Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the presentation of EQT's first half report. We've set for 2023 to be the year of execution, and for the next half hour, we will provide an update when it comes to our progress in fundraising, thematic investments, performance, and of course, our financials. As always, if you've registered ahead of the call, you should have received an email with your personal pin code to participate in the Q&A. You can also click the telephone conference at the top right corner of the live stream window to ask questions. With that, I'll hand over to Christian. Next slide, please. Good morning, everyone. We've continued to execute on our strategic plans during the first half of the year. We launched EQT Nexus, our first product to offer individual investors access to EQT's diverse range of investment strategies. We've largely finalized the integration of BPA, and it's gone quicker and been smoother than expected, and we're realizing the benefits of having a global diversified platform. We're also the first private markets firm to set science-based targets, and now we take the next major step with EQT's Net Zero Guidelines, whereby all of our funds' portfolio investments should be on track to deliver on their own net zero pathways by 2040 or before. Being at the forefront of sustainability will make our portfolio companies more valuable, and it also strengthens EQT's position as a climate leader in private markets. The fundraising environment remains challenging. We're still making quite good progress. EQT X has reached over 90% of its target fund size. We expect to reach the EUR 20 billion target. EQT Infrastructure VI is currently at about EUR 11 billion. We're also there confident in reaching the EUR 20 billion target next year. However, the newer fund strategies are more impacted by the current fundraising environment in terms of time and size. EQT is now at EUR 126 billion in fee-generating AUM and EUR 224 billion in total AUM. We have more than EUR 50 billion of dry powder to invest during these interesting times. EQT has invested EUR 11 billion in H1 of this year, more than twice the capital compared to the first half of last year. Of course, we remain laser-focused on performance for our clients and our businesses and our buildings. All of our key funds continue to develop on or above plan, and we've taken action to manage higher interest rates to ensure portfolio companies can focus on strategic and operational long-term value creation and transformation. We continue to patiently explore exit opportunities. Halfway into this year, we're executing according to our plans with closed deals of around EUR 4 billion and we've also announced a few that are not yet closed, and we're working hard on the pipeline. Like for like, including BPEA, we've grown management fees by over 20% compared to the first half of last year, while remaining focused on costs and scaling initiatives, and this is now reflected in our improving margins. Next slide, please. Since going public in 2019, EQT's grown to become a global leader in active ownership strategies. In PEI's latest ranking, we're the top three globally in private equity and one of the only three firms in the world to raise more than $100 billion over the past five years. We've been taking market share steadily, jumping from $30 billion to over $100 billion raised. In infrastructure, a business we started in 2008, we're now top five globally, and we're already one of the largest in the world in value-add infrastructure. In real estate, EQT Exeter is now in the top 10, having been number 486 when it was founded about 16 years ago. Our strategy is to be an active owner, where we transform companies and assets to drive performance for our clients. This is why we're not in credit, an asset class where we're not when one is not really an owner, and thus, we're also not focused on accumulating insurance assets. We are, we like to call ourselves, performance chasers. Next slide, please. While challenging and taking more time, EQT's growth is broad-based across private equity Europe and North America, private equity Asia with BPEA, infrastructure, and real estate. We've already raised substantially more capital in EQT X compared to EQT IX, and BPEA VIII was a record fund, being one of the largest private equity funds ever raised by an Asian-based private equity fund. EQT Exeter's latest US value-add logistics fund closed at more than twice the size of its predecessor and almost $1 billion above target, again, due to strong performance. We're continuously winning new clients, having more than doubled our client base since 2019. Our clients are, on average, increasing the size of their commitments across vintages. This trend continues in our flagship funds, despite the broader trend of clients now in the short term, decreasing commitments in the current market environment. Growth is underpinned by top quartile performance, and four out of four of the key EQT funds that are in realization or exit mode rank also in the top quartile of distribution to paid-in capital. In other words, actual cash distributions to our clients, which is incredibly important through the cycle. Next slide, please. The market for actively managed alternative assets is expected to double by 2030, and then double again by 2040. Companies are increasingly staying private. There's a little bit of an echo from the studio team, if you could fix that'd be great. Companies are increasingly staying private, and in the U.S., the number of private equity-backed companies has grown steadily, while the number of public companies has actually seen a long-term decline. In a private environment, we can take a long-term view and deploy capital to truly transform and build businesses by developing rapid EV charging networks, as in the case of InstaVolt, or transforming transportation fleets while driving consolidation, as we're doing in Nordic ferry infrastructure, or automating and digitizing B2B and B2C relations, as in the case of Billtrust in North America. Our overall portfolio is thus performing quite well, there remain pockets of underperformance that we're attacking together with our industrial advisors. Looking at a different angle, across all of our EQT equity funds since inception in 1994, approximately 73% of our returns are attributable to sales growth and margin expansion. 25% is related to strategic repositioning, only 2% is attributable to debt paydown. In infrastructure and real estate, we transform companies and assets with a similar fundamental approach to value creation. Looking at our asset classes, outperformed public markets across cycles for the past 20 years and more, within private markets, EQT is a top quartile manager, outperforming most of the private markets as well. Next slide, please. Here we show that deal activity is cyclical, as you've seen, markets always come back, the long-term trend is upwards. Now in the global economy, as we approach peak rates and inflation gradually coming down, we do see some indicators of confidence improving in the capital markets. Public equity markets are up year-to-date, paced by big tech, and volatility has come down a bit. Debt market conditions are gradually improving. Equity capital markets activity, IPO activity, has picked up slightly. Also, as this overall sentiment continues to improve, we hope that buyers and sellers are increasingly able to meet. All in all, while investment needs in areas such as infrastructure, energy transition, digitalization of societies, the changing healthcare infrastructure around the world, all those capital needs are still vast, so there's a huge need for private capital in the world. Uncertainty remains in the global economy, we remain, as we say, internally, positively paranoid, hoping for the best, but preparing also for the challenges that might be ahead. EQT has a financial model. Next slide, please. Where our management fees are contractually recurring based on client commitments, which are typically 10 years or more in length. We're diversified across asset classes and regions. Our flagship funds are expected to deliver EUR 8.5 billion of carried interest to EQT over the life of the funds, the flagship funds alone. Combined with our contractual management fees and our scalable cost base, it means we have a very generative, cash generative business model, and we're one of the few truly balance sheet light public alternative managers. We have a long-term opportunity to continue to scale our flagship funds and our recent initiatives, as well as to launch new initiatives. For example, the growth asset class hardly existed four or five years ago, and now we have a $2.5 billion growth fund. We're establishing a similar strategy in Asia, and we're considering a healthcare growth strategy as well. In addition to these types of initiatives, we expect to grow through acquisitions, always with top performance and a great cultural fit being the key criteria, of course. Next slide, please. Being in a growth industry doesn't mean everyone will win. Larger managers like us are taking share with funds over $5 billion, raising almost 40% of capital in 2022, compared to only 20% in 2017. Last year, first-time fund launches were down by 40%, the spread between bottom and top and bottom quartile performance is 18 percentage points. Being at the top of the performance league and the size league in combination is important. The foundation of our success, of course, starts and ends with our people and our culture. We also have been able to strengthen our team, for example, with Francesco Starace, just joining EQT Infrastructure as a partner coming from Enel, one of the world's leading alternative energy producers. This is further strengthening our commitment and expertise in areas such as the important energy transition. Of course, we're continuously developing the EQT network of industrial advisors to make sure that all of our portfolio companies are supported and challenged in the best possible way. Looking at future-proofing, we've been ahead of the curve in areas such as sustainability and digitalization and strive to remain there. For example, we're aiming to be the most AI literate investment organization in the world. Using our own in-house developed AI platform, Motherbrain, to build on that, something we've been working on for soon 10 years. It's also about developing new distribution channels, such as we're doing with EQT Nexus. To hear more about that, I now hand over to Gustav. Next slide, please. Great. Thank you, Christian. As we talked about in our Q1 announcement, we continue to see very interesting long-term opportunities in the private wealth space. Private individuals historically face difficulties investing into our industry due to ticket sizes, complex liquidity management, and longer lockups. However, this is changing with more appropriate structures, and we expect the allocations to increase in the coming years. From an EQT perspective, we're attacking this on multiple fronts. First of all, we're aiming to increase the share of private wealth capital in our traditional closed-ended strategies through deeper and new distribution relationships. Secondly, we're launching broader semi-liquid strategies, such as EQT Nexus, in order to create solutions which are suitable for private individuals. Thirdly, we're looking at launching asset-specific strategies tailored for private individuals looking for specific sector exposure. In order to be able to capitalize on this significant market opportunity, we're also strengthening our capabilities. During the last two years, we've built a strong team. We now have around 50 employees working with private wealth across client coverage, product development, brand, and operational excellence. We're expecting to further build out these capabilities in the coming 12-18 months. Next slide, please. We're excited that we now have launched our first semi-liquid strategy, which offers easy access to a range of EQT strategies through one single investment. EQT Nexus will invest across our value-add strategies, with the key benefits being lower investment amounts, the possibility for periodic liquidity, and a simplified way to be fully invested from day one. We started off in mid-May, so still early days, but we're off to a very promising start, both from an end client perspective as well as the interest from distributors. However, as we said before, this is a long-term opportunity for us, and it will take time to scale. As a reference, we have one peer that launched a fairly similar product approximately four years ago, which is now at around EUR 3 billion in AUM. EQT AB has made balance sheet investments, which has now been transferred to EQT Nexus in order to seed the fund. This means that EQT Nexus starts off with an NAV of around EUR 350 million and underlying EQT fund commitments of around EUR 700 million. Going forward, for EQT Nexus, the rule of thumb is that approximately two-thirds of the NAV will be fund commitments and hence included in the fund sizes for the underlying funds, such as EQT X or Infra VI, while approximately one-third will be investments outside of the funds and hence fee-paying AUM on a standalone basis. With that, let's move into an update on the fundraising side. Next slide, please. Despite the tricky market, we have raised more than EUR 10 billion across the platform during the first half of 2023. In EQT X, we've closed out more than EUR 18 billion, and we're highly confident that we will reach the EUR 20 billion of target fund size, even though the tail end is taking slightly longer. Certain clients, including several private wealth platforms, have communicated that they require additional time to finalize their subscription and that the fundraising will therefore continue into early 2024. Infra VI has held its first close with approximately EUR 11 billion. A significant majority will be raised in 2023, and the fund will be open well into 2024, when we expect the fund to reach its target fund size. Newer strategies, such as, for example, EQT Future and Active Core Infrastructure, continue to progress, but more slowly, and hence, it's also harder to reach the target fund sizes in today's market. EQT Exeter US Industrial Value Fund VI held its final close at $4.9 billion, exceeding the target size of $4 billion and close to two and a half times the size of Fund five, driven by the top decile performance and the scaling benefits for Exeter being part of the EQT platform. Also in real estate, we sense that the fundraising pace has slowed. We continue to focus on the current fundraisings of EQT Exeter US Multifamily Value II and the EQT Exeter Europe Logistics Core-Plus II, which will both continue well into 2024. The EQT Public Value Fund has decided not to raise additional commitments, effectively moving into a closed-ended structure. This means that the fund will discontinue further fundraising and return proceeds to clients as value is realized. There is no time limit for exiting the portfolio companies, and Public Value will still be able to support the existing portfolio companies with additional capital if needed. As a reminder, the Public Value Fund represent less than half a percent of our fee-generating AUM. However, our approach to this topic is in line with our way of developing the business, where we try new things, and not everything will be a home run. We always take responsibility and address issues directly in order to ensure the best outcome for our clients and other stakeholders. With that, I will hand over to Olof. Next slide, please. Thank you very much, Gustav. We increased the investment pace somewhat in the first half of the year. Notable investments include Radius Global Infrastructure by EQT Active Core Infrastructure, three investments by Infra VI, Lazer Logistics, SK Shieldus, and Wind Tre, and IMG Academy, and HDFC Credila by BPEA VIII. Investment levels in EQT's key funds are now at 20%-25% in EQT Ten, 15%-20% in Infrastructure VI, and 25%-30% in BPEA VIII. Our investment pace is never linear, but overall, we are trending towards a 3-year cycle. Looking at exit activity, we signed the full exit of Vistra from BPEA V and VI, following its merger with Tricor in BPEA VIII. EQT's mid-market funds realized Ellab and BBS Automation in Europe and VBill in Asia. We also tapped the equity markets in the first half of the year, with EQT IX having its first realization with a partial sale of Beijer Ref. In the U.S., we priced the IPO of Kodiak. Turning to financing and the interest rate environment, existing portfolio companies have increased, focused on cash and profitability. In certain companies, we've strengthened capital structures to ensure financing does not limit the ability to realize the full potential plans, be it through continuous investments or acquisitions. For existing portfolio companies, the maturities are mainly in 2026, 2027, and 2028. Where applicable, we're already now addressing some of the 2026 maturities. Financing conditions are constructive for the types of companies we own, often being market leaders, providing essential services or being supported by secular growth trends. We see the non-investment grade bond and syndicated loan markets performing relatively well, with investors in these markets being enthusiastic for new supply, given limited recent issuance. Commercial banks are open for lending, and the private credit market is open with competitive terms. For new financings, given higher base rates and wider spreads, we see approximately twice the cost compared to the levels we saw before inflation and rates started to increase. Although margins and coupons in the capital markets have actually moderated somewhat versus last year. Next slide, please. Fee-paying AUM increased by approximately EUR 13 billion during the first half, and we reached EUR 126 billion of AUM by the end of the quarter. Gross inflows in the first half was primarily related to EQT Infrastructure and EQT X. EQT Active Core Infrastructure contributed approximately EUR 1 billion of gross inflows as well. We've had some smaller impacts from ongoing fundraisers in EQT Exeter, with most of the Industrial Value from VI already being in our AUM at the start of the year. Investments in portfolio companies and funds charging on invested capital also contributed to the higher AUM. Realization activity was relatively low, and some exits are yet to close, which means those companies and assets are still part of our AUM. Looking at the year-over-year figure, we had a meaningful increase, with EUR 65 billion of inflows, largely consisting of a mix of combination with BPEA, as well as EQT X and Infra VI and other fundraisings. Next slide, please. Let me next provide an update on a few different topics. We announced this morning a buyback program of approximately 1.8 million shares, or less than 0.2% of our share capital. We expect to run these types of buybacks twice a year, with the objective of keeping the number of outstanding shares flat over time in relation to EQT's equity-based incentive programs. When it comes to the 2021 lock-up revision, partners committed to reinvest half of the net proceeds into EQT funds over a fund cycle. More than 95% of these commitments have already been made, and since the lock-up revision in 21, the stock liquidity has doubled approximately. Today, EQT is included in most major indices, including the MSCI ESG Leaders Index and the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes. Over time, we think it would be positive for the share if we had a higher free float and additional liquidity and higher index weights. Under EQT's Science Based Targets initiative, 21 portfolio companies have validated science-based targets, and additionally, 32 have started the process to set their own science-based targets. Taking the next step in our decarbonization journey, we recently published EQT's Net Zero Guidelines, available on EQT's website. All of the EQT funds portfolio investments, except smaller investments, should be on track to deliver on their own net zero pathways by 2024. This is a step change from our previous targets that mainly addressed setting the targets. I will now hand over to Kim. Next slide, please. Thank you, Olof, and good morning, everyone. Fund valuations were, for the most part, flat or marginally positive in the period, underpinned by continued underlying operational performance and supportive public market valuation benchmarks. Looking across key funds on an aggregated basis, our value increase year to date was around 8%. Operating performance remains healthy across the portfolio, despite inflationary headwinds and rising interest rates. Performance in our infrastructure portfolio companies remains robust. We've seen lower EBITDA in certain companies due to the time lag of inflation pass-through. However, we expect margins to stabilize and improve in these companies. In our private equity funds, we see strong growth with technology services and industrial technology companies performing well on both top line and EBITDA. In healthcare, EBITDA is not growing as quickly as top line, but is still at very attractive levels. In BPEA EQT, we also saw strong continued earnings growth in tech services and services. Valuations are somewhat impacted by some of the listed companies in the portfolio. Within real estate, valuations came down last year as we saw tougher markets. Markets are still weak, but in general, around the levels from Q4. Our real estate portfolio is approximately 90% invested in logistics and predominantly in the U.S., and to some extent, Europe. Occupancy remains high, market rents are strong, and valuation write-downs have stabilized in 2023. We see continued pressure in office, life sciences sector, but this comprises only a small part of the portfolio overall. We're starting to find interesting investment opportunities in real estate again. Next slide, please. Since our IPO, we've had two step changes in our revenues. First in 2021, from the acquisition of EQT Exeter and the fundraisings of EQT IX and Infra V. In 2022, we were approaching a similar step-up with fuller effects from BPEA, from Infra VI and EQT X in 2023 and 2024. In H1 2023, that trend became visible, with management fees growing substantially to EUR 930 million. Like for like, this implies a growth of more than 20%. There's a mix effect visible in the first half revenue, where the first close discounts on the flagship funds kick in, which we expect to normalize over the year. The step-up in management fees comes with an expansion of our EBITDA margin, excluding carried interest and investment income, which expanded from 44% in H1 2022 to 50% in H1 2023. A testament to our scalable business model. Our EBITDA margin in H1 was at 54%, compared to 56% in H1 2022. Carried interest and investment income in H1 of this year was off to a slow start, based on a combination of flattish valuations and no significant exits in flagship funds that are in carry mode. Carry in the period was largely driven by Infra III, BPEA VII, and EQT VII. Our long-term carry expectations remain, and we are working to execute certain exits in the coming quarters if markets remain supportive. We're in a strong position looking into H2, and as Infra VI and EQT X continue closing out capital, we will get retroactive fees throughout the year from these fundraisings. The ongoing fundraises and capital we've raised in our other funds implies we have a large base of contractually recurring management fees for the coming years. Next slide, please. During H1, the number of FTE+ increased marginally from 1,790 to 1,814. Year-over-year, our FTE+ increased by more than 300, which was largely driven by the combination with BPEA in H2. The increase during H1 is to a significant extent attributable to hirings within private wealth. As we previously said, a slower hiring pace will continue, with selective hires to secure growth in focus areas, such as private wealth and the regions of North America and Asia continuing. These are also regions and areas with higher than average compensation levels. We are actively working with both our end-to-end processes and with our cost base, so as to be able to show further proof of our ability to scale over time. With that, I'll hand back to Christian for some concluding remarks. Next slide, please. Overall, our industry is growing over the long term. In that industry, we're taking share across strategies. We're now top three globally in private equity. We're top five in infrastructure and top 10 in real estate. We're performance driven, and our growth is based on strong and resilient returns for our clients. The value creation model we apply rests on real underlying operational and strategic improvements, growth and future-proofing. Thus, the higher interest rates we now see means financing costs are higher, but we've been through that before, and for us, it's not about financial engineering. EQT has nearly quadrupled EBITDA since our IPO, and we have contractually recurring management fees based on 10-year-plus client commitments, in addition to the carry from performance. EQT is on track to reach our performance targets across all of our key funds or even exceed them. We continue to build EQT for the long term, for growth, by scaling our flagship funds, driving our recent initiatives, introducing new strategies and distribution channels, and through M&A. Finally, we have a capital light business model, driving a strong return on equity, meaning we will also expect to generate substantially and strong cash flows over time. Those words, I'd like to open up for the Q&A. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we now begin the question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone. We are now taking the first question. Please stand by. The first question from Hubert Lam from Bank of America. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I've got three of them. Firstly, can you talk about your fee margin? I saw that's come down from 148 basis points last year, down to 145. Just wondering, why is that the case? Is it because of mix or anything else? What are the expectations of that going forward? Thank you. The second question I have is on fundraising. Some of your other peers are talking about improvement in terms of client conversion over the last couple of months in terms of fundraising. Just wondering if you are also seeing the same improving trends. Also tied to that, I know your target is still targeting your... To hit the targets for your two flagship funds, but just wondering for the hard cap, is that something that is possible, or are you just sticking to the target for now? Lastly, a question on costs. Just wondering how we should think about cost for the second half. Is it fair to analyze the first half, or should we expect possibly a pickup in the second half just because it seems like the FTE hiring has been a bit slow and maybe you expect that to ramp up more in the second half? Thank you. Thank you, Hubert. Kim, do you want to take one and three, and I'll take two? Yeah. The first one was on the fee margin, yes, you know, the fee grids are set at the commencement of a fee of a fundraising. There hasn't been any changes to the fee rates. What you see there is a mix effect. Two things, basically. One is that in the early parts of a fundraise, you're going to have a first close discounts. Secondly, you are potentially having larger tickets at the early stage of the fundraising. Those would be the effects. Just commenting quickly on costs as well. I think you should use H1 as a reasonable guideline for the future of the year here. Good. Thank you again. When it comes to fundraising, we have, you know, the question on the hard cap. We typically actually don't comment on the hard cap, but of course, we never give up until the last minute. For now, we're just saying that we're confident that we'll reach the target for the two flagships that we're raising. I think in this market, that's quite strong. Very few of our competitors are in that same scenario. Clients, it's hard to generalize, I know which comments you're referring to. You know, it depends, as we've talked about before, there are certain clients in North America that are, for the time being, in the short term, over-allocated to private equity or private markets. There are many other clients around the world, in Canada or in the Middle East or Asia or parts of Europe, where they're underallocated. Private wealth, of course, is coming. I don't see a trend shift in the short term, given our performance, our positioning, and our way of raising capital, we're, you know, we have that confidence that we mentioned on being able to deliver on our plans. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you for your question. We are now taking the next question. Please stand by. The next question from Oliver Carruthers for Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Hi there, it's Oliver Carruthers from Goldman Sachs. Question on real estate. It looks like there was an SEC filing published last week for the potential launch of an EQT external non-traded REIT. I appreciate this is just an initial public prospectus, are you able to talk to your ambitions here at this stage? It looks like the fund size is up to $5 billion. Thank you. Thanks, Oliver. For the, for the time being, the way we're communicating around those types of initiatives is that we are gonna be continuing to build products for the private wealth channel, that will be open-ended and long-term in nature. Doing that, you know, we started in Europe with EQT Nexus, and there'll be probably more types of Nexuses over time here. You know, assuming that strategy that was filed, launched, the first strategy that we launched with a North American base would be a real estate strategy. As we get closer to sharpening the pencil on all the elements like we've done with EQT Nexus, we'll inform more and more about the targets, the timing, the structure of that investment strategy. Got it. Clear, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your question. We are now taking the next question. The next question from Hemingage for Carnegie. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. First a follow-up just on cost. You said that H1 is a reasonable just starting base. Is that despite bonuses coming in H2, that typically drives up the kind of season of the H2 for higher costs? Maybe also on cost with regards to your initiatives on private wealth. Currently you have about 50 FTEs focusing on it. How do you see that scaling in the coming years, and how is the compensation level compared to the rest of the group there? Lastly, also on Nexus, the EUR 700 million in commitment, is that external client money commitments, or is that kind of seed capital from EQT AB? One last question would just be on Exeter. How much dry powder is left there that's not fee paying as of yet? Thank you. I'll take the cost one. Yeah private wealth, the related ones? Yeah. Well, yeah, well, the yes, the we are accruing for bonuses during the course of the full year. As mentioned, the H1 number is a reasonable starting point to estimate the H2. I would say on, let's say, private wealth, in terms of the development of on FTEs. What we said is, we've scaled it up from 0 to 50. We're not gonna give an indication on how much it will continue to, let's say, grow, but it's an area which we are continuing to invest in, especially, of course, as we launch new product, it will add people over time in it. Of course, it will also add revenues over time. On EQT Nexus, so the reference to the EUR 700 million is commitments to the underlying funds. The NAV of $350 is then a combination of right now of external capital as well as partly EQT AB, and then over time, EQT AB will go out of that strategy. On the Exeter question, there's about $4 billion of capital available that is currently committed, but not fee paying. That's very clear. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your question. We are now taking the next question. The next question from Arnaud Giblat for BNP Paribas. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Good morning. I've got three questions, please. Firstly on Nexus, could you indicate perhaps which distributions channels have already signed up to distributing the product? Also, I'm wondering the one third, two thirds from visible from underlying funds and incremental AUM in terms of growth. Do you have the option to have further incremental AUM if it's successful, for example, by co-investing more in funds on a co-investment in a co-investment bucket? The second question is on exits. You outlined during the call that there were a number of exits potentially coming up. I was just wondering if you could perhaps quantify the... How much ramp up we should expect in exits? Finally, on deployments, you've done well in deploying quite a lot of capital in H1. Just again, if you could talk a bit about the outlook for deployments coming into H2 and beyond. Thank you. Mm-hmm. Thank you. Gustav, will you take the first one? Yeah. I'll take the second one with, together with Olof. Yeah. On Nexus, we're not gonna, let's say, comment on which distribution partners that we work with. I think in general, what I can say is that it will be a few selected in the beginnings. Often there is some form of exclusivity period, either for a region or similar in the beginning, and then over time, the plan is to be broader and have multiple distribution partners in different regions. Initially, it will be fewer. Then on the second question related to Nexus. There is absolutely a possibility. What I talked about was only a rule of thumb, so to speak, being the two-thirds and one-third. If it would be that we would see a lot of inflows, we have, of course, the possibility to do more if we want to. Good. When it overall comes to the, starting with exit market as your question, you know, it is possible to make exits happen these days, either in sectors that are stable, growing, with strong cash flows, certain software assets, healthcare IT, and certain infrastructure businesses, for example. There it is possible to execute on smaller IPOs. We did one earlier this year, or just a few weeks ago, and we have one that's active now in Japan. We expect this kind of market to continue. Not a fantastic market for exits, but possible to execute with a very sharp strategy. When it comes to investing, you know, we said at the beginning of the year that we think disruptive times are actually an interesting time to try to find companies and assets that maybe otherwise wouldn't be available. You know, when we own companies and assets, we do that for three, four, five, six, seven years. The most important element is actually finding the businesses, being able to acquire them, and then driving that value creation for the long term. We think this continues to be a time where those opportunities will be, you know, exciting to go after, actually. Maybe Olof can give some more meat on the bone on some of those points. Sure, Christian. I think if you know, if you think about the deployment pace, if you look at our flagship funds, you will actually see that you will have one fund that is slightly ahead of being on the three-year pace that we've talked about. You will see that one is slightly slower than a three-year pace, overall, you will never have kind of linear investment periods across these flagship funds. That's why we said, generally, we are probably trending towards a three-year cycle across the flagship funds. Maybe to add on the exit side, as we also noted, we are further strengthening the global capital markets team that EQT has established, and we've also implemented practices from BPEA to run across the global EQT platform. I think there is also an opportunity for us to think a bit more creatively in terms of the exit processes, and how we transfer ownership of assets in various ways. We may not solely be dependent on M&A processes or traditional types of IPOs. Thank you. That's helpful. Thank you. Thank you for your question. We are now taking the next question. The next question from Magnus Andersson from ABGSC, please go ahead. Your line is open. Yes, thank you, good morning. Starting with a follow-up there on the previous question on deal activity, if you could say something about how the bid offer spreads have developed through the first half of 2023, whether there was any change towards the later part of the six months that could have an impact on the second half of the year. Olof, you sounded a bit more upbeat on the financing markets conditions at least lately, if you think that's something that will improve further during the second half. That's the first question. Mm-hmm. Again, I'll start, Olof can complement. When it comes to the, I'd say that the, you know, as time goes by and, you know, the equity markets have improved somewhat, the IPO market is, I'd call, partially open. The credit markets have continued to improve, even though, you know, spreads remain significant, interest rates are up, and I'd say all the players are a bit more careful than they were in the past. The market is overall a bit better, and therefore, you know, you have seen, you know, more transactions, you know, from us and other players. We've seen one or two larger deals actually happening in the private markets, which is a sign of strength. Hopefully, that trend will continue during the fall. I think we're still living in a world where, you know, interest rates are continuing to rise, particularly in the U.S. The global economy is uncertain, there are geopolitical issues, et cetera. That's why we try to remain pretty grounded and really go after companies where we have a crystal clear value creation plan, but also some form of downside protection. Olof? Yeah, I mean, the only thing to add is that we're, of course, active in the debt markets across the globe. At the earlier parts of the year, you saw, for example, Asia being more stable and the availability of being slightly stronger there compared to other regions. I think what you've seen is a probably a slight improvement both in terms of the different sources that indicate that they are willing to provide credit and lend to us in both our existing portfolio companies and for new financings. And maybe a tad, a bit better pricing also than what we had, at least, you know, in the earlier parts of the year or late last year. Okay, would you say that if conditions remain as they were towards the latter part of the past six months, then the second half is likely to look better in terms of deal activity than the first half? Is that a fair conclusion? If you're talking about the overall market, I would say yes. Yeah, yeah. Transaction activity, yes. Yeah. Yeah. I would add also, as we've said in the first half of the year, it's not necessarily that, say, financing markets have been the gatekeeper for us to do deals, right. The types of companies that we're investing in and that we own, we have had financing available in the sweet spot size of the investments that we do throughout the year, frankly. We've had to work harder at finding the right structures and the right sources of capital, but that in itself has not been the only determinant of the slowdown in activity that we had, especially last year. Maybe a final example of that is our offer for Dechra in the UK, producer of pharmaceutical products for pets, one of the global leaders in that field. You know, it's a GBP 5 billion-ish type of transaction, with several billion GBP in financing and several billion GBP in equity. We're quite proud that we're able to launch that transaction and raise the capital in this market. I think that is one sign that, you know, that deal activity is slowly but surely increasing. Okay. Thank you. Then the second one, just on EQT Nexus. You mentioned, for example, that the competitor that started four years ago now had $3 billion in commitments. If you could say something more about your own volume expectations and also perhaps on competition, because you're definitely not the only one that has discovered the private wealth segment as a way of tapping funds lately. Thanks. Yeah. We will not give, let's say, an outlook on our expectation in this. I think, the reference that we made is a reference, to some extent, also what we think is possible in the market. Yeah I think that's that with that said, I think that we're not gonna say more on our expectations. I think as you say, there are more players in the market going after this. I think we see that the ones that like us, are able to do this with our own funds, i.e., that do it directly with internally, so to speak, have certain benefits with the single layer of fees compared to other fund of funds. We think that this will be a compelling and competing offer on the market. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Finally, just a follow-up on cost and headcount. It seems like you or your mix is getting more tilted towards actual own FTEs rather than consultants. Will that have any impact on your average cost per employee going forward? It's a good observation. That is true. We have had historically more consultants as part of our overall FTE+ structure. In the last year, we have had a plan to convert those into employees, either those or others. That just means that the costs move from one line to another per se. It's typically not because of extreme cost savings that we do it's for other operational reasons. It doesn't dramatically change the picture. Oh, okay. Thank you very much. Thank you for your question. We are now taking the next question. The next question from Angeliki Bairaktari from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead, your line is open. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. First of all, on Infrastructure VI, I was wondering whether there is any seasonality in terms of the fundraising potential, meaning potentially a slower pace in the second half, as I would assume that most LPs now have made up their minds in terms of the 2023 allocations. Hearing what you mentioned today, it looks like Equity Ten and Infrastructure VI are both going to remain open for some final commitments a little longer than anticipated into 2024. Does that mean that we should not expect the next vintages, Equity Eleven and Infrastructure Seven, to launch before 2026? Last question on AI. You did mention in the beginning that you aim to be the most AI literate investor. Does that mean that you're now focusing a bit more on artificial intelligence as a theme within your investments? Thank you very much. Thank you. I'll take the last one, Gustav, you can take the first two. When it comes to artificial intelligence, I was primarily commenting on our own capabilities. You know, we created our Motherbrain, our AI team, back in 2014 when we launched our EQT Ventures strategy. We've been, you know, working on our AI for that entire time, to build capabilities, both to find new investments, to help us in due diligence, to help us track decision-making. Actually, the way that we work internally to make the, you know, the working environment around deal making more efficient and easier in terms of information sharing. With generative AI coming in, we can actually accelerate the, you know, Motherbrain's capabilities, and we're doing that. We have around 30 data scientists internally, plus our digital business development team, plus our tech team, that are all working together to drive that. We think there'll be lots of benefits in terms of, let's say, speed of execution, improving access to knowledge, better decision-making, et cetera, slowly but surely over time. In our newer strategies, or let's say our strategies that are focused on younger companies and cutting-edge technologies like EQT Ventures, certainly AI has been and will continue to be an important investment theme. I'm sure also you know, as AI develops, that there will be opportunities also for our companies to drive positive change in those areas. Can I just jump in. Sure ... and, uh, and- Yeah ... mention that Angelika, on the fifth of September, we'll do a webinar with Sven Törnkvist and Alexandra Lutz, who head up EQT Digital and who head Motherbrain. I hope you can all participate in that webinar. We'll share some more details, and you'll get to hear more about AI at EQT. Yeah. Gustav. When it comes to the first two questions, I would say that on when thinking about the next generation of funds, you should mainly think about it from when are they started from an investment point of view. That's what we said, that we still expect that to be around three years. The final close timing is not is to a lesser extent, impacting that, so to speak. When it comes to Infra VI, specifically, so to speak, I would say that, of course, there might be what we said is that we just recently did the first close of EUR 11 billion. Of course, there is an incentive related to that in terms of fee, which means that that combined with a little bit of summer period, you might have a little bit of slower pace in the coming, let's say, one-two months here. What we also said is that we expect it to be, let's say, majority done by this year. I think you should expect that we will continue to raise capital during the second half for Infra VI, and then that we will be reach the target fund size by 2024. Thank you. Thank you for your question. We're now taking the next question. The next question from Jakob Brink from Nordea. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Thank you. Just coming back to the fundraising, on more sort of top-down level. I guess the Infra VI pace was relatively strong, at least compared to what I had expected, and I think also consensus. Also listening to what is happening on some of your peers in the market, it seems like fundraising in Q2 has been quite slow, and you're actually accelerating the pace of fundraising in Infra VI. Could you maybe give some details on where is the money coming from? Is it existing clients? Is it new clients? Yeah, basically, what is the, what's the trend of the years, yeah, the drivers of this growth, please? Yeah. Should I take that, Chris? Yeah, go for it, Gustav. No, I would say that on a general level, I think, we see a little bit of a mix on it, so to speak. We both see, let's say, a large chunk of our existing clients actually stepping up and increasing their allocations. As we said, there are a number of our, also our existing clients that have, let's say, the denominator effect and liquidity issues, which means that it will take slightly longer for them to commit to the fund. I think in general, what we've seen in this, let's say, in this first half of Infra VI, is that we have a number of existing clients that have stepped up a little bit, but then also that we have a let's say, a very comforting level of new clients stepping in, and taking a little bit more than I think we would expect, in this, in this early stage of it, which is, which is encouraging. Maybe I missed the number, but do you disclose the number of clients now? No. In Q2? No. Okay, has the pace continued from what we have seen in recent quarters, in growth in new clients? Um- You mean in general, across the-? General or Infra VI? No, I recommend on a group level or in the future at all? I think, of course, we've had a number of new clients coming into Infra VI. I don't think it's, let's say, it's higher or lower on, in terms of a trend in it. It's of course, a little bit volatile, depending on, if we have a large fundraise or not. I wouldn't say that there's any trend in it. Okay, fair enough. Thanks. Just on exits, please. Basically you have done quite a few acquisitions yourself in the flagship funds, but also other funds, while exits in the activity, especially on the flagship funds, has been relatively muted, as we already discussed. Why do you think that is? Is it because EQT has better access to funding at reasonable levels, or is it because of, like you said, Christian, that EQT is among the top fundraisers in the world or globally over the past years? Or why do you think there is this difference, and what does it take to kind of kickstart that peers can do like you? That's a big, big and broad question. I think if you, if you look back, you know, five years or something like that, you know, what we try not to be market timers in terms of our philosophy. What you can see in terms of the market, you can see when, you know, when the capital markets are excellent, when the macroeconomic situation is excellent and when our companies are performing, that is, of course, a really good time to drive exits. It's also actually a good time to drive exits of companies which are not performing so well. When times are tougher and capital markets are tougher, you know, you kind of hold back some of the exits because you wanna make sure you maximize the value of the best companies, and it's harder to sell the underperforming companies. We drove a huge amount of exits across the firm, and so did the BPEA EQT, actually, during that time. That's also why we're, you know, top quartile in DPI, which is an important measure. Actually, the industry is starting to say now that DPI is the new IRR. You know, how we're actually delivering cash back to investors. That started the cycle. What we've also learned is to prepare very early. We start to prepare our companies much earlier for exit than we did in the past. That when the market conditions are there or when you get momentum with a strategic buyer, whatever it might be, that we can more effectively execute. There's kind of multiple parameters around the size of our portfolio, the youth of our portfolio, our DPI and our fundraising momentum. Of course, our overall returns are also solid, but that's really strengthened by DPI, and I think that's becoming more and more important to investors as they go through their cycle, as well. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, maybe more detailed question on slide 28, you give a summary of the performance of all your funds and the carry left to be booked. I guess I was just wondering, just to make sure, when you write that carry that is left to be booked, is that you write that it's on the target level? Let's say that you have a fund, EQT VII, for example, above target, do you actually assume that it will come down, or do you expect it to be flat here? Secondly, can you just remind me how many more exits is needed in EQT IX before that could come into carry mode? Yeah, I can comment on that. Well, first of all, this is just mathematically using the target rather than whether we are on plan or above plan. It is- Mm. It is to simplify the analysis. On the second question, as you know, it is a function of both exits and value creation, and it's not possible to give a sort of a number that so and so many deals has to be done before you get to carry mode. Historically, it has typically been in the region of three-four, but that could change, and we just made our first now, so we're not there yet. Okay. Very clear. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your question. We are now taking the next question. The next question from Nicholas Herman from Citi. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Yes, good morning. Thank you for taking the questions. Just a couple of follow-ups, please, and then one other one. Just the two follow-ups, one on fundraising. I know the comments, excuse me, that you expect to achieve the target fundraising for EQT X and EQT Infrastructure VI, but equally, that you also don't want to give up on the hard caps yet. I guess just with those two strategies having been activated in mid-2022 and end 2022 respectively, once you reach the target levels, at what point do you stop fundraising? Is there a contractual point at which you kind of need to stop after, let's say, a certain amount of time has passed beyond fund activation or first close? Or is there no such limit, and you'll just stop once there is basically limited chance of bringing in new money? That's the first one. On the second one, or the second follow-up on costs. Again, take your comments on the costs, you know, and that's us being a good guide for the rest of the year. Just on hiring, you've hired quite strongly in Central, that's mostly for private wealth, but investment teams are flat. I think real assets even down modestly. Could you talk about the outlook for hiring into the second half and maybe even 2024, please? Actually I just actually one little cheeky follow-up as well on cost. I mean, I also noted that cost per head actually looks like it rose in the first half, despite, you know, I guess, dollar weakness. Just curious, what drove that, please, beyond maybe some conversion from consultants into internal employees? Just finally, on M&A, I think I heard you reference that you'd consider acquisitions. Do you see opportunity? That was a stronger statement than I was kind of expecting. Do you see opportunities in the market, and do you see the potential to act over the next, I don't know, six, 12 or even 18 months? Thank you. Thanks. I'll take the last one, and then Kim and Gustav can share the others. Yeah, I can start on the fundraising. I think the easy answer is yes, there is a contractual, let's say, agreement with the clients, how long we can fundraise. For EQT X, that is in, let's say, the Q1 of 2024, while for EQT Infrastructure, there is a longer time period, just given that we just had the first close. That will continue well into 2024 before we would be at that end. I think it's always a combination of when do we see... What clients do we have left? What do we see, let's say, in the pipeline, and when do we think it's an appropriate time if we haven't reached the hard cap, close the fund? There's no specific timing under the structural one. Just to clarify that, is that you're saying that it's basically a, I don't know, 20 or 24-month stop after the first close? Did I understand that correctly? There is a contractual level depending on when the first close is, yes, and then it's different depending on fund. I see. Okay, understood. Thank you. I suggest we take some of the detailed questions, well, where we've been running over an hour, so I'd suggest we try to focus on the conceptual questions, and then we can follow up on details separately as well, of course. I'll be brief on costs then. Essentially, I think our guidance or whatever you want to call it, remains there, that we will be very restrictive in hirings, in all other aspects than private wealth, to a certain extent North America and to a certain extent Asia, and that those are the areas that we are. When you see that Central has increased, we're basically keeping the rest of Central flat, with the exception of private wealth. There shouldn't be any other increases there. That really should give you a sense for the cost increases as well. M&A. When it comes to strategy and growth, then, you know, we do grow in multiple ways. As we said, you know, we scale our existing funds. We, you know, we'd start, of course, want to grow and build our newer fund strategies, and then we launch also strategies beyond that. Then we look at M&A, and we know. If you look at what's happening more broadly in the private markets, we see here the same thing that we've seen in other professional services, in investment banking or consulting or accounting or whatever, that there's a trend towards five or 10 or whatever the number may be, global leaders. Then there are a number of niche winners, either geographically or in certain sectors, the ones that don't have either of those edges, slowly but surely get consolidated out. We do have a number of approaches and conversations, all the time. You know, when and if any of those are converted, that really depends on the combination of our strategy, the strategic fit, the cultural fit, and we like to partner with firms that are top performing. I think that's all I can comment on for now, I think you understand the long-term trend. Helpful. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you for your question. We're now taking the next question. The next question from Jacob Wesvik from SEB. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. I think most has already been answered, but one last conceptual one for me is, how should we, or maybe how are you thinking about return expectations going forward? I mean, the increase in new debt, so I guess you use less today in your acquisitions than a few years ago, but the equity ticket, on the other hand, have come down a bit. Should we still expect returns to be similar to what we have seen during the last five years, or how are you thinking about this? Yeah, this is a very important question. you know, we, as opposed to some in the industry, did not reduce our return requirements when interest rates were, you know, very low or even negative in some areas. We're also not making any changes to them now. We continue to want to deliver on our target returns, you know, in this cycle, just as every cycle. The way we do that is being active owners. Yes, of course, we have to choose and win the right companies and assets, you know, a huge part of the value creation is actually, you know, driven through the ownership period, through all the actions that we've talked about before with driving, you know, consolidation, innovation, digitalization of the companies, making them more sustainable, more future-proofed, whatever it may be, so that when we exit the companies and buildings, it's a, you know, a more even more attractive business than it was when we acquired it. We're, you know, we're not that dependent on the financial, let's say, on the interest rate side. It is, you know, the debt markets are important because they enable us to use a bit less equity capital, of course, than we otherwise would have. It's an important leverage element, but the cash flows and the interest rates, et cetera, is not the determining factor of how EQT creates returns. All right. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for your question. We are now taking the next question. The next question from Isabelle Hetrick from Autonomous. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I have two, please. The first is on acquisition of personnel costs. We saw EUR 240 million charge for this half, following EUR 201 million in the second half of last year. Do you expect similar charges going forward, and for how long, and what kind of magnitude would they be? Then secondly, just following up on the M&A point. Private credit is one of the alternative asset classes where there's, again, long-term structural growth. In the US, we've seen TPG recently reenter the market. Is this something you would consider, or is private credit now definitely off the table for you? Let me take the first. It's a pretty technical one, happy to go into more detail at a different occasion. Essentially, under IFRS, the proceeds that employees have received in the context of these acquisitions that we have made historically, and where these employees are subject to some sort of retained contract to stay on, is considered under IFRS a personnel cost. That's why we have those charges. They are non-cash. They are things that have already been paid predominantly in shares to these employees. They will continue until the lockup or the periods when these people are have to be retained are over. That's three to four years. also The to the, we have a guide on our website, which is a guide to EQT's financial statements, which has a very logical explanation of how the various adjustments work in our financials. Yeah. Thank you, Rikke. Now, when it comes to the strategy question on credit, you know, we had a credit business some years ago, and we divested that because we are, as you know, razor-focused on strategies where we can drive the value creation ourselves, with all of our capabilities, with our industrial advisors, et cetera. That goes across, you know, from ventures, through growth, through private equity, long-term PE, infrastructure strategies, and the real estate strategies. We think there's a large opportunity to continue to grow all those strategies. In particular, if you think about the long term, the need for driving change in society, whether it's digitalization or the energy transition. Infrastructure itself has a huge capital need for the long term. Real estate is the biggest asset class in the world. Actually, it's bigger than all other asset classes combined. We feel like You know, we have a very significant long-term growth opportunity in the asset classes where we can really drive the hands-on value creation. While the credits side of the business or our industry is by nature, more passive. You're providing credit to a third party, and they manage the business, and they drive it. For the time being, we're gonna remain razor-focused on our active ownership strategies. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you for your question. There are no further questions at the moment. Okay. Very good. Thank you for all the questions. Thanks for the engagement, and we now wrap up the Q&A, and wish everyone a very good summer. Thank you. Thanks, everyone. Thank you.