Burford Capital Ltd (BUR) 2024 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Ladies and gentlemen, thanks for standing by. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to today's Burford Capital fiscal-year 2024 and fourth-quarter 2024 financial results conference call. (Operator Instructions). I would now like to turn the call over to Josh Wood, Head of Investor Relations. Josh?

女士們、先生們，感謝你們的支持。現在，我歡迎大家參加今天的 Burford Capital 2024 財年和 2024 年第四季財務業績電話會議。（操作員指令）。現在，我想將電話轉給投資者關係主管喬許伍德 (Josh Wood)。喬許？

Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us today to discuss our fourth-quarter and full year-results. On the call, as usual, we have our Chief Executive Officer, Chris Bogart; our Chief Investment Officer, Jon Molot; and our Chief Financial Officer, Jordan Licht.

大家早安，感謝您今天加入我們討論我們的第四季和全年業績。像往常一樣，我們的執行長 Chris Bogart 也出席了電話會議；我們的首席投資長 Jon Molot；以及我們的財務長喬丹·利希特（Jordan Licht）。

Before we get started, just a reminder that today's call may contain forward-looking statements that involve certain risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed during the call. For information regarding these risk factors, please refer to our earnings materials relating to this call posted on our website and our filings with the SEC. We will also be referring to certain non-GAAP financial measures during the call. Please refer to today's earnings materials and our filings with the SEC for additional information, including reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures.

在我們開始之前，需要提醒的是，今天的電話會議可能包含前瞻性陳述，涉及某些風險、不確定性和其他因素，可能導致實際結果與電話會議中討論的結果有重大差異。有關這些風險因素的信息，請參閱我們網站上發布的與本次電話會議相關的收益材料以及我們向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件。我們也會 在電話會議中提及某些非 GAAP 財務指標。請參閱今天的收益資料和我們向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件以獲取更多信息，包括這些非公認會計準則財務指標與最直接可比的公認會計準則指標的對帳。

Also, I would just highlight, as we did in our press release last week, that we've refreshed the structure of our earnings presentation. And of course, we'll guide you through some of that here on the call. If you missed the preview in the press release, there's a quick primer on page 5 of the presentation that I would encourage you to read for more context. And with that, I will turn the call over to Chris.

此外，我想強調的是，正如我們上週在新聞稿中所做的那樣，我們已經更新了收益報告的結構。當然，我們會在通話中指導您完成其中的一些內容。如果您錯過了新聞稿中的預覽，簡報第 5 頁上有一個快速入門，我建議您閱讀以了解更多背景資訊。說完這些，我會把電話轉給克里斯。

Thanks very much, Josh, and hello, everybody. Apologies in advance, like it feels to me like half the people in New York and London have come down with the February, March bug. So apologies if my voice is a little crackly or I am coughing during this.

非常感謝，喬希，大家好。先致歉，我覺得紐約和倫敦有一半的人都感染了二月、三月的病毒。所以，如果我的聲音有點嘶啞或我咳嗽的話，請原諒。

As Josh said, and we're going to start with slide 6. As Josh said, this is a new format, and it's something that you can anticipate seeing going forward. You're, of course, also seeing for the first time a full US Form 10-K. We expect to file that later today. And these slides now take the form of our full earnings presentation, earnings release combined into one document as opposed to having two separate documents that we had in the past. We hope you'll find us useful and helpful, and it matches the way that, of course, you see all of the classic US public auto managers and others providing better information to people.

正如 Josh 所說，我們將從第 6 張投影片開始。正如喬許所說，這是一種新的格式，也是您可以期待在未來看到的東西。當然，您也是第一次看到完整的美國 10-K 表格。我們預計將於今天稍後提交該文件。這些投影片現在採用了我們的完整收益簡報和收益發布的形式，合併為一個文件，而不是像過去那樣分成兩個單獨的文件。我們希望您發現我們有用且有幫助，並且這與您看到的所有經典美國公共汽車管理人員和其他人向人們提供更好資訊的方式相符。

So this first slide 6 will always lead with. These are our GAAP numbers, and they're important to lead upfront for GAAP prominence, but at the same time, these are not the things that management is terribly focused on. We're focused on cash more than accounting numbers. But before I take you to the cash, where there's some pretty exciting news, I will just say a word or two about accounting, because I think there may have been a little bit of confusion after we put these release -- after we put these results out which caused, from my perspective, a reasonably adverse market reaction.

因此，第一張投影片 6 將始終以它為首。這些是我們的 GAAP 數據，它們對於 GAAP 的突出地位至關重要，但同時，這些並不是管理層非常關注的事情。我們更關注現金而不是會計數字。但是，在談到現金之前，我會有一些令人興奮的消息，但我只想說一兩句關於會計的事情，因為我認為在我們發布這些結果之後，可能會出現一點混亂，從我的角度來看，這導致了相當不利的市場反應。

Most significantly, when we show unrealized gains or losses separately in these accounting matters, that does not any longer necessarily mean that something has happened with respect to the substance of the cases.So for example, in the fourth quarter of 2024, you see a negative number for unrealized losses, that does not correlate to the portfolio performing poorly. In fact, the portfolio performed very well in the fourth quarter, we had dramatically more, multiples more of positive case milestones than we had negative case milestones. We only had a few negative case milestones amounting to a very small amount of money, small single-digit millions.

最重要的是，當我們在這些會計事項中單獨顯示未實現收益或損失時，這並不一定意味著就案件實質而言發生了某些事情。例如，在 2024 年第四季度，您會看到未實現損失為負數，這與投資組合表現不佳無關。事實上，我們的投資組合在第四季度表現非常出色，我們的積極案例里程碑比消極案例里程碑多得多。我們只有幾個負面案例，金額非常小，只有幾百萬。

So Jordan is going to walk you through at one of the later slides in a bridge to show you all of the different components that you now see in those kinds of numbers. But it's important not to look at them and say, oh my goodness, a number in parenthesis means that something bad might have happened in the portfolio. That isn't the case at all.

因此，喬丹將在後面的一張幻燈片中向您展示橋樑中現在看到的所有不同組成部分。但重要的是不要看著它們說，哦天哪，括號中的數字意味著投資組合中可能發生了一些不好的事情。事實根本不是這樣。

So let's turn to slide 7, which is really the focus of my message to you today because as I said just a minute ago, when Jon and Jordan and I and everybody else who runs this business looks at the business and how we think it's doing, we focus on cash. We focus on how the portfolio is performing and what is going on with respect to concluded cases and bringing in cash for the business. And on that metric, we had an amazing year. These are blowout results for us.

所以讓我們翻到第 7 張幻燈片，這實際上是我今天要向你們傳達的重點，因為正如我剛才所說，當喬恩、喬丹、我和其他經營這項業務的人審視業務以及我們認為它的運作情況時，我們關注的是現金。我們關注投資組合的表現、案件的結案情況以及為企業帶來現金的情況。從這個指標來看，我們度過了令人驚嘆的一年。對我們來說這是令人震驚的結果。

We set a number of new records this year. Our realizations were very high. In other words, realizations, meaning cases that have actually concluded, and they came from lots of different things. So this wasn't a period where we had just one big winner, we had lots of things go well. We brought in a very significant amount of cash, more than we ever had in our history. And beyond just bringing in cash and realizations, we had very strong levels of net realized gains. In other words, the profits that we make on our investments.

我們今年創下了許多新紀錄。我們的認識非常高。換句話說，實現是指實際上已經結束的案例，它們來自許多不同的事情。因此，這並不是一個只有一個大贏家的時期，很多事情都很順利。我們獲得了大量現金，比我們歷史上任何時候都多。除了帶來現金和實現收益之外，我們還獲得了非常強勁的淨實現收益。換句話說，就是我們從投資中獲得的利潤。

So those were an annual record by a very wide margin and much higher than they had been in prior years. So this is all consistent with the theme that we've been sounding to you for a little while, which is that after a couple of years of very slow movement in the court system because of the pandemic, gosh, it has taken a long time for that motor to get back to running smoothly. But that's where it is now. And we're seeing the benefits of it come through in the kind of portfolio activity that we're demonstrating.

因此，這些數字創下了年度新高，並且遠高於前幾年的數字。所以這一切都與我們一段時間以來一直向您強調的主題一致，那就是，由於疫情的影響，司法系統在經歷了幾年的非常緩慢的運轉之後，天啊，這台發動機花了很長時間才恢復平穩運轉。但現在的情況就是這樣。我們從我們展示的投資組合活動中看到了它帶來的好處。

And it's not only that the portfolio is performing strongly and concluding -- and giving us concluded cases that are generating strong cash realizations for us, it's also that our returns have recovered to very high levels. In fact, our 2024 net realized gains were about double the level of realized gains in the prior year and above our historical track record overall. So that was at more than 100%, 108% ROIC or for those who prefer MOIC, more than a double, more than a 2.1x MOIC.

而且不僅投資組合表現強勁，並且為我們提供了產生強勁現金實現的已結案案例，而且我們的回報也恢復到了非常高的水平。事實上，我們 2024 年的淨實現收益大約是去年實現收益的兩倍，而且總體上高於我們的歷史記錄。因此，這超過了 100%、108% 的 ROIC，或者對於那些喜歡 MOIC 的人來說，超過了兩倍，超過了 2.1 倍的 MOIC。

And at the same time, that -- all of the data that I've just given you has focused on cases that have been in the portfolio and have made their way to the end and concluded. At the same time, we're continuing to grow the portfolio to set ourselves up for future performance. And you can see with the chart on the right, the portfolio has been growing by about a 15% CAGR over the last four or five years. We continued to see growth during 2024, growth -- portfolio growth of about 8% and that's, of course, measured the way we talk about portfolio here is deployments out the door and milestones.

同時，我剛剛給你們的所有數據都集中在已經納入投資組合並且已經結束的案件。同時，我們正在繼續擴大投資組合，為未來的表現做好準備。您可以從右側的圖表中看到，過去四到五年來，投資組合的複合年增長率約為 15%。我們在 2024 年繼續看到成長，成長 - 投資組合成長約 8%，當然，這是衡量我們在這裡談論投資組合的方式是部署和里程碑。

But the other thing you're going to hear us talk about more and more, and Jon is going to go into this a little bit, and we're going to go into it even more at Investor Day in a month or so, is we're going to begin now sharing more about the way that we look at these things inside the business. And that's what we call target realizations. And so when we write new business, we're trying to determine what we think that business is going to produce over the life of that litigation matter. And our target realizations for our 2024 new business were up significantly year-over-year. And again, I believe, set a new record.

但是，您將會聽到我們越來越多地談論的另一件事，喬恩將會稍微深入討論這個問題，我們將在一個月左右的投資者日上進一步討論這個問題，我們現在將開始更多地分享我們在業務內部看待這些事情的方式。這就是我們所說的目標實現。因此，當我們開展新業務時，我們會試圖確定該業務在訴訟過程中將會產生什麼結果。我們 2024 年新業務的目標實現情況較去年同期大幅成長。我相信，這將再次創下新紀錄。

Turning to slide 8, just briefly before I turn you over to Jordan. This is just a snapshot of some financial metrics, and I'm not going to go through each one of these, but I would just sort of highlight for you again, that net realized gain number, the second line in the left-hand table, not quite, but pretty close to being a double year-over-year and return on equity, while we have not yet made it to that aspiration of 20% that we have talked about the business being able to produce on a sustained basis. We're pleased with the progress that we're making towards that goal with a 14% rolling average for the moment.

翻到第 8 張投影片，在我把時間交給喬丹之前。這只是一些財務指標的快照，我不會逐一介紹，但我只想再次為您強調一下，淨實現收益數字，左側表格中的第二行，不完全是，但非常接近同比增長一倍，而股本回報率，雖然我們尚未達到我們所說的業務能夠持續產生的 20％ 的期望。我們對實現這一目標所取得的進展感到滿意，目前的平均滾動成長率為 14%。

And with that, we'll be happy to take your questions at the end. I'll turn you over to Jordan and Jon.

最後，我們很樂意回答您的問題。我將把你們交給喬丹和喬恩。

Thank you, Chris, and hello, everybody. As we've discussed previously, this year, we flipped over from a foreign private issuer to a US domestic filer, and with that transition, you will start to see 10-Ks and 10-Qs rather than the 20-F.

謝謝你，克里斯，大家好。正如我們之前所討論過的，今年，我們從外國私人發行人轉變為美國國內申報人，隨著這一轉變，您將開始看到 10-K 和 10-Q，而不是 20-F。

In addition, this spring, you'll see us file our first proxy statement. Let's start off first that none of these changes have an impact on the historical financials. But there are, as Josh mentioned earlier, a number of important changes in the presentation, which I'll outline.

此外，今年春天，您將看到我們提交第一份代理聲明。首先我們要明白，這些變化都不會對歷史財務狀況產生影響。但是，正如 Josh 之前提到的，簡報中存在一些重要變化，我將概述這些變化。

So for those investors who've been following our numbers for years, you'll know that Burford has always been focused on providing disclosure that represents what shareholders actually own, that's why we've always outlined the difference between Burford-only and our consolidated financials.

因此，對於那些多年來一直關注我們數據的投資者來說，您會知道，伯福德一直致力於提供代表股東實際擁有的資產的資訊揭露，這就是為什麼我們始終概述伯福德財務狀況和我們的合併財務狀況之間的差異。

Our consolidated financials include the private fund entities and other third-party interests. Let me give you two examples of those. One, are the Colorado units that represent YPF entitlement that was sold previously to third parties. And two, the BOF-C, the Sovereign Wealth Fund, that partners with the balance sheet on investments.

我們的合併財務狀況包括私募基金實體和其他第三方利益。讓我給你舉兩個例子。一是科羅拉多州單位，代表先前出售給第三方的 YPF 權益。第二，BOF-C，即主權財富基金，與資產負債表合作進行投資。

While these entities are consolidated under accounting standards, the economic ownership of these resides with third parties. Beginning this reporting period, the Burford-only disclosure will be enhanced. We're going to use more prominently the use of segment reporting. We have two reportable segments: Principal Finance and Asset Management.

雖然這些實體是根據會計準則合併的，但它們的經濟所有權卻屬於第三方。從本報告期間開始，僅針對伯福德的揭露將得到加強。我們將更突出地使用分部報告。我們有兩個可報告的部門：主要財務部門和資產管理部門。

Principal Finance captures the financial impact of the legal finance portfolio that's funded by the Burford balance sheet and Asset Management, as you can well imagine, captures fee income from Burford's private funds funded by third-party capital as well as some income from other service-related operations. The sum of these is -- or two segments and referred to as total segment, and that disclosure is consistent with an identical to reporting on an aggregate Burford-only basis.

主要財務部分捕捉由伯福德資產負債表和資產管理資助的法律財務組合的財務影響，正如你可以想像的，它捕捉由第三方資本資助的伯福德私人基金的費用收入以及來自其他服務相關運營的一些收入。這些的總和是——或兩個部分，稱為總部分，並且該披露與僅以 Burford 為總體基礎的報告一致。

There are a couple of other items that changed, and I'll make sure to highlight those when we get to other sections of the presentation. But what are the takeaways that you should have from these changes? There are two. First, historical numbers have stayed the same, and we're committed to the same level of transparency that we provided to shareholders over the years. And second, the disclosure will be easier to digest for everyone, most importantly, investors that are new to the Burford story.

還有其他一些項目發生了變化，當我們進入簡報的其他部分時，我一定會強調這些變化。但是您應該從這些變化中得到什麼啟示呢？有兩個。首先，歷史數據保持不變，我們致力於保持多年來為股東提供的相同透明度。其次，資訊揭露將更容易被所有人接受，最重要的是，那些剛接觸伯福德故事的投資者。

Moving to page 11. This is the first example where I'm going to start using some of the nomenclature total segments. This is the same as what we would have called Burford-only and we will at times use them both interchangeably.

移至第 11 頁。這是我將開始使用一些術語“總段”的第一個例子。這與我們所說的「僅限伯福德」相同，有時我們會互換使用它們。

Overall, a strong year for 2024, particularly from a cash perspective, it's difficult to stack it up to the prior year on revenue recognition, which includes the significant revenue from the YPF submit judgment, but realized gains were up 75% for the year to a new record, and that's the driver of the $460 million in revenue in 2024. And -- we obviously didn't have another YPF size win and thus unrealized gains are lower and will move around period to period. I'll go into that in greater detail as we continue to discuss.

總體而言，2024 年是強勁的一年，尤其是從現金角度來看，很難將其與上一年的收入確認相提並論，其中包括 YPF 提交判決的大量收入，但全年實現收益增長 75%，創下新高，這是 2024 年 4.6 億美元收入的驅動力。而且——我們顯然沒有再次獲得 YPF 規模的勝利，因此未實現收益較低並且會隨時間變動。當我們繼續討論時，我會更詳細地討論這個問題。

Operating expenses were down significantly in 2024 from 2023 by approximately 43%, and that was driven by the lower long-term incentive compensation that corresponded with the unrealized gains in 2023, again, associated predominantly with YPF.

2024 年的營業費用較 2023 年大幅下降約 43%，這是由於與 2023 年未實現收益相對應的長期激勵薪酬較低，同樣主要與 YPF 相關。

Let's go to the Principal Finance segment. So this section outlines, as I mentioned, the portfolio that directly owns, it's our balance sheet investments. Here's what's changed with the migration to the 10-K and how it impacts this segment in particular. First off, we're going to be discontinuing the use of the labels, capital provision-direct, core portfolio, capital provision-indirect.

我們來看看主要財務部分。正如我所提到的，本節概述了直接擁有的投資組合，這是我們的資產負債表投資。以下是向 10-K 遷移後發生的變化以及它對這一部分的具體影響。首先，我們將停止使用「直接資本供應」、「核心投資組合」、「間接資本供應」等標籤。

That being said, our performance and track record measures such as return on invested capital and IRR will be consistent with prior reporting. Those figures have always and will reflect direct funding by the balance sheet and exclude the impact of any balance sheet commitments to private funds.

話雖如此，我們的業績和業績記錄指標（例如投資資本回報率和內部收益率）將與先前的報告保持一致。這些數字始終將反映資產負債表的直接融資，並且不包括任何資產負債表對私人基金承諾的影響。

On page 14, let's start with a snapshot of the portfolio. I'll mention some of the key highlights. The portfolio has grown at a 15% CAGR over the last five years and has now topped $5 billion. And this is a Burford-only number. Group-wide, we're around $7.5 billion. Our fair value on the bottom of the page is broken into its various components. YPF represents less than half of the portfolio at approximately 40% of the assets.

在第 14 頁，讓我們從投資組合的快照開始。我將提到一些主要亮點。過去五年來，該投資組合的複合年增長率為 15%，目前已超過 50 億美元。這是伯福德獨有的號碼。我們整個集團的資產總額約為 75 億美元。頁面底部的公允價值被分解成各個組成部分。YPF 佔該投資組合的資產約 40%，不到一半。

Fair value marks on our current portfolio, excluding YPF, are slightly less than one-third or 31% of deployed cost. So if we repeat our historical performance, there's a lot of incremental revenue to come from the portfolio. And note that our deployed cost has been growing at about the same mid-teens rate, meaning that our growth is fundamental and not driven just by fair value.

我們目前投資組合（不包括YPF）的公允價值分數略低於部署成本的三分之一或31％。因此，如果我們重複歷史表現，那麼投資組合將會帶來大量增量收入。請注意，我們的部署成本一直以大約相同的十五六成的速度成長，這意味著我們的成長是根本性的，而不僅僅由公允價值驅動。

On the right-hand side, we highlight the diversity of our portfolio, which is both global in nature, as you see on the top right, as well as made up of very -- many different asset classes.

在右側，我們重點介紹了我們投資組合的多樣性，正如您在右上角看到的，它既具有全球性，又由許多不同的資產類別組成。

Moving to page 15. So here, you'll see the breakdown of our capital provision income with $327 million of net realized gains. Again, that's close to 75% increase when compared to last year. Those gains were driven by three realizations that individually exceeded $50 million and four more case resolutions of over $20 million.

移至第 15 頁。在這裡，您將看到我們的資本準備收入的明細，其中實現的淨收益為 3.27 億美元。與去年相比，這一數字再次成長了近 75%。這些收益是由三起單獨超過 5,000 萬美元的案件實現和另外四起超過 2,000 萬美元的案件解決所推動的。

Unrealized gains are negative for a year. The portfolio had positive momentum. However, that number is net of the transfer of previously recognized unrealized gains into realized gains, which occurs when an asset resolves.

未實現收益一年內為負。投資組合呈現出正面動能。然而，該數字是扣除先前確認的未實現收益轉為已實現收益後的淨額，這種情況發生在資產解決時。

Discount rates were certainly volatile through 2024. Through the first half of the year, we saw rates rising and creating a significant headwind to our unrealized value gains. Then in the third quarter, we saw a valuation discount rate drop approximately 90 basis points. This reverse course in the first quarter as rates increased significantly.

到 2024 年，折扣率肯定會不穩定。今年上半年，我們看到利率上升並對我們的未實現價值收益產生了巨大阻力。然後在第三季度，我們看到估值折現率下降了約 90 個基點。由於利率大幅上升，這一趨勢在第一季發生了逆轉。

So let's sum it up and there were volatility in the quarter. And that certainly created considerable negative movement in the fourth quarter. Rates backed up by about 52 basis points, which is why a strong quarter on fundamental perspective can be masked by these movements.

所以，我們總結一下，本季存在波動。這無疑為第四季度帶來了相當大的負面影響。利率上漲了約 52 個基點，這就是為什麼從基本面來看強勁的一個季度可能會被這些變動所掩蓋。

A reminder, rate-driven movements are noncash and have no bearing on the terminal value of our capital provision assets. But overall, the discount rate on the portfolio basically remained flat over the course of the year, finishing at 6.9% compared to 7% at the end of 2023. And the bottom of this page outlines the impact of these rates, and other discrete factors on the ending balance of our capital provision assets.

提醒一下，利率驅動的變動是非現金的，對我們的資本提供資產的終值沒有影響。但總體而言，該投資組合的折現率在一年內基本保持平穩，最終為 6.9%，而 2023 年底為 7%。本頁底部概述了這些利率和其他離散因素對我們的資本準備資產期末餘額的影響。

So this is new disclosure. Let me walk through it in a little detail. So let's focus on the left-hand side of the page first. That outlines the movements throughout the year, right-hand side is the quarter.

因此這是新的披露。讓我詳細講解一下。因此我們首先關注頁面的左側。這概括了全年的走勢，右邊是季度。

First, let's start with the cash and cash movements of deployments and then realizations. Deployments can be either dripped over time as our clients incur expenses or monetizations in which we provide our clients significant working capital upfront in the beginning of a case. The cash going out the door, which is capitalized in our asset balance, is offset by the realizations on the portfolio. You see those realizations in the red shading, which is the conclusion of our assets turning into a receivable.

首先，讓我們從部署和實現的現金和現金流動開始。隨著客戶費用的增加，部署可以逐漸減少，也可以在案件開始時預先為客戶提供大量營運資金。流出的現金（在我們的資產餘額中資本化）由投資組合的實現所抵銷。您可以看到紅色陰影中的那些實現，這是我們的資產轉變為應收帳款的結論。

We then have the impact of duration or the passage of time. This is the increase in value of our assets as they get closer to the ultimate resolution. Next is the discount reach, which we discussed a lot already, with minimal movement in the year, there's limited impact in 2024 from discount rate changes.

我們進而感受到持續時間或時間流逝的影響。隨著我們的資產越來越接近最終解決方案，我們的資產價值也隨之增加。接下來是折扣範圍，我們已經討論了很多，由於今年的變動很小，因此折扣率變化對 2024 年的影響有限。

And then finally, we have the $166 million associated with the fair value impact of milestone changes and other model impacts. As a reminder, milestones are objective occurrences in a legal case that can be either positive or negative as the case progresses forward to conclusion.

最後，我們有 1.66 億美元與里程碑變化和其他模型影響的公允價值影響有關。提醒一下，里程碑是法律案件中的客觀事件，隨著案件的進展直至結束，它可能是積極的，也可能是消極的。

Before turning the page, the right-hand side, again, illustrates the same content, demonstrating both the significant headwind of the change in interest rates but then also the positive impact of milestones, and of course, the high number of realizations in the fourth quarter.

在翻過這一頁之前，右側再次展示了相同的內容，既展示了利率變化帶來的重大阻力，也展示了里程碑的積極影響，當然還有第四季度的高實現數量。

Moving to page 16. Our portfolio continues to build. As Chris mentioned, we're not just focused on commitment employment, our business has actually shifted considerably over the years. Look at the diversification in the portfolio, which I highlighted earlier in terms of geography and asset type, and it's also important to recognize that the return profile of our asset is not homogeneous. Different assets have different durations, implied IRRs, different risk profiles and other financial characteristics.

移至第 16 頁。我們的投資組合持續擴大。正如克里斯所提到的，我們不僅僅關注承諾就業，我們的業務多年來實際上已經發生了巨大的轉變。看看投資組合的多樣化，我之前強調過的地理和資產類型多樣化，同樣重要的是要認識到我們資產的回報狀況並不均勻。不同資產有不同的久期、隱含內部報酬率、不同的風險狀況和其他財務特徵。

Thus, as we think about new business, we are originating each year, we focus on the target realizations that the new business will produce.

因此，當我們考慮每年開展的新業務時，我們都會專注於新業務將產生的目標實現。

We plan on providing a lot more detail on this topic in April. I hope you all can join us at our Investor Day. But overall, we are excited about the business that we wrote in 2024 and -- and it's targeted to have higher realizations than the business we had written in previous years.

我們計劃在四月份提供有關該主題的更多詳細資訊。我希望大家都能參加我們的投資者日。但總的來說，我們對 2024 年所開展的業務感到興奮，我們的目標是比前幾年所開展的業務實現更高的收益。

Switching back to some of the other metrics, though, on the page, we've been consistently deploying around $400 million per annum for the balance sheet. And our outstanding commitments to counterparties on a definitive basis has grown significantly and is at $774 million as of year-end. Of course, it's important to note this will not happen all at once but rather over time.

不過，回到頁面上的其他一些指標，我們一直在為資產負債表持續部署每年約 4 億美元。我們對交易對手的未償承諾大幅成長，截至年底已達 7.74 億美元。當然，必須注意的是，這不會一下子發生，而是需要隨著時間的推移。

And with that, I will hand it over to Jon to discuss the portfolio performance over the last year.

接下來，我將把主題交給喬恩，討論過去一年的投資組合表現。

Thanks, Jordan, and thanks to you all for joining. I'm very excited to be talking about these results today. And if we turn to Slide 17, I'm going to do three things with this slide. One is just to go over the highlights, which are pretty significant, and I'm very proud of. The second is to flesh out what Jordan and Chris actually earlier mentioned about this focus on targeted realizations, and I think these numbers will help explain that. And then third, to provide a little further nuance, really a preview of what we're going to discuss on Investor Day. .

謝謝喬丹，也謝謝大家的加入。我很高興今天談論這些結果。如果我們翻到第 17 張投影片，我將用這張投影片做三件事。一是回顧一下亮點，這些亮點非常重要，我感到非常自豪。第二個目的是充實喬丹和克里斯之前提到的關於關注目標實現的內容，我認為這些數字將有助於解釋這一點。第三，為了提供進一步的細微差別，實際上預覽了我們將在投資者日討論的內容。。

So first, just the highlights on this slide. Realizations of $641 million in '24, which is a significant increase from '23. This is not one case that happened to hit, right? There are seven assets, each generated more than $20 million, three of those generated more than $50 million, it was spread in terms of vintages, such that four of the matters were pre COVID, $187 million generated by those.

首先，我們只介紹這張投影片上的重點內容。'24年獲利6.41億美元，較'23年大幅成長。這不是偶然發生的一起案件吧？共有七項資產，每項資產創造的收入超過 2,000 萬美元，其中三項資產創造的收入超過 5,000 萬美元，按年份分佈，其中四項是在 COVID 之前，創造了 1.87 億美元的收入。

The ROICs were very strong. You see the 108% number for the year. That was -- that picked up. It's an increase from last year, and it's above our historical average because of some good resolutions in the second and fourth quarters, which had high ROICs, which brought up the overall average. And the net realized gains, which is really what investors care about, at $327.That's not just larger, but it's more than double the average annual net realized gains over the prior four years. Like that's really, really impressive. I've been saying for some time that the portfolio is moving. I'm really excited about it, but to see it translate into cash realizations and to see those realizations with an upward trend in ROIC is really, really exciting.

投資資本回報率 (ROIC) 非常強勁。您會看到今年的數字是 108%。那是 — — 那是撿起來的。這比去年有所增加，並且高於我們的歷史平均水平，因為第二季度和第四季度的一些良好決議產生了較高的 ROIC，從而提高了整體平均水平。而投資者真正關心的淨實現收益為 327 美元。這不僅金額較大，而且是前四年平均年度淨實現收益的兩倍多。這真的非常令人印象深刻。我已經說過一段時間了，投資組合正在改變。我對此感到非常興奮，但看到它轉化為現金實現，並看到這些實現在 ROIC 中呈現上升趨勢，真的非常令人興奮。

Now the second thing I want to point out is Jordan talked about targeted realizations. Why do we care about that? What does it mean? Just look at the last two columns on the right, the last two bars, and just look at the balance sheet only numbers. So in 2024, and we're going to compare '24 to '23, in 2024, you've got $625 million of realizations, which results in, if you look at the excluding private fund interest, $325 million of realized gains. Well, what does that mean? It means, basically, for those deals that concluded in '24, we had put out $300 million. We got back $625 million, so $325 million was gain.

現在我想指出的第二件事是喬丹談到了有針對性的實現。我們為什麼要關心這個？這是什麼意思？只看右邊的最後兩列，最後兩根長條圖，只看資產負債表的數字。因此，在 2024 年，我們將比較 24 年和 23 年，在 2024 年，您將獲得 6.25 億美元的實現收益，如果排除私募基金利息，則可實現 3.25 億美元的收益。那麼，這是什麼意思呢？這意味著，基本上，對於那些在 24 年達成的交易，我們已經投入了 3 億美元。我們收回了 6.25 億美元，所以獲利 3.25 億美元。

Let's look back at '23 how we did. We had $496 million in realizations, the red bar, balance sheet only, and $186 million of that was gain. Well, that means that the deals that generated those realizations in '23 accounted for $310 million of deployed capital. So one who's just looking at deployment and commitments and say, well, wait a second, the deals you put out that generated the realizations in '23, that was $310 million worth of investment versus $300 million worth of investment that concluded in '24.

讓我們回顧一下23年我們的表現。我們的實現金額為 4.96 億美元（紅色條，僅指資產負債表），其中 1.86 億美元是收益。嗯，這意味著'23年產生這些收益的交易占部署資本的3.1億美元。因此，如果只看部署和承諾，人們就會說，好吧，等一下，你達成的交易在 1923 年實現了 3.1 億美元的投資，而 1924 年實現的投資為 3 億美元。

Well, that doesn't show growth. But look, you'd much rather put out $300 million to generate $625 million than $310 million to generate $496 million. I'm not saying '23 was a bad year. It was a great year. But '24 was even better on that metric. And that's why you can understand when we're looking at new deals, having looked at this experience, we care not just about how much money you're putting out. What we care about, which is what shareholders care about and we, the management team, our shareholders and our interests are line, we care about the money that's going to come back in how much money we get to make on these investments. That's what we care about.

嗯，這並沒有顯示出成長。但你看，你寧願投入 3 億美元來產生 6.25 億美元的收益，而不是投入 3.1 億美元來產生 4.96 億美元的收益。我並不是說 23 年是糟糕的一年。這是偉大的一年。但從這個指標來看，24 甚至表現得更好。這就是為什麼你能理解，當我們在尋找新交易時，基於這項經驗，我們關心的不僅僅是你投入了多少錢。我們所關心的也是股東所關心的，我們，管理團隊，我們的股東和我們的利益是一致的，我們關心的是這些投資能帶來多少錢的回報。這才是我們關心的。

Now the third thing I want to mention is I don't want us to think -- you to think, we are slavishly adhering to some really high minimum ROIC number and then rejecting opportunities that don't meet that threshold because we want our numbers to go up. We like the 108% this year versus earlier, so we're not going to do a deal below.

現在我想說的第三件事是，我不希望我們認為——你們認為，我們正在盲目地遵守一些非常高的最低 ROIC 數字，然後拒絕那些不符合該門檻的機會，因為我們想讓我們的數字上升。與去年同期相比，我們喜歡今年的 108%，因此我們不會低於這個水平進行交易。

That's not the case. We have lots of opportunities that -- particularly large corporate monetizations that are lower risk and typically lower -- shorter duration, that will not generate that kind of ROIC but will generate really attractive IRRs and we will be able to churn the capital and reinvest it in profitable future opportunities.

事實並非如此。我們有很多機會，特別是大型企業貨幣化，風險較低，期限通常也較短，雖然不會產生那種投資回報率，但會產生真正有吸引力的內部收益率，我們將能夠攪動資本並將其再投資於未來有利可圖的機會。

So we'll talk on Investor Day about how we balance those things, how we are looking at targeted realizations, but we are taking into account duration and risk as well because that's what makes a really attractive portfolio, and the difference between, say, a large commercial monetization, where it might be turning faster versus, say, a single patent case where you're putting up money that may take longer, but you have the potential to ring the bell.

因此，我們將在投資者日討論如何平衡這些因素，如何看待目標實現，但我們也會考慮持續時間和風險，因為這是真正有吸引力的投資組合的要素，以及大型商業貨幣化與單一專利案例之間的區別，大型商業貨幣化可能會以更快的速度轉變，而單一專利案例中你投入的資金可能需要更長時間，但你有可能敲響警鐘。

If we turn to slide 18, this is a slide you've seen before, but updated with new numbers, you see how we are able to generate that spread of potential returns that our bread and butter, the bulk of things that we invest in do resolved through settlement.

如果我們翻到第 18 張投影片，這是一張您之前見過的投影片，但更新了新的數字，您會看到我們如何能夠產生潛在回報，而我們賴以生存的大部分投資都是透過結算解決的。

These are cases where there are strong commercial cases and ultimately, both sides understand they have merit, both sides understand that there's going to be a business resolution here, and they're going to settle. But the claimant needs our cash as a corporate finance mechanism in order to use it for other purposes or to finance the litigation, so they don't bear the expense while it's running.

這些案件都有很強的商業理由，最終，雙方都明白這些案件有其優點，雙方都明白這裡將會有一個商業解決方案，而且雙方將會達成和解。但原告需要我們的現金作為公司融資機制，以便將其用於其他目的或為訴訟提供資金，因此他們在運作期間不必承擔費用。

And those are quite attractive opportunities. But there are occasions where it doesn't resolve through settlement. The parties can't agree. They go to adjudication. You see our wins far outstrip our losses and generate really high and attractive returns. And our loss rate is quite attractive when you look at the full balance of the portfolio.

這些都是相當有吸引力的機會。但有時問題無法透過和解來解決。各方無法達成一致。他們去進行裁決。您可以看到我們的利潤遠遠超過虧損，並且產生了真正高且有吸引力的回報。當你查看投資組合的全部餘額時，我們的損失率是相當有吸引力。

One thing about these numbers compared to past numbers is you see our ROIC since inception has ticked up from 82% last year to 87% now this year. That stands to reason. You have a year where 108% with our blended ROIC and all the resolutions, it's going to bring up the averages. So to those who say, oh, can you maintain this over time as you grow? Are you going to maintain the returns, I think these numbers speak for themselves, and I'm very, very happy about that.

與過去的數字相比，這些數字的一個特點是，您會看到我們自成立以來的 ROIC 已從去年的 82％ 上升到今年的 87％。這很有道理。某一年的混合 ROIC 和所有決議達到了 108%，這將提高平均值。那麼對於那些問「隨著你的成長，你能一直保持這種狀態嗎？」的人你會保持回報嗎？我想這些數字不言而喻，我對此非常非常高興。

If we turn to slide 19, I love this slide. You've seen it before, but it's great to see the spread of potential matters where it has the venture capital type feel of those red bars to the far right with truly outsized returns, but it doesn't have the same kind of risk because when you look at the black bars to the left, they are smaller and the losses are much more contained, right?

如果我們翻到第 19 張投影片，我很喜歡這張投影片。您之前已經看到過這種情況，但很高興看到潛在事項的蔓延，它具有最右邊那些紅條的風險投資類型的感覺，具有真正超額的回報，但它沒有同樣的風險，因為當您查看左邊的黑條時，它們更小，損失也更加可控，對嗎？

The third bullet on the left talks about 14% of our deployments experienced losses, but we got back 32% of deployed costs. So we have less than a 10% lifetime loss rate and that 14% that are the red bars that from the second bullet that are more than 2x, generate really outsized returns. The asymmetry is really attractive.

左邊第三點談到，我們的 14% 的部署遭遇了損失，但我們收回了 32% 的部署成本。因此，我們的終生損失率不到 10%，而第二條紅條中的 14% 是超過 2 倍的，產生了真正超額的回報。這種不對稱確實很有吸引力。

And actually, this chart also can provide a little more color on when Jordan and Chris talked about targeted realizations. Because you could imagine we will have deals that we look at that we think this could be -- this spread of all of our investments could represent the modeled spread of outcomes for a single investment as well.

實際上，這張圖表還可以提供更多關於喬丹和克里斯談論目標實現的資訊。因為你可以想像，我們會有一些我們認為可能的交易——我們所有投資的利差也可以代表單項投資結果的模型利差。

But there's no doubt that when we look at things at the beginning, some of them have characteristics that make them more capable of generating the red truly outsized returns with the risk of the black that we've seen that our track record is pretty good there.

但毫無疑問，當我們從一開始看事物時，其中一些特徵使它們更有能力產生真正超額的紅色回報，同時也面臨黑色風險，我們已經看到我們在這方面的業績記錄相當不錯。

Some of them we can see are more likely to be in the green. And we can tell that at the beginning. There's always going to be a range. We're going to model the range of outcomes, but we know there's a different risk profile and duration profile, which this slide doesn't capture, and we'll say some more about that on Investor Day next month.

我們可以看到，其中一些更有可能出現盈利。我們一開始就可以講出這一點。總是會有一個範圍。我們將對各種結果進行建模，但我們知道存在不同的風險狀況和持續時間狀況，這張投影片沒有捕捉到這些，我們將在下個月的投資者日上進一步討論這一點。

If you turn to slide 20, this breaks it out as we've done in the past by vintage of investment rather than the years that the money is coming in or the realizations are occurring. And what's really nice about this is when you compare the black vertical bars to the red ones, you see how well the portfolio has returned in the past. The red bars are much taller than the black. But you also see those gray bars, which is those are the deals we have done, the money we've put out that still is out there, and we hope we'll make those red bars even higher when we reproduce this slide in future periods.

如果你翻到第 20 張投影片，你會看到，我們像過去一樣，按照投資年份而不是資金流入或實現收益的年份進行分類。真正有趣的是，當您將黑色垂直條與紅色垂直條進行比較時，您會看到投資組合過去的回報率有多高。紅色條比黑色條高得多。但是您也會看到那些灰色條，那是我們已經完成的交易，是我們投入的資金，這些資金仍然存在，我們希望在未來時期重現此幻燈片時，我們可以使那些紅色條更高。

You can see the IRRs by vintage, which bounce around, which stands to reason that there's some things that are going to go longer, that might have attracted ROICs but lower IRRs. Others will come in faster with higher IRRs. It makes sense that like the last year, you've got a very high IRR because those things that resolve didn't have as much time out.

你可以看到不同年份的 IRR 有所波動，這意味著有些東西會持續更長時間，可能會吸引 ROIC 但 IRR 會降低。其他人將會以更高的 IRR 更快進入。這很有道理，就像去年一樣，你的 IRR 非常高，因為解決的那些事情並沒有花太多時間。

And finally, if we turn to slide 21, the status of the YPF-related assets, we don't really have much to say here. As we've said, it's not in investors' interest for us to give you the blow by blow. The basics that we've talked about in the past remain true. We have a judgement. Argentina has appealed to the second circuit its liability. We have crossed appealed on the YPF, the corporate defendant. There is an enforcement process that is ongoing both in the United States and in various jurisdictions around the world. And we're very much on top of all of it. And I think there's probably not much more I can or should say than that.

最後，如果我們翻到第 21 張投影片，也就是 YPF 相關資產的狀態，我們在這裡其實沒有什麼好說的。正如我們所說，向您提供詳細的資訊並不符合投資者的利益。我們過去談論的基本內容仍然適用。我們有一個判斷。阿根廷已向第二巡迴法院提起上訴，要求承認其責任。我們已經對被告公司YPF提起上訴。美國和世界各地的各個司法管轄區都在進行執法程序。我們對這一切瞭如指掌。我想我能說的或應該說的也就這些了。

And with that, I'll turn it back over. Thanks very much.

說完這些，我將其轉回去。非常感謝。

Thank you, Jon. And that's a natural transition from talking about our portfolio to the portfolios that we manage for third parties. The second segment, Asset Management, that's the second of our two segments, and this section here outlines some of the key metrics.

謝謝你，喬恩。這是我們談論我們的投資組合到我們為第三方管理的投資組合的自然過渡。第二部分，資產管理，這是我們兩個部分中的第二個，此部分概述了一些關鍵指標。

2024 was a slightly lower year with respect to revenue recognized given that our income is predominantly tied to the fair value movement of our assets. On a cash basis, we had $26 million of receipts in 2024 versus $32 million in 2023.

由於我們的收入主要與資產的公允價值變動掛鉤，因此 2024 年確認的收入略低。以現金計算，我們在 2024 年的收入為 2,600 萬美元，而 2023 年的收入為 3,200 萬美元。

I'm going to jump ahead to page 27. As we've mentioned throughout the presentation, 2024 was a great year with respect to cash generated on the assets in the portfolio as they concluded. Here's our cash bridge. We started the year at $300 million of cash and securities and ended the year at over $500 million. That's highlighted by almost $700 million of cash receipts. And while it's exciting to see the annual numbers, it's just satisfying to continue to see the productive quarters strung together quarter after quarter in a row on the bottom of the page.

我要跳到第 27 頁。正如我們在整個演示過程中所提到的，2024 年是投資組合資產產生現金的豐收年。這是我們的現金橋。我們年初的現金和證券價值為 3 億美元，年末則超過 5 億美元。其中最突出的是近7億美元的現金收入。雖然看到年度數字令人興奮，但看到在頁面底部連續幾個季度排列的生產季度也令人感到滿足。

In addition to the cash we have on hand, we currently have $184 million of receivables, and that's almost identical to the receivables we had on hand at the end of last year. However, they're not the same receivables. We collected approximately 97% of the receivables that were in place as of last year. And we maintain a history of very high rates of receivable collections after the litigation concludes.

除了我們手頭上的現金外，我們目前還有 1.84 億美元的應收帳款，這與我們去年年底手頭上的應收帳款幾乎相同。然而，它們並不是相同的應收帳款。我們收回了截至去年約 97% 的應收帳款。訴訟結束後，我們的應收帳款回收率一直非常高。

On page 28, an overview of our expenses. They're approximately 43% lower than last year. That reduction is driven primarily by the decrease in long-term incentive compensation attributable to the fair value movement in YPF. While this page illustrates the GAAP expenses on a cash basis, operating expenses, net of our change in working capital were $123 million, which was highlighted on the previous page in the cash bridge.

第 28 頁，概述了我們的費用。比去年低了約 43%。這一減少主要是由於 YPF 公允價值變動導致的長期激勵薪酬減少。雖然本頁以現金為基礎說明了 GAAP 費用，但扣除營運資本變動後的營業費用為 1.23 億美元，這在上一頁的現金橋中已重點介紹過。

Two items that warrant further explanation are share-based comp as well as the case related expenditures. First, on the share-based compensation line, that includes movement in our stock price of the deferred compensation for employees. And I know we've talked about that on previous calls, but as a reminder, when employees elect to defer their compensation into receiving Burford's stock, that creates a liability for us that changes with the stock price. If our share price rises, we see an expense and if it falls, we see a benefit.

需要進一步解釋的兩項是股權補償以及案件相關支出。首先，關於股權激勵條款，其中包括員工遞延薪酬的股價變動。我知道我們在之前的電話會議上討論過這個問題，但提醒一下，當員工選擇推遲領取薪酬以換取伯福德的股票時，這會給我們帶來一項隨著股價變化而變化的負債。如果我們的股價上漲，我們就會看到費用，如果股價下跌，我們就會看到收益。

The decline in our share price this year resulted in a positive impact of $4 million and a negative impact of $7 million in 2023. But these are accounting movements as we purchase the stock to hedge the economic impact.

我們今年股價的下跌產生了 400 萬美元的正面影響，並於 2023 年產生了 700 萬美元的負面影響。但這些都是會計變動，因為我們買股票是為了對沖經濟影響。

The other line item is the relatively low expense in case related expenditures not included in our asset cost. While that figure certainly has decreased since 2023, it also benefits from almost $4 million in an insurance settlement showing that we're not only good at financing other people's litigation but managing our own affairs.

另一項是如果相關支出未包含在我們的資產成本中，則費用相對較低。雖然這一數字自 2023 年以來肯定有所下降，但它也受益於近 400 萬美元的保險賠償，這表明我們不僅擅長為他人的訴訟提供資金，而且還擅長管理我們自己的事務。

On page 29, a quick review of our capital structure. We have close to $1.8 billion of debt outstanding with approximately $350 million of debt coming due in the next 20 months. We've been slowly chipping away at that outstanding balance coming due this summer having purchased about $50 million of that issuance below face value. At 0.8 times, our leverage level is well below covenant levels as well as our stated maximum of 1.25 times.

第 29 頁快速回顧我們的資本結構。我們有近 18 億美元的未償債務，其中約 3.5 億美元的債務將在未來 20 個月內到期。我們以低於面額的價格購買了約 5,000 萬美元的債券，並一直在慢慢償還今年夏天到期的未償還餘額。我們的槓桿率為 0.8 倍，遠低於契約水準以及我們規定的最高限額 1.25 倍。

And with that, I will hand it over to Chris to wrap up.

現在，我將把發言交給克里斯來結束。

Thanks, Jordan. And that takes us to slide 30. You've seen this slide before, and let me just return to where we started, which is the portfolio. .

謝謝，喬丹。這是第 30 頁的幻燈片。您之前已經看過這張投影片，讓我回到我們開始的地方，也就是投資組合。。

We've told you for a long time that we really like our portfolio. We're really happy with the quality that we perceive in it and the recent past, including 2024, has certainly borne that out in terms of how the portfolio has actually performed.

我們早就告訴過你們，我們真的很喜歡我們的作品集。我們對它的品質感到非常滿意，包括 2024 年在內的近期表現無疑證明了這一點，從投資組合的實際表現來看。

The big question, and Jon and I have talked about this before, the big question that we had was when we went through a period of very significant growth in the business a few years ago, the question was, could we maintain the investment quality and could we maintain the returns?

最大的問題是，喬恩和我之前談過這個問題，我們面臨的最大問題是，幾年前，當我們的業務經歷一個非常顯著的增長時期時，我們能否保持投資質量，能否保持回報？

And I think a number of you were wondering that as time passed, and I think what we've done now, as those investments have made their way through the process to the end, is show that we have been able to do that. And so now we're sitting on a very substantial portfolio that has years of runway ahead of it, producing high levels of cash and desirable returns. So we couldn't be happier with the portfolio and the way that it's performing, and that will be the source of many years of future cash flow generation.

我想你們中的很多人都想知道，隨著時間的推移，我們現在所做的，隨著這些投資已經完成了整個流程，表明我們能夠做到這一點。所以現在我們擁有一個非常龐大的投資組合，它有多年的發展空間，可以產生高水準的現金和理想的回報。因此，我們對投資組合及其表現感到非常滿意，這將成為未來多年現金流的來源。

At the same time, we are generating a significant amount of new business every year. And while we would always like to be generating more new business, the reality is, as we've expressed before, that it's challenging for us to do both at the same time, to have high levels of portfolio activity and also high levels of new business, but a 15% CAGR growth rate in the portfolio overall over the last four or five years, certainly seems a desirable level of growth from our perspective.

同時，我們每年都會創造大量新業務。儘管我們一直希望能創造更多的新業務，但正如我們之前所表達的，現實情況是，同時做到這兩點對我們來說具有挑戰性，即擁有高水平的投資組合活動和高水平的新業務，但從我們的角度來看，過去四五年來投資組合整體的複合年增長率為 15%，這無疑是一個理想的增長水平。

And as Jon said, we have this very large and very interesting YPF assets sitting out there, and we will wait and see what comes of that in the year or two to come.

正如喬恩所說，我們擁有非常龐大且非常有趣的 YPF 資產，我們將拭​​目以待，看看未來一兩年內會帶來什麼結果。

So with that, I think we're delighted to take your questions.

因此，我認為我們很高興回答您的問題。

(Operator Instructions) Mark DeVries, Deutsche Bank.

（操作員指示）德意志銀行的馬克‧德弗里斯 (Mark DeVries)。

First, I just wanted to clarify, Jordan, on the unrealized losses in the quarter, is that just -- that's primarily discount rate driven? Is that correct?

首先，喬丹，我只想澄清一下，本季的未實現損失是否主要是由折現率驅動的？那正確嗎？

Yes. It's driven by two items. It's not just the -- if you're looking at the fair value change, that can be driven obviously by the discount rate, but also the movement from unrealized into realized. And so in a quarter in which you're going to have a lot of realized gains, then you'll see a reduction in fair value. .

是的。它是由兩項因素驅動的。這不僅僅是——如果你正在看公允價值變動，這顯然可以由折現率驅動，而且也可以由未實現到已實現的變動驅動。因此，在您獲得大量實現收益的某個季度，您將看到公允價值的下降。。

Understood. Thank you. And then just turning to commitments in the quarter. Is there any color you can kind of provide on just the nature of some of the commitments you entered into and also kind of how you're feeling about the risk-adjusted returns of new commitments that you've entered into recently compared to the past?

明白了。謝謝。然後談談本季的承諾。您能否就您所做的一些承諾的性質提供一些說明，以及與過去相比，您對最近做出的新承諾的風險調整回報有何看法？

Jon, do you want to take that?

喬恩，你想拿著這個嗎？

Yeah, sure. This is Jon. I'm happy to take that. I can't give you color on individual investments would be against our policy, but I can tell you that we continue to see the same diversity of opportunities that are really quite attractive. I'd say over time, probably there's been even more diversity of opportunity with respect to geography and with respect to subject matter than there was even historically.

是的，當然。這是喬恩。我很高興接受這個。我無法告訴你哪些個別投資違反了我們的政策，但我可以告訴你，我們繼續看到同樣多樣化的機會，這些機會確實非常吸引人。我想說，隨著時間的推移，在地理和主題方面的機會可能比歷史上更加多樣化。

But -- and as I said before, there's a really good blend of what we find is in the US commercial space as we move from just generating opportunities through law firms to generating opportunities with corporates, sometimes that are introduced by law firms, but sometimes directly. They're often looking for larger amounts of money, and as I said, they could be portfolios with lower risk and shorter duration, meaning we'll get paid first dollar out of the number of things that come in could be an example.

但是 — — 正如我之前所說，我們發現美國商業領域存在著一種非常好的融合，我們從僅僅透過律師事務所創造機會轉向與企業一起創造機會，有時是由律師事務所引入，但有時是直接引入。他們通常尋求的是更大數額的資金，正如我所說的，它們可能是風險較低、期限較短的投資組合，這意味著我們將從進入的眾多資金中獲得第一美元的報酬，這就是一個例子。

Whereas there are some assets on individual international arbitration or an intellectual property case, where the typical investment size is going to be the cost of the litigation rather than monetization, the duration is going to be longer, but the potential multiples are much, much higher. And we're seeing all of the above. So that basically you could say the US commercial portfolio is churning. So money is going out, coming back in at very attractive IRRs, being recycled into new deals, and we're picking up along the way new patent or international arbitration matters.

而個別國際仲裁或智慧財產權案件中的一些資產，典型的投資規模將是訴訟成本而不是貨幣化，持續時間會更長，但潛在的倍數要高得多。我們看到的正是上述這些情況。因此基本上可以說美國的商業投資組合正在動盪不安。因此，資金流出後以非常具有吸引力的 IRR 回來，被重新投入到新的交易中，我們還在此過程中處理新的專利或國際仲裁事宜。

There's a fair bit of European litigation too, like we're seeing in lots of different jurisdictions that could be longer running in a higher octane and it's kind of nice because the money that's recycled from US commercial at attractive IRRs can be put to use both in new US commercial deals and in those other higher octane matters which stands to reason.

歐洲也存在相當多的訴訟，就像我們在許多不同的司法管轄區看到的那樣，這些訴訟可能會在更高辛烷值的地區持續更長時間，這是件好事，因為以具有吸引力的 IRR 從美國商業中回收的資金可以用於新的美國商業交易和其他更高辛烷值的事務，這是合乎情理的。

Like when you're earning these kinds of ROICs, you're not only getting back your original capital to reinvest, you're also getting the profit. So that's what enables you to grow the portfolio without taking on too much debt. I don't know if that provides the kind of color you were looking for.

就像當您賺取這些類型的投資報酬率時，您不僅可以收回原始資本進行再投資，還可以獲得利潤。這使得你能夠在不承擔太多債務的情況下擴大投資組合。我不知道這是否提供了您想要的那種顏色。

Julian Roberts, Jefferies.

朱利安羅伯茨，傑富瑞。

Yeah, I've got three or four actually, if I may, I think they're all pretty quick by one. The longer one is looking at the 2024 part of the portfolio spreadsheet, just a glance at the second comment from the left shows that there's a lot more single case action going on here. And actually, of the biggest commitments, the top two and probably three or four of the top five are single cases. Is that just happen -- is that just by chance? Or is that deliberate? And I know that some of this has probably touched on what Jonathan just said -- Jonathan said. Is that deliberate? Is it just happenstance?

是的，實際上我有三、四個，如果可以的話，我認為它們都很快。較長時間查看投資組合電子表格的 2024 部分，只需看一眼左側第二條評論，就會發現這裡有更多的單例操作。實際上，在最大的承諾中，排名前兩名、前五名中的三到四名可能都是單一案例。那隻是偶然發生的事嗎？那隻是偶然發生的嗎？還是這是故意的？我知道這其中的一些內容可能已經觸及喬納森剛才所說的話 — — 喬納森說。這是故意的嗎？這僅僅是偶然事件嗎？

Also, is there anything to read into the difference between the $100 million commitment, of which 99.9% has already been deployed into a single pharmaceutical biotech and life sciences IP case that's global, and $63.5 million all balance sheet in this instance, commitment to a single defense securities case, which is also funded as I see from your balance sheet, but hasn't seen any deployments yet. Is that because the former is maybe a monetization, the second one is not. What might one -- if it weren't even those two specific cases, what might one reason to that?

另外，1 億美元的承諾資金中 99.9% 已經投入到一項全球性的製藥生物技術和生命科學知識產權案件，而在本例中，全資產負債表中的 6,350 萬美元則投入到一項國防證券案件，從您的資產負債表中我看到，這筆資金也已到位，但尚未部署。這兩者之間有什麼區別嗎？這是因為前者可能是一種貨幣化，而後者則不是。如果甚至不是這兩個具體案例，那麼人們又能如何推理呢？

And then much quicker questions, one of which I've asked before. Are there any implications or is there anything that we should think about because of the new US administration? Are there any noises we should think of from a regulatory point of view? And then this might not be possible to comment on. But the RA4 arch, these people who are trying to intervene in some way in the YPF case, is there any comment you can make on that? Is it perhaps kind of slightly curious. Or is that something that we should actually think about on that front? Thank you so much.

然後是一些更快的問題，其中一個我之前已經問過。新一屆美國政府會帶來什麼影響，或是說我們需要思考什麼？從監管角度來看，我們應該考慮哪些噪音？那麼這可能無法發表評論。但是 RA4 拱門，這些人試圖以某種方式乾預 YPF 案件，您對此有何評論？是不是有點令人好奇。還是這是我們真正應該在這方面思考的事情？太感謝了。

Thanks, Julian. Maybe we'll take them in reverse order. On the -- whatever the thing is called the RA4 thing, I think we probably don't have anything more to say than the public filing in response to it, which I think made clear that we've heard the court can and should simply disregard the filing.

謝謝，朱利安。也許我們應該按相反的順序來做。關於 — — 無論這個事情被稱為 RA4 事情，我想我們可能沒有什麼可說的，除了對此公開提交文件，我認為這清楚地表明，我們已經聽說法院可以而且應該簡單地忽略該文件。

On the US administration front, no, I think the answer is the same answer that we've given before. No. The -- there are many, many things on the plate of the administration, obviously, and we don't think that our business is anywhere close to the top of that list. And even if it were, the US market feedback is all about accepting the reality that the litigation finance is here and here to stay. And the question is, it goes to much smaller issues like the level of disclosure and so on. So I don't see that as being a significant issue at all.

就美國政府而言，不，我認為答案和我們之前給的答案是一樣的。不。顯然，政府要處理的事情很多很多，我們認為，我們的業務遠遠排不上首要位置。即使如此，美國市場的反饋也都表明人們接受了訴訟融資已經存在並將持續存在的現實。問題是，它涉及到很多更小的問題，例如披露程度等等。所以我根本不認為這是一個重大的問題。

On the more cosmic question that you raised, the -- and Jon can certainly chime in here as well. The fundamental answer though is that we do, in any period, have a fairly wide mix of things, and that mix can change depending on the flow of business in the market.

對於您提出的更宇宙性的問題，——喬恩當然也可以加入討論。但根本的答案是，在任何時期，我們確實擁有相當廣泛的產品組合，而且這種組合會隨著市場業務流的變化而變化。

So we aren't sitting there saying, well, every quarter, we are only going to do three monetizations and we're only going to do three future commitment portfolios, right? We're dependent on what clients are out there in the market with and what they're trying to get done. And so you see a much wider range over time of things that we do.

所以我們不會坐在那裡說，好吧，每個季度，我們只做三次貨幣化，我們只做三個未來承諾投資組合，對嗎？我們依賴客戶在市場上擁有什麼以及他們想要完成什麼。因此，隨著時間的推移，您會看到我們所做的事情的範圍變得越來越廣泛。

You're right to assume that the $100 million deal is a monetization. Whenever you see that pattern of a large commitment with full deployment of closing, that translates into a monetization. But the security side, things that sets us up for future activity with either a corporate client or a law firm there. And we like -- we obviously like having both of those things.

您正確地認為這筆 1 億美元的交易是一種貨幣化。每當你看到大規模承諾和全面部署結束的模式時，這就轉化為貨幣化。但是安全方面，這些事情為我們未來與那裡的公司客戶或律師事務所活動做好了準備。我們喜歡——我們顯然喜歡同時擁有這兩樣東西。

Jon, do you want to add any color to that?

喬恩，你想添加一些顏色嗎？

Sure. Yeah, I would say, as Chris said, your perceptions having looked at the investment table are accurate as to how this work. And you might say, the corporate monetization is of the ilk of what I've described by putting out more money on something that's lower risk and likely shorter duration.

當然。是的，我想說，正如克里斯所說，你看過投資表後對其運作方式的看法是準確的。你可能會說，企業貨幣化就跟我所描述的一樣，就是把更多的錢投入到風險較低、期限較短的專案上。

It can be a very attractive opportunity. And I think -- and as Chris said, I think it's not just that we're limited by what comes in the door. I think it is a virtue that we have been available to everyone in the legal services market, both the corporate clients and the law firms as being able to help them manage risk and expense and obtain corporate finance when it makes sense for them. And that, in the long run, has led to our stature in the market.

這可能是一個非常有吸引力的機會。我認為——正如克里斯所說，我認為這不僅僅是因為我們受到了進門事物的限制。我認為，我們可以為法律服務市場上的每個人提供服務，包括企業客戶和律師事務所，幫助他們管理風險和費用，並在他們認為合理的時候獲得企業融資，這是一種美德。從長遠來看，這提升了我們在市場上的地位。

Like I can't tell you the number of deals that have come to us of late where they sort of started out with somebody a few years ago that either isn't around or isn't capable of fulfilling their needs anymore. And whereas the people that we've worked with, they come back to us because we have been able to fulfill their needs. And it could be that it's the same counterparty, either a corporate or a law firm that has come to us for a funding of big fees and expenses that are going to be drip fed over time that later comes back from monetization. We see that all the time.

例如，我無法告訴你最近我們接到了多少筆交易，這些交易都是他們幾年前與某個公司合作的，而那個公司要么已經不存在了，要么不再能滿足他們的需求。而與我們合作過的客戶之所以會再找我們，是因為我們能夠滿足他們的需求。而且，也可能是同一個交易對手，無論是公司還是律師事務所，向我們要求提供大筆費用和開支的資金，這些資金將隨著時間的推移逐漸增加，然後透過貨幣化返還。我們經常看到這種現象。

And so the fortunate thing, as we've talked about our track record, is that we can be takers as long as we maintain rigorous underwriting, which we do, and we're investing in cases with attractive IRR and ROIC potential -- speaking of what the market brings us and that leads to diversity. We don't have to say no, we're close to patent or we're close to our, but we want more US commercial. We can say we're looking at all of it, and we have teams that are able to underwrite and help the clients with all of it.

因此，幸運的是，正如我們談到我們的業績記錄時所說，只要我們保持嚴格的承保，我們就可以成為接受者，我們確實這樣做了，並且我們正在投資具有吸引人的 IRR 和 ROIC 潛力的案例 - 說到市場給我們帶來了什麼，這導致了多樣性。我們不必說不，我們已經接近獲得專利或我們已經接近我們的專利，但是我們希望獲得更多的美國商業。我們可以說，我們正在關注這一切，我們有團隊可以承保並幫助客戶解決這一切。

Yeah, And as you can see, we -- when you look at the portfolio diversification statistics, that approach that Jon just outlined, has nevertheless led to us maintaining a strong mix -- a strongly diversified portfolio overall, even if on a quarter-by-quarter basis, you see concentrations and shifts. Julian, did that tick off all of your questions?

是的，正如您所看到的，當您查看投資組合多樣化統計數據時，喬恩剛才概述的這種方法仍然使我們保持了強勁的組合 - 整體上保持了高度多樣化的投資組合，即使按季度計算，您也會看到集中度和轉變。朱利安，這解答了你的所有疑問了嗎？

Yeah, it does. Very clear. Thanks very much. And for what it's worth, I think the new disclosure seems also very clear. So thanks for that.

是的。非常清楚。非常感謝。不管怎樣，我認為新的揭露內容似乎也非常清楚。非常感謝。

Great. Thank you, Julian. And before we go to the next phone question, we'll mix it up with questions from the webcast. So here's one from Trevor Griffiths. Does the move to using targeted realizations to measure staff performance mean that there will be a reduced incentive to go for the jumbo wins.

偉大的。謝謝你，朱利安。在我們進入下一個電話問題之前，我們將先討論網路廣播中的問題。這是 Trevor Griffiths 的一篇文章。使用有針對性的實現來衡量員工績效的措施是否意味著員工爭取巨額勝利的動機會減少。

And I think the answer to that is no, not at all. The -- all that we're doing is, as Jon said earlier, we're applying more nuance to how we measure things because it doesn't really work for us just to say, okay, you're committing $100, you're deploying $85 of them on average, and you're making x return on the $85. That is too blunt an instrument for the way the business now works.

我認為答案是否定的，完全不是。正如喬恩之前所說，我們所做的就是在衡量事物的方式上應用更多的細微差別，因為對我們來說，僅僅說「好吧，你投入了 100 美元，你平均部署了 85 美元，而你從這 85 美元中​​獲得 x 的回報」這種說法並不可行。對於目前的商業運作方式來說，這種手段太過生硬。

But the team is absolutely incentivized to look for the very most desirable risk-adjusted returns that we can generate.

但團隊絕對有動力去尋求我們所能產生的最想法的風險調整回報。

And if I could add something to that, Chris, I just want to make sure it is possible I was not sufficiently clear when I spoke to that. Based on Trevor's question. I just want to clarify something. The targeted realization number will actually be higher if the case has the ability to generate truly outsized returns.

克里斯，如果我可以補充一點的話，我只是想確保我在談論這個問題時可能沒有表達得足夠清楚。根據 Trevor 的問題。我只是想澄清一些事情。如果案件能夠產生真正超額的回報，那麼目標實現數字實際上會更高。

So in fact, if you're looking at that focus, it would potentially be the opposite of what the question suggests because an underwriter looking at is going to say, how much money can we really take -- bring back on this.

因此，事實上，如果你專注於這個焦點，它可能會與問題所暗示的相反，因為承銷商會說，我們真正能賺多少錢——回到這個問題上。

That being said, it's all going to be risk adjusted. So if there's only a small chance of a very large outcome, it won't move the needle as much as if there's a large chance.

話雖如此，一切都將進行風險調整。因此，如果出現非常大結果的可能性很小，那麼其影響就不會像出現很大結果的可能性那麼大。

The third thing I said on that slide was a sort of counter to that, pointing out that not all deals have to be able to produce a 3x or 4x ROIC. In order for us to do them, they can be shorter duration, lower risk and produce lower ROICs, but nonetheless attractive IRRs, and we'll bring that in as well. But I want to make sure that, that third part was not being conflated with the second. The target realizations is actually looking at how much money we're going to bring back in. And the more money we can bring back in, the better.

我在幻燈片上說的第三件事是對這一觀點的反駁，我指出並非所有交易都必須能夠產生 3 倍或 4 倍的 ROIC。為了能夠實現這些目標，我們可以縮短期限、降低風險並產生較低的投資回報率，但同時獲得具有吸引力的內在收益率，我們也會將其納入其中。但我想確保第三部分不會與第二部分混淆。目標實現實際上是看我們能賺回多少錢。我們能帶回的錢越多越好。

Thanks, Jon. And let's go to another question on the phone.

謝謝，喬恩。我們接下來透過電話討論另一個問題。

Alex Bowers, Berenberg.

亞歷克斯鮑爾斯，貝倫貝格。

I've got four questions, two longer ones and two hopefully, quite quick ones. Just want to first one --

我有四個問題，兩個較長的問題和兩個希望比較簡短的問題。只想第一個--

You did not want to be -- you wanted to be -- do you want to outdo both, Julian and -- okay, just go for it.

你不想——你想——你想超越朱利安和——好吧，那就去做吧。

The last two are very quick. So firstly, there's been some data out, I believe, by LexisNexis reporting that the average legal award per corporate defendant has increased in the US year-on-year. Just wondering if this trend is being reflected in your portfolio given the higher ROIC figure this year? Or is your figure this year more just a consequence of the variability in outcomes of individual cases?

最後兩個非常快。首先，我相信，LexisNexis 發布的數據顯示，美國每個企業被告的平均法律賠償金額逐年增加。我只是想知道，鑑於今年的 ROIC 數字較高，這種趨勢是否反映在您的投資組合中？還是今年的數據只是個案結果差異的結果？

Second question, just in your shareholder letter, you talked about expanding the business in other parts of the legal ecosystem such as law firm equity. Can you just talk a bit more about what you've done in the space so far and what you're focused on?

第二個問題，就在您給股東的信中，您談到了擴大法律生態系統其他部分的業務，例如律師事務所股權。您能否詳細談談您目前在該領域所做的事情以及您關注的重點是什麼？

Third question on headcount. Headcount was broadly flat year-on-year, I think, around 160 FTE. Are you looking to increase head count going forward? And in what parts of the business are you looking to do this?

第三個問題關於員工人數。我認為員工人數與去年同期相比基本持平，約 160 名全職員工。您希望今後增加員工數量嗎？您希望在業務的哪些部分實現這一點？

And just lastly, on YPF. I believe we're still waiting for a date for the oral arguments. Is this taking longer than you had expected it to take to be arranged? And what is your indicative timeline in terms of when we should expect a decision on the appeal? Thank you.

最後，關於 YPF。我相信我們仍在等待口頭辯論的日期。這是否比您預計的安排時間還要長？您對我們何時能得到上訴裁決的預計時間表是怎樣的？謝謝。

Sure. So let's tick through them. The -- I'll just do this very quickly and Jon can chime in afterwards if he wants to embellish on anything. On the Lexis data, what you're really talking about is what insurance companies call social inflation, which is the question of whether in the US tort system, juries are awarding damages at an increased rate above the rate of basically economic inflation. And there is some mild evidence that, that's happening, although it's counteracted by some other data points that suggest claims are actually falling. So it's a little bit difficult to figure out what's going on in the tort market.

當然。因此讓我們來一一檢查。我很快就會完成這個，如果 Jon 想要補充什麼的話，他可以在之後加入進來。根據 Lexis 的數據，您真正談論的是保險公司所稱的社會通膨，即在美國侵權制度中，陪審團判定的損害賠償率是否高於基本經濟通膨率。有一些溫和的證據表明這種情況確實正在發生，儘管其他一些數據點抵消了這一趨勢，表明索賠實際上正在下降。因此，弄清楚侵權市場到底發生了什麼事有點困難。

But all of that being said, that's not really our market. And what that data is more about is the sort of the masses of US litigation that deal with personal injury claims, auto, car crashes, and so on. So I don't think that there's a read over to our portfolio.

但話雖如此，那並不是我們真正的市場。這些數據更涉及美國大量涉及人身傷害索賠、汽車、車禍等的訴訟。因此，我認為我們的投資組合沒有任何值得關注的地方。

That being said, our portfolio has, as reflected over time, increased growth in the size of matters that we do. And so on a -- if you were to compare the average size of outcome in our cases today as opposed to some years ago, you would expect them to be higher. But that's not because of the sort of the prevailing underlying trend. Our corporate cases deal with real damages as opposed to perceived damages for the most part.

話雖如此，隨著時間的推移，我們的投資組合所涵蓋的業務規模不斷增長。等等——如果您將今天案件結果的平均規模與幾年前進行比較，您會發現它們會更高。但這並不是因為存在某種普遍的潛在趨勢。我們的公司案件主要處理的是實際損害，而非感知損害。

In terms of expanding the -- what we do into the legal ecosystem, I think I'm going to defer on that until Investor Day because I can't really do it in 30 seconds, and we're going to spend some not inconsiderable time on it then, if you don't mind.

至於將我們所做的事情擴展到法律生態系統，我想我將推遲到投資者日，因為我無法在 30 秒內完成這件事，如果您不介意的話，到時候我們將花費相當多的時間在這上面。

Headcount, yes, roughly flat, and that reflects traditional moving around in the business. We don't -- we continue to grow the business. We continue to hire new people every year. But bear in mind that when we do that, we're talking sort of a person here, a person there. We don't expand by going and plopping 20 people down in a new geography, we expand by plopping one person down in a new geography. So I would expect to see over time an ongoing moderate increase in headcount, but I'm not looking for anything dramatic there.

是的，員工人數大致保持不變，這反映了業務中的傳統調動。我們不會—我們將繼續發展業務。我們每年都會持續招募新員工。但請記住，當我們這樣做時，我們談論的是這裡的一個人，那裡的一個人。我們的擴張不是透過將 20 個人安置到一個新的地區，而是透過將一個人安置到新的地區。因此，我預計隨著時間的推移，員工人數將持續適度增加，但我並不認為會出現任何戲劇性的變化。

And on YPF, as you say, we're waiting for an oral argument date. We're actually not very far away from the court's average in setting such dates. The reason this feels, I think to people like this is taking a long time is because the briefing took a long time. It took a year or so for the appeal to be fully briefed. And that was in part because, as Jon noted earlier, there's a cross appeal, which adds to the time and because Argentina took advantage of the ability to delay its briefing from time to time. But hopefully, we'll have an argument date soon.

關於 YPF，正如您所說，我們正在等待口頭辯論日期。實際上，我們設定的此類日期與法院的平均水平相差不大。我認為人們之所以覺得這需要很長時間是因為簡報花了很長時間。大約花了一年的時間才完成這項上訴。部分原因是，正如喬恩之前提到的，存在交叉上訴，這增加了時間，而且阿根廷利用了自己不時推遲通報的能力。但希望我們很快就能有一個爭論的日子。

Jon, anything to add to those?

喬恩，還有什麼要補充的嗎？

I mean the only thing I'd add on the first question about data versus our cases -- the national data versus our particular data. We've always said that our business, unlike insurance, which is probably what measures the tort judgments, it's not actuarial analysis where we're looking at lots of similar things in trying to -- through massive data decide on what the aggregate is going to be.

我的意思是，關於第一個問題，我唯一想補充的是，數據與我們的案例——國家數據與我們的特定數據。我們一直說，我們的業務與保險不同，保險可能是衡量侵權判決的手段，而我們的業務不是精算分析，我們會透過大量數據來研究大量類似的東西，試圖決定總量是多少。

Certainly, we use a lot of data and Chris has spoken about it. It's very helpful for us in underwriting. But we use it in order to underwrite individual risks with respect to individual cases. And the damage is that a corporate is going to be awarded by a judge or jury or is going to receive in settlement in anticipation of that, those damages are going to be based on the particular business of that corporate plaintiff, not a broader social dynamic. And so I don't think that is a huge effect on us.

當然，我們使用了大量的數據，克里斯也談到了這一點。這對我們的承保非常有幫助。但我們使用它是為了針對個案承保個別風險。而損害賠償是公司將由法官或陪審團判定的，或將在此預期中獲得和解，這些損害賠償將基於公司原告的具體業務，而不是更廣泛的社會動態。所以我不認為這會給我們帶來很大的影響。

But as Chris says, we've grown, which means we're putting out more money for bigger cases brought by larger, more credible players in the business in the industry. So you've got big corporates with strong law firms who are taking our --

但正如克里斯所說，我們已經成長，這意味著我們將為業內更大、更可信的參與者提起的更大案件投入更多資金。所以，大公司和強大的律師事務所正在接受我們的--

We've got -- thanks, Alex. And we've got time for one last question from the webcast. Jordan, why don't you take this one?

我們已經—謝謝，亞歷克斯。我們還有時間回答網路直播中的最後一個問題。喬丹，你為什麼不接受這個？

Sure. And this question was with respect to the bonds maturing in 2025 and our cash balances, and I'll address that real quickly.

當然。這個問題是關於 2025 年到期的債券和我們的現金餘額，我很快就會回答這個問題。

While we appreciate the ability to access capital in the UK market, it does have different structural features. For instance, the deal that comes due this summer is not callable. We are likely to continue to use, and it's been advantageous for us, the 144A market in the US.

雖然我們欣賞英國市場獲取資本的能力，但其確實具有不同的結構特徵。例如，今年夏天到期的交易是不可撤銷的。我們可能會繼續使用美國的 144A 市場，這對我們來說是有利的。

So one shouldn't overly read into the cash balances or lack of calling those UK issuances into the aspect of are we thinking of deleveraging. The aspect is that we're continuing to manage an appropriate cash and liquidity basis, and we look forward to continuing to use the 144A market to grow the portfolio.

因此，我們不應該過度解讀現金餘額，或沒有將英國的發行納入我們是否考慮去槓桿的層面。我們將繼續管理適當的現金和流動性基礎，並期待繼續利用 144A 市場來擴大投資組合。

Great. Thanks. And that brings us to the hour, and so we'll leave it there. But we really do hope that we see all of you either in person or virtually on April 3 for our Investor Day. We haven't done one for three years. We're excited to be able to share a bunch of information about the business with you in greater depth than we can in these earnings calls. And we're hard at work on making that a useful and informative presentation for you, including talking to Alex's point about our future plans.

偉大的。謝謝。現在到了時間，我們就到此為止。但我們確實希望能夠在 4 月 3 日的投資者日上親自或在線上見到大家。我們已經有三年沒有做過這件事了。我們很高興能夠比在這些財報電話會議上更深入地與您分享大量有關業務的資訊。我們正在努力為您提供實用且資訊豐富的演示文稿，包括討論 Alex 對我們未來計劃的看法。

So with that, we couldn't be happier with the way 2024 went in terms of our cash performance and the way the portfolio delivered. We thank you all for your support, and we look forward to talking to you again in a month.

因此，我們對 2024 年的現金表現和投資組合表現感到非常滿意。我們感謝大家的支持，並期待一個月後再次與您交談。