Burford Capital Ltd (BUR) 2024 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Thank you for standing by. My name is Danica, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Burford Capital second-quarter 2024 financial results conference call. (Operator Instructions)

謝謝你的支持。我叫丹妮卡，今天我將擔任你們的會議操作員。此時此刻，我歡迎大家參加 Burford Capital 2024 年第二季財務業績電話會議。（操作員說明）

I would now like to turn the call over to Chris Bogart, Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.

我現在想將電話轉給執行長克里斯·博加特 (Chris Bogart)。請繼續。

Thanks very much and hello everybody. Thank you all for joining us today. As usual, I'm joined by Jon Molot, the Chief Investment Officer; and Jordan Licht, the Chief Financial Officer and all three of us will talk to some of the slides that have been posted in what we hope will be a relatively brief presentation and then we'll be happy to take whatever questions you might have.

非常感謝，大家好。感謝大家今天加入我們。像往常一樣，首席投資長喬恩·莫洛特 (Jon Molot) 也加入了我的行列。財務長喬丹·利希特（Jordan Licht）和我們三人將討論一些已發布的幻燈片，我們希望這是一個相對簡短的演示，然後我們將很樂意回答您可能提出的任何問題。

Before turning to the numbers and the results, I was just sort of reflecting on the fact that the next time we talk to you in the fall, Burford will have turned 15 by that point. It's pretty interesting to reflect back on what was going on in 2009. I think I was actually on this day in 2009 sitting on Guernsey putting the business together.

在討論數字和結果之前，我只是想了一下這樣一個事實：下次我們秋天與您交談時，伯福德那時已經 15 歲了。回顧2009年發生的事情非常有趣。我想我實際上是在 2009 年的這一天坐在根西島整合業務。

Little did we know then that we would be launching what has become a $3 billion company and fundamentally changing the way that the legal industry operates economically. It's been a terrific 15-year ride. We're really thrilled with what we've been able to accomplish and we thank all of you for making that possible with you and your patient capital.

當時我們幾乎不知道我們將創辦一家價值 30 億美元的公司，並從根本上改變法律產業的經濟運作方式。這是一段了不起的 15 年歷程。我們對我們所取得的成就感到非常興奮，感謝你們所有人和你們的耐心資本使這一切成為可能。

So turning to the second quarter and the report that we put out this morning, we're very pleased to report a strong quarter as to both portfolio activity and cash generation on the one hand and new business to continue to refill the portfolio on the other.

因此，轉向第二季度和我們今天早上發布的報告，我們非常高興地報告了一個強勁的季度，一方面是投資組合活動和現金生成，另一方面是新業務繼續補充投資組合。

And I'm on slide four and that slide will just call out a few key points that I'll just talk on briefly. We were principally driven this quarter in terms of revenue and profits by strong capital provision income. In other words, the income that we generate from the core portfolio. That was up 237% from the comparable quarter in 2023, so a very strong showing.

我在第四張投影片上，投影片將只列出我將簡要討論的幾個關鍵點。本季我們的營收和利潤主要受到強勁的資本撥備收入的推動。換句話說，我們從核心投資組合中產生的收入。與 2023 年同期相比成長了 237%，表現非常強勁。

And that was driven mostly by realized gains, in other words, cases that had actually come to a conclusion. And not only is that nice to see, but we saw returns on those cases that were well above our historical average, really about double our historical average. So returns of about 179% on those realizations.

這主要是由已實現的收益所驅動的，換句話說，是實際得出結論的案例。這不僅令人高興，而且我們看到這些案例的回報遠高於我們的歷史平均水平，實際上是我們歷史平均水平的兩倍。因此，這些實現的回報率約為 179%。

That obviously will be a number that will move around depending on the economics of particular cases and what happens in the portfolio. But I think that being able to produce returns of that level really does dispel any notion that we're seeing degradation or compression of returns as opposed to simple variation on a period by period basis.

顯然，這個數字會根據特定案例的經濟狀況以及投資組合中發生的情況而改變。但我認為，能夠產生這種水平的回報確實消除了我們看到回報下降或壓縮的任何觀念，而不是逐個時期的簡單變化。

We saw on the new business side a robust level of new business. We exceeded our trailing averages by a fair bit on both a three month and a six month basis. And so that's always pleasant in the middle of the year to see that kind of activity.

我們在新業務方面看到了強勁的新業務水平。我們在三個月和六個月的基礎上都超越了追蹤平均水準。因此，在年中看到此類活動總是令人愉快的。

As long time investors will remember, this business does tend to have a fourth quarter dominance to it. I sometimes joke with investors when it feels like we're running a retailer. And the reason for that is that lots of clients and lots of law firms, frankly, don't really need the money until you get close to the end of the year.

長期投資者都會記住，該業務確實往往會在第四季度佔據主導地位。當我感覺到我們在經營零售商時，我有時會和投資者開玩笑。坦白說，原因是許多客戶和律師事務所在接近年底之前並不真正需要這筆錢。

And that's why the fourth quarter historically for us has been quite busy -- . And the first quarter and the third quarter are often not busy at all. We can't force lawyers to engage when they don't otherwise want to. So it was very pleasant to see that kind of second quarter activity.

這就是為什麼我們第四季歷史上非常忙碌——。而第一季和第三季往往根本不忙。當律師不願意參與時，我們不能強迫他們參與。所以很高興看到第二季的這種活動。

As I said earlier, these realizations were driven not just by one big thing. When you compare obviously our income statement results to 2023, 2023 was heavily influenced by our success in YPF, which is a wonderful development, but it is indeed just one big thing. Whereas in this period, we were demonstrating strength from multiple case activities, multiple case wins and settlements, but really drove the overall numbers.

正如我之前所說，這些認識不僅僅是由一件大事推動的。當你將我們的損益表結果與 2023 年進行比較時，你會發現 2023 年很大程度上受到我們 YPF 成功的影響，這是一個很棒的發展，但它確實只是一件大事。而在此期間，我們透過多個案件活動、多個案件獲勝和和解展示了實力，但確實推動了總體數字。

All that turns into cash. These weren't just paper gains. These were actual cash receipts. And we've been pretty consistent in being able to demonstrate those kinds of cash receipts. So just stepping back from those numbers and before we go on, I think there are a couple of key points here. We've established that there is overall a real demand from both law firms and corporate clients for the solutions that we offer.

所有這些都變成了現金。這些不僅僅是帳面收益。這些是實際的現金收入。我們在證明此類現金收入方面一直非常一致。因此，在我們繼續討論之前，先拋開這些數字，我認為這裡有幾個關鍵點。我們已經確定，律師事務所和企業客戶總體上對我們提供的解決方案都有真正的需求。

And now that we are trying to put the pandemic in the rearview mirror, we have, I think, good runway both to continue to see the portfolio continue to perform and also to continue to add clients and develop new business. And that's where our market leadership really does count.

現在，我們正在努力將這場流行病納入後視鏡，我認為，我們擁有良好的跑道，既可以繼續看到投資組合繼續表現，也可以繼續增加客戶和開發新業務。這就是我們的市場領導地位真正重要的地方。

We absolutely get business because of the quality of our team, because of the size of our capital base and the overall experience that we have in the market. While, this is always going to be a business with some period-to-period volatility, I think we've shown that we also, over a longer term, have made a very attractive, sustainable business model that can deliver desirable returns and a lot of cash.

我們獲得業務絕對是因為我們團隊的素質、我們的資本基礎規模以及我們在市場上擁有的整體經驗。雖然這始終是一個具有一定時期波動性的業務，但我認為我們已經表明，從長遠來看，我們也已經建立了一個非常有吸引力的、可持續的商業模式，可以帶來理想的回報和很多現金。

So turning to slide 5, what this slide really does is pull in some Q1 data to show a fair number of first half overall data points, but the fundamental message here about the first half of the year is the same. The portfolio is performing well and new business is being generated. And again, back to the client side of things, clients want these solutions.

因此，轉向投影片 5，這張投影片的真正作用是提取一些第一季的數據，以顯示相當數量的上半年總體數據點，但這裡關於今年上半年的基本資訊是相同的。該投資組合表現良好，並且正在產生新業務。再次回到客戶端，客戶需要這些解決方案。

I'll just try to find a CFO who says he or she is happy to be spending money on legal fees. They just don't exist. And so this is now, we are set up now for what we hope is a multi-year ability to continue to grow the new business side of this business as we continue to add clients to the mix.

我會嘗試找一位表示願意花錢支付法律費用的財務長。它們就是不存在。所以現在，我們現在已經做好了準備，希望在我們繼續增加客戶的同時，能夠在多年內繼續發展該業務的新業務。

I'm not going to go through all of the bullet points here. Jordan, instead, is going to take you through in some detail the things that call out here. But I would just, as we go past this slide, note a couple of things as we go.

我不會在這裡詳細介紹所有要點。相反，喬丹將帶您詳細了解這裡提到的內容。但當我們瀏覽這張投影片時，我只想注意一些事情。

In addition to talking about realizations in new business, we not only have a strong liquidity position, but if you note the sort of coverage of cash against expenses, we're operating quite a high margin business, which is very pleasant as well.

除了談論新業務的實現之外，我們不僅擁有強大的流動性狀況，而且如果您注意到現金對支出的覆蓋範圍，我們正在經營相當高的利潤率業務，這也非常令人愉快。

Jon's going to show you, in terms of the existing portfolio, how much we still have left to go and how consistent our performance has been with consistently low loss rates. And Jordan will talk about the asset management business, but as we've described over the last couple of years, we simply make a lot more money when we do our investments on the balance sheet, which is why you've seen us have a (technical difficulty)

喬恩將向您展示，就現有的投資組合而言，我們還有多少工作要做，以及我們的業績與持續低損失率的一致性如何。喬丹將談論資產管理業務，但正如我們在過去幾年中所描述的，當我們在資產負債表上進行投資時，我們只是賺了更多的錢，這就是為什麼你看到我們有（技術難度）

Hello, everyone. We lost our speaker line. Please hang tight for just one moment.

大家好。我們失去了揚聲器線路。請稍等片刻。

Okay, it's Jordan speaking. Sorry about that. It looks as though we lost Chris for a moment, but we lost him right at the moment he was about to turn the slides to me. So I was going to start by saying thank you, Chris, and I'm going to jump to page 5. So let's just keep going.

好吧，是喬丹說話。對此感到抱歉。看起來我們暫時失去了克里斯，但就在他即將把幻燈片交給我的那一刻，我們失去了他。所以我首先要說謝謝你，克里斯，然後我要跳到第 5 頁。所以讓我們繼續吧。

And I am back from my mysterious departure. Apologies for that. I don't quite know what happened there. The line just went flat dead. But Jordan was about to take slide 6, and I'll just make a couple of comments as we go into it.

我從神秘的離開中回來了。對此表示歉意。我不太清楚那裡發生了什麼事。線路就這樣斷了。但喬丹即將播放第 6 張幻燈片，我將在討論時發表一些評論。

So on slide 6, we announced earlier this week that the annual testing that we have to do at the end of June to see what percentage of US holders we have had pushed us over 50%, and not just by a whisker. So that means that we're no longer, as of January the 1, 2025, we're no longer a foreign private issuer in the US market, we're instead a full US listed company.

因此，在第 6 張投影片上，我們本週稍早宣布，我們必須在 6 月底進行年度測試，看看我們的美國持有者比例已超過 50%，而且不僅僅是微乎其微。因此，這意味著自 2025 年 1 月 1 日起，我們不再是美國市場上的外國私人發行人，而是完整的美國上市公司。

And that's really the culmination of what has been more than five years of planning and effort along the way. We lay out here some of the things that we've done, and Jordan can speak to any of those that he chooses.

這確實是五年多來的規劃和努力的結晶。我們在這裡列出了我們所做的一些事情，喬丹可以與他選擇的任何人交談。

But I think the overarching point here is that we've done this because we think that there is a benefit to all shareholders, wherever you're located, of being a full US listed. That's just a much larger and deeper capital market than anywhere else. You've seen the volume and trading benefit that comes with that. So we're happy with this outcome.

但我認為最重要的一點是，我們這樣做是因為我們認為，無論您身在何處，在美國全面上市對所有股東都有好處。這是一個比其他地方更大、更深的資本市場。您已經看到了隨之而來的交易量和交易收益。所以我們對這個結果感到滿意。

We'd ask all of you to support the forthcoming Extraordinary General Meeting in a few weeks, which is one of the last steps of the other bits and pieces of this to put the articles of the company in a more US shareholder conventional form. And we look forward to continuing to grow our market presence in the US

我們請求大家支持幾週後即將舉行的特別股東大會，這是將公司章程納入更美國股東傳統形式的其他零碎工作的最後步驟之一。我們期待繼續擴大我們在美國的市場份額

And now to Jordan.

現在到約旦。

Well, Chris, you get a double thank you. I said thank you before, I'm not sure if you heard it, but we'll start again. Thank you, Chris. Good morning, everyone, and afternoon. So on page 6, there's a lot of great accomplishment highlighted that the team has achieved over time, as Chris has described, with a lot more in the near future.

好吧，克里斯，我要加倍感謝你。我之前說過謝謝你，我不確定你是否聽到了，但我們會重新開始。謝謝你，克里斯。大家早安，下午好。因此，在第 6 頁上，正如 Chris 所描述的那樣，強調了團隊隨著時間的推移所取得的許多偉大成就，並且在不久的將來還會取得更多成就。

So first, what you'll see at the end of this year is the migration to a 10-K and proxy. We're going to look to continue to provide in that transition, similar depth of content that we've historically provided, but we're also going to try and make sure that the story is easy to access for new investors. Our dates for quarterly and full year reporting will accelerate to the more traditional US schedules for financial periods.

首先，您將在今年年底看到遷移到 10-K 和代理。我們將尋求在這一轉變中繼續提供與我們歷史上提供的類似深度的內容，但我們也將嘗試確保新投資者可以輕鬆了解這個故事。我們的季度和全年報告日期將加快到更傳統的美國財務週期時間表。

So you'll see quarterly results within 40 days of the end of each quarter, full year results within 60 days of the end of each year. So more to come, but all productive items highlighted on the page. I'm going to now switch to page 7, a quick summary of select financials. This page is Burford only.

因此，您將在每個季度結束後 40 天內看到季度結果，在每年結束後 60 天內看到全年結果。更多內容即將推出，但所有富有成效的項目都會在頁面上突出顯示。我現在要轉到第 7 頁，這是精選財務資料的快速摘要。此頁面僅限伯福德。

Look, comparisons to the six-month period in 2023 are going to be difficult given that at the end of March last year, we received positive news regarding the summary judgment on the YPF case, and Jon will speak more to that shortly. And of course, that caused a multi hundred million dollar boost to unrealized gains and thus to revenue.

看，考慮到去年 3 月底，我們收到了有關 YPF 案件簡易判決的積極消息，與 2023 年的六個月進行比較將會很困難，喬恩很快就會對此發表更多講話。當然，這導致未實現收益增加了數億美元，從而增加了收入。

So let me focus though on some of the key numbers and then I go into greater detail on following pages. First we'll just start $54 million of net income for the second quarter, which is $0.24 per share, clearly a big increase over the same period in 2023 as well as the first quarter of this year. And net income was approximately or actually over or near 40% of total revenues.

因此，讓我專注於一些關鍵數字，然後在接下來的幾頁中詳細介紹。首先，我們將從第二季的淨利潤 5,400 萬美元開始，即每股 0.24 美元，顯然比 2023 年同期以及今年第一季大幅成長。淨利潤大約或實際上超過或接近總收入的 40%。

On the capital provision asset side, we've now grown to slightly above $3.5 billion. Of that, our non-YPF related assets represent $2.1 billion. Included in that is a 30% fair value uplift to deployed costs. Tangible book value just shy of $10 per share, including the intangibles, we're now at $10.50 per share. I'll talk more about revenue and expense composition in the coming pages and some of the other key metrics.

在資本準備資產方面，我們現在已成長至略高於 35 億美元。其中，我們的非 YPF 相關資產為 21 億美元。其中包括部署成本公允價值上漲 30%。有形帳面價值略低於每股 10 美元，包括無形資產，我們現在的股價為每股 10.50 美元。我將在接下來的幾頁中更多地討論收入和費用組成以及其他一些關鍵指標。

So I'm going to jump now to page 8. This is where we highlight total capital provision income and it's broken into the various components. The real headline is that the second quarter total capital provision income is up 237% over the same period last year. Look, in simple words, we've had a lot of positive outcomes in a number of cases.

所以我現在要跳到第 8 頁。這是我們強調總資本撥備收入的地方，它分為各個組成部分。真正的頭條新聞是，第二季資本撥備收入總額比去年同期成長了237%。簡單來說，我們在許多案例中都取得了許多正面成果。

Starting at the top of the table, net realized gains were up significantly period-over-period with just shy of $100 million of gains in the second quarter. And this was driven by strong performance in realizations with an ROIC of 146% year-to-date.

從表格頂部開始，實現的淨收益同比大幅增長，第二季度收益接近 1 億美元。這是由今年迄今 146% 的投資報酬率 (ROIC) 的強勁變現表現所推動的。

First-half net realized gains for capital provision directs was $128 million, which is nearly 70% of the whole of 2023. And the only six month period exceeding this year's result was the first half of 2020 at $183 million of net realized gains. And that was before the COVID-19 pandemic had started to clog the courts and legal processes.

上半年資本撥備直接實現淨收益為 1.28 億美元，接近 2023 年全年的 70%。唯一超過今年業績的六個月是 2020 年上半年，淨收益為 1.83 億美元。那是在 COVID-19 大流行開始阻礙法院和法律程序之前。

Capital provision assets, as a reminder, are fair value quarterly and we use the observation of case milestones, both positive and negative, and discount rate in that calculation. It's notable that this period we had pretty low net unrealized gains. Almost all of our revenue this quarter came from realizations where we've won cases.

提醒一下，資本撥備資產是季度公允價值，我們在計算中使用對案例里程碑（正負）的觀察以及折現率。值得注意的是，這段期間我們的未實現淨收益相當低。本季我們幾乎所有的收入都來自於我們贏得的案件。

That's in part a function of cases concluding rather than just going through another milestone and in part due to changes in the discount rate. Over the first two quarters, we've seen discount rates for our assets rise by about 34 basis points. And in the most recent period, that probably was a headwind of approximately $15 million to $20 million.

這部分是案件結案的結果，而不僅僅是經歷另一個里程碑，部分是由於貼現率的變化。前兩個季度，我們的資產折現率上升了約 34 個基點。在最近一段時間裡，這可能是大約 1500 萬至 2000 萬美元的逆風。

The discount rates in the models generally follow market trends and bond market volatility. And as a frame of reference, our asset value on a Burford only basis would increase around $50 million for a 50 basis points decrease in our discount rate.

模型中的折現率通常遵循市場趨勢和債券市場波動。作為參考，如果我們的折現率降低 50 個基點，我們的資產價值（僅 Burford 基礎上）將增加約 5000 萬美元。

But all that talk about discount rates, let's focus on the cash resolution of our assets and not this interim fluctuation created by rate volatility. But wrapping up on this page, overall total capital provision income of $119 million was up sharply from Q2 2023 as well as the $18 million we saw in Q1 of this year.

但所有這些都在談論折現率，讓我們專注於我們資產的現金解決方案，而不是利率波動造成的臨時波動。但在本頁結束時，總資本撥備收入為 1.19 億美元，較 2023 年第二季以及今年第一季的 1,800 萬美元大幅成長。

Flipping to page 9, second quarter was a productive quarter for building the portfolio. Burford only commitments have been significant as well as diversified across the sectors in 2024 with a total of $343 million of capital provision direct new commitments.

翻到第 9 頁，第二季是建立投資組合的富有成果的季度。到 2024 年，僅 Burford 的承諾規模龐大且跨產業多元化，直接新承諾的資本撥備總額為 3.43 億美元。

Recall the 2023 metric includes a large deal to support a Fortune 50 client and that was a $325 million deal overall with $190 million representing Burford only capital provision direct commitments. As it resolved quickly, and they had a good IRR, but it was a lower ROIC because of shorter duration and we've spoken about that in previous calls.

回想一下，2023 年的指標包括一項支持財富 50 強客戶的大型交易，交易總額為 3.25 億美元，其中 1.9 億美元僅代表 Burford 的資本提供直接承諾。由於問題解決得很快，而且他們的 IRR 不錯，但由於持續時間較短，ROIC 較低，我們在先前的電話會議中已經談到過這一點。

While we can't show you all of our internal expected profit figures and we're working on a substitute with that, I can say that as a team we're very pleased with the economics of the new business we're putting on. Just measuring dollars of commitment and deployment doesn't necessarily tell the full story.

雖然我們無法向您展示我們所有的內部預期利潤數據，並且我們正在研究替代方案，但我可以說，作為一個團隊，我們對我們正在進行的新業務的經濟效益感到非常滿意。僅衡量承諾和部署的金額並不能說明全部。

Deployments did however rise significantly since the last several quarters. We expect deployments to continue to be robust, yes some volatility, but we have approximately $700 million of definitive commitments to deploy on the existing book. That's future profitability that we're looking forward to.

然而，自過去幾個季度以來，部署量確實大幅增加。我們預計部署將繼續保持強勁，是的，會出現一些波動，但我們有大約 7 億美元的明確承諾在現有帳簿上進行部署。這就是我們期待的未來獲利能力。

While commitments and deployments are about putting the money out, let's move to page 10 which highlights bringing the assets to resolution. I'm on the top far right of the page, you'll see Burford only realizations of $216 million year-to-date representing an 11% increase over the first half of the year. This was driven by eight matters achieving over $10 million each, three of those were $25 million or more each.

雖然承諾和部署是為了投入資金，但讓我們轉到第 10 頁，其中重點介紹如何解決資產問題。我在頁面的最右上方，您會看到 Burford 年初至今僅實現 2.16 億美元，比今年上半年成長了 11%。這是由 8 個項目每項價值超過 1000 萬美元推動的，其中 3 個項目每項價值 2500 萬美元或以上。

Realizations are obviously the critical component to creating cash and cash receipts have been consistent. At or near $100 million per quarter over the last eight quarters, our year-to-date numbers are keeping pace with last year's first half. Bottom line, the portfolio is performing and throwing off cash.

變現顯然是創造現金的關鍵組成部分，而現金收入一直保持一致。過去八個季度每季的營收達到或接近 1 億美元，我們今年迄今的數字與去年上半年持平。最重要的是，該投資組合表現良好並正在釋放現金。

With that I will hand it over to Jon to discuss YPF and the rest of the portfolio.

接下來，我將把它交給 Jon 來討論 YPF 和投資組合的其餘部分。

Thanks Jordan, thanks to you all for joining, I'm very pleased to be here. As Jordan says, the portfolio is just humming, lots of activity and that's what ends up generating the realizations. Starting on slide 11 with the YPF related assets, there's not much to report other than that things are going through the litigation process on the time frame that we had explained.

謝謝喬丹，謝謝大家的加入，我很高興來到這裡。正如喬丹所說，這個投資組合只是嗡嗡作響，有大量的活動，這就是最終產生實現的原因。從投影片 11 的 YPF 相關資產開始，除了我們已經解釋過的時間範圍內正在經歷訴訟程序之外，沒有太多可報告的內容。

So, the briefing is almost concluded in the Court of Appeals from the direct appeal, you recall Argentina has appealed its loss and the plaintiffs have appealed YPF's potential liability. And Argentina's final brief has been filed and the plaintiff's final brief has been filed. There's one brief remaining from YPF to be filed on August 23 and then oral argument and decision thereafter.

因此，上訴法院的直接上訴幾乎已經結束，您還記得阿根廷已對其損失提出上訴，原告已就 YPF 的潛在責任提出上訴。阿根廷的最終陳述已經提交，原告的最終陳述也已提交。YPF 還剩一份簡報將於 8 月 23 日提交，然後進行口頭辯論和決定。

In the meantime, because you'll recall there was no stay granted pending appeal, the judgment of the trial court is final and enforceable and there are enforcement proceedings that are progressing both in the United States and in multiple jurisdictions around the world.

同時，因為您會記得，在等待上訴期間沒有批准暫緩執行，所以初審法院的判決是最終的且可執行的，並且美國和世界各地多個司法管轄區的執行程序正在取得進展。

As always we don't comment on the ongoing litigation aspect of this, all we can say is as is true of all litigation, the process does move forward. And in fact it's a useful thing to -- if we turn to slide 12 and step back and think about the business more broadly and this is something that you've seen before, but I feel like it's a useful thing to keep in mind at this moment, particularly at a moment of market volatility.

一如既往，我們不會對此正在進行的訴訟方面發表評論，我們只能說，所有訴訟都是如此，該過程確實在向前推進。事實上，如果我們轉向幻燈片 12，退後一步，更廣泛地思考業務，這是一件有用的事情，這是您以前見過的，但我覺得這是一件值得記住的有用的事情此時此刻，尤其是在市場波動的時刻。

You ask the question and Chris mentioned before we're almost 15 years old now, we've seen high returns, how do you maintain these returns in excess of what you can get in other asset classes. And this slide kind of explains it, there's a natural process and an automatic resolution of all litigation, it's either going to go to adjudication and be decided by a tribunal or court or it's going to settle.

你問這個問題，克里斯之前提到過，我們現在已經快 15 歲了，我們已經看到了高回報，你如何保持這些回報超過你在其他資產類別中可以獲得的回報。這張投影片解釋了這一點，所有訴訟都有一個自然的過程和自動解決方案，要么進入裁決並由法庭或法院決定，要么和解。

You see the historical numbers over our lifetime, 75% of our investments that have concluded through settlement, of the remainder our gains, our wins have far exceeded our losses and that has made for a very attractive return profile, it's kind of -- the lawyers understand this is how things work, but to a financial investor trying to understand how do you produce the returns you do that are uncorrelated with markets, which is quite important in a moment of volatility like this one, this kind of lays it out.

你可以看到我們一生中的歷史數據，我們75% 的投資已通過結算完成，其餘的我們的收益，我們的盈利遠遠超過了我們的虧損，這創造了非常有吸引力的回報狀況，這有點——律師明白事情就是這樣運作的，但對於一個試圖了解如何產生與市場不相關的回報的金融投資者來說，這在像這樣的波動時刻非常重要，這種佈局。

And it is interesting to note there was a mention earlier that ROIC actually lifetime has gone up this quarter despite as we mentioned earlier, there was one large matter that resolved quickly with high IRRs but then lower RRCs nonetheless, just the sheer quantity of things that have resolved that were good, the ROIC ticked up from 82% to 86%.

有趣的是，先前有人提到，ROIC 實際上在本季的壽命有所增加，儘管正如我們之前提到的，有一個大問題很快就得到了解決，IRR 較高，但RRC 較低，只是數量龐大的事情解決得很好，ROIC 從 82% 上升到 86%。

And I'm not bragging about that as a trend, I've already said that could bounce around depending on what resolves in a particular quarter and we see higher RRCs from adjudication trial results versus settlements or they depend. But I think almost 15 years old and you look at the size of the capital investments that have resolved.

我並不是吹噓這是一種趨勢，我已經說過，這可能會根據特定季度的解決方案而反彈，並且我們從審判審判結果與和解結果中看到更高的 RRC，或者取決於它們。但我認為快 15 歲了，你看看已經解決的資本投資規模。

This is based on a billion five of deployments generating over $2.9 billion of realizations, you see the business model works and makes sense and we're very proud of it. And if you turn from slide 12 to slide 13, you kind of see the intuitive explanation I described in slide 12 about why the business model makes sense.

這是基於十億五次部署，產生了超過 29 億美元的實現，您會看到該業務模型有效且有意義，我們對此感到非常自豪。如果您從投影片 12 轉到投影片 13，您會看到我在投影片 12 中描述的關於商業模式為何有意義的直觀解釋。

I'm a firm believer and I've always told the team like you don't make money unless you've got something that's valuable to the market and that explains why it makes sense. But slide 13 lays out the financial results in more pure financial terms and you've seen this before too although I can say now that as Chris said we are effective January 1, no longer a foreign private issuer. We're just a domestic US issuer, I can use a baseball analogy finally.

我是一個堅定的信徒，我總是告訴團隊，除非你擁有對市場有價值的東西，否則你就不會賺錢，這也解釋了為什麼它有意義。但幻燈片13 以更純粹的財務術語列出了財務結果，您以前也見過這一點，儘管我現在可以說，正如克里斯所說，我們從1 月1 日起生效，不再是外國私人發行人。我們只是一家美國國內發行人，我最後可以用棒球來比喻。

And I'll say, the slide came about because a very good investor asked me a question once some years ago about what's your batting average. And on the one hand you can provide the simple answer which the third bullet on the left shows that basically 10.3% lifetime loss rate. You'd say, well, that's a pretty good batting average. But it's more nuanced than that. It's better than that number tells you.

我想說的是，幻燈片的出現是因為幾年前一位非常優秀的投資人曾經問過我一個問題，關於你的成功率是多少。一方面，您可以提供簡單的答案，左側第三個項目表明，終身損失率基本上為 10.3%。你可能會說，嗯，這是一個相當不錯的擊球率。但實際情況比這更微妙。這比這個數字告訴你的還要好。

Because when you look at the dispersion of outcomes and the asymmetry between losses and gains, for one thing the losses are smaller. But a portion of those gains are truly outsized home runs. The way Jordan put it was it's not just your batting average, it's what your hip dispersion is, how many singles, how many doubles, how many home runs, you begin to understand why it's such an attractive business.

因為當你觀察結果的分散性以及損失和收益之間的不對稱性時，一方面損失較小。但其中一部分收益確實是巨大的本壘打。用喬丹的話來說，這不僅僅是你的擊球率，而是你的臀部分散度，有多少單打，多少雙打，多少本壘打，你開始明白為什麼這是一項如此有吸引力的業務。

And the numbers here we've laid out, you can see on the top left in the main graphic that it's roughly 15% of the total invested resulted in an ROI of 0% or less, right. That's what results in the 10% loss rate. But if you look at the top right, you see that roughly a similar amount of money, 15% resulted in returns on invested capital in excess of 200% in bonds. That's money back plus more than times your money.

我們在這裡列出的數字，您可以在主圖的左上角看到，大約 15% 的總投資導致了 0% 或更低的投資回報率，對吧。這就是導致 10% 損失率的原因。但如果你看一下右上角，你會發現大約同樣數量的資金，15% 導致債券投資資本回報率超過 200%。這就是回饋的錢，再加上你的錢的幾倍。

And then there's lots of singles and doubles in between where we're earning attractive returns. So that really is a key to understand the business and it's important to keep in mind particularly at the moment of volatility because all those returns, all those bars are uncorrelated with market performance.

然後還有很多單打和雙打，我們可以從中獲得可觀的回報。因此，這確實是了解業務的關鍵，尤其是在波動的時刻要牢記這一點，因為所有這些回報、所有這些長條圖都與市場表現無關。

If we turn to slide 14 it's a slide you've seen but again it just packs in a lot of information about the business which I found useful. Some people like to look at this because they can see in the past what we've done, you look at the black bars and compare them to the red bars and you see how well our past resolutions have turned out.

如果我們翻到投影片 14，這是您見過的投影片，但它再次包含了許多我認為有用的有關業務的資訊。有些人喜歡看這個，因為他們可以看到我們過去所做的事情，你看看黑條並將它們與紅條進行比較，你會看到我們過去的決議結果如何。

And then you look at the shaded gray bars and you see how much is left to be resolved in investments we've put on. And you can see also at the bottom from 2009 to 2023, yes when you look at a vintage year of capital out, the IRRs do vary in the conclusions, but it's not uniform. There's some lumpiness in terms of some years are outperformers and some are underperformers. But overall it's a really great business model and that's what has produced the blended 27% lifetime IRR when you take into account both wins and losses.

然後你看看灰色陰影條，你會看到我們已經投入的投資還有多少有待解決。您也可以在 2009 年至 2023 年的底部看到，是的，當您查看資本流出的年份時，IRR 的結論確實有所不同，但並不統一。有些年份表現出色，有些年份表現不佳，有些波動。但總體而言，這是一個非常出色的商業模式，當您同時考慮盈利和虧損時，這就是產生 27% 混合終身 IRR 的原因。

So with that, I will turn it back over to Jordan to turn to slide 15. Thanks.

因此，我將把它轉回喬丹以轉到幻燈片 15。謝謝。

Thanks Jon. On page 15 just some quick highlights from the asset management business which continues to perform. As a reminder we use these funds to augment our balance sheet efforts. The asset management business is a cash-on-cash business. The actual payout in the second quarter on a cash basis we saw $11 million of cash receipts and $15 million year-to-date. We do however recognize income driven by the fair value movements and fund assets.

謝謝喬恩。第 15 頁僅介紹了持續表現出色的資產管理業務的一些簡要亮點。提醒一下，我們使用這些資金來增強我們的資產負債表工作。資產管理業務屬於現金業務。第二季以現金支付的實際支出為 1,100 萬美元，年初至今為 1,500 萬美元。然而，我們確實承認由公允價值變動和基金資產驅動的收入。

BOF-C which is currently the most significant driver of this business has close to half a billion of active deployments and just shy of 900 million of active commitment. I'm going to move now to slide 16 and we'll switch briefly from the revenues to expenses.

BOF-C 目前是該業務最重要的驅動力，擁有近 5 億個活躍部署和接近 9 億個活躍承諾。我現在要轉到第 16 張投影片，我們將簡要地從收入切換到支出。

At $67 million for the first half of the year our operating expenses are 31% lower than the same period last year. Note, we see variations in the reported operating expenses that are driven by unrealized gains as well as other accounting elements. One in particular that we've discussed on previous calls is changes in our share price.

今年上半年我們的營運費用為 6,700 萬美元，比去年同期下降了 31%。請注意，我們發現報告的營運費用有差異，這是由未實現收益以及其他會計因素造成的。我們在之前的電話會議中特別討論過的一個問題是我們的股價變動。

When employees elected defer their compensation in the fluctuation in our share price that will manifest itself in salaries and benefits line and while we look to generally economically hedge that fluctuation by purchasing shares increases and decreases in our share price do have an impact there and are not offset in the income statement.

當員工選擇推遲支付我們股價波動的薪酬時，這將體現在工資和福利線中，而我們通常希望透過購買股票來對沖經濟上的波動，我們股價的上漲和下跌確實會產生影響，並且不會產生影響。

This period unfortunately the reduction in our share price was a benefit of approximately $3 million. The annual incentive comp line represents the discretionary bonus for employees and that's finalized in the fourth quarter.

不幸的是，這段期間我們的股價下跌帶來了約 300 萬美元的收益。年度激勵補償線代表員工的酌情獎金，並在第四季度最終確定。

But all of that accounting and so forth on a cash basis or OpEx is pretty steady. You'll see G&A is tracking lower and that's mainly due to the reduction in expenses from last year which had been driven by the restatement in 2023.

但所有這些會計等都以現金為基礎或營運支出相當穩定。您會發現 G&A 正在下降，這主要是由於 2023 年重述導致費用比去年減少。

Page 17, the next page highlights are our liquidity. We remain in a strong liquidity position ending the quarter with $443 million of cash and securities as well as another $200 million of receivables. I had mentioned before the strength in cash receipts in the first half of the year. We saw $245 million, which is consistent with the same period last year.

第17頁，下一頁的重點是我們的流動性。截至本季末，我們仍保持強勁的流動性狀況，擁有 4.43 億美元的現金和證券以及另外 2 億美元的應收帳款。我之前提到過上半年現金收入強勁。我們看到了 2.45 億美元，與去年同期持平。

We're committed on the top right hand side we're committed to keeping the laddered debt schedule. Our next maturity is in 2025 and we've been slowly chipping away at that outstanding balance. We've probably purchased around $23 million of that issuance below face value.

我們在右上角承諾，我們致力於保持階梯式債務時間表。我們的下一個成熟期是 2025 年，我們一直在慢慢減少未償餘額。我們可能以低於面額的價格購買了該發行中約 2,300 萬美元的資金。

Leverage metrics on the bottom are 0.8 times leverage level as well below our covenant levels as well as our stated maximum of 1.25 times and we're continuously managing liquidity levels, our anticipated cash needs as well as cash receipts to manage the business appropriately.

底部的槓桿指標為 0.8 倍槓桿水平，遠低於我們的契約水平以及我們規定的最高 1.25 倍，我們正在持續管理流動性水平、預期現金需求以及現金收入，以適當管理業務。

And with that I will hand it back to Chris.

然後我會把它交還給克里斯。

Great, thanks Jordan. We'll turn to slide 18 to close this out before we take your questions. And you've seen this slide before, we keep it here really just as a reminder of what we call the four pillars of our value proposition. So the holder or the buyer of a share of Burford stock is getting four different things.

太好了，謝謝喬丹。在回答你們的問題之前，我們將翻到第 18 張投影片來結束這個問題。您之前已經看過這張投影片，我們將其放在這裡​​實際上只是為了提醒我們所謂的價值主張的四大支柱。因此，伯福德股票的持有者或購買者將獲得四種不同的東西。

An interest in our current core portfolio which has risen to $7.4 billion and it will unwind over time as those cases continue to go through the litigation process. And as a reminder, unlike for example private equity or venture capital where you need a functioning market and a buyer to get exits, we don't need those things.

我們目前核心投資組合的權益已增加至 74 億美元，隨著這些案件繼續進入訴訟程序，該權益將隨著時間的推移而減少。提醒一下，與私募股權或創投不同的是，私募股權或創投需要一個運作良好的市場和買家才能退出，而我們不需要這些東西。

We are delivered those exits automatically by the operation of the legal process. So you've got the existing portfolio, you've got a market leading origination platform that has been consistently capable of driving significant volumes of new business every year. You've got the asset management platform that we've already discussed. And finally you've got the interest in the YTF assets which as Jon described are slowly but steadily making their way through the legal process.

透過法律程序的運作，我們會自動獲得這些退出。因此，您擁有現有的產品組合，您擁有市場領先的創始平台，該平台始終能夠每年推動大量新業務。您已經擁有了我們已經討論過的資產管理平台。最後，您對 YTF 資產產生了興趣，正如 Jon 所描述的那樣，這些資產正在緩慢但穩定地通過法律程序。

So with that, we thank you for your time and we'll be happy to take questions.

因此，我們感謝您抽出時間，我們很樂意回答問題。

(Operator Instructions)

（操作員說明）

Julian Roberts, Jefferies.

朱利安羅伯茨，杰弗里斯。

Thank you very much. I've got two questions if that's okay. The first one is on costs, which obviously have been on a cash basis pretty flat year-on-year. How should we think about that in future? It seems to me that the inflation in salaries for lawyers in the wider legal world might have tailed off a little bit, but how will that affect Burford?

非常感謝。我有兩個問題，如果可以的話。第一個是成本，顯然以現金計算，成本較去年同期相當持平。未來我們該如何思考這個問題？在我看來，更廣泛的法律界律師薪資的上漲可能會放緩，但這會對伯福德產生什麼影響？

And the second one is, is there any other change in the litigation funding market that we should think about? Different deals being done in different structures? Is there any kind of change in the competitive outlook? What should we think about in future? Thank you.

第二個問題是，訴訟融資市場有其他值得我們思考的改變嗎？不同的交易是在不同的結構中進行的嗎？競爭前景有什麼改變嗎？未來我們該思考什麼？謝謝。

Sure. So let me actually take them in reverse order. In terms of what's going on overall in the market. I think we've seen a few developments over the last couple of years. The delay that ran through the entire legal system because of the pandemic has had a number of impacts both on litigation funding firms and also on law firms themselves, especially law firms that operate on risk. And so the simple facts of the matter and you saw this with our business as well, there were a couple of years there where case resolutions were slowed dramatically and where cash was just not coming in.

當然。所以讓我實際上以相反的順序來理解它們。就市場整體情況而言。我認為過去幾年我們已經看到了一些進展。由於大流行而導致整個法律體系的延誤，對訴訟資助公司和律師事務所本身，尤其是風險經營的律師事務所都產生了許多影響。因此，事情的簡單事實是，您在我們的業務中也看到了這一點，有幾年，案件解決速度大幅放緩，現金也沒有進來。

And what I think that did for some litigation funding firms is just make the fund management model that many of them use even more difficult. Because they were continuing to accumulate hurdles due to investors. They weren't generating cash.

我認為這對一些訴訟融資公司來說只會使他們中許多人使用的基金管理模式變得更加困難。因為他們因投資者而不斷累積障礙。他們沒有產生現金。

And I think that it made the ability to raise incremental capital more difficult. And I think in some cases it probably called into question the viability of some of the firms. And as a result you have seen a progression in the market so that the smaller pure play litigation finance firms that used to really drive the market are less of a factor today I think.

我認為這使得籌集增量資本變得更加困難。我認為在某些情況下，這可能會讓一些公司的生存能力受到質疑。因此，你看到了市場的進步，我認為，曾經真正推動市場的小型純訴訟金融公司如今不再是重要因素。

And the emergence of some of the larger multi-strategy players that we've been competing with for some time I think and do have, you know, from their generally speaking from their credit funds do have capital available have become more of a factor.

我認為我們已經與之競爭了一段時間的一些較大的多策略參與者的出現，你知道，從他們的信貸基金總體來看，他們確實擁有可用資本，這已經成為一個更重要的因素。

That's actually from our perspective positive for a couple of reasons. One is that the multi-start funds are better known to corporate clients. And so you now have more branded players pitching this concept more broadly in the industry, and I think that drives incremental use of capital by corporate by corporate parties overall and that inures to our benefit often because even if we're not there making the pitch initially.

從我們的角度來看，這實際上是積極的，原因有幾個。一是多啟動基金更為企業客戶所熟知。因此，現在有更多的品牌參與者在行業中更廣泛地宣傳這一概念，我認為這推動了企業各方對資本的增量使用，這通常有利於我們的利益，因為即使我們不在那裡進行宣傳最初。

The fact that we are so central in the market often leads clients to come around and chat with us as well, because anyone who does, you know, five seconds of research about this market bangs right into us So that's one sort of overall market development that we've seen.

事實上，我們在市場中如此中心，經常會導致客戶過來與我們聊天，因為任何人，你知道，對這個市場進行五秒鐘的研究都會直接影響到我們，所以這是一種整體市場發展我們已經看到了。

And I would say overall that there is and you've seen this in our results as well. There has been a trend towards larger deals, more sophisticated deals, deals that include more of a component of corporate monetization rather than simply paying legal fees and expenses. Although that remains a stalwart part of the business.

我想說的是，總體來說是存在的，而且您也在我們的結果中看到了這一點。目前的趨勢是進行規模更大、更複雜的交易，這些交易包含更多企業貨幣化的組成部分，而不僅僅是支付法律費用和開支。儘管這仍然是該業務的重要組成部分。

So those are the kinds of market dynamics that we're seeing. And the other thing that you've seen is some level of activity with some specialized insurance products. Most notably with respect to what's called judgment preservation insurance. So this is after you have won a case at the trial court level and that case is up on appeal. Some insurers have been selling judgment preservation insurance to basically lock in the trial win and prevent against an appellate reversal.

這些就是我們所看到的市場動態。您看到的另一件事是一些專門的保險產品的一定程度的活動。最值得注意的是所謂的判決保全保險。這是在您在初審法院贏得案件並且該案件正在上訴之後。一些保險公司一直在銷售判決保全保險，以基本上鎖定審判勝訴並防止上訴逆轉。

And there was a period where insurers seemed to be thinking that this was -- the latest great thing for them. I think they didn't do a great job in the underwriting and so there have been some meaningful losses along the way and so I think that market has retrenched a little bit. But to the extent that it continues to be available economically it's an interesting addition to what we do because we have in the past more than once financed the premium for the insurance.

有一段時間，保險公司似乎認為這對他們來說是最新的偉大事情。我認為他們在承保方面做得不好，所以一路上出現了一些有意義的損失，所以我認為市場已經收縮了一點。但就其在經濟上繼續可用而言，這對我們所做的事情來說是一個有趣的補充，因為我們過去不止一次為保險費提供資金。

And so it actually creates an additional opportunity for us as well as the ability to lay off risk if we are inclined to do that. With respect to your cost question. Look, our cash costs have historically risen alongside growth in the business. And I don't see any reason to not expect that to occur. We do have some level of operating leverage in the business.

因此，如果我們願意的話，它實際上為我們創造了額外的機會以及規避風險的能力。關於你的費用問題。看，我們的現金成本歷來隨著業務的成長而上升。我認為沒有任何理由不希望這種情況發生。我們在業務中確實擁有一定程度的營運槓桿。

But there's also no question that, we're not a hedge fund. We can't double the size of the portfolio without adding heads to do some of that work. And so I think you'll continue to see the kind of moderate cost progression that we've seen during our entire history, but it's something that we've always managed pretty closely. What you do see in periods like last year is a pretty significant disconnect between the accounting version of operating expenses and the cash version of operating expenses that are driven by a whole lot of accounting accruals and value changes that Jordan talked about briefly.

但毫無疑問，我們不是對沖基金。如果不增加人員來完成其中一些工作，我們就無法將投資組合的規模擴大一倍。因此，我認為您將繼續看到我們在整個歷史中所看到的那種適度的成本進展，但我們一直在密切管理這一點。在去年這樣的時期，你確實看到的是會計版本的營運費用和現金版本的營運費用之間存在相當大的脫節，這是由喬丹簡要談到的大量會計應計費用和價值變化驅動的。

It makes very good sense. Thank you. One more follow on question if I may. Is there anything regulatory or legislative out there that we should think about? I'm sort of in my mind thinking back to the Packer case in the United Kingdom, well, England, Wales and is there anything else that we ought to think about along those lines?

這很有道理。謝謝。如果可以的話，還有一個問題。有什麼監管或立法值得我們考慮嗎？我在腦海中回想起英國、英格蘭、威爾斯的帕克案，沿著這些思路，我們還有什麼該考慮的嗎？

I think Packer is sort of a unique situation because it's a UK Supreme Court interpretation and in our view sort of a strained interpretation of a statute that is being interpreted in a way that is inconsistent with its original intention. And that's something that is really unique to the UK and both the prior and the current UK government have indicated a preparedness to fix that statutorily coupled with some review that's going on today in the UK.

我認為帕克案是一種獨特的情況，因為它是英國最高法院的解釋，在我們看來，這是對一項法規的緊張解釋，其解釋方式與其初衷不一致。這對英國來說確實是獨一無二的，前任和現任英國政府都表示準備以法定方式解決這個問題，並結合英國今天正在進行的一些審查。

That's sort of a one-off. If you leave that aside, you know, it's not surprising that corporate defendants are unhappy with the presence, the existence of litigation finance. And Jon Molot has written about this for years and years even back to before the founding of Burford where repeat players, repeat corporate defense players in the litigation system have historically had an advantage, a benefit from that status and we have been interfering with that benefit.

這有點一次性。如果你把這一點放在一邊，你知道，公司被告對訴訟融資的存在不滿意也就不足為奇了。喬恩·莫洛特（Jon Molot）多年來一直在寫這方面的文章，甚至可以追溯到伯福德成立之前，在訴訟系統中，重複的參與者、重複的企業辯護參與者歷來擁有優勢，從這種地位中獲益，而我們一直在幹擾這種優勢。

And so it's not surprising that there is lobbying activity and opposition to the concept of litigation finance from both companies that are historically defendants and from the insurance industry. That has been going on for our entire lives and hasn't been particularly successful and I don't have any reason to expect that that will change.

因此，歷史上被告公司和保險業的遊說活動和對訴訟融資概念的反對也就不足為奇了。這種情況在我們一生中都在發生，但並沒有特別成功，我沒有任何理由期望這種情況會改變。

In fact, the focus of a lot of that activity is on collateral issues now like disclosure as opposed to fundamental issues like should you be doing this in the first place. But I, so that's sort of where we are on a regulatory matter and we continue to have jousting matches with the organizations that represent the corporate defendants, most notably the US Chamber of Commerce, which tries hard to preserve an uneven playing field in favor of their members, but I don't anticipate that having a material impact on our business.

事實上，現在許多活動的重點是披露等附帶問題，而不是諸如您是否應該首先這樣做等基本問題。但我，這就是我們在監管問題上的處境，我們繼續與代表企業被告的組織進行角逐，尤其是美國商會，它努力維持一個不公平的競爭環境，以支持企業他們的成員，但我預計這不會對我們的業務產生重大影響。

Matthew Howlett, B. Riley.

馬修·豪利特，B.萊利。

Hey thanks. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I just want to drill down on what drove the really impressive IRRs this quarter? What was the 179% on the realization and I think it was pretty well-diversed among cases, realizations, but was there anything chunky in driving that? Just some more details on why that was so impressive?

嘿謝謝。早安.感謝您提出我的問題。我只是想深入了解是什麼推動了本季真正令人印象深刻的 IRR？實現的 179% 是多少，我認為它在案例和實現中非常多樣化，但是有什麼大塊的推動力嗎？只是更多細節來說明為什麼這麼令人印象深刻嗎？

Yes, I was going to say maybe Jon would like to comment on that.

是的，我想說也許喬恩想對此發表評論。

The amazing thing is it's almost like what we saw this quarter is just a manifestation of what, if you've been on these calls, you've heard me saying every quarter there's lots going on in the portfolio. There are lots of cases proceeding through the litigation process and hitting positive milestones, whether that's winning trials, getting past summary judgment, winning on appeal, getting to the end, they're going into mediation on the eve of trial.

令人驚訝的是，這幾乎就像我們本季所看到的那樣，如果您參加過這些電話會議，您就會聽到我說每個季度的投資組合都會發生很多事情。有許多案件正在進入訴訟程序並達到積極的里程碑，無論是贏得審判、透過簡易判決、贏得上訴、走到最後，他們都會在審判前夕進入調解。

And so it just turns out in any particular quarter when the cases that are resolving what the smattering is, are they resolving that there's been a successful trial outcome and then a quick settlement before an appeal, the appeal is concluded, you've won, is it settling on the eve of trial, but we have just such a great team of underwriters, both who are there at the beginning to evaluate cases and negotiate deals, but also to see them through working with the lawyers and clients who are running them to monitor and provide whatever feedback we can.

因此，在任何特定的季度，當解決小問題的案件時，他們是否解決了審判結果是否成功，然後在上訴之前快速和解，上訴結束，你贏了，是在審判前夕解決的嗎？一支非常出色的承銷商團隊，他們從一開始就在那裡評估案件和談判交易，而且還透過與營運案件的律師和客戶合作來監督案件的進展監控並提供我們能提供的任何回饋。

And so I'm just constantly getting feedback, reports and questions from the team, not just on new matters, but also on the matters moving through and this is just a smattering of, it's just a slice, a sample of what's in the portfolio that happens to have come due this quarter and it's something that probably I kept telling you about, but we couldn't see because you only see realizations and this time this quarter was just realizations that reflect that activity.

所以我不斷地從團隊那裡得到反饋、報告和問題，不僅是關於新問題，還包括正在處理的問題，這只是投資組合中的一小部分，只是一個樣本這恰好是在本季度到期的，這可能是我一直告訴你的事情，但我們看不到，因為你只能看到實現，而本季的這次只是反映活動的實現。

If I can just paraphrase, for investors, I mean historically you've done what, 90% ROICs, but I think the investment thesis or the investment cases, hey, sometimes we're going to get these great returns because of how we underwrite. How do we think about it going forward? --

如果我可以解釋一下，對於投資者來說，我的意思是，從歷史上看，你已經做了什麼，90％的投資回報率，但我認為投資論文或投資案例，嘿，有時我們會因為我們承保的方式而獲得這些巨大的回報。我們如何看待它的未來？--

-- It's a little bit like when you go back to slide 12, which I talked about. When you have adjudication gains, you see our average ROIC there is 245%, whereas settlements, it's 65%. So if you -- and of course there's a variation among those, a settlement where it's a slam dunk case on the eve of trial, or an adjudication that has a sort of modest damages outcome compared to what we wanted, you could end up with a lower returning adjudication or a higher returning settlement. But it's not -- there's no magic to this quarter.

——這有點像你回到我談到的幻燈片 12。當您獲得裁決收益時，您會看到我們的平均投資報酬率 (ROIC) 為 245%，而和解收益為 65%。因此，如果你——當然，這些之間存在差異，在審判前夕達成和解，或者是與我們想要的相比，損害賠償結果適度的判決，那麼你最終可能會得到較低的返還裁決或較高的返還和解。但事實並非如此——這個季度沒有什麼魔力。

And yes, the thing that is magical about our team, I don't want to use the word magical, but you asked this because we have a great team. The thing that's great about our team is, underwriting, the blocking and tackling, and our case management to make sure nothing's going off the rails is very disciplined and rigorous and sort of real world. Yes, we have people who are well-educated from top law schools, have great experience at law firms, but they also practically understand the litigation process.

是的，我們團隊的神奇之處在於，我不想使用神奇這個詞，但你問這個是因為我們有一個很棒的團隊。我們團隊的偉大之處在於，承保、攔截和處理，以及我們的案件管理，以確保沒有任何事情出軌，是非常有紀律和嚴格的，有點現實世界。是的，我們有受過頂尖法學院良好教育、在律師事務所擁有豐富經驗的人，但他們也實際上了解訴訟流程。

And that sets us up as to why our adjudication gains exceed our losses and why we have a lot of decent settlements. But the smattering of which ones go trial and result in very large outcomes and which ones settle, that's not something that I can say was an outlier this quarter or that our team is just wonderful at picking. That is inherent in the process.

這讓我們明白為什麼我們的裁決收益超過了我們的損失，以及為什麼我們有很多體面的和解。但是，哪些項目進行了審判並產生了非常大的結果，哪些項目得到了解決，我不能說這是本季度的異常值，也不能說我們的團隊在挑選方面非常出色。這是這個過程中固有的。

And so, I wouldn't say, you would read. All you can read into this quarter that all of the stuff Jon's been saying about his optimism in prior quarters, he wasn't just spouting, it wasn't just uninformed optimism, like now we're sort of seeing results from it.

所以，我不會說，你會讀。你可以在本季度讀到喬恩在前幾個季度所說的所有關於他的樂觀情緒的內容，他不僅僅是滔滔不絕，這不僅僅是無知的樂觀情緒，就像現在我們看到了它的結果一樣。

And going forward, I'd expect again, the ROICs and IRRs could bounce around in any given quarter, depending on whether the resolutions skew toward more settlements or toward more adjudications. But overall, we should see performance. Well, I don't want to say what kind of performance we should see, but this quarter doesn't surprise me, I'd say, based on what I see in the portfolio for the future.

展望未來，我再次預計，ROIC 和 IRR 可能在任何特定季度出現反彈，具體取決於決議是否傾向於更多和解或更多裁決。但總的來說，我們應該看到表現。好吧，我不想說我們應該看到什麼樣的表現，但我想說，根據我對未來投資組合的看法，這個季度並不讓我感到驚訝。

Well, look, I think equity investors get very excited when they start to see ROICs like that. Congratulations. Thanks for taking my question.

好吧，我認為，當股票投資者開始看到這樣的投資報酬率時，他們會感到非常興奮。恭喜。感謝您提出我的問題。

Alexander Bowers, Barenberg.

亞歷山大鮑爾斯，巴倫伯格。

Hi, everyone. I just had three questions, if I may. Just starting on the larger case side, you committed to a 50 client in Q2 last year. I'm just wondering whether there's any further progress to be made in terms of, I guess, taking on more fortune 50 or larger case clients.

大家好。如果可以的話，我只有三個問題。剛從較大的案例開始，您在去年第二季向 50 個客戶承諾。我只是想知道在接待更多財富 50 強或更大的客戶方面是否還有進一步的進展。

My second question was around headcount. I just want to understand how much headcount has grown so far this year. I think it was around 161 at the start of the year. And sort of longer term, what sort of expectations on headcount growth are you expecting?

我的第二個問題是關於員工人數。我只是想了解今年到目前為止員工人數增加了多少。我認為年初時約為 161。長遠來看，您對員工人數成長有何預期？

And then lastly, on the Sundance resources, Republic of Congo mining settlement, I don't believe the settlement was in the Q2 results. Are you able to confirm when you expect that to hit your P&L? And are you able to give us a sense of the magnitude in terms of how much birth it would realize from the case? Thanks.

最後，關於剛果共和國聖丹斯資源礦區的和解，我不認為和解出現在第二季的業績中。您能確認您預計何時會影響您的損益嗎？您能否讓我們了解一下該案例將實現多少出生率？謝謝。

So let us divide those up among us. I'll do the first, Jordan will do the second, and Jon will do the third. On the first one, the answer is really that it's episodic. We talked to lots of clients. It's a long process often to get people to do large deals with us. When we talked about the significant deal we did last second quarter, the $325 million deal that then went along and settled in six months, that was a long time in the making. That didn't just come together in the space of a month or two. And so, -- we continue to engage with lots of potential clients and we continue to broaden the net.

那麼就讓我們把這些分開吧。我會做第一個，喬丹會做第二個，喬恩會做第三個。對於第一個問題，答案確實是它是偶發的。我們與很多客戶進行了交談。讓人們與我們達成大額交易通常是一個漫長的過程。當我們談論上個第二季度完成的重大交易時，這筆價值 3.25 億美元的交易在六個月內完成並達成，這是醞釀很長時間的事情。這並不是一兩個月內就能實現的。因此，我們繼續與許多潛在客戶接觸，並繼續擴大網路。

But in terms of -- we don't have a quarter-by-quarter scorecard that says, okay, we've landed another Fortune 50 company. As you can see from the data on the website table, we did do a large deal in the second quarter, not as large as last year's second quarter, but we did do a $100 million monetization for a corporate client. And so having the ability to continue to put those up is a desirable thing and something that we're trying hard to continue.

但就我們而言，我們沒有一個季度記分卡表明，好吧，我們已經獲得了另一家財富 50 強公司。從網站表格上的數據可以看到，我們第二季確實做了一筆大交易，沒有去年第二季那麼大，但是我們確實為一個企業客戶做了1億美元的變現。因此，能夠繼續提供這些內容是一件令人嚮往的事情，也是我們正在努力繼續做的事情。

And as Jon Molot just said, that's also why the returns bounce around, because that big deal that we did, which we didn't expect to resolve necessarily in six months, did. And so that was a very pleasant IRR, but not a particularly strong ROIC because the capital was only out for six months. But it was still a good deal for us to have done. Jordan, do you want to take the headcount point?

正如喬恩·莫洛特剛才所說，這也是回報率反彈的原因，因為我們所做的那筆大交易，我們預計不會在六個月內解決，但確實發生了。因此，這是一個非常令人愉快的內部報酬率，但並不是特別強勁的投資報酬率，因為資本只花了六個月。但這對我們來說仍然是一件好事。喬丹，你想拿點人數嗎？

Sure. So look, I think headcount broadly has stayed give or take the same. Alex, we're measured in our growth. I think as Chris and John have talked about, we're constantly looking to add additional talent around the globe to support our origination efforts. And we would signal to you or tell if we expected to see massive expansion or growth in one particular area.

當然。所以看，我認為員工人數大致保持不變。亞歷克斯，我們的成長是衡量我們的。我認為正如克里斯和約翰所說，我們不斷尋求在全球範圍內增加更多人才來支持我們的原創工作。我們會向您發出信號或告訴您我們是否預計會在某一特定領域看到大規模擴張或成長。

On Sundance. So I think we have always said that we respect the priorities and needs of our clients, of our counterparties. We have a very good working relationship with Sundance. The kind of deal that's not an outlier of what we would do when a company has invested tens of millions, in some cases hundreds of millions, in a project and then a government breaches a contract or expropriates an asset and they don't have the financing to see it to conclusion through very expensive multi-year arbitration. We're a very useful resource and we have a lot of experience doing it, which is a boon in addition to our capital. It's not just on money. It's very helpful.

在聖丹斯電影節上。所以我認為我們一直說我們尊重客戶和交易對手的優先事項和需求。我們與聖丹斯電影節有著非常良好的合作關係。當一家公司在一個項目中投資了數千萬甚至數億美元，然後政府違反合約或徵用資產並且他們沒有足夠的能力時，我們會採取這種交易。 。我們是非常有用的資源，而且我們在這方面擁有豐富的經驗，這對我們的資本來說是一個福音。這不僅僅是錢的問題。這非常有幫助。

That being said, many of our counterparties, our clients, there's no disclosure either at the moment that they do the deal with us. It's a confidential matter between us. And there's no disclosure at the end as to what's gone on.

話雖如此，我們的許多交易對手、我們的客戶在與我們進行交易時也沒有透露任何資訊。這是我們之間的機密。最後沒有透露到底發生了什麼事。

You see the results on our investment table anonymized and you can't figure out which matter it came from and we respect the confidentiality of our clients' deals. In this case, Sundance had lawyers who gave them advice that suggested that it was a disclosable event when we did the financing and that's how that was disclosed and that it was a disclosable event when they reached an agreement in principle with the sovereign to potentially resolve the matter.

您在我們的投資表上看到的結果是匿名的，您無法弄清楚它來自哪件事，我們尊重客戶交易的機密性。在這種情況下，聖丹斯的律師向他們提供了建議，建議我們進行融資時這是一個可披露的事件，這就是披露的方式，當他們與主權機構達成原則協議以可能解決問題時，這是一個可披露的事件此事。

But if, you can look at that disclosure and I don't want to add to it because we reached the conclusion for us. This was not something material for us that would warrant a disclosure on our own, but of course we're not standing in the way of our client, our counterparty doing what it believes it needs to do.

但是，如果你可以看看該披露，我不想添加它，因為我們已經得出了結論。這對我們來說並不重要，值得我們自己揭露，但我們當然不會妨礙我們的客戶、我們的交易對手做它認為需要做的事情。

And I guess, to the extent it's about the accounting or the treatment of it, I would leave it to Chris or Jordan to answer. To the extent it's about the litigation, I'm pleased with our relationship with the client and with how things are proceeding, but I don't really want to comment more than that.

我想，就會計或處理而言，我會把它留給克里斯或喬丹來回答。就訴訟而言，我對我們與客戶的關係以及事情的進展感到滿意，但我不想對此發表更多評論。

Yes, I think that's right. I think Alex, the short version is the only reason there's public disclosure, but this is because of the client and so the client has to drive any public messaging about timing or size or anything like that. We're not in a position to do that.

是的，我認為這是對的。我認為亞歷克斯，簡短的版本是公開披露的唯一原因，但這是因為客戶，因此客戶必須推動有關時間或規模或類似內容的任何公共訊息傳遞。我們無法做到這一點。

So thank you all for the questions. And with that, I think that brings us to a close. We as always enjoyed talking to you. We're happy to engage directly with you if you have further questions for us through the IR team. And we'll look forward to presenting third quarter results to you sometime this fall. Thanks very much.

謝謝大家提出的問題。至此，我想我們就結束了。我們一如既往地很高興與您交談。如果您透過 IR 團隊向我們提出其他問題，我們很樂意直接與您聯絡。我們期待在今年秋天的某個時候向您展示第三季的業績。非常感謝。