Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Pinnacle Investment Management Group Half Year twenty nineteen Results Investor Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. Joining us on today's conference, we have Ian MacCown, Managing Director Alan Watson, Chairman and Executive Director, Adrian Whittingham. I must advise you that this conference is being recorded today, Friday, 02/22/2019. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker, Ian MacCown, Managing Director.
Thank you. Please go ahead.
Good. Thanks for that, and thank you to everyone on the call this morning. Thanks for your time this morning, and thanks for your interest in P and I. So we're announcing today our 2019 interim results, including the auditor reviewed financial statements for the half year to 12/31/2018. Let's jump straight to Slide two.
The bottom half of this slide sets out information that we announced on the January 23, all of which we are confirming as correct following the auditors' review of our financial statements. I'll leave it for people on the call to read those points. The brief highlights that our net profit after tax was $10,100,000 up 25% on the PCP. Basic earnings per share was $0.61 up 13% from the PCP, and diluted earnings per share $0.57 up zero one four dollars from the PCP. Now the top half of this slide sets out some further information that we're announcing today.
And obviously, there's more detail again in the actual financial statements that we've lodged today, quite a bit of detail. But just very briefly up to the top of this slide, our share of affiliates net profit after tax was $14,300,000 for the half, which was up 44% from $9,900,000 in the PCP. Our funds under management were at $48,700,000,000 at the 30 first of January. We'd only previously reported the number to the December. So that's up $2,000,000,000 on the December 31 number.
So obviously, markets were up substantially in January, and of course, they're up further in February to date, and this has quite a substantial impact on our funds under management and our P and L prospects. Also, we've declared a fully franked interim dividend of $0.61 per share payable on the March 22. That's up 33% from the $0.46 per share in the prior comparable period. Slide three sets out the business highlights for the half. Most of this was announced on the January 23.
Just a couple of pieces of new information on this slide. Firstly, Longwave commenced managing money on the February 1. I think people would recall that we've been incubating Longwave led by Dave Wanis. They will initially be doing small caps. We call
it Continental.
Quantum mental small caps. That's going very well. And long way, I've started managing some Pinnacle seed money on the February 1, and it's going well. And there's a little extra commentary in the last paragraph on this slide about the market impact on our FUM. The market movement impact on total P and I FUM during the December was about 7.5% of the average sum during the period.
So this is kind of the pattern that we're seeing. So the ASX 300 that we used as an indicator was down 9.2% during the quarter, and the Miski World Index 13%. Obviously, we have more Australian equities than anything, but we also have global equities. And something like our thumb was down 7.5% on account of market movements when the Aussie market was down 9.2% and the world market 13%. So we move quite strongly with the market, our thumb does, but not 100%, something like, let's call it, threefour of the market movement.
Obviously, it moves around a bit, but that's a broad indicator of the impact of the market on our thumb. Now obviously there were substantial negative impacts on our P and L for the half, occasioned by this drop in thumb. Firstly, there's the fact that the thumb drop reduces affiliates' profits. Affiliate profits were up strongly anyway, but not as strongly as they would have been if we hadn't had that market drop. But secondly, we incurred losses on our principal investments, Both realized and unrealized capital losses are taken on our P and L, on the P and L of Pinnacle Parent straight through, even if they're unrealized.
So we had about a $600,000 overall net loss on principal investments for the half year. Thirdly, some distribution fees received in Pinnacle Parent are based on affiliate thumb, so somewhat lower on account of these market movements than they otherwise would be. But perhaps more importantly, poor market conditions prevented us from doing LIC and LIT IPOs during the half, and Pinnacle Parent earned substantial upfront fees from such IPOs. We do earn ongoing fees from them, but it's those upfront fees that are really quite substantial and in the short term have the biggest impact. Now in the PCP, we are at $928,000 from upfront LIC fees in Pinnacle Parent, and that amount was zero in the half that we're reporting on.
The good news at this stage is that the Australian and global equities markets have retraced a substantial part of the Q2 losses during January and February so far. The ASX is up about 8% this calendar year. So we've made back all of our principal investment losses during January. So the one month of January, our net PI impact was greater than the losses for the half, and we've had some further gains during February. And the other thing is that we expect to be coming to the market next week with the IPO of a new metrics leak.
I believe that PDS will be lodged on Monday with ASIC, and so we'll be out in the market. That's MOT, the Metrics Opportunity Trust. So we believe that market conditions are looking satisfactory for that to be successful. Who knows what the rest of the financial year holds for markets? You will all, no doubt, have your own views on this.
But just for the moment, conditions are treating us better than the brutal 2018. So if we move on now to slide four, the next couple of slides here set out some further detail behind our financial results, especially the Pinnacle parent loss that was higher than in the PCP. The Pinnacle parent loss was $4,100,000 $3,500,000 if you take back the $600,000 net loss on PI. That's during the half year period that we're reporting on. The PCP was $1,800,000 the loss, or $1,300,000 if we take out the PI losses.
And in the second half of 'eighteen, Pinnacle Parent broke even in the second half. So the second half is typically better than the first half as we receive some annual success fees, for example. There are various other factors there. Now this loss, I do want to explain, but you will see that we're talking a lot in this presentation about Horizon two investments and how we're investing in ongoing growth, resourcing up for ongoing Horizon two growth. And that's the cause of this Pinnacle Parent loss.
We've done a lot of work. We've added a lot of people. You'll see we mentioned that during the eighteen months from the beginning of the PCP to December 31, the number of people in Pinnacle Parent has increased from 39 to 61. So we've done a lot of resourcing up. That's because we are confident that these Horizon two investments are going to bring us very substantial growth over the medium term.
We take a short term hit, but this is all good for the medium term. So this is a major theme of this presentation. We ask you please don't get hung up on Pinnacle parent financials in isolation and come with us on this journey as we continue to invest in Horizon two initiatives that will each bring strong profits over the medium term. So on this slide, we start off by emphasizing that Pinnacle remains well positioned to deliver superior business and financial performance in the medium term. And we've got four points four dot points there that sort of reiterate the basis for our confidence in this regard.
And then just at the bottom of this slide, we point out that during this half, we're reporting on costs that ramped up very much as we had planned in preparation for ongoing growth. But Pinnacle Parent revenues don't come through and grow as strongly they didn't in the half come through strongly as we originally expected because of the weak market conditions over the four months to the December. And we make the point that Pinnacle Parent loss is expected to be less in the second half than in the first half. Now just quickly continuing on with Slide five, this continues the financial detail. Besides the Pinnacle Parent numbers, you can see that there was this healthy increase of $4,400,000 in our share of affiliate profits to $14,300,000 and that produces the overall 10.1 impact for the half year.
We do emphasize as always that the second half profit tends to be a lot larger, a lot more than double the first half. And again, we've mentioned that Pinnacle Parent's loss will be better than in the first half. As always, you see that some inflows drive our share of profits from affiliates. I think people are very familiar with the pattern of our financials now. And what you'll see in half's results is sort of more of the same.
Things are continuing along very much as planned and as people were expecting with Pinnacle Parent. So people have said to me, Oh my goodness, the market was down a lot in the last quarter. What does it mean for Pinnacle? I think you can see that in our numbers, but really nothing has fundamentally changed. Our plans for Horizon two, the use of the surplus capital that we have is being put to very good use.
We're growing very strongly. We have resourced up to make sure that we don't drop the ball either for our established boutiques, which continue to grow very strongly or for our new ones. We've resourced up to be very robust and to be able to cope with very high levels of growth. So that's what we've done. We're very happy with the way things are traveling.
You'll see in here, for example, things like three new executives who've come on board. Each of those three, we believe, are high quality people. It's a big increase in our executive level. But you'll see this is all about direct to retail, horizon to investments in initiatives that we've talked about for quite a while. We're well and truly getting into those now, and you really will see the benefits of that over the medium term.
Slide seven sets out the more significant components of our results. I'm starting to run out of time a little bit. So I'll just point to a couple of items of recent new information on these slides. I don't think much of this will be new to people. A couple of things I'll just call out from the rest of the prezo and then leave people to read it.
We've had some nice ratings upgrades this month. These are very helpful to our retail sales efforts. I see Adrian smiling here. The impression is on him now to produce all the retail sales. Lonsec upgraded Hyperion Global from investment grade to highly recommended.
That is a very unusual two step jump, which we are delighted with. Lonsec also upgraded PLATO global income from investment grade to recommended, and Zenith upgraded Fire Trail's absolute return fund from recommended to highly recommended. So that highly recommended rating now sits very nicely beside the existing highly recommended rating for Fire Trails High Conviction Fund. And this is all very helpful as we go as our highly regarded, high quality retail distribution team goes forth into the market to promote our newer offerings into the retail market, Hyperion Global, Fire Trial, etcetera, as well as Antipodes, Plato and the other Solaris long short Spheria and the other great range of offerings that we have. Haven't got time to go into flows and so on.
Maybe there'll be questions on that. But suffice to say, our retail flows have held up quite nicely. I didn't go into them because they were already announced in January, but the retail net flows were $1,400,000,000 for the six months. The month of January was about $90,000,000 which was actually quite fine for January. January tends to be a poor month.
Anyway, I'm going to stop rabbiting on now and go to questions. We really wanted to leave plenty of time for people's questions. So if the operator can throw to questions now, please.
Certainly. Thank Your first question comes from the line of Tim Lawson from Macquarie.
I was going ask about the retail flows. You've talked about the January number, but just can you give us a bit more thoughts on the sort of ability to sustain that sort of momentum that you've had across the whole half? And second question, just on the level of investment in costs in the Pinnacle parent. You've called a few things out in regard to the second half, but any other items that we think should be sort of varying materially from the sort of run rate we've seen in the first half?
Yes. Thanks, Tim. So I'll try to Adrian in a sec to talk about retail flows. My little comment is that obviously, it's been the big question on everyone's minds about retail flows generally. With the pretty vicious drops in the market in sort of the four months to December 31, what does that mean for retail flows?
I would make the point that we've got, as I mentioned, some great ratings, a whole range of really great offerings to the retail market, and we've got a very strong retail distribution team that we're very proud of. It's very difficult to predict retail market, but I'd say we're pretty well positioned. I would make the broad comment. People ask me about flows generally, and I throw back to the year before last because last year was just extraordinary. And I've been saying, it's probably unrealistic to assume that the flows of last year, well over GBP 200,000,000 a month in retail and $7,900,000,000 in total.
But the previous year, we had $5,000,000,000 of total flows, of which about 40%, dollars 160,000,000 a month was retail. And I've always felt pretty confident on average of that over the long term. But I'll let Adrian answer the question on retail. Just saying though that no one really knows what lies ahead for the retail market.
Thanks for the question, Tim. Look, maybe if I just give one a brief view on what happened just recently because it does set the scene for where I think retail flows are going. As Ian mentioned, obviously, we can't really forecast strongly where we're heading. However, I will state that we didn't expect the Royal Commission to have that much of an impact on flows from our perspective because of the distribution strategy we had in the retail market, in that it was heavily focused on independence from the larger practices. There's no doubt there will be perhaps some slowing for the industry as clients digest the path forward.
Probably the biggest the greater impact we suspected might be around the volatility in markets and just investor sentiment. To this date, we haven't really seen that flow through very strongly in our flows. And even in speaking with the clients, in many cases, they've actually found it a good opportunity to go and speak to their clients about how they should alter or reconstruct their portfolio. So it is a bit of a waiting watch with both of those, I guess, key maybe hit small slight headwinds in regards to clients. What I will add is that and you've seen it with the likes of hub, net wealth, those listed firms.
We continue to see a lot of rotation of portfolios platforms or incumbent distributors into the newer age platforms. We are a net beneficiary of that. We are picking up managed account business. Not all clients retain the same managers whenever they move from the incumbent platforms to the newer age platforms. So often, we pick up new business, be it fire trial, resolution capital, antiquities, etcetera, because of the ratings and because of the quality of the managers.
So I think that is a bit of a tailwind for us in that regard. And overall, Ian mentioned, if you look at Horizon two, and there is a slide in the pack, which is on Slide 27, which details the growth opportunities, particularly within our affiliates, We do have a number of managers who will be, I guess, would call coming on more major streams such as Hyperion Global. We are seeing quite strong interest there. PLATO Global income a little bit earlier, but now that we have the ratings for approved lists, etcetera, the likes of Superior opportunities as well as, obviously, the existing strategies, which still attract strong flows such as Antipity, Firetrial and Solaris LongShort and already mentioned Resolution Capital. So look, I think broadly, we're pretty well positioned.
We're making sure clients are absolutely front and center for our business. We are making sure we engage them regularly rather than just going to talk about the product. We're spending a lot of time with them. So it's a long winded answer, Tim, but I think the outlook looks okay, plus pretty good for us.
Yes.
Your question on costs in Pinnacle Parent. So you'll see that our salaries costs are up substantially in Pinnacle Parent. That is a very deliberate and considered thing. I've been talking to people for a long time about how we're ramping up our resourcing in Pinnacle Parent. Both distribution and all of the other support resourcing have increased.
Risk and compliance has increased, our middle office, etcetera. Now the question that should be asked, is this just sort of undisciplined adding to the numbers of people? The answer is no. So Tim, people have been asking me for a long time, can Pinnacle really continue to grow at these extraordinary rates, taking on new affiliates, new strategies in existing affiliates, etcetera, without dropping the ball. And I've said absolutely, it is going to require extra resourcing.
We need to do that carefully and keep our quality high. I believe we've done that. But this is all about investing for ongoing growth. So it's salaries. There are a few sort of one off things like our property cost was substantially higher.
We actually we had done a deal to take on a new small cap affiliate that we were taking over. We have those people for a few months. The group we were taking it over from reneged on that deal and the small cap affiliate didn't proceed, so we lost that bit of money. Also, we've taken significant extra space for Fire Trail and Longwave and so on. We wear those costs.
So this is all Horizon two until an affiliate is profitable. So Fire Trail has now become profitable and will start paying its rent from the January 1, but we wore those costs in the last half. So again, that's just costs of getting ready for new affiliates. There's also some professional fees, which was recruitment costs. So we've done quite a lot of recruitment.
We try to do it without spending much, but sometimes to get high quality people, you need to pay recruitment costs. There's a slide in here with the brief CVs of our three new executives. So Chelsea and Ramsden and Chris Meyer has been with us for over a year now. But those three people are all very significant executive hires, and they are all related to retail, including direct to retail, including ETFs and LICs and so on. So the Pinnacle parent costs are about being ready for ongoing growth in a robust way, which is why we've added to risk and compliance and so on.
So does that answer your question? Yes, that's correct.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Liam Cummins from Wilson.
Maybe just following on from Tim's question. Can we get perhaps a feel of the mix in increase of cost between revenue and nonrevenue generating staff? And then I guess within the nonrevenue generating staff, how scalable that is from where we are now?
Yes. Liam, I would say the vast majority of the people we take on are aimed at revenue generating or pretty directly supporting revenue generating. But sometimes it will generate revenue in three years' time as opposed to now. So if you look at the increase in people, it's roughly half and half distribution versus non distribution. So distribution obviously are directly revenue generating.
In the non distribution areas though, if you look at if you take our middle office, for example, which has gone from six to 10 people, but including a lot of automation and reengineering and so on, that is all about coping with a large increase in the number of funds that we're running. It's increased complexity as we do more offshore based funds, Cayman, UCETs and so on. We have to make sure that as Antipodes moves into new areas and new affiliates are in derivative heavy areas and so on. We need to be ahead of the game. But when we talk about Horizon two, we are very serious about there is a business plan behind anything we do in Horizon two.
And that needs to look at substantial revenue within a few years. And Liam, just to a little bit on the
point
that if we are to when we make these investments in these people, compliance and IMS, then that increases the attraction of Pinnacle to new boutiques in the medium term. We've talked in the past about the attraction of distribution, but they also want these other services, which enable them to focus on what they're good at, which is investing.
Yes. And it also allows us as well, Liam, having high competency in the nondistribution areas such as operations, compliance, etcetera, it enables the distribution people to provide a much richer experience for the client. And at the end of the day, for us, it's about clients and affiliates. So they're absolutely the backbone and critical. So we sort of don't try and look at revenue, non revenue.
We look at how can we provide a greater experience for our investors.
And just to add to the point that Alan made, there's no question I mean people see the quality of our distribution. It's kind of on display. But what's not so well recognized is the quality of our other support services. So the due diligence reviews that we're subjected to weekly, they are so much more intense and so much more demanding than they ever were in the past. So it's a huge competitive advantage for us and a great benefit for our affiliates having high quality there.
But even if you take some risk and compliance, which we've doubled the cost of, you might say that's nonrevenue producing, but the robustness that that adds in an environment where all the spoils are going to go to the top quality fund managers and everyone else can go and please themselves, you fail due diligence. It's binary. Yes, absolutely. That's what we've been doing.
Right. And maybe sort of on distribution side, presumably, that's pretty much all retail focused?
So yes, in the half, because we'd resourced up in institutional. But with the full period coming on with our offshore people, we're probably going to add another person in London. Yes. It's a bit of a mix.
It's marketing. It's offshore slightly. A little bit extra resourcing for retail and also been rounding up the domestic institutional team, who also do some offshore reach as well. So it is across the full spectrum. Very cognizant that we have grown quickly, and we expect to continue to grow strongly.
So we need to meet the needs of the affiliates and also the clients. So if you look at retail as an example, we've gone quickly to nearly $9,500,000,000 now. That's a broad range of advisers and also direct investors. So we want to make sure we can continue to exceed that service level rather than fall back to any complacency.
Got you. And maybe one final one for me before I jump back in the queue. Remiss if I may not have to ask about the inflow outlook for the second half given sort of where we are currently in the fire trial?
Yes. So inflow flows are just very difficult to predict. So the reality is that during the half, so we had $5,000,000,000 of net inflows for the half, and over $3,000,000,000 of that was fire trailed. There was $1,100,000,000 something like that of Antipodes, but not a lot other than that in this particular half. So our affiliates, they sort of insto is very lumpy.
And any particular affiliate, their insto sale sort of come and go a bit. We had a little bit of outflow in Hyperion, a few 100,000,000, which we can talk about is actually a positive for us. But looking forward, I mean, we do have pipeline. There's no question. We have institutional pipeline.
When that arrives, who knows? And I really don't want people hung up on this month and next month what the inflow flows are gonna be because, you know, you have a period
over time.
Yeah. It is. So who knows? But I'll tell you, I have guided the 7,900,000,000.0 of net inflows of last year. That was an extraordinary number.
And I feel a lot more comfortable with the 5,000,000,000 in total of the previous year. But they're still very large numbers and certainly have an ongoing pipeline for Insto.
Great. Can I maybe ask sort of where we are in Hyperion Global as well, sort of how close that is to becoming fully launched?
So as far as I'm concerned, it's fully launched in retail. The rating upgrades will be helpful. But again, I'll let Adrian speak to it. But you know the process there. It takes time to get on all the various slots and to get your ratings and so on.
But I believe Hyperion Global is full on in retail. In Insto, it's been slow going in the Aussie Insto market. My observation is none of the Aussie based global equities managers have had much success in the Aussie Insto market. It's been more offshore and we are certainly putting in significant effort offshore for Hyperion Global as well. We've got some early Aussie Insto in Hyperion Global, and I think there will be more, but it's taking time.
But it will be in the retail market, Adrian, that
it will be full bore. Yes. So we've done the job over the last six months, maybe a little bit longer of getting on all the platforms. Still there's still a few platform slots that still need to be completed, but most of the major ones are actually done. We were lacking because of the research ratings in regards to getting on approved list around PI cover, etcetera.
So we're now through that. So really, you think about the analogy, the tickets to the game, where we have the tickets, so now from that all down to execution. So we have a plan, and we will be rolling that out over the next couple of years. We need to get momentum. As you know, if you look at flows, it's very much about getting breadth, being consistent, engaging investors and getting momentum flows.
So we have a number of strategies to achieve that. And hopefully, can do a very good job this second half and then into the next FY.
You see we have updated performance tables at the back to the January 31. Hyperion Global's performance has been extraordinarily good, even during a period where some people say to me, they're growth managers, they've got lots of U. S. Tech stocks and so on, which did badly during the last quarter. Hyperion through this period have done very well.
So I get slightly annoyed that people say, Magellan performed so well. We'll have a look at Hyperion Global's performance numbers.
Your next question comes from the line of Nick Burmester from Ord Minnet.
Look, just a quick question more on the outlook for growth into different asset classes or markets and different strategies. I mean you've done, obviously, the credit acquisitions. And I know Two Trees had a big increase in AUM, which is pretty interesting given it's a global macro play. So yes, how are feeling about all the non kind of long only equity or long short equity space?
Great question, Nick. Look, it's an area where managers domestically have traditionally struggled on average. As we all know, the market is very low equity beta. So things like global macro or absolute return do take a much bigger job to do on education for clients. I feel pretty comfortable with where we sit actually.
If you look at Two Trees, they did have some performance challenges, but they certainly will and truly bounce back and bounce back strongly relative to their peers. It's early days in regards to flow, but I think relative positioning versus peers is very strong. Fire Trail is probably in that same bucket, to be frank, Although they have highly recommended, and we have there's been very strong interest for their absolute return strategy. So we continue to see that. And Antipodes, I mean, you look at the global strategy, it is long and short.
And we're definitely getting used for global equities, but we're very clear with clients. We have a significant underweight in The U. S. We have a considerable short position. So should market sell off, Antipodes is very well positioned for to be an anchor for global equity portfolio.
So I think overall and then obviously, we have Metrix Credit who we will be rolling out an unlisted fund for their capabilities. So it will have listed and unlisted. So I feel pretty excited, to be honest, in the fact that we'll be able to take clients a broad range of high quality capabilities that can fit the need that they're probably perhaps a little bit underrepresented.
So Nick, I think people are aware that it's been a deliberate strategy of pinnacles. In the early days, we had a lot of Aussie equities. We deliberately added global equities, global REITs, etcetera. And now we've moved very consciously into the Two Trees and Metrix Credit and Omega, much less equity. So we've got a much more diversified overall portfolio.
We've also signaled that we will take some baby steps into some other alternative areas. So that's all on the agenda. But as Adrian said, this is very much Horizon two stuff that will take some time, but we feel good about how it's going. And we've definitely put in the effort to make sure we've had high quality, including high quality support for the two trees and the Metrix and so on, we're taking Metrix to
the market. I mean if you look at Metrix as an example, they did not have a retail brand. Their NXT is now north of $750,000,000 and there's very strong interest in the MOT that we're bringing to market. So there's clearly a big gap in the marketplace for those type of offerings.
Plus we'll keep selling Metrix in the Instone market. Metrix are broadening their product offerings for both the in store and the retail market, moving into higher yield areas where obviously the revenue, the margins for Metrix are higher than their earlier diversified Australian senior loan fund. So that's all happening, Nick.
All right. Thanks, guys.
Your next question comes from the line of Scott Murdock from Morgan. Please ask your question.
Good morning, guys. Just a couple of questions at the affiliate level, if I can. Just obviously, second half performance fees are pretty reliant on the Palisade contribution. Just any update on how Palisade is tracking compared to that performance fee expectation of prior periods?
Palisade is doing just fine, doing what it always does. So I think we've got some performance numbers there for Palisade to the January 31. Of course, those don't have the valuation uplifts that tend to come later in the year. But no, we're happy with the way Palisade is traveling performance wise and they continue just fairly slowly keep growing their fund and finding new assets. Okay.
Thanks, Ian. And just interested in your comment on Hyperion about the outflow there and it being a positive. And just whilst you're on that, any other affiliates that you've seen a net outflow in this period? Any comment around that, if it's possible?
Yes. So you know that for Hyperion's Aussie equities offerings, they are hard closed in the institutional market. In fact, they ask people to take their distributions in cash. So that means that over time, there should be some probably reasonably modest out flows from instos as things change. You get mergers and circumstances change for them.
So that tends to release some capacity that can then be sold into the retail market. So Hyperion's Aussie equities products that were hard closed and the large ones soft close in the retail market are now sort of quietly open again. So we can redeploy capacity at a higher peak.
And then just any other affiliates? Has there been any other affiliates where we've seen net outflows over the period?
I don't believe so. I'll just get my table that has them all.
Certainly not from a you might have the lumpy scenarios of some institutional outflow, but nothing systemic there. And on the retail perspective, we had had some outflow in Hyperion on their small company side of things, but that was due to we've seen hard closes now being reopened. So we started to see that subside and more recently actually had net inflow on it.
So one of our stores had some very, very modest net outflows that was just due to a particular client's circumstances, but nothing substantial.
Yes, nothing systemic. Okay. Thank you. That's all for me. Cheers.
We have no further questions from the telephone lines. I would now like to hand the conference back to your presenters for any closing remarks. Thank you, and please continue.
So I guess if there are no more questions, we can close off. We have a lot of one on one meetings arranged with fund managers. If anyone has further questions, please just be in touch with us. We like to make sure that shareholders are pretty well informed. This presentation has more detail in it to enable people sort of peruse it at their leisure.
But look, the overall message from us is that it's very much business as usual, The growth prospects that we've been talking about for quite some time remain on foot. We're getting on with things. We could have done without the market downturn in that last quarter, and who knows what lies ahead with markets. But whatever they might be, we think we're very well positioned with the quality of our affiliates, the quality of our sales force and all of our back office and so on. So I'll say thanks very much to everyone for participating, and we'll probably see most of you in the next little while.
Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for your attendance. You may all disconnect.