Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Pollen Street Group half-year results for 2026. I'm Lindsey McMurray, and I'll be presenting today with Crispin Goldsmith.

Now, for the first half, AUM now sits at £8.5 billion at the end of June, with this almost evenly split between private equity and credit, recognizing the fundraising cycle of the two strategies. As we've reported, private credit has been actively raising its flagship fund, together with some related SMA arrangements, which has resulted in a step-up in credit AUM, so that total fee-paying AUM has increased by 18%.

That's taken fund-pay— fee-paying AUM has grown to £5.5 billion, but with the fundraising success in credit, which only becomes fee-paying once it's deployed, we have clear visibility in further growth in fee-paying AUM in the coming months and beyond. We've strong momentum in fundraising in addition to this, with the first close of our institutional open-ended fund, which we call Hanover Square, and we're preparing for Private Equity Fund VI in 2027.

The setback for the period was in the investment company, where the return was 3.4%, which was significantly below target. This was the result of two specific issues, one positive and one less so.

Positively, due to the larger fund size for Credit IV, we have an equalization effect for the fund position held on the investment company balance sheet. Overall, the franchise is stronger because of this, but we have a one-time effect on the balance sheet impact of 0.2%.

On the negative side, we made an investment in Shawbrook at the end of 2024, and with the IPO, we now must recognize the P&L on a mark-to-market basis. Despite strong performance at the company level, the share price has declined in the first half, and this has resulted in a 3.8% impact on the balance sheet.

Overall, the balance sheet return is 3.4%, but we consider this low return to be exceptional. We have periodically reported that we have healthy growth in AUM, weighted towards credit in this period.

Further, the £1.8 billion of credit raised but not deployed provides good visibility for growth in fee-paying AUM going forward, and as we prepare for fundraising on the next vintage of both strategies. The strength and depth of investor relationship continues to build, and we're hugely grateful to the support from our investors as they give us— they have supported us in the success of Credit IV, but also early support in Hanover Square.

In order to appreciate this, we are laser-focused on delivering performance, engaging actively as we look to raise further funds. The balance sheet on the— on the whole has performed in line with steady performance over many years.

As outlined earlier, the performance in the period is impacted by the reduction in the share price of Shawbrook, affecting the value of that holding, and also the equalization impact. While significant, this should not overly detract from the very strong performance across the rest of the portfolio.

In terms of strategic focus, I mentioned that we are extremely laser-focused on performance to make sure we deliver what we set out for our investors. In private equity, we're providing consistently strong performance and a much more complex environment.

We're deploying at good pace, with Private Equity V now 74% deployed, and preparations underway for Private Equity VI. In private credit, we're focused on scaling the business.

We're 50% invested in that larger fund already. We have a very high quality pipeline, and we had, as I mentioned, the first close in Hanover Square.

Now if we look at the themes that are driving that performance across both strategies, in private equity, we're working on a number of repeatable thematics across the portfolio. Digital transformation, making sure each business has the data it needs to support KPIs to provide real-time insight to drive fast and precise decision-making.

With AI-led product development, which is essential, especially across our software businesses, but this actually enables us to transform data into intelligence, and it enhances the product leadership, especially in areas where we focus with regulatory and governance workflow, where we look to actually use AI to strengthen relationships with clients and to build and embed trust. Across the board, we're building structured go-to-market functions within each business.

We call it the science of selling, whereby we build robust, repeatable sales machines that have precision pricing and effective selling and cross-sell capability. Then on the M&A front, we embed an M&A function within each business to support geographic and product distribution, and that as well as consolidate our market presence.

This is the systematic engagement that we apply across the portfolio to make sure, whatever the macro environment, we're delivering strong performance for our investors. On the credit side, it's all about scaling the business in line with the capital that we've raised.

As I mentioned, the pipeline is stronger and higher quality than ever before, doubling in the first half of the year. Then the market where we operate continues to grow.

As banks continue to retrench, our product offers attractive value and flexibility for the borrower, and we continue to build our reputation as a trusted partner. Importantly, we grow with our clients, and that provides an embedded growth in our book of credit assets, where we look to work with our partners as we build the relationship, and we've successfully completed 20 upsizes within the business over the last year.

Gives a view that while we scale the business, there is actually embedded growth within the business that we've already built, and that gives us confidence on the visibility to be able to deploy the increasingly larger funds at very attractive asset base. With that, I'll hand over to Crispin to take us through the financials for the half year.

Thank you.

Thank you, Lindsey. I'm pleased to see you all again and to update you on our half-year performance.

As I highlighted in the full-year results, our revenue model is straightforward and quite predictable. You'll see a lot of overlap in what I say today with what I've said previously, and you can expect the same again in future.

Our key growth drivers are fundraising and deployment, and we continue to perform strongly in both. Alongside the very successful fundraising for Private Credit Fund IV, the team focused on scaling deployment, as we've heard, and this is shown through both in the first-half growth in fee-paying AUM and in a building pipeline for H2.

This AUM increase feeds into growing management fee income, which is our highest-quality revenue stream, and in turn into increased profits. As I flagged at the time for H1 2025, we benefited from £8.4 million of catch-up fees related to Private Equity Fund V that would not repeat this year.

As we consider the performance of the asset manager business, we do so on a like-for-like basis rather than a headline basis. The investment company returns for H1 fell significantly below target, as Lindsey outlined.

This largely related to a position we hold in Shawbrook. The rest of the investment portfolio performed in line with our full-year expectations.

We've continued to generate high levels of cash across the two parts of the business, supporting continued high cash returns to shareholders. During H1, we returned £25 million of cash to shareholders, which included £7 million of share buybacks, and we're pleased to announce an interim dividend today amounting to a further £17 million cash return.

As I've outlined previously, our LP investors commit to our funds typically for 8 to 10 years, and there's no opportunity for them to redeem early. Our management fees are a fixed percentage of fee-paying AUM, which is based either on committed capital or invested cost, not on valuation.

This means that our management fee income is highly predictable and repeats over multiple years. For example, as I said at the full-year results, PE V has a €1.5 billion of commitments with a management fee of 2%, we earn €30 million a year in management fee revenue from this fund and will continue to until the first close of Fund VI, at which point fees will move to being calculated on invested cost until the end of the fund life.

Our other funds are similarly predictable. This is what makes up the £33.9 million of management fee income for H1.

Our performance fees are broadly balanced across credit strategies and private equity. In credit, the consistent month-on-month and quarter-on-quarter performance of those funds generates similarly consistent performance fees.

In private equity, we currently only recognize carry for those funds accounted for at fair value. It's calculated on a look-through basis to the fund valuation.

Overall, performance fees were up 90% year-on-year, driven by a strong first-half contribution from private equity. Nevertheless, we expect performance fee generation to be weighted towards the second half, as in previous years.

Taking these two together, fund management revenue was up 22% on a like-for-like basis. Fund management costs were held at 2% growth for the period, fund management EBITDA of £16.1 million was up sharply by 73% on a like-for-like basis.

As we've already mentioned, net investment income fell significantly below target for H1, and I'll come back to this again later. In the asset manager, we're delivering steady growth, led by management fees.

We've grown fund management EBITDA sharply on a like-for-like basis and doubled the level of two years ago, and we've maintained the step-up in margin achieved in 2024. At the end of H1, we benefited from £1.8 billion of credit capital, which will become fee-paying once deployed.

Combined with the strong deployment pipeline Lindsey outlined for H2, this gives visibility on continued fee-paying AUM growth, both for H2 and beyond. Taking all this together, I'm pleased to confirm we're on track to deliver the full-year consensus expectations for the asset manager.

Now, I presented this slide at the full-year results, I'll just touch briefly on it again here as a reminder that the bulk of value we expect to generate in performance fees over the long term from existing funds relates to Private Equity Fund V and Accelerator II. Those fees are already being recognized in the funds' accounts as their performance builds, but the nature of how IFRS 15 is applied means we're not yet recognizing this in the group accounts and won't do so for a number of years still.

In Lindsay's slides, we showed the split of the investment portfolio between its key segments. During the year, we have continued to move the investment portfolio from direct investments to fund investments, in particular with a new commitment to Hanover, our institutional open-ended credit fund launched in June.

At the period end, GP commitments accounted for 33% of investment assets, up from 29% at the end of December, with undrawn commitments of £64 million. The PE fund investments were resilient in the period, with portfolio companies delivering strong operating performance, and the private credit fund investments continuing to deliver strong, consistent returns.

The direct investment portfolio delivered returns in line with expectations, with the exception of Shawbrook, which is shown separately as a mark-to-market investment and which, given its inherent volatility, will be excluded from comments on outlook or guidance going forward. The underlying net investment return for H1, excluding the mark-to-market investment and the effects of equalization, was 7.4%.

Given the expected weighting of equity returns towards the second half, this is on track to deliver full-year returns in line with expectations. The value of investment assets was broadly flat year-on-year, reflecting the strong cash returns to investors highlighted already.

Share buybacks are a key pillar of our capital allocation strategy. We are opportunistic in how we deploy them, whilst maintaining the balance sheet as a strategic resource to support AUM growth.

We maintain a conservative gearing position on our balance sheet, both to optimize returns and as a tool for managing liquidity. At the end of June, net debt was 38% of gross investment assets, with £48 million of the facility undrawn.

I'll now hand back to Lindsey.

At the beginning of the year, we set out to complete the fundraise of Credit IV, which has been achieved and surpassed in expectation, and now well underway to being deployed, with almost 50% invested already. We've successfully entered the market with Hanover fund to address a different pool of investor appetite.

Private equity has been focused on portfolio management and preparation for the next vintage, and we continue to build out the team and the platform. With all of that growth and investment, our dividends continue to grow on a per-share basis, and we engage in buybacks when the value for shareholders is evident.

With that, I will open up to questions. Thank you.

Yes.

Hi, James Allen from Berenberg. Four questions, but they should be quite quick.

First one, I noticed that your pipeline for the private credit business has increased from £2.5 billion to £5 billion. Obviously, the fundraise which closed in April was significantly bigger than expected.

I guess when you couple those two things together, the phasing in terms of the deployment of that private credit fund in H2, there's not a huge amount of execution risk there?

Correct.

Secondly, the equity mark-to-market number, I guess if you take the reduction in the Shawbrook share price in H1, let's call it a third, that would leave you with about £12 million of equity in that, assuming a £6 million write-down. I think there's about £19 million in that on the chart, what else is in that number alongside Shawbrook?

Thirdly, what's the target fund size for PE Fund VI? Finally, a lot of the peers, particularly in the US, reported quite a favorable exit environment in H1, but it feels like that's hardened somewhat in the second half.

What are you seeing on that front? Thanks.

The number in the front part is the average for the period. That is just Shawbrook.

The average is just a simple average of opening and closing. That should kind of all flow through clearly.

There's £15 million left on the— there's £15 million value on the balance sheet. Yeah.

On the scaling point, yes. As I mentioned, the pipeline's very strong.

The deployment has stepped up broadly to effectively double year-on-year, we have good visibility. We've had a good Q2 and into Q3 already.

We have good confidence that that deployment will occur as we expect. Target fund size for Private Equity VI will be somewhere between €1.75 billion and €2 billion.

That was one other question...

US peers exit environment.

The exit, I don't see it particularly more difficult second half to first half. I think we have assets that are specialist in their end markets, and we spend our time kind of positioning the asset for, on the one hand, the widest investor base, but we have good visibility that we will continue to make a few exits before the end of the year.

I wouldn't say it's particularly notably more difficult. You need the right asset to go into the market, but I think we're making good progress on that.

Morning.

Thanks for your presentations, both of you. Back to deployment, and thinking about the sort of changing macro picture and perhaps competition, how's that impacted your deployment?

Appreciate it's up very strongly, but how are those two features figuring in your deployment? Thanks.

Is this on both strategies? On credit where we've been talking about scaling, in Europe, we have established and continue to build a reputation of being a bit of a go-to player in the market that we play.

That is continuing to bring a very high quality of deal flow. There has been changes in the market...

The banks sometimes come in, they go out, and that in-out behavior helps solidify our position because we are effectively the necessary capital for our counterparties. Having a bank that's maybe there, maybe not there, is precisely the risk they don't want to have.

In some cases, they will pay a premium to have us as being the persistent player in the marketplace. Of course, we have to assess the underwriting based on the macro, but that is the underwriting that we do.

Going through some of our teach-ins on credit, we are always testing the collateral for very significant negative macro events. Our positions, our investments, have been very resilient, and we haven't seen any degradation in the underlying collateral pools or what we've been underwriting.

The quality is very high. We monitor it very, very actively.

Yes, there are players who come and go, but it's that sort of passing, kind of non-committed player that we stand up against and provide a solid offering. That we're used to.

Do you think the step back in competition will feature in pricing and therefore returns more obviously in the years to come?

We've held pretty stable pricing across our credit strategy for quite some years now. I'd say that we have managed to maintain what are very attractive returns for senior credit.

Do I think senior credit's going to kind of significantly push up from here? Unlikely.

It's more that we manage the risk underneath to make sure that we've got the right balance of risk and return. I think we have held the returns where others in direct lending have seen quite significant compression.

I wouldn't say that we're going to see a significant uptick in pricing, but resilient, I would say.

Thanks. How about on the equity side?

Again, on the equity side, we are looking to deliver three times money multiple for our investors' capital, and that's about making sure that we're getting the right assets at the right price, that, if you look at our track record, we are entering our investments at somewhere between 9 to 11 times of EBITDA, and the resilience of that over a longer period of time is something that is critical to delivering that track record. Sometimes it's a bit higher for certain asset classes, sometimes a bit lower, but broadly, that is what we set out to find.

I expect that to be consistent.

Thank you so much.

Rae Maile, Peel Hunt. One of the big changes second half and first half has obviously been the bond market environment.

Is there any sign yet that that changes how institutional investors start thinking about the relative returns between private markets and public markets?

In many cases, the way capital is allocated and the way that we are kind of engaging with the market is very much private credit allocations. Those still have structurally a long way to go to get to their target level.

Yes, you will get certain investors who blend their portfolios and see fixed income across a more blended range, but I think we've still got enough runway in the overall move to kind of get to target credit allocations, and specifically in asset-backed, which itself is underweight within those private credit. I think we've still got structurally a way to go, but in certain cases, you do see some investors be a bit more relative value.

Yeah. We have no questions on the live session.

With that, thank you for joining us, and as ever, we are available for any follow-up questions you may have. Thank you.