Exor Stock

Welcome, and thank you for joining Exor's Half Year 2026 Results Conference Call. Please note that the presentation materials and the related press release are available for download on Exor's website, www.exor.com under the Investors and Media Financial Results section.

Any forward-looking statements made during this call are covered by the safe harbor statement included in the presentation material. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this conference is being recorded.

At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Exor's Chief Financial Officer, Guido De Boer. Sir, you may begin.

Thank you for opening this call, and welcome all to the half year 2026 results call for Exor. Two main highlights that we would like to present to you today. We announced last year that we will progress with simplifying our portfolio, and we've progressed at speed with doing that. The most sizable one, Iveco, you've followed closely where earlier in the half year, the sale of the defense business completed to Leonardo. Also a few weeks ago, Tata formally launched its tender offer for Iveco with closing to happen in 2 months.

Also during the period, we completed the divestments of GEDI, Lifenet and NUO. I'm pleased to tell you that last days, we signed an agreement to sell our stake in Welltec, where we've owned the company through a business cycle, managing to run that business in a very well way with a price which will be substantially in line with what we put in our fair value balance sheet, which returned a MOIC of 2.4x, and we expect that to close in the first half 2027.

That leaves us in an extremely strong position in turbulent times and leaves us in a good position to benefit from those turbulent times with a balance sheet that is extremely solid with EUR 4 billion of deployable cash approximately. To give you the bridge of that, we started the year of EUR 1.4 billion of cash. The proceeds from these divestments and some other divestments like reinsurance vehicles and distributions from venture arm deliver around EUR 2.7 billion of proceeds.

Then with some net cash inflow from dividends and some capital calls we make for Lingotto, we'll end up with approximately EUR 4 billion of cash, of which we'll use EUR 0.5 billion in the buyback to execute in 6 months, and we'll speak a bit further about that later.

Moving on to the key figures. During the period, our NAV declined by EUR 1.2 billion. We'll go into the detailed sources of changes from. While our loan-to-value strengthened quite a bit, obviously, with the increase in cash position. NAV per share fundamentally moved in line with our NAV as we did not buy back in the period. Our total shareholder return was below that because of the widening of discount journey.

Composition of our portfolio changed on a few important items. Ferrari strengthened a bit from 32% to 34%. An important mover was CNH as well with a very strong performance in the period moved from 8% to 10% and obviously, also cash up to 6% during the period. If we then move to the breakdown of the change in GAV. There's a lot of numbers on this slide. The key one that explains the performance in this period is the change in value of listed company.

We'll break down all the other buckets in detail. We want to be extremely transparent and show you all the levers of performance. We'll dive into that a bit further, but all of them led in the period, an increase from cash and cash equivalents from EUR 1.4 billion to EUR 2.2 billion, as mentioned, from EUR 300 million of investments largely behind the commitment Lingotto, around EUR 0.5 billion of disposals, the dividend we did and in other changes, EUR 676 million is the dividend inflow that we had less expenses.

If we then move to the core bucket of investments that we have are listed companies. There you see the key driver of our performance was a strong decline in the share price of Stellantis during the period. The other 3 big companies all performed well with a notable mention for CNH. Iveco seems like a weak performer here. I would like to note that they distributed EUR 427 million of special dividend following the divestment of Leonardo. So for TSR, they show a strong green performance. We then present Clarivate were weak during the period.

Via Transportation, which recently IPO-ed and they showed the similar trends of many U.S. tech companies that IPO-ed and weakened and have now since rebounded and is underlying strong results. If we then move on to unlisted companies, we disposed in the period GEDI and Nuo. After the period, we also sold Lifenet and Welltec, as I just mentioned. In total, around EUR 900 million of reduction of these unlisted companies and shifting more to a listed portfolio.

The change in value, you see Institut Merieux, we'll speak later also about the direct holding in bioMerieux because the change in value of Institut Merieux largely driven change of the listed bioMerieux.

Then moving to Lingotto and others. The intersection fund declined by EUR 370 million approximately. You might recall that last year, they went up EUR 1.2 billion. This is a logical volatility that we have in the market and I'm very confident given that they've never had a down year before, and they also drive to positive in these months. Lingotto Horizon was a good positive surprise where they have one investment in their portfolio, which saw a unicorn round and because we're one of the early investors that shows a very nice uplift value of that portfolio and the others moved steadily during that period.

The investments we did were existing commitments for Horizon Innovation and Mosaic, and we invested in a very promising new hedge fund talent that's starting a new hedge fund with capital of EUR 200 million that's deployed in this period. Then we have the bucket of other assets, which before -- at the start of the period amounted to EUR 2.3 billion. We've been disposing quite a bit of assets in that category as well, and that's an ongoing process we plan to do.

Key proceeds in the funds managed by third parties were EUR 55 million of reinsurance vehicles still left over from the PartnerRe disposal and EUR 38 million of distributions from Ora Global, the former Exor Ventures. Other assets were loans extended to GEDI and as part of the sale of GEDI were also. On the changes in value, also on the venture capital arm, they've made investments in some of the early AI companies, both in AI business themselves as well as in infrastructure. These all look to be unicorn investments, and that's driving a strong upward revision of the valuation of Ora Global.

Listed companies down by EUR 237 million, EUR 180 million of that is related to bioMerieux and also Forvia on the back of the weakness in automotive, like I mentioned earlier. Stellantis was down 50% -- 60% the majority of change. That's for -- of the performance of our portfolio. I'm gladly answering questions. As I mentioned, the change in cash and cash equivalents, the breakdown I showed you at a high level before, EUR 861 million of dividends. We received a bit more of dividends, but we chose to take half of the dividend of Philips in shares, but that you won't see here in the cash and cash equivalents, but that explains the bridge between dividends and the dividend actually received.

The disposals you see here that we just mentioned, investments and shareholder distributions equal dividends in this period. Given our sizable cash position, we also repaid one of our private placements just to make sure we treat our investment interest returns as efficiently as possible, and these borrowings were carrying a higher interest rate than our cash position. That's why we repaid debt ending with EUR 2.2 billion of cash last year.

On the debt side, not much to report as I like it, being prudent on our debt position. So we have a debt position of EUR 3.7 billion, in line with what we had last year. You maybe see a bit of movement in other financial liabilities of EUR 140 million. That's just the timing of an FX transaction we did, which started at the end of the period and completed on the first day of July. That accounting entry, the bottom line number is EUR 3.7 billion.

We have no redemptions anymore in 2026 nor in 2027. So in these turbulent times on the debt capital markets, fully funded on that side and first redemption to follow in 2028 with a very well spread out maturity profile for the coming next 12 years.

That said on the debt side. Let me now turn to the capital allocation decision we took in the Board yesterday, doing a EUR 500 million on-market buyback, and we'll execute that in the next 6 months. You'll see also in the announcement that we are very explicit that both because the shares trade at a substantial discount to our NAV and don't reflect our assessment of the intrinsic value of our portfolio, we made this decision.

We also said before, we do this because it's at a substantial discount as our NAV because we feel that this is a good resource allocation, investing at our portfolio, which we like at half of the cost is an investment that makes a lot of sense. We also chose to make the statement a bit stronger because I think we're actually in a triple whammy situation of the discount is at a very high level, 56% is a long time that we reached that. Our companies are at depressed levels, and we have a cash position that is well utilized.

We feel this is part of our toolbox, but also a part of our ongoing toolbox that we continuously evaluate to do. It's not an opportunistic transaction, and we also chose not to do this as a tender offer, but an on-market program, which has started today and which will continue until the full year results in 6 months. It's important for us because we are committed to driving NAV per share growth as we've already done, outperforming both on an absolute and relative basis. As I mentioned, buybacks are and will remain a critical part of our [ commitment ].

So with those closing remarks, I would love to hand it over to Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] First question is from Alberto Villa from Intermonte.

I have actually 2. One is related to the situation at Stellantis. There is a plan and a recovery expected in the fourth quarter and the coming years, but the situation in terms of cash of the company has deteriorated. So I was wondering if there is a scenario in which Stellantis might need to raise cash. What is the position of Exor as a shareholder on that?

I've read there is a lot of commitment in the report on some investments like Ferrari and so on. I was wondering what is the commitment on Stellantis. The second question is on the performance of Lingotto was very positive last year, not so positive this year. I was wondering if there is any specific reason behind that.

Thanks, Alberto, for these good questions. On Stellantis, we fully endorse the plan that has been announced by the management, and we're very confident in the execution of it. It's an uncertain market. How they'll do on their cash position and the capital increase, I am not aware of any of those plans and honestly also not really a question I can answer. These are more topics to raise to Stellantis management. No view on these topics.

Lingotto, I think no particular reason. The performance last year was very strong on the back of the hedge fund. Hedge funds have volatility, and we are very happy as a long-term investor to embrace volatility if the long-term performance is great. This fund has returns since inception, I think an IRR of 24%. Calculate those numbers since 2018, a stellar performance. If there is a blip in 1 month, there's no concern at all. This is the volatility that's inherent with such a strategy.

For Intersection, that's just par for the course for the type of strategy that it is. I was very encouraged to see the strong performance of Horizon. Horizon is a fund that invests in private investments. It's now fully invested in monetization period. That's usually the moment where you start seeing the large value step-ups and seeing our investors at Lingotto delivering on this is very encouraging. I hope this answers your question, Alberto.

Okay. If I can, an additional one. You performed various divestments in the first half of 2026 and also afterwards. I was wondering if there is any opportunity for further divestments between your listed and unlisted companies.

Yes. We're always evaluating our portfolio and mentioned that in previous calls. We always look at all of our investments. We are long-term investors. So we're not going to invest on divestment and so, but we always look at are we the best owner of these businesses for the long-term? Or is there a good opportunity. So that's always the case, and I hope you understand. I give a generic answer rather than a specific one. But you've seen that we've been very action oriented.

We will now take our next question. This is from Jon Perez from Kepler Cheuvreux.

Jon Perez from Kepler Cheuvreux. Just one question from me on portfolio construction in the context of the next investment. So the press release mentioned about EUR 4 billion of cash ready to be deployed. In the past, I think I recall the sectors that were mentioned were health care, luxury and tech.

I would be keen to hear about how you think of portfolio construction considering the rest of the current portfolio and whether there are specific thematics that you would be happy to get exposure to with your next investment, how you think about long-term moat in the current environment and whether there are specific risk factors that you would like to avoid? And any clue on the time line would be welcome as well.

Thank you, Jon, for these thoughtful questions. Portfolio construction is obviously a critical part of what we do. During PartnerRe disposal, we said these are the 3 sectors. There are still sectors that we like a lot and where we have a lot of domain expertise and we know where the hidden gems are hidden. But it doesn't mean that we'll only invest in these sectors. What we're primarily looking at is large listed companies in which we can acquire a shareholding of 15% to 20% for an investment of at least EUR 2 billion, EUR 2 billion being approximately 5% of our gross asset.

The thinking of that is we want to have the right level of diversification in our portfolio at 5% if an investment makes an impact. So that's why we have a lower threshold of EUR 2 billion for the investments. But it's largely in listed companies where we have then an influence similar as we have in our other listed companies. It's what can we contribute as a shareholder, being an active shareholder where we can add value either in turbulent times to offer long-term stability to the company or in companies that go very well, but need a shareholder also to keep the management sharp and driving long-term portfolio. That's overall what we look at.

Then we look at individual sectors where there's a structural tailwinds and within those sectors, companies that have a right to win and where there's also a fit with the ownership structure that we do any way we drive value creation. That's, in general, our philosophy around searching for the next large entity. We are patient shareholders, but we're also patient investors.

As I mentioned in my opening, these are quite turbulent times and turbulent times bring opportunities for [indiscernible]. We are not in a rush to deploy. It is about finding the right company at the right price at the right time. I will not give any timing on when we envisage the next investment. Obviously, sooner rather than later. Obviously, we want to deploy capital, but we are patient to wait for the right thing. I hope that answered your questions, Jon.

We will now take our next question. Next question is from Filippe Goossens from Degroof Petercam.

Actually, I have 2 today, if I may. The first one, maybe building on the previous question in terms of portfolio composition. And my question is specifically with regard to concentration risk. So today, if we look at Ferrari, it's about 39% of your GAV. So that's -- it's your largest position. And you have always positioned the Ferrari investment, and I fully concur with that as a luxury brand. It's not a car manufacturer, which is good today because we all know the challenges that the car industry is facing. So it's a luxury brand that has performed very well for you.

But at 38%, I wonder how you feel about that 38% because if you look at some other players in the luxury brand segment today, LVMH, Hermes, if we had said at the beginning of the year, these companies could be down almost 40% in market cap year-to-date, we would never have believed it. So it's a great brand. It's a luxury brand, but it's 38% of your portfolio. How do you think about that? If you could kind of walk us through that in terms of how you evaluate that at the Board meetings. I just would love to understand that a little bit more, if you could help me here.

Great and did you have another question or was this?

Yes. The second question, Guido. So in the letter from your Chairman or CEO Elkann, was a reference made to an approval reached with Philips, which would open the way to a potential increase in your stakeholding. If you maybe can just kind of elaborate a little bit on that. I would imagine that would be within the constraints of what you just shared before, meaning large listed companies between 15% and 20%. Does it fit within that context that we should look at that potential increase in the Philips stake?

Yes. No, I'll comment on that. Maybe to take that one. I think the renewal of the partnership with Philips is, I think, a testament to our investment working well and our partnership with the company working well as adding value to the governance as well. That has been evidenced also with the company opening up to increase our stake. Previously, we had a limit of 20% but now increased to 22%. It doesn't mean that there is any action now taken to increase that or it's imminent. But we have the opportunity, and we see that as a vote of trust from Philips that they value our ownership. I would say that, that is the key takeaway from that investment from that.

Okay. And that would happen -- Guido that would happen in the form of open market purchases if you were to decide to increase that? Or how do you look at the block trade or yes.

We have not decided anything on, if and when that will happen, but first if -- and then when we do it, we use whatever we need. But it's not [indiscernible]. The Ferrari I think it's a very good question. So maybe to repeat what I said following the block trade that we did on Ferrari at EUR 3 billion now 1.5 years ago. At that time, the concentration of Ferrari was reaching 50%. At 50% and also the multiples the company is trading, exactly what you were saying is a sizable risk. If half of our portfolio trades at this value and there's a potential for the share price to decline at such a level, it is prudent to reduce the cost.

That's what we've done at that time, and these were the considerations. At this moment, the multiple at which Ferrari trades is significantly below the multiple it was trading at when we did the transaction, so the 37% or 39% of GAV that it represents now is still far below the 50% and also the multiple is not the same level. It's not the same situation. But we always look at our portfolio from what is the upside, but also obviously the down side.

Yes. Very good. Maybe just a quick follow-on, if I may. In your search for attractive additional investment opportunities as you build out your portfolio, if the right transaction were to present itself and you don't have sufficient liquidity to do that transaction, would you be willing to consider monetizing part of your Ferrari investment so that you would basically kill 2 birds with one stone: one, raise the funds needed to make a very accretive transaction; and secondly, to reduce the concentration risk in the portfolio?

We are an investor, so we do what every investor does. If we see an attractive opportunity to invest in, we will do that and then we'll review our sources of funding. We first of all, obviously, if we have cash or still headroom on the debt side. And if we don't, and we really like the new opportunity more, then the least attractive one at that moment in our portfolio, we'll look to monetize something in our portfolio. That is an approach that is exactly similar as any investor does. We're not different there. But it's not that Ferrari though is on top of the list. We think Ferrari is an amazing company. We're very happy.

[Operator Instructions] We will now take the next question. This is from the line of Martino De Ambroggi from Equita.

The first is just a very quick clarification. The firepower of EUR 4 billion, this does not include the buyback, which is on top.

The firepower is EUR 4 billion. From that, you would deduct EUR 500 million for buyback. So after buyback, just EUR 3.5 billion.

Okay. Okay. So it's EUR 3.5 billion.

And by then, we're at the start of the year, so then we'll start getting dividend inflows again. That's basically the governance. So EUR 1.4 billion current cash, EUR 2.7 billion of expected cash inflows from disposals, around EUR 300 million of net free cash flow and EUR 300 million of commitments gets you to around EUR 4 billion, less EUR 500 million, that is EUR 3.5 billion [ committed ].

Okay. The second is a follow-up on what you commented in the past. So you are looking primarily but not only to health care, luxury and tech. In luxury, in your previous calls, you mentioned it is difficult to find something interesting. Are still these 3 sectors your main priority? Or as you mentioned, we are open to other opportunities, but as a secondary option or always looking at these 3?

No, we're very open to other sectors, and we're also actively considering other sectors, but with the same structural tailwinds, less correlated to the current part of our portfolio to also make sure we have diversification in business on a sector-wise and then finding companies that have opportunities for great returns within those sectors. We're not bound with those sectors at all, but we do have a great network and understanding of those. So we're definitely not limiting ourselves.

Okay. Looking back in the last 18 months, you had already had a very good firepower. So -- but nothing happened. So I remember you mentioned prudent and patient approach and so on. But is it because there is a lack of interesting opportunity because the prices are too high because you need better visibility on some of your assets, as you mentioned in the previous question, was Stellantis, the question mark for a needed eventual cash injection. So just to know what happened in the last 18 months if you bid for something that didn't materialize or there is lack of serious opportunities?

We did not miss any transactions. Look at Berkshire Hathaway and their cash position. Our firepower in that as a percentage much smaller, they're also very patient. I think this is a time where there will be many opportunities. It's an active choice of us not to deploy now. We have obviously potential targets. We continue to look for others, but we will remain very disciplined in putting our money to work because we invest for the long-term. So we try to find a good opportunity at a good price. I hope this is clear, Martino.

Yes, yes. And the last one on Lingotto. Is there any update on the strategy in terms of assets under management, third parties contributions and these kind of things?

No, no update here in the half year. But as I mentioned, we're very happy with the performance -- and principally, it's great that Lingotto grows assets under management because it gives some scale. As you might remember, because you've been around Exor for a long time, when we announced the start of Lingotto, we invest for returns. This is not about assets under management from third parties and creating management fee income. We want to make investment returns, and that's where Lingotto has been a very strong contributor to our overall returns. But as we always do in the full year, you will see more information on the overall side of the Lingotto.

And there are no further questions at this time. So I will now hand the conference back to Guido De Boer for any closing comments.

Nothing from my side, except for thanking you for being in this call and your time and looking forward to read about your views in the coming result reports. Thank you all, and please you know where to find myself, Maite and Nicolas in case of questions for the press side to join. Thank you very much, and have a nice day. Bye-bye.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.

Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Exor Investor and Analyst Call. Please note that the presentation is available to download on Exor website www.exor.com under the Investors and Media, Events & Presentations section.

Any forward-looking statements Exor management makes are covered by the safe harbor statement included in the presentation material. Please note that this conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions].

At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to your host, CEO, John Elkann. Please go ahead.

Good morning, good afternoon and good evening to all of you. Thank you for being here today with us. 2025 was a difficult year in many different ways for Exor and for our companies. But it also has been a year that has helped us be more focused and be more resilient, which enables us as a company to be better prepared for another difficult year, which will be 2026.

Today, we want to talk to you about our companies. We have less of them and we have more in health care. We want to speak to you about Lingotto who has reached a very important milestone in '25, reaching EUR 10 billion of assets under management driven by performance, which is exactly in line with our intentions of building an investment organization interested in performance, not in gathering assets. And finally, our financials that on the back of disposals have provided us with a strong balance sheet and also the opportunity in '25 of doing a large buyback of EUR 1 billion, which if you add to the ones that we've done in prior years taking into account our large discount has allowed us to buy up to close to 15% of our shares.

Our portfolio today reflects the latest disposal, which is JD, which we were able to conclude and the money got wired yesterday, and it reflects a Exor as we move towards '26, which would be one of less companies where we'll be able to focus particularly on our larger ones.

And that's where I'd like to proceed. And I'd like to start with Stellantis who has been the one that has encountered both external difficulties and internal difficulties in the course of '25. It is resetting itself and under the leadership of Antonio Filosa, it is addressing the many challenges that is confronted with, both externally but also internally.

We are getting to an important year in '26 with the Capital Markets Day, where Stellantis, end of May, will present its future, where it intends to be very clear about how it will improve as a company and make sure that it is and will remain one of the leaders in what is a defining industry.

Ferrari, on the other hand, has already spoke about its future in '25 in the Capital Markets Day, where it is committed to growing, but growing in a way in which the uniqueness of what it does continues to be unique. And '26 is a defining year with the launch of the Ferrari Luce, the first-ever electric car, which will also happen in the end of May with the third act of the launch that started at the Capital Markets Day presenting the technologies of the Ferrari Luce, which then had beginning of this year with the interiors and finally, the final car, end of May in Rome.

I would like now to pass to my colleague, Benoit, to speak to you about Philips, which is a company in which we continue to invest in '25. And today, is in terms of value, the second largest company for Exor.

Thank you, John. 2025 was the last year of the '23, '25 plan that we underwrote in 2023 when we invested in Philips for the first time. So it was good to see at the end of this plan, the company delivering a strong performance, a solid performance with, in particular, a strong margin expansion, which is the result of the ambitious reorganization and productivity plans that have been launched by the CEO, Roy Jakobs.

And second, we saw also in 2025, and it was long awaited a peak in the order intake after years of moderate growth and it was -- it is paving the way for a new momentum of the company. The stock price so far has not been following the performance. So we have decided to increase our stake last year to reach 90% -- 19% economic rights. Also, we were glad to see the company announcing earlier this year the new plan, the new 3-year plan for 2026, 2028, after a phase where the focus was on execution and on exiting the quality crisis of the Sleep and Respironics business. This is a renewed ambition for the company, which is now targeting mid-single-digit sales growth and mid-teens profit margin.

Of course, continuing the efforts that they launched on quality and productivity enhancement, but also accelerating in the delivery of new products fueled by AI and fueled by the high level of R&D that this company has always been part of. So we are a happy shareholder of Philips, and we are looking forward to seeing their next progresses.

Suzanne on CNH.

Thank you, Benoit. So CNH had a challenging year in 2025 because of the downturn in the agricultural market. exacerbated, of course, by some of the geopolitical events that have been going on as well as some of the changes in tariffs and that is expected to continue into 2026 as already communicated by the company.

At its Investor Day in May '25, CNH presented its path to 2030, and we think this is very important because it includes a number of different measures that will strengthen the company and enable it to come out of this downturn in a strong way.

One is expanding the margins of the company through the cycle. And an important part of that is addressing some of the quality issues that it needs to address within the company. It is also looking to launch a series of new products new technologies, in particular, those around precision farming, which, of course, are very, very important for our customers and also a focus on costs, in particular, supply costs for the organization.

The company has a lot to do, but it also has a lot to look forward to as it comes out of this cycle, given its tremendous lineup of products, both on the agriculture side and on the construction side, so we look forward to continuing to be a shareholder in the company.

I also want to take this moment to do an update on Iveco. This is an important moment for Iveco. Last year, we celebrated with Iveco the first 50 years of its history. And this -- and last year, we also agreed and are participating in 2 extraordinary transactions in relation to Iveco.

The first of these is the sale of Iveco Defence to Leonardo. This is the Iveco Defence business, and this transaction closed on March 18 with the expectation that the dividends will be distributed at the end of April. This transaction for Iveco Defence secures a future for the defense business within Iveco, secures a future for it now with Leonardo, which will give it increased scale. The remainder of the business, which is the trucks, buses and engines business will be combined with Tata Motors through a tender offer, which we're expecting to close at the end of the second quarter. The total valuation of both of these transactions will be EUR 5.3 billion.

I want to take this moment to thank the 2 CEOs that have led Iveco through the period since it was spun out of CNH back in 2022, Gerrit Marx and Olof Persson, and of course, their management teams as well. We wish all parts of the Iveco business, a very successful next 50 years within their new ownership.

I now pass back to John.

Thank you, Suzanne, and it's also the opportunity for me to thank the leadership team and all their colleagues at Iveco and wish Iveco an important journey ahead as it opens for the new future with Leonardo and Tata.

Coming back to Exor, if we look at our unlisted companies, they delivered mixed results. The good news is that our bigger companies in terms of value have performed better than our smaller ones. Welltec had an extraordinary year, while Shang Xia continued to have a difficult year. We expect the overall companies that we have as unlisted to present themselves in '26 with strong plans ahead and continuing to do in aggregate well.

I would like now to speak about Lingotto which had a very important year in 2025. Lingotto was founded in '23 to really converge all the different investment activities that we were doing in partnering and directly in Exor. We now no longer have any investments outside of our companies, which are the ones in which we are involved in their governance. And everything we do outside will be carried forward within the investment strategies of Lingotto who today are 4.

Of these 4, the one that has performed the best is the intersection fund led by Matteo Scolari and the overall aggregate returns of the 4 strategies have allowed ingot to reach USD 10 billion under management. What is encouraging is this has been driven by performance and what was really -- it was really what we expected when we founded Lingotto an organization, an investment management organization where the principle is what the organization cares about. And investing is what they do in order to grow through performance rather than gathering assets.

The good news is on the interest of specific parties, which we've been very selective in allowing to invest alongside us, the quality of the investors and also the quality of what their mandate is, of which most are linked to societal causes are encouraging to see how we have alongside us very capable investors which invest for important causes.

I would like now to pass it to Guido to walk you through our financials.

Thank you, John. So on this slide, we recap what John, Suzanne and Benoit mentioned previously. So our NAV per share started the year at EUR 178 the biggest movers in a negative sense were 3 of our largest companies, Ferrari, Stellantis and CNH contributing in total for a EUR 25 per share decline in our NAV per share. This was partly offset by decent performance of our other companies, as John just highlighted, an outstanding performance at Lingotto, going up 40% in the year. And in addition, we invested EUR 1 billion in buybacks at over a 50% discount which contributed EUR 4.7 per share, and EUR 2.5 per share. So overall, we ended at EUR 164.4, so down for the year.

If we look at our objectives, which are twofold. The first one is a relative performance metric where we look at NAV per share versus MSCI World Index. And the second one is an absolute performance measure, total shareholder return. So to first go to the relative one. In 2024, we actually had a pretty good year at 9% NAV per share growth at a very challenging benchmark, where the Magnificent 7 did great in the MSCI went up by 25%.

2025, we actually had a much easier comparable because those similar 7 companies did not perform as well. but we actually declined in NAV per share, as I just showed you. And on the back of an increase in the discount, our total shareholder return is below our NAV per share growth.

So then moving to the measures that we track every year to make sure we operate in an efficient and disciplined way. The first one we track is free cash flow over dividend. As a measure of the financial health that we have in terms of cash flows. That is still at a very healthy level at almost 6x, notwithstanding a decline in the dividend of Stellantis.

Management cost over GAV. So an indication of how efficiently we manage our overhead is world-class it went up largely driven by the decrease in GAV increasing it as a percentage. And also loan-to-value which measures how aggressively we are levered is down to 6.9%, notwithstanding the reduction in GAV. And that's primarily because we realized EUR 3 billion of proceeds from the sale of Ferrari shares. We reinvested that partially, but we also increased our cash position. So we're in a healthy place there.

So if we look at our balance sheet, which is critical in these turbulent times, we are very strong. So our loan-to-value ratio is at 6.9%. Our bond maturities are very well spread out. We refinanced EUR 600 million in 2025. And now that has a maturity in 2035. We have a payment coming up of $170 million of a private placement, which we can finance out of our cash position. And on top of this low repayment requirement in the coming years, we have a EUR 1.1 billion credit facility, which we extended and doubled in the year. and we have a EUR 1.4 billion cash position as of December 2025. So in a very healthy position indeed.

So these are the financial slides that I would like to present, and I want to hand over to John for the concluding slides.

Thank you, Guido. We entered '26 with momentum. We have to complete the transactions that we have announced. On the back of those, as Guido mentioned, we will have been strengthening our balance sheet with close to EUR 3 billion additional resources. And if we look at the returns of what we have been divesting, we're speaking about 1.4x on cost.

Now in moments like the ones we are living, which are uncertain times, what is key is to have liquidity and preserve capital. So we feel that having close to EUR 4 billion, as we conduct and conclude the transactions that I described puts Exor in a very strong position in an uncertain moment of time.

I would like to conclude by giving you which are the priorities that we have as a company. We want to focus and focus particularly on our larger companies because that's where we believe the greatest value is. We want to continue to simplify our portfolio by conducting to closure the transactions that we have announced and continue to divest from our other assets. And we are committed to a strong balance sheet, which is even more valuable in moments like the ones we are living and be ready to deploy capital with discipline when the time is right.

I would like to thank you all for your commitment. I would like to thank you all for believing in Exor. We realize that '25 was a difficult year on the back of a difficult year that '24 was. We are also very aware that the environment in which we find ourselves is uncertain in '26 but we do feel that the last 2 years have strengthened us and we enter this difficult year stronger than we were in the last 2 years. This is why I wanted to conclude with the quote that I have at the end of our letter which I deeply believe is one of the strengths that we have as an organization.

Thank you, and we look forward to answering your many questions.

[Operator Instructions]. We are now going to proceed with our first question. And the questions come from the line of Monica Bosio from Intesa Sanpaolo.

Good morning, everyone, and good afternoon, everyone. I have basically 2, 3 questions. The first one is, obviously, cash is king in this tough environment. But maybe should we assume that no deal will be announced across the entire 2026 and that the time frame will be longer. And the last conference call, the company clearly stated its interest for 3 main sectors, the health care, the luxury and the technology with no clear priority. Are still the sector where the company wants to invest or maybe something else changed in the selection list.

And another question is on deployment of the cash. Following the EUR 1 billion buyback in 2025. I was wondering if the company is willing to execute another buyback program in the future? And if yes, could the buyback be taken into consideration jointly with the new investments? Or could it be considered only in case no significant investments opportunities arise?

[Foreign Language]. Monica, those were all incredible questions. The timing is really linked to making sure that we find the opportune investment. And I think that in times like the ones we're living on one side, one needs to be prudent. On the other side, one needs to be patient. And we want to make sure that we are sufficiently patient to capture the best possible opportunity.

In terms of interest of sectors, we remain convinced that the sectors that you mentioned are interesting sectors, technology, luxury and health care with interesting valuations. But we also think that we should be open to other sectors and not preclude ourselves better opportunities if we were to find them. We also think that the companies that we own within the sectors in which we're present remain interesting, which is the reason why we have deployed money in '25 in Philips and bioMérieux. And if you add our investment in Institut Mérieux plus bioMérieux is de facto our fifth largest investment today. So the fifth most largest company if you combine Institut Mérieux with bioMérieux.

In terms of buyback, as I mentioned, we have been aggressively buying back shares, EUR 2.5 billion in the last years, which is approximately close to 15% of our capital. and with wider discounts, which we look at very favorably because they are the opportunity to do buybacks, which is a way to invest in ourselves are opportunities that, of course, we will continue to look and look with discipline.

As of now, we believe that, as you said, cash is king, and it is a moment where making sure that we do have a fortress balance sheet is important. And that is also the case for our companies. we believe that our companies are all with very strong balance sheets, which is the most important thing when you do enter in uncertain times as we have learned in the past. So as much as I feel bad about '24 and '25, I also realize that they have helped us both at Exor and our companies to enter these uncertain times much stronger.

We are now going to proceed with our next question, and the question comes from the line of Martino De Ambroggi from Equita SIM.

You must be happy about Iveco.

No. Not anymore. The first question is on Lingotto. Could you elaborate on what is the strategy going ahead? And I don't know if it's possible just to have a fair value, current fair value, considering what happened in the past few weeks in the market turmoil. I don't know if you have an indication you can provide.

The second is on the additional divestitures because if I understood correctly, you were talking about more divestitures. Is there any clue on what could be a moving part going ahead? And third, I know I repeat basically every year the same question, but now it's quite a long time with a discount to net asset value, well in excess of 50% and this morning, even much, much higher. What are the 3 main reasons justifying such a high discount in your view? Just to have a very -- your personal impression.

And last, the environment is getting worse and worse. Could you provide us an update on your view on the Stellantis environment and risks considering what is going to happen?

There's a lot of questions. So Lingotto, the strategy is very much the one that was stated in the letter that I wrote as the founder of Lingotto in '23. So this is an organization that wants to attract exceptional investors and make sure that they can do what they love, which is investing. We have 4 distinct strategies, as we have described in the past, and those remain consistent with what the strategies are. which allows us to have a diversified sets of strategies, which are different from what we do directly as Exor and it allows the right discipline also being able to have selectively third-party capital from, as I mentioned before, very solid investors.

In terms of the recent events, we don't comment on where we stand on mark-to-market. And if you look at the opportunity of the discount, we actually have viewed that in a positive way because it has allowed us to buy back shares as we've done in the past. I think that it is important to stress that in moments of uncertainty, you're better off being patient than rushing, which is why for any capital allocation. Is it in buying our own companies investing more in Lingotto strategies, investing in a new company or doing buybacks? We remain prudent but studious of what would be the different alternatives.

Stellantis was able to raise through an hybrid issuance which increased already a strong balance sheet and the overall execution that is being carried forward is on the right track. Giving today any further information on Stellantis is not desirable because we are, as you know, in end of May, we will be assisting to the Capital Markets Day of Stellantis. Thank you, Luigi.

We are now going to proceed with our next question. And the questions come from the line of Luuk Van Beek from Degroof Petercam.

Yes, I have 2 questions. So first of all, have you reviewed your portfolio for the potential impact of higher energy prices and any other things that are happening in the world to see the exposure and the risk level? And the second question is on the discount to NAV. Do you consider to take any measures other than just executing the strategy and delivering and testing on that reducing the discount?

Energy prices is premature to actually see the inflationary pressures. But that is definitely something that our companies are working actively in understanding the inflationary pressures that are happening and what type of impact that would have on some of their cost structure. We believe that the discount is actually an opportunity, and that's something that we have been able to capture in the past.

We are now going to proceed with our next question. And the questions come from the line of Alberto Villa from Intermonte SIM.

Actually, First of all, congratulations for the annual report. It is very clear and very nice also to read. So congratulations to the team. And secondly, going back to Lingotto, it's now more than 11% of your GAV thanks to the performance and looking at the composition of the investments. The vast majority, 70% is the intersection strategy. So the public investments that had a great 2025. I was wondering if in the future, you expect to maybe take advantage of the performance to reduce a little bit the exposure to Lingotto or maybe to mix a little bit more into the to shift a little bit more into the other strategies and how you feel about private markets? So there has been a lot of rumors about the outlook for these asset classes, especially in the U.S. So wondering if you want to share with us your thoughts on that.

Thank you. And I will, with Guido, convey your message on our annual report. There was a lot of work in doing it. So our colleagues will be very happy that you appreciated it.

Lingotto is made of different strategies. We had committed in '22 on the back of the disposal of PartnerRe, EUR 6.5 billion, which had been divided EUR 5 billion into 1 large investment and into 3 to 5 smaller investments. And we executed that with Philips being the large investments and LifeNet, TagEnergy, Clarivate and Institut Mérieux being 4 smaller investment, whilst EUR 1.5 billion would have been deployed in investments, which back then were Lingotto strategies and ventures, and that has been done.

We've also said that as we would be realizing the investment in what used to be Exor Ventures now managed by Ora, we would be recycling it within the strategies of Lingotto. The actual exercise that we do internally the portfolio review is exactly meant on one side to try and see how we think about what we own and the opportunity ahead.

As of now, we're not considering allocating more capital to Lingotto strategies, but equally, we're not considering reducing our exposure to Lingotto strategy.

Any thoughts about the private markets situation?

In credit?

Yes.

Luckily, we're not exposed to the credit market, and we are increasing our net cash position the actual environment, as you know, is very tight.

We are now going to proceed with our next question. And the questions come from the line of [ Nicola Gude from Alexco Capital ].

Sorry to come back to the discount theme. But I mean the discount today is such that the shares are at [ 0.44 ] on the dollar, which means if you invest $100 in your share, it's $125 of value and actually probably much more because the shares are depressed in the portfolio, too. And so obviously, compared to that, it's a high bar for the acquisition of a new company. And I guess, is there room to do both in the sense you're mentioning a firepower of $2.5 billion for an acquisition. But why not return, say, $1 billion here and now and then do a $2.5 billion acquisition or something along those lines? Why is there any -- why can't both be done at the same time, I guess, because that would certainly go a long way to create NAV per share, which is the objective at the end for shareholders.

So as I mentioned, we haven't committed to no allocation as we speak. What we have committed to is to make sure that we have a strong balance sheet, and we have liquidity. As it pertains to how we will invest it everything is open, and we will make sure that we will be disciplined in how we proceed.

[Operator Instructions]. We are now going to proceed with our next question. And the questions come from the line of Andrea Balloni from Mediobanca.

I have a couple. First one is on the potential share buyback. I understand the reason why this year, you are pretty cautious. What could trigger a different decision from a macro standpoint over the rest of the year? What would you consider to be a potential positive catalyst or trigger to start eventually a share buyback program?

And my second question is on the potential investment that you are considering. You have mentioned a relevant size and also a material stake that may be taken by Exor. Yet, are you scouting among listed companies such as in the case of Philips or should we expect an investment in private companies?

Those are very good questions. On the first one, Today, we have compounding uncertainties. We have uncertainties around the overall commerce that has been triggered by changes between tariffs and regulations. We have uncertainties linked to conflicts that are happening in different parts of the world. We have uncertainties linked to markets that are moving in different directions. And finally, we have uncertainties on the deployment of a substantial new technology, which is AI, which has the power of fire or electricity, hence going to impact in many ways, the way in which companies operate, both in what they do and how they do it.

So this is an environment in which we believe that it's important to be prudent and patient in order to really make sure that we can take the best out of it and I remain optimistic about the future of Exor and our companies and in some ways, having had to go through very difficult internal and external situations in the course of '24 and '25 equipped us well to what is ahead.

In terms of what are we looking for, we believe that Philips is a good example of the type of companies that Exor would be a good owner of. And that is a function of 3 things. One size we have said last year that we'd like to deploy more than 5% in one company.

Second, we think that public markets offer interesting opportunities. And we believe that companies that have a large shareholder or a reference shareholder empirically have proven to perform better within their industry or within an index.

And third, we think that the opportunity of sectors where some of these changes that we were describing before, can lead to improvement in these companies. Our role factors that we think describe Philips as a good example. And as of now, we have been, as Benoit mentioned, been very happily involved and the outcomes so far have been good for the company and for Exor.

And a follow-up, please. Would you consider to invest a part of this fire power in some of the investments you already have in the portfolio? I'm thinking about Stellantis, Ferrari and other companies, which had a very bad trend recently. I was wondering if you might consider to increase your stake.

As I mentioned before, that's a very good question, and that's why today making firm commitments of capital where is where I'd like to be prudent and patient because where would we invest we'd invest in our companies. We know them well. That's what we did last year in Philips and bioMérieux. We would invest in Lingotto strategies. As of now, I said, there's no intention in doing that. We would invest in new opportunities and new Philips or we would be investing in ourselves through a buyback which, as most of you have told us, is definitely very attractive, and we would agree with that. And we think that the bigger the discount is, the more attractive it is. And we have been quite deliberate and decisive in doing that over the last years.

So today, we want to make sure about 2 things. One, are we equipped Exor and our companies to go through turbulent times. We believe so. Secondly, are we sufficiently patient to try and understand what is happening in order to be able to underwrite within those 4 possible allocations of capital, what is the one where we as an organization and a Board feel that, that's the best usage of capital, which we want to be disciplined in doing in the best interest of our shareholders.

Thank you.

This concludes the question-and-answer session on the phone. I will now hand over for the written questions.

So we have a question from ING, which is about the economics of our investment in Lingotto and how Exor benefit -- how it -- benefits. I will pass it to Guido.

Thank you, John. So we are an investor in ingot Lotos funds. So through that fund, we receive the returns after performance fees. What helps us is that we also own the asset manager, we have co-investors in Covéa and many others that help share the cost of the infrastructure. So in that way, it makes for us a very efficient way to invest behind some of the most talented investors in the world. So I hope that answers your question.

There were some follow-up questions from another person on the assets under management for Lingotto. Would you like to take that? Or shall I -- so I wouldn't say that there is a maximum in terms of assets under management for Lingotto as a whole. For individual strategies, there are and they're depending on the type of strategy.

For us, what is key is that like John mentioned earlier, the objective for Lingotto not to be an asset gatherer, but an investment manager that delivers outstanding performance. So we will be very cautious that we don't grow the capital too much that it goes at the expense of performance. So that is maybe a bit more philosophical answer, but I think that is critical behind our thinking on assets under management for Lingotto.

So those were the questions that we had on the webcast. If there's nothing else or I don't know if you want to make any further remarks, John.

Thank you, Guido. Thank you all, and we'll make sure to make '26 the best possible year out of very uncertain and difficult circumstances. Thank you.

Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.

Welcome, everyone, to the half year -- Welcome, and thank you for joining Exor's Half Year 2025 Results Conference Call. Please note that the presentation materials and the related press release are available for download on Exor's website, www.exor.com under the Investor and Media Financial Results section and any forward-looking statements made during this call are covered by the safe harbor statement included in the presentation material. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this conference is being recorded.

At this time, I would like to turn the conference to Exor's Chief Financial Officer, Guido de Boer. Sir, you may now begin.

Fantastic. Thank you for this introduction, and happy to have this half year results call. And as you'll see in the new format of our half year report. I hope that gave good insights, and I want to take you through the highlights in this presentation.

So our NAV per share outperformed the MSCI World Index by about 5%, largely aided by the EUR 1 billion buyback. Companies did well, but a mixed bag of performance across the different companies, which we'll address a bit later. We're particularly pleased with the performance of Lingotto performing with an 11% increase, mainly from the public investment part in the backdrop of the declining market.

And this half year saw us monetizing EUR 3 billion of Ferrari stake as well as some other items leaving us with good firepower to monetize, to invest in the future. And it leaves us with a very healthy debt ratio at 5.5% of our GAV.

So moving to the key figures at the half year. Our gross asset value went down by EUR 2.5 billion, partly from value changes, partly from the buyback and our NAV moved in line with that, while our NAV per share saw an increase and our loan-to-value, as mentioned, is more or less half than what it was at the end of 2024.

So our NAV per share growth went up by 0.9%, and 3.2% of that growth is attributed to our buyback, given that we buy back our own shares at a discount the positive impact on NAV compared to the number of shares that we reduce is delivering this growth. So even ex buyback, our portfolio has done better than the MSCI World index.

And this is an important measure because we want to outperform relative to the index. We also want to show absolute returns. And in that sense, obviously, we're disappointed that our TSR, even though better than the market is negative, and we aim to improve that in the coming period.

So if we move to the overview, I first would like to present to you a new classification. And rest assured, I don't want to make a habit of this so that you need to change your models all the time. This was actually intended to provide you further insight and probably also ease for building your models. Given that Exor Ventures is now managed by an external investor. We moved that to the other funds moved by third parties into others.

And you really see separately the performance of Lingotto, which are the funds operating under our own management. And we thought it's useful not to group cash and cash equivalents under others but show separately also, if you want to look at a net debt basis to facilitate your analysis. So hope it's helpful. And if you have any comments or suggestions or requests for historical data, please feel free to reach out to the Investor Relations team.

So if we then move to the drivers of change in gross asset value in this new format and maybe starting on the right-hand side, you see the change that I mentioned previously of a GAV of EUR 42.5 billion to EUR 40 billion, which split in EUR 1.1 billion of shareholder distributions, around EUR 100 million of dividends and EUR 1 billion of buybacks. So it's a decrease of GAV, but not necessarily reflective of performance, adjusted capital distribution. And you see EUR 1.4 billion decrease in value, which is the real metric of our performance on GAV.

If we then move one column to the left, cash and cash equivalents. Here, you can see well the movement in our cash flow, where we've invested EUR 1 billion in new investments. We realized EUR 3.5 billion of disposals and obviously, the EUR 1.1 billion in distributions. So if we take the EUR 1 billion in investments, you'll see and we'll go into more detail later. EUR 4378 million went into listed companies, principally Philips and a minor part in Juventus and then a bit in commitments on Lingotto and EUR 428 million in others, which we invested in bioMérieux.

The disposals line for EUR 3.5 billion breaks up quite simply in EUR 3 billion for Ferrari and almost EUR 0.5 million of proceeds from the reinsurance fee costs that we invested in as part of the sale of PartnerRe. Now we have the line change in value, which I propose we address in a bit more detail in the following slides.

So performance of listed companies. I mentioned already the investments behind Philips, Juventus and the disposal of Ferrari. If you then look in the change in value, you basically see that the change in value of Ferrari is marginal, where it started on the first of January and where it landed on the 30th of June. We were quite lucky in our timing that we did the trade at the all-time high in that period, but a very flat movement in between start and the end of the period.

CNH, a similar story, and we measure our returns in euros and in euros, it was flat, notwithstanding a strong movement between the dollar and the euro. The big driver of the decrease in value was the disappointing share price movement of Stellantis as well as that of Philips, which started the year a bit above EUR 24 was at the half year at EUR 20 and now ranges around EUR 24 again. So the good thing is the EUR 700 million of loss has rebounded in the year-to-date, large.

And then obviously, the positive news in the half year was also the strategic transaction on Iveco which in the run-up to that transaction led to a significant increase in the share price. And that is a monetization for Exor at a very attractive price, as well as a good home for Iveco for the future is that the pending transaction will complete in 2026.

So those are the key moves in listed companies. If we then move to unlisted companies. We had some smaller investments between -- behind Via Transportation where there was some shares available ahead of the IPO. And I'm happy to say that following the successful IPO on NYSE last week, we'll move Via to the listed companies in the following reporting and some existing commitments we have on TagEnergy and ShangXia.

And you'll see the movement in value, where the largest ones Institut Mérieux on the back of the increase in share price of bioMérieux, Via Transportation based on its strong performance. Welltec and The Economist actually largely FX movements and the other amounts are relatively smaller.

So if we then move to Lingotto and others. You see we invested in private strategies around EUR 166 million. And you see a very strong performance of the public investments, notwithstanding the equity capital markets in general, declining. So we're very happy with how the Lingotto funds deliver returns, which are less correlated to the rest of the portfolio and outperforming the market.

We then move to others. There, you see funds managed by third parties. So that also now includes Exor Ventures. And it was also including the reinsurance vehicles where you see the half billion of disposals. So we're quite positive.

The funds are doing quite well. The minus EUR 72 million is actually EUR 427 million negative FX and both Exor Ventures as well as the reinsurance vehicles in local currency have been performing well. In listed securities, you see, again, the investment of EUR 317 million in bioMérieux and the change in value is largely due to the decline in share price of Neumora and smaller investment that we've done in the past. And I think those are the main items to highlight in Others.

So Cash and Cash Equivalents, I largely mentioned this previously, we had strong dividend inflows of EUR 624 million, of which we distributed again EUR 1.1 billion to our shareholders. We raised disposals between EUR 0.5 billion, which we reinvested for EUR 1 billion, and we repaid bank debt for EUR 547 million and a bit of a bond, which leads us to a cash position now of EUR 1.5 billion, which is obviously very, very healthy.

And that's in line with gross debt that, as I mentioned, with the reduction in bank debt and the bonds now stands at EUR 3.5 billion rather than the EUR 4.1 billion at year-end. And as you know of us, we try to have a very stable maturity profile. So we have no cliff payments and on the short-term obligations that we have here can easily be filled out of our cash positions.

So with that brief summary, I would like to open the floor to Q&A. So over to you at the operator.

[Operator Instructions]. We will now take the first question from the line of Monica Bosio from Intesa Sanpaolo.

I have three. First of all, on the future investments. My perception is that maybe the group priorities are more on the health care side. Or do you see real true opportunities in the luxury segments? I'm just wondering because in the last conference, the company didn't see real opportunities in the luxury segment.

And the second question is on the size of the potential acquisitions. The press speculated a lot on this. Any comment from you on this side? And do you have any time horizon for the completion of the new investments?

And the very last is not only investments but mainly on disposal, should we expect in the coming future, some other disposal on top of [ Lifenet ]?

Fantastic. Thank you, Monica. Good questions as usual. So in terms of priorities for us when evaluating a potential acquisition, we look at fundamentals. Does it have the right strategic fit our financial fundamentals, cultural alignment with us as an owner, what our leadership strength with us their governance proposals. And we base this on analysis of each individual company. So it can be health care. It can be luxury.

These are in particular industries where we have domain knowledge within the team, but it could even be outside that, if the investment opportunity is sufficiently attractive for us. So there is no priority preference of health care over luxury.

In terms of size, we basically have said that we are considering to do transactions, which are meaningful in the perspective of our total GAV and 5% is a percentage where this is -- becomes meaningful. But again, we look at every individual opportunity to decide if it's attractive or not.

And on disposals, we continuously evaluate our portfolio to decide whether we should increase our stake like we've done on Philips in the period or whether it's a good time to dispose. If there's anything to update, obviously, you will be the first one to know. But for now, there's nothing further to mention. So Monica, I hope this answers your questions.

We will now take the next question from the line of Martino De Ambroggi from Equita.

The first question is on the financial flexibility because once you divest Iveco stake, you will have another EUR 1.3 billion cash in. So would you prefer to look for one more big ticket, as you mentioned, 5% of GAV or buyback could be another priority. And specifically on the buyback, you don't need any divestiture to continue to buy back shares. You already finalized EUR 1 billion buyback in one shot, but why you are not starting additional buyback considering the high discount to net asset value.

And the third question is on the -- well, sorry to be more specific on the name, but Armani is I don't know, up for sale, probably not shortly and so on. But just from a theoretical point of view, so just theoretically, could it be an interesting asset for you or you're absolutely out of the game, even if today, it's too early to talk about it?

And very last on Ferrari, when you sold the stake, you mentioned there was an excessive concentration in terms of asset value. Today, Ferrari is roughly 90% of the net asset value. So the issue of too high concentration could come back. But what's your way of thinking about it for future in case the concentration further increases?

Yes. Thank you, Martino, and good to have you on the call again. So on buybacks, they are part of our resource allocation process. And in a sense, the buyback, the discount is also an opportunity for Exor to reinvest capital. And for investors that want to remain on to benefit from a NAV per share increase from that, which you've seen in this half year.

We've just done EUR 1 billion of capital return. So in terms of our market cap that is something that's very, very sizable. But -- as I mentioned, every time we do our portfolio review, we consider to increase or reduce the holdings in existing companies. We consider new investment opportunities that we have and we consider buybacks, and we decide on what we feel is the most attractive choice or multiple choices between those. So we'll continue to do that and consider buybacks as part of the process.

Armani, don't really have anything to comment on the individual transaction as we obviously never do that. And Ferrari, the concentration has nicely reduced. It was 43% when we did the transaction, we're now at 39% of our gross asset value, which is the way we look at it. Indeed, if you look at it as our market cap, you probably meant 90% of market cap rather than net asset value. That is high, but then you could almost see Exor as buying Ferrari and getting the rest for free.

So in that sense, I would see this as a great opportunity for investors to buy into the extra stock. And concentration, maybe to have that as a general point, we like concentration because our belief is that if we buy 1 share of every stock in the index, we perform like the index, and we want to outperform. So we invest in companies where we have conviction. And Ferrari is absolutely one where that holds true. So I hope this addresses the point you raised, Martino.

Yes. Thank you, Guido. And you are right. I mentioned as a percentage of NAV, but it was on market cap. One more follow-up on Lingotto which made a great job because the performance was very strong. Could you remind us what were the main drivers for this performance? And in terms of strategy, are you planning to open the doors or to accelerate on third parties asset? Or this is something that is not in your -- on your table?

So one for us to invest more or less behind Lingotto strategies is part of the portfolio review process, as I mentioned. And if we would invest more behind existing strategies or if there's new ones, we'll obviously announce that to the market. For us, our strategy is not to grow assets under management and gain management fees. Lingotto was created to deliver performance to us.

So I think that is critical. We want to grow our assets under management through performance rather than capital inflows. And as you see, we are delighted by the performance at it, showed in this half year, which it has been showing over a longer period now. So the quality of investors that we've been able to attract makes us obviously very pleased with having put the funds behind Lingotto.

And about the first half performance, is there any specific driver leading to such a good performance?

I think they're great investors that know how to find the stock that perform well.

We will now take the next question from the line of Joren Van Aken from Degroof Petercam.

A lot of great questions have already been asked. But just one from my side. I remember Mr. Elkann saying a while ago that private valuations were higher than listed assets and not long after that you bought the Philips stake.

Today, I'm hearing that high-quality assets in the private market still have very high valuations. Do you think that the bid-ask spread has narrowed sufficiently on the private side? Or do you think that listed is still more attractive today?

I'm not sure if I've seen too much reduction in price expectations from private assets. So I don't think that much has changed on private asset valuations and public market valuations, I think that's your day job. So you know much better than me, but also there, I would say there is a big disparity between certain type of companies like the large tech companies versus some slower-growing companies or companies that have 1 quarter earnings miss, which have then a disappointing share price performance.

So I think if you look in public markets, there's definitely opportunities to be found but also private assets can have their individual situations that the valuations are attractive. So apologies for -- not trying to evade your answer with your question with a clear answer. But I think there's not a one size fits or response to your question. So Joren, I hope that's clear how we look at this.

We will now take the next question from the line of Hans D'Haese from ING.

And I wanted to state first, Guido, that really happy with the new tables layout and increase even better transparency already was happy with IFRS 10 change and how this really helps also with the valuation drivers for listed companies and so, a very good job.

Then regarding portfolio, we've seen that you've been very explicit in what sectors Exor would like to increase its exposure and for what, so thank you for that. In the meantime, we only saw a considerable increase of Philips. So we are waiting for other stuff. If now opportunities arise for acquiring minority stakes in other companies, companies, for instance, that you already are an important shareholder like, for instance, The Economist.

Would you consider to increase the stake?

Is this something that would fit in the portfolio? Or are you sticking to it should be health care literally? That's one question. And then the second one, in light of market expectations of further U.S. dollar weakness and considering that your stakes in CNH and Clarivate and Lingotto are dollar sensitive. What is your hedging strategy? Are you considering -- are you doing something? Or is this something that is not part of the strategy of Exor?

And then third and last question, what are your considerations about investing in Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies? Do you see them as an alternative for your cash position? Or do you see them as a different asset class? Is this -- just do you want to share your thoughts about this?

Yes. With pleasure. Thanks, Hans. First, for the compliments, much appreciated because we've been working hard on providing information to you and all our other stakeholders, which is as clear as possible so that we can talk more about fundamental activities like you now asked about. So much appreciated.

On portfolio, whether we would consider investing in existing companies versus like, for example, The Economist or in only health care technology and luxury. We are, in a sense, agnostic. Why have we said health care, technology and luxury? Because these are sectors where we think there are structural tailwinds and where we've built up a domain knowledge. So we know all the good players in the industry.

We know subsectors of those industries, which we like. And in that way, we feel we can uncover opportunities that maybe others don't see. So that's why our focus is there. But if we see another opportunity either in our portfolio already, which obviously has many advantages because we know that asset or outside, we're very open to consider those as well. So we're not married to investing in health care, luxury or technology.

On the U.S. dollar, we don't do any hedging. Hedging, I think, is a useful measure for covering short-term exposures, which you cannot offset for a production company, hedging your fixed cost if you import into a country when your sales and you cannot change your prices. But for us, as a long-term investor, we don't see hedging as a valuable tool. There might be actually a short-term opportunity to say maybe with the devaluation of the U.S. on a relative basis, U.S. companies have become more attractive than 6 months ago. So we look at it more from that perspective.

And then utilizing the dry firepower that we have now. We're quite conservative on that and put it in cash spread over euros and dollars across multiple banks, including many of you who are in this call. So stable banks across currencies at a decent return because this is not where we want to make our money. So that's why crypto or Bitcoin would not be places where we would park our money.

Where we want to take risk is in the long-term investments that we do and not in the short-term liquidity storage that we hold. So that's how we look at it today and not voicing an opinion on Bitcoin or crypto because there's many people who are much better positioned than I to speak about this.

We will now take the next question from the line of Alberto Villa from Intermonte SIM.

A couple from my side. Many have been already asked. But again, on Lingotto, congratulations to the team, a very great performance. Now it's 8% of the GAV. Is there any internal limitation you put yourself in terms of size of the investment of your funds in Lingotto or it could grow further in the future?

The second question is a more general question is about the -- let's say, when you consider investing in a company with the current geopolitical uncertainty and turmoil, if you're now looking more specifically to some regions rather than others, if there is any, let's say, change in the approach on a geographical standpoint compared to the past due to what has been happening in the recent past and presumably will continue to be a very volatile environment on that side.

Thank you, Alberto. So on Lingotto, I think the limitation breaks down maybe in 2 parts. One on individual funds and two on allocation to Lingotto in a whole. So as I mentioned earlier on Lingotto as a whole, we always take Lingotto as part of our portfolio review strategy and we see do we want to allocate more to existing strategies or new funds, and we decide what kind of returns, risk, reward do we get against this, and we make an investment decision based on that.

In terms of limitation, and I think it's a very important question, which goes to the core of Lingotto. For us, it's key that the investors behind the Lingotto funds focus on performance and outperformance. So the limitation is the size where adding further assets under management would go at the detriment of performance, and that would be the limitation.

And that's obviously different for different types of strategies, whether it's public or listed and which markets they are. But that's where the key limitation probably is for individual Lingotto strategies. And then geopolitical, it is an important investment consideration, obviously.

It is also a potential opportunity if those have led to significant price movement because we are a long-term investor. So we do take that into account, but I cannot say that, that has led to exclusion of certain regions or countries where we would say we're absolutely not looking there.

[Operator Instructions]. We will now take the next question from the line of Andrea Balloni from Mediobanca.

Few questions from myself. My first one is a follow-up to the one of Martino and sorry for asking again, which is about Ferrari. I was wondering if you find some very good opportunities to invest in -- would you even consider another partial disposal of Ferrari to finance the investment? Or on the opposite, the current stake you have in Ferrari is a level you are not willing to lower?

And my second question is about current holding discount that we see at 50% despite the material share buyback you have recently done, what could be, in your view, a way to shrink this holding discount as of today?

And my very last question is on Philips. I remember when you have announced the acquisition of this stake, you mentioned that you were convinced to be able to extrapolate some value from a company that was clearly undervalued by the market. But just to understand what time horizon you had in mind for this asset?

Thank you, Andrea. So on Ferrari, our view remains as what we said earlier in the year that our commitment to Ferrari is as strong as ever. And we didn't do this disposal about reducing our interest of the company. It was really a strategic decision to reduce our portfolio concentration as well as creating room for the next opportunity. So we're actually extremely happy that Ferrari is still a significant part of our portfolio. And as I said, we do like concentration and are confident that Ferrari will be a strong contributor to future results.

So on the holding discount. What are we doing about it? I think calls like now based on clear and transparent communication are one important part of it. But even more important is we need to continue to show a sustained outperformance, both on an absolute and on a relative basis.

And I think it's interesting also to have a look at the long-term performance of Exor versus the MSCI World Index because that's really why we want people to invest in our stock because we are long-term investors and by compounding better returns than the index over a long time, we will create significant value for our shareholders. So that's something we'll just continue to do.

But if you have other views of actions that we could take, always happy to hear them from you and either reading it in your report or to have a call on that, if you like. So Philips, we continue to believe that the company has a huge potential and that it's delivering on its potential. So we're quite excited by its operational performance and our conviction also remains strong and happy with the progress that they're making.

So our time horizon is long. We're there for the long term. We don't have any specific horizons where we say at this moment, we exit. So there's not a year that I can mention you of our planned horizon for an investment like this.

This concludes the Q&A session. I would like to hand back over to Guido de Boer for closing remarks.

I would love to thank all of you for your very thoughtful questions. I think this was all valuable and also gives us some good inputs to sharpen our strategy. So very happy you all joined this call, and please reach out via the usual channels, if you have any further information request or I would like to speak to us in any other way. So thank you, everyone, and have a nice day.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.