Hello, and welcome to Eurazeo Q1 2024 trading update. My name is Rushti, and I will be your coordinator for today's event. Please note, this call is being recorded, and for the duration of the call, your lines will be on listen only. However, you will have opportunity to ask questions at the end of the call. This can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. I will now hand over to your host, Mr. William Kadouch-Chassaing, Co-CEO. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Good morning. Thanks for joining this call. I'm pleased to welcome you all to our Q1 2024 trading update. Let me walk you through the key highlights for the quarter, which pertains to, first, the asset management activity, second, the asset rotation, and third, the underlying performance of the on-balance sheet portfolio. Let me start with asset under management. We recorded year-on-year steady increase in our asset under management, reflecting the good momentum we had in 2023. Fee-paying AUM were up 8% year-on-year, with fee-paying AUM from third party up again double digits at 11%. Total AUM stand at roughly EUR 35 billion, up 8% year-on-year. Management fees from third parties are up 10%, excluding catch-up fees and some base effects. Total management fees, including balance sheet, were up 6%, excluding catch-up fees.
In line with our strategic plan, management fees from the balance sheet are flat, as we are progressively limiting our reinvestment in our own funds. Fundraising activity was arguably soft in Q1, at EUR 210 million. We remind everyone that fundraising is not linear through the year. On the institutional side, we had no significant closings in Q1 after a strong Q4. Let me remember again that, you know, Q4 2023 was more than 50% of the total fundraising from, from last year. I mean, this is arguably non-event through the quarters, as I said.
On the wealth management side, we continue to enjoy good momentum with EUR 162 million raised in Q1, our flagship fund in wealth, EPV 3, which is a mix of private debt and secondaries, an evergreen fund, continues to perform very strongly in France. We announced during this quarter its launch in Germany through a partnership with the Moonfare platform. This should accelerate the pace of adoption in Europe. Let me also mention that we had our first inflows coming from outside of France from Belgium in the first quarter. Collections in the tech-dedicated funds were softer, in line with the market. Now, looking ahead, we are confident about our momentum of fundraising for 2024. We have constructive discussions with LPs and potential distribution partners in France and outside of France in wealth.
We have, as we highlighted already in, during our 2023 full year results, a rich and diversified pipeline across asset classes, size of funds and source of fundings. Let's turn to realizations and deployment. Realizations were up 20% year-on-year, at EUR 408 million. This is clearly better than the market overall. As already mentioned, we see a progressive improvement in market conditions, and as already indicated, we have a good pipeline of exits, which should result in higher exit volumes for the balance sheet, particularly in 2024 versus last year. Focusing on the balance sheet, which obviously is a key element in our story, given the commitment to shift gradually toward an asset-light model. At the end of April, proceeds amounted to EUR 538 million, which is already 6.5% of the total portfolio value.
Now, in the number I quoted before, EUR 408 million, pertaining to the first quarter, balance sheet realizations were only EUR 131 million. But remember that end of April, we are at EUR 538 million. Deployments totaled EUR 414 million in Q1. We remain highly selective, but nevertheless, there again, we see increasingly progressive improvement with good opportunities to deploy. Case in point, we announced in April the acquisition by our mid-market buyout strategy of Eres, a leading French employee benefit manager. This acquisition will be realized in the coming quarter. Focusing still on realizations, and it's clearly at the heart of the question in the industry today. As you know, it's most important for us from a balance sheet rotation standpoint.
It's important, as for the competitiveness of our asset management is concerned, because it translates into DPI across the board. As we had announced at the end of the year, we have been able to close and announce exits during Q1. Let me stress two important things. First, exits span across a large array of sectors and asset classes for Eurazeo. On top of good quality, small and mid-market buyout assets, we have been able to trade in biotech, venture, and soon in growth equity. This is the shaded line that you have here. This reflects a gradually improving environment, as well as the quality of the investments in those fields. Second point, value creation of the exit was strong. Above 2.2 cash-on-cash for the buyout assets, and more than 4x for venture, biotech, and growth assets.
As I know that you are very focused on that, let me stress as well, that for in aggregate, for these exits realized or announced, we've been able to trade above the last mark in the book. Let me finish with the third element, which is the performance, the underlying performance of our own balance sheet portfolio companies. Overall, Q1 continues to reflect the high quality of this portfolio. In buyout, which represent 60% of our portfolio, growth has been 9% at constant scope. In growth, which represent 23% of the total portfolio value, revenues were nineteen percent, 19%, with the bulk of the portfolio growing at 20% or more.
Finally, in real assets, which account for 12% of Eurazeo portfolio value, revenues were up 7%, including with good contribution from our real estate, exposure in hospitality. I will stop there the trading update and leave the floor to you for questions. Thank you very much.
Thank you, sir. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. We'll pause for a moment to form a queue. We'll take our first question from Nicolas Herman from BNP Paribas. Your line is open, please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I have three questions, please. The first one starting on fundraising. So you seem to imply that the soft number in the Q1 is more a timing issue, so I guess you are still seeing some demand for your different strategies. But I'm interested in knowing a bit more about the progress you're making on the different flagships in buyout growth and also in secondaries. And also you have mentioned in the slide Impact Buyout strategy. I think this is more a newer strategy. What could be the size of such first-time funds? Then on your exit pipeline, you keep mentioning a positive outlook.
I'd like to know if, among the exit processes you have in the pipeline, that includes some of the big tickets, in your MLBO funds, and if this is more, skewed towards the back end of the year, or, if it could happen in, coming months. And then lastly, on, the performance of portfolio companies. So I've seen the numbers you've give on, revenue growth. However, it's a little, the disclosure is a bit different this last time, but I'm interested in knowing what's the derivative here? Are you seeing sequentially some slowdown in growth across portfolio companies or some re-acceleration, versus the H2 last year? Thank you very much.
Well, thank you. I mean, these are obviously very relevant and important questions. Let's start with fundraising. Yes, this is largely a timing issue. I mean, we did register strong tickets in Q4 2024. We've launched first early this year. So we expect that we'll have a closing through the year. It's not a demand issue. As I said, we have constructive discussions with LPs. We continue to register good inflows on the wealth side, and are able to strike new partnerships.
When I mentioned, you know, we've, we've been able to raise already some money now, in Belgium, you know, this is very progressive wealth management, but it's, it's a good sign that, you know, we are able to strike. We've also done some agreement with family offices and IFAs in countries such as Switzerland and Germany. That would be very progressive. On the main funds, LP related, and if you go back to the page where we have the program, let me start with direct lending. I mean, you know, we are on the same pattern, same type of momentum that we enjoyed for our fund six, so still pretty strong.
Mid-large buyout, we continue to have constructive discussions, so we should be able to have further tickets through the year. Secondaries, growth, I mean, there are different secondaries just started its fundraising this year. You know that our secondary fund is half dependent on wealth, half dependent on institutional. I think the wealth collection has been stronger in Q1 for secondaries than the LP money. But you know, we have constructive discussions here. Secondaries generally are pretty attractive. Growth, we said, is more towards the end, skewed towards the end of the year. We want to see some improvement in the market and also with the strong team we put in place.
It was important for us that we're able to announce some exits and some investments, which, you know, will materialize in the next weeks. So we are quite positive about the prospects here, but it is more skewed towards the end of the year, maybe early 2025. This is for the main sort of large fund. Smaller funds, you know, I mean, Sustainable Infrastructure, we had said we would final close ahead of the initial target of EUR 500. This will be the case, and this should materialize in the next months. We have good momentum on biotech, particularly, let's say, based on Article Nine. So this has some positive tailwinds. And these are reasonably small funds.
Impact buyout, which is the one you mentioned, also skewed towards the end of the year. It's a fund that is complementing our offering in impact. You know, that we are present in impact in ventures, with Smart Cities, in debts through asset-based debt. We are with biotech with Kurma. It's also an Article Nine fund. Now, we are willing to launch an infrastructure, of course, obviously. We are willing to launch a buyout fund around the concept of planetary boundaries. We have very good traction in the dialogue with LPs. But it's too early to say what we can target, but it's gonna be above the EUR 500 million mark. And then, you know, wealth, I've already commented. Exit pipeline.
What we said is that we see an improvement relative to last year. Last year, we did perform a tad better than the market in terms of exits. Clearly, in Q1, we did much better than the market with a +20%. And you know, the EUR 538 million pertaining to the balance sheet is encouraging. Now, we're not operating in a totally normalized environment. We are operating in an improving environment where we can show that we deliver. So you're right. There will be some of the bigger tickets which are essentially for us associated with M-large buyout, as you pointed out. I mean, this is even the configuration of our portfolio. That's pretty normal.
But this is a pretty well-balanced pipeline of exits that we have. You've seen what we had announced in Q1, and we have also smaller things in small buyout. We announced things in venture both in biotech. You know, we may have a bit of real estate. So this is a pretty diverse portfolio of assets that we have. Now, I won't comment more because there is an intrinsic execution risk in everything we do, but let me just reiterate that we confirm that we should do better in 2024 relative to 2023. And then on the performance for the portfolio, it varies fundamentally. So it's not easy to answer to your question.
So, generally speaking, I'd say that for some sectors and for some companies, it's clearly a rebound. There's clearly a rebound. We saw, though, there's still a bit of hysteresis effect of some slowing down towards the end of 2023. So overall, the 9% for buyout, for example, that we have to take is really a large chunk of the companies continue to grow at double digits. And some, again, see some acceleration, and you have some cases for which it is clearly more difficult and maybe the minority of the portfolio. But overall, I don't think we can give a very consistent picture across the board. If anything, I mean, things are mildly improving.
Something which we don't comment in in the first quarter trading update, because we only comment on the news, is that the breakthrough in terms of EBITDA is gradually improving relative to 2023. 2023 was a year where you had really some impact on the cost side of the inflationary pressure and value chain disruptions. I mean, that loosening a bit.
Okay, thank you very much. As a reminder for our audio participants, it's star one to ask a question. We'll take our next question from Mr. Alexandre Gérard from CIC. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, William, and thank you for taking my questions. I'm coming back again on the same questions regarding fundraising. What do you mean by positive outlook for the year, or more precisely, please? I mean, do you expect to be above what you recorded last year in terms of gross fundraising, and also in terms of redemptions, what do you expect? Is it going to be a normal year, i.e., more or less 12% of the previous year AUMs? So that's my first question. Second question, I mean, do you reiterate, in terms of operating performance, the fee-related earnings margin in 2024, which is going to be slightly up compared to next year to last year? Sorry.
So that's my second question, the trend on your FRE margin. And, the third and fourth questions are related to your, corporate development strategy. Can you update us on your GP acquisition pipeline, if there are any acquisitions in the pipe? And MCH also, last question, of course. I mean, you had in mind to maybe dispose of that stake. Can you update us on that, situation also? Thank you, William.
Thank you, for your questions. You smartly, tempted me to do... to provide a guidance with your question number one. You know, we, we don't provide guidance pertaining to fundraising, so early in the year, because, I mean, there's always a, if you could exercise, given that quarters are, are, are not even, and things can, can be backended. So I will not do that. But when we say positive outlook, it's because we consider we are, we are on track, to, fundraise across, this diversified and rich portfolio of funds that I mentioned. And we see, positive vibes, as I mentioned, in our capacity to, being distributed outside of France.
But really, again, that may not translate in big flows for 2024, but it's very encouraging to see that we are able to strike partnerships and get some healthy flows. It's very encouraging to see that our direct lending franchise continues to perform well. But not every direct lending franchise is contrary to what is being said very often, is necessarily able to fundraise easily these days. I mean, the positioning of the strategy is apparently quite astute. Impact, which is good dialogue. That's what we mean by positive outlook. Positive outlook is we have good commercial dynamics in a context that is progressively getting better, but it's not back to the buying, buoyant years of 2021, 2022.
We'll see for the industry as a whole, how it develops. There may be some positives when, and if, the ECB does announce its first cut, because that would certainly help relaxing the so-called denominator effect for some of our bigger LPs. But obviously we're not counting on a fluid market, we're counting on our performance as an asset manager first and foremost. That's what we mean by positive outlook. Operating performance. Yes, we expect some growth in FRE for 2024. Corporate development. Let me remind what we said during our capital markets day. We present an organic roadmap of four years, and everything counts here, organic and four years. You don't transform the company that has an average duration of its portfolio of four and a half years.
Obviously, as the ambitious purpose of winning market share in a very competitive landscape, you don't do that in a quarter. It's organic, again, largely speaking. Now, we also have said, you're right on that, that we see key reasons for the industry to consolidate. We observe consolidation moves, and this is our duty as management to look at potential opportunities that may help us accelerating the pace at which we meet our end target, which is to become this reference leader in market growth and impact through Europe. So we, we've never comment on specific situations unless we have something to announce. But yes, we do the job of identifying what could make sense, if it makes sense. MCH, you heard it well.
We will dispose of our stake in MCH, and we'll announce it in due course, most probably in H1 . The latest in Q3 .
All right. Thank you, William.
We have a few questions on the web, so I'm going to just take them. First is, we answered quite a few of those questions already, but there's a question from Saima Hussain on the deployments. We talked about the realizations, but she wanted to have a few words on deployments. Are you finding more opportunities? How do you see the environment for deal flow into the deployments?
I mean, there's clearly more activity across the board. And there are within that overarching idea of some opportunities to do better price deals in some segments, particularly secondaries. But I'd say I put venture and growth equity in that field, after, you know, high prices that have been observed in southern 2021, where growth equities and ventures are probably an opportunity to build funds view with very attractive value creation going forward, even some repricing. I would not necessarily say that it is a case in Bayard, though. We see a lot of activity or there are opportunities to look at. There are some good assets to look at.
They come at a price, because I guess everyone is looking at what we're looking for, which is an asset that has predictable growth in with high-margin businesses, and high cash flow conversion. Because everyone knows that the story is no longer about leveragings. It's never been to a large extent for us. It's about identifying good peaks in good sectors with sustainable growth and capacity to build champions, which is core of our value proposition. So some assets you may buy are still coming at a price. So you don't have that many bargains. But, I mean, clearly, yes, there is more deal flow activity, more willingness to trade by operators.
Then there's a last question from Jean-Paul Michel from ODDO BHF. The first one is thanking us for sharing the DPI. So you have this on page nine of the presentation of the update. And he's just asking how do we see ourselves in term, in terms of DPI pattern? How are our funds compared to the market? Are we in advance or behind?
Well, thanks for your first comment. This is part of what Pierre had conveyed to most of you over the past quarter, which is a willingness to systematically improve the disclosure and make it best in class. You know, as time goes by, the whole industry is improving, so we improve together with the industry. Clearly, DPI is an area where we fare very well in absolute, but also in relative terms. That's a very important factor in fundraising. You look at our buyout, mid-large buyout, fourth vintage, I mean, we're already at close to 90%. If you include the realization of D.O.R.C., the number you hear, which obviously was Q1, so that's clearly first quartile.
It's not at the top of the quartile. You look at DPIs across also secondaries, for example, I mean, we fare well. The area where there was historically was true for Eurazeo as for the rest of the industry, low DPI is everything linked to venture and growth. But as you heard from me, we're starting to have exits. And so the DPI for biotech funds three, for example, we clearly moved up the ranks. One area where we have a clear number one top decile DPI, to finish on that, is real estate. It's still a program, on biology sheet program, but when we will consider allocate as a fund, possibly, I mean, it really will be a competitive advantage.
He had another question, Jean-Paul Michel, sorry, on share buyback with the realizations that are expected up. Can you say anything about the share buyback program?
I confirm that, you know, it is our intention to share buyback, to do, to do share buyback for consolidation for an amount of up to EUR 1.5 billion in four years. I confirm that we've exactly executed a quarter of the EUR 200 million program that we had announced for 2024. That's what I can say at this stage.
Okay. Guess we have no different questions. I don't know, on the phone, I see no other question either, so I guess we can stop the call now. H1 will be on the 25th of July. And we wish you all a good day.
Thank you very much. Have a good day.
This concludes today's conference. Thank you for your participation.