Manolete Partners Plc

Manolete Partners Plc

MANOF
Manolete Partners PlcUS flagOther OTC
0.60
USD
- -
- -
26.52MMarket Cap

Q4 FY2026 · Earnings Call TranscriptJune 26, 2026

APIChatGPT

Mena Halton

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for attending this presentation of our 2026 annual results.

For those of you that don't know me, I'm Mena Halton, CEO. I joined Manolete in 2014.

At that time, I was the only Manolete in-house solicitor. The in-house legal team has now grown to 17.

I was appointed to the board in 2022 as Managing Director and was appointed CEO in August of last year. I'm delighted to be accompanied today by our CFO, Will Sawyer, who joined the business in December, and he's made a real impact with his significant public markets experience as we have sought to bring greater clarity and transparency on how we plan to grow our business and deliver returns for our shareholders.

As a management team, we recognize it has been a difficult year for investors in our business, and like you, we are disappointed with where the share price is. As we'll come on to talk about, under the refreshed leadership of myself and Will, we are wholly focused on delivering for shareholders, and I hope today we can provide some insight into how we do that going forward with a business that remains the clear market leader and has exciting growth opportunities ahead.

There will be an opportunity to submit questions at the end for those who haven't done so already. If we don't manage to get through all the questions, or if you would like to speak privately, please do reach out to myself or Will over email.

With that, I'll hand over to Will to introduce himself, and I'll then provide a quick recap of the Manolete model and what sets us apart. I'll give an overview of the FY 2026 headlines before handing over Will to take you through the numbers in detail.

I'll finish on strategy and outlook, including the launch today of our new medium-term growth targets. Will?

Mena Halton

Will Sawyer

Thanks, Mena. I'm Will, and I joined Manolete at the end of 2025.

I have over 25 years of finance leadership experience and also previous capital markets experience as CFO of Zinc Media Group, I helped grow it significantly over a seven-year period. I've joined Manolete as I see it as a fantastic business model and with lots of opportunity for growth over the coming years.

Will Sawyer

Mena Halton

Thanks, Will. At Manolete, we have a very simple and very effective business model.

We purchase and monetize insolvency claims. What sets us apart is that we actively manage the claims we purchase in-house.

That means we have full control over litigation strategy, cost management, and settlement decisions. This approach has underpinned the track record we have built over the past 17 years and across almost 1,500 completed cases.

Across those cases, we have unlocked recoveries for creditors who would otherwise have received nothing. HMRC is often a major creditor, in addition to trade creditors who have provided goods and services and not been paid.

Our highly experienced in-house legal team draws on a nationwide network referral of insolvency practitioners and insolvency lawyers, sourcing and assessing as well as managing the claims. This helps us to continue building the book of cases we buy and we're working through as we seek to continue to increase our 5% share of an insolvency claims market, estimated to be worth in the region of GBP 500 million in gross settlement value in a year.

Let me explain how the process works through an illustrative example. When a company enters into an insolvency process, there will be typically claims against the former directors or third parties, but the liquidator or administrator has no fighting fund to pursue those claims.

The coffers are empty, a state of affairs often brought about by the directors themselves. An insolvency practitioner has a duty to realize assets for the benefit of creditors.

A claim or cause of action is an asset of the company, just as stock or plant and machinery. It's only in insolvency that a cause of action can be sold, and this gives rise to the Manolete opportunity.

Having identified a claim, but being without the means to bring the claim, the IP refers the claim to Manolete. Claims typically involve misconduct by the directors in breach of duty, monies due under a director's loan account, or antecedent transactions, such as preferences or transactions at undervalue, where a creditor has been paid ahead of the general body of creditors or company assets are being transferred without value being received.

There can also be claims against unconnected third parties, such as banks or auditors. We carry out strict due diligence on both recoverability and legal merits, recoverability is key.

We have an in-house team dedicated to investigating and reporting on the proposed target's ability to pay. If we are satisfied on the asset position, the legal merits are considered.

Because of our in-house legal expertise, we are not dependent on external legal advice, which enables us to make swift and well-informed investment decisions. We are experts in assessing and pricing risk.

When a claim is purchased, external solicitors are instructed to conduct the litigation process, but they are closely managed by the Manolete in-house legal team, which has the knowledge and expertise to ensure the optimum litigation strategy is adopted and costs are strictly controlled. The skill of a good litigation lawyer is in negotiated settlement rather than trial.

Over 90% of our claims are concluded by agreed settlement. Once a claim is assigned to Manolete, the defendant and those advising him know the claim will not go away, that proceedings will be issued, and that we will proceed to trial absent settlement.

In most cases, the defendant will engage in ADR, usually mediation, and a settlement is agreed. To ensure the maximum settlement sum, we typically allow the defendant some time to pay.

The average time to complete a case is 14 months, with an average of 12 months to collect on a settlement sum. Bringing this to life, here is a great example of a claim we settled in December.

This was a claim in order to professional negligence, an area in which we have expertise and can really add value. The IP had identified claims, but our in-house analysis enabled us to identify a higher quantum.

The claim was further strengthened by obtaining an expert report. We advanced the claim in correspondence following all the pre-action protocols, whilst inviting mediation in accordance with our usual practice.

As this was an insured claim, we were dealing with the professional indemnity insurers and their lawyers, who can be challenging opponents. They recognized the litigation risk they faced and Manolete's commitment to the claim, and they agreed to mediate.

Having purchased the claim in November 2023 for a nominal sum, we successfully negotiated a settlement of almost GBP 2 million two years later. Being an insured claim, the settlement was paid within two weeks.

We recouped our initial investment and costs, our net proceeds being GBP 855,000. Will is now going to explain how our model works from a cash flow perspective.

Mena Halton

Will Sawyer

This is the cash flow on an illustrative case, and one that settles for GBP 100,000. Going from left to right on here, we've paid GBP 2,000 to purchase the case, and then we have incurred GBP 24,000 of legal costs, external legal costs, in running the case up to completion.

In total, we've invested GBP 26,000 of capital up front. We settle for GBP 100,000.

That is our gross proceeds, or from a P&L point of view, that is our realized revenue. We deduct the GBP 26,000 of capital that's invested, and that gives us the net proceeds of GBP 74,000.

Net proceeds are typically split 50/50 between the IP and Manolete. We make GBP 37,000 in net proceeds, and from a P&L point of view, that is our gross realized profit.

Hopefully that's helpful just in terms of giving an example of how it comes through in cash, as well as the P&L. If we now move on to the performance in 2026.

Will Sawyer

Mena Halton

Against that backdrop, I'm proud of the strength of our H2 performance to deliver realized revenues in line with expectations and increased our gross cash receipts. Moreover, the progress we have made on our strategy and building our forward book gives us confidence in our growth prospects for this financial year and beyond.

This underpins the launch of our medium-term targets with these results, as we have sought to more clearly map out where we want to take the business and how we will do that. Over to Will to take you through the FY 2026 numbers in more detail.

Mena Halton

Will Sawyer

Mena and I have focused the business on four things. The first is realized revenue, second is realized profit, as they are the revenue and profit related to completed cases.

Realized revenue and realized profit is on completed cases, and that is what then converts to cash generation further down the line. As an aside, we also recognize unrealized profit, which relates to the estimated value of ongoing cases, but this is not our focus from a P&L perspective.

The focus is on realized revenue, realized profit. The third thing is cash generated in the period, and the fourth thing is the forward book.

The forward book is our primary indicator of future performance, and the forward book represents management's estimate of future realized revenue from ongoing cases. In FY 2026, realized revenue was almost GBP 28 million, and that was slightly down year-on-year due to one case completion, a significant one, moving into FY 2027, and that was a strategic decision as we expect to settle that case at a higher value by taking a little longer over it.

Adjusted realized PBT was GBP 100,000. That was impacted by a GBP 1.8 million specific bad debt provision.

That is where we've got two debtor payments that were delayed, and the net exposure to those two debtors is GBP 4.7 million, and we've made a provision of GBP 1.8 million against that GBP 4.7 million. If you were to exclude that provision, adjusted realized PBT was GBP 1.9 million in the year, compared to GBP 800,000 the year before.

Gross cash receipts were GBP 1 million or 4% up year-on-year, the forward book saw an GBP 18 million or 37% increase in value, that's really what provides confidence for increased revenue and profits in the coming years. On to the income statement.

The presentation of the income statement has been revised so that profit attributable to unrealized cases, i.e. estimated profit on ongoing cases, that that unrealized profit is recognized only within gross profit, rather than being reflected within both gross profit and gross revenue, as had previously been the case.

We think that that helps enhance the transparency of our performance, with the focus being on realized revenue. A couple of things to note on the income statement.

Gross margins were up 5 percentage points, which I'll come onto, there were GBP 700,000 of savings in overheads and finance costs, excluding one-off and non-cash items. The overhead cost savings relate in a large part to the restructure of the leadership team, finance costs have reduced by GBP 0.5 million due to agreeing a new RCF facility at the end of the prior year with a reduced interest charge, we've also seen interest rates having fallen during the year as well.

It's worth pointing out that overhead cost savings were achieved in addition to further investment being made in scaling the platform with three new legal team hires. Of course, there's a lag between this investment in new lawyers and realized revenue and profit coming through in future years.

On here, you can see that despite a small reduction in realized revenue compared to FY 2025, realized revenue in FY 2026 was still considerably higher than in previous years, that reduction in revenue was more than offset by improved gross margins, so 37% versus 32% the year before. That improvement in gross margins was driven by the cartel settlement in the first half of the year, as well as an increase in the number of higher value, higher margin case completions in the second half.

Moving on to the balance sheet. Net debt increased slightly to GBP 11.5 million, we've got an RCF debt facility with HSBC with a limit of GBP 17.5 million.

We saw a renewed focus on cash collections. Despite the two debtor payments not being received as anticipated, overdue debtors fell by 18% to GBP 12.3 million.

We also saw current debtors within term increasing from 57% to 62% of total debtors. Investment in cases are shown at fair value, that's based on the company's estimate of future realized profit plus prepaid capitalized costs.

The investment value has increased by almost GBP 5 million to GBP 46 million due to an increase in signed prep cases, also due to an increase in the value of cases signed in previous years, an increase in work in progress related to ongoing cases. That increase in the value of investments has helped to drive a 3% increase in net asset value.

I will come on to explain the cash flow now. Gross cash receipts of GBP 26.6 million were GBP 1 million higher than the previous year, that was due to a good level of completions in the year, also this focus on cash collection related to completions in previous years.

How does that then flow through to net cash flow? We saw a small net cash outflow of GBP 200,000 in the year, we've managed to increase investment in future growth despite one-off cash impacts.

The improved gross cash generation is the GBP 26.6 million that's on the left-hand side of the chart, that has enabled increased investment in the case portfolio as part of the strategy to drive future growth. You can see the investment in new cases and ongoing cases was GBP 7.2 million, the third bar along, that investment in new and ongoing cases was up 5% year-over-year.

We've also continued to invest in the legal team with these three new hires. As I say, the return on that investment will then be seen in FY 2027 and beyond.

There was also a one-off impact of restructuring costs that related to the board of GBP 800,000, also these delayed receipts from two large debtors, which moved GBP 2.7 million of net cash receipts out of the year. Mena's now going to talk you through the strategic and operational highlights.

Will Sawyer

Mena Halton

We made good strategic and operational progress during the year. Firstly, that meant continuing to do what we do best, building on our track record and maintaining our market leading reputation with our Chambers ranking.

As announced this morning, we were delighted to be awarded the prestigious Band 1 ranking for a sixth year in a row, something no other competitor can claim. We've also made great strides strengthening our growth platform and driving new business momentum.

This has been achieved from adding three highly experienced lawyers into our legal team during the year, who have bring both significant expertise and network referrals. Also via a proactive program of refreshed, targeted business development initiatives, including successful webinar series, presentations at national and international industry events, and curated presentations to IP firms throughout the U.K.

This has together helped us drive a record volume of new case referrals and allowed us to selectively purchase new cases across the year that increased the value of the signed cases on our books by 23% compared to last year. The important point here is also that these new cases are slanted towards the higher value claims that, whilst they take longer, are higher margins.

We have expertise and a good track record in high value claims such as auditor professional negligence, as in the case study I mentioned earlier, Quincecare claims against banks, and claims relating to director misconduct in relation to tax, such as tax avoidance, PAYE fraud, and VAT fraud. All higher value claims where we're building on our expertise and our strong track record.

This leads nicely onto the strategic framework which we have presented for the first time today. We regularly speak to our shareholders.

The lack of clarity on our growth strategy and transparency of our performance has been a regular topic in our discussions. Our focus, as Will has said, is on generating realized revenues and realized profits that become cash that we can use to support our ongoing growth, and in the medium term, be used also to return capital directly to shareholders.

Building on our market leadership position, we have identified three key focus areas that will enable the business to grow and achieve the medium-term targets set out at the bottom of this slide. One, scaling the business through a combination of continued investment in the business and exploring a number of volume referrals with the public sector.

Two, improving our portfolio quality. This means increasing the proportion of high value, higher margin cases in our book that we've talked about already, while still maintaining a portfolio diversified in size so we continue to provide a full service to the insolvency profession.

Three, doubling down on operational efficiency in our business to drive economies of scale and operational leverage. This will be achieved through both increasing productivity across our larger legal team by balancing casework and new business development priorities according to the strengths of each individual.

We're also investing in a CRM system to further bolster our new business opportunities by ensuring our BD is targeted and coordinated, and it will identify opportunities to increase our market share.

Mena Halton

Will Sawyer

This is the path to the medium-term growth, and the medium term, as we see it, is three to five years. The principal drivers to achieving substantial growth in revenue and PBT and cash are firstly, higher case values.

As we've said, the strategy is to maintain a wide portfolio of claims, but with a focus on higher value cases. These cases typically take longer, but are also higher margin.

As Mena said, we highlight our expertise in certain case types, which are typically higher value claims. As a result, we think it's achievable to increase the average realized revenue per completed case from GBP 93,000 in FY 2026 to GBP 150,000.

Why do we think that's achievable? Well, the critical reason is that the average revenue per case in the forward book is already over GBP 150,000.

On top of that, we've started FY 2027 very well with the signing of four cases, each having over GBP 0.5 million in expected revenue value. The second principal driver to achieving this growth is operational leverage that's demonstrated by the increased average realized revenue per lawyer going from GBP 1.9 million in FY 2026 to GBP 2.3 million.

Our legal team's becoming more efficient and able to work a higher case volume through economies of scale as the legal team grows. That enlarged team enables the lawyers to focus on an optimum balance between legal work and business development that helps to drive increased profitability.

In addition, we're investing in a CRM system that Mena mentioned to support further operational efficiencies, which will help increase the average revenue per lawyer. In terms of capital allocation priorities, our primary priority remains investment in new and ongoing cases, particularly the higher value claims.

We are continuing to invest in our legal team, in business development, and these operational efficiencies to drive operational gearing. We consider that leverage with net debt under 50% of gross cash receipts to be appropriate to support growth and also to manage that working capital that's required between case investment and cash realization.

In assessing balance sheet capacity, we think that gross cash receipts are the most relevant measure of debt serviceability. Shareholder returns are expected to form a recurring element of capital allocation in the medium term, and they'll be delivered through dividends, share buybacks, or a combination of both.

We just note that we're not planning any share buybacks right now, given the current debt level and given our strategy to invest in cases and the platform in order to scale the business. Moving on to the outlook now.

As I've said, the most significant indicator of future performance is our forward book, and that has increased materially to GBP 67 million, and that's excluding the cartel cases. This is the highest the forward book has ever been by a considerable margin.

Large cases with a forecast revenue value of at least GBP 0.5 million now comprise GBP 32 million of the forward book, and that is up substantially from GBP 21 million at the prior year end. You can see that the average claim value in the forward book has risen from GBP 124,000 at the end of FY 2025 to GBP 158,000 at the end of FY 2026.

This supports improving portfolio quality, scale, earnings visibility, and this is what underpins our confidence in increasing revenue and profits going forward.

Will Sawyer

Mena Halton

Cartel claims. The cartel cases fall outside our core business in that they are concerned with competition law.

We have the opportunity to purchase a number of claims from companies that had leased or purchased trucks and paid higher prices due to unlawful collusion overpricing by the truck manufacturers. Although the cartel claims are non-core, we aim to negotiate settlement wherever possible, just as we do on our standard insolvency claims, and we were very pleased to settle with one defendant truck manufacturer during FY 2026.

We recognize that capital is tied up on the balance sheet with the claims against the remaining defendants, and we remain hopeful there will be further positive updates to come. Looking further ahead, we believe there is lots more for us to go for in an insolvency claims market estimated to be worth GBP 500 million per annum in gross settlement value.

The U.K. insolvency market, which underpins our market, remains at elevated levels, having risen 63% in the past decade, providing confidence that there will remain significant market opportunity for Manolete to grow in the future.

In summary, thank you for your interest in our business and for listening to our presentation. I want to finish by saying that despite the current share price, we believe we have a great business with a proven model and a highly motivated team that is well-placed to return Manolete to growth this financial year and to achieve much more in the years ahead.

We'll now take questions and run through those already submitted via the IMC platform. The first question is on cartel.

The cartel cases are tying up precious capital and need to be settled. What's next in the process on the cartel cases, and do you think you can settle them this year or next year, and if so, why?

Yeah, we recognize the capital tied up, and that this inevitably is a focus for investors. As I mentioned, we are really pleased to settle with one manufacturer in FY 2026.

These are not our typical cases. They do take longer, but the strategy remains settlement as it does with our core business, and we remain confident they will be settled.

The next question is, can you detail what levers you have available to affect recovery of the two large outstanding unpaid debts which underpin your confidence in eventual repayment? This happens.

Generally, our debtors do pay, but occasionally they don't, and then we have to take enforcement action. With these two larger delayed debts, we are taking enforcement action just as we would on any other unpaid debt, and I can assure you, we are vigorously pursuing recovery of those debts.

Next one. How has the company changed under new management?

What do you think previous management got wrong? We're focused on driving the business based on financial metrics, as we've outlined in the medium-term targets we've set out today.

Whereas previously, the focus was predominantly on non-financial KPIs. The revised presentation of the accounts, as Will has explained, is another way in which we've sought to bring greater clarity and transparency for investors to assess and understand our performance.

We do hope that today's presentation has been helpful. Next one.

Are management going to buy shares, and why aren't they doing so at current discounted levels? Possibly one for you, Will.

Mena Halton

Will Sawyer

I'd say, as you appreciate, I can't tell you when management will buy shares, and we've been in a closed period up until yesterday, since the trading update in April, so we haven't been able to do so during that period. As and when a director buys, it will be announced to the market at that time.

We can't say a lot more on that, I'm afraid.

Will Sawyer

Mena Halton

Okay. Next question.

Mena Halton

Will Sawyer

Shall I take this one on?

Will Sawyer

Mena Halton

Yeah, you do that one, Will.

Mena Halton

Will Sawyer

The asset covenant under the HSBC RCF was relaxed for six months from 28th of March 2025. That period expired in September 2025.

There has been no follow-up RNS clarifying covenant status. Is the covenant now at the original level?

Has it been further relaxed, or has the loan facility been amended? The asset covenant was relaxed just for that period, as expected and as announced, and then it returned to the original level.

I can see that there is another covenant-related question, which I'll cover off at the same time. What are the key covenants on the debt?

There's three covenants. First of all, interest cover, which looks at the ratio between net operating cash flow and finance charges.

Secondly is asset cover, which is the ratio of trade debtors to net debt. Thirdly, there's a case recoveries test, which looks at realized income from completed cases and compares it to the previous unrealized income that had been attributed to those cases, to check that we're forecasting accurately.

That is covenants. Are the management incentives based on statutory or adjusted EPS?

Given Manolete's accounting, what is to stop management creating any required profit by writing up case values for 2028?

Will Sawyer

Mena Halton

Shall I take that one? They're based on statutory EPS, which is based on audited accounts.

As they're audited, management are not able to artificially inflate base values. It doesn't work like that.

Mena Halton

Will Sawyer

There's at least two, if not three, very similar questions around, can you rule out delisting? I can just say it's not something that we are considering.

The next question is probably one for you, Mena. What are your plans regarding hiring more lawyers?

If the capacity is 30 to 40 cases per lawyer, don't you have substantial excess capacity? Looking from outside, the business appears far from robust.

Will Sawyer

Mena Halton

Our focus is to generate returns from the current forward book, which, as we've referred to, is higher than it's ever been. We will monetize that forward book with the current team, and we'll increase operational leverage, as we've described.

This is expected to result in adding a small number of new lawyers over the next few years. We're expecting the average revenue per lawyer to rise from GBP 1.9 million-GBP 2.3 million, as Will outlined.

The total number of cases isn't expected to remain flat, we can expect that to continue to rise. Average case values are rising, and operational leverage increases.

We continue to recruit in a controlled, sustainable fashion as needed. The legal team is the driver of the business.

Mena Halton

Will Sawyer

Okay. What is your internal financing planning horizon, e.g., one, two, or three years?

Does the plan assume any further external financing is required, either debt or equity? Our plan over the next three years, and indeed to reach the medium-term targets, doesn't assume any further external financing.

I would say we'll absolutely be keeping that under review, as we want to balance case completions and signing new cases and the working capital needed between signing a case and then collecting the cash. What we don't want to do is to turn away good quality cases.

We would consider further external financing to enable accelerated growth if that situation arose further down the path. Can you provide an alternative summary five-year P&L and balance sheet history without fair value accounting and with the cartel cases separated?"

What we are trying to do is to simplify how we are presenting the information, we don't want to overly complicate it by producing accounts on different bases. As I say, what we have done is present the financial statements in a more transparent and hopefully easier to understand way.

Our focus is on realized revenue, realized profit from a P&L point of view, and that is the P&L without unrealized gains that arise from fair value accounting. On the P&L, I'd also note that I've removed unrealized gains from revenue so that the only element reported in revenue relates to completed cases, i.e., realized revenue.

Also worth noting that in FY 2026, there was a significant unrealized gain, unrealized profit of GBP 2.7 million due to the increase in the forward book. We haven't focused on that.

It's very positive, but we haven't focused on that in our reporting of the results because we're focused on realized profit. Of course, on the balance sheet, the investment value of cases is shown, we think that accounting on a fair value basis, providing the transparency we have and the focus on realized profits, provides the best balance because it also means that investors can see the investment value of cases reflected on the balance sheet, which otherwise wouldn't be the case without the fair value accounting.

Hopefully, that makes sense. "What are the plans to unlock value for shareholders?

Trading at such a discount, a quarter of forward book value. Can you please explain why you will not opportunistically buyback shares?

The implication is that the forward book value is not accurate. If it is accurate, it seems like mismanagement to not buy GBP 1 of forward book value for GBP 0.25."

I think I had a very similar question. "At roughly 0.4x NAV a buyback retires close to GBP 2.40 of book for every pound spent and lifts NAV per share.

Once the forward book converts and the shares re-rate, the opportunity is gone. Does the board agree this is among the highest return uses of capital available today and would consider buybacks at these levels a higher priority than accelerating debt paydown rather than deferring them to as the portfolio matures?

As a shareholder, congratulations, I am proud of the work being done." To answer both of those, as I've said, we're not planning share buybacks right now given where the current debt level is and the strategy to invest in cases and the platform to scale the business.

I certainly don't see the implication that the forward book value is not accurate if the company doesn't buyback shares. Ultimately, it is a question of priorities, and whilst it may be beneficial to buyback shares, particularly in the near term, I don't think it's the right thing right now as we need to consider what will increase shareholder value over the medium and long term.

We think the best way to unlock that value for shareholders is to allocate the capital we have available to unlock the value in the current forward book, as well as investing in new cases to grow the business. We've been through the capital allocation priorities in the presentation.

I think that actually links to another question about opportunities and risks, and certainly there are opportunities with a forward book and getting cases completed of course, and some high-value ones within that. There's an opportunity with the cartel cases to settle those, there's an opportunity to collect this overdue debt and all of those things can materially enhance the balance sheet and provide the headroom to be able to consider share buybacks.

Will Sawyer

Mena Halton

There's a question here asking if there's been any increase in competition for new cases that we're seeing, any change to pricing or IP share of cases. The short answer to that is that there are competitors, but we are the clear market leader.

We've just won The Chambers Band 1 ranking for the sixth year in a row. We do carefully monitor our offers and acceptance rates to make sure that we are pricing our offering accordingly.

The majority of our offers are accepted, so we are confident that we are pricing our offers accordingly. There are competitors, but we are confident of our share and our position as market leader.

We have no undue concerns in terms of competitors, nor in terms of the terms we're offering to the IPs. We offer very fair terms, and I think the market recognizes that.

There's another one. "Can you explain the market for potential cases?

Is there greater competition for higher value claims?" The market is IPs or insolvency lawyers on their behalf, and we have deep penetration into that market throughout the U.K.

with our network of in-house lawyers. Generally speaking, the higher value claims will be from administrations or HMRC-led compulsory liquidations.

Compulsory liquidations where HMRC is the official creditor will give rise to the higher value claims I mentioned in relation to tax avoidance, [audio distortion] VAT fraud, PAYE fraud, et cetera. They are the market for those potential claims.

The competition for the higher value claims is no different from the claims across the board. Again, we're very well-positioned to deal with those claims as the market leader and because we have a good track record, we have lots of case studies we can talk about, and we do publish those in our newsletter.

We capitalize on our success. We are well-known for dealing with high-value claims.

Yeah, we continue to target them as part of our portfolio of claims across the board, but as we mentioned, with a slightly greater emphasis on the higher value ones because of the increased margins, albeit taking slightly longer to complete.

Mena Halton

Will Sawyer

There's a few questions related to the expected credit losses. Please discuss the expected credit loss of GBP 3.6 million.

How sizable is the largest party? Top three parties.

How should we think about the future level of expected credit losses? How does this high level of expected credit loss impact your case assessment process?

Also, similar one, total ECL charge was GBP 3.6 million, but only GBP 1.8 million relates to two named debtors. Where did the other GBP 1.8 million of provisions and GBP 3 million of write-offs come from?

Is this a broader pattern of non-payment across the book or a one-off conservative recalibration? What I'd say about those is that, there's GBP 3.6 million ECL charge in the year, GBP 1.8 million that related to these two specific debtors and GBP 1.8 million that was across the portfolio.

These two debtors that have been provided for are our two biggest debtors, and they are the outliers in that sense. The GBP 1.8 million of ECL charge against the rest of the portfolio, that is broadly in line with previous years, and there hasn't been an elevated level.

Like I said, when we look at the amount of debt that is overdue, it has reduced. We think that we're keeping debtors generally under control.

Of course, we're in a business that relies on people paying. There is, of course, some inherent risk in that.

We think that's well managed, but of course, such as on these two big cases, there can be non-payment. On these two, there is absolutely a willingness to pay, and that's why we remain confident in recovering all or most of it, and we've made a judgment to provide for GBP 1.8 million out of GBP 4.7 million of net exposure.

We feel at this stage that that is relatively prudent. There's ongoing conversations about recovering and catching up on those debtor payments.

Will Sawyer

Mena Halton

There's one here about AI. Is AI an opportunity for you to increase the productivity of your legal team?

Does the insolvency claims procedure lend themselves well to some degree of AI automation? There's no doubt that the law firms are using AI.

They have some very sophisticated packages out there. I think it's probably best used for summarizing and collating large volumes of documents, large volumes of data or information.

That may have an impact on us in terms of the external legal costs being lower because it's involving less chargeable time. In terms of the Manolete in-house legal team, we are experimenting with some AI with one team member to see how it goes.

Really, at the moment, short of assisting in collating and summarizing large volumes of information, I don't think it's going to play a large part in the immediate future because what we're carrying out is not just a legal analysis, it's also a commercial analysis, and it's also really sometimes you have a feeling for a case, you think you can get a result, and we have a pretty good feeling for that, and I don't think AI can replicate that at the moment. In terms of court procedures, that is for the external lawyers rather than us.

You do have to be terribly careful. It was in the press recently, a very well-known law firm came severely unstuck and subject to very serious judicial criticism for sending AI-generated correspondence to a judge, which was clearly wrong.

Even when the judge said, "I think this is wrong," they carried on replying with AI-generated responses, which were still wrong. It's out there.

It has a place. It has a use.

We're adopting a fairly cautious approach at the moment. Obviously, we will keep it under review.

Mena Halton

Will Sawyer

Just trying to see. "Can you explain what the board restructuring involved leading to the GBP 800,000 cost?"

That was the changes relating to the former CEO and CFO. I think in the remuneration note, they are set out in the accounts.

"Can you walk us through the bridge from the opening forward book of GBP 49 million to the closing GBP 67 million? How much of the GBP 18 million increase is new signings, net of completed cases leaving the book versus upward revision of cases already in the book?

I ask because the simple arithmetic leaves roughly GBP 14 million unexplained, and Note 13 shows the fair value of existing non-cartel cases was broadly flat this year." Yeah, good question.

Of that GBP 18 million, GBP 4 million was the increase in case signings net of completions in the year. Sorry, I have to be slightly careful.

The sensitive number is the cartel settlement amount, which is confidential. These numbers, the forward book numbers 49 and 67 are excluding cartel.

I think I can answer it by saying there's a broadly even split between that GBP 18 million increase relating to new signings, net of completions in the year, and upward valuations of cases that had been signed in previous years.

Will Sawyer

Mena Halton

There's one here. "The outlook is much improved with a higher proportion of higher value claims.

Is this a temporary phenomenon, or can you assure investors that this trend can be maintained into future periods?" I have no reason to doubt that the higher value claims will continue to come through.

We've got the expanded legal team, the expanded network. We're increasing our portfolio of track record cases we can refer back to on completed high-value claims.

We've just been ranked Band 1 in Chambers again. We get a lot of feedback from Chambers because their guides are research-based, so the researchers have gone out into the insolvency community, IPs, insolvency lawyers, and asked them to say on an anonymized basis, "What do you think of Manolete?"

That is an opportunity to say exactly what they think of us, and the feedback is incredible. We're very well regarded.

Yes, I fully expect that we will continue to receive higher value claims.

Mena Halton

Will Sawyer

I think we've got through a lot of these. Just trying to see if there's any others that we haven't got to.

Will Sawyer

Operator

Look, guys, I'm just going to jump in there and say thank you. You have covered a lot of questions there.

Of course, the team will be able to review all those questions. We will submit them where appropriate on the platform.

Mena, before I redirect investors to provide you with their feedback, which you know is particularly important to yourself and the company, could I please just ask you for a few closing comments? Thank you.

Operator

Mena Halton

Well, I'd just like to thank everyone for attending today. Thank you in particular for your questions, which I think show that you really have got under the bonnet of the business and our finances and our accounting, which is a bit different.

Thank you for your interest. Thank you for your questions.

We are very well placed for the year ahead. I hope Will's slightly different presentation of the results and our setting out our targets and our growth strategy and how we aim to achieve all that, setting all that out, I hope that's helpful.

Please do follow up if you've got any questions after the session. Thank you.

Mena Halton

Operator

Fantastic. Mena, Will, thank you once again for updating investors today.

Could I please ask investors not to close this session. As you know, you will be automatically redirected to provide your feedback, which will help the company better understand your views and expectations.

On behalf of the management team, we would like to thank you for attending today's presentation. Good morning to you all.