Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining today's Q&A. Look, it's a shame we can't get together, but hopefully, we'll be able to do so at the next set of results. I'm also conscious a reasonably large number of you will need to join the AXA call at 10:00 A.M., so we will call an end to the Q&A then c learly, you know where we are if you have any other questions. Now, one advantage of doing a virtual Q&A is that we have the whole of the executive team on the call, which provides me with some great optionality for all those difficult questions. Let's go right now to the first question please, Ruby. Absolutely. Our first question is from David McCann of Numis. Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking my question. Actually, I'll use my list for you, if that's okay. Just to kick off, firstly, in terms of the new guidance around the cost growth, can you give us some specific, articulate some specific actions you're actually taking to reduce the cost base, the cost growth to that new lower level? Just to, I guess, get some comfort with it, because it's a material change from the prior term. That's question one. Question two is related to that, w hat confidence do you have that this isn't going to negatively impact in some way on client and partner servicing? Obviously, not growing costs as much. Then finally, the third question on new targets you've articulated for Rowan Dartington and Asia, c an you say what funds under management growth you'd require to get to those kind of break-even targets? How much is this predicated on continuing to grow those businesses quite strongly, and how much is from other factors? Also, I guess a follow-up part of that. I guess it might be four questions really. To get to those break-evens, you're talking about in 2024, 2025. Should we assume that's linear through the line from where we are now or is it quite back-end loaded to get to that break-even point? Thank you. Okay. I'll take the RD and Asia question in a moment, but perhaps hand over to Craig to talk about the costs and how we're going to achieve the 5%. Yeah. David, what you're describing is what we're calling the financial envelope that we're going to be working within over the next five years as we pursue that plan. As with all plans, there is a need for a kickstart and t he kickstart is happening in the form of a review that we're in the process of doing and completing at the moment. You'll have seen that there are a number of roles that we've put at risk. We've really been through the process of looking at existing roles within the business as a whole and reaching a view on those roles will play in the future, in our future plans b ecause they've obviously had an important role in the past. We're thinking of ways in which we will adapt the business and grow the business and take a very different approach to the use of resources. Step one in that is the review that we're doing at the moment, which has put a couple of 100 roles at risk within the organization. I don't want to say too much about that, because I have to respect the fact that we're still in consultation. The output of that is going to enable us to keep the establishment expenses that you're familiar with flat and t he amount that we would typically grow establishment expenses by will be redeployed into other areas of growth and t hat's principally investment in technology and smarter processes. The question of how we'll go about doing it. I think we've got a reasonable track record of saying what we're going to do and then doing it. I think my answer is that over the next five years, the Executive Board as a whole has set itself this financial envelope to work within, and therefore that's what we will do. I know there's a follow-up to this question. Andrew, I don't know who you wanted to cover. Yeah. This is the confidence that we won't impact partners and that's a very good question, David, and absolutely key that we have to continue with servicing, if that's the right word, partners and clients, and we're very confident that we can do that within the financial envelope. To answer your RD and Asia question. There's a couple of bits in there. Firstly, for your modeling, I would just do linear. The numbers will probably end up being slightly different than that, but I think linear will be fine for your model. I also said in my presentation, which I'm sure you watched this morning, that we will do a Capital Markets Day later in May, and that we'll cover RD in Asia in a bit more detail. There's clearly two levers to that improving result. One is the income, and the other is expenses and w e would expect the income to grow faster than the group 10%, but we're not factoring in any massively heroic assumptions there. I think the other important point on Asia in particular, David, is that about half of the funds under management are in the six-year gestation period. Those will naturally start generating income in future years, and that's why we can see the trajectory to the sort of cash profit 2025. I think, Ruby, we go to the next question, please. Absolutely. Our next question is from Jon Hocking of Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Hi there. Good morning, everybody. I've got two questions, please. Firstly, can you comment about what your assumptions are in terms of advisor growth going forward? Historically, we've had this on 7%-8% trajectory. I think as COVID has interrupted that somewhat. What are you assuming out to 2025 in terms of the growth in advisors? Secondly, just in terms of the admin cost burden, I wonder, in the scope of these plans, are you planning on pushing back any of the admin burden to the partners? Is there a sort of implicit transfer, given Bluedoor's efficiencies on that front? Thank you. I might take the second question first. I think you were saying, are we passing some admin costs to the partner? The answer there quite simply is no. That model is not changing. In terms on the assumptions around advisor growth, I want to just come back to this. What we're trying to do is grow the business by 10% per annum. There's a whole host of levers we can operate within there. There's experienced recruitment, which as you know, was on hold last year and we've now restarted. There's graduations from the academy. They're supporting our partners to grow their business. That's making it easier to do business with. I don't want to give a specific breakdown of the 10% but it will be using each of those levers. We're very confident that we can do that. Ian, I don't know whether you want to add anything? No, I think you're right there. The range of levers and strategies we have within the group means that we're confident of the 10%, and that ranges from recruiting experienced advisors, as Andy says, developing our own academy, increasing the efficiency and productivity of our existing advisors. We're increasing our spend on learning and development and the impact there, particularly on partners in their first five years. It's a range of strategies, and we're confident of achieving the 10%. Yeah. No particular change from the past. We will continue to do exactly what we've done in the past. Some years, we might have higher advisor growth than other years. It is a whole host of pulling different levers. I'm not sure whether we totally answered your admin question or not, so I might just see if Craig wants to add. Yeah. It was more whether you're transferring any responsibilities to the advisers, given that they can do more things through self-service or encourage their clients to do things through self-service, rather than actually recharging them overhead. I think, Jon, Craig here, by the way. I think the way to think about this is that if we can have better systems and smarter processes, it benefits everyone. What the 2025 plan involves is finding different and better ways of doing things. Now, you mentioned Bluedoor. Over the next planning period, we see Bluedoor as quite a significant enabler because it enables us to build those smarter processes and IT-supported systems around it. It's certainly not the case of transferring activity back and forth, but it's changing the way in which that activity is carried out. If that can benefit SJP as a business and it benefits the partner business, that's a win-win situation and t hat's really what we're pitching for over the next period of time. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Jon. Can we have the next question, please, Ruby? Absolutely. That is from Andy Sinclair of Bank of America. Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Thanks. Morning, everyone. Three from me, if that's okay. Firstly, you talked about gross inflows. St. James's is now a much more mature business coming up for 30- years- old. How do you think about retention rates over your plan period as customers age, take retirement? How do you think of changes in retention rates in your GBP 200 billion, GBP 250 billion AUM targets? Secondly, you talked about moderate growth over the early weeks of Q1. I am just wondering if you could give us a bit more color about how we should think about that. Is that actual growth in gross flows year-on-year? I guess a pretty tough Q1 comp last year. Is that just leading indicators? Thirdly, I realize this is perhaps looking a long time out. As you look beyond 2025, if the business mix stays as it is, and as the business matures, thinking about the IFRS profit element as well and retained earnings, do you think you still stay at 70%? Do you think that can increase again o r how should we think about pay beyond 2025? Okay. Thank you, Andrew. I'll let Craig answer question three in a moment, and I'll perhaps try and deal with the first two. Moderate growth. Well, I think firstly it's important to remember that the comparative is a pre-pandemic comparator. We're comparing pre-pandemic with still being in lockdown. Moderate, it's obviously greater than zero, and I would probably say less than 10, and perhaps back to something in the middle there, something along those lines but t hat's what I would do in your models at this particular point in time. In terms of retention, we're not expecting any real change in those retention statistics when we look across the entire population of our clients. What we are seeing, and have been for a while, is people actually reducing their regular income withdrawals. Some of that will be because of lockdown and t here's a lot more planning around intergenerational planning as well. Some of the pension funds with us, for instance, will probably pass through people's estates and stay with us for another 50 years. We're not expecting to see any change in the retention rates and then I'll hand over to Craig on the IFRS point. Yeah. I don't see any change as we are at the moment. When we last put together a five-year plan, you go back to sort of 2015. This was something that didn't need to be featured in the plans that we made because of the way in which the balances were made up because of stocks of profits in different places. It's come onto the scene for the next five years. What we're doing here is rather than do an emergency stop anywhere, we're sort of anticipating how this is likely to evolve in the future. It's really important to have in mind that the core assumption here is growth. It's growth that drives that behavior within a deferred income balance because you're constantly moving more into the future than you're gathering up from the past. It is just a timing difference, but the 70% sees us very safely through the planning horizon that we have at the moment. I can't, at this stage, anticipate anything that would significantly change that once we get to the end of that planning horizon but it is all dependent on the scale of growth. Again, just to emphasize, it's one of those odd balances that grows where growth is sharper. Certainly, what we're putting forward now is a five-year at least sustainable approach to group distributions. Yeah. Sustainable and certain. Yeah. Could we have the- Next. Yeah. Next question, please, Ruby. Absolutely. Our next question is from Ashik Musaddi of JPMorgan. Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Thank you. Good morning, Andy and Craig. Just a couple of questions. First of all, now you have a new growth outlook of 10% going forward. What is giving you enough confidence on this 10% growth outlook? Is it like a mix of partnership and productivity or is it any better outlook for macro? Would you say that it could still be 15% just because the visibility is low, that's why you have gone to a 10% outlook rather than 15%-20% that you had in the past? That's the first one. Is something structurally changed in the business to go to 10% versus 15%-20%? The second one would be around the payout ratio. Again, you mentioned, clearly, again, going back to the previous question, is there something to do with IFRS deferral, etc., versus the cash profit. That would still mean that you will be accumulating cash over the next five years because you don't need more than that, because if there is no back-office infrastructure cost, then there's not much of leakage between underlying and net cash as well. What do you plan to do with this extra cash? You might not be able to pay it out or you just want to preserve it because of IFRS distributable profits but w hat are your other plans for that remaining 30%? Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Ashik. I'm probably going to go straight to Craig to answer the second question because it sort of continues from Andrew's question just now. Craig. Ashik, you're absolutely right. The impact of having these IFRS deferrals is that you accumulate cash in an entity. The one thing you can't do with that cash is distribute it because it has to wait in the queue for distribution, as it were. Now the fact is this is cash that over time will accumulate in the life company, and therefore you have to think quite carefully about what you can and what you can't do with it. The way we use this, the sort of data that we've used in our planning assumptions, we've taken a pretty cautious approach. We haven't made any bold assumptions about what we will or what we won't be able to do with that cash. The reality is, over time, as it becomes a more meaningful figure, there probably will be things that we can do with it that puts it to good use within the group. What I would say is that if for whatever reason, and I can't think of the reason, but if for whatever reason we couldn't put it to good use, that would not in any way affect the payout ratio that we've calculated. It's one of those things that over time we'll be working on, and one of our priorities will be to, as I say, put it to good use. Thank you, Craig. Just coming back to your first question, Ashik. The 10% growth on the size of the flows that we're doing now is still really attractive growth so i t is just a sheer scale point. We remain confident that we can do that for those levers that we talked about just now. Recruitment experience, advisors, academy graduations, helping partners, and supporting partners grow their businesses. Underlying all that, as I said in the presentation this morning, are those market dynamics o f a growing market, growing need for advice, intergenerational transfer of wealth, low interest rates not going anywhere. Yeah, we're confident about the 10%. It's not going to be 10% every year. Some years it might be harder than that. Other years it might be lower than that. Over a five-year time horizon, that feels definitely achievable. Could we have the next question then, please, Ruby? Absolutely. We do have further questions, but I would just like to repeat, if you would like to ask a question, it's star followed by one, and if you change your mind, it is star followed by two. Our next question is from Colm Kelleher of UBS. Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Yeah, thanks so much for taking my questions. First, on the expense growth of 5%. Very good guidance on that today. You indicate that there will be GBP 9 million of restructuring costs for this year. I suppose, as we look forward and lowering the growth in the operating expense base, is it likely that it's still going to take further restructuring costs over a couple of years? As you say, it's technology- driven, and I know you continue to invest in technology and automation side of the business in order to drive cost efficiency. Is it sensible to assume there'll be maybe some restructuring costs there beyond 2021 in relation to this? The second question is in relation to the timing mismatch between cash and distributable profit. Again, very sensible guidance here. I suppose even based on a 70% payout ratio on the dividend, there's likely to be some years where the dividend will be higher than the IFRS profit and may require dipping into the distributable reserve. I assume within your plan, you've allowed for that, you're happy to dip into the stock of distributable reserve, where needed, to support that payout ratio ori Is there any ambition to keep distributable reserves anyway stable? And then just lastly, related to that, again, related to a similar question earlier, based on your modeling, is there a timeframe at which the IFRS profit is expected to catch up with the cash results? I appreciate it may not be in the next five-year plan, but based on your modeling, do you have a rough timeframe from which you think this issue goes away? Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Colm. I'm going to pass both of those questions over to Craig. On the expense growth, yeah, I mentioned this morning a restructuring charge that we'll see in the cash results. As I see it, any business will always be contemplating change in the way it delivers what it delivers and the way it uses its resources. Am I, at this stage, contemplating a further restructuring cost of this size? I think the answer is no. There will be a constant level of activity within the business as we always reassess what it is we need for the future and what we need to change from the past. I think I used the expression in an earlier question, kick start. I think what this restructuring charge will represent is a kick start to a new plan going forward for the next five years. My anticipation at this stage will be is that to the extent we have additional costs coming through on change, that will just be absorbed into the operational cost base. On the payout ratio, it's always complicated, Colm, as you know, because you're looking at distributable profits at a statutory entity level. There are one or two of those statutory entities that are quite complicated because of the IFRS accounting rules. The modeling that we've done anticipates that this payout ratio will be sustainable through the emergence of cash-backed profits over the next five years. That's very much the basis on which it's been done. You talk about convergence. You'll probably already see some convergence, because one of the things that people will pick up on is the fact that we tend to focus very heavily on underlying cash for all the right reasons. We have also had the Bluedoor costs going through below the line. Of course, IFRS is agnostic as to whether it's below or above any line. It just goes through as an IFRS cost. You would already see operating cost convergence as a result of the completion of that program. Other than that, it's actually quite difficult, other than through complex reconciliation, to see the relationship between IFRS and the cash result because of so many other things that represent accounting changes rather than changes you expect as a result of commercial activity. I think you will probably see more congruence in the future than you've seen in the past. Okay. Thank you, Craig. Could we have the next question, please, Ruby? Absolutely. Our next question is from Andrew Crean of Autonomous. Your line is now open. Please go ahead. All right. Good morning, all. Hi, Andrew. Two questions if I can. Morning. Firstly, can you talk about the investment performance last year relative to benchmark on a weighted basis? Secondly, I suppose this one's really for Manduca. Are you thinking of changing the executive remuneration structure? It's still very heavily- guided to the embedded value, whereas every single question on this call is based on the cash earnings, which are clearly more important to the market. Thirdly, if you grow your funds under management 10%, your expense is 5%. Obviously, there's a bit of an issue about funds coming in and going out of gestation. What's the implication for that in terms of the underlying cash earnings growth as you see it? One thing just for the May Investor Day, I'd be really interested, not now, but I'd be really interested then to see what the profile of productivity is on academy recruits versus experienced IFAs, because clearly that's going to have an issue on how the timing picks up or how the net flows pick up as you swing between those two. Okay. I'm just going to pick up the second one on the executive remuneration on behalf of, I guess, Paul and the Remuneration Committee for a moment. Look, we had our remuneration structure approved by shareholders at the AGM last year. We are clearly hearing the feedback about having a little bit more around cash and stuff in the remuneration and so t hat will be factored into the future remuneration structure that comes back to shareholders for approval next time. On investment performance, we've got Rob Gardner on the call. I'm going to pass that to Rob. Over to you, Rob. Yes. Good morning. Both Andrews, can you hear me okay? Yes, we can hear you. Yeah. Yeah. Andrew, I don't have the kind of blended bit, but I can give you our portfolios, which, as you know, 70% of our sort of flows go into our portfolios. Our most popular portfolio, and this is probably the best representative, was 5.03% net of all fees. That was the 2020 total performance. Our other popular portfolio, strategic growth, actually did 9% and our adventurous did 7.6%. A lot of that was because we restructured our IMA with our three global funds, these kind of global quality, global growth, and global value. All of those three changes actually fared very well in 2020. 5% is probably a good starter for 10%. Thank you, Rob. Well, I mean, obviously for different clients, there's different benchmarks depending on how they did. As you know, if you took a 60-40 FTSE Gilts portfolio, that was sort of 2.5%. If you took MSCI World, as you know, did very well, was sort of 12.3%. I mean, most of our clients have historically been benchmarked to a kind of ARC FTSE benchmark, where we're trying to transition to is a more sort of global outlook benchmark for our clients. Each one of those is with reference to the amount of risk the client wants to take. The managed portfolio is a 60-40 benchmark. It sounds, Andrew, as if we might link you up with Rob for a conversation at some point in the future. Craig, can I pass the underlying cash earnings question to you? Yeah. Just very briefly. I suppose most people on this call have got their own models, so they'll be able to plug in the data and come up with their own answer. I think at a high level, the way I see this is that if you can contain the cost at a lower rate than the costs were growing in the past, you get the immediate benefit of that cumulatively in any cash results over a planning period. Whereas if the growth in funds under management are lower, when you take into account the fact that a sizable portion of that goes through a six-year gestation period, you're not seeing any disbenefit of a lower growth in fund. If anything, there's a potentially positive impact there but it i s probably better for me to leave people to their own models to calculate what they believe the answer would be. Okay. Thank you, Craig. I thought it would be helpful. Okay, thanks. Thanks, Andrew. Thank you, Craig. Ruby, could we have the next question, please? Absolutely. Our next question is from Andrew Baker of Citi. Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Great. Hi, everyone, and thanks for taking my questions. Three from me, if I may. Just on the 10% flow growth, are you able to give any expectations on timing? Are you expecting lower growth in 2021 and then maybe a catch-up thereafter, o r do you see it as more even and then s econdly, on advisor productivity. As we come out of COVID, have the forced learnings or the forced digital learnings from the past year increased your productivity expectations going forward for your advisor base? And then finally, just on the FSCS levy. Obviously, the FCA has come out with a goal of potentially redesigning the system to make the polluters pay. Do you have any sense on when these changes might actually come through and any potential benefit if they do? Thank you. Okay. I'll take the first question, then hand over to Ian on the productivity and the FSCS to Craig. Firstly, this is a five-year planning cycle, the 10% is expectation of annual growth over that period. As I said in the presentation this morning, there will be some years where we exceed that, there will be other years where we may fall short of that. We are still in lockdown. We have said that we've seen moderate growth at the start of this year, the environment's still challenging until we find ourselves out of social distancing. As I say, it is encouraging that we're seeing growth on last year, which was a pre-pandemic comparator. Obviously the comparators get relatively easier, and we will, at some point, hopefully be in a comparator in a post-pandemic world. Sorry, I'll say that again. We will be in a post-pandemic world with a comparator that was in a pandemic world and t herefore, that should be positive. You should see it as a five-year business planning cycle, not specific year by year. Advisor productivity and technology and stuff, Ian. Andrew, I think you maybe answered the question yourself in the way you asked it. There's certainly been a massive increase in learning by the partnership in using technology as a way of interacting with clients during the COVID period. As a face-to-face advice business, the business levels of last year have been produced with partners working from home, working remotely, and their clients also being in lockdown. The learnings during that period, as we take those into this year, with the lessening of the lockdown, the second half of the year, we've been able to move back to a full service face-to-face service, supplemented by the learnings through the lockdown of working remotely and interacting with clients and servicing them remotely, does give us confidence for productivity gains during the year I'm going to pass over to Craig on the FSCS levy. Yeah. I think you've picked up on the language there that the Chairman of the FCA used. I think we're of the view that the FCA are very clear on where the challenge lies. Inevitably, and as I think we made very clear at our half year, we're very supportive of the idea that the polluters in the industry should pay. I'd add that by some means, they need the financial strength to be able to pay as well. That's very important. As to when this will actually happen and when we're going to see change, I'm afraid I'm probably no clearer now than I was at the half year, last time we had a similar conversation. If there is a bright light on the horizon, it's the fact that our belief is that they're clear on what the challenge is and what the outcome needs to be. Okay. Thank you, Craig. Ruby, can we go to the next question, please? Absolutely. Our next question is from Stephen Hayward of HSBC. Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Hi, Stephen. Hi, good morning. Thank you very much for taking questions. I've got two, if you don't mind. On the Asian and DFM expenses, now, are they within the 5% growth target? Are they material, really, and are they going to be a worry over time? On this Asia DFM, getting to the positive cash neutral stage by 2025 or 2024, quite impressive. Can you give us the drivers of this? Secondly, sorry, doubling AUM by 2025 is kind of your blue sky target of this GBP 260 billion AUM, I think you said. Can you describe the drivers you need to get to that level of AUM? Thank you. I'm going to ask Craig to talk about Asia and DFM and are they in the 5% or not? In short, no, because the way we see Asia and DFM is on a net investment basis. The goal that we've set in the planning horizon is to turn what is currently a net investment cost into break-even and beyond as we've set out. Now, that's not to say that there won't be cost control. There will be cost control but t he way we plan for those investments is different to the way we plan for the normal ongoing operational cost base for the business. Thank you, Craig. In terms of opportunity and stuff, I've got Iain Rayner on the line. I'll ask Iain to come in in a moment and just talk about Asia, just to pick on one of those two investments. In terms of funds under management, Stephen, the target is to exceed GBP 200 billion. That's doing the 10%, sort of retaining the strong retention that we have with some modest market growth. Of the GBP 250 billion, as I said in my talk, is a stretched target. It's the gauntlet that I threw down to St. James's Place. You should very much see in excess of GBP 200 billion as being the un-stretched target, if you like. Ian, if you're still on the line, do you want to just talk about Asia for a moment? Yeah. Thanks, Andrew. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Great. Thanks, Andrew. Thanks, Stephen. Yeah, very briefly, we're really pleased with the 2020 numbers in Asia. As you have seen in the release, 27% growth in gross inflows and some good progress on reducing the net cash investment. We've got a plan out to 2025 t hat see both of those numbers continue to trend in the right direction. We're really confident about delivering early trading in both Hong Kong and Shanghai and Singapore in 2021 has been positive. We see some really good opportunities to recruit experienced people from private banks and family offices over the next few years that are going to help us deliver those numbers, basically. Real confidence around the delivery of the numbers. Anything. Thank you, Ian. I'm conscious some of you are going to have to jump off in a moment, but we have two more questions, I think, lined up in the queue. We will answer both of those. For those of you who have to jump off, look, thank you. I am looking forward to meeting you again soon. In the meantime, please stay safe. You know where to find us. Ruby, could you go to the next question, please? Absolutely. We have Rhea Shah of Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Thanks, Ruby. Thanks, Andrew, Craig. Three questions from me. The first one, how sustainable is the 10% per annum flows growth beyond this fifth year, given that there's a buildup of pent-up savings, particularly during COVID? Secondly, how sustainable is the 5% per annum controllable cost growth beyond year five, given that the staff savings from the redundancies are all near-term? And then thirdly, just looking at the academy, it feels like it's going to become a more important part of your recruitment strategy if the market for existing advisers is in a decline. We're seeing news about other wealth managers starting their own academies or having also run them for a few years. Are you seeing any impact from that on your own academy recruitment? Could this become an issue over the medium term? Yeah, I'm going to pass the academy question in a moment to Peter Edwards. In terms of the 10%, clearly, this is a five-year planning cycle, but the market dynamics are very exciting. I'm not going to give a statement now, but we would expect to be able to continue to grow in it beyond 2025 because the market is very exciting. In terms of the expenses, look, Craig is a really mean CFO, so I'm pretty sure we can stick to the 5% going forward as well. Craig, do you want to add anything to that? No, I think the way to see this, as Andrew says, this is a five-year planning cycle, but I can't imagine for one minute that when the next five-year planning cycle is done, we won't be putting ourselves under pressure to make sure we take advantage of all the things that are available to us to be better at doing things more effectively because it's a win-win result. Whether it's 5%, 4%, 6%, that's for the next planning cycle. I believe this is sustainable, yes. Thank you, Craig. Peter, if you want to just come in on the academy, I'm sure if you would. Yeah. Hi, Andrew. I think that it's really interesting that others are indeed entering this space in terms of their desire to grow their distribution. That's not new, of course. People have historically tried to grow their own, so to speak. I think what makes our academy slightly different is we have been developing, refining, and improving the academy over a decade. I think you referenced earlier on, andrew, that a lot of the learning that we have taken through the COVID period will in fact enhance and develop our ability to flex the intakes on the academy, allowing us to basically move away from the traditional model that we've refined to date. I think an important question around the impact of others starting their academies on our ability to attract people. I don't believe that is the case. I do think that we have a very refined model, and it delivers what we require in terms of growth for our business. It's an important thing to note that almost 90% of people who apply for the academy are not selected to start a program. The bar for entry into the academy is very high. We anticipate maintaining that high standard of entry, and we have a very positive feeling about the growth from that sector in terms of net manpower over the foreseeable future. Thank you, Peter. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, we have one final question in the queue. Ruby, if we could take the next question, please. Absolutely. That is from Greg Simpson of Exane. Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Morning, all. Just a few questions from my side. The first is, can I ask you if the 5% expense growth target, if that's independent of market levels, or is it something you might look to flex up or down if the equity markets are particularly strong or weak in a given year rather than the kind of modest level you're budgeting for? The second question, I was wondering about the pipeline in terms of experienced recruitment, if you're seeing any increased interest from IFAs who've maybe seen the importance of having access to strong technology because of COVID, or do you think that the academy is going to be the main growth driver of headcount growth going forwards? Just lastly, we seem to be seeing a lot of demand at the industry level for alternative assets. Could you provide any color on how the relationship with KKR that you talked about a few years ago is going, and if there's any scope to launch more private markets funds going forward? I would guess that's something that smaller wealth managers can't offer access to for their clients. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Greg. I'll get Peter back in a moment on the pipeline, and Rob back on the alternative. Craig, do you want to just talk about the 5% growth target again? Yeah. I think it's fair to say what we've done here is we've set ourselves a plan, a goal, a financial envelope, call it what you will, that we intend to stick to. I don't think it's the case that, for example, if we found we were experiencing stellar performance on the markets this year, that we would feel that gives us a license to go outside of that because w hat this represents is a whole series of commitments that we plan to make over the coming years, and they're commitments in pursuit of particular outcomes, whether it be improved processes or new technology. I wouldn't see it gearing up or down with the markets other than to say that in the real- world, if, God forbid, there was something that really held back income, we're no different to any other business. You'd have to reassess your plans and make sure you've reprioritized based on the conditions that you find yourself in. No, I don't see any reason for stretch on this. Okay. Thank you, Craig. And Rob, do you want to just pick up where we are with the DAF fund and sort of other assets and our sheer scale and what it gives us? Yeah, no, a good question. Our DAF fund with KKR is sort of bedding in, and the challenge with private assets is always the sort of deployment of cash and getting the cash in the ground. I suppose just being open, the other challenge is having illiquid assets in what is in effect a liquid vehicle. The advantage that we have because of the structure of our business means that we can do that. As we look forward to 2025, my job is to ensure that we have the capacity for GBP 250 billion, and actually for the next five years after that, all the way through to GBP 500 billion. We are working on a sort of illiquid assets building block where we can kind of leverage off the work that we do on DAF. Exactly as you say, the opportunity to create bespoke alt asset solutions that just aren't available to other players in the marketplace is the opportunity. I just want to caution, the other bit, which you heard from Andrew, is that we've signed up to Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance and our flight plan to achieve that so we just want to make sure that those two work in tandem. Okay. Thank you, Rob. Peter, do you just want to talk about the pipeline and sort of IFA market in general? Yeah, thank you. In terms of pipeline, I think it's an important thing to recognize that someone who is currently an advice professional other than with a St. James's Place, the journey to decide to leave where they currently are to join St. James's Place in many instances can be over a significant period of time. Part of the reason we paused recruitment in that space during the lockdowns and COVID of 2020 was to allow people to focus on their clients. However, we have remained engaged with high numbers of these people, and they are indeed very engaged with St. James's Place. There's huge interest in joining St. James's Place from across the advice profession, but I think, again, along with what I said about the academy, the selection point to be able to join the partnership is quite high, which means that we take a significant period of time selecting the right people to join the partnership. In terms of the advice landscape and certainly the IFA marketplace, what I would say is it doesn't look like it's going to get any easier to operate as an IFA. Indeed, the burden of responsibility on individuals and businesses looks ever more difficult. We do have high levels of contact, we have high levels of interest, and we have high levels of retention of people who do make the decision to join the partnership when the time is right. I think the confidence I have in this marketplace is that as the academy has grown and developed and we have increased its size and scope, the blend of experienced advisors from an IFA or other advice background, along with these new joiners, gives us the correct age profile because the age profile in the IFA market is significantly higher than that in the academy or indeed in the partnership. Okay. Thank you, Peter. I'm going to call the Q&A to a close now. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Ruby, for facilitating. Obviously, you have any questions, then please get in contact. Thank you again, everyone. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.