Hello and welcome to today's Apax Global Alpha's 2022 first quarter results conference call. My name is Bailey, and I will be your moderator for today's call. All lines will be muted during the presentation portion of the call, with an opportunity for questions and answers at the end. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to pass the conference over to Ralf Gruss, COO of Apax Partners. Ralf, please go ahead. Thank you and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining AGA's Q1 results presentation. My name is Ralf Gruss. I'm the COO of Apax Partners, and I'm also a member of Apax Global Alpha's Investment Committee. I look forward to taking you through the presentation and will answer any questions you may have at the end of the call. Before we go into the details of this quarter, I'd like to start with an overview of how AGA delivers value for its investors. AGA was listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2015 to provide investors with a unique access to the private equity activities of Apax Partners. The Apax private equity funds have a sector-driven strategy, and they focus on four attractive and dynamic global sectors. As an investor in AGA, you get access to the benefits of the transformational investment approach, which is at the core of the Apax Funds investment strategy. In addition to investing in private equity portfolio company, AGA uses a distinctive strategy to invest capital not invested in private equity in a portfolio of predominantly debt investments to create flexibility and minimize cash drag. That part of the portfolio is called Derived Investments. With this approach, AGA is targeting net returns to investors of 12%-15% per annum. Seven years post IPO, AGA has established its track record of consistent long-term growth in the public markets. Five-year cumulative NAV returns are 82.5%, and the five-year annualized return is 14%. Let me now update you on recent trading and performance of the fund in the first quarter of 2022. There is no doubt that the first quarter of 2022 has been a difficult quarter, if not a turning point more broadly. We've witnessed increasing inflation and the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war. Apart from the tragic humanitarian costs involved, this will increase inflationary pressure further. Interest rates have been increasing and expectations of the market point to an acceleration of further monetary tightening to curb inflation. There is a risk that central banks will need to tighten even further than markets are expecting. The overall macroeconomic uncertainty has clearly increased. Public equity markets have also corrected significantly with the FTSE 250 down 9.5% and the S&P 500 down 4.6%. Against this backdrop, AGA's portfolio has proved resilient with a total NAV return of -1.7%. The private equity portfolio, which represents 72% of the invested portfolio, continued to show strong operating performance overall, benefiting from the Apax Funds' good to great investment strategy. The valuation of the fund has, however, seen some impact, largely from the portfolio companies that are now listed. Deal activity has been good in the last three months. Four new investments were added to the private equity portfolio and one company was exited. I will give you details on those later in the presentation. The liquidity position of AGA also remains very healthy, and AGA's balance sheet is very robust, benefiting from both its unique portfolio of derived investments and an undrawn RCF. As you might have seen from AGA's RNS today, the board has decided to increase the size of the RCF facility from EUR 140 million to EUR 250 million. This further strengthens AGA's balance sheet, reflects the growth in AGA's NAV, and increases the flexibility of the fund to invest and commit in private equity. With that, let me discuss the private equity portfolio of AGA in more detail. As a reminder, AGA achieves its exposure to the underlying private equity portfolio companies by virtue of being a limited partner in the Apax Funds. People therefore sometimes mistakenly think that AGA is a fund of funds, but this is not the case. AGA invests in the funds raised and advised by Apax Partners only, and AGA is invested directly into the Apax Funds with no layering of fees. By doing so, AGA creates exposure to a portfolio of currently 79 individual companies. The pie chart, which you see on the left-hand side of the slide, shows the composition of that portfolio of 79 companies across the four core sectors in which AGA invests, tech and digital, services, healthcare, and internet consumer. Before touching on each of those sectors in a bit more detail, let me summarize why, while a deteriorating macroeconomic environment may affect the portfolio, we believe the impact should be manageable for AGA's private equity portfolio. There are four key reasons for that. The first is that most of the existing portfolio companies have strong market positions and have pricing power. Although for some, you know, for example, healthcare services companies, there may be a lag between price and cost increases. The second reason is that the portfolio is relatively low leverage overall, and with interest rates rising. The portfolio companies should therefore be able to withstand increases in the cost of debt. First, most of the companies which Apax Funds buy have room for improvement and micro levers that can be pulled to cushion headwinds. Examples I can give you is, for instance, M&A, margin improvement, or sales and marketing efficiency, just to name a few of them. Last, there's obviously the question of valuation multiples, which are the greatest uncertainty. The considerations here are more nuanced. So far, we have not seen deterioration of valuation multiples in private markets, although there have been declines in public markets, as I've mentioned earlier at the beginning of the presentation. The worst declines are, however, in the highest growth and unprofitable stocks to which Apax Funds had less exposure. Now, with these introductory comments, let me touch on each of the four sectors in which AGA is invested and provide an update. The largest part of AGA's private equity portfolio is invested in the tech and digital sector, which represents 42% of the private equity portfolio overall. With tech being a very large sector, the focus of investments is on the software, tech-enabled services, and telco subsectors only. The investments in tech and digital continue to perform well. In line with what I discussed, I should emphasize here that in tech, the Apax Funds typically focus on investments in more mature or moderate growth companies where they have proven unit economics rather than the more speculative, very, very high-growth pre-profit companies, which have seen the biggest declines in public markets. Tech and digital is also the sector where we've seen some significant and successful portfolio company IPOs during the last 12-18 months. I will drill down into the exposure of AGA to public companies and the attractive returns AGA has already generated from these investments in a moment. Turning to the companies in the tech portfolio, the three largest investments, Thoughtworks, which is a tech-enabled services business, and Paycor and Duck Creek, you know, which are both SaaS businesses focusing on HR and insurance software, respectively, are all publicly listed. While their share prices have decreased in the last quarter, they are on track to become very successful investments for AGA. The average multiple of invested capital across those three investments is 6.6x as at the end of March, of which 2.7x of invested cost has already been realized in cash to date. The next largest investment in tech and digital is Pontera. Those of you who've been following AGA last year will remember that the Apax Funds acquired three software companies serving the nonprofit sector to create a social good software platform of scale. The combined business has now been branded Pontera. We are excited about this transaction and we'll keep you updated as the deal progresses. Let me now move on to services, which is the second-largest sector in the portfolio. Services is a broad sector, but like in tech and digital, the Apax team has built deep expertise within a few key subsectors. These subsectors include route density-based businesses, residential services, and outsourced sales and marketing. When you look at the three largest investments in services, each of them fall into those three, you know, subsectors. Assured Partners is the insurance broker operating in the North American market, and the attraction of Assured Partners as a private equity investment results from its recurring revenue, non-discretionary product type business model, which makes it very defensible. Also, the insurance broker industry remains fragmented, providing opportunity for growth through M&A. The Apax Funds originally invested in Assured Partners in 2015, and then reinvested part of their proceeds when the company was sold to another sponsor in 2019. Authority Brands is an investment in the residential services subsector. Authority Brands is a franchise business, franchising its brand and expertise to home service businesses such as pool maintenance or cleaning businesses. Again, a very attractive and stable business with pricing power and with ample growth and value generation potential in a highly fragmented industry. The last company I wanted to mention here is TOI TOI & DIXI, which is the provider of portable toilets and an investment in the density-based business subsector. TOI TOI & DIXI, like other businesses in that subsector, operates a network and has trucks that drive routes, serving one customer after another. Route density-based businesses benefit from scale as serving routes becomes more efficient with scale, thus creating further barriers to entry for others. TOI TOI & DIXI continues to perform well and is growing both organically and through acquisitions. Turning to healthcare, which is the smallest sector in AGA's portfolio, representing 13% of the invested portfolio. Again, let me touch on the three largest investments briefly. All of these investments fall into the med tech subsector. Vyaire, the producer of ventilators, respiratory diagnostics products, and related consumables. You know, Candela, a provider of aesthetic devices and solutions, and Rodenstock, the manufacturer of premium optical lenses. Vyaire has seen significant demand during the early phases of COVID. As this one-off demand has subsided, the business is now tracking again in line with expectations. Similar to many businesses that source globally, the area management is keeping a close eye on is its supply chain. Performance of Candela continues to be very strong across all of the three global regions, North America, Europe, and Asia, where it operates. Rodenstock was acquired by the Apax Funds last year. The thesis is to back an entrepreneurial management team that was at the early stages of a transformation which is leading to accelerated growth. Rodenstock is off to a good start, and the performance since the Apax Funds have invested is very pleasing. Last but not least, Internet and Consumer, which is now the third largest sector in AGA's portfolio. Online marketplaces is a subsector within internet and consumer, which represents a significant part of the sector. Online marketplaces is an area of investment where the Apax Funds have a significant track record, having invested in 12 online marketplace businesses to date. The largest investment in Internet & Consumer, Trade Me, falls into that subsector. Trade Me is the largest online auction and classified site in New Zealand, covering motors, property and jobs in classified, but also being the number one online marketplace for used goods. Trade Me continues to deliver strong trading performance. Wehkamp, the third-largest investment in the internet and consumer sector, is an online retailer in the Netherlands. The COVID pandemic has had a net positive impact on Wehkamp due to an accelerated shift of demand to online. As you can see, the private equity portfolio is nicely diversified across a number of well-performing portfolio companies across the four core sectors that Apax is focusing on. The portfolio is also well diversified across different vintages. I did not comment in detail on this as I just went through the portfolio, but high level, 27% of the Apax Funds are in what we call the investment phase, meaning they've only started to invest recently. 55% of the Apax Funds are in the transformation phase and 18% in the realization phase. To ensure that the portfolio keeps this attractive diversification, it's the investment policy of AGA to invest in new funds launched by Apax. In this context, in addition to the commitment made to the Apax Digital Fund II last year, AGA has recently announced commitments to Apax Global Impact Fund, which aims to deliver strong financial returns by supporting companies which deliver tangible societal and/or environmental impact. At the period end, AGA also committed to AMI II, which is the second generation mid-market fund focused on deals in Israel. Now, let me pause here briefly to touch upon two key metrics for the private equity portfolio. First, growth in revenues and earnings. As you will have probably picked up from when I went through AGA's private equity portfolio, operational performance remained strong during the first quarter of 2022, and actually LTM revenue growth was at 18.7%, and EBITDA growth was 21.6%. I wanted to preempt a question here, though, as those of you who follow us closely might have realized that these growth rates have reduced to those achieved by AGA at year-end. The reduced growth rates are not a general demand-driven slowdown seen across the portfolio in the quarter, but are largely driven by a handful of idiosyncratic effects in the portfolio. Now, second on valuation multiples. Valuation multiples of the portfolio contracted since the end of December, so please keep in mind that the metrics shown on this page are not like for like between periods. The reduction in multiples is, however, driven by the listed holdings that AGA has in its private equity portfolio. If you exclude the public holdings, valuation multiples have been more steady, but again have come down over the last three months, driven by market developments. I'd like to take a moment here to reflect on the list of public company exposures within the private equity portfolio, as I did when presenting the annual results. The public investments in the private equity portfolio stem from several successful public market exits, where the Apax Funds took advantage of the high valuation environment to realize part of their holdings. As of 31st of March, the share of public listed companies in the private equity portfolio was 21%. While an IPO is only a partial exit, it's worth noting that to date, AGA has already realized 3x the total initial cost of investment through pre-IPO funding rounds, primary and secondary sell down of shares, and the companies in the private equity portfolio that listed in 2021. At quarter-end, inclusive of these prior realizations and current remaining fair market values, public portfolio companies have an average gross multiple of invested capital of 6.1x. As you can see, these investments have generated very attractive returns for AGA already, and AGA is also well positioned to receive further distributions in the future as the Apax Funds exit their remaining positions. Let me now review the drivers of return in the portfolio. The bridge you can see on this page breaks down the total return of 21... Sorry, 20.1% achieved in the private equity portfolio and to its main drivers. As you can see from the bridge, other than a small tailwind from foreign exchange, all of the return is supported by underlying earnings growth in the portfolio. This page highlights why the investment strategy of the Apax Funds is critical to achieve resilient performance, also in an economic environment which has become more uncertain and more volatile. As a reminder, the foundation of the Apax Funds investment strategy involves investing in companies which are in attractive subsectors but are not fully polished. Because the businesses are not fully polished, it's possible to buy at multiples which are at a discount to comparable companies. The thesis then involves pulling micro levers to accelerate business performance and improve quality so that the funds can benefit from both material increases in earnings, as well as potential re-rating as the quality of the business is high and recognized as such an exit. The investment strategy is therefore not predicated on continued tailwinds in financial markets, but rather on pulling micro levers to support ongoing growth and quality of earnings as the businesses are transformed. If the environment continues to remain uncertain, in fact, there should be opportunity for attractive new private equity deals that can be exploited with this investment strategy. Also further point on this bridge, and as I've highlighted before, the average leverage levels in the portfolio remain modest at only 4.5x EBITDA. This leads me onto the next slide, which summarizes the track record of uplifts achieved in private equity. Again, the Apax Funds' investment strategy focuses on a good to great strategy, focusing on improving the quality of the businesses during the Apax Funds ownership. Very often, buyers recognize the improved quality of a portfolio company at the time when the Apax Funds intend to exit businesses, leading to a re-rating on sale. In addition to a potential re-rating, the Apax Funds also have a strong track record of selling businesses at significant uplifts to their last carrying values. Generating uplifts to the last unaffected carrying values has been a consistent feature for the Apax Funds portfolio companies for many years. To illustrate this, the chart shows uplifts achieved for all global buyouts funds since Apax Europe VII, a fund which was launched approximately 15 years ago, together with uplifts achieved in the strategy specific AGA, Apax Digital and AMI Fund, the Apax Mid-Market Israel Fund. In total, you're looking at a track record here spanning 15 years and some 50-60 portfolio companies. The message here is very clear. Uplifts and exits have been a consistent feature of exits out of private equity. For the Global Apax Funds, these ranged on average between approximately around about 25%-40%. Turning to deal activity in the period. There was one full exit, Unilabs. Unilabs is a leading Pan-European provider of laboratory and imaging diagnostic services. The company was held in Apax IX, along with a minor holding in the Apax X Fund. The exit from Unilabs was a very successful exit out of the healthcare portfolio. On the investment side, the funds made investments in three out of the four core sectors in which the Apax Funds focus on. In services, Apax X invested in Alcumus, a global leader in technology-led risk management and compliance solutions. The thesis to invest in Alcumus is to consolidate a fragmented market as well as to drive organic growth of the business. There were two investments completed or announced in the tech and digital sector. The Apax Digital Fund made an investment in YunZhangFang. YunZhangFang is a leading specialized accounting and tax management software as a service provider in China. The company's flagship product utilizes next-gen technology to help bookkeeping agencies automate and manage invoices, monitor bank accounts, and file taxes for their customers. The digital funds investment thesis is premised on backing a true leader in the accounting tax software space with significant growth potential and compelling unit economics at an attractive valuation. In addition, Apax X, alongside funds managed by Warburg Pincus, closed the investment, which was previously announced in T-Mobile Netherlands, the leading mobile and fixed telco provider, in the Netherlands. There was also a new investment in the internet consumer sector, more specifically in the branded consumer goods sector. Following recent investments in the pet food business, Nulo, in the Farnese the Wine Estates, the portfolio of luxury wine brands, an investment was made by the funds in Ole Smoky, which is one of the fastest-growing spirits companies in the US. This concludes my overview of the private equity portfolio. Before opening it up to Q&A, I wanted to also provide an update and overview on the Derived Investments portfolio. The Derived Investments portfolio, as a reminder, is a portfolio of predominantly debt investments that is used to manage capital not invested in private equity. It minimizes cash drag for the fund, generates attractive risk-adjusted returns, and strengthens AGA balance sheet by providing flexibility and liquidity when needed. Let's turn to the next page for an update on that part of the portfolio. The performance of the Derived Investments portfolio during the first quarter has again demonstrated its resilience and the high quality of the underlying investments. Focusing on the returns in Derived Debt, which makes up 91% of the Derived Investment portfolio, Derived Debt has produced a positive return of 2.8 x or 3 x excluding foreign exchange movements despite volatility in the markets. The yield of the Derived Investment portfolio remains attractive. Average yield to maturity 6.7%, and the income yield is 6.2%. Almost all of the debt portfolio is in floating rate instruments, and this is important as it minimizes duration exposure, but also provides return upside as interest rates go up. One debt position was sold out of the portfolio during the first quarter. In fact, this position was one of the very few fixed rate instruments that AGA had invested in. As interest rates were moving up and in anticipation of prices in high yield markets going down, this position was realized, creating a very attractive gross IRR of 14.6%. Overall, the derived investment portfolio is in good shape. It provides resilience and a capital buffer to AGA and produces attractive returns. Why is this portfolio called derived investments? You can see the answer to this question from the bar on the bottom right of the slide. Investments for the derived investment portfolio are identified using the knowledge built up through Apax private equity activities. About 70% of the opportunities benefited from prior diligence or knowledge about the company or sector. 11% of investments made were in companies previously owned by the Apax Funds. Obviously, businesses that continue to be well known to Apax. 19% in the current portfolio are companies of the Apax Funds. Therefore, the reason the Derived Investments are called derived is really because they all benefit from the same characteristic: knowledge that has been built within Apax by focusing on these businesses or sectors for almost 50 years. Now, before we go into Q&A, let me summarize a couple of key takeaways. AGA has a track record of delivering strong returns to investors. Over the last five years, the cumulative return was 82.5% or 14% per annum. The success of AGA relies on an investment strategy that relies on micro levers of improvement rather than financial market tailwinds. As the economic outlook has become more uncertain and markets have become more volatile, the strategy of focusing on coveted categories and good to great transformation is an all-weather approach to generate value for shareholders. AGA is positioned well in performing strongly. The portfolio is well diversified across sectors and vintages. Returns have been resilient during the quarter, and AGA can look back at a long track record of realizing investments in private equity at significant uplifts. AGA's balance sheet is also robust. The Derived Investments portfolio is healthy and is delivering attractive returns. The fund has ample liquidity and the recent increase of the RCF provides additional flexibility to invest and commit in private equity going forward. Overall, despite the challenging market environment, we are confident that AGA will continue to be able to deliver. With that, I'm now happy to answer any questions and want to hand it back to you, operator. Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If for any reason you would like to remove that question, please press star followed by two. As a reminder, if you are using a speaker phone, please remember to pick up your handset before asking your question. The first question today comes from Matthew Hose from Jefferies. Matthew, please go ahead. Your line is now open. Thanks. Morning, Ralf. Is there any update on the private equity deal pipeline? At the year-end, you made a comment, I think it was in the presentation about how the pipeline was strong and a relatively large amount of cash was held in view of that pipeline. I suppose now you've got the RCF too. I suppose I'm asking the question in the context of, you know, market conditions are pretty pretty fluid at the moment. Yes. Thank you, Matt. Thank you, Matt, for the question. A couple of comments here. I mean, as you've seen, you know, during, you know, during the Q1, you know, pace of investments and new deals in the portfolio was good. You know, more generally speaking, you know, if you look at private equity deal activity during the first quarter of 2022, obviously, you know, coming from a, you know, from a very high base in, you know, in 2021, private equity generally has seen a bit of a slowdown coming off a high base. I guess from our perspective, you know, from our perspective and as I've mentioned in the presentation, you know, we believe, you know, despite the increased macroeconomic uncertainty, you know, in fact, I think that there should be opportunity, you know, for attractive new private equity deals, you know, in particular, you know, with the type of strategy that the Apax Funds are aiming to exploit, you know, to buy not polished companies at attractive valuation multiples and, you know, improving them during their ownership. I think that would be my summary. Yeah. Thanks, Ralf. That's helpful. Thank you. The next question today comes from Charles Murphy from Singer Capital Markets. Charles, please go ahead. Your line is now open. Ralf, good morning. Can you talk about the sort of how you think about the sizing of the RCF? You've increased it. Is it sort of proportion of undrawn commitments or proportion of NAV? Can you put that into a bit of context, especially given you've got quite a lot of liquidity in the Derived Investments pool? Maybe two quick points on this, Charlie. You know, first of all, on the liquidity, you know, I want to remind you know, everyone that, you know, we've seen quite an attractive, you know, new investment activity during 2021. As I've just mentioned, you know, also Q1 has been active. As you know, you know, these new investments are bridged through the capital call facilities at the underlying levels of the funds. As these capital call facilities are being repaid, you know, we should expect further investment into private equity portfolio by AGA. Look, in terms of sizing of the RCF, last time the board has decided to adapt the size of the RCF is already a couple of years back. You know, where total NAV of the fund was significantly smaller. Second, you know, the amount invested in private equity has increased. You know, the fund has recently made two commitments to two new Apax Funds, and it's the strategy of AGA, you know, to commit to new Apax Funds, you know, if and when they come, if and when they become available. You know, the increased facility also, you know, provides AGA, you know, with flexibility, you know, to make commitments to these funds, again, you know, if and when they are available. Brilliant. Thank you very much. Charles. Next, we have a question from the webcast. Priyesh from Numis asks, "Where does the listed fund sit within the context of Apax's LPs? Top five, ten, 20? What are the return targets for the impact fund? Are they the same as the regular buyout funds? Any insight into the overlap in deals between the impact fund and other Apax Funds? Thanks for these questions. Let me take them each in turn. You know, where does the listed fund sit within the context of other Apax LPs? That depends on each of the individual funds. Usually, you know, AGA is among the largest investors in the fund. Definitely, I don't have the numbers here in the context of it's like top five. I don't wanna go into that detail, but it's usually among the largest investors in the fund. I think the second question was around the target returns and return targets for the impact funds. I mean, to be clear, you know, the return targets, you know, for the impact funds are typical PE fund type of returns. There is no difference here. The strategy of the impact fund is to invest in companies that have an impact. In terms of return targets, they are typical PE fund type of returns. In terms of, I think the last question is around overlap in deals, you know, between the impact strategy and the Apax Funds. I think the answer here is that, you know, the impact strategy is a quite distinct strategy, as I said, you know, focuses on impact investments, and particularly, you know, when you compare, you know, with the global buyout funds, you know, which are large funds, you know, focusing on larger global opportunities, you know, which reduces obviously, in principle, the scope for overlap. You know, there could be overlap between the strategies that we have, and if there was an overlap, you know, these overlaps would be dealt with by an allocation policy and process that, of course, is established, you know, within Apax Partners. There are no additional questions waiting at this time, so I'd like to pass the conference over to Ralf Gruss for closing remarks. Please go ahead. If there are no more questions, I'd just like to thank everybody for participating in today's call. Of course, if you have any further questions or if you would like to arrange a meeting, please get in touch with the investor relations team. With that, I wish you a good remaining Friday, and goodbye everyone.