from the first realization of performance fees in our infrastructure fund three. While this compares to 58 million in 2021, it's worth noting the different circumstances. Our 2021 PRE came from the final exit and realization in our private equity fund tree, meaning no additional performance fees coming from that fund. In 2022, however, we are seeing just the beginning of the performance fee stream from the infrastructure fund tree, a fund with still $129 million in net accrued performance fees as of the year end. Now that we are through the phase of returning capital and hurdles, we would expect subsequent exit events for this fund to generate real-life performance fees for shareholders. Distributable earnings were $53.3 million, or $0.36 per share, for Q4 2022, up from $27.7 million, or $0.19 per share, in Q4 2021. for the full year 2022, distributable earnings of $147 million equate to $1 per share, closely in line with $1.02 per share we delivered last year. So overall, the year-over-year dynamics for DE are higher FRE in line with our guidance, offset by the lower performance fees and additional shares related to our transaction with Moneda. As Alex noted, the 2022 total dividend of $0.85 per share delivers a yield of more than 5% to an investor who bought our stock at the beginning of the year. For an investor in our IPO, the 2021 and 2022 dividends combined delivered a cumulative two-year yield of more than 10%. We believe a very nice income stream to compensate the headwind we've seen on valuation in our sector and across the equity market. Turning to AUM. Our total AUM of $27.2 billion is up 14% from one year ago, driven by the $4.5 billion of organic and inorganic inflows previously mentioned. Looking by asset class, private equity AUM increased 21% on the year, driven by the ongoing fundraising for our next fund. Infrastructure increased 15%, driven primarily by strong portfolio appreciation. And real estate grew by nearly $1 billion through the transaction with VBI. Fee earnings AUM ended the year at $19.2 billion, up 7% from one year ago, with inflows from drawdown funds, deployment, and M&A partially offset by the redemption pressure in credit and public equities, as well as the end of the contractual fee term in our second infrastructure fund. After delivering strong performance in a challenging year, I see our platform and business well-positioned to deliver on our multi-year goals. On that note, Let me now turn to Ana for some comments as she takes the CFO reins looking into 2023.
spk16: Good morning, everyone. I'm thankful for Marco and the team for onboarding me during this transition period. I'm looking forward to engaging with all of you. As we bring a successful 2022 to a close, we look forward to our task of executing on 2023 and the next few years as we discuss with you at our investor events. Our top-line outlook remains very strong, even in the current perspective of the world economy and challenges facing our sector, and our footprint and diversification position PATRE for attractive growth. As Alec noted, we are targeting to grow FRI to $150 million in 2023, while maintaining a similar margin to 2022 in the high 50% range. Much like 2022, we have at this point good fee revenue visibility based on where we begin the year and our expected deployment pace. We do expect the revenue and therefore the fee-related earnings to wrap over the course of the year in contrast to the more steady FRE results we saw over the four quarters of 2022. Given factors such as the holiday for the first closures in our new private equity fund, We expect FRA in the first quarter of 2023 to be similar to the run rate level we saw in 2022, excluding the impact of incentive fees in the Q4 and then ramping up through the rest of the year. As of December 31st, our net accrued performance fees stand at $462 million, up 33% from one year ago, and that's after realizing $19 million in the fourth quarter. At more than $3 per share, this accrual is predominantly supported by mature portfolios in Private Equity Fund 5 and Infrastructure Fund 3, with more than 80% of the accrual in those two funds. These funds are positioned to divestment, and we have already seen that in action for infrastructure at the end of the last year. We think of that performance fee realization over cycle, not individual years. As we noted at investor date, we would expect to realize 50% to 80% of the accrual in those two funds by the end of 2025. As we progress in integrating our recent M&A transactions, we are focusing on standardizing and automating back-office process, streamlining through systems, and ensuring efficiencies throughout the organization. This will be crucial as we pursue a high rate of growth and we enable PATRAs to mitigate inflationary pressure reinvest in the business, and maintain current margins with continued high standards of control environment. The future of Forpatria is bright, and I'm thrilled to be part of the journey. Let me now turn back to Alice for some closing remarks.
spk07: Thanks, Ana. Altogether, we're very pleased with the firm's performance in 2022. While it was a year of headwinds in our industry and challenges across the globe, We believe the stability of our business model and talent of our people are the key drivers of our resilience and success. We have set ambitious goals over the next several years, and I'm confident we have the right team and resources in place to deliver on the targets. Delivering on 5 to 6 billion of fundraising and 150 million of fee-related earnings this year will have us well on the path to our 2025 goals, and we expect to continue to be active on the M&A front. We believe we are uniquely positioned to be the gateway for alternatives in Latin America, and with success in that endeavor, we can deliver significant value to all of our stakeholders.
spk08: We're now happy to take your questions. Thank you.
spk14: Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you'll need to press star 11 on your telephone. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please wait for your name to be announced. One moment for our first question. Our first question comes from the line of Mike Brown with KBW. Your line is now open.
spk02: Great. Great. Hi. Good morning, everyone. Good morning, Mike. How are you?
spk03: Good. Thank you. I wanted to start on the fundraising commentary. So I thought that was certainly positive that you guys are targeting $5 to $6 billion of inflows for 2023. And you gave a lot of great commentary on the call. Could you just maybe dimensionalize that a little bit here? I know you don't have a crystal ball. There's a lot of moving pieces in the market. But what would be the main drivers there if you had to kind of split that organic inflow number up a bit?
spk08: Hi there, this is Alex and thanks for participating and thanks for your question.
spk07: I think it's hard to give a specific detailed guideline. As you mentioned, we have several moving parts and the market is adjusting itself. What I would say in general terms that infrastructure and credit related products are easier, if you can say that expression, to fundraise today, and I think all the equity-related products are now harder to fundraise in this current environment. Of course, kind of obvious what I'm going to say now, the interest rate environment does affect specifically what I just mentioned, equity-related products are harder to fundraise, and Fixed income, infrastructure-like products, easier to fundraise. So we're on the road, as you know, with Infrastructure Fund 5 and private credits, infrastructure credit, and some other credit products. And those, I think, might be the big chunk of those $5 to $6 billion. Of course, we have a fantastic track record on the private equity, and as I mentioned, we feel confident that as we move into 2023, We're going to be able to reach our targets there, the flagship fund. We're also on the road with our venture capital fund and our growth equity fund, and we'll hit our internal targets there as well. But of course, it's taking more time, right, on the equity side in general and on the public equity side as well. So all of these moving parts in the end, I think, will get there on the drawdown funds, as mentioned, on the $5 billion to $6 billion target. But fixed income related, I think, will be more of the chunk of the next fundraising and a lot of drawdown funds. In that bucket, as mentioned, infrastructure fund five, private credit fund two for Brazilian investors, infrastructure credit fund one also for international and Brazilian investors, a Latin private credit fund also that we are raising that will target Latin America as a whole on the private credit side. plus the real estate permanent capital vehicles and infrastructure permanent capital vehicles. So that's more of where we see things going. Again, I think when we look into the number of total $20 billion capital formation that we gave as a guideline in our PAC stay in December from 22 through 25, uh having raised uh organically and you know on inorganically close to 4.5 last year and having another six five to six billion this year now puts us in a very very good position uh to reach the the 20 billion targets capital formation by 25. uh so i think we know we feel comfortable um Far from easy, as you know, but I think we feel very comfortable that we'll get there. But I think a different kind of profile of products. I hope I answered your question.
spk03: Yes, thank you, Alex. That was great. Thank you. If we could just maybe double-click in a little bit on the infrastructure side here. So, you know, clearly investor demand is very strong for that asset class. When we think about PACS, can you just help us understand a little better, how do you differentiate your infrastructure strategies versus some of your larger global peers that also invest in the LATAM region? How does PACS approach infrastructure differently?
spk07: Okay, and thanks for your question again. Within our infrastructure vertical, I think we have our flagship fund, As I mentioned, we're raising right now our infrastructure flagship number five. The strategy of the differentiator of that fund, the strategy that makes that fund or family of funds very different is the fact that we take on development risk. And we have dominated that and I think that's why we do continue to perform extremely well As mentioned also during the call and also during some of our earlier calls late last year, the divestments of two great companies that we had in our infrastructure fund three. And what does it mean taking development risk here? Now, in the end, what we do is pretty easy to explain. I think it's harder to execute. We do win an auction or we buy an asset. we then take the risk that asset by taking the development of that project and then we sell it. So, no, we buy the risk and sell and we did risk through mainly through development of that asset. It can be a greenfield, you know, when you win a concession of a new power project, for example, or you can, you know, we can buy a small brownfield and then develop that to create a larger asset. An example of the data-centered business that we just sold late last year, we started from scratch. We actually bought a piece of land. We constructed our first data center in the outskirts of Sao Paulo here in Brazil. And from there, we created a over 60 megahertz company with no potential to expand to 100 this year. And we have pent-up demand already signed contracts to bring this company to 400 mega. And we sold it and we made over four times our money there in US dollars. So that's an example of beginning a thesis from scratch and taking on the development risk and then creating this platform and selling it. We did the same with toll roads that we just sold to an international global player, strategic global player toll road that we had here in Brazil. In this case, we won the concession. We took on the development risk that came with the concession of expanding, duplicating parts of the highway, creating new toll plazas, and blah, blah, blah. And two years later, we had the risk, the main portion of the CapEx needed to modernize that toll road, and then we sold a portion of that toll road to this international player. In this case was going to see a global player in the total space And there now actually represents their entrance in the total space in the Brazilian market So taking that development risk that we do dominate makes us differentiate ourselves I think most of the international players that you mentioned they buy a mature assets in the region that are already performing and We sold our data center company to another global data center company sponsored by a major infrastructure fund, and they are buying our mature assets already, and of course they're going to take it to a different level, but it's already a developed asset, already grown from scratch, as I just explained. The case of Van Sea, this international toll road player, the same. They're buying also a toll road in the state of Sao Paulo that, as I mentioned, we took on the development risk and gave and sold that toll road already as a quasi-mature asset. And that's what we do well. And I don't think the... I'm generalizing, but most of the infrastructure funds that do play Brazil, they take that development risk besides one or two players. So on the other strategies that we have within the vertical, we have also a core infrastructure product, and there we do, we don't take the development risk there, but of course we're focused more on the yield side, mostly for Brazilian investors up to now. We plan to also have these core infrastructure funds in other countries in Latin America, like Chile, Colombia, and Mexico. We also now have infrastructure credit which is a very interesting product that we have already anchored by two major institutional investors. But the flagship strategy differentiator is the development nature, development angle that I just explained. Again, I hope I answered your question there.
spk03: Yes, thank you for all of that, caller Alex. Appreciate it.
spk14: And Ricardo Bustiel with BTG Paxful. Your line is open.
spk21: So despite the performance fee bonus that you book in the quarter, given the realization of performance fee, we saw that all tax was still pretty much flat for the quarter, right? So can you please explain what happened with wine and if you should see the margins related to FRE that should be similar in the following quarter? Thank you. Ricardo, your voice came... Oh, this is Alex again here.
spk10: Yeah, yeah. Marco, do you want to take this question?
spk18: Yeah, I'm not sure I got the full... Just confirm to me if I got the full question because the voice came in a little bit broken up.
spk17: The question is about overall margins and also income tax. Those are the two components of the question.
spk21: No, sorry. We just saw that the OPEX was pretty much flat despite the performance fee bonus book in the quarter. So we're trying to understand what drove this better performance and exactly if you can normalize this level OPEX for the following quarter. I'm not sure if you heard me now.
spk17: Okay.
spk18: So let's first differentiate the two kinds of expenses. The expenses related to the carry, you're going to find that below the FRE on the carry interest allocation and bonuses for the quarter, which is 10.2. So that ties to the 29.1 that you see for the quarter, which is completely different from the personal and admin expenses that you see on the top. The 58% margin is in sync with the overall margin for the year. It is slightly above what we have indicated throughout the quarters during the last year. We indicated in the mid-50s, and we are ending up slightly higher than that. We're gaining some margin on personal expenses throughout the year, and we're losing a little bit of margin on the admin expenses due to some of the fixed costs associated with the acquisition of Moneda that had a lower overall margin. But overall, we can say that we're happy with the margins and with the progress of the expenses in a year where, of course, inflation hit very strong.
spk19: Very clear. Thank you.
spk06: Thank you.
spk14: One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Beatrice Abreu with Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open.
spk13: Hi, Alex, Marco, and Ana. Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. Our first question would be on the FRA guidance of $150 million for 2023, which implies a 15% increase from 2022. Could you tell us how much of that growth do you expect to come from organic growth versus how much coming from inorganic growth, if any. And a second question, if I may, would be on the real estate strategy. So this was a segment that you expected to grow the most in fee AUM by 2025, if I'm not mistaken. So if you could give us some color on the segment's outlook for 2023 and what kind of growth you're expecting, that would be great. Thank you.
spk08: Hi, Beatriz. This is Alex. Marco, do you want to take the first question and I'll take the second, please?
spk18: Sure. So, Beatriz, we don't provide the distinction between what is the FRE organic and inorganic. I think what you can have as a reference, as Alex indicated in the call, is the he guided on the five to six billion of accretion of capital, and that's all organic accretion, if you will. So this is not encompassing any sort of accretion that is coming from acquisitions. I confirm that we will remain active on acquisitions. And the other data point, if it's worth, is that last year, the accretion of fee-paying AUM in organic was in the vicinity of $1.4 billion out of the total $4.5 billion.
spk07: And going to your second question, and then I'll ask if we did answer both of them, Beatriz. This is Alex again. Yes, we're very excited with the whole real estate expansion of our product lines and, of course, our general AUM. More specifically, I think, in Brazil and countries like Chile and Colombia, where we're looking into this very closely. In Brazil, we did an acquisition, as you know, called VBI. There's a thing to say, you know, very interesting consolidation play on the REIT side, and we're looking into that very closely. And VBI has been very active looking into that as well. We have... within the Brazilian context, a 220 billion reais REIT market, which are these listed Brazilian real estate trusts listed in the Brazilian Stock Exchange B3, as you know. And you have several listed REITs in the Brazilian Stock Exchange that are basically a single asset REITs or very few assets within that REIT. And that REIT trades very poorly in the secondary market because it's a single asset REIT, has very low liquidity, and investors are basically stuck with that REIT, having difficulty in selling their shares. So I think merging a group of those REITs creates a large one headed by our VBI partners is a great opportunity. Within VBI, we have three thematic REITs, one focused on corporate, the other one focused on logistics, the other one focused on credit-related instruments in the real estate market, what we call in Brazil the CRIs. And there I think we have so much to do on those fronts in consolidating other REITs in those thematics, those themes that I just mentioned. So there's so much. We manage around 5 billion reais of REITs. in a 220 billion Reais market. So, you know, you can imagine what we can do there. We see the same in a lesser extent in Chile, but an interesting and significant market in Colombia and a very large market of these real estate REITs in Mexico. And if we are successful in Brazil, I think we can have the goal, the aim to do the same in these other countries that I just mentioned. I think on the development real estate product, which are now a drawdown in nature, what we call real estate private equity, to use the expression that we use in our industry here. Also very interesting to a product that targets, of course, higher returns, but takes on the development risk, contrary to the REITs that buy already mature assets. And I think there, I think there's a room for expansion as well as the economies in the region are back to their growth pattern. You saw Brazil growing around 3% and a little notch higher than that last year, 1.5% to 2-something percent this year. Same in Chile, same in Colombia, same in Mexico. Again, the whole need for these real estate investments. Now, if we, and emphasizing also the whole nearshoring and friendly shoring that I mentioned in my earnings call, Mexico on that front, I think, really stands out because it will need a lot of investments in logistics and also factories, whatever, and the real estate market in Mexico, I think, will be looking to take part of this nearshoring thesis. So we're very excited with this opportunity. We tripled our AOM in the real estate space in Brazil last year, mainly through the acquisition of VBI. And I think we really look forward to continue to expand the space. Lastly, as we do expand within the REIT market, it is a permanent capital structure product. So that also is extremely interesting for us because it's does give us predictability in our future earnings because of the permanent capital nature of the product. So I hope we answered your both questions, but please advise us if we missed anything.
spk11: No, that's very clear. Thank you.
spk14: Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you'll need to press star 1-1. I would now like to hand the conference back over to Mr. Alex Stein for closing remarks.
spk07: Well, thank you very much again for your participation in this call, your patience to go through this 50 minutes an hour with us. I think as all of us mentioned here, Anna, Marco, and Josh, myself, Alex, extremely pleased with 2022 results. I think we did manage to hit our targets and the targets that we actually designed for 2022 in late 21 when we had a different world environment and a different market for alternative assets. As we look into 23, I think we're confident that we're going to be able to deliver again on our $150 million guideline for FRE and hopefully be able also to... convert some of that performance fees into realizations throughout the next years. We have over $400 million, as you know, of inventory, right, of performance fees. And some of our funds, namely our infrastructure fund three, are already in the carry mode, or carry status. So thanks again, and I also want to, again, congratulate here the team for an amazing year. Far from easy, but I think the team managed to perform. We wouldn't be having this call here if it were not for the team, their competence, their dedication. And congratulate Anna as well here on her new CFO role. So as we go through 2023, Anna will be taking more of a protagonist role here in our finance department as a CFO, as Marco heads to – leads our corporate development side and looks for additional exciting acquisition opportunities for Patria. Thanks again. Hope to see you soon. And, well, have a great week. Thank you.
spk14: This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a wonderful day.
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