Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Wendel's H1 2026 results conference call and webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. You can also ask your questions on the webcast. Olivier Allot, Director of Financial Communication and Data Intelligence, will read them. I must advise you that this conference is being recorded today. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Laurent Mignon, Wendel's Group CEO. Please go ahead, sir.
Well, thank you very much. Good afternoon to everybody. Thank you for being on this call in a day where there's a lot of other financial communication. In a nutshell, this is a solid performance for Wendel during the first half 2026. We have achieved strong return to shareholders with EUR 450 million, which has been returned to date to our shareholders. Our NAV is up 2.6% compared to last quarter, restated from the dividend paid to shareholders. We will go back on each of those items. Just the key financial highlights of the quarter is that we have assets under management of EUR 48.7 billion. This is not any more pro forma. This is really what we have, including Committed Advisors. We have fee-paying asset under management of EUR 37.8 billion. This is, if we recall, compared to last year, this is up 30%.
We want to look to the dynamic of those fee-paying AUM at the same parameter, it is up 11%. Cyril will come back to that. The management fees are EUR 226 million for this first half. This is up 56% again. There's a change in parameter. Nevertheless, it shows how much we have quickly developed the asset management that translate in Fee-Related Earnings of EUR 87.1 million, up 46%. If we look to FRE and PRE, it's EUR 91 million. One characteristic of our model today that we are very much FRE-geared more than PRE. PRE will come by 2029, 2030, but before that we will be mostly the quality is Fee-Related Earnings rather than Performance-Related Earnings. The GAAP of the WPI is EUR 3.6 billion.
At the date of the end of the second quarter, the share price of BV was slightly down compared to where it was at the end of the quarter. I think the reference price was EUR 25.8, something like that. Slightly lower than what it is currently. We had good operating performance from the unlisted assets. Stahl is valued at the offer and the process of selling Stahl is well on the way. We're confident on the way it is moving forward. Same for IHS. IHS, by the way, is valued not at the offer value, but at the listed value. Okay. No, it's at the offer price. Sorry. Okay. The fully diluted NAV is EUR 158.9 as of June. It's up EUR 4.1. If we put back the dividend of EUR 3.6 that was paid in May to the shareholders, which is up 2.6%.
You will see that there have been some strong accretive impact of the share buyback program, which was largely done at the end of the quarter, and that is finished now. We've just closed and finalized the purchase of the full share buyback program. If we look to the way the NAV has evolved, you have a positive impact of the Wendel Investment Managers. I think we've been clear on the Q1 to say that there was a dip into it. It has gone down at that period. We're valuing our assets based on market comparables, and all the alternative AUM were depressed at that period of time. The picture was not very good, and we said that, by the way, at the time, and we see that reversing today.
Wendel Principal Investments, we have EUR 1 coming from the decline coming from BV, and the rest is from the non-listed asset, where we keep on adjusting to the fact that on the market, the multiple are slightly lower than they were at the Q1. It's mostly because the performance of the firm are good. It's only a multiple impact, which is, I think, it doesn't show, and David will come back on that. We see the performance of our underlying company to be very solid. Share buyback has a positive impact of EUR 2.8 per share. If we make the addition to the first quarter, which was EUR 6.5. No, total is make EUR 6.5, with the addition of the first quarter. Dividend pay was EUR 3.6 per share.
We have returned, as I mentioned, EUR 450 million to shareholders, EUR 140 million through dividend, EUR 3.6 per share in May, and EUR 310 million of share buyback, which has been achieved in five months. That is the amount at the end of June. We will have another dividend to be paid in November. You know that we pay now interim dividend, as we announced, and we think it's a good way to smoothen the impact of the dividend and to have regular cash flow for the shareholders. I'll hand over to Cyril, who will go in detail on WIM, then I'll hand over to David, who will go on the WPI, and then Benoît, you will take the earnings part. Great. Good. The LTV.
Thank you, Laurent. Hello, everyone. Page eight, this is our roadmap for 2026. As Laurent said, we are building this platform. It represents 37% of the gross asset value of Wendel. Those four bullet points are really the four milestones of our development. The first one is Q2 M&A. We have completed the acquisition of Committed Advisors. It's done. Two, we have reinforced our partnership with BNP Paribas Asset Management on the alternative side. As you know, cornerstone investors are very important to build the private asset management business on private assets, and we want to pursue that. It's very important. The fourth bullet point is the organic growth. It's our priority to develop the business, and we maintain the target of more than EUR 200 million of FRE. I will come back to that with a strong organic growth.
The fourth bullet point, it's, I think, a strong value proposition of our platform. We want to spur our organic growth with new product, and we invest in new product in order to diversify our book of business. Those four elements are really the four milestones of our roadmap. It's now we move to the organic development, slide nine. You have here the bridge of AUM. Let's start with the AUM. As Laurent said, we are now at EUR 48.7 billion of total AUM. One comment regarding the dry powder, we remain around EUR 12 billion. We have less dry powder at IK and Monroe because there was activity in terms of investment over the quarter. Less dry powder, but at the same time, we have more coming from Committed Advisors. Dry powder remains high at EUR 12 billion, and it represents four Monroe future revenues.
If we look at the fee-paying AUM at the middle of the chart, we were at EUR 31 billion at the beginning of the year. We had the Committed Advisors, then you have the organic growth of the business. EUR 4.2 billion of new fee-paying AUM. It's EUR 1.2 billion coming from funds raised by Committed Advisors. We receive fees on the fund raised, EUR 1.2, and EUR 3 billion coming from the money deployed over the first six months by Monroe Capital, EUR 4.2 billion. At the same time, we have returned capital to shareholders, EUR 3.1 billion, mainly at Monroe, a bit also at IK. With that, we end the semester at EUR 37.8 billion, up 5% year-to-date on an organic basis, and 11% compared to the previous year at the same time with the same perimeter.
Cyril, you say to shareholder, no, it's to LPs.
To LPs, sorry.
Just to be clear.
Shareholders of fund, yeah, sure. LPs of fund. 11%, I think it's really the key figures to assess the organic development of our business. Next slide. To pursue on the activity update. Fundraising, EUR 2.2 billion of new equity raised in H1. As I said, EUR 1.2 billion for Committed Advisors and $1.2 billion for Monroe. I think it's a strong achievement. One update also regarding the retail and wholesale. We had some slide and discussion when we talk about Q1 earnings. If we look at the first six months of the year, and if we look at, MCIP is our main vehicle, evergreen vehicle, focused to retail and wholesale clients in the U.S.
We look at the net subscription, less the redemption met in this vehicle, the net is $90 million, versus our total AUM and the $30 billion AUM of Monroe. As you can see, for sure, there is less growth coming from retail, but when we look at the net outflows, it remains marginal for the development of our business.
One point I want to stress additionally that in 2026, there is no fundraising activity at IK, which is because the cycle of the fundraising was ended in 2025, and we will start again in 2027. It's important. Fundraising is concentrated on-
Committed Advisors.
Committed Advisors and Monroe.
We presented a slide during the capital market in December where you had the sequence. We are totally in line with this dynamic in terms of fundraising. Last comment on this slide, the revenue and the FRE. As Laurent said, EUR 226 million of fees reported over the first six months, it's up 56%. What is important, I think, also is to look at the organic development with a like-for-like perimeter. On this, it's a 12% growth on a pro forma basis. If we look at the same dynamic in terms of FRE, it's EUR 87 million up 46% on an actual basis. If we look at the pro forma, we are at EUR 95 million, a plus 11%.
Also what is important for us, because we pursue our investment in the business in line with the development, we maintain the margin above 39%, the FRE margin. If we go a little bit more in the business development of our three activities. IK Partners, our buyout BNP. As Laurent said, the fourth semester, it was not fundraising. The priorities were to return capital to shareholder and to deploy the capital. In term of return of capital, there was two announced transaction in H1, Innovad and Sofia. Also since the beginning of July, they have announced three exits, Coin4 Solutions, Forthglade, and also MDT technologies. It's a very important exit at three times on a realized basis, it's a very strong achievement, we have a strong pipeline to return capital this year to shareholder.
It's key to pave the way for the fundraising next year. Deployment, three transactions announced. As I said, we pursue the expansion of IK. We have opened our new office in Madrid, in Spain, and we have now nine offices across Europe to source deals and create value for our client. We have hired for that an external partner, a very strong one that will lead this office effective from September 1, 2026. Monroe Capital. As Laurent said, there was no close and fundraising money over the first six months. Despite that, the fact that Monroe, they have a quite diversified capital raising machine with SMAs, evergreen vehicles. They have raised EUR 1.2 billion of new equity over the semester. Also mainly what is important for the fees, they have deployed EUR 3.5 billion.
The good news is that when we look at the quality of the deployment, the spreads are up above 500 basis points. There was a slight decrease of the spreads over the last two years, but first semester spreads are up and LTV are down, which is, I think, very good for the quality of the deployment. In terms of fundraising, Monroe last year, they have a complete fundraising of their fund EUR 5 billion-EUR 6 billion. The good news is that now this fund is invested at above 80%, it means that Monroe will be in a position to launch a new vintage of fundraising for the rest of the year, and I think it will accelerate the capital raising for Monroe for the next six months. On top of that, for Monroe, we pursue the diversification strategy.
We are launching evergreen vehicles, new strategies in order to diversify the book of business, and I think it will generate revenues in the future. Our last and new one, Committed Advisors. What is important for them now is fundraising. Committed Advisors, they are going through their vintage. They are raising two funds now. Their main fund, CASF VI , they started in March. Also the fund dedicated to GP strategies. With those two funds, just over the quarter, they have raised EUR 1.2 billion. In fact, for the fund CAGPS II , they started a bit in 2025. If we sum what has been raised for those two funds so far, it's close to EUR 1.8 billion, and the target is EUR 4 billion for those two strategies. The pipeline is very strong. Very strong appetite for the secondary strategies now.
I think it will feed our growth for the coming months. Now if we move to the financial performance. You have on page 12 the dynamic on the KPIs, on an actual basis, not a pro forma. The growths are very strong. Now you have close to EUR 87 million of FRE over the semester. I commented already the 56% and the 46% growth. I think it shows you the dynamic of the contribution of the asset management at the level of Wendel. What is more important is to look at the next slide where you have the pro forma figures. You see the management fees. If we assume that we had Committed Advisors for six months, it's EUR 239 million, it's up 12%.
The FRE for the semester on a pro forma basis is close to EUR 95 million, up 11% versus the same period last year. At the stage we confirm our guidance to be above EUR 200 million of FRE for the full 2026 year.
Thank you, Cyril.
That's it for asset management.
We are turning to slide 14 to talk about Wendel Principal Investments, which are the direct investments that we own on our balance sheet. The main event of the first half of the year is the advisory assignment that we signed with IK Partners. As you know, IK, since January 1st, is advising Wendel on all existing and future controlled private investments. This advisory mandate is going very well with very smooth relationship between the organization. We believe that we're going to create more value with this new setup. We announced since the beginning of the year the signing of two divestitures, Stahl and IHS, both in February 2026, as Laurent was saying. Closing are on the way, and we are waiting for the last regulatory approval for those two divestitures, which are really well underway.
In the next slide, I will describe the EBITDA growth and sales growth of our main investments. As you will see, they did show up some solid performance over H1. We'll go line by line in a few minutes. Last, those platforms did seven bolt-on acquisitions, very accretive acquisitions. Five at Bureau Veritas and two at Globeducate over the semester. Turning now to page 15. Here we show the performance in terms of sales and EBITDA for the first half. First on ACAMS, you can see a modest growth. You need to remember that this is including the discontinuation of a non-core software business that ACAMS used to operate. If we exclude this small business that we discontinued, the organic growth was above 4%, and we do see some acceleration in terms of growth at ACAMS. The EBITDA growth was at 8.8%.
We do see some margin improvement continuously at ACAMS with very good control of fixed costs. For CPI, you can see some growth as well, more in the international operations. The U.S. operations still are impacted by some federal funding uncertainty, the EBITDA grew by 3% over the first half. Globeducate is showing a very strong growth, both organically and in M&A, as I mentioned previously. Scalian, we see some challenging market conditions for the business, a very strong recovery plan managed by the management team. We see some traction in the core sectors of Scalian being aerospace and defense, where the growth is meaningful, some very strong measures being implemented on cost control. We believe that the numbers that you see here are going to show some meaningful improvement in the next quarters. I'm now turning to slide 16, showing you the portfolio.
When you take into account the sale of Stahl and IHS, you can see a balanced portfolio, almost 50/50. 50% of education and training businesses, including Globeducate, ACAMS and CPI. The other part of the portfolio is business services and industrial. You can see that Tarkett now is a private company after the P2P, Muno is now fully carved out from Stahl. On page 17, a bit more information on the divestiture program that we announced in December 2025. We told you that we have a plan to get EUR 7 billion of capital proceed. We already announced a bit more than 25% of this program being achieved, with EUR 1.2 billion coming from Stahl proceed in the next few months, a bit more than $500 million coming from the IHS offer that MTN launched recently.
You can see that our ratio in terms of loan to value is at a reasonable level at 7.8%. There is in the appendix, more detail on this calculation. Turning now to page 18 and leaving the floor to Benoît.
Good afternoon. For the first half year 2026, the net income group share came in at EUR 69.5 million, significantly above last year for the same period. If we look at the detail of this strong increase, first you can see that the contribution from the asset management platform has reached EUR 78 million, well above the previous year. It reflects the acquisition of Monroe in March 2025 and the acquisition of Committed Advisors in April 2026. The net income from the investment in the Sponsor Money and Wendel Growth is EUR 10.8 million in H1 2026. In H1 2025, we made a depreciation on the fund of fund portfolio of Wendel Growth. That explains the loss you can see in this table. Turning to WPI portfolio.
We made a depreciation because we were to sell it, and we sold it in line with that in the second half of 2025.
Absolutely.
It was depreciation in view of selling it, which has been done.
Absolutely. Thank you, Laurent. The net income from WPI portfolio is EUR 391 million, 10.6% above the previous year. All the portfolio companies have contributed to this increase. However, when you look at the group share of this net income, it is stable because the percentage of ownership in Bureau Veritas decreased after the forward sale and the block sale we made in 2025. The operating expenses of Wendel were EUR 36 million. The increase relates to specific cost of the first half year 2026. In addition, last year we had a higher level of cash and we had higher money market rates, and then the income from the cash offset the bond coupons. This year, this income does not fully offset the cost of the bonds. Overall, the net income from operation is EUR 418 million, 29% above last year.
Group share is EUR 101 million, compared to EUR 54 in H1 2025. After non-recurring profits and losses of minus EUR 80 million, mainly related to restructuring at the level of WPI portfolio. After deducting the impact from the intangibles amortization and the adjustment of earnouts and other acquisition entries, the total net income, the IFRS net income is EUR 321 million, up 20%. The group share of this net income is close to EUR 70 million in H1 2026. It's worth noting that the change in fair value of our stake in IHS is booked through the equity for an amount of EUR 56 million. On the following page-
Just on the non-recurring items, most of them are coming from-
WPI portfolio.
Yeah, the WPI is mostly BV, in fact.
Yes.
Mostly BV.
Yes. The maturity comes due.
Just so there's no confusion on that.
True. Absolutely. This page presents our very strong financial structure. First, you can see that the LTV is 7.8%. It takes into account the proceeds coming from Stahl and IHS expected in H2 2026. It's well below the 20% ceiling for our current S&P rating, that is BBB. Second, we have an average maturity of our bonds that is six years, with the first bond maturing in 2030. Third, the cash amounts to EUR 500 million before the proceeds we receive from the disposal of Stahl and IHS. This is fully in line with what was presented at the end of 2025 at the Investor Day. I would add that this strong financial structure is very cheap because the average coupon of the bond is 2.8%, not very higher than the money market rates.
It's fixed rate.
It's fixed.
Fixed rate.
Yes.
Okay. Thank you very much. In conclusion, I think that as you've seen, we are going exactly in line with what we expected in the development of the asset management platform. We're confirming our target of above EUR 200 million of FRE for this year, based on the full year ownership of Committed Advisors, Monroe, and IK. The development is well. There's a lot of initiatives. Fundraising is going well. Yeah, we're very confident in our ability to continue growing the platform, as explained by Cyril. We see very good development from the WPI portfolio. All companies have a process of increasing their EBITDA. Even you've seen that Scalian is effectively still on a negative territory, but all action has been taken during the first half, and we will see, I think, this impact in the coming quarters, as mentioned by David.
It's important to see that the underlying companies are doing well in an environment, which is not always. I can tell you, we're spending a lot of time making sure, and it is doing well. The fully diluted NAV is up EUR 4.1 per share, including if we restate from the dividend payment. I want to stress the strong creative impact of the share buyback, which was a promise we made during the Investor Day. We're delivering on our 2030 value creation ambition, and we've already returned EUR 450 million to shareholders. As you see, we're saying what we do, and we're doing what we say.
Thank you. At this time, we will conduct a question and answer session. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of David Cerdan with Kepler. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, gentlemen. David Cerdan from Kepler. First of all, I would like to congratulate you on the NAV performance. It was clearly above my expectations, so congratulations for that. As a result, I have some question regarding the NAV bridge. To be simple, what was the evolution of the multiples retained to value the different asset and notably, the WIM division. Is there any change in the peers multiples you return between Q1 and Q2 for WIM and the different unlisted asset? My second question is more general and relates to the market environment for private asset. Could we have an update on the current mood among LPs, both in European PE or in the U.S. for the private credit? In other words, do you see some sign of stabilization or something improving, regarding the appetite, the concern, et cetera?
My last question is regarding your debt inside your unlisted asset. Several of them are highly leveraged or are leveraged. Now money is more expensive. Have you tested what could be the impact of the new refinancing conditions? Do you think that you will need maybe to reinject some cash in some asset to face this debt repayment war? Thank you.
Thank you, David. I'll start with the bridge. ACAMS. The multiples for ACAMS, I think slightly down compared to the first quarter. I think ACAMS is in a very good trajectory, and I think the value of ACAMS is in fact, the company is more valuable today than the last quarter and than the last year. However, we follow our rules, and we're mostly are doing it on comparable multiples. It's slightly down for this quarter. Not big, but slightly down. Same for CPI. On exactly the same sector. It's down also for CPI. For WIM, we didn't change the panel of the asset manager, but you've seen a rebound on the value, a strong rebound. The first Q1, at the end of the Q1, we were at dip in the value of the alternative asset manager.
I think the value in Q1, and I mentioned that was pretty low compared to the reality. We refined the way we were, because it was not easy to put into consideration, because we're valuing 100% of the company, and then we deduct the values of put, turnout, and so on. To be fair, we've made a better link between the two on this quarter also in order to make sure that this is an appropriate number that we provide to the market, which is what we've done. I pass over to Cyril on the LPs mood, on private equity or private debt. The only thing I can say on private credit is that you see that we have significant fund raised in the private credit, which shows strong appetite still from institutional LPs, but you will come back to that.
For the PE, again, we've not raised fund, and we're not fundraising, but we see what is needed in order to make sure that we will be successfully fundraised next year. Cyril?
I don't know if you remember, but when we presented the Q1 earnings, we presented to you the PEI report. I have the figure in front of me for Q2, and it's exactly the same trend. You need to look at the market with institutional investors on one side and retail investor, or wholesale investor on the other side. On the institutional side, it's the very large part of the market, the second quarter was in line with Q1. Record level in term of fundraising. It's even slightly above Q1. If you sum the two, it's more than EUR 200 billion raised, fund and SMAs for the private credit as a whole, all over the world, which is very good.
The second good news for us with Monroe is that, when we look at the split of those fundraising for institutional client, it's focused mainly on direct lending for 60%, where Monroe is strong, and it's focused on the U.S. private credit, where Monroe has a strong presence. It's very good for us, and I think it's very good signal for the fundraising that I mentioned during the presentation. On the other side, when you look at the retail, the dynamic remain totally different. You still have a request for outflows, and it's true across the sectors for the non-traded BDCs. We still have flows, as I said, and if we look at from Monroe, the plus and the minus over the quarter, it's negative, but it's not huge. Keep in mind also that the global non-traded BDC market, it's close to EUR 250 billion, globally, the assets.
When you look at the new money coming on the institutional side, f or just one semester, it's EUR 200 billion. Just to add, the total market is more than EUR 2 trillion. It's important. We are on it. Wealth management and retail is a key engine of growth for us over the long term. There is a situation. It does not improve on the retail and wholesale in Q2, but we are working on it in order to deliver liquidity to clients when they want liquidity and to invest the money to the newcomer.
On private equity, I think what we see that the good performers are raising funds well.
Yeah.
There's much more differentiation between the fund selections. That's why, I think Cyril went through that, but it's so important that today with the team of IK, there's a lot of attention put on returning some money to their LPs by making good sale, which they've been doing in the first half, and there is more to come. The pipe is good. It is also important that we deploy the money the right way. Again, also, we're pretty confident in the way we do. We're not saying it's going to be an easy environment. It's not like everybody want to rush into a PE, but there are still significant amount of money that want to be invested. Mid-cap Europe is part of the top pick of the investors, which is really the sweet spot of IK.
We view the quality of our team and our performance as being a key driver for success next year about when we will start fundraising. Nobody can say it's going to be easy, but I think we have a very strong element to be confident into that. The last point is the secondary market, to finish on that. There is huge appetite to go onto that. We are very confident in the way that we will reach the EUR 4 billion that we've as a target for the two funds under fundraising at Committed Advisors.
On Committed, if I may add, is that the appetite is on both institutional and retail-
Yeah
which is very interesting for our Committed Advisors because-
Retail and private banker and high net worth individual.
Yeah.
High net worth individual. Last question, because you had a few, just the level of debt and debt repayment and so on. David, maybe a little bit of a highlight on that.
Our portfolio have a wide range of leverage. Half of portfolio have actually a low or reasonable leverage. Those are companies such as Bureau Veritas, Tarkett, Muno or Stahl, who some of them are cash free and others have one or two turns in terms of leverage. The other half of the portfolio, as you say, have a five to six times leverage, those are the companies that you can see on slide 15, with ACAMS, CPI, Globeducate, Scalian, which are more traditional LBOs with higher leverage. The first two companies, we did some refinancing recently, we believe we have market rates, we don't expect to have an increase in terms of expense if we were to go to refinance those companies.
On Globeducate, to the contrary, we do believe that if we were to refinance this company, we'll have a saving and a reduction in terms of interest expenses. Regarding the equity requirement, we are thinking that maybe some of those companies will require some equity injections because all those have an M&A program. As we mentioned, Globeducate already closed two acquisitions earlier this year, still has healthy M&A pipeline. Other companies on this slide 15 have some targets in sight. We might have to put a small amount of equity for some of them, but more to help them to grow than to reduce the leverage.
The only one for which we did so was Scalian, but it has been done. Now we're confident that there is a right level. Otherwise, it was part of the, how do you say that? The value creation plan is to support potential significant M&A by some of them, that they cannot fund only with the cash flow of the company.
Thank you very much for your answer.
Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Alexandre Kafa with Kafa and Associates. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you. Good afternoon. Do you hear me?
Yes.
Do you hear me? Excuse me.
Yes.
I have two questions. The first one is an account question. On page 11, about 17, the asset managers amount at the end of June 2026 is EUR 1,881 million, and was EUR 1,727 million at the end of 2025. I don't remember what the amount was only EUR 1,326 million at the end of the Q1, March of 2026. Is it a mistake? Could you remember us the explanation of these strange differences between end of 2025, end of Q1, and end of Q2? The second question-
Okay. We will-
Yes?
Yeah. Please go.
The second question is more important, is related to the discount price of your stocks and the evolution of the net asset value per share since ten years. With my spreadsheet, I see that the net asset value per share is now EUR 159 at the end of June 2026, less than the net asset value of 2017, nine years ago, when the stock price of Wendel was EUR 140. My question is, could you anticipate that the net value of Wendel for the end of 2026 will be up than the 2025 year, so EUR 164? Thank you.
Thank you for your question. The first one is that I don't have the figures in front of me, but the parameter is not the same for the second quarter compared to the-
Oh, okay
...beginning of the year. At beginning of the year, you only have on the platform IK and Monroe. At the end of the second quarter, you have.
Yes
a Committed Advisors that has been added to that.
Yes, I understand that, why that difference at the end of Q1? This is my question.
I told you, the value we applied for Q1 was very low. That's what I mentioned, and I keep saying that the. That's it. I've been saying that. That's it.
Why this amount is less than the 2025? It's not the same.
We are using market multiples to value our business.
Okay.
There was a lower value of the multiples of the alts during the first Q1.
Okay.
We specifically mentioned that during the Q1 session.
Okay.
That's why we see a positive now impact, because the value has come down. The Q1 was really the dip of the value of the-
Okay
...alternative asset management. I think we were very clear during the call, maybe not everybody
Sorry for my question. I understand now.
From the Q1 to Q2, you have a better multiple, but you also have the addition of Committed Advisor, which was acquired, closed in April 2026. I give no forward-looking position on share price or NAV. I hear your question. I give no forward-looking statement on NAV and share price. I have given in the Investor Day, we're giving a target of what return we expect, but I don't give any short-term or even midterm specific guidance on it. We've given clear guidance on the development of our asset management, which I think is also. We're confirming those guidance.
Okay. Thank you.
Thanks.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Alexandre Gérard with CIC. One moment please, while I bring the speaker to the stage.
Yes. Can you hear me?
Yes, we can.
Yes. Hello. Thank you for taking my questions. I have four quick questions. The first one related to the BNP Paribas partnership. Could you please elaborate a bit on that? What do you expect on that partnership? Is BNP just a cornerstone investor or are they also LPs in the firms too? The second question is related to WIM. If we go back to page 13 of your presentation, can we have the split, or could we have the split between management fees and FRE between IK, Monroe, and Committed Advisors? The third question is related to Tarkett. Tarkett is now classified as a private asset, but you don't comment on that line, despite the fact that Tarkett is a non-negligible part of your NAV. Can you elaborate a bit on that?
My last question is regarding your M&A opportunities, maybe in the second half of the year, both for WIM and for Wendel Investment Partners. Are you still looking at opportunities? Thank you.
Okay. Let me, I will hand over to Cyril on that. The BNP Paribas partnership. In fact, it started as being an AXA partnership. I'm saying that because that's how it started. AXA is significant, as both things. It's an LP. It also has, which has become BNP Paribas, a GP stake fund. It has two qualities. In fact, the relationship started on Monroe, where they knew Monroe well because they were a significant LP of Monroe. When we discussed with them the fact that we were acquiring Monroe, they said, "Well, we're happy to come with you as a GP staker and to keep on being a significant LP even more as in Monroe." When we also did the Committed Advisors transaction, we had discussions because we've got regular discussions with them.
It has become BNP Paribas because the merger between AXA IM and BNP Paribas was consumed. We had exactly the same thing. It's a dual partnership. It's a partnership with BNP Paribas Asset Management, I don't know their name now. Also AXA, because AXA is becoming also a partner or LP to Committed Advisors as well as to Monroe. The former AXA GP stake fund is mostly money coming from the AXA portfolio, I mean, investment funds. It's a dual now partnership between BNP Paribas and AXA. At the occasion of that merger, it has allowed us to enlarge our relationship also with the BNP teams and their asset management team, which is good, and we now have a very confident relationship with them.
WIM, we don't give the split of the FRE here. I think that you can find out. It's in the accounts. You will find it in the accounts. It's in the accounts. We give the split. I thought we didn't give it. In fact, we give it. There's no secret, and you will see. The interesting thing is that the FRE margin is relatively similar on the different companies. Not the fee rates. Obviously, the fee rate is higher on P. The margin is relatively similar from one to the other, the FRE margin. Tarkett. Tarkett, it's true that we didn't give any information while it's not listed. It used to come from the market information.
In a very brief term, Tarkett is having a pretty good first half in terms of growth and EBITDA, supported largely by the sport business in the U.S., which is one of the key drivers of the growth for Tarkett. The EBITDA is up. I don't have the numbers in mind. I think it's 4%, 5% up EBITDA compared to last year. A pretty decent good performance, largely driven by the development of the sport business. M&A opportunities. We have M&A opportunities in three domains. First, on WPI, at the company level. The companies are looking always to see whether they can expand their business through bolt-on acquisition. This is true for Bureau Veritas, this is true for Globeducate, which is part of the model.
This is potentially true for ACAMS or CPI, and even Scalian, a small acquisition, which is a little bit like having small teams coming and joining. We are not going to go for big things, but a few bolt-on acquisitions. We look to a series of them on that. Second is we are constantly looking to new opportunities to invest money, and we have looked to a few investments during the first half. We did not find anything which was what we wanted to do, but we are constantly monitoring that. The team, with the support of the IK network, is sending a significant amount of good opportunities to us today. The last one is on the platform construction, and we have said that we have already created three expertise, that we may want to have other expertise.
I also said that the priority of the year 2026 was to create the platform, start to integrate, start to think about the organization, develop the retail and the wealth management development, and the organic growth was really the priority of the year. We constantly monitor the fact that there is opportunity out there, but our main focus this year has been about internal development.
All right. Thank you very much.
Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Geoffroy Michalet. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you, gentlemen. One question for me on the WPI. You mentioned that for several companies you have had to put them back, I would say, in a more normal shape or pace. Could you elaborate a bit on the timing by which you expect, let's say, the growth to be back, like at ACAMS, or let's say at a normative or decent level? Same question for the margin. Thank you very much.
Sorry, the line broke up. I think the question was, when do you expect the growth to recover for the private assets? Is that it?
Yes. Exactly, for ACAMS.
ACAMS, CPI, probably Scalian, too.
Okay. Actually, ACAMS is on a good growth trajectory. It's already like over 4% on H1. There was a bit of revenues which slipped from June to July. We had a bit of a cut-off issue. H1 was actually much better in terms of operating performance. The growth is still there. We see some acceleration. We are already on a good trajectory. On CPI, to make it quick, the full year picture will give a better view than it is today. We see significant growth potential coming on for the year to come.
Yes. On CPI, H1 was actually showing some good growth on international market. The high single digit outside the U.S., and so the lack of growth you're mentioning is really on the U.S., and that's the federal funding I was mentioning. We don't see a change in the funding coming anytime soon. What we are seeing at CPI is a complete reorganization of the sales organization. We are hiring close to 14 new sales member. We are really beefing up the team to be more aggressive on the ground. We have hired a new Chief of Sales as well. We don't expect a significant change in the market condition, but we do expect a strong improvement in how we turn this market into a higher growth platform. In terms of timing, it's probably more 2027 than H2 2026.
We need a bit of time because we just hired those hunters. The actions have been taken. The new leaders have arrived, and we have hired a team as well. And then on Scalian, I think we mentioned previously, we do see some good growth on our core markets. It's the long tail of the non-core market of Scalian, which is still suffering today. H2, as I think Laurent mentioned, should be better than H1. We expect to finish the year on a positive momentum.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Filippe Goossens with Degroof Petercam. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good afternoon, gentlemen. Thank you for taking my questions here. I have three of them. The first one, capital allocation. It was very helpful to see what your priorities are in terms of M&A. You're sitting still, if I do the math correctly, on about EUR 3 billion in financial dry powder. That is EUR 500 million cash, the EUR 1.7 billion, let's call it like that, proceeds from the Stahl and the IHS sales, and then the revolver with EUR 750 million. You've just completed your 9% share buyback program. Can we expect that perhaps to become part again of capital allocation going forward, a new buyback program?
I think the right element to look at is not availability of cash, because we have plenty, is the LTV. LTV is 7.8%, which is a relatively low level and conservative level, which give us some leeway. We've said that we will do a significant share buyback program. We've done it, more than EUR 300 million that has been allocated to that. We've said that the total return we will do for the shareholders in the period will be significant, remember from the capital market day. We will stick to what we've said. Doesn't mean that we want to do a new shareholder program this year, because we have to balance between share buyback and development of the different activities. We have a commitment in term of shareholder return, and we will stick to that commitment.
Okay. My second question relates to private credit, particularly Monroe Capital Income, the Business Development Company. Can you give a percentage in terms of the redemption request that they received? Yes, I did see the number you stated, 0.09%, which is very small in terms of the absolute amount. Can you tell us what that would be as a percentage of assets? We typically hear from the-
No, for sure it's public.
Yeah, okay.
No, for sure, it's public information, it's 8.9%, it was capped at 5%.
Okay. Have you seen a transition from Q1 to Q2? In other words, the 8.9%, that's for the full year, have you seen a deceleration or stabilization.
No, the 8.9% was just for Q2. Q1, it was 5.3%. It's a tender every quarter in the middle of the month.
Yeah.
It's 5.3% Q1 and 8.9% Q2. The average for the industry for Q2 is above 14%, 14.4% if you look at the 20 biggest non-tradable BDCs. It means that we are well below this average, even if we are not satisfied with the level of redemption requests so far. It's 8.9% for MCIP in Q2.
The net is effectively EUR 90 million. Just to come back, the net is EUR 90 million out of a EUR 6 billion fund, just to give you the size of it.
Okay.
It's $90 million
Yeah, that's very helpful
Out of EUR 6 billion.
Very helpful. Okay. If I then recall correctly from the lunch we had a couple of months ago in Paris, can you just give an update? If I recall correctly, you had indicated that Monroe was going to come to Europe. Any further updates there?
No. It remains very important. We have an ambitious diversification plan for Monroe with new product and also new strategies. We are assessing various opportunities, whether it's team lift-out or Bolton acquisition in order to develop Monroe in Europe, whether it's for direct lending or for our secondary businesses. We are working on it with the team. At the end of the day, we want to be sure that it will be Monroe Europe, not something beside Monroe. It's why it takes time.
Okay. The final question, if I may. We had the announcement a couple of days ago from Revolut that they're going to try to democratize private equity and private credit in Europe with a number of deals they have announced amongst others with Apollo, to allow investors with the Revolut app to make investments as low as EUR 1. Is that something over time where you would like to play in as well, the kind of the smaller retail investor that uses fintech to get access at much lower amounts to the private asset class?
It requires a long answer, I will say that for us, the highest part of the retail market is our priority. Wholesale wealth management, so far it's the priority. For sure, the retail market is also interesting, so far what we do, whether it's in the U.S. or in Europe, we focus more on the highest part of the retail, wealth management and affluent investors.
Okay. Fair enough. Thank you so much, gentlemen. Very helpful, the answers. Thank you.
Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of David Cerdan with Kepler. Please go ahead.
Yes. I would like to come back on the discussion regarding the evolution of the multiples for the asset management platform between Q1 and Q2. Can you maybe give us a number on how much has changed the retail multiples between Q1 and Q2?
No, we don't give detail on the calculation of our assets. Anyway, what is important is that the value we booked in the NAV at the end of June reflects our best estimate of what could be the value of the platform.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Geoffroy Michalet with ODDO BHF. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Another question on the shareholder that you mentioned that you were thinking maybe not this year, but at some point to give back onto shareholder. I was wondering, with share buyback, you are increasing the stake of the family, which has already a high or an important stake. Is there any kind of problem with the financial authority of increasing the stake of the family regularly as you have it be done? Thank you very much.
We do comply with the regulation. It's very important. When we decided to launch the last share buyback, we had meetings with the AMF. They approved the share buyback program. Of course, we do comply with the regulation.
In your view, do you think they could agree to accept another, let's say, a share buyback quite soon, or do you think they would say it's a bit too early? Thank you.
I don't know because this is not our plan. I cannot answer your question. Sorry for that.
Thank you.
Thank you. I will now turn the call over to Olivier Allot for questions from the webcast.
Thank you. We have two questions from the webcast. The first one, why no fundraising via IK in 2026?
As mentioned by Laurent, they have raised a lot in 2024 and a bit in 2025. Now they are deploying capital and the program for IK is to raise capital at the end of 2027, beginning of 2028. As I said, you can look at the slide in the capital market deck where you have the way we see the evolution of the different vintages for the next five to seven years.
Thank you. Another question, H1 pro forma FRE was EUR 95 million in H1. The target implies about more than EUR 105 million in H2. What drives the step up? It is deployment feeding the fee base in H2? If so, how much incremental deployment are you assuming versus H1?
As we said, we confirmed the EUR 200 million. For sure that we will maintain a high level of deployment for Monroe Capital. Also keep in mind that for Committed Advisors, each euro that will be raised in H2 with the catch-up mechanism will also start paying fees since the beginning of 2026. In fact, you have two effects. We maintain a high level of activity and all money raised now from Committed Advisors will pay fees starting beginning of 2026. For those two reasons, we maintain the EUR 200 million for the full year.
Thank you. We have no more questions, I think we can end this call. Thank you very much.
Thanks, everyone.
Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.