Burford Capital Ltd (BUR) 2023 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good morning and good afternoon. My name is Krista, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Burford Capital fourth-quarter and full year 2023 financial results conference call. (Operator Instructions)

早安，下午好。我叫克里斯塔，今天我將擔任您的會議主持人。現在，我歡迎大家參加 Burford Capital 2023 年第四季和全年財務業績電話會議。（操作員指令）

I would now like to turn the conference over to Christopher Bogart, Chief Executive Officer. Christopher, you may begin your conference.

現在，我想將會議交給執行長 Christopher Bogart。克里斯托弗，你可以開始你的會議了。

Thanks very much, and welcome, everybody. Thanks for taking some time to be with us today. As usual, I'm joined by Jon Molot, Burford's Chief Investment Officer; and Jordan Licht, Burford's Chief Financial Officer, and you're going to hear from all three of us, as we walk through the slides that have been put up on the website already, and after that, we'd be delighted to take your questions.

非常感謝，歡迎大家。感謝您今天抽出時間與我們在一起。像往常一樣，我與 Burford 的首席投資官 Jon Molot 一起參加；以及伯福德首席財務官喬丹·利希特 (Jordan Licht)，您將聽取我們三個人的發言，我們將播放已經放在網站上的幻燈片，之後，我們很樂意回答您的問題。

When you look at these numbers, and I'm starting on slide 4. When you look at these numbers, we're just so very pleased to be able to produce numbers like this for you and to have -- to be able to report on what was such a fantastic year.

當您看到這些數字時，我從第 4 張投影片開始。當您看到這些數字時，我們非常高興能夠為您提供這樣的數字，並且能夠報導如此美好的一年。

The last few years have been a little frustrating for us. We really started growing very rapidly in 2016. And if you look if you look back in history, in 2017, for example, we did 11 times as much new business as we had done only four years earlier in 2013.

對我們來說過去幾年有點令人沮喪。我們確實在 2016 年開始快速成長。如果你回顧歷史，例如，2017年，我們的新業務量是四年前的2013年新業務量的11倍。

And so given the life of our assets, we expect it to be delivering great results a few years later from that growth. And instead of being able to do that, we ran headlong into COVID, headlong into the global pandemic.

因此，考慮到我們資產的壽命，我們預計幾年後它將從這種增長中產生巨大的收益。但我們沒能做到這一點，反而一頭栽進了新冠病毒疫情，一頭栽進了全球大流行。

And so instead of delivering the results that we were expecting from that burst of growth that we've continued, we instead have spent the last two or three years saying to you, well, just wait for it, it's coming, trust us. And now this year, we can really say, instead of having another year of that, we can really show you what we've been so excited about over the last few years.

因此，我們並沒有從持續的爆發式增長中獲得我們所期望的結果，而是在過去的兩三年裡對你們說，好吧，等著吧，它會來的，相信我們。而今年，我們可以真正地說，我們不會再經歷那樣的一年，而是可以真正向你們展示過去幾年讓我們如此興奮的事情。

Terrific results on sort of every quadrant of the business and these sort of speak for themselves. When I was walking through them with the team, they wouldn't even let me. The reason that we showed net income margin here, they wouldn't even let me put the rate of increase of actual net income. They thought it was too showy, at that [year 1,900, 101%]. And we're going to talk in a minute about YPF and YPF obviously, was a substantial contributor to this, but it was far from the only thing that went well. Lots of things went well in the business and in the portfolio, and we're delighted to be talking about them.

每個業務象限都取得了出色的成果，這些成果是不言而喻的。當我和團隊一起穿過它們時，他們甚至不讓我進去。我們在這裡顯示淨收入利潤率的原因是他們甚至不讓我輸入實際淨收入的成長率。他們認為這太炫耀了[1900 年，101%]。我們稍後將討論 YPF，顯然 YPF 對此做出了重要貢獻，但遠非唯一進展順利的事情。業務和投資組合中的許多事情都進展順利，我們很高興談論它們。

So turning to slide 5. Slide 5 gives you a little bit more data in a compressed form. And the headline of this slide is about our $7 billion portfolio, up 17%. I'd sort of add to that, the fact that if you look at the business on a perfect only basis, in other words, the piece of the business that delivers the greatest level of profitability for equity shareholders, that portfolio actually went up by $900 million, up 23%.

現在轉到投影片 5。投影片 5 以壓縮形式向您提供了更多資料。這張投影片的標題是關於我們 70 億美元的投資組合，成長了 17%。我想補充一點，如果你以完美的角度來看待這項業務，換句話說，這項業務為股東帶來了最高程度的盈利，那麼該投資組合實際上增加了 9 億美元，增長了 23%。

So we're really pleased with what the future holds even though we've been able to deliver very meaningful realizations and cash generation during 2023. We saw a very significant portfolio activity, as we've discussed with you during the course of the year end and this really brings it all together. So a significant increase in portfolio velocity.

因此，儘管我們在 2023 年已經能夠實現非常有意義的目標並創造現金，但我們對未來的發展感到非常滿意。我們看到了非常重要的投資組合活動，正如我們在年底與您討論的那樣，這確實將所有活動整合在一起。因此投資組合週轉速度顯著提升。

Again, on a Burford only basis, $496 million of realizations. On a group-wide basis, that number is over $1 billion. And if you just sort of underline the second bullet there, taking YPF out altogether, we nevertheless went up 67% over 2022. YPF, which Jon will talk about more in a minute, continues to progress. We're pleased with the asset management business and particularly with BOF-C. BOF-C has had the same dynamic that I talked about at the top of the call.

再一次，僅以伯福德為例，實現金額為 4.96 億美元。從整個集團來看，這個數字超過 10 億美元。如果你只是強調第二點，將 YPF 完全移除，那麼我們在 2022 年仍然成長了 67%。YPF 正在繼續進步，Jon 稍後會對此進行詳細介紹。我們對資產管理業務尤其是 BOF-C 感到滿意。BOF-C 有著我在電話會議開始時談到的相同動態。

We started investing BOF-C asset several years ago and they have been slower to come to fruition than we would have liked. But now they are just like the rest of the business, they're generating cash, and we are the beneficiaries of that cash generation. 88% of our asset management income this year came from BOF-C. And we've already now booked $135 million of income, since its inception a few years ago.

我們幾年前就開始投資 BOF-C 資產，但回報比我們預期的要慢。但現在他們就像其他企業一樣，正在產生現金，而我們就是這些現金產生的受益者。我們今年的資產管理收入88%來自於BOF-C。自幾年前成立以來，我們已實現 1.35 億美元的收入。

The business is not just seeing realizations. It's also generating cash. We had a significant amount of cash come into the business this year, $415 million, again, just on a Burford-only basis. We ended the year with very strong liquidity. And we also ended the year with a significant receivable for a case that's a chunk of which was for a big case that settled in December, and that receivable is already paying. There's a payment plan in place for that, we've already seen a bunch of cash from it in January and February. And I'll talk a little bit more later about that case.

企業不只是看到了實現的成果。它還在產生現金。我們今年有大量現金流入公司，達到 4.15 億美元，這僅僅是伯福德業務的一小部分。我們以非常強勁的流動性結束了這一財年。我們在年底也獲得了一筆可觀的應收帳款，這筆款項來自一個案件，其中很大一部分是 12 月達成和解的一起大案，目前這筆應收帳款已開始支付。我們已製定了付款計劃，並在一月和二月獲得了大量現金。稍後我將進一步談論該案。

And, AI and data science is something that we've talked about before, and it's something that we have been investing in for a number of years now. Sort of well ahead of the curve in terms of now the market enthusiasm for AI generally.

我們之前就討論過人工智慧和數據科學，而且我們已經在該領域投資多年。從目前市場對人工智慧的熱情來看，這已經遠遠領先於預期。

And rather than take a lot of time to talk about it here, I actually just yesterday recorded a podcast hosted by John Quinn the Founder and the Managing Partner, Quinn Emanuel, the world's largest litigation law firm on this very topic. His podcast is called Law Disruptive. And I assume that episode will drop in the next few days. So if you're interested in that topic, you'll find a pretty fulsome discussion of what we do and how we do it on that podcast.

我不想花太多時間在這裡談論這個話題，事實上，昨天我剛剛錄製了一個播客，由世界上最大的訴訟律師事務所 Quinn Emanuel 的創始人兼執行合夥人 John Quinn 主持，該播客就是關於這個話題的。他的播客名為“Law Disruptive”。我估計該集將在接下來的幾天內播出。因此，如果您對該主題感興趣，您會在播客上找到有關我們所做的事情以及我們如何做的相當詳盡的討論。

Turning to slide 6. This really goes back to what I saw at the beginning about 2016 being the beginning of our growth run. And so what we've done here is just to show you the scale of the change, we've picked a bunch of data points and showing you what the business looks like today compared to what it looked like in 2016.

翻到幻燈片 6。這實際上回到了我在開始時看到的情況，即 2016 年是我們成長週期的開始。因此，我們在這裡所做的只是為了向您展示變化的規模，我們選擇了一些數據點並向您展示今天的業務與 2016 年相比的情況。

And it really -- as you just sort of pass your eyes over those dynamics, you can see that it's just been transformational in really quite a short period of time. And we're very pleased with how that's gone, and we're also very pleased with just what the market potential for Burford is, if you will, how many moats we've established and what that enables us to do in the market.

而事實上——當你回顧這些動態時，你會發現它在很短的時間內發生了轉變。我們對目前的進展感到非常滿意，我們也對伯福德的市場潛力感到非常滿意，如果你願意的話，我們已經建立了多少護城河，以及這使我們能夠在市場上做些什麼。

Slide 7 is a slide that you've seen before, and it's really here just to remind you of the four pillars that we associate with the value proposition that we bring to the market. We've got this very large core portfolio. These are existing assets that are making their way through the litigation process. We obviously actively manage our portfolio, but at the same time, these are things that are going to have outcomes. And we've now got a 15 year track record of producing pretty predictable outcomes, and you can see there the kinds of consistent high returns we've been able to generate.

第 7 張投影片是您之前見過的，它在這裡只是為了提醒您我們帶給市場的價值主張所關聯的四大支柱。我們擁有非常龐大的核心投資組合。這些是正在進行訴訟程序的現有資產。我們顯然積極管理我們的投資組合，但同時，這些事情都會產生結果。我們現在已經擁有 15 年的業績記錄，並且取得了相當可預測的成果，您可以看到我們能夠產生持續的高回報。

So you start with a base of existing assets, you add to that the fact that we have this powerful origination platform that year-after-year has been able to write more than $1 billion of new business, an asset management business that is really showing it strikes now with BOF-C producing a significant amount of additional income for us. You can almost think of that as structural leverage, if you will.

因此，您從現有資產基礎開始，再加上我們擁有這個強大的發起平台，該平台年復一年能夠創造超過 10 億美元的新業務，資產管理業務現在真正顯示出它的影響力，BOF-C 為我們創造了大量額外收入。如果你願意的話，你幾乎可以將其視為結構槓桿。

And then finally, we've got the icing on the cake, maybe quite a thick layer of icing from the YPF assets.

最後，我們得到了錦上添花的效果，也許 YPF 資產的錦上添花層相當厚。

Slide 8, gives you a little bit more detail about the fourth quarter. We didn't do this last year. People gave us some feedback that they'd like a little bit more information about the fourth quarter. So we've added this slide, and I'll -- through this slide and the next slide, I'll give you some -- a little bit more color about a big deal that we did during the course of the year that contributed to these numbers.

投影片 8 向您提供了有關第四季度的更多詳細資訊。去年我們沒有這樣做。人們給我們回饋說，他們希望獲得有關第四季度的更多資訊。因此，我們添加了這張投影片，透過這張投影片和下一張投影片，我將向您更詳細地介紹我們在今年完成的、對這些數字做出貢獻的大事。

But it's notable when you pass your eyes over these numbers comparing fourth quarter to full year, there does remain some real seasonality, some really year-end fourth quarter seasonality to this business. If you see in terms of committed dollars and in terms of realizations in both cases, we do a little bit less than half of the whole year's business in the fourth quarter.

但值得注意的是，當你將第四季的數據與全年的數據進行比較時，你會發現這項業務確實仍然存在一些真正的季節性，一些真正的年末第四季的季節性。如果從承諾金額和實現金額來看，我們會發現第四季度我們的業務量略少於全年業務量的一半。

And that's just I think a function of lawyers being procrastinators, very focused on year-end numbers, companies doing more settlements towards the end of the year. So the fourth quarter remains a significant dynamic in our world. And as you'll see from some future slides, there are also other points in the business, notably the first and third quarters, where things can be really very sleepy indeed.

我認為，這只是因為律師有拖延症，非常注重年終數字，公司往往在年底進行更多的和解。因此，第四季仍然是我們世界的一個重要動態。而且正如您將從未來的一些幻燈片中看到的，業務中還存在其他一些時點，特別是第一季和第三季度，情況確實可能非常低迷。

Turning to slide 9. This is, I think, a really interesting perspective on a couple of different dynamics in the business. So this describes a deal that we did in June. It was for a Fortune 50 public company in the US. We did a large deal, a $325 million commitment. We deployed $225 million of that commitment at the closing of the deal and the remaining $100 million was due to be deployed in December.

翻到第 9 張投影片。我認為，這是對商業中幾個不同動態的一個非常有趣的視角。這就是我們在六月達成的一項交易。這是為美國財富 50 強上市公司所做的工作。我們做了一筆大交易，承諾金額為 3.25 億美元。我們在交易完成時部署了其中的 2.25 億美元，剩餘的 1 億美元將於 12 月部署。

That was across a portfolio of cases that this company has as a claimant. And this shows the unique capability that we bring to the market. First of all, virtually none of our competitors can do a deal of this size and scale. But beyond that, it shows that when we bring together the quality of the legal underwriting that we have, the quality of the financial services team, the data science work that we're able to do. All of that together enables us to structure innovative solutions for companies as opposed to just offering sort of an off-the-shelf litigation funding package, which is what you see a lot in this market.

這是該公司作為原告所涉的一系列案件。這展示了我們為市場帶來的獨特能力。首先，我們的競爭對手幾乎沒有人能夠完成如此規模的交易。但除此之外，它表明，當我們將現有的法律承保品質、金融服務團隊的品質以及我們能夠完成的數據科學工作結合在一起時。所有這些使我們能夠為公司建立創新的解決方案，而不是僅僅提供現成的訴訟融資方案，而這種方案在市場上很常見。

So this is the kind of thing that gets us to these lines in the first place and keeps them coming back. Now interestingly, what happens here does happen sometimes in litigation. We closed this deal in June. And rather than taking years and years and years to go through the process, this case settled pretty rapidly. It settled in December. We're going to get payments. This is the case I mentioned earlier that has already started to pay.

所以，這正是讓我們首先到達這些路線並讓他們不斷回來的原因。有趣的是，在訴訟中有時確實會發生這種情況。我們在六月完成了這筆交易。而且，這個案件不需要花費很多年的時間去處理，而是很快就解決了。它於十二月解決。我們將收到付款。這就是我前面提到的已經開始付款的情況。

And on that quite short exposure of our capital, we're going to make quite a lot of money, 32% IRR is just on the Burford direct capital, 37% IRRs when you include the fund income that we're going to make from it. So there's a -- and like anything, there's a pro and a con. That's terrific. It took us off risk immediately. We've made a nice profit in six months, who wouldn't like those kinds of returns on that profit.

在我們資本的相當短的時間內，我們將賺取相當多的錢，32％的 IRR 僅來自伯福德直接資本，如果包括我們將從中獲得的基金收入，則 IRR 為 37％。所以 — — 就像任何事一樣，有利有弊。太棒了。它立即使我們擺脫了風險。我們在六個月內就獲得了可觀的利潤，誰不喜歡這樣的利潤報酬呢？

On the other hand, we didn't deploy the remaining $100 million because the case settled in time and we didn't get years of income flow from this case.

另一方面，我們沒有部署剩下的 1 億美元，因為該案件及時解決，我們並沒有從這個案件中獲得多年的收入流。

And so as you turn to slide 10, what you see there is a little bit of the impact of us. So if you start at the bottom -- if you look at the deployments that we made, this is the bottom left-hand quadrant of the graphic. If you look at the deployments that we made there, if we had deployed the additional $100 million, that slide would have gone from what today looks like a decline to instead a new deployment record for us.

因此，當您翻到第 10 張投影片時，您會看到我們產生的一些影響。因此，如果您從底部開始 - 如果您查看我們所做的部署，這是圖形的左下象限。如果你看看我們在那裡進行的部署，如果我們額外部署了 1 億美元，那麼這個下滑趨勢就會從今天看似的下降變成我們的新部署記錄。

And this is just the nature of the business. On a case-by-case basis, there is going to be variability like this. And it doesn't concern us because we're confident on a long-term basis of the ability to have a number of cases to simply continue to take and use a lot of capital. And you can see in the sub-bullet, the other thing going on here is just a question of business mix of how many deals were monetization’s are close and how much capital each case uses during the course of its life.

這只是業務的本質。根據具體情況，肯定會存在這樣的變化。我們並不擔心，因為從長遠來看，我們有信心能夠繼續處理大量案件並使用大量資金。您可以在子項目符號中看到，這裡發生的另一件事只是業務組合的問題，即有多少交易實現了貨幣化，以及每個案例在其生命週期中使用了多少資本。

And so when we see variability like this, it doesn't cause us any particular concern because you go back to the top of this chart and you look at the top line, and what the top line is telling you is we're still writing a lot of new business, right. And the mix of that business changes a little bit, but we still are doing, we did on a group wide basis, $1.2 billion of new commitments, on a Burford-only base of $691 million. So basically right on top of last year caused that's just a little variability caused by how much BOF-C takes.

因此，當我們看到這樣的變化時，我們不會特別擔心，因為回到這張圖表的頂部，看看頂線，頂線告訴你我們仍在開展大量新業務，對吧。雖然業務結構略有變化，但我們仍在繼續，我們在整個集團範圍內已承諾新增 12 億美元，其中僅在伯福德就承諾新增 6.91 億美元。因此，基本上與去年同期相比，這只是由於 BOF-C 的消耗量引起的一點變化。

Obviously, would we always like more here? Sure. But one of the other dynamics is when the portfolio is really as it was in 2023 with so many trials and so many other litigation activities, there's effectively a finite limit to what the team can do between the combination of managing those activities and new business. And so we're very happy with the totality of the activity level during the course of the year.

顯然，我們總是希望這裡有更多嗎？當然。但另一個動態是，當投資組合真的像 2023 年一樣，有如此多的審判和如此多的其他訴訟活動時，團隊在管理這些活動和新業務之間能做的事情實際上是有限的。因此，我們對全年的整體活動水平感到非常滿意。

And the other thing, of course, this slide points out to you is that seasonality point that I've made before, this one is particularly stark in the top right corner, showing you the third quarter. And that's just lawyers not being very much interested in doing stuff like this during the summer and the early fall.

當然，這張投影片也向您指出了先前我提到的季節性點，這個點在右上角特別明顯，顯示的是第三季。而這只是因為律師在夏季和初秋對做這樣的事情不太感興趣。

And so with that, Jon will now take you through some of the real meat of the portfolio.

現在，喬恩將帶您了解該投資組合的一些真正實質內容。

Thanks, Chris, and thanks to you all for joining. I'm going to start with slide 11 and like Chris, I'm very pleased and proud of what we're reporting here today. And there's a lot in here. But more than anything, I want to emphasize a point that Chris made that for a number of these calls now, I have said, I think the word is that I'm bullish about our portfolio, that I'm very pleased with the matters that our team has rigorously underwritten and included in the portfolio and the deals we've closed.

謝謝，克里斯，也謝謝大家的加入。我將從第 11 張幻燈片開始，和克里斯一樣，我對我們今天在這裡報告的內容感到非常高興和自豪。這裡面有很多內容。但最重要的是，我想強調克里斯提到的一點，在目前的許多電話會議中，我都說過，我認為我對我們的投資組合持樂觀態度，我對我們團隊嚴格承保並納入投資組合的事項以及我們達成的交易感到非常滿意。

And also monitoring closely the cases that we've already put on and watching them through the litigation process, I've been quite pleased with how they've been progressing. For a number of calls now, as Chris said, we've had to say yes, COVID slowed things down. We did have enormous growth some years ago that has increased the size of our portfolio and investors were waiting to see when would we see the realizations that would be a product of that growth.

同時，我也密切關注我們已經提起的案件，並關注它們的訴訟過程，我對它們的進展感到非常滿意。正如克里斯所說，對於現在的許多電話，我們不得不說，是的，COVID 減慢了進程。我們幾年前確實實現了巨大的成長，擴大了我們的投資組合規模，投資者正在等待看何時我們才能看到這種成長帶來的回報。

And my feeling was be patient, I'm bullish. There's been nothing negative. It's all been positive. And now finally, we can show you that, that is actually starting to kick in. I'm glad we can actually share those results with you, and you can see them with the tangible results.

我的感覺是要有耐心，我很樂觀。並沒有任何負面的事情。一切都是正面的。現在我們終於可以向你們展示，這實際上已經開始發揮作用了。我很高興我們能夠與你們分享這些成果，並且你們能夠看到實際的成果。

So from 2022 to 2023 on slide 11, you see that our capital provision direct realizations just for the balance sheet, just for Burford-only were up 42% and were $496 million worth of those realizations.

因此，從 2022 年到 2023 年，在第 11 張投影片上，您會看到，僅針對資產負債表的資本準備金直接實現，僅針對伯福德就增長了 42%，價值為 4.96 億美元。

That's -- it's just a much bigger number and it reflects the growth in our portfolio and those matters, finally making their way through the process. And keep in mind, as the third bullet on the page shows, this is just balance sheet. If you look at group-wide, it's more than $1 billion in realizations, so more than twice that.

那是一個更大的數字，它反映了我們投資組合的成長以及這些事項最終完成的過程。請記住，正如頁面上的第三個項目符號所示，這只是資產負債表。如果從整個集團來看，實現利潤超過 10 億美元，是這個數字的兩倍多。

And if you had a chance, there hasn't been much time to look at the shareholders letter, and Jordan will speak to it later, we've let everyone know that as we saw a greater opportunity in this market and we realized we could scope -- scale up our business.

如果您有機會，我們沒有太多時間看股東信，喬丹稍後會談到它，我們已經讓每個人都知道，當我們在這個市場上看到更大的機會時，我們意識到我們可以擴大我們的業務。

We decided the prudent way to do that was to finance that growth with fund capital. Based on how much debt was available to us in the UK markets before we had a US listing, and also just in terms of being prudent stewards of your capital, we didn't want to take on too much debt too quickly and fund capital seem the right way to do it.

我們認為，明智的做法是利用基金資本來資助這項成長。根據我們在美國上市之前在英國市場上可獲得的債務數量，同時從審慎管理資本的角度考慮，我們不想過快承擔太多債務，而基金資本似乎是正確的做法。

And so we've generated this machine that is capable of putting out much more capital than our balance sheet was putting out and they are generating larger cash realizations than historically from our balance sheet alone, we could have generated.

因此，我們創造了這台機器，它能夠輸出比我們的資產負債表輸出的多得多的資本，而且它們產生的現金實現額比歷史上僅憑我們的資產負債表所能產生的要大得多。

And that does endure to the benefit of the business and to you, our shareholders, now through the management fee and performance fee income that Chris has talked about, the fund business. But over time, we have begun to wean ourselves a fund capital and put more of our balance sheet capital to work so that or equity holders get an even larger share of those results.

這確實對企業和你們，我們的股東有利，現在透過克里斯談到的管理費和績效費收入，也就是基金業務。但隨著時間的推移，我們開始逐漸減少對基金資本的依賴，並投入更多的資產負債表資本，以便股東獲得更大份額的收益。

So it's pretty important that we're showing cash and saying positive realizations for the benefit of the balance sheet now, but also that we've built this machine that's generating even larger realizations that over time will endure to the benefit of the balance sheet as well. So I'm very pleased, as you can see from slide 11.

因此，我們現在展示現金並實現積極的收益對於資產負債表的利益非常重要，但同時，我們已經建立了這個機器，可以產生更大的收益，隨著時間的推移，這些收益也將持續有利於資產負債表。所以我很高興，正如您從第 11 張幻燈片中看到的那樣。

If we turn to slide 12, this is a slide you've seen many times before. And the basic gist of it is this is a very attractive asset class. People may wonder, well, how do you produce this kinds of returns? What is it about the asset class that has this return profile? And it's not that complicated, right?

如果我們翻到第 12 張投影片，這是一張您之前已經看過很多次的投影片。其基本要點是，這是一個非常有吸引力的資產類別。人們可能會想知道，那麼，你是如何產生這種回報的呢？具有這種報酬特徵的資產類別有什麼特色？其實沒有那麼複雜，對吧？

The majority of the matters we invest in settle and those produce very attractive returns, up 73%. Then of the ones that go to final adjudication, our gains far outstrip our losses. That's a result of rigorous underwriting and they outstrip it both in terms of number and size. And so from the adjudication gains, you get really outsized returns. And the adjudication losses in comparison are a relatively small amount, right. If $18 million realizations on $115 million, that's less than $100 million of losses.

我們所投資的大多數項目都得到了解決，並產生了非常可觀的回報，高達73%。那麼，在進入最終裁決的案件中，我們的收益遠遠超過我們的損失。這是嚴格承保的結果，而且無論從數量或規模來看，它們都遠遠超過了承保。因此，從裁決收益中，您可以獲得真正超額的回報。相比之下，裁決損失相對較小，對吧。如果在 1.15 億美元中實現 1,800 萬美元，那麼損失就不足 1 億美元。

And the big thing is here that you've seen over time. But the big thing is that red circle that's $2.7 billion worth of realizations, right. Early on, people may have said, okay, that's an attractive business model. I understand this chart. So intuitively, I can see why it makes sense you're able to generate these kinds of returns.

隨著時間的推移，您已經看到了重大的事情。但最重要的是那個紅色圓圈，代表著價值 27 億美元的實現，對吧。早些時候，人們可能會說，好吧，這是一個有吸引力的商業模式。我明白這張圖表。因此，直觀地講，我可以明白為什麼你能夠產生這種回報是合理的。

But are you going to be able to do it when you get to scale, once we're at $2.7 billion, that I think that question is answered. And keep in mind that red circle with $2.7 billion, we first started reporting realizations to date in our life 10 years ago in 2013, and that number was less than $150 million at that point. That just shows how far we've come. And that $2.7 billion is just for the balance sheet, if that were a group number, it would be well over $5 billion.

但是，當我們的規模達到 27 億美元時，你能做到這一點嗎？我想這個問題已經得到解答了。請記住，紅色圓圈表示 27 億美元，我們在 10 年前，即 2013 年首次開始報告迄今為止的資產實現情況，當時這個數字還不到 1.5 億美元。這表明了我們已經走了多遠。而這 27 億美元只是資產負債表上的數字，如果這是一個集團數字，那麼它將遠遠超過 50 億美元。

So we've shown that we've built a pretty good mousetrap that is able to scale and still produce great returns, given rigorous underwriting and careful monitoring of our portfolio and good work with our counterparties and law firms.

因此，我們已經證明，我們已經建立了一個非常好的捕鼠器，它能夠擴大規模並仍然產生巨大的回報，只要嚴格承保、對我們的投資組合進行仔細的監控，以及與我們的交易對手和律師事務所進行良好的合作。

The ROICs and IRRs, we've said continuously, they will bounce around from period-to-period, but within a pretty narrow band and the ROIC, why would it dip. Well, Chris mentioned that very large matter where we unhappy that it resolved early generating absolute cash of a significant number. Yes, we were perfectly happy having that happen. It's going to affect our ROIC numbers when in any given period, you have a large result with lower ROIC. But on the whole, we're just so pleased that with this kind of scale, we're producing this kind of returns.

我們一直說，投資資本報酬率和內部報酬率會在不同時期內波動，但波動幅度會在一個相當狹窄的區間內，而投資資本報酬率為什麼會下降呢？好吧，克里斯提到了那個非常大的問題，我們很高興它能提前解決並產生大量現金。是的，我們很高興發生這樣的事情。在任何給定期間內，如果 ROIC 較低但結果較大，就會影響我們的 ROIC 數字。但總體而言，我們很高興能夠以這樣的規模創造這樣的回報。

And if you turn to slide 13, you kind of see graphically how that intuition about the litigation model plays out that there is an asymmetric return profile, right. If you look at the right side of that graphic, it looks a lot like venture capital that you have the potential for real home runs.

如果你翻到第 13 張投影片，你就會以圖形的方式看到對訴訟模型的直覺如何發揮作用，即存在不對稱的回報狀況，對吧。如果你看一下該圖的右側，它看起來很像風險投資，你有真正本壘打的潛力。

But then when you look at the middle and left, it doesn't look at all like venture capital because losses compared to the gains are fairly modest and not that frequent. So it's just the nature of the asset class and the way we underwrite the investments when you map that out into results, it's a very attractive asset class, the way we have structured our investments.

但是當你看中間和左邊時，它看起來根本不像風險投資，因為與收益相比，損失相當小，而且不那麼頻繁。因此，這只是資產類別的本質，以及我們承保投資的方式，當你將其映射到結果時，這是一個非常有吸引力的資產類別，也是我們建立投資的方式。

If you turn to slide 14, you can see the evolution of the business over time by vintage, right. You can see basically that the you can see the deployments and the realization by vintage with the red is the realizations that have come in. The black is the deployments that have concluded and the kind of shaded diagonally black and white striped are the deployments that are ongoing assets that haven't resolved.

如果您翻到第 14 張投影片，您可以看到業務隨著時間的推移而發生的演變，對吧。您基本上可以看到，您可以看到部署和按年份實現的紅色代表已經實現的實現。黑色表示已經結束的部署，帶有對角線的黑白條紋陰影表示正在進行但尚未解決的部署。

That doesn't capture everything. As Chris mentioned, their commitments beyond the deployments, particularly in more recent vintages. You put on a deal and you agree to fund a certain amount over time or you agree to a portfolio with the first matter and added and several additional matters to come in, the deployments bar doesn't show that, right? The numbers for deployments in 2023, it's $167 million, when you add those up, and our commitments were $691 million.

這並不能涵蓋所有內容。正如克里斯所提到的，他們的承諾超出了部署範圍，特別是最近的部署。您達成交易並同意在一段時間內提供一定數額的資金，或者您同意一個包含第一項事務並添加其他幾項事務的投資組合，部署欄不會顯示這些，對嗎？2023 年的部署數字加起來是 1.67 億美元，而我們的承諾是 6.91 億美元。

So there's more than is there. But you can see not just that the black to the red is a very attractive comparison. We've made money on the money that we put out, and we've had realizations from but also there's a lot there in that shaded area, and that's the potential for the future in addition to commitments that have not yet been deployed.

因此，那裡還有更多東西。但您不僅可以看到黑色與紅色的對比非常吸引人。我們用投入的資金賺了錢，也實現了收益，而且在陰影區域還有很多東西，除了尚未部署的承諾之外，這也是未來的潛力。

One other thing worth noting, which is not something we shout from the rooftops about. But the second bullet on the page about the conclusions from pre-2020 vintage years, and you'll see more about this in the shareholders letter from some very old matters that have resolved profitably.

還有一件值得注意的事情，這並不是我們大聲宣揚的事情。但是本頁的第二點是關於 2020 年之前的年份的結論，您會在股東信中看到更多有關一些已經獲得盈利解決的非常古老的問題的相關信息。

I think there is probably a temptation on the part of investors because of experience with investment funds that when they have older matters in their portfolio, they sort of carry them without writing them down or writing them off because they're raising new funds and don't necessarily want to rush to report that.

我認為，投資者可能因為在投資基金方面的經驗而產生這樣的誘惑：當他們的投資組合中有舊項目時，他們會將其保留而不將其減記或註銷，因為他們正在籌集新基金，而不一定想急於報告這一點。

And so there might be a tendency among some people in modeling this business to assume, well, if things are still outstanding that are really old, they must be losers. And not just hasn't been the case. You see we still are generating profitable returns from older vintages. We wish they had resolved earlier and that would, of course, be nice, and we're not shouting for the rooftops. But nonetheless, they are not losses that they have produced for us.

因此，在模擬這一行業時，有些人可能會有一種傾向：如果那些很久以前的事情仍然沒有解決，那麼它們一定是失敗者。但事實並非如此。您會發現，我們仍然從較舊的葡萄酒中獲得豐厚的回報。我們希望他們能早點解決這個問題，那當然是好事，我們也不會大聲疾呼。但儘管如此，這並不是他們對我們造成的損失。

So if we turn to slide 15, as Chris mentioned, there's YPF. And we've talked about this on public calls before, and there's probably not a lot more to say given that we're constrained in terms of only speaking about things that are a matter of public record. But it's pretty hard not to finish 2023 and look back on our accomplishments and not acknowledge the great success we achieved in winning the largest judgment ever in New York history.

因此，如果我們翻到第 15 張幻燈片，正如克里斯所提到的，那裡有 YPF。我們之前已經在公開電話會議上討論過這個問題，但由於我們只能談論屬於公開記錄的事情，因此可能沒有什麼可說的了。但是，在 2023 年結束時回顧我們的成就並承認我們在贏得紐約歷史上最大判決方面取得的巨大成功是相當困難的。

And this was the case mind you that we didn't just finance, we also managed it. And that's because the Spanish bankruptcy court on behalf of the creditors who had financed an equity investment in Argentina and had lost money were entitled to recover. They didn't have the resources or the ability to manage that case and take it through a multiyear complex cross-border litigation and they retained us to do it.

請注意，我們不僅提供資金，我們也進行管理。這是因為西班牙破產法院代表那些為阿根廷的股權投資提供資金並遭受損失的債權人有權獲得賠償。他們沒有資源或能力來管理這個案件，也沒有足夠的能力來完成這場歷時多年、複雜的跨境訴訟，所以他們聘請我們來做這件事。

And we were able to achieve that kind of result, and we're just so pleased. It's been a long journey to get to the judgment, which is now final and enforceable. The trial court has ruled that it is immediately enforceable.

我們能夠取得這樣的成果，我們感到非常高興。經過漫長的歷程才最終獲得該判決，目前該判決已經是最終判決並且可以執行。初審法院已裁定該判決立即執行。

As I said, I can't say more then what is public. I can observe the appeal is pending, Argentina has appealed and the plaintiffs have cross-appealed against IPS as a defendant. And the enforcement process has begun. It's commenced. And we will report more as there's more public information. But we're very pleased. It's definitely a high point in a year filled with many other high points.

正如我所說，我不能透露更多已經公開的資訊。我注意到上訴仍在審理中，阿根廷已提起上訴，原告也已對 IPS 作為被告提出反訴。而執法程序已經開始。開始了。隨著有更多公開訊息，我們將會報導更多內容。但我們非常高興。這無疑是這一年充滿許多其他高潮的一個高潮。

And with that, I will turn it over to Jordan to turn to the next slide.

說完這些，我會把時間交給喬丹，讓他翻到下一張投影片。

Thanks, Jon, and thank you, Chris for before. Good morning, everyone, and I think we flipped over into afternoon. I know we're a little bit earlier today, but good afternoon to everyone in Europe. I'm on page 16, and I'll start going through some of the financials. 16 is on Burford-only basis.

謝謝，喬恩，也謝謝克里斯。大家早安，我想我們進入了下午的時間。我知道我們今天來得有點早，但祝歐洲的各位下午好。我現在看到第 16 頁，我將開始瀏覽一些財務數據。 16 僅適用於伯福德。

To reiterate some of the numbers that we hit on before, capital provision income more than quadrupled in 2023 versus 2022. That's driven by the strength in both realized and unrealized gains, and it's up -- close to $700 million year-over-year. We saw an increase in asset management revenue, which I'll go into more detail later, but that's primarily driven by the growth in BOF-C, which, as a reminder, is our arrangement with the sovereign wealth fund. In the fall of 2023, we were happy to announce the extension and expansion of that relationship through the end of this year and look forward to continuing that opportunity in the years to come.

重申我們之前提到的一些數字，2023 年的資本準備金收入比 2022 年增加了四倍多。這是由已實現和未實現收益的強勁增長所推動的，而且與去年同期相比增長了近 7 億美元。我們看到資產管理收入增加，稍後我會詳細介紹，但這主要是由於 BOF-C 的成長所致，提醒一下，這是我們與主權財富基金達成的安排。2023 年秋季，我們很高興地宣布將這種關係​​延長並擴大至今年年底，並期待在未來幾年繼續保持這種機會。

Net income for the year was a record, $2.74 that drove tangible book value per share close to $10 at year end. Overall, our capital provision assets finished the year at now $3.4 billion to dive a little bit deeper into that number, $1.6 billion of that is our deployed cost and $1.4 billion of that represents the YPF assets.

全年淨收入創下 2.74 美元的紀錄，推動年底每股有形帳面價值接近 10 美元。總體而言，今年年底我們的資本準備資產目前為 34 億美元，如果再深入研究這個數字，其中 16 億美元是我們的部署成本，14 億美元代表 YPF 資產。

As you recall, our valuation model or methodology now takes into account duration and time value of money. And so average discount rate for our portfolio over the year, decreased about 30 basis points since the end of last year. Certainly, volatility throughout the year, but point to point, it was 30 basis points. That resulted in approximately $50 million of positive impact on the fair value of the asset. But just as a reminder, the change in discount rate doesn't impact the ultimate exit value of our investments.

大家還記得，我們​​的估值模型或方法現在考慮了貨幣的持續時間和時間價值。因此，我們投資組合的平均折現率自去年年底以來下降了約 30 個基點。當然，全年都會有波動，但從點來看，波動幅度是 30 個基點。這為資產的公允價值帶來了約 5000 萬美元的正面影響。但需要提醒的是，折現率的變化不會影響我們投資的最終退出價值。

I'm going to flip to page 17. On this page, we show capital provision income and its various components, both the quarter and for 12 months. I talked about the $700 million increase year-over-year, which was obviously driven by two positive case milestones in YPF. But I don't want to make this a story of just of YPF-related assets, year-over-year, the performance obvious was up in realized and unrealized gains across the rest of the portfolio, by about $140 million or 67%. This reflects the velocity that Jon and Chris have talked about as the courts continue to move forward and are fully back in business.

我要翻到第 17 頁。在此頁面上，我們展示了按季度和 12 個月的資本準備金收入及其各個組成部分。我談到了同比增長 7 億美元，這顯然是由 YPF 的兩個積極案例里程碑推動的。但我不想把這個故事僅僅歸結為 YPF 相關資產的故事，與去年同期相比，其餘投資組合的已實現和未實現收益明顯增加了約 1.4 億美元，即 67%。這體現了喬恩和克里斯所說的速度，因為法院繼續向前推進並完全恢復正常運作。

Specifically, with respect to realized gains, our fourth quarter in 2023 was extremely productive, represented close to 50% of the full 2022 total with respect to realized gains.

具體而言，就已實現收益而言，我們 2023 年第四季的收益非常高，佔 2022 年全年總收益的近 50%。

Page 18. Now talking a little bit more about the asset management business, which continues to perform and we continue to reap the rewards of using the funds to augment our balance sheet efforts. Asset management income grew in 2023 from $56 million to $64 million. Cash receipts from asset management more than doubled in the year to around $32 million.

第 18 頁。現在再多談一點關於資產管理業務的事情，該業務繼續表現出色，我們繼續利用資金來增強我們的資產負債表努力，從而獲得回報。2023 年資產管理收入從 5,600 萬美元成長至 6,400 萬美元。今年資產管理的現金收入增加了一倍多，達到約 3,200 萬美元。

Chris mentioned this, but as you can see, the overwhelming majority of this income is driven by income from BOF-C, that fund dedicated to participating in 25% of nearly all of our new commitments on a pro rata basis.

克里斯提到了這一點，但正如你所看到的，絕大部分收入來自 BOF-C 的收入，該基金致力於按比例參與我們幾乎所有新承諾的 25%。

Plus here and actually take a moment to go a little bit deeper on where we are with Advantage Fund and our thinking around that and the Advantage Fund strategy, given the forthcoming end of the fund's investment period at the end of this year in December. We've had the opportunity after weighing a number of options for this segment of the litigation or legal finance market, and we've decided not to immediately raise a second Advantage Fund, when the investment period for the current fund expires.

另外，我們實際上花一點時間更深入地了解 Advantage Fund 的現狀以及我們對此的想法和 Advantage Fund 策略，因為該基金的投資期將於今年 12 月底結束。在權衡了訴訟或法律金融市場這一領域的多種選擇之後，我們終於有機會，並決定在當前基金的投資期到期後，不立即籌集第二支優勢基金。

As a frame of reference, this fund has historically targeted somewhat lower risk legal finance assets with an expected mid-teens or greater IRR and we've deployed approximately $300 million over the life of the fund over the last two years are $150 million annually into the strategy.

作為參考，該基金歷來以風險較低的法律金融資產為目標，預期內部收益率 (IRR) 為十幾歲或更高，過去兩年我們在該基金存續期間已投入約 3 億美元，每年向該戰略投入 1.5 億美元。

In today's market environment, we're likely not to replicate the same terms of the current fund structure. That backdrop, combined with our increased access to affordable, sustainable and the long-term unsecured debt markets makes originating these assets on balance sheet, a potentially accretive opportunity.

在當今的市場環境下，我們可能不會複製當前基金結構的相同條款。在這樣的背景下，加上我們能夠更多地進入負擔得起的、可持續的和長期無擔保債務市場，使得在資產負債表上產生這些資產成為一個潛在的增值機會。

And fundamentally, we now have a greater opportunity in front of us given our range of financing options. So as a relative share of overall deployments, we don't anticipate a significant change in our mix of business going forward. And to the extent that we do decide to finance these assets on the balance sheet, we're still focused on our belief that the business can produce 20% returns on tangible equity over time.

從根本上來說，鑑於我們擁有多種融資選擇，我們現在面臨更大的機會。因此，作為整體部署的相對份額，我們預計未來業務組合不會發生重大變化。在我們決定在資產負債表上為這些資產融資的範圍內，我們仍然堅信該業務能夠隨著時間的推移產生 20% 的有形權益回報率。

We believe that this is an appropriate use of our debt and equity capital to drive returns for our shareholders, then we'll continue to monitor the backdrop of raising incremental funds.

我們認為這是對我們的債務和股權資本的適當利用，以便為我們的股東帶來回報，然後我們將繼續監控籌集增量資金的背景。

Switching to page 19, I'll switch from revenues now to talk about expenses. We've talked a lot about this page in the past couple of quarters, and I've gone through a number of the details. And so before jumping back into those details, I think it's important to pull back and look at some overall metrics.

翻到第 19 頁，我現在將從收入轉到討論支出。在過去的幾個季度中，我們已經多次討論過這個頁面，我也講了很多細節。因此，在重新討論這些細節之前，我認為有必要先回顧一下並查看一些總體指標。

On the bottom of this slide, we show operating expenses and this includes everything, all the non-cash accruals and onetime expenses as a percent of total revenues on the left and as a percent of the total portfolio on the right to give some historical context and perspective to these numbers.

在這張投影片的底部，我們顯示了營運費用，其中包括所有非現金應計費用和一次性費用，左側為佔總收入的百分比，右側為佔總投資組合的百分比，以便為這些數字提供一些歷史背景和視角。

In a year with significant revenues, more of it was driven to the bottom line. The bottom left shows 2023 OpEx represented only 20% of revenues and the comp and benefits portion was 23%, which we believe compares favorably to peers in similar industries.

在收入可觀的一年裡，更多的收入被轉入了獲利。左下角顯示 2023 年營運支出僅佔收入的 20%，而薪資和福利部分為 23%，我們認為與同類行業相比具有優勢。

In addition, operating expenses when compared to the group-wide portfolio has remained comparatively consistent over the last several years, adjusting for the onetime accrual with respect to YPF. With respect though to the details, let's jump in to 2023 totals, $130 million of the $270 million of expenses represent non-cash accruals, onetime expenses or case related expenses that we can't include in the asset cost.

此外，與整個集團的投資組合相比，在調整 YPF 的一次性應計費用後，過去幾年的營運費用一直保持相對穩定。至於細節，讓我們看看 2023 年的總額，2.7 億美元的支出中有 1.3 億美元代表非現金應計費用、一次性費用或案件相關費用，我們不能將其計入資產成本。

And so let me remind you of some of the details with this. In the salary and benefit line, we were impacted by approximately $6 million to $7 million in the year, driven by the increase in our stock price. This is because as a reminder, our employees have the ability to invest their deferred compensation in our stock and when the share price increases, we have an accrual expense. We look to offset that economically by purchasing shares to hedge that exposure.

因此，讓我提醒你一些這方面的細節。在薪資和福利方面，由於股價上漲，我們今年受到了約 600 萬至 700 萬美元的影響。這是因為，提醒一下，我們的員工有能力將他們的遞延薪酬投資於我們的股票，當股價上漲時，我們就會產生應計費用。我們希望透過購買股票來對沖風險，從而從經濟上抵消這種影響。

Legacy asset recovery expenses will be limited in the future due to the impact of only one remaining asset in that historical arrangement. Our case-related expenditures that are ineligible for inclusion in our asset costs will fluctuate from time over time, and we saw it elevated at the beginning of this year, but it's returned to more historical levels and was approximately $1 million in the fourth quarter of 2023.

由於歷史安排中僅剩一項資產的影響，未來遺留資產恢復費用將受到限制。不符合納入資產成本條件的案件相關支出會隨時間波動，我們看到它在今年年初有所上升，但已回到歷史水平，在 2023 年第四季度約為 100 萬美元。

And then finally, I want to point out on the long-term incentive compensation line, that's our carry program, which includes accruals for when the fair value of the asset increases, but it only pays out cash when cash is received in the 2023 carry payments on a cash basis those are approximately $10 million to $11 million.

最後，我想指出長期激勵薪酬項目，這是我們的套利計劃，其中包括資產公允價值增加時的應計費用，但僅在 2023 年套利支付中收到現金時才以現金方式支付，金額約為 1000 萬美元至 1100 萬美元。

That's it for page 19. I'll now move to page 20 and talk about some of our liquidity metrics. So we sit in a very strong liquidity position at the end of the year. We have over $300 million of cash and securities as well as another $185 million of receivables. Through the end of February, we've already collected on $40 million some-odd of the debt receivable balance, which has included some of the payments related to the settlement that Chris described earlier in the presentation.

這就是第 19 頁的內容。我現在將轉到第 20 頁並討論我們的一些流動性指標。因此，我們在年底的流動性狀況非常強勁。我們擁有超過 3 億美元的現金和證券以及 1.85 億美元的應收帳款。截至二月底，我們已經收回了 4,000 多萬美元的應收債務餘額，其中包括克里斯早些時候在演講中描述的與和解相關的部分付款。

In addition, we took advantage of a robust high-yield market. In January, we tapped the markets for an incremental $275 million add-on to our 2023 June issuance and we were able to issue that at more than 120 basis points inside of the original issuance level, and that's just a little over six months ago. So a strong result there.

此外，我們也利用了強勁的高收益市場。今年 1 月，我們在市場上增量發行了 2.75 億美元債券，以補充我們 2023 年 6 月的債券發行量，並且能夠以原始發行水平的 120 個基點以上的價格發行，而這距今僅過去了六個多月。因此，結果非常好。

Turning back though, not just to what liquidity we have, let's look at the cash receipts that we received they were significantly higher in 2023, just shy of $500 million of cash receipts last year, significantly larger than the $330 million in 2022.

不過，回過頭來，不僅要看看我們擁有的流動性，讓我們看看我們收到的現金收入，它們在 2023 年要高得多，略低於去年的 5 億美元現金收入，明顯高於 2022 年的 3.3 億美元。

And the core capital provision assets reached a record of $415 million. Overall, on the bottom to simplify it our cash spend on OpEx and interest expense was around $217 million, and that's less than half of the total $489 million of total cash receipts.

核心資本準備資產達到創紀錄的4.15億美元。總體而言，為了簡化起見，我們在營運支出和利息支出上的現金支出約為 2.17 億美元，這還不到總現金收入 4.89 億美元的一半。

Moving to slide 21, a quick snapshot of the maturity schedule and our covenants. I've talked before and continue to stress the importance of the latter debt schedule that we enjoy that extends out to 2031. Our next maturity is in August of 2025. But as you can see, we feel well positioned with only 22% of our debt maturing in the next four years.

前往投影片 21，快速了解到期時間表和我們的契約。我之前已經談過並將繼續強調我們所享有的延伸至 2031 年的後一個債務計劃的重要性。我們的下一個到期日是 2025 年 8 月。但正如您所看到的，我們處於有利地位，未來四年內只有 22% 的債務到期。

We also get asked one question about our covenant levels and where do those stand and where would we operate the business you'll see this discussed briefly in the shareholder letter, but we frequently get asked about our debt capacity and how we think about that. We think it would be prudent to put a maximum leverage level out there at [1.25 times] debt to equity.

我們也被問到了一個關於我們的契約水平的問題，這些水平是什麼，我們將在哪裡經營業務，你會在股東信中看到這個問題的簡要討論，但我們經常被問及我們的債務能力以及我們對此的看法。我們認為，將最高槓桿率設定為債務權益比的 1.25 倍是明智之舉。

Obviously, we're well within that threshold. And also note that's a maximum, not a target. We are constantly and continuously managing our liquidity levels in the short to medium to long term, thinking about our anticipated cash needs as well as our expected cash receipts.

顯然，我們已經遠遠達到了這個門檻。也請注意，這是一個最大值，而不是目標。我們持續持續管理我們的短期、中期和長期流動性水平，考慮我們預期的現金需求以及預期的現金收入。

So overall, that wraps up some of the highlights of the financial numbers. An exciting year to present, obviously.

總的來說，這就是財務數據的一些亮點。顯然，這是令人興奮的一年。

And with that, I will turn it back to Chris for final remarks and open up for questions.

現在，我將把話題轉回給克里斯，請他做最後的發言，並接受大家的提問。

Thanks, Jordan. And since we've gone on for more than 40 minutes, I think I rather than talking at you anymore, I think it will be better for us to take your questions. But I think you've heard from all three of us how very pleased we are to be able to deliver this kind of -- this set of results to you. But with that, operator, we can take some questions, and we'll do them either from the phone or the webinar.

謝謝，喬丹。由於我們已經討論了 40 多分鐘，我認為我們不應該再對你們講話，而是應該回答你們的問題。但我想你們已經從我們三個人那裡聽到了，我們對能夠向你們提供這樣的結果感到非常高興。但是，接線員，透過這個，我們可以回答一些問題，我們可以透過電話或網路研討會來回答這些問題。

(Operator Instructions).

（操作員指令）。

Well, we'll start with the webcast. And we have a pair of questions from Rakesh at Bell that basically relates to OpEx, and Rakesh is trying to sort of determine how much of the OpEx base is sort of maintenance or existing and how much of it is for growth? And sort of as a follow on, how much of the OpEx is fixed versus variable?

好吧，我們將從網路直播開始。貝爾的 Rakesh 向我們提出了兩個問題，主要與營運支出有關。 Rakesh 試圖確定營運支出基數中有多少是維護性支出或現有支出，有多少是用於成長？接下來請問，營運支出中有多少是固定的，有多少是可變的？

So in reverse order, a lot of our OpEx is variable. So as Jordan was just saying a moment ago when he was talking to the slide on this, we have cash OpEx going out the door, which is basically base salaries and then the existence cost of the business. And since we're a professional services business, basically, those non-compensation costs are the usual existence cost, office rent, audit fees, listing and so on.

因此，反過來說，我們的許多營運支出都是可變的。正如喬丹剛才在幻燈片上談到這一點時所說的那樣，我們的現金營運支出基本上是基本工資，然後是企業的生存成本。由於我們是一家專業服務公司，基本上那些非補償成本包括通常的生存成本、辦公室租金、審計費用、上市費用等。

But we don't have an enormous number of fixed costs in this business. And so -- and base salaries, virtually all of our compensation is variable. Its annual bonus, the compensation structure here is base salaries that are consistent with sort of the financial services model, in other words, not particularly high. And then annual bonuses and stock and long-term carry. And the reason you're seeing these pretty volatile accounting expense numbers is because of the portfolio performance.

但我們在這個業務中並沒有大量的固定成本。所以—基本工資，實際上我們所有的薪酬都是可變的。它的年度獎金，這裡的薪酬結構是與金融服務模式一致的基本工資，換句話說，不是特別高。然後是年度獎金、股票和長期持有。您看到這些相當不穩定的會計費用數字的原因是由於投資組合的表現。

So when an asset goes up in value, we also accrue for a potential future carry payment, but we're obviously not making those payments until we get cash in the door. And that's why you see such a sharp disparity, as Jordan pointed out, between the carry payments we actually made across the business this year, which were sort of $10 million as opposed to the kind of accruals that you saw, which were many multiples of that. So that's the dynamic going on there.

因此，當資產價值上漲時，我們也會為潛在的未來持有付款累積費用，但顯然我們不會進行這些付款，直到我們獲得現金為止。這就是為什麼你會看到如此巨大的差異，正如喬丹指出的那樣，我們今年在全公司實際支付的利息約為 1000 萬美元，而你所看到的應計利息則是這個數字的許多倍。這就是那裡正在發生的動態。

In terms of how much of the OpEx is necessary for the maintenance of the current business as opposed to growth. It's pretty difficult to break that apart because we don't segment the business that way. So if you look -- just pick a random part of the business, if you look at the patents and intellectual property part of the business, we have a team of people there, and those people do it all.

就維持當前業務而不是成長所需的營運支出而言。將其分開非常困難，因為我們不以那種方式劃分業務。所以如果你看一下——隨便挑選業務的一部分，如果你看看業務的專利和智慧財產權部分，我們有一個團隊在那裡，那些人做所有事情。

They're cradle to grave. They know that market. They're well known in that market. So they maintain client relationships, they originate business. They underwrite the business that comes in the door, and they manage that business after we close it all the way to its concluded.

他們從搖籃到墳墓。他們了解那個市場。他們在那個市場很有名。因此，他們維護客戶關係，開展業務。他們承保上門的業務，並在我們結束業務後一直管理該業務直到其結束。

And so it's not as though I have a team of people who is just originating patent business, but I can separate from the team of people who are doing the business. But the thrust of the question is to try to model sort of runoff value, there's no question, but a decent portion of what we do relates to that second pillar of the business, the fact that we're originating more than $1 billion a year of new business.

因此，這並不意味著我有一個專門開展專利業務的團隊，而是我可以將這個團隊與從事業務的團隊區分開來。但問題的關鍵是嘗試模擬某種流失價值，這是毫無疑問的，但我們所做的相當一部分工作與業務的第二個支柱有關，即我們每年創造超過 10 億美元的新業務。

So if we were -- if you were to throw the business into runoff, you clearly would not be originating that new business any longer, and you could, I think, have meaningful cost savings. We approach the business in entirely the opposite direction because we think there's an extraordinary opportunity here over time to continue to grow this business. And so we continue to invest in growth. But that, I think, is the modeling question.

所以如果我們——如果你要放棄這項業務，你顯然就不會再開展這項新業務了，而且我認為，你可以節省大量成本。我們以完全相反的方向來處理這項業務，因為我們認為，隨著時間的推移，這裡有一個非常好的機會來繼續發展這項業務。因此我們將繼續投資於成長。但我認為，這是一個建模問題。

And operator, I think we're ready for a question on the phone.

接線員，我想我們已經準備好透過電話回答問題了。

David Chiaverini, Wedbush Securities.

大衛‧基亞維里尼 (David Chiaverini)，韋德布希證券公司 (Wedbush Securities)。

Great to see the realizations come through in 2023, you mentioned about seasonality in the business. Now is it fair to assume 2023 was an outlier on the high side? And can you talk about the realizations pipeline looking forward?

很高興看到 2023 年實現這一目標，您提到了業務的季節性。現在是否可以公平地假設 2023 年是一個偏高的異常值？能談談未來的實現進程嗎？

Yes. I don't know that you can assume that in terms of seasonality. When you think about what drives lawyers and litigation, we've talked before, there's the new business side and then there's the realization side. The new business side, it's simply the case that there's a big year-end rush in this business, and that drives year-end traffic. And that means as well that the people, who are going to do a deal are almost certainly going to do it in November and December as opposed to doing it in January or February.

是的。我不知道您是否可以從季節性的角度來假設這一點。當您思考是什麼推動律師和訴訟時，我們之前已經討論過，有新業務方面，還有實現方面。從新業務方面來說，情況很簡單，就是這個業務在年底會出現很大的客流，從而帶動年底的流量。這也意味著，那些想要達成協議的人幾乎肯定會在 11 月和 12 月達成協議，而不是在 1 月或 2 月。

And so we've got this phenomenon of having a very busy November, December, on every single year we've been in business, we have closed multiple deals on -- literally on the last day of the year. But nobody then turns around and says, Oh, well, I didn't bother during December, so I'm going to come in January and do my deal with you then.

因此，我們出現了這種現象：在我們經營的每一年中，11 月和 12 月都非常繁忙，我們幾乎在一年的最後一天就完成了多筆交易。但沒有人會轉過身說，哦，好吧，我在 12 月沒有打擾你，所以我會在 1 月來和你做交易。

And so the first quarter tends to be fairly sleepy and the summer and September tends to be extremely sleepy because lawyers are simply trying not to do anything that they don't have to do during that time. And so you can see that -- and that's been a trend that you've seen in our numbers for years and years. It hasn't been as visible because we've only started reporting quarterly in the last little while. But it's the fourth quarter dominance has certainly been a trend that you've seen in the numbers for a long time.

因此，第一季往往比較清淡，夏季和九月往往特別清淡，因為律師們只是試著不做那段時間不必要的事情。所以您可以看到這一點——這是我們多年來一直在數據中看到的趨勢。因為我們最近才開始發布季度報告，所以這一點還不太明顯。但第四季度的主導地位無疑已成為長期以來我們在數據中看到的趨勢。

In terms of realizations, it's a little bit less predictable than that because some realizations are driven by just the court schedule. So if you've got a case that is likely to settle as it's heading into trial and it's heading into trial in May, you may well extract a settlement rather than having that case go to trial in May. But the other dynamic that you see in corporate litigation matters is that companies will regularly wait to see what their year is looking like.

就實現而言，情況有點難以預測，因為一些實現僅僅是由法庭日程安排決定的。因此，如果您的案件在開庭審理時有可能達成和解，並且將於 5 月開庭審理，那麼您很可能會達成和解，而不是讓該案件在 5 月開庭審理。但在公司訴訟事宜中你會看到的另一個動態是，公司會定期等待，看看今年的業績狀況如何。

And then at the end of the year, sort of figure out how much money they're going to make available to sell a case. Years ago when I was the General Counsel of Time Warner, this was a dynamic that I had. Time Warner at any given time had a huge portfolio of litigation. And the CFO would sort of come along in November and say, okay, I've got a pretty good sense of the year. I can give you x million dollars this year to go and see what are these cases you can buy off.

然後在年底計算出他們要花多少錢來賣一個案子。很多年前，當我擔任時代華納的總法律顧問時，我有這樣的心態。時代華納在任何時候都面臨著大量的訴訟。財務長會在 11 月過來說，好吧，我對今年的業績有了一個大致的了解。今年我可以給你 x 百萬美元，讓你去看看你能買下哪些案子。

And to some extent, that's what you do, you would go out to a bunch of the cases being litigated, and you'd say, look, I've got a --- of money. And so whoever hits my bid the first, you're going to be getting it. And so we do see a fourth quarter level of activity for that reason, as well.

從某種程度上來說，這就是你要做的，你會去處理一堆正在訴訟的案件，然後你會說，看，我有一筆錢。所以，無論誰先滿足我的出價，你就會得到它。因此，我們也確實看到了第四季的活動水準。

That's helpful. And my follow-up, could you talk about the new deal pipeline, how it compares to prior periods?

這很有幫助。我的後續問題是，您能談談新的交易管道嗎？與之前相比如何？

I think the answer is, one -- I guess, the way that I talk about new deals is the constant evolution of what's going on in the market in this business. And you heard Jon say when he was talking through the slides about the increase in our average ticket size. And so what we see in new deals is an increasing trend towards corporate use of our capital for monetization’s and portfolios in addition to our traditional more law firm driven litigation financing model.

我認為答案是，第一個——我想，我談論新交易的方式是這個行業的市場動態的不斷發展。當喬恩在幻燈片中談到我們的平均票價規模的成長時，你聽到他說了。因此，我們在新交易中看到的是，除了傳統的由律師事務所驅動的訴訟融資模式之外，企業利用我們的資本進行貨幣化和投資組合的趨勢日益明顯。

And so we see both things in the pipeline. The corporate stuff probably has a longer gestation period. Because you're still at a stage in the market where people are, for the most part, doing it for the first time. So when I took you through that sort of mini case study of the Fortune 50 company that did a deal with us last June, that's not a deal that walked in May, and we just did it in the space for a couple of weeks.

因此，我們看到這兩件事都在籌劃之中。公司事務的醞釀期可能更長。因為你仍處於市場階段，大多數人都是第一次做這件事。因此，當我向您介紹去年 6 月與我們達成交易的財富 50 強公司的小型案例研究時，這不是 5 月份達成的交易，我們只是在該領域進行了幾週的交易。

That was a relationship that we have been cultivating, we have been working with the client to help our contacts with the clients, educate their internal peers more broadly about the use of legal finance. And so it's a process. And so that's what we're excited to see when we go and have ongoing interaction with people. So we're constantly building relationships to turn them into matters that will ultimately close.

這是我們一直在培養的關係，我們一直與客戶合作，幫助我們與客戶聯繫，更廣泛地教育他們的內部同行有關法律融資的使用。這是一個過程。因此，當我們去與人們進行持續的互動時，我們很高興看到這一點。因此，我們不斷建立關係，以將其轉化為最終可以解決的事情。

And so, I would just add in any one period like right now, we'll have matters that come in that are more conventional, single case litigation finance, they could have come in late in the year and not closed by year-end, and then there's the ability to close them now.

因此，我只想補充一點，就像現在的任何一個時期，我們都會遇到一些更傳統的單案訴訟融資案件，這些案件可能在年底出現，但無法在年底前結案，而現在我們有能力將其結案。

And there could be larger opportunities where you're putting out much larger ticket sizes and the cultivation may have started in the fall or even we have some that the cultivation has been going on a long time, and we're working on those progressing them through.

而且可能存在更大的機會，您可以推出更大尺寸的票據，並且培育可能在秋季就開始了，或者我們有一些培育已經持續了很長時間，我們正在努力推動這些進程。

Julian Roberts, Jefferies.

朱利安羅伯茨，傑富瑞。

I'm afraid I missed the first few minutes, and so this could be something that you've already covered. Am I right in thinking that the large investment that realized quite quickly, only accounted for about half of the realized gains in Q4 looking at the schedule of capital provision direct asset data?

恐怕我錯過了最初的幾分鐘，所以這可能是您已經講過的內容。我的想法是否正確，從資本提供直接資產數據表來看，這筆很快實現的巨額投資僅佔第四季度實現收益的一半左右？

I think that is, right. Although Jordan, can you check the amount?

我認為是這樣。雖然喬丹，你能查一下金額嗎？

Yes, that's correct. Not -- give or take. I mean, yes, it's around that.

是的，正確。不是——大概。我的意思是，是的，就是那樣。

Yes, sorry, my point being that actually, that means that even in Q4 with a pretty big realization, you still had quite diverse sources of realized gains. -- Sorry, that's all I had actually.

是的，抱歉，我的觀點是，實際上，這意味著即使在第四季度實現了相當大的收益，您仍然擁有相當多樣化的實現收益來源。 —— 抱歉，事實上我只有這些。

-- I would just say that is consistent with, as Chris said, the number of trials going on at any given time. There's just a lot going on in the portfolio. And as Chris also said, some number of them may settle on the courthouse steps and some number will go through and then companies pick a time to pay through the appellate process often. And so it makes sense that the money is coming from diverse sources.

——我只想說，正如克里斯所說，這與任何特定時間進行的試驗次數是一致的。投資組合中發生了很多事情。正如克里斯所說，有些人可能會在法院門口達成和解，有些人會先解決，然後公司通常會選擇一個時間透過上訴程序來付款。因此，資金來自多個來源是有道理的。

Alex Bowers, Berenberg.

亞歷克斯鮑爾斯，貝倫貝格。

Just three questions from me, if I may. Just firstly, can we get sort of a latest update on the sort of COVID-related case backlog and sort of how much value that you believe there is to go on that? And sort of more specifically to Burford, what your sort of outlook is for '24 in terms of cases that are sort of nearing completion? So the first one.

如果可以的話，我只想問三個問題。首先，我們能否了解一下與 COVID 相關的案件積壓的最新情況，以及您認為這能帶來多大價值？更具體地說，對於伯福德來說，就即將完成的案件而言，您對 24 年的展望如何？所以是第一個。

Second one is, I think you mentioned in the presentation that sort of transaction size has doubled since 2019. How do you think about sort of mix or diversification of the portfolio between sort of larger and smaller cases?

第二個是，我記得您在演示中提到過，自 2019 年以來，交易規模已經翻了一番。您如何看待大型和小型案件之間投資組合的混合或多樣化？

And then just sort of lastly on YPF. I think you saw a small markup in Q4. Could I just get sort of the understanding of what drove that? Is that sort of primarily the sort of post-judgment interest accruing on that? And then sort of secondly on YPF, sorry, I guess it makes it four questions.

最後再來來說說 YPF。我認為您在第四季度看到了小幅上漲。我能否了解一下造成這種情況的原因是什麼？這主要是判決後產生的利息嗎？其次是關於 YPF，抱歉，我想應該是四個問題。

But in terms of the appeal, I think we've seen Argentina's opening breathing come out. Was there anything in there that sort of surprised you?

但從吸引力方面來看，我認為我們已經看到阿根廷隊的開場氣勢。這裡面有什麼東西令你感到驚訝嗎？

So we're going to split these up. And Jon will take the last -- the two YPF related questions. I'll do the COVID backlog and Jordan can speak to diversification.

所以我們要把它們分開。喬恩將回答最後兩個與 YPF 相關的問題。我會處理 COVID 積壓問題，喬丹可以談談多樣化。

In terms of the COVID backlog, I think that where you really -- if you look back at slide 14, that slide is really there to try to illustrate the backlog in the portfolio. And as I said at the outset of the presentation, you would -- all things are being equal, without COVID, you would expect the middle of that slide to be further along towards realization of this.

就 COVID 積壓而言，我認為你真正需要的是——如果你回顧第 14 張投影片，那張投影片其實是為了試圖說明投資組合中的積壓情況。正如我在演講開始時所說的那樣，在其他條件相同、沒有 COVID 的情況下，您會期望幻燈片的中間部分能夠更進一步實現這一目標。

Now we've made big strides this year, but we've still got more to do in terms of clearing that backlog. And that's why we said that we expected a continued -- I forget the language we use, but a continued robust level of activity in 2024 as yet more of those cases move through the litigation process. We've got -- as we had last year, we've got a significantly larger number of trials scheduled, for example, in 2024 than we did in, let's say, 2022. So I think that's sort of where we're headed for clearing the COVID backlog.

今年我們已經取得了很大進展，但在清理積壓工作方面我們還有許多工作要做。這就是為什麼我們說，我們預計 2024 年的活動水準將繼續保持強勁——我忘記了我們使用的語言，但隨著越來越多的案件進入訴訟程序。與去年一樣，我們計劃在 2024 年進行的試驗數量比 2022 年多得多。所以我認為這就是我們解決 COVID 積壓問題的方向。

And then before I turn it over to Jordan, about the numbers there, just my sort of macro comment about diversification is that yes, we've got increases in transaction size. But of course, we've also got increases in total business volume and portfolio sides.

在我將主題轉交給喬丹之前，關於這些數字，我對多樣化的宏觀評論是：是的，我們的交易規模確實有所增加。但當然，我們的總業務量和投資組合方面也有所增加。

So in some ways, the business is as diversified as it's ever been in terms of the relative share of the portfolio that any single thing represents. When we were much smaller, we had a world where we were actually somewhat less diversified because we simply didn't have that much capital. So even if you were only putting a comparatively smaller amount of capital on the things they were taking more of total portfolio.

因此，從某種程度上來說，就單一資產在投資組合中所佔的相對份額而言，該業務的多樣化程度達到了前所未有的水平。當我們的規模還很小的時​​候，我們面臨的環境其實不夠多元，因為我們根本沒有那麼多資本。因此，即使你只投入相對較少的資金，他們也會佔據總投資組合的很大一部分。

But Jordan, do you want to carry on with that and then we'll turn to Jon?

但是喬丹，你想繼續這個話題然後我們再轉向喬恩嗎？

Yes. Look, Chris, I think you hit on some of the right points. Obviously, from a mass perspective, the increasing in transaction size is going to slowly over time, increase the average size of an asset. That being said, I think, Chris, you hit on the right point, which is that overall diversification when you think about it with respect to client concentration or the asset type in terms of commercial versus arbitration versus patent and so forth. We consistently monitor that and I don't think that we have any undue or different exposure levels now than we've reported in the past and that, that diversification is consistent with years past.

是的。瞧，克里斯，我認為你說到了一些正確的觀點。顯然，從大眾的角度來看，交易規模的增加將隨著時間的推移而緩慢增加資產的平均規模。話雖如此，我認為克里斯，你說到了正確的點，那就是當你從客戶集中度或資產類型（如商業、仲裁、專利等）的角度來考慮時，整體的多樣化。我們持續監控這一點，我認為我們現在的風險敞口水平並不存在任何不當情況，或者與過去報告的有所不同，而且這種多樣化與過去幾年的情況一致。

I'm actually going to steal from Jon, one part of the YPF question and which was how did the values change in the fourth quarter. And I'll just remind folks that like every asset, given our valuation methodology, the change in discount rates and duration have slight changes to the change in value. And so you're going to see that in every asset class in every asset, regardless period-over-period, regardless if you saw a specific milestone occur in that period.

我實際上要從喬恩那裡竊取 YPF 問題的一部分，即第四季度的價值觀如何變化。我只想提醒大家，與每種資產一樣，考慮到我們的估值方法，折現率和期限的變化會導致價值的變化略有變化。因此，您將在每種資產的每個資產類別中看到這一點，無論哪個時期，無論您是否看到該時期內發生了特定的里程碑。

And actually, just before turning to the YPF specific question, I did want to address the question about diversification and ticket size, which is I wanted to remind everyone that we -- I'm often asked this question about are we looking for a particular kind of case? Are we too full on one case and looking for another.

實際上，在轉向 YPF 具體問題之前，我確實想解決有關多樣化和票據規模的問題，我想提醒大家，我經常被問到這個問題，我們是否在尋找一種特殊類型的案例？我們是否已經忙於處理一個案件而又想著處理另一個案件？

And we have built this business by making sure for everyone in the market for legal assets, whether it's companies or law firms, we are a taker if the risk reward on the individual matter is attractive. And so we have teams that are able to underwrite in various jurisdictions, various subject matters, whether it is investors state arbitration, commercial arbitration and I trust intellectual property contract breach in various jurisdictions.

我們建立這項業務的目的是確保法律資產市場上的每個人，無論是公司還是律師事務所，只要個別事務的風險回報具有吸引力，我們就會承擔風險。因此，我們擁有能夠在不同司法管轄區、不同主題事項上承保的團隊，無論是投資者國家仲裁、商業仲裁，還是我相信在不同司法管轄區內的知識產權合約違約。

We have people that can underwrite and evaluate those matters and shepherd them through. And so we achieved diversification because it's a robust, diverse legal market. And I found there's a nice mix of small and large matters. There's a nice mix by jurisdiction. Does it ebb and flow one quarter to the next, where we'll have a very rich arbitration pipeline for a couple of months, and then there's a whole bunch of patent matters that come in. Yes, but generally, we're firing on all cylinders in all the pipelines.

我們有人可以承保和評估這些事項並指導它們。因此，我們實現了多樣化，因為這是一個強勁、多樣化的法律市場。我發現大事小事之間有著很好的融合。按管轄權劃分，這是一個不錯的組合。它是否在一個季度到下一個季度之間起起伏伏，在前幾個月我們會有非常豐富的仲裁管道，然後又會出現一大堆專利問題。是的，但總的來說，我們在所有管道上都全力以赴。

On the YPF point, I can't get into as much as I'd love nothing more than to keep you on the phone for hours talking about the merits of the case. I can't really get into it, and I don't want to sort of preview our pellet briefing, but all I can say is it shouldn't come as a surprise to you that we've been litigating this for nine years. We would be very familiar with all the traps that Argentina would run and all the points their lawyers would make. And so I don't think there's going to be anything surprising, but I can't really comment on the merits. And you'll see our brief will be filed, and you'll get to see all the responses.

關於 YPF 觀點，我無法深入討論，因為我最想做的就是和你打幾個小時的電話討論案件的是非曲直。我真的不能深入討論這個問題，我也不想預覽我們的彈丸簡報，但我只能說，我們已經為此訴訟了九年，這不應該讓你感到驚訝。我們非常熟悉阿根廷會設下的所有陷阱以及他們的律師會提出的所有觀點。因此我認為不會有什麼令人驚訝的事情，但我無法對其優點發表評論。您將會看到我們的簡報將被歸檔，並且您將看到所有回應。

So operator, two-minutes past the hour, but I think we have time for one more question.

接線員，已經過了兩分鐘，但我想我們還有時間再回答一個問題。

Andrew Shepherd-Barron, Peel Hunt.

安德魯‧謝潑德‧巴倫 (Andrew Shepherd-Barron)，皮爾‧亨特 (Peel Hunt)。

Okay. Well, actually, I had three questions, so let's see how we do. One is on IRRs. I don't think you've actually published what IRR was for the cases completing this last year. But if I look at lifetime, lifetime has dropped from 29% a year ago to 27% now, which suggests that IRRs were probably somewhere around 23%, 24% for last year. So can you talk a little bit about that?

好的。嗯，實際上，我有三個問題，所以讓我們看看該怎麼辦。一個是關於內部報酬率 (IRR)。我認為您實際上並沒有公佈去年完成的案件的 IRR 是多少。但如果我看一下生命週期，生命週期已從一年前 29% 下降到現在的 27%，這表明去年的 IRR 可能在 23% 到 24% 左右。那麼您能稍微談論一下這個嗎？

And if that is right, and if you're thinking -- if you're going to be taking the advantage funds in-house, which I think you said, well mid-teen IRRs, what does that say about future IRRs?

如果這是正確的，並且如果您在想 - 如果您要利用內部優勢基金，我想您說過，那麼中等水平的 IRR，這對未來的 IRR 意味著什麼？

Second question, if I may. As you said that -- I think you said that you throttle back effectively a new business because you have a sort of resource constraint, and so much of your theme was focused on settlement. Isn't that going to repeat next year when logic continue there?

請問第二個問題。正如您所說—我想您說過，您之所以有效地抑制新業務，是因為您面臨某種資源限制，而您的大部分主題都集中在解決問題上。當邏輯繼續存在時，明年這種情況不會重演嗎？

And thirdly, if we have time, I wonder if you could talk about at all about what are the large deals might be out there outside of YPF?

第三，如果我們有時間，我想知道您是否可以談談除了 YPF 之外還可能有哪些大型交易？

Sure. So maybe I'll take them in reverse order. So I think we're not really in a position to talk about individual matters that are out there. But just looking at the nature of -- even if you just look at the US, looking at the nature of the US litigation market, there are a significant number of large matters there.

當然。因此我可能會按相反的順序來做。因此我認為我們實際上不適合談論現有的個別問題。但僅僅從性質來看——即使你只看美國，看看美國訴訟市場的本質，那裡也有很多大事。

And if the premise of your question is what we wrote in the shareholder letter, about basically being able -- being willing to take on to consider to take on a couple more in Pearson ,if you will.

如果你的問題的前提是我們在股東信中所寫的內容，那麼基本上就是能夠──願意考慮在培生集團中再招募幾個人，如果你願意的話。

What we're seeing there is that there are matters that are very potentially large, but also come with probably outsized risk and we are very careful about how much risk we're prepared to take in the business and we calibrate it very carefully.

我們看到，有些事情可能非常大，但也可能伴隨著超大的風險，我們非常謹慎地考慮我們準備在業務中承擔多大的風險，我們會非常謹慎地進行校準。

But when we can find something like Pearson that has such an asymmetry between the risk that we're taking, the capital risk that we're taking and the potential upside, those are potentially attractive to us. And so we keep our eyes open for things like that.

但當我們能夠找到像培生這樣的公司，其所承擔的風險、所承擔的資本風險和潛在的上升空間之間存在如此不對稱時，這些對我們來說就具有潛在的吸引力。因此我們對這樣的事情保持警惕。

In terms of the new business point, I think the answer is sort of yes, but. And what I mean by that is we have a finite number of people. I'll keep on using the patent group that I just described. And those people are, as I said a moment ago, they're sort of doing it all. And so it's a natural outcome, but if they have a lot of time being spent on a case in a particular week that because like case going to trial, they're probably going to spend less time during that particular week on originating new business.

就新業務點而言，我認為答案是肯定的，但是。我的意思是我們的人數是有限的。我將繼續使用我剛剛描述的專利組。正如我剛才所說，這些人正在做所有的事情。這是一個自然的結果，但如果他們在某一周花了很多時間在某個案件上，因為案件要進入審判階段，那麼他們可能就會在那個特定的一周花更少的時間來開展新業務。

But the week following that, they might not have a case going to trial and they can be full bore on new business. And we don't -- they would never be in a position of being 100% full bore on new business anyway. So is it a constraint? Sure. It's a constraint.

但接下來的一周，他們可能沒有案件要審理，因此可以全心投入新業務。我們也不會——無論如何，他們永遠不會全力投入新業務。那麼這是一個限制嗎？當然。這是一個限制。

If I were to double or trouble the size of the patent group and devote all the new people that we've just hired to only trying to find and originate new business, would we probably do somewhat more new business, yes.

如果我將專利團隊的規模擴大一倍或更多，並讓所有我們剛剛僱用的新人專門去尋找和開展新業務，我們可能會開展更多的新業務，是的。

But is that a sensible way to run the business? Jon and I have not historically taken that view. We've been pretty moderate in how we've expanded both with an eye to cost base and with an eye to not trying to get it over our skis.

但這是經營企業的明智方式嗎？從歷史上看，喬恩和我並不持這種觀點。我們在擴張方面一直非常溫和，既著眼於成本基礎，又著眼於不超出我們的能力範圍。

And so, if the price of that is that in some periods, when we're breaking in the cash, we're not doing quite as much new business activity, that's from our perspective of sort of an acceptable short-term compromise. But the stuff always from our perspective, comes back and rights itself.

因此，如果這樣做的代價是，在某些時期，當我們突破現金時，我們不會進行太多的新業務活動，那麼從我們的角度來看，這是一種可以接受的短期妥協。但從我們的角度來看，事物總是會回歸並自我糾正。

I would just add to that, we are hiring. And as Chris said, the idea is hiring a new patent person, you don't want to double the size of the team in a short period of time and change the quality control. But integrating people one by one is a good way to do it. And we're in the process of doing that now. Not just in patent -- .

我還要補充一點，我們正在招募。正如克里斯所說，這個想法是僱用一個新的專利人員，你不想在短時間內將團隊規模擴大一倍並改變品質控制。但將人們一個個整合起來是一個好方法。我們現在正在這樣做。不僅僅是專利--。

Yes, on the IRR point, we don't and we never have produced sort of annual IRRs, we produce vintage IRRs, which you see on slide 14. And the 2023 vintage IRR right now, even though it's early on in its life is 32%. You see the IRRs and the ROICs moving around in this business. And they are affected by a variety of factors, including actual performance, obviously, but also time and time of duration.

是的，關於 IRR 點，我們沒有，也從來沒有生成過年度 IRR，我們生成的是老式 IRR，您可以在幻燈片 14 上看到。儘管 2023 年還處於早期階段，但目前的 IRR 為 32%。您會看到 IRR 和 ROIC 在這個產業中不斷變動。它們受到多種因素的影響，顯然包括實際表現，但也包括時間和持續時間。

And so as Jon noted earlier, we're going to see and what we did, in fact, see a reduction in our ROICs because of the fairly rapid settlement of that large matter. And so when you settle a case that quickly, you're inherently going to take a hit on your ROICs because we're not going to double our money with capital that's only out for six months, wish that it were. No, I hope that was responsive.

正如喬恩之前提到的，我們將看到，由於這個大問題的相當迅速的解決，我們的投資回報率實際上有所下降。因此，當你如此迅速地解決案件時，你的投資回報率必然會受到打擊，因為我們不會用只用六個月的資本就將我們的資金翻倍，希望如此。不，我希望這是有回應的。

And with that, since we're now materially pass time, I think we'll call it a day. As usual, we're always delighted to engage with investors directly as well. So please don't be shy about being in touch with us.

既然我們現在已經是物質消磨時間了，我想我們今天就到此為止吧。像往常一樣，我們也很高興直接與投資者接觸。因此請不要羞於與我們聯繫。

Thank you very much for taking more than an hour today with us and helping us celebrate a little bit what was a terrific year. And now we're excited to see what we can do in 2024. So thank you all.

非常感謝您今天花一個多小時與我們在一起並幫助我們慶祝這美好的一年。現在，我們很高興地看到 2024 年我們能取得什麼成就。謝謝大家。