Man Group Plc New

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'm Robyn Grew, the CEO of Man Group, and I'm joined by our CFO and COO, Antoine Forterre. I'll begin with a high-level overview of our investment performance and client engagement in the first half of this year. Antoine will then walk you through the financial results, after which I'll update you on some of our strategic highlights during the period. As usual, we'll finish with questions. The first half of 2026 was another period of turbulence in markets, one in which they proved resilient once again. The principal challenge came from geopolitics, but as tensions eased, risk appetite recovered quickly. We navigated a market where returns were unusually concentrated, driven by the continued strength of the artificial intelligence narrative and robust corporate earnings. In fixed income, The possibility that interest rates may stay higher for longer kept bond yields high and elevated through much of the period. It was against this backdrop that the structural strength of our diversified platform was clear. We delivered a strong first half which demonstrates the continued evolution of Man Group. The broad-based investment performance, exceptional net inflows, Record AUM and growth in earnings we are reporting today are the direct result of deliberate multi-year initiatives to diversify our business. On the topic of diversification, I'm pleased to report that we generated overall investment performance of $19.8 billion in the first half. Both our alternative and long-only strategies contributed positively, reflecting the skill of our investment teams, our disciplined approach to risk management, and the benefits of our advanced technology capabilities. Our asset-weighted investment performance was 0.4% ahead of similar strategies offered by peers. In liquid alternatives, we saw strengths across the platform. Our multistrat 1783 led the way once again Finishing the half up 7.9%, now top quartile in its peer group across multiple timeframes and genuinely uncorrelated to equities. 1783 continues to demonstrate the power of allocating dynamically across the breadth of Alpha at the Firm. Also, in liquid alts, Mann Alternative Risk Premier delivered another strong half for clients, returning 4.6% and exceeding $15 billion in AUM. AHL Alpha, our traditional trend following program, returned 7.1%, extending the recovery that started in the second half of last year. By contrast, AHL Evolution returned minus 3.7%, broadly in line with other alternative trend followers that trade less liquid and harder to access markets. Finally, in private markets, conscientious underwriting kept our credit portfolios robust, and it was great to see Barden Hill making a significant contribution to performance fees during the period. Our long early range once again outperformed strongly, providing a clear demonstration of the value of active management through a period of unusually concentrated markets. In equities, Numerica Merging Markets Core was a standout performer, ahead of its benchmark by 4.8% per year over the last three years. while Man Japan Core Alpha was more challenged due to a difficult period for value investing in the region. In liquid credit, our strategies navigated rising dispersion across the market with rigor, once again exceeding their respective benchmarks. On the client side, growth during the first six months of 2026 was exceptional. We delivered total net inflows of $7.1 billion In a competitive environment for fundraising, we saw positive net flows across all four of our product categories, a powerful endorsement of the trust our clients place in us. You've heard me say this before. In today's markets, clients are consolidating their relationships with a smaller number of highly capable strategic partners who can help them manage complex risks and growing macroeconomic uncertainty. The quality of our people and our technology means we are well placed to capture that shift. We now serve 792 institutional clients and our customized solutions remain a clear competitive advantage. The strength of this client demand was evident across our channels, generating $37 billion in total gross flows during the first half. Institutional clients contributed $21 billion, while wealth channels added $16 billion. Momentum was particularly notable across our long-running range, while demand for our customized solutions continued within liquid alternatives. We also made good progress extending our reach into the channels where we see the greatest opportunity. In wealth, our active ETF platform saw early traction, while our Asteria joint venture built further on its success. We continued to grow our presence in North America, more on that later, and we also launched a systematic credit solution with a new institution in the insurance space. As our clients' needs evolve, so will we, creating an even stronger business that is positioned for long-term success. I'll now hand over to Antoine, who will take you through the numbers.

Thank you, Robyn, and good morning, everyone. As usual... I'll begin with some financial highlights before covering our AUM, P&L and balance sheet. As Robyn mentioned, we ended the period with record AUM of $253.6 billion, up $26 billion or 11% since the end of December. This was driven by positive investment performance of $19.8 billion and net inflows of $7.1 billion. On a relative basis, our net flows remained ahead of the industry, reflecting the strength of demand we saw for a range of strategies. This growth in AUM was also reflected in our revenue. Core net revenue increased to $853 million, comprising $627 million of net management fees, 21% higher than the same period last year, and $207 million of core performance fees, more than three times H125, with contributions from a wide range of strategies. We also generated $18 million of investment gains from our seed books. Fixed compensation and other cash costs of $222 million were broadly flat, compared with H125, while variable compensation increased, reflecting higher revenue during the period. Core profit before tax increased to $297 million, resulting in a core PVT margin of 35%. Core management fee profit before tax was $186 million, equivalent to 12.4 cents per share of core management fee EBS. Lastly, the Board has declared an interim dividend of 5.7 cents per share, one-third of 25's full-year dividend, in line with our guidance. We continue to maintain a strong and liquid balance sheet, with net tangible assets of $758 million at the end of June, supporting our disciplined approach to capital allocation. Turning to AUM and our new reporting categories. As a reminder, in February, we announced our intention to change our subcategories to better reflect the growth and evolution of our business, provide greater transparency on our strategic priorities, and align more closely with market practice. While we still provide the old disclosures in our data pack, these will no longer be available after Q3. Alternative AUMs stood at $110.5 billion at the end of the period. Liquid alts grew to $92.9 billion, driven predominantly by $4.2 billion of positive investment performance. Net flows were modestly positive over half, though that masked a clear divergence between the quarters. Having seen net outflows in the first quarter, we returned to net inflows in the second, as we experienced solid client demands for uncorrelated liquid strategies and solutions. With $0.7 billion increase, reflecting continued selective deployments, indirect lending and opportunistic credit. On the long-only side, organic growth remained very strong, with $6.3 billion in net inflows, highlighting the continued demand for systematic and discretionary capabilities across equity and credit. Combined with $15 billion of investment performance and positive beta, long-only AUM increased to $143.1 billion, Other movements were negative $0.9 billion, comprising $1.9 billion of FX headwinds owing to a stronger US dollar, partially offset by $1 billion of positive other movements. Finally, in addition to our fee pay in the UN, we ended the period with $4.9 billion of uncalled committed capital, in line with December, as additional commitments, including from the first close of our new opportunistic credit fund, were largely offset by deployments during the period. Core net management fees for the period were $627 million, a $110 million increase compared with H125. Our run rate net management fees, which represent a point-in-time snapshot of the firm's management fee earning potential, also increased by 10%, to over $1.3 billion at the end of June. The run rate net management fee margin remained broadly flat compared with December, as long-runly growth came from relatively higher margin strategies within the category during the period. As I've said before, we do not target a particular net margin-free margin, but instead prioritise having profitable growth across all our product categories. Core performance fees for the period were $207 million, $140 million higher than in H125, comprising $188 million from alternative strategies and $19 million from long-run needs. As I said earlier, performance fee generation was broad-based, and included $84 million from 1783, as well as a contribution from opportunistic credit strategies managed by the Barton Hill team. Performance fee eligible AUM increased to $69.2 billion at the end of June, reflecting the strong growth we have seen in the first half. Of that, $53.3 billion was at high watermark at the end of June, up from $36.6 billion at the start of the year, A growing proportion of our asset base is in our position to generate performance fees if we continue to deliver. As of 24th July, we had accrued roughly $290 million of performance fees due to Crystallize in the second half of the year. As always, Spiga is not a full-time company.

The amount that Crystallize is worth flip-drights pays