Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Platinum Asset Management Limited Analyst Briefing for the FY 2025 full-year result. First of all, I would like to acknowledge that I'm hosting this briefing from the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. I also acknowledge the traditional custodians of the various lands on which you all work today and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people participating in this briefing. I pay my respects to Elders past, present, and emerging, and celebrate the diversity of Aboriginal peoples and their ongoing cultures and connections to the lands and waters of New South Wales. My name is Dean McLelland, and with me today I have Jeff Peters, Platinum's Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, and Andrew Stannard, Platinum's Finance Director. We'll provide some remarks about the FY 2025 full-year results, and then we'll open up for your questions using the Q&A function that you'll find at the bottom of your screen. Please take your time to enter those questions during the presentation. With that, I'll hand over to Platinum's Managing Director and CEO, Jeff Peters. Thank you, Dean. Let me add my welcome and thanks for joining us for this analyst briefing. We were just together six weeks ago discussing the announcement of the proposed merger with L1. Today is going to include an update on that as well as a review of the FY 2025 results, followed, as Dean said, by a Q&A. Before jumping into that, let me hit some highlights on the year. You can go to the next slide, please. Obviously, the highlight for us is the proposed merger with L1. The shareholder vote for that merger is scheduled for the 22nd of September, upcoming. We view the proposed merger as a capstone event on the reset and turnaround program that we began in 2024. The combined company would have a leading position in the long-short equities market, as well as a lot of other asset classes. Merged assets under management (AUM) of $16.5 billion creates a very powerful combination of investment capability, distribution, and client service. We anticipate it being highly earnings accretive for PTM shareholders. I'll review again to remind the particulars of that proposed merger in a minute. In terms of 2025, which we're going to review, it was a mixed year for Platinum. There were some improvements in particular areas. Investment performance across many of our funds improved, albeit the international strategy is still lagging. We exhibited strong expense control, which allowed us to keep margins at 44%. We'll go through details on that following the discussion around the proposed merger. Client outflows were still elevated. We are working very hard on that to change that, but they are still in an elevated state. Also to remind people, there was a $0.20 per share dividend paid in December 2024, which made our balance sheet more efficient and hopefully benefited shareholders. Onto the merger. To remind, Platinum Asset Management will acquire First Maven, which is L1 Capital under the trading name, and we'll have a 26% ownership through existing Platinum shareholders in the combined company, as well as an in-perimeter performance fee sharing arrangement for the first 3.5% of absolute returns generated by the L1 Capital long-short funds. More on that later. We anticipate substantial efficiency benefits from the proposed merger. We're targeting 22%- 26% of operating cost reductions off of the run-rate merged cost base of roughly $134 million. These take account of Platinum's pre-planned cost savings coming into the proposed merger, and then an additional $20 million of pre-tax synergies expected to be captured over the next 12- 18 months post-completion. This, combined with other operating elements, makes us expect that this will be a materially EPS accretive transaction for shareholders, and we're very excited by that. The other thing to tell you in terms of summary is that the entity is being renamed and will be renamed L1 Group with ticker L1G. It will remain listed on the ASX post-completion. The operating name for the funds will remain Platinum and L1, depending on where the fund came from into the MergeCo. We've reviewed this with you before, but just to remind, the proposed company, MergeCo, will have a very strong diversified position across Australian equities, international equities, and alternative asset classes, and also a very diverse mix of channels, really broadening the base from which we work and also having leadership positions across the segments in Australia. We'll use that base to deliver value to shareholders in four ways. Firstly, the scale of a $16.5 billion leader in the industry will be quite helpful for us as we expand and grow. We are going to have market-leading indebted performance and distribution capabilities. This will allow us to grow both organically and as we launch new products and through existing products. Operations will be streamlined, and also the balance sheet remains quite strong, and that will provide a springboard for us to grow as well. We see a bunch of opportunities to deliver value and, again, are very excited by those. Turning to the timeline, as you will remember, on the 8th of July, the merger implementation deed was announced. On the 21st of August, we dispatched the notice of meeting and the explanatory memorandum and independent expert report to our shareholders and are expected to have a vote on the 22nd of September, as I mentioned before. Assuming that vote goes through, completion date would be October 1st to start the new merged entity. In addition to getting to that date and managing that process, we've also made some progress in terms of planning on what the existing new company would look like. Let me review some of that. Firstly, the leadership team, proposed leadership team, has been finalized. There have been board appointments made, more on that later, with more to be announced. CEO, CFO, and COO positions have been announced previously, and the Senior Investment Team and the Leadership Team are nearly finalized, with the Investment Team moving forward on the existing products. As part of that, and very importantly, we've made the decision to reposition the Platinum International strategy and move it via a sub-advisory arrangement with L1 International to be implemented on merger completion. L1 International has a very strong track record and a long history of a very stable team, and we're excited about the potential that they bring in terms of improving performance and the experience for Platinum unit holders. We've been briefing asset consultants and major clients. That effort actually continues even today, and we're planning a roadshow in coming weeks to introduce that strategy to our shareholders. I mentioned briefly the synergy opportunities. The initial review of those opportunities is complete, and we're reaffirming the achievability of our targets. As mentioned before, the target is 22%- 26%. I won't take you through all that. Again, we'll get into that a little bit later. Finally, we've made significant progress on the listed investment companies. In regards to Platinum Asia Investment Limited, our Asia strategy, it's a proposal to merge that strategy into the ETF on the ASX that was approved by PAI shareholders. In fact, that merger has occurred and is happening literally this week. The other LIC, Platinum Capital Limited, PMC, there was a buyback approved by shareholders, which is underway, and there is a meeting scheduled, a shareholder meeting scheduled on, I believe, October 1st to consider L1 's proposal to replace management of this LIC with an L1 Capital strategy, the global long-short. At that meeting, competitive proposals will also be assessed. Significant progress beyond advancing the process of completion, and we're moving forward with what the business will look like following that. With that, let me turn to 2025. I'll briefly comment on some operating results, and then our CFO, Andrew Stannard, will take you through financials. In terms of investment performance, as I mentioned before, a mixed year. The Platinum International Fund had a challenging year, improved in the second half, but overall a challenging year, and as mentioned, is being moved over to the L1 capability. In the remainder of the products, Asia and the sector funds, the year was strong and improving. Four of the six products delivered their internal targets of cash plus 5% to investors, and two of the six outperformed their MSCI index, up from zero of six in 2024. If you look at the absolute return delivered over the timeframe, five of the funds delivered north of 15% to investors, which we're pleased with. In terms of the rest of the operations, in early 2024, when I spoke to you for the first time, we articulated a reset or turnaround program, which was articulated on the left. We've made significant progress across that. I've mentioned investment performance. I think the final brick in the wall is moving the International Fund over to L1 to strengthen that capability. Our expense control has been strong. Our margin has been protected at 44% despite decreased revenue, and our expense reduction targets have been actually exceeded, achieved ahead of plan. We've simplified and closed subscale products on the product line. We've significantly expanded our client outreach. We completed our back and middle office outsourcing simplification plan on time and on budget. We added new capabilities through our sub-advisory arrangement with GWK, and we've increased our balance sheet efficiency off the $0.20 special dividend. We've also implemented new remuneration plans to increase alignment with shareholders. Against the things that were articulated, we've made significant progress on those, and as I mentioned before, view this proposed merger as a capstone on that effort. Obviously, a major part of the longer-term initiative was inorganic. It speaks for itself that that's been completed, and we believe that the integration with L1 will help refresh our culture and add significant talent, especially in the investment area, which will benefit our shareholders and unit holders alike. With that, let me actually turn over to our CFO, Andrew Stannard, who will review financials, and then we'll take questions after that. Thanks, Jeff, and good morning, everyone. Just before I start, could I remind you, if you've got questions on the call, if you could put them into the system and let's enter our online portal. Turning now to the front page on the financial summary and an overview of financial results. As has already been mentioned, funds under management (FUM) fell by about 29% during the year, which in turn drove fee revenues 28% lower. There was, however, a small positive mix shift to average revenues caused by the increasing proportion of retail FUM relative to institutional accounts. Adjusted expenses were managed down by 23%, and this helped protect the firm's strong operating margin, which ended the year at 44%. However, statutory profits were once again adversely impacted by our turnaround program, which significantly reduced reported profits, albeit that the largely non-cash nature of those costs still enabled the firm to declare $21.5 of dividends during the year. The next slide summarizes revenues and flows. Retail net outflows totaled $4.2 billion for the year, a challenging outcome for the firm that largely reflected several years of relative underperformance, especially in the firm's flagship International Fund. In addition, corporate instability through most of 2025 weighed heavily on client sentiment towards the firm and did lead to some significant account redemptions. Institutional outflows slowed significantly year on year, albeit that this was largely due to the rundown in the book rather than reflecting a change in investor sentiment. As previously mentioned, the relative mix shift towards more direct retail and away from institutional caused a two basis point positive shift in average fee revenue to 116 basis points. The firm also recorded net gains from its seed investments, and these were largely sourced from our Asia ex-Japan funds. The next slide goes into expenses in a little more detail. The business took dramatic steps to reposition the business during 2025 in response to falling revenues and in line with previously announced plans. For the full year, $22.6 million, representing about 25% of our opening expenses, was extracted across pretty much all expense lines. The bulk of cost reductions came from reducing headcount, as well as specific actions around certain costs, such as fund administration and marketing. Adjusted expenses are now only 60% of what they were just two years ago, albeit that this achievement came off with one-off turnaround expenses that drove our aggregate costs up 1% in the financial year. The next slide summarizes overall turnaround-related cost control efforts over the last 18 months. The chart on the left of the page shows that Platinum's turnaround target of $25 million was exceeded by June 2025, some six months ahead of schedule. However, given ongoing falls in revenue, and as previously announced to the market on the 7th of July, a further $10 million- $15 million in run-rate expense savings has been targeted for the next financial year, and good progress is being made on that front. The middle table, rather, shows the three main sources of cumulative savings achieved by the firm over the prior 18 months. As can be seen, savings were relatively evenly split between headcount, the impact of reduced share-based payments, and non-people cost savings. However, the cost to implement the savings were, in contrast, heavily skewed to share-based payments expenses, as long-term incentive award amortization was accelerated and brought to book in FY 2025. The go-forward pre-tax expense for historic LTI awards has now been reduced to less than $1 million per annum, and this will significantly reduce, we think, the amount of non-cash noise in future reported expenses and earnings. My penultimate slide deals with Platinum's balance sheet position, which remains strong. Largely, as a consequence of paying that large $0.20 special dividend in December, overall net assets fell $100 million in the year to $212 million, of which $122 million was in cash and $107 million related to seed investments. We continue to be careful stewards of capital, with any new funds being largely seeded by recycling cash from out of pre-existing seed portfolios. Consistent with the terms of the merger implementation deed, the Board did not declare a final dividend for FY 2025. However, overall dividends paid during the year were very significant, totaling $143 million, or approximately a quarter of the closing June 2024 share price. My last slide takes a quick break from the FY 2025 results and instead looks ahead for those investors on the call who are considering the post-merger financials of the renamed L1 Group. As noted in the explanatory memorandum and independent expert's report, a consequence of the merger, should shareholders vote for it, would be a significant change in the financial reporting. Although Platinum is technically taking over L1 Capital, from an accounting perspective, the merger will be treated as a reverse acquisition. This means that post-completion reporting, which will start with the December 2025 half-year results, will largely reflect the balance sheet and income statement of L1 Capital, with Platinum's results consolidated in only from the completion date of 1st of October. We expect to release more information on reporting in the coming months. Thank you all for listening, and we're happy now to take your questions. Thanks very much, Jeff, and thank you, Andrew. As we've said, please do enter your questions into the Q&A function at the bottom of your screen. We've got time for your questions now. Just while we wait for the first of those to come through, no questions thus far. If you've got something, please do send it through. I guess anything in there that you think requires extra attention on, whether it's the leaks or whether it's the sort of the process as we step forward? I think the process as we step forward is in train and proceeding as we expect. Obviously, the 22nd of September is a milestone date when the shareholders get to decide. Following that, our focus, if the shareholders do in fact vote for the transaction, will be on moving to the most effective, most efficient combined group as fast as possible for integration and also completing our strategy to grow even further and to continue the progress that we've made. My view is that a completed transaction would enter a new era for our shareholders, an era that I'm personally very excited about and see a lot of opportunity in. We are very focused on two things: getting to that completion, should the shareholders vote for it, and then creating plans to grow appropriately and deliver value for our shareholders as quickly as we can over coming years. The change in management of the Platinum International Fund is conditional upon the PTM shareholder vote. Yes. Is there a plan if that vote doesn't get through? There is a contingency plan to continue running that product for our investors with existing resources, but we have confidence that that vote will get through and certainly hope it will. As a result, we would move forward with the sub-advisory arrangement on completion date. With the change in manager, what's the impact on some of the members of the existing Platinum International Fund, that global team? There will be some members of that team who will go over to L1 Capital International, which is the group that will be the name of the group that will be writing the strategy. Three of our analysts will be joining them. Others from the team will be leading Platinum at the appropriate time. Still no questions coming through, so please do submit them if you've got them. We'll wait a few minutes, but otherwise, questions on Platinum Capital Limited and the two proposed new managers of that strategy. Is there the shareholder vote that I think you mentioned was on the 1st of August? October 1st, I believe, yes. That's not our—that's an independent company with two independent companies in the Asia company and PMC, and with an independent board. It's not really ours to comment on. We are looking forward to the results of that vote, and we'll work with whatever pathway the shareholders pick. Great. No questions have come through, so we won't take any more time. I'd just like to thank you all very much for joining the session today, and thank you for your attention. If you do have any further questions, Liz Norman is quite often the best contact for you. With that, we'll say thank you and goodbye.
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