Man Group Stock

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'm Robyn Grew, the CEO of Man Group, and I'm joined by our CFO and COO, Antoine Forterre.

I'll begin with a high-level overview of our investment performance and client engagement in the first half of this year. Antoine will then walk you through the financial results, after which I'll update you on some of our strategic highlights during the period. As usual, we'll finish with questions.

The first half of 2026 was another period of turbulence in markets, one in which they proved resilient once again. The principal challenge came from geopolitics, but as tensions eased, risk appetite recovered quickly. We navigated a market where returns were unusually concentrated driven by the continued strength of the artificial intelligence narrative and robust corporate earnings.

In fixed income, the possibility that interest rates may stay higher for longer kept bond yields high and elevated through much of the period. It was against this backdrop that the structural strength of our diversified platform was clear. We delivered a strong first half, which demonstrates the continued evolution of Man Group. The broad-based investment performance, exceptional net inflows, record AUM and growth in earnings we are reporting today are the direct result of deliberate multiyear initiatives to diversify our business.

On the topic of diversification, I'm pleased to report that we generated overall investment performance of $19.8 billion in the first half. Both our alternative and long-only strategies contributed positively, reflecting the skill of our investment teams, our disciplined approach to risk management and the benefits of our advanced technology capabilities.

Our asset-weighted investment performance was 0.4% ahead of similar strategies offered by peers. In liquid alternatives, we saw strength across the platform. Our multi-strat 1783 led the way once again, finishing the half up 7.9% now top quartile in its peer group across multiple time frames and genuinely uncorrelated to equities. 1783 continues to demonstrate the power of allocating dynamically across the breadth of alpha at the firm.

Also in liquid alts, Man Alternative Risk Premia delivered another strong half for clients, returning 4.6% and exceeding $15 billion in AUM. AHL Alpha, our traditional trend following program, returned 7.1%, extending the recovery that started in the second half of last year. By contrast, AHL Evolution returned minus 3.7%, broadly in line with other alternative trend followers that trade less liquid and harder to access markets.

Finally, in private markets, conscientious underwriting kept our credit portfolios robust, and it was great to see Bardin Hill making a significant contribution to performance fees during the period. Our long-only range once again outperformed strongly, providing a clear demonstration of the value of active management through a period of unusually concentrated markets. In equities, Numeric Emerging Markets Core was a standout performer, ahead of its benchmark by 4.8% (sic) [ 4.1% ] per year over the last 3 years, while Man Japan CoreAlpha was more challenged due to a difficult period for value investing in the region. In liquid credit, our strategies navigated rising dispersion across the market with rigor, once again exceeding their respective benchmarks.

On the client side, growth during the first 6 months of 2026 was exceptional. We delivered total net inflows of $7.1 billion, which was 3.4% ahead of the industry, reflecting consistent market share gains. In a competitive environment for fundraising, we saw positive net flows across all 4 of our product categories, a powerful endorsement of the trust our clients place in us. You've heard me say this before. In today's markets, clients are consolidating their relationships with a smaller number of highly capable strategic partners who can help them manage complex risk and growing macroeconomic uncertainty.

The quality of our people and our technology means we are well placed to capture that shift. We now serve 792 institutional clients, and our customized solutions remain a clear competitive advantage. The strength of this client demand was evident across our channels, generating $37 billion in total gross flows during the first half. Institutional clients contributed $21 billion, while wealth channels added $16 billion. Momentum was particularly notable across our long-only range, while demand for our customized solutions continued within liquid alternatives.

We also made good progress extending our reach into the channels where we see the greatest opportunity. In wealth, our active ETF platform saw early traction, while our Asteria joint venture built further on its success. We continue to grow our presence in North America, more on that later. And we also launched a systematic credit solution with a new institution in the insurance space. As our clients' needs evolve, so will we, creating an even stronger business that is positioned for long-term success.

I'll now hand over to Antoine, who will take you through the numbers.

Thank you, Robyn, and good morning, everyone. As usual, I'll begin with some financial highlights before covering our AUM, P&L and balance sheet.

As Robyn mentioned, we ended the period with record AUM of $253.6 billion, up $26 billion or 11% since the end of December. This was driven by positive investment performance of $19.8 billion and net inflows of $7.1 billion. On a relative basis, our net flows remained ahead of the industry, reflecting the strength of demand we saw for our range of strategies. This growth in AUM was also reflected in our revenue.

Core net revenue increased to $853 million, comprising $627 million of net management fees, 21% higher than the same period last year and $207 million of core performance fees, more than 3x H1 '25, with contributions from a wide range of strategies. We also generated $18 million of investment gains from our seed book. Fixed compensation and other cash costs of $222 million were broadly flat compared with H1 '25, while variable compensation increased, reflecting higher revenue during the period.

Core profit before tax increased to $297 million, resulting in a core PBT margin of 35% Core management fee profit before tax was $186 million, equivalent to $0.124 per share of core management fee EPS. Lastly, the Board has declared an interim dividend of $0.057 per share, 1/3 of '25's full year dividend, in line with our guidance. We continue to maintain a strong and liquid balance sheet with net tangible assets of $758 million as at the end of June, supporting our disciplined approach to capital allocation.

Turning to AUM and our new reporting categories. As a reminder, in February, we announced our intention to change our subcategories to better reflect the growth and evolution of our business, provide greater transparency on our strategic priorities and align more closely with market practice. While we still provide all disclosures in our data pack, these will no longer be available after Q3. Alternatives AUM stood at $110.5 billion at the end of the period. Liquid alts grew to $92.9 billion, driven predominantly by $4.2 billion of positive investment performance.

Net flows were modestly positive over the half, so that masks a clear divergence between the quarters. Having seen net outflows in the first quarter, we returned to net inflows in the second as we experienced solid client demands for uncorrelated liquid strategies and solutions.

Private [indiscernible] with $0.7 billion increase, reflecting continued selective deployments in direct lending and opportunistic credit. On the long-only side, organic growth remained very strong with $6.3 billion of net inflows, highlighting the continued demand for our systematic and discretionary capabilities across equity and credit. Combined with $15 billion of investment performance and positive beta, long-only AUM increased to $143.1 billion. Other movements were negative $0.9 billion, comprising $1.9 billion of FX headwinds owing to a stronger U.S. dollar, partially offset by $1 billion of positive other movements.

Finally, in addition to our fee-paying AUM, we ended the period with $4.9 billion of uncalled committed capital, in line with December as additional commitments, including from the first close of our new opportunistic credit fund were largely offset by deployments during the period.

Core net management fees for the period were $627 million, a $110 million increase compared with H1 '25. Our run rate net management fees, which represent a point-in-time snapshot of the firm's management fee earning potential, also increased by 10% to over $1.3 billion at the end of June. The run rate net management fee margin remained broadly flat compared with December as long-only growth came from relatively higher margin strategies within the category during the period. As I've said before, we do not target a particular net management fee margin, but instead prioritize driving profitable growth across all our product categories.

Core performance fees for the period were $207 million, $140 million higher than in H1 '25 comprising $188 million from alternative strategies and $19 million from long-only. As I said earlier, performance fee generation was broad-based and included $84 million from 1783 as well as a contribution from opportunistic credit strategies managed by the Bardin Hill team.

Performance fee eligible AUM increased to $69.2 billion at the end of June, reflecting the strong growth we have seen in the first half. Of that, $53.3 billion was a high watermark at the end of June, up from $36.6 billion at the start of the year, meaning a growing proportion of our asset base is in a position to generate performance fees if we continue to deliver.

As of the 24th of July, we had accrued roughly $290 million of performance fees due to crystallize in the second half of the year. As always, this figure is not a [indiscernible] the amount that crystallizes will fluctuate based [Technical Difficulty] underlying level, savings from the cost actions we outlined last year enabling us to invest further in our strategic priorities, while maintaining overall cost discipline.

As I've said before, we are highly intentional about where we allocate our resources. We will continue to take this approach, ensuring that our investments are directly aligned with our strategic priorities to expand our competitive edge and ultimately deliver long-term value for our clients. As a result, core PBT margin increased to 35% from 24% in H1, the middle of our indicative 30% to 40% range. Core management fee profit before tax grew 43% to $186 million, while core performance fee profit before tax grew to $111 million from $16 million. These figures include the impact of an increased provision in the period regarding commercial matter [ unrelated ongoing. ]

Turning to EPS. Core management fee EPS grew 46% to $0.124 per share, the highest half year level [indiscernible] by the increase in core management fee profit before tax, together with the benefit of reduced [indiscernible] over the past 5 years, core management fee EPS has grown at a compound annual rate of 11%, reflecting the increasing scale of our management fee base. Core performance fee EPS increased to $0.075 from $0.012 in H1 '25, reflecting [indiscernible] doubled, up 105% [indiscernible] in H1 '25.

In summary, our strong first half performance demonstrates that our strategy is working and driving tangible growth in our earnings. At the end of June, we had net tangible assets of $758 million on our balance sheet, including $152 million of available cash and cash equivalents. Gross seed investments were $557 million, including $137 million of exposure via total return swaps with $420 million held on balance sheet. We continue to manage this portfolio actively, aligning it with our strategic priorities as the business evolves.

As you can see, it remains well diversified with 67% in alternative strategies and 33% in long-only, while 79% is invested in liquid markets and 21% in private markets. We continue to maintain a strong and liquid balance sheet, which gives us optionality and flexibility to reinvest in the business, pursue our long-term growth ambitions and return capital to shareholders.

Our business remains highly cash generative, and this continues to support a disciplined approach to capital allocation, including the interim dividend declared today and the ongoing $50 million share buyback we announced in May, we returned $114 million to shareholders in the first half. Over the past 5 years, we have returned $1.9 billion to shareholders through a combination of dividends and buybacks, representing 42% of our market cap as at the end of June. The reduction in shares outstanding over that period means shareholders now receive an additional 25% of every dollar of earnings compared with 5 years ago.

And on that note, I'll hand over to Robyn to take you through the next section of the presentation.

Thanks, Antoine. As you've just heard, this is a very good set of numbers. What strikes me most is the fact that the whole business is pulling in the same direction. Across investment performance, net flows and earnings, we're delivering. And crucially, this isn't a one-off. It is our second consecutive period of strong results, which proves the resilience we've built and will continue to build into the firm.

In short, the strategy we set out over 2 years ago is working, and we're seeing the benefits compound into broad-based growth. I want to be clear that this remains a multiyear journey, not every initiative moves at the same pace, but we are making excellent progress and my conviction in what we are trying to achieve has only deepened. We have significant momentum and the right to win.

Let me take you through some of those highlights from the first half. Turning to credit. Over the past few years, we have deliberately built this into a core capability at Man Group. Today, I'm delighted to say that our credit platform now manages over $60 billion in AUM across liquid and private markets. The current market backdrop plays directly to our strength. With broad market beta looking expensive, allocators are actively moving away from benchmark hugging approaches in favor of high conviction, active strategies. You can see this clearly in our liquid credit business, where exceptional organic growth is being driven directly by investment performance.

Our global high-yield and investment-grade strategies are sitting in the top decile of their peer groups. And we're also seeing growth in new areas. We've recently developed and launched new strategies directly alongside clients. In addition to this, our model of incubating top-tier talent within our multi-strategy portfolios and then spinning them out into stand-alone businesses is working, and we've seen with the growth of our emerging markets credit strategies. Crucially, this approach also contributes to the growth of our performance fee eligible AUM. We've now built out over $2 billion in credit-focused liquid alternatives that generate performance fees, adding further to the diversification of that earnings stream.

Turning to private credit. I'm particularly pleased with the investment performance we're reporting against a more complex market backdrop. It's a genuine testament to the skill and underwriting discipline of our teams. The numbers are worth dwelling on. In Man Direct Lending, our covenant default rate over the last 12 months is just 1.4% compared to an industry rate of 5.4%. Our PIK rate is approximately 4%, which is roughly half the BDC peer average.

As a reminder, our offering is entirely institutional, and we don't have any structures with a liquidity mismatch. Alongside that, our opportunistic credit strategy delivered an annualized return of 35.7% in the first half in a period where credit stress was highly visible in parts of the broader market, these numbers reflect the fundamental quality of the portfolios we are managing and our limited exposure to the more speculative parts of the market. This track record is translating directly into client confidence. In fact, you may have seen that we recently completed the first close of our new opportunistic credit fund at a size larger than the final close of either of its 2 predecessors.

Beyond this commercial momentum, we continue to invest in the platform itself. For example, we'll soon bring all of our U.S. private credit teams together in New York to drive collaboration across direct lending, opportunistic credit, U.S. resi debt and CLOs. Growth matters to us, but never at the expense of the discipline that has defined this business from the start. That is why, as we scale, we are being thoughtful about how we grow this, actively investing in new risk management and trading capabilities to support the platform. We have real momentum across credit, and there is plenty more to play for in this space.

Moving to our geographical expansion. North America remains one of our most compelling opportunities, and I'm genuinely pleased with the progress we've made. However, we continue to believe we're underweight relative to the sheer size of the market. To put our recent momentum into context, gross flows from clients in the region during the first half were $12.9 billion.

To give you a sense of scale, that's almost as much as we raised across the entirety of 2024, which is a remarkable rate of progress. It reflects the sustained investments we have made in our people and our presence over several years. And it proves that our focus on providing highly customized solutions and product innovation is resonating strongly with both institutional allocators and the wealth channel in the region.

As a result, AUM from North American clients has grown at over 18% per year since the end of 2021. That growth is highly attractive, and it means the region is now contributing a meaningfully larger share of the firm's overall management fee revenue. We're still in the early stages of this journey. The runway is long, but the trajectory is right and the foundations are solid, and we intend to go much further.

Let me turn to technology and specifically to AI. This is a topic that comes up in almost every conversation I have with clients and peers, and I'm yet to meet someone who doesn't view this as a once-in-a-generation opportunity. The reality is simple. The firms that get this right will define the future of asset management, and we intend to lead the charge. We've always been at the forefront of technology in this industry because it's fundamentally in our DNA and has been for decades. We already invest over $135 billion (sic) [ $135 million ] annually in our platform, employing hundreds of quants and technologists.

That means we are not approaching this from a standing start, but rather from a position few others can match. We've been building cutting-edge AI infrastructure. We know the true power of the latest frontier and open-weight models is only really unlocked when they are securely connected to our proprietary systems and underpinned by the vast amounts of structured and unstructured data we've already amassed.

Our people also recognize this potential with 96% of the firm already using AI tools on a daily basis. At the same time, we understand that this level of adoption must be paired with responsibility. By taking the time to put the right guardrails and governance in place, we are ensuring that we can safely and confidently accelerate our innovation from here. And that really is how we're thinking about this right now. How do we reshape the entire firm. We're looking across the business for workflows where AI can act as a multiplier, whether that means empowering our quants to research and test hypotheses much faster or enabling our operations teams to onboard a new client in a fraction of the time.

I want to be clear on one point. We're ambitious. We're a growing business. And for us, AI is not a cost efficiency play. We're not looking to replace our exceptional people. We're looking to make them exponentially more powerful. We're incredibly excited about the road ahead because this is going to be truly transformational for the firm, for our clients and for our shareholders.

Bringing this all together, in our industry, it's very easy to get caught up in looking at performance in halves and quarters. But to really understand the continued evolution of Man Group, you have to take a step back and look at what we've delivered over the last 3 years. The numbers on this slide show exactly what we mean when we talk about the compounding benefits of our strategy. Since June 2023, our 5 year trailing net flows have grown at 32% per annum, reaching over $50 billion and increasing total AUM to a record $253.6 billion. That scale has fundamentally strengthened our management fee base, driving core management fee EPS growth of 13% per annum, while simultaneously broadening our revenue optionality with performance fee eligible AUM growing to over $69 billion.

But what gives me most confidence as we look to the future is the breadth of these numbers. This is not growth concentrated in a single flagship strategy or reliant on a single distribution channel. The areas we deliberately targeted for expansion, credit, quant equity and solutions have grown at 31% per annum to reach $185 billion. We're seeing positive net flows across all 4 product categories as a result of a bigger footprint in North America, in wealth and in insurance. That is true firm-wide growth, and it is precisely what our strategy was designed for.

As we look ahead, the firm we have built is genuinely more resilient than the sum of its parts. With embedded operating leverage and rigorous capital discipline, this platform has scale, the capabilities and the momentum to deliver for our clients and our shareholders. To close, we enter the second half of 2026 with real momentum. The business we have built is highly diversified and structurally positioned for long-term success. As we look at the market environment today, we're seeing rising dispersion and growing macroeconomic uncertainty. These are precisely the conditions where active management and the ability to draw on a genuinely diversified range of uncorrelated strategies becomes most valuable. That is exactly what we offer.

At the same time, we know that clients are consolidating their relationships. They're looking for a smaller number of highly capable strategic partners who can help them manage this increasing complexity. That trend plays directly to our strengths. The depth of our investment capabilities, our advanced technology and AI initiatives and our ability to build customized solutions at scale mean we are perfectly placed to capture that opportunity. As our clients' needs evolve, so will we. I have every conviction in our ability to continue executing on this strategy. That confidence is grounded in the exceptional talent we have across the firm, and I'm incredibly proud of what this team has delivered in the first half.

With that, we're happy to take your questions.

[Operator Instructions]

Thank you, Robyn. I'll go straight to questions. Hubert, you were the keenest I will request that you unmute yourself. Hubert, can you hear us?

Yes, I can hear you. I've got 3 of them. Firstly, on the alternative flows, I think you mentioned solutions being a key contributor to that. Can you talk about what other drivers were within that number? Also, are you seeing inflows into AHL?

Second question is on capital and M&A. Can you talk about what the M&A backdrop is like? Are you seeing opportunities out there? And if not, would you consider doing a buyback -- a further buyback later in the year once the current one is completed?

And last question is on the core PBT margin. It was 35% in the first half. I probably would have expected a little bit more operating leverage just given the strong performance and performance fees in the half. Just wondering why that wouldn't be better than what it was.

Thank you, Hubert. Do you want me to take them all?

Take them, yes.

So on the flow side, pleased to see alternative, liquid alternative returning to net flows. Areas we saw demand beyond solutions are in Risk Premia categories as well as some of the equity and credit long-short hedge fund, which does mean that although we don't really talk about AHL in the same way today, we are seeing flows again in the systematic macro categories.

On capital M&A, I'll start with the end of your question. The policy has not changed. And you remember the waterfall, first, progressive dividend, then organic and inorganic ways to deploy capital. And over the medium term, we aim to return surplus capital, most likely by way of buyback. We're still buying back shares. We have a $50 million program ongoing, of which $21 million remain outstanding as of the end of last week. That should get us towards the end of Q3 and the Board will, in due course, assess how best to deploy remaining surplus capital.

The M&A environment remains one that we follow closely. We see M&A, as you recall, as a catalyst to our strategy. This is not our strategy. It's a catalyst to our strategy, either as a way to add capabilities as we've demonstrated with Bardin Hill and then 3 years ago, the Varagon acquisition or also as a way to sort of bolster possibly post-service solutions. The team continues to look at hundreds of opportunities a year. Our bars have not -- or bar hasn't been reduced. The bar to doing M&A remains very high. So we continue to look, nothing that we call out here, but it remains a key part for us to accelerate our strategy.

And then core PBT margin, the -- so you're right, our new guidance is one where we would typically aim to be between 30% and 40% of core PBT margin sort of annual basis. As we used to say and we'll continue to say, the mix of performance fee is a key driver of where we stand within that range. So first is the quantum of performance fees, which you mentioned. And the second is the mix of performance fees. We have a broad-based set of performance fees coming through here from multi-strat from some of the single strategy hedge funds from Bardin Hill and discretionary teams, discretionary strategies tend to have a slightly higher comp ratio, slightly lower profit margin. So the mix ends up driving where we stand in the range. But nothing has changed. 30%, 40% is typically where we'll aim to be.

Thank you, Hubert. Arnaud, I'll go to you. You should have ability to unmute yourself. Arnaud, can you hear us?

Yes. [indiscernible]

It's very hard to hear you, Arnaud. So if that's okay, I'll go to someone else, and I'll try and come back to you at the end. At the moment, it's very hard to hear you. Oli, over to you.

Oliver Carruthers from Goldman Sachs. Just one question for me. I think the Slide 17 you show on the North America expansion is really interesting. You're clearly now approaching the $100 billion mark in terms of AUM with clients domiciled over there. Could you just maybe double-click a little bit on the breadth of strategies and the types of institutions that you're hitting there? Really, what has been resonating the most in the last couple of years, in particular, where we've seen those gross flows accelerate?

And then as you think about the long runway, I think, as you put it, Robyn, where do you think the white space, both from a client type and from a strategy kind of penetration is the greatest for U.S. clients?

Thanks for the question. I'll take this. So the client types is across the entirety of the space, so be it endowments, annuities, pension funds, insurance companies, state plans, it's really across the entire suite of institutional clients. And then as we've talked about with our launch of active ETFs, we're seeing expansion and engagement also in the wealth channels. When it comes to product type, it's really across the entirety of all 4 product spaces.

If I were to characterize this, what we are seeing, and this is so across North America, but it's actually so across the world is as we're seeing greater volatility, greater dispersion, greater uncertainty, that people are building in these large institutions and wealth clients are building portfolios and structuring their portfolios in a way that can navigate that volatility. And so what they're looking for is uncorrelated content, content that can sit in their portfolios and act within this volatility space and take advantage of the Alpha opportunities that volatility and dispersion provides.

So the reason we talk about greater runway is because, one, the content that we have is resonating, and it's resonating in a way that provides that level of capability to manage the uncertainty, but also the solutions capability that we talk about, the ability to actually develop with clients and alongside them content that fits their needs in their portfolios is incredibly resonant, particularly in North America. So there is a deep capital market there. There is high need, and we provide a capability across multiple asset classes now, which is resonating with them.

I'll go to Michael Sanderson. You should have the ability to unmute now.

A couple of questions, please, if that's okay. First of all, obviously, cost control is clearly a message you talk to. But on the flip side, obviously pushing very hard in the world of AI. How do you think about the cost implications of that in the medium term? Where are the costs going in that? How does that develop in sort of in your structure? I know we've got the 30%, 40% guidance, but just interested to know where the cost pressures are going to come from, to your mind from that perspective.

Second one was just interested to hear a little bit more about Asteria and developments there. Clearly, that's the joint venture seems to be getting early momentum, but just interested to know which products that you sort of said you've rolled out more products in there and which ones are gaining traction in that area?

And then I guess if I just squeeze one more. The private credit side of things, interested to know about the -- you've obviously deployed capital during the period. Sort of the backdrop at the moment, are you seeing sort of significant incremental opportunities for deployment given sort of the fears that are being seen in that market as we stand?

Shall I start with costs?

Yes. Then we'll talk about...

Asteria and then private credit. So the guidance we give of profit margin includes our investments in AI. And so there is no kind of additional assumption you have to make or changes to the guidance as a result, 30% to 40% profit margin typically. Robyn alluded to the way we deploy AI. It's really to augment, elevate the capabilities of our team.

We are a growing business, as you've seen in the numbers, top line, bottom line growth with growth from new demand to our teams, and we use AI as one of the tools of resources at our disposal to make sure that we maintain operating leverage in the structure. So this is not a way to kind of replace people. This is a way to make sure that we can continue to absorb the growth that we have in the most efficient way across the organization. But the key point really for modeling purposes is the guidance still holds.

Private credit to jump around a bit. You're correct, we're seeing deployments resume or really kind of take hold in direct lending and opportunistic credit, which leads to an increase in AUM to $17.6 billion. I think the environment is still conducive to deployment. It's not as buoyant as it has been in the past, but the teams maintain the ability to kind of deploy capital. And what you're seeing as well is the sort of evolution, the slow evolution of a business that was anchored by 2 or 3 large SMA insurance clients towards more of a funds business going forward.

And then on the opportunistic credit side, which is a more recent addition, the environment is very strong. The first half of this year was very strong for performance and very strong for deployment as you start to see some dislocation and therefore, kind of stress and distress in the market. So overall, positive with some nuances depending on the team.

Asteria has continued to do well. As you recall, it's a joint venture, we own 51%, Fideuram owns 49%. We focus on the manufacturing. They focus on the distribution predominantly within the network. And that's been a key driver of growth for our liquid credit strategies, in particular and ways that are relatively novel. So we have sort of target date or maturity products that have been raised quite successfully over the last couple of years there, for instance.

Also some interest for kind of liquid alternative in places, including some of the more hedge fund kind of multi-strat content that we have. So historically, focused probably more on credit, but expanding broadly and a key driver of our wealth flow backwards, but also looking forward.

I'll go to Nicholas. Nicholas Herman, you should be able to unmute.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Great. Three from me, please. So firstly, on absolute return, big uptick in AUM in the [ insti ] solutions. Just curious if there's any skew on clients these commitments are coming from? And I guess just more broadly, are these coming from existing clients or new clients embracing these solutions kind of if you could just give us a bit more detail on momentum on those solutions there?

Secondly, just coming back to the AI, you talked about targeting workflows, delivering performance and productivity gains. Can you give us some examples of what you have achieved in the first half of the year? And I guess also what you kind of are looking to also work and achieve in the next 6 to 12 months?

And then the final one, I mean, I assume you won't comment on the PIFSS case, but could you give us an indication on when you expect to receive the final judgment of that case, please?

You do 1, I'll do 2.

Well, I'll take the last one. You're right, we can't comment. The court finished at the end of Q1, and we expect the judgment towards the end of the year, likely Q4. So that's point 3.

Do you want -- I'll take 2, then you can go to 1. We'll go to reverse. So AI and what are we targeting in some specific examples. You might expect me to lean into the research and quant examples, but actually, I'm going to do something slightly different. Let me talk about a discretionary PM who came to talk to me the other day. And what he effectively said was this, listen, I'm now in a position where I'm using the proprietary AI toolkit that we have built to synthesize public data, both structured and unstructured.

His proprietary investment notes and thesis over the last decade. And he is able to effectively drive a single output from that. He is then able to cover -- he is literally covering double the universe he was able to, and he is covering double the number of management meetings he is able to take and to undertake. And he has trained the agent to do the first cut of both the analysis on the issuers and the management questions that he is asking. So what he is doing is in one single example is he is doubled his capability, doubled his applicability. He is covering more institutions, more efficiently, allowing him to focus more effectively on alpha capture.

And so what we're seeing in a nutshell, it is a really good example effectively of saying, how do I take this toolkit and multiply the cognitive capability at Man Group. And that's how we're thinking about it. This is a multiplier, a turbocharging of capability. It isn't a cognitive surrender far from it. It's about really excelling in this space. And so I can give you another example as we think about it in operations or the client workflow. If you're trying to client on board, how do we take that from a process of a week or 2 weeks or 3 weeks and make it a fraction of the time.

So difficult for me to give you a sense of what this looks like in a year because I'm telling you that there are things that we can do today that we were unable to do 6 to 8 weeks ago. So right now, the year outlook is -- seems quite hard for me. But the 96% adoption at Man is a rate that we're -- demonstrates just how everybody is using this within their workflow, their research, their alpha, their full capability. So when we say we're excited about this, we really are. But this is not a cost play. I can't emphasize this enough. This is about giving the very smartest people an extraordinary capability, which makes them better. It does not replace the very essence of nuance, of synthesis of judgment of Alpha, and that's what's really exciting about this.

And then your question on absolute return and the solutions category in particular, you're right, continue to see good growth. It's predominantly an institutional product or product category. There are a few kind of wealth distributors that might have kind of white label solutions, but it's predominantly institutional. It predominantly is, as Robyn flagged, North America and Asia.

And in terms of existing versus new, it's quite balanced. There's a good track record now taking an existing kind of single strategy, single client and upgrading them to the clients and upgrading to solutions. But we also now have because we've been doing solutions for 10 years, clients that come directly at the solution, in particular, as we've developed over the last 2, 3 years under the new strategy, kind of OMI advisory capability that sort of brings clients directly to the solutions team.

And we have one last question from a phone number. As a reminder, to ask a question, you must be an analyst, which I hope is the case here. If you could please state your name as you unmute yourself.

Still muted.

Can't hear anything.

Okay.

I think that concludes the Q&A. Thank you all very much. Arnaud, hasn't reappeared I'm afraid.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Sorry, apologies.

Here we go.

Arnaud back. Arnaud, I'm going to...

Second time.

He's disappeared, I'm afraid.

Try again.

Arnaud, you should be able to unmute, if you can hear us. Can you hear us, Arnaud?

[indiscernible]

I'm terribly sorry, we really can't hear you. It's dropped. We'll pick it up separately.

Thank you.

Thank you all very much for your time.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'm Robyn Grew, the CEO of Man Group, and I'm joined by our CFO, Antoine Forterre. I'll begin with a high-level overview of our investment performance and client engagement in 2025. Antoine will then walk you through the financial results, after which I'll update you on our multiyear priorities now 2 years on from when we first announced our strategy before providing longer-term context on the evolution and positioning of our business.

2025 was a year of pronounced peaks and troughs for markets where periods of volatility tested investor resolve before conditions eventually stabilized. We navigated shifting sentiment, and at times, unprecedented reversals, absorbing shocks from DeepSeek in January, tariff announcements in April, ongoing geopolitical tensions and debate over the sustainability of fiscal spending and AI infrastructure investment.

Markets demonstrated a remarkable capacity to withstand stress, though the path was far from smooth. Given this environment, I'm pleased to report a set of results that shows just how resilient Man Group is. Antoine will go into more detail later, but I'll start with some headlines.

Firstly, I'm delighted that we ended the year with AUM of $228 billion, driven by $21.4 billion of positive investment performance and $28.7 billion of net inflows. Through continued cost and capital discipline, we generated core earnings per share of $0.276. Along with this, we also executed against our strategic priorities, completing the Bardin Hill acquisition, simplifying our operating model and positioning the firm for long-term growth. These results underscore the continued demand for our differentiated offering, the depth of our client relationships, and crucially, the value of the diversified business we have built.

On the topic of diversification, the benefits of having a diversified range of investment content were highlighted clearly in 2025. The first half of the year was undoubtedly testing for trend following strategies, continuing the run of underwhelming performance that began in Q2 of 2024. The reversal of the Trump trade in Q1, combined with the administration stop-start approach to tariffs, created whipsawing market conditions where sustained trends were incredibly hard to find. However, investor sentiment moved on from the lows of early April, and August proved to be the inflection point.

As risk on sentiment took hold, several trends finally began to emerge and persist. Our strategy has adjusted positioning to capture these moves, delivering strong gains into year-end. In that context, it was great to see AHL Alpha and AHL Evolution finish the year up around 5%. The strength we saw across our strategic priorities enabled the firm as a whole to successfully navigate the significant period of stress for trend following.

The results from a numeric range were particularly impressive. Over the past 3 years, these strategies have delivered returns averaging 4% over their respective benchmarks. Our liquid credit strategies also continued their strong run of outperformance, while our multistrat Man 1783 once again delivered outstanding returns. By dynamically allocating across our full range of uncorrelated strategies, it has delivered consistent, high-quality performance since launch in 2020.

On an asset-weighted basis, relative investment performance was positive overall in 2025, driven primarily by our long-only strategies. Within alternatives, the overall relative underperformance was largely attributable to AHL Evolution's performance earlier in the year, which trades harder to access markets and differs significantly from the traditional trend followers in the index.

Turning to clients. We prioritized being present with our clients in 2025, holding over 16,000 meetings to understand their evolving needs and help them navigate a complex environment. That focus drove exceptional client-led growth during the year. We delivered record gross and net inflows, nearly 20% ahead of the industry. We've taken market share for the sixth consecutive year, a very strong outcome in the context of a challenging fundraising environment.

As you can see from the chart on the left, the strength was broad-based. It is well known that large allocators are seeking to do more with fewer managers, consolidating relationships around true strategic partnerships. That trend plays to our strengths, and the numbers reflect that. It was also a record year for new client additions with 36% of gross sales coming from relationships entirely new to the firm, while our top 50 clients remain invested in more than 4 strategies on average.

Whether I'm speaking with a pension fund in North America or a sovereign wealth fund in the Middle East, the feedback I receive is clear. Our clients face increasingly complex challenges that require tailored solutions. With a broad range of uncorrelated strategies delivered through a technology-powered platform, we have the capability and the scale to meet that demand. From customized risk levels and access to new asset classes to the launch of new product structures, we are adapting to how our clients want to work with us. That agility is a competitive advantage.

And now I'll hand over to Antoine, who will take you through the numbers.

Thank you, Robyn, and good morning, everyone. I'll begin with last year's financial highlights before providing further details on our AUM, P&L and balance sheet. As Robyn mentioned, we ended the year with AUM of $227.6 billion, up nearly $60 billion since the end of 2024. The increase was driven by positive investment performance of $21.4 billion and record net flows of $28.7 billion. On a relative basis, our net flows remained ahead of the industry for the sixth consecutive year with our sustained growth in market share further validating the relevance of our offering to clients.

In 2025, we recorded net revenue of almost $1.4 billion, including performance fees of $281 million, mostly from non-AHL strategies. This demonstrates the progress we have made in diversifying our mix of revenue and performance fee generation in particular. We also recorded $38 million in investment gains.

Fixed cash costs of $430 million reflect the actions we took earlier in the year to maintain cost discipline and to better align resources towards our strategic priorities. At 48%, the compensation ratio was within our guided range, reflecting lower net revenues in the year. As a result, core profit before tax was $407 million with $294 million of core management fee profit before tax, which equates to $0.196 of core management fee EPS.

Lastly, we are proposing a final dividend of $0.115 per share, taking the total dividend for the year to $0.172 in line with 2024. We continue to maintain a strong and liquid balance sheet with net tangible assets of $723 million as at the end of December, supporting our disciplined capital allocation policy. Our overall asset-weighted relative investment outperformance was 1.3% compared to 1% in 2024. Investment performance was positive across all product categories with long-only strategies delivering particularly strong results.

Our long-only offering contributed $34.5 billion in net flows, serving as a powerful endorsement of our differentiated proposition in this space. While alternative strategies faced some headwinds due to the poor performance from trend following strategies in the first half, engagement on liquid alternative, and crisis Sapphire remains robust as we head into 2026, reinforcing the continued relevance of our uncorrelated content.

Other movements were $8.9 billion. This includes $6.7 billion of FX tailwinds owing to a weaker U.S. dollar as a significant proportion of our AUM is denominated in other currencies and $2.7 billion from the acquisition of Bardin Hill. Finally, in addition to fee-paying AUM, we also ended the year with $4.9 billion of uncalled committed capital, which provides a strong foundation for future AUM growth across our private markets business.

Before moving on from AUM, I wanted to spend a moment on the new reporting categories we're introducing this year. This updated categorization, which you can see on the slide, reflects the growth and evolution of our business, provides greater transparency on our strategic priorities, such as credit, and aligns more closely with market practice to improve comparability with peers.

As you'd expect, there is no material change at the long-only and alternative category level. We have simply reclassified the subcategories to make them easier to understand. More details, including information on fee margins, can be found in the investor data pack on our website. We will continue to provide the previous categorization in our materials up to Q3 of this year to ensure a smooth transition. And of course, we are available to answer any questions you might have.

Our run-rate net management fees, which represent a point-in-time snapshot of the firm's management fee earning potential increased to $1.182 billion at end of December 2025 from $1.058 billion at the end of 2024. This was driven by the significantly higher AUM at the end of the year and the strong recovery in trend-following performance in the second half. This is the highest level in more than 10 years. The run-rate net management fee margin decreased from 63 basis points at the end of 2024 to 52 basis points at the end of '25, reflecting the shift in underlying AUM towards long-only strategies during the year. As I have emphasized many times before, we did not target a particular net management fee margin, but instead prioritized driving profitable growth across all our product categories.

Moving on to performance fees. In a year where trend-following strategies struggled before recovering in the second half, core performance fees were $281 million compared with $310 million in 2024. This is a strong reflection of the progress we have made in diversifying our business and its performance fee earnings potential. It underscores our ability to deliver strong outcomes for our shareholders even in years of below average contribution from trend following.

At the end of December 2025, we had $59.6 billion of performance fee eligible AUM, of which $36.6 billion was at high watermark compared to $21.1 billion at the beginning of the year. A further $17.4 billion was within 5%. An often overlooked feature of our business is a $13 billion of AUM from the long-only category is performance fee eligible, increasing our performance fee earning potential while providing valuable diversification.

This slide provides further insight into how performance fee earnings potential has changed over time. If you have followed us for a while, you might recall a similar slide at our Investor Day in 2022. The dark blue line plots the distribution of a Monte Carlo simulation of the next 12 months' performance fee outcomes based on distances from our watermark, expected returns and volatility assumptions for our key performance fee-paying funds as at December 2025.

The median simulated performance fee outcome for 2026 is $471 million. This is a 35% increase from $349 million at the end of December '21 and nearly 3x what we expected in December 2016. This improvement predominantly reflects the growth in performance fee eligible AUM and the progress we have made diversifying the underlying range of strategies that contribute to our performance fee earnings.

As of the 20th of this month, we had accrued approximately $350 million of performance fees due to crystallize in 2026. As always, this figure is not a forecast or guidance, but rather the position at a specific point in time. The amounts that crystallize will fluctuate increasing or decreasing based on investment performance up to crystallization dates.

Moving on to costs. Fixed cash costs of $430 million were 5% higher compared with 2024. This includes a $16 million impact due to the strengthening of sterling against the U.S. dollar and another $4 million from the Bardin Hill acquisition. These increases were partially offset by the cost control actions we took earlier in the year, as reflected in the decrease in headcount. The overall compensation ratio increased marginally to 48%, reflecting the decrease in management and performance fee revenue during the year. However, the recovery in trend-following performance in the second half meant that we were able to remain below the upper end of our guided range.

From 2026, we will be changing the modeling framework, moving away from the fixed cash costs and comp ratio guidance to a core PBT margin range. Our previous guidance was established in 2013 during a period of significant restructuring when the business looked materially different. This approach, which focuses on a few specific line items within our P&L without allowing for fungibility of spend, is no longer fit for purpose. Our operating model has evolved and technology is ever more central to our business.

Going forward, we will manage the business to a core PBT margin, typically between 30% and 40%, varying based on the quantum and mix of revenue. It may be outside this range in years with particularly high or low core performance fees as it has been in recent past in both directions. This range is calibrated around the average realized core PBT margin of 35% between 2020 and 2025. This change provides greater operational flexibility, which is critical to remaining agile given the pace of change. It should not change the way you think about and model the overall profitability of the business.

Importantly, it also does not alter our commitment to cost and capital discipline or remove the ability to benefit from significant operating leverage in exceptional performance fee years. Core net management fee earnings per share were $0.196, 9% lower than 2024, while performance fee earnings per share decreased to $0.08, down from $0.106 in 2024. Total core earnings per share were $0.276.

In summary, despite the challenging market conditions for trend following in the first half, 2025 was another year of resilient earnings for the firm. We continue to maintain a strong and liquid balance sheet, which gives us optionality and flexibility to pursue our long-term growth ambitions and return capital to shareholders. At the end of December, we had $723 million of net tangible assets, including $173 million in cash and cash equivalents.

Our seed capital program continues to play an integral role in supporting the growth of our business. In 2025, we seeded 12 new strategies, including new private credit strategies and active ETFs in line with our strategic priorities. Gross seed investments at the end of December were $603 million. The portfolio remains well diversified across strategies and markets. This brings me to capital allocation.

Our policy remains disciplined and intends to support the future growth of the business while delivering attractive returns to shareholders. It follows a clear waterfall with 4 categories. First, we aim to increase the annual dividend per share progressively over time, reflecting the firm's underlying earnings growth and free cash flow generation. In 2025, dividends to shareholders totaled approximately $200 million.

Second, we deploy capital to support product development and technological innovation. We continue to actively manage our seed book considering the opportunities available. And in 2025, we redeployed $400 million of seed capital. We also continue to invest heavily in technology to ensure we remain at the forefront. Third, we evaluate M&A opportunities that align with our strategic priorities. In 2025, we completed the acquisition of Bardin Hill, bolting on opportunistic credit and performing loans capabilities to our credit business.

Finally, any remaining available capital is returned over time through share buybacks. Last year, we repurchased $100 million of our share capital at an average price of 182p. Including the proposed final dividend and the $100 million share buyback I just mentioned, we returned approximately $300 million to shareholders in the year. Over the past 5 years, the total capital returned to shareholders via dividends and buybacks is $1.8 billion, over 50% of our market cap as of the end of December. Shareholders now receive an additional 23% of every dollar of earnings when compared with 2021.

On that note, I'll hand over to Robyn to take you through the next section of the presentation.

Thanks, Antoine. 2025 tested us at times, but we navigated the challenges to emerge stronger and finished the year with real momentum. That is a powerful validation of our strategy. We were able to deliver a resilient set of results because the diversification we have built over recent years is delivering. In a year where trend-following faced significant headwinds, it was the strength in quant equity, liquid credit and solutions on the investment side, combined with strong growth across client channels and geographies that delivered for us. That is our strategy working as intended.

The benefits of diversification are clear, and this slide illustrates why. The capabilities we have scaled have near 0 or even negative correlation with trend following. The more high-quality uncorrelated content we offer, the more relevant and valuable we are as a strategic partner to clients. That relevance drives growth. And as you can see on the chart in the middle of the slide, the business today looks very different from just 4 years ago, both in terms of scale and business mix. That shift also matters for earnings. Not only does it grow and strengthen our management fee stream, but as Antoine mentioned earlier, it also improves our performance fee earnings potential.

Non-AHL performance fees have grown significantly from $116 million in 2021 to $225 million in 2025. Diversification has reduced our reliance on any single investment strategy and has increased the stability of our overall earnings, providing new options for growth that ultimately drive value creation for shareholders. The strategy we outlined 2 years ago will enable us to continue to deliver this diversification.

As many of you will recall, we outlined 3 priorities at our full-year results 2 years ago. They were to diversify our investment capabilities, to extend our reach with clients around the globe and to leverage our strength in talent and technology, all while continuing to invest in the core of our business. We set ambitious goals to drive the next chapter of growth for Man Group. Now, more than ever, we have conviction that we are targeting the right areas. Although not every initiative moves at the same pace, the prevailing trends in our industry remain largely unchanged. Client engagement is the strongest it's ever been, and we have good momentum across several pillars of our strategy.

Let me take you through the progress we've made in more detail. Starting with our investment capabilities. Our credit platform continues to go from strength to strength. We now manage $53.1 billion across the liquid and private credit spectrum, up from $28.3 billion just 2 years ago. Organic growth in liquid credit has been exceptional with strong client demand for our high-yield and investment-grade strategies in particular. We also completed the acquisition of Bardin Hill in October, which adds opportunistic credit to our existing private credit offering and strengthens our CLO capabilities. I'm very pleased with where we stand. We are now a broad-based partner across the credit space.

On quant equity, it was pleasing to see our long-only strategies had an exceptional year, growing AUM by 97% and continuing our track record of alpha generation. Alongside strong performance, it is the ability to offer a high degree of customization at scale that is also proving hugely valuable to clients. Mid-frequency is a complex space that requires significant investment in research and infrastructure, and there's a lot of work going on behind the scenes. We've developed 2 distinct strategies that take different approaches to idiosyncratic alpha generation, factor exposure, geographical focus and holding periods.

Notably, our quant alpha capability delivered 21.3% net performance in 2025, which offers clear evidence of our progress in this high potential space. We continue to deliver complex solutions to help our clients solve their most significant challenges. That remains a real differentiator for us. More recently, our advisory offering in partnership with the Oxford-Man Institute has been in strong demand as we partner with clients to deliver thought leadership that helps them to navigate issues they face across their portfolios. A great example of this is the work we've done on timing the market in collaboration with one of our Nordic clients. The agility we have shown in adapting to client needs has served us well, and that will not change.

Finally, I spoke about Man 1783 earlier today. After another strong year in 2025, we've delivered 10.5% net annualized performance over the last 3 years for our clients. That is a track record that puts us up there with the best in this space. We are continuously improving our investment processes, knowing that innovation is not just about launching the next flagship product, it's about making everything we do better every single day.

We've also made strong progress extending our client reach, targeting the regions and channels where we are underweight relative to the size of the opportunity. North America is a great example of that. I'm delighted that we have nearly doubled annual gross flows from North America in 2 years, from $10 billion to nearly $20 billion. Growing our presence in the institutional channel has been a particular highlight with a 24% increase in North American pension plan clients. Given the sheer scale of that market, we see a significant runway for growth.

In Wealth, we've seen a similar trajectory. We are bringing institutional quality liquid products to one of the fastest-growing segments in asset management, and the opportunity here is large. To strengthen our offering, we launched 4 active ETFs across discretionary and systematic styles in equity and public credit last year. Our strategic partnerships continue to deliver strong growth. The Asteria joint venture is a great example of that, where appetite for our credit products has been particularly strong.

Finally, on insurance, I'm sure many of you are aware that this is a complex area that requires careful groundwork. We have laid those foundations globally, and our strategic partnership with Meiji Yasuda is an encouraging early step. Discussions with prospects continue, though it remains contingent on the ongoing build-out of our overall credit capabilities.

Our third priority is to continue leveraging our strengths in talent and technology, both of which are underpinned by the culture of constant improvement that runs through our DNA. We're always looking ahead, positioning the business for future growth. A good example of this is the change we made last year in Systematic, bringing AHL and Numeric together under one division to drive innovation, product co-development and research collaboration. We approach technology with the same mindset. And as a result, we're not just keeping pace with change, we're leading it.

We made significant advances in AI during the year, developing over 100 plug-ins across the firm using a range of AI platforms. For us, this isn't a peripheral initiative. It is truly embedded across our entire organization. And it's one of the reasons Anthropic has chosen to partner with us on the design and application of AI in investment management. I think that tells you something about where we stand. Our ambition is clear to become an AI-powered asset manager. We have the heritage, the expertise and the data to make that a reality. So across all 3 pillars, investment capabilities, client reach and talent and technology, we have made meaningful progress. The strategy is delivering, and the results speak for themselves.

We entered this year in great shape and with good momentum. Our $87 billion liquid alternative business gives us a platform with an exceptional long-term track record of delivering for clients and shareholders. In an environment where clients are increasingly focused on uncorrelated returns, liquidity and crisis alpha, the relevance of that platform has never been greater. Alongside that, we now manage $17 billion in private credit with teams focused on underwriting discipline and the ability to capture dislocation when it arises. Our long-only business has scale, a clearly differentiated proposition and a proven ability to generate alpha.

And finally, we've aligned resources with our strategic priorities, ensured cost and capital discipline and position the business for long-term success. The result is a firm with its highest run rate net management fees in over a decade and near record performance fee optionality. I feel very good about how we have started the year and our ability to capture the opportunities that lie ahead. It is not just our business that is well positioned, the market environment is supportive, too.

After a decade defined by U.S. exceptionalism, we are seeing a more complex, dispersed landscape emerge. That is exactly the environment in which active management thrives and allocators are responding. The chart in the middle shows their plans for 2026, which favor many of the strategies where we have strength, hedge funds, portable alpha, active extension. Our ability to help clients navigate this environment with a broad range of alpha-focused strategies has never been more relevant.

At the same time, demand for customization continues to grow. Capital allocated via customized structures has increased 61% since 2023, reflecting a clear shift towards strategic partnerships and tailored solutions. You've heard me talking about our strengths in that space time and time again. It is where we have a clear competitive advantage.

So to close, 2025 tested us and our strategy delivered. Record inflows, AUM at all-time highs and a resilient set of earnings in a year that was far from straightforward. The diversification we have built proved its worth. I'm incredibly proud of what this team has achieved. None of this is possible without the exceptional talent across our firm. Their energy and commitment are what set us apart. We enter 2026 as a more diversified, structurally stronger business that is well positioned for growth.

The landscape is shifting in our favor. Markets are more dispersed, allocators are demanding more from fewer partners and the value of our offering has rarely been clearer. We have the investment content, we have the client relationships and the technology platform to capture that opportunity. And I have absolute conviction that our strategy will deliver long-term value for our clients and our shareholders.

With that, we'll open up for analyst Q&A.

As a reminder, to ask a question, you need to have joined the presentation via the Webex link. Press the Raise Hand button and please unmute yourself when we can call your name. Thank you.

Thank you, Robyn. And we'll start with Nicholas. I'm going to send a request, and you should be able to unmute.

Can you hear me?

Yes, Nicholas.

Three questions from my side, if I may, please. One on AI one on absolute return and one on capital return. So on AI, I think the Anthropic partnership is super interesting. I appreciate it's early days, but do you have any ambitions or key milestones you can share with us from that partnership?

And I guess just more broadly, if we think beyond yourselves, how do you expect AI to impact competition and alpha generation in the markets in which you operate? And which markets do you think could see the most significant impact, please? So that's the first one.

On absolute returns, I appreciate the strong delivery in diversifying the business for sure. But if I focus on absolute return, could you just give us a sense of investor sentiment and engagement there given the shift from underperformance to recovery, but there's still a negative relative performance? And are there any further redemptions in the pipeline we should be aware of?

And then finally, on capital return, I guess, following the repayment of the RCF, you have significant available net cash and equivalents. What was the rationale to keep the dividend stable and not declare any additional capital return? And should we see this as an indication of your M&A pipeline?

Right. Do you want to...

I will go ahead and start with the last one.

Yes.

Which is -- I'll start with the last one. So we have a clear, unchanged capital allocation policy, dividend first, which we aim to grow in line with earnings over the cycle. And if you look at earnings year-on-year, they were down, hence, keeping the dividend flat. Now, if you look over the last 5 years, we've increased the dividend, I think, to the tune of 10% per annum over that period. So we've delivered the growth over the cycle as intended with our policy.

And then, we aim to invest in the business, both organically and inorganically. If you look at last year, we deployed investments in technology, but also did an acquisition. And then after that, we look at returning capital by way of buyback, which we executed last year to the tune of $100 million, so we returned $300 million to shareholders last year in addition to doing an acquisition, a bolt-on acquisition in a year that didn't see us generate huge amount of capital given the slightly softer performance fees. So very much in line with our policy, we're keeping dividend flat.

Do not read anything into future M&A. The Board in due course will consider options and might return capital to shareholders as and when it sees fit.

I can take the absolute return one going reverse order if you want and you can do AI.

Yes, for sure. Yes.

So I would differentiate between trending following and the rest of offering. Trend following has indeed a soft -- let's be clear, a poor first half and then a tremendous recovery that extends into 2026. The rest of absolute return category, which I think is best represented by our Fund 73 performed well throughout. 73 was up in the first half and up in the second half to finish the year last year at 14%.

In terms of investor sentiment, the outflows we saw last year were prominently driven by the trend following category as well as some of the risk parity category. Both have had a strong second half and start of the year. And eventually, performance is what leads to flow. We don't comment on future flow, as you know. So I'm not going to give you specific comments, but I think you can read in the confidence that we have, the way that we think of ourselves starting '26 in a strong position and the belief that we have in our client relationship.

AI?

AI. Fair to say we're excited about the opportunity set. No specific milestones that we've set with Anthropic, but this is a partnership where we believe we can add to their understanding of what the needs are, but also drive the solutions that we can put in play across the organization, be they at the front end and the research capability that we can look at and develop more or indeed through the entirety of the AI capabilities you see for efficiencies and effectiveness through the rest of the organization.

For us, we've spent 35, 40 years being at the cutting edge of technology. This is no different. We believe we are in a terrific place to benefit from use, utilize and lead with some of the strongest players on the street, this extraordinary technology capability. So tremendously excited, no real milestones, but we think this partnership will help us, along with everything else we do, take full advantage of the full suite of technology.

With that, I'm going to go to Arnaud. Arnaud, you should get a request to unmute.

I've got 3 quick questions, please. Firstly, going back to the buyback. So historically, when you tend to come back into performance fee territory and in a good position, usually, that does correlate with buybacks. I'm just wondering, why there hasn't been -- and particularly, if I'm looking at the cash flow statement, I noticed a big outflow in terms of working capital. So maybe if you could give us a bit more color there and what your thinking is in terms of the buyback. I mean, the net financial assets did improve. So I would have expected some nonetheless.

Second question is on St. James's Place. There was some news flow around St. James reallocating mandate. I'm just wondering what was the quantum that might impact our flows and when that comes through?

And my third question is on management fee margins. The run rate management fee margin looking forward has reduced. Clearly, there's a bit of a mix shift between categories, and I understand that. I understand that you don't manage the business given management fee margin and all business is good. But I'm just wondering, if I isolate each category, are we seeing -- at constant mix, are we seeing dilution margins, is my question?

Yours, I think.

Yes, I'll take them in order, and thank you for the questions. Expand a bit on the buyback, performance fees is, obviously, one source of capital generation, and therefore, a correlation between performance fees and capital returns because it sort of follows a waterfall we outlined. I go back to what I mentioned earlier. Last year, we deployed $300 million of capital returning to shareholders plus an acquisition in a year where cash flow generation was still more subdued. There's a timing of cash flow point as well, and we start the year in a strong position. Do not read anything in that signal. We have not changed our capital policy. But at this point, the Board has not decided to announce a buyback.

St. James's Place, we don't comment on future flows. We have had in the past commented on very large flows in and out when we felt it was relevant, but we're not commenting on future flows. The outlook remains the one that you can read, and we've outlined.

And then, on management fee margin, we are seeing a mix shift both between categories and within categories. Between categories, we -- if you look at the year, we finished the year with a majority of our AUM on the long-only side, which is traditionally lower margin. I think 60% of our AUM is long-only. And that explains the overall the shift. Within categories, you're also seeing the same thing.

If I pause on the absolute return category, what we saw last year was a slight relative underperformance evolution, and then, worse flows in the evolution because of higher-margin product than the other content within that category. And that explains why within that category, you also saw margin erosion. We are not seeing any kind of fee pressure that we call out here. So it is really a mix effect at the category level and within the category level.

I'll go to David McCann.

Hope you can hear me.

Yes.

A couple of my questions have already been answered. So I've got just 2 left. The first one, on the new 30% to 40% PBT margin guidance, I mean, I guess reading into your comments, it sounds like there's some fresh investment that's going to go into things, including AI. But presumably, the reason you can keep the margin roughly where it has been is because you're intending to get some kind of efficiency and/or productivity savings from that. But maybe you could sort of give some color on that sort of those 2 forces, and how you're thinking about them in that mix?

And then, I guess, delving a little bit deeper into sort of one of the previous questions, yes, clearly, you've had some strong recovery, as you've touched on as well in a number of your funds in the second half of last year and continuing into this year, which is good. I appreciate you're not giving color on flows as such. But, yes, historically, when you have seen sort of some recovery following a period of weakness, you have sometimes seen investors, I guess, take money out at that point. They kept during the period of underperformance, but then came out when it did recover. So are you seeing any signs of that happening? That would be the second question.

I will start with this one. No, I mean, nothing again that we call out that's already in the numbers. And you're right, performance and flows do correlate, although it's not like it's a sort of immediately identifiable correlation. It usually comes first on the wealth channels and then institute tend to have a kind of a longer horizon, and hence, the sort of lumpiness in flows that we often refer to.

The PBT margin is really about, as I said, giving us more flexibility across the various lines compared to what we have. It is not intended to kind of change the profitability for shareholders. That's an important point I want to repeat.

When it comes to AI and technology, we're not doing this because of specific efficiency that we've identified. This is not a way to kind of capture the efficiencies. This is about us being able to continue to invest in the business, benefit from those kind of very significant advances in technology and the strength that we have. So we continue to deliver growth. Key point, as I said, is this does not change anything to the ongoing profitability of the business.

Okay. It's more about the alpha that -- potential alpha that the strategy can develop rather than anything...

Correct.

I will then go to Hubert. Hubert, you should be able to unmute. He says, hopefully.

Yes. Hubert Lam from Bank of America. I've got 3 questions. Firstly, obviously, there's been a lot of focus recently on private credit. Can you talk about your software exposure within your U.S. private credit business, and any commentary about credit quality within that line?

Second question is also on credit. Can you just also talk about the deployment within Varagon? How that's coming along? How much dry powder you have there currently?

And last question is on 1783, another strong year of performance. Can you just talk about what you can do to scale up that product given that, that seems like a pretty big opportunity that you can exploit there just given the strong performance?

Thank you, Hubert. Which one you want to take?

Well, why don't I start with 1783? Let's start there, and we'll split it up between us. Really pleased with the performance. You're right. Thank you for calling that out. I'm glad you're enjoying the performance as much as we are in that space. It's -- we continue to see and have really excellent conversations with clients. We have a strong belief in this product and its track record. And so this is about making sure that we can convert some of those conversations into investment. But we feel very good about it. The performance is robust. We continue to see strong engagement on it. And so that's -- the scale is there. We have the capability, and it has the capacity to operate.

I'll take the, I am sure it is, private credit piece, just on our exposure. Let me do it slightly differently. We have very limited -- let me say it at the start, we have very limited exposure to software and technology across both of our direct lending and opportunistic credit books. For background, direct lending, software and tech exposure is sort of somewhere sub-6%. Think about it like that.

But also think about it in a slightly different way. This is a middle market business where also it's been run with high discipline in underwriting and risk management. So this piece that we talked about through last year about being slower in deployment, because we valued the risk management approach and proper underwriting quality, was what we continue to believe is the right thing to do.

Our exposure is far less than any of our peers, but also we're not facing retail markets. This is an institutional-facing business. So we also don't suffer or have to worry about liquidity mismatch, for example. So we believe this is a good strategy. Middle market provides good opportunity. We run our business with high discipline and high-risk focus. We're not exposed to the sector in the way that you might have been seeing others have been. We don't have liquidity mismatch issues, and we continue to have strong belief that this is an area for development.

In terms of dry powder?

Still $4.9 billion is a number we mentioned. And underlying in the AUM categorization, and the direct lending category has deployed a bit more capital, so you don't see it, but it's the underlying AUM has actually increased. It's obviously increased more because of the acquisition of Bardin Hil we have made in the year.

Before I go back to the screen, we still have a couple of questions, I'm going to read a question from Mike Werner, who seems to have issues probably dialing in Webex. We saw a significant increase in long-only performance fee-eligible AUM in 2025. Was this due to a large mandate? Or is this a trend we should expect to continue going forward? If you go to Slide 10 of our presentation, you see that at the end of '25, we have $13 billion of long-only AUM that was performance fee eligible. That's increased from $5.8 billion as of the end of 2024. That is a series of mandate. It is not a single mandate. Obviously, there are entity mandates, so they tend to be sizable by construction, but it's not just one, it's a series of mandates. And that in part explains why we generated $100 million of performance fees in long-only in 2025.

Second question from Mike, is it possible to get a breakdown of seed capital between public and private markets given the delta in equity in those strategies? The answer is yes, you have it in Slide 14 at the bottom, liquid markets account for 79% of our seed investments and private markets 21% of our seed investments on a gross basis.

I will then go to Isobel. Isobel, you should get the request to unmute.

Can you hear me okay?

Yes. We can.

Go ahead, Isobel.

I just have one, please. So if you take a step back and look at the Man platform, holistically, where do you think there are potential capabilities you're missing or need to enhance inorganically going forward?

Thanks, Isobel. I'll take that question. We have always been very clear we will always look for capabilities that are uncorrelated to that, that we have today, but still rhyme with the verbs announced that we understand. But let's be clear, that doesn't -- that comes from organic growth. We can demonstrate that as you think about, for example, the high-yield and investment-grade credit business we've built here organically. That is -- that speaks to the capability we have already to grow that capability. It's not just about M&A. We added 5 new teams into the discretionary space. So we're interested in capability that comes, again, in an uncorrelated content from that space.

So we're not focused on a specific area. You know the strategy that we're trying to follow. We feel like we're making great strides in that space. But right now, we are very, very focused on the book of business we have in front of us, and we'll continue to look for capabilities that we don't currently have. But right now, we're feeling quite good.

And then we have 1 last question from -- or questions from Jacques-Henri. Jacques-Henri, I'm going to request you to unmute. We haven't had the chance to get acquainted. So if you could tell us which firm you're from as well. That would be great. Thank you.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Yes.

I'm Jacques-Henri Gaulard, Kepler Cheuvreux. I had 2 related to the updating model framework on the PBT. Getting the 30% to 40% now, is it a bit a reflection of the fact that 2025 was really, really tough, despite that, you more or less made it? And it's like if we can make it in that type of condition, then we'll definitely make it whatever happens almost, sorry about that.

And the second question would be your non-core costs is actually a little bit lumpy, and the definition is effectively quite range. Would you consider probably reducing the range of those core costs to actually include some of them into the pretax margin definition? Some of your peers, for example, include the restructuring costs in there. That's it for me. Congrats for this morning.

Thank you, Jacques-Henri, for the questions. So the range is really a reflection of the evolution of the business over the last now 13 years. When the previous framework was put in place, the business was going through heavier restructuring with a very focused approach on costs, fixed costs in particular. And that's why previous management focused on kind of single-line item targets across the P&L.

As we evolve the business, as we invest for growth, as we invest in technology, but also grow our teams, we feel that having the ability to use the cost P&L line more fungibly makes more sense with that importantly taking away from shareholders. So do not read anything into it.

The second question is on non-core costs. You're right that last year, we had an increase in the non-core costs for really 3 specific reasons. Most of them really related to 2025. The first one is the court case, which is ongoing. That went to trial in March of last year. The trial will conclude in March of this year. So we incurred some legal costs. This relates to allegations made from the 1990s. So firmly not sort of related to the current core business, which is why they sit in non-core.

The second was the kind of restructuring charge we took around the middle of last year, as we addressed difficult first half and realigned resources across the business. That's another around $30 million, of which $10 million is noncash, $20 million is cash.

And then the third element in the non-core line, which is more in keeping with what you usually see is the noncash impact of reevaluation of liability in relation to Asteria partnership. Asteria, you might recall, is a joint venture that we have focusing on wealth in Italy in particular and continent in general. It's going very well. As a result, the implied valuation of the liability that we have remaining on our balance sheet has increased and also flows through the non-core. We're not proposing any change to our definition. Importantly, what you saw last year is not on the basis of a change either. It's just the same definition, in a year that's a bit exceptional.

With that, I don't believe we have any more questions. So we'll finish here. Thank you all very much for your time.

Thank you very much.