Eurazeo Paris Ord

Hello and welcome to the financial information for H1 2024 results. My name is Caroline and I'll be your coordinator for today's event. Please note this call is being recorded and for the duration of the call your lines will be on listen only mode. However, you'll have an opportunity to ask questions at the end of the call. This can be done by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad to register your questions. If you require assistance at any point, please press star 0 and you'll be connected to an operator. For today's call, we have William Kadoshafa, co-CEO, and Christophe Bavria, co-CEO. I will now hand over the call to your host to begin today's conference. Please go ahead, sir. Thank you.

Thank you very much for the introduction. Good morning, all. Thanks for joining this call. Christophe and I are pleased to welcome you to our 2024 Half-Year Results presentation. Our presentation will be in three parts. First, I will share with you the financial and non-financial highlights for H1. Second, Christophe will focus on fundraising, commercial dynamic and asset rotation. Third and last, I will detail our financial results.

We will then be available to take questions.

During the first half of 2024, we made further progress in the execution of the strategy plan that we presented to you to the market last November. Let me share some key facts that summarize our H1 achievement. First, asset management is growing dynamically. Fundraising is up 63% relative to last year at 2.1 billion euros. from third parties are up 14%, plus 14%, and management fees from third parties are up plus 13%. Second, we continue to broaden our client reach. More clients are willing to invest in our funds. With institutional fundraising from outside of France now counting for 70% of the total, and early success abroad in wealth. To support this development, we made new senior international hires, both in coverage and investment strategy. Third, we continue to be focused on operational efficiency, with FRI posting a 21% growth year on year, thanks to positive jokes. Fourth, asset rotation is picking up, as we announced. Rotation of the balance sheet is already 9% year-to-date and we exited all of our non-core GP stakes with the exit of MCH announced earlier in the quarter. Fifth and last, we deliver on shareholder return with an increase of 10% of the dividend per share and the doubling of our share buyback program. Let me turn to non-core. financial highlights. As you know, we follow a two-pronged strategy in sustainability, aiming at top rankings in ESG and thriving for leadership in impact. Euraseo has won further distinctions in ESG with being ranked in 81st position among Time Magazine and Statista's 500 World's Most Sustainable Companies and in fact, being the top-ranked PE firm in this classification. And we reach the second position out of 283 private equity companies, according to HonorDex, for our performance in terms of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Christophe and I and the whole executive board are very proud of this achievement, and I think the progress made as we entered the top 10 for the first time in 2023. On impact, during the first half of 2024, we strengthened our lineup of funds, with the final closing of Eurasia Transition Infrastructure Fund, Article 9 Fund, 40% above its initial target, and the launch of our eighth impact fund, Eurazeo Planetary Boundaries Fund 1, EPBF, a new buyout fund with a target size of 750 million. This fund will be dedicated to planet boundaries. Its objective will be to build and support the leaders of tomorrow who are working to reverse the overstepping of planetary boundaries or adapt to them.

Thank you, William, for these complete highlights. Let's now dig into more details. And we start with fundraising. So Eurazeo raised 2.1 billion euros from clients in H1. And this represents 63% increase year on year. This is quite a good, strong performance, which is very encouraging, even a gradually improving but still challenging environment for fundraising in H1. No doubt, this highlights the quality of our franchises as well as the relevance of Eurasio's positioning as a European, mid-market, growth and impact-focused investment firm. This is also quite broad-based. Let me give you some details first on or first or private debt funds recorded high inflows and this is thanks to the attractive risk reward profile for clients we have demonstrated this we've already six successful vintages in direct lending in h1 we doubled our inflows in this asset class with notably the successful foreclosing of Our new direct lending flagship, Eurazeo Private Debt, number seven. Second, in private equity, we announced the first closing of the latest biotech vintage of CURMA, CURMA BioFund number four. We have a good momentum in secondaries, notably through our wealth solutions. And finally, in real assets, as William mentioned, our sustainable infrastructure fund, announced the final closing at 706 million euro and again this is 40 percent above initial target of 500 million euro which is remarkable for a certain fund showcasing how our impact can be a strong business driver and an additional 40 million euro will be recorded in q3 on this fund So the wealth solution channel continues to deliver regularly. We've raised 450 million euros in H1, and this is up 30% year on year, building on our strong position in France and also expanding across Europe for the rest of the year. Well, for the rest of the year, we continue to benefit from a solid and diversified pipeline of fundraising, both on the institutional side as well as on the wealth segment. Our funds are obviously at different stages, so we've had the final close again on our sustainable infrastructure fund, and we are nearing the end of the fundraising of our mid-large buyout fund. Eurazo Capital 5. We had the first closing on direct lending and Kurma Biotech, and they will continue to raise over the coming quarters. Additionally, we have several funds on the road in H2, a fifth vintage in secondaries, an Article 9 buyout fund on Planet Boundaries, And this has already good traction with prospects that are already into diligence. And the launch of a more active marketing phase for the fourth vintage of our growth equity franchise. On Wealth Solutions, our evergreen product, EPVE3, which is a mix of private debt and secondaries, I would say this fund is going from strength to strength. It already reached 2.2 billion euros in AUM, and this is one of the largest private market retail funds in Europe. And Eurazeo is in the process of launching new funds shortly at French and at European levels. You will recall from our Capital Markets Day, that we outlined our ambition to further expand our client franchise through the internationalization of our LP base and the development of our wealth channel in France and abroad. Well, I would say we've made good progress in both directions in H1 2024. We raised close to 1.6 billion euros of institutional money in H1, out of which, as William mentioned, 70% came from international LPs, which is higher than the level we have had a few years ago. To support the extension of Eurasio's reach, we've made senior appointments in the coverage team in key geographies, such as the Nordics, the Middle East, the dark region, and in Japan with the opening of an office in Tokyo. Our wealth solution franchise also continues to grow at a steady pace. In France, we continue to grow with our existing distribution partners, and we are adding regularly new significant ones. And our strategy to expand outside of France is paying off, we begin to have flows from international markets, especially from the Benelux. And we sign promising distribution agreements in Germany, in Italy, and in Switzerland. Let me now turn to deployments and realization. As you know, 2023 was a low tide for M&A across the board. Eurasio nevertheless did better than the market in 2023. And I would say we continue on that trend. We see a gradual improvement in the market. There are more people willing to trade and funding is available. This is particularly true for the mid-market segment. Eurazeo has had a sharp pickup in realization, which tripled year on year to reach 1.6 billion euros. This highlights the gradually higher liquidity we are witnessing in the market at the moment, as well as, I would say, Eurazeo's better ability to monetize its assets and obviously to generate distribution for clients. On the other hand, On the other hand, we continued to deploy capital selectively in our preferred sectors across all asset categories. We deployed 1.6 billion euros, also the same amount than last year. Deployments continued to be healthy in private debt, in line with our success on fundraising. And since then, since the end of H1, we continued to grab interesting opportunities in buyout with companies like Erez and Raidu, or in tech with our investment in Mistral and Koniji in the artificial intelligence space. It's important to mention that Eurazo's exits were executed in good terms, which again reflects the quality of our investment strategies, translating in strong returns for our clients and for our balance sheet. As you can see, we have had additional deals announced in Q2 across the board. In buyout with eTracing, in growth with Lemaps, and with a part of the hotel portfolio of Grape in real assets. On average, this transaction has been concluded with high cash on cash multiples and good IRRs. On average, 2.4 times on buyout, four titles in tech, venture and growth, and 1.6 times in hospitality. I will now hand over to William, who will present financial results. Thank you, Christophe.

And apologies to everyone for my voice, but I hope you can still hear me. Thank you. I will now take you through the financial results for H1. Let me start. with the asset management. As a reminder, we decided to exit non-core GPs and sold our stake in Rome in 2023 and off MCH earlier this year. The figures we present are hence pro forma of both GPs. Overall, AUM growth, and particularly fee-paying AUM growth, illustrates the dynamics of our asset management businesses as we both highlighted with Christophe. Total asset and net management were up 9% in H1, reaching 35.4 billion euros. We served party AUM up 13%. Free paying AUM were up 10%, at nearly 26 billion euros. We served party free paying AUM going 14%. Recurring revenues, from asset management posted solid growth consequently. Management fees stood at $204 million in H1, up 8% from previous year on a comparable basis. Third-party management fees were up 13%, including 14% from IM global partners. Balance sheet management fees were down 3%, as you can see, as we voluntarily limit our new commitments as announced during the Capital Market Day. Let me turn to FREs. Fee-related earnings for H1 2024 are up strongly. H1 2024 FREs amounted to 71 million euros, up 21% from last year on a like-for-like basis. We continue to benefit from a positive job effect while investing in our future growth. Christophe highlighted earlier senior hires to strengthen our senior client coverage in key geographies. In addition, we also made some hires in specific investment teams and appointed a new head of HR, a new head of communication. Nevertheless, costs are up only 2% and margin is up. at 34.8 percent, which is a strong increase relative to the same period of last year. Overall, the contribution of the asset management activity amounted to 65 million euros in H1 2024, up 16 percent year-on-year. Recurring operating income is up strongly, with efforts up 21% at 138 million euros. Performance fees are still low despite the high level of realization. As our funds are maturing and we return more capital to APs, performance fees from third parties are due to increase significantly in the next few years to represent up to 10% of our third-party revenues over the cycle, as we said, during our capital market days. Let's now turn to the investment activity, starting with the value of our portfolio. The main driver of the P&L of the investment activity under IFRS 10, as you know, is the portfolio change in fair value, i.e., value creation. As you can see, the net value of our portfolio was 8 billion, nearly 8 billion at the end of H1, down 4%. We scope contributing minus 312 euros or circa 3.4% due to the completed exits combined with discipline reinvestment. This is completely consistent with our commitment to the market to rotate the balance sheet and not reinvest everything we realize. Change in fair value contributed to minus 48 million euros or minus 0.6%. The per share value of the portfolio amounted to 106.9 euros at the end of H1, down 2% only. The difference stems from the positive impact of the execution of our share buyback program, which is equivalent, again, to circa plus 2%. As you can see more in detail, buyout, real assets, and private debt showed increase in fair value of respectively plus 1%, plus 3%, and plus 2%. While the growth portfolio was adjusted down by 7%. Value creation was positively impacted by the operating performance of the underlying portfolio, as well as realization completed above the last recorded net asset value. On the other hand, we continue to adjust multiples or discounts applied to some specific clients in the portfolio. This is to reflect market movement for some comparables. Let me remind everyone what happened, for example, in the SaaS tech multiple globally, they are down 17% in the first half of 2024. Let me stress that value creation of any portfolio is not linear. Value creation for the portfolio was 11% in average for the past three years, including first half of 2024. I said one key component of the value creation pertains to the growth of operating metrics of our underlying portfolio. We have a transformational value creation playbook across the board, which we think is well adapted to higher for longer interest rates. Overall, in page one, you see another illustration of the quality of the underlying assets. which represent 60% of the total value of the portfolio. Revenues and EBITDA were respectively 8% and 15%, and it is very growth-based across all lines. Second, companies in the growth portfolio, which represent 23% of the total, posted an aggregate value growth of 15% with EBITDA improvement across the board. In fact, The EBITDA margin of our growth portfolio, which for most of the lines is still negative, is better than budget. So, in our real estate portfolio, which accounts for 12% of EURASIO portfolio value, we have a strong year-on-year operational performance, as you can see. Again, our performance in real estate reflects the specificity operational real estate and hospitality represents more than 50% of the totals. This is quite unique and that explains why our program generally are cartel one across the board in real estate in terms of performance. Another important element of our value creation is our ability to realize exits above NAV. That's been the case consistently As you can see again in the chart, it was through also 17, 18, 19, if we had put the numbers. As Christophe mentioned earlier, we've been able to monetize assets through all asset classes in H1-24, and exits were all done in very good terms. The average NAV uplift for equity asset transactions realized or announced in H1 has been 15%. Overall, closed and soon to be closed deals relating to the balance sheet. Christophe talked about the whole asset manager focusing on the balance sheet. Closed and soon to be closed deals amounted to more than $700 million in H1 2024 of 9% of our portfolio as of This is already more than what we realized for the full year of 2023. In 2023, we realized 506,006% of NAV for the total year as we said. We have a good and diversified pipeline of exits for H2 2024, and we confirm that the balance sheet rotation is expected to be higher in 2024 relative to the previous year. Turning to the P&L, the investment activity, overall the contribution of the investment committee was a negative 156 million euros in H1, in H2, H1, sorry, 2024, with the following main drivers, change in fair value of minus 56%, and 6 million for the change in value of other financial assets. Management fees paid to the asset management companies amounted to 59 million euros. They are, as you know, considered as a cost for the investment company. Steering costs were flat year on year. In a nutshell, at Group Laval, net results, group share for H1 2024 stood at minus 105 million euros for the first half compared to minus 145 million euros in H1 2023 excluding the one-off accounting is backlinked to IFRS 10 exemption. This reflects again a strong contribution from the asset management activity and a moderate non-cash negative contribution, investment activity. Let me finish with shareholder distribution. You know, we are committed to increase return to shareholders through dividends and share buyback. And a lot of that is already seen in this first half. As announced during our capital market day, we increased our ordinary dividend by 10% in H1 And in the coming years, we confirm that our intention is to continue to increase our ordinary dividend. Regarding share buyback, we already bought 109 million euros of our own shares in H1, which is twice the amount of last year as per our stepped-up share buyback program. In total, ordinary dividend and share buyback combined offer a 5% yield to shareholders. Thank you for your attention. Thanks for your patience given by voice today. We can now open the Q&A session. Please don't hesitate to focus your question on Christophe. Thank you, Victor.

Sure, thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad. We'll pause for a moment to allow everyone an opportunity to signal for questions. We'll take the first question from line LX Gerard from CIC. The line is open now. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning and thank you for that presentation. Two questions on my side. The first one is regarding your asset rotation over the second half of the year. Where will you be? So I understand that there will be a further pickup in asset rotation in the second half. But do you expect to be somewhere close to your historical average of 25%? So that's my first question. And the second question is related to IEM global partners. So you sold your stakes in non-core GPs, MCH and Rhone. What's your view on IAM Global? Is it core, non-core? And do you expect to further dispose part or the totality of that stake, given the fact that in 2021, if I remember well, you sold 20% stake in that company? Thank you.

Thank you for this question. So I will take this one. And again, sorry for my voice. Asset rotation. We don't want to commit. on the number, but clearly you see the pickup. We're already at 9%. And we have, as we said, we have a diversified and sizable pipeline for H2 and more generally the next quarters across asset classes. Too early to say if we can go back to the historic collaborates. Let me remind you, as we say in our quote with Christophe, we still see that the environment is gradually improving. So this 2024 in our industry will still be a sort of transition year. We fare very well in that context that's linked to the positioning we have in mean markets and across the board with the type of assets we have on the books. Let me also remind you that to be consistent with the delivery of our promise on the share buyback. What we need to deliver is a 16% rotation every year. So don't take it as a guidance, but take it more as a comfort that what we do and what we have in mind, right, will enable us through the origin of the plan execution to comfortably deliver on the promise. IAM Global, we like this business. It is not exactly a private market business, as you know, but it is a high alpha directional group of investment strategies. It has strong exposure to US underlying, which in the context overall is not bad. As you know, we have a disciplined approach geographically for private markets, as we highlighted many times with Christophe. We want to be positioned as a core European investor in private markets with some capacity to invest in the US and Asia. But with IAM Global, we have a window which is more clearly on the US, and it delivers growth. So we consider this asset as core, and we consider the management as being highly talented, delivering growth. We also see with Christophe and teams that there is more and more talks about what could be done between liquid and illiquid assets, particularly for retail and wealth segments in combining capabilities. So it remains a bit conceptual, but you can see this debate starting to emerge across the Atlantic. We consider it core. Why did the management decide to monetize a chunk of it in 2021? Because RM Global had been developed quasi-organically by Euroville. The management at the time, and I think it was a wise decision, wanted to show, to prove the value of this asset. And I think it was better done through a monetization, which is a proof more than conceptual. This is a proof of the real value. But we are happy to be a controlling shareholder of IM Global.

All right. Thank you.

Thank you. We will take the next question from line Nicholas Vesilia from BNP Paribas. The line is open now. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I would like first to come back on the rationale behind the valuation multiples. So if you could remind us how you tackle the valuation approach through your different strategies. And I'd like as well to have more color on what's been driving the moves this year. Half here, you've mentioned public multiples, but more specifically, which kind of companies have you been cutting? What are the difficulties they are facing? And more particularly, if you think that we are at the end of the road now in terms of taking down multiples? or if there is more to come in growth, for instance. Then my second question would be more precisely on the growth and outlook for fundraising. You've mentioned you're expecting in H2 to be starting more concretely the marketing phase of the next vintage. I'd like to know what have been the initial discussions with clients and mainly existing clients around that fund. in the context of what we've seen on valuation and returns over the last two years, but also on the performance metrics you disclosed, with the multiples being a bit underwhelming for funds of this age. And lastly, more on the strategic angle on M&A. The space has been quite active recently. I'd like to know if you have some more thoughts to share there, what you see happening in the market and what are the key areas you consider. Thank you very much.

Okay. Christophe will take, and if you don't mind, we will change the order. Christophe, we'll answer to you about the prospect of fundraising and particularly your own growth and the performance. And I'll come back to the evaluation of the portfolio and your strategy question.

Well, thank you for this question. As you know, Eurazeo is one of the largest and I'm happy to say one of the best franchises in tech. where we cover the full spectrum with Kurma in healthcare, with venture and with growth. So we cover the full spectrum all over Europe. There are three different reasons why fundraising has been delayed initially. It's because the market, the environment was less favorable in tech in 2022. Nobody can deny it. There has been also some delay in the implementation of the scale-up Europe mandate, which is deployed by the European Investment Fund, part of the European Investment Bank. And, as you know, we have reshuffled the management of the team. Alaphadel is now leading the team. We've made important recruitments in 2023. in the UK. And we also recruited a management director in the UK. We also had significant senior advisors. So we have a high-profile team starting to deploy. And you may have noticed that we invested in Conigy in Germany, which is one of the most promising European companies in AI. And also, and this was an important We have been working hardly on the monetization of the portfolio, and we have worked on the DPI, and you have noticed the exit of LUMAPS. What is important to mention today is that we have a good pipe of potential investors that are already in due diligence, and we've received a lot of recent positive news recently, so we are on track with our program, which is obviously when you start a gross equity fundraising in Europe, we need to receive the first step is to have an important heat ratio, if I may say it this way, with the public money. You know that EIF, BPI, France, and also other public bodies are very important to complete the best level for a first closing. So we are on track. We expect to resume the fundraising in 2024 and obviously to accelerate in 2025. So we are on track and we have a very positive reception, if I may say, from our re-opper from the existing investors of Fundsweep.

And maybe, Christophe, I think there was also on the performance of the fund. I think it's important that you keep in mind that when we market the fund, there is a difference between widening the discount at which you value a portfolio and having a bad performance overall, given the vintages and even the quality of the portfolio, our growth funds. continue to be delivering very good return. DPI is starting gradually to improve. As Christophe said, we're starting now to realize assets in growth and venture, which usually is a key element. So don't lose track of the fact that when we have a higher discount, it doesn't mean that the performance in and of itself is not satisfactory in both absolute and relative terms. we market the quality of the portfolio, we market the return, absolute and relative, and we market the capacity of the team to generate a proprietary deal flow, as Christophe said, with Conigy. Which ties into your question on the portfolio valuation, so on-balance sheet portfolio valuation. Across the board, three things. A, we have a healthy portfolio across the board. Whether this is in the funds, more than 600 lines, or whether this is on-balance sheet, with 63, 64 lines. There are always some exceptions in the portfolios that function. Second, we didn't change the valuation approach. So for the buyout companies across the board, with a few exceptions pertaining to business model, like insurance, we would take a PE or book value. But generally speaking, we take EV to a BDA multiples as a reference using an average depending upon the case between one and three years. Now why do we sometimes adjust the multiples? Because we like to always steer the valuation of the buyer portfolio in such a way that we have the vast majority of our valuation based on multiples that are at best in line with spot multiples and generally at a discount to spot multiples that give us a comfort when we approach valuations. Sometimes there is a case for a premium because you can have some companies with very strong growth. Let me take a case in point. In our growth, in our buyer portfolio, we have a company called Aromazone. They grow strong double-digit pace. that's been going on for some time, of course, that deserves a premium to the peers. But generally speaking, more than 90% of our evaluation are based on multiples that are lower than spot multiples. And you have seen some sectors derating a little or more significantly in the first half. And that is particularly true in growth. Multiples, as I said, decreased by 17% in the first half across the board. Marketplaces and some fintechs. On the other hand, health tech-related multiples re-rated. So we take that in mind. In growth, the valuation methodology has not changed as well. What we do usually is consider discounts relative to the last funding round. Now the discount is 36%, which is fairly high. And we think, to your question, it is probably a good number to consider, given the fact that the vast majority of the portfolio continues to grow strongly. The main lines in this portfolio, the major lines, you know, that would be the Dr. Leap, the Back Market, the Content Square, representing more than 50% of the value of this portfolio. They have a growth which is between 20% and 35%, sometimes a little higher. So they continue to be positioned as leaders, gaining market shares, reaching break-evens in some core markets, and growing double-digit. Obviously, we have no reason intrinsically to adjust these lines, except considering some market multiples and being a bit cautious if this is the case. We have some lines, as we already said in the previous quarters, that operate in more difficult environments, like marketplaces, consumer marketplaces. We have one. And in the tech space, and particularly regulated banking space, it's a tad more difficult overall. To your question, we feel that in a normalized environment, there is no reason why we should have further mark discounts in the next quarters. Strategy. You mentioned that there is some movement in the alternative space. It's been going on for some time now. As Christophe and I mentioned during the capital market day. We have an ambitious organic plan. We consider that we have the capacity to establish ourselves in a leadership position in the verticals we have identified, mean market Europe, growth tech, and impact on an organic basis. We do the investments in coverage investment. We're gaining market share with institutional clients. Wealth is as Christophe said, having a good run. So we are on track to deliver. But we also said that, mindful of what's happening in the environment, M&A could be an option if that would be to accelerate the pace at which we reach that leadership. So that's the way to think about us potentially considering M&A. It would be only if it is consistent with the broader strategy and with the view to accelerate. It wouldn't be to replace or change the main core strategic avenue.

Thank you.

If I could just add very quickly, you mentioned as well new products to come in wealth. Could you be more concrete on this?

Yes. Well, first, as you know, the regulation in Europe is improving, is favoring the access of private individuals to alternative funds. It started in France, which was called the LoiPact, and this is accelerating with what is called the Loi Industrie Verte. So what we are currently working on, as you know, we have a large flagship, which is called IPV3, and which again is relatively well adapted to what is called the retailization of the market, which is to provide access not only to the very, very wealthy people, but also to more... rich people, but average rich people, if I can say it this way. So, IPv3 is perfectly adapted because it's a combination of private edge, which delivers regular returns, and private equity, which delivers returns, but a little bit later, with a kind of jigger. product has proven to be very successful. We are currently asked by some specific, some of our counterparts, some of our networks. You know that we are in a B2B2C business model, so we deal with insurance companies, banks, or advisor networks, and they have been asking us to design for them specific funds, specific So this will be launched before the end of the year. And on top of that, as I mentioned, we are more and more expanding all over Europe. And to do that, we need to have funds that are designed for the European market. Our current fund, EPVE3, is a French fiscal. It's quite a specific legal structure, and what we intend to do is obviously to better serve the entire, and it has proven to be successful already outside of France, but to better, to accelerate, we are currently working on launching products that are spontaneously designed for the European market, And as you can imagine, there will be Luxembourg legal vehicles to be a kind of common tool for the entire European market. We have very good signals from Italy, from Switzerland, and from Germany in this market.

All right. Thank you very much. Have a good day.

Thank you. Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad. We will take the next question from line Oliver Caritas from Goldman Sachs. The line is open now. Please go ahead.

Hi there. William Christoph. It's Oliver Caritas from Goldman. Just perhaps one more question for me. You've just opened up an office in Japan where it seems like an interesting opportunity to further internationalize your client base, what are you seeing that's making it an interesting time to build a presence here? And are you mainly going after institutional LPs or are you looking to partner here with banks and insurers to distribute your investment content into the private wealth channel? Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for this question. It's a very clear answer. What we see is that institutional investors are still, I would say, underweight on Europe and underweight on specifically mean markets in Europe. And it happens, as you know, to be the core expertise of Eurazeo. Some international LPs are very experienced. They may have a very mature allocation to private equity and to private debt, but sometimes this mature allocation perfectly covers the upper end of the market. Where we have room to grow is that, obviously, there still is an underweight of one of the core components of the European market, one of the most interesting components of the European market, one of the maybe not entirely third components of the European market, which is the market. And for this, definitely, we have had significant successes with Asian investors. And in a very simple way, as the number of prospects was accelerating, as the number of potential investors, as the number of due diligence were increasing from Japan, we decided to open an office there. We don't see yet any clear opportunity for us to expand directly in wealth in Japan. We are doing it with some Japanese investors, but through a very, very large platform of wealth management. And as you know, some of the clear leaders in wealth management, they have a client base which is entirely international. And being entirely international, they may be a part of Asian and Japanese investors. But so far for us, our B2B2C business model in wealth is mainly done by generating partnerships with European-based insurance, bankers, or networks of advisors.

Got it. Very clear. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. We will take the next question from line Arnold Pallis from CIC. The line is open now. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. The first one is on private debt. I would like to know what is your current assessment of this market. Do you see some higher risk of default on this market, some kind of overheating? and also still on private debt. What is the targeted size of the seventh vintage of your direct lending strategy? The second question is more about country risk and geopolitical risk. Can you give us a a rough breakdown of your assets by region, by country, and especially what is the current exposure to France and the U.S.?

Okay. Christophe will talk about that, and I'll come back to the relative exposure.

So thank you very much. It's a very good question on private debt. First, maybe a general comment on private debt. It is a market that is deepening all over Europe. You know that regarding the private debt market, obviously it started initially in the U.S. and it penetrated the U.K. market, and France was the first market to react and to develop the private debt practice. But today it's very important to keep in mind that the market is deepening all over Europe, and we are accompanying this development because we are increasing our coverage of the entire European market. We opened an office in Frankfurt, I think it was 15 years ago, but we continue to better serve this market. And again, we apply to our private debt investment the same, I would say, Investment philosophy that we apply to our equity investment, we tend to believe that the mean market is one of the most interesting components of the private debt market. It's absolutely obvious that when you invest in the mean market all over Europe today, it's because you believe in the consolidation of the mean market in Europe. And it's because partly you believe in the buy and build where you take a local leader and you help it to acquire its competitor all over Europe and you sell a European leader, eventually a worldwide leader. To do that, you need a very good partner in private debt and this is the market we serve. Regarding this specific, and again it's a clear component of success today for entrepreneurs and for equity sponsors. Their partner for private debt is a key element of the success of their strategy. So we serve this market. Again, it is a market that is growing all over Europe. We have been in this market for close to 20 years. We are currently raising the seventh vintage. And to answer very precisely to your question, the default rate of this specific investment strategy, the default rate of this very specific asset class, private debt, and the default rate of this very specific investment strategy that we deploy, mean market private debt, is incredibly robust. And now, today, we have absolutely no sign in the end of H1 reporting and valuation of our existing portfolio, there is absolutely no sign currently of any acceleration, any increase of the impairments whatsoever. This market is very robust. It is a very interesting risk-return profile, and now we are very confident on this asset class. So this leads me to the final answer to your question, the target size. The previous program, the sixth vintage, was made of a little bit more than 2 billion euros in institutional money and this is again made of a complete program where wealth management is also contributing. So this was in total something close to 3 billion euro program for the sixth vintage. The current due diligence that are being completed on private debt number 7, the current momentum makes us comfortable to reach at least as much as previous time. But again, this market is deepening. The appetite from institutional investors is increasing. So we are very confident on continuing a steady pace of growth in this activity.

So regarding the exposure, as you know, but there are many ways to look at it, whether you base it on AUM, balance sheet versus total. So let me take one approach, which is the AUM related to companies headquarters in different geographies. It's pretty consistent across the board, whether this is on balance sheet or total portfolio. So in broad terms, based on that approach, You have France at about 40%, 40% plus. The rest of Europe would be 40%, including the UK and Switzerland. We have, for example, an asset in Switzerland. And the US would be roughly 20%. That's ex-IMG. Now, if you take a more refined approach, you should take stock of the fact that, as Christophe Most of the companies we invest into, particularly in mid-market, are not maybe headquartered in a given region, but are not necessarily making the majority of their sales in a region. So typically a French leader in the mid-market in a certain field, with a few exceptions, would have its sales in France ranging from 30% to 70%, depending upon the case. So you have a good serve, I'd say, of the underlying performance of the portfolio, broadly speaking. This is not audited data, of course, that is dependent upon the economy. Let me remind you, finally, that Euradio's sector choices are very specific. We are not dependent upon any public contracts, given the industry.

And that includes infrastructure. OK. Thank you.

I think we don't have much more time left. I think we have answered some of the questions that we had online. I think there's one here. from Saima Hussein from Alpha Value. Can you comment on the value creation you expect in H2 and the contribution to net profit of the investment activity?

I sort of commented or alluded to it in the previous question. We don't make guidance as far as value creation beyond the fact that In average, over three, five years period, we aim for a consistent 12% return minimum for the portfolio. This is where we are. We were to take the five-year average there. Now, what I hinted is that in the normal context and with likely improving economy in Europe, interest rates going down, even the high performance of the company. We have in the portfolio, we should see some value creation in the not too distant future. And obviously any value creation translating to a mark to market, positive mark to market. But we don't want to do guidance on that because We're also dependent upon the broader market context. Look at the multiples for AI-related companies and the impact it has on stock markets. We have also to be mindful of a context that goes much beyond the interesting performance of our companies.

Thank you. I think we're at the end of the time. So if you have any more questions, you can, of course, directly contact us and thank you for attending this call. Enjoy the holidays for those who are getting into holidays, and see you after the break. Thank you.

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