Wendel Aktie

Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, this meeting is both ordinary and extraordinary in light of the resolutions that you'll have to be voting on. We're going to ask [ Metro Simone and Bailey ] here in Paris to make sure that this meeting runs smoothly. The agenda was published on the Palo on the website of the company and is also in the convening notice that outlines the different businesses of your company, the resolutions that you will be able to vote on later on. You also have all the documents and information that you received 3 weeks at least before the assembly, and are also available here in the room.

We have not received any suggestion from shareholders to add anything to the agenda or any resolution. I suggest that we don't read all of the reports here. in the room, and we don't read all the resolutions either so that we have more time for discussions, presentations and a Q&A session. You'll get a chance to ask your questions before we vote on the resolutions.

Regarding the quorum, I look at the tenant sheet. And when I look at the number of shares that are representative, we have 71.15% of voters that are here, but we'll give you the final number before the resolutions before we vote. There will be 28 resolutions altogether. If you haven't already voted before the general meeting, you'll be able to do so with the tablets later on towards the end of the meeting. Back to you, Chair.

Well, I suggest that we follow the agenda that we have here. Laurent is going to walk you through the highlights of 2025 and the performance of our 2 businesses. Then David will be talking about the highlights of 2026 so far, which, as you know, was a quite or quite a few highlights already in 2026. Then we'll hear from the points on governance and compensation, and Sebastien will talk you through the resolutions. Christine will be talking about ESG performance. And then Malcolm will be speaking on behalf of the chartered accountants. Then we'll have your questions, and then you will get to vote on the resolutions. Laurent, back to you.

Well, thank you very much, Nicolas. Now I'm going to walk you through the highlights of 2025 and highlight our activities under WIM and under WPI. So A quick recap to start us off gave a presentation as we do every year during our Capital Market Day or Investor Day in December. And it's a chance for us to share our ambitions for the years to come with a vision until 2030. And it's good, I think, to start off with a bit of a recap of these ambitions. First of all, our ambition is to generate EUR 7 billion of cumulated cash flows through -- by 2030 through asset rotation. So selling some of our assets.

And then also by generating cash flow due to our asset management which we call FRE, fee-related earnings, essentially what we charge for managing assets. So that was the first bullet point and this EUR 7 billion will lead to a return in excess of EUR 1.6 billion to shareholders. So with share buyback, we have dividends being paid out. And actually, we've had some -- a share buyback program already this year.

Our organic growth or at least what we are aiming for. Our organic growth will allow us to increase our FRE by 15% per annum. That's taking into account our annual fees, not the performance fees. So it's a very important indicator in our industry. and our FRE will grow organically by 13% per annum. And then we are also forecasting a increase in the value, intrinsic value of WPI from 12% to 16% per annum. So it's very important for us to have these 2 engines, a long-term engine that creates more value. And then another business, which allows us to have some cash flow across the year.

So let's take a look at our business model and what we've been doing since 2025. I'm going to startup -- we started with our asset management. In 2025, we closed the acquisition of Monroe Capital. The acquisition was announced in 2024, but closed in March 2025. And what is important to note here is that in 2025, we raised some money. And if you take IT partners plus Monroe Capital and everything that we've raised with these 2 companies. So after investors were made aware of the change in the shareholder structure and after them joining our platform, it's EUR 11 billion that were raised. So that means that there's a great deal of trust in our model, our platforms and our teams.

Other important takeaway, we announced the acquisition of committed advisers. It's basically the third pillar of our asset management business. And this is part of the business that is growing very quickly right now because there's a huge demand on the private equity market. They want secondary liquidity. And so the funds that can do this like committed advisers are doing really well -- very well, sorry, at the moment. And then there's also all the continuation of vehicles that are performing well. So this is a unique kind of expertise and very few players have this expertise and committee and advisers is one of them. So we have this strong focus on the mid-market so midsized companies, basically, which is a segment where I think we can bring the most value to the countries we invest in or loan money to. This is where we can be the most profitable.

So when you include committed advisers and the acquisition that was realized in 2025, it's tantamount to EUR 50 billion that is being managed on the WIM platform, and it should generate EUR 200 million of FRE in 2026. So it's now a significant part of the business. When a couple of years ago, it was, well, 0 because it didn't exist at the moment -- at that moment.

And then when it comes to our principal investments, that's our long-standing business, we have divested to the tune of EUR 1.3 billion for the shares of Bureau Veritas through 2 transactions, completing -- completed in March and September 25.

And as Nicolas mentioned earlier, we gave a mandate to IK Partners, which is going to allow us to draw on the ecosystem of IK partners so that we are even more relevant in our investments. So we basically enjoy the expertise and the support from IK partners, the operating partners, the capital market expertise, for example, and we believe that with their support, the performance of our investment is going to be much better. IK Partners also introduces us to potential co-investors which will allow us to grow the amount that we're going to be investing in some companies in the future.

Now making all these announcements is all well and fine. I talked about the EUR 7 billion by 2030. It's great, but it could also just be a pipe dream. But in actual fact, we've also already -- we've already divested EUR 1.65 billion worth of assets. We have the proceeds of the disposal of Stahl that was in our portfolio for 20 years. And we sold it with an and a yield of 15% per annum. It was actually a bit more. I think it was 17% across 20 years, a great performance there.

And then we also disposed of, let's say, our last representative of our African journey that IHS, the transaction is underway, but we agreed in February 2026 to dispose of it. And since we have done this in 2026, we are able to reach the objectives that we set ourselves in terms of return for shareholders. And this allows us, for example, to execute our shareholder -- sorry, our share buyback program up to 9% of our capital. It also allows us to deploy new capital towards new investments, but also to grow our asset management business.

Now if we take a look at financial year 2025 at the end of the year. And if you look just at the 2 companies that we had at the time of IK Partners and Monroe Capital, we had EUR 41.2 billion of AUM and generating about EUR 350 million of fees, fees paid by the investors for the service that we provide.

With an adjusted result before tax. So this time, including the recurring fees and the performance fees of a total of EUR 146 million. It's up 156%. There's a scope effect because we didn't have Monroe last year and we had them this year. But even in pro forma, we had plus 15% for that particular indicator.

Now the total GAV of WPI stands at EUR 5.5 billion. with a positive impact of listed assets. However, unlisted assets were impacted by their performances. For some companies, it was a bit of a tricky year. I talk about CPI and scale. And the unlisted assets were also affected by the market that went down, so lower multiples. You know that we assess our companies by comparing them to listed companies that have pretty much the same profile to these companies that we've bought. And these assets were also impacted by foreign exchange. We've invested in Europe and the U.S.

As you know, the value of the dollar went down after a Liberation Day in 2025. So that led to a drop in value of the 2 assets that we had invested in, CPI and ACAMS. So the fully diluted net assets or taking into account the issuance of shares or self-help shared stands at EUR 164.2 as of December 31, 2025.

Now if you look at the companies that we've invested in, the largest one is Bureau Veritas when you look at its turnover but also its valuation. But it's more interesting to look at organic growth. I think it's a better indicator. You can see that the organic growth of Bureau Veritas stands at plus 6.5%. So a good growth rate and above global GDP, global company. and an operational profit for BV and BVI that stands at more than EUR 1 billion with a margin that stands at 16.3%, when it was 16% last year. So the operational margin has improved as per their strategy.

ACAMS now that's an American company. They enjoyed good growth last year, plus 9% and a margin at 24.4%. So decent margin, which has grown since last year. CPI had a bit of a trickier year with a growth of 0.9% after several years of double-digit growth. CPI is basically present on 2 markets: education in America and hospitals. And both these markets had to deal with the budget cuts that were enforced by the Trump administration. So it doesn't directly affect but the industry that they operate in as a whole were affected. So there was a knock-on effect that ended up affecting. And we changed also the management because managers, right -- because the previous manager retired, so a new manager at CPI.

The margin remains very high at 49.5% of EBITDA, which is great. Global Educate here, growth is at around 10%. It might -- it's a bit difficult to do organic growth because a lot of changes in scope have happened of late. But the takeaway is that the margin is at 26% and the operating profit, EUR 108 million, is good growth, good organic growth and a great platform also to grow externally, which will allow Globe Educate to bring in more schools into their business.

Scalia, they had quite a hard year, minus 9%. That's for organic growth. and EBITDA that stands at EUR 55 million, so 11% margin, so slightly underneath our expectations. We performed a number of changes. We changed the General Director during the year. For example, with a new General Director, [ William Rose from Capgemini ], who's doing an outstanding work to help this company recover. And I think that we are on the good track in industry that was very much disrupted in 2025. So things are looking better and things are looking up for 2026 and looking forward.

Regarding asset management now and asset management business for private equity, we raised EUR 1.3 billion of equity in 2025. But it was a campaign that run across 2 years. So when you look at the total amount that was raised by IK, it's actually more than EUR 6 billion, be it for their main strategy. The flagship mid-cap strategy, but also under the small-cap captive strategy. So total is EUR 6.2 billion, and that was the top -- of the top end of the objectives that they set themselves. So it really speaks to the great performance of IK. It was a very busy year. We have EUR 0.9 billion million proceeds from full exits and EUR 800 million that was deployed in 13 transactions by IK and the teams.

The AUM went up by 11%, thanks to this fundraising in 2025. And we also created an LTIF fund to support the development of the wealth management business. Private credit now for the U.S. and Monroe, EUR 3.8 billion, sorry, of equity rate in 2025, AUM plus 22% in 2025. And we have now this ability to invest investments that have not been made with more than $6 billion of capital available for deployment. Now this is important because in private credit, you only get fees from assets that you are trusted with once you've done the investments, contrary to private equity, where you start receiving fees once it's been invested.

So it shows that Monroe has a greater capacity for deployment during the year and is doing it very smartly. In 2026, we have a project that of growing Monroe Capital in Europe launching it. And for secondary, as I've mentioned earlier, so I won't be getting back on that now.

Now let's take a look at our P&L. It's always a bit frustrating to look at the P&L because you have to look at for the lens of the IFRS and it doesn't really reflect our true value creation because -- when we sell assets that we've consolidated the proceed of that is not in the P&L, it goes straight into our equity, so grows our equity.

And in 2025, our capital gains was more than EUR 1 billion for the Bureau Veritas shares. And for IHS, it was about EUR 200 million in the value gap. But that's reflected in the equity and the rescues in the P&L. So it means that the perception of the net consolidated results might look different to what actually happened during the year. You can see that our asset management now reaches EUR 127.5 million. So a significant increase compared to the previous year.

Now the other numbers are slightly down because Bureau Veritas is no longer reflected there. We also have lower operating expenses. We try and be as careful as we can in that regard. And the other highlight is that we have financial costs, which are negative this year. They were at EUR 36 million in 2024. That was because we had a lot of cash. That's for our financial expenses. But we had to spend a lot at the end of the year for Global Educate and Monroe.

And secondly, the interest rates were much higher. So we had higher returns in 2024 versus 2025. So this is why we have a huge gap in our financial expenses. Now let's take a look at the dividend. As Nicolas reminded us earlier, the company is going to propose a dividend of EUR 5.1, a dividend that we've paid out or at least in part with the interim dividend in November 2025. So if the EUR 5.1 figure is approved by shareholders, then we will have to payout at the end of the May, I believe it's on the 26th, EUR 3.60 the remaining part of the dividend after the EUR 1.5, that was paid in 2025.

Let me just go back to this slide here and speak to the growth because we're a plus 8% compared to last year and plus 17% if you look at 2022. In terms of cash, now because it's interesting to look at that as well. Last year, shareholders of Wendel received an ordinary dividend of EUR 4.70 which was paid out at the end of the 2025 Shareholders Meeting. But shareholders also received in October or November EUR 1.50. So that was the interim dividend. So they received EUR 6.2 altogether.

This year, shareholders will receive EUR 3.6, so in addition to the interim dividend of EUR 1.5, and they will be receiving also an interim dividend in 2026 in November 2026, which makes up half of the dividend of 2025 EUR 2.55. So which means a flow of cash of EUR 6.15 paid out for 2026 or in 2026. So up 24% and compared to what was paid out in [ 2023 ]. So that's for the annual average, of course.

That's it for 2025. And I will now give the floor to David so that he can provide more detail on what has happened since the first quarter. It was quite an upheaval from a geopolitical stance -- and political stance, but he will provide more details.

Thank you very much, Laurent. Good afternoon to everyone. I will now talk about development since January 1. And obviously, a lot has taken place. First of all, let's go back the performance, the financial performance during the first quarter. If we look at what Laurent said earlier, and we talked about the 31st of March, we at EUR 41.8 billion for assets under management for IK and Monroe Capital, which were the 2 entities who are part of the group on March.

As Laurent said earlier, the closing of the acquisition of the committee advisers happened in April. And we -- if we take into account this recent acquisition, we are around EUR 50 billion in AUM today. In terms of revenue, during the first quarter, this yielded EUR 106 million in commissions for IK and Monroe only because -- committed advisers was closed afterwards. This represents a 129% increase and 8% in organic growth because there was a change of scope. Remember in the first quarter of 2025, Monroe Capital was not part of our activities. In terms of Wendel principal investments on the right, you will see that growth is at EUR 5.5 billion. There has been a positive impact of listed assets and our IHS values have been -- have increased and our nonlisted assets were impacted by a decrease in terms of stock performance because on the 31st of March, there was a problem in the market. And when we took a screenshot of what was going on, we were penalized by the contraction of peer multiples.

The NAV, which is fully diluted is -- was EUR 158.4 million on the 31st of March or a decrease of 3.6%. And this evolution shows that there was an accretive impact of share payback performed in the first quarter, and this had an impact on the NAV. If we look at this more specifically, this decrease, we see that there's a decrease of EUR 8.5 of NAV on investment manager activities. This reflects the decrease in peer multiples on the stock market. We had a [ $0.40 ] change with a double impact that was stated earlier. There was an increase of listed assets, specifically IHS and the contraction of nonlisted assets, which I talked about earlier, and they neutralized to have a [ $0.40 ] impact.

There were no changes on these activities. And the operational costs have been maintained and had an impact of EUR 0.70 in euros per security in this quarter. The share buyback positive effect was 3.3%, and this represents 4.7 of share capital, and we were able to benefit from this because the decrease was EUR 50 on the AV quantity.

If we look more closely at the evolution of assets, in Wendel Principal Investments, we can see that Bureau Veritas had an important organic growth of 4.5%, but was impacted by a change decrease of 5.2% and the total variation was of 0.8 decrease. Scaling also decreased 4.6%. So the decrease is less important than what Laurent said earlier, we can see that things have recovered, but there has been growth since the beginning of the year, and this penalized us in the first half of the year, but we can see that the tendency has started becoming more positive. There was also an organic decrease of 0.7% and a positive impact change ACAMS continues to perform well with an organic growth of 5%, combined with a 0.6% impact change.

And Globe Educate, as you can see here, you can see the stats earlier, there is a balanced growth, an increase of 6.3% in organic growth. due to the evolution of prices. And there was a scope effect. We have acquired many small schools, and there has been a negative impact change, which had an impact of 12.5% during the first quarter.

To go back to the divestments mentioned earlier, when it comes to Stahl. This was in our portfolio since 2006, so around 20 years. At the beginning of the year, we signed a divestment project with Anko. And we will receive EUR 1.2 billion in estimated net proceeds. This is a little bit more than the NAV in the third quarter of 2025. So the last publication of NAV was 20% less. This represents 15% of TRI over 20 years, so very good performance over a number of years.

And over the past 20 years, this represents 6.6% the investment -- the initial investment that we put into stale. If we talk about operational performance, as you can see on the right, we have tripled revenue and so important growth from an organic standpoint. The results also grew. They quadrupled over 20 years because we were able to improve average margins by 5% over this period. And we have also worked on repositioning the group with divestments, mergers and acquisitions to ensure that we are a player with a clear activity and an attractive activity, which has attracted angle. And this divestment was therefore very attractive. So on the long term, we are very happy with the evolutions.

Now I'd like to go back to the divestment of our participation in IHS, we expect $535 million from this divestment. This represents 21% more compared to the third quarter of 2025. However, compared to the initial investment, this represents 0.7% -- 0.7x what we invested between 2013 and 2026. Our first investment was 13 years ago.

So why is this investment disappointing? As you can see on the right, the operational performance was spectacular, revenue was multiplied by 10. The EBITDA was multiplied by 21. So with very strong growth in margins. There was operational work here in terms of organic growth and acquisitions. But our investment was penalized by external factors.

First of all, the devaluation of Naira, the first currency, functional currency of the group from Nigeria, and it was divided by 8. And the second factor was the derating the decrease of average multiples, and this penalizes because when we invested in 2013, 2014. This sector showed strong value, but this is no longer the case. So these external factors had negative impacts on the spectacular progress that you can see above.

Let's now turn our focus to wins progression during the first quarter. We are talking about 50 billion of actives under management, AUM, the closing of the acquisition of committed advisers to place in April 2026. This is a giant on the secondary market. This is the first time we are presenting this actor to you and. We will have 2 slides to introduce this group to you.

In terms of fundraising during the first quarter, there was EUR 1.5 billion in equity raised for the first quarter. And as Laurent said, the fundraising activity of AK partners yielded very positive results. In terms of revenue during the first quarter, the commissions were at EUR 106 million but there was an organic growth effect of 8% and the change in scope because in 2025, during the first quarter, we had not yet consolidated Monroe Capital.

Now I'd like to provide more information on committed advisers. This is a company which was created in 2010, with a team of around 50 people in 3 different offices, as you can see on the right, big office in Paris, another one in New York and a third one in Singapore. So the team is really international and is very involved around the world.

Today, 7.7 billion assets under management and 19% gross IRR on average across the different funds of the group. And a lot of accumulated experience more than 223 shares over the past 15 years. And as you can see, we are in the mid-market range here. which is consistent with the rest of the portfolio because I and Monroe Capital are also actors in this strategy. In terms of commissions and FRE in 2026, we are envisaging EUR 45 million in commissions for the year.

If we add up these 3 platforms, this -- these are the results for WIM on the 31st of March 2026. As you can see at the end of 2024, we started with Monroe and IK Partners and organic growth of this strategy took us to less than EUR 43 billion. And if you add EUR 7.7 billion committed advisers on the 31st of March 2026. This platform manages roughly EUR 50 billion in terms of commissions and FRE for 2026, we are talking about EUR 200 million of EUR 45 million that we have just acquired from committed advisers, and we are envisaging this for 2026. And this gets added to the commissions from Monroe and I which are in excess of EUR 150 million for 2026.

I'd like to say a word on the results. To date, as you can see, we have a solid structure of financing with very high liquidity and credit lines, EUR 1.6 billion in gross debt. And combined to other factors, our loan-to-value percentage is 7.8%. And this is a very positive figure. The average maturity is 6.3 years long maturity, and we don't have any deadlines in the next 4 years. So really, our long-term debt until January 2034 is spread out throughout different years. So we do not have any short-term deadlines.

We also made the most of the weakness of markets a few months ago to change the way we finance. And so we have bonds that are relatively weak. This gives us credit that is very well scored by S&P, as you can see at the bottom of the slide, a BBB grade, which is a very good grade and solid results for our group. So these are the takeaways that we must take note of. A good start of the year for 2026. And committed advisers joining the group, which we mentioned earlier, we'd like to confirm our ambitions of over EUR 200 million in commissions for 2026. We have also seen positive growth in terms of our portfolio with certain topics that are sticking points, but we are actively working on them. And in terms of the AMV, I talked about the decrease of peer multiples, which had an impact on our non-listed assets. And so this represents a slight decrease this quarter.

And now I'd like to talk about the ESG performance of the group, and I will welcome Christine Anglade, to talk about this.

Thank you very much, David. Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, hello. So I'm now going to talk about the ESG performance of our group. I'm going to talk about the scoring that we get every year. As you can see, the results are solid. We don't necessarily choose to be scored by the scoring agencies. Each of them have their own specificities and their own methodologies. As you can see, these scores are solid, stable. MSCI has given us a A grade. This puts us in a leading position. And this reflects the quality of our governance and the responsible investment processes, which we have proved over the years at Wendel.

The next scoring agency is also very important. We are talking about negligible risk. That is how we have been graded. That means we are in the top in our sector. We are 11th out of 184 companies -- and so once again, these numbers are very -- these results are very positive. The CDP carbon disclosure project is an agency who evaluates our capacity to against climate change, and we have been given a grade of B in terms of leadership. I don't think it's possible to go beyond this grade because this rating is not adapted to investors given that we do not work in industry. So this is very positive. It means that we have the right processes.

I would now like to spend some time talking about a very interesting grade that was given to us because this covers a lot of ground when it comes to ESG. For the sixth consecutive year, Wendel -- we're not only talking about a grade here. This is also a stock exchange index. And for the second consecutive year, we are part of GSI word in Europe. And today, this is Dow Jones best-in-class indicator. And this is an important distinction because it is a very demanding grading system. It's a 40-day exercise to fill in the survey just so that you get an idea. And so we know where we stand here. And we now know where we have to go, and so we are fully committed to this exercise. And it's not enough to have a positive rating to be part of this list. It's a bit like when you take a medical entrance exam, either you do well or you're out. So we are very happy to be part of this list. And over the past few years. This is a long-term performance.

And so when we look at this slide, how can we compare all of this? It is impossible to compare because we are talking about different methodologies. The topics are different, but perhaps we must tell ourselves that this is an overall performance, which is evaluated through different methodologies and focus points. we will obviously try to continue our efforts next year even though we are in a particular context in terms of the change of our model and we must also adapt our governance and reporting models, which are very important when it comes to ESG, especially because we are developing the management of third-party investments.

So like all listed companies, we have a sustainability index. And this year, we have been doing this for 2 years. This is the second year before the context was different. But now we must be able to integrate all of these new factors. In the first year, we had IK Partners, a European partner. So the context was similar. And it was easier to include them in this regulatory environment. This year, we added Monroe as a new actor. And so we have reinvented our model in terms of CSRD reporting.

On the one hand, what we can divide the report in 2. It's a 60-page report. So obviously, I am summing things up here. On one hand, you can see Wendel Investment Managers or WIM, and we wanted to include investment factors. This covers vendor. We are an investor. This is our traditional activity. IK Partners, Monroe capital next year, we will include committed advisers. And each of these companies have an investment policy they are not all the same. Naturally, we cannot all expect the same thing for Monroe Capital or from IK or Wendel. But if I had to sum up, IK and Wendel work in similar ways when it comes to these matters.

But today, 100% of those who were part of Wendel think that it is positive to have a responsible investment policy. On the other hand, our -- when it comes to vendor Principal Investments or WPI, there is a differentiated reporting based on the consolidation level. So there's a complete reporting for consolidated companies, Bureau Veritas, Stahl, ACAM, CPI and scaling and reporting is partial for IHS and Globe Educate.

And the CSR -- has asked us to do this. Today, we have the ability to respond to the requirements of the CSRD because 100% of the companies that are consolidated managed a double materiality analysis. 87% of ESG are covered by SBTI commitments. So we are going in the right direction. And today, we can say that we are performing well when it comes to SRD. Next year, the report will be completely different because the RD is being overhauled and we are quite pleased to note this because we believe that this will summarize reporting and streamline it and will allow us to focus on more material questions, and we will have more breadth to choose the topics that we consider important for our company. So I cannot really tell you how this will all take shape because this hasn't evolved yet but I think that this reporting will be relevant, and we will continue to deploy all the efforts that we can to ensure that we are performing well in terms of ESG. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Christine. I would now like to give the floor to William Torchiana, the President of the Governance Committee and the Sustainability Committee to present the compensation of the Executive Board as well as our performance.

I should have brought my sunglasses. It's very well lit here. Thank you very much Nicolas, ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, it's a pleasure to present the governance of Wendel as well as the compensation of the Supervisory Board.

Let us begin by talking about the supervisory committee. You can see here the 12 members this year, the mandates of Franca Bertagnin Benetton as well as my own expire. And so we would like to vote on the renewal for a new 4-year period. We would also like to vote on the naming of Alamisoft as observer of the Board. This is a temporary status, which will allow him to have a consultative role until the second shareholders' meeting, which will take place in 2027. His nomination will be subject to vote.

[ Alami Soff ], who's biography, you can see on the screen is Director General of cross-cutting development at -- and he will become the CEO of Wendel-Participation at the beginning of June. He will come and introduce himself in a few moments.

After the meeting and subject to your vote, the Board would have 40% of independent members and 40% of the members would be women, 1 observer and 4 nationalities the 2 committees of the Board, the Audit Committee and the Governance Committee, you can see the makeup of these committees on the screen.

When it comes to the Executive Board, as you know, it is made up of Laurent Mignon, who is the Chairman; as well as David Darmon, who is the Director of General. The Executive Board's mandate will last until April 2029. Let's now move on to the question of compensation for 2025 for the Executive Board. The compensation policy, which was approved by the shareholders meeting last year was applied.

As you can see on the screen, the amounts of compensation, which are fixed and variable, of executive Board members. And you will also see other benefits. The variable compensation was determined based on predetermined objectives. In terms of financial goals, the Board determined that these goals were achieved at a percentage of 87.7% after analyzing the performance of the companies under the portfolio and third-party asset management. In terms of extra financial goals, the Board looked at the different accomplishments and the rate of success was 83.3%. And the portion waiting was different. The members of the Executive Board will receive 86.4% of their variable compensation. subject to your vote, of course.

The long-term compensation for 2025 was also follow the conditions that were voted on last year when it comes to the performance and the shares structured in 3 different plans, AP1, AP2, and AP3. And they also respected performance, presence and holding conditions. But we would like to subject this to your vote in terms of API and API for 2025, and we would like to cap the holding conditions, which apply at 50% vested for 4 years. And AP2 and AP3 will be divested or able to be divested when beneficiaries hold 200% of their fixed compensation in Wendel shares.

Let us now look at the compensation policy for the Executive Board for 2026. As you can see here, you can see the main factors that make up the compensation policy in the short term, there have been no changes vis-a-vis 2024 and 2025, fixed compensation is at EUR 1,300,000 for Laurent Mignon and EUR 770,000 for David Darmon and variable compensation, which represents maximum 115% of fixed compensation. In terms of variable compensation for 2026, this depends on attaining financial objectives for 70% and extra financial goals, 30% of attainment of these objectives.

The main changes can be seen in green on the screen. And the goals linked to Wendel investment managers has been increased by 20% to 25%. And the one linked to Bureau Veritas' performance was reduced by 20% to 15% to reflect asset management for third-party investments within Wendel's strategy. The HR and ESG criteria were merged and represented 10% of variable compensation.

Let us now move on to long-term 2026 compensation. The structure of long-term compensation was overhauled last year. The renewal of the mandate of the Supervisory Board -- of the Executive Board, where we removed the carried interest. It now relies on performance shares structured in 3 different plans, AP1, AP2, and AP3. The general budget makes up 1.3% of the capital for all beneficiaries. That means employees and members of the Executive Board. The characteristics of these plants, which remain unchanged since 2025 are displayed on the screen. With, for example, a presence condition of 4 years or criteria for years. performance also that runs across 4 years. And it also relies on the evolution of the TSR. And also improvement in the AP1 for the evolution of the dividend. And also conditions for how long the shares have been held.

And we believe that this helps us to reach the mid- and long-term objective of the group and the value creation also objectives for our shareholders. So to sum up all of these elements, we have a balanced and challenging structure of the compensation for the Executive Board. As you can see on the pie chart on the left, long-term compensation outweighs, short-term compensation. And on the right-hand side, you can also see that 80% of the compensation is tied to performance I'm going to conclude this presentation with the compensation of Supervisory Board members. We have Nicolas Ver Hulst, the Chairman his compensation is in keeping with the policy that was approved last year. And for 2026, the Supervisory Board members policy is up on the screen. The budget remains the same, 900,000, and it's the same in 2017.

The structure of this compensation shows that there's a greater variable part compared to the fixed part. And in keeping with the appointment of observer this year. We suggest taking a part of that budget to compensate our observer a compensation that makes up half the compensation or annual compensation of a Supervisory Board member.

This presentation is now over. And I'd like to thank you for your kind attention, and I'm to give the floor to Alami. Apologies for my slight American accent when speaking French.

Well, I'm going to be extremely brief. Thank you very, very much, William. We have to wait for the approval of my position as an observer, but then is like to say that I'm very happy to join the Supervisory Board. I'd like to thank the members for this great honor bestowed upon me I am linked to the family in 3 different ways. So I like to think that I know the history of vanilla for the future. I think I'm very well passionate to arrive at the Board, where Laurent Mignon is here and has started off a deep transformation of the group. So for me, these are very exciting times. Still regarding my personal journey. I can sign my book on the women of the family, the Wendel family. I've written a book about them. Women who have marked contemporary history and I'll be more than happy to sign a copy of the book for any shareholders who are interested. Now regarding my professional background, I've worked a lot in insurance and in health. And I'm in charge of crosscutting development for insurance. We cover all of the areas of insurance for companies, small SMEs, larger companies. and SBF 120 or CAC 40 companies. So we cover all these different profiles. And the company I work for a French company. with a revenue of EUR 1.3 billion with 1,500 people working for it, and we want to become a huge European and international player.

So my group is in touch with a lot of companies, a lot of company managers, executive managers and operate in many fields where there are so many digital changes that we see nowadays. And I'm also married, I've got 4 children. Yes, if you want to be really very exhaustive about my journey so far. Thank you very much, and thank you for your kind welcome among you.

Well, thank you very much, William, and Alan for this great presentation. I recommend Alami's book since he mentioned it. I think it's a very interesting read and Christine knows it. It's a company that has been managed by women. Precilla, of course, is -- Chair of the holding of Wendel, but she's standing down, which, of course, makes me quite sad because Precilla and the Supervisor Board worked really well together.

But there are some critical moments in our history that are very well detailed in Alami's book, the French Revolution, for example, where Marguerite [ Dozen ] had to deal with the Army of immigrants that was battling in Austria and the French Revolution and had to rebuild the group after the evolution. And then [ Josephine Decor ] who at the end of the wage pressure in 1871 made a very tough decision that of rebuilding the furnaces in Lauren region, which had been invaded by Germany. And they believe that it was their duty at the time to rebuild these furnaces. And that choice was made to rebuild these finances in the French region of Lauren. So these are tough decisions and good decisions that were made by women at Wendel.

And we have another comment sadly of Mike, but it's about another woman who it would seem made a great contribution to the -- of Veneto okay, just to advertise Alan's book and the role of women at -- Owen Alan didn't mention UCC, now they are a partner for Wendel and they're #1 in France. It's the broker to be more precise.

Over to you now for the presentation of the resolutions.

Dear shareholders, we are going to be voting on 28 resolutions, the resolutions are probably not as interesting at Alan's Book. So I suggest that we group them on the themes, a first one for the 2025 fiscal year approval of accounts. second group on governance and a third one on the renewal of financial authorizations.

So Resolution 1 and 2 aim at approving the financial statements of Wendel. The third resolution is on net income allocation. and the distribution of a dividend of EUR 5.1 and an interim dividend was paid out in November 2025, EUR 1.5 and EUR 3.6 remaining will be paid out if the resolution is approved. Fourth resolution, here, we'll be looking at the approval of regulated related party agreements entered into with Wendel-Participation, but we'll hear more from that in a minute.

Now for the fifth and sixth resolution, on the renewal of Mr. Franca Bertagnin Benetton and Mr. William Torchiana as Superior Board members for 4 years. Seventh resolution, appointment of Mr. Alan Misof for a year as an observer.

Moving on now to resolutions on compensation. William outlined them earlier. Eighth resolution will allow us to perform an adjustment for 2025 to the Executive Board, long-term compensation, ninth and 10, 11, 12 resolution on the compensation for 2025 for Laurent Mignon, David Darmon and Nicolas Ver Hulst. 13 to 15 resolutions are on the compensation policy for the members of the Executive Board and the Supervisory Board members.

Moving on now to financial authorizations. There are quite a few this year, as you know. We're going to start with Resolution #16 and the share buyback. So here, we suggest buying up shares of the company up to 10% of the share capital. And simultaneously, there's the 17th resolution to perform share capital reduction up to 10% of the share capital by 24 months period. Of course, any share capital reduction is subject to prior Supervisory Board authorization. Now for share capital increases, we are going to approve a cap on the 18th resolution. You've got the detail up on the screen. 19th to 25th resolution, they're basically about giving enough flexibility and agility to the company to allow an increase of the share capital, but still subject to approval of the Supervisory Board. They run for 26 months and cannot be used during public offering campaigns. These capital increases can -- sorry, share capital increases with preferential subscription rights up to 40% of the share capital and share capital increases without preferential subscription rights up to 10% of the share capital. So as for Resolution 20 and 21.

And finally, we can also have capital increase by incorporation of reserves, profits, premiums or other items, after 50% of the share capital. Now moving on to employee shareholding. You have 2 solutions in that regard. #26 to renew the delegation to increase capital reserved for members of the group savings plan, which can be implemented up to 200,000 and a share price discount of maximum 30%.

27th resolution, that covers performance shares, grants to corporate officers and employees with an overall cap of 1.3% of share capital and special caps for Executive Boards the compensation policy limits, et cetera.

28th resolution, that's the powers for legal formalities after the shareholders meeting. That's it for this presentation over to our Chair. We're now going to hear from Mr. Malcom Soso, who is our statutory auditors from for this Masato read out his reports.

Good afternoon, dear shareholders, on behalf of the statutory auditors for this matter and Deloitte. I would like to share with you our findings on financial year that ended on 31st of December 2025. All of the reports were made available by the company and can be found in the main document that is available on the website of the company. As per usual, I suggest that I sum up these reports. First of all, our report on the financial statements, which was prepared under the French law and standards. That report is on the page of 358 to 361, at least in the French version. So we have no caveat on this. It's been approved under the ANC regulation that covers modernization of financial statements. This report on financial statements has a chapter devoted to our audits on any risk or potential risk. So we've looked at the potential risks and potential solutions. We looked at financial accounts. We looked at debts and securities.

Regarding our report on consolidated financial statements based on the IFRS rules approved by the EU which actually covers Resolution #2. You have this in Page 334 of the main document. We've certified these accounts with no additional comments. The key point of our audit in that regard was the capital, the accounted capital transactions for Bureau Veritas. The measurement of goodwill, and the accounting of the acquisition of Monroe Capital.

We also confirm that in these reports, we've performed all the checks under venture law, and we have no observation to make and the regulations were very much followed by the company. We also have a special report on related party agreements. That's in Page 386 are the main document once again, in the French version.

In the first part of our report, we mentioned a related party agreements signed during the financial year, which needs to be approved -- that agreement was with Wendel-Participation. It's basically an agreement to the sublease of workspaces policies and an amendment to the IP agreement contract. Similar agreements were approved in previous years. This related party agreement pertains to agreements with Wendel-Participation or co-investments with members of management or the Supervisory Board.

For the extraordinary part of the assembly, we've produced a report on the decrease of capital. So you had this in line 1 of the document. We have no comment to make on the observations to make on that particular item. Another report was produced on the value of assets of the company. That's for Resolutions 18 to 24. So on the issuance of shares or various securities with or without cancellation of subscription rights. And then we have the issuance of ordinary shares or various securities reserved for members of the company savings scheme. That's for Resolution #26 and also for allocation of existing shares or shares to be issued as for Resolution 27. So we've got reports to all of these items. We have no observations to make on the price for the issuance of shares.

And then finally, for the second year of CSRD and its enforcement, we have a report on certification of sustainability, which you can find in the main document, and on the basis of the work that we've done, we haven't seen any mistake or any significant inconsistency when it comes to the competency of the application of this new regulation, ERS. We have not identified any material errors be it in communication of indicators under the group's taxonomy. Therefore, we've issued a limited no-reserve opinion for 2025.

Our observations in this report mainly covered financial issuance on recent portfolio activities, acquisitions of partners and Monroe Capital, information also on the operational difficulties encountered by Stahl in consolidating information relating to air and water pollution and information on Bureau Veritas' payment practices. As the company continues to develop indicators relating to supplier payment terms.

Dear shareholders, thank you very much for your kind attention. Now moving on to the Q&A session. We haven't received any questions in writing. So I suggest that we give the floor to the people in the room. I'm going to ask shareholders to please stand up if they have a question. We have roving microphones in the room that will make their way to you. And I'll ask you also to introduce yourself before you ask your question. And please speak into the microphone. Who wants to kick us off?

An individual shareholder. I've got 3 questions, mainly on Monroe Capital because you became shareholders of Monroe Capital. I am shareholder of that company through [ LiteBC ]. It had to be saved by a other company called now Horizon Technology. So my first question is, what was the level of your involvement in BDC or in upstream companies? Second question on the exposure, what kind of exposure? Does this give to private lending in the U.S. to Wendel? Could you give it to us in dollars? And what's your perspective on that sector when you know that interest rates and inflation is going to remain high. Is that not going to hinder companies in the portfolio? We saw first bankrupt, for example.

Now Mr. Mignon. I remember you as a shareholder in Natixis, you've got a financial background. What are your long-term objectives for Wendel? Do you want to become a financial asset management and less of an industrial investor in the future.

Okay. Well, I'm going to -- first of all, thank you for these questions and discuss private credit because as have a few headlines recently. Now Wendel is not the same shareholder as the company that you mentioned because we are not shareholders of Monroe Capital, I forget the name, the BDC. We're not shareholders of that. we are shareholders of the GP, the asset manager. So the -- those who manage and who receive fees from investors. So the company that manages assets and funds on behalf of others.

Overall, I think that Monroe has about $30 billion, $30 million sorry, EUR 30 billion under management, and they've merged with Horizon Technology, Horizon, their only listed BDC. So BDC is a business development company. Basically, there are companies that manage and give loans to companies. and they themselves are listed and given the valuation on the market. So we are not on the Monroe BDC, so we have no exposure to that. but we have invested in the management company. We've got 76% of the management company, which is essentially the company that receives the fees.

Now to answer your second question on the level of exposure to private credit in the U.S. Well, we have invested in the new funds that Morrow has launched, and we have about EUR 100 million -- $200 million that are not deployed yet, but committed is slightly different because, as I mentioned earlier, between the moment where you have the money and invested, there's going to be, well, a period of time. So right now, it's not invested, but it will be in the foreseeable -- and then you asked another question about interest rates that are going to remain high for a long time, as you described.

Now that's a good question. It's a question also that is of relevance for European and American companies alike. In other words, companies that have huge debt levels. Are they going to be under pressure with a higher interest rates. So interest rates higher for longer. If they do remain higher for longer, then there are some companies that will be struggling. There will be a credit cycle in the U.S. very much like in Europe, all players will be affected credit -- private credit or people who've taken bank loans out.

The important thing here is that your criteria for investment or subscription? Are they going to be rewarded or not, companies you're going to struggle to pay back their loans. They will be a few of them for sure, but the quality of the portfolio. I'm wondering we checked that regularly. We believe that the quality of the portfolio at one is great. But they loan to a great number of American companies. The about 12 local offices of Monroe across the U.S. So they lend money to American companies with operational results that are between EUR 15 million and EUR 50 million. So there are not large companies. It's companies that are kind of pegged to the American economies and its development, its growth. And the American economy is more dynamic than in Europe. And in the U.S. the debt levels are higher than in Europe. I'm not talking about the government debt here, but really the debt of private companies.

So we are keeping a close eye on this, but the performance of funds of Monroe are really good, we're at 9%, 11%, depending on the setup of the funds. -- performance-wise. As you know, there is some concern about retail that wants to pull out at the moment because they didn't assess the situation very well a few years ago.

In any case, the market is very well structured. There's a quarterly cap. And Monroe actually did not even need to go over this a quarterly cap they might have to in the future. But you're lending money here to companies for 2, 3, 5 years. So your strategy has to be consistent with that time line. So right now, Monroe is performing well and our exposure is not a cause for concern.

Now my whole background is in finance, my whole career is in finance. So I'm not a, let's say, industry expert, be it in banking, insurance, investments, asset management. But I'd like to remind you that from the very beginning, we've always said and always considered that it's important to have 2 drivers for value creation. So asset management on one , which is a pillar that allows us to create recurring revenue. And for a company like Wendel, allows shareholders to receive a recurring dividend where you can have good growth rates if you do things properly. The companies in which we've invested are, by the way, high-quality companies. So we're very confident.

And then our second pillar is to invest in companies that operate in the industrial sector, but also in services. And they're here to create value by growing these companies. And both pillars are important. And there's no reason to focus on one more than the other. But for investment, we need to do that in the most professional framework as possible because we are competing with funds and different players from all across the world. And this is why we've decided to use the framework, the expertise of IT partners on top of what we've done so far. But both pillars are equally important.

I would like to add that we have variable rates which is not always easy to understand at the beginning, but there is no risk in terms of rates at Monroe Capital. What they're looking at is the spread. And the spread is constant and they deliver a 10% performance per year. In terms of retail, there has been a misunderstanding. There has been a wave of panic, which was reported in the media because retail, which represents 20% and at Monroe Capital. So regular people, such as you and I felt that they could be asked for a reimbursement because there was liquidity day-to-day liquidity. But there are limits to this and that's what we call a barrier. And for big funds like Blue Owl, this was activated, but it was not activated at Monroe Capital. And this gave rise to press articles that were going against private credit.

As Laurent was saying, the quality of the loan portfolio is being closely followed. There are ratings and categories, 5 categories for loans, depending on the way the person borrowing decides to act, and we did not see a deterioration in terms of the quality of loans and the default rate is 1%. So it is very weak.

Thank you very much, Benoit Juan. I am an individual shareholder, and I would also like to say that I'm a private investor. I would like to ask a question concerning your dividend policy. Since you were talking about a recurring revenue because as an investor, that is what is interesting to me, what is your vision or your strategy because you have implemented interim dividends, which I think are very positive to ensure that shareholders are loyal and to reassure. And when we wake up in the morning, we don't know what's going to happen on the stock market because if there's geopolitical turmoil or any problems, the stock market will go down. So I would like you to give us your perspective in terms of dividends for the years to come.

And I would also like to say that I'm part of the consultative committee of Wendel shareholders, and we are working on communication for shareholders, and I would like to compliment you because we work in -- well, we work with Christine, Emilies here, Carolyn. I'm thinking of the entire team, and we work in a very positive environment. We have questions which we get answers to, and there is transparency and the information that is communicated to us. And last time we had an online call with very active exchanges on dividends, and I would like to compliment you for the quality of these exchanges because shareholders are heard at Wendel and listen to, I wouldn't like to -- I don't want to extend myself, but I wish to commend you and ask that question on dividends. Well, thank you very much for those compliments. And I'd like to congratulate Christine, Millie and the entire team. It's a pleasure to hear this.

The second thing is that Laurent has defined what the dividend policy would be yes, I think that for individual shareholders, dividends must be as predictable and as reliable as possible. This is important. Obviously, there are unforeseen catastrophes. But in normal times, we must have this strategy with 2 pillars, which allows us to ensure that there is recurring revenue. We have defined things in a mathematical way, if you will, to make sure that we can anticipate as much as possible. And we have done this in a straightforward manner because we said that we would contribute 2% of the total amount of the shares that we have invested, 2.5% and around 90% or 95% of cash flows generated by asset management shares.

And that allows us to increase dividends in a consistent manner throughout our activities. And you noticed that for the past 3 years, dividends have gone up constantly, and there's no reason for this to change. We have also defined a rule saying that unless there are unforeseen events, dividends should not go down year-on-year, even if the mathematical model of what I've provided could yield decreases, we would maintain dividends.

Two comments. Dividends are part of the Executive Board's goals in terms of compensation and yields at Wendel are particularly high at the moment because EUR 5.10 divided by EUR 82 yields -- sorry, EUR 88 and that represents 6%. Yes, we see more private equity products. And before this used to be restricted to institutions or particular professionals. The fact there are more individuals who are not involved in this sort of management. Does this not present a risk. You showed that assets listed and nonlisted assets have been over evaluated. Are we not risking seeing private debt becoming an issue? If we think that private individuals have these assets. And so we may end up with products that would be risky in this scenario. Yes, this is a topic that is dear to my heart. I was a banker in the past, and so I understand the importance of this question. I don't think there's any reason to restrict access for people who want to invest in certain sectors.

If they understand what they are investing in. If they know whether this is a liquid investment that does not present particular liquidity in terms of private assets. And these are nonliquid assets. And so we have to try to provide liquidity for assets that do not have liquidity. Otherwise, it's impossible to work around this. So I believe that enabling investors with the right capabilities or investors who are advised in terms of the risk that they are taking because private equity products are more risky than your standard investments savings plans. And there is a problem with liquidity here and the mistake would be to think that -- well, if yields are high, it's because risk is higher. And there's also a relationship between liquidity and lack of liquidity. And I think that it is important to take this into account. If there is a proper understanding from the part of the investor in terms of risks linked to liquidity, a bad scenario would be increasing products leading investors to believe that there's no risk and that there is liquidity because then the consumer is misled, and so this causes a problem because someone believes that they've invested in something that will provide high yields, but then this will not be the case. And this creates attention. That's why we must be very careful, and I am very sensitive to this matter.

And the second aspect, I'm very conscious of is that we mustn't think in terms of increasing commissions rather than increasing yields for investors. So we must make sure that we distribute this problem -- these products properly so that investors who invest their money will receive returns on their investment vis-a-vis the risk that they have taken. So it's difficult to think of distribution. That's why I talked about wealth management earlier. It is better to keep these products for people who can be properly advised and so they know what they are doing. But I don't think we must create a hiatus here. What happens on the American markets is that people have understood that these are liquid products across the board, but this may not be true. There have been liquidity windows for someone who may need money immediately because they need to pay for a house, they need liquidity. But if everybody proceeds in this manner, it won't work because there will be a problem with liquidity, and that's why things have been organized this way. So I think that we must only invest in products if we really understand the liquidity aspect and the proper understanding of risks linked to lack of liquidity and we must also be careful with the question of fees.

Nicolas Pickrem an investor at Wendel. Looking at your results, I see that there is a lot of cash and negative debt -- are you planning to invest further? Are you satisfied with your current debt levels? And I think that interest are EUR 110 million, the cost EUR 110 million per year. This is the cost of debt. Perhaps it is part of your line of work to create benefits. And then I have another question. in terms of the 50% quantity that nonlisted assets were invested in at a moment that was not so favorable. And Wendel took the opportunity to buy back shares.

When it comes to the compensation policy, I didn't hear anything about reducing this -- and have you had any other indications from the market in terms of the discount?

Yes, AP 1, 2 and 3. So the long-term incentive plan depends on the shares performance, which means that implicitly, there are 2 elements here, the increase of NAVs, the value of the assets, but also the discount -- so if the NAV remains constant and the discount reduces, the share progresses positively. So in AP 1, 2 and 3 -- this is an important criterion. This is a constant concern of the Executive Board and of the Supervisory Board to monitor discounts. And that's why we are buying back shares and have this buyback program because the idea is that the market will not attribute the true underlying value to the share, and there is a gap in this regard.

To underline what Nicolas has just said, the long-term profit sharing of the Executive Board and of the employees of the company is linked to the shares performance and we did this voluntarily. And it is the absolute performance we are talking about here, which is a very demanding factor. But this ensures we are aligned with investors. All holdings today, when we talk about discounts, all holdings have seen their discounts evolve over the years, and I think that our strategy of having regular flows, dividends will ensure that the discount will diminish.

But this will take time and it is a long-term goal. And I think that buying back shares is an idea, but seeing important discounts may be a factor at play here if the price is right. I mean I am also a shareholder and I have no doubts in this regard. To circle back to the question of debt and cash, we have a treasury situation a net debt that is of EUR [ 120 ] million, a little bit less. But today, we have EUR 1.4 billion in terms of our debt which is a fixed rate debt at 2.8%.

And what David explained accurately earlier is that in a context where interest rates will be hence we have a context where reimbursements will happen in 4 years. for a duration of 6 years. And so this is a very positive situation. We don't need to go and look for cash on the market to refinance our activities. And this is what we said at the beginning. This gives us the ability to invest. But we are also careful when it comes to the loan-to-value ratio, which is looked at by rating agencies which looks at the financial risk of companies, and this is 7.8% today, meaning that we have a net gross debt levels.

But this takes into account our future projects. So we have several companies where we haven't bought 100% of capital voluntarily because we wanted to ensure that the entrepreneurs at the head of these companies remained emitted to the success of their companies. and there were joint interest -- long-term joint interests in this regard. So these are future commitments that we must take into account in our financial policy.

But thanks to IHS and Stahl, we have increased capabilities to buy back shares, and we must have made 75% of the buyback program, which is positive. And we also have to be able to invest in new companies, companies that we believe have a promising future ahead of them. So in our line of work, we are not making money off treasury flows. When we have money, that is positive, but we do not take risks. We are very cautious in this regard. And last year, our revenue was positive because the short-term interest rates increased in 2024.

But we do not take risks when it comes to treasury. We are very careful. We want to ensure that cash is available at all times, just like in a regular savings account. Just to return to the $110 million cost of debt. This goes back to our subsidiaries, our financial results were EUR [ 26 ] million. So that is the true cost, any other questions? Yes, there's one at the back.

Hello, Gasqu. I'm a Wendel-Participation investor. I would like to know what is the point of Resolutions 20 and 21 with preferential subscription rates which would dilute family shareholding so the cancellation of preferential subscription rights?

To be honest, these are very technical resolutions that all companies deal with. This is -- we're talking about a private placement and these are delegation tools from a technical standpoint that most companies have, which gives them the flexibility to be able to raise funds on markets. It's a question of flexibility. And this is always subject to the Supervisory Board. And this resolution already existed but had a limited lifespan, so we had to renew it. Today, all shareholders implicitly have to buy back shares in the context of their company.

I have a practical question on profit sharing in BV. Will disengagement continue with regards to this company BV is a lovely company, which we are investing in, we have been vesting in for a long time. There is a strategy plan Live 28, which is led by the BV management team, they are very committed to their work. And I can tell you that the teams at Wendel, who were following this company are very involved to ensure that they're supporting Bureau Veritas. I think that at one point in time, there was an imbalance.

More than half of the company was represented by Bureau Veritas. And so there was a risk to an extent or today, the balance that we have struck is better. And I think that we are happy with the situation as it is. Yes, it's EUR 1.8 billion in terms of gross assets, which are below EUR 1.9 billion. If there are no more questions, we are going to move on to the votes of the resolution.

So thank you very much for these very constructive exchanges. When it comes to the vote of resolutions, I would like to provide the number of shares, the quorum 71.3%, EUR 28 million 187,540 shares for the number of shareholders. And so the quorum has been met.

Before moving on to the vote on resolutions, there is a double vote right. There was a nominative provision in this regard. In terms of voting on ordinary resolutions, and for extraordinary resolutions as well. And finally, in order to adopt the resolutions, ordinary resolutions have to reach a simple majority and extraordinary ones have to reach a 2/3 majority. We will now move to the electronic vote. The information that you need will be on the tablets that have been given to you, particularly the number of votes that you have. We will now show a short video to explain how to vote.

You received a tablet to vote on the resolutions. It's an individual personal -- I think it can only be used during the shareholders meeting. The resolution will be announced, and there will be a window displayed on your tablet even if it is not turned off is on standby mode. And then it's very simple. All you have to do with press on the button of your choice. If you vote for, against or to abstain. You can then press okay to validate your choice before the voting closes. Once your vote has been validated, you cannot change it. And please hand back your tablet as you leave the room. Thank you very much.

The results of the vote will come up on the screen and report will be available on the company website. We will now proceed to the vote by resolution.

First resolution, approval of the parent company financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2025, the vote is open.

[Voting]

The vote has been closed.

Second resolution, approval of the consolidated financial statements of the 2025 year.

Voting is open.

[Voting]

Voting is closed. The resolution has been adopted.

Third resolution, net income allocation, dividend approval and dividend payment. Voting is open.

[Voting]

Voting has closed.

Fourth resolution relative to the approval of regulated related party agreements entered into with Wendel participation. Voting is open.

[Voting]

Voting has closed. And the resolution is adopted. We will now move to resolution 5 relating to governance. The renewal of Ms. Franca Bertagnin Benetton as Supervisory Board member. Voting is open.

[Voting]

Voting is closed. We will now move on to Resolution 6 relating to the renewal of Mr. William Torchiana, a Supervisory Board member. Voting is open.

[Voting]

Voting is closed. Seventh resolution, the appointment of Mr. Alan Missoffe Supervisory Board observer. Voting is open.

[Voting]

And the voting is now over. And the resolution is approved. Moving on now to the compensation of corporate offices. We're going to start with 2025. And Resolution #8, approval on an adjustment for 2025 for the Executive Board long-term compensation.

[Voting]

Voting is over and the resolution is approved. Resolution #9, approval of the information relating to the compensation previously paid or awarded the members of the Executive Board and the Supervisory Board. Voting is now open.

[Voting]

The vote is now over and the resolution is approved. Resolution #10, approval of the compensation items paid in 2025 to Mr. Laurent Mignon. Voting is open.

[Voting]

The resolution is approved. Resolution 11, approval of the 2025 compensation for Mr. David Darmon.

[Voting]

The resolution is approved. Resolution #12, approval of the compensation for Mr. Nicolas Ver Hulst for 2025.

[Voting]

Voting over. Resolution approved. Moving on with compensation for 2026 with Resolution #13, approval of the compensation policy for the Chairman of the Executive Board 2026.

[Voting]

Resolution is approved. Resolution #14, approval of the 2026 compensation policy for the member of the Executive Board.

[Voting]

The resolution is approved. Resolution #15, approval of the 2026 compensation policies for the members of the Supervisory Board.

[Voting]

Moving on now to financial authorization, starting with Resolution #16 authorization given to the Executive Board to purchase company shares.

[Voting]

The resolution is approved. Resolution #17, authorization given to the Executive Board to reduce the share capital by the cancellation of shares.

[Voting]

Voting over. The resolution is approved. Moving on now to capital increase resolutions with Resolution #19 with the general cap.

[Voting]

So 18 for the overall capital increases.

[Voting]

Voting over. The resolution is approved. Resolution #19, delegation of authority to increase the share capital with preferential subscription rights maintained.

[Voting]

The resolution is approved. Resolution 20 delegation of authority to increase the share capital by way of -- offering.

[Voting]

Voting over and the resolution is approved. Resolution #21, on increasing the share capital by way of an offer private offer.

[Voting]

Resolution is approved. Resolution #22 to increase the number of shares to be issued in the event of oversubscription.

[Voting]

And the resolution is approved. Resolution #23, to increase the share capital as remuneration for contribution in kind.

[Voting]

Voting over. Resolution is approved. Resolution #24, to increase the share capital in the context of a public exchange offer.

[Voting]

Voting over. The resolution is approved Resolution #25, to increase the share capital by incorporation of reserves, profit, premiums or other items.

[Voting]

Voting over. And the resolution is approved. Now moving on to Resolution #26 on the increase of share capital for the group savings plan.

[Voting]

Voting over. The resolution is approved. Resolution #27 to grant bonus shares to the company's executive corporate officers and employees.

[Voting]

And the resolution is approved. And final resolution #28, powers for legal formalities.

[Voting]

And the resolution is approved. Sorry, didn't want to jump in too early. There's a bit of suspense, especially for that one. The vote is now over back to you.

Well, thank you very much, Sebastien. Thank you, one and all, for coming this afternoon and for voting. The percentages showed that there's a great deal of trust.

In Wendel. And we particularly appreciate that. We appreciate the trust that you have put in us I would like to congratulate the members of the Executive Board, Frank and William, for their terms that have been renewed, and welcome to Alla, who's our observer for the next year. there are no more items on the agenda. So I suggest that we now wrap up at 12 minutes past 5. That's it for our shareholders' meeting. Thank you very much.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Wendel's Q1 2026 Trading Update Conference Call and Webcast. [Operator Instructions]. 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 your speaker today, Mr. Jerome Michel, Wendel Executive Vice President. Please go ahead, sir.

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Wendel's Q1 2026 Trading Update. Thank you for joining us today. Over the next 15 minutes or so, Cyril and I will walk you through our key financial highlights for the quarter, the major strategic developments that occurred and what they imply for the rest of 2026. We will then take as many questions as you have, and Benoit, our CFO, will help us answer them.

At a high level, this quarter reflects continued momentum in our asset management platform and steady operating trends in principal investments, while valuations were impacted by market multiples at the end of the period, which was a low point. Let's turn now to the quarter's headline figures. This slide summarizes Wendel's Q1 2026 key financials across asset management and principal investments as well as the net asset value. On the asset management side, Wendel Investment Managers continues to scale with assets under management of EUR 41.8 billion and fee-paying assets under management of EUR 32 billion. The acquisition and integration of committed advisers closed yesterday further expands the platform to close to EUR 50 billion of AUM.

Management fees and other revenues came in at EUR 106 million over Q1, reflecting a very strong growth of 130%, driven by both organic growth, 8% and scope effects. On the principal investment side, the only items to report are the inclusion of the price of the offer on IHS and as I said, the impact of valuation multiples as of the end of the quarter.

On the net asset value now, the end of March figure stands at EUR 158.4 per share. This level reflects the impact of multiple compression in public markets at the end of the quarter, which mechanically flows through to our NAV, as you know. Importantly, share buybacks have resulted in a strong accretive effect over the quarter and have helped cushion per share metrics at the end of March with a sequential decrease of our NAV limited to 3.6%.

Let's now look more specifically to the driver of the evolution of our net asset value as of the end of March on Slide 5. As you can see, fully diluted NAV per share was impacted by market multiples at the end of the quarter. The total adds up to EUR 9 per share across investment -- Bel Investment Managers and principal investments. That's partially compensated by the positive impact, as I said, of close to EUR 4 per share from share buybacks.

Pursuant to our capital allocation strategy announcement, we bought back 4.7% of our share capital over the quarter, which is the highest level for any member company of the SBF 120 Index. Coming back to the valuation impact, as you have seen, public markets were strongly depressed at the end of March following the situation in the Middle East, which has translated into a negative impact as of the date of calculation of our Q1 NAV. But what I want to emphasize is that the market rebound that has taken place since then is not reflected in the valuation marks shown here.

So the NAV movement in the quarter should be interpreted in the context of timing. Our valuation updates are anchored to quarter end assumptions, while public markets have moved quickly afterwards. So if we were to redo a net asset value calculation as of today, we would be looking at about EUR 5 more, close to EUR 164 per share.

In a nutshell, the message is certainly not a deterioration in the underlying portfolio quality or trends, but rather a mechanical effect of the timing of valuation multiples on our NAV at the end of the quarter.

Let me now double-click on capital allocation, which is, as you know, foundational to our strategy and transformation journey. As you know, we have already made significant progress against the EUR 7 billion strategy announced in December 2025. Two major transactions have enabled this, the sale of Stahl, which will be generating EUR 1.2 billion in proceeds to Wendel and the sale of IHS generating $535 million in proceeds. This represented meaningful steps forward in our asset rotation plan and support both balance sheet flexibility and shareholder return with a strong acceleration in terms of dividend distribution and share buybacks.

Adjusting for these announced disposals, the acquisition of committed advisers and the -- sorry, the EUR 340 million share buyback in full, our pro forma loan-to-value is at 7.8%, reflecting a conservative leverage position. And importantly, more than 27% of the asset rotation expected by 2030 will already have been achieved on the back of the transaction announced. Combined with this strong financial position, this positions us well to execute the remainder of the capital allocation road map with discipline.

I now hand it over to Cyril for the update on Wendel.

Thank you, Jerome. So let's start with a brief update on the strategy before we move to the Q1 update. So we have announced yesterday the acquisition of committed Advisor. At the closing, we have announced the signing 4, 5 months ago. Closing is very important. It's not a detail because between the announcement and now, we went through the client consent, and it went very well, and you will see that it's very important because it paved the way for future fundraising for committed advisers. So it's done now, it's behind us.

We have now this platform announced in October, November with close to EUR 50 billion of assets and EUR 200 million of FRE. Keep in mind that our business is mainly an FRE business and more than 90% of our profitability is coming from FRE, which is very important when you value our business. The other important strategic element is the announcement of the reinforcement of the partnership with BNP Paribas Asset Management alternative. In fact, behind this, you have 2 very important partner for us, BNP Paribas and AXA. They are really partner, meaning that they commit money in our funds and also they are a distributor of our products.

So for us, we do believe it's really a reinforcement of our ability to grow our business. So that's for the strategic part of the announcement today. Then let's move to the next page, Q1 activity. As Jerome said, the growth momentum has been maintained during this very specific quarter for private assets, let's say. Fee-paying AUM, I think it's a good summary of the dynamic of our business, 13%. I've seen some announcement today. So 13% is well positioned compared to our peers.

Over the quarter, the growth is 3% even during Q1 '26, 3%, I think it's a strong achievement. If now we look at this in more detail, fundraising, new money coming from clients 1.5 billion this quarter, EUR 1.2 billion for secondary strategies for committed advisers. So you see we have announced the deal. We have closed the transaction and clients trust us, trust our model, and they have invested EUR 1.2 billion in the secondary transaction of committed adviser over the quarter during the transaction. I think it's a strong signal for us.

The other strong signal is EUR 0.5 billion of new money for private credit strategies for Monroe. It's also -- it's less than what we saw in the previous quarter. But as we know, we went through a difficult quarter, and I think the EUR 0.5 billion is a very strong signal. If now we move to the retail, the evergreen vehicles, what we call the BDC Monroe Capital permanent vehicle MCIP. It's main nontradable BDC that account for 20% of the total AUM. We saw limited redemptions well below our peers. And on top of that, the key message is that we have been in a position to satisfy all the request with the cash flows.

When I say cash flows, it's net flows plus the reinvestment of the coupon. So no impact on the structure of the BDC. I think it's a very important message. Then AUM, so close to EUR 50 billion, including committed adviser. If we take out committed adviser, we look at IK and just Monroe, 13% versus Q1 last year and 3% over the quarter. I think it's very interesting. And then revenues, for sure, the actual numbers are very high, but what is more interesting is the organic growth at 8% at constant dollar because, as you know, over the year, the dollar was negative for us. So that's the key figures for the quarter, it shows even if it was a difficult quarter, we had less fundraising, but it was a good quarter globally in terms of growth.

What you have on the following page is the same thing, and you see the bridge in terms of AUM for the quarter from EUR 41 billion to EUR 42 billion in terms of AUM. You see the 3% in terms of heating. Those numbers are excluding committed adviser. Now if you add committed adviser, you have the scope effect and you have the fundraising over the quarter. And here, it's exactly in line with what we said in December during our Capital Market Day with committed adviser, we add a new engine of growth. And this new engine of growth provides diversification because if you had the growth of fundraising in Q1, you see that we are above 13%. And the more we had engine of growth, the more we'll have a more resilient growth quarter after quarter for this type of -- then what we wanted to do after this Q1 '26 is to convey some messages around private credit.

So Page 10, you have our view of what is direct senior lending for us and why we do believe that it's an attractive risk-adjusted investment for our clients. I will not comment on the pyramid because you know this, but I want to reiterate that what we do is direct senior lending. We are at the top of the capital stack for the financing of the economy.

I think it's very important to reiterate this message. Monroe, they do only the light blue part of the pyramid at the top senior secured with first lien when they do loan. I think it's very important. Monroe Capital -- they are a leader in a very specific segment. Private credit is a very large asset class. What they do is very specific. They do it in the U.S. I will come back to that. And they do it for the lower mid-market.

We think it's a very interesting risk reward solution for investors. Why? First, risk protection. They focus on the U.S. economy, which is the largest economy in the world, you know this. It's -- and if you look at the middle market, it's 200,000 companies. With that, what you get, you get growth. Last year, the EBITDA growth was 10% for the underlying companies of Monroe. You have the ability to be very selective. You can get high diversification. It's very -- by sector and by company, it's very important for the portfolio.

Second thing, as we see it in the PR, you have equity protection. Monroe are very strict. Debt-to-EDA below 4%, LTV 40% first collateral, very important. Third point, direct senior lending, 100% is floating rates. It means that you have embedded in the product, sorry, protection against inflation, protection against rate fluctuation is very important.

And last thing, which is also very important, when you do direct lending and as monroe capital does, they are very active. They are agent in 80% of their deal, meaning that they are not buying BSL in the market. They are very active. They have access to information. They have access to management. They can be very reactive in case of difficulties, and I think it's a key element of differentiation.

And in front of that, you have the reward. What is the reward is 500 basis points above the risk-free rate, and it's true in 5 years, 10 years, 20 years. I think it's very important. You have regular cash yield relatively short duration in terms of if you look at the average duration of a loan, meaning that you have regular cash coming back in the vehicles.

And lastly, you have diversification. So we do believe that this product is a very interesting risk reward solution for investors. The second message I would like to convey today, it's client demand. We have seen a lot of questions around that. So the quarter for sure, it's -- you have 2 different situations. On the institutional side, Q1 '26 was a very good quarter, as you can see the PDI survey here. It was one of the best Q1 quarter ever for the asset class. So it's -- I think it's very interesting to see that because it's a large part of our franchise.

And also, they are very sophisticated investors. So far, they have maintained their allocation, and we see no reduction of the allocation coming from client demand. And it's true for dollar product for U.S. clients, but also for international clients investing in dollar. And we see the same dynamic for Monroe.

On the other side, as you know, it grabs the headlines, there was significant redemption for the evergreen vehicle. Here, we use the nontradable BDC as a proxy of the retail and wealth market.

For sure, it's broader than that, but it's a good summary. There was a lot of demand Monroe was less impacted than the industry. We have been in a position to make all the redemption requests, and we are very cautious in the way we manage our vehicle. We are increasing the cash component in the vehicle in order to see and to manage the evolution of the demand of our investors.

The last thing we would like to convey today, it's -- we talk about the private credit, the client demand. It's why we consider that Monroe Capital as an edge. The first thing is the experience in this type of environment. Monroe was created a long time ago. And if you look at this industry, which is for sure quite new, you will see that less than 5% of all the private credit managers have more than 20 years of experience. It's the case of Monroe. They went through different business cycle, and they have the experience to go through that. I think it's very important for the client.

The second element, which is also very important, is a proprietary sourcing network. So they manage the origination. They have 8 office in the U.S. They work with 200 sponsors everywhere in the U.S., and they have sector specialists.

To do this business and to do it the right way, you need to have a deep asset management infrastructure. It's very expensive. We have 300 FTE at Monroe, 115 investment professionals. It's very important. Security, second thing. The way we manage the business, we are focused on performance. We are not chasing AUM. It's key. We have a dry powder of EUR 6.5 billion. It was EUR 6.7 billion at the end of December, meaning that we don't deploy money just to deploy money. We do it when it's a good risk reward.

We will not come back to the EBITDA multiple. They have also a very strong investment process. One of the key elements of their investment process is that you have the origination locally and you have the centralized underwriting and monitoring teams at the headquarter, and they are very independent and it creates, I think, a good check and balance when you have to deploy capital.

The last thing, consistency, they have a very strong workout team. The private credit business is not a risk-free business. You have a premium, 500 basis points. So you have to manage default and you have to manage it well. They have a very seasoned workout team. It's very important this type and the last 2 things that are also very important and maybe it's part of some issues, they have a first-class LP base. It's not a pure retail business, meaning that they have on their back every day, very sophisticated institutional investors on the U.S. and outside. And I think it's a very important part of the way they manage the business.

And the last thing, which is also very important, is the alignment of interest between Monroe, the employees and the LPs. And with that, you gain something very strong in order to deliver the value proposition to clients.

Okay. Let's now look at the performance about the quarter from our principal investments. Well, what we see in general is that our companies have registered steady revenue growth on average for the quarter. Let's start with Bureau Veritas, which posted 4.5% organic growth, underpinned by strong growth in most parts of the business and some headwind related to the situation in the Middle East.

The group is further accelerating its portfolio transition with an in-depth review of the terms of an exit from the Government Services subsegment, all of which has been taken into consideration in the 2026 full year outlook. At Sccalan, the transformation of the company is accelerating under the leadership of the new CEO, William Ross, with encouraging results in terms of margin improvement and cash generation. Whilst the market remains difficult, as you can see, the company is focused on accelerating its commercial pipeline. CPI has seen pretty strong performance in the international part of its business, but is still facing some headwinds in its core market in the U.S., having resulted in flat sales. This is related to continued federal oversight and funding uncertainty across CPI's customers and markets.

In this context, Andy, CPI's CEO, is energetically leading an effort to strengthen the company's management and commercial organization. ACAMS and Global Educate have posted strong organic growth performance of 5% and 6.3%, respectively. In line with our investment thesis, Global Educate has accelerated its growth through M&A with 7.2% impact from scope over the quarter. I think this quarter reflects continued operational momentum across the portfolio, which is really the focus everywhere. Turning to financing now.

The situation is very strong. Wendel is financed with an average cost of 2.8% with a well-structured maturity profile of 6.3 years when allowing for the upcoming repayment of our April 2026 bond. The balance sheet remains conservative with cash of EUR 1.3 billion before the repayment of our April 2026 bond, plus additional committed facilities supporting a strong liquidity position. Note that we have significantly reduced our gross debt with the repayment of our exchangeable bond into Bureau Veritas in March, which will leave us with EUR 1.4 billion of gross debt after the repayment of our April 2026 maturity.

Loan-to-value is also low at 7.8% on a pro forma basis and the maturity ladder is spread out over multiple years, which reduces refinancing concentration risk. So you can see resilience, flexibility. We have room to invest, room to rotate assets and capacity to return capital while maintaining a prudent leverage profile, all of which will support our capital allocation strategy through to 2030.

So what are the key takeaways now on Slide 16. Let me summarize them as follows: WIM had a good start of the year, and we confirm the 2026 ambition, supported by strong fee momentum and the scaling of the platform. Principal Investments delivered steady revenue growth on average and numerous operational initiatives are being implemented, which will drive future value creation. Third, our net asset value was impacted by market multiples as of the end of March, but the post-quarter market rebound should be considered when looking at the NAV today.

Overall, we remain laser-focused on executing our capital allocation strategy and building long-term value through both platform scaling and disciplined portfolio management. Time for questions. Thank.

[Operator Instructions]. We're going to take our first question and it comes from the line of Arnaud Palliez from CIC-CIB.

I have 2 questions. First on Investment Management. The first one is regarding the transaction with BNP AM. I would like to know if it is made on the same valuation basis for committed advisers than the one at which Wendel took a stake. Can you also remind me what is the partnership with AXA you mentioned during the call? I think it's for a different manager. But in this case, does it mean that the partnerships on distribution only applies on one investment strategy or asset class? Or is it -- or BNP is going, for example, to also distribute the funds from IK Partners or Monroe Capital. So that's the first question.

And the second one is more on the principal investments. It's regarding Scalian. In the press release, you say that there are some signs of a rebound. So I would like to know if you can be more specific about this rebound indications. and when it is supposed to take place?

Thank you for the question. So in terms of the transaction, exactly the same. So we -- initially, we had in mind to buy 56. They are buying 5.9 at exactly the same term for us. Regarding the strategic question, so we started this partnership with AXA. And as you know, AXA IM was bought by BNP. And in fact, we decided to pursue and we still believe that the former AXA Prime now BNP and Prime remains for us an interesting partner and we have extended the partnership initially, as you said, it was only Monroe Capital for Monroe -- for private credit. But they consider that also secondary transaction are interested for them. So we decided to extend the partnership with BNP. But in fact, this entity, now branded BNP works for AXA and BNP. So in fact, it's for both.

Okay. Okay. That's clear. And are they going to have the same kind of partnerships for IK partners or it's different.

No. So far, to be clear, it's GP by GP. So it's only for Monroe and committed adviser.

So on your question on Scalian, yes, I alluded to this sort of early signs of a gradual recovery. We see that from a commercial perspective. We see the pipeline increasing. We are also -- William and the team at Scalian are spending a lot of time improving the sales pipeline. So they are having much more discussions with potential customers trying to develop dialogue with new customers. So we see this pipeline building up. And what is positive is that the win rate is also improving, meaning that we have good performance from this point of view.

Now projects in this business are then to be converted in revenue, and this can take some time because if you win a frame agreement with a customer, it does not necessarily mean that you will start immediately to generate revenue. It will depend on the customer's own project. But it's fair to say that we see in some parts of the business, some early signs of a gradual recovery and sustained commercial dialogue. So bear with us, and I hope we'll be able to report in the next quarters some momentum there. But what is also very positive, as I said, is that we see an improvement in the efficiency of the model and the initiatives that have been launched to I would say, improved profitability are bearing fruit, and we see the first signs of that being converted in the business. So that's pretty encouraging.

Okay. And can we expect some stabilization in the review for the full year? Or is there any guidance given by Scalian as well?

No. As you know, A, we are not giving any guidance for private companies. So I'm not able to give you any indication of that. But what is clear is that management is very focused both on top line commercial leads and improving the top line and improving the profitability. And there is a lot of energy and already some results. So I hope we will be able to report on an improved situation at the end of the year.

Now we'll take our next question. And the question comes from the line of Geoffroy Michel from ODDO BHF...

I got 3. The first one is on the commitments in the funds that you sold commitments that were not drawn. Was it purely LTV driven? Why not keeping them? Was there a specific rationale or, let's say, a change in your allocation strategy? That was the first question.

The second question has to do with CPI. Can you maybe elaborate a bit of the initiatives that you are taking to remit the growth? And when do you think you could see the first effect? And the third question is on Bureau Veritas, which is trading at EUR 26. Do you think it could be an idea to seize this opportunity to issue maybe an exchangeable bond...

Okay. So, regarding the sponsoring program policy globally, for sure, we manage this carefully, the LTV with the finance team, and we take into account this constraint. But since the beginning, we said that we will have a very active sponsoring program, meaning that when we believe that for a specific product, there is a demand, as you know, IK, for example, is closed-end funds.

So between 2 fundraising, you have no product to sell. So here, for the recent sale, in fact, some clients were interested by investing in the IT strategies. There are new LPs. So I think it's very interesting because we enlarge the franchise of the business and at the same time, it reduced the LTV. We did it mainly for commercial reason. At the same time, we have a permanent discussion with the finance team in order to manage the LTV.

But the main reason to sell, you need to have buyer and you need to have a commercial discussion with LPs. It was not a sale to secondary managers. It was a sale to a new LPs in the fund, which is totally different in terms of dynamic.

Regarding your question on CPI, well, what is, I think, the focus here and the intent is to improve the go-to-market. So it's about optimizing the sales team organization and the performance. It's about improving the metrics there, implement a framework for the enterprise accounts accelerate the growth of online leads conversion, et cetera. So really implement modern tools, modernize the way the business is done to improve the business with the existing customers, but also go after new customers in new verticals.

As you know, CPI is very well entrenched in the health care and education businesses, but we think there is a good growth to target in -- outside of those sectors, especially in the enterprise sector, but also in terms of what products we can offer and the digitization also of the business to deliver -- should deliver superior growth. So our team and the team at CPI are working on this, and we should see improvement there, hopefully, in the next quarters.

Regarding your question on Bureau Veritas, well, I think -- and I hope you do as well that, obviously, the share price is not reflecting the fair value of Bureau Veritas at EUR 26. It's been under pressure yesterday following the announcement of the Q1, but I think this is unwarranted. Does it create some idea at Wendel? Well, we are not trading our position. We are -- we've been a long-term holder of Bureau Veritas. So no, we are not minded to buy more to make a profit there. we are really disciplined in our capital allocation strategy.

And I think the quarter shows that disposals of Stahl, IHS, committed advisers, share buyback, increasing dividend, that these are really -- I mean, the capital allocation strategy is really -- these are the pillars of what we want to do. So yes, there is some noise on the valuation of BV, but that's the way it is, and it's not enough for us to change our course and do some opportunistic approach there.

Dear speakers, at this moment, we do not have further audio questions. And now I would like to hand over to Olivier Allot for any written questions.

We have a question from Izabel Eric. Can you talk about the demand you are seeing from investors for U.S. private credit and the difference between retail and institutional. Fundraising seem to slow for the quarter at plus EUR 0.5 billion versus plus EUR 3.8 billion, implying quarterly run rate of EUR 0.95 billion in 2025.

Thank you. I think we had a slide for this. As I said, you have seen the client demand on the institutional side, and it's a very large part of the market and because the nontradable BDC, it's less than 20% of the market. But for the institutional market, -- the demand remains very strong, as you can see with the PTI survey. And as I said, it's not only the U.S. investors internationally, it's also international investors. It could evolve. But so far in Q1 and when we look at the pipeline of development for Monro, the pipeline remains strong. As you have seen in the slide, it's totally different for retail now. So we have to manage this. I think that it's a good test for the quality of the Evergreen structure to give access to retail client to private credit. So we have to manage this carefully and the Monroe team is on it every day in order to make redemption if we have additional redemptions. But -- so I think it covered the point.

Thank you. We have 3 questions from David S. On a pro forma basis, including committed advisers, what is the fee-paying AUM...

I think the -- so you have the fee-paying AUM for -- before committed adviser, I think the fee-paying AUM are around EUR 7 billion. I don't have the figure with me. We can give it to you offline, but you should add EUR 7 billion to the fee-paying AUM of IK and Monroe Capital.

Thank you. Can you update us on the credit default rate for Monro since 2025?

So yes. So default rates remains very low. What -- and it's very small, but the default is the last stage of the -- so the way we monitor this, I think what is important in your question is the nonaccrual. So if we look at the 400-plus loans of Monro and it's below 2.5% of the loan, the loans that are not in line with the initial business plan, it remains very low at this stage. For sure, it's tied to the U.S. economy. But when we look at the dynamic revenue growth, EBITDA growth of the other companies, so far, we don't see an acceleration of the default rate.

Thank you. Now it's a question about the net asset value. By how much do you think peers multiples have rebounded since April regarding WIM?

I've not made the calculation today, but it's higher than at the end of March, but lower than at the end of December.

Thank you. Another question from [indiscernible] about asset management. Should we expect management fees to remain stable at circa 130 basis points in 2026 across IK and Monroe? How should we think about AUM growth in the coming quarters for IK and Monroe and in terms of fundraising and distribution?

Okay. So let's start with the growth. So the growth, as we presented in December, this year will come from Monroe and committed adviser because IK is not raising fund this year. It was last year and it will be in '27. For sure, as I said, the dynamic on retail is lower for Monroe, but they have various engines. The quality of this firm is that they don't do only closed-end fund or BDC. They have also CLOs, SMAs in the U.S. and internationally. So we will -- we are in line with our expectation in terms of growth and committed adviser will be also a very important contributor of the growth of the platform this year, '26 and as you have seen in terms of fundraising.

Regarding the margin in business margin compared to, for example, traditional asset managers, fees by product will not change quarter after quarter. The mix could have an impact. So if we do a bit more of private credit and secondary, the fees are a bit lower than IK, but will not be very far from 120, 130.

Thank you. I have no more questions on the web. I think there is an additional question by phone.

Now we'll go and take the question and it comes from the line of Arnaud Palliez from CIC-CIB.

I have one follow-up question on IK Partners. Can you just give us an update on future vintages? And when can we expect a new phase of fundraising for IK Partners?

Thank you. So you have the, let's say, the detail in the Capital Market Day. So IK will -- so as you know, they have done the fundraising in '24 and a bit in '25, the previous vintage, EUR 6 billion with the 2 strategies, mid-cap and small cap. They have in mind to restart the fundraising the second part of '27 and '28.

I will not give you the expected growth, but it will be significantly more than the EUR 6 billion of the previous vintage. So because in between, they have to invest FundX. And I think we'll be in a position to give you some update on this in the second part of the year and also to return capital of Fund IX. So once it will be done, they will start the fundraising in '27 and '28. -- which is a natural pace of investment for our closed-end fund on.

Okay. No, it was just the need for an eventual update, but there is no change compared to the capital?

No, no.

Dear speakers, there are no further questions from audio lines.

Thank you. Thank you very much. And the next event will be our General meeting. Thank you very much.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now all disconnect. Have a nice day.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Wendel's Full Year 2025 Results Conference Call and Webcast. [Operator Instructions] 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. David Darmon, member of the Supervisory Board and Deputy CEO. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone, for this 2025 full year results presentation. As always, we're going to make this presentation with several speakers today, including Jérôme Michiels, Benoit Drillaud, Cyril Marie and later, Laurent Mignon. So to start, let me comment the Slide #4 in the presentation, which is a recap of the 2030 ambitions that we present to you in last December. We showed you that we have a pretty ambitious portfolio rotation plan and the capital allocation plan. We do intend to get EUR 7 billion of committed cash flows through 2030 through asset rotation and FRE generation and to reinvest this amount and returning EUR 1.6 billion to the shareholders in the meantime.

We also announced to you back in December some good organic growth target with a 15% growth organically for the asset management platform. And we mentioned to you that we intend to create value in the portfolio investment of our principal investment from 12% to 16% per annum with the new mandate that we have given to the IK Partners team, and we'll get back to that later in the presentation. So this is the background on which we are all working at Wendel, and I will give you more details on what we achieved in 2025 and in early 2026 to achieve those ambitions.

I'm moving now to Page #5. And as you can see in 2025, we made progress on our 2 legs, I will start with the asset management, where you can see that the platform really ramped up in 2025. We did close the acquisition of Monroe Capital in March 2025. The 2 platforms that we had during the years, Monroe Capital and IK Partners had a very successful fundraising cycle. They both raised a combined EUR 11 billion in a market which you know was not so easy.

In 2025, we also signed the acquisition of Committed Advisors. We announced the signing in October 2025, and we do intend to close this acquisition end of Q1 2026. We believe that we now have a platform at scale, we manage close to EUR 47 billion of assets under management, including pro forma creation of Committed Advisors. And we have a target for the year of over EUR 200 million of fee-related earnings with this platform. So in less than 3 years, you can see that we have built something of scale and pretty attractive and pretty unique.

Now talking about the principal investments. 2025 was also a year of transformation. We've been very active in the portfolio. We are going to come back on the various divestitures that we made recently, the various bolt-on we did in the portfolio and the change in management that has happened. But the most important information is probably this IK Partners advisory mandate that I mentioned earlier, which is changing significantly the way we operate, and we believe it is going to create much more value in the future, but I will get back to that later in the presentation.

Turning on Page 6. You can see that we had a pretty busy early 2026 with the announcements of the disposals of both Stahl and IHS. Those are investments that we had in the portfolio for quite a long time. You remember that we initially invested in Stahl in 2006. IHS was a 2013 investment. So they've been in the portfolio for quite a long time. And we're happy that in this pretty tough market, we managed to secure those liquidity options.

For Stahl, we signed an acquisition with Henkel, and I will give more details later on. And with IHS, we did support the tender offer that MTN announced a couple of weeks ago. Those 2 divestitures should bring EUR 1.65 billion of proceeds for Wendel, so it's pretty significant. You will see later on that, that takes our leverage down quite significantly. So it brings us some strong capability to execute on our shareholder returns policy and also to deploy capital towards the both legs, I mentioned earlier, WPI and WIM. So those sales are pretty important in that we're going to execute our strategy.

Moving to Slide 7 and a few numbers on our 2025 results. First, you can see on the left side of this slide for Wendel Investment Managers, some pretty strong growth. There is organic growth. You see the plus 13% organic growth in fee-paying AUM. And obviously, with the consolidation of Monroe Capital over the period, which we didn't have in 2024, we also have a scope effect. And so the increase of 200% is due to this scope change. But beyond the M&A, you can see that organically, the platforms are growing very, very nicely.

On the right side, you can see that Wendel Principal Investments today account for over EUR 5.5 billion of gross asset value. It's growing with a positive impact of listed assets and which as of today is mainly -- is going to be mainly Bureau Veritas because we secured the public to private in December for Tarkett. And as I mentioned earlier, IHS should not be in this bucket by the end of 2026.

The unlisted assets have been impacted by the market multiples, and I'll come back to that later on. We did value in those numbers and in 2025 Stahl at the Henkel offer price. We did not take into account the -- our share of cash flow between signing and closing, which are due to be paid to us. But as this amount is quite uncertain at this stage, we cautiously ignore this amount in our NAV.

IHS is valued at the average share price in -- before the year-end and not at the MTN offer price. So we published a NAV per share of EUR 164.20 as of December 31, 2025, which is up 0.7% over the previous quarter and up 1.17% if you include the interim dividend that we paid in Q4 last year.

I'm coming back to -- I'm moving now to Slide 8 and coming back to the performance over the last quarter of this fully diluted NAV, which has been growing 1.7%, as I mentioned, so EUR 2.7. So how did we grow this NAV? First, we had a negative impact on the investment manager side, the asset management part. We had some negative impact from the market multiples of our peers despite the positive growth of the aggregates that I mentioned earlier.

The Wendel Principal Investments saw some growth in terms of NAV per share, EUR 4.9. This is obviously mainly Stahl because we sold Stahl above our NAV value, and I will get back to that later on. We -- as I mentioned, IHS was valued at the share price as of December 31. And last Tarkett is now in our bucket of private assets and not anymore in our listed assets bucket.

You can see that the ForEx has been negligible over this quarter, which is very different from the first 3 quarters of 2025, where the impact was pretty strong in Q4, it was pretty remote. So plus EUR 2.7 over the quarter, fully diluted and plus EUR 1.2 when you take into account the interim dividend that we introduced last year, and we paid in November '25, EUR 1.5, which has already been paid to our shareholders.

I'm moving now to Page 9 and give you a bit more details on the 2 earlier divestitures I mentioned, namely Stahl and IHS. The sale of Stahl is going to bring $1.2 billion of net proceeds to Wendel and the expected tender offer on IHS should bring $575 million for the shares that we own in IHS. The combined proceeds from those 2 divestitures should bring our pro forma loan-to-value under 10%.

We should also note that this EUR 1.6 billion of proceeds account for over 27% of the portfolio rotation that we announced just a few weeks ago. So quite a strong start on this program.

I'm moving now to Page 10 to give you a bit more insight on the return to shareholders. We do intend to distribute around EUR 500 million to our -- sorry, to return EUR 500 million to our shareholders, both through dividends and through buyback. In terms of dividends, we are raising our 2025 dividend to EUR 5.10, up 8.5% compared to last year. As we already paid an interim dividend in November, the additional dividend to be paid in May 2026 is going to be EUR 3.6. Those combined amounts of EUR 5.10 compared to the current share price generate a yield of 5.8% based on the spot price of February 25. So a strong dividend policy and yield, combined with the share buyback program that we mentioned end of December that we are going to launch, which is going to be around EUR 340 million in terms of size that we're going to return to shareholders. So above -- around EUR 0.5 billion to be returned to our shareholders during this year.

I'm going to turn now the mic to Cyril Marie to present to you the development for the Wendel Investment Managers division.

Thank you, David. So I will not comment on Page 12 because the key highlights have been presented by David already. Let's move directly to Page 13 where you have the roll forward of the assets under management. So here in this chart, you have at the extreme left and right, the AUM. As you know, the way we monitor our activity, we have the AUM and the fee-paying AUM.

So let's start with the AUM. In '24, as David said, we had only IK with EUR 13.8 billion of AUM composed of the NAV of our fund plus the dry powder or the money available for new investment and the co-investment. Now at the end of '25, we are at EUR 41.2 billion. So it's EUR 15 billion for IK, plus 11% and $30 billion for Monroe, up 22%, which is, I think, a strong achievement in the current environment.

And in the AUM, the last information is that the Wendel Sponsor money represents EUR 500 million. So it's around 1% of the total AUM. I think it's an important information.

In the middle of this chart, what you have is the dynamic of the fee-paying AUM. So it means that the fees that are paying AUM that will have an impact in '25 on our P&L. So we started the year at EUR 10 billion. Then we had the impact of Monroe. But then what is very important is the EUR 9.2 billion and the minus EUR 5.2 billion. With this, you have the new fee-paying AUM. So for IK, it's the money raised over the year, so EUR 1.3 billion and the money invested because it's not the same business model for our 2 important GP, IK and Monroe, so close to EUR 8 billion for Monroe. So with that, you have the new fee-paying AUM.

And then you have the exit and the payoff so because you know what is very important for these LPs also is to return capital. So if you sum the EUR 9.2 billion and the minus EUR 5.2 billion you get the 13%, and we believe it's a good indicator of the organic evolution of our business for '25.

Then let's go on the following page, Page 14. Here, the idea is to give you really the more detail on the evolution of our business with 2 things: growth -- organic growth and two, diversification. I think that are the 2 key messages here.

So let's start with private equity, IK Partners. In terms of fundraising first, it was the last part of their fundraising vintage started in '23, '24. As you know, already, they have reached the up cap in all their strategies, the mid-cap, the small cap, the partnership fund. And so the fundraising was at the beginning of '25 for EUR 1.3 billion. Now their priority is to invest the money raise and also to return capital to shareholders. In '25, it was a good year. As you can see, as always, they have returned more capital than they have invested for the LPs. It's very important. The dynamic of AUM plus 11% in '25. What is also very important for us is to maintain the organic growth of the businesses. And I will present to you later on that we have reached the target in terms of FRE. But despite this, we are still investing in the business and the FTE have grown by 8% because in private equity, as you know, it's very important to have local team to understand the businesses, to invest in the operating partner. So we maintain a high level of investment in order to pursue the growth of the business.

Another very important point for IK, it's the development of the retail. As you know, in the development of a private asset platform, the retail is a new engine of growth for us, and it's still ahead of us. And we are -- we have now created the first evergreen vehicle for IK called IK Private Equity Solutions. It's now available for subscription. So if you want, you can get it through all the life insurance platform.

'26 for private equity priority. Now the revenue are secured because we have raised the money. I think the priority is now to deploy and to return capital to shareholders. We have a strong ambition for '26. And also, we want to pursue the implementation of IK. As you know, IK is a pan-European private equity manager. They are very close to each of their markets. They have 7 implementation, and they have in mind to open a new office in Spain in '26. I think it's very important in order to maintain the quality of the deal flows for our LPs. So that's for private equity.

Private credit, here also a very strong organic dynamic. Equity raised EUR 3.8 billion. As you know, post acquisition, it's always very important to see how the LPs will react and the signal was very positive with a lot of free-up, we have maintained the client base, and it's very positive for Monroe Capital. They have raised capital also with their retail evergreen vehicles during the year '25. And if we talk about the first 2 months of '26, the flows remain positive. So we are still gathering money on our retail evergreen vehicle for Monroe.

Deployment, money invested EUR 8.3 billion, a very high level of investment. It's a record year for them. They remain relatively selective in terms of deployment. If you look at all the key KPIs of the private credit, LTV, leverage, diversification, Monroe is very well positioned. And also, if we -- just to give you one figure, if we look at the performance of the underlying companies of Monroe, the growth of the EBITDA is 12%. So private credit remains a very good asset class. And it's with Monroe, they invest, as you know, they lend money mainly to small and mid companies in the U.S. and the U.S. economy is still very strong.

AUM grew 22%. Here, the same message regarding the workforce. We are still investing in the business to reinforce the diversification. And the last comment on Monroe, probably '26, 2 important message. The first one, we want to develop organically Monroe in Europe. So we are working on it. We hope to be in a position to execute something in '26. And also, we are pursuing the diversification with the launch of new strategies and evergreen strategies for Monroe Capital.

Last strategy for us, even if it's not closed so far, as David said, it's Committed Advisors. We expect to close it in Q1 '26. They have started the new round of fundraising with their Vintage VI, and I can tell you the dynamic is very positive. The feedback from clients is positive. The cornerstone investors are there. So the dynamic is very good, and we hope that it will contribute to our growth in '26.

Now if we turn to profitability, we have 2 slides. The first one, Page 15, it's the actual profitability. So here, you have, as David said, a very important scope effect because last year, you had only 8 months of IK in '24 and in '25, you have 12 months of IK and only 9 months of Monroe. So you have -- the growth rates are very high, 177% for the revenues, 150% for the profitability. What is important is to show you here that the profit contribution to Wendel is increasing significantly, and it shows you the execution of the strategy. But what is more important probably is to go to the next page on Page 16, just to have a more analytic view of the P&L.

So let's take the second column, the pro forma. What pro forma means here? It's 12 months of IK and 12 months of Monroe. And for that, so if you look at the first line, the revenues, the recurring revenues, so excluding carrying interest, the revenues tied to the FRE. So above EUR 400 million for EUR 30 billion of fee-paying AUM on average, it means an average fee rate of 135 basis points. I think it's a very good level with our mix of business as of today. So IK is closer to 180 and Monroe remains above 100 basis points because, as you know, Monroe is really focused on Alpha. So they are not chasing AUM. The idea is really to focus on fees and performance for the LPs.

Then the second indicator I would like to comment here is the margin, 38%. So it's a good margin because it's a good balance between our objective of profitability. But at the same time, we maintain investment in the business in order to have a sustainable growth.

And the last comment on this slide for me is the EUR 159 million. When we have announced the Monroe acquisition last year in October '24, we gave you this objective of EUR 160 million. We have reached this objective despite the dollar effect. It means that IK and Monroe have been in a position to compensate the negative dollar effect. And we are today able to announce you that we have reached this target for the full 25 years.

Then last page, so '26, it's a summary of what we said previously with David. So the organic growth is there. We have now also Committed Advisors part of the platform. We have reached EUR 47 billion. As said in December, we have a good level of diversification in terms of clients, geographic areas and products. So we can maintain this pace of growth. And as you can see, it will have a significant impact also in terms of FRE growth because we have in mind to reach EUR 200 million for '26.

Thank you, Cyril. Now I'm going to turn to Slide 19 to talk about the activity during 2025 in our Wendel Principal Investments area. I will first cover the key highlights in 2025 and with this IK Partners mandate I mentioned earlier, which went effectively in operations on January 1, 2026. So from now on, all the past controlled private investments and the future investments in the controlled private equity made on Wendel balance sheet will be managed by the IK Partners team, which sits in the IK Partners ecosystem, and so we'll benefit from the expertise and resources of IK Partners, which we believe is going to be very helpful to create more value for the group.

We also have been very active in 2025, including some leadership changes at Scalian, William Rozé joined us from Capgemini with a very strong experience in the industry. And we had as well a new CFO during the year. So a strong change of leadership at Scalian.

At CPI, the long tenure CEO, Tony Jace, retired during the year, and Andee Harris joined as well during the summer. She's bringing a very strong tech and commercial background, which is exactly what CPI needs today.

In 2025, we also invested roughly EUR 100 million in Scalian, both to support the M&A strategy and to strengthen the balance sheet. As I mentioned earlier, in 2025, we secured the public to private of Tarkett and Tarkett became a private company in late December 2025.

We've been very active in our portfolio companies and financed 16 bolt-on acquisitions, 1 at Scalian, Tarkett and CPI each and 4 for Globeducate, which has been pretty active and 9 at Bureau Veritas. So a very active year for our portfolio companies.

Last, I remind you the 2 disposals of shares that happened at Bureau Veritas in 2025 in March and September. And those gains flow through our balance sheet and not in our P&L, and Benoit will come back to that later in the presentation.

I'm turning now to Page 20, where we are going to come back to the sales of Stahl and IHS and give you more details. So as I mentioned, the Stahl sale is expected to bring EUR 1.2 billion of proceeds to Wendel. This sale at EUR 2.1 billion enterprise value was secured with a 20% premium above the latest NAV published in Q3 2025. And it did generate a return above 15% per annum over the last 20 years. So a strong 6.6% cash-on-cash return when you include the previous dividends that we had over the years. So a very good return over a very long period.

Beyond the financial results, on the right side, we wanted to give you a bit more insight on the value creation that happened on this investment. You can see that the revenues grew nicely over this period. The EBITDA grew actually at a higher pace because we increased the margin quite significantly over the years with a strong control of cost and some operational leverage, which was combined with an upscaling of our product portfolio where we moved to higher-margin products over the years.

It has been a very thoughtful process to reposition Stahl to a more attractive asset under the leadership of Maarten Heijbroek. We -- over the last few years, we made some strategic acquisition in the specialty coatings business to make the company more attractive with the higher growth prospects. And at the same time, we worked on the carve-out of the wet-end business, now which is called Muno that is going to stay under our Wendel portfolio, which is having different market dynamics, and we thought will be not as attractive as the rest of the portfolio to potential buyers. So we've been quite active, and we are very pleased with the results that you can see here.

I'm moving now to Slide 21 to give you some insight as well on our investment in IHS, which has been a long-term hold as well, slightly shorter because the initial investment was in 2013, but still 13 years is quite a long investment. This is our last investment in Africa. So we are closing this chapter with this sale.

We expect $535 million of net proceeds, which is around 21% above the NAV that we used for this stake in Q3 2025. It is a 0.7 cash-on-cash net multiples for this investment. The financial return is not showing the actual operating performance that you can see on the right side because IHS has been a very strong organic growth and M&A growth success.

We multiply by 10 the sales and by 21 the EBITDA. But this is not showing up in terms of financial return because we did suffer both from a volatile FX environment in naira, which is the main currency in Nigeria, was devaluated over 8x over that period. So that did impact us quite significantly. And the Towers business industry did suffer some strong derating as well. So the combination of an industry derating and FX actually made this growth story in terms of operational success, less attractive in terms of financial outcome, as you can see on the left side.

I'm now going to cover on Page 22 and 23 the results of our listed assets and private asset portfolio. In the listed assets, I'm only going to comment on Bureau Veritas because once again, Tarkett is now in private assets, and we don't consolidate IHS. Bureau Veritas just announced its results yesterday. They published some strong results. You can see with some good organic growth, plus 6.5% and some improvement in the margin. So we are quite happy with those results.

In terms of 2026 guidelines, we expect the results to be fully in line with the LEAP 21 -- sorry, the LEAP28 strategic plan. You can also see here that Bureau Veritas did announce a new EUR 200 million share buyback program yesterday as well, which is going to be completed over the year.

Moving to Slide 23 to give you more details on the performance of our private assets, and I will be starting with ACAMS. ACAMS had a very good year last year. As you remember, in 2024, we made some significant investments, both in terms of talent, in terms of technology, and we can see that in 2025, we can see some early results of those changes. Both the top line were very strong. The margins were strong as well. And we did a refinancing as well of ACAMS at the end of the year. So we secured a longer maturity for the debt and a lower financial interest expenses as well. So across the board, it was a very good year for ACAMS.

CPI had a soft year in 2025. We were used to much higher growth rate in the past, plus 2% in terms of sales, plus 2% in terms of EBITDA. It's mainly in the U.S. where we saw some softness. The rest of the portfolio had some good growth. But in the U.S., there was a lot of uncertainty in the federal budget, both for health care and education customers, and that did impact the company growth profile.

Regarding Globeducate, you can see that the company has grew nicely in 2025. It's a combination of both on organic growth, the enrollment in terms of students and pricing, but also in terms of M&A, as I mentioned earlier, we did some acquisition in Cyprus, in the U.K. during the year. And so the company is on track to deliver some good growth in 2026 as well.

Scalian had a tough year in 2025. It's a tale of 2 stories. We had some good resilience for the large accounts and for the core markets where Scalian is a very strong niche player, namely the aerospace, defense, energy and financial service industries. But at the same time, we did had a lot of softness in our smaller accounts and IT accounts, which did suffer from a market pullback.

And so the combination is this minus 5.1% in terms of sales. The company had some fixed cost basis. So the EBITDA reduced by 8.2%. In 2026, we believe we're going to see a stronger growth from those large accounts and in our core markets. We are going to work to have those IT customers to decline at a lower level. So we expect some sort of stability. And we have some strong program to reorganize the business to improve our margins. So we expect to have a different trend in 2026. You can see that Tarkett had a year with some margin improvement, and we were happy to see a plus 4% growth in terms of EBITDA.

On Slide 24 and 25, we wanted to quickly show you how the portfolio of Principal Investments is changing if we include the pro forma sale of IHS and Stahl, which are ongoing. So on 24, you can see the -- what we showed you at the Investor Day actualized with December 31, 2025. So this is a slide that you know. But interestingly, on Slide 25, we did the same description of our portfolio, assuming IHS and Scalian are sold and with the newcomer Muno, which is the name of the wet-end business of Stahl that we're going to keep.

What you can see is that the industrial part of our portfolio is shrinking down to 5% and the business services part of our portfolio, Scalian and Bureau Veritas is growing in due proportion. So the principal investments, including those 2 asset disposals is down to EUR 3.9 billion in terms of gross asset values and with a more balanced education, training and tech on one side and business services sector exposure on the other side. So we thought it will be an interesting view for you.

I'm going to turn the mic now to Benoit Drillaud to present you the financial results of 2025.

Good morning. I'll start the presentation of the P&L with 2 significant profits that are not booked in the P&L. The first one relates to 2 significant events of 2025 in the development of our strategy, the forward sale of Bureau Veritas shares and the block sale of Bureau Veritas shares in September. They have translated in a profit of EUR 980 million booked in the equity, close to EUR 1 billion booked in the equity.

And the second profit is the change in fair value of IHS. The share price of this company has doubled over the year and it has been booked in the equity. So EUR 1.2 billion booked directly in the equity in accordance with the applicable accounting principle. If we go through the detail of our P&L, you can see that Monroe has strongly contributed to the asset management platform from EUR 42 million that was 8 months of IK to EUR 127 million, 12 months of IK plus 9 months of Monroe. The contribution from the WPI portfolio is decreasing a little bit with the earnings of Stahl and Scalian. The operating expenses and taxes have decreased by 9%, demonstrating the good cost control.

Last year, we benefited from a very exceptional level of income from cash and cash equivalent because the money market rates were close to 4%. And in 2025, they were a little bit above 2%. So this explained the level of the financial income in 2024. In 2025, it's more balanced.

So globally, the net income from operations that is the most meaningful aggregate for Wendel is stable at EUR 753 million. Same in group share is lower because of the earnings of Stahl and Scalian and because the percentage of interest in the net income of Bureau Veritas is lower at the beginning of 2024, the percentage of interest was close to 35%. And at the end of 2025, this percentage was 15% with the 2 block sales we made in 2024 and 2025 and the forward sale.

The nonrecurring cost mainly come from the portfolio companies with restructuring costs, M&A cost, the cost of the disposal project of Stahl, the carve-out cost of Muno. And last year, we had the very significant capital gain on Constantia. The impact from the acquisition entries have increased because we had the acquisition of IK last year. We had the acquisition of Globeducate of Monroe. So these acquisitions explain why this cost -- this accounting expenses have increased.

And concerning the impairment, we have in 2025, the loss that Scalian booked in June. And we also have the reversal of the depreciation we had on Tarkett because the share price went from EUR 14, if I remember well, to the squeeze out price that was EUR 17. So the total net income is EUR 345 million.

The net income group share is a loss of EUR 152 million, but if we take into account the 2 significant positive entries in the equity, we have a level of equity group shares that increased from EUR 3.2 billion to EUR 3.5 billion in 2025.

If we turn to the following page, the Page 28, you have here the 3 main components of our very strong financial structure. First, liquidity with EUR 2.2 billion of cash and the undrawn credit line. You have, of course, the LTV ratio that is below 10%, well below the S&P ceiling for our current rating. And you have a very long maturity profile of our bonds after we'll have repaid in the next weeks, the exchangeable bonds and the 2026 bonds that are coming to maturity.

So I now leave the floor to our CEO, Laurent Mignon, for the conclusion.

Thank you, [ Michiels ]. Thank you, Benoit. Thank you, David and Cyril. Just one point to add on that and then I'll make the conclusion. The LTV, the 9.6% include the pro forma of the share buyback that we have announced today. So it's a fully -- it's full.

So what can we take away from this presentation? A very strong and tangible execution of what we have announced in December for the Investor Day. We've said at that time that we will do EUR 7 billion of asset sale and cash flow generation cumulated by 2030. We already have made 27% of that through the sale of Stahl and IHS in February this year. We've said that WIM will represent 50% -- more than 50% of the Wendel GAV, excluding cash by 2030. We are already at 38%, including the acquisition, obviously, of Committed Advisors. And we've said that we will return EUR 1.6 billion to shareholders. We're going to return in '26 more than EUR 500 million to our shareholders through the dividend and the share buyback.

So I think that we have strong headroom for new investment and continue to move on our strategy, create some value by creating capital appreciation through WPI and create long-term value and recurring cash flow through the development of WIM, where we think we have a good way forward with a 15% potential growth per year, and a good development altogether, and that will be in line exactly with what we said, I think, in December, and that's it. So I think we are all here to answer your question, and I pass over to the moderator or to Olivier in order to decide how to organize the Q&A session. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] We will now take the first question from the line of Geoffroy Michalet from ODDO BHF.

I have one question is what is -- what will be your criteria of your, let's say, [indiscernible] before deciding any new investment in WPI or in WIM? What will be the trigger?

Well, thank you for the question. Well, first of all, we have a lot of headroom as we mentioned and as evidenced by our LTV. So the criteria, we would say that we will be investing, and I think that was presented during the Investor Day, the equivalent of, let's say, EUR 300 million plus per year in the WPI, and then we will make potentially more -- some investment in the WIM.

So we're -- together with the mandate that we've given with IK, so with the IK teams, we're constantly looking to opportunity to invest in WPI. Our objective when we do this type of transaction is to make a transaction that we can generate 12% to 15%, let's say, 15% of targeted return on those investments with a view of investing it at least for 5 years and potentially for more if the asset is great and we want to keep it longer, which is a little bit of our characteristic. So we're reviewing the different thing.

My priority in 2026 concerning WIM is to continue building the platform. We've done a lot already, but we are working on building the platform more. And we have, as was, I think, clearly explained by Cyril, we have a lot of internal growth objectives being product, being geography, for example, for Monroe, being a product for IK. And we've got for Monroe also of being the fundraising activity of Committed Advisors that is starting a new fundraising activity has already started a new fundraising activity.

So our priority is to do that, create more -- a little bit more of the sales organization, develop that, develop the -- as was said by Cyril, the retail development. So that's really our top priority. However, if we see a good opportunity, we'll look at it. We have the headroom to do it. But my priority is the one I mentioned to you.

So on WPI, to make it simple, we constantly look to opportunities and we'll take benefit of the ability of the IT teams to bring us good opportunities to make some investment. And on the other side, we'll first give the priority to internal development. If we see a great opportunity that fill the expertise needs that we have, we'll look at it.

[Operator Instructions] We will now take the next question from the line of Alexandre Gerard from CIC CIB.

I have 3 questions. So the first one is related to ACAMS and CPI. I just wanted to know to what extent AI might be a threat for the business model of these 2 companies. So that's my first question.

Second question, it's a question related to the Scalian and the valuation of Scalian in your latest NAV. There are similar top-notch listed assets trading on 5 or 4x -- 4x EBITDA and Scalian is also very leveraged. So I just wanted to know to what extent you've been very conservative on the valuation of that asset.

And the last question is related to private credit, of course, regarding the current bad buzz around that asset class. How can you be so confident that the bad buzz will not have any short-term impact on fundraisings or withdrawals?

Well, thank you for the 3 questions. I will start and Cyril will help me complement the last one. I will take the second one also. And probably, David, you will take the one on ACAMS and CPI. So I mean, those questions are absolutely relevant and crucial question.

I'll start with the easiest one because it's the most factual, which is the Scalian valuation. Scalian is, as you can see on page whatever it is, Page 24, Scalian is based on listed peers multiple. So I think the fact that listed peer multiples are trading at lower multiple, we've taken that into account in valuing Scalian. I think that the profit we've been making on -- I mean, the up value in -- we've been making by selling Stahl show you that we have a conservative approach to the valuation. And we take comparable and when the comparable move down, that affects the thing.

So Scalian, the value of Scalian since we bought it has had 2 negative impact, the negative impact linked to the EBITDA, which went down and two, obviously, the multiple. So yes, we take that -- we think that there is -- this is a period of the cycle. We think that the future is much brighter. But yes, we are working on the underlying asset, and we're pretty sure that the actions we're taking are the right one in order to valuate in long term. So -- but we are taking not a long-term value. It's listed peers value, if I answer well to that.

The second one is private credit. A lot of noise about private credit. By the way, let me remind you something, which I think I said during the Investor Day, but I want to say it again, is credit is not a free lunch. I mean, doing credit means risk and everybody knows about it. You're getting a return for the credit, so you need to have some risk, and it's the next banker that talks to you. So we know that. However, we feel that the way Monroe do it business is a relatively good risk/return reward way to do the credit. They're doing that to lower middle market companies in the U.S., very much linked to the U.S. economy.

I don't think they're doing so -- and the way they process, I think I already said that here in this audience about the way they do origination, underwriting and so on is a way to have the most professional approach to private credit. They've been in the market for 20 years. And their performance today are good. We see some element of -- you've got -- sometimes you've got bad news. But overall, the performance of the private credit sales is good because it's a portfolio. It's a very diversified portfolio also. They're doing more than per fund.

Cyril, correct me if I'm wrong, but it's more than 100 lines per fund...

Exactly.

That they have. So this is the basic. They have no concentration in sectors. They've got no concentration in lines in -- so they are diversifying, which I think is a very important element of the performance. The only element of concentration that they have is that they are on the lower middle market part of the U.S. industry, which, in fact, reflect the health of the U.S. industry, which is good, in fact. So that's why we are confident. There is bad buzz. So it is true that we see less natural inflows on the retail part because people are reading press and say, well, can we -- but we first see a lot of confidence and gaining new mandates on the institutional part with very sophisticated investors that do understand the business and are very confident in the skills of Monroe and are putting more Monroe to be managed by -- more money to be managed by Monroe.

And on the retail side, we think that as long as the performance will be correct, we see less strong inflows, but we still see inflows. So it is -- I think it's -- we have to just go through that period of bad buzz, as you mentioned. And then it goes from bad buzz to specific. And whenever you go to specific, then it's fine. Cyril, do I have to -- do you want to add something to what I said on that?

No, no, it's, okay to me.

I was clear. Okay. AI, and then I will leave the floor to David on that because we've worked a lot. I mean, AI is a big disruption in the market everywhere. Everybody is starting to say how much AI is impacting our business model. And obviously, we have the discussion with all our investment company. This is specifically the case for ACAMS and CPI. You want to say a word, David?

Yes. Alexandre, before I answer directly your question on the threats from AI, just a quick word on the opportunities from AI because we do believe we -- there's a lot of upside on specifically on those 2 companies. We are working quite actively, especially on ACAMS to develop a new product, a new AI product, which we believe it could be very valuable to our customers, producing and giving access to the 150,000 pieces of proprietary content that we have in a very attractive way. So we are developing a very strong and attractive product.

It's probably going to have an impact on the cost base to produce our content in terms of translation, delivery, organizing the travels for the trainers, for instance, for CPI. So there is still a lot of good positives to come from AI.

But back to your question on the threats and how we believe that we have some boots here and to protect those businesses. I would say both of them have -- are regulated businesses and in most places, are mandatory by the regulators, it could be the state for CPI. It could be the financial supervisors for ACAMS. That's not something that you can shift, and if the regulator is asking you to have some CAM certified people or to have people trained by CPI. You can't answer, well, I pay like a Copilot license to my team. This is not going to work for the regulators.

Two, the importance of the brand, ACAMS and CPI by far are the leaders in their industry with very, very strong market share and they are the references, and that's a very strong moat. Then each of them have some specific barriers. And ACAMS, remember, this is a certification business and a body which deliver a CAM certification. So that's pretty unique. And ACAMS is really based on assemblies and community, those anti-money laundering specialists. They gather together, obviously, in trade shows, but also in local assemblies that ACAMS organize and that's really unique.

And CPI has a different barrier, which is the physical part of the training for roughly half of the sales of CPI. You need to have a physical presence to deliver the training. So there will no way to get understanding on how to restrain an agitated patient or students purely online. You need to have the physical training.

So I know it's a long answer, and we're really, as Laurent was saying, putting a lot of efforts to understand the implication and there will be implication. But so far, we believe that the positive are going to be above the negative on those 2 assets.

There are no further questions on the phone at this time. I would like to hand back over to Olivier Allot for webcast questions.

We have 2 questions about shareholder return. Will the shares repurchased through the share buyback be canceled?

For the time being, we've said that we will allocate those shares to potentially pay the potential further paid of the puts and calls that we have in IK or be in front of the long-term incentive plan that is regularly given to the management, but it can be canceled. It's not a decision taken for the time being. We just announced before we do that late December that we've canceled how much -- how many shares did we cancel in late December, Benoit, I think 3.5%, 4% of the company.

Yes.

4%?

Yes.

So we'll review. We do the share buyback, we see and then we'll make cancellation of shares whenever we need in order to give us more headroom to do share buybacks.

Thank you. A question about the dividend. Just for the sake of clarity, should we expect EUR 3.6 of dividend to be paid in May and EUR 2.55 of interim dividend in November?

Well, this -- the EUR 3.6, everything will be related to the approval by the shareholder meeting, which is in May. I don't expect to have non approval. But should it agree with the EUR 5.1 dividend that we have announced that we're proposing, out of the EUR 5.1, EUR 1.5 has been paid. So the remaining EUR 3.6 will be paid then just after the AGM. And as I announced, we will pay 50% as an account interim dividend we will pay in November 50% of the dividend of 2025, which is EUR 5.1, which effectively make EUR 2.55, which then will be in payment somewhere in November. So the answer is -- long answer to say yes.

Question about WPI. For how long time, do you expect to keep your shares in Bureau Veritas and the other larger unlisted assets?

Well, thank you. The question is when we invest in companies is because we want to create some value, and once we feel that our -- I mean, we have created the value we wanted and that we have to pass the company needs other means to do it, we pass it. So that's what happened for Stahl, for example. We've been Stahl for many years.

So if I take the other unlisted assets, the -- as I mentioned, we always have an objective at 5 years. And after 5 years, we reassess the position to know whether we want to keep it or we want to sell it depending on what we see as a perspective. Bureau Veritas is a bit of a -- so it's really what we will do for the same for Scalian, for CPI, for ACAMS, for Globeducate or for Tarkett. The situation is for Bureau Veritas. We've been a shareholder for now 30 years. We've listed the company. Now the company is listed, and we have sold some of our shares during the last 2 or 3 years -- the last 3 years based on the fact that the exposure that we had not based on the fact that we didn't like the value creation potential of Bureau Veritas but the fact that the size of the concentration of Bureau Veritas was too high compared to their own portfolio and that we need to rebalance and use that to develop our new strategy, which is to develop the asset management strategy.

Today, we've done more or so. So the question is only to know do we -- are we confident or not in the perspective of Bureau Veritas. And we are confident. So for time being, we are a happy shareholder of Bureau Veritas. And we will only reduce our shares into it. Whenever we feel that the value we have in mind is achieved. But for the same being, we think that the LEAP28 plan has a strong tailwind and that the team is doing a great job and that we can create more value with Bureau Veritas than the current share price today.

A technical question about Stahl consolidation. Was it 100% consolidated into Wendel's account in 2025? Can you share the 2025 sales EBITDA and usual information you publish about the company? And can you do the same about Muno?

I think it's -- Benoit, you will confirm, we are on IFRS 5 now, So it's a discontinued activities?

Yes. So it's consolidated, but classified under a specific account, but it's consolidated.

What is Monroe exposure to software investment? Have you seen any drop off in flows into private credit focused wealth product, which has been quite clearly among the scaled U.S. players?

Well, I can leave Cyril to say that. I think I already answered partially to that. But Cyril, if you want to take that?

No, no. Yes, for sure. Monroe is exposed to the software industry. If you look at -- it depends on the strategies and the various vehicles. But keep in mind that what they do, it's -- they do -- they are focused on the lower mid-market. So their companies are between EUR 20 million and EUR 50 million maximum of EBITDA. So most of their exposure to the digitalization of the U.S. economy is tied to businesses close to the firm to support the digitalization of the industry, the health segment.

So for sure, as David said, in AI, you have challenges and opportunities, but we do believe that Monroe is very well positioned to go through that. And there is a risk and opportunities and the team, the underwriting team is really focused on that. They are always reassessing their exposure to software in order to be sure that they monitor their exposure.

And the second question regarding the inflows, as I said, there was some reduction of the inflows on the BDCs, MCIP, the main one, but it's still -- we are still seeing inflows. And we do believe that over the long term, the allocation of private market for retirees and the 401(k), et cetera, will increase. For sure, it's a bumpy road because there was some noise now. But over the long term, we do believe that the potential is there in Europe and in the U.S.

But to rephrase what Cyril said, they don't have a specific tweaks to software and so on. So they have software, not more or less globally the market. Am I right saying so, Cyril?

Yes, yes, for sure. Yes.

Yes. Just to be clear on that.

We have a question about the execution of the share buyback. How the share buyback program will be executed, is there a certain percentage of traded volume that will be bought every day on the market? Or will it be more opportunistic?

I think -- I don't know what I can say. We will give a mandate to a bank that will execute that. And I think they will have -- they will execute that on a daily basis based on the mandate. So once we've given the mandate, it's not us doing it. They have a time frame, which is the end of the year. They have the amount, and they will execute that by respecting the rules of the AMF and whatever are the rules to be respected. So that's how it will be done. So it's -- am I saying it the right way, Benoit?

Absolutely.

Good. Good. But basically, it's an everyday business. It's not like buying one day and be off the market. It's -- they have -- but again, we will not be interfering into that. We've given a mandate to buy that to a bank, and that will be executed by the bank following the rules as a mandate from us. The mandate will be starting tomorrow morning.

A question about the discount to NAV. How do you explain the wide discount on the NAV? Is there any specific reaction to Wendel management and track record?

Sorry, I don't understand. Is there any -- you mean -- do we do well our job? I don't know. We're trying to change the company, make it evolve. I think there are severe discount to NAV to any other investment capital heavy firms that is publishing an NAV. Is the NAV the right way to look at us? Probably not because we are becoming more and more an asset management company. So we have to think about whether this is the right way to think about us because now the asset management is representing 38% of our total business, and it's not here up to sell. So it's a different approach. It's a long-term business and should be valued on the flows.

So we have to think about the way we do it. Now -- each time I see somebody, he gives me a different reason from the discount to NAV, too much concentration on one stock, then it's too much listed assets, then it's too much nonlisted assets. So the other one is the value of listed, nonlisted assets is unclear, so people make discounts. So the others -- again, what we are trying is not to focus on that. We focus on long term. We focus on value creation. We want to demonstrate that we will create value through the WPI strategy and for sure that we are creating a lot of value by the WIM strategy.

The growth will be there, return will be there. Return to shareholders through dividend will be there, again, and through share buyback. So we've been very clear about where we want to go during the Investor Day, and we'll execute on what we say. And I think that the first 1.5 months of this year '26 show that when we say we will execute is that we are doing it.

No more question on the web, but we turn back to question by phone. Operator, please?

We have 1 more question on the line from Alexandre Gerard from CIC CIB.

Yes, 2 follow-up questions, please. The first one on Tarkett. I mean, can you remind us what are your liquidity options on that investment? Could you trigger any put option? Or are you stuck with that stake for the long term. Second question also, it's on the FX impact on your NAV year-on-year. What was -- can you remind us what was the negative impact linked to the depreciation of the USD on your NAV?

So I'll leave that last one to Benoit. I think the impact of dollar because it's a dollar depreciation was quite [ null ] on the fourth quarter, but the full year, Benoit will give you the answer. For Tarkett, well, we are a minority investor in Tarkett alongside a family. So we're working with the family on improving the company making better developing the sports business in the U.S. -- well, not only in the U.S., but globally, improving the metrics of the company in terms of efficiency and a lot of work has been done in 2025.

So we feel that Tarkett and the company and the family together with us is doing a good job. We have -- it is clear for them that we are here for -- to be on their side and to help them developing the thing and that one day we will need to find an exit, there is a clear agreement with them. I don't have to comment the legal environment to that, but I'm pretty sure that everybody, once we finalize the value creation plan that is ongoing and ongoing, we will be in a position to exit our participation in good conditions. Benoit, you have...

Yes. The depreciation of the dollar resulted in a decrease of EUR 6.9 per share between the end of 2024 and the end of 2025, EUR 6.9.

There are no further questions at this time. I would like to hand back over to the speakers for closing remarks.

Well, no, thank you very much. Not much in fact, in this. Most of what we're saying was already there. But the point I want to really stress is that we are on the move, and we're doing what we -- we are saying what we do and we're doing what we say. That's very important. And we have a lot of further things to do in '26. We're very optimistic about creating value there. And thank you for being with us today, and we'll meet you soon.

Thank you, everyone.

Thank you.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

Welcome to Wendel 24th Investor Day. As you can see, we have quite a nice agenda today, and we hope that these sessions will give you a better understanding of Wendel's new value creation profile. There will be Q&A sessions at the end of each presentation for Wendel, the Q&A session will take place at the very end of this event. For those who are not in the room, you can ask questions from the web, and I will read them.

Given today's very rich agenda, I think it's time to start now with the first presentation by Laurent Mignon, Wendel's CEO. Jingle please.

Good -- not good morning, good afternoon to everybody. Very happy to be there with you and to share with you the transformation of Wendel and where we want to take Wendel. You'll see that we're pretty passionate about it. I think the team has been very motivated preparing this day and showing you all what we've changed and how much perspective that we have.

So to start, I think it's important that we share that Wendel has a change. It has become a leading investment firm in private assets. We invest both our shareholder money and the fund of our clients with an owner-operator mindset aiming to create long-term value for all our stakeholders. We do believe in the strength of the -- and the long-term alignment among all our stakeholders.

We do think that the ecosystem that we've built around Wendel today is value creating for long term and is unique. We also think that this model help us getting the best talent, and you know how much talent is important in this business and that we can generate long-term return. Lastly, and I think it's very important. We have the support of one of the oldest industrial family in Europe, the Wendel family, which with a long-term view help us taking a long-term view for our own strategy.

Wendel today now operates with 2 robust and complementary value creation engines, both of them focus on private assets. The first one is Wendel investment managers. This is a unique, diversified asset managers platform which is focused on mid-market in Europe and the U.S. We do think that mid-market is the market where we can add the most value for our clients. We have critical size, EUR 46 billion of assets under management, EUR 200 million -- over EUR 200 million of fee-related earnings in 2026 on a pro forma basis with committed adviser.

We've got organic growth potential with over 15% potential growth of this FRE basis. But Cyril Marie will come in more detail to explain you how. And in addition to that, we've got potential performance-related earnings that will start to fuel in the earnings of Wendel in 5 to 7 years. given the vintage of the funds, but that could generate significant value. Again, Cyril will come back to that.

On the other side, we have the Wendel Principal Investment. This is the core and the starting point of Wendel. This is our DNA. But we think that we can improve our performance to be in line with buyout standard. We have EUR 5.3 billion of net asset value. We think that we've got now a much more efficient model in order to manage those assets, and David will come back to that very in detail afterwards. We think we've got great assets, fairly valued assets.

We can target 12% to 16% return on those assets. And on the one, we're going to add to the platform whenever we will invest the money that has been done, thanks to a very active asset rotation policy. We are a long-term shareholder, but we're also an active manager of our assets. And I think that thanks to that, you will see we can generate significant cash flow in the years to come.

So how have we achieved that change over the last 3 years. Just few words about the past and then we'll concentrate ourselves in the future. We've sold EUR 3.6 billion of assets during this period, and we have reinvested EUR 2.7 billion in new assets or companies. You have here in mind all what have been done from the sale of Constantia, some sale of BV in order to reduce our exposure. We still are a very committed shareholder of BV, but we thought it was too much exposure to our old [indiscernible] to the acquisition of Globeducate, the acquisition of Scalian. But strategically, more importantly is the acquisition of IK Partners, which was announced in October '23 the acquisition of Monroe Capital, which was announced in October '24 and the acquisition of Committed Advisor, which was announced in October '25. We've executed a major transformation. And I think we have to realize that.

This transformation, you can see it here from an asset of value base, which was mostly between unlisted and listed assets. Now it's really about asset management, which account for roughly 30% of the value of Wendel and 70% now from the direct investment. And that has allowed us to deliver significant value. 20% of our current market cap have been returned to shareholders over the last 3 years, 20%. This is EUR 700 million that has been returned since '23 to our shareholders, EUR 574 million through dividend which is an increase by 51% to the same period 2022 and EUR 129 million through share buybacks.

Now where do we want to go? What do we want to do? We've made the transformation. We've created the platform, and they think now from that, we can build significant value going forward. Our model will be a significant cash generation model. It will start by the asset management. Asset management will generate recurring and growing cash flows through fees streams. The second one will be the active management of our permanent capital portfolio. The third one, which is a key element, too, is to have an efficient operating model, a lean way to work, less cash burden from the management of the holding companies.

And the fourth pillar is to keep a structure -- a financial structure, which is solid with an investment-grade rating. Doing all that, will allow us to generate EUR 7 billion of cash by 2030, at least EUR 7 billion. And what are we going to do with this EUR 7 billion, we're going first, invest in supporting the growth of our asset management platform over EUR 2.5 billion. We're going to keep on investing in new companies for EUR 1.7 billion. David will go back on that. We're going to give back money to our shareholders, over EUR 1.6 billion over the period.

And if you make the math, there are still EUR 1.2 billion. And this EUR 1.2 billion is some flexibility to manage the balance sheet, but also to return either more money to shareholders, depending on how the value of the company evolve or invest in new companies if needed. EUR 1.6 billion back to shareholders at least during the period, just to have a nudge of magnitude, this is EUR 35 per share, which is close to 40% of the value of the company today. And this is only one part of the capital allocation, which is over EUR 7 billion, as I mentioned.

Now let's look to the EUR 7 billion. This EUR 7 billion, as I said, will be generated by recurring cash flow from the asset management, which is brand new and asset rotation and we will be active in managing the portfolio, listed portfolio, but nonlisted portfolio. From that, we will paid dividend, EUR 1.3 billion over the period at least. We'll do share buyback, and you'll see that the EUR 300 million I'm putting here is the one we announced for '26, I will come back to that.

We'll invest in the asset management, EUR 2.5 billion. What is the EUR 2.5 billion, SID money to support the growth of our expertise invest in new initiatives of those expertise of Monroe, I committed adviser to kick-start new products, help them grow faster. It's buying back the minority shareholders of IT of Monroe of Committed Adviser as planned. And last, additional expertise that we can add through M&A. But the last point is less important than the 2 ones. We have built our platform. We can grow from that platform. That's our #1 priority in the asset management and I think we've got a very sound base to do that. Cyril will, I think, help you understand that further.

Then we've got EUR 1.7 billion that we will invest in new companies. And we'll do that with the support of the new setup that we've organized through the mandate we've given to IK, and David will come back to that. And in the middle, you've got the EUR 1.2 billion, which is really the surplus that we have here that will be split between shareholder return or investment depending on environment. We will judge whether the share price -- if the share price still stays with too much discount, obviously, we will give priority to giving shareholder return. If not, I think we will keep on investing to create superior return on these investments.

Where will it lead to the company look like in 2030? A lot of you ask me what -- how do you see the company in 5 years? Well, 50% of the intrinsic value of the company, at least will be coming from the asset management. Then the rest will be the direct investment either through SID Money, sponsor money also the investment in the portfolio as we've been an investor in nonlisted assets with the aim of creating capital gain, capital appreciation. This strategy is there to generate value and to generate stronger return to shareholders, but not at the detriment of growing the company long term.

We are, on one side, creating a model that is self-growing that will keep on growing and that will generate long-term value. And at the same time, we have a predictable, growing dividend policy and the ability to make share buyback if the discount in the company is too wide and it makes them sense to invest part of the money in this discount.

Dividend. I think you already know the dividend policy that we've explained, I think, 2 years ago, but it's important you understand it's pretty simple. We're paying 2.5% of the investment portfolio, whether this is SID money, whether this is investment in companies, why 2.5%? Rough calculation. I say we're expecting 13% return on average, let's say, 12% to 16%, right? 16% -- 12% -- so you take 20% of that. 20% is giving back to the shareholders, 80% is reinvested. That's a way to look to the 2.5%.

And the rest is we're giving 90% of the cash flow of the asset management, you don't need capital for growing asset management. That's beauty of that business, and we're giving 90% of that, which means that on average, compared to the value from the 2.5% of the net asset value at the start, it will grow to at least 3.5% of the global value of the firm. This is predictable. This is sustainable. This is growing.

Yet current share price does not reflect what we think is the value of Wendel. So we have to take some action to that. And that's why we're going to do a share buyback program, we're going to buy up to 9% of the shares of the company. Technically, we will cancel some of the shares that are on our balance sheet, 3.8%. We have 4.8% today. We have to keep 1% for regulatory issues, and we use the ability to buy 9% in the market in 2026, 9% of the value of the company.

Well, I want everybody to understand is that we have created now, I think a pretty unique engine where we have value creation through capital gains through our investment and we've put that in a mood and in a way to do it, to manage it, which I think give us the best possibility to create that value. But we've also created a very strong and unique asset management platform that will generate recurring, growing cash flow that will be available for shareholder return.

We've worked on the cost of the holding company in order to make sure that we are lean. We've moved to close to 100 people to less than 60 people managing these assets. And we will generate at least EUR 1.6 billion to shareholders in the coming years. So that gives you a little bit of the [indiscernible] of what we're going to do.

And now I will hand over to David. He will go through the Wendel Principal investment part. And then you will have Cyril, who will talk about the Wendel Investment Management part. David?

Thank you, Laurent. Good afternoon, everyone. I propose now that we talk about our portfolio of Wendel investment. Today, the portfolio is composed. The new operating model that Laurent touched upon, we announced that during our latest quarterly results, we're going to give you more details on how this is going to work. And then we are going to end this presentation on our ambition on Wendel principle. How much capital we want to deploy the return we expect.

So let's start with the current portfolio. You can see here the 8 portfolio companies that we have in Wendel Principal Investments. You know them pretty well. 5 private companies, 3 listed, 1 of which is going to go private by the end of the year, Targets, the squeeze-out offer should end by December. But what is important here is the diversification. There is no company here, which is having a weight which is too excessive compared to the others.

So in terms of waiting, none of them is too big. It's pretty diversified in terms of geographies, with headquarter in Europe, headquartered in the U.S. and in terms of business model as well. We have industrial companies, business services with -- and even some infra. So a very diversified portfolio with strong companies. Andee Harris and William Rozé are with us today, the CEO of CPI and Scalian. We'll talk later about those companies to give you the what we see in terms of long-term trends. But suffice to say that for these 8 companies, we see some positive growth coming.

Another point we wanted to make on this slide is on valuation. Laurent mentioned that we believe that our portfolio is fairly valued. And so we wanted to give you a bit more details on how we value each of them in our portfolio because each time we sell an asset, you can see that the proceeds are higher than our NAV. So we wanted to share on how we calculate this lab, where these numbers are coming from. Usually, the preferred valuation multiple approach is the peer multiple. We select a sample of peers. That's what we do for Scalian, for Stahl, for ACAMS and CPI, and we apply those public multiples to those companies' earnings.

So we don't take long-term multiples, which are flat. We revised those numbers on a quarterly basis as we do our NAV calculation. So those are fresh multiples. We do revise down when the market is down, we do revise down our valuation based on those peer multiples. This is almost market-to-market type of valuation, except it is done 4 times a year.

For Globeducate, it's a bit different. We use transaction multiples because there is no actual good comparable listed peers. And at the same time, there are a lot of transactions in the K12 industries. So a lot of good data point that we're using. And usually, the buyers and sellers are disclosing some interesting information on quality information, so we can use this approach for Globeducate, which we don't do for the rest of the portfolio.

And obviously, for the 2 other listed companies, BV and AHS, we use the average share price, a 20-day average share price before the end of the quarter. Tarkett, we used the EUR 17 squeeze-out price, obviously. So you can see it's a very robust methodology, which is reviewed by our board, by our Audit Committee, by our auditors. So it's a very rigorous process. And so we believe it's a strong portfolio, which is really fairly valued. And as Laurent mentioned, portfolio rotation to come, we should expect some proceeds to go beyond this EUR 5.3 billion valuation.

So this is the portfolio, but I think what is probably more interesting is to talk about the way we operate. We mentioned during Q3 that we were going to change the way going forward, starting January 1. We're going to operate this Wendel principal investment. So we're going to give you more details on how this is going to work.

What we realize that recently over the last few years, the industry has gone through some changes. Scale matters more and more. We need more sector understanding, sector expertise. We need to have access to a broader geographies in terms of sourcing. And we need to have some talents with very strong execution capabilities. We need to act quickly. And so we need to have a team with a lot of repetition, a lot of experience. So it's a business where scale matters more and more. And we believe that we need to reach critical scale in asset management as well in the Wendel Principal investment area.

So when you consider this that you need more scale, you need to have a broader reach, you need more expertise. What we do about this? Well, we looked at our internal capabilities and in our portfolio with the IK team, we do have those capabilities. I will show you later on a broader description of IK, but you will see the reach and the pool of talent of IK is really impressive. And so we try to build with IK, an advisory mandate where we will get access to this talent to this expertise, to this reach and improve the performance of Wendel Principle further.

So the way it's going to work is that Wendel Principal investment is going to be advised by partners on the current portfolio and on all future investments. They're going to advise us on how to create more value in our portfolio with their team of operating partners, with their team of debt capital market partners, equity capital markets, all the resources over 200 professionals at IK is going to help to grow the value of the current portfolio. They're going to help us to source more opportunities. They have 9 offices, 220 professional on the ground. Their access and their network is much wider than ours. And so we're going to benefit from their boots on the ground.

That being said, we are not changing our strategy. We will continue to invest in the sectors that we know we will continue to deploy capital in assets which we're going to control. We are going to keep the assets on our balance sheet. So everything that you know about our investment strategy is going to be the same. But the way we're going to operate source, transact, monitor our companies is going to change quite profoundly with the help of our IK partners team.

And in terms of Horizon, just in terms of strategy, we continue to look for 4 to 6 years old. But we want to have the option to keep the assets longer if we believe there is still some strong potential. So an horizon which is typical of the buyout industry, but we want to have the optionality to remain a long-term shareholder if need be because this is our DNA, and we want to keep that option.

So with this change, with this advisory mandate, which is going to start on January 1, we believe we are going to have the scale that I mentioned earlier that is needed. We're going to have the state-of-the-art investment platform with the best talent that you have out there in the private equity industry. We're also going to get something very important in the ecosystem that Laurent was mentioning, the access to potential coinvestor IT Partners has a lot of clients, a lot of limited partners who invest in IK, but are looking for additional co-investment opportunities. And we're going to provide them with additional co-investment opportunities.

So those clients of IK are going to become partners of us in some new investments. And what does that mean? I will come back to that later, is to make larger transaction and more transactions for the same amount of capital that Wendel will deploy. So this is a very important point. And last, Laurent mentioned it, we also want to be very cost efficient and very effective. This transition to an internal team is going to be smoothless and going to be very cost efficient as well.

So what should we expect from this change going forward? We believe it's going to simplify our model the way we behave, the way we manage our business. The investment team will be 100% focused on investing surrounded by an investment team. So in the proper ecosystem without some corporate functions or some corporate needs. It allows us to operate with a leaner team as well. So simplify and leaner. It gives us also access to the IK playbook, the way they deploy capital, the buy-and-build platform that they are very keen to do. I think Chris Masek mentioned to you their strategy last year. So they do have a playbook of identifying the right opportunities, deploying capital, and we're going to benefit from that. So a leaner, simpler organization, and hopefully, some investment with better returns.

So this is the IK partner ecosystem I was mentioning earlier. I has transacted over 200 operations over the last 2 decades, so they are very active. One of the most active, if not the most active GP in PE and Europe with a very successful track record, you can see here, 25% growth return over the last 20 years, so pretty impressive return. The team is, as you can see, is very strong, 15 operating partner. So you have specialists in purchasing, in pricing in AI, all that is going to be available for -- to grow the Verde assets.

They also have a capital market team. So a team specialized in raising new debt, a team specialized in raising equity. So to find those co-investments I was mentioning earlier, those 7 people are going to be very helpful to syndicate some equity. They have 9 offices in Europe. You saw some nice pictures of the cities where they are implemented earlier, but they have a very, very strong footprint.

Today, Wendel is present in New York, in Paris and Luxembourg. And with IK, we know have accessed the whole Scandi part of Europe and the Latin Europe as well. So it's a very different geography is coverage, and that's going to help to have higher funnel, a higher number of potential opportunities that we're going to review a better deal flow, which hopefully is going to generate better returns. So you can see very deep talent, very deep reach and very successful track record on which we are going to base our WPI investment strategy going forward.

So with this new setup, what should we expect? Laurent, you mentioned it earlier, 12% to 16% return on our current portfolio and then future investments, which is, I would say, the standard of the best is in class by our teams in Europe with consistent returns. It's on average. Some of our portfolio will probably do better. Some of them could do slightly lower, but we believe in this double-digit return expectation, thanks to this new setup.

We also want to remain in the strategy that we presented to you last year, EUR 600 million of equity type of investment. But Wendel will only provide roughly more than this equity commitment, like say, EUR 300 million of equity coming from our balance sheet and EUR 300 million from new partners from co-investors that we will find, thanks to the team I mentioned earlier, to help us make larger investments, so bigger assets, safer companies, companies which will be clearly bigger than the assets that are targeted by IK in its mid-cap funds. So there will not be any conflict. It will be clearly on the upper mid-cap zone where IK is not playing. And it will allow for the same amount of capital deployed, the EUR 1.7 billion that Laurent mentioned to make more investment so to have a broader portfolio, a more diversified portfolio.

So this is a very important feature and one of the most exciting takeaway of this advisory mandates, the potential to raise co-investment on a regular basis for the new investments. So you can see ambitious returns, the potential to raise some additional investment to build a very diversified group of assets that we will grow with the operating partners of IK. So we are very excited, and we believe that we have a portfolio which is today really going to deliver a lot of growth in the coming years.

Now that we have discussed the Wendel Principal of Portfolio, I think it's time to talk a bit more about zooming on 2 companies. We have the chance today to have William Rozé, the CEO of Scalian and Andee Harris, the new CEO of CPI. So I propose that we talk about Scalian. So Jingle.

Welcome, William. Just before we talk about you and we -- I try to briefly summarize your CV, which is pretty lengthy, a quick word and a reminder on Scalian. It's an investment that we made 2 years ago in 2023. We invested around EUR 650 million as you can see on this slide. And today, we own 82% of the company alongside the management team. The management team of Scalian is a very large shareholder of Scalian. It's part of the alignment of interest. And I think it's part of the reason of the success that we see going forward on Scalian.

I'm not going to spend too much time on describing the business because you're going to do a much better job than I am. But in a nutshell, Scalian's a European consulting firm, which is focusing on the digital transformation on industrial companies.

A quick word on William before I leave you the floor. So William, you joined mid-September, but after a very, very long carrier, William is a veteran in the engineering industries. He looks very young, but is a veteran. He spent over like 30 years in the engineering industries. He grew up through the ranks at Altran from managing a P&L region up to the leadership and CEO of Altran. And then with the merger with Capgemini.

You stayed at Capgemini, and then you led the engineering division of Capgemini as a member of the Executive Committee. So a very successful career, and we are very excited to have you at Scalian and we want to hear why you are also excited to lead this company. So the floor is yours.

Thank you, David. Thank you, everyone. As a veteran of this business, let me answer to the first question, why joining Scalian. And honestly, I decided to join Scalian because this company has an incredible potential and I want to lead this potential and make this company a leader of the market.

I started my career in tools in the [indiscernible] sector and already met the team of Scalian at that time. They were in the market taking care of critical software and it was a huge potential that was already visible in this country -- in this company. So definitely, I joined because there are many good things but we have also some few changes in this company. And using my experience, I want with the leadership team, be a leader in the way we transform this company in the way we perform. And this is the journey that I want to share with you with this presentation.

Let's start by speak about Scalian and who we are with a short ID card that explain first that we are a pure player in some free dominant expertise. The first one is software and system engineering. The second one is operational excellence. And the third 1 is digital solution. And it's not only the expertise that we want to push is how we grow the people inside the company. It's more than 5,000 engineers, and we have delivered in June on the fiscal year of June 2025, EUR 522 million.

Now if we progress and give you more insight regarding the company, you can see that we have a quite balanced portfolio, client portfolio covering 50% of our revenue with the analytics space and defense industry and 50% with mobility. Here, we are speaking about automotive and train with energy, which is a very important sector for us but also car banking and industry and tech industry.

Last but not least, we have already 2 global engineering centers, meaning areas we have organized our own factories to support the business one is in India. The other one is in Morocco. So all in all, it's a quite company that is strong in the foundation that make us very recognized in our expertise as a pure player of the market.

What are the drivers of our market. And I'll share with you here a market review that was done by Zinnov and Everest, where we show that it's a growing market. And it is a combination of the physical world and the digital world. In dark blue, you see that here, we are more speaking about the core engineering. What is the core engineering is how we do a plane, a car, a train, and our company like us can help them to build that kind of complex engine.

The light blue is more the digital engineering, meaning how we help them to go to the intelligent industry. Intelligent industry is a digital twin, the simulation, the virtualization of the process. And here, it's a question of 2 main drivers. The first one helps them accelerate exact time to value. The second one is to be more efficient in the way we implement software and AI at scale. We are speaking about the industry at scale is absolutely key in our industry.

So after speaking about the drivers of this market that are already pivotal for most of our clients, I want to speak about the industry. And here, this industry, you can see that, as I said before, we have a quite balanced portfolio with well-known companies. If I speak about the few of the top 5 industry we are working and clients we are working with, I can speak about Airbus, the defense industry, Amazon or Volkswagen, all of them, they are in a situation with a huge transformation. I'll give you a concrete signal.

Airbus, it's a backlog of 8,600 planes to deliver in the coming years. It's 10 years on backlog. This year, they will certainly lend around more than 800 planes at the end of the year. So a huge backlog and acceleration of their supply is one of the key challenges that [indiscernible] is leading for the company.

I'll give you another one, Volkswagen, this company, which is the first automaker in the world. Today, they deliver a car in more than 48 months. At the same time, and you have seen that with BYD, this new Chinese company, they are able to develop a car in 20 months. So back to what I said before, one of the drivers of the market, yes, the way we help our client to accelerate the cycle of development is key in this industry. And each time we are helping them to accelerate the way they design, the way they produce, the way they support, we are helping them to move faster.

If you progress in our journey, being a citizen of the industry is not only talking about the industry and how we help them on the way the dynamic because the value chain is evolving. But also it's a question of talent and a company like us is looking for the best talent in the world, whoever they are and being able to bring them at home to attract them is 1 of the key assets that we have as a company, being sharp being a pure player make us relevant in the way we attract the best and the next generation that we need to build that kind of transformation.

Let's move on and speak about the global landscape that is leading the company. We are a global player. I was speaking about expertise. You can see the 3 bank domain highlighted since the start of this presentation. What is key for us is to be close and build intimacy close to our clients. You can see that we are able to support them in all their main premises. I can give you the example of Airbus that did the acquisition of Spirit recently and the company that was chosen or one of the companies that was chosen to help them to manage this industrial transfer.

The day 1 was this Monday, industrial transfer of going from Spirit to Airbus plant in U.K., in France, in the U.S. is Scalian. It's one of the companies that is managing the industrial transfer, training the people to well receive that kind of transfer, but also being sure that we maintain the continuity and the project motility inside the global chain that we are there. So the Scalian is one of the company that can be very strategic in the way we support our clients.

If we speak a little bit more about the expertise, I was giving the example of [indiscernible] Industrial transfer. I want to give you a few insights of what is system engineering, operational excellence, I was talking about it, but also software product engineering. System engineering I'm talking about intelligent industry, intelligent industry means how do we build the intelligence layer on top of a product or a process.

And here, it requires a lot of different requirements. That is system engineering, access to that kind of requirement, being able to build the system, the model-based system engineering that will acquire and allow our clients to go to the next level of what will be in the intelligent industry and that kind of complexity. This is the background that we have and the expertise that is well recognized and make a kind of differentiator in this business. We are one of the company sharp in this expertise.

I want to talk a little bit about software product engineering. I was in India 3 weeks ago, and I was very happy to see that we have that kind of background there. Software Product Engineering is a kind of software can native that is needed today in many areas. Let me give you a concrete example. A car today, it's an iPhone on wheel. It's not exactly the same car that we built 10 years ago. And being able to develop that kind of car as an iPhone on wheel, we need specific kind of cloud native background and we have that kind of expertise.

What is key for us is not to have the practices is to be sure that we well understand the industry, the value chain, which is a product, a process, a program to allow our clients to well industry that kind of approach. It's a question of standards, a question of certification, a question of expertise in a dedicated environment. And we are bringing that kind of background to our clients.

Operational excellence, I talked about it. I want to share one -- obviously, I had the privilege to join the [ Zozephen ] on stage. It was one month ago. Scalian was a sponsor of -- [ Zozephen ] is the organization that is supporting the nuclear industry. In that kind of area, you have all the supplier of the nuclear, but you are also the big guys like Orano, like [indiscernible], like [indiscernible] and we were on stage close to them speaking to the whole supply and about operational excellence.

Why? Because the credibility that we have bringing and supporting the [indiscernible] sector and building what is called Aero excellence as one of the key suppliers. It's one of the areas that is creating a lot of value for another industry. So services company like us has to be agile, that a deep understanding of each industry to be sure that we cross-sell and leverage the powerful teams that we have in our dedicated industries.

Let me give you a few examples of the areas I was highlighting. I will not cover all of them, but maybe 1 or 2 the first one. Let me speak about [ BETA ]. BETA is one of the subsidiary of Amazon that is taking care of eVTOL. eVTOL means electrical vertical takeoff and landing in simple words, the air taxi that we use tomorrow moving from New York to [indiscernible] airport with 3 or 4 people inside that kind of simple air taxi. We are part of the company, and we are the company, not sure that Laurent want to use it.

Why you are going to use it? Because we are one of the companies that is helping them to develop their critical software and preparing the certification that is needed. It's becoming more and more a reality, and we are working on the battery management system that is key in that kind of environment. Critical software, it's what of the assets that we have inside Scalian.

If we move forward, I could speak about mission critical software for [indiscernible] and many other ones. Operational excellence I don't want to [indiscernible] to speak about Naval here, preparing with them the digital transformation of the [indiscernible] was one of the area where we help them on the program and prepare the wound program to make that happen. Same on some marines. And we can elaborate on many other things that we have done, like Volvo Trucks, for example, to support all their different supply chain across the planet.

So a job like us is definitely to be a citizen of the industry and will support our clients wherever their operations are done I can speak also about digital continuity and the way we support the CR on simulator and [indiscernible] with cements. All in all, you see that we are shaping our areas.

And I want to make maybe a deep dive on AI. What is AI for a company like us. Of course, like many of our peers, we have a catalog of agents that are for dedicated use cases, supporting our clients. And we have developed a lot of different agents in many different areas. But where the way we want to make the difference and the way we are progressing in this AI embedded AI or AI by design, what we do is by industry again. Why? Because what we want to do is to be sure that software and AI at scale is really impacting the process of our clients.

The key today is not only to have the data management layer or the agent is to be sure that the way we augment the engineer, the way we augment the process is creating for the industry at the end, the skills that they need in their own company. And that's why we focus on that kind of approach.

Let me share one example with you that I like a lot. It was something that we shared with the Ministry of [indiscernible] during the adopt AI event that happened in Paris 2 or 3 weeks ago. Of course, there was a boost, and we were 1 of the 3 companies that were services companies that were there. We were invited by artifact, by the way. But on the first floor of this event, we had a specific cat can talk about this one because it's an asset that is coming from Scalian.

We were sharing with the different people that were there. The development that we have done on swarming drone. It's a flood of drones that are operating at 5 or 6 different drones with a ground station. And the software and AI that is embedded in each of the drones is quite sharp and take a lot of expertise in software, but also in system engineering and AI. Why? Because we give to that kind of swarming drones a dedicated mission and whatever happened during the mission, they can continue to progress and to deliver the mission.

They can lose the [indiscernible], lose one of the drones, they continue to product because they are intelligent, they learn from the global context and able to continue to deliver the drones. So of course, you see a few examples in the defense area, but not only talking with Total on the Metis example is one of the areas where having that pain of swarming drone is interesting, so on specifying changing infrastructure, not also easy to access or in a quite dangerous situation that we want to address.

So again and again, a company like us has to be agile, sharp in what we do. strong cultural and industrial cultural and bringing to our clients the best of the experience but always taking into account what is the specific industry and the standard of the industry.

If we progress in our journey, let me speak now a little bit about our performance. And back to my introduction, yes, we are facing some few changes. One of them is the pressure that we have on our top line. And yes, the market is tough. And honestly, after all the profit [indiscernible] in July 24 done by Airbus or the pressure that Volkswagen is facing against the Chinese that are entering and challenging the market. The services industry, like my peers are facing a tough period. But the way we build our residents, the way we react and the way we rebound to be back to positive is definitely an asset on services company. And here, we are a little bit [indiscernible].

And if I love to highlight 3 of the 3 changes that we have in a company like us, I want to elaborate on maybe 3 things. First, we have done as a company that is growing quite fast. More than 12 M&A and acquisitions this last 9 years. And we are still a little bit puzzled and still very localized. I have still brands in some countries, is still [indiscernible], but I have still the brands that are operating locally. So it's a way for us to move to that kind of localized expertise that is linked to we know what to something that is more efficient, more industrialized in the way we operate. And I think one strong group brings strong of all our expertise.

Second one is certainly the backbone of the company again, having done that kind of acquisition is absolutely a key contribution, but it's also a quite puzzled backbone. And definitely, to be agile, follows the move. I have to have a [indiscernible] more agile, more efficient, that allows me to see the company in many different ones. Today, we are a little bit weak in this area, and we need the needed investment to be sure that we run fast and agile and be able to adapt like the services company is doing.

And last but not least, I was speaking about the market and the market like us with the changes that we have not only a technology one, but also the reality has to industrialize in a better way if we want to protect the entry door of a model, which is a project margin. Industry region means also here, not having strong expertise, but being a recurrent mode, building the factories, the industrialization, the sharper that will be a game changer.

AI is a contributor, but not only. The way we have reorganized our GC global engineering center. All of that is a part of the transformation that we need to manage I had the privilege to meet that kind of challenges in my previous experience as a veteran, as you said, David. But again, it's not to do the path for also be sure that we take the DNR Scalian and we elevate the team and the performance because it's already strong nature in the market.

Let's move on to the next part of our changes. And I spoke about the transformation. Maybe I can speak here about -- sorry, lots of information on this slide, but let me simplify that with 6 main points. First, the transformation that I want to manage with the leadership team has to be simple, is simple and focused. I have to reason things simple and focus, 41 actions, so execution, as it was said by Laurent at the start of this presentation, is key in all industries, it's key also in our business.

First thing that we have done this last few months, these last 3 months is our portfolio offer has been redefined around 3 domain expertise. I'll talk about it today. Focus on 3 industries: Aero Defense Energy. I know that I have 2 back doors. The credibility we have in core banking or being able to allow them to be more efficient in AI is something that I also want to duplicate in many other ones. I don't want to lose also the mobility. We know that in the car, in the highway industry, we have very strong assets and dedicated areas.

But the focus is definitely on Aero, I spoke about the backlog of Airbus Defense. You know the reality of this industry for all of us and energy, we can elaborate on how it is on critical software and system engineering, but also the excellence operational.

Third point, redesigned our target operating model let's be very simple on functions that are more focused on what they do, focus on what they do, but also review a little bit the span of control of the company. and to be sure that we are more linear in the way we enter in the game and that we protect the economic model of a company like us. Honestly, this is a part of the plan.

Fourth point, full potential plan. I was talking about that. The ambition is to reach EUR 700 million organic growth in 2030. I speak about organic growth in 2030. And the full potential plan is very simple. It's 41 actions that we want to execute in due time. And to be sure that we are well following that kind of routine. We have a Chief Transformation Officer in charge and dedicated for self fusion. It was nominated. I report to [indiscernible] was dominated 1 month ago.

Last but not least, pivot the execution in that kind of tough environment, no dream. We know that the market is tough that the level of expectation of our clients is still there. So let's use this period also to be lean, to be efficient, to boost a robust management system that allows us to restart the potential of this company and be sure that we become the leader that we want to be.

Moving forward, I want to conclude this presentation with this final chart speaking about some key takeaways. First, the fact that we want to be at EUR 700 million in 2030. So the option is there, you can see, worldwide player, a pure player in our dedicated expertise. I spoke about the focus on aerospace, defense and energy. And of course, at the heart of what we do. I have not spoken about the Chief AI officer that will join the company next year, but it's one of the moves that we are addressing today to be sure that we are well organized and well focusing on the execution of the plan. That's it.

Thank you, William, for this presentation. So it's now time to turn on to the Q&A session. It will last around 10 minutes. I will start with 2 questions from the web to do the mic to circulate. So please don't be shy.

So first question, OIA will disrupt your business?

OIA?

Yes.

How AI...

Or AI.

Honestly, for us, I spoke about AI, it's a very good question. AI is seen by us as an engine. And here, if I have to summarize what we do here, we are looking at high as something that will bring more efficiency, speed and innovation. Efficiency, speed and innovation back to what I introduced before by industry, addressing the process, understanding the value chain and how we use that kind of solution, not only to be a catalog, but to augment our engineers. This is a way to help our clients to run at scale. And this is the way we use AI as a strong accelerator in our business.

Historically, your company had a very strong M&A activity. What are your priorities now?

Back to the 3 areas I shared with you on the expertise on the geography to well follow the industry, but also industrialization. Definitely, the plan we have on M&A is seen by us as an accelerator in our dedicated area. So of course, we consider that kind of opportunity each time we have the opportunity to accelerate our industrialization speaking about India, for example, accelerate our expertise, we can speak about PLM and MES that are a very good extension of the way we support product life management or the manufacturing plant.

I'm not speaking about the integration of the tool. I'm speaking about the change that is key for us close to the engineering leader, close to the manufacturing leader. This is part of the product and the process tomorrow. So we want to be part of the story in the coming years.

Question from the room?

David Cerdan of Kepler. I have a simple question. If you look at your current margin issues or low margin, I would say, do you think that it's more related to a program of pricing, occupancy rate of your employees or something different, maybe the cost organization.

The main -- obviously, I was with [indiscernible] and Airbus this week, all of them, they consider that we are #1 in what we do, but sometimes they are changing me on the fact that we can be a little bit expensive or high in the prices that we have today. So sometimes we have to be very careful on the way we fix our pricing, you're right. The margin has to increase in the coming years, depending on the way we'll be able to industrialize the company and the factory.

I said it before, one of the changes we have is the fact that we are a little bit local I don't want to reinvent the wheel in Spain, in France or in Germany. I need to better use the factories that we have built here. So the entry door of our model that we call the project margin here is one of the key things that we want to address regarding the rest of the structural cost, including the level of utilization. We consider that we have a few points to gain there, but it's more on the structure of the companies and the merger.

And I have a second one, sorry. just reply regarding your balance sheet. I don't understand really your M&A strategy, is it to further leverage the balance sheet or not? Or do you need fresh money to do M&A?

Do you want to answer, David? Let me associate my action here.

No, we don't do M&A to increase the leverage for sure, David. Yes, you saw the leverage currently is close to 7x, 6.7x at the latest Q3. So we clearly need to work with our lenders to make sure that we have enough caution and the right balance sheet. So we are in a dialogue with our lender to make sure that [ leverage ] is not impairing the development. So if there is any future development, it will come for -- from potentially additional equity from [indiscernible].

You saw that we already invested in June and then earlier this year to make the acquisition of Skills and Afiniti. So we already made 2 equity injection to help the company to make acquisitions. Since we invested 2 years ago, the Scalian has made 3 acquisitions. And going forward, if the companies are small that we need to acquire, it would be thanks to the growth of EBITDA, which will bring some deliver. But if we are looking at midsize companies, then we'll probably have to invest some additional equity to make sure that the balance sheet is right for the business.

But the first driver will be EBITDA growth through improvement of margin in the years to come.

[indiscernible], DNCA. Can you share organic growth that you've achieved in 2003, we see the numbers, but we don't see what's organic and what's not. And then looking at your sector exposure, it seems we are just in a turnaround in the aerospace industry, your competitors communicate on strong change in mood from their customers with a lot of investments coming from Airbus, for example. What do you see?

And on the defense, which is pretty large. What kind of trends do you see? And how credible are you to go outside of France? I see that you've got the high metal tag, but with the reality of what you're able to achieve outside of France.

So organic growth that we had this last 5, 6 years, was for the company around 10% to 12%. The organic growth of the company was around 10% to 10% to 12%. So means that we are able to run that kind of acceleration on the double-digit growth.

The second question related to the competition and the market. We see exactly the same kind of back to a better perspective within Hermes. We are already working with them. I give you the example of Paris is one of the key things that is an acceleration for us. And we've seen the [indiscernible] sector, not only for Airbus by the way, but [indiscernible] continue to be also strong in the business that we have in the arctic sector and the defense industry.

If we spoke about the disparate industry, obviously, it's quite strong assets for the company, mainly in France. But back to example I shared with you just before. We are growing quite fast and supporting well in Germany, the acceleration, the defense industry. It's a with [indiscernible] related with Renata's, it's related -- in this industry that we see that we are already supporting the diversification that we have seen in Germany, for example, from Volkswagen to Aeronautical & Defense is highly visible today. It's -- with Volkswagen today is 52% of the company. It was 2/3 of the company before in Germany, only speaking about Germany.

Arnaud Palliez, CIC. Still on AI, what does it mean in terms of CapEx and R&D spending for Scalian. And do you think that it will be translated into higher rates that are applied to your customers, to your clients?

It's a very interesting question. On the CapEx side, today, the company is very low. We are not doing so much CapEx. I think that is something that we need to change a little bit to support research plan and innovation plan. A company like us has to bring to our clients, not only the best expertise, but also the asset and the accelerators that are needed. And it require a kind of investment in that kind of area, not only on the infrastructure and the AI solutions that we need to have the right DMU to support calculation, for example, well more than that is to be sure that we have the right team that is working on that kind of asset.

For the time being, I have that kind of asset, but it's coming from what is done on the ground. It's not yet enough industrialized and they need something that is we are able to leverage at the group level. So it requires a strategic plan for the innovation and it will be led tomorrow by the Chief AI Officer. I am not looking for a Chief Technical Officer. I'm looking for a Chief AI Officer because in everything that we do, we want to integrate AI as part of the practice that will let this business tomorrow.

You have seen that many times, the mechanical engineer of tomorrow is a software guy. What I mean by that is to well integrate all the solutions that are needed in working with software but also with AI as a key change in the way we design product or we support the process.

Back to [indiscernible], yes, we have decided with the Board to have a dedicated investment on our CapEx, and it's included in this plan to deliver the performance that we want in the coming years.

Nicolas Tabor, [indiscernible] Asset Management. I'd like to better understand the trajectory you're setting for Scalian. Is it more first a reset where you will decide what business needs to keep and not to keep to align with the new segmentations and therefore, the growth will not be that strong because you're getting maybe some of the bench and some of the capacities.

And then we see the acceleration in the margin expansion? And will the margin expansion be front-end loaded, driven by bench adjustment or back-end loaded, driven by operating leverage. So we very understand how you set the trajectory and look at it internally.

Honestly, part of the answer is in your question. We need to do both. And not only that. It's also a level of maturity. The engineering company today, they are not only people that are delivering performance by their own. It's what I just said before, it's also the way we help our client to bring to the market that kind of asset and accelerate it. and they are part of this acceleration that is needed in our business. So of course, the excellence operation is not only for our clients. It's also the way we operate on our side. and being more integrated, well supported by the right backbone will allow us to be more agile and efficient in the way we run that definitely. But the part of the value will also come from the way we industrialize, from the way we bring to our clients more value with the asset we have.

Let me share with you one concrete example. We are working in Spain in the health care industry, supporting them on a specific engine that was created to edit a specific number. That kind of number is used in Spain in the health care industry. by different region and hospital. It's a standard number that is an international one. The way we develop things created to our clients a strong outcome by reducing by 60% their own efficiency in their own operation. on our side is bringing to the company a project margin that is at 60%. So they have many game changers that are reality, not only for a company like us on the services part for globally for the sector and we are also running our approach by integrating that kind of solution.

To give further the answer because the question as precise about front end and back end for the EBITDA. It will be both. Part of it will be thanks to improvement of the operation, and that will be this year, and part of it will be thanks to the growth and the scaling, which will be the end. But it's both for that.

So no more question from the room. I have one last question from the web. Can you clarify the portion of recurring business versus onetime projects? And what is the current trend of your portfolio for the next 24 months is?

The Client portfolio, you mean, our project portfolio.

Yes.

Honestly, the rotation of our business it's quite stable. Most of the time, we are able to win a specific environment that is a preannual project, and it's a part of the resilience that is a key asset for us. But definitely, we are investing on being able to grow in that kind of area, being able to have a portion of the value chain that is key for our clients, and it will allow us to have a strong resilience on the top line.

So I will say something around 2/3 of the company is embedded in the growth that we have. The acceleration will come with our ability to run faster and get more projects in the coming quarters. Back to the 24 next month, the next 8 quarters and 2 years, we consider that we should be back to growth in H2 next year. after a declining year in 2025 is time for us to be back to growth in that kind of area 2026.

One very last questions.

Just one last one. As you mentioned pricing during your presentation, and you mentioned that you'd expect to grow, I mean, quite rapidly to reach EUR 700 million by the end of the plan. Can you give us a rough idea of how much price and how much volume are you expecting in there?

No. Honestly, a little bit too difficult to say that. Happy to come back to you and report what we have done. But this market is also a lot of uncertainty what makes us strong is our ability in being able to adapt to this market, bringing -- building the residents that we need and taking care of our economic model is definitely the first thing that we want to address in the coming months. So too early to answer on the price evolution in the coming years.

So thank you. Time is over for questions. Many thanks, William. We now welcome Andee Harris, CEO of CPI, introduced by David Darmon. Jingle, please.

So thank you again, William, for sharing your views and excitement. Now turning to CPI. Just a brief reminder of our investment in CPI. We invested early 2020 just before COVID in Crisis Prevention Institute. We invested roughly $570 million. And over the years, we have paid ourselves a couple of dividends. So you can see that we did recoup probably around 25% of our initial investments through dividends already.

CPI is the gold standard in training to manage episode of crisis and episode of violence mainly in health care facilities and in schools. I'm not going to give more details on what the company is doing. You're going to do it much better than I do. And I think you're familiar with the company business model.

Maybe just a word on you, and then I leave the floor. So Andee is not a veteran, I hear you, William. But a very, very experienced leader, and we are very, very pleased that Andee joined the firm in August. She's coming with a very strong tech background, and you will see why this is so important for where we want to take CPI going forward. And she also had a training background because one of the companies she was leading was a Train The Trainer company. Andee, very excited to have you, and let's hear what you...

Okay. Thank you David. Good afternoon, everyone. It's an honor to be here to talk about Crisis Prevention Institute to our valued investor community. Before I jump into the main presentation, I do want to just take a moment and talk and reflect about why I joined CPI about 4 months ago. So as David mentioned, I was in the learning and training space. mostly focused on sales, training, employee engagement, training and HR trading. And although very fulfilled by the purpose and empowerment that we were giving our customer, I didn't realize how profound the impact could be when you go to a mission-driven organization.

So CPI, the mission is so incredible every day globally around the world. We're training teachers and social workers and nurses and drug rehab assistance on how to best enable them to help support our most vulnerable communities. And so for me, it's really been about that personal mission. And I'm so excited to lead CPI into that next version. So I know we talked a little bit about our model.

But what I think is really unique with CPI is that we really focus on the safety and compliance piece of the business. Our core markets are in education and health care. We have a high loyal customer base, and it also is hard to switch. Switching costs are pretty expensive and people don't light to switch once they have a trusted provider like CPI. What really sets CPI apart is our ability to do the train the trainer model.

So we have global professionals, instructors that we employ. They go out and they train, it's what we call certified instructors, people out in the workforce. That's around 41,000 people. And then they go back to their organizations and then train about 2 million people globally. So you can imagine the reach and the scale when you're taking our stuff and taking it all the way up to 2 million people annually. So it's a really great business model and it helps us scale and have flexibility to be able to give the training that we need.

So we really focus on 4 key pillars to build what we would call our leading class solution. The first pillar that we really focus on is just our incredible research and evidence fact information that we put in our content. So we're constantly updating our content so that we're giving our trainers the best possible experience. And so things like neuroscience, evidence-backed research, we're constantly using data to modify our training so that we are giving people best-in-class solutions. We have the highest satisfaction score of any of our competitors. And this really, I think, says it all. 80% of CIs said that they have avoided a dangerous situation because of the training that they received from CPI.

The other piece is our certification process. We take it very seriously. We make sure that people are well equipped to train the learners that they're training because once again, we're putting people in very critical situations where there is workplace violence, and we need to make sure that they're equipped with the right skills. So our certification is very rigid. It's also the #1 standard, the gold standard in the industry. So you see that blue card in the middle. That is recognized universally.

People will sometimes not always know CPI, but they'll say, "Oh, do you have a Blue Card, are you Blue Card certified? And that, once again, it just talks to the reach of our brand. So getting to our brand, we have 45 years of reputational success. So that's really critical because trust in this industry is so important.

And the other piece is that 87% of our industry recognizes our brand. And if you compare that to our competitors, which are about 45%. So a very different model. And then we also are really the only training out there in our space that can scale. So we can train -- we talked about the 1.8 million to 2 million learners that we train. We are the only one that can do that in scale to like a large health care system. We have systems where we will train 11,000 people over a few week period. So we're able to really scale whereas our competitors really can't do that. So really, that's what differentiates us from the rest of our competitors.

So one thing that's really interesting about CPI is when things are not going well for people and mental illness and mental illness is spiking, it's also good for our business. So it's a fortunate, unfortunate problem. It's something that we grapple with every day, like but we want to make sure we're on the front lines of helping people. So at the end of the day, we are seeing a rise in workplace violence.

OSHA just did a study and hospitals and health care workers are 4x more likely to have violence in their workplace than any other industries. So we know that, that's a rising issue in health care. And then in education, since COVID, there's been more disruptive behavior in classrooms. We also have an increase in kids being diagnosed with autism and other behavior disorders. So we are seeing disruption both in the health care space as well as the education space. And what that means is that, that is very costly to employers and insurers.

One of the examples I use is that we get feedback from our health care customers and our nurses saying, because we were trained, we were able to avoid the insurance claim or things that could come up. We also know that nurses leave at 24% in the U.S. That's a turnover rate for nurses. If they are trained in CPI and they feel safe at work, they're more likely to stay. Obviously, increased employee turnover is a big problem in health care, given the labor shortage for nurses. And then once again, the physical and mental issues, burn out, these people are treating our most vulnerable communities. So we really need to make sure that they're not burning a out and that we're making sure that they are still available for the communities that they serve.

So really, we are trying to combat this by once again giving people safety and psychological safety as well as physically safe in their workplaces. So all of this is fueling more demand for what we do. So a few things that have been driving our industry is the mandated restraint training. So depending on the administration and depending on different states, there is a lot of regulatory compliance in both the health care space and the education space that we can really capitalize on. So there is this increased need for that workplace safety.

At CPI, we spend a lot of time looking at different regulatory bodies, making sure we're tracking the most comprehensive and the most up-to-date regulatory requirements because they do change. And in the U.S., they change state by state. So we are constantly tracking that and making sure that we are in compliance and that our training is the most up to date. So really being very cognizant about that.

And then also just the rising physical mental health issues and schools, we need to know now that we need to train not just -- it used to be really just a special ed classrooms, but really, it's holistically now. We're getting asked to train administrators and principles in any one, foodservice, anyone that's connected to the school because it's a global problem, even things like building classroom cultures, ADHD being a big problem in schools now.

So it's not just special ed. It's really -- our expansion has been in specialty topics around education and also -- and I'll get into a little bit more about our specialty topics in health care, too. So we were used to really focus on training nurses and now we've seen that the bus drivers and the ambulance drivers and anyone connected within the hospital. Often, they are the first person that first, if you imagine that you call an ambulance, if you can keep somebody calm in the ambulance with them, they show up to the hospital they're in a much calmer state. And the idea is that we're constantly trying to de-escalate that state and make sure that they're feeling safe.

So CPI is uniquely positioned to do that because we are the market leader and we are so expansive, we are able to do the research, we're able to be flexible and innovative with our products. We just released a newer product for ambulance drivers. So really thinking about what do they need? They need something that's mobile. They need something that easy for them to quickly use in the moment. They may only have 15 minutes to come someone down before they get to the hospital. That's a different type of training than a nurse who might be spending 4 or 5 hours with the patient. So really understanding our customer needs and being able to be innovative in what we think about that.

The other reason is that we are 4x larger than any of our competitors. So once again, we have the ability to research. Our financial performance since Wendel's investment. So our CAGR is growing 11% on revenue. Our EBITDA is up 13%. So -- and David already talked about the dividend returns. So we did give back $134 million of dividends since the inception, since 2019.

And some initiatives since the Wendel investment, the first is that we've increased the reach and penetration. So we've gone after new certified instructors so that increased from 9 to around 11 new programs. I talked about a lot of these specialty topics. So CPI used to just be one training that was only delivered 1 way. And now we have multiple ways that we deliver our trading. I'll talk about digital in a minute, but the ability to do hybrid as well as in-person training but also different topics. Like I said, the idea that you can mix and match like almost like a Lego set and you can mix and match different products so you can serve the needs of your audience and your customers.

International expansion, I actually right before here, was in Manchester, meeting with our U.K. team. And we've been doing a lot around international expansion. We did our first acquisition of Berge in Norway, so that we are continuing to look at our international markets, and you'll see in the next few slides that we've had significant growth in international this year.

And the last one, which is near and dear to my heart is digitization, and that is really the idea that we need to make our platforms as easy as accessible for the people we serve, especially when we think of nurses that are not always sitting at a desk, most of our workers that we serve are mobile. They're moving around time off floor is so important when you think about teachers and nurses. So we have to combat. Maybe it's a 15-minute training because that's all they can give. They're doing it on brakes or really quickly, someone's covering for them.

So we do have to really think about our customers, and technology is going to be a big enabler for them. It won't replace our in-person training because we do teach hold and how to restrain some one properly without hurting them, causing harm to yourself to them. But at the same time, you're able to do some more things digitally with our product.

So our 2025 performance outlook. So you can see that this year, we were a little flat. We -- our total revenue grew 4% North America was up 2%. International, like I mentioned, grew 22%. We did have some challenges in North America. Part of that had to do with the funding. So there was a lot of funding going into education post COVID. and that funding has now changed. We had a -- there's been some changes with the new administration around funding, especially for human services. And then the Medicare -- potential Medicare cuts, just causing a lot of uncertainty in the market. We're seeing consolidation within health care organizations.

So just once again, when there's uncertainty in the market, people will renew, but they're not going to do massive wallet expansion at that time. But we did maintain our high 40s EBITDA margins. So -- and we did do a debt refinancing. As far as the outlook goes, I'm really optimistic that although 2025 will probably be flat. We are expecting to grow 5% to 10% in 2026. And by 2027, we will return to historical double-digit growth. So really excited about the outlook and the ability. And I do think with some new leadership and some new technology, I think that, that will be a huge impact for us.

So long-term vision. This is what I get excited about being from tech. But once again, really thinking about this tech-enabled solution. I do think it will help across a lot of areas. One, we can scale to enterprise systems. So for example, we work with large hospitals. One of them has 11,000 people that were training in multiple different regional hospital models. So there's the parent hospital company, and then they have all the different regional hospitals. So being able to have a digital tech-enabled solution will allow them to get the workbooks to each of the different hospitals. It makes for a more cohesive experience for them. They can train it all at the same time. It's obviously environmentally a lot better as well.

So really making sure that we're thinking about what our end customers need when we create our tech-enabled solutions. Like I said, we can expand our offering to really understand the data that we're getting back in the outcomes and measuring that outcomes from our customers. So that is going to be a big thing that we are going to be looking at is how are we driving the right outcomes and using -- and what are the right products and the right formula of products. to give our customers using more of an enterprise licensing agreement, which then allows them to mix and match certain products, which makes sense for them holistically.

The other piece is, I mentioned our 2 million learners, we believe that we can create the platform where they can have their own discussions and really support each other. Right now, they're quite isolated or they're using social media or other forms to get that support because of our trust, we really believe that we can facilitate really great discussions and really know what's happening without there with our with our communities. So we're really looking at that as more of a learner engagement, community-driven portal.

So -- and then lastly, a more predictive revenue model is helpful for our customers, especially when they're thinking about budgeting and know they need certainty and knowing what our prices will be, and it's good for us to understand we're able to forecast better. So it's a win-win for all of us, but it's really focused on what is the best vehicle for us to be delivering this training to our customers.

And lastly, when you think about growth, we focus on kind of 3 areas. There's organic growth, there is growth through acquisition and then there's product-led growth, which is really our ability to drive growth through an incredible experience for customers through our product. So that's really our North Star on that.

So key initiatives, operational and commercial rigor. We are looking at our internal processes as well, making sure that we're using best-in-class processes, thinking about how do we do things better? How do we continue to utilize the team that we have to continue to drive profitability. One area coming from sales training that is going to be quite impactful for me is just the go-to-market transformation.

We are looking at restructuring our go-to-market just so that we have a better idea of understanding our customer needs and making it easier for our customers to buy and realizing that the way education buys is not the way health care buys and the way a new prospect might buy is different than a renewal and then thinking about an enterprise agreement versus a smaller school district. So really just understanding and segmenting out our customers so we understand how they buy.

I talked a lot about product development delivery. Our road map will really be driven by data and what the outcomes that we are hearing from our customers that are most important to them. Technology and innovation, obviously, I actually heard a few of the questions from the previous session. AI is something that we'll be looking at something I'm passionate about. I think we are in a unique position because we can use AI to help for things like role-based training, practicing.

So there are a lot of applications for AI within our product. But the other thing is we're really defensible against AI because our in-person training is you can't teach that over a computer or the best I can say is like when you go to physical therapy and they give you an exercise to do to help stretch or do a certain expertise, and you watch the video, you need the physical therapist to show you how to do it right, the first few times, and then maybe you can reinforce it with a video.

But our holds, it's so nuanced as to how you might grab somebody 1 way versus the other way. And so it's really, really important that those are top properly and in person. Also when you are restraining an 8-year-old child versus a 40-year-old adult depending on the size that you are and depending on the size they are, things change and you need to know how to handle that differently. So it's really important that we keep the our hold and our in-person training for at least that part of it. We will always do a blended hybrid mix, but I actually think I look at AI and the areas we can plug it into the business, so I think that's one part where actually we won't be taken over by AI.

And then we'll continue our market expansion. We still have a lot of white space. I'm really hopeful and really excited about the opportunities we have to continue to penetrate education as well as we are just starting to see our enterprise health care customers come online. So I mean we have a huge opportunity, both in North America as well as globally to start looking at those types of customers and market expansion. And lastly, international development. I talked before about we are -- our growth in international. So really looking forward to continuing that international. We do have a Middle East office in Australia office that handles APAC and Singapore as well as a U.K. and office in Ireland.

So lastly, just key takeaways. I've talked a lot about our brand. Our brand is so powerful. It's really great to have a brand that people trust and recognize in the industry that gives us a lot of opportunity to grow in new markets. Our continued focus on long-term growth. There's a lot of with our digital expansion, really understanding the data and who are our best customers. As we see the behavioral changes and unfortunately, workplace violence, continuing to be a problem does help us grow. But obviously, our goal, once again, is to drive safety, not to encourage the workplace violence.

And then the opportunity. I think I love coming to businesses when they're at a really cool inflection point. And I think what's so magical about CPI is that we are in this amazing inflection point. to bring the right technology, the right data to our customers and really be innovative in how we do that. And lastly, I talked about the mission right when I got up here, it is so important. Everybody at believes in our mission. Every day we wake up thinking about how can you make a nurse's life easier? How can we make a teacher's life easier. They are doing incredible work out there. And if we can support them just in a small way, it's really impactful. So thank you very much.

Thank you, Andee, for this presentation. It's now time to turn to the Q&A session. Once again, it will last around 10 minutes. Let's start with 2 questions from the web to allow the mic to circulate around the room before.

So how the DOGE impacted directly or indirectly CPI's business?

Yes, yes. For those of you aren't familiar, DOGE was, I guess, the brainchild of Elon Musk, and it was really about driving government efficiencies. And so what that did was get rid of the Department of Education within the United States. And so a lot of things that were done at the federal level will then push to the state level. for us. So for us, what that means is just that we sell a little bit differently. We make sure we understand what's happening in the states, but it didn't really impact our business substantially because -- once again, we are compliance-driven, People need to use our training to keep people safe.

So it didn't massively impact it. Just once again, it's more uncertainty in the market. So you always need to make sure that you're checking with customers and making sure that they're not feeling the effects and thinking, "Oh my god, this guy is following. And just once again, it's really about being in touch with your customers and supporting them.

How do you think digital and artificial intelligence could improve your business, both on cost and revenues?

Yes. Yes. So I think there's a lot of opportunity. Both -- and I also add one more customer experience because I've seen AI work really well. I mentioned role-based training being able to actually have a situation happen before it arises. And before you're faced with that to be able to practice, I think, is a big use of AI. I'm definitely being able to simulate what might happen in a classroom or in a hospital room, I think, will be really big for us and just making sure that our outcomes are better.

And then on the -- internally, we are looking at AI for everything from like marketing automation, sales automation as well as using the Jira functionality to be able to help our engineers code faster, more efficiently and quicker and then using it as part of our quality assurance process within our technology back. So we will be embracing AI, but I don't I'm always cautious that AI is not just the end all be all and start slicing budgets immediately because you think AI is going to come in per magic silver bullet. So yes, cautiously optimistic about AI.

Thank you. Do we have -- yes, one question in the room.

It's Andy Lowe Lee from Citi. How should we think about the total addressable market within the U.S.? You've got those sort of 2 million people using it at the moment. Where could that get to? And then if I think internationally, what are your most exciting international markets and what those makes those markets so attractive for you versus maybe other markets, which are less interesting.

Yes, yes. So I'll start with the first question. We still have a large addressable market. We're about 1/3 penetrated within education and much less within health care. So still a lot of white space in North America for us. So there's plenty of opportunity for us to continue that growth. Internationally, One of the things that we do have a small office in Dubai and one of the things that we are excited about in the Middle East as you're seeing things. So Cleveland Clinic, one of our customers also is in Saudi Arabia.

So just thinking about how some of the American health systems and education systems are going over to the Middle East, mostly Saudi Arabia and Dubai. So we are seeing an influx of opportunity there. So that is something that we're focused on for expansion.

Derek? Behind you.

Okay. I have a couple of questions. First one is regarding the M&A. Is it possible for you to grow in this market through some local acquisition? Secondly, regarding internationalization? Is it a negative or dilutive for the margin, your profitability. And when I see this kind of profitability, I suspect some new entrants into your industry. So do you see this kind of new entrant effect and notably from larger companies?

Yes. So I'll try to address those one at a time. So from an international perspective, and David, feel free to jump in as well. But from an international perspective, we don't have the same profitability at this point. Expectations on international. Our profitability is around 20% internationally versus the U.S. So we are not focused on -- we are focused on that profitability, but we understand that these are growing markets.

And then the second question, I think I'll let David answer that.

[indiscernible] Do you see potential to do bolt-on acquisitions, equity that with Verge?

Yes, yes, absolutely. I think we had a great experience with Verge, and we'll continue to do bolt-ons internationally. And when we think about our acquisition strategy, we are looking at either technology applications that would help our customer experience or Internet tuck-ins that would help grow our business, either smaller players in the market or international players.

The other question is, do you see any new entrants that can come because of the high margin and how worried [indiscernible].

Yes. I mean I think it goes back to just our scalability and our research and the fact that we are releasing new products. We are -- we need to continue to be innovative. In the U.S., we always talk about the Blockbuster versus Netflix. I don't know what the equivalent to that might be in France. But we do talk a lot about you've got to keep innovating. You've got to keep thinking about what's next. And I always keep our competitors in the rearview mirror.

So I'm focused on what are they doing in the market? We do want to make sure that we're delivering maximum value to our customers to make sure that we're being competitive with the other people in the market. But at this point, I'm not overly concerned about it, but we'll always keep it in the back of my mind. And I think that innovation piece and I talked about product [indiscernible] growth really making sure that our product is second to none, I think, is going to be really critical for us to maintain our position.

No question in the room. I have another one on the web. How do you manage inflation impact on your cost and revenues?

Yes. So I mean, we address inflation by looking across our company and seeing where can we work on margins, how do we internally try to make sure that we're not just passing the costs on to our customers. We are really trying to look internally at our own cost savings, using things like AI for marketing, for example, or some of the other ways that we've been able to build efficiencies within our business. We are in budget planning season.

So obviously, that's really critical right now to really understand like what can we do from our own internal when your customers are nurses and teachers and especially education resources, you don't want to continue to pass on all of the price to them. So we are doing our best to maintain that.

Thank you. I have no more questions. So thank you very much for this presentation. We now welcome Cyril Marie, Wendel's Executive Vice President to make a deep die in Vended Investment Manager. Jingle, please.

Hello, and good afternoon. So I have 2 objectives for this presentation. First 1 is to give you an update on the building of the asset management platform that we started 1.5 years ago. And 2 is also to convince you that Wendel investment managers is really an interesting opportunity as a shareholder and to enjoy the development of the private market. So let's start with the update on the platform.

So we are a private -- we have in mind to build a private asset management platform, as Laurent said, focused on the mid-market. We do believe that it's there. We can create value and we want to develop this platform in the U.S. and in Europe. We really want to have a global reach. So just to remind you where we are, you know you are familiar now with our target operating model.

We have done the acquisition of IK in '23. Since then, they have reached EUR 6 billion. They have reached the cap of all of their funds. They have developed their business with organic initiatives. They are now above EUR 15 billion of AUM. So the dynamic is there. The performance of the fund is very good. Transaction with model was very well perceived and they have developed their franchise with new clients, mainly in Asia.

Monroe, as you know, we have done the acquisition in April. Same dynamic here. They are now at EUR 25 billion. They are raising in '25 close to EUR 4 billion of equity with a very diversified range of expertise, client and geography. It's very important for development in the future because this strategy is really scalable. And then committed adviser announced very recently, we should close Committed Advisors probably January or February, EUR 6 billion. I will not comment on it because you will have a presentation by the CEO, Daniel Benin.

So with those 3 acquisitions, we have now a platform, so EUR 46 billion of AUM, Laurent mentioned it, EUR 200 million of FRE. We'll see why profitability is important for us. On top of the IFRS or the recurring revenues, we have also a potential in terms of car and interest. It means that we'll share also the performance delivered to our clients over the long term. We have people dedicated to this business, half of them in the U.S. and the rest in Europe and in Asia, with 3 asset classes. And you will see that we have a global footprint.

So on one side, we are a mid-market player, really focused on what we do with very local engagement, but at the same time, it's a global business. So we have been able to do that in a relatively short period of time. Why? Why we have been able to engage develop discussion with those very strong teams and developed those partnership and develop those businesses because we have built a very solid platform with a distinctive value proposition. And this is key to go back to that because that's really the starting point, the foundation of all what we do.

We have a distinctive model. What does it mean? We have built a model where we maintain the entrepreneurial, the dynamic and of the company. It's the best way to attract talent and to deliver performance for all our clients over the long term. If you want to deliver performance for your clients, you need to have talent. And for that, we have a distinct in value proposition. It's not enough for sure.

The second point is that with Wendel, we have a balance sheet, we have the ability to accelerate the growth through the sponsoring program. What does it mean the sponsoring? For sure, we invest money when they rate. So they can accelerate their development, but it's also a way to innovate. It's very important. I can give you one example on the retail product. If you have a balance sheet, it's more easy to create a product at the critical size they want.

Then [indiscernible], and it's also important for the platform, we know that we need to work all together to be relevant in front of our clients. We have built a mid-market player. We have to compete and each of our clients, they talk to us, but they talk also with the huge player. So we need to be coordinated in front of our clients in order to be relevant in front of very big investors and also to tackle the retail market.

And last thing, which is very also very important. We have a pragmatic approach to oversee our business, to protect the value of future GP and also to create operational efficiencies. For example, for the implementation of our building. We try to be all together at the same place in Paris, in London, in Luxembourg or in New York. With that, we have a very strong value proposition to attract new talents. But now let's move to the third pillar, committed editor that we announced in October.

Unfortunately, the season -- CEO sorry, is not with us today, but you will have a video from Daniel Benin. Daniel is the CEO and the Founder of Committed Advisor. He's very well seasoned. He has created a Committed Advisor with 3 other partners. It's a very international team. They are French, but they have a very strong background. They were in the past altogether at AXA, and they have developed a very interesting business. So now we can launch the video.

[Presentation]

Good afternoon. I'm sorry, I will not be able to be with you today. I'm Daniel Benin, the CEO of Committed Advisors. Committed Advisors was founded 15 years ago by a 4x Argen Partner after we spent 10 years with Argen launching the secondary practice back to 2000, and we became independent in 2010. Since then, we have raised EUR 7 billion dedicated to secondaries through 2 verticals, LP stakes and GPT, who operate through 3 offices, Paris, New York, Singapore, so it's a global platform with 51 professionals spread across these 3 offices.

We mostly focus us on buyout and growth, meaning profitable companies with a geographic allocation, which is roughly 50% in the U.S., 1/3 in Europe and 10% to 15% in APAC. Why that? Because the U.S. market is the biggest market by a number of companies, number of pride equity funds, and number of investors who could become potential sellers because the secondary market is designed to provide liquidity to such investors.

You have 2 pillars, the LP stakes, the GP [indiscernible]. LP stakes have been there forever, and it's still there today. Basically, it's an investor or a group of investors who is willing to exit a prior equity fund before its term. You cannot sell because it's an illiquid asset class, so you cannot sell a price equity interest or portfolio of interest if you don't have a buyer like a secondary market in front of you. And that's why this segment, which used to be a niche 25 years ago with a couple of hundred million switching hands in a given year is going to reach over EUR 200 billion this year.

So this is a massive change in this market, driven by 2 things: the need for liquidity and also the slowdown of the distributions. The need for liquidity is impacting all kinds of investors. The slowdown of the distributions is also impacting investors, but more importantly, impacting GPs. GP who is not able to send the money back soon enough to his LPs, is going to find a solution to accelerate that distribution, and that's the genesis of the GP [ leds ] which started roughly 12, 13 years ago, and we have been actually very active in that segment as well.

Again, the secondary market is no longer a niche. Over EUR 200 billion today and the expectations are a market which could double up between now and 2030. To give you also some perspective, 10 years ago, this was a EUR 40 billion market. So we've moved from EUR 40 billion to EUR 200 billion, and we could reach EUR 400 billion in 5 years. Within that segment, you have now basically 2 types of transactions.

The very large transactions, which are going to be covered by very large secondary managers, raising EUR 15 billion, EUR 20 billion and up to EUR 30 billion in 1 single fund. At the other end, you get people like us raising between EUR 2 billion and EUR 3 billion per pound and operating in transactions, which are going to range between EUR 20 million, EUR 30 million and up to EUR 150 million or EUR 200 million.

What does it mean? Pricing, risk return Pricing is totally different. If you are buying a portfolio of EUR 10 million, EUR 20 million, EUR 30 million, it's not systematic, but you could get an increased discount versus the same portfolio, same quality but 10x bigger. So in a nutshell, you buy a EUR 200 million portfolio you are going to be able to negotiate between 10% and 20% discount, sometimes more. You buy the same portfolio, which is a EUR 2 billion portfolio, you're going to get a pricing -- a clearing price between par and 5%, 6%, 7% discount.

This year, to give you an example, we bought a portfolio in April on interest, around EUR 200 million, 27% discount. At the same time, the Yale endowment in the U.S. was selling a portfolio 25x bigger, EUR 5 billion, same kind of assets, 7% discount. This is an example of the differentiation that you have in positioning your strategy in the mid-market versus the larger market in the secondary space.

Well, first of all, I think our positioning is the right one because we operate in the mid-market space where structurally, the discounts that we're able to pay are higher than what you would find in the global normalized secondary market. That's the first point. Second point, thanks to that positioning, we benefit from an increased velocity of the capital because we're not using debt. So any time there is a distribution coming back to us that goes back to our LPs. We're not using leverage which is a great advantage because we can derisk much quicker in all the transactions that we've done.

In 15 years, we've closed on over 250 transactions. None of them have been done with the use of leverage. So every time we get a distribution that goes back to our LPs. What does it mean? When you're committing EUR 10 million to our funds as an LP, we are going to core 10 million from you. But at the same time, we are going to send between EUR 4 million and EUR 5 million. So net cash is going to be around EUR 5 million, EUR 5.5 million for you. So you're going to disburse million, but you have funded EUR 10 million.

The multiple that you're going to achieve in our flagship funds on your EUR 10 million is around 1.8x, 1.9x. The multiple on your EUR 5.5 million of cash disbursed is going to be between 2.5x and 3x with the downside protection, which is massive because you are going to be invested by transparency in over 1,000 companies the risk of impairment is extremely limited, not to say new.

With respect to GP leads, portfolios are a bit more concentrated. As I've explained, you will end up in our dedicated GP lead funds with 100, 120 companies. But the same velocity is applying. In 5 years, we have reimbursed close to 90% of the capital to our investors. So in investor committing in our funds, 5 years ago, we already get 90% of their money back. self-financing a portion of the capital calls with the distributions.

The multiple that we are targeting for GP leads and that we have generated, by the way, during the past 15 years, are ranging between 2.2x and 2.4x. So similar to buyout returns. But the velocity is higher, and the cash exposure is around 60%. The multiple on your EUR 10 million in that example is 2.2x, 2.4x. The multiple on your cash is going to be between 2.7x and 3.2x.

Sure. So we have 2 product ranges. One flagship fund, which has been there forever since we got started doing initially a lot of LP stakes and now being balanced between LP stakes and GP leads. Why is it balanced? Because now when we have a EUR 200 billion market again, roughly 50% of this market is actually covered by GP leads. So we replicate what the secondary market basically is offering us in these flagship plants.

On the other hand, GP leads and LP stakes do not offer the exact same risk returns. So it's important to cover that as well. On LP stakes, you are going to assemble a portfolio with is going to be extremely diversified by sector, by GP, by geography, by vintage. And you could add up when you're assembling a portfolio of EUR 2.53 billion, with 60, 70, 80 transactions by transparency over 1,000 companies. On the other hand, GP led by definition, more concentrated. These transactions include 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 assets, sometimes a bit more, but the bulk is really between 1 and 5 companies per portfolio.

We have actually a dedicated program to GP leads because the returns are a bit different. In GP leads, you could underwrite the transactions a bit higher. So targeting 2.2 to 2.5x your money and an IR, which is going to range at around 20%. In the LP stakes, you are going to be slightly lower, but again, much more diversified, so enjoying a stronger downside protection. So you're going to shoot for 1.8x, 1.9x and an IR, which is going quite similar at 18% to 20%.

International presence is the must have. This is the global market private equity. So you could operate, if you want, in Europe or in the U.S., but you would give up on some opportunities in other regions. This is also offering a diversification of pure risk because all the regions do not necessarily perform at the same pace. The COVID was a great example. We've seen the COVID impacting several regions, but certain sectors did not get impacted the same way and the rebound did not happen at the same time.

So you could play your geographic allocation and your investments depending the opportunities which were attractive enough in each region. First point. Second, when you have a seller in the private equity space and in the secondary space is not going to sell only European assets. He could sell a mixed bag of U.S., Europe, Asian assets. by being in a position to offer a global solution, you're maximizing the odds of getting the deal done and your negotiating power is higher because of that global solution that you are able to provide.

It's a tough question. In 10 years, I would see Committed Advisors still operating in the same space. One of the recipe of our success is we have been extremely disciplined in remaining positioned in that mid-market space. How did we do? Our last fund was EUR 2.5 billion. We have multiplied mid-market transactions. So we have done more of the same, basically, even if the fund was 10x bigger than the first fund that we raised back to 2010. It was a EUR 250 million fund. What does it mean? Most of the deals that we're doing today would still fit into Fund 1, 2, 3, which is quite unusual.

How do we see ourselves in this market in 10 years? This market is probably going to double up between now and 2030. Is it going to be a market at EUR 600 million, EUR 800 , maybe EUR 1 trillion in 10 years from now? Possibly. Frankly speaking, I don't know, but the only thing I know it's going to be bigger than now. The opportunity is great because we are still a very limited amount of players in this market. How many players are we? 150, maybe 170. That's it. How many price equity players do you have in the space, over 25,000. And that is actually a great advantage because we have room for new entrants, and we have new entrants coming in, but the growth of the market is higher then the amounts which are being collected by the new entrants and combined with the existing players.

So the prospects are looking extremely good. But it's very important to remain very disciplined in the strategy that you have in place, and we are willing to keep operating in that mid-market space because the risk return are totally different versus the larger space. Well, it was, first of all, a cultural fit, an entrepreneurial fit that we found in Wendel. There was also this platform, which has been announced a few years ago and which is already active in place with best-in-class players, IK, Monroe. So we have basically a proof of this concept already in place. This is going to strengthen us over the long term.

But in the meantime, this is not going to change our DNA. So Committed advisers will remain Committed advisers in the way we are going to define a and operate in the long term. So we remain independent in that point, but we will benefit very strongly from that partnership. Remaining focus obviously on secondaries, or mid-market keeping that entrepreneurial mindset that we share with Wendel and also having a massive alignment of interest that we have always had and what we're going to increase with our investors with a EUR 200 million commitment that we're going to have in the next fund being launched in January.

Okay. Thank you, Daniel. So let's pursue the presentation and the explanation of the building of this platform. So we -- this platform, I think, offers a unique set of products we see primary focus on [indiscernible]. You heard from Daniel how it is important because we do believe that it's the best way to deliver performance. But the challenge when you have mid-market positioning, this local positioning is also to create a business, able to grow and to have a global positioning.

So our platform is at scale. Laurent mentioned it, we have EUR 46 billion, and we have also EUR 200 million of FRE. For us, the key -- the first KPI, AUM are important, but the key KPIs for us is the FRE. Because we are not IBM-Chaser. As Daniel said, what is important is the performance for our clients. We are not chasing huge funds. We are really focused on mid-market and we do believe that if we stay in this market, we'll be in a position to deliver performance to our clients.

If you deliver performance to your clients, you can charge fees, you can grow your business and you can remain profitable and protect your business. That's exactly the way we want to build this platform. We are at scale, but at the same time, we stay where we have to stay. And with this profitability, we can attract talent, and we can also invest in our distribution to diversify our business. So that's the first let's attribute size, size in terms of AUM, size in terms of profitability.

The second important point, global positioning. So mid-market, global positioning. Okay, why are we global? Let's take a step back. If you look at Tesma, you have 2 things. you have where we invest money and where we raise money. If you look at the platform today with the EUR 46 billion, our first market is the U.S. First in terms of investment, EUR 28 billion invested in the U.S. for Shorts Monroe, but you have also EUR 3 billion invested by Committed Advisor as Daniel presented, the U.S. market is key.

So our first market in terms of investment is the U.S. the second market for shoes Europe with IT and also committed. And as you see also in terms of investment now, thanks to Committed adviser, we have also EUR 1 billion invested in Asia. If now we move to the other side of our business, where we raise money. First market, the U.S., EUR 21 billion. It's not only Monroe. We have EUR 3 billion raised for IK, EUR 1 billion raised for Committed Advisor. So our 3 affiliates are distributed already in the U.S. And in the U.S., we have also strong retail presence. I will come back to that.

Second market, for sure, Europe. And it's not only IK and committed. We have also presence of -- a strong presence of Monroe in Europe. And the good thing also, why we are global. As you can see, we are also in Lat Am, in MENA and in Asia. We are small, but we are profitability with our growth. We want to invest there to grow our business, and we have a strong potential to develop our business. So mean market focus, focused on performance but a global position. So can attribute to scale, global.

Then diversified. I will not come back on the expertise diversification. What is more interesting is the client type. For sure, we are an institutional business, but we have already a retail positioning with 13%. To be honest, it's only Monroe more today. They have a strong presence. They have started that 10 years ago. We want to expand the retail positioning also for Committed adviser. And for IK, I will come back to that later on. But you see already the diversification. And inside the institutional, we cover sovereign well sans insurers, pension fund everywhere in the world.

After critical size, global positioning, diversification and what is even more important in terms of growth. Here, you have a mapping of the potential expertise. So you have in the column, the continent of Europe, U.S. and you have the, let's say, all the potential expertise in the private market. So in the color boxes, you have what we got when we have done the acquisition. So IK bring to us buyout in Europe. Committed advisers bring to a secondary in Europe and in the U.S., Monroe private credit and the full range of products in the private debt in the U.S.

Then you have what can be done organically based on what we have today. We can grow Monroe in Europe as an investor, and we will launch an initiative on that. We can also diversify Committed advisers. They are on buyout, they could do also a secondary transaction in the debt on the infrastructure. And on top of that, for sure, as mentioned by Laurent, we can pursue our M&A to complement our platform. So it means that with the platform we have and also with the mindset of our CEOs because in our model, we need to have very strong investment professional and also very good business developer.

And Daniel, last year, you sorted and we have also Christmas [indiscernible]. We are a very strong team with a very strong mindset in terms of development. It's very important. So critical size, global footprint, diversification. And we have a strong potential in terms of growth, organic growth and also potential for M&A. I think it's very important.

Last thing for the platform, the debt on the platform, when you read the evolution of the private market, retail is key. Why? Because now the private market are a key component to fund the economy and if you have investment, it means that you need to allocate savings on the other side. And for the retail investor, everyone in the world is the beginning of the journey. Here also, we want to tackle this market. We have the experience to Monroe and we have also the products to address this market. We want to do it in a very sustainable way. We want to be very cautious in terms of fees. We want to be sure that we sell it to the right market. It's very important when you want to develop the retail business.

And here, the experience of the traditional asset management is very important. Two things in this chart. The first one is that where is Monroe today? If we take the private BDC market, it's a bit technical, but it's a good way to summarize the positioning of Monroe in the retail market and private credit in U.S., you see that they are very well positioned with EUR 5.6 billion. The good thing is that on top of that, we have in mind to develop a full range of products for Monroe on the retail market. They have announced yesterday the launch of a new fund, quite different -- a bit different in terms of risk reward positioning, [indiscernible] and I think it will be very interesting. It will be also a way for them to enlarge the reach in terms of clients.

It was -- they want to tackle also the wealth management in the U.S., so the potential is very important. And also in Europe with IT, I can announce that we have received the IMF approval to launch an evergreen vehicle for IK partners. We'll start the fundraising in H1 '26 and we may also launch this type of initiative for Committed Advisors. So we want to address the retail market, and it will be a new engine of growth for our platform. So critical size, global footprint, diversification, ability to grow, and we have all the means to tackle the retail markets. So really, with that, I think you have a good understanding of Wendel Investment Manager.

In order to have a comprehensive view of our platform, I think we thought it could make sense to have also a view on the U.S. private credit because there was a lot of noise on newspaper, et cetera. So we thought that it could make sense to have this. It's why you will have a video now with Zia Uddin. Zia, last year, you saw [indiscernible], the CEO, the funder. Zia is the #2 is an investment professional core portfolio on the direct lending is a key contributor of the huge success of Monroe. We can launch video.

[Presentation]

Capital is a leading specialty lending platform focused on inefficient segments of the U.S. private credit market. We are unique in the private credit industry and that we were founded in 2004 prior to the GFC. We have a long track record built on differentiated sourcing capabilities and strong underwriting which is consistent with our firm's guiding principles since our inception. We believe the key to long-term success in asset management is to deliver excess risk-adjusted returns to our investors which we achieved by attracting and retaining the best people and by pursuing strategies where we can deliver diversification and differentiated exposure that leverage our core capabilities.

We are best known in the market as one of the largest players in the U.S. lower middle market. which we define as companies under $35 million of EBITDA. It is tempting to view the current geopolitical environment as a result of one person with a unique personality. It is not. We believe that the current macro trends, which we would oversimplify as a new era of deglobalization will outlive Donald Trump and other Western leaders currently in power.

The trend of 50-plus years of globalization had a strong deflationary impact on the entire world, and it is coming to an end as Western and Eastern powers alike increasingly focus on domestic priorities, potentially even at the expense of economic growth being prioritized above all else. The net result is we are moving into a different macro regime characterized by more industrial policy, higher structural inflation and higher long-term rates. The era of free money and free trade is ending.

We're now in a world of reshoring tariffs and strategic competition. This environment rewards lenders who price risk correctly and avoid businesses dependent on cheap capital or global arbitrage while unsettling for some Game Change creates opportunity for disciplined credit investors. In a geopolitical landscape that is different than almost any investor actively managing capital today has seen in recent memory, we believe investors will even prioritize assets that provide more certainty in a less certain world.

Private credit is very well positioned in this environment as the asset class can deliver predictable cash yield, good downside protection and less mark-to-market volatility than experienced in public markets. In a higher inflation, higher rate world, floating rates become more valuable. But dispersion is widening. Private credit is not only one thing. Although it gets painted with a broad brush in every subsegment of private credit, manager selection and underwriting discipline matter more than ever.

Our focus of senior secured covenant protected cash-generative borrowers aligns with this shift. Private credit and certain segments of direct lending has been an area that has experienced tremendous growth over the past decade with many new entrants looking to benefit from the in-favor nature of the industry. This growth has come at a unique period of time. It's been 16 years since the last real downturn which has led to returns, which have been strong across the entire industry.

However, private credit is not and has never been a risk-free asset class. There have been certain players that have been more focus on asset growth, and they have been on investing in high-quality opportunities with appropriate safeguards. This has been arguably most commonly seen in the large end of the middle market where direct lenders now compete head to head with syndicated banks like JPMorgan and Bank of America. This head-to-head competition, coupled with the fact that there are only a finite number of $100 million-plus EBITDA companies getting purchased in a given year has led to a race to the bottom in terms Spreads have tightened dramatically.

Leverage levels have increased. Adjustments to EBITDA have grown exponentially, and covenants and other downside protections have lost all teeth. Monroe has avoided participating in those areas of the market where the supply/demand imbalance so strongly favors borrowers and lenders expense. We're focused on smaller deals with lower leverage, higher spreads, and on sectors with recurring revenue and strong cash flow conversion. Monroe is especially well positioned for the current market conditions as we've been waiting for a market correction. It has been very difficult for investors to know which managers did things the right way and which ones we're benefiting from the strong industry trends.

As equity and debt markets digest some of the excesses from the last few years, and some of the 2021 and '22 vintage deals, which were bought at peak multiples with peak leverage has come up for maturity, we believe we are going to see a period of market consolidation as the private credit firms who have done things the right way, we'll see strong outperformance and will be rewarded with accelerated fundraising success and greater market share.

Private credit is currently being covered as if it's as exciting as football or cricket. While we are not intimately familiar with every headline or story that has been in recent headlines, from the situations where we do have insight we believe these have been idiosyncratic issues driven by specific business model challenges, unique funding models with off-balance sheet debt and poor documentation choices by the lenders involved but not a sign that there are significant issues across the private credit landscape. They are reminders that the underwriting quality varies widely across managers.

We see isolated stress in certain sectors, but not a systematic credit cycle. Our portfolio remains healthy with leverage and interest coverage metrics built for this rate environment. While fundraising is never easy and always competitive, we are pleased with the level of trust and support we are seeing across our global investor base. Investors are increasing allocations to private credit broadly and more specifically to segments where they are adding diversification and reducing correlations such as lower middle market direct lending and asset-based finance.

In 2025, we've seen continued inflows across our flagship direct lending funds. We're having our final close on our latest flagship fund, which will represent over 20% asset growth versus our last flagship fund. SMA structures with single LPs, including new SMAs over the last 12 months with a large Swiss asset management firm, a large Japanese insurance company and a partnership with a large Japanese bank and Australian asset manager as well as in our evergreen vehicles. We continue to see great momentum in the U.S. high net worth channel as our large private BDC, Monroe Capital Income Plus continues to see steady growth and we recently launched a new nontraded BDC anchored by one of the largest registered investment advisers in the U.S., which we believe will allow us to get more inflows from broker-dealers and wire houses.

We continue to see a lot of opportunity to expand in the European institutional and high net worth segments, and that is an area where we are enjoying collaboration and support from the experienced team at Wendel. The pipeline for 2026 is robust and we're expanding relationships with institutions seeking long duration yield and stability. We want to continue to grow in our core segment of lower middle market lending by expanding into new channels and new fund types, more specifically, you will see us launch new evergreen fund structures for both the high net worth and institutional channels, taking advantage of growing appetite for funds that are not subject to the drawdown and wind up associated with historical closed-end funds. These funds also have the benefit of having longer lives and more predictable fee streams.

We are also looking to grow in certain subsegments of private credit, where we have a strong track record as part of our broader alternative credit solution strategy. but where we can raise dedicated funds for investors seeking more tailored allocations.

The partnership with Wendel has been fantastic. And truly, everything they indicated it would be during our diligence process, where we chose them over several other potential partners. The cultural fit has been excellent. We both have a shared long-term mindset and a focus on real value creation. Mendel has brought tremendous thought leadership and advice to me and Ted, in particular, as they have significant experience throughout their personal careers and through Wendel's over 300 years as a diversified asset manager. Their knowledge of best practices, their relationship with institutional LPs across the world and especially in Europe, and the way they go about their jobs have been very valuable for us, and we continue to strive to improve our firm.

More specifically, Wendel's investment in Monroe has allowed us to accelerate our product development cycle as they have served as early seed capital in a number of new initiatives. Mendel has already helped us accelerate the fund raise for our new high net worth focused BDC Emlen which we believe could grow to be one of, if not the largest fund on our platform. We have a number of other new product launches coming over the next few quarters. and Wendel's early and sizable investment provides a very strong vote of confidence for third-party investors, which should allow us to grow faster than we would have been able to on our own.

Some of the benefits include broader global reach, Wendell's international footprint has opened doors with sovereign wealth funds, pensions and insurers across the globe, stronger brand equity, being part of a publicly traded multigenerational investment group reinforces trust with LPs and borrowers. Collaboration with IK partners on fundraising and knowledge sharing of the European and U.S. private equity credit markets have also been invaluable. We think there is a lot of opportunity to leverage our respective blue-chip LP basis.

We were especially excited about Wendel's latest acquisition of Committed advisers. The secondary market is a fascinating one and where we believe there could be a lot of opportunity to collaborate with them over time.

Thank you. Thank you, Professor Uddin. So no, so that was at the end of the first point. My second objective for today is to explain to try to convince you why when you're a shareholder of Wendel you have also the opportunity to participate in the private asset management market in a different way. You know as a shareholder of private asset management business, you have the benefit of the private asset very sticky. But on the other side, as you know, sometimes there is also volatility because those businesses are not linear. You raise capital then during 3 years, you have a sort of plateau, then you have a new vintage, et cetera.

With the platform that we are building, the profile will be different because we have diversification, as I said previously, diversification in terms of asset class, but also diversification in terms of vintages, diversification in terms of fund format, as mentioned by Zia, evergreen vehicle versus [indiscernible], et cetera. So if you look at what you can see here is that the way we forecast our fundraising program for the coming years between [indiscernible] and you can see you have the orange bar for the secondary, for example, in 2016 and in '29 you have also the IG pace of fundraising. It was '24, '25. The next fundraising will be '27, '28. And then you have Monroe. Monroe is different because they have closed end fund and they have ever green vehicle. So they are always in the market. But on top of that, you have some peak '25, '28.

So if you combine everything, you get something smoother, you are always relevant in front of the market. You are always something to sell to our clients, and it means that you deliver growth every year, quarter after quarter to your shareholder. And what does it mean for the shareholder? In terms of growth profile, in terms of revenue growth and FRE growth is totally different. If you look at each of our GPs or if you look at the growth profile of Wendel Investment Management, is totally different. So based on what I presented just previously, you see that there is some volatility in the growth, in the margin of each of those GPs. It's normal. That's the evolution, that's the DNA, that's the business model of what they do.

If you look at the sorry, I missed the line -- brown line, sorry, you can see that it's a smoothen profile, and it's very important as a shareholder to have this type of profile. It means that you can go through different cycle, different market evolution with a permanent growth. And we hope that with this plan, we can deliver a 15% organic growth for our business with a good margin between 37% and 40%, which is, I think, a very good margin that will allow us to have a sustainable business. On top of this 15%, you have another effect on the growth, as mentioned by Laurent, we will have the opportunity between now and 2030 to buy back some of our minorities with predefined terms. It's part of the EUR 7 billion presented by Laurent.

And if we do that, in this case, the growth profile, not the underlying business, but the Wendel share, it's not 15% per year, it's 20%. This is just organic growth. So 15% that's underlying organic performance. If you had the fact that we will increase our shares smoothly over time in each of our GPs, you get a 20% CAGR for Wendel for the next 5 years. That's for the FRE for the recurring revenues. But also on top of that, and for sure, we could have also M&A on top of that. But on top of the FRE growth, what I would like also to share with you as a shareholder of Wendel is that you will benefit from a share of the performance sharing with the client, what we call the PRE, performance-related earnings. And this -- it could be quite significant. As you know, when we announced the transaction for each of our transactions, sorry, we said that we will benefit -- we are entitled to 20% of all carried for future funds.

So here, we try to show you what does it mean correctly for a shareholder of Wendel. So top of the slide, you have for one vintage, and then I will discuss the evolution for vintage. So what is the vintage? The vintage is for each of our GPs, every 3 years, they raise a fund. So private equity, it's IK, they raised close to EUR 6 billion. Secondary, it's committed adviser. One fund is EUR 3.7 billion. Private debt, here, I just took the closed-end fund, EUR 2.5 billion. So a vintage is EUR 11 billion. Then you go through the waterfall, assuming that you deliver the performance for sure. We put here the target in terms of performance with a range. You go through the waterfall, you split the value between the LPs and then you have the performance for the team. And then we have 20% of the carried for Wendel. And for that, so it means that for each vintage, we get potentially EUR 300 million with no additional capital. It will come on top of the 20% CAGR I've just mentioned.

And then this, for sure, it takes time because you invest the money and you have the carried in year 7, year 10. But then in the future, it's what you have at the bottom of the slide, we will have those EUR 300 million potentially for each vintage every 3 years. So when we'll be full speed, it will be a very important complement in terms of revenues on top of the FRE growth. So as you can see, it's a very compelling offer for the shareholders and something that is really focused on the mid-market. So what you hear around the large cap, the pressure, et cetera, we can stay focused on the mid-market. We can deliver the performance. And at the same time, we can be ambitious, we can grow the business and we can be very profitable. I hope that with that, we can convince you that it's a very interesting opportunity as an investor.

I'm a bit late. I will just go through that very quickly. So there is not so much opportunity to invest in a platform focused on mid-market with this reach, global in terms of positioning, present in the U.S., present in Europe. I think -- and supported by Wendel because it's a very interesting ecosystem. As I said at the beginning, we have been in a position to attract those guys because we are Wendel and we have a very strong ecosystem. This platform is resilient and diversified. I mentioned it already. And I think we have very strong potential in terms of size, in terms of product, we have a very strong team at the Wendel level, but also in the GPs. Those guys are very strong investment professional and also very strong entrepreneur, very strong business developers. So with that, I'm sure that we can deliver strong growth for you. Thank you.

Thank you, Cyril, for this presentation. Now it's time to turn to the wrap-up by Laurent, and then we will hold a Q&A session dedicated to Wendel.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Please come, David. Thank you very much, Cyril. I hope that has convinced you that it is a real business that we're developing and a growing business with a lot of potential. Do I have the wrap-up or no? There are slides. Yes. There are. This is one. Okay. So we've moved -- I think you've seen, we've changed a lot. We've transformed the company, and it is a true change. This has made us to have strong businesses. We have a historical business to invest money and to be a shareholder -- active shareholders of company to generate value and capital gains. I think we've taken the means in order to change it again to make it more efficient through benefiting from the IK framework, but we still invest that.

We've got great companies, and we've got great prospects to that. So that is important. But it's also now that we have 2 pillars. We also have the pillars of developing an asset management, which is a true unique platform that will deliver significant growth and significant value. All of that with a lean organization in order to have as less cost potential at the holding level so that we can be the most efficient that we can. And again, I will not come back to everything, but I think now we have an absolutely unique ecosystem, private asset ecosystem that is efficient, will deliver growth, will deliver value creation and will help us generating significant shareholder return, significant shareholder return through dividend growth and through share buyback in order to take benefit of the 2 big discount that we have today, and we'll see how much we have more potential to do.

So that was it. It was a little bit too I think it was a good moment to show you how much we have transformed ourselves, what potential we have and that we're not anymore only an holding company owning assets. We are a business. We are a business that also own assets and that has created a truly unique ecosystem around that. Thank you very much, and we are now both of us, but all of us at your disposal to answer to your questions.

Thank you. We will start with some questions from the web, and we'll go to the room. The first question, can you elaborate about the process of Monroe pricing risk of its portfolio? Is it a proprietary process dependent on rating agencies or an hybrid?

No, it's not. I mean, Monroe is doing -- it's not -- the way it does work is that Monroe is always looking for lower to middle market companies. So the type of rating is similar. So it's not like they are doing a AAA lending and then CCC lending. They always are looking to the same type of it. The important is that the spreads on the lower middle market is probably 75 to 100 basis points higher than on the highest -- the larger market, for the same type of risk. So we're talking about 500 to 525 today. It has gone down. It was close to 600 1.5 years ago, but it's still 500 to 525. While on the larger transaction, we're more talking about 400 basis points as a spread.

So the way -- what is important is not pricing, than the selection. And the important thing for me when you assess risk is to have a double regard -- double view. I've been a banker for years and years and I've been chairing a risk committee of a bank for years, twice a week, half a day each time. So I can tell you this is something where you get.

The much important thing is that you've got somebody that is there to defend the case that have made the instruction, and you've got somebody that is there to assess the risk. And the decision has to be the confrontation between the 2. Many private credit funds are doing the same way as a private equity, which is the team that is in charge of the loan, either one, that defines the case and decide.

I think you need to have that double balance when you talk about risk. Because in a credit, it's not like you're buying something because it's going to double the value. No. You're only going to get the rates. So what is important is that you don't lose the capital.

So that's why it's so important that the risk is debating about what is the probability that we lose the capital. It's not the question of how much -- how are we going to double the value. Are we going to protect the capital? And then earn the rates. So the risk approach is key.

And that's exactly what Monroe is doing. And that's what we -- when we did the due diligence, we discussed with, they have an underwriting team that is a very seasoned team, very strong. Very strong criteria, very -- they have a funnel of decision. They look to probably 2,000 transactions a year, and they invest in less than 10% of that.

And this is transaction they originate, which is very important. They're not followers. That's also the beauty of being on the lower middle market, but that's why they have also many offices throughout the U.S. Monroe is not 10% -- 10 people in Chicago. It's 325 people all across the U.S. in order to assess the quality and to originate loans, and on the other side, to assess the risk. So they have a very, very robust underwriting policy, which is key when you do credit.

Maybe just to illustrate the risk profile, we can remind the group that the average leverage of the portfolio, the underlying portfolio of the Monroe loans, is under 4x. So it's a reasonable leverage, and with a full set of covenants. They don't have covenant [indiscernible].

4x, while the larger transactions are more 5 to 6. They are covenant while the larger transactions are covenant-light. So this is very important.

The other thing is that we then -- they have a portfolio surveillance and they follow the portfolio on a regular basis. We have a discussion with them. And we see and we -- which are the transactions that are in danger or not. Their rates of loss since 20 years has been 1.2% globally, 70% of recovery. So 1.2% loan that went into default and they recovered 70% of that. So that means that the total loss is 0.3 basis -- 30 basis points, 35 basis points.

Question from Geoffroy.

Geoff Michalet from ODDO BHF. Three questions for me. First question, on the EUR 7 billion of capital you want to recycle. Can you give us a more precise idea of the split between WPI and WIM? And do you need to deliver the target of IRR 12% to 16% of IRR from WPI to reach the EUR 7 billion? That's the first question. Maybe I can do the second after.

No, no. I will answer this one. So how much is coming from the recurring revenue, how much is coming from the sales? Well, if we don't give the number, it's because we don't want to be too specific. But let's say that if you do the math of our FRE, you will make -- and you do it with the 20% potential growth, you will see that it's not far from EUR 1 billion that will come from the revenues. So I've not signed anything, but you make the calculation yourself and you come to that number. And if you come to that number, I say, yes, it's not so bad.

So which means that, no, you don't have to make -- I mean, hopefully, we'll do that, but we have a lot of leeway compared to the -- I mean, it's not the full portfolio that is [indiscernible]. We're talking about a portfolio that is potentially EUR 5.2 billion, EUR 5.3 billion of value. Here, if you take 7 minus 1, you see -- okay, so you make the math on your side, and you see it's not exactly that.

Second question, on capital allocation. Shall we think the dividend being linear together with the growth of the Wendel Investment Management? But can we imagine earlier step-ups due to capital rotation, for instance?

And the second question on the capital allocation is on the share buyback. You have announced an important share buyback program today for next year. Do you have in mind a minimum FRE float level that you want to keep the listed company below which you don't want to go?

Well, it's a good question, so -- but [indiscernible] answer to any constraint at the same time. So your first question is dividend policy. Dividend policy, we've explained the dividend policy, and it will follow that path. So it will grow with the asset and it will grow with the flows of revenue coming from the asset management.

As you've seen the flows of revenue from the asset management, will be pretty stable, thanks to the mix of business that we have which makes that the FRE growth is pretty predictable -- I mean, predictable. It's never predictable. But it's pretty -- the cycle of each of the business make that we've got a much smoother one than if we were only one category of assets. So that will rely on that.

So it's not -- now as I've said, in our cash flow blocks, there's EUR 1.2 billion that is we didn't allocate to something. That is there in order to potentially increase shareholder return if we feel that we need to increase shareholder return. And I'm not stating what sort of shareholder return we will give, but there is different ways to do it. That could be a dividend, that could be share buybacks, we'll do.

The more free float we have, the better. But we also have to make sure that we've got not too much discount for our shareholders. So that's why we think reinvesting today part of our money in our own assets that we know, in our own business, the great asset management platform we built, we think it's a wise decision to take today. And that's why we're taking it.

I have one question about the more than EUR 2.5 billion you're going to invest in Wendel Investment Management. I would like to know what is already linked to the earn-out, the amount you have decided also to commit to the different trends. And if there is, after this mandatory, let's say, investment, is there something left?

Well, yes, because we told you there's 3 things. There is seed money that we want to put. There's the buyout of the earnout and buyout of the minorities, which lead to the fact that the FRE will grow faster than the underlying FRE of the platform.

But there's also potential M&A. As I say, potential M&A is not the top priority, but it is a possibility. But it's not the bulk of the EUR 2.5 billion. It's a reasonable amount to do a sizable transaction, but it's not the bulk of it. It's not the majority of it. So yes, there is.

By the way, we have to -- here we're talking about cash. One way -- one thing I want to clarify, that when you look to our current LTV, all the commitment that we have to buy the minorities and so on is already included in the LTV, even if it's not cash out.

And maybe a second one, a follow-up question on the EUR 7 billion of cash. Have you accounted for some performance-related earnings in this front?

No. No. I think Cyril wanted to show you that there is embedded value there, that you can't see through the earnings or the cash statement today, but that will be there. However, we don't expect it to be there before 2030, so we've not taken into account, at least not in cash, by 2030.

So accounting wise, maybe a small may rise, but accounting-wise. In cash, it's very small.

May I just correct? Because -- and then I give you. We have 20% of some past PRE, performance-related earnings, of carried interest of Monroe. So those ones are in it, but it's a very small portion to the -- but yes, we have -- so the answer is not 0%. But it's not part of the 300 calculation that you've seen. Sorry. I wanted to be as precise as possible.

Saima Hussain from AlphaValue. So I just wanted to ask, so hybrid models, combining investment and third-party asset management tend to be structurally undervalued by the market. So is there a risk that Wendel ends up into a strategic no man's land, meaning not fully valued as a pure asset manager nor as a pure holding? And how do you actively manage this perception?

Well, first of all, remember, 3 years ago, we were purely a holding company, not an asset manager. So we are in a journey. However, I think what we wanted to explain to you, and we'll see how the market value us, is that we think this ecosystem is powerful. I think that if you have private -- you have permanent capital, you have the means to grow your asset management faster than if you don't have. By the way, all the big private asset managers are looking for permanent capital one way or the other. Some of them are buying it by buying an insurance company to fuel the policyholder money back in their funds. Some others are still having significant capital on their balance sheet.

So we think that it is important to have permanent capital if you want to grow faster. I don't know the market prefer pure asset manager. We are in a growth story. And I think what we want is that the market recognize we are in a growth story. And the fact that we have a good performing engine of capital appreciation through investing in great companies and generating funds, in a powerful ecosystem, which means that it's not like we've got a small team in a way that investing. No, we have -- it's the same team that is making that.

I think it's a powerful way to create permanent capital that could be invested in the growth of the asset management. And you see that over the last -- the next 5 years, the asset management portion is increasing [indiscernible]. So sometimes you have to invent your own model. And I think our model makes sense, and it will create significant value. We'll see how the market valuates our long term.

Yes. I would just mention that Apollo, KKR or ICG have -- they all have a very strong balance sheet. Maybe they don't communicate a lot of it. And they are pretty well valued.

But it depends on how fast the asset management develop. Again, we were 0. We're 46 billion. We're moving ahead. Yes.

[indiscernible]. Two questions on the investment platform. The first one is a follow-up of what has already been asked. But if everything goes to your plan, I mean, the earnout, buyouts of the minorities, how much should that be out of the 2.5? So that's my first question.

And the second question is, we have seen, I mean, presentation on very good investment managers. My question is more -- I mean, where is the platform exactly? I mean, i.e., what is done in common? And what will you implement...

Great question. Great question. First of all, as I said, I don't give the detail of the 2.5. I think we've given pretty good detail already, but I don't give the detail. However, it is embedded into this number and it already is embedded into our own LTV today. So it's an [indiscernible].

Now what is important is the platform, it's not like we've got asset managers that are on their own everywhere. No, they're working together. We have had -- we had a meeting. We've got a regular meeting where we have the 2 heads of each of the platforms together, and we're working on the -- the number one thing is distribution. What we don't want is to mix investment. They are on different expertise, so we should not. So where do we take benefit distribution?

We already have created a common distribution adviser in Japan. We're looking for solution in Middle East. We're looking to solution in other areas. I can't be specific to everything, but we're working on it. So we've got a working group with the head of distribution of each of the 3 companies to see how can we cross-sell on the LP base.

So this is ongoing work, I mean, because we're still very new, but this is really where we want to be a superior distribution platform. We have, as you say, some small benefit like you will see that if you go in the building, you will see IK Partners is going to be joining us on the fifth floor here, we are on the sixth, so yes, we are putting together some elements of that. We have the same building now in New York. Our team is moving in the Monroe, the development of IK team distribution in the U.S. will be. But it's more the exchange and the distribution initiative that is important. So we are underway to build that.

Number two, retail. Nor IK, nor Committed Advisors is doing retail in Europe. They would not be able to do it by their own because it's too expensive for them. Now we're doing it because we're putting together the efforts, and that this retail distribution channel will do IK, will do Committed Advisors and [ tomorrow ] will do Monroe also.

Third, helping some of them to grow internationally. Monroe Europe is an initiative that we're taking in common to help and to grow. We will use the basis of what we have in order to be faster in doing it. So it's -- everything is not done, but it's -- we're creating a business. And I think it was a sense of that. It is a transformation. It's not finished. It's a journey, but it's well advanced.

Alexandre Gerard, CIC. Three questions, please. So the first one is related to a subject you didn't tackle today, it's Stahl, within private assets. So the disposal of the Wet-End business didn't close. Can we have an update on that? We all had in mind that the sale of Stahl in the medium term was conditional on the disposal of that bit of the company. So if we could have an update on that firstly.

The important thing for us is to make a carve-out between the new Stahl and the Wet-End, which is called [ Muno ], and that is done. That will be effective on 1st of January of 2026.

Do you still intend to sell that Muno business...

Yes. But we said it was -- the sale per se was less important than the carveout. So we did put the priority to the carveout, which will be done fully first of January, which then allow us to have 2 different company. New Stahl, which is a great company, very well positioned on the specialty coating business. And then [ Muno ], which is a cash-generating business. This is leather, so potentially less attractive than Stahl as a whole. But still, what is important is that this is a company that can generate significant cash. So we're working on the cash flow generation from Muno. Muno will be based in Italy, by the way; Stahl in Netherlands. Pretty separate.

So second question, you insisted a lot on the fact that you wanted to streamline the OpEx of the holding company, mentioning the fact that the staff would go down from 100 people to 60...

It has. It has.

Okay. Can you remind us what's going to be the, in terms of million of euros per annum, the OpEx of the company? And do you have in mind as a percentage of the global AUM of Wendel, a target that you don't want to reach in terms of OpEx divided by AUM?

I didn't make the calculation this way, but it's, let's say, 10 to 15 basis points for the global AUM probably maximum. And today, we are running -- probably we were running at -- we're running -- we're going to run below 50, and we were running above 70, to give some sort of view.

EUR 750 million per annum. And that includes the advisory business mandate that you gave to IK?

Yes.

And my last question is, on the 9% of the share that you want to buy back, what part is going to be attributed to the management of the company and what part for the remuneration of the asset management company that you realized? Direct or I saw someone who wanted to split the buyback...

What is important is that we're making that is generating higher net asset value per share. We'll see where we allocate -- I mean we'll make, sorry to call, allocation of the shares. I don't know, how -- which part, the mobile will [Foreign Language].

Not decided yet. .

Yes. What is important that we buy it back. This is not a -- it's relative to the NAV, it's relative to the dividend, relative to everything. And if we pay with that, we'll have additional position to buy back more shares. So we'll leave it to that.

We have a question there.

Yes. A rapid question regarding the U.S. private credit. So what is the current environment, the current default rate? And at which extent deterioration in the default rate could impact the value of Monroe?

Well, I don't think there's a -- I mean, default rate is not moving too much. It's slightly -- it's growing, but not that -- I think you have had a pretty good...

No, no. Globally, so the -- in Q2, Q3, the default rate has increased for the private credit industry as a whole. But one more time, the positioning of Monroe is different. And so far, if you look at the portfolio of Monroe, they have 650 loans. We don't see an increase of the default rate at this stage for Monroe. So so far, it works relatively well.

As we know, the U.S. economy is very strong. You keep that in mind. They are focused on [indiscernible] on technology, et cetera. So the growth is good. So the U.S. economy is going through the longer cycle ever. So it will not last. It's [indiscernible] cycle in the economy, including in the U.S., but so far, it's going very well.

So there is a huge gap between some very specific cases as explained by Zia. And what we see in the underlying economy in the U.S., and on top of that, we do believe that the policy of the new administration, the rationalization of the economy will be very positive for Monroe because they are focused on the mid-market in the U.S., so very local companies.

That's exactly Zia say. Now what -- let's say that there is a macroeconomic event that makes that [indiscernible] increase in default rate. That could happen. But it's -- how will it hurt Monroe? It doesn't hurt Monroe in direct because Monroe is not exposed by itself. Monroe clients are exposed. So it may hurt Monroe if their ability to raise new funds is impacted by the fact that the performance is less good.

But it's a relative game. People have to invest money. So if the private credit of Monroe has default, the high-yield bond will have default. The equity market will have -- by the way, private credit is less risky than equity. If you've got a big hit on the private credit, probably you will have a big hit on the equity first.

So the important is to know in relative term, where are you? And we don't view that the interest for the private credit market will disappear. We view it is still a market that will grow. And in fact, when you've got a crisis, it [indiscernible] highest spreads. And it means that the ability for Monroe to raise fund back after a crisis where you -- I mean, unless you are land dock, I mean you know the one that is hit compared to the rest of the market. But if you are in the market or a little bit better than the market, your ability to raise new funds will even, I think, be better. You may have 1 or 2 years of really flattish, but I think it's good.

So it's not like Monroe is -- I mean, the private credit won't disappear because there's a downturn in the economy. It's not like the private credit is a niche market that will disappear. It's like you say, you don't want to have any bank loans because you've got a credit cycle. The difference is on the bank, it is their own balance sheet. Because the bank suffers because of that. Here, the Monroe doesn't suffer. What it has to make sure is that its performance relative to others is okay. But the market will stay there. And it's a big market.

So what we're doing is to make sure that performance of our client is the best, that the selection, the underwriting, the positioning that we have at Monroe is protecting them from a sort of idiosyncratic position or sectorial bubble. However, long term, this is a market that will stay and will keep on growing. It's not a [indiscernible] phenomena, it is a long-standing position and change. And this is the same in Europe. And it will grow in Europe.

Thank you. I have some questions from the web. Given the regulatory limitations surrounding share repurchase as it relates to the average daily volume of the shares, have you considered all the potential mechanism to accelerate the repurchases such as privately negotiated transaction, tender offer, et cetera?

We've decided that we will make a purchase plan on the year, we, I think, have a little bit of knowledge of the environment and regulation. We decided this one was the best one to do, and that's what we're going to do.

A question about a slide shown by Cyril. With respect to the performance-related earnings, do those figures shown in the slide represent the net amounts to Wendel? In other words, is that after any [indiscernible] revenue share with the principal?

Yes. This is -- the comp and revenue share is already [indiscernible]. So this is a full value to Wendel.

No. It's okay.

Yes, it's net.

Before tax.

Before tax. What do you think would be the single most impactful future strategic action for Wendel Investment Management platform in the near future if you had to choose only one action?

Growth. The distribution. Help the distribution. Further help our asset management to work together to create that distribution channel. The retail initiative. That -- this is really my -- the #1 priority we have is this one.

How do you value Wendel Investment Manager in your [indiscernible]?

Today, we do that through comparable of listed peers, which is the same as we do for the rest of the assets.

Thank you. Maybe a question in the room?

Loco from Berenberg. LTV was at around 20% in Q3. And I guess, you don't want to increase it further to maintain your investment grade. Should we expect any disposal soon to reduce it or?

We say that we will do EUR 7 billion of asset rotation. So we will be active in managing our portfolio.

Is it Stahl or?

Come on. I've got -- leave us a little bit of...

Again, Saima Hussain from AlphaValue. As usual, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the current private market environment, especially on private equity, and notably in terms of bid and ask spread and in terms of opportunities.

Okay. We see a slowdown in terms of transaction. What should come to the market today are the 2020 and 2021 vintages. So those companies have been bought at the peak of the market. They did suffer and went through the COVID as the first year. So this is like a [ top ] vintage. And this is a natural source of the divestitures that we should see today. So those are not easy assets to sell. And so as you say, there is a mismatch between buyers and sellers, and you can read in the press a lot of [indiscernible] auctions where the sellers' expectations in terms of valuation are not met.

So we see a long process. We see more negotiation in terms of valuation and more power -- more bargaining power in the hands of the buyers.

By the way, our assets are based on market value.

Thank you very much. I have a lot of other questions on the web, but we will answer by e-mail or by phone call. I would like to thank you very much for being present for this presentation. See you next year.

Thank you.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Wendel's Strategic and Q3 Update Conference Call and Webcast. [Operator Instructions] Olivier Allot, the Director of Financial Communications and Data Intelligence, will read them. I must advise you that this conference is being recorded today.

I would now like to turn the conference over to your first speaker today, Mr. Laurent Mignon, Group CEO. Please go ahead, sir.

Well, thank you very much, and good morning to everybody. Thank you for having made the time for this conference. I will make the presentation together with David Darmon; Jérôme Michiels will be there also to make the presentation; Cyril Marie on the asset management part; and Benoit Drillaud, our CFO; and we will all be there to answer your questions after the presentation.

Today's announcement is an important milestone for Wendel business model and I think value creation profile for the future. In development, 2 key things. We are entering into exclusive negotiation to acquire Committed Advisors, a specialist of the mid-market secondary business, which will, I think, is an important element for our platform, which we -- is Wendel Investment Manager, which will have now 3 verticals, over EUR 46 billion of private assets under management, a little bit more than EUR 200 million of FRE expected in '26, pro forma 100% of the acquisition of Committed Advisors. And also, but it's very important, this is a platform that has strong organic growth potential together with external growth potential.

Wendel Investment Manager now would represent 30% of our GAV, excluding cash pro forma of the acquisition of Committed Advisors. On the second element is, we have -- we're making an evolution of our Wendel business model and the principal investment by leveraging the IK Partners knowledge, experience and platform to enhance what we call Wendel Principal Investments performance. I will come back on that.

And also, we are simplifying our structure by the launch of Iron Wave and the sale of our portfolio in the venture business. Since 2023, we have made a sharp transformation of Wendel business model. And today, announcements mark a key milestone in this transformation. And I think it is done in order to generate more regular revenues, more fees. We have, in fact, now 30% if you compare it to January '23, we were 40% -- 44% was unlisted assets, 56% was listed assets.

We were a pure holding company. Today, we still have a holding company activity, which is with the unlisted asset, which would still represent 40% of our assets. And we've said it is something we want to continue investing in, and we'll come back on how we want to do it. And the listed asset that has reduced to 30% of the global asset value. And we have a business, which we are managing, which is different from being an investor. It is a business, which is the asset management business.

Now it's Wendel Investment Manager, represents 30% of the global value of the firm and excluding cash. And as I mentioned, it's, I think, now one of the significant European manager on the mid-market private asset. We have moved from 0 to EUR 46 billion of assets under management with a global footprint in terms of investment and client base. We have 3 verticals, which are highly complementary, which offers significant organic growth potential through fundraising and product diversification.

And we've moved from 0 to EUR 200 million FRE expected in '26 pro forma of the acquisition of Committed Advisors. So this is a business that is our business, which generates strong predictable cash flow, and this cash flow will be returned to shareholders. So -- which is very different from owning a company to sell it. So it's a separate business by itself, as I mentioned. And I don't think it should be valued the same way.

Now we are working on enhancing our private investment business by leveraging what we've acquired, which is the platform of IK. And I think the IK Partners expertise will help us doing that. We'll do so through an adviser's contract between Wendel and IK Partners for all existing and future private investment, and we'll come back on to that. But this will also generate a simplification of our structure. In the simplification part, the Wendel Growth, we have incubated that activity.

They will take their independence by creating Iron Wave. We will help that company to grow, and we will move away from the investment in venture funds, which we've largely started to do since a few months. That will help a simplification of our business, will help us generate higher performance and that will reduce our cost. So we will improve our cost efficiency roughly by 15%. And then we've got a portfolio, which is managed for value. This is largely composed of the listed asset, which is Bureau Veritas in large. We have a very successful start of LEAP28.

We have a 2.4 -- we have generated EUR 2.4 billion of proceeds throughout the reduction of our exposure to Bureau Veritas in the past, which we have reallocated in the development of our Wendel Investment Managers platform. And as you know, for Tarkett, the squeeze out in process. So it's an active management of those listed assets. We -- and -- so clear change over there.

Now let's move a little bit on the biggest news of this quarter, which is the exclusive negotiation with Committed Advisors. First of all, this is really something we've been working on for some years. We have -- it's -- we've been creating some discussion and intimacy with the management of Committed Advisors. It's not like it was a process organized and so on. It's a one-to-one discussion based on trust, based on the fact that we think that the quality of the team there is of very high quality.

We've been having that one-on-one discussion for some years, and we intensified that on the last -- the few last months in order to come to that exclusive negotiation situation that we announced today. Committed Advisors is absolutely a great specialist, which is uniquely positioned on the mid-market with a potential targeting of secondary transaction, which range from EUR 20 million to EUR 200 million.

This is a company that was created back in 2010. Today, it's a team of 50 people. Out of it, 36 are in Paris, 10 people are in London, 4 in Singapore because they are covering globally, they're investing in the global world. 51 (sic) 50, you'll see that later on, but a large part of it is in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. EUR 6 billion is under asset management and a very strong 24% growth of their accumulated fundraising since 2010. The FRE expected for '26 is EUR 45 million.

But more importantly, I would say, the return for the LPs has been over 19% gross IRR consistently since the creation of Committed Advisors, which is a great illustration of the performance of the team. They have realized more than 220 transactions over the past 15 years. And they have 2 strategy, which is rather balanced, which is the traditional one for the secondary, which is LP-led, which is really when an LP want to have some liquidity on their investment in a private equity fund.

But they have developed. And now it's roughly half of the activity, a GP-led activity, which is basically largely doing continuation and helping GP in continuation vehicles. This is -- Committed Advisors will really well position itself within our platform. You know on this page, you see our traditional layout of the operating model of Wendel Investment Managers. And the fit between IK, Monroe, and Committed Advisors, I think, is absolutely great.

It fit in terms of product line, diversification, ability to enhance the discussion with LPs and growth potential. So I think we are creating something, which is very consistent with great teams that have similar culture, and that's something we spend a lot of time on to make sure that we have culture and people that can go along well together. And we are deploying our models. Maybe then I will hand over to Cyril.

No, no, it's still -- maybe I will -- because this model is based on 4 pillars, which is very important. First is a model that can allow to attract talent and deliver sustainable performance for the LP. Why do we do that? We do full autonomy and invest for the investment management firm. This is very important because those teams are great teams that have all been able to deliver superior performance for their investors, and we want that to continue.

The LPs are here because they have confidence and faith in those teams and their ability to generate performance. We are focused on sustainable performance for all stakeholders. So we do transactions where we align the interest of everybody on the long term. And this alignment of interest, I think, is the guarantee of having a sustainable business that will generate value for the long term. And one of the key elements to that is to work on the management transition and retention and secure long-term capacity to deliver that value to our clients, the LPs.

We have also, to support the growth and the innovation, an active sponsoring program that will spur the organic growth of those companies. New strategy diversification to be launched over the next 3 years will be supported by our model. We have -- we're developing also a full range of wealth management product to be distributed because none of those -- or at least apart from Monroe, the others don't have any sort of direct channel to wealth management, which is a costly thing to develop, which we can for the global platform.

We can do some small lift-out and bolt-on acquisition if we want to accelerate growth. And we can have -- and we have an active management of our sponsoring program so that we can, on one side, help the growth of the company. But on the other one, make sure that we don't have too much of a heavy balance sheet onto it. We have a coordinated client coverage, which is important, complementary to the LP base, which has to keep being a relationship with the GP.

We take specific initiative in order to develop cross-selling, and we've got a lot of complementarity between the different LPs of our companies, specifically, if I take, for example, Committed Advisors, they bring to us a large chunk of LPs that are family -- large family offices, which were less present in terms of Monroe or IK, but not only. And I think it's a key benefit to that. And we're working on strategic coverage, and we're creating a centralized sales team for specific markets, which are not the home market of this company so that we can enlarge and accelerate the growth. We can take the specific case of Japan, for example, which we have already started.

And the last point is we have a nimble holding with the right expertise to oversee the activities and put a few things together in order to reduce costs. But globally, we wanted to keep it very lean and nimble. The platform is a platform at scale now, which has significant organic growth. We've made the acquisition of IK and Monroe. Since we made the acquisition, we had organic growth of 20% of their assets under management and 16% of their FRE.

We're adding to that now Committed Advisors with a EUR 6 billion of assets under management and EUR 45 million of FRE. That leads to a global platform, which is over EUR 46 billion and EUR 200 million -- over EUR 200 million of FRE, which rank us, if we go to the next page now, as being one of the main European listed -- when we compare ourselves to main European listed peers, to be really well positioned into it. We've not included a very large company like EQT, CVC or Partners Group.

But otherwise, we've put the European listed asset managers, and you see that now Wendel is really part of the club and its -- and rank very well to that. We are getting to be an asset manager, not only because we still have a holding activity, but please look at us as being an asset manager together with the holding company and not a pure holding company. I know it's not an easy message to convey to the market, but that's what we're trying to achieve, and it really was our strategic objective a few years ago.

And now I pass the floor to Cyril Marie, who will go more in the specific of Committed Advisors. Sorry, [ ACH ] is a code name in the project.

Thank you, Laurent. Thank you. Now we can use Committed Advisors. So there is various ways to assess the quality of a strong GP, as Laurent said, that's the quality of Committed Advisors. And let me share a few with you today. So the first one, what you see on Page 12, it's the growth of AUM. The priority is not growth of AUM. The priority is the performance for our clients, as Laurent said. Here, you see, so the firm was created in 2010 with a first fund of EUR 250 million. Now after 15 years, they have raised their last fund at EUR 2.6 billion, Fund V, and it has been done with the development of a strong client base.

Now they are 300 LPs in 30 countries. We'll give you more detail later on. So you can see that they have built a strong relationship with their LPs. They get the trust of their LPs. They have been in a position to grow a very significant business. And it's, I think, a key criteria, the trust of the client and the ability to raise money. It's a key criteria to show to highlight the quality of CA GP.

The second following page, the second criteria is, I think, the diversification of their book of business and also the fact that it's really a global business. So you have 4 pie charts here. If we start by the bottom, you see where they invest money. And as you can see, they invest in North America, in Europe and in Asia because it's where you have the deal for the secondary transaction. It's why also they have offices in New York, in Paris, and in Singapore. So it's really an international business.

What is also interesting in terms of diversification is that, as Laurent said, they are on the LP side and also on the GP side. So it means that they cover the full range and they can benefit of the growth on the underlying market of the secondary market. They have the skill, the experience and the track record to capture this. If we go now with the pie chart at the top of the slide, that's the client base. And you have 300 LPs. They are on the institutional side. They have also the family offices, which is new to us. It's very important.

And on the other side, you see also 30 countries. So it's really also a global business in terms of LP base. Europe is 85%, but France is 25%. So it's really a European business, and they have also a strong potential in terms of development in North America and in Asia. So diversification after growth is also a key element of Committed Advisors. The third way to assess the quality of GP is the quality of the team for sure. And here, I think what you see here, for sure, you have 4 partners, founders. They have a lot of experience.

They have been part of a very strong secondary firm in the past. They have built since then a very strong business. They are young, as you can see here. They are very committed, if I can say that, for this acquisition. And you will see in the structured transaction that they are there for the very long term. They are ready to reinvest all their proceeds in the funds, no cash out. I think it's a very strong message. And on top of that, below them, you have a new generation coming behind and we will put in place what we have to do in order to incentivize them to build the next generation after the 4 founders.

So a very strong team with a lot of experience, a very international team and able to support sustained long-term development. Another criteria, if we move to the following page, is the underlying market. So we have a good team with the skills, with a strong platform. And on top of that, they rely on a fast-growing market. The secondary market is a fast-growing market that rely first on the growth of the private market as a whole for sure. And we know that it's a fast-growing market, if we look at the asset management industry as a whole in terms of AUM and fees.

And on top of that, the more the investor and large strategic allocation in private market, whether it's retail or institutional clients, the more you have the need for secondary transaction in order to provide liquidity because you want to reallocate because you want to adjust, you want to be agile in your portfolio, you need a secondary market. And that's really the underlying force behind the growth of this market.

And you can see that it's very important to be on the LP-led side, but also on the GP-led side in order to have the full offer for your client, and it's exactly where is Committed Advisors with a global footprint and with a specific positioning because it's a broad market and the positioning of Committed Advisors on the mid-market, it's really an area where you can find value for your client, you can extract value and you can maintain your fees, and I think it's key in their position.

So to summarize, there is other criteria. We could talk during hours about the quality of the performance. I will mention that quickly, but there is their positioning, their track record, the number of transactions they have done, et cetera, et cetera. But if we summarize, so what -- why Committed Advisors is the right partner for us. The first thing is the complementarity. It's a new vertical after the buyout and after the private debt. It's consistent in terms of DNA, as Laurent said, in terms of culture and mid-market positioning.

The second thing, and it's key, it's the quality of their track record. So 19%, consistent over time. And we know why they deliver performance because they have a very specific positioning and we understand how they generate performance, how they get the alpha over the long term for their clients. So that's the second criteria. The third one, I mentioned it, it's the underlying market, their positioning in the secondary market, so growth. The fourth one also is very important.

So they have already a strong positioning on the buyout secondary. But with this team and this platform, we have above that a strong potential in terms of new product, new strategies. We'll do that carefully because it's very important to do this carefully, but we could also launch new strategies on infrastructure private debt because the need is the same in terms of secondary product. And also, we can probably reinforce their positioning on the wealth management. To do so, as Laurent said, we have now a strong sponsoring program, and we'll support them in order to accelerate their development with new engine of growth for the platform.

And the last thing I mentioned it quickly already, the quality of the team is very important. The cultural fit, we took the time to do it. It was not through a process. We had the time to discuss during due diligence, discussion with the team, and we have now a strong plan to grow this business. Let me finish with the transaction structure, totally in line with the previous transaction, in line with what we see as a key component of the long-term alignment. So a transaction where we take control and a transaction where we have long-term alignment of interest with the management team and with the LPs, which is key to us.

So we -- initial transaction, 56% of the investment management company, what we call the GP, and they won 20% of all carried interest from future funds. That's the scope of the initial transaction. And for this, we will pay an upfront payment of EUR 258 million. And just for the initial transaction, we will pay an earnout between '28 and 2030 based on 2 criteria, the FRE growth and also the fundraising, and it could range from 0 to EUR 128 million.

If you add the 2, it means that for the 76% and the 20% of the -- 56%, sorry, and the 20% of carried, we will pay between EUR 258 million and EUR 353 million, which if you compare it to what is the target for the FRE for next year, so EUR 45 million, the implied multiple on the pretax basis will range between 10x and 14x.

And then just to highlight the long-term alignment of interest. First thing, as I said, the founder or the seller will reinvest all their proceeds net of tax for sure in the funds, which is a strong commitment. Two, for the remaining 44%, we will have put and call agreement over a long term. So as you can see, '29, 2030, 2035. And those multiple are not fixed, are based on the growth of the business, which is also, I think, very important for us.

So with that, it's in line with what we did in the past. Now it's well known by all the stakeholders. It's -- I think it's clear for the LPs. They understand the way we structure the transaction. And I think it's good for the future of the company.

Thank you, Cyril. Now David, you'll take on the second important part, which is the change in the operational implementation of our business model.

Yes. Thank you, Laurent. And thank you, Cyril. So with -- what we've seen over the last few years is really an evolution in the market of private investments. It has become very important to be at scale to be performing. And at scale means to have specialized large investment teams, operational teams, debt capital market teams and equity capital market teams. It is now crucial to have that to secure very good returns. We also believe, at Wendel, that we need to have a diversification in terms of sourcing of opportunities, and that means to have boots on the ground and have more local presence.

And last, I will say that our capital is long term, but it's finite. And so from time to time, we had to slow down our investment, which can also limit the deal experience of our team. And we want to have a team, which is very experienced and to limit the churn. So with that in mind, the importance of being at scale, the importance of being local and the importance of being permanently in the market and not in and out, we realize that we need to revise our modus operandi.

With our new business model, we have the chance to have in our group the state-of-the-art platform, i.e., IK Partners. And so considering those conclusions on the market and the fact that in the family, we have the benefit of having a partnership with IK, we have decided to change the way we're going to operate, and that's what I'm going to cover now on Slide 20.

So from now on, Wendel Principal Investment is going to be advised by IK Partners for all existing and future private investments. Existing, meaning Stahl, Scalian, Globeducate, CPI and ACAMS. The investments will remain and control -- owned and controlled by Wendel, so there is no asset transfer, where Wendel will retain the decision-making power, both in the investment committees and on the Board of those companies. So from the asset point of view, there is no change.

What will be different is that IK Partners will present to Wendel new investment opportunities with a similar profile to what we look today, so there is no change in terms of investment strategy. You can recognize the EUR 300 million of equity investment, which was where our sweet spot is today. The investments in itself could be higher because there could be the possibility of raising co-investments. So the equity investment globally could be EUR 300 million to EUR 600 million, but the share of Wendel will be around EUR 300 million.

Those investments will remain control or co-controlled private investments and the holding horizon will typically be 4 or 6 years with the possibility of holding the assets longer on an ad hoc basis. So the same type of investment strategy, but the way we're going to operate is going to be different because we're going to benefit from the experience and ecosystem of IK. From our point of view, it's a simplification of our business model. We believe it's going to improve the performance of the principal investments portfolio. And on the top of it, it will bring some cost efficiencies.

I'm turning now to Page 21. In conclusion, to summarize the benefits of this new framework, we will be at scale in a market where scale is really becoming very important. We'll have the full support of the IK platform, both in meaning on the ops team, the capital markets team, the ESG team, all the resources. We will be able to better leverage our balance sheet by potentially raising co-investments, which will make us capable of making larger investments. And last, we will leverage the IK Partners' track record to build a new market legitimacy.

So in a nutshell, a clearer and more efficient model for Wendel.

Yes. Thank you, David. I will take it from here on Wendel Growth, for which we are also announcing a simplification, which is an important step for our investment model on Wendel Growth. On the indirect side, first, that is our fund of funds strategy, we have tapped the secondary market to generate liquidity and reduce our exposure. Given the quality of our portfolio, we've been able to generate EUR 75 million of cash at tight discounts. We are also transferring unfunded commitments in the process, which improves our liquidity profile going forward.

We will continue to monitor the market for the remainder of our exposure and generate liquidity where possible, but on a selective basis. On the direct investment side, we are announcing the upcoming launch of Iron Wave. This is an initiative led by our direct growth team. Based on their track record, they will launch an independent GP that they will own at 70%, whilst Wendel will be a minority shareholder at 30% and a key sponsor of the first fund.

The investment thesis, which is European B2B software growth companies makes a lot of sense and investors in the sector are all independent and led by their management teams. This is why Iron Wave has already received indications of interest from large institutional investors, and they are now awaiting regulatory approvals to formally launch. With these 2 initiatives, we are simplifying our model for Wendel Growth, and we are generating liquidity beyond what will be deployed in Iron Wave, which is positive.

Moving now to Q3 key highlights on Slide 24, and I will start by Wendel Investment Managers, where you can see strong growth over the first 9 months. We are reporting total assets under management of EUR 40.3 billion at the end of September. In terms of fee-paying AUM, the total is EUR 29.2 billion, which is a 192% increase over the end of last year when adjusting for foreign exchange. This is the result of a strong fundraising at EUR 3.4 billion and good deployment. Year-to-date, Monroe and IK have added EUR 6.4 billion of new fee-paying AUM, driven by good deployment at Monroe, EUR 5.3 billion and about EUR 1 billion of new fundraising at IK Partners.

Note that exits and payoffs have also been quite strong at EUR 3.6 billion over the 9 months. In terms of management fees, Wendel Investment Managers generated EUR 258 million over the first 9 months. This figure includes 9 months of IK Partners, but only 6 months of Monroe Capital as the acquisition closed end of March this year. When comparing to the same period last year, the growth is stellar, but we only had 5 months of IK and no revenues from Monroe back then. Nevertheless, when you strip out for those scope effects, we are looking at a very strong organic growth over the period, driven by the successful fundraisings.

Let's move to principal investments on Slide 25, where most of our companies have reported good growth over the 9 months, starting with Bureau Veritas, which posted 6.6% organic growth with good momentum in Marine & Offshore, B&I, Industry and Certification. Based on this good performance, Bureau Veritas has reconfirmed its full year outlook. ACAMS and CPI have respectively reported 9.1% and 2.7% organic growth, the latter having been temporarily impaired by ongoing federal oversight and funding uncertainty within CPI end market in the U.S.

This has, however, been offset by volume growth in terms of renewals and encouraging acceleration in activities across international markets that are up 14% year-to-date on an organic basis. As you know, Andee Harris become CEO of CPI, and she is replacing Tony Jace, and she's off to a good start. At ACAMS, 9-month sales were driven by double-digit growth in the Americas segment, whilst Asia Pacific reversed the negative trend from 2024 and was up 7% compared to last year.

Stahl and Scalian are facing more challenging market conditions and have reported negative organic growth over the last 9 months. At Stahl, Q3 was characterized by the persistence of challenging market conditions experienced since the second half of '24, intensified by the unstable tariff landscape, which impacted performance and volumes in leather and particularly on the wet-end side. Organic growth for the 9 months was minus 5.2%, whilst scope contributed positively by 7.3%, thanks to the Weilburger acquisition.

Scalian is still facing a slowdown across several sectors and geographies that is more pronounced in France and on the automotive market in Germany. This decline was partially offset by positive scope effect of 4.5%, driven by acquisitions realized that were accretive to both growth and margins.

As announced in September, William Rozé has now taken office as CEO. His in-depth knowledge of the group business, combined with his unifying leadership will be key to driving Wendel's long-term development and strategic ambitions, and we can already tell you that things are moving fast.

Lastly, Globeducate posted revenues of EUR 270 million, representing a total increase of 12% over last year, of which 7.2% organic growth, 4.1% scope with 3 acquisitions having been completed over the past 12 months and 0.8% from foreign exchange movements.

Moving to net asset value on Slide 26. We are reporting for Q3 EUR 163 per share on a fully diluted basis. Sequentially, we have seen a modest decrease of 2.8% compared to June. This is the result of the appreciation by EUR 1.1 per share of the value of Wendel Investment Managers, driven by valuation multiples, but also the good performance in terms of revenue and fundraising that we just covered.

The value of our principal investments has been slightly impacted notably by the evolution of market multiples and Bureau Veritas share price, which has impacted the value by EUR 5.3 per share. Note that based on this morning's price levels, we have already recovered more than EUR 3 per share compared to this level. Foreign exchange and other items have had a minor impact on the evolution of our net asset value.

Lastly, our loan-to-value ratio is at 13.8% end of December and at about -- end of September, sorry, yes. And at about 20%, if we take into account the upcoming acquisition of Committed Advisors.

Well, thank you very much, Jérôme. A little bit of a wrap-up, which is really the journey -- transformation journey that has been engaged since 2023. We have been, as you know, doing -- announcing significant strategic shift at that time, and we've put that in place in a consistent manner and a disciplined manner since then with the acquisition of IK in October, which was announced in October '23 and realized in -- closed in early '24. With the acquisition of Monroe Capital, which was announced in October '24 and closed in first half of '25.

And now with the announcement of the exclusive negotiation with Committed Advisors in October '25. And we expect should everything goes smoothly to close in the first quarter of 2026. So October is the month of asset management development. We also have made a significant rotation in the asset portfolio. Remember, the sale of Constantia Flexible, the acquisition of Scalian, the sale of 3 blocks of BV and the acquisition of Globeducate. So a lot of activity. The asset management now is a significant part of our business and is becoming our business.

It's not an investment. I want to re-insist on that. And we have simplified the framework, reduced the complexity, reduced globally the cost of doing our business and I think given us a chance to do better performance on the long run. So Wendel Investment Manager now is really a significant European mid-market private asset platform with -- and I think it's key, a good organic growth potential, thanks to successful fundraising and very positive underlying market.

We've been very active on the M&A, obviously, I already mentioned. And the platform synergies are being accelerated, both in terms of distribution network and a wider range of products for our LPs. I think we've upgraded the framework now on the principal investment by building on IK Partners' unrivaled expertise. It's a new framework that will be created more value with lower cost. It enlarged our ability to accelerate value creation on existing assets.

It's also enhance our expected to identify new targets and deploy capital in attractive investment opportunity, together with having the ability to attract co-investment because of the IK ecosystem. And I think that will generate shareholder return enhancements in terms of dividend. We've already done that, as you know, significantly in '24 and '25. We have moved now, as you know, to an interim dividend policy, the first one being paid in November '20 for EUR 1.5 per share.

And this will consistently help us generating more cash flow for Wendel -- from Wendel Investment Manager and more value creation from Wendel Principal Investment and allow us to have this strong dividend policy. We have an Investor Day on December 12, and we'll specifically talk about the capital allocation strategy during that period. We will talk about the other things and some of the news of the portfolio, but we'll make a specific focus on our capital allocation strategy for the future.

Great. Thank you very much. And now we are at your disposal to discuss -- to answer your questions.

[Operator Instructions] Olivier Allot, the Director of Financial Communication and Data Intelligence, will read them. We are now going to proceed with our first question. And the first questions come from the line of Isobel Hettrick from Autonomous Research.

It's Isobel Hettrick from Autonomous Research. I have 3 of them, please. So the first one is on Monroe Capital. And I was just wondering if you could provide any detail if the manager has exposure to First Brands or Tricolor at all? And then just further color on the detail of how the wider portfolio is performing at the moment given concerns over credit in the U.S.

And then my second question is on the Committed Advisors acquisition. So a lot of your peers have talked about wanting to acquire secondaries managers to help with their existing private wealth offerings. So to have like a liquidity sleeve, for example, within their existing private equity strategy. I was just wondering if you could provide some color if you're thinking about that at all in the potential new funds you can build or how the manager can interact with your existing platform on your private wealth offering?

And then my final question is sort of related, but could you just give a broader update, please, on where you are across the platform with building out your European private wealth offering?

Thank you very much. Okay. Monroe Capital and private credit, which is the headline of the flavor of the month. First of all, I mean, we're not here to comment any specific exposure, but I can say that because this is the investment of the LPs. But globally, Monroe has no exposure to Tricolor, has a small exposure to First Brands in a first lien situation, expect to recover a significant portion of it, but it's on its way. It's -- based on the assets of Monroe, it's a small part. And it's not the main -- it's a little bit of the -- they have made a small diversification in alternative credit strategy, which is a small portion of what they do. What Monroe is doing mostly is direct lending to corporate, and they do that to lower mid-market corporate. The global -- they're not in those big, structured things and so on.

What they're doing, and that's one of the key elements why we bought Monroe, is that this is a company that is structured with origination on one side, underwriting on the other side. So we've got this double eye strategy, which means that they do mainly invest in loans that they originate themselves and loans where they have a secondary look to the quality of the credit. The reality of the portfolio of Monroe is that it is in good shape. They have lower, how would you call that, leverage ratio than the average. We tend to have around 4x leverage.

They have always -- I mean, always mostly covenant credit, while the credit light has developed significantly in the U.S. So they are very restrictive in the way they do. So we see a very good performance of the funds and those keep on being very well. They have, by the way, had their meeting with all the LP last week that went very well. The LP were very happy about the thing, and they're keeping on collecting money, thanks to the strength of their model.

They are very focusing themselves on sectors, which they think will be -- they think there's a very strong secular movement now of relocation of business within the U.S. and probably higher inflation because of that, which I think is a longer trend of what you see. And they are focusing on business that are sensitive -- positively sensitive to that, less exposed to tariff and -- so benefiting from the trend, less impact of tariff and that's it. And they are -- because I think it's important to be, they are always in floating rates, never in fixed rate.

So the only thing that we need to maybe say that there is significant money that have come to that private credit market, so that has put some pressure on the margins. And it's true that the credit spread -- not the margin, but the spread, the credit spread over the floating rate has slightly reduced. And that's why we've been selective in deploying money. And you see that we've got a large chunk of -- how do you call that white powder or dry powder, dry powder than white -- sorry, in Monroe because we still want to be very selective in the way we deploy the money, and that's key to us.

So no, we're very -- and I say they had this big meeting, which was a week ago that went very, very well in Chicago with all the LPs, and they've been very clear about where are the opportunities, the risk. And if you -- they have 20 years of navigating that market. They are not new in that market. There's a lot of newcomers. They are not new. They have a very strong infrastructure of managing that, local people on the ground, underwriting team. So they're very, very serious about managing the risk.

And by the way, we look to the quality of the credit rating of their investment, and it's in a good situation. So it's something that is very highly monitored on a day-to-day basis. Now coming to adviser and private wealth and development. And maybe Cyril, do you want to say a word on that?

Yes. So your first question, each of our GPs remain totally autonomous in terms of investment management, and we don't have in mind to favor related transaction between GPs. So IK will remain IK and Committed, Committed, and they will act in the interest of their LPs. That -- and so it means that we don't have in mind to reinforce the -- in terms of investment management, the cross transaction, if it was your question.

The other part of your question was on wealth management. And for this, for sure, we have in mind to create a platform because the sales process is different. As Laurent said, it's expensive to do so. We have already a significant presence with Monroe in the U.S. We have in mind to do the same in Europe. We'll do it carefully.

The starting point is to create the products. So we are starting with IK, something will be announced soon, and we have in mind to do the same for Monroe and for Committed. And when we'll have the product, probably we'll have a centralized sales team with a coordinated marketing effort to manage the relationship with the distributor because on this, we believe that centralization makes sense.

Cyril is going -- we're going to announce. So we're going through the regulatory process now so that we can be live. You never know when you have the green light, but normally, final -- at the end of the year, we should be live to go on IK for retail. Yes.

We are now going to proceed with our next question. And the next questions come from the line of Hannah Leivdal from Citi.

I just have 2, please, if I can. So the first one is on the third-party asset managers. What are some of the key funds here? And will you be providing more disclosure on these? It would be helpful to be able to track them more closely for modeling purposes. And the second is, is there scope to avoid selling down your listed stakes in order to fund co-invest buying out the minorities of your 3 third-party asset management businesses over the next 5 years? Or is it more likely that you will further reduce your listed asset portfolio to fund this growth?

Well, key funds, I think, no -- we can, in the future, for sure. In future financial communication, we can provide probably some detail regarding the fund, the size, the performance of each fund, at least the key fund of the 3 GPs, yes.

Yes. But the name of the fund is CA...

So for Committed Advisors, so they have one flagship, which is Committed Advisors Secondary Fund. And they have also now launched a new series of funds dedicated to GP-led called CA GPS Funds. So it's Vintage II. So that's the 2 main funds that you...

CASF V, which is the last flagship and the...

CA GPS II.

CA GPS II. This is obviously unlisted funds. The second question was on how do we -- the capital allocation. Well, we'll make a specific -- the objective is during the Investor Day to do a little bit work on the capital allocation. But globally, we're talking about buybacks of those puts and calls between 30 and 35. So it will be a mixture of the asset rotation of our portfolio that will be there. There's no specific being listed or unlisted. As we say, we are managing our listed assets based on value. We think that there is still value creation within our portfolio.

We like the LEAP28 plan for Bureau Veritas, which we've been supported and we like what Hinda Gharbi and his (sic) [ her ] team is doing. I'm the Chairman of Bureau Veritas and making sure that we're going down the right way. And I think the team is doing a great job. But it's -- we'll go more specifically on the global capital allocation part during our Capital Market Day-Investor Day in December.

We are now going to proceed with our next question. And our next questions come from the line of Geoffroy Michalet from ODDO BHF.

Congratulations for this platform evolution and deal. Three questions for me. The first one is on the new setup for the balance sheet investment, the proprietary investment. How incentive and carried interest for teams will be organized now, including at Wendel level as part of Wendel's management and team used to be incentivized by carried interest. How is it going to evolve?

The second question is also related to the new setup. I suppose that you will pay management fees to IK for the advisory work. What kind of level of fees will you pay since there will be no need to fund raise for IK, so we can suppose maybe lower management fees than a traditional one? And the third question is also on the balance sheet investment. IK is not a U.S. investor, whereas Wendel balance sheet is already exposed to the U.S., with CPI and ACAMS. Do you intend to remain an investor in the U.S., and how IK will advise you on those opportunities?

Thank you for those great questions. For carried, for the interest on long term, we have changed the system at Wendel level already, and it was announced at the last AGM. We have no more -- I mean, they've been carried interest in the past. Now we have no more carried interest. The full alignment of interest of the team is based on the share price through a system of pref shares. So -- and that will remain the same. So it is a global value for the firm rather than the individual value on each of that. In terms of management fee for IK, we will be around -- roughly around 0.8% of the value of the assets.

And globally, when we take the reduction of needs in terms of -- at the Wendel level plus the payment of the fee that will generate a cost -- a lower cost for us to manage the asset overall, including the fees paid and the fact that a number of the teams will not be there anymore. Some of the teams will be, by the way, joining IK, which makes sense. But globally, it's a cost saving situation.

For the U.S., obviously, the contribution to -- of IK will be more limited, while the operating partner and capital market team will bring the same sort of value. But we will -- a lot of relying on the existing team that was of Wendel in -- yes, but based on the same...

Yes. And so just remember that for ACAMS 50% of turnover is outside the U.S. So it's headquartered in Washington, but it has a lot of international operations where the ops team of IK can be helpful as well. Just on the incentivation, Laurent mentioned the Wendel team, but the IK team is going to be incentivized as well with the carried to be paid by Wendel to IK.

For the new investments?

Yes.

But again, it will be -- it won't drag to us more the value than it was in the past. It's a similar system, but it's for the Wendel team is fully on the share price, which I think is good. And for the specific advising firm, it will be for IK. And management fee, I think, will be clear.

And just to clarify, do you plan to continue to deploy your balance sheet in the U.S. in direct investment? Or will you limit yourself to Europe after the, let's say, IK transfer of people?

No. I think we've got opportunities in both sides of the Atlantic, and we'll do that. We told you that we tend to invest -- so we'll do potentially both. We've got a good team that has been successful with investment in the U.S. They will be supported by the IK infrastructure. So that's...

We are now going to proceed with our next question. And our next questions come from the line of Alexandre Gerard from CIC Market Solutions.

So the first question is the following. Can you please quantify a bit what you announced today in terms of, I would say, financial benefits of all these different initiatives? Are there any evolution of Wendel's OpEx base going forward in terms of headcount, maybe also at Wendel pro forma in 2026? So that's my first question.

The second question is on the EUR 200 million of FREs that you expect for 2026. Could you remind us what would be Wendel's share of that amount? And maybe the last question is on Iron Wave. Can you also come back to the economics of the deal? Are you selling the entire portfolio? And on the EUR 75 million that you just sold, are you selling at a discount, at a premium? And how much are you maybe going to reinvest in Iron Wave?

To quantify the thing, let's -- I mentioned that the global cost will be down by 15%. So it means OpEx, including fees paid to IK will be down 15%. That's what I mentioned. In terms of number of people, it's always difficult to give a number precise. But globally, I can say that we have moved from -- we were close to 100 people in end of 2023, and we will be close to 65 people at the end of this year altogether.

In terms of -- the second question was, what was...

FRE.

Oh yes, Wendel's share. It's -- so it depends really much of the dynamic between the 3, but because we don't have the thing, but it's over 135 million of Wendel shares in 2026. And you remember, our target for 2027 was 150 million, which, as I mentioned during the introductory words is that we are at -- we are very confident to be able to be over the 150 million in 2027.

And on your question on Iron Wave. So about the EUR 75 million we have been able to generate on the portfolio of funds. some lines were disposed at no discount. Other lines were disposed at very tight discounts.

Yes, 10 to 15.

Yes, 10 to 15. So all in all, this is -- I mean, the piece we sold altogether, we are talking of really a very tight discount. The money generated on this, which is EUR 75 million as we speak, might slightly increase if we find opportunities in the market. But as we explained, this is more than what we expect to commit as an anchor investor of Iron Wave. The size of our commitment will be so less than EUR 75 million. And in terms of economics, we will be a minority shareholder and for 30% of the management company. But other than that, there are no economics there that are involved. We will just be an anchor investor of Iron Wave fund.

Yes. Maybe we can say we're not selling the existing portfolio developed by Wendel Growth. It will be managed by Iron Wave, but it will stay on our balance sheet. So there's no transfer of portfolio on that. It's -- they are creating a new fund, and we'll help them develop that with -- as an anchor sponsor, but there's a lot of interest from institutional that has been, I mean, well-advanced discussion with many large institutional investors to support that. And we're still on the now regulatory work in order to make that live. And hopefully, that will be done by beginning of next year.

This is the result of -- we're very proud to have made the ability to -- we have nurse -- I would say, incubated. We have incubated that team. They have made a good track record in their investment. And now from that, they can raise money on the third-party market and rule of the game on that market. When you talk about the venture market, really everybody is in a situation where the team has the majority position into it. And yes, I think it's a good team. They will have a successful fundraising, and it's good to be on their side to help them doing that. To be fair, the financial implication for Wendel is small because we're talking about a very small amount altogether.

So will you have to pay them also a management mandate for the part of the...

There will be an advisory -- yes, there will be a small advisory fee on the existing assets, but it's fairly small.

But again, it's -- the advisory fee is not going to be a cost to us because we don't have the team. So it's one hand to the other. So globally, it's a neutral element, but it gives them the ability now also to raise money and to generate fee out of that. I mean -- and I think, it's -- yes, it's a great team. They have, I think, the ability to create a successful venture, I mean, growth business out of it.

There are no further questions on the phone. I will now hand back to Olivier Allot for the webcast questions.

We have 2 questions from David Cerdan. what remains to do to complete the asset management platform? And what are the financial means to complete your plans?

Well, when you create a business, it's a permanent, say, it's -- I mean, it's -- again, I want that to be clear. We're not -- it's not a company that we own to sell back. This is our business. So business is made by organic and inorganic growth. We've made a lot of inorganic growth, but we've made some organic growth now already with the firm. The #1 priority now is to give face to the organic growth of our platform. We've got a structured platform. We can add new expertise, but the #1 priority is really make sure that we grow that. We develop the cross-selling.

We developed the retail initiative. We help Committed Advisors to develop further through seeding their next fundraising. We help Monroe to develop their business, whether it is in the U.S. or in Europe, where we could launch an initiative with Monroe. I mean we are on developing, and we think we can have a fast-growing asset management going further. We have great team. Altogether, when we add up the thing, we have close to 600 people now doing asset management within the group.

I think it's a very sizable platform of highly talented people with great success. So the #1 priority is now let's make an organic growth. Whenever we see an opportunity that makes sense that can add to the platform, create value for the platform, we can do. But I think now we have a sizable platform to grow.

For unlisted assets, can you give any indications on what to expect for 2025 in terms of revenues, EBITDA with leverage? And how do you see 2026 for them?

I don't think we give any guidance for the year of the different companies. I think Jérôme gave you a fair description of where they are at the -- for the 9 months. I think we have some of them that are developing very well. We have one asset, which is more difficult, which is Scalian, as you know, but I think we've taken a very strong measure in order to take that into account.

The new management team is doing an absolutely great job, and we're very confident that now we are on the right track in order to capture. We still have a headwind from the market, but the underlying business and the way it is done, the positioning that we have on defense, aerospace, is very strong. We have a lot of areas where we have a very good positive development.

We've got a great team on the -- in Spain that with scale that we can develop further on the banking world. We've got a great team in Canada with MANNARINO team that we can export. So yes, there's a huge opportunity that we need to take, but it's the one that is the most difficult to be fair. The rest is pretty well ongoing. You want to add something, David, to that?

Just like a general comment that Q4 doesn't look very different from the year-to-date. So...

A question from Alexander Casas regarding the acquisition of Committed Advisors. If I do a back of the envelope calculation, the total value for 100% of Committed Advisors would be around $1 billion. Am I right?

I don't do the same math, but I don't know the envelope you use, but I don't write to the same value. You have the detail on Page 17. So again, it's very difficult to say what will be the value because it will depend on the earn-out structure and the earn-out will be. Today, we're -- again, we're paying for 56%, now EUR 258 million -- potential earn-out of 0 to EUR 128 million. Don't forget that this is both for 56%, but also the 20% of the carried. So you have to strip out the carried cost in order to get the value for 100%.

So -- but it's -- I think it's -- what is important to us is that we're paying between 10 and 14x FRE '26 based on the company. So I've not made the calculation in dollar. So maybe -- but yes, I think it's a little bit high, your value. But it will depend. What is important is, we think this company is a great company, a growing company. If I pay a higher amount of money because they grow fast, I'm happy because they grow fast.

Second question from Alexander Casas regarding the organization with IK Partners, does it mean that you will cut headcount in your Paris headquarters?

Yes. I mentioned that by definition because the part of the job that was done by some Wendel people now will be done by the advisory business. So we do that in a good and intelligent way. But yes, but the work will be done and a large portion of the people that are -- will not be Wendel people, they will be IK people tomorrow. So it makes sense.

I have a question about Globeducate. Can you give some details on the organic growth? Is it pricing, number of students, new schools?

So it's all of the above. So we do have a growth in the enrollment that we see across the board. Obviously, there are some regions where demography is more helpful than in other places. We have price increases, which are usually around 200 bps above inflation. And as it is mentioned, we are also opening new campuses. And so with additional capacity, we can also increase the enrollment. So the growth we expect is high single digits in terms of revenues, and it's really a combination of those 3.

A question from Loco Douza regarding Stahl and Scalian, should we expect modest recovery before year-end or any improvement is unlikely before 2026?

I think I have already answered this question. I think we see Q4 similar to the year-to-date numbers.

I have no more questions on the web. I think we have questions by phone.

Yes, we have another question from the phone line. And the questions come from the line of Alexandre Gerard from CIC Market Solutions.

Yes, me again. One last question regarding the pipeline of opportunities for your private asset activity. Can you comment, are there any interesting things that you are studying on the investment side or divestment side? Or is it on hold, I would say, because of the IK deal?

The direct -- the principal investment, not the asset management. Yes, yes. We're constantly looking to the market. So nothing is -- but we will put that into the general and the new framework. Again, it's -- all of this business is about asset rotation. So it's looking to potential sell and looking to potential reinvestment. So that's what we're doing. And we -- it's not because we have this new structure that we're putting in place and that we're -- it's -- that we are stopping the day-to-day work. And we have a lot of activities looking to either selling assets or buying assets.

There are no further questions at this time. So I hand back to you for closing remarks.

Thank you. Well, I think I've done most of it. Thank you very much for your questions. You see it -- I think it's an important change in the model with a true creation of an investment platform, asset management platform on one side, which is really becoming one of our -- the 2 business we have. And on the other side, to be an investment company with much more -- with all the means to be more efficient in the way we do that business. And I think it's really positioning us well on to that and delivering value in the long term for clients -- for our customers, sorry, shareholders.

And the translation of that should be within our dividend policy, as I mentioned, and we'll mention capital allocation in Investor Day, how we will allocate capital in the future being through return to shareholders, one way being dividend or share buyback or investment in our principal investment and investment in our asset management. That's, I think, we will tend to focus ourselves on the Capital Market -- I mean, the Investor Day of December.

Thank you very much for having -- being with us and wish you a great end of day, great Friday. And next time we reconvene will be for the Investor Day on December 12, I think.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you, and have a good rest of your day.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Wendel's H1 2024 Results Conference Call and Webcast. [Operator Instructions]

Olivier Allot, Director of Financial Communications and Data Intelligence, will read them. I must advise you that this conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Mr. Laurent Mignon, Wendel Group, Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you very much. Good morning to all of you. Thank you for being on that call on July 31. I know there's a lot of other publication today. So we are very honored to have you there. I'm here with David Darmon, with Jérôme Michiels and Benoit Drillaud as well as with Olivier Allot to present you the half year results of Wendel and to answer any questions you may have afterwards. So let me start with the first key highlights of the half year.

On the principal -- we have, as you know, two pillars of our strategy. One is the principal investment. The other one is the development of the asset management platform. If I start with the largest part of it, which is the principal investment, as you've seen, the listed portfolio has a pretty good momentum across the board on the second quarter compared to the first quarter. We've been active by selling some of our -- through a forward -- Forward Sale -- sorry, part of our shares, 6.7% of Bureau Veritas during this half year, which has generated EUR 750 million of proceeds.

On the non-listed portfolio, to be fair, it is a disappointing quarter. We have value has been impacted by current trading and by peers multiple as well as FX. We'll come back on it. We think that we have taken action in order to make sure that we can have better situation in the quarters to come. I think on the two more disappointing companies have been Stahl and Scalian. But I think on both sides, we've got good vision on how this will improve, David will come back on that in more detail later on.

In terms of management of this company, we have two new CEOs that have joined or will join one for CPI, where our existing CEO, Tony Jace is retiring, and he's been -- he will be -- and the transition with the new CEO and the Harris will take place mid-August. So it's really ongoing and it's starting well. And this profile is, I think, a very good profile for putting CPI on a growth perspective, and she's got a very good tech background, which we think also is a very important element of the future of CPI.

For Scalian, we have a new CEO that will join within the course of September is experienced and highly recognized professional of the industry. He will succeed to Yvan. Yvan, as you know, has been the CEO of Scalian since we made the acquisition, and then we had agreed at the time that he will retired within a period up to 4 to 5 years. And as we have a new chapter to open, we all agree that it was the right moment to do it. And we think it will -- but David will come back also very much on that later on.

On the asset management, there is no significant news in terms of addition to the platform, but the platform is being put in place. Monroe Capital now is included in our account for the first time. It represents now 22% of the gross asset value of Wendel. The AuM globally, if we compare it to last year, is up 184%. Obviously, there's an element of organic growth, but also inorganic growth. We'll come back to that. We have had a good fundraising quarter with EUR 4.3 billion raised during H1, both at Monroe and IK part.

And our Total Asset Management on third party now reached EUR 39.1 billion. Overall, if we add all of it, it's EUR 45 billion plus of assets that are managed now by Wendel, EUR 6.2 billion on the Principal Investments, EUR 39 billion for third-party clients. Our NAV, fully diluted NAV is EUR 167.7 per share. It is down compared to last quarter. It is down for two main reasons. One is the coupon, which was paid in May, EUR 4.7.

And we also have a significant impact of the dollar depreciation. Dollar stand at EUR 1.17 plus at the end of June compared to dollar, which was around EUR [indiscernible] I think, at the quarter -- at the beginning of the -- EUR 1.08 at the beginning of the quarter. So there has been a significant shift in the dollar value, which had impact on our assets, which are denominated in dollars. Otherwise, the rest is pretty flat. Altogether, the gross value of the listed assets and asset management taking -- being compensated by the non-listed assets.

New, and I think it's important that we have decided to move to sort of symmetrical dividend policy. It's not a real -- it means that we will serve an interim dividend now on a half year basis. We've decided to set this half year dividend, which will be paid in November at EUR 1.5 per share, which is roughly 1/3 of last year dividend, and then we will put the rest of the dividend will be paid as obvious in May '26 based on the 2025 numbers.

I think it's important that we move to that because as you know, we want to have a policy that is of a significant return to our shareholders through increasing dividend and to have a regular payment of dividend, I think, is becoming a sort of benchmark on the way you should do when you pay a significant dividend.

If we move to the next page, EUR 45 billion of assets, I'm going to be very quick on this one, EUR 6.2 billion on direct assets, direct Principal Investments, you know the asset, no change in the asset base compared to where it was. Business services with Bureau Veritas and Scalian, 45% of the total, education, professional training and tech, CPI, Globeducate, ACAMS are here. And then we've got in industrial Stahl and Tarkett. I don't go back on the performance of the assets. David will come back. On the third-party asset management, 60% now is coming from Monroe, 15 -- 40% from IK, 480 professionals in 11 countries in the platform.

Now if we look to what has impact on the value creation on the NAV. As I mentioned, Principal investment has been a disappointing quarter, EUR 1.5 negative, positive impact of the value of listed assets plus EUR 3.5 per share. On the other side, minus EUR 5 from non-listed assets. As I mentioned, the main two disappointing thing are Stahl and Scalian, but David will go back on it, but we are hopeful that we have now a much brighter future for all of those non-listed assets, but will come back.

Asset Management has created EUR 3.8 per share, good growth of the platform, metrics of each of the IK and Monroe has been better than expected over previous years, plus a little bit of a multiple effect, but most of it is coming from the FRE growth. And this increase is despite -- then we have ForEx. ForEx is 4.7. It has a significantly impact, as I mentioned, at the dollar at 1.17 -- what was it, 1.1711 or something 1.172. 1.172 as of 30th of June. It is -- our dollar-denominated asset represents 33% of our GAV today.

Altogether, we have down a NAV, which is down EUR 4.3 per share, including that 4.7 point on dollar. It would have been slightly up without it, but it doesn't mean that we're not disappointed by the Principal Investments performance as all of us. Now maybe I pass over to David on that so that we can give a clear view of where we are on the portfolio and what perspective we feel on each of the lines. And then I will take over on the asset management part.

Thank you, Laurent, and good afternoon, everyone. So I'm now on Slide 8, and we're going to discuss the performance of the listed assets. During H1, the operational performances of the three investments in listed assets were actually good. Starting with BV, BV had a of plus 5.7% sales increase during H1 does include a growth -- organic growth of plus 6.7%, driven by 2 reporting lines growing double digits. The Industry Lines and Marine & Offshore were particularly strong. FX had a negative impact of minus 2.3% on the BV during H1, which slightly reduced this organic growth. BV also announced the completion of 6 small bolt-on acquisitions. So there were a very slight and small change in scope.

And the company did confirm its 2025 outlook. So a good start of the year for Bureau Veritas. Tarkett had a mixed performance during H1 with some very positive results in EMEA, but to be opposed to low performance in North America, where the company had an operational issue in its warehouse, which did disrupt the deliveries. IHS will published its number in August, but we understand that the operational performance are going well on that front.

I'm moving now to Slide 9 to show and discuss the performance of the unlisted assets. Starting with Stahl, Stahl had a soft H1 sales with weak performance in leather, both in the wet end and the Finnish sales. The underlying markets, which are the footwear and the automotive industries were impacted by the noise of the tariff discussion.

And hopefully, with better clarity that we have now on that front, we shall see a recovery of those markets by year-end. Margins have been partially impacted as well by the slowdown in the leather and also with the integration of Vibo Graphics, which pre-synergies had margins below 20%, so slightly dilutive pre-synergies. The company is still making progress on the carve-out, which we hope to conclude by year-end. Crisis Prevention Institute. H1 sales were growing only by 4%, which is lower than the pace that we were used to for this company.

The new U.S. administration policy did create a bit of noise on the budget of some school districts, and we saw some customers pushing back some orders. We expect some sales acceleration in H2 and see better numbers by year-end, but the beginning of the year was slow, as you can see with this plus 4% in terms of sales. The EBITDA growth is slightly higher. There was a marginal -- small margin expansion due to some delays in hiring and some cost savings initiatives.

As Laurent mentioned, a new CEO is about to join in August, Andee Harris, she's the former CEO of HighGround Software. She has a very strong digital and IT background, and she will help the digital transformation of CPI. So we are pretty excited with this new hiring.

I'm moving now to ACAMS. As you can see, ACAMS had a very strong H1 performance with strong results in the Americas in this -- in their conference businesses and in APAC. Europe was slower compared to those business units. You can see that the new leadership is driving a lot of sales force effectiveness, and we can see some good results showing up. The margins have been particularly strong during this semester. We expect those margins level to normalize during H2.

First, because the Vegas conference has a lower margin, and it's happening in Q3. We also have some hiring that we need to make in H2, which will drive the margin back to close to 25%. So don't get too excited with this 44% -- 54% growth. it is good, but it will stabilize at the recurring level by year-end. On Scalian, as Laurent was mentioning, the company and its peers is facing tough market conditions. The company is especially impacted for the service it provides to small French IT customers and in the automotive sectors, in particular.

There is a strong resilience in the engineering services and in the international part of the activity. So it balances those headwinds in the French IT business. The company, Wendel invested EUR 41 million in the company since the beginning of the year, boost to finance and acquisition called [indiscernible] and also to strengthen the balance sheet.

And last, as Laurent was mentioning, we can see some early signs, anecdotal signs of a stabilization of the performance with some new contract wins, which are very encouraging and a growth in the number of consultants, which is also a good sign. So as we say in France, [Foreign Language], but we can see some positive signs. And hopefully, we are reaching and close to the bottom now.

Last, as Laurent was mentioning, a new CEO will join the firm starting in September at a very strong professional coming with a background very similar to Scalian. So someone very experienced who is going to bring his experience in international background in a very dynamic endemic firm. So we are very excited as well with this hiring. And we will introduce him to you during our Investor Day by year-end. Last, Globeducate, some good growth coming both from growth in terms of enrollment in number of students and also good growth in tuition fees. And this is combined as well with some strong M&A. We believe that since our acquisition last October, we have close to EUR 5 million of EBITDA from acquisition, which is a good pace. The company is actually accelerating on that front. And we believe that next year, we will outgrow this M&A number quite significantly. There is a lot of opportunities for consolidation in this industry.

Thank you. And to have for that, David, a little bit of highlight on the asset management platform. We can now talk about the platform because we are -- there's two asset manager into it. It's still on the building. So there's more to do, but it's still pretty good today. Assets under management are reaching EUR 39 billion plus. We were at 0, 18 months ago. Fundraising has been successful, and I will come back to that. If you look to the assets under management by activities, I already mentioned it, 40% is buyout. 60% is U.S. private credit.

By investor type, you see that it's a pretty diversified type of investors that are giving their money to Monroe or to IK to be managed, whether this is retail and high-net-worth individuals for 20%; pension fund 23%; insurance company 20% and so on. So a very good diversified base of investors. And also in terms of geography with North America representing 50% of the total investors into IK and Monroe products; Europe, 33%; and APAC, MENA others has small 16%.

AuM, December -- last December, we had close to EUR 14 billion of AuM, EUR 13.8 billion only on IK -- since then and fee-paying AuM, which was of EUR 10 billion, you have to get used to both things, AuM by that one side, fee-paying AuM on the other one. If we make the bridge to the -- we'll make the bridge for the fee-paying AuM and then you'll see the end of the AuM itself. We could have made the bridge on 2, but we thought it was too complex to make on the same slide the same. But you'll see the detail also for IK and Monroe. So to those -- which was EUR 10 billion of fee-paying AuM as of 31st of December, -- to that, we have the addition of Monroe.

As of 31st of December, Monroe was EUR 19.5 billion of AuM. So it's the conversion of those funds at the euro -- at the dollar-euro rate at 31st of December. Then we had the new fee-paying AuM that were either raised or invested because the fee-paying AuM doesn't have the same status being private equity or private credit, just to one minute for the [indiscernible] you have fee-paying AuM on private credit when you've raised fund on the committed fund, while in the private credit, you've got it's becoming fee-paying AUM once you've invested the funds.

So the undeployed raised money doesn't generate revenue in the private credit. It's an element of margin to get higher fee-paying AuM in the future. So new fee-paying AuM during the quarter -- the semester was EUR 5 billion. Exit and payoff were EUR 3 billion negative. So it's either reimbursement or payback from existing product managed both by IK and by Monroe. And then we have the impact of dollar. As I say, we've taken the conversion of the 19.5% based on the dollar as it was at the 31st of December.

Based on today, it's 2.4% negative compared to where it was. So altogether, we end up with EUR 29 billion of fee-paying AuM at the basis of EUR 1.1720 to $1 -- well, dollar per euro, in fact. In terms of Assets under Management, and it's an important notice, it's EUR 39.1 billion with a significant amount of Dry Powder and Undeployed amount of capital, specifically at Monroe, which means that whenever it is invested, then it start its fuel back in the fee-paying AuM.

Global management fee for this first half is EUR 152 million. This is the reported number. So it just includes 1 quarter of Monroe and 2 quarters of IK. In terms of fee-related earnings, again, 1 quarter for Monroe, 2 quarters for IK is close to EUR 60 million. And the profit before tax is also close to EUR 60 billion. There's virtually at this quarter, no PRE because we made the first integration of Monroe today and Monroe value, most of the NAV is made on the 31st of March. So we don't include yet the PRE for that quarter.

If we move to IK to highlight the very good capital raising momentum of IK. IK have moved from EUR 13.8 billion of AuM to EUR 15.5 billion with fee-paying AuM moving close to EUR 1 billion up, EUR 1 billion of fundraising, which is the end of the fundraising cycle that they've started in '24, both on IK Small Cap Fund IV and they finished also the IK MidCap X plus the IK Development Cap II altogether, so it's EUR 1 billion additional. Both mid-cap and small cap has closed and development and DC has closed to their hard cap.

so maximum of what we could have. So we are very pleased with that fundraising cycle. There was a few exits during the period, EUR 500 million of value of exit, which goes away from the fee-paying -- that leads to the EUR 10.6 billion.

If we look to the Liquidity for LPs -- there was EUR 260 million of sales that were made during the quarter with a EUR 2.6 billion. It's still a small number. It will increase during the second half. And last year, as you remember, we've made above EUR 1 billion of sales. Fundraising, I've mentioned it, EUR 1 billion during the first half, EUR 6 billion during the vintage. We've invested EUR 800 million in 8 deals during the first half and the portfolio is on average developed by -- an average deployment per year per fund of 25%, 3% of valuation increase of all funds since the 1st of December.

No material impact on the companies within the fund of the tariff very much. We have a portfolio, which is very much Europe focused, so has been really not much impacted. If we look to Monroe, very good dynamic at Monroe. AuM reached $27.8 billion. Here, we're talking about dollars so that you see the dynamic of Monroe itself. Fee-paying AuM has gone from $20.3 billion to $21.6 billion, 6% growth in the fee-paying AuM. You see that deployed capital has moved $4.2 billion, payoff $2.6 billion negative, rest is -- so that leads to $21.6 billion.

As you see, the average fee-paying AuM per year have grown by 20% on the last 5 years, and we're still on that trend, and we expect that also this year. So a very good dynamic at Monroe today. If we look to now because the complexity is that we still have only one quarter of Monroe. So if we want to have a vision of what is our platform in terms of Assets under Management and that will start to generate earnings and cash flow throughout our P&L.

We have a pro forma 6 months of Monroe plus IK of EUR 200 million of management fee for the first 6 months, 135 basis point margin. Carried interest is EUR 4 million. But as I mentioned, it's based on, in fact, 1 quarter compared to our expectation for the full year. And that gives total revenues for the first half of EUR 204 million; expenses, EUR 123 million negative pretax profit, PRE and FRE, EUR 81 million margin 40%, of which FRE is 77%.

And we -- our pro forma expectation for the year is EUR 166 million, and we are confirming that with a share of Wendel of EUR 100 million, which we also confirm. So we are well on track to deliver on our asset management platform, and we think it is really starting to become a real growth and profitability engine for Wendel. This is really new, but it started. Now let's move to the financial impact, and I will pass over to Benoit.

Thank you. Good afternoon. The net income for the period. The revenues have reached EUR 4.2 billion, that is 7% above the same period in 2024. That is a result of -- from the good bolt-on activity of the principal investment portfolio, the development of the asset management platform and the organic growth that is 3.9% of the Principal Investment portfolio that has been described by David a few minutes ago.

The contribution to the net recurring income from the asset management is EUR 49 million with only 2 months from Monroe. The net income from the principal investment is EUR 354 million. We have no capital gain booked through the P&L in 2025 because the capital gain on the forward sale of Bureau Veritas shares has been booked through the equity in accordance with IFRS. This amounts to EUR 582 million. We have also the change in fair value on our stake in IHS that has been booked for EUR 121 million in the equity.

After the depreciation and the entries that relate to the purchase price allocation and the nonrecurring items, the net income for the period is EUR 268 million. And in group shares, it's EUR 4 million. The difference comes from the minority interest on Bureau Veritas. But once again, this EUR 4 million is excluding the capital gain on Bureau Veritas and the positive change in fair value on our stake in IHS, if we turn to the following page, you can see that we have a very strong financial structure with a huge amount of cash, EUR 1.8 billion and an undrawn credit facility that is EUR 875 million with a maturity in 2029. The EUR 2.4 billion of bond debt includes the exchangeable bond in Bureau Veritas that can be settled in shares. It amounts to EUR 750 million. And the other bonds mature between 2026 and 2034.

The LTV ratio is below the S&P ceiling, it's 18.5%. But if you look at the detail of this ratio, it's only 10% coming from the ratio between the net debt and the value of our assets. And then we take into account our commitment not called in the funds managed by IK and Monroe. And we have to take to be in accordance with the methodology of the credit agency. We also take into account [indiscernible] granted to the minority shareholder of Monroe. We don't take into account put for IK's manager because it can be settled in shares. The credit rating agency has confirmed our rating at BBB with a stable outlook.

Thank you, Benoit. And just to wrap up, Asset Management, again, is ramping up with very good organic growth, successful fundraising in the market, which is not an easy one, but I think we've got great managers, both IK and Monroe, and they're doing both very well. The platform is starting to create the synergies. We have had ample discussion between the different teams, and we are starting to see how we can leverage the position both in Europe and the U.S. from both. And develop new products, develop Monroe in Europe, develop further product at IK, and I think it's well underway. So we are very, very positive.

And we're still looking to new verticals that we can add to that platform in order to create one of the, I think, mostly high-value mid-cap platform with great teams in Europe. So we're still on the way to create that. It's starting well, but it's a journey, so but it's well underway.

On Principal Investment, as you've seen, strong rebound from ACAMS, good growth from Globeducate. I think we have had a difficult period for Scalian and Stahl, but we are hopeful in the fact that the second half will bring much better news on to that. And from what we've seen in July, I think it's -- on its way. There's a new comers in the show, the new CEO from CPI and Scalian, which is always the way to have a new look to some companies and to put open new chapter, which we think is very good.

And we think that some of our companies have suffered from not the tariffs themselves, but the sort of -- yes, the noise of the charge, the fact that people were waiting before they make acquisition or the fact that in the supply chain, there was a lot of perturbation and there was inventories, sales, which has had impact specifically for a company like Stahl. So we feel that despite the fact that you can appreciate or not the way the tariffs are being settled, at least uncertainty is going away, and we think it will be good for this company to rebound. So we're pretty confident on that.

We had the Temporary adverse FX impacts. The dollar was 1.172 when we closed the account on the 30th of June. But we are happy to have a company in the U.S. because we still think that the U.S. is a very dynamic market, and we still need to have investment there. So sometimes you have to suffer from the movement on the currency. But long term, we think it's a great thing to do.

And as we mentioned, we're becoming a company that will serve significant dividend, more predictable, higher dividend, and we think it's the right moment to turn into a more regular payment of the dividend like many companies are doing in the U.S. and some companies are coming in Europe. So we move to a sort of semestral half year dividend policy through interim dividend policy, starting payment in November 2025.

That's it for this presentation. Good news, bad news. But overall, we think we're firm on our direction, and we are very -- we are all optimistic for the future. So let's take your question now.

[Operator Instructions] We will take our first question, and the question comes from the line of Joren Van Aken from Degroof Petercam.

Just one question from my side. Given the capital injection of EUR 41 million at Scalian, does that mean that your stake in the firm has increased? Or did the minority shareholders also match the injection?

The other shareholders have invested, but not exactly their [indiscernible] stake. So we have a slight dilution on the capital increase. But part of the investments were made under the form of pref shares, which is not a dilutive instrument. So the -- I would say the percentage have very marginally changed.

So we can still use the 82%?

Yes.

Your next question comes from the line of Geoffroy Michalet from ODDO BHF.

I have one regarding this exchangeable bond you have in Bureau Veritas maturing in March 2026. Given the fact that currently, we are not at the strike level, can you remind us what is at your hand and what is not at your hand in case BVI share is not reaching the strike price in March '26.

Yes. We can deliver shares instead of cash up to a number of shares that is 150% of the underlying shares and the underlying shares are about 23 million shares.

But does that mean that you would have to complement by cash?

It depends because today's share price is not low enough to put more than 150% of the underlying shares. But we could decide to put cash as well. We are very -- it's very flexible. And the value of the share is the average of a few days before the maturity of the bond.

So it's in our hands, and we can decide. By the way, today, it's not considered as being -- it's considered as being a debt. So -- and we are very cash rich. So should we repay it by shares, we will reduce our LTV and the part we will pay by cash will make the LTV not to move to make -- we don't -- I mean, we have plenty of cash. So it's not an issue of cash. It will be us to decide whether we do. But today, given the current price of BV, we can do it all share, all cash, mix of both.

We will take our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Arnaud Palliez from CIC Market Solutions.

I have two questions, if I may. The first one is regarding the accounting of the sponsor money with IK and Monroe. I would like to know where is accounted in your NAV calculation, the uncalled sponsor money? Is it in the cash position or not? And then my second question is about your gross debt. I would like to know what share of this debt is denominated in U.S. dollars.

So the uncalled commitment in the fund, as it's uncalled, it's -- the money is still in cash. So in the balance sheet, it's cash. It is, however, taken into account on the LTV. So we take it as a commitment. So as it was -- but it's not on balance sheet. But as when we calculate our LTV, we take that as a commitment. So we include it in the LTV, but it's still in cash in our balance sheet.

We are talking today the total -- we're talking about uncalled commitment of a total of EUR 600 million potentially. And the called is EUR 35 million, something like that. The investment...

Part of the dollar-denominated debt is 0. We are fully euro debt denominated.

Just one point coming back to the LTV. The net debt of Wendel is low compared to the portfolio, the value of the assets. It's only 10% of the value of the assets.

Yes. And that's because you had the commitments to it, that you end up with 18%. So in reality, our net debt position is low.

We will take our next question. And the question comes from the line of David Cerdan from Kepler.

I have a couple of questions regarding the, I will say, the asset management environment. Do you see any change in the trend? Some operators are facing some tougher condition regarding the fundraising, the deal flow. So do you see the same for your Monroe and IK partners? And globally speaking, are you aligned with this kind of warning?

So let me just answer to this one first. Well, I think we've tried to explain it, but maybe we've not been good that we've been very pleased by the fundraising of IK and Monroe. Despite the fact that the environment is tough. I think that IK has made the maximum -- they have filled the maximum they could raise for all funds they've raised. So they've been very successful in doing it, which is, I think, a tribute to the quality of the teams and the fact that the LPs are very happy about the performance they are generating and want to commit more money to them.

So the environment, and it is tough, I can't confirm, but we've been able to raise exactly what we wanted to raise, and we've reached the hard cap on all the funds, small cap and mid-cap funds. You've seen the last one was 2 weeks ago, which was a week ago, the announcement of IK on Small Cap. Midcap was closed, I think, end of January or beginning of February and the Small Cap was just closed mid-July, and we've made a communicate -- IK made a communicate on that, which we -- so we've been very, very happy about it.

In Monroe, I think we've got a strong fundraising activity during the first half. Again, the environment is also more difficult on debt despite the fact that it's probably more easy for funding on debt and the market is hotter on debt than on PE. But nevertheless, in that environment, the performance of Monroe is very good. I think also the positioning of both Monroe and IK on Midcap is a very good one. And that's where we are, I think, seeing that the performance we're generating are good, and that helped our ability to raise funds.

So my answer to your question is, are you -- is the environment more difficult? It's 2 years and the environment is more difficult in fundraising, specifically for company in the private equity that have low DPI. I think we've tried to explain that to you during the last presentation on IK. IK has a good DPI, strong DPI. And that's why I think IK has been successful in raising funds despite a very difficult environment. Same for Monroe, good quality of portfolio, good returns, high amount of fundraise, and we expect that to continue in the second half. But it doesn't mean -- don't quote me wrong. It doesn't mean it's an easy journey, but I think it really illustrates the quality of both Monroe and IK.

Yes. And to continue this discussion regarding [indiscernible] is it correct that roughly the fundraising is over for the next quarters because they have raised so much money and it's time to deploy?

Yes. They won't raise money in the third quarter because they've reached the hard cap on those. So now they are starting to invest the money for their investors. We have a few small -- there is still one fund, which is under fundraising, which is a small fund with a potential hard cap of EUR 500 million, and we are on to it. So -- but it's still a marginal one. And on the other side, we have -- we're thinking about a new initiative that will come by the end of the year. But globally, most of the fundraising for 2025 has been done in line with our plans.

And for Monroe, is the fundraising activity quite, I would say, regular recurring or...

It's much different because you have -- we have a much larger number of products at Monroe and on private credit, so it's much more regular. There's less vintage onto that. So yes, we expect to have, as I mentioned a few minutes ago, significant fundraise during the second half at Monroe.

And in terms of deployment, this is the same for both operators or...

Deployment is -- as you see, we have significant margin from moving AuM to fee-paying AuM at Monroe because we have significant amount of money to deploy, which will come, and we have a regular basis of doing so. So no, we're very confident that fee-paying AuM will grow in line with the growth that we do on AuM during the second half of this year.

Last question is regarding your ambition to further develop this platform. So have you still the same objective in today for acquisition?

No, exactly the same. And we have pretty good targets in mind. And I think it's a question of making sure that everything we're looking at, we want to make sure that we've got great quality team, that they are compatible with the rest of the platform, that the culture is fine, that the alignment of interest is done and that we can use them and create synergies with the rest of the platform. So yes, that's our criteria. So we're still looking to further expand that platform.

But today, we also put a lot of energy on the organic growth of the platform by creating cross-selling between IK and Monroe, starting to develop Monroe in Europe, starting to develop new products on both sides, having a retail initiative in Europe, which we're starting -- we've been starting to work since the beginning of the year, which will be probably ready by the end of this year and start to raise next year. So yes, we have a lot of initiatives in order to grow organically the platform. And also, we look to some inorganic growth opportunities. But as I say, on a careful basis to make sure that it does fit with the platform philosophy.

We will take our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Alexandre Gerard from CIC.

Two questions on my side. The first one is related to Stahl. Could you maybe give us some more color on how you see the second half of the year? And I had in mind that you had a project of disposing of that asset. Is it still on track? Or is it on proposal? This is my first question. And second question is related to the sensitivity of the group's NAV to the euro-USD exchange rate. Could you maybe tell us what is the sensitivity of the gross asset value, let's say, to 1% depreciation of the exchange rate is the question.

And to come back to a question that has been asked by Arnaud a few minutes ago, don't you think that given the fact that a non-negligible part of your NAV is derived from USD being -- having part of your debt in USD might also help you offset any variations in the exchange rate?

Thank you, Alexandre. So on Stahl, as you know, we don't give guidance. So like I did on Scalian, I'll give you some anecdotes. But as Laurent was mentioning, we see a lot of disruption in the supply chain and destocking and some customers using their inventory rather than doing some -- making some orders, which has impacted Stahl during H1.

Our feeling and -- and Stahl's management feeling is that this destocking is smoothing and reducing and H2 looks better than H1. So I know it's not very helpful in terms of guidance in terms of numbers. But when we do reforecast for the year, we are revising up our numbers rather than revising down.

On Stahl, you're absolutely right. We -- on the wet end business, which is the historical business of Stahl, we are working actively on carving out this business. We were initially hoping to finish this work over summer. It's probably going to be more like by year-end, but we are still putting a lot of energy to carve out this business...

For the rest of Stahl, I mean, is it -- my question was related to the rest of the business, not the wet end, for the company...

So my comment on H2 being better than H1 was on the new Stahl. But then you asked about the wet business and then I was saying that you're right, the wet business is still being carved out.

And I was mentioning the fact that you might -- I mean, we read in the financial press that you had mandated JPMorgan to dispose of not the wet end, but the group itself, the new.

Thank you for preceding the question. I missed that. Sorry.

Well, let's say that we think that once the carve-out is done, we've got a new style that is, I think, a company that is a leader in that sector with attractive margin, attractive positioning. And then it's an asset where we can open a new chapter.

The sensitivity to the dollar, I think I mentioned during the call that 33% of our net asset value is sensitive to the dollar. So it's -- so for -- for EUR 1 change in -- how would you express it for 1% change, it's a 0.3% change for us, 33%. It's pretty simple. Should we have dollar debt, the reality is that our -- first of all, as we mentioned, our debt globally, if we put debt to net asset value is 10%. So it's not a big amount of leverage because the rest of the LTV is future commitments that have not been committed.

So you don't have exchange risk to that. So we don't have much of debt in reality apart from the commitment to come, which are included in the LTV. So -- but -- what we've done in order to cover ourselves rather than being putting some debt in dollars is that we've put some tunnels to cover hedging to cover roughly, well, exactly what, 1/3 of the yes, 25% potentially of the net asset value of the firm with -- I cannot give you where are the strikes, but we have that.

In order to cover not an average movement, but an excessive movement in the dollar. So it's ups and down. It has -- so as its called it's tunnel -- so it covers an upward move on the dollar, give you an excessive -- well, we feel excessive would be above $1.20 for euro. And in the other side, we would give up a little bit of the value if it were to go down below 1.04, or 1.05.

But for the moment, that hedging mechanism has not been activated.

Well, it is there, but it's not -- we've never -- we've not gone through the barriers. So it has a marginal impact. It's a sort of insurance policy rather than a full hedging.

And I would just add Alexandre, just to state the obvious, we have a few companies in the portfolio who use the dollar as functional currency as CPI, ACAMS or IHS, for instance. And to state the obvious, their own debt is dollar denominated.

Yes. The debt of CPI is in dollar, the debt of -- maybe I come back 1 minute on that on the philosophy of that. For example, we own now an asset, which is not for sale. Which is an asset which is a part of our business, which is Monroe Capital. Monroe, we don't want to sell Monroe one day. And Monroe business -- Monroe value is denominated in dollars. Monroe business is in dollars. Do we want to hedge the value of an asset that we don't want to sell while the business and its development is linked to the U.S. economy. I think it's a question.

When you have an activity, I mean, you don't hedge the value of the -- your subsidiary in dollars. So it's -- implicitly, it means that we have operationally, we are in part a dollar currency. That's why your question about debt is relevant. However, the debt level, in fact, when you look at it compared to the -- to that business is not much. We can say that the debt level is more on the other side of the business. But we are managing that carefully. It's -- you're right. If we had more debt to that, it could be a question and putting some dollar into our debt situation.

There are no further questions from the phone lines. I would like to hand back for any webcast questions please.

Thank you. So the first question from the web. Do you have a share repurchase program for 2025? Given NAV is almost double of the current share price, don't you think it will be a natural and easy way to grow NAV and drive the share price higher?

I've always said that we will be opportunistic on to that. So I still stay opportunistic on to it. And we've done share buyback last year. So it illustrates the fact that we are.

What other verticals do you think would be most attractive to add to your third-party asset management platform? Is it realistic to think you may do this in the next 1 or 2 years? Or you will instead prioritize organic growth what does the fundraising and product pipeline look like for IK and Monroe?

So as I mentioned, what are the verticals? We've mentioned since the beginning, the type of vertical we want to be in. PE and buyout, private credit, infrastructure secondaries. We filled the first two ones. So obviously, the two others are secondaries and infra. Will we fill them in the next 2 years? Probably, I don't know if we will fill both of them, but one of them, probably. But again, I don't want to put any pressure on to that. My -- today, my priority is making sure that we develop organically Monroe and IK, which we are doing.

As I mentioned during the call, the pipe is good. IK has fulfilled its objective already in terms of fundraising because the fundraising cycle of their products is done. They will restart another one afterwards. But for the time being, a big part of it has been done. Monroe, which is a more regular one, has still a very good pipe and the pipe both of deployment and the pipe of fundraising is very good. Again, it will depend on the environment -- but we are optimistic on to that. So will we fill it? Yes, within the next 2 years, our objective is to continue building the platform. Again, it's not -- we'll do that only if we find the right opportunity.

So we're constantly scanning the market. We have multiple discussions with people where many of them were just dropping because they are not part of what we want to do. But out of that, there is a few of them that are interesting and can fit our strategy, midcap, good quality team that can be integrated, that answer to our willingness to have long-term commitment, alignment of interest, good diversified LP base. Yes, things we're looking at. And I can never bet on an opportunity. I don't want to commit myself on doing something, but we're looking.

You seem confident in achieving your full year '25 pretax FRE guidance of EUR 160 million pro forma on a full year basis. You reported EUR 77 million which -- do you expect to reach this mostly through additional fundraising or margin improvement?

Not margin improvement because the margin is already embedded. So it's through fundraising, yes, but it's from all the -- I mean, very close to -- just what we have, we're very close to it by doubling it. So with no additional or low additional fundraising, and we just have to deploy money from Monroe. The reality is that, yes, we are very optimistic that we'll reach the EUR 160 million.

Yes. Under what conditions would you consider disposing of Stahl given the strong IRR generated, should we assume you are ready to sell it as soon as possible as you can secure price in line or you can secure price in line with your NAV valuation? Or are you waiting for improved market conditions and higher multiples?

David, may I take that one. I think that no stage, what we want is to -- there's no -- we have no obligation to sell any asset. No obligation to sell any asset. What we want to do it is good conditions. It doesn't mean that we have to wait and say we want the best condition in the world. We want to have good conditions. We think that the work that has been done by the current management of Stahl by repositioning Stahl, making the different two main acquisitions that has been done over the last 2 years, integrating those companies, carrying out the wet end, make that Stahl new Stahl has become, I think, an asset that is potentially of interest for other parties and that can take over that and create a new chapter for Stahl.

However, we are in no hurry. We want to make sure that we are in good condition to do it, and we'll do it this way. It doesn't mean that we want to keep it for the next 5 years. It means that we are -- we think that now the work has been done to put us in the best condition to sell it at a price, which is a reasonable price, and that's how we look at it.

If we want to sell, but we can keep it. I mean it's a cash-generative asset. We can get dividend out of it if we want. So it's -- we can have boost. But again, I think that the work in order to reposition Stahl has been done largely. And it's now -- it's a leader in its market segment. A lot of, I think, industrial companies are looking at it as being a great company, a great addition to their potential business. So I think it's -- David, am I overstating what I'm saying? No, I'm fine.

Thank you. Wendel has grown NAV at 4% to 5% level over the last 10, 15 years. In light of this track record, would it have more sense to externalize all the investment decision or dismantle the investment teams within Wendel?

I will pass this message to them. Thank you.

Regarding Scalian, do you think it was a wrong timing, a wrong price? What are the lessons that you learned about this investment?

Well, definitely, Scalian is a great company and a good industry. But as we all know, it's a cyclical industry. So it's a very fair point to say that the timing was far from ideal. I think we invested mid-2023. And as early as end '23 or early '24, we saw the trends going south. So there was a question of timing for sure. Now we have had a lot of investment in the past where we did not time perfectly our entry.

[indiscernible], even for Stahl, where we had in the following 2 or 3 years, some difficult time because the cycles actually went down. But when you are long-term investors, it actually brings you a lot of opportunities for consolidation of our investments. So -- it's not a place where we are very happy. We prefer to have better market conditions. But with our type of capital, we can go through the cycle and take some -- and make it actually a good time to grow, for instance, in terms of M&A.

Thank you. And the last question, how would you describe the levers your operating partners focus on when it comes to value creation in your main portfolio companies? What is the role of your operating partners?

Yes. So as the name say it, they are partners, partners with the management team to create value. So the key work is to design a value creation plan with the management team and to make sure there is some cadence and momentum to deliver on this plan. So it's really a partnership and then to work in a sort of project management office to make sure that every initiative is delivered. It's really like a free resource for the Diamond teams.

Thank you. This was the last question, so we can close the call.

Thank you, everyone.

Thank you very much, and I wish you a great month of August. And hopefully, some of you will take some time to rest and benefit from this summer break. Thank you. Goodbye.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.