Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Apax Global Alpha Interim Results 2024. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode, and the team will answer questions at the end of the call. If you wish to ask a question, please submit them via the Q&A box, which can be found at the bottom of the screen by clicking on the Q&A box. Questions can be submitted at any time during the webinar. Please note you'll be unable to submit a question through the Q&A box if you have dialed in using a mobile or landline, but you can send any questions via email to investor.relations@apaxglobalalpha.com. Questions will follow after the presentation. I would like to remind all participants that this call is being recorded. I will now hand over to Ralf Grüss to start the presentation. Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining Apax Global Alpha's 2024 interim results presentation. My name is Ralf Grüss. I'm a partner at Apax and a member of AGA's investment committee. With me on the call today is Salim Nathoo. Salim is also a member of AGA's investment committee, as well as a member of the investment committees of the Global Private Funds, the Apax Digital Fund, and the Apax Global Impact Fund. I hope to give you an overview of AGA's portfolio and the performance in the first six months of 2024, and Salim will then cover the private equity portfolio in more detail before we open up for questions. At 30th of June, 2024, AGA's NAV was approximately EUR 1.024 billion, which translates to EUR 2.52, or GBP 2.13 per share. The total NAV return for the first six months of the year was down 1.4%, which is clearly disappointing. On a high level, the key drivers for this were the write-down of Via across both the private equity and debt portfolios, which reduced returns by -2.9%, and also a continued drag from the listed private equity holdings, which had an impact of -2.7%. Now, excluding the impact of Via and the listed holdings, AGA's total NAV return would have been 4.2% for the six months to 30 June 2024. Now, having said that, we believe the private equity portfolio continues to remain well-positioned, with good earnings growth across the portfolio. Also, we've seen a pickup in both investment and exit activity in the fund. And let me double-click on investment activity for a moment. We've seen continued momentum this year with four investments in private equity that were signed or closed since the start of the year. Additionally, we've also seen significant M&A activity in the portfolio, with three follow-on investments signed since the start of 2024. It has also been a busy summer, and since period end, the Apax funds have signed a further four investments. There is also an increased pace of realizations in the portfolio that we can report. There were five full exits signed since the beginning of the year. Now, shifting gear, in June, the AGA board also announced a new capital allocation framework. Share buybacks have now been added to the toolkit of the company, and this creates the ability for AGA to play its role in value creation for shareholders, with buybacks to drive further NAV creation when the discount is wide. But let me get back to my comment on the portfolio being well-positioned. This page shows the NAV per share development in the half year, highlighting that earnings growth in the private equity portfolio was the key value driver in H1. However, earnings growth across underlying portfolio companies was not enough to offset the impact of Via and the drag from the listed holdings, and also the dividend payment of EUR 32 million. Now, specifically on Via, we talked about the impact on performance already at Q1 results in May. Since May, the company has filed for Chapter 11, and Via has now been completely written off in the private equity portfolio and the debt portfolio values, its remaining holding at only EUR 4.6 million, or 0.4% of the company's NAV. Now, if you look at this chart here, most of the Via private equity valuation write-down is captured under the other private equity movements column in the waterfall chart. The overall impact of Via during H1 was 7 pence per share. Now, touching on some of the other major movements, and I'm going to focus on net debt, multiples, and foreign exchange. Leverage levels across the private equity portfolio have been pretty stable. The movement in net debt is negative here due to absolute level of net debt in the portfolio going up, driven mainly by portfolio company M&A. The multiple movement continues to be impacted by share price declines in the remaining listed holdings in the private equity portfolio. Now, these positions continue to be actively reduced, and post-period end, Genius Sports and Baltic Classifieds Group were both fully exited. On foreign exchange, the movement here is a function of the euro strengthening against the dollar. So taking it all together, from the beginning of the period to the end, NAV moved from EUR 2.62 per share to EUR 2.59 per share before the dividend. And then the dividend had an impact of seven cents per share. Now, share buybacks also kicked off in late June, but have not had a measurable impact on NAV per share performance yet. Before handing over to Salim to cover the private equity portfolio in detail, I'd like to take a step back and put these recent NAV movements in the context of AGA's longer-term performance. Now, those of you who attended AGA's Capital Markets Day in June will remember this slide, and this slide has now been rolled forward to include June 2024. As you can see on the left-hand side of this page, there was significant value creation from IPO in 2015 until the end of 2021. About a third of this value has been paid out to shareholders through dividends. However, since December 2021, NAV has declined, and this is what you can see on the right-hand side of the page. The key point here, though, is that the unlisted companies in the private equity portfolio have performed well. What caused the main drag on performance were the listed holdings, which are largely residual holdings from companies that were IPO'd in 2020 and 2021. These listed investments have together created a lot of value for AGA to date, returning more than 3x cost. However, they've introduced volatility in the portfolio over the last two and a half years. Now, you can see the impact of both the listed and unlisted holdings in the box on the page. AGA also continued to return significant amounts of cash to shareholders through the regular dividends, and again, you can see the impact on the chart here. So what's the takeaway? Now, as I've mentioned at the beginning, NAV performance has been disappointing in the last two and a half years, but this was mainly because of the listed holdings in the private equity portfolio. The private holdings continued to add value. The exposure to these listed holdings has reduced, so you should expect less of a headwind from these going forward. And with the private equity portfolio being well-positioned and the recent investments off to a good start, we feel confident about the potential for value creation here, which is a segue for me also to hand over to Salim, who will talk more about recent developments in the private equity portfolio and its potential. Thank you, Ralf. Putting Vyaire and the listed holdings to one side for a moment, the core private equity portfolio is generally performing well. Earnings growth in the last twelve months to thirtieth June remained in the mid-teens, while the valuation multiple and leverage levels across the portfolio were relatively stable. As of thirtieth of June, more than 80% of AGA's private equity portfolio was to the three most recent global buyout funds, giving shareholders a nice vintage diversification, where one of these funds is now in realization mode, one is reaching maturity, and the third is being invested. On investment activity, we have seen an increase post-period end, with four new investments signed, as well as one significant follow-on portfolio investment. Similarly, exit activity picked up in recent months, with five full exits since the start of the year. This page shows the new investments since the start of the year. AGA expects to deploy a total of EUR 75 million, which includes the investments closed in the period, together with Zellis and the follow-on investments for Palex, OnCourse, and Tide. Now, Ralf spoke about these in the prior quarter, so I will only touch on them briefly. Apax XI, which held a final close at $12 billion in Q1, made two new investments. The first was in WGSN, a leading consumer trend forecaster from publicly listed Ascential in a carve-out transaction. Apax has a long history with WGSN's parent company, Ascential, with the funds having acquired the business in 2008 as part of the acquisition of EMAP. Working closely with our operational excellence team, the internet consumer team intends to leverage several organic growth initiatives, including improved product packaging and pricing strategies to grow the business. There is also an opportunity to expand into new products, verticals, and customer bases through M&A. Apax XI also acquired the Zellis group, a provider of payroll and HR software solutions to customers in the U.K. and Ireland, an emerging leader in the global benefits administration software market. This transaction closed in August, and the company has already signed a significant follow investments in the benefit software space. The Apax Global Impact Fund announced it had reached an agreement to acquire a controlling stake in Integrated Environmental Solutions, IES, a leading provider of software to optimize a building's energy use. The Apax Digital Fund II, agreed to acquire IANS, a provider of tech-enabled research and advisory services for the information security industry. And post-period end, the Apax Digital Fund II, also announced a strategic investment in greytHR, a leading full-suite human resource management software platform in India. Apax XI also announced three new investments post-period end. Veriforce, a global provider of supply chain risk management solutions, which is in the same space as Alcumus, a high-performing Apax X investment. Altus Fire & Life Safety, a leading provider of regulation-mandated fire and life safety services in the northeastern region of the United States, where the thesis is to build a scale player through M&A. And And finally, Thoughtworks, a global technology consultancy, which will be taken private for $4.40 a share, with Apax IX continuing to hold its approximately 50% stake. At that purchase price, the transaction represents an uplift of about 55% to AGA's last affected valuation for its stake through Apax IX. And AGA's total look-through investment in Thoughtworks is expected to be EUR 54 million. While there is significant transformation to be done, which we think is much better to execute if the company is private, we see a real upside for both Apax IX and Apax XI. All of these deals are in our core sub-sectors and very much in line with our Hidden Gem Strategy. Since the beginning of the year, there were also follow-on portfolio transactions for Palex, OnCourse, and Tide, which demonstrates our ability to source both new opportunities and for the funds to invest behind value-accretive M&A. Now, turning to exits, where we have also seen an increase in activity. In Q2, Apax IX announced that it had agreed to sell Healthium at a 23% uplift, delivering a total gross MOIC of 3.2 x. Apax IX acquired Healthium in 2018, and over the course of the investment, drove substantial transformation at the company from being a domestic Indian player into being a global med tech leader. At entry, Healthium traded at a discount of slightly over 20% to the comp set, compared to a 20% premium at exit. In Healthium, Apax IX saw a true hidden gem, and this shows the Apax strategy in motion. As mentioned, Apax IX also exited its remaining positions in two listed investments, namely Genius Sports and Baltic Classifieds Group, delivering a total gross return on capital of 2.6x for Genius and 4.2x for BCG. The Apax funds also agreed to sell their minority positions in Idealista, which I will give you a more detailed overview on the next slide, and Affinipay, a market leader in software and payments, serving law firms in the U.S. Looking forward, and while the market environment remains uncertain, there is a good pipeline of new investments and exits, both in the near term and medium term. As I mentioned, in June, the Apax funds agreed to sell their minority position in Idealista. Now, Idealista is effectively the Rightmove of Spain and Southern Europe. Founded in 2000 and headquartered in Madrid, Idealista provides an online real estate classifieds marketplace for home buyers and sellers. This is a company that the Apex funds knew extremely well, having first invested for a majority stake in Idealista in 2015 through Apax VIII, supporting the company's co-founders in growing and professionalizing the business. Apax VIII's investment in Idealista generated a total gross return on capital of 5.3 x. Following the exit of Apax VIII's investment, Apex X acquired a majority-minority stake in 2021 alongside EQT. That transaction coincided with the merger of Idealista's Italian business with Casa.it. The team identified an opportunity to invest in a business they knew well from prior Apax VIII ownership in a sector where the Apex funds have a long and successful track record, having invested in 14 online marketplaces globally. The team supported the co-founders in further strengthening and growing the business in Spain and Portugal, while undertaking transformational consolidation in Italy to create a scale player and challenger to the market-leading player. Across Apax VIII a nd Apax X, the investment in Idealista is expected to result in total look-through proceeds of EUR 84 million, compared to an investment cost of EUR 22 million for AGA. For Apax X, specifically, AGA's look-through investment was EUR 10 million and expected total proceeds are EUR 21 million, implying a 2.1x gross MOIC. On this next slide, I want to talk a little bit about the most recent Apax XI private equity investments, as shareholders will get increasing exposure to these over time, and they will be a key driver of the overall AGA performance going forward. The fund is still in the early days of investing, but it is now over 30% invested and committed and is already off to a good start. You can see the first six investments here, with a further three signed in the last few weeks. Starting on the left with IBS Software. As a reminder, this is a leading provider of modern software-as-a-service solutions to the travel, hospitality, and logistics industry. The Apex funds identified this as an opportunity in an overlooked category with low penetration of modern software, with sticky mission-critical products.... The company has delivered strong performance in the first year of investment, with record new bookings and a full year ending March 2024, representing 70% year-over-year growth. In March 2024, the company acquired a modern hospitality software company and continues to have an active M&A pipeline. Moving on to Palex. This is a leading European distributor of medical technology equipment and solutions. The company is a well-positioned market leader in an attractive growth market with scale benefits. Palex has already signed two transformational acquisitions, which will see the company expand its geographic footprint from being focused on Southern Europe to becoming a leading independent med tech distributor in broader Europe. The M&A pipeline remains strong, and the company is actively looking at other transactions. Finwave OCS is a leading Italian financial services software provider and was a day one combination of two leading Italian niche players. The combination of OCS and Finwave creates a Southern European financial services platform of scale, with a strong competitive position in an attractive end market, which can grow further, both organically and through M&A. The transaction was completed in an attractive multiple compared to Italian and international comps. Next is Bazooka, a portfolio of non-chocolate confectionery brands. The Apex funds, working in partnership with Bazooka's management team, will look to stand the company up as an independent business and build on the success of its current product portfolio, with a focus on distribution growth, product innovation, geographic expansion, and the strategic acquisition of brands and complementary categories. All these companies were bought at a discount to comps, and while they will require transformation, supported by both our sector teams and operational excellence practice, they all have significant value creation potential. I've already talked about WGSN and Zellis, so I won't go into more detail. Overall, we are excited by the opportunities presented by the Apex Eleven portfolio, and given the relative size of AGA's commitment to Apex Eleven, these companies will be the key drivers of performance going forward. I will now hand back to Ralf to give you an update on the debt portfolio. Thanks, Salim. As a reminder, the debt portfolio absorbs capital not invested in private equity to limit cash drag, generate additional returns and income, and providing another source of funding towards the dividend payment and the recently created distribution pool, which I will talk about more shortly. Now, the debt portfolio primarily comprises investments in companies and sectors where Apex can leverage insights from its private equity activities. This integrated approach of having no barriers between private equity and credit teams helps position the portfolio to access better risk-adjusted credit returns. While individual investments are identified through a bottom-up process, the portfolio is actively managed top-down from a risk and liquidity perspective. Looking at the numbers as of 30 June 2024, AGA held approximately EUR 225 million of debt investments, which represented 20% of AGA's total invested portfolio. The portfolio achieved a total NAV return of 2.1% in the first half of 2024, and as I've mentioned before, Via impacted the debt portfolio returns in the quarter. If you were to exclude the impact of Via, total return in the debt portfolio during the first half would have been 6.5%. Despite a softer return in the period, the long-term track record of the portfolio remains stronger. The debt portfolio has achieved a 38.6% five-year cumulative constant currency total return, and this presents an outperformance of about seven hundred and seventy basis points compared to the S&P/LSTA Leveraged Loan Index, which delivered 30.9% for the same five-year period. Briefly commenting on the portfolio structure at the end of the period, 56% of the debt investments were invested in first lien loans. Most of these syndicated first lien loans tend to be more readily tradable when compared to debt instruments that are more junior in the capital structure. And we believe the current proportion of first lien loans held is appropriate in the context of the private equity commitments made by AGA. Not on this page, but worthwhile highlighting for those that have followed AGA for a long time, AGA also has two remaining derived equity positions, which represented less than 1% of the invested portfolio at the end of June. In 2024, AGA exited one of these positions, with the remaining two positions valued at EUR 4.7 million. Before we wrap up and move to Q&A, let me provide a quick update on AGA's capital allocation framework and balance sheet for those who were unable to attend the capital markets day. As announced during the Q1 results call, the AGA board undertook a review of AGA's capital allocation and sought feedback from shareholders. As a conclusion of that review, the board announced a new capital allocation framework, which took on board investor and analyst feedback. This new capital allocation framework comprises following elements. First, a distribution pool, which earmarks funds on AGA's balance sheet for buybacks, which allows the board to take advantage of the opportunity presented by wide discounts by buying back shares. And second, the payment of regular dividends to shareholders semi-annually, and this dividend payment is fixed at an absolute level of GBP 0.11 per share per annum, which is equivalent to 5.2% of AGA's June NAV. The board has also taken the decision to seed the distribution pool with EUR 30 million in June, and this allowed AGA to commence buybacks, and share purchases have taken place. The framework was designed by the board to also take account of existing demands on liquidity and capital in order to maintain robustness of the balance sheet, which is shown on the next page. So let me touch on balance sheet for a second here. The chart on the left displays AGA's balance sheet against the unfunded commitments made to the Apax Private Equity Funds. The majority of the EUR 903 million unfunded commitments relate to AGA's most recent commitment to Apax XI. The private equity commitments are expected to be drawn down over the next three to four years as the funds make new investments. Most of the Apax funds operate capital call facilities at the level of the funds, and this provides AGA with strong visibility on upcoming calls to the underlying funds. To fund these capital calls, AGA has significant available resources outside of its private equity portfolio. Again, looking at the numbers at 30 June, the available resources amounted to approximately EUR 586 million, made up of investments in debt, cash, and the EUR 250 million revolver, which was undrawn at the end of the period. These available resources represented 65% of unfunded commitments, and more importantly, if you look at expected calls in the next 12 months, these were covered by 3.9 x. As the pace of exit recovers and distributions are coming back from the more mature private equity funds, we would expect to see the level of unfunded commitments coming down. Before we open up for Q&A, let me just summarize the key takeaways of what we've discussed. Now, first, despite the recent challenges we've touched upon, the underlying portfolio is well positioned for further value creation from here. Then we've seen an uptick in investment activity with both exciting new deals as well as exits. The Apax XI deals that Salim talked about so far have shown promising momentum and will be a key driver of value for AGA going forward, and the exposure to listed private equity investments has reduced to 7% of NAV at the end of June, and this is down from a peak of 25% at the end of 2021, and it's expected to be less of a headwind going forward. The new capital allocation framework allows AGA to play an active role in NAV accretion through the introduction of the distribution pool and commencement of buybacks, while providing certainty of income to shareholders through the dividend. Finally, the AGA balance sheet remains robust as AGA takes a disciplined approach to balance sheet management in order to support unfunded commitments made to the private equity funds. That concludes the presentation, and with that, Salim and I are now happy to answer any questions you may have, and for that, I hand it back to the operator. We will now start the Q&A. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please submit them via the Q&A box, which can be found at the bottom of the screen by clicking on the Q&A box. Alternatively, you can send any questions via email to investor.relations@apaxglobalalpha.com. Our first question is from Charles Murphy at Singer. Can you comment on the PE environment? I see volumes are up. Is this because vendors have become more realistic about pricing? Maybe I'll take that one. So I think the answer to your question is yes. I think that we have seen an increase in volumes across the market. I don't think it is a complete market on fire or anything, but it definitely is more conducive than it was in 2022 and 2023. I think the other factors are that sellers, the companies have had more time to grow into value, and financing markets are more conducive as well. So all of that together has meant a more supportive environment. As I say, it's not one where the floodgates are open, and there are still quite a few situations where there is a gap between what buyers are willing to pay and what sellers are willing to accept. The next question is, can you explain why the LTM EBITDA growth rate has fallen from 18% to 15.6% in Q2? Given the strong EBITDA growth, is it possible to explain why there has not been a commensurate growth in NAV? What has led to the exposure to listed holdings increasing from 4% to 7% in the quarter? Yeah, let me take that question. So the big impact here is, or an impact here is, from a re-weighting of the stats as we are now looking at disclosing valuations gross of holdco facilities. Historically, the holdco facilities which exist in the funds were shown as part of the respective valuations of the underlying portfolio companies. And it's a better way of thinking about this, looking at the portfolio valuations gross of these holdco facilities, and there is now a separate line, you know, which shows the total amount of the holdco facility. There are comparatives in the presentation on page 22, you know, which restate the metrics. Now, specifically, if I look at EBITDA growth, you know, the right comparison is to look at these restated metrics, and then you look at, you know, 16.8% versus 15.6% growth, which I would say is within the margin of error. Again, the restatement of the value out of- The next question is from James Hart at Whitman Investment Trust: What is the logic behind changing the way in which the performance fee is settled, in brackets, cash versus shares? Will this result in a drop in management's demand for Apax shares? Thanks, James, for the question. The move to performance fee settlement in shares is to remove the requirement of reporting an adjusted NAV, so we can now report a clean NAV number. So the NAV shown now reflects the NAV due to investors. You know, in terms of the shares, there is already strong alignment here, you know, with other shareholders. There's about, you know, 20% of AGA's shares are held by Apax employees and affiliates. The next question is from Mark Thomas at Hardman & Co: Thoughtworks is going through a challenging revenue environment, and I see it's having a major restructuring exercise. What incremental skills does Apax bring to this exercise that the company could not have done as a standalone entity? Sure, I'll take that. So first thing to say is, Thoughtworks will continue to be a standalone entity while private. The revenue environment is challenging, but we have seen revenue stabilize in the most recent quarters. So revenues have been broadly flat, as reported by the company in the last three quarters on a quarter-on-quarter basis. There is major restructuring to do, and we think that's much better done in a private environment without the pressure of quarterly earnings that you have in a public environment. And so we have a plan working with management to execute the transformation. The next question is from Elliot Hardy at Winterflood Securities: Please may you provide some context behind the significant slowdown in revenue growth, 8.7% versus 11.5% in December and 16% this time last year? Sure. So, as Ralf mentioned, actually, EBITDA growth has been relatively steady, but we have seen a slowdown in revenue growth. I think that reflects the macro. We are seeing the U.S. consumer spend less. We are seeing in some of our B2B businesses a bit of slowing growth. It's not completely across the portfolio. Now, that's compensated on the other side by there's much less wage pressure, and so we've put a real focus on margin, and that's why you see EBITDA growth being steady, whilst there has been some slowdown in revenue growth. I'd say the revenue growth is... It feels a slowdown. It doesn't feel a meltdown or recessionary at this point. But there definitely is some slowdown in revenue growth. The next question is from Phil Smeeton at Auburn Investments: What was the premium or discount to NAV for the sales of Genius Sports and Baltic Classifieds Group? Looking at the slide 22 of your interim results, the other three exits show the number. Yeah, let me take this one. Phil, given that these listed holdings are sold over, or were sold over a number of trades, it's hard to give a meaningful uplift or discount for these. I mean, both deals have been very successful deals, with Genius returning 2.6x MOIC, and the Baltic Classifieds 4.2 x invested capital. So very successful deals, but given it was an exit over many trades, just difficult to give a meaningful uplift or discount number. The next question is: How realistic is it to include debt investments within your measure of available liquidity, given the crossover holdings in the PE portfolio? Is there any potential conflict? Yes, so, I mean, first of all, what I would say is if I look at the current portfolio of investments and excluding Vyaire, there is only two positions at the end of June, where there is a crossover between the debt portfolio and the private equity portfolio. So that crossover and overlap is relatively small. The second point, just sticking with that, as the question come up, you know, where AGA has invested in portfolio company debt, there is a strict conflicts policy which is being applied. And, as a reminder, there is a fully independent board, where the policy implies that any conflict would have to be referred to the board, if there was one. But moving away from that into the majority of the positions in the portfolio, which are not in private equity companies, I touched upon this in the presentation. I mean, consciously, from a top-down approach, the portfolio was shifted to include more first lien loans. And, you know, in particular, you know, broadly syndicated first lien loans are more liquid than privately placed debt or second lien loans, and therefore can be sold. And for that reason, I think it's fair and the right way to look at it, and that's how the fund has been operating, you know, since IPO, to include it in the measure of available liquidity. Our final question is: what's the situation with special dividends, which were mentioned during the Capital Markets Day? Yeah, let me also take that one. When the capital allocation policy was put in place, and for those of you who've followed the Capital Markets Day, the board was keen to make sure that, you know, the toolkit is broad. So they made a mention of special dividends being something which can be considered. So far, there have been no decisions taken on those. There are no further questions on the webinar. I will now hand over to Ralf Grüss for closing remarks. Please go ahead. I'd like to thank you for participating in today's call and, you know, for the questions asked. If you have any further questions or would like to arrange a meeting, please feel free to contact the investor relations team at any time. With that, I wish you a good day and say goodbye.