B.P.MARSH & PARTNERS PLC (BPM) January 2026 Capital Markets Day Transcript

Good morning and welcome to the BP Marsh & Partners PLC Investor Presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen-only mode. Questions are encouraged and can be submitted at any time via the Q&A tab situated on the right-hand corner of your screen. Just simply type in your questions and press send. Before we begin, I'd like to submit the following poll. I'd like to hand you over to Dan Topping, CEO. Good morning, sir.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. I'm Dan Topping, the CEO of BP Marsh, and I'm joined today by Francesca Chappell, our CFO. today we'll be taking you through the group's annual results for the full year ended 31st January 2026. It's been another strong year for BP Marsh one that demonstrates both the quality of our portfolio and the steady compounding that comes from doing the same thing well for a very long time. Turning to slide two just to remind everyone of who we are and how we operate we're a specialist investor in small to medium financial services businesses predominantly insurance brokers and managing general agencies at a scale in terms of startup or early stages where alternative funding is difficult to obtain. We've invested in 70 companies since inception with 24 active investments in the portfolio and we've been listed on AIM since 2006. Our edge is what we call bridging the gap. We invest at the enterprise value stage that sits between venture capital and mid-market private equity. Typically that means initial investments of up to 5 million for 20 to 40 percent minority stakes in businesses with an enterprise value of between zero and 25 million at entry. Again the focus is predominantly at the zero end as opposed to the 25 million end. Our team brings decades of sector knowledge and our average holding period is about 6.4 years which reflects a long-term patient approach that we think is generally different genuinely differentiated. What all of that is intended to produce ultimately is consistent growth in value over time and that brings us neatly to net asset value performance which is encapsulated in slide three. This slide tells the story of what patience looks like in practice. RNAV has grown from 40.6 million in 2007 to 360.2 million as at the 31st of January 2026. That's an 11% compound annual growth rate over nearly 20 years. Not every year has been perfectly smooth but the trajectory is remarkably consistent. It really reflects the value of our model minority stakes in growing businesses supported by patient capital and a partnership approach. These headline numbers are supported by another year of strong underlying financial performance so I'll now hand over to Fran to take you through the detail of that financial performance.

Thank you Dan. I am pleased to present the annual results for the year ended 31st of January 2026 with the group having had another strong year. NAB increased by 33.8 million or 10.3% in the year and it's now 360.2 million. This is equivalent to £10.09 per share or £9.60 per share diluted. The growth in NAB is driven by the rise in investment valuations and realised gains on disposals whilst accounting for dividends and share buybacks that have taken place throughout the year. Our equity portfolio is now valued at $273.8 million and increased by $48.2 million or 21.4% in the year after adjusting for realisations and additions. Dan will be covering the portfolio later in the presentation. Throughout the year, we completed eight new investments and made two realisations. total dividends of 8 million were paid throughout the year which have been added to the growth in nav resulted in a total shareholder return of 12.8 profit for the year was 49 million available capital at the year end stood at 49.5 million providing the group with a strong platform for continued new investment activity slide 5 provides a breakdown of our nav of 360.2 million and portfolio composition as of the 31st of January, 2026. At the year end, our investment portfolio was valued at 273.8 million, whilst cash and other assets amounted to 86.4 million. Post year end, the group has made two new investments into NineEdge Wealth and Ventura Risk Partners. In addition to this, the group disposed of its investment in a meagre specialty. slide 6 reports the breakdown of our cash and other assets on the left of the slide you will find a breakdown of our loan book as at the 31st of january 2026 which stood at 38.8 million this is an increase of 13.2 million on our loan book as at january 2025 reflecting the active deployment of loan capital during the year the average interest rate received on our loan book during the year was 8.8 percent. Details of our individual loans can be found on slide 29 of the appendices. Post year end the loan book has grown further and now stands at 51.9 million as of the 26th of May. On the right of the slide you will see that at the end of the year we held 49.5 million in cash and treasury funds down from 74.1 million in January 2025. The decrease in cash reflects the significant tap capital deployed into new and follow-on investments during the year, dividends paid and funds utilized for shared buybacks. The group keeps its cash held with well-known institutions in a mixture of short-term and instant access deposit accounts with a maximum deposit period of one month maintained throughout the year. The average return on treasury funds for the year was 3.3 percent. Slide 7 presents our dividend distribution history and our intentions looking ahead. During the year end of the 31st of January 2026, the group paid total dividends of 8 million, equating to 21.64 pence per share. Looking ahead, by the end of our financial year end in January 2027, the company expects to have distributed a further 13 million in dividends, which will bring the total dividends paid since flotation to 37.7 million equivalent to 107.1 pence per share to put that in context the original flotation price was 140 pence per share so we will have returned 76.5 percent of the flotation price to shareholders through dividends alone the board intends to pay further dividends of 7 million in our financial year ending january 2028 this slide also illustrates the clear link between portfolio realizations and dividends each of the major disposals in our history from howden in 2020 2013 to most recently ssru in 2025 has contributed to our ability to make progressive dividends to shareholders slide 8 presents our total shareholder return and share price performance For the year ended 31st of January 2026, the total shareholder return was 12.8%, comprising NAV growth and dividends paid during the year. Turning to the chart on the right of the slide, this shows the performance of the company's share price and NAV per share against the AIM All Share and AIM Financial Indices, re-based to January 20 2010. this long-term outperformance reflects the strength and consistency of our investment model i will now hand back to dan to take you through the portfolio in more detail thanks fran i'll pink things back up with a closer look at the portfolio itself starting with an area that has been a long-term strength for the group managing general agencies or as we call them mgas slide nine our 11 mga investments are collectively valued at 72.6 million

built on a total cost of £16.8 million, a 4.3 times multiple on invested capital. These businesses are expected to underwrite aggregate gross written premium of over £850 million in 2026, producing over £90 million in commission income. The portfolio spans markets in Australia, the UK, the US and Europe, and ranges from more mature companies like ATC, our largest individual MGA, holding at £37.7 million, to more recent entrants in the portfolio like Cameron and Volt. ATC has delivered an IRR of 36.2% over its holding period and we'll discuss that later in the presentation. Fiducia, our longest standing MGA, has delivered 32.4 times the invested capital and Volt, a more recent investment at a nominal cost of £26, is already valued at £4.25 million. MGA is an area we know well and where our network and sector expertise gives us a genuine origination advantage. We like the model, specialist underwriting expertise, scalable companies, strong cash generation and a market environment where access to insurer capital remains tight. Turning to slide 10, our broking investments. Total value across the six broking investments is £182 million, built on a cost of £59.2 million, a 2.1 times multiple overall. Collectively, our broker investments are budgeting to place more than £1.5 billion of gross written premium in 2026, generating over £140 million of brokerage income. Pantheon remains the standout, valued at £107 million, against a cost of £27.3 million as at 31st January 2026, with an IRR of 150.4%. xpt our us wholesale platform is valued at 64 million with an ir of 26.6 percent since our investment in 2017. more recently we've backed one global a london headquartered international broker with 15 offices around the world offering products over a number of business areas and srt our uk focused broking and asset finance company or broker also continues to build momentum turning to slide 11 alongside insurance we selectively invest in adjacent uk financial services businesses where our expertise network and patient capital can support distinctive opportunities io finance is our buy and build platform in the alternative finance space bringing together specialist sme lenders to address the funding gap left by high street banks retreating from SME lending. We invested 10 million for an 8% stake in April 2025 alongside Janice Henderson as a co-investor. Whilst a recent investment, we've got good hopes for this business and it continues to deliver momentum and is assessing further acquisition opportunities. Nine Edge Wealth was an investment post-year-end, is a newly established independent financial advisory business founded by Derek Miles. He was a previous partner of BP Marsh. He grew Aspera, a previous BP Marsh investment, to over 4 billion of assets under Vice and its ultimate sale to Titan. Nine Edge Wealth is an acquisition-led IFA consolidator, tech-enabled and already building scales, having made two acquisitions since our investment. One theme you'll see increasingly across the portfolio is that where we back strong management teams opportunities often emerge beyond the original investment thesis moving on slide 12 which is the overview of the xpt related insurance vehicles there is also in the portfolio two purpose-built purpose-built vehicles linked to xpt strategic growth gambit re and xpt producer co gambit re is a collateralized reinsurance vehicle based out of Bermuda providing risk capital to selected underwriting programs within XPT's underwriting arm platinum specialty underwriters. Again an early startup investment for us we've provided up to 5 million of risk capital into this management up to 15 million dollars and an external private equity investor north of 75 million to allow XPT's underwriting platform access to further capital, which we think further differentiates XPT and allows us to see meaningful returns from their underwriting portfolio. XPT Producer Co is a platform that we created to recruit and incubate experienced insurance producers, solving a structural growth challenge within XPT that allows us to provide capital in an efficient way for them to grow. Both were established with BP Marsh's backing in 2025 and illustrate very well how we can support our existing investments beyond the initial equity position. Of course, while much of today's presentation focuses on portfolio growth, it's equally important to show how that value is ultimately realised, which takes them to slide 13, realisations over the past five years. Over the past five years, BP Marsh has realised eight investments, generating total proceeds of £178.9 million against an aggregate investment of just over £20.6 million, a money multiple of 8.7 times. Those realisations span underwriting agencies in Canada and Australia and the UK, as well as a UK broker and insurance intermediary group. IRRs across the cohort range from 8.8% to 111.9%. This track record of realisation matters demonstrates that the NAV isn't just the number on a page or in a black box created by ours it shows how we convert these investments into real cash which moves on to disposals during the Stuart Specialty Risk Underwriting SSRU which I suppose demonstrates our model in terms of the smallest investment produced the most extraordinary outcomes. The most significant disposal in the financial year was our exit from SSRU in December 2025 when the business was acquired by Ryan Specialty LLC, a US-based insurance distribution platform. We invested in January 2017, backing its founder Stephen Stewart with a nominal equity investment of just approaching £19. There was a loan of about £500,000, but that was repaid within the first 18 to 24 months. So over the eight years of our investment, SSIU grew to become one of Canada's leading independent underwriting agencies, writing around 100 million Canadian dollars of growth rate and premium and delivering strong EBITDA growth through that hold. We received total proceeds when we exited of 28.3 million, an IRR of 89.9% and given the original investment was £19, a realised profit figure that is for practical purposes almost identical to the sale proceeds. It's one of those investments that demonstrates the full power of our model, find exceptional management, back them with long-term capital, support them without interference and exit at the right moment. The second disposal in the year was Sterling Insurance in May 2025, a cross-portfolio transaction that neatly illustrates our network's value. Sterling was a rather different type of success story, less dramatic perhaps but strategically very valuable. We invested 1.9 million in Sterling in June 2013 for just under 20 percent and over 12 years sterling strengthened its core construction liability lines and grew gross written premium from just under 40 million to just approaching 55 million Australian dollars a premium exit the exit was structured as a combination with ATC insurance solutions another of our portfolio companies with a transaction valued at 32 33.2 million funded through cash and ATC equity including a management rollover Proceeds to BP Marsh were 3.1 million, which we received for ATC shares, a 63% uplift on our position. And crucially for us, the combined platform is stronger for it, which benefits us through an enlarged stake in ATC. While we realise value from mature investments, we're equally active redeploying capital back into new opportunities. which takes into slide 16 new investments in the year and post year end across the financial year we made eight new investments totaling 27.8 million of equity alongside two post year end investments in nine edge wealth and venture risk partners ventura risk partners the breadth and pace of new investment activity reflects both the strength of our deal flow and the depth of our available capital uh which i suppose neatly links us into slide 17 new investments uh we're often asked where our deal flow comes from and the short answer without trying to be overly simplistic is relationships we evaluated 61 new investment opportunities during the year broadly in line with the prior 62 came through referrals or introduction for our existing network and of those 43% were international in nature. By sector 75% were in insurance distribution and 25% with general financial services. The message is that our deal flow is really genuinely proprietary. We don't rely on auction processes or intermediaries to find opportunities. Because of our model and our unique investment approach, we've created a position where we feel we're the preferred partner for entrepreneurial teams looking to maintain control but access to financial institutional capital with a track record of delivering returns moving on from new investments to slide 18 which details deferred consideration uh over the one feature for our model that can sometimes be overlooked is the long tail of our value creation after an initial disposal two legacy investments continue to generate cash through deferred consideration mechanisms On LEBC, which we sold to Titan Wealth, equity proceeds to date are 5.7 million with an IRR of 6.5% on a 13.5 million pound investment. Clearly, there were challenges with our investment in LEBC, but the way we were able to work with Derek Miles to take the business forward to exit and structure the exit with Titan meant that we received proceeds on exit. and then deferred consideration unattaching to performance criteria that improves our return materially post-sale. The first tranche of deferred consideration received in September 2025, meaningful amount. The second will follow over the course of this month and the third and final payment in 2027. We therefore will expect to receive significantly more than our amount invested And we feel it was a positive outcome to an investment that wasn't without its challenges, but ultimately was a positive return to the company. On CBC UK, Paladin, we sold this to Specialist Risk Group in March 2024. The story is now substantially complete. We received all deferred consideration due, totaling 18.7 million, giving us total proceeds of 62.7 million and an IRR of 48.7%. seven percent uh to our mind a remarkable outcome given the initial equity stake uh was was three and a half thousand pounds together these examples reinforce an important point our realizations don't end at completion often we're able to come up with deferred structures which continue to deliver return and value to bp marsh uh quietly but meaningfully materially turning out some of the individual portfolio highlights, it's difficult not to start with Pantheon. Slide 19. Pantheon remains our largest single holding and the most striking example of what early stage backing in the right management team can achieve. Founded in 2023, Pantheon now has over 45 employees operating across six product lines and generating 24.8 million of revenue and 18 million of adjusted EBITDA in 2025. As at the year end we held a 39% holding in Pantheon for a cost of 27.3 million which we valued at 107 million. Post year end we acquired a further 2% in Pantheon with our shareholding now being 41%. Pantheon began its life in global casualty as its specialism but it's now moved into professional lines, property, innovation and technology, delegated authority insurance premium has also just added marine we can continue to expect pantheon to develop into other adjacent lines of uh insurance brokerage um it's got a strong track record now it's very profitable it's got a unique capital base within the market and we see it becoming more and more appealing to individuals or teams that that like the ethos of the management team and like the the nature of the the private equity investment in terms of it is a long-term play without any exit pressures because of the nature of how bp marsh is uh structured to make investments the trajectory from zero to 107 million of value in under three years is obviously exceptional and the financial year 26 budget continues to project strong growth it's the investment that frankly we'd all hope to find once a decade and we're delighted to have found it in this one i think you know we've talked about ssiu previously with pantheon and i think this you know really illustrates bp marsh's niche in terms of what we're able to do deploying our level of capital which provides the opportunity for outsized returns where pantheon rapid represents rapid early stage growth xpt reflects long-term platform camp compounding at scale um moving to slide 20 xpt slide xpt is our major us platform a specialty lines insurance distribution group that's built a wholesale broking and underwriting agency across the U.S. specialty sector. We first invested in June 2017 and today we hold a 30.5% stake valued at 64 million against the cost of 20.2 million equity and just under 9 million in loan funding. IRR to date is just over 26%. XPT now manages over 1 billion U.S. dollars of gross written premium, employs more than 450 people across over 30 us offices and has completed 19 acquisitions since formation and gwp has grown a compound annual growth rate of about 45 percent and you know that shows where it is now back in 2017 it was three very credible individuals with a business plan that we were able to test support and again it evidences our ability to find the right management team and grow it They focus on the production and we focus on the working with them on the systems and controls, cash flow management and governance to provide the right support structure for very fast growing businesses. 2025 adjusted EBITDA was just under $25 million and the full year 26 budget projects continued growth across revenue and profitability. And again, as sort of detailed earlier, this has been supported by new initiatives, including Gambit Re and XPT Producer Co. Moving to Australia on slide 21, ATC is now Australia's largest independent Lloyd's cover holder and a longstanding core holding for us. We first invested in July 2018 for about 20% and we now hold 27% valued at £37.7 million against a combined cost of just over £5 million once we factor in the investment in ATC, the rollover of MB Prestige and Sterling and IRR currently stands at just over 36%. ATC rights over 200 million Aussie dollars of GWP which has delivered a 20% KGAR since our investments and 2025 EBITDA was just a tad north of 17.3 million. It's keyed product line span, construction, accident and health, sports and leisure, cyber and other specialty lines which we feel is a very well diversified book. ATC has completed three acquisitions during our hold and including the absorption of sterling insurance this year the recent addition of Frontier Global which actually wasn't a BP Marsh portfolio company so shows how ATC is developing further expands ATC's reach into financial lines and London market distribution with Frontier having a London underwriting operation while still remaining consistent with the disciplined acquisition strategy we've seen from management over a number of years so I think you know ATC's reached a scale that it can deploy capital with our support or with bank debt to continue to deliver this sort of outsized growth trajectory and it's a business that's grown consistently maintained underwriting discipline and expended its reach and we expect that to continue moving away from the portfolio on slide 22 alongside portfolio growth we remain very focused on the question of capital allocation specifically balancing reinvestment with meaningful shareholder returns. Over the year we paid £8 million in dividends and for the year ending 31st January 2027 we will pay total dividends of £13 million, £10.5 million which was already paid and a further £2.5 million we'll be paid in July. Lastly shareholders can expect subject to final board approval a minimum of £7 million for the year ending 31st January 2028. this would see dividends of totaling 44.7 million having been distributed to shareholders by the year ending by our January 2028 year end on share buybacks during the year we've repurchased just over a million shares for 6.9 million pounds at an average price of 659 pence under the program we launched in April 2025 for the year total shareholder return standard just under 13 percent and we think that's a fair reflection of a year in genuine of genuine progress we think the balance between growth and liquidity and shareholder returns remains one of the defining strengths of the group moving away from that on to slide 20 20 slide 23 um given what's being discussed before we conclude i think it's worth touching briefly on a topic that inevitably comes up in almost every investor conversation at the moment artificial intelligence for what it's worth our view is that a ai act as an enabler not a disruptor in the sectors that where we focus we tend to be skeptical at the moment of uh grand claims where we are in this area but practical workflow improvements are already becoming very real the insurance and financial advisory industries will continue to need skilled brokers underwriters and advisors why ai changes is we believe the workflow behind them automating administrative bottlenecks accelerating data processing and freeing professionals to focus on the work that requires judgment and relationships three of our portfolio companies xpt nine age wealth and vault have built or are building their own ai tools that augment their teams in meaningful ways critically all three maintain a clear principle humans check and verify every output ai is applied selectively to tasks that previously demanded larger teams or extensive manual work we'll be watching how this theme evolves across the wider portfolio and we'd rather be invested in businesses that are deploying ai thoughtfully than those ignoring it entirely so to close it's been a strong year not defined by a single exceptional event but by consistent progress across the portfolio and disciplined deployment of capital net asset value of 360.2 million total shareholder return of 12.8 percent portfolio value up 21.4%, 8 new investments, 2 realizations, 8 million in dividends and over 30 million of available capital to continue. Strategically, our priorities remain unchanged, identifying back strong management teams and specialist markets, compound value over the long term and maintain a disciplined balance between investment, liquidity and shareholder returns. The company's now been doing this for over 30 years. The principles haven't changed and if anything, the opportunity set continues to grow. Thank you very much for your time and we'll now be very happy to take questions.

Thank you for updating investors today. Could I please remind investors to submit your questions just by using the Q&A tab situated on the right hand corner of your screen and for reference a recording of today's presentation will be available on the InvestorMeet company platform shortly after the meeting has ended. As you can see we received a number of questions during today's presentation. Katie if I could just hand back to you to read out the questions and give responses where appropriate to do so and I'll pick up from you at the end.

Thanks Charlie, thanks Dan. To begin with there's been a question around the insurance market and as parts of the insurance market are beginning to soften, how insulated is BP Marsh's portfolio given the focus on specialty risk classes?

Thanks Katie. I think broadly speaking I mean, insurance is a relatively defensive area as a generalisation when risks start moving in and out of it and prices start hardening or softening as an overarching comment. But I would say the market is tending to soften as a general observation. That's a fundamental result of hardening prices for about 24 to 36 months. and it will continue I suspect that being said and specific to the question because we focus on startups or very early stage investments it and we're long-term holders it's we're somewhat even further insulated from that because clearly if you're a startup if a premium was for example 100 pounds the year before you started and it was reduced to 80 pounds the next year it's still new business so we we look at it from uh portfolio uh not portfolio actual account one versus the aggregate premium being placed because as long as that's growing we see our

portfolio companies growing thank you dan there's been a couple of questions around the discount nav um i'll just try and read a few out um so with the 30 discount of nav um why wasn't a more aggressive share buyback implemented and would you be open to selling the assets in return to cash to shareholders if the discount doesn't reduce and then carrying on a little bit more um if someone's asked it would be useful to hear something about how the valuation of the so the top three investments are arrived at and that buybacks have been released reasonably small seemed reasonably small to date and have they can management considered significantly increasing the scale the buybacks help to address the share price discount um i think dealing with the the discount

clearly that's something that we've we've focused on over over a long-term period and i think um you can see the long-term trend is clear um it's it's a key focus of the management team that reduce the discount i think i think there's always a theoretical uh market applied discount against our nav because of the um fact that we hold privately uh private company liquid holdings but that being said my view for what it's worth is the discount should be probably between 15 to 5 percent and it it has fluctuated at that there was a material disposal by um our dollar last year at a price that they were prepared to deal at that um um caused the the the nav to wide and it's starting to reduce and I think that's the focus of the management team to continue reducing that discount. I mean on the sell all the assets and return cash to shareholders I mean that's not the strategy of BP Marsh certainly over the last five to ten years as a meaningful shareholder from a personal standpoint in bp margin i'm i'm happy with the direction of travel in terms of the share price performance and the dividend yield and i think so long as we can continue the share price performance trajectory and and um when appropriate maintaining a good dividend yield i think as a shareholder myself that that presents um better long-term returns for the shareholders and all stakeholders as opposed to a more short-term approach of realizing the assets immediately to return cash to shareholders i don't i think that in some respects that could exacerbate the discount to NAV. In terms of the top three and I think there's another point about concentration risk which I'll sort of touch on first and then come back to the top three. I think actually if you look at the portfolio from where it was 10 or 15 years ago of 9 to 10 portfolio investments a bit longer than that when we had Hyperion. At one stage I I think Hyperion equated to almost 60, if not more than 60% of the NAV. We were comfortable with that then. Ultimately, we realized Hyperion is a very successful investment, redeployed the proceeds. And you can see from that sale and redeployment of the proceeds, we kicked on and the company kicked on and did very well. So concentration risk in performing assets isn't something that we're concerned by, but it's something that we monitor, especially in line with their performance and look forward projections. which I hope sort of deals with that concentration risk question. I think we've got three big ones, but they're almost a victim of their own success. Pantheon's a very recent investment that's grown tremendously well. So I would hope rather than expect, but I would hope we'd have more Pantheon's in the portfolio. And I think with the more recent startup investments that you can see they're starting to grow significantly. And I would imagine that the directional struggle of that would be similar such that we'll have 24 portfolio companies all with meaningful growth horizons um on valuation methodologies we've never released methodologies um we don't plan to start i appreciate you can say that it it leads to visibility being reduced on how we arrive at these valuations but i'd make the count point over the last five years we've got a very decent track record of realizing at or above our valuation um there is greater visibility on market comparison transactions which people can benchmark us against if they want and i'd say that demonstrates um our conservative approach to valuations but also a sort of wider commercial point is that often if we release the methodology when it comes to a disposal it's it can be used against us in that kind of transactional nature on a sale and we'd rather not have our valuation methodology in the public and then used against us to the detriment of our underlying returns.

Thank you very much Dan and thanks for covering those concentration risk questions.

Moving on, there's been a question whether independent brokers are becoming stronger or weaker competitively? um well no my confirmation bias on this insofar as obviously i i think they're becoming stronger i think it's cyclical um i think with where the market is in terms of consolidation we've seen over a decade of brokers being consolidated into wider financial conglomerates i think it's been successful for the consolidators but it has led to people being uh disenfranchised by the consolidation and that that is a ready supply of new business opportunities and certainly as at today and what i think going forward to the future for the next 12 to 36 months i think we'll see a steady stream of new start brokers approaching us and if we get the right terms and the right business but i think we'll continue to support them and i think um the way brokers are established from a capital standpoint remains capital light which appeals to us but also With technological advances and AI and all that stuff, it allows the smaller brokers to punch above their weight with access to data and management to data when it comes to winning clients. So I say from the beginning, there is a level of unbiased from my opinion, but I think they're very well positioned for new start brokers at the smaller end. And there's a ready supply of acquirers when they grow up to scale. So if you look at Lily Plummer Risk, which was in the portfolio, that was a team of disenfranchised brokers that had got tired of being bought and sold. They established, we provided them with the working capital, governance oversight and focusing on the dull stuff like financial reporting and cash flow. And within five years, which is inside of our sort of preferred hold period, we were able to realise that a significant profit to a Goldman Sachs back consolidator. And that still remains the optionality for us with the portfolio, because there's a ready supply of investment at the bigger end looking to get into insurance distribution.

Thank you, Dan. Another question a bit more generally on how active is the pipeline for new investments today?

Yeah, I think it's a continuation where we're seeing a good inflow of new business. And I think it's all well and good having an active pipeline, but not that great if you can't do the deal. So we could have a thousand inquiries and not do one transaction where our approach is to sort of refine the process to sort of sort the wheat from the chaff in terms of our investment appetite. I think we've been successful at that. And so I think we've got a very good pipeline of transactions that we'd like to pursue subject to getting the right terms for BP Emulsionate shareholders. So I think we'll continue to see a good flow of doable new business deals.

Thank you, Dan. There's been a question around what has caused Asian re-insurers drop in value.

I think, you know, we've written it down by £150,000 or so. So it's not materially impacting the overall NAV, but I suppose it speaks to our, you know, rigorous focus on valuations that we do care about the smaller ones just as much as the big ones. And if the performance is adversely affected in the short term, we'll go after the valuation from a conservative standpoint, notwithstanding some people might consider it immaterial in the overall. We looked at it if performance was slightly down. We do have expectations that it will correct and in the long run be a good investment. but we actively monitor the portfolio and aggressively go after valuations if we think that there needs to be a reduction in terms of our conservative approach.

Thank you. There's a question around the doubling of the new investments during the year compared to for year 25.

Do you see this new level as the norm or do you even expect to continue to increase this i think probably somewhere in the middle um i would say we're unique in our offering there is no one out there that structures transactions as long-term investors with minority positions that's certainly becoming to our mind more popular we're seeing lots of people um buying into that approach clearly the proof of the pudding is that the strength of the portfolio and the realizations which again increases visibility so i think we'll continue to be active um we've got a good pipeline as i said earlier so um yeah i'd say somewhere in the middle uh thank you very much um having a quick look at um balancing liquidity investments deployments and shareholder return just a little bit more around the balancing of that um well we think we balance it quite well in terms of you know we've got you know you know we flagged dividends and we always try and give long-term visibility on dividends germane to realizations investment deployments obviously we talked about new business and we continue to see an active new business pipeline and liquidity on the balance sheet we've detailed in the presentation I think look there is no hard and fast rule but that that's what we like we like flexibility to try and deliver shareholder returns it's what we expect from our portfolio companies and um um i think you know it is a balancing act but certainly we feel we've struck the right balance so far thank you very much dan um looking ahead uh where do you see the biggest opportunities and risks for the group over the next 12 to 14 months um slightly boring answer but i think um the greatest opportunities are sticking to our knitting i think we've created a niche for ourselves we are a unique proposition and it res continues to resonate within the market so i sort of think you know whilst it's not revolutionary i think what we present um speaks for itself in terms of returns and um that's where the opportunity remains so certainly over the short to midterm i wouldn't give long-term projections um risks i mean in we're insurance focused as an investor we have financial services mandate but it is predominantly insurance insurance by its very nature is focused on risk so um you know there's the general macroeconomic issues that pop up that have popped up and i won't dwell on them too much but you know we've come through the global financial crisis at bb marsh we've come through covid it's shown the resilience of the portfolio and the sector and therefore there'll always be risks um you know economic societal but i think as long as we proactively manage them and you know maintain our focus and i suppose the opportunity by sticking to our knitting and what we've been successful at um and so long as that continues to be you know an active pipeline of new business which there is um we manage the risk on that basis clearly if i certainly if if it appeared that our the fur that we plow ceases to be doable or present active returns then clearly we would then say we've done we're very pleased with the job we've done but we'll start realizing investments and returning to the portfolio because the the unique proposition that we have isn't appealing anymore but I don't see that in the short to medium term. Great thank you so much Dan and just before we shortly conclude the presentation it'd be great if you could just uh recap on the presentation provide any final comments yeah i hopefully um it detailed you know how we performed over the air clearly we're we're tremendously happy with with what we've achieved and you know how the portfolio is set for the future i think there's huge potential upside in there and we've got an active new business pipeline so i think that's the summary in finalising I've got to pass on thanks to the team who've done the work and the portfolio have delivered the results to allow us to present these results so I want to note that it's a huge team effort at BP Marsh and the portfolio in delivering this so thanks to the team clearly there's been as of today a few board changes at the PLC level with Brian Marsh coming down off the board but remaining as president and I just think it's worth noting you know the thanks of the team and myself personally for Brian for you know what he's you know that BP Marsh is the house that Brian built over a 30-year period he's he's then brought in a team around and for him to support and take the business forward I've worked with Brian for nearly two decades he's been you know tremendous resource for me and building my contacts building my experience and understanding the market we operate in and what he's done is allowed the business to kick on in increments and i think you know as a team and as shareholders brian's created something you know that has been tremendously successful i just want to say get it on record that we're thankful for that but also it's not goodbye to brian um he still will remain in the business in an advisory capacity and ambassadorial role because he's a tremendous resource thank you dan for your presentation this morning.

Could I please ask investors not to close this session as you'll now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback which will help the company better understand your views and expectations. On behalf of the management team of BP Martian Partners PLC, we would like to thank you for attending today's presentation and good morning.