Hello, and welcome to the Antin Infrastructure Partners half year results 2023 call. My name is Laura, and I will be your coordinator for today's event. Please note, this call is being recorded, and for the duration of the call, your lines will be on listen only. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the call. This can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad to register your question. If you require assistance at any point, please press star zero, and you will be connected to an operator. I will now hand you over to your hosts, Alain Rauscher, Chairman and CEO, and Patrice Suhl, Partner and Group CFO, to begin today's conference. Thank you. Thank you, Laura. Good morning. Welcome to Antin's half year result conference call. Earlier this morning, we issued our press release and slide presentation, which are available on our website. Our half year report will be made available later today. For today's presentation, Alain will start by sharing the highlights of the first half, and also share an update on our business activity. I will then move on to talk about our financial results and our outlook. As always, we will conclude the call with an opportunity for you to ask questions. With that, I will now turn over to Alain. Thank you, Patrice. Good morning, everybody. It is a pleasure to welcome everybody here to this call to talk about our solid level of activity and strong financial performance in the first half of 2023. In the first six months of the year, we have continued to execute on our growth plan on fundraising, investments, and performance. We continue to make good progress on fundraising. Flagship Fund V and NextGen Fund I are getting closer to their target size. We announced three investments in the first half, all with a strong focus on sustainability. Our fund performance was overall stable, demonstrating the resilience of our portfolio company, which continued to deliver healthy revenue and EBITDA growth. We are delighted to report a strong financial performance with significant top line and profit growth. You will see that our half year net income almost doubled, supported by strong operating leverage. As the last point, you will note that we have a strong balance sheet with substantial cash holdings, which provides us with strategic flexibility and will support our future growth initiatives. The first half of 2023 was marked by solid activity levels, which we can basically measure in two main areas: fundraising and investments. Fundraising commitments for Flagship Fund V and NextGen Fund I amounted to EUR 1.2 billion in the first half. While this is an increase versus the first half of 2022, we did note a slowdown in the pace of fundraising, which is in part due to Flagship Fund V fundraising cycle, as we are nearing the end, and in part due to more challenging market conditions. You are all familiar with the denominator effect and allocation constraints that some fund investors face, and while infrastructure is less affected than other product market asset classes, it is not immune to these effects. Flagship Fund V reached EUR 8.5 billion in commitments at the end of the first half of 2023, so it's EUR 1.1 billion more compared to year-end 2023. It corresponds, more importantly, to 85% of the fund's target size, which means that 85% of our fundraising is secured. Fundraising for NextGen Fund I continued and has reached now EUR 1.1 billion in commitments in the first half of 2023. We raised about EUR 100 million compared to year-end 2023, and we are now very close to the fund's target size of EUR 1.2 billion. We are EUR 100 million away from that, that, that amount. As a result of the strong fundraising, we have more than EUR 8 billion of dry powder to invest at an interesting point in the market cycle, and with a strong pipeline on investment opportunities. The first half of 2023 was testimony to that as we made 3 exciting investments, all with a strong sustainability and decarbonization angle. Flagship Fund V announced in June the launch of a voluntary cash tender offer for 100% of Opdenergy, renewable energy platform headquartered in Spain. NextGen Fund I announced 2 investments in the first half of 2023. The first investment was the acquisition of PearlX, an operator and owner of fully integrated smart grid infrastructure systems in the U.S. The second investment was a joint venture with Enviro, backed by Michelin, to create the world's largest, the world's first large-scale tire recycling group. We are extremely excited by this project. Total investments amounted to EUR 1.1 billion in the first half of 2023, almost double the amount of capital deployed in the first half of 2022. Consistent with our exit plan for the existing investment portfolio, no exit was announced in the first half of 2023. The exit of Lyntia Networks, which was announced in the second quarter of 2022, closed in the first quarter of 2023. We continue to patiently explore exit opportunity, but I will come back on the importance of, I would say, passion, in the next in the next slide. It is, of course, very easy to invest capital. As I always said, once you raise money, you have an open checkbook, and if you want to make an investment, just overpay, and it's certainly not what we want to do. We have tried to be, and I think we, we pride ourselves for being extremely patient and disciplined. All of our investment need to meet the Antin infrastructure test, or what we call in our jargon, the Infra test, which means we look for businesses that provide essential services to the community, have high barriers to entry, recurring cash flows, inflation linkage, and downside protections. Those businesses tend to perform well in all market environments and demonstrate significant resilience. When we will look at the right part of this slide, I think this is really a testimony of basically the good investment and the good, I would say, the prudent approach that we take. We are very selective. As you can see, we have held about 50, a bit more than 50 investment committees in the first half of 2023, resulting in 3 investments. The 3 investments were proprietary investments, so there was not in auctions, with some attractive value creation plans, a strong focus on sustainability. This number of 50 investment taken to its investment committee does not take into account the many investment we have reviewed and dismissed prior to discussing them at the investment committee. All that results into, if we do a good job, and I think we do the good job, into a portfolio which demonstrates exceptional resilience in adverse times, and the one we, we, we know today. Our portfolio companies continued to deliver strong performance over the last 12 months, despite uncertainty. This is summarized by the 2 figures. Our portfolio companies have increased combined revenues by 18% and have increased their EBITDA on a combined basis by 21%. I'm talking about the portfolio company, not Antin, huh? Portfolio company. This demonstrates the solidity, I would say, and the robustness of the investment we do and of the portfolio companies. Another... This basically is achieved by focusing on developing new CapEx to develop, to fund organic growth, to also make acquisitions and take whatever performance improvement initiative we, we, we can do. The second important point on the right side is debt. It is common knowledge that in the market, and I think it is largely exaggerated, in my view, and certainly false in the case of Antin, that access to debt is difficult, if not mission impossible. Well, we managed to secure more than EUR 12 billion of debt since 2022. This has been used to fund the acquisitions, to fund CapEx, to fund add-ons, but also to fund equity bridge facilities. More than EUR 12 billion of debt raised since 2022. For those of, those who think in the market, "Okay, no one raises money, no one makes investments, no one gets get access to debt," I think this is, this, this, these numbers, which we share with you, illustrate that this is certainly wrong in the case of, of... Another important point is that 100% of debt is expiring in 2025 and beyond. Actually, we don't communicate on the, the exact, I would say, scale, but I can assure you that, you know, the debt expiring in 2025 is only a small fraction of the total debt, which is basically extended on a large, I would say, number of years. Again, no debt issues on our side. Doesn't mean that, you know, debt is for free. It is not for free. It is more costly, but it is available for quality investors. If we look at the performance of our funds, vintage by vintage, quarter after quarter, we will see that the performance that we post is de facto excellent. Fund II, which is a vintage of 2013, basically has been disposed as of 92%. It's only one investment to go. As you can see, to date, the money multiple is 2.6x. We are confident that basically, when we sell the last asset, we will be in line with this number. Very, very solid performance. on the case, in the case of Fund III, we have realized only 38% of the portfolio, which means the value you see here does not correspond to a final value of performance. what we can tell you is that to compare at the same number of maturity of the fund, Fund III is in line or even above Fund II, which, as you can see now, is nearly complete and it's, it post a very, very superior returns overall. Fund III-B, only 26% of the portfolio has been realized to date, and again, we are very close to Fund III. We are very hopeful that basically the performance will be in line with Fund II, and Fund III. In the case of Fund IV, well, not, no realization whatsoever. The fund, it's a vintage of 2019. It is completely in line with, I would say, our value creation plan compared to other trends vintages. You see a slight decrease from 1.4-1.3 money multiples in the last quarter, and this is essentially due to the fact that we have completed our last invest, which was Wildstone. This investment basically, of course, is down at cost, is booked at cost, which is 1.0, and mechanically reduces, I would say, the money multiple. It's totally normal because it's early days. If you, if you want, it's a sort of a J-curve effect, it is not a reflection of reduced, I would say, performance expectation, quite, quite to the contrary. All our funds are performing on plan or ahead of plan, and at times, significantly ahead of plans. We are, I would say, very happy for this extremely healthy performance, which underpins the robustness of our company as a, as a, as a listed entity. With this, I will now hand over to Patrice, who will review our financial performance of the first half of 2023. Thank you, Alain. I will now talk about our financial performance, and I'm pleased to report that Antin achieved strong growth across all key performance metrics. AUM grew by 37% and stood at more than EUR 30 billion. Fee-paying AUM grew by 45% and reached close to EUR 20 billion. As a result, our revenue grew by 44%, driven entirely by management fee growth. Management fees that are long-term contracted and recurring in nature continue to account for more than 98% of our revenue today. Underlying EBITDA grew 73% faster than revenue, which is a reflection of the operating leverage embedded in our business model. EBITDA margins expanded from 50%-60%, representing an improvement of 10 percentage points, and underlying net income nearly doubled and reached more than EUR 60 million in the first half of 2023. These are significant growth rates and are the result of our scale-up and expansion strategy, and they also reflect, in particular, the significant progress we have made on fundraising for Flagship Fund V. Let's now take a closer look at the revenue build-up. The 44% increase in revenue was driven mainly by the Flagship Fund and entirely by management fees. EUR 40 million were added for the Flagship strategy as a result of different effects across funds. EUR 64 million relate to an increase for Fund V, which was offset by a decrease of EUR 21 million from Fund IV, which moved from the investment to the post-investment period in the second half of last year. Therefore, charges management fees at a lower rate and based on the invested capital it cost, rather than the committed capital. In addition, there are slight declines in management fees from Fund II, Fund III, and Fund III-B due to realizations of investments. Management fees from Mid Cap Fund I were stable, and management fees for NextGen Fund I increased by EUR 4.5 million as we continued to raise capital for that fund. In addition, carried interest and investment income recorded a loss of EUR 0.9 million in the first half of 2023, compared to a gain of EUR 3 million in the prior first half. That's a decline of EUR 3.9 million year-on-year. This half-year loss is mainly driven by the J-curve effect for Fund V, which means the fund recognizes costs for the due diligence of investments and fees, while the portfolio companies that we have acquired are not yet being revalued. That's a totally normal investment income pattern in the early stages of a fund's life. Now, I wanna take a moment to talk about our carried interest. Our P&L today doesn't reflect carried interest, as almost all revenue are recurring management fee revenues. There is, however, a very significant upside associated with that carry, and as you know, we've put in place a policy at the time of the IPO to allocate 20% of all carried interest for future funds to Antin, whereas carry for funds raised prior to the IPO were allocated to our investment teams and employees. While there's a time lag between the allocation of carry and the moment it shows up in the P&L, we do expect that carry will add significant revenues and profits over time. These revenues and profits will be in addition to our already rapidly growing management fee stream. We expect them to further enhance the growth profile of the group. Based on the capital we raised as part of the current fundraising cycle, so essentially a 3-year cycle typically, the carried interest revenue opportunity is EUR 435 million. It's what you see at the bottom of the page. If we achieve Fund V's target size of EUR 10 billion, that carried interest would grow to EUR 500 million. If we hit the EUR 12 billion hard cap, it would expand further to EUR 570 million. Now again, that's a revenue opportunity attached to the capital that we raise over a 3-year period. Of course, we expect it to expand as we continue to raise funds in future fund cycles. Also, I would note that these estimates assume that we achieve a gross multiple of 2x, whereby historically the realized performance of the Antin funds was closer to 2.6-2.7. Obviously we need to deliver performance for carried interest to be realized. We need to beat our 8% hurdle. But as Alain has explained on our performance page before, we have an exceptionally strong track record to deliver that. Moving to our cost base. As you see, we continue to grow our cost base in a very controlled manner as we scale and grow the business. Total operating expenses amounted to EUR 55.3 million in the first half of 2023. That's an increase of 15%, which is substantially lower than the 44% revenue growth, demonstrates the operating leverage embedded in our business. Personal expenses accounted for close to EUR 40 million, an increase of 23.6%, which was driven by higher headcount, inflation-linked wage increases, and promotions across the firm. The number of employees increased primarily in the investment team and in operations. The investment team, where we added 8 individuals in Paris, London, and New York, and the growth in operations, where we added 12 individuals, which was linked to the build-out of critical support functions and technology, which will further support the scalability of our operating platform. The team in New York grew from 40 to 48 employees year-on-year. With respect to our hiring plans for the year, we're fully on track. You know, we've communicated earlier in the year that we expect to add 20 to 30 employees. We've added 12, that guidance is very much confirmed. With respect to other operating expenses and taxes, we recognize the decrease of 2.5%. However, if we exclude placement fees, which are periodic in nature, these costs would have increased by 8.4%. Moving to our earnings. The strong growth we recorded in revenue and prudent cost management led to a significant step change in the earnings capacity of Antin. Our underlying EBITDA grew 73% and reached EUR 82.8 million in the first half of 2023. Our underlying net income almost doubled and reached EUR 60.7 million. So did our earnings per share. This increase is driven by higher EBITDA from fundraising and obviously some positive net financial income, which we generate on our substantial cash balance. I'll talk a moment about our balance sheet. As you know, we operate a balance sheet light business model, which means we require limited capital to support the scale-up and growth of our investment strategies. Typically, we co-invest 1% alongside our fund investors, although it could be slightly higher in certain situations. In addition to that, we invest 0.2% of a fund size to fund the carried interest commitment. Put it simply, 1.2% of a fund size is what we would put down between co-invest and carry of our balance sheet. That differentiates us substantially from managers that operate a capital-heavy model and need significant capital to support thMeir growth. We do hold EUR 425 million in cash on our balance sheet, which we can use to support the growth of our business. A portion of this cash will be used to fund future investments in co-invest and carry, but a more significant portion of it will remain available. Those funds we want to use to support our growth ambitions. It could be either used for the seeding of new investment strategies, or it could be used to fund acquisitions. It's a powerful balance sheet, and we intend to use it to further expand our revenue and earnings capacity in the future. Now, on the next slide, our dividend policy is to distribute most of our cash earnings to shareholders, and given our substantial cash holdings, we don't have a need to retain cash at this point. Consistent with this policy, we're announcing an interim dividend of EUR 0.32 per share, which is equivalent to a payout ratio of 94% based on the underlying net income. You will note that the interim dividend more than doubled compared to the first half of 2022, we expect payout ratios to continue to be high. The ex-dividend date has been set on 14th of November, the payment date is the 16th of November. With respect to the outlook for 2023, we are further specifying the guidance that we had shared with you earlier in the year. In relation to fundraising, based on how the year has evolved so far, we expect to raise around EUR 10 billion for Flagship Fund V in 2023. That's the lower end of the guidance range we had communicated earlier in the year. It reflects the conditions we see in the market. Having said that, we continue to remain confident in our ability to reach the hard cap of EUR 12 billion in 2024. You know, the punchline is, it's just taking a little longer. With respect to the EBITDA, our guidance is linked to the fundraising, we therefore expect to reach approximately EUR 200 million in EBITDA by year-end, which is largely in line with equity research consensus. As you know, all investors that enter Fund V are paying management fees from August 2022 onwards, so that's the concept of a catch-up fees or late fees, as some call it. As a result, any commitments we raise in 2024, rather than 2023, will just shift revenues and profits from 2023 to 2024. There's no foregone revenue or foregone profit if the commitment is, is raised later, it's simply moved from one period to the other. Now, with respect to cash distributions, we will continue to distribute a majority of our cash earnings, and we expect that annual dividends will grow over time. With that, I will hand over to Alain, to share some closing remarks. Alain, you may be on mute. Yes, I'm sorry. Sorry, I was on mute. Sorry. Thank you, Patrice. Basically, in the conclusion, and before taking, of course, your questions. I think there are some extremely favorable aspects about Antin. First of all, we are in the early part, early stage of an infrastructure super cycle, and I really weigh my words. An infrastructure super cycle, which requires an enormous amount of capital to be deployed. You are aware of the U.S. initiative called the IRA, which surprisingly is called the Inflation Reduction Act, but it's mostly about basically funding the transition to, I would say, sustainable energy, e-energy. The magnitude of the investment which are being contemplated is absolutely huge in the States. As you know, Europe is catching up also to take similar initiatives. I think being, having Antin position in both Europe and the North American market, where we can deploy up to 40% of our capital raised, I think this is an enormous boost to the potential that, you know, we may benefit from. The key two main trends are energy transition and digitalization, which are long-term mega trends, extremely capital intensive. As a result, infrastructure is among the fastest growing asset classes in private markets, and institutional investors remain under-allocated relative to their target allocation levels. Of course, we have to overcome short-term effects, such as the denominator effect, we discussed that, and current market conditions, but the medium and long-term prospects remain highly, highly attractive. We also are the largest actually, pure-play infrastructure private equity firm in Europe, and among the top 10 globally. As a result, I think we are very well positioned to continue winning market share. We are also a top European performer in value-added infrastructure investing, and our performance is basically a performance-driven approach, I think is a very, very strong growth engine. Important point also, we are management fee centric, or if you want, more than 90% of our revenues comes from management fee. Which, if you think of it, is a very, very strong base of income. Because I remind you that, you know, we basically have 10 years of guaranteed revenues, whether we launch a new fund or a new strategy. To give you an idea of the robustness of this fund. As such, we are not at all, I would say, exposed to volatility of other streams of income until of course, we will get some significant carried interest potential. As Patrice has mentioned, we estimate this potential as close to EUR 500 million as we speak. Our business model is fundamentally capital light and highly cash flow generative, which allows us to distribute most of our cash earnings to shareholders. Finally, we have more than EUR 400 million in cash to support the scale-up of our funds, as well as future growth initiatives. It is, of course, evident that in the current market conditions, we are working a lot on such new growth initiatives, but certainly we take... we, we, we've learned to be very patient, and this is really part of our DNA, and certainly it's not time to work, to study, and to explore new, I would say, growth opportunities. Certainly we need to first, you know, follow our priorities, which is to raise, I would say finish the fundraising of Fund V and NextGen, deploy capital, and then we will basically be in a good position to, to, to announce something more, more substantial when in due course. This concludes our presentation, and we are very, we are open for questions from the, from the audience. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Thank you. We'll now take our first question from Nicholas Herman at Citi. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Yes, good morning. Thank you. Thank you for the update. I'm taking the questions. I have 3 questions, please. One on deal activity, one on financing, and one on growth. On deal activity, good to see the recent announcement of the Opdenergy deal. Could you just talk about, a little bit about, about the deal pipeline, as it stands, please, across the three strategies? I guess also just which of Mid-Cap and NextGen would you expect to reach, let's say, 75% threshold of committed capital first? That's, that's the first one, please. On, on the second one, financing, I think you've talked in the past how you are, and again, how, how you're less constrained versus other private markets peers on financing, given appetite for lenders to, to finance infrastructure and real assets. I guess also mid-cap assets would also be typically less levered too. In that context, can you just talk about the kind of leverage and gearing you were able to obtain for the Opdenergy acquisition, please? Finally, on, on growth. It's been, it's been almost six months, I guess, since, since you formally announced you'd be looking to launch a new strategy, and that's part of the reason for moving to an absolute EBITDA target. I understand that is more of 2024, 2025 event, but just curious, has that become a little bit more concrete to being realized, or have you progressed at all in terms of implementing or, or identifying people to for, or hiring or otherwise? Just to be curious on how that's kind of evolving. Thank you. Thank you. Can you repeat, remind me of the first question? Because I'm. It was about the pipeline, right? Oh, yeah. Pipeline split between the funds. Yes. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Okay. Maybe I can take this question, Patrice. Okay, pipeline, frankly, between the three strategies is broadly, I wouldn't say it's, it's even part, but it's, it's quite, quite comparable. In fact, the way we, the way we, we, we function is, I would say, is extremely well organized, to be quite frank. We have the same investment committees, and we review progress. We have partners meeting, where we also review progress on, on coverage. To be, to be fair, as all the projects, whatever the strategy, go through the same investment committees, we have some, I would say some, we, we can monitor basically if a sector is less active or than another, if a strategy is less active or not than, than another. To be, to be, to be frank, you know, we don't see any difference. When it comes to what makes the cut between mid-cap and the flagship strategy, it's just the size. Typically the same type of projects, but smaller projects, it's very, very simple. Pipeline, very robust. On the debt side, as I mentioned, you know, is available for infrastructure, I would say, investors, and for those in particular who pursue value-add strategies. Again, you have to... The reason for that is quite simple. The first one, first reason is that we have underlying protections within the contracts we have. For instance, if we sell some, say, fiber to, we basically contract with some operators to provide them with some fiber. We got some lease contracts which are indexed on inflation. So for a banker's perspective, it's as good as can be. It's as good as can be. If you sell a yogurt to Walmart or to a, or to a, or to a Sainsbury's, I mean, you come to the end of the year and say, "Look, I have 5% inflation. Can I increase my, my price by 5%?" The client will say, "You know what? I was thinking of you guys to reduce by 10%, because I'm under pressure myself." We have this huge protection, which is extremely appealing to banks. Then the second reason why, as a value-added investor, we are extremely bankable, so to speak, in, in, in adverse times, is because by being a value-added investors, we, we provide an extra buffer to bankers. Not only do we have very strong underlying, I would say, assets, but on top of that, we have a buffer, which is that, you know, if we basically are facing adverse condition, we just have to work more, work harder, and people know that. We, we tested, you know, the infrastructure, I would say, market in very scope conditions, starting literally during the subprime crisis. The bank, that market was always open for business, for infrastructure, I would say, investors like ourselves, when the, I would say the, the main market was closed for most, I would say, by attend for a while. That's an extremely important feature about that. I cannot comment on the leverage that we put to front of the energy because clearly it is not public. I can just tell you that we are putting in place a leverage which is in line with the kind of leverage that we have put in place so far in our, in our investments, but I cannot comment on data because they are not public. Third point, concerning new strategy. We are extremely committed to develop new strategies beyond what we do today. If you remember, we moved about, you know, from 3 years ago to 1 strategy, which was a Flagship, which has grown over time, to 3 today. Flagship Mid Cap and and and and NextGen. The, the, it is certainly not over yet. We already made a journey to expand, you know, basically the our offering, so to speak, and it's not over yet. I think there are two main considerations to have in mind in this respect. The first one is that, first, we want to be sure that we have a very solid base of people to deliver the three strategies we embarked on, before envisaging to develop new strategy. We work a lot on improving our processes, training. You know, we are sort of a university, so to speak, where we have to train people to be sure that everybody, whichever strategy they work on, achieve the highest standards of excellence that, you know, we, we expect from people working at Antin. This is a top priority, and as you can appreciate, I'm sure, when you are working in a fast-growing firm, which recruits a lot of people, this is a big, big challenge, and of course, it's a main focus of attention for ourselves. I think it's going extremely well. We have taken initiatives to further improve, I would say, our investment committees, investment committees, and also, I would say, the monitoring of new projects, and the monitoring of progress to portfolio companies, and this goes into that direction. That's the first thing. We will not do anything new until we are 100% sure we have the right people, completely trained and, and prepared to basically embark into another, another pillar of growth. The second important thing is, of course, timing. We are working a lot on new strategies, and this can be either making some acquisitions, it can be launching organic initiatives. It is evident that launching organic initiatives is less costly, allows also for, I would say, higher control over the people whom we, we hire, as we have successfully done, you know, for, to beef up, you know, our operations and, and, and, and deal with the, the, the, the, the mid-cap strategy and with the, the, the NextGen strategy. We are not excluding anything. We are actually, we're working a lot on those things, but I'm sure you will appreciate that now is not the right moment to go to market, given the current market conditions for, for this new initiative. First, we take time to consolidate our, our setup, and we are very proud to have a very high quality team. We are working... We are prepared to launch new initiatives, but of course, we will have to do that in due course when market conditions are good. That's understood. Thank you, and thank you for the comprehensive answers. Don't worry, we are working flat out on that, huh? Yeah. Yeah. Indeed. Just, just a couple of quick follow-ups, please. I think, I think on, on, on, on the deployment outlook, I guess, I guess some peers have indicated that they expect deployment to increase in the second half. I mean, I guess, presumably, it would, it would be the same for you, given you have, as you call it, a robust pipeline. Then the second one on financing. I guess what I was trying to get at here is that your Fund V, Fund V's committed capital increased by 6-7 percentage points, so that would be about EUR 600 million-EUR 700 million. Unless I'm mistaken, I think Opdenergy enterprise value was just shy of EUR 900 million. It doesn't suggest particularly significant leverage. Just any kind of comments you can make around that would be helpful. Thank you. Well, I mean, frankly, again, I cannot really make a commitment, a statement on Opdenergy. Maybe you have some, some metrics you can share, or Patrice, but I'm not sure we can share a lot, it's gonna be on Opdenergy. Look, it's also, it's also a live situation that's evolving, so it's just too early to comment on a particular investment. Yeah. As you know, the tender offer is still ongoing and live. I think we will, we, you know, at some point, we can share more on particular situations, possibly, but it's a bit premature. I mean, in general, on the deployment side, I would say that on Flagship Fund V, we've made 2 investments. Very much on track, you know, sort of typically, if you think about an ordinary fund that would make, you know, call it 9 investments over a 3-year period, we, we would wanna do, you know, sort of call it 3 investments a year. It's always lumpy. So you could have periods when you have several announcement in a short period of time, and then periods when it's taking a bit longer, but that feels pretty much on track. You know, Mid Cap, they're probably gonna be 3 more investments. We're sort of 1 year away from hitting a 1-year period for that fund, so that's very much on track as well. NextGen, they're close to 50% deployed, is probably slightly ahead of plan on the deployment side, but it also had a number of announcements in a fairly, in a fairly short order. You know, all of these are on track. I think for your model, I would still assume that Mid Cap will be coming back to market before NextGen. You know, some point, latter part of next year. And NextGen is probably more likely a 2025 initiative. We're gonna need to see how the deployment will continue, and how the value creation of the underlying portfolio companies will track. As you know, at the moment, it would sort of feel somewhere around 2025. Very helpful. Thank you very much. Thank you both. ... Thank you. We'll now move on to our next question from Arnaud Giblat at BNP Paribas. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Yeah, thank you. Good morning. I've got three questions, please. If I can just start with the investment pipeline. How do you think about vintage diversification? You've always been working towards a three-year fund cycle. Is that something you feel comfortable to work towards, or is that really an important consideration, vintage diversification? A subset of that, is, I suppose, how have purchase price book multiples adjusted over the past 12 months? Have they come down? My second question is on the Mid Cap Fund. You just mentioned probably a 2024 launch. Are you still considering splitting that fund into two sleeves, a European and a U.S.? My third question is on the dividend. The payout ratio this half is 94%. I, I heard your commentary that you will pay out the substantial or, or the majority amount of earnings. Is majority, should we read somewhere in the 90s as the majority for going forward? Well, look, I can start on that. I mean, on the investment pipeline, and on fund diversification in particular, we, we, you know, our, our current base case is still that we run on a, on a three-year, on a three-year fund cycle. I think it would be way premature to assume anything, anything different than that, because Fund V has just been, you know, less than one year in its investment period, and it, it's sort of tracking pretty similarly where prior funds have been at similar periods. When it comes to diversification, we obviously try in every fund to have a balanced approach between the sector exposure that we take, the geographic exposure that we take, the type of risk that we take to achieve some degree of diversification in those funds. We've done that consistently in prior vintages, and we're doing it, we're doing it at the moment as well. Now with respect to, multiples adjusted over time, I'd say it's very difficult to measure the types of companies we acquire on a multiple basis. You know, very often those are long-term contracts, and, you know, if I take a 10-year concession, it will obviously price differently than a 15 or a 20-year concession, as an example. We tend to value companies on a fundamental approach. What has happened, certainly in this market environment, is cost of capital has gone up as interest rates increased. As a result, you know, valuations have adjusted. Now, in many cases, what you're seeing in an inflationary environment is, is you're discounting higher future cash flows at a higher cost of capital. Some companies are beneficiaries of that, and some are not. If the inflation pass-through works, which in many cases in our existing portfolio, it works extremely well, you know, you're, you're sort of offsetting these two effects against each other. On the mid-cap, and splitting it into a European versus a U.S. mid-cap, it's just, it's just too early to tell. I think there are arguments that would be in favor of that. There are arguments that are, that are against that. We w- we will evaluate it over the coming months, and my expectation is that at some part, early part of 2024, we will probably be able to give more specific guidance around that. I think what we can say today is, is it's not our expectation that, you know, a split would materially change the outcome of sizing for, for, for, for mid-cap. It's more about what we think is going to be better for fund investors and, you know, achieving the right portfolio mix, and we're gonna be thinking about that over the coming months. With respect to the dividends, the, you know, we've always had a dividend payout ratio that was north of 90%. Our expectation is that, as long as we have cash balances as material, as the ones we have, there's no need to retain, to retain cash. Directionally, it'll be, you know, above 90% payout ratio at the end of the year, and there's no reason that would change imminently, unless we find a, a way to deploy those EUR 425 million into something that would produce incremental revenues, would produce incremental earnings, and then we may need to re-retain, at some point, cash to support the growth. At, you know, at the moment, we wouldn't see, we wouldn't see a, a reason to retain cash. Yeah. That's very helpful. I'll jump back in the queue. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We'll take our next question from Tom Mills at Jefferies. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Good morning, guys. I've got a couple of questions, please. I think one thing that perhaps caught us by surprise, perhaps even you guys by surprise, is the extent to which infrastructure fundraising got caught up with the whole slowdown in PE fundraising, for all the reasons that were discussed earlier in the call. I guess, given lower allocations to infrastructure relative to buyout, and most surveys saying that people still intend to increase their allocation significantly to infrastructure, do you see any scope for allocation buckets to infrastructure to decouple from buyout over time, or do you... in tough fundraising environments for buyout is gonna continue to be the case for infrastructure? 'Cause I guess, you know, on the private credit side, at least, obviously we're seeing quite strong fundraising coming through there. Just be interested in your sort of longer-term thoughts there. Then, you know, I hear your comments on dividends on there. You know, what would we need to see for you to consider doing a buyback here? You know, I recognize the liquidity situation in your shares isn't ideal, but the underperformance of your shares year-to-date versus sort of global alts peers feels quite extreme. Thanks very much. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe I can take the first, the first, question, and Patrice can answer the second one. I think fundraising for, the prospects for fundraising for infrastructure remain absolutely excellent. There is no, should be no question again, that we are not seeing, you know, a, a beginning of a, of a new cycle where people are going to raise smaller funds. In fact, I think funds will be bigger and bigger, going forward. We just, we are just faced with a time in the, I would say, in the, in the financial cycles, where pension funds, instrument investors at large basically say, "Okay, we have now a new situation with, you know, rising, I would say, rates for bonds." Mediocre returns as you know well for equity markets, in many cases, especially, if you take off, you know, all the GAFAM and some, I would say some guys who are driving the prices up. If you look at the bulk of the market, it's pretty drab out there, and frankly, everywhere. People say, "Okay, where should we put our bets?" Then, of course, there are issues on the real estate market. You have, which is heavily dependent upon, I would say, it has been heavily dependent upon the cheap, cheap debt. Plenty of issues around, around the, I would say, yeah, for, for LPs. It's quite normal that given the, I would say, strategic uncertainties with Ukraine conflict in particular, given, you know, very volatile, I would say energy prices, but still remaining at high levels, very costly, I would say, energy transition looming. It is quite normal that in institutional investors take time to review their options, because this is what we talk about. It is, it is, it is interesting, we, we, we have about, I think a base of about 300, I would say, LPs globally. So we, we, we, and plus of course, numerous discussion we have with others, and so we have a pretty good view, as to, as to how the market thinks about deploying capital. Clearly, people are not saying we, we, we shy away from infrastructure, but we have to say, "What do we do? Shall we not start to invest part of our, I would say, attach into bonds, because now bonds are starting to pay off well. Should it be corporate bonds? Should it be whatever?" It is normal, but our market is reflecting, and this is a slowdown in fundraising is, is really about, about that. But fundamentally, we, we, by the dialogues we have with, frankly, very large investors from anywhere in the world, we the, the, the, I would say the support and the interest to invest, to continue to invest and invest bigger amounts, actually, in, in infrastructure is there, there's no, no doubt. There is a sort of a critical time when people are just sitting back, because frankly, you from a time when there was actually no money to be made in bonds, which has put enormous pressure on, on many pension funds in particular, were to pay the pensions, and suddenly some guys can make 5%. You know, you have to adjust this new, new, new, new, new deal. I think that this is a temporary effect. People are taking stock of the situation, I'm very positive, I'm very optimistic that, you know, long term, you know, we are in a fast-growing place. If anything, you know, the digitalization and energy transition will require enormous amounts of money that governments cannot afford, cannot afford to mobilize. That's, that's my, my first thing. Concerning buyback program, Patrice, your call. Yeah, of course. Well, Tom, we respect to the buyback, we've obviously thought about it, you know. Of course, from a valuation perspective, we do believe it would make a lot of sense if we were to buy back our stock, because when we count together, you know, the fact that we. A majority of our earnings are fee related, we have a very substantial carry opportunity, we have very substantial cash on our balance sheet. We don't feel that's accurately reflected in the value of our stock. Having said that, we have a 15% free float. We wanna preserve the liquidity for investors, and we also believe that we can use this cash to ultimately invest in growth opportunities that will produce attractive revenues and attractive earnings. You know, with all of these things, we've not moved forward with a buyback. That doesn't rule out we may do it in the future. We've, we've decided not to do it at the moment. You, you are, you are specialist, actually, of the, I would say, alternative markets. You know very well, you know, basically where the trends are. Since our IPO, as you remember, we probably went the high, well, we, not probably, we went at the highest, at the peak of the, of the market. If you look at the evolution of stock price compared to our peer group, particularly in Europe, because of course, the U.S. market is very different, with many more strategies and particularly some great strategies which are a buffer in today's times. Great, of course, is at least temporarily, you know, very favored. If you compare to our EQT, to Partners Group, to ICG, to Bridgepoint of the world, you'll find that basically we are in part actually doing better than those people in terms of sharp price evolution. We're not, we're not pleased with that, to be quite frank, because, of course, we went to market at the highest, at my highest point in the cycle. Clearly we are in line in evolution, and pretty, in fact, pretty favored compared to them since our IPO. The, the performance, I think, is in my view, of the sector, in my view, suggests that people cannot raise funds, which is untrue. We raise money, frankly, I think secured 85% of target of the EUR 10 billion fund is something which frankly we are pretty proud of, not everybody can do it, but we, we've done it. We can raise debt. We told you more than EUR 12 billion of debt raised, we can do deals. You see, I'm, I'm very optimistic. I think the perception of the sector at large and the risk factor associated to it, in my view, is, is, is excessive. I also think that, you know, if you look at the previous cycles, like 15 years ago in particular, you will observe that there was no major failure. Because, in fact, if you are investing in a company and it is faced with some difficulties to, to, to, to be sold, well, what people do, what people like ourselves do, or buy a fund, it's very simple: they keep it. They keep it 1, 1 more year or 2 more years, okay? And, it is very rare to find some distressed sellers, very, very rare. You may have some problems, of course, in, in some, some companies, because life is complicated. But, distressed sellers, very, very rare. People just click to the... click, click to the, to the investment and just wait until the, a better times, you know, come and, and a better time to come. I'm not, I'm not worried, about, about, about that. Thank you, guys, for sharing your thoughts. Very helpful. Thank you. We'll move on to our next question from Bruce Hamilton at Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Hi there. Morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I was actually gonna ask some of the buyback, so Tom beat me to it. Maybe just on the guidance, can I just confirm, so on this sort of around EUR 200 million, I think before you said EUR 200 million-EUR 240 million. I assume I shouldn't read that as meaning it's gonna be below EUR 200 million? You didn't say EUR 200 million plus, so just to check, there's nothing kind of negative to read in that. Secondly, on your... Just to confirm that your sort of problem, social asset, Hesley and the other one, those are pretty much written down to zero. It's already in the Fund III performances, so we shouldn't worry, and just checking if there are any other assets that are requiring some sort of remedial work, particularly on the kind of social infrastructure side. Finally, how are you sort of evolving your distribution, given the challenges with, say, pension funds in the US? Are you finding you're doing more in Middle East and Asia, or because infrastructure is different and people are early stage, does that not really apply, and so it's just a question of getting, you know, the same, your traditional LPs just, you know, over the hump of what high rates mean, and then things improve? Just interested in how that, your distribution's evolving. Thanks. Maybe I can start on. Yep. Sure. To start on the guidance. look, the, the EUR 200 million EBITDA is really linked to the, to the EUR 10 billion, to the EUR 10 billion fundraising. It's not, you know, it's not a, a change from what we had said before. It's just a lower end of the range, and, and, and the ticker is just not to make it a point landing. Our expectation is we'll be, we'll be at about EUR 200 million. Yeah. Concerning the... You mentioned some problem investment, and you mentioned the Hesley. Well, first, Hesley has been fully written down. That's the first point, so there is no thing to be expected negatively. Secondly, situation at Hesley, I reiterate, I know that there's been a lot of emotion on social media in particular, and rightly so, because, of course, if there was any truth in what has been reported, it would be a very, very sad, sad situation. Let's be very clear, there is no impact whatsoever on Antin. It is an issue which relates to one house, which is owned by Hesley, which has been closed, and there is no impact whatsoever for Antin. Are there any other problematic assets? Frankly, no, there is none. We are faced with, of course, different situations, where we say this should be growing faster than we were, or this should be growing less quick than people want to, because we have to faced with this kind of a balance constantly. Some people want to grow much more, we require more capital, so we have to make the balance, but there is no other problematic asset. Concerning the distribution of our LP base, well, it happened that you... I think it's, it's really a point, it's about, you know, the maturity of interest, I would say, of LPs, region by region, for infrastructure investing. It is true that probably U.S. pension funds in particular have been late in looking at this at this market. Actually, it is, it is particularly true in striking for our U.S. colleagues who also have an investor base, which is predominantly non-U.S., which is quite, quite, quite special. If you are a buyout fund in the States, you would have a permanent U.S. invest LP base, not in infrastructure, even if you are, if you are in Europe based or wherever in the States. That's a, that's a new one. With the, I would say, the, the, the, the IRA initiative in particular, and which is an absolutely game changer, you know, in America, clearly, you see more and more, I would say, LPs in the States who are interesting to catch up. Actually, we raised some money with such LP recently, because they have a growing interest for that. You know, it is true that the U.S. pension funds have been late to come to the infrastructure class, but they are coming now, and big time. Thank you. Very helpful. Thank you. If you find that your questions has been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star two. Thank you, and we'll now move on to our next question from Arnaud Palliez at CIC Market Solutions. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Yes. Hello, good morning, thank you for taking my questions. I have three, if I may. The first one is on the exit pipeline. The fact that in H1, there was no exit, is it one explanation for the slowdown in fundraising, the fact that LPs, they don't get some money back, and therefore they cannot move to the next fund? That's my first question. Maybe still on, still on exit, what do you have in the pipeline? I'm thinking especially about Fund II, on which there is 1 remaining asset before being able to close down the fund. I would like to know if there is a chance to, to see this last asset being sold in the coming months. The second question is about the US market, on which you have invested significantly. I would like to know if you are happy with the ongoing development in the US, if you are confident in your ability to, to, to take a, a, a place on this market. My last question is on Center Parcs. I've seen some different press articles mentioning that you are among the bidders for these for these assets, so I would like to, to, to, to know if you can comment or confirm that you have some interest in Center Parcs. Okay. Maybe I can take. I can start. Patrice feel free to complement. On the exit timetable, I mean, well, it is quite, quite. Again, we need to be patient, to be sure when we think of selling, we're selling the right conditions to maximize the price which we proceed, that we can expect to make from a good investment. You mentioned the last investment in Fund II, which is Grandi Stazioni Retail, GSR. Mm-hmm. It is evident that it's one which quite naturally, because, given the time, the, the, the, the, the length of investment period, we, we have had investment in our portfolio, that of course, we will, we will have to reflect about an exit in due course. This asset, which is a very high quality asset, has basically, been affected by the COVID lockdown, and, and, in particular, for about, you know, a year, more than a year, basically, the, the, the, the, the passengers were absent, mostly absent, you know, from, from the train station. They are catching up. It's been renewed. We have continued to invest in this, in the train station, particularly in Rome and Milan. We have also extended the life of the concession by eight years, which is also something important. In due course, we will, of course, consider it, because it's quite normal that, you know, we invest the oldest investment somehow first, but I can make no, no, no, no commitment generally on the timetable. For the rest, as I said, timetable is really in our hands, so we are not, we're not, I would say, under any kind of pressure to expose an asset rather sooner than later. We are not. Because it is just. We just try to think about any asset and say, "Okay, have we done all the work we wanted to do? Will the next stage be better done by someone who will have, say, a five- or six- or seven-year horizon than, than by us in the next two, two, two, two, two years? We, we ask those questions constantly and define when is the right moment to dispose. Again, it is assessed on a case-by-case basis. From a, I would say, financial impact perspective, for, for, for the sake of, of Antin, evidently, if we hold an asset a bit longer, you have a bit more, I would say, management fee, you know, but, but it's not what drives us. What drives us is the kind of returns we can make on, on this exit. This applies to all, all, all our, our portfolio companies. Some may be sold rapidly because we, we upgraded value very fast. Some may take longer because of market conditions. I mentioned the lockdown impact on, on one asset, for instance. So we advise on a case-by-case basis. U.S. market, U.S. market is very interesting because we are extremely pleased to be present in the States, and we approached it in a, in a, in a way which frankly is, is typical of our time, which is we, we, we, we, we divide four main sectors, which you know, which is digital, social, medical, energy, environment, and transportation. And we systematically tried to, to look at the opportunities in those four segments. Now, what is interesting is that the U.S. infrastructure market has been dominated by people looking for mostly energy and actually mostly fossil energy deals. Okay, we come with some four sectors, which are not necessarily mainstream. When we do some district heating deal in the States, people obviously look at us and say, "Why- what, what are those guys doing?" Because everyone was thinking of doing such a, such a deal. I think it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a great market. It's and also we come with a differentiated approach, which, which frankly makes, makes our job extremely fascinating and, and, and, and, really very, very interesting. I think we will make some very good money out there. The third topic you mentioned is Center Parcs. Frankly, I cannot comment on, on anything the price, for, for this. Just to say that I've never been to a Center Parcs as a, as a client myself, but maybe it's a great place to go. I don't know. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Maybe you want to comment, maybe you are a client of... perhaps you're a client of Center Parcs? I don't know. I, I must admit that I have never been myself, but I'm sure it's a good business. Thank you. We'll now move on to our next question from Angeliki at JP Morgan. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Good morning. It's Angeliki Bairaktari from JP Morgan. Thank you for taking my questions. Just a few follow-ups on my end, please. First of all, on the guidance for Fund V, you now expect to reach the hard cap next year. I think the previous guidance was that the hard cap would be reached late 2023 or early 2024. Does the new guidance mean that this fund could actually be open until the end of 2024, to give you a bit more time? On the Mid Cap Fund II, I understand that you mentioned that this could be launched next year. Shall we take this out, fundraising being launched next year, which may mean that the activation in terms of management fees being recognized in the PNL could come a bit later? Like, for example, is there, is there any risk that we may start seeing management fees out of Mid Cap Fund II, only in the beginning of 2025? How should we think about growth over the next five years beyond the existing three fund structures that you currently have? Would you perhaps consider expanding into any other asset classes outside of the value-add infrastructure that you currently have? Thank you. Maybe I start with question one and two, and I will take the thirdrd one. Look on the guidance, the EUR 12 billion for early 2024, 2024, I think it's unchanged. The reality is, you know, its pace of fundraising is somewhat predictable, sort of six months out, because you know exactly who's doing due diligence when they plan to take a case to the investment committee, and anything beyond six months, the predictability of timing becomes more, more complex. I say 2024, but in reality, our expectation is it's sort of in the earlier parts of 2024. When we get closer to the year end, we can be more specific on that. On Mid Cap Fund II, you know, our expectation is, is, it's first of all, it's kind of driven by the pace of deployment, which means, we really need to do investments, three investments before we would be having a first close and activation of a Fund II. My expectation today would be that that's, that's gonna be in 2024, and it would also mean we would be starting earning fees on Mid Cap Fund II in the course of 2024. You know, whether it's gonna be, third quarter of the year, a bit earlier, a bit later, I think that's just premature to say. You know, directionally it'll be, it'll be some point mid-2024 or around that. Maybe around the growth in other asset classes and overall growth. Maybe just to finish on, on that, on what you just said on the mid-cap activation in, say, mid-2024. You want to. It's very important, Angeliki, that you, you understand that, once we make the first, I would say first close, we, we are basically starting to the clock start to tick. It means that, you know, what we will raise, in the first, first, say, following six months, will be booked for half a year. What we raise after that, basically there will be a catch-up impact, which means that, you know, what we don't have, from the first, I would say, day of, say, July 1st, 2024, so to speak, as an example, we will get it basically next, next year as a catch-up impact on top of the, the normal, normal fees. So that's. I know it's, it is, it is something which is peculiar for, for analysts who are looking at your performance quarter after quarter, but clearly we are in this long-term business where we secure long-term revenues for 10-year period, and what we don't get on the first day of the closing, we will get. We'll get basically in the next quarter, next half, et cetera, next year. I think this is very important to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to follow. Concerning the growth, we have shared with you a plan upon IPO, upon our IPO, which gave you some ideas about and guidance, basically, about what could be precise for the flagship evolution. What can be Mid Cap, would there be one Mid Cap or two Mid Cap, one in $ for the U.S. market, and one in EUR for the, for the European market, for, for the second vintage, and of course, NextGen. This plan is still basically the plan that we are following, but on top of that, we are certainly considering and very actively considering other sources of growth in adjacent strategy. So we certainly are not people who tomorrow will wake up and say, "Look, we're launching a big credit business," because we're thinking we are not credit people. Now, maybe we will acquire something like that, and I'm not making any recognition, but it's not something that we would feel comfortable launching organically. But organic initiatives are something that we are, we are, we are working on very seriously. We have some very clear ideas, actually, of new growth, but I cannot share that, you know, at this stage with you. It's, it's premature. And again, timing to market is important. You see that, you know, fundraising is difficult, even for people like Ardian, who frankly are raising funds. Maybe slower than expected, but frankly, it's fine. We will raise our money. There's no. I'm, I'm totally convinced about that. If you want to launch a new strategy, you certainly want to be sure to do it at the right time to make it a big success, right? We are working on that and getting it, trust me. We're working very seriously on that. Thank you very much. Just, just to add on specific growth rates, maybe. You know, historically, we've upsized each fund by about 80% every time we came back to market. That really implies organic growth between 20%-25%. Of course, that's top line growth, and there was operating leverage in the business on top of that. Now, what we said is, is that we expect to grow faster than the infrastructure market or the private infrastructure market, where projections of Preqin are somewhere around 16%-70% annual growth. I think that gives you a perspective that somewhere between the growth that the market expects and what we've delivered in the past is certainly attainable, but the structure of the growth is obviously going to change. Historically, it was all about upscaling Flagship. In the future, it'll be about scaling the existing strategies, but also, also strategy expansion. Thank you. Thank you. We'll now move on to our next question from Geoffrey Michieliels at ODDO BHF. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Hi, gentlemen. Thank you for taking my question. Two for me. Well, first one, thank you for the very interesting slide 11 on carried interest, which I believe is one of the, the name of the game in the, in this industry for investors, at least. My question is: don't you think that it would make sense for the coming vintage to allocate more than 20% of carried interest to the listed company, to, to Antin? That could maybe be a boost, you know, for your, for your share price and, you know, perspective for investor return. Second question is different, is on NextGen. You, you don't mention the hard cap again of EUR 1.5 billion for, for NextGen Fund, whereas we are only at EUR 0.1 billion of the, of the target size. I mean, is it an objective that you, that you forgo, or, or is it still, in, in your mind? Thank you. Well, concerning the first question on carried interest, potential, could we allocate more to the GP for current? Well, first of all, we have taken a commitment to allocate 20%, so it's a commitment vis-à-vis our shareholders, but also a commitment vis-à-vis our teams. Because it means that, you know, the team, the pot for the team, is 80% instead of 100% before, before IPO. It's a very, very firm commitment, and I would feel uncomfortable coming to, to our people, say, "Look, to try to beef up, you know, our, our stock price, we are going to ask you to, to, to surrender some part of your, of your carried interest, which is why you came to Antin for." Clearly it is what it is. We have a contribution of carry to the GP, which is 20%, some have 35%, some have more. You see, if you look at the evolution of, I would say, of stock prices, of people who are very diverse, you know, carried interest allocations to the GP, you see no major difference overall between people. It's not because you would give 5% more carry to, to the GP that, you know, you would beef up your stock price. I don't think, I don't, I don't think it's the case. The reality is that it's extremely difficult for you guys, analysts, to value carry, because the only way for you to do it would be to basically go through, our, our, our funds, vintage by vintage, quarter- to- quarter, and do exactly what we do and share with our LPs. It's a very, very tedious type of work, and you would have to do the same for not just us, but, you know, our peers. We understand that it's not the route you want to take. Valuing carry for you, it's about, how much have we delivered historically? How much are we considering to basically produce, say, for Fund II, for instance, for Fund III, for Fund III-B, et cetera. So that you can take a view about the likelihood... You know, for the coming, I would say, funds, carry will be worth pumping and how much will it be worth? I don't think it will make a difference to allocate more carry for and to move the stock price. Maybe you'll take the second question, Patrice? Yeah, of course. Look, just one addition on the carried interest. It's, it's also about how you slice and dice the pie, right? Because what we see some of our peers do, is they allocate a larger share of the carry to the management company, but then they pay out a lot of that carry in the form of cash bonuses. So it's just it's also about the way you slice the pie. With respect to the hard cap for NextGen, look, NextGen will finish fundraising at the end of the year. you know, there's, if we reach more than the EUR 1.2 billion target size, that's, that's great, but if we reach less than that, we would probably stop fundraising at wherever, whereever, wherever it'll stand at the end of the year. At that point, I would say the target is still a far way to go. The hard cap's still a far way to go, but the target's very attainable. Okay. Thank you very much. That's it for me. Again, you have to bear in mind that, you know, in our terms, what means raising, say, 1.2 instead of, say, 1.4 or 1.5, is just one or two deals away. That's what it means. In fact, you will come back-- we will come back to market, maybe one deal or two deals before, before to market, if you see what I mean. We will get more, you know, for the next fund, and we'll come back to market quicker to raise a bigger, I would say, fund, Fund II for NextGen. It's exactly what we've experienced, you know, in Fund I. We raised EUR 1.1 billion, the second one was EUR 2 billion, then it was EUR 3 billion, then it was EUR 6.5 billion, then EUR 10 billion or EUR 12 billion, hopefully, very soon. You see, it's no hard feeling. I know you're not liking my answer because you are looking at trying to assess what will be done next year, we are in a very long-term business, and that's what is difficult to, I know, to gauge. Thank you very much. Yeah. Thank you. There are no further questions in queue, so I will hand you back to your host to conclude today's conference. Thank you. All right. Well, I think, we had a interesting, interesting meeting. We of course are very happy and happy to talk to you with more questions if you have that after, if you, if you have some. Thank you for this, for the meeting. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. Continue to stay safe. You may now disconnect.