Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the presentation of JTC plc's interim results for 2020. I'm Nigel Le Quesne, the Group CEO, and presenting with me, as usual, is Martin Fotheringham, our Group CFO. Once again, we are faced with a virtual presentation, but I do hope on the next occasion, we will be meeting in person. For the next half an hour or so, I will present my CEO highlights, and Martin will run through the financial review. I'll follow up with a business review of the first half of 2020, including a more detailed insight into the impact on the business of the COVID-19 environment, and provide an update on our recent acquisitions and the M&A market as a whole, closing with our outlook for the rest of the year. We'll open up for questions.
If we can turn to slide four and the summary of the trading for the first half of 2020. In general terms, I think we've produced solid results with good growth in challenging times. We recognized when we presented to you in April that year was largely going to be shaped for all of us by the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, we suggested that although not complacent in any way, we were reasonably confident that because of the way the business was organized and managed, we had a good chance of trading in line or close to our pre-COVID expectations. We felt able to say this in the light of JTC's business fundamentals. These characteristics are why we've delivered outstanding results that have led to revenue and profit growth for 32 years and through previous world crises. To highlight a few, we have had a well-invested, scalable platform.
We've had the benefit of being well-diversified with 6,000 clients in 130 countries, multiple service lines, and a presence in all the key locations in the world relevant to deliver outstanding service. We are a cash-generative business with cash conversion in the first half of the year of 108%. We benefit from a strong balance sheet and recurring revenues of around 98%. Most importantly, this is all underpinned by our unique shared ownership model and the behaviors it engenders, which in many ways are at their best in a crisis. COVID-19 has brought its challenges. We are delighted we have managed to call on these attributes to ensure we have met the expectations we set for ourselves prior to the advent of the pandemic.
Due to our confidence in the continuing strength and success of the overall business, we increased our dividend payout guidance from 25% of underlying EPS to 30%, which results in an increase of 41.2% to our interim dividend to GBP 0.024 on our normal 1/3, 2/3 basis. In terms of the progress made in the first half of 2020, we delivered another strong set of results with further revenue and EBITDA growth. Exceeding the target expectations we had anticipated for net organic growth at 10.1% above our 8%-10% range. Gross growth of 17.9% all delivered at an EBITDA margin of 33.3%, which is within our guidance of 33%-38%. PCS division has once again delivered a particularly strong performance at an excellent margin, and we have continued to see some significant new business wins in the ICS division, including our largest-ever win as a group.
We managed to complete the acquisitions of the Sanne PCS business, which was completed on the 1st of July, and NES Financial, the tech-enabled fund services business in the United States. Although these acquisitions were quite different businesses, we are pleased with both, which I will return to later. We also added a small lift-out in the U.K. to add registrar services to our capabilities and established a presence in Dublin, Ireland, for the first time, while remaining active in the market and seeing a number of further potential deals as the M&A market returns to life. Generally, we've taken the opportunity presented by the external environment to focus internally and to introduce a revised operating model into our fund services practice with the ICS division, supported by a greater reliance on technology to deliver efficiencies.
In the short term, this had an adverse effect on the ICS margin, but once implemented over the next six to 12 months, we are confident that efficiencies will be found in servicing this growing book, providing a more scalable platform and working model for future expansion. After significant moves to upgrade premises in London, Amsterdam, and Cayman in 2019, we've continued this into the first half of the year with a commitment to a contemporary new office in Luxembourg, bringing the whole Luxembourg-based team together for the first time since 2018, and taking further space in JTC House, Jersey to facilitate further growth. We've also added to our most senior executive team with the appointment of Michael Halloran, CEO of NES Financial, into the new role of Head of Group Technology Strategy, signaling the increasing importance of technology to JTC and our sector.
Mentioned in April, JTC's unique approach to shared ownership received global recognition by featuring as a core case study in the Harvard Business School MBA program. This accolade highlighted JTC's key differentiator and the competitive edge it brings, which has manifested itself in the positive attitude, dedication, and collective spirit shown by the team through the pandemic. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the whole team for their support in what has been a difficult period for us all. In essence, in the first half of 2020, we've once again enhanced and improved upon our financial performance. We've delivered net organic growth of 10.1%, which is particularly pleasing in the circumstances. We've made two acquisitions in lockdown, added further to our group talent, range of services, and geographical reach, while accelerating improvements to our infrastructure in relation to our organizational construct, technological capabilities, and premises.
All in line with the expectations we had set for 2020 and prior to the pandemic. We turn to slide five and onto the financial highlights, where we've achieved period-on-period revenue growth of 15.2% to GBP 53.7 million. Underlying EBITDA growth of 11.2% to GBP 17.9 million. Reduction of 1.2 of a percentage point in our EBITDA margin from 34.5%- 33.3%, which is still within our range and primarily due to the funds practice reorganization, which we have instigated. Our annualized new business wins were up by 45.8% to GBP 8.6 million, which now includes the NES Financial figures. Our pipeline at the period end was 28.3% higher at GBP 42.6 million. More generally, we currently estimate our win rates in both divisions to be above 35% of the mandates where we have visibility. We are certainly seeing more mandates, and the mandates themselves are larger in nature.
All achieved in spite of the anticipated and inevitable slowdown between spring and early summer. Looking forward, we see period-on-period future revenue from these new business efforts of GBP 18.2 million, up 44.1% over the same period last year. I'll now pass over to Martin for some detailed financial review.
Thank you, Nigel. Good morning, everyone. We have a lot to be pleased about with our H1 trading. Organic growth was 10.1% in the last 12 months. Cash conversion was 108% so far this year. We have new business wins at GBP 8.6 million in the period. So far, we've completed two acquisitions this year. The core business performed particularly well. However, EBITDA margin did fall in the period, albeit remaining within our guidance range. The NES Financial trading was adversely affected by COVID-19. As I go through the next 10 slides or so, I'll address all of the above in some more detail. If we turn to slide eight in the deck. This is the summarized income statement. As I've said, there were a lot of things in H1 for us to be pleased with. Revenue increased by 15.2%. Underlying profit increased by 33%. Underlying EPS increased by 25%.
We saw excellent performance in the Channel Islands, in Cayman, and in Netherlands. The EBITDA margin fell back. This remained within the guidance range, with PCS continuing to outperform. NES has been impacted by COVID. We'll talk more about that in a moment. I'll also talk about what's been happening in the core ICS business as we go through the slides. If we can turn to slide nine. Here and in the next couple of slides, I wanted to give you some more detail about what we've seen in H1 with respect to trading. Slide nine is a revenue bridge. This shows that in the last 12-month period, we won GBP 13.1 million of new business. That was split 44/56 between existing and new clients.
That was consistent with what we expected in the lockdown, as we anticipated we'd see relatively more activity from existing clients. We have had a very strong run with winning new work from new clients. Two of GBP 1 million-plus mandates in there. Indeed, one of these was initiated and won during lockdown. Still on the subject of wins in H1, we won a total of GBP 8.6 million of new work. GBP 1.9 million of that has been recognized in our results to date. At the end of June, our pipeline was over GBP 40 million, with two very large mandates included in it. Of those mandates, we are mid RFP as we speak. I will come to attrition in some more detail in a moment. If we could turn to slide 10.
This slide has some new analysis which we wanted to share with you, providing some additional detail on organic growth and attrition and where that comes from. If we look first at the organic growth. At the group level, we've reported 10.1% growth over the last 12 months. If we dig into that, we can see from the chart here at the top of the page that PCS has delivered 11.8% and ICS 8.9%. We've had a very strong contribution from both divisions. PCS in particular has done extremely well, and this speaks volumes to the work the team has done to increase mandate sizes as well as securing new clients. We strongly believe that both divisions are extremely complementary, and that having both gives us confidence in our ability to be able to meet the guidance levels year on year.
I think if you look at the graph, you can see that this amply demonstrates this. Let me now turn to the attrition. Here, we've shared historic data in the tables at the bottom of the graph, and we also show how the split between end of life and non-end of life is made up for both divisions. Whilst our last 12-month attrition did increase from 7% at the end of 2019 to 7.6% at the end of June, this was entirely due to an increase in end-of-life structures. 97.5% of non-end-of-life revenues were retained. That compares to 97.4% at the end of December. Within those non-end-of-life losses, there were no new losses greater than GBP 50,000 in the first six months of 2020. Having lifted the lid on revenue, what I'd like to do is now to EBITDA margin and ask you to turn to slide 11.
Traditionally, we expect to see our business improve the EBITDA margin in H2 relative to H1, as the graphs on this page demonstrate. The margin for the core business in H1, excluding NES Financial, was comfortably within our guidance range. We're conscious that the PCS margin is significantly ahead of the ICS margin, and indeed, that the core ICS margin has fallen back to the levels we saw in 2018. When we last presented, we said that we would be addressing this. I think it's fair to say that we've been hampered in implementing the plan to reorganize the division, as we're conscious of the need to keep client service at normal levels, and that to embark upon such a program with all of our staff working in isolation would potentially introduce unnecessary risk to the business.
We do have a plan and are poised to commence it, but we believe that for the long-term benefit of the business, it's better to start this once the outlook is clearer. The 30 June figures include two months of NES Financial trading. Due to COVID, NES Financial lost money in that period. This was due to a number of factors. First, the business model has been built on AUM and interest rate related revenues. We knew this before we signed the deal, and that we needed to move this to the JTC time and material billing basis. We didn't expect that the impact of COVID would necessitate this happening immediately. We have been, and we continue to work through this with the NES Financial management. The impact on the NES Financial business was that they lost $4 million of annual revenue in the space of a couple of months.
In a high fixed cost business, you'll understand the impact this will have on the bottom line. Second, NES Financial was configured for growth, and that growth was put on hold in H2. They have a highly focused sales organization geared to signing up new funds. The sectors that the funds at NES Financial typically win are in markets that have been impacted by COVID, real estate, construction, hospitality, and retail. We subsequently restructured the business and cut the cost base until such time as the investment activity restarts again in the U.S. Finally, continuing political uncertainty in the U.S. is causing investment inertia. We do believe that this will prove to be an extremely good deal for JTC. Nigel will restate the investment thesis in connection with this deal.
However, suffice to say, we are confident that once the pause button has been released, that we will see significant returns from the U.S. market. I'm conscious I've spent some time on these last couple of slides, and therefore, I propose to quickly move through the slides that we've included on the divisions. Slide 12 summarizes the ICS divisional performance. I've already explained that what we've seen in H1 and what we're doing to address this. Likewise, on slide 13, this summarizes the PCS performance. I would like, though, just to pause for a moment and reflect upon a division which has delivered double-digit organic growth and an EBITDA margin above our guidance levels. We were very pleased to complete the acquisition of the Sanne private client business at the start of July.
This is a very good business and one that we believe will be a very good deal for JTC. I'm now going to move away from trading and pick up on the balance sheet cash flow and leverage. Slide 14 shows our balance sheet. Nothing's fundamentally changed here since we last reported. We have a high value of goodwill and intangible assets as a result of our past acquisitions. Every six months, we test the carrying values for impairment, and I'm pleased to say there are no impairment indicators at the present time. Slides 15 and 16 look at the cash flow of the business. Slide 15 is a summary of the cash flow statement. As you all know, we are a very cash generative business. We are asset light. In H1, group cash increased by GBP 6.6 million. Slide 16 focuses on cash conversion.
We reported in the RNS that we delivered an extremely strong H1 performance with 108% cash conversion. The graph on this slide shows it's typical for us to perform more strongly in H1. This is because of the timing of the billing cycle for a number of the services we deliver. It's normal practice for us to raise a number of annual invoices in January and February and collect them shortly after. This drives the high H1 cash conversion. You'll also see from the table that by the time we get to the year-end, the annual cash conversion typically drops back towards the guidance levels of 85%-90% that we provide. Let me finally move to the last slide in this section. Slide 17 shows that at 30th of June, the leverage under our bank covenants was 2.1x .
There is significant headroom in this covenant as the test threshold is set at 3.25x . Adjusting this through a pro forma leverage level to take account of full-year trading for acquisitions, our leverage was 2x . We maintain our guidance target of up to 2x pro forma EBITDA. We do note that there are a number of attractive acquisition opportunities available to us. Nigel will touch more on this in a moment. Our banking facilities expire in March 2023. We've currently GBP 35 million available to us within these facilities. For the right deal, and I do stress that it has to be the right deal, we believe it would be commercially right and fiscally prudent for us to utilize these facilities in priority to issuing and raising equity. We recognize this may lead to a short-term increase in our leverage to being closer to 2.5x .
Given the headroom we have available and the cash generative nature of the business, we believe utilizing lower cost debt that we've already paid for is the right thing for the business. I shall now hand back to Nigel, but I'll be happy to take any questions you may have after he's finished.
Thank you, Martin. I'll take you through the business review for the first half of 2020, including a more detailed insight into the challenges presented by COVID-19 and how we adapted our business to meet these. We'll also look at how we see it affecting the wider landscape, including a look on the potential effects on the M&A market. We'll also provide an update on the acquisitions we made in the first half of the year, NES Financial and Sanne. As usual, I will finish with a view of the outlook for the rest of the year. Starting with the group overview on slide 19. At group level, we can compare and contrast the performance of the two divisions, with Private Client Services going from strength to strength and Institutional Client Services growing at a good rate, but with some margin regression.
We reorganized the funds practice and introduced the revised operating model. Divisions are in different stages of their natural cycles. PCS having all aspects aligned at present, which is reflected in its ongoing success and the margin it's achieving. Whereas with ICS, we are seeing good performance in the corporate services practice and an opportunity to proactively improve the performance of the funds practice in terms of the operational efficiencies to improve margin and drive scalable growth. What I would describe as planned maintenance within the indicative group margin range. As a result, this temporary reduction in the margin is not of undue concern to us.
With regards to new business, as anticipated in April, we have seen more activity in the existing book as clients reassessed and adjusted strategies as a result of the pandemic, driving more work from existing clients, which was double the same period last year. We had also anticipated a fall-off in new business as the world went on hold. This was as expected with a slowdown between April and July in particular. Our performance was strong, however, on the back of an excellent first quarter and with that large Institutional Client Services win in the second quarter. The group remains fully committed to all of our service lines in both of the institutional and private client markets, with the opportunity for growth in both divisions remaining strong, as well as providing a degree of diversity through business cycles and ensuring revenue resilience.
We see the funds and trust company markets as complementary and symbiotic for the reasons indicated on the top left-hand corner of the slide. We're finding that the proximity of the markets and their interdependency is increasing. In our view, we are well-placed to increase market share in both and become a leader in each. Looking forward to the second half of the year, we will look to consider further acquisition opportunities and also focus on an orderly and safely managed return to work over the global footprint at the appropriate time. Continue with the reorganization of our funds practice and with the integration of the NES Financial business, utilizing the technological capabilities it brings to the wider group.
On the following slide, we've lifted the lid a little on the effect of the pandemic on our business, its challenges, both current and ongoing, and some of the potential opportunities it may present. As I mentioned earlier, in spite of COVID-19, we've been able to deliver on expectations in the first half of 2020. That is not to say that we haven't or won't be presented with challenges, many of which are ongoing and will have applied to all of us. As demonstrated earlier, and as we observed in previous crises, the group's existing client base was more active post-COVID. With clients reacting to ensure their present arrangements were robust or in need of review or change as a result of the pandemic itself, the effect on the financial markets, and the likely global recession to follow.
Predictably, we saw projects and fund launches put on hold, particularly affecting the U.S. market. Our inability to meet face-to-face will have slowed down or hampered direct engagement, which is particularly important at the outset of a relationship. For example, this may have led to the Sanne book transferring at a lower level than we had anticipated and some of the NES Financial challenges Martin has alluded to. Looking forward, however, we would expect a general acceleration in reviews of business configurations, leading to an even greater desire for leaner working models, with a propensity to outsource becoming even more prevalent and likely to proliferate into more and larger mandates. From experience, world events of this nature also tend to lead to a flight to quality and tendency from clients to use larger, established businesses with strong balance sheets to manage their affairs rather than smaller boutique operations.
Our cash collection was strong, which implies in a crisis, the quality of advice and service provider would win out over the marginal cost savings from a suboptimal service. Turning to operations and employees. As I've already mentioned, our shared ownership structure and the behaviors it engenders gives us a very special culture at JTC. Excellent organizational health. It ensured that the business was supported in all jurisdictions and at every level. The group platform transitioned seamlessly to working from home, with our business continuity team, drawn primarily from delivery and messaging across the global offices. Our internal focus on the operational model of the funds practice is well advanced, although our ability to implement some of the early stages have been hampered by travel restrictions and the limitations it places on direct communication, training, and team reorganization.
The crisis led to new daily reporting and more frequent interaction between senior management and has driven greater cohesion across the global network, improving upon our strong group culture and consistency of messaging. I believe the ESG agenda has grown more important post-pandemic, in particular, the social aspect for both individuals and institutions. This is positive for JTC as we have always looked to promote these behaviors throughout our history. More specifically for our clients, we have been developing solutions for tracking and measuring ESG and impact investing with our NES Financial colleagues to widen our existing relationships and attract new ones in the U.S. and ultimately across our global footprint. Now on to M&A activity. JTC remains a popular acquirer with a good track record, as we have described previously. We are, however, disciplined in our approach with less than 5% of the businesses we assess ultimately being acquired.
We always favor a two plus two equals five outcome. The key, of course, is knowing what not to do. After a general slowdown over the summer, the market appears to have reignited with a significant amount of potential acquisitions appearing both on and off market. As we see it, these are a combination of those that were on hold following the arrival of the pandemic returning to the market, an acceleration of intention by others, potentially factoring in a long recession, and then larger, more strategic opportunities being suggested and primarily contemplated by the advisor community as the market continues to consolidate. Our recent observations are that as a result of this glut of opportunities, a general reluctance from historic acquirers to reengage as they remain internally focused and view the immediate future with uncertainty. We may see a softening in pricing.
There may also be some larger deals presenting themselves in the near future as the industry continues to consolidate at a reasonable pace. Rest assured, we are poised and ready to find the best opportunities as they arrive. This background neatly takes us through to slide 21, which reviews our progress with the acquisitions made in the first half of 2020, NES Financial and Sanne PCS. Starting with NES Financial. You will recall that from 2017, we've been looking to get a foothold in the alternative fund administration market in the U.S. for our Institutional Client Services division. Being frustrated in this regard by the quality and pricing of the opportunities we had seen in this underdeveloped market as advisors came to understand the opportunity and introduced M&A pricing, which was driven by the scarcity value of the businesses rather than their fundamentals.
In a separate group led exercise, we were very keen to accelerate our incremental introduction of technological enhancements business-wide, acknowledging the increasing influence of technology on our industry and ensuring that we were a leading tech-enabled organization. As a result, we were delighted to complete on the acquisition of NES Financial in April, which is a specialist fund administration business based on the East Coast of the United States in Boston, and has its core competence in developing fund-related technologies from its base in San Jose, Silicon Valley. The transaction was at a reasonable price relative to the United States market and was an all-stock deal aligning the capable and experienced U.S. management team with the group from the outset. We are pleased with the progress we've made in the first four months, in spite of the challenges brought by travel restrictions.
We are certain we already have a good cultural fit with our strategies for the U.S. business and group technological development completely aligned. On the downside, however, as Martin's already explained, the trading in the NES Financial core business has been adversely affected by the pandemic. We are pleased, however, with the adjustments the management have made at short notice in the U.S. and how the team are assisting at group level with the development of client portals in both divisions, introducing client onboarding efficiencies, and assisting with the evolution of our private and family office offering, Edge2. We are confident, therefore, in spite of some of these early trading headwinds, we have acquired a good business and the wider strategic advantages we have added leaves the group in better shape for the future.
By comparison, the virtual Sanne acquisition, which completed on the 1st of July, has been easier and more straightforward in our home jurisdiction, in spite of the exercise being carried out in lockdown. The book that transferred was 20% smaller than we had originally been led to believe, but the deal dynamics allowed us to adjust consideration accordingly. In spite of this, we are pleased with the team, the client base is of good quality, and the price we paid was reasonable. All in all, we are sure we will make a success of this acquisition, delivering growth at an excellent margin. The two teams have only physically been together for a week or two now, so we're looking forward to building on the cohesion we can create between the former Sanne team and their award-winning JTC colleagues.
In summary, as we've indicated in the past, the acquisitions we make as a group are Always driven by our long-term growth strategy, being the best business in our markets. These two deals are quite different. Sanne is routine, easier to integrate, and immediately earnings enhancing in our home and mature market. NES Financial is a different prospect driving more strategic and long-term goals in the fields of technology and in the developing U.S. market. Welcome short-term headwinds in trading are a disappointment, but not of undue concern when viewed holistically and with the long-term goals in mind. Finally, turning onto our key takeaways on slide 22 and looking forward to the second half of the year. We have all had to acknowledge that we are living in unprecedented times, the pandemic itself and its longer-term effects are still unraveling.
Need to live with COVID-19 and its repercussions will run long into 2021. Forecasting the effect of this on JTC and its business community still remains difficult. That said, we do believe we have a very robust and defensive business that should, in relative terms, continue to be protected. We should be well-placed to capitalize on opportunities arising out of this world event. As a result, we remain cautiously optimistic for the second half of the year. As we have mentioned, the timings and the contributors to success may be different than anticipated. Thank you for listening and for your ongoing support. We'll now be happy to take your questions.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question on today's call, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Please ensure your line is unmuted locally and you will be advised when to ask your question. Alternatively, you may also submit your questions via the question and answer box on the presentation platform. We do have some questions coming through, and therefore our first question comes in from the line of Robin Savage, calling from Zeus Capital. Robin, please go ahead.
My question is about ESG and responsible investing. Could you talk a little bit more about the way JTC has approached responsible investing and their involvement prior to the acquisition of NES Financial? Could you perhaps talk a little bit more about impact investing and the way in which impact investing has increased in the U.S. as well as responsible investing increasing here in the U.K.?
Thanks, Robin. I think JTC, I guess the best way to start that answer is, as you'll appreciate from our shared ownership credentials, we've always believed in having a business that as many people as possible benefit from by virtue of their ownership stake. That's really where our root of responsible behaviors around as an organization start with. Of course, we've built on those over the years, and we just attempt to be appropriate in every respect of the whole ESG agenda in many ways. I think, historically, that's manifested itself in probably being a leader in the renewables space, sort of starting 10, 15 years ago. That is one of the attractions of the acquisition of NES Financial, and there are plenty of them, to be clear.
Their involvement in the Opportunity Zone arena where funds which have incentives in the form of tax breaks for ultra-high net worth to invest in underdeveloped zones across the U.S. That for us is a very attractive prospect because it plays into that sort of social agenda in a way that we're very comfortable with. In terms of sort of what we're doing in this area at the moment, obviously the market itself has slowed down significantly, as Martin alluded to, by virtue of the pandemic, which is probably what you'd expect with a relatively new market out there.
We've been sort of working with Professor Howard Buffett, who's the grandson of Warren Buffett and professor at Columbia University, to work on a sort of proprietary impact rate of return framework, which we can apply to opportunity zone funds, but actually much wider than that to any fund that we work with, and indeed, not necessary funds. It can apply to family offices and the like as well. That's going on in the background. We're working very hard at sort of bringing that round and bringing it to the market. Obviously, we'll start with that in the U.S. for the most part, but look to roll it out across the whole group at some stage in the future. Does that cover it?
Yes.
Okay. The next question comes in from the line of Ewan Reid, calling from Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good morning, guys. It's Ewan here. Firstly, well done on a really good set of results, which has clearly been managed through a difficult time. I guess I have three questions, if that's okay, I'll rattle through them and let you answer them. Firstly, you brought up the NES Financial becoming head of technology strategy. I guess it would be good to hear what's on his or her agenda for the first sort of year in JTC. What are the things that they would like to achieve? Secondly, on the M&A, you kind of talked about price dropping , alluded to some larger deals in the near future. Any color on, I guess, how big those deals are? Are those ones you would consider transformational, are they sort of NES type in terms of beachhead into a new market?
Lastly, thinking about your H2 organic growth, the 8%-10% guidance you talk about over 10% in H1. Do you expect organic growth to drop off in H2? My expectation would be that attrition rates would probably slow down or lower in H2 as well. Is that meaning that organic growth is also going to decline, and you have sort of an 8%-10% range? Appreciate that's quite convoluted explained, any color on those three points would be great.
Thanks, Ewan. I guess the best way to think of first off, the appointment of Michael Halloran, who's a very experienced technology professional, and bringing him onto our board was the first significant move for the group as a whole. I think technology features in every conversation these days, as opposed to being something that we might have got around to as a business. That was the first acknowledgment for us as a group. I think of this in three buckets. The first one is improving the client experience. These are what we're working towards, that really adds to the stickiness of the clients by virtue of providing portal-type capability both in the institutional and private client markets. I suppose Edge 1.2, I should say, was the first step in that direction, which obviously we embarked upon on ourselves.
Two things there really. It should make our existing client base stickier in the first place and more dependent, probably give us the opportunity to upsell around the business itself, and should attract more clients in the fullness of time. I don't believe it's a revenue driver in its own right, but that's our view there. Obviously, it brings efficiencies to processes and use of sort of robotics within the business, which should drive greater profitability. We spoke a little bit about what we're up to in terms of improving the margin in the funds practice, and there's a big part to be played with bringing efficiencies in that regard.
Last but not least, and picking up slightly on Robin's question before, I think the measurement of impact investing and how we could do it and the wider market that actually opens should drive, obviously, new relationships and could be a revenue driver in its own right. We've sort of got a defensive element, we've got a new revenues element, and we've got an efficiency element. With regard to M&A, yeah. There's an awful lot to look at. I guess when we look at it in, if I can segment that, smaller deals, in my view, we're probably moving. Smaller deals do have a habit of taking as long to do as much larger ones. Our view is we're probably aiming off some of the smaller deals we see in the market.
That doesn't mean more like lift-out opportunities we won't take an opportunistic stab at because that suits us and is in our DNA in any event. If I go up to the some sort of medium-sized deals, as we would call it, which I think's accelerated slightly in the more recent times, as I alluded to. We can see some very attractive opportunities there. As I've said in the presentation, the reconfiguration and rethinking of people's businesses, which had started in any event, but it's probably been accelerated by COVID-19. Has meant that I think there'll be opportunities arising out of this, which are sort of bank lift-out type or acquisition type opportunities. It's sort of the same thing that's almost driving the organic growth in the business as a whole, actually. We have a scenario.
We've got two very similar things where we've got a client-related instruction on the one hand, which is very, very similar to an acquisition we made a couple of years ago. All of the difference between the two is one bank has decided to sell and the other one decided to hang on to the fundamentals but outsource the whole of the operations of that business. We've got those sort of ones in there. As I mentioned, I think the advisor community are very keen on playing, as we might call it here, Star Wars and sort of deciding that who might be best to merge with who, which clearly is something I think that may well happen in the market. Whether that includes JTC or not, it would have to be absolutely right for us.
We'd be protecting our culture as a significant part of that. That's really in the background. If the right one's there, then the right one's there for us. Actually, there's a couple of quite big transformational deals, but ones that would tuck in happily under the JTC. It's never quiet in that area. We are a popular acquirer. There's a couple of deals we've seen where we've been, how can I put it, lukewarm on staying in a process, and we've been chased very closely to want to keep us in. That's where my comment and our comment comes from. I think we might see some softening in pricing as the next few months roll out. Organic growth in the second half of the year.
Based on what I can see, 6 weeks in, we're actually ahead of the run rate from the previous 6 months. We're pretty comfortable that we should be able to keep the run rates up. There's some very big mandates that have gone out there in the last several weeks. Looking at our win rates, I think we've got a reasonable chance if one or two of those land being ahead of where we were in the first half. Quite excited about that too. Not necessarily thinking something's going to fall away, but definitely not complacent about it.
That's great. Really helpful. Thanks, Nigel.
The next question comes in from the line of Robert Plant, calling from Panmure Gordon. Robert, please go ahead.
Morning, Nigel and Martin. When you presented last time at the full year results, you had said that NES Financial was going to be a very useful bridgehead in the U.S. to do more deals. Can you talk more widely about the U.S. acquisition opportunity? In particular, you mentioned a U.S. business you were tracking that had a focus on tax compliance real estate. Is that still being tracked? Thanks.
Thanks, Robert. I'll just pick it up and Martin Fotheringham chip in. I think we're aware of at least two or three deals in the U.S. actually, which would enhance our offering, obviously. I think what we've been doing, however, is concentrating on stabilizing the business we've got for obvious reasons. At least two of those are sort of on hold post-COVID-19 in any event. I think there's a chance in the fourth quarter that we may look at one or two of those businesses to see whether they're right for us. The business with the tax compliance and fund administration together, from our perspective, it's still quite difficult for us to get our arms around exactly what we're buying and for how much, without putting too fine a point on it.
That one sort of slipped down the priority range, but it's not impossible and we've got a great relationship with the business.
Yeah, there's opportunities there, Robert. To Nigel's point from earlier, one of those is one that has chased us again, and are keen to engage with us. I think there's plenty of opportunity. I think it's in both divisions as well. It's not just on the institutional side. We've actually seen some quite interesting private client opportunities. Quite small, but nonetheless would be nice fold-ins to what we've already got. Our PCS business in the U.S. has done extremely well. We can see that there's quite a good runway for growth there as well.
Okay. The next question comes in from the line of Vivek Raja, calling from Shore Capital. Vivek, please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning, chaps. Can you hear me okay?
We can. Thank you.
Great. Thanks. I have a couple of questions, please. One probably for Nigel and one probably for Martin. The first one, Nigel, thanks for your explanation on, I guess I'd put it, technology application. You sort of talked about three areas, defenses, efficiencies, and new revenues. I'm interested in the efficiencies and your application of sort of technology to drive those efficiencies. Just wondered if you could just talk a little bit more about that and talk about timescales, sort of achieving that and when we might start seeing that in the EBITDA margin. The second question I had, probably for Martin. Martin, just wanted to invite you to comment on consensus, say for the current year. If I look at the consensus that you've got compiled on your website, it implies an EBITDA margin of 36% in the second half of the year.
Just wondered how comfortable you are with that. Thank you.
Thanks very much. I think with regard to the efficiencies and timing thereof, obviously it's process and sort of robotics that we're bringing to the business, which has two things, creates efficiency and eradicates the opportunity for human error around those things. In terms of timing with regard to that, in the wider view, I think that's primarily going to be applied to our funds practice and primarily in the engine room of that practice in South Africa. As we've alluded to in the presentation, we've sort of gone through a process of rethinking exactly how we work those processes through that business and how they interact between South Africa and the Southern Hemisphere and their Northern Hemisphere colleagues. To some degree, we've been sort of slowed up in that exercise.
It's been helpful to be able to sort of, with the world on hold, to really think it through and make some operational changes that are more fundamental, we believe. Exactly the timing for implementation has been restricted by our ability to travel and the like. We say six to 12 months. To some degree, we've hedged our bets a bit. We started with probably in the next six to nine months, I think it's just difficult to call it in the market as it is at the moment. I think, though, we should see some incremental improvement. We're making some changes more close to home actually already, that should start to come through.
Hi, Vivek, it's Martin here. On consensus, the core business is going well, really well. Very happy with that. We recognize that the Sanne business that we bought, although we paid less for it, less came over than we'd anticipated and would have been included in that consensus. I think our view is that that's something that it happens, and I think we feel we can probably pick that up in the core business. The NES Financial business is clearly not where we expected it to be. They've lost $4 million of annualized revenue almost at a stroke, and that's hard to replace when you've got a fixed cost business. We've done a lot of stuff to try to address that, but that doesn't change overnight.
On that basis, my view is that NES Financial has effectively almost moved to the right for a year, and whereas I expected to have $3 million or so of EBITDA from that this year, I'm now not expecting anything. I'm expecting a breakeven situation until the U.S. market really picks itself back up and gets firing again. I expect to see that forwarding effectively into next year. I'm hopeful that by 2022, that with a fair wind and the activity picking up in the U.S. with the growth dynamics there, that actually the 2022 numbers that are on the consensus around that, I'm not touching at the moment. It's just this year and next.
Okay. Thank you very much.
The next question comes in from the line of Daniel Cowan calling from HSBC. Daniel, please go ahead.
Morning, gents. Can you hear me okay?
Yeah. Good, Daniel.
Hi, good morning to you. A couple of questions on NES Financial. The change in the pricing model, how has that been going? As you say, you were aware of it when you bought it, clearly, it stands apart from your normal model of time and materials. I was just wondering how that works, how quickly you can change over to a more advantageous, less AUM or interest rate-based model for that business. The second question is, if you can, it would be interesting to know what level of new business NES Financial contributed in the first half, perhaps also, you've mentioned also as an addition to that you've been sort of bidding for some larger opportunities in the States and elsewhere. I was just wondering how that's been going, how that's been affected by everything, and what we might expect in that area as well.
Daniel, just quickly on the pricing. I guess the first thing to say is because of the headwinds that they have seen, we've never actually had the opportunity to impose a JTC model over a business as swiftly as we have before. It's a proper demonstration, as Martin was saying, that time and materials and fixed fees, if you can stay there, are a better place to be if you're in our industry. Of course, we'd had that conversation up front. There was the normal, well, the market sort of slightly looks at it differently here, we said, well, we can find a way to sort of bring this into the business over a period of time. Of course, the demonstration of the effect of staying with AUM fees and taking revenues from the deposits you have came home to them very quickly.
I have to say, this management team are one of the most mature we've ever taken over, and they absolutely have embraced the exercise of moving from a growth-based business into sort of understanding the dynamics of our business and what we need to achieve on an ongoing basis. Where we are now is all our sort of sales team have agreed, we reprice all new clients, and that's been implemented from the 1st of July. I think we've seen a $300,000 uplift by virtue of that in terms of from where they would have been based on the way they'd used to do it. Then we've also gone through an exercise of repricing the back book of clients against time recording data that we have. We estimate that that might also bring another $300,000 worth of benefit over a period of time.
I think the importance being that they're the market leader in this space, and they're having sensible conversations with their clients saying, "For us to continue to be your provider, we need to reprice the model and how we go about doing it." They have swung into action very quickly. They're trying to do the best they can. As you probably heard, they've changed members of the team, including some significant sort of operational people. We couldn't be more pleased with the way they've acted and a bit like Martin, just to reiterate, we think this is timing more than anything else, and frankly, the general freeze in the market itself.
On the level of new business won by NES Financial in the first six months, so it was GBP 2.2 million that was won by them. The challenge, of course, in the U.S. just now is just actually the fundraising and the launching of it because of the prevailing COVID-19 situation that's there and as we've kind of referred to, there is a degree of inertia around what's happening politically. I'm pretty sure, though, that once that sorted itself out towards the end of this year, that we will see whatever color of party is in quite a lot of investment in infrastructure in the U.S. and I think there'll be a lot of activity there in the areas that NES Financial typically, the funds that it serves.
Great. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you. Just as a final reminder before we do move on to our next question, that if you would like to ask a question on today's call, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Alternatively, you may also submit your questions via the online presentation platform. Our next question comes in from the line of Robin Savage calling from Zeus Capital. Robin, please go ahead. Hi, Robin. Is your line muted?
Sorry about that. Quick question from me. If you look at slide 19, you've got lifetime value won, which is GBP 80 million, and the new business won in the first half, which was just over GBP 8.5 million, or GBP 8.6 million. Do we just simply multiply by 9.2x or 9.3x, multiply the new business wins by that sort of number to get the estimates of what the lifetime value of the new business wins is?
It's as simple as 10x .
Yeah.
We model it on 10x and then take off the attrition in the year.
Okay. That's fine.
Okay. There are no further questions coming through. I shall turn the call back across to yourselves, Nigel and Martin, for any closing remarks.
Nothing from me, but thank you very much, and thank you for your continued support, gentlemen. Any other questions you've got, obviously, we can pick up offline. Thanks very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you for joining today's call. You may now disconnect your handsets. Hosts, please stay connected and await further instruction