Welcome to Wendel 24th Investor Day. As you can see, we have quite a nice agenda today, and we hope that these sessions will give you a better understanding of Wendel's new value creation profile. There will be Q&A sessions at the end of each presentation. For Wendel, the Q&A session will take place at the very end of this event. For those who are not in the room, you can ask questions from the web, and I will read them. Given today's very rich agenda, I think it's time to start now with the first presentation by Laurent Mignon, Wendel CEO. Jingle, please.
Good. Good morning. Not good morning. Good afternoon to everybody. Very happy to be here with you and to share with you the transformation of Wendel and where we want to take Wendel. You'll see that we're pretty passionate about it.
I think the team has been very motivated preparing this day and showing you all what we've changed and how much perspective that we have. To start, I think it's important that we share that Wendel has changed. It has become a leading investment firm in private assets. We invest both our shareholder money and the fund of our clients with an owner-operator mindset aiming to create long-term value for all our stakeholders. We do believe in the strengths and the long-term alignment among all our stakeholders. We do think that the ecosystem that we've built around Wendel today is value-creating for long-term and is unique. We also think that this model helps us get the best talent, and you know how much talent is important in this business, and that we can generate long-term return.
Lastly, and I think it's very important, we have the support of one of the oldest industrial families in Europe, the Wendel family, which, with a long-term view, helps us take a long-term view for our own strategy. Wendel today now operates with two robust and complementary value creation engines, both of them focused on private assets. The first one is Wendel Investment Managers. This is a unique, diversified asset managers platform which is focused on mid-market in Europe and the U.S. We do think that mid-market is the market where we can add the most value for our clients. We have critical size: €46 billion of assets under management, over €200 million of fee-related earnings in 2026 on a pro forma basis with Committed Advisors. We've got organic growth potential with over 15% potential growth of this FRE basis.
But Cyril Marie will come in more detail to explain you how. And in addition to that, we've got potential performance-related earnings that will start to fuel the earnings of Wendel in five to seven years, given the vintage of the funds, but that could generate significant value. Again, Cyril will come back to that. On the other side, we have the Wendel Principal Investment. This is the core and the starting point of Wendel. This is our DNA. But we think that we can improve our performance to be in line with buyout s tandard. We have €5.3 billion of net asset value. We think that we've got now a much more efficient model in order to manage those assets, and David will come back to that very in detail afterwards. We think we've got great assets, fairly valued assets.
We can target 12%-16% return on those assets, and on the one, we're going to add to the platform whenever we will invest the money that has been done, thanks to a very active asset rotation policy. We are a long-term shareholder, but we're also an active manager of our assets. And I think that thanks to that, you will see we can generate significant cash flow in the years to come. So how have we achieved that change over the last three years? Just a few words about the past, and then we'll concentrate ourselves on the future. We've sold €3.6 billion of assets during this period, and we have reinvested €2.7 billion in new assets or companies. You have here in mind all what has been done from the sale of Constantia, some sale of BV in order to reduce our exposure.
We still are a very committed shareholder of BV, but we thought it was too much exposure to our old balance sheets, to the acquisition of Globeducate, the acquisition of Scalian. But strategically, more importantly, is the acquisition of IK Partners, which was announced in October 2023, the acquisition of Monroe Capital, which was announced in October 2024, and the acquisition of Committed Advisors, which was announced in October 2025. We've executed a major transformation, and I think we have to realize that. This transformation, you can see it here, from an asset value base, which was mostly between unlisted and listed assets. Now it's really about asset management, which accounts for roughly 30% of the value of Wendel and 70% now from the direct investment. And that has allowed us to deliver significant value.
20% of our current market cap has been returned to shareholders over the last three years. 20%. This is €700 million that has been returned since 2023 to our shareholders, €574 through dividends, which is an increase by 51% to the same period, 2022-2022, and €129 through share buybacks. Now, where do we want to go? What do we want to do? We've made the transformation. We've created the platform. And I think now from that, we can build significant value going forward. Our model will be a significant cash generation model. It will start by the asset management. Asset management will generate recurring and growing cash flows through fee streams. The second one will be the active management of our permanent capital portfolio.
The third one, which is a key element too, is to have an efficient operating model, a lean way to work, less cash burden from the management or the holding companies. The fourth pillar is to keep a structure, a financial structure, which is solid with an investment-grade rating. Doing all that will allow us to generate EUR 7 billion of cash by 2030, at least EUR 7 billion. What are we going to do with those EUR 7 billion? We're going to first invest in supporting the growth of our asset management platform, over EUR 2.5 billion. We're going to keep on investing in new companies for EUR 1.7 billion. David will go back on that. We're going to give back money to our shareholders, over EUR 1.6 billion over the period. If you make the math, there's still EUR 1.2 billion.
This 1.2 billion is some flexibility to manage the balance sheet, but also to return either more money to shareholders, depending on how the value of the company evolves, or invest in new companies if needed. EUR 1.6 billion back to shareholders, at least during the period. Just to have an idea of magnitude, this is EUR 35 per share, which is close to 40% of the value of the company today. This is only one part of the capital allocation, which is over EUR 7 billion, as I mentioned. Now, let's look to the EUR 7 billion. This EUR 7 billion, as I say, will be generated by recurring cash flow from the asset management, which is brand new, and asset rotation. We will be active in managing the portfolio, listed portfolio, but non-listed portfolio. From that, we will pay dividend, EUR 1.3 billion over the period, at least.
We'll do share buyback, and you'll see that the EUR 300 million I'm putting here is the one we announced for 2026. I will come back to that. We'll invest in the asset management EUR 2.5 billion. What is the EUR 2.5 billion? Seed money to support the growth of our expertise. Invest in new initiatives of those expertise of Monroe, IK, Committed Advisors to kickstart new products, help them grow faster. It's buying back the minority shareholders of IK, of Monroe, of Committed Advisors, as planned, and last, additional expertise that we can add through M&A. But the last point is less important than the two ones. We have built our platform. We can grow from that platform. That's our number one priority in the asset management. And I think we've got a very sound base to do that. Cyril will, I think, help you understand that further.
Then we've got EUR 1.7 billion that we will invest in new companies. And we'll do that with the support of the new setup that we've organized through the mandate we've given to IK, and David will come back to that. And in the middle, you've got the EUR 1.2 billion, which is really the surplus that we have here that will be split between shareholder return or investment, depending on environment. We will judge whether the share price, if the share price still stays with too much discount, obviously, we will give priority to giving shareholder return. If not, I think we will keep on investing to create superior return on these investments. Where will it lead to the company look like in 2030? A lot of you ask me, how do you see the company in five years?
50% of the intrinsic value of the company, at least, will be coming from the asset management. Then the rest will be the direct investment, either through seed money, sponsor money, or through the investment in the portfolios, as we've been an investor in non-listed assets with the aim of creating capital gain, capital appreciation. This strategy is there to generate value and to generate stronger return to shareholders, but not at the detriment of growing the company long-term. We are, on one side, creating a model that is self-growing, that will keep on growing, and that will generate long-term value. And at the same time, we have a predictable growing dividend policy and the ability to make share buyback if the discount in the company is too wide, and it makes then sense to invest part of the money in this discount. Dividend.
I think you already know the dividend policy that we've explained, I think, two years ago, but it's important you understand. It's pretty simple. We're paying 2.5% of the investment portfolio, whether this is seed money or this is investment in companies. Why 2.5%? Rough calculation, I say we're expecting 13% return on average, let's say, 12%-16%. I took 16. 12, sorry. So you take 20% of that. 20% is giving back to the shareholders. 80% is reinvested. That's a way to look to the 2.5, and the rest is we're giving 90% of the cash flow of the asset management. You don't need capital for growing asset management. That's the beauty of that business.
And we're giving 90% of that, which means that on average, compared to the value from the 2.5% of the net asset value at the start, it will grow to at least 3.5% of the global value of the firm. This is predictable. This is sustainable. This is growing. Yet current share price does not reflect what we think is the value of Wendel. So we have to take some action to that. And that's why we're going to do a share buyback program. We're going to buy up to 9% of the shares of the company. Technically, we will cancel some of the shares that are on our balance sheet, 3.8%. We have 4.8% today. We have to keep 1% for regulatory issues. And we'll reuse the ability to buy 9% in the market in 2026, 9% of the value of the company.
So what I want everybody to understand is that we have created now, I think, a pretty unique engine where we have value creation through capital gains, through our investment. And we've put that in a mode and in a way to do it, to manage it, which I think gives us the best possibility to create that value. But we've also created a very strong and unique asset management platform that will generate recurring, growing cash flow that will be available for shareholder return. We've worked on the cost of the holding company in order to make sure that we are lean. We've moved close to 100 people to less than 60 people managing these assets. And we will generate at least €1.6 billion to shareholders in the coming years. So that's gives you a little bit of the snapshot of what we're going to do. Now I will hand over to David. He will go through the Wendel Principal Investment part, and then you will have Cyril, who will talk about the Wendel Investment Managers part. David.
Thank you, Laurent. Good afternoon, everyone. I propose now that we talk about our portfolio of Wendel investments, how today the portfolio is composed. The new operating model that Laurent touched upon. We announced that during our latest quarterly results. We're going to give you more details on how this is going to work, and then we're going to end this presentation on our ambition on Wendel Principal Investment, how much capital we want to deploy, the return we expect. Let's start with the current portfolio. You can see here the eight portfolio companies that we have in Wendel Principal Investments. You know them pretty well.
Five private companies, three listed, one of which is going to go private by the end of the year. Tarkett, the squeeze-out offer should end by December. But what is important here is the diversification. There is no company here which is having a weight which is too excessive compared to the others. So in terms of weighting, none of them is too big. It's pretty diversified in terms of geographies, with headquarters in Europe, headquarters in the US, and in terms of business model as well. You have industrial companies, business services, and even some infra. So a very diversified portfolio with strong companies. Andee Harris and William Rozé were with us today, the CEOs of CPI and Scalian. We'll talk later about those companies to give you what we see in terms of long-term trends.
Suffice to say that for these eight companies, we see some positive growth coming. Another point we wanted to make on this slide is on valuation. Laurent mentioned that we believe that our portfolio is fairly valued. We wanted to give you a bit more details on how we value each of them in our portfolio. Because each time we sell an asset, you can see that the proceeds are higher than our NAV. We wanted to share on how we calculate this NAV, where these numbers are coming from. Usually, the preferred valuation multiple approach is the peer multiple. We select a sample of peers. That's what we do for Scalian, for Stahl, for ACAMS, and CPI. We apply those public multiples to those companies' earnings. We don't take long-term multiples, which are flat.
We revise those numbers on a quarterly basis as we do our NAV calculation. So those are fresh multiples. We do revise down when the market is down. We do revise down our valuation based on those peer multiples. This is almost mark-to-market type of valuation, except it is done four times a year. For Globeducate, it's a bit different. We use transaction multiples because there is no actual good comparable listed peers. And at the same time, there are a lot of transactions in the K-12 industries. So a lot of good data points that we're using. And usually, the buyers and sellers are disclosing some interesting information or quality information. So we can use this approach for Globeducate, which we don't do for the rest of the portfolio.
Obviously, for the two other listed companies, BV and IHS, we use the average share price, the 20-day average share price before the end of the quarter. Tarkett, we use the €17 squeeze-out price, obviously. You can see it's a very robust methodology, which is reviewed by our board, by our audit committee, by our auditors. It's a very rigorous process. We believe it's a strong portfolio, which is really fairly valued. As Laurent mentioned, portfolio rotation to come, we should expect some proceeds to go beyond this €5.3 billion valuation. This is the portfolio. I think what is probably more interesting is to talk about the way we operate. We mentioned during Q3 that we were going to change the way going forward. Starting January 1st, we're going to operate this Wendel principal investment.
So we're going to give you more details on how this is going to work. What we realized is that recently, over the last few years, the industry has gone through some changes. Scale matters more and more. We need more sector understanding, sector expertise. We need to have access to broader geographies in terms of sourcing. And we need to have some talents with very strong execution capabilities. We need to act quickly. And so we need to have a team with a lot of repetition, a lot of experience. So it's a business where scale matters more and more. And we believe that we need to reach critical scale in asset management, but as well in the Wendel principal investment area. So when you consider this, that you need more scale, you need to have a broader reach, you need more expertise, what we do about this?
We looked at our internal capabilities. In our portfolio, with the IK team, we do have those capabilities. I will show you later on a broader description of IK, but you will see the reach and the pool of talent of IK is really impressive. We try to build with IK an advisory mandate where we will get access to this talent, to this expertise, to this reach, and improve the performance of Wendel principal investments. The way it's going to work is that Wendel principal investment is going to be advised by IK Partners on the current portfolio and on all future investments. They're going to advise us on how to create more value on our portfolio with their team of operating partners, with their team of debt capital market partners, equity capital markets, all their resources.
Over 200 professionals at IK is going to help to grow the value of the current portfolio. They're going to help us to source more opportunities. They have nine offices, 220 professionals on the ground. Their access and their network is much wider than ours. And so we're going to benefit from their boots on the ground. That being said, we are not changing our strategy. We will continue to invest in the sectors that we know. We will continue to deploy capital in assets which we're going to control. We're going to keep the assets on our balance sheet. So everything that you know about our investment strategy is going to be the same. But the way we're going to operate, source, transact, monitor our companies is going to change quite profoundly with the help of our IK Partners team.
And in terms of horizon, just in terms of strategy, we continue to look for four to six years hold. But we want to have the option to keep the assets longer if we believe there is still some strong potential. So an horizon which is typical of the buyout industry. But we want to have the optionality to remain a long-term shareholder if need be because this is our DNA, and we want to keep that option. So with this change, with this advisory mandate, which is going to start on January 1st, we believe we are going to have the scale that I mentioned earlier that is needed. We're going to have the state-of-the-art investment platform with the best talent that you have out there in the private equity industry.
We're also going to get something very important in the ecosystem that Laurent was mentioning, the access to potential co-investors. IK Partners has a lot of clients, a lot of limited partners who invest in IK but are looking for additional co-investment opportunities. We're going to provide them with additional co-investment opportunities. Those clients of IK are going to become partners of us in some new investments. What does that mean? I will come back to that later; it is to make larger transactions and more transactions for the same amount of capital that Wendel will deploy. This is a very important bullet point. Last, Laurent mentioned it; we also want to be very cost-efficient and very effective. This transition to an internal team is going to be seamless and going to be very cost-efficient as well.
So what should we expect from this change going forward? We believe it's going to simplify our model, the way we behave, the way we manage our business. The investment team will be 100% focused on investing, surrounded by an investment team, so in the proper ecosystem, without some corporate function or some corporate needs. It allows us to operate with a leaner team as well. So simplify and leaner. It gives us also access to the IK playbook, the way they deploy capital, the buy and build platform that they are very keen to do, as I think Chris Masek mentioned to you their strategy last year. So they do have a playbook of identifying the right opportunities, deploying capital, and we're going to benefit from that. So a leaner, simpler organization and hopefully some investment with better returns.
This is the IK Partners ecosystem I was mentioning earlier. IK has transacted over 200 operations over the last two decades. They are very active. One of the most active, if not the most active GP in Europe with a very successful track record. You can see here 25% gross return over the last 20 years. Pretty impressive return. The team is, as you can see, very strong, 15 operating partners. You have specialists in purchasing, in pricing, in AI. All that is going to be available to grow the Wendel assets. They also have a capital market team, so a team specialized in raising new debt, a team specialized in raising equity. To find those co-investments I was mentioning earlier, those seven people are going to be very helpful to syndicate some equity. They have nine offices in Europe.
You saw some nice pictures of the cities where they are implemented earlier. But they have a very, very strong footprint. Today, Wendel is present in New York, in Paris, and Luxembourg. And with IK, we now have access to the whole Scandi part of Europe and Latin Europe as well. So it's a very different geography's coverage. And that's going to help to have a higher funnel, a higher number of potential opportunities that we're going to review, a better deal flow, which hopefully is going to generate better returns. So you can see very deep talent, very deep reach, and very successful track record on which we're going to base our WPI investment strategy going forward. So with this new setup, what should we expect?
Laurent, you mentioned it earlier, 12%-16% return on our current portfolio and on future investments, which is, I would say, the standard of the best-in-class buyout teams in Europe with consistent returns. It's on average. Some of our portfolio will probably do better. Some of them could do slightly lower. But we believe in this double-digit return expectation thanks to this new setup. We also want to remain in the strategy that we presented to you last year, €600 million of equity type of investment.
But Wendel will only provide roughly more than this equity commitment, let's say EUR 300 million of equity coming from our balance sheet and EUR 300 million from new partners, from co-investors that we will find thanks to the team I mentioned earlier to help us make larger investments, so bigger assets, safer companies, companies which will be clearly bigger than the assets that are targeted by IK in its mid-cap fund. So there will not be any conflicts. It will be clearly on the upper mid-cap zone where IK is not playing. And it will allow for the same amount of capital deployed, the EUR 1.7 billion that Laurent mentioned, to make more investment, so to have a broader portfolio, a more diversified portfolio.
So this is a very important feature and one of the most exciting takeaways of this advisory mandate, the potential to raise co-investment on a regular basis for the new investments. So you can see ambitious returns, the potential to raise some additional co-investment to build a very diversified group of assets that will grow with the operating partners of IK. So we are very excited. And we believe that we have a portfolio which is today really going to deliver a lot of growth in the coming years. Now that we have discussed the Wendel principal portfolio, I think it's time to talk a bit more and zoom in on two companies. We have the chance today to have William Rozé, the CEO of Scalian, and Andee Harris, the new CEO of CPI. So I propose that we talk about Scalian first. So jingle. Welcome, William.
Just before we talk about you, I try to briefly summarize your CV, which is pretty lengthy. A quick word and a reminder on Scalian. It's an investment that we made two years ago in 2023. We invested around EUR 650 million, as you can see on this slide. And today, we own 82% of the company alongside the management team. The management team of Scalian is a very large shareholder of Scalian. It's part of the alignment of interest. And I think it's part of the reason of the success that we see going forward on Scalian. I'm not going to spend too much time on describing the business because you're going to do a much better job than I am. But in a nutshell, Scalian is a European consulting firm which is focusing on the digital transformation on industrial companies.
A quick word on William before I leave you the floor. So William, you joined mid-September. But after a very, very long career, William is a veteran in the engineering industries. He looks very young, but he's a veteran. He spent over 30 years in the engineering industries. He grew up through the ranks at Altran from managing a P&L region up to the leadership and CEO of Altran. And then with the merger with Capgemini, you stayed at Capgemini. And then you led the engineering division of Capgemini as a member of the executive committee. So a very successful career. And we are very excited to have you at Scalian. And we want to hear why you are also excited to lead this company. So the floor is yours.
Thank you, David. Thank you, everyone. As a veteran of this business, let me answer to a first question. Why joining Scalian? And honestly, I decided to join Scalian because this company has an incredible potential. And I want to lead this potential and make this company a leader of the market. I started my career in Toulouse, in the aerospace sector. And I already met the team of Scalian at that time. They were in the market taking care of critical software. And it was a huge potential that was already visible in this country, in this company. So definitely, I joined because there are many good things. But we have also some few changes in this company. And using my experience, I want with the leadership team to be a leader in the way we transform this company, in the way we perform. And this is the journey that I want to share with you with this presentation.
Let's start by speaking about Scalian and who we are with a short ID card that explains first that we are a pure player in some three domain expertise. The first one is software and system engineering. The second one is operational excellence. And the third one is digital solution. And it's not only the expertise that we want to push. It's how we grow the people inside the company. It's more than 5,000 engineers. And we have delivered in June, on the fiscal year of June 2025, EUR 522 million. Now, if we progress and give you more insight regarding the company, you can see that we have a quite balanced portfolio, client portfolio, covering 50% of our revenue with the Aeros pace and defense industry and 50% with mobility.
Here we are speaking about automotive and train, with energy, which is a very important sector for us, but also Core banking and industry and tech industry. Last but not least, we have already two global engineering centers, meaning areas we have organized our own factories to support the business. One is in India. The other one is in Morocco. So all in all, it's a quite company that is strong in the foundations that make us very recognized in our expertise as a pure player of the market. What are the drivers of our market? And I share with you here a market review that was done by Zinnov and Everest, where we show that it's a growing market. And it's a combination of the physical world and the digital world. In dark blue, you see that here we are more speaking about the core engineering.
What is the core engineering? It's how we do a plane, a car, a train, and how a company like us can help them to build that kind of complex engine. The light blue is more the digital engineering, meaning how we help them to go to the intelligent industry. Intelligent industry is the digital twin, the simulation, the virtualization of a process. And here, it's a question of two main drivers. The first one helps them to accelerate their time to value. The second one is to be more efficient in the way we implement software and AI at scale. We are speaking about the industry. At scale is absolutely key in our industry. So after speaking about the drivers of this market that are already pivotal for most of our clients, I want to speak about the industry.
Here, in the industry, you can see that, as I said before, we have a quite balanced portfolio with well-known companies. If I speak about a few of the top five industries we are working and clients we are working with, I can speak about Airbus, the defense industry, Amazon, or Volkswagen. All of them, they are in a situation with a huge transformation. I'll give you a concrete signal. Airbus, it's a backlog of 8,600 planes to deliver in the coming years. It's 10 years of backlog. This year, they will certainly land around more than 800 planes at the end of the year. So a huge backlog and acceleration of their supply is one of the key challenges that Guillaume Faury is leading for the company. I'll give you another one, Volkswagen.
This company, which is the first automaker in the world, today they deliver a car in more than 48 months. In the same time, and you have seen that with BYD, this new Chinese company, they're able to develop a car in 20 months. So back to what I said before, one of the drivers of the market, yes, the way we help our clients to accelerate the cycle of development is key in this industry. And each time we are helping them to accelerate the way they design, the way they produce, the way they support, we are helping them to move faster. If you progress in our journey, being a citizen of the industry is not only talking about the industry and how we help them on the way the dynamic of the value chain is evolving, but also it's a question of talent.
And a company like us is looking for the best talent in the world, wherever they are. And being able to bring them at home, to attract them, is one of the key assets that we have as a company. Being sharp, being a pure player, makes us relevant in the way we attract the best and the next generation that we need to build that kind of transformation. Let's move on and speak about the global landscape that is leading the company. We are a global player. I was speaking about expertise. You can see the three main domains highlighted in the start of this presentation. What is key for us is to be close and build intimacy close to our clients. You can see that we are able to support them in all their main premises.
I can give you the example of Airbus that did the acquisition of Spirit recently. The company that was chosen, or one of the companies that was chosen to help them to manage this industrial transfer, the day one was this Monday, industrial transfer of moving from Spirit to Airbus plant in the U.K., in France, in the U.S., is Scalian. It's one of the companies that is managing the industrial transfer, training the people to well receive that kind of transfer, but also being sure that we maintain the continuity and the project continuity inside the global chain that we have there. Scalian is one of the companies that can be very strategic in the way we support our clients. If we speak a little bit more about the expertise, I was giving the example of Safran, the industrial transfer.
I want to give you a few insights of what is system engineering, operational excellence. I was talking about it, but also software product engineering. System engineering, I'm talking about intelligent industry. Intelligent industry means how do we build the intelligent layer on top of a product or a process. And here, it requires a lot of different requirements. That is system engineering. Access to that kind of requirement, being able to build the system, the model-based system engineering that will acquire and allow our client to go to the next level of what will be the intelligent industry and that kind of complexity. This is the background that we have and the expertise that is well recognized and makes a kind of differentiator in this business. We are one of the companies sharp in this expertise. I want to talk a little bit about software product engineering.
I was in India three weeks ago and was very happy to see that we have that kind of background there. Software product engineering is a kind of software cloud-native that is needed today in many areas. Let me give you a concrete example. A car today, it's an iPhone on wheel. It's not exactly the same car that we built 10 years ago, and being able to develop that kind of car as an iPhone on wheel, we need a specific kind of cloud-native background, and we have that kind of expertise. What is key for us is not to have the practices. It's to be sure that we well understand the industry, the value chain, what is a product, a process, a program to allow our client to well industrialize that kind of approach.
It's a question of standards, a question of certification, a question of expertise in a dedicated environment, and we are bringing that kind of background to our clients. Operational excellence, I talk about it. I want to share one. Honestly, I had the privilege to join the GIFEN on stage. It was one month ago. Scalian was a sponsor of the GIFEN. It's the organization that is supporting the nuclear industry. In that kind of area, you have all the suppliers of the nuclear, but you have also the big guys like Orano, like CEA, like EDF, like Framatome, and we were on stage close to them, speaking to the whole supply about operational excellence. Why?
Because the credibility that we have bringing and supporting the aerotech sector and building what is called Aero Excellence as one of the key suppliers, it's one of the areas that is creating a lot of value for another industry. So a services company like us has to be agile, that deep understanding of each industry to be sure that we cross-sell and leverage the powerful teams that we have in our dedicated industries. Let me give you a few examples of the areas I was writing. I will not cover all of them, but maybe one or two. The first one, let me speak about Beta. Beta is one of the subsidiaries of Amazon that is taking care of eVTOL. eVTOL means electrical vertical takeoff and landing.
In simple words, the air taxi that we'll use tomorrow moving from New York to Kennedy Airport with three or four people inside that kind of simple air taxi. We are part of the company, and we are the company. Not sure that Laurent wants to use it. Why you are going to use it? Because we are one of the companies that is helping them to develop their critical software and preparing the certification that is needed. It's becoming more and more a reality, and we are working on the battery management system that is key in that kind of environment. Critical software. It's one of the assets that we have inside Scalian. If we move forward, I could speak about the mission critical software for Airbus, helicopter, and many other ones. Operational excellence. I don't want to miss the opportunity to speak about Naval.
Here, preparing with them the digital transformation of the Charles de Gaulle was one of the areas where we help them on the program and prepare the whole program to make that happen. Same on submarines. And we can elaborate on many other things that we have done, like Volvo Trucks, for example, to support all their different supply chains across the planet. So our job is definitely to be a citizen of the industry and we'll support our clients wherever their operations are done. I can speak also about digital continuity and the way we support the VR on simulator and train supervision with Siemens. All in all, you see that we are sharp in our areas. And I want to make maybe a deep dive on AI. What is AI for a company like us?
AI, of course, like many of our peers, we have a catalog of agents that are for dedicated use cases supporting our clients. And we have developed a lot of different agents in many different areas. But the way we want to make the difference and the way we are progressing in this AI, Embedded AI or AI by design, what we do is by industry again. Why? Because what we want to do is to be sure that software and AI at scale is really impacting the process of our clients. The key today is not only to have the data management layer or the agent, it's to be sure that the way we augment the engineer, the way we augment the process is creating for the industry at the end the skills that they need in their own company.
That's why we focus on that kind of approach. Let me share one example with you that I like a lot. It was something that we shared with the Ministry of the Army during the Adopt AI event that happened in Paris two or three weeks ago. Of course, there was a boost, and we were one of the three companies that were services companies that were there. We were invited by Artefact, by the way. On the first floor of this event, we had the specific hackathon with the Ministry of the Army. I can talk about this one because it's an asset that is coming from Scalian. We were sharing with the different people that were there the development that we have done on swarming drone. It's a swarm of drones that are operating at five or six different drones with a ground station.
The software and AI that is embedded in each of the drones is quite sharp and takes a lot of expertise in software, but also in system engineering and AI. Why? Because we give to that kind of swarming drones a dedicated mission. And whatever happened during the mission, they can continue to progress and to deliver the mission. They can lose the ground station, lose one of the drones, they continue to progress because they are intelligent. They learn from the global context, and they're able to continue to deliver the drones. Of course, you see a few examples in the defense area, but not only.
Talking with Total on the METIS example is one of the areas where having that kind of swarming drone is interesting in some specific changing infrastructure, not also easy to access, or in a quite dangerous situation that we want to address. So, again and again, a company like us has to be agile, sharp in what we do, strong cultural and industrial culture, and bring to our clients the best of the experience, but always taking into account what is the specific industry and the standard of the industry. If we progress in our journey, let me speak now a little bit about our performance. And back to my introduction, yes, we are facing some few changes. One of them is the pressures that we have on our top line. And yes, the market is tough.
And honestly, after the profit warning in July 2024 done by Airbus, or the pressures that Volkswagen is facing against the Chinese that are entering and changing the market, the services industry, like my peers, are facing a tough period. But the way we build our resilience, the way we react, and the way we rebound to be back to positive is definitely an asset on the services company. And here, we are a little bit suffering. And if I have to highlight three of the three changes that we have in a company like us, I want to elaborate on maybe three things. First, we have done, as a company that is growing quite fast, more than 12 M&A and acquisitions these last nine years. And we are still a little bit puzzled and still very localized. I have still brands in some countries.
It's still the group, but I have still got brands that are operating locally, so it's a way for us to move to that kind of localized expertise that is linked to who knows what, to something that is more efficient, more industrialized in the way we operate, and having one strong group brings strength of all our expertise. Second one is certainly the backbone of the company. Again, having done that kind of acquisition is absolutely a key contribution, but it's also a quite robust backbone, and definitely, to be agile, follow the move. I have to have a backbone that is more agile, more efficient, that allows me to see the company in many different angles.
Today, we are a little bit weak in this area, and we need the needed investment to be sure that we run fast and agile mode and be able to adapt like a services company is doing, and last but not least, I was speaking about the market, and a market like us, with the changes that we have, not only the technology one, but also the reality has to industrialize in a better way if we want to protect the entry door of a model, which is the project margin. Industrialization means also here not having strong expertise, but being a recurrent mode, building the factories, the industrialization, the sharp expertise that will be a game changer. AI is a contributor, but not only. The way we organize our GC, Global Engineering Center. All of that is a part of the transformation that we need to manage.
I had the privilege to meet that kind of changes in my previous experience as a veteran, as you said, David. But again, it's not to do the past for Scalian. It's to be sure that we take the DNA of Scalian and we elevate the team and the performance because it's already a strong signature on the market. Let's move on to the next part of our changes. And I spoke about the transformation. Maybe I can speak here about, sorry, lots of information in this slide, but let me simplify that with six main points. First, the transformation that I want to manage with the leadership team has to be simple, is simple, and focused. I have to reason things simple and focused, 41 actions. So execution, as it was said by Laurent at the start of this presentation, is key in all industries.
It's key also in our business. First thing that we have done these last few months, these last three months is our portfolio offer has been redefined around three domain expertise. I'll talk about it today. Focus on three industries: aero, defense, energy. I know that I have two backdrops. The credibility we have in core banking of being able to allow them to be more efficient in AI is something that I also want to duplicate in many other ones. I don't want to lose also the mobility. We know that in the car or in the highway industry, we have very strong assets on dedicated areas. But the focus is definitely on aero. I spoke about the backlog of Airbus. Defense, you know the reality of this industry for all of us.
And energy, we can elaborate on how key it is on critical software and system engineering, but also the operational excellence. Third point, redesign our target operating model. Let's be very simple. I want functions that are more focused on what they do, focused on what they do, but also review a little bit the span of control of the company. And to be sure that we are more leaner in the way we enter in the game and that we protect the economic model of a company like us. Honestly, this is the start of the plan. Fourth point, full potential plan. I was talking about that. The ambition is to reach €700 million organic growth in 2030. I speak about organic growth in 2030. And the full potential plan is very simple. It's 41 actions that we want to execute in due time.
And to be sure that we are well following that kind of routine, we have a Chief Transformation Officer in charge and dedicated for safe function. He was nominated. He reports to the CEO; he was nominated one month ago. Last but not least, pivot to the execution in that kind of tough environment. No dream. We know that the market is tough, that the level of expectation of our client is still there. So let's use this period also to be lean, to be efficient, to boost a robust management system that allows us to restart the potential of this company and be sure that we become the leader that we want to be. Moving forward, I want to conclude this presentation with this final chart, speaking about some few key takeaways. First, the fact that we want to be at €700 million in 2030.
So the ambition is there, you can see. Worldwide player, a pure player in our dedicated expertise. I spoke about the focus on aerospace, defense, and energy, and of course, AI at the heart of what we do. I have not spoken about the chief AI officer that will join the company next year, but it's one of the moves that we are addressing today to be sure that we are well organized and well focusing on the execution of the plan. That's it.
Thank you, William, for this presentation. So it's no time to turn to the Q&A session. It will last around 10 minutes. I will start with two questions from the web to the mic to circulate, so please don't be shy. So first question, how AI will disrupt your business?
Oh, AI?
Yeah. How AI?
Oh, AI. What AI?
AI.
Honestly, for us, I spoke about AI. It's a very good question. AI is seen by us as an engine. And here, if I have to summarize what we do here, we are looking at AI as something that will bring more efficiency, speed, and innovation. Efficiency, speed, and innovation. Back to what I introduced before, by industry, addressing the process, understanding the value chain, and how we use that kind of solution, not only to be a catalog, but to augment our engineers. This is the way to help our client to run at scale. And this is the way we use AI as a strong accelerator in our business.
Thank you. Historically, your company had a very strong M&A activity. What are your priorities now?
Back to the three areas I shared with you on the expertise, on the geography to well follow the industry, but also the industrialization. Definitely, the plan we have on M&A is seen by us as an accelerator in our dedicated area. So, of course, we consider that kind of opportunity each time we have the opportunity to accelerate our industrialization. Speaking about India, for example, accelerate our expertise. We can speak about PLM and MES that are very good extensions of the way we support product life management or the manufacturing plant. I'm not speaking about the integration of the tool. I'm speaking about the change that is key for us, close to the engineering leader, close to the manufacturing leader. This is part of the product and the process tomorrow. So we want to be part of this story in the coming years.
Thank you. Question from the room? There, please.
Yeah, good afternoon, David Cerdan of Kepler Cheuvreux. I have a simple question. If you look at your current margin issues or low margins, I will say, do you think that it's more related to a problem of pricing, occupancy rate of your employees, or something different, maybe the cost organization?
The main, honestly, I was with Thales and Airbus this week. All of them, they consider that we are number one in what we do, but sometimes they are challenging me on the fact that we can be a little bit expensive or high in the prices that we have today. So sometimes we have to be very careful on the way we fix our pricing, you're right. The margin has to increase in the coming years depending on the way we'll be able to industrialize the company and the factory. I said it before, one of the changes we have is the fact that we are a little bit local. I don't want to reinvent the wheel in Spain, in France, or in Germany. I need to better use the factories that we have built here. So the entry door of our model that we call the project margin here is one of the key things that we want to address. Regarding the rest of the structural costs, including the level of utilization, we consider that we have few points to gain there, but it's more on the structure of the companies and the bench.
And I have a second one, sorry. Just rapidly regarding your balance sheet, I don't understand really your M&A strategy. Is it to further leverage the balance sheet or not, or do you need fresh money to do M&A?
You want to answer, David?
Let me associate my action here. No, we don't do M&A to increase the leverage for sure, David. Yes, you saw the leverage currently is close to seven times, 6.7 times at the latest Q3. So we clearly need to work with our lenders to make sure that we have enough cushion and the right balance sheet. So we are in a dialogue with our lender to make sure that leverage is not impairing the development. So if there is any future development, it will come from potentially additional equity from Wendel. You saw that we already invested in June and then earlier this year to make the acquisition of skills and affinity.
So we already made two equity injections to help the company to make acquisitions. Since we invested two years ago, Scalian has made three acquisitions. And going forward, if the companies are small that we need to acquire, it will be thanks to the growth of EBITDA, which will bring some delivery. But if we are looking at mid-size companies, then we'll probably have to invest some additional equity to make sure that the balance sheet is right for the business.
But the first driver will be EBITDA growth through improvement of margin in the years to come?
Hi, Damien Lanternier, DNCA. Can you share organic growth that you've achieved in 2023? We see the numbers, but we don't see what's organic and what's not. And then looking at your sector exposure, it seems we are just in a turnaround in the aerospace industry. Your competitors communicate on a strong change in mood from their customers with a lot of investments coming from Airbus, for example. What do you see? And on the defense, which is pretty large, what kind of trends do you see? And how credible are you to go outside of France? I see that you've got the Rheinmetall tag, but what's the reality of what you're able to achieve outside of France?
So organic growth that we had these last five, six years was for the company around 10%-12%. The organic growth of the company was around 10%-12%, so meaning that we are able to run that kind of acceleration on a double-digit growth. The second question related to the competition and the market, we see exactly the same kind of back to a better perspective within Airbus. We are already working with them.
I give you the example of Sparrow is one of the key things that is an acceleration for us, and we see in the aeronautics sector, not only for Airbus, by the way, but Safran, Thales, continue to be also strong in the business that we have in the aeronautics sector and the defense industry. If we spoke about the defense industry, honestly, it's a quite strong asset for the company, mainly in France, but back to the example I shared with you just before, we are growing quite fast and supporting well. In Germany, the acceleration is the defense industry. It's a reality with Thales. It's a reality with Rheinmetall. It's a reality in this industry that we see and that we are already supporting. The diversification that we have seen in Germany, for example, from Volkswagen to aeronautics and defense, is highly visible today. Volkswagen today is 52% of the company. It was two-thirds of the company before in Germany, only speaking about Germany.
Arnaud Palliez, CIC. Still on AI, what does it mean in terms of CAPEX and R&D spending for Scalian? And do you think that it will be translated into higher hourly rates that are applied to your customers, to your clients?
It's a very interesting question. On the CAPEX side, today, the company is very low. We are not doing too much CAPEX. I think that it's something that we need to change a little bit to well support our research plan and innovation plan. A company like us has to bring to our client not only the best expertise, but also the asset and the accelerators that are needed.
And it requires a kind of investment in that kind of area, not only on the infrastructure and the AI solutions that we need to have the right DMU to support calculations, for example. It's much more than that. It's to be sure that we have the right team that is working on that kind of asset. For the time being, I have that kind of asset, but it's coming from what is done on the ground. It's not yet enough industrialized, and I need something that we are able to leverage at the group level. So it requires a strategic plan for the innovation, and it will be led tomorrow by the Chief AI Officer. I am not looking for a Chief Technical Officer.
I'm looking for a chief AI officer because in everything that we do, we want to integrate AI as part of the practice that will lead this business tomorrow. You have seen that many times. The mechanical engineer of tomorrow is a software guy. What I mean by that is to well integrate all the solutions that are needed in working with software, but also with AI as a key changer in the way we design product or we support the process. Back to the needed CAPEX, yes, we have decided with the board to have a dedicated investment on our CAPEX, and it's including this plan to deliver the performance that we want in the coming years.
Good afternoon, Nicolas Tabor, Moneta Asset Management. Thank you very much for the presentation. I'd like to better understand the trajectory you're setting for Scalian. Is it more first a reset where you will decide what business needs to keep and not to keep to align with the new segmentations, and therefore the growth will not be that strong because you're cutting maybe some of the bench and some of the capacities? And then we'll see the acceleration and the margin expansion. And will the margin expansion be front-end loaded, driven by bench adjustment, or back-end loaded, driven by operating leverage? So we better understand how you set the trajectory and look at it internally. Thank you very much.
Honestly, part of the answer is in your question. We need to do both, and not only that. It's also a level of maturity. The engineering company today, there are not only people that are delivering performance by their own. It's what I just said before.
It's also the way we help our client to bring to the market that kind of asset and accelerators, and they are part of this acceleration that is needed in our business, so of course, the excellence operation is not only for our client. It's also the way we operate on our side, and being more integrated, well supported by the right backbone will allow us to be more agile and efficient in the way we run that, definitely, but the part of the value will also come from the way we industrialize, from the way we bring to our client more value with the asset we have. Let me share with you one concrete example. We are working in Spain in the healthcare industry, supporting them on a specific agent that was created to edit specific numbers.
That kind of number is used in Spain in the healthcare industry by different regions and hospitals. It's a standard number that is an international one. The way we develop things created to our client a strong outcome by reducing by 60% their own efficiency in their own operation. On our side, it's bringing to the company a project margin that is at 60%. So they have many game changers that are a reality not only for a company like us on the services part, but globally for the sector. And we are also running our approach by integrating that kind of solution.
To give further the answer, because the question was precise about front-end and back-end load for the EBITDA, it will be both. Part of it will be thanks to improvement of the operation, and that will be this year. Part of it will be thanks to the growth and the scaling, which will be the end. But it's both for that.
No more questions from the room. I have one last question from the web. Can you clarify the portion of recurring business versus one-time projects? And what is the current trend of your portfolio for the next 24 months? Client portfolio, you mean, or project portfolio?
Yeah. Honestly, the rotation of our business; it's quite stable. Most of the time, we are able to win a specific environment that is a pluriannual project. And it's a part of the resilience that is a key asset for us. But definitely, we are investing on being able to grow in that kind of area, being able to have a portion of the value chain that is key for our client. It will allow us to have a strong resilience on the top line. I will say something around two-thirds of the company is embedded in the growth that we have. The acceleration will come with our ability to run faster and get more projects in the coming quarters. Back to the next 24 months, the next eight quarters and two years, we consider that we should be back to growth in H2 next year. After a declining year in 2025, it is time for us to be back to growth in that kind of area, H2 2026.
Thank you, William. One very last question.
Yes, thank you very much. Just one last one. As you mentioned pricing during your presentation, and you mentioned that you'd expect to grow, I mean, quite rapidly to reach €700 million by the end of the plan. Can you give us a rough idea of how much price and how much volume are you expecting in there?
No, honestly, a little bit too difficult to say that. Happy to come back to you and report what we have done. But this market is also a lot of uncertainty. What makes us strong is our agility and being able to adapt to this market. Building the resilience that we need and taking care of our economic model is definitely the first thing that we want to address in the coming months. So too early to answer on the price evolution in the coming years.
So thank you. Time is over for questions. Many thanks, William. We now welcome Andee Harris, CEO of CPI, introduced by David Darmon. Jingle, please.
So thank you again, William, for sharing your views and excitement.
Now, turning to CPI, just a brief reminder of our investment in CPI. We invested early 2020, just before COVID, in Crisis Prevention Institute. We invested roughly $570 million, and over the years, we have paid ourselves a couple of dividends, so you can see that we did recoup probably around 25% of our initial investment through dividends already. CPI is the gold standard in training to manage episodes of crisis and episodes of violence, mainly in healthcare facilities and in schools. I'm not going to give more details on what the company is doing. You're going to do it much better than I do, and I think you're familiar with the company business model. Maybe just a word on you, and then I leave the floor, so Andy is not a veteran. I hear you, William, but a very, very experienced leader.
We are very, very pleased that Andy joined the firm in August. She's coming with a very strong tech background. You will see why this is so important for where we want to take CPI going forward. She also had a training background because one of the companies she was leading was a train-the-trainer company. Andy, very excited to have you. Let's hear what your views are.
Okay. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everyone. It's an honor to be here to talk about Crisis Prevention Institute to our valued investor community. Before I jump into the main presentation, I do want to just take a moment and talk and reflect about why I joined CPI about four months ago. As David mentioned, I was in the learning and training space, mostly focused on sales training, employee engagement training, and HR training.
Although very fulfilled by the purpose and empowerment that we were giving our customers, I didn't realize how profound the impact can be when you go to a mission-driven organization. CPI, the mission is so incredible. Every day, globally, around the world, we're training teachers and social workers and nurses and drug rehab assistants on how to best enable them to help support our most vulnerable communities. For me, it's really been about that personal mission. I'm so excited to lead CPI into that next version. I know we talked a little bit about our model, but what I think is really unique with CPI is that we really focus on the safety and compliance piece of the business. Our core markets are in education and healthcare. We have a high, loyal customer base, and it also is hard to switch.
Switching costs are pretty expensive, and people don't like to switch once they have a trusted provider like CPI. What really sets CPI apart is our ability to do the train-the-trainer model. So we have global professionals, instructors that we employ. They go out and they train what we call certified instructors, people out in the workforce. That's around 41,000 people. And then they go back to their organizations and then train about 2 million people globally. So you can imagine the reach and the scale when you're taking our stuff and taking it all the way up to 2 million people annually. So it's a really great business model, and it helps us scale and have flexibility to be able to give the training that we need. So we really focus on four key pillars to build what we would call our leading-class solution.
The first pillar that we really focus on is just our incredible research and evidence-backed information that we put in our content, so we're constantly updating our content so that we're giving our trainers the best possible experience, and so things like neuroscience, evidence-backed research, we're constantly using data to modify our training so that we are giving people best-in-class solutions. We have the highest satisfaction score of any of our competitors, and this really, I think, says it all. 80% of CIs said that they have avoided a dangerous situation because of the training that they received from CPI. The other piece is our certification process. We take it very seriously.
We make sure that people are well-equipped to train the learners that they're training because, once again, we're putting people in very critical situations where there is workplace violence, and we need to make sure that they're equipped with the right skills. So our certification is very rigid. It's also the number one standard, the gold standard in the industry. So you see that Blue Card in the middle. That is recognized universally. People will sometimes not always know CPI, but they'll say, "Oh, do you have a Blue Card? Are you Blue Card certified?" And that, once again, just talks to the reach of our brand. So getting to our brand, we have 45 years of reputational success. So that's really critical because trust in this industry is so important. And the other piece is that 87% of our industry recognizes our brand.
And if you compare that to our competitors, which are about 45%. So a very different model. And then we also are really the only training out there in our space that can scale. So we can train we talked about the 1.8-2 million learners that we train. We're the only ones that can do that to scale to a large healthcare system. We have systems where we will train 11,000 people over a few-week period. So we're able to really scale, whereas our competitors really can't do that. So really, that's what differentiates us from the rest of our competitors. So one thing that's really interesting about CPI is when things are not going well for people in mental illness and mental illness is spiking, it's also good for our business. So it's a fortunate, unfortunate problem. It's something that we grapple with every day.
But we want to make sure we're on the front lines of helping people. So at the end of the day, we are seeing a rise in workplace violence. OSHA just did a study. And hospitals and healthcare workers are four times more likely to have violence in their workplace than any other industries. So we know that that's a rising issue in healthcare. And then in education, since COVID, there's been more disruptive behavior in classrooms. We also have an increase in kids being diagnosed with autism and other behavior disorders. So we are seeing disruption both in the healthcare space as well as the education space. And what that means is that that is very costly to employers and insurers.
One of the examples I use is that we get feedback from our healthcare customers and our nurses saying, "Because we were trained, we were able to avoid the insurance claim or things that could come up." We also know that nurses leave at 24% in the U.S. That's the turnover rate for nurses. If they are trained in CPI and they feel safe at work, they're more likely to stay. Obviously, increased employee turnover is a big problem in healthcare given the labor shortage for nurses. And then, once again, the physical and mental issues, burnout. These people are treating our most vulnerable community. So we really need to make sure that they're not burning out and that we're making sure that they are still available for the communities that they serve.
Really, we are trying to combat this by, once again, giving people safety and psychological safety as well as physically safe in their workplaces. All of this is fueling more demand for what we do. A few things that have been driving our industry is the mandated restraint training. Depending on the administration and depending on different states, there is a lot of regulatory compliance in both the healthcare space and the education space that we can really capitalize on. There is this increased need for that workplace safety. At CPI, we spend a lot of time looking at different regulatory bodies, making sure we're tracking the most comprehensive and the most up-to-date regulatory requirements because they do change. In the U.S., they change state by state.
So we are constantly tracking that and making sure that we are in compliance and that our training is the most up-to-date. So really being very cognizant about that. And then also just the rising physical and mental health issues in schools. We need to know now that we need to train not just it used to be really just the special ed classrooms, but really, it's holistically now. We're getting asked to train administrators and principals and anyone, food service, anyone that's connected to the school because it's a global problem, even things like building classroom cultures, ADHD being a big problem in schools now. So it's not just special ed. It's really our expansion has been in specialty topics around education. And also, and I'll get into a little bit more about our specialty topics in healthcare too. So we were used to really focus on training nurses.
And now we've seen that the bus drivers and the ambulance drivers and anyone connected within the hospital often are the first person. That first, if you imagine that you call an ambulance, if you can keep somebody calm in the ambulance, then they show up to the hospital. They're in a much calmer state. And the idea is that we're constantly trying to de-escalate that state and make sure that they're feeling safe. So CPI is uniquely positioned to do that because we are the market leader and we are so expansive. We are able to do the research. We're able to be flexible and innovative with our products. We just released a newer product for ambulance drivers. So really thinking about what do they need. They need something that's mobile. They need something that's easy for them to quickly use in the moment.
They might only have 15 minutes to calm someone down before they get to the hospital. That's a different type of training than a nurse who might be spending four or five hours with a patient, so really understanding our customer needs and being able to be innovative in what we think about that. The other reason is that we are four times larger than any of our competitors, so once again, we have the ability to research. Our financial performance since Wendel's investment, so our CAGR is growing 11% on revenue. Our EBITDA is up 13%, and David already talked about the dividend returns, so we did give back €134 million of dividends since the inception, since 2019. And some initiatives since the Wendel's investment. The first is that we've increased the reach and penetration, so we've gone out for new certified instructors.
That increased from nine to around 11 new programs. So I talked about a lot of these specialty topics. So CPI used to just be one training that was only delivered one way. And now we have multiple ways that we deliver our training. I'll talk about digital in a minute, but the ability to do hybrid as well as in-person training, but also different topics. Like I said, the idea that you can mix and match, almost like a Lego set, and you can mix and match different products so you can serve the needs of your audience and your customers. International expansion, I actually right before here was in Manchester meeting with our UK team. And we've been doing a lot around international expansion. We did our first acquisition of Verge in Norway. So that we are continuing to look at our international markets.
You'll see in the next few slides that we've had significant growth in international this year. The last one, which is near and dear to my heart, is digitization. That is really the idea that we need to make our platforms as easy and accessible for the people we serve, especially when we think of nurses that are not always sitting at a desk. Most of our workers that we serve are mobile. They're moving around. Time off the floor is so important when you think about teachers and nurses. We have to combat maybe it's a 15-minute training because that's all they can give. They're doing it on breaks or really quickly someone's covering for them. We do have to really think about our customers. Technology is going to be a big enabler for them.
It won't replace our in-person training because we do teach holds and how to restrain someone properly without hurting them, causing harm to yourself or to them. But at the same time, we are able to do some more things digitally with our product. So our 2025 performance outlook. So you can see that this year we were a little flat. Our total revenue grew 4%. North America was up 2%. International, like I mentioned, grew 22%. We did have some challenges in North America. Part of that had to do with the funding. So there was a lot of funding going into education post-COVID. And that funding has now changed. There's been some changes with the new administration around funding, especially for human services. And then potential Medicare cuts just causing a lot of uncertainty in the market. We're seeing consolidation within healthcare organizations.
Just once again, when there's uncertainty in the market, people will renew, but they're not going to do massive wallet expansion at that time. But we did maintain our high 40s EBITDA margins. And we did do a debt refinancing. As far as the outlook goes, I'm really optimistic that although 2025 will probably be flat, we are expecting to grow 5%-10% in 2026. And by 2027, we will return to historical double-digit growth. So really excited about the outlook and the ability. And I do think with some new leadership and some new technology, I think that that will be a huge impact for us. So long-term vision. This is what I get excited about being from tech. But once again, really thinking about this tech-enabled solution, I do think it will help across a lot of areas. One, we can scale to enterprise systems.
So for example, we work with large hospitals. One of them has 11,000 people that we're training in multiple different regional hospital models. So there's the parent hospital company, and then they have all the different regional hospitals. So being able to have a digital tech-enabled solution will allow them to get the workbooks to each of the different hospitals. It makes for a more cohesive experience for them. They can train it all at the same time. It's obviously environmentally a lot better as well. So really making sure that we're thinking about what our end customers need when we create our tech-enabled solutions. Like I said, we can expand our offering to really understand the data that we're getting back and the outcomes and measuring that outcomes from our customers.
That is going to be a big thing that we are going to be looking at is how are we driving the right outcomes and what are the right products and the right formula of products to give our customers using more of an enterprise licensing agreement, which then allows them to mix and match certain products, which makes sense for them holistically. The other pieces I mentioned are two million learners. We believe that we can create the platform where they can have their own discussions and really support each other. Right now, they're quite isolated or they're using social media or other forms to get that support. Because of our trust, we really believe that we can facilitate really great discussions and really know what's happening with our communities. We're really looking at that as more of a learner engagement community-driven portal.
And then lastly, a more predictive revenue model is helpful for our customers, especially when they're thinking about budgeting and they need certainty and knowing what our prices will be. And it's good for us to understand we're able to forecast better. So it's a win-win for all of us, but it's really focused on what is the best vehicle for us to be delivering this training to our customers. And lastly, when you think about growth, we focus on kind of three areas. There's organic growth. There's growth through acquisition. And then there's product-led growth, which is really our ability to drive growth through an incredible experience for our customers through our product. So that's really our North Star on that. So key initiatives, operational and commercial rigor.
We are looking at our internal processes as well, making sure that we're using best-in-class processes, thinking about how do we do things better, how do we continue to utilize the team that we have to continue to drive profitability. One area coming from sales training that is going to be quite impactful for me is just the go-to-market transformation. We are looking at restructuring our go-to-market just so that we have a better idea of understanding our customer needs and making it easier for our customers to buy, realizing that the way education buys is not the way healthcare buys and the way a new prospect might buy is different than a renewal, then thinking about an enterprise agreement versus a smaller school district, really just understanding and segmenting out our customers so we understand how they buy. I talked a lot about product development delivery.
Our roadmap will really be driven by data and what the outcomes that we are hearing from our customers that are most important to them. Technology and innovation, obviously, I actually heard a few of the questions from the previous session. AI is something that we'll be looking at, something I'm passionate about. I think we are in a unique position because we can use AI to help for things like role-based training, practicing. So there's a lot of applications for AI within our product. But the other thing is we're really defensible against AI because our in-person training is you can't teach that over a computer.
Or the best I can say is, when you go to physical therapy and they give you an exercise to do to help stretch or do a certain exercise and you watch the video, you need the physical therapist to show you how to do it right the first few times, and then maybe you can reinforce it with a video. But our holds, it's so nuanced as to how you might grab somebody one way versus the other way, and so it's really, really important that those are taught properly and in person. Also, when you are restraining an eight-year-old child versus a 40-year-old adult, depending on the size that you are and depending on the size they are, things change, and you need to know how to handle that differently.
So it's really important that we keep our hold and our in-person training for at least that part of it. We will always do a blended hybrid mix, but I actually think when I look at AI and the areas we can plug it into the business, I think that's one part where actually we won't be taken over by AI. And then we'll continue our market expansion. We still have a lot of white space. I'm really hopeful and really excited about the opportunities we have to continue to penetrate education, as well as we are just starting to see our enterprise healthcare customers come online. So I mean, we have a huge opportunity both in North America as well as globally to start looking at those types of customers and market expansion. And lastly, international development. I talked before about our growth in international.
So really looking forward to continuing that international. We do have a Middle East office and Australia office that handles APAC and Singapore, as well as a UK office in Ireland. So lastly, just key takeaways. I've talked a lot about our brand. Our brand is so powerful. It's really great to have a brand that people trust and recognize in the industry. That gives us a lot of opportunity to grow in new markets. Our continued focus on long-term growth. There's a lot with our digital expansion, really understanding the data and who are our best customers. As we see the behavioral changes and unfortunately, workplace violence continuing to be a problem does help us grow. But obviously, our goal once again is to drive safety, not to encourage the workplace violence.
Then the opportunity, I think I love coming to businesses when they're at a really cool inflection point. I think what's so magical about CPI is that we are in this amazing inflection point to bring the right technology, the right data to our customers and really be innovative in how we do that. Lastly, I talked about the mission right when I got up here. It is so important. Everybody at CPI believes in our mission. Every day we wake up thinking about how can we make a nurse's life easier, how can we make a teacher's life easier. They are doing incredible work out there. If we can support them just in a small way, it's really impactful. So thank you very much.
Thank you, Andy, for this presentation. It's now time to turn to the Q&A session. Once again, it will last around 10 minutes. Let's start with two questions from the web to allow the mic to circulate around the room before. So how's DOGE impacted directly or indirectly CPI's business?
Yes, yes. So for those of you who aren't familiar, DOGE was, I guess, the brainchild of Elon Musk, and it was really about driving government efficiencies. What that did was get rid of the Department of Education within the United States. A lot of things that were done at the federal level were then pushed to the state level. For us, what that means is just that we sell a little bit differently. We make sure we understand what's happening in the states, but it didn't really impact our business substantially because once again, we are compliance-driven. People need to use our training to keep people safe.
So it didn't massively impact it. Just once again, it's more uncertainty in the market. So you always need to make sure that you're checking with your customers and making sure that they're not feeling the effects and thinking, "Oh my God, this guy is falling." And just once again, it's really about being in touch with your customers and supporting them. Thank you. How do you think digital and artificial intelligence could improve your business both on cost and revenues? Yeah, yeah. So I think there's a lot of opportunity both in, and I'll actually add one more, customer experience because I've seen AI work really well. I mentioned role-based training. Being able to actually have a situation happen before it arises and before you're faced with that, to be able to practice, I think, is a big use of AI.
Definitely being able to simulate what might happen in a classroom or in a hospital room, I think, will be really big for us and just making sure that our outcomes are better, and then internally, we are looking at AI for everything from marketing automation, sales automation, as well as using the Jira functionality to be able to help our engineers code faster, more efficiently, and quicker, and then using it as part of our quality assurance process within our technology stack. So we will be embracing AI, but I'm always cautious that AI is not just the end-all, be-all and start slicing budgets immediately because you think AI is going to come and be your magic silver bullet, so yeah, cautiously optimistic about AI.
Thank you. Do we have a, yeah, one question in the room?
Great. Hi, it's Andy Lowe from Citi. How should we think about the total addressable market within the U.S.? You've got those sort of 2 million people using it at the moment. Where could that get to? And then if I think internationally, what are your most exciting international markets and what makes those markets so attractive for you versus maybe other markets which are less interesting?
Yeah, yeah. So I'll start with the first question. We still have a large addressable market. We're about a third penetrated within education and much less within healthcare. So still a lot of white space in North America for us. So there's plenty of opportunity for us to continue that growth. Internationally, one of the things that we do have a small office in Dubai and one of the things that we are excited about in the Middle East is you're seeing things.
So Cleveland Clinic, one of our customers, also is in Saudi Arabia. So just thinking about how some of the American health systems and education systems are going over to the Middle East, mostly Saudi Arabia and Dubai. So we are seeing an influx of opportunity there. So that is something that we're focused on for our expansion.
I have a couple of questions. First one is regarding the M&A. Is it possible for you to grow in this market through some local acquisition? Secondly, regarding internationalization, is it negative or dilutive for the margin, your profitability? And when I see this kind of profitability, I suspect some new entrants into your industry. So do you see this kind of new entrant effect, notably from larger companies?
Yeah. So I'll try to address those one at a time. So from an international perspective, and David, feel free to jump in as well. But from an international perspective, we don't have the same profitability at this point. Expectations on our international, our profitability is around 20% internationally versus the US. So we are not focused on, we are focused on that profitability, but we understand that these are growing markets. And then the second question, I think I'll let David answer.
It was regarding the tuck-in and the bolt-on. Do you see potential to do bolt-on acquisition like we did with Verge?
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think we had a great experience with Verge and we'll continue to do bolt-ons internationally. When we think about our acquisition strategy, we are looking at either technology applications that would help our customer experience or tuck-ins that would help grow our business, either smaller players in the market or international players.
The other question is, do you see any new entrant that can come because of the high margin and how worried are you about it?
Yeah. I mean, I think it goes back to just our scalability and our research and the fact that we are releasing new products. We need to continue to be innovative. In the US, we always talk about the Blockbuster versus Netflix. I don't know what the equivalent to that might be in France, but we do talk a lot about you've got to keep innovating. You've got to keep thinking about what's next. And I always keep our competitors in the rearview mirror. So I'm focused on what are they doing in the market. We do want to make sure that we're delivering maximum value to our customers to make sure that we're being competitive with the other people in the market.
But at this point, I'm not overly concerned about it, but I will always keep it in the back of my mind. And I think that innovation piece and I talked about product-led growth, really making sure that our product is second to none, I think is going to be really critical for us to maintain our position.
No question in the room. I have another one on the web. How do you manage inflation impact on your cost and revenues?
Yeah. So I mean, we address inflation by looking across our company and seeing where can we work on margins. How do we internally try to make sure that we're not just passing the cost onto our customers? We are really trying to look internally at our own cost savings using things like AI for marketing, for example, or some of the other ways that we've been able to build efficiencies within our business. We are in budget planning season. So obviously, that's really critical right now to really understand what can we do from our own internal. When your customers are nurses and teachers and especially education resources, you don't want to continue to pass on all of the price to them. So we are doing our best to maintain that.
Thank you. I have no more questions. So thank you very much for this presentation. Now we'll come to Cyril Marie, Wendel Executive Vice President, to make a deep dive in Wendel Investment Managers. Jingle, please.
Hello and good afternoon. So I have two objectives for this presentation. First one is to give you an update on the building of the asset management platform that we started two years and a half ago. Two is also to convince you that Wendel Investment Managers is really an interesting opportunity as a shareholder and to enjoy the development of the private market. Let's start with the update on the platform. We have in mind to build a private asset management platform, as Laurent said, focused on the mid-market. We do believe that there we can create value. We want to develop this platform in the U.S. and in Europe. We really want to have a global reach. Just to remind you where we are, you know you are familiar now with our target operating model. We have done the acquisition of IK in 2023. Since then, they have raised €6 billion.
They have reached the hard cap of all of their funds. They have developed their business with organic initiatives. They are now above €15 billion of AUM. So the dynamic is there. The performance of the fund is very good. Transaction with Wendel was very well perceived. And they have developed their franchise with new clients, mainly in Asia. Monroe, as you know, we have done the acquisition in April. Same dynamic here. They are now at $25 billion. They are raising in 2025 close to $4 billion of equity with a very diversified range of expertise, client, and geography. It's very important for development in the future because this strategy is really scalable. And then Committed Advisors, announced very recently, we should close Committed Advisors probably January or February, €6 billion. I will not comment on it because you will have a presentation by the CEO, Daniel Benin.
So we start three acquisitions. We have now a platform. So €46 billion of AUM, Laurent mentioned it, €200 million of FRE. We'll see why profitability is important for us. On top of the FRE, so the recurring revenues, we have also potential in terms of carried interest. It means that we'll share also the performance delivered to our clients over the long term. We have now 600 people dedicated to this business, half of them in the U.S. and the rest in Europe and in Asia. It's three asset classes. And you will see that we have a global footprint. So on one side, we are a mid-market player, really focused on what we do with very local engagement, but at the same time, it's a global business. So we have been able to do that in a relatively short period of time. Why?
Why we have been able to engage, develop discussion with those very strong teams and develop those partnerships and develop those businesses? Because we have built a very solid platform with a distinctive value proposition. And this is key to go back to that because that's really the starting point, the foundation of all what we do. We have a distinctive model. What does it mean? We have built a model where we maintain the entrepreneurial, the dynamic, and of those companies. It's the best way to attract talent and to deliver performance for all our clients over the long term. If you want to deliver performance for your client, you need to have talent. And for that, we have a distinctive value proposition. It's not enough, for sure. The second point is that with Wendel, we have a balance sheet.
We have the ability to accelerate the growth through the sponsoring program. What does it mean, the sponsoring? For sure, we invest money when they raise so they can accelerate their development, but it's also a way to innovate. It's very important. I can give you one example on the retail product. If you have a balance sheet, it's more easy to create a product at the critical size they want, then third pillar, and it's also important for the platform, we know that we need to work all together to be relevant in front of our clients. We have built a mid-market player. We have to compete, and each of our clients, they talk to us, but they talk also with the huge players.
We need to be coordinated in front of our clients in order to be relevant in front of very big investors and also to tackle the retail market. We come back to that. And last thing, which is also very important, we have a pragmatic approach to oversee our business, to protect the value of each ROGP, and also to create operational efficiencies. For example, for the implementation of our building, we try to be all together at the same place in Paris, in London, in Luxembourg, or in New York. With that, we have a very strong value proposition to attract new talent. But now let's move to the third pillar, Committed Advisors, that we announced this October. Unfortunately, the CEO, sorry, is not with us today, but we'll have a video from Daniel Benin. Daniel is the CEO and the founder of Committed Advisors.
He's very well seasoned. He has created the Committed Advisors with three other partners. It's a very international team. They're French, but they have a very strong background. They were in the past all together at AXA, and they have developed a very interesting business. So now we can launch the video.
Good afternoon. I'm sorry I will not be able to be with you today. I'm Daniel Benin, the CEO of Committed Advisors. Committed Advisors was founded 15 years ago by an ex-Ardian partner after we spent 10 years with Ardian launching the secondary practice back in 2000, and we became independent in 2010. Since then, we have raised EUR 7 billion dedicated to secondaries through two verticals, LP stakes and GP-leds. We operate through three offices: Paris, New York, Singapore. So it's a global platform with 51 professionals spread across these three offices.
We mostly focus on buyout and growth, meaning profitable companies with a geographic allocation, which is roughly 50% in the U.S., one-third in Europe, and 10%-15% in APAC. Why that? Because the U.S. market is the biggest market by number of companies, number of private equity funds, and number of investors who could become potential sellers because the secondary market is designed to provide liquidity to such investors. You have two pillars: the LP stakes and the GP-leds. LP stakes have been there forever, and they're still there today. Basically, it's an investor or a group of investors who is willing to exit a private equity fund before its term. You cannot sell because it's an illiquid asset class. So you cannot sell a private equity interest or portfolio of interest if you don't have a buyer like a secondary market in front of you.
That's why this segment, which used to be a niche 25 years ago with a couple of hundred million changing hands in a given year, is going to reach over $200 billion this year. This is a massive change in this market driven by two things: the need for liquidity and also the slowdown of the distributions. The need for liquidity is impacting all kinds of investors. The slowdown of the distributions is also impacting investors, but more importantly, impacting GPs. A GP who is not able to send the money back soon enough to his LPs is going to find a solution to accelerate that distribution. That's the genesis of the GP-leds, which started roughly 12, 13 years ago. We have been actually very active in that segment as well. Again, the secondary market is no longer a niche. Over $200 billion today, and the expectations are a market which could double up between now and 2030. To give you also some perspective, 10 years ago, this was a $40 billion market. So we've moved from 40 to 200, and we could reach $400 billion in five years. Within that segment, you have now basically two types of transactions: the very large transactions, which are going to be covered by very large secondary managers raising $15, $20, and up to $30 billion in one single fund. At the other end, you get people like us raising between $2 and $3 billion per fund and operating in transactions which are going to range between $20-30 million, and up to $150 or 200 million. What does it mean? Pricing, risk, return. Pricing is totally different.
If you are buying a portfolio of EUR 10 million, EUR 20 million, EUR 30 million, it's not systematic, but you could get an increased discount versus the same portfolio, same quality, but 10 times bigger. So in a nutshell, you buy a EUR 200 million portfolio, you're going to be able to negotiate between 10% and 20% discount, sometimes more. You buy the same portfolio, which is a EUR 2 billion portfolio, you're going to get a pricing, a clearing price between par and 5%, 6%, 7% discount. This year, to give you an example, we bought a portfolio in April, 36 fund interest, around EUR 200 million, 27% discount. At the same time, the Yale Endowment in the U.S. was selling a portfolio 25 times bigger, EUR 5 billion, same kind of assets, 7% discount. This is an example of the differentiation that you have in positioning your strategy in the mid-market versus the larger market in the secondary space. First of all, I think our positioning is the right one because we operate in the mid-market space where structurally the discounts that we're able to pay are higher than what you would find in the global normalized secondary market. That's the first point. Second point, thanks to that positioning, we benefit from an increased velocity of the capital because we're not using debt. So anytime there is a distribution coming back to us that goes back to our LPs, we're not using leverage, which is a great advantage because we can de-risk much quicker in all the transactions that we've done. In 15 years, we've closed on over 250 transactions. None of them have been done with the use of leverage.
Every time we get a distribution, that goes back to our LPs. What does it mean? When you're committing €10 million to our funds, as an LP, we are going to call €10 million from you, but at the same time, we are going to send between €4 and €5 million. Net cash is going to be around €5-€5.5 million for you. You're going to disburse €5.5 million, but you have funded €10 million. The multiple that you're going to achieve in our flagship funds on your €10 million is around 1.8-1.9x. The multiple on your €5.5 million of cash disbursed is going to be between 2.5 and 3x. With a downside protection, which is massive because you are going to be invested by transparency in over 1,000 companies.
So the risk of impairment is extremely limited, not to say nil. With respect to GP-leds, portfolios are a bit more concentrated, as I've explained. You will end up in our dedicated GP-led funds with 100, 120 companies, but the same velocity is applying. In five years, we have reimbursed close to 90% of the capital to our investors. So an investor committing in our funds five years ago, we'll already get 90% of their money back, self-financing a portion of the capital calls with the distributions. The multiple that we are targeting for GP-leds and that we have generated, by the way, during the past 15 years are ranging between 2.2 and 2.4x. So similar to buyout returns, but the velocity is higher and the cash exposure is around 60%. The multiple on your €10 million in that example is 2.2, 2.4. The multiple on your cash is going to be between 2.7 and 3.2x. Sure. So we have two product ranges: one flagship fund, which has been there forever since we got started, doing initially a lot of LP stakes and now being balanced between LP stakes and GP-leds. Why is it balanced? Because now when we have a 200 billion market again, roughly 50% of this market is actually covered by GP-leds. So we replicate what the secondary market basically is offering us in these flagship funds. On the other end, GP-leds and LP stakes do not offer the exact same risk returns. So it's important to cover that as well. On LP stakes, you are going to assemble a portfolio which is going to be extremely diversified by sector, by GP, by geography, by vintage.
You could end up, when you're assembling a portfolio of €2.5-3 billion with 60, 70, 80 transactions by transparency, over 1,000 companies. On the other end, GP-led, by definition, more concentrated. These transactions include one, two, four, five, six assets, sometimes a bit more, but the bulk is really between one and five companies per portfolio. We have actually a dedicated program to GP-leds because the risk returns are a bit different. In GP-leds, you could underwrite the transactions a bit higher, so targeting 2.2-2.5 times your money and an IRR which is going to range at around 20%. In the LP stakes, you are going to be slightly lower, but again, much more diversified, so enjoying a stronger downside protection, so you're going to shoot for 1.8-1.9x and an IRR which is going quite similar at 18%-20%.
International presence is a must-have. This is the global market, private equity. So you could operate if you want in Europe or in the U.S., but you would give up on some opportunities in other regions. This is also offering a diversification of your risk because all the regions do not necessarily perform at the same pace. The COVID was a great example. We've seen the COVID impacting several regions, but certain sectors did not get impacted the same way, and the rebound did not happen at the same time. So you could play your geographical location and your investments depending on the opportunities which were attractive enough in each region. First point. Second, when you have a seller in the private equity space and in the secondary space, he's not going to sell only European assets. He could sell a mixed bag of U.S., Europe, Asian assets.
By being in a position to offer a global solution, you're maximizing the odds of getting the deal done, and your negotiating power is higher because of that global solution that you are able to provide. It's a tough question. In 10 years, I would see Committed Advisors still operating in the same space. One of the recipes of our success is we have been extremely disciplined in remaining positioned in that mid-market space. How did we do? Our last fund was €2.5 billion. We have multiplied mid-market transactions. So we have done more of the same, basically, even if the fund was 10 times bigger than the first fund that we raised back to 2010. It was a €250 million fund. What does it mean? Most of the deals that we're doing today would still fit into fund one, two, three, which is quite unusual.
How do we see ourselves in this market in 10 years? This market is probably going to double up between now and 2030. Is it going to be a market at 600, 800, maybe a trillion in 10 years from now? Possibly. Frankly speaking, I don't know, but the only thing I know is it's going to be bigger than now. The opportunity is great because we're still a very limited amount of players in this market. How many players are we? 150, maybe 170. That's it. How many private equity players do you have in the space? Over 25,000. And that is actually a great advantage because we have room for new entrants, and we have new entrants coming in, but the growth of the market is higher than the amounts which are being collected by the new entrants and combined with the existing players.
The prospects are looking extremely good, but it's very important to remain very disciplined in the strategy that you have in place. We are willing to keep operating in that mid-market space because the risk returns are totally different versus the larger space. It was, first of all, a cultural fit, an entrepreneurial fit that we found in Wendel. There was also this platform which has been announced a few years ago and which is already active in place with best-in-class players, IK, Monroe. We have basically proof of this concept already in place. This is going to strengthen us over the long term, but in the meantime, this is not going to change our DNA. Committed Advisors will remain Committed Advisors in the way we're going to define and operate in the long term.
We'll remain independent in that point, but we will benefit very strongly from that partnership, remaining focused, obviously, on secondaries, on mid-market, keeping that entrepreneurial mindset that we share with Wendel, and also having a massive alignment of interest that we have always had and that we're going to increase with our investors, with a EUR 200 million commitment that we're going to have in the next fund being launched in January.
Okay. Thank you, Daniel. Let's pursue the presentation and the explanation of the building of this platform. This platform, I think, offers a unique set of products with this primary focus on mid-market. You heard from Daniel how it is important because we do believe that it's the best way to deliver performance.
But the challenge when you are mid-market positioning, this local positioning is also to create a business able to grow and to have a global positioning. So our platform is at scale. Laura mentioned it. We have EUR 46 billion, and we have also EUR 200 million of FRE. For us, the first KPI, AUM, are important, but the key KPIs for us is the FRE because we are not AUM chaser. As Daniel said, what is important is the performance for our clients. We are not chasing huge funds. We are really focused on mid-market, and we do believe that if we stay in this market, we'll be in a position to deliver performance to our clients. If you deliver performance to your clients, you can charge fees, you can grow your business, and you can remain profitable and protect your business.
That's exactly the way we want to build this platform. We are at scale, but at the same time, we stay where we have to stay, and with this profitability, we can attract talent, and we can also invest in our distribution to diversify our business, so that's the first, let's say, attribute: size, size in terms of AUM, size in terms of profitability. The second important point, global positioning, so mid-market, global positioning. Okay. Why are we global? Let's take a step back. If you look at this map, you have two things. You have where we invest money and where we raise money. If you look at the platform today with the EUR 46 billion, our first market is the U.S. In terms of investment, EUR 28 billion invested in the U.S. For sure, it's Monroe, but you have also EUR 3 billion invested by Committed Advisors, as Daniel presented.
The U.S. market, it's key. So our first market in terms of investment is the U.S. The second market, for sure, is Europe with IK and also Committed Advisors. And as you see, also in terms of investment now, thanks to Committed Advisors, we have also 1 billion invested in Asia. If now we move to the other side of our business, where we raise money, first market, the U.S., 21 billion. It's not only Monroe. We have 3 billion raised for IK, 1 billion raised for Committed Advisors. So our three affiliates are distributed already in the U.S., and in the U.S., we have also a strong retail presence. I will come back to that. Second market, for sure, Europe. And it's not only IK and Committed Advisors. We have also a strong presence of Monroe in Europe. The good thing also, why we are global, as you can see, we are also in LatAm, in MENA, and in Asia. We are small, but we are profitable with our growth. We want to invest there to grow our business, and we have a strong potential to develop our business. Mid-market focus, focus on performance, but a global positioning. Second attribute, scale, global. Then diversified. I will not come back on the expertise diversification. What is more interesting is the client type. For sure, we are an institutional business, but we have already a retail positioning with 13%. To be honest, it's only Monroe today. They have a strong presence. They have started that 10 years ago. We want to expand the retail positioning also for Committed Advisors and for IK. I will come back to that later on. But you see already the diversification.
Inside the institutional, we cover sovereign wealth funds, insurers, pension funds, everywhere in the world. Critical size, global positioning, diversification, and what is even more important in terms of growth. Here you have a mapping of the potential expertise. You have in the column the continent, so Europe, U.S., and you have, let's say, all the potential expertise in the private market. In the colored boxes, you have what we got when we have done the acquisition. IK brings to us buyout in Europe. Committed Advisors brings to us secondary in Europe and in the U.S., Monroe private credit and the full range of product in the private debt in the U.S. You have what can be done organically based on what we have today. We can grow Monroe in Europe as an investor, and we will launch an initiative in that.
We can also diversify Committed Advisors. They are on buyout. They could do also secondary transaction in the debt or in the infrastructure. And on top of that, for sure, as mentioned by Laurent, we can pursue our M&A to complement our platform. So it means that with the platform we have and also with the mindset of our CEOs, because in our model, we need to have very strong investment professionals and also very good business developers. And Daniel, last year, you saw Ted, and we have also Chris Masek at IK. We are a very strong team with a very strong mindset in terms of development. It's very important. So critical size, global footprint, diversification, and we have a strong potential in terms of growth, organic growth, and also potential for M&A, I think it's very important.
Last thing for the platform, the debt on the platform, when you read the evolution of the private market, retail is key. Why? Because now the private market has a key component to fund the economy. And if you have investment, it means that you need to allocate savings on the other side. And for the retail investor, everywhere in the world, it's the beginning of the journey. Here also, we want to tackle this market. We have the experience through Monroe, and we have also the products to address this market. We want to do it in a very sustainable way. We want to be very cautious in terms of fees. We want to be sure that we sell it to the right market. It's very important when you want to develop the retail business. And here, the experience of the traditional asset management is very important.
Two things in this chart. The first one is that where is Monroe today? If we take the private BDC market, it's a bit technical, but it's a good way to summarize the positioning of Monroe in the retail market on private credit in the US, you see that they are very well positioned with $5.6 billion. The good thing is that on top of that, we have in mind to develop a full range of products for Monroe on the retail market. They have announced yesterday the launch of a new fund, quite different, a bit different in terms of risk-reward positioning, M-LEND. And I think it will be very interesting. It will be also a way for them to enlarge their reach in terms of clients. It was they want to tackle also the wealth management in the US, so the potential is very important.
And also in Europe with IK Partners, I can announce that we have received the AMF approval to launch an evergreen vehicle for IK Partners. We'll start the fundraising in H1 2026, and we may also launch this type of initiative for Committed Advisors. So we want to address the retail market, and it will be a new engine of growth for our platform. So critical size, global footprint, diversification, ability to grow, and we have all the means to tackle the retail market. So really, with that, I think you have a good understanding of Wendel Investment Managers. In order to have a comprehensive view of our platform, I think we thought it could make sense to have also a view on the U.S. private credit because there was a lot of noise in newspapers, etc. So we thought that it could make sense to have this.
It's why you will have a video now with Zia Uddin. Zia, last year, you saw Ted Koenig, the CEO, the founder. Zia is the number two. He's an investment professional. He's a co-portfolio on the direct lending, and he's a key contributor of the huge success of Monroe.
We can launch the video. Monroe Capital is a leading specialty lending platform focused on inefficient segments of the U.S. private credit market. We are unique in the private credit industry in that we were founded in 2004, prior to the GFC. We have a long track record built on differentiated sourcing capabilities and strong underwriting, which is consistent with our firm's guiding principles since our inception. We believe the key to long-term success in asset management is to deliver excess risk-adjusted returns to our investors, which we achieve by attracting and retaining the best people and by pursuing strategies where we can deliver diversification and differentiated exposure that leverage our core capabilities. We are best known in the market as one of the largest players in the U.S. lower-middle market, which we define as companies under $35 million of EBITDA. It is tempting to view the current geopolitical environment as a result of one person with a unique personality. It is not. We believe that the current macro trends, which we would oversimplify as a new era of deglobalization, will outlive Donald Trump and other Western leaders currently in power.
The trend of 50-plus years of globalization had a strong deflationary impact on the entire world, and it is coming to an end as Western and Eastern powers alike increasingly focus on domestic priorities, potentially even at the expense of economic growth being prioritized above all else. The net result is we are moving into a different macro regime characterized by more industrial policy, higher structural inflation, and higher long-term rates. The era of free money and free trade is ending. We're now in a world of reshoring, tariffs, and strategic competition. This environment rewards lenders who price risk correctly and avoid businesses dependent on cheap capital or global arbitrage. While unsettling for some, regime change creates opportunity for disciplined credit investors. In a geopolitical landscape that is different than almost any investor actively managing capital today has seen in recent memory, we believe investors will even prioritize assets that provide more certainty in a less certain world. Private credit is very well positioned in this environment as the asset class can deliver predictable cash yield, good downside protection, and less mark-to-market volatility than experienced in public markets. In a higher inflation, higher rate world, floating rates become more valuable. But dispersion is widening. Private credit is not only one thing. Although it gets painted with a broad brush, in every subsegment of private credit, manager selection and underwriting discipline matter more than ever. Our focus of senior secured, covenant-protected, cash-generative borrowers aligns with this shift.
Private credit in certain segments of direct lending has been an area that has experienced tremendous growth over the past decade, with many new entrants looking to benefit from the in favor nature of the industry. This growth has come at a unique period of time. It's been 16 years since the last real downturn, which has led to returns which have been strong across the entire industry. However, private credit is not and has never been a risk-free asset class. There have been certain players that have been more focused on asset growth than they have been on investing in high-quality opportunities with appropriate safeguards. This has been arguably most commonly seen in the large end of the middle market, where direct lenders now compete head-to-head with syndicated banks like J.P. Morgan and Bank of America.
This head-to-head competition, coupled with the fact that there are only a finite number of $100 million-plus EBITDA companies getting purchased in a given year, has led to a race to the bottom in terms. Spreads have tightened dramatically, leverage levels have increased, adjustments to EBITDA have grown exponentially, and covenants and other downside protections have lost all teeth. Monroe has avoided participating in those areas of the market where the supply-demand imbalance so strongly favors borrowers at lenders' expense. We're focused on smaller deals with lower leverage, higher spreads, and on sectors with recurring revenue and strong cash flow conversion. Monroe is especially well positioned for the current market conditions, as we've been waiting for a market correction. It has been very difficult for investors to know which managers did things the right way and which ones were benefiting from the strong industry trends. As equity and debt markets digest some of the excesses from the last few years and some of the 2021 and 2022 vintage deals which were bought at peak multiples with peak leverage come up for maturity, we believe we are going to see a period of market consolidation as the private credit firms who have done things the right way will see strong outperformance and will be rewarded with accelerated fundraising success and greater market share. Private credit is currently being covered as if it's as exciting as football or cricket.
While we are not intimately familiar with every headline or story that has been in recent headlines, from the situations where we do have insights, we believe these have been idiosyncratic issues driven by specific business model challenges, unique funding models with off-balance sheet debt, and poor documentation choices by the lenders involved, but not a sign that there are significant issues across the private credit landscape. They are reminders that the underwriting quality varies widely across managers. We see isolated stress in certain sectors, but not a systematic credit cycle. Our portfolio remains healthy with leverage and interest coverage metrics built for this rate environment. While fundraising is never easy and always competitive, we are pleased with the level of trust and support we are seeing across our global investor base. Investors are increasing allocations to private credit broadly, and more specifically to segments where they are adding diversification and reducing correlations such as lower-middle market direct lending and asset-based finance. In 2025, we've seen continued inflows across our flagship direct lending funds. We're having our final close on our latest flagship fund, which will represent over 20% asset growth versus our last flagship fund. SMA structures with single LPs, including new SMAs over the last 12 months with a large Swiss asset management firm, a large Japanese insurance company, and a partnership with a large Japanese bank and Australian asset manager, as well as in our evergreen vehicles.
We continue to see great momentum in the U.S. high net worth channel as our large private BDC, Monroe Capital Income Plus, continues to see steady growth, and we recently launched a new non-traded BDC anchored by one of the largest registered investment advisors in the U.S., which we believe will allow us to get more inflows from broker dealers and wirehouses. We continue to see a lot of opportunity to expand in the European institutional and high net worth segments, and that is an area where we are enjoying collaboration and support from the experienced team at Wendel. The pipeline for 2026 is robust, and we're expanding relationships with institutions seeking long-duration yield and stability. We want to continue to grow in our core segment of lower-middle market lending by expanding into new channels and new fund types. More specifically, you will see us launch new evergreen fund structures for both the high net worth and institutional channels, taking advantage of growing appetite for funds that are not subject to the drawdown and windup associated with historical closed-end funds. These funds also have the benefit of having longer lives and more predictable fee streams. We are also looking to grow in certain subsegments of private credit where we have a strong track record as part of our broader alternative credit solution strategy, but where we can raise dedicated funds for investors seeking more tailored allocations. The partnership with Wendel has been fantastic and truly everything they indicated it would be during our diligence process, where we chose them over several other potential partners. The cultural fit has been excellent. We both have a shared long-term mindset and a focus on real value creation.
Wendel has brought tremendous thought leadership and advice to me and Ted in particular, as they have significant experience throughout their personal careers and through Wendel's over 300 years as a diversified asset manager. Their knowledge of best practices, their relationship with institutional LPs across the world, and especially in Europe, and the way they go about their jobs have been very valuable for us, and we continue to strive to improve our firm. More specifically, Wendel's investment in Monroe has allowed us to accelerate our product development cycle, as they have served as early seed capital in a number of new initiatives. Wendel has already helped us accelerate the fundraise for our new high net worth focus BDC, Emlend, which we believe could grow to be one of, if not the largest fund on our platform.
We have a number of other new product launches coming over the next few quarters, and Wendel's early and sizable investment provides a very strong vote of confidence for third-party investors, which should allow us to grow faster than we would have been able to on our own. Some of the benefits include broader global reach. Wendel's international footprint has opened doors with sovereign wealth funds, pensions, and insurers across the globe. Stronger brand equity, being part of a publicly traded multi-generational investment group, reinforces trust with LPs and borrowers. Collaboration with IK Partners on fundraising and knowledge sharing of the European and U.S. private equity credit markets have also been invaluable. We think there's a lot of opportunity to leverage our respective blue-chip LP bases. We were especially excited about Wendel's latest acquisition of Committed Advisors.
The secondary market is a fascinating one and where we believe there could be a lot of opportunity to collaborate with them over time.
Thank you, thank you, Professor Houdin. So that was the, that's the end of the first point. My second objective for today is to explain, to try to convince you why when you are a shareholder of Wendel, you have also the opportunity to participate in the private asset management market in a different way. You know, as a shareholder of a private asset management business, you have the benefit of the private asset. It's very sticky, but on the other side, as you know, sometimes there is also volatility because those businesses are not linear. You raise capital, then during three years you have a sort of plateau, then you have a new vintage, etc.
With the platform that we are building, the profile will be different because we have diversification, as I said previously, diversification in terms of asset class, but also diversification in terms of vintages, diversification in terms of fund format, as mentioned by Zia, evergreen vehicle versus closed-end fund, etc. So if you look at what you can see here is that the way we forecast our fundraising program for the coming years between now and 2030, and you can see you have the orange bar for the secondary, for example, in 2026 and in 2029, you have also the IK pace of fundraising. It was 2024, 2025. The next fundraising will be 2027, 2028. And then you have Monroe. Monroe is different because they have closed-end fund and they have evergreen vehicle. So they are always in the market, but on top of that, you have some peak 2025, 2028.
So if you combine everything, you get something smoother. You are always relevant in front of the market. You are always something to sell to your client, and it means that you deliver growth every year, quarter after quarter to your shareholder. And what does it mean for the shareholder? In terms of growth profile, in terms of revenue growth and FRE growth, it's totally different. If you look at each of our GPs, or if you look at the growth profile of Wendel Investment Management, it's totally different. So based on what I presented just previously, you see that there is some volatility in the growth, in the margin of each of those GPs. It's normal. That's the evolution, that's the DNA, that's the business model of what they do.
If you look at the bold line, brown line, you can see that it's a smoothened profile, and it's very important as a shareholder to have this type of profile. It means that you can go through different cycles, different market evolution with a permanent growth, and we hope that with this plan, we can deliver a 15% organic growth for our business with a good margin between 37% and 40%, which is, I think, a very good margin that will allow us, you know, to have a sustainable business. On top of this 15%, you have another effect on the growth, as mentioned by Laurent. We will have the opportunity between now and 2030 to buy back some of our minorities with predefined terms. It's part of the €7 billion presented by Laurent.
And if we do that, in this case, the growth profile, not the underlying business, but the Wendel share, it's not 15% per year, it's 20%. This is just organic growth. So 15%, it's underlying organic performance. If you had the fact that we will increase our shares smoothly over time in each of our GPs, you get a 20% CAGR for Wendel for the next five years. That's for the FRE, for the recurring revenues. But also on top of that, and for sure, we could have also M&A on top of that. But on top of the FRE growth, what I would like also to share with you as a shareholder of Wendel is that you will benefit from a share of the performance sharing with the client, what we call the PRE, performance-related earnings. And this could be quite significant. As you know, when we announced the transaction for each of our transactions, sorry, we said that we will benefit, we are entitled to 20% of all carried for future funds. So here we try to show you what does it mean concretely for a shareholder of Wendel. So top of the slide, you have for one vintage, and then I will discuss, you know, the evolution for one vintage. So what is a vintage? A vintage is for each of our GPs, every three years, they raise a fund. So private equity, it's IK, they raise close to €6 billion. Secondary, it's Committed Advisors. One fund is €3.7 billion. Private debt, yeah, I just took the closed-end fund , €2.5 billion. So a vintage is €11 billion. Then you go through the waterfall, assuming that you deliver the performance for sure.
We put here the target in terms of performance with a range. You go through the waterfall, you split the value between the LPs, and then you have the performance for the team, and then we have 20% of the carried for Wendel. And for that, so it means that for each vintage, we get potentially EUR 300 million with no additional capital. It will come on top of the 20% CAGR I've just mentioned. And then this, for sure, it takes time because you invest the money and you have the carried in year seven, year ten. But then in the future, it's what you have at the bottom of the slide. We will have up to EUR 300 million potentially for each vintage every three years. So, when we'll be full speed, it will be a very important complement in terms of revenues on top of the FRE growth. As you can see, it's a very compelling offer for the shareholders on something that is really focused on the mid-market. What you hear around the large cap, the pressure, etc., we can stay focused on the mid-market, we can deliver the performance, and at the same time, we can be ambitious, we can grow the business, and we can be very profitable. I hope that with that, we can convince you that it's a very interesting opportunity as an investor. I'm a bit late. I will just go through that very quickly. There is not so much opportunity to invest in a platform focused on mid-market with this rich global in terms of positioning, presence in the U.S., presence in Europe. I think it's supported by Wendel because it's a very interesting ecosystem.
As I said at the beginning, we have been in a position to attract those guys because we are Wendel and we have a very strong ecosystem. This platform is resilient and diversified. I mentioned it already. And I think we have very strong potential in terms of size, in terms of product. We have a very strong team at the Wendel level, but also in the GPs. Those guys are very strong investment professionals and also very strong entrepreneurs, very strong business developers. So with that, I'm sure that we can deliver strong growth for you. Thank you.
Thank you, Cyril, for this presentation. Now it's time to turn to the wrap-up by Laurent, and then we will hold a Q&A session dedicated to Wendel.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Please, please come, David. Thank you very much, Cyril.
I hope that has convinced you that it is a real business that we're developing and a growing business with a lot of potential. Do I have the wrap-up or no? There are slides. Yes. Yes. Here they are. This is one. Okay. So we've moved, I think you've seen, we've changed a lot. We've transformed the company, and it is a true change. This has made us to have strong businesses. We have a historical business to invest money and to be shareholders, active shareholders of companies to generate value and capital gains. I think we've taken the means in order to change it again to make it more efficient through benefiting from the IK framework, but we still invest that. We've got great companies and we've got great prospects to that. So that is important. But it's also now that we have two pillars.
We also have the pillars of developing an asset management, which is a true unique platform that will deliver significant growth and significant value. All of that with a lean organization in order to have as less cost potential at the holding level so that we can be the most efficient that we can, and again, I will not come back to everything, but I think now we have an absolutely unique ecosystem, private asset ecosystem that is efficient, will deliver growth, will deliver value creation, and will help us generate significant shareholder return, significant shareholder return through dividend, growth, and through share buyback in order to take benefit of the two big discounts that we have today. And we'll see how much we have more potential to do, so that was it.
It was a little bit too, I think it was a good moment to show you how much we have transformed ourselves, what potential we have, and that we're not enough anymore, only a holding company owning assets. We are a business. We are a business that also owns assets and that has created a truly unique ecosystem around that. Thank you very much. We are now, both of us, but all of us at your disposal to answer your questions. Thank you. I will start with some questions from the web and we'll go to the room. The first question, can you elaborate about the process of Monroe pricing risk of its portfolio? Is it a proprietary process dependent on rating agencies or an in-house rating? No, it's not.
I mean, Monroe is doing. It's not the way it does work is that Monroe is always looking for lower- to middle-market companies. So the type of rating is similar. So it's not like they are doing a AAA lending and then a CCC lending. They always are looking to the same type of it. The important is that the spreads on the lower middle market is probably 75-100 basis points higher than on the larger market for the same type of risk. So we're talking about 500-525 today. It has gone down. It was close to 600 a year and a half ago, but it's still 500-525, while on the larger transaction, we're more talking about 400 basis points as a spread. So the way what is important is not much the pricing than the selection.
The important thing for me when you assess risk is to have a double regard, double view. I've been a banker for years and years, and I've been chairing a risk committee of a bank for years, twice a week, half a day each time. So I can tell you this is something where you get the most important thing is that you've got somebody that is there to defend the case that has made the instruction, and you've got somebody that is there to assess the risk. And the decision has to be the confrontation between the two. Many private credit funds are doing the same way as a private equity, which is the team that is in charge of the loan is the one that defends the case and decides.
I think you need to have that double balance when you talk about risk because in a credit, it's not like you're buying something because it's going to double the value. No, you're only going to get the rates. So what is important is that you don't lose the capital. So that's why it's so important that the risk debate is about what is the probability that we lose the capital. It's not the question of how much are we going to double the value. Are we going to protect the capital and then earn the rates? So the risk approach is key. And that's exactly what Monroe is doing. And that's what when we did the due diligence, we discussed with them. They have an underwriting team that is a very seasoned team, very strong, very strong criteria. They have a funnel of decision. They look to probably 2,000 transactions a year, and they invest in less than 10% of that. And this is transaction they originate, which is very important. They're not followers. That's also the beauty of being on the lower middle market, but that's why they have also many offices throughout the U.S. Monroe is not 10%, 10 people in Chicago. It's 325 people all across the U.S. in order to assess the quality and to originate loans, and on the other side, to assess the risk. So they have a very, very robust underwriting policy, which is key when you do credit. Maybe just to illustrate the risk profile, we can remind the group that the average leverage of the portfolio, of the underlying portfolio of the Monroe loans is under four times. So it's a reasonable leverage and with a full set of covenants. They don't have covenant lights.
Four times while the larger transactions are more five to six. They are covenant while the larger transactions are covenant light. So this is very important. The other thing is that we then they have a portfolio surveillance and they follow the portfolio on a regular basis. We have a discussion with them and we see which are the transactions that are in danger or not. Their rate of loss since 20 years has been 1.2% globally with 70% of recovery. So 1.2 loans that went into default and they recovered 70% of that. So that means that the total loss is 0.3 basis points, 30 basis points, 35 basis points.
Thank you. The question from Geoffroy.
Thank you, Geoffroy Michalet from Oddo BHF. Three questions for me. First question on the EUR 7 billion of capital you want to recycle. Can you give us a more precise idea of the split between WPI and WIM? And do you need to deliver the target of IRR 12%-16% IRR from WPI to reach those €7 billion? That's the first question. Maybe I can do the second after.
No, no, no. I will answer this one. So how much is coming from the recurring revenues? How much is coming from the sales? Well, if we don't give the number, it's because we don't want to be too specific, but let's say that if you do the math of our FRE, you will make, and you do it with the 20% potential growth, you will see that it's not far from €1 billion that will come from the revenues. So I've not signed anything, but you make the calculation yourself and you come to that number. And if you come to that number, I say, yes, it's not so bad. Which means that no, you don't have to make, I mean, hopefully we'll do that, but we have a lot of leeway compared to the 50. I mean, it's not the full portfolio that is transforming. We're talking about a portfolio that is potentially €5.2-5.3 billion of value. Here, if you take 7 minus 1, you see that you're okay. So you do the math on your side and you see it's not exactly that.
Thank you. Second question on capital allocation. Shall we think of the dividend being linear together with the growth of Wendel and investment management, but can we imagine earlier step-ups due to capital rotation, for instance? And the second question on capital allocation is on the share buyback. You have announced an important share buyback program today for next year. Do you have in mind a minimum free float level that you want to keep at the listed company below which you don't want to go?
Well, it's a good question, but you can't answer to any constraint at the same time. So your first question is dividend policy. Dividend policy. Dividend policy, we've explained the dividend policy and it will follow that path. So it will grow with the assets and it will grow with the flows of revenue coming from the asset management. As you've seen, the flows of revenue from the asset management will be pretty stable thanks to the mix of business that we have, which makes that the FRE growth is pretty predictable. I mean, predictable, it's never predictable, but it's pretty the cycle of each of the business makes that we've got a much smoother one than if we were only one category of assets. So that will rely on that. So it's not now, as I've said, in our cash flow blocks, there's EUR 1.2 billion that we didn't allocate to something. That is there in order to potentially increase shareholder return if we feel that we need to increase shareholder return. And I'm not stating what sort of shareholder return we will give, but there's different ways to do it. That could be dividend, that could be share buybacks, we'll do. The more free float we have, the better, but we also have to make sure that we've got not too much discount for our shareholders. So that's why we think reinvesting today, a part of our money in our own assets that we know, in our own business, the great asset management platform we built, we think it's a wise decision to take today. And that's why we're taking it.
I have one question about the more than EUR 2.5 billion you're going to invest in Wendel Investment Management. I would like to know what is already linked to the earn-out, the amount you have decided also to commit to the different funds. And if there is, after this mandatory, let's say, inves
tment, is there something left? Well, yeah, because we told you there's three things. There's seed money that we want to put. There's the buyout of the earn-out and buyout of the minorities, which lead to the fact that the FRE will grow faster than the underlying FRE of the platform. But there's also potential M&A. As I say, potential M&A is not the top priority. It is a possibility, but it's not the bulk of the EUR 2.5 billion. It's a reasonable amount to do a sizable transaction, but it's not the bulk of it. It's not the majority of it. So yes, there is. By the way, we have to hear it. We're talking about cash. One thing I want to clarify that when you look to our current LTV, all the commitment that we have to buy the minorities and so on is already included in the LTV, even if it's not cash out.
And maybe a second one, a follow-up question on the EUR 7 billion of cash. Have you accounted for some performance-related earnings in this amount?
No, no, no, no. I think Cyril wanted to show you that there is embedded value there that you can see through the earnings or the cash statement today, but that will be there. However, we don't expect it to be there before 2030, so we've not taken into account, at least not in cash by 2030. Yeah. So accounting-wise, maybe a small rise, but accounting-wise in cash, it's very small.
Yes, same as.
May I just correct?
All right.
Because and then I'll give you. We have 20% of some past PRE, performance-related earnings of carried interest of Monroe. So those ones are in it, but it's a very small portion to the four. But yes, we have. So the answer is not 0%, but it's not part of the 300 calculation that you've seen. Sorry. Sorry. No, I wanted to be as precise as possible.
Saïma Hussain from Alpha Value. So I just wanted to ask, so hybrid models combining principal investment and third-party asset management tend to be structurally undervalued by the market. So is there a risk that Wendel ends up in a strategic no-man's-land, meaning not fully valued as a pure asset manager nor as a pure holding? And how do you actively manage this perception?
Well, first of all, remember three years ago, we were purely a holding company, not an asset manager. So we are in a journey. However, I think what we want to explain to you, and we'll see how the market values us, is that we think this ecosystem is powerful. I think that if you have private, you have permanent capital, you have the means to grow your asset management faster than if you don't have. By the way, all the big private asset managers are looking for permanent capital one way or the other. Some of them are buying it by buying insurance companies to fuel the policyholder money back in their funds. Some of them are still having significant capital on their balance sheet. So we think that it is important to have permanent capital if you want to grow faster. I know that the market prefers pure asset managers. We are in a growth story. And I think what we want is that the market recognizes we are in a growth story. And the fact that we have a good performing engine of capital appreciation, so investing in great companies and generating funds in a powerful ecosystem, which means that it's not like we've got a small team in a way that's investing.
No, we have it's the same team that is making that. I think it's a powerful way to create permanent capital that could be invested in the growth of the asset management. And you see that over the next five years, the asset management portion is increasing into it. So sometimes you have to invent your own model. I think our model makes sense, and it will create significant value. We'll see how the market values it in the long term.
Yeah, I will just mention that Apollo, KKR, ICG, they all have a very strong balance sheet. Maybe they don't communicate a lot of it, and they are pretty well v alued.
But it depends on how fast the asset management develops. Again, we were zero. We're €46 billion. We're moving ahead. Yes.
Yeah, Antoine Saintoyant, Caisse des Dépôts. Two questions on the investment platform. The first one is a follow-up of what has already been asked, but if everything goes to your plan, I mean, the earn-out, buyouts of the minorities, how much should that be out of the 2.5? So that's my first question. And the second question is, we have seen, I mean, presentation on very good investment managers. My question is more, I mean, where is the platform exactly? I mean, i.e., what is done in common and what will you implement to see things incorrect?
Great question. Great question. First of all, as I say, I don't give the detail of the 2.5. I think we've given pretty good detail already, but I don't give the detail. However, it is embedded into this number, and it already is embedded into our own LTV today. So it's an important element. Now, what is important is the platform. It's not like we've got asset managers that are on their own everywhere. No, they're working together. We had the meeting. We've got a regular meeting where we have the two heads of each of the platforms together, and we're working on the distribution. The number one thing is distribution. What we don't want is to mix investment. They are on different expertise, so we should not. So where do we take benefit distribution? We already have created a common distribution advisor in Japan. We're looking for solutions in the Middle East. We're looking to solutions in other areas. I can't be specific to everything, but we're working on it. So we've got a working group with the head of distribution of each of the three companies to see how can we cross-sell on the LP base.
So this is ongoing work because we're still very new, but this is really where we want to be a superior distribution platform. We have, as we say, some small benefit like you will see that if you go in the building, you will see IK Partners is going to be joining us on the fifth floor here. We are on the sixth. So yes, we are putting together some elements of that. We have the same building now in New York. Our team is moving into Monroe Capital. The development of IK team distribution in the US will be, but it's more the exchange and the distribution initiative that is important. So we are on the way to build that. Number two, retail. No IK, no Committed Advisors is doing retail in Europe. They would not be able to do it on their own because it's too expensive for them.
Now we're doing it because we're putting together the efforts and that this retail distribution channel will do IK, will do Committed Advisors, and tomorrow we'll do Monroe also. So we're helping some of them to grow internationally. Monroe Europe is an initiative that we're taking in common to help and to grow. We will use the basis of what we have in order to be faster in doing it. So everything is not done, but we're creating a business. And I think it was a sense of that. It is a transformation. It's not finished. It's a journey, but it's well advanced.
Alexandre Gerard, CIC. Thank you. Three questions, please. So the first one is related to a subject you didn't tackle today. It's Stahl within private assets. So the disposal of the Wet-End business didn't close. Can we have an update on that? We all had in mind that the sale of Stahl in the medium term was conditional on the disposal of that bit of the company. So if we could have an update on that, first thing.
Yes. You want to say, but the important thing for us is to make a carve-out between the new Stahl and the Wet-End, which is called Muno. And that is done. That will be effective on 1st of January of 2026.
So you still intend to sell that Muno business?
Yes, but we said it was the sale per se was less important than the carve-out. So we did put the priority to the carve-out, which will be done fully 1st of January, which then allows us to have two different companies. New Stahl, which is a great company, very well positioned on the specialty coating business. Then Muno, which is a cash-generating business. This is lesser, so potentially less attractive than Stahl as a whole. But still, what is important is that this is a company that can generate significant cash. We're working on the cash flow generation from Muno. Muno will be based in Italy, by the way. Stahl in Netherlands. Pretty separate.
Second question, you insisted a lot on the fact that you wanted to streamline the OpEx of the holding company, mentioning the fact that the staff would go down from 100 people to 60.
It has. It has.
Okay. Can you remind us what's going to be the, in terms of million of euros per annum, the OpEx of the company? Do you have in mind, as a percentage of the global AUM of Wendel, a target that you don't want to reach in terms of OpEx divided by AUM? I didn't make the calculation this way, but it's, let's say, 10-15 basis points for the global AUM, probably maximum. And today, we are running, probably we were running at, we're going to run below 50, and we were running above 70 to give you some sort of views. €70 million per annum. And that includes the advisory mandate that you gave to IK? Yes, I see. And my last question is on the 9% of the share that you want to buy back, what part is going to be attributed to the management of the company and what part for the remuneration of the asset management company that you realized? Because I read or I saw some. You wanted to split the buyback.
What is important that we're making that is generating a higher net asset value per share, we'll see where we will make a theoretical allocation of the shares. I don't know. Which part? How to value the 9%? Yeah. Not decided yet. Yeah. What is important is that we buy it back. This is not a, it's relative to the NAV, it's relative to the dividend, relative to everything. And if we pay with that, we'll have additional position to buy back more shares. So we'll leave it to that.
We have a question there. A quick question regarding the U.S. private credit. So what is the current environment, the current default rate, and to what extent deterioration in the default rate could impact the value of Monroe?
Well, I don't think there's a, I mean, default rate is not moving too much. It's slightly; it's growing, but not that. I think you have had a pretty good.
No, no, globally, so in Q2, Q3, the default rate has increased for the private credit industry as a whole. But one more time, the positioning of Monroe is different. And so far, if you look at the portfolio of Monroe, they have 650 loans. We don't see an increase of the default rate at this stage for Monroe. So far, it works relatively well. After the, as we know, the U.S. economy is very strong. You keep that in mind. They are focused on health, on technology, etc. So the growth is good. So the U.S. economy is going through the longest cycle ever. So it will not last. There is a cycle in the economy, including in the U.S., but so far, it's going very well. So there is a huge gap between some very specific cases, as explained by Zia, and what we see in the underlying economy in the U.S. And on top of that, we do believe that the policy of the new administration, the regionalization of the economy will be very positive for Monroe because they are focused on the mid-market in the U.S., so very local companies.
That's exactly what Zia said. Now, let's say that there is a macroeconomic event that makes that you've got an increase in default rate. That could happen, but how will it hurt Monroe? It doesn't hurt Monroe indirectly because Monroe is not exposed by itself. Monroe clients are exposed. So it may hurt Monroe if their ability to raise new funds is impacted by the fact that the performance is less good. But it's a relative game. People have to invest their money. So if the private credit of Monroe has default, the high-yield bond will have default. The equity market will have default. By the way, private credit is less risky than equity. If you've got a big hit on the private credit, probably you will have a big hit on the equity first. So the important is to know in relative term, where are you? And we don't view that the interest for the private credit market will disappear. We view it is still a market that will grow. And in fact, when you've got a crisis, it ends up with higher spreads. And it means that the ability for Monroe to raise funds back after a crisis where you, I mean, unless you are a lame dog, I mean, you're the one that is hit compared to the rest of the market.
But if you are in the market a little bit better than the market, your ability to raise new funds will even, I think, be better. You may have one or two years already flattish, but I think it's good. So it's not like Monroe is, I mean, the private credit won't disappear because there's a downturn in the economy. It's not like the private credit is a niche market that will disappear. It's like you say, you don't want to have any bank loans because you've got a credit cycle. The difference is on the bank. It is their own balance sheet. So the bank suffers because of that. Here, Monroe doesn't suffer. What it has to make sure is that its performance relative to others is okay. But the market will stay there. And it's a big market.
So what we're doing is to make sure that the performance of our client is the best, that the selection, the underwriting, the positioning that we have at Monroe is protecting them from a sort of idiosyncratic position or sectoral bubble. However, long term, this is a market that will stay and will keep on growing. It's not a P phenomenon. It is a long-standing position and change. And this is the same in Europe, and it will grow in Europe.
Thank you. I have some questions from the web. Given the regulatory limitations surrounding share repurchase as it relates to the average daily volume of the shares, have you considered all the potential mechanisms to accelerate the repurchases, such as privately negotiated transactions, tender offers, etc.? We've decided that we will make a purchase plan on the year.
We, I think, have a little bit of knowledge of the environment and regulation. We decided this one was the best one to do, and that's what we're going to do.
Thank you. A question about the slide shown by Cyril. With respect to the performance-related earnings, do those figures shown in the slide represent the net amounts to Wendel? In other words, is that after any comp or revenue share with the principal? Yes, this is the comp and revenue shares is already passed. So this is a full value to Wendel. So yes. Sorry, Cyril, to answer to you, but we have to be speaking.
Yes, it's net.
What's before tax?
Yeah, before tax. Yeah.
Thank you. What do you think would be the single most impactful future strategic action for Wendel Investment Management Platform in the near future if you had to choose only one action? Growth. The distribution. Help the distribution. Further help our asset manager to work together to create that distribution channel. The retail initiative. This is really my number one priority we have is this one. Thank you. How do you value Wendel Investment Managers in your NAV? Today, we do that through comparable of listed peers, which is the same as we do for the rest of the assets.
Thank you. Maybe a question in the room? Lupo from Berenberg. LTV was at around 20% in Q3, and I guess you don't want to increase it further to maintain your investment grade. Should we expect any disposal soon to reduce it or?
We say that we will do EUR 7 billion of asset rotation, so we will be active on managing our portfolio.
Is it Stahl or?
Come on, I've got to leave us a little bit of a. Yeah.
Again, Saimacin from AlphaValue. As usual, I'd be interested to hear you talk on the current private market environment, especially on private equity, notably in terms of bid and ask spread and in terms of opportunities.
Yeah, we see a slowdown in terms of transaction. What should come to the market today are the 2020 and 2021 vintages. So those companies have been bought at the peak of the market. They did suffer and went through the COVID as a first year. So this is like a tough vintage. And this is a natural source of the divestitures that we should see today. So those are not easy assets to sell. And so, as you say, there is a mismatch between buyers and sellers. And you can read in the press a lot of posted auctions where the seller's expectations in terms of valuation are not met. So we see a long process. We see more negotiation in terms of valuation and more power, more bargaining power in the hands of the buyers.
By the way, our assets are based on market value.
Thank you very much. It's 5:30 P.M. I have a lot of other questions on the web, but we will answer by email or by phone call. I would like to thank you very much for being present for this presentation. Thank you. See you next year. Thank you.