Wendel

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Vendel's H1-2026 results conference call and webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question-and-answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press star-1-1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. You can also ask your questions on the webcast. Olivier Allot, Director of Financial Communication and Data Intelligence, will read them. I must advise you that this conference is being recorded today. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Laurent Mignon, Vendel's Group CEO. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you very much. Good afternoon to everybody and thank you for being on this call in a day where there's a lot of other Financial Communications. So, in a nutshell, this is a solid performance for Vendel during the first half, 2026. We have achieved strong return to shareholders with €450 million which has been returned today to our shareholders and our NAV is up 2.6% compared to last quarter, restated from the dividend pay to shareholders. We will go back on each of those items. Just the key financial highlights of the quarter is that we have asset under management of $48.7 billion. This is not any more pro forma. This is really what we have including a committed advisor. We have fee-paying asset under management of 37.8 billion. This is, if we recall compared to last year, this is up 30%. If we want to look to the dynamic of those fee-paying AUMs at the same parameter, it is up 11%, but Cyril will come back to that. The management fees are 226 million euros for this first half. This is up 56% again, but there's a change in parameter, but nevertheless it shows how much we have quickly developed the asset management that translates in fee-related earnings of 87.1%, up 46%, and if we look to FR and PRE, it's €91 million. One characteristic of our model today is that we are very much FRE geared more than PRE. The gap of the WPI is 3.6 billion. At the end of the second quarter, the share price of BV was slightly down compared to where it was at the end of the quarter. I think it was The reference price was 25.8, something like that, so slightly lower than what it is currently.

We had good operating performance from the unlisted assets.

Stahl is valued at the offer and the process of selling Stahl is well underway. We're confident on the way it is moving forward. Same for IHS. IHS, by the way, is valued at the Not at the offer value, but at the listed value. The fully diluted NAV is €158.9 as of June. It's at €4.1 if we put back the dividend. of 3.6% that was paid in May to the shareholders, which is up 2.6%. You will see that there have been some strong accretive impact of the share buyback program, which was largely done at the end of the quarter, and that is finished now. We just closed and finalized the purchase of the full share buyback program. If we look to the way the NAV has evolved, You have a positive impact of the Vendel Investment Manager. I think we've been clear on the Q1 to say that there was a dip into it. It has gone down at that period. We're valuing assets based on market comparables and all the alternative IM were depressed at that period of time. The picture was not very good, and we saved that, by the way, at the time, and we see that reversing to today. Vendel Principal Investment, we have one euro coming from the decline coming from BV, and the rest is from the non-listed asset, where we keep on adjusting to the fact that on the market, the multiples are slightly lower than they were at the Q1. It's mostly because the performance of the firm are good. It's only a multiple impact, which is, I think, it doesn't show, and David, you will come back on that. We see the performance of our underlying company to be very, very solid. Sheba Back has a positive impact of 2.8 We have returned as I mentioned 450 to shareholders, 140 through dividend. 3.6 euros per share in May and 310 of share buyback which has been achieved in five months. That is the amount at the end of June. We will have another dividend to be paid in November. You know that we pay now interim dividend as we announced, and we think it's a good way to smoothen the impact of the dividend and to have regular cash flow for the shareholders. Now I'll hand over to Cyril, who will go in detail on WIM. Then I'll hand over to David, who will go on the WPI. And then Benoit, you will take the earnings part. Great. Good. And the LTV.

Thank you, Laurent and everyone. So page 8. So this is our roadmap for 26. You know, as Laurent said, we are building this platform today. Now it represents 37% of the gross asset value of Vendel. Those four bullet points are really the four milestones of our development. So the first one is Q2 M&A. We have completed the acquisition of Committed Advisor. It's done. Two, we have reinforced our partnership with BNP Asset Management on the alternative side. As you know, cornerstone investors are very important to be the private asset management business on private asset and we want to pursue that. It's very important. The fourth bullet point is the organic growth. It's our priority to develop the business and we maintain the target of more than 200 million of FRA. We'll come back to that with a strong organic growth. And the fourth bullet point, it's I think a strong value proposition We want to spur organic growth with new products and we invest in new products in order to diversify our book of business. Those four elements are really the four milestones of our roadmap. Now we move to the organic developments. Slide 9. You have here the bridge of AUM. So let's start with the AUM. So as Laurent said, we are now at 48.7 billion of total AUM. One comment regarding the dry powder. We remain around 12 billion. We have less dry powder at IKEA and Monroe because there was activity in terms of investment over the quarter. So less dry powder, but at the same time, we have more coming from committed advisors. So dry powder remains high at 12 billion and it represents for Monroe future revenues. If we look at the fee-paying AUM at the middle of the chart, so we were at $31 billion Thank you very much. Cyril, you said to shareholder, no, it's to LP. To LP, sorry. Just to shareholder. Yeah, sure, sure. and 11% I think it's really the key figures to assess the organic development of our business. Next slide. So to pursue on the activity update. So fundraising, 2.2 billion of new equity raised in H1. As I said, 1.2 billion for committed advisor and 1.2 billion dollars for Monroe. I think it's a strong achievement. And one update also regarding the retail, the retail and wholesale. We had some slides and a discussion when we talked about Q1 earnings. If we look at the full, the first six months of the year, and if we look at, so MCIP is our main vehicle, evergreen vehicle, focused to retail and wholesale clients in the U.S. We look at the net subscription, less the redemption met in this vehicle, the net is 90 million, 90 million versus, you know, our total IUM and the 30 billion IUM of Mono, dollar of Mono. So as you can see, for sure there is less growth coming from retail, but when we look at the net outflows, it remains marginal for the development of our business.

White point I want to stress additionally that in 2026, there is no fundraising activity at IK, which is because the fundraising of the cycle We presented a slide during the capital market day in December where you had the sequence, and we are totally in line with this dynamic in terms of fundraising. Last comment on this slide, the revenue and GFRE. So as Laurent said,

26 million of fees reported over the first six months so it's up 56% but what is important I think also is to look at the organic development with the light for light perimeter and this it's a 12% growth on the pro forma basis and if we look at the same dynamic in terms of FRE it's 87 million up 46 on an actual basis but if we look at the pro forma we are at 95 million plus 11% and also what is important for us because we pursue our investment in the business in line with the development but we maintain the margin above 39% the FRE margin. Now if we go a little bit more in the business development of our three activities so IK Partners, our buyout GP so as Laurent said the 40th semester it was not fundraising it was the priorities were to return capital to shareholder and to deploy the capital In terms of return of capital, there were two announced transactions in H1, Innovat and Sophia, but also since the beginning of July, we have announced three exits, Coin4, ForceGate, and also many MDT technologies. It's a very important exit at three times on a realized basis, so it's a very strong achievement, and we have a strong pipeline to return capital this year to shareholders. It's key to pave the way for the fundraising next year. Deployment, three transactions announced. And also, as I said, we pursued the expansion of IK. We have opened now a new office in Madrid, in Spain, and we have now nine offices across Europe to source, you know, deals and create value for our clients. And we have hired for that an external partner, a very strong one, that will lead this office, effectively, from 1st September 26. Mono Capital. So, as Laurent said, there was no close and firm agreement Thank you very much. over the last two years, but first semester spread are up and LTV are down, which is, I think, very good for the quality of the deployment. In terms of fundraising, so Monroe, last year, they have completed the fundraising of their fund five, six billion. The good news is that now this fund is invested at above 80%. So it means that Monroe will be in a position to launch a new vintage of fundraising for the rest of the year, and I think it will accelerate the capital raising for Monroe for the next six months. On top of that, for Monroe, we pursue the diversification strategy. We are launching evergreen vehicles, new strategies in order to diversify the book of business and I think it will generate revenues in the future. Our last and new one, committed advisors, so what is important for them now is fundraising. For our committed advisors, They are going through their vintage, so they're raising two funds now. Their main fund, CSF6, they started in March, and also the fund dedicated to GP strategies. With those two funds, just over the quarter, they have raised 1.2 billion. In fact, for the fund CAGPS2, they started a bit in 2025, so if we sum what has been raised for those two funds so far, it's close to 1.8 billion. The target is 4 billion for two strategies. The pipeline is very strong. There is a strong appetite for the secondary strategies now. I think it will feed our growth for the coming months. Now if we move to the financial performance, you have on page 12 the dynamic on the KPIs on an actual basis, not a pro-pharma, so the growths are very strong. Now you have Close to 87 million of FRE over the semester. I've commented already the 56% and the 46% growth. I think it shows you the dynamic of the contribution of the asset management at the level of Vandale. But what is more important is to look at the next slide where you have the pro forma figures. You see the management fees, if we assume that we had committed advisor offer six months, so it's $239 million, so it's up 12%. The FRE for the semester on the pro forma basis is close to $95 million, up 11% versus the same period last year. And at this stage, we confirm our guidance to be above $200 million of FRE for the full 26 years.

Thank you Cyril.

Now we are turning to slide 14 to talk about Vendel Principal Investments which are the direct investments that we own our balance sheet. The main event of the first half of the year is the advisory assignment that we signed with IK Partners. As you know, IK since January 1st is advising Vendel on all existing and future controlled private investments. This advisory mandate is going very well. with very smooth relationship between the organization and we believe that we're going to create more value with this new setup. We announced since the beginning of the year the signing of two divestitures, Stahl and IHS, both in February 2026. As Laurent was saying, closings are on the way and we are waiting for the last regulatory approval for those two divestitures which are really well underway. In the next slide, I will describe the EBITDA growth and sales growth of our main investments, and as you will see, they did show up some solid performance over H1, but we'll go line by line in a few minutes. And last, those platforms did seven bolt-out acquisitions, very accretive acquisitions, five at Bureau Veritas, and two at Globe Educate over the semester. Turning now to page 15, So here we show the performance in terms of sales and EBITDA for the first half. First on ACAMS, you can see a modest growth. You need to remember that this is including the discontinuation of a non-core software business that ACAMS used to operate. If we exclude this small business that we discontinued, the organic growth was above 4%. and we do see some acceleration in terms of growth at ACAMS. The EBITDA growth was at 8.8%. We do see some margin improvement continuously at ACAMS with a very good control of fixed costs. For CPI, you can see some growth as well. More in the international operations. The U.S. operations still are impacted by some federal funding uncertainty. and the EBITDA grew by 3% over the first half. Global Decade is showing a very strong growth, both organically and M&A, as I mentioned previously. Scallion, we see some challenging market conditions for the business, but a very strong recovery plan managed by the management team. We see some traction in the core sectors of Scallion, being aerospace and defense, where the growth is meaningful, and some very strong measures being implemented on cost control. And so we believe that the numbers that you see here are going to show some meaningful improvements in the next quarters. I'm now turning to slide 16. showing you the portfolio when you take into account the sale of Stahl and IHS. You can see a balanced portfolio, almost 50-50, 50% of education and training businesses, including Global Educate, ACAMS, and CPI. And the other part of the portfolio is business services and industrial. You can see that Tarket now is a private company after the P2P, and Mignon is now fully carved out from Stahl. On page 17, a bit more information on the diversity program that we announced in December 2025. We told you that we have a plan to get 7 billion of capital proceeds. We already announced a bit more than 25% of this program being achieved with 1.2 billion euros coming from STAL proceeds in the next few months and a bit more than 500 million dollars coming from the IHS offer that NTN launched recently. You can see that our ratio in terms of loan-to-value is at a reasonable level at 7.8% and there is in the appendix more detail on those calculations. Turning now to page 18 and leaving the floor to Benoit.

Good afternoon. For the first half year 2026, The net income group share came in at 69.5 million euros, significantly above last year for the same period. If we look at the detail of this strong increase, first you can see that the contribution from the asset management platform has reached 78 million euros well above the previous year. It reflects the acquisition of Monroe in March 2025 and the acquisition of committed advisors in April 2026. The net income from the investment in the sponsor monnaie and Vandale Gross is 10.8 million euros H1-2026. In H1-2025, we made a depreciation on the fund-to-fund portfolio of Vandel Growth. That explains the loss you can see in this table.

Turning to WPI portfolio, we made a depreciation because we were to sell it and we sold it in line with that in the second half of 2025. It was a depreciation in view of selling it which has been done.

Thank you Laurent. So the net income from WPI portfolio All the portfolio companies have contributed to this increase however when you look at the group share of this net income it is stable because the percentage of ownership in Bureau Veritas decreased after the forward sale and the block sale we made in 2025. The operating expenses of Vendel were 36 million euros. The increase relates to specific costs of the first half year, 2026. In addition, last year we had a higher level of cash and we had higher money market rates. and then the income from the cash offset the bond coupons and this year this income does not fully offset the cost of the bonds. So overall the net income from operation is 418 million euros, 29% above last year. and in group share is 101 million euros compared to 54 in H1 2025. After non-recurring profits and losses of minus 80 million euros You rose mainly related to restructuring at the level of WPI portfolio after deducting the impact from the intangibles amortization and the adjustment of earnouts and other acquisition entries. The total net income, the IFRS net income is 3,021,000,000 euros, up 20%. Group share of this net income is close to 70 million euros in H1 2026. It was noting that the change in fair value of our stake in IHS is booked through the equity for an amount of 56 million euros.

On the following page... Just on the non-recurring items, most of them are coming from... W.P.I. W.P.I. is mostly B.V., in fact.

Yes.

Mostly B.V., just to... There's no confusion about it.

True. Absolutely. So this page presents... Our very strong financial structures. First, you can see that the LTV is 7.8%. It takes into account the proceeds coming from STAL and IHS expected in H2 2026. It's well below the 20% ceiling for our current rating. S&P rating, that is BBB. Second, we have an average maturity of our bonds that is six years, with the first bond maturing in 2030. and third, the cash amounts to 500 million euros before the proceeds will receive from the disposal of STAL and IHS. So this is fully in line with what was presented at the end of 2025 at the investor day. And I would add that this strong financial structure is very cheap because the average coupon of the bond is 2.8%. So, not very higher than the cash, the money market rates.

It's fixed rate.

Okay, thank you very much. So, in conclusion, I think that As you've seen, we are going exactly in line with what we expected in the development of the asset management platform. We're confirming our target of above 200 million of FRE for this year based on the full year ownership of a committed advisor and NIK. The development is well, there's a lot of initiative, fundraising is going well and we're very confident in our ability to continue growing the platform as explained by Cyril. We see very good development from the WPI portfolio. All companies have a process of increasing their They are EBITDA, even you've seen that Calion is effectively still on a negative territory but all action has been taken during the first half and we will see I think this impact in the coming quarters as mentioned by David. So it's important to see that the underlying companies are doing well in an environment which is not always but I can tell you we're spending a lot of time making sure and it is doing well. Then the fully diluted NAV is up 4.1 euro per share, including if we restate from the dividend payment. And I want to stress the strong accretive impact of the share buyback, which was a promise we made during the investor day. So we're delivering on our 2030 value creation ambition. and we've already returned 450 million to shareholders and as you see we're saying what we do and we're doing what we say.

Thank you.

At this time we will conduct the question and answer session. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of David Sirdon with Kepler. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, gentlemen. David Darmon from Kepler. First of all, I would like to congratulate you on the NAV performance. So it was clearly above my expectations, so congratulations for that. And the result has some questions regarding the NAV bridge. So to be simple, what was the evolution of the multiples retained to value the different assets and notably the WIM division? So is there any change in the peer multiples you retain between Q1 and Q2 for WIM and the different unlisted assets? My second question is more general and relates to the market environment for private asset. So could we have an update on the current mood among LPs both in European P or in the US for the credit, private credit? So in other words, do you see some sign of stabilization or something improving regarding the appetite, the concern, etc.? ? and my last question is regarding your debt inside your unlisted asset so several of them are highly leveraged or are leveraged so now money is more expensive so do you see some Have you tested what could be the impact of the new refinancing conditions? And do you think that you will need maybe to reinject some cash in some asset to face this debt repayment war? Thank you.

Thank you, David. So I'll start with the bridge. ACAMS, we have multiples for ACAMS. I think it's slightly down compared to the first quarter so we've taken basically I think ACAMS is in a very good trajectory and I think the value of ACAMS is in fact the company is more valuable today than the last quarter and than last year however we you know we follow our rules and we mostly are doing it on comparable multiples, so it's slightly down for this quarter, not big, but slightly down. Same for CPI, on exactly the same sector, it's down also for CPI. For WIM, well, no, we didn't change the panel of the asset manager, but you've seen a rebound on the value, a strong rebound. The first Q1, at the end of the Q1, we were deep in the value of the alternative asset managers, so I think the value in Q1, and I mentioned that was pretty low compared to the reality, we had to also refine the way we were, because it was not easy to Put into consideration because we're valuing 100% of the company and then we deduct the values of put, turn out and so on and to be fair we've made a better link between the two on this quarter also in order to make sure that this is an appropriate number that we provide to the market which is what we've done. I pass over to Cyril on the LP's mood On private equity or private debt, the only thing I can say on private credit is that you see that we have significant fundraised in the private credit, which shows strong appetite still from institutional LPs, but you will come back to that. And for the PE, again, we've not raised funds and we're not fundraising, but we're We see what is needed in order to make sure that we will be successfully fundraised next year. Cyril?

No, I don't know if you remember, but when we presented the Q1 earnings, we presented to you the PDI report, so I have the figure in front of me for Q2, and it's exactly the same trend. So you need to look at the market with institutional investors on one side and retail investors or wholesale investors on the other side. So... On the institutional side, and it's the very large part of the market, the second quarter was in line with Q1, record level in terms of fundraising. So it's even slightly above Q1. So if you sum the two, it's more than 200 billion raised fund and SMAs for the private credit as a whole all over the world, which is very good. The second good news for us with Monroe is is that when we look at the split of those fundraising for institutional clients, it's focused mainly on direct lending for 60% where Monroe is strong and it's focused on the U.S. private credit where Monroe has a strong presence. So it's very good for us and I think it's a very good signal for the fundraising that I mentioned during the presentation. On the other side, when you look at the retail, the dynamic remains totally different. You still have a request for outflows and it's true across the sectors for the non-traded BDCs. But we still have flows, as I said. If we look at, for Monroe, the plus and the minus over the quarter, it's negative, but it's not huge. And keep in mind also that the global non-traded BDC market is close to 250 billion globally, the assets. And when you look at the new money coming on the institutional side for just one semester, it's 200 billion. So just to The total market is more than 2 trillion. So it's important. We are on it. Wealth management and retail is a key engine of growth for us over the long term. So there is a situation. It has not improved on the retail and wholesale side in Q2, but we are working on it in order to deliver liquidity to clients when they want liquidity and to invest the money to the newcomer.

On private equity, we see some... I think what we see is that the good performers are raising funds well. And there's a lot of, I would say, there's much more differentiation between the selections. And that's why I think Cyril went through that. But it's so important that today with the team of IK, there's a lot of attention put on returning some money to their LPs We're not saying it's gonna be an easy environment It's not like everybody wants to rush into a PE, but there's still a significant amount of money that wants to be invested. Mid-cap Europe is part of the pick of the investors, which is really the sweet spot of the IK. And we view the quality of our team and our performance as being a key driver for success next year when we start fundraising. Nobody can say it's going to be easy, but I think we have a very strong element to be confident into that. The last point is the secondary market to finish on that, and there is huge appetite to go on to that, and we are very confident in the way that we will reach the four billion that we have as a target for the two funds under fundraising. at Committed Advisors.

And on Committed, if I may add, the appetite is on both institutional and retail, which is very interesting for Committed Advisors.

Retail and private bank, and high net worth in detail. Last question, because you had a few. Just the level of debt and debt repayment and so on. So, David, maybe a little bit of a highlight on that.

Yes, so our portfolio has a wide range of leverage. Half of our portfolio have actually a low or reasonable leverage and those are companies such as Puro Veritas, Tarket. Muno Orstal, who some of them are cash-free and others have like one or two terms in terms of leverage. At the same time, the other half of the portfolio, as you say, have a five to six times leverage, and those are the companies that you can see on slide 15, with ACAM, CPI, and Globe Educate, Scalion, which are more traditional LBOs with higher leverage. The first two companies, we did some refinancing recently, so we believe we have market rates, and so we don't expect to have an increase in terms of expense if we were to go to refinance these companies. On Global Decade, to the contrary, we do believe that if we were to refinance this company, we'll have a saving and a reduction in terms of interest expenses. Regarding the equity requirements, we are thinking that maybe some of those companies will require some equity injections because all those have an M&A program. As we mentioned, Global Decade is already close to acquisitions earlier this year and still has a healthy M&A pipeline. And other companies on this slide 15 have some targets in sight. and so we might have to put a small amount of equity for some of them but more to help them to grow than to reduce the leverage.

The only one for which we did so was Scallion but it has been done and now we're confident that they are at the right level otherwise it's really and it was part of the value creation plan is to support potential significant M&A by some of them that they cannot fund only with the cash flow of the company.

Thank you very much for your answers.

Thank you. One moment for our next question.

Our next question comes from the line of Alexandre Kassa with Kassa and Associates. Please go ahead.

Yes, thank you. Good afternoon. Do you hear me? Do you hear me? Excuse me. I have two questions. The first one is an account question. On page 11, about 17, the asset manager's amount at the end of June 2026 is $1,881,000,000 and was $1,727,000,000 at the end of 2025. I don't remember what the amount was was only 1,326,000,000 at the end of Q1, March of 2026. Is it a mistake, or could you remember us the explanation of these strange differences between end of 2025, end of Q1, and end of Q2? The second question is more important.

Yes?

The second question is more important and is related to the discount price of your stocks and the evolution of the net asset value per share since 10 years. With my spreadsheet, I see that the net asset value per share is now €159 at the end of June 20 to 2026 less than the net asset value of 2017, nine years ago when the stock price of Wendell was 140 euros. My question is could you anticipate that the net value Thank you for your question. The first one is that I don't have the figures in front of me, but the parameter is not the same for the second quarter compared to the...

At the beginning of the year, you only have on the platform IK and Monroe. And at the end of the second quarter, you have a committed advisor that has been added to that.

Yes, I understand that. But why that difference at the end of Q1? This is my question.

Because I told you the value we applied for Q1 was very low. That's what I mentioned and I keep saying that the... And that's it. I mean, I've been saying that and that's why we're... That's it.

But why this amount is less than the 2025?

Because it's not the same... Because we are using market multiples to value our business. and there was a lower value of the multiples of the alts during the first Q1. We specifically mentioned that during the Q1 session and that's why we see a positive now impact because the value has come down. The Q1 was really the dip of the value of the alternative asset management. I think we were very clear during the call. Sorry for my question. I understand now. No, no, no, no, no. And then you have from Q1 to Q2, you have a better multiple, but you also have the addition of committed advisor, which was acquired, closed in April 2026. I give no forward-looking position on share price or NAV. I hear your question, but I give no forward-looking statement on NAV and share price. I have given in the investor day, we're giving a target of what return we expect, but I don't give any short-term or even mid-term specific guidance on it. We've given clear guidance on the development of our asset management, which I think is also, and we're confirming those guidance with strength.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Alexander Girard with CIC. One moment please while I bring the speaker to the stage.

Yes, can you hear me?

Yes, yes, we can.

Yes, hello. Thank you for taking my questions. I have four quick questions. The first one is related to the BNP Paribas partnership. Could you please elaborate a bit on that? What do you expect from that partnership? Is BNP just a cornerstone investor, or are there also LPs in the funds too? The second question is related to Wim. If we go back to page 13 of your presentation, can we have the split or could we have the split between management fees and FRIs between IEC, Monroe, and committed advisors? The third question is related to Tarket. Tarket is now classified as a private asset, but you don't comment on that line despite the fact that Tarket is a non-negligible part of your NAV. So can we have a Can you elaborate a bit on that? And my last question is regarding your M&A opportunities, maybe in the second half of the year, both for WIM and for Bernadette Investment Partners. Are you still looking at opportunities? Thank you.

Okay. Let me... And I will hand over to Cyril on that. BNP Paribas Partnership. In fact, it started as being an AXA partnership. I'm saying that because that's how it started. AXA is significant as both things. It's LP and it also has, which has become BNP Paribas, a GP stake fund. So it has two qualities. and in fact the relationship started on Monroe where they knew Monroe well because they were a significant LP of Monroe and when we discussed with them of the fact that we were acquiring Monroe they said well we're happy to come with you as a GP staker and to keep on being a significant LP even more as in Monroe and then when we also did the committed advisor transaction we had discussion because we've got regular discussion with them but then it has become BNP Paribas because the merger between AXA-IM and BNP Paribas was consumed and we had exactly the same thing and it's a dual partnership it's a partnership with BNP Paribas investment manager or asset management I don't know their name now and also AXA because AXA is becoming also a partner or LP to Committed Advisor as well as to Monroe. And by the way, the former AXA GP stake fund is mostly money coming from the AXA fund So it's a dual now partnership between BNP Paribas and AXA and at the occasion of that merger it has allowed us to enlarge our relationship also with the BNP teams and their asset management team which is good and we now have a very confident relationship with them. We don't give the split of the FRA here, but I think that you can find out. It's in the accounts, so you will find it in the accounts. It's in the accounts. So we give the split. I thought we didn't agree with it, but in fact we give it some. But there's no secret, you'll see. The interesting thing is that the margin is relatively, the FRI margin is It's relatively similar on the different companies. Not the fee rate. Obviously, the fee rate is higher on PE, but the margin is relatively similar from one to the other. Tarket, well Tarket it's true that we didn't give any information, well it's not listed, it was used to come from the market information so in a very brief term Tarket is having a pretty good first half in terms of gross and EBITDA supported by largely the support business in the US which is one of the key drivers of the growth for for Tarket, and EBITDA is up, I don't have the numbers, but I think it's 4%, 4%, 5% EBITDA compared to last year. So a pretty decent, good performance, largely driven by the development of the sport business. M&A Opportunities. Well, you know, we have many opportunities in three domains. First, on WPI, at the company level, and the companies are looking always to see whether they can expand their business through bolt-on acquisition. This is true for BV, this is true for Global Educate, which is part of the model. This is potentially true for ACAMS or CPI and even Scallion, a small acquisition which is a little bit like having small teams coming and joining. We're not going to go for big things, but a few bolt-on acquisitions. So we look to a series of them on that. Second is we are constantly looking to new opportunities to invest money. And we've looked to a few investments during the first half. We didn't find anything which was what we wanted to do, but we are constantly monitoring that. And the team with the support of the IK Network is sending... Significant amount of good opportunities to us today. The last one is on the platform construction. And we've said that we've already created three expertise that we may want to have other expertise. I also say that the priority of the year 2026 was to create the platform, start to integrate, start to think about the Thank you very much.

Thank you. One moment for our next question.

Our next question comes from the line of Geoffroy Michelet.

Please go ahead.

Hi, thank you, gentlemen. One question for me on WPI. You mentioned that for small companies, you have a patient to put them back, I would say, in a more normal shape or pace. Could you elaborate a bit on the timing by which you expect, let's say, the growth to be back, let's say at a normative or decent level, and same question for the margin. Thank you very much.

Sorry, the line broke up, but I think the question was, when do you expect the growth to recover for the private assets? Is that it?

Yes. I ended the question... EKMC, PI, and Paulus Cagnon. Okay.

So, actually, EKMC is on a good growth trajectory. It's already like over 4% on H1, and there was a bit of revenues which slipped from June to July. We had a bit of a cut-off issue. H1 was actually much better in terms of operating performance. So the growth is still there. We see some acceleration, but we're already on a good trajectory.

To make it quick, the full year picture will give a better view than it is today, and we see significant growth potential coming on for the year to come.

Yes. On CPI, H1 was actually showing some good growth on international markets, the high single digit outside the U.S., And so the lack of growth you're mentioning is really on the US and that's the federal funding I was mentioning. So we don't see a change in the funding coming anytime soon. What we are seeing at CPI is a complete reorganization of the sales organization. We are hiring close to 14 new sales members. So we are really beefing up the team to be more aggressive on the ground. And we have hired a new chief of sales as well. So we don't expect a significant change in the market condition, but we do expect a strong improvement in how we turn this market into a higher growth platform. So in terms of timing, it's probably more 27 than H22026. We need a bit of time because we just hired those hunters. But the actions have been taken, the new leaders have arrived, and we have hired the team as well. And then on Scallion, I think we mentioned previously, we do see some good growth on our core markets. It's the long tail of the non-core market of Scallion, which is still suffering today. but H2, as I think Laure mentioned, should be better than H1, so we expect to finish the year on a positive momentum.

Thank you very much. Thank you. One moment for our next question.

Our next question comes from the line of Philippe Gaussens with De Groove Petercam. Please go ahead.

Yes, good afternoon, gentlemen. Thank you for taking my questions here. I have three of them. The first one, capital allocation. It was very helpful to see what your priorities are in terms of M&A. But you're sitting still, if I do the math correctly, on about 3 billion euros in financial dry powder. That is 500 million cash. The 1.7 billion, let's call it like that, proceeds from the Stalin, the IHS sales, and then the revolver with 750. You've just completed your 9% share buyback program. Can we expect that perhaps to become part again of capital allocation going forward, a new buyback program?

I think the right element to look at is not availability of cash because we have plenty in the LTV. LTV is 7.8%, which is a relatively low level and conservative level, which gives us some leeway. And then we've said that we will do a significant share buyback program. We've done it, more than 300 million that has been allocated to that. We've said that the total return we will do for the shareholders in the period will be significant, remember, from the Capital Market Day, and we will stick to what we've said. Doesn't mean that we want to do a new shareholder program this year, because we have to balance between share buyback and development of the different activities, but it's... We have a commitment in terms of shareholder return, and we will...

My second question relates to private credit, particularly Monroe Capital Income, the business development company. Can you give a percentage in terms of the redemption request that they received? Because yes, I did see the number you stated, 0.09, which is very small in terms of the absolute amount. But can you tell us what that would be as a percentage of assets?

No, no, for sure it's public information, so it's 8.9% and it was capped at 5%.

Okay, and have you seen a transition from Q1 to Q2, in other words, the 8.9, that's for the full year, but have you seen a deceleration or stabilization? No, no, it was...

No, the 8.9% was just for Q2. Q1, it was 5.3%. It's a tender every quarter in the middle of the month. So it's 5.3% Q1 and 8.9% Q2. The average for the industry for Q2 is above 14%, 14.4% if you look at the 20 biggest non-tradable BDCs. So it means that we are well below this average. Even if we are not satisfied with the level of redemption requests so far, but you know, it's 8.9% for MCIP in Q2.

And the net is effectively 90 million. The net is 90 million out of a 6 billion fund, just to give you the size of it.

It's 90 to 6 billion. Very helpful. Okay. And if I then recall correctly from the lunch we had a couple of months ago in Paris, Can you just give an update? If I recall correctly, you had indicated that Monroe was going to come to Europe. Any further updates there?

No, no, we are, you know, it remains very important. We have an ambitious diversification plan for Monroe with new product and also new strategies. So we are assessing various opportunities, whether it's team lift-out or Bolton acquisition in order to develop Monroe in Europe. Whether it's for direct lending or for asset-backed businesses. So we are working on it with the team. At the end of the day, we want to be sure that it will be Monro Europe, not something beside Monro. So it's why it takes time.

Okay. And then the final question, if I may. We had the announcement a couple of days ago from Revolut that they're going to try to democratize private equity and private credit in Europe with a number of deals they have announced, amongst others with Apollo. to allow investors with the Revolut app to make investments as low as 1 euro. Is that something over time where you would like to play in as well, the kind of the smaller retail investor that uses fintech to get access at much lower amounts to the private asset class?

It requires a long answer, but I will say that for us, Thank you so much, gentlemen. Very helpful, the answers. Thank you. Thank you. One moment for our next question.

Our next question comes from the line of David Sirdon with Kepler.

Please go ahead.

Yes, I would like to come back on the discussion regarding the evolution of the multipoles for the asset management platform between Q1 and Q2. Can you maybe give us a number on how much has changed the retained multipoles between Q1 and Q2?

No, we don't give detail on the calculation of our assets. But anyway, what is important is that the value we booked in the NAV at the end of June reflect our best estimate of what could be the value of the platform.

Okay.

Thank you. Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Geoffroy Michelet with Odo BHF. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Another question that you mentioned. You were thinking, maybe not this year, but at some point, to shareholder, I was wondering, with share buyback, you are increasing the stake of the family, which has already a high or an important stake. Is there any kind of problem with the financial authority of increasing the stake of the family regularly? Thank you very much.

We do comply with the regulation and it's very important. So when we decided to launch the last share buyback, we had meetings with the IMF and approved the share buyback program. So of course, we do comply with the regulation.

But in your view, do you think they could agree to accept another share buyback quite soon or do you think they would say it's a bit too early? Thank you.

I don't know because this is not our plan, so I cannot answer your question. Sorry for that.

Thank you.

Thank you. I will now turn the call over to Olivier Allot for questions from the webcast.

Thank you. We have two questions from the webcast. The first one, why no fundraising via IK in 2026?

As mentioned by Laurent, they have raised a lot in 24 and a bit in 25 and now they are deploying capital and the program for IKEA is to raise capital at the end of 27, beginning of 28. And as I said, you can look at the slide in the capital market day where you have the way we see the evolution of the different vintages for the next five to seven years.

Thank you. Another question, H1 pro forma IFARI was 95 million euros in H1.

The target implies about more than 105 million euros in H2. What drives the step up? It is deployment feeding the fee base in H2. If so, how much incremental deployment are you assuming versus H1?

As we said, we confirmed the 200. For sure, we will maintain a high level of deployment for Monroe Capital and also keep in mind that for committed advisors, each euro that will be raised in H2 with the catch-up mechanism will also start paying fees since the beginning of 26. So in fact, you have two effects. We maintain a high level of activity. and all money raised now from a committed advisor will pay fees starting beginning of 26. So for those two reasons, we maintain the 200 million for the full year.

Thank you. We have no more questions, so I think we can end this call. Thank you very much. Thanks, everyone.

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.