Burford Capital Ltd (BUR) 2023 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Thank you for joining us today. all for joining, and good morning. I would like to welcome you all to the Burford Capital Q3 '23 Results Call. My name is Brika, and I'll be your moderator for today's call. (Operator Instructions). I would now like to pass the conference over to your host, Christopher Bogart, CEO of Burford Capital to begin. So Chris, please go ahead.

感謝您今天加入我們。一切為了加入，早安。歡迎大家參加 Burford Capital '23 年第三季業績電話會議。我叫 Brika，我將擔任今天電話會議的主持人。 （操作員說明）。現在我想請主持人、伯福德資本執行長克里斯多福·博加特（Christopher Bogart）開始會議。克里斯，請繼續。

Thanks very much, and hello, everybody. Thank you for joining us today. As usual, with me are Jon Molot, Burford's Chief Investment Officer; and Jordan Licht, Burford's Chief Financial Officer, and each of us will speak a little bit on this quarterly call and then we'll be happy to take your questions.

非常感謝，大家好。感謝您今天加入我們。像往常一樣，和我在一起的還有 Burford 首席投資長 Jon Molot。和 Burford 財務長 Jordan Licht，我們每個人都將在本次季度電話會議上發表一些講話，然後我們將很樂意回答您的問題。

I'm going to start on Slide 2 -- Sorry, Slide 3, which is sort of an overview synopsis of what we have to tell you today. And my fundamental message here is that we're having a blowout year. Things are just really going very, very well from our perspective. Just looking at the first number there on the slide, top line revenues are up 5x. And the thing that is really important to reflect on is that while our success in the YPF cases is driving some of this, so too is the rest of the portfolio. And so while in YPF, we had an extraordinary win with a judgment for more than $16 billion, the largest in the history of the issuing court. And Jon is going to talk some more about YPF when we get to a specific slide on that.

我將從幻燈片 2 開始——抱歉，是幻燈片 3，這是我們今天要告訴您的內容的概述。我在這裡要傳達的基本訊息是，我們將迎來井噴的一年。從我們的角度來看，事情進展得非常非常順利。只要看看投影片上的第一個數字，總收入就成長了 5 倍。真正需要反思的重要一點是，雖然我們在 YPF 案件中的成功推動了其中的一些發展，但投資組合的其餘部分也是如此。因此，在 YPF 中，我們取得了非凡的勝利，判決金額超過 160 億美元，這是發證法院歷史上最大的金額。當我們看到具體的幻燈片時，Jon 將進一步討論 YPF。

So while that's a fantastic outcome, I really want to focus on cash and on what's going on in the rest of the portfolio as well. Because the portfolio really has been moving forward after its -- pandemic hiatus. And so what we've seen just in 9 months is we've seen almost $400 million of cash come in. And again, that's not a single dollar of that cash is coming from YPF. That's all coming from the rest of the portfolio, which has been sitting slightly dormant while courts coped with the pandemic and now we've seen a real resurgence in activity. And as you'll see later in these slides, more than half of our activity in the period is coming from matters that are pre-2020 in the portfolio.

因此，雖然這是一個很棒的結果，但我真的想關注現金以及投資組合其他部分的情況。因為在疫情中斷之後，該投資組合確實一直在向前發展。因此，僅在 9 個月內，我們就看到了近 4 億美元的現金流入。同樣，這些現金中沒有一美元來自 YPF。這一切都來自投資組合的其餘部分，在法院應對流感大流行期間，這些投資組合一直處於休眠狀態，現在我們看到活動真正復甦。正如您稍後將在這些幻燈片中看到的那樣，我們在此期間一半以上的活動來自投資組合中 2020 年之前的事項。

So exactly as we have predicted, we had a delay for a while, but we did not have any substantive impact from that delay. And that delay is now clearing itself and things are moving through the portfolio. Again, you look at realized gains, basically doubling in the period. Again, no contribution there from YPF. So in terms of performance, in terms of the portfolio's output and activity levels and again, even looking at unrealized gains showing that things are moving, we're just very pleased with how things have been shaping up this year.

正如我們所預測的那樣，我們延遲了一段時間，但這次延遲並沒有給我們帶來任何實質影響。現在，這種延遲正在自行消除，投資組合中的事情正在改變。再次，你會看到已實現的收益，在此期間基本上翻了一番。同樣，YPF 沒有做出任何貢獻。因此，就業表現而言，就投資組合的產出和活動水準而言，即使看到未實現的收益表明事情正在發生變化，我們對今年的情況非常滿意。

The portfolio as a whole is also growing as we see both continued new business coming into that portfolio as well as the continued development of the cases that are already in there. And then a couple of other key points as we move through this slide, one of them is our sovereign wealth fund partnership, which, as we announced a little while ago, has been extended and expanded. And sometimes it's not so easy given the way that we account for the sovereign wealth fund arrangement to see its leverage in the business. Because it's consolidated into our financial statements. But if you break that apart, we're now well over $100 million in income from doing that arrangement. So we're really very pleased with how that's going and with the asset management contribution to the overall profitability of the business. And of course, we ended the period with very substantial cash on hand with very significant liquidity just because of all of the cash that we have generated augmented by the notes that we issued earlier this year. So all in all, very happy with where we sit 9 months into 2023.

整個投資組合也在不斷增長，因為我們看到該投資組合中不斷有新業務進入，以及現有案例的持續開發。當我們瀏覽這張投影片時，還有其他幾個關鍵點，其中之一是我們的主權財富基金合作夥伴關係，正如我們不久前宣布的那樣，這種夥伴關係已經擴展和擴大。有時，鑑於我們對主權財富基金安排進行會計處理以了解其在業務中的槓桿作用，這並不那麼容易。因為它已合併到我們的財務報表中。但如果你將其分開，我們現在透過這種安排獲得的收入遠遠超過 1 億美元。因此，我們對目前的進展以及資產管理對業務整體獲利能力的貢獻感到非常滿意。當然，我們在這段時期結束時手頭上有大量現金，流動性非常大，因為我們今年早些時候發行的票據增加了我們產生的所有現金。總而言之，我們對 2023 年 9 個月後的情況非常滿意。

Turning to Slide 4. This is fundamentally accounting. And it's obviously important, and Jordan is going to talk to you about many of these issues in more detail. But I think that while, at the same time, emphasizing the incredible growth that we've seen in so many of these numbers, just things going up by 5x and more. I think you also can't take your eye off the cash. And we generated lots of cash, as I said on the prior slide, and I would -- just as we -- when we run the business do this, and just as you've seen and some of the analyst notes that have come out today, I would really continue to focus your attention on the cash performance of the business and not be taken in by all of the accounting dynamics and some of the accrual noise.

轉向幻燈片 4。這從根本上講是會計。這顯然很重要，喬丹將與您更詳細地討論其中許多問題。但我認為，在強調我們在許多這些數字中看到的令人難以置信的增長的同時，只是增長了 5 倍甚至更多。我想你也不能把目光從現金移開。正如我在上一張投影片中所說，我們產生了大量現金，而且我會——就像我們一樣——當我們經營業務時這樣做，正如你所看到的和一些已經發表的分析師指出的那樣今天，我真的會繼續將你們的注意力集中在企業的現金表現上，而不是被所有的會計動態和一些應計噪音所蒙蔽。

So for example, when you look at expenses on an accounting basis, and Jordan will talk more about this, the expenses look like they've gone up a fair bit, but that's largely because of noncash items around, for example, the increase in our share price and the increase in the unrealized gain value associated with the YPF -- with the YPF case. If you look at sort of run rate cash operating expenses, those really have barely budged. And as I said, Jordan will talk more about those. It's pretty nice to see these book value numbers on the slide, more than $10 a share in book value, $9.5 intangible book value. I think that when you look at those book value numbers and look at the combination of our growth and profitability, and then turn your eyes to the share price, you see a degree of mismatch there that we hope will continue to close in the context of the U.S. market, especially. And obviously, we point out the significant impact on return on equity that these results have had over the last 9 months. So with that, let me turn you over to Jordan.

例如，當你在會計基礎上查看支出時，喬丹會更多地談論這一點，支出看起來增加了相當多，但這很大程度上是因為周圍的非現金項目，例如，我們的股價以及與YPF 相關的未實現收益值的增加－以YPF 為例。如果你看看現金營運支出的運作率，你會發現這些支出實際上幾乎沒有變化。正如我所說，喬丹會更多地談論這些。很高興在幻燈片上看到這些帳面價值數字，每股帳面價值超過 10 美元，無形帳面價值 9.5 美元。我認為，當您查看這些帳面價值數字並查看我們的成長和盈利能力的組合，然後將目光轉向股價時，您會發現存在一定程度的不匹配，我們希望這種不匹配將在尤其是美國市場。顯然，我們指出這些結果對過去 9 個月的股本回報率產生了重大影響。那麼，讓我把你交給喬丹。

Thank you, Chris. Good morning and good afternoon to everyone. I'm on Page 5. So here, as Chris mentioned, we break down our capital provision income into the various components for both the 3 and 9-month periods. Looking at the year-to-date comparison of 2023 versus 2022, they show nearly a doubling of all the income metrics. Realized gains this year-to-date are $125 million and unrealized gains, excluding YPF are $85 million.

謝謝你，克里斯。大家早安，下午好。我在第 5 頁。所以，正如克里斯所提到的，我們將資本撥備收入分解為 3 個月和 9 個月期間的各個組成部分。從年初至今 2023 年與 2022 年的比較來看，所有收入指標幾乎翻了一番。今年迄今已實現收益為 1.25 億美元，未實現收益（不包括 YPF）為 8,500 萬美元。

With respect to YPF, as everyone knows, we've had 2 milestones in the case so far this year, and Jon will speak a little bit more to that shortly. The initial summary judgment and the subsequent award of damages. As a result, we have unrealized gains of $460 million over the first 9 months of 2023 from our YPF-related assets. Total capital provision income had a huge increase year-over-year from $676 million versus the $80 million last year.

關於 YPF，眾所周知，今年到目前為止，我們的案件已經實現了 2 個里程碑，喬恩很快就會對此進行更多討論。初步簡易判決和隨後的損害賠償裁決。因此，2023 年前 9 個月，我們的 YPF 相關資產未實現收益為 4.6 億美元。總資本撥備收入較去年同期大幅成長，從去年的 8,000 萬美元增至 6.76 億美元。

I'm going to switch now to Page 6 and talk a little bit about asset management. Our asset management business continues to perform and we continue to reap the rewards of using the funds to augment our balance sheet efforts. In the first 9 months of both 2022 and 2023, we earned $41 million of asset management income. And on the bottom of the slide, we highlight the mutually beneficial relationship we have with our sovereign wealth fund partner. As we announced earlier this fall, the relationship extended through the end of 2024. Total income from BOF-C has been steadily increasing year-over-year. And before I turn away from asset management, our cash receipts from asset management is double through the first 9 months compared to last 9 months in last year at $29 million. So let me turn it over to Jon.

我現在要轉到第 6 頁，談談資產管理。我們的資產管理業務繼續表現良好，並且我們繼續透過使用這些資金來增強我們的資產負債表工作而獲得回報。 2022年和2023年前9個月，我們獲得了4,100萬美元的資產管理收入。在投影片的底部，我們強調了我們與主權財富基金合作夥伴之間的互利關係。正如我們今年秋天早些時候宣布的那樣，這種關係將延續到 2024 年底。BOF-C 的總收入逐年穩步增長。在我放棄資產管理之前，我們前 9 個月從資產管理獲得的現金收入是去年最後 9 個月的兩倍，達到 2,900 萬美元。所以讓我把它交給喬恩。

Thanks, Jordan. Thanks to everybody for joining. If you turn to Slide 7, it's a familiar slide, but it bears emphasis and we update the numbers with each period. But it shows just how our portfolio has performed because when you're buying into Burford, part of what you're buying is this diverse portfolio of investments. And if you look at how that portfolio has performed in the past based on realizations, you see there's a large number. It's $2.5 billion worth of realizations over roughly 14 years. And that gives you a track record you can look at. And the numbers shift slightly from period to period, but they've been pretty consistent. You see a cumulative return on invested capital of 87%. You see an IRR of 27%. And of course, that's broken down into 3 categories.

謝謝，喬丹。感謝大家的加入。如果您翻到投影片 7，您會發現這是一張熟悉的投影片，但它具有重點，並且我們會根據每個時期更新數字。但它顯示了我們的投資組合的表現，因為當您購買 Burford 時，您購買的一部分就是這種多樣化的投資組合。如果你根據實現來觀察該投資組合過去的表現，你會發現數量很大。大約 14 年來，實現價值達 25 億美元。這為您提供了可以查看的追蹤記錄。這些數字在不同時期略有不同，但相當一致。您會看到投資資本的累積報酬率為 87%。您看到的 IRR 為 27%。當然，它分為三類。

We have investments that resolve through adjudication and we win more than we lose and where we win, you see the returns are really quite attractive. But then a large segment of our investments resolved through settlement, and those returns too are attractive. The ROICs and IRRs are not as large, which is what we understand when we go into them. There's, of course, a discount for a settlement. But nonetheless, the numbers are quite attractive. And this has led to consistently attractive performance, which is why we love this business so much. We see assets we can invest in, where we can help our counterparties, and it's a win-win and you, our shareholders bear the fruits of this and have in the past.

我們的投資是透過裁決來解決的，我們贏的比輸的多，在我們贏的地方，你會看到回報確實相當有吸引力。但隨後我們的投資很大一部分是透過結算解決的，這些回報也很有吸引力。 ROIC 和 IRR 沒有那麼大，這是我們在研究它們時所理解的。當然，結算時會有折扣。但儘管如此，這些數字還是相當有吸引力的。這帶來了持續有吸引力的業績，這就是我們如此熱愛這項業務的原因。我們看到我們可以投資的資產，我們可以幫助我們的交易對手，這是雙贏的，而您，我們的股東，將承受過去和現在的成果。

If we turn the page, we turn to one particular asset that, of course, has the potential to generate considerable upside at truly outsized returns. And historically, I've not said very much about what to expect in the future of YPF. It was not in anybody's interest to do so. And I'll maintain that position, but I can tell you what has happened so far and where we are, which is a lot.

如果我們翻過這一頁，我們就會轉向特定的資產，當然，它有潛力以真正巨大的回報產生可觀的上漲空間。從歷史上看，我並沒有過多地談論過 YPF 的未來。這樣做不符合任何人的利益。我將保持這一立場，但我可以告訴你到目前為止發生了什麼以及我們所處的位置，這涉及很多。

So we had the trial in July, and we won a final judgment. It was a complete win for the plaintiffs of a $16 billion judgment, which was at the high end of the possible range of damages. Argentina has filed a notice of appeal to the second circuit court of appeals for those who have followed the case for a while, there was a prior interlocutory appeal years ago about sovereign in Unity, but this one will be a second appeal. And they will have the right then to seek discretionary review from the Supreme Court of the United States, which takes a very small portion of the cases that are petitioned for.

所以我們在7月進行了庭審，並贏得了最終的判決。原告獲得了 160 億美元的賠償，這對原告來說是完全勝利，這處於可能的損害賠償範圍的高端。阿根廷已向第二巡迴上訴法院提交了上訴通知，供關注此案一段時間的人使用，幾年前曾就統一主權問題提出過中間上訴，但這將是第二次上訴。屆時他們將有權向美國最高法院尋求自由裁量權審查，而最高法院僅受理請願案件中的一小部分。

In addition, Argentina has asked the trial court to stay enforcement of the judgment pending the appeal. In the United States, a final judgment is immediately enforceable when it's issued typically unless the defendant post a bond to secure the judgment. And Argentina has asked the court to relieve it of the bonding requirement and grant to stay without a bond. That is fully briefed and before the judge in the Southern District and we expect that to be decided soon.

此外，阿根廷已要求初審法院在上訴期間暫緩執行判決。在美國，最終判決通常在發布後立即強制執行，除非被告支付保證金以確保判決。阿根廷已要求法院解除其保證金要求，並允許其在沒有保證金的情況下留下來。南區法官已對此進行了充分通報，我們預計很快就會做出決定。

The appeal will take a little bit longer that is not fully briefed. And it also includes a cross appeal by the plaintiffs against YPF. You'll recall that the judgment that was issued by the court was against Argentina only. YPF was not held liable and the plaintiffs have crossed the field asking that the judgment extend to YPF as well. That would not change the damages amount. It would just include YPF as liable if it were to succeed. And that will go through the appellate process. Just as a reminder, the Burford-only net entitlement is roughly 35% of proceeds from the Petersen case and roughly 73% of proceeds from the Eton Park case.

上訴將需要更長的時間，但尚未充分通報。它還包括原告對 YPF 的交叉上訴。您可能還記得，法院所做的判決僅針對阿根廷。 YPF 不承擔責任，原告已越過現場要求判決也適用於 YPF。這不會改變損害賠償金額。如果它成功的話，YPF 也將承擔責任。這將通過上訴程序。提醒一下，僅 Burford 的淨權益約為 Petersen 案收益的 35%，約為 Eton Park 案收益的 73%。

So I said a little bit about how the portfolio as a whole has performed because when you buy Burford; stock, you were buying a portfolio. I've said a bit about how the YPF asset, in particular, has performed up to the state because we've always said that is 1 of the pillars you are buying. And then, of course, the other thing you're buying when you buy Burford stock is a business model that has been able to continually invest in new assets that we deem attractive and that we think have potential to generate returns. And so for that portion of it, I'm going to turn it back over to Jordan to turn to Slide 9.

所以我說了一些關於整個投資組合的表現，因為當你購買 Burford 時；股票，您購買的是投資組合。我已經談過一些關於 YPF 資產的表現，特別是對國家的表現，因為我們總是說這是你要購買的支柱之一。當然，當您購買伯福德股票時，您購買的另一件事是一種商業模式，該模式能夠持續投資於我們認為有吸引力且有潛力產生回報的新資產。因此，對於這一部分，我將把它轉回給 Jordan，然後轉到幻燈片 9。

Thank you, Jon. On Slide 9, as you can see, we're ahead of last year's pace with respect to both commitments and deployments on a year-over-year basis. 2023 has been a productive year. As the global leader in litigation finance, we have the ability to support clients with significant commitments and deployments of capital using both our balance sheet capacity and third-party funds. And so we continue to deploy cash from the balance sheet into attractive assets, targeting returns north of 30%. And as I mentioned before, the partnership with BOF-C on these assets on a 75-25 split. With this continued deployment, our total deployed cost on the balance sheet has grown to over $1.6 billion.

謝謝你，喬恩。在投影片 9 上，正如您所看到的，我們在承諾和部署方面都領先於去年的步伐。 2023 年是碩果累累的一年。作為訴訟融資領域的全球領導者，我們有能力利用我們的資產負債表能力和第三方資金為客戶提供重大承諾和資本部署支援。因此，我們繼續將資產負債表中的現金配置到有吸引力的資產中，目標回報率超過 30%。正如我之前提到的，與 BOF-C 就這些資產進行的合作以 75-25 的比例進行分割。透過這種持續部署，我們資產負債表上的總部署成本已成長至超過 16 億美元。

Switching to Page 10 to outline some of the expenses for the first 9 months of the year. And I know Chris had touched on a little bit of this, and I'll go slightly deeper. At first glance, these seem a fair bit higher than the previous year, but we really need to separate out the cash and noncash expenses and some of the idiosyncratic movement in these line items. So I'm going to pick on a couple of examples. The first is while our salaries and benefits might appear to have grown by slightly over $10 million [$6 million] of that net change is directly related to retirement plans.

切換到第 10 頁，概述今年前 9 個月的一些費用。我知道克里斯已經談到了這一點，我會稍微深入一些。乍一看，這些費用似乎比上一年高一些，但我們確實需要將現金和非現金費用以及這些項目中的一些特殊變化分開。所以我將舉幾個例子。首先，雖然我們的薪資和福利似乎成長了略多於 1,000 萬美元 [600 萬美元]，但其中的淨變動與退休計畫直接相關。

So as a reminder, and I mentioned this before, our employees have the ability to invest their deferred compensation in Burford stock. And when the share price increases, we have a corresponding accrual expense.

因此，提醒一下，我之前提到過，我們的員工有能力將遞延薪資投資於 Burford 股票。當股價上漲時，我們就有相應的應計費用。

The other example relates to the positive events associated with YPF. We have a net $21 million increase year-over-year in our carry plan given the positive events from this year. And remember, that's only paid when the cash is received. And finally, I want to remind folks that the legacy asset recovery accrual was related to historical purchase of that business. Effectively, one could consider that like an earnout, and there's only one remaining asset left in that deal.

另一個例子與 YPF 相關的正向事件有關。鑑於今年發生的積極事件，我們的套利計劃同比淨增加 2100 萬美元。請記住，只有收到現金後才需要支付。最後，我想提醒人們，遺留資產回收應計額與該業務的歷史購買有關。實際上，人們可以將其視為一筆收益，而該交易中只剩下一項剩餘資產。

So I'll now switch to the next page to talk a little bit more about cash. So I'm on Page 11. This is our traditional liquidity page, and I'll jump around and hit some of the highlights. On the top left, cash receipts were $380 million year-to-date, which surpasses the total for all of 2022. Our liquidity and receivables are in a strong position as of period end, highlighted by $347 million of cash and securities as well as $70 million of receivables. We still don't intend to hold cash quite near these levels, and our goal is to put it to work. But as Chris mentioned, we're digesting both the bond issuance and the cash realizations that have occurred.

現在我將轉到下一頁，更多地討論現金。所以我在第 11 頁。這是我們傳統的流動性頁面，我將跳到一些亮點。左上方，年初至今的現金收入為 3.8 億美元，超過了 2022 年全年的總額。截至期末，我們的流動性和應收帳款處於強勁狀態，其中 3.47 億美元的現金和證券以及應收帳款7000萬美元。我們仍然不打算將現金持有在接近這些水平的水平，我們的目標是讓它發揮作用。但正如克里斯所提到的，我們正在消化債券發行和已發生的現金變現。

And then finally, on the bottom of the page, we outlined the 9-month cash bridge for Burford only. To put it simply, we've had $380 million of cash against the cash spend of $159 million, which is the OpEx and interest expense.

最後，在頁面底部，我們概述了僅適用於伯福德的 9 個月現金橋樑。簡而言之，我們擁有 3.8 億美元的現金，而 1.59 億美元的現金支出是營運支出和利息支出。

And then moving to Page 12. Just a quick reminder on covenants and debt levels. So we continue to enjoy and have built a latter debt schedule that extends out to 2031. And our next maturity is not until August 2025. The other takeaway that I have or that I see from this slide is that only 25% of our debt matures in the next 4 years. So we have kind of ample runway.

然後翻到第 12 頁。簡單提醒一下契約和債務水準。因此，我們繼續享受並製定了延期至2031 年的債務時間表。我們的下一次到期要到2025 年8 月。我從這張幻燈片中看到的另一個要點是，我們的債務只有25 % 到期。未來4年。所以我們有足夠的跑道。

On the bottom of the slide, our leverage levels remain well below covenant levels. And to wrap it up, you've seen the bullets on the left, both Moody's and S&P have both recently raised their outlook from stable to positive. With that, I turn it back to Chris.

在幻燈片的底部，我們的槓桿水平仍然遠低於契約水平。總而言之，您已經看到了左邊的項目符號，穆迪和標準普爾最近都將其前景從穩定上調至積極。說完，我又把話題轉回給克里斯。

Great. Thanks, Jordan. And I'm now on Slide 13. You've seen the format of the slide before, but the content of it has been updated for our current results. And what the slide really does is underlying the point that Jon was making earlier. When you buy stock in Burford, you're buying 4 different things. You're buying an existing portfolio of litigation assets. We have given a lot of detail about what's in that portfolio and its activity levels. We've now got a very long and substantial track record in generating desirable returns from that portfolio making it past, making it around $2.5 billion of cash recoveries. And again, these are all cash numbers. There's no accounting stuff going on in the portfolio return numbers.

偉大的。謝謝，喬丹。我現在在投影片 13。您之前已經看過投影片的格式，但它的內容已根據我們目前的結果進行了更新。這張幻燈片真正的作用是喬恩之前提出的觀點的基礎。當您購買伯福德的股票時，您購買的是 4 種不同的東西。您正在購買現有的訴訟資產組合。我們已經詳細介紹了該投資組合的內容及其活動量。現在，我們在從該投資組合中產生理想回報方面擁有長期且可觀的記錄，使其成為過去，使其現金回收額達到約 25 億美元。再說一次，這些都是現金數字。投資組合回報數字中沒有任何會計內容。

So you're starting off by buying a large diversified portfolio with a long track record history of generating desirable returns, you're adding to that the industry-leading origination platform, which has shown itself capable of generating new business on a very regular and reliable basis. And you see there the numbers of people that we have and our really global presence.

因此，您首先購買一個大型的多元化投資組合，該投資組合具有產生理想回報的長期記錄歷史，您將添加到行業領先的創始平台，該平台已證明自己能夠定期產生新業務，並且可靠的依據。你可以看到我們擁有的人數以及我們真正的全球影響力。

We are also a very sizable asset manager. And we're delighted, especially to see the performance of not only our funds in general, but of our BOF-C, our sovereign wealth fund arrangement, which, as I said earlier, has really started to throw off income for us.

我們也是一家規模非常大的資產管理公司。我們很高興，尤其是看到我們的基金的整體表現，還有我們的 BOF-C（我們的主權財富基金安排）的表現，正如我之前所說，它確實開始減少我們的收入。

And finally, then you've got the YPF assets, which Jon touched on and which have the potential in the future to generate truly outsized returns for us. So that's the package that you get with an equity investment in Burford and we're very pleased about where the business sits today. And with that, we're happy to take your questions. Go ahead, operator.

最後，Jon 提到了 YPF 資產，這些資產在未來有潛力為我們帶來真正巨大的回報。這就是您透過伯福德股權投資獲得的一攬子計劃，我們對該業務目前的狀況感到非常高興。因此，我們很樂意回答您的問題。繼續吧，接線生。

(Operator Instructions)

（操作員說明）

And we'll start with a question from the webcast from (inaudible), which is basically, well, it has always been Burford's policy to not talk about individual cases, are there any cases currently progressing that have potential to produce returns of a similar size to YPF?

我們將從（聽不清楚）網路廣播中的一個問題開始，基本上，伯福德的政策一直是不談論個別案件，目前正在進展的案件是否有可能產生類似的回報尺寸為 YPF？

So you're right that we don't really talk about individual cases. But I think it's fair to say that when we contemplate a case that has at least the potential to deliver billions of dollars, plural, to Burford depending on the ultimate outcome of that case. That, I think, is an unusual case for us. And now I think we have a question on the phone.

所以你說得對，我們並沒有真正談論個別案例。但我認為可以公平地說，當我們考慮一個至少有可能為伯福德帶來數十億美元（複數）的案件時，這取決於案件的最終結果。我認為這對我們來說是一個不尋常的案例。現在我想我們有一個電話問題。

We have our first question on the line from Alexander Bowers of Berenberg.

我們的第一個問題是貝倫貝格的亞歷山大鮑爾斯 (Alexander Bowers) 提出的。

Yes, we can.

我們可以。

I just had one question on the value of the YPF asset. We've seen this is (inaudible) YPF that shift up for the summary judgment and the final judgement (inaudible) this year. I just wanted to ask about how you're thinking about the evolution of its valuation going forward in terms of factoring the remaining litigation risk in the appeal process, the expected duration of added payout. And then the other factor (inaudible) in that process?

我只是對 YPF 資產的價值有一個疑問。我們已經看到，這是（聽不清楚）YPF，今年的簡易判決和最終判決（聽不清楚）有所上升。我只是想問一下，您如何考慮未來估值的演變，將上訴過程中剩餘的訴訟風險、增加支付的預期持續時間考慮在內。那麼這個過程中的另一個因素（聽不清楚）呢？

I think probably all 3 of us have something to say about that. But let me just start by saying that just to remind you that unlike most of our litigation finance assets, where we effectively are calibrating model valuations to the investment that we're making or the investment terms that we're agreeing to in the YPF case, we had a substantial and very profitable secondary sale of a portion of that -- of our interest in the matter in 2019. And that 2019 sales served as the basis for calibrating the model. So we're already starting with effectively a third-party validation. And then we go through our usual process to adjust the value based on the events, which drive the litigation risk premium. And Jon and Jordan, feel free to pick that up.

我想我們三個人對此都有話要說。但我首先要提醒大家的是，與我們的大多數訴訟金融資產不同，我們實際上是根據我們正在進行的投資或我們在 YPF 案件中同意的投資條款來校準模型估值，我們在2019 年對其中一部分進行了大量且非常有利可圖的二次銷售。2019 年的銷售是校準模型的基礎。因此，我們已經開始有效地進行第三方驗證。然後我們透過通常的流程根據事件調整價值，從而推動訴訟風險溢價。喬恩和喬丹，請隨意接受。

Well, I would just say in terms of the event, the most prominent or the only one you can think of that's significant at this point, clear litigation event remaining would be the resolution of the appeal by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. And then there is the discretionary SERP petition to the Supreme Court, which is less than an event, but still an event. So those are the remaining U.S. court events.

好吧，我只想說，就事件而言，您能想到的最突出或唯一一個在這一點上具有重要意義的事件，剩下的明確訴訟事件將是美國第二巡迴上訴法院對上訴的解決。然後是向最高法院提交酌情 SERP 請求，這雖然不是一個事件，但仍然是一個事件。這些就是剩下的美國法庭事件。

Of course, there is, as I mentioned, the stay application that is pending and then there's enforcement proceedings discovery and all sorts of other stuff. But those don't necessarily drive valuation under our approach in the same way that the litigation events that we've experienced so far, such as summary judgment and a trial victory do and as an appeal or the end of all appeals would. And we don't change valuations based on sentiment. So the fact that there are discussions -- those are not the sorts of things that would drive a valuation change.

當然，正如我所提到的，有待處理的中止申請，然後還有執行程序發現和各種其他內容。但這些並不一定會像我們迄今為止所經歷的訴訟事件（例如簡易判決和審判勝訴）以及上訴或所有上訴的結束一樣推動估值。我們不會根據情緒改變估值。因此，事實上，存在著討論——這些並不是會推動估值變化的事情。

Chris, I know you said all 3 of us might have a comment on it, but I think the 2 of you did well. Like as you mentioned, we have a model for this. Jon outlined the case or events that are observable with respect to milestones in the court case, those could obviously change value. And otherwise, I don't think there's a lot more to add.

克里斯，我知道你說過我們三個人都可能對此發表評論，但我認為你們兩個做得很好。就像你提到的，我們有一個模型。喬恩概述了與法庭案件里程碑相關的案件或事件，這些顯然可能會改變價值。除此之外，我認為沒有更多可補充的了。

We now have Portia Patel of Canaccord.

現在我們有 Canaccord 的波西婭·帕特爾 (Portia Patel)。

I'm just looking at the Burford-only data in your release. And I wondered if you could just provide some color on why in Q3, the commitments and deployments were materially lower than in previous quarters and year-on-year? And any comments on how we should expect those commitments and deployments to trend in Q4 and Q1 would be helpful. And I think, if you could provide an indication of what you would suggest a reasonable expectation or objective is for an annual commitment and deployment figure on a Burford-only basis? That would be very helpful.

我只是查看您發布的版本中僅包含伯福德的數據。我想知道您是否可以提供一些說明為什麼第三季的承諾和部署大幅低於前幾季和年比？關於我們應該如何預期這些承諾和部署在第四季度和第一季的趨勢的任何評論都會有所幫助。我認為，您是否可以說明您對僅伯福德的年度承諾和部署數字的合理期望或目標是什麼？這將非常有幫助。

Sure. So as I've said before to this audience, I think quarterly reporting is for the birds. And I pay really absolutely no attention to it. It's something that we have to do with our U.S. presence here, but I think it's roundly perceived as undesirable by lots and lots of people who are much more experienced than I am in the markets like Warren Buffet and Jamie Dimon.

當然。正如我之前對聽眾所說的那樣，我認為季度報告是為鳥類準備的。我真的完全不關心它。這與我們在美國的存在有關，但我認為，許多比我在市場上更有經驗的人（如華倫巴菲特和傑米戴蒙）普遍認為這是不受歡迎的。

So, we do it because we have to, but it's not something that we worry about driving the business to. And the fact that these numbers go up and down a little bit from time to time has no particular meaning to us. We closed a really, really, really big deal in June of 2023, and we didn't close a really, really, really big deal in September of 2023 and that says nothing whatsoever to me about the overall state of the business.

所以，我們這樣做是因為我們必須這樣做，但我們並不擔心推動業務發展。這些數字時不時地上下波動這一事實對我們來說沒有特別的意義。我們在 2023 年 6 月完成了一項非常非常大的交易，而我們在 2023 年 9 月並沒有完成一項非常非常大的交易，這對我來說並不能說明業務的整體狀況。

If you look in more general terms, we're putting out a meaningful amount of capital against new investment matters, and I really look at a longer scale, broader approach to deployment of capital. And that sort of bleeds over into your broader question. When you think about what this business is doing today, it's different than what it was doing a few years ago.

如果你從更一般的角度來看，我們正在為新的投資事項投入大量的資本，而我確實著眼於更大規模、更廣泛的資本部署方法。這會滲透到你更廣泛的問題。當你思考這家企業今天所做的事情時，你會發現它與幾年前有所不同。

So if you go back to Burford's first few years, Burford was fundamentally working with law firms. And the dynamic in the business was that corporate clients were coming to law firms, wanting to hire them, but not wanting to pay their hourly fees. And they were looking for a financial alternative just to address that fee issue. In other words, just to provide some budget and some P&L relief for the corporate clients. And so we would step into that matter, we would work with the law firm and we would find a financing arrangement that would pay the law firms fees and give the corporate the contingent solution that it was seeking. And those deals tend to be smaller deals because they are, number one, they are single cases. And number two, they're just addressing the legal fees. And so there's a natural limit to how much you can spend on cases. Even though lawyers are expensive and getting increasingly expensive, you're still not spending $100 million to litigate a single piece of litigation, except in the most extraordinary circumstances.

因此，如果你回顧伯福德最初的幾年，伯福德基本上是與律師事務所合作。該行業的動態是，企業客戶來到律師事務所，想要雇用他們，但不想支付他們的小時費。他們正在尋找財務替代方案來解決該費用問題。換句話說，只是為企業客戶提供一些預算和一些損益減免。因此，我們將介入此事，我們將與律師事務所合作，找到一種融資安排，向律師事務所支付費用，並為公司提供其正在尋求的應急解決方案。這些交易往往規模較小，因為第一，它們是單一案例。第二，他們只是解決法律費用問題。因此，您可以在案件上花費的金額自然是有限的。儘管律師費用昂貴且越來越昂貴，但除非在最特殊的情況下，否則您仍然不會花費 1 億美元來進行任何訴訟。

So as the business has evolved -- and we still do that business, and we do lots of it because that is effectively the starter deal. That's the litigation finance 101 transaction, if you will, because most companies don't show up out of the blue, having never used capital like this before and instead moving straight to doing large complicated multi-case portfolio transactions. So that's how things start. And we have a pretty steady run rate of those kinds of single-case transactions in the business, and they -- sort of month in, month out, we do some volume of that.

因此，隨著業務的發展，我們仍然做這項業務，而且我們做很多這樣的業務，因為這實際上是起始交易。如果你願意的話，這就是訴訟金融 101 交易，因為大多數公司不會突然出現，以前從未使用過這樣的資本，而是直接進行大型複雜的多案例投資組合交易。事情就是這樣開始的。我們在業務中的這類單一案例交易的運作率相當穩定，而且我們每個月都會做一些這樣的交易。

Then you add on to that, the stuff that has evolved. And that's a combination of law-firm portfolios and now larger corporate portfolios. And the amount of money that we're going to commit and then deploy in any particular period, is going to be driven to some extent by the presence of a relatively small number of those large corporate transactions. So as I said, and if you look at the second quarter of 2023, we did $325 million with a Fortune 50 company. I don't intend to -- I don't imagine that we will see that repeat on a reliable basis like clockwork once a quarter. We might do one of those deals in a year. We might do 2 of them. And those are the deals that really have a fair bit of impact on the total numbers. And I'm not particularly concerned about any particular period because I know that we're continuing to grow that business. I know that it's a long sales cycle. Often it's years, but I know that there are enough of those out there to provide us with a continued runway of future growth.

然後你再加入那些已經進化的東西。這是律師事務所投資組合和現在更大的公司投資組合的組合。我們在任何特定時期將投入並部署的資金數額，在某種程度上將由數量相對較少的大型企業交易的存在所驅動。正如我所說，如果你看看 2023 年第二季度，我們與財富 50 強公司的合作額為 3.25 億美元。我不打算——我不認為我們會看到這種情況像發條一樣每季一次可靠地重複。我們可能會在一年內完成其中一筆交易。我們可能會做其中兩個。這些交易確實對總數產生了相當大的影響。我並不特別關心任何特定時期，因為我知道我們正在繼續發展這項業務。我知道這是一個很長的銷售週期。通常需要很多年，但我知道有足夠的時間為我們提供未來持續成長的跑道。

So I don't really have a number to guide you to on a quarter-by-quarter basis or even a period-by-period basis, but hopefully that gives you a little bit of color about how the business actually operates.

因此，我確實沒有一個數字可以引導您按季度甚至按週期進行比較，但希望這能讓您對業務的實際運作情況有一些了解。

We now have the next question from the line of Matthew Howlett of B. Riley.

現在我們有來自 B. Riley 的 Matthew Howlett 的下一個問題。

Just in the quarter, was there anything unique about milestones? I mean versus the other quarter, anything lumpy that happened in the quarter or something that was pushed out? Just curious on the update on where things are tracking a milestone [wise] in aggregate?

就在本季，里程碑有什麼獨特之處嗎？我的意思是與其他季度相比，該季度發生了任何不穩定的事情或被推遲的事情？只是對整體上追蹤里程碑的更新感到好奇嗎？

Yes. And Jon can certainly speak to that in some more detail. But just as a headline matter, I think the answer is probably no as to just the -- other than the ebb and flow of litigation generally. So what happens in litigation, it's hardly ever the case that litigation goes faster than planned or expected. And so what inevitably happens is you start the year with a whole bunch of things that are calendared to do things at various points during the year. And some portion of those events will occur as scheduled and some portion of them will get delayed. Just as you see in any sort of public trial that you're watching. If anyone is paying attention to the travails of Donald Trump right now, with multiple trials pending, you see one of the big things that is up in the air and being jockeyed about, is the trial base.

是的。喬恩當然可以更詳細地談論這一點。但正如頭條新聞一樣，我認為除了訴訟的整體潮起潮落之外，答案可能是否定的。因此，在訴訟中，訴訟進展速度幾乎不會超過計劃或預期。因此，不可避免地會發生的是，你在新的一年開始時會做一大堆事情，這些事情被安排在一年中的不同時間點進行。這些事件的某些部分將按計劃發生，而其中的某些部分將被推遲。正如您在觀看的任何類型的公開審判中所看到的那樣。如果有人現在關注唐納德·川普的痛苦，而多項審判懸而未決，你會發現懸而未決且備受爭議的大事之一就是審判基地。

And that happens -- that's a famous example, but that happens just as clearly in civil litigation as well. And so that's a normal part of the business. But what you're seeing in our business right now is effectively some amount of super normal portfolio activity. And that's driven by courts trying to push things through and catch up on the backlog that was created during COVID. So when I earlier gave you that number about a majority of our activity occurring in pre-2020 vintage matters. That's an example of that. If we hadn't had COVID, you probably wouldn't expect that to be the case. You would have expected those pre-2020 matters to have concluded more significantly than they have by now.

這種情況確實發生了——這是一個著名的例子，但這種情況在民事訴訟中也同樣明顯發生。所以這是業務的正常部分。但你現在在我們的業務中看到的實際上是一些超正常的投資組合活動。這是由法院推動的，他們試圖推動事情的進展並趕上新冠疫情期間積壓的案件。因此，當我早些時候向您提供有關 2020 年之前發生的大部分活動的數字時，這一數字很重要。這就是一個例子。如果我們沒有新冠病毒，你可能不會想到會出現這樣的情況。你可能會預期 2020 年之前的事情會比現在更重要地結束。

I might add just with respect to both of those questions, Chris' point about quarterly and not necessarily being a marker. I think about the underwriting team day to day, and they're handling for the last 2 questions, both the underwriting of new matters. And as Chris said, the sort of long sail cultivation of relationships with law firms over large portfolios or corporates over large monetizations of portfolios. And at the same time, they're also dealing with existing clients on existing matters that are working their way through the litigation process. "this one is going to trial. We're sitting in getting reports on this trial. This is in pretrial motions."

我可能會就這兩個問題補充一點，克里斯關於季度的觀點，而不一定是一個標記。我每天都會考慮核保團隊，他們正在處理最後兩個問題，都是新事項的承保。正如克里斯所說，在大型投資組合上與律師事務所或在投資組合的大型貨幣化方面與企業建立關係的長期航行。同時，他們也就正在透過訴訟程序處理的現有事項與現有客戶打交道。 “這個案子即將接受審判。我們正在聽取有關這次審判的報告。這是審前動議。”

And that all goes on, and it's not like something magical happens at September 30, a bunch of things happened and then October 1, there's a new thing. We have found over the 14-year history that counterparties and courts do sometimes pay attention to year-end, but that does motivate some settlements and does motivate some deal closings. But otherwise, quarters in between don't really mark anything for our counterparties for the litigation process for defendants and suits. And so they don't seem that significant.

一切都在繼續，這並不像 9 月 30 日發生了什麼神奇的事情，發生了很多事情，然後 10 月 1 日，出現了一件新的事情。我們發現，在 14 年的歷史中，交易對手和法院有時確實會關注年末，但這確實會促成一些和解並促成一些交易的完成。但除此之外，中間的季度對於我們的對手方在被告和訴訟的訴訟過程中並沒有真正的意義。所以它們看起來並不那麼重要。

Great. So just in summary, the courts are back to business. There's no legacy overhang from COVID that you're seeing?

偉大的。總而言之，法院又回到正題了。您沒有看到新冠疫情遺留下來的問題嗎？

(inaudible)

（聽不清楚）

Yes, exactly. The courts [are back] to business in the sense that none of the courts that we deal with are not operating today at full capacity. That being said, the backlogs present very significantly by court. So there are some courts now that have no COVID backlog left. And you can track this publicly, the U.S. courts published voluminous and frequent statistical information about what's going on in them. So if you look at the court in the Northern District of Florida, for example, so Florida's capital Tallahassee, and so on. Those courts are not -- those courts have caught up all of their pandemic delays and they're right back to a normal rhythm.

對，就是這樣。法院[已恢復]正常運作，從某種意義上說，與我們打交道的法院目前都沒有滿載運作。話雖這麼說，法院的積壓情況非常嚴重。所以現在有些法院已經沒有新冠積壓的案件了。你可以公開追蹤這一點，美國法院發布了大量且頻繁的統計訊息，說明法庭正在發生的事情。例如，如果你看看佛羅裡達州北區的法院，佛羅裡達州首府塔拉哈西等。那些法院則不然——這些法院已經趕上了所有因疫情造成的延誤，並且很快就恢復了正常節奏。

On the other hand, the courts in and around Manhattan, are not. So in Brooklyn, for example, which is a very busy U.S. court, there are still multiyear delays in getting a case to trial, it will take you about 4x as long to get the trial in Brooklyn as it will in the Northern District in Florida. So you've got idiosyncratic things like that around the piece. But the system as a whole is not only fully functioning, but you see judges making real efforts to try to clear backlogs and push cases forward.

另一方面，曼哈頓及其周邊地區的法院則不然。例如，在布魯克林，這是一個非常繁忙的美國法院，案件的審判仍然存在多年的延誤，在布魯克林進行審判所需的時間大約是佛羅裡達州北區的四倍。所以你的作品周圍有類似這樣的特殊事物。但整個系統不僅功能齊全，而且你會看到法官們做出了真正的努力，試圖清理積壓案件並推動案件向前發展。

Makes complete sense. And thank you for clarifying that. Last question, I want to get 2 in here. But first, do you plan on updating the embedded realized gains of the portfolio ex YPF. Do you expect -- are you going to do that annually for us? Or when should we expect that time wise? And then the second question, with your cash build and the laddered maturities and the extension of the SWF arrangement, I mean, how do you think about capital return? I mean do you want to reinvest? Clearly you're getting 30% or (inaudible). And can you think about the dividend? Do you think about buybacks? Does that enter into the equation with how well the balance sheet is positioned today?

完全有道理。感謝您澄清這一點。最後一個問題，我想在這裡加2。但首先，您是否計劃更新除 YPF 之外的投資組合的嵌入已實現收益？您預計每年都會為我們這樣做嗎？或者我們應該預期什麼時候明智？然後是第二個問題，隨著你的現金累積、階梯式期限以及主權財富基金安排的延長，我的意思是，你如何看待資本回報？我的意思是你想再投資嗎？顯然你得到了 30% 或（聽不清楚）。你能考慮一下股息嗎？您考慮回購嗎？這是否與目前資產負債表的狀況有關？

Jordan, do you want to take this?

喬丹，你想接受這個嗎？

Sure. So the first one, I think, was about the kind of portfolio balance, second, capital return. On the overall portfolio value and expected cash flows, I think we mentioned this before and as part of the kind of revision to our valuation policy around the restatement process, it's not really appropriate to be putting out kind of different metrics with respect to a potential value metric that's differing from our fair value. So I think at this point, we're not going to be publishing out kind of that summary view of total cash flows.

當然。所以我認為第一個是關於投資組合平衡的類型，第二個是資本回報。關於整體投資組合價值和預期現金流，我認為我們之前提到過這一點，並且作為圍繞重述過程對我們的估值政策進行修訂的一部分，針對潛在的投資組合提出不同的指標並不合適。與我們的公允價值不同的價值指標。因此，我認為目前我們不會發布總現金流的摘要視圖。

With respect to then capital return, I think, look, we've talked about this a lot with respect to what we're going to do as we continue to see cash come back to the balance sheet. I think first and foremost, our focus is to continue to invest in 30%-plus IRR assets. And we think that brings long-term growth to our shareholders and to the balance sheet and compounds on a continuous basis.

關於資本回報，我認為，看，我們已經就我們將要做什麼進行了很多討論，因為我們繼續看到現金回到資產負債表。我認為首先也是最重要的是，我們的重點是繼續投資 IRR 超過 30% 的資產。我們認為這將為我們的股東、資產負債表和複合帶來持續的長期成長。

Will we look to do some form to the extent we get clarity around the YPF capital and that return. I think Chris has also spoken to that continuously about we'll have visibility at that moment in time and which all options are on the table with respect to both capital return, reinvesting in the business, liability management and so forth. So hopefully, that answered everything, but if I missed one of the subquestions, let me know.

我們是否會考慮採取某種形式，以明確 YPF 資本和回報。我認為克里斯也不斷談到我們在那一刻將有可見性，並且關於資本回報、業務再投資、負債管理等的所有選擇都在桌面上。希望這能回答一切，但如果我錯過了其中一個子問題，請告訴我。

No, you answered it perfectly. I appreciate it.

不，你回答得很完美。我很感激。

Great. Thank you. So we've got a webcast question from Trevor Griffiths. Legacy asset recovery incentive compensation appears to include a substantial cash component with only 1 legacy asset remaining under this deal. Are you happy the individuals benefiting from this arrangement are sufficiently incentivized to continue their good work for Burford once this has paid out in full?

偉大的。謝謝。我們收到了 Trevor Griffiths 提出的網路廣播問題。遺留資產回收激勵補償似乎包括大量現金成分，而本交易僅剩下 1 項遺留資產。您是否對受益於此安排的個人有足夠的激勵，在全額支付後繼續為伯福德做好工作感到高興？

So the background to this, just to remind people is when we acquired the asset recovery business, which is now quite some time ago, perhaps 2015, if I'm not mistaken, we did so on what was basically a very, very small upfront cash payment because Burford was at the time, much smaller and younger than it is today and didn't want to be writing big M&A checks. So we made a very small cash payment to acquire the business and then provide a back end associated with some case activity. And the nature of the ligation process when you -- extended by the pandemic has meant that some of those cases have taken a long time to come to fruition. And Trevor, you're correct that there's only 1 left now. But that case has been quite successful thus far, which is why you've seen accruals and increases in its fair value gain.

所以，提醒人們的是，這個背景是我們收購資產追回業務的時候，這已經是很久以前的事了，也許是2015 年，如果我沒記錯的話，我們這樣做的前期費用基本上是非常非常小的現金支付是因為伯福德當時比現在規模小得多、年輕得多，並且不想開大筆併購支票。因此，我們支付了很少的現金來收購該業務，然後提供與某些案例活動相關的後端。當大流行延長時，結紮過程的性質意味著其中一些案件需要很長時間才能取得成果。 Trevor，你說得對，現在只剩下 1 個了。但到目前為止，該案例非常成功，這就是為什麼您會看到其公允價值收益的應計費用和增加。

As to what the future holds for people, I am but a speculator, but I'll say that we've got a very strong asset recovery team. And I think Burford is delighted with the position in the business. And we've now moved to the place where we probably weren't 10 years ago, where I don't think the Burford as an institution is dependent on any single human being, whether that's Jon or me or anybody else in the business. I think we've got a very deep bench here of people and abundant resources to carry this business forward.

至於人們的未來會怎樣，我只是一個投機者，但我會說我們有一個非常強大的資產回收團隊。我認為伯福德對自己在業界的地位感到滿意。現在，我們已經到達了 10 年前可能沒有的地方，我認為伯福德作為一個機構不再依賴任何一個人，無論是喬恩、我還是業內的任何其他人。我認為我們擁有非常深厚的人才和豐富的資源來推動這項業務的發展。

At the same time, I'm not sure that anyone really intends to go anywhere. And certainly, Jon and I are not intending to go anywhere in the foreseeable future, we really both love what we're doing and really enjoy this business.

同時，我不確定是否有人真的想去任何地方。當然，喬恩和我在可預見的未來並不打算去任何地方，我們真的都很喜歡我們正在做的事情並且非常喜歡這項業務。

Now I think we've got a question on the phone.

現在我想我們在電話裡有一個問題。

We have a phone line question from Julian Roberts of Jefferies.

我們收到傑富瑞 (Jefferies) 朱利安羅伯茲 (Julian Roberts) 提出的電話問題。

I've got a couple if that's all right. One is, what kind of things could we sort of think about how could you innovate more? One of the things that Burford has done perhaps most of your competitors or peers haven't is do novel things. Would you ever go back to doing class acts, I think you once look at more in Australia, and I noticed there are a couple of American news, which might possibly be the right kind of size? Or would you maybe go more directly into the practice of law or anything like that?

如果可以的話我有一對。一是，我們可以考慮什麼樣的事情，如何做更多創新？伯福德所做的事情之一也許是大多數競爭對手或同行沒有做的事情就是做新穎的事情。你會回去做集體表演嗎？我想你在澳洲看了更多，我注意到有一些美國新聞，這可能是合適的規模？或者你會更直接地從事法律或類似的工作嗎？

And then the other one, which is really just my interest. It looked like the fair value gain relating to the Q1 judgment was a bit smaller by about $90 million than the Q3 judgment. And that implies potentially that the winning of the litigation trial was less of a value event than the confirmation that the award was going to be at the top end rather it's going to be the upper not the lower kind of potential outcome. And so is that the case? Or is it just that for the first one, you were working off an already high base because of the market taken in 2019?

然後是另一個，這確實是我的興趣。看起來與第一季判決相關的公允價值收益比第三季判決小約 9,000 萬美元。這可能意味著，訴訟審判的勝利與其說是一個有價值的事件，不如說是確認裁決將位於最高端，而不是潛在結果的上部而不是下部。那麼情況真的是這樣嗎？或者只是因為第一個項目，由於 2019 年的市場佔領，你們在已經很高的基礎上工作了？

I'll do them in reverse order. So I think the answer on the valuation question is pretty simple. Winning cases is excellent, and we obviously love it, but it's only once you get the numbers that you really know what has happened. And as you may recall, when we went to trial in July on the YPF case, even though we had won in March, the summary judgement, there was an extremely wide range of potential damages. Argentina was arguing for potential damages in the $4.8 billion or $4.9 billion range, whereas we were arguing for them in the $16 billion range. And so with that level of unresolved uncertainty, I think you need to be pretty prudent about how you take on values.

我會按照相反的順序做。所以我認為估值問題的答案非常簡單。勝訴的案例非常好，我們顯然很喜歡它，但只有當你得到數字時，你才真正知道發生了什麼。您可能還記得，當我們在 7 月就 YPF 案件進行審判時，儘管我們在 3 月贏得了簡易判決，但潛在損害的範圍極其廣泛。阿根廷主張潛在損失在 48 億美元或 49 億美元範圍內，而我們則主張在 160 億美元範圍內。因此，由於存在這種尚未解決的不確定性，我認為你需要非常謹慎地對待價值觀。

We knew it was going to be a significant award, but we didn't know how significant it was going to be. So that's really how that ended up happening.

我們知道這將是一個重要的獎項，但我們不知道它有多重要。結果就是這樣。

I'm always delighted to be offered the opportunity to speculate and pontificate a little bit about the future. With your first question, but I have an eye on the clock, so I will only do a little bit of this, and Jon might chime in as well. I think that when we think about innovation, it comes in a few categories. One is in the core business itself, where, as you say, we have really led the industry in developing a whole suite of offerings to clients, that started with a very basic product that I outlined to Portia and has now turned into really a multi-hundred million dollar traditional set of corporate finance tools. And so we continue to innovate in the core business.

我總是很高興有機會對未來進行推測和武斷。關於你的第一個問題，但我會留意時間，所以我只會做一點點，喬恩也可能會插話。我認為當我們思考創新時，它分為幾個類別。一個是在核心業務本身，正如你所說，我們確實引領了行業，為客戶開發了一整套產品，從我向波西婭概述的一個非常基本的產品開始，現在已經變成了一個真正的多產品。-價值數億美元的傳統企業融資工具集。因此，我們在核心業務上不斷創新。

But a couple of things that really do excite us, one of them is certainly around data science. We have made significant investments in this business in data science over the past half dozen years. We believe we have the, by far, the industry's largest data set. We are increasingly using machine learning and other artificial intelligence style tools to add quantitative rigor and the benefit of that data set into our investment process. We have a number of professionals in the firm who are not lawyers at all, who come from pure scientific and analytic backgrounds. And that every year that goes by, that becomes a more and more and more significant and valuable part of our investing process. And we now are very quantitative in addition to being legal and qualitative in terms of how we go about looking at things. So that is an area, I think, of continued growth.

但有幾件事確實讓我們興奮，其中之一肯定是數據科學。過去六年來，我們在數據科學領域進行了大量投資。我們相信我們擁有迄今為止業界最大的數據集。我們越來越多地使用機器學習和其他人工智慧風格的工具，將定量的嚴謹性以及該資料集的好處添加到我們的投資流程中。我們公司有許多專業人士，他們根本不是律師，他們來自純粹的科學和分析背景。隨著時間的推移，這將成為我們投資過程中越來越重要和有價值的部分。現在，我們在看待事物的方式上除了合法和定性之外，還非常定量。所以我認為這是一個持續成長的領域。

And because we've been ahead of the curve and spending time and money on that area, that equips us to go and look more broadly at continued disruptive opportunities caused by pretty rapid growth in the cycle times and in the capability of AI style technology. So that's 1 clear area.

因為我們一直處於領先地位，並在該領域投入了時間和金錢，這使我們能夠更廣泛地關注週期時間和人工智慧技術能力的快速增長所帶來的持續顛覆性機會。所以這是 1 個空白區域。

Another is insurance. Insurance and litigation finance are really sort of 2 sides of the same coin. We have a small insurance business, as you know, and I think we regularly consider the question of whether there's more for us to do in the insurance space. Jon, you may want to comment on that and law firm equity.

另一個是保險。保險和訴訟金融其實是同一枚硬幣的兩面。如您所知，我們的保險業務規模較小，我認為我們經常考慮這樣的問題：我們在保險領域是否還有更多工作要做。喬恩，您可能想對此和律師事務所股權發表評論。

Sure. So I guess that I'd say as Chief Investment Officer. I'm guided by 2 overarching principles that have fueled our development of new products and offerings in new areas. One is, we are simply the best in our abilities and offerings are unique when it comes to the intersection of law and finance. Meaning, for years before we were around the capital market ignored the market for legal services. And the market for legal services didn't have access to finance. And so we increasingly just see a broader array of opportunities of people in the legal space, whether it is corporate suite claims, law firms with business that don't otherwise have access to capital for those claims or that business that we can provide.

當然。所以我想我會說作為首席投資長。我遵循兩個總體原則，這些原則推動了我們在新領域開發新產品和產品。一是，我們的能力是最好的，並且在法律和金融的交叉領域提供的服務是獨一無二的。這意味著，在我們進入資本市場之前的幾年裡，我們忽略了法律服務市場。而且法律服務市場無法獲得融資。因此，我們越來越多地看到法律領域的人們有更廣泛的機會，無論是公司套件索賠、擁有業務但無法獲得這些索賠資金的律師事務所還是我們可以提供的業務。

And there's no doubt that because we are so prominent in the space, we do receive inquiries and we develop relationships with people who are doing things that are somewhat different, slightly different from what our traditional counterparties have done that are structured slightly differently, whether it's different kind of cases, different kinds of arrangements. And so that we can make money by bringing capital to legal risk.

毫無疑問，因為我們在這個領域如此突出，所以我們確實收到了詢問，並且我們與那些正在做一些不同的事情的人建立了關係，這些人所做的事情與我們傳統的對手方所做的事情略有不同，無論是結構略有不同的情況，不同的安排。這樣我們就可以透過將資本帶入法律風險來賺錢。

The second guiding principle is, we don't ever want to lose our shareholders' money on something that we didn't understand. When I showed you the slide of the 3 outcomes, it goes to adjudication we win or lose or it settles. As long as we have properly evaluated the risk beforehand and understand there will be some losses, but as you can see from our track record, those losses are manageable and much smaller than the wins. That is the result of us not making bets where we don't truly understand the risk. So those are the guiding principles.

第二個指導原則是，我們不想因為我們不理解的事情而損失股東的錢。當我向您展示 3 個結果的幻燈片時，將進行裁決，我們是輸贏還是和解。只要我們事先正確評估了風險並了解將會有一些損失，但正如您從我們的追蹤記錄中看到的那樣，這些損失是可以控制的，並且比勝利小得多。這是我們在沒有真正了解風險的情況下沒有下注的結果。這些就是指導原則。

As Chris said, there are lots of tools we can bring to bear and lots of offerings. Insurance is a perfect example. As Chris said, the ability we have to bring capital and to analyze legal risk positions us to be able to do offerings that way. And we have deployed quite a bit of capital on the defense side in cases. And there is a respect, as I've talked about, in which the progression has been toward specific project finance for individual cases into larger portfolios, which is almost like finance for a business or a business line for a law firm. It's a large chunk or perhaps all of their business. And for corporate, it's for the General Counsel's office or the -- whatever the business unit is that for the claim. And equity financing can be the next step as long as you understand the underlying risk and promise of the venture you're investing in?

正如克里斯所說，我們可以使用很多工具和產品。保險就是一個完美的例子。正如克里斯所說，我們擁有資本和分析法律風險的能力，使我們能夠以這種方式進行發行。我們在案件防禦方面也投入了相當多的資金。正如我所談到的，在某種程度上，進展是針對個別案件的特定專案融資進入更大的投資組合，這幾乎就像為企業或律師事務所的業務線提供融資。這是他們業務的很大一部分，甚至可能是全部。對於公司來說，這是針對總法律顧問辦公室或——無論索賠的業務部門是什麼。只要您了解所投資企業的潛在風險和前景，股權融資就可以成為下一步嗎？

Thanks, Julian. Now we've got a webcast question from Michael Bancroft. If Argentina aren't successful in getting a stay, when will they have to post a bond in order to appeal? And will this bond be the full amount of the award or a lesser amount? Finally, what is your best guess as to when we hear the outcome of the motion for a stay?

謝謝，朱利安。現在我們收到了 Michael Bancroft 提出的網路廣播問題。如果阿根廷未能成功獲得暫緩上訴，他們什麼時候必須繳納保證金才能上訴？這筆保證金是獎勵的全額還是較少的金額？最後，當我們聽到暫緩動議的結果時，您的最佳猜測是什麼？

I think the question misapprehends what is happening in the U.S. a little bit. So let us step back and be very clear about this because these are unrelated dynamics. So Argentina has appealed and as have the Petersen (inaudible) and Eton Park cross-appealed. Those appeals are going to go forward regardless of bonding and regardless of any sort of stay. There is an unqualified right to appeal, and that right is not affected by what's going on with the judgement -- the underlying judgment.

我認為這個問題有點誤解了美國正在發生的事情。因此，讓我們退後一步，明確這一點，因為這些都是不相關的動態。因此，阿根廷提出了上訴，彼得森（聽不清楚）和伊頓公學也提出了交叉上訴。無論是否有聯繫，也無論是否停留，這些呼籲都將繼續進行。有無條件上訴的權利，且該權利不受判決（基礎判決）的影響。

The issue around a stay in a bond is that if you bond the appeal, if you post a bond for the amount of the judgement, then the judgment is not enforceable while the appeal is pending. If you don't post a bond and Argentina has said here that they are not going to post a bond. If you don't post bond, then generally, the judgment is enforceable while the appeal is pending, unless the court grants a discretionary stay. And so the question before the District Court right now is, will it exercise its discretion to grant a stay. Even though Argentina has made it clear that it will not and cannot post a bond or will the judge adopt the usual practice of not staying enforcement of the judgment while the appeal is pending. So that's the issue before the court.

中止保釋的問題在於，如果您為上訴提供保釋，如果您為判決金額繳納保釋，那麼在上訴待決期間，判決將無法執行。如果您不繳保證金，而阿根廷已在此表示他們不會繳納保證金。如果您不繳納保證金，那麼一般來說，判決在上訴待決期間可以強制執行，除非法院批准酌情暫緩執行。因此，地方法院現在面臨的問題是，它是否會行使其自由裁量權，並批准暫緩執行。儘管阿根廷已經明確表示不會也不能支付保釋金，或者法官會採取在上訴待決期間不停止執行判決的慣常做法。這就是法庭面臨的問題。

And as to when it will be decided, it's impossible to predict the timing of judicial decisions in the United States. The judge in this case has been relatively prompt as we've seen this year, the last set of briefing was filed only yesterday in terms of the motion for stay. So she could decide in 10 minutes or she could decide it some weeks from now, and we'll just have to wait and see.

而至於何時判決，美國司法判決的時間仍無法預測。正如我們今年看到的那樣，本案的法官相對迅速，昨天才就暫緩動議提交了最後一組簡報。所以她可以在 10 分鐘內做出決定，也可以在幾週後做出決定，我們只能拭目以待。

And then we have what I think will be our final question from the webcast from Andrew Shepherd-Barron. Your cumulative lifetime IRR to end June was 29% and is now reported as 27%. Is this linked to the slightly longer duration reported? Or is it a definitional change?

然後我們從安德魯·謝潑德-巴倫的網路廣播中提出了我認為的最後一個問題。截至 6 月底，您的累積終生 IRR 為 29%，現在報告為 27%。這是否與報告的稍長的持續時間有關？或者說是定義上的改變？

And the answer is it's linked to the slightly longer duration. It's not a definitional change at all. We've reported those numbers in exactly the same way for a very long time. So it's longer duration, but it's also the impact of some older vintage stuff resolving as well. And so those kinds of fairly small fluctuations are not particularly concerning to us given that we're continuing to produce what we think are very desirable overall returns.

答案是它與稍長的持續時間有關。這根本不是定義上的改變。很長一段時間以來，我們一直以完全相同的方式報告這些數字。所以它的持續時間更長，但這也是一些舊的老式東西解決的影響。因此，考慮到我們正在繼續產生我們認為非常理想的整體回報，這些相當小的波動對我們來說並不特別重要。

And so with that, I would like to thank all of you very much on behalf of Jon and Jordan and the rest of the Burford team for attending another one of these calls with us for your thoughtful questions and for your ongoing support of Burford. Thank you all very much.

因此，我謹代表喬恩和喬丹以及伯福德團隊的其他成員，非常感謝大家參加另一場電話會議，提出深思熟慮的問題，並感謝你們對伯福德的持續支持。非常感謝大家。

Thank you all for joining. Again, this does now conclude today's call. Please have a lovely rest of your day, and you may now disconnect your lines.

感謝大家的加入。今天的電話會議到此結束。請度過愉快的一天，現在您可以斷開線路了。