Afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Wendel's Q1 2025 Results Conference Call and Webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question-and-answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press star one, one on your telephone, and wait for your name to be announced. You can also ask your questions on the webcast. Olivier Allot, Director of Financial Communication and Data Intelligence, will read them. I must advise you that this conference is being recorded today. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Mr. Jérôme Michiels, Wendel Executive Vice President and Director of Wendel Growth. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you and welcome, everybody. Thank you for joining this call. I am here together with Benoît Drillaud, our CFO, as well as with Olivier Allot and Lucile Roch from our Investor Relations team. Let's go directly to the highlights of this first quarter. If you have the presentation in front of you, it's on page three. Let's start with the principal investments that have, in general, performed well with total revenue growth good across the board. Some slight impact from market volatility in terms of asset valuation. I will come back to that in the presentation. On the asset management side, a very good first quarter, with IK Partners having posted revenues up 33%. Assets under management up 9% year to date, and about EUR 600 million raised over the quarter. Importantly, IK has closed the fundraising of its flagship fund, the 10th generation.
This fund has reached its hard cap of EUR 3.3 billion, making it the largest fund ever raised by IK Partners in its history. A great success. When we look at the group as a whole, we're looking at EUR 34 billion of assets under management when we include Monroe Capital on the asset management side. We are also publishing today a net asset value, which is EUR 176.7 per share, slightly down by 4.8% year to date. The loan-to-value ratio is 17.2%. Let me now go into a little bit more detail on the next slide and go through the very active deployment that has taken place in terms of our roadmap over the quarter. On the principal investment side, I'm sure you will have seen that we've completed a forward sale of Bureau Veritas shares at about EUR 27.5, EUR 25, sorry, per share.
That netted us, EUR 750 million of proceeds upfront. In terms of performance, as I said, the portfolio has performed well, with good total sales, sales growth across the board. We have also seen our companies active on the external growth front, with four acquisitions having been completed at Bureau Veritas, CPI, and Scalian, driving the sales growth, obviously. We are now looking at a total value for our principal investments of EUR 6.3 billion. We have netted the share of our Bureau Veritas shares that we have sold forward from the total, as we have received the proceeds on the cash side of EUR 750 million. We are now at EUR 6.3 billion.
At the same time, we've been pretty active in terms of accelerating our model to transition towards more exposure to asset management with the closing of Monroe Capital that we completed on March 31st. We have acquired 72% of Monroe for $1.13 billion, as expected. This is a strong rebalancing towards our business model, towards more recurring cash flows and growth, thanks to this acquisition. At the same time, the fundraising activity has been very healthy, as I told you already, at IK with EUR 600 million raised. In total, if we add Monroe, we're talking EUR 3.4 billion. We have not included Monroe Capital in our results for Q1 as the closing occurred on the very last day of the quarter, but Monroe Capital is now consolidated, and we will report on figures aggregating both IK Partners and Monroe going forward.
This is the number you see at the bottom right of this slide: EUR 34 billion of total assets under management. Quite a large platform now that we have closed the acquisition of Monroe. A very active quarter as well. Let's now look into the net asset value in greater detail. As I said, EUR 176.7 per share as of March 31st. Starting with the listed assets, about EUR 2,965 million. This is slightly less than at the end of December because of the forward sale that we conducted for Bureau Veritas. The EUR 90 million shares reflect that for the Bureau Veritas total, as you can see. In terms of unlisted assets, EUR 3,346 million, and asset management, which corresponds to 51% of IK Partners plus 72% of Monroe Capital and a little bit of sponsor money called for about EUR 29 million, totaled EUR 1,778 million.
If we look at gross asset value, which includes cash, asset management now represents 17% of our gross asset value, which is pretty significant. When you look back 12 months from now, this was 0%. Now it's about 17%. If you strip out cash, which is a little bit in excess of EUR 2 billion, you're talking slightly more than 20% of exposure of our group to our asset management platform. This is the net asset value as of the end of March: EUR 176.7. If we compare that to the level that we published at the end of December on slide six, you remember at the time we published EUR 185.7 per share. The total change over the first quarter is EUR 9 or 4.8% deviation. Starting from the top with the principal investments, within the EUR 9 change, principal investment represents EUR 6.5.
When we zoom into that, actually, listed assets have been flat thanks to the very good performance of Tarkett and IHS share prices over the period. This is adjusted, obviously, for the forward sale of Bureau Veritas, so this is comparable. Flat levels of valuation at the listed assets, portfolio. For the non-listed, the minus EUR 6.5 per share is mainly the result of the decrease in market multiples and foreign exchange, that we have seen over the quarter. This is driven by the change in multiples that we use to calculate the value of our net asset value. As you know, this is quite mechanical. We have a set of comparables that we use each quarter, and we are reflecting there the decrease in market multiples on the non-listed asset side.
The rest is pretty benign, less than EUR 1 change at asset management, which reflects, again, the slight decrease of the peer multiples that we use to calculate the value of IK Partners. We have had a little bit of operating cost, net financial financing results, and changes in other assets and liabilities representing EUR 1.7 in total. We are still seeing positive carry on our financing, with cash returns a little bit in excess of our cost of debt. We are very focused on controlling our cost as well, which has resulted in this minus EUR 1.7. In total, the EUR 9 per share over Q1, so less than 5%, a little bit less than 5% change compared to the end of last year. Let's now double-click on the performance, in terms of revenue of each of our portfolio companies on page seven.
As I told you, we have seen a good revenue growth performance across the board, with all companies being in positive territory, save for Scalian because of very challenging market conditions in the sector. If I start with Bureau Veritas, EUR 1.5 billion revenues, plus 8.3% total growth, 7.3% organic growth, with three businesses at Bureau Veritas having delivered double-digit growth and a very healthy level of growth elsewhere as well, which led Bureau Veritas to confirm its outlook and also announcing a EUR 200 million share buyback, which is, I think, a great sign of confidence. Stahl has posted plus 2% with a strong impact from scope related to the acquisition of WEILBURGER last year. As you can see, organic growth is slightly negative at -5.4%.
Scalian is the one that is in negative territory, - 6%, despite the good impact from scope related to acquisitions that were completed in 2024 and in 2025 as well, of 4.9%. The organic growth is negative at -11.2%, reflecting the challenging conditions in the market for engineering services and IT services. I'm sure you're following that, and we have seen that this market is currently under pressure. CPI posted a healthy level of both organic and total growth, 5.3% and 5.8% respectively, with a little bit of help from scope. CPI completed the acquisition of Verge, and this is a positive development showing the potential in terms of M&A that exists for CPI. ACAMS posted very good results with organic growth, shy of 7%.
We are very happy to see the first signs of the very large amount of work that is going on at ACAMS, with a new management team now fully operational, and a lot of initiatives that have been carried out over the past quarters now bearing fruit and delivering this very good growth. Globeducate, lastly, 11% total growth, a little bit of help again from scope. As you know, this is part of the investment thesis with 3.5% related to acquisitions and very good growth coming from really the organic part of the business.
In terms of asset management, which is again solely IK Partners for this quarter, but starting from next, it will be IK Partners plus Monroe, but just for this quarter, very impressive level of growth at IK Partners, + 33%, which reflects the healthy fundraising and the elevated activity levels at IK Partners. If we take a step back a little bit and look at the group as a whole, both the principal investment side and the third-party asset management side, actually we're talking EUR 40 billion of asset, which is quite sizable, EUR 6.3 billion on the principal investment side, EUR 34 billion on the asset management side. I think we have a good level of diversification on both legs.
Principal investment is about 45% exposed to business services, a category that we've been investing in for quite a long time now, and with secular trends that make a sound level of growth, about 35% exposed to education, professional training, and tech. Here again, some very good trends and growth, and about 20% in industrials, with Stahl and Tarkett that you can see on this chart. On the asset management side, we have 45% in Europe with IK Partners, EUR 15 billion, and about 55% with Monroe in the U.S., 19% . We believe this provides us with a very interesting exposure and quite diversified, actually, when you look at the various countries those managers are investing in, and EUR 34 billion of AUM, about 500 people in 11 countries, so quite a large and diversified group already.
In total, if we look at the economic exposure in terms of geography, aggregating both principal investment and asset management platform, we have about, say, 35% in both North America and Europe, and the rest, spread between Asia and rest of the world. Quite a diversified exposure as well in here. Let's spend a little bit of time on asset management, before going to concluding remarks, on page nine. As I told you, asset management is now a very significant value creation driver within the mix for us, with 17% of gross asset value, altogether, and about 20%-21% if we strip out cash from the gross asset value. There we are seeing a very positive momentum with revenue growth of 33% at IK, thanks to the strong fundraising.
Altogether, IK Partners and Monroe have raised EUR 3.4 billion in total just for this quarter, which is quite a big number, I think. Now we are looking at EUR 34 billion of AUMs, as I said, well spread across geographies and a very good positioning on the small and mid-cap markets, which are really, I think, sweet spots in terms of where capital needs to be invested, in terms of ability to generate liquidity and performance for limited partners. We are expecting the benefits of the platform to materialize gradually over the next few quarters, building on this very good momentum in terms of fundraising and the very impressive success of IK Partners with their 10th generation fund, which closed at its hard cap. Very good development there.
In terms of concluding and takeaways, I think the most important for me is that the transformation is well on the way. We have, you are now looking at a pretty different company than 12 months ago, given the move that we've made in asset management. In terms of financial performance, I think our net asset value has been pretty resilient, with slight impact from market multiples, mostly. Down 4.8% over Q1, given the current environment, I think this is showing a good resilience. This is the result of the good performance of our group companies across the board. Obviously, we have some sectors that are performing better than others, but overall, our exposure in terms of geographic diversification, in terms of underlying markets, provides us with a good level of resilience.
Portfolio rotation has been strong, and I think we've had a good timing, with regards to both conducting this forward sale of Bureau Veritas shares and investing in Monroe and in IK, about a year ago. The asset management business is now really an important, if not significant part of our performance, and will be for the future, as I said. In terms of the tariffs, we haven't seen any material impact until now. Liberation Day was on April 2nd, so just a few days after the end of the quarter. When we looked at the portfolio, we expect that those tariffs will have a limited direct impact on our portfolio, given the exposure that we have.
Where we see maybe a higher level of risk is in terms of global macro and the evolution of the dollar, which are more, you know, the after effects of the tariffs when they will be implemented and depending on the level that is finally going to be implemented. In face of that, we have a very strong financial structure with our LTV at 17.2% and a very strong liquidity of EUR 1.7 billion. We were happy to confirm, to see our rating confirmed by S&P, reflecting the portfolio rotation that we carried out and the reduction in our loan to value. We have, I think, a good level of caution as well as the resources required to continue to upgrade our business model and accelerate portfolio rotation.
We are, as I said, very happy about the fundraising momentum that we see at our asset management platform, and also happy about the performance of our principal investment companies and their levels of leverage at this juncture. Lastly, we've announced a strong increase in our dividend, which is part of our, I think now, of the equity story of Wendel. We've announced EUR 4.7 per share to be paid this May, which is a 17.5% increase, so quite important one. This is based on our new dividend policy, which is now, as you know, determined as 2.5% of net asset value, gradually increasing to 3.5%. We already passed the 2.5%, and the yield now represents, based on current share price levels, about 5.5%. This shows our level of confidence and I think also reflects the ongoing transformation of our business model.
This will continue and we are very focused on executing on our strategy as well as being very focused on the performance of our companies. I will end the presentation there and will be happy to take any questions that you might have. Thank you very much.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one, one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press one, one again. If you wish to ask a question via the webcast, please type it in the box and click submit. We will take our first question and the question comes from the line of Joren Van Aken from Degroof Petercam. Please go ahead, your line is open.
Yeah, good afternoon.
I have a couple of questions, but I'll start off with three and then I will go back into the queue. The first one is on the multiple compression in the private portfolio. Could you give us some idea whether this was across the board or whether there were some particular companies that were more hit by this multiple compression? Was the multiple compression in any way impacted by the fact that you added or removed any peers from the peer set? That's the first one. Secondly, on Scalian, we've seen the organic decline of 11%. Have you seen any signs of recovery in the sector yet? Should we pencil in a bit of improvement in H2, for example, or is that still too early?
And then finally, on the leverage and acquisition part, because we know that you want to further expand your asset management business, but since you are at the LTV of 17%, I'm a bit wondering what is now the way forward. Does it mean that you first need to sell something before you can buy something new, or would you be willing to go beyond the 20% LTV level temporarily to acquire, for example, an asset management business? Thank you.
Thank you, Joren. I will take your first two and then I will hand it over to Benoît for the question on leverage and acquisition. In terms of multiple compression, the change is not reflecting any change in the sample of peers that we use. We rarely change the sample that we use.
If so, we, you know, we might discount one, add another one, but there has been nothing taking place this quarter in terms of changing the samples. Is it across the board, or is it focused on any specific companies? It's pretty much across the board. I mean, it took place at, I'm looking right now at my backup and it's really about the same magnitude for each of our companies per writer of their respective net asset value. So it's really across the board. We've seen a little bit, as I said, at the asset management side at IK, but this is less important, as the value is less important as well.
If you were to say apply a percentage of change to each individual net asset value driven down by the change in multiples, I think you would be certainly looking at the same type of impact, maybe a little bit more at Scalian, because, as I said, of the environment, the peers in the sector of engineering and IT have suffered a little bit more than those that we are using for our other companies. I would say which is a good segue to your second question about the environment. It's very difficult to foresee the future there. We have not seen any sign of improvement yet.
What we are seeing is that the business with the large customers at engineering and within the core sectors of Scalian, like aerospace, like defense, like utilities, is doing well. I mean, there is still some good growth there. What is more problematic is the smaller customers, you know, that I think are more cost-conscious and reconsider their projects. And we've also experienced some headwinds in automotive, as you can imagine. There was one peer that released its results recently that actually withdrew the guidance for 2025, only gave a guidance for the next quarter, saying that they can't see beyond the next quarter and revising pretty significantly their guidance for the second quarter compared to what they had put out for the whole year.
I think this gives you a sense of how difficult the market is and how difficult it is to predict any recovery. We are very confident that there will be a recovery at some point because those, you know, projects cannot be delayed indefinitely. There is also a very good backdrop of investment in aerospace, mobility, electrification, et cetera, and also a very good trend of digitization, a sector that we are quite active on. This will generate opportunities for sure, and there is a secular trend there, but the current market is more challenging than it used to be, and we do not really see any uptick. We have not seen any uptick recently, but we will continue and update you on this as well. On the third question about leverage and acquisition, Benoît.
Yes, good afternoon.
Concerning the LTV, it's 17%, so we are very comfortable with this level. It's below the ceiling of the credit rating agency. Before we make a new significant acquisition, we'll need to get a significant dividend from our portfolio companies or sell one of them. If you want me to be a little bit more precise, I could tell you that the maturity of the exchangeable bond is in March 2026, so it will become very short in the coming months. We work on the value creation of all the portfolio, and it could come also from asset retention.
That's very clear. Thank you very much. I'll leave the floor to the other analysts, and then I'll come back at the end again.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one, one on your telephone. We will take our next question, and your next question comes from the line of David Cerdan from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yeah, good afternoon. I have a couple of questions, please. The first one is regarding the fair value of your asset management activities. What is the value return for your stake in, in Monroe? Is it the initial, initial investment? Regarding your objective for the asset management activities, can you explain how, how you expect to drive your FRE from 100- 150 by 2027? What are the levers to, to reach this objective? Is it just driven by the expansion in the assets under management, or do you see some other way to, to achieve this objective?
For the asset management, which peer do you use to value Monroe and IK Partners? Last question is regarding your unlisted asset. For which one do you think that it could be very difficult to protect the margins in 2025 on the back of a very poor start of the year? Thank you.
Thank you, David. Difficult question there. I'll start with the first one, which is simple. In terms of fair value that we've retained in our net asset value for Monroe, this is the acquisition price. We closed the acquisition on the 31st of March, so on the very day that we put together this net asset value. We have used the value of Monroe. Going forward, and this will address your third question, we will be using market multiples. That's what we do for IK Partners.
We yet have to select a sample of peers for Monroe Capital, but our evaluation team has been working on that already, and we'll finalize that for the next net asset value, which will be June 30, and we will be at this point in time, quote unquote in mark to market. In terms of IK, the peers that we are using, well, as you know, we are not disclosing the names of the peers that we use, but you can expect, what you could expect to find in this sample is European alternative asset managers of a certain size, with a business model comparable to IK Partners. This is what we've been using, and this is what is driving the slight change in multiples that we've seen on our asset management valuation.
The objective of EUR 150 million by 2027 is based on what we expect in terms of organic growth, both from IK and from Monroe. As I said, there is a very strong momentum there in terms of revenues and fee-related earnings. This is based on the growth that we expect. Your last question on the unlisted assets and our ability to defend margins in 2025 on the back of a more volatile environment. I think it's a bit early to tell. As I said, we haven't seen any significant change in terms of business or margins over the first quarter. What we have looked at in detail is the individual exposure of our portfolio companies to parts of the economy that could be affected by the tariff on a direct basis per se.
We are seeing very little exposure there. Some of our companies have already taken action to contain a potential higher than expected decrease on those places where they have exposure to tariffs. We will be very focused on that, and we are very focused on that. I think it is too early to tell whether there will be a significant impact. From a direct standpoint, we do not see, do not expect any, but obviously if we are moving into recession territory, that is a different conversation. We will come back to you on this, and I have asked the management team of our companies what they have. They know they have to address that and have been already quite proactive in addressing that and working on contingencies should the climate be more difficult.
If we take the example of Scalian with some revenue down 11% in Q1, it seems quite impossible on my side that the company could be capable to protect its margins, no?
You have to be very aggressive on cutting costs, obviously, which is what all companies in the sector are doing. You have, you know, variable costs, which you need to address. These are the people that you have on, that's basically the utilization rate of your people that you need to trim and to keep as low as possible, which is not always easy, you're right. Then you have the fixed cost part, which is the SG&A part, and there Scalian has already made some adjustments in terms of cost and will continue to do so, to adapt to the environment.
Okay.
Just to finish on Scalian, in your net asset value, have you got a valuation still positive for Scalian?
Yes, of course, David. It's still positive. Yes, yes, of course. No, no. Yes. As I said, the market is difficult, but we are still looking at a positive value. Yes.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. We will take our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Joren Van Aken from Degroof Petercam. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Okay, I'm back. Two more questions from my side. If we look at slide seven, you show the table with all the revenue growth and split out between organic and scope and FX. For example, for CPI, we see +5.8%.
We see an FX impact of - 0.9. I suppose that this FX impact is just the FX on company level for CPI itself, right? Because if I look at the euro-U.S. dollar exchange rate over the quarter, the translation FX impact between dollar and euro should be larger than 0.9%. What I'm trying to get at is the revenue in euro terms would be flattish for CPI, if I understand correctly. Is that a correct way to look at it? That is the first one. The second question is, on IK Partners, because that company reached a hard cap for its flagship fund. I find that to be very impressive in the current environment for alternative assets. Could you give us an idea of maybe the performance of the previous vintage of that strategy? Was that top quartile or, for example, Q2?
That could explain the very strong fundraising of this next vintage. Thank you.
Thank you, Joren. On your first question, on slide seven, the revenues and the changes, broken down by organic, scope, and forex, are at the company's level. Foreign exchange at CPI minus 1% relates to the move in other currencies than U.S. dollar because CPI is U.S. dollar as a functional currency. This reflects the change in other currencies than U.S. dollar that they have exposure to. CPI has a very large business in the U.S.. They do have exposure to international markets as well. This is what you can see there.
Maybe, to address your specific question on the dollar, when you look at Bureau Veritas, for instance, you will see 0.4% of a negative FX impact, which is pretty small because there has been no major impact from the dollar over Q1. The depreciation of the dollar has occurred since April 2. Before that, Q1 2025 shows very little deviation compared to the average dollar rate of Q1 2024. No strong FX impact there. There might be more, you know, based on the current levels of the dollar. If it were to prevail at these levels for the next two months, May and June, I think we will be looking at Q2 foreign exchange impact, more negative than what we are seeing here. You have asked about the success of IK Partners. Yes, this is a pretty impressive result. I agree with you.
It's, I think it's a function of the very high quality of the investment process of IK. Their track record, which is really impressive. They are, obviously, one of the best investors within their space, which is, you know, European small to mid cap. The performances that they have shown on the predecessor funds are such that limited partners have re-up their commitments and new limited partners have joined as well. I'm not at liberty to comment specifically on the realization or on the IRR that they've generated, but they have been very good and they have been also, I think this is one key feature which has been important, which is important in the investor's mind, recently in terms of distribution.
You know, this famous DPI ratio is really something that IK focuses a lot on, and they have been able to generate DPI that are very good and position them as top quartile investors. Moreover, I would say that recently, given the uncertainty that is currently at play in the U.S. environment, we have seen some U.S. investors looking at increasing their exposure to Europe, which is, I think, something that will be beneficial to IK, because, as I said, this firm is really one of the best firm around, if not the best, when it comes to small to mid cap equity investing in Europe. This platform is very strong.
IK10 reached its top up cap, but there has been also some very good momentum at both small cap and partnership, which are two other strategies of IK, as well as a continuation vehicle that they managed to raise also over the quarter.
That's very helpful. Many thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you. There seems to be no further questions from the phone lines. I will hand back to Olivier Allot for the webcast questions.
Thank you. We have a first question. The PR said that LTV includes a debt, the Wendel commitment to sponsor money for 2025, for IK and Monroe for avoidance of doubt. What about the other commitments, i.e., rest of sponsor money to come in 2026 and later, and the commitment to invest into the funds?
Yes.
We factor the commitment we have in existing funds when we have signed a commitment. This is the way S&P takes into account these commitments in the LTV ratio. It means that we've taken into account EUR 500 million out of EUR 600 million of amount agreed with IK, for example. The same for Monroe. We took into account $200 million out of $1 billion.
Thank you. Question about non-listed NAV calculation. Does the Stahl NAV take into account the value of wet-e nd resulting from its recently announced disposal?
Yes. This is a sum of the parts. For the new Stahl, it's based on peer multiples and for wet-end , it's based on the price.
Thank you. We have a question from Alexandre Gérard from CIC.
I had in mind that you were more in digestion mode regarding any acquisition of additional third-party asset managers. Are you still considering opportunities? How would you fund them if you were to keep LTV below 20%?
Thank you, Alexandre. Yes, we are always looking for new opportunities, which can come in various shapes or forms, in terms of size, in terms of asset class. We've just completed Monroe, which is quite sizable and really, you know, significantly expand our asset management platform. With these levels of LTV, you're right in saying that we couldn't be in a position to make such a large acquisition, but we have some other streams of liquidity that come from the portfolio.
As we are repositioning ourselves on the asset management side with, you know, recurring cash flows, I think the model of Wendel is pretty different now. I mean, starting from April 1st, we will be consolidating Monroe, which will generate cash flows. IK is performing very well, delivering cash flows to us. You know, it is not anymore the model where we need to sell one company to buy one when we are at 15-17% LTV. It is a different model, which will provide us with resources to invest on a regular basis and recurrent basis. At the same time, we have to be mindful of maintaining a strong credit profile, which is where we are.
When I say that, it does include some caution, as Benoît said, in terms of our ability to withstand, let's say, more challenging market conditions if they materialize over the next quarter. We are constantly monitoring the opportunities there, and we'll be looking to complete and expand our asset management platform that will grow, generate higher cash flows as well as synergies, in due course, providing us with more ability to invest.
Thank you. Any chance to see further rotation of your portfolio in H1 2025? How is the M&A market at the moment? Are you still considering a disposal of Stahl?
The M&A market, I think, has been a bit shaken over the past few weeks, because of the level of uncertainty and volatility.
I think everyone is waiting to see how the, you know, the tariff war unwinds, or how it will be implemented. The fundamentals are still there, in terms of the funding, the financing, and, yes, the cash sitting at, you know, investors. If you look at IK, for instance, they have a very high level of dry powder. All companies have also very good levels of cash flow and low levels of leverage, which is conducive to the M&A market.
While we do not have any plans to rotate, you know, any company, we are constantly monitoring and we will see, as I said, if we need to generate more liquidity from the principal investment side in due course, and we will monitor the situation, but we have no specific plans right now.
Thank you. Can we have an update on the Wendel Growth or is it performing well?
The Wendel Growth is companies we have, you know, two different legs here. We have the direct investments and the indirect investments. In terms of direct investment, we have recently invested in a follow-up round at one of our companies. The development in our portfolio is very good. Our companies are performing well. We are quite happy about this.
In terms of our indirect exposure, which is, you know, fund investment, investment in funds, we've seen little movement. It's fair to say that the level of liquidity has been pretty low and the level of new capital being called has also been lower than previous years. I think it's reflecting the state of our portfolio that, you know, we've carefully constituted over the past few years. We have been called for the most part and expect now that capital calls will slow down, whilst the distribution will gradually accelerate, as the companies that are in the funds we've invested with will be, you know, sold or will list at some point. I think the state of the IPO market is not excellent at this point in time, which results in low liquidity.
Doesn't mean that the companies are not performing well because, the, what we are seeing is that, the performance is still good, but in terms of, change there, we don't expect much neither on the capital call side nor on the distribution side.
Thank you. Tarkett Participation raised its buyout offer price to EUR 17 per share. Will this transaction create liquidity for Wendel or will its position move to an unlisted holding?
The latter, this will result in Tarkett being delisted. Wendel will not get any liquidity from that. It's just that the people who were still shareholders of Tarkett are going to be bought out for EUR 17 per share, resulting in the company being 100% private.
Thank you. Can you remind us what is the maximum earnout for Monroe and based on what targets?
The maximum earnout for Monroe is $255 million and it's based on the achievement of the business plan, in 2027.
Thank you. A very last question. In the press release, you say that IK concluded two disposals. Can you disclose the IR generated?
No, but the IRs were good. I can't disclose them individually. No.
Thank you. We have no more questions on the web. Operator, do you have a question by phone?
There were no further questions from the phone lines.
Thank you very much. This concludes our training update. Thank you very much. Our next event is our AGM on May 15th and then our H1 results that we will publish on the 30th of July. Thank you very much.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.