Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the VEF Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Call and Webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, please press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please note that today's conference is being recorded. I will now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker, David Nangle, CEO. Please go ahead. Super. Thank you very much. Good morning, good afternoon all. I welcome you today from Manila in the Philippines where I'm on the road seeing companies and looking at some of our investment companies in Dubai for the last couple of days. This is a welcome to our Q4 2025 results presentation. I do have Alexis Koumoudos, our CIO, with me in this call as per usual. We'll spend the next 15, 20 minutes just running through, you know, key highlights of the quarter and the year given that it is the end of year quarter, and outlook for everything that we see at VEF. Then happy to answer any questions that you have. Moving on to slide two in the presentation, this is an evolution of what we've been saying for most of the year. Like the NAV does continue to trend higher. We're very happy. It's a reflection, obviously, of everything in our NAV, which is our portfolio companies, and their performance. Q4 in itself was up a healthy 6.9% in dollar terms and over 22%, for the full year. Obviously less in SEK, given the SEK strength versus the dollar. But the big driver in Q4 was Creditas, which we'll speak about, and its latest fundraise, which came true quite nicely in Q4. But generally speaking, the NAV this year was a reflection of our portfolio. And it's really about a portfolio that the risk-reward is much better than it was in the past, with majority at, give or take, break even, and growth is very much back in focus. That's been reflected in our top names like Creditas, Konfío, and Juspay, which is humming along quite nicely at a very healthy clip. The focus in the quarter, and obviously it's a big part of our story, is Creditas. Had a very big quarter, in terms of, one, results. And it's been coming. We talked about the transitionary period from hyper growth and burn to no growth and break even, and now they're starting to put the foot back down in growth again, but more sustainable growth at this point in the cycle. So through the quarters this year, we've seen them get towards 20% year-on-year credit growth, which is driving the income statement. We'll talk about that. And that was key to see those results coming through quarter on quarter on quarter as we went through the year. And that's key for our value and our future. Also from the Creditas side, they had a number of standout events in the quarter. We already mentioned or touched on the latest funding round, but also they closed the Andb ank. They got a bank license in Brazil, which is key for their franchise value and their funding, and also made a substantial hire at top level, and then last point, you know, the whole area of capital, capital management, capital allocation at VEF. We've in 2025 very focused on strengthening the balance sheet, exits. We'll talk about that in this presentation coming in, capital coming in to pay down some debt, buy back some shares. And as a team and as a board, we're sitting down, we're strategizing as we look into 2026, how we manage our capital for the best risk-reward for our shareholders, both in the short term, to manage that discount to NAV, but also for the longer term in adding new portfolio companies, and that's a broader discussion point. Moving on to slide three, you know, the key highlights and numbers I've touched upon of the NAV in dollar terms of 6.9% and 22.9% for the quarter and for the year, year-on-year. And from a SEC point of view, a healthy quarter of 4.6%, not a lot of currency diversion, and up 2.8% for the year. Share price obviously being weaker and flat year-on-year at the year end, and up 3.3% in the quarter. And on slide five, I just, this is a chart we show every quarter. And what you're starting to see since year-end 2024 is a gradual pickup in the NAV in dollar terms to now $434 million. As I say, this is. There is the micro level of our portfolio companies, but then obviously it feeds down from the macro level and the cycle level. You know, venture capital, capital is in a better place, capital is flowing, macro is in a better place. The companies that we're invested in, quality companies, are starting to grow again. And that's feeding through to a growing NAV, which is key, obviously, for everything that we do here at VEF. Alexis, over the past few minutes, you sounded around there any of the NAV resolution over the year. And I'll come back on some key points before I open up for questions. Thanks, Dave. Hi, everyone. Yeah, just looking at slide five, which highlights the valuation approach and key takeaways for the portfolio in the quarter, the main mover there is Creditas that moved from mark to model in the previous quarter to this latest transaction priced at the $108 million Series G round that they closed in December, which resulted in a $33 million uplift to the NAV. The rest of the top three names like Konfío and Juspay remained at mark to model and latest transaction respectively, which results in the portfolio being valued on 69% at latest transaction and the remaining 31% of the portfolio being valued on a mark to model basis. Of those 31%, 90% plus of those mark to model valuations reflect multiples further down the P&L, i.e., like below just the revenue multiple. Moving on to slide six. So on slide six, we just break down the NAV evolution in the quarter, and we show the breakdown of that and how it's attributed to different factors. So the biggest part of NAV growth in the quarter is attributable to Creditas's round, and the impact of that round on the valuation of the company. In the portion of the portfolio that's mark to market, you can see the slight positive portfolio growth was partly offset by the market pullback in the quarter. So you know, the holdings that are valued at mark to model had a relatively neutral impact in the quarter. Just onto slide seven. So in slide seven, we show an aggregation of the NAV evolution over the year and how the different parts or the attribution to that over the quarter. So, overall in 2025, we saw strong contribution to NAV growth from portfolio performance, the market performance, through comp multiples and also strengthening non-USD currencies, and importantly, we also converted $37 million of our appreciating NAV to cash, which shows up in that, net $18 million positive cash position over the course of the year. In aggregate, you know, there was $81 million of positive NAV evolution. As Dave mentioned, that was 23% year-on-year dollar NAV strengthening. On a per-share basis, that's 26% year-on-year once you factor in the buybacks that we did over the course of the year. Then just on slide eight, you know, we just use this slide to just reiterate our, how we continue to feel confident in the strength of the portfolio, the fact that we have a portfolio that's growing 25%-30% year-on-year on a self-sustaining basis. And you know, Dave will. A lot of that is driven by Creditas and Dave will get into some of the details of that in the preceding slides. But we're also feeling confident that there's been a change in the environment, far more fundraising activity in our markets. It's definitely heating up and there's been a flight to quality, which has benefited our portfolio. We expect to see rounds like Creditas's and Juspay's to continue to take place and continue to benefit our portfolio and help us improve our liquidity and balance sheet. Handing back to you, Dave. Super. Thanks, Alexis. Look, I think from a portfolio point of view, as Alexis alluded to, what's key is that you invest in quality companies and you've got a true cycle, performing portfolio. And that's what we're starting to prove out, having gone through the boom years up until, you know, 2021, the VC winter of 2022 and 2023, where we, you know, reevaluate our portfolio and set a valuation mark lower, and then the recovery and the growth that we're seeing in 2025. So you get to, you invest in these companies, you live with them through cycle, you see them in the up and the down cycles, and that's how you build longer-term value. So we're very happy with the overall portfolio where it is. And we do have tailwinds from an ecosystem VC capital flows valuation point of view, all very helpful to what we do. Specific to us, obviously, is Creditas. Creditas performs. It's a big part of VEF performing, as we all know, and you know, 12 months ago, these numbers weren't what they are and what you see today, and this is what we said the management was going to do, and they are delivering, and we expect that to continue into 2026 and beyond this year, and what you have is an improving growth profile at a very managed risk-reward basis, and they manage their cash flows at a neutral basis, and you know, in Q4, we'll get to about 20% year-on-year loan growth. Revenues are following that growth, and that's key for future value of Creditas as it looks to be, you know, at some point in the future, a public company, but real value needs to start growing again. The engine has really kicked in. As impressive or as important is what they're doing from an efficiency and cost point of view, enabling AI tools across the business. And you're starting to see that efficiency gains kicking in. So you're not just getting growth. We're getting more efficient growth, which is the future of this company and the industry as a whole. Besides the numbers themselves, you know, what is key for Creditas in Q4, all these things kind of came at the same time, but they've been work in progress for quite some time. One was obviously the announced Series G funding round, $108 million coming in. And we spoke about that in Q4. The bank license itself was approved in Q4, and that's key: lower cost of funding, more availability of funding, and a franchise uplift for the overall business and its optionality going forward. And then the top team, Ricardo Forcano came in from formerly of BBVA Group, top management. It's the type of caliber of top management that the company is now attracting, not that it wasn't attracting, but is on the front foot. And that's the kind of talent that comes with that. So it's kind of an ABC trade. So I think from all aspects of Creditas, we're very excited as we look at the company, where it's positioned, the tailwinds that it has, capital position, economics, etc., as it goes into 2026 and 2027. Besides Creditas, I wanted to talk about cash exit capital. You know, what's key is we're always looking at our cash and capital position and our balance sheet strength, and then we're looking to make logical decisions around that positioning. At the same time, we're very focused on the short term, more so in the past, and now transitioning as we balance. Obviously, short term's important, but start to look at the medium to long term for VEF and for all our shareholders. From a cash position point of view, we had $15.9 million of cash and liquid assets at the end of Q4, and that's our balance sheet stronger than it was in the past. But what's key is we pay down, you know, half our bonds, but we still have $26.1 million of bonds outstanding. So we're in a negative net cash position, and those bonds are due at year-end 2026. So any kind of decisions that we make has that in mind, and that's a kind of a cash liquidity risk management overlay to everything we do. When that capital started to come in from the exits we did last year, the initial allocation was obvious: pay down some debt, start to buy back your shares. Now that we're net negative on cash, we balance that with how we look to more cash coming in and also thinking about the future, and looking at pipeline and balancing all that into a broader strategy. That's all a work in progress at this point in time. What I will say is the key to all of this and us having the tools or the ability to do more, as in pay down more debt, and we do aim to go debt zero by year-end. That's one of our inherent goals. We do have options around rolling the debt, but the plan is to buy back more shares and then put capital to work in new pipeline companies. Key to that is capital in and key to that is exits. We had a very, you know, off the back of promises to investors, we had a very healthy last 12 months in delivering exits, which are hard in our industry. And we delivered three, as I said before, in India and in Brazil via IPO, via M&A, and via secondary sale, the biggest and the most juicy of which was Juspay. But $37 million of gross proceeds came in in the last 12 months. We look at the next 12 months, and we're fairly confident that we will see more exits. We're working on the number. By no means is VEF a wind-down vehicle, but we're taking our opportunities to take capital off the table at NAV plus-minus in our companies to bring that money in. And that strengthens our balance sheet, puts us in a stronger position. And with that capital in play, then we have the range of decisions to make and actions that we took like we did in 2025 around debt and around VEF debt and VEF equity. I think this, this whole ideology is just keeping the market updated in how we're thinking. We haven't set anything in stone at this stage. As I say, a lot of it is around our capital strength. With more capital strength, you can make more decisions. And then what's a priority? There's more capital you have. You can prioritize different things for both short term and long term. But bolstering the capital position is key at VEF, bolstering our balance sheet. We want to be a strong investment company with optionality of capital. We've paid down half our debt. We would like to go debt-free by year-end. Narrowing the trade at discount has not gone away as a concept, and we're all shareholders. We value our shares, and narrowing that discount is a key part of anything we do. We cross-reference that with our cash capital position versus what money is due in the bond markets, and then we're starting to gradually overlay that with the future growth of VEF because we look at our portfolio. We look at Creditas, Juspay, Konfio. We look at the past of Tinkoff, iyzico. We know we have the muscle to invest in best-in-class fintech companies. We know those companies can compound in value, and we know we can realize that value for shareholders, as we've seen with Tinkoff, iyzico, and more recently with Juspay. So balancing that long term with the short term is all part of the strategy that we're doing at the moment, cross-reference with the capital position we find ourselves in today. And just to finish off, so the broader investment case, and this is very similar to last quarter, we keep on saying it's about the portfolio. Any investment company is about its portfolio. And I think we have proven through cycle that we have a quality portfolio, that our investment radar is good, that names are now starting to break out in them in terms of growth, profitable growth, and they're raising fresh capital. So we're in as comfortable and as positive position as we've been for a long time in terms of the quality of our portfolio. And that's the basis for value creation and growth. Then you've got exits. Exit markets are back, but it's hard work to exit. We're proving that, you know, we can exit our positions, and we can exit them at the right price. There'll be no fire sales, nothing forced at the door, the right exit at the right time at the right price, strengthening our balance sheet. Then you've got questions around capital allocation. And we look to win the near term as well as the long term and put that capital to work in the most value-added way. It was paying down some debt. It was buying back some shares. And now, while we're in a net negative net cash position, we sit back, we strategize as in when the next capital comes in, you know, how do we allocate that? And then we're debating the short term versus the long term because it's very logical given our track record of investing versus the very short-term obvious trade at discount playbook of buying back your shares. We get that. We're very cognizant of that. And within the pipeline, we are flexing that muscle again. We are seeing best-in-class EM fintech companies around the world. We are excited about names that we could potentially bring into our portfolio, but we need to cross-reference that around our A, our capital position, and B, the opportunity to create value for everybody involved via our shares and obviously delivering our debt. I will stop there. And, operator, very happy to open the floor to questions at this stage. Thank you. As a reminder to ask a question, please press star one, one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Once again, please press star one, one to ask a question. To withdraw your question, please press star one, one again. We are now going to proceed with our first question. And the questions come from the line of Linus Sigurdson from DNB Carnegie. Please ask your question. Good afternoon, Dave and Alexis. Thanks for taking my questions. Starting off with a question on the Creditas raise, if you could just walk us through maybe some of the details and how this has affected your ownership stake in terms of dilution. Yeah, like I think last part first. From an ownership point of view, we broadly own what we did before. But there was a lot of moving parts to that in that the round itself was led and underwritten by Ant Group, who's a key investor in Creditas. So the capital came in, but there were a number of notes, outstanding convertible notes, of which we held from previous rounds back in 2022 and 2023. So they converted at a discount to the overall round price. So net net, we still own the same, sorry, approximately nine% of Creditas. It didn't move that much given the mechanics and the math of the round And then from a valuation point of view, there was obviously the headline valuation, but we value Creditas at the convertible note, the discounted note, just to be conservative and in line with our most recent effective capital in. Thank you. That's, that's very clear. And then, a question on Juspay, which you saw putting out some numbers a few months ago. And it's just, you know, any updates on how they're tracking along? What should we expect for 2026? Should we see some, moderating momentum, or is this going to continue to, compound in the same way? Yeah, Alexis, do you want to grab that? Yeah. Hi, Linus. Yeah, Juspay continues to execute well. So I think in for the calendar year of 2025, the company grew around 40% top line. We are forecasting the company expects to grow like similar at a similar pace, this year. I think the big variables within that are, you know, as they've last year was about planting seeds in international markets, and this year is about seeing those seeds like really thrive and start to contribute to top line. I think some of the variability about them being able to deliver 40% or maybe more will come from their success internationally. And so far, you know, we're feeling pretty strong. There are some large signed contracts, which can be quite juicy and, and fruitful. But yeah, I'd say, you know, 40%-50% top line growth for 2026, similar to 2025. Yeah, Linus, what you have is you have, you know, you got the, of the top three, you've got names like Creditas and Konfío that are coming back into their own and starting to compound back into that 20% plus, growth zone. They can easily go to 30% given the markets around the time. Juspay has been compounding at a healthy clip through that cycle. We do expect a healthy year again next year. Yeah, appreciate that. And then my final question was just double-clicking on this near-term capital allocation, how we should interpret those comments on balancing. I mean, should we think, you know, some new smaller exit before buybacks are resumed at scale, or is this something you'll be starting in the near term? Yeah, no, look, it's a very fair, fair question, and so we're not ignorant of the share price, and what I'd say to you is we're making no firm statement today, and that's not hiding behind anything, but it's, it's very clear that we need to manage our capital position given what we need to outlay, at least on paper, from a debt point of view by year-end, and that was a very cognizant management and board decision when we stopped the buyback, as in, you know, let's get the balance sheet to a more comfortable position, so for everybody involved, we are comfortable online on sites of exits. We would like to see those exits coming in. Nothing is guaranteed, but you know, as they do and the capital position strengthens and you go net cash positive, then you have the decision tree whether you keep the capital to pay down your debt. Is that the most important thing? In an ever-changing environment, that may be more important than buybacks, and then you cross-reference that with the clear IRR that you have in buying back your own shares as well as the indication to the market, which is very positive, and then you start to cross-reference that with the long-term value when you see some awesome fintech companies like ones we've invested in the past that we could potentially add to the portfolio. Now, we're trying to get all our ducks in a row, and we're being, I think we're being maybe overly transparent and communicative with the market about how we're thinking as opposed to just finishing our thinking and, and putting it all down on paper. But I think that we respect the market enough to share as we go. I think we've always done the right thing for long-term value for shareholders. We can't control the share price. That's very clear. But I think to your point, Linus, I think more capital in gives us more comfort to do more across all areas of capital deployment. Okay, thank you so much. We are now going to proceed with our next question. And our next questions come from the line of Stephen Nixon. Please ask your question. Good afternoon, Dave and Alexis. Thank you for taking my questions. Firstly, on your political situation in South America, following, like the U.S. operation in Venezuela, have you seen any impact on your business or any increased risk that you foresee going forward, after this development? Interesting. Not relief in the specific context. In a global context, clearly there's a lot of moving parts geopolitically, and the U.S. is at the forefront of a lot of them, and these are unpredictable. We wouldn't expect anything to happen in any of our investment countries in Latin America or elsewhere similar to what happened in Venezuela. I think it was a very specific case in point, and obviously we like the event. We like the outcome of the event, but the event itself and the nature of it was, you know, tricky, to say the least, but no, I think from the landscape in Latin America, the markets that we look at, Brazil and Mexico, haven't been touched really by that, and we talked to a lot of global investors who invest in emerging markets in LatAm. And even to other markets like Colombia, Chile, et cetera, we haven't really seen any impact. I think there's a very specific excitement around the potential for Venezuela off the back of what happened, but it's a country with many possible, lots of potential and many possible future scenarios. So, I think removing bad leadership is only the start, but then the pathway, there's a lot to work on there. But no, we've seen no negative outcomes or volatility or risk to any of our countries. This is all within the domain of a very fluid, noisy, global geopolitical kind of environment, much more than it was in the past. Yeah, thank you for the update. And then I think like most of the questions was answered by Linus' question, but maybe if you can share any operational update on Konfío and how their banking license application is going. Yeah, that's fair. No, because we've been overweight Creditas communication in Q4, and obviously Juspay, Alexis spoke about, you know, Konfío did very similar results to what Creditas did in terms of top line growth, loan growth and top line growth in the 20% bracket, albeit it wasn't the up curve that Creditas had quarter on quarter through the year. It was more sustained through the year. It is a bank that can do a lot faster growth. I think Creditas can do the same given the time, that their environment's in, so it can easily do 30% growth plus, as we look into 2026, but I don't think it'll start off that way. I think it'll grind. The Q4 is generally faster than Q1, so it really picks up. Margins are holding steady and tight. They're cash flow positive, have a strong cash position. And the bank license, we'll see. It's one where their position of, you know, we've said it before. I think as a Konfío's planning life without a bank license, albeit it's, you know, we know the benefits of a bank license. So very clear that it's in line to get one. Just when you're talking about regulators and timing, it's always a risk. The upside is clear, but like Creditas getting its bank license in terms of funding costs and franchise value. But we're comfortable it will get the banking license. We just wouldn't like to put a time on it because we've been there before with regulators and bank licenses and these things just take time. But the good thing in Mexico is we have seen bank licenses being handed out. So it's something that is and has happened. So it's not like it never happens. Okay, thank you very much. That was all for me. Super, thank you. We are now going to proceed with our next question, and the questions come from the line of Tobias Kjølsen. Please ask your question. The line is now open. Please ask a question. Tobias Kjølsen, your line is open. Maybe you are currently on mute. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for your presentation. I have two questions. The first one is about that I can read in your report that you underlined that you want to make new investments, and I wonder how you're going to finance them considering that you also want to reduce the debt and perhaps also buyback shares. My second question is if your intent to try to reduce the discount to net asset values as it's 50% right now? Thank you. Hey Tobias, thank you very much for the questions. Like I think our sharing around our direction of travel has been bigger picture and broad as opposed to specific. And we didn't mean to mislead our investor base in what we're doing. We are an investment company. We are working pipeline. We are very keen to get best in class fintech companies around emerging markets into our portfolio. It's been part of our muscle and our job for the last 10 years. So you know, when I say we've been building that muscle again, you know, we've been out there looking for these best in class companies. And that's part of our job. At the same time, when we looked last year and the year before, it was very clear priority around strengthening balance sheet, getting capital in, putting capital to work where it was most clearly needed, delevering, paying back the debt, and that's there still as a goal for this year. There are SEK 25 million plus minus to go, and clearly to buy back shares is part of the IRR given where VEF shares currently trade. What we did was we paused effectively in Q4 of last year around the buyback and touching the debt for now, because of our cash position going lower than our debt is due at year-end. And we wanted to continue to strengthen our balance sheet. It's a general top down statement where, you know, we are looking to transition, you know, to going to getting VEF back on the front foot investing. The debt still is very much there. It has to be paid. It will be paid. You know, our shares do trade at a deep discount to NAV. And there's many ways of delivering, closing that discount to NAV. And we have been working, focusing on communication, investor relations. We bought back some shares last year. Transparency for our bigger companies, exiting our positions at NAV plus minus to prove that our NAV is real. We continue to work that mandate. So there's many ways of attempting to, we don't control the share price, but attempting to decrease that discount to NAV. And it's in our interest as much as all shareholders' interest to have that discount lower, if even non-existent. That is part of our short term, medium term goal. We stopped doing everything for now until we get the capital in, and we're just strategizing around these things, and there will be a priority depending on how much capital we get in, you know, what pipeline companies we see, the IRRs in those pipeline companies versus IRR in our shares versus buying back the debt. So I think it's all just there. I think our track record last year was buying back shares and paying down debt. We're just talking about the three different aspects and saying that we're ready to go on all, but with $15 million of cash and $25 million of debt, we just paused, took a moment strategy discussing, and we're going to. We're really focused on the exits because with more cash we can do more things. So, you know, it's, that's on balance sheet. You know, we're also looking at potentially doing off balance sheet structures. We can use our investment muscle, you know, our ability to find on the right, get allocations, invest in class fintech, but do it off balance sheet by potentially SPVs. So it doesn't have to be A on balance sheet. It can be B off balance sheet, which doesn't touch VEF, but can benefit VEF in terms of fees, carry, and different ways. So we're just looking at all of this. We're discussing it internally. We're positioning ourselves. Maybe we're opening too much to the market, but I like to share as we go, and I like to listen to the market, and the market speaks very clearly. We take all that on board, and we try to make the right decisions as we go. Thank you. Thank you. We have no further questions at this time. So I'll now hand back to you, David Nangle, for closing remarks. Yeah, thank you. Look, thank you everybody for following us, for the interest in our story and our stock. We have people coming in, asking questions by email. Otherwise, we'll come back to you for sure. We're very happy with where we're at in terms of our portfolio. That's key. You can't do anything without a strong portfolio. We're very happy where we are in terms of cash generation and delivering exits. It's not every investment company that's in a position like us being able to do this. It puts us in a strong position. And then we're very clear and maybe overly leaning in around our thought process around what we do on capital allocation as we look forward. Watch the space. We'll be more clear as we go forward as capital comes in. But we're listening to the market as well as trying to make the right decisions for VEF, both short term as well as long term. But thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect your line. Thank you.