Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to VEF Q1 2023 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in listen only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. I would now like to end the conference. Our viewer speaker today, David Nangle. Please go ahead.
Super. Thanks, Roberto. Good morning, good afternoon, everybody. This is Dave Nangle, CEO of VEF, and I welcome you all to our Q1 2023 results conference call. With me today, as per usual, I have our CIO, Alexis Koumoudos, who will help me in presenting the slides. We'll do that over the next 20 minutes or so, and then we'll open up for Q&A, as per usual. Our slide deck is available on our website and also via the media console, which I'm presenting on today. Getting into the slide deck, and I'll be alluding to certain slides as I go along. Slide two, just key events and summary of the quarter. Key highlights here. You know, NAV in 1Q 2023 was up 7.5%.
While there's been some volatility in the market year to date, generally it's been a net positive time for markets and stocks within that. That's always been a key tailwind in everything we do from a valuation point of view. We're seeing early signs of a NAV recovery after what was effectively a market and a NAV reset for us in 2022. A lot of moving parts in that NAV, which we'll get into during the call. A key standout from a driver of that NAV accretion, which was approximately $28 million, was Juspay.
we from a valuation standpoint. We're seeing early signs of a NAV recovery after what was effectively a market and a NAV reset for us in 2022. A lot of moving parts in that NAV, which we'll get into during the call. A key standout from a driver of that NAV accretion, which was approximately $28 million, was Juspay. we from a valuation standpoint. We're seeing early signs of a NAV recovery after what was effectively a market and a NAV reset for us in 2022. A lot of moving parts in that NAV, which we'll get into during the call. A key standout from a driver of that NAV accretion, which was approximately $28 million, was Juspay. we from a valuation standpoint.
There's a couple of FinTech indexes we tend to follow.
The ARK Fintech Index, which is higher beta than FINX, had a big spike. The FINX is more benchmark barometers of 8% over the quarter. You know, all these things are indicative of the drivers behind some of the NAV marks that we have, and hence our NAV per share was up 8% over the quarter on a macro level. Moving on to slide six. The next few slides is moving into our valuation and the evolution of our NAV marks. What I'll do here is I'll pull back, I'll let Alexis jump in because he focuses on this aspect of our presentation. Alexis?
Hi, everyone. Yeah, on slide six, as you can see, this kind of presents the evolution of our NAV marks for various companies. I think on this slide, I'll just highlight a few of the biggest moves. David already mentioned like a big driver of the NAV increase in the quarter was Juspay, which is our single largest portfolio company contribution to the NAV move. That was reflecting a move to mark to model as the company continues to grow, and we move beyond the 12 months from the last transaction. That contributes about $15 million. Secondly, was Konfio, which was already at a mark to model valuation approach. That benefited from, you know, multiple expansion of the peer group and then also strengthening currencies in the quarter.
That was about $9 million. Thirdly, we had Gringo. Gringo was a new investment we made in March 2022. Since then, the company has grown more than fivefold in terms of revenues and most key metrics. We've moved that to a mark to model-based valuation approach, given the very strong performance from the company, and how that performed, that contributed about $8 million to the NAV change quarter-on-quarter. Next was Creditas, this was a move from mark to model, from calibration methodology, plus some currency strengthening in the Brazilian real. That was about $5 million. We had Nibo as well, which was about a $3 million contribution to the NAV change.
That was a business that's been profitable for a while, and it's been on a mark to model valuation approach. It's a company that's growing organically now, with its own cash, and they just continue to launch great products and grow the company north of 50% year-on-year. It's becoming a nice compounding asset that's in charge of its own destiny, which is great to see. I'd say on the negative front, the two ones worth highlighting would be Rupeek. Rupeek saw a more drastic reset in their business plan to focus more acutely on near-term profitability and a move to mark to model. We changed the business plan dramatically and moved to mark to model to reflect the change in the business.
Magnetis had an aggressively priced funding round, in which we saw quite a bit of dilution, and that was a $2 million change in our NAV contribution. I think, like one other general trend to highlight in this slide is just, you know, the top of the portfolio is growing quarter-on-quarter, and the bottom of the portfolio is getting a bit smaller. I think that's roughly what we would expect for a business and an investment company of our nature. We have success stories compounding and smaller companies in this window may be struggling and the valuations of those businesses are going lower. On slide seven, you know, this is just to reiterate our focus on a robust valuation approach.
I think the one thing worth highlighting here, 'cause nothing's changed, but, this is the Q1 where we saw a very significant move from calibration methodology to mark to model. Creditas, which we've had on calibration for a while, moved to mark to model, and it was a very effective transition. I think it's just proven out how effective calibration methodology is for these extreme scenarios where we've had a recent last transaction, but the environment changed very dramatically. We've just proven that there's a, there's a smooth transition from calibration methodology to mark to model. I think it just goes to show how robust the process is, and how effective calibration methodology is.
On slide eight, this just runs through the names one by one and gives a bit more detail on the transition for each. I think the big thing to highlight here is, as Dave mentioned, we now have 91% of the NAV on a mark-to-model basis, and only 9% at latest transaction. That means that... it's 11 companies of our 17 are mark to model, five modeled at last transaction and the one Russian asset marked to zero. You know, I think that we've taken a lot of the pain in the portfolio, and now we can really say that almost all of our portfolio is marked at, you know, peer multiples.
I think given how fast the portfolio is growing as well from here, we've got a nice tailwind for growth in the NAV. On Slide nine, first of all, we lay out how we marked down the NAV from 2021 to 2022. Now we feel that we're starting to see that gradual increase in NAV as we're getting these kind of market tailwinds plus the portfolio company grow. Again, just highlighting that 91% of the portfolio is mark to model. We've re-looked at our portfolio, and despite like some aggressive changes to business plans like at Rupeek, we still believe that our portfolio is going to grow top line 56% year-on-year in 2023, which is healthy.
I think, you know, if there's any fundraisers at portfolio companies, that could increase. This is just, you know, accounting for more of the same and companies having to make do with the capital that they have today. In terms of like cash and runway for the portfolio, I know that we've started to put out our stall in this regard, 71% of our portfolio, in terms of NAV-weighted portfolio, can reach break-even and profitability now. The 29% of the portfolio has a portfolio-weighted runway of 15 months, which we think is, you know, on average is giving those companies which are typically growing faster and they're smaller companies, healthy runway to execute and to find funding solutions.
On slide 10, we just break down, as we've done in previous quarters, kind of the contribution to the NAV change quarter-on-quarter. As Dave mentioned, we've had a $28.5 million increase in NAV quarter-on-quarter. The bulk of that is coming from multiple expansion for comps of companies that are mark to model and also companies that have moved to mark to model from last transaction round. That contributed $23.6 million in the quarter. Underlying FX for our portfolio companies, particularly, you know, the Peso and the Real have been strong and tailwind for the company. The portfolio companies continue to perform well as well, which is contributing.
The new investments in other bucket, which is at -$5.6 million in this slide, is effectively like reduction in cash positions in some of our companies, as they've, you know, burned additional capital and made new investments. I think, you know, broadly you're seeing, so the $2.8 million is change in corporate cash, which is our operating costs plus some of the cost of our debt. In the portfolio value, that latest transaction, the -$2.3 million, the bulk of that is from the Magnetis down round that we saw, in which we saw quite a bit of dilution as VEF, and we did not participate in that round.
I think those are the key points to highlight here. The combination of those has led to that 7.5% quarter-over-quarter NAV growth. That's it from me, Dave. Handing back to you.
Super. Thanks, Alexis. Very comprehensive on the valuation front, and I'm sure we'll have some questions from the analysts as we get into it. You know, at this point in the presentation, I'm gonna touch on a couple of companies. I'll touch on Creditas. I'll let Alexis touch on Juspay, where he sits on the board. These are our two biggest holdings. Creditas, I was in Brazil a few weeks back, sitting with the team and also on the recent board meeting. You know, the news and the detail and the mantra coming out of that is very in line with the set of results and the messaging that's been out there in the market from Creditas.
They're getting quite good at this in terms of setting out their stall, being very clear with their messaging and reflecting it in the numbers and execution. We have a story which where the portfolio is still growing strong. We had maybe 60% year-on-year growth in that portfolio for the full year 2022. That's down from the year before, which is a couple of 100%, but that's reflecting this more moderated growth in this window, towards the path to break even. On the revenue side, higher growth in the revenue year-on-year, obviously as margins and repricing has been coming through north of 100% for the year 2022 versus 2021. I guess the messaging is clear and consistent in that, as a business, they're moderating growth from a balance sheet point of view.
That moderating growth is feeding through at income statement level to an ongoing positive repricing of the portfolio. That's feeding through to an increase in margins. It's bottomed out at about 10%, their growth margins in the second half of last year. True cycle, they've been hitting 40%-50%, and we're back on the front foot towards those true cycle ranges. Obviously below the revenue lines are very focused on cost efficiency and focusing on what works from a strategy point of view, also reducing CAC.
All of these are positive trends which will feed through and are feeding through to the income statement as they look to get to break even this year on a more moderated growth path. From Creditas moving to Juspay, I think, Alexis, I'll ask you to say a couple of words. The reason why we're touching on Juspay is because it's now 15% of our NAV and probably growing. It is clearly one of our better stories, but maybe one of our least understood stories and a little bit complex in nature. It's not plain vanilla Fintech in any way. Alexis, would you like to say a few words?
Yeah. Thanks, Dave. As Dave was in Brazil, I was in India earlier this year, in February, and I spent some time with the Juspay team, as well as just Indian ecosystem of VCs, investors, around the Juspay story. I think Juspay's definitely grown substantially since we first made our investment there in 2020, and I think it's becoming more and more the strategic payment asset within the Indian ecosystem. The team is just recognized as real executors in the space and problem solvers for payments in India. And it's great to see that, you know, three years after our initial investment and five years after first meeting the team, just how much the business has grown and the impact that they've had on payments and mobile commerce in India.
I think what we've tried to do with this slide is just highlight a few more of the details of the business that, you know, maybe haven't been that clear to the market. Effectively what Juspay are doing is solving for friction in payments in India, and it's becoming a name that is used by a huge portion of, like, mobile commerce clients. They have over 300 enterprise clients now in India. They annualize over $100 billion of charged TPV, which is growing over 50% year-on-year. The average daily transactions are over 30 million. I think the last day of 2022, so 31st of December 2022, they did over 50 million daily transactions. The app is installed, has been installed over 1.5 billion times.
I think one of the great things about this story is speaking to clients of Juspay who just wouldn't think of moving or churning. There's very few solutions like Juspay in the market, and the value add that it brings to its clients is very clear. It creates a very significant, like, uptake in conversion rates at checkout. The company's performing really, really well. Very, very positive attitude at the company. They just launched an international product this year called Hyperswitch, where they're looking to solve similar challenges that are happening in India that are coming to the rest of the world, like mandatory two-factor authentication, some of the instant payments infrastructure, similar to UPI in India.
It's very early on, and I think it's going to take a while to, like, monetize international, but I think it's very interesting to see that Indian companies being taken internationally by some of their big clients, like Visa, to help solve the problems that they've already solved in India for other countries. We're very excited about this story, and I think there's a bright future for Juspay.
Cool. Thanks, Alexis. Look, a few more slides and then we'll open up to any questions out there. On slide 14, I touch on our Sustainability Bond and mandate. I'm happy to say that one year after we raised nearly 500 million SEK or $50 million from the Swedish community, fixed income investors, we released our bond allocation report where we were very clear on how we allocated the funds that we raised, both into new companies in the portfolio and retrospectively into others. The funds were allocated to four key names, and those names fit the mandate of having 90% plus of their revenues coming from sustainable finance categories around financial wellness, financial transparency.
Those names specifically are Konfio, a small business focused in Mexico, Solfácil, in the solar ecosystem space in Brazil, Rupeek, global lending in India, and Mahaana in Pakistan in financial wellness and investing. We're very happy to have that allocated now and good clarity around where those funds that have been raised have now gone and in good homes. Moving on to the share price, NAV per share, premium discounts. This is something that obviously we live and breathe. We obviously came out with a new NAV of $410 million. The market cap of $234 million. We're still trading at a healthy discount to our NAV, albeit we've seen some recovery of late in the share price.
This is a slide that's on slide 16 of closing discount NAV. We live and breathe the idea of increasing our NAV per share gradually over time, just compounding aspects of investing well in the structural growth story of Fintech in emerging markets. The other aspect is keeping the share price honest, and it's close to or in line with NAV per share at true cycle. Obviously, we're in a window where we fully understand why a share like ours can and does trade at a discount to NAV, given what happened last year with the markets and disruption and the sell-off in tech, and the size of our market cap and share price liquidity.
But it doesn't mean there's not levers out there that we can't pull and things we can do to try and close that gap over time, and that's what we continue to do. We did touch on the buyback before, and we have the mandate out there. We did some small buyback last year because we do believe in our NAV, and we like to buy back our shares when it trades at a deep discount and create a lot of value for both us and our shareholders. I think on the IRPR front, it's ongoing. It's constant. We're in the U.S. this week, meeting current and new investors.
Just continuing to work with our investment bank partners, meeting the investment community to communicate where we are at, where our portfolio at, how well it's doing, how we stand behind our NAV, our process. We'd like to think it's starting to have traction. Also some of our companies are working with us in that regard, Konfio will be in the U.S. meeting investors at a Bank of America event in May. We're looking to get Creditas to Sweden to meet our core investor base there. There's a number of things we can do to get our portfolio in front of our investors and the investment community, which will help us as a company in the understanding of the value within our company, both today and tomorrow. On the transparency front, this is an ongoing drive.
You see our companies once again helping with credit tasks on their reporting, is very welcomed. You know, our side, we're providing more transparency in calls like this and in their presentation around processes and NAV and marks. Also in research where we put out, for example, a recent piece on Solfácil. You know, where we look to lean in, where there's gaps in the market of understanding some of our names, writing research from our side on our company to help the understanding and bridge gaps. That's not the first time we've done. We did it before with Peak. We did it also with Juspay. Performance, you can't beat performance to close gaps to NAV per share.
I'd like to think that this, from a performance point of view, the Q1 numbers, the NAV mark, the portfolio performance is helpful in that regard and adds to everything else we do. It's ongoing performance. And we're obviously looking forward to things like capital raises for our portfolio and in due course, exits, which is obviously a key barometer and mark and shows the true fact behind the NAV. From a capital position, just a couple of words here. We're sitting on $46 million. I think that's no surprise to the market given what happened where we were last quarter. Didn't invest this quarter effectively. So we're in a very comfortable position from a cash point of view.
By no means a war chest to get out there and shopping in this cycle, still in a very comfortable position, and that's where we intend to stay. And then just a final thought, just kind of a few pointers on thoughts on the investment case and outlook. Once again, I think it's still a window where we reflect back in 22 and how we navigated the market then. I think anybody, not anybody, but it's a lot easier to navigate an up market where everybody's a winner. Then you get a window like 22 and you have to be strong and stand up and deliver in a different environment. I'm very happy with how we played out irrespective of the value destroyed from a NAV and a share price point of view.
I like the levers that we pulled and how we stood up in that window around strengthening our balance sheet with the sustainability bond, focusing on our key names of portfolio level to make sure they're strong and have the capital they need to get through to break even. Being quick and transparent around our NAV mark that is building trust and confidence in that with the market through cycle. We move into 2023 at the start of the year, and it's hard not to feel more optimistic given the start of the year in market than what we're seeing through our portfolio. Let's not get carried away.
It's still a volatile window, still a lot of stress in the global system, but we're more optimistic, you know, as I sit here today than we were 12 months ago when things were a lot more volatile on a negative footing. When I look within our portfolio, I look at names like Credit House and Compio with a rebased valuation mark and names that are performing, names that have been through and that are stress-tested and are in very much in execution mode as they have a lower growth profile, true to a break-even point at some point this year. We take names like Juspay and Gringo as well, who the structural growth story is actually so strong in names like that they're...
I won't say they're hardly affected, but they're very little affected by what's going on from a global macro point of view. They're compounding nicely irrespective at a very healthy clip and becoming bigger names in our NAV. There's a number of other exciting names coming through, but I'd like to focus on some of the bigger ones. Gringo obviously doing well, as is Solfácil and ABHI are towards the top end of an exciting list. That will evolve and change as those in our narrative around these names will evolve and change as we go. Capital position I've touched on. The investment opportunities, it is starting to appear. It's gradual. The private markets are waking up.
Obviously rebased from a valuation point of view, so it makes it a lot more interesting to an investment company like ours. We're starting to see, you know, what could be the start of an interesting vintage. I've said this before, whether it's companies in our portfolio and us putting more capital to work there or companies outside our portfolio. Obviously from a capital point of view, we're in a comfortable position, not a very strong position from an investment point of view, but we can solve that capital problem as we start to find ways and means of putting capital to work at high IRRs again, which we can see on the near-term horizon. I will stop there, and I will pass back to the operator who can now open up for Q&A.
Ladies and gentlemen, we now begin the question-and-answer session. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone. If you'd like to cancel your request, please press star one one again. We are now taking the first question. The first question from Joachim Gunell from DNB. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you very much. Good afternoon. Can you just help us here with a bit how you look upon the demand to, call it, supply gap here in terms of funding available? There seems to be somewhat of a mixed picture in terms of that. There is obviously a lot of dry powder in the venture capital market, although there are also reports here where funding available is tightening. Can you talk a bit about that theme and how you see that impact your current markets, especially then Brazil, Mexico, but perhaps also I would assume that India is thriving a bit. Any thoughts on that?
Yeah. Hey, Joakim.
Thanks for the question. I think, at a macro level, it is interesting. It's a world where there is money on the sideline, people are still not aggressively leaning in. There are companies out there who have raised a lot of money in the past or who've been working a different model. We talk about things like Credit House or Comfy in our portfolio, instead of chugging away and growing 100% plus and needing more capital to deliver that fast growth story are taking back control, I guess, from the capital market so that they don't need or may want, but they don't need that capital.
I won't say it's a standoff, but there's kind of capital on the sidelines while the bigger, better companies are trying not to look for that capital until the market stabilizes a bit lot more. I think on a more micro level or country level, you've got different ecosystems or different trends playing out. I think India is the example of a market which is closest to getting back to normality. I think this is across the curve from early to late stage. We're starting to see. There's a lot of capital in India and outside India looking at India. It's like the number 1 emerging market for, I guess, public and private equity these days because China's kind of fallen off an edge in terms of risk appetite.
There is a lot of money looking at India across the spectrum. I won't say it's business as usual, but it's our market that's closest to business as usual, that we're looking at. You look at some of the other markets, and we talk Brazil, Mexico from our context, but we could add others to it. The early-stage ecosystem is still healthy. We're seeing a lot of, early-stage investing seed Series A, and that's generally done by the locals and less so by us in these markets. A robust early ecosystem of companies being created and got to a certain point in the cycle. It's the later stage B plus, I guess, Series B plus, where it's still dry, I would say.
A lot of the capital that flowed over from mainly the US has flowed back and is sitting on their hands or is investing closer to home at this point in the cycle. There still are a number of funds, and we were discussing it yesterday, that are looking at Brazil and looking at opportunities. I think the capital is there. I think the right companies will and can attract that capital. I think there's still a valuation debate going on in people's heads from the capital provider side versus the companies that need capital and what's the right price and who will give capital what price and who will accept capital what price.
I think it's, you know, the right companies will have access to that capital, and we're starting to see it through some of our portfolio companies who are having some early conversations with investors, and it's more a question of do I want your capital or do I want it at that price as opposed to there's no capital available.
Great. With regards to that, you are obviously playing a bit of distance here, and you are, I mean, you have, you are committed to the, call it cash flow guidance that you provided us of one quarter ago. With regards to the funding needs you see in the current portfolio, and now that you decided not to take your pro rata share in the Magnetis round, does the $6 million you expect to support your existing holdings with, does that mean that there could be more companies where you won't take your pro rata shares into 2023?
Yeah. Look, there's many aspects to this, Joakim. I think we look at each investment decision not just today but also yesterday, whether we are flush with capital or console with capital or tight on capital, each investment decision has to make sense on a standalone basis. You mentioned Magnetis, and that's a company that, you know, we could have taken part because it was a small round, and it was a small incremental check. We moved to a point where we were comfortable or made the investment decision not to put more capital in and to be diluted on that basis. That was a very clear investment decision. That wasn't a decision that was based on we only have $46 million of capital, and we can't do it, we could have. We just decided not to.
We decided to allocate our capital, you know, maybe double down harder on some of the winners that are coming through in the portfolio. You may see that $6 million allocated that we've got in our charts, but also that's a number which could move as well. We were thinking there was a company in the top three of our portfolio we were thinking of allocating more capital to early this year. That's now not happening as a funding round. They don't need it. We're not gonna allocate it, but there's another one that we're looking at allocating capital. I think what we're doing on this front is we're very cognizant of the amount of money we have, we're very close to our portfolio and all the moving parts. We're very close to our capital providers.
I think that we will be comfortable allocating more capital to the right companies at the right price from the money that we have. Also we would lean in to our investors if we see opportunities that are just too good to pass on and find a way of accessing more capital to them, you know, should that fit. That's just all evolution of conversations where first and foremost, we stay close to our companies, we look for the best opportunities, and we make sure that we're comfortable on capital at all times.
Great. Then just finally for from my end, your, I call it the sibling, VNV, was out in with an early Q1 report, talking about the potential to actually have somewhat of a more yielding asset as the anchor, providing more financial flexibility to fund these types of growth assets. I mean, are you evaluating any such strategic move to have, call it own your cash flow generation to call it increase extent?
Look, I think it's been a, it's been a window of a lot of strategic thinking, from investment companies like ours. It's been a window where you've, you know, a lot of moving parts have made you think twice, three times about the model that you run, the best model that would work through cycle. Maybe there's a slightly different model for different points in the cycle, all below the umbrella of your investment thesis and investing well. We have in the past, as an investment company, had a yielding cash flow positive asset in Tinkoff. It was obviously one that was going up in value while paying out dividends, while also being a benchmark fintech name across the emerging world. We've had experience of that. It's been a very good experience.
That was one that evolved from a private company to a public company in the portfolio. I guess we could see that with a number of names in our portfolio, most namely Creditas. If it was to IPO and we still own the stake, we would have a public company that would be, in theory, cash flow positive and then, in theory, dividend-paying. Possible. It's not a strategic objective. I think we look to have the best fintech names in emerging markets in our portfolio through the focus on the private side. It's possible we could do a private that would be positive on bottom line with dividends. A number of our companies are evolving that way. You know, Nibo's positive on bottom line. Revo's positive on bottom line.
These could become dividend paying companies in the private sense, we could end up in public hands also. Sorry, quite a long answer, but, you know, we're not making strategic calls here at this point around we'll do X or Y from a portfolio point of view, but we'll always do things that make sense from, you know, the portfolio, the business and long-term success.
Perfect. Thank you very much, David.
No worries.
Thank you for your question. We are now taking the next question. The next question from Herman Karré for Carnegie. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Good afternoon, gentlemen. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one would be a little bit on the valuation approach. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe for Creditas, you're moving from calibration to mark to model. Juspay and Rupeek, you're moving from last transaction to also mark to model before 12 months have passed. Could you just help me to understand what the triggers is for you to move to mark to model ahead of time, ahead of the 12 months? Also to understand the calibration model versus mark to model. I think Creditas saw a modest uplift now in Q1. If I just look at how peers have created, I perhaps would have expected a larger valuation uplift.
Did the change of valuation have a negative impact on all else equal on Creditas?
Cool. No, all fair questions. Alexis, do you wanna grab this one and I'll follow up with David?
Yeah, sure. Hi, Herman. I think you highlight... Juspay and Rupeek in terms of move to mark to model. I think the trigger's there. Juspay completed the last financing round or the first tranche of that last financing round in January 2022. It was in the first quarter of 2022. That was the round led by SoftBank. They raised another $16 million in, I believe, July last year. That was an extension of the round. What happened between the time that that last transaction was priced and today is that we run the shadow peer group, and the implied multiple was substantially below the peer group.
As we passed 12 months since the first tranche of that transaction, we thought it made sense to move to mark to model. You know, like, I guess your question is around, like, is it the first tranche or the second tranche? I think in this instance, what was the catalyst, was specifically that there was the implied multiple for Juspay was way out of whack with the peers that we had it marked against. Then a similar thing happened to Rupeek, just in the opposite direction. You know, Rupeek completed the first tranche of the last transaction early on last year, and then they completed an extension towards the middle of last year.
The implied multiple, because of the move in the business plan, and they're focusing to get to break even, in fact, next month. The change in the business plan meant that the implied multiple was way out of whack. It had been 12 months since the 1st tranche of the last transaction, we decided to move to mark to model. We thought it made sense, and to correct the valuation there. You know, hopefully that helps to explain the 1st part of your question. I think, on the question around Creditas and calibration versus mark to model.
The way our calibration methodology works is if the last transaction and the implied multiple is way out of whack very soon after the last transaction, we're applying a similar move in the share price of the peers to Creditas share price. That just helps calibrate basically the share price of Creditas since the last transaction. When we move it to mark to model, there's a very clear, you know, we're using XYZ model for Creditas, and we're applying the peer multiple to a revenue or gross profit number to come out to a valuation for Creditas. I think what we're very proud of and what's worked really well is the transition was very smooth. I think, yes, maybe like, you know, some of the comps moved more aggressively into the quarter.
I think the calibration methodology is designed to basically give us a soft landing from an elevated last transaction in a very different market, to a mark-to-model. I think it's proven to be able to give that smooth transition. We're pleased with the outcome.
Yeah. Thanks, Alex. Herman, I think there's obviously a lot of detail, and we spend a lot of time and focus on our NAV and our valuation process. That's a function of the evolution last year and the market's focus on it. At a macro level, you know, any of our marks at any point in the cycle at the end of the quarter, we want to be able to stand behind for logical reasons.
We do a lot of work on this, obviously, a lot of detail. One can debate the nuances and inputs of everything we do, but it's fundamental, it's pure, it's logical. It goes through our Audit Committee. It goes through PwC. We dance back and forth to make sure that everybody is comfortable with the logic and nature of what we're doing before we go out to the market.
I think that provided a lot of insight to it, so I'm fully on board then. Another question would just be you have the slide where you're showing your expected aggregate average kind of portfolio weighted growth for 2023, and I think that was now at 56%. If I roll it back one quarter, it was at 65%. Is that mainly repeat driven or have you seen any other material revisions worth mentioning in other holdings?
I think if you're, if you're looking for the most, you know, dramatic move within the portfolio, it would be Rupeek, and that's the one we mentioned. We're a bit like you guys in a way, Herman, in terms of the companies that we cover and the models that we have for those companies and the revisions that we make on an ongoing basis. It's not once every six months or 12 months. It's, you know, 'cause we're not public market analysts. We just wanna be very live. Every time we meet a company, talk to the company, get monthly data points on a board call, we come away with a tweak to our model, whether it's a minor tweak or a major tweak. Generally, it's minor tweaks, and that's an ongoing and almost real-time process.
A lot of tweaks within that. You know, in an environment like this where you get some of the top of the portfolio, we're talking, I use the word moderated growth a bit with Creditas and Compio. You know, you're bringing down 23 numbers a touch for the benefit of 24 numbers as things get going again on the front foot. You know, if it's one number or one company that had the bigger effect on that or the standard effect was Rupeek.
That's very helpful. Thank you.
Super. Thanks.
Thank you for your question. We are now taking the next question, so please stand by. The next question from Priya Rathod from KBW. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. Just two from me. First is on capital raises. You're expecting to see some capital raises in 2023 at or above the last round marks. Can I just check my understanding that this also means that it would be above the level you've or at or above the level you've marked to in the NAV today? My second question is on bond issuance. Is there any more capacity for you to issue any more Sustainability Bonds or any other bonds? How are you thinking about that? Are there any ceilings on issuance? Thank you.
Yeah, that's fair. Thanks, Priya. I think on the companies and capital raisings and what we're looking at through the year as we sit here today, amounts raised and what valuation and versus marks. I guess the names that are top of mind are ones that, and that we think would raise are ones that would be at or above the last valuation round, which is also where we have them marked. It's two or three in that category. That is pretty much in tandem as opposed to companies that we have taken down in valuation mark, but the last round was higher. These are ones that are a bit more linear in that regard.
It would be something that we would look to see at or above last round, which is also in line with our mark. On the bond front, look, I think issuing the Sustainability Bond 12 months ago was the right capital balance sheet move for us at that time. I think debt has a place within our capital mix. One has to be very careful with debt given the nature of our asset base and what we do for a living, investing in long-term assets, which are equity in private markets, in fintech and emerging markets. We are comfortable with our level of debt as it is today with the duration of that bond, how it's worked for us in the recent past. Very happy we made that move.
No, we would not be looking at increasing our debt position at this point in time, given all the factors that I see in front of us in our portfolio and markets. Obviously if our NAV increased, if we line of sight nearer term in an exit, different parts can move, and there's confidence in those parts move. You could see potentially more or different form of debt coming into our capital mix, but not right now.
Perfect. Thank you.
Thank you for your question. We are now taking the next question, so please stand by. The next question from Suleiman Soorani from Trikaya Capital. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, Dave. Good afternoon.
Hey.
question. Are any of your portfolio companies exploring, even if it's an early-stage exploration, any kind of monetization? I'm talking about obviously the mature ones. Do you foresee any discovery, price discovery for your portfolio company monetization in like 6, 12, or 18 months? Because I think that could be one option for reducing the substantial discount that you have right now with your NAV or the stock price, right? </VEF
Yeah.
Yeah, sure.
Super, Suleiman. Thanks. Thanks for dialing in the question. That factor is not lost on me. It's very clear. One of the easiest positive things we could do, you know, at this point or any point in the cycle is have a successful exit in one of our portfolio companies, you know, ideally at or above our NAV marks, which we have a history in names like Tinkoff and iyzico, you know, even GuiaBolso , where we exited above our NAV mark. We tend to be quite pure and through with our NAV marks, and we tend to exit our companies at or above them.
To answer your question more specifically, we or more specifically our companies are leaning in a lot of them on potential exit opportunities, whether they're early or mid-stage or unsolicited, with companies coming at them. You know, we're happy to engage in them because obviously the output is a positive exit and, you know, as you say, confirms our NAV mark, gives us more cash. We can go out there and buy back our shares to show how much we value our shares and get involved in pipelines. I guess the biggest one and the most specific one that people tend to talk about is Creditas, because it's been on the record about wanting to and desiring to be on a path towards IPO.
I think that's just a story which is market dependent, where the markets aren't IPO friendly right now. I'd like to think they will be again in 2024. It might be 2025. Once you've got the right assets that's the main thing. At time in the exit it's harder, but I think if we said six months, I would be positively surprised if we had a realization or an exit. If we said 18 months, I would be disappointed if we didn't have an exit by some point there.
Super. Thank you very much, Dave.
Cool.
Thank you for your question. There are no further question at the moment.
Super. Thank you, Roberta. Everybody, thank you very much for following our story. We talk a lot to you guys and we appreciate the support, the interaction, the feedback, the questions, tough and positive as they come. They're all very welcome. You can see from our set of numbers this year to date, we're getting back on the front foot. We're starting to feel optimistic about life again, after, you know, facing down 2022. We're very comfortable with what we see in our portfolio, especially the top half, which is gonna be a key driver in the short term for NAV, but also in the long term for real value creation realization through exits.
As always, you can get in touch with us directly if you have any questions, but once again, thank you for your attention, for your time, and look forward to seeing you in the future.
That conclude the conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.