Burford Capital Ltd (BUR) 2022 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Hello, everybody, and thank you very much for joining us for our business update call on our 2022 activities. As usual, I'm here with Jon Molot, Burford's Chief Investment Officer; and Jordan Licht, Burford's Chief Financial Officer, and both of them are going to talk to you separately. I'm going to lead off and spend a little bit of time.

Starting on Slide 4, after you get through the disclaimers. And with that slide up, I'm really excited to be talking to you about 2 quite different things today. First of all, on the business itself, we are really feeling that the pandemic is moving into the rearview mirror for litigation and for courts.

We had a really nicely strong 2022. $350 million of cash realizations, up 33%, record-breaking new business, $1.2 billion of new group-wide commitments. Balance sheet deployments that have more than doubled over the last 2 years. We had a real growth in the modeled value of our balance sheet portfolio. That grew by $800 million last year, a 21% growth rate.

We raised more than $1 billion of new capital during the course of 2022 and we ended the year with a strong cash and liquidity position that Jordan will talk more about. But what we're really excited about, notwithstanding the fact that 2022 was a really nice, good catch-up year and a strong year for us. We're really excited about 2023.

The courts are back fully in operation. We are seeing that reflected now in some numbers. So for example, we've got more than 30, 3-0, final merit hearings or trials already scheduled during the course of 2023, and that compares to only 10 such hearings occurring in 2021 and only 11 last year. So that's a really strong beginning to the year, and it makes us optimistic that we're going to get back into the groove that existed before the pandemic.

And 2023 has also begun very well. We've had several case successes already, a $90 million settlement, a $67 million trial win, a $52 million arbitration award for one of our managed funds. So the world has just come back to life. Courts are back doing their thing. And on top of all of that, while this is not a source of great happiness for us or for you in other quarters, the world economy is obviously not in its most robust state, and that leads to opportunity for us.

The simple reality is that when things are going wrong for businesses, when interest rates are rising, when there's corporate stress out there, that -- that leads to disputes, those disputes lead to opportunity for us. And so we're pretty optimistic about where things stand on the back of what was already a strong 2022.

Second of all, we're excited about what's going on with our fair value accounting. That's both a long key and the somewhat eccentric sentiment as I'm sure that many investors read our release and instead reacted towards like SEC and delay. But we have been living the exotic nature of fair value for the last 14 years in this asset class, and we've been doing that without having a North Star.

And that's led to us spending more time talking about accounting and less time talking about the merits of our business than we would have liked. Now we do see North Star, and that's thanks to some significant engagement by the senior staff of the SEC. And we have high hopes of a clear fair value approach that should become the industry standard and will let us never again have to talk about accounting standards on an earnings call.

We've engaged constructively with the UCC for around 6 months now, and we feel good about where we are, which will result in some methodological change, but will still anchor our asset values to case events. At bottom, what's really going on here is fundamentally an inversion. Instead of starting at cost or present value and adding value as we progress through case events, which is what we do today, we're talking about starting with a future value and discounting at that. But again, with meaningful changes in value only driven by case events. But the beginning and the endpoints of that spectrum remain the same under either approach. Of course, it would have been too much to ask to have this happen last spring in good time for a relaxed year-end. Instead, we have it happening in real time, and that means we will be providing our audited statements later than usual, although we hope to have them out in 45 to 60 days.

As you know, we manage the business on a cash basis, not an accounting one and we can't spend fair value. So all the numbers we're providing to you today are cash numbers. This delay doesn't have any impact on us as we run the business, and we think you should regard it as a long-term positive for the business just as we do. I can't really emphasize that enough, but I am delighted with the idea of moving to clarity on this question and really putting it behind us as one of the growing pains associated with this business in this industry.

And as I said, we continue to run the business on a cash basis and none of this accounting dynamic has any effect at all on us as a cash basis. After we go through this presentation, we're happy to answer your questions about all of this within, obviously, the limitations of what we can say while we're in an ongoing process.

Turning to Slide 5. We thought it was useful to set out crisply the 4 things you get when you buy Burford stock, what we're basically calling the 4 pillars of value. And to begin with, we have what is now an enormous core portfolio of litigation assets. We model those assets, as we've described before and as Jon and Jordan will discuss in more detail, that portfolio, excluding our YPF assets, right now shows an expected value of $4.6 billion at year-end. And we've been consistently producing high returns across the capital that we have deployed into that portfolio with now a cash track record that's well in excess of $2 billion.

So problem #1 is you're getting an existing book of desirable investments. Problem #2 is you're getting an origination platform. We're the industry's market leader. We have significant scale, and we've demonstrated over and over again our ability to put a lot of new business through that origination platform, more than $1 billion in each of the last 2 years.

And we do that with a global presence. We do that again with our clear industry leadership, with our relationships, with our brand and with our share of voice in the industry. The third thing you get is the industry-leading asset manager with -- we've raised almost $4 billion in investment funds over time. And those funds not only augment our balance sheet capital, but they enable us to provide other opportunities to investors that let them -- that let us really cover the waterfront, cover the gamut of what our clients need and provide investors with a wide range of risk and return opportunities.

And finally, we have what really you could almost argue is a free option on the YPF-related assets. We've already made a significant amount of cash profit from the YPF cases, and we're waiting for an outcome of them, which, of course, if it is positive and in our favor, could be of substantial value. So really Burford gets you those 4 things all together in 1 package. There's nowhere else you can get those things. either in the scale or quality that we provide, and we're really excited to be able to show you what we can do with them going forward.

And with that, I'll now turn it over to Jordan.

Thank you, Chris, and great to join the team and be with you here today. I'm turning to Slide 6, and this slide shows our cumulative returns since inception. Most of you have seen this slide before, but it's great to reiterate the story. Burford has consistently earned high returns that are uncorrelated to the economy or market fluctuations. We have a 14-year track record of very strong returns with $2.2 billion in cash realizations, an 88% cumulative ROIC and a 29% IRR.

In my first few months, I saw the power of the business represent itself in short order. The global antitrust portfolio matter that we've discussed previously had a significant partial realization with an impressive 42% IRR. The ROIC was 48%, which is what we would anticipate when litigation resolves fast. It's exciting to see the power of the business producing significant cash-on-cash returns.

Moving to Slide 7, another slide that you've seen before. This demonstrates the favorable returns of the asset class. We outlined our track record in a different way here, and there are a couple of key takeaways to point out. We win much more often than we lose. There's positive asymmetry on the size of our returns that skews toward the cases we win. And finally, it shows the repeatable nature of earning high return. We have now had 30 matters conclude with ROICs greater than 200%, including 4 in 2022.

I know not every case wins, but when we experience a loss, it's not necessarily a total loss of capital. I want to point out the bullet on the side of the page that illustrates this nicely. On -- the 16% of losses, we still recouped 42% of the deployed cost.

Let's flip to Slide 8. We've updated the output of our proprietary probabilistic model for year-end 2022. Quick note, this page is based on the Burford-only capital provision direct portfolio, excluding the YPF-related assets. Let's start on the column furthest to the right. You can see the implied realizations from the model and the implied performance fee income both increased in 2022. Implied realizations at year-end were $4.6 billion, up from $3.8 billion previously. And the implied performance fee income, which includes income from BOF-C is $500 million, up from $400 million.

The implied ROIC has remained relatively steady at around 140%. As we've said before, this return figure is greater than our historical level, mainly driven by our putting on larger cases, including monetizations and claims families, which we believe tend to have higher returns.

It's important to make sure that we understand the impact of these numbers changing over time. And as we continue to refine and improve our model, we could see these numbers move around. Also, while it's great to see the anticipated gains of the portfolio rising, there are times when it will decrease. For example, as assets in the portfolio convert to realizations, which would be a positive for the company, it would be removed from the model portfolio.

Moving forward to the next slide. We have a fantastic origination platform, a great brand and a great track record, history of innovation, regular interactions with almost the entire top 100 U.S. law firms and a global presence that meets our clients' needs all over the world. A team that is steeped in commercial litigation that combines financial and structuring acumen with a database of 14 years of results.

All this manifests itself in putting capital work. In 2022, we added record levels of new commitments and deployments. And most of those -- more of those potentially higher returning assets are going to our balance sheet, as we've increased the portion of our originated core legal finance assets that are allocated to the balance sheet. We also believe we deployed capital into high-value assets in 2022 as we've added $900 million in modeled realized gains this year from new business.

This figure represents both deployments from commitments made in 2022, including deployments already made in the year and commitments from prior year vintages that converted from discretionary to definitive commitments.

And as Chris mentioned, we look forward and we're excited not only about the potential for realizations as court backlogs ease, but also the opportunity to continue to originate new high-quality, high-returning core litigation finance assets. With that, I'll turn it over to Jon to talk about the portfolio.

Thanks, Jordan, and thanks to you all for joining. It's great to speak with you. I think we were able to recruit Jordan, who was a fabulous CFO because we have this amazing portfolio with a very attractive, interesting profile. I mean I just want to talk a little bit more about the portfolio and where it's poised at this moment.

So as Chris said at the beginning, the portfolio is poised to deliver more results than we historically have. If you just look at the bullets on the left that Chris alluded to earlier that like we've got more than 30 trials and final merit hearings already scheduled for this year as compared to 11 for the last year and 10 a year before. It's just so much more activity than we have seen. It's just a big uptick, and the COVID delays really do appear to be behind us in the long term it's breaking.

And just in the first 2 months of this year, we had a trial verdict that if a firm would deliver $67 billion to Burford, we had a settlement that did deliver $90 million in cash to Burford. And we had an arbitration win that would deliver $52 million to one of our private funds. 2022 was more active than '21, right? We did see a 20% increase in resolution, 60 versus 50, but there's much more poised to happen still in '23 than there was in '22.

And if you turn to Slide 11, you can see, graphically, there's a lot of information on this slide, but you can see sort of what we've done so far and what we are poised for in the future. The bottom horizontal line, the black with the right figures that basically shows our IRR per vintage and shows positive returns across vintages that are quite attractive. And you can see another representation of that positive performance by comparing the black vertical bars above to the red vertical bars above.

The black ones are the money that went out the door and deployment, and the red are the realization. That's the money that came back, and we're very pleased with the red bars are larger than the black bars. But what I'm really interested in is the gray shaded-vertical bars because that's the money we've put out the door in matters that haven't yet concluded, and that's what is poised to deliver in 2023 and beyond and what I'm very optimistic about.

I joke with the team that we're a bit like air traffic controllers with lots of claims in the air, all of which are poised to come in for a landing. And it's just a wonderful thing to see so much activity in the portfolio.

If you turn to Slide 12, I'll say just to spend a moment on IPS. There's really not that much to say. It's the motions for summary judgment have been fully briefed since June of last year, and we're just waiting. And that's not uncommon in litigation that a judge will take some time to write a definitive merits opinion, and we'll see what comes of it. And there's not really much more we can say other than that it's there and fully briefed and ready.

So with that, I will turn it back to Jordan on Slide 13 to talk about this great origination machine, where we get the capital from. We have different pools of capital for different risk-reward profile deals. Jordan?

Thanks, Jon. So we talked about putting money to work on the balance sheet, but we also, as Jon just mentioned, have a great asset management business. And on Page 13, I want to take a minute to talk about the value we see in that platform. We think about the asset management business that's benefiting us in 2 ways.

Number one, we view it as giving us the ability to engage in a broader range of legal finance activity. And number two, it provides leverage to the balance sheet, enabling the balance sheet to be more diversified and for us to be able to execute on larger transactions.

In 2022, we closed on the $360 million Burford Advantage Fund, our first fund that invests in lower-risk legal finance assets. And on base 2, our latest post-settlement fund, as the investment period for base 1 ended during 2022. We believe we're the largest asset manager in the legal finance space by a considerable margin. We saw meaningful growth in our asset management income to $36 million for 2022, primarily driven by the growth in income from BOF-C, as that portfolio of core litigation finance asset season.

And speaking of BOF-C during 2022, we extended the investment period of that fund to the end of 2023, and we shifted the allocation of each new matter that meets the relevant investment criteria between the balance sheet and BOF-C. So 75% of those assets now go to the balance sheet up from the previous 50%.

While the timing of earning our asset management income can be variable due to the structure of our enragements, we're very excited about the potential earnings from this platform. Keep in mind on the slide I had shown earlier that the $500 million in implied performance fees from our probabilistic model don't also include the income from Advantage Fund or post-settlement funds.

Let's move on to Slide 14. Our liquidity position consisting of cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities at year-end was $210 million. Cash receipts of $328 million in 2022 was up 17% from 2021, reflecting the pickup in realizations, and we expect to see meaningful cash inflows to occur as case resolutions continue to accelerate. As always, we balance maintaining our liquidity cushion due to the variability of our cash inflows with seeking to minimize the drag of low returning cash on our overall return on tangible equity.

I'd also highlight that we have $115 million at year-end of receivables. The majority of which we expect to convert to cash in 2023. We begin 2023 well positioned to continue to deploy capital against new opportunities. And as Chris mentioned, we've had some significant early wins in the first quarter that if paid in full, would meaningfully contribute to our current liquidity position. With that, I'll turn it back to Chris for some concluding remarks.

Thanks very much, Jordan and Jon. And so just turning to Slide 15 and wrapping this up before we take your questions. So again, we sort of end where we began. We were very pleased with what happened in 2022. The world came back to life. We saw meaningful upticks in virtually every metric across the business, ranging from realizations in the door to the new business out the door, and we ended the year with a very strong cash and liquidity position, which is only continuing to be augmented during 2023 as matters continue to come to fruition.

And then we've got a lot of optimism about what's happening in 2023, just the sheer fact that after being closed and delayed during the pandemic, of course it took a while to shake that off, but they have shaken it off now. Every court that we're aware of is operating at full capacity and is doing its best to work its way through its backlogs and we're seeing the benefit of that, both tangibly in the examples that we've already given you about good things that have happened during the early part of the year and just in terms of what the court calendar looks like as the rest of the year goes forward.

So we're pretty pleased about where the business is after having to endure a little bit of sleepy time during the pandemic. And as I said at the outset, well inconvenient and slightly aggravating on a process basis, I'm pretty excited about the ability not to talk to you any longer going forward about fair value accounting and to have a pretty quick standard for us and for the industry going forward.

So with that, we'll stop talking at you, and we'd be delighted to take your questions.

(Operator Instructions) The first question we have from the phone lines comes from Vikram Kumar of Kuvari Partners.

Just to talk about the accounting audit restatement. Can you just talk me through what triggered the need for this. And given that we're now in March and you're talking about, I think you said 45 to 60 days, and you mentioned in the statement that there's a SEC deadline that could be extended. But there's also an April deadline that if you have not met your release your auditor stated for '22 that you could really default or some of your financing. Could you explain both the background why this change is happening and the implications if were unable to get it done, the audit done by then, please. I've got a follow-up as well, please.

Yes, sure. So first of all, as to the timing issues, I think better not have any immediate concern at all. As we said, we think this is -- we think we need another 45 to 60 days. The various dates that are in the release are fairly formalistic dates. In other words, the bonds require the delivery of financial statements, as you can imagine, just as the SEC does. They're tied together in their timing, but nothing actually happens if you don't meet those dates and there's quite a long period thereafter where nothing happened.

So for example, the bonds run for a couple of months with no impact whatsoever. So until the end of June, and even once you get past that point, there has to be some precipitate action taken. And given that this isn't a credit issue, that doesn't seem very likely to me even if we were to get that far, which I don't think that we will. So I'm not concerned about those issues at the moment.

On the substance of what's going on here, it's really -- I don't know if I have a lot to add to what I said before. This has been an issue of first impression for us, basically for our entire existence because there isn't a defined concept of exactly how you apply fair value accounting to these kinds of assets. And so as we've been engaged in the journey to a full U.S. listing and full compliance with U.S. GAAP and Sarbanes-Oxley, that's a process by during which the SEC is looking at the asset class in the financials. We're the very first legal finance firm to list in the United States. So this is the first time the SEC has had to look at the asset class. And frankly, quite helpfully they have been working with us to come to a conclusion about what the best way to express U.S. GAAP in terms of legal finance fair value adds.

Right. But you say in the statement that they could lead to restatement of -- obviously, in the delay of '22, but previously statements. But at this stage, you're unable to say the quantum of that could be, right? There's obviously quite a big change in methodology that's going to be required at this stage. I presume it's down a provision. But yes, we haven't got any indication of that.

So I don't think that's a reasonable assumption to make on either front, actually. I don't think any of those things are reasonable assumptions. First of all, I don't think that we're at the stage of knowing whether there would be a restatement or not. I think the paragraph in the release that you're talking about are a series of lawyer-drafted risk factors that appear in this kind of release.

Second, I don't think there's any basis for believing that there's going to be a significant change, there may be, but I don't think there's any basis for believing that. What is clear is that our historical approach to relying principally on case developments for fair value is going to continue to be the principal driver of valuation changes. And that makes sense because those are just as you think logically about litigation cases, that's what would cause you to change the price you'd be willing to pay for one of our assets. When a court looks at the asset and says, "Hey, this is a good strong asset or, gee, this is a weak asset."

And I also don't think there's any basis to speculate that these would be lower rather than higher changes. As I said, what you're really seeing is an inversion in the approach to valuation and the application of some time value of money. So that actually probably implies a degree of accretion of income over time that we haven't been doing previously. So it would not be surprising to me, although it's too early to say, it would not be surprising to me to see both an increase in asset value and also somewhat a forward-looking increase in income from the approach.

Okay. And very last question, and then I'll go back to queue (inaudible) I have -- because I'm on my mobile phone, excuse me, I can't speak to you and also look at the statements. But as you said, it's just now in your intro, you're calling the cash solution was down, obviously, you funded the -- I think the new 2030 notes. If you have got delays on the audit and all these restatements, are you able to access new source of financing because the underlying cash in terms of deployment and commitments against what you're actually able to raise at the moment, and I know there's been a COVID impact has been significantly below what you've been able to raise from realization and you, therefore, have external sources, be it funds or be it in your own capital raising? Would there be delays to ability to access such that the capital markets in the event of delays in this order and all the restatements? And does that mean that you may have alternative needs for funding of your commitments in the coming 6 to 12 months?

So we're very happy with the state of our liquidity. And as you know, the current liquidity level that we've had -- that we have is higher than the level that we've maintained at some points during the past. As Jordan said, this is all about a degree of balance, right? The cash -- the undeployed cash that is sitting there on our balance sheet is expensive for us. And so we want only a moderate amount of capital sitting there because there's cash drag associated with that cash. At the same time, we want enough cash that we're not cut short. But it's in our ability to figure out which attractive opportunities we're going to take and which we don't.

All that being said, we have -- what you saw right now is a pretty spectacular level of new activity in the portfolio that is cash generative. So we've already brought in meaningful cash this year and it is -- if past practice is any indication, some meaningful number of the cases that are headed for trial this year will settle before they get there, which will produce incremental cash. So I actually think -- the question is not likely to be a liquidity shortfall. It's likely to be a question of what we do with the cash.

We now have Justin Bates of Canaccord Genuity.

Again, I'm on my mobile. So I apologize if this is in the statement. But you -- I recall you mentioning some of the realizations for the first quarter of this year. Do you give any detail on the level of buffered-only deployments in the first 3 months? And then as a follow-up, just to the point about fair valuing the assets. There's a statement in -- or the sentence in the statement references material weakness in our internal controls. Just jump out and I wondered if you could perhaps touch on what you're trying to convey there relative to the commentary around asset values?

Sure. So on the first question, no, is the answer. Although, as you know, Justin, we are about to embrace, if that's the right word, the joys of quarterly reporting. And so we will be engaging in quarterly reporting in 2023. And so you won't have to wait too long for that information. The material weakness language that you're talking about is, again, as I was saying to Vikram, is part of the, what I'll call, the boiler risk factors that were at the back end of the statement.

And just for -- especially for the benefit of English listeners who don't every day live in the U.S. markets, this is a Sarbanes-Oxley concept, which basically says almost axiomatically, if you change your numbers, then by definition because you -- GAAP is supposed to be described on tablets in the sky that you should be able to go and consult. But if you change your numbers, by definition, your original approach had some weakness associated with it. It is just in that context that, that language exists. There is not any other context in the business where we believe we have or we've been told by our auditors, but they believe we have any sort of material weakness in our financial reporting.

We now have Portia Patel of Canaccord Genuity.

I've just got 2, please. The first, just to go back to the timing of this. So certainly, my understanding was that when Burford listed on the NYSE, the financials were subject to close scrutiny by the SEC at that time. So I just wonder if you could provide some more color on what has changed and what has triggered the current investigation, please? So that's the first one.

And the second one, I just wanted to clarify, please, the senior notes, which risk covenant breach. Are these -- do these include the $180 million due '25, the $400 million due '28 and the $360 million due 2030 or a subset of those?

Well, so in reverse order, I don't believe that they do risk covenant breach. What you, again, are referring to are a series of (inaudible) risk factors that are in the release. And so just to reiterate what I told Vikram, just as we are required as an SEC registrant to provide financial statements by April 30, so too, we are required under certain of our indentures and maybe Jordan will be able to tell us in a matter of which indentures, but I'm not sure that it really matters actually for this purpose. So we're at the same deadline. But in both cases, both as to the SEC and as to the bonds, nothing happens if you go past that April 30 date without providing other than financial statements, except that you entered into a period where you're supposed to go ahead and fix the fact that you haven't done that. With the bonds, you have at the very least 2 more months to fix that period -- to fix that issue and likely more time after that with the SEC, you have even more time. So I'm not, as I sit here today, concerned about those issues.

To your first question, this is not an investigation. This is a regular way dialogue between the SEC staff and Burford about the best way to apply U.S. GAAP to our particular asset class. And while you're right, the SEC did review our financial statements when we first listed in the U.S. that we listed when we were still reporting under IFRS. So then subsequent to listing, we converted to U.S. GAAP and is really the first year of our U.S. GAAP financials that has stimulated this conversation that we're having about what U.S. GAAP should do with respect to legal finance assets, which is an issue of first impression in the United States.

We now have Matthew Howlett with B. Riley.

Just going back to sort of this normalization in the courts, when you think about the weighted-average rise, Chris, on the portfolio going forward, it's been extending obviously in 2018. I mean what do we -- are you speaking now about sort of a normalization going back to sort of where things were pre '18, 2 years, 2.5 years. Just sort of a sense you can give us what normal is.

Jon, do you want to take your hand of that?

Well, I guess there's 2 ways. The piece that we're talking about here is just looking at what is already in the portfolio, whether it's life is shorter or longer than our averages that is poised to reach a conclusion going forward because the delays have lifted. So some of them may be older matters that got held up that would have resolved, but they were scheduled for trial, the trial got put off or the trial couldn't get scheduled. Some of the matters were filed more recently and the courts have just gotten right back on track and they're being slotted moving forward just as fast as they would have pre-COVID. So I don't know that the point we were making was one about -- and so you can expect our average life of investment to be different from what it has been, I think it was more an observation about when I'm looking at what's in the portfolio today that's headed towards resolution. It's a large chunk of stuff.

That being said, I do think now that I think about your question, which is a good one, I do think it is heartening to see not only that there are courts where there was clearly a backlog and things were delayed and they've made their way through the delays and therefore, we're getting to trial on things where things are settling instead of going to trial with the threat of trial looming. But I think we are seeing some matters where the courts are sufficiently cleared of their backlog that, in fact, they're moving through the process just as rapidly as they would have before COVID started.

So -- and I don't want to answer your question on what our average delay or what our average life is or duration is on the fly, but I do -- it's a good question to go back to the quants and look at the statistics and see for the recent vintages, how they've moved? Because my perception is just based on observation of that data is that things are returning to normalcy from filing time to conclusion time.

On the last call, I think you mentioned that there's a difference between geographies, New York versus Tallahassee. What you're saying is the New York, the backlogs are clearing up and looking more like the Tallahassee's. Is that sort of -- did I hear you correctly?

I mean I wouldn't classify those 2 jurisdictions in particular. But I think it's right and it also -- frankly, I have to say, there is judge to judge even within a locale. There are some judges that just have moved their dockets more quickly. All judges have to deal in the federal courts at least with criminal trials as well. They have to slot them in because there's a speedy trial requirement. But I think that's probably fair rather than -- it could be a geographic thing. It could be case type. It could be judge by judge.

But there are some judges that are further ahead in clearing the backlog such that they're basically just back on schedule. And there are other judges who are still clearing it, but because they're clear yet there's a heck of a lot going on before them, even if you were to file a new case in their court, it might go slightly slower than it would in the place that's been caught up already. So I think that's fair.

And as to the Tallahassee point -- no, sure. And as to the Tallahassee point, that was me, and what I was doing was I was contrasting the length of time in the court statistics -- in the public court statistics that it takes to get to trial. And that number is very much lower in Northern Florida than it is in New York. Part of that is probably that Northern Florida has cleared its backlog. So it's right back to normal. But the simple reality of life is that New York is always going to be slower than the Northern District of Florida, even without the overlay of COVID. There are just more cases in New York. As Jon said, there are more criminal cases. It's just a more complex litigation market and environment. And so even on the best day, it's going to take longer to get a case done in New York or Chicago or Los Angeles than it is in a number of other cities in the United States.

I think with that -- I think with that, I think we've taken enough of your time on short notice for those of you in New York and especially well into your night for those of you who joined us from the U.K. So thank you all very much. This call will go up on the website so people can listen to it tomorrow. There is another call tomorrow where we're happy to take more questions. But in the interim, thank you so much for participating and for your continued support of and interest in Burford.

Thanks.